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Hammer of the Gods: Mortal Enemy


By Michael Avon Oeming & Frank Cho, (Image/IDW)
Image ISBN: 978-1-58240-271-0, IDW ISBN: 978-1-60010631-6

Mythology has always inspired our fantasies and is never far from our popular culture: just take a look at TV shows like Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Supernatural or books and films such Clash of the Titans and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief which again reinvented and expanded the ancient tales for a new generation.

At the turn of this century all-rounder Michael Avon Oeming re-imagined the Norse tales which had already been so thoroughly exploited by Marvel (and even tangentially by DC in the splendid Arak, Son of Thunder series) to produce an outrageously addictive post-modern take in the five issue miniseries Hammer of the Gods. He was thoroughly aided and abetted by co-plotter, inker, letterer and colourist Mark Wheatley – a veteran comics maker who has been criminally undervalued for decades (see for example the staggeringly impressive Breathtaker to glean what I mean).

The lands of the far North are hard and cold and unforgiving, just like the gods that rule over them. In ‘Hammer of the Gods’ a peasant couple stand the deathwatch for their newborn son who will not survive the night, when a stranger comes seeking shelter from the icy storms. She is welcomed even though old Tyr and Gerda have nothing…

Delighted to finally find mortals who keep the old ways of hearth and hospitality the fierce warrior woman rewards them by blessing their child. He will live, growing strong and wise. Moreover he will possess the strength of the gods so long as he never wields a weapon. Knowing he will thrive the couple finally name their boy: “Modi” which means both Courage and son of Thorr…

The boy grows strong enough to topple trees with a blow and carve wood without a blade and becomes devout in the worship of the Thunder God he is named for. Because he will not fight the other village children constantly pick on him, but Modi is patient as well as strong…

When mature he becomes a globe-girdling explorer. After years he returns to his birthplace only to find the village destroyed by giants and monsters that have escaped from bleak Jotunheim to plague the Earth. Realising his beloved deities have done nothing to save his family or people, Modi swears a mighty oath and denounces the gods forever. Easily slaying the Frost Giant which destroyed his village, Modi pledges to walk the world until he has made the negligent gods pay for abandoning the devoted charges in their care…

Modi’s epic voyages begin in ‘Entrance to Valhalla’, as he roams the cold world destroying beasts and devils, recruiting like-minded men to his crusade. Soon he leads an army of hardened warriors embittered and disillusioned by the disdain and delinquency of their gods.

United together they eradicate the magical horror that plagues mankind, but it is never enough: what Modi wants is a confrontation with the gods themselves…

In ‘Falling For Gods!’ he first battles and then allies himself with Skögul, a fallen Valkyrie who shares his opinions, but when the trickster god Loki also tries to join them she preaches caution. Why would any overlord of Asgard offer them a free pass to Valhalla and their longed-for meeting with the absentee immortals? They refuse the overture and wander the world together, growing ever closer as they seek another way to storm the stronghold of the gods…

Eventually they find a way and enter Asgard for ‘The Final Battle’ only to receive a terrible shock: the magic hammer of Thorr has lost its power and the gods are old and broken men, helpless before the constant onslaught of the giants and demons of Ragnarok.

Much as he despises gods Modi hates giants more and soon he is whittling the frozen horde down to size, but even his might is not inexhaustible. Only a miracle can save him and all the lands of humanity…

This is a rousing rollercoaster ride of sheer adventure beautifully illustrated and magically compelling, with just the right touch of worldly cynicism and passionate mystery to fire up any reader who thinks they’ve seen all that can be done with these hoary old themes.

The book (which was re-issued by IDW in 2009) also includes text pieces from Peter David, WWE star Raven, Oeming and Wheatley, plus development sketches, front and back cover designs, pencil drafts, privately commissioned artworks and cover images and illustration art by Adam Hughes, Frank Cho and Dave Johnson.

™ Michael Avon Oeming and © 2002, 2009 Michael Avon Oeming & Mark Obie Wheatley. All Rights Reserved.

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Deathstroke the Terminator: Full Cycle


By Marv Wolfman, Steve Erwin, Willie Blyberg & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-982-9

Deathstroke the Terminator is a flamboyant cover identity for mercenary/assassin Slade Wilson who underwent an experimental procedure whilst an American Special Forces soldier. He was invalided out but later developed fantastic physical abilities that augmented his military capabilities.

He debuted in New Teen Titans #2 (1980), assuming a contract that had been forfeited when neophyte costumed assassin The Ravager died trying to destroy the kid heroes. The deceased would-be killer was actually Grant Wilson, a troubled young man trying to impress his dad. Slade Wilson’s other children would also be the cause of much heartache and bloodshed over the years…

Deathstroke was an implacable Titans foe for years, instigating many complex schemes to destroy the team before a weary d̩tente was achieved, all of which led to the graphic novel under review here. In recent years Deathstroke has returned to the path of pure Рif complex Рvillainy.

This rather hard to find volume comes from that grim-and-gritty era when ruthless vigilantes and killers-with-a-code-of-honour were market leaders, so a villain-turned (anti)hero in the vein of Marvel’s Punisher was sound business sense. When the Terminator got his own title (with covers by the Punisher’s Mike Zeck, all included here at no extra cost to you) it instantly became a smash-hit: issue #1 even had a second printing – an extremely rare event back in the early 1990s.

Full Cycle opens with a detailed prose account of the events which led to the release of Deathstroke from Editor Jonathan Peterson before beginning the non-stop action with the contents of The New Titans #70 (October 1990) a fill-in issue by Marv Wolfman, Steve Erwin & Willie Blyberg, that abandoned the titular teens for an entire adventure of their greatest enemy as he undertook a highly suspicious contract in a war-torn South American nation.

‘Clay Pigeons’ found Wilson and his faithful aide-de-camp Wintergreen hired to keep a charismatic peace-making rebel leader alive whilst the republic of San Miguel negotiated a longed for lasting solution to decades of apartheid and revolution. But if every clique and faction needed Jorge Zaxtro alive who could be behind all the brutal attempts on his life?

That tale preceded ‘Titans Hunt’ an extended epic which heavily involved Deathstroke wherein the tragic mercenary was forced to kill his other son Joe – the hero code-named Jericho – but you’ll need to look elsewhere for that epic. Full Cycle commences in the aftermath of that tragedy as a deeply shaken Slade Wilson retreats to his home in Africa to lick his psychic wounds.

‘Assault!’ opens the campaign with a devastating mercenary attack on a train transporting nuclear material through Germany. At the same time a helicopter raid almost kills Wilson and Wintergreen. Later, we gain insight into Deathstroke’s past when the mercenary visits the bedside of a survivor of the railway raid – his estranged wife Adeline.

She was his army trainer, schooling him in exotic battle techniques before the secret experiment augmented his combat abilities. They found love and married but when Slade’s arrogance and neglect resulted in their son Joey being maimed by a terrorist dubbed The Jackal Addie shot her husband in the face and divorced him.

As she slowly recovers in a German hospital she has no idea that Slade has just killed her beloved boy…

Slade has never stopped loving Addie and begins hunting her attackers; reviewing his own past too since whoever attacked her is also targeting his few remaining loved ones. Even so, there must also be some other motive in play…

‘Kidnapped!’ builds on the frantic action and piles the bodies high as Slade closes in on the brutal and all-pervasive enemy, only briefly detouring to rescue a young boy abducted to force his mother to reveal her husband’s munitions secrets. Meanwhile somebody claiming to be the long-dead Ravager is slaughtering both Wilson and Adeline’s people, with a trail leading to the rogue middle-Eastern state of Qurac.

And then the CIA get involved…

‘War!’ sees Deathstroke go bloodily berserk in the strife-torn desert kingdom as its new ruler General Kaddam seeks to consolidate his power whilst demonstrating to the West that Qurac is still the World’s principal exporter of Terror. As his alliance with the Ravager looks set to shake the entire globe, a clandestine group hidden within the CIA makes their own move and their target too, is Slade Wilson…

After a near fatal clash with Kaddam and Ravager, Terminator is captured. Bombastically breaking out he drags the gravely wounded Wintergreen out of the Middle East as the scene shifts to Washington DC where the stolen Plutonium is being readied for use. ‘…Bombs Bursting in Air!’ sees the terrorists turn on each other before Wilson becomes an unlikely and utterly secret saviour of the free world after a savage final clash with the new Ravager…

Meanwhile, the recuperating Adeline has learned of her son’s death …but not yet who killed him…

The first Deathstroke epic ends rather inconclusively in ‘Revelations and Revolutions’ as writer Wolfman and artists Erwin and Blyberg laid plot threads for succeeding story-arcs. Slade is visiting Adeline in the aftermath of atomic plot when the covert agents within the CIA stage an all-out armed assault on the hospital where both she and the faithful Wintergreen are recovering. Never a dull moment…

Complex, violently gratuitous and frenetic, the tale is sometimes too complicated for its own good, but nevertheless the pace, varied exotic locations and all-out, human-scale action (like a James Bond film where everyone wears masks and tights) result in a frenzied rollercoaster of gory fun for any fan of blockbuster adventure. Deathstroke the Terminator is a perfectly-produced slice of lost DC history that still holds up and could easily find new devotees if given the chance…
© 1990, 1991, 1992 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Conan: The Witch Queen of Acheron – Marvel Graphic Novel #19


By Don Kraar, Gary Kwapisz, Art Nichols & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-085-8

During the 1970′s the American comicbook industry opened up after more than fifteen years of calcified publishing practices maintained by the scrupulously-censorious oversight of the self-inflicted Comics Code Authority: A body created by publishers to police their product and keep it palatable and wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-style witch-hunt during the early 1950s.

One of the first genres to be revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from that came the creation of a new comics genre. Sword & Sorcery stories had been undergoing a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings in 1954 and, by the 1960s, revivals of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others had been augmented by many modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter who kick-started their prose careers with contemporary versions of man against mage. The undisputed overlord of the genre was Robert E. Howard with his 1930s pulp masterpiece Conan of Cimmeria.

Gold Key had opened the field in 1964 with Mighty Samson, DC dabbled with Nightmaster in Showcase #82 -84 in 1969 whilst Marvel tested the waters with barbarian villain Arkon in Avengers #76 (April 1970) before going all-out with short tale ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4.

Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by fresh-faced Marvel find Barry Smith, the tale introduced Starr the Slayer – who bore no small resemblance to the Barbarian in waiting…

Conan the Barbarian debuted with an October 1970 cover-date and despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month, the comic-strip adventures of Howard’s primal hero were as big a success as the prose yarns that led the global boom in fantasy and the supernatural. Conan became a huge success: a pervasive brand that saw new prose tales, movies, a TV series and cartoon show, a newspaper strip and all the other paraphernalia of success.

Here the peripatetic Soldier-of-Fortune is enjoying some boisterous down-time in the flesh-pots of Belverus when the gold he’s spending like water comes to the attention of wicked Prince Tarascus. The coins are over three thousand years old and the ambitious ruler wants to know how a common sell-sword got hold of artefacts from a dead civilisation famed as the wealthiest in the world.

After spectacularly beating up most of the Prince’s Guard Conan passes out dead drunk and awakens in the infamous Tower of Pain. The Prince absolutely refuses to believe Conan’s tale of finding the gold on a dying man, who left them to him in return for a decent burial, so to avoid further torture Conan drags Tarascus, his hot-blooded wife Demetzia and a cohort of soldiers to the site of the long-dead city state in search of the fabled Treasure Mines of Acheron’s legendary Queen Xaltana…

Simply looking for a chance to escape, the Cimmerian inadvertently leads the rapacious army of gold-grubbers to a remote mountain range where they encounter a very unfriendly lost tribe of savages who claim to be the last Acheronians, who ambush and decimate Tarascus’ force.

Conan and the survivors’ headlong flight leads them to the lost mine which miraculously also houses the mythic Tomb of Xaltana, but Tarascus’ jubilation at the potential wealth of the discovery is marred by his advisors and engineers’ suspicions. Who ever heard of tomb that was locked and barred from the outside, as if to hold something in rather than keep robbers out…?

Nobody can safely tell a Prince of Nemedia what do however, so with the still-captive Conan in tow the tomb is broached… and all Hell hungrily breaks loose…

The Witch Queen of Acheron is classic rip-roaring pulp fare, chockfull of all the visceral elements that first propelled the barbarian to popular acclaim, written by veteran fantasy scripter Don Kraar (best known as the writer of the Tarzan newspaper strip for thirteen years as well as TRS properties for DC and a number of Hyborian epics for Marvel) and realised by artists Gary Kwapisz & Art Nichols, coloured by Julianna Ferriter and lettered by Janice Chiang.

Stuffed with two-fisted action, dripping with tension and loaded with the now-mandatory scantily-clad damsels, this worldly-wise, delightfully cynical horror-thriller produced in the European Album format (crisp and glossy white pages 285mm x 220mm rather than the customary US comicbook proportions of 258 x 168mm), perfectly revives the raw energy of the original tales and will provide untrammelled pleasures for lovers of the genre and fans of the greatest hero of the Hyborian Age.
© 1985 Conan Properties, Inc. Conan the Barbarian and all prominent characters are TM Conan Properties Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Y- The Last Man: volume 8 Kimono Dragons


By Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-358-9

When a plague killed every male on Earth, only Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world made instantly utterly all-girl. With a government agent and a geneticist escorting him across the devastated American continent to a Californian bio-lab, all the young man could think of was re-uniting with his girlfriend Beth, trapped in Australia when the disaster struck.

The romantic fool trekked from Washington DC overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, whom he presumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. His reluctant companions were secret agent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann, who was trying to solve the mystery of his continued existence. The latter feared she might have actually caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone.

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were a crack squad of Israeli commandos led by the steely-willed General Tse’Elon, plus post-disaster cult Daughters of the Amazon who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet. To further complicate matters, for much of that journey Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, was also stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now utterly dis-United States.

After four years and some incredible adventures Yorick (a mediocre student but a rather proficient amateur magician and escapologist) and entourage made it to Australia, only to discover Beth had set off for Paris a year previously. Along the way Dr. Mann had discovered the truth: the reason Yorick was alive was that Ampersand was inexplicably immune and had the disgusting habit of “sharing” his waste products – if Yorick couldn’t duck fast enough…

As this book opens (reprinting issues #43-48 of the award-winning comics series) the lad and his extremely tolerant lasses have reached Japan, following a ninja who had stolen the crucially important monkey. ‘Kimono Dragons’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra & José Marzán Jr.) finds the wanderers in Yokogata Port, joined by Rose, the ship’s captain who befriended them. They soon split up though, when Ampersand’s tracking device starts working again: Yorick and 355 follow it to Tokyo, whilst Rose and Allison explore a different path.

Dr. Mann is a brilliant scientist, but not as smart as her parents: both radical geneticists with major personal issues. She is convinced that her mother had something to do with the plague and Ampersand’s abduction. She’s right too, but as she and Rose reach the elder Doctor’s rural laboratory they have no idea that the pesky little simian has escaped and is loose in Tokyo somewhere. They are equally unaware that the lethally ruthless ninja is searching for the lost capuchin too…

Meanwhile, the heavily disguised Yorick and 355 have reached Tokyo, a city seemingly unchanged by the disaster… but appearances can be horrifyingly deceiving…

…And in Kansas, Yorick’s sister finds a hidden enclave where she sees proof that he is no longer the last male alive (See Y The Last Man volume 3: One Small Step)…

Ampersand’s trail has led Yorick and 355 into conflict with the now all-women Yakuza. They find an ally in undercover cop You, but her plan doesn’t inspire much confidence…

…And when Allison’s mother – let’s call her Dr. Matsumori – finally appears, Rose and Allison are too slow to prevent a bloody assault. As the aging doctor works to save a life, she reveals the hidden agendas and reasons why American politicians, Israeli soldiers and greedy opportunists around the globe have been hunting Yorick and Ampersand for the last four years…

In Tokyo the raid to recover the monkey has also gone brutally awry, but the big surprise occurs in Yokogata, as Allison learns who the Ninja actually works for and who has orchestrated the whole affair… the family member who actually designed and released the plague…

As renegade Israeli General Tse’Elon invades the Kansas enclave where Hero Brown is helping to raise the last children born on Earth, ‘Tin Man’ (with art from Goran Sudžuka& José Marzán Jr.) traces the convoluted history of Dr. Allison Mann as her biologist parents broke scientific barriers, ethical codes and each other’s hearts fighting over her affections and reveals the implications of the broken family’s genetic meddling,  before this volume closes with ‘Gehenna’ (Sudžuka& Marzán Jr.), an equally illuminating examination of General Tse’Elon’s past: how she rose to power before the fall of man, and how far she’ll go to achieve her ends, ending the book on a chilling cliffhanger…

By crafting his slow-burning saga with carefully sculpted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of telling power. As the impressive conclusion neared, this well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever tale blossomed into a very special tale that should delight any fan of mature fiction. Bear down, the best is yet to come…
© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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Passionate Two-Face Book 1


By Youjung Lee (NetComics)
ISBN: 978-1-60009-177-3

Here’s an intriguing change of pace from the usual manga/manhwa love story: one aimed at a slightly older and more discerning audience.

Sangbaek Oh is a thoughtful young food science student desperately in love with Hyeji Min, the girl next door. He’s adored her since elementary school and now, back from his first term at University, he can’t wait to see his girl again. Unfortunately the boy’s got it bad, spying on her with high-powered binoculars, whilst his vapid, shallow parents blather on oblivious to his distressing preoccupation.

Of course spies often see things they shouldn’t and the hormone-crazed Sangbaek is devastated when his observations catch Hyeji getting distressingly intimate with some scumbag playboy in her own bedroom. The swine doesn’t even treat her decently: he’s a callous bully – but really good-looking…

Crushed, but deciding to play it cool, the lovelorn fool pretends nothing has happened when he goes out with Hyeji next day, but his discoveries have turned his creepily innocent interest into something far more carnal. His mind aflame with licentious images, he is utterly unprepared for the next blow. His truly beloved knows about his habits and doesn’t want to see him anymore – especially as she is preparing for her new career as a movie actress…

Sangbaek is destroyed and throws himself into an alligator pit at the Zoo, but when even they reject him (being too well-fed by their conscientious keepers) he notices, just before passing out, an old man taking photos of his distress.

As Hyeji pursues her disdainful new man Sangbaek regains consciousness in the home of the old photographer and his juvenile delinquent daughter Mihee. It transpires that the guy is a movie make-up artist who was captivated by the dumped lad’s agonised expressions. Moreover he knows Hyeji’s new beau – Gobong Choi, “the virgin hunter” owner and producer of soft-porn studio Climax Productions. Moreover, that inveterate womaniser is looking for fresh talent as he prepares to begin making far harder films…

Determined to save Hyeji from the path of inevitable degradation, Sangbaek confronts the sleazebag and gets thoroughly beaten up although he does manage to rescue the drunken, unconscious girl from Gobong’s clutches. After a night of terrific temptation and sweet childhood memories whilst she gradually sobers up, she delivers the ultimate rejection…

His life shattered Sangbaek can only watch from afar as Hyeji follows her wrong path. However when the papers begin advertising for a co-star to “work” with the new starlet the make-up man and his daughter offer him an incredible chance to be with his degraded love once more. They can make him a new face and he can win Hyeji back. He knows it will work; after all, hasn’t the old man being running around Seoul for weeks, perfectly disguised as Sangbaek and getting off with lots of young women?

The plan set, the make-up master exacts a strange price. He will turn Sangbaek into the most handsome actor in the world, but in return he must surrender all rights to his own face and original identity…

Thought-proving, darkly funny and just a little bit scary, this is a compelling fantasy tale of love, desire and obsession that is both extremely engaging and terrifically appealing. Even if you aren’t a fan of manga or the far edgier Korean manhwa equivalent, this enticing adult romance series might just change you forever…
© 1997 Youjung Lee. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 NetComics.

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StormWatch: Change or Die


By Warren Ellis, Oscar Jimenez, Tom Raney, & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-631-6

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army comprised surveillance and intelligence specialists, tech support units, historians, researchers, detention facilities, combat analysts, divisions of uniquely trained troops, a squadron of state-of-the-art out-atmosphere fighter planes and a band of dedicated superheroes for front-line situations beyond the scope of mere mortals. In the pilot’s seat was incorruptible overseer Henry Bendix – “The Weatherman”.

The title sprang from the comics revolution which saw celebrated young creators abandon major “work-for-hire” publishers to set up their own companies and titles – with all the benefits and drawbacks that entailed. As with most of those glossy, formulaic, style-over-content, almost actionably derivative titles, it started with honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass with issue #37 (see the previous collection StormWatch: Force of Nature) and immediately began beating life into the title. Soon “just another high-priced team-book” became an edgy, unmissable treatise on practical heroism and the uses and abuses of power. Making the book unquestionably his plaything Ellis slowly evolved StormWatch out of existence, to be reborn as the no-rules-unbroken landmark The Authority.

This volume collects and concludes the comicbook’s first volume with issues #48-50 and bridges the gap to the second volume’s issues #1-3 with the extremely rare – and short – StormWatch Preview edition, all scripted by Ellis as he re-redefined the masked hero for a new millennium.

The action and suspense begins with ‘Change or Die’ (with art from Tom Raney & Randy Elliott) as the StormWatch team are targeted by a ruthless band of superhumans, led by a long dormant superman who first began fighting social injustice before World War II. After years of planning these underground wonder warriors are boldly using their powers to wipe out all the inequities of the old World Order and build a better world. Of course that means doing away with armies, politicians, all governments and any superheroes who don’t agree with them…

This more than any other is the tale which introduced The Authority – in concept at least – to the comics world, as the ambitious but completely best-intentioned team (including prototype versions of both The Doctor and The Engineer) strike on many fronts, turning deserts into gardens, brutally wiping out brutal dictatorships and revealing all those dirty little secrets to the global populace…

In a bid to save “human civilisation” Weatherman authorises all of StormWatch for a kill mission… but even as Bendix’s true character and plans are revealed the poor suckers on the front line – and even their idealistic antagonists – discover amidst bloody, spectacular battle that the real enemy in the way of a global paradise is, always, human nature…

Following the apocalyptic events which wrapped up the first series ‘Terminal Zone’ (illustrated by Oscar Jimenez & Chuck Gibson) opens with new Weatherman Jackson King and the surviving team members going through their paces in a rather subversive public relations exercise before ‘Strange Weather’ (rendered by the mob-handed art-horde of Jimenez, Michael Ryan, Jason Gorder, Mark McKenna, Richard Friend, Eduardo Alpuente & Homage Studios) launches the new adventures as StormWatch metahumans raid a clandestine US facility illegally weaponising US troops and other lethal biological materials.

It appears that America is willfully breaking UN Resolutions restricting the creation of super-soldiers; but is this the work of militant terrorists and disaffected renegades or does the chain of command reach higher – perhaps to the White House itself?

The team is soon hip-deep in DNA horrors and official hypocrisy when they infiltrate a sleepy Alabama town and the Federal government declares war on StormWatch…

Dark, scary and rabidly political, the tension and intrigue are ramped up to overload, but as always the hip and cynical message is leavened with spectacular action, mind-blowing big science thrills and magically vulgar humour.

Mixing tradition with iconoclastic irreverence this volume cleared the way and set the scene for the landmark step-change of The Authority and although certainly not to everybody’s taste, these perfect post-modern superhero sagas definitely deliver a blast of refreshing cool air for the jaded, world weary older fan.
© 1997, 1998, 1999 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Young Justice: A League of Their Own


By Peter David, D. Curtis Johnson, Todd Nauck, Ale Garza & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-197-7

There are many facets that contribute to the “perfect mix” in the creation of any continuing character in comics. How much more so then, when the idea is to build a superhero team that will stand out from the seething masses that already exist? In the mid-1990s a fresh batch of sidekicks and super-kids started cropping up at DC after some years of thematic disfavour, and as the name and modus operandi of the Teen Titans was already established something new needed to be done with them.

But why were kid crimebusters back at all? Ignoring the inherent stupidity – and illegality if you acknowledge child-endangerment laws – of superhero apprenticeships for trainees who can’t even shave yet, why should callow champions appeal at all to comics readers?

I don’t buy the old line about giving young readers someone to identify with: the kids I grew up with all wanted to be the adult who drove the whatever-mobile, not a snotty smartass brat in short pants. Every mission would be like going to school with your dad…

I suspect it’s actually the reverse case: duffers like me with responsibilities and chores could fantasize about being powerful, effective and dangerously irresponsible: able to beat people up without having to surrender that hormone-fuelled, irredeemably juvenile frat-boy capacity for goofy fun that we’ve all missed ever since it finally died away…

After a delightfully cool try-out miniseries (see Justice League: World Without Grown-Ups) the latest crop of “ands…” soon stampeded into their own highly habit-forming monthly series. Also included in that introductory graphic novel collection was a subtly distressing tale wherein Robin, Superboy and Impulse rescued a young girl composed entirely of smoke and vapour from a supposedly benign federal agency: the Department of ExtraNormal Operations.

This second collection (repackaging issues #1-7 of the monthly comicbook with portions of Young Justice Secret Files #1) features fan-favourite writer Peter David scripting some inspired, tongue-in-cheek, gloriously self-referential adolescent lunacy, beginning with ‘Young, Just Us’ (illustrated by Todd Nauck & Lary Stucker) wherein the unlikely lads go for a sleepover in the old Justice League Secret Sanctuary and fall into a whole new career.

When a nearby archaeological dig uncovers an ancient New Gods Supercycle the boys are too busy vandalising the decommissioned mountain lair until the android Red Tornado objects. Before things become too tense the boys are called to the dig-site where DEO operatives Fite and Maad are attempting to confiscate the alien tech. After a brief skirmish with a fabulously mutated minor villain (transformed by a booby trap!) the bike adopts the kids and makes a break for it…

After a brief interlude with the pneumatically empowered Mighty Endowed the action switches to the Middle East for ‘Sheik, Rattle and Roll’ where the semi-sentient trans-dimensional cycle has brought Robin, Superboy and Impulse. Apparently uncounted years ago an Apokoliptian warrior named Riproar was entombed beneath a mountain after stealing the bike from New Genesis. Now the machine, enslaved to the thief’s ancient programming, is compelled to free the monster, but it has brought some superheroes to fight Riproar once he’s loose. Of course, they’re rather small heroes…

Hilariously victorious, the kids return to America just in time for Halloween and a riotous Trick or Treat time travel romp as meddling kids dabbling in magic snatch a nerdy Fifth Dimensional scholar out of his appointed place – endangering the entire continuum. Sadly, although YJ’s best efforts in ‘The Issue Before the One Where the Girls Show Up!’ restore reality they might have had a delayed bad influence on the quietly studious Master Mxyzptlk…

A bunch of chicks join the boys’ club in ‘Harm’s Way’ as writer David unerringly injects some dark undercurrents into the frenetic fun. Impulse’s sometime associate Arrowette (a second generation trick archer forced into the biz by her fearsome stage-struck mother) is being hunted by a psychotic youth who intends to become the world’s greatest villain and that aforementioned mist-girl Secret and the latest incarnation of Wonder Girl are dragged into the clinically sociopathic Harm’s lethal practice run before the assembled boys and girls finally manage to drive him off…

D. Curtis Johnson, Ale Garza & Cabin Boy then step in for ‘Take Back the Night’ as Secret leads the now fully-co-ed team in a raid against the clandestine and quasi-legal DEO orphanage-academy where metahuman kids are “trained” to use their abilities. It seems an awful lot of these youngsters aren’t there voluntarily or even with their parents’ approval…

‘First, Do No Harm’ (David, Nauck & Stucker) sees the return of the malevolent young nemesis as he invades their HQ and turns Red Tornado into a weapon of Mass destruction (that’s a pun that only makes sense after I mention that the Pope guest-stars in this tale). As the Justice League step in, the tale wraps up with a majestic twist ending…

The senior superstars are concerned about the kid’s behaviour and set a test, but since this is comics, that naturally goes spectacularly wrong in ‘Judgement Day’ as the ghost of alien horror Despero turns the simulation into a very practical demonstration of utter mayhem…

This terrific tome concludes with the edgy and hilarious ‘Conferences’ as the assorted guardians and mentors convene for a highly contentious parents/teachers evening, blissfully unaware that their boy and girls have snuck off for an unsanctioned – and unchaperoned – overnight camping trip together. As ever, it’s not what you’d expect but it is incredibly entertaining…

Teen issues and traditional caped crusading are perfectly combined with captivating adventure and deft, daft home-room laughs in this magical blend of tension and high jinks, comedy, pathos and even genuine horror in Young Justice.

The secret joy of sidekicks has always been the sheer bravura fun they inject into a tale and this book totally epitomises that most magical of essences. Unleash your inner urchin with this bright shiny gem and pray that now the kids have their own cartoon show DC will finally get around to releasing all the Young Justice tales in graphic novel collections.
© 1998, 1999, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Fuc_ __u, _ss__le: Blecky Yuckerella volume 4


By Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-415-3

Johnny Ryan is a comedian who uses comics as his medium of expression. Whether in his own Angry Youth Comix, or the many commissions for such varied clients as Nickelodeon, Hustler, Mad, LA Weekly and elsewhere, his job and mission is to make laughter. Depending on your point of view he is either a filth-obsessed pervert smut-monger or a social iconoclast using the same tactics as Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks to assault the worst and/or most hidebound aspects of society.

His wild, loose cartoon drawing style is deceptively engrossing, and his seeming pictorial Tourette’s Syndrome of strips and gags involving such grotesque signature characters as Boobs Pooter (world’s most disgusting stand-up comedian), Loady McGee and Sinus O’Gynus will, frankly, appal many readers, but as with most questions of censorship in a Free Society, they are completely at liberty neither to buy nor read the stuff.

Ryan dubs his stinging graphic assaults on American culture ‘misanthropic comics’ and one of the most effective has been Blecky Yuckeralla. Originally running weekly in The Portland Mercury and Vice Magazine from 2003 before switching to Ryan’s own on-line site the strip was based on traditional, anodyne comics features and referenced many other popular art forms. This fourth bi-annual collection collects the last 99 four-panel pages up to and including the final episode which ran on www.johnnyryan.com on 30th July 2010.

Blecky is an ugly, unsavoury, unsanitary and very stupid girl: a cunning reinterpretation of Ernie Bushmiller’s beloved Nancy strip, with plenty of comics, movies and media pastiches thrown in too. There’s Bucksley – a ghastly, grotesque Richie Rich-clone, nerdy “boyfriend” Wedgie, guardian Aunt Jiggles and a host of guest-victims for the shocking puns and fouls antics of the little girl from hell …or maybe it’s New Jersey.

Here you’ll find gross, vulgar and shocking gags about sex, defecation, farting, bodily functions, feminine hygiene, and even the ultimate modern whited sepulchers, TV, money, religion, politics, race and sexual abuse. There are no safe areas or taboo subjects. Blecky and Co are equally free with cute animals, presidents, film stars, assorted Holy Books and even 9-11…

Depending on who you are and your social outlook this final collection is as brilliant or as appalling as the previous three so if you’re prudish, sensitive or concerned about moral standards – don’t buy this book. There’s plenty of us who will…

© 2010 Johnny Ryan. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Thor volume 3


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2149-7

Whereas the rapidly proliferating Marvel Universe grew ever more interconnected as it matured with the assorted superheroes literally tripping over each other as they contiguously and continually saved the world from their New York City bases, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby increasingly pulled the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes.

Admittedly the son of Odin would pop back for an adventure or two, but it is clear that for Kirby, Earth was just a nice place to visit whilst the stars and beyond were the right and proper domain of the Asgardians and their foes.

Crippled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an old walking stick, which when struck against the ground turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces.

Soon each issue also carried a spectacular back-up series. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics (in every sense of the word).

This third mind-boggling monochrome collection, encapsulating the absolute zenith of the fantastic feature, reprints Mighty Thor #137-166, spanning February 1967 to July 1969, as a new era dawned for the no-longer Earthbound Thunder God. At the end of the previous volume Thor had just lost his human paramour Jane Foster, but rediscovered his childhood sweetheart, the goddess Sif, now all grown up and a fierce warrior maid to boot.

A good thing too, since ‘The Thunder God and the Troll!’ (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta) which introduced the bestial menace of Ulik saw open warfare begin between the Asgardians and their implacable troglodytic foes. During spectacular carnage and combat Sif was captured and the Thunderer rushed to Earth to rescue her, whilst legions of monstrous subterraneans attacked the very heart of the kingdom…

The Tales of Asgard feature was being gradually wrapped up, but still offered Kirby a place to stretch his creative muscles. ‘The Tragedy of Hogun!’ (Lee, Kirby & Colletta) began revealing the gripping history of the dour warrior in an Arabian Nights pastiche which introduced Mogul of the Mystic Mountain.

In ‘The Flames of Battle!’ Thor was reunited with Sif but deprived of his magical mallet, courtesy of exotic technology the trolls had mysteriously developed. Did the malign invaders have a new ally or a terrifyingly powerful slave? Trapped on Earth, the hammerless Thor had no means of returning to the realm beyond the Rainbow Bridge whilst in Asgard, the war went badly and the heroic gods were close to defeat…

‘The Quest for the Mystic Mountain!’ found Hogun and his comrades edging closer to revelation and vengeance, which culminated in a truly stunning Kirby spectacle in #139 as the wandering warriors discovered ‘The Secret of the Mystic Mountain!’ in the Tales of Asgard segment whilst the lead story ‘To Die Like a God!’ wrapped up the Troll War in eye-popping style as Thor and Sif invaded the bowels of the Earth to save the day…

Thor #140 began a short run of compete, single episode tales heavy on action, starting with ‘The Growing Man!’ as Thor headed back to Earth and discovered New York under attack by a synthetic warrior who grew larger and stronger with every blow struck against him. Time travelling marauder Kang the Conqueror was behind the Brobdignagian brute, whilst in the back-up ‘The Battle Begins!’ Hogun and friends were menaced by a terrifying genie.

In #141 Thor faced ‘The Wrath of Replicus’, a bombastic, bludgeoning epic involving gangsters, alien and super-robots, counter-pointed by stunning fantasy as the wandering Asgardian warriors met ‘Alibar and the Forty Demons!’

‘The Scourge of the Super Skrull!’ pitted Thunder god against an alien with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, whilst in Asgard a new menace was investigated by Sif and the indomitable Balder. The back-up saw Kirby’s seamless melange of myth and legend go into overdrive as ‘We, Who are About to Die…!’ found young Thor and the Warriors Three facing all the mystic menaces of Mogul.

Thor #143 opened another extended epic with ‘…And, Soon Shall Come: the Enchanters!’ (inked by the magnificent Bill Everett) as Sif and Balder found a deadly trio of wizards plotting to overthrow All-Father Odin, only to fall prey to their power. Escaping to Earth they link up with the thunderer, but they have been followed… Everett also inked the Tales of Asgard instalment ‘To the Death!’ as comic relief Volstagg took centre stage…

Colletta return as inker with ‘This Battleground Earth!’, where two Enchanters attacked whilst the third duelled directly with Odin in the home of the gods. At the back the Mogul declared ‘The Beginning of the End!’

At the height of the battle in the previous issue Odin had withdrawn all the powers of his Asgardian followers, leaving Sif, Balder and Thor ‘Abandoned on Earth!’ Victorious, the All-Father then wanted his subjects home, but his son again chose to stay with mortals, driving Odin into a fury. Stripped of his magical abilities, alone hungry and in need of a job the once-god became embroiled with the Circus of Crime: hypnotised into committing an audacious theft…

The Tales of Asgard feature wrapped up in spectacular fashion with ‘The End!’, to be replaced in the next comicbook issue with the Inhumans – but as that’s a subject for a separate volume, the remainder of this chronicle is all-Norse action, beginning in #146 with ‘…If the Thunder Be Gone!’

Deprived of all but his natural super-strength Thor was helpless against the nefarious Ringmaster’s mesmerism and stole a life-sized, solid gold bull, but when the police interrupted the raid the hero awoke to find himself a moving target. Things got worse when he was arrested in ‘The Wrath of Odin!’ and left a sitting duck for the vengeance of his malign brother Loki. However, the god of Evil’s scheme was thwarted when Sif and Balder rushed to Thor’s rescue, provoking Odin to de-power and banish them all in ‘Let There be… Chaos!’

Even as all this high powered frenzy was occurring a brutal burglar was terrorising New York. The Wrecker was Public Enemy #1 and when he broke into the house where Loki was hiding the cheap thug achieved his greatest coup – intercepting a magic spell from the formidable Norn Queen intended to restore the mischief maker’s evil energies. Now charged with Asgardian forces the Wrecker went on a rampage with only the weakened Thor to resist him…

Issue #149 entered new territory with ‘When Falls a Hero!’ as, after a catastrophic combat the Wrecker killed Thor. ‘Even in Death…’ found the departed Thunder God facing Hela, Goddess of Death, whilst Balder and Sif hunted the Norn Queen and Loki. Hoping to save her beloved Sif entered into a devil’s bargain and surrendered her soul to animate the Destroyer, an unstoppable war-machine, unaware that the Thunderer had already convinced Death to release him…

‘…To Rise Again!’ saw the Destroyer, fresh from crushing the Wrecker, turn on the resurrected Thor as Sif was unable to communicate with or overrule the death machine’s pre-programmed need to kill. The situation was further muddled when Odin arbitrarily restored Thor’s godly might, prompting the Destroyer to go into lethal overdrive…

Meanwhile in the wilds of Asgard, Ulik the Troll attacked Karnilla, Queen of the Norns and Balder offered to be her champion if Sif was freed from the Destroyer…

‘The Dilemma of Dr. Blake!’ reached an epic turning point as Thor joined his lost companions to battle Ulik, only to lose his newly re-energised hammer to Loki, who fled to Earth with it. In hot pursuit the heroes followed and Sif was gravely wounded in ‘…But Dr. Blake Can Die!’ wherein Thor reverted to his mortal guise and operated on the dying goddess – an opportunity for further attack Loki could not resist, but which courage and ingenuity managed to frustrate…

A kind of order was restored but soon threatened again in Thor #154 when the vanquished Ulik accidentally released an ancient unstoppable beast in ‘…To Wake the Mangog!’

A creature imprisoned by Odin in his ancient prime, the monster now rampaged towards the heart of Asgard to trigger Ragnarok in ‘Now Ends the Universe!’ laying waste to everything in its path. All the Golden Realm’s resources were unable to slow its deadly progress in ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ but the valiant delaying tactics, depicted in unimaginably powerful battles scenes from Kirby – a genius on fire – resulted in a last-minute save in #157’s ‘Behind Him… Ragnarok!’

The peculiarities of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were examined and finally clarified next; beginning with ‘The Way it Was!’ – a framing sequence by Lee, Kirby & Colletta that book-ended  the very first Thor story ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ (inked by Joe Sinnott). This neatly segued into ‘The Answer at Last!’ which took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed Blake was no more than a Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…

With his true identity re-established Thor then answered a call from the Colonisers of Rigel, plunging into the depths of space to face a cosmic menace. ‘And Now… Galactus!’ reintroduced old companion the Recorder and pitted the Eater of Worlds against the living Planet Ego, a clash concluded with the Thunderer’s aid in ‘Shall a God Prevail?’ The Cosmic wonderment then escalated in ‘Galactus is Born!’ as Asgardian magic finally revealed a tantalising fragment of the space god’s origins…

For #163 and 164 Thor was returned to Earth to battle an invasion from the future. ‘Where Demons Dwell!’ found the recuperating Sif investigating a bizarre energy vortex until captured by mutate monsters controlled by the rogue Greek god Hades. Reunited with Thor the pair decimated the horrors from tomorrow ‘Lest Mankind Fall!’ and as Balder joined them in cataclysmic combat a mysterious cocoon hatched a man-made God…

‘Him!’ (Thor #165) and its conclusion ‘A God Berserk!’ close this hugely enjoyable collection in fine style as the creature created by evil scientists to conquer mankind and who would eventually evolve into the tragic cosmic savior Adam Warlock (as seen in Essential Fantastic Four volume 4) woke amidst the turmoil of the battle and seeing Sif, decided it was time he took a mate…

Trailing the naive superhuman Balder witnessed Thor’s descent into brutal “warrior-madness”, and as this volume ends with a shaken, penitent Thunder God eager to pay penance for his unaccustomed savagery, the best and last of Kirby’s Asgardian adventures still remain as part of the next collection.

More than any other Marvel strip Thor was the feature where Jack Kirby’s creative brilliance matched his questing exploration of an Infinite Imaginative Cosmos: dreaming, extrapolating and honing a dazzling new kind of storytelling graphics with soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe.

The Kirby Thor is a high-point in graphic fantasy and all the more impressive for their sheer timeless readability. These tales are an absolute must for all fans of the medium.
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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King of the Flies Volume 2: The Origin of the World


By Mezzo & Pirrus, translated by Helge Dascher with Dag Dascher & Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-390-3

Scary stories are everywhere, even in the most ordinary of suburban paradises: when DC Comics started calling Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing stories “Sophisticated Suspense” in the 1980s, to differentiate them from the formulaic “Set ’em up and then go Boo!” traditions of the horror comics medium, this kind of subtle, disorienting, creeping disturbia is exactly what they were aspiring to. Cleverly constructed, laconically laid out in the classic nine-panel-grid picture structure and rendered in comfortingly mundane style a la Charles Burns, King of the Flies is a landmark in metafictional mystery tales.

In volume 1, noted crime comics creators Pascal (Mezzo) Mesenburg and Michel Pirus introduced readers to the community of Hallorave and the eponymous Eric, a very troubled young man with a predilection for donning a gigantic Fly mask. A budding sociopath, the lad is into drugs, sex (consenting and otherwise), booze, introspection and instant gratification… but in that he’s not much different from the other residents of this little slice of Heaven. He also sees dead people occasionally – and again, he’s not the only one.

The book unfolded in seemingly unconnected vignettes narrated in the first person by a broad cast of unhappy campers and this second volume of three continues the tradition, but with the disparate threads increasingly overlapping and interlocking: the inevitable denouement seemingly inescapable and darkly bloody…

‘The Origin of the Species’ opens with Eric idly daydreaming of killing his mom’s new man Francis before heading out for Marie’s place. She isn’t Eric’s girlfriend really but she is sweet and easy and despises her parents too. Things kick off when gangster reprobate Ringo shows up and tells them to look after a bag he’s carrying.

Eric is cool but Marie takes a peek, finding bundles of cash and a bowling pin inside. Later that day Eric saves an old guy from drowning because he fancied the geezers young girlfriend Karine: once again his uncontrolled desires are screwing up his life…

‘Departures/Arrivals’ follows Karine, showing her dysfunctional relationship with her bitch of a mother and how her aged lover Becker dies of a heart attack in an airport. Karine is pregnant and Eric sees opportunity…

In ‘Come Back’ we see that Damien has no luck. Not only is he killed by a genuinely remorseful drunk driver, but his last mortal sight is the three thugs who chased him to his demise and his girl screwing his best friend Eric. He’s far more mellow as a ghost though, pitying his killer and hanging out with Becker, just as dead but far less sanguine about Eric, who’s now moved on to Karine… Damien’s ex-girl Sal was always wild and she too is making use of Eric’s hound-dog ways…

‘Flesh Safari’ returns the spotlight to Eric. His stepdad is wise to him but Marie’s father still trusts him to look after his little girl. When the youngsters go to a rich kid’s party at Coralie’s place, Fly boy is set up and humiliated, but does meet a new friend in the outcast intellectual David, before spitefully punishing Marie by sleeping with his host’s mother…

‘Maternal Damage’ shows the turmoil afflicting Marie’s mother and just how close to the breaking point she is, whilst ‘Superhero’ follows Eric as Sal leads him into trouble and somebody administers a particularly efficient punishment beating. Moreover, even though Eric has done with Marie he can’t bear her seeing a new guy and inflicts some rough injustice of his own.

We learn some intriguing and unsavoury insights about David in ‘Robin Redux’ before the focus switches to Ringo: a full-throttle psychopath who isn’t happy at all when he asks for his bag back and Eric discovers somebody’s taken it…

Ringo sees ghosts too, but they are no help when his Boss Ramos gets heavy. Eric and Marie are in deep trouble until somebody intercedes from ambush and there’s one more phantom in the cast…

‘Crazy Horse’ finds Eric still haunting Karine until he has a strange and disturbing encounter with Marie’s dad and this intermediate book ends on a foreboding spiritual high note with ‘2,969 Light Years From Earth’ as Damien takes steps to protect his loved ones from an angry spirit and each other. Meanwhile, the bag thief is revealed and the repercussions of all the messed up crap the residents have been inflicting on each other is coming to a head. The doorbell rings…

…And readers will have to wait for the concluding book to discover how this stunning, mesmerising amalgam of Twin Peaks, Desert Palms, Peyton Place, The Omen and Blue Velvet plays out. A stylish and magical portmanteau saga of a community cursed with an excess of human frailty – lust, rage, greed, despair and especially shallow selfishness – this is a story that will surprise, compel, distress and haunt anybody with even half an imagination.

Darkly addictive, casually violent and graphically sexual, King of the Flies is “adults only” and well worth waiting until you’re 18 for…
© 2005 Glenat Editions/Drugstore. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.