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Batman & Superman in World’s Finest Comics: The Silver Age volume 1


By Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Alvin Schwartz, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, John Fischetti, Charles Paris, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6833-6   Some things were just meant to be: Bacon & Eggs, Rhubarb & Custard, Chalk & Cheese…

For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest” team. They were friends as well as colleagues and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes (in effect the company’s only costumed stars) could cross-pollinate and, more importantly, cross-sell their combined readerships.

This most inevitable of Paladin Pairings first occurred on the Superman radio show in the early 1940s, whereas in comics the pair had only briefly met whilst on a Justice Society of America adventure in All-Star Comics #36 (August-September 1947) – and perhaps even there they missed each other in the gaudy hubbub…

Of course, they had shared the covers of World’s Finest Comics from the outset, but never crossed paths inside; sticking firmly to their specified solo adventures within. For us pictorial continuity buffs, the climactic real first time was in the pages of Superman’s own bi-monthly comic (issue #76, May/June 1952).

That yarn kicks off this stunning paperback compendium of Silver Age solid gold, accompanied here by the leads story from World’s Finest Comics #71-94, spanning July/August 1954 to May/June 1958.

Science fiction author Edmond Hamilton was tasked with revealing how Man of Steel and Caped Crusader first met – and accidentally uncovered each other’s identities – whilst sharing a cabin on an over-booked cruise liner. Although an average crime-stopper yarn, it was the start of a phenomenon. The art for ‘The Mightiest Team in the World’ was by the superb Curt Swan and inkers John Fischetti & Stan Kaye.

With dwindling page counts, rising costs but a proven readership and years of co-starring but never mingling, World’s Finest Comics #71 presented the Man of Tomorrow and the Gotham Gangbuster in the first of their official shared cases as the Caped Crusader became ‘Batman – Double for Superman!’ (by Alvin Schwartz with Swan & Kaye providing the pictures) as the merely mortal hero traded identities to preserve his comrade’s alter ego and latterly his life…

‘Fort Crime!’ (Schwartz, Swan & Kaye) saw them unite to crush a highly-organised mob with a seemingly impregnable hideout, after which Hamilton returned for ‘Superman and Batman, Swamis Inc’, a clever sting-operation that almost went tragically awry. Next, an alien invader prompted an insane rivalry which resulted in ‘The Contest of Heroes’ (Bill Finger, Swan & Kaye, from WFC #74.

The same creative team produced ‘Superman and Robin!’ wherein a disabled Batman could only fret and fume as his erstwhile assistant seemingly dumped him for a better man, whilst ‘When Gotham City Challenged Metropolis’ (Hamilton, Swan & Charles Paris) saw the champions at odds as their hometowns over-aggressively vied for a multi-million dollar electronics convention.

A landmark tale by Hamilton, Swan & Kaye invented a new sub-genre when a mad scientist’s accident temporarily removed the Caped Kryptonian’s powers and created ‘The Super Bat-Man!’ in #77. The theme would be revisited for decades to come…

Arguably Batman’s greatest artist joined the creative crew ‘When Superman’s Identity is Exposed!’ (Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Kaye) as a mysterious source kept revealing the Man of Steel’s greatest secret, only to be revealed as a well-intentioned disinformation stunt, before the accent switched to high adventure when the trio became ‘The Three Musicians of Bagdad’ – a stunning time-travel romp from Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye.

When the Gotham Gazette faced closure days before a spectacular crime-expose, Clark Kent and Lois Lane joined dilettante Bruce Wayne as pinch-hitting reporters on ‘The Super-Newspaper of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Charles Paris) after which ‘The True History of Superman and Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, #81) saw a future historian blackmail the heroes into restaging their greatest exploits so his erroneous treatise on them would be accurate…

Hamilton also produced a magnificent and classy costumed drama when ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’ visited 17th century France to solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask whilst Bill Finger wrote a brilliant and delightful caper-without-a-crime in ‘The Case of the Mother Goose Mystery!’ after which Hamilton provided insight on a much earlier meeting of the World’s Finest Team with ‘The Super-Mystery of Metropolis!’ in #84, all for Sprang & Kaye to enticingly illustrate.

Hamilton, Swan, Sprang & Kaye demonstrated how a comely Ruritanian Princess inadvertently turned the level-headed heroes into ‘The Super-Rivals’ (or did she?), before monolithic charity-event ‘The Super-Show of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) was almost turned into a mammoth pay-day for unscrupulous con-men.

‘The Reversed Heroes’(Finger, Sprang & Ray Burnley) once again saw the costumed champions swap roles when Batman and Robin gained powers thanks to Kryptonian pep-pills found by criminal Elton Craig, just as Superman’s powers faded…

World’s Finest #87 presented ‘Superman and Batman’s Greatest Foes!’ (Hamilton, Sprang, Kaye) which found “reformed” villains Lex Luthor and the Joker ostensibly setting up in the commercial robot business – which nobody really believed – after which seminal sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) reprised a meeting of Batmen from many nations (as debuted in Detective Comics #215, January 1955 and a key plank of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman: the Black Glove serial) but added the intriguing sub-plot of an amnesiac Superman and a brand-new costumed champion…

That evergreen power-swap plot was revived in #90’s ‘The Super-Batwoman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) when the headstrong heroine defied Batman by restarting her costumed career and was quickly compelled to swallow Elton Craig’s last Krypton pill to prevent criminals getting it…

A stirring time-busting saga of ‘The Three Super-Sleepers’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) saw our heroes fall into a trap which caused them to slumber for 1000 years and awaken in a fantastic world they could never escape, but of course they could and, once back where they belonged, ‘The Boy from Outer Space!’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) detailed how a super-powered amnesiac lad crashed to Earth and briefly became Superman’s junior partner Skyboy, whilst ‘The Boss of Superman and Batman’(author unknown, but impeccably illustrated as always by Sprang & Kaye) revealed how a brain-amplifying machine turned Robin into a super-genius more than qualified to lead the trio in their battle against insidious rogue scientist Victor Danning…

Wrapping up this initial compendium with comfortable circularity, the Man of Tomorrow replaced the Caped Crusader with a new partner and provoked a review of ‘The Origin of the Superman-Batman Team’ by Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, ending these supremely enticing Fights ‘n’ Tights on an epic high.

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: The Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this titanic tome are a veritable feast of witty, charming thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.
© 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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XIII volume 4: SPADS


By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-058-0

One of the most consistently entertaining and popular adventure serials on the European scene, XIII was created by author Jean Van Hamme (Wayne Shelton, Blake and Mortimer, Lady S.) and illustrator William Vance (Bruce J. Hawker, Marshal Blueberry, Ramiro).

Van Hamme was born in Brussels in 1939 and is one of the most prolific writers in comics. After pursuing Business Studies, he moved into journalism and marketing before selling his first graphic tale in 1968. Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into prose novels and screenwriting. His big break was monumentally successful mixed-genre fantasy series Thorgal for Tintin magazine but he truly cemented his reputation with mass-market bestsellers Largo Winch and XIII as well as more cerebral fare such as Chninkel and Les maîtres de l’orge. In 2010 Van Hamme was listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked between the seemingly unassailable Hergé and Uderzo.

William Vance is the bande dessinée nom de plume of William van Cutsem. He was born in 1935 in Anderlecht and, after military service in 1955-1956, studied art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He became an illustrator of biographic features at Tintin in 1962. His persuasive illustrative style is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular yet understated action.

In 1964 he began maritime adventure serial Howard Flynn (written by Yves Duval) before graduating to more popular genre work with western Ray Ringo and espionage thriller Bruno Brazil (scripted by Greg). Further success followed when he replaced Gérald Forton on science fiction classic Bob Morane in Femmes d’Aujourd’hui and latterly Pilote and Tintin.

Although working broadly and constantly on serials and stand-alone stories, Vance’s signature achievement is his lengthy collaboration with fellow Belgian Van Hamme on this contemporary thriller loosely based on Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity…

XIII launched in 1984, originally running in Spirou to great acclaim. A triad of albums were rushed out – simultaneously printed in French and Dutch editions – before the first year of serialisation ended.

The series was a monumental hit in Europe but fared less well in its earlier attempts to make the translation jump to English, with Catalan Communications, Alias Comics and even Marvel all failing to find an audience for the epic mystery thriller.

The grand conspiracy saga of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem opened in The Day of the Black Sun when an old beachcomber found a body. The human flotsam had a gunshot head wound and was near death when Abe and his wife Sally found him. She discovered a key sewn into his clothes and the Roman numerals for thirteen tattooed on his neck. The remote hideaway offered little in the way of emergency services, but their alcoholic, struck-off surgeon friend managed to save the stranger…

As he recuperated, a complication became apparent. The patient – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – had suffered massive and irreversible brain trauma. Although increasingly sound in body he had completely lost his past.

Language skills, muscle memories, even social and reflexive conditioning all remained, but every detail of his life-history was gone…

They named him “Alan” after their own dead son – but hints of the intruder’s lost past explosively intruded when hitmen invaded the beach house with guns blazing. Alan lethally retaliated with terrifying skill, but too late…

In the aftermath he found a photo of himself and a young woman on the killers and traced it to nearby Eastown. Desperate for answers and certain more killers were coming, the human question mark headed off to confront unimaginable danger and hopefully find the answers he craved.

The picture led to a local newspaper and a crooked cop who recognised the amnesiac but said nothing…

The woman in the photo was Kim Rowland, a local widow recently gone missing. Alan’s key opened the door of her house. The place had been ransacked but a thorough search utilising his mysterious talents turned up another key and a note warning someone named Jake that “The Mongoose” had found her…

He was then ambushed by the cop and newspaper editor Wayne. Calling him “Shelton” they demanded the return of a large amount of missing money…

Alan/Jake/Shelton reasoned the new key fitted a safe-deposit box and bluffed the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in town. The staff there also knew him as Shelton, but when his captors examined the briefcase in Shelton’s box a booby trap went off. Instantly acting, the mystery man expertly escaped and eluded capture, holing up in a shabby hotel room, pondering again what kind of man he used to be…

As he prepared to leave he stumbled into a mob of armed killers. In a blur of lethal action he escaped and ran into another bunch of heavies led by a Colonel Amos. This chilling executive referred to his captive as “Thirteen”, claiming to have dealt with his predecessors XI and XII in regard to the “Black Sun” case…

Amos very much wanted to know who Alan was, and offered some shocking titbits in return. The most sensational was film of the recent assassination of American President, William B Sheridan, clearly showing the lone gunman was XIII…

Despite the amnesiac’s heartfelt conviction that he was no assassin, Amos accused him of working for a criminal mastermind, and wanted that big boss. The interrogator failed to take Alan’s instinctive abilities into account and was astounded when his prisoner leapt out of a fourth floor window…

The fugitive headed back to the beach where he was found but more murderers awaited; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably knew was The Mongoose. The criminal overlord expressed surprise and admiration: he thought he’d killed Thirteen months ago…

Following an explosion of hyper-fast violence which left the henchmen dead and Mongoose vanished but vengeful, the mystery man regretfully hopped a freight train west towards the next stage in his quest for truth…

His journey of discovery took him to the army base where Kim Rowland’s husband was stationed. His enquiries provoked an unexpected and violent response resulting in his interrogation by General Ben Carrington and his sexily capable aide Lieutenant Jones.

They’re from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, know an awful lot about black ops units and have proof that their memory-challenged prisoner is in fact their agent: believed-deceased Captain Steve Rowland…

After testing the amnesiac’s abilities Carrington then drops him off in Rowland’s home town of Southberg to pursue his search for his missing wife, but the prodigal’s return to his rat’s nest of a family rekindles long-simmering passions and jealousies. The entire town seems to want Rowland’s blood and before long he’s been made the target of an assassination attempt and victim of a diabolical murder-plot…

Despite Carrington and Jones’ last-minute intervention Alan/Steve is framed for murdering his father and grabbed by a furious posse.

After an indeterminate period of time “Steve” resurfaces, undergoing the worst kind of psychiatric care at Plain Rock Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane. Despite drugs and shock treatments, progress is negligible, probably because aging martinet Dr Johansson‘s claims of curing for his patient’s apparent amnesia are clearly just a judgemental sadist’s justifications for inflicting agony on the helpless…

Carrington and Jones meet with Amos who has troubling information. His investigations revealed the amnesiac had undergone illicit plastic surgery and his army records were altered. Whoever was in Plain Rock, he wasn’t Steve Rowland…

Amos’ files proved the plotters who had the President killed were still active and their amnesiac assassin was now the only link to them. Acting on her own initiative, Jones decided it was time she took a hands-on approach…

Anxious and isolated, Not-Rowland received a visitor who galvanised him out of his induced torpor and knew his days were numbered…

Deep within the corridors of power, Amos informs Carrington further researches have obtained them a name. XIII and the man they are actually dealing with is former soldier and intelligence operative Ross Tanner.

Probably…

Perhaps…

Rowland/Tanner opts for escape but is swiftly recaptured and restricted to the medical section. XIII is helpless when the Mongoose’s inside man makes his move. Luckily Jones had also inserted herself in a position where she could do the most good…

Spectacularly busting out, “Rowland” and the mystery woman then race into the desert, somehow avoiding a massive manhunt before vanishing without trace.

Some time later, Amos and Carrington confer over the disappearance, but one of them knows exactly where the fugitive is. Now, with another new name, the warrior without a past and his new powerful allies lay plans to take the fight to their secret enemy…

SPADS is the fourth complex and convoluted chapter (first released in Europe in 1987) and opens with a much more concise and visual recap than I’ve just given, before kicking the plot into high gear as the race to replace murdered President Sheridan hots up. The contenders are Old Boy Network hack and former Vice President Joseph Galbrain battling Sheridan’s glamorous and idealistic younger brother Walter: latest scion of a venerable dynasty of leaders…

Amos’ diligent investigation is relentless. After exhuming a host of bodies, he can confidently claim to know who Tanner really is, is but when his search leads him into a trap that kills his assistant and incapacitates him, he starts to wonder if he’s tracking a target or being led onto a bullseye…

Elsewhere, in a green hell of sweat and testosterone, Ross Tanner is making no friends as he trains to join elite combat unit SPADS (SPecial Assault and Destruction Squads). He doesn’t fit in and is always causing trouble. It’s as if he’s there under false pretences…

When Amos and Judge Allenby confront Carrington at the Pentagon with news that Tanner is also an alias for an as yet unknown operative, the reaction is little short of explosive. Soon after, special aide Lieutenant Jones goes AWOL…

Back in the Bayou, the man everybody is hunting has made a fresh advance into uncovering his occluded past. Sergeant Betty served with the real Rowland and knows he didn’t die at the time and in the manner the official reports describe. Before she shares the details, however, she has an itch that needs scratching…

That conversation is curtailed by camp commander Colonel McCall, who tells the undercover operative that he’s being transferred out in the morning by direct order of General Carrington. Realising his chance to solve his personal mystery is evaporating, XIII settles a few outstanding scores before sneaking into Betty’s quarters…

Amos and Allenby meanwhile have not been idle, and the former is certain he has at last gleaned the actual identity of the multi-named agent XIII, but when they visit a certain grave they walk right into another ambush and a well-placed mole is forced to break cover…

As Amos is plucked from the firefight by the last person he expected to see, a continent away Tanner’s liaison gets even more dangerous when another Mongoose mole interrupts and tries to kill them both. Happily, Carrington’s back-up agent is well placed to save them and they all flee together, unaware that their escape vehicle has been boobytrapped and sabotaged…

Amos by now is securely ensconced in a palatial hideaway, being feted by a coterie of political heavyweights who finally reveal the truth about all the men Ross Tanner is and isn’t. They then explain the incredible reason for the smoke-&-mirrors operation and the earth-shattering stakes…

To Be Continued…

XIII is one most compelling and multi-layered mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questing human enigma two steps forward, one step back, stumbling through a world of pain and peril whilst cutting through an interminable web of past lives he seemingly led…

Rocket-paced and immensely inventive, XIII is a series no devotee of action sagas and conspiracy thrillers will want to miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Benelux (Dargaud-Lombard SA), 1987 by Van Hamme, Vance & Petra. All rights reserved. This edition published 2010 by Cinebook Ltd.

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When Bad Things Happen to Stupid People – A Close to Home Collection


By John McPherson (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-5365-7

One of the best and most consistently amusing gagsters around these days is John McPherson who created Close to Home in 1992, after spending many years as a mechanical design engineer. For years prior to the career jump, he had kept hold of his particularly skewed interpretation of sanity by working as a part-time cartoonist: spending the time regular folks use for sleeping in moonlighting by selling cartoons to periodicals as prestigious and varied as The Saturday Evening Post, Campus Life, Yankee, Christianity Today and others.

Delivered in the manner and style of Gary Larson’s The Far Side, McPherson’s daily cartoon panel was originally released through Universal Press Syndicate to 50 client papers, which has grown to 700 since the syndicate merged with online provider Uclick in 2009. The new entity – Universal Uclick – consequently absorbed United Feature Syndicate to become America’s largest Press Syndicate; marketing original print, online and mobile device material including lifestyle/opinion columns, strips, cartoons, puzzles and other content.

McPherson’s signature feature derives its name and content from a broad band of themes and subject matter, casting a barbed and wickedly humorous eye on those perennial travails which perennially hit “Close to Home”: evergreen topics like marriage, kids, employment, domestic duties, school life, sports and health.

Because he’s been around for a while now, McPherson’s also perfectly familiar with how often life devolves into the bizarre, absurd and macabre…

In this particular volume – one of dozens including Dangerously Close To Home, The Silence of the Lamberts and The Scourge of Vinyl Car Seats – the portmanteau pictorial delights are augmented by behind-the-scenes essays offering an insight into the creator’s world.

In ‘Ideas’ McPherson focusses on the old “where do you get your ideas” question, giving his spin on the issue with plenty of outrageous examples ranging from zoo japes to the religious fervour engendered by golf…

‘Angry Letters’ are just that: a candid peek at actual correspondence from the public in regard to specific cartoons, what the artist did in response, and often how he would have preferred to have acted…

Best of all for people like me, however, is ‘Killed by the Editor’ with tales and many examples of gags and cartoons which could never pass muster for a daily family feature…

Chockful of chuckles about relationships, cars, food, surgery, travel, gardening, pets, recreational sports and hobbies, insurance, husbands and wives, geriatric friskiness, cops and robbers and everything else, When Bad Things Happen to Stupid People is another splendidly gripping, impressively grotesque, irrepressible sly selection of laugh-out-loud jests and quips: a solid and rewarding example of an art form that we must not lose and one guaranteed to deliver delight over and over again.
© 2005 by John McPherson. All rights reserved.

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X-Men Masterworks volume 5


By Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Arnold Drake, Jerry Siegel, Don Heck, Werner Roth, Jim Steranko, Barry Windsor-Smith & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1787-2(HC)                   :978-0-7851-5909-4(PB)

X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles but it did secure a devout and dedicated following, with the frantic, freakish energy of Jack Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably transiting into the slick, sleek attractiveness of Werner Roth as the blunt tension of hunted outsider kids settled into a pastiche of college and school scenarios so familiar to the students who were the series’ main audience.

The team still consisted of tragic Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington/Angel and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast whose perpetual training with Professor Charles Xavier was seemingly ended when the wheelchair-bound telepath seemingly perished. Now his lifelong crusade to broker peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent race of mutant Homo Superior was left to his heartbroken ex-students…

This meander down mutant memory lane reprints X-Men #43-53, a crossover from Avengers #53 and pertinent extracts from Ka-Zar #2-3 and Marvel Tales #31; collectively covering April 1968 to April 1971.

Issue #43 began the reinvention of the mutant team with ‘The Torch is Passed!’ (Roy Thomas, Tuska & Tartaglione) as arch-nemesis Magneto returned with reluctant confederates Toad, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to ensnare the bereaved heroes in his hidden island fortress.

This epic action event was supported by an educational back-up tale entitled ‘Call Him… Cyclops’ (by Thomas, Roth & John Verpoorten) which revealed the secrets of the mutant’s awesome eye-blasts, after which the next issue saw the Angel inexplicably escape and encounter a revived Golden Age Timely Comics hero whilst flying back to America for reinforcements.

Stirring yarn ‘Red Raven, Red Raven…’ (Thomas and Gary Friedrich, with Don Heck layouts, Roth pencils and inks from John Tartaglione) was accompanied by the opening of the next X-Men Origins chapter-play as ‘The Iceman Cometh!’, courtesy of Friedrich, Tuska & Verpoorten.

X-Men #45 led with ‘When Mutants Clash!’ as Cyclops also escaped, only to encounter the highly-conflicted Quicksilver; a battle latterly concluded in Avengers #53 as ‘In Battle Joined’ (Thomas, John Buscema and Tuska) which depicted Magneto’s defeat and apparent death. Meanwhile, back in the back of #45, Iceman’s story of small town intolerance continued in ‘And the Mob Cried… Vengeance!’

‘The End of the X-Men!’ occurred in issue #46, with the reading of Charles Xavier’s will. FBI Agent Duncan – unseen since the earliest days of the series – reappeared and ordered the team to split up in order to more efficiently monitor different regions of the country for mutant activity.

That shocking pronouncement came just as the unstoppable Juggernaut returned from extradimensional exile, and took great umbrage at being unable to kill his recently deceased step-brother Charles Xavier.  Iceman’s origin then concluded with ‘…And Then There were Two!’ as the cold kid escaped the raving mob trying to lynch him by joining the X-school…

Friedrich was joined by Arnold Drake to script Beast and Iceman’s adventure ‘The Warlock Wears Three Faces!’ as ancient mutant Merlin once more re-branded himself – this time as psychedelic guru Maha Yogi – but again found his brain insufficient against the X-Men’s brawn. Topping off the action, Drake, Roth & Verpoorten explained the cool kid’s powers in gag-stuffed info feature ‘I, the Iceman.’.

As full scripter, Drake penned the Cyclops and Marvel Girl tale for #48. ‘Beware Computo, Commander of the Robot Hive’ is a pacy thriller involving a robotic revolution with a surprise guest villain lurking in the shadows, whilst ‘Yours Truly. the Beast’ wrong-footed everybody by outlining his powers before actually revealing his origin epic.

X-Men#49 offered a tantalising taste of things to come with a startling and stylish Jim Steranko cover, behind which Drake, Heck, Roth & Tartaglione revealed ‘Who Dares Defy… the Demi-Men?’

Nominally an Angel story, this convoluted thriller hastily reunited the team to confront the assembled mutant hordes of Mesmero and Iceman’s new girlfriend Lorna Dane… the daughter of Magneto…

This shocker was supplemented by the natal advent of Henry McCoy in ‘A Beast is Born’ by Drake, Roth & Verpoorten.

Drake, Steranko & Tartaglione reached incredible heights with the magnificently baroque ‘City of Mutants’ in #50; a visual tour de force that remains as spectacular now it was in 1968, but which was actually surpassed by Magneto’s inevitable return for ‘The Devil had a Daughter’ in #51.

The saga then rather rapidly wrapped up in ‘Twilight of the Mutants!’ with the team infiltrating the malign Mutant City to recue Lorna and bring down the evil overlord once and for all…

Don’t misunderstand me, however: This isn’t a bad story, but after two issues of Steranko in his creative prime, nobody could satisfactorily end this tale, and I pity Heck, Roth & Tartaglione for having to try.

The Beast origin chapters in those issues were ‘This Boy, This Bombshell’, ‘The Lure of the Beast-Nappers!’ and ‘The Crimes of the Conquistador!’, as the simian son of a gun is abducted by a would-be world conqueror in need of super-powered servants. That epic of child exploitation and the isolation of being different ended in #53’s ‘Welcome to the Club, Beast!’ but the issue’s main claim to notoriety was the lead feature which was drawn by another young superstar in the making.

Hard to believe now, but in the 1960s X-Men was a series in perpetual sales crises, and a lot of great talent was thrown at it back then. ‘The Rage of Blastaar!’ was illustrated by a young Barry Smith – still in his Kirby clone/appreciation phase – and his engagingly unique interpretations in this off-beat battle-blockbuster from Arnold Drake, inked by the enigmatic Michael Dee (I’m assuming its Mike Esposito), is memorable but regrettably brisk.

Completing the contemporary mutant exploits is a three-part solo saga starring the Angel which endured a peculiarly nomadic publication schedule.

In 1970 Tarzan analogue Ka-Zar starred in three giant sized reprint specials gathering his earlier appearances. These vintage yarns were bolstered by all new short sections – presumably try-out or inventory material. Issues #2 and 3 delved into the private life of the pinioned paladin with Jerry Siegel scripting ‘From the Sky… Winged Wrath!’ as Warren Worthington III visits his parents and sometime girlfriend Candy Southern just as a macabre criminal genius murders the mutant hero’s father…

Illustrated throughout by Tuska & Dick Ayers, the saga of unvarnished vengeance continues with the winged wonder ‘In the Den of the Dazzler!’ (a mad scientist bloke, not the later mutant disco diva) before concluding in suitably ironic fashion in Marvel Tales #30 as the villain attempts ‘To Cage an Angel!’ and pays a heavy price…

These tales perfectly display Marvel’s evolution from quirky action tales to the more fraught, breast-beating, complex melodramas which inexorably led to the monolithic X-brand of today. Well drawn, highly readable stories are never unwelcome or out of favour though, and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of today’s mutant mythology. These are stories for the dedicated fan and newest convert, and never better packaged than in this economical tome. Everyone should own this book.
© 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cedric volume 4: Hot and Cold


By Laudec & Cauvin with colours by Leonardo and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-158-7

Raoul Cauvin is one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, by 1960 he was working in the animation department of publishing giant Dupuis after studying the dying – and much-missed – print production technique of Lithography.

Happily, he quickly discovered his true calling was writing funny stories and began a glittering, prolific career at Spirou.

While there he devised (with Salvérius) the astoundingly successful Comedy-Western Bluecoats as well as dozens of other long-running, award-winning series such as Sammy, Les Femmes en Blanc, Boulouloum et Guiliguili, Cupidon, Pauvre Lampil and Agent 212: cumulatively shifting more than 240 separate albums.

Bluecoats alone has achieved sales well north of 15 million copies thus far…

His collaborator on the superbly sharp and witty kid-friendly family strip Cédric is Italian born, Belgium-raised Tony de Luca, who studied electro-mechanics and toiled as an industrial draughtsman until he could make his own break into bandes dessinée.

Following a few fanzine efforts in the late 1970s, Laudec landed soap-style series Les Contes de Curé-la-Fl’ûte at Spirou in 1979. He built that into a brace of extended war-time serials (L’an 40 in 1983 and Marché Noir et Bottes à Clous in 1985) whilst working his way around many of the comic’s other regular strips.

In 1987 he united with Cauvin on the first Cédric shorts and from then on it was all child’s play…

We have Dennis the Menace (the Americans have their own too but he’s not the same) whilst the French-speaking world has Cédric: an adorable, lovesick rapscallion with a heart of gold and an irresistible penchant for mischief.

Collected albums (29 so far) of the variable-length strips – ranging from a ½ page to half a dozen – began appearing in 1989 and are always amongst the most popular and best-selling on the Continent, as is the animated TV show spun off from the strip.

Be Warned: this is not a strip afraid to suspend the yoks in favour of a little suspense or near-heartbreak. Cedric is almost-fatally smitten with Chen: a Chinese girl in his class yet so very far out of his league, leading to frequent and painful confrontations and miscommunications.

Whilst the advice given by his lonely widowed grandpa is seldom of any practical use it can pick open scabs from the elder’s long, happy and now ended marriage which might reduce any normal human to tears…

This fourth Cinebook translation – from 2011 and first continentally released in 1993 as Cédric 6: Chaud et Froid – opens with ‘Skateboarding Champ…‘ as the scamp finds Chen watching an older boy show off his prowess on wheels and is utterly unable to steer clear of a humiliating confrontation and revoltingly precipitate action…

‘Lightning to Thunder’ sees Grandpa attempting to teach Cedric how to time the interval between the two awesome natural events when Dad interrupts with an unnatural one both painful and impressive, after which Christmas brings ‘Little Presents’ from the lad to his family that causes outrage, terror and – eventually – much mirth…

When Grandpa borrows the boy’s ‘Badges Galore’, his long-suffering daughter is quick to spot his ulterior motives after which, to everyone’s chagrin, Cedric’s spoiled, smug and shamelessly social-climbing ‘Horrible Cousin’ Yeti visits.

She is brought down a peg or ten after trying to cosy up to aristocratic twit The Right Honourable Alphonse Andre Jones-Tarrington-Dupree – with deliciously gratifying results for the eagerly-watching oik in jeans and trainers – before ‘Back in My Day…’ finds a family meal derailed by the boy asking when his parents will make him a little sister. The resultant three-way adult – and hilarious – argument about modern sex education allows Cedric to successfully bury bad news about his grades…

Jealousy again causes a clash between Cedric and long-suffering Chen in ‘Ice Love You’ before Grandpa brilliantly outsmarts his lazy, study-shy grandson with a spot of ‘Blackmail’: threatening to show Chen’s mother the kid suitor’s latest appalling report card and prove the ardent boy is not good enough for her darling daughter…

When Dad impetuously tries out a skateboard, he finds the experience ‘No Bed of Roses’ even as Cedric’s rapscallion inclination to go scrumping is dreadfully scuppered in ‘How About Them Apples?’

A little later when slow-witted Manu gets hold of a disposable camera (ask your dad), Cedric goes to superhuman extremes to be in a perfect picture with his unobtainable inamorata despite the constant invocations to ‘Say Cheese!’ seemingly inspiring the universe to play its most mean tricks on the little Lothario…

Another devilish demonstration of devious designs occurs after Cedric demands of his family ‘Wanna See My School Report?’ but they’re probably all too preoccupied anticipating the result and cost of ‘Grandpa’s Cooking’: the aftermath of which is a life-threatening bout of depression for the fragile old geezer which can only be cured by the youngster saying something truly stupid in ‘Some Days Are Like That…’

Late night viewing of unsuitable movies and a change in Cedric’s behaviour leads Mum to make her own ‘French Connection’ before we learn that little boys’ egos – and trousers – are fragile things. However, if the unimaginable does happen in front of your intended true love, as long as your mates are around one can always depend on a ‘Conga Line’ to get you home with a minimum of blushes…

More elderly health concerns manifest in ‘A Bit Tired…’ but once again the boy knows just the wrong thing to say to banish Grandpa’s doldrums before this sparkling friends-&-family saga pause with ‘Makes You Deaf’ as Cedric devises a wild Walkman (ask your granddad) based scheme to get Chen to marry him one day…

Rocket-paced, warmly witty and not afraid to explore sentiment or loss, the exploits of this painfully keen, beguilingly besotted young rascal are a charming example of how all little boys are just the same and infinitely unique. Cedric is a superb family strip perfect for youngsters and old folk alike…
© Dupuis 1993 by Cauvin & Laudec. All rights reserved. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Superman: The Golden Age volume 2


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, Jack Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6530-4

It’s incontrovertible: The American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

Superman spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and variations, and within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale, here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially captured the imagination of a generation.

This second revamped and remastered collection of the Man of Steel’s earliest exploits, reprinted in the order they first appeared, spans the still largely innocent and carefree year of 1940 in a spiffy package that covers all his appearances from Action Comics #20-31, Superman #4-7 and his last starring role in New York World’s Fair #2 (and that only because the title would convert to initially World’s Best before and eventually settling as the much more reserved World’s Finest Comics).

Although Siegel & Shuster had very much settled into the character by now the buzz of success still fired them and innovation still sparkled amidst the exuberance. This incredible panorama of torrid tales opens with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action#20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters is revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic ambulatory hideout of aged mad scientist Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

This is followed with an immediate sequel as “Delores” attempts to steal another scientist’s breakthrough and utilise ‘The Atomic Disintegrator’ to demolish the Man of Steel whilst Action #22 loudly declares ‘Europe at War’ a tense and thinly disguised call to arms for the still neutral USA, and a continued story – almost unheard of in those early days of funny-book publishing which spectacularly concluded in #23.

Superman #4, cover-dated Spring, featured four big adventures that began with a succession of futuristic assassination attempts in ‘The Challenge of Luthor’. After an educational cartoon vignette on ‘Attaining Super-Strength’, the original Man of Might battles dinosaurs and bandits in ‘Luthor’s Undersea City’, before saving the world from financial and literal carnage by ferreting out ‘The Economic Enemy’ – a prophetic spy story about commercial sabotage by an unspecified foreign power…

The issue then ends with a tale of gangsters intimidating Teamsters called ‘Terror in the Trucker’s Union’.

In Action Comics #24 ‘Carnahan’s Heir’ becomes Superman’s latest social reclamation project as the Metropolis Marvel promises to turn a wastrel into a useful citizen, whilst the next told the tale of the ‘Amnesiac Robbers’ compelled to crime by an evil hypnotist.

Superman #5 is a superb combination of human drama, crime and wickedly warped science with our hero crushing ‘The Slot Machine Racket’ and foiling a rival paper’s ‘Campaign Against the Planet’. The insidious threat of ‘Luthor’s Incense Machine’ is similarly scuttled before finally Big Business chicanery is exposed and punished in ‘The Wonder Drug’. These are augmented by a flurry of gag cartoons by Siegel & Schuster promoting health and exercise…

Next comes a tale of gangsters attempting to plunder jewels from exhibits at the New York World’s Fair as seen in New York World’s Fair #2 credited to Siegel and Schuster but looking to my tired old eyes to be the wonderful Jack Burnley (Anyone got any comments or information they care to share here?)…

Siegel & Shuster had created a true phenomenon and were struggling to cope with it. As well as the monthly and bimonthly comics a new quarterly publication, World’s Finest Comics – springing from the success of the publisher’s New York World’s Fair comic-book tie-ins – would soon debut and their indefatigable hero was to feature prominently in it. Also, the Superman daily newspaper strip, which began on 16th January 1939, with its separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, was garnering millions of new fans. The need for new material and creators was constant and oppressive.

From Action Comics#26 (July 1940) came ‘Professor Cobalt’s Clinic’ wherein Clark Kent and Lois Lane expose a murderous sham Health Facility with a little Kryptonian help, whilst the next month dealt a similar blow to the corrupt orphanage ‘Brentwood Home for Wayward Youth’. The September issue found Superman at the circus, solving the mystery of ‘The Strongarm Assaults’, a fast-paced thriller beautifully illustrated by the astonishingly talented Jack Burnley.

Whilst thrilling to that, kids of the time could also have picked up the sixth issue of Superman (September/October 1940). Produced by Siegel and the Superman Studio, with Shuster increasingly only overseeing and drawing key figures and faces, this contained four more lengthy adventures.

‘Lois Lane, Murderer’, ‘Racketeer Terror in Gateston’, ‘Terror Stalks San Caluma’ and ‘The Construction Scam’ had the Man of Action saving his plucky co-worker from a dastardly frame up, rescuing a small town from a mob invasion, foiling a blackmailer who’s discovered his secret identity and spectacularly fixing a corrupt company’s shoddy, death-trap buildings.

Action Comics #29 (October 1940) again features Burnley art in a gripping tale of murder for profit. Human drama in ‘The Life Insurance Con’ was replaced by deadly super-science as the mastermind Zolar created ‘A Midsummer Snowstorm’, allowing Burnley a rare opportunity to display his fantastic imagination as well as his representational acumen and dexterity.

Superman# 7 (November/December1940) marked a creative sea-change as Wayne Boring became Schuster’s regular inker and saw the Man of Steel embroiled in local politics when he confronted ‘Metropolis’ Most Savage Racketeers’, quelled man-made disasters in ‘The Exploding Citizens’, stamped out City Hall corruption in ‘Superman’s Clean-Up Campaign’ (illustrated fully by Wayne Boring) and put villainous high society bandits ‘The Black Gang’ where they belonged – behind iron bars.

This volume ends with another all-star inclusion from Action Comics – # 31 in fact – with Burnley drawing another high-tech crime caper as crooks put an entire city to sleep and only Clark Kent isn’t ‘In the Grip of Morpheus’…

My admiration for the stripped-down purity and power of these Golden Age tales is boundless. Nothing has ever come near them for joyous, child-like perfection. You really should make them part of your life.
© 1940, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Lucky Luke


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-49-6

It’s hard to think of one of Europe’s most beloved and evergreen comics characters being in any way controversial, but when changing times caught up with the fastest gun in the West (“so fast he can outdraw his own shadow”) and the planet’s most laconic cowboy moved with them, the news made headlines all over the world.

Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures. His continued exploits over nearly seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (68 individual adventures totalling more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with the usual spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first seen the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American tourist Rene Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25th 1955.

In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris soldiered on both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris himself died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus some spin-off sagas crafted with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and others, all taking a crack at the venerable franchise…

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico TV classic Alias Smith and Jones) “in all that time… never shot or killed anyone…”

Lucky Luke was first spotted in the UK syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun during the late 1950s and again in 1967 in Giggle, where he was renamed Buck Bingo.

In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums – Luke sported a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – deftly substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent and successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages, if not the covers…), and it’s clearly no big deal for today’s readership as we’re well past sixty translated books and still going strong.

Tortillas for the Daltons was the tenth of their 63 albums, now available both on paper and as e-books. As Tortillas pour les Daltons it was first published in Europe 1967: the charming cowboy’s 31st sagebrush foray and Goscinny’s 22nd collaboration with Morris, offering a beguilingly exotic and action-packed visit across the fabled Rio Grande in search of justice and good times…

It all begins in jail as vile owlhoots Averell, Jack, William and their slyly psychotic, overly-bossy shorter brother Joe Dalton are roused from their cosy comfort zone with the shocking news that they’re all being moved to a less crowded penitentiary – one situated near the Mexican border…

The infamous Dalton Gang are incorrigible criminals and no effort is spared to make sure they arrive at their destination. The warden even assigns faithful prison hound Rin Tin Can to the large escort but has apparently forgotten that the vain, friendly and exceedingly dim pooch is utterly loyal to absolutely everybody and no use at all in any kind of crisis…

Parking up for the night by the mighty border, the soldiers and security are sadly unaware that a gang of banditos are eyeing up the iron-studded coach and wondering just what manner of gringo valuables it might contain…

Despite striking with typical dash, verve and flamboyance, the gaudy thieves are ultimately quite disappointed with their haul, but in America the public breathes a huge communal sigh of relief that the Daltons are no longer a menace to their property. Sadly, the Mexican government kicks up such a fuss at the unwelcome additions to their population that the US authorities summon Lucky Luke to Washington DC and beg him to retrieve the contentious criminal tourists…

Not that the Daltons have actually broken any laws yet. They’ve been spending all their time trying to convince bandit supremo Emilio Espuelas that they are as good at being bad as any Mexican.

Whilst he may not accept that, the sinister sombrero-wearer is pretty certain that the odd quartet will be an unnecessary and costly burden. It takes all Joe’s efforts to convince him not to kill them outright. Eventually however, the burly brigand agrees to accept them as apprentice thieves. That tenuous situation almost ends when the assembled scoundrels scout the sleepy village of Xochitecotzingo and Joe a has a fit. The little loon has seen Lucky Luke riding into town with dumb mutt Rin Tin Can in tow.

After his introduction in 1962’s Sur la piste des Dalton, (On the Daltons’ Trail) Rantanplan – “dumbest dog in the West” and a wicked parody of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin – became an irregular feature in Luke’s adventures before eventually landing his own spin-off series title. The moronic mutt is in top form here, spreading confusion and mirth far and wide especially after meeting his cross-border counterpart – a clever chihuahua named Rodriguez…

Joe Dalton’s devious mind goes into inventive overdrive after spotting his laconic nemesis: determined that Emilio must not learn of the hero’s presence, else he sell the brother back to the emissary of America for a tidy profit…

As Luke avails himself of the local hospitality and acquaints himself with the friendly foreigners’ funny customs, Joe leads the multinational miscreants in a good old US bank raid but has failed to take into account the hamlet’s lack of a proper venue to store money…

As international relations go into a steep decline, the extremely suspicious Espuelas is ready to cut his losses. In town, Lucky is experiencing similar difficulties lost in translation. The local law enforcers have a long tradition of keeping the peace by not asking for trouble by chasing outlaws…

Eventually, however, the canny cowboy drums up a little support, just as Joe convinces Emilio to rob the lavish ranchero of the region’s richest man. Sadly for them, that’s exactly where Lucky and Rin Tin Can are staying…

When noble Don Doroteo announces a grand party, the villains are tempted beyond their ability to resist. Emilio even finds a way for the Daltons to be useful at last. Disguised as a Mariachi band, the gringos can move about the event in preparation for a classic Mexican raid – but only if nobody asks them to play or sing…

Sensibly devolving into total farce and a ferocious gunfight, Tortillas for the Daltons is a wild and woolly comedy romp, offering fast-paced, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour in another delicious yarn in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Evil Roy Slade, superbly executed by master storytellers and providing a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for today’s kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation: © 2008 Cinebook Ltd.

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Iron Man Epic Collection: The Golden Avenger


By Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Al Hartley, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-8863-6

There are a number of ways to interpret the creation and early years of Tony Stark, glamorous millionaire industrialist and inventor – not to mention his armoured alter-ego, Iron Man.

Created in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison, using Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World, seemed inevitable. Combine the then-all-pervasive belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil and the proposition almost becomes a certainty.

Of course, it might simply be that us kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This fabulous full-colour compendium of the Steel Shod Sentinel’s early days reprints all his adventures, feature pages and pin-ups from Tales of Suspense #39 (cover-dated March 1963) through #72 (December 1965); revisiting the dawn of Marvel’s renaissance.

This period would see them start to challenge DC Comics position of dominance, but not quite become the darlings of the student counter-culture. In these tales, Tony Stark is still very much the gung-ho patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist liberal dissenter he would become.

ToS #39, with a script by Larry Lieber (over brother Stan Lee’s plot) and art by the criminally unappreciated Don Heck reveals how and why ‘Iron Man is Born’, with electronics genius Stark field-testing his latest inventions in Viet Nam when he is wounded by a landmine.

Captured by Viet Cong commander Wong-Chu, Stark is told that if he creates weapons for the Reds he will be operated on to remove the metal shrapnel in his chest that will kill him within seven days.

Knowing that Commies can’t be trusted, Stark and aged Professor Yinsen – another captive scientist – build a mobile iron lung to keep his heart beating. They also equip this suit of armour with all the weapons that their ingenuity can secretly build whilst being observed by their captors. Naturally they succeed and defeat Wong-Chu, but not without tragic sacrifice.

From the next issue, Iron Man’s superhero career is taken as a given, and he has already achieved fame for largely off-camera exploits. Lee continues to plot but Robert Bernstein replaces Lieber as scripter for issues #40-46 and Jack Kirby shares the pencilling chores with Heck. ‘Iron Man versus Gargantus’ follows the young Marvel pattern by pitting the hero against aliens – albeit via their robotic giant caveman intermediary, in a delightfully rollicking romp pencilled by Kirby and inked by Heck.

‘The Stronghold of Doctor Strange’ (art by Kirby & Dick Ayers) features a gloriously spectacular confrontation with a wizard of Science (not Lee/Ditko’s later Mystic Master), and Heck returns to full art for the espionage and impostors thriller ‘Trapped by the Red Barbarian’.

Kirby and Heck team again for the science-fantasy adventure ‘Kala, Queen of the Netherworld!’, but Heck goes it alone when Iron Man time-travels to ancient Egypt to rescue the fabled and fabulous Cleopatra from ‘The Mad Pharaoh!’. New regular cast members – bodyguard “Happy Hogan” and secretary Virginia “Pepper” Potts – proper and the first true super-villain then arrive as the Steel Sentinel has to withstand ‘The Icy Fingers of Jack Frost!’ before facing (and converting to Democracy) his Soviet counterpart ‘The Crimson Dynamo’.

Tales of Suspense #47 presaged big changes. Stan Lee wrote ‘Iron Man Battles the Melter!‘, and Heck inked over the unique pencils of Steve Ditko, but the big event came with the next issue’s ‘The Mysterious Mr. Doll!’ as Lee, Ditko & Ayers scrapped the old cool-but-clunky golden boiler-plate suit for a sleek, gleaming, form-fitting, red-and-gold upgrade that would – with minor variations – become the symbol and trademark of the character for decades.

Paul Reinman inked Ditko on Lee’s crossover/sales pitch for the new X-Men comic when ‘Iron Man Meets the Angel!’, but the series only really takes hold with Tales of Suspense #50.

Don Heck became regular penciller and occasional inker and Lee concocted the Armoured Avenger’s first major menace and perpetual nemesis with ‘The Hands of the Mandarin’; a modern Fu Manchu derivative who terrifies the Red Chinese so much that they manipulate him into attacking America, with the hope that one threat will fatally wound the other. The Mandarin would become Iron Man’s greatest foe.

Our hero made short work of criminal contortionist ‘The Sinister Scarecrow’, and the Red spy who appropriated that leftover Russian armour-suit and declared ‘The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!’ (scripted, as was the next issue, by the enigmatic “N. Kurok”). The issue also premiered a far more dangerous threat in the slinky shape of Soviet Femme Fatale the Black Widow.

With ToS#53, she was a headliner as ‘The Black Widow Strikes Again!’: stealing Stark’s new anti-gravity ray but ultimately failing in her sabotage mission after which ‘The Mandarin’s Revenge!’ began a two-part tale of kidnap and coercion that concluded with #55’s ‘No One Escapes the Mandarin!’

‘The Uncanny Unicorn!’ promptly attacked after actually Iron Man did, only to fare no better in the end. The power-horn peril was preceded in his attempt to destroy the Armoured Avenger by a cascade of short of Lee/Heck illustrated fact features beginning with ‘All About Iron Man’, continuing with ‘More Info About Iron Man!’ and concluding with a ‘Pepper Potts Pin-up Page’.

Black Widow resurfaced to beguile budding superhero ‘Hawkeye, The Marksman!’ into attacking the Golden Avenger in #57, before another landmark occurred with the next issue. Until now Iron Man had monopolised Tales of Suspense, but ‘In Mortal Combat with Captain America’ (inked by Ayers) depicted an all-out battle between the two heroes resulting from a clever impersonation by evil impressionist The Chameleon. It was a primer for the next issue when Cap would begin his own solo adventures, splitting the monthly comic into an anthology featuring Marvel’s top two patriotic paladins.

Iron Man’s initial half-length outing in #59 was against the technological terror ‘The Black Knight!’, and as a result Stark was rendered unable to remove his own armour without triggering a heart attack: a situation that hadn’t occurred since the initial injury. Up until this time he had led a relatively normal life by simply wearing the life-sustaining breast-plate under his clothes. The introduction of soap-opera sub-plots were a necessity of the shorter page counts, as were continued stories, but this seeming disadvantage worked to improve both the writing and the sales.

With Stark’s “disappearance,” Iron Man was ‘Suspected of Murder!’, a tale that featured the return of Hawkeye and Black Widow (abruptly transformed from fur-clad seductress into a gadget-laden costumed villain), and led directly into ‘The Death of Tony Stark!’ and ‘The Origin of the Mandarin!’. After that extended epic, a change of pace occurred as short complete exploits returned.

The first was #63’s industrial sabotage thriller ‘Somewhere Lurks the Phantom!’, followed by the somewhat self-explanatory ‘Hawkeye and the New Black Widow Strike Again!’ (inked by Chic Stone), after which ‘When Titans Clash!’ saw a burglar steal the new armour forcing Stark to defeat his greatest invention with his old suit (inked by new regular Mike Esposito under the pseudonym Mickey DeMeo).

Sub-sea villain Attuma is the threat du jour in ‘If I Fail a World is Lost’ and crime-lord Count Nefaria uses dreams as a weapon in ‘Where Walk the Villains!’, returning in the next issue to attack Stark with hallucinations in ‘If a Man be Mad!’, a rather weak tale that introduces Stark’s ne’er-do-well cousin Morgan, (written by Al Hartley with Heck and Esposito in top form as always).

Issues #69-71 form another continued saga, and one of the best of this early period. ‘If I Must Die, Let It Be with Honor!’ (inked by Vince Colletta) sees Iron Man forced to duel a new Russian opponent called the Titanium Man in a globally-televised contest that both super-powers see as a vital propaganda coup. The governments are naturally quite oblivious of the cost to the participants and their friends…

 ‘Fight On! For a World is Watching!’ (DeMeo inks) amplifies the intrigue and tension as the Soviets, caught cheating, pile on the pressure to at least kill the American champion if they can’t score a publicity win, and final chapter ‘What Price Victory?’ is a rousing, emotional conclusion of triumph and tragedy made magnificent by the super-glossy inking of troubled artistic genius Wally Wood.

That would have been the ideal place to end the volume but there’s one more episode included here: ToS #72 by Lee, Heck & Demeo deals with the aftermath of victory as, whilst the fickle public fête Iron Man, his best friend lies dying, and a spiteful ex-lover hires the Mad Thinker to destroy Stark and his company forever. ‘Hoorah for the Conquering Hero!’ closes the book on a pensive down-note, but the quality of this compendium package is undeniable. From broad comedy and simple action to dark cynicism and relentless battle, Marvel Comics grew up with this deeply contemporary series.

Iron Man developed amidst the growing political awareness of the Viet Nam Generation who were the comic’s maturing readership. Wedded as it was to the American Industrial-Military Complex, with a hero – originally the government’s wide-eyed golden boy – gradually becoming attuned to his country’s growing divisions, it was, as much as Spider-Man, a bellwether of the times. That it remains such a thrilling uncomplicated romp of classic super-hero fun is a lasting tribute to the talents of all those superb creators that worked it.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Hey Wait…


By Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-641-7

It’s usually a cheap cop-out by tired or hackneyed critics but some creators’ work comes close to defying description. That’s never more true than when reviewing another brilliant graphic exposition by Jason.

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize).

He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels.

A global star among the cartoon cognoscenti, Jason has earned many major awards from all over the planet. His work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, utilising the beastly and unnatural to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar “funny-animal” characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist and storyteller he is…

The stylised static-seeming artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts rendered in a minimalist evolution of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style, solid blacks, thick outlines and settings of seductive simplicity – often augmented by a deft and subtle use of flat colour which enhances his hard, moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing Cinema-inspired world.

The superbly understated art acts in concert with his dead-on, deadpan pastiche repertoire of scenarios which dredge deep from our shared experience of old film noir classics, horror and sci fi B-movies and other visual motifs which transcend time and culture, and the result is narrative dynamite. His preferred oeuvre mixes such fantasy elements with a deep and overwhelming inquiry into why bad stuff happens to ordinary “people”…

A compact (176 x 254mm) monochrome paperback, Hey Wait… is just such a confection: an eerie and glorious paean to boyhood friendships with young Bjorn and Jon enjoying a life of perfect childhood of collecting comics, watching movies and gadding about until a tragic accident – perhaps the result of boon companions egging each other on a little too much? – ends the idyll forever.

Life, however, goes on (and on and on and on) for one of the inseparable childhood comrades but it has become a life sentence…

The survivor’s existence becomes populated from then on with mundane encounters, tedious assignations, failed aspirations and the usual parade of ghosts and visions, but then again so is everybody else’s tedious day to day progress to the end …

Hey Wait… resonates with Jason’s favourite themes and shines with his visual dexterity and skewed sensibilities. disclosing a decidedly different slant on secrets and obsessions. Primal art supplemented by sparse and spartan dialogue, enhanced to a macabre degree by immaculate cartooning and skilled use of silence and moment utilised with devastating economy, affords the same quality of cold, bleak yet perfectly harnessed stillness which makes Scandinavian crime dramas such compelling, addictive fare.

This comic tale allows us all to look at the world through wide-open young eyes but never sugar-coats what’s there to see…
© 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005 Jason. Translation © 2001 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Boondocks: Because I Know You Don’t Read the Newspapers


By Aaron McGruder (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-0609-7

Unlike editorial cartooning, newspaper comic strips generally prosper by avoiding controversy. Other than a few notable exceptions – such as the mighty Doonesbury – daily and Sunday gag continuities aim to keep their readers amused and complacent.

Such was not the case with Aaron McGruder’s brilliant and much missed The Boondocks.

The strip ran from February 8th 1996 and ended – despite promises of a swift return – with the February 28th 2006 instalment. You might have seen the adapted and animated version on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim a few years ago…

The feature was created for pioneer online music website Hitlist.com and quickly began a print incarnation in Hip-Hop magazine The Source. On December 3rd, the feature began appearing in national periodical The Diamondback but, after an editorial bust-up, McGruder pulled the strip in March 1997.

Nevertheless, it thrived as it was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate. Launched nationally, The Boondocks had over 300 client subscribers, reaching – and often offending – millions of readers every day. Such was the content and set-up that the strip was regularly dropped by editors, and complaints from readers were pretty much constant.

What could possibly make a cartoon continuity such a lightning rod yet still have publishers so eager to keep it amongst their ever-dwindling stable of strip stars?

The Boondocks was always fast, funny, thought-provoking, funny, ferociously socially aware and created for a modern black readership. And Funny.

The series never sugar-coated anything – except harsh language – whilst bringing contemporary issues of race to the table every day. This was a strip Afro-American readers wanted to read… even if they didn’t necessarily agree with what was being said and seen…

The narrative premise is deceptively sitcom-simple but hides a potent surprise in its delivery. Huey Freeman is an incredibly smart and well-informed black youngster. He spent his formative years on Chicago’s South Side, immersed in black history, the philosophy of power, radical and alternative politics and The Streets.

His little brother Riley is mired in Hip-Hop and the trappings of Gangsta Rap. Yet suddenly one day they are both whisked out of their comfort zone as their grandfather Robert assumes custody of them and moves the entire family to the whiter-than-white suburb of Woodcrest in semi-rural Maryland.

It’s mutual culture shock of epic proportions on both sides…

Huey (proudly boasting that he’s named for Black Panther co-founder Dr Huey Percy Newton) perpetually expounds his radical rhetoric and points out hypocrisy from the well-meaning but inherently patronising all-Caucasian township but saves equal amounts of hilarious disgust and venom for those overbearing, overhyped aspects of modern Black Culture he regards as stupid, demeaning or self-serving…

Riley mostly likes scaring the oh-so-polite white folks…

In this initial monochrome paperback collection – re-presenting material from April 19th 1999 to January 29th 2000 – includes a potent Foreword from Hip-Hop Activist and Media Assassin Harry Allen on the way we’ve all managed to stop actual progress on the issues of race by politely agreeing not talk about them – the property values start to wobble just a bit when Huey and Riley arrive in Woodcrest.

The place really freaks them out: the air is clean, there are no tagged walls or take-out stores and old white people keep coming up to say hello…

Th first semblance of normality occurs when another new family moves in next door. Thomas and Sarah Dubois are woolly liberals: yuppies and lawyers and Woodcrest’s first interracial couple, and – although she doesn’t understand any of the stuff Huey taunts her with – their daughter Jazmine is the suburb’s third black child… ever…

She never thought of herself as any colour, but Huey is determined to raise her consciousness… when he’s not taking her establishment-conditioned dad to task on what colour he actually is…

Huey’s far less keen on the attentions of Cindy McPhearson, the little girl from school who has fully embraced TV’s version of Black Culture. She wants to meet – or be – Snoop Doggy Dogg. She hasn’t heard the term “Wigga” yet and Huey ain’t doing nothing but avoiding her: a tricky proposition as she sits behind him in class asking dumb questions.

The boys enrolling at Edgar J. Hoover Elementary School caused few sleepless nights for Principal Williams but he cleverly borrowed a few videos (Menace II Society; Shaft’s Big Score) to get him up to speed on the special needs of “inner city ghetto youth” and is confident his terrified teachers can handle any possible hurdles the variance in backgrounds might cause…

Don’t go away under the misapprehension that The Boondocks is a strident polemical diatribe, drowning in its own message. First and foremost, this is a strip about kids growing up, just like Bloom County or Calvin and Hobbes. Some of the most memorable riffs come from the boys’ reactions to the release of the Star Wars: Episode 1 (although admittedly, Jar Jar Binks gets a fully-deserved roasting for his ethnic Minstrel performance), the worthlessness of high-priced merchandise and the insipid, anodyne street names. At least here, Riley and his paint spray cans can help out…

As the year progresses we also see outrageous takes on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as the boys’ investigation of the Santa Clause and Kwanza scenarios and their own hysterical Inner City, Keepin’ It Real alternative to all those manufactured holidays and causes…

Smart, addictive and still with a vast amount to say The Boondocks is a strip you need to see if you cherish speaking Wit as well as Truth to Power…
The Boondocks © 2000 by Aaron McGruder. All rights reserved.