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November 4, 2013

Avengers: the Last White Event

By Jonathan Hickman, Dustin Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-569-7

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reset the entire overarching continuity: a drastic reshuffle and rethink of characters, concepts and brands with an eye to winning new readers and feeding the company’s burgeoning movie blockbuster machineâ€¦

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #7-11 (cover-dated May to July 2013), this ongoing big picture series is again written by the scarily impressive Jonathan Hickman; someone with a distinct gift for mixing â€œmind-bogglingâ€ with â€œthrillingâ€ and making it all seem easy.

This corner of the grand superhero sub-set (with others including Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers, Avengers Assemble and Avengers Underwear Secrets – sorry, that last one’s still imaginary) could be seen as the spine which conceptually links the many series and stars together.

In the previous volume an incredibly ancient trio of â€œGardenersâ€ – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – landed on Mars to begin work on their latest project: remaking Earth into something special.

To attain their ends they bombarded the third rock from the sun with bio-mutational â€œOrigin bombsâ€, seeding locations with new, exotic and deadly life-forms. When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the infinitely old invaders claimed to have been tasked by the first species in creation and The Mother (of the entire universe) to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on other worlds.

For Earth their major exhibit was a new form of man: a prototype Adam to supersede humanityâ€¦

Captain America responded by gathering an expanded contingent of Avengers: the old trusted team and a new expansion squad of champions gathered from across the globe. This auxiliaries comprised Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider-Woman, master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi (now calling himself Manifold), pan-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic crusader Captain Universe and alien mystery-woman Smasher to augment the old regulars Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Although the Gardeners were thwarted, Ex Nihilo remained on Mars after the Avengers took custody of his handmade modern Prometheus. The menace bided his time, waiting whilst Tony Stark sought to decode and understand the Adam left in the Avengers’ care. When at last Earth’s greatest inventor cracked the mystery, the strange creature – now calling himself a Nightmask – promptly predicted an imminent end to everything and the advent of another extinction-level threatâ€¦

Elsewhere as the ancient aliens’ six bio-attacks radically transformed and evolved flora, fauna and geography at the strike-sites – which needed constant attention from the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. – arcane elements of the Infinite were aligning and both Nightmask and Captain Universe became instantly aware of a shattering â€œWhite Eventâ€â€¦

Reality is composed of discrete universes held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Now with that immemorial barrier somehow fragmenting, the timeless engineers who maintain it can only stoically observe as ‘The Last White Event’ (illustrated by Dustin Weaver, with hues from Justin Ponsor) brings destruction and a global doom device to the Avengers’ world.

As Nightmask explains – in the most obscure terminology – a White Event heralds the ascension of a universe. Usually the cosmos provides a Nightmask as herald, and creates a Justice, a Cipher, occasionally a Spitfire and â€“ inevitably – a being of infinite power: a Starbrand. This has just happened again, but this particular universe – and the entire machinery of the multiverse – is brokenâ€¦

After the artificial man pinpoints the ground-zero location of the trigger event, Iron Man leads the team to a smoking, five-mile wide crater which was once a small suburban college town. The edgy heroes discover a traumatised young man at the centre of devastationâ€¦

‘Starbranded’ (Adam Kubert & Ponsor) describes how the celestial source-code which ensures the right person receives ultimate power had failed and, rather than being suitable or even capable, bullied, needy kid Kevin Connor was the very last person who should become a living planetary defence systemâ€¦

As the confrontation devolves into catastrophic combat, with Connor easily thrashing the likes of Thor and the Hulk, cosmically aware Captain Universe realises that even for such a rare occurrence as a White Event, something is fundamentally wrong with the Big Picture.

Adam/Nightmask then abruptly intervenes, arbitrarily transporting Connor to Mars where Abyss and Ex Nihilo are waitingâ€¦

‘Star Bound’ (Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & Ponsor) picks up the tale as, after another impatient fight, Starbrand learns how, after millennia of home world â€œimprovementsâ€, bored Ex Nihilo tweaked his eternal brief and did something a little different with the Origin Bombs he dropped on Earthâ€¦

The alien had no idea what results his meddling might achieve, but at least after billions of years it would be differentâ€¦

Teleporting back to Earth with only the best of intentions, Connor and Adam land in Croatia in time to encounter the fruit of Ex Nihilo’s meddling but their good intentions produce only disaster and when the Avengers arrive the situation only escalatesâ€¦

After a handy cryptography-key page for the alien ‘Builder Machine Code’ used throughout the stories, a clever change of pace sees a group of Avengers sent to Saskatchewan at the request of the Canadian government. The province was also the site of an Origin Bomb strike and the appalling changes to the area were at first investigated by the team of Canadian heroes from Omega Flight. They didn’t come back.

Now in ‘Validator’ (drawn by Deodato Jr. and colour-rendered by Frank Martin), with all contact lost Wolverine leads a team into the dark heart of the mutated environment to discover a terrifying secret â€¦

When the mutagenic hard rain first fell nobody realised that there were in fact seven bio-bombs. In desolate Norway, the ruthless techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics were unhampered as they harvested the horrific result of that particular Origin-strike.

Thus this second globe-girdling collection closes with ‘Wake the Dragon’ (Deodato Jr. & Martin) as a team of espionage-adept Avengers – Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Sunspot, Cannonball and Shang-Chi – travel to Hong Kong to gather intel and stop the sale of whatever doomsday bioweapons AIM has crafted from their researchesâ€¦

As seduction, cajolery, bribery and inevitably outrageous violence all prove insufficient to the task, only the Master of Kung Fu’s â€œold waysâ€ and spiritual purity are able to divine the incredible, deadly truth behind all the layers of secrets and liesâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Utter Fights ‘n’ Tights magic that will delight fans of doom-drenched Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning covers-and-variants gallery by Dustin Weaver, Justin Ponsor, Joe Quinones & Daniel AcuÃ±a and the now mandatory extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sectionsÂ all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
â„¢ and Â© 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.

November 2, 2013November 2, 2013

Papyrus volume 2: Imhotep’s Transformation

By Lucien De Geiter, coloured by Colette De Geiter & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 978-1- 905460-50-2

Once you get a certain taste in your mind you just can’t stop – well I can’t – so here’s another all-ages sword & sandals saga just not available through American funnybooks these days.

British and European comics have always been happier with historical strips than our cousins across the pond (a pugnacious part of me wants to say that’s because we have so much more past to play with – and yes, I know they’re responsible for Prince Valiant, but it’s an exception, not a rule) and our Franco-Belgian brethren in particular have made an astonishing art form out of days gone by.

The happy combination of past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and especially broad humour has resulted in a genre uniquely suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes. Don’t take my word for it – just check out Asterix, AdÃ¨le Blanc-Sec, The Towers of Bois-Maury, Iznogoud or Thorgal to a name few which have made it into English, or even our own much missed classics such as Olac the Gladiator, Dick Turpin, Heros the Spartan or Wrath of the Gods â€¦all long overdue for collection in album form.

Papyrus is the spectacular magnum opus of Belgian cartoonist Lucien de Gieter. It began in 1974 in the legendary weekly Spirou, running to more than 30 albums, plus a wealth of merchandise, a television cartoon show and a video game.

The plucky â€œfellahâ€ (look it up) was blessed by the gods and gifted with a magic sword courtesy of the daughter of crocodile-headed Sobek. His original brief was to free supreme Horus from imprisonment in the Black Pyramid of Ombos and thereby restore peace to the Two Kingdoms. More immediately however the lad was also charged with protecting of Pharaoh’s wilful and high-handed daughter Theti-Cheri – a princess with a unmatchable talent for finding troubleâ€¦

De Gieter was born in 1932 and, studied at Saint-Luc Art Institute in Brussels, before going into industrial design and interior decorating. He made the logical jump into sequential narrative in 1961, first through ‘mini-rÃ©cits’ inserts (fold-in, half-sized-booklets) for Spirou, of his jovial little cowboy ‘Pony’, and later by writing for established regulars as Kiko, Jem, Eddy Ryssack and Francis.

He then joined Peyo’s studio as inker on ‘Les Schtroumpfs’ – AKA The Smurfs – and took over the long-running newspaper strip ‘Poussy’.

In the mid 1960s he created South Seas mermaid fantasy ‘TÃ´Ã´Ã´t et Puit’ even as Pony was promoted to the full-sized pages of Spirou, so De Gieter deep-sixed his Smurfs gig to expand his horizons producing work for Tintin and Le Journal de Mickey.

From 1972-1974 he assisted cartooning legend Berck on ‘Mischa’ for Germany’s Primo, whilst putting the finishing touches to his new project. This creation would occupy his full attention – and delight millions of fervent fans – for the next forty years.

The annals of Papyrus encompass a huge range of themes and milieus, blending boys-own adventure with historical fiction and interventionist mythology, gradually evolving from traditionally appealing â€œBigfootâ€ cartoon content towards a more realistic, dramatic and authentic iteration, through light fantasy romps starring a fearlessly forthright boy fisherman favoured by the gods as a hero of Egypt and friend to Pharaohs.

Imhotep’s Transformation is the second Cinebook translation (and 8th yarn, originally released in 1985 as La MÃ©tamorphose d’Imhotep) opening with Papyrus and his one-legged friend Imhotep (no relation) paddling a canoe through the marshes of the Nile.

The peaceful idyll is wrecked when Theti-Cheri and her handmaidens hurtle by in their flashy boat, but the boys don’t mind as they have a message for the princess.

The new holy statue of her father has arrived from the Priests of Memphis and the daughter of Heaven is required at the ceremony to install it at the pyramid of Saqqara before the annual â€œHeb Sedâ€ King’s Jubilee.

As the girls and boys race back an old peasant is attacked by a crocodile. Diving after him Papyrus wrestles the reptile away and is about to kill it when Sobek appears, beseeching him to spare it.

On the surface Theti-Cheri and her attendants are ministering to the aged victim and the princess can’t help noticing how he bears an uncanny resemblance to her dadâ€¦

By the time they all reach the pyramid the monumental task of hauling the statue into place is well under way, but suddenly blood begins pouring out of the monolith’s eyes.

The terrified workers panic and the colossal effigy slips, crashing to destruction. The populace are aghast and murmurs of curses and ill omens abound.

Rather than running away Imhotep heads for the rubble and discovers the statue’s head is hollow. Moreover, inside there is a dead dwarf and a smashed flask which had held bloodâ€¦

Papyrus is in the royal compound where the recent events have blighted the anticipation of the court. During Heb Sed the Pharaoh has to run around the sacred pyramid three times and fire his bow at the four corners of the kingdoms to prove his fitness to rule, but now it appears the gods have turned against their chosen emissary on Earthâ€¦

Papyrus is not so sure and when he tries to speak to a royal server the man bolts. Giving chase the lad is in time to prevent the attendant’s murder, but not his escape.

And then a cry goes up: Pharaoh has been poisonedâ€¦

Knowing there is no love lost between the MemphisPriests of Ptah and the loyal Theban clerics doctoring the fallen king, Papyrus warns of a possible plot, but has no proof. What is worse, Chepseska, leader of the Memphis faction, is of royal blood too and would inherit if Pharaoh was unable to complete the Heb Sed ritualâ€¦

As loyal physicians and priests struggle to save their overlord’s life, Theti-Cheri remembers the old man in the swamp. If only the crocodile bite has not left him too weak to runâ€¦

The doughty dotard is willing to try and also knows of a wise woman whose knowledge of herbs can cure Pharaoh, but ruthless Chepseska is on to the kids’ ploy and dispatches a band of killers to stop Papyrus and Imhotep.

However, the gods are behind the brave lads and the after the assassins fall to the ghastly judgement of Sobek, the boys rush an antidote back to Saqqara, only to fall into the lost tomb of Great Imhotep, first Pharaoh, builder-god and divine lord of the Ibis.

With time running out for his distant descendent, the resurrected ruler rouses himself to administer justice for Egypt and inflict the punishment of the gods upon the usurpersâ€¦

This is another epic and amazing exploit which will thrill and astound fans of fantastic fantasy and bombastic adventure. Papyrus is one more brilliant addition to the family-friendly pantheon of continental champions who marry heroism and humour with wit and charm, and anybody who has worn out those Tintin or Asterix volumes would be wise beyond their years in acquiring these classic chronicles tales.

November 1, 2013November 2, 2013

Showcase Presents Tales of The Unexpected volume 1

By Jack Miller, Bernard Baily, Bill Ely, Jack Kirby, Mort Meskin, Sheldon Moldoff, Ruben Moriera, George Papp, John Prentice, Leonard Starr & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3520-8

American comicbooks started rather slowly until the invention of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and established a new entertainment genre. Implacably vested in World War Two, the Overman swept all before him (occasional her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional themes and heroes resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership, and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

As well as Western, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of those cyclical revivals of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (the Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: the Unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948.

Technically speaking, Adventures Into the Unknown was pipped at the post by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before reviving the title by launching a regular series in 1951. All the meanwhile, however, parents’ favourite Classics Illustrated had long been milking the literary end of the genre with adaptations of the Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

As long as we’re keeping score, this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another â€œmature marketâ€ gap and invented the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery. Its success led to a raft of such creature-filled fantasy compendiums in the years that followed such as Sensation Mystery, My Greatest Adventure, House of Secrets and, in 1956, Tales of the Unexpectedâ€¦

A hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings (check out Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 on your search engine of choice) was derailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of draconian self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis and emblem of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, even though the market’s appetite for suspense and the uncanny was still highâ€¦

Stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which dominated until the 1960s when super-heroes (which had begun to creep back after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them.

This mammoth monochrome compilation offers a stunning voyage to the fantastic outer limits of 1950s imagination, collecting the first 20 issues of the charmingly enthralling anthology – produced under the watchful eyes of the Comics Code Authority â€“ cover dates February/March 1956 to December 1957 and starts with a quartet of intriguing, beautifully rendered pocket thrillers.

Sadly for me and you records are spotty and many of the authors remain unsung (although possible candidates include Dave Wood, Bill Finger, Ed Herron, Joe Samachson, George Kashdan, Jack Miller and Otto Binder and I’ll just guess whenever I’m more than half-certain) but the pictorial pioneers at least can be deservedly celebratedâ€¦

Behind a captivating cover by Bill Ely, Tales of the Unexpected #1 begins the uncanny excursions with ‘The Out-of-The-World Club’, drawn by the astoundingly precise John Prentice, which detailed the unearthly secret of a night-spot offering truly original groovy sounds, whilst ‘The Dream Lamp’, limned by Leonard Starr, took a bucolic glance at a device which seemed able to perform impossible feats.

Jack Miller, Howard Purcell & Charles Paris then ironically revealed ‘The Secret of Cell Sixteen’ which fooled yet one more prisoner in the Bastille, after which the debut issue ended with a bleak alien invasion fable in ‘The Cartoon that Came to Life’ by Otto Binder & Bill Ely.

Issue #2 offered the uncredited conundrum of ‘The Magic Hats of M’sieu La Farge’ (art by Ruben Moreira) which saw ordinary folk impelled to perform extraordinary feats when wearing the titfers of famous dead folk, whilst ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ (drawn by Bill Draut & Mort Meskin) disclosed how an obsessive rivalry brought destruction upon a man forever relegated to second best behind his exceptional best friendâ€¦

‘The Record of Doom’ (Ely art) apparently drove listeners to suicide until a canny cop uncovered the truth, but ‘The Gorilla who Saved the World’ (Starr) was as incredible and alien as you’d expect in a tale of sharp sci-fi suspenseâ€¦

Issue #3 opened with Purcell’s ‘The Highway to Tomorrow’ wherein a motorway through Native American sacred lands almost resulted in a new uprising, after which Meskin’s ‘The Man Nobody Could See’ revisited the old plot of an invisible criminal. ‘I Lost My Past’ (illustrated by Mort Drucker) recounted an implausibly complex scheme to cure an amnesiac before ‘The Man with 100 Wigs’, by Miller & Prentice, featured a genuinely compelling mystery about a petty thief who stole a sorcerer’s chest filled with hairpieces imparting uncanny power to the wearerâ€¦

The mix of cop stories, aliens and the arcane acts clearly struck a chord as, with Tales of the Unexpected #4, the comic was promoted to monthly.

‘Seven Steps to the Unknown’ (Ely) continued the eclectic winning formula through a perilous puzzle regarding a group of complete strangers inexplicably linked and targeted for murder, whilst ‘The Day I Broke All Records’, illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff, followed a top athlete who gained something â€œextraâ€ after finding an elixir once favoured by unbeatable Roman gladiator Apuliusâ€¦

Then a murderer was brought to justice after becoming obsessed with ‘The Flowers of Sorcery’ (Starr) whilst ‘The House Where Dreams Come True’ (Prentice) offered a far kinder tale of human generosity that will melt the heart of the most jaded reader.

In #5 ‘The Man Who Laughed at Locks’ (Moreira) disclosed the inevitable fate of a cheat when rival inventors clashed, ‘I Was Bewitched for a Day’ (Ely) revealed how easily domestic reality can be overturned and Moldoff portrayed the bewilderment of an Art Investigator faced with ‘The Living Paintings’ before Miller & Prentice again triumphed with the tale of an actor literally possessed by his role in ‘The Second Life of Geoffrey Hawkes’â€¦

TotU #6 opened with ‘The Telecast from the Future’ (drawn by George Papp) as a technician foolishly convinced himself that his gear hadn’t really opened a peephole into tomorrow, whilst Ely’s ‘Dial M for Magic’ focussed on a prestidigitator’s club that auditioned an amazing applicant who didn’t just do â€œtricksâ€â€¦

‘The Forbidden Flowers’ (Moldoff) then exposed a killer who thought himself safe, after which Moreira’s ‘The Girl in the Bottle’ led an unsuspecting oceanographer into fantastic peril and another incredible criminal scam.

Golden Age great Bernard Baily joined the rotating art crew with #7 as ‘The Pen that Never Lied’ visited a number of people, dispensing justice through unvarnished truth, after which ‘Beware, I Can Read your Mind!’ (Moldoff) saw a truth telepath discover the overwhelming cost of his gift.

When a miner found a talking talisman, it promised anything except ‘The Forbidden Wish’ (George Roussos). Tragically it was the only thing the weak-minded man wantedâ€¦

This issue ended with the art debut of the astounding Nick Cardy who lovingly detailed the fate of a murderous thug who refused to listen to the sage advice of ‘The Face in the Clock!’

Tales of the Unexpected #8 opened with fantastic fantasy as ‘The Man Who Stole a Genie’ (Meskin) slowly succumbed to greed and mania, whilst ‘The Secret of the Elephant’s Tusk’ (Ely art) followed the trail of death that resulted after a poacher killed a sacred pachyderm. Roussos’ ‘The Four Seeds of Destiny’ chillingly revealed the doom that came to a TV reporter who stole relics from a Pharaoh’s tomb before ‘The Camera that Could Rob’ (Starr) proved that, even for a thief with an unbeatable gimmick, mistreating a cat never ends wellâ€¦

In issue #9 ‘The Amazing Cube’ (possibly scripted by George Kashdan and definitely limned by Baily) saw an unscrupulous gambler fall foul of his own handmade dice, whilst a killer conman got his comeuppance courtesy of ‘The Carbon Copy Man’ (Papp). ‘The Day Nobody Died’ by Roussos is a classic of moody mystery wherein a doctor pursues a dark stranger and regrets catching him, after which a little lad saves the world from alien invasion and know-it-all adults in ‘The Man Who Ate Fire’ (illustrated by Starr).

The tone of the time was gradually turning and sorcerous supernature was slowly succumbing to the Space Age lure of weird science as TotU #10 proved with ‘The Strangest Show on Earth’ (art by Jim Mooney) wherein a bankrupt showman stumbled over a Martian circus. Sadly the bizarre performers had their own agenda to adhere toâ€¦

‘The Phantom Mariner’ (Moldoff) followed an obsessed sea captain to his inescapable fate, after which a scientist faced a deadly dilemma after creating ‘The Duplicate Man’ (Ely) and Meskin revealed how an antique collector’s compulsion endangered his life in ‘I Was Slave to the Wizard’s Lamp’â€¦

A criminal inventor paid the ultimate price for his venality in ‘Who Am I?’ by Baily which opened Tales of the Unexpected #11, whilst ‘I Was a Man from the Future’ (Cardy) saw an American mountaineer stumble through a time-warp into adventure and romance in15th century France and ‘The Ghost of Hollywood’ (Ely) confounded the special effects designer determined to debunk it.

Starr then closed out the issue with ‘The Man Who Hated Green’, as an artist embarked on an extraordinary campaign of terrorâ€¦

Issue #12 began with Cardy’s tale of a quartet of escaped convicts who terrorised three little old ladies and were cursed by ‘The Four Threads of Doom’, after which ‘The Witch’s Statues’ (Meskin) proved to be more scurrilous scam than sinister sorcery.

Following a downturn in the industry, Jack Kirby briefly returned to National/DC at this time: producing mystery tales and drawing Green Arrow all whilst preparing his newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force.

He also re-packaged for Showcase an original team concept kicking around in his head since he and Joe Simon had closed the innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics. Blending explosive adventure with the precepts of mystery comics, Challengers of the Unknown became the pattern for the entire Silver Age superhero resurgenceâ€¦

After years of working for others, Simon & Kirby had established their own publishing company, producing comics for a more sophisticated audience, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by the aforementioned anti-comic pogrom of US Senator Estes Kefauver and psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham.

Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less experimental, companies.

Here his run of short fantastic suspense tales commences with ‘The All-Seeing Eye’ wherein a journalist responsible for many impossible scoops realises that the ancient artefact he employs is more dangerous than beneficialâ€¦

The issue ends with Ely’s rousing thriller ‘The Indestructible Man’ wherein a stuntman with innate invulnerability decided to get rich quick no matter who gets hurtâ€¦

In #13 an amnesiac traced his lost past by seeking out ‘Weapons of Destiny’ (perhaps Binder with Ely art), whilst ‘The Thing from the Skies’ (Meskin) initially proved a boon but ultimately the downfall for a murdering conman. A ghostly ‘Second Warning’ (Papp) saved a tourist when he visited the battlefields of WWII, after which ‘I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural’ (France E. Herron & Cardy) revealed how an actor escaped a deal with the devil before Herron & Kirby stole the show with a gripping crime-caper in ‘The Face Behind the Mask’â€¦

Tales of the Unexpected #14 started with Meskin’s ‘The Forbidden Game’ as an embezzler played fast and loose with a wagering wizard, followed by ‘Cry, Clown, Cry’ (Baily) which saw a baffled son ignore his father’s injunction not to follow the family tradition to be a gag-man.

Papp pictured the fate of a swindler who wanted folk to believe he was ‘The Man Who Owned King Arthur’s Sword’ and Moldoff finished up proceedings as a crook was haunted by ‘The Green Gorilla’ created by his misdeeds.

Kirby led off in #15, his ‘Three Wishes to Doom’ proving that even with a genie’s lamp crime does not pay, after which ‘The Sinister Cannon’ (Baily) employed by an insidious alien infiltrator proved far more than it appeared. ‘The Rainbow Man’ (Roussos) was a scientific bandit who overestimated the efficacy of his camouflage discovery and ‘The City of Three Dooms’ by Meskin wrapped up things with a mesmerising time-travel romp starring Nazi submariners on a voyage to infinityâ€¦

There’s an inexplicable frisson in ‘The Magic Hammer’ by Kirby which opens #16 as the King of Comics relates how a prospector finds a mallet capable of creating storms and goes into the rainmaking businessâ€¦ until the original owner turns upâ€¦

That superb vignette is augmented by ‘I Was a Spy for Them’ (Meskin) as a canny physicist turned the tables on the star men who captured him, a crooked archaeologist gained unbeatable power from an ancient ring and became ‘The Exile from Earth’ (Dave Wood & Moldoff), and Moreira illustrated ‘The Interplanetary Line-Up’, wherein an actual Man from Mars gatecrashed a science fiction writer’s fancy dress partyâ€¦

In #17 ‘Who is Mr. Ashtar?’ (Kirby) chillingly followed a hotel detective who knew there was something off about the new guest in Room 605, whilst ‘Beware the Thinking Cap’ (Ely) described the rise and fall of a crook who found the device which inspired all the geniuses of history. Baily illustrates how a lifer in jail used a unique method of escape in ‘The Bullet Man’, and the issue ends on ‘The Impossible Voyage’ (Mooney) as a couple of alien pranksters took earth suckers for a ride on what only looked like a fairground attractionâ€¦

Mooney takes the lead spot in #18 as ‘The Man Without a World’ rejected Earth only to learn that a life in space is no life at all, whilst ‘The Riddle of the Glass Bubble’ (Meskin) threatened to end all life until a little kid offered an unlikely solution. Cardy opened ‘The Amazing Swap Shop’, where humans could trade â€œjunkâ€ for impossibly useful gadgets before Kirby showed how a clever human saved us all by outwitting ‘The Man Who Collected Planets’.

By now thoroughly gripped in UFO fever, Tales of the Unexpected #19 began with ‘The Man from Two Worlds’ (Cardy) wherein evil Neptunians attempted to abduct an Earth scientist by guile, whereas ‘D-Day on Planet Vulcan’ (Mooney) saw embattled ETs beg our help to end a world-crushing crisis, after which a meteor turned a hapless technician into ‘The Human Lie Detector’ (Ely) and a dotty old eccentric surprised everybody by ending ‘The Menace of the Fireball’ (with art by Bob Brown).

This first terrific tome concludes with issue #20 where ‘The Earth Gladiator’ (Cardy) struggled to save his life and prove Earth worthy of continued existence, an engineer scuppered ‘The Remarkable Mr. Multiplier’ (Ely) before his invention wrecked civilisation and ‘I Was Marooned on Planet Earth’, by Baily, illustrated that every alien incursion was malign or dangerous.

Moreira then brings the cosmic catalogue to a close with ‘You Stole Our Planet’ wherein gigantic space creatures arrived with a strong claim of prior ownershipâ€¦

Although certainly dated and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated suspenseful adventures are drenched in charm, gilded in ingenuity and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these fantastic exploits are nevertheless an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.

October 31, 2013May 23, 2013

Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps volume 2

By Geoff Johns, James Robinson, Tony Bedard, Greg Rucka, Scott Kolins, Eddy Barrows, Nicola Scott, Eduardo Pansica & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-4012-2803-3

Hold onto your heads, hearts and scorecards: the mind-buggering confusion is almost overâ€¦

Reprinting supplemental 3-part miniseries Blackest Night: The Flash, Blackest Night: J.S.A. and Blackest Night: Wonder Woman from 2010, this concluding collection of sidebar stories chronicles how the horrific doom and gloom of the Blackest Night began to wane and depicts key moments when the darkness began to liftâ€¦

The inexorable progress of the reanimated angels of death – slaughtering the living and feeding on the raw emotions of the defiant and defeated alike – seemed to stall here as hard-pressed humanity began to turn the tables and start a furious hope-fuelled fight back against Death God Nekron‘s all-conquering Black Lantern Corpsâ€¦

Blackest Night: Flash by Geoff Johns & Scott Kolins opens with a terse and gritty examination of villainy unleashed as Barry Allen – who gave his life to preserve the multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths – flashes across the world, returned in all his scarlet glory to save universal sentience itself.

Amidst all the revolting resurrections, one in particular is troubling: 25^th century maniac Eobard Thawne – who haunted and hunted Allen throughout his career, murdering the hero’s wife and mother in an obscene life-long obsession to become his enemy, is also back – not as a resurrected Black Lantern zombie revenant but as a living, breathing Reverse Flash Professor Zoom. Time travel is so confusingâ€¦

Forearmed with crucial knowledge, Barry races around the globe seeking allies, including his protÃ©gÃ© Wally West and (briefly deceased, but better now and breathing) grandson Bart. Meanwhile a BL Rogues Gallery including The Top, Golden Glider, the first Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang, Rainbow Raider, Trickster James Jesse, and – impossibly – the reanimated corpse of Professor Zoom (time travel, see?) all stalk the speedy sentinels and their own still-breathing former comradesâ€¦

Barry knows now that Black Lantern zombies are in actuality Nekron’s perfidious power rings, downloaded with the memories of the angry dead and physically manifesting as psychologically devastating simulacra, programmed to feed on emotion and tear the hearts from the living – literally and figuratively.

However when the animated corpse of Zoom begins chasing him, garbed as the fearsome mythological Black Flash (as seen in Flash: The Human Race), the Scarlet Speedster divines a way to combat the voracious wraiths even as he hurtles towards Africa in search of his old friend Solovar of Gorilla City.

Sadly the all-wise super-ape is also dead and a ravening agent of the BL Corpsâ€¦

Back in Central City living Rogues Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, second Mirror Master Evan McCulloch, parvenu Trickster Axel Walker and the son of Captain Boomerang decide to pre-emptively strike at their fallen former friends.

Tracking the phantasmal freaks to maximum security metahuman penitentiary Iron Heights, the cadre of criminals are unaware that their undead comrades already know they’re comingâ€¦

Barry, unable to help Solovar, has since fled and, whilst planning his next move, has been approached by Blue Lantern St. Walker. The wielder of the Light of Hope has targeted Flash as the embodiment of that fragile, unconquerable sentiment (even after the dark side again claims young Bart) and makes the indomitable Allen a blue ring-bearer: beacon and messenger to humanity with the oath â€œAll Will Be Wellâ€â€¦

As the mortal Rogues win their own battle against the dark, Barry and St. Walker, armed with the azure power of Blue Lanterns, defeat a host of Black foes and, with the aid of Wally, manage to expel the Nekron infection from Bart, bringing him back to full life and finally incapacitating Black Flash Zoom.

Freed from death’s influence Bart, as Kid Flash, informs his elders that a final confrontation is brewing in Coast City even as Captain Cold and Co. end their dealings with the Black Lanterns by dealing poetic justice to a traitor in their midstâ€¦

The carnage and crusading continues in Blackest Night: J.S.A with the opening sally ‘Lost Souls’, by James Robinson, Eddie Barrows, Marcos Marz, Julio Ferreira, Luciana Del Negro & Ruy JosÃ©, wherein the multigenerational Justice Society of America is targeted by unquiet Black Lantern-ed liches of fallen members Sandman, Dr. Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific, tasked with not only destroying the living members of the fabled team but also leading an army of revenants against the most brilliant man on Earth as he tirelessly toils on a device to banish Nekron’s influenceâ€¦

As veteran Flash Jay Garrick and modern legacy heroes Cyclone, Tomcat, Magog, Liberty Belle II and the new Hourman strive against the hordes of the fallen, stunned by the recent loss of their tragic comrade Damage, at S.T.A.R. labs the current Dr. Midnight and Mister Terrific race to build their machine to stop the dead. Green Lantern Alan Scott, Wildcat and Power Girl are posting an uneasy guard over themâ€¦

Everywhere young and old champions desperately hold back the onslaught of the final darkness, but as the device nears completion a convergence of Black Lanterns outside and within the citadel threatens the living’s last hopeâ€¦

‘Troubled Souls’ (Robinson, Tony Bedard, Barrows, Marz, Eduardo Pansica, Julio & Eber Ferreira & Del Negro) sees Liberty Belle race her deadly departed dad Johnny Quick in a most unconventional and unexpected duel of wills even as BL-ed Lois Lane of Earth-2 menaces the scientist heroes in S.T.A.R. labs as she seeks to reactivate her twice-dead husband (the BL Superman of Earth-2 was destroyed by Superboy and â€œourâ€ Man of Steel in Blackest Night: Superman in Black Lantern Corps volume 1).

In the street Damage menaces his â€œcousinâ€ Atom Smasher and former love Judomaster before fighting off his Black Lantern programming long enough to destroy all the horrors besieging the lab, but his death-defying gesture is proved pointless as, within the shaken structure, Lois’ ring reanimates the mangled remains of the unstoppable Kal-L of Kryptonâ€¦

‘White Lightning’ (Bedard, Robinson, Barrows, Marz, Pansica, Del Negro, Wayne Faucher, Eber Ferreira & Sandro Ribeiro) then sees Power Girl battling her zombie father figure to a standstill, aided by a phalanx of JSA all-stars, until the saviour machine can be activated to sever Nekron’s connection to all his agents in the city. As the Black Lanterns return to dust the stage is set for the final fight against the Lord of Deathâ€¦

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman (by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Prentis Rollins, Jonathan Glapion, Walden Wong, Drew Geraci & Eber Ferreira) is perhaps the most confusing tale for casual readers to follow, as much of the critical action occurs contemporaneously in other books such as core tome Blackest Night).

Nevertheless, as we’ve come this farâ€¦

It begins in WashingtonDC as the Amazing Amazon tracks the reconstituted mind-manipulator Maxwell Lord, whom she executed during the Infinite Crisis to prevent him making Superman his slave.

Undead Lord is running amok, causing people to kill themselves, and even beheading him doesn’t stop his malevolent depredations. When he causes all the nation’s honoured dead (including DC war hero Unknown Soldier) to rise from their graves and attack, Wonder Woman is forced to destroy them all with her magic lasso. Furious, she swears vengeance on the beast who has twice compelled her to commit shameful acts of barbarismâ€¦

The second chapter opens with her actually dead and operating as a Black Lantern beside her equally compromised â€œsisterâ€ Donna Troy (see why you need to read the other volumes?) fighting Aquaman‘s widow Mera and a contingent of Teen Titans, all the while struggling to throw off the malign influence of the Black Ring that controls herâ€¦

After ripping out the heart of her protÃ©gÃ©, Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark, dead Diana turns on Troy and her own mother Queen Hippolyta. Suddenly substitute Batman Dick Grayson distracts her long enough for the goddess Aphrodite to intervene and open a path for a Violet power ring to capture the agonised Amazon princessâ€¦

Brought back to life and now a love-fuelled Star Sapphire/Wonder Woman, she rendezvous with Star Sapphire Carol Ferris to end the menace of Max Lord, only to be ambushed by Mera, now a raging Red Lantern. Battling each other and an army of Black Lanterns, the furiously warring women are only stopped by Green Lantern Hal Jordan who has gathered a taskforce of ring-bearers from every hue of the emotional spectrum, determined to lead them all into final battle against Nekronâ€¦

Which will or indeed has already happened in the aforementioned core collection Blackest Nightâ€¦

With covers and variants by Kolins, Gene Ha, Greg Horn, Francis Manapul, Ryan Sook & Barrows, this book also includes a selection of info pages digging the dirt on sixteen Black Lantern heroes and villains from this collection courtesy of designers Joe Prado & Scott Kolins.

Epic, ambitious, enthralling and grandiose, whilst the subtler shades and in-continuity treats of this epic adventure will be utterly impenetrable to all but the most devoted DC disciple, there’s so much that is great about Blackest Night that I’d strongly urge every fan of cosmic comics and frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction to give it a try (but you really, really need to read all seven collections). Think of it as a keep-fit class for your comicbook sinewsâ€¦
Â© 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 31, 2013October 29, 2013

The Last Temptation

By Neil Gaiman & Michael Zulli (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-455-3 (softcover)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-59307-414-2 (Hardback)

In advance of a re-coloured commemorative anniversary release, I thought I’d offer a quick peek at a little lost classic of cross-media marketing that no fan of horror, comics or Halloween should be without – especially as, in either hardback or softcover, the sublime line-drawing and tonal effects of artist Michael Zulli are presented in stark and stirring black and whiteâ€¦

The Last Temptation was Alice Cooper’s twentieth studio album and in 1994 Marvel, in conjunction with Epic records, published a 3-issue miniseries for their abortive Marvel Music imprint to celebrate the release. The first issue was also included as a freebie with the LP. The veteran recording artist worked closely with up-and-coming author Neil Gaiman to craft a narrative that would appeal to music mavens, fantasy fans and lovers of mysteryâ€¦

In 2005 Dark Horse collected the quirkily baroque supernatural vignette into a beguilingly macabre monochrome monograph that still visually enchants and emotionally entangles – and the turbulent tome is still readily available through internet retailers if, like me, you still hanker for the days of powerful penmanship and tonal terror wedded to graphic excess.

The story is a simple fable of sinister seduction and crucial choices at a crossroadsâ€¦

Following author Neil Gaiman’s Introduction, lyrically explaining the genesis of the project, ‘Act One: Bad Place Alone’ opens in the joyously anticipatory days before Halloween as Steven and his classmates trade gross-out urban-legend horror stories whilst walking home from school through their painfully plebeian little town.

Passing an alley they spot a nigh-hidden old edifice with a hokey billboard that boasts â€œTheatre of the Real!! The Grandest Guignol!â€

â€¦And suddenly a decidedly creepy and sinister top-hatted Showman is there: huckstering the delights within and daring the quartet to enter. Only Steven, acutely aware of his perceived failings, actually accepts the sardonic dareâ€¦

The tall dark strange-ling magnanimously assures the lad that everything is freeâ€¦ but can Steven really be that naÃ¯ve? At least enticingly dowdy ticket-collector Mercy seems to see something in the boyâ€¦

Seating himself in a dank and desolate auditorium redolent of smoke and old flames, the boy takes in a unique show of oddly unhappy morality plays and almost loses himself in uncounted hours of dark entertainment. Finally after enduring and enjoying a sordid stream of blandishments he leaves, reeling from an offer to join the eccentric and uncanny travelling show.

He is not as unmoved or unchanged as he seems when he rejoins his palsâ€¦ who have waited nearly a minute for himâ€¦

‘Act Two: Unholy War’ sees young Steven racing for home as his traditional, pedestrian reality reasserts itself. Over dinner the parents ramble on until Steven turns the conversation towards theatres. He then learns there might have been one in town years ago, but there was some scandal about a fire and the owner stealing childrenâ€¦

As the weary boy heads for bed he feels the power of the Showman still affecting him. In his dreams the eerie tout is there, asking impossible questions and posing terrible, irresistible challenges.

It’s Halloween morning and Steven increasingly finds the Theatre’s influence tugging at him. School is populated with scary monsters and familiar freaks and he knows a proposition has been made. He has no choice but to make a choice in ‘Act Three: Cleansed by Fire’â€¦

Firstly though he makes a stop at the town Library and, through the auspices of the formidably Scary Librarian, does a little research. The sheer number and ominous regularity of missing children on Halloween gives him pause and stiffens his resolveâ€¦

When he finally leaves the streets are filled with Trick-or-Treaters – but not all of them are young or aliveâ€¦

All he can do now is return to the Theatre of the Real, make his choice and live or die by itâ€¦

Moody, mercurial and mesmerising, this captivatingly suspenseful comic chiller echoes and recalls the Dark Carnival yarns of Ray Bradbury, and this meander through the byways of the October Country will certainly delight anybody with a taste for the night and love of narrative arts.
The Last Temptationâ„¢ and Â© 1994, 1995, 2000 Nightmare, Inc. and Neil Gaiman. The Last Temptationâ„¢ and all prominent characters and distinctive likeness are trademarks of Nightmare, Inc. and Neil Gaiman. Illustrations Â© 1994, 1995, 2000 Michael Zulli. All rights reserved.

October 30, 2013May 24, 2013

Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps volume 1

By Peter J. Tomasi, James Robinson, J.T. Krul, Ardian Syaf, Eddie Barrows, Allan Goldman, Ed Benes & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2804-0

After years of inexorable build-up, when the Blackest Night finally dawned, it was, like death itself, unavoidable and inescapable. The Event permeated and saturated every aspect of DC’s publishing schedule and found almost every hero and villain living, dead or provably otherwise an active participant in a final clash between Darkness and Lightâ€¦

The basic premise of the crisis was simple and delicious. All those times when a hero or villain physically came back from the dead, it wasn’t a miracle – or even fashion and comicbook market forces – but part of a cunning plan by a cosmic death god to end all life.

The ghastly ultimate antithesis Nekron had simply allowed the likes of Jason Todd, Superman, Superboy, Donna Troy, Bart Allen and all the rest to return as strands of an infinitely patient plan to replace the lights of life’s emotional spectrum with the silent ebon glow of ultimate, all-encompassing nothingnessâ€¦

Reprinted here are three of the supplemental 3-part miniseries which accompanied and garnished the main event. Blackest Night: Batman, Blackest Night: Superman and Blackest Night: Titans were first released in released in 2009 to augment the culminating saga, but in isolation make for pretty confusing reading so best ensure you have a copy of the collected Blackest Night on hand unless you want a killer headacheâ€¦

Blackest Night: Batman ‘Who Burns Who’ (Peter J. Tomasi, Ardian Syaf, Vicente Cifuentes & John Dell) is a blistering introduction to the epic event as, in Gotham City, new Batman Dick Grayson and latest Robin Damian Wayne examine the desecrated family graveyard where recently Flash and Green Lantern battled someone impossible who did something horribleâ€¦

As they tend to the shattered open graves, in the distant Himalayas Ghostly Guardian Deadman is attacked by his own reanimated corpse. Attempting to re-possess his resurgent black be-ringed skeleton, Boston Brand is drowned in a ghastly torrent of memories and discovers how Death’s agent Black Hand has brought about the Blackest Nightâ€¦

In the skies above Gotham, a plane carrying the cadavers of many of the Dark Knight’s foes is shredded by Black Lantern Rings seeking beings of power and malice to resurrect.

Soon Blockbuster, the Ventriloquist, KGBeast, Magpie, Deacon Blackfire, King Snake, Abattoir and the Trigger Twins are on a rampage of slaughter just as Deadman tracks down his old friend Batman and discovers the one true Gotham Guardian is also goneâ€¦

As the phantom brings the substitute heroes up to speed on the Big Black Picture, more ebony power-rings rain down, programmed to cause maximum grief and pain.

Soon Grayson’s murdered parents are stalking the streets hunting for their heroic son, as are Tim Drake‘s (third Robin and currently operating as vigilante Red Robin) long-gone Mum and Dadâ€¦

With Deadman in agony as he taps into the ravening hunger of the undead horde, the Caped Crusaders realise that all of Gotham is under attack by the rapacious Black Lanternsâ€¦

Feeding on emotions, the zombies bolster their forces with every life they take, and Batman and Robin are forced to the regrettable extreme of tooling up with incendiary weapons from the National Guard armoury as, in the centre of town, Police Headquarters is slowly being drowned in undead berserkers.

Soon only Commissioner Jim Gordon and his wheelchair-bound daughter Babs are left to hold a Horatian rearguard action when the Dynamic Duo arrive with flamethrowers blazingâ€¦

Even then the effects are only temporary as the necrotic rings constantly reassemble the blazing Lanterns. With Deadman’s surreptitious assistance – and thanks to Red Robin’s timely arrival – the Gordons make a spectacular escape, but with the situation already beyond dire, the shaken survivors decide on a potentially catastrophic remedy and have Brand possess misanthropic occultist Jason Blood.

As the Batman Family are furiously fighting their own bloodthirsty dearly departed, Deadman is wearing the moody modern mystic and rushing to the rescue. Blood’s esoteric knowledge might be of some use in this situation, but the actual plan is to go for broke by releasing Etrigan the Demon from his immortal mortal cage and hoping they can all survive the Prince of Hell’s understandable and predictable outrageâ€¦

At roughly the same time in Kansas, Blackest Night: Superman began with ‘A Sleepy Little Town’ by James Robinson, Eddy Barrows, Ruy JosÃ© & Julio Ferreira. Here the alternate-Earth Man of Steel Kal-L erupts from his grave to attack Superman and recently reborn Superboy Conner Kent as they visit the family farm.

Distracted by the blistering blockbuster blitzkrieg, the Kryptonian combatants rampage all over the state in a perfect storm of destruction. Thus only faithful hound Krypto is left to protect ideal mom Martha Kent when Black Lantern Lois Lane-Kent of Earth-2 arrives, hungry for human hearts and emotional sustenanceâ€¦

Meanwhile on the freshly established planet New Krypton the dead are also rising, and Supergirl and her mother Alura are confronted by the last man they ever thought they’d see againâ€¦

On Earth, Smallville is deserted except for BLs Kal-L and Lois who hold Martha hostage in ‘Psycho Piracy!’ The long-dead master of emotion has also macabrely reincarnated and the entire township has succumbed to his spell. When Ma Kent boldly makes a break for freedom, Superboy falls under the Psycho Pirate’s power too and turns on â€œbig brotherâ€ Superman, whilst on New Krypton Supergirl vainly fights back against her dead dadâ€¦

‘The Long Dark Night’ (with additional pencils from Allan Goldman and inks by Eber Ferreira) sees Kryptonian science and Supergirl’s indomitable spirit drive off and exile all Black Lanterns from the embattled artificial world, whilst on Earth Krypto rockets to the rescue in Smallville, allowing Superman and Superboy to overcome and apparently deactivate Kal-L, Lois and the Psycho Pirate.

Apparentlyâ€¦

This initial sub-collection of Black Lantern butchery wraps up with Blackest Night: Titans as the teen team is similarly targeted by their beloved lost onesâ€¦

‘When Death Comes Knocking’ by J.T. Krul, Ed Benes, Rob Hunter, Jon Sibal & JP Mayer, begins as the current team visits their hall of dead heroes. The Titans have lost more than their fair share of friends and comrades, but at least two have returned from the grave – Superboy and Bart Allen, the second Kid Flashâ€¦

As the mournful group parts, a Black Lantern ring finds the grave of Don Hall, (first Avatar of Peace to carry the code-name Dove) but is unable to rouse the fallen defender as he is â€œat peaceâ€.

His belligerent fallen brother Hank, however, is notâ€¦

In WashingtonDC current Hawk and Dove Holly and Dawn Granger are the resurrected raptor’s quarry and despite their best efforts he hunts them down and slaughters his successor.

On Titans Island, Beast Boy Gar Logan is visited by dead and deadly Tara Markoff, who joined the team as Terra only to betray and kill them. Gar has always loved her and, despite knowing she’s evil, again falls for her â€œlittle lost girlâ€ act, even as Cyborg and Starfire are ambushed by departed telepath Omenâ€¦

In her home, Amazon powerhouse Donna Troy finds her dead husband Terry and baby Robert calling out to her, but many other Titans are simply attacked rather than beguiled. In ‘Bite the Hand That Feeds’ (by Krul, Benes & Scott Williams), dead baby Robert – who had only just cut his second tooth when he was taken – used them to bite his traumatised, grieving mother and infect with her toxic, terminal darkness, just as Terra turns on Gar and two undead Hawks pursue the frantic furious Dove as she flies for helpâ€¦

Kid Flash and Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark rescue Donna and begin to orchestrate a defence when Tara brings their skyscraper HQ down around them, leaving all the living heroes together at last but surrounded by their murderously-intentioned loved ones.

As an army of reincarnated Black Lantern Titans close in, hope blossoms in the Capitol when Holly tries to consume her sister and finds Dove impossible to â€œswallowâ€ as her Black Lantern ring malfunctionsâ€¦

‘When Doves Cry’ (Krul & Ed Benes) sees Donna, Kid Flash, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Wonder Girl and Starfire valiantly battling a dozen of their past team-mates and loved ones with little effect when Dove unexpectedly arrives. Exhausted and desperate, the Angel of Peace is seemingly easy meat for her closely pursuing dead sister, but as she readies herself for death, Dove suddenly emits a burst of light which melts her attacker. A second wave vaporises the entire attacking Black Lantern horde, and Dawn suddenly experiences an impossible visionâ€¦

Saved by an unimagined power they cannot understand, the weary Titans prepare to strike back at the cause of all their woes, unaware that the dark infection in Donna is gradually turning her into something Black and deadlyâ€¦

This initial volume also includes covers and variants by Andy Kubert, Barrows, Benes, Hunter, Bill Sienkiewicz, Shane Davis, Sandra Hope, Brian Haberlin, George Perez, and a big section of design and data pages by Joe Prado, uncovering the facts on thirty Black Lantern villains.

Fast-paced and action-packed, this is an impressive and pretty selection of comic thrills, spills and chills – unless you haven’t read Blackest Night (and preferably Blackest Night: Green Lantern and Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps too). If not, it probably feels like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with shovel dipped in dayglo coffin liquor.

No, don’t visualise: just read the series in a sensible order. You won’t be sorry (and your split skull won’t glow like a rainbow in the dark)â€¦
Â© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 29, 2013November 2, 2013

Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Thor Reloaded

By Stan Lee, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Jack Kirby, Keith Pollard, Walter Simonson, J. Michael Straczynski & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-552-9

With another Asgardian Epic about to open in cinemas around the world, here’s a tie-in trade paperback collection designed to perfectly augment the filmic exposure and cater to movie fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience.

One more sterling Marvel Platinum/Definitive Edition, this treasury of tales reprints intriguing landmarks from Journey into Mystery #112, Thor volume 1 #136, 300-301, 345-348 and 363, Thor volume 3, #12 and Thor volume 1 #600, which will serve to answer many questions the silver screen story might throw up and provide a immense amount of bombastic mythically barbarous fun.

Moreover, in addition to the mandatory Stan Lee Foreword, this compendium contains text features detailing the secrets and statistics of Odin, Kurse, Loki and Malekith, culled from the encyclopaedic Marvel Universe Handbook, plus Mike Conroy’s scholarly trawl through comicbook mythology in ‘The True History of the Norse Gods’.

In case this is your first storm-chase: crippled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an old walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the presumed mythical Norse God of Thunder.

Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, courtesy of the increasingly experimental graphic genius Jack Kirbyâ€¦

This titanic tome’s blistering battle-fest begins with ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’ from Journey into Mystery #112 by Stan Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone (January 1965) and a glorious gift to all those fans who perpetually ask â€œWho’s strongestâ€¦?â€

Possibly Kirby & Stone’s finest artistic collaboration, it details a private duel between the two super-humans which occurred during a general free-for-all between The Avengers, Sub-Mariner and the morally ambivalent, always angry Green Goliath. The raw, breathtaking spectacle of that tale is followed by a portentous vignette from the ongoing back-up feature which was fleshing out the cosmology of the burgeoning Marvel Universe.

Whereas the rapidly proliferating continuity grew ever more interconnected as it matured, with assorted superheroes literally tripping over each other as they contiguously and continually saved the world from their New York City bases, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and Kirby’s transcendent imagination increasingly pulled the Thunderer away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes.

Admittedly the son of Odin popped back every now and then, but clearly for â€œKingâ€ Kirby, Earth was just a nice place to visit whilst the stars and beyond were the right and proper domain of the Asgardians and their adversaries.

Thus from issue #97 on (October 1963), each issue also carried a powerfully impressive supplementary series. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics (in every sense of the word). Initially adapting the original Scandinavian folk tales but eventually with all-new material particular to the Marvel pantheon, he built his own cosmos and mythology, which underpinned the company’s entire continuity.

Inked by Vince Colletta, ‘The Coming of Loki’ (also JiM #112) was a stylish retelling of how Odin came to adopt the baby son of Laufey, king of the Frost Giantsâ€¦

As the saga of Thunder God grew from formulaic beginnings into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination, Journey into Mystery inevitably became (The Mighty) Thor with #126, but in this collection we skip to #136 (January 1967) where the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship with mortal love interest Jane Foster were re-examined and finally ended.

A turning point in the feature’s history, ‘To Become an Immortal!’ saw All-Father Odin transform her into a goddess and invite her to dwell in Asgard, but Jane’s frail human mind could not cope with the wonders and perils of the Realm Eternal and she was mercifully restored to mortality and all but written out of the series.

Lucky for the despondent Thunder God the beauteous Warrior-Maiden Sif was on handâ€¦

Thor settled into an uninspired creative lethargy after Kirby left (for DC to invent New Gods, Darkseid, The Fourth World, Kamandi, The Demon, Omac and more). Without his unbridled imagination stories subsequently suffered a qualitative drop and, once illustrator replacement John Buscema moved on too, the series languished in the doldrums until a new visionary was found to expand the mythology once againâ€¦

There were a few flourishes of the old magic, however. When Roy Thomas took over scripting he cleverly attempted to rationalise history, legend and the Marvel Universe in an extended storyline which revealed the true nature of the gods and revealed that Germanic folk heroes Siegfried, Sigurd and others were prior incarnations of Thor.

He also revealed that the gods of Earth had a hidden connection with the star-spanning Celestials and their earthly invention the Eternalsâ€¦

Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-70s and The Eternals debuted in 1976 in a series obviously at odds with and removed from regular company continuity. The tale revealed that giant alien gods had visited Earth in epochs past, gene-gineering proto-hominids into three distinct species: Human Beings; god-like super-beings who called themselves Eternals and monstrous, genetically unstable but highly intelligent creatures dubbed Deviants.

Moreover the Celestials had periodically returned to check up on their experimentâ€¦

Never a comfortable contemporary fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe, comic explorer Kirby played out his fascinations with Deities, the Cosmos and Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended and Kirby left again, other creators quickly co-opted the concept into regular continuity. From the end of that lengthy Asgardian epic (beginning either in issue #272 or #283 depending on your temperament) comes the blistering conclusion in Thor #300 – October 1980 – and the gripping epilogue from #301 one month later.

Written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio with art by Keith Pollard & Gene Day, ‘Twilight of the Gods’ saw Thor finally uncover the truth about his origins and affinity for Midgard, before learning of an ancient inter-pantheon pact to oppose the Celestials in ‘Whatever Gods There Beâ€¦’

The Prince of Asgard then rushed to his dying sire’s aid and spearheaded the resistance to the Space Gods for the climactic ‘Day of Alpha’â€¦

Through devious means Earth was saved from the alien’s destructive judgement, but only at the cost of all his people. Thor #301 found the Storm Lord petitioning the planet’s other deities for a portion of their power to restore the fallen in ‘For the Life of Asgard!’ by Gruenwald, Macchio, Pollard & Stone.

Walter Simonson had, for a brief while, been one of those artists slavishly soldiering to rekindle Kirby’s easy synthesis of mythology, science fiction and meta-humanist philosophy, but with little more success than any other.

However, always deeply invested in Kirby’s daring, exploratory, radical visionary process, when he assumed complete creative autonomy of the title in November 1983 – he was at last free to let loose and brave enough to bring his own unique sensibilities to the character.

The result was an enchantingly addictive body of work (#337-382 plus the Balder the Brave miniseries) that moved beyond Kirby’s Canon and dragged the title out of a creative rut which allowed Simonson’s own successors to also introduce genuine change to a property which had stagnated for 13 years.

The first iconic story-arc introduced alternate Thunder God Beta Ray Bill and began a slow, steady march to a cataclysmic clash with the ultimate destroyer Surtur: a stupendous overarching graphic monolith which addressed the horrendously over-used dramatic device of the Doom of the Gods which had haunted this series since the mid-1960sâ€¦

The epic was made up of compartmentalised tales such as the eerie supernatural thriller reprinted here. From Thor #345-348, July to October 1984, comes the tale of Eric Willis, human guardian of a long lost Asgardian artefact who finally loses his incredibly long battle against dark Fae killers in ‘That Was No Lady’, even as the Thunderer is courted by comely maiden Lorelei.

The Godling is blithely unaware that she is the sister of the Enchantress and planning to make him her slave through a magic potionâ€¦

In the next issue – inked by Terry Austin – Willis’ son Roger inherits the burden of keeping the Casket of Ancient Winters from sinister Dark Elf overlord Malekith the Accursed, and teams up with a rather distracted Thor whose Asgardian race has been at war with Malekith’s people since time immemorial. But whilst ‘The Wild Hunt!’ harries his enemies, the demonic destroyer captures Lorelei and drags her ‘Into the Realm of Faerie!’

When Roger and Thor go after them the Thunderer is attacked by super elf Algrim the Strong who would have killed Thor had not impatient Dark Elf thrown both combatants into a fiery pitâ€¦

All alone Roger is helpless to protect the Casket from Malekith who at last unleashes ‘The Dark and the Light’ (Bob Wiacek inks) allowing Surtur to escape from his eternal prisonâ€¦

‘This KursÃ©d Earthâ€¦!’ from #363 (January 1985) was part of the Secret Wars II publishing event set after the Surtur conflict ended, and saw omnipotent being The Beyonder come to Earth in search of philosophical answers to imponderable questions. Adopting a trial by ordeal methodology, the alien resurrected and augmented Algrim and allowed him to hunt Thor, even as guest stars Power Pack and Beta Ray Bill attempted to reason with the oddly sympathetic obsessed berserkerâ€¦

The series continued, folding in the late 1990s, to restart in an impressive second volume as part of the Heroes Return publishing event, but the same toothy problems of direction still lingered.

And so, at last the cosmic dramas all concluded with the Really, Truly, We Mean It, End of the Gods and True Day of Ragnarok, wherein Thor himself instigated the final fall to end an ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless overbeings who had manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

Even so the franchise restarted in 2007 with volume 3 and the Storm Lord back from the dead. Conjoined once more with Don Blake he was looking for the displaced citizens of a somehow restored but empty Asgard, which now floated a few dozen feet above the barren flats of Brockton, Oklahoma.

Thor volume 3, #12, (January 2009) offers ‘Diversions and Misdirections’ by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales revealing how, with Odin gone and Asgard now Earthbound, implacable Loki has joined with Death Goddess Hela to dishonour and destroy his hated half-brother.

The first step requires the God of Mischief to travel back in time to that long gone moment when his father Laufey battled Odinâ€¦

Thor resumed its original numbering in April 2009 and volume 1 #600, by Straczynski, Coipel, Marko Djurdjevic & Morales, saw the insidious villain’s ultimate ‘Victory’ after resurrecting the long deceased proto-Asgardian Bor and tricking the progenitor of all Norse Gods into attacking Earth and battling his own grandson Thorâ€¦ to the deathâ€¦

With covers by Kirby, Stone & Colletta, Pollard, Simonson, Djurdjevic, Olivier & Morales and Gabrielle Dell’Otto, this fulsome primer is less an introduction for readers unfamiliar with the stentorian Thunder God and more a cleverly constructed appendage for the film sequel.

However, I can’t deny that what’s on offer here is of great quality and well able to stand as great examples of the comicbook hero at his most memorable and entertaining. Most importantly this is a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too.

Filled with non-stop tension and blockbuster action, this an ideal tool to make curious film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.

October 28, 2013October 26, 2013

Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns

By Geoff Johns, Tony Bedard, Dan Didio, J.T. Krul, Dennis O’Neil, Greg Rucka, James Robinson, Peter J. Tomasi, Eric Wallace & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-4012-2806-4

After years of inexorable build-up, when the Blackest Night finally dawned it was, like death itself, unavoidable and inescapable. The event permeated and saturated every aspect of DC’s publishing schedule and even prompted the one-time-only resurrection of a number of beloved but deceased titles for one more clash of Darkness and Light.

Those all new final issues are gathered here in an intriguing but rather incomprehensible tomeâ€¦ unless you read it in conjunction with the other books in the monolithic crossover sequence.

The basic premise of Blackest Night was simple and smart. All those times when a hero or villain actually came back from the dead, it wasn’t a miracle or the triumph of abiding will but part of a patient plan by a cosmic death-god to end all life. The ghastly Nekron had merely permitted the likes of Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Flash, the Doom Patrol and so many, many others to return to the land of the living simply to pave the way for a long-intended mass rising of the dead.

This particular trade paperback compilation – one of seven collecting the colossal saga – features individual skirmishes from the thanatopical war and encompasses The Atom and Hawkman #46, Phantom Stranger #42, Green Arrow #30, Adventure Comics #7, Starman #81, The Question #37, Catwoman #83, Weird Western Tales #71 and Power of Shazam #48, all cunningly designed to appeal to older fans whilst intensifying that all-pervading sense of doom and manic energy craved like a drug by modern comicbook readersâ€¦

One further word of warning however: these stories were released at separate times as the saga ran its course and, whilst maintaining a uniformly high quality of illustration throughout, are not meant to be read in isolation. For full comprehension you really, really need to have the other books to hand or at least fresh in your mind.

Following a crucial prose section detailing ‘The Story So Farâ€¦’ the off-camera action commences with ‘Bye Bye Birdie!’ by Geoff Johns, Ryan Sook & Fernando Pasarin (from The Atom and Hawkman #46), wherein ill-starred scientist Ray Palmer is forced to re-examine his traumatic career as The Atom before he is deputised into the mysterious Indigo Tribe.

These enigmatic aliens utilise the cool Light of Compassion and their adoption of the much-travelled physicist enables him to fight off not only the lethal Black Lantern assaults of his greatest friends Hawkman and Hawkgirl but also the dark psychological thrusts of his deranged dead wife Jean, incidentally saving the universe into the bargainâ€¦

Next follows Phantom Stranger #42, with ‘Deadman Walking’ by Peter J. Tomasi, Ardian Syaf & Vicente Cifuentes once more pairing the immortal wanderer with deceased acrobat and Agent of Cosmic Balance Boston Brand – with spooky fan-favourite Blue Devil thrown in for good measure.

With the Earth’s dead enslaved to an occult invader, even the omnipotent Spectre is now trying to wipe out all life and the Stranger determines that passion rather than might will win the day.

To this end he seeks out the former Deadman – currently residing in Earthly paradise Nanda Parbat – but Brand is already fully involved in the cosmic struggle as his own corpse has been reanimated by a Black Ring and is currently assaulting the spiritual haven to end forever the tortured existence of the ethereal avengerâ€¦

With the immediate threat ended by the champions of Life, Deadman, who has gleaned wisps on information about an unsuspected â€œWhite Lightâ€, sets out to warn the other heroes battling against Nekron’s Black onslaughtâ€¦

‘Lying To Myself’ by J.T. Krul, Diogenes Neves, Ruy JosÃ© & Cifuentes, from Green Arrow #30, offers a glimpse into the workings of the ravenous revenants by highlighting the inner struggles of the once Emerald Archer.

As his moral spirit struggles against the programming of the Black Ring animating his corpse and compelling it to kill best friend Hal Jordan, the newly returned to true life Barry Allen and his own wife Black Canary, the first inklings of wilful independence return.

Also in his sights but far less reluctant to fight back are Oliver Queen’s son Connor Hawke and current Speedy sidekick Mia Dearden, but even together they can do little to stop the relentless Black Arrow. It takes Oliver’s own indomitable will, bolstered by happy memories of the loved ones he’s stalking, to overrule Nekron’s vile programming and score a major hit against the Black Lantern armyâ€¦

In Adventure Comics #7 a similar situation occurred in ‘What Did Black Lantern Superboy Do?’ by Tony Bedard, Travis Moore, Dan Green, Keith Champagne & Bob Wiacek, as the clonal Boy of Steel reviews his short but eventful life to combat the effects of the ebon band which had brought him back to kill his Teen Titan friends.

Again love conquered death as, whilst battling his superdog Krypto and lover Wonder Girl, their valiant resistance enabled Connor Kent to throw off the Black Lantern influence and even return to true life – for the second timeâ€¦

The immortal Shade took centre stage in Starman #81 as David Knight disinterred himself to become the ‘Blackest Night Starman’ (by James Robinson, Fernando Dagnino & Bill Sienkiewicz). The firstborn son of the original Astral Avenger was only a hero for scant days before being murdered and now carves a path of frustrated death through OpalCity until the enigmatic Demon of Darkness defeated him.

Moreover when Nekron’s ring tries to assimilate the Shade it turns and flees from a blackness even deeper than deathâ€¦

‘One More Question’ (The Question #37 by Dennis O’Neill, Denys Cowan, Sienkiewicz & John Stanisci) sees new truth-seeker Rene Montoya challenged to a test of skill by martial arts assassin Lady Shiva, even as the world is rent by rapacious revenants. The new Question is then saved by the old, who also finds his past a partial bulwark against Nekron’s enslavement, whilst the living duellists’ embracing of Zen philosophy subsequently starves the black zombie of the emotional fuel it needs to surviveâ€¦

Catwoman #83 provided the Feline Fury with an opportunity for more vengeance when the sadistic madman she executed returns in ‘Night and the City’ by Bedard, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Ibraim Roberson, Marcos Marz, and Luciana Del Negro.

Roman Sionis was the first crime overlord to use the name Black Mask: torturing, maiming and killing members of Selina Kyle‘s family but his raging return and hunger for payback is thwarted by Catwoman’s stubbornness and the timely intervention of her allies Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

Weird Western Tales #71 offered a distant and different perspective as ‘And the South Shall Rise Again’ (Dan Didio & Renato Arlem) found Joshua Turnbull – descendent of Jonah Hex‘s greatest enemy – and technological corporate raider Simon Stagg pooling their vast resources to capture and forensically examine one of the deadly Black Rings. Unfortunately that only brings the unstoppable wrath of a vast posse of dead Cowboys and Indians such as Bat Lash, Super Chief, Scalphunter, The Trigger Twins and even Hex himself down on the doomed entrepreneur-scientistsâ€¦

This bestiary of the bizarre concludes with Power of Shazam #48 as ‘Rest in Peace’ (by Eric Wallace, Don Kramer & Michael Babinski) explores the troubled soul of murdered Black Marvel Osiris; recalled to a semblance of life by the power of the Black Lanterns.

Baffled and bewildered, the mighty lad is driven by dark hungers but glad to see his best friend Sobek has also returned – even though the crocodile man killed and consumed him the last time they met.

However the memory of friendship and love betrayed drives the infuriated zombie to savagely settle his differences forever and even Nekron’s Ring’s cannot override the emotional storm withinâ€¦

This book also contains covers and variants by Ryan Sook, Ardian Syaf & Vicente Cifuentes, Greg Horn, Aaron Lopresti, Tony Harris, Cully Hamner & Dave McCaig, Adam Hughes, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jerry Ordway & Alex Sinclair, Mike Grell & Francis Manapul and a selection of info pages digging the dirt on (unlucky) 13 Black Lantern heroes and villains from the collection by Ethan Van Scriver & Joe Prado.

Alternatively action-packed and moodily suspenseful, this ambitious epic, whilst cunningly manipulative of the subtler shades of continuity, will be utterly impenetrable to all but the most devoted DC disciple, but there’s so much that is great about Blackest Night that I’d strongly urge every fan addicted to Cosmic Costumed Drama to give it a try (but you really, really need to read Blackest Night, Blackest Night: Green Lantern and Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps if not all seven collections). Think of it as a valuable funnybook exercise to stave of the Grim Reaper of boredomâ€¦
Â© 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 27, 2013November 2, 2013

Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 1: 1937-1938

By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-141-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal for anybody who ever dreamed or wonderedâ€¦ 10/10

Rightly reckoned one of the greatest comic strips of all time, the nigh-mythical saga of a king-in-exile who became one of the greatest warriors in an age of unparalleled heroes is at once fantastically realistic and beautifully, perfectly abstracted – an indisputable paradigm of adventure fiction where anything is possible and justice will always prevail. It is the epic we all want to live inâ€¦

On one thing let us be perfectly clear: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is not historical. It is far better and more real than that.

Possibly the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13^th February 1937, a glorious weekly, full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto a world that should have been. It followed the tempestuous life of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland of faraway Thule who persevered and, through tenacity, imagination and sheer grit, rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

As depicted by the incredibly gifted Foster, this noble scion would, over the years, grow to mighty manhood amidst a heady sea of wonderment; roaming the globe and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, cartoon series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on the feature – one of the few newspaper strips to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 4000 episodes and counting) and even in these declining days of newspaper cartooning it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son took over scripting duties.

In 2004 Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2^nd) and the strip soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz and latterly Thomas Yeates, conquering one more exotic land by making it onto various web locations.

This exquisite oversized hardback volume (362 x 268mm), reprints in glorious colour – spectacularly restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs â€“ the princely pristine Sunday pages from February 1937 to December 25^th 1938: those formative forays of an already impressive tale which promised much and delivered far more than anybody might have suspected during those dim and distant daysâ€¦

Before the drama begins, however, Brian M. Kane offers an informative picture and photo-packed potted history of ‘Harold Rudolf Foster: 1892-1982’ after which Fred Schreiber conducts ‘An Interview with Hal Foster’ – first seen in Nemo: The Classic Comics Magazine in 1984.

Moreover, after the superb Arthurian epic exploits of the quintessential swashbuckling hero which follows, this initial collection is rounded off by Kim Thompson’s discourse on the many iterations of reprints over the years and around the world in ‘A History of Valiants’â€¦

The actual action-packed drama commences in distant Scandinavia as the King of Thule, his family and a few faithful retainers dash for a fishing boat, intent only on escaping the murderous intentions of a usurper’s army.

Their voyage carries them to the barbarous coast of Britain where they battle bands of wild men before securing a safe retreat in the gloomy fens of East Anglia. After many hard battles they reach an uneasy dÃ©tente with the locals and settle into a harsh life as regal exilesâ€¦

The young Prince Valiant was but five years old when they arrived and his growing years in a hostile environment toughen the boy, sharpen his wits and give him an insatiable taste for mischief and adventure.

He befriends a local shepherd boy and together their escapades include challenging the marauding ancient dinosaurs which infest the swamp, battling a hulking man-brute and bedevilling a local witch. In retaliation the hag Horrit predicts that Val’s life would be long and packed with incredible feats but always tainted by great sorrow.

All that, plus the constant regimen of knightly training and scholarly tuition befitting an exile learning how to reclaim his stolen kingdom, make the lad a veritable hellion, but everything changes when his mother passes away. After a further year of intense schooling in the arts of battle, Valiant decides to leave the Fens and make his way in the dangerous lands beyondâ€¦

Whilst sparring with his boyhood companion, Val unsuspectingly insults Sir Launcelot who is fortuitously passing by. Although the hero is sanguine about the cheeky lad’s big mouth, his affronted squire attempts to administer a stern punishment but is rewarded with a thorough drubbing. Indeed, Launcelot has to stop the Scion of Thule from slitting the battered and defeated man’s throat.

Although he has no arms, armour, steed or money, Valiant swears that he will become a Knightâ€¦

Luck is with the Pauper Prince. After spectacularly catching and taming a wild stallion his journey is interrupted by the gregarious paladin Sir Gawain, who shares a meal and regales the boy with tales of chivalry and heroism. When their alfresco repast is spoiled by robber knight Sir Negarth who unfairly strikes the champion of Camelot, Val charges in and Gawain regains consciousness to find the threat ended, Negarth hogtied and his accomplice skeweredâ€¦

Taking Val under his wing, wounded Gawain escorts the boy and his prisoner to Camelot but their journey is delayed by a gigantic dragon. Val kills it too – with the assistance of Negarth – and spends the rest of the trip arguing that the rogue should be freed for his gallantryâ€¦

He is still stoutly defending the scoundrel at his trial before King Arthur, and is rewarded by being appointed Gawain’s squire. Unfortunately Val responds badly to being teased by the other knights-in-training and finds himself locked in a dungeon whilst his tormentors heal and the Knights of the Round Table ride out to deal with an invasion of Northmenâ€¦

Whilst the flowers of chivalry are away, a plot is hatched by scheming Sir Osmond and Baron Baldon. To recoup gambling debts they intend to capture and ransom Gawain, but have not reckoned on the dauntless devotion and ruthless ingenuity of his semi-feral squire.

Easily infiltrating the bleak fortress imprisoning the hero, Val liberates his mentor through astounding feats of daring and brings the grievously wounded knight to Winchester Heath and Arthurâ€¦

As Gawain recuperates, he is approached by a young maiden. Ilene is in need of a champion and, over his squire’s protests, the still gravely unfit knight dutifully complies. Val’s protests might have been better expressed had he not been so tongue-tied by the most beautiful girl he has ever seenâ€¦

The quest to rescue Ilene’s parents is delayed when an unscrupulous warrior in scarlet challenges them, intent on possessing the lovely maiden. Correctly assessing Gawain to be no threat, the Red Knight did not live long enough to revise his opinion of the wild-eyed boy who then attacked himâ€¦

Leaving Ilene and the re-injured Gawain with a hermit, Valiant continues on alone to Branwyn Castle, recently captured by an â€œOgreâ€ who is terrorising the countryside. Through guile, force of arms and devilish tactics he then ends the threat forever.

This is an astonishing tour de force of graphic bravura that no fan could ever forget. Aspiring cartoonist Jack Kirby certainly didn’t: he recycled Val’s outlandish outfit used to terrorise the Ogre’s soldiers as the visual basis for his 1970s horror-hero Etrigan the Demonâ€¦

Having successfully routed the invaders and freed Ilene’s family, Val began earnestly courting the grateful girl. His prophecy of lifelong misery seemed assured however, when her father had to regretfully inform him that she was promised to Arn, son and heir of the King of Ordâ€¦

Even before that shock could sink in, Valiant was called away again. Ailing Gawain had been abducted by the sorceress Morgan le Fey, who was enamoured of the knight’s manly charmsâ€¦

When Val confronts her she drugs him with a potion and he endures uncounted ages in her dungeon before affecting his escape. Weak and desperate, the lad makes his way to Camelot and enlists Merlin in a last-ditch ploy to defeat the witch and save his adored mentorâ€¦

In the meantime events have progressed and Val’s bold plans to win Ilene are upset when invitations to her wedding arrive at Camelot. Initially crushed, the resilient youth determines to travel to Ord and challenge Prince Arn for her hand.

Their meeting is nothing like Val imagined but, after much annoying interference, he and the rather admirable Arn finally begin their oft-delayed death-duel only to be again distracted when news comes that Ilene has been taken by Viking raidersâ€¦

What follows is another unparalleled moment of comics magnificence as Valiant sacrifices everything for honour, gloriously falls to superior forces, wins possession of Flamberge (the legendary Singing Sword which is brother to Excalibur) and is captured and reunited with Ileneâ€¦ only to lose her again to the cruellest of fatesâ€¦

After escaping from the Vikings and covering himself with glory at the Lists in Camelot – although he doesn’t realise it – the heartsick, weary Prince returns to his father in the melancholy Anglian fens, again encountering ghastly Horrit and nearly succumbing to fever.

When he recovers months later he has a new purpose: he and his faithful countrymen will travel to Thule and rescue the nation from the cruel grip of the usurper Sligon.Â Unfortunately during the preparations Valiant discovers the countryside has been invaded by Saxons and is compelled by his honour to race to Camelot and warn Arthurâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Prince Valiant is a hurtling juggernaut of action and romance, blending hyper-realistic fantasy with sardonic wit, and broad humour with unbelievably stirring violence, all rendered in an incomprehensibly lovely panorama of glowing art.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, Foster’s magnum opus is a World Classic of storytelling, and this magnificent deluxe edition is something no fan can afford to be without.

If you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip, this breathtaking premium collection is the best possible way to start and will be your gateway to a staggering world of wonder and imaginationâ€¦

October 26, 2013November 2, 2013

Blackest Night

By Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert & Joe Prado (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2953-5

After years of inexorable build-up, and following a plethora of end-of-everything crossover crises, when the Blackest Night at last dawned it was, like death itself, unavoidable and inescapable. The Major Publishing Event permeated and saturated every aspect of DC’s publishing schedule and even caused the one-night-only resurrection of a number of deceased titles for even more clashes between Darkness and Lightâ€¦

The basic premise of the event was simple and delicious. All those times when a hero or villain actually came back from the dead, it wasn’t a miracle but merely part of a cunning plan by a cosmic death god to end all life.

The ghastly Nekron had just allowed the likes of Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Flash, Jason Todd and all the rest to return as strands of its infinitely patient plan to replace the lights of life’s emotional spectrum with the ebon gleam of ultimate, all-encompassing deathâ€¦

The bare bones of the crisis were recounted in the core 8-issue miniseries Blackest Night by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert (with additional inking from Rob Hunter, Julio Ferreira & Joe Prado); collected in this volume with background material from the supplementary and complementary Blackest Night Director’s Cut one-shot.

The cosmic catastrophe had been building since time began (in continuity terms, but only a couple of years in the published comics) so, following an Introduction from movie producer Donald De Line and a few brief recap notes, the terror at last launches with ‘Prologue: Death Becomes Us’ as resurrected best friends Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and Barry (Flash) Allen stand in the Wayne family cemetery, reminiscing on the manners of their respective demises and returns, as well as the friends and comrades they have lost in their lives.

Elsewhere, Black Hand, earthly avatar of Nekron and instigator of the eternally dreaded Blackest Night, rises from his own unquiet graveâ€¦

Issue #1 then commences as Hand unearths Bruce Wayne‘s skull and summons a horde of Black Lantern rings from the cold, dark void, commanding them to find corpses to reanimate: hungry souls to feed and fester on the broken hearts of the still-livingâ€¦

On a day dedicated to remembering the dead in newly rebuilt Coast City (site of the greatest domestic massacre in US history), Jordan and fellow Green Lanterns John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner are attending a commemoration service and contemplating their own personal failures.

At the grave in Smallville, Martha, Clark and Connor Kent mourn the loss of family patriarch Jonathan.

In San Francisco, the Teen Titans wander through their hall of the dead, remembering their many fallen friends whilst in Central City Flash’s Rogues Gallery pay their unique respects to expired associates at the criminal cemetery Avernus.

In Metropolis the Justice Society of America and other costumed champions gather their thoughts as they honour their own fallen few in the forested memorial gardens of Valhalla.

On a solitary stretch of coastline the lonely grave of Aquaman is tended only by his wife Mera and former sidekick Tempest.

Later, Hal informs Barry of who else has died whilst the Flash was gone. The Speedster is appalled by how many heroes have passed – and which ones have since returnedâ€¦

In deepest space the Guardians of the Universe are finally forced to admit their eons-long plan and convoluted efforts to forestall the prophesied Blackest Night have failed when one of their number – â€œScarâ€ – reveals she has been corrupted by the dark and brutally slaughters one of the immortal aliens.

The murder is the trigger for a wave of black rings to possess the corpses of heroes, villains and significant loved ones throughout the universe. On Oa, dead and cherished Corps champions return as Black Lanterns to kill their living comrades. On Earth a wave of still-missed dearly-departed stalk their nearest and dearest, generating love, grief, terror, compassion and other blazing emotions which the zombies use to fuel their rings â€“ and something elseâ€¦

When traumatised Alfred Pennyworth summons Hal and Barry to Bruce Wayne’s desecrated grave they are ambushed by the revenant of their beloved comrade J’onn J’onzz, even as in St. Roch, Hawkman and Hawkgirl are attacked and killed by the cruelly sneering corpses of the Elongated Man and his wife Sue Dibnyâ€¦

The second chapter opens as the Black Lantern Hawkman lures his closest friend Ray Palmer into a trap. The Atom was already dejected by the crushing realisation that although his own dead wife Jean murdered Sue and started a bloody war between heroes, he loves her stillâ€¦

In Gotham Jim Gordon and his daughter Barbara are on hand when Jordan comes crashing to Earth, whilst in Amnesty Bay, Tempest and Mera are confronted by the cadaverous Aquaman they so recently grieved overâ€¦

â€¦And in a Gotham graveyard, ghostly guardian Deadman is reeling in psychic shock at the spiritual disturbances. The raw emotion is greatly intensified when his own corpse rises, called back into murderous physicality by a black ring.

The ubiquitous gems are not infallible however. When one targets the final resting place of Don Hall the hero dubbed Dove stays buried and â€œat peaceâ€. The same is not true of his bellicose brother Hank, who rises as a bleak and even more savage Hawkâ€¦

Drawn to Deadman’s grave, a cadre of mystic heroes comprising Zatanna, Blue Devil, Phantom Stranger and The Spectre are confronted by the cadaver of pan-dimension doomsmith Pariah. Although even the black rings cannot affect the Stranger, they manage to separate the divine force of the Spectre from its latest mortal host – murdered cop Crispus Allenâ€¦

As Flash and Green Lantern continue their battle against Black Hand, Tempest dies and only Mera escapes the savage attacks of Black Aquaman. Events turn truly grim when Nekron’s earthly agent manifests an army of dead Justice Leaguers and sets them after Barry and Halâ€¦

The bombastic battle looks a foregone conclusion until the Atom appears. Although ambushed by Hawkman, the incredible shrinking man had survived by hiding within his attacker’s monstrous black ringâ€¦

At Justice League HQ, Jason Rusch – who, with his girlfriend Gehenna, forms the fusion hero Firestorm – is trying to get a grip on the situation when Mera breaks in. Meanwhile Hal, Ray and Barry are saved from certain doom when the enigmatic alien Indigo Tribe arrive, using their brand of light to sever the Black Ring connections to their zombie hosts.

The exhausted heroes then join Firestorm and Mera, as the Indigo priestess reveals the secret and true history of the universe and how the seven hues of the Emotional Spectrum must unite to end the threat of the Blackest Night – a scheme to return creation to its cold, dark and unendingly lifeless primordial stateâ€¦

The extraterrestrial shamans also reveal how the seemingly indestructible emotion-eating horrors can be disrupted by any two light forces acting in unison – although green and any other works bestâ€¦

The powwow is interrupted by the dead Leaguers who again mercilessly attack. As the Indigo Tribe vanish – taking a horrified, unwilling Hal with them – the fight immediately goes bad. Black Lantern Firestorm Ronnie Raymond merges with Jason and Gehenna’s incarnation, killing the girl whilst repossessing and dominating the Nuclear Man’s composite formâ€¦

With victory already assured, a new flight of black rings then reanimates the collection of unclaimed super-villain cadavers stored at the JLA facilityâ€¦

Issue #4 opens as the army of the Unliving Dead corners Flash, Atom and Mera. With his last surge of willpower, Jason takes back control of the Firestorm frame, allowing Flash and Atom to transport the embattled companions to relative safety. Before being again subsumed, Rusch also reveals that the inimical force behind the rings needs Barry to be dead.

All life and hope somehow depends on the Flash staying ahead of the Black Lanternsâ€¦

A fightback begins in Gotham and Metropolis as the Scarecrow and Lex Luthor are singled out by the Yellow Light of Fear and Orange Light of Greed, whilst Flash ponders on the fact that only the dead with emotional ties to heroes and villains are rising.

The uncountable mass of â€œordinaryâ€, unknown dead people are staying that wayâ€¦

The battered, enlightened trio then travel to Manhattan to link up with the Justice Society survivors, before Barry begins his self-appointed mission to warn and inspire everybody left alive; staying always one step ahead of those implacable Black Lanternsâ€¦

As pockets of resistance such as the JSA and Teen Titans endure on Earth, in space a colossal Black Power Battery, fuelled by the collected emotions of everyone slaughtered by reanimated ring-bearers, nears completion.

As Flash travels the world telling every hero to converge on CoastCity, Nekron at last arrivesâ€¦

One word of warning: this saga was merely part and parcel of a plethora of stories simultaneously occurring as the Event ran its course. Whilst maintaining a uniformly high quality of illustration throughout, the story is never meant to be read in isolation. For full comprehension you really, really need to have the other books to hand or at least fresh in your mind.

Thus, subsequent to actions seen in other venues, Chapter Five opens as Hal – kept busy since his abduction – musters a rainbow coalition of individuals – mostly old colour wielding enemies like Sinestro, Star Sapphire, Atrocitus and Larfleeze.

They are to unite and work together under the direction of rebel Guardians Ganthet and Sayd to reclaim the night, even as on Earth Flash confronts supreme antithesis Nekron and his herald Black Hand.

He is suddenly reinforced by his former protÃ©gÃ© and successor Wally West and an army of resurgent (and mostly resurrected) heroes from the JLA and Titans. In Manhattan the last stand of the JSA sees Ray and Mera captured by the Atom’s Black Lantern wife Jean and taken on a subatomic voyage of discovery inside a Black Ringâ€¦

Just as Scar joins Nekron, bringing the Black Power Battery to CoastCity, Hal’s Rainbow Corps arrives but their concerted attack has negligible effect. When a Black Lantern Batman manifests and turns Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Superboy, Kid Flash, Donna Troy and many more into black ring copse warriors, Hal realises the living victims have one thing in common – they’ve all returned from the dead before.

Of all resurrected heroes, only he and Barry remain alive and with minds of their ownâ€¦

Within the Black Ring, Ray and Mera are joined by Deadman who warns them that every Black Lantern in the universe is now headed for Earth, frantically urging them to get out and warn the livingâ€¦

In the greater universe Ganthet takes drastic steps as the ultimate secret of the Emotional Spectrum is revealed. Working in unity, wielders of the seven individual wavelengths can form the pure White Light of Life and turn back death – but first the rings have to find exactly the right people to wear themâ€¦

Chapter Seven sees the beginning of the end as that lucky septet confront the triumphant Nekron, even as Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner assemble every ring wearer of every colour in the spectrum and lead them in Life’s last desperate counterattackâ€¦

At ground zero a minor hero named Dawn Granger changes everything. The successor to Don Hall is the new Dove, Avatar of Peace and her simplest touch destroys Black Lanterns. Calmly making her way through the legions of doom, she liberates Nekron’s hidden power source whilst the death lord is occupied killing an undying Guardianâ€¦

The lord of death’s actual intention is then revealed as a gleaming white Entity manifests: it is personification of the universal lifeforce and everything Nekron has undertaken over billions of years has been simply so that he could get close enough to kill itâ€¦

With all existence about to succumb to eternal darkness, one of the assembled champions must assume the power of a White Lantern to literally save everythingâ€¦

Of course, following even more astounding battle and plot twists, life wins – but in the aftermath only twelve of the hordes who have perished are reborn, and those blessed individuals and the universe aren’t out of the dark woods yetâ€¦

But that’s all tackled in the sequel series ‘Brightest Day’, proving some things truly are eternalâ€¦

With every cover from Reis and Albert accompanied by its un-inked pencil artwork, this cosmic compilation also includes another nine variants by Ethan Van Sciver, Mauro Cascioli, Rodolfo Migliari, Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy, Director’s Commentary from Johns, Reis, Albert, Prado, colourist Alex Sinclair, letterer Nick J. Napolitano plus editorial bods Adam Schlagman and Eddie Berganza, Deleted Scenes and a selection of info pages digging the dirt on Nekron, The Entity and Sinestro courtesy of designers Reis and Prado.

Bombastic, complex, thrilling, incredibly ambitious and awesomely impressive, Blackest Night shows exactly what superhero comics can be – but might also be why so many casual readers and newcomers to the art form apparently can’t handle them.

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