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Steven Brust’s Jhereg – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Steven Brust, adapted by Alan Zelenetz & John Pierard (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-8713-5674-1

In the early 1980s Marvel led the field in the development of high quality original graphic novels: mixing out-of-the-ordinary Marvel Universe tales, new series launches, creator-owned properties, movie adaptations and even the occasional licensed asset, such as the adaptation of the fantasy fiction favourite under review here.

Released in lavishly expansive packages (a squarer page of 285 x 220mm rather than the now customary elongated 258 x 168mm) which felt and looked instantly superior to the standard flimsy comicbook no matter how good, bad or incomprehensible the contents might be.

Jhereg, by Steven Brust was first published in 1983, the first of three novels (Jhereg, Yendi and Teckla, later collected as The Book of Jhereg omnibus) starring Vlad Taltos, an assassin-for-hire on the magic-drenched world Dragaera. The setting was faux-feudal with castes, guilds, brotherhoods and covens all rubbing silk-draped shoulders with fantastic creatures and incredible alien forces.

Unlike the other Families and Noble Clans, the House of Jhereg is a brotherhood of unaffiliated individuals elevated to Noble status due solely to ability not merit or bloodline. The house does scut-work and unseemly tasks – originally for the Emperors but now also for selected clientele. They take their name from the predatory jhereg: a venomous dragon-like flying lizard with near-human intellect, telepathic abilities and the power of teleportation.

The graphic adaptation, published under Marvel’s Epic imprint in collaboration with groundbreaking graphics packager Byron Preiss Visual Publications, opens with the grimly efficient Vlad Taltos plying his trade with the help of his jhereg familiar and best friend Loiosh.

When a Jhereg potentate of the ruling Organization Council offers him the biggest commission of his life Vlad’s greed and caution are tweaked in equal amounts.

A member of the inner circle has embezzled millions in funds and although they would like the money back, what the overlords really want is a very public example made. Moreover, in a society where immortality is commonplace and resurrection just a matter of who you know, the council need the Lord Leareth permanently deceased with absolutely no chance of revivification…

Taking the gig, Vlad sets his resources – human, alien and mystical – into locating the thieving absconder and soon finds him holed up in the worst possible place: as an honored guest of powerful Dragonlord Morrolan in his floating castle, cynically using the nobility’s Code of Hospitality to stay safe and unmolested.

Not every member of the clan is happy with the situation and the assassin has a powerful ally in young Aliera, Morrolan’s cousin, and a puissant sorceress in her own right.

Time is running out but Vlad and Loiosh have hatched a cunning plan…

The high fantasy trappings and milieu will delight fans of the genre but the real delight of this colourful, imaginative romp is the plain and simple fact that even with all the witchcraft and weirdness on display, at its heart this is a classy, hard-boiled, private eye thriller dressed up in fantastic fancy-dress: sly, dry, funny, impressively adult and breathtakingly fast-paced… and there’s never been an ethnic-buddy/sidekick like that smart-aleck flying iguana…

Zelentz’s adaptation rockets along, perfectly blending de rigueur tough-guy inner monologue with the land-of-miracles setting and John Pierard’s full-colour artwork is especially appealing – lush, bold, bright and satisfyingly reminiscent of Howard Chaykin’s painted narratives.

An enticing, appetising change of pace for the usual comics crowd, this sorcerous saga might well win a few fans amongst the dedicated Fights ‘n’ Tights fraternity too.
© 1990 Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Introduction © 1990 Steven Brust. Original novel Jhereg © 1983 Steven Brust. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman & Batman: Generations 2


By John Byrne with Trish Mulvihill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-711-5

The second instalment of John Byrne’s “imaginary story” trilogy, un-working the post-Crisis DC mythology he had been such a large part of re-forging in the mid-1980s, is a far smoother, less muddled beast than the first. The expansive saga even broadens the panorama to include many other icons of the company’s five decades of continuity.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths the myriad alternate Earths which had housed different eras of DC heroes and provided handy accommodation for the company’s costumed acquisitions such as the 1940s Fawcett’s Marvel Family and retinue or the Charlton Action Heroes line from the 1960s had been amalgamated into one bulky, homogenous whole, and the company took the opportunity to retrofit their major stars into the bargain.

Batman got darker, Wonder Woman was culturally re-cast and Superman had his charming Weisinger/Boltinoff/Schwartz additions to the original Siegel & Shuster concept jettisoned by John Byrne and associate writer Marv Wolfman. Out went the World’s Finest friendship with the Caped Crusader, the entire concept and career of Superboy and all the tenuous, wondrous baggage of fifty spectacular years.

And then, because we all missed it so much, he decided to bring it back…

In Superman & Batman: Generations, An Imaginary Tale, which was published under DC’s non-continuity “Elseworlds” imprint in1999, Byrne posited a world where the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader began just as they actually had in the dog-days of the 1930s and, by sampling all the eradicated material prior to Crisis, explored how the pair would have fared had they aged like us relatively real people.

Referencing that magnificent discarded continuity and spicing the mix with some intriguing speculative fancy through a more mature, modern sensibility the saga progressed in decade-wide jumps following the family and friends of the World’s Finest Heroes in an epic struggle spanning the years 1939 to 1999, with a punchy postscript set in 2919 whilst revealing a secret origin in 1929.

This second collection following the heroic dynasties of Batman and Superman, which first appeared as a four-issue Prestige format miniseries in 2001, proceeds in 11-year jumps – two per issue – and opens in 1942 with ‘Battlefields’.

Superman, the Blackhawks, Hawkman and all the stalwarts of World War II’s Justice Society are occupied crushing Nazi terror-weapons built by the old enemy Ultra-Humanite when a new factor enters the equation as the hidden Amazons of Paradise Island send their Princess Diana to assist the good people in “Man’s World” as the Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, on the Home-Front Lois Lane and the Dynamic Duo are tackling Lex Luthor’s latest sinister scheme…

‘Absent Friends’ focuses on winter 1953, with the sudden return of long missing Commissioner Gordon and a plot by eco-despot Ra’s Al Ghul. In this world the JSA never retired and while they convene to investigate, on a distant world Superman frees an alien race from slavery and makes first contact with a Green Lantern. And back in Metropolis, Lois Lane-Kent is about to deliver Clark’s second child…

1964 and ‘Children’s Hour’ finds Batman and Superman, elder statesmen of the heroic community, watch as their kids begin their own crusading careers as part of a young wave of heroes who will eventually become Teen Titans – if they can survive the concerted attack of Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master and the Weather Wizard, that is.

‘Troubled Souls’ visits 1975, wherein an aging Joker looks to be finally incapable of harming anyone and veteran test pilot Hal Jordan finally hangs up his flight jacket to take up politics. As the second generation of cape and cowl crime-busters investigates the Joker’s breakdown they enter a new realm of experience courtesy of mystic Dr. Occult and ghostly guardian Deadman.

In 1986 Superman and Luthor meet for their final battle in ‘To Hunt the Hunted’ as a third generation of costumed heroes join the Justice Society to hunt the out-of-control outlaw Batman, whilst by 1997’s ‘Turning Points’ alien marauder Sinestro decimates the new Justice League of America. With Superman long gone and all Batmen hunted felons, it falls to aging politician Hal Jordan to put on a power ring and battle the alien terrorist.

In 2008 ‘This Ancient Evil’ sees Superman’s greatest enemy return, his brain transplanted into an unstoppable robotic body. Can even Knightwing, the Justice League and Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan stop the metal marauder’s rampage?

This volume ends with 2019: ‘Father of the Man’ as the vanished first Superman finally returns from exile and, reunited with the latest Dark Knight, views a portentous message from the past wherein long-dead Jonathan Kent describes the first meeting of his adopted son and the boy Bruce Wayne. This lost adventure of the World’s Finest Heroes ends tragic when the elder Kent reveals how he failed to save Bruce’s parents….

Intricate and engaging this epic is broad, not deep but for all that is still a hugely readable piece of sweetened fluff, magically engrossing and filled with the “what if?” wonderment of the earlier material it eulogises. A good, solid Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure yarn, Generations II, like its predecessor, might well act as a gateway tale for new readers and tempt fans to try the older material for themselves – and surely that’s no bad thing?

© 2001, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1951


By Milton Caniff (Checker Book Publishing Group)
ISBN: 978-1-933160-10-8

Most cartoonists – most artists in any field of creative endeavour – go to their graves never attaining those giddy heights wherein they are universally associated with a signature piece of unequivocally supreme work. How incredible then when somebody achieves that sublime act of creation, not once but twice – and does so seven days a week for 64 years?

After reluctantly leaving his incredibly successful, groundbreaking Terry and the Pirates newspaper strip in the hands of others, Milton Caniff created another iconic hero in de-mobbed World War II pilot Steve Canyon. The main reason for the move was rights and creative control, but it’s also easy to see another reason. Terry, set in a fabled Orient, even with the contemporary realism the author so captivatingly imparted, is a young man’s strip and limited by locale.

The worldly, war-weary, Canyon was a mature adventurer who could be sent literally anywhere and would appeal to the older, wiser readers of Red-Menaced, Atom-Age America, now a fully active player on the world stage. Canyon also reflects an older creator who has seen so much more of human nature and frailty than even the mysterious Orient could provide. A young Shakespeare could write “Romeo and Juliet” but maturity and experience were needed as much as passion and genius to produce “the Tempest” or “King Lear”.

Steve Canyon began on 13th January 1947, after an extended build-up of public anticipation following the very conspicuous resignation from Terry. Caniff, the master of suspense and adept at manipulating reader attention, didn’t let his new hero actually appear until four days later – and then only in a ‘file photograph’. The rabid readership first met Stevenson Burton Canyon, bomber pilot, medal-winning war-hero, Air-Force flight instructor and latterly, independent charter airline operator in the first Sunday colour page, on 19th January 1947.

Almost instantly Caniff was working at the top of his game, producing material both exotic and familiar, and once again dead on the money in terms of the public zeitgeist and taste…

Volume five of Milton Caniff’s second graphic magnum opus sees the WWII veteran increasingly mired in a catastrophic battle against World Socialism as the Korean War rumbled on whilst his “will-she, won’t-she” romance with the elusive Summer Olson continued to plague him in fraught and frantic episodes of the daily strip and Sunday page which first appeared between January 28th 1951 to April 6th 1952.

Conveniently contained for your convenience in four fabulous graphic sagas, the Cold War classics commence with ‘Operation Foo Ling’ (January 28th – April 14th), immediately following on from the previous chronicle with the fully reactivated Air Force Major dispatched into Nationalist China to drop the eponymous Chinese magician behind the Bamboo Curtain and fly out the prisoner Ling is tasked with rescuing. Providing medical support, glamour and romantic tension is old flame Deen Wilderness (see Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon: 1948) but is she a thorn in Steve’s side or a rose for new cast-member and dashing flyboy Breck Nazaire?

The mission goes badly from the start: even though Foo Ling carries out his part the commando raid deep into mainland China results in a spectacular firefight during which Breck is left behind and Deen is subsequently charged with deserting her post…

‘The Duchess of Denver’ (April 15th – August 5th), finds Steve in Hong Kong to rendezvous with Ling but quickly embroiled in a criminal scheme perpetrated by a gangster’s moll who suddenly finds herself in over her head. Smugglers, white slavers, spies and gallant White Knights combine in moody noir magnificence in the most exotic hell-holes of the Orient, but as always Caniff wrote – and drew – his women strong and capable enough to cope by themselves if they had to…

The shattering conclusion left Canyon battered, bruised and adrift alone in a lifeboat, so ‘Operation: Eel Island’ (August 6th – November 14th), opens with the recuperating Major on soft clerical duties in a “spit-and-polish” camp once used by the Japanese during WWII, unaware that he’s undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

Moreover, the island-base hides a dangerous secret, and martinet Colonel Index has his hands full with his sultry, wayward wife Delta amidst all those lonely military men. If he ever found out that she and Steve used to date back in the USA…

When intrigue is expedited by a fifth column of spies Colonel Index and Canyon find themselves on a collision course with disaster and dishonour…

This entrancing tome of comic-strip majesty concludes with ‘Crisis on the Campus’ (November 15th 1951 – April 6th 1952) as, posted back to America to lecture R.O.T.C. (that’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) candidates – actually to scrutinize a college professor’s latest invention – Steve is finally, joyously reunited with the long-missing Summer Olson, only to find that the shady halls of Academe are as fraught with tension and peril as the distant East and that in such troubled times there really were Reds under a lot of  Beds…

Most tragically, within moments of a marital “Happy Ever After” Steve and Summer were once again dragged apart by circumstance…

With Mao Tse-tung’s (we know him now as Mao Zedong) Chinese Republic flexing its victorious muscles and  stoking the fires of the Korean War, Caniff increasingly wove news scraps, items of research gained from military friends and advisors and sheer inspired speculation into his unfolding saga. Ever the patriot, his opinions and pro-“Free World” stance might now flavour these strips with a somewhat parochial or jingoistic tang, but as with all fiction viewed through the lens of time passed, context is everything.

Unlike his controversial stance on Vietnam two decades later, this was not an issue which divided America. However the public and officials of the USA treated Communists and “Pinkos” within their own borders, the Red Menace presented by Russia and China was real, immediate, and actively working against Western Interests. The real talking point here is not the extent of a creator’s perceived paranoia, (check out any Atlas/Marvel war title of the period if you want to see totally unrestrained “patriotic fervour”) but rather the restraint which Caniff always showed within his strip compared to what was happening in the world outside it.

Compelling, compulsive, exotic, action-packed and emotionally charged Steve Canyon is a masterpiece of graphic narrative: a full-immersion thrill and a passport to the best parts of another age. Comics just don’t get better than this.

© Checker Book Publishing Group 2005, an authorized collection of works © Ester Parsons Caniff Estate 1951, 1952. All characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of the Ester Parsons Caniff Estate. All rights reserved.

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Shadowland


By Andy Diggle, Billy Tan, Matt Banning & Victor Olazaba (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-473-7

It’s not often that perennial publishers’ favourite tool the braided mega-crossover throws up a segment that can be read truly independently of its multifarious spin-offs but Marvel seem to have accomplished that in the core miniseries which forms the backbone of the 2010 event Shadowland; a dark, moody and deliciously down-to-earth thriller headlining the companies less-cosmic, street-level heroes and villains…

Written by the always excellent Andy Diggle and illustrated by Billy Tan, with inking contribution from Matt Banning & Victor Olazaba and covers by John Cassaday, the five issue miniseries collected here originally ran from September 2010 to the beginning of 2011 and the repercussions of that tale are still ongoing.

After psychotic mass-murderer Bullseye killed 107 people by blowing up a building in the Hell’s Kitchen slum of New York City, guilt-wracked urban avenger Daredevil embraced a new tactic in his war on Evil and took control of The Hand, an 800 year old ninja cult which had previously battled against a number of heroes including Wolverine, the Avengers, X-Men and DD himself.

Erecting a colossal medieval castle on the site of the demolished edifice DD tasked his now-loyal warriors with keeping the streets safe at all costs. The area quickly became a no-go zone, shunned by the police and abandoned by criminals. The scumbags that didn’t leave soon disappeared…

At first Daredevil’s old friends make excuses for him but it soon becomes apparent that something is not right about the Man Without Fear, especially after the hero kills Bullseye in pitched battle…

Meanwhile in the background, Wilson Fisk, one-time Kingpin of New York, knows more than he’s telling and is subtly shaping events to his own ends. When New York inexplicably explodes in panic, unrest and rioting a heartsick band of Daredevil’s friends realise they must end his reign of remorseless “Justice” whatever the cost…

Guest-starring practically everybody but with feature roles for Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, White Tiger, Moon Knight, Colleen Wing & Misty Knight, the Punisher, Shang Chi – Master of Kung Fu, Ghost Rider, Wolverine and Elektra this is a non-stop rocket-ride of action and suspense, seamlessly blending black magic with urban vigilante tropes and tactics as the warriors of virtue battle unimaginable perils and the sinister machinations of more than one hidden mastermind to save their city and, if possible, the soul of Matt Murdock, Man Without Pity…

There is of course far more to the saga than appears here – and if you want the full story you’ll need to see Daredevil #508-512, Thunderbolts #148-149; Shadowland miniseries Blood on the Streets, Power Man, Moon Knight and Daughters of the Shadow plus the dedicated one-shots Shadowland: Spider-Man, Shadowland: Elektra, Shadowland: Bullseye and Shadowland: Ghost Rider. Conversely, you could await the full epic in graphic novel collections…

However should this striking tome be the only portion you want to read you won’t spend any time wondering what the heck is going on between pages and panels and you will experience the heady satisfaction of a great yarn well-told and beautifully executed.

™ & © 2010, 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Stormwatch: Lightning Strikes


By Warren Ellis, Tom Raney, Jim Lee & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-617-0

StormWatch was a paramilitary Special Crisis Intervention unit tasked with managing global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications; operating under the oversight of a UN committee. From their “Skywatch” satellite in geosynchronous orbit above Earth they observed, waiting until a member nation called for help…

The multinational taskforce 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”.

StormWatch was born during 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 an honest hectic enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the ponderous feature 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.

StormWatch: Lightning Strikes collects issues #43-47 of the comicbook, taking short, hard looks at individual cast members and also features a spectacular gallery of covers and variant-covers by Tom Raney & Randy Elliot, Mark Irwin, Gil Kane and Jim Lee.

The incisive explorations begin with ‘Jack Hawksmoor’, a human subjected to decades of surgical manipulation by aliens to become the avatar of cities. Drawn to the scene of a serial killer’s grotesque excesses Jack uncovers a festering government cover-up which reaches deep into the soul of America’s most revered idols and threatens to rip the country apart if exposed.

But the apparently untouchable murderer will never cease his slaughter-campaign unless someone stops him…

‘Jenny Sparks’ follows the cynical Englishwoman whose electrical powers were an expression of her metaphysical status as incarnate “Spirit of the Twentieth Century”: a captivating pastiche of fantasy through the last hundred years as the jaded hero recounts her life story (see also Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the Authority) in a dazzling series of pastiches referencing Siegel & Shuster, Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare, Kirby, Crumb and the horrors of Thatcherite Britain in a gripping tale of betrayal, whilst the terse thriller ‘Battalion’ sees StormWatch’s normally non-operational, behind-the-scenes trainer fall into a supremacist terror-plot whilst on leave in Alabama and forced to call on skills and abilities he never thought he’d need again…

‘Rose Tattoo’ was a mute and mysterious sexy super psycho-killer recruited by Bendix as a walking ultimate sanction. When her super-powered team-mates go on a hilarious alcoholic bonding exercise she finally shows her true nature in a tale which foreshadows an upcoming crisis for the entire team… and planet.

Following Raney & Randy Elliot’s sterling run of the previous four tales Jim Lee & Richard Bennett illustrate the concluding ‘Assembly’ as Bendix sends his core-team into the very pits of Hell in a bombastic action-packed shocker that acts as a “jumping-on point” for new readers and a reminder of what StormWatch is and does… preparatory to Ellis kicking the props out from under the readership in the next volume…

One again skilfully mixing the traditional with the outrageous these episodes offered a fresh take on the costumed catastrophe genre that energised once-jaded readers and paved the way for the graphic phenomenon of the Authority. Darkly anarchic, funny and frightening these tales celebrate the best of what has gone before whilst kicking in the doors to a bleaker more compelling tomorrow.

© 1996, 1997, 2000 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Flash: The Human Race


By Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Paul Ryan, Ron Wagner, Pop Mahn & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-382-7

There are many super-speedsters in the DCU and most of them congregate in the conjoined metropolis of Keystone and Central City. Wally West, third incarnation of The Flash, lives there with his true love Linda Park, his Aunt Iris and fellow fast-fighters such as Jay Garrick. Impulse, a juvenile speedster from the Future and his mentor/keeper Max Mercury – the Zen Master of hyper-velocity – live in Alabama but often visit as they only live picoseconds away…

Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, Garrick debuted as the very first Scarlet Speedster in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for over a decade before changing tastes benched him in 1951 until the concept of speedsters and superheroes in general was revived in 1956 by Julie Schwartz in Showcase #4 when police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept.

The Silver Age Flash, whose creation ushered in a new and seemingly unstoppable era of costumed crusaders, died heroically during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and was promptly succeeded by his sidekick Kid Flash. Of course Allen later returned from the dead – but doesn’t everyone?

Initially Wally West struggled to fill the boots of his predecessor, both in sheer ability and, more tellingly, in confidence. Feeling a fraud, he nonetheless persevered and eventually overcame, becoming the greatest to carry the name.

Following directly on from Morrison and Millar’s first turn on the Scarlet Speedster (see Flash: Terminal Velocity) this volume reprints issues #136-141 of the monthly comic and even finds room for a delicious extra feature from Secret Origins #50 and opens with a 10-year-old Wally playing with his Ham Radio kit and talking to an imaginary friend before we sprint into the present-day to find Wally seconds after his last exploit, when an alien super-speedster crashed at his feet, gasping out a warning with his dying breath…

The eponymous three-part lead tale The Human Race commences with ‘Radio Days’ (written by Morrison & Millar with art by the under-appreciated Paul Ryan and John Nyberg) when two god-like alien gamblers materialise and demand that Earth’s fastest inhabitant replaces the dead runner in a race across all time and space. If a contestant isn’t provided the world is forfeit and will be destroyed…

With the Justice League unable to defeat the cosmic wagerers Flash has no choice but to compete, however he almost falls apart when discovers his opponent is Krakkl, a radio-wave lifeform who used to talk to him when he was a kid. Now Wally has to beat a beloved memory he thought a mere childhood fancy to save his homeworld… and if he does, Krakkl’s entire species will die…

Ron Wagner came aboard as penciller for ‘Runner’ and ‘Home Run’ as, pushed to the limits of endurance and imagination Flash criss-crosses all reality but soon realises this a match he cannot win… until the valiant, self-sacrificing radio-racer imparts a deadly and world-saving secret…

Cosmic, clever and deeply sentimental in the fashion comics-fans are suckers for, this stunning saga ends with Earth enduring but its victorious hero on course for the ultimate finish in the tense thriller The Black Flash (Miller, Pop Mahn & Chris Ivy, with additional pencils from Joshua Hood) as a demonic entity that abides beyond the velocity-fuelling energy field the Speed Force comes for him in ‘The Late Wally West’.

Older speedsters have noticed over the decades that their ultra-swift comrades have all been hunted and taken by this supernal beast before their lives ended and when the creature is seen stalking Wally they do all they can to thwart it. Tragically they succeed… Unable to kill the Flash, the thing destroys his beloved Linda instead…

Jesse Quick, second generation hero who lost her father to the Black Flash, takes over Wally’s role as crushed, depressed and broken Wally loses his connection to the Speed Force, but after weeks of shell-shocked mourning he moves on, planning a new life in a foreign country, but the Black Flash is spiteful and never gives up…

When the beast attacks the powerless Wally at the airport in ‘The End’ Max Mercury, Garrick, Impulse and Jesse all confront the creature until the true Scarlet Speedster rediscovers the inner fire necessary to not only face and defeat the thing but also bring back Linda from the Great Unknown.

As if that wasn’t a perfect ending to this tumultuous tome there’s also a lost gem drawn by the magnificent Mike Parobeck (although probably included here because it’s one of Grant Morrison’s earliest DC scripts), inked by Romeo Tanghal which originally debuted in Secret Origins #50 in 1990 in celebration  of Flash’s 50th anniversary.

By the early 1950s costumed heroes had lost popularity and all but disappeared from comicbook pages for half a decade. The concept was revived and took off again when the Barry Allen Flash debuted in Showcase #4. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ by Fox, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella (from Flash #123, 1961) revived the Golden Age Flash, and by implication, the whole 1940s DC pantheon by introducing the concept of parallel worlds and multiple Earths which became the bedrock of the entire continuity.

The aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths rationalised that continuity, retconning DC’s history so that all its characters had always shared the same planet and dimension. Simple, no…?

This new ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ saw Morrison and Parobeck retell the landmark adventure of how Barry met Jay, keeping the wonder and thrills intact, incorporating a classic combat with arch-villains Fiddler, Thinker and the Shade and even found room for a little in-joke surprise or two…

Fast, furious and fabulous the Flash has always epitomised the best in costumed comic thrills and these tales are among the very best. If you haven’t seen them yet, run – don’t walk – to your nearest emporium or vendor-site and catch all the breathless action you can handle, A.S.A.P!
© 1990, 1998, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Original Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Arthur Suydam (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-734-8

Scantily clad hot chicks swinging swords have been a staple of fantasy comics from their very inception, but there are none of those on view in this beautifully realised collection from illustrator, designer, screenwriter and musician Arthur Suydam, whose anarchically humorous, offbeat confections and magical renderings have graced such disparate products as magazines Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, Penthouse Comix and Epic Illustrated (where these brutally madcap little graphic novellas first appeared – specifically issues #8, 10, 13, 14 and 34), comicbooks like Tarzan, Conan, Batman, House of Mystery and Marvel Zombies and movie spin-offs Aliens and Predator.

He has also well as produced covers for novels including Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane’s collaborative Dead Street and Game box-art for Touch the Dead. Periodically Suydam returns to his own uniquely creative projects such as Mudwogs and the military muck-ups of Cholly and Flytrap, teasingly releasing another snippet every so often…

This then is the other sort of fantasy: lavishly grotesque, manically arch and surreptitiously satirically subversive; a lavish blend of dryly witty pastiches combining elements of Moebius’ Arzach, the imaginative  sci-fi earthiness of Vaughn Bode and a surreal anti-war temperament that imbues the blackly comic ultra-violence with a hauntingly tragic undertone.

Long ago the space-barge Exodus II crashed on an uncharted world. After untold ages the survivors have bred but never prospered, locked as they are in the constant struggle for survival. It’s not that the planet is particularly inhospitable… it’s just that the denizens -indigenous and not – adore war-making and love killing…

Apparently Cholly began life as a bat-riding warrior: an image for the poster advertising the animated Heavy Metal movie, but he was mysteriously transformed into a hot chick on a pterodactyl after acceptance (this sort of inexplicable conceptual metamorphosis happens a lot in film-land) leaving Suydam with a cool-looking visual and a lot of ideas…

Time passed, Marvel started a creator-owned, rights-friendly fantasy periodical in response to the success of Heavy Metal and a reinvented bat-riding, goggles-wearing icon of conflict began appearing. Of course, he had evolved slightly and the chiropteran had become a colossal, naked, bald fat man. Cholly still rode him like a seasoned veteran though…

The collected insanity begins with ‘A Little Love, a Little Hate!’ from 1981, a frenetic chase/duel between a foul-mouthed, flying jacketed war-hawk and his slug-like arch-enemy, which showed Cholly’s streetwise cunning in spectacular, over-the-top fashion.

‘Flightus Interuptus’ followed, an airborne tussle (possibly started before the previous tale?) wherein the high-flying Cholly, sans Flytrap, battled a massive mammary zeppelin-bomber in nothing more that a primitive tri-plane pulled by a brace of the planet’s levitating anti-gravity breasts (no, really). Tragically shot down in the throes of victory, the adaptable aviator found a giant bat to ride (remember kids, recycling even of ideas and art is good for any planet). Sadly the noble beast didn’t last long…

Soldier and human(ish) steed were reunited for the longer saga ‘The Rites of Spring‘ as Suydam expanded his cast and extemporized on the concept of mortals as organic war machines in a Horatian tale of Thermopylan courage with Cholly and faithful, mute Flytrap holding back a veritable horde of slug-troopers and big-ass war-wagons – a smart and lusciously graphic feast of visual violence and sassy back-chat.

‘The End’ begins with the war-lover tooling around the sky on some more of those flying hooters until he encountered a monolithic monster having a furious argument with his own outrageously outspoken boy-bits. Passions aroused and tempers flaring, Cholly was witness to an ending you simply don’t see every day…

The short, sweet, one-trick gags grew into something more complex (a portent of the substantial tales that followed far too infrequently over the next twenty years) in the hilarious concluding Epic entry ‘The Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap’ (plotted by Peter Koch) as the peripatetic pair hauled up at their favourite restaurant for a feed. Impatience, hunger, foreign food and honking big guns never make for a sedate evening…

Topped off with a glorious portfolio of monochrome sketches and working drawings plus the magnificent cover of Epic Illustrated‘s last issue this sumptuous, gratuitous and entrancingly daft eye-candy, released in the extravagantly expansive European Album format (a square-ish, high-gloss page of 285 x 220mm rather than today’s elongated 258 x 168mm) is a mature readers delight and yet another classy piece of work to add to the “why is this out of print?” list.
© 1981, 1982, 1986, 1991 Arthur Suydam. All Rights Reserved.

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No Need For Tenchi! volume 1


By Hitoshi Okuda, translated by Fred Burke (Viz Graphic Novel)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-180-6

This bright and breezy adventure comedy is a rare reversal of the usual state of affairs in that the TV anime came first and the manga serial was a spin-off.

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki debuted in 1992-1993 as a six-part TV cartoon series (termed an OVA or Original Video Animation in Japan) that proved so blisteringly popular that even before the original season concluded further specials and episodes were rushed into production. Over the next decade or so two more seasons appeared as well as spin-off shows and features (for a total of 98 episodes all told), plus games, toys, light novels and, of course, a comic book series. The translation most commonly accepted for the pun-soaked title is No Need For Tenchi but equally valid interpretations include Useless Tenchi, No Heaven and Earth and This Way Up.

The assorted hi-jinks of the TV show resulted in three overlapping but non-related continuities, with the Hitoshi Okuda manga serials stemming directly from the first season. Okuda eventually produced two comics sagas in this format: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-oh-ki which began in 1994 and features in this volume under review and the follow-up Shin Tenchi Muyo! which I’ll get to one fine day…

The strip debuted in the December 16th 1994 Shōnen anthology (comics pitched at 10-18 year old males) Comic Dragon Jr. It ran until Jun 9th 2000, generating 12 collected volumes of classic laughs and thrills. The stories are generally regarded as non-canonical by fans of the various TV versions but of course we don’t care about that since the printed black and white tales are so much fun and so well illustrated…

This first volume collects the first seven issues of the pioneering Viz comicbook Tales of Tenchi, which did so much to popularise Manga in the English-speaking world, and opens with a thorough and fascinating recap of that first TV season – from which all the succeeding manic mirth and mayhem proceeds – before cracking on to bolder and better bewilderments starring the entire copious cast on all new adventures and exploits…

Tenchi Masaki is an ordinary boy living peacefully in the countryside with his father Nobuyuki and grandfather Katsuhito, until one day he breaks opens an ancient shrine and lets a demon out. The hell-fiend Ryoko tries to kill him but a magic “Lightning Eagle Sword” helps him escape. The demon follows him though, demanding the sword and things get really crazy when a spaceship arrives revealing Ryoko is in fact a disgraced alien pirate from the star-spanning Jurai Empire.

Starship Ryo-oh-ki is full of attractive, shameless, immensely powerful warrior-women including Princesses Ayeka, her little sister Sasami and supreme scientist Washu. This gaggle of violently disruptive visitors moves in with Tenchi and family, causing nothing but trouble and embarrassment, and soon the boy and his sword are being dragged all over the cosmos in the sentient Ryo-oh-ki (who, when not on duty, prefers the form of a cute rabbit/cat hybrid critter).

Ayeka and Sasami both harbour feelings for the hapless Tenchi but things get really complicated when grandfather Katsuhito is revealed to be Yosho, a noble Prince of the Jurai. It appears Tenchi and those darned space girls are all related…

Tales of Tenchi opened with ‘The Genius’ as the lad, currently studying Jurai warrior training under his grandfather’s diligent tutelage, falls foul of the alien princesses’ growing boredom, until Ryoko attacks again, precipitating a devastating battle that threatens to burn the entire landscape to ashes. But is the aggressor really the demon pirate?

In ‘Double Trouble’ the other Ryoko tries to take Tenchi’s sword – in actuality a puissant techno-artefact known as the Master Key – before being defeated by the original, but at the cost of shock-induced amnesia. ‘Under Observation’ depicts some outrageous and inadvisable potential cures for the distressed Ryoko as the refugees all decompress, but when the defeated doppelganger’s master Yakage arrives the entire extended family are threatened. The terrifying star-warrior challenges Tenchi to a duel…

Part 4 ‘Plunder’ is one colossal hi-energy clash as the boy valiantly demonstrates all he has learned to drive off the intruder, but only after the villain takes Ayeka hostage, demanding a rematch in 10 days time…

Intensifying his training in ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ Tenchi prepares for the upcoming battle whilst Ryoko pursues Yakage into space, unaware that super-scientist Washu has hidden herself aboard the pursing ship…

‘A Good Scolding’ reveals some intriguing history regarding the assorted super-girls whilst Tenchi trains for the final confrontation and the concluding chapter ‘Relationships’ brings the initial volume to a spectacular climax whilst still leaving a cliffhanger to pull you back in for the next addictive instalment…

Blending elements of Star Wars: A New Hope with classic Japanese genre favourites (fantasy, action, fighting, embarrassment, loss of conformity and hot chicks inexplicably drawn to nerdy boys), this sensational romp also includes a couple of comedy vignettes starring ‘The Cast of No Need For Tenchi’ in fourth-wall busting asides, to suitably top off a delightfully undemanding fun-fest which will satisfy not just manga maniacs but also any lover of fanciful frivolity and sci fi shenanigans.
© 1994 by Hitoshi Okuda/Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co Ltd., Tokyo. NO NEED FOR TENCHI! is a trademark of Viz Communications Inc.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and the Junior Woodchucks


By Carl Barks and others (Gladstone Comic Album #18)
ISBN: 978-0-944599-18-4

Amongst the other benefits to derive from the radical shake up of the American comics industry in the 1980s (specifically the creation of a specialist retailing sector that ended the newsstand monopoly by sale or return distributors) was the opportunity for small publishers to expand their markets. A plethora of companies with new titles quickly came and went, but there was also the chance for wiser or luckier heads to get their product seen by potential fans who had for so very long been subject to a DC/Marvel duopoly.

Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Disney strips in oversized albums based on a format popular for decades in Scandinavia and Europe. Reintroduced to the country of their birth the archival material quickly led to a rapid expansion and even resulted in new comicbooks being created for the first time since Dell/Gold Key quit the comics business.

Carl Barks was born in Oregon in 1901 and reared in the wilder parts of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He had many jobs before settling into storytelling with pen and brush. He drifted into cartooning in the 1930s, joining the Disney animation studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the fresh field of comicbooks.

Destiny called when he and studio partner Jack Hannah (also an occasional strip artist) adapted a Bob Karp script for a sidelined animated short feature into the comicbook Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold (Dell Four Color Comics #9). Although not Barks’ first published work, it was the story that dictated the rest of his career.

From the late 1940’s to the mid-1960s Barks beavered away in seclusion writing and drawing a vast array of comedy-adventures for kids, based on and expanding Disney’s Duck characters stable. Practically single-handed he built a cohesive feathered Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters such as Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) and the great granddaddy of all money-spinners Scrooge McDuck who premiered in the Donald Duck Yule yarn ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Colour Comics #178 December 1947).

Throughout his working career Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts (uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s comicbook output), had been singled out by a discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist.” When some of his most dedicated devotees finally tracked him down, his belated celebrity began.

So potent were Barks’ creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output itself, even though his comic work was done for the licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales, heavily based on his comics output of the 1950s-1960s, particularly on the exploits of the hilariously acerbic boy-scouting skits featuring Donald and nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie – capable members of the unflappable “Junior Woodchucks”…

This irrepressible catalogue of delight opens with ‘Operation Rescue Saint Bernard’ (Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #125 February 1951) in which the kids, ever-hungry for Woodchuck merit badges and the concomitant glory they bestow, decide to train Donald’s useless, snow-fearing couch-potato dog in the fine art of Alpine Rescue. It would have gone so well if only Donald had not decided to take charge of the program…

Barks’ inestimable and lasting influence was felt around the globe, as the next tale, produced by the criminally anonymous Scandinavian-based Gutenberghus Group laconically reveals.

In ‘Protective Cacophony’ Woodchuck Supremo S.Q.U.A.C.K.B.O.X. (a running feature of the ersatz scout tales was outrageously faux titles and obscurely verbose acronyms for assorted ranks; thus Subliminal Quieter of Unctuously Athletic Caterwaulers and Kiboshers of Bombastic Oratorializing Xenophobes) orders the lads to ensure that a rare bird nesting in Duckberg remains undisturbed. However, when sometime twitcher (that’s birdwatcher to you and me) Donald insists on helping, his overenthusiastic participation almost gives the nervous avian a coronary.

Fun, fast and fanciful, this fable is a perfect example of the Barks method in action…

From Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #132 (September 1951) comes another memorable Barks original. ‘Ten-Star Generals’ is a wry and raucous romp wherein the rank-hungry duck boys attempt to win even more badges and attain high status among their fellow wilderness pioneers. Donald, whose own boyhood scout troop “the Little Booneheads” were far less stringent and ethical, wants to aid them in any way possible, even cheating on their behalf, but decency and Woodchuck moral fibre wins out in the end – as Donald learns to his cost…

The highly competent Gutenberghus Group also crafted ‘Course Play’ as the boys seek the admiration of their diminutive peers in a pathfinder competition only to once more suffer for Donald’s less than scrupulous meddling. As always, however fair play and quick wits win the boys their undeniable due in the end.

After a sharp single-page entrepreneurial gag starring the nephews from Donald Duck’s appearance in Four Colour Comics #408 (July-August 1952) this jolly jamboree ends in a classic confrontation in the eternal battles of the sexes.

‘The Chickadee Challenge’ (from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #181, October 1955) finds the lads and the entire Woodchuck troop compelled to defend their prowess, pride and manly craft skills after an insulting dare from the rival Little Chickadee Patrol. Bristling under the implied insult of being challenged by mere girls the Woodchucks haughtily accept but nothing goes right for them…Donald, as always, thinks it best if he lends a surreptitious underhanded hand…

As always this album is printed in the large European oversized format (278mm x 223mm) – although dedicated collectors should also seek out the publisher’s superb line of Disney Digests and the comicbooks which grew out of these pioneering tomes for more of the most madcap, wryly funny all-ages yarns ever concocted.

Dry wit, artistic verve and sly satirical punch made Carl Barks supreme among his very talented contemporaries and one of the most important anthropomorphic storytellers in fiction. No matter what your vintage or temperament if you’ve never experienced the captivating magic of Barks, you can discover “the Hans Christian Andersen of Comics” simply by applying yourself and your credit cards to any search engine. So why don’t you…?

© 1989, 1955, 1952, 1951, 1950 The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.

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Arena – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Bruce Jones (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-557-6

In  the early 1980s Marvel led the publishing pack in the development of high quality original graphic novels: mixing out-of-the-ordinary Marvel Universe tales, new in-continuity series launches, creator-owned properties, licensed assets, movie adaptations and even the occasional creator-owned property in extravagantly expansive packages (a square-ish standard page of 285 x 220mm rather than the now customary elongated 258 x 168mm) that felt and looked instantly superior to the average comicbook no matter how good, bad or incomprehensible (my way of saying outside your average Marvel Zombie’s comfort zone) the contents might be.

By 1990 Marvel’s ambitious line of outré all-area epics had begun to stall and some less-than-stellar tales were squeaking into the line-up. Moreover, the company was increasingly relying on hastily turned out cinema adaptations with built-in fan appeal and safe in-continuity stories offering established and company copyrighted characters rather than creator-owned properties and original concepts. The once-unmissable line began to have the appearance of an over-sized, over-priced clearing house for leftover stories.

So this stunning suspense saga counts as one of the last – and very best – indie/mainstream fiction experiments from before the rot set in; a creepy, clever, sexy thriller from EC fan and artistic everyman Bruce Jones which sets up shop in Stephen King and Ray Bradbury territory to deliver an overwhelmingly impressive rollercoaster of shocks and twists.

Sharon and her 12 year old daughter Lisa are driving through the majestic rural backwoods of America. It’s a pretty acrimonious journey and when the opportunity presents itself Mom takes a break and goes for a refreshing dip in a mountain pool whilst daughter stays in the car sulkily playing with her toy planes.

Sharon’s idyllic moment is shattered when she sees a jet crash scant yards away. However she can’t find any wreckage or even the slightest sign of it. Lisa saw and heard nothing and neither did the sinister voyeur who had been spying on them…

Rushing back to his shack simpleminded Lem tells his demented Granny about the strange woman. The old crone smells opportunity: if they can capture her and if she’s fertile they can sell her babies in the Big City… and even if she’s not big brother Rut will have a new plaything for awhile…

Lost in the deep woods Lt. Roberts, USAF crawls out of her crashed plane and hears voices. Sharon and the downed pilot start talking and realise that although they can’t see each other they are standing side by side. They’re invisible because they’re separated by two decades…

Somehow the mountain and forest are one huge time-warp… and increasingly, various eras are overlapping. Even though Sharon can only talk to Roberts, dinosaurs and cavemen are chaotically roaming over the hills, endangering both women in their own time-zones…

At that moment Lem and Rut strike, snatching Sharon. locking her up ready to make some money-spinning young ‘uns. From the car little Lisa sees her mother taken and twenty years in the future pilot Lisa Roberts suddenly remembers the horrifying moment her mother was killed by Hillbilly rapist psychopaths…

The time-shifts briefly stabilise and the two Lisas meet…

With beasts and worse roaming the woods the elder girl realises she has a chance to unmake the worst day of her life, but there are complications she could never have imagined in store for her and the girl she used to be…

Sultry, sinister and devilishly cunning this chronal conundrum is beautifully illustrated by Jones and his corkscrew plot is packed full of genuine surprises. Don’t think you’ve guessed the ending because you most likely haven’t…

A perfect sci fi movie-in-waiting, this terse and evocative yarn follows all the rules for a great screen shocker without ever having to “dumb-down” the temporal mechanics in deference to the Great Un-read in the popcorn seats.

Smart, seductive storytelling for sharp-witted punters, this is a time-lost gem you should track down however long it takes…
© 1989 Bruce Jones. All Rights Reserved.