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Adventures of Superman volume 1


By Jeff Parker, Jeff Lemire, Justin Jordan, JM DeMatteis, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Michael Avon Oeming, Bryan J.L. Glass, Matt Kindt, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Tom DeFalco, Rob Williams, Nathan Edmondson, Kyle Killen, Chris Samnee, Riley Rossmo, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Sal Buscema, Joëlle Jones, Stephen Segovia, Wes Craig, Craig Yeung, Pete Woods, Chris Weston, Yildiray Cinar, Pia Guerra & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5344-8

Nearly 79 years ago Superman started the whole modern era of fantasy heroes: indomitable, infallible, unconquerable, outlandish and flamboyant. He also saved a foundering industry and created an entirely new genre of storytelling – the Super Hero.

Since June 1938 he has grown into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce even as his natal comicbook universe organically grew and expanded. Periodically the Man of Tomorrow has been radically rebooted such as in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earth in 1985-86.

There were subsequent minor tweaks in that continuity to accommodate different creators’ tenures from then until 2011 when DC root-&-branch re-imagined their entire comics line once more. Superman and his universe underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating all-encompassing revivification.

Probably to mitigate the fallout DC created a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package…

Adventures of Superman began as a “digital first” series appearing online before later gathering chapters into issues of a new standard comicbook. As conceived and concocted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted previous eras and incarnations of the Man of Steel’s stellar career – plus some wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a wide variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments for both old-timers and neophytes to treasure.

The comicbook iteration was enough of a success to warrant its own series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.

This first full-colour paperback collection contains Adventures of Superman 1-5 (July-November 2013) and displays a wealth of talent and cornucopia of different visions, beginning with ‘Violent Minds’ by Jeff Parker & Chris Samnee wherein Metropolis is devastated by a psionic marauder able to control Superman’s actions. Nobody is aware that the doomed desperado is merely another dupe of exploitative billionaire and clandestine archenemy Lex Luthor, still looking for a way to destroy the Man of Tomorrow…

Jeff Lemire then seamlessly blends childhood daydreams with a mythic war between Superman and his entire rogues’ gallery into a heart-warming parable of kid-fuelled nostalgic inundation in ‘Fortress’ before Justin Jordan & Riley Rossmo detail ‘Bizarro’s Worst Day’ with the Man of Steel finally finding a humane solution to the recurring problem of his monstrous other…

J.M. DeMatteis, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Sal Buscema play hob with our expectations as the Caped Kryptonian chases a seeming phantom through ‘The Bottle City of Metropolis’, after which Joshua Hale Fialkov & Joëlle Jones describe what a ‘Slow News Day’ means for Clark Kent, Lois Lane and the Action Ace. Michael Avon Oeming & Bryan J.L. Glass then pit Superman’s future against the security of the entire timeline when a chronal Guardian demands baby Kal-El must be sacrificed for the ‘Best Intent’…

In ‘Faster Than a Bullet’ Matt Kindt & Stephen Segovia explore in epic and spectacular terms just what Superman can accomplish if he really pushes himself, even as Lois and Luther indulge in a no less astounding and deadly battle of wits and wills, after which Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Wes Craig & Craig Yeung gleefully explore Lex’s obsession with murdering the Man of Tomorrow in ‘A Day in the Life’…

‘The Deniers!’ by Tom DeFalco & Pete Woods delves back into Golden Age mode and whimsically sees Superman the subject of furious discussion by a coterie of ordinary Joes and doubting Thomases whilst Rob Williams & Chris Weston offer a host of last-minute rescues by the ‘Savior’ before sharing with us the Man of Steel’s proudest and most cherished moments…

‘Infant in Arms’ from Nathan Edmondson & Yildiray Cinar extrapolates on what might occur if Superman is involved in a replay of his own origins as another interstellar foundling crashes to Earth. Now the hero must save the baby from alien assassins and America’s overreaching authorities, leaving Kyle Killen & Pia Guerra to conclude this initial compilation with a thought-provoking examination of the hero’s earliest days as ‘The Way These Things Begin’ sees young Luthor setting up the new Superman to fail whilst patiently laying the groundwork for an army of allies united against the Man of Steel…

Augmented by a spectacular cover gallery from Bryan Hitch, Samnee & David Baron, Camuncoli & Tony Avina, Segovia & Jay David Ramos, Bruce Timm & Nick Filardi and Cinar & Matthew Wilson, this is a spectacular celebration of Superman’s indisputably infinite variety which has resulted in decades of sheer delight for adventure addicts and promises even more to come for future generations.
© 2013, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Dead Rider: Crown of Souls


By Kevin Ferrara (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978- 1-61655-750-8

Westerns are very much in the eye of the beholder. Some of my very favourites are The Seven Samurai, The Thirteenth Warrior and Outland …and not a Six-gun or Stetson in the bunch.

I think that it’s all about tone and themes and timbre; motivation and resolution, rather than just slavish attention to genre forms. Trappings and locations are not as important as the Why and the How…

A fascinating case in point is Dead Rider. Conceived and crafted by writer, artist and historian Kevin Ferrara (Aliens/Predator, Green Lantern, Creepy) it offers a miasmic merging of classical EC-styled tongue-in-cheek horror with grittily familiar cowboy themes and locales, resulting in a beautifully rendered if somewhat meandering yarn about true love, magical misery and vengeance forestalled, but never escaped…

Originally released as two issues the saga came to an abrupt ending before concluding, but in this graphic album the entire tale is finally told…

Near the frontier town of Magruder, Nevada in the 1890s a vile owlhoot calling himself the Cobra is hunting a man. Having successfully diverted a similarly employed cavalry troop into a wild goose chase, the villain relishes the prospect of tackling the legendary gunman known as the Dead Rider. He has no idea what he is about to confront, or that his prospective prey is being watched over by an Indian shaman with much more than skin in the game…

After brutalising and terrorising the entire township, Cobra secures the lead he needs and rides off to his date with destiny whilst the shaman rushes to warn the much sought after rider who currently resides in an old iron mine. The décor doesn’t trouble the wanted man much. After all, he’s been an ambulatory rotting corpse for years now and physical feeling is long-forgotten luxury…

Once, Jacob Bierce was a gentle, loving man whose only desire was to wed his adored paramour Sarah. However, due a string of cruel accidents and malign misfortunes, Jacob fell under the power of a scheming and manipulative Bog Witch who made him immortal by turning him into a walking corpse. The downside was that he retained his mind and conscience, even during those appalling and frequently recurring moments when the sorceress possessed his body to go on killing sprees…

Thus the revenant’s formidable reputation, the authorities pragmatic despatching of deranged General Cavanaugh and a troop of soldiers to capture the notorious Dead Rider and Cobra’s obsession with immortalising his own reputation by killing the zombie fugitive…

Now all the disparate players are converging for a final showdown, but the Witch has one last eldritch card to play: she has been collecting the last vestiges of the dead to build a potent artefact known as the Crown of Souls but has not fully appreciated the power of true friendship, love from beyond the grave and the obsessive nature of glory-crazed military men…

Although the plot contains some gaping inconsistencies and the dialogue is often uninspired, The Dead Rider is rendered in a spectacularly lush manner reminiscent of the best of Graham Ingels, Bernie Wrightson, Scott Hampton or Thomas Yeates and fairly rockets along, offering plenty of action and wry humour as well as a classic tragedy-laced horror hero that would certainly score well with today’s movie-going genre aficionados.

Fast, fun and fabulous, this turbulent tome comes with a Gallery of sketches, roughs, covers and unused art pages complete with accompanying commentary and is a sure-fire guilty pleasure for fans looking for quality art and a tale outside the tried-&-true comicbook mainstream.
© 2007, 2008, 2015 Kevin Schnaper. All rights reserved.

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Thor Epic Collection: When Titans Clash


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Chic Stone, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9446-0

The Mighty Thor was the title in which Jack Kirby’s restless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his dazzling graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s career-defining string of power-packed signature pantheons all stemmed from a modest little fantasy/monster title called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by fledgling Marvel Comics to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This bombastic full-colour tome – also available in eFormats – offers more pioneering Asgardian exploits from JiM #110-125 and the cunningly and appropriately retitled Thor #126-130: collectively covering November 1964 to July 1966, and includes a satirically silly snippet from Not Brand Ecch #3 (October 1967) in a blur of innovation and seat-of-the-pants myth-revising and universe-building…

Once upon a time lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which when struck against the ground turned him into the Norse God of Thunder!

Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces.

By issue #110, the magnificent warrior’s ever-expanding world of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for the hero’s earlier adventures, heralding a fresh era of cosmic fantasy to run beside the company’s signature superhero sagas.

Every issue also carried a spectacular back-up series that grew to be a solid fan-favourite. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics – in every sense of the word.

Initially adapted myths, these little yarns grew into sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby built his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity.

The action opens here with ‘Every Hand Against Him’ (Stan Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone) as Asgardian evildoer Loki and earthly miscreants Cobra and Mr. Hyde kidnap and wound nigh unto death Thor’s merely mortal beloved Jane Foster, even as Odin once again overreacts to Thor’s affections for the human girl.

Following a stunning Kirby & Stone Pin-up Thor Pin-up, and balancing that tension-drenched clash of Good and Evil, is a crafty vignette starring the Young Thor describing ‘The Defeat of Odin!’ with an old and silly plot sweetened by breathtaking battle scenes.

The concluding clash with Hyde and his serpentine ally redefines ‘The Power of the Thunder God’ and features a major role for Balder the Brave, further integrating “historical” and contemporary Asgards in a spellbinding epic of triumph and near-tragedy, after which a Loki Pin-up precedes a short fable co-opting a Greek myth (Antaeus if you’re asking) as ‘The Secret of Sigurd’ by Lee, Kirby and inker Vince Colletta …

Journey into Mystery #112 gave the readers what they had been clamouring for with ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’: a glorious gift to all those fans who perpetually ask “who’s stronger…?”

Possibly Kirby & Stone’s finest artistic moment, it details a private duel between the two super-humans that apparently appeared off-camera during a free-for-all between The Avengers, Sub-Mariner and the eponymous Green Goliath. The raw power of that tale is balanced by an eagerly anticipated origin in ‘The Coming of Loki’ (Colletta inks): a retelling of how Odin came to adopt the baby son of Laufey, the Giant King.

In #113 ‘A World Gone Mad!’ by Lee, Kirby & Stone, the Thunderer, after saving the Shining Realm from invasion, once more defies his father Odin to romantically pursue the mortal nurse Jane – a task made rather hazardous by the return of the petrifying villain Grey Gargoyle.

A long-running plot strand – almost interminably so – was the soap-opera tangle caused by Don Blake’s love for his nurse – a passion his alter ego shared. Sadly, the Overlord of Asgard refused to allow his son to love a mortal, which acrimonious triangle provided many attempts to humanise and de-power Thor, already a hero few villains could cope with.

The mythic moment then exposed ‘The Boyhood of Loki!’ (inked by Colletta), a pensive, brooding foretaste of the villain to be.

JiM #114 began a two-part tale introducing a new villain of the sort Kirby excelled at: a vicious thug who suddenly lucked into overwhelming power. ‘The Stronger I Am, The Sooner I Die!’ finds Loki imbuing hardened felon Crusher Creel with the power to duplicate the strength and attributes of anything he touches, but before he is treated to ‘The Vengeance of the Thunder God’ (inked by Frank Giacoia as the pseudonymous Frankie Ray) we’re graced with another Asgardian parable – ‘The Golden Apples’. Issue #115’s back-up mini-myth was ‘A Viper in our Midst!’ with young Loki clandestinely cementing relations with the sinister Storm Giants – sworn enemies of the Gods….

A longer Thor saga began in #116, as Colletta settled in as regular inker for both lead and support feature. ‘The Trial of the Gods’ revealed more aspects of fabled Asgard as Thor and Loki undertake a brutal ritualised Trial by Combat, with the god of mischief cheating at every step, after which ‘Into the Blaze of Battle!’ finds Balder protecting Jane Foster even as her godly paramour travels to war-torn Vietnam seeking proof of his step-brother’s infamy.

These yarns are supplemented by stellar novellas ‘The Challenge!’ and ‘The Sword in the Scabbard!’ in which Asgardian cabin-fever develops into a quest to expose a threat to the mystic Odinsword, the unsheathing of which could destroy the universe…

Journey into Mystery #118’s ‘To Kill a Thunder God!’ ramps up the otherworldly drama as Loki, attempting to cover his tracks, unleashes an ancient Asgardian WMD – the Destroyer. When it damages the mystic hammer of Thor and nearly kills our hero in ‘The Day of the Destroyer!’, the God of Mischief is forced to save his step-brother or bear the brunt of Odin’s anger.

Meanwhile in Tales of Asgard the Quest further unfolds with verity-testing talisman ‘The Crimson Hand!’ and ‘Gather, Warriors!‘ with a band of hand-picked “Argonauts” joining Thor’s flying longship in a bold but misguided attempt to forestall Ragnarok…

With Destroyer defeated and Loki temporarily thwarted, Thor returns to America ‘With My Hammer in Hand…!’ only to clash once more with the awesome Absorbing Man. However, before that bombastic battle there’s not only the next instalment of the Asgardian Argonauts who boldly ‘Set Sail!’ but also the admittedly superb digression of the lead story from Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein in undisclosed ages past the God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods for landmark heroic hullabaloo ‘When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’…

This incredible all-action episode is augmented here by a beautiful double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a true example of Kirby magic.

The Thunderer’s attack of the Absorbing Man resumes in ‘The Power! The Passion! The Pride!’ seemingly set to see the end of Thor: a cliffhanger somewhat assuaged by ‘Maelstrom!’ wherein the Argonauts epically encounter an uncanny storm…

In JiM #122’s ‘Where Mortals Fear to Tread!‘ the triumphant Crusher Creel is abducted by Loki to attack Asgard and Odin himself: an astounding clash leading to a cataclysmic conclusion ‘While a Universe Trembles!’

Meanwhile ‘The Grim Specter of Mutiny!’ invoked by seditious Loki is quashed in time for valiant Balder to save the Argonauts from ‘The Jaws of the Dragon!’ in the ever-escalating Ragnarok Quest.

With the contemporary threat to Asgard ended and Creel banished, Thor returns to Earth to defeat the Demon, a witchdoctor empowered by a magical Asgardian Norn Stone left behind after the Thunder God’s Vietnamese venture. Whilst the Storm Lord was away Hercules was dispatched to Earth on a reconnaissance mission for Zeus. ‘The Grandeur and the Glory!’ opened another extended story-arc and action extravaganza, which bounced the Thunderer from bruising battle to brutal defeat to ascendant triumph.

Issue #125 ‘When Meet the Immortals!’ was the last Journey into Mystery: with the following month’s ‘Whom the Gods Would Destroy!’ the comic was re-titled The Mighty Thor and the drama amped up unabated, culminating with ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’

In short order Thor crushed the Demon, seemingly lost beloved Jane to Hercules, was deprived of his powers and subsequently thrashed by the Grecian Prince of Power, yet still managed to save Asgard from unscrupulous traitor Seidring the Merciless who had usurped Odin’s mystic might…

Meanwhile in the Tales of Asgard instalments the Questers homed in on the cause of all their woes. ‘Closer Comes the Swarm’ pitted them against the flying trolls of Thryheim, whilst ‘The Queen Commands’ saw Loki captured until Thor answered ‘The Summons!’, promptly returning the Argonauts to Asgard to be shown ‘The Meaning of Ragnarok!’

In all honestly these mini-eddas were, although still magnificent in visual excitement, becoming rather rambling in plot, so the narrative reset was neither unexpected nor unwelcome…

Instead of ending, the grandiose saga actually grew in scope with Thor #128 as ‘The Power of Pluto!’ introduced another major foe. The Greek God of the Underworld had tricked Hercules into replacing him in his dread, dead domain, just as the recuperated Thunder God was looking for a rematch, whilst in Tales of Asgard Kirby pulled out all the creative stops to depict the ‘Aftermath!’ of Ragnarok: for many fans the first indication of what was to come in the King’s landmark Fourth World tales half a decade later…

‘The Verdict of Zeus!’ condemns Hercules to the Underworld unless he can find a proxy to fight for him, whilst at the back of the comic the assembled Asgardians faced ‘The Hordes of Harokin’ as another multi-chaptered classic begins, but for once the cosmic scope of the lead feature eclipses the little odysseys as ‘Thunder in the Netherworld!’ reveals Thor and Hercules carving a swathe of destruction through an unbelievably alien landscape – the beginning of a gradual side-lining of Earthly matters and mere crime-fighting.

Thor and Kirby were increasingly expending their efforts in greater realms than ours…

‘The Fateful Change!’ then reveals how the younger Thunder God trades places with the Genghis Khan-like Harokin… leaving the drama on a tense cliff hanger until the next collected volume…

However there’s one last reading treat in store as Marvel’s superhero spoof title Not Brand Echh #3 provides a barbed and pitiless pastiche of the Asgardian (Jazzgardian, in fact!) life in ‘The Origin of Sore, Son of Shmodin!’ by Lee, Kirby & Giacoia, as well as a glimpse at a 1965 T-Shirt design by Kirby and Dick Ayers, a selection of original art pages from the stories in this volume and a gallery of classic covers modified by painter Dean White…

These transitional Thor tales show the development not only of one of Marvel’s fundamental continuity concepts but more importantly the creative evolution of the greatest imagination in comics. Set your common sense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures for the true secret of what makes graphic narrative a unique experience.
© 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Hellboy volume 9: The Wild Hunt


By Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Stewart & Clem Robins (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-431-8

On December 23rd 1944 an uncanny baby was confiscated from Nazi cultists by American superhero The Torch of Liberty and a squad of US Rangers moments after his unearthly nativity on Earth. The Allied forces had interrupted a satanic ritual predicted by parapsychologist Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and his associates who were waiting for Hell to literally come to Earth…

The heroic assemblage was stationed at a ruined church in East Bromwich, England when the abominable infant with a huge stone right hand materialised in an infernal fireball. This “Hellboy” was subsequently raised by Bruttenholm, and grew into a mighty warrior engaged in fighting a never-ending secret war against the uncanny and supernatural. The Professor trained the happy-go-lucky foundling whilst forming and consolidating an organisation to destroy arcane and occult threats – the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

After years of such devoted intervention, education and warm human interaction, in 1952 the neophyte hero began hunting all agents of the malign unknown from phantoms to monsters as lead agent for the BPRD. Hellboy rapidly became its top operative; the world’s most successful paranormal investigator…

As decades unfolded, Hellboy gleaned snatches of his origins and antecedents, learning he was a supposedly corrupted beast of dark portent: a demonic messiah destined to destroy the world and bring back ancient powers of evil.

It is a fate he despised and utterly rejected…

This ninth necromantic collection re-presents the climactic 8-issue miniseries Hellboy: The Wild Hunt from 2008-2009, drawing together many subtly scattered clues disseminated throughout his innumerable tempestuous exploits and at last providing the conclusion to more than fifteen years of slowly boiling magical suspense… as well as the incredible answers to the enigma of the horrific hero’s doom-drenched double destiny…

Creator Mignola reunites with illustrator Duncan Fegredo – supplemented as always by colourist Dave Stewart and letterer Clem Robins – as the fey folk and other creatures of ancient mythology and legend are fading into non-existence in the face of a rising of witches.

The malevolent hags have a new queen who promises blood and slaughter and domination of the world by her kind whilst the only being who might stop her inexorable ascendance is missing…

Following an Introduction from Mark Chadbourn the drama opens in rural Italy as Hellboy receives a letter from a most ancient and august society. The paranormal paragon has been hiding; avoiding having to deal with a hard-wired cosmic fate which will not let him go…

Nevertheless, on receipt of the missive Hellboy returns to England and meets the oldest members of the aristocratic secret society known as the Wild Hunt.

They have been clandestinely defending the Sceptr’d Isles from mystic assault for centuries and – more aware of Hellboy’s destiny-drenched antecedents than the hero himself – want him to join them in exterminating a band of giants set to ravage the Realm…

Sadly the entire affair is a trap, but the mortal warriors are no match for Hellboy who defeats his duplicitous opponents before also despatching the giants in an uncontrollable burst of warrior-madness…

In a faraway place the ensorcelled goblin known as the Gruagach of Lough Leane reflects on the long-ago slight inflicted upon by Hellboy which has been the cause and trigger of all the carnage and world-shattering destruction about to unfold when the new Queen of Witches is ready. Perhaps he repents it all, just a shade…

The subject of his hate is currently in Ireland, renewing the acquaintance of Alice whom he saved from being abducted as a baby by the Little People. The decades have been uncannily kind, as if some elfin magic rubbed off on her…

As the Red Queen cruelly consolidates her power in England, Hellboy and Alice are visited by former pixie potentate Queen Mab who reveals another missing part of a decades-long puzzle and hints that there might be way to thwart this oppressive, inescapable destiny.

However when another supposed ally betrays them and Alice is wounded unto death, Hellboy is approached by ancient legend Morgan Le Fay who offers to trade for the mortal girl’s life.

She reveals that although the hell-born hero is certainly the son of the devil his human mother could trace her own line back to Arthur Pendragon. Hellboy is the doom of mankind but also the True King of England and she is his many-times removed grandmother…

If he wants to save humanity from an army of darkness he has his own to call upon – one comprising millennia of the noble dead of Britain. All Morgan’s heir has to do is take up the Sword in the Stone. It should be easy. His new occult opponent – now calling herself the Mor-Rioghain – also wants to awaken the dragons from the beginning of time and wipe out humanity: the fore-ordained role Hellboy has sworn never to enact…

With horror Hellboy realises he has not been running from one unwanted Destiny, but two…

With his fate closing in all around him Hellboy is uncharacteristically nonplussed, but an ethereal visitation prompts him to ferocious action and as he confronts his own inherently evil nature he finally throws off all the sly influences attempting to sway him and once again chooses his own path…

Offering astounding supernatural spectacle, amazing arcane action, mounting mystical tension and the imminent end of decades of slowly unfolding wonderment, this epic adventure is supplemented by a copious Sketchbook Section from Mignola and Fegredo, offering unused covers, roughs, designs, and informative commentary.

Unfolding with the pace of a mythic epic of enthralling power, the saga and mystery of Hellboy is a true landmark of comics storytelling and one every fan and aficionado should read.
™ and © 2008, 2009, 2010 Mike Mignola. Hellboy is ™ Mike Mignola. Introduction © 2010 Mark Chadbourn. All rights reserved.

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Your Favorite… Crab Cakes – A Crankshaft Collection


By Tom Batuik & Chuck Ayers (Andrews McMeel Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-2666-8

Although in a sharp decline, extended-narrative comics strips still have a place in modern cartooning. Indeed in the case of creators like Tom Batuik the slide into continuity is almost inescapable.

Thomas Martin Batuik was born in Akron, Ohio in March 1947 and attended the famous (for all the wrong reasons) Kent State University. He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) and became a Junior High School art teacher. This endeavour soon inspired the creation of his legendary newspaper strip Funky Winkerbean.

The long-lived (originally gag-a-day) school-based strip launched on March 27th 1972 and over the years developed strong soap opera tendencies and a potent attention to contemporary social issues to compliment the humour.

It also spawned two separate spin-off strips: John Darling (1979-1990) and today’s star turn Crankshaft which began in 1987 and is still going strong seven days a week, with syndication in more than 300 newspapers across the world.

Batuik scripts and fellow scion of Akron Chuck Ayers illustrates the ongoing saga of a curmudgeonly senior citizen barely getting by in a rapidly-changing modern world. Ayers has also contributed cartoons to the Akron Beacon Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes and others and illustrated a number of school textbooks.

Deeply invested in nostalgia, family and day-to-day existence, the strip details how crusty old fart Ed Crankshaft grows ever older disgracefully and with great discontent. Ed has a job driving a school bus and derives much delight from annoying parents by driving off without their kids, reversing over mailboxes and holding up traffic whenever he can. In fact, these are all popular sports every school board bus driver indulges in…

Ed’s supporting cast include his wilful cat Pickles, two adult daughters Chris and Pam, son-in-law Jeff and grandchildren Max and Mindy, and, whereas the kids get to see him at his gruff sentimental best, the grown-ups usually get the raw edge of his confusion and ire with the increasingly chaotic state of contemporary life…

Ed was once a pro baseball player and in many episodes his skill in throwing missiles generates lots of laughs, but that eccentric career also provided one of the series’ most rewarding themes of social interest. Ed never learned to read and very late on began adult literacy classes, highlighting an issue that impacts a vast number of older readers.

Of equal import and power is a long running storyline with Crankshaft regularly accompanying old pal Ralph to the Sunny Days Nursing Home where Ralph’s wife Helen is slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s Disease. Even here there’s a regular fount of golden-aged humour since Ed is a constant target for the amorous attentions of the institution’s army of love-starved widows…

This particular collection of strips – they’re all equally enjoyable and praiseworthy – spends a great deal of time depicting the road-raging joys of the School Run, explores Ed’s ongoing war with the newspaper delivery girl, his literal penny-pinching, a spate of funerals and weddings, the always-inclement Mid-Western weather and the coffee made by bus depot secretary Lena. Rumours are that it might well be considered a weapon of mass destruction…

Justice and Due Process take a holiday when Crankshaft serves on a jury, but those outbursts are balanced by wry reminiscences when Ed takes Max and Mindy on an extended tour of his scrapbooks…

Ed declares a vendetta on the mailbox of neighbour Mr. Keesterman, gleefully operates a bug-zapper that can be seen from space and proudly, loudly makes a spectacle of himself at doctor, dentist, barber, opticians and supermarket, but shows his softer side in visits with Ralph to Sunny Days a well as a school trip to the National War Memorial in Washington DC. Another milestone is reached when he wins a certificate for his reading proficiency but that only leads to more grief as he’s then expected to start using the Library computer…

…And then there are the kids who manage – despite all his efforts – to board Ed’s bus every morning. They may have the numbers, but he has experience, ruthlessness and a working knowledge of terror-tactics to keep the little monsters in line if they do get into his big yellow fortress…

He must love the little perishers really: after all, in vacation time he drives an ice cream truck to take the edge off the searing heat… if they can catch him…

Gently funny, powerfully engaging and offering some of the best zingers and put-downs in the comedy business, the assorted chronicles of Crankshaft are a family treat to shared and compared by all fans of cartooning excellence.
© 2002 Media Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Evil Emperor Penguin Strikes Back!


By Laura Ellen Anderson (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910989-87-6

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched an “old school” weekly comics anthology (for girls and boys aged 6-12) which aimed to revive the good old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in its style and content.

In the years since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the totally enthralled kids and parents who avidly read it…

The magazine’s pantheon of superbly engaging strips inevitably led to an equally addictive line of graphic novel compilations, the latest of which is a riotous return romp starring a fabulously fearsome feathered arch-fiend and master of scientific wickedness…

Conceived and created by children’s book illustrator and author Laura Ellen Anderson (Kittens, Snow Babies, My Brother is a Superhero {with David Solomons}), Evil Emperor Penguin lurks in a colossal fortress beneath the Antarctic, where he strives tirelessly towards his stated goal of absolute global domination.

His only assistance – if you can call it that – comes in the form of an army of hench-minions: most notably stylish, erudite administrative lackey Number 8 and cute, fuzzy, loyal, diminutive, utterly inventive abominable snowman clone Eugene.

Evil Emperor Penguin had originally whipped up a batch of 250, but none of the others are anything like Eugene…

EEP then appointed the fluffy, bizarrely inventive tyke his Top Minion but somehow never managed to instil within him the proper degree of ruthless evilness. The hairy halfwit is, however, a dab-hand with engineering, building stuff and cooking spaghetti hoops, so it’s not a total loss…

Following a crucial contents and catch-up page stuck to the bad bird’s Fridge of Evil the nefarious nonsense recommences with two-part thriller-chiller ‘I Will Crèche You’ in which EEP’s incredible De-Agefying Youth Juice causes havoc after Evil Cat (insidious rival in the Word Domination stakes) breaks into the citadel and everybody gets a rejuvenating soaking…

Undaunted, the Penguin of Peril then attempts to increase his own stature with a growth ray but doesn’t consider that his top menial might wander in and accidentally become ‘Hugene’…

It’s back to suspenseful two-parters next, as the Barmy Bird decides to digitise and upload himself into the global data net via his Super Computer of Evil. Believing supreme power to be in his feathered grasp once he becomes ultimate virus ‘X-Tremevil’, EEP is instead ambushed in virtual reality by digital demon virus Trojan the Hunk. Luckily Eugene is a dab paw with computer games and comes to his master’s rescue… sort of…

Back in the physical world again EEP is next subjected to a terrifying surreal assault by feathered scavengers and finds himself ‘Pigeon Holed’ before ‘Pop Goes the Easel’ finds him planning an attack on world leaders through the medium of art. Sadly, turning his victims into paintings proves to be a double-edged sword with unexpected repercussions, especially after Eugene tries to help…

Everybody loves cute kittens, which is what Evil Cat’s cousin Debra is counting on when she uses soppy Eugene to infiltrate the fortress and steal all the Spaghetti Hoops in ‘What’s New Pussy Cat’. With the team – and even Evil Cat – helplessly trapped, they must surrender all pride and dignity and call on jolly unicorn Keith to save them in ‘Rainbows to the Rescue’…

Without their favourite food, Christmas seems drab and dreary for the entire ice-bound army but when Eugene finds ‘The One Hoop’ it unleashes a torrent of unexpected emotion to tide the Evil Emperor over even though it ultimately leads to deprivation mania in ‘A New Hoop’ Part 1…

Deranged and desperate, EEP is only saved after Eugene and Number 8 track down Debra and steal back the vast cache of spaghetti tins in ‘A New Hoop’ Part 2. Good thing too, as she wasn’t planning on eating them but needed them to power her machine for destroying the world…

‘Eugene’s Day Off’ is an unremitting stream of great experiences for the faithful servitor, but, for the Penguin Potentate – having to make do with substandard substitute Neill – a string of catastrophic and painful disasters, so it’s no surprise and a total tragedy when EEP’s top flunky is lost on a melting ‘berg after watching a pretty sunset ‘On Thin Ice’…

Part 2 then sees the unthinkable occur as the cape-clad malcontent megalomaniac teams up with scintillating Keith the Unicorn to save Eugene from dire deep sea doom…

This gag-filled grimoire of perfidious Penguin plans concludes in high style as a sinister scheme to flood the world with scented candles of distilled Ultimate Evil is thwarted after ‘Essence of Eugene’ is added to the wax mix, resulting in a global outpouring of warm, fuzzy euphoria…

Rocket-paced, hilariously inventive, wickedly arch and utterly determined to be silly when it most counts, Evil Emperor Penguin Strikes Back! is a captivating cascade of smart, witty funny adventure, to delight readers of all ages.
Text and illustrations © Laura Ellen Anderson 2017. All rights reserved.

Evil Emperor Penguin Strikes Back! will be released on March 2nd 2017 and is available for pre-order now.

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Red Baron volume 3: Dungeons and Dragons


By Pierre Veys & Carlos Puerta, translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-252-2

The sublimely illustrated, chillingly conceived fictionalised re-imagination of the latter days of legendary WWI German Air Ace Manfred von Richthofen apparently concludes in stunningly scary form with this latest uncompromising episode from Pierre Veys & Carlos Puerta.

Baron rouge: Donjons et Dragons premiered Continentally in 2015 and here resumes its fascinating, faux-autobiographic course as notionally described by the titular flier in a beguiling album-sized tome from Cinebook …

Scripted with great style and Spartan simplicity by prolific bande dessinée writer Pierre Veys (Achille Talon, Adamson, Baker Street, Boule et Bill, les Chevaliers du Fiel), the drama is illustrated with mesmerising potency by advertising artist and veteran comics painter Carlos Puerta (Los Archivos de Hazel Loch, Aeróstatas, Tierra de Nadie, Eustaquio, Les Contes de la Perdition) in a hauntingly potent photo-realistic style.

In the premiere volume we saw how young military student Manfred discovered he had an uncanny psychic gift: when endangered he could read his opponents’ intentions and counteract every attack. Immediate peril seemed to trigger his gift and after crushing and terrifying a brutal Junker Prince and his bullying cronies, Manfred subsequently tested the theory by heading for the worst part of town to provoke the peasants and rabble.

He never questioned how or why the savage exercise of savage violence – especially killing – made him feel indescribably happy…

As a cavalry officer when the Great War began, Manfred found further proof of his talent when he casually acted on a vague impulse and avoided a lethal shelling: a threat he could neither see nor anticipate…

He could never convince his only friend Willy of this strange gift, even after he transferred to the Fliegertruppen (Imperial German Flying Corps) as gunner in a two-man reconnaissance craft …

The saga continued in a second volume wherein Von Richthofen barely survived his first taste of sky-borne dogfighting and resolved immediately thereafter to learn how to fly properly. Never again would he trust his life to someone else’s piloting skills…

A poor natural pilot, only persistent hard work allowed him to qualify as a flier and, even after his first kill, Manfred could not stop his elite comrades laughing at his pitiful landings…

Things changed after he modified his two-man Albatross C.111 so that he could fire in the direction of his flight rather than just behind or to the sides. Now a self-propelled gun, Von Richthofen took to the skies and scored a delicious hit on a hapless British pilot…

Days later his joy increased when Willy was assigned to his squadron.

Sharing the spoils of occupation life, Von Richthofen related his earlier war exploits and shared again the secret of his uncanny gift with his unconvinced comrade. An opportunity came to prove his boasts at an enlisted men’s boxing match where Lieutenant Von Richthofen systematically demolished a hulking brute who was German national champion before hostilities started.

As Willy watched his slightly-built school chum avoid every lethal blow and methodically take his opponent apart, he finally believed… and began to fear…

The story recommences here with Manfred revelling in the murderous and destructive excesses of his new killing proficiency. His successes bring him and wingman Willy to the attention of national hero and top air ace Oswald Boelcke who invites him to join his new fighter squadron…

Manfred’s gory glee is only barely dimmed by the discovery that among his new comrades is old school arch-enemy Prince Friedrich who – complete with new coterie of sycophantic hangers-on – promises vengeance for past indiscretions…

Manfred’s gift for killing continues to grow, especially after being assigned a string of increasingly more efficient flying machines. However, after a close call against a calmly methodical British pilot, von Richthofen realises a way to enhance his psychic advantage in the air and paints his ships blazing scarlet to unsettle and terrify his airborne opponents…

A less easily handled problem is Friedrich and his gang. Thanks to his gift Manfred knows they intend to murder him and takes swift, merciless action to end their threat. However, even after ruthlessly eliminating his supposed comrades, the Red Baron’s problems do not end despite his daring and bravado seeing him triumph over every burgeoning horror and mechanical innovation of the War To End All Wars: tanks, submarines and even naval destroyers…

A net of evidence is closing in around Manfred and despite his insouciance he feels something is coming on the sunny morning he joins the flight to escort a German Zeppelin safely home. His arrogant overconfident cockiness proves to be his ultimate downfall that day…

A sharp mix of shocking beauty and distressingly visceral violence, Dungeons and Dragons blends epic combat action with grimly beguiling suspense. The idea of the semi-mythical knight of the clouds as a psychic psycho-killer is not one many purists will be happy with, but the exercise is executed with implacable authenticity and Puerta’s illustration is both astoundingly lovely and gloriously enthralling.

A decidedly different combat concoction: one jaded war lovers should definitely try.
Original edition © Zephyr Editions 2015 by Veys & Puerta. All rights reserved. English translation 2015 © Cinebook Ltd.

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My Favorite Thing is Monsters


By Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-959-2

Once upon a time, comics were ubiquitous and universal and scorned by most people.

Gradually people came to realise that there were gems amongst the dross, and a critical arena grew where graphic novels could be judged on their own intrinsic merits and afforded serious consideration as Art.

Every so often an example of purely perfect sequential narrative emerges which reshapes the Artform and forces the entire world to sit up and take notice: Maus, Persepolis, American Splendor, Watchmen…

I’m pretty certain as I read my review copy (for the third time in two weeks) that My Favorite Thing is Monsters is soon going to be automatically added to that list of ground-breaking, world-shaking graphic masterpieces whenever people talk about the absolute best that sequential graphic narrative has to offer…

Crafted over decades, this massive onion-skin of tales-within-tales ostensibly details a murder mystery, but conceals within its astoundingly illustrated layers a “you-are-here” historical perspective of the social chaos resulting amongst the impoverished and disenfranchised after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a crushing examination of child abuse, an impassioned discourse on the nature and role of Art, a chilling coming-of-age experience, a telling testament of the repercussions of survival for Holocaust victims and a mesmerising trek through the psyche of a very troubled little girl on the cusp of leaving the security of childhood forever…

The viper’s nest of stories is delivered through the beguiling conceit that we are reading the diary of an extremely intelligent, artistically gifted little girl who has inscribed and illustrated in her spiral-bound notebook the far-from-mundane recent events of her life: an unedited, unexpurgated stream-of-consciousness account, just as the events happened…

Karen Reyes sees monsters. She sees them everywhere but that’s okay because most of them are her friends or at least not overly hostile and besides, she’s a monster too…

In 1968 Chicago, our 10-year-old protagonist/narrator is obsessed with movie and comicbook creature features, to the point of seeing herself as a cute werewolf (much in the mould of Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things).

She is also worldly-wise beyond her years perhaps blessed with synaesthesia: able to smell colours, taste the tone or character of places and enter the many paintings her artist brother takes her to see at the gallery…

The single-parent family lives in Chicago in 1968 in a tenement owned by local gangboss Mr. Gronan. The mobster’s wife is one of the many women Karen’s brother Deeze regularly shares his bed with, not the wisest of things to admit to…

Despite his social shortcomings Deeze is a brilliant artist who has always shared his passion with his gifted sister, but as the story opens he is keeping a secret from Karen. Their adoring mother is dying…

Karen’s cool reserve is frequently tested. Many kids at school bully and abuse her whilst their parents scorn and despise her. At least she has a few trusted outcast associates in her corner. It’s no wonder though that she prefers the clannish world of screen and comicbooks to what reality offers up daily…

Blithely unaware of how painful the world can be, the dutiful daughter’s world shifts from filmic fantasy to real life tragedy when troubled tenant Anka Silverberg dies. Karen, who has shared a special relationship with the concentration camp survivor for years, realises it must be murder, not the inevitable suicide most of the adults say it was.

The Werewolf-girl thus resolves to use her gifts to find the killer and embarks on an horrific voyage of discovery. With the unwittingly aid of befuddled sot Sam Silverberg and her own uncanny, wise-beyond-her-years instincts, Karen stalks her elusive prey, slowly gaining an understanding of the real-world atrocities Anna endured before reaching America and her inescapable date with doom…

Moreover, as Karen continues to investigate the life and death of Anka, the increasingly violent real world gets a stronger hold on her inner landscape, distracting the monster girl from her self-appointed mission…

Astoundingly complex and multi-layered, and accessing a phenomenally intricate interior landscape blending the shocking squalor, deprivation and social unrest of mid 1960’s Chicago with the thoughts and impression of a brilliant child and natural outsider, My Favorite Thing is Monsters offers a stunning examination of loss and what it means to be human. Moreover, the barrage of intertwined stories never obfuscates, but always offers some snippet of revelation and does so with warmth, humour, great heart and inspirational passion.

Best of all, this tome is only the beginning and the story will continue in a sequel…
© 2016 Emil Ferris. All rights reserved.

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The Bluecoats volume 6: Bronco Benny


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-146-4

The glamour of the American Experience has fascinated Europeans virtually since the actual days of owlhoots and gunfighters. Hergé was an absolute devotee, and the spectrum of memorable comics ranges from Italy’s Tex Willer to such Franco-Belgian classics as Blueberry and Lucky Luke, and even to colonial dramas such as Pioneers of the New World or Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt’s Indian Summer.

Les Tuniques Bleues began at the end of the 1960s, created by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Colvin – who has solo-written every best-selling volume since. The strip was created to replace Lucky Luke when the laconic gunslinger defected from weekly anthology Spirou to rival comic Pilote, and his rapidly-rendered replacement swiftly became one of the most popular bande dessinée series on the Continent.

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour style, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his replacement, Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte slowly introduced a more realistic – although still broadly comedic – illustrative manner. Lambil is Belgian-born (in 1936) and – after studying Fine Art in college – joined publishing giant Dupuis as a letterer in 1952.

Born in 1938, scripter Raoul Cauvin is also Belgian and before joining Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling as a comedy writer and began a glittering and prolific career at Spirou.

In addition to Bluecoats he has written dozens of other long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. The Bluecoats alone has sold more than 15 million copies.

The sorry protagonists of the series are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch: a pair of worthy fools in the manner of Laurel and Hardy, hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen posted to the wild frontier and various key points of mythic America.

The original format was single-page gags about an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but with the second volume ‘Du Nord au Sud’ (North and South) the sad-sack soldiers went back East to fight in the American Civil War (this tale was rewritten in the 18th album ‘Blue rétro’ to describe how the chumps were drafted into the military during the war). All subsequent adventures, despite ranging far beyond the traditional environs of America and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history, are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your average whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and especially critical of the army and its inept commanders. Ducking, diving, even deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s quite smart and heroic if no other easier option is available.

Chesterfield is a big burly man; a career soldier who has passionately bought into all the patriotism and esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirks his duty and wants to be a hero. He also loves his cynical little pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in…

Bronco Benny is the sixth translated Cinebook album (chronologically the 16th French volume) and opens with our surly stalwarts waiting at a rail depot for much-needed fresh materiel…

As usual the war has stalled due to lack of crucial resources. This time the dearth is horses to ride, but when the train carrying the replacement mounts unloads, what Chesterfield and Blutch find is a shambles which makes them want to laugh and cry…

The smugly-isolated General Staff quickly retire to their comfortable residence and are soon back in high-level conference. Callously obnoxious Young Turk Captain Stillman posits a most practical – if appallingly unethical – solution to the equine stalemate: don’t pay the soldiers until after the forthcoming battle and use the money to purchase mounts from horse traders beyond the western mountains. To make sure the sale and transport goes according to plan the Captain intends sending the smallest military detail possible, but they will be accompanied by Bronco Benny, the greatest horse-breaker in the world…

Next day, luckless Blutch and Chesterfield set out on the suicide mission they have been volunteered for with strong, silent Benny in attendance. They are astounded by how easily they pass through Confederate pickets and defences. They also have no idea that the enemy is well aware of the plan and is allowing them expedited passage…

Travelling the arid rocky region to the traders’ ranch our heroes are surprised when a band of Indians attack. The Bluecoats only escape through sheer dumb luck and after rendezvousing with the mustang-hunters discover the natives are in uproar because the horsemen have captured a magnificent white stallion the Indians revere as a god…

It’s love at first sight for Benny. He is utterly smitten with the mustang dubbed “Traveller” and the next few days fade to a bruised blur as he strives to break the mighty wonder horse. Sadly, after he does, the true nature of the horse-traders is exposed and Blutch and Chesterfield realise they’ve been suckered yet again…

However, even after being deprived of cash, horses and dignity and left to die at the hands of the furious Indians, Sarge has a plan to fix things and, whilst it doesn’t exactly work as expected, it does get him and his pals back to Union lines in time to witness one more horrific, pointlessly stupid battle and subsequent slaughter with no apparent winner…

This is another hugely amusing savagely anti-war saga targeting young and less cynical audiences. Historically authentic, always in good taste despite its uncompromising portrayal of violence, the attitudes expressed by the down-to-earth pair never make battle anything but arrant folly and, like the hilarious yet insanely tragic war-memoirs of Spike Milligan, these are comedic tales whose very humour makes the occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting.

Fun, informative, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the sort of war-story that appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1980 by Lambil & Cauvin. English translation © 2012 Cinebook Ltd. All rights reserved.

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JLA Deluxe volume 3


By Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Howard Porter, Mark Pajarillo, Arne Jorgensen John Dell & various (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-3832-2

Infinitely rewarding comics concepts such as the Justice League of America generally wax and wane with terrifying regularity over the decades: constantly being reinvented for fresh generations before tailing off until the next big idea.

After numerous reboots came and went, in 1997 Grant Morrison, Howard Porter & John Dell, took their shot: offering a back-to-basics line-up of heroes battling in cutting-edge conceptual chillers and thrillers.

The result was a gleaming paradigm of comicbook perfection which yet again started magnificently before gradually losing the attention and favour of its originally rabid fan-base. Apparently, we’re a really shallow, jaded bunch, us comics fans…

These stories were smart, fast-paced, compelling, challengingly large-scale and drawn with effervescent vitality. With JLA you could see on every page all the work undertaken to make it the best it could be. Moreover their example – at least initially – was mirrored by all other creators brought in to craft the hero-team’s later adventures…

This third Deluxe Edition (available in hardback, paperback and eBook formats) gathers issues #18-31 of the resurgent series, spanning May 1998 to July 1999: re-presenting astounding epics of cosmic wonder and universal upheaval which still pack a punch nearly two decades later…

With a team that consists of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Hourman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Connor Hawke (a second generation Green Arrow), Plastic Man, Huntress, Steel, fallen angel Zauriel, covert information resource Oracle and New Gods Orion and Big Barda you’d imagine there would be little the JLA had to worry about, but you’d be wrong…

Scripter Mark Waid steps in for ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Julian September’: a scary, surreal and utterly enthralling two-part thriller that begins with ‘Synchronicity’ (illustrated by Porter & Dell) which finds the World’s Greatest Heroes hard-pressed to combat the rewriting of Reality by a luck-bending scientist. Walden Wong then joins the art team to conclude the spectacular last-chance battles against a world riotously remaking itself in the ‘Seven Soldiers of Probability’ – featuring a particularly impressive guest-shot by lapsed former JLA-er the Atom…

Adam Strange then makes one of his far too infrequent appearances to combat a splendid ‘Mystery in Space’ (Waid, Jorgensen & Meikis) as the League travels to distant planet Rann only to be betrayed and enslaved by one of their oldest allies; an epic encounter resoundingly resolved in the Doug Hazlewood-inked ‘Strange New World’, after which Morrison, Porter & Dell return for a multi-layered extravaganza as the team’s most uncanny old foe resurfaces…

‘It’ finds the world under the mental sway of insidious space invader Starro, where only a little boy, aided by the (post Neil Gaiman) Morpheus/Lord of Dreams/Sandman can turn the tide in the breathtaking finale ‘Conquerors’…

Issues #24 begins with Morrison, Porter & Dell introducing a brand-new super-team in ‘Executive Action’ as the American military, in the form of General Wade Eiling, announces its own metahuman unit “The Ultramarine Corps”.

The four-person squad is officially tasked with pre-emptively defending America from paranormal threats, but as the JLA (and long-term DC fans) are well aware, Eiling has a long history of covert, “black-bag” and just plain illegal operations compelling the JLA to remain duly suspicious…

When the Corps steal the artificial body of League bête noir Shaggy Man everyone concerned knows it bodes badly, but even they are unprepared for ‘Scorched Earth’ wherein Eiling pits his Ultramarines and the US army against the heroes…

Meanwhile the New God JLA-ers are preparing for the imminent cosmic threat they had enlisted to confront whilst Batman, Huntress and Plastic Man infiltrate the General’s base to discover his real motives…

The spectacular, revelatory conclusion comes in ‘Our Army At War’ (with art by Mark Pajarillo & Wong) as Eiling’s plans are exposed and the truth about the Ultramarines uncovered. The net result is the disillusioned, lied-to super-soldiers setting up their own operation independent of any national influence and beginning to gather like-minded costumed champions for a First-Strike force. They would soon return…

Time-travelling future-robot Hourman replaced the Martian Manhunter for a while at this juncture as Mark Millar, Pajarillo, Wong & Marlo Alquiza craft ‘The Bigger They Come…’ a delightfully retrospective yarn which sees size-changing physicist Ray Palmer return to active duty as the Atom after power-stealing super-android Amazo is accidentally reactivated.

The main event of this volume is JLA/JSA team-up ‘Crisis Times Five’ by Morrison, Porter & Dell. The Thunderbolt Genie of Johnny Thunder returns with a new master and reality is grievously assaulted by unnatural disasters and magical monsters. Somehow, Triumph, an old friend and foe of the League is at the heart of it all, but promptly finds himself trapped in a true Devil’s Bargain…

With reason on the run in ‘World Turned Upside Down…’ the assembled champions of League and Society battle rampant magical chaos, all the while revealing and retrofitting a little more secret history. The assorted sprites, Djinn and pixies of the Silver Age DC Universe are revealed to be something far more sinister, and ‘Worlds Beyond’ finds those wishing wonders reduced to civil war; concluding with ‘Gods & Monsters’ as a vast army of united heroes save reality in the nick of time and space…

Compelling, challenging and never afraid of nostalgia or laughing at itself, JLA was an all-out effort to be Smart and Fun. For that brief moment in the team’s long, chequered career these were definitely the “World’s Greatest Superheroes”, in increasingly ambitious epics reminding everybody of the fact. This is the kind of thrill nobody ever outgrows repackaged in graphic novels to be read and re-read forever…
© 1998, 1999, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.