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Cartoon Network 2-in-1: Ben 10 Ultimate Alien/Generator Rex


By Amy Wolfram, Jake Black, Scott Beatty, Eugene Son, Rob Hoegee, Aaron Williams, Jason Bischoff, Ethan Beavers, Mike Bowden, Min S. Ku & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3305-1

The links between kids’ animated features and comicbooks are long established and, I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just all-ages adventure entertainment in the end…

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint is probably the last bastion of children’s comics and has produced some truly magical homespun material (such as Tiny Titans, Batman: Brave and the Bold or Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!) as well as stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Cartoon Network Block Party and others.

This dynamic and fast-paced parcel of thrills gathers two of contemporary kids’ most popular TV sensations in back-to-back exploits taken from monthly periodical Cartoon Network Action-Pack (issues # 48-51, 54, 56, 57, 59) and opens with the further adventures of a boy who could become a profusion of extraterrestrial champions…

Ben Tennyson was a plucky kid who could become ten different alien super-heroes by activating a fantastic device called the Omnitrix. At first the young boy clandestinely battled fantastic foes with his eccentric Grandpa Max and obnoxious cousin Gwen but by the time of these tales Ben is a teenager, has gained global fame and his own power-packed teen posse including reformed super bad-boy Kevin Levin and romantic interest/techno-ninja Julie Yamamoto, all whilst struggling to master the far more powerful Ultimatrix device…

In short complete tales by Amy Wolfram, Jake Black, Scott Beatty and Eugene Son, illustrated by Ethan Beavers, Min S. Ku, Mike Cavallaro, Dan Davis & Luciano Vecchio, Ben and his hyper-charged avatars and BFFs tackle world-shaking threats and typical teen traumas beginning with ‘Fashion Victim’ wherein a sudden trend for kids to wear knock-offs of Ben’s signature jacket leads to mistakes and mayhem when short-sighted monsters and old foe Charmcaster attack, whilst ‘Going Viral’ finds an embarrassing defeat by a dragon posted on the internet by the young hero’s biggest fan.

There’s an impressive treatise on schoolyard bullying in ‘Dodge Ben!’ after which the indignities pile up when old foe Aggregor attacks during the cringe-worthy premiere of ‘Ben 10 on Ice’ and an alien journalist shares a day in the life of a galactic hero in ‘Breaking News.’

Ben’s notoriety almost leads to a tragic misunderstanding in ‘Star Chaser’ and Julie gets some unwelcome paparazzi attention in ‘Tabloid Trouble’ before this scintillating selection concludes with Ben’s persistent homework hassles in ‘The Monster at the End of this Book’…

The last half of the volume is dedicated to a new boy wonder struggling to be a hero in a post-apocalyptic world…

Generator Rex is an amnesiac lad with the ability to turn parts of his body into fantastic technological weapons as a result of a global catastrophe which seeded Earth with nanites and turned the world into a constantly mutating nightmare.

The nanites randomly turn humans – and other organisms – into Exponentially Variegated Organisms or “EVOs”: monsters that cause even more death and destruction. Their threat is combated by the secret organisation Providence…

Rex, who can actually cure EVOs of their mutational infections, and his gun-toting, talking monkey pal Bobo are the agency’s top operatives in battling the monsters’ attacks and hunting down the suspected cause of the initial disaster, a maniac named Van Kleiss…

The creators for these gripping yarns include Rob Hoegee, Eugene Son, Scott Beatty, Aaron Williams Jason Bischoff, Min S. Ku, Ethan Beavers & Mike Bowden.

The adventure begins in the EVO homeland of Abysus with ‘Distraction!’ as the boy and Bobo raid Van Kleiss’ castle on a seeming fool’s errand before tackling a forgotten enemy from the past in the epic length ‘Extra Baggage’…

‘Heart of Stone’ introduces a potential rival to Van Kleiss’ malign dominance in the sultry serpentines shape of Dr. Eden Williams, after which there’s a beguiling change of pace with the twisted love story ‘A Blank Canvas’.

‘The Unforgiving Minute’ poses an impossible quandary for Rex and a group of survivors as yet uncontaminated by the omnipresent nanite contagion whilst ‘Only a Game’ finds the entire horror-hunting team playing spy at a “Warworld of Warlocks” computer convention before the action spectacularly climaxes when the impossible happens and Rex is apparently infected by nanites in ‘Freak Out’…

Despite being aimed at TV kids, these mini-sagas are wonderful old-fashioned comics tales that no self-respecting fun-fan should miss, but if you still need further cajoling perhaps learning that both shows were devised by “Man of Action” might further persuade you.

Man of Action is the working pseudonym for an entertainment-think-tank comprised of Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly & Steven T. Seagle and whilst Ben 10 bears a striking – but surely superficial – similarity to two beloved and quirky 1960s DC second-string strips – Dial “H” for Hero and Ultra, the Multi-Alien – Generator Rex is actually based on Image Comic M. (Machina) Rex, which debuted in 1999 courtesy of Whilce Portacio & Brian Haberlin’s Avalon Studios, crafted and produced by Aaron Sowd, Kelly & Rouleau.

Accessible and entertaining for a broad range of thrill-seeking readers this terrific tome is a perfect, old fashioned delight. What more do you need to know?

™ and © 2011 Cartoon Network. Compilation © 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Stan Lee Presents Captain America Battles Baron Blood – a Marvel Illustrated Book


By Roger Stern, John Byrne & Josef Rubinstein (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-939766-08-6

Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at the end of 1940, and launched in his own Timely Comics’ (Marvel’s earliest iteration) title. Captain America Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and was a monster smash-hit. Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner – and one of very the first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s Cap was briefly revived – as were his two fellow superstars – in 1953 before they all sank once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more needed them. When the Stars and Stripes Centurion finally reappeared he finally managed to find a devoted following who stuck with him through thick and thin.

After taking over the Avengers he won his own series and, eventually, title. Cap waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in American history but always struggled to find an ideological place and stable footing in the modern world, plagued by the trauma of his greatest failure: the death of his boy partner Bucky.

After years of just ticking along a brief resurgence came about when creators Roger Stern & John Byrne crafted a mini-renaissance of well-conceived and perfectly executed yarns which brought back all the fervour and pizzazz of the character in his glory days.

This wonderful black and white mass-market digest paperback was part of Marvel’s ongoing campaign to escape the ghettoes of news-stands and find relative legitimacy in “proper” bookstores and opens with one of the most impressive tales of the comicbook’s lengthy run originally seen in Captain America #253-254 (January-February 1981).

A grave peril from the past resurfaced in ‘Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot’ when Cap was called to England and the imminent deathbed of old comrade Lord Falsworth who had battled Nazis as the legendary Union Jack in the WWII Allied superteam The Invaders. The picturesque village was undergoing a series of brutal serial murders and the aging patriarch suspected the worst. Of course nobody would take the senile and ailing old duffer seriously…

Steve found a brooding menace, family turmoil, an undying supernatural horror and breathtaking action in the concluding ‘Blood on the Moors’, which saw the return and dispatch of vampiric villain Baron Blood, the birth of a new patriotic hero and the glorious Last Hurrah of a beloved character: to this day still one of the very best handled “Heroic Death” stories in comics history.

That sinister saga is followed by ‘Cap for President’ from #250 (October 1980) as the unbelieving and unwilling Sentinel of Liberty found himself pressed on all sides to run for the highest office in the land. This truly uplifting yarn is still a wonderful antidote for sleaze and politicking whilst confirming the honesty and idealism of the decent person within us all.

If you’ve not read these tales before then there are certainly better places to do so (such as Captain America: War and Remembrance) but these are still fine super-hero tales 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 fight or spoil…

© 1980, 1981, 1982 Marvel Comics Group, a division of Cadence Industries Corporation. All rights reserved.

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New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga


By Chris Claremont & Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-673-4

New Mutants was the first regular X-Men spin-off series (unless the you count the brief but brilliant saga of The Beast in Amazing Adventures #11-17 (all six-and-a-half tales are reprinted in Essential Classic X-Men volume 3) and the return to grass roots of powerful alienated kids in training offered many opportunities for slightly different tales that resonated with teen-aged readers.

The team – or perhaps class – gradually expanded as scripter Claremont explored his twin pet themes of alienation and female empowerment and by the time of this collection (reprinting issues #18-21, August-November 1984) his original kid cast – Scottish lupine metamorph Rahne (Wolfsbane) Sinclair, Brazilian solar powerhouse Roberto (Sunspot)DaCosta, human Cannonball Sam Guthrie and projecting psionic Dani (Psyche) Moonstar – had been joined by two new pupils whilst the older Vietnamese Xi’an Coy Manh AKA Karma had been sidelined in the ensuing months.

New additions included Amara Aquilla, a living volcano codenamed Magma who hailed from a lost colony of the Roman Empire and Ilyana (Magik) Rasputin, little sister of Russian X-Man Colossus and recently returned after ten years trapped in a sorcerous, timeless nether-dimension…

With #18, iconoclastic artist Bill Sienkiewicz began a stellar and controversial run pushing the illustrative narrative envelope with his expressionistic, multi-disciplinary range of styles: a perfect place to begin a new kind of adventure for the mutant Next Generation…

‘Death-Hunt’ begins with a fearsome flash forward of horrors to come before Psyche reveals her own precognitive talents have been warning her of the approach of a legendary animal spirit inimical to her tribe. However, whilst training in the Danger Room she gains her first inkling that the threat might be more than myth…

Meanwhile in deep space, a young alien mutant technological organism is fleeing from a catastrophic threat… his own murderous paranoid father.

With Professor X absent and a blizzard hitting, Dani roams the snowy grounds of the school when an impossible ursine monster attacks…

The action switches to the local hospital for ‘Siege’ as Moonstar’s broken body is rushed into emergency surgery. Her personal bogeyman is terrifyingly real and not of this Earth; a magical foe of her people determined to invade this plane and convert Earth into a realm of dark spirits.

In space the alien fugitive flees unheedingly towards Earth, disastrously encountering the swashbuckling Starjammers, before plunging onward. In the hospital, doctors struggle to save Dani, and Magik gleans some useful information with her mystic powers. The Bear needs to destroy Psyche because she holds the secret of defeating it and preventing the poisoning of our world with its malign influence.

With her classmates desperately guarding her dying body during the operation, the Bear’s next attack transports the entire medical centre to its mystical dimension, the metaphysical ‘Badlands’…

On its home turf it is unstoppable, warping a cop and nurse into Native American archetypes to attack the kids whilst slowly tainting the soul of the planet with its evil. Fighting back with all they have, the valiant kids stumble onto a last-ditch plan of attack to defeat the Bear and when returned to Earth they discover a shocking secret about the permanently transformed nurse and policeman…

The book ends with the extra-long ‘Slumber Party’ as the girls of Xavier’s School indulge in a relatively normal part of growing up. With the boys – including new recruit Doug Ramsey – banished for the night, a group of girls from Salem Centre stay over for the time-honoured festivities, but when dying techno-organic parasite Warlock crashes the party – fleeing from his homicidally destructive sire The Magus – the frolics dissolve into planet-threatening horror…

With the introduction of the weirdly warped Warlock and down-to-Earth Doug, the New Mutants cast was relatively complete and an era of superb storytelling and sublime experimentation began…

Fast-paced, evocative, thought-provoking, funny and scary, this book epitomises the very best of Marvel’s second renaissance and these compelling tales are amongst the most impressive and enjoyable of the vast Mutant canon.
© 1984, 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Legion of Super-Heroes: Archive Edition Volume 4


By Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Otto Binder, Jim Mooney, John Forte, George Papp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-123-9

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

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

This sturdy, charm-soaked, action packed fourth full-colour deluxe hardback collection continues to re-present those early tales from the disparate Superman Family titles in chronological order: the sagas from their own feature spanning Adventure Comics #329-339, plus Legion-starring tales from Superboy #124 and 125, covering February to December 1965 cover-dates.

This period began the Tomorrow Team’s slow transformation from wholesome, imaginative, humorous and generally safe science fiction strip to a more dramatic and even grittily realistic combat force in constant peril and, after an informative Foreword from sometime Legion Editor KC Carlson, one of the last truly whimsical cases opens this collection.

The madcap merriment occurred when the heroes had to confront and outwit the topsy-turvy threat of their own imperfect doppelgangers in Adventure Comics #329’s ‘The Bizarro Legion!’ (by Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney) after which a nefarious juvenile criminal infiltrated the LSH intending to destroy them all from within in ‘Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire!’ by the same creative team.

The dastardly plans proceeded without a hitch until the victorious Dynamo-Boy recruited the malevolent adult meta-criminals Lightning Lord, Cosmic King and Saturn Queen, consequently falling victim to ‘The Triumph of the Legion of Super-Villains!’ in #331.

Rescued and restored, the valiant young heroes were back in Adventure #332 to face ‘The Super-Moby Dick of Space!’ (Edmond Hamilton & John Forte) wherein the recently resurrected Lightning Lad suffered crippling injuries and an imminent nervous breakdown…

‘The War Between Krypton and Earth!’ in #333, (Hamilton, Forte & George Klein), had the time-travelling team flung far back into the our world’s antediluvian past and split into internecine factions on opposite sides of a conflict forgotten by history, after which ‘The Unknown Legionnaire!’ (Hamilton, Forte & Sheldon Moldoff) posed a perilous puzzle with an inadvertently oppressed and overlooked race’s entire future at stake…

The same creative team then introduced deadly super-villain ‘Starfinger!’ in #335 who framed a luckless Legionnaire for his incredible crimes before ‘The True Identity of Starfinger!’ (inked by Klein) was revealed, allowing the entire squad to focus on the real menace.

Superboy #124 (October 1965, by Otto Binder & George Papp) featured Lana Lang as ‘The Insect Queen of Smallville!’ who was rewarded with a shape-changing ring after rescuing a trapped alien. Naturally she used her new abilities to ferret out Clark Kent’s secrets…

Adventure #337 highlighted ‘The Weddings that Wrecked the Legion!’ by Hamilton, Forte & Moldoff as two couples resigned to marry. However, there was serious method in the seeming marital madness…

Long absent Bête Noir the Time Trapper at last returned in #338 when Siegel & Forte revealed ‘The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies!’ with sultry Glorith of Baaldur using the Chronal Conqueror’s devices to turn everybody but Superboy and Brainiac 5 into mewling infants. When they turned the tables on the villains a new era dawned for the valiant Tomorrow Teens…

Superboy #125 (November 1965) signalled darker days ahead by introducing a legion reservist with a tragic secret in ‘The Sacrifice of Kid Psycho!’ (Binder & Papp), after which Hamilton, Forte & Moldoff told the bittersweet tale of disaffected and tormented Lallorian hero Beast Boy who turned against humanity in Adventure Comics #339’s ‘Hunters of the Super-Beasts!’ to bring this sterling collection to a solidly entertaining end.

The slow death of whimsy and move from light-hearted escapades to daily life and death struggles would culminate in tragedy and triumph in the next edition…

The Legion is undoubtedly one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom.

Moreover, these sparkling, simplistic and devastatingly addictive stories – with full creator biographies and a glorious gallery of covers from the sublime art-team of Curt Swan & George Klein – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and underpinned the industry we all know today.

These naive, silly, joyous, stirring and utterly compelling yarns are precious and fun beyond any ability to explain. If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.
© 1964, 1965, 1992, 1993, 1994 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Best of Fat Freddy’s CAT books 1 & 2


By Gilbert Shelton with Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides & Lieuen Adkins (Knockabout)
ISBN: 0-86166-009-9 & 0-86166-014-5   Omnibus 978-0-86166-161-9

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, and in Underground newspapers before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folk) captured the imagination of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 Rip Off published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times, Playboy and numerous foreign periodicals in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (with his cat): simpatico metaphorical siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Fat Freddy’s Cat quickly became a star in his own right: tiny “topper” strips (separate mini adventures which accompanied the main story) in the newspapers that supplemented the Freaks’ antics became single page gags and eventually bloomed during the 1970s into full-blown extended exploits of the canny, cynical feline reprobate in his own series of digest-sized comicbooks The Adventures of Fat Freddy’s CAT…

Much of the material consisted of untitled quickies and short strips concocted by Shelton (with assistance from Dave Sheridan, Paul Mavrides and Lieuen Adkins) and eventually the little yarns were collected by UK Publisher Knockabout as a brace of oversized – 297x212mm – black and white comic albums and as mass-market b-format paperbacks in their Crack Editions imprint. In 2009 the entire canon was collected as The Fat Freddy’s CAT Omnibus.

These tales are wicked, degenerate, scatologically vulgar, sublimely smutty and brilliantly funny in any format but perhaps their raw anarchic, sly hysteria is best enjoyed in the giant tomes I’m highlighting here.

Book one opens with a dozen or so six panel strips and a single pager produced between 1971 and 1978, before the hilariously whacky epic ‘Chariot of the Globs’ (written by Adkins with art by Shelton & Sheridan) reveals how the imperturbable puss saved alien explorers from a hideous fate, followed by another fifty shorts covering every topic from mating to feeding, talking to humans and especially how cats inflict revenge…

Shelton and Sheridan then disclose the horrors of ‘Animal Camp’ wherein the irrepressible feline was dumped by Fat Freddy in a Boarding Kennel run by Nazi war criminals where pets were converted into clothing and pet food or else used in arcane genetic experiments!

Naturally the brainy beast had to lead a rebellion and break-out…

Amidst the remaining sixty-plus shorts comprising talking cockroaches, drug-fuelled excess, toilet training and drinking, fighting, mating and outsmarting humans, lurks one last lengthy treat from 1980, ‘The Sacred Sands of Pootweet… or the Mayor’s Meower’, a splendidly raucous political satire based on the tale of Dick Whittington.

When a religious hard-liner overthrows the oil-rich nation and former US satellite of Pootweet, Fat Freddy attempts to scam the Supreme Hoochy-Coochy by using the cat to clean up kingdom’s rodent problem. Only trouble is that the pious and poor Pootweet populace have no vermin problem (even after Freddy callously tries to manufacture one), only sacred, unblemished, undesecrated sands which the cat – in dire need of a potty-break – heads straight for…

The second volume is blessed with another seventy-odd scurrilous, scandalous and supremely hilarious short gags ranging from half to two pages, intoxicatingly interlaced with longer comedic classics such as the untitled tirade against modern newspaper strips which “guest-stars” such luminaries as Mary Worth, Doonesbury, Kronk, Andy Capp, Peanuts and a heavenly host of cartoon cats from Garfield to Fritz to Felix…

Also included are the devious and satirical 1973 spy-spoof ‘I Led Nine Lives!’ recounting the days when the fabulous feline worked for the FBI, ‘Fat Freddy’s CAT in the Burning of Hollywood’ from 1978 wherein the sublimely smug and sanguine survivor of a million hairy moments regales his ever-burgeoning brood of impressionable kittens with how he and his imbecilic human spectacularly flamed out in the movie biz and a truly salutary tale for all fans and readers…

Following the innocent – but so enjoyable – shredding of Fat Freddy’s comic collection and the expiration of his ninth life, ‘Paradise Revisited’ (1983 and illustrated by Paul Mavrides) finds the Marvellous Moggy in heaven again: but even though the place is packed with famous felines it’s not all catnip and celebration…

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is always a consummate professional. His ideas are enchantingly fresh yet timeless, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page quickies, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet story-appropriate – climaxes.

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick and sly satire of Gilbert Shelton is always an irresistible, riotously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium.
© 1983, 1984, 2009 Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

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Outsiders volume 2: Sum of All Evil


By Judd Winick, Tom Raney, Will Conrad, Tom Derenick & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0243-8

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 grim and gritty world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, the concept evolved with a number of costumed adventurers evolving into pre-emptive strikers…

After the deaths of a number of Teen Titan comrades, Arsenal convinced the heartbroken Nightwing to run a covert and pre-emptive pack of professed “hunters” to seek out and take down metahuman threats and extraordinary criminals before they could harm innocent lives or create chaos…

This second compendium collects issues #8-15 of the compelling and controversial Outsiders comicbook, ramping up the action and alienation even further as disaster and the tensions of living life outside the rules begins to take its inevitable toll…

This volume eschews individual issue titles but for your convenience and mine I’ve supplied them when applicable. The drama commences with the three-part ‘Devil’s Work’ by Judd Winick, Tom Raney & Sean Parsons as Arsenal, recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, calls in brutal vigilante The Huntress to bolster the team over the strident objections of Nightwing. Meanwhile Russian mobster Ishmael Gregor slaughters a bus full of people as the opening gambit in his scheme to steal the demonic powers of one-time super-villain Sabbac and bring about Hell on Earth…

The action continues in ‘Lightning from Above and Below’ (inked by Scott Hanna) as the new Sabbac (a supernatural super-being sponsored by devil-lords Satan, Any, Belial, Beeelzebub, Asmodeus and Craeteis in the way the ancient gods empowered Captain Marvel) trounces and severely wounds Jade, Thunder and especially Grace, prompting veteran hero Black Lightning to step in. Even with his aid the heroes are hard-pressed to stop Gregor and turn back an invasion of demons until Captain Marvel Jr. shows up in the concluding ‘A Family Matter’…

A dark change of pace is offered with ‘Scream without Raising Your Voice’ illustrated by Will Conrad & Sean Parsons, as Arsenal comes to terms with the psychological trauma of taking a machine-gun burst to the chest helped by different kinds of tough love from Grace and Nightwing…

The remainder of the book is taken up with a spectacular battle with a resurgent Fearsome Five beginning with the prologue ‘Out with the New, In with the Old’ (Winick, Tom Derenick & Kevin Conrad) as fugitive mad scientist Dr. Sivana recruits and manipulates murderous metahuman Gizmo, Psimon, Jinx and Mammoth by promising to resurrect their dead comrade Shimmer, whilst the Outsiders’ solidarity and resolve begins to crumble after Huntress quits.

‘Five by Five’ opens with ‘New Business’ (art by Raney) as the restored Fearsome Five begin raiding numerous LexCorp holdings for Sivana, forcing the heroes to break into smaller teams and chase them down.

‘Strength in Numbers’ sees the Outsiders thoroughly beaten and only narrowly escaping with their lives prompting the quintet of super-psychopaths to turn on their boss. Going their own way the manic villains concoct a plan to gain global respect by nuking Canada with twenty-three stolen nuclear missiles.

As the battered Outsiders race to stop them, neither side is aware that the whole thing is a warped, Byzantine plan by an outside party to make a real killing…

Razor-sharp, rocket-paced, action-packed and edgily affecting, Outsiders was one of the very best series pursuing the “strike first and strike hard” hero-concept, generating some of the most compelling Fights ‘n’ Tights action of the last decade. Still punchy, evocative and extremely readable, these thrillers will delight older fans of the genre.
© 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Spirou & Fantasio volume 2: In New York


By Tome & Janry, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-054-2

For most English-speaking comic fans and collectors Spirou is probably Europe’s biggest secret. The character is a rough contemporary – and calculated commercial response – to Hergé’s iconic Tintin, whilst the comic he has headlined for decades is only beaten in sheer longevity and manic creativity by our own Beano and Dandy.

Conceived at Belgian Printing House by Jean Dupuis in 1936, a magazine targeting a juvenile audience debuted on April 21st 1938; neatly bracketed by DC Thomson’s The Dandy which launched on 4th December 1937 and The Beano on July 30th 1938. It was edited by Charles Dupuis (a mere tadpole, only 19 years old, himself) and took its name from the lead feature, which recounted the improbable adventures of a plucky Bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique).

Joined on June 8th 1939 by a pet squirrel, Spip (the longest running character in the strip after Spirou himself) the series was conceived by French artist Robert Velter who signed himself Rob-Vel.

A Dutch language edition ‘Robbedoes’ debuted a few weeks later and ran more-or-less in tandem with the French parent comic until it was cancelled in 2005.

The bulk of the comic was taken up with cheap American imports – Fred Harman’s Red Ryder, William Ritt & Clarence Gray’s ‘Brick Bradford’ and Siegel & Shuster’s landmark ‘Superman’ – although home-grown product crept in too. Most prominent were ‘Tif et Tondu’ by Fernand Dineur (which ran until the1990s) and ‘L’Epervier Blue’ by Sirius (Max Mayeu) and they were soon joined by comic-strip wunderkind Joseph Gillain – “Jijé”.

Legendarily, during World War II Jijé drew the entire comic by himself, including home grown versions of banned US imports and also assumed production of the Spirou strip where he created the current co-star Fantasio).

Except for a brief period when the Nazis closed the comic down (September 1943 to October 1944 whilst the Allies liberated Belgium) Spirou and its boyish star – now a globe-trotting journalist – have continued their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory.

Among the other myriad major features that began within those hallowed pages are ‘Jean Valhardi’ (by Jean Doisy & Jije), ‘Blondin et Cirage’ (Victor Hubinon), Buck Danny, ‘Jerry Spring’, ‘Les Schtroumpfs’, ‘Gaston Lagaffe’ and a certain laconic cowboy named Lucky Luke.

Spirou the character (whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous”) has starred in the magazine for most of its life, evolving under a series of creators into an urbane yet raucous fantasy/adventure hero with the accent heavily on light humour. With comrade and rival Fantasio and crackpot inventor the Count of Champignac, Spirou travels to exotic places, uncovering crimes, revealing the fantastic and garnering a coterie of exotic arch-enemies.

During the War when Velter went off to fight, his wife Blanche Dumoulin took over the strip using the name Davine, assisted by Luc Lafnet. Dupuis assumed control of and rights to the strip in 1943, assigning it to Jijé who handed it to his assistant André Franquin in 1946. It was the start of a golden age.

Among Franquin’s innovations were the villains Zorglub and Zantafio, Champignac and one of the first strong female characters in European comics, rival journalist Seccotine (renamed Cellophine in this current English translation), but his greatest creation – one he retained on his departure in 1969 – was the incredible magic animal Marsupilami (first seen in Spirou et les héritiers in 1952), now a star of screen, plush toy store, console and albums all his own.

From 1959 the writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted Franquin but by 1969 the artist had reached his Spirou limit and resigned, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him. He was succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over the course of nine stirring adventures that tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

By the 1980s the series seemed to stall: three different creative teams alternated on the serial: Raoul Cauvin & Nic Broca, Yves Chaland and the author of the adventure under review here: Philippe Vandevelde writing as Tome and artist Jean-Richard Geurts AKA Janry. These last adapted and referenced the beloved Franquin era and revived the feature’s fortunes, producing fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. This one, originally entitled ‘Spirou à New-York’ from 1987, was their seventh and the 39th collection of the venerable comedy sagas.

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

In the Big Apple there is war between two criminal factions. The Mafia are steadily losing ground and men to the insidiously encroaching Chinese Triad of the mysterious Mandarin.

Don Vito “Lucky” Cortizone is advised that it’s due to an incredible run of bad luck and undertakes to find and “recruit” the luckiest person on Earth to turn his gang’s fortunes around…

Meanwhile in Paris Spirou and Fantasio are broke again. Starving with days until payday, they scrape just enough coins together from beneath the sofa cushions for one last frozen pizza…

The tasteless American import has a key inside which almost chokes Fantasio but also claims that they’ve won a million dollars. All they have to do is collect it in person from Lucky’s Bank in New York. Their fortunes are rapidly changing: an assignment from the unscrupulous editor of Turbine Magazine gives them airplane tickets and the promise of work covering a car-ball match in NYC – but only if they leave immediately…

Once in the Big Apple the story shifts into lavishly ludicrous high gear: Cortizone -permanently stuck under a rain cloud which follows him everywhere – hides nothing from the lads but appeals to their greed and fellow feeling to help him out of his tight spot. The implacable, insidious Chinese are beating him at every turn. It’s almost like magic…

But as his men continue to fall around him and Triad assassins keep getting closer and closer, The Don wants to carry out a few tests first – just to see how lucky Fantasio actually is…

Meanwhile, the Mandarin and his reluctant but particularly effective wizard stooge have gotten wind of the scheme and move to negate the Europeans’ influence by kidnapping Spip. And even if it doesn’t forestall their interference, at least the enigmatic mastermind will have something new and exotic to eat…

The diabolical cut-and-thrust shenanigans lead to a daring rescue mission on the Mandarin’s skyscraper citadel and an inevitably spectacular showdown in the skies over New York…

With hilarious supernatural overtones, clever criminal capers, sly digs at American movies-as-culture and daring dabblings with racial and cultural stereotypes/archetypes, all leavened with witty in-jokes, spoofs, lampoons and visual puns, this fast-paced, riotous rollercoaster romp is sheer comicbook poetry that it would be a crime to miss.

This type of thrilling mystery, weird science, light adventure and broad slapstick is a pure refreshing joy in a market far too full of adults-only carnage and testosterone-fuelled breast-beating. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the welcoming style and panache that makes Asterix, Lucky Luke and Iznogoud so compelling, this is another cracking read from a long line of superb exploits which should soon be as much a household name as those series – and even Tintin himself…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1987 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2010 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter volume 1


By Jack Miller, Joe Samachson, Joe Certa & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1368-8

As the 1950’s opened, comicbook superheroes were in a steep decline, giving way to a steady stream of genre-based he-men and “Ordinary Joes” in extraordinary circumstances.

By the time the “Red-baiting”, witch-hunting Senate hearings and media investigations into causes of juvenile delinquency had finished, the industry was further depleted by the excision of any sort of mature content or themes.

The self-imposed Comics Code Authority took all the hard edges out of the industry, banning horror and crime comics whilst leaving their ghostly, sanitised anodyne shades to inhabit the remaining adventure, western, war and fantasy titles that remained.

American comics could have the bowdlerised concept of evil and felonious conduct but not the simplest kind of repercussion: a world where mad scientists plotted to conquer humanity without killing anybody and cowboys shot guns out of opponents’ hands and severed gun-belts with a well-aimed bullet without ever drawing blood…

Moreover no civil or government official or public servant could be depicted as anything other than a saint…

With corruption, venality and menace removed from the equation, comics were forced to supply punch and tension to their works via mystery and imagination – but only as long as it all had a rational, non-supernatural explanation…

Arguably the first superhero of the Silver Age, beating by a year the new Flash (who launched in Showcase #4 cover-dated October 1956) the series depicting the clandestine adventures of stranded alien scientist J’onn J’onzz was initially entitled John Jones, Manhunter from Mars; a decent being unwillingly trapped on Earth who fought crime secretly using his incredible powers, knowledge and abilities with no human even aware of his existence.

However even before that low key debut Batman #78 trialled the concept in ‘The Manhunter From Mars!’ (August/September 1953) wherein Edmund Hamilton, Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charlie Paris told the tales of Roh Kar, a lawman from the Fourth Planet who assisted the Dynamic Duo in capturing a Martian bandit plundering Gotham City. That stirring yarn opens this first magnificent monochrome compendium which also includes the eccentric and often formulaic but never disappointing back-up series from Detective Comics #225 to 304, covering November 1955 – June 1962.

In one of the longest tenures in DC comics’ history, all the art for the series was by veteran illustrator Joe Certa (1919-1986), who had previously worked for the Funnies Incorporated comics “Shop”. His credits included work on Captain Marvel Junior and assorted genre titles for Magazine Enterprises (Dan’l Boone, Durango Kid), Lev Gleason’s crime comics, Harvey romance titles, whilst for DC he drew nautical sleuth Captain Compass and many anthology tales for such titles as Gang Busters and House of Mystery. Certa also drew the newspaper strip Straight Arrow and ghosted the long-lived boxing strip Joe Palooka. In the 1970s he moved to Gold Key, working on TV adaptations, mystery tales and all-ages horror stories.

At the height of US Flying Saucer fever John Jones, Manhunter from Mars debuted in Detective Comics #225, November 1955, as ‘The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel’ (written by Joe Samachson) described how a reclusive genius built a robot-brain which could access Time, Space and the Fourth Dimension, accidentally plucking an alien scientist from his home on Mars. After a brief conversation with his unfortunate guest, Erdel succumbed to a heart attack whilst attempting to return the incredible J’onn J’onzz to his point of origin.

Marooned on Earth the Martian realises his new home is riddled with the primitive cancer of Crime and determines to use his natural abilities (which included telepathy, mind-over-matter psychokinesis, shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, super-strength, speed, flight, vision, invulnerability and many others) to eradicate the evil, working clandestinely disguised as a human policeman. His only concern is the commonplace chemical reaction of fire which saps Martians of all their mighty powers…

With his name Americanised to John Jones he enlisted as a Police Detective and with #226’s ‘The Case of the Magic Baseball’ began a long and peril-fraught career tackling a variety of Earthly thugs and mobsters, beginning with the sordid case of Big Bob Michaels – a reformed ex-con and baseball player blackmailed into throwing games by a gang of crooked gamblers – and continuing in ‘The Man with 20 Lives’ where the mind-reading cop impersonated a ghost to force a confession from a hard-bitten killer.

The tantalising prospect of a return to Mars confronted Jones in the Dave Wood scripted ‘Escape to the Stars’ (issue #228) when criminal scientist Alex Dunster cracked the secret of Erdel’s Robot Brain, but duty overruled selfish desire and the mastermind destroyed his stolen super-machine when Jones arrested him…

With Detective #229 Jack Miller took over as series writer with ‘The Phantom Bodyguard’ as the Hidden Hero signed on to protect a businessman from his murderous partner and discovered a far more complex plot unfolding, whilst #230’s ‘The Sleuth Without a Clue’ found the Covert Cop battling a deadline to get the goods on a vicious gang just as a wandering comet was causing his powers to malfunction…

Detective Comics #231 saw the series shift towards its sci fi roots in ‘The Thief who had Super Powers!’ as an impossible bandit proved to be another refugee from the Fourth Planet after which ‘The Dog with a Martian Master’ proved to be another delightful if fanciful animal champion before Jones returned to crime-busting and clandestine cops and robbers capers by becoming ‘The Ghost From Outer Space’ in #233.

The cop went undercover in a prison to thwart a smart operator in #234’s ‘The Martian Convict’, infiltrated a circus as ‘The World’s Greatest Magician’ to catch a Phantom Thief and finally re-established contact with his distant family to solve ‘The Great Earth-Mars Mystery’ in #236 and saw out 1956 as ‘The Sleuth Who went to Jail’ – this time one operated by crooks – and lost his powers becoming ‘Earth Detective for a Day’ in #238.

In Detective #239 (January 1957) ‘Ordeal By Fire!’ found the Anonymous Avenger transferred to the Fire Department to track down an arson ring whilst in ‘The Hero Maker’ Jones surreptitiously used his powers to help a retiring cop go out on a high before another firebug targeting historical treasures provided ‘The Impossible Manhunt’ in #241.

Jones thought he’d be safe as a underwater officer in ‘The Thirty Fathom Sleuth’ but even there flame found a way to menace him after which he battled legendary Martian robot Tor in #243’s ‘The Criminal from Outer Space’ before doubling for an endangered actor in ‘The Four Stunts of Doom’ and busting a clever racket utilising ‘The Phantom Fire Alarms’ in #245.

As a back-up feature expectations were never particularly high but occasionally all the formula elements gelled together to produce exemplary and even superb adventure tales such as #246’s ‘John Jones’ Female Nemesis’ which introduced in the pert, perky and pestiferous form of trainee policewoman Diane Meade who, being a 1950’s woman, naturally had romance in mind, but was absent for the next equally engaging thriller wherein the indomitable cop puzzled over ‘The Impossible Messages’ of scurrilous smugglers and the marvellous tales of ‘The Martian Without a Memory’ in #248. Struck by lightning, Jones used deductive skill to discern his lost identity and almost exposed his own extraterrestrial secret in the process…

In Detective #249 ‘Target for a Day’ the Martian disguised himself as the State Governor marked for death by a brutal gang whilst as ‘The Stymied Sleuth!’ in #250 he was forced to stay in hospital to protect his alien identity as radium thieves ran amok in town, after which he seemingly became a brilliant crook himself… ‘Alias Mr. Zero’.

Issue #252 saw Jones battle a scientific super-criminal in ‘The Menace of the Super-Weapons’ before infiltrating a highly suspicious newspaper as ‘The Super Reporter!’ and invisibly battling rogue soldiers as ‘The One-Man Army’ in #254.

The Hidden Hero attempted to foil an audacious murder-plot that encompassed the four corners of the Earth in the ‘World-Wide Manhunt!’ after which #256’s ‘The Carnival of Doom’ pitted him against canny crooks whilst babysitting a VIP kid and #257 found the Starborn Sleuth committing spectacular crimes to trap the ‘King of the Underworld!’

In Detective #258 Jones took an unexpectedly dangerous vacation cruise on ‘The Jinxed Ship’ and returned to tackle another criminal genius in ‘The Getaway King’ before helping a desolate and failing fellow cop in the heart-warming tale of ‘John Jones’ Super-Secret’, after which a shrink ray reduced him to ‘The Midget Manhunter!’ in #261.

An evil mastermind used beasts for banditry in ‘The Animal Crime Kingdom’ whilst a sinister stage magician tested the Manhunter’s mettle and wits in #263’s ‘The Crime Conjurer!’ before the hero’s hidden powers were almost exposed when cheap hoods found a crashed capsule and unleashed ‘The Menace of the Martian Weapons!’

Masked and costumed villains were still a rarity when J’onzz tackled ‘The Fantastic Human Falcon’ in #265 whilst ‘The Challenge of the Masked Avenger’ was the only case for a new – and inept – wannabe hero, after which the Martian’s sense of duty and justice forced him to forego a chance to return home in #267’s ‘John Jones’ Farewell to Earth’…

Another menacing fallen meteor resulted in ‘The Mixed-Up Martian Powers’ whilst a blackmailing reporter almost became ‘The Man who Exposed John Jones’ in Detective #269, after which a trip escorting an extradited felon from Africa resulted in J’onzz becoming ‘The Hunted Martian’.

The Manhunter’s origin was revisited in #271 when Erdel’s robot-brain accidentally froze his powers and resulted in ‘The Lost Identity’ before death threats compelled Jones’ boss to appoint a well-meaning hindrance in the form of ‘The Super-Sleuth’s Bodyguard’…

By the time Detective Comics #273 was released (November 1959) the Silver Age superhero revival was in full swing and with a plethora of new costumed characters catching the public imagination old survivors like Green Arrow, Aquaman and others were given a thorough makeover. Perhaps the boldest was the new direction taken by the Manhunter from Mars as his existence on Earth was revealed to all mankind when he very publicly battled and defeated a criminal from his home world in ‘The Unmasking of J’onn J’onzz’.

As part of the revamp J’onzz had lost the ability to use his powers whilst invisible and perforce became a very high-profile superhero. At least his vulnerability to common flame was still a closely guarded secret…

This tale was promptly followed by the debut of incendiary villain ‘The Human Flame’ in #274 and the introduction of a secret identity-hunting romantic interest as policewoman Diane Meade returned in ‘John Jones’ Pesky Partner’ in #275.

‘The Crimes of John Jones’ found the new champion an amnesiac pawn of mere bank robbers but another fantastic foe debuted in #277 with ‘The Menace of Mr. Moth’ after which invading Venusians almost caused ‘The Defeat of J’onn J’onzz’ and a hapless millionaire inventor almost wrecked the city by accident with ‘The Impossible Inventions’…

Advance word of an underworld plot forced the Manhunter to become ‘Bodyguard to a Bandit’ and keep a crook out of prison, whilst ‘The Menace of Marsville’ in #281 inadvertently gave criminals powers to equal his and a fallen meteorite temporarily turned Diane into ‘The Girl with the Martian Powers’ – or did it…?

To help out an imperilled ship captain J’onzz became ‘The Amazing One-Man Crew’ whilst in #284 Diane tried to seduce her partner in ‘The Courtship of J’onn J’onzz’ unaware of his extraterrestrial origins after which monster apes tore up the city in ‘The Menace of the Martian Mandrills!’

Detective #286 saw ‘His Majesty, John Jones’ stand in for an endangered Prince in a take on The Prisoner of Zenda before ‘J’onn J’onzz’s Kid Brother’ T’omm was briefly stranded on Earth. Only one of the siblings could return…

‘The Case of the Honest Swindler’ in #288 found a well-meaning man accidentally endangering the populace with magical artefacts after which a quick trip to Asia pitted the Martian against a cunning jungle conman in ‘J’onn J’onzz – Witch Doctor’.

When a movie was being sabotaged Diane took over for the lead stunt-girl with some assistance from the Manhunter in ‘Lights, Camera – and Doom!’ whilst a lovesick suitor masqueraded as ‘The Second Martian Manhunter’ to win his bride in #291 and ‘The Ex-Convicts Club’ almost foundered before it began when someone began impersonating the reformed criminals and pulling new jobs. Luckily J’onzz was more trusting than most…

Diane found herself with a rival in policewoman Sally Winters and their enmity could only be resolved with ‘The Girl-Hero Contest’ after which the Manhunter pursued crooks into another dimension and became ‘The Martian Weakling’ in #294, before becoming ‘The Martian Show-Off’ to inexplicably deprive a fellow cop of his 1000th arrest and ‘The Alien Bodyguard’ for Diane who was unaware that she had been marked for death…

In #297’s ‘J’onn J’onzz vs. the Vigilantes’ the Green Guardian exposed the secret agenda of a committee of wealthy “concerned citizens” before coming to the aid of a stage performer who was ‘The Man Who Impersonated J’onn J’onzz’ and then almost failed as a ‘Bodyguard for a Spy’ because Diane was jealous of the beautiful Princess in his charge…

Detective #300 unveiled ‘The J’onn J’onzz Museum’ – a canny ploy by a master criminal who believed he had uncovered the Martian’s secret weakness, whilst ‘The Mystery of the Martian Marauders’ found the hero battling impossible odds when an army of his fellows invaded Earth…

‘The Crime King of Mount Olympus’ pitted the Manhunter against a pantheon of Hellenic super-criminals to save Diane’s life whilst more standard thugs attempted to reveal his secret identity in ‘The Great J’onn J’onzz Hunt’ before this first beguiling compendium concludes with #304’s stirring tale of an academy of scientific lawbreaking infiltrated by John Jones in ‘The Crime College’…

Although certainly dated, and definitely formulaic, these complex yet uncomplicated adventures are drenched in charm and still sparkle with innocent wit and wonder. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste nowadays, these exploits of the Manhunter from Mars are still an all-ages buffet of fun, thrills and action no fan should miss.
© 1953, 1955-1962, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: the Dark Knight Archives volume 5


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson, Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0778-6

War always seems to stimulate creativity and advancement and these sublime adventures of Batman and Robin more than prove that axiom as the growing band of creators responsible for producing the bi-monthly adventures of the Dark Knight hit an artistic peak which only stellar stable-mate Superman and Fawcett’s Captain Marvel were able to equal or even approach…

Following an introduction by newspaper journalist and fan Michelle Nolan, this fantastic fifth edition (collecting Batman #17-20 and spanning June/July 1943 to December 1943/January 1944) opens with the gloriously human story of B. Boswell Brown, a lonely and self-important old man who claimed to be ‘The Batman’s Biographer!’ Unfortunately ruthless robber The Conjurer gave the claim far more credence than most in a this tense thriller by Don Cameron, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos…

This was counterbalanced by ‘The Penguin Goes A-Hunting’ (Cameron again with art by Jack & Ray Burnley), a wild romp wherein the Perfidious Popinjay went on a hubris-fuelled crime-spree after being left off a “Batman’s Most Dangerous Foes” list.

The same creative team concocted ‘Rogues Pageant!’ when murderous thieves in Western city Santo Pablo inexplicably disrupt the towns historical Anniversary celebrations after which Joe Greene, Kane & Robinson detail the Dynamic Duo’s brutal battle with a deadly gang of maritime marauders in the unique ‘Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals!’

Batman #18 opened with a spectacular and visually stunning crime-caper as the Gotham Gangbusters clashed again with dastardly bandits Tweedledum and Tweedledee whilst solving ‘The Secret of Hunter’s Inn!’ by Joe Samachson & Robinson, after which ‘Robin Studies his Lessons!’ (Samachson, Kane & Robinson) saw the Boy Wonder grounded from all crime-busting duties until his school work improved – even if it meant Batman dying for want of his astounding assistance!

Bill Finger and Burnley brothers crafted ‘The Good Samaritan Cops’; another brilliant human interest drama focused on the tense but unglamorous work of the Police Emergency Squad and this issue concluded with a shocking and powerful return engagement for manic physician and felonious mastermind ‘The Crime Surgeon!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson),

The writers of the first and third stories in Batman #19 are sadly unknown to us (perhaps William Woolfolk?) but there’s no doubting the magnificent artwork of rising star Dick Sprang who pencilled every tale in this blockbusting issue, beginning with ‘Batman Makes a Deadline!’ wherein the Dark Knight investigated skulduggery and attempted murder at the City’s biggest newspaper after which Don Cameron authored the breathtaking fantasy masterpiece ‘Atlantis Goes to War!’ with the Dynamic Duo rescuing that fabled submerged city from Nazi assault.

The Joker reared his garish head again in the anonymously penned thriller ‘The Case of the Timid Lion!’ with the Clown Prince enraged and lethal whilst tracking down an impostor committing crime capers in his name before Samachson, Sprang and inker Norman Fallon unmasked the ‘Collector of Millionaires’ with Dick Grayson investigating his wealthy mentor’s bewildering replacement by a cunning doppelganger…

Batman #20 featured the Mountebank of Mirth in ‘The Centuries of Crime!’ (Cameron & the Burnleys) with The Joker claiming to have discovered a nefariously profitable method of time-travelling, whilst ‘The Trial of Titus Keyes!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson) offered a masterful courtroom drama of injustice amended, focussing on the inefficacy of witness statements…

‘The Lawmen of the Sea!’ by Finger & the Burnleys found the Dynamic Duo again working with a lesser known Police Division as they joined the Harbor Patrol in their daily duties and uncovered a modern day piracy ring before the volume ends on a dramatic high with ‘Bruce Wayne Loses Guardianship of Dick Grayson!’ wherein a couple of fraudsters claiming to be the boy’s last remaining relatives petition to adopt him.

A melodramatic triumph by Finger, Kane & Robinson, there’s still plenty of action, especially after the grifters try to sell Dick back to Bruce Wayne…

With an expansive biographies section and glorious covers from Robinson, Ed Kressy and Sprang this gloriously indulgent deluxe hardback compendium is another irresistible box of classic delights that no fan of the medium can afford to miss.

© 1943, 1944, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Comics: the 75th Anniversary Poster Book


By various, compiled and with commentary by Robert Schnakenberg & Paul Levitz (Quirk Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59474-462-4

Here’s another poster-sized (a colossal 282 by 356mm) full-colour art-book, this time with material far more familiar to comics fans. Beautiful, captivating and still readily available, this tremendous tome was released in 2010 to celebrate America’s premier funnybook publisher in their 75th year of continuous existence.

This 208 page compendium, devised with 100 whole-page images – suitable and intended for framing – with background information and a couple of equally vibrant and chronologically pertinent cover contenders on each reverse side, charts all the breakthroughs, major debuts and key events of the companies (initially National Periodical Publications and All-American imprints) which merged to become DC, and includes the fruits of other publishers like Fawcett, Quality and Charlton Comics whose creative successes were later acquired and assimilated by the unstoppable corporate colossus which forms today’s universally recognised multi-media phenomenon.

The obvious candidates are all there and of course the vast majority of these stunning illustrations are superhero themed, but there are also fine examples of the bizarre fads, eccentric mores and mind-boggling concepts that were simply part-and-parcel of comics from the last eight decades.

The four-colour graphic parade begins with New Fun Comics #1 (February 1935 and with issues #2 and 3 decorating the potted history of the company on the back) and follows with the obvious landmarks  such as Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, Superman #1 and 14, Flash Comics #1, Batman #1 and Sensation Comics #1 but also finds space for equally evocative but less well-used covers as Detective #11, Adventure #40, Action #19, Green Lantern #1 and Sensation #38.

From the almost superhero-free 1950s come such eccentric treats as Mr. District Attorney #12, Our Army at War #20, Mystery in Space #22, Strange Adventures #79 and 100, Showcase #12, Leave it to Binky #60, Adventure Comics #247, Detective #275 (“The Zebra Batman!”) and many more, whilst the tumultuous 1960s offers such treasures as Flash #123, Showcase #34, Brave and the Bold #42 & 58 and Justice League of America #21 as well as practically unseen treasures like Falling in Love #62, Heart Throbs #93, Girls’ Love #127 among others…

The 1970s through to today are represented by such examples as Wonder Woman #205, Shazam! #3, Prez #3, Detective #475, Weird Western Tales, #53, Weird War #89, New Teen Titans #1, Ronin #1, Swamp Thing #34, Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, the first issues of  The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Hellblazer, Sandman, The Killing Joke, V for Vendetta and Preacher, Wonder Woman #0, Superman #75, Cat Woman #2, New Frontiers #6, Arkham Asylum Anniversary Edition, Batman: Year 100 #1, All-Star Superman #10 Batman #679 and others. All these covers can of course be viewed online through numerous database sites – but those aren’t crisply printed on high-grade card and ready to frame…

The artists include Lyman Anderson, Joe Shuster, Bob Kane, Creig Flessel, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, John Romita Sr., Ramona Fradon, Neal Adams, Joe Orlando, Berni Wrightson, Steve Ditko, Mike Sekowsky, Bob Oksner, Curt Swan, Nick Cardy, Jack Kirby, Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, David Lloyd, Dave McKean, Michael Golden, Darwyn Cooke, Dave Johnson, Adam Hughes, Jim Lee, James Jean, Tim Sale, Paul Pope, Frank Quitely, Alex Ross and a myriad of others…

For my rarefied tastes there are too few of the company’s superb young kids and funny animal titles and not enough of their genre successes, as exemplified by the War, Western, Romance, Science Fiction, Jungle Action, Sword & Sorcery and mystery/horror titles which kept the company afloat when mystery men periodically palled on the public’s palate, but this book is nevertheless a splendid catalogue of DC’s contribution to global culture and an overwhelming celebration of the unique glory of comics.

Even better; there are still thousands of covers left to shove into follow-up volumes…

Art and compilation © 2010 DC Comics. All rights Reserved.