Now Read This!

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-841-6

Hard on the heels of the superb Shazam!: Monster Society of Evil collection (ISBN: 978-1-84576-389-3) comes this welcome addition to DC’s Greatest Stories… line, featuring some wonderful moments from the stellar, if chequered career of the World’s Mightiest Mortal. First seen in the February 1940 issue of Whiz Comics (#2 – there was no #1) to cash in on the sales phenomenon of Superman, he was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck.

‘Introducing Captain Marvel’, drawn in style reminiscent of early Hergé, saw homeless orphan newsboy Billy Batson lured into an abandoned subway tunnel to a meeting with the millennia old wizard Shazam. At the end of a long life fighting evil, the white-bearded figure grants the lad the power of six gods and heroes (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury) and tells him to carry on the good fight. In thirteen delightfully clean and simple pages Billy gets his powers, has his secret origin revealed (he’s heir to a fortune embezzled by his crooked uncle Ebenezer) gets a job as a radio reporter and defeats the mad scheme of Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana who is holding the airwaves of America hostage.

Originally dispensing the sort of summary justice as his contemporaries, the character soon distanced himself from the pack – Man of Steel included – by an increasingly light, surreal and comedic touch, which made Captain Marvel (Billy’s alter ego could beat everybody but copyright lawyers; during his years of inactivity the trademarked name passed to a number of other publishers before settling at Marvel Comics) the best-selling comics character in America. For a period Captain Marvel Adventures was published twice a month, and he was the star in a number of other titles too.

In the formative years however, there was actually a scramble to fill pages. From Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (1941) comes an untitled drama of alien slavers produced in a bit of a hurry by Golden Age Dream-Team Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. It’s fair to say that this rarity was included for its name-value alone, but the third tale, ‘The Trio of Terror’ (The Marvel Family #21, 1948), is prime stuff from Beck and the brilliant and prolific writer Otto Binder, full of sly whimsy as three demons escape the netherworld to plague ours.

Many of the storytelling innovations we find commonplace were invented by the creative folk at Fawcett – the original publisher’s of Captain Marvel. From Captain Marvel Adventures #137 (1952) comes ‘King Kull and the Seven Deadly Sins’ by Binder and Beck, wherein the beast king from a pre-human civilisation frees the embodiments of Man’s greatest enemies to plague the planet. These are wholesome tales for the entire family however, so don’t worry – “Lust” has become “Injustice” and “Wrath” is “Hatred”, here.

There are two yarns from the good Captain’s final year of Golden Age publication. DC, in their original identity of National Periodical Publications, had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 was released, and the companies had been slugging it out ever since. In 1953, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate.

DC eventually acquired all rights, titles and properties to the characters. But that last year saw some of the best tales in the entire run, represented here by the wonderfully surreal ‘Captain Marvel Battles the World’ (Captain Marvel Adventures #148, September1952, by Binder and Beck), and ‘The Primate Plot’ (The Marvel Family #85, July 1953), a dramatic and very funny precursor to the movie Planet of the Apes, by Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger. Beck would return to commercial and magazine illustration, but Binder and Schaffenberger soon joined the victorious opposition, becoming key Superman creators of the next few decades.

In 1973 DC decided to revive the Captain for a new generation and see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns. From the comicbook re-titled, for those pesky copyright reasons, Shazam!, the tale that bought him back was written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by the wonderful C.C. Beck.

‘In the Beginning… /The World’s Wickedest Plan’ (from Shazam! #1, February 1973) retold the origin and explained that the Captain, his super-powered family and all the supporting cast (there’s a very useful seating chart-cum-biography page provided for your perusal) had been trapped in suspended animation for twenty years by the invidious Sivana Family who had subsequently been trapped in their own Suspendium device.

The sales and fan rivalry of the Man of Steel and The Big Red Cheese (Sivana’s pet name for his stout-hearted nemesis) had endured for decades and in 1974 Julius Schwartz took full advantage by having the two finally – if notionally – meet. Superman #276 featured ‘Make Way for Captain Thunder’ by Elliot S! Maggin, Curt Swan and Bob Oksner, a trans-dimensional tussle to delight ten-year-olds of all ages. Incidentally, Captain Thunder was one of the titles considered in 1940 before Fawcett went with the Marvel name.

Beck was legendarily unhappy with the quality of stories he was being given to draw and soon left the series. One of his assistants and stable-mates from the Fawcett days had been a Superman Family mainstay for nearly twenty years and smoothly fitted into the vacated lead-artist position. Kurt Schaffenberger was delighted to again be drawing one of his all-time favourite assignments again, and his shining run is represented here by #14’s ‘The Evil Return of the Monster Society’ scripted by Denny O’Neil in 1974.

Captain Marvel’s blend of charm, drama and whimsy made and remade many fans, even prompting a live action TV series, but never enough to keep the series going in such economically trying times. Despite its cancellation however, the series persevered in back-up slots in other magazines and the character still made the occasional bombastic guest-appearance such as 1984’s DC Comics Presents Annual #3.

‘With One Magic Word’ saw Sivana steal the mystic lightning that empowered Billy Batson, leading to a Battle Royale with not just the Marvel Family but also the Supermen of both Earth’s 1 and 2 (this was mere months before Crisis on Infinite Earths lumped all these heroes onto one terribly beleaguered and crowded world). This cracking 40 page romp was plotted by long-time fan Roy Thomas, written by Joey Cavalieri and illustrated by the fabulous Gil Kane.

Now fully part of the DC universe Captain Marvel popped up everywhere. He was even part of Justice League International for awhile. From L.E.G.I.O.N ’91 #31 (1991), by Alan Grant and Barry Kitson, came the wickedly funny slugfest ‘Where Dreams End’, as the big guy has to try and reason with a drunk and hostile Lobo, and when he once more had his own series, spinning off from the superb original graphic novel The Power of Shazam! (ISBN: 978-1-56389-153-3), a new high-point of quality entertainment was achieved – and sustained – by Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause and Dick Giordano.

‘Yeah – This is a Face Only a Mother Could Love…’ (from The Power of Shazam! #33, 1997) is a powerful and poignant treatment of intolerance and the collateral damage of superhero encounters as Billy tries to help a school-friend hideously scarred by his arch-foe the Arson Fiend, and is possibly the best and least known story in the book.

This lovely compilation ends with a zesty delight from the all-ages Adventures in the DC Universe comicbook (#15, 1998). Steve Vance, John Delaney and Ron Boyd created a testing time for Billy when Zeus decided to see if Billy was actually worthy of his power in ‘Out of a Dark Cloud’.

Captain Marvel is a genuine icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This collection, which only scratches the surface of the canon of delights produced over the years, is a perfect introduction to the world of comics and one that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.

© 1940, 1941, 1948, 1952, 1953, 1973, 1974, 1984, 1991, 1997, 1998, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Adapted by Michael Lark (A Byron Preiss Book/Fireside Books)
ISBN: 0-684-82933-9

If you’re going to adapt classic, evocative crime novels into graphic narrative you really can’t start with better source material than Raymond Chandler. His fifth novel, The Little Sister, was published in 1949 after nearly a decade of hard living and work as a Hollywood screenwriter and it is a perfect example of his terse yet poetic hard-boiled style.

All the beloved and iconic imagery is present in Michael Lark’s static snapshot style as prim Orfamay Quest hires the laconic Marlowe to track down her missing brother, a spiritual soul who seems to have gone off the rails since hitting the sin city of Los Angeles. Little Orfamay seems wound up pretty tight for such a run-of the-mill case, but the world-weary detective starts to take things a little more seriously when the corpses start showing up…

This taut and twisted compote of mobsters, blackmail and double-dealing is a fine example of a tale adapted well, the underplayed art and direction augmented by controlled pace and a sensitive use of a deliberately limited colour palette. A cool look at a period classic, this is a crime-fan’s dream book, and what’s truly criminal is that it’s been allowed to slip out-of-print.

© 1997 Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Text of The Little Sister © 1949 Raymond Chandler, © renewed 1976 Mrs Helga Greene. All Rights Reserved.

UK EDITION

 

By various (Marvel/Panini Publishing UK)
ISBN: 978-1-905239-85-6

In the past I’ve berated previous editions of the “definitive” line from Marvel because of the editorial selections, but this volume, compiled to support the release of the big budget motion picture has a better than average blend of genuine classics and hidden gems to balance the less comprehensible choices, so well done this time, chaps.

This latest career retrospective kicks of predictably enough with the emotionally charged origin from Tales of Suspense #39, (cover-dated March 1963) by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, with art by the enduring and endearing Don Heck, before we jump all the way to 1977 and Iron Man #99 and 100 for a lost two-part classic by Bill Mantlo, George Tuska and Mike Esposito. ‘At the Mercy of the Mandarin’ and ‘Ten Rings to Rule the World!’ is a solid, old fashioned, world-saving punch-up guest-starring sometime X-Man Sunfire.

There are three selections from the superlative run of issues by David Michelinie, John Romita Jr. and others from the late1970s/early 1980s. No commemorative could be complete without the landmark – and still intensely moving and powerful – ‘Demon in a Bottle’ (from Iron Man #128, 1979, inked and co-plotted by Bob Layton), followed by a bombastic three-parter guest-starring the Incredible Hulk and the second Ant-Man. Jerry Bingham replaced JR Jr. for ‘Hulk is Where the Heart is!’, ‘The Man Who Would Be Hulk’ and the tense climax ‘The Hero Within!’, but Romita returned in 1981 for the time-travelling clash with Marvel’s deadliest villain in #149’s ‘Doomquest!’ and #150’s ‘Knightmare’ as the Armoured Avenger and Doctor Doom had to defeat Morgana Le Fey before they could return to their home time from the court of King Arthur!

Denny O’Neil had a long run as scripter in the mid-1980s, a sequence that saw Tony Stark lose everything, including his battle against alcoholism, and bodyguard Jim Rhodes take over the role of Golden Avenger. Iron Man #200 (November, 1985) was the culmination of a three-year plot arc which saw Stark redeem himself and regain all he had lost in battle with rogue industrialist Obadiah Stane and his Iron-Monger armour. As the template for much of the aforementioned film, I’m surprised this entire saga wasn’t released as a separate collection, but there are thrills aplenty in this double-length epic by O’Neil, Mark Bright and inkers Akin & Garvey.

From issue #256 (1990), ‘Soliloquy in Silence’ reunites scripter Bob Layton and John Romita Jr. (inked by Harry Candelario in the pencillers modern raw ‘n’ chunky art style) for a tense, technological bio-hazard chiller set aboard a doomed space-station, and the story-portion of the book concludes with another concluding chapter from a longer saga. ‘The Mask in the Iron Man – part 5 ‘Blood Brothers’ is written by Joe Quesada and illustrated by Sean Chen and Rob Hunter and originally appeared in Iron Man volume 3, #30 from 2000. In it there’s a final confrontation between the man Tony Stark and his own creation as the armoured suit gains autonomous intelligence and a bunch of “father-issues.”

The book is rounded out with pin-ups, cover reproductions and a dense and hefty ten pages of text features, history, background and “technical secrets” for a well-rounded and thoroughly entertaining accompaniment to the cinema spectacle, but more importantly a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too. If there’s a sequel, hope that Marvel has plans for all the great material by a vast range of creators omitted in this book, but at least here’s a solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm the veteran Ferro-phile.

© 1963, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1990, 2000, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL 

By Mike Saenz & Bill Bates (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-291-5

It’s an odd popular art form where as much work quickly becomes outdated and old-fashioned as becomes timeless. Here’s a sad example of the former, which still has much to recommend it but is actually painful to see in places.

The Near Future: Tony Stark has become a recluse, dealing with the real world at a distance via cybernetic systems. He has broken contact with all his old allies, is addicted to rejuvenation drugs and on this momentous day is about to sell all his Iron Man technological secrets to a Japanese industrial combine hostile to America.

At the last moment events rekindle the heroic spark of the man he used to be and amidst high drama and tension the Golden Avenger returns. It’s an old plot well scripted, but falls into two unfortunate traps, one of which is the overwhelming influence of the William Gibson style “cyberpunk” literary fashion prevalent at the time. That, at least, the reader can take-or-leave as required, but the other is a lot harder to ignore.

Billed as “the first computer generated graphic novel” there’s a kind of smug arrogance (reinforced by a frankly tedious technical section at the back) regarding the cutting-edge art created for the book which is simply unwarranted and undeserved – and was so even on the day it was first published.

Perhaps it was groundbreaking at the time – although I distinctly recall being underwhelmed by the grainy repetitiveness of the images even then – but surely the creators were aware that a few colour effects and graphs were no match for a star artist then and that they were only at the start of a process with all its glossy wonders still to come? If not, then I’ll bet they’re blown away by just the colouring in even the most mediocre of today’s comics.

Seriously though, this is a tale that still has merit and could benefit from a 2.0 upgrade, but it’s also a sterling reminder that it’s not the type of pencil that matters but the hand and mind holding it: and if that’s not a metaphor for Iron Man then I don’t know what is…

© 1988 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

VOLUME 1: THE FIRST THREE STORIES

By Christopher Hastings & Kent Archer
No ISBN

It’s nice to give a heads-up on something that isn’t a lost gem but actually on-going and improving, and stands a good chance of becoming a bit of a sensation in the months and years ahead, so I’m devoting a little space and time to the first printed collection of a web-comic that’s turning a few heads around the place. The strip is Dr McNinja by Chris Hastings, aided and abetted by Kent Archer, and the first three adventures are now available in a handy trade paperback

Despite having a few — well okay, a lot — of rough edges, this tongue-in-cheek, frenetic and contagiously enthusiastic action-comedy features a medical practitioner who comes from a long line of Irish Ninjas but really wants to succeed in his chosen profession. The plots are fast-paced, the situations surreal and absurd whilst the dialogue is captivatingly, laugh-out-loud funny, (I’m delightfully reminded of the very earliest Cerebus issues from Dave Sim) as the conflicted healer deals with his “difficult” receptionist (a stroppy gorilla named Judy), rare ailments like Paul Bunyan’s Disease (which cause sufferers to turn into giant bearded lumberjacks), an ancestral feud with pirates, deadly cartoon Mexicans and his own unhealthy obsession with The Batman. Of course there’s an origin…

The art still lets the story down on occasion but the storytelling on these first adventures improves with every page and the sheer silly, manic exhilaration of high-potential creators having fun while learning their craft makes this a great read, warts and all.

You can obtain copies of the book and check out the latest episodes on the website, and if you like to Guffaw, chortle or just plain laugh, you really should.

© 2003-2007 Christopher Hastings. All Rights Reserved.
For further tales and ordering information please go to www.drmcninja.com