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Vicious


By V.E. Schwab (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-021-5

Once upon a time the meat and metier of comicbooks – fantastic beings with incredible abilities – was ghettoised: disregarded by the wider world as nonsense for kids and sad juveniles who’d grown older but not “up”.

How times change. These days those notions of men like gods – or more likely, monsters – are the bread-&-butter of movies and television: the public has accepted the core concepts of superhero sagas in the same way my generation gradually accepted hand-held communicators, teleportation, time-travel and parallel worlds (thank Star Trek for most of that).

Naturally then, with such fantastic concepts now common parlance amongst society’s hoi-polloi, prose fiction was bound to get in on the act (leaving aside the rare dabblings on the fringes of science fiction such as Wild Cards or Soon I Will Be Invincible) as the “new” genre won general acceptance and gained fictive credence. And eventually, something really fresh and new in the nascent medium of Superhero Novels was bound to emerge…

Vicious is a brilliantly plotted revenge drama dressed up in the supernature pyrotechnics of comicbooks, which wisely leaves aside the more flamboyant aspects of the strips to recount a story of wrongs redressed and vengeance hard-won in the classical manner of the Count of Monte Cristo – or more accurately Alfred Bester’s re-invention of it in The Stars my Destination.

Ten years ago two very special young men met in college: unique geniuses who had much in common. They became friends (in the way Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom or Clark Kent and Lex Luthor did) and together researched the urban myth of EOs – ExtraOrdinary individuals.

Barely believing the tabloid joke, they nevertheless soon discovered such people with their impossibly improbable powers could exist – and how to make them…

As the project began to obsess them, rivalry developed. They both underwent their transformative process and a girl they both wanted died.

Lines were drawn: moody pariah Victor Vale went to prison and charismatic Golden Boy Eli Cardale went free, buoyed up by his new, divinely-inspired mission. But now Victor is out and, with his small gang of similarly empowered EOs, hunting Eli.

His prey is the secret weapon of the Merit City Police Department and a key component in a decade-long case. Someone has been tracking EOs; acting as judge, jury and executioner of these ungodly abominations…

And now, Victor will have his vengeance, no matter the cost…

Comicbook veterans should find enough here to draw them in, but will be stunned as the tale steadfastly refuses to follow the accepted memes of “their” genre or utilise the artefacts (masks, costumes, code-names) that used to set it apart. Film and TV fans might note similarities to films like Scanners or Jumper or shows such as Heroes or Alphas, but the fast-paced, brutal and obsessive tale told here is actually most akin to a western: High Noon…

Antecedents aside, Vicious is a supremely clever, cruelly addictive thriller easily cloaked in the trappings of genre fiction whilst telling a stunningly powerful, wonderfully absorbing horror story of timeless archetypical passions whilst exploring the nature of heroism, villainy, friendship and family.

A magnificent treat for all lovers of the dark fantastic…
© 2013, 2014 V.E. Schwab. All rights reserved.

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Maria M. Book One


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-719-2

In addition to being part of the graphic/literary revolution of Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly addictive tales of rural Palomar first garnered overwhelming critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone books such as Sloth, Birdland, Grip and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, compellingly simplified artwork and inspired adaptation of literary techniques used by Magical Realist writers such as Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has amplified and, visually at least, made his own.

Hernandez also frequently acknowledges such outré mainstream influences as filmmakers Roger Corman and John Cassavetes, and crime writers Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson as he entered new territories and reforms the cultural influences which shaped all us baby-boomers.

In Luba we glimpsed the troubled life of the lead character’s half-sister Rosalba “Fritzi” Martinez: a brilliant, troubled woman, speech-impaired psychotherapist, sex-worker, belly-dancer and “B-movie” starlet of such faux screen gems as We Love Alone, Seven Bullets to Hell, Chest Fever, Blood is the Drug and Lie Down in the Dark.

Although Fritzi only had a bit part in it, Hernandez “adapted” one of those trashy movies into a graphic novel (Chance in Hell, 2007) and repeated the story-within-a-story- within-a-story gimmick in 2009 with The Troublemakers – a frantic, hell-bent pulp fiction crime thriller which was part of the screen queen’s canon – and did it again in 2011 with Love From the Shadows.

Now he’s turned up the tension and doubled down on the plundering of his own mythologies. Maria M delves even deeper into the labyrinthine coils and onion-skin layers of meta-reality as the filmic biography of Fritzi’s long-absconded grandmother becomes a revelatory expose of the turbulent life of a beautiful, competent immigrant fugitive; carving out her own slice of the American Dream after escaping the rustic drudgery of Palomar.

Deftly mimicking a compelling-but-trashy post-Noir gangster thriller and sordid Fifties B-Picture melodrama, this first volume of Maria M sees a lovely Amazonian Latin beauty hit Everytown, USA in 1957, promptly befriended and taken in by couple of sympathetic working girls…

It’s all a huge mistake. Maria is actually the girlfriend of a mobster who has expedited her passage into the country. Unfortunately, by the time the mix-up is sorted and she finds his place, the poor guy is staring down the barrel of a rival’s gun.

Witness to murder and with no other place to go, the pneumatic stranger heads back to Trixie and Pam and begins her career in the men’s entertainment industry: “hostessing”, photo-shoots and – inevitably for someone with her looks – stag films…

Every attempt to go legit is frustrated by lustful men wanting her, and inevitably she settles for her new life. She still sees people from the Old Country, but they’re usually gangsters, hoodlums or worse…

She makes some friends along the way: other girls in the shady world of men’s movies, film critic Clyde and even bought cop Valdez, but her life only really turns around when she catches the eye of gang boss Luis Cienfuegos. The older man is so smitten with his sex kitten that he marries her…

His sons – both older than Maria – are dutiful and pay her every respect, but whereas taciturn, brutal Gorgo is clearly fascinated with his new stepmother, slick, businesslike, modern Herman makes no effort to conceal his distaste.

It’s a time of great turmoil for the Latino gangs in the USA. Tenuous alliances and collaborations are commonplace, but the assorted leaders have very different views on the rise of Communism in their homelands: beliefs which will inevitably lead to disagreements and bloodshed. And of course everybody plans on eventually being the only game in town…

Maria keeps herself insulated from her husband’s business, but does develop a passionate affinity for guns. It’s just as well. Over the next few years Luis barely survives numerous assassination attempts.

…And always silent, staring Gorgo waits in the background, watching her as his father’s employees, allies and enemies circle, drawn to her voluptuous beauty like moths to a flame…

In such a murky, dangerous world it’s impossible for Maria to keep completely apart from her husband’s affairs and when she is abducted by supposed allies Gorgo allows his true feelings to show in a savagely horrific manner, after which she divorces her man for the best possible motives…

Dark, evocative and astoundingly compelling, this perfect pastiche of a beloved genre and fabled time-period is a stunning graphic rollercoaster ride of sex, violence, greed, obsession and outlaw antiheroes: a mesmerising read jam-packed with Hernandez’s coolly understated narrative suspense, intoxicating illustration, brutally raw tension and sly elements of filmic surrealism which carry the reader through to the low-key cliffhanger ending in classic style.

And please, don’t get too het up over the convolutions and continuity provenances that resulted in this book. If you need to see the “True Story” of Maria, just check out the story ‘Poison River’ in the Heartbreak Soup collection Beyond Palomar, but otherwise why not just revel in a grim and gripping, saga of love and hope and inescapable doom…

Every adult lover of top-notch drama should snap up Maria M immediately to revel in the sheer brilliance of a master storyteller at the peak of his prowess, and open-minded comics fans should be advised to step beyond the costumes and chains of continuity to take a heady shot of pure imagination at work.
© 2013 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Archie 1000 Page Comics Jamboree


By many and various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-80-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: the Holidays all wrapped up in one big  book… 10/10

Following the debut of Superman, MLJ were one of many publishers to jump on the “mystery-man” bandwagon, concocting their own small but inspired pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the standard mix of masked champions, two-fisted adventurers, prose pieces and gags.

Not long after, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) saw a gap in the blossoming but crowded market and in December 1941 the Fights ‘n’ Tights, He-Man crowd were gently nudged aside by a far from imposing hero, an ordinary teenager who would have ordinary adventures just like the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist and tasked writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work and, inspired by the popular Andy Hardy movies, their new notion premiered in Pep Comics #22. The unlikely star was a gap-toothed, freckle-faced red-headed kid obsessed with impressing the pretty blonde next door.

A 6-page untitled tale introduced hapless boob Archie Andrews and wholesomely pretty Betty Cooper. The boy’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in the first story as did idyllic small-town utopia Riverdale. It was a huge hit and by the winter of 1942 the kid had won his own title. Archie Comics #1 was MLJ’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began a slow transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of ultra-rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon…

By 1946 the kids were in charge, so MLJ became Archie Comics, retiring most of its costumed characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family-friendly comedies. The hometown settings and perpetually fruitful premise of an Eternal Romantic Triangle – with girl-hating best bud Jughead and scurrilous rival Reggie Mantle to test, duel and vex our boy in their own unique ways, the scenario was one that not only resonated with the readership but was infinitely fresh…

Archie’s success, like Superman’s, forced a change in content at every other publisher (except perhaps Gilberton’s Classics Illustrated) and led to a multi-media brand which encompassed TV, movies, newspaper strips, toys and merchandise, a chain of restaurants and, in the swinging sixties, a pop music sensation when Sugar, Sugar – from the animated TV cartoon – became a global smash.

Clean and decent garage band “The Archies” has been a fixture of the comics ever since…

Archie is good-hearted, impetuous and lacking common sense, Betty his sensible, pretty girl next door who loves the ginger goof, and Veronica is rich, exotic and glamorous: only settling for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, is utterly unable to choose who or what he wants…

The unconventional, food-crazy Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming triangle (and annexe) has been the rock-solid foundation for seven decades of funnybook magic. Moreover the concept is eternally self-renewing…

This perennial eternal triangle has generated thousands of charming, raucous, gentle, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending humorous dramas ranging from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, with the kids and a constantly expanding cast of friends (boy genius Dilton Doily, genial giant jock Big Moose and aspiring comicbook cartoonist Chuck amongst many others), growing into an American institution and part of the American Cultural landscape.

The feature has thrived by constantly refreshing its core archetypes; seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside its bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance.

Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix and over the decades the company has confronted most social issues affecting youngsters in a manner both even-handed and tasteful.

Constant addition of new characters such as African-American Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie and Maria and spoiled home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom contribute to a wide and refreshingly broad-minded scenario. In 2010 Archie jumped the final hurdle when openly gay Kevin Keller became an admirable advocate capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream kids comics.

As well as forward thinking in content, the company was always quick to embrace innovations in format and Archie 1000 Page Comics Jamboree is another awesome but enjoyable paper brick of comics: pocket-digest-sized (as long as your pockets are both deep and strong), containing over 100 full-colour stories starring all the cast and characters. So fun-filled is this titanic tome that I’m again compelled to compromise my principles with a rather truncated and abbreviated review…

With so much to read in this mammoth, meaty, mirth-filled monolith it might seem that by specifically mentioning a few I’m saying some are better than others. That’s simply not so. They’re uniformly fabulous but there are only 24 hours in a day and my hands are old and increasingly feeble…

This Jamboree is especially timely as a goodly portion of the tales included here are Christmas episodes culled from the company’s wonderful archive of Seasonal classics: stories such as the epic ‘A Tree Grows in Riverdale’ and ‘The Last Resort’ by George Gladir, Stan Goldberg & Mike Esposito, ‘Santa’s Helper’ (inked by John Lowe) and Jughead’s typically unconventional reaction to ‘The Holiday Season’, illustrated by Tim Kennedy & Jim Amash.

There are surprises galore in store with vintage 1950’s tales from “the Vault” (including much spectacular and formative material from Archie’s Pals n’ Gals #4 by George Frese, Terry Szenics and Bill Vigoda plus covers reproductions in a selection entitled Archie’s Christmas Stocking…

Amongst the other Christmas treats Dick Malmgren & Jon D’Agostino give us ‘Here Comes Santa Clause’ and ‘Past-Present and Future’, Fernando Ruiz & Al Nickerson uncover an ‘X-Mas Mix-Up’, Frank Doyle & Vigoda relate ‘Not Even a Moose’, whilst Goldberg & Rudy Lapick investigate ‘The Swinging Santa’, Betty & Veronica are ‘Treed’ by Sugar Plum the Christmas Fairy (Kathleen Webb, Jeff Shultz & Al Milgrom) and enjoy a ‘Label Lullaby’ thanks to Gladir, Dan DeCarlo & Lapick, after which Al Hartley & D’Agostino unleash the ‘Holiday Joy-Boy’…

It’s not just a cool Yule rule though, and amongst the torrent of long tales, short stories, spoofs, parodies, ½ and single page gags, fashion pages, games, puzzles and so much more are year-round comedies, fantasies and love stories plus genre tinted tales: sci fi shockers such as ‘The Teenage Bulk‘‘ and ‘Destination Riverdale’, spooky thrillers like ‘Chiller’, ‘Midnight Madness!’, ‘The Ghost of Spirit Lake’ and ‘Drawing on Experience’, captivating crime capers like ‘Monkey Seize’, ‘Four Wheels to Wickedness’ or ‘A Smashing Success’ and less-definable outrageous episodes such as ‘The Kissing Bandit’, ‘Flip-Flop’, ‘Culture Shock’, ‘Fame Game’, ‘Pie á la Mountain’ and ‘The Heavenly Body’…

Moreover the school faculty and families of our stars also feature heavily. Archie’s dad relives his own musically cool days in ‘Ol’ Sax’ (Gladir, Goldberg & Lapick), and you’d be amazed at the antics of the dubious dinner lady Miss Beazley in ‘The Pies Have It’ or the long-suffering Principal Mr. Weatherbee in ‘Flight of the Bumble!’ and ‘Just One of the Boys’…

There are also solo outings for Ginger Lopez in ‘Fit as a Fiddle’, Dilton in ‘Kiss and Tell’, Nancy in ‘A Cat’s Tale’ and even manic mutt Hot Dog in ‘Smart Pet Tricks’ and other stalwarts from the old gang.

With contributions from Bob Bolling, George Gladir, Bill Vigoda, Harry Lucey, Samm Schwartz, Bill Golliher, Stan Goldberg, Jim Ruth, Frank Doyle, Greg Ehrbar, Jon D’Agostino, Fernando Ruiz, Bob Smith, Joe Edwards, Bill Galvan, Angelo DeCesare, Susan Solomon, Al Milgrom, Henry Scarpelli, Al Hartley, Rich Margopoulos, Barbara Slate, Ed Berdej, Al Nickerson, Mike Esposito, Tim & Pat Kennedy, Holly G!, Greg Crosby, Chic Stone, Gene Colan, Hal Smith, Dan Parent, Jeff Shultz, Rudy Lapick, Kathleen Webb, Jim Amash, Mike Pellowski, Bob White, Doug Crane, Rich Koslowski, Craig Boldman, Rex Lindsey, Allison Flood, Dick Malmgren, a dynasty of DeCarlos and many more, this is a true gem of perfectly crafted all-ages fun.

This is another ideal book for you, your kids and grandparents to enjoy over and over again…
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Primer


By Brian Wood, Olivier Coipel, David Lopez, with Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was worth fighting for, and over the years a small army of mutants battled under the X-banner, but the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy.

These included Jean’s death (twice), Warren’s mutilation (and murder), Hank’s uncontrollable progressive mutations and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation following his possession by the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones.

Those tales were detailed in a number of titles which sprang out of the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking various X-iterations in truly bizarre new directions.

This particular chronicle collects issues #1-4 of the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men (from May to August 2013) and also includes a pertinent classic yarn from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 circa May 1989.

Over the decades the many and various X- titles have been notable for the number of strong female characters created, and this new iteration from scripter Brian Wood & artist Olivier Coipel finally takes the logical step of drafting an all-girl squad to save the world from an appalling primal threat…

Inked by Mark Morales, the action begins with a little backstory and reveals how, when the world was still brand new, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the start. They fought and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed on Earth and developed…

Billions of years later, former X-Man Jubilation Lee takes a commercial flight out of Bulgaria, looking for help from her old friends. She’s inherited a baby with a few problems and is being followed by possibly the most dangerous man on Earth…

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, tutors Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke and Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) are having trouble getting through to some of the more intransigent mutant students. When they get a call from Jubilee, the X-Men drop everything and dash off to intercept her as she heads for the only home and family she has ever really known…

When the man on her trail is revealed to be John Sublime – current body of an ancient sentient bacterial life form which has lived on Earth since life began and no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior – the X-Men expect the worst, but are astounded when he comes to the School and promptly surrenders without a fight…

Sublime survives by possessing organisms and he’s come to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology – has returned to the planet, looking for revenge on him and control of everything else in existence…

Meanwhile, escorting Jubilee and her baby, Storm, Rogue and Kitty get first-hand experience of the threat as the train they’re on is derailed by an unknown force. Barely escaping, they unwittingly bring the menace into the school where Arkea slips into the dormant form of Karima Shapandar: a human friend infected with Omega Sentinel systems and designed to be the ultimate mutant eradicator…

All they want to do is share old stories and coo over Jubilee’s baby, but with Arkea in control and determined to supersede life on Earth, the girls are drawn into a terrifying war on two fronts. The sinister sister takes control of the Danger Room and locks down the entire school before transmitting herself to Budapest where Jubilee first acquired the mysterious baby she’s named Shogo…

Leaving Kitty and the students to save the school and themselves from a deadly time-bomb, Storm, Psylocke, Marvel Girl, Rogue and Jubilee head for Eastern Europe and track Arkea to a medical complex where humans augmented with medical implants and technology provide Arkea with hundreds of suitable meat-vehicles. As the final battles surges to a crescendo, the warrior women are terrified that the only way to stop the cyber-parasite is to kill her numerous hosts…

When that conundrum is satisfactorily solved, David Lopez, Cam Smith & Norman Lee step in to illustrate an epilogue chapter guest-starring Wolverine who recaps old times with Jubilee as the female X-team sort out their agendas and chain of command whilst trying to stop a passenger jet crashing to destruction…

To supplement the advent of this new grouping, this all-action outing also includes the comedic adventure ‘Ladies Night’ by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 May 1989) which saw the first appearance of Jubilee.

When off-duty X-gals Storm, Rogue, Psylocke and Dazzler head for an undercover dose of downtime they encounter a streetwise, “Mall Rat” runaway with mutant powers, just as the emporium’s management hire a hapless squad of mutant hunters to clear up their Homo Superior problem…

Fast-paced, whimsical and owing a huge debt to the movie Ghostbusters, the riotous romp closes this Fights ‘n’ Tights fest on a rare and welcome light note, but of course there’s still more bang for your buck…

X-Men: Primer also includes a vast and beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Coipel, Amanda Connor, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Silvestri & Green, Joe Madureira, Mark Brooks, J. Scott Campbell, Arthur Suydam, Mike Deodato Jr., Milo Manara, Ed McGuiness, Humberto Ramos, Kevin Wada, Skottie Young, Kris Anka & Sara Pichelli plus the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to many story bonuses providing you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 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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Black is the Color


By Julia Gfrörer (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-717-8

There’s never been a better time to find dark and imaginative horror comics tales and the genre has seldom been better represented than with this eerie yet elegiac historical fantasy from Julia Gfrörer.

The relative newcomer hails from Portland, Oregon – having been born in 1982 and raised in historic Concord, New Hampshire. She studied Painting and Printmaking at Seattle’s CornishCollege of the Arts and first began turning heads a few years ago with her thoughtfully terrifying comicbooks Flesh and Bone and Too Dark to See as well as appearances in Thickness, Arthur Magazine, Black Eye, Study Group Magazine and Best American Comics.

The author brings a gift for sensitive emotional scrutiny and quirkily macabre understatement to this slim monochrome tome detailing the last days of a marooned mariner and the strange creature who temporarily adopts him…

It begins in the middle of the ocean as sailors Xavier and Warren are approached by the Captain’s Mate. The voyage is going badly. Storms have battered the frail wooden vessel and provisions are low.

As they were the last to join the ship’s company, the crew expects the pair to calmly get into the dinghy and drift away, giving the rest some slim chance of survival…

Xavier is already quite ill and Warren enquires why they can’t just be shot, but nobody wants a murder on their already benighted souls…

Cast adrift and enduring harsh exposure, the pair float aimlessly. Hardship and privation soon ends Xavier, but as angry, resentful Warren languishes in the boat awaiting his own death, he thinks he hears singing in the night and is soon conversing with a woman who seems to know impossible things – such as how and what his far away wife and child are doing…

More than half convinced he’s gone mad he continues his strange delirious conversations with her, all the while certain that his life is slowly ebbing away…

She won’t save Warren but the sea siren is quite content to stay with him as he expires, sharing intimate memories. And far away across the waves, his former shipmates sail helplessly into another storm as mermaids gather to watch…

Bleak, beautiful and lyrically elegant, this oddly mesmerising, gently scary, utterly visual yarn tellingly explores pride and loneliness but is cunningly underpinned by wry, anachronous humour and a cleverly memorable conclusion which will delight fans of mystery and imagination and lovers of beguiling illustration.
© 2013 Julia Gfrörer. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Iron Man: The Secret Origin of Tony Stark Part 2


By Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, Dale Eaglesham, Carlo Pagulayan, Jay Leisten & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-563-5

Supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his 1963 debut in Tales of Suspense #39 when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of weaponry he had designed, the arch-technocrat wunderkind was critically wounded and captured by a Communist warlord.

Put to work inventing for the Red Menace with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead built a prototype Iron Man suit to keep his heart beating and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a small jump into a second career as a high-tech Knight in Shining Armour…

Ever since then the former armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, affirmed Futurist, civil servant, Statesman, and even spy-chief: Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

Of course, he was also a found member of the world’s most prominent superhero assemblage, the Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept weighed down with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful periodic necessity. To stay fresh and contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been radically revised every so often, but never so drastically as with the upgrade featured in this saga (originally seen as issues #12-17 of the post-MarvelNOW! relaunched Iron Man volume 5, September-August 2013) by scripter Kieron Gillen which concludes, with plenty of action and even a few twisty surprises, ‘The Secret Origin of Tony Stark’…

It Happened Like This: desperate for a change in his too-hectic life, Iron Man opted to explore the cosmos and linked up with self-appointed universal police force the Guardians of the Galaxy. After driving off star pirates he availed himself of the luxurious hospitality of the effete, aristocratic and decadently beautiful Voldi Tear.

One of the most ancient races in the cosmos, the Voldi had long mastered the art of living graciously off the kindness of strangers with all their needs met by a sacred artefact – the Heart of the Voldi – which drew infinite power from numerous cosmic entities.

The party-animal Voldi had an open-door policy for most races and beings – even welcoming 30-foot tall robotic killers such as Freelance Peacekeeping Agent Death’s Head (never, ever call him a bounty hunter!) – but Stark suddenly found every hand against him when he was accused of Deicide.

Apparently the Voldi worshipped the Phoenix Force which Stark and his allies did indeed destroy the last time it attacked Earth (as seen in Avengers vs. X-Men)…

Stuck in a cell, Stark was rescued by a Rigellian Recorder – one of millions of sentient automatons programmed to travel the universe acquiring knowledge. Recorder 451 however, had developed a programming flaw and struck out on its own.

Surprisingly sympathetic to Stark’s plight, the mechanoid suggested a way out of the mandatory death sentence but used the distraction to steal the immensely powerful Heart.

The mechanoid had been furthering his own centuries-old secret agenda all along and deemed the subsequent cosmic cataclysm which eradicated the Voldi as a “necessary evil”.

However 451 hadn’t finished with Stark yet, saving him even as the benighted party-aliens expired in an apocalyptic attack from the cosmic Celestial they had exploited for eons.

Furious and disgusted, Stark swore vengeance on the murderous mechanoid and, after checking in with the Guardians of the Galaxy and exhausting all his own leads, hired Death’s Head (the greatest tracker in all time and space) to ferret out 451.

Their mission proved successful, but probably because the Freelance Peacekeeper was working for 451 all along. The Rigellian renegade then revealed how he had been watching over the Earthly inventor since before he was born, and indeed had worked with his parents Howard and Maria Stark to genetically alter their unborn child and make it a technological super-warrior capable of defending Earth from the exponentially increasing alien attacks that were to come as the universe responded to the deadly potential of Mankind…

451 had worked with the Starks in a complex scheme on Earth in the era before superheroes returned, battling infiltrating aliens beside such Marvel stalwarts as Lieutenant “Thunderbolt” Ross, special agents Jimmy Woo and “Dum Dum” Dugan and others.

Illustrated by Dale Eaglesham, Carlo Pagulayan, Scott Hanna & Jay Leisten, this titanic extraterrestrial tome opens with the third chapter of the revelatory epic and ‘The Best Offense’ finds the appalled inventor apparently helpless, in dire straits and lost in the uncharted depths of the universe, as he hears how his father and his stalwart crew cleaned up a pack of insidious Grey ETs secretly running Las Vegas. What neither Tony nor 451 knew however was that Howard Stark was deeply suspicious and, after decoding the genetic alterations the Recorder had installed in the foetus, tampered with some of them…

Here and now in deep space, 451 reveals how Tony has been designed to pilot an apocalyptic doomsday weapon left behind from the beginnings of creation when the Celestial Space Gods were in a deadly war with a rival force for control of everything…

Stark’s inventiveness, aggression and fascination with exo-skeletons were all expressions of his ultimate purpose: to pilot the world-shattering, five-mile high suit of combat armour dubbed The Godkiller… and there’s nothing he can do to escape his awful destiny…

With the Heart of the Voldi powering the immense doom weapon, 451 explains how Stark will defend Earth from all threats by eradicating whoever the Recorder tells him to, even as, on the world of Hope’s Pustule, Death’s Head discovers the provenance of his robotic former employer and just how large is the price on his shiny head. Unsurprisingly, he decides to look him up again…

Stark, after refusing to comply with 451, is struggling to regain control of his cyber-hacked Iron Man gear deep in the guts of the Godkiller when Death’s Head appears, but rather than an ally the Peace Keeper soon becomes another deadly foe as 451 takes control of him too…

Determined to bend Stark to his will, the Recorder also starts up the antediluvian super-suit. Although Stark was built to meld with it, 451 can exert enough control to make it destroy a planet and aims it at Hope’s Pustule…

Beaten, the human inventor surrenders and puts on the enslaving control helmet, only to have the ancient war-armour reject him…

The Recorder doesn’t believe Starks protestations, however, and after the Godkiller wipes out its objective in a single pass, 451 programs it with a new target… Earth.

With no other option, Stark dives headlong into final battle with the now clearly deranged robot Rigellian and once again saves the day and – almost too late – the Earth, in a spectacular showdown within the planet-smashing menace.

But even with humanity saved and the hero back in the bosom of his human friends there’s still a mystery to solved as ‘The Secret Origin of Tony Stark: Conclusion’ brilliantly ties all the plot strands and clues together as the Armoured Avenger delves into his family’s shady history and makes an astonishing, life-altering discovery kept hidden for years by his brilliantly paranoid father…

Blockbusting, rocket-paced and cleverly drawing together fringe continuity events to make a new cohesive whole, this frantically furious romp offers a brand new take on the Golden Avenger and this epochal volume also includes an Afterword from Gillen, a cover-and-variants gallery by Land, Paul Renaud & Leonel Castellani plus even more digital extras via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 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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Gold Pollen and Other Stories


By Seiichi Hayashi edited & translated by Ryan Holmberg (Picturebox)
ISBN: 978-1-939799-07-4

When talking about Japanese comics most fans are generally thinking of the mainstream mass-entertainment form which began with Osamu Tezuka in the years following the end of World War II, and which within a generation had grown into a multi-genre print phenomenon adored and compulsively consumed by the greater part of Japan’s population.

However where there’s a mainstream there are always fringes, and the all-pervasive success of commercial manga naturally threw up experimental and alternative publications: the sort of forums and arenas where the most interesting and challenging works of every art form usually first begin…

A companion to the “Ten-Cent Manga” collections, this superlative hardback begins a series celebrating “Masters of Alternative Manga”, with resident Editor, historian and translator Ryan Holmberg offering comprehensive background and fascinating insights into one of the most respected envelope-pushers in the business and presenting a tantalising selection of shorter pieces by a compelling master of evocative sequential narrative.

Avant-garde illustrator, poster artist, filmmaker and poet Seiichi Hayashi was born in 1945 and became a star of Japan’s counterculture movement in the Swinging Sixties. He also created a number of comic strips for alternative periodical Garo during the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s and four of them grace this captivating collection. His most well known work is probably the wildly experimental romance Red Colored Elegy.

The artist’s flawed and tragic relationship with his mother informed many of his stories and reprinted his insightful personal memoir ‘Azami Light: Childhood Remembrances (1972)’ as well as Holmberg’s contextualizing essay ‘Momoko and Manga: Seiichi Hayashi’s Maternal Roots’.

Each is copiously illustrated with photos, illustrations, covers and formative artworks, providing documentary and commentary to augment the striking strips which make up the largest portion of this volume.

Created at a time of rising Right Wing Nationalism and with Western popular influences such as comicbooks, TV shows and pop music seemingly inundating the nation’s kids, the tales reprinted here also display a broad flavour of cross-cultural contact and pollination, albeit with a ferocious undercurrent of intellectual criticism…

The powerful, deeply moving stories begin with the full, flat-colour ‘Dwelling in Flowers’ (1972): a sly, lyrically wistful examination of fragmenting relationships, followed by the charmingly sinister monochrome ‘Red Dragonfly’ from 1968: an apparently rustic and nostalgic fable of a child’s experience playing at war and observing his mother’s clandestine liaisons…

‘Yamanba Lullaby’ (also 1968) features many anomalous and anachronistic pop culture intruders as it allegorically ponders American influences whilst relating some explosive exploits of legendary heroic “Golden Boy” super-baby Kintarō, his horrific supernatural mater and a host of quirky opponents (giant robots, mad scientists, DC comics superheroes) – all rendered in stark black and white with gory red splashed on as appropriate…

This intriguingly appealing primer ends with the sadly unfinished ‘Golden Pollen’ from 1971. Printed in indigo and red, this is another allegorical foray investigating Nationalism and again co-opts traditional Japanese legends and Buddhist tales: updating the raucous saga of heroic newborn Hinomaru (also the name of the WWII Rising Sun flag) and his demon brother Jaki in their battles against a vast skeletal monster mother…

Holmberg describes in fascinating and forensic detail the origins of the assorted stories, the state of political and social play in Japan and the emotional turmoil which drove the artist to produce such eye-catching, earnest comics but the real draw is the sheer graphic escapism, spectacular storytelling and astoundingly skewed views of a driven, inspired craftsman.

Not for the squeamish, nor the naïve, Gold Pollen and Other Stories is a challenging ride no serous lover of comics will want to miss.

This book is printed in ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.
© 2013 Seiichi Hayashi. Translation and essay © 2013 Ryan Holmberg. All rights reserved.

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ArtistsAuthorsThinkersDirectors – One Hundred Influences, One Hundred Portraits


By Paul Hornschemeier (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-285-2

Last-Minute Christmas Dilemmas Solved: perfect for any aspiring creator or art lover.

In his relatively short graphic novelling career – and when not producing superb commercial illustrations from magazines such as the Wall Street Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Nickelodeon Magazine, Penguin Books and many others, or designs and typography for the numerous foreign editions of his creations and many other visual treats – Paul Hornschemeier has produced a small, but astonishing body of work: all intriguingly challenging, of phenomenal quality and boldly dedicated to deeper themes and compelling expansions of the medium of graphic narrative.

He’s also pretty good at being funny, sad, frightening and pretty all at once.

Don’t take my word for it: track down Bygones,The Collected Sequential, The Three Paradoxes, Life with Mr. Dangerous, Let Us be Perfectly Clear and his landmark Mother, Come Home to see for yourself.

There’s also a captivating glimpse at his working processes to be found in the sketchbook chronicle All and Sundry – Uncollected Work 2004-2009.

The man is truly fascinated with the concept of creativity and the process of recording images and has been for simply ages pursuing the experimental boundaries of art through his drawing blog The Daily Forlorn. Now this handy little hardback collects 106 compelling portraits from that site, notionally grouped together in a quartet of categories and backed up with an evocative commentary section entitled Why Draw?

The honest answer is because he wanted to and needed to, and the range of headshots – in a variety of styles and media star famed and lesser lights of the eponymous description – have all contributed towards making Hornschemeier the undeniable storytelling superstar he is.

For no other reason than that they struck me most at first glance, here’s a partial listing of some of the portraits contained within: Maurice Sendak, Edward Hopper, Marcel Duchamp, Steve Ditko, Gahan Wilson, C.C. Beck, Hans Christian Andersen, Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, P.G. Wodehouse, James Thurber, Jim Henson, Jeremy Bentham, Nicola Tesla, Lenny Bruce, Billy Wilder, Rankin & Bass, Carol Reed, Ed Wood, Frank Capra, Orson Welles and so many more all hang on the pages like windows into genius and truly seem to offer a smidgeon more every time you return for just one more glance.

If you want – or need – a peek inside the head of a truly creative force, or just love great drawing and honest intimate communication this is a book you must see.
Art and text © 2011, 2012, 2013 Paul Hornschemeier. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Fight the Power – a Visual History of Protest Among the English Speaking Peoples


By Seán Michael Wilson, Benjamin Dickson, Hunt Emerson, John Spelling, Adam Pasion with additional cartoon by Polyp (New Internationalist)
ISBN: 978-1-78026-122-5

Politics is composed of and utilised equally by firebrands and coldly calculating grandees, and that’s probably the only guiding maxim you can trust. Most normal people don’t give a toss about all that until it affects them in the pocket or impacts their kids and, no matter to what end of the political spectrum one belongs, the greatest enemy of the impassioned ideologue is apathy. This simple fact forces activists and visionaries to ever-more devious and imaginative stunts and tactics…

However, all entrenched Powers-That-Be are ultimately hopeless before one thing: collective unified resistance by the very masses they’re holding down through force of arms, artificial boundaries of class or race, capitalist dogmas, various forms of mind control like bread, circuses and religion, divisive propagandas or just the insurmountable ennui of grudging acceptance to a status quo and orchestrated fear that unknown change might make things worse.

From its earliest inception cartooning has been used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comicbooks the sheer power of narrative with its ability to create emotional affinities has been linked to the creation of unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect the lives of generations of readers, the force that they can apply in a commercial, social or especially political arena is almost irresistible…

The compelling power of graphic narrative to efficiently, potently and evocatively disseminate vast amounts of information and seductively advocate complex issues with great conviction through layered levels has always been most effectively used in works with a political or social component. That’s never been more evident than in this stunning and scholarly new graphic anthology detailing some of the most infamous and effective instances of popular protest.

In Britain the cartoonist has always occupied a perilously precarious position of power: with deftly designed bombastic broadsides or savagely surgical satirical slices instantly capable of ridiculing, exposing and always deflating the powerfully elevated and apparently untouchable with a simple shaped charge of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor …or sometimes just the plain and simple facts of the matter…

For this universal and welcomingly basic method of concept transmission, levels of literacy or lack of education are no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved millennia ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and a pantheon of idealised, sanitised saints, a picture is absolutely worth a thousand words, and as William the Conqueror saw with the triumphalist Bayeux Tapestry, picture narratives are worth a few million more…

Following a thought-provoking Introduction by author, journalist and filmmaker Tariq Ali, this procession through the history of dissent compiled and scripted by Seán Michael Wilson and Benjamin Dickson begins with an agenda-setting ‘Prologue’ – illustrated by Adam Pasion – which can best be described without giving the game away as “Uncle Sam, John Bull and the Statue of Liberty (AKA ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’) walk into a bar…”

Their heated discussion on the value and need of people using their right to dissent is then captivatingly illustrated through a series of erudite, fascinating, shocking and even funny tutorial episodes beginning with a compelling account of ‘The Luddites and the Swing Riots, 1811-1832’ written by Wilson and rendered both palatable and mesmerising by comics legend Hunt Emerson.

The artist then turns his talents to recreating the horrific events and aftermath of ‘The Battle of Peterloo, 1819’ from Dickson’s script before, with Wilson, cataloguing a wave of ‘Colonial Rebellions, 1836-1865’ which the British Empire dealt with in its traditional even-handed, temperate manner (and in case you were wondering, that’s called “sarcasm”…)

Wilson & Pasion then detail the global impact of the ‘Irish Rebellions, 1791-1922’ whilst Dickson & Emerson’s account of ‘The Suffragettes, 1903-1918’ actually follows the story of Votes for Women right up to the present. The practically forgotten and brutally savage sagas of ‘The Australian General Strike, 1917’ (by Wilson & Pasion) and the equally appalling landmark events of ‘The Boston Police Strike, 1919’ – as told by Dickson & John Spelling – reveal the pattern of modern labour conflicts with working folk ranged against intransigent and greedy commercial interests.

The age-old struggle escalated during the ‘UK General Strike and the Battle of George Square, 1918-1926’ (Wilson & Spelling) and reached an intolerable strike-busting peak in Ohio during ‘The Battle of Toledo, 1934’ (Wilson & Spelling): a struggle which cemented management and labour into the intractable ideologically opposed positions they still inhabit today…

The championing of Human Rights is commemorated by Dickson & Pasion in ‘Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott, 1955-1956’ and a deeply moving account of ‘The Trial of Nelson Mandela, 1964’ whilst the modern American soldier’s method of combating unwelcome or insane orders is reviewed in the brilliantly trenchant ‘Fragging’ by Wilson & Emerson…

Back home and still etched in many peoples memories, ‘The Poll Tax Riots, 1989-1991’ offers a surprisingly even-handed account of Margaret Thatcher’s greatest political blunder by Dickson & Spelling, before hitting today’s headlines with the origins and outcomes – to date – of ‘Occupy, 2011-‘…

Returning to that bar and Lady Liberty, Dickson, Wilson & Pasion then draw a few telling Conclusions to close the cartoon course in mass resistance, after which the writers discuss their process in Authors Notes: Why This Book? before then listing the truly phenomenal rewards of all those campaigns and protests with a long list of Rights Won (ranging from Women’s Suffrage to the universal formal acknowledgement of the Human Right to Protest).

Understanding the value of a strategically targeted chuckle, this fabulous monochrome chronicle concludes with one last strip as Dickson & Emerson hilariously reveal ‘The Four Stages of Protest’ courtesy of Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi…

More so than work, sport, religion, fighting or even sex, politics has always been the very grist that feeds the pictorial gadfly’s mill. Of course cartooning can only accomplish so much and whilst Fight the Power! recounts a number of instances where physical and intellectual action were necessary to achieve or maintain justice, at least our art form can galvanise the unconvinced into action and help in the useful dissemination of knowledge about protest: the Who, Where, When, and How.

If you don’t understand What or Why then you’re probably already on the other side of the barricades…
© 2013 Seán Michael Wilson and Benjamin Dickson. Illustrations © 2013 Hunt Emerson, John Spelling and Adam Pasion. Cartoons © 2013 Polyp. All rights reserved.

This book was reviewed and scheduled before the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela. After briefly considering postponing the posting I’ve decided to go ahead. If you can’t understand why perhaps you should think really hard about what he stood for and what Fight the Power! is about.
Win – proudly wearing his little red rebel’s hat…

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Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z Part 2


By Rick Remender, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna, Thomas Palmer, Dean White & Rachelle Rosenberg (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-534-5

The MarvelNOW! publishing event, which began at the end of 2012, gave the House of Ideas an irresistible opportunity to try a few different things with its vast catalogue of characters: options a tad more imaginative than simply killing somebody off or changing the identity of the hero under the mask…

One of the most visually arresting experiments was Castaway in Dimension Z which explored the Star-Spangled Avenger’s undisclosed early childhood in Depression-eraNew York City whilst simultaneously removing the Sentinel of Liberty from every vestige of his oh-so-familiar milieu and comfort zone.

The stunning, all-action conclusion collecting the fortnightly Captain America volume 7, issues #6-10 (released between April 17th and 28th August 2013) carries on from

What Has Gone Before: Steve Rogers and extremely patient girlfriend Sharon Carter (a lethally competent Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.) were investigating a phantom subway carriage when she temporarily derailed his train of thought. After years of waiting, she impulsively asked the WWII veteran to marry her, only to lose him to a cunningly laid trap which chained, drugged and catapulted Captain America into an impossible other universe…

He awoke strapped to a machine beside a baby in a glass tank. Extreme geneticist and Fascist war-criminal Arnim Zola was responsible, determined to extract the Super-Soldier serum which had kept Steve the world’s most perfect man for nine decades…

At a critical juncture of the procedure the still-groggy champion broke free and battled his way to freedom through an army of genetically reconstructed horrors…

Zola screamed to his prior achievement “daughter” Jet Black that the Avenger had killed her brother, unaware that Steve had rescued the baby.

Trapped in Zola’s pocket dimension the fugitive hero then spent years rearing the boy – whom he named Ian – whilst Zola’s ever-increasing mutant army hunted him. Eventually the ultimate freedom fighter became champion of the indigenous Phrox: people driven to the edge of extinction by Zola’s armies.

The deranged geneticist was determined to exterminate them and repopulate with his ghastly creations. Jet led the monsters; a revenge-fuelled fighting fury intent on killing her brother’s murderer. In the subterranean caverns of the Phrox Steve and Ian found friendship and time to heal in relative security, but the Castaway Avenger was hiding a ghastly secret: Zola had infected him with a virus that was slowly growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside the hero: a biological Fifth Column furiously fighting for control of their battered body…

Nearly a decade later, Steve, his Phrox allies and combat veteran Ian are in the final stages of the war with Zola and his ever-improving forces. The invaders are inexorably closing in whilst the thing in Steve gained strength until at last his boy saw and heard the infection for himself…

Knowing the end was near Cap gambled everything on breaching Zola’s fortress and trying to get back to Earth for medical assistance and perhaps Avengers reinforcements.

The plan was thwarted when Jet led the mass-produced legion of monsters in an all-out attack on Phrox.

The devastating assault was a total success. However, as she caught her impossibly alive brother and beat Captain America to near-death, Jet began to experiences doubts. If the man she hated all her life had loved and protected her brother and was a valiant, honourable foe, what else might be untrue?

Her hesitation drove Zola to new depths of atrocity, but Steve managed to survive the biologist’s blistering final assault. As Zola ordered the extermination of the Phrox and Ian was taken away for re-indoctrination, in the ruins Steve took a knife and cut Zola’s appalling agent out of his body and made a plan. After 11 years on the defensive and on the run, Captain America was going to bring the war to his hated enemy…

Brutal, bewildering, bewitching and bombastic, Rick Remender & John Romita Jr.’s boldly unconventional, action-packed saga concludes in truly spectacular fashion here as the Sentinel of Liberty invades Zola’s citadel of science and once more faces Jet even as Ian slowly succumbs to the geneticist’s brainwashing.

The timing, as ever, is incredibly fortuitous. The mad scientist’s decades-long scheme is in its final stages and his entire colossal fortress is converting into a flying Battle Station, ready to re-enter Earth’s dimension and infect millions of human beings with the geneticist’s clonal copy virus. Humanity will soon be extinct and only Arnim Zolas will remain.

Jet’s frantic battle with Captain America completes her own moral transformation, but no sooner does she switch sides that the freshly re-programmed Ian – now calling himself Leopold – ambushes his former foster father beside a ghastly twisted monster clone of Steve.

Jet, meanwhile, has freed the last remnants of the nearly extinct Phrox race only to be challenged by her deeply disappointed dad. Many levels above Steve, having crushed his doppelganger, is near to death, unable to withstand the frenzied attack of Ian/Leopold.

The death blow never comes. Sharon Carter arrives in a blaze of light and hope to shoot Captain America’s boy. She has been trying to re-open the dimensional portal for almost thirty minutes…

Relative time differentials notwithstanding, Earth is still in imminent danger of utter disaster and as the three mismatched champions unite to save it the tension mounts to unbearable heights. After the spectacular final conflict only two will return from Dimension Z…

And in what remains of that now unreachable pocket realm, the Phrox start their slow return from extinction’s abyss, safeguarded by a champion they call Nomad…

Epic, cataclysmic and stunningly grandiose, the Homeric ten-year struggle of Captain America under alien skies looks set to impact mightily upon the warm, upbeat and heroically optimistic adventurer but only time will tell…

The breathtaking illustration of John Romita Jr., inkers Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna & Thomas Palmer and colour-renderers Dean White and Rachelle Rosenberg is simply too good to be true, and this visual fest is augmented by a cover-and-variants gallery by Romita Jr., Janson, Paqual Ferry & Alexander Maleev, plus the now as-standard AR icon add-on sections.

This Marvel Augmented Reality App give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Magnificently reminiscent of the spectacular, innovative 1976-1977 Jack Kirby run on the Star-Spangled Avenger, this bombastic science-fiction epic of freedom fighting fantasy is a delicious, mysterious and mesmerising all-action extravaganza no Fights ‘n’ Tights can afford to ignore.

™ & © 2013 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.