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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume 19


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, George Pérez, Peter Gillis, John Byrne, Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Pablo Marcos, “D Hands” (Al Milgrom, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer), Stan Lee, John Buscema, Rudy Nebres, Rick Veitch, Bob Budiansky, Bob McLeod & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0347-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel’s cinematic arm tries once again to get it right with their founding concept, expect to see a selection of fabulous FF material here culled from their prodigious paginated days…

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing publisher’s standards; but it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change beginning to build in America. It and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. As revealed in that premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four – you can add your own fanfare and timpani here if you wish…

Throughout the 1960s it was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist more creative freedom that led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts lost out to traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-heavy Fights ‘n’ Tights forays abounding. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour luxury compendium collects Fantastic Four #204-218 and Annual #14, spanning March 1979 to May 1980.

What You Should Know: After regaining his lost stretching powers in a regime-changing war against Doctor Doom, instituting the reign of Latverian leader Prince Zorba Fortunov and formally reuniting the team family, Reed Richards and the FF were attacked in their own restored Baxter Building by a mystery presence using Iron Man armour and pacified a child with out-of-control cosmic powers, before settling into some well-earned family time…

Following writer/editor Marv Wolfman’s ruminatory reminiscence in his backward-looking Introduction, the drama resumes with a return for the FF’s second oldest enemies: scurrilous shapeshifting Skrulls. In FF #204, Wolfman, Keith Pollard & Joe Sinnott address ‘The Andromeda Attack!’ as Johnny goes out gallivanting and governess/guardian/witch queen Agatha Harkness picks up little Franklin Richards. With only grown-ups in residence, Reed’s supercomputers pick up an astral anomaly, materialising an alien princess in the lab. She’s instantly followed by a Super-Skrull who blasts her before falling to the team’s counterattack. Interrogating the wounded woman, they learn she has come seeking help for her shattered world and near extinct civilisation of Xandar…

Already illicitly supported by a Watcher breaking his oath of non-intervention, the last survivors of Andromeda’s most benign culture have been reduced to a quartet of domed stations linked together and careening through space, defended only by the last of their peacekeeper Nova Corps. Now the fugitives are being targeted for extinction by rapacious Skrulls and desperately need someone’s… anyone’s… assistance…

The FF are keen to help Suzerain Queen Adora return and happy to help the Xandarians, but the Human Torch has a new girlfriend and opts to stay behind for now to woo enigmatic Frankie Ray. He’s also set on finally following up on his long postponed higher education commitments and has enrolled in specialist academic institution Security College. Naturally, Johnny promises to catch up later, but no sooner do his partners beam out to the stars than he’s attacked on campus by an old foe…

In #205, ‘When Worlds Die!’ Reed, Sue & Ben arrive with Adora at New Xandar. Finding the planetary remnants under attack by a Skrull war fleet, they join the Nova Corps to repel the assault, consequently driving closely-monitoring Skrull Emperor Dorrek insane with fury. Although Xandar’s physical resources are almost gone, he actually wants their greatest asset and treasure – a repository of their knowledge and power stored in an awesome array of superprocessors linking countless generations of expired citizens together… the Living Computers of Xandar!

Chief administrator Prime Thoran and severely wounded Nova Centurion Tanak have been holding back the storm with ever-diminishing forces, but now need the FF to turn the tide, while back at Security College, Johnny has stumbled into mystery and peril too, as a strange force seizes control of the students…

In Andromeda, his family’s first foray against the Skrulls leads to their defeat and capture. Humiliated, tortured and put on display in a cruel show trial, they are ultimately blasted with a ray that will inescapably result in ‘The Death of… The Fantastic Four!’, rapidly aging them to the end of their natural lifespans in a matter of days. Dorrek’s gleeful gloating is spoiled, however, by the arrival of his terrifying, ambitious wife Empress R’kylll, the increased resistance of the Xandarians and, inevitably, the escape of the fast-aging Fantastic Four…

Ordering all-out assaults on the battered prey, Dorrek is further frustrated by Prime Thoran who gains astounding power by merging with the Living Computers of Xandar and the arrival of a colossal ship from Earth…

Here the saga dovetails with another Wolfman series that recently ended its run on a cliffhanger. The Man Called Nova was in fact a boy named Richard Rider, a working-class nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker, except he was good at sports and bad at learning, attending Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. There were many more superficial similarities and cosmetic differences to Spider-Man. For more, you can either check out our numerous reviews or better yet, the actual comics tales, best seen in Nova Classic volumes #1-3.

The 2-year saga culminated with Nova joining despised enemies The Sphinx (last seen battling the FF and Inhumans in Fantastic Four Annual #12), Chinese superbrain-in-a-robot-body Doctor Sun, dastardly thug Diamondhead and hero-team The New Champions (The Comet, Crime-Buster and Xandarian refugee Powerhouse) aboard a pre-programmed, out-of-control spaceship hurtling towards Andromeda. Nova volume 1 ended with #25, with the unhappy crew lost in space and attacked by very angry Skrulls…

Meanwhile back at this review, the newcomers’ arrival piled on the pressure and concatenated the chaos as both the magical ancient immortal and futuristic Sino-cyborg abandoned ship, each determined to take the limitless power of Xandar’s Living Computer network for their own…

Back on Earth for #207, Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Sinnott tune in on the Torch and favourite frenemy Spider-Man as they unite to expose the scandals of Security College, deprogram its students and almost fall foul of the sheer destructive ‘Might of the Monocle!’, after which the Torch joins his team in Andromeda. Aghast at the ongoing death sentence they’re enduring, Johnny is just as helpless before ‘The Power of The Sphinx!’ (Sal B & inking cavalry “D Hands” AKA Al Milgrom and Franks Giacoia & Springer), which is boosted even further by stealing all the wisdom of the Living Computer system…

With hyper-energised Prime Thoran busy battling Skrulls, the Sphinx soon solves the eternal secrets of the universe and heads back to Earth, resolved to turn back time and prevent his agonising eons of existence even happening, whilst seeing all reality endangered, increasingly elderly Reed has only one gambit to try…

John Byrne begins his first tenure on the Fantastic Four with #209 (August 1979) as the reunited team seek to enlist the aid of cosmic devourer Galactus, pausing only long enough for Reed to construct – with Xandarian aid and resources – an all-purpose aid. The result is the Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics (latterly, Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration; don’cha just love nominative deterministic acronymics?).

At this time, an FF cartoon show had rejected fire hazard Johnny for a cutely telegenic robot, and Wolfman cheekily made that commercial rejection in-world canon here, dividing fans forever after, as the bleeping bot is pure Marmite in most readers eyes…

Riding the mile-long starship Nova & Co arrived in, the FF’s search takes them across the universe before leaving them ‘Trapped in the Sargasso of Space!’ to face murderous aliens determined to use the new vessel to escape their stasis hell. Meanwhile, the New Champions and Xandar’s forces prepare to face their final battle, just as impatient R’kylll divorces her husband with a single ray gun blast and changes the course of history…

Despite odd, inexplicable increasingly hazardous incidences, the FF continue ‘In Search of Galactus!’ and at last locate him, causing chaos in his colossal world-ship. Ultimately, they convince the Devourer to stop the Sphinx, but only by rescinding the vow that prevents Galactus from consuming Earth, and if the humans first bring him a new herald…

That occurs in ‘If This Be Terrax’, on a distant world enslaved by brutal despot Tyros, when the pitiless killer is painfully subdued by the heroes and converted by Galactus into a being who will rejoice in finding worlds to consume irrespective of whether civilisations will be consumed with them…

In #212, Earth trembles as the Devourer unleashes his herald to cow humanity whilst his master faces The Sphinx, but ‘The Battle of the Titans!’ is subject to mission creep when the immortal Egyptian wizard sees his new knowledge as a way to restore his own past glories. With his master fully occupied in cosmic combat, Terrax the Tamer seeks to settle scores with the humans who toppled Tyros’ kingdom, only to fall ‘In Final Battle!’ for a ploy devised by Reed and executed by H.E.R.B.I.E. It is the last hurrah as Reed joins Sue and Ben in cryo-suspension, seconds from death, barely aware that Galactus has triumphed, but at immense cost…

Fantastic Four #214 (January 1980) reveals ‘…And Then There Was… One!’ as Johnny frantically seeks a cure for his family. When S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers and others all prove helpless, a fortuitous attack by vengeful cyborg Skrull-X offers a germ of hope, but one necessitating a huge gamble: defrosting Reed and hoping he can use what the defeated alien revealed before decrepitude ends the Smartest Man on Earth…

Of course, it all works out, and a revived and even excessively rejuvenated team are in fine fettle for Fantastic Four Annual #14 as Wolfman, George Pérez & Pablo Marcos put Franklin and his nanny Agatha Harkness in the spotlight for ‘Cats-Paw!’ When magical cult Salem’s Seven abduct and brainwash the adult FF in hopes of resurrecting their master Nicholas Scratch, even the Avengers are helpless to stop the carnage unleashed, but the extra-dimensional mission of the kid and the crone is enough to set everything right…

The arcane epic is augmented by ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’ by Keith Pollard & Marcos, giving the lowdown on late-debuting villains and ne’er-do-wells including Invincible Man, Attuma, Gideon, Dragon Man, The Frightful Four and Quasimodo, before monthly FF #215 and Wolfman, Byrne & Sinnott reintroduce Negative Zone terror ‘Blastaar!’ who somehow escapes the antimatter universe and takes over the Baxter Building just as a reinvigorated Reed Richards is distracted by former colleague Professor Randolph James who has hyper-evolved himself to offset an otherwise fatal beating by thugs…

Sadly, his accelerator device has not advanced James’ ethical outlook, and after taking vengeance on his attackers, the future man proves that ‘Where There Be Gods!’ there be trouble, as the mental marvel aligns with Blastaar only to fall before a far greater power… angry cosmic child Franklin…

Bill Mantlo scripts #217 for Byrne & Sinnott, as ‘Masquerade!’ at last exposes the viper in the team’s midst: an inimical force responsible for most of the recent setbacks and accidents, and almost the deaths of the heroes and Johnny’s new intended girlfriend Dazzler…

No spoilers here this time, but back then we all just knew who the hidden villain actually was…

This compilation concludes with the last half of an old-school saga that, for completeness, means you need to read Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 before enjoying the contents of FF #218. What’s not here is how ESU student Peter Parker goes on a class jaunt on a party boat and is lured into a trap by the Frightful Four (‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ by Bill Mantlo, Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney if you were wondering). The villains had broadsided the wallcrawler after new recruit Electro impersonated the Human Torch and, in the concluding chapter ‘When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!’ (cover-dated May 1980 by Mantlo, John Byrne & Joe Sinnott), the Trapster repeats the tactic to ambush the comfortably at home quartet, allowing his comrades The Wizard and Sandman to take over the Baxter Building citadel of the heroes… at least until the fighting-mad webspinner finally breaks free and launches an unstoppable counterattack…

Although that satisfactorily settles affairs for now, the bonus section opens with a lost yarn first seen in Archie Goodwin’s mature comics magazine Epic Illustrated #1 from Spring 1980. An existential dialogue between master and servant, ‘The Answer: A Tale of the Silver Surfer’ was written by Stan Lee, pencilled by John Buscema, inked by Rudy Nebres and coloured by Rick Veitch, with noble Norrin Radd seeking and failing to solve the ultimate mystery of universal existence…

With covers by Milgrom, Sinnott, Pollard, Dave Cockrum, Frank Giacoia, Walter Simonson, Byrne, Ron Wilson & Joe Rubinstein, and Rich Buckler, also on show are the covers for Marvel Treasury Editions #21 by Bobs Budiansky & McLeod; Budiansky’s pencils for the cover of F.O.O.M. #22 and the printed final result from Autumn 1978 as inked by Sinnott as well as interior features ‘HERBIE the Robot Blueprints!’ and ‘Stan Lee Presents: The Fantastic Four Cartoon Show’, plus a wave of  house ads, and a Sinnott cast pinup.

Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” never quite returned to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this collection offers an appreciative and tantalising taste-echo of those heady heights and a tantalising taste of fresher thrills still to come. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement – especially if this time the upcoming movie delivers on its promise…
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Rails on the Prairie – Lucky Luke Adventure vol. 32 & The Bluefeet are Coming! – Lucky Luke Adventure vol. 43


Lucky Luke volume 25: Rails on the Prairie
By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-104-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Lucky Luke volume 43 – The Bluefeet are Coming!
By Morris, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-173-0 (Album PB/Digital editions)

These books include Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today in 2001 we said “adios!” to one of the true masters of our industry and art form. Happily, his legend lives on in the form of his most significant creation.

A precocious, westerns-addicted, art-mad kid, well off and educated by Jesuits, Maurice de Bevere was born on December 1st 1923 in Kortrijk, Belgium. A far from illustrious or noteworthy scholar – except in all the ways teachers despise – Maurice later sought artistic expression in his early working life via forays into film animation before settling into his true vocation. While working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) animation studio, “Morris” met future comics superstars Franquin & Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist. Morris quickly became one of la Bande des quatre – The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and old comrade Franquin: leading proponents of a loose, free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Le journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948, said Gang (all but Will) visited America, befriending many US comics creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and countless sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West. That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo, albeit with occaisonal script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush parody and comedic cinematic homage before formally uniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with Des rails sur la Prairie which began in weekly  LJd S on August 25th 1955. The collected album was first released for Christmas in 1957, the ninth in the series, and was follewed by Morris’ final solo tale Alerte aux Pieds Bleus/The Bluefeet are Coming! in 1958.

Lucky Luke Rails on the Prairie

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable Lucky Luke is a likable, imperturbable, implacably even-tempered cowboy do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around a mythic, cinematically informed Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nearly nine decades, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou (and from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote) have made the sharp shooter a legend of stories across all media and monument of merchandising.

His exploits have made him one of the bestselling comic characters in Europe (83 collected albums plus around a dozen spin-offs and specials – totalling over 300 million books in at least 33 languages), with all the spin-off toys, computer games, puzzles, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies that come with that kind of popularity.

The rapid pace and seeming simplicity of these spoof tales means older stories can generally sit quite comfortably alongside newer material crafted for a more modern readership. Here, material from Le Journal de Spirou #906-929 – originally spanning 25th August 1955 to 2nd February 1956 – was collected in November 1957 as ninth album Des rails sur la Prairie: the first epic result of a grand partnership.

Although initially uncredited, it was cowritten by Morris and fellow euro-expat/US tourist Goscinny: auguring an astounding creative partnership to come. Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death in 1977, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. Before all that, though, this wild & woolly transitional delight offers a far more boisterous and raw hero than we’re used to, highlighting the sunnier side of a mythic western scenario. Moreover, it ends with the first incidence of Lucky riding into the sunset singing “I’m a poor, lonesome cowboy”…

When track-laying for the Transcontinental Railroad stalls, outraged train moguls demand action. Dead Ox Gulch, Nebraska becomes a crunch point of construction confrontation. Constant hold-ups are actually caused by a traitor at home back East. Although a board-member in good standing, Black Wilson is secretly sabotaging the project to protect his other business: a stage coach company…

He contracts the nefarious Wilson Boys to keep up their bad work, even as a laconic stranger rides into town. Before long, the newcomer is assuredly spearheading the march of progress and civilisation simply by foiling every dirty trick the gang can conceive…

Once renewed efforts have moved beyond town and onto the prairie and the rails inch ever closer to California, a train carries Lucky, passengers and the navvies further westward, negotiating and stymying hostile natives, greedy townships and the still-active Wilson boys’ shady tactics and stratagems.

Ultimately, Black Wilson takes personal charge and boards a stagecoach westward to destiny. Despite his every trick, though, the showdown between spoiler and visionary is a foregone conclusion…

Fast funny, episodic and enthralling, these early exploits are a big old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly set up and laid out by a master storyteller, and make a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was.

The Bluefeet are Coming! Lucky Luke volume 43

Au Continent, the populace has a mature relationship with comics, according them academic and scholarly standing as well as nostalgic value and the validation of acceptance as an art form. That even applies to challenging material such as seen in Alerte aux Pieds Bleus: Morris’s final solo effort until Goscinny passing in 1977. A tribute to all the purest western tropes and leitmotifs, it too offers a rowdier, boldly raw hero in transition, just hitting his stride and strutting his stuff, but also relies heavily on the cliches and narrative shortcuts of that earlier era, particularly in the depiction of other cultures and races appearances and customs for comedic intent. I can only apologise for my ancestors and ask that you read with an open mind: after all, Morris was simply exploiting longstanding filmic and comics influences. If I was really desperate, I might also say that his utilsation of comedy in these stereotypes may have helped challenge the status quo…

Lucky Luke debuted in autumn 1946: catapulted sans name or title into rolling gag vignettes in the French edition of multinational publication Le Journal de Spirou, before appearing (with a name) in Christmas Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947. Then his comic serial ‘Arizona 1880’ opened in the December 7th 1946 comic; and no one has ever looked back…

He first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums – Luke hung a trademark cigarette insouciantly from his lip, before in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” (oooh! That’s what “woke” must mean!!) substituted a strand of straw for the dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization…

Morris died in 2001, having drawn 70 Lucky adventures, plus spin-off tales of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with a posse of talented creators taking over the franchise.

The most successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages if not the covers), but sensibly took their own sweet time bringing the oldest, most potentially controversial tales to market. As serialised in LJdS #938 – #957, Alerte aux Pieds Bleus is certainly one of those…

A procession of linked gags sees Morris pile on and kick hard familiar themes and scenarios as the town of Rattlesnake Valley welcomes wanderer Lucky. The lone rider is just in time to save super-superstitious sheriff Jerry Grindstone from sneaky gambler and professional cheat Pedro Cucaracha whose plans to fleece the old codger result in his painful and shameful eviction from civilisation. Of course, the scoundrel had tried to rob and blow up the bank on his way out…

Chased into the desert, the scurvy Mexican then gulls the alcoholic Great Chief of the local Bluefeet Indians into laying siege to the town, tempting the old warrior with promises of unlimited booze…

Old Parched Bear is happy to oblige, and soon the town is forming a militia, telegraphing for the cavalry and setting up barricades. As food and water grow scarce profiteering proliferates, with Lucky and Jerry battening down the hatches and bolstering morale for a long and dangerous defence of their lives and loved ones…

Against that framework of classic movie moments there are rich slapstick pickings as spies, crossdressers, raids & counter-raids and devious secret weapons all build to a bombastic finale, with Pedro and Parched Bear attempting all manner of nefarious invention to get respectively vengeance and more “firewater”…

… And then, when it’s almost too late, the Cavalry arrive… just after the deployment of late arriving support from the Greenfeet and Yellowfeet branches of the family of First Nations. It can only end in catastrophe unless Lucky can contrive a solution…

Daft and Spectacular in equal amounts, this is perhaps a tale for older kids who have gained a bit of historical perspective and social understanding, although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any old movie…
© Dargaud Edituer Paris 1971 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translations © 2011, 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Silver Surfer: Parable


By Stan Lee & Möebius; with Keith Pollard & Tom DeFalco, Josef Rubinstein, José Marzan, Chris Ivy, Paul Mounts, Michael Heisler & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6209-4 (HB) 978-0-7851-0656-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel’s cinematic arm tries once again to get it right with their founding concept and by extension ultimate allegory of God and Jesus, you can safely anticipate revisiting a selection of fabulous FF and associated material as well as new collections all culled from their prodigious paginated days…

The most eclectic and enigmatic of comic book cult figures, the Silver Surfer’s saga began with the deservedly lauded and legendary introductory story. Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Lee’s plot for Fantastic Four #48-50’s Galactus Trilogy, Jack Kirby’s gleaming god-adjacent creation became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe, and one Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Sent to find planets for star god Galactus to consume, the Silver Surfer discovers Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakens his own suppressed morality. He then rebels against his master, helping the FF save the world. As punishment, Galactus exiles the star-soaring Surfer to Earth, the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice.

The Galactus Saga was a creative highlight in a period where the Kirby/Lee partnership was utterly on fire: an adventure with all the power and grandeur of a true epic and one which has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment.

That one’s not here, but it can be found in many, many other compilations. Sorry.

In 1988-1989, ‘Parable’ was released as an Epic Comics micro-series. It featured an all-new interpretation of Galactus’ initial assault on our backwards world, illustrated by legendary French artist Jean Giraud/Möebius. As with the 1978 Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster Silver Surfer by Lee & Kirby, the story was removed from general Marvel continuity, allowing a focus on the unique philosophical nature of the Surfer and his ravenous master without the added distraction of hundreds of superheroes disrupting the flow.

It’s a beautiful piece of work and another one you really should read.

Basically, when Galactus reaches Earth in search of his absconded servant and herald – a spectacular exercise in scale and visual wonder – the Silver Surfer is hiding amongst us: a vagrant living on the streets and well aware of humanity’s many failings. However, when the star-god arrives and demands (like a huge cosmic TACO-PotUS) that everyone bows down and worships him, the solitary nomad is forced to confront his creator for the sake of beings who despise him.

Driven to extreme actions by his intimate knowledge of earthlings good and bad, the Surfer instigates a conceptual and spiritual fightback which soon devolves into blistering battle against his maker. With the sky literally falling, soon the tempted and terrified world rallies as Norrin Radd exposes the cosmic blowhard as a petty opportunist and inspires humanity to reject what seems like another deal too good to be true…

Isn’t it odd how fiction so often anticipates fact?

Tacked onto the ethereal, unmissable episode – one far more in tune with Möebius’ beliefs and interests than Stan’s – is an early Marvel Graphic Novel of the regulation Marvel Universe. The Enslavers is a rather self-indulgent but oddly entertaining slice of intergalactic eye-candy featuring the legendary icon of the counter-culture generation, and once again it depicts the ex-herald of planet-devourer Galactus as a tragic saviour and Christ metaphor. Now, though, it’s not our troubled humanity but the overwhelming power of slavers from space that threatens, and there’s a lot less breast-beating and soul-searching and far more cosmic action.

The story by Stan Lee (and Keith Pollard) has a rather odd genesis. Commissioned in the early 1980s by Jim Shooter, Lee’s original plot was apparently much transformed in the eight years it took to draw. By the time it was dialogued, it was a far different beast and Lee almost jokingly disowns it in his Afterword. Nevertheless, there’s lots to enjoy for fans who don’t expect too much in this tale of love and death in the great beyond. It’s inked by Josef Rubinstein, José Marzan & Chris Ivy, coloured by Paul Mounts and lettered by Michael Heisler.

Here, after a frantic rush through cosmic gulfs, Silver Surfer Norrin Radd crashes into the home of Reed & Sue Richards, just ahead of the colossal invasion craft of monstrous Mrrungo-Mu, who has been drawn to our world by the well-intentioned but naive Nasa probe Voyager III. Norrin’s homeworld Zenn-La has already been depopulated by the pitiless space slaver and Earth is next…

Moving swiftly, and exploiting the good intentions of an Earth scientist, the Enslavers incapacitate all our world’s superbeings and prepare to enjoy their latest conquest, but they have not accounted for the vengeful resistance of the Surfer or the debilitating power of the love Mrrungo-Mu is himself slave to: for the unconquerable alien warlord is weak and helpless before the haughty aloofness and emotional distance of his supposed chattel Tnneya…

Despite being – in far too many places – dafter than a bag of photonic space-weasels jonesing for disco lights, there’s still an obvious love of old, classic Marvel tales delivered at an enthusiastic pace informing these beautifully drawn pages, and the action sequences are a joy to behold. If you love cosmic adventure and can swallow a lot of silliness, this might just be worth a little of your time and money.

Altogether a very strange marriage, this is a compelling tome spanning the vast divide of comics from the ethereal and worthy to the exuberant and fun: a proper twofer you can get your teeth into…
© 1988, 1989, 1990, 2012 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Sky Over the Louvre


By Bernar Yslaire & Jean-Claude Carrière, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM Comics Lit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-602-0 (HB)

Joyeux 14 juillet! – or if you’re being a leetle pickee – Happy Bastille Day, mes braves!

Well over a decade ago the prestigious Louvre gallery in Paris began an intriguing, extremely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, resulting in wealth of modern art treasures – translated bande dessinée made available to English readers courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.

The second release was 2012’s Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre which we know as The Sky Over the Louvre – a lush and beautiful, oversized hardback graphic novel exploring the origins and philosophical underpinnings of France’s national art collection, whilst simultaneously peeling back the motivations and ambitions of the twisted visionaries who steered – or maybe simply rode – the human wave of Chaos deemed “the Terror” of the French Revolution: the catalyst for the gallery’s very existence.

These tales were produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Musée du Louvre, but this is no gosh-wow, “Night-at-the-Museum”, or thinly-concealed catalogue of contents from a stuffy edifice of public culture. Rather, here is an intense, informative, insightful and gripping glimpse into the price and power of art as engine of change and agent of obsession.

Jean-Claude Carrière was born on September 17th 1931, studied at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud and wrote a novel before becoming an actor and one of France’s greatest screen writers. He assisted Jacques Tati and wrote the novelisations of his films, before going on to work with Luis Buñuel (for 19 years), scripting such classics as Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire and many more. Other notable credits include work with directors such as Milos Forman, Louis Malle, Andrzej Wajda, Nagisa Oshima and others on iconic films like The Tin Drum, Danton, The Return of Martin Guerre, Max, Mon Amour and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, although three generations of British television viewers will probably revere him most for his adaptation of the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (starring Robert Hoffmann and featuring that iconic theme-tune) which ran on BBC 1 at tea time from 1965 to about 20 minutes ago.

His approximately 80 screenplays, plus essays, fiction, translations and interviews led to countless awards and accolades including two Oscars – in 1963 for Heureux Anniversaire and an Honorary lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2014. Carrière died on February 8th 2021. In his spare time he had also written comics, particularly with legendary clown/gag writer Pierre Étaix and Bernard Yslaire…

Belgian born Bernard Yslaire (AKA Bernard Hislaire, Sylaire) began his career in 1978, drawing kiddie’s strip ‘Bidouille et Violette’ for Le Journal de Spirou before creating historical epic Sambre in 1986. He was one of the first creators to fully embrace the potential of the internet with his online strip Mémoires du XXe ciel / XXe ciel.com (Memories of the XXth Sky). In 2006 he produced the moving doomed romance Sky over Brussels, and since Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre has largely left comics to concentrate on digital projects.

The Sky Over the Louvre compellingly dramatizes history, focussing on revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David and close associate Maximilien de Robespierre (who dubbed himself “The Incorruptible”) as they plan how to replace religion, monarchy and the Old Art with something unique and truly worthy of their revolution. David and his School (Drouais, Greueze, Girodet and students Serangeli and Gérard) have taken residence in the old Louvre Palace, where past kings left their grandiose aggregation of treasures when they vacated Paris for Versailles. Here the Revolutionary council aspires to create a new aesthetic and new thought for their New Society…

Jules Stern is a 13-year-old wanderer from the Black Sea, roaming Paris’ dangerous streets in search of his mother, and claiming to have an appointment with David. On the 15th Fructidor, Year 1 (8th August 1793 for those of us not wedded to the Republic’s new calendar) the angelic lad confronts the artist just as he is inaugurating the Louvre as the first Museum of the Nation: dedicated to public ownership of art and the notion of beauty as a revolutionary ideal. Later, they meet again and Robespierre forms a hostile opinion of the child, although David is clearly fascinated by the headstrong, beautiful boy…

As high-minded idealism of the Revolution’s early days dissolves into factional in-fighting, Robespierre and David become increasingly concerned with the spiritual and aesthetic, determined to excise and replace every vestige of the old regime and society. They seek images and concepts to embody their cause and plan a festival to the concept of Reason, but all across France backsliding and foreign invasion threaten their progress. In September 1793 the Convention (ruling body and parliament of the Republic) decrees “Terror to be the order of the day”…

Blood, betrayal and horror rule the streets as David, from his apartments in the Louvre, begins work on a brace of pivotal works: The Supreme Being and The Death of Joseph Bara. It is difficult to assess which causes him the most grief and triggers his ultimate downfall…

The Incorruptible is becoming increasingly more arrogant and ruthless, desperate for revolutionary images that will fire and inspire the masses. He presses David to produce the ultimate physical representation of the conceptual spirit of the New France – a vision of its Supreme Being – but as time goes by and no image emerges, one too many people whisper that what Robespierre actually requires is a portrait of himself…

Far less troublesome should be The Death of Joseph Bara: a boy who became First Martyr of the Revolution, and one scheduled to become the nation’s uniting icon. However, David’s obsession with Jules Stern brings more trouble, when Robespierre objects to the boy being selected as the model for Bara the Myth…

Nobody baulks The Incorruptible for long, but the obsessive nature of the creative impulse is insurmountable. Eventually Robespierre can only achieve his ends by sending Jules to the guillotine. Incredibly, not even death separates the artist from his model…

Set solidly in the very heart of a moment of epochal historical importance, this is a stunning, utterly compelling tale of humanity at its wildest extremes, when grand ideals wedded themselves to the basest on bestial impulses, yet from that Yslaire & Carrière have crafted a magnificently realised tale laced with staggering detail and addictive emotion.

With extra features including biographies and a listing of the actual artworks woven seamlessly into the narrative, this is a truly magical book no aficionado of the medium, lover of history or student of human nature should miss…
© 2009 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. © 2011 NBM for the English translation by Joe Johnson. All rights reserved.

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Superman: The Many Worlds of Krypton


By E. Nelson Bridwell, Denny O’Neil, Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, Elliot S. Maggin, Paul Kupperberg, John Byrne, Murphy Anderson, Dick Giordano, Gray Morrow, Michael Kaluta, Dave Cockrum, Dick Dillin, Marshall Rogers, Howard Chaykin, Paul Kupperberg, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant, Carlos Garzon & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7889-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For fans and comics creators alike, continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, and the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly “never happened”. A most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Silver Age readers avidly consuming Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in incredible blanks about the lost world through the tantalising and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Throughout the 1970s, The Fabulous World of Krypton was a back-up feature in Superman specifically revealing intriguing glimpses from the history of that lost world. But during Crisis on Infinite Earths and it’s in its wake that was all unmade. Happily, however, these days a far wiser DC has opened the doors to all those lost moments with a more inviting and inclusive definition of continuity, so a “yay them” all around!

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s – and an issue of giant-sized anthology Superman Family – the peripatetic feature delivered 27 “Untold Tales of Superman’s Native Planet” (and is long overdue for a complete archival collection; perhaps as a DC Finest edition?) by a host of the industry’s greatest talents all further exploring that defunct wonderland. A far-too-small selection of those are re-presented in this beguiling commemoration, taken from Superman #233, 236, 238, 240, 248, 257, 266 and Superman Family #182, to augment a brace of miniseries World of Krypton #1-3 and World of Krypton (vol. 2) #1-4. These collectively span 1971-1988 and, following enticing scene-setting introduction ‘The World (of Krypton) According to Paul (Kupperberg)’, kick off Chapter 1: Fabulous World of Krypton with E. Nelson Bridwell (always the go-to guy for any detail of fact, or trivia concerning the company’s vast comics output) & Murphy Anderson’s trendsetting, groundbreaking yarn ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’.

Follow-up tales would alternate between glimpses of historical or mythological moments in the development of the Kryptonians and tales of the House of El, such as this astoundingly concise and tension-soaked drama which in seven pages introduces Superman’s father, traces his scholastic graduation and early triumphs in anti-gravity physics & rocketry and reveals how he met his bride-to-be, trainee astronaut Lara Lor-Van. The story also reveals how she stows away on a test rocket, crashes on the (luckily) habitable moon Wegthor and survives until her infatuated suitor finds a way to rescue her…

This a superb adventure in its own right and, set against what we fans already knew about the doomed planet, augured well what was to follow…

The remaining tales in this section concentrate on non-Jor-El episodes – presumably in lieu of what follows – so the next fable comes from Superman #236 with Green Arrow & Black Canary hearing their Justice League colleague recount the story of ‘The Doomsayer’ (by Denny O’Neil & Dick Giordano). This eco-terror tale reveals how scientist Mo-De detected mounting tectonic pressures at the planet’s core but was silenced by modern day lotus eaters who didn’t want to hear any unpleasant truths…

In the guise of a Kryptonian kindergarten class story time session, Cary Bates & Gray Morrow devised a hard science creation myth for Superman #238 as ‘A Name is Born’ details how two marooned – and initially mutually antagonistic – aliens crashed on the primeval planet and joined to birth a new race together…

Bates & Michael Kaluta united in #240 for a cunning, irony-drenched murder mystery as ‘The Man Who Cheated Time’ details the unexpected consequences of an ambitious scientist who stole from and slaughtered his rivals only to pay for his crimes in a most unexpected manner. Then, Kryptonian archaeologists unearth a lost moment in planetary history as ‘All in the Mind’ (Marv Wolfman & Dave Cockrum from #248) discloses how war between ancient city states Erkol and Xan resulted in a generation of mutants. If only the parents had been more understanding and less intolerant, those super-kids could have saved their forebears from extinction…

Superman #257 (October 1972) generated a timeless instant classic wherein Elliot S! Maggin and illustrators Dick Dillin & Giordano celebrated ‘The Greatest Green Lantern of All’. Here avian GL Tomar-Re reports his tragic failure in preventing Krypton’s detonation, unaware that the Guardians of the Universe had a plan to preserve and use that world’s greatest bloodline – or at least its last son…

Maggin, Dick Dillin & Joe Giella then emphasised a long-hidden connection between Earth and Krypton in #266 as ‘The Face on the Falling Star’ reveals how, in eons past, two Kryptonian children were saved from doom by a strange device fallen from the sky: a machine sent from a lost civilisation on pre-historic Terra…

Wrapping up this section is Paul Kupperberg, Marshall Rogers & Frank Springer’s ‘The Stranger’ as first seen in Superman Family #182: an analogue Christmas fable explaining how four millennia past a holy man named Jo-Mon sacrificed his life to liberate the people and end the depredations of tyrannical despot Al-Nei…

The second section – Chapter 2: The Life of Jor-El – reprints a pioneering miniseries that referenced many of those 27 vignettes, as well as the key Krypton-focussed yarns of the Superman franchise. In 1979 – when the first Superman movie had made the hero a global sensation once more – scripter Paul Kupperberg and artist Howard Chaykin (assisted and ghost-pencilled by Alan Kupperberg) plus inkers Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte, synthesised many scattered back-story details into DC’s first limited series World of Krypton.

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a monochrome pocket paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell. That enchanting, magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds remains a grand old slice of comics fun and forms the spine of the new composite compilation.

It opens on ‘The Jor-El Story’ with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on Earth’s moon: a record from his long-deceased father detailing the scientist’s life, career and struggle with nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near-extinction. As the Man of Steel listens, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite sinister and aberrant efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them; how his sire discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone ray; uncovered lost technology of a dead race that provided the basis of Kal-El’s escape rocket, and learns his father’s take on Superman’s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…

In ‘This Planet is Doomed’ the troubled orphan feels his father’s pain when android marauder Brainiac steals the city of Kandor, reels as rogue scientist Jax-Ur blows up inhabited moon Wegthor, and is revolted as civil war almost crushes civilisation thanks to deranged militarist General Zod – and how and when his own cousin Kru-El forever disgraced the noble House of El. The countdown to disaster continues until ‘The Last Days of Krypton’, as political intrigue and exhaustion overwhelm the distraught scientist and – all avenues closed to him – Jor-El takes drastic action…

Heavily referencing immortal classics such as ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ (Superman vol. 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton mini-epics ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’, ‘Moon-Crossed Love’, ‘Marriage, Kryptonian Style’ and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is still a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…

Final section Chapter 3: The World of Krypton is John Byrne, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant & Carlos Garzon’s dark reworking of the myth, depicting a radically different planet which came with the reordering of reality. In 1985, when DC decided to rationalise, reconstruct and reinvigorate their continuity via Crisis on Infinite Earths, they used the event to regenerate key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time. This new Superman repurposed the hero into a harsher, more uncompromising hero who might be alien in physicality but completely human in terms of feelings and attitudes. As seen in Man of Steel #1 (not included here), ‘From Out of the Green Dawn’ traced the child’s voyage in a self-propelled birthing matrix to a primitive but vital and vibrant world. He had escaped from a cold, sterile, soulless and emotionally barren planet barely glimpsed before it was gone in a cosmic flash.

As the reconfigured hero’s new adventures became a sensational success, his creators felt compelled to revisit his bleakly dystopian birthworld. It was however, now conceived of as a far darker and more forbidding place and 1987’s 4-issue miniseries opted to reveal how that transformation came about.

Scripted by Byrne, it all begins in ‘Pieces’ (art by Mignola & Bryant) as an indolent hedonistic scientific paradise comes crashing into ruin after the age’s greatest moral dilemma boils over into global civil war. For 10 thousand generations, Kryptonians enjoyed virtual immortality thanks to the constant cultivation of clones to use for medical spare parts. The rights of the clones had been debated for centuries, but recently resulted in sporadic violence. The situation changes after ultra-privileged Nyra is exposed as having stolen one of her supposedly braindead clones for an act of shockingly aberrant social abomination. Her exposure leads to murder, suicide and a rapidly escalating collapse of social cohesion…

Centuries ‘After the Fall’, technologist Van-L wanders a planet shattered by devastating war technologies, surviving only because of his nurturing war suit. The grand planetary society is gone, replaced by constantly warring pockets of humanity, but Van needs allies, be they former lovers or despised foes. He has learned that the original instigator of the collapse still lives and plans to assuage accumulated shame and guilt by blowing up the planet…

For the third issue, the scene shifts to millennia later as young scholar Jor-El immerses himself in a traumatic ‘History Lesson’. This distant descendant of Van-L obsessively probes the last days of the conflict and the nuclear annihilation scheme of terrorist cell Black Zero, but his compulsion causes him to almost miss a crucial social obligation: meeting his father and the grandparent of Lara, selected by The Masters of the Gestation Chamber as his ideal DNA co-contributor to what will be the first Kryptonian allowed to be born in centuries…

Carlos Garzon steps in to finish Mignola’s pencils for concluding chapter ‘Family History’ as, in contemporary times, Superman agrees to an interview with Daily Plant reporter Lois Lane. The subject is how Krypton died, and why…

Recapping the intervening millennia of history and stagnation, the Last Son of Krypton reveals how his own birth-father uncovered a shocking secret, rebelled against his moribund, morbid and repressed culture, and found brief comfort with perhaps the last kindred spirit on his world. Kal-El then tells of how they ensured his survival at the cost of their own…

Celebrating the many and varied Worlds of Krypton, this is a magnificent tribute to the imagination of many creators and the power of modern mythology: the ever-changing evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady Days of Yore(-El)…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1987, 2008, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman the Deluxe Edition


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Fred Guardineer, Don Cameron, Mort Weisinger, Jerry Coleman, Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Len Wein, Cary Bates, Marv Wolfman, John Byrne, Roger Stern, Joe Kelly, Grant Morrison, Paul Levitz, Mort Meskin, Ed Dobrotka, Fred Ray, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Jim Mooney, Curt Swan, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Dick Giordano, Kerry Gammill, Bob McLeod, Ben Oliver, Neal Adams plus Many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7887-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s a fact (if such mythological concepts still exist): the American comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without the invention of Superman. His unprecedented adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. Within three years of his June 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East embroiled America, patriotic relevance. He’s also been regular blockbuster business in his many and varied screen interpretations, too.

In comic book terms, though, Superman is master of the world, having utterly changed the shape of a fledgling industry and modern entertainment in general. There were newspaper strips, radio & TV shows, cartoons, games, toys, mountains of merchandise and those movies mentioned. Everyone on Earth gets a picture in their heads when they hear his name.

It all started with Action Comics #1 and continues to this day, so this bold compilation (presumably soon to be superseded by a 90th Anniversary edition) celebrates the magic, not just with the now-traditional re-runs of classic Superman tales, but with informative articles and fascinating glimpses of some of the other characters who shared the title with him. This epic album gathers material from Action Comics #0, 1, 2, 42, 64, 241, 242, 252, 285, 286, 309, 419, 484, 554, 584, 655, 662 & 800, opening with writer/DC publisher Paul Levitz’s Introduction, a fond Foreword from Laura Siegel Larson and Jules Feiffer’s scene-setting, context-creating essay ‘The Beginning’ before the immortal pictorial wonderment commences.

Most early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus, after that unmistakeable, iconic cover and a single page describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton (also explaining his astonishing powers in 9 panels), with absolutely no preamble ‘The Coming of Superman’ by Jerry Seigel & Joe Shuster introduces a costumed crusader – masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – averting numerous tragedies. As well as saving an innocent woman from the electric chair and roughing up a wife-beater, the tireless crusader works over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving suave and feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse since she is attempting to vamp the thug at the time!

The mysterious Man of Steel makes a big impression on her by then outing a lobbyist for the armaments industry bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europe…

To say the editors were amazed by Superman’s popularity was a gross understatement. They had their money bet on a knock-off Mandrake the Magician crafted by veteran cartoonist Fred Guardineer as graphic top dog. Here, Zatara: Master Magician’s mystic/illusion powers are fully demonstrated in ‘The Mystery of the Freight Train Robberies’ but it’s still a run-of-the-mill, rather sedate affair when compared to the astounding exploits of the Caped Wonder.

Next up is a sneak peek at ‘The Ashcans’: unused and alternative illustrations that didn’t make that crucial first cut, after which Action #2 (with a Leo O’Mealia generic adventure cover) supplies the conclusion of Superman’s first case as ‘Revolution in San Monte’ finds the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down hostilities already in progress…

‘The Times’ by Tom DeHaven deconstructs the mythology of the title before Fred Ray’s Superman cover (November 194)1 introduces Action #42’s ‘The Origin of the Vigilante’ by Mort Weisinger & and incredible Mort Meskin. This spectacular western-themed hero-romp proves the anthology title had plenty of other captivating characters to enchant audiences…

AC #64 debuted ‘The Terrible Toyman’ (Don Cameron, Ed Dobrotka & George Roussos), wherein an elderly inventor of children’s novelties and knick-knacks conducts a spectacular campaign of high-profile and potentially murderous robberies, with Lois as his unwilling muse and accessory, and is followed by a little tale of serendipity as Marv Wolfman harks back to his early days and explains ‘How I Saved Superman’. That’s followed by a genuine lost treasure as ‘Too Many Heroes’ offers an unpublished 1940s Superman tale – credited to Siegel & Shuster – rescued from destruction and obscurity. What a gift!

David Hajdu exposes the allure of the alter ego in ‘Clark Kent, Reporter’, after which we jump to June 1958 and the beginning of the Silver Age. Action Comics #241 cover-featured ‘The Key to Fort Superman’: a fascinating, clever puzzle-play guest-featuring Batman, scripted by Jerry Coleman and limned by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye as an impossible intruder vexes the Man of Steel in his most sacrosanct sanctuary. One month later Otto Binder & Al Plastino introduced both the greatest new villain and most expansive new character concept the series had seen in years.

‘The Super-Duel in Space’ has evil alien scientist Brainiac attempt to add Metropolis to his collection of miniaturised cities in bottles. As well as a titanic tussle in its own right, the tale totally changed the Man of Steel’s internal mythology: introducing Kandor, a city packed with Kryptonians who all escaped the planet’s destruction when Brainiac abducted them. Although Superman rescues his fellow survivors, the villain escaped to strike again, and it would be years before the hero could restore Kandorians to their true size.

After some intriguing and noteworthy test-runs, a future star of Superman’s ever-expanding universe launched in Action Comics #252. ‘The Supergirl from Krypton!’ (May 1959), saw Superman discover he has a living relative in cousin Kara Zor-El who had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, which was hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo City turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris, and her dying parents repeated recent history as, observing Earth through their scopes, they despatched Kara to safety as they perished.

Landing on Earth, she met Superman and he created the cover-identity of Linda Lee, hiding her in an orphanage in small town Midvale so that she could master her new powers in secrecy and safety. Larry Tye’s ‘Endurance’ discusses longevity and political merit before we return to Superman’s official Action Comics co-star throughout the 1960s…

Hogging the cover (by Super-stalwarts Curt Swan & George Klein) the simpler times of practicing in secret ended as a big change in the Maid of Might’s status occurred. When her new adoptive parents learned of their new daughter’s true origins, Superman allowed cousin Kara to announce her existence to the world in 2-part saga ‘The World’s Greatest Heroine!’ (#285 February 1962) and ‘The Infinite Monster!’ (#286, March). Here Siegel & Jim Mooney detail how Supergirl becomes the darling of the universe, openly saving planet Earth and finally getting the credit for it.

Those long-standing TV connections were exploited in Action Comics #309 (February 1964) for hoary secret-identity save plot ‘The Superman Super-Spectacular!’ as a telethon posed a puzzle for the always overbooked Man of Steel. Written by Edmond Hamilton and illustrated by Swan & Klein, it sets up a scene where the Action Ace can use none of his usual tricks to be both Superman and Clark simultaneously, and delivers a truly shocking and utterly era-appropriate solution…

Hurtling forward to December 1972 and Action #419 we meet a surprisingly successful back-up feature created by Len Wein, Carmine Infantino & Dick Giordano. ‘The Assassin-Express Contract!’ introduced Christopher Chance as the Human Target, hiring himself out to impersonate endangered individuals such as the businessman “accidentally” sitting in the sights of a hitman, thanks to a disgruntled employee dialling a wrong number…

From a period where Golden Age stories were assumed to have occurred on parallel world Earth-Two, ‘Superman Takes a Wife’ first appeared in 40th Anniversary issue #484 (June 1978). Here Cary Bates, Swan & Joe Giella detail how the original 1938 Man of Tomorrow became editor of the Metropolis Daily Star in the 1950s and married Lois Lane. Thanks to villains Colonel Future and The Wizard who had discovered a way to make Superman forget his own existence, only she knew that her husband was once Earth’s greatest hero…

More meta-realistic meandering led to ‘If Superman Didn’t Exist’ (by Marv Wolfman & Gil Kane in Action #554 (April 1984) which posits an alien-subjugated Earth deprived of heroes until two kids with big dreams invent one…

In 1985 DC Comics rationalised, reconstructed and reinvigorated their continuity with Crisis on Infinite Earths. They also used the event to regenerate key properties at the same time. The biggest gun they had was Superman and it’s hard to argue that the change was not before time. The big guy was in another slump, but he’d weathered those before. So how could a root and branch retooling be anything but a pathetic marketing ploy that would alienate the real fans for a few fly-by-night Johnny-come-latelies who would jump ship as soon as the next fad surfaced? This new Superman was going to suck…

But he didn’t.

Public furore began with all DC’s Superman titles being “cancelled” (actually suspended) for three months, and yes, that did make the real-world media sit-up and take notice of the character everybody thought they knew for the first time in decades. However, there was method in this seeming corporate madness.

The missing mainstays were replaced by a 6-part miniseries running from October to December 1986. Entitled Man of Steel it was written and drawn by Marvel’s mainstream superstar John Byrne and inked by venerated veteran Dick Giordano. The bold manoeuvre was a huge and instant success and the retuned Superman titles all came storming back with the accent on breakneck pace and action. Superman had always enjoyed brief or lengthy partnerships with other if lesser heroes and Action Comics was confirmed as a team-up vehicle for the Man of Steel. Issue #584 had a January 1987 cover-date and featured a case fighting with and beside the Teen Titans as the young heroes had to battle an apparently out-of-control Caped Kryptonian with a ‘Squatter’ secretly riding in his head…

Following a gentle cartoon “roasting” by Gene Luen Yang in ‘Supersquare’, Roger Stern, Kerry Gammill & Dennis Janke review ‘Ma Kent’s Photo Album’ (from AC #655, July 1990) offering some insights into growing up different before a major turning point began…

As years passed, Lois and Clark gradually grew beyond professionalism into a work romance but the hero had always kept his greatest secret from her. That all changed after the Man of Tomorrow narrowly defeated mystic predator Silver Banshee and decided no more ‘Secrets in the Night’ between him and his beloved (by Stern & Bob McLeod: #662, February 1991).

Action #800 (April 2003) offers a reverential examination of the ongoing myth thus far as ‘A Hero’s Journey’ combines a Joe Kelly script with art from Pasqual Ferry, Duncan Rouleau, Alex Ross, Tony Harris, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Bullock, Ed McGuiness, J.H. Williams III, Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Killian Plunkett, Jim Lee, Tim Sale, Lee Bermejo, Cam Smith, Marlo Alquiza & Scott Hanna: cherry-picking unmissable moments from a life well lived…

In 2011, DC again rebooted their entire line and Superman was reimagined once more. ‘The Boy Who Stole Superman’s Cape’ by Grant Morrison & Ben Oliver comes from Action Comics #0, (November 2012), focussing on a decidedly blue-collar champion just learning the game and painfully aware of the consequences if he makes a mistake, before we wrap up the celebrations with April 2018’s ‘The Game’ by Levitz & Neal Adams. Here primal archenemies Superman and Luthor face off for another round in their never-ending battle…

Before the curtain comes down, there’s still more unbridled joy and rekindled memories as ‘Cover Highlights’ resurrects stunning examples from the Golden, Silver, Bronze, Dark and Modern ages of the Man of Tomorrow, as well as the very best of Action Comics ‘Now’.

Should you be of a scholarly or just plain reverential mood you can then study the copious ‘Biographies’ section so you know who to thank…

Exciting, epochal and unmissable, this is a book for all fans of superhero stories and the man who started them all.
© 1938, 1941, 1943, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1972, 1978, 1984, 1986, 1990, 1991, 2003, 2012, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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DC Finest: Superman – Kryptonite Nevermore


By Dennis O’Neil, Leo Dorfman, Cary Bates, Len Wein, Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Dick Giordano, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-165-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

This stunning compilation is part of the DC Finest editions line: full colour chronologically curated paperback compilations delivering “affordably priced” comic books generally around 600 pages and highlighting past glories.Whilst primarily and understandably concentrating on the superhero character pantheon, there will also be genre selections like horror and war books, and themed compendia. Sadly, they’re not yet available digitally, as were the last decade’s Bronze, Silver and Golden Age collections, but we live in hope…

Superman is the comic book champion who started the whole genre and, in the decades since his 1938 debut, has probably undertaken every kind of adventure imaginable. With that in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his inventory and periodically re-present them in specific themed collections, such as this one commemorating one his greatest extended adventures. The episodes contained herein were originally released just as comics fandom was becoming a powerful – if headless – lobbying force reshaping the industry to its own specialised desires and remains a true landmark of the superhero genre. Moreover the brand overhaul seen here was a major concerted effort to re-energise the Man of Steel at a time when comics superheroes were experincing a major die-back…

When Julie Schwartz took over editorial responsibility for the Superman title in 1970, he was expected to shake things up with nothing less than spectacular results. To that end, he incorporated many key characters and events simultaneously developing as part of fellow iconoclast Jack Kirby’s freshly unfolding “Fourth World”. That bold experiment was a breathtaking tour de force of cosmic wonderment which brought a staggering new universe to fans: instantly and permanently changing the way comics were perceived and how the entire medium could be received. Don’t think for a moment that the 1985 reboot triggered by Crisis on Infinite Earths was new or innovative… just necessary…

As the Sixties closed, Schwartz was again breathing fresh life into a powerful but moribund icon – a job he had been excelling at since more-or-less singlehandedly kickstarting the Silver Age of Comics. Superman had been a mega-media star since his launch, with internationally syndicated comics, books, newspaper strips, movie and cinema serials plus hugely successful radio and TV shows (live action and animated) making the franchise globally recognizable. Whenever that happens, inevitably overkill and overexposure inescapably set in and the core property needs to be carefully overhauled or vanish forever. I’ll bet you can think of plenty of really famous and ubiquitous things from your childhood that one day you simply stopped noticing. Happily, sometimes they can be reborn…

Schwartz knew his market and was open to new ideas, and his creative changes were just appearing in 1971. The new direction was also vanguard and trigger for a wealth of controversial, socially-challenging “realistic” story content unseen since the feature’s earliest days: a wave of tales ultimately described as “Relevant”…

With iconic covers by Curt Swan, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Murphy Anderson & Jack Adler, this titanic tome collects in whole or in part the Man of Steel’s first comics renaissance through exploits from Action Comics #393-406 and Superman #233-238 and #240-242, spanning cover dates October 1970 to December 1971.

On sale from 27th August 1970, Action Comics #393 hinted at rather than heralded a new era as ‘Syperman Meets Super-Houdini!’ In a tale by prolific lead super-scribe Leo Dorfman and artists Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson (AKA “Swanderson”) the ultimate hero faces a moral dilemma when reformed crimnal turned escape artist “Hair-breadth” Holahan is blackmailed to resume his criminal ways – or lose his abducted son. Of course, Superman can help…

Following a Superman Scrapbook Pinup, with Swanderson reworking a classic Golden Age Superman contents page, second strip ‘The Day Superboy Became Superman!’ (by Dorfman as Geoff Brown with Ross Andru & Mike Esposito illustrating) depicts a pivotal moment for college boy Clark Kent as radical student Marla Harvey showed the so-conservative law-&-order adherent what those concepts meant to people trapped in poverty and privation…

The updating of an icon continued in AC #394 with Swanderson illustrating both ‘Midas of Metropolis’ and low key “Geoff Brown” character vignette ‘Requiem for a Hot Rod’. The lead yarn pits Superman against world’s richest man Cyrus Brand, who seemingly infects the Action Ace with his own all-encompsing lust for money, only to find the hero is incorruptible and knows actual crime when he sees it, whilst a humourous follow-up sees Clark and Lois Lane at a vintage car event, cleverly exposing a bully rigging games of chicken for cash…

Action #395 revealed ‘The Secrets of Superman’s Fortress’ with a dynamic cutaway spread fuelling an “untold tale” of an early romantic encounter with a sexy alien Superman could have loved. Sadly, super-powered Althera was of an incompatible species… and also a slaver…

Dorfman was the go-to guy for supernatural tales and weird phenomena articles, and at the forefront of a shift in tone as DC characters and titles embraced the global resurgence in spooky horror and mystery fare. Next here a back-up guest starring Supergirl explores the uncanny powers and shocking truth of accident inducing accessory ‘The Credit Card of Catastrophe’, but comes down down heavily on the side of rationality and confidence trickery in the end…

As the sixties closed and with his various screen appearances a thing of the past, Superman was soon in dire need of an editorial overhaul. That officially began with Superman #233 in a groundbreaking epic serial edited by incoming reboot wunderkind Julius Schwartz that was heavily promoted in advance. Crafted by scripter Dennis J. “Denny” O’Neil, and ubiquitous illustrators Swan & Anderson – although stand-in Dick Giordano inked #240 – a deliberate and very public abandonment of tired old super-villains, fanciful Kryptonian scenarios and otherworldly paraphernalia instantly poked the readership and revitalised the Man of Tomorrow, attracting new readers and beginning a period of engagingly human-scaled stories making Superman a “must-buy” character all over again.

The innovations began with ‘Superman Breaks Loose’ as a government experiment to harness Kryptonite as an energy source goes explosively wrong. Closely monitoring the test, the Metropolis Marvel is blasted across the desert surrounding the isolated lab, but somehow survives a supposedly fatal radiation-bath. Then, reports begin filtering in from all over Earth: every piece of the deadly mineral has been transformed to harmless, common iron! As he goes about his protective, preventative patrols, the liberated hero experiences an emotional high at the prospect of all the good he can now accomplish. He isn’t even phased when the Daily Planet’s new owner Morgan Edge – a key character created by Jack Kirby for his soon to unfold Fourth World Saga – shakes up Clark Kent’s cosy civilian life: summarily ejecting him from the print game and remaking him as a roving TV journalist…

Meanwhile, the desert site of his recent crashlanding offers a moment of deep foreboding as Superman’s irradiated imprint in the sand shockingly grows solid and shambles away in ghastly parody of life…

Over in Action Comics #396, editors Murray Boltinoff & E. Nelson Bridwell continued in their editorial positions (right up until #419 December 1972) but heralded the beginning of a radical new age with a 2-chapter Imaginary Story (hey, didn’t Alan Moore do that too?) ‘The Super-Panhandler of Metropolis!’ was set years from “now”, where a highly advanced Earth wonders why and how Superman disappeared. Media mogul Jimmy Olsen discovers the shocking truth of the hero’s degrading decline in #397 as ‘Secret of the Wheel-Chair Superman!’ sentimentally focuses on a pitiable but still valiant do-gooder giving everything for those in need, and thereby saving himself too.

For this colossal collection, each issue’s stand-alone back-up has been moved to allow an uninterrupted lead story and for reader convenience of comprehension. Thus, next comes #396’s Brown/Swanderson teaser ‘The Invaders from Nowhere!’: an intellectual mystery with Superman perplexed and imperiiled by super-technological aliens somehow living inside his own infallible arctic citadel. It is bolstered by the legendary ad that announced the big change in Metropolis…

Rendered by Swan & Vince Colletta, ‘A New Year Brings a New Beginning for Superman 1971’ announced Clark’s job change and enhanced cast, trumpeted that Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane would be joined by The Newsboy Legion and Rose and the Thorn and that Supergirl would get a new look, as well as suspending the venerable World’s Finest team of Superman, Batman & Robin, with the title becoming a Superman team-up book…

‘The Super-Captive of the Sea!’ was AC #397’s closer, wherein the Man of Tomorrow is indefinitely trapped beneath the oceans thanks to aquatic aliens flooding Earth’s skies with red sun refracting crystal clouds. They wanted Superman for their own world, but foolishly understimated his ingenuity and determination…

O’Niel & Swanderson’s intensely sophisticated suspenseful overhaul properly resumes in Superman #234’s ‘How to Tame a Wild Volcano!’ as an out-of-control, politically untouchable plantation owner/human trafficker refuses to let his indentured workforce flee an imminent eruption on the island of Boki. Handicapped by international laws, the Man of Steel can only fume helplessly as the UN blunders towards a diplomatic solution, and his anxiety intensifies when a sinister sand-thing inadvertently and agonisingly drains him of his powers. Crashed to Earth in a turbulent squall, the de-powered champion is attacked by work boss Boysie Harker’s thugs and instantly responds to the foolish provocation, relying for a change on determination rather than overwhelming might to save the day…

In #235, the ‘Sinister Scream of the Devil’s Harp’ tacitly acknowledged fasionable arcane influences – remember, the comics industry and wider world was enjoying a periodic revival of interest in supernatural themes and stories – as mystery musician and apparent polymath Ferlin Nyxly reveals the secret of his ever-growing aptitudes and gifts is an archaic artefact which steals from living beings knowledge, talents and even Superman’s alien abilities. The Man of Steel is initially unaware of the drain as he’s trying to communicate with his eerily silent dusty doppelganger, but once Nyxly graduates to a full-on raving super-menace self-proclaimed “Pan”, the taciturn homunculus unexpectedly joins its living template to trounce the power plunderer…

“The Youth” and their music take centre stage in Action #398 as Kent’s news round-up of the college campus scene unmasks sinister sonic skulduggery that – accidentally combined with Kryptonian recording tech – makes Superman an out-of-control rioter thanks to ‘The Pied Piper of Steel’, after which Dorfman/Brown reveal a horrifiying transformation for Supergirl into a ‘Spawn of the Unknown’…

Superman #236 offered a Batman cameo and science fictional morality play when cherubic E.T.’s seek Superman’s assistance to defeat a band of devils and rescue Kent’s friends from Hell. However, the ‘Planet of the Angels’ proves to be nothing of the kind, and the Man of Steel must pull out all the stops to save his adopted homeworld from a very real Armageddon, whilst in Action #399 ‘Superman, You’re Dead… Dead… Dead!’, finds the hero trapped with other great men of the past abducted by future historians and accidentally discovering a ghastly end that awaits him, before realising that something’s not quite right, whilst B-feature ‘Superbaby’s Lost World’ sees the Tot of Tomorrow lost in a theme park and exploited as cover by charismatic bandits Connie & Hyde. Of course this innocent waif is far more than anyone can handle…

Superman #237 sees him save an astronaut only to see him succumb to a madness-inducing mutative disease. After another savage confrontation with the Sand-thing further debilitates him, the harried hero is present as more mortals fall to the contagion. Convinced he is both carrier and cause, the ‘Enemy of Earth’ considers quarantining in space. Meanwhile, Lois tumbles into another lethal predicament and Kal-el’s instinctive intervention seemingly confirms his earlier diagnosis, before another clash with the sandy simulacrum on the edge of space presents an incredible truth.

Painfully debilitated, Superman nevertheless saves Lois and again meets the ever-more human creature. Now able to speak, it offers a chilling warning and the Man of Steel realises exactly what it is taking from him and what it might become…

In Action #400 ‘My Son… Is He Man or Beast?’ sees Superman made reluctant guardian to troubled teen Gregor Nagy: an angry boy with astounding shapeshifting powers that will inevitably kill him, whilst back-up ‘Duel of Doom!’ offers an untold Tale of Kandor as students, rivals and lovers Yllura and Arvor vie for academic awards, almost die together and ultimately learn the value of teamwork and togetherness…

The Man of Tomorrow is a mere shadow of his former self in Superman #238, unable to prevent terrorists taking over a magma-tapping drilling rig and endangering all Earth in ‘Menace at 1000 Degrees!’ With Lois among their hostages and the madmen threatening to detonate a nuke in the pipeline, the Action Ace desperately begs his doppelganger to assist him, but its cold rejection forces the depleted hero to take the biggest gamble of his life…

Superman #239 was an all-reprint giant featuring the hero in his incalculably all-powerful days – so not included here – before Action Comics #401 & 402 address the growing contemporary political crisis of First Nations’ rights in ‘Invaders Go Home’ and ‘This Hostage Must Die!’ The continued tale sees Superman taken hostage by Indian protesters seeking to stop the US government taking a piece of sacred ground for a rocket base. Despite being apparently helpless before the magic of Angry Young Medicineman Dan Red Hawk the Action Ace is playing a covert game and hunting a criminal profit motive behind all the passionate rhetoric and popular dissent…

Cary Bates scripted #401’s back-up yarn as ‘The Boy Whe Begged to Die!’ sees our hero forced to use his superwits when he’s accidentally activates a mega-timebomb and fails to evacuate every civilian in time whilst Brown delivers #402’s ‘The Feud of the Titans!’ as Superman and Supergirl inexplicably go to war for possesion of the Fortress of Solitude…

The physically diminished Caped Kryptonian returned in Superman #240 (O’Neil, Swan and Dick Giordano inks) to confront his own lessened state and seek a solution. In ‘To Save a Superman’, his inability to extinguish a tenement fire and the wider world’s realisation that their unconquerable champion is now vulnerable and fallible makes his dilemma dangerously common knowledge. Especially interested are the Anti-Superman Gang who immediately allocate all resources to destroying their nemesis. After one particularly close call, Clark is visited by an ancient Asian sage who somehow knows his other identity and offers an unconventional solution…

From 1968 superhero comics began to decline – just as they had at the end of the 1940s – so publishers sought fresh ways to maintain their readerships as tastes changed. Back then, the industry depended on newsstand sales, and if you weren’t popular, you died. Editor Jack Miller, innovating illustrator Mike Sekowsky and relatively new scripter Denny O’Neil came up with a radical proposal and made history by depowering the only female superhero then in the marketplace. They had the mystical Amazons leave our dimension, taking with them all their magic – including Wonder Woman‘s powers and all her weapons…

Reduced to humble humanity she chose to stay on Earth, assuming and legitimising her own secret identity of Diana Prince and resolved to fighting injustice as a mortal. Tutored by blind Buddhist monk I Ching, she trained as a martial artist, and quickly became a formidable enemy of contemporary evil. Now, I Ching claims he can repair Superman’s difficulties and restore his dwindling might, but evil eyes are watching. Arriving clandestinely, Superman allows the adept to remove his remaining Kryptonian powers as a precursor to fully regaining them, allowing the ASG opportunity to strike. In the resultant brutal melee, the all-too-human hero triumphs in the hardest fight of his life…

The saga continues with Swanderson back on art in #241, withSuperman overcoming momentary but nigh-overwhelming temptation to put down his oppressive burden of duty and lead a normal life. Admonished and resolved, he submits to Ching’s resumed remedy ritual and finds his spirit soaring to where the sand-being lurks, before explosively reclaiming the stolen powers. Leaving the gritty golem a shattered husk, the astral Kal-El brings the awesome energies back to their true owner and a triumphant hero returns to saving the world…

Over the next few days, however, it becomes clear that something has gone wrong. The Man of Tomorrow has become arrogant, erratic and unpredictable, acting rashly, overreacting and even making stupid mistakes. In her boutique, Diana Prince discusses the problem with Ching and the sagacious teacher deduces that whilst merely mortal and fighting ASG thugs, Superman received punishing blows to the head which have caused a brain injury that did not heal when his powers returned…

When the out-of-control hero refuses to listen, Diana & Ching track down the dying sand-thing and beg its aid. The elderly savant recognises it as a formless creature from other-dimensional Quarrm and listens to the amazing story of its entrance into our world. He also suggests a way for it to regain some of what it recently lost…

Superman, meanwhile, has blithely gone about his deranged business until savagely attacked by a statue of a Chinese war-demon. Also able to steal his power, it has been possessed by a second fugitive from Quarrm. It has no conscience and wears ‘The Shape of Fear!’…

The shocking saga concludes in ‘The Ultimate Battle’ as the second Quarrmer falls under the sway of two petty thugs who use it to put freshly de-powered Superman into hospital…

Rushed into emergency surgery, the Kryptonian fights for his life as sand-thing confronts war-demon in the streets. Events take an even more bizarre turn once the latter drives off its foe and turns towards the hospital to finish off the flesh-&-blood Superman…

Regaining consciousness – and a portion of his power – the Metropolis Marvel battles the beast to a standstill but needs the aid of his silicon stand-in to drive the thing back beyond the pale. With the immediate threat ended, Man of Steel and Man of Sand face off one last time, each determined to ensure his own existence no matter the cost…

The stunning conclusion was a brilliant stroke on the part of the creators, one which left Superman approximately half the Man of Tomorrow he used to be. Of course, he eventually returned to his unassailable, god-like power levels but never quite regained the tension-free smug assurance of his pre-1970s self…

For now though, with the epic ended day-to-day dilemmas resume with Action #403 and Bates & Swanderson’s ‘Attack of the Micro-Murderer’, wherein the Krptonian is attacked and fatally infected by sentient time-travelling micobe Zohtt before millions of earthlings donate blood to flush his system clean, after which Brown channels Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon for ‘The Man With the X-Ray Mind’ as an intellectually-challenged janitor develops and tragically loses astounding mental abilities…

Dorfman scripted #404’s ‘Kneel to Your Conqueror, Superman!’ wherein governemntal secret weapon/supergenius Rufus Caesar goes rogue and devises tech to steal The Action Ace’s powers, before inevitably overreaching and reaping every tyrant’s fate. As Geoff Brown, the multi-faceted writer offers another glimpse at our hero’s college years with ‘The Day They Killed Clark Kent’ relating a memorable teaching moment after a hazing incident is covertly commandeered and redirected by the Adolescent of Steel. Then Bates introduces ‘The Starry-Eyed Siren of Space!’ in Superman #243, as cosmic catastrophe catapults the Caped Kryptonian into an encounter with disembodied ultra-mentalities Kond & Rija. Sadly, the latter recalls the long forgotten joys of physicality and constructs an organic form to woo Superman, leaving Rija no choice but to do similar and win back his mate…

‘Superman, Bodyguard or Assassin?!’ leads in Action #405, as Bates posits an Imaginary Story near future where a Psy-ops expert turns the Man of Steel into an assassin pointed at the US President. He follows up with regulation continuity thriller ‘The Most Dangerous Bug in the World?’ as Clark Kent is swept up in a product demo that threatens to expose his secret identity. Over in Superman #244, O’Neil anticipates early AI anxiety and human responses via the rampages of ‘The Electronic Ghost of Metropolis!’, before AC #406 sees Dorfman deal with the rise of counter cultures and semi-religious cults as telejournalist Clark Kent investigates a charismatic ‘Master of Miracles’. What he discovers is a devious plot orchestrated by someone very close to his home and his heart…

For the same issue, the writer dons his “Brown” mantle to expose a restless and beleagured supernatural alchemist inhabiting the Tower of London for centuries as ‘The Ghost That Haunted Clark Kent’ before the wraparound superhero-bedecked cover for all reprint giant Superman #245 and Curt Swan’s pencilled model sheet ‘The Man of Many Faces’ penultimately usher in final wonder ‘Danger… Monster at Work!’ from #246, with Len Wein debuting as super-scribe and introducing an extended cast of Clark Kent’s neighbours in a wry and witty warning tale of pollution gone mad and monsters in Metropolis’ sewers, perfectly limned by Swan & Anderson…

A fresh approach, snappy dialogue and more human-scaled concerns to balance outrageous implausible fantasy elements all wedded to gripping plots and sublime art make Kryptonite Nevermore one of the very best Superman sagas ever created, and its wonderful to see the other stories of the time included for balance and to prove that this was very much the Man of Steel getting his long-needed second wind for the next comics age.

A must-have graphic collection to sit on the same shelf as Watchmen, Batman: Year One, Segar’s Popeye, Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse, The Fourth World Saga, Kirby & Lee’s Galactus Trilogy and Chaykin’s American Flagg!, this is a shining exemplar of action- adventure comics captured at their most perfect moment. Why don’t you have this yet?
© 1970, 1971, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Moon Knight Epic Collection volume 2: Shadows of the Moon


By Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, with Jack C. Harris, Alan Zelenetz, Denys Cowan, Vicente Alcazar, Jimmy Janes, Greg LaRoque, Klaus Janson, Frank Giacoia, Steve Mitchell, Josef Rubinstein, Armando Gil, John Tartaglione, Bob Camp, Dave Simons, Joe Albelo & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3368-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Moon Knight is probably the most complex and convoluted hero(es) in comics. There’s also a lot of eminently readable strip evidence to support the contention that he’s a certifiable loon. The mercurial champion first appeared during the mid-1970s horror boom: a mercenary Batman knockoff hired by corporate villains to capture a monster. Sparking reader attention, the mercenary spun off into a brace of solo trial issues in Marvel Spotlight and welter of guest shots before securing an exceedingly sophisticated back-up slot in the TV-show-inspired Hulk Magazine and inevitably graduating to the first of many solo series. His origin eventually revealed how multiple-personality-suffering CIA spook-turned-mercenary Marc Spector was murdered by his employer and apparently resurrected by an entombed Egyptian god…

This second colossal compilation re-presents Moon Knight #5-23, transecting March 1981 through September 1982: a period of vast change and experimentation in comics that saw the Lunar Avenger notionally hived off from the greater Marvel Universe to experience far more mature storytelling, via the suddenly blooming Direct Sales comics marketplace…

The saga had begun in Werewolf by Night #32 (August 1975): a fresh strand in an extended plot thread wherein lycanthrope Jack Russell and his sister Lyssa were targets of criminal capitalists the Corporation. The plutocratic cabal believed that by terrorising the public, they could induce them to spend more and sought for months to add werewolves to their army of monsters. Thus Doug Moench & Don Perlin (with assistance from little Howie Perlin) introduced Spector: a rough-&-ready modern warrior hired by plutocratic plunderers and equipped with a silver-armoured costume and weapons to capture Russell or his animal other as ‘…The Stalker Called Moon Knight’. The bombastic battle and its ferocious sequel received an unprecedented response, rapidly rocketing the lunar avenger to prominence as Marvel’s edgy answer to Batman. Within a year the spectral sentinel had returned for a two-part solo mission that fleshed out his characters (yes, plural!) and hinted at a hidden history behind the simple hireling façade (Marvel Spotlight #28-29.

The back-written yarn proved the mercenary to be a well-established clandestine crimebuster with vast financial resources, a dedicated team of assistants including old comrade/pilot “Frenchie” and liaison/lover Marlene Alraune, in-the-know Grant Mansion domestics Nedda & Samuels, plus a wide-ranging network of street informants, a mansion/secret HQ, a ton of cool gadgets… and at least four separate identities. This latter aspect would inform Moon Knight’s entire career as various creators explored where playacting ended and Multiple Personality Disorder – if not outright supernatural possession – began. Thanks to his brush with the werewolf, the vigilante had also gained a partial superpower. As the moon waxed and waned, his physical strength, speed, stamina and resilience also doubled and diminished.

Firstly, however, billionaire Steven Grant, New York cabbie/information gatherer Jake Lockley, repentant gun-for-hire Marc Spector and the mysterious Moon Knight adapted to the lives of an urban vigilante even if occasionally his pasts – especially Spector’s former CIA career and exploits in espionage and terrorism-for-hire – often encroached on his chosen path of redemption. Groundswell took hold and the Moon Knight guested in Defenders #47-#51, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23 & Marvel Two-In-One #52 before landing a back-up slot in adult-adjacent Hulk Magazine #11 (October 1978). The residency and more mature tales led to the advent of artistic debutante Bill Sienkiewicz from #13 (February 1979) and a certain syzygy gelled. The run ended in Hulk Magazine #20 (April 1980) and was followed by monochrome magazine Marvel Preview (#21, Spring 1980), before that chapter in the character’s life apparently closed, leading to the far more complex and conflicted career of a man seeking atonement as the November cover-dated premier solo title exposed the secrets of The Macabre Moon Knight…

Moench & Sienkiewicz were allowed leeway to experiment with the format of lone avengers and revealed how world-weary, burned-out mercenary Spector was working for murderous marauder Raul Bushman but reclaimed his moral compass after his ruthless boss murdered archaeologist Peter Alraune for the contents of a recently excavated Sudanese tomb. His daughter Marlene escaped, as did equally disgusted comrade Frenchie, but when Spector attempted to stop Bushman executing witnesses he was beaten and left to die in the desert.

Dying by degrees, Spector crawled for miles and died just as he entered the tomb of Pharoah Seti, where Marlene and her workers were hiding. Dumped at the feet of a statue of Khonshu – ancient god of the Moon, Guardian of Night’s Travellers and Taker of Vengeance – he inexplicably revived. Clearly deranged, he draped the statue’s white mantle around himself, before going out into the night. By dawn, Bushman’s band are dead and the monster fled…

Skipping forward and hinting at an eventful road to his life as a multi-identity superhero, the origin ended with a fateful showdown with the returned Bushman in his New York lair…

In short order, gritty, edgy but (barely) mainstream stories focused on MK’s pitiful homeless informant Crawley targeted by a bloody butcher hunting bums and indigents, introduced first returning villain/nemesis Anton Mogart/The Midnight Man, and saw the Lunar Avenger stalked by a quintet of specialist assassins.

Without pausing for breath Moench, Sienkiewicz & Klaus Janson open proceedings in this second collection by exploring and spoofing teen horror movies, adopting changing cultural cues of the new era. Here the team barely survive a ‘Ghost Story’ (MK #5 March 1981) after tracking trigger-happy bandits to a notorious murder house in upstate New York. The Reddich place boasts horrific historical murders and attracts attention from bravado-drenched kids and ghost chasers but also masks a hidden history of family madness and ongoing mayhem. Add a hunt for long-lost buried loot and a determined guy draped in a white sheet and terrifying revelations – and an increased body count – are the end result…

One month later, Steven Grant gifts Moon Knight’s intelligence gathering unit – Crawley, diner owner Gena Landers, her teen sons Ricky & Ray and cabbie Jake Lockley – with a Caribbean vacation just in case Marc Spector needs help investigating a voodoo-themed crime wave on the isle of St. Lucien. Spector had been requested to crush the Zuvembie ‘White Angels’ by an old war buddy, but soon exposes a drugs and human trafficking scheme by a local plantation owner…

America’s “War on Drugs” also informed MK #7, as Moench, Sienkiewicz & Janson detail how ruthless miscreants poison Chicago’s water supply with hallucinogens and turn the conurbation into a howling homicidal madhouse. Moon Knight & Co are in town and are just as drenched and deranged by the time ‘The Moon Kings’ ends on a cliffhanger, and following a brief gallery of original art from the preceding stories, spectacularly concludes with Frank Giacoia inking ‘Night of the Wolves’ with the still impaired heroes foiling a cruel blackmail plot and last-ditch chemical revenge strike

Moon Knight #9 sees Sienkiewicz inking himself for ‘Vengeance in Reprise’ as Bushman breaks out of jail just as Anton Mogart steals the statue of Khonshu from Steven Grant’s mansion. Sadly, the artefact is all that stabilises Moon Knight’s splintered personalities and as he tracks down and defeats both his despised foes, ‘Too Many Midnights’ (#10) sees the statue lost and the hero fractured. Happily, Marlene has a solution and the lunar guardian is back in #11 ‘To Catch a Killer’ rampaging through the New Orleans Mardi Gras. The team are there in pursuit of coke dealer Cajun Creed, but Frenchie is dangerously distracted by the unexpected return and sudden murder of his old flame Isabelle Kristel…

A ghastly new foe debuts in #12 as Marlene’s brother Dr. Peter Alraune Jr. endures ‘The Nightmare of Morpheus’. Administered experimental drugs that hideously mutated him and gave him energy-warping powers by the sleep disorder specialist, patient Robert Markam tirelessly tracks Alraune seeking revenge but thankfully Moon Knight is able to put him out, after which a notionally similar ally appeared…

Despite his early career being packed with guest shots, the solo spooky star Moon Knight was a difficult fixture for many Marvel heroes but a somewhat sympatico headset could be seen in Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Thus MK #13 offered ‘The Cream of the Jest’ as the fresh out on parole master of media manipulation unites with former Moon Knight foe Ace Taggert to achieve mutual revenge on their most hated enemies. Sadly, as both heroes monitor the malefactors, differences in style and approach lead to a clash of policy and methods… and then just a clash…

Moench & Sienkiewicz were continually experimenting and reaching a creative peak, and #14’s ‘Stained Glass Scarlet’ (cover-dated December 1981) was a milestone that polarised fans. A classic tragedy, delving deep into dysfunctional families, it saw a mysterious woman in red occupying an abandoned church until her solitude is shattered by Moon Knight’s pursuit of psychotic prison fugitive Joe “Mad Dog” Fasinera. The killer was looking for loot hidden by his equally murderous father, but found his cloaked foe, his mother Scarlett and his just deserts…

Released on October 6th 1981 but cover-dated January 1982, Moon Knight #15 heralded longer even more mature stories as Marvel dropped the ad content and hived off the title from standard newsstand distribution, making it available only through subscription or specialist comic book stores. To prove this was a far harder hero now Moench & Sienkiewicz’s ‘Ruling the World from His Basement’ featured an assassination campaign against foreign dignitaries perpetrated by a crazed white supremacist spouting Nazi ideology. He was also a trusted member of the community and associate of Moon Knight.

And Rats.

Racist killer Xenos employed rodents in a most disquieting manner, so be warned…

The big evolution was marked and celebrated in an illustrated essay by Moench with ‘Shades of Moon Knight’ precising the character(s) of the lone hero and recapitulating on his techniques, methodology and associates.

‘Shadows of the Moon’ by Jack C. Harris & Denys Cowan, inked by Steve Mitchell, Josef Rubinstein & Janson led in MK #16 as a cop who despises vigilantes like Moon Knight is murdered, and his son begs the masked hero to help. with a guest cameo by Ben The Thing Grimm, Spector’s efforts to expose corrupt industrialist Alexander Latimer, lead to brutal battle with philosopher/assassin Blacksmith and barely thwarted nuclear annihilation before justice is served.

The main event was supplemented by ‘Seekers of Stone’, first tale of new feature Spector: Mercenary – The Man Who Will Be Moon Knight with Harris, Jimmy Janes & Armando Gil revealing how the mercenary dealt with a double-crossing Nazi war criminal who hired him to “recover” a mystic trinket…

With Steve Mitchell inking, Moench & Sienkiewicz return with ‘Master Sniper’s Legacy!’ as an extended epic opened to find Spector contacted by old friend Benjamin Abramov. The Israeli agent needs his help to destroy terrorist Nimrod Strange and his fanatical Third World Slayers cult but is gunned down by Strange’s emissary the Master Sniper whilst talking to Spector and Marlene. Once the killer has been dealt with, Spector vows to destroy the Third World Army at any cost…

Moench, Cowan & Rubinstein’s far lighter ancillary tale sees the young(er) Spector south of the border, raiding tombs and learning the folly of indulging in ‘The Worship of False Idols’ before MK #18 resumes the war as Spector deals with ‘The Slayers Elite’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell) sent to make an example of Abramov’s widow, before “Allen” Zelenetz reminds us of earlier team-ups in ‘The Many Phases of Moon Knight’ text feature which neatly segues into #19’s ‘Assault on Island Strange’ by Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell. As Moon Knight punishes operations by the Third World Slayers, Marlene goes undercover as the top terrorist’s bodyguard. Much too close to Nimrod Strange for comfort, her compromises to survive outrage Moon Knight who takes out his aggression on the maniac’s home base. However, his righteous fury is not enough to stop Strange giving himself a lethal munitions upgrade, renaming himself Arsenal and setting off to attack New York with Marlene still beside him…

The saga explosively concludes in #20’s ‘Cut Adrift off the Coast of America’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell) as Arsenal discovers the viper in his deranged bosom and attempts to turn Manhattan Island into a super-colossal bonfire with stolen oil tankers only to finally fail thanks to Moon Knight and a really, really angry Marlene…

Sudden change of pace ‘The Master of Night Earth!’ (Moench, Vicente Alcazar, John Tartaglione & Bob Camp in MK #21 sees the world-weary warrior of shadow encounter genuine supernatural forces after joining Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo to foil insurrection and revolution in Haiti, backed up by new bonus feature Tales of Khonshu, wherein Zelenetz, Greg LaRoque & Dave Simons expose ‘Murder by Moonlight’ as a fleeing murderer encounters a museum statue of the lunar god of vengeance and experiences something… uncanny…

Now possessing mind control and illusion-casting powers, maddened angry sleep-deprived Morpheus returns to wreak final vengeance on his tormentor in Moench & Sienkiewicz’s ‘The Dream Demon’ – and so very nearly succeeds before concluding episode ‘Perchance to Scream’ sees further escalating carnage lead to an ultimate sacrifice that seemingly ends Morpheus’ depredations forever…

Dividing those momentous events, Zelenetz, LaRoque & Joe Albelo lighten the mood with WWII titbit ‘Moon Over Alamein’ as British Eighth Army troops take shelter in a certain tomb, and resist every temptation to rob or defile it. Is that perhaps why a spectral apparition later escorts them safely through deadly mine fields? Only Khonshu knows for sure…

With covers by Sienkiewicz, Earl Norem, Frank Miller, Al Milgrom, Ron Wilson & Dave Simons, Steve Mitchell and Joe Jusko, this collection of groundbreaking and innovative tales and on-fire creators finding new envelopes to push wraps up with a House ad for Scarlet in Moonlight, 1981’s Moon Knight portfolio by Sienkiewicz, offering 4 pencil plates and letter page art from #6, 9, 21, 23. There are also  unused covers for #9, 12 &13 and 11 pages of original art/covers (including a painting) all by LaRoque, Sienkiewicz, Cowan & Rubinstein.

Moody, dark, thematically off-kilter and savagely entertaining this second volume sees the “Batman knock-off” fully evolve into a unique example of the line between hero and villain and sinner and saint, all wrapped up in pure electric entertainment for testosterone junkies and suspense lovers.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Lucky Luke volume 24: The Judge


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-045-0 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Doughty, rangy, and dashingly dependable cowboy Lucky Luke is an imperturbable, implacably even-tempered do-gooder who can “draw faster than his own shadow”. He roams the mythic, cinematically fuelled Old West in light-hearted adventures astride his petulant, stingingly sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits in Le Journal de Spirou (and from 1967, in rival periodical Pilote) have made the sharpshooter a legend across all media… and a monument of merchandising.

Working solo with occasional script assistance from his brother Louis, Morris – AKA Maurice de Bévère – produced 10 albums worth of affectionate and thrilling sagebrush parody before formally uniting with René Goscinny, who became regular wordslinger with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) commencing in Le Journal de Spirou on August 25th 1955. Morris & Goscinny literarily rode together on another 44 albums as Luke scaled the dizzying heights of superstardom. The partnership continued after the six-gun straightshooter switched teams in 1968, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with classic comedy thriller La Diligence (The Stagecoach).

Our laconic volunteer lawman’s trailblazing travails often draw on actual western history as much as movie mythology and he regularly interacts with noteworthy figures, as well as even odder fictional folk as his authors incessantly explore and refine key themes of classic cowboy films – plus some uniquely European notions and interpretations. The happy wanderer is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire… as in this primal, heavily history-affronting affair…

First published continentally in December 1959, Le Juge was the 13th European album and Morris & Goscinny’s fourth official outing together, opening – after a terse background note on the real Judge Roy Bean – with Lucky as a literal cowboy ferrying a herd of prime steers from Austin, Texas to Silver City, New Mexico. The relatively uneventful cattle conveyance sadly stalls when, ignoring the advice that “there ain’t no law west of the Pecos”, Lucky stops at Langtry: a growing town on that legendary river that is ruled by saloon keeper/self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, who with his trained bear Joe rides roughshod over the citizenry whilst making himself incomprehensibly rich by exploiting an old law book he possesses. Through a system of carefully mis-applied court fines, bribes, indentured servitude and judicious hangings, the charismatic rogue is a virtual king who finally bites off more than he can chaw after impounding Lucky’s herd and subjecting him to a bogus trial (for rustling his own cattle) that ends with the hero sentenced to hang…

Escaping at gunpoint, Luke suddenly hatches a plan after travelling gambler Bad Ticket hits town and decides to set up in opposition to Bean with his own saloon, bad booze, sham trials and crooked scams…

Craftily striving to balance the scales of injustice, Lucky at first aids newcomer Bad Ticket in the war of law and lore. However, as Bad Ticket swiftly proves to be even less honourable and more devious than Bean, Luke switches sides – albeit almost too late – as the new judge turns on him and also sentences the citizens to string him up…

Opting for the devil he knows, Lucky recruits exiled loser Roy Bean – and Joe – to help him reclaim the town for decency and, with the rascally reprobate actually trying to make amends and (in his own way) atone for past sins and misdemeanours, sets Langtry back on the path to peace and progress. Of course that means much fighting, running, shenanigans & hijinks, insane alliances and a unique day in court for all concerned, in a case utterly unique to the annals of jurisprudence…

These youthful forays of an indomitable hero offer grand joys in the wry tradition of Destry Rides Again, Support Your Local Sheriff, or, dare I say it, John Milius & John Huston’s misunderstood 1972 demi-classic The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Superbly executed by master storytellers, this is a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2010 Cinebook Ltd.

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Maroc the Mighty


By an unknown author & Don Lawrence with Alfredo Marculeta (Rebellion Studios/ Treasury of UK Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-517-8 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-83786-518-5 (Webshop Edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For British, commonwealth and European readers of a certain age and prone to debilitating nostalgia, the comic works of Don Lawrence (17th November 1928 – 29th December 2003) are a treat that never pales and always satisfies. His lavish painted-narrative illustration was only ever about two things: boyish wish-fulfilment and staggeringly beautiful images.

Beginning in the 1950s, Lawrence (Marvelman, Wells Fargo, Billy the Kid, Fireball XL5, Olac the Gladiator, The Adventures of Tarzan, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, adult comedy strip Carrie and multi-volume Dutch magnum opus Storm), inspired a host of artists like Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons. However, as Lawrence worked into the 1990s, his eyesight was increasingly impaired by cataracts, and he took on and diligently trained apprentices like modern stars Chris Weston and Liam Sharp who collaborated with the venerable mentor on his last Storm stories.

Although magnificent painted fantasies are Don’s everlasting legacy, he was also a supremely gifted master of monochrome illumination and gritty realism. Astoundingly, in Britain most of those pre-colour comics remained unreprinted until relatively recently. Now a regular and recognised wellspring for Rebellion Studios’ Treasury of UK Comics, two volumes of his Karl the Viking have been augmented by a true lost classic: a historical but engagingly daft fantasy that Lawrence was plucked from in midstream to begin the Trigan Empire opus…

The extraordinary adventures of a valiant and benevolent wandering Devonshire yeoman making his way back to England after the Third Crusade never actually carried the hero’s name in the weeklies where it was serialised, but ever since the feature – long mis-attributed to writer Michael Moorcock, but now officially devoid of a credited author – has been called by fans Maroc the Mighty…

This brief but bombastic movie-influenced (particularly Ray Harryhausen) skein of sword & Sorcery sagas was first seen in Lion: a triptych of tales spanning 3rd October 1964 to 6th February 1965 (The Hand of Zar); 13th February – May 1st (The Red Knights of Morda) and then May 8th to 3rd July 1965 (The Gigantos), augmented by a short escapade from Lion Annual 1967 as originally released in the autumn of 1966.

Following an enthusiastic and informative Introduction from historian Steve Holland ‘The Hand of Zar’ introduces John Maroc: a doughty English fighter serving the Lords and Nobles of militant Christendom, who now the defeated Christian warriors flee the Holy Land. Sadly, the term “noble” never really applied to aristocratic leader Sir Guy who uses the retreat to pillage and plunder, and when his depredations threaten a helpless Arab boy, outraged Maroc leaps to his defence and must battle his way out with young Ahmid. Fleeing to the mountains they meet an old man who gives the Englishman a golden wrist bracer. The Hand of Zar originally belonged to an ancient “Sun warrior” who fought for justice, and will make Maroc “a giant among men”. It gets the chance almost immediately as Sir Guy’s men ambush them and overwhelm them… until John discovers he has strength enough to snap chains and topple stone pillars…

Over ensuing weeks Maroc and Ahmid thwart Sir Guy’s schemes despite quickly discovering that although the relict imparts incomprehensible strength – and a little enhanced stamina and durability – it only does so as long as it remains in direct sunlight. If clouds appear or night arrives, Maroc is reduced to his ordinary self…

The clashes eventually attract the attention of Richard the Lionheart, who values and admires the efforts of the peasant warrior, but must follow the codes of chivalry and shun him for fighting against his betters, no matter how scurrilous they might be. To make matters worse, Sir Guy accuses the lowly hero of treason and settles a death sentence upon his head…

Their flight across the middle east brings them into extended conflict with all-conquering Warlord Kalin and his war elephants, wicked mountain wizards and dinosaurs, marine slavers, shark packs and reivers, and embroils Maroc and Ahmid in a deadly quest for a mystic artifact – the Stone of Aolath – fighting antediluvian primitives inhabiting The City of the Clouds. Ultimately the legacy of Zar proves unconquerable and the wandering heroes part ways…

One week later, the Englishman abroad reached Spain as The Red Knights of Morda plunged into more of the episodic same. In mountainous, arid Morda Maroc encounters a band of rogue paladins steadily eroding established rule and bleeding the coffers of true local sovereign Don Miguel Y Cipriano. When Maroc befriends the Baron’s son Carlos and charming scoundrel “Ramon the Gypsy”, it begins a brutal, bloody fightback to restore order and justice. The real enemy is a secret society led by evil genius mastermind Satana, and encompasses defeating his colossal enforcer Khala the Strong and legions of fanatical killers, bad knights, huge swamp lizards and more war elephants…

The final Lawrence exploit began in colour on the cover of Lion’s May 8th 1965 issue, with the wanderer still trudging through Spain and abruptly ambushed by archers. Falling victim to the assault he sees with amazement that none of his attackers are over four feet tall…

Explanations by the Minimas lead to the Englishman enlisting to aid the “dwarf folk” against a determined foe sworn to enslave them for their mines – ‘The Gigantos’. Nominative determinism was a major factor at this time in comics and their oppressors are a tribe of oversized tyrants misusing their strength and exploiting equally prodigious wildlife – like giant eagles and bears – to tyrannise the Minimas, but all their might, diabolical traps and the wiles of their leader Pesado – and the active volcano they live in – are insufficient to deter Maroc when he finds injustice festering…

… And that was it for Lawrence’s most superheroic star since Marvelman. From September 18th 1965 fans were periodically gobsmacked and enthralled by The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire – and never really looked back. Editors, however, are callous pragmatic folk and established name brand Maroc returned via Lion Annual 1967 in another anonymously scripted, done-in-one tale illustrated by UK comics mainstay Alfredo Marculeta. He was a regular of the era’s weeklies probably most recognisable today for The Rubber Man, a superhero knock-off of Jack Cole’s Plastic Man written by Ken Mennell and running in Smash from #15.

I can’t find out much about him, but his work and overall style look remarkably similar to that of Spanish political exile, cartoonist, caricaturist and comics illustrator Edmundo Marculeta (6th April 1923 – 3rd May 1989 and AKA “Marcouleta”, “Marcouletta”, “Marcou”, “Tony Cranach” & “Boris Tunder”) who worked in Europe and the UK in the 1960s & 1970s on everything from all-ages westerns and historical adventures to adult comics.

Here, those gifts are employed depicting how mighty Maroc is tramping through Germany’s Black Forest and attacked. Losing and winning back the armlet of Zar, he joins ousted prince Johann of Grunde, helping him regain his birthright from usurping murderer Baron Grimm, a tyrant obsessed with gladiatorial contests and animal cruelty…

Based in equal part on cinematic Sword & Sandal and Knight & Ladies epics and a long-cherished movie genre of manly blockbusters to construct a vast sprawling serial of heroic vigilantism, two-fisted warriors, wild beasts, deadly monsters and even occasionally the odd female (very, very occasionally in this instance!) Maroc the Mighty is the quintessential 5-minute read, but with visuals every boy I knew spent hours staring at. Some – who shall remain nameless – might even have traced or copied many of the panels and tableaux for art and history projects, Hem Hem…

Incorporating a tantalising teaser for the next volume and creator biographies, this truly spectacular visual triumph is a monument to British Comics creativity, simultaneously pushing memory buttons for old folk whilst offering a light but beautiful straightforward epic readily accessible to the curious and genre inquisitive alike or anyone who actually saw the latest William Tell movie…

Is that you or someone you know?
Maroc the Mighty is ™ Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. © 1964, 1965, 1966 & 2025 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.