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The Victims Guide to… The Baby


By Roland Fiddy (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-503-8

British cartooning has been magnificently serviced over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly tickling our funny bones whilst poking our pomposities and fascinations.

As is so often the case, many of these doyens of drollery are being daily forgotten in their own lands whilst still revered and adored everywhere else. One of our most prolific and best was a chap named Roland Fiddy whose fifty-year career encompassed comics, newspaper strips and dedicated gag-books such as the item I’ve zeroed in on here; one of a half-dozen he crafted examining such passions, fascinations and obsessions as Middle Age, Air Travel and the Dentist. I’d actually intended to feature his chronicle of Christmas but I’ve had enough of that for a while and so, I’m sure, have you.

His brisk, seductively loose cartooning winnowed out extraneous detail and always zeroed straight in to the punch-line with a keen and accurate eye for shared experience and a masterfully observational sense of the absurd, whether producing one-off gags for magazine such as Punch, cartoons and strips for comics or even the far tougher discipline of daily features; winning him nearly two dozen international humour awards from places as disparate as Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and many others. His work was particularly well received in the USA, making him an international icon and ambassador of “Britishness” as valuable as Giles or Thelwell.

“Fiddy” as he signed his work, was born in Plymouth in 1931 and educated at Devonport High School, Plymouth College of Art and Bristol’s West of England College of Art: a dedicated course of study interrupted for three years’ compulsory National Service which saw him join the RAF.

He had been an art teacher for two years when he sold his first professional cartoon to digest men’s magazine Lilliput in July 1949. He quickly graduated to Punch, selling constantly to intellectual powerhouse editor Malcolm Muggeridge. By 1952 he was also a regular contributor of gags to populist papers the News Chronicle, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.

His first continuity work was for the post-war British comics industry, creating Sir Percy Vere for Clifford Makins, editor of the prestigious Eagle after it was bought by Odhams from original publisher Hulton Press. He followed up the period poltroonery with an army strip entitled Private Proon for Boy’s World before settling back into his comfort zone with a weekly page of one-off gags for Ranger.

The Fun with Fiddy feature was one of the few (others included the legendary Trigan Empire) which survived the high-end comic’s inevitable absorption into Look and Learn.

In 1976 he began a decade-long stint drawing the rather anodyne Tramps (scripted by practising Christian Iain Reid) which featured jovial hoboes Percival and Cedric; an inexplicably well-regarded strip which ran seven days a week. I mention the religious aspect in case you ever see Tramps in the Kingdom: a 1979 collection of the 110-odd, faith-based episodes. To my knowledge the remaining 3000 or more everyday, secularly funny instalments haven’t ever been collected.

In 1985 Fiddy created Paying Guest for the Sunday Express (another 10 year spree) and in 1986 Him Indoors for The People. The home-grown strip market was changing and contracting however and increasingly Fiddy chose to sell gags as an international freelancer and create cartoon books.

Within the pages, of The Victim’s Guide To… the Baby (available as both English or American editions) is a sympathetic seminar and calamitous catalogue of the joys and woes of  early-child-rearing: heavy on the irony and surrealism and mercifully light on bodily functions.

After all, we all know babies do that: let’s see what other horrors and wonders they’re capable of…

The charming and effective observations include interactions with and similarities to pets, men becoming “Daddies”, the reactions of older children, fun with mirrors, cribs, playpens and maximum security cells and of course the sheer destructive potential of the little rugrats…

Fiddy built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work which had universal appeal to readers of all ages, appearing in innumerable magazines, comics and papers where his instantly accessible style always stood out for its enchanting impact and laconic wit. Other than these and the Fanatic’s Guides his most impressive and characteristic collection is probably The Best of Fiddy.

Fiddy’s cartoon books are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare: if you ever see a Fiddy in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with the master of mirth.
Cartoons © 1994 Roland Fiddy. Compilation © 1994 Exley Publications  Ltd.

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Fear Itself: the Home Front


By Howard Chaykin, Christos N. Gage, Benjamin McCool, Peter Milligan, Mike Mayhew, Ty Templeton and many various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-495-9

Marvel’s 2011 multi-part, inter-company braided mega-saga focused on Captain America, Thor and the Avengers, recounting how an ancient Asgardian menace resurfaced, possessing a band of the planet’s mightiest mortals and compelling them to wreak unimaginable death and destruction on the global population whilst he drank the terror the rampage generated.

To accompany and expand the series Marvel released a seven-part anthology miniseries which offered brief continuing sagas and snapshots which focused on the peripheries of the main event.

Although every issue contained a chapter of each story-strand, this tome sensibly organises the tales into discrete story-blocks so with the “The Worthy” – Sin, the Hulk, Juggernaut, Absorbing Man, Titania, Attuma, Grey Gargoyle and Thing – storming through cities awash with slaughter in other books, Fear Itself: the Home Front opens with disgraced teen hero Speedball who had caused the deaths of six hundred innocent civilians and sparked the Civil War and Superpowers Registration Act clandestinely returned to the town of Stanford where his impulsive act had turned into a metahuman massacre…

Guilt-wracked the lad had been sneaking back in his secret identity of Robbie Baldwin to work as a volunteer, but when he is exposed by the mother of one of his victims the outraged citizens want to lynch him. Lucky for him a horde of escaped super-criminals pick that moment to turn up and the kid gets the chance to save some lives.

Not that that makes any difference to the grieving, angry people of Stamford…

And then the ensorcelled Juggernaut and Attuma hit town just ahead of a colossal tidal wave and the psychotic slaughterers The Sisters of Sin…

Powerfully written by Christos N. Gage and illustrated by Mike Mayhew & colourist Rainier Berado, ‘The Home Front’ is a splendid Coming-of-Age redemption tale, swiftly followed by four-part saga ‘The Age of Anxiety’ (by Peter Milligan, Elia Bonetti & John Rausch) as resurrected and future-shocked 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo leads a group of similar vintage dubbed the Atlas Foundation (Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namora, Gorilla-Man, love-goddess Venus, the Uranian Marvel Boy and wonder-robot M11) against an upsurge of hate-group attacks. Something is causing all the supremacists to rise up in a wave of venom and hatred and it all leads back to the Nazi cult which first found the mystic hammers of the Asgardian Serpent-god…

‘The Chosen’ by (Fred van Lente, Alessandro Vitti & Javier Tartaglia) reveals how the next generation of Avenging heroes are triumphantly Assembled by their natural leader… at least that’s what the manipulative Prince of Power believes. His less-than-happy recruits Thunderstrike, Spider-Girl, Powerman and junior Wolverine X-23, however, think otherwise in a light action-packed and cynically sassy three-part thriller which sees the unlikely lads and lasses save Hawaii from a horrifying catastrophe.

Ordinary people are the focus of later tales. Jim McCann, Pepe Larraz & Chris Sotomayor describe how the war of the gods affects the Oklahoma town of Broxton, located in the shadow of the Fallen City of Asgard in ‘There’s No Place Like Homeless’ and Corinna Bechko, Lelio Bonaccorso & Brian Reber recount a subway crisis involving Tiger Shark, a mugger and terrified mom Liz Allan in ‘Between Stations’ before Ben McCool & Mike Del Mundo show how medical maverick and vigilante predator on “Big Phamaceutical” businesses Cardiac suffers a moral ‘Breakdown’…

Forgotten hero Blue Marvel saves a nuclear sub and begins a slow return to the world in ‘Legacy’ by Kevin Grevioux, MC Wyman, John Wycough & Wil Quintana, Native crusader American Eagle smartly settles a hilariously dark dispute between anglos and tribesmen in ‘Red/White Blues’ by Si Spurrier & Jason Latour and ‘Fear and Loathing in Wisconsin’ hilarious leavens the horror with a magically quirky yarn from Elliott Kalan & Ty Templeton starring the Great Lakes Avengers, before the book concludes with a powerfully poignant vignette as Captain America meets the real heroes in Brian Clevinger, Pablo Raimondi & Veronica Gandini’s ‘The Home Front Lines’…

Howard Chaykin wrote and illustrated a series of delightful single-page star-segment visual epigrams ‘A Moment With… J. Jonah Jameson’, ‘A Moment With… the Purple Man’, ‘A Moment With… the People of Paris’, ‘A Moment With… Kida of Atlantis’, ‘A Moment With… Mr. Fear’, ‘A Moment With… Dust’, and ‘Another Moment With… J. Jonah Jameson’ which intersperse the shorter pieces, and there is of course a full cover gallery to add to all the fun and thrills of this brilliantly broad and bombastic bunch of mini Marvel Tales.

Fear Itself: The Home Front is scheduled for publication on January 18th, 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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Sgt. Rock Archive Edition Volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, Bob Haney, Ross Andru & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-841-9
Sgt Rock and the “combat-happy Joes” of Easy Company are one of the great and enduring creations of the American comic-book industry. The gritty meta-realism of Robert Kanigher’s ordinary guys in life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old. So pervasive is this icon of comicbook combat, that it’s hard to grasp that Rock is not an immortal industry prototype like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – with us since the earliest moments of the industry – but is in fact a late addition to and child of the Silver Age of Comics.

This gloriously gritty, full-colour premier collection musters all pertinent material in the evolution of the immortal “topkick” from the early salvo of battle blockbusters from Our Army at War #83-96 (including the tentative first steps in the character’s evolution from G.I. Combat #68 and Our Army at War #81-82), a period spanning the dog-days of 1958 to the summer of 1960, wherein the entire field of American comics was just beginning a staggering revolution in style, theme and quality.

Following a fascinating reminiscence from co-creator and living legend Joe Kubert (and this inaugural battle-book also includes detailed creator profiles), the pictorial action commences with a stunning Jerry Grandenetti cover – the first of many in this impressive tome – from G.I. Combat #68 (cover-dated January 1959), and a simple, unassuming filler story by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert, of an anonymous boxer who wasn’t particularly skilled but simply refused to be beaten. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted in the US Army, however, that same Horatian quality attained mythic proportions as he held back an overwhelming Nazi attack by sheer grit and determination, remaining bloody but unbowed on a field littered with dead and broken men. Although no more than another straight “ordinary guy finds his heroic niche” yarn for the anthology mill that was war comics of the era, something in this tale – other than the superbly taut script and stunning illustration – caught the attention of both the public and the editors…

Christened “Rocky”, the character returned as a sergeant in the April Our Army at War (#81, April 1959) again facing overwhelmingly superior German forces as ‘The Rock of Easy Co.!’ in a brief but telling vignette by Bob Haney, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito before finally winning an actual persona as Sgt. Rock in the next issue, in the Mort Drucker illustrated ‘Hold Up Easy!’: another harsh and declarative mini-epic from Kanigher which saw everyman hard-luck heroes Easy Company delayed and then saved by callow replacements who eventually came good in the life-changing crucible of combat…

Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) saw the true launch of the ordinary hero in ‘The Rock and the Wall!’ (Kanigher & Kubert): wherein a tough-love, battlefield tutor shepherded his men to competence and survival amidst the constant perils of war. Here he met a rival for his men’s admiration in the equally impressive warrior Joe Wall…

Irv Novick illustrated ‘Laughter on Snakehead Hill!’ as the embattled dog-faces of Easy fought to take a heavily fortified citadel and OAAW #85 introduced the first continuing and marginally less-disposable cast member in the Kubert limned ‘Ice Cream Soldier!’ wherein Rock assuaged a fearful replacement’s jangled nerves with tales of another hopeless “green apple” who grew into his job.

This ploy of incorporating brief past-action episodes into a baptism of fire scenario would play over and over again and never got old…

Following a magnificent cover by master of realism Russ Heath, Haney returned in #86 to script ‘Tank 711’ for Kubert as the terse top-kick educated another newbie in combat etiquette. Kanigher returned to describe the taking of “No-Return-Hill” and the initiation of four more raw recruits in ‘Calling Easy Co.!’ after which Grandenetti illustrated a brace of tales in #88 and 89; ‘The Hard Way’ in which Rock suffered a shocking crisis of confidence and ‘No Shot from Easy!’ wherein the indomitable sergeant was forced to give his toughest ever order…

Issue#90 is classic Kubert from start to finish as ‘Three Stripes Hill!’ revealed the story of how Rock won his stripes after which the traditionally anthological Our Army at War offered three complete Sgt. Rock stories in #91, beginning with ‘No Answer From Sarge!’ as the NCO risked everything to drag a recruit out of a crippling funk, ‘Old Soldiers Never Run!’ where he had to weigh an old man’s pride against Easy’s continued existence, and the Haney scripted tragic fable of a sole-surviving Scottish soldier in ‘The Silent Piper!’

Issue #92 saw Kanigher and Kubert tackle battlefield superstitions in ‘Luck of Easy!’, ‘Deliver One Air Field!’ introduced Zack Nolan, a son of privilege who had to learn teamwork the hard way and #94’s ‘Target… Easy Company’ pitted the company against a German General determined to eradicate the high-profile heroes.

OAAW #95 debuted the charismatic and ambitious Bulldozer Nichols who wanted Rock’s rank and position in ‘Battle of the Stripes!’, but grew to become the second most-recognisable character of the entire series and this premier deluxe edition closes its preliminary campaign with ‘Last Stand for Easy!’ which saw the still in-charge top-kick compelled to relinquish his lead-from-the-front position when a by-the-book officer deems him too valuable to waste on a battlefield…

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as he does here – an imaginative, evocative, iconoclastic and heart-rending observer of the warrior’s way and the unchanging condition of the dedicated and so very human ordinary foot-slogging G.I.

With superb combat covers from Grandenetti, Kubert or Heath fronting each episode, this titanic tome is a visually intoxicating compendium and brilliant tonic for any jaded fan looking for something more substantial than simple flash and dazzle.
A perfect example of true Shock and Awe; these are stories every fan should know.
© 1959, 1960, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: the Dark Knight Archives volume 2


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-183-2

By the time of the spectacular action, adventure and mystery classics contained in this magnificent full-colour hardback tome (re-presenting the classic contents of Batman #5-8, Spring 1941 to December 1941/January 1942), the Dynamic Duo were bona fide sensations whose heroic exploits not only thrilled millions of eager readers but also provided artistic inspiration for a generation of comics creators – both potential and actually working then and there…

Scripted by Bill Finger, with art from Bob Kane aided and abetted by Jerry Robinson & George Roussos (who also lettered many of the stories and even provided the effulgent introductory interview with historian Joe Desris which opens this volume) these stories are key moments in the heroes’ careers and still stunningly compelling examples of comics storytelling at its very best.

The magic commences with ‘The Riddle of the Missing Card!’ wherein the ever-deadly Joker rises from the dead once more and embarks on a grisly spree of gambling crimes based on playing cards and the poor unfortunate souls who rescued him, whilst ‘Book of Enchantment’ finds the Gotham Gangbusters scientifically teleported into a fantastic dimension of fairytale horrors. ‘The Case of the Honest Crook’ is the kind of humanistic mystery/second-chance story of redemption earned that Finger excelled at: Batman tackles bandit Joe Sands who has just robbed a store of $6 when he could have taken hundreds. His hard luck story soon leads to real bad guys though…

The last story from Batman #5 ‘Crime Does Not Pay’ deals with the perennial problem of good kids going bad and once again salvation is at hand after a mind-boggling amount of action and mayhem…

Issue #6 saw the title achieve bi-monthly status as the ravenous fans clamoured for more, more, more masked mystery-man madness. ‘Murder on Parole’ saw Batman and Robin hunt down a prominent citizen who was freeing criminals to work as his part-time criminal army after which ‘The Clock Maker’ gave them a deadly old time as he maniacally murdered the people who purchased his fine chronometers before the City Crime-crushers headed for the Texas oil-fields and waded hip-deep in murder and robbery to solve ‘The Secret of the Iron Jungle’. This magnificent romp led inexorably to an undercover case as Bruce Wayne investigated Gotham’s ‘Suicide Beat!’ where three policemen had already died whilst on patrol…

Batman #7 (October/November 1941) began with ‘Wanted: Practical Jokers’ and naturally starred the scene-stealing psychotic Clown Prince of Crime, who had unleashed a host of deadly body-doubles to play hob with the terrified citizenry, whilst ‘The Trouble Trap’ found the Dynamic Duo soundly smashing a Spiritualist racket. They then headed for the Deep Forests to clear up ‘The North Woods Mystery’ of a murdered lumber tycoon.

The last tale in this issue is something of a landmark case, as well as being a powerful and emotional melodrama. ‘The People vs. the Batman’ had Bruce Wayne framed for murder and the Caped Crusaders finally sworn in as official police operatives. They would not be vigilantes again until the grim and gritty 1980’s…

Eight weeks later Batman #8 came out, cover dated December 1941-January 1942. Such a meteoric rise and expansion during a time of extreme paper shortages gives heady evidence to the burgeoning popularity of the characters. Behind a superbly evocative “Infinity” cover by Fred Ray and Jerry Robinson lurked four striking tales of astounding bravura adventure.

‘Stone Walls Do Not A Prison Make’ was a brooding prison drama, with Batman breaking into jail to battle a Big Boss who ruled the city from his cell, followed by a rare foray into science fiction as a scientist abused by money-grubbing financial backers turned himself into a deadly radioactive marauder in ‘The Strange Case of Professor Radium’ (this tale was radically revised and recycled by Finger & Kane as a sequence of the Batman daily newspaper strip from September 23rd to November 2nd 1946).

‘The Superstition Murders’ is still a gripping and textbook example of the “ABC Murders” plot, far better read than read about and ‘The Cross Country Crimes’ perfectly ends this trip to the vault of comic treasures with a tale of the Joker rampaging across America in a dazzling blend of larceny and lunacy whilst trying to flee from the vengeful Gotham Guardians.

These are the stories that forged the character and success of Batman. The works of co-creators Finger and Kane and the multi-talented assistants Robinson & Roussos are spectacular and timeless examples of perfect superhero fiction. Put them in a lavish deluxe package like this, include the pop art masterpieces that were the covers of those classics plus handy creator biographies, and you have pretty much the perfect comic book.
© 1940-1941, 1995 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Lantern and Green Arrow #2


By Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Frank Giacoia & Dan Adkins (Paperback Library)
ISBN: 0-446-64755-1

Once upon a time, comics – like Rock ‘n’ Roll or spray-can street art – was considered outcast, bastard non-Art continually required to explain and justify itself – even when some of the people vainly defending the intrusive fledgling forms were critics and proponents of the other higher creative forms.

And during those less open-minded times, just like the other examples cited, every so often the funnybook industry brought forth something which forced the wider world to sit up and take notice.

This slim paperback – in itself proof positive of the material’s merit because the stories were contained in a proper book and not a flimsy, gaudy, disposable pamphlet (sic) – is a sequel to an earlier collection of some of the most groundbreaking comic adventures in American history; repackaged for an audience finally becoming cognizant that the unfairly dismissed children’s escapism might have something to contribute to the whole of culture and society…

After a decade of earthly crime-busting, interstellar intrigue and spectacular science fiction shenanigans the Silver Age Green Lantern was about to become one of the earliest big-name casualties of a downturn in superhero sales in 1969 prompting Editor Julius Schwartz to try something extraordinary to rescue the series.

The result was a bold experiment which created an industry-wide fad for socially relevant, ecologically aware, mature stories which spread throughout DC’s costumed hero comics and beyond; totally revolutionising the comics scene and nigh-radicalising readers.

Tapping superstars-in-waiting Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams to produce the revolutionary fare, Schwartz watched in fascinated disbelief as the resultant thirteen groundbreaking, landmark tales captured the tone of the times, garnered critical praise, awards and desperately valuable publicity from the outside world, whilst simultaneously registering such poor sales that the series was finally cancelled anyway, with the heroes unceremoniously packed off to the back of marginally less endangered comicbook The Flash.

When these stories (reprinted from Green Lantern/Green Arrow #78-79, July and September 1970) first appeared DC was a company in transition – just like America itself – with new ideas (which in comic-book terms meant “young writers”) being given much leeway: a veritable wave of fresh, raw talent akin to the very start of the industry, when excitable young creators ran wild with fevered imaginations and anything might happen.

Their cause wasn’t hurt by the industry’s swingeing commercial decline: costs were up and the kids just weren’t buying funnybooks in the quantities they used to…

O’Neil, in tight collaboration with hyper-realistic illustrator Adams, attacked all the traditional monoliths of contemporary costumed dramas with tightly targeted, protest- driven stories. Green Arrow had been shoe-horned into the series with Emerald Archer Oliver Queen constantly mouthing off as a hot-headed, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis whilst staid, quasi-reactionary GL Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard. At least the Ring-Slinger was able to perceive his faults and more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

This striking book opens with an introduction from Dennis O’Neil before hurling helter-skelter into a chillingly topical headline grabbing yarn…

The confused and merely-mortal Green Lantern discovered another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ (with inks from Frank Giacoia) when the Arrow’s new girlfriend Black Canary joined the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her stalled relationship with the Emerald Archer, she was waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Sadly Joshua’s wilderness cult owed more to Charles Manson than the Messiah and his brand of Peace and Love only extended to white people: everybody else was simply target practise…

The ongoing shoddy treatment and plight of Native Americans was stunningly highlighted next in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’ (inked by Dan Adkins) as big-business logging interests attempted to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, once more causing the Green Knights to take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help and find a measure of justice…

It’s impossible to assess the effect this early bookstore edition had on the evolution of comics’ status – it certainly didn’t help keep the comicbook series afloat – but  this edition certainly gave credibility to the stories themselves: a fact proved by the number of times and variety of formats these iconic adventures have been reprinted.
© 1970, 1972 National Periodical Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Rider: Fear Itself


By Rob Williams, Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-499-7

In recent times Marvel has eschewed colossal braided mega-crossover events in favour of smaller, themed mini-epics but following the release of the Captain America and Thor films – not to mention the upcoming Avengers celluloid blockbuster – the time obviously seemed right to once more plunge their entire Universe into cataclysmic chaos and rebirth.

This collection gathers the prologue an 5-issue miniseries which reintroduced the Ghost Rider to contemporary continuity and can even be read without reference to the Fear Itself core volume and subsequent spin-off books (stemming from the 30-odd regular titles, miniseries and specials the saga expanded into).

In the main storyline an antediluvian Asgardian menace resurfaces and by possessing a selection of Earth’s heroes and villains sets in motion a terrifying bloodbath of carnage to feed on the fear of mankind and topple the established Norse pantheon. With that much spiritual energy unleashed its no surprise that other supernatural entities begin to feel threatened…

Years ago carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan – or arch-liar Mephisto, as he actually was – followed the letter, but not spirit of the contract. Crash Simpson died anyway and when the Dark Lord came for Johnny only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation.

Temporarily thwarted Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast demon Zarathos – the spirit of vengeance.

In later years Blaze briefly escaped his doom and a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison.

Now in a classy fright-fest by Rob Williams (Cla$$war, 2000AD‘s Low Life) and artists Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & Sean Parsons, with additional art from Valerio Schiti, the Angel from Hell possesses a new host and is unleashed again to punish the guilty, beginning in the Prologue issue ‘Give Up the Ghost’ wherein the emotionally shattered but still valiantly heroic Blaze – once again bonded to the flaming phantom – is tricked by the mysterious adept Adam into surrendering the curse to a more than willing new vessel…

As the fear-mongering “Worthy” decimate the planet and humanity’s psyche, a female Ghost Rider roars through the ruins on her flaming bike saving the innocent and destroying the things which prey on mortals, but finds her match in the transformed Asgardian herald Skadi…

Meanwhile the liberated Blaze is confronted by his lifelong tormentor Mephisto who reveals that he is not the only Great Big Liar in creation: Adam, who claims to be the First Man, has a plan for the new Ghost Rider which will alter mankind forever…

Adam wants to eradicate all sin on Earth using the gullible, girlish novitiate acolyte Alejandra as his weapon but that is actually an even worse proposition and fate than anything any devil could devise…

Driven by conscience, Blaze makes another Devil’s Bargain to save humanity whilst the sheltered child who now contains the Ghost Rider begins to carry out Adam’s plan with staggering success.

Raiding Adam’s hidden temple. Blaze joins forces with British Zombie wizard Seeker – who knows far more than he’s letting on – just as Adam’s devoted disciple begins to find her own mind and path…

With the planet sliding swiftly into physical cataclysm and psychic Armageddon can the disparate forces of Free Will unite in time to save us all from salvation…?

The book ends on a superbly powerful human note as the mortal who eventually retains the power of Zarathos goes on a mission of old-fashioned vengeance only to be confronted with the most appalling of father figures…

Cool, action-packed, mightily moving and wryly witty, this is a splendid reinvention of a character who has been in equal amounts both the best and worst of Marvel’s mighty pantheon and one well worth a little of your time and money.

Ghost Rider: Fear Itself is scheduled for British release on January 12th 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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Daredevil and the Punisher: Child’s Play


By Frank Miller & Klaus Janson (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-087135-351-1

Here’s another slim, sleek and sublimely enticing lost treasure from the early days of graphic novel compilations that will undoubtedly enthral fans of hard-bitten, high-calibre Fights ‘n’ Tights fracas.

Released in 1988, this full-colour 64-page compendium collected three unforgettable issues of Daredevil (#182-184 from May-July 1982) which perfectly encapsulated everything that made the first Frank Miller run such a momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series…

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Miller himself, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Frank Castle saw his family gunned down in Central Park after witnessing a mob hit and thereafter dedicated his life to eradicating criminals everywhere. His methods are violent and permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Wolverine comes to mind) the Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public shifted its communal perspective – Castle never toned down or cleaned up his act nor did his moral compass ever deviate…

The story goes that Marvel were reluctant to give The Punisher a starring vehicle in their standard colour comic-book line, feeling the character’s very nature made him a bad guy and not a good one.

Debuting as a deluded villain in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), Castle was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. & Ross Andru, in response to popular prose anti-heroes such as Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and at of other returning Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime.

Maybe that genre’s due for a revival as sandy GI boots hit US soil in the months to come…?

The crazed crime-crusher had previously starred in Marvel Preview #2 (1975) and Marvel Super Action #1 (1976) but as these were both black-and-white magazines aimed at a far more mature audience: however in the early 1980s a number of high profile guest-shots: Captain America #241, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 (covered recently in Sensational Spider-Man) and the extended epic here, convinced the Powers-That-Be to finally risk a miniseries on the maniac vigilante (see The Punisher by Steven Grant & Mike Zeck. You all know where that led…

In this collection, a reeling Matt Murdock is trying to cope with the murder of his first love Elektra when ‘Child’s Play’ sees Castle clandestinely removed from prison by a government spook to stop a shipment of drugs the authorities can’t touch.

Once he’s killed the gangsters, however, The Punisher refuses to go back to jail…

This story, concerning school kids using drugs, was begun by McKenzie & Miller but shelved for a year, before being reworked into a stunningly powerful and unsettling tale once Miller and Klaus Janson assumed the full creative chores on the title. When Matt Murdock visits a High School he is a helpless witness as a little girl goes berserk, attacking staff and pupils before throwing herself out of a third floor window.

She was high on Angel Dust and as the appalled hero vows to track down the dealers he encounters her bereaved and distraught younger brother Billy, determined to exact his own vengeance and later the coldly calculating Castle who has the same idea and far more experience…

The hunt leads inexorably to a certain street pusher and DD, Billy and the Punisher all find their target at the same time. After a spectacular battle the thoroughly beaten Daredevil has only a bullet-ridden corpse and Billy with a smoking gun…

The kid is innocent – and so, this time at least, is Castle – and after Murdock proves it in court, the investigation resumes with the focus falling on the pusher’s boss Hogman. When DD’s super-hearing confirms the gangster’s claims of innocence his alter-ego Murdock then successfully defends the vile dealer, only to have the exonerated slime-ball gloatingly admit to having committed the murder after all…

Horrified, shocked, betrayed and determined to enforce justice, DD finds a connection to a highly-placed member of the school faculty deeply involved with Hogman in the concluding ‘Good Guys Wear Red’ but far too late: Castle and Billy have both decided the end the matter Hogman’s way…

Tough, disturbing, beautiful and chillingly plausible, this epic encounter redefined both sides of the heroic coin for a decade to come and remains one  of the most impressive stories in both character’s canons.

With creator biographies and commentaries from Ralph Macchio, Mike Baron and Anne Nocenti this oft re-printed tale (in 2000 it was repackaged and released with a new cover as The Punisher vs. Daredevil) marks a genuine highpoint in the serried careers of both horrifically human heroes and is well worth tracking down.
© 1988 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Legion of Super-Heroes: Archive Edition Volume 1


By Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan, John Forte, Jim Mooney & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-020-8

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from dozens of alien civilisations took inspiration from the legend of the greatest champion of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited that legend to join them…

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the popularity of the Legion has perpetually waxed and waned, with their complex continuity continually tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten again and again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

We Silver Age Legion fans are indubitably the most persistent, passionate, finicky and snitty of all – and editors crossed us at their peril – so when DC announced that it would be gathering all the titanic team’s appearances in a chronological series of deluxe hardcover Archive Editions we were overjoyed (actually most of us thought it was about time and long overdue…) and eager.

This glorious, far-and-wide ranging full-colour premier compendium assembles the many preliminary appearances of these valiant Tomorrow People and their inevitable progress towards and attainment of their own feature; including all pertinent material from Adventure Comics #247, 267, 282, 290, 293, and 300-305, Action Comics #267, 276, 287 and 289, Superboy #86, 89, 98, Superman #147 – a period spanning 1958-1963. Also included are an introduction by editor, publisher and devotee Mike Gold, creator biographies and a Curt Swan cover gallery (all inked by either Stan Kaye or George Klein) featuring all the burgeoning band of brothers’ pole positions from Adventure Comics #247, 267, 282, 290, 293, 300, 302, Superboy #89 and 98 and Superman #147.

The multi-hued mob of universe-savers first manifested in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) in a Superboy tale wherein three mysterious kids invited the Boy of Steel to the 30th century to join a team of metahuman champions all inspired by his historic career. Created by Otto Binder & Al Plastino, the throwaway concept inflamed public imagination and after a slew of further appearances throughout Superman Family titles, the LSH eventually took over Superboy’s lead spot in Adventure for their own far-flung, quirky escapades, with the Caped Kid Kryptonian reduced to “one of the in-crowd”…

However here the excitement was still gradually building when the kids returned more than 18 months later in Adventure #267 (December 1959) for Jerry Siegel & George Papp to play with.

In ‘Prisoner of the Super-Heroes!‘ the teen wonders reappeared to attack and incarcerate the Boy of Steel because of a misunderstood ancient record…

The following summer Supergirl met the Legion in Action Comics #267 (August 1960, by Siegel & Jim Mooney) as Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy secretly travelled to “modern day” America to invite the Maid of Might to join the team, in a repetition of their offer to Superboy 15 years previously (in nit-picking fact they claimed to be the children of the original team – a fact glossed over and forgotten these days: don’t time-travel stories make your head hurt…?).

Due to a dubious technicality, young and eager Kara Zor-El failed her initiation at the hands of ‘The Three Super-Heroes’ and was asked to reapply later – but at least we got to meet a few more Legionnaires, including Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy…

With the editors still cautiously testing the waters, it was Superboy #86 (January 1961) before the ‘The Army of Living Kryptonite Men!’ by Siegel & Papp turned the LSH into a last-minute Deus ex Machina to save the Smallville Sentinel from juvenile delinquent Lex Luthor’s most insidious assault. Two months later in Adventure #282, Binder & Papp introduced Star Boy as a romantic rival for the Krypton Kid in ‘Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!’

Action #276 (May 1961) introduced ‘Supergirl’s Three Super Girl-Friends’ by Siegel & Mooney, which finally saw the her crack the plasti-glass ceiling and join the team, sponsored by Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl. We also met for the first time Bouncing Boy, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy and potential bad-boy love-interest Brainiac 5 (well at least his distant ancestor Brainiac was a very bad boy…)

Next comes a pivotal two-part tale ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp from Superboy #89, June 1961) in which an amnesiac, super-powered space traveller crashes in Smallville, speaking Kryptonese and carrying star-maps written by the Boy of Steel’s long-dead father…

Jubilant, baffled and suspicious in equal amounts Superboy eventually, tragically discovered ‘The Secret of Mon-El’ by accidentally exposing the stranger to a lingering, inexorable death, before desperately providing critical life-support by depositing the dying alien in the Phantom Zone until a cure could be found…

With an August 1961 cover-date Superman #147 unleashed ‘The Legion of Super-Villains’ (Siegel, Curt Swan & Sheldon Moldoff): a stand-out thriller featuring Lex Luthor and the adult Legion coming far too close to destroying the Action Ace until the temporal cavalry arrived…

Adventure #290 (November 1961, by Bernstein & Papp) seemingly gave Sun Boy a starring role in ‘The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero!’ – a clever tale of redemption and second chances, followed in #293 (February 1962) by a gripping thriller from Siegel, Swan & George Klein: ‘The Legion of Super-Traitors’ wherein the future heroes were turned evil, prompting Saturn Girl to recruit a Legion of Super-Pets including Krypto, Streaky the Super Cat, Beppo, the monkey from Krypton and Comet the magical Super-horse to save the world – and yes, I typed all that with a reasonably straight face…

‘Supergirl’s Greatest Challenge!’ by Siegel & Mooney (Action #287 April 1962) saw her visit the Legion (quibblers be warned: it was mistakenly described as the 21st century in this story) to save future Earth from invasion. She also met a telepathic descendent of her cat Streaky. His perhaps ill-considered name was Whizzy…

Action #289 featured ‘Superman’s Super-Courtship!’ wherein the Girl of Steel scoured the universe for an ideal mate for her cousin. One highly possible candidate was the adult Saturn Woman, but her husband Lightning Man objected… Perhaps charming at the time, but modern sensibilities might quail at the conclusion that his perfect match was a doppelganger of Supergirl herself, but thankfully a bit older…

By the release of Superboy #98 (July 1962), the decision had been made. The buying public wanted more Legion stories and once ‘The Boy With Ultra-Powers’ by Siegel, Swan & Klein had introduced a mysterious lad with greater powers than the Boy of Steel, the focus shifted to Adventure Comics #300 (cover dated September 1962) wherein the futuristic super-squad finally landed their own gig; even occasionally stealing the odd cover-spot from the still top-featured Superboy.

Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes opened its stellar run with ‘The Face Behind the Lead Mask!’ by Siegel, John Forte & Plastino; a fast-paced premier which pitted Superboy and the 30th century champions against an impossibly unbeatable foe until Mon-El, long-trapped in the Phantom Zone, briefly escaped a millennium of confinement and saved the day…

In those halcyon days humour was as important as action, imagination and drama, so many early escapades were light-hearted and moralistic. Issue #301 offered hope to fat kids everywhere with ‘The Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy!’ by regular creative team Siegel & Forte, wherein the process of open auditions was instigated (providing devoted fans with loads of truly bizarre and memorable applicants over the years) whilst allowing the rebounding human rotunda to give a salutary pep talk and inspirational recount of heroism persevering over adversity.

Adventure #302 featured ‘Sun Boy’s Lost Power!’ as the golden boy was forced to resign until fortune and boldness restored his abilities whilst ‘The Fantastic Spy!’ in #303 provided a tense tale of espionage and possible betrayal by new member Matter-Eater Lad.

The happy readership was stunned by the events of #304 when Saturn Girl engineered ‘The Stolen Super-Powers!’ to make herself a one-woman Legion. Of course it was for the best possible reasons, but still didn’t prevent the shocking murder of Lightning Lad…

With comfortable complacency utterly destroyed, #305 further shook everything up with ‘The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire!’ who turned out to be the long-suffering Mon-El finally cured and freed from his Phantom Zone prison.

The Legion is undoubtedly one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in American comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became Comics Fandom. Moreover, these sparkling, simplistic and astoundingly addictive stories as much as the innovations of Julie Schwartz’s Justice League fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and built the industry we all know today.

Naive, silly, joyous, stirring and utterly compelling yarns are precious and fun beyond any ability to explain but if you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.
© 1958-1964, 1991 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Merry Christmas, Boys and Girls!

In keeping with my self-created venerable Holiday tradition here’s another selection of British Annuals which fundamentally contributed to making me the way I am today, selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because they are still, interesting, eminently palatable and worthy of your attention, even under here in the disconcertingly futurist yet disappointingly dreary 21st Century (and yes, I am still eagerly anticipating my personal jet-pack and robot-butler under the tree this year…)

After decades when only American comics and nostalgia items were considered collectable or worthy, of late there’s been a welcome resurgence of interest in home-grown comics and stories. If you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, I hope my words can convince you to acquire it. However, the best of all worlds would be further collections from those fans and publishers who have begun to rescue this magical material from print limbo in affordable new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. On one level the tastes of the public have never been broader than today and a selective sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base. Let’s all continue to reward publishers for their efforts and prove that there’s money to be made from these slices of our childhood.

Marvel Comicbook Annual 1970

By various (World Distributors, Ltd.)
No ISBN – Standard Book Number: 7235-0072-X

When Stan Lee stormed the American comic-book industry in the early 1960s, his greatest weapon wasn’t the compact and brilliant talent pool available nor even the proverbial idea whose time had come, but rather his canny hucksterism and grasp of marketing and promotion. DC, Dell/Gold Key and Charlton all had limited overseas licenses (usually in dedicated black-and-white anthologies like Alan Class Comics such as Suspense) but Lee went further, reselling Marvel’s revolutionary early efforts all over the world.

In Britain the material appeared in the aforementioned Class Comics and reformatted in weeklies like Pow, Wham, Smash and even the venerable Eagle. There were two almost wholly Marvel-ised papers, Fantastic and Terrific, which ran from 1967 to 1968 with only one UK originated strip in each. These slick format comics mimicked Marvel’s US “split-books” and originally featured three key Marvel properties in each. Appearing every seven days, however quickly exhausted the company’s back catalogue.

After years of guesting in other publications, Marvel secured their own UK Annuals at the end of the 1960s through the publishing arm of World Distributors and this second sparkling collection from 1969 is one of the very best – and worst!

Gone are the text stories, quizzes and game pages which traditionally padded out most British Christmas books, replaced with cover-to-cover superhero action produced by the emergent House of Ideas at the very peak of its creative powers. Moreover it’s in full colour throughout – an almost unheard of largesse at the time.

Behind the delightful painted wraparound cover the enchantment commences with a magnificent but ultimately frustrating Thor tale (from issue #165 June 1969) from Lee, Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta wherein the Thunder God tackled genetically engineered future man ‘Him!’, before dissolving into a maniacal rage in the first of a two-part tale from his own American comicbook. The story and art are of course, incredible, but – even worse than no batteries on Christmas morning – the concluding instalment isn’t included in this volume. AARRGH!

From Captain America #100, April 1968 ‘This Monster Unmasked!’ by Lee, Kirby & Syd Shores, was the final chapter of an epic adventure (running in Tales of Suspense #97-99 and also not included here) which found the Sentinel of Liberty, his new girlfriend Agent 13 and the Black Panther riotously recapping the hero’s origin whilst battling a resurrected Baron Zemo to save the planet from utter destruction…

‘The Warrior and the Whip!’ by Lee, Gene Colan & Frank Giacoia and ‘At the Mercy of the Maggia’ by Archie Goodwin, Colan & Johnny Craig (Tales of Suspense #98-99, February and March 1968) are less satisfying. Not because the individual episodes are in any way deficient, but because the extended combat between Iron Man, gangsters, AIM Agents and super-creeps constitutes only chapters two and three of a four-part yarn and once again ends on a chilling cliffhanger…

In deference to tradition there is a single-page fact-feature. ‘Triton’s World’, illustrated with traced Kirby fish drawings from various comics, spotlighting a number of outrageous but actual sea-dwellers before the aquatic Inhuman joins the rest of the Royal Family of Attilan in ‘Silence or Death!’ (a Tales of the Inhumans back-up from Thor #149, February 1968) introducing young Prince Black Bolt in a superb and compelling, COMPLETE, five-page clash with Maximus the Mad by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott.

At least the Marvel mayhem ends on a blockbusting high-note with ‘Monster Triumphant!’ from Incredible Hulk #108, October 1968 by Lee, Herb Trimpe & John Severin which, although another concluding chapter, had the decency to nominally recap proceedings before the Green Goliath, Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and his soviet counterpart Yuri Brevlov spectacularly scotched the sinister plans of Oriental oligarch the Mandarin to bring this book to a crunchingly cathartic close…

Inexplicably, despite how annoying re-reading these oft-reprinted tales felt today, the pint-sized me (well, quart-sized if I’m totally honest) really loved this collection – the fantastic resilience of youth, I suppose – and I will admit the art has never looked better than on the 96 reassuringly solid extra-large pages here: bold heroes and dastardly villains going wild and forever changing the sensibilities of a staid nation’s unsuspecting, extremely forgiving children. Miraculous, Marvellous Magic!
© 1970 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

In future years UK Marvel Annuals would provide full colour reprint strip extravaganzas, but in 1966 the material just wasn’t there. Thus this peculiar novelty: a comforting 96 sturdy pages of bold illustrations, games, puzzles and prose stories featuring Marvel’s mightiest in exceedingly British tales of skulduggery and derring-do.

Another factor to consider was the traditions of the UK market. US comics had been primarily strip based since the 1930s, but British weeklies had long provided Boy’s and Girl’s “papers” that were prose-based. In fact DC Thompson had persevered with illustrated text periodicals until well into the 1960s. So the seasonal annuals provided a vital sales peak of the publishing year and a guaranteed promotional push (see Alan Clark’s superb The Children’s Annual for more information). Any comic worth its salt needed a glossy hardback on the shelves over the Christmas period…

Released Christmas 1969, perfectly portioned out to fit into a book intended for a primarily new and young audience.

Land of the Giants Annual 1969

By Tom Gill & various (World Distributors {Manchester} Ltd.)
No ISBN

British Comics have always fed heavily on other media and as television grew during the 1960s – especially the area of children’s shows and cartoons – those programmes increasingly became a staple source for the Seasonal Annual market. There would be a profusion of stories and strips targeting not readers but young viewers and more and more often the stars would be American not British.

Much of this stuff wouldn’t even be as popular in the USA as here, so whatever comic licenses existed usually didn’t provide enough material to fill a hardback volume ranging anywhere from 64 to 160 pages. Thus many Annuals such as Daktari, Champion the Wonder Horse, Lone Ranger and a host of others required original material or, as a last resort, similarly themed or related strips.

Land of the Giants debuted in America in September 1968, the fourth of producer Irwin Allen’s incredibly successful string of TV fantasy series which also included Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel. The premise was that in the far-future of 1983 the occupants of Sub-Orbital Space-liner flight 703 from Los Angeles to London fell through a space-warp and landed in an incredible world twelve times larger than ours (mimicking the dimensions of the Brobdingnagians in Gulliver’s Travels) but closely paralleling Earth in the primitive era of the mid 1960s.

The motley and disparate passengers and crew of the ailing Spindrift thus had to survive and seek a way to return home whilst giant beasts, agents of the totalitarian government of that colossal planet, greedy opportunists and their own perverse natures all conspired against them…

The TV series generated 51 episodes and ran until 1970, spawning a Viewmaster reel and book, comics, toys and a string of novels by Murray Leinster. Since only one issue of the Gold Key comicbook had been released by the time of publication, (also providing the photo-cover above) this British Land of the Giants Annual compiled in late 1968 for the Christmas market relied heavily on criminally uncredited British filler – in the traditional form of text stories and features.

This book was produced in the standard UK format of full-colour for the American comics reprints and certain sections balanced with the more economical black and one other colour (blue, green brown or purple for the remainder, either brief prose stories or puzzles, games or fact-features on related themes. As for the writers and artists of the originated material your guess is, sadly, as good as or better than mine, but almost certainly generated by the wonderful Mick Anglo’s publishing/packaging company Gower Studios (although much of the innovative and edgily evocative illustration reminds me of Paul Neary’s 1970 Hunter strip in Warren’s Eerie)…

As the book is aimed at youngsters most of the British material is told from the viewpoint of Barry Lockridge – and dog Chipper – travelling unaccompanied to meet his parents in London. The mayhem and mystery begins with the novelette ‘Crash into the Unknown’ recapping the terrifying crash-landing in the Land of the Giants and offering a few hints into the possibly man-made nature of the space-warp which trapped them before the quiz ‘The Name’s the Same’ lightens the mood before ‘The Happy Return’ found the diminutive castaways battling a rogue warp-scientist and Secret Police and the fact-feature ‘Giants of Earth’ recounted a selection of geological behemoths.

The science bits continued with ‘Other Days: Other Giants’ which spotlighted dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts whilst ‘The Bigger They Are’ enumerated historical heroes who battled overwhelming odds. The fantasy adventure resumed in ‘The Toy Trap’ with giant terrorists using remote controlled models to deliver bombs – clockwork vehicles the puny Earthlings desperately needed in this vast expanse of a new world…

After some mind-boggling astronomical ‘Star-Facts’ the US comic strip adventure ‘The Mini-Criminals’ Part I, (illustrated by Tom Gill and perhaps scripted by Paul S. Newman) opened with ‘The Power-Stealers’ as the crew’s perpetual search for fuel sources to re-energise the Spindrift led to their capture by an opportunistic and imaginative thief. In this action-oriented strip the focus was very much on passengers Mark Wilson and fugitive conman Fitzhugh plus he-men crew members Captain Steve Burton and co-pilot Dan Erickson…

‘Barry and the Bankrobbers’ returned to British prose episodes as the boy and his dog stumbled into a bold daylight robbery before ‘The Mini-Criminals’ tempestuously terminated in an explosive showdown after ‘The Torch is Lit’, quickly followed by a themed literary and historical quiz ‘All About Giants’.

The girls got to hog the spotlight in ‘The Lost One’ as stewardess Betty Hamilton and flighty socialite Valerie Scott encountered an Earth astronaut who had been stranded in the Land of the Giants for 32 years whilst, after technological/industrial fact-feature ‘Man-made Monsters’, ‘The Bargain’ found little Barry and a giant toddler saving the day when Herculean fire-fighters extinguished a small grass blaze and inadvertently washed the Spindrift and crew into a sewer grate.

Lemuel Gulliver’s trip to Brobdingnag was reviewed in the article ‘Points of View’ (illustrated by somebody named “Fryer”) whilst the novelette ‘Nightmare in Giantland’ had the crew fall into a fairground only to become a puppet attraction, after which the double-page board-game ‘Terror in the Woods’ offered a few moments of post-Christmas dinner family interaction – as long as you could find some dice – before the adventures culminated in Secret Police espionage and intrigue as the Earthlings became ‘The Mini-Spies’ for an anti-government scientist and this big book of fun, fact and thrills ended educationally with ‘The Giant One’; a visually impressive animal comparison chart matching up Elephants, Rhinos, Buffalo, Brontosauruses (still believed to be real back then, remember?) against the incredible Blue Whale.

These yearly slices of screen-to-page magic were an intrinsic part of growing up in Britain for generations and still occur every year with only the stars/celebrity/shows changing, not the package. The show itself has joined the vast hinterland of fantasy fan-favourites and, if you want to see more, in 2010 Hermes Press collected the material from all five US Land of the Giants comicbooks into one sparkling hardback Land of the Giants the Complete Series which I’ll get around to reviewing one day (so many books, so little time or budget)…
© 1969 Twentieth Century-Fox Television, Inc. and Kent Productions. Inc. All rights reserved throughout the world.

Superman Bumper Book

By various (Top Sellers)
No ISBN: ASIN B000RFBZYI

By the end of the 1960s I was an unashamed addict for all things comic. Whether home grown material targeting every market from football strips in Lion, Tiger or Victor to adapted literary classics in Look and Learn, foreign strip-books such as Asterix and Tintin or the comparatively diminutive American imports from DC, Marvel, Archie, Harvey, Gold Key and Charlton, I wanted them all and relished every graphic moment.

Even re-reading the same stories wasn’t important, as this sparkling book, still riding the coattails of the late 1960s superhero boom sparked in the UK by the live action Batman TV show and the Superman/Superboy animated cartoon show, will attest.

Released for the Christmas market this Superman Bumper Book combined text-stories and puzzle material generated by the Mick Anglo studio with a selection of relatively recent or reprinted Man of Steel yarns, all outrageously re-coloured in the flat yet beguiling full-colour process which graced most Top Seller Annuals.

I suspect the text features were intended for or left over from the 1967-1968, black and white TV Tornado weekly…

The extravaganza opens with an Editorial Direct Current feature exploring the bizarre preponderance of “LL” names in the character’s mythology after which ‘When Superman Killed his Friends’ (by E. Nelson Bridwell & Pete Costanza from Superman #203, January 1968) offered an eerie alien menace and a seemingly impossible dilemma for the Action Ace. This was followed by a prose Batman adventure ‘Mr. Kronos Gets Bats in His Belfry’ probably by Anglo himself and very much in the manner of the Adam West/Burt Ward TV series, after which ‘The Fortress of Fear’ pitted Superman against his own suddenly sentient arctic sanctuary in a chilling thriller originally seen in #204 by Cary Bates & Al Plastino.

Bracketed by a brace of ‘Laugh-In’ pages of spot-gags ‘The Jolly Jailhouse’ (Superman 139, August 1960 by Jerry Coleman & Plastino) provided a light-hearted clash between a would-be dictator and World’s Most Uncooperative political prisoner Clark Kent, after which Special Agent Clint Cutter travelled to the Middle East to squelch a deadly arms race in the prose vignette ‘Guns For Sale’.

Mr. Mxyzptlk was looking for trouble when he manifested a ‘Trio of Steel’ (Superman #135, February 1960, by Jerry Siegel & Plastino) after which the photo-feature ‘Super Tec!’ examined the then current Sexton Blake TV series before Superman returned and was almost killed by the foppish and ludicrously lethal ‘Captain Incredible’ (Action Comics #354, September 1967 and courtesy of Bates & Plastino).

‘Challenge to Superman’ was another Anglo-originated prose short-story after which two more Plastino yarns appeared. ‘Superman’s Black Magic’ (scripted by Siegel for Superman #138, July 1960) saw the hero impersonate the Devil to scam some crooks whilst ‘The Great Mento’ (by Robert Bernstein, #147, August 1961) found the hero apparently helpless against a mind-reading blackmailer. Those comic classics were separated by a cartoon adventure of ‘The Friendly Soul’ by cartoonist and acclaimed industry historian Denis Gifford.

Following a Henry Boltinoff Cap’s Hobby Hints and a photo-feature on ocean-going ‘Super ships’ the seasonal sensationalism wrapped up with a gloriously arch yarn of romantic double-dealing as Lois Lane seemingly became ‘The Bride of Futureman’ in a brilliant piece of fluff from Coleman & Kurt Schaffenberger from Superman #121 (May 1958) or more likely Superman Annual #4 where it was latterly reprinted.

Perhaps their only true value now is as beloved nostalgic icons of times past, but surely that’s the whole point of books like this and comics and toys in general…
© 1970 National Periodical Publications, Inc., USA. Published by Top Sellers, Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Beano Book 1970

By various (DC Thomson)
Retroactively awarded ISBN: 978-0851160078

For many British readers and fans Christmas means The Beano Book (although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every December 25th massively magical) so I’ve chosen another exquisite edition to encapsulate and epitomise my personal seasonal sympathies. As ever my shamefully meagre knowledge of the creators involved forces me to a few guesses in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me whenever I get it embarrassingly wrong again…

This uncharacteristically summery tome opens with a double-page splash of the Bash Street Cats and Dogs (by Gordon Bell, I think) after which Roger the Dodger, Biffo the Bear and the (technically, at least) human Bash Street Kids welcome one and all to this year’s comic masterpiece.

The stories proper begin with a David Sutherland Biffo strip wherein the overworked cover-star goes for a less than restful holiday, whilst the Bash Street Kids find themselves the reluctant owners of an Elephant and the capable Kevin and Kenneth Knight discover action and adventure on a safari to Africa in their wondrous vehicle The Hovertank – a marvellous thriller from (I suspect) Sandy Calder.

Ronald Spencer’s painfully un-PC but exceedingly hilarious Little Plum follows and after puzzle pages ‘Spot the Spots!’ Dennis the Menace makes his first appearance courtesy of David Sutherland, after which ‘Plugorama’ examines notable moments in the life of the Planet’s Ugliest Boy – complete with puzzle page – and Lord Snooty (one of the longest running strips in the comic’s history) is introduced to the world of fashion in a canny yarn from Robert Nixon.

“Fastest boy on Earth” Billy Whizz by Malcolm Judge speeds into the surreal Zone, before Minnie the Minx learns to love and hate ballet lessons in a stunning piece from Jim Petrie after which the two-page Who’s Who quiz is followed by Pups Parade starring the Bash Street Pups (the unlovely pets of those unlovely kids) by Gordon Bell.

Robert Nixon’s Roger the Dodger features a long look at his library of scams and dodges and Snooty returns, testing the shrink-ray of Professor Screwtop, before Dennis spreads his net to terrorise anglers and ‘Here Come the Q-Bikes’ dedicates 16 pages to the adventures of the plucky cyclists and their weaponised velocipedes complete with tests and puzzles from Andy Hutton. The Q-Bikes were a team of young adventurers with technologically advanced push-bikes who always found danger and excitement wherever they pedalled.

Toots of the Bash Street Kids had a solo spot this year combining girly things like cooking and cleaning with malevolence and mayhem after which Biffo visited his voracious cousins The Three Bears in America and came home with a whole new and wholly unwelcome physique. Billy Whizz then revealed the secret of his unique hair-do and Minnie suffered surreal torture at the hands of a hidden hapless enemy…

Smiffy and Billy Whizz revealed some cunning Trick Pics before The Bash Street Cats, Dogs and Kids all failed to take over the Beano Book whilst Roger the Dodger outsmarted himself and The 3 Bears lost out to arch rival Grizzly Gus but still got to gobble all the vittles in a smart yarn by Bob McGrath.

Boy superhero Billy the Cat saved Christmas in a smart thriller by Sandy Calder after which Little Plum was hard pushed to cope with a heavy snowfall and, after a make-your-own-picture-dice page entitled ‘Ma Whizz, the Dodging Bear’, we spend a ‘Weekend with Alfie’ (Billy Whizz’s Kid Brother) thanks to the ever impressive Malcolm Judge and The Three Bears then fail in their attempt to invade the local general store…

An extended Bash Street Kids plumbing fiasco follows that, after which Dennis the Menace brings the fun to a full stop even whilst plugging his own dedicated Christmas Special…

These annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour” British publishers used to keep costs down. This was done by printing sections of the books with only two plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta: The versatility and colour range this provided was astounding. Even now this technique inescapably screams “Holiday extras” for me and my contemporaries.

This is another astoundingly compelling edition, and even in the absence of legendary creators such as Dudley Watkins, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid there’s no appreciable decline in the mayhem and anarchy quotas and so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is over forty years old. If ever anything needed to be issued as commemorative collections it’s these fabulous DC Thomson annuals…

Divorcing the sheer quality of this brilliant book from nostalgia may be a healthy exercise – perhaps impossible, but I’m perfectly happy to simply wallow in the magical emotions this ‘almost-colourful’ annual still stirs. It’s a fabulous laugh-and-thrill-packed read, from a magical time and turning those stiffened two-colour pages is always an unmatchable Christmas experience, which is still relatively easy to find these days.

Can I interest you in a little slice, perhaps…?
© 1969 DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Human Torch #2-5A

New Expanded Review

By Carl Burgos, Bill Everett & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1624-9

Marvel Comics took quite some time before producing expensive hardbound volumes reprinting their earliest comic adventures and this collection of the first four solo outings for one of Timely/Marvel’s Holy Trinity, despite re-resenting some of the most well-regarded and revered adventures of the Golden Age, provides a few solid and somewhat expensive possible reasons why.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh and hyper-critical: I must admit that there was a lot of material here that I have been waiting most of my life to read. I am however a complete comic nut with broad taste and mutable standards. There are shameful horrors and truly pitiful examples of the medium lurking in my dusty comics boxes. I am not a new, casual or particularly discriminating punter.

Hi – my name’s Win and I’m an old comics collector …

During the early Golden Age, novel ideas and sheer exuberance could take you far, and as the alternative means of entertainment escapism for most kids were severely limited, it just wasn’t that hard to make a go of it as a comic book publisher. Combine that with a creative work-force which kept being drafted, and it’s clear to see why declining standards of story and art didn’t greatly affect month-to-month sales during World War II, but promptly started a cascade-decline in super-hero strips almost as soon as GI boots hit US soil again.

In 1940 the comicbook industry was in a frantic expansion mode and every publisher was trying to make and own the Next Big Thing. The Goodman pulp fiction outfit leapt into the new industry and scored big with anthology Marvel Comics in late 1939 (which became Marvel Mystery with the second issue), with both the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner finding huge favour with the burgeoning, fickle readership. Two out of seven was pretty good: Action and Detective Comics only had the one super-star apiece…

An editorial policy of rapid expansion was in play: release a new book filled with whatever the art and script monkeys of the comics “shop” (freelance creative types who packaged material on spec for publishing houses: Martin Goodman bought all his product from Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies Inc.) dreamed up, keep the popular hits and disregard everything else.

In quick succession Daring Mystery Comics #1 (January. 1940) and Mystic Comics #1 (March 1940), followed with limited success and a rapid turnover of concepts and features. Timely Comics – or occasionally Red Circle – as the company then called itself, had a huge turnover of characters who only made one or two appearances before vanishing, never to be seen again until variously modern revivals or recreations produced new improved versions of heroes like the Black Widow, Thin Man, original Angel, Citizen V or Red Raven.

That last one is especially relevant. Although fresh characters were plentiful, physical resources were not and when the company’s fourth title Red Raven #1 was released with an August 1940 cover-date it failed to ignite any substantial attention with either title character or B-features Comet Pierce, Mercury, Human Top, Eternal Brain and Magar the Mystic, despite being crammed with the stunning early work of young Jack Kirby.

The entire magazine was killed and its publishing slot and numbering handed over to a proven seller. Thus, Human Torch debuted with #2 (Fall 1940) – the first issue to solo star the flammable android hero, and introduced his own fiery side-kick.

Just so’s you know; the next two releases fared a little better: Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) and at long last, a solo book for Sub-Mariner (Fall 1941)…

Although the material in this collection is of variable quality and probably not to the tastes of modern fans; for devotees of super-heroes, aficionados of historical works and true Marvel Zombies there’s still lots to offer here…

After a knowledgeable and informative introduction by Roy Thomas, the hot-dogging begins with ‘Introducing Toro – the Flaming Torch Kid’ by Carl Burgos as the blazing star discovered a circus boy who possessed all his own incendiary abilities before fighting a criminal strongman with a ray-gun. The misnamed elder Torch was actually a miraculous android and not at all human but here he found a plucky, excitable teen assistant who would become his faithful comrade for the remainder of his career…

This was followed by Bill Everett’s ‘Sub-Mariner Crashes New York Again!!!’ as the sub-sea Prince once more attacked America, after which ‘Carl Burgos’ Hot Idea’ and ‘Bill Everett’s Hurricane’ were text features supposedly detailing how the respective creators came up with their tempestuous brain-children

The remaining stories are pretty pedestrian. ‘The Falcon’ by Paul Reinman features a young District Attorney who corrected legal shortcomings and miscarriages of justice as a masked vigilante, ‘Microman’ (Harold Delay & Paul Quinn) stars a young boy exploring his own garden at insect size and Mandrake knock-off ‘Mantor the Magician’ by Al Gabriele saw a fez-topped modern wizard battle crooks posing as ghosts.

Joe Simon’s Fiery Mask debuted in Daring Mystery #1 and ended his career here with ‘The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses’ as the multi-powered physician hunted a remorseless mad doctor terrorising the city…

Issue #3 is actually pretty impressive, with an ambitious and spectacular untitled 40-page Torch epic which saw Toro seduced by Nazism, before seeing the patriotic light and burning off Hitler’s moustache, whilst the text piece ‘Hot and Wet’ had the two elemental stars debate whose creator was best before a 20-page Sub-Mariner crossover (anticipating Marvel’s successful policy of the 1960s onward) found Namor and the Torch teaming up to trash Nazi vessels destroying Allied convoys, before scuttling a full invasion together.

By Human Torch #4 much of the work is obviously being ghosted to a greater or lesser degree. The Torch takes way too long solving the ever-so-simple ‘Mystery of the Disappearing Criminals’, after which Ray Gill introduced star-spangled hero The Patriot in a 2-page text piece.

At least Everett was still very much in evidence and on top form when the Sub-Mariner took ten beautiful pages to save an Alaskan village from plague, blizzards, an onrushing glacier and incendiary bombs in a genuine forgotten classic before lacklustre Captain America knock-off The Patriot shambled through a proper comic-strip tale of Bundist (that’s German/American Nazi sympathizers to you, kid) saboteurs to close the issue.

That line-up continued in the last issue reprinted here (Human Torch #5A, Summer 1941 and the “A” is because the series did a little lock-step and caught up with itself: the next issue would also be a #5). The fiery star and his Flaming Kid clashed with a mad scientist named Doc Smart in ‘The March of Death’, then joined forces again with Namor in a Stan Lee scripted prose vignette entitled ‘The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner Battle the Nazi Super Shell of Death!’

Sub-Mariner and guest-star the Angel followed, fighting Nazi zombies in ‘Blitzkrieg of the Living Dead’ (attributed to Bill Everett, but clearly overwhelmed by lesser hands in the inking and perhaps even pencilling stages) and The Patriot wraps thing up in a bold and experimental job by future art great Sid Greene wherein the Red, White and Blue Home-front Hero tracked down a Nazi who killed by playing the violin…

I’m happy to have this book, warts and all, but I can understand why anyone other than a life-long Marvel fan would baulk at the steep price-tag in these days of austerity, with a wealth of better-quality and more highly regarded Golden Age material available. Still, value is one thing and worth another, so in the end it’s up to you…
© 1940, 1941, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.