Month: February 2011

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Mermaid Forest


By Rumiko Takahashi, translated by Matt Thorn (Viz)
ISBN: 978-1-56931-047-5

Rumiko Takahashi is one of the most successful comics creators of all time and indisputably the best selling woman in the field (170 million volumes – and rising – of her assorted inventions sold to date) with many awards to her name.

Born in 1957, she enrolled in a manga school whilst at university and began producing Dōjinshi (self-published stories) in 1975, under the tutelage of Manga genius Kazuo Koike. Three years later she sold her first professional story; the award-winning science fiction comedy Urusei Yatsura (34 volumes). Her next big series was rom-com Maison Ikkoku (15 volumes) and she continued both series simultaneously until 1987, whilst also producing a vast array of extremely popular short stories and mini-series.

In 1984 she tried something new: an occasional sequence of interlinked gothic-love horror short-stories that would become known as the Mermaid Saga which appeared at uneven intervals over the next decade.

In 1994 Viz Communications began collecting and translating the nine graphic novelettes for the English speaking world, and this first volume presents the first three in a stunning display of visual virtuosity and macabre menace.

‘A Mermaid Never Smiles’ begins in a remote rural village in modern Japan as beautiful maiden Mana calls out petulantly to her servants. Meanwhile miles away a derelict young man wanders aimlessly, searching for something. His name is Yuta and there’s something rather odd about him…

Mana’s attendants are all women and they are waiting for something. When one performs a unique sacrifice the assembled harridans decree that Mana is ready at last for her great purpose…

When Yuta stumbles into the village he is swiftly killed by the old ladies but doesn’t stay dead for long. Escaping from his grave Yuta confronts the women and rescues the far from grateful Mana, who has no idea that she has been farmed like a veal calf by her sevants, with but one purpose…

On the run Yuta explains the legend of Mermaids: eating their flesh can, if one is fortunate, impart immortality and invulnerability. More common is the slow transformation into ghastly monsters, called “Lost Souls”. Most likely though, is a swift and very painful death from the malignant meat…

Years ago Yuta unwittingly consumed mermaid flesh and has spent half a lonely millennium seeking a cure to his lonely un-aging existence. An old wise-woman told him the only solution was to find a live mermaid and ask her for a method to end his interminable life.

However he has cause to regret his wish when he discovers that all the old women are aged mermaids and Mana has been bred for years as a means by which they can regain the lost youth. Horrified and reluctantly heroic Yuta knows he must foil the plan at all costs – but it won’t be easy or pretty…

‘The Village of the Fighting Fish’ takes us back centuries to Feudal Japan and two island communities at war. Eking out their harsh existence with occasional piracy, the fisher-folk of Toba are being slowly squeezed by their ruthless rivals on Sakagami Island. Moreover, the Tobans leader is dying and his valiant daughter O-Rin is having trouble filling his sandals…

She thinks nothing of it when a dead body washes up; that’s just a sign of the times, but when the corpse comes back to life the sinister, manipulative wife of the Sakagami chieftain seeks him out. It appears she too is hunting for a mermaid, just like the un-killable stranger Yuta…

With a ruthless agenda of her own Isago stirs the bubbling pot of tension until war is inevitable, just as the restless wander Yuta dares to dream that he might risk loving again, but once more the terrible lure of mermaid flesh and supernatural longevity prove to be more curse than blessing and horrifying bloodshed is the inevitable result…

We return to contemporary Japan for the concluding tale as Mana and Yuta find an isolated village near deep woods and stop their wandering for the night. However the naive girl is utterly unaware of the modern world and walks into a near fatal accident.

Taken to the local cottage hospital the severely injured girl mysteriously goes missing, and when Yuta discovers the woodland called the ‘Mermaid Forest’ he fears the worst. His investigations uncover yet another tragic family destroyed by the mermaid curse that has tainted so many lives…

Kindly old Dr. Shiina has kept a dark secret for decades and now, with the girl Mana, he hopes to correct an ancient wrong, but no-one who has tasted mermaid flesh has ever ended happily and as Yuta hopelessly battles yet more Lost Soul horrors, the undying hero knows that this time will be no different…

This bleak supernatural tale of jealousy, twisted love and dark devotion is a spectacular and oppressive epic of understated horror, beautifully realised and movingly effective. One of the best mature manga tales ever produced, it can – and should – be read by older kids too, but please be aware that Japanese social conventions regarding casual nudity are not the same as ours and if you don’t want to see naked bodies you should read something else.
© 1994 Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Y: The Last Man: vol. 7 Paper Dolls


By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán Jr. (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-84576-241-4

A venerable old science fiction concept got a new, pithy and wry updating in the Vertigo series Y: The Last Man when a mystery plague destroyed every male mammal on Earth and even all the sperm and foetuses.

If it had a Y chromosome it croaked, except, somehow, for college-boy slacker and amateur escapologist Yorick Brown – and his pet monkey Ampersand. One night the guy goes to bed pining for his absent girlfriend Beth DeVille (an anthropology grad on a dig in Australia) and the next day Ampersand is the only male animal on Earth and he’s the last man alive…

Yorick’s mum, part of the new (for which read Still-Standing after a failed power-grab by the assembled widows of Republican Congressmen) Presidential Cabinet, is by default a Leader of the Free World until the New President can get to Washington to take office.

Yorick made his way to her through a devastated urban landscape (the plague hit during rush-hour on the East Coast and we all know that chicks can’t even parallel park let alone wrestle the controls from the hands of a dead bus driver, subway steersman or airline pilot…) but had to escape from her half-hearted attempt to lock him a bunker. Forthwith the lad immediately set off for the Land Down Under and his one true love.

Over the course of three years he made his peril-packed way from the East Coast overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, who he assumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. Accompanying him on his trek westward was secret agent/bodyguard 355 and geneticist Dr. Allison Mann, who has been trying to solve his mysteriously continued existence and who believes she might have caused the plague by giving birth to the world’s first parthenogenetic human clone.

Also out to stake their claim and add to the general tension were a crack squad of Israeli commandos led by the steely-willed General Tse’Elon, equipped with the latest high-powered weapons and a hidden agenda, plus post-disaster cult Daughters of the Amazon who wanted to make sure that there really were no more men left to mess up the planet.

To further complicate matters, for much of that journey Yorick’s occasionally insane sister, Hero, was stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now generally dis-United States.

When they finally arrived in San Francisco, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann actually discovered the secret of Yorick’s immunity but before they could capitalise on it Ampersand was snatched by a ninja. Apparently, all along the monkey had held the secret to the plague which killed all us mouth-breathing, unsanitary louts…

After a violently revelatory time and lots of aggravation (see Y: the Last Man: Girl on Girl) this seventh volume (collecting issues # 37-42 of the award-winning Vertigo comicbook) at last finds our hero in the place he’s been aiming for, but Australia has undergone a few changes…

The eponymous ‘Paper Dolls’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra, Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán Jr.) introduces hard-bitten reporter Paloma West, haunting the Sydney docks and trying to verify rumours that a living man has been sighted. Whilst 355 and Mann are insistent that they travel on to Japan where Ampersand has been spotted, all Yorick can think of is that after years of struggle he’s finally where he needs to be…

Technically under arrest themselves, the well-intentioned but determined ladies bow to Yorick’s whining and give him 24 hours to find his long lost Beth. It’s not much of a chance but love will find a way… Nobody however, took Paloma West seriously and that was a big mistake…

With his existence about to be made globally public Yorick learns a few tantalising secrets about the mysterious Agent 355 before they confront West. The bodyguard wants her dead but the reporter claims to know where Yorick’s beloved Beth is now…

Time up, the man and his minders have to follow Ampersand to Japan and the secret of the plague, even though Beth has left on an epic trek to Paris – the French one…

Meanwhile in Washington, Yorick’s mother and Tse’Elon have a deadly confrontation before the scene shifts to the Midwest for ‘The Hour of Our Death’ as Hero meets one of her brother’s past indiscretions and realises she’s about to become an aunt just as a band of Vatican-sent nuns arrive to grab what might be the last child ever born. Seems they’re in the market for a new Madonna and Child…

‘Buttons’ (with art from Sudžuka & Marzán Jr.) focuses on the tragic story of 355 and how she became an agent of the insidious Culper Ring all whilst the unhappy voyagers flee from savages in New Guinea and this volume concludes by shifting scenes to follow that darn monkey in ‘1,000 Typewriters’ (Sudžuka & Marzán Jr. again), finally revealing exactly how this male-extinction mess came about, just as the cast reach Japan and the dramatic last act is set to begin…

By stocking this hoary old premise with carefully crafted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of distinctive power with the narrative thread consistently advancing to the point that this less than avid original reader was eventually fearfully avid to see where and how it would all end.

Marvelously well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever Y: the Last Man makes an old idea new and compulsively relevant: This delightful pot-boiler of a tale best is consumed in large chunks, however, so be prepared to invest in the entire run of volumes. Trust me, it’s well worth it.

© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Lantern: Secret Origin


By Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-2017-4

Following the bombastic, blockbusting Sinestro Corps War scripter Geoff Johns continued his personal mission to make Green Lantern the most important series of the entire DC Universe by taking readers back to the start and producing the latest definitive biography of how he came to be. He sweetened the pot by linking the brand new revelations to the latest of the increasingly ambitious storylines which led into DC’s next two major crossover events Blackest Night and its sequel Brightest Day.

This volume (divided into seven chapter “books” collecting Green Lantern #29-35) written by Johns and illustrated by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert takes the fundamental facts of the Silver Age story by John Broome & Gil Kane and in-fills with much of the subsequent ephemera that has come since – especially from Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn and the key Alan Moore Green Lantern Corps yarn ‘Tygers’ (reprinted in DC Universe: the Stories of Alan Moore and Across the Universe: the DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore)

The basic facts remain intact (and for that version see Green Lantern Archive volume1 or the Showcase Presents Green Lantern volume 1). Hal Jordan was a young test pilot in California when an alien policeman crashed on Earth. Mortally wounded, Abin Sur commanded his ring, a device which could materialise thoughts, to seek out a replacement ring-bearer, honest and without fear. Scanning the planet it selected Jordan and brought him to the crash-site. The dying alien bequeathed his ring, the lantern-shaped Battery of Power and his profession to the astonished Earthman.

Here however, we start years earlier with Jordan as a boy on the day his test-pilot dad died in a crash and see how the dysfunctional kid grew into a troubled, rebellious man: a thrill-addicted, hot-headed pilot who quickly burned up any good will he might once have deserved. Hooked on flying, he’s stuck in a dead-end job, working for the company that caused his father’s death and new boss Carol Ferris only hired him out of pity. On his very last chance his world changes forever when a spaceship crashes in the desert…

Book 2 opens with Green Lantern Abin Sur; a legend amongst his fellow peace-keepers, but now tainted and weakened by contact with mystic-terrorist psycho-warriors the Five Inversions. His resolution and will-power have been shaken by their poisonous prophecies of galactic doom and whilst transporting their leader, monster-mage Atrocitus, Sur crashes his spaceship on Planet Earth. The Green Lantern has gone rogue; defying the Guardians of the Universe and seeking proof of a coming Rise of Darkness – a “Blackest Night” of Life…

Dying Abin passes on the Ring and duties of a Green Lantern to the astounded Hal, who, unaware of the coming crisis, romps like a school boy with a new toy. Boss Carol, who hasn’t noticed Hal in decades, is suddenly very attentive to the new superhero whilst her creepy research chief Hector Hammond contemplates a rival for his illicit affections, but all Jordan sees is a new life of unfettered opportunity… which only lasts until the Ring and Battery shanghai him to Oa, home of the Guardians, for intensive training in a GL Rookie Boot Camp. Once again the mouthy punk makes more enemies than friends…

Meanwhile back on Earth, Abin’s friend and disciple Sinestro of Korugar has come seeking answers. Reckoned the greatest Green Lantern of all, even he is not without passion, and with his mentor’s death Sinestro’s unshakable resolve has been damaged. Moreover, Hammond has found the crashed ship and, exposed to its fuel core, has begun to mutate into something terrible…

When Sinestro and Hal meet there is no love lost nor respect won, especially after Hammond’s terrifying mental powers manifest as a threat to all humanity…

Until now no-one knew of Sur’s prisoner, but Atrocitus has been busy. Locating death-obsessed mortuary assistant William Hand, the alien seer sets about converting the young man into the harbinger of the Blackest Night – when the Guardians of the Universe will fall and the dead will rise…

Forced to cooperate, Jordan and Sinestro hunt the alien monstrosity and learn the prophecies that drove Abin Sur to his doom, but unaware of the human’s future role they allow Hand to escape with horrifying knowledge and a deadly weapon built by Atrocitus…

Book 7 ends the saga as the two GLs are summoned to Oa, where Hal teaches Sinestro that the Guardians are far from infallible and the Korugarian’s inevitable fall from grace is further hastened when he returns Atrocitus to the dead prison world of Ysmault. As with Abin before him, Sinestro’s resolve is destroyed by the contaminating prophecies of the Five Inversions. Now the universe itself will pay for the Guardian’s arrogance and over-confidence…

Combining big-picture theatrics with solid characterization, Green Lantern is an ideal contemporary superhero series, vast in scope, superb in execution and blending just the right amounts of angst, gloss and action in the storytelling mix – but even in this “jumping on” epic a basic familiarity with DC/Green Lantern history is advisable and necessary.

© 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Britain: End Game


By Alan Moore, Alan Davis, Jamie Delano, Grant Morrison & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-459-1

Marvel UK set up shop in 1972, reprinting the company’s earliest US successes in the traditional British weekly format, swiftly carving out a solid slice of the market – although the works of Lee, Kirby et al had already been appearing in other British comics (Smash!, Wham!, Pow!, Eagle, Fantastic!, Terrific!), and the anthologies of Alan Class Publications (which re-packaged a mesmerising plethora of American comics from Marvel, Charlton, Tower and ACG among others in comforting, cheap black and white) since their inception thanks to the aggressive marketing and licensing policies of and Stan and the gang.

In 1976 Marvel decided to augment their output with an original British hero in a new weekly – albeit in that parochial, US style and manner beloved by English comics readers. Although the new title still included fan favourites Fantastic Four and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. reprints filled out the issues, one bold departure was the addition of full colour printing up front for the new hero, and the equivalent back quarter of each issue.

Physics student Brian Braddock was in just the wrong place when raiders attacked the Atomic research centre on Darkmoor, but when he fled the brutal assault he stumbled onto a source of fantastic power and his inescapable destiny. Chosen by the legendary Merlin himself, Braddock was transformed into the symbolic champion of our Island Nation and battled incredible threats as the valiant Captain Britain…

This fifth volume chronologically completes the full-colour adventures of Marvel’s Greatest British super-hero prior to his being conscripted into the X-Men’s ponderous niche-continuity, gathered from Mighty World of Marvel #7-16 and the entire 14 issue run of Captain Britain volume 2 (January 1985-February 1986).

After a brief introductory reminiscence from multi-talented star-turn Alan Davis the action begins with ‘The Candlelight Dialogues’ by Alans Moore and Davis from Mighty World of Marvel #7 (and providing a plot-strand bled dry by Chris Claremont and successive X-Scribes over the next two decades in the US comicbooks)…

Two female internees converse in a prison camp after lights out: recounting tales of a legendary hero who will free them from bondage. The World has been taken over by fascist human forces incarcerating or destroying all the different ones… freaks, mutants, superheroes.

This tale introduces the amazing mystic metamorph Meggan who would become Captain Britain’s long-term inamorata, but the really big reveal is that our world also has a reality-warping Mad Jim Jaspers (see Captain Britain: the Siege of Camelot) – the big difference being that here he won and creation has become his instantly plastic plaything…

Issue #8 sets up a cataclysmic confrontation in ‘The Twisted World (Reprise)’ as infallible hero-killing super-weapon the Fury is still hunting, even though Jaspers has reworked the world into his own twisted version of a totalitarian paradise. Captain Britain, his sister Betsy, Omniversal fugitives Saturnyne and Captain UK, sole survivor of her murdered dimension, lead the last few rebels against the New Reality as Jaspers consolidates his psychotic hold on the nation. The fugitives’ consensus choice is “attack or die”…

Meanwhile in the higher realms, Merlin and his daughter move their human pieces in the great game to save our existence. In ‘Among These Dark Satanic Mills’ the good Captain struggles on but not without telling losses, confronting Jaspers as the madman begins his ascent to literal godhood in ‘Anarchy in the UK’.

Even so the cause seems hopeless until the long forgotten Fury enters the fray on nobody’s side but intent on taking out the greatest threat first in ‘Fool’s Mate’ – the beginning of an unbelievably intense and imaginative battle with Jaspers across the multi-verse using the building blocks of reality as ammunition. The chaotic clash continues in ‘Endgame’ with shocks and surprises aplenty, leading to unexpected victory, the death of a major player and in Mighty World of Marvel #13, ‘A Funeral on Otherworld’.

Moore left the strip with that wrap-up and re-set, leaving artist Davis to write (with the assistance of letterer Steve Craddock) the next episode ‘Bad Moon Rising’ which found the country recovering from the physical and psychic trauma of the Jaspers-Warp and the good Captain taking stock of the nation he represents. A less cosmic, more socially aware phase was beginning, and saw the hero meet the were-creature Meggan and make the most tragic mistake of his career.

‘Tea and Sympathy’ is a mini-masterpiece of sensitive, underplayed writing from Davis, following the hero as he meets the family of a boy who died as result of his actions and presaging the next extended epic, which begins in the Mike Collins co-scripted ‘In All the Old, Familiar Places…’

This last Mighty World of Marvel tale follows Betsy, Meggan and the surviving anti-Jaspers rebels as they take up residence at Braddock Manor, ancestral seat of Captain Britain’s family. However inimical forces are gathering to assault the weary champions and interdimensional raiders keep blipping in and out. Luckily Betsy’s psychic powers keep magnifying in strength…

The feature had been growing in popularity and was considered strong enough to carry its own title once more so in January 1985 Captain Britain volume 2 launched, with a selection of related strips and the Lion of Albion exploding into new adventures scripted by up-and-coming writer Jamie Delano.

‘Pictures, Puzzles and Pawns’ recapped the Captain’s career courtesy of Chief Inspector Dai Thomas, a cop with a grudge against metahumans, who had deduced the hero’s secret identity only to be sidelined by his own bosses. Meanwhile, not all the effects of Jasper’s reality-twisting had faded, and animated Alice in Wonderland characters the Crazy Gang were stranded on Earth with no visible means of support.

Vicious, demented and painfully simplistic, the larcenous loons went looking for a leader in ‘Law and Disorder’ finding instead Captain Britain’s most dangerous enemy whilst yet another trans-dimensional transgressor continued to make life difficult for Brian Braddock and friends…

Issue #3 saw the hero captured by Slaymaster and criminal mastermind Vixen in ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’ and heralded a new and darker hero, whilst ‘Sid’s Story’ (written by Collins and Davis) provided a moody change of pace to leaven a monster story with a mighty dose of pathos, before Delano returned for ‘Double Game’ as the multiversal mercenary squad Gatecrasher’s Technet whisked the Captain to a Britain ruled by Nazis, uncomprehendingly leaving behind his fascist doppelganger to run amok on our world…

Trapped ‘A Long Way From Home’ Brian Braddock and Technet had to fight their way back to our Earth, only to find Betsy’s terrifyingly growing psychic powers had already saved the day, whilst in ‘Things Fall Apart’ the Manor’s sentient super-computer Mastermind reactivated and revealed the true origins and heritage of the Braddock clan…

The secret of Meggan and her true nature came under scrutiny in #8’s ‘Childhood’s End’ and government intelligence unit Resources Control Executive invited themselves to stay, wanting the mansion as an orphanage for “Warpies” – super-powered children mutated by Jaspers’ reality-shifts. Naturally it all went wrong, resulting in a big battle but the ‘Winds of Change’ had unexpected repercussions and Brian and Meggan stormed off, leaving Betsy and Mastermind in the pocket of the RCX.

The Braddock twins had an older brother, and his past exploits dragged the lovers Brian and Meggan into a shocking ‘African Nightmare’ after which the disheartened couple went searching for Meggan’s Romany roots and became ensnared in the mystic horrors of ‘The House of Baba Yaga’, after which Gatecrasher’s Technet shanghaied them to the height of the Incan Empire for a nasty case of “Bait-and-Switch” in ‘Alarms and Excursions’.

Finally home the young lovers found RCX in charge and Betsy had become the new Captain Britain. Furious, Brian quit but was back in the very next issue when Betsy tragically learned the excessively hard way that ‘It’s Hard to Be A Hero…’ written, as was the concluding ‘Should Auld Acquaintance…’ by Davis, wherein the reunited but far from happy family experienced one last hurrah rescuing a Warpy from a exploitation at the hands of a Glasgow vigilante, and still finding space to wrap up all the plot threads in an expansive Happy Ever After…

But wait… there’s more…

One of the back-up strips in Captain Britain was a four-part tale starring a group of Warpy children dubbed the Cherubim, who had escaped RCX control at the end of #11’s ‘Winds of Change’. Written and drawn by Mike Collins with inks by Mark Farmer ‘Playgrounds and Parasites!’ told how the homeless wanderers encountered a Fagin-like young charmer who was gathering Jasper’s mutants into a band for their own protection – and his profit.

That complete saga is re-presented here in the original black and white after which a young Grant Morrison closes the entertainment with a prose tale of alternate champion ‘Captain Granbretan’, lavishly illustrated by John Stokes and ‘A New Vision of Captain Britain’ close the book with a selection of captivating sketches and rare or unseen artwork.

Captain Britain End Game sees the character finally reach the absolute heights of his potential and features some of the industry’s greatest talents at the top of their game. This is not only a wonderful nostalgic collection for old-timers and dedicated fans but also a book full of the best that superhero comics can offer… Some of the very best material ever produced by Marvel, this is a book every reader would be happy to have.

© 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 2011 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries, licensed by Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (A British edition from PANINI UK LTD)

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100 Bullets: The Hard Way

New Extended review

By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-041-0

When as perfect a story-hook as “what if you were given an untraceable gun, one hundred bullets and a damned good reason” is in the creative hands of talents like Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso you know the resultant drama is going to start big and end spectacularly but even after fifty issues the breakneck pace and heart-stopping tension of this series never faltered and indeed intensified…

With this eighth volume The Hard Way (collecting issues #50-58 of the 100 Bullets monthly comic) comes a ramping-up of suspense as a lot of questions are (partially) answered and the myriad players take their positions for the apocalyptic finale – still half a c-note away…

The key piece here is the full, complete and true history of the United States of America and the origins of the Trust: illicit brotherhood of hereditary crime-kings who have controlled the nation since before it even was a country.

In ‘Prey for Reign’ a guy walks into a bar…

So many stories start that way, but when the guy is reactivated Minuteman Victor Ray (100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) and the beer-and-buddies yarn he spins concerns the secret history of America, you’d better listen…

Not long after Columbus stumbled upon America, thirteen European crime-families migrated to his New World and clandestinely carved up the continent between them. When the new nation was born the Trust embedded itself in every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition screwing up the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary taskforce to mediate and police any Trust member or faction acting against the best interests of the whole. Dubbed the Minutemen they were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

A few years ago Trust leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them. Betrayed Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal lying down and has been manipulating events and people to rectify that injustice.

For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets… Now Victor sits in bar spilling secrets, knowing that since all the listeners are murderous thieves awaiting a payoff that will never come, there’s little chance of this history lesson going public…

The Trust is under attack. House leaders have been killed, and as the surviving members convene to utterly rewrite their 400 year old accord, scattered members of Grave’s old team circle in the wings. Wylie Times (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) resurfaces in New Orleans on another mysterious mission and takes up temporary residence in a jazz bar whilst waiting to make his move…

‘Wylie Runs the Voodoo Down’ finds him confronting Trust facilitator/fixer Mr. Shepherd and newest Minuteman Dizzy Cordova (also 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) whilst stumbling onto a particularly grisly murder. Hunted by the brutal killers and torn by guilt over his lost love Rose, Wylie becomes too involved in the tragic lives of (relatively) ordinary folks until the grim reality of his past painfully, horrifyingly reminds him that his old masters have a long reach and their dirty fingers in every pie…

For someone like Wylie however, the safest escape plan is to remove all possible threats and the cataclysmic conclusion of this compulsive seven-chapter saga sees more than one major player taken off the board…

The book ends with ‘Coda smoke’ as dishonoured Minuteman Lono and cellmate Loop Hughes (100 Bullets: Samurai) get a shocking phone call and rush to Shepherd’s aid. It appears the man with all the answers was betrayed by his most trusted agent. How bad must it be if an ex-con and a sociopath with impulse-control issues are the first number on your speed-dial…?

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets imperceptibly grew into a terrifyingly imaginative conspiracy thriller of vast scope and dazzling, intricate detail. Azzarello and Risso have never been accused of underestimating their audience’s intelligence – or appetite for blood, sex, intrigue and action.

If there are still any shock-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this astounding epic crime-thriller yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is yet to come…

© 2004, 2005 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Steven Brust’s Jhereg – A Marvel Graphic Novel


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Superman & Batman: Generations 2


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2001, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1951


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Shadowland


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stormwatch: Lightning Strikes


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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