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Miracleman Book One: A Dream of Flying


By the Original Writer, Mick Anglo, Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Don Lawrence, Steve Dillon & Paul Neary (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-621-2

I got my start in comics as the most junior of juniors on Warrior and it was an incredible learning experience. However, producing arguably Britain’s most influential comic magazine was a tense, fraught, high energy, cauldron-like existence and some of those comrades in arms barely talk to each these days.

That’s part of the story behind the fact that the incredible author of most of the stories in this premier compilation doesn’t want his name anywhere near it.

As that’s the case I’m happy to respect his wishes. It is a shame, though, as this is a work which changed the shape and nature of superhero comics forever, even if during the latter days of it in Warrior we all thought the bloody thing was cursed…

If you’re interested in rumour, speculation and/or ancient history, there are plenty of places online to visit for other information, but today let’s just discuss one of the very best superhero stories ever crafted…

This British premier hardback from Marvel/Panini UK is a lavish, remastered re-presentation of the original A Dream of Flying trade paperback, stuffed with extra story content and page after page of lush behind the scenes material, production art and more.

Just in case you weren’t aware: the hero of this tome was originally created by jobbing artist and comics packager Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller and Son in 1954 to replace a line of extremely popular British weekly reprints starring the Marvel Family as originally generated by US outfit Fawcett.

When a decade-long court case between them and National/DC over copyright infringement ended at the same time the superhero trend nosedived in America, Fawcett simply closed down most of its comics line, overnight depriving the British firm of one of its most popular reprint strands.

In a feat of slippery brilliance, Anglo rapidly retooled defunct Yank heroes Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel into Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman; detailing their simplistic , charming adventures until 1963, when falling sales and changing tastes finally caught up with them all and they vanished into comicbook limbo.

In 1982 the characters and concepts were picked up by Dez Skinn for his proposed new independent and proudly British venture and eventually magic was created…

The second end began when a certain US comics publisher started suing Warrior for using the word “Marvel” even though when Marvelman was created they were still calling themselves “Atlas”.

A truism of modern life is that money trumps fact every time…

This volume opens with ‘Prologue 1956: The Invaders from the Future’ (originally created by Anglo and the great Don Lawrence but subtly tweaked by our unnamed “original writer”) as a scene-setting foretaste of what might have been before the deconstructionist main event opens.

In that idealised past epoch, invulnerable time-travellers from 1981 are beaten back by the intrepid trio of superheroes before the real story begins in the drab, humdrum and utterly ordinary world of Thatcherite Britain, circa 1982…

Over-the-hill freelance journalist Mike Moran is plagued by ‘A Dream of Flying’ (illustrated by Garry Leach) as a godlike gleaming superman before being blown up by atom bombs…

This morning, however, he can’t let it stop him getting to the opening of the new atomic power station at Larksmere, even if his concentration is ruined by another of his crippling headaches and the agonising, frustration of a word he’s forgotten lurking just beyond the tip of his tongue…

The press launch is an unmitigated disaster. When a band of terrorists attack the site Mike collapses and while he’s being dragged off something happens. That word comes back to him and, in a catastrophic salvo of heat and light and noise he transforms into the creature of his dreams before comprehensively dealing with the gunmen and flying off into space…

In ‘Legends’ the glittering paragon returns to Mike’s wife and attempts to explain the impossible events and his restored memories of being a superhero in Fifties Britain. Liz Moran cannot help but laugh at the canon of ridiculous absurdities this incredible creature spouts even if to all intents and purposes he is her husband. After all, if his restored memories are correct, why has nobody ever heard of him?

The insane situation is exacerbated next morning ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’. Technological guru and self-made billionaire John Bates calls and Mike remembers the amiable little lad with superpowers who was caught in the same atomic blast which eradicated his own memories.

After he and Liz visit the mogul, Mike realises with horror that his fawning kid partner never changed back but has been slowly using his gifts to dominate the world for the last eighteen years…

Rumbled, Bates ferociously attacks in ‘Dragons’, using abilities which have grown and evolved in two decades of constant if covert use to beat the recently returned Miracleman near to death. The appalling supra-normal duel devastates much of London, only ending in ‘Fallen Angels, Forgotten Thunder’ when the smugly overconfident former Kid Miracleman accidentally defeats himself…

The first inklings of the truth begin to emerge in ‘Secret Identity’ (pencilled by Alan Davis with Leach inking) as Sir Dennis Archer of mothballed, clandestine organisation “The Spookshow” despatches his top assassin to find and sanction a threat he’s thought eradicated in a flash of atomic fire decades past.

Mike and Liz meanwhile head for Dartmoor to test Miracleman’s abilities in private.

Their marriage has suffered since the initial transformation, especially as Mike insists he and his alter-ego are two different people and Miracleman has got Liz pregnant…

Davis took over all the art chores with ‘Blue Murder’ as highly capable hitman Evelyn Cream tracks down and brilliantly takes out Mike. By the advent of ‘Out of the Dark’ the enigmatic killer has inexplicably switched sides, aiding Miracleman as he seeks out the truth of his origins in a top secret military bunker which contains deadly defences, another, lesser superhuman and more.

‘Inside Story’ reveals recovered and reversed engineered alien DNA technologies, cruel and callous genetic experimentation and a deranged, debauched scientist who grew supermen and programmed them to compliance using comicbook fantasies in ‘Zarathustra’…

To Be Continued…

The remainder of this stunning collection is rounded out with intriguing snippets and sidebars from Warrior‘s then-gestating shared universe beginning with ‘Saturday Morning Pictures’ – illustrated by Davis as a framing device from the Marvelman Special – which originally featured a number of classic, remastered Anglo-era adventures (sadly not included here) and a fascinating peek into what might have been in A Glimpse into the Future…

Warrior #4 was sold as a summer special in August 1982 and led with a bold fill-in set three years in the then-future. The long-term plan had been to create a “Justice League” of Warrior characters and ‘The Yesterday Gambit’ – with art by Davis, Steve Dillon and Paul Neary – starred two of them in an interlude from their final battle with an ultimate nemesis.

The plot involved trans-dimensional teleporting alien samurai Aza Chorn ferrying Miracleman through time to battle himself at different stages of his career and harvesting the expended energies of the combats to use against their unstoppable future foe…

Following that tantalising and portentous introduction The Warpsmiths eventually received their own 2-part tale, reproduced here in captivating full colour and introducing the bizarre and exotic realms the militaristic peacekeepers are sworn to defend.

Tragically the unending, extended conflict with their cosmic antithesis The Qys results in constant, deadly politicking and here innocent kids and two members of their own Warpsmith cadre are sacrificed to expediency in as ‘Cold War, Cold Warrior’ (gloriously rendered and hued by Leach).

The nomadic multiplanar policemen returned in ‘Ghostdance’ (originally published in A1 #1, October 1989) in a direct continuation of that story as the surviving dutiful sentinels grieve and move on in their own uniquely inexplicable manner…

With the story portion concluded, this bonanza chronicle devotes the remaining 59 pages to ‘Miracleman Behind the Scenes’, offering an wealth of pre-production work: sketches, design roughs, pencilled panels and complete original art, colour-indications, pertinent ads, pin-ups and covers by Leach and Mick Austin.

Finishing off the show is spectacular covers and variants gallery of the 26 new images by Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, Richard Isanove, John Cassady, Paul Mounts, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Laura Martin, Skottie Young, Mark Buckingham, D’Israeli, Jerome Opena, Dean Dean White, Leach, Steve Oliff, Neal Adams, Frank Martin, Davis, Mark Farmer, Arthur Adams, Peter Steigerwald, Mike Perkins, Andy Troy, Mike McKone, Paulo Rivera, Mike Deodato, Rain Beredo, J.G Jones, Javier Rodriguez, John Tyler Christopher, Gerald Parel and Bryan Hitch for Marvel’s 2013 relaunch.

One of the greatest superhero comics sagas ever. There’s nothing else to say…
© 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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Set to Sea


By Drew Weing (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-771-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Alluring, Tantalising and totally Satisfying… 9/10

Graphic novels have been around long enough now that certain subdivisions have developed.

Many are superhero sagas stuffed with visual Sturm & Drang, others canny crime capers, haunting horror stories or quirky comedies. Age targeting and other demographics apply too, with some books intended for mature readers whilst others are designed to appeal mostly to youngsters.

Happily there are still those others which defy simple categorisation: the heartfelt results of earnest, talented creators letting themselves go where their unfettered imaginative minds take them. Sometimes they’re simply a good strong tale, beautifully told and universally appealing.

Such a craftsman is Drew Weing, who currently delights with his web-comic The Creepy Files of Margo Maloo, but first came to notice with a subversively mesmerising tale of maritime fortitude in 2010.

Now that sublime and out-of-print yarn is back as a deliciously handy, pocket-sized softcover reissue that will – if there’s any justice – finally make him a household name amongst lovers of tall tales and comic treasures.

This beguiling, irresistibly stirring salty saga follows an indigent poet and aspiring barfly with a taste for maritime verse whose lack of true inspiration is dramatically cured when he is press-ganged aboard a Hong-Kong Clipper and forcibly learns the true life of a globe-girdling mariner.

Initially resistant to a life afloat, a terrifying brush with death and battle against rapacious pirates opens the poet’s eye and forces him to accept the only life he could ever truly enjoy.

As the years and a myriad of exotically different lands pass by he even manages, whilst traversing the world for joyous, raucous decades, to satisfy his artistic leanings into the bargain and finally discover where his heart truly lies…

Magically circular in structure and beautifully drawn in a worshipful blend of Elzie Segar, traditional woodcut prints and, I suspect, a touch of Jeff Smith’s Bone and Tony Millionaire’ wonderful confections (see Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury) this superbly rough ‘n’ tumble monochrome epic collects the impressive original online comic into a salty, panel-per-page paean to the value of true experience over romantic fantasy, and even manages to be a telling examination of the role of the arts in life.

A true graphic odyssey which any lover of a dream-life must see, this eternally fresh yet solid entertainment is a genuine “must read”.

Captain’s Orders…
© 2014 Drew Weing. All rights reserved.

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Lego Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu volumes 1 and 2


By Greg Farshtey, Paulo Henrique & Laurie E. Smith (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-192-1 (volume 1); ISBN: 978-1-78276-193-8 (volume 2)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal, cheap & cheerful Stocking Stuffers… 9/10

Toys, games, licensed characters and products have been profitable fodder for comics for the last half-century at least. Since the 1980s children’s television has been just another showroom for an increasingly strident pantheon of robots, dragons, dinosaurs and the like.

However, whatever your opinion of that fact, what can’t be denied is that most of those shows carried in their wake tie-in comics, many of which have been a new generation’s gateway into the world of graphic narrative… and I deem that a Very Good Thing.

One of the biggest multimedia franchises on the planet at the moment is Lego – which has steadily grown from the inspirational bundles of building bricks I used to jam into ingeniously spiky missiles to lob at my little brother – into a vastly expansive, nigh-infinite canvas of characters, settings, scenarios and story potentials with which youngsters and adults can while away the idle hours.

The savvy chaps behind the ubiquitous über-toy have also commissioned proprietary universes for their product, such as the world of Lego Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu where the dramas and memes of martial arts movies have been reconstituted into a winning heroic formula for fun and action loving kids…

As any Fule Kno… the ebullient fantasy concoction launched in 2011, following on from an earlier ninja-based iteration, subsequently releasing hundreds of themed characters and toy sets, vehicles, monsters and dragons, video games, apps, a board game, a TV cartoon series, music album and lots more, all supported by an official website.

…And a series of kid-friendly graphic novels.

Published by Papercutz in the USA and Titan Comics in Britain, the splendidly engaging comic strip romps are complete mini sagas scripted by Greg Farshtey, drawn by Paulo Henrique and coloured by Laurie E. Smith, offering light-hearted adventures to delight and charm the young at heart.

Volume 1: The Challenge of Samukai!
Debut volume The Challenge of Samukai! opens with a stunning gallery of star pin-ups and a handy map of feudal wonder-world Ninjago before cunningly recapitulating past events in ‘The Wager Part One’ as Samukai, Lord of the Underworld muses on his current unhappy situation.

His rule is being undermined by wicked, formerly mortal interloper Garmadon. The vile newcomer is also interfering with the underlord’s plans to conquer the surface world. Their seething rivalry is about to result in open warfare when they decide on a last-chance bet to settle the situation…

Reviewing the history of his enemy in ‘Origins’, Samukai again sees how the brother of noble teacher and paragon Sensei Wu tried to steal the puissant Four Golden Weapons only to be defeated and banished to the underworld for millennia.

During that time Wu hid the weapons and led a valiant, honourable life devoted to the martial discipline of Spinjitzu, but when Garmadon eventually escaped hell to attack him with an army of skeleton warriors the elderly sage was defeated.

Retrenching, Master Wu recruited and trained four young men to be his assistants and agents. Cole, Zane, Jay and foolish, headstrong blacksmith Kai (plus the rowdy last disciple’s sister Nya) eventually carried on for Wu and ensured the Golden Weapons remained out of Garmadon’s clutches.

Now the evil rivals are wagering sole rule of the underworld and Ninjago to the one who defeats the young warriors and finds the hidden auric artefacts…

The struggle begins in ‘Turn About’ as red ninja Kai is lured into a mystic trap and ensorcelled so that he appears as a skeleton monster to his brothers in arms.

Thankfully his speed and wits are enough to counter the ploy just as Samukai ambushes black ninja Cole, forcing him to face ‘A Choice of Dooms’. Observational and deductive skill prove far more effective than his super-speed fighting style…

The Four Ninja are undergoing one of Sensei Wu’s elucidatory tests when they fall into ‘The Trap’ but soon turn the tables on gloating Samukai who is sent fleeing back to his drear kingdom where ‘The Wager Part Two’ sees him face down the triumphant Garmadon and narrowly secure a new and precarious détente…

Volume 2: Mask of the Sensei
The non-stop rollercoaster thrills continue in volume 2 as Mask of the Sensei – after some more pin-ups and maps – finds Kai and his sister Nya called to the scene of an accident in their village. Mighty Sensei Wu has been hit by an ox cart and lies dangerously ill…

Thanks to their dutiful ministrations he slowly pulls through but as he quits his sickbed they notice that he seems a little out of sorts. The venerable sage has had a vision. In order to best protect Ninjago, his four students must conquer the world and rule it under him…

Worrying that the head injuries have deranged Wu, Kai dispatches Nya to fetch his warrior comrades whilst he keeps an eye on the Master. The aged savant is charming and plausible as he begins a program of strange improvements, such as fortifying the village and harshly taxing the peasants, deflecting their complaints with beguiling stories of future riches for all, but Kai knows something is very wrong…

By the time the other ninjas arrive Kai is gone “on a special mission” and Wu has equally mysterious tasks for all of them, with the fate of the world at stake.

Soon the heroes are ranging far and wide to recover impossible treasures such as “dust from a raging river” and a “snowball from the Great Desert” whilst in a deep underground cave Kai and the real Sensei strive to free themselves from an impossible trap…

Even once they are free and the Four Ninjas reunited, how can they possible defeat the malign shape-shifting foe who has escaped from the darkest regions of the underworld to take over the world with his equally appalling army of identity stealing cohorts?

Fast, funny, smartly plotted and expertly accomplished, this brace of tales is sure to enthral boisterous youngsters everywhere and, as surely by now every kid gets Lego for Christmas, why not get yours a version that they can read over and over again …and perhaps even develop a notionally quieter collecting bug with?
LEGO & Ninjago are ™ the Lego Group. © 2014 the Lego Group. All rights reserved.

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The Penny Dreadful Collection: Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula


Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: What Every Home Should Have… 10/10

Generally I’m wittering on about a specific story or book but today I’m recommending a combined artefact which should reinvigorate some of the greatest, most mythic modern fantasy tales for a new generation – and which communally comprise an ideal gift for Halloween or Christmas for anyone of a literary bent or who just loves books and stories.

We’re in the midst of a minor Gothic revival at the moment, and in April of this year Showtime and Sky Atlantic began broadcasting Penny Dreadful: a dark mash up of Victorian fantasy icons which seemed to push all the right buttons for a substantial portion of the global audience.

In conjunction with that small screen event Titan Books reissued the original prose masterpieces which between them pretty much invented the genre of scary stories.

On TV the protagonist of each groundbreaking classic has been craftily re-imagined for the jaded and sophisticated tastes of contemporary viewers but to my mind there’s nothing better than the originals, and these are books everybody should have read…

I’m not going to waste my time, or insult your intelligenced with detail précis of these landmark tomes, but I will assure you that each complete and unabridged, substantial and luxurious prestige hardback is a joy to read and possess.

Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus
By Mary Shelley with 8 original illustrations by Louie de Martinis (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-363-6

Written by the precious and formidably bright Mary Shelley when she was 18, the prototype horror novel was originally published anonymously in 1818.

The result of a traumatic dream, it details the life and follies of an obsessed scientist who succeeds in his dream of creating life and learns over hard, painful years to repent his folly.

Utterly gripping, it lays claim to being both the first true horror and science fiction novel…

The Picture of Dorian Gray
By Oscar Wilde with 6 original illustrations by Ian Bass (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-365-0

Oscar Wilde’s only novel began life as a serial in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1891 where it scandalised London Society despite being savagely censored before publication.

Undaunted, Wilde revised and expanded his Faustian tale of art and philosophy into a scathing social critique as it described the cautionary tale of a decadent young man whose outer beauty remained unchanged whilst a prefect portrait gradually recorded and showed every punishing mark of his debauched life.

Dracula
By Bram Stoker with 6 original illustrations by Martin Stiff (Titan Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-78329-364-3

Released in 1897, this pivotal novel of mystery and terror found few fans during the author’s lifetime, but achieved global acclaim during the early days of cinema.

This epistolary tale of an undying, debased and demonic noble from the feudal Balkans who attempts to create a new kingdom at the heart of the British Empire, opposed by a Man of Knowledge a girl of fierce determination and band of heroic stalwarts reshaped popular literature and remains unsurpassed in terms of influence to this day.

Text design throughout © 2014 Titan Books. All Rights Reserved. Illustrations ™ and © 2014 Showtime Networks Inc. All Rights reserved.

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Hacktivist


By Alyssa Milano, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Marcus To, Ian Herring & Deron Bennett (Archaea Black Library)
ISBN: 978-1-60886-409-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Sharing is Everything… 8/10

The world is radically altering every minute but some things never change: eternal verities like oppression and the hunger for freedom, greed and idealism, friendship and betrayal…

Following ‘A Note to the Reader’ from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, an astounding tale begins when a band of desperate dissidents narrowly avoids capture by the draconian Tunisian military. It seems the latest outbreak of popular democracy is doomed to failure until the last rebels of the “Arab Spring” improbably receive a wireless signal from the most notorious hacker collective on Earth.

The message to “.sve_Urs3lf” is accompanied by the updated facility to penetrate the oppressive government’s firewalls, enabling Sirine and her fellow fugitives to break through the dictatorship’s isolating cyber-borders and communicate with other dissidents as well as the outside world…

In San Francisco, the Robin Hoods behind the message allow themselves a glow of pride. Prodigies Nate Graft and Ed Hiccox sit back and watch as the Tunisian people rise, before getting back to their day jobs as the billionaire boy wonders who created and own YourLife: Earth’s most successful and ubiquitous decentralised social network…

Although to the public flashy Nate is cool corporate aplomb and shy Ed the diffident brain-box problem-solver, both young men share the dream of forcing through true and fair social evolution… only these days Graft seems increasingly distracted by the glamour and wealth whilst earnest Mr. Hiccox acts ever-more dissatisfied and impatient with the rate of progress…

As Nate parties at gala benefits and shows off his latest technological tricks, Ed sits alone, tapping keys and making progress on the big picture. Both are utterly unaware that their world is about to spin crazily out of control…

The first move is made by gorgeous Brynn Ori who targets Graft at a party. Her seductive soft-soap come-on soon fades though when Graft refuses to bite. That’s when she reveals her position in the CIA’s Cyber Command and makes Nate a truly tempting offer he really should not decline…

The story she tells is most convincing and soon Nate has even convinced his deeply suspicious partner to accept the offer – and the immense amount of cash Brynn is offering.

Also on the table is full amnesty for their illicit activities and the complete backing of the Government and its formidable resources in a noble mission to truly free Tunisia.

Despite a pointed confrontation between Ed and Brynn the endeavour soon gets underway and before long the military regime is on the verge of collapse thanks to a concerted cyber-attack and the rising of the people…

Unfortunately that’s when Brynn and the US government show their true colours and Nate finds himself at odds with everything he ever believed in.

Not so for his best friend, though, as Ed has already vanished. Despite a world-wide manhunt for America’s “Number One Threat”, he shows up in Tunis, joins Sirine and starts using his unique gifts the way he always dreamed of…

As the uprising gets its second wind, what follows is a tense, diamond-hard and laser sharp confrontation between the old system and the world that’s coming as two friends clash and finally prove which is best – ambition or expediency…

Fraught with action, tragedy, hope and a crazily cathartic conclusion that will delight starry-eyed young idealists and jaded old drama addicts alike, Hacktivist is a truly cooperative effort: the idea of actress, producer, philanthropist and UNICEF Ambassador Alyssa Milano given form by screen writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, illustrator Marcus To, colourist Ian Herring and letterer Deron Bennett whose compelling and groundbreaking miniseries has been lovingly gathered into a superb and luxurious hardcover compilation.

This absorbing, beguiling chronicle comes stuffed with valued added extras such as ‘Hackers on Hactivist’ – an interview with inventor and actual campaigning hacker Pablos Holman – and behind-the-scenes features ‘Building YourLife’ and ‘On Site in Tunisia’ as well as the now-standard biographical info in ‘About the Creators’.

A stunning piece of fictive brilliance work, this yarn might even tempt your mum and dad to dabble about on the web…

Hacktivist is ™ & © 2014 Alyssa Milano. All Rights Reserved.

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Kill My Mother (Advance Reading Copy)


By Jules Feiffer (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
ISBN: 978-0-87140-314-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Smart, Sharp and Perfectly Put Together… 9/10

Jules Ralph Feiffer has always been much more than “just a comic-book guy” even though his credits in the field are sound and suitably impressive. As well as working with Will Eisner on The Spirit, he created his own Sunday strip ‘Clifford’ (1949-51) before settling at the Village Voice for a Pulitzer Prize winning run.

Novelist, playwright, animator, children’s book creator (why isn’t there a single word or term for those guys?), teacher and screenwriter, he turned his back on cartooning in 2000, but the 42-year run of his satirical comic strip in The Village Voice ranks as some of the most telling, trenchant, plaintive and perspicacious narrative art in the history of the medium.

The strip, originally entitled Sick, Sick, Sick, then Feiffer’s Fables, before simply becoming Feiffer was quickly picked up by the Hall Syndicate and garnered a devoted world wide following, with many collections appearing over the years since the first book in 1958.

His incisive examination of American society and culture, as expressed through politics, art, television, cinema, work, philosophy, advertising and most especially in the way men and women interact, informed and shaped opinions and challenged accepted thought for generations. They were bloody funny and wistfully sad too – and still are today.

However his creative credits extend far beyond the world of print: he was one of the playwrights on stage revue Oh! Calcutta! (with Kenneth Tynan, Edna O’Brien, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Samuel Beckett & John Lennon) and has created 35 plays, books and screenplays including Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders. In 1961 his animated short feature Munro won an Oscar.

In 1965 he kickstarted acedemic American comic fandom with his celebratory evaluation The Great Comic Book Heroes and in 1979 he was at the forefront of the creation of graphic novels with Tantrum before scripting Robert Altman’s much-undervalued Popeye movie (released a year later).

He has a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of America, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, and 2004 saw him inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and simultaneously receive the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2006 saw him awarded the Creativity Foundation’s Laureate.

Now after years as a cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at the age of 85 (having been born in the Bronx on 26th January 1929) he has returned to his primary role of storyteller with another gripping and innovative graphic novel.

…And what a yarn he’s spun…

Spanning ten turbulent years, Kill My Mother is a supremely classy tribute to Film Noir, Hollywood Babylon, sexual politics and family secrets, blending the trappings of Dashiell Hammett with the tone, pacing and spark of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to tell an extended story of love, murder, jealousy and revenge.

It all begins in ‘Bay City Blues’. It’s 1933 and times are tough. Fifteen year old Annie Hannigan is cutting up, constantly leading poor, gullible sap Artie Folsom into trouble, whilst the mother she despises works all hours for dissolute, dipsomaniac and exceedingly cheap private investigator Neil Hammond.

The odd arrangement developed after the shamus agreed to investigate the murder of Elsie Hannigan‘s husband, whom he constantly refers to as the wrong sort of honest cop.

Events take a dark turn when stylish, exceedingly tall man-eater Mae Longo walks in offering outrageous sums if the shamus can track down a certain woman. The photo she gives him shows a woman remarkably like his coolly aloof new client…

Eddie “the Dancing Master” Longo is a rising star of the fight game who usually employs shady and capable gorilla Tiny Tim Gaffney to handle the more unsavoury problems in his life but Neil claims he knows how to handle him…

In the course of her mean-spirited, casual rebellions Annie gets poor Artie into real trouble when a shoplifting binge results in a pursuit by a store detective far faster than he looks. A very nasty beating is only avoided when an exceptionally tall derelict in an alley lays out the private cop with her carefully concealed baseball bat…

The rattled teen takes the tramp back to the apartment and cleans her up even as Elsie, very much against her will and better judgement, is dragged by soused-as-ever Neil to the Big Fight to see the Dancing Master.

The escapade almost costs her everything…

Her drunken boss’ plan to draw his tall target out of the woodwork also involves poor Elsie and leads to a lot of pain, trouble and strife, whilst Hammond, clearly a dipsomaniac with a death wish, starts dogging mysterious client Mae instead of doing the job he was hired for.

The result is a murder unsolved and unexplained for a decade…

The concluding half of the story resumes in 1943 with ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ as we return to our cast and find them all greatly advanced.

Goonish Artie is a Captain of Marines, successfully battling the Japanese in the Green Hell of the Pacific whilst Annie Hannigan is a writer and media darling. Her sensational hit comedy “Shut Up, Artie” is the most popular radio show in America and broadcast wherever Yanks are posted.

Eddie Longo has made the transition to B-Movie star and Ellen – when not babysitting her obstreperous grandson Sammy – is “Executive Vice President of Pinnacle Studios in charge of Image Security and Maintenance”…

The scary indigent little Annie met in an alley has also cleaned up and moved on. Now she sings torch songs in the Reno Roost as the enigmatic Lady Veil…

Eddy hates his life. The former hard-man boxer is trapped as a song-and-dance hoofer in big, morale-boosting musicals but dreams of major stardom like glamorous He-Man Hugh Patton or even an Academy Award, but is typecast and more under the thumb of the formidable Mae than ever.

The fraught status quo changes after Annie meets the dashing Patton at the Hollywood Canteen, but her romantic elation is crushed soon after when the sponsors call her in to discuss a crisis.

A genuine war hero is suing the show, claiming his life is being made a mockery. Unless she can fix things up with her old pal Artie, the show and her career are over…

Eddie is also near breaking point and Mae is forced to call in the thuggish Gaffney as a minder.

Events begin to spiral to a shocking conclusion when Longo joins a USO tour to the war-torn Pacific Islands. Patton is going too and Annie takes the opportunity to join him, as does her mother in the role of “image maintainer”…

The first port of call is Tarawa; the hellhole where Captain Arthur Folsom is almost single-handedly repulsing the Jap advance…

On the island Artie is overseeing the building of the stage for the visiting stars and marvelling at the stupidity of putting on a show in battleground still hotly contested by enemy forces. In the air above him Ellen has a sharp confrontation with Mae Longo and “bodyguard” Gaffney. The events of ten years ago are still painfully fresh in every participant’s mind.

By the time all the players debark on the island, a devious and supposedly foolproof plan to commit another perfect murder has been hatched, using the Japanese as ideal scapegoats, but intimate killing is far harder than mass slaughter and the scheme soon begins to unravel…

Complex, beguiling, smartly sophisticated, devastatingly witty and peppered with casual shocking violence as every noir thriller has to be, this is a spectacular yarn – available in both hardback and mass market paperback editions – packed with twists and surprises, where nobody is telling the truth and no-one is playing on the side of the angels.

A masterpiece of cool suspense, mature ingenuity and graphic dexterity, Kill My Mother offers a timeless, hearty slice of bravura storytelling that gets better with every re-reading.

If you love crime yarns, comic tales, nostalgia and having your intelligence respected, this is the book for you.
© 2014 Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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Kick-Ass 3


By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-072-7

Once upon a time, perennial High School no-hoper Dave Lizewski – a pitifully average and unhappy teenager who loved comicbooks – realised that he had no chance of being part of the school in-crowd. He hung out with the other geeks, talking TV, movies, funnybooks and wished he could have a perfect life and trophy girlfriend.

Then one day he had his big inspiration – he was going to be a masked superhero. All he needed was a costume and a gimmick. Oh, and a codename too…

Clad in a wetsuit bought online and filled with hope, Dave started patrolling the streets and promptly got beaten into a coma by three kids tagging a wall…

After months in hospital and with three metal plates in his skull, Dave eventually returned to school, but the compulsion had only grown stronger. Soon he was prowling the city again. This time a chance encounter was recorded on witnesses’ camera-phones and uploaded to YouTube…

An overnight internet sensation and supremely overconfident, Dave – or Kick-Ass – inspired a wave of copycats, got the most unwanted attention of organised crime and met the closest thing to real superheroes the world had ever seen…

Dave’s life went into deadly overdrive when he met diminutive Mindy McCready – AKA Hit-Girl – and her burly, brutish, utterly insane partner Big Daddy: cool, efficient ninjas of justice and everything he’d aspired to be but could never approach in a million years…

These armoured, gun-toting urban vigilantes were utter ciphers, stalking and destroying the operations of brutal Mafia boss Johnny Genovese with remorseless efficiency and in complete attention-shunning anonymity.

Before long Dave was drawn into their war and met fellow adventurer Red Mist, who turned out to be Genovese’s abused, geeky, psychotic son Chris: a bastard maniac in his own right.

Things got really out of hand and lots of people died. Mostly scumbags but some good people and a few innocent civilians too…

Now the saga comes to an explosive close as Kick-Ass 3 collects the final 8-part miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) from Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Tom Palmer and Dean White in one shattering deluxe hardback edition.

Previously, Red Mist had evolved into a truly psychotic and blood-drenched super-villain to counter a wave of costumed champions. In the aftermath superheroes were outlawed in New York, Dave and faithful masked pals Todd and Marty went undercover and the totally OTT Hit-Girl was arrested and sent to prison…

As the saga resumes the lads are reviewing a letter from the deadly tyke and planning to bust her out with the aid of a few costumed associates. However, life is not as clear cut as comicbooks and the scheme fails.

Life goes and the boys graduate, seeping into dead-end jobs whilst spending nights patrolling and training for their next attempt. Soon, though, tensions begin to rise as skeevy new hero The Juicer takes over the once-communal lair which was Mindy’s old tricked-out HQ. The gloating sod even moves in a girlfriend…

Disgusted, undeterred and resolved not to spoil things, Dave gets back to the streets. When a posse of gangbangers attempt to mug Kick-Ass the battle goes badly wrong before he is rescued by witness – and nurse – Valerie.

Greater events are afoot. Brutally maimed Chris Genovese is stuck in prison hospital awaiting trial when his uncle Rocco pays a visit. With the established hierarchy of organised crime decimated by Hit-Girl, the aged Don has returned from exile in Sicily.

He had been shipped off years ago when his deviant tastes and merciless depredations proved to be too much even for the Mafia.

Now he’s back and making a move to unite all the criminals in America under his rule – and he plans to make Chris his heir…

The self-proclaimed super-villain is a changed boy and wants no part of it, but Rocco has the police force on his payroll. Nobody ever says no to the Don…

The boy’s mother has had enough too, but when she sneaks into his room determined to execute her crazy child she catches some one else with the same idea…

Dave meanwhile has organised another attempt to spring Hit-Girl but even as he preps his motley crew the lass in question is facing down her latest psychiatrist.

The malevolent kid has spent the intervening months terrorising and pacifying the entire prison around her, whilst psychologically breaking a string of mental health professionals assigned to her, but Dr. Alex White is made of sterner stuff. The ruthless, remorseless headshrinker is determined to crush not cure the waif-like homicidal maniac, whatever it takes…

Dave is a man distracted. Although he has planned a raid on the mob as they fête the recently released Chris, his attention is mostly on Valerie. Thus the consequent attack is a disaster and the badly-scared mystery men barely get away with their lives…

In the cold light of day the heroes have a bitter falling-out at Justice Forever HQ and Dave adds The Juicer to his growing list of arch enemies. It’s hard to care, though, as he and Val are dating now and he’s getting sex regularly…

The only thing he hasn’t given up on is Hit-Girl. He will get her out, somehow, someday…

He doesn’t know it, but he’s on a clock. Rocco is firmly in the driving seat now and is obsessed with the tiny titan too. He wants her out of jail so that he can smash his treasured golden ice-pick right into her brain…

As Dr. White plays the latest card in his duplicitous bag of brain-bending tricks, at Vic Gigante‘s place the bent cop – and Rocco’s most influential agent on the NYPD – has an interesting idea. With three trusted pals he’s devised a way to make even more money in a foolproof manner.

Soon a quartet of “Robin Hood” masked heroes are brutally raiding all of Rocco’s places of business; killing mooks and confiscating cash. The Skull & Bones boys claim it’s all being passed on to the poor and naturally everybody believes them…

Lost in a lustful daze, not even a timely intervention by Todd can shake Dave up enough to get back in costume and on track, but the increasingly bold raids of the Skull & Bones gang is driving Rocco crazy. Only when the deviant Don declares war on every masked hero in the city and despatches hit squads to gun them down wherever they are does Dave finally rouse himself from a besotted haze and get back on the streets…

The psychological campaign against Hit-Girl is also starting to work. The formerly indomitable Mindy is retreating into memories of training with her dad and sharing those episodes with the exultant White.

Unfortunately the cocky doctor overplays his hand and seems to lose everything, but before he can reassess the situation Rocco Genovese has his family’s nemesis abducted from the penitentiary so that he can slaughter her in style.

Ferrying her to a big party at his estate, the Don thinks he’s won but is utterly unprepared for betrayal from within, the incomprehensible inability of Kick-Ass to give up and the sheer determination and total, sociopathic verve which inspires Hit-Girl in her holy mission to eradicate criminal scum…

Building to a cataclysmic, graphically hyper-violent, ferociously cathartic conclusion, the saga of simple soul Dave and the atrociously foul-mouthed Hit-Girl wraps up in unforgettable manner with plenty of shocking twists and surprises in a blockbusting clash which answers all the questions in a fashion fitting, furious and final…

The blackly comedic and ultra-violent comedy quartet of tales which comprise the Kick-Ass saga are the ultimate extension of the modern trend for “realistic” superhero stories whilst simultaneously forming a brilliantly engaging and cynically hilarious examination of boyhood dreams and power fantasies, delivered with dazzling aplomb, studied self-deprecation and spellbinding style.

Here Millar’s mesmeric script skilfully dances on the very edge of possibility and credibility, whilst the stunning art collaboration of John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer and colourist Dean White afford a vision of New York life that ranges from Paradise to Hell on Earth.

Bracketed by a pithy Introduction from screen writer Geoff Wadlow and Afterword Acknowledgements from writer and artist, this majestically wide-screen extravaganza is a sharp, superb and stunning tale not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of frantic fun and fantasy in any medium.
© 2013 and 2014 Millarworld Limited and John S. Romita. All rights reserved.

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Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (Light Novel)


By Ryo Suzukaze & Thores Shibamoto, translated by Ko Ransom (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-939130-86-0

Hajime Isayama’s Shingeki no Kyojin or “Advancing Giants” began life as a manga serial in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in September 2009. As Attack on Titan the phenomenally successful saga has since filled 14 tankōbon collections – with sales in excess of 40 billion copies – and spawned equally popular spin-offs: two manga serials, a “Light Novel” series, an anime TV show, several video games and a forthcoming big-budget live action cinema release.

The core premise of the manga epic concerns an Earth where gigantic monsters have for more than a century predated on humanity, reducing mankind to the population of a small country cowering behind concentric rings of colossal walls…

This initial Light Novel – Before the Fall – pitches the drama back to the earliest days after the conclusion of the initial catastrophic conflict when defeated, nigh-extinct mankind has retreated behind sturdy stone stockades. Inexplicably, the cowering strategy worked and remnant humanity has been left alone for more than a generation.

Described as “prequel of prequels” this fascinating tale describes a time when the monstrous Titans have not been seen for years by the majority of the human race and thus much of complacent humanity has begun to doubt their existence. This attitude has advanced to the point where the common folk mock and deride the dedicated Garrison and Survey Corps which staunchly continue in their duties to protect them whilst conservative elements in the closeted government circles are actively trying to disband the warrior divisions as a means of cutting costs.

Since the retreat a highly strictured society has evolved with plutocratic rulers and fat-cats safely ensconced within the innermost city walls, bureaucracy and military brass inhabiting the second, and the least important members of mankind packed into the outer district of Shiganshina where inventive young armourer and metalsmith Angel Aaltonen lives, devoutly and passionately devising new weapons to end the monsters’ threat – monsters he has never seen but instinctively dreads…

As a Master Inventor of the Workshop District he is always devising fresh ways to improve the striking power of the heroic Survey Corps who regularly voyage outside the monolithic Gate, but Angel feels frustratingly hampered because he knows absolutely nothing about the horrors… except that they are regarded as unkillable.

One other thing he knows. Even though the city dwellers say the Titans don’t exist, something out there kills and maims the rapidly-depleting ranks of the defensive Corps which his best friends and fellow orphans Solm and Maria have dedicated their lives to…

Everything changes however when a deranged cult of Titan-worshippers force open the great Gate as a Survey scouting mission returns, allowing a handily placed horror to rampage through the outer town.

With close observation of the atrocity and the handy discovery of two new natural resources, Angel conceives a device which will forever alter the balance of power between scurrying mortals and the voracious, no-longer-immortal monsters…

What follows is an engaging rite-of passage yarn as Angel grows from idealistic savant to unlikely warrior and potential saviour of humanity, forged in tragedy and tempered by the pressure of a society determined to bury its collective head in the sand…

Moody and engaging, this gripping fantasy tale is augmented by eight stunning full page illustrations in monochrome and colour by Thores Shibamoto that will delight lovers of fantasy fiction and manga masterworks.

© 2014 Hajime Isayama, Ryo Suzukaze. All rights reserved.

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Alien Legion: Dead and Buried


By Carl Potts, Chuck Dixon, Alan Zelenetz Larry Stroman, Mark Farmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-84023-811-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Above and Beyond and Captivating… 8/10

During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced an astounding proliferation of new titles and companies in the wake of the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers able to firm-sale straight to retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from non-specialised shops, the industry was able to support less generic titles and creators could experiment without losing their shirts.

In response Marvel developed a line of creator-owned properties at the height of the subsequent publishing explosion, launching a number of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was dubbed Epic Comics and the results reshaped the industry.

One of the earliest hits was a darkly compelling science fiction serial with a beautifully simple core concept: the Foreign Legion of Space (and no, it isn’t at all similar to Jack Williamson’s epochal 1934 creation the Legion of Space).

Created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco, Alien Legion debuted in its own on-going series in April 1984, running for 20 issues (until 1987) plus an oversized Marvel Graphic Novel (see Alien Legion: A Grey Day to Die), before re-booting into a second, 18 issue volume spanning October 1987 to August 1990.

After that the tales were told in intermittently released miniseries and one-shots (long-since collected in one volume as Alien Legion Tenants of Hell).

The “Bloody Bospors” have come and gone ever since, jumping from Checker Books to Dark Horse Comics and Titan – who will be carefully compiling the series into collected omnibuses – and there is, of course, a movie in the pipeline…

This particular pocket-sized compendium re-presents the first dozen dark sagas from volume two and comes with a handy ‘Rollcall’ of key characters before recounting The Story So Far in ‘Alien Legion Unit History: Hellscape’.

The saga resumes in ‘Dead and Buried’ by writers Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Chuck Dixon, illustrated by Larry Stroman & Randy Emberlin…

The Legion was founded to keep the peace of the Tophan Galactic Union, a million worlds spread over three galaxies, policed by a broad brotherhood of outcast militant sentients united by a need to belong and a desire to escape their pasts. For such beings honour and tradition are (purportedly) the only things holding them together in a ruling system riven with political intrigue and double-dealing, and where ordinary decent citizens universally despise the battalions of death-dealing outcasts.

After years of holding back the forces of chaos and anarchy across the stellar regions united into an overarching Galarchy, Nomad Squadron were dispatched as part of a vast Legion armada to “pacify” the Quaalians; a warlike and unpredictable culture perpetually causing trouble from their strategically critical star-system midway between the Tophan Union and its ideological opposite the Harkilon Empire.

The mission went tragically wrong and thousands of troops were trapped on a planet of raving maniacs dubbed “Hellscape” and expediently written off by the Legion.

Now, as the story opens two years later, Major Sarigar can stand the situation no longer and resigns his commission so that he can go after the Legionnaires he was ordered to abandon. After a violent period of readjustment he finally makes contact with fabulously wealthy businessman Guy Montroc – whose son Torie is amongst the missing – and gains enough resources to sneak into the embargoed border regions…

When he finds evidence of survivors and is almost murdered, Sarigar realises he has no choice but to break the Legion quarantine and go to Quaal itself…

Dixon assumes the role of sole scripter in ‘Fragments’ which flashes back to the disastrous raid and details the fall of the Legion forces before focusing on serpentine seeker Sarigar as he begins covertly exploring the deadly tinderbox world with the reluctant assistance of a Quaalian guide sold to him by a corrupt Legion prison officer.

The horrific trek across the barren landscape proves miraculously successful as Sarigar eventually finds the younger Montroc and grifting ne’er-do-well Jugger Grimrod in a cave complex where, against all odds, they have survived for two years. Implausibly united again, the comrades search together but their next discoveries are appalling and unhappy.

Falling into dejection, Sarigar is reinvigorated when he receives a psychic call from telepathic medic Meico but after one final day of hunting the former Major reluctantly prepares to take his exhausted, traumatised charges off-planet when a final scan reveals two more survivors: hulking amazon Tamara and cruelly maimed aging veteran Zeerod.

Tamara has reverted to pure ferocious savagery and, as Meico dutifully attempts to psionically restore her mental balance, a band of ravaging Quaalians find them…

Forced to fight for their lives again, the lost Legionnaires brutally answer the ‘Call to Battle’ and win their way off world. In the aftermath however the returned warriors are not considered heroes but an extreme embarrassment and only deft political manoeuvring by Sarigar and maverick general Gokk keep them out of jail or worse.

A solution is found when the re-instated major and his five pitiful survivors are designated the core of a rapid-deployment penal battalion styled Force Nomad: a suicide squad to be peopled by the worst and most incorrigible, expendable troublemakers in the Galarchy…

With no where else to go and no one else they trust, the battered coterie of sociopaths all sign on and soon ‘The Lucky and the Dead’ (inked by new permanent embellisher Mark Farmer) are assessing their newest comrades in arms before being dispatched to stop a colossal asteroid tricked out as a cataclysmic gun platform by the Harkilons and aimed at the heart of the Ophides system…

Although ultimately successful, Force Nomad lists its first fatalities before the mission concludes…

‘The Ditch’ finds the squad attempting a lightning-strike against a particle gun on a small fortified moon when the mission goes wrong and Grimrod is again left behind. Left to his own devices the despicable reprobate infiltrates the Harkilon fortress and uncovers a treacherous alliance between the terrorist empire and the Galarchy’s most upstanding trader nation, the Orestans.

In the subsequent battle, Jugger’s frantic fight to save his own skin leads to him accidentally capturing the entire installation and, as shining hero of the hour, securing the worst fate he can possibly imagine: promotion to Captain…

It a situation he cannot tolerate and in ‘Xenos’, whilst executing his first command mission, he takes the opportunity to rectify the situation when a Harkilon bio-weapon his ship is ferrying to a science centre breaks. After it destroys his crew and he again saves the day, Grimrod punches out the general who congratulates him…

Demoted and sentenced to prison, Jugger rots all but forgotten as, on training world Arrios IX, Torie, Tamara and new Nomad Tonk begin drilling the latest Force candidates in ‘The Bite’. The work is hard enough but takes a deadly turn when an infiltrator rigs the automated assault course with lethal ordnance.

…And in the Legion lock-up Line Star III, more assassins target new inmate Grimrod, but have utterly underestimated his survival instincts and appetite for destruction…

Having survived the carnage on Arrios, Tamara and Torie recuperate on his father’s high security estate, but the mystery assassins follow and nearly kill Montroc senior in ‘Duty Elsewhere’ before lethally capable Tamara ends them.

Realising the scope of the conspiracy and the reason why Nomad personnel are all targets, the wounded plutocrat engages his top industrial spy to get to the bottom of the plot.

Nakhira Doomhar is a cyber-enhanced super-thief who loves a challenge and soon she is hot on the trail of the would-be killers’ employers…

As Grimrod is posted back to Force Nomad, Nakhira meets with Torie and Tamara, leading them to an Orestan deep-space data relay for a spot of espionage. The staggering results reveal not a few rogue traders dealing with the enemy, but a wholesale treaty alliance which could tear apart the Union…

Not knowing who to trust, Torie and Sarigar contact General Gokk in ‘Scalpel’, hoping his eminence and political connections will get the information to the right people without causing a disaster. Instead the old warrior takes executive action and launches a massive covert raid on an Orestan trade planet near the Harkilon border.

The surgical strike for proof is compromised from the start and the Legion forces easily repulsed…

Whilst Tamara and Nakhira take their data-raiding act into the very heart of the Orestes homeworld, their comrades are being shot down over Braal VII by a heavy force of Harkilons and the treacherous Orestans are filing charges against Gokk in the Galarchy courts…

‘Biology Lesson’ finds ultimate survivor Grimrod and the remains of Force Nomad prisoners of both the Orestans and Harkilons, used as playthings and slave labour. However, the gloating horrors have vastly underestimated their captives and placed far too much faith in the monster watchdogs they have set over the Legionnaires. Before long the brutal scrapper has led his troops back into Galarchy space and straight into the trial of the millennium…

The conniving Orestans have forced a public hearing with Gokk on trial for violating the War Charters of the Tophan Union, and Jugger is a very nervous and ‘Hostile Witness’. As the only living being to have seen Harkilons dealing with Orestans, he is a crucial defence component and knows there’s a great big target painted on his back…

Whilst Jugger sweats in the palaces of cosmic justice, Torie and Tamara lead a picked team into the bowels of Harkilon space to capture evidence that will clear the Legion stalwarts and expose the conspiracy forever. All they have to do is take it and get back to safety whilst an entire evil empire tries to stop them…

With the multipart intrigue finally resolved, this splendidly manic chronicle concludes on a lighter note with some ‘Dorty Fighting’ as Grimrod humiliates the wrong recruit during a training session on unfair unarmed combat and is soon running for his life from a sustained succession of attempted murders…

Rocket-paced, wryly sardonic, exotic and powerfully funny in the classic 2000AD manner, this captivating collection is crammed to the gills with explosive action and includes a cover gallery and creator biographies to complete the perfect package of mayhem-laced cynical space opera – which renders this chronicle “unmissable” in my book. Alien Legion is ® & © 2014 Carl Potts. All rights reserved.

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Magneto: Infamous


By Cullen Bunn, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Javier Fernandez & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-618-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid, Mature Superhero Storytelling… 8/10

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott “Slim” Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III – codenamed Angel – and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

These teens were very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

That first issue also introduced their murderous and utterly evil arch nemesis Magneto: a terrifying and supremely powerful radical menace determined to seize the world for mutantkind and enslave or destroy humanity. The master of magnetism quickly became one of the early Marvel Universe’s A-List villains.

Over the years, however, a wealth of transformations, introspective investigations and personal re-evaluations turned the monster into a too-often misunderstood freedom fighter for his own kind and increasingly an ally of the ever-evolving X-Men.

Then, during the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved father-figure Xavier and in the devastating aftermath united with former comrade Magik and occasional enemies Emma Frost and Magneto in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protégés.

The quartet instituted their own training academy – The New Charles Xavier School – and began drilling a new generation of mutants in the tactics of survival in a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them.

The tutors, whose powers had all been radically curtailed in the battle against the Phoenix, also began a public campaign to win a place in the world for mutants, operated under the guise of terrorist group The Extinction Team.

Throughout his time with the group the war-weary elder continued to pay a deep game and, as this volume (collecting issues #1-6 of Magneto volume 3, March-July 2014) commences, he has left them and returned to old ways and his primary purpose…

Written by Cullen Bunn and grittily illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Javier Fernandez, the tripwire-taut suspense begins in Missouri as witnesses describe a baroque and grotesque execution carried out by a man who could manipulate metal and who accused his victim of “crimes against evolution and genetic genocide”…

Magneto has used many names since his powers first manifested in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, but now, with his once planet-wrecking potentialities reduced to merely moving around objects no heavier than a man could lift with flesh, bone and muscle, his priorities have changed. Now he is a creature of terror again, dealing final judgement to those who would eradicate mutants like some stain or mistake of nature…

Subject of a global manhunt by S.H.IE.L.D. – and lesser law-enforcement agencies – Magneto is restlessly travelling from region to region acting as a Homo Superior Punisher, protecting and avenging his people when human authorities can’t or won’t.

Now his travels have brought him to Mountain Air, California where a guilt-stricken vagrant has turned himself in after murdering three mutants. The magnetic menace is not prepared to leave such a killer to indifferent human justice…

However when he blasts into the Courthouse to administer his sentence the helpless, terrified indigent suddenly morphs into an Omega Sentinel and attacks him.

Quickly dispatching the cyborg mutant-hunter, the magnetic avenger is horrified to realise that the scared and totally bewildered human had no idea of the mechanical monster lurking within…

Whilst S.H.I.E.L.D Special Agents Rodriguez and Haines dog his heels, the master of magnetism backtracks the vagrant’s trail to a huge shanty-town where hundreds of dispossessed families cluster together, economic victims eking out a communal existence until they can break back into the society that abandoned them.

Welcomed as just another victim/loser to the spartan community of Down Acres, the punisher discovers that the tent city provokes long-buried memories of the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto little Max Eisenhardt grew up in. The aged undercover vigilante realises that the same type of unfeeling monsters are at work here; kidnapping unwitting humans for raw materials and rebuilding them as stealth sentinels to hunt down mutants.

When the pressgang turns up to take more human fodder, Magneto is waiting…

By the time Haines and Rodriguez arrive, he is gone, following the Sentinel makers’ trail to a factory facility he will not allow to exist for one moment longer. However with his might so severely curtailed, the death and destruction he envisages has to be carried out at close quarters and preferably face-to-face…

His gory task concluded, Magneto travels to the Adirondack Mountains to destroy a secret base where religious fundamentalist sect The Purifiers experiment on mutant children before turning his angry attention to the constantly re-cloned mutant team known as The Marauders…

Human Briar Raleigh had been stalking Magneto for years. A survivor of one of his earlier rampages, the enigmatic manipulator offers her services to him as a skilled information-gatherer, providing data on the latest incarnation of Marauders for her own unspecified reasons.

The Marauders are all mutants, servants of genetic zealot Mr. Sinister, tasked with eradicating the crazed biologist’s failed experiments and anybody he considers a threat or valueless. The number of their own people they have callously slaughtered is incalculable and Magneto dearly wants to find these too-long unchecked race-traitors.

Entering into a cautious alliance with Briar, Magneto meticulously and permanently deals with Scalphunter, Prism, Scrambler, Arclight, Harpoon, Riptide and Blockbuster but simply executing the oft-cloned killers is not his ultimate goal. By finding where the next generation are maturing and deftly reprogramming them, the mutant avenger expects to add to his own growing arsenal of resources…

To Be Continued…

Non-stop visceral action, shocking suspense and a roaring sense of social injustice underpin this excessively grim and noir-tinted saga, exploring a savage genetic realpolitik that will astound and engage readers from bleak start to explosive finish.

This compulsive read also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Paolo Rivera, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson, Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire, John Cassaday, Michael Del Mundo, Gurihiru Studios, Skott Young, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks and Stephanie Hans plus added extras provided by AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 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.