Now Read This!

June 12, 2014June 18, 2014

All-New X-Men/Guardians of the Galaxy: The Trial of Jean Grey

By Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, Stuart Immonen, David Marquez, Wade Von Grawbadger & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

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

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

And Elsewhere in Infinity: a few years ago a plethora of cosmic crises forced the champions and remnants of many heroic races to band together and save the cosmos. Although said crises were largely averted, some of those Sentinels of the Spaceways eventually got the band back together, more determined than ever to make the universe a safe place (for specifics you should consult Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers and Angela).

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, this stellar crossover saga combined the two disparate gangs of outcasts: The Trial of Jean Grey collects All-New X-Men #22.NOW, 23-24 and Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW, 12-13 (from January to March 2014), taking the time-displaced teens to the ends of the universe and even further into uncharted temporal territoryâ€¦

The crossover cataclysm commences in All-New X-Men #22.NOW (illustrated by Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger) and opens in the wilds of Canada at the New Charles Xavier School– formerly the Weapon X facility where Wolverine and so many other mutants were ruthlessly experimented upon and â€œimprovedâ€.

Here the future-shocked Angel, Iceman, Beast, young Cyclops and Jean Grey are feeling the building tension of their new normal: facing the prospect of never returning to their own time; risking destroying all reality with every moment they aren’t back there and, worst of all, watching Jean go slowly crazy trying not to become the impossibly perfect superwoman everybody keeps talking about in such hushed tonesâ€¦

As part of that resolution Jean had been tentatively exploring her romantic options, consequently sowing confusion amongst her hormonal teenaged confreres. This now results in a painfully fraught spat with ostensibly predestined husband (young) Scott Summers.

As tempers flare the facility is suddenly stormed by a squad of extraterrestrial commandos who, despite spirited resistance from the assorted X-Men and other mutants, capture Jean and blast off for parts unknownâ€¦

Mere seconds later another band of weirdoes turn up: The Guardians of the Galaxy are aghast and furious at arriving too lateâ€¦

Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW (with art by Sara Pichelli) then flashbacks to fill in the details as Star-Lord Peter Jason Quill is ambushed in an alien bar by a Skrull bounty hunter.

The half-breed Terran is the unloved son of J’Son of Spartax – undisputed ruler of an interstellar empire – but no friend of Earth. The wayward scion and his allies in pacifying an unruly and unforgiving universe Drax, Rocket Racoon, Groot, Gamora (â€œDeadliest Woman in the Galaxyâ€) and newest extra-dimensional recruit Angela are all on the run from the militaristic Spartoi and their alliesâ€¦

The self-appointed Guardians’ ongoing troubles stem from a compact of major cosmic powers and principalities. This coterie of rulers had formed a Council of Galactic Empires and unilaterally declared Earth â€œoff limitsâ€: quarantined from all extraterrestrial contact, but that high-minded declaration hadn’t stopped some of the signatories from breaking their own embargo or being mighty ticked off whenever Quill’s crew kicked them off Terra and back into space.

Cold and distant J-Son of course, had his own good – if undisclosed – reasons for wanting his son curbed and controlledâ€¦

However whilst the Skrull was stalking Star-Lord, the Council was meeting and Emperor Kallark of the Shi’ar (AKA alien superman Gladiator) was informing his colleagues that Jean Grey – former host to the overweening Phoenix Force – was back and he was going to try her for her crimesâ€¦ even though the chronally displaced child hadn’t technically committed them yetâ€¦

When wily techie Rocket Racoon intercepts a message about an intended Shia’ar raid on Earth, the Guardians race to stop them, butâ€¦

All-New X-Men #23 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) picks up the tale in space as the Guardians and X-Men hurtle after the commandos, shattering Shi’ar ships that get in their way, even as far ahead of them Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of DC’s Legion of Super Heroes) telepath Oracle begins to debrief Jean and chillingly share her future history with her.

The exotic psionic seems oddly sympathetic and considerate of the Terran teenager’s unhappy predicamentâ€¦

Her pursuers meanwhile are encountering increasingly harsh resistance – until help arrives in the form of the bombastic, swashbuckling Starjammersâ€¦

GotG #12 (illustrated by Pichelli, Immonen & Von Grawbadger) sees young Cyclops receive the shock of his life as he finds that the freebooting rebels’ leader is his own long-dead dad Christopher Summers. He hates the Shi’ar with a passion and good reason and now goes by the name Corsairâ€¦

As father and son ecstatically embrace, on Planet Spartax Quill’s sire is taking steps to offset the disaster he knows will come if Kallark carries out his insane plan to kill the time-lost Jean Grey. He had originally intended to do nothing, but now that his own son has become involvedâ€¦

As the combined rescue-force infiltrates the Empire’s most secure planet, Jean’s show-trial is beginning. Kallark – despite the continued objections of Oracle – confronts the frail-seeming Earthling with the planetary genocides perpetrated by her older self whilst possessed by the Phoenix and callously demands her plea for crimes she has not yet, if ever, committedâ€¦

All-New X-Men #23 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) ramps up the tension as J-Son bursts in, declaring the defendant’s innocence and asking if the Shi’ar have not already done enough.

In the aftermath of the Phoenix’s rampage Gladiator had exterminated every one of Jean’s relatives – in case the cosmic entity had some affinity with the family’s genetics – but this latest action seems like nothing more than vindictive, cowardly paranoiaâ€¦

The revelation is a huge mistakeâ€¦

In the world outside, Starjammers, Guardians and X-Men are getting closer and closer, using guile and force of arms to cut their way through the massed military forces, but their efforts are wasted.

Jean, horrified by the fate of her family, has tapped unknown reserves and become something never experienced in her previous future history. As such, the Imperial Guard are utterly unable to contain herâ€¦

As Gladiator’s forces pursue they are countered by the late arriving Guardian- Starjammer-X force in the spectacular and climactic Guardians of the Galaxy #13 (illustrated by Pichelli & David Marquez). Jean’s evolution and Cyclops’ determination are key to ending the ill-advised intergalactic travesty of justice, but in the weary aftermath, as Quill’s people return the mutants to their homeworld, a tricky new romance has been kindled and one of the time-tossed teen nomads is noticeably missingâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Fast, furious, funny and fantastically thrilling, The Trial of Jean Grey combines cosmic intrigue and dashing derring-do with hilarious characterisation and passionate soap opera angst and comes with a stunning 17 covers-&-variants gallery by Immonen, Von Grawbadger, Pichelli, Dale Keown & Chris Samnee as well as AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) for access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

What more could any entertainment-starved child of the wondering stars demand?

June 11, 2014June 18, 2014

Uncanny X-Men: the Good, the Bad, the Inhuman

By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Marco Rudy, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-609-0

When the teenaged â€œFirst Classâ€ of Charles Xavier’s X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

However after the tragic events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank â€œthe Beastâ€ McCoy, Bobby â€œIcemanâ€ Drake, Warren â€œthe Angelâ€ Worthington, Scott Summers, young Jean Grey, teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura â€œX-23â€ Kinney and the School’s Head Professor Kitty Pryde defected to the mutant terrorist band known as the Extermination Team.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the staunch and steadfast elder Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – had killed his beloved father-figure Xavier.

In the aftermath Old Summers united with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost 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 protÃ©gÃ©s.

Discarding Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids through his traditional methods at the Jean Grey School.

The two opposing sides of the mutant question clashed constantly, as the modern world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the youngâ€¦

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heated up when Summers – utterly convinced of his species’ inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s School student wishing to join his own academy – the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on themâ€¦

The bold ploy succeeded in luring away Angel and the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, before the situation was further muddied when both X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants radicals from the future travelled back to address the issue of the time-displaced First Class.

As a result of that â€œBattle of the Atomâ€ Cyclops found himself offering sanctuary to his youngest old friends, his callow earlier self and the girl who had given her life for himâ€¦ twiceâ€¦

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #14, 15.INH, 16-18 (January-May 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend take a deft turn into a lighter tone, beginning with ‘Initiation’ (offering additional inking by Jamie Mendoza, Al Vey, Mark Irwin & Victor Olazaba) as the new kids bond with the extraordinary other students through the shared pain of Elder Cyclops’ draconian physical training regimenâ€¦

In a quieter moment Emma takes the unprepossessing Benjamin Deeds under her wing; fascinated by his seemingly feeble ability to make himself physically and psychically likable and trustworthyâ€¦

For a field test, she unleashes the nervous lad at a gambling palace in Atlantic City before setting a more risky task: waltzing into a high security S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hand-deliver the mutant band’s ultimatum to America’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping forceâ€¦

Kris Anka then limns issue #15.INH – an offbeat tie-in to the then-ongoing Inhumanity Publishing Event. During the previous blockbuster Infinity, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill.

As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it would create millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not necessarily different racesâ€¦

When Frost and Pryde accompany the academy’s girl contingent on a sybaritic shopping-fest in London, they encounter Latverian tourist Geldhoff just as his Terrigen-triggered transformation completes. However, whilst trying to convince him to return with them to the New Xavier School, they succumb to the panicky trans-human’s explosive new power, allowing obsessive A.I.M. geneticist Dr. Monica Rappaccini to swoop in and add Geldhoff to her rapidly expanding collection of potentially profitable specimensâ€¦

All along Magneto has been playing a double (or even treble?) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her.

Now (with art by Bachalo & Co), after meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dazzler, he is lured to the island of Madripoor to discover that Machiavellian shapeshifter Mystique has created her own mutant utopia in the former rogue state. He never returns to the New Xavier Schoolâ€¦

Undaunted by the loss of a faculty member, the tough-love/education continues as the kids are dumped in the middle of a hostile nowhere and told to survive the monsters residing there. However one of the kids makes a huge mistake and even Nick Fury Jr. and the Avengers cannot save him from Cyclops’ harsh and very final judgementâ€¦

The drama concludes in psychedelic style (courtesy of Marco Rudy & colourist Val Staples) as Cyclops and his appalled team return to base and discover that Jean has been abducted by the alien Shi’ar. Also missing is Kitty Pryde and the rest of the time-tossed First Classâ€¦

This triggers a brutal flashback to the recent moment when Scott and Kitty lethally â€œnegotiatedâ€ the terms under which she and her charges would join his group and his subsequent painful conversations with his teenaged-again One True Love and baffled and betrayed youngerÂ self.

And now he has to face the fact that they are gone and he cannot save themâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka and Alexander Lozano, plus another photo-cover featuring TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet, The Good, the Bad, the Inhuman is a smart, sassy and amazingly engaging read: a fun-filled, fury-fuelled saga which craftily combines incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a mere modicum of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.

June 10, 2014June 8, 2014

Buz Sawyer volume 3: Typhoons and Honeymoons

By Roy Crane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-703-1

Once you start reading classic masterpieces of cartoon art you just can’t stopâ€¦

In these seen-it-all 21^st century times where science is astounding and confounding us on a daily basis, it’s hard to remember a time when folk were impressed by things we now take for granted and merely human-scaled adventure was enough to set pulses racing and hearts poundingâ€¦ until you read a book like this one.

This third stout and sturdy hardcover edition re-presents more magnificent newspaper strip exploits of dynamic all-American everyman Buz Sawyer: war hero, globetrotting troubleshooter and imminent groom-to-be, covering the epochal period from July 21^st 1947 to October 9^th 1949 wherein – after much procrastination, intrigue, bloodshed and sexy skulduggery – our boy finally married his extremely understanding sweetheart Christy Jameson.

Of course he then dragged her into his lethally adventurous world as prime problem-solver for Frontier Oil – a company with fingers in many international piesâ€¦

Before the two-fisted romance kicks off, however, the ever-erudite Rick Norwood uses a letter from Crane’s personal papers (donated to Syracuse University) to examine the creator’s history, influence and opinions in his own forthright words in ‘The Life of a Professional Artist’.

Crane and his creative team (see Buz Sawyer volume 2: Sultry’s Tiger for details) laboured long, hard, often acrimonious hours to produce each daily strip; all mesmerisingly rendered in monochrome through Crane’s masterly techniques employing line art and craftint (a mechanical monochrome patterning effect which added greys and halftones to produce miraculous depths and moods to the superb underlying drawing) but the toll was heavy on personnel and feelings.

The colour Sundays were usually the province of ghost artist Hank Schlensker and starred Buz’s grizzled old sidekick Roscoe Sweeny, and this volume concludes with a brief selection that primarily guest-starred the named lead and Roscoe in wartime reminiscences and occasional contemporary gag goof-offsâ€¦

The never-ending rollercoaster of thrills, spills and chills picks up as Frontier Oil’s Mr. Fixit reels at the realisation that he’s finally formally engaged to his girlâ€¦

Buz is only just coming to grips with the marriage in prospect, whereas avowed â€œLadies Manâ€ Chili Harrison is cynically unmoved that his former office-mate is on Cloud 9â€¦ at least until they get a desperate call from mutual Navy buddy Thirsty Collins. Their homely shipmate has a problem only Buz can solveâ€¦

The old salt had made good since hostilities ended and owns his own plantation on his own island. He has, however, been maimed in an accident whilst wooing a woman by post. Now she is coming to marry her Mr. Collins, based on his winning words and a single photoâ€¦ of Buz.

With the jig up, Thirsty deeds Patricia Patterson all his worldly goods, sets up Sawyer to marry her and attempts his own wildly flamboyant suicideâ€¦

Reluctantly flying down to Puerto Rico, our hero is soon embroiled in a ludicrous imbroglio as, even after having everything explained, Pat professes to prefer the hunk at hand rather than her timid, missing matrimonial mystery man.

Thankfully a colossal hurricane and a conniving lecherous playboy cad do more to convince Collins to fight for and win his baffled bride than all Buz’s infuriated, exasperated argumentsâ€¦

In Roy Crane’s world there are no tidy beginnings and endings. Each adventure follows seamlessly on from the last and even as Buz makes his way back to New York the next escapade was well underway.

Patient sweetheart Christy has had enough waiting around and goes looking for a job, landing up as Chili’s secretary, but only after the unrepentant, blithely unaware hound-dog clears the way by promoting his own highly efficient but unsightly amanuensis – at great personal financial cost – so that he can have unrestricted access to the pretty stranger joining Frontier Oil.

Naturally the sparks fly when Sawyer finds his fiancÃ©e toiling for his dissolute and probably degenerate former wingman, whilst Chili is horrified to find he had lost this particular hot babe to â€œold Buzzoâ€ even before he had hired herâ€¦

As Buz lays his wedding plans and retirement, his crafty boss Mr. Wright convinces him to sideline all that mushy stuff for one last job, and soon Sawyer and Sweeney are in the Goat Islands off Portugal, hunting a devious gunrunning ring supplying rebels in Salvaduras.

Masquerading as itinerant writers on a yachting jaunt, our heroes don’t fool the bombastic Brobdingnagian bully Hammerhead Gool or his puny, effete but Machiavellian boss Harry Sparrow for a moment. It’s only the diminutive mastermind’s overwhelming squeamishness and sensitivity to the thought of blood that prevents their immediate destruction.

Moreover when deception, bribery and seduction fail to deter the undercover operatives, Sparrow resorts to abducting them whilst immediately despatching the cached ordnance and munitions to the revolutionaries wrecking Frontier’s Salvaduran oil fields.

That slow voyage of the damned only leads to the explosive loss of Sparrow’s ship and shipment as well as the end of the coupâ€¦

Back in America Buz has proved himself too valuable to lose, and Frontier’s most important executive J.J. Freeze finds herself – after all, a mere woman – compelled to employ him as a bodyguard on her secret mission to Java and all points East to secure lucrative mineral rights deals.

Sawyer is just as reluctant, but the promise of enough money to retire in style proves too tempting, and patient, understanding Christy is again left behind to fret and worryâ€¦

She has good reason: Sparrow is still alive and eagerly anticipating the prospect of a vast payoff and cruel vengeanceâ€¦

Tracking Freeze and Sawyer from Ireland to Egypt to Singapore, the little weasel poisons Freeze, who orders Buz to go on to Surabaya, Java alone, carrying a cash payment of $1,000,000 for the nation’s capricious and over-educated Maharaja.

Harry even brazenly confronts Buz; putting our hero off guard as he instigates his latest master-plan: hiring a double to blacken Sawyer’s name and reputation in prim and proper Javanese High Society.

With the deal effectively scuppered, Sparrow maroons Buz on a desert island to force him to surrender the cash – unsuccessfully – before playing his final stroke: drugging the valiant troubleshooter with a solution that causes amnesiaâ€¦

Back in America when word comes that the deal has flopped and both Buz and a million bucks are missing, Christy refuses to accept the slanderous stories and sells everything she owns to buy passage to Java. Soon she is an innocent abroad searching the dives and alleys of Surabaya for her man.

When she is targeted by bandits and worse, Christy’s frantic escape brings her into contact with a crazy old lady who collects stray cats – and did the same for a derelict American with no name or memoryâ€¦

The action seamlessly shifts into romantic melodrama as Christy tries to win back Buz from the lonely and dangerous harridan he has come to love, but even after that struggle heart-wrenchingly succeeds, the greater fight to clear his mind and his name continuesâ€¦

When that minor miracle is finally accomplished, the restored Buz at last begins the oft-postponed wedding plans, only to be kidnapped by his rich, crazy and somehow not dead stalker Sultry, the Maharani of Batu.

In no mood to be balked, however, the impatient two-fisted groom-to-be fights his way out of her palace and onto a Honolulu-bound planeâ€¦

Back in their rural hometown in time for Christmas, Buz and Christy finally tie the knot and prepare for the rest of their lives but the new Mrs. Sawyer is still terrified that domesticity might kill her over-active husbandâ€¦

As the newlyweds enjoy a carefully sequestered and discreet honeymoon off-panel, Sweeney appropriates the daily strip for a few weeks in a hilarious comedy sequence as he attempts to find them the perfect wedding present and ends up hunting Longhorn Sheep off-season in the near-arctic conditions of the Rocky Mountains in Decemberâ€¦

A turning point began in early 1948 as Wright and the Frontier Oil brass tracked down Buz to offer him a life-threateningly dull desk job or a perilous field assignment in Darkest Africa.

Perfect wife Christy, understanding Buz’s needs, bravely ignores her own feelings and talks him into the latter, offering to share his addiction to danger and the unknownâ€¦

Soon the couple are trekking across the Veldt: pioneers tasked with carving an airport and oil installation out of the jungle, but the natural wonders and threats of Africa are as nothing compared to the murderously conniving schemes of their nearest neighbour.

Dashing, debonair Kingston Diamond is solicitous in advice and unctuous in his welcome of the young Americans, but his patient game includes sabotage, terrorism, slaughtering Christy’s menagerie of pets and even murdering Buz to eventually win him the only white woman in 100 milesâ€¦

As previously mentioned, also included here are fourteen of the best Sundays – all notionally with appearances by Buz (spanning July 29th 1945 to 17th February 1963) – a cheerily tantalising bonus which will hopefully turn one day into an archival collection of their own. Whilst not as innovative or groundbreaking as Captain Easy, they’re still proficient works by one of the Grand masters of our art-form.

Buz Sawyer: Typhoons and Honeymoons is another sublime slice of compelling comics wonder: an ideal way to discover or reconnect with Crane’s second magnum opus – bold, daring, funny and enthralling adventures which influenced generations of modern cartoonists, illustrators, comics creators and storytellers. The seriesranks amongst the very greatest strip cartoon features ever created: always offering comics tale-telling that is unforgettable, unmissable and utterly irresistible.
Buz Sawyer: Typhoons and Honeymoons Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books. All Buz Sawyer strips Â© 2014 King Features Syndicate, Inc. All other material Â© the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

June 9, 2014June 18, 2014

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted

By Brahm Revel & Cristiane Peter (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-586-4

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories intended for older readers. More parallel to rather than actually outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased. Eventually these Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited seriesâ€¦

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted #1-5 originally ran from January-May 2014 and featured a particularly messy murder mystery and prime example of why baseline humanity should fear the mutants in their midstâ€¦ and vice versa.

In case you forgotâ€¦

In 1975 Len Wein & Dave Cockrum revived a revered but painfully uncommercial fan favourite with Giant Size X-Men #1, replacing most of the 1960s team – Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Beast, Lorna Dane and Havok – with a second generation of edgier international mutants young and old.

With both field-leader Cyclops and wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier remaining to carry on the dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race with terrifying extra abilities, the stage was set for â€œAll New, All Differentâ€ adventures, and the fledgling squad rapidly became the company’s biggest hit and asset, as well as largest pool of captivating characters.

Comic fans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for untold tales and details, so this grim and gritty, chronologically non-specific yarn featuring Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey,the Beast and Rogue will certainly appeal to older readers with a taste for nasty businessâ€¦

Written and illustrated by Brahm Revel with colour art by Cristiane Peter, the tale begins when telepathic Rachel picks up the psychically broadcast murder of a young unknown mutant. The most potent sense she got was that the boy was being huntedâ€¦

A little technological research by Hank McCoy pinpoints a cluster of three new mutants in rural West Virginia so the team heads off to the Appalachian boondocks. Further poking around had also revealed an unholy number of missing kids in that desolate areaâ€¦

With Wolverine already on edge over the prospect of somebody hunting mutant children, he and fellow covert specialists Kitty and Rogue arrive in a bleak, forbidding and primitive town and start poking around.

Rogue in particular feels the oppressive tone of a time and milieu she thought she had long left behind. Almost as soon as the suspicious strangers arrive, Wolverine arouses the ire of the local biker gang in their favourite watering hole, but while he does what he does best Kitty has found one of the mutants in the backâ€¦

Teenaged Krystal is a drug dealer for her uncle Jasper – the town sheriff – and can control minds, so she easily escapes the X-Men. She is also quite partial to the illicit and unique narcotic produced by cultish isolationists â€œThe Cooksâ€ in their secluded compound and soon after taking another dose is cornered by the patiently searching heroes.

Explaining the situation, the strangers take the oddly subdued Krystal – who lies about her true power – with them as they track down another mutant energy signature.

The trail leads to a cabin in the deep woods, a place the girl is clearly terrified of, and soon all four are experiencing impossible visions.

Wolverine has no time to ponder as he is ambushed by arch-nemesis Sabretooth and a brutal fight ensues. Rogue is then jumped by her former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants compatriots Mystique, Blob and Pyro and soon the shabby hut is filled with an army of old X-enemies and all-out war is underwayâ€¦

Realising something strange is going on, Wolverine battles his way to a young girl at the centre of the savage melee and discovers that deeply troubled Darla is cursed with the ability to materialise other people’s memoriesâ€¦

As he tries to reach her, the vision of the mutant boy’s murder plays out again for all to seeâ€¦

Back at the bar, Jasper delivers the latest batch of the new drug from The Cooks and suggests that the bikers get rid of the prying mutie strangers in townâ€¦

As the X-Men try to calm the deeply troubled dream-weaver, Krystal suddenly blurts out that Darla was the one who killed the missing boy, resulting in the cruel death materialising yet again and sending Wolverine into a murderous rage.

It’s all his team-mates can do to stop him gutting Darla on the spotâ€¦

In an effort to calm the situation the mutants all drive back to town, but when no adult is looking, Krystal slips Darla a bunch of pills from her stash and the memory-girl’s power goes into overdriveâ€¦

As Sentinels, evil mutants and demons from the X-Men’s past ravage the town, whilst the heroes turn on each other with homicidal intent, in the woods The Cooks, believing their particular apocalypse has arrived, head towards town to kill all the humans they can findâ€¦

Darla is off her head and out of control. However, as the town burns, with Rogue and Wolverine engrossed in trying to kill each other and a manifested army of old foes trying to kill everybody else, the truth slowly begins to emerge.

The Cooks’ special ingredient is bled out from captive mutants, boosting their product’s effect on humans and causing even nastier reactions in any Homo Superior who take it. Moreover, the doom-cultists believe that by taking the stuff they can become mutants themselves, leaving behind mortality and freeing them to slaughter the doomed genetic dead-ends of humanityâ€¦

As doped-up, despairing Darla discovers how to control her psychic constructs the chaos spirals to a bloody crescendo and Kitty, largely unaffected by the madness of malignant memories, realises that they have all been played for suckers.

Unfortunately even after the true cause of all the bloodshed comes clean, the carnage has reached a point beyond anybody’s controlâ€¦ and then comes inspirationâ€¦

Not all memories are bad and Kitty’s past is filled with valiant friends and heroes who would give their lives over and again to save the innocent and punish the guiltyâ€¦

With covers and variants by Revel & Peter and Paolo Rivera, Haunted is simultaneously a smart, convoluted mystery and breathtaking primal action comics spectacle that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

June 8, 2014June 6, 2014

Hunger House

By Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg,translated by C/M Edenborg & Martin Tistedt (Borderline Press)
ISBN: 978-0-99269-724-2

If you thought â€œScandi-Crimeâ€ was an impressive tweak on an old genre, wait until you see what our northern cousins can do with horrorâ€¦

Resurrecting the classic ghost story in this seductive and compelling lavish two-colour hardback tome, husband-&-wife team Carl-Michael Edenborg and Loka Kanarp have concocted a sharp, sweet and sour compote of dark desire and chilling craving in their account of a slumbering supernatural force and its appalling allure for two troubled and unhappy girls…

Deeps in the woods a ramshackle edifice awaits as, nearer town and selfish, judgemental, facile modern civilisation, sisters Elsa and Fredrike grow increasingly uncomfortable with their new foster parents.

The smugly sanctimonious old poseurs are delighted with the idea and their roles as guardians – and especially in the reactions of their equally shallow friends and neighbours – but really don’t seem that invested in the recently-bereft children in their chargeâ€¦

Unhappy to be the star exhibit at a garden party, the girls soon sneak off and wander into the wilds on the edge of town. They’re heading for a strange place Elsa heard about at school. They really shouldn’t go in. All the kids say it’s hauntedâ€¦

The deserted domicile is vast: a procession of bleak and empty rooms where the previous inhabitants seemingly disappeared in the middle of a coffee klatschâ€¦

As they idly roam together, the bare boards suddenly break beneath them and Elsa falls into a darkness far deeper and longer than the mere gap between floors. The hole is bigger than the house and even after climbing down on a rope Fredrike cannot touch the bottomâ€¦

Dejectedly returning alone to her foster parents’ home she tries to explain what has happened but is cut short when Elsa saunters in. She is not the same.

For one thing, she is cruel and mean and bullying, but the real kicker is at supper when a cutlery mishap proves the elder sister is no longer even humanâ€¦

Of course, the pompous, self-opinionated adults notice nothing, and later as Fredrike cowers in bed looking at photos of happier times, the thing that looks like Elsa creeps in and offers to show her secrets and surprises if she will return to the ruined house with herâ€¦

Author, publisher and editor Edenborg (My Cruel Fate) runs his own publishing house – Vertigo Forlag – and co-wrote Hungerhusetwith graphic novelist Kanarp (another sterling alumni of the Comics Art School of MalmÃ¶ whose previous works include Pearls and Bullets and To My Friends and Enemies)Â to satisfy their own love of suspense-horror movies.

Their passion is our happy windfall as this sublimely seductive and truly beguiling mystery unfolds in ways both uneasily familiar and intensely originalâ€¦

If being simultaneously unsettled and delightfully satiated is your particular meat, Hunger House is a dish you will never regret ordering.
Â© 2014 Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg.

June 7, 2014June 6, 2014

Captain America: the Definitive Platinum Edition Reloaded

By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Englehart, John David Warner, Mark Gruenwald, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Ed Brubaker, Steve Harris, Al Avison, Al Gabriele, Dick Ayers, John Romita Sr., Frank Robbins, Kieron M. Dwyer, Ron Garney, Ivan Reis, Butch Guice, Luke Ross, Mitch Breitweiser & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-580-2

The Sentinel of Liberty was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and confidently launched in his own title Captain America Comics #1, cover-dated March 1941. He was an overwhelming overnight success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely – now Marvel – Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ (the other two being Human Torch and Sub-Mariner) and amongst the very first to fade as the Golden Age ended.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression gripped the American psyche in the 1950s Steve Rogers was briefly revived in 1953 – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics called him up again in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the tragically heroic death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) during the final days of the war, the resurrected Mr. Rogers stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well.

He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in his nation’s history, constantly struggling to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

After decades of vacillating and being subject to increasing frantic attempts to keep the character relevant, in the last years of the 20th century a succession of stellar writers finally established his naturally niche: America’s physical, military and ethical guardianâ€¦

Now as part of the always entertaining Marvel Platinum Definitive Editions series,this tantalising treasury of less-told tales offers some intriguing landmarks from Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #7, Captain America Comics #3-4, Tales of Suspense #75-76, Captain America volume 1, #186, 363-364, 444 and #615.1, Avengers volume 3 #52-54 and the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield?: spanning nearly 75 years of the Star Spangled Avenger’s tumultuous tour of duty.

Following Editor Brady Webb’s effulgent Foreword, the action opens with a fascinating and insightful exploration of Steve Roger’s war-time relationship with his idol President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in ‘An Ending’ by Brian K. Vaughn, Steve Harris & Rodney Ramos from Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #7 (March 1999) before the bombastic Simon & Kirby – aided and abetted by Al Avison and Al Gabriele – show everybody how it’s done with a brace of tales from the Golden Age of comicbooks.

Captain America Comics #3, May 1941 featured ‘The Return of the Red Skull’‘; an explosive 17-page epic wherein non-stop action and eerie mood accompanied the Nazi nemesis as he attacked New York with a colossal boring machine but couldn’t tell Cap and Bucky from a brace of fraudulent criminal impostorsâ€¦

A month later the same team exposed ‘Captain America and the Unholy Legion’ wherein the Patriotic Paladins convincingly crushed a cunning conspiracy and routed a Nazi-controlled army of beggars terrorising the city.

FromMarch and April 1966 Tales of Suspense #75-76 details Cap’s first meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter who had ’30 Minutes to Live!’ (Dick Ayers pencils over Kirby layouts with John Tartaglione inking) after couriering a deadly explosive packageâ€¦

The enigmatic Agent 13 would eventually become Cap’s long-term girl-friend and this bombastic bout also saw the debut of Gallic mercenary Batroc the Leaper in a taut 2-part countdown to disaster ending with #76’s‘The Gladiator, The Girl and the Glory’, illustrated by John Romita Senior.

Captain America volume 1 #186 (June 1975) featured a turning point in a protracted campaign against American corruption and the returned Red Skull which had seen the Sentinel of Liberty abandon his identity to become Nomad – the â€œMan without a Countryâ€ – before resuming his Red, White and Blue destiny.

Reprinted here is climactic conclusion ‘Mind Cage!’ (by writers Steve Englehart & John David Warner, limned by Frank Robbins & Mike Esposito) which revealed – as the villain attempted to overrun S.H.I.E.L.D. – that our titular hero’s greatest friend and ally The Falcon was in truth a Cosmic Cube creation and helpless puppet of the Fascist felon…

Mark Gruenwaldwas one of the longest-serving scripters of theStar Spangled Avenger and is represented here by Captain America volume 1 #363-364 (November-December 1989, wherein the All American hero battled his physical and ethical antithesis Crossbones in ‘Moon over Madripoor’. The Skull’s chief enforcer had kidnapped reformed villainess Diamondback and dragged her to the pirate island but was unable to defeat the Sentinel of Liberty in his impromptu ‘Man Trap’ (both issues illustrated by Kieron M. Dwyer & Dan Bulanadi)â€¦

In 1995, after a truly heroic and generally under-appreciated run, Gruenwald surrendered his post, going out on a high note by actually killing Captain America, as the super-serum that made him the world’s most perfect physical specimen degraded in his bloodstream, causing a total bodily collapse.

This cleared the decks for a spectacular relaunch from Mark Waid & Ron Garney in issues #445-448. Before that saga began, however, the duo – with the inking assistance of Mike Sellers – offered this unique perspective on the hero’s legacy in ‘Hope and Glory’ (Captain America volume 1 #444 October 1995) as a hostage crisis in Washington DC forced the bereft Avengers to overcome a seemingly insurmountable problem by asking â€œwhat would Cap do?â€â€¦

This is followed by the concluding 3 chapters of the 14-part Kang Dynasty storyline, which saw the Tyrant from Tomorrow finally conquer our planet and time (first seen in Avengers volume 1 #52-54, May-July 2002 as detailed by Kurt Busiek, Ivan Reis & Randy Emberlin, Dwyer & Rick Remender).

The epic counterattack was well underway on three fronts when Captain America led a daring sortie by a veritable army of Avengers against the Reiver of History’s orbiting Damocles Base. This resulted in a cataclysmic and ultimately cathartic hand-to-hand clash with Kang which would decide the fate of humanity and forever prove that Steve Rogers was its staunchest defender.

Although perhaps the Sentinel of Liberty’s finest moment, the extract here would surely be better understood and certainly better enjoyed in a collection of the entire sagaâ€¦

During the superhero Civil War Captain America led an anti-government faction of heroes who refused to surrender their liberties and identities to the Super-Human Registration Act. After spirited resistance and the death of too many friends at the hands of former comrades, the star spangled rebel surrendered himself to the government and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Naturally, nobody believed he was really deadâ€¦

His place and role was taken up by his long-dead first sidekick. Years previously Bucky had been captured by the Soviets and used as their own super-assassin – The Winter Soldier. There’s no truer maxim than â€œnobody stays dead in comicsâ€, however, and after being rescued from his unwanted spy-role the artificially youthful (now and part-cyborg) Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s crimson bootsâ€¦

The politically-charged thriller Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? (Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice & Luke Ross) is set squarely in the immediate aftermath of the original’s return from the dead (details of which can be found in Captain America Reborn)â€¦

Here, however, the former Winter Soldier ponders his future in the wake of the â€œrealâ€ Captain America’s resurrection and considers returning the role and unique Star-emblazoned disc to its rightful owner.

Meanwhile Steve, fresh from a timeless suspension where he perpetually relived his life over and again, combats the agonisingly haunting memories by taking to the snow-bound streets where he encounters his replacement and super-spy Black Widow battling the ferociously brutal Mr. Hyde.

Content to merely observe his old partner at first, he is soon invited to join the fray and, after the dust settles, the comrades-in-arms come to an understanding. Barnes will stay as the one and only Sentinel of Liberty. After all the new President of the USA has a far more strategic role in mind for his mentor Steven Rogersâ€¦

This rousing recollection concludes with the State-of-the-Union style recap issue Captain America volume 1 #615.1 from May 2011 by Brubaker & Mitch Breitweiser who recount the history of the many men who filled the role as an old, old friend manipulates the retired Rogers into once more taking up the role he was re-born forâ€¦

With covers by Ron Frenz, Kirby, Simon, Gene Colan, Gil Kane, Dwyer, Garney, Gerald Parel & Daniel AcuÃ±a, a healthy host of in-depth info pages about ‘Winter Soldier’, ‘Falcon’, ‘Sharon Carter’, ‘Batroc the Leaper’, ‘Crossbones’ and ‘Red Skull’, plus an erudite discussion on the evolution of sidekicks in Mike Conroy’s ‘The True Origin of Bucky Barnes’, this power-packed primer is an ideal introduction for readers familiar with the recent movie iteration and looking to increase their familiarity with the grandfather of all patriotic champions.

Filled with drama, tension and blockbuster action, this an ideal tool to turn curious film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.
Â© 2014 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. British edition published by Panini UK.

June 6, 2014June 18, 2014

Cinebook Recounts Battle of Britain

By Bernard Asso, illustrated by Francis BergÃ©se colours by FrÃ©dÃ©ric BergÃ©se & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-84918-025-2

There’s the distant drone of a commemorative flight of Dakotas in my ears as the scenic South Coast of England celebrates the 70^th Anniversary of D-Day. So in a somewhat misplaced and time-insensitive tip of the hat I thought I’d take a peek at a classic slice of â€œOur Finest Hoursâ€ as seen through an oddly pan-European titbit that has much to recommend itâ€¦

Originally titled Le Bataille d’Angleterre and seen here as Biggles and The Battle Of Britain, the material in this album sprang out ofthe continent’s decades-long love affair with the plucky British aviator.

Biggles is huge all over Europe, particularly in Holland, Germany, Belgium and France, which makes it doubly galling that apart from a big run of translations in India, only a short-lived Swedish interpretation of his comicbook exploits (see W.E. Johns’ Biggles and the Golden Bird) and a paltry few from the Franco-Belgian iteration licensed by British outfit Red Fox in the mid 1990s – which included this very volume – have ever made the move back to Blightyâ€¦

Hopefully some enterprising publisher will be willing to brave the Intellectual Property rights minefield involved and bring us all more of his superb graphic adventures one dayâ€¦

Happily, as this tome is more of a documentary than a drama and the Air Ace doesn’t feature, publisher Cinebook have twice released this fine and visually erudite mini epic by historian Bernard Asso and the utterly compelling Francis BergÃ©se.

Like so many artists involved in aviation stories, BergÃ©se (born in 1941) started young with both drawing and flying. He qualified as a pilot whilst still a teenager, enlisted in the French Army and was a reconnaissance flyer by his twenties. At age 23 he began selling strips to L’Ã‰toile and JT Jeunes (1963-1966) after which he produced his first air strip Jacques RenneforZorro. This was soon followed by Amigo, Ajax, Cap 7, Les 3 Cascadeurs, Les 3 A, Michel dans la Course and many others.

BergÃ©se worked as a jobbing artist on comedies, pastiches and WWII strips until 1983 when he was offered the plum job of illustrating the venerable and globally syndicated Buck Danny. In the 1990s the seemingly indefatigable BergÃ©se split his time, producing Danny dramas and Biggles books. He retired in 2008.

In this double-barrelled dossier delight from 1983, his splendidly understated, matter-of-fact strip illustration is used to cleverly synthesise the events following the defeat at Dunkirk to the Battle of Britain (1940) and the eventual turnaround in May 1941. Combining and counterpointing the works of famous figures like Churchill, Hitler, Douglas Bader and Goering with key tactical players such as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Galland and MÃ¶lders and relating actual tales of individual valour in the skies, the fact-packed narrative tracks the actions and experiences of specious winged warriors Leutnant Otto Werner and True Brit Flight Lieutenant James Colby as they struggle to survive in the skies over England.

The saga deals with the early days of terrifying air duels, later Blitz bombings, Albion’s logistical trials and eventual triumphs with factual expertise, but also affords a human face on each side of the conflictâ€¦

The latter half of the book then switches time and focus as Asso & BergÃ©se detail The Bombing of Germany (1943-1945) paying especial attention to Air Chief Marshal Harris‘ controversial tactic of â€œTerror Bombingâ€ and its effects on allies and enemies – and innocents.

Here Colby has transferred to Britain’s Bomber Command, trading Hurricanes and Spitfire for Lancasters, Halifaxes and B-17 Flying Fortresses. Major Werner is there too, as the Allies’ campaign slowly destroys the Nazi War Machine and the embattled Ace graduates from prop-powered Fockers and Messerschmitts to the first jet-planes – but too lateâ€¦

Cunningly converting dry dusty history into stellar entertainment, Asso & BergÃ©se brilliantly transform statistical accounts and solid detail into powerful evocative terms on a human scale that most children will easily understand, whilst never forgetting the war had two sides, but no â€œusâ€ or â€œthemâ€â€¦

Whilst perhaps not as diligent or accurate as a school text, Cinebook Recounts: Battle of Britain (part of a graphic history strand that also includes The Falklands War and The Wright Brothers making distant events come alive) offers a captivating and memorable introduction to the events that no parent or teacher can afford to miss, and no kid can fail to enjoy.

June 5, 2014June 5, 2014

Vreckless Vrestlers #1

By Lukasz Kowalczuk, translated by Aneta Kaczmarek (Vreckless Comics!)
No ISBN

I started out a little bit after the last Ice Age, making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow outcasts and comics addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets still gets me going in ways that threatens my tired old heartâ€¦

Thus whilst this place is generally all about big old fancy books and such, when Vreckless Vrestlers #1 arrived in my reviews pile I just couldn’t resist spreading the wordâ€¦

Concocted and crafted by Polish cartoonist Lukasz Kowalczuk, the narrative concept is breathtakingly simple and irresistibly compelling: a temporally-transcendent fight-promoter is abducting the greatest warriors from all time and space to fight in his Professional Interdimensional Wrestling League – brutal gladiatorial contests with only â€œOne Rule – No Rules!â€â€¦

This particular 20 page, 210 x 150mm flip-book fight-fest features a mutant mash-up starring Crimean Crab vs. The Eye on one side whilst the obverse highlights another blistering battle in Vegan Cat vs. Flatwoods Monsterâ€¦

Complete with combat stats for each contestant, these are manic, eccentric all-out clashes riotously reminiscent of Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit, unmarred by subplot or subtext, delivering lots of spectacular primal monster-hitting-monster action with oodles of juicy, oozy, gory sound effects and no tedious dialogue or badinage to slow down the horrific bone-crushing actionâ€¦

Each black-&-white issue (limited to print runs of 200 in English and Polish) comes with all sorts of extras like promo cards, collectible stickers – and mini-album – and can be obtained by contacting www.vrecklessvrestlers.tumblr.com, www.fb.com/vrestlers or Lk@tzzad.pl.

Daft, thrilling, madcap and wonderful, if you need a little break, or contusion, or abrasion, this might be the very remedyâ€¦

â€¦And if you’re irresistibly wedded to the future, Vreckless Vrestlers is also available on ComiXology and at Streets of Beige so there’s no reason to grab a ringside seat in the comfort of your own cosy crash-pad, dudeâ€¦â€¦

June 5, 2014

All Star

By Jesse Lonergan (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-835-2

Jesse Lonergan (Flower & Fade, Joe & Azat) is a sublime master of nuanced and mesmerising human dramas wedded to astonishingly hyperkinetic cartooning, and All Star proves he’s getting better all the time.

This latest graphic novel puts a unique spin on that most powerful cocktail of emotions – nostalgia and adolescent cockiness – all embedded in a timeless tale revealing how arrogance and injustice can shape a lifetimeâ€¦

Previously released as 8 mini-comics and digitally on ComiXology, this fabulous monochrome fable draws more on the author’s High School observations than any personal sporting experiences whilst dissecting and celebrating the pressures and joys of small town life.

It all takes place in the summer of 1998 where school baseball star Carl Carter is poised on the cusp of a glittering career. His near record-breaking performance for the Elizabeth Monarchs has set the sleepy, bucolic Vermont town ablaze as his stellar efforts bring the team to the brink of winning the State Championship.

His senior year successes promise a full scholarship to the University of Maine, and a tantalisingly lucrative pro ball career. It’s everything Carl’s dad â€œGordonâ€ has worked so long and hard forâ€¦

Douglas Carter tries hard – both at home and on the ball team – but is not like his brother. He’s also less than thrilled at Carl’s smug superiority and aggravating, blasÃ© air of contemptuousinsouciance. The golden boy is the town hero and Doug just doesn’t existâ€¦

Carl is coasting. Even though he only needs academic minimums and he’s already getting preferential treatment from the otherwise bullying Coach, Carter keeps unwise hours and company. His best friend Esden Hubbard is an unacceptable influence: a bad seed from a family of trashy ne’er-do-wells – although Carl is increasingly dawn to Esden’s moody dark-horse sister Chelseaâ€¦

As the days progress – a blend of lessons, loafing, practising and unsupervised partying – Carl is beginning to feel unaccountably ill at ease, and his life changes forever in an instant when he and Esden, on a prankish teenage whim, break into the local store.

With seemingly every adult in town disappointed or screaming at him, Carl gets a shocking glimpse of the real nature of the world when Esden is summarily expelled from Elizabeth High but Principal Wick only gives his sporting wonder boy a painless slap on the wristâ€¦

Confronted with a nauseating sense of his true worth, Carl’s naive sense of injustice goes into overdrive and he makes a rash decision that shakes up everything in the sleepy little townâ€¦

And there’s one more surprise the fallen idol has up his uniform sleeveâ€¦

Lonergan’s sparse and Spartan visual style displays an astounding ability to depict emotional intensity, his lean composition enhances the blazing dynamism of the sporting sequences and his portrayals of an intoxicating range of small town characters and past-it â€œglory daysâ€ survivors provides each human vignette with a beguiling life and tragically undisclosed back-story. This is comics storytelling of incomparable quality and class.

Poignant, bittersweet, with an ending but no conclusion, All Star is another superbly understated dissertation on the responsibilities of friendship, the fools gold of glittering prizes and the toxicity of unattainable dreams rendered in a magically simplified and mesmerising manner: a delight for any fan searching for more than broad jokes and bold action.

June 4, 2014June 3, 2014

City of Crocodiles

By Knut Larsson (Borderline Press)
ISBN: 978-0-99269-725-9

Born in 1972, Swedish cartoonist, artist, filmmaker and teacher – at the prestigious Comics Art School of MalmÃ¶ – Knut Larsson is blessed with a unique vision and talent to spare (just check out his graphic albums Canimus, Lokmannen (Locomotive Man), Biografmaskinisten (The Projectionist), Kolonialsjukhuset – En koloniallÃ¤kares anteckningar (Colonial Hospital – A Colonial Doctor’s Notebook) or Triton.

If you’re a keen devotee of Euro-comics you’ll have seen his stories in C’est Bon Anthology, Electrocomics, Galago, GlÃ¶mp, Rayon Frais, Strapazin, Stripburger, Turkey Comix and others, and may well have visited his international exhibitions as far afield as AngoulÃªme, Tokyo, Erlangen or St. Petersburg. Typically, he is not a household name in Britain or America.

Yetâ€¦

Back in 2008 Larsson crafted Krokodilstaden: an eerie, post-apocalyptic, horror-tinged love story devoid of all dialogue or sound effects: a neosymbolist paean to the end times combining brutish, callous survivalism, ghostly mysticism, unchanging human passions, stubborn self-inflicted loneliness and the tenacious capacity of life to adapt to changing situations. Now Borderline Press have released it in an English Edition as their latest deliciously eerie offering: City of Crocodilesâ€¦

Rendered in muted greys and brown monotones, one panel per page, the tale focuses on a drowned Earth where the waters have risen, relegating humanity to the top floors of buildings whilst toothy amphibians have proliferated all around and below them. Adamant Mankind is still hanging on, turning crocodiles into the primary natural resource: food, clothing, tooled utensils and even objects of cultish worship.

The saurians are everywhere and everybody and everything – humans, birds, surviving mammalian pets – are missing limbs or appendagesâ€¦

In this world one particular croc-hunter ekes out his solitary existence, trading reptiles for booze and gasoline, haunted by his memories until the day he captures a strangely enticing woman in his nets. She is young, beautiful, exoticâ€¦ and has a vestigial reptilian tail.

Avoiding the spooky, crazy crocodile cultists he takes her back to his place and endeavours to dress her in the garb and form of his dead lover before she seduces himâ€¦

Sadly that’s when his dearly departed darling returns, bristling with malice and ready for some spirited revengeâ€¦

Wry, moving, nightmarish yet ethereally lovely, City of Crocodiles is a masterpiece of visual storytelling that will astound and delight all lovers of the weird and macabre.
Â© 2008, 2014 Knut Larsson.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: