Superman Chronicles volume 7


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Leo Nowak, John Sikela (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-338-4

Due to the exigencies of periodical publishing, although the terrific tales collected in this seventh chronological recollection take the Man of Steel to December 1941, they were all prepared well in advance of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbour.  Even though spies and sabotage plots were already a trusty part of the narrative currency of the times and many in America felt war was inevitable (patriotic covers were beginning to appear on many comic books), they were still a distant problem, impersonal and at one remove from daily life as experienced by the kids who were the perceived audience for these four-colour fantasies. That would change radically in the months to come…

For the meantime then here to enjoy are some of the last pre-war stories of the Man of Tomorrow taken from Action Comics #41-43, the bi-monthly Superman #12-13 and a tale from the quarterly World’s Finest Comics #4. Once again all the stories were scripted by Siegel, and as most stories of the time they were untitled these have been named post-hoc simply to provide differentiation and make my task simpler … As always every comic appearance is preceded by the original cover illustration, all from the increasingly inspired Fred Ray.

Leo Nowak was drawing most of the comic output at this time and is responsible for the lion’s share of these adventures, beginning with the first two from Superman #12 (September-October 1941). ‘Peril on Pogo Island’ found Lois and Clark at the mercy of rampaging tribesmen, although spies from a certain foreign power are at the back of it all, whilst ‘The Suicide Murders’ saw them facing a particularly grisly band of gangsters. John Sikela inked ‘The Grotak Bund’ wherein seditionists attempted to destroy vital US industries, and fully illustrated the final tale as an old foe reared his shiny head once more in ‘The Beasts of Luthor’, accompanied by a spectacular array of giant monsters.

Action Comics #41 (October 1941) ‘The Saboteur’, told a terse tale of a traitor motivated by greed rather than ideology, and ‘City in the Stratosphere’ (Action #42) revealed that a trouble-free paradise floating above Metropolis had been subverted by an old enemy, were both illustrated by Sikela, as Nowak laboured on the contents of Superman #13 (November-December 1941).

This issue led with ‘The Light’ and featured an old foe in a new super-scientific guise whilst ‘The Archer’ pitted the Man of Steel against his first true costumed villain. ‘Baby on the Doorstep’ took a rare opportunity for fun and the feel-good factor as Clark Kent became a temporary parent in a tale of stolen battle plans before ‘The City Beneath the Earth’ (by Sikela) returned to the serious business of action and spectacle when our hero discovered a subterranean kingdom lost since the Ice Age.

World’s Finest Comics #4 (Winter 1941) ‘The Case of the Crime Crusade’ was another socially relevant racketeering tale and the final story in this volume ‘The Crashing Planes’, from Action #43 (which actually has Superman attacking Nazi paratroopers on the cover) had the Man of Tomorrow smashing a plot to destroy a commercial airline.

Even though war was undeclared DC and many other publishers had struck their colours well before December 7th. When The Japanese attack filtered through to the gaudy pages the patriotic indignation and desire for retribution would generate some of the very best art and stories the budding art-form would ever see.

Stay tuned…

© 1941, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 4: Plunder Island


By Elzie Crisler Segar (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-169-5

There is more than one Popeye. If your first thought when you hear the name is the cheerful, indomitable sailor in full Naval whites always fighting a hulking great beardy-bloke and mainlining tinned spinach, that’s okay: The Fleischer Studios and Famous Films animated features have a brilliance and energy of their own (even the later, watered-down anodyne TV versions have some merit) and they are indeed based on the grizzled, crusty, foul-mouthed, bulletproof, golden-hearted old swab who shambled his way into the newspaper strip Thimble Theatre and simple wouldn’t leave. But they are really only the tip of an incredible iceberg of satire, slapstick, virtue, vice and mind-boggling adventure.

In the less than ten years Elzie Crisler Segar worked with Popeye, (from 17th January 19 1929, until the creator’s untimely death on 13th October 1938) he built an incredible meta-world of fabulous lands and locations, where unique characters undertook fantastic voyages and experienced big thrills as well as the small human dramas we’re all subject to: a saga both extraordinary and mundane, which could be hilarious or terrifying and was often both at the same time. For every trip to the rip-roaring Wild West or sunken kingdom there was a brawl between squabbling neighbours, spats between friends or disagreements between sweethearts – any and all usually settled with mightily swung fists.

Popeye is the first Superman of comics, but he was not a comfortable hero to idolise. A brute who thought with his fists and didn’t respect authority; uneducated, short-tempered, fickle (when hot tomatoes batted their eyelashes – or thereabouts – at him), a gambler and troublemaker, he wasn’t welcome in polite society…and he wouldn’t want to be. The sailor-man is the ultimate working class hero: raw and rough-hewn, practical, with an innate and unshakable sense of what’s fair and what’s not, a joker who wants kids to be themselves but not necessarily “good” and a man who takes no guff from anyone; always ready to defend the weak and with absolutely no pretensions or aspirations to rise above his fellows. He was and will always be “the best of us”…

With this fourth magnificent hardcover collection of Segar’s comic masterpiece the Sunday Colour pages take precedence as for the first time ever his magnum opus ‘Plunder Island’ is reprinted in its full, unexpurgated totality. The selection here covers the period December 3rd 1933 to April 7th 1935, and the epitome of stirring sea-sagas takes up the first six months of that time (ending with the July15th 1934 installment). It all kicks off when Popeye’s old shipmate Salty Bill Barnacle invites him to go adventuring in search of fabled Plunder Island, land of stolen treasure, little suspecting that the ghastly Sea Hag has returned. With her new gang of deadly henchmen, including brutal Mister Skom and the monstrous Goon she kidnaps Professor Cringly – the aged scholar who knows the lost island’s location, and Popeye’s latest voyage is seemingly over before it has begun….

Gathering a bunch of decidedly dubious Argonauts, including Wimpy, Rough-house, Geezil, and private cop G.B. Gritmore, Olive, Salty Bill and Popeye swiftly gave chase, but all seems hopeless until the Witch of the Seas makes her big mistake. She sends the Goon to take hostages, and when the beast returns with the indomitable Popeye and an inexplicably irresistible Wimpy, the latter’s heretofore unsuspected attractions promptly turns the gruesome heads of both the Hag and her Goon (who is apparently a rather decent – if homely – lady named Alice…)

Roller-Coaster adventure and riotous comedy have never been better blended than in this tale, but even when the victorious crew finally returned home the fun didn’t stop. Next we see the bitter aftermath and how the various heroes dispose of or lose the fabulous wealth they’ve won. Wimpy, for example, simply and rapidly eats his way through most of his, whilst Popeye once again gives his away, prompting his return to the world of extreme prize-fighting…

Baby Swee’pea made his Sunday debut on 28th October 1934 (after being introduced in a riotous sequence in the daily strip: see E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 3: “Let’s You and Him Fight”), becoming the focus of many outrageous gags once Popeye, Wimpy and Olive Oyl returned to their slapstick shtick, allowing the audience to decompress before the next big story…

The Sappo topper strip became even more imaginative in this period with Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle’s mad science exploits leading to ever crazier results and the regular breaking of the “fourth wall”. For the unprepared this was a strip that could regularly make your brain as well as your sides split…

The added extra feature ‘Funny Films’ (dioramic scenes through which continuous strips of cartooned “filmstrips” could be moved to create a home cinema) eventually gave way to the fascinatingly informative and entertaining ‘Popeye’s Cartoon Club’ which provided tips and encouragement to budding artists – and Segar’s approach and advice is as sound today as it ever was…

Just because he was setting the world alight with his innovative Sunday adventure serials and complete gag strips is no reason to suppose his daily feature suffered. In fact the breakneck pace seemed to inspire Segar, as in short order Popeye and his ever-expanding cast of clowns and reprobates rollicked through a memorable run of captivating tales.

The black and white dailies section here covers 11th December 1933 to 24th July 1934, and begins with the sailor-man moving to Puddleburg ‘The Laziest Town on Earth’ to run their local newspaper, accompanied by Swee’pea, Olive and Wimpy; giving the self-deprecating and wickedly trenchant Segar an opportunity to lampoon himself and his profession with the creation of B. Loony Bullony: World Famous Cartoonist…

When Olive inherits twenty million dollars, her marital prospects increase dramatically, but since one of the most ardent converts to her previously well-hidden charms is Mr. J. Wellington Wimpy, she soon realises that money isn’t everything in ‘Romances and Riches’ – especially after Popeye rescues debutante June Vanripple from drowning and becomes the unwilling toast of the “Sassiety Crowd”

This extended morality play on the evils and travails of wealth contains some of the funniest screwball comedy set-pieces of the entire 1930s (books, movies, strips, everything!) with such memorable moments as Popeye in drag (particularly a rather fetching ladies’ swimsuit), the elder Vanripple and the sailor in a wild-oat sowing contest and Olive as a singing, dancing movie star – complete with fake million dollar legs…

Another classic and beloved sequence is ‘Unifruit or White Savages’ where the shock of losing her loot sends Olive into the convulsive shock syndrome of Aspenitis and the cure is a therapeutic berry that only grows on the wacky island of Nazilia, deep in the territory of a lost tribe of hulking man-beasts…

The frantic antics and comedy continue when June and Mr. Vanripple ask Popeye to go west and crush the cowboy bandits plundering their gold mines in ‘Black Valley’ (and if you think drag is outrageous, check out Popeye in a tutu as a saloon dance-girl).

Fair warning though: this was an era where casual racial stereotyping was considered completely acceptable and a key part of cartooning. Segar sinned far less than most: his style was far more character-specific, and his personal delight was playing with accents and how folk spoke. George W. Geezil wasn’t merely a cheap Jewish stock figure of fun, but as fully rounded as any one of nearly fifty supporting cast members could be within the constrictions of page and panel count.

In ‘Black Valley’ Castor Oyl has a Negro manservant called Eclipse, who, although superficially little different in speech pattern and appearance from less-enlightened cartoonists’ portrayal of coloured people, played an active – if brief – role in proceedings. He wasn’t there for cheap easy laughs, but even so its clear Segar wasn’t comfortable with him and he wasn’t a permanent addition. He may be quite disquieting to you and I, but please try and recall the tone of the times and – even though there’s still a whole lot of prejudice still to be dealt with today – just how far we’ve come…

The old salt’s greatest “emeny” returned in another bombastic fantasy romp entitled ‘The Sea Hag’s Sister or The Pool of Youth’, wherein the vile villainess, her scurvy band of cutthroats and Alice the Goon tried to wrest control of a literal fountain of youth from her own sister and a 20, 000 year-old caveman, Toar. Unfortunately Popeye, Castor, Olive and Wimpy found themselves caught in the crossfire…

One less than wonderful “treat” can be experienced at the end of this volume: one that tormented the kids of all ages addicted to Popeye eighty years ago. ‘Popeye’s Ark’ was another spectacular six-month long adventure, wherein the sailorman decided to emulate the Biblical mariner who built “Nora’s Ark” and sail the seas in a giant vessel filled with beasts until he found the promised land of “Spinachova”. Sadly we all get to “enjoy” cliffhanging tension until the next installment as this sequence ends 12 weeks into the saga. Oh, the unrelenting tension of it all…

There is more than one Popeye: most of them are pretty good and some are truly excellent. Elzie Crisler Segar’s comic strip masterpiece features the very best of them all and you’d be crazy to deny it… or miss him.

© 2008 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings © 2008 King Features Inc. All rights reserved.

E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 3: “Let’s You and Him Fight!”


By Elzie Crisler Segar (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-962-3

There are relatively few comic characters that have entered world consciousness, but a grizzled, bluff, uneducated, visually impaired old sailor with a speech-impediment is possibly the most well known of that select bunch. Elzie Crisler Segar had been producing the Thimble Theatre daily newspaper strip since December 19th, 1919, but when he introduced a coarse, brusque “sailor man” into the ever-unfolding adventures of Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy on January 17th 1929 nobody suspected the heights that walk-on would reach.

This third magnificent collection of Segar’s immortal – certainly unkillable – clay-footed reprobate reproduces one spectacular groundbreaking epic after another as the artist, in a whirlwind of creative inspiration, took the daily strip to new heights of cliffhanging thrills and absurdity, whilst building unique and jovial character studies with the more humorous Sunday pages, generally set in the generic small seaside town of Sweethaven.

Following another erudite essay by Comics historian Donald Phelps the daily delights (stretching from June 9th 1932 to December 9th 1933) begin with a rip-snorting mystery thriller full of action, tension, scares and laughs featuring a large portion of Thimble Theatre‘s extensive cast. ‘The Eighth Sea’ finds Popeye, Castor, Olive, King Blozo of Nazilia and his idiot retainer Oscar all following the instructions of Oolong the Chinese Parrot to recover a fabulous lost treasure, aided by the incredible Merlock Jones, quick-change detective. This sinister sea saga was the one-and-only Segar tale to feature Popeye’s ultimate nemesis (in the animated cartoons at least) Bluto.

With breakneck pace – Segar never rested on his laurels or his plots – that adventure led the voyagers back to Nazilia for ‘Long Live the King or Gold and Goofs’ and a rematch with General Bunzo and his new Mata Hari Dinah Mow – a worldly-wise vamp that even the iron-willed Popeye couldn’t resisk…

After taking a well-aimed pop at popular democracy in ‘The Great Lection’ the old sea-dog sets up his own nation in ‘Popeye: King of Popilania’ another stinging satire which saw the increasingly irrepressible J. Wellington Wimpy expand beyond the Sunday pages and join the dailies cast, almost mooching the infant country away from its idealistic founder. Popilania’s problems were multiplied by an invasion of “furiners”, “emmygrunts” and even jungle-Neanderthals in ‘Wild Men and Wild Women’ before the well-meaning reformer learned his lesson.

The trenchant social commentary and barbed satire continued when he returned to America and became ‘Star Reporter’ for The Daily Blast, a periodical edited by Castor and “blessed” with Wimpy as photographer. This led to the next big cast addition and our hero’s greatest advncement when a reader mailed Popeye a baby in ‘Me Sweet Pea.’ The “infink’s” true history and heritage pitted the sailor-man against some pretty ruthless types, and resulted in him suffering a serious brain injury in ‘Bonkus of the Konkus’ but his indomitable soul and noble heart won through as always in the turbulent desert debacle ‘Popeye’s Cure’…

The Sundays’ selection follows a decidedly more domestic but no less riotous path. Running from 9th October to 23rd November 1933, the full-colour section was increasing given over to – or more correctly, appropriated – by the insidiously oleaginous Wimpy: ever hungry, always cadging, yet intellectually stimulating, casually charming and usually triumphant in all his mendicant missions. Whilst still continuing his pugilistic shenanigans the action of the Sunday strips moved away from Popeye hitting quite so much to alternately being outwitted by the unctuous moocher, and saving him from the vengeance of Diner owner Rough-house and the passionately loathing George W. Geezil, an ethnic Jewish stereotype, who like all Segar’s characters swiftly developed beyond comedic archetype into a unique person with his own story… and another funny accent.

Wimpy was unstoppable – he even became a rival suitor for Olive Oyl’s scrawny favours – and his development owed a huge debt to his creator’s love and admiration of comedian W.C. Fields. A mercurial force of nature the moocher was the perfect foil for the common-man but imperfect champion, Popeye. Where the sailor was heart and spirit, unquestioning morality and self-sacrifice, indomitable defiance, brute force and no smarts at all, Wimpy was intellect and self-serving, rapacious greed, freed from all ethical restraint or consideration, and gloriously devoid of any impulse-control.

He literally took candy from babies and food from the mouths of starving children, yet somehow Segar made us love him. He was Popeye’s other half: weld them together and you have an heroic ideal… (and yes, those stories are true: British Wimpy burger bars are built from the remnants of a 1950s international merchandising scheme that wanted to put a J Wellington Wimpy themed restaurant in every town and city.)

The gags and exploits of the two forces of human nature build riotously during this period, ever-more funny, increasingly outrageous. The laugh-out-loud antics seem impossible to top and maybe Segar knew that. Either he was getting the stand-alone gag-stuff out of his system, or perhaps he was clearing the decks and setting the scene for a really big change. Within weeks (or for us, next volume) the Thimble Theatre Sunday page changed forever. In a bold move the blood-and-thunder serial-style adventure epics of the dailies transferred to the Technicolor splendour of the “family pages” and all stops would be pulled out…

The topper strip Sappo actually increased its page share during this period, going from two to three tiers as the unstoppable scientist O.G. Watasnozzle took the little feature into increasingly surreal and absurdist realms. On a rocket ship journey Sappo and his insufferable but long-suffering wife Myrtle experienced incredible thrills, chills and spills during an extended trip around the solar system; experiencing all the goofy wonders and embarrassments Segar’s fevered mind could concoct.

Always innovating the restless creator also began adding extra value for his fans by incorporating collector stamps, games and puzzles to his Sunday pages. In an era with no television – and indeed with only the very first prototype comic books just starting to appear – radio-shows and the Sunday pages were the home entertainment choices of most Americans. Many strips offered extras in their funny-pages and Segar excelled in creating paper-based toys and amusements. In this book alone there are stamps, play money “lucky bucks”, cartooning tips, drawing lessons and ‘Funny Films’ – dioramic scenes through which continuous strips of cartooned “filmstrips” could be moved to create a home cinema!

As an especially welcome bonus this volume concludes with an incredibly rare piece of Popeye memorabilia: one I’d heard of but never thought I’d ever see. In 1934 the Chicago World’s Fair was held in the Windy City, and for two weeks before, at the end of 1933 it was advertised and promoted in the Hearst papers with an original full-page, monochrome Popeye serial. That’s terrific enough but the extended yarn was given extra push by escaping the funny-pages ghetto to run for that fortnight in the Sports section, as Popeye and crew explored the wonders of the World’s Fair in a truly spectacular and irresistible enticing prom feature – possibly the first of its kind.

This work is among the finest strip narrative ever created: reading it should be on everybody’s bucket list, and even when you do there’s still more and better yet to come…

© 2008 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings © 2008 King Features Inc. All rights reserved.

E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 2: “Well, Blow Me Down”


By Elzie Crisler Segar (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-874-9

Elzie Crisler Segar was born in Chester, Illinois on 8th December 1894.His father was a handyman, and Elzie’s early life was filled with the kinds of solid blue-collar jobs that typified his generation of cartoonists. He worked as a decorator and house-painter, and played drums, accompanying vaudeville acts at the local theatre. When the town got a movie house he played for the silent films, absorbing the staging, timing and narrative tricks from the close observation of the screen that would become his bread-and-butter as a cartoonist. He was working as the film projectionist, when aged 18, he decided to become a cartoonist and tell his own stories.

Like so many others he studied art via mail, in this case W.L. Evans’ cartooning correspondence course out of Cleveland, Ohio (from where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster would launch Superman upon the world), before gravitating to Chicago where he was “discovered” by Richard F. Outcault – arguably the inventor of newspaper comic strips with The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown – who got him an introduction at the prestigious Chicago Herald. Still wet behind the ears, Segar’s first strip, Charley Chaplin’s Comedy Capers, debuted on 12th March 1916.

In 1918 he married Myrtle Johnson and moved to William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Evening American to create Looping the Loop, but the Managing Editor William Curley saw a big future for Segar and packed the newlyweds off to New York and the King Features Syndicate.

Within a year Segar was producing Thimble Theatre, which launched December 19th 1919 in the New York Journal. It was a pastiche of Movie features similar to Hairbreadth Harry and Midget Movies with a repertory cast who would act out comedies, melodramas, comedies, crime-stories, chases and especially comedies, for huge daily audiences. The core cast included parental pillars Nana and Cole Oyl, their lanky daughter Olive, diminutive-but-pushy son Castor and Olive’s plain and simple, sometime boyfriend Horace Hamgravy (later just Ham Gravy).

In 1924 he created a second daily strip The 5:15; a surreal domestic comedy featuring weedy commuter and would-be inventor John Sappo and his formidable wife Myrtle (obviously quite a common name, hmm?). A born storyteller, Segar had from the start an advantage even his beloved cinema couldn’t match. His brilliant ear for dialogue and accent shone out from his admittedly average adventure plots, adding lustre to stories and gags he always felt he hadn’t drawn well enough. After a decade or so and just as cinema caught up with the invention of “talkies” he finally discovered a character whose unique sound and individual vocalisations blended with a fantastic, enthralling nature to create a literal superstar.

Popeye the sailor, brusque, incoherent, plug-ugly and stingingly sarcastic, shambled on stage midway through the adventure ‘Dice Island’, (on January 17th 1929: see E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 1: “I Yam What I Yam!”) and once his part was played out, simply refused to leave. Within a year he was a regular, and as the strip’s circulation skyrocketed, he became the star. Eventually the strip was changed to Popeye and all of the old gang except Olive were consigned to oblivion…

Popeye inspired Segar. The near decade of funny thrillers that followed revolutionised the industry, laid the groundwork for the entire superhero genre (but sadly, usually without the leavening underpinnings of his self-aware humour) and captivated the whole wide world. The truly unique cast of characters invented in this period: Sea Hag, Toar, Poopdeck Pappy, Swee’pea, Eugene the Jeep, Alice the Goon, George W. Geezil, and especially J. Wellington Wimpy (potentially as big and innovative a star as Popeye) – even Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle in the Sappo daily strip which had evolved into the Sunday Popeye “Topper” – all individually verge on manic brilliance, and combined to make Popeye a global figure to rival Mickey Mouse, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. To most of the world Popeye was real.

All the attendant peripherals of a major brand accrued to Popeye. There were toys, games premiums, books, comics, film, radio shows, and especially those incredible animated cartoons. Tragically Segar died at the height of his creative powers and with so much more magic still to make on 13th October 1938, sole creator of an incredible galaxy of imagination, but his legacy briefly lived on through his assistant Forrest “Bud” Sagendorf, before the syndicate appointed Doc Winner, Tom Sims, Ralph Stein and Bela Zambuly to work on the printed strip, whilst the animated features increasingly became the main means of bringing Popeye to the world – but it just wasn’t the same.

Sagendorf returned in1958 and his loose, rangy style and breezy scripts brought the strip itself back to the forefront of popularity and made reading it cool once more. He wrote and drew Popeye until Bobby London took over in 1994.

These superb hardback collections are the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Segar’s magical tales. The second huge volume (almost 14 ½ by 10½ inches) contains a fascinating essay from historian Donald Phelps, a testimonial from Mort “Beetle Bailey” Walker which includes the beautiful inspirational drawing Segar sent the young fan in 1934, and another batch of incredible tales from the daily and Sunday strips.

The black and white section here (covering December 22nd 1930 to June 6th 1932) sees Popeye, Castor and Olive soar to stardom in the fabulous western spoof ‘Clint Gore, the Outlaw’ and strike a blow for the Depression-era poor by inventing a financial institution that gives money away in ‘A One-Way Bank’, before resuming their globe-trotting adventuring in ‘The Great Rough-House War’ and its immediate sequel ‘Tragedy in the Land of Saps’ wherein the peculiar King Blozo of Nazilia seeks aid in ending a war with the neighbouring kingdom of Tonsylania – although the real problem seems to be his own over-ambitious Generals and the fact that all his soldiers are cowards…

This classy screwball epic displays Segar’s trenchant skill with the sharp swift scalpel of satire as well as broad slapstick, and has glorious overtones of if not actual influences upon the Marx Brothers gem “Duck Soup.” With an initially reluctant Popeye compelled by his sense of duty to become King of the unlovable Nazilians, it’s also where the superman sailor reveals for the first time the strength inducing properties of Spinach…

From there Popeye and Olive head back to the wild, wild west to visit ‘Skullyville, Toughest Town in the World’ and we’re treated (I think that’s the word) to the unforgettable yet frankly grisly vision of Olive Oyl as a bar hall dancer in a raucous, ridiculous romp that’s jam-packed with lampooned cowboy clichés and hilariously brilliant original gags.

The full-colour Sunday pages cover March 1st 1931 to October 2nd 1932, with the increasingly absurdist Sappo toppers thoroughly complimenting the whacky shenanigans of the lead feature. May 8th is particularly noteworthy for the first appearance of insane Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle – another Segar walk-on who would usurp his host feature…

The Popeye strip continued the uproarious and exceedingly violent boxing career of the one-eyed sea-dog, who took on all exceedingly monstrous comers, including the awesome man-mountain Tinearo, Kid Klutch (a giant gorilla) and even a robot boxer as the increasingly obsessive and belligerent Mr. Kilph, crazed by his inability to beat the grizzled sailor-man, slipped slowly into utter wackadoodleness.

When not beating the stuffing out of his opponents Popeye pursued his flighty, vacillating and irresolute Olive Oyl with desperate verve, if little success, and his life was forever changed when the ever-so-corruptible and adorably contemptible J. Wellington Wimpy made his debut.

The engaging Mr. Micawber-like coward, moocher and conman was first seen on 3rd May 1931 as an unnamed referee in the bombastic month-long bout against Tinearo but he obviously struck a chord with Segar who gradually made him a (usually unwelcome) fixture. Always hungry, ever happy and eager to take a bribe, we learned his name in the May 24th installment and he uttered the first of his many immortal catchphrases a month later. It was June 21st – but “I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”, like most phrases everybody knows, actually started as ‘Cook me up a hamburger, I’ll pay you Thursday’

There will be more of Wimpy’s incredible influence in volume 3, but for now another aspect of Popeye’s complex character was revealed in an extended sequence that ran from May 29th 1932-July 17th, one that quickly secured his place in reader’s hearts.

The sailor was a rough-hewn orphan, who loved to gamble and fight, not too smart and superhumanly powerful, but he was a big-hearted man with an innate sense of decency who hated injustice – even if he couldn’t pronounce it. When Mary Ann, a starving little girl, tried to sell him a flower, he adopted her, taking her from the brutal couple who used her in a begging racket. He grew to love her and there’s a genuine sense of happy tragedy when he finds her real parents and gives her up. That such a rambunctious, action-packed comedy adventure serial could so easily turn an audience into sobbing sentimental pantywaists is a measure of just how great a spellbinder Segar was…

These tales are as vibrant now as they’ve ever been and comprise a world classic of graphic literature that only a handful of creator’s have ever matched. No one has ever bettered Segar’s Popeye and these superb volumes are books you’ll treasure for the rest of your life. Don’t miss them.

© 2006 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings © 2006 King Features Inc. All rights reserved.

E.C. Segar’s Popeye volume 1: “I Yam What I Yam!”


By Elzie Crisler Segar (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-779-7

HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPEYE!

Call me an idiot (you know you want to) but for years I laboured under the misapprehension that comics’ first superhuman hero debuted on January 29th 1929. Luckily, thanks to a superb collection from those wonderful folk at Fantagraphics I’ve been disabused of that erroneous notion at last and forever.

Thimble Theatre was an unassuming comic strip which began on 19th December 1919, one of many newspaper features that parodied/burlesqued/mimicked the silent movies. Its more successful forebears included C.W. Kahles’ ‘Hairbreadth Harry’ and Ed Wheelan’s ‘Midget Movies’ (later and more famously renamed Minute Movies), which used a repertory company of characters for generic adventures firmly based on the cinema antics of the silent era. Thimble Theatre‘s cast included Nana and Cole Oyl, their gawky daughter Olive, diminutive-but-pushy son Castor, and Horace Hamgravy, Olive’s sappy, would-be beau.

The series ticked along for a decade, competent and unassuming, with Castor and Ham Gravy, as he became, tumbling through get-rich-quick schemes, gentle adventures and simple gag situations until September 10th 1928 (the first strip reprinted in this astonishingly lavish and beautiful collection), when explorer uncle Lubry Kent Oyl gave Castor a present from his latest exploration of Africa: a hand-reared Whiffle Hen – most fabulous of all birds. It was the start of something groundbreaking.

As eny fule kno Whiffle Hens are troublesome, incredibly rare and possessed of fantastic powers, but after months of inspired hokum and slapsick shenanigans Castor was resigned to Bernice – for that was the hen’s name – when a series of increasingly peculiar circumstances brought him into contention with the ruthless Mr. Fadewell, world’s greatest gambler and king of the gaming resort of ‘Dice Island’.

Bernice clearly affected creator E.C. Segar, because his strip increasingly became a playground of frantic, compelling adventure and comedy during this period, and when Castor and Ham discovered that everybody wanted the Whiffle Hen because she could bestow infallible good luck, they decided to sail for Dice Island to win every penny from its lavish casinos. Sister Olive wanted to come along but the boys planned to leave her behind once their vessel was ready to sail. It was 16th January 1929…

The next day and in the 108th installment of the saga, a bluff, irascible, ignorant, itinerant and exceeding ugly one-eyed old sailor was hired by the pair to man the boat they had rented, and the world was introduced to one of the most iconic and memorable characters ever conceived. By sheer, surly willpower, Popeye won the hearts and minds of every reader, his no-nonsense, grumbling simplicity and dubious appeal enchanting the public until by the end of the tale his walk-on had become a full residency. He would eventually make the strip his own…

The journey to Dice Island was a terrible one: Olive had stowed away, and Popeye, already doing the work of twelve men, did not like her. After many travails the power of Bernice succeeded and Castor bankrupted Dice Island, but as they sailed for home with their millions Fadewell and his murderous associate Snork hunted them across the oceans before Popeye settled their hash too, almost at the cost of his life.

Once home their new wealth soon led Castor, Ham and Olive into more trouble, with carpetbaggers, conmen and ne’er-do-wells quickly circling, and before long they lost all their money (a common occurrence for them), but one they thing they couldn’t lose was their sea-dog tag-along.  The public – and Segar himself – were besotted with the unlovable, belligerent old goat. After an absence of 32 episodes Popeye shambled back on stage, and he stayed.

Although not yet the paramour of Olive, Popeye increasingly took Ham’s place as a foil for the sharp-talking, pompous Castor Oyl, and before long they were all having adventures together. When they escaped jail at the start of ‘The Black Barnacle’ (December 11th 1929) they found themselves aboard an empty ship and at the start of a golden age of comic strip magic…

Segar famously considered himself an inferior draughtsman – most of the world disagreed and still does – but his ability to weave a yarn was unquestioned and it grew to epic proportions in these strips. Daily he was creating the syllabary and graphic lexicon of a brand new art-form, inventing narrative tricks and beats that a generation of artists and writers would use in their own works, and he did it while being scary, thrilling and funny.

‘The Black Barnacle’ introduced the dire menace of the hideous Sea-Hag – one of the greatest villains in fiction – and the scenes of her advancing in misty darkness upon our sleeping heroes are still the most effective I’ve seen in all my years…

This incredible tale leads seamlessly into diamond-stealing, kidnappings, spurned loves, an African excursion and the introduction of wealthy Mr. Kilph, whose do-gooding propensities would lead Castor and Popeye into plenty of trouble, beginning with the eerie science fiction thriller ‘The Mystery of Brownstone Hill’ and the return of the nefarious Snork who almost murdered the salty old seadog a second time…

The black and white dailies section ends with ‘The Wilson Mystery’ as Castor and Popeye set up their own detective agency: something that would become a common strip convention and the perfect maguffin to keep the adventures tumbling along – even Mickey Mouse would don metaphoric deerstalker and magnifying glass (see Mickey and Donald and The Lair of Wolf Barker).

These superb and colossal hardcover albums (200 pages and almost 14½ by 10½ inches) are augmented with fascinating articles and essays and include testimonial remembrances from famous cartoonists – Jules Feiffer in this first one – and the relevant full colour Sunday pages from the same period. Here then are the more gag-oriented complete tales from 2nd March 1930 through February 22nd 1931, including the “topper” Sappo.

A topper was a small mini-strip that was run above the main feature on a Sunday page. Some were connected to the main strip but many were just filler. They were there so that individual editors could remove them if their particular periodical had non-standard page requirements. Originally entitled “The 5:15” Sappo was a surreal domestic comedy gag strip created by Segar in 1924 which became peculiarly entwined with the Sunday Thimble Theatre as the 1930s unfolded – and it’s a strip long overdue for consideration on its own unique merits….

Since many papers only carried dailies or Sundays a system of differentiated storylines developed early in American publishing, and when Popeye finally made his belated appearance he was already a fairly well developed character. Thus Segar concentrated on more family-friendly gags – and eventually continued mini-sagas – and it was here that the Popeye/Olive Oyl modern romance began: a series of encounters full of bile, intransigence, repressed hostility, jealousy and passion which usually ended in raised voices and scintillating cartoon violence – and they are still as riotously funny now as then.

We saw softer sides of the sailor-man and when Castor and Mr. Kilph realised how good Popeye was at boxing, an extended, trenchant and scathingly funny sequence about the sport of prize-fighting began. Again cartoon violence was at a premium – family values were different then – but Segar’s worldly, probing satire and Popeye’s beguiling (relative) innocence and lack of experience kept the entire affair in hilarious perspective whilst making him an unlikely and lovable waif.

Popeye is fast a approaching his centenary and still deserves his place as a world icon. These magnificent volumes are the perfect way to celebrate the genius and mastery of EC Segar and his brilliantly imperfect superman. These are books that every home should have.

© 2006 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings © 2006 King Features Inc. All rights reserved.

Batman Chronicles volume 8


By Bob Kane, Don Cameron, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-447-3

This eighth volume of chronological Batman yarns from the dawn of his career covers Batman #14-15, Detective Comics #71-74 and World’s Finest Comics #8-9, and once again features adventures produced during the scariest days of World War II.

It’s certainly no coincidence that many of these Golden Age treasures are also some of the best and most reprinted tales in the Batman canon, as lead writer Bill Finger was increasingly supplemented by the talents of Don Cameron, Jack Schiff and Joe Samachson and the Dynamic Duo became a hugely successful franchise. The war seemed to stimulate a peak of creativity and production, with everybody on the Home Front keen to do their bit – even if that was simply making kids of all ages forget their troubles for a brief while…

Cameron wrote all four stories in Batman #14 (December 1942-January 1943) which leads off this volume. ‘The Case Batman Failed to Solve’, (illustrated by Jerry Robinson) is a superb example of the sheer decency of the Caped Crusader as he fudges a mystery for the best possible reason, ‘Prescription for Happiness’ (with art by Bob Kane & Robinson), is a classic example of the human interest drama that used to typify Batman tales as a poor doctor discovers his own true worth, and ‘Swastika Over the White House!’ (Jack and Ray Burnley) is typical of the spy-busting action yarns that readers were gratuitously lapping up at the time. The final story ‘Bargains in Banditry!’ – also by the Burnley boys – is another canny crime caper featuring the Penguin.

Detective Comics #71 (January 1943, by Finger, Kane and Robinson) featured ‘A Crime a Day!’, one of the most memorable and thrilling Joker escapades of the period, whilst ‘Brothers in Law’ from the Winter 1942 World’s Finest Comics #8, by Schiff and the Burnleys, pitted Batman and Robin against a Napoleon of Crime and feuding siblings who had radically differing definitions of justice.

Detective Comics #72 by Samachson, Kane & Robinson, found our heroes crushing murderous con-men in ‘License for Larceny’ whilst Batman #15 (February-March 1943) lead with Schiff, Kane & Robinson’s Catwoman romp ‘Your Face is your Fortune!’ whilst Cameron and those Burnley boys introduced plucky homeless boy Bobby Deen ‘The Boy Who Wanted to be Robin!’ The same team created the powerful propaganda tale ‘The Two Futures’, which examined an America under Nazi subjugation and ‘The Loneliest Men in the World’ (Cameron Kane & Robinson) was – and still is – one of the very best Christmas Batman tales ever created; full of pathos, drama, fellow-feeling and action…

Cameron, Kane & Robinson went back to basics in Detective Comics #73 (March 1943) when ‘The Scarecrow Returns’, a moody chiller followed by the introduction of comical criminal psychopaths ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee!’ in #74, and this volume concludes with the Batman portion of World’s Finest Comics #9 (Spring 1943) as Finger, Robinson & George Roussos recounted the saga of a criminal mastermind who invented the ‘Crime of the Month!’ scheme.

This wonderful series of Golden Age greats is one of my absolute favourite collected formats: paper that feels nostalgically like newsprint, vivid colours applied with a gracious acknowledgement of the power and limitations of the original four-colour printing process and the riotous exuberance of an industry in the first flush of success. These tales from the creators and characters at their absolute peak are even more readable now that I don’t have to worry about damaging an historical treasure simply by turning a page. I’m still praying that other companies with an extensive Golden Age back-catalogue like Marvel and Archie will follow suit.

© 1942, 1943, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast


By Peter David, illustrated by George Pérez (Boulevard/Putnam Books)
ISBN: 0-399-14104-9

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s and a more strategic attempt at the end of the 1970’s Marvel once more tried to move onto the prose bookshelves in the 1990s with a select series of hardback novels. To my mind the most successful of these was this hefty tome from Peter David, who had the advantage of being a prolific genre novelist (most notably of Star Trek adventures) and the current scripter for the Incredible Hulk comicbook.

The plot actually spun out of and referenced contemporary Hulk continuity and featured a Green Goliath that possessed Bruce Banner’s intellect, married to his long-term sweetheart Betty, and on the run from the US military. Whilst in hiding an aged psychologist “cures” the monster-afflicted scientist and Betty falls pregnant with twins, but when they are delivered their benefactor is revealed as the Maestro, a sick and twisted version of Banner from an apocalyptic future (first seen in the 1992 miniseries Hulk: Future Imperfect) who kidnaps one of the infants and returns to his Ghastly world of Tomorrow.

Desperate and traumatised, Banner turns to his friend Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, who provides a way to follow, but due to unforeseen circumstances he arrives two decades late: his son is now a heartless brute in the manner of the Maestro, and worse yet the abortive rescue mission has given the sadistic monster a method of plundering the time stream and alternate dimensions. Not only is Banner too late but now he must face an army of Hulks from divergent timelines to stop his future self from ravaging all of time and space…

Sharp and well-crafted, this tale is constructed in such a way that continuity-addicts can easily slot it into their preferred universal construct, whilst casual readers can simply enjoy an above-average time-travel yarn featuring a character they may or may not know from TV. Moreover this page turner is liberally illustrated by George Pérez, who drew the aforementioned Hulk miniseries. This is a solid example of how comics books can transfer to prose and perhaps a reason why they should…
© 1995 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Superman Chronicles volume 6


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring & the Shuster Shop (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-190-8

In comic book terms at least Superman was master of the world, and had already utterly changed the shape of the fledgling industry by the time of these tales. There was a popular newspaper strip, foreign and overseas syndication and the Fleischer studio was producing some of the most expensive – and best – animated cartoons ever conceived. Thankfully the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release, and the energy and enthusiasm of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had infected the burgeoning studio that grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

This sixth collection of the Man of Steel’s enthralling adventures – represented in the order they were originally released – takes us from summer to autumn 1941 via his appearances in Action Comics #37-40, the bi-monthly Superman #10-11 and his first two tales in the quarterly World’s Finest Comics #2-3. As always every comic appearance is preceded by the original cover illustration, another fine bunch of graphic masterpieces from Paul Cassidy and Fred Ray.

This volume all the stories are scripted by Siegel, (although like most stories of the time there were no original titles and these have been concocted simply to make my job a little easier…) and first up are four cracking yarns from Superman #10 (May/June 1941) ‘The Invisible Luthor’ (illustrated by Leo Nowak), ‘The Talent Agency Fraud’ (ditto), ‘The Spy Ring of Righab Bey’ and ‘The Dukalia Spy Ring’ (both by Wayne Boring & the shop), topical and exotic themes of suspense as America was still at this time still officially neutral in the “European war.”

Action Comics #37 (June 1941) returned to tales of graft, crime and social injustice in ‘Commissioner Kent’ (with art by Cassidy) as the timid alter-ego of the Man of Steel is forced to run for the job of top cop in Metropolis, and from World’s Finest Comics #2 (Summer 1941) comes Nowak & Cassidy’s ‘The Unknown X’, a fast-paced mystery of sinister murder-masterminds, whilst Action #38 provides ‘Radio Control’ (Nowak & Ed DoBrotka), a spectacular battle against a sinister hypnotist.

Superman #11 (July/August 1941) was an all Nowak affair, beginning with ‘Zimba’s Gold Badge Terrorists’, as thinly disguised Nazis “Blitzkrieg” America, “giant animals” go on a rampage in ‘The Corinthville Caper’, seeking a cure for ‘The Yellow Plague’ takes Superman to the ends of the Earth and ‘The Plot of Count Bergac’ finds him back home crushing High Society gangsters.

Horrific mad science was behind ‘The Radioactive Man’ (Action #39, by Nowak and the shop) whilst issue #40 featured John Sikela’s ‘The Billionaire’s Daughter’ wherein the mighty Man of Tomorrow needed all his wits to set straight a spoiled debutante, and this volume ends with ‘The Case of the Death Express’ a tense thriller about train-wreckers illustrated by Nowak from the Fall issue of World’s Finest Comics (#3).

Stories of corruption and social injustice gradually gave way to more spectacular fare, and with war in the news and clearly on the horizon, the tone and content of Superman’s adventures changed too: the scale and scope of the stunts became more important than the motive. The raw passion and sly wit still shone through in Siegel’s stories but as the world grew more dangerous the Man of Tomorrow simply had to become stronger and more flamboyant to deal with it all, and Shuster and his team stretched and expanded the iconography that all others would follow.

These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price. How can you possibly resist them?

© 1941, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Hero Alliance: End of the Golden Age


By Kevin Juaire, David Campiti, Ronald Lim & Mike Witherby (Pied Piper Press)
No ISBN:

Less a recommendation, and more a cautionary tale for would-be publishing moguls, Hero Alliance materialised in the wake of “superhero realism” as defined by Watchmen and Marvelman/Miracleman, as an increasing number of creators attempted to rationalize fights ‘n’ tights sturm und drang with our plebian world of hemorrhoids, bad breath and fallen arches. As with so many of these enthusiastic and well-meaning homage/pastiches, a surfeit of lawyers and paucity of luck and determination derailed and ended a series with a great deal of potential before it really got started – although with over 25 assorted issues from three publishers, it got a lot further than most.

The story itself concerns an immortal Superman analogue dubbed Victor who has suffered debilitating guilt pangs since his arrogance and negligence allowed an arch enemy to murder his superhero team The Guardsmen. Now years later his own mentor Golden Guardsman has been murdered and splendid isolationism doesn’t seem that great an idea…

Approached by the Golden Guardsman’s daughter Kris he discovers that her brother murdered the aged hero stealing his helmet of power and going on a brutal rampage. Victor can no longer remain aloof and decides to establish a new band of heroes, giving them the mentoring and guidance they’ll need to survive in a hostile modern world…

Very much a generic take on a generic genre, there’s still an awful lot to enjoy in this slim tome (other than the costumes and hairdos – but I’ve lived through flared trousers and poodle perms twice so anything can be endured if you just try), with some intriguing ideas and a few clever twists of all the old set pieces – as you’d expect with an editor like Marvel veteran Roger McKenzie at he helm.

The art is more than competent and Lim and Witherby are assisted by Bart Sears, Rick J. Bryant, Craig Brasfield and Mark Pacella, which gives the tale a powerful aura of tension and drama. Cursed with troubled production, the series that spun off from this book had a lot going for it too, but was swamped in an avalanche of similar product that came out of that period’s self-publishing boom. Perhaps it’s time for a comprehensive collection – if everybody concerned has finally decided who owns what…
™ & © 1986 Kevin Juaire and David Campiti. All rights reserved.

Essential Sub-Mariner vol.1


By Stan Lee, Gene Colan, Bill Everett & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3075-8

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the hybrid offspring of a sub-sea Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer; a man of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and exist above and below the waves. Created by young, talented Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics. He first caught the public’s attention as part of the fire vs. water headlining team in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and soon to become Marvel Mystery Comics) alongside The Human Torch, but had originally been seen in a truncated version in the black and white Motion Picture Funnies, a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Quickly becoming one of the company’s biggest draws Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” (the Torch and Captain America being the other two) costumed characters, Everett returned for an extended run of superb fantasy tales, but even so the time wasn’t right and the title sunk again.

When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby began reinventing comic-books in 1961 with Fantastic Four, they revived the all-but forgotten amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, but decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero embittered at the loss of his sub-sea kingdom (seemingly destroyed by American atomic testing) whilst simultaneously besotted with the FF‘s Sue Storm (as seen in Essential Fantastic Four volume 1). He knocked around the budding Marvel universe for a few years, squabbling with other assorted heroes such as the Hulk, Avengers and X-Men, before securing his own series as part of “split-book” Tales to Astonish. This volume collects that entire run, issues #70-101, Daredevil #7, Tales of Suspense #80, Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner one-shot and the first issue of Sub-Mariner‘s second solo title.

As a prequel to the Tales to Astonish serial he had one last guest shot as a misunderstood bad-guy in Daredevil #7, (April 1965). The issue is a perfect comicbook and a true landmark: to my mind one of the Top Ten Marvel Tales of all Time. Lee and creative legend Wally Wood concocted a true masterpiece with ‘In Mortal Combat with… Sub-Mariner!’ as Prince Namor of Atlantis, recently reunited with the survivors of Atlantis, travelled to the surface world to sue mankind for their crimes against his people. He engages the services of Matt Murdock; little suspecting the blind lawyer is also the acrobatic Man without Fear.

Whilst awaiting a hearing at the UN Namor is informed by his love interest Lady Dorma that his warlord, Krang, has usurped the throne in his absence. The tempestuous monarch cannot languish in a cell when the kingdom is threatened so he fights his way to freedom through the streets of New York, smashing National Guard and the dauntless Daredevil with supreme ease. The hopelessly one-sided battle with one of the strongest beings on the planet shows the dauntless courage of DD and the innate nobility of a “villain” far more complex than most of the industry’s usual fare at the time.

A few months later Tales to Astonish #70 heralded ‘The Start of the Quest!’ as Lee, Gene Colan (in the pseudonymous guise of Adam Austin) and Vince Colletta saw the Sub-Mariner returned to an Atlantis under martial law, and rejected by his own people. Imprisoned, the troubled Prince was freed by the oft-neglected and ignored Lady Dorma. As the pompous hero began a mystical journey to find the lost Trident of King Neptune, which only the rightful ruler of Atlantis could hold, he was unaware that the treacherous Krang allowed him to escape the better to destroy him with no witnesses.

The search took Namor through a series of fantastic adventures and pitted him against a spectacular array of sub-sea horrors: a giant octopus in ‘Escape… to Nowhere’, a colossal seaweed man in ‘A Prince There Was’, a wizard and energy-sapping diamonds in ‘By Force of Arms!’ but as the end approached in ‘When Fails the Quest!’, with revolution in Atlantis, Namor sacrificed his kingdom to save Dorma from troglodytic Faceless Ones.

Issue #75 ‘The End of the Quest’, found the Prince battling his way back to Atlantis with a gravely injured Dorma, and the saga concluded in ‘Uneasy Hangs the Head…!’ as the status quo was restored and Namor finally assumed his throne. Back in charge the Prince once more turned his thoughts to peace with the surface world and undertook ‘To Walk Amongst Men’ but his mission was derailed when he encountered a deep-sea drilling platform and promptly found himself battling the US military and retired Avengers Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne. That fracas was abruptly curtailed in #78’s ‘The Prince and the Puppet’ as an old adversary once again seized control of the amphibian’s fragile mind.

‘When Rises the Behemoth’ found Namor battling the Puppet Master’s control and the US Army in the streets of New York, before returning to confront a cataclysmic doomsday monster in Atlantis, (inked by the brilliant Bill Everett), and Dick Ayers stepped in to ink the tense conclusion in #80’s ‘To the Death!’, wherein Warlord Krang returned and blackmailed Dorma into betraying her beloved Prince.

Heartbroken and furious, Namor followed them to New York in ‘When a Monarch Goes Mad!’ (TTA#81) in a violent melodrama that crossed over into the Iron Man feature in sister title Tales of Suspense #80. ‘When Fall the Mighty!’ (Lee, Colan and Jack Abel, using the pen-name Gary Michaels) was a spectacular combat classic which only got more incredible as it continued in Tales to Astonish #82. Colan was a spectacular illustrator, but no one could ever match Jack Kirby for bombastic battle scenes, and when the former contracted flu after delivering two pages The King stepped in to produce some of the finest art of his entire Marvel career, fully displaying ‘The Power of Iron Man’…

Kirby stayed on for #83 ‘The Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ wherein the enraged prince finally confronted Krang and Dorma, only to once again lose his memory and become the pawn of would-be conqueror Number 1 of the Secret Empire in ‘Like a Beast at Bay’ (Colan & Ayers), regaining his senses just in time to terrorise a New York already reeling from the Incredible Hulk’s mindless depredations in ‘…And One Shall Die!’ (inked again by Everett) before ‘The Wrath of Warlord Krang!’ (Lee, Jerry Grandenetti and Everett) resulted in the metropolis being inundated in an artificial tsunami. Naturally blamed for the catastrophe Namor faced a ‘Moment of Truth’ as he finally dealt with Krang and reconciled with Dorma, a conclusion made doubly delightful as Wild Bill Everett at last took full artistic charge of his greatest creation.

Tales to Astonish #88 saw the sub-sea barbarian Attuma attack once more when ‘A Stranger Strikes From Space!’, a tale concluded in ‘The Prince and the Power!’, and Namor’s greatest Golden Age rival returned in ‘To Be Beaten by Byrrah!’ as the Prince’s ruthless cousin used gutter politics to oust the Sub-Mariner, only to receive his comeuppance in ‘Outside the Gates Waits Death!’ : this latter seeing the inking debut of Dan Adkins.

Illustrating in a style that owed everything to Wally Wood, Adkins took over the pencilling too in #92’s ‘It Walks Like a Man!’ This tale of atomic pollution is a terse foretaste of the Sub-Mariner’s later role as eco-warrior, and the concluding part features Roy Thomas’ first script for the aquatic antihero in ‘The Monarch and the Monster!’

Namor was dragged into a surface tyrant’s war in ‘Helpless, at the Hands of Dragorr!’ (Thomas and Everett), and veteran scripter Raymond Marais joined Thomas, Everett & Colletta on ‘The Power of the Plunderer!’, before assuming sole scripting for the ‘Somewhere Stands Skull Island. This troubled tale of the antediluvian Savage Land continued in #97’s ‘The Sovereign and the Savages’ courtesy of Thomas and unsung star Werner Roth – who had actually taken over the art halfway through the previous episode. Inked by Adkins, the Plunderer’s assault on Atlantis was finally foiled in ‘…To Destroy the Realm Eternal!’, but had precipitated a similar attack on Namor’s homeland by a US atomic submarine in ‘When Falls the Holocaust!’ (by Archie Goodwin and Dan Adkins) in issue #99.

Marvel’s “split-books” had been devised as away to promote their burgeoning stable of stars whilst labouring under a highly restrictive distribution deal which limited the number of titles they could release each month. In 1968 the company ended this commitment and expanded exponentially. In the months leading up to that virtual relaunch a number of bold experiments occurred: the most impressive of which was the first actual meeting of the monstrous stars of Marvel’s antihero title since they had won their own series.

Tales to Astonish #100, by Lee, Marie Severin and Adkins had Namor’s plan to recruit the Hulk as an ally go spectacularly awry when the Puppet Master fomented a near-disaster that almost levelled Miami in ‘Let There Be Battle!’, a tale that took 22 pages to unfold. The final issue of Astonish introduced a villain who would alter forever the perception of the Sub-Mariner. ‘…And Evil Shall Beckon’ by Goodwin, Colan & Adkins saw the antihero plagued by visions of a bestial foe who threatened his throne and people, drawing Namor to a confrontation in the Polar regions where the first Atlantis had been built…

For reasons never disclosed (and I shall charitably keep my assumptions private) the Golden Avenger and Prince of Atlantis both had to wait a month before getting their own first issues, necessitating one last split-book. Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1 (April 1968) carried the middle parts of two epics that each concluded in memorable debut issues, but the amphibian’s contribution ‘Call Him Destiny …or Call Him Death!’ by Thomas, Colan and Frank Giacoia, did no more than whet the appetite by revealing half an origin and seemingly killing the lead character.

Sub-Mariner #1 (May1968, by Thomas, John Buscema & Giacoia), however more than made up for the confusion as Namor’s true origin and the reason for his bouts of amnesia were explained by the super-telepath Destiny, as ‘Years of Glory… Day of Doom!’ recapped Sub-Mariner’s gloriously checkered past whilst setting up another epic quest that would prove amongst this venerable character’s very best. That however is the subject of another volume.

These tales feature some of Marvel’s very best artists at their visual peak, and although a few of the stories no longer bear a critical scrutiny, the verve and enthusiasm still shine through. A vicarious thrill and fan’s delight, this volume also includes a half-dozen pages of original art and covers, a map of Atlantis and two text pages recounting the history of Namor and his most prominent Atlantean co-stars. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an art-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: a historical treasure that fans will find delightful.

©1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.