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Black Widow: The Coldest War – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Gerry Conway, George Freeman & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-643-0

By 1990 Marvel’s ambitious line of all-new graphic novels was beginning to falter, and some less-than-stellar tales were squeaking into the line-up. Moreover, the company was increasingly resorting to in-continuity stories with established – and company copyrighted – characters rather than creator-owned properties and original concepts.

Not that that necessarily meant poor product, as this intriguing superhero spy thriller proves. The Coldest War is set in the last days of the US/Soviet face-off with what looks to be a pasted-on epilogue added as an afterthought, but as the entire affair was clearly scripted as a miniseries – most probably for the fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents – an afterword set after the fall of the Berlin Wall doesn’t jar too much and must have lent an air of imminent urgency to the mix.

The Black Widow started life as a svelte and sultry honey-trap Russian agent during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days. She fell for an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – and finally defected; becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and occasional leader of the Avengers. Throughout her career she has been considered competent, deadly, efficient and cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours.

Gerry Conway provides a typically twisty, double-dealing tale set in the dog-days of Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” (“openness”) government when ambitious KGB upstarts undertake a plan to subvert Natasha (nee Natalia) Romanova and return her to Soviet control using the bait of her husband Alexei Shostokoff – whom she has believed dead for years. Naturally nothing is as it seems, nobody can be trusted and only the last spy standing can be called the winner…

Low key and high-tech go hand in hand in this sort of tale, and although there’s much reference to earlier Marvel classics this tale can be easily enjoyed by the casual reader and art fan.

And what art! George Freeman is a supreme stylist, whose drawing work – although infrequent – is always top rate. Starting out on the seminal Captain Canuck, he has excelled on Jack of Hearts, Green Lantern, Avengers, Batman (Annual #11, with Alan Moore), Wasteland, Elric, Nexus and The X-Files (for which he won the Eisner Award for colouring). He co-founded the design/colouring studio Digital Chameleon in 1991.

Here, inked by Ernie Colon, Mark Farmer, Mike Harris, Val Mayerik and Joe Rubinstein with colours from Lovern Kindzierski he produced a subtle and sophisticated blend of costumed chic and espionage glamour that easily elevated this tale to a “must-have” item.
© 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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King – a Comic Biography: The Special Edition


By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-310-1

There are books to read, books you should read – and some perhaps, that you shouldn’t – and there are important books. The relatively new field of graphic novels has many of the first but precious few important books yet.

It’s hard enough to get noticed within the industry (simply excelling at your craft is not enough) but when we do generate something wonderful, valid, powerful, true to our medium yet simultaneously breaking beyond into the wide world and making a mark, the reviews from that appreciative greater market come thick and fast – so I’m not going to spend acres of text praising this superb, controversial and unique examination of the man that lived beside – not “behind” or “within” the myth of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over the course of ten years (1993-2002) young Canadian cartoonist Ho Che Anderson struggled to produce three comics books that offered another perspective of a man who was as much sinner as saint, but whose determination, passion, energy and sheer luck drove a cleansing wedge into a rotting, repressive, stifled society and succeeded in opening enough doors for America’s racial underclass, so that forty years later a black American can govern the World’s greatest superpower.

Not that four decades is so brief an interlude: but than again, how many European or white Commonwealth countries can boast that their highest echelons of power have made even that much progress?

In both stark black and white and mesmerising colour, Anderson uses all the strengths and tools of sequential narrative to reveal, relate, question and challenge the oft-recounted facts of the Georgia Pastor’s life in this magnificent volume, released to celebrate Barack Obama’s – and the American people’s – landmark achievement. Gathered within are those hard-crafted three issues, extra and deleted scenes, the thematically linked one-shot Black Dogs and many other extras in one compelling tome, with a fascinating overview from Anderson; sketches and reminisces, a treatise on his working practises and a gallery of related art.

This is a true historical examination and a perfect example of comics at its most effective – biography not hagiography – and as important a landmark achievement for our art-form as Maus, Safe Area Goražde or American Splendor, Watchmen, Pride of Baghdad or Persepolis. Whenever and wherever we have to defend our Art from decriers and peddlers of prejudice, King will be one of the paltry few examples that cannot be contradicted or ignored. It’s a book no thinking fan can afford to miss.
King: The Special Edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All content © 2010 Ho Che Anderson. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Son of Man


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-830-3

Garth Ennis ended a spectacular run on the urban wizard and all-around nasty-piece-of-work John Constantine in grand manner with Hellblazer: Rake at the Gates of Hell. By wrapping up all his loose ends and eradicating almost everything built during his tenure Ennis gave the regrettable impression that he was never coming back, but to every fan’s delight he returned with frequent collaborator John Higgins (see Pride and Joy) to craft this terrifying and pitiless tale of urban horror and twisted heritage set in the darkly charismatic London underworld.

During the Falklands War, when John Constantine was still in and out of criminal asylums, gang boss Harry Cooper asked a favour. Already well acquainted with the worst that Hell housed, the cocky young wizard knew true evil when it stuck a gun up his nose and was wise enough to comply.

With a few of his friends – for they weren’t all dead back then – he successfully resurrected Cooper’s dead son, and counted himself lucky to escape with his life and knees intact. No one, especially Cooper, needed to know just how he’d accomplished the impossible.

Twenty years later an older wiser man, he’s being harassed by Copper’s thugs and their bought coppers again. The kid’s all grown up now and taking over the family business, but his actions don’t make sense. Rather than making money, all his efforts seem destined to turn the city into a seething cauldron of race-hate and gang warfare: a literal Hell on Earth.

Now Constantine has to deal with the thing he brought back before it settles with him and all London too – but the outlook is far from rosy…

Collecting issues #129-133 of the monthly comicbook, this is an excellent blend of crime-thriller a la “Cool Britannia” with the signature black comedy-horror that Ennis has made his own, and the expressive, boldly subtle art of John Higgins perfectly captures the brutality, hilarity and sheer fear generated in this terrific thriller.

Grown-up comics simply don’t get better than this and both crime fans and horror lovers can pick this book up with no prior familiarity and still have the time of their lives…

© 1998, 1999, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Newave!- The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980’s


Edited by Michael Dowers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-313-2

Everybody has at some stage in their lives used pictures to tell stories. It’s a fundamental step in the cognitive development of children and for some of us that magic never goes away. For most people the crushing weight of the world squelches the joy of creation so that we become observers and consumers rather than makers, but a privileged few carry on: drawing, exploring, and in some cases, where technology allows, producing and sharing.

This book explores, recounts and celebrates those driven artisans who came out of the “anything goes” 1960s and 1970s Underground Comix movement, craving a vehicle of expression, not caring about money, and with enough time to draw – or gather – artwork (mini comics people are notoriously generous, contributing work at the drop of a hat: just check out the huge array of notable creators listed below) before laboriously photocopying, cutting, folding, stapling and then distributing the miniscule but marvellous results.

Just by way of definition: most mini comix were home produced pamphlets using borrowed or when necessary paid for print processes. The most popular format was an 8½ x 11inch sheet, folded twice, and printed at local copy-shops (or made on school/work repro systems like early Xerox, Photostat, Mimeo or Spirit Banda machines) on letter-size – or any – paper. Because they weren’t big, they were called mini comix. Duh!

Although this book concentrates on a specific time, place and creative ethos, the phenomenon was truly world-wide and covered all genres from superhero knock-offs to the sexually explicit, violent, political and drug-related work that typified Newave! Nobody who wanted to and had access to the technology ever resisted making their own comics…

In this 892 page collection the many craftsmen who began the tradition that led inexorably to today’s thriving Alternative and Small Press publishing movements as well as the current internet comics phenomenon, discuss at length their motives and methods, and naturally the best of that adventurous decade are reprinted in crisp black and white.

Among the hundreds, (thousands?) of people who have made or contributed to mini comix many have gone on to more well-received and popular things. Some of them include (and feel free to save time, skip this section and just buy the book) Jeff Gaither, Michael Roden, Wayno, Artie Romero, Brad Foster, Fred Hembeck, Mary Fleener, The Pizz, Rick Geary, Dennis Worden, Steve Willis, Roy Tompkins, Tom Christopher, XNO, Clay Geerdes, Bob X, Jim Siergey, J.R. Williams, Jim Blanchard, Norman Dog, Molly Kiely, Mack White, Daniel Clowes, Doug Allen, Art Penn, Sam Henderson, Gary Whitney, George Erling, Bob Vojtko, Doug Potter, David Miller, Jim Ryan, Par Holman, Roger May, Meher Dada, Wayne Gibson, Tom Motley, Marc Arsenault, Ion, Bruce Chrislip, Dale Luciano, C. Bradford Gorby, Robin Ator, Douglas O’Neil, C. E. Emmer, Kurt Wilcken, Doug Holverson, Jamie Alder, Tom Hosier, Steven Noppenberger, W.C. Pope, Jim Gillespie, John Howard, Tucker Petertil, Gary Lieb, Bob Conway, and Jim Thompson.

I’ve done it myself, for fun – even once or twice for actual profit – and it’s an incredible buzz (I should note that I have a wife not only tolerant but far more skilled and speedy in the actual “photocopy, cut, fold, staple” bit and willing, if not keen, to join in just so she could see the oaf she married occasionally…)

The sheer boundless enthusiasm and joy of making comics is celebrated in this astonishingly vast, incredibly heavy and yet still pocket-sized hardback collection, with over 700 pages of the very best of that decade’s adult cartoons on show, accompanied by not just historical information on key publishers such as Brad Foster, Artie Romero, Steve Willis, Dennis Worden, Bob X, J.R. Williams, Roger May, Tom Hosier, George Erling, Bob Vojtko and others but also a list of website addresses so you can check out how the compulsion to create has survived into the 21st century.

A joy for every fan of the art-form: as long as they’re old enough to vote and strong enough to lift the thing.
Newave!- The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980’s © 2010 Michael Dowers and Fantagraphics Books. All contents © 2010 their respective creators. All rights reserved.

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Green Lantern: Revenge of the Green Lanterns


By Geoff Johns, Carlos Pacheco, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis & others (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-355-8

Following on from his triumphant resurrection in Green Lantern: Rebirth and return to the superhero “A-List” in Green Lantern: No Fear this third collection recounts the on-going adventures of Hal Jordan, troubled test-pilot and inter-galactic policeman in a sequence that encompassed the One Year Later publishing event (after the Infinite Crisis event, the company re-set the time line of all their publications to begin one year later. This enabled them to reconfigure their characters as they saw fit, provide a jumping on point for new converts and also give themselves some narrative wiggle-room), and firmly placed this series at the hub of all future DC continuity.

Collecting issues #7-13 of the monthly comicbook, all the stories here are written by Geoff Johns and the hints and plot-markers for both the upcoming Sinestro War and Final Crisis epics are liberally sprinkled throughout the yarn re-presented here.

‘A Perfect Life’ illustrated by Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino, paired GL with old friend Green Arrow in a riotous showdown with alien marauder Mongul, a two-part blockbuster that gave the veteran warriors a tantalising glimpse of how their lives could, or perhaps should have been.

Next comes ‘Branded’ with art by Ethan Van Sciver and Prentiss Rollins, which sees GL tackle a long-standing enmity with Batman, who cannot bring himself to trust a hero who has already gone rogue once, whilst the pair have to defeat a deadly new version of the Tattooed Man. The end of that tale marks the jumping-off point for One Year Later. The volume continues immediately with the eponymous ‘Revenge of the Green Lanterns’.

During the missing year the Infinite Crisis rocked the DC universe, and in its aftermath world politics shifted. Superheroes are no longer as popular as they once were and many countries have forbidden them to operate within their national borders. The story opens as Green Lantern invades Russian territory (and not for the first time) in hot pursuit of an alien foe, and when challenged by Rocket Red defenders takes out his impatience on them.

It transpires that year ago Hal Jordan rejoined the air force, and with old pals Jillian “Cowgirl” Pearlman and Shane Sellers was shot down by Chechnyan rebels. Held for months before escaping Jordan holds himself responsible: the arrogant hotshot had decided not to wear his ring in combat and his friends suffered torture and maiming because of his complacency. He has much to atone for and his patience with Earth politics is now non-existent…

 

Moreover, in ‘Revenge of the Green Lanterns’ (pictured by Ivan Reis and Marc Campos) many members of the revived Green Lantern Corps cannot forgive him for the deaths he caused when possessed by the fear-parasite Parallax, so when a lead to missing Lanterns supposedly dead at his hands crashes at his feet Jordan ignores direct orders from the Guardians of the Universe to track them down and sets out with fellow Lantern Guy Gardner for the edge of the universe…

Ending in a spectacular battle against the Cyborg Superman and the robotic Manhunters Hal Jordan’s moment of triumph seems supreme, but throughout the universe creatures of immense violence and evil are being recruited by an implacable old enemy and the Guardians are making secret preparations for an impending catastrophe that will shake the very heavens…

Breathtaking in scope, superb in execution, this is perfect superhero storytelling: but unless you have a basic familiarity with DC /Green Lantern history you’d best review some of the earlier graphic novel collections before even attempting this little cracker…

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Pride & Joy


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-803-7

Garth Ennis has a well deserved reputation for shocking, moving and wickedly funny storytelling, and is accomplished in blending genres for maximum effect, as his successes with Preacher, Hellblazer, True Faith and a dozen other tales will attest.

One of his least regarded – in my opinion unjustly so – is this saga of a painfully domestic world turned upside down by an unredeemed past. It is a story of dreadfully ordinary folk with none of the baroque or flamboyant characters that populate regular fiction.

There’s this guy called Jimmy Kavanagh. His wife is long-dead, his son Patrick is at that revolting sulky teen age, but at least his little daughter Rachel is still the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Life is hard: his own dad, a war-hero, has just passed on, but the family are doing okay…

That all changes when Jimmy’s stupid past resurfaces. In 1972 he and a couple of his idiot friends dreamed they were going to be big-time hoods when they agreed to rip-off a gang boss. The gig had been planned by the boss’ bodyguard, Stein, who promised them a million dollars… Unfortunately for everybody but Jimmy, his pals were real shmucks, and cocked up the caper. Cops arrived, busted Stein before he could kill them all and took him away for twenty-to-life.

Scared straight by the experience, Jimmy got on with his life – until now. One night he gets a call and his world starts to implode. Coming home to finds the babysitter gutted like a fish. Stein is out and he wants revenge…

Gathering his kids and linking up with his old “colleagues” they go on the run together, but the hunter can’t be shaken and innocent people keep dying. Unable to bond with his son during their entire life together Jimmy finally, tragically connects with Patrick as the sorry saga comes to a small and dirty close…

With chilling echoes of Cape Fear (the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum version) this tale seeks to examine how ordinary people cope with ordinary evil: a cheap thug with a knife is just as deadly as a horde of vampires. You and your family can only die once – painfully, horribly; but just once. Pride and Joy is a tale about dreams and heritage and shows how mediocre people cope, illustrated with perfect subtle understatement by John Higgins. Nothing about this story is big or bold or bombastic: but it could really happen. It’s That Scary…

© 1997, 2004 Garth Ennis and John Higgins. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Iron Man volume 2


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Gene Colan, George Tuska, Johnny Craig, & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-90415-975-9

Marvel’s rise to dominance of the American comicbook industry really took hold in 1968 when most of their characters finally got their own titles. Prior to that and due to a highly restrictive distribution deal the company was tied to a limit of 16 publications per month. To circumvent this drawback, Marvel developed “split-books” with two features per publication, such as Tales of Suspense where Iron Man was joined by Captain America with #59 (cover-dated November 1964). When the division came the armoured Avenger started afresh with a “Collectors Item First Issue” – after a shared one-shot with the Sub-Mariner that squared divergent schedules – and Cap retained the numbering of the original title; thus premiering in number #100.

This second sterling black and white chronological compendium covers that transitional period, reprinting Tales of Suspense #73-99, Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1 and Iron Man #1-11, and also includes the Subby portion of Tales to Astonish #82, which held a key portion of an early comics crossover.

Tony Stark is the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism; a glamorous millionaire industrialist and inventor – and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego, Iron Man. Created in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison, using Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World seemed inevitable. Combine the then-sacrosanct belief that technology and business could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil and the concept behind the Golden Avenger seems an infallibly successful proposition. Of course it helps that all that money and gadgetry is great fun and very, very cool…

This volume begins with Tales of Suspense #73 (cover-dated January 1966) and picks up, soap opera fashion, on Iron Man, rushing to the bedside of his best friend Happy Hogan, gravely wounded in an earlier battle, and now missing from his hospital bed. ‘My Life for Yours!’ by a veritable phalanx of creators including Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & Jack Abel (in their Marvel modes of Adam Austin and Gary Michaels), Sol Brodsky, Flo Steinberg and Marie Severin, pitted the Avenger in final combat against the Black Knight to rescue Happy but after this the creative stabilised at Lee, Colan and Abel, for ‘If this Guilt be Mine..!’ wherein Tony Stark’s inventive intervention saved his friend’s life but transformed the patient into a terrifying monster.

Whilst in pitched battle against ‘The Fury of… the Freak!’ (who scared the stuffings out of me as an comic-crazed seven-year-old!), Iron Man was helpless when the Mandarin attacked in #76’s ‘Here Lies Hidden…the Unspeakable Ultimo!’ The saga continued in ‘Ultimo Lives!’ and closed as the gigantic android went berserk in ‘Crescendo!’ dooming itself and allowing our ferrous hero to escape home, only to face a Congressional Inquiry and a battle crazed Sub-Mariner in ‘Disaster!’ The Prince of Atlantis had been hunting his enemy Warlord Krang in his own series, and the path led straight to Stark’s factory, so when confronted with another old foe the amphibian over-reacted in his usual manner.

‘When Fall the Mighty!’ in Tales of Suspense #80, was one colossal punch-up, which carried over into Tales to Astonish #82, where Thomas and Colan began the conclusion before the penciller contracted flu after delivering only two pages. Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, stepped in to produce some of the finest action-art of his entire Marvel career, fully displaying ‘The Power of Iron Man!’

TOS #81 featured ‘The Return of the Titanium Man!’ – and Gene Colan – as the Communist Colossus attacked the Golden Avenger on his way to Congress, and threatened all of Washington DC in the Frank Giacoia inked ‘By Force of Arms!’ before succumbing to superior fire power in ‘Victory!’ Stark’s controversial reputation was finally restored as the public finally discovered that his life was only preserved by a metallic chest-plate to kept his heart beating in ‘The Other Iron Man!’ – but nobody connected that hunk of steel to the identical one his Avenging “bodyguard” wore…

The Mandarin kidnapped the inventor’s recovering pal – temporarily wearing the super-suit – in another extended assault that began with ‘Into the Jaws of Death’ which compelled the ailing Stark to fly to his rescue in ‘Death Duel for the Life of Happy Hogan!’, in #87-88 the Mole Man attacked in ‘Crisis… at the Earth’s Core!’ and ‘Beyond all Rescue!’ and it was the turn of another old B-List bad-guy in ‘The Monstrous Menace of the Mysterious Melter!’ and its sequel ‘The Golden Ghost!’

‘The Uncanny Challenge of the Crusher!’ is an okay battle tale somewhat marred for modern audiences by a painful Commie-Bustin’ sub-plot featuring a thinly disguised Fidel Castro, and the impressions of the on-going “Police Action” in Indo-China are also a little gung-ho (if completely understandable) when Iron Man went hunting for a Red Menace called Half-Face ‘Within the Vastness of Viet Nam!’ and met an incorrigible old foe in ‘The Golden Gladiator and… the Giant!’ before snatching victory from Titanium jaws of defeat in ‘The Tragedy and the Triumph!’ (this last inked by Dan Adkins).

A new cast member was introduced in #95 as preppie S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell was assigned as security advisor to America’s most prominent weapons maker, just as the old Thor villain Grey Gargoyle attacked in ‘If a Man be Stone!’ and ‘The Deadly Victory!’

Tales of Suspense #97 began an extended story-arc that would carry the series to the start of the solo-book and beyond. Criminal cartel the Maggia had a scheme to move in on Stark’s company which opened with ‘The Coming of… Whiplash!’ proceeded to ‘The Warrior and the Whip!’ and as the brilliant Archie Goodwin assumed the scripting reins and EC legend Johnny Craig came aboard as inker Iron Man found himself trapped on a sinking submarine ‘At the Mercy of the Maggia’, just as Tales of Suspense ended at #99…

Of course it was just changing its name to Captain America, as Tales to Astonish seamlessly transformed into the Incredible Hulk, but due to a scheduling snafu neither of those split-book co-stars had a home that month (April 1968) which led to the one-and-only Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1, and the concluding episode ‘The Torrent Without… The Tumult Within!’ wherein the sinister super-scientists of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics, acronym-fans) snatch the Armoured Avenger from the Maggia sub intent on stealing the hero’s technical secrets.

Invincible Iron Man #1 finally appeared with a May 1968 cover-date, and triumphantly ended the extended sea-saga as our hero stood ‘Alone against A.I.M.!’, a thrilling roller-coaster ride that was supplemented by ‘The Origin of Iron Man’ a revitalised re-telling that ended Colan’s long and impressive tenure on the character. With #2, ‘The Day of the Demolisher!’, Craig took over the art, and his first job is a cracker, as Goodwin introduced Janice Cord a new romantic interest for the playboy, the killer robot built by her deranged father and a running plot-thread that examined the effects of the munitions business and the kind of inventors who work for it…

Following swiftly on Goodwin and Craig brought back Happy Hogan’s other self in ‘My Friend, My Foe… the Freak!’ in #3 and retooled a long-forgotten Soviet villain into a major threat in ‘Unconquered is the Unicorn!’ before George Tuska, another Golden Age veteran who would illustrate the majority of the Iron Man’s adventures over the next decade. Inked by Craig, ‘Frenzy in a Far-Flung Future!’ is a solid time-paradox tale wherein Stark is kidnapped by the last survivors of humanity, determined to kill him before he can build the super-computer that eradicated mankind. Did somebody say “Terminator”…

The super-dense (by which I mean strong and heavy) Commie threat returned – but not for long – in ‘Vengeance… Cries the Crusher!’ and the scheme begun in TOS #97 finally bore painful fruit in the two-part thriller ‘The Maggia Strikes!’ and ‘A Duel Must End!’ as the old Daredevil foe the Gladiator led a savage attack on Stark’s factory, friends and would-be new love…

This volume ends with a bold three-part saga as the ultimate oriental arch-fiend returned with a cunning plan and the conviction that Stark and Iron Man were the same person. Beginning in a “kind-of” Hulk guest-shot with #9’s ‘…There Lives a Green Goliath!’ proceeding through the revelatory ‘Once More… The Mandarin!’ and climaxing in spectacular “saves-the-day” fashion as our hero is ‘Unmasked!’, this epic from Goodwin, Tuska and Craig ends the book on a brilliant high note, just as the first inklings of the social upheaval America was experiencing began to seep into Marvel’s publications and their core audience started to grow into the Flower Power generation. Future tales would take the arch capitalist Stark in many unexpected and often peculiar directions…

But that’s a tale for another review, as this sparkling graphic novel is done. Despite some rough patches this is a fantastic period in the Golden Gladiator’s career and one perfectly encapsulates the changes Marvel and America went through: seen through some of the best and most memorable efforts of a simply stellar band of creators.

© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Jeff Hawke: The Ambassadors


By Sydney Jordan & Willie Patterson (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-598-9

One the world’s most captivating comics strips is inexplicably almost unknown amongst modern readers, but this appalling state of affairs could so easily be rectified simply by purchasing this spiffy deluxe hardback from Titan Books – and its predecessor – and falling under the spell of some of the most witty, intriguing and outright astounding British science fiction ever written or drawn. In both style and quality these superb tales from the 1960s are the only serious rival to the legendary Dan Dare these Sceptred Isles have ever produced.

Sydney Jordan began his saga of the thinking man’s hero in the Daily Express on February 2nd 1954, writing the first adventures himself. In 1956 his old school friend and associate Willie Patterson moved from Scotland to London and helped out with the fifth adventure ‘Sanctuary’, and scripted the next one ‘Unquiet Island’, whilst sorting out his own career as a freelance scripter for such titles as Amalgamated Press’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, Caroline Baker – Barrister at Law and eventually Fleetway’s War Picture Library series.

Syd was never comfortable scripting, preferring to plot and draw the strips, but his choice of collaborators has always been immaculate – Harry Harrison wrote ‘Out of Touch’, which ran from October 10th 1957 – April 5th 1958, Nick Faure and Martin Asbury worked with him in the 1970s and in the strips’ final days he hired young artists Brian Bolland and Paul Neary. Patterson continued to supplement and assist Jordan intermittently until 1960 until with the fourteenth tale ‘Overlord’ (see Jeff Hawke volume 1: Overlord) Patterson assumed the writing chores on a full-time basis and began the strip’s Golden Age. He remained the wordsmith-in-chief until 1969.

This volume opens with another fascinating memoir from Jordan himself before the wonderment begins. In ‘Pastmaster’ (August 3rd 1961-October 18th 1961) British Space Scientist and trouble-shooter Hawke is visiting the British Moonbase just as a crazed time-traveller from the future materialises intent on changing history by transporting the entire complex back 10,000 years, and giving humanity a huge technological jump-start in the race’s development.

A terrific mix of sly comedy and startling action in the inimitable, underplayed style of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the best of John Wyndham, this romp of time-cops and robbers is a splendid appetiser for ‘The Immortal Toys’ (October 19th 1961- 5th April 1962) wherein ancient Hindu jewels in the shape of insects are revealed to be something else entirely, leading Hawke and a rambunctious archaeologist reminiscent of the bombastic Professor Challenger to a long-hidden tomb and concrete evidence of alien visitors from Earth’s earliest pre-history. No fan of Indiana Jones would want to miss this yarn – especially as here all the science, history and stunts are both plausible and possible…

‘The Ambassadors’ (6th April 1962-13th July 1962) is a winningly clever social satire as two avian aliens looking just like owls arrive in London to offer Earth free, gratis and for nothing a device that will do away with work forever. Instantly politicians and the media descend like vultures and the dry self-deprecatory comedy of films like The Mouse That Roared as well as the works of Jonathan Swift, Robert Sheckley or Eric Frank Russell can be seen in this story exposing the worst of humanity.

Patterson could use humour like a scalpel and augmented by Jordan’s fantastic artwork and rich, incisive facility with expressions produced here a gentle satire to rival the best of Private Eye, Tom Lehrer or TW3. You’ll believe an owl can cry…

Sheer exotic adventure and High Concept science dominates ‘The Gamesman’ (14th July 1962- September 23rd 1962) as a bored alien uses sub-atomic worlds for role-playing diversions, snatching Hawke and his assistant, a giant warrior, a technical wizard and a feisty “princess” from their respective worlds to play with him. Unfortunately ambition is a universal problem and the extraterrestrial dungeon-master quickly finds himself “played”…

The last tale in this volume is another human-scaled fable that touched on contemporary concerns, but although humour is still present in ‘A Test Case’ (September 24th 1962- 2nd January 1963) the over-arching theme is nuclear terror, as a second-rate scientist is given ultra-advanced atomic knowledge by well-meaning aliens who have no idea how fragile a human mind can be…

The frantic desperation and tension as Hawke and the authorities search London for a super-nuclear device primed to eradicate them all is chillingly reminiscent of the Boulting Brothers 1950 film classic Seven Days to Noon and makes of this memorable tale a timeless salutary warning.

These are stories that appeared in daily episodes and their sardonic grasp of the true nature of “the man-in-the-street” make them a delightful slice of social history as well as pure escapist entertainment. Jeff Hawke is a revered and respected milestone of graphic achievement almost everywhere except his country of origin. Hopefully this latest attempt to revive these gems will find a more receptive audience this time, and perhaps we’ll even get to see those earlier stories as well.

© 2008 Express Newspapers Ltd.

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The All-New Atom: Future/Past


By Gail Simone, Mike Norton, Eddy Barrows & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1568-2

Gail Simone is arguably the best scripter of superhero stories currently working in the business. She can handle High Concept attention grabbers, fight scenes and pathos easily, but where she is unsurpassed is in the rounded depth of her characterisation. Combine that with solid plotting, bravura whimsy and the sharpest, funniest dialogue money can buy and every thing she touches becomes a thoroughly delightful “must-read” item.

Here she continues to reveal the trials and tribulations of the freshest incarnation of one of the Silver Age’s most enduring heroic brands with the further adventures of neophyte college professor and scientific adventurer Ryan Choi – the All-New Atom.

After Identity Crisis size-changing physics Professor Ray Palmer disappeared, leaving his world behind him. But life goes on, and his teaching chair at Ivy University was offered to a young prodigy from Hong Kong who just happened to be Palmer’s pen-friend and confidante: privy to his predecessor’s secrets ever since he was a child.

Ivy Town has seen better days however and continues to go downhill. No longer the sedate place Palmer made it sound, this collection (reprinting issues #7-11 of the much missed monthly comicbook) continues to reveal a city plagued by temporal anomalies, warring tribes and supernatural freaks. To make things worse the new Dean is an unctuous toad and possibly worse, whilst Choi’s fellow science professors are a bizarre band of brilliant loons.

This volume commences with the two-parter ‘The Man who Swallowed Eternity’ and ‘The Entropy of the Universe Tends to a Maximum’ illustrated by Mike Norton and Andy Owens, wherein the time-hiccups that pepper Ivy Town go into overdrive, necessitating an unwelcome intervention from the Temporal police known as Linear Men before Choi uncovers a tragic secret that draws him uncomfortably closer to his missing mentor.

That’s followed by a gratifying, thrilling change of pace and tone when the young professor returns to Hong Kong to rescue his sometime true love in ‘Jia.’ Drawn by Eddy Barrows and inked by Trevor Scott the saga kicks off with ‘Her Name Meant Beauty’ and we discover some unpleasant truths about Ryan’s childhood…

In ‘Unwanted Advances’ Choi realises being a superhero can’t compensate for the girl he loves marrying the bully who made his life hell, and its even worse when the brute has become a vengeful ghost determined to kill them both, but mercifully in ‘The Border Between’ ancient wisdom as well as unwelcome truths help the diminutive hero overcome the supernatural odds…

The utterly enchanting career of the new Atom is funny, charming, stirring and incredibly addictive: moreover this completely planned mapped out series is riddled with clues and hints cunningly left that will only make sense when the final volume ends – and Simone has the nerve and confidence to treat the entire venture as a fair-play mystery. Follow the All-New Atom, match wits with the writer and have a huge amount of fun along the way.

© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Immortal Iron Fist: the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven


By Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, David Aja & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2535-8

To save you looking up old graphic novel reviews (but please don’t let me stop you if you feel so inclined) Iron Fist was an early entry from Marvel during the 1970s Kung Fu boom, although the character also owed a hefty debt to Bill Everett’s golden Age super-hero Amazing Man – who graced various Centaur Comics publications between1939 and 1945. The tribute was paid by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane although a veritable host of successors (writers and artists included Len Wein, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella, Larry Hama, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Pat Broderick and Al McWilliams) followed them in what was a relatively short run on the adventures of the “Living Weapon”.

Little Danny Rand travelled with his parents and uncle to the Himalayas, searching for the “lost city of K’un Lun” which only appears once every ten years. The boy’s father Wendell was murdered by the uncle, and Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save her child. Alone in the wilderness, the city found him and he spent the next decade mastering all forms of martial arts.

As soon he was able he returned to the real world intent on vengeance, further armed with a mystic punch gained by killing the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying. When Iron Fist eventually achieved his goal the lad was at a loose end and – by default – a billionaire, as his murderous uncle had turned the family business into a multi-national megalith.

The series ran in Marvel Premier (#15-25; May 1974 to October 1975), before Chris Claremont and John Byrne steadied the ship and produced a superb run of issues in his own title (Iron Fist #1-15, November 1975 – September 1977). After cancellation the character drifted until paired with street tough hero Luke Cage. Power Man & Iron Fist ran from #51 until the book ended in 1986 (#125). The K’un Lun Kid has died, come back and cropped up all over the Marvel universe as guest star, co-star and even in a few of his own miniseries.

Recently revived and somewhat re-imagined as The Immortal Iron Fist, the new series revealed that there has been a steady progression of warriors bearing the title for centuries – if not millennia – and in volume 1 (The Last Iron Fist Story) Danny discovered that his predecessor Orson Randall went rogue, refusing to die for the Holy City, roaming the Earth ever since. He also knew Danny’s father…

This volume contains issues #8-14 of the monthly comicbook plus the first Annual and follows the orphan hero as he learns the true history and meaning of his life, a task complicated by the fact that a cadre of super scientific Hydra warriors have kidnapped his friend Jeryn Hogarth and are using Rand technology to break the dimensional walls and invade K’un Lun.

The title comes from the fact that there are in fact seven mystical cities in this universe and every 88 years their celestial orbits coincide to permit a grand martial arts tournament. Each city has a champion as puissant and dedicated as Iron Fist and they must fight. The eventual climax will change the hidden cities forever…

Interspersing revelations about Wendell Rand and the renegade Orson with scenes on Earth and in the confluence of Floating Cities, these tales reveal the true nature of K’un Lun, and the power of Iron Fist, easily blending traditional costume-capers with the best of movie martial arts fantasy. Old fans can revel in guest-appearances by Luke Cage, Colleen Wing and Misty Knight as well as tantalising glimpses of pre-Marvel Age 1920s and 1930s super-heroics whilst newcomers can simply enjoy the wonders of an enchanting, multi-layered action epic told exceedingly well.

Swift and compellingly exotic the story balances character and plot perfectly augmented by masterful artistic contributions from Roy Allan, Martinez, Scott Koblish, Kano, Javier Pulido, Tonci Zonjic, Clay Mann, Stefano Gaudiano, Jelana Kevic Djurdjevic, Dan Brereton and Howard Chaykin. This mesmerising saga resolves the cliffhanging ending of the previous volume and taken together these two books form one of the best Marvel Masterpieces of the last decade.

© 2006, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.