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Dirty Pair: Dangerous Acquaintances


By Toren Smith & Adam Warren (Manga Books)
ISBN: 978-1-900097-06-0 (UK edition)

In the fast and furious future of 2141AD, intergalactic proliferation of human civilisation has led to a monumental bureaucracy, greater corruption and more deadly criminals preying upon the citizens of the United Galactica.

Thus the constant need for extra-special Trouble Consultants: pan-planetary private paramilitary police employed by the 3WA (or Worlds Welfare Work Association) to maintain order in hotspots across the (sort-of) civilised universe…

Kei and Yuri are team #234, officially designated “The Lovely Angels” after their sleek and efficient starship. They are lethal, capable and infallible. Whenever they are deployed, they strike fast and hard and never fail…

However, the collateral damage they inevitably cause is utterly unimaginable and usually makes client worlds regret ever asking for their aid in the first place….

Much to the crisis agents’ disgust and chagrin, the ever-present media have dubbed them “The Dirty Pair” and any planetary government unlucky enough to need them generally regards them less as first choice and more a last resort …

The concept was originated for light novels by Japanese author Haruka (Crusher Joe) Takachiho in 1985 before making the jump to TV, movie and OVA anime. Oddly there was no comics iteration until over a decade later. This situation prompted Adam Warren and Toren Smith of manga translation company Studio Proteus to approach independent publisher Eclipse Comics with an idea for a US comicbook miniseries…

The result was Biohazards; a riot of light-hearted, manic murder and monstrous mayhem which was then swiftly collected in a brash and breezy graphic album. The reprintings from US franchise inheritor Dark Horse (and Manga Books in the UK) heralded a blistering run of wry and raucous adventures that still read as well today as they did when the Japanese comics experience was seen as a rare, quaint and exotic oddity…

In the follow-up Dangerous Acquaintances – originally released as a 5-issue miniseries from Eclipse between June 1989 and March 1990, before first being gathered into a trade paperback in 1991 – the catastrophically unlucky private sector peacekeepers are enjoying a spot of well-deserved downtime on planet Rocinante – a world riotously celebrating its 25th year of independence – when soused-to-the-gorgeous-gills Kei spots an unwelcome but very familiar face…

‘Things Past’ explains that although free, single and over 21, the planet is in turmoil due to the imminent arrival of a host of dignitaries on experimental super liner “The Lyra” (one of only three vessels capable of jumping to warp within a planet’s gravity-well) and the increasingly desperate outrages of terrorist cell United Galactica/Free Rocinate.

None of that means anything to the drunken danger girl: all she can think about is getting her hands on a woman who once betrayed and nearly killed her…

Back when she and Yuri were mere trainee cadets they were constantly and humiliatingly surpassed in every discipline by Shasti. Their rival was a bioroid built by 3WA to be the ultimate Trouble Agent: a tetrad possessing a perfectly designed body and, thanks to multiple uploaded personalities, able to shift instantly between being the ideal warrior, detective, spy or social specialist, amongst others.

She never failed on any mission but there were worries that her schizoid mind-menu might have made her crazy…

Back in the present Kei refuses to calm down and chaotically pursues her target through massing crowds with the constantly complaining Yuri hot on her heels. As ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’ opens, they track Shasti across town and Yuri casts her mind back to their last mission with her, when they were all assigned to bring in a deadly sociopath named Lacombe…

On present-day Rocinante the totally-tanked pursuers catch up with the oblivious target at a shopping plaza in time to see her trading a briefcase with a suspicious-looking bearded stranger. Unfortunately, when they confront her, Shasti has lost none of her combat advantages…

As the bioroid orders her accomplice to flee, Yuri’s mind flashes back to the mission when Shasti’s instability kicked in and she inexplicably proclaimed her love for the lethally compelling Lacombe…

The reverie is shattered as the planet’s Special Police storm in, brutally arresting the Trouble Agents whilst letting their meek-seeming “victim” go, and ‘Unquiet Zone’ finds the furious, sober and mortally hung-over operatives sprung simply because the cops need their cell for more provably-crazy UG/FR fanatics.

As Kei and Yuri hit the streets their fragile ears are bombarded with a public broadcast announcing the imminent arrival of the dignitary-stuffed, treasure-laden “Lyra” and, horrified, they realise where Shasti will strike, even if not what exactly she’s after…

Whilst the determined pair are planning to sneak aboard the wonder-ship, in an opulent hotel room their despised foe is giving her band of revolutionaries a final inspirational pep-talk, but her minds are focused on the moment long ago when she and her team of Trouble Agents cornered Lacombe.

The mission was going perfectly until she switched sides, joining the insanely seductive terrorist and murdering all her comrades. Or so she thought…

On the Lyra, Yuri and Kei have endured all manner of hell, (barely) dressed as hospitality hostesses constantly groped by the great and good of many civilisations. The ruse has however allowed them to find Shasti’s inside man and after a little “enhanced interrogation” he reveals his freedom-loving leader’s plan.

Except, of course, Shasti has been lying to the UG/FR all along. Now in control of the prototype ship, the bioroid activates the lockdown protocols and sealing everybody in. Whilst the still oblivious rebel cadres carve a bloody swathe through the imprisoned plutocrats, she undertakes her true goal: stealing the entire experimental warp section right out of the super-liner…

Locked cabins and robotic security lasers are no match for angry Angels and in ‘One of My Turns’ the apparently unkillable agents bust out and, tooling up with ballistic ordinance from the Lyra’s museum exhibit of ancient weapons, go hunting…

As the suddenly engine-less Lyra plunges to fiery doom at the ‘Ground Zero’ of Rocinante’s capital city, in deep space the engine section module reappears and Shasti waits for a rendezvous with her murderous beloved. She has no idea that the women she betrayed, almost murdered and unforgettably humiliated have made the jump with her and are hungrily approaching to take a decade’s-worth of bloody vengeance…

At once incredibly information-dense and astonishingly addictive, these deliciously daft yet cool, light-hearted cyber-punk space operas offer a solidly satisfying slice of futuristic fantasy to delight all fans of tech-heavy blockbusters. Also included is a pastiche-packed, behind-the-scenes farcical feature as Adam Warren shockingly reveals ‘Just How the Dirty Pair Gets Done!!’ to leaven all that savage comedy with some outrageous silliness…

The digest-sized (210x150mm) UK editions have the tag line “in the tradition of Red Dwarf” and that assessment is not a million miles from the truth – as long as you factor in sexy death-dealing ingénues, sharp socio-political commentary, incomprehensibly skimpy costumes and utter oodles of cartoon carnage.

Brutally wry, explosively funny, hilariously action-packed and extremely spectacular, this is a truly stellar romp to get every sci fi aficionado panting for more.
The Dirty Pair © 1994 Haruka Takachiho. English language version © 1994 Adam Warren and Studio Proteus. All rights reserved.

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Avengers World: Ascension


By Nick Spencer, Al Ewing, Marco Checchetto, Stefano Caselli, Dale Keown & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-629-8

Post-Infinity, the reshaping of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into an unbeatable legion of justice continued in new title Avengers World which became the core title from which all other associated series would derive direction. Of course, that’s pretty much irrelevant if all you want is high stakes, high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights fun in the traditional Summer Blockbuster manner…

During the Origin Bomb bombardment by planetary sculptor-turned-probationary Avenger Ex Nihilo (see Avengers: Avengers World and The Last White Event), large parts of the planet were subjected to forced, random and rapid evolution. It was just the start of a season of extraordinary and escalating crises…

The most recent outbreaks brought an Avengers stealth team consisting of Shang-Chi, The Falcon, Black Widow and Wolverine to the Pacific island of Madripoor to investigate a hyperfast civil war. On arrival they discovered the entire place had been stolen.

Mystic ninja clan The Hand, at the behest of new chief The Gorgon, had enacted a ritual whose collateral effects enflamed the populace but whose true purpose was to awaken the unbelievably vast dragon the island rested upon. The heroes were too late to stop it taking flight wearing Madripoor as a hat and were trapped upon it as the Wyrm flew towards mainland China.

High over Southeast Asia, Shang-Chi challenged The Gorgon to single combat only to be cruelly beaten and tossed over the edge into the void…

Simultaneously Nightmask, Hawkeye, Spider-Woman and Starbrand were dispatched to Velletai in Italy. When the town’s entire population vanished a Continental super-team was deployed, but soon after arrival contact was lost. Exactly the same thing happened with the Avengers team, too.

Under Velletai, the American squad found a City of the Dead where the restless departed all screamed inside Starbrand’s head…

At S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ Bruce Banner had deduced that the newly autonomous nation A.I.M. Island was the crux of the cluster of contemporary crises. He also realised the rogue state’s landmass was changing shape and size so Captain America sent in relative neophytes Bobby “Sunspot” Da Costa, Sam “Cannonball” Guthrie and alien hybrid Izzy “Smasher” Kane (latest Superguardian of the Shi’ar Empire and granddaughter of Golden Age Earth hero Captain Terror) to investigate.

They were quickly captured and Smasher suborned to A.I.M.’s cause…

Scripted by Nick Spencer, Ascension collects issues #6-9 of Avengers World and Avengers #34.1 (spanning July to November 2014) and opens as a back-up team consisting of powerhouses Thor, Captain Marvel and Hyperion are teleported into A.I.M.’s capital city Barbuda by freshly recuperated new recruit Manifold. Illustrated by Marco Checchetto and colourist Andres Mossa, the action commences as a wave of A.I.M. warriors attack…

It is a bitter moment for Hyperion who was plucked from inter-dimensional limbo by the secret society’s Scientist Supreme Andrew Forson to spend an immeasurable time as an agonised guinea pig in the futuristic citadel. However it’s not his torment there that troubles him but the memory of having survived the death of two worlds and his new role as father-figure to a new race which developed in the distant Savage Land as the result of the recent Origin Bomb bombardment…

As the battle intensifies distracted Hyperion blasts his way into the heart of Forson’s lab to find the Scientist Supreme again ripping open doors between dimensions and is astounded by the incredible offer the maniac has the sheer audacity to make…

Before he can respond, however, the mind-warped Messenger (nee Smasher) intercepts and physically throws him off the island, with Thor and Marvel unceremoniously ejected in similar manner soon after…

Stefano Caselli illustrates the next chapter as attention switches to Madripoor where Falcon, Wolverine and Black Widow are helpless to save the rioting population from their own destructive panic. The Airborne Avenger soars off to find the missing Shang-Chi but is lured off the steadily progressing dragon-island and meets a most unlikely band of allies…

Smooth operator Xian Zheng rescued the defeated Shang after The Gorgon threw him off Madripoor with an astounding flying fortress dubbed The Circle but he is only the point man for a new direction in crisis-management by the Chinese Government…

The People’s Republic has formed its own covert peacekeeping force – S.P.E.A.R. – in response to S.H.I.E.L.D., but now employs a team of super-champions to deal with strictly Chinese problems…

As an army of mystic warriors riding small dragons attacks The Circle, the spy chief activates The Ascendants – Weather Witch, Saber, Vector, Devastator and Sun Wukong, the Monkey King: demonstrating to Falcon and the watching world that the new China will take a back seat to no one…

Checchetto returns to limn the third chapter set far below Velletai. When the mission went dark, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill circumvented the Avengers’ lack of mystic resource by seconding neophyte wizard Sebastian Druid to find out what was going on.

He divined that the site was a “spirit trap” built by Entropy-worshipping Cult of Yagzan but now being used by a being of malign power, and as the tale resumes the kidnapped Starbrand meets it head on…

Control of the Dead City has been usurped by infernal Avengers’ arch-foe Morgan Le Fay and, as she crows over her immensely powerful juvenile captive, elsewhere Hawkeye, Spider-Woman and Nightmask battle revenant legions until fortuitously rescued by the team they came to save…

Despite being cut off from the surface Euroforce was able to stay alive and gather intel for a counter attack and, although Swordswoman, Tumult, Sliver, Tiger and Mikhail Zamorska, the Baby Killer are strangers to the Avengers, their leader is not.

Black Knight Dane Whitman is an honoured past member of the World’s Mightiest Heroes who combines high tech weaponry with ancient magic. His take on the situation is crucial to the counterattack but despite the combined teams’ best efforts Le Fay makes her move and opens the doorway to doom in Zagreb, Munich, Madrid, Athens and Paris…

The ongoing series of extinction events reaches critical mass in #9 as Caselli illustrates ‘Operation Bar Fight’ which initially returns to Barbuda where Avengers Sunspot and Cannonball are being cosseted and feted by the A.I.M. in a vain – and expensive – attempt to “turn” the mutants into willing adherents.

Everything changes when, aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Agent Phil Coulson finds a captured robotic Jocasta unit has spontaneously reactivated and begun dictating a message from the future…

Forson’s incredible technological breakthroughs are the result of collaboration with a faction of A.I.M. based decades ahead of now and Tomorrow’s Tech Terrorists are funnelling future advancements to today for reasons S.H.I.E.L.D. can only guess.

Hill risks destroying Sunspot and Cannonball’s cover, contacting and ordering them to find Forson’s time machine and use it to glean useful data from the future.

Hill has always been worried by the young mutants’ cavalier attitudes and frat boy silliness, but never more so than now when the fate of humanity is in the hands of two hormonal idiots with no sense of self-preservation…

Luckily she has no idea just how serious the mission is as the lads materialise in a fantastic alien-populated metropolis where master assassin Taskmaster is waiting for them…

The killer might not need to do anything as the two goons hit a bar for a quick drink and manage to start a riot. Thankfully the time-linked Jocasta unit is there to save them and amidst a fusillade of blaster bursts she drags them to meet the real reason for their temporal jaunt.

Now all the danger-loving buffoons have to do is rescue five extremely dangerous and rebellious kids: the children of today’s greatest heroes collectively known as The Next Avengers…

To Be Continued…

The chronal chronicles take a pause here, but the Fights ‘n’ Tights furore doesn’t end as this titanic tome closes with ‘The World in His Hands’ from Avengers #34.1 by Al Ewing, Dale Keown, Norman Lee & Jason Keith; taking a long hard look at extra-dimensional superman Hyperion…

Wrapped up in the tense search for a young boy abducted by a minor-league super-villain, the twice tragic history unfolds of a hero who is the last survivor of not only his ultra-advanced birthworld but also the alternate Earth which subsequently fostered and reared him…

More a collection of tantalising set-ups, introductions and prologues than an actual narrative adventure, this light confection of action and spectacle will nonetheless intrigue and astonish lovers of cosmic Costumed Dramas, and the tome also offers a potent covers-and-variants gallery by Neal Adams & Paul Mounts, Mark Brooks, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Ryan Stegman & Edgar Delgado, Keown& Keith and Chris Bachalo.

Promising a stupendous clash and climactic conclusion (sometime, somewhere else) this is a book best appreciated by dedicated fans rather than occasional or casual readers, but if you’re a consumer with a little patience the eventual payoff that follows this collection will certainly be worth the wait…
© 2014 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Scared to Death volume 1: The Vampire from the Marshes


By Mauricet & Vanholme, with colours by Laurent Carpentier and translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978- 1-905460-47-2

There’s a grand old tradition of scaring, empowering and entertaining kids through carefully crafted horror stories with junior protagonists, and this occasional series is one of the better modern examples.

Conceived and executed by journalist Virgine Vanholme and youthful yet seasoned illustrator Alain Mauricet, the Mort de Trouille series of albums was launched by Casterman in the year 2000. There have been seven sinister sorties so far…

Whilst I’ve not been able to find out much about the author, the artist is rather well travelled, having worked for CrossGen, Image and DC in America as well as on a wide variety of features in Europe.

He’s also to be seen in David Lloyd’s magnificently wonderful digital delight Aces Weekly…

Born in 1967, Mauricet originally inherited the comic bug from his parents and, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts under legendary creator Eddy Paape, began his own career aged 20 at Spirou.

From spot cartoons he graduated to strips, creating superhero parody Cosmic Patrouille with Jean-Louis Janssens and Les Rastafioles with Sergio Salma. Following the aforementioned stateside sojourn he resumed his Franco-Belgian efforts with the strip under review here, as well as basketball comedy Basket Dunk (with Christophe Cazanove) and Boulard (with Erroc) and others.

He now lives in Brussels, and also designs for computer games whilst working on a more personal graphic enterprise entitled Une Bien Belle Nuance de Rouge…

Back in early 2000, though, he was detailing the first of a sequence of spooky yarns starring studious Robin Lavigne and boisterous overly-imaginative Max Mornet, a couple of lads with an infallible instinct for ferreting out the weird and uncanny…

In 2008 Cinebook picked up Mort de Trouille: Le vampire des Marais and invited British and American kids to solve the mystery of The Vampire from the Marshes, which began when the boys first snuck a peek at forensic scientist Dr. Lavigne‘s locked files…

The well-travelled medic has been called in to examine a body found in rural Deadwater Swamp: a corpse stinking of booze, drained of blood and completely covered in hundreds of tiny triangular bite marks…

His son Robin and especially horror-story obsessed Max are fascinated by the case and the latter envisions all manner of ghastly and vivid vampiric scenarios, despite his more prosaic pal’s protestations…

All too soon the lads are invading the (still potential) crime scene, recording their own findings and suppositions. They are quite freaked out when they find a strangely slaughtered bird but completely terrified when they disturb a poacher who chases them off with murderous curses…

Unbeknownst to all involved, their prying has also alerted and disturbed a clan of far more dangerous and unnatural creatures…

Soon the boys are being constantly shadowed by an uncanny, cloaked figure who even breaks into the Lavigne home as it strives to preserve its anonymity and ancient secrets from the eyes of prying, violent mankind. It is noisily disturbed as it closes in on the boys and they can only thank their lucky stars that the household cat is such a noisy and vicious beast when stepped upon…

Events peak to a cursed crescendo next day after Max falls into his own hastily dug vampire trap and is taken by the noisome Nosferatu. Whilst Robin anxiously and urgently searches for his missing friend, Max is learning the tragic secret history of the bloodsuckers.

His oddly ambivalent abductor is Janus and seems rather reluctant to bleed him as a proper vampire should. The creature has, however, no problem leaving him – and the freshly captured Robin who stumbles upon them – to drown in a deep well…

Next morning Dr. Lavigne and the police are frantically searching the swamp for the missing boys and only find them thanks to some unknown person leaving Max’s camera on the rim of a well…

As the frightened boys are pulled to safety, Robin’s dad questions them and goes ballistic when he learns they’ve been looking through his confidential files. He also utterly trashes their ridiculous theory of vampire killers, patiently explaining the true and rational – if exceedingly grim and grisly – cause of death of the drunk in the swamp…

Chastened but undaunted and sharing an incredible secret no adults will ever believe, the boys are taken home whilst deep in the wooded mire an ancient family of incredible beings pulls up stakes and moves restlessly on to who knows where…

Deliciously delivered in the manner of Goosebumps and Scooby-Doo, this is a superb slice of all-ages spooky fun in the classic mould that will enthral and enchant everyone who’s suffered from “father knows best” syndrome and loves tall tales with devilish twists.
Original edition © Casterman, 2000 by Mauricet & Vanholme. English translation © 2008 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Avengers: Infinite Avengers


By Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerardo Alanguilan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-637-3

Following an unending string of universe-shattering crises, Iron Man Tony Stark and Steve “Captain America” Rogers swallowed old animosities and reunited to reshape The Avengers into a planetary defence-force more formal militia than voluntary association. Their new model army soon had more than twenty active members – human or alien and even some things less clear cut – whose specialities ranged from stealth and counter-intelligence to sheer, blockbusting stopping-power.

The posture and attitude also changed as the new group actively sought out potential disaster points rather than waiting for trouble to start…

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #29-34 (covering April to October 2014), the ongoing Big Picture series, as scripted by Jonathan Hickman with art by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan and additional colour work by Sonny Gho & Matt Milla, picks up a long-unfolding plot-thread and concludes an epic time-bending story-arc which also serves as an integral component of the vast Original Sin crossover event…

As previously established, Reality is composed of discrete entire universes – from the near-identical to the radically different – all held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. In recent times that immemorial barrier somehow began fragmenting, with the timeless celestial engineers who maintained it helpless to curtail the carnage. Now whenever an Earth drifts into contact with one of its doppelgangers the result is the destruction of at least one and usually both…

On our Earth (Reality 616, if you’re counting) the world’s greatest minds – Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, Black Panther T’Challa, Inhuman king Black Bolt, Henry “The Beast” McCoy and Namor the Sub-Mariner – joined as a clandestine Star Chamber dubbed The Illuminati; devising and stockpiling weapons to ensure when and if such an event occurred, our world would the one to survive.

They invited Steve to join their council but when the unimaginable finally happened, his inflexible moral code baulked and he stopped his fellows deploying their planet-shattering ordnance against the intruder Earth.

Instead he used the incomprehensibly powerful totems known as the Infinity Gems to avert the crisis, but destroyed them in the process…

Knowing another incursion would inevitably occur, the cabal of geniuses returned to their original plans and, when the Sentinel of Liberty again objected, Stark had Dr. Strange tamper with his memories before kicking him out of the smart guys’ club…

Now as ‘Infinite Avengers’ opens Rogers is suffering a plague of nightmares and begins to remember those Illuminati meetings he “never attended”…

He recalls the power of the Infinity Stones pushing the invading Other-Earth back and ending the incursion. He sees them shatter again and experiences the fury of the other Illuminati but also notes something he missed then: the Time Gem did not shatter – it simply vanished…

Awaking with his memories restored, the furious and morally-outraged Star-Spangled Avenger recruits Hawkeye and Black Widow and goes seeking redress. He is soon joined by Thor, Hyperion and newest member Starbrand who follow him without question as he tries to arrest Stark for treason…

When justifying his position fails Iron Man resorts to physical resistance but, whilst the battle escalates, everything suddenly stalls as the Time Gem suddenly appears and finally shatters, yanking everybody 48 years into tomorrow…

The drama resumes ‘Fifty into the Future’ as the time tossed former team-mates materialise and start fighting again. It takes the sudden intervention of a squad of contemporary superheroes including aged iterations of Hawkeye and Hyperion and a young female Starbrand to stop the war…

The oldest members of the Avengers Union have urgent advice for their earlier selves and the ancient archer also has a secret message for Steve which the dotard delivers before attempting to kill Stark in a fit of righteous fury. As the heroes pull him off the wounded technocrat, fragments of the Time Gem reappear, drawing Stark and the young Hawkeye back to their original time whilst pushing Cap, the Widow, Thor, Starbrand and Hyperion ‘500 into the Future’…

Earth 422 years from their origin point is a disturbingly alien place but once again the unwilling chrononauts are greeted by a new and callously arrogant iteration of Avengers, including an aging Thor who is no longer worthy to hold the magic hammer Mjolnir.

Easily overcome, the time-travelling team are quickly imprisoned and that era’s Captain America cruelly taunts the icon he has been compelled by The State to mimic.

Steve is horrified to discover that implacable Avengers enemy and prime Artificial Intelligence Ultron infests every aspect of this forlorn tomorrow and cannot resist as his counterpart implants some appalling weapon within him, intended to attack the future.

No sooner is it buried within him than the Time Gem again draws its victims back into “Fractured Temporal Space”, dispatching Thor and Hyperion back whilst propelling Steve, Starbrand and Black Widow ‘Five Thousand into the Future’…

Awaiting them in paradisiacal gardens 5045 years from their own time is super-psionic Franklin Richards (immortal son of the Fantastic Four‘s Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman).

The sweet boy they all know has become a near-omniscient being and reveals to them the astounding changes in the solar system and humanity itself. He also has the answers to the Earth-incursion crisis and some crucial advice to solve the 21st century team’s internecine strife…

Franklin then asks Cap for the message Hawkeye had given him so long ago, but before the Avenger’s further questions can be addressed the Gem returns, hurling the Widow and Starbrand back and pushing the solitary last avenger ‘Fifty Thousand into the Future’…

In an incredible automated revolution the planet has become a sentient whole: a Worldcore which questions and challenges the time-lost primitive before attempting to inhume him into their perfect community of “Ideology Made Action”.

As Captain America valiantly resists, a battalion of distressingly familiar conceptual Avengers manifest and the electronic infection implanted within him in Planet Ultron’s era activates. As a result the coldly perfect tomorrow dies and, aware that his life is now over, the Sentinel of Liberty slips unresisting back into Fractured Temporal Space but is saved by the last person he ever expected…

Or at least a distant descendant, as ‘The Last Avenger’ sees the teenaged Young Avenger Kang – clad in Iron Lad armour – brings the weary warrior to the end of time to join the boy’s older selves Kang The Conqueror and Immortus. All three products of chronal multiplicity, temporal divergence and fractured time are claiming to be Earth’s last Avengers…

After extracting and capturing the wildly reacting Time Gem they give the unyielding Super-Soldier the answers he’s been seemingly forever looking for, but when they demand that, after Steve returns to his time, he allow the Illuminati to destroy any Earth caught in an incursion, they make a fatal error…

Captain America will always find a noble, ethical solution and after escaping back to his origin era he begins to implement it by declaring war on the smartest heroes on Earth.

To Be Continued…

Cosmically complex, conceptually challenging, confounding and ultimately cataclysmic, this collection also offers a plethora of astounding covers-and-variants by Frank Cho & Jason Keith, Leinil Yu & Gho, Stephanie Hans and Paulo Manuel Rivera plus a potent portion of digitally-diverting extra content for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.

Vast in scope, suspenseful, compelling and superbly illustrated Infinite Avengers is the kind of comicbook blockbuster aficionados adore but its only fair to warn that casual readers might be best served by reading previous volumes before taking in this particular Fights ‘n’ Tights Celestial Conundrum…
™ and © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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The Phoenix Presents: The Pirates of Pangaea Book 1


By Daniel Hartwell & Neill Cameron (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910200-08-7

Why are pirates so mean? I don’t know, they just AARRRR…

In January 2012 Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a traditional anthology comics weekly aimed at girls and boys between 6 and 12 which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Each issue still offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. 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 astoundingly engaged kids and parents who read it…

The Phoenix was voted No.2 in Time Magazine‘s global list of Top Comics and Graphic Novels and is the only strip publication started in the UK in the last forty years to have passed the 100 issue mark. It celebrated its first anniversary by developing a digital edition available globally as an app and is continually expanding its horizons.

It is, most importantly, tremendous fun, offering not just comedic comic capers, but games, puzzles, “How-To…” pages and even adventure strips.

Crafted by Daniel Hartwell (Urban Beasts) and Neill Cameron (Mo-Bot High, How to Make Awesome Comics), by far the most engaging thriller so far featured is a sublime combination of classic endeavour and enticing fantasy which blends bold buccaneers, boldly brilliant kids, suspenseful swashbuckling escapades and gloriously gigantic dinosaurs.

The alternate-history lesson begins with twelve year old Sophie Delacourt voyaging out from England in 1717 to join her Uncle Silas, the newly appointed Governor of the lost land of Pangaea.

The huge island-continent is reputed to be the oldest land on Earth and a place primarily inhabited by colossal reptiles of the land and air. Master Bosun William takes a paternal interest in the girl, explaining the wondrous nature of the place, but nothing prepares Sophie for the experience of a colossal “long-neck” which dives under their vessel and lifts it bodily into the air.

The interior of Pangaea is a vast shifting ocean of long grass afflicted and infested with fast and deadly predators no man afoot could survive or escape, so all ships are picked up out of blue Caribbean waters then carried upon brobdingnagian beasts’ backs between the rocky high points and plateaux where humanity has built its dwellings and settlements.

The big beasts are kept docile and compliant by the administration of a herb dubbed “Snuff” and piloted by the skilful class of inland mariners known as “Snuffmen”…

Sophie has never seen anything so wonderful in her life but, as Snuffman John guides the magnificent Bessie and her formerly-seagoing burden towards the Governor’s capital city, the amazed girl catches sight of the ever-present peril which besets this latest outpost of empire.

Through the shifting verdure comes a pirate ship strapped atop a terrifying black Land Leviathan and soon the voyagers are fighting for their lives in an ‘Ambush on Pangaea’.

Sophie is locked in her cabin as the corsairs’ devastating attack pillages the vessel and, when the insanely cruel Captain Brookes cries victory, making the crew walk the plank to their deaths, she is the only survivor…

The second chapter opens with the Governor’s niece imprisoned on Brookes’ land-ship, a potential goldmine in ransom for the greedy maniac. Furious and defiant Sophie is slowly befriended by brute’s cabin boy Timothy Kelsey. The lad is the tormented last survivor of a previous foray which saw the murder of his mentor and master Dr. Shaw; a naturalist who had come to the lost land to catalogue the ‘Indigenous Fauna of the Pangaean Land-Mass’.

After witnessing Brookes’ cruelty, Sophie agrees to join in the boy’s desperate plan for escape but as they make their move to fly off on the ship’s captive “Great Wing” lizard, they stumble over the Captain’s first mate.

Ten Gun Jones is also engaged in fleeing on the “Razor Beak”, but the noise of their stumbling over each other rouses the ship and the three are forced to flee together into the night amidst a hail of musket fire…

Soon the trio are hopelessly ‘Lost in the Sea of Green’ as their gravely wounded pterosaur expires just short of a high-projecting stony pinnacle. With deadly “Land Sharks” and “Belly Rippers” closing in on them all hope seems lost until an even deadlier beast pounces.

The “Tyrant” makes short work of the circling velociraptors, but its ravening hunger remains unsated. Only sheer terror carries the three fugitives to the relative safety of the rocky islet and, frantically scaling the igneous tower with the horror snapping at their heels, they all tumble into a cave to find themselves inside an abandoned pirate den…

The dusty lair has weapons, lamps, water, liquor and even brontosaur jerky; everything they might need to outwait the roaring giant outside, but after a sleepless night with Ten Gun less than forthcoming about why he was deserting Captain Brookes, Sophie conceives a dangerous idea.

After feeding the monster chunks of the dried meat liberally doused in the Snuff she found in a barrel, in an act of seeming madness Sophie drops onto the horror’s head and soon has it – or rather her – acting like a very dangerous steed…

The fearless lass then explains how an elderly servant in England taught her the secrets of horse-whispering before christening her scaly new pet “Cornflower”. Timothy is elated that they can use the Tyrant to safely cross the lethal Sea of Green to civilisation but Jones has other plans…

The enigmatic pirate’s guarded directions soon bring them to an active volcano which is in truth the neutral port used as a safe-haven by all the freebooters plying the grassy deeps. In a tavern the children learn the ‘Secrets of Raptor Rock’ and are introduced to bombastic Captain Ford, who previously planted Ten Gun in Brookes’ crew to secretly secure the second half of a disputed treasure map…

With both pieces secure the privateer immediately sets to emerald sea, but Ten Gun insists on bringing Sophie and Tim along. They have barely left the rock before Cornflower breaks out of her pen and doggedly follows…

The children are put to work and Sophie soon makes friends with Iwakian Snuffman Tak: a native Pangaean who steers the buccaneers’ bombastic brontosaur Gertrude…

The exploratory voyage comes to a sudden end after crossing the eerie “Longnecks Graveyard” when they hove into view of the fantastic plateau known in legend as “The Forbidden Isle”…

An expeditionary party is soon driving inland to a ancient temple in ‘Quest for the Golden Skull’ but upon entering, the greedy pirates are astounded to discover that the invaluable artefact they’re hunting is not a gilded human head but actually a full size tyrant’s skull cast in precious metal…

That’s when ferocious native defenders – the Kron Iwakia – ambush the party, driving them back to the relative safety of Gertrude, but the rapidly retreating raiders have no idea of what’s happened in the meantime.

Young Kelsey, resentful of being enslaved again has – more by accident than design – blown up the ship and stampeded Gertrude off into the Sea of Green just as maniacal Captain Brookes arrives intent on reclaiming his map and slaughtering everyone…

Even though the enraged Iwakians vanished when the ship began to burn, Ford’s rattled crew are no match for the nautical newcomers and things look bleak and bloody. Sophie and Kelsey desperately head back to the temple chased by Brookes’ men and death seems imminent until, from nowhere, Cornflower hurtles into action and eagerly despatches the pursuing pirates.

This prompts the Kron Iwakia to emerge from concealment to guide Cornflower and the kids back to the temple. The natives worship Tyrant lizards and after a strange ceremony deem Sophie and her reptile holy. That’s when Tim realises that the Golden Skull is not a mere ornament but battle armour for a tyrannosaur Chosen One…

With the Iwakians in close support the valiant children return to the ongoing pirate war to settle a number of old scores before taking control of their own destinies…

Superbly engaging and utterly enthralling, this astounding all-action romp is a riotous delight of astonishing adventure and this fabulous first compilation also includes many maps and crucial fact pages on the assorted dinosaurs from Dr. Shaw’s ‘Indigenous Fauna of the Pangaean Land-Mass’ – specifically ‘Sauropoda’, ‘Pterosauria’, ‘Dromaeosauridae’ and ‘Tyrannosauridae’ – all scrupulously crafted, corrected and annotated by erstwhile cabin boy and greatest living expert Timothy Kelsey…

Bright, breezy furious fun for the entire family, so don’t miss this unburied treasure…
Text © Daniel Hartwell 2015. Illustrations © Neill Cameron 2015. All rights reserved.

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Cyclops: Starstruck


By Greg Rucka, Russell Dauterman, Carmen Carnero, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-624-3

When mutant genius Henry McCoy learned he was dying, he used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to give his life meaning. Seeking to prevent a species war, he brought the young, naive X-Men of his own youth into the future to reason with his radicalised former comrade Scott Summers, praying the still idealistic and hopeful teens could divert Mutant Enemy Terrorist No. 1 from his path of doctrinaire madness…

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Cyclops back to his senses, the confrontation hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, after the younger McCoy miraculously cured his older self, he and the rest of the X-Kids were trapped in their own future and began gradually defecting to the fundamentalist team…

Eventually the temporally misplaced First Class all ended up living with the elder Cyclops’ crew, but everything changed after Gladiator of the Shi’ar realised that Jean Grey AKA Marvel Girl – and future host of the cosmic force known as the Phoenix – was back. The alien overlord rashly attempted to abduct and execute her for the crimes of her older self…

The insane pre-emptive punishment plan was foiled by an amalgamation of X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy and intergalactic buccaneers Hepzibah, Ch’od, Raza and bizarre medical wizard Sikorsky – collectively known as The Starjammers.

During the cosmic conflict 16-year-old Scott met his believed-dead dad Christopher, now called Corsair and undisputed leader of the cosmic privateers and, when the mutant heroes returned to Earth, he chose to remain in space with the father he had spent most of his brief life assuming killed in a plane crash…

Scripted by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Russell Dauterman, Carmen Carnero & Terry Pallot, stellar saga Starstruck collects issues #1-5 of Cyclops: (July-November 2014), following the chronal castaway to the ends of the universe and even further into uncharted emotional territory…

The story begins as the still shell-shocked teen spends some time in hard vacuum with his dad’s exotic paramour Hepzibah. Together they are testing his new spacesuit which allows him to fire his fearsome optic blasts safely through his helmet. That and reminiscing about how he got here and revelling in the sheer majesty of the intergalactic firmament, of course…

For most of his comicbook career Scott Summers has been capable and competent but also dour, grim, despondent and simply no fun at all. Here, however, we get to see the incredible hero he always was, but also follow a nervous, unsure kid hungry for affirmation and still capable of ingenuous wide-eyed wonder.

That’s never more ably demonstrated than when his attempts to write a letter to Jean (the girl everybody from the future tells him he will marry and lose) are interrupted by an attack on the starship.

The Starjammers are wanted by almost every empire in the universe but this ambush by the scurrilous Brotherhood of Badoon is easily repulsed and only results in the pirates capturing their attackers’ vessel primarily intact…

Not so easily handled is the growing gulf between Scott and Corsair. The boy simply cannot accept why his father would allow him – and indeed his future self – to believe he was dead for decades…

The grizzled star-pirate thinks he has a solution. Giving Scott a sword liberated from the vessel (apparently a crucial piece of kit for any space-farer regularly indulging in close combat) Christopher Summers suggests a father-and-son vacation: a few months tooling around the galaxies in their newest prize, just getting to know each other…

At first the grand tour is all mind-bending exploration and eye-popping alien encounters but eventually Scott begins to see a disturbing pattern to his dad’s actions and comes to a horrifying conclusion. Corsair is a drug addict and their numerous stopovers in quirky cosmic bazaars and seamy sidereal marketplaces are simply opportunities to restock his personal pharmacopoeia…

One such jaunt introduces the boy to unlikely barkeeper and crimelord Baroque and leads Scott into a potentially life-changing VR encounter with a svelte and sexy alien temptress named Vass. Unfortunately anything he might have learned is promptly forgotten when a multi-species band of merciless bounty hunters corners the father and son team.

The wily thief-takers are utterly unprepared for Cyclops’ optic blasts however and the displaced humans get away relatively unscathed… except for Corsair’s fresh stash of drugs…

The next crisis occurs soon after as the Badoon ship catastrophically malfunctions and shipwrecks them on an isolated planetoid. Painfully scouring through the wreckage some time later, Scott discovers a tracking device – now destroyed – and finally confronts his father about the drugs.

He is doubly appalled when Corsair shamefully reveals that rather than buying narcotics, his dad has been visiting every criminal dive in creation “scoring” proscribed nanite technology: the only thing currently keeping him alive…

Stranded on a primitive mudball filled with predators all becoming increasingly less cautious and more hungrily curious, Scott at last learns of his unsuspected brother Vulcan, a mutant who once seized control of the Shi’ar Empire, sparked an intergalactic war and killed their father…

Of course, his devoted comrades refused to leave Corsair dead and petitioned the enigmatic creatures known as the Shrouded to restore him. The cloaked wonders succeeded but the cure requires constant and illicit maintenance…

Days pass and as the last dregs of the contraband drugs are used up, fading father and son grow closer, even to the point where they unite to turn the tables on the horrific bird-things stalking them.

As Corsair impatiently tries to teach his son everything he’ll need to know to survive the decades he might be alone on the planetoid, the boy derives a desperate scheme to save them both. The first step is to repair the tracking device and lure the certainly still interested bounty hunters to their current location…

Everything goes according to plan and the hunters become the hunted, but at the critical moment Scott, seemingly swayed by the blandishments of the mercenaries’ female slave, sells his own dad out…

What happens next proves the boy hero’s astonishing tactical genius and saves everyone’s lives – if not necessarily their honour…

Heartwarming, thrilling, funny and astoundingly action-packed, Starstruck combines cosmic intrigue and dashing derring-do with solid characterisation and wild blue yonder wonderment, and comes with a covers-&-variants gallery by Alexander Lozano, Greg Land, John Tyler Christopher and Paul Renaud as well as AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) for access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

What more could any wide-eyed, entertainment-starved child of the wondering stars want?
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Asterix and the Falling Sky


By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7528-7548-4

Asterix began life in the last year of the 1950s and is part of the fabric of French life. His adventures have touched billions of people all around the world over the decades. However when this particular tale was released it was like nothing anybody had ever seen before. It fact it is considered to be the most controversial and least well-regarded by purists. Some even hate it…

They are all welcome to their opinions. I must admit that I too found it a little unsettling when I first read it. So I read it some more and saw the elements that I’d initially had trouble with weren’t lax or lazy or bad but just not what I was expecting. Soon it became one of my favourites just because it was so different.

Uderzo was and is a comics creator par excellence. With Rene Goscinny he created, owned and controlled his intellectual property Asterix and used it to tell the tales he wanted to tell.

It was his right to say and draw whatever he wanted to through his creation and nobody has the right to dictate what he could or could not do with it as long as no laws were broken.

It’s a lesson the whole world needs to learn, now more than ever…

A son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25th 1927 in Fismes on the Marne. He dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic but even as a young child watching Walt Disney cartons and reading Mickey Mouse in Le Pétit Parisien he showed artistic flair.

Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at thirteen, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching. He was brought to that pivotal point by his older brother Bruno (to whom this volume is gratefully and lovingly dedicated for starting the ball rolling) but when World War II reached France he moved to Brittany, spending time with farming relatives and joining his father’s furniture-making business.

The region beguiled and fascinated Uderzo and when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, that beautiful countryside was the only possible choice…

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the recovering nation’s burgeoning comics industry. His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-François Calvo (whose own comic masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissue…).

Tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’Invulnérable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-Ré-Vil’s novel Flamberge, dabbled in animation, worked as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy first met Goscinny in 1951. Soon bosom buddies, they resolved to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was published in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes Soirée, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they resulted in a western starring a “Red Indian” who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Édifrance/Édipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart (also for La Libre Junior), replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new enterprise, collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and devising – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterix…

Although the gallant Gaul was a monumental hit from the start, Uderzo continued on Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as Ast̩rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time Рespecially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, and in 1974 the partners formed Idéfix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as both writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he gracefully retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new release was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fans…

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors, and now that torch has been passed and new sagas of the incomparable icon and his bellicose brethren are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad…

One of the most popular comics on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with numerous animated and live-action movies, TV series, games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc Astérix, naturellement)…

Like all the best stories the narrative premise works on more than one level: read it as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky and bullying baddies coming a-cropper if you want, or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads. English-speakers are further blessed by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to English tongues.

Many of the intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen reduced to quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled era. The rest – more than half of the canon – take place in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany, where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul.

The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last named just refuses to be pacified…

Whenever the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls couldn’t care less, daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the miraculous magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix…

This particular iconoclasm, Uderzo’s eighth solo outing (and originally entitled Le Ciel lui tombe sur la tête) was released in 2005 as the 31st volume of an ever-unfolding saga. The English language version was released that same year as Asterix and the Falling Sky. Apart from the unlikely thematic content and quicker pacing, the critics’ main problem seemed to stem from a sleeker, slicker, less busy style of illustration – almost a classical animation look – but that’s actually the point of the tale.

The entire book is a self-admitted tribute to the Walt Disney cartoons of the artist’s formative years, as well as a sneakily good-natured critique of modern comics as then currently typified by American superheroes and Japanese manga…

The contentious tale opens with the doughty little Gaul and his affable pal Obelix in the midst of a relaxing boar hunt when they notice that their quarry has frozen into petrified solidity.

Perplexed, they head back through the eerily silent forest to the village, only to discover that all their friends have been similarly stupefied and rendered rigidly inert…

Only faithful canine companion Dogmatix and the old Druid Getafix have any life in them, but only when Obelix admits to giving the pooch the occasional tipple of Magic Potion does Asterix deduce that it’s because they all have the potent brew currently flowing though their systems…

With one mystery solved they debate how to cure everybody else – as well as all the woodland creatures and especially the wild boars – but are soon distracted by the arrival of an immense golden sphere floating above and eclipsing the village…

Out of if floats a strange but friendly creature who introduces himself as “Toon” from the distant star Tadsilweny (it’s an anagram, but don’t expect any help from me). He is accompanied by a mightily powered being in a tight-fitting blue-and-red costume with a cape. Toon calls him Superclone…

The mighty minion casually insults Obelix and learns that he’s not completely invulnerable, but otherwise the visitors are generally benevolent. The paralysis plague is an accidental effect of Toon’s vessel, but a quick adjustment by the strange visitor soon brings the surroundings back to frenetic life.

That’s when the trouble really starts as the villagers – and especially Chief Vitalstatistix – see the giant globe floating overhead as a portent that at long last the sky is falling…

After another good-spirited, strenuously physical debate, things calm down and Toon explains he’s come from the Galactic Council to confiscate an earthly super-weapon and prevent it falling into the hands of belligerent alien conquerors the Nagmas (that’s another anagram) and there’s nothing the baffled Earthlings can do about it…

At the Roman camp of Compendium Centurion Polyanthus is especially baffled and quite angry. His men have already had a painful encounter with the Superclone but the commander refuses to believe their wild stories about floating balls and strangers even weirder than the Gauls, but he’s soon forced to change his mind when a gigantic metal totem pole lands in blaze of flame right in his courtyard.

Out of it flies an incredible, bizarre, insectoid, oriental-seeming warrior demanding the whereabouts of a powerful wonder-weapon. Extremely cowed and slightly charred, Polyanthus tells him about the Magic Potion the Gauls always use to make his life miserable…

The Nagma immediately hurries off and encounters Obelix, but the rotund terrestrial is immune to all the invader’s armaments and martial arts attacks and responds by demonstrating with devastating efficacy how Gauls fight…

After zapping Dogmatix the Nagma retreats and when Obelix dashes back to the village follows him. No sooner has Toon cured the wonder mutt than the colossal Nagma robot-ship arrives, forcing the friendly alien to fly off and intercept it in his golden globe…

The Nagma tries to trade high-tech ordnance for the Gauls’ “secret weapon” but Asterix is having none of it, instead treating the invader to a dose of potion-infused punishment.

Stalemated the Nagma then unleashes an army of automatons dubbed Cyberats and Toon responds by deploying a legion of Superclones. The battle is short and pointless and a truce finds both visitors deciding to share the weapon…

Vitalstatistix is outraged but Getafix is surprisingly sanguine, opting to let both Toon and Nagma sample the heady brew for themselves. The effects are not what the visitors could have hoped for and the enraged alien oriental unleashes more Cyberats in a sneak attack.

Responding quickly, Asterix and Obelix employ two Superclones to fly them up to the marauding robots, dealing with them in time-honoured Gaulish fashion.

The distraction has unfortunately allowed the Nagma to kidnap Getafix and Toon returns to his globe-ship to engage his robotic foe in a deadly game of brinksmanship whilst a Superclone liberates the incensed Druid. None too soon the furious, frustrated Nagma decides enough is enough and blasts off, determined never to come back to this crazy planet…

Down below Polyanthus has meanwhile taken advantage of the chaos and confusion to rally his legions for a surprise attack, arriving just as the Gauls are enjoying a victory feast with their new alien ally. The assault goes extremely badly for the Romans, particularly after a delayed effect of the potion transforms affable Toon into something monstrous and uncanny…

Eventually all ends well and, thanks to technological wizardry, all the earthly participants are returned to their safely uncomplicated lives, once again oblivious to the dangers and wonders of a greater universe…

Fast, funny, stuffed with action and hilarious, tongue-in-cheek hi-jinks, this is a joyous rocket-paced rollercoaster for lovers of laughs and all open-minded devotees of comics. This still-controversial award-winning(Eagle 2006 winner for Best European Comic) yarn only confirmed Uderzo’s reputation as a storyteller willing to take risks and change things up, whilst his stunning ability to pace a tale was never better demonstrated. Asterix and the Falling Sky proves that the potion-powered paragons of Gallic Pride will never lose their potent punch.
© 2005 Les Éditions Albert René, Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation: © 2005 Les Éditions Albert René, Goscinny/Uderzo. All rights reserved.

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Savage Hulk: The Man Within


By Alan Davis, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, Mark Farmer, Sam Grainger & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-630-4

In 1969, after six years of quirky, deliciously off-kilter adventures, The X-Men comicbook folded. It was a relatively early casualty of the latest periodic, repetitive changing-of-reading-tastes, which saw the buying public once again shun superhero stories in favour of genres like war, westerns and, most especially, supernatural horror yarns…

Of course after the fantasy fad receded again the team emerged resurgent and unstoppable in 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 and have since become an unshakable fixture of contemporary comics and cinema culture. Nevertheless when they first folded, a goodly number of us strange funnybook fans couldn’t believe the loss of such outré and irreplaceable characters.

Despite their reappearance in recycled reprints a certain magic had gone from the world back then and this most modern confection by Alan Davis seeks to redress that loss, albeit 45 human years later…

That final 1960s X-Men exploit was a weird “sort-of” team-up and, as it pivotally informs the all-original 4-part tale by Davis, inker Mark Farmer and colourist Matt Hollingsworth which comprises the majority of this scintillating compilation chronicle, the editors at Marvel have thoughtfully included it – in all its raw glory – at the back of the book.

I’m reviewing it first because that’d just the way I am…

‘The Mutants and the Monster!’ by Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger (X-Men volume 1#66, cover-dated March 1970), was actually the epilogue to an epic clash between the mutants and voracious alien invaders.

The campaign had shockingly brought back long-believed dead Professor Charles Xavier, who then nearly killed himself for real by uniting every mind on Earth in a psychic thrust of unparallelled force to repel the already repellent Z’Nox.

The tragic aftermath was seen here: a debilitating coma caused by the exertion left the telepath near death, able only to convey a feeble psionic message which sent the team hunting for Bruce Banner in Nevada.

Apparently, the two cerebral heavyweights had previously and secretly collaborated on a gamma-powered device which might now be able to save and restore the fallen Xavier…

However the harried young heroes, in their hasty attempt to save their mentor, forgot one crucial fact: when you hunt Banner what you usually end up with is an immensely irate Incredible Hulk…

The resulting destructive debacle wrecked a lot of landscape but throughout the extended brouhaha, the Hulk seemed to be subconsciously leading the titanic teens to his hidden desert lab where the prototype Gamma Stimulator was stashed.

Despite colossal carnage and inevitable US Army interference the gadget was recovered and the Professor saved…

Flipping now to the front of the book, the main event reveals a previously undisclosed follow-up encounter published as Savage Hulk #1-4 (August to November 2014) ‘The Man within’ and opens with TV coverage of the Nevada battle being carefully scrutinised by Gamma-spawned evil super-genius The Leader. The sinister savant soon gleans a connection between the mutant warriors and their previously unsuspected boss Charles Xavier…

The Hulk meanwhile is fending of another furious attack by the military even as back in Westchester County the recuperating Xavier examines the life-saving device and realises Banner had completed it to cure himself of his emerald alter ego. The mutant mentor soon discovers why it didn’t work on the tragic titanic transformer. It needed a telepathic trigger…

Convinced he can return the favour and finally cure Banner, guilty, grateful Professor X accompanies Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Havok and magnetic warrior Lorna Dane back to Nevada and Banner’s clandestine laboratory. They are all blithely unaware that The Leader has already staked the place out…

The frenzied fugitive at the heart of the matter meanwhile has been found by a well-meaning elderly couple whose offer of assistance leads to unbridled terror as the timid down-and-out suddenly shapeshifts into a mountain of angry green muscle…

Nearby the X-Men have been ambushed by the murderous, monstrous Abomination, who is also hunting for the Hulk and their titanic tussle soon intrudes on the Jade Giant’s agonised antics…

The three-way war immediately escalates after the army closes in, all guns blazing, but the merely human military are swiftly driven back by the mutants, leaving the Hulk to totally trash his gamma-powered nemesis single handed.

In the quiet aftermath, Marvel Girl uses her own still-developing telepathy to quell the victorious Hulk’s rage and re-manifest the deeply traumatised Bruce. Soon the physicist is conferring with Xavier and preparing to be rid of his ominous other for all time, but as their salvation device is set in motion none are aware that deadly threat is nearby, awaiting the perfect moment to strike…

Shock follows shock as the procedure goes awry with the hulk’s gamma-energy migrating to Marvel Girl, creating a bellicose green giantess reeling with incomprehensible psionic power.

…And that’s when The Leader makes his move at the head of an army of mechanoids and a legion of the Hulk’s old foes…

Only Xavier is aware that things are not entirely what they seem and is capable of combating the true source of the fantastic threat, aided by the Hulk’s most incredible gamma-fuelled transformation yet…

Also included in this splendid and explosively entertaining epistle are the original covers by Davis, Farmer, Val Staples, Matt Hollingsworth & Brad Andersen plus Marie Severin & Grainger’s 1969 classic image, and a selection of variants from John Cassaday, Alex Ross, Ryan Stegman, Jim Starlin and Dale Keown.

Cleverly conceived, beautifully illustrated, riotously action-packed and stunningly suspenseful, this tale of triumph and tragedy is pure vintage Marvel Mastery, ably augmented by the original inspirational yarn from the end of a unique era and offering readers young and old a magnificent chance to re-experience the glory days of the House of Ideas.

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Inhuman: Genesis


By Charles Soule, Ryan Stegman, Joe Madureira, Marte Gracia & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-623-6

During mega-crossover blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and clashed with The Inhumans‘ ruler Black Bolt. The almighty monarchs wrestled to a standstill and, as a last resort, the embattled Inhuman king crashed the flying city of Attilan onto New York and into the Hudson River. This act was simultaneously linked to a release of the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions.

Follow-up event Inhumanity traced the effects of that global inundation as millions of mortals were killed or transformed by Terrigen fallout, proving that Human and Inhuman were not necessarily different races…

The Inhumans came into existence 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the genetics of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.

Millennia later Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race that subsequently developed, took that meddling to its ultimate end by devising the Terrigen Mist process, which enabled citizens to mutate into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power.

The measure originally met with much opposition and many citizens of Attilan quit the city forever, setting up their own isolated enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their less evolved cousins.

Even as Inhumans retreated further into myth, isolation and dogma, and lately moved away from earth to carve place in the wild voids of deep space, their alien-altered genetic heritage was slowly spreading and disseminating throughout baseline humankind.

Now the Terrigen cloud slowly mixing with the biosphere has activated all those dormant genes, metamorphosing unsuspected millions into new lives and forms.

All this came to the attention of global guardians The Avengers when Inhuman royal diplomat Karnak became their unlikely prisoner. In comfortable custody, the wily warrior described the last moments of the mobile metropolis, how his people evacuated the doomed city and passed en masse through the chimerical living teleport door Eldrac; scattered to the place that living portal deemed they “most needed to be”…

Whilst Karnak ruminated, his cousin Queen Medusa arrived. Believing herself widowed and facing the shattering burden of saving her people without the aid of the messianic Black Bolt, she was further shaken when her ferociously logic-enslaved kinsman continued his evaluations and calculations until, suddenly arriving at an inescapable conclusion he simply would not abide, he killed himself before her eyes…

Since that moment Medusa and the world’s metahuman heroes have sought to contain the crisis, but the rise of many factions – from criminal scientists and exploitative geneticists to full-blooded rogue Inhumans (like exiled former king The Unspoken) – all seeking to monopolise the transformative pods and super-powered “NuHumans” are making the task increasingly difficult.

The job is even further complicated by the recent emergence of clandestine Inhuman colonies which have hidden themselves from both humanity and the denizens of Attilan for thousand of years also seeking to steal or recruit their share of the exposed and mutated new people…

Collecting Inhuman #1-6 (from June 2013 to November 2014), the epic Genesis of a race in crisis resumes as Queen Medusa struggles to integrate the many scattered factions of Attilan Inhuman, returning – and often hostile – “lost tribes” and burgeoning NuHumans into a united whole.

The tale of ‘The Queen in the Sky’ by writer Charles Soule, illustrators Ryan Stegman & Joe Madureira and colourist Marte Gracia begins in Bergen as the Terrigen cloud forever changes another horrified mortal, whilst in New York Medusa is informed that long-missing Eldrac has been finally located…

Back in Norway Nuhuman Kristian is shaken from shock by a wild creature named Lash who offers his own skewed and biased take on Inhuman history and a lethally partisan doctrine of survival worthiness. The ferocious judge hails from the clandestine enclave of Orrolan and believes that only the truly deserving should benefit from the blessing of Terrigen transformation…

In Battery Park the Queen patiently negotiates with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have mistaken Eldrac for a piece of rubble. That done she then passes through his psychically-triggered portal to land in Illinois in the middle of a firefight…

She is just in time to save pregnant Gabriela, her brother-in-law Dante and the ghastly cocoon-pod which used to be their mother from Lash’s murderous attack. The Darwinian scourge of NuHumans is delighted to be held at bay by Dante’s furious flame-throwing abilities and chooses to withdraw instead of facing the furious Medusa…

The next chapter finds Dante and family safely ensconced in the remains of Attilan where it rests as the Hudson River’s latest island and resisting the urgings and insistent probings of Inhuman surgeon Vinatos. The short-tempered doctor is unable to make these latest converts understand that their mother has failed transformation and simply died within her cocoon…

There is a more urgent matter to be addressed, however. Dante’s tendency to explode into uncontrollable flammable fury is posing a danger to all and Medusa assigns her cousin and chief warlord Gorgon to teach the boy control.

His methods are brutal but extremely effective…

Gabriela is a problem less easily handled. Although she has not – apparently – been affected by the Mist cloud, her unborn baby has…

As Medusa entertains human envoy Captain America – visiting the tiny sovereign state in a friendly and not-at-all official capacity – in Brooklyn former gangster Lineage rehearses for his own impromptu audience. He feels his newly gained ability to glean knowledge from anybody he shares DNA with – ancient or modern – will be of great interest to the embattled queen, but will have to wait as news comes in that A.I.M. agents are attempting to confiscate a fragment of Attilan from Central Park…

The bloody battle is mercifully brief once she and the Sentinel of Liberty join forces to end the murderous endeavour…

In the aftermath the Queen uses her people’s advanced technology to broadcast a message to the world inviting everyone touched by Terrigen transformation to become part of the new nation of Attilan, but her big day out ends on a shocking note when Lineage finally approaches with hints of much-missed husband Black Bolt’s intentions at the moment he instigated the Terrigen release…

Issue #3 finds Lash back in Orrolan with a boy named Jason: someone who has survived his first test of worthiness. The lad is then introduced to other super-powered residents but cannot help wonder what their uncompromising mentor’s final game plan is…

In Attilan Dante’s training is going well and Gabby suggests that his new Inhuman name should be “Inferno”. The title seems to inspire him and he begs to be allowed to join the secret squad Medusa is leading against Lash…

The surprise invasion of Orrolan is shockingly sudden and the subsequent battle savage and short. Jason – AKA Flint – exacts massive damage through his control of stone and rock, but the Queen’s goal is not conquest but union. When Lash hears what Lineage has to say he reluctantly withdraws his opposition to her plans and rule…

With Lash’s charges now part of the constantly-expanding population of Attilan, the next chapter sees the introduction of enigmatic seeker “Reader” who spectacularly saves young Nuhuman Xiaoyi from a division of Chinese soldiers rooting out potential “security threats” to the People’s Republic.

Whilst that’s occurring, on Attilan island thunder god Thor is on hand when Medusa opens the borders to human tourists and traders. The event almost ends in a bloodbath when assassins try to kill her, but after the Avenger and Inferno apprehend the shooters only the queen is unsurprised to find her assailants are all NuHumans…

As Lineage works behind the scenes, cautiously ingratiating himself to anybody of potential use to him, Medusa experiences a massive shock when her nation’s greatest monster resurfaces with an astounding demand…

Long ago Black Bolt and his cousins Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak impossibly overthrew the reigning king – the most powerful Inhuman ever born. The monarch had overstepped his authority and stole the race’s most puissant weapon, the Terrigen-fuelled Slave Engine.

The device was created to balance the scales should the teeming hordes of humanity ever attack the pitifully small race of outcasts, but the complacent and too-soft King deemed it an abomination; stealing and hiding it from his fellows.

Although defeated and banished he would not return it, and for his crime his name was stricken from all records and was forever “Unspoken”. When he returned in recent times all pretence of nobility was abandoned and he tried to eradicate humanity and conquer the world…

The story resumes here and now in ‘Empty Throne’ as the villain – now wizened, aged and powerless – repeats an offer of marriage to Medusa, declaring his right and ability to lead the Inhumans to glory. When that ploy fails he tries to convince the appalled and still grieving Medusa that he knows where vanished Black Bolt is…

Across the water in Greenwich Village Inferno is listening to Jason’s incredible life story. The African boy had been adopted by American parents but only learned after the Terrigen outbreak that he had been born into one lost tribe of Inhumans and brought to the USA by another. By the time Lash found him Jason was the only survivor of the body-warping fallout…

Medusa knows that the fallen king’s true purpose is to ferret out any remaining Terrigen to restore his faded powers and locks the audacious scoundrel up. It is exactly what The Unspoken intended and he uses his ages-old technical knowledge of the fallen city to uncover one last stash of the miracle crystals and take over…

When Dante, Jason and new NuHuman friend Naja try to return to Attilan they are brusquely turned away by armed guards. Realising something bad is happening and desperate to get back to Gabby, Inferno leads a three-person commando raid and, with the aid of Dr. Vinatos, succeeds in tipping the balance back in Medusa’s favour in a brutal ‘Trial by Fire’.

The cost however is both tragic and horrific…

With the Unspoken securely imprisoned, Lineage again begins his games within games, secretly taunting the defeated usurper with stolen Terrigen crystals as he reveals that he truly knows where Black Bolt is… and who’s got him…

To Be Continued…

Blending themes of growth and alienation with hearty slices of excessive action and political intrigue, Inhuman: Genesis also offers a gallery of 11 covers-&-variants by Stegman, Madureira, Gracia, Jeff Scott Campbell, Humberto Ramos and Ed McGuinness, and comes with a selection of digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Suspenseful, dramatic, action-packed and brandishing a potent metaphorical message, this is a compelling and entertaining slice of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction to satisfy the most jaded comicbook palates.

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.