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Lobey’s The Wee Boy! – Five Lobey Dosser adventures by Bud Neill


By Bud Neill, compiled by Ranald MacColl (Mainstream Publishing)
ISBN: 1-85158-405-6

Nobody’s ever accused me of being sensitive to the tone of the times, but with all thoughts directed north of the border for so long now, I’ve decided to feature this superbly unique dose of Celtic (more properly Glaswegian) cartoon magic today.

It’s the work of a tragically near-forgotten genius of pen and brush who should rightly be a household name wherever people like to laugh and ponder the absurdity of existence, no matter what flag they fly.

William Neill – forever immortalised as “Bud” – was born in 1911 in Partick just before the family moved to Troon in Ayrshire. He was a typical kid and fell in love with the brash wonder of silent movies – most especially the rambunctious westerns of William S. Hart.

His other great drive was a love of horses, and he could always be found hanging around stables, trading odd jobs for the chance of a few minutes’ riding.

After finishing school the young artistic star won a place at Glasgow School of Art. In the late 1930s Bud briefly emigrated, working in Canada and absorbing the tricks of America’s greatest newspaper cartoonists in their creative heyday.

He served as a gunner during WWII but was invalided out and became a bus driver. These experiences led to his creating a series of pocket cartoons starring the “Caurs & Clippies” of Glasgow’s tramcar system.

By 1944 Bud was drawing for the Glasgow Evening Times: sharp, wry observational pieces starring the city and its inhabitants, characterised by a devastating and instantly enchanting use of the iconic rhythms, vernacular and argot everyone shared.

In January 1949 The Evening News began running the uniquely surreal escapades of his greatest creation. Sheriff Lobey Dosser of Calton Creek was a brilliant inspiration: the adventures of a canny wee lawman in a hauntingly typical western town populated exclusively by Scots (from Glasgow’s Calton district, presumably) living an outrageously domestic, hilariously apt inner city life all whilst tricked out in cowboy hats and six-guns…

Delving deep into the venerable, anarchic and often surreal material of music hall and pantomime, Bud crafted a supremely odd, anachronistically familiar, bizarrely inviting world of solecism masquerading as local events. The series transferred to The Sunday Mail in 1956 where it became so popular that previous, complete strip adventures were collected in instant sell-out, one shilling landscape booklets (all incredibly sought after collectors’ items these days).

Neill died in 1970 but his work steadily continued to garner fans and acquire a mythical status, so by the middle of the decade Glasgow artist and sculptor Ranald MacColl began work on a biography.

That in turn led to a series of graphic collections such as this one and eventually belated recognition for Neill and his most memorable creations.

Bud was subsequently celebrated in exhibitions, galleries and, following Glasgow’s becoming European City of Culture in 1990, two separate bronze statues (Lobey, Rank Bajin and noble steed Elfie in Woodlands Road and, in Homecoming Year 2009, The G.I. Bride and her “Wean” at Partick Station), funded by public donations, Strathclyde Passenger Transport and private sponsors.

Hard to find but so worth the effort, Lobey’s The Wee Boy! gathers the contents of five of those shilling collections in a sensibly narrative chronological – not publication or even creation – order and is packed with informative extras such as MacColl’s fascinating historical and atmospheric Introduction and a hilarious Prologue by Bud himself from 1958, before the astonishing origin of the champion of Calton Creek is revealed in ‘Lobey Dosser: His Life Story’.

On a rare quiet day the grizzled sheriff recounts his early life to a jail full of impressionable young’uns…

Once upon a time in auld Glesca a mother had one bairn too many and the precocious tyke, to spare her further hardship, put his possessions in a hanky on a stick and headed off to make his way in the world.

Although only a few months old, he rejected being fostered out to his mean Auntie Mabel and joined a merchant ship under the tyrannical Captain Blackswite, unaware that the big shouty blackguard was a pirate…

After many exciting years at sea Lobey jumped ship and was befriended by cannibals and their erudite chief Hannibal which led to more exploring, meeting monsters and other strange things before encountering a race of Oxbridge-educated white savages and happily acquiring a rare two-legged horse.

El Fideldo was to become his greatest friend and inseparable companion. Together they made their way to Mexico where the wee wanderer discovered an unsuspected talent for upholding the law and keeping the peace. After cleaning out a nest of vicious banditos the restless pair headed north and soon fetched up in Laredo, Texas where a disastrous love affair with Adoda, formidable daughter of wealthy Whisk E. Glorr, led to a clash with rustlers led by scurrilous Watts Koakin…

His heart broken – even though he had cleaned up the range – Dosser and Elfie kept heading west until they reached Arizona and first met future arch-nemesis Rank Bajin selling out the wagon train he was guiding to the local Sioux…

Rescuing the embattled settlers, Lobey decided to stay with the Scots expats as they built a town in the wilderness.  They called it Calton Creek…

Wild, imaginative and with every daily episode loaded with sight gags, striking slapstick, punishing puns, cartoon in-jokes and intoxicating vernacular, each Lobey Dosser tale was a non-stop carnival of graphic mirth and this terrific tome continues in fine fettle with ‘The Mail Robbery’ wherein nefarious Bajin attempts to incite an Indian uprising amongst the Pawnee of Chief Toffy Teeth and leaves the little lawman to die of thirst in the searing deserts. As the scorched sheriff struggles to survive, the naïve citizens are left to adapt to a protective occupation by flash Yankee G.I.s and airmen…

Sardonic and satirically cutting, the yarn also sports one of the best – and daftest – horseback chases in entertainment history…

Romance and mystery abound in ‘The Secret of Hickory Hollow’ as that Bajin scoundrel buys up the mortgage on Vinegar Hill‘s farm and tries to kick out the old coot and his substantial niece Honey Perz. The villain has got wind of a mineral resource on the property that would make a man as wealthy as the Maharaja of Baroda, or perhaps even a regional Deputy Superintendent of the Coal Board…

When Lobey organises the cash needed to pay off the outstanding loan, Bajin reluctantly resorts to the last resort and begins romancing sweet, innocent, hulking Honey…

It all looks bleak for justice until the sheriff befriends an astoundingly good-looking and wholesome uranium prospector named Hart O’Gold who quickly tickles Honey’s fickle fancy…

However nobody – including ghostly guardian Rid Skwerr – is prepared for the soviet spies behind the entire affair to jump in take over and it needs the timely intervention of mystic imp Fairy Nuff to save their accumulated hash before the Dosser can finally expose the viper in the nest…

The local natives are always up to mischief and ‘The Indian War’ kicks off when the railroad tries to lay track through Pawnee Territory just as Chief Rubber Lugs of the Blackfeet Tribe revisits an old and outstanding grudge with Chief Toffy Teeth.

The ineffectual Captain Goodenough arrives with a division of cavalry to safeguard the white citizenry but matters soon worsen, painfully exacerbated when the folk of Calton Creek take advantage of Lobey’s absence (he’s trying to negotiate with both bunches of bellicose braves) to run Rank Bajin out of town and the hooded hoodlum starts freely peddling weapons to both sides…

…And then Bajin kills Lobey and takes over the town.

…And then…

The last yarn in this monochrome tome of tall tales is the most incredible of all as ‘The “Reform” of Rank Bajin’ sees the vile villain scooting around Calton Creek doing good deeds and selling off his astounding arsenal of wicked weapons and cunning contraband. Baffled, perplexed, confused and not sure what’s going on, Lobey asks Boot Hill haunter Rid Skwerr to spy on the no-longer reprehensible Rank and even love-struck Fairy Nuff gets in on the act.

The astounding truth finally emerges: Bajin has a boy who is growing up honest, so he is selling up and returning to the family he deserted in Borstal Bluffs, Iowa to sort the shameful lad out. Knowing the tremendous vacuum his absence will leave in Calton’s exciting landscape, however, he has a recommendation for a locum arch-enemy for his arch-enemy…

Can this possibly all be true or is the beastly Bajin executing his most sinister scheme yet?

Cunningly absurdist, socially aware, humorously harnessed insanity in the manner of Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and the immortal Goon Show, the adventures of Lobey Dosser are a brilliant example of comic strips perfectly tailored to a specific time, place and audience which magically transcend their origins to become a masterpiece of the art form.

It’s also side-splitting, laugh-out-loud, Irn Bru spit-take hilarious and really needs to be recollected for today’s audiences.

And of course that’s what I really want: a complete reprinting of these sublimely perfect spoofs.

And once you read some so will you…
© Ranald MacColl 1992. All rights reserved.

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Winter Soldier: The Bitter March


By Rick Remender, Roland Boschi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-597-0

Once upon a time Captain America and youthful partner James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes cut a swashbuckling swathe thorough Nazis, madmen and monsters in every region of the Second World War.

In April 1945, following the tragic mission which killed the boy and hurled the Sentinel of Liberty into a decades long frozen slumber, an experimental Soviet spy sub recovered Bucky’s maimed body from the seas where it fell. Russian spymaster Vasily Karpov dreamed of extracting the fabled Super Soldier serum from the corpse but was doubly frustrated to discover that the indomitable young warrior was never augmented by the formula, nor was he completely dead…

Still, waste not, want not…

From the 1950s until the late 1980s the Soviets reputedly employed an infallible “ghost” assassin all over the world; utilising astoundingly efficient executions and deftly arranged accidents to secure the KGB’s aims. Moreover, whatever surveillance did capture the phantom hitman between 1955 and 1976 indicated that the killer didn’t age…

If you want the full story of how Bucky became an infallible human weapon of Communist oppression, check out Captain America: Winter Soldier Dossier Edition, but for today this scintillating new period yarn – collecting issues #1-5 of Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (April-September 2014) – offers a cool all-new, Cold War super-spy thriller starring that indomitable fallen idol as well as fascinating insights into the character of latest ideological Cap nemesis The Iron Nail…

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been fighting the good fight since the end of WWII and this tale begins in 1966 when friendly rivals Nick Fury and Ran Shen are the outfit’s top operatives. Always bickering – good-naturedly, of course – the duo split up and attempt different methods of penetrating the formidable Castle Hydra alpine fortress and abduct two Nazi scientists who have devised a means of synthesising gold.

Brash, audacious and cocky, Shen is almost killed by the revolting Madam Worm before being embarrassingly rescued by Fury, but as the now compromised agents try to fly their captives – Peter and Milla Hitzig – out of the citadel, a third force intervenes.

Believed-mythical Soviet spook The Winter Soldier tries to snatch the creators of the Alchemy Formula for the USSR and only Fury’s last ditch counterattack drives him off. Now, with Fury missing – presumed dead – Shen must drag his captives through hostile country and arctic conditions or make a final sanction to keep their secret out of both Russian and Hydra hands…

Three days later they trek into the Warsaw Pact state of Nrosvekistan, where Shen calls for an extraction. The best S.H.I.E.L.D. can do is tool him up and advise him to hop a train to West Berlin. However before he can get to the station the infallible, relentless Winter Soldier reappears and the trio barely escape with their lives…

During the melee Shen hits his foe with a live power-line and the colossal shock temporarily stuns the cyborg, allowing the fugitives to get away. What Ran does not know is that the assassin was most debilitated by a wave of unexpected memories which saw him fighting in a strange costume beside lost hero Captain America…

Barely making the train, the trio catch their breath. Soon Milla is tending the agent’s wounds, much to her husband’s disgust. Neither ex-Nazi wants to go to America or Russia but with everybody gunning for them, the fanatical Peter is biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to take control of the situation…

Unknown to Shen the rogue scientist has already contacted Hydra who insert a recovery team on the train: telepathic assassin The Drain and electrical executioner Shocky Dan…

As the Hydra killers covertly confer with Peter, the Drain realises that Herr Hitzig is just a greedy charlatan and hanger-on. His diffident wife is the one who actually created the Alchemy Formula and she is currently warming to the smooth, suave charms of the good-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent…

When the killers smash into their compartment they find Shen again battling the unstoppable Winter Soldier and make short work of them both…

With the horrified Milla a captive, the Drain disposes of her useless husband and prepares to move her back to the fortress, but despite being severely wounded, Shen is still in the game. Moreover, the Soldier, again dosed with electricity and instantly deprogrammed by the telepathic Drain, has thrown off decades of brainwashing and switched sides…

Another spectacular battle breaks out on the now runaway and rigged-to-explode train but when the inevitable detonation comes Shen and Milla have already escaped…

The Drain meanwhile has dealt with the shell-shocked Bucky and followed the fleeing duo, using his psychic powers to murder a town full of people who have come to their aid. His mental assaults also have a devastating affect on Shen – who has developed feelings for Milla – and when bloody but unbowed Bucky arrives it takes all his determination to shake the agent out of his funk and track the mental monster and his struggling prize through the constantly falling snows…

When they catch up, Shen deals with the Drain in a most unprofessional and final manner before he, Bucky and Milla hole up in a handy cabin to await better weather. As each reconsiders their past lives and uncertain futures they are blithely unaware that a Soviet hit squad and the infallible Nick Fury are hot on their trail, each side determined that if they can’t have the Alchemy Formula nobody will…

When all the shooting stops, the Russians only have their assassin back, nobody has Milla and Shen has no hope of a happy tomorrow…

Fast-paced, frantic and compellingly cynical, the story of why Ran Shen took the dark path that set him against America only tangentially involves the star draw Winter Soldier, but nevertheless delivers a gripping saga of intrigue, passion and explosive action.

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Roland Boschi, this blockbusting tribute to the spy-soaked Swinging Sixties is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Andrew Robinson, In-Hyuk Lee, Chris Eliopoulos, Agustin Alessio, Rags Morales, Adi Granov and even offers a photo-cover from the movie, as well as AR icon add-on sections which allow the Marvel Augmented Reality App to grant access to story bonuses once you download marvel.com’s free code onto your smartphone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ 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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Deadpool vs. Carnage


By Cullen Bunn, Salvador Espin, Mike Henderson, Aaron Kim Jacinto & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-613-7

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made popular fiction protagonists and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics will always find an appreciative audience…

Deadpool is Wade Wilson (yes, a thinly disguised knockoff of Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke the Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities but practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loon…

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a Mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian “Weapon X” project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always, inevitably, reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s-early1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable archenemy called Venom: deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s Secret Wars costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite dubbed the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Webspinner.

Eventually the arachnid adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became the “Lethal Protector”, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

However, when the symbiote went into breeding mode it spawned a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, they became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a death-crazed monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal “family” (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed and his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit. Of course “safe” is an extremely relative term and eventually the crimson killer returned…

Following a clash between The Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius‘ mind in Peter Parker’s body) and the Wizard, Kasady was resurrected but separated from his increasingly self-aware symbiote…

Written throughout by Cullen Bunn, this sublimely continuity-light and baggage-free bloody kill spree collects Superior Carnage Annual (April 2014) and the subsequent 4-part miniseries Deadpool vs. Carnage (June-August 2014), gorily repositioning the scarlet slaughterer for his next assault on the cowering Marvel Universe.

The all-action abattoir-fest opens with Superior Carnage Annual (illustrated by Kim Jacinto, Mike Henderson and colourist Jay David Ramos) as the recently recaptured Kasady – lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – awaits medical assessment in Kramer Penitentiary. Psychologist Dr. Jenner is interviewing the unrepentant but clearly cognitively recovered felon to see if he is mentally competent to be tried for his crimes, but the headshrinker also has a secret agenda…

In New York City, the symbiote is barely contained in an unbreakable tube on Spider Island (fortress base of the Superior Spider-Man), raging in destructive fury against imprisonment and terrifying the mercenaries guarding it.

When an inmate at far-distant Kramer tries to kill Kasady the captive creature goes instantly berserk before apparently expiring.

Meanwhile at Morse Laboratories in New Mexico, researcher Carla Unger is working late, examining a few scrapings taken from the symbiote. Despite the risks, it’s way better than cooking dinner for her abusive husband Will, but when the seemingly-dormant scarlet shreds suddenly possess her, she heads home for a final family meal…

The symbiote is going to find Cletus, and is soon hopping from body to body, gaining strength whilst leaving a trail of corpses across America, but it is all too late. Power-mad Dr. Jenner, hungry to be the symbiote’s permanent host and exasperated that his first attempt to kill Kasady failed, stifles the dying inmate in the prison infirmary, but when the thing from another world final arrives it rejects him before reanimating its preferred host’s corpse…

Reunited and resurgent, the component parts that comprise the revitalised Carnage then begin taking an awful vengeance on everybody at the institution…

Some time later Deadpool vs. Carnage opens with the scarlet slayer still enjoying an extended if motiveless murder spree throughout the Midwest.

In his apartment and own world, Wade Wilson is channel surfing TV stations and suddenly divines a personal message from the universe telling him to stop Carnage…

After a few false starts and more nudging from everyday objects like billboards, video games and comics, the Manic Merc finally stumbles across Kasady in an abandoned housing development in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the two unkillable kooks start fighting.

It seems to be pretty even until Cletus’ homicidal old squeeze Shriek turns up and ambushes Deadpool…

This really isn’t the kind of tale that depends on plot, but if you’re a fan of hyperkinetic Warner Brothers cartoons where two protagonists try increasingly outrageous and escalating methods of mass destruction to destroy each other then you’ll adore the frantic, blackly hilarious duel which only ends after Deadpool picks up a bunch of symbiotes of his own – and a cool shape-changing dog – from a secret military base where the government has been trying to weaponise the alien parasites for the army…

Sharp, fast-paced and excessively, addictively action-packed, this wry and sanguine rollercoaster romp also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Rafa Garres, Glenn Fabry & Adam Brown and Leinil Francis Yu: offering a complication free riot of gratuitous gory fun and thrills that will delight the appetites for graphic destruction of Fights ‘n’ Tights fans everywhere.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Michael Moorcock’s Elric volume 1: The Ruby Throne


By Julien Blondel, Didier Poli, Robin Recht & Jean Bastide, translated by Nora Goldberg (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978 -1-78276-124-2

Michael Moorcock began his career as a comics creator aged 15; writing and editing such classic strips as Tarzan, Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator and many, many other British stalwarts before making the jump to prose fiction, where he single-handedly revitalised a genre in 1961 with the creation of Elric and the high-concept notion of the Eternal Champion.

Elric is a landmark of the Sword and Sorcery genre: fore-doomed last ruler of the pre-human civilisation of Melniboné, a race of cruel, nigh-demonic sorcerers.

These arrogant, dissolute creatures are in a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over the Earth.

An albino, Elric is physically weak and of a brooding, philosophical temperament, caring for nothing save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, who will die one day soon whilst he battles her loathsome usurping brother Prince Yyrkoon.

The White Wolf doesn’t even really want to rule, but it is his duty, and he is the only one of his debased race to see the (comparatively) freshly evolved race of Man as a threat to the Empire.

He owns or is possessed by a black sword called Stormbringer: a magical blade that steals the souls of its victims and feeds their life and vitality to the pale and pallid physical weakling.

Moreover, Elric is a tragic incarnation of the restless Eternal Champion, reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His life is blood and tragedy, exacerbated by his dependence on that soul-drinking black sword and his sworn allegiance to the chimerical Lords of Chaos.

Everybody knows all that, right?

Now, however, the creator of the iconic wanderer – and arguably a whole sub-genre of fantasy fiction – has allowed his premiere paladin to undergo a moody, spectacular and enchanting make-over under the auspices of a team of premiere French graphic masters. Tasking themselves to re-adapt, augment and expand Moorcock’s tales and novels (with his willing and eager permission and supervision), writer Julien Blondel, penciller Didier Poli, inker Robin Recht and colour-artist Jean Bastide – with some preliminary design input from Jean-Baptiste Hostache – in 2013 released Elric: Le Trône De Rubis…

As Moorcock avers in his Author’s Introduction and recapitulation of previous adaptations by the truly stellar artists who have worked on his bony warrior since he and the wonderful James Cawthorn first imagined him, the result is magnificent. Following that hearty endorsement the chance to see how far modern latitude and Continental sensibilities have taken the appalling empire of decadence begins…

Deep in the unholy exquisite fastnesses of the Dreaming City Imrryr, the recent history of the casually sadistic Melnibonéans plays out. The birth of flawed albino prince Elric cost the life of his mother and broke his once relentless, remorseless father Sadric, but now that young Emperor sits on the Ruby Throne of office; buoyed up by drugs, blood and dark magic administered by his consort-cousin Cymoril.

Across the vast court chamber her brother Yyrkoon gazes with undisguised hate. He longs for the throne and a return to the days when Melnibonéans scourged the other races of the world for profit and pleasure. Knowing it will mentally vex and physically tax his hated overlord, the dissident goads Elric into performing a summoning: a call to the patron gods of Chaos whose power first made the city great.

However, before the covert challenge can amount to anything, military commander Dyvim Tvar breaks in with urgent news. The supposedly impenetrable Sea Maze which protects the island city has been breached by ships of the upstart humans. Captives interrogated by macabre Doctor Jest speak of mercenaries, invasion and possibly a traitor…

The timing could not be worse: the deadly dragons employed as skyborne defenders by Melniboné for millennia are all in their crucial sleep cycle and so Elric has no choice but to call on the golden battle barges of his navy. First though he must replenish his energies through Cymoril’s eldritch ministrations and physical charms…

Even though she is his true love and closest ally, he refuses to listen to her entreaties that her vile brother Yyrkoon be permanently dealt with…

When the navy intercepts the human invaders the carnage is incredible and Elric, powered by sacrificial magic, fights like a true emperor of devils, invoking an army of dead warriors to rise from the sea and destroy the upstart monkey people who would challenge their betters.

However, at the moment of victory, a vengeful straggler tips the fully armoured Elric into the bloody waters and Yyrkoon, the only witness, turns away…

With the Emperor drowned Yyrkoon wastes no time in declaring himself the successor to the Ruby Throne and exultantly plans a bloodbath against the lower kingdoms, but Elric is not dead. Deep beneath the sea he has been snatched up by ferocious sea god Straasha, who honours an ancient contract with the rulers of Melniboné and hints of imminent dooms and endings to come…

Yyrkoon’s debauched celebrations are interrupted by Elric’s appalling surprise entrance and cool reclaiming of his exalted position, but the albino again scorns Cymoril’s advice to kill her incorrigible brother quickly and painfully. It is a mistake that will cost Elric dear as later, pent in a dank cell, the usurper summons demonic Aaven’Kar, Devourer of the Depths.

The hungry hellbeast rampages through the palace and by the time the Emperor confronts his challenger, Yyrkoon has fed the thing Cymoril…

As the gloating villain flees, enraged and helpless Elric breaks, calling out to prime Chaos Lord Arioch in his pain and fury.

…And after a chilling, anticipatory moment, the callous, calculating, so very patient dark deity replies…

To Be Continued…

This sumptuous oversized (284x212mm), painted colour hardback album also includes a stunning behind-the-scenes look at the unique (for France) creative process from origination in ‘Genesis’, through pages of design sketches (Elric, Stormbringer, Cymoril, Yyrkoon, Dyvim Tvar, The Melnibonéans, Arioch and Doctor Jest), and a glimpse at preliminary artwork by Hostache in ‘Lavishness and Excess’.

Topping things off are intriguing first imaginings of ‘Dragon Isle’ and ‘Palace of Imrryr’, a feature on ‘Collaborative Development’; creator biographies and a tantalising peek at the next volume…

Elric is a primal character whose sheer imaginative force has inspired a host of superb graphic interpretations – and probably daunted many eager movie producers – with the astonishing complexity and emotional power of his dying, dawning world. This latest tremendously dark and deeply engaging graphic extravaganza again raises the creative bar and proves why he is the leading star of fantasy fiction.

Elric: Le Trône De Rubis and all contents are © 2013 Éditions Glénat. This Translated Edition © 2014 Titan Comics. Adapted from the works of Michael Moorcock related to the character of Elric of Melniboné © 2013, Michael & Linda Moorcock. Introduction © 2014, Michael Moorcock. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof and all related indicia are ™ and © Michael Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.

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Captain America: The Iron Nail


By Rick Remender, Nic Klein, Pascal Alixe & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-604-5

After spending twelve years in hellish Dimension Z, raising a child and saving the indigenous people from the depredations of insane Hitlerian über-geneticist Arnim Zola, Captain America finally returned to Earth with the experimenter’s turncoat daughter Jet Black to discover mere hours had passed in the “real” world.

The extra-dimensional incarceration had cost Steve Rogers too much. As well as many friends and comrades, his adopted son Ian and on-again-off-again girlfriend Sharon Carter had also perished in the rescue bid which returned him to a world he barely remembered and no longer felt a part of…

Purged of the last vestiges of Zola’s influence (Henry Pym and Bruce Banner having excised a virus which was growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside Rogers), the Sentinel of Liberty was despatched by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill to the eastern European state of Nrosvekistan where deranged, drug-dependent US super-soldier Frank Simpson, AKA Nuke, was very publicly slaughtering innocent men, women and children in America’s name…

The abused battle veteran was apparently part of an extended Weapon Plus military program: undergoing many top secret procedures to turn him into a Captain America for the Vietnam generation.

Sadly the result was a chemically-addled hyper-psychotic obsessed with American casualties who now wanted to win all the wars his proud nation had previously lost or walked away from… such as the recent peace-keeping mission to this Balkan backwater…

Elsewhere, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and latter day messianic socialist Ran Shen had aroused a sleeping dragon for power to reshape the world to his liking. Now called the Iron Nail he was determined to destroy greedy, exploitative destructive capitalism using tools and techniques taught him by Nick Fury (Senior) and Chinese iconoclast Mao Zedong…

Of course Ran Shen had already tried to oust the Chairman during his lifetime and failed, making him persona non grata just about everywhere…

Rogers won the Balkan battle of American ideological wonder warriors – at the cost of starting to doubt the point and purpose of his existence – and immediately resolved to learn what could turn a fellow patriot into such a monster.

Shen, ecstatic that his ambition to drive a spike into the heart of the West was succeeding, then detonated the captive Nuke like his namesake in the centre of The Hub, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most secure citadel.

This was merely preamble to his true goal: activating the long-dormant, extremely classified Weapon Minus test warrior. This was an LSD-dosed, psychedelic psychological super-soldier codenamed Dr. Mindbubble, ready, able and extremely willing to share his terrifying expanded sensibilities with the wider, corrupt Establishment world…

Collecting issues #16-20 of Captain America volume 7 (March – August 2014), the ongoing saga begins with a thematic break. In ‘The Iron Nail Prologue: A Choice’ (illustrated by Pascal Alixe), as her new guardian fights for survival in Nrosvekistan, Jet takes a slow disdainful reconnaissance of her new city only to be confronted by a coterie of her father’s erstwhile allies. Sadly for them, she is immune to the vile rantings of the Red Skull and declines the overtures of his insidious S-Men…

The main event resumes in the first chapter of ‘The Iron Nail’ as deranged Dr. Mindbubble takes Nick Fury Jr. captive (long story short: he’s the African-American son of the original – see Battle Scars for further details) in the ruins of the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.

In New York, Steve is showing Jet the sights. The super-girl bred and trained for war saved his life in Dimension Z at great personal cost and he is determined to give her a decent life in New York, but when they interrupt an assassination attempt by agents of Ran Shen, he is shamed by the intolerant behaviour of the hedge fund rat-bastard they saved…

Thankfully Director Hill calls in just then urging him to get to the Hub as soon as possible.

As they assess the carnage left by Simpson’s death and detonation, Hill informs Cap of the missing Weapon Minus even as Jet’s super senses locate one of the few survivors, Cap’s partner The Falcon…

Already disgusted with the procession of appalling creations his country has devised in the name of security, Cap’s peace of mind takes another hit when Hill reveals that Dr. Mindbubble was conceived as a potential countermeasure for rogue super soldiers – but the cure was then deemed worse than the affliction…

The so-very-mad doctor meanwhile has used his ability to seize minds through hallucination to force Fury to activate S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ultimate doomsday weapon. As Cap and Falcon reach the top-secret Sahara base, the Armageddon machine dubbed Gungnir is already active and they have no choice but to board the flying monolith as Mindbubble and Ran Shen aim it towards its destiny with mind-warped Maria Hill at the controls…

Even the full mobilised might of S.H.I.E.L.D. is unable to down the mechanized monster and Cap’s interior resistance is slowed by the horde of enslaved agents aboard. Iron Nail triumphantly shoots down all opposition and aims the colossal death machine towards Nrosvekistan.

His plan is to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and American influence by having the commercial and political superpower act as a murdering bully before the eyes of the world…

Determined and alone, Captain America fights his greatest battle to save the hostages and a nation he embodies but no longer trusts, but although Mindbubble is (relatively) easy meat the dragon-based mystical powers of the Nail take a horrific toll on Liberty’s Greatest Champion.

What the Falcon rescues from the rubble of his greatest victory is no longer Captain America. In truth he is ‘Super-Soldier No More’…

To Be Continued…

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Nic Klein and Pascal Alixe, this staggering clash of ideologies and Fights ‘n’ Tights Realpolitik is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Alixe, Klein, Glenn Fabry, Lee Bermejo, Chris Eliopoulos, Frank Kozik, Rags Morales and Mike Perkins.

Frantic, fast-paced and furiously action-packed, this examination of the heart of patriotic fervour delivers a killer punch and closing twist which will challenge and delight fans of both the comicbook and cinematic Star Spangled Avenger alike.
™ & © 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 Star Wars


By George Lucas, J.W. Rinzler, Mike Mayhew & Rain Beredo (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-498-5

I’m sure we all know the modern mythology of Star Wars and its mindbendingly expansive continuity to a greater or lesser extent. The problem with any such monolithic achievement is an eventual loss of spontaneity and freshness, but now true disciples and occasional dabblers alike have another, new-old strand to follow…

In September 2013 Dark Horse Comics began a 9-issue adaptation (#0-8) of George Lucas’ 1974 original draft for a science fiction movie romp of epic scope, expanded and interpreted by scripter Jonathan W. Rinzler, illustrator Mike Mayhew and colour-artist Rain Beredo, which offered fans of both the franchise and action comics another bite from a very different cherry.

Sadly, what most die-hards will want is to seek out the similarities and differences but, as tempting as that is, I’d like to concentrate on what makes this a good graphic novel and leave the cinematic nitpicking to those more adept and so inclined…

If you had somehow come from another planet and picked up The Star Wars, what you would have is a grandiose space-opera thriller with quite a few similarities to Frank Hebert’s epochal Dune saga and redolent of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, jam-packed with valiant champions fighting a last-ditch rearguard action against an oppressive, tyrannical Empire which wants to run everything…

The warriors called Jedi-Bendu whose martial skills carved out a benevolent galactic coalition are in decline, hunted near to extinction by a rival cult known as the Knights of Sith. As the martial sects waged their war, the nature of politics changed and a new, rapacious government sought to consolidate a league of voluntarily participant systems into an overweening monument to iron-handed control.

On the fourth moon of Utapau aged, ravaged Kane Starkiller is training his sons in the all-but lost martial arts of Jedi-Bendu when the hunters who have eradicated almost all of his kind appear. When the family heroes finally escape the trap they are reduced to only Kane and his elder son Annikin…

Heartbroken, they head for Aquilae, unaware that their homeworld has been targeted by the New Empire. The autonomous system is the last free star kingdom, all others having capitulated to pressure and been absorbed into the burgeoning governmental/commercial juggernaut.

The Emperor, Governor Hoedaack and taciturn General Vader don’t expect too much trouble with this last campaign, but tribunal member Vantoss Coll believes otherwise. He knows Aquilae’s planetary defences are commanded by the mythic Jedi-Bendu Luke Skywalker…

It won’t be enough. Skywalker has the ears of King Kayos and Queen Breha but their parliament is riddled with cowards, appeasers and outright traitors like Count Sandage…

When the attack comes it is in the form of a colossal, moon-sized space-station and Skywalker’s forces are overwhelmed, even with the help of the recently returned Kane and Annikin and a desperate warning from Aquilae’s top agent Clieg Whitsun who arrives moments before the first shattering assault.

With hell about to rain down Skywalker orders Annikin to collect and protect wayward heir Princess Leia whilst he leads the planet’s space forces against the encroaching death star. During the battle two argumentative imperial droids, Artwo and Threepio, eject from the station and meet up with Annikin and Leia in the deep deserts below.

With Kayos murdered, Sandage happily capitulates and orders Skywalker to surrender, but the old soldier refuses…

With Captain Whitsun in tow he absonds, choosing to save the young Princes Biggs and Windy by getting them off-planet. Intending to link up with Annikin at distant Gordon Spaceport where his old alien smuggler pal Han Solo lurks, their flight is harried by faceless waves of white armoured troopers but the real trouble starts when despicable Vader reluctantly accepts the advice and aid of formidable Sith legend Prince Valorum…

After a stunning and non-stop procession of increasingly brutal fights – and with their numbers tragically reduced by the death of two valiant stars – the surviving fugitives get off-planet and make it to primitive frontier world Yavin where Skywalker and Annikin find not only danger and betrayal but an unlikely turncoat ally and a potential game-changing army of bellicose giant beasts called Wookies…

Of course it’s all far more complex and intriguing than that, with young love, dastardly betrayals, tragic sacrifice, plentiful comedy moments and above all astounding, rocket-paced action to carry readers along, and lovers of blaster-blazing action will be well served by the raw energy and lovely artwork.

It would appear that there is an inexhaustible demand for stories from “A Galaxy Far, Far Away…” but this time as another tale of noble rebels and dastardly Empires unfolds the big difference is that you don’t really know what’s coming next. If you’re a movie maven you could call it an alternate universe yarn if you wanted to, but this is a book no lover of great comics will want to miss.
The Star Wars and Star Wars © 2014 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All rights reserved. Used under authorisation. Text and illustrations for Star Wars are ©, 2013, 2014 Lucasfilm

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David, we’re PREGNANT!


By Lynn Johnston (Meadowbrook Press)
ISBN: 978-0-67176-018-2

I suspect the world’s about to go into Celeb-Baby Meltdown again so here’s how I shamelessly cash in, since we can’t send nippers up chimneys or down mines anymore…

As Shakespeare would have it “the world must be peopled”, but if we must there’s always room for a little sensible advice and preparation, so here’s an old cartoon book to provide a few laughs along with all the useful tips and calming, shared experiences.

Of course it’s all actually just another excuse for me to bemoan the loss of those once-ubiquitous cheap ‘n’ cheerful gag-packed paperbacks which are now all-but-forgotten fossils of a once mighty industry; pushed to extinction by the more palatable-sounding graphic novels and trade paperback collections.

Lynn Johnston (née Ridgway) is a national treasure of Canada where her cartooning and narrative talents first came to the fore. Born in 1947 in Collingwood, she was raised in North Vancouver, attending Vancouver School of Art before beginning her career as an animator.

In 1969 she married and was working as a medical artist at McMaster University when this project began in most unlikely circumstances. As described by Dr. Murray W. Enkin in his Introduction to David, we’re Pregnant!, whilst he was attending her in the early days of her first pregnancy, she was staring up – as you apparently do – at his blank ceiling and offered to draw some cartoons to comfort and entertain her fellow mums-to-be during such necessary but rather discommoding and undignified moments.

The result was a huge success in his surgery and was transferred in 1973 to a petite cartoon book which became a huge global sensation. It spawned two sequels (Hi Mom! Hi Dad! and Do They Ever Grow Up?) and led in 1978 to her being invited by the mighty Universal Press Syndicate to create a family comic strip.

Enticed by a twenty year contract, she began the still-running For Better or For Worse, based on her own family and soon fame, through massive syndication, best-selling books, and popular TV and movies soon came knocking…

She is one of the most gifted and celebrated cartoonists in the business, with awards including a Reuben from the National Cartoonists Society, Pulitzer nominations, a Gemini Award and a basketful of Honorary Degrees and Doctorates. Johnston holds both The Order of Canada and membership in The Order of Manitoba. She has her own star on Canada’s Walk of Fame and was elected in 2008 to The National Cartoon Museum Hall of Fame.

David, we’re Pregnant! is a solid example of a lost art form: mature-themed gag-collections which were the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch and evolved into a publishing standby of British and American life for nearly a century before fading away to loiter around bargain bins, jumble sales and junk shops…

As much social satire as self-help, this deliciously addictive art-party traces the vicissitudes of trying to get pregnant, the idiocies of first-time-fathers, “helpful” family members who’ve been there, doctors in all their glory and the shock of realising you’re going to be PARENTS…

Also raising alarm and smiles are panels on the then-revolutionary Lamaze classes, the reactions of older kids to a new sibling, pregnancy clothes, finances, food crazes, quitting smoking and the horrors of getting fat…

Through morning sickness, name selection, waiting for the first kick, expectant mothers-in-law and partners who think they’re funny to delivery and those early times of loud noises, bad smells and no sleep, this splendid tome keeps the entertainment quotient at maximum whilst delivering a bunch of trenchant and even useful home truths…

Cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly smart ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities, stroking our happy places and feeding our fascinations. This sort of thing used to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game, so why not find a shy, alluring little bookshelf and start filling it with marvellous evergreen material like this…

David, we’re Pregnant! is a superb example of a major artist in fiendishly clever and beguiling form, generating warmth and fun with easy charm and utter aplomb. If you find this book (or indeed any cartoon compilation) give it a try. They’re a dying breed and you really will miss them once they’re gone…
© 1975 Potlatch Publications. All rights reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet volume 1 – Electro and Sandman


By Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, Adam Kubert, Barry Kitson, Paul Azaceta, JM Ken Niimura, Javier Pulido & Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3871-6

Nerdy school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, whilst seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy.

His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered, and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need. For years the brilliant young champion suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…

During a particularly hellish period a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as “The Gauntlet”), before Parker’s recent tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

Spanning January and February 2010, the first skirmishes in that campaign of terror are collected here, having originated in Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #612-616 and as pertinent extracts from Web of Spider-Man #2, as old foes returned to trouble a hero already reeling from the fact that his most despised and crazy enemy has just been made the second most powerful man in America…

Officially psychotic Norman Osborn has bedevilled both Spider-Man and Peter for years. His abused son Harry was the misunderstood hero’s greatest friend but the stress and strain, over time, turned the Osborn heir into a drug addict, a costumed carbon copy of his old man and, latterly, a certifiable basket case.

Callously oblivious, Norman – through various machinations – became America’s Security Czar: the “top-cop” in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed community.

Capitalising on the Skrull Secret Invasion he rose to power on a tidal wave of public popularity but soon instituted an oppressive Dark Reign, driving the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes underground and forming his own team of deadly Dark Avengers, all in the grossly debased name of “national security”…

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing a formidable suit of “requisitioned” Iron Man armour and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even whilst covertly conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

From Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, ‘The Last Name’ by Dan Slott, Adam Kubert & Mark Morales finds the whiny media liberals of digital news-source Front Line (populated and staffed by all the ethical reporters from the former Daily Bugle) searching for ways to expose Osborn’s true nature and plans.

When Joe Robertson reminds Parker that no narcissist egomaniac ever destroyed anything he was in, the Astounding Arachnid invades the high tech Oscorp Tower and makes off with incriminating recordings of the former Green Goblin torturing prisoners and testing weapons on human subjects.

With his new position imperilled, Osborn dons the Iron Patriot Armour and gives chase, consequently devastating much of Midtown as he exultantly thrashes his greatest foe. However he’s too late to stop Parker from uploading the films to the world wide web and his brutal behaviour in front of the gathered witnesses is his first big mistake. Now the public are talking, wondering and starting to remember what he used to be…

‘Gauntlet Origins: Electro’ (written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Barry Kitson from Web of Spider-Man #2) then discloses just how blue collar electrical lineman Max Dillon came to grips with the power he developed after being hit by lightning. Stealing components from Stark Industries, being disdained and rejected by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all fostered his determination to be a big shot one day and make everybody pay…

Amazing Spider-Man #612-614 cumulatively bring ‘Power to the People’ (Mark Waid & Paul Azaceta) as, against a backdrop of rolling power outages and an economic downturn, Dillon makes his move after hiring the Mad Thinker to stabilise and augment his famously erratic electrical abilities.

Unfortunately that calls for more cash than he’s got and soon Electro is looking to make more – and quickly…

Rather than robbery, however, he cunningly opts for a very public crusade against skeevy and controversial publisher Dexter Bennett who has just been deemed too big to fail. Awarded a huge government bailout to keep his trashy newspaper The DB (nee Daily Bugle) open, the billionaire is clearly living large even as decent, hard working Americans are suffering the biggest recession in history…

The campaign leads to riots in the streets and Electro makes his move, offering Bennett the chance to buy off the electrical agitator with a quick cash injection.

…And that’s when Spider-Man tracks down the Thinker’s lair and spoils the perfect plan…

With his scheme in ruins, all that’s left for Dillon is revenge and destruction and death…

As the dust finally settles after a spectacular clash which demolishes a New York landmark, Dillon is visited in jail by an old ally who offers another chance for payback…

A backup in Amazing Spider-Man #612, ‘The Other Woman’ by Joe Kelly & JM Ken Niimura then cheekily examines the odd relationship of Spider-Man and amoral adventuress Black Cat, contrasting their commitment-free flings to Peter’s ongoing problems with old flames like Mary Jane Watson and intriguing new co-worker Norah Winters before ‘Keemia’s Castle’ (Amazing Spider-Man #615-616 by Van Lente & Javier Pulido) sees the start of another baffling mystery…

Carlie Cooper is a CI for the police and when robbery and murder evidence in her custody goes missing she turns to science whiz Peter Parker to clear her name. The trail leads the unlikely sleuth to the South Bronx and a missing girl named Keemia Alvarado.

Keemia’s mother was something of a prison groupie and her relationship with metamorphic felon Flint Marko – the Sandman – apparently resulted in a child. After fact – and suspicion – checking with journalist Betty Brant, Spider-Man puts a few together and heads out to closed-for-the-winter Governors Island where he finds his reformed former foe and the missing girl.

Marko denies all knowledge of the crimes. All he wants is to spend time with his little princess and he uses his new power to create autonomous sandy doppelgangers to emphatically press home his point.

It’s only after defeating the outnumbered arachnid that the stunned Sandman realises that some of his duplicates are more autonomous – and bloodthirstily evil – than others…

Fast, furious, and easily combining frantic action with moving character vignettes and ferociously addictive soap opera melodrama, these tales are offbeat even by Spider-Man’s standards – which is no bad thing – but sometimes suffer from a surfeit of unaddressed backstory… which rather is.

Nonetheless, the stories here are clever, compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout, so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover the explosive, if occasionally confusing, Fights ‘n’ Tights rollercoaster is graced with an expansive gallery of covers-&-variants by Adam Kubert, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Marko Djurdjevic, Paolo Rivera, Frank Cho, Adi Granov, Ed McGuiness and Joe Quinones

All in all, this is that oddest and most disappointing of beasts: a great story but an unsatisfactory book…
© 2009, 2010, Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Gotham Central book 1: In the Line of Duty


By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka & Michael Lark & Stephen Gaudiano (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1923-9 (HC)        : 978-1-4012-2037-2 (SC)

One of the great joys of long-lasting, legendary comics characters is their potential for innovation and reinterpretation. There always seems to be another facet or corner to develop. Such a case was Gotham Central, wherein modern television sensibilities cannily combined with the deadly drudgery of the long-suffering boys in blue of the world’s most famous four-colour city.

Owing as much to shows such as Hill Street Blues, Homicide: Life on the Streets and Law & Order as it did to the baroque continuity of Batman, the series mixed gritty, authentic police action with a soft-underbelly peek at what the merely mortal guardians and peacekeepers had to put up with in a world of psychotic clowns, flying aliens and scumbag hairballs who just won’t stay dead.

This compilation – collecting Gotham Central #1-10 (February – October 2003, by writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka and sublimely illustrated by Michael Lark) – revisits those much-missed stories in either standard paperback or lavish hardcover format and starts off with an erudite and informative Introduction on ‘The Mean Streets of Gotham’ by celebrated crime author Lawrence Block.

Brubaker and Rucka co-wrote the eponymous two-part premier tale ‘In the Line of Duty’ wherein a desperate child-kidnap investigation by detectives Marcus Driver and Charlie Fields of ex-Commissioner Gordon‘s hand-picked Major Crimes Unit leads them all unawares to the temporary hideout of murderous superfreak Mr Freeze.

The cold killer horrifically destroys Charlie and sadistically leaves Driver injured but alive as an object lesson.

The GCPD have a strange relationship with the Dark Knight. They all know he’s out there, but the official line is that he’s an urban myth and the Administration refuses to acknowledge his existence. Thus a civilian is employed to turn on the bat-signal on the roof when crises occur and the public are told the eerie light is simply used to keep the cowardly, superstitious underworld cowed…

In such circumstances all real cops are loath to ask for The Bat’s help so Driver and his grieving, angry colleagues pull out all the stops to find and capture Freeze before the masked vigilante insultingly finishes their job for them.

However, as night falls and the frozen bodycount rises, Marcus deduces what Freeze is planning and has no choice but to ask new Police Commissioner Akins to suspend his embargo and call in the whacko expert before hundreds more die…

From an era when comicbook noir was enjoying a superb renaissance, this classic take on the theme of the hunt for a cop-killer is a masterpiece of edgy and fast-paced tension whilst simultaneously perfectly introducing a large cast of splendidly realised new and very individual players…

Brubaker scripts the second story solo as ‘Motive’ finds the again fit-for-duty Driver and his temporary partner Romy Chandler using solid police work to solve the outstanding kidnap case, all the while under the gun as arson villain The Firebug dances on the horizon burning down the city one building at a time.

Fourteen year old babysitter Bonnie Lewis vanished while walking home from her yuppie client’s house and a subsequent ransom demand later proved to be a fake. Now, after her body is found, Driver and Chandler carefully re-examine the facts and discover that almost everybody involved has been lying…

As they methodically sift evidence, alibis and possible motives, they begin to realise that even this tragically normal crime has its roots in both common greed and the gaudy madness of Gotham’s metahuman menaces…

The gripping procedural drama then segues back to the city’s aristocracy of maniacs as Greg Rucka scripts ‘Half a Life’ with focus switching to Renee Montoya: a solid cop with too many secrets.

After her former partner Harvey Bullock was fired with extreme prejudice, tongues started wagging, but now an old case threatens to destroy her career and end her life…

When arresting rapist Marty Lipari, he tried to stab her, and she subdued him. Now her morning is ruined when the skel sues her for ten million dollars in damages.

It only gets worse when she and partner Crispus Allen get a bogus case dumped on them by the corrupt, lazy meatheads in Robbery Division, but the capper is dinner with her traditional, devout Catholic parents who still want her to settle down and have kids…

Her life begins to truly unravel when a photo of her kissing another woman does the round of colleagues, friends and family. Not all her fellow cops are homophobic bigots: but just enough that’s she kept her life private for years. Now, apparently outed by Lipari’s hired gumshoe Brian Selker, she is targeted by Internal Affairs when first the PI and then Lipari himself are shot to death.

With her lover Darla threatened, her gun identified as the murder weapon and a huge amount of illicit drugs found in her apartment, Renee is soon on her way to jail – another bad egg just like Bullock.

Nobody in MCU thinks she’s guilty but the evidence is overwhelming, and the crisis comes when en route she’s busted out by masked men and taken to the hidden citadel of one of Batman’s most nightmarish nemeses…

Utterly alone, in the unfriendliest job in the world, in the nastiest town on Earth, Montoya has to deal alone with a crazed maniac who’s destroyed her life just so he can be with her forever.

As a Major Crimes Detective she’s seen how bad The Bat’s enemies can get, but this time she’s the target, not the hunter or witness, and it’s not just her life at stake…

This engrossing drama never steps outside of human bounds irrespective of the nature of evil in Gotham, and the original comic presentation (from issues #6-10) won Eisner, Harvey, Eagle and Prism awards for Best Story in 2003.

Sadly not included in this volume are the two earlier tales from Renee’s past (Batman Chronicles #16 – Two Down, by Rucka & Jason Pearson & Cam Smith, and Detective Comics #747 – Happy Birthday Two You, by Rucka, William Rosado & Steve Mitchell) which explained that oblique connection to her obsessive suitor – although you can find then in the original 2005 trade paperback Gotham Central: Half a Life.

The appropriate quota of human drama, tension, stress and machismo all play well under Michael Lark’s deftly understated illustrations, adding a grimy patina of pseudo-reality to good old fashioned cops ‘n’ robbers stories, played out in what can only be described as the urban city of the damned.

The procedural cop thriller on the edge of hell is a stunning study in genre-crossing storytelling, and this edition includes a full cover gallery by Lark as well as a fulsome section of designs and character sketches in ‘Staffing the GCPD’.

Dark, suspenseful and so very addictive, this is a book no batfreak or crime buff can afford to miss.
© 2004, 2005, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Eldritch Kid: Whisky & Hate


By Christian Read & Michael Maier (Gestalt Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-980782-35-6

There was a time, not so very long ago, when all of popular fiction was bloated and engorged with tales of Cowboys and Indians.

As always happens with such periodic populist phenomena – such as the Swinging Sixties’ Super-Spy Boom or the recent Vampire Boyfriend trend – there was a goodly amount of momentary merit, lots of utter dross and a few spectacular gems.

Most importantly, once such surges have petered out there’s also always a small cadre of frustrated devotees who mourn its passing and, on growing up, resolve to do something to venerate or even revive their lost and faded favourite fad…

After World War II the American family entertainment market – for which read comics, radio and the rapidly burgeoning television industry – became comprehensively enamoured of the clear-cut, simplistic sensibilities and easy, escapist solutions offered by Tales of the Old West; at that time already a firmly established standby of paperback publishing, movie serials and low-budget feature films.

I’ve often ruminated on how and why simultaneously, the dark, bleakly nigh-nihilistic and left-leaning Film Noir genre quietly blossomed alongside that wholesome rip-snorting range-&-rodeo revolution, seemingly only for a cynical minority of entertainment intellectuals who somehow knew that the returned veterans still hadn’t found a Land Fit for Heroes… but perhaps that’s a thought for another time and a different review.

Even though comics had encompassed Western heroes from the get-go (there were cowboy strips in the premier issues of both Action Comics and Marvel Comics) the post-war boom years saw a vast outpouring of titles with new gun-toting heroes to replace the rapidly dwindling supply of costumed Mystery Men, and true to formula, most of these pioneers ranged from transiently mediocre to outright appalling.

Despite minor re-flowerings in the early 1970s and mid-1990s, Western strips have largely vanished from our funnybook pages: apparently unable to command enough mainstream support to survive the crushing competition of garish wonder-men and the furiously seductive future.

Europe and Britain also embraced the Sagebrush zeitgeist and produced some extremely impressive work, with France and Italy eventually making the genre emphatically their own by the end of the 1960s. They still make the best straight Western strips in the world for an avid audience still possessing a vast appetite for them…

Fantasy and Horror stories, on the other hand, have never really gone away and this superb entertaining entry from Australian graphic raconteurs Christian Read & Michael Maier superbly blends time honoured tropes of the wild west with sinister sorcerous sensibilities to create a bewitching alternate reality where dark bloody deeds are matched by dire demonic forces and the decent guys called upon to combat them have to dabble in the diabolical too…

Following the tantalising Introduction ‘Our shadow goes where we go’ from author K. J. Bishop, the full-colour mystic mayhem begins with the recollections of an Oxford-educated shaman detailing his life following his return to the land of his birth.

Spring 1877 and the great Indian Wars are over. Custer is dead but so is Crazy Horse. The Whites are greedily covering the entire country and an erudite, educated man with the wrong coloured skin is reduced to playing scout for a bunch of barely literate morons wagon-trekking across the plains to California. They need him but regard their supremely capable guide with suspicion, disdain and barely-disguised disgust…

One particular incident of second-guessing his decisions involves a detour around a stony butte that simply reeks of bad magic. Accusing him of leading them into an ambush and other dishonourable deeds, the lazy, work-shy Christians drive him to ignore his instincts and better judgement and reluctantly check out the pinnacle personally…

Wicasa Waken, outcast Shaman of the Oglala Lakota, Ten Shoes Dancing of the mighty Sioux and lately graduated Master of Arts and Literature, Oxford, England 1875, always knew devil magic when he smelled it but, since his teachers taught him to treasure human life, he remained faithful to their training and climbs a mountain into hell…

At the top he encounters five-headed snakes and zombies and a strange white man they were taking their time killing…

Losing their lands to the pale invaders has soured many of his people and allowed a growth of bad spirits and corrupted medicine like the long-fled Bloody Knife to control many points on the map, but the man these horrors are torturing jangle the shaman’s mystic senses in way nothing ever has before.

Piling in he begins killing monsters and the “victim”, once freed, eagerly joins in, his accursed guns making short work of the ravening Heyokas. Soon they are all dispatched and Ten Shoes Dancing – after exorcising and sanitising the spiritually defiled butte – realises he has made the rather prickly acquaintance of a modern Western Legend…

The settlers are ecstatic to have celebrated dime novel hero The Eldritch Kid join their party and, whilst still treating his rescuer like a barely housebroken monkey, fête the grim gunslinger like a messiah.

It’s hard for even the most enlightened man to watch a surly, taciturn, creepy freak basking in hero-worship, hot vittles and wanton female attention…

It’s not just this becoming-nation America that is awash with blood and wickedness. The entire world is swamped with boggles, spectres and worse, but since the War Between the States the Kid has achieved a certain notoriety for dealing harshly and permanently with all things supernatural and predatory.

Nevertheless he’s a mean, mercenary bastard and a tough man to like for the philosophically inclined, poetry-loving Ten Shoes until the wagons arrive at a thriving prairie town that the shaman knows wasn’t there a month previously.

Opting to investigate the bustling hamlet together, the mismatched heroes are soon fighting for their lives against an army of hungry ghosts and the Lakota learns that although his personal patron god Lord Hnaska is grossly offended by the crawling things that hunger for human morsels, he is more worried by the cold, dark deity who sponsors his avatar’s gun-toting partner in peril…

A loveless alliance is forged in that ghastly spirit-trap and, as the wagon train proceeds towards California, the kid finally opens up enough to share the history that made him the most feared gunhawk in the West.

The story began in 1865 at Camp Elmira, New Jersey where Confederate prisoners were held. The detention centre was a hellhole even by human standards, but when a ravenous demon began taking the inmates, one of the terrified, beaten sitting duck captives was offered a deal by an invading ancient northern god…

This grim King of Death was unhappy with the beasts and night things increasingly infesting the Earth and offered a trade: power for service…

After a suitably painful and gory “offering” the prisoner was given just enough of a supernatural advantage to kill the monsters – human and otherwise – and escape. He has been doing his Lord’s work ever since…

At trail’s end the settlers naturally bilk the generally good-natured Ten Shoes who chalks it up to experience. However his new associate still has many secrets unshared and exacts his own brand of instant karma.

…And thus is born another legend of the Wildest West Ever…

Bleak, moody, spectacularly action-packed and cathartic, Whisky & Hate is a smart, blackly funny yarn that will astound lovers of genre fiction and witty mash-ups.

The Western tale has long been a part of world culture and perhaps that fact has relegated the genre in too many minds to the status of a passé fascination of a bygone generation. However this fresh, hypnotically beguiling look at an overexposed idiom prove there’s still meat to found on those old bones, and cow-punching aficionados, fear-fans, lovers of nostalgia-tainted comics and seekers of the wild and new alike can all be assured that this range-riding rollercoaster of thrills and macabre mystery proves that excitement and terror still lurk in those hills and on that horizon…

Black hats, white hats, alternate worlds, haunts and horrors, stunning visuals and macabre twists – what more could you possibly ask for?
© 2011 Christian Read, Michael Maier & Gestalt Publishing Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.