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Battle Scars


By Cullen Bunn, Matt Fraction, Christopher Yost, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-512-3

What happens when everything you think you know is proven to be a lie? How does a practical, self-reliant normal man cope?

Short, sharp, supremely shocking and superbly entertaining, this collected six-part ‘Shattered Heroes’ miniseries was set in the aftermath of the Fear Itself company-wide crossover and focused on troubled American Army Ranger Marcus Johnson, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who overnight found himself in an impossible situation a million miles from the sane and sensible – if understandably deadly – world he knew.

Afflicted by PTSD after all he experienced as a soldier, and with the world still recovering from the visceral global panic of “the Fear” (when dark Asgardian Gods almost destroyed the world through a wave of supernatural terror), Johnson returns home to attend his mother’s funeral.

Nia Johnson was a simple Atlanta schoolteacher killed in a terror-inspired street riot.

Or was she…?

On leave for the burial, Johnson discovers evidence that his mother was actually assassinated by mercenaries who then attack him in broad daylight. Hot on their heels comes super-hitman Taskmaster and the baffled soldier is only saved by the intervention of Captain America and a new iteration of the covert agency Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

Without any explanation Johnson is taken into protective custody but, determined to get some answers, escapes and stumbles his baffled way through the insane world of superhumans and secret societies where everybody is a costumed lunatic and they’re all trying to kill him or recruit him.

With only his best buddy Ranger Phil “Cheese” Coulson to depend on, Johnson battles an army of maniacs who literally want his blood, discovers his mother’s incredible secret, and learns of his connection to one of the oldest and most valiant heroes in the Marvel Universe in a spectacular, compelling and rocket-paced rollercoaster ride which fittingly introduces him to a world he never wanted or even believed in…

Without, I hope, giving too much away, I’ll suggest that the contemporary trend of rationalising and aligning comicbook and screen versions of superhero scenarios clearly inspired this classy espionage super-saga and its ties to the interlocking Avengers/Iron Man/Thor/Captain America mega-movie franchise. If I’m being vague, I apologise, but if you’ve seen the movies, read this book and you’ll see what I mean.

If you’re not a devout movie maven, however, read the book anyway.  The sheer quality of the tale by storymen Cullen Bunn, Matt Fraction, Christopher Yost and artists Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy seems certain to make this marvellous yarn a guaranteed hit and crucial keystone of 21st century Marvel continuity.
A British Edition ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. and published by Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Outsiders: Pay As You Go


By Judd Winick, Carlo Barberi, Ron Randall, Scott McDaniel, Freddie Williams III & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1366-4

Finally exposed to a world which  believed them dead and now also blamed for setting off a nuclear explosion which destroyed a large part of Russia and poisoned the atmosphere for miles around, the underground metahuman coalition known as The Outsiders found themselves on a path to oblivion as their series peaked even whilst winding down for a major reboot.

This sixth compelling compendium (collecting #42-46 and Annual #1of Judd Winick’s grim and witty Outsiders comicbook) saw Nightwing, Grace, Thunder, Metamorpho, Katana and Owen Reece (speedster son and heir of the recently – and temporarily – deceased Captain Boomerang) – up to their muscular armpits in trouble as the story-arc ‘Mad Scientists’ continued with ‘The Weaving Factories’ (illustrated by Ron Randall, Pop Mhan, Art Thibert & Steve Bird) as exposed mastermind Dr. Sivana attacked Sydney, Australia with a weapon that neutralised technology and turned people into infinitely suggestible idiots (no, even worse than usual…).

First to respond was Nightwing’s team who flew straight to the smug mad scientist’s new lair and straight into a trap. Rather than kill them all, however, the demented doctor made them a staggering offer in ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ before Katana spectacularly turned the tables on the maverick savant.

Even while being driven off Sivana gloated that an irresistible seed had been planted in the rogue heroes’ minds…

The eponymous ‘Pay as You Go’ storyline then begins with ‘The Skeleton Crew’ (art by Carlo Barberi & Thibert): an untold tale from the year that was skipped in the ‘One Year Later’ event and the exploit which led the world to believe the entire team was dead…

At that time the Outsiders were struggling to cope after the Infinite Crisis, particularly Anissa Pierce AKA Thunder, who was grieving for her father Black Lightning.

Elder hero Jefferson Pierce, believing himself guilty of murder, had surrendered to the authorities and chosen to serve time under an alias in the metahuman prison known as Iron Heights, but when Batman-trained vigilante and part-time villain Red Hood reached out to Nightwing with evidence that Lightning had been deceived and was completely innocent of the crime which had crushed his spirit, heart and soul, the conflicted Dick Grayson had no choice but to inform the team he had just quit…

The drama further unfolded in ‘Sins of the Father’ (Freddie Williams III, Barberi & Thibert) as the details behind the guilt-driven Lightning’s self-incarceration were revealed and Red Hood named the who, how, and why of the real killer before ‘Friends, Lovers and Other Strangers’ (additional inks by Bird) saw the team initially refuse to bust him out because of the political ramifications before changing their minds and sending the new Captain Boomerang in to infiltrate and pave the way…

Unfortunately Jefferson refused to go, but when Boomerang realised Black Lightning’s cover had been broken and an entire prison of super-criminals was hungry to kill him the Outsiders had no choice but to go in hard and heavy…

It all went bad in ‘The Wrong to do the Right’ (illustrated by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens) as the hasty plan quickly misfired, resulting in the entire prisoner population breaking free and hard-line warden Gregory Wolfe maniacally over-reacting. In the resulting catastrophe 43 inmates and guards perished and the Outsiders, although believed dead too, were blamed.

Nightwing and Arsenal, who had been noticeably elsewhere at the time, were perceived as not involved, but they knew the truth and shared the blame: the plan had been theirs and in the undertaking of it they had destroyed the team’s standing and reputation forever. Moreover, in the aftermath, one of the Outsider’s, unable to bear the guilt of his actions, ended his life…

Brutal, uncompromising and savagely action-packed, the dark secret of the Outsiders had been revealed just in time for a big finish, but these cynically plausible superhero sagas are still gripping, shocking and extremely readable: compelling tales which will enthral older fans of the genre.

To Be Concluded…
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Crazy World of Gardening


By Bill Stott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-355-9

As it’s a Bank Holiday here in Britain and probably raining somewhere, I’ve taken the opportunity to re-examine the so-very-English obsession with domestic horticulture through the medium of cartoon books and in particular a collection of dry, droll and often painfully accurate observations by one of my favourite unsung gagsters, Bill Stott.

Another prolific but criminally nigh-forgotten staple of British cartooning, Stott’s manic loose line, stunningly evocative drawing and mordantly acerbic conceptions (which basically boil down to “no matter how strange, if it can happen it will happen to you, but only if somebody is watching…”) were a mainstay of Punch, Private Eye, The Times and many other papers and publications since 1976.

In his other life he was – and still is – a degree-level college painting and drawing tutor. Moreover he’s still in the game – such as it is in these days of magazine and newspaper cartoon paucity – and you can check out his latest stuff or even commission an original simply by visiting billstott.co.uk.

There might even be copies of this superb little rib-tickler on sale there…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly poking our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our dark compulsion to mow lawns and torture plants in flood or gale or drought and all points between…

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Gardening (released in both English and American editions as a hardcover and paperback) the wise reader will learn the horror and delight of motor mowers, why men and women mustn’t garden together, how every living thing that sprouts or flies or crawls hates and despises humanity, the wit, wisdom and worth of gnomes, anti-slug tactics, how hosepipes are not our friends, the root cause of garden distress, hedge-warfare, the misery of pond-life, greenhouse etiquette and such various and assorted plant lore as will keep the aforementioned wise ones safely inside whilst letting nature and the seasons – such as they now are – just get on with it…

These kinds of cartoon collection are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare and if you ever see a Stott package (others in this particular series include The Crazy World of Cats, Cricket, Hospitals, Housework, Marriage and Rugby) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with another true master of mirth.
1987 Bill Stott. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Scorpion


By Brian Michael Bendis & Sara Pichelli (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-515-4

When the Ultimate Comics Spider-Man died, a new hero in his image arose…

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

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

In the aftermath Peter Parker and his fellow meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world.

Spider-Man finally gained a measure of acceptance and was hailed a hero when he valiantly and very publicly met his end during a catastrophic super-villain showdown…

This collection (collecting Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #6-10) follows child prodigy Miles Morales as the freshly empowered 13 year old learns to cope with his astounding new physical abilities, discovers the painful cost of living a daily life of lies and how an inescapable sense of responsibility is the worst of all possible threats…

Now a day resident at the prestigious and life-changing Brooklyn Visions Academy Boarding School, Miles spends only weekends at home and is coming to terms with some unpleasant truths. Foremost is that he has secrets to keep from his parents, but also poisoning the air is the fact that his father used to be a street-thug and now passionately hates costumed heroes – like Spider-Man.

Almost as bad is the discovery that Miles’ Uncle Aaron is a major thief and bad-guy known in the game as the Prowler…

Ever since a living piece of Aaron’s loot bit Miles and transformed him into a super-strong and fast kid who can walk up walls, turn invisible and deliver a devastating venom charge through his hands, the Prowler has been laying low, and the action opens here as he resurfaces in Mexico, narrowly escaping a deal-gone-sour with local super-powered gang-lord the Scorpion.

Meanwhile the replacement Spider-Man has been making a name for himself in New York, and news of a junior Arachnid Avenger is soon making global headlines… Classmate, confidante and fellow nerd Ganke undertakes to train Miles using candid footage of the deceased Peter Parker in action and, when continued sightings of the boy hero reach Aaron south of the border, the wily rogue instantly puts two and two together and heads back to the Big Apple.

As the troubled teen tackles street scum and even old Spidey villains such as Omega Red, triumphing more by luck than skill or judgement, Aaron murders underworld tech-guru The Tinkerer and co-opts his ingenious arsenal of criminal gadgets before confronting Miles at school: offering hints at a possible partnership…

Since Peter Parker perished his Aunt May and true love Gwen Stacy have been world travelling. They’re in Paris when the shocking news of a successor reaches them…

In New York harassed Police Captain Quaid is also coming to terms with another Wall-crawling crazy to complicate his life but is utterly unaware that major grief has hit town as the Scorpion, following the Prowler, has seen New York is wide open for a new Kingpin of Crime to step in and take over…

After a spectacular battle against The Ringer, Spider-Man and Quaid reach an accommodation of sorts, but the Prowler’s first North American clash with the Scorpion doesn’t go nearly as well and Aaron Morales once again accosts his nephew with veiled threats and a shocking offer…

Of course it all devolves into a fist-fight before calmer heads prevail and Miles really thinks over what’s on the table: one of the world’s most effective and capable villains is offering to train him in combat, strategy and survival on the streets whilst schooling him in the myriad ways the underworld works…

Only problem is that the Prowler has no intention of reforming and won’t say what he expects in return…

To Be Continued…

Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Samnee & Sara Pichelli have crafted a stirring new chapter which offers intriguing new insights into the morally ambiguous and far less black-and-white world of modern Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas, and as usual this volume also contains a gallery of alternate covers to delight and thrill.

Tense, breathtaking, action-packed, evocative and portentous suspense; full of the light-hearted, self-aware and razor sharp humour which blessed the original Lee/Ditko tales, and lovely to look at, this second collection (which does end on a cliffhanger , I’m afraid) looks set to prove that the new Spider-Man is here to stay – unless they kill him too…
A British Edition ™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. and published by Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Footrot Flats book 5


By Murray Ball (Orin Books)
ISSN: 0156-6172

For one of the most successfully syndicated strips in the world, Footrot Flats seems to have passed from public consciousness with painful alacrity. Created in 1975 by cartoonist and comics artist Murray Ball after returning to his New Zealand homeland, the fantastical farm feature ran for a quarter of a century, with the first of a multitude of strip compendia, calendars and special editions released in 1978.

It appeared in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics.

Thereafter books of new material were released until 2000, resulting in 27 daily strip collections, 8 volumes of Sunday pages known as “Weekenders”, 5 pocket books and ancillary publications such as “school kits” and the aforementioned, all-new, annual calendars.

There was a stage musical, a theme park and a truly superb animated film Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail Tale.

The well travelled and extremely gifted Mr. Ball had originally moved to England in the early 1960s, becoming a cartoonist for Punch (producing Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero and All the King’s Comrades) as well as drawing numerous strips for DC Thompson and Fleetway and concocting a regular political satire strip in Labour Weekly.

After marrying he returned to the Old Country and resettled in 1974 – but not to retire…

Ball was busier than ever once he’d bought a small-holding on the North Island to farm in his “spare time”. This inevitably led to the strip under review. Taking the adage “write what you know” to startling and occasionally stomach-churning heights, the peripatetic pencil-pusher promptly gave up sleeping altogether to limn these wickedly funny escapades concerning the highs and lows – and most definitely “wildests” – of the agricultural life as experience by the earthily metaphoric Wallace Footrot Cadwallader: an oaf in search of the plot…

Wal is a big, bluff farmer. He’s a regular bloke: likes his food; loves his sport – Rugby, Football (the Antipodean kind, not the girl’s game the Yanks call Soccer) and Cricket; each in its proper season and at no other time…

He owns a small sheep farm (the eponymous Footrot Flats) best described as “400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea”.

With his chief – and only – hand Cooch Windgrass (a latter-day Francis of Assisi), and a sheepdog who calls himself “Dog”, Wal scrapes a living – and one too many bolshie beasts – but is, at least, his own boss.

Dog is the star (and narrator) of the strip: a cool, if imaginative and overly sentimental know-all and blowhard, utterly devoted to his, for want of a better term, Master – unless there’s food about, or Jess (the sheepdog bitch from down the road) is in heat again.

Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, the humour comes from the perfectly realised characters, human and otherwise, the tough life of a bachelor farmer and especially the country itself.

Other notable regular’s include Wal’s fierce and prickly little niece Janice – known to all as Pongo, the sternly staunch and starched Dolores Monrovia Godwit Footrot, AKA Aunt Dolly, wise guy local lad Rangi Wiremu Waka Jones, Dolly’s spoiled Corgi Prince Charles, and Pew, a sadistic, inventive, obsessed and vengeful magpie who bears an unremitting grudge against Farmer Cadwallader …

The biggest and most terrifying scene-stealer is Horse, a monstrous and invulnerable tomcat who lords it over every living thing in the district …

The comedy is as always, absolutely top-rate and Ball is one of those gifted few who can actually imbue a few lines on paper with the power of Shakespeare’s tragedy and the manic hilarity of manic geniuses like the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy. When combined with his sharp, incisive writing the result is pure irresistible magic.

In the UK Titan Books published three volumes in the early 1990s and foreign editions were released in German, Japanese, Chinese and American, but the same material is readily available from a number of publishers and retailers; here more than ever the internet is your friend.

The dry dramas and funny old businesses generally accrue via the laconic raconteuring of “The Dog”, a great lazy canine softie, eking out his daily crusts (and oysters and biscuits and cake and lamb’s tails and scraps and chips and…), alternately getting on with or annoying the sheep, cows, bull, goat, hogs, ducks, bugs, cats, horses, geese, all the resolutely undomesticated wildlife and the decidedly odd humans his owner knows or is related to.

Dog – his given name is an embarrassing, closely and violently guarded secret – loves Wal but always tries to thwart him if the big bloke is trying to do unnecessarily necessary farm chores such as chopping down trees, burning out patches of scrub, culling livestock, or trying to mate with the pooch’s main rival Darlene “Cheeky” Hobson, hairdresser-in-residence of the nearest town.

This extra-large (262x166mm) landscape monochrome fifth volume again comes from the Australian editions series and started the tradition of dividing the strips into approximately seasonal sequences, as well as beginning to show another near unique facet of the series with the ever-expanding cast visibly aging in what approximates real-time in the world of periodical publishing.

After a rather reluctant biography from the artist’s then teenaged son Mason, an appreciation from the canine star’s occasional paramour Jess the sheep-bitch and an introduction from The Dog himself, a selection of spot gags and cartoons describing anti-Cheeky tactics precedes the strip sensations of ‘Spring’ as Wal and the Dog prepare for the grimy, smelly profusion of life which follows the far from gentle rainy season.

When not living in terror of the farm cat Horse, teasing the corpulent Corgi Prince Charles or dreading the competition with noble hunting hound Major, the Dog runs continually afoul of the deer which infest the spread. A hilarious sequence of the humans trying to take Horse to the Vet easily segues into a plethora of close encounters as the livestock all experience the stirrings of love in their prodigious loins…

With ‘Summer’ comes cricket, baby animals, sea fishing, and Pongo for the school holidays: all offering new ways to add to Wal’s blood pressure and Dog’s embarrassment. This year’s particular novelties include water shortages, hang-gliding and using a helicopter to herd deer – and why that’s such a good idea…

‘Autumn’ brings harvests and rugby and more rain and sheep well into the pregnancies that make Wal’s life so rewarding (yeah, more sarcasm, mate) whilst ‘Winter’ offers floods, lambing season – always at night and always in rain or snow – plus, mud, footy, mud, river-fishing for whitebait and mud, although this year the old oaf does try his hefty hand at golf and gets talked into coaching the school rugby team with results any idiot could predict; especially as The Dog is on the team too…

Footrot Flats, whether singly or in collections such as this, always marries sarcasm, satire, slapstick and surreality in a perfect union of pathos and down to earth (and up to your elbows) humour that is utterly captivating; expansive, efficient, exciting and just plain brilliant.

If you feel the need to fill your lungs with country air, your boots with squelchiness and your brain with breathtaking belly-laughs why not give the Dog a go? Let your preferred search engine be your guide…

Go on. Fetch!
© 1981 Murray Ball. All Rights Reserved.

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Wonder Woman Archive Editions volume 2


By Charles Moulton (William Moulton Marston & Harry G. Peter) & Frank Godwin (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-594-3

Wonder Woman was conceived by polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter in an attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model. She debuted as a special feature All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), before springing into her own series and the cover-spot of new anthology title Sensation Comics a month later. An instant hit the Amazing Amazon quickly won her own eponymous supplemental title in late Spring of that year (cover-dated Summer 1942).

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

When goddesses Athena and Aphrodite instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon warrior back with the American to fight for freedom and liberty, Diana overcame all other candidates and became the emissary Wonder Woman. On arriving in America she bought the identity and credentials of love-lorn Army nurse Diana Prince, elegantly allowing the Amazon to be close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick medic to join her own fiancé in South America. Soon Diana also gained a position with Army Intelligence General Darnell as his secretary to ensure that she would always be close to her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but superbly competent Diana Prince…

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

This second superb full-colour deluxe hardback edition collects her every groundbreaking adventure from Wonder Woman #2-4 and Sensation Comics #13-17 from Fall 1942 to April 1943, and commences, after an appreciative Foreword from star comics editor Diane Schutz, with the epochal Wonder Woman #2.

After a photo-feature about ‘The Men Behind Wonder Woman’ and an illustrated prose piece about ‘The God of War’, a four-part epic introduces the Amazing Amazon’s greatest enemy in ‘Mars, God of War’ who instigated the World War from his HQ on the distant red planet and was chafing at the lack of progress since Wonder Woman entered the fray on the side of the peace-loving allies. Now he decides to take direct action rather than trust his earthly pawns Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito…

When Steve went missing Diana allowed herself to be captured and transported to Mars where she began to disrupt the efficient working of the war-god’s regime and fomented unrest amongst the slave population, before rescuing Steve and heading home to Earth.  ‘The Earl of Greed’, one of Mars’ trio of trusted subordinates, took centre stage in the second chapter with orders to recapture Steve and Diana at all costs.

As the bold duo attempt to infiltrate Berlin, Greed used his influence on Hitler to surreptitiously direct the German war effort, using Gestapo forces to steal all the USA’s gold reserves.

When Steve was gravely injured, the Amazon returned to America and whilst her paramour recuperated she uncovered and foiled the Ethereal Earl’s machinations to prevent much-needed operating funds from reaching Holliday College where young girls learned to be independent free-thinkers…

With Greed thwarted, Mars next dispatched ‘The Duke of Deception’ to Earth where the spindly phantom impersonated Wonder Woman and framed her for murder. Easily escaping from prison the Princess of Power not only cleared her name but also found time to foil a Deception-inspired invasion of Hawaii, leaving only ‘The Count of Conquest’ free to carry out Mars’ orders.

His scheme was simple: through his personal puppet Mussolini, the Count attempted to physically overpower the Hellenic Heroine with a brutal giant boxing champion whilst Italian Lothario Count Crafti tried to woo and seduce her. The latter’s wiles actually worked too, but capturing and keeping the Amazing Amazon were two different things entirely and after breaking free on the Red Planet, Diana delivered a devastating blow to the war-machine of Mars…

This issue then ends with a sparkling double page patriotic plea when ‘Wonder Woman Campaigns for War Bonds’…

Sensation Comics #13 (January 1943) follows with ‘Wonder Woman is Dead’ as a corpse wearing the Amazon’s uniform was discovered and the astounded Diana Prince discovered her alter ego’s clothes and the irreplaceable magic lasso were missing…

The trail led to a cunning spy-ring working out of General Darnell’s office and an explosive confrontation in a bowling alley, whilst ‘The Story of Fir Balsam’ in Sensation #14 offered a seasonal tale concerning lost children, an abused mother and escaped German aviators which was all happily resolved around a lonely pine tree…

Wonder Woman #3 dedicated its entirety to the return of an old foe and began with ‘A Spy on Paradise Island’ as the plucky fun-loving gals of the Holliday College for Women and their chubby, chocolate-gorging Beeta Lamda sorority chief Etta Candy were initiated into some pretty wild Amazon rites on Paradise Island, inadvertently allowing an infiltrator to gain access and pave the way for an invasion by Japanese troops.

Naturally Wonder Woman and the Amazon prevailed on the day but the sinister mastermind behind it all was revealed and quickly struck back in ‘The Devilish Devices of Baroness Paula von Gunther.’

Whilst the on-guard Amazons built a women’s prison that would be known as “Reform Island”, acting on information received by the new inmates, Wonder Woman trailed Paula and was in time to crush her latest scientific terror – an invisibility ray…

‘The Secret of Baroness von Gunther’ offered a rare peek at a villain’s motivation as the captured super-spy reveals how her little daughter Gerta had been a hostage of the Nazis for years and a goad to ensure total dedication to the German cause. Naturally, the Amazing Amazon instantly determined to reunite mother and child at all costs after which ‘Ordeal by Fire’ found the Baroness aiding Diana and Steve in dismantling the spy network and slave-ring the Nazis had spent so long building in America, but only at great personal and physical cost to the repentant Paula…

Over in Sensation #15 (March 1943) ‘Victory at Sea’ pitted Diana and Steve against murderous saboteurs determined to halt military production and working with shady lawyers whilst in #16 ‘The Masked Menace’ was one of very few stories not illustrated by H.G. Peter but the work of illustrator and strip cartoonist Frank Godwin, stepping in as the crushing workload of an extra 64-page comicbook every couple of months piled the pressure on WW’s artistic director.

The tale saw steadfast Texan Etta about to elope with slick and sleazy Euro-trash Prince Goulash, until Diana and Steve crashed the wedding party to uncover spies infiltrating across the Mexican border and a plot to blow up the invaluable Candy family oil-wells…

The inescapable war-fervour was tinged with incredible fantasy in Wonder Woman #4 which opened with ‘Man-Hating Madness!’ wherein a Chinese refugee from a Japanese torture camp reached America and drew the Amazon into a terrifying plan to use biological weapons on the American Home-Front after which cruel and misogynistic ‘Mole Men of the Underworld’ kidnapped the Holliday girls and Diana and the reformed and recuperated Paula rescued them, freed a race of female slaves and secured America’s deepest border from attack.

Then ‘The Rubber Barons’ provided a rousing, romp which saw greedy corporate profiteers attempt to hold the Government and war effort to ransom with a new rubber manufacturing process in a high-tech tale involving mind-control, gender role-reversal and behaviour modification as only a trained and passionate psychologist could promote them…

The issue but not this book then concluded with an untitled saga as Paula, now fully accepted into Amazon society, was attacked by Mavis, one of her erstwhile spy-slaves. The traumatised victim then abducted her ex-mistress’ little Gerta and Wonder Woman, burdened with responsibility, was compelled to hunt her down…

This sterling deluxe book of nostalgic delights ends with a famed classic in Sensation #17’s ‘Riddle of the Talking Lion’ (also probably drawn by Godwin) wherein Diana Prince visited an ailing friend and discovered that Sally’s kids had overheard a Zoo lion speaking – and revealing strange secrets…

Although Steve and Diana dismissed the tall tale, things take a peculiar turn when the beast is stolen and the trail leads to Egypt and a plot by ambitious Nazi collaborator Princess Yasmini…

Too few people seem able to move beyond the posited subtexts and definite imagery of bondage and subjugation in Marston’s tales – and frankly there really are a lot of scenes with girls tied up, chained or about to be whipped – but I just don’t care what his intentions might have been: I’m more impressed with the skilful drama and incredible imaginative story-elements that are always wonderfully, intriguingly present: I mean, just where do such concepts as giant battle kangaroo steeds or sentient Christmas trees stem from…?

Exotic, baroque, beguiling and uniquely exciting these Golden Age adventures of the World’s Most Famous female superhero are timeless and pivotal classics in the development of comics books and still provide lashings of fun and thrills for anyone looking for a great nostalgic read.
© 1942, 1943, 2000 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Desert Peach volume 6: Marriage & Mayhem


By Donna Barr (Aeon)
ISBN: 1-883847-07-9

The Desert Peach is the supremely self-assured and eminently efficient gay brother of the legendary German soldier hailed as “the Desert Fox”. Set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combining hilarity, absurdity, profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity, the stories describe the trials and tribulations of Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel; a dutiful if unwilling cog in the German War Machine, yet one determined to remain a civilised gentleman under the most adverse and unkind conditions.

However, although as formidable as his beloved elder sibling, the gracious and genteel Peach is a man who loathes causing harm or giving offence and thus spends his service commanding the dregs of the military in the ghastly misshapes of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, daily endeavouring to remain stylish, elegant, civil and gracious to the assorted waifs, wastrels and warriors on both sides of the unfortunate global conflict.

It’s a thankless, endless task: the 469th houses the worst the Wehrmacht has ever conscripted, from malingerers and malcontents to useless wounded, shiftless conmen, screw-ups and outright maniacs.

Pfirsich unilaterally applies the same decorous courtesies to the sundry natives inhabiting the area and the rather tiresome British and Anzac forces – not all of whom are party to a clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has agreed with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces. In fact the only people to truly annoy the peace-loving Peach are boors, bigots, bullies and card-carrying Blackshirts…

The romantic fool is also passionately in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and wildly manly Luftwaffe Ace…

Arguably the real star of these fabulous frothy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, a man of many secrets whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent man and tolerable officer in the entire German army.

This tragically rare sixth softcover collection reprints issues #16, 17 and 19 (#18 being a reproduction of the innovative Musical Program which accompanied the stage show: to see that check out The Desert Peach Webcomic or http://www.desert-peach.com/comic/DP18.pdf) and starts with an enchanting comic introduction from the captivatingly clever Mike Kazaleh before ‘Flight of the Phoenix’ opens the comedic assault. Even though ill-bred rogue Udo’s impending wedding to Tuareg princess Falila has been apparently side-lined, a spoil of that outrageous betrothal – a magnificent Arabian war-mare named Phoenix – is still causing trouble for Pfirsich, who is her nominal owner.

The steed is wild and utterly untrained, constantly causing trouble for the decidedly neat and tidy Peach and especially Sergeant Mögen and Lieutenant Hecht, who are responsible for her care…

When scattered tribesmen convene a colossal horse-fair on the camp’s doorstep, the problems magnify exponentially: not only was Phoenix stolen, but she comes from legendarily purebred lines and unless the Peach can arrange an honourable and fitting stud for her it might result in a native uprising…

Now all he has to do is select the right one out of the hundreds of willing stallions and touchy, eager Arab owners, but as usual the soldiery have the own ideas on the perfect partner, all filtered through personal prejudices and ideological bigotry…

So when Udo attempts to settle the quandary one dark night by taking Phoenix to his own preferred favourite, all hell naturally breaks loose as the skittish steed rampages through camp before making her own choice… When the valiant Rosen and sundry soldiers try to catch her, Udo then ends up trapped between the ever-so-keen equine bride and her equally impatient suitors, and taken for a ride he’ll never forget…

As a consequence of the riot Udo is held responsible for the accidental gelding of a stallion and as an outlander faces death or worse – until somebody suggests that if he were actually married to his desert princess he’d be a tribesman and allowed to buy his way out of trouble…

This is followed by ‘Culture Shock’ as fanatical political officer Winzig works himself into a tizzy about the upcoming miscegenation nuptials and reveals a long-hidden shameful secret: he is a musical prodigy whose piano playing could make Devils weep and Angel dance with delight. Most appalling of all is his facility for jazz – a form of music the Nazis have declared “sub-human”…

His secret out, Winzig is easily cajoled by Pfirsich into playing at the up-coming wedding, but other problems are surfacing. The rumours that Udo is Jewish are circulating again (they’re all true but were scotched by the Desert Peach in book 5: Belief Systems) but when the coordinating commanders of both Tuareg and German parties are trying to sort out the form of service, the panicking and reluctant groom sees a get-out-of-jail-free card – whatever ceremony is performed, it won’t be binding…

Udo had been griping and trying to weasel his way out of his impending, unwanted but necessarily pragmatic wedding from the start. The swarthy little scoundrel wanted sex not commitment, and now only the threat of agonising dismemberment is making Schmidt nee Isador Gülphstein  honour his word and live up to his responsibilities…

That is of course until the poor shmuck catches sight of Falila in all her wedding finery…

After a chaotic, joyous and hilarious wedding and reception in the local bordello everything seems to have worked out until the bride’s father hears a certain tale that his new son-in-law is a Hebrew…

Using humour to devastating effect, the author manipulates the crisis to make a few telling points about religion and prejudice and, with order restored, this volume then concludes with the utterly manic and earthily scatological ‘Self-Propelled Target’ as some of the weary and jaded grave-digging unit play with wrong cadaver and both Winzig and Pfirsich accidentally ingest organic matter from a rotting – and exploding – corpse. With Pfirsich revoltingly hors-de-combat the men of the469th declare open war on the hated political martinet they call the “Human Swastika”…

With the Peach incontinent and incommunicado the battle of nerves and dogma rapidly escalates to terrifying heights and when the recuperating Peach almost loses his life in one of the malicious pranks, Udo at last steps in to settle things with disastrous and disgusting consequences…

Treading in the same the same anti-war trench as Three Kings, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Catch 22, these Desert Peach adventures are always bawdy, raucous, satirical, authentically madcap and immensely engaging; this time though they’re also painfully romantic, revoltingly near-the-knuckle and intoxicatingly subversive.

These gloriously baroque yarns were some of the very best comics of the 1990s and still pack a shattering comedic kick, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn. Moreover, with this volume the potential of the minor supporting characters is at last fully realised with The Peach often relegated to a minor or supervisory role.

This captivating excursion is also capped off with many magical extras: hilarious marginal illustrations and more cut-out paper-dolls and extra outfits for you to admire and play with: this time featuring the wardrobe of Udo and the log-suffering Winzig.

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues via a number of publishers and was subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections (1988-2005). A prose novel, Bread and Swans, a musical, and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach were also created during the strip’s heyday. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collected issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is another must-have item for lovers of wit, slapstick, high drama and belly-laughs and grown-up comics in general. All the collections are pretty hard to find these days but if you have a Kindle, Robot Comics have started releasing individual comicbook issues, and for anybody with internet access and mature tastes as mentioned above there’s always The Desert Peach webcomic to fall back on…
© 1992-1994 Donna Barr. Introduction © 1994 Mike Kazaleh. All rights reserved. The Desert Peach is ™ Donna Barr.

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Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age USA Comics Nos.1- 4


By Al Avison, Al Gabriel, Basil Wolverton, Syd Shores, George Klein & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2478-8

Whereas much of DC’s Golden Age archive is still readily readable today, a great deal of  Marvel Comics’ Timely and Atlas output is both dated and quite often painfully strident, and even offensive to modern eyes and sensibilities.

Even so, I’d rather have the raw historical form rather than any bowdlerised or censored reworking and even in their most jingoistic and populist excesses there are usually individual nuggets of gold amidst the shocking or – horror of horrors! – badly crafted yarns from the House of Ideas’ antediluvian antecedents.

Moreover, there’s quite a lot to be said for putting the material in lavish and expensive hardbound volumes for those early comic adventures and I must admit that when they were good the individual efforts could be very good indeed.

The quarterly USA Comics launched with an August 1941 cover-date and the four complete issues reprinted in this sturdy deluxe hardback reveal a period of intense experimentation and constant change as the eager publishers weaned themselves away from the “comics shop” freelancers-for-hire production system and began to build a stable – or bullpen – of in-house creators.

Since these stories come from a time of poor record-keeping, frantic scrabbling to fill pages and under the constant threat of losing staff and creators to the war-effort, the informative introduction discussing the lack of accurate creator detail and best-guess attributions from comics historian Dr. Michael J. Vassallo is a godsend for interested fans, and with covers and House ads reproduced throughout, the World War Wonderment and Patriotic Perils begin with The Defender illustrated by Al Avison, Al Gabriele, Joe Simon and diverse unknown hands (who might or might not have been Sam Cooper, Al Fagaly, George Klein & Charles Wojtkoski AKA “Charles Nicholas”); another flag-clad patriotic mystery-man, who, with designated boy sidekick Rusty, smashed a band of Nazi-backed river pirates plaguing Manhattan’s waterways.

Next comes the utterly outrageous origin of The Whizzer (by Avison & Gabriele) which saw young Bob Frank gain super-speed after his dying father injected him with mongoose blood to counteract jungle fever and snakebite.

Orphaned and vengeful, the young man thereafter dedicated his life to stopping criminals such as the thugs who had forced his ailing parent to hide and die in such a hellhole…

‘Mr. Liberty debuted in ‘The Spirits of Freedom’ by Phil Sturm, Syd Shores, & Klein, as with war erupting everywhere, history Professor John Liberty was visited by the ghosts of American patriots who offered him supernatural assistance to stamp out all threats to democracy.

After Arthur Cazeneuve’s prose crime-thriller ‘Haunted Fireplace’ the astonishing Rockman: Underground Secret Agent blazed into action in ‘The Tunnel That Led to Death’ by the incomparable Basil Wolverton – but with a splash page drawn by Nicholas – which introduced a patriot from super-scientific kingdom Abysmia; miles below American soil, determined to safeguard his upstairs neighbours from tyranny…

Howard Purcell working as Michael Robard then stylishly introduced ‘Young Avenger’ a junior superman summoned by mystic voices to battle spies and saboteurs, before arctic elemental ‘Jack Frost’ sprang to life to avenge a murder on ice in a classy origin yarn by Stan Lee & Nicholas. The polar opposite to the Human Torch (I’m such a wag, me) travelled to New York and soon occupied the same well-intentioned/hunted menace/anti-hero niche pioneered by both the blazing android and the Sub-Mariner: a much-used formula still effective to this day…

USA #2 (November 1941) led with a new nautical costumed crusader in ‘Captain Terror Battles the Fiends of the Seas’ (by Mike Suchorsky) as retired gentleman adventurer Dan Kane returned to the masked identity he had adopted during the Spanish War to hunt down a Nazi destroyer haunting American waters in an action-packed, extra-long exploit. With the Allied effort increasing on all fronts civilian “Mr.” became ‘Major Liberty’ to crush a monster-making Nazi who turned a peaceful Caribbean resort into ‘The Island Menace!’ (Shores & Klein).

Ed Winiarski then introduced Assistant District Attorney Murphy who chose to crush Home Front racketeers disguised as gaudy tramp Chauncey Throttlebottom III AKA ‘The Vagabond’ after which ‘The Defender’ (by Klein) took Rusty South of the Border to stop a plan to destabilise the nation’s South American allies. The text piece describing ‘When USA Heroes Meet!’ by Stan Lee was swiftly followed by another Wolverton Rockman stunner wherein the Subterranean Supremo tackled Zombo the Hypnotist whose mesmeric powers made men into slavish ‘Killers of the Sea’.

After which an uncredited ‘Jack Frost’ exploit found the freezing fugitive avoiding cops but still destroying a marauding robot octopus ship, ‘The Whizzer’ – also unattributed – ended a string of murders by jockey-fixers ruining the horse-racing industry.

USA Comics #3 (January 1942) opened with ‘Captain Terror and the Magic Crystal of Death’ (Suchorsky) as the bold buccaneer spectacularly smashed a sabotage ring organised by wicked ersatz gypsies, after which Major Liberty faced – or rather didn’t, if you get my point – a cunning killer masquerading as ‘The Headless Horseman’ (by Shores & and an unnamed assistant) whilst Winiarski’s Vagabond demolished yet another would-be kingpin of crime.

Once The Defender had finished a hyperthyroid maniac dubbed ‘The Monster Who Couldn’t be Stopped!’ (Klein), Lee’s prestidigitation prose piece ‘Quicker than the Eye!’ gave way to the latest Rockman instalment which he’d scripted for Nicholas to illumine; a broad fantasy set in Jugoslavia where evil pixies had abducted the beauteous Princess Alecia. Object: Matrimony!

Young wannabes Frank Giacoia & Carmine Infantino got a big boost to their careers when they illustrated the anonymously scripted Jack Frost yarn involving strong-arm thugs forcing hospitals to buy their adulterated black market drugs and, after an engaging ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ feature page (which included who had produced it), Winiarski then contributed Tom ‘Powers of the Press’ – a reporter and refreshingly plainclothes hero who, with the aid of diminutive photographer Candid Kenny Roberts, tracked down murderous payroll bandits to explosively end the third issue.

Major Liberty made the cover and lead spot in USA #4 (May 1942), using his ghostly gifts to smash a gang of spies and infiltrators terrorising German-born Americans in a breathtaking romp from Shores & his unknown collaborator, whilst Jack Frost battled mad cryogenics researchers in ‘The Adventure of the Frozen Corpses’ – attributed to Pierce Rice & Louis Cazeneuve – and The Defender stopped the maker of a deadly artificial fog assisted as ever by Rusty and the skilled artistic endeavours of George & Klein and others.

The Vagabond (by Winiarski and an unknown assistant) found the Faux Hobo exorcising a haunted castle in pursuit of a Mad Monk and loot from a decades-old cold case, after which the anonymously-penned text thriller ‘Diamond of Juba’ was followed by another Suchorsky Captain Terror tale, which saw the seaborne stalwart smashing a Nazi plot to starve Britain into submission.

The uncredited Rockman story then saw the Underworld Agent stop murder and banditry in Alaska, after which the equally unattributed Corporal Dix debuted in the stirring tale of a soldier on leave who still found the time to clear up a gang of cheap hoods and set his own wastrel brother on the right and patriotic path…

This premier collection then ends on a riotous high note as The Whizzer (by Howard James) finally came up to full speed in a rocket-paced action romp with the Golden Rocket crushing a gang of thieves targeting a brilliant boy-inventor.

I’m delighted with this substantial chronicle, warts and all, but I can fully understand why anyone other than a life-long comics or Marvel fan would baulk at the steep price-tag in these days of austerity, with a wealth of better-quality and more highly regarded Golden Age material available. Still, value is one thing and worth another, so in the end the choice, as always, is yours…
© 1941, 1942, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents House of Secrets volume 2


By many and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-472-5

With superheroes on the decline again in the early 1970s, four of the six surviving newsstand comicbook companies (Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey and Marvel) relied increasingly on horror and suspense anthologies to bolster their flagging sales. Even wholesome Archie briefly produced Red Circle Sorcery/Chillers comics and their teen-comedy core moved gently into tales of witchcraft, mystery and imagination.

DC’s first generation of mystery titles had followed the end of the first Heroic Age when most of the publishers of the era began releasing crime, romance and horror genre anthologies to recapture the older readership which was drifting away to other mass-market entertainments like television and the movies.

As National Comics in 1951, the company bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology – which nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles – with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

When a hysterical censorship scandal led to witch-hunting hearings attacking comicbooks and newspaper strips (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time) the industry panicked, adopting a castrating straitjacket of stringent self-regulatory rules and admonitions.

Even though mystery titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, the appetite for suspense was still high, and in 1956 National introduced the sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November-December cover-date.

Supernatural thrillers and monster stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated genteel, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which nonetheless dominated the market until the 1960s when the super-hero (which had begun a renaissance after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom and a host of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked myrmidons which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in House of Mystery and Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with anti-hero Eclipso in House of Secrets.

When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties and the title folded with the September-October 1966 issue.

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and at the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom busted again, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too…

This real-world Crisis led to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at the time but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Great Unknown, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.”

Thus with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Secrets rose again with issue #81, (cover-dated August-September 1969) just as big sister House of Mystery had done a year earlier.

Under a spooky bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, creators veteran and neophyte churned out a massive deluge of spooky, creepy, wryly tongue-in-cheek and scary tales, all introduced by the innocuous and timid Abel; caretaker of a  ramshackle, sentient old pile temporarily located somewhere in the Dark Heart of the USA…

This second enthralling and economical monochrome Showcase compendium collects the chilling contents of issues #99-119, spanning August 1972 – September 1973, and also features a stellar selection of covers from artists Michael Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Nick Cardy, Jack Sparling and Luis Dominguez.

‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson began another pensive package of terrors after which ‘Beyond His Imagination’ by Bill Meredith & Nestor Redondo saw a comicbook artist travel to the other side of death in search of inspiration, after which ‘Beat the Devil’ (Jack Oleck, Jack Katz & Tony DeZuniga) dealt with a religious thief who repented too late before ‘Goodbye, Nancy’ by John Albano, Vic Catan, Frank Redondo & Abe Ocampo saw a lonely child go to lethal lengths in her attempts to find a playmate…

A huge boost to the battered American industry at his time was the mass hiring of a flight of top Filipino artists whose stylish realism, experience in many genres and incredible work ethic made them an invaluable and highly influential factor of the horror boom. This collection especially is positively brimming with their superb illustrative excellence.

First in issue #100 however is ‘Round-Trip Ticket’ by Lore Shoberg & Tom Palmer, wherein a hippy truth-seeker learns a little more about alternate lifestyles than he bargained for. These comics chillers were frequently leavened by the mordant and wordless cartoon gags of the legendary Sergio Aragonés, who here contributes a trio of gems starring ‘Cain & Abel’ before Oleck, Mike Sekowsky & Dezuniga reveal the fate of an escaped convict who briefly became ‘The Man Who Stopped Time!’ After a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ cartoons by Shoberg, Oleck & Alfredo Alcala brought the issue to a close with the dark period Voodoo yarn ‘Rest in Peace’…

Clever science fiction courtesy of Sheldon Mayer & Alex Niño opened #101 as ‘Small Invasion’ told a tale of love, double-cross and vengeance when an alien infiltrator discovers true romance whilst preparing to destroy humanity, after which ‘The Sacrifice’ (Oleck & June Lofamia) pitted Witch against Warlock in a game as old as time… Aragonés’ ‘Cain & Abel’ page then precedes ‘Hiding Place’ by Raymond Marais & Ruben Yandoc, with a murderous gangster picking the wrong home to invade after which an ‘Abel’s Fables’ page by Shoberg brings the issue to a close.

‘Make a Wish’ by Oleck & E.R. Cruz, led in #102 as a troubled boy periodically escapes the real world – until well-meaning adults take him in hand, whilst ‘The Loser’ (Oleck, Quico Redondo & Ocampo) details a hen-pecked husband who can’t even get his revenge right, and bracketed between a brace of Aragonés’ ‘Abel’s Fables’ Albano & Nestor Redondo shone with the salutary romantic chiller starring ‘A Lonely Monstrosity’…

House of Secrets #103 began with a tale on con men and time travel in ‘Waiting… Waiting… Waiting’ by Mayer & Rico Rival, whilst ‘No Bed of Roses’ (Albano & Sparling) told a unique tale of reincarnation and revenge, before a post-apocalyptic revelation proved that man could never change in ‘The Village on the Edge of Forever’ by Steve Skeates & Niño, before Aragonés wrapped another issue with one of his ‘Cain & Abel’ pages.

In #104 ‘Ghosts Don’t Bother Me… But…’ by Mayer & Nestor & Virgilio Redondo told the sorry story of a hitman who found that his victims didn’t always rest in peace, whilst ‘The Dead Man’s Doll’, by Bill Riley & Alcala and book-ended by two ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés and Albano, saw a beloved puppet take vengeance for his owner when the frail fellow was murdered by his uncaring carers, whilst ‘Lend Me an Ear!’ by Oleck & George Tuska, saw merciless college pranksters hoisted on their own petard after playing in a morgue…

Issue #105 featured ‘Vampire’ an effective game of Ten Little Indians played out in an old Nevada mine by Maxene Fabe & Gerry Taloac, the gloriously dry ‘Coming Together!’ (Skeates & Jim Aparo) which showed that courage wasn’t everything when demons invaded a small town, and a great old-fashioned murdered man’s revenge yarn in ‘An Axe to Grind’ by Skeates & Alcala, whilst #106, after a magical ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ by E. Nelson Bridwell & Wrightson, opened with ‘The Curse of Harappa’ (Fabe & Yandoc) as a man dedicated to wiping out superstition found it wasn’t all nonsense, after which ‘The Island of No Return’ by Albano & Niño displayed the epitome of monstrous abiding terror, and Oleck and Alcala closed the show with a turn-of-the-century joker getting his just desserts in ‘This Will Kill You’.

In #107 Alcala illustrated Oleck’s ‘Skin Deep’ a dark tale of magic masks and ugly people in New Orleans and, after an Aragonés ‘Cain & Abel’, Arnold Drake’s hilarious hen-pecked howler ‘The Night of the Nebish!’ before ‘Winner Take All’ by Skeates & Bernard Baily restores some lethal gravitas to the proceedings when a greedy tramp learns too late the life-lesson of when to let go…

In #108 ‘Act III Eternity’ by George Kashdan & Jess Jodloman describes how a washed up thespian unsuspectingly took method acting to unfortunate extremes whilst ‘A New Kid on the Block’ (Fabe & Rival) found a new wrinkle in the hoary legend of revivified mummies and ‘The Ghost-Writer’ by Riley & Taloac saw a dissolute author finally pay for taking undeserved credit during his successful career. This issue also featured two more bleak and black ‘Abel’s Fables’ by Aragonés,

HoS #109 held two longer tales; ‘Museum of Nightmares’ by Michael Pellowsky, Fabe & Alcala, in which animated waxworks haunted the last case of a great detective whilst in ‘…And in Death there is No Escape!’, (Albano & Niño) a callous bluebeard and actor of towering ego at last regretted the many sins that had led him to physical immortality and infamous renown. Issue #110 opened with an entertaining vampire tale in ‘Domain of the Dead’ by Oleck & Fred Carrillo, continued with supernatural murder-mystery ‘Safes Have Secrets Too’ by Pellowsky, Fabe & Flor Dery and finished on a beguiling high note with Oleck & Taloac’s ‘Possessed’ as a simple farmer searched in all the wrong places for a deadly witch…

Gerard Conway & Dezuniga provided a haunting tale of lonely lighthouses and other worlds in #111’s ‘A Watchtower in the Dark’, after which ‘Hair-I-Kari’ by Fabe & Romy Gamboa told a sordid tale of a magic baldness cure and Michael Fleisher & Taloac recounted a bold adventurer’s quest to defeat death in ‘The Land Beyond the Styx!’

In #112 ‘The Witch Doctor’s Magic Cloak’ by Fleisher & Rudy Nebres explored the grotesque consequences of alternative medicine and limb regeneration, after which Conway & Luis Dominguez pastiched Sherlock Holmes to great effect in ‘The Case of the Demon Spawn!’ whilst #113 opened with an all-out monster mash in the delightfully dark ‘Not So Loud – I’m Blind!’ by Doug Moench, Nick Cardy & Mike Sekowsky and after another Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ Oleck & Nestor Redondo unleashed a truly nasty tale of child vampires in ‘Spawns of Satan’ …

HoS# 114 led with Fleisher & Frank Bolle’s ‘Night Game’ – a chilling sports-story of corruption in hockey and murder on ice – and close with the same writer’s ‘The Demon and the Rock Star!’, concerning one Hell of a comeback tour and illustrated by Talaoc, whilst #115 featured ‘Nobody Hurts my Brother!’ by Drake & Alcala: a tale of once-conjoined twins who shared each others hurts but not morals, after which ‘Remembered Dead’ (Kashdan & Niño) dealt with a wax museum guard’s unhealthy attachment to one of the exhibits, and ‘Every Man my Killer!’ by Kashdan and Nardo & E.R. Cruz, followed a tormented soul the entire world wanted dead…

‘Like Father, Like Son’ by Oleck & Nestor Redondo in #116 followed the rise and fall of a 18th century peasant who sold more than his soul for wealth, love and power, and ‘Puglyon’s Crypt’ by David Michelinie & Ramona Fradon explored with delicious vivacity the obsession of a man determined never to suffer premature burial…

House of Secrets #117 opened with a tale of medieval feuds and bloody vendettas that inevitably led to ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Oleck & Ernie Chan), whilst ‘Don’t Cry for Uncle Malcolm’ Gerry Boudreau & Niño provided a phantasmagorical glimpse at the power of modern Voodoo, after which another couple of Aragonés ‘Abel’s Fables’ bracket a wickedly ironic vignette entitled ‘Revenge For the Deadly Dummy!’ by Skeates Alcala.

The sinister magic of Hollywood informs the chilling delayed vengeance saga ‘The Very Last Picture Show’ by Fleisher & George Evans which opens #118, after which a ghostly  ‘Turnabout’ (Skeates & Quico Redondo) proves too much for a cunning murderess, and Oleck & Fradon display a different look at leprechauns in ‘Nasty Little Man’…

This compendium concludes with issue #119 and ‘A Carnival of Dwarfs’ by Fleisher & Arthur Suydam, wherein an unscrupulous showbiz impresario comes between a gentle old man and his diminutive friends, and wedged between two last ‘Cain & Abel’ pages by Aragonés, Pellowsky, Kashdan & Alcala proved that primitive people are anything but when a callous anthropologist provided an ‘Imitation Monster!’ for an isolated tribe and lived to regret his foolishness…

If you crave witty, beautifully realised, tastefully splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your return to the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly can…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men: Asgardian Wars


By Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Bob Wiacek, Arthur Adams, Terry Austin,
Alan Gordon & Mike Mignola (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-434-1

In 1963, X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures, the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 during a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics whilst fantasy and supernatural themes once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was made over into a monster until in 1975 Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum revived and reordered the Mutant mystique with a stunning new iteration in Giant Size X-Men #1.

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire was added a one-shot Hulk villain dubbed Wolverine, and all-original creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who transformed at will into a living steel Colossus, and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The revision was an unstoppable hit and soon grew to become the company’s most popular and high quality title. In time Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and, as the team roster shifted and changed, the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark “Dark Phoenix” storyline which saw the death of (arguably) the series’ most beloved and groundbreaking character.

In the aftermath, team leader Cyclops left and a naive teenaged girl named Kitty Pryde signed up just as Cockrum returned for another spectacular sequence of outrageous adventures.

The franchise inexorably expanded with an ever-changing cast and in 1985 a new slant was added as author Claremont began to forge links between Marvel’s extemporised Norse mythology and the modern mutant mythos through the two series he then scripted.

Released in 1990 as Marvel was tentatively coming to grips with the growing trend for “trade paperback” collections, this sturdy 224 page full-colour compendium (re-released as a deluxe hardcover in 2010) collects the 1985 two-issue Limited Series X-Men and Alpha Flight, The New Mutants Special Edition and X-Men Annual #9 which, taken together, comprise a vast saga of staggering beauty and epic grandeur…

Two-part tale ‘The Gift’, illustrated by Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek, saw the retired Scott  “Cyclops” Summers and his new girlfriend Madelyne Prior ferrying a gaggle of environmental scientists over Alaska in a joint American/Canadian survey mission, only to fall foul of uncanny weather and supernatural intervention…

When the X-Men receive a vision of Scott’s crashed and burning body they head North and attack Canadian team Alpha Flight under the misapprehension that the state super-squad caused the disaster. Once the confusion has been cleared up and a tenuous truce declared, the united champions realise that mystic avatar Snowbird is dying: a result of some strange force emanating from the Arctic Circle…

In another time and place the Asgardian god Loki petitions a conclave of enigmatic uber-deities “They Who Sit Above in Shadow” for a boon, but their price is high and almost beyond his understanding…

When the assembled teams reach the crash site they find not a tangle of wreckage and bodies but a pantheon of new gods dwelling in an earthly paradise, and amongst them Scott and Madelyne, also transformed into perfect beings. These recreated paragons are preparing to abolish illness, want and need throughout the world by raising all humanity to their level and most of the disbelieving heroes are delighted at the prospect of peace on Earth at last.

However Kitty Pryde, Talisman and Rachel Summers (the Phoenix from an alternate future) are deeply suspicious and their investigations uncover the hidden cost of this global transfiguration and, once they convince Wolverine, Loki’s scheme begins to unravel like cobwebs in a storm. Soon all that is left is anger, recrimination and savage, earth-shaking battle…

Once the God of Mischief’s plan was spoiled the malignant Prince of Asgard plotted dark and subtle revenge which began with ‘Home is Where the Heart is’ (by Claremont, Arthur Adams & Terry Austin in The New Mutants Special Edition) when he recruited the sultry Enchantress to abduct the junior X-Men whilst he turned his attentions to the adult team’s field commander Storm.

Sunspot, Magik, Magma, Mirage, Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Karma, Warlock and Doug Ramsey are dragged to the sorceress’ dungeon in Asgard, but manage to escape through a teleport ring. Unfortunately the process isn’t perfect and the kids are scattered throughout the Eternal Realm; falling to individual perils and influences, ranging from enslavement to adoption, true love to redemption and rededication…

Most telling of all, Mirage AKA Danielle Moonstar rescues a flying horse and becomes forever a Valkyrie, shunned by the living as one of the “Choosers of the Slain”…

With such power at her command Mirage soon gathers her scattered mutant comrades for revenge on the Enchantress before the dramatic conclusion in ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ (X-Men Annual #9, by Claremont, Adams, Alan Gordon & Mike Mignola)…

Loki, who has elevated the ensorcelled Storm to the position of Asgardian Goddess of Thunder, is simultaneously assaulted by a dimension-hopping rescue unit consisting of Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Colossus and the future Phoenix as well as the thoroughly “in-country” New Mutants for a spectacular and cosmic clash which, although setting the worlds to rights, ominously promised that the worst was yet to come…

This expansive crossover epic proved that, although increasingly known for character driven tales, the X-Franchise could pull out all the stops and embrace its inner blockbuster when necessary, and this yarn opened up a whole sub-universe of action and adventure which fuelled more than a decade of expansion. More than that, though, this is still one of the most entertaining mutant masterpieces of that distant decade.

Compelling, enchanting, moving and oh, so very pretty, The Asgardian Wars is a book no Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy fan can afford to miss.

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