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Heroes for Hire: Ahead of the Curve


By Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, Zeb Wells, Al Rio, Clay Mann, Scott Koblish, Tom Palmer & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN 978-1-7851-2363-6

After a TV reality show starring actual superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders. The Federal government quickly mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community, and an indignant, terrified general populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders refused to surrender their autonomy – and in many cases, anonymity – to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Super-Human Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented with “brother pitted against brother”. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right. At the heart of that savage battle of ideologies, bionic-armed detective Misty Knight and her ninja-trained partner Colleen Wing put together a squad of new and accomplished warriors to do some real good during the worst of times…

Knight and Wing – AKA the Daughters of the Dragon – are former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist, and initially revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refused to comply with the SHRA. However their new squad – reformed thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, Atlantean strongman Orka, bloodthirsty martial artist Tarantula and super-mercenary Paladin – soon all found themselves at odds with the tricky path they were following as their promised role (only apprehending villains) began to suffer increasing “mission creep”…

Moreover as they tracked their sanctioned targets, a deadly menace from the past was hunting them…

This collection, gathering issues #6-10 of the second Heroes for Hire comicbook series (from March-July 2007), saw the already tarnished team seek to survive financially hard times following a split with their S.H.I.E.L.D. paymasters – even if it meant not being too picky about their clients…

Most innocuous of these was little genius Billy who offered the entire contents of his piggybank if the Heroes would help him recover his robot friend Vic from super-villains who had stolen him…

Almost simultaneously a more lucrative case materialised when shady Diamond District enforcer Louis Kravits came looking for metahuman help and forced Misty to split the squad in ‘Guns, Gems, Robots and Terrorists!’

Most of the team would concentrate on a gang of power-armoured gem-thieves and their hidden high-tech supplier, whilst a less-than-thrilled Humbug would render whatever assistance deemed necessary to reunite Billy with his ambulatory toy.

It would prove to be a truly disastrous misallocation of resources…

As Misty’s squad hunts for the exultant and overconfident thieves and their loot, Humbug learns just why little kids are such a trial; convinced he’s on a wild goose chase until his billions of arthropod eyes scattered throughout the city lead them to a certain sewer where the ludicrously lethal Headmen are hidden. They have just finished reprogramming Vic, a damaged and discarded killer Doombot…

The Headmen were initially a trio of thematically linked scientists and savants, all “stars” of Marvel’s pre-superhero fantasy anthologies, grouped together by the late, great Steve Gerber in The Defenders. With the inclusion of the weirdly salacious Ruby Thursday, compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan (whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test-subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him), body hopping, quadriplegic mystic Chondu and near-as-dammit boneless scientist Jerry Morgan, they became a macabre cadre of skull-stealing mercenary maniacs who seemed to perpetrate wickedness just because they could…

As the bulk of Heroes for Hire thrash the tooled-up robbers and subsequently track their exo-suits to a ship in Brooklyn, the seriously overmatched Humbug is captured and subjected to Nagan’s latest surgical atrocity…

Aboard ship Misty’s group is ambushed by their prey – revealed as old Avengers foes Grim Reaper and Man-Ape, augmented by a female terrorist named Saboteur – and awaken to find themselves trapped with a downward-counting nuke…

Zeb Wells replaced Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti as scripter with issue #8 as, never daunted, the Heroes save New York and get rid of the bomb, but, whilst following a paper-trail to their enemies, receive a bizarre cry for help from Humbug’s insect minions. Dividing the H4H stalwarts, Misty sends Shang-Chi, Orka and business manager Otis after the missing bug-wrangler whilst she leads the women on a “Girls’ Night Out” to crush the Reaper and his “Death-Cadre”…

Tragically one of the boys just cannot take the Headmen and their shabby robot seriously and pays a fatal price, driving the Master of Kung Fu to a shameful lack of restraint and uncanny depths of violence as he avenges his fallen comrade and the cruel damage done to Humbug…

Worst of all neither gig actually results in a payoff, a fact disgraced former member Paladin exploits when he shows up with well-paying, uncomplicated “clean” case…

Nobody has seen the mercenary since he betrayed them all and tried to sell their friend Captain America to the Government (for refusing to comply with the Super-Human Registration Act in Heroes for Hire: Civil War) but now the glib gladiator has an offer they simply can’t refuse: capturing a proto hominid specimen from the primeval Savage Land and delivering him safely to scientists desperate to examine his uniquely untainted genes.

The boffins are offering each member of the snatch squad a million dollars…

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s science division are frantic to get their hands on the diminutive Homo Habilis but he is best-buddies pals with a fiercely protective crimson Tyrannosaur – which old-time fans will recognise as Jack Kirby’s outrageously cool adventure heroes Devil Dinosaur and sidekick Moonboy…

Outvoted, the still furious Misty can only go along with her team as they head to Antarctica and an antediluvian nightmare (with Al Rio surrendering the pencilling chores to Clay Mann for #9-10)…

The Savage Land is a fantastic repository of creatures from Earth’s most distant epochs, and even as his team-mates are attacked by beasts – and beast-men – Humbug is taken by insects long-vanished from the rest of the world, leaving his friends to believe him dead and eaten…

Completely out of their depth, the Heroes soon accomplish their distasteful mission but find themselves in deadly danger from the flora and fauna of the perilous paradise until Humbug reappears to save them.

He is completely changed: no longer the whiny clown they knew. Powerful, confident and slightly frightening, he informs them that they must all return to New York immediately to fight a threat to the entire planet, However the team have no idea what the ancient insect masters of Earth have transformed their oafish ally into…

This bombastic book also includes a cover gallery by Billy Tucci, Mark Sparacio & Mike Golden to cap a splendidly gritty, witty, funny, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed, menu of menace and manic adventure to delight all older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse (Prelude to Darkest Night)


By Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Rebecca Buchman, Christian Alamy, Prentis Rollins & Tom Nguyen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2529-2

The Green Lantern Corps has protected the cosmos from evil and disaster for uncounted millennia, policing vast numbers of sentient beings under the severe but benevolent auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves Guardians of the Universe.

These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races to evolve and dwelt in sublime, emotionless security and tranquillity on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

Green Lanterns are chosen for their capacity to overcome fear and are equipped and armed with a ring that creates constructs out of emerald light. This miracle weapon is fuelled by the strength of their willpower, making it one of the mightiest tools in the universe.

For millennia, a single individual from each of the 3600 sectors of known space was selected to patrol his, her or its own beat, but in recent years the Guardians have frequently changed their own rules and laws. Now two GLs are assigned to work in each stellar division.

The Guardians’ motives have also increasingly come into question by many of their once-devoted operatives and peacekeepers, who have frequently seen the formerly infallible little blue gods exposed as venal, ruthless, doctrinaire and even capricious…

In the aftermath of the Sinestro Corps War, the universe was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and that an entire emotional spectrum of puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality – and could thus be appropriated and exploited.

Soon each colour was being wielded by a power faction such as Atrocitus‘ anger-charged Red Lanterns, Zamaron‘s love-manipulating Violet-powered Star Sapphires or the enigmatic Agent Orange. The Guardians themselves were clearly off-balance, constantly changing the adamantine Laws in their precious Book of Oa and obviously terrified that some ancient prophecy was coming to fruition despite all their coldly calculated efforts…

This volume (collecting Green Lantern Corps #33-39 from 2009) is billed as a “Prelude to Blackest Night” and if you’re particularly wedded to strict running order and overarching continuity there are other books you should read such as the aforementioned Sinestro War volumes (all three of them), Rage of the Red Lanterns, Green Lantern: Secret Origin and Green Lantern: Agent Orange at the very least. Heck, read them all – if you’ve come this far you’re clearly already intrigued by the sheer immensity and scope of it all…

The space opera/cop procedural opens here as two of the wearily battered but triumphant interstellar peacekeepers enjoy some downtime by painting a mural in their still-not-open “cop-bar” on Oa.

“Honor Guard” Earth Lanterns Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner are debating the Guardian’s latest emotion-crunching edict banning relationships between serving officers and how many of their fellows it will affect. Soon their paint party is augmented by dozens of others officers keen to contribute and chat; all blithely unaware that one of their venerated masters has been suborned to The Black and actively works to destroy them and all they cherish…

Meanwhile, on the violently xenophobic planet Daxam, the remnants of Sinestro’s Corps, now led by the sadistic superman Mongul II, is committing genocide for entertainment as the despot consolidates his leadership and plans to take his growing army of yellow fear-worshippers on a new crusade of terror and destruction.

On Oa resignations are up as many veterans choose love over duty and quit the Corps. Rayner has a personal stake in the new Law too: enjoying a clandestine – and now forbidden – relationship with fellow lantern Soranik Natu of Korugar. Even as the lovers discuss their insurmountable problem, in the distant depths of space GL Saarek meets a passion-powered Star Sapphire as he uses his unique ability on a fragment of the carcass of the once terrible multiversal menace The Anti-Monitor…

The dead speak to Saarek and his conversation with the Zamaron Miri is painful and portentous for both of them and the entire cosmos…

On Daxam the wanton bloodshed is temporarily halted when the monstrous Arkillo challenges Mongul for leadership of the Yellow Lanterns. This distraction allows a desperate survivor to flee offworld and alert the Sector’s GL team: Arisia of Graxos IV and self-exiled Daxamite Sodam Yat.

The fugitive is his own mother, but Yat is fiercely disinclined to help. As a star-gazing youth he yearned to visit other worlds but his family, like all Daxamites, brutally discouraged his dreams. When the boy actually encountered a shipwrecked alien his parents had the poor creature stuffed and mounted as a warning…

Once Yat finally escaped his fundamentalist, bigoted, supremacist world he swore never to return. It takes all Arisia’s efforts to convince him otherwise.

As Natu leaves Oa for Korugar, deep in the Guardians’ Citadel, the hundreds of horrors isolated in impenetrable Sciencells become agitated when Gardner, Salaak and Kilowog try to slam the door on newest inmate Vice.

The raging Red Lantern is barely locked in when Warden GL Voz is attacked. Deep in the bowels of Oa, the renegade Black Guardian had deactivated the Sciencells and soon a complete riot ensues, exacerbated when the captured yellow rings of Sinestro’s adherents are reactivated and returned to the rampaging prisoners…

With carnage erupting and deaths mounting, all GLs on Oa are dispatched to the penitentiary, whilst on Daxam Yat and Arisia have linked up with a band of surviving Daxamites and begun training them to fight back against the blood-crazed invaders.

A darker confrontation occurs on Korugar as Natu is ambushed by escaped megalomaniac Sinestro who reveals a shattering secret about her comfortable happy childhood…

The riot on Oa finally subsides – after spectacular damage and catastrophic losses – with the Greens victorious even as, on Daxam, Yat loses a ferocious battle against Mongul but ultimately wins the war by making the most impossible of sacrifices…

And on Oa the once unshakable Guardians irretrievably shatter their already tarnished reputations by ordering the elite Alpha-Lanterns to summarily and secretly execute all the recaptured prisoners, prompting even their most devoted servants to lose hope and faith…

Now The Blackest Night begins and the universe itself will pay for the Guardians’ arrogance and duplicity……

Also featuring a beautiful and stirring gallery of covers and variants from Gleason, Buchman, Rodolfo Migliari and Glenn Fabry, this spectacular collection of plot threads and opening gambits combines all the spectacle, cosmic derring-do, tense suspense and blazing action fans adore, but even this “jumping on” epic is not really a beginning and far, far from a neat and tidy end.

Although this bombastic yarn is highly continuity-dependent, determined newcomers should still be able to extract a vast amount of histrionic enjoyment out of the explosive, compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of action… and you could always find those other volumes and get fully in the picture…
© 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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The Best of Neat Stuff


By Peter Bagge (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 0-930193-53-9

Having had such a great time reading Other Stuff the other day I’ve decided to finally spotlight an old and cruelly out of print tome from 1987 that I’ve been meaning to rave about for simply ages: one packed with the superb but far too seldom seen formative appearances of such landmarks of pop culture as Buddy Bradley, Junior and Studs Kirby…

Peter Bagge is prominent these days as a fiery, laser-mouthed, superbly acerbic and well-established, award-winning cartoonist, animator and musician, responsible for incredibly addictive, sharply satirical strips examining contemporary American life, but once upon a time he was just another strident, gifted jobbing cartoonist trying to make a living.

Born in Peekskill, Westchester County, New York on 11th December 1957, he was one of four kids in a ferociously Catholic military family. Like esteemed colleague Robert Crumb a generation earlier, Bagge escaped that emotionally toxic, fight-filled environment as soon as possible, moving to New York City in the mid-1970s to study at the celebrated School of Visual Arts.

He soon dropped out, however, and began working in the vibrant alternative publishing field, producing strips and panels for Punk Magazine, Screw, High Times, East Village Eye (where the first Junior strip debuted), World War Three and others.

Meeting like-minded artists he began self and co-publishing comics and when Crumb saw copies of Comical Funnies – produced with new friend John Holstrom – Bagge was offered space in and eventually the Editorship of the seminal magazine Weirdo in 1983.

He augmented his 3-year tenure there with various paying gigs at Screw, Swank, Video X, Video Games Magazine, The Rocket, Bad News and elsewhere.

In 1984 Bagge relocated to Seattle, Washington State and began his association with alternative/Independent publisher Fantagraphics. The following year his spectacularly idiosyncratic cartoon magazine Neat Stuff launched as a thrice-yearly vehicle of outrageous personal expression and societal observation. His stark, manic, topically surreal strips starring old creations like Studs Kirby, Junior, Buddy Bradleys and Girly Girl soon made him a darling of the emerging West Coast Grunge scene.

Neat Stuff – and its eventual successor Hate – quickly made Bagge a household name… at least in more progressive households…

Neat Stuff ran from 1985-1989 and was a perfect pioneering vehicle for the burgeoning graphic novel market. This early compilation came half-way through the run, dazzled for a little while and then disappeared. Even though much of the anthologised material has since been reprinted in solo editions dedicated to specific members of the eclectic cast, I for one would dearly love to see the series revived, revised and released in some sort of definitive edition…

This glorious monochrome, album-sized compendium of seldom-seen strips is stuffed with deliciously fluid drawings and razor-edged, broadly baroque comedically absurdist observations with incisive, deeply intimate questioning quandaries and observations on living. Don’t panic though: it’s much more fun than it sounds, and the constant confrontations with a changing world everybody was – and still is – increasingly out of step with make for terrifically mature reading fun…

Following Robert Crumb’s informative Introduction ‘Peter Bagge – The R. Crumb of the Eighties’, the crazed cartography begins with a selection of Studs Kirby strips starting with ‘A Few Words from Studs Kirby’, after which philosophical diatribe the quintessential Reagan-Era Oaf establishes his credentials in ‘Studs Kirby Gets Drunk by Himself’ before being sucked whole into a changing consumer society when ‘Studs Kirby Gets Cable TV’…

Girly Girl may be the little lass next door, but that’s simply one more reason to move house. The hyper-active, impulse-control challenged tyke debuted in appalling style with pals Chuckie Boy and the Goon on the Moon in ‘Uh Oh, Here Comes Girly Girl’, before springing back undaunted to take on the rise in civilian journalism (or is it just spying on people) in ‘Candid-Camera-Star-Search-Solid-Gold-This-Is-Your-Life-Lip-Sync-Contest-In-Reverse’ and then proved once and for all just why she will never be ‘Little Miss Popularity’…

Bagge’s greatest hit was always the horrifically dysfunctional traditional values family The Bradleys and these painfully hilarious early forays prove why as ‘Ye Gads, It’s The Bradleys!’ introduces drunken ogre Dad, shrewish Mom and their ghastly progeny Buddy, Babs and Butch who quickly show their true worth as ‘Mother’s Little Helpers’…

Buddy and his shiftless pal Tom take centre stage in ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Refuge’ when the worthless firstborn goes looking for old LPs at a second-hand record shop, before little Butch passes on the cruel life-coping skills he leaned from his big brother in ‘The Trickle Down Theory’

There then follows a joyously eccentric interlude as we happily focus on sheer exuberant graphic madness with a page of nine ‘Neat Stuff Trading Cards’.

Sheltered Momma’s boy Junior finally leaves the happy maternal nest – although hardly from choice – to find shelter in a far-from-innocuous boarding house in ‘The Cabbage’, where he swiftly packs in a lot of insalubrious second-hand living whilst under the scurvy wing of landlord Mr. Frank.

However ‘The Road to Manhood’ is perilous and soon Junior is going backwards not forward…

Chet and Bunny Leeway debuted in Bad News and eventually became the family stars of Adobe’s Website (see Other Stuff for details), but in the first two untitled strips here those ordinary suburbanites merely discuss domestic matters in their usual manner (kids; never, never, never try this at home – yours or anybody else’s) and assess each other’s musical gifts before Chet discovers the allure of Malls in ‘Life’s A Bitch And Then You Die’.

There’s also a selection of Miscellaneous strips included here beginning with the darkly obsessive ‘Sometimes I Feel Like I’m Going Crazy’, after which ‘Bang the Head that Does Not Bang’ discloses the truth about dads and the teens they ferry to rock concerts, and ‘Minimum Wage Love’ offers insights into mating rituals and first jobs.

It isn’t pretty and the Bitter to Sweet ratio is heavily disproportionate…

There’s more magnificently liberating graphic license on show in ‘Wheeeeee! Whoaa! Woops!!’ whilst dark meta-real revelations abound in the too-true-to-be-factual story of school pressure in ‘The Reject’ – a strip first seen in Weirdo…

Also on show: a fulsome and fascinating background feature – complete with early illustrations – in Origins – an Explanation of the Characters in Neat Stuff, as well as a peachy keen sketch and Bagge Biography to slavishly enjoy in the concluding About the Author featurette…

Bagge has always been about skewering stupidity, spotlighting pomposity and generally exposing the day-to-day aggravations and institutionalized insanities of modern life, and these strips offer a beguiling peek into his formative process: a treat no cartoon-loving shibboleth-tipping rebel should miss…
© 1987 Peter Bagge. Introduction © 1987 R. Crumb. All rights reserved.

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Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff


By Peter Bagge with R. Crumb, Alan Moore, Adrian Tomine, Dan Clowes, Johnny Ryan, Danny Hellman, Gilbert & Jaime Hernadez, Joanne Bagge & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-622-5

You probably know Peter Bagge as the fiery, wise-mouthed, superbly acerbic cartoonist responsible for incredibly addictive, sharply satirical strips about American life that featured in such wonderful magazines as Neat Stuff and Hate, his superbly strident Buddy Bradley stories or even his forays into the more-or-less comics mainstream with such works as DC’s Yeah!

But the graphic ridiculist also has a commercial impetus, whimsical nature, politically active side (as cartoonist and societal commentator for the Libertarian publication Reason) and a secret life outside comics.

Thus this glorious compendium of seldom-seen strips from a variety of publications has been compiled by Fantagraphics, in a (mostly) full-colour softcover collection stuffed with deliciously fluid drawings and razor-sharp polemic, broadly comedic or surreal observations and, as ever, sharply incisive, highly rational and deeply intimate questioning quandaries and observations.

Bagge’s oeuvre is skewering stupidity, spotlighting pomposity and generally exposing the day-to-day aggravations and institutionalized insanities of modern urban life and these strips, from such diverse sources as his own Hate Annuals, Hate Jamboree, Weirdo, El Rios, newspapers such as The Stranger and LA Times as well as publications like Magnet Magazine, Spin, Razor, Discover, Details, Toro, Vice and software company Adobe’s website from the 1980s to the present, offer a fascinating insight into his world, working as they do under the constraints of a client’s prerequisites…

They’re still all outrageously hilarious and powerfully effective though, even when filtered through the lens of cartoon collaborators such as the sparkling pantheon featured here…

Following an extensive, detail-packed explanatory Introduction, the madness begins to unfold in a section collecting all the adventures of classy, racily moderne young broad Lovey (first seen in Hate Annual #1, 2, 4 and 5 and The Stranger from 2000-2004) beginning with ‘Gender-Bending Hyjinx’ progressing to the gloriously distasteful ‘The Gaggle and the Gimp!’ before revealing ‘The Real André’ and indulging in ‘A Party to Forget’…

The music scene gets a wry shellacking in Rock ‘n’ Roll – covering material from 1995-2012 – which opens with a string of ‘Musical Urban Legends Presents’ single-pagers from Magnet including ‘Gnomes are Real’, ‘A Winning Formula’, ‘Dinner with Brian (Part One)’, ‘The Stuff of Genius’, ‘What Price Love?’, ‘Dinner with Brian (Wilson, that is) Part 2’, ‘Little Richard in “Ménage a Whah?!”’, ‘Kiss my Baby’ and ‘Start Spreadin’ the News’ whilst ‘Man with a Vision’ lampoons youthful ambition in a smart strip which originally debuted in Spin.

The chapter then closes with a trio of Beach Boys-themed bad vibrations as ‘Murry Wilson: Rock ‘n’ Roll Dad’ appals in ‘Turn Back the Hands of Time’ (co-created with Dana Gould), meets Charles Manson in ‘Helter Skelter, My Ass’ and treats his son ‘The Meal Ticket’ just as you always suspected he did…

The promised Collaborations cover the period 1996-2002 and mostly come from Hate, finding Bagge working in various roles such as scripter of ‘Me’ illustrated by Gilbert Hernandez, and illustrator of ‘Go Ask Alice’, written by Alice Cooper and appearing in Spin.

‘Shamrock Squid: Autobiographical Cartoonist!’ was drawn by Adrian Tomine, ‘The Hasty Smear of my Smile…’ exposing the sordid life of the Kool-Aid Man was written by Alan Moore & inked by Eric Reynolds, whilst ‘Life in these United States’ was rendered by Daniel Clowes and debuted in Weirdo.

Iconoclastic Johnny Ryan drew ‘Dildobert Joins the Al-Qaeda’, the autobiographical delight ‘What’s in a Name?‘ was illustrated by Danny Hellman, sordid strip spoof ‘Caffy’ was drawn by R. Crumb, ‘Shamrock Squid in Up the Irish!’ was inked by Eric Reynolds and the hilarious ‘The Action Suits Story’ was illustrated by Jaime Hernandez.

There are a number of strips throughout the volume gleefully dissing long-time inker and collaborator Jim Blanchard in such cruel and revelatory epics as ‘Backyard Funnies’ written & pencilled by Reynolds, ‘Don’t Knock It If You Haven’t Tried It’ (written & drawn by Pat Moriarty), ‘Bleachy Blanchard’ written & drawn by Kevin Scalzo, and ‘Harassed Citizen’ written & drawn by Rick Altergott. There’s also the scathing solo effort ‘That Darn Blanchard’ in the introduction pages too…

“True” Facts covers educational (sort of) features such as biographies of scientists from Discover Magazine in 2009. These highlight Robert Brown in ‘I’ll Second That Motion’, Wallace “Gloomy Gus” Carothers in ‘It’s a Wonderful Legacy’, reveal what ‘Mendeleyev Predicts!’, heralds Joseph Priestly as ‘Phlogiston’s Last Champion!’, details Major Walter Reed’s ghastly experiments in ‘Yellow Fever Fever!’ and celebrates ancient Moslem savant Taqi al-Din in ‘Oh, What a Spin I’m In!’

From 1998 ‘So Much Comedy, So Little Time’ (from Details) exposes the festival circuit whilst the autobiographical ‘East Coast, West Coast, Blah, Blah, Blah…’ came from Road Strips in 2005 and ‘Partying with the “Dickster”‘ revealed a truth about Vice President Cheney in a 2007 strip from the LA Times… as did radio expose ‘At the End of the Day…’

‘Stuff I Know about Belgium, by Some Dumb American’, which originated in El Rios in 2010, the savagely self-excoriating ‘What Was Wrong With Us?’ from 2002, the incisive ‘Game Day with the Quarterback’s Wife’ (Toro, 2004) and ‘The Expert’ (Vice, 2006) all explore humanity’s foible-besmirched mundanity, and this collection more or less concludes with a series originally shown as entertainment content on Adobe’s homepage in 2000 before being reprinted in Hate Annual #6.

Restored and re-coloured by Bagge’s most consistent collaborator – his wife Joanne –

The Shut-Ins follows the slow seduction and fall of computer illiterates Chet and Bunny in ‘Meet the Shut-Ins’, ‘Meet Santiago’, ‘Pretty Flowers’, ‘Make the World Go Away’, ‘The Great Indoors’, ‘Withdrawal Symptoms’, ‘Life Among the Earthlings’, ‘A Short-Lived Recovery’, ‘Our Babies’, ‘Irrigation Blues’, ‘The Funeral’, ‘No Good for the ‘Hood”, ‘The Meg Ryan Factor’, ‘Oh, What a Night!’, ‘Taking Stock’, ‘Slowly He Turned’, ‘Rich, Rich, Rich!’, ‘Dot Com Casualties’ and ‘Can I Interest You in Some Fairy Dust?’

Even after all that the cartoon craziness goes on as the designers squeeze in two more lost classics –‘Crazy Exes’ from Spanish GQ in 2000 and, on the back cover, ‘Good Ol’ Posterity’ from Artforum…

Challenging, hilarious, wonderfully shocking and always thought-provoking, Other Stuff in another superbly engaging and entertaining book from a brilliantly inspired social commentator and inquisitor; impassioned, deeply involved and never afraid to admit when he’s confused, angry or just plain wrong. This wonderful use of heart, smarts and ink is one more reason why cartooning is the most potent mode of expression we possess.
© 2013 Peter Bagge, except as noted on the strips themselves. All rights reserved.

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Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge


By Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Dan Panosian & Doug Hazlewood (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2334-2

During the first decade of the 21st century DC and Marvel were obsessed with vast company-wide crossover events presumably to boost – or maybe simply sustain – dwindling sales.

The company that had invented Big Bombastic Crisis stories seemingly went bonkers mid-decade and propagated one Extreme Extinction Event after another, all with attendant crossovers, specials and miniseries until they could only promise to end it all with one Final Crisis.

We didn’t believe them of course, but there were some great stories amidst the constant proliferating armada of monthly Armageddons…

The concept of speedsters has been intrinsic to all of DC’s superhero comics since the revival of the Flash jumpstarted the Silver Age and created a whole new style of storytelling.

There had been earlier cyclonic champions such as Jay Garrick, who debuted as the very first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) and as “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most of his ilk in 1951.

The entire mystery man genre was subsequently revived (and exponentially expanded to overarching prominence) in 1956 when Julie Schwartz oversaw the creation of police scientist Barry Allen who became the second hero to run with the concept in Showcase #4.

The Silver Age Flash, whose example ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (which rationalised and standardised the entire continuity in 1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash.

Of course Allen later returned from the dead – but doesn’t everyone?

Kid Flash Wally West struggled at first to fill the boots of his predecessor, but persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to own the name. After many amazing adventures he married his beloved Linda Park, but just as happiness seemed certain they both disappeared in the reality-bending chaos of the Infinite Crisis…

In the slow build up to Final Crisis and by way of all those other “end-of-everything” multi-part mega-sagas, Bart Allen had finally acceded to the crimson mantle. Introduced as the impetuous unruly Impulse, Barry Allen’s grandson had come hot-footed from the 30th century to join the pantheon, and had matured through a career as the second Kid Flash to finally become the third hero to wear the family costume.

Keep up: he’s technically the fourth Flash since Garrick was the first speedster to use the name, albeit in a different outfit and originally on a completely different Earth.

However, as Bart was quickly adapting to his new role in Los Angeles, studying to be a cop and forensic scientist like his grandpa with a procession of old Rogues and new villains complicating matters, he was utterly unaware that his evil clone Inertia (no, seriously) was assembling an army of his predecessors’ enemies for an all-out attack.

They succeeded too well. Although the Rogues were looking for glory and payback, they had no idea they were being manipulated by the pre-meditating Inertia into actually murdering the kid.

After the brief death of Bart Allen (he too was soon resurrected) Wally and Linda returned in a spectacular blaze of glory accompanied by their two children, somehow grown into teens over the course of a few months and already heroes in waiting…

And that’s just that’s background to this collection featuring the staggering finale to a years-long saga as much about the unique band of villains associated with the Twin Cities as the ever-imperilled Fastest Men Alive…

Published as a supplemental sidebar to the Big Show of 2008, Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge was a 3-part miniseries by old allies Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins which followed the paths of Rogues Gallery veterans Captain Cold, Heat Wave and Weather Wizard plus relative newcomer the second Mirror Master as they came to terms with the repercussions of their infamous, if involuntary, act of murder.

To fill out the admittedly brief page count this collection also includes the contents of The Flash volume 2, issues #182 and #197 from 2002 and 2003: two key, Rogue-heavy episodes which provided chilling insight into the minds of the utterly compelling bad guys…

It all begins with the fugitive villains returning to their Central City hideout only to find the place infested with petty thugs led by Axel Walker, the new upstart Trickster. It’s a whole new world now. Many of their former comrades – as well as much of the Underworld’s super-powered elite – have signed up to the cause of overarching new villain Libra: a man you just don’t say no to.

A relative newcomer, Libra has compelled such heavies as Lex Luthor and Gorilla Grodd to join his monumental league of villains and espouses the adoption of a religion of Evil. He has already killed the Martian Manhunter and expects the Rogues to sign up to his cause.

Never one to be pushed, Captain Cold did say no and now he and his trusted comrades are hunted by heroes and villains alike.

Routing Walker’s thugs, the fugitives grudgingly accept the new Trickster into their ranks, but can’t stomach the kid’s crowing over Flash’s murder.

Cold has no scruples over killing but he has never committed homicide for fun. If it isn’t for profit or vengeance or to make a point, it isn’t worth the trouble and for people like the Rogues there’s always an alternative.

Moreover, Cold really resents the attention and grief Inertia has brought down on them all by slaying a speedster but most of all, he really, really, really hates being a vicious little thug’s patsy…

With everybody hunting them Cold and his companions are looking for a way to bring things back to “normal”, but are unaware that they are also being targeted by reformed Rogue Pied Piper who has his own warped reasons to confront them…

When Cold again refuses Libra’s demand to join or die, it is the final straw for the Prophet of Evil, who is the covert herald of an invasion by forces far beyond human ken.  Libra decides to remove the obstinate obstacles and make a very public point…

Meanwhile, Wally West has beaten and horrifically incarcerated Bart’s killer, but Inertia has been subsequently released by the ultimate enemy of all Speedsters. Hunter Zolomon was an FBI profiler who went mad and, patterning himself on old Rogue Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash, determined to make heroes “better” by torturing them with savage personal tragedy and heartbreak.

Now his latest scheme involves converting the psychotic Inertia into his own protégé, Kid Zoom…

The hard-pressed Rogues also have Inertia in mind, and Captain Cold decides the best way to make things right again is to execute the kid who is the root cause of all their current problems…

Libra quickly moves to the head of his “to-do” list, though, when the Herald of Apokolips makes an example of Paul Gambi, the tailor and armourer who has armed and equipped the Rogues throughout their criminal careers. Libra has the old man tortured by cheap imitations of the Rogues, intending them to become their replacements in his League of Evil, but the upstarts are no match for the real thing who also know a thing or two about sending a murderous message…

As Zoom continues his awful education of Kid Zoom, Libra makes more mistakes by targeting Cold’s despised father and abducting the Weather Wizard’s son, precipitating a crisis of faith with devastating repercussions for the planet and all reality…

All paths coincide when another dead Flash returns, and the Rogues score their greatest triumph whilst making one more hugely selfish misjudgement which will only become apparent in the traumatic days to come…

This turbulent tome then concludes with a brace of insightful character histories. ‘Absolute Zero’ (inked by Dan Panosian) revealed the traumatic story of career criminal Len Snart and the outcome when, as Captain Cold, he avenged the murder of his sister Lisa, affording us all a look at the early life which made him such a cold-hearted killer (first seen in Flash #182), whilst Kolins & Hazlewood collaborated on #197’s ‘Rogue Profile: Zoom’ wherein Hunter Zolomon’s cruel fate was fully revealed.

Once the FBI’s hotshot star profiler, an innocent mistake unleashed horrific consequences for Hunter’s loved ones. Years later whilst seeking redemption, he compounded his personal tragedy and became the time-bending sociopath Zoom whose mission was to make his best friend Wally West a better hero through the white-hot crucible of personal tragedy…

Dark, gritty and spectacularly potent, this tale can simply be read as a satisfactory conclusion to the hyper-extended Rogue War saga in the Flash, rather than as an adjunct to the Final Crisis, but whatever your reasons for enjoying this powerful Fights ‘n’ Tights drama, this is a book no dyed-in-the-crimson-wool Flash-fan should miss.
© 2002, 2003, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns (Prelude to Blackest Night)


By Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Mike McKone, Shane Davis & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-4012-2302-1

Since the dawn of the Silver Age of Comics where and when The Flash kick-started it all to become the fast-beating heart of the revived genre of superheroes, his fellow jet-age retread Green Lantern has always provided the conceptual core framework for the comprehensive, pervasive magic of the monolithic DC Universe’s shared continuity.

Hal Jordan was a young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his Green Power-ring – a device fuelled by willpower which could materialise thoughts – to seek out a replacement ring-bearer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

Over the years Jordan became one of the greatest members of that serried band of law-enforcers, the Green Lantern Corps, which had protected the cosmos from evil for uncounted millennia under the auspices of immortal super-beings who dubbed themselves the Guardians of the Universe.

These undying patrons of Order were one of the first races in creation and currently dwell in sublime emotionless security on the world of Oa at the very centre of creation.

Even if you are a true Fights ‘n’ Tights epic aficionado, if all this is new to you then Rage of the Red Lanterns should absolutely not be your introduction to the series.

Go read (at least) Green Lantern: Secret Origin and preferably all the other collections of this monumental fixture in the comicbook firmament before attempting to decipher the compulsive, compelling, pell-mell onslaught of characters and concepts scripter Geoff Johns threw at the reader as his extended epic thoroughly reshaped that aforementioned DCU.

Still here? Okay then…

Following the bombastic, blockbusting Sinestro Corps War, all of creation was in turmoil at the revelation that Green was not the only colour and an entire emotional spectrum of unsuspected yet puissant energies underpinned and operated upon reality. In increasingly ambitious storylines, Johns began exploring the adherents and disciples of each hue and the forces transformed by or seeking to control them…a situation which would lead inexorably and inescapably into DC’s major crossover events Blackest Night and its sequel Brightest Day.

In themselves these twinned mega-sagas were the result of an increasingly all-encompassing series of comicbook crises which would dominate the company’s output for nearly three years…

This volume (collecting Green Lantern #26-28, 36-38 and the one-shot Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1) is billed as a “Prelude to Blackest Night” and its chronologically telescoped tales actually straddle the separately released Green Lantern: Secret Origins), so if you’re particularly wedded to strict running order that’s one more hurdle to your full enjoyment.

If you’ll permit an earnest aside: all this prevarication might seem like I’m trying to put readers off and don’t like the material I’m covering, but nothing could be further than the truth. When done right, these kinds of epic super-sagas are utterly mesmerising narrative intoxicants that no other medium of human expression can match, but very few of them can be enjoyed on purely ambient knowledge.

Almost anybody can come cold to Lord of the Rings, Gone With the Wind, Michener’s Centennial, Clavell’s Shogun or EE Smith’s Lensman books but still enjoy them with only the barest smattering of background and targeted exposition, whereas periodical comicbooks are more akin to long-running TV soaps like Coronation Street or Days of Our Lives, with neither time nor space to constantly reintroduce key characters, concepts and history, but still keenly dependent on specific knowledge to fully engage with the material.

I find it personally daunting and, after 30-plus years in the creative, educational and retail arenas of comics, know it is crucially off-putting for many potential newcomers and even old fans tempted to start reading their childhood favourites again. That’s just the way it is and why I’ll always go on about getting through this stuff in the most favourable order.

Here endeth the Sermon…

Written in entirety by Johns, the multi-hued madness here begins with a 3-part tale that originally appeared immediately after the conclusion of the Sinestro Corps War. ‘The Alpha Lanterns’, pencilled by Mike McKone with inks from Andy Lanning, Marlo Aquiza, Cam Smith, Mark Farmer & Norm Rapmund, detailed how cracks began to form in the solidarity of the Green Lantern Corps after the immortal, emotionally constricted Guardians began arbitrarily rewriting the ancient Laws in their biblical Book of Oa, such as no fraternisation between serving Lanterns and – crucially – revoking the Corps’ eons-old no deadly force mandate.

Moreover the little blue gods were clearly concealing important facts from their devoted peace-keeping force when they summarily created a harsh and draconian Internal Affairs division to police their police.

Worst of all, these new Alpha Lanterns had been surgically altered, becoming more slavish automaton than sentient sentinel…

Imprisoned in an Oan sciencell, rogue GL Sinestro of Korugar crowed over his ultimate victory. His army of monsters, armed with yellow rings fuelled by fear, had ravaged the universe and compelled the complacent, emotion-disdaining Guardians to panic and change their billion-year-old policies and edicts. He seemed utterly unmoved by the fact that his captors had retaliated by sentencing him to death…

The bubbling undercurrents of tense friction exploded when GL Laira took the new General Orders too far and executed a Yellow Lantern who had surrendered. She immediately fell under the remorseless jurisdiction of the Alphas, and her subsequent show trial and conviction further split the Corps. Galaxies away, the maimed Guardian dubbed “Scar” covertly seconded maverick GL Ash and dispatched him on a secret mission to recover the remains of universal nemesis the Anti-Monitor…

And on the devastated hell-world Ysmault – scene of the Guardians’ greatest shame – Atrocitus, one of only five survivors of his entire space sector, moved to create his own Corps of ring-bearers. These aggrieved agents would all be powered by the scarlet bile of red hot rage…

Battle lines were being drawn as the universe moved inexorably towards the fulfilment of an ancient dark prophecy.

Due to the Guardians’ ancient treaty with a deadly uncontrollable force wielding Orange light, the star-system of Vega had always been outside GL Corps’ jurisdiction, subsequently becoming an interstellar sinkhole and safe-haven for the very worst scum of universe.

Now, however, ancient racial offshoot The Controllers (a splinter group who split from the Guardians eons ago) entered the bewilderingly vast conflict, determined to appropriate the colour for their own arsenal, but tragically unaware of the horror they would unleash…

Convicted, stripped of rank and power but still unrepentant, furious Laira was being transported back to her home planet when a Red Lantern ring found her and completed her fall from grace…

‘Rage of the Red Lanterns Part 1’, illustrated by Shane Davis & Sandra Hope, then revealed the secrets of Atrocitus’ rise to power, expanded upon Ash’s quest for the husk of the Anti-Monitor and followed a doomed convoy of Green Lanterns tasked with transporting Sinestro to his place of execution on Korugar.

When they were ambushed by Red Lanterns determined to take the leader of the Yellow Lanterns to a far worse fate than death, all seemed lost until Hal Jordan was rescued by a benign saviour called Saint Walker who wore a ring of shining, cleansing Blue…

This wild spectacle continued in Green Lantern #36-38 with art from Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira, as Jordan became focus and crucible of the conflict, with both Red Rage and Blue Hope attempting to possess him, making him their agent in a rapidly unfolding War of Light and horrific Darkest Night which would soon endanger all life and creation…

First, however, the conflicted earthman had to face Atrocitus and rescue Sinestro so that the renegade could be properly executed by the rightful authorities of the universe, even as on Earth his ex-girlfriend Carol Ferris was again targeted by the Violet light of Love and one of the coldly pious Guardians slipped further into black madness…

To Be So Very Continued…

Also featuring a beautiful and stirring gallery of covers by McKone, Lanning, Davis & Hope, this spectacular collection of plot threads and opening gambits combines all the signature big-picture theatrics, cosmic derring-do, tense suspense, solid characterization and blistering action fans adore, but even this “jumping on” epic is not really a beginning and far, far from a neat and tidy end.

So brush up on DC/Green Lantern history before even contemplating this astounding and ambitious first course in a banquet of comics indulgence…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Mesmo Delivery


By Rafael Grampá with Marcus Penna, translated by Júlio Mairena (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-465-3

In an industry and art form that has become so very dependent on vast interlocking storylines, an encyclopaedic knowledge of a million other yarns and the tacit consent to sign up for another million episodes before reaching any kind of narrative payoff, the occasional short, sharp, intensely stand-alone tale is as welcome and vital as a cold beer in the noon-day desert.

Just such a salutary singleton was Mesmo Delivery, first solo English-language release of singularly gifted writer/artist Rafael Grampá who originally devised the macabre and gritty thriller in his native Brazil in 2008.

Picked up and translated by Dark Horse two years later, this stark and spookily effective grindhouse/trucker movie amalgam offers dark chills, gritty black humour and eerie, compulsive mystery in equal, intoxicating amounts. And it all starts, unfolds and ends here. No muss, no fuss, no busload of tie-ins.

Aging, raddled Elvis impersonator Sangrecco is a very odd deliveryman working for a rather unique haulage business. For a start he can’t drive, which is why hulking, gentle cash-starved ex-boxer Rufo has been temporarily hired by the boss to operate the truck on a run through very bleak bad country.

Rufo doesn’t ask questions. He just drives the big container rig with its mysterious, unspecified cargo that he’s not allowed to see to God knows where, listening to the obnoxious, pompous Sangrecco mouth off about his many, unappreciated talents.

Things take a bad turn when they break at the isolated Standart Truck Stop. The Elvis freak is too lazy to even fetch his own beer, and when Rufo takes care of business and grudgingly tries to pay, a sleazy pack of locals trick him into an impromptu street fight on a cash-bet.

The ploy is a set-up and when Rufo proves unexpectedly tough the prize-fight gets too serious and results in a fatality – possibly two…

Street-fighting head tough Forceps then convinces his “townie” cronies and the other onlookers that they need to get rid of all the witnesses.

…Which is when old Sangrecco reveals what his speciality is…

Stark, brutal, rollercoaster-paced and rendered with savage, exhilarating bravura, this thundering, down-and-dirty fable grips like a vice and hits like a juggernaut, providing the kind of excitement every jaded thriller fan dreams of.

Also included in this slim, scary and mesmerising tome is an effusive Introduction from Brian Azzarello, pin-ups by Mike Allred, Eduardo Risso, Craig Thompson and Fábio Moon and a stunning 16-page sketch, design and commentary section ‘Making of Mesmo Delivery’.

Since Mesmo Delivery, Grampá has gone on to shine with his deliciously eccentric Furry Water as well as on such established titles as Hellblazer, American Vampire, Strange Tales and Uncanny X-Force amongst others, but this superbly visceral, raw storm of sheer visual dexterity and narrative guile is an ideal example of pared back, stripped down, pure comics creativity that no mature lover of the medium can afford to miss.

Mesmo Delivery ™ and © 2008, 2010 Rafael Grampá. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny Avengers: The Red Shadow


By Rick Remender, John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-528-4

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

Sadly this isn’t a merely Marvel problem but a malaise affecting the entire global comics industry, but that struggle for survival does occasionally produce some truly stellar reading results as in this impressive fusion of two grand old franchises, allowing writer Rick Remender and artists John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales to take the latest brigade of the “World’s Mightiest Superheroes” in a fascinating old new direction.

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #1-5 (cover-dated December 2012-May 2013), this astounding reaffirmation of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction opens with the eponymous 4-part thriller depicting the creation of a new, politically correct and provocatively inclusive team combining human and mutant heroes, tasked with proving that mutant visionary Charles Xavier‘s dream of lasting cooperation and mutual amity between Home Sapiens and Superior was not impossible…

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time the mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married the android hero Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As the years passed their loss slowly, imperceptibly drove Wanda mad and when she at long last slipped completely over the edge and destroyed a number of her Avenger team-mates, the effects of her power and actions affected and reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in a dramatic reboot event known as Avengers Disassembled.

No sooner had the team recovered from that catastrophe than reality was overwritten again when she had another breakdown and altered Earth history such that Magneto’s mutants ruled over a society where normal humans (“sapiens”) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every hero on Earth and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (in another colossal company crossover dubbed House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her redemption during Avengers versus X-Men wherein the World’s Mightiest Heroes strove against the remaining mutant outcasts for control of young Hope Summers: a girl predestined to become mortal host to the implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them whilst empowering their dream of turning the planet into a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before inevitably the rapacious, selfish destructive hunger of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent energy transformed the unifying, rallying figure of head freedom-fighter Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, into another seemingly unstoppable and insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the policy of peaceful mutant/human co-existence returned, only to be killed by his most trusted, devoted disciple…

Professor X’s death forced X-Men and Avengers to unite against the true threat but, in the days that followed the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to appear, and liberated humanity again fell into its old habits of species intolerance and violent, bigoted vigilante outrage…

After disturbing scenes of brain surgery, our story now begins in ‘New Union’ as Wolverine leads the bereaved Homo Superior students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in services for their fallen inspirational Moses (or perhaps more accurately Martin Luther King). Meanwhile in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. detention centre an unrepentant Cyclops is paid a visit by his brother.

Also known as the government-sanctioned mutant agent Havok, Alex Summers is appalled at the unflinching hard-line attitude of his apparently irredeemably radicalised sibling who seems oblivious to the damage his crusade has done to Xavier’s Dream. On exiting the facility, Alex is met by Captain America and Thor who have an enticing yet frightening proposal for the shaken former head of America’s X-Factor mutant task-force…

The Sentinel of Liberty is painfully aware that America’s mutant minority has been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and is hungry to make amends by making real Xavier’s vision. To that end he wants to create a new high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising humans and mutant heroes working together.

He also wants Havok to lead the team…

Even as Alex and the Avenger elder statesmen discuss the deeply contentious and heavy-handed proposal, an old, vile threat has resurfaced. Mutant terrorist Avalanche launches a devastating assault, slaughtering hundreds of New Yorkers, before killing himself when Thor, Captain America and Havok intervene. The atrocity has no apparent motive but the killer seems to have undergone recent cranial surgery…

Elsewhere the desperately repentant Scarlet Witch tries to pay her condolences at Xavier’s shrine but is attacked by furiously indignant X-Man Rogue before they are both ambushed and captured by a squad of metahumans faithful to a monster claiming to be the true Red Skull.

The Nazi hate-monger has plans to eradicate the sub-human mutant race forever, and now that he has stolen the deceased Professor X’s brain – and telepathic powers – nothing can stop him…

The horror grows in ‘Skulduggery’ as Wolverine joins the heroes at the scene of Avalanche’s holocaust/suicide, confirming that the mass-mover had fully reformed and this disaster must have a hidden architect. Although dubious of Cap’s “positive PR” solution, the feral mutant is also convinced that someone is trying to foment genocide and agrees with Thor that they need to be stopped… permanently…

Answers come when the Red Skull pre-empts television broadcasts, urging humanity to rise up and destroy the mutants who are the cause of all America’s woes. It’s the same vile message as espoused in Depression-era Germany seven decades ago, but this time enforced on believers and resisters alike by Xavier’s irresistible psychic powers.

Soon, brainwashed mortals are slaughtering anybody deemed different. The message is backed up and subtly reinforced by the Fascist’s deadly deputy Honest John, the Living Propaganda, even as the Skull’s other S-Men – Goat-Faced Girl, Dancing Water, The Insect, Mzee and Living Wind – tend to their master’s mutant captives…

Soon however Rogue and Wanda have escaped, but their flight through the monster’s hidden fortress is abruptly halted when they discover the appalling remains of Xavier, allowing the Nazi madman to make them his mindless slaves.

The Worst Fiend in History has big plans: if he can bend Wanda to his will, perhaps she can be made to rewrite reality again to the deranged Nazi’s debaseded design…

‘Skull & Bones’ sees the madman and his puppets begin their eradication campaign in Manhattan as the Crimson Hatemonger seizes direct control of ordinary humans and orders them to slaughter all mutants in an orgy of destruction with only Cap, Havok, Thor and Wolverine to battle the rampage of rampant unchecked hatred and fear in ‘Thunder’.

With so many mystical mindbenders on his team, it’s not long before Teutonic deity Thor is also seduced and beguiled by the Skull and set upon his erstwhile mutant comrades; but sadly for the briefly triumphant S-Men their leader’s iron hold on the Scarlet Witch has subsequently slipped…

Against all odds, the mismatched Politically Correct Paladins score an unlikely victory and drive off the Skull, forcing the still-unconvinced Havok to admit that his proposed new team might actually help remould the nation’s fears and opinions…

This initial collection concludes with a tantalising glimpse of things to come in an untitled fill-in from Remender, Coipel & Morales which publicly launches the Avengers Unity Division amidst a flurry of time-bending hints and portents.

Interspersed with pithy glimpses of old adversaries Immortus, Kang the Conqueror and Onslaught as well as the advent of ancient, portentous devil-babies the Apocalypse Twins (all murderously jockeying for position), the first Press Conference of the official team – Havok, Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wonder Man, the Wasp and Sunfire – goes horribly wrong when implacable undead enemy the Grim Reaper attacks, resulting in a shocking death which looks set to undermine all that hard-won pro-mutant progress in one bloody instant…

To Be Continued…

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with wry suspense, this new look at an old concept is magnificent fun and promises even greater thrills and chills to come.

This book also includes a vast, sublime and expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Cassaday, Mark Brooks, Sara Pichelli, Neal (not, as attributed, Arthur) Adams, Coipel, Skotti Young, Ryan Stegman, Adi Granov, Mark Texeira, J. Scott Campbell, Simone Bianchi and Milo Manara and a selection of now obligatory 21st century extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections.

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

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Indestructible Hulk: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.


By Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-535-2

Once upon a time, Bruce Banner was merely a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress or other factors would cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. As both occasional hero and mindless monster he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular comicbook features and multi-media titans.

As such, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

In recent years the number of Gamma-mutated monsters thundering through the Marvel Universe has proliferated to inconceivable proportions. The days of Banner getting angry and going Green at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from the TV or movie incarnations would be wise to anticipate a smidgen of unavoidable confusion.

By the time of the game-changing Avengers versus X-Men mega-crossover relaunch there were numerous Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and all kinds of ancillary randomly rainbow-coloured atomic berserkers roaming the planet, but now with that 2012 house-cleaning exercise concluded, the follow up MarvelNOW! event revived the Jade Giant in a stripped-down, back-to-basics, mercifully continuity-lite version which should find favour with new and old fans alike.

But it’s definitely not a Hulk anyone has ever seen before…

This first volume details the next blockbusting chapter in the ever-eventful life of Banner and his raging Emerald Animus (collecting Indestructible Hulk #1-5, cover-dated January-May 2013) rapturously reported as the epic and eponymous 5-part ‘Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

It all begins as Maria Hill – latest Director of the perilously all-pervasive security agency Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate – closes in on a deadly menace to humanity in a small rural American diner.

Suddenly Bruce Banner sits down beside her and shares an epiphany he had whilst again trying to eradicate his deadly condition…

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner has lost years of success, progress and well-deserved peer renown whilst trying to destroy the Hulk. Now, concerned about his reputation and legacy, the fugitive genius has decided to make headlines as a scientist, not a brutal, devastating force of nature.

For the foreseeable future and as long as possible he will manage, rather than seek to cure, his affliction. Moreover, if S.H.I.E.L.D. will provide funding, a lab, assistants and resources, he will not only improve the world with his inventions but also allow Hill to use his uncontrollable alter ego as a deployable living weapon in times of crisis…

If she accepts, the most cutting-edge, hard-pressed and overstretched spy outfit on Earth can reap the unimaginable benefits of “Hulk Smash, Banner Builds”…

Even before Hill can fully evaluate the offer Banner has proved his worth by saving her already-deployed S.H.I.E.L.D. task-force from the unexpected ramifications of an ill-planned raid on the diabolical Mad Thinker‘s secret lair…

Pushed into a corner by the terrifyingly brilliant, coldly confident Banner, S.H.I.E.L.D. sets about fulfilling their side of the deal only to have intellectual rival Tony Stark barge in, obnoxiously assuming the super-spies are all mind-controlled or just plain crazy…

The intransigent Iron Man is soon forced to reserve judgement after he accompanies Banner on his next assignment, experiencing first-hand the theoretical thinker’s ingenuity and sheer determination – but only after a traditional trading of Earth-shattering blows…

The search for assistants smart and mad enough to work with Banner begins in the third chapter even as the ruthlessly mercenary tech-merchants of Advanced Idea Mechanics attempt to kidnap another secretive scientific prodigy in an insane scheme to revive one of their oldest terror weapons.

Unfortunately, after covertly switching Banner with the target, the Hulk horrifically emerges to find himself again battling the deadly robotic Quintronic Man – unfortunate for AIM, that is…

This superbly effective and vicariously rewarding compilation concludes with a spectacular 2-part saga set at the bottom of the sea, after Banner’s first meeting with his staff in their uncompromisingly isolated facility of Nuclear Springs, Nevada (dubbed “Bannerville”) is cut short by yet another urgent mission.

This time his increasingly callous paymasters want Banner to aim the Hulk at a sub-sea invasion of magical monsters decimating ships in the Pacific. The beasts are being directed from the sunken city of Lemuria and controlled by barbaric Atlantean terrorist warlord Attuma: a water-breathing maniac who has repeatedly tried to enslave or eradicate all surface-crawling life…

However even equipped with the latest breathing technologies and backed up by the Chinese Navy’s most awesome Dreadnought submersible, the Green Goliath is quickly overmatched and foundering out of his depth…

Throughout this series the Hulk had been portrayed as a savagely mindless engine of destruction, but when he is rescued by aquatic freedom fighters Mara and Canor, although Banner’s intellect provides the clues needed to save Lemuria, the formerly elemental Jade Juggernaut solves the problem of Attuma’s mystic monster arsenal with chillingly rational efficiency…

Smart, refreshingly straightforward and gloriously wry, this latest wrinkle in the convoluted conflict-packed life of the world’s most iconic split personality offers bombastic action, sharp characterisation and genuinely gripping adventure as writer Mark Waid and illustrators Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan explore fantastically uncharted and potentially priceless new territory in the history of the marauding man-monster, so no spectacle-starved, thrill-deprived fan should miss this opportunity to Go Green.

This tome also includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Yu, Joe Quesada, Charles Paul Wilson III, Walt Simonson, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., Simone Bianchi, Chris Stevens and Pasqual Ferry, plus the now-customary AR icons (Marvel’s Augmented Reality App – printed portals giving access to story bonuses and extras for everyone who downloaded the free software from marvel.com onto a smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet doo-dad).

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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An Army of Frogs – A Kulipari Novel


By Trevor Pryce with Joel Naftali, illustrated by Sanford Greene (Amulet)
ISBNB: 978-1-4197-01726

We haven’t covered a straight kid’s prose novel (with the mandatory secret ingredient of loads of cool pictures) for a while now, so it’s good to break that particular duck (sorry, British Sporting metaphor – best look it up under cricket, as I’m being annoyingly clever here…) with a fascinating new series debut from NFL football-star turned author Trevor Pryce, his authorial collaborator Joel Naftali and illustrator Sanford Greene, all dedicated to addressing and rectifying a long-standing literary disparity.

These days, it’s hard enough to get any kid into reading but of late stories targeting – and of interest to – young boys have been pretty much non-existent. Back in the dark ages when we read by candlelight, there was a wealth of essentially Boy’s Only fiction, ranging from fantasies like Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky or Clive King’s Stig of the Dump to uncounted war and detective stories of Biggles, Sexton Blake and their square-jawed ilk, classroom classics such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Billy Bunter or Just William, tales of innumerable sporting heroes and perennial adventure landmarks like Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, Call of the Wild and so forth.

There were also loads and loads of other books and series like Narnia tales or The Hobbit but those were a bit egalitarian: equally enjoyable by most girls too – so they didn’t count…

Whilst laudable on so many levels, the increasingly generalised fiction experience over the decades left a lot of lads with no introductory boyish literary equivalent to modern men’s fiction: the Sven Hassels, Zane Greys, Alistair Macleans and Mickey Spillanes who service those particularly manly mainstays of fighting, chasing, outwitting and overpowering your properly evil enemies.

I mean these days even Daleks and Klingons are merely misunderstood and have their own valid points of view…

Seeking to tackle the problem of a whole sub-set of youngsters who just give up on reading, the creators involved here pulled off a masterful trick. This is a “boys book” girls, parents and all other softies are going to want to see too…

In the Outback of Australia Darel is a young frog who dreams of being a mighty warrior just like the vanished Kulipari Poison Frogs of legend.

When the horrendous spell-casting Spider Queen Jarrah and massed scorpion armies tried to invade and consume the lush Amphibilands long ago, those valiant heroes led the frog and turtle resistance, ultimately giving their all to save everyone from annihilation. Now everybody lives in idyllic peace, safely hidden from further assault by supreme Sergu, the Turtle King who dream-cast a mystic Veil around the oasis, masking it from all predators – especially the ever-growing, always hungry, malevolently rapacious scorpion horde.

Darel’s dream is no idle childish fantasy: although his mother was an ordinary wood frog (as is he), his father was Kulipari and heroically gave his life to save the wetland paradise from ultimate destruction during The Hidingwar.

These day’s though, nobody really cares about the old stories: safe and complacent behind the Veil, the various frog tribes carry on their dull, happy lives and don’t care to remember the bad old days…

Even Darel’s best friends Gurnagan and Coorah just play along as the frustrated would-be champion constantly practises fighting, sneaking and strategising, preparing for a day which might never come.

Just in case…

Out in the harsh desert badlands however, supreme scorpion Lord Marmoo plans to destroy the Veil forever and feast on the frogs he knows reside beyond it. To facilitate his scheme he has entered into a risky alliance with monstrous Jarrah and even recruited divisions of lizards and “sandpaper frogs” – debased mercenaries who would do anything, even betraying their own kind for profit…

One day, whilst hunting herbs for apprentice healer Coorah at the very edge of the all-concealing barrier, Darel and Gurnagan encounter a scorpion reconnaissance party ensorcelled by the Spider Queen to breach the hem of the Veil and lay the foundations of the mystic shield’s destruction. Further out, the terrified froglets can see an impossibly huge army just waiting in the shimmering sands for the fall of the wall…

Sensing his moment has come, Darel sends faithful “Gee” back to warn the village whilst he spies on the invaders but Gurnagan is quickly captured and dragged off before he can carry out his task.

With all hope resting in his pads, Darel boldly infiltrates the Scorpion Lord’s camp to save his friend, and begins an astonishing heroic odyssey that will bring his people and homelands to the brink of extinction and take him to the mythic allies needed to fulfil his inescapable destiny…

Superbly illustrated by Sanford Greene who provides maps, character studies and more than fifty fascinating fun and scary full-colour illustrations, An Army of Frogs is an enthralling and captivatingly rousing read which rattles along and will hopefully lead to a host of stirring sequels.

Text © 2013 Trevor Pryce. Illustrations © 2013 Sanford Greene. All rights reserved.