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X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills – Marvel Graphic Novel #5


By Chris Claremont & Brent Eric Anderson (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-93976-620-8   1994 edition 0-939766-20-5   2011: 978-0785157267

Following hard on the heels of their X-line expansion with The New Mutants, Marvel capitalised on the buzz by releasing a hard-hitting graphic novel which emphasised and cemented the aspects of alienation and bigotry which underpinned relations between Homo Sapiens and Superior with a stunningly effective modern parable starring the Uncanny X-Men in a landmark tale worthy of the company’s hot new format as a Marvel Graphic Novel.

At that time Marvel led the field of high-quality original graphic novels: offering big event tales set in the tight continuity of the Marvel Universe, as well as series launches, creator-owned properties, movie adaptations and licensed assets in lavishly expansive packages based on the well-established European Album format.

With bigger, almost square pages (285x220mm rather than the customary 258x168mm) which felt and looked instantly superior to the gaudily standard flimsy comicbook pamphlets, the line did much to improve the overall poor, shoddy and especially cheap image of comics, paving the way for today’s ubiquitous market where anything pictorial between two covers can be so designated, irrespective of how good, bad or incomprehensible the contents might be.

After the immensely successful in-House epic The Death of Captain Marvel, licensed properties Elric: the Dreaming City and Dreadstar set the seal on Marvel’s dedication to experimentation. The New Mutants then proved the growing power of the burgeoning Comicbook Direct Sales Market when the introductory graphic novel (only available in those still-scarce and widely scattered emporia) led directly into a nationally distributed new monthly series. Some fans had to jump through incredible hoops to pick up that all-important initial adventure…

God Loves, Man Kills repeated the furore for rabid X-Fans as the grim cautionary tale unfolded only for those fans near a comic store or prepared to buy through the mail…

The story itself is one of the most disturbingly true to life in the entire canon and opens with the murder of two children. The “Purifiers” responsible then proudly display the bodies in the playground where they died with the placard “muties” around their necks.

When mutant terrorist Magneto finds the bodies the stage is set for one of the X-Men’s darkest cases…

Fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker is the demagogue of the hour: his evangelical crusade against unholy, ungodly mutants has made him rich and powerful whilst his sinister secret death-squads have enabled him to undertake the latest stage of his mission in the full, controversial glare of the public eye. He even has powerful friends and allies within the Government…

Stryker’s divinely-inspired mission is to incite a race-war and eradicate the entire sub-species of Homo Superior, using not only his television ministries to whip up public fear and hatred, but with a private army of merciless mutant-hating racist killers.

The next phase involves taking out the X-Men and begins when Professor Xavier, Cyclops and Storm are ambushed after participating in a TV debate.

When news of their deaths reaches the test of the team, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler track down the assailants and discover that their friends are only captives of Stryker’s Purifiers, just as old enemy Magneto appears, proposing a temporary truce…

Meanwhile Colossus’s sister Illyana and Kitty Pryde have stumbled upon the captives’ fate and been attacked too. Kitty escapes and goes on the run with murderous Purifiers hot on her trail…

Stryker has been busy: whilst happily torturing his captives he has devised a way to use Xavier’s telepathic abilities to destroy mutants and all those with latent mutant genes at one genocidal stroke.

As the hate-peddler’s plans enter the final stage Magneto and the remaining X-Men prepare for their most important battle, but the showdown on live TV from Madison Square Gardens offers many surprises and reversals of fortune as Stryker, in his paranoid hubris, overestimates the power of blind prejudice and the underestimates the basic humanity of the common man …

This tale is perhaps the most plainspoken and shocking example of mutants as metaphors for racial abuse in society and the stark message herein, savagely delivered by author Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson at the very top of their game, made explicit the power of bigotry and the ghastly repercussions of allowing it to bloom uncontested…

A slightly re-proportioned and reformatted edition was released in 1994, reduced in size to approximate standard comicbook size and the tale has also been reprinted, in similarly reduced circumstances in 2006 and 2011.

Moving, scary and immensely influential, God Loves, Man Kills is the comicbook X-Men at their most effective and movie-going readers will recognise much of the tale as it formed the basis for the X-Men film sequel X2.
© 1982, 1994, 2006, 2011 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Wonder Woman Archives Edition volume 1


By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-402-5

Wonder Woman was famously created by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston – apparently at the behest of his formidable wife Elizabeth – and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in an attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model.

Her launch and preview came as an extra feature in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941 – and that’s the comic book heroine, not Mrs. Marston), home of the immortal Justice Society of America and one of the company’s most popular publications. The Perfect Princess gained her own series and the cover-spot in new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later.

The Amazing Amazon was a huge and instant hit, quickly gaining her own eponymous title in late Spring of that year (cover-dated Summer 1942).

Using the nom de plume Charles Moulton, Marston scripted all the Amazing Amazon’s many and fabulous adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. The venerable co-creator H.G. Peter illustrated almost every WW tale until his own death in 1958.

This superb full-colour deluxe hardback edition collects that seminal debut from All Star Comics #8, and her every iconic adventure from Sensation Comics #1-12 plus Wonder Woman #1, after opening with a heartfelt and appreciative Foreword from performer, writer and social activist Judy Collins.

The comic milestones begin with ‘Introducing Wonder Woman’ as on a hidden island of immortal super-women an American aviator crashed to Earth. Near death Captain Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence was nursed back to health by young Princess Diana. Fearing her growing obsession with the man, her mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition that they isolated themselves from the rest of the world and devote their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However when Trevor explained the perfidious spy plot which accidentally brought him to the Island enclave, Athena and Aphrodite appeared and ordered Hippolyte to assign an Amazon warrior to return with the American to fight for freedom and liberty.

Hippolyte declared an open contest to find the best candidate and, despite being forbidden to participate, young Diana won. Accepting the will of the gods, the worried mother outfits Diana in the guise of Wonder Woman and sends her out to Man’s World…

A month later the story continued where the introduction had left off in Sensation Comics #1 as ‘Wonder Woman Comes to America’ found the eager immigrant returning the recuperating Trevor to the modern World before trouncing a gang of bank robbers and falling in with a show business swindler. The major innovation was her buying the identity of love-lorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her fiancé in South America.

Even with all that there was still room for Wonder Woman and Captain Trevor to bust up a spy ring attempting to use poison gas on a Draft induction centre before Steve broke his leg and ended up in hospital again, where “Nurse Prince” could look after him…

Sensation #2 introduced the deadly enemy agent ‘Dr. Poison’ in a cannily crafted tale which also debuted the most radical comedy sidekicks of the era…

The plucky fun-loving gals of the Holliday College for Women and their chubby, chocolate-gorging Beeta Lamda sorority chief Etta Candy would get into trouble and save the day in equal proportions for years to come, constantly demonstrating Diana’s – and Marston’s – philosophical contention that girls, with the correct encouragement, could accomplish anything that men could …

With the War raging and a military setting espionage and sabotage were inescapable plot devices. ‘A Spy in the Office’ saw Diana transfer to the office of General Darnell as his secretary so that she could keep an eye on the finally fit Steve. She wasn’t there five minutes before she’d uncovered a ring of undercover infiltrators amongst the typing pool and saved her man from assassination.

Unlike most comics of the period Wonder Woman followed a tight continuity. ‘School for Spies’ in #4 saw some of those fallen girls murdered and introduced inventor genius and Nazi master manipulator Baroness Paula Von Gunther who used psychological tricks to enslave girls to her will and set otherwise decent Americans against their homeland. Even Diana succumbed to her deadly machinations until Steve and the Holliday Girls crashed in…

America’s newest submarine was saved from destruction and a brilliant gang of terrorists brought to justice in ‘Wonder Woman versus the Saboteurs’ before issue #6 found the Amazing Amazon accepting a ‘Summons to Paradise’ to battle her immortal sisters in Kanga-riding duels before receiving her greatest weapon: an unbreakable Lasso of Truth which could compel and control anybody who fell within its golden coils.

It proved very handy when Paula escaped prison and used her invisibility formula to wreak havoc on American coastal defences.

‘The Milk Swindle’ is a pure piece of 1940s social advocacy magic as racketeers and Nazi Von Gunther joined forces to seize control of America’s milk supply with the incredibly long-sighted intention of weakening the bones of the country’s next generation of soldiers, followed in Sensation #8 by ‘Department Store Perfidy’ wherein the Amazon went undercover in the monolithic Bullfinch emporium to win better working conditions and fair pay for the girls employed there.

There was a plethora of surprises in #9 with ‘The Return of Diana Prince’ from South America. Now Mrs Diana White, the young mother needed her job and identity back until her inventor husband could sell his invention to US army. Luckily, Wonder Woman and an obliging gang of saboteurs helped expedite matters…

The next landmark was the launch of her own solo quarterly title. The first issue began with the photo-feature ‘Introducing Wonder Woman’s New Editor’ before offering a text feature on the Amazon’s pantheon of godly patrons in ‘Who is Wonder Woman?’

The comic action then commenced with an greatly expanded revision of her first appearance in ‘A History of the Amazons: the Origin of Wonder Woman’, swiftly followed by the beguiling mystery tale ‘Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus’ wherein Diana had to solve the bizarre serial murders of the show’s elephants.

Paula Von Gunther again reared her shapely head in ‘Wonder Woman versus the Spy Ring’ wherein the loss of the Golden Lasso almost caused the heroine’s demise and the ultimate defeat of the American Army before the issued ended with ‘The Greatest Feat of Daring in Human History’ as Diana and Etta headed for Texas, only to become embroiled in a sinister scheme involving Latin Lotharios, lady bullfighters, lethal spies and a Nazi attempt to conquer Mexico…

Back in Sensation Comics #10 ‘The Railroad Plot’ celebrated Steve and Wonder Woman’s first anniversary by exposing a sinister plan by Japanese and German agents to blow up New York using the labyrinth of subway tunnels under the city, whilst ‘Mission to Planet Eros’ began the series’ long line of cosmic fantasies when the Queen of Venus requested the Amazon’s aid in saving an entire planetary civilisation from sexual inequality and total breakdown…

This first sterling compendium concludes with ‘America’s Guardian Angel’ from Sensation #12 with the Warrior Princess accepting an offer to play herself in a patriotic Hollywood movie, only to find the production had been infiltrated by Nazi Paula and her gang of slave-girls…

Too much has been posited about the subtexts of bondage and subjugation in Marston’s tales – and frankly there really are a lot of scenes with girls tied up, chained or about to be whipped – but I just don’t care what his intentions might have been: I’m more impressed with the skilful drama and incredible fantasy elements that are always wonderfully, intriguingly present: I mean, just where does the concept of giant battle kangaroos come from?

Exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting these Golden Age adventures of the World’s Most Famous female superhero are timeless and pivotal classics in the development of comics books and still provide lashings of fun and thrills for anyone looking for a great nostalgic read.
© 1941, 1942, 1998 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Mike Baron’s The Group LaRue: the Ultimate Gaming Adventure


By Mike Baron, David Campiti, Paul Curtis, Faye Perozich, Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda (Innovation)
No ISBN:

Once upon a time Dungeons & Dragons style role playing games were the most compelling and obsessive things kids could do. All over the civilised world bands of youngsters would gather in furtive secrecy to play at being wizards, thieves and heroes with dice and bits of paper. How spoiled modern children must be with their electronic paraphernalia and tolerant parents, but at least it’s not like my distant school days when we just stood in the pouring rain, rolling hoops, hitting each other in the face with 24lb leather footballs and imagined ourselves as heroes by hitting each other with sticks whilst chain-smoking, beer-swilling teachers gazed on uncaringly…

But I digress: the late 1980s were a fertile time for American comics-creators. An entire new industry had been born with the growth of the Direct Sales market and its dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters even had a bit of spare cash to play with.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally abated and the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real actual art-form…

Consequently many young start-up companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown resigned to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even smaller companies had a fair shot at the big time and a lot of great material came – and too often, quickly went – without getting the attention or success it warranted.

One of the last to emerge as a contender was Innovation Publishing, founded by David Campiti in 1988, which added canny reprints collections like Bill Ward’s Torchy, Larry Harmon’s Bozo, the World’s Most Famous Clown and Walt Kelly’s Santa Claus Adventures and a judicious accumulation of acquired ongoing titles such as The Maze Agency and Hero Alliance to its deftly imaginative run of original titles like Scarlet Kiss, Cyberpunk, Legends of the Star Grazers, Scaramouch, Straw Men and many others.

The company’s true strength lay in a vibrant specialisation in adapted fantasy properties ranging from Lost in Space, Quantum Leap, Dark Shadows, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Beauty and the Beast and other media sensations to popular literary works such as Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, Gene Wolf’s The Shadow of the Torturer and a welter of blood-drenched vampire epics based on the horror works of Anne Rice.

At its height Innovation ranked fourth in market share behind Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics but intriguingly, one of their earliest failures – a troubled series devoted to the magic of RPG – was, in retrospect, amongst the best yarns in their canon…

Devised and scripted by Nexus and Badger creator Mike Baron the short and sweet saga of the Group LaRue told the tale of five role-playing kids who suddenly realised it wasn’t just a game anymore…

This slim full-colour collection gathers the three issue tale beginning with ‘Enter: the Group LaRue!’ by Baron and illustrators Andy Kuhn & Chris Tsuda, as five Minneapolis kids sneaked into an old deserted mansion to play their weekly game only to be interrupted by a real wizard.

When he was killed by a gigantic spear his magic gem exploded and the play-actors suddenly transformed into the characters they were channelling: a psychic Precog, superheroes Spark and Lead Plate, super-genius Scrambler and a flying Werewolf.

This last was Gil La Rue – whose illusionist grandfather built the abandoned mansion years ago, before suddenly vanishing.

The boy took charge when the villains in their planned game scenario manifest and deadly giant bug-men attack the bewildered kids…

Escaping with their lives the disbelieving players regrouped outside the mansion only to discover that Gil’s house had burned down and his whole family were gone…

Staying with best friend Manny Rhodes AKA Lead Plate, Gil deduced that whatever forces they unwittingly unleashed might well be hunting them all…

And that’s when estate executor Bob Whitney arrived, offering to reveal the secrets and reasons for their uncanny transformations. Apparently the elder La Rue belonged to a cult which covertly guards humanity against supernatural invasion, but now only Gil and his friends are left to carry on the interrupted mission…

Baron was gone by the second issue ‘Thrown for a Loup!’ but scripters Campiti & Paul Curtis carried on the saga with Kuhn & Tsuda faithfully continuing the art chores as the kids reluctantly explored the subterranean netherworld beneath La Rue mansion, battling more bug-things and seeking out the evil sorcerer who controlled them, but it’s soon clear that there was far more to good old Bob than met the eye…

The yarn came to an abrupt end with ‘Bug Out!’ (written by Campiti & Faye Perozich) as the team, still trapped in some otherworldly underground dimension learned the kind of man Bob was and a few basic home-truths such as not all monsters look scary, ugly doesn’t mean evil and especially “there’s no place like home”…

Clever, funny, thrilling and gloriously cathartic in a wholesome all-ages way, this old-fashioned adventure fantasy with a thoroughly modern “happy ever after” was fabulously fun and definitely deserved a longer run and a steady creative team behind it.

Even with the action long over there’s still plenty of enjoyment for modern readers and magic loving fans to discover if they can track down this buried treasure
™ and © 1989 Michael Baron. Product package © 1989 Innovative Corp. Part #1 story © 1989 Michael Baron. Part #2-3 story © 1989 Innovative Corp. Artwork © 1989 Andy Kuhn. All rights reserved.

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Essential Avengers volume 5


By Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Barry Windsor-Smith, Rich Buckler, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2087-4

The Avengers have always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in one single basket pays off big-time: even when all Marvel’s all-stars such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are absent, it merely allows the team’s lesser lights to shine more brightly.

Of course all the founding stars regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which means that most issues includes somebody’s fave-rave – and the boldly grand-scale impressive stories and artwork are no hindrance either.

This monolithic and monumental fifth tome, collecting the absolute best of the Mighty Avengers‘ world-saving exploits (presenting in crisp, stylish black and white the astounding contents of issues #98-119 of their monthly comic book between April 1972 and February 1974, plus crossover appearances in Daredevil #99 and The Defenders #8-11), saw scripter extraordinaire Roy Thomas hand over the reins to an even more imaginative and groundbreaking author who took the team to dizzying new imaginative and dramatic heights…

Opening this epochal tome is ‘Let Slip the Dogs of War’ from Avengers #98, by Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith & Sal Buscema, which finds harried heroes Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Thor, all survivors of the recently concluded Kree-Skrull War, debating the loss of their comrade Goliath, missing in action since he explosively stopped an alien warship from nuking Earth…

As the Thunderer headed for Asgard and its magic scrying mirrors, the fruitless debate was curtailed when war-mongering demagogue Mr. Tallon began inciting riot in the streets of New York. The gathered crowds attacked the Avengers when they tried to quell the unrest and it was soon evident that the war-hawk had supernatural assistance… and in the dimensional void the Thunder God found all access to the Immortal Realms had been cut off…

By the time Thor returned to Earth his comrades had been bewitched too. Joining with the seemingly immune Vision in a last-ditch, hopeless battle, he fought their best friends until the tide was turned by a perfectly aimed arrow… heralding the return of Goliath to his original Hawkeye identity.

Moreover he had with him another Avenger: an amnesiac Hercules, Prince of Power, whose only certain knowledge was that Earth and Asgard were doomed…

‘…They First Make Mad!’ (inked by Tom Sutton) extended the epic as the Avengers called on all their resources to cure Hercules and decipher his cryptic warning whilst the World’s leaders seemed determined to hurl the planet into atomic Armageddon.

As Hawkeye revealed his miraculous escape from death in space and how he found Hercules the call went out, summoning every hero who had ever been an Avenger. Suddenly two Grecian Titans materialised to trounce the team, dragging the Prince of Power back to Olympus…

The epic concluded in the staggeringly beautiful anniversary 100th issue ‘Whatever Gods There Be!’ (inked by Smith, Joe Sinnott & Syd Shores) as thirteen Avengers – including even the scurrilous Swordsman and blockbusting Hulk – invaded the home of the Gods to discover old enemy the Enchantress and war god Ares behind the entire malignant plot…

With the supernatural wonderment concluded new penciller Rich Buckler – doing his best Neal Adams impersonation – took over the art, limning a Harlan Ellison/Roy Thomas tale, inked by Dan Adkins.

‘Five Dooms to Save Tomorrow!’ was based on an Ellison novella from 1964 and found the Avengers battling Leonard Tippit, an ordinary man granted incredible power so that he could murder five innocent humans beings whose innocuous continued existence nevertheless threatened Earth’s future.

Determined to stop him whatever the ultimate consequences, the murky moral quandary tested the Avengers to their utmost, but they were on firmer, more familiar ground in #102 when the Grim Reaper returned, offering to place the Vision’s consciousness in a human body in return for the android’s aid in ‘What to Do Till the Sentinels Come!’ (Thomas, Buckler & Sinnott) as the mutant hunting robots kidnapped the Scarlet Witch and attempted to eradicate the threat of Homo Superior forever…

The budding romance between the Witch and the Vision revealed tensions and bigotries in the most unexpected places as the cataclysmic tale continued with ‘The Sentinels are Alive and Well!’ with the team searching the globe for the monstrous mechanical marauders before being captured whilst invading their Australian Outback hive. The tale concluded in ‘With a Bang… and a Whimper!’ as the assembled heroes thwarted the robots’ intention to sterilise humanity – but only at the cost of two heroes’ lives…

The grieving Scarlet Witch took centre stage in #105 as ‘In the Beginning was… the World Within!’ (by new scripter Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Jim Mooney) found the team travelling to South America and encountering cavemen mutants from the lost world known as the Savage Land, after which the Avengers discovered ‘A Traitor Stalks Among Us!’ (illustrated by Buckler, George Tuska & Dave Cockrum) as the revelation that perennial sidekick Rick Jones had become atomically bonded to alien hero Captain Marvel triggered a painful flashback in the memory-blocked Captain America, and an old foe turned the team against itself.

Avengers #107 revealed ‘The Master Plan of the Space Phantom!’ (Jim Starlin, Tuska & Cockrum) and his complex and sinister alliance with the Grim Reaper as the love-sick Vision finally accepted the offer of a human body.

Unfortunately, the corpus on offer was the Star-Spangled Avenger’s…

‘Check… and Mate!’, illustrated by veteran Avenger artist Don Heck and inkers Cockrum & Sinnott, wrapped up the intriguing saga in spectacular fashion as an army of Avengers thrashed the Phantom, the Reaper and the hordes of Hydra as well but the true climax was the Vision and Witch’s final acknowledgement of their love for each other.

The announcement provoked a storm of trouble…

In #109 Hawkeye, who’d always carried a torch for the beautiful Wanda, quit the team in a dudgeon. ‘The Measure of a Man!’ (Heck & Frank McLaughlin) found the heartsick archer duped by billionaire businessman Champion and almost causing the complete destruction of California before wising up and saving the day, after which the depleted team of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision and Black Panther investigated the disappearance of mutant heroes the X-Men and were thoroughly beaten by an old enemy with a new power.

‘… And Now Magneto!’ (Englehart, Heck, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito) ended with half the team brainwashed captives of the master-villain and the remaining crusaders desperately searching for new allies whilst in San Francisco and the crossover Daredevil and the Black Widow #99 (May 1973, by Steve Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Syd Shores) The Mark of Hawkeye!’ found Natasha Romanoff’s old boyfriend fetch up on the Widow’s doorstep, determined to reclaim her, culminating in the Archer’s sound and well-deserved thrashing.

When the last Avengers arrived, asking him to return and assist he refused, but DD and the Widow didn’t…

The story resumed in ‘With Two Beside Them!’ (Englehart, Heck & Esposito) saw the West Coast vigilantes successfully help the ragtag heroes rescue the X-Men and Avengers enslaved by the malevolent Magneto. With the action over, Daredevil returned to California but the Black Widow chose to stay with the World’s Mightiest Heroes…

Avengers #111 introduced a new supernatural menace in ‘The Lion God Lives!’ (by Heck & Frank Bolle) wherein a rival African deity sought to destroy the human Avatar of his great rival The Panther God. As the Black Panther and his valiant comrades tackled that threat in the wings an erstwhile ally and enemy and his exotic paramour made their own plans for the team…

Prejudice was the theme of #113’s ‘Your Young Men Shall Slay Visions!’ (Bob Brown & Bolle) as a horde of fundamentalist bigots offended by the “unnatural love” of Wanda and the Vision turned themselves into human bombs to destroy the sinful, unholy couple whilst the ‘Night of the Swordsman’ in #114 (Brown & Esposito) formally introduced the reformed swashbuckler and the enigmatic psychic martial artist Mantis to the team just in time to thwart the Lion God’s latest scheme

One of author Englehart’s other assignments was the anti-hero team The Defenders and since issue #4 he had been carefully putting players in place for a hugely ambitious cross-over experiment: one that would turn the comics industry on its head.

The classic confrontation finally commenced in Avengers #115 with a lead story ‘Below Us the Battle!’ (Brown & Esposito) wherein the still-understaffed heroes travelled to England and the castle of the Black Knight, only to encounter mystic resistance, a troglodytic race of scavengers and a comrade long missing…

The issue also contained a little prologue, ‘Alliance Most Foul!’, which saw other-dimensional Dark Lord Dormammu and Asgardian god of Evil Loki united to search for an ultimate weapon which would give them ultimate victory against all their foes.

This despotic duo would trick the Defenders into securing the six component parts by “revealing” that the reconstructed Evil Eye could restore the Black Knight – who had been turned to stone by the Enchantress months previously – a plan that began in a similar prologue at the end of Defenders #8…

‘Deception’ (Englehart, Sal Buscema & Esposito) was the first chapter in ‘The Avengers/Defenders Clash’ as a message from the spirit of the Black Knight was intercepted by the twin gods of evil, leading directly to ‘Betrayal!’ in Avengers #116, wherein the Avengers, hunting for their missing comrade, “discover” that their oldest enemies Hulk and Sub-Mariner may have turned the Black Knight to stone.

The third chapter ‘Silver Surfer Vs the Vision and the Scarlet Witch’ comprises the remainder of that issue, illustrated by Brown & Esposito, wherein the rival teams split up: one to gather the scattered sections of the Eye and the other to stop them at all costs…

Defenders #9 (art by Buscema & McLaughlin) began with the tense recap ‘Divide …and Conquer’ before ‘The Invincible Iron Man Vs. Hawkeye the Archer’ and ‘Dr. Strange Vs. the Black Panther and Mantis’ shed more suspicion and doubt on the mystical malcontents’ subtle master-plan.

Avengers #117 ‘Holocaust’, ‘Swordsman Vs the Valkyrie’ and the turning point ‘Captain America Vs Sub-Mariner’ (Brown and Esposito) led to the penultimate clash in Defenders #10 (Buscema & Bolle) ‘Breakthrough! The Incredible Hulk Vs Thor’ and the inevitable joining together of the warring camps in ‘United We Stand!’, but sadly too late as Dormammu seized the reconstructed Evil Eye, using its power to merge his monstrous realm with ours.

Avengers #118 provided the cathartic climactic conclusion in ‘To the Death’ (Brown, Esposito & Giacoia) as all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe battled the demonic invasion whilst the Avengers and Defenders plunged deep into the Dark Dimension itself to end the threat of the evil gods forever (or at least for the moment…).

With the overwhelming cosmic threat over the victorious Defenders attempted to use the Eye to cure their stony comrade only to find that his spirit had found a new home in the 12th century. In #11’s ‘A Dark and Stormy Knight’ (inked by Bolle), Dr. Strange, the Valkyrie, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner , Hawkeye and the Hulk battled black magic during the Crusades, failed to retrieve the Knight and went their separate ways – as did departing scripter Englehart who surrendered scripting of the “Non-Team” to concentrate his creative energies on the World’s Mightiest Heroes.

This epic monochrome collection concludes with a delightfully traditional spooky Halloween tale as the Avengers, warned by clairvoyant vision from Mantis, head to Rutland, Vermont for the ‘Night of the Collector’ (#119, illustrated by Brown & Heck); encountering old friends, a dastardly foe and blistering action and suspense…

Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart were at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of story-makers, brilliantly building on and consolidating the compelling creation of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko: spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder-machine of places and events that so many others were inspired by and could add to.

These terrific tales are perfect examples of superhero sagas done just right and also a pivotal step of the little company into the corporate colossus. Englehart’s forthcoming concoctions would turn the Marvel Universe on its head and pave the way for a new peak of cosmic adventure…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Daredevil in Love and War – a Marvel Graphic Novel


By Frank Miller & Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-172-2

It’s been a while since Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a collection, but not too long ago they were the market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (277x208mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan, media adaptations like Willow and even original creator-owned properties such as Alien Legion.

This spectacular and controversial tale of triumph and tragedy from 1986 is a defining moment in the ongoing battle between the driven Man Without Fear and his ultimate antithesis Wilson Fisk – the sinister and grotesque master manipulator dubbed the Kingpin – wherein scripter Frank Miller and illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz (and subtly effective letterer Jim Novak) took a long, hard look at the costs of the struggle in a stark examination of obsession…

The Kingpin is the criminal overlord with New York City in his pocket, wielding the power of life and death over all its denizens. For such a man helplessness is a toxic emotion but all his power and influence cannot cure his beloved wife Vanessa, left broken and catatonic after one of Fisk’s regular confrontation’s with the city’s superheroic guardians…

Dr. Paul Mondat is the world’s greatest expert on such conditions so Fisk orders psychopathic killer Victor to abduct the French physician’s blind wife Cheryl, thus compelling the doctor to cure Vanessa or else. To ensure his total compliance and utmost passionate dedication Fisk leaves Cheryl in the deranged kidnapper’s tender care…

Spending all his time babysitting the unsullied and angelically helpless waif, Victor begins to fixate on his captive…

Daredevil, meanwhile, is punching all the usual suspects in his attempts to get to the Kingpin and save Cheryl, but Victor is far, far off the grid as well as his meds…

Coercing low-level thug Turk into being his snitch and pawn the Sightless Swashbuckler at last rescues Cheryl and then determines to use her as another game piece in his campaign but soon he too is falling under the spell of the impossibly beguiling young woman…

Victor, deprived of his angel of light, goes completely off the rails just as a new factor skews the picture when Mondat succeeds in bringing Vanessa out of her trance…

As the doctor grows ever closer to the recovering Vanessa, ruthless mob overlord Fisk is increasingly distracted and beginning to succumb to jealousy. Events rise to a fearsome crescendo when Daredevil finally tears himself away from Cheryl to invade the Kingpin’s skyscraper citadel. The hero is completely unaware that the utterly unhinged Victor has tracked him down and is only waiting for the masked man to leave so that he can be alone again with his divine Cheryl…

Meanwhile the Kingpin has realised his own great mistake: Mondat has bound Vanessa to him and disappeared, taking with him the only thing Wilson… an eye for an eye, a wife for a wife…

Brutal, scary and enticingly different, this is a truly breathtaking psychological drama beautifully draped in Sienkiewicz’s evocative expressionist painting style: a uniquely effective piece of comics storytelling which is a magnificent, challenging and deeply satisfying.

Although best read in the original oversized Marvel Graphic Novel edition keen and thrifty fans can also see the tale included in the 2003 standard-proportioned compendium Daredevil/Elektra: Love and War.

And they really should…
© 1986 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 3: Running Scared


By Tome & Janry, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-116-7

Spirou (whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language) was created by French cartoonist François Robert Velter AKA Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s Tintin for rival outfit Casterman.

An eponymous magazine was launched on April 21st 1938 with the other red-headed lad as the lead in an anthology weekly comic which bears his name to this day.

He began as a plucky Bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a reference to publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique) whose improbable adventures with his pet squirrel Spip eventually evolved into high-flying surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his pals have spearheaded the magazine for most of its life, where a phalanx of truly impressive creators have carried on Velter’s work, beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939.

She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over, adding current co-star Fantasio to the mix. Along the way Spirou and Fantasio became globe-trotting journalists, continuing their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

In 1946 Jijé‘s  assistant André Franquin assumed the reins, adding a spectacular popular magic animal dubbed Marsupilami to the cast (first seen in Spirou et les héritiers in 1952 and now a spin-off star of screen, plush toy store, console games and albums all his own), crafting increasingly fantastic tales until he resigned in 1969.

He was succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over the course of nine stirring adventures that tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed outdated and without direction: three different creative teams alternated on the serial, until it was at last revitalised by the authors of the adventure under review here: Philippe Vandevelde writing as Tome and artist Jean-Richard Geurts best known as Janry.

These last adapted and referenced the beloved Franquin era, consequently reviving the feature’s fortunes and resulting in fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. This one from 1988, originally entitled ‘La frousse aux trousses’ or ‘Fear on the Trail’, was their eighth and the 40th collection of the evergreen adventurers.

Harking back to the Fournier years, it comprises the first of an excellent extended two-part thriller which will conclude in Cinebook’s forthcoming ‘Valley of the Exiles’ (originally released as ‘La vallée des bannis’ or ‘Valley of the Banished’ in 1989).

Since Tome & Janry’s departure both Lewis Trondheim and the team of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera have brought the official album count to fifty (there also are a bunch of specials, spin-offs and one-shots, official and otherwise)…

Running Scared opens with a frantic chase scene as Spirou races across the city in splendid breakneck tribute to the silent movies chases of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. He’s late for a conference where he will recount his many harrowing career-related escapes and show films of his numerous close shaves…

Barely making it, he’s disappointed by the reaction of the audience: those that don’t faint dead away from fear flee the theatre in horror…

It’s a huge disappointment: the daring reporter was hoping to use the profits from his lecture tour to fund his upcoming expedition to discover the fate of two explorers who vanished in 1938 whilst attempting to climb a mountain and discover the legendary “Valley of Exiles” in the mysterious Himalayan nation of Yurmaheesun-shan…

Since 1950 the tiny country has been the subject of numerous invasions by rival super-powers and is a hotbed of rebellion, insurgency and civil war, but ever-undaunted Spirou and Fantasio were utterly determined to solve the ancient mystery.

Their plans are only temporarily derailed however. One of the fainters at the conference was the timid but esteemed Dr. Placebo: renowned authority on the medical condition Spasmodia Maligna and a man convinced that the only cure for the condition – prolonged, sustained and life-threatening synchronous diaphragmatic flutters (or hiccups to you and me) – is to be scared out of one’s wits.

Having seen Spirou in action Placebo wants the reporters to take his most chronic patients with them on this assignment and offers to fund the entire expedition to the war-torn jell-hole…

Over Fantasio’s cynical but sensible objection’s a deal is struck and soon the lads, Spip and five disparate, desperate hiccupping victims are sneaking across the Nepalese border where the diligent Captain Yi is tasked with keeping all foreigners – and especially western journalists – out of the country as it undergoes its pacification and re-education…

However, thanks to native translator Gorpah (a wily veteran guide who once proved invaluable to another red-headed reporter, his little white dog and a foul mouthed-sea captain) the daring band are soon deep in-country, but the invaders are quickly hot on the trail in tanks, armoured cars and attack helicopters, providing plenty of opportunities for the annoyingly obnoxious singultus flutterers to be terrified – but with little evidence of a cure…

And then just as they find their first real clue as to the location of the lost Valley of Exiles the explorers are captured by native partisans and rebels…

Even this doesn’t scare off any hiccups, nor does the daring later escape attempt masterminded by Spirou and Fantasio. As the liberated captives all pile into a lorry a huge storm breaks and the rebels give chase.

When one of their pursuer’s vehicles plunges over a cliff, the valiant fugitives frantically form a human chain to rescue the driver and in the horrendous conditions Spirou is washed away and lost in the raging torrent.

…And that’s when all the hiccupping finally stopped…

To Be Continued…

Starting in superb slapstick comedy mode and with gallons of gags throughout, Running Scared nevertheless quickly evolves into a dark-edged and cunningly shaded satirical critique of then current geo-political scandals like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and systematic eradication of Tibetan culture by the Chinese – which both of course still resonate in today’s world – as it unfolds an epic and utterly compelling rollercoaster of fun and thrills.

This kind of lightly-barbed, real-world adventure comedy-thriller is a sheer joy in an arena far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly sweet fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive but wholesome élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Bluecoats and Iznogoud so compelling, this is another cracking read from a long line of superb exploits, certain to be as much a household name as those series – and even that other kid with the white dog…

Original edition © Dupuis, 1988 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2012 © Cinebook Ltd.

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The Amazing Spider-Man Collectors Album (US and UK editions)


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko & various (Lancer/Four Square)
“ISBNs” 72-122 (Lancer) and 1792 (Four Square)

This is another one purely for driven nostalgics, consumed collectors and historical nit-pickers, highlighting the Swinging Sixties’ transatlantic paperback debut of the hero who would become Marvel’s greatest creative triumph…

One thing you could never accuse entrepreneurial maestro Stan Lee of was reticence, especially in promoting his burgeoning line of superstars. In the 1960s most adults, including the people who worked in the field, considered comic-books a ghetto. Some disguised their identities whilst others were “just there until they caught a break.” Stan, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had another idea… change the perception.

Whilst the artists pursued their personal creative visions, the editorial mastermind pursued every opportunity to break down the ghetto walls: college lecture tours, animated TV shows (of frankly dubious quality at the start, but constantly improving), foreign franchising and of course getting their product onto “real” bookshelves in real book shops.

There had been a revolution in popular fiction during the 1950s with a huge expansion of cheap paperback books: companies developed extensive genre niche-markets, such as war, western, romance, science-fiction and fantasy. With fans hungry for product from their cheap ubiquitous lines, many old novels and short story collections were republished, introducing a new generation to such authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Otis Adelbert Kline, H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth and others.

In 1955, spurred on by the huge parallel success of cartoon and gag book collections, Bill Gaines began releasing paperback compendiums culling the best strips and features from his landmark humour magazine Mad and comics’ Silver Age was mirrored in popular publishing by an insatiable hunger for escapist fantasy fiction. In 1964 Bantam Books began reprinting the earliest pulp adventures of Doc Savage, triggering a revival of pulp prose superheroes, and seemed the ideal partner when Marvel – on the back of the “Batmania” craze – began a short-lived attempt to “novelise” their comic book stable with The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker and Captain America in the Great Gold Steal.

Far more successful were repackaged books by various publishers: reformatting their comics stories in cheap and cheerful softcovers:

Archie Comics released their Marvel knock-off restyled superheroes in the gloriously silly High Camp Superheroes, Tower collected the adventures of their big two Dynamo and No-Man, DC (then National Periodical Publications) released a number of Batman books and an impressive compendium of Superman stories and Marvel, punching far above their weight, unleashed a sextet of paperbacks featuring five of their stars: Fantastic Four (two volumes), the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Thor and of course the Amazing Spider-Man.

Now during the heady, turbulent Sixties pulp heroics seemingly returned: imaginative “Thud and Blunder” fantasy tales that were the epitome of “cool”, and Marvel’s canny pursuit of foreign markets instantly paid big dividends.

Their characters, creators and stories were already familiar to British readers, appearing both in Odhams‘ weekly comics Wham!, Pow!, Smash!, Fantastic and Terrific and also in the black and white monthly anthologies published by Alan Class since 1959…

So when Lancer began releasing Marvel’s Mightiest in potent and portable little collections it was simple to negotiate British iterations of those editions although they were not as cheap and had shorter page counts.

A word about artwork here: modern comics are almost universally full-coloured in Britain and America, but for over a century black and white was the only real choice for most mass market publishers – additional (colour) plates being just too expensive for shoe-string operations to indulge in. Even the colour of 1960s comics was cheap and primitive and solid black line, expertly applied by master artists, was the very life-force of sequential narrative.

These days computer enhanced art can hide a multitude of weaknesses – if not actual pictorial sins – but back then companies lived or died on the draughting skills of their artists: so even in basic black and white – and the printing of paperbacks was as basic as the accountants and bean-counters could get it – the Kirbys and Ditkos and Wally Woods of the industry exploded out of those little pages and electrified the readership. I can’t see that happening with many modern artists deprived of their slick paper and 16 million colour palettes…

As I’ve already mentioned US and UK editions vary significantly. Although both re-present – in truncated, resized monochrome – startling early Marvel tales the British Four Square editions are a measly 128 pages, as opposed to the 176 page Lancer editions: necessitating missing stories and odd filler pages. Moreover the UK books are fronted by deliberately garish and poorly drawn “cartoony covers” instead of art by Ditko or Kirby, as if the publishers were embarrassed by the content…

The Amazing Spider-Man Lancer edition by Lee & Steve Ditko was published in 1966 and opens with ‘Duel With Daredevil’ (from #16, September 1964) which depicted the Wall-crawler’s first bombastic meeting with the sightless Man Without Fear as they teamed up to battle the sinister Ringmaster and his Circus of Evil.

This was followed by ‘The Origin of Spider-Man’ from the first issue (March 1963): recapping the story of how nerdy high-schooler Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, became a TV star and failed to prevent the murder of his Uncle Ben. After a pin-up of The Burglar the tale continues, introducing gadfly J. Jonah Jameson and relating how the Amazing Arachnid saved a malfunctioning space capsule before revealing ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’ which combined portions of the info-features seen in Amazing Spider-Man Annual’s #1 & 2 from 1964 and 1965.

Thus far the US book and the Four Square paperback released in 1967 are all but identical – covers excluded of course – and apart from Kirby pin-up pages of the Hulk, Thor and Fantastic Four, that’s where Britain’s thrills stop dead, whereas the Lancer volume has another complete story and more in store.

From Amazing Spider-Man #13 ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ introduced an eldritch, seemingly unbeatable bounty-hunter hired by Daily Bugle publisher Jameson to capture the misunderstood hero. Of course the stalker was a complete sham eventually revealed to be pursuing his own dark agenda, but the battle to stop him was – and still is – one of Spidey’s most spectacular exploits…

This edition ends with another brace of Ditko pin-ups – a roster of guest-stars in one, and the magnificent web-spinner at his moody best in the other…

Nowadays all these adventures are readily available in assorted colour collections or dynamic monochrome Essential Editions but for we surviving baby-boomers the sheer thrill of experiencing these books again is a buzz you can’t beat. Moreover there’s still something vaguely subversive about seeing comics in proper book form, as opposed to the widely available, larger and more socially acceptable graphic novels. Strip art might finally be winning the war for mainstream public recognition, but we’ve all lost some indefinable unifying camaraderie of outsider-hood along the way…

These paperbacks and all the others are still there to be found by those who want to own the artefact as well as the material: I suspect that whether you revere the message or the medium that carries it pretty much defines who you are and how you view comics and the world.

Wanna try and guess where I stand, True Believer…?
© 1966 and 1967 the Marvel Comics Group. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Shaman


By Dennis O’Neil, Edward Hannigan & John Beatty (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-083-6

In 1989 when DC found that the World had gone completely Bat-crazy for the second time in twenty-five years, they were, apparently, already preparing a brand-new title to add to the Gotham Guardian’s stable of comicbooks.

Two years earlier in 1985-1986, the venerable publisher had grabbed headlines by boldly retconning their entire ponderous continuity via the groundbreaking maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; ejecting the entire concept of a multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only ever been one Earth. For readers, the planet was now a perfect place to jump on at the start: a world literally festooned with iconic heroes and villains draped in a clear and cogent backstory nobody knew yet.

Many of their greatest characters got a unique restart, with the conceit being that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Because of the Tim Burton movie Batman’s popularity was at an intoxicating peak and since DC was still in the throes of re-jigging the entire narrative continuity, the new Bat-title was designed to present multi-part epics that were “earlier” cases; refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths hero and his venerable cast. The added fillip was a fluid cast of premiere and up-and-coming creators.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (with a November 1989 cover-date) hit the Comics specialty stores three months after the movie debut: a fascinating experiment and huge hit even if over the years the overall quality proved rather haphazard. Most of the early story arcs were collected as trade paperbacks, helping to jump-start the graphic novel sector of the comics industry, and the re-imagining of the hero’s early career gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient if highly malleable concept.

The very first was Batman: Shaman which added detail to the long-established origin and incisive refinements and further psychological underpinning to the steep learning curve that turned over-eager masked avenger Bruce Wayne into an indomitable and terrifying force of nature.

The five-part epic by Dennis O’Neil was illustrated by Edward Hannigan & John Beatty and ran from November 1989 – February 1990, ideally setting the scene for the next decade as it depicted the driven millionaire’s descent into an obsession where Batman became real and Bruce Wayne the manufactured disguise…

After an introduction from Kevin Dooley (which incorporates the five stunning and evocative covers produced by George Pratt) the drama begins with bounty hunter Willy Doggett tracking a murderous felon named Tom Woodley across the frozen wastes of Alaska. Doggett is accompanied by a wealthy young man who has paid a fortune to learn the hunter’s tracking tricks. When Woodley ambushes them the lawman is killed and the boy only narrowly escapes a similar fate when the bushwhacker falls off a cliff.

The boy is critically injured and almost dies: saved only by an Inuit shaman and his granddaughter in the remote outpost of Otters Ridge, who share the secret medicine story of Bat and Raven with him. Nursed back to health after months Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to begin his mission against criminals. His saviours refuse all rewards but ask only that he never shares the healing tale with anyone…

In blithe arrogance Bruce tells anthropologist Madison Spurlock the secret sacred story before sending him to Alaska for research and to improve the natives’ lives with Wayne Foundation funds.

After his own life-changing encounter with a bat the young man creates the Batman persona and begins clearing up the streets. His first foray in costume is clearing out thieves terrorising a free clinic run by Dr. Leslie Thomkins in Crime Alley where his parents were gunned down a decade previously.

In his spooky element the triumphant avenger is staggered when a frantic eyewitness commits suicide in front of him, gasping out the name “Chubala”…

As six months pass the Batman becomes an urban legend on the city streets and a sinister cult begins to absorb Gotham’s underclass; a melange of drugs, petty crime and human sacrifice led by a seemingly crazed madman that goes spectacularly public when two bodies are found hideously mutilated and a cop is discovered babbling and near death. Moreover there’s a whiff of something more financial than fantastical about this reign of terror…

Meanwhile the anthropologist has returned and set up an exhibition of his findings. A prize piece is the carved bat-mask the Inuit shaman wore whilst saving Wayne’s life, but the avenger is far more concerned over Chubala than how Spurlock got the holy relic.

Spending his days building the Batcave and nights tracking Chubala’s thugs and a drug pipeline from tropical hell-hole Santa Prisca, the novice Dark Knight doesn’t attach as much significance to the murder of Spurlock’s assistant as he should, until an assassin wearing the Inuit mask attempts to kill him and succeeds in slaying Spurlock with arrows…

Convinced of a connection between Chubala and Otters Ridge, Bruce Wayne travels again to the Far North and sees with horror and self-loathing what his money and Spurlock’s probing ambitions have done to the once proud and noble natives…

And that’s when the next murder attempt occurs…

As the neophyte Batman struggles to piece together the disparate strands he comes to a chilling conclusion: he’s not been working on one incredibly complex case but two…

Combing a clever reworking of the origin legend with a skilful murder-mystery, a serial killer thriller and a corporate crime-caper, Batman: Shaman redefined the Caped Crusader’s previously shiny milieu as a truly scary world of urban decay, corrupt authority and all-pervasive criminal violence, all tinged with nightmarish supernatural overtones.

This is one of the very best of modern Batman yarns: dark, intense, cunning and superbly understated. If you haven’t seen this supremely engaging tale – criminally out of print but well worth hunting down – then you don’t really know the Dark Knight yet…
© 1989, 1990, 1993 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning


By Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic, Brandon Peterson & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-504-8

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a new post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of 21st century readers – apparently a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee… or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath the meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world…

This compilation collects Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates issue #1-6 and Ultimate Comics: Fallout #4 (published in comicbook form from October 2011 to March 2012) which comprised the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

Before the Deluge, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of super-humans called the Avengers, but he was toppled from his position for blatant rule-bending – and being caught.

Now in the wake of the global inundation, internecine strife amongst the covert ops community and brushfire wars which have broken out all over the planet, Fury is back: once more running the entire spook show and firmly re-established in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of secret agents, an official superhero team for public consumption and another clandestine super-squad doing stuff the officially sanctioned Ultimates wouldn’t dream of…

It isn’t a job many would want: the world is falling apart at a phenomenal rate. Individual metahumans are classed as Weapons of Mass Destruction and personal superpowers are now the focus of a terrifying new global arms race. In Asia the new nation SEAR (South East Asian Republic) is dissolving into bloody civil war after developing a serum that will randomly spark fantastic abilities in humans dosed with it. They also stacked the deck by simultaneously releasing a global virus which has killed the genes responsible for causing natural mutation.

A new metahuman nation has grown up within the embattled country offering super-powers to anybody daring to take the Serum, as seen in sidebar series Ultimate Comics Hawkeye…

The gods of Asgard have been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth where their wild warlike ways and fantastic powers are disrupting all of Europe. Premiere hero Spider-Man has been murdered, resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America has gone AWOL and in the wings an old friend turned foe has returned to remake the planet according to an impossible and remorseless agenda…

The constant calamity begins when enigmatic mastermind Maker and his dedicated band of volunteers entomb themselves in a high-tech dome in Northern Germany where enhanced time and ruthless scientific augmentation enables the inhabitants to hyper-evolve a thousand years in the space of a few days.

Whilst Iron Man Tony Stark is being conned by his fellow members of billionaires fraternity The Kratos Club and tricked into detonating a nuke over Montevideo in order to manipulate global stock markets, these Children of Tomorrow – now more alien ant farm than human science cult – break out as the Dome begins to expand and absorb Western Europe. The region’s superhumans, including current Captain Britain Jamie Braddock are busy losing a fight with the errant Asgardians and card-carrying Ultimate Thor when The Children attack…

As Hawkeye attempts to forestall the civil war in SEAR and Stark is dragged back from death by his bodyguard Jarvis, the Children perform the impossible feat of killing almost every god in Asgard.

Only Thor and Braddock survive but the Thunderer’s hammer and magic are gone forever…

Resorting to technology provided by Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. the Last Asgardian returns to the fray, intending to die gloriously in battle as a warrior should, but the expanding dome and ravening children are unstoppable. After an all-out final assault by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the World’s armies, humanity is utterly defeated and humiliatingly allowed to slink off to await the end…

When the Dome stops growing and stands revealed as an incredible future City the doom-hungry Thor invades it, freeing Braddock, who has been imprisoned and subjected to torturous scientific investigation. They are then captured by the Maker who reveals his impossible true identity, after which he discards the ineffectual and demoralised warriors.

Thor doesn’t care: he has just realised that he is being haunted by the ghosts of all the fallen Asgardians…

Fury is almost out of ideas. When technologist Sam Wilson AKA the Falcon finds a way to infiltrate the City he suddenly vanishes without trace, and even Captain America has refused to rejoin the Ultimates and lead mankind’s last hurrah against their implacable unshakable successors…

To Be Continued…

Hot off the presses this saga ends on a chilling cliffhanger as what might well be the Last Battle of the alternate Marvel Universe begins. However the always entertaining Jonathan Hickman, artists Esad Ribic & Brandon Peterson (as well as colourists Dean White, Jose Villsrrubia, Jim Charalampidis, John Raunch & Edgar Delgado) make this a slick and compulsive read for older Fights ‘n’ Tights fans and the impressive cover gallery by Kaare Andrews, Ribic & Chris Evans adds immeasurably to the book’s visual appeal.

Much more in tune with the visual feel and sensibilities of the assorted Movie franchises than the traditional comicbook market, the trademark post-modernity and cynical, dark action is amped to the max here; delivering the visceral shocks and staggering revelations fans of this sub-imprint seem addicted to.

Whilst perhaps not the best book for anybody thinking on jumping on to the decidedly different Ultimate World, The Republic is Burning will certainly strike a chord with older readers who love the darkest side of superheroes and readers who know the company’s films better than their publications.

A British edition licensed and published by Panini UK, Ltd. ™ & © 2012 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. Licensed from Marvel Characters B.V. All Rights Reserved.

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Secret Origins


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-50-1

The best and worst thing about comicbooks is the perpetual revamping of classic characters whenever changing tastes and the unceasing passage of years demand the reworking of origin tales for increasingly more sophisticated audiences.

Once upon a time, DC’s vast pantheon of characters was scattered and wholly distinct: separated and situated on a variety of alternate Earths which comprised Golden Age hold-overs, current Silver Age and later-created heroes. Further Earths were subsequently introduced for every superhero stable the company scooped up in a voracious campaign of acquisition over the decades.

Charlton, Fawcett, Quality Comics and others characters resided upon their own globes, occasionally meeting in trans-dimensional alliances and apparently deterring new readers from getting on with DC.

Thus, when DC retconned their entire ponderous continuity following Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985-1986, ejecting the entire concept of a multiverse and re-knitting time so that there had only been one world literally festooned with heroes and villains, many of their greatest characters got a unique restart, with the conceit being that the characters had been around for years and the readership were simply tuning in on just another working day.

Fans old and new therefore had no idea what pre-Crisis stories were still “true” or valid and to counter confusion the publishers launched the double-sized Secret Origins comicbook series to peek behind the curtain and provide all-new stories which related the current official histories of their vast and now exceedingly crowded pantheon…

Of course now the multiverse concept is back and not confusing at all (who’d have thunk it?) but whatever the original reasons the dramatic 1980s refit did provide for some utterly astounding and cleverly cohesive storytelling…

This sterling softcover collection from 1989 gathered some of the most impressive headline-grabbing reworkings and even offered an all-new reinterpretation of the Batman’s beginnings to fit the new world’s reconstructed history and opened the action after ‘Legends’, a fascinating Introduction by series editor Mark Waid.

‘The Man Who Falls’ by Dennis O’Neil & Dick Giordano incorporated the revisions of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One and Batman: Shaman into a compelling examination of vengeance, obsession and duty describing how the only survivor of the Wayne Homicides dedicated his life to becoming a living weapon in the war on crime…

When DC Comics decided to rationalise and reconstruct their continuity the biggest shake-up was Superman and it’s hard to argue that change was unnecessary. All the Action Ace’s titles were suspended for three months – and boy, did that make the media sit-up and take notice – for the first time since the Christopher Reeve movie. But there was method in the madness…

In 1986 Man of Steel, a six-issue miniseries written and drawn by John Byrne with inks by Dick Giordano, stripped away vast amounts of accumulated baggage and returned the Strange Visitor from Another World to the far from omnipotent, edgy but good-hearted reformer Siegel and Shuster had first envisioned. It was a huge and instant success, becoming the decade’s premiere ‘break-out’ hit and from that overwhelming start Superman returned to his suspended comic-book homes with the addition of a third monthly title premiering in the same month.

The miniseries presented six complete stories highlighting key points in Superman’s career, reconstructed in the wake of the aforementioned Crisis and ‘The Haunting’ comes from the last issue; relating how the hero returned to his Kansas home and at last discovered his alien roots and heritage when a hologram of his father Jor-El attempted to possess and reprogram Clark Kent with the accumulated wisdom and ways of dead Krypton…

‘The Secret Origin of Green Lantern’ by James Owsley, M.D. Bright & José Marzan Jr. hails from Secret Origins #36 (January 1989) and told how Hal Jordan was selected to become an intergalactic peacekeeper by a dying alien, all viewed from the fresh perspective of a young aerospace engineer whose brief encounter with the Emerald Gladiator a decade earlier had changed his life forever. The expansive yarn re-visits all the classic highlights and even finds room to take the plucky guy on an adventure against resource raider on Oa, home of the Guardians of the Universe…

Mark Verheiden & Ken Steacy then drastically upgrade the legend of J’onn J’onzz in ‘Martian Manhunter’ (Secret Origins #35, Holiday edition 1988) in a moody innovative piece of 1950’s B-Movie paranoia, nicely balanced by an enthralling, tragic and triumphant reinterpretation and genuinely new take on the story of Silver Age icon Barry Allen . The freshly-deceased Flash  reveals the astonishing truth behind the ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ in a lost classic by Robert Loren Fleming, Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson, first published in Secret Origins Annual #2 1988.

The creation of the Justice League of America was the event which truly signalled the return of superheroes to comicbooks in 1960, inspiring the launch of the Fantastic Four, the birth of Marvel Comics and a frantic decade of costumed craziness.

Their rallying adventure wasn’t published until #9 of their own title and was in fact the twelfth tale in their canon, because, quite frankly, origins, crucible moments and inner motivation were just not considered that important back then.

When Keith Giffen, Peter David & Eric Shanower crafted ‘All Together Now’ for Secret Origins #32 (November 1989) such things had come to be regarded as pivotal moments in mystery-man mythology but it didn’t stop the creative team having lots of snide and engaging fun as they retooled the classic tale of rugged individuals separately battling an alien invasion only to unite in the final moments and form the World’s Greatest Heroic team. The refit wasn’t made any easier by the new continuity’s demands that Batman be excised from the legendary grouping of Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash and Superman whilst the under-reconstruction Wonder Woman had to be replaced by a teenaged Black Canary…

Nevertheless the substitution worked magnificently and the daring adventure is the perfect place to end this fabulous compendium of a DC’s second Lost Age as yet another continuity-upgrade revitalises some of the most recognisable names in popular fiction.

And No, I’m not playing “how long until the next one”…
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