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Mutant World


By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad & various (Fantagor Press)
No ISBN: ASIN: B000EIU99A

Richard Corben is one of America’s most influential and gifted creators of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist who began surfing the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s and became a major international force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision.

He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation, all couched in an infamous predilection for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism which permeates his horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums (such as this Spanish-sponsored tome from Catalan Communications) even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country.

Post-Apocalyptic worlds figure prominently in Corben’s back-catalogue and the lighter side of Armageddon features heavily in this raucous and subversively black collection of vignettes from the artist and his long-term collaborator Jan Strnad. The story collected here was originally serialised in Heavy Metal magazine – albeit rather severely over-edited – and this collection restores the original text and intent.

After explanatory introductions from both Corben and Strnad, the hilarious horrors begin with a ‘prolog’ which introduces the shattered New World and its most sympathetic survivor: a mightily-thewed but intellectually challenged goof dubbed “Dimento”…

In the glowing rubble of civilisation hunger is everywhere and almost everything left alive wants to eat everything else, but when Dimento attacks a beautiful woman’s horse, she talks him out of his planned meal and stirs other longings in his simplistic, child-like heart. In gratitude for his forbearance, the buxom Julie directs him to stash of giant eggs, but en route he encounters mean old mutant bullies Zug, Dimlit and Weasel who waylay him and steal his meal.

It’s a theft one of the deformed bandits doesn’t live to regret…

The bound and gagged Dimento is still not safe however and is soon grabbed by yet another mutant predator and dragged off to be consumed. The child-like colossus is then saved by a warrior-priest who bears an uncanny resemblance to the hapless half-wit. Taken under the priest’s wing, Dimento becomes his beast of burden as Father Dove leaves the city for the trackless deserts that surround it. When sudden death comes for the violence-obsessed cleric the once-again solitary simpleton heads back to the destroyed cityscape he knows best…

Soon he has lost the food he “inherited” from Father Dove to weaker but smarter scavengers and when he sees again his beloved Julie she promptly betrays him to a ravaging gang to save her own unblemished skin…

After a Herculean effort the mighty waif breaks free and the marauders take out their anger and frustration on her. Unable to stand the sound of her screams the heartbroken Dimento rushes back to save her…

Unknown to everybody on the surface human civilisation did not end when The War began and observers from below constantly monitor the devastated world above. When one of them, Max, breaks protocol and attempts to save the dying woman, it opens the doors to a technological hell where callous geneticists dabble with the last of mankind’s children, creating a stream of monsters and rejects in their attempts to reshape humanity for the ruined new world…

As the origins of Dove, Dimento and many others are revealed, the terrified and confused man-child lashes out with unexpected savagery…

This spectacular Ragnarok fable also contains eight beautiful new pages to complete and conclude the poignant, savage and twisted love story of a mysteriously capable, simple survivor in a world he was literally born to inherit…

Explosively violent, trenchant, doom-laden, erotically charged and brutally funny, this seminal saga perfectly captured the tone of the times as the last days of Mutually-Assured-Destruction Cold War politics staggered to a close, and Strnad’s taut dialogue exemplifies the “just bomb us and get it over with” attitude that gripped a generation of kids fed up with waiting for the Big One. Moreover, Corben’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives in ludicrous extremis has never been better exemplified than here.

This marvellously mordant book is a tale no comics or fantasy fan should be without.
© 1982 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents World’s Finest volume 3


By Edmond Hamilton, Cary Bates, Jim Shooter, Leo Dorfman, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, George Klein, Sheldon Moldoff, & Al Plastino (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-585-2

For decades Superman and Batman were quintessential superhero partners: the “World’s Finest” team. They were friends as well as colleagues, and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes could cross-pollinate and cross-sell their combined readerships.

This third magnificent monochrome compendium gathers their cataclysmic collaborations from the glory days of the mid 1960’s (World’s Finest Comics #146-173, with the exception of reprint 80-Page Giant issues #161 and 170, covering December 1964 to February 1968): a period when the entire Free World went superhero gaga in response to the Batman live action and Superman animated TV shows…

A new era had already begun in World’s Finest Comics #141 when author Edmond Hamilton and artists Curt Swan & George Klein (who illustrated the bulk of the tales in this tome) ushered in a more dramatic, realistic and far less whimsical tone, and that titanic creative trio continued their rationalist run in this volume with #146’s ‘Batman, Son of Krypton!’ wherein uncovered evidence from the Bottle City of Kandor and bizarre recovered memories seemed to indicate that the Caped Crusader was in fact a de-powered, amnesiac Kryptonian. Moreover, as the heroes dug deeper Superman thought he had found the Earthman responsible for his homeworld’s destruction and became crazed with a hunger for vengeance…

Issue #147’s saw the sidekicks step up in a stirring blend of science fiction thriller and crime caper, all masquerading as an engaging drama of youth-in-revolt when ‘The New Terrific Team!’ (February 1965 Hamilton, Swan & Klein) saw Jimmy Olsen and Robin quit their underappreciated assistant roles to strike out on their disgruntled own. Naturally there was a perfectly rational, if incredible, reason…

In #148 ‘Superman and Batman – Outlaws!’ (with Sheldon Moldoff temporarily replacing Klein) saw the Cape and Cowl Crimebusters transported to another dimension where arch-villains Lex Luthor and Clayface were heroes and Dark Knight and Action Ace the ruthless hunted criminals, after which World’s Finest Comics #149 (May 1965 and also inked by Moldoff) ‘The Game of Secret Identities!’ found Superman locked into an increasingly obsessive battle of wits with Batman that seemed likely to break up the partnership and even lead to violent disaster…

‘The Super-Gamble with Doom!’ in #150 introduced manipulative alien’s Rokk and Sorban whose addictive and staggeringly spectacular wagering almost got Batman killed and Earth destroyed, whilst ‘The Infinite Evolutions of Batman and Superman!’ in #151 introduced young writer Cary Bates, who paired with Hamilton to produce a beguiling science fiction thriller with the Gotham Guardian transformed into a callous future-man and the Metropolis Marvel reduced to a savage Neanderthal….

Hamilton solo-scripted #152’s ‘The Colossal Kids!’ wherein a brace of impossibly powered brats outmatched outdid but never outwitted Batman or Superman – and of course there were old antagonists behind the challenging campaign of humiliation – after which Bates rejoined his writing mentor for a taut and dramatic “Imaginary Story” in #153.

When Editor Mort Weisinger was expanding the Superman continuity and building the legend he knew that the each new tale was an event that added to a nigh-sacred canon: that what was written and drawn mattered to the readers. But as an ideas man he wasn’t going to let that aggregated “history” stifle a good idea, nor would he allow his eager yet sophisticated audience to endure clichéd deus ex machina cop-outs to mar the sheer enjoyment of a captivating concept.

The mantra known to every baby-boomer fan was “Not a Dream! Not a Hoax! Not a Robot!” boldly emblazoned on covers depicting scenes that couldn’t possibly be true… even if it was only a comic book.

Imaginary Stories were conceived as a way of exploring non-continuity plots and scenarios devised at a time when editors believed that entertainment trumped consistency and knew that every comic read was somebody’s first – or potentially last – and ‘The Clash of Cape and Cowl!’, illustrated by as ever by Swan & Klein, posited a situation where brilliant young Bruce Wayne grew up believing Superboy had murdered his father, thereafter dedicating his life to crushing all criminals as a Bat Man and waiting for the day when he could expose Superman as a killer and sanctimonious fraud…

WF #154 ‘The Sons of Superman and Batman’ (by Hamilton) opened the doors to a far less tragic Imaginary world: one where the crime fighters finally found time to marry Lois Lane and Kathy Kane and have kids. Unfortunately the lads proved to be both a trial and initially a huge disappointment…

‘Exit Batman – Enter Nightman!’ saw the World’s Finest Team on the cusp of their 1,000th successful shared case when a new costumed crusader threatened to break up the partnership and replace the burned out Batman in a canny psychological thriller, whilst ‘The Federation of Bizarro Idiots!’ in #156 saw the well-meaning but imbecilic imperfect duplicates of Superman and Batman set up shop on Earth and end up as pawns of the duplicitous Joker, after which #157’s ‘The Abominable Brats’ – drawn with inevitable brilliance by Swan and inked by both Klein & Moldoff – featured an Imaginary Story sequel as the wayward sons of heroes returned to cause even more mischief, although once more there were other insidious influences in play…

In ‘The Invulnerable Super-Enemy!’ (#158 by Hamilton, Swan & Klein), the Olsen-Robin Team stumbled upon three Bottled Cities and inadvertently drew their mentors into a terrifying odyssey of evil which at first seemed to be the work of Brainiac but was in fact far from it, whilst ‘The Cape and Cowl Crooks!’ (WFC #159) dealt with foes possessing far mightier powers than our heroes – a major concern for young readers of the times.

To this day whenever fans gather the cry eventually echoes out, “Who’s the strongest/fastest/better dressed…?” but this canny conundrum took the theme to superbly suspenseful heights as Anti-Superman and Anti-Batman continually outwitted and outmanoeuvred the heroes, seemingly possessed of impossible knowledge of their antagonists..

Leo Dorfman debuted as scripter in#160 as the heroes struggled to discredit ‘The Fatal Forecasts of Dr. Zodiac’, a scurrilous Swami who appeared to control fate itself.

World’s Finest Comics #161 was an 80-Page Giant reprinting past tales and is not included in this collection, and jumping in with #162’s ‘Pawns of the Jousting Master!’ is another fresh scripting face in Jim Shooter, who produced an engaging time travel romp wherein Superman and Batman were defeated in combat and compelled to travel back to Camelot in a beguiling tale of King Arthur, super-powered knights and invading aliens…

‘The Duel of the Super-Duo!’ in #163 (Shooter, Swan & Klein) pitted Superman against a brainwashed Batman on a world where his mighty powers were negated and the heroes of the galaxy were imprisoned by a master manipulator, after which Dorfman produced an engaging thriller where a girl who was more powerful than Superman and smarter than Batman proved to be ‘Brainiac’s Super Brain-Child!’

Bill Finger & Al Plastino stepped in to craft WF #165’s ‘The Crown of Crime’ (March 1967) which depicted the last days of dying mega-gangster King Wolff whose plan to go out with a bang set the underworld ablaze and almost stymied both Superman and Batman, after which Shooter, Swan & Klein produced ‘The Danger of the Deadly Duo!’ in which the twentieth generation of Batman and Superman united to battle the Joker of 2967 and his uncanny ally Muto: a superb flight of fantasy that was the sequel to a brief series of stories starring Superman’s heroic descendent in a fantastic far future world

WF #167 saw Cary Bates fly solo by scripting ‘The New Superman and Batman Team!’: an Imaginary Story wherein boy scientist Lex Luthor gave himself super-powers and a Kal-El who had landed on Earth without Kryptonian abilities trained himself to become an avenging Batman after his foster-father Jonathan Kent was murdered. The Smallville Stalwarts briefly united in a crime-fighting partnership but destiny had other plans for the fore-doomed friends…

In World’s Finest Comics #142 a lowly and embittered janitor suddenly gained all the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes and attacked the heroes out of frustration and jealousy. He was revived by Bates in #168’s ‘The Return of the Composite Superman!’ as the pawn of a truly evil villain but gloriously triumphed over his own venal nature, after which #169 featured ‘The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot’ a whimsical fantasy feast from Bates, Swan & Klein wherein the uppity lasses seemingly worked tirelessly to supplant and replace Batman and Superman before it was revealed that the Dynamic Damsels were mere pawns of an extremely duplicitous team of female felons – although a brace of old WF antagonists were actually behind the Byzantine scheme…

Issue #170 was another mammoth reprint edition, after which #171 revealed ‘The Executioner’s List!’ (script by Dorfman); an intriguing and tense murder-mystery wherein a mysterious sniper seemingly targeted the friends of Superman and Batman, whilst the stirring and hard-hitting Imaginary Story ‘Superman and Batman… Brothers!’ (WF #172 December 1967) posited a grim scenario wherein orphaned Bruce Wayne was adopted by the Kents, but could not escape a destiny of tragedy and darkness.

Written by Shooter and brilliantly interpreted by Swan & Klein, this moody thriller in many ways signalled the end of the angst-free days and the beginning of the darker, crueller and more dramatically cohesive DC universe for a less casual readership, and thereby surrendered the mythology to the increasingly devout fan-based audience.

This stunning compendium closes with World’s Finest Comics #173 and ‘The Jekyll-Hyde Heroes!’ again by Shooter, Swan & Klein, as a criminal scientist devises a way to literally transform the Cape and Cowl Crusaders into their own worst enemies…

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling, timeless style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: the Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this tome are a veritable feast of witty, gritty thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.

Unmissable adventure for fans of all ages!
© 1964-1968, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Outsiders: Crisis Intervention


By Judd Winick, Jen Van Meter, Matthew Clark, Dietrich Smith, Art Thibert & Steve Bird (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0973-5

Once upon a time superheroes, like firemen, sat around their assorted lairs or went about their civilian pursuits until the call of duty summoned them to deal with a breaking emergency. In the increasingly sober and serious world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…

Arsenal and Nightwing always intended to run their new team as a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed “hunters”: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm, but they were continually thwarted as events always seemed to find them off-guard and unready…

Now, following the deaths of more beloved comrades (see Teen Titans/Outsiders: the Insiders), Arsenal decides to finally live up to the brief by going after the villainous scum with all guns blazing and the gloves off…

This fourth edgy compendium eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve again supplied them from the original issues (#29-33 plus relevant portions of Firestorm #19, covering December 2005 to March 2006) of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook, with the barely-functioning team – Arsenal, Starfire, Grace, Thunder, Shift, Jade and Captain Marvel Jr. – facing their lowest moments in the aftermath of their betrayal by Indigo…

‘Unoriginal Sins, Part 1: All Together Now’ by Winick, Matthew Clark & Art Thibert begins with the out-of-control divine force The Spectre declaring war on magic-users and destroying mystical fortress The Rock of Eternity, thereby unleashing the Seven Deadly Sins.

These personified spiritual anathemas find a new home inside Outsiders antagonist Ishmael Gregor who had previously transformed himself into the benighted and demonic Sabbac in his unquenchable thirst for power (see Outsiders: Sum of All Evil)…

When Deathstroke the Terminator offers the painfully ambitious Gregor a position in Lex Luthor‘s criminal elite The Society the stage is set for an epic confrontation, but before the devil can mobilise, Dr. Sivana and the survivors of the Fearsome Five attack Alcatraz and provoke an immediate response from the mad-as-hell Outsiders…

When Sabbac at last arrives, in the concluding episode ‘All Hell Breaks Loose’ using the powers of the Sins to derange friend and foe alike through waves of Lust, Rage, Envy and more, founding Outsider Katana is inexorably drawn to the conflict by her ensorcelled sword and saves the day, just before demi-goddess and old friend Donna Troy shows up, hoping to recruit the more cosmic team-members for a mission in deep space…

‘Out of Town Work’ (illustrated by Dietrich Smith, Thibert & Steve Bird) directly ties in to the company crossover Infinite Crisis with Troy seconding Jade, Shift, Starfire and the young Marvel as part of a task force to save the universe.

Significant portions of Firestorm #19’s ‘The Forests of the Night’ by Stuart Moore, Jamal Igle & Rob Stull are also included as the voyagers head for the heart of Creation to battle the unknown enemy but become sidetracked and embroiled in lethal sibling rivalry as Starfire’s sister Blackfire ambushes the squad in ‘Detour’…

Meanwhile on Earth, Katana sticks around when Arsenal decides to attack Deathstroke and the Society, culminating in a devastating ‘Deep Impact’ wherein the Outsiders finally deliver a crushing and costly defeat on the super-criminal army just as all reality goes insane thanks to the aforementioned Infinite Crisis hitting the Cosmic Reset Button.

The next volume will begin with the first One Year Later story-arc…

Wickedly barbed, action-packed and often distressingly hard-hitting, Outsiders was one of the very best series pursuing that “hunting heroes” concept, resulting in some of the most exciting superhero sagas of the last decade. Still gripping, evocative and extremely readable, these bleakly powerful stories will astound and amaze older fans of the genre, but this volume at least is best seen in conjunction with too many other books to truly stand on its own merits.

The action is intense, and the dialogue wonderful, but the story won’t appeal or even be understandable to casual readers whilst the effect of the notional cliffhanger ending is rather negated by the deliberately ambiguous closing scene. Page by page and scene by scene this is great stuff, but the imposed conclusion renders all that sterling work irrelevant. This is another one for completists only, I’m afraid.
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Western Comics


By various, compiled and edited by Steven Brower (PowerHouse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-57687-594-0

There was a time, not that very long ago, when all of popular fiction was engorged with tales of Cowboys and Indians.

As always happens with such periodic phenomena – such as the Swinging Sixties Super-Spy Boom and perhaps the more recent Vampire/Werewolf Boyfriend trend (too soon to tell, but I’m sharpening stakes, stocking silverware and having some cola and Perrier blessed, just in case…) – there’s a tremendous amount of dross and a few spectacular gems.

On such occasions there’s also generally a small amount of wonderful but not-quite-life-changing material that gets lost in the shuffle: carried along with the overwhelming surge of material pumped out by TV, film, comics and book producers and even the toy, game and record industries.

After World War II the American family entertainment market – for which read comics, radio and the burgeoning television industry – became comprehensively enamoured of the clear-cut, simplistic sensibilities and easy, escapist solutions offered by Tales of the Old West; already a firmly established favourite of paperback fiction, movie serials and feature films.

I’ve often pondered on how almost simultaneously a dark, bleak, nigh-nihilistic and oddly left-leaning Film Noir genre quietly blossomed alongside that wholesome revolution, seemingly for the cynical minority of entertainment intellectuals who somehow knew that the returned veterans still hadn’t found a Land Fit for Heroes… but that’s a thought for another time and different graphic novel review.

Even though comic books had encompassed western heroes from the very start – there were cowboy strips in the premier issues of both Action Comics and Marvel Comics – the post-war years saw a vast outpouring of anthology titles with new gun-toting heroes to replace the rapidly dwindling supply of costumed Mystery Men, and true to formula, most of these pioneers ranged from transiently mediocre to outright appalling.

With every comic-book publisher turning hopeful eyes westward, it was natural that most of the historical figures would quickly find a home and of course facts counted little, as indeed they never had with cowboy literature…

Europe and Britain also embraced the Sagebrush zeitgeist and produced some pretty impressive work, with France and Italy eventually making the genre their own by the end of the 1960s. Still and all there was the rare gleam of gold and also a fair share of highly acceptable silver in the American tales, and as always, the crucial difference was due to the artists and writers involved…

With all the top-line characters and properties such as Tomahawk, Rawhide Kid, or the Lone Ranger still fully owned by big concerns, this delightful and impressive hardback compilation gathers a broad selection of the second-string (call ’em Sunday matinee or B-movie comics if you want) material and, although there’s no Kinstler or Kubert or Kirby classics, what editor Steven Brower has re-presented here in lavish, scanned full-colour is a magnificent meat-and-potatoes snapshot of what kids of the time would have been avidly absorbing.

Sadly records are awfully spotty for this period and genre but I’m cocky enough to offer a few guesses whenever the creator credits aren’t available and I’m relatively sure of my footing…

After an informative introduction from Christopher Irving and an introductory essay by Brower, the rip-roaring yet wholesome fun and thrills begin with Texas Tim, Ranger (from an undesignated issue of Blazing West in 1948), part of writer/Editor Richard Hughes’ superb American Comics Group line, and a veritable one-man band of creative trend following. In this sadly uncredited yarn (perhaps drawn by Edmond Good).

Hughes is an unsung hero of the industry, competing with the Big Boys in spy, humour, western, horror and superhero titles well into the 1960s and writing the bulk of the stories himself.

Here the Texan lawman tracks down rustlers and foils a plot to frame an innocent man in a rollicking 8-page romp after which movie star Lash LaRue solves the case of ‘The King’s Ransom’ in an adventure stuffed with chases, kidnapping, fights, framed Indians and prodigal sons, originally from #56 (July 1955 and perhaps drawn by John Belfi or Tony Sgroi) of his own licensed title. Fawcett had a huge stable (I said it and I ain’t sorry, neither) of Western screen stars, and when they quit comics in 1953 the gems that didn’t go to DC – such as Hopalong Cassidy – went to Capitol/Charlton Comics who purchased the bulk of retired comics publishers inventory during the 1950’s…

Charlton was always a minor player in the comics leagues, paying less, selling less, and generally caring less about cultivating a fan base than the major players. But they managed to discover and train more big names in the 1960s than either Marvel or DC, and created a vast and solid canon of memorable characters, concepts and genre material. Almost all their stuff was written by Joe Gill or Pat Masulli, although in the 1960s young tyros like Roy Thomas, Steve Skeates, Dave Kaler and Denny O’Neil all got a healthy first bite of the cherry there, and I’m fairly certain “King of Comics” Paul S. Newman was the regular Larue scripter…

‘Magic Arrow Rides the Pony Express’ hails from Youthful Publications’ Indian Fighter (1950) illustrated by S. B. Rosen and detailing how the young Seneca chief and all-around “Good Injun” saves the famed postal service from unscrupulous badmen armed only with his quiver of enchanted shafts.

Fawcett also published screen star Tom Mix Western and from #15, 1949 comes ‘Tom Mix and the Desert Maelstrom’ probably drawn by Carl Pfeufer and John Jordan – as most of the strips were – wherein the legendary lawman braved a stupendous sandstorm to capture bank-robbers and save a wounded rodeo rider from destitution.

Lots of publishers had Jesse James series and the one sampled here comes from Charlton’s Cowboy Western Comics #39, (June 1955, probably written by Gill & illustrated by William M. Allison). In it the always misunderstood gunslinger was framed for a stage hold-up…

Magazine Enterprises produced some the very best comics of the 1950s and from Dan’l Boone #4, December 1955 comes the stirring saga of pioneer America ‘Peril Shadows the Forest Trail’, wherein the mythical scout and woodsman ferrets out a murderous white turncoat in a timeless thriller illustrated by the hugely undervalued Joe Certa.

‘Buffalo Belle’ also comes from the 1948 Blazing West and again displays Hughes’ mastery of the short story strip as a miniskirt-wearing agent of  justice deals with a dragged-up bandit in a terrific yarn possibly limned by Max Elkan or even Charles Sultan…

Also from that ACG title are the lovely ‘Little Lobo the Bantam Buckeroo’ – illustrated by Leonard Starr in his transitional Milton Caniff drawing style – depicting the tempestuous boy’s battle against fur thieves, and the charming ‘Tenderfoot’ (by a frustratingly familiar artist I can’t identify, but who might be Paul Cooper) with the sissy-looking Eastern Dude dispensing western vengeance to bullies and bandits alike…

‘Little Eagle: Soldier in the Making’ also comes from Indian Fighter – illustrated with near-abstract verve by Manny Stallman – and heads firmly into fantasy as a youthful brave equipped with magic wings tackles renegade brave Black Dog before he sets the entire frontier ablaze with war…

Avon Books started in 1941, created when the American News Corporation bought out pulp magazine publishers J.S. Ogilvie, and their output was famously described by Time Magazine as “westerns, whodunits and the kind of boy-meets-girl story that can be illustrated by a ripe cheesecake jacket.”

By 1945 the company had launched a comic-book division as fiercely populist as the parent company with over 100 short-lived genre titles such as Atomic Spy Cases, Bachelor’s Diary, Behind Prison Bars, Campus Romance, Gangsters and Gun Molls, Slave Girl Comics, War Dogs of the U.S. Army, White Princess of the Jungle and many others, all aimed – even the funny animal titles like Space Mouse and Spotty the Pup! – at a slightly older and more discerning audience and all drawn by some of the best artists working at the time.

Many if not most sported lush painted covers that were both eye-catching and beautiful.

Six of their titles had respectable runs: Peter Rabbit, Eerie, Wild Bill Hickock, outrageous “Commie-busting” war comic Captain Steve Savage, Fighting Indians of the Wild West and their own magnificently illustrated fictionalised adventures of Jesse James.

‘Terror at Taos’ comes from Avon’s Kit Carson #6 (March 1955, but reprinted here from Fighting Indians of the Wild West) and pits the famed scout against corrupt officials and traitorous wagon masters in the Commancheria territory, all lavishly rendered by the superb Jerry McCann.

Next is ‘Young Falcon and the Swindlers’ from Fawcett’s Gabby Hayes Western #17 (April 1950) by an artist doing a very creditable impression of Norman Maurer, wherein the lost prince of the Truefeather Tribe tracked down crooked assayers who bilked him of his rightful pay, after which ‘Annie Oakley’ (Cowboy Western Stories # 38, April/May 1952) finds the famed sharpshooter hunting bandits in a canny 4-page quickie illustrated by Jerry Iger under the pen-name Jerry Maxwell.

Charlton’s back catalogue also provided ‘Flying Eagle in Golden Treachery’ from Death Valley #9 October 1955, as the noble brave foils white claim-jumpers togged up like Indians, and ‘Cry for Revenge’ (Cowboy Western #49 May/June 1954) saw old Fawcett star Golden Arrow hunt down more murderous whites posing as Red Men to drive settlers off their land in a gripping (Gill?) yarn illustrated by Dick Giordano & Vince Alascia.

‘Chief Black Hawk and his Dogs of War’ was a historical puff-piece also from the aforementioned Kit Carson #6 with artist Harry Larsen delineating the rise and fall of the legendary Sauk war chief after which Giordano & Alascia’s ‘Triple Test’ (Cowboy Western #49 May/June 1954) laconically describes the dangers of marrying in a rare, wry light-hearted tale from an age of shoot-and-swipe sagas…

Gabby Hayes Western #17 also provided an adventure of the World’s Most Successful Sidekick himself (seriously: Hayes was the comedy stooge to almost every cowboy in Tinsel Town, from Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy to Randolph Scott and John Wayne).

‘The Big Game Hunt’ is a fun-filled riot as the garrulous old coot takes the wind out of snobby globe-trotting safari addict and saves the life of a cantankerous moose in a charming rib-tickler probably written by Rod Reed or Irwin Schoffman and illustrated by Leonard Frank.

The last tales in this tome are from Charlton; starting with the Giordano & Alascia ‘Breakout in Rondo Prison’ (Range Busters #10 September 1955) wherein hard-riding trio Scott, Chip and Doodle were framed for robbery in a pokey cow-town and forced to fight their way to freedom after which the action ends with a superb costumed cowboy thriller ‘For Talon’s Nest’ from Masked Raider #2 (August 1955) wherein the mystery gunslinger is forced to defend his pet Eagle’s honour in a classy classic drawn by Mike Sekowsky (and possibly inked by Standard Comics comrade Mike Peppe?)

Sadly there’s no inclusion of Charlton’s superb and long-running Billy the Kid, Gunmaster or Cheyenne Kid features but hopefully there’s the possibility of a follow-up volume dedicated to them…?

Within these pages cow-punching aficionados (no, it’s neither a sexual proclivity nor an Olympic sport) and all fans of charming and nostalgia-stuffed comics can (re)discover a selection of range-riding rollercoaster rides about misunderstood fast-guns or noble savages compelled to take up arms against an assorted passel of low-down no-goods and scurvy owlhoots, and all the other myriad tropes and touchstones of Western mythology. Black hats, white hats, great pictures and traditional action values – what more could you possibly ask for?

Text, compilation and editing © 2012 Steven Brower. Foreword © 2012 Christopher Irving. All rights reserved.

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The Fantastic Four Collectors Album & The Fantastic Four Return (Paperbacks)


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & various (Lancer)
“ISBNs” 72-111 and 72-169

Here’s a final brace of Swinging Sixties “Pop-Art” compendia celebrating the meteoric rise of the Little House that Stan, Jack and Steve Built, which will probably be of interest only to inky-fingered nostalgics, fan fanatics collectors and historical obsessive pickers, but as I’m all of them and it’s my party:

Far more than a writer or Editor; Stan Lee was also a master of entrepreneurial publicity generation and his tireless schmoozing and exhaustive attention-seeking was as crucial as the actual characters and stories in promoting his burgeoning line of superstars.

In the 1960s most adults, especially many of the professionals who worked in the field, considered comic-books a ghetto. Some disguised their identities whilst others were “just there until they caught a break”. Stan and creative lynchpins Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had another idea – change the perception.

Whilst Kirby and Ditko pursued their respective creative credos and craft, waiting for the quality of the work to be noticed, Stan pursued every opportunity to break down the ghetto walls: college lecture tours, animated shows (of frankly dubious quality at the start, but always improving), foreign franchising and of course getting their product onto mainstream bookshelves in real book shops.

There had been a revolution in popular fiction during the 1950s with a huge expansion of affordable paperback books, and companies developed extensive genre niche-markets, such as war, western, romance, science-fiction and fantasy.

Always hungry for more product for their cheap ubiquitous lines, many old novels and short stories collections were republished, introducing new generations to fantastic pulp authors like Robert E. Howard, Otis Adelbert Kline, H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth and many others.

In 1955, spurred on by the huge parallel success of cartoon and gag book collections, Bill Gaines began releasing paperback compendiums culling the best strips and features from his landmark humour magazine Mad, and comics’ Silver Age was mirrored in popular publishing by an insatiable hunger for escapist fantasy fiction.

In 1964 Bantam Books began reprinting the earliest pulp adventures of Doc Savage, triggering a revival of pulp prose superheroes, and seemed the ideal partner when Marvel began a short-lived attempt to “novelise” their comicbook stable with The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker and Captain America in the Great Gold Steal.

Although growing commercially by leaps and bounds, Marvel in the early 1960s was still hampered by a crippling distribution deal limiting the company to 16 titles (which would curtail their output until 1968), so each new comicbook had to fill the revenue-generating slot (however small) of an existing title. Even though the costumed characters were selling well, each new title would limit the company’s breadth of genres (horror, western, war, etc) and comics were still a very broad field at that time. It was putting a lot of eggs in one basket and superheroes had failed twice before for Marvel.

As Lee cautiously replaced a spectrum of genre titles and specialised in superheroes, a most fortunate event occurred with the advent of the Batman TV show in January 1966. Almost overnight the world went costumed-hero crazy and many publishers repackaged their old comics stories in cheap and cheerful, digest-sized monochrome paperbacks, and it’s easy to assume that Marvel’s resized book collections were just another company cash-cow, part of their perennial “flood the marketplace” sales strategy, but it’s just not true.

Lee’s deal with Lancer to publish selected adventures in handy paperback editions had begun a year earlier with The Fantastic Four Collectors Album. Other comics publishers – National/DC, Tower Comics and Archie – were just as keen to add some credibility and even literary legitimacy to their efforts, but were caught playing catch-up in the fresh new marketplace.  Moreover, when Lancer began releasing Marvel’s Mightiest in potent and portable little collections it was simple to negotiate British iterations of those editions.

Except for the FF – as far as I can ascertain neither of the books on display here ever had a UK edition.

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

These days computer enhanced art can hide a multitude of weaknesses – if not actual pictorial sins – but back then companies lived or died on the illustrating skills of their artists: so even in basic black and white (and the printing of paperbacks was as basic as the accountants and bean-counters could get it) the Kirbys and Ditkos of the industry exploded out of those little pages and electrified the readership.

I can’t see that happening with many modern artists deprived of their slick paper and multi-million hued colour palettes…

This first stellar volume from the utterly on-form Lee, Kirby & Dick Ayers opened with a couple of second appearances as the deadly Doctor Doom allied with a reluctant but gullible Sub-Mariner to attack our quirky quartet in ‘Captives of the Deadly Duo!’ (FF #6, 1962)

In this first Marvel super-villain team up Prince Namor‘s growing affection for the team’s female member forced the sub-sea stalwart to save his foes from dire death in outer space – but only after Doom tried to kill him too…

That superb classic was actually split into two sections and interrupted by a quick recap of the origin, cobbled together from #1 and #11…

The Fantastic Four saw maverick scientist Reed Richards summon his girl-friend Sue Storm, their friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. In a flashback we discover they are driven survivors of a private space-shot which went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding. They crashed back to Earth where they found that they’d all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks…

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben turned into a shambling, rocky freak. Shaken but unbowed they vow to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting mankind…

After a series of stunning solo pin-ups by Kirby & Joe Sinnott, ‘The Impossible Man’ also from #11 (February 1963) followed; depicting a bizarre, baddie-free yet compellingly light-hearted tale about a fun-seeking but obnoxiously omnipotent visitor from the stars who only wants to have fun, and could only be “defeated” by boredom…

Following Super Skrull and Molecule Man pin-ups, ‘The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!’ (Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone from issue #31, October 1964) saw the uncanny underground outcast try once more to conquer the surface world in a stunning tale which balanced a loopy plan to steal entire streets of New York City with a portentous sub-plot featuring a mysterious man from Sue’s past. Presumably to avoid confusion a rather fractious spat over jurisdiction with the Mighty Avengers was excised from this edition…

To complete the graphic wonderment this initial outing ends with pin-ups of the Hate Monger and the dastardly Diablo as well as a house ad for the burgeoning Marvel Comics Line…

The Fantastic Four Return (Guest Star Sub-Mariner) was the penultimate Marvel/Lancer edition, released in 1967 and opening with ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ from Fantastic Four Annual #2 (1964, by Lee, Kirby & Stone) and saw the mysterious monarch of Latveria brazenly attack the quartet only to suffer his most galling defeat, after which ‘Side-by-Side with Sub-Mariner!’ brought the aquatic anti-hero one step closer to his own series when the team lent surreptitious aid to the embattled undersea monarch against the hordes of deadly sub-sea barbarian Attuma in a blistering battle yarn by Lee, Kirby & Stone from FF #33 (December 1964).

‘Calamity on the Campus!’ (FF #35 February 1965 by the same creative team) saw the heroes visit Reed Richard’s old Alma Mater in a tale designed to pander to the burgeoning college fan-base Marvel was cultivating, but the rousing yarn that brought back Diablo and introduced the monstrous homunculus Dragon Man easily stands up as a classic on its own merits, full of spectacular action and even advancing the moribund romance between Reed and Sue to the point that he would actually propose in the months to come…

This superb book only boasts one pin-up but it is a classic shot of the mighty and regal Sub-Mariner by Kirby & Stone…

As someone who bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years – including the constantly recycled reprints in British weeklies from the mid-sixties to the 1980s – I have to admit that the classy classic paperback editions have a charm and attraction all their own even if they are heavily edited and abridged and rather disturbingly printed in both portrait and landscape format…

If you’ve not read these tales before then there are certainly better places to do so (such as the pertinent Essential or Marvel Masterwork volumes) but even with all the archaic and just plain dumb bits these books are still fabulous super-hero sagas with beautiful art that will never stale or wither, and for us backward-looking Baby-boomers these nostalgic pocket tomes have an incomprehensible allure that logic just can’t tarnish or taint…
© 1966 and 1967 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Blind Justice


By Sam Hamm, Denys Cowan & Dick Giordano (DC Comics)
ISBN 10: 1-56389-047-X       ISBN 10: 978-1563890475

1989 was a banner year for Batman. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the Caped Crusader and the world was about to go completely Bat-crazy for the second time in twenty-five years, so DC were pushing the boat out preparing a brand-new title to add to the Gotham Guardian’s stable of comicbooks.

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

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

Because of the Tim Burton movie Batman’s popularity was at an intoxicating peak and, since DC was still in the throes of re-jigging the entire narrative continuity, this three-part epic (two 80-page specials bracketing a single regular issue, reprinting Detective Comics #598-600, March-May 1989) can in many ways be seen as a transitional tale in the re-imagining of the Dark Knight for the 1990s…

After an introduction by the author the saga begins with ‘The Sleep of Reason’: Bruce Wayne awakes from an uncharacteristic nightmare and walks into a perplexing and macabre murder mystery wherein a night watchman has been reduced to a sack of powdered bones and organs. Across town, plucky Jeannie Bowen has just hit Gotham, looking for her brother who simply vanished one day after leaving work at Waynetech…

The nightmares continue to plague the Batman’s alter ego as Jeannie comes up against an administrative stone wall. Her brother’s boss claims no “Roy Kane” has ever worked for the cutting-edge research firm, but when the Dark Knight barely survives an encounter with a technological monster dubbed the Bonecrusher the disparate events begin to gel together…

‘The Kindness of Strangers’ brings Bruce Wayne to Jeannie’s aid and together they pierce the corporate wall at Waynetech and discover brother Roy was indeed employed there, but his tenure and subsequent disappearance have been excised from all records.

Roy had been the assistant to the company’s paraplegic genius Kenneth Harbinger, whose groundbreaking discoveries into cybernetic replacements and enhancements had offered great hope for physical trauma patients, but the junior had simply not turned up for work one day…

Now a police sweep finds Roy amnesiac and derelict on the streets. Apparently brain-damaged, he also seems to have a psychic connection to the devastating Bonecrusher…

When the hulking brute self-destructs rather than surrender to Batman and the cops, Roy and Jeannie move into Wayne Manor and, as the billionaire begins to clean house at Waynetech, they discover that the young man has been surreptitiously fitted with a memory transceiver biochip: a cybernetic back-door which allows a mystery mastermind to possess bodies at will. Bonecrusher is not one man but a slave army of remote control killers…

Only the seemingly benign Harbinger can be behind it, but further investigations in ‘The Price of Knowledge’ reveal that he had not worked alone. Wayne’s companies have been targeted by a clandestine “Cartel” of corporate raiders intent on possessing all his wealth and technologies, but as the Batman moves in all he finds is Harbinger’s corpse…

Moreover, someone has pieced together Wayne’s eccentric lifestyle, history and expenses and had the playboy arrested as a communist spy…

Harbinger is not dead. The crippled genius has simply abandoned his broken body and taken up residence in other unsuspecting biochip recipients. Free and fit, he goes on a spree of physical excess and wilful murder whilst Bruce Wayne festers under house arrest, enforced helplessness and increasingly horrific dreams…

As the government prosecutors track down the men who individually trained the boy-orphan Wayne as he travelled across Europe and the East years ago, the case against the accused spy looks to be unshakable, especially once French manhunter Henri Ducard agrees to be a bought witness and say whatever the prosecutors wish…

However proceedings take a dark turn when Harbinger in another borrowed body and, now at odds with his former Cartel paymasters, shoots Wayne on the Courthouse steps, possibly crippling him permanently…

‘Hidden Agendas’ finds Harbinger setting up his own organisation and powerbase just as the ruthless and amoral Ducard puts together scraps of information and deduces Bruce Wayne’s real secret. However the broken and demoralised Gotham Guardian gets a new lease of life when Roy discovers the Batcave and offers to lend his bio-chipped body to the disabled crusader for use as a surrogate Batman…

Wayne refuses but Roy is persistent and the continual threat of Harbinger’s hidden new life eventually leads the desperate and debilitated detective to make the biggest mistake of his career…

‘Covert Operations’ sees a Dark Knight haunting the alleys and rooftops of Gotham after weeks of absence, prompting Ducard to fetch up at the mansion with an astonishing proposition…

‘Ulterior Motives’ sees the compelling if convoluted saga come to a shattering climax as Wayne’s mind in Roy’s body tracks down and confronts Harbinger and his platoon of augmented Bonecrushers before turning the tables on the cartel. Of course the price paid for the victory is heartbreak, tragedy death and relentless guilt…

This is amongst the very best of modern Batman yarns: dark, intense, cunning and incredibly complex; blending high-tech adventure with brooding psychological drama, doomed romance with corporate and political intrigue, all illustrated with mesmerising verve and style by Denys Cowan & Dick Giordano.

Moreover, as an anniversary event, the collected edition also includes a superb gallery of graphic appreciations from Bob Kane, Neal Adams, Kyle Baker, Norm Breyfogle, Howard Chaykin, Mike Zeck, Mike Mignola, Walt Simonson and David Mazzucchelli.

If you haven’t seen this supremely engaging tale – criminally out of print but well worth hunting down – then you don’t really know the Dark Knight yet…
© 1989, 1990, 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Teen Titans/Outsiders: the Insiders

New Expanded Review

By Geoff Johns, Winick & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-247-6
Once upon a time superheroes, like firemen, sat around their assorted lairs or went about their civilian pursuits until the call of duty summoned them to deal with a breaking emergency. In the increasingly sober and serious world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, that precept was challenged with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…

After the deaths of two Teen Titans, Arsenal convinced the heartbroken Nightwing to run a covert and pre-emptive pack of self-professed “hunters”: seeking out and taking down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could do harm …

Nominally the fourth Outsiders collection this tome is also technically a Teen Titans graphic novel, as a case involving the kids overlaps and crosses over with the covert hunters’ latest disaster as originally seen in Teen Titans #24-26 and Outsiders #24-25 and 28…

This edgy chronicle is set in the slow and ponderous build-up to DC’s Infinite Crisis crossover event with lots of long-running story-threads pulling together ready for the big bang, and the tense tale contained herein collects a shared storyline that began with ‘The Insiders Part 1’ by Geoff Johns, Matthew Clark & Art Thibert, from TT #24, wherein Superboy, who had always believed himself a clone of Superman, discovered that part of his DNA was Lex Luthor‘s – just as a deeply embedded psychological program activated, forcing him to mercilessly attack his fellow Titans.

With Wonder Girl, Cyborg, Kid Flash, Beast Boy, Raven and Speedy out of action the severely injured Robin desperately contacts the team’s mentors, but the Outsiders have a few problems of their own…

‘The Insiders Part 2’ in Outsiders #24 (by Judd Winick & Carlos D’anda) opens moments after the embattled team – Nightwing, Arsenal, Shift, Jade, Grace, Thunder and Starfire – have discovered that the innocuous Indigo (a robotic being from the future who travelled back to our time and inadvertently caused the death of Omen and Donna Troy) is in fact the deadly artificial invader Brainiac 8, with her affable cover personality finally subsumed by the cybernetic monster within. Her mission has always been to ensure the future dominance of the planet Colu by assassinating key Earth heroes and re-configuring the time-continuum, and now the time has come…

The battered heroes unite in the third chapter as Lex Luthor and the first Brainiac rendezvous with their corrupted pawns. With a wave of robotic automatons reprogrammed by the former Indigo massing to attack humanity, the Titans once more confront Superboy in a cataclysmic battle…

Despite being painfully outmatched, some vestige of their comrade still remains and they narrowly survive, whilst Brainiac 8’s conversion also seems less than total and she alternatively taunts and begs the Outsiders to kill her if they can…

The crisis culminates when Superboy at last turns on Luthor, and a heartbroken Shift finally acquiesces to his former lover’s pleas and destroys Indigo in a manner only he can…

In the aftermath a key member quits the outsiders whilst in ‘Soul Searching’ (Johns, Tony Daniel & Marlo Alquiza from Teen Titans #26) the restored Conner Kent ponders his recent actions and agonises over whether a test tube hero with the genes of the World’s Wickedest Man has any right to happiness or any spark of the Divine, before mystic Raven offers him a shred of redemption, whilst from Outsiders #28 ‘Letting it Go’ (Winick, Clark & Thibert) shows the individual survivors each commemorating their lost comrade Indigo in their own unique way

In case you’re wondering: issues #26-27 were a fill-in tale starring Batman and the original Outsiders and are neither germane nor included here…

Riotous, rocket-paced and compellingly poignant, this engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller reset and repositioned both series for the cosmic shenanigans to come and, whilst not perhaps the sort of tale to tempt a casual reader, will certainly delight any devotee of Costumed Dramas.
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Avengers: The Children’s Crusade


By Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Alan Davis, Olivier Coipel & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-485-0

As the new Avengers film screens across the world, Marvel has again released a bunch of tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comics experience.

This stunning yarn is every bit as epic as any big screen extravaganza but does depend a bit too much on a thorough grounding in Avengers lore so newbies might struggle a bit with the minutiae…

Once upon a time the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision and they had – through the agency of magic and Wanda’s unsuspected ability to reshape reality – twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that the boys were not real (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers) and as the years passed the tragedy drove the Scarlet Witch to insanity.

When Wanda tipped completely over the edge and destroyed at least three of her team-mates, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled. Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and Young Avengers. The event also spilled over into the regular titles of current team members, and affiliated comic-books such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man ran parallel but not necessarily interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Big Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest friends and causing the destruction of everything they held dear.

In the later company crossover event House of M reality was rewritten (yes, again!) when she had another breakdown and altered Earth continuity so that Magneto’s mutants ruled 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 and in the aftermath almost no mutants were left on Earth…

Needless to say in recent time Wanda Maximoff has not been anybody’s favourite person so it’s perhaps lucky that no one on Earth seems to know her current whereabouts…

This compilation collects portions of Uncanny X-Men #526, Avengers: the Children’s Crusade #1-9 and Avengers: the Children’s Crusade – Young Avengers issue #1 (published in comicbook form from October 2011 to March 2012) which comprised the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

This gripping but convoluted tale opens with ‘Rebuilding’ (from X-Men #526 by author Allan Heinberg and artists Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales) as the aging Magneto, now loosely aligned with the remaining mutants in the semi-autonomous enclave “Utopia”, learns that two members of the teen superhero team Young Avengers bear an impossible similarity to the twins his daughter conjured up years ago.

Moreover, the ultra-swift Speed and sorcerous Wiccan bear an uncanny resemblance to Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch at the same age…

Can these superhero twins possibly be his grandchildren? When he decides to investigate, X-Man and Avenger Wolverine warns the master of Magnetism to leave them alone… or else…

The story proper begins with Young Avengers Stature, Vision, Hulkling, Hawkeye, Patriot, Speed and Wiccan battling the racist terrorists Sons of the Serpent just as the elder Avengers arrive. When the child sorcerer displays a terrifying burst of power, alarm bells start ringing for Captain America, Iron Man and Ms. Marvel who have also noticed the startling similarities to their crazed and deadly former member…

In a world where the impossible happens every day and twice on Sundays, Wiccan has always suspected that Wanda was his true mother, and as the veteran heroes seek to curb his rapidly developing powers the boy mage convinces his team-mates to accompany him on a search for the missing Scarlet Witch and the true story of how and why she went bad…

Every Young Avenger has a different motive for the quest: for Speed it’s a chance to prove his annoying twin wrong, whilst Hulkling sees a chance to give his boyfriend Wiccan a sense of peace and closure. For Stature it’s the remote possibility of resurrecting the father Wanda murdered…

As the kids break out of Avenger custody they are joined by Magneto, sparking a clash with Wolverine and the rest of the “A” Team…

Bloodshed is avoided only by Wiccan transporting his friends and the Mutant Mastermind to the Balkan nation of Transia where Wanda and her brother Pietro grew up. Here they discover that Quicksilver – who blames his father and the Avengers in equal part for his beloved sister’s fate – is waiting.

…And so is Wanda herself…

Except that it’s only a carefully constructed android facsimile, but one which takes the reluctant and inimical fellow questers to the door of one the world’s most dangerous men, who has been harbouring the Scarlet Witch ever since the cataclysmic events following her magical decimation of the planet’s mutant population…

Meanwhile the Avengers have recruited Wonder Man – who was brought back from the dead by Wanda – but he proves to be an unreliable ally once he realises that the World’s Mightiest Heroes intend to kill the Witch at the first sign of trouble…

In Avengers: the Children’s Crusade – Young Avengers issue #1, illustrated by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, founding member Iron Lad returns to finish the mission he gathered the young heroes for.

The futuristic technologist is the teen iteration of Kang the Conqueror and formed the Young Avengers to prevent himself growing into the merciless Master of Time, but as this pithy behind-the-scenes and out of continuity saga shows, history and destiny are not easily cheated…

Back in Avengers: the Children’s Crusade #5 the chaos builds and the fabric of reality itself begins to unravel as Wanda and her notional boys are reunited and discover the true nature of her powers.

All Wanda wants to do is make amends whilst the man who claims to have caused all her breakdowns is prepared to keep her at all costs. Just as the Avengers arrive, determined to save the world from their former comrade, all hell breaks loose. When Iron Lad rejoins his team in real time he changes the recent past and the situation escalates to a catastrophic crescendo when the X-Men turn up, seeking justice for all the mutants “Wanda” destroyed in her crazy days…

With the dead rising, history unmaking itself and the true villain seizing control of all creation the stage is set for a truly tragic and spectacular climax…

Bombastic and cosmically broad in scope, this impressive tale by Allan (Wonder Woman, JLA, Sex and the City, The O.C., Gilmore Girls, Grey’s Anatomy) Heinberg seeks to undo and reset key milestones of Marvel history with boldness and generally succeeds in all his goals, aided by the impressive art of Jim Cheung and inkers Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis & Dexter Vimes, but although this yarn will delight long-time fans I fear casual and new readers will struggle to pick up the nuances or even follow the plot. Still, the spectacular alternate cover gallery by Cheung, Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, Travis Charest and Art Adams will enthrall art fans and the impetus afforded by the film release will certainly draw new followers to this extremely attractive package with many small and big screen connections.

™ & © 2010, 2011, 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 13: The Crimson Hand


By Dan McDaid, Martin Geraghty, Mike Collins & various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-451-5

Doctor Who launched on television in the first episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963. Less than a year later his decades-long run in TV Comic began with issue #674 and the premier instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’. On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so it says 17th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary  launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us under various names ever since.

All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree…

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from its archive in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories from issues Doctor Who Magazine or DWM #394, The Doctor Who Storybook 2010 and DWM #400-420, (originally published between 2008 and 2010): all featuring the escapades of the David Tennant incarnation of the far-flung Time Lord.

This is actually the third – and final – collection of strips featuring the Tenth Doctor and whether that statement made any sense to you largely depends on whether you are an old fan, a new convert or even a complete beginner.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. All the creators involved have managed the ultimate ‘Ask’ of any strip creator – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun strips that can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated fan.

After an effusive introduction from series re-creator Russell T. Davies, the full-colour graphic grandeur begins with a one-off romp from 2008 entitled ‘Hotel Historia’ by writer/artist Dan McDaid, wherein the Good Doctor fetches up in a spectacular resort for time-travellers and first encounters the pushy and obnoxious corporate raider Majenta Pryce and uses her shoddy and slipshod time-technology to counter a threat from the chronal brigands known as the Graxnix.

This is riotously followed by a delightful clash with ‘Space Vikings’ (by Jonathan Morris, Rob Davis & Ian Culbard, from the 2010 Christmas Doctor Who Storybook) wherein the slave-taking star-rovers prove to be far less than they at first appear…

The main body of stories here formed something of an experiment as DWM #400-420 were designed as an extended story-arc leading up to the big change on television where Matt Smith would replace Tennant as “the Eleventh Doctor”.

Therefore McDaid was tasked with scripting the entire 21 issue run and began by reintroducing scurrilous money-mad chancer Majenta Pryce in ‘Thinktwice’ (#400-402, illustrated by Martin Geraghty & David A. Roach); an intergalactic penal institution with some decidedly off-kilter ideas on reforming prisoners.

Pryce is a prisoner but has amnesia. So does her cellmate Zed and in fact, most of the convicts aboard. The supposedly cushy debtor’s prison is in fact a horror-house of psychological abuse where suicide is endemic, maintained by the creepy Warden Gripton who is messing with the inmates’ memories to satisfy the hungers of something he calls “memeovax”…

Luckily the new prison doctor “John Smith” is a dab hand with the Sonic screwdriver…

With her memory far from restored the wickedly entrepreneurial Majenta becomes the unlikeliest of Companions as she demands that the “legally liable” Doctor makes restitution for all the trouble he’s caused by ferrying her to the planet Panacea where she can be properly cured. As we all know however, the Tardis goes where She wants and at Her own pace…

‘The Stockbridge Child’ (#403-405 with art from Mike Collins & Roach) deposits the unhappy partners to that peaceful English village where three different incarnations of the Time Lord have encountered incredible alien incursions. When the Doctor is reunited with outcast skywatcher Maxwell Edison they uncover at last the ancient horror beneath the hamlet which as made the place such a magnet for madness and monsters before finally despatching the brooding anti-dimensional threat of the Lokhus…

Meanwhile Majenta’s big secret hasn’t forgotten her and is rapidly closing in…

DWM #406-407 featured ‘Mortal Beloved’, illustrated by Sean Longcroft, wherein the Doctor and “Madge” arrive at a decrepit asteroid mansion on the edge of the biggest storm in creation. Amidst the flotsam and jetsam lurk poignant clues to Pryce’s past as tantalisingly revealed by the robots and holograms left to run the place after a far younger Majenta jilted brilliant playboy industrialist Wesley Sparks. Of course, after such an immense length of time even the most devoted of loves and programs could falter, doubt and even hate…

‘The Age of Ice’ (#408-411, by McDaid, Geraghty & Roach) brought the Last Time Lord and Lost Executive to Sydney Harbour and a fond reunion with Earth Defence Force UNIT, just as time-distortions began dumping dinosaurs in the sunny streets and crystalline knowledge stealers The Skith once more attempted to assimilate all the Doctor’s vast experience. Majenta too found an old friend in the shape of her long-lost junior associate Fanson who admitted he had wiped her memory. When he became part of the huge body-count before revealing why, Madge thought she would lose what was left of her mind…

‘The Deep Hereafter’ (#412, by Rob Davis with above-and-beyond calligraphy from faithful letterer Roger Langridge) is a scintillating space detective story, pastiching the classic Will Eisner Spirit Sunday sections, but still succeeds in advancing the overarching plot as Madge and the Doctor complete the last case of piscine P.I. Johnny Seaview and chase down the threat of the reality warping World Bomb whilst ‘Onomatopoeia’ in #413 (Collins & Roach) pits the reluctant pair against space-rats and out-of-control pest prevention systems in a clever and heart-warming fable told almost exclusively without dialogue.

The superb ‘Ghosts of the Northern Line’ (#414-415) follows with guest-artist Paul Grist working his compositional magic in a chilling yarn of murderous phantoms slaughtering tube passengers in present day London. Obviously they can’t be spirits so what is the true cause of the apparitions? This yarns leads directly into the big payoff as they assemble forces of galactic Law and Order suddenly show up to arrest Majenta, plunging the voyagers into a spectacular epic as the stroppy impresario at last regains her memory and acquires the power to reshape all of reality as part of the cosmic consortium known and feared as ‘The Crimson Hand’ (DWM #416-420, by McDaid, Geraghty & Roach.

This blockbuster rollercoaster epic perfectly ends the saga of Majenta Pryce and signs off the Tenth Doctor in suitable style, but dedicated fans still have a plethora of added value bonuses in the wonderful text section at the back, which includes a commentary from editor Tom Spilsbury, the origins of the saga from McDaid, Doctor Who Story Notes, the Majenta Pryce “Pitch” and an annotated story background, section: all copiously illustrated with behind-the-scenes photos, sketches and production art.

We’ve all got our little joys and hidden passions. Sometimes they overlap and magic is made. This is a superb set of comic strips, starring an undeniable bulwark of British Fantasy. If you’re a fan of only one, this book might make you an addict to both. The Crimson Hand is a fabulous book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for devotees of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another go…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv.  Doctor Who logo © BBC 2009. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trade marks of the British broadcasting corporation and are used under licence. © Marvel. Published 2012 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Comics X-Men: Reborn


By Nick Spencer, Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-506-2

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed different tastes of modern readers.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men as well as many other superhuman heroes and villains died and in the aftermath anybody classed as ‘”Homo Superior” had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hidden…

Mutants had always been feared and despised: as the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were seen by many as an alien, inimical species; a new race destined to take the world from humanity the way we took it from the Neanderthals…

This compilation continues to describe the gradual return of mutants to the post-deluge public gaze which began in Ultimate X: Origins by collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men #1-6 and pertinent portions of Ultimate Comics: Fallout #4 (published in comicbook form from September 2011 to March 2012) which provided a game-changing new reality and status quo for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing, grim and gritty alternate universe.

In a stunning story-arc by writer Nick Spencer, artists Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco and colourist Marte Gracia, the slow descent into uncontrolled chaos begins when Presidential Special Advisor on Superhuman and Mutant Affairs Valerie Cooper is forced to admit to the entire world that – rather than a result of inexorable evolution and natural selection – Mutants are the result of a fifty year old American covert program of genetic manipulation which got out of control…

In a world where Homo Superior are registered like guns, kept in internment camps and where good, God-fearing folk would rather execute their children than have them grow up afflicted with the sin of “mutant-ness”, the news instantly causes uproar and riot across the nation and around the planet…

Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) has been continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence but the news not only rips the rug out from under her; it also proves intolerable for her young charge Jimmy Hudson, who hears on National TV that his dead father Wolverine was the US Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’ and from his initial escape five decades ago has stemmed all the pain and horror and super-powered proliferation…

With a downtrodden, oppressed emergent species suddenly reduced to a virus or failed science experiment, global tensions are explosively high, and when renegade X-survivor Rogue very publicly battles American Nimrod Sentinels, the US President is faced with a civil crisis like no other…

Meanwhile hunted “Mutant Terrorist” Kitty Pryde is holed-up with fellow fugitives Iceman and the Human Torch, all on the run since their friend and fellow teen Peter Parker was murdered in his Spider-Man guise.

With the entire world in crisis (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), the President consults S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury but is also approached by the deceased Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr who has since inherited control of the terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants. The super-swift master manipulator has an arcane Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled Leader of the Free World…

Soon after the deluge hit, fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker seized Sentinel technology and attacked the Xavier School, murdering many of the mutants Magneto’s flood had missed. Now he has returned, intent on capitalising on the troubled times and expediting his genocidal crusade.

Acting as a new X-team and against Pryde’s best judgment Iceman and the Torch rescue Rogue, but are horrified to discover that the fugitive powerhouse has literally “seen God”.

However, as they all hide in subterranean tunnels beneath New York, picking up stray mutant children as they flee, the young misfits have no idea just how far their former comrade has fallen or what lengths Rogue will go to in order to fulfil her divinely ordained mission…

With the nation in chaos Stryker plans a massive event in Times Square, offering a cure for mutantcy and a final solution to the crisis, but his true plan is to ambush the gathered deviants and end their blasphemous existence forever…

In the White House Quicksilver has his own scheme: he knows the secret Stryker is concealing and intends to use it for his own ends, but when the Reverend takes control of the entire Sentinel program and sends every killer robot in America’s arsenal to hunt down all the remaining mutants still in hiding, the cataclysmic battles leads to a stunning series of revelations and a breathtaking cliffhanger…

This welcome return to the bleak and cynical Ultimate fare, with the trademark post-modernity, sharp abrasive humour and darkly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but with so much backstory to absorb Reborn might not be the best book for anybody thinking on jumping on to decidedly different world of Wonder. Nevertheless the striking drama and returning cast-favourites will certainly please those older readers who love this trenchant iteration of superhero sagas and any casual readers who are more familiar with the company’s movies than the comic-books.

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