Author: NowReadThis

Posted on

Gotham Central book 2: Jokers and Madmen


By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Greg Scott, Brian Hurtt, Stephen Gaudiano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2543-8 (TPB)

There are two names horrifically synonymous with Gotham City, USA.

If you’re a cop, you keep your own opinions about the Batman, and it’s pretty much unanimous that the Joker is not someone you ever want to deal with. A madman with a homicidal flair for the theatrical, the clown loves a special occasion. It’s Christmas and it’s started to snow…

One of the greatest rewards of long-lasting, legendary comicbook characters is their infinite potential for innovation and reinterpretation. There always seems to be another facet or aspect to develop. Such is the case in regard to the much-missed spinoff series Gotham Central, wherein cop show sensibilities cannily combined with the deadly drudgery of the long-suffering boys in blue patrolling the world’s most famous four-colour city.

Owing as much to shows like The Rookie, Law & Order, The Shield or Blue Bloods as it did to the baroque continuity of the Dark Knight, the mesmerising tales of the bleakly understated series combined gritty, authentic police action with furtive, soft-underbelly glimpses at what merely mortal peacekeepers have to put up with in a world of psychotic vaudevillians, flying aliens and scumbag hairballs who just won’t stay dead.

This second huge paperback volume (also available in digital formats), collects more urban-level exploits of the hard-pressed peacekeepers of the most dangerous city in America – as first seen in Gotham Central #11-22 and spanning November 2003 to October 2004.

The patrol begins with moodily effulgent introduction ‘Noir Town’ courtesy of crime author Duane Swiercznski and a handy double-page feature re-introducing the hardworking stiffs of First Shift, Second Shift and the Police Support team comprising the ‘Gotham City Police Department, Major Crimes Unit’ before the dark dramas resume…

First up is uncharacteristic tearjerker ‘Daydreams and Believers’ by Ed Brubaker, Brian Hurtt and colourist Lee Loughridge which explores the GCPD’s strange relationship with the masked manhunter who unwelcomely assists their efforts.

They all know he’s out there, but the official line is that he’s an urban myth and the Administration refuses to acknowledge his existence. Thus, civilian receptionist Stacy is the only person allowed to operate the rooftop bat-signal whenever crises occur, whilst the public are informed that the eerie light is simply used to keep the cowardly, stupid, superstitious underworld cowed…

Here, however, we get a glimpse into the shy lamplighter’s inner thoughts as she observes the fractious byplay of the MCU regulars: all getting by thinking they’re fooling everyone else with their jealous bitching, petty sniping and tawdry clandestine affairs.

It’s all okay, though. Stacy has her own world to retreat into: one where the mighty Batman is her enigmatic but passionate lover…

The main event opens with a Yuletide shopping panic that looks to be the most memorable ever. Crafted by Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark & Stephen Gaudiano, ‘Soft Targets’ finds the entire Major Crimes Unit frantically hunting a sniper randomly shooting citizens. Things get even nastier and more fraught after Mayor Dickerson is killed as he consults with new Police Commissioner Michael Akins.

The ruthless shooter guns down a school teacher and the medical examiner collecting her body and soon the pre-Christmas streets are deserted. The assassin then identifies himself by launching a website promoting “Batman for Mayor” and the appalled police realise just who they’re dealing with…

As Stacy turns on the roof signal her greatest wish comes true at last as the Gotham Guardian sweeps her off her feet… microseconds before a fusillade of shots nearly makes her the latest statistic…

As the Dark Knight vanishes into the snowy darkness after the maniac, Gotham’s Finest get back to their meticulous police work, tracking ballistics and hunting for the website’s point of origin. Mounting media frenzy and their own frustration lead to crippling tension and soon they’re all at each other’s throats, before a potentially nasty situation is immediately curtailed by a new posting…

A live web-cam feed starts, counting down to a fresh victim somewhere in the huge terrified powder-keg conurbation…

As the cops pull out all the stops to identify the building on-screen and resort to old dependables, such as violently rousting the Harlequin of Hate’s (surviving) former flunkies, the scene suddenly changes. Now it shows prime media pain-in-the-neck Angie Molina as a captive of the killer clown: stashed somewhere anonymous and slowly ticking down to a bloody and show-stopping demise…

And just when things can’t get any crazier, The Joker turns himself in…

Even the insufferably cocky kook’s capture doesn’t halt the slaughter, since the proudly Machiavellian perpetrator can carry on killing by pre-programmed remote control even as he languishes in a cell…

When Lt. Ron Probson elects to go all “old school” in his interview with the loon, it only results in his own death and the clown’s escape. Stacy barely avoids death a second time because Captain Maggie Sawyer saves her questions for later and shoots first – and often…

Working a lead, Detectives Nate Patton and Romy Chandler have meanwhile found the captive reporter and realised the Joker’s convoluted, mass-murderous endgame, but even with Batman on scene they don’t all make it out…

‘Life is Full of Disappointments’ (Brubaker and Rucka with art from Greg Scott) then focuses on disgruntled Second Shift veteran Jackson “Sarge” Davies who is still chafing at once again being passed over for promotion – especially as prissy new Day Shift commander David Cornwell has been parachuted in from outside the unit to run things…

As the squad come back from burying their dead, Sarge and partner Nelson Crowe catch a nasty case: a dead girl in a dumpster. However, Stephanie Becker was no lost indigent or fun-loving party girl killed for the contents of her purse. She worked in accounting at prestigious Washburn Pharmaceuticals and was killed with an exotic toxin…

As the grizzled old-timers methodically work the facts, they connect a succession of odd occurrences which lead them to First Shift colleagues Tommy Burke and Dagmar Procjnow, currently investigating the suspicious death of middle aged widow Maryellen Connolly. She is a still-warm stiff previously employed in the same office and slain the same way…

All the evidence seems to point to an unsanctioned million-dollar deficit and deep Mafia involvement at the Pharma factory, but the diligent detectives keep pushing and discover a far older possible motive for the murders…

This gritty grimoire of Gotham atrocity ends with the bleakly chilling ‘Unresolved’ (Brubaker, Lark & Gaudiano from issues #19-22) which features the reappearance of conflicted fan-favourite and all-around slob Harvey Bullock after the GCPD reopen a landmark cold case.

Marcus Driver and new partner Josie Mac are called to a hostage situation where a deranged perp continually screams about voices in his head before eating his own shotgun…

The troubled stiff was Kenny Booker – sole survivor of an infamous High School bombing which shocked the city eight years previously – and the fresh tragedy compels Driver to take another look at the still-unsolved mystery…

The “Gotham Hawks” were a championship school baseball team eradicated in a locker room explosion, but every effort of Bullock and his squad could never pin down a single solid lead. However, when Marcus and Josie re-examine the accumulated evidence, they find a potential link to one of Batman’s weirdest and creepiest foes.

It’s not enough and they are forced to call in the disgraced ex-cop for a consult. The move is a huge mistake as they are utterly unprepared for the fallout when Bullock talks to them.

Apparently, the legendary maverick was fired after arranging the death of a killer the law couldn’t touch, and he took to drowning his days in booze. However, this case has haunted Harvey for years and now that he sees a possible solution, he goes completely off the rails in his hunger to finish things.

The trouble is that even now the facts tumbling in are increasingly pointing to a completely different culprit from the one Bullock always suspected, but the fixated former lawman just won’t listen…

Going on a rampage, he courts death by brutalising malevolent mobster The Penguin whilst miles away another suspect, galvanised after years of apparent anonymity, breaks out of Arkham Asylum and goes hunting…

Even after all this, the true story is far more twisted than the bewildered detectives could have possibly imagined and the eventual conclusion destroys further lives, sanity and honour before the dust at last settles…

From an era when comicbook noir was enjoying a superb renaissance, these classic thrillers are masterpieces of edgy, fast-paced tension packed with layers of human drama, tension, stress and suspense.

Solid gritty police drama seamlessly blended with the grisly fantasy of the modern superhero seems like a strange brew, but it delivers knockout punches time after time in this captivating series which was the notional inspiration for Gotham TV series outlining just how Batman’s city got that way…
© 2003, 2004, 2009, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Der Struwwelmaakies


By Tony Millionaire and guests (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1560976547 (HB)

As a career and lifestyle, cartooning has far more than its share of individuals with a unique view of and response to the world. Ronald Searle, Charles Addams, George Herriman, Gerald Scarfe, Rick Geary, Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Gary Larson, Steve Bell, Richard Thompson – the list is potentially endless. Perhaps it’s the power to create entire sculptured worlds, coupled with the constant catharsis of vented spleen that so colours their work – whether they paint or draw – or maybe it’s simply the crucible of constant deadlines that makes their efforts so addictive and effective.

Der Struwwelmaakies is the fourth collection (featuring material from 2003-2004 and available in both landscape hardback and digital formats) of the magnificent Tony Millionaire’s impossibly addictive and distressingly wonderful weekly newspaper strip which ran in America and selected international venues from February 1994 to December 2016. Client papers included The New York Press, and the feature was widely syndicated in US alternative newspapers such as LA Weekly and The Stranger, and comics magazines such as Linus and Rocky. There was even an animated series on Time-Warner’s Adult Swim strand.

It’s clear that Time never withered his infinitely grotesque variety and perspectives one little bit. It seems he was always Like That…

The man loves to draw and does it very, very well; referencing classical art, timeless children’s book illustration, Moby Dick and nautical adventure novels as well as an eclectic mix of pioneering comics draughtsmen like George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray, Elzie Segar and George Herriman. The result of seamlessly blending their styles and sensibilities with European engravings masters from the “legitimate” side of the storytelling picture racket is a uniquely bracing cartoon experience…

Born Scott Richardson, he especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as definitive formative influences.

With a variety of graphical strings to his bow – such as his own coterie of books for children (including the superbly stirring Billy Hazelnuts series) – animations and his legendary Sock Monkey stories – Mr. Millionaire folded his strip when he felt that there were no longer enough newspaper and magazines to support it, but in its heyday Maakies was a deliciously deeply disturbing weekly treat detailing the riotously vulgar, violent, scatalogical and absurdly surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his fellow macro-alcoholic and nautical mis-adventurer Drinky Crow.

They are abetted but never aided by a peculiarly twisted, off-kilter cast of reprobates, antagonists and confrontational well-wishers, such as Drunken Cop, old Wachtel, The Captain’s Daughter and avian Aunt Phoebe whilst constantly opposed by a nefarious French crocodile dubbed The Frenchman. Or not. It depends…

Also on hand and all at sea are a legion of monsters, devils and horrible hangers-on…

In the grand tradition of the earliest US newspaper cartoon features, each episode comes with a linked mini-feature running across the foot of the strip – although often that link is quite hard to ascertain.

Notionally based in a nautical setting of rip-roaring 19th century sea-faring situations, replete with maritime perils and stunning vistas, the dark-and-bitter comical instalments vary from staggeringly rude and crude through absolutely hysterical to conceptually impenetrable, with content and gags utterly unfettered by the bounds of taste or any acquiescence to wholesome fun-squelching decency.

Millionaire cheekily promoted his other creative endeavours in his Maakies pages, digressed into autobiography and personal rants, brought in selected guest creators to mess with his toys and invited the readership to contribute ideas, pictures and objects of communal interest to the mix – especially any tattoos his dedicated readership could be bothered to despatch…

This penetratingly incisive, witty and often poignant cartoon arena was his personal playground and if you didn’t like it, you should leave… but quietly please, ’cause there’s a hangover going on here most days…

Continuity plays second fiddle to an avalanche of inventive ideas and outré action, so the strips can be read in almost any order, and the debauched drunkenness, manic ultra-violence (in the manner of the best Tom & Jerry or Itchy & Scratchy cartoons), acerbic view of sexuality and deep core of existentialist angst still finds a welcome with Slackers, Laggards, the un-Christian and all those scurrilous, lost Generations after X, as well as everyone addicted to bad taste tomfoolery.

This sizzling sampler provides – in indisputable monochrome – still more of the wonderful same with such spit-take, eye-watering, drink-coming-out-of-your-nose moments as how to sabotage and scupper circumcisions with Faux-Skinâ„¢, Zen Master’s Secret to Life, the danger of widdling in rivers during thunderstorms, Maakies Foto Funnies, The Amazing Spider-Fly, Albert Einstone, the Neanderthal Genius and numerous other reasons to welcome the inescapable alcoholocaust to come…

Guest artists this time around include Rick Detorie, Phoebe, Jim Campbell and Kaz and all the timeless themes Millionaire specialises in are on show: mandatory variations of sordid sexual encounters, ghastly interspecies progeny, assorted single entendres, bodily function lectures and misfires and gory death-scenes share space with some of literature’s greatest poets and sots – who never knew what hit them. There’s even room for a wealth of anti-war commentary from the early days of America’s 21st century Middle East misadventures…

If you’re not easily upset this is a spectacularly funny and rewarding strip, one of the most consistently creative and entertaining in existence, so if you can thrive on gorge-rousing gags and mind-bending rumination this is an experience you simply cannot deny yourself.
© Tony Millionaire. All rights reserved. This edition © 2005 Fantagraphics Books.

Posted on

Adventures of Tintin: The Red Sea Sharks


By Hergé, Bob De Moor, Roger Leloup and others, translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner (Egmont UK)
ISBN: 978-1-40520-818-5 (HB) 978-140520-630-3 (TPB)

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé, created a timeless masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and entourage of iconic associates.

Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor and other supreme stylists of the Hergé Studio, he created 23 splendid volumes (originally serialised in instalments for a variety of newspaper periodicals) which have grown beyond their pop culture roots to attain the status of High Art.

On leaving school in 1925, Remi worked for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtiéme Siécle where he fell under the influence of its Svengali-esque editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A devoted boy scout, a year later the artist produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for monthly Boy Scouts of Belgium magazine. By 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of the newspaper’s weekly children’s supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

While illustrating The Adventures of Flup, N̩nesse, Poussette and Cochonette Рwritten by the staff sports reporter РWallez asked Remi to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who roamed the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

The rest is history…

Some of that history is quite dark: During the Nazi Occupation of Belgium, Le Vingtiéme Siécle was closed down and Hergé was compelled to move his supremely popular strip to daily newspaper Le Soir (Brussels’ most prominent French-language periodical, and thus appropriated and controlled by the Nazis).

He diligently toiled on for the duration, but following Belgium’s liberation was accused of collaboration and even being a Nazi sympathiser. It took the intervention of Belgian Resistance war-hero Raymond Leblanc to dispel the cloud over Hergé, which he did by simply vouching for the cartoonist. Leblanc also provided cash to create a new magazine – Le Journal de Tintin – which he published and managed. The anthology comic swiftly achieved a weekly circulation in the hundreds of thousands, which allowed the artist and his team to remaster past tales: excising material dictated by the occupiers and unwillingly added to ideologically shade the war time adventures. The modernising exercise generally improved and updated the great tales, just in time for Tintin to become a global phenomenon.

With World War II over and his reputation restored, Hergé entered the most successful period of his artistic career. He had mastered his storytelling craft, possessed a dedicated audience eager for his every effort and was finally able to say exactly what he wanted in his work, free from fear or censure. Although Hergé’s later life was plagued by personal and health problems, this only seemed to enhance his storytelling abilities.

Coke en stock began initial serialisation in Le Journal de Tintin from 31st October 1956 and on completion (1st January 1958) issue was collected into album form. In 1960 it voyaged across the channel to become The Adventures of Tintin: The Red Sea Sharks: a slick, perfectly polished comedy thriller, rife with intrigue and camaraderie. Even after decades it reads as a fresh and challenging romp ideal for young and old alike.

The Red Sea Sharks has lost none of its original contemporary urgency. Produced during the turbulent times that led to the Middle Eastern Suez Crisis, it remains worryingly relevant with nations and mad millionaires carrying out proxy wars amidst the sand dunes and shipping lanes…

The yarn reintroduces Emir Ben Kalish Ezab (from Land of Black Gold) whose oil-rich country is in the throes of a civil war manufactured by the moneyed powers of the West. Fearful of the consequences, the hard-pressed potentate sends his son Abdullah to stay with Captain Haddock at rural Marlinspike Hall, unaware that the old dipsomaniac and Tintin are currently embroiled in a minor mystery involving former south American dictator General Alcazar (The Broken Ear), cheap war surplus aircraft and a hidden criminal mastermind…

As eager to escape the infernal practical jokes of the incorrigible Prince Abdullah as to solve the case, the heroic pair trace the trail of the sinister arms dealers and soon find themselves back in the Desert Kingdom of Khemed.

The Europeans are closely monitored and arrive as unwelcome intruders after the rebels defeat the Emir and drive him into hiding, thanks to their illicitly gained fighter planes. When a hidden bomb leaves Tintin’s plane wrecked in the wastelands, the indomitable pair trek overland into enemy territory before finally finding the Emir-in-hiding.

Here they learn the coup has been instigated by the Marquis di Gorgonzola, an enigmatic self-made millionaire whose vast commercial interests are supplemented by selling into slavery pilgrims undertaking the Hajj to Mecca!

Hot on the trail, the pair take ship for that holy city but are strafed by warplanes. Shooting one down they rescue the pilot, but when they and their new-found ally are rescued by Gorgonzola’s yacht, Tintin discovers that one of his oldest foes is behind it all…

This spectacular high-adventure, despite its political and moral underpinnings, is primarily an action yarn with plenty of twists and turns and a terrific feel-good climax.
The Red Sea Sharks: artwork © 1958, 1986 Editions Casterman, Paris & Tournai. Text © 1960 Egmont UK Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Why Art? (Fourth Edition)


By Eleanor Davis (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-082-9 (PB)

Probably everybody here will agree that comics is art sequentially wedded to pictures. However, when asked to define what constitutes “Art”, the answers become a little more nuanced and open to debate. What’s needed is someone sharp, talented and well-travelled – preferably a practitioner – who can give us all a full and final assessment…

Eleanor Davis is one of those rare sparks that just can’t help making great comics. Born in 1983 and growing up in Tucson, Arizona, she was blessed with parents who immersed their child in classic strip literature such as Little Nemo, Little Lulu and Krazy Kat.

Following unconventional schooling and teen years spent making minicomics, Davis studied at Georgia’s prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design, where she now teaches. Her own innovative works have appeared in diverse places such as Mome, Nobrow and Lucky Peach.

A life of glittering prizes began after her award-winning easy reader book Stinky was released in 2008. Davis subsequently followed up with gems such as The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (with her husband Drew Weing), You & a Bike & a Road and How to be Happy. Who better, then, to lay to rest possibly the most infuriating conundrum of the modern age?

In 2018, Fantagraphics released Why Art?, based on elements of her presentation for ICON: The Illustration Conference 9. The result is a whimsical exploration of what the term means – albeit seen through the lens of one of the slyest, driest and most cultured senses of humour in the business…

If you can keep your own wits about you, in this deliriously addictive paperback/eBook you will glean potential solutions to perennial mysteries all de- and re-mystified in chapters on ‘Color’ as interpreted through scale; ‘What is our audience searching for’ via an examination of Masks; how to use physical and metaphorical ‘Mirrors’ and how some art is ‘Edible’…

Narrative fully enters the frame in a section on ‘Concealment artworks’ and the liberational force of ‘Shadowbox’ creations. which serves to introduce a repertory cast of creatives who work in different media and then take us on their shared journey of catastrophic revelation…

Wry and surreal, strong>Why Art? is a delicious tease and poker of hornets’ nests that slickly tackles loads of old, overused questions while offering a few new queries you never thought of…

It’s also beautifully drawn and rendered: A brilliant diversion combining wit and wisdom in a manner every self-accused intellectual and unrepentant picture lover can revel in.
© Eleanor Davis 2018. This edition © 2018 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Thor Marvel Masterworks volume 12


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, John Buscema, Marie Severin, Don Perlin, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6621-4 (HB)

Disabled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an ancient walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder!

Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked.
Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, usually tackled with an ever-changing cast of stalwart immortal warriors at his side…

Having recently returned to Earth after interstellar escapades and bravely enduring exile from the gleaming spires of Asgard, our peripatetic cast await fresh challenges as this bombastic compendium (available in hardcover and digital formats and reprinting Mighty Thor #206-216, which span December 1972-October 1973) opens. The narrative wonderment begins following more candid revelations and contextual history from scripter Gerry Conway in his Introduction ‘The Anarchist’s Comic Book’…

A new chapter opens when the Earthbound godling clashes brutally but inconclusively with an uncharacteristically amok Absorbing Man Crusher Creel, just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaces in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

After a destructive but inconclusive clash in the city, Thor tracks the escaped Creel to Rutland, Vermont just in time for their annual Halloween festival. Here Thor and goddesses Sif and Hildegarde clash with malevolent Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of quirky comic creator cameos (with the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to John Buscema & Vince Colletta’s workmanlike illustration). Another extended sub-plot opens here as Sif vanishes, spirited away to the ends of the universe by lovelorn Norn Queen Karnilla …

Sci fi themes predominate #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifests, stealing the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly, they are insufficient and the malevolent Mercurio is compelled to tap his source directly, resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gives way to the despair of exile and constant loss…

Ceaselessly searching for Sif, Thor stops over in London (not one any Briton would ever recognise, though) in #209. It’s just long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge and the resultant clash between Thunder God and Demon Druid devastates much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’, before our globe-girdling hero is ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210’s ‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!’ (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta).

The People’s Army are merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik has decided to conquer both his own people and Earth and moves pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equation…

With New York City invaded by Troll warriors, #211 highlights ‘The End of the Battle!’ (Buscema, Perlin & Colletta) as fellow exiles and Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim join the fray.

The fighting mad Asgardians route the underworld insurgents just as a now-insane Balder returns to warn that Asgard had been conquered. With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions are soon hot on the trail of their missing race.

Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, they undertake a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 and discover their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction block…

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ depicts Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a civil war between slaver races before discovering Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his father. He also obtains a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging his small but dedicated band of brothers recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (by Conway, Sal Buscema & Jim Mooney) to rescue the missing maidens from the asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They find their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who are intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events take an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbs the women into its crystalline mass and flies off, intent on dominating all life in the universe…

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strive together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’, set on freeing the women and stopping the rapacious gem-god, but even after eventual victory leaves them tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials are not done.
To Be Continued…
© 1972, 1973, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine


By Jason Aaron, Adam Kubert & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0785140801 (TPB)

Remember when comic stories were fun, thrilling and, best of all, joyously uncomplicated? Here’s one of those…

Eschewing mind-boggling continuity-links and crossover overload, writer Jason Aaron and artist Adam Kubert – with the impressive support of inkers Mark Morales, Dexter Vines & Mark Roslan (as well as colourist Justin Ponsor and letterer Rob Steen) – simply set out to craft a well-told, action-packed and even poignant time-travel fun-fest that does everything right… and superbly succeeded. The result was 6-issue miniseries Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine.

Without giving away too much delicious detail (trust me you’ll be grateful once you read the full epic adventure) 65-million years ago, as a giant asteroid hurtles towards Earth and an impact which will wipe out the dinosaurs and at least two emergent species of proto-hominid, a warring couple of marooned superheroes from the 21st century sadly make peace with their fate if not each other…

Lost in time for months through the most ridiculous of circumstances, Wolverine and Peter Parker are ready to die. The feral mutant has become leader of the smart but diminutive Small People, leading them to salvation from the predations of their giant evolutionary rivals the Kill People and all other threats, whilst the erstwhile Spider-Man has isolated himself from all contact, terrified of rewriting the future even if he is no longer part of it.

Moreover, Parker’s dreams are haunted by a woman he doesn’t know, but who has become the only thing he cares for…

At a most precipitous moment, the pair are snatched from their time zone and returned to what appears to be an utterly devastated present. The Small People have survived humanity’s fall and are new rulers of a shattered society, but are currently at risk of losing their own shot as overlords of Earth. A fresh Armageddon from leftover human technology, a time-travelling z-list villain and a terrifying sentient planet with the ghost consciousness of Doctor Doom appears to be about to end civilisation one more time…

After Wolverine saves the day and is brought back from beyond death by Parker, they are separated in time and dumped at significant and harrowing moments of each other’s early life; but all the while sinister forces wielded by a hidden cosmic mastermind are manipulating not just the heroes but time itself…

After literally saving the world and perhaps the universe, the heroes are still hunted and continually assaulted by Temporal Gangstas The Czar and Big Murder, until Spider-Man and Wolverine finally strike back and seemingly triumph, only to be stranded in the American West for years…

At least this time Peter is happily united with the mysterious girl of his dreams.

However, the epic is far from finished and heartbreak is just around the chronal corner…

Fast-paced, spectacular, incredibly ingenious and uproariously witty, this tale – available in trade paperback and digital editions – is a sparkling timeless gem and the perfect antidote for over-angsty costumed drama overload.
© 2012 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Thor Epic Collection volume 5: 1970-1971 The Fall of Asgard


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Neal Adams & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1274-1 (TPB)

The Mighty Thor was the title in which Jack Kirby’s restless fascination with the Cosmic Unknown was honed and refined through his dazzling graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s career-defining string of power-packed signature pantheons all stemmed from a modest little fantasy/monster title called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by fledgling Marvel Comics to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This bombastic full-colour trade paperback tome – also available in eFormats – re-presents Kirby’s final Asgardian exploits and the exemplary efforts of his unlucky over-pressured successors. Taken from Thor #175-194, the sagas collectively cover April 1970-December 1971, as universe-builder King Kirby abandoned the worlds he’d tirelessly cultivated with Stan Lee for the hopefully fresher fields of DC Comics and a cosmos uniquely his own…

What needs knowing: Once upon a time lonely, lamed American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder!

Without any hesitation or preamble, the reborn godling was soon defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As months swiftly passed, rapacious extra-terrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. Eventually the magnificent warrior’s ever-expanding world of Asgard was a regular feature and mesmerising milieu for the hero’s earlier adventures, heralding a fresh era of cosmic fantasy to run almost tangentially to the company’s signature superhero sagas. With a further revelation that Don Blake had never existed: but was a spell crafted to teach an arrogant god humility and humanity…

The astounding action begins here behind a Marie Severin cover as ‘The Fall of Asgard!’ (Lee, Kirby & inker Bill Everett) sees valiant Asgardian Balder and his Warriors Three allies Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg escape the clutches of lovestruck sorceress Karnilla only to confront the assemble hordes of giants and trolls marching on the Home of the Gods.

With All-Father Odin incapacitated by his annual Great Sleep, Loki has perfidiously seized the throne forcing war-goddess Sif to call Thor back home for perhaps the Last Battle…

Inked by Vince Colletta, ‘Inferno!’ reveals the folly of the usurper as terrifying fire-demon Surtur breaks free of ancient Odinian captivity to begin his pre-ordained task of burning down the universe.

With everything appearing ‘To End in Flames!’, Loki flees to Earth, having first hidden Odin’s sleeping form in the life-inimical Sea of Eternal Night. As Thor leads a heroic Horatian last stand, Balder penetrates the Dimension of Death to rescue the All-Father just as Surtur fires up for his fulminating final foray…

Thor #178 (July 1970) was a shock and is a landmark: the first issue without Jack Kirby since the strip’s earliest days. Clearly a try-out or hasty fill-in yarn, ‘Death is a Stranger’ – by Lee, John Buscema & Colletta – depicts the Thunderer snatched away from Asgard by the nefarious Abomination and duped into an epic clash with the alien Stranger: an extra-galactic powerhouse who collects unique beings for scientific study…

Inked by John Verpoorten, the interrupted epic riotously resumed in #179 with ‘No More the Thunder God!’ as Thor, Sif and Balder are dispatched to Earth to arrest the fugitive Loki. This issue was Kirby’s last: he left the entire vast unfolding new mythology on a monumental cliffhanger just as the Thunder God is ambushed by his wicked step-brother. Using arcane magic, the Lord of Evil switches bodies with his noble sibling and gains safety and the power of the Storm whilst Thor is doomed to endure whatever punishment Odin decrees…

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

Although what followed contained the trappings and even spirit of that incredible marriage, the heart, soul and soaring, unfettered wonderment just were not there any longer: nor would they truly return until 1983 when Walt Simonson assumed creative control with #337 (see Mighty Thor: the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill).

Here, however, ‘When Gods Go Mad!’ introduced the radically different style of Neal Adams to the mix, inked by the comfortably familiar Joe Sinnott, as the true Thunderer is sent to Hell and the tender mercies of Mephisto, whilst on Earth Loki uses his brother’s body to terrorise the UN Assembly and declare himself Master of the World…

In #181’s ‘One God Must Fall’ Sif leads the Warriors Three on a rescue mission to the Infernal Realm even as Balder struggles to combat the power of Thor merged with the magic and malice of Loki until Mephisto is thwarted. Then, a cataclysmic battle of brothers on Earth subsequently sets the world to rights…

The new Post-Kirby era truly began with Thor #182, as John Buscema took up the artistic reins and began his own epic run as illustrator with ‘The Prisoner… The Power… and… Dr. Doom!’

The Storm Lord is unwillingly entangled in Earthly politics when a young girl entreats him to rescue her father from the deadly Iron Monarch of Latveria. The noble scion cannot refuse, especially as the missing parent is an expert on missile technology and is capable of making Doom the master of ICBM warfare…

The decidedly down-to-Earth and mismatched melodrama concludes with Don Blake ‘Trapped in Doomsland!’ until Thor can retrieve his misappropriated mallet, but even after his deadly mission of mercy is accomplished, tragedy is his only reward…

Comfortably settled in Lee, Buscema & Joe Sinnott began crafting their own ambitious cosmic saga, opening with #184 and exploring ‘The World Beyond!’ wherein an implacable, sinister force is discovered devouring the outer galaxies, with psychic reverberations of the horrific events impacting and unravelling life on Earth and in Asgard. With all creation imperilled, Odin departs to combat the enigmatic threat alone…

Sam Grainger inked ‘In the Grip of Infinity!’, as universal calamity intensifies and the All-Father falls to the enigmatic, seemingly all-consuming invader before ‘Worlds at War!’ exposes a hidden architect behind the ultimate Armageddon. That revelation leads to a desperate last-ditch ploy, uniting the forces of Good and Evil together in ‘The World is Lost!’ before one final clash – inked by Jim Mooney – answers all the questions before celebrating ‘The End of Infinity!’

Although vast in scope and drenched in powerful moments highlighting the human side of the gods in extremis, this tale suffers from an excess of repetitive padding and a rather erratic pace. Without pause, though, we plunge on as Thor #189 sees sepulchral goddess Hela come calling, demanding Thor feel ‘The Icy Touch of Death!’ to pay for all the souls she didn’t get in the recent sidereal showdown…

After a big chase around planet Earth she is finally dissuaded in ‘…And So, To Die!’, but the distraction has meanwhile allowed ever-opportunistic Loki to seize the Throne of Asgard and unleash ‘A Time of Evil!’ This typically tyrannical behaviour results in the deranged despot using Odin’s stolen power to manifest an unstoppable artificial hunter/killer dubbed Durok the Demolisher. Unleashing his merciless engine of destruction on Earth, Loki gloats at the ‘Conflagration!’ (Grainger inks) he has instigated…

Completing the retiring of the Old Guard, Gerry Conway came aboard as writer for double-length tale ‘What Power Unleashed?’ (#193, with Sal Buscema augmenting and inking brother John) to conclude the epic tale. Prevented by vows from taking up arms against Loki’s puppet, Balder and Sif cunningly enlist the Silver Surfer to aid the embattled Thunderer as Asgard totters on the brink of total destruction.

Free to act against the real enemy, Thor then retaliates with staggering power and ‘This Fatal Fury!’: occupying the usurper’s full and furious attention until wily All-Father Odin finally resumes his rightful place.

To be continued…

The Kirby Thor will always be a high-point in graphic fantasy, all the more impressive for the sheer imagination and timeless readability of the tales. With his departure the series foundered for the longest time before finding a new identity, yet even so the stories in this volume are still packed with intrigue and action and magnificently rendered by an illustrator who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, was every inch his equal in craft and dedication. This book (which also includes his covers to Thor Annuals #3 and 4, plus the unused cover to #175, inked by John Verpoorten, pertinent house ads and a selection of Buscema original art pages and covers) is an absolute must for all fans of the medium, and all disciples of the modern Norse gods.
© 1970, 1971, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Spider-Man: Fever


By Brendan McCarthy & Steve Cook, with Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 987-0-7851-4125-9 (TPB)

Peter Parker was a smart, alienated kid when he was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school trip. Developing astonishing abilities – augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the boy did what any lonely, unappreciated, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: try to cash in for girls, fame and money…

Hiding behind a home-made costume (in case he fails and makes a fool of himself), Parker becomes a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief flees past him one night, the cocky teen doesn’t lift a finger to stop him. When the boy returns home that night, he learns that his beloved guardian uncle Ben Parker has been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunts the assailant who made his devoted Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, and discovers, to his horror, that it is the self-same felon he neglected to stop. The traumatised boy is fixated on the fact that his irresponsibility resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and swears to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night he has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them…

It wasn’t too long after his spectacular launch that Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s astonishing Spider-Man proved himself a contemporary hero who fitted every possible milieu and scenario; equally at home against cheap hoods, world-busting super-menaces or the oddest of alien incursions, and this superbly outré modern masterpiece – available in trade paperback and digital formats – celebrates that astounding versatility by reprising one of the most brilliantly bizarre team-ups from the early Marvel Age.

The legendary classic first meeting of Mystic Master and Wondrous Wallcrawler occurred in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 and it’s rightly included at the end of this beguiling tome featuring über-imaginatively narrative art trendsetter Brendan McCarthy’s tribute to Ditko’s dazzling graphic magic.

London-born McCarthy came to prominence in comics on 2000AD before branching out into international comics stardom whilst pursuing parallel careers in film, television and design. His most notable works range from Strange Days and Paradax to Judge Dredd, The Zaucer of Zilk, Zenith, Skin, Rogan Gosh, Dream Gang and innumerable stunning covers. His moving media credits include The Storyteller, Highlander, Lost in Space, Reboot, Mad Max 4: Fury Road and so much more.

Collected here is a digitally-psychedelic, intoxicatingly appealing 3-issue miniseries from 2010 and produced for the mature-audience Marvel Knights sub-imprint. Written and illustrated by McCarthy with lettering and additional colouring from old comrade Steve Cook, it begins with the web-spinner battling frequent flyer archfoe The Vulture even as Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange explores a few Outer Realms and inadvertently activates an ancient trap set in an old grimoire – the Lost Journal of Albion Crowley…

The “webwaze” energy escapes into the very architecture and infrastructure of New York City, finding its way to the cornered Vulture: possessing the bad old bird before passing through him, permeating and infecting the Friendly Neighbourhooded one…

When Strange further examines the cursed chronicle, he discovers the sorry tale of Crowley and his unlucky acolyte Victor Neumenon, whose long ago trans-dimensional forays led them into fateful contact with cosmically peripheral spider-demons dubbed Arachnix, lurking in the darkest corners and crannies of Creation.

Both were subjected to unimaginable atrocity at the many hands of the hairy horrors, but only Crowley returned to recount his experiences, and spin their adventures his way…

Meanwhile, ensorcelled Spider-Man, reeling in delirious torment, has instinctively crawled into the bathroom of Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum where his now-tainted soul is suddenly snatched away by arcane Arachnix-Hunter Daddy Longlegs, who drags the essence of the hero to its hideous homelands to be devoured by the ghastly King Korazon…

Arriving too late to assist, the Master of the Mystic Arts gives chase through increasingly impossible planes of existence, following the ethereal webwaze paths in his frenzied attempts to save his old friend from utter horror and eternal damnation…

Along the way the wizard meets keenly helpful void-dwellers Fetch Doggy Fetch and Pugly, even as Peter Parker’s enmeshed spirit faces consumption by the Eight-Legged Tribe. Somehow, however, the hero’s dual nature confounds the beasts. They cannot determine if he is Spider – and therefore kin – or Man, and thus the most appealing meal ever presented to any Arachnix…

To decide his prey’s future fate Korazon despatches the befuddled soul-shell through the Insect Gate to catch the fabled feast known as the Sorror-Fly from the home dimension of all arthropods. If the arbitrary man-spider can snare the elusive treat he is their brother, but if he returns empty-handed, he’s just lunch…

Whilst the englamoured hero hunts in the insect realm, Strange rescues fellow Earth-born traveller Ms. Ningirril, long-trapped during her own dimensional Walkabout. In gratitude, the Antipodean wanderer provides the mage with useful intelligence, sound advice and a safer, swifter means of navigating his search for Spider-Man…

In a fantastic City of Termites our befuddled hero has succeeded in his task and is dragging the woeful Sorror-Fly back to the Arachnix: further succumbing with each passing moment to the inexorable, bestial allure of his Spider side, even as his garrulous meal relates the dread history of the insect dimension and a prophecy of telling magnitude.

When the Sorcerer Supreme and his allies fortuitously arrive, the Fly transforms back to a form he has not held for over a century, presaging the redemption and cure of the fallen Wall-crawler and a spectacular end to an infinitude of eight-legged terrors…

Bold, ambitious and visually compelling and off the wall, this superb magical mystery tour is perfectly augmented here by that aforementioned first meeting…

In 1965 Steve Ditko was blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential, daringly different superhero. Amazing Spider-Man King Size Annual #2 revealed ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’: introducing the webslinger to other realities after he accidentally interrupts an attack by wannabe wizard Xandu upon the Master of the Mystic Arts.

The villain had stolen the puissant Wand of Watoomb from Strange to achieve ultimate power, and when that pesky, interfering Spider-Man butts in, the power-crazed dilettante exiles him to an alien dimension – but not before the hero’s webbing snatches the arcane artefact from Xandu’s hand and takes it with him…

Cue an involuntary incredible journey to phantasmagorical, mind-bending worlds pursued by unstoppable zombie slaves and a desperately determined Doctor Strange in a dimension-hopping masterpiece of mystery and imagination…

Moody, creepy and staggeringly engrossing, this eerie eldritch escapade also includes the author/artist’s ‘Notes on the Design and Story Ideas for Spider-Man: Fever’ – a selection of commentary, roughs and sketches offering a fascinating glimpse of into the creative process of a truly unique talent, as well as a selection of Ditko pinups detailing the M.O.’s of The Circus of Crime, The Scorpion, The Beetle, Jonah’s Robot and the Crime-Master…

Here’s another superb and crucial selection starring the timeless teen icon, superhero symbol and big screen superstar fans just cannot afford to do without
© 1965 and 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos Epic Collection: Volume 1: 1963-1965: The Howling Commandos


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers, with George Roussos, Steve Ditko, Frank Giacoia, Chic Stone & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1657-2 (TPB)

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos began as an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous WWII combat comics series similar in tone to later ensemble action movies such as The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch and The Dirty Dozen. The surly squad of sorry reprobates premiered in May 1963; one of three teams concocted by men-on-fire Jack Kirby & Stan Lee to secure fledgling Marvel’s growing position as the publisher to watch.

Two years later Fury’s post-war self was retooled as the big-name star of a second series (beginning with Strange Tales #135, August 1965) when espionage shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the 007 film franchise became global sensations.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Domination by subversive all-encompassing hidden enemy organisations: with captivating super-science gadgetry and iconic imagineering from Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko.

For all that time, however, the original wartime version soldiered on (sorry: puns are my weapon of choice), blending a uniquely flamboyant house-bravado style and often ludicrous, implausible, historically inaccurate, all-action bombast with moments of genuine heartbreak, unbridled passion and seething emotion.

Sgt. Fury started out as a pure Kirby creation. As with all his various war comics, The King made everything look harsh and real and appalling: the people and places are all grimy and tired, battered yet indomitable.

The artist had served in some of the worst battles of the war and never forgot the horrific and heroic things he saw – and more graphically expressed in his efforts during the 1950s genre boom at a number of different companies. However, even at kid-friendly, Comics Code-sanitised Marvel, those experiences perpetually leaked through onto his powerfully gripping pages.

Kirby was – unfortunately – far too valuable a resource to squander on a simple war comic (or indeed the X-Men and Avengers: the other series launched in that tripartite blitz on kids’ spending money) and was quickly reassigned, leaving redoubtable fellow veteran Dick Ayers to illuminate later stories, which he did for almost the entire run of the series (95 issues plus Annuals) until its transition to a reprint title with #121 (July 1974).

The title then carried on until its ultimate demise in December 1981 with #167.

This initial trade paperback and eBook compendium collects the contents of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1-19 (spanning May 1963 to June 1965) and opens – just as you’d expect – with blistering premier ‘Sgt. Fury, and his Howling Commandoes’ (that’s how they spellled it in the storree-title – altho knot ennyware else).

Crafted by Lee, Kirby and inker Dick Ayers, the rip-snorting yarn is bursting with full page panels interrupted by ‘Meet the Howling Commandos’ – a double-page spread starring the seven members of First Attack Squad; Able Company. This comprised Fury himself, former circus strongman/Corporal “Dum-Dum” Dugan and Privates Robert “Rebel” Ralston (a Kentucky jockey), former student Jonathan “Junior” Juniper, jazz trumpeter Gabriel Jones, mechanic Izzy Cohen and glamorous movie heartthrob Dino Manelli.

Controversially – even in the 1960s – this battle Rat Pack was an integrated unit with Jewish and black members as well as Catholics, Southern Baptists and New York white guys all merrily serving together. The Howling Commandos pushed envelopes and busted taboos from the very start…

The first mission was a non-stop action romp pitting ‘Seven Against the Nazis!’ and putting the squad through their unique paces as the ragged band of indomitable warriors take on hordes of square-necked Nazis to save D-Day and rescue a French resistance fighter carrying vital plans of the invasion.

They even bring back a high-ranking “kraut” prisoner and leave room for a Kirby fact-page comparing and contrasting six different side-arms of the period in ancillary feature ‘Weapons of War’…

Issue #2 found the ‘7 Doomed Men!’ up to their torn shirts in Germans as they first infiltrate a French coastal town to blow up a U-Boat base and get back to England just in time to be sent on another suicide mission. This time it’s to destroy a secret facility at Heinemund in the heart of the Fatherland, where Nazi scientists are doing something sinister and nefarious with “hard water”…

These overblown fustian thrillers always played fast and loose with history and logic, so if you crave veracity above all, I’d steer clear, but if you can swallow a heaping helping of creative anachronism there’s always great fun to be had here – especially since nobody drew atomic explosions like Kirby…

This drama is topped off with more fact pages as ‘The Enemy That Was!’ explores the capabilities of ‘The German Infantryman’ whilst ‘Weapons of War: “Chatter Guns” of World War II’ details everything you need to know about submachine guns…

Rough-&-ready gallows humour and broad comedy became increasingly important to the series from #3 onwards, with home base rivalries and wry comradely sparring leavening the outrageous non-stop carnage of the missions. ‘Midnight on Massacre Mountain!’ sees the septet explosively invading Italy to rescue a US army division caught in a Nazi trap. Along the way they meet a brilliant OSS officer training partisan troops, and Fury believes that young Reed Richards will go far…

Supplementing this exploit is a fascinating feature revealing what ordnance and hardware cost in ‘America’s World War II Shopping List!’

‘Lord Ha-Ha’s Last Laugh!’ in #4 began an inking tour of duty for George Bell (AKA 1950s Kirby studio-mate George “Inky” Roussos) and introduced a love interest for the Sarge, after he meets aristocratic Red Cross volunteer Lady Pamela Hawley during an air raid in London. How cruel and tragic was fate then, that the Howlers’ very next mission takes them to Berlin to kidnap a young British nobleman with the same name, acting as a crucial propaganda mouthpiece for the Wehrmacht…

The mission is a double disaster. Not only does Pamela’s ignoble brother perish, but the debacle also costs the life of a Howler…

‘Weapons of War: Combat Rifles of World War II’ then ends this shocking, surprisingly grim and low-key melodrama…

Fury’s key appearance as a CIA agent in FF #21 – not included here – was released between that issue and #5, but no mention is made of it when the dark and cunning yarn introduces one of Marvel’s vilest, greatest villains. ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’ sees Fury humiliated and defeated in personal combat against an Aryan nobleman who uses candid filmed footage as a propaganda tool of the Nazis. Only too late does dashing Dino point out how the nonplussed noncom has fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s archvillain playbook…

A riotous rematch goes rather better after which ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ ends matters in a graphically educational manner, before ‘The Fangs of the Desert Fox!’ in #6 dumps the Squad in the desert to confront the massed forces of General Erwin Rommel in a mission foredoomed to fail…

‘The Court-Martial of Sergeant Fury’ provides a glimpse into the hard-bitten hero’s past and offers insights into his tempestuous relationship with immediate superior Captain Samuel “Happy Sam” Sawyer. Of course, to get that information we must watch Fury endure a dramatic trial after seemingly sabotaging a mission and striking a commanding officer…

Although continuing to draw the magnificent, eye-catching covers, Kirby left the title with this issue. His astounding abilities were more profitably employed in the superhero titles, even as Lee began consolidating the ever-expanding Marvel Universe by utilising more WWII iterations of contemporary characters.

‘The Death Ray of Baron Zemo!’ in #8 pits the Howlers against a Captain America villain recently debuted in The Avengers. Ayers & Roussos capably depict the unit’s attempts to capture the Nazi super-scientist and a weapon which might shape the outcome of the entire war. The tale also introduced Junior Juniper’s replacement: a rather fruity caricature of a British soldier named Percival Pinkerton, resplendent in horn-rimmed specs, pencil moustache, fuchsia beret and impossibly utilitarian umbrella…

In #9 the implausibly audacious ‘Mission: Capture Adolf Hitler!’ goes awry after the latest Howlers’ invasion of Berlin again brings Fury face-to-face with Wolfgang von Strucker; leading to temporary capture and an astounding escape, after which ‘On to Okinawa!’ in #10 sees the squad achieve greater success when despatched to the Pacific to rescue a captured US colonel from the Japanese.

This tale also saw the debut of a bearded bombastic submarine commander who would become a series regular before eventually winning his own title (Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders) in 1967.

The pace had visibly slowed and melodramatic subplots increased by #11, with ‘The Crackdown of Capt. Flint!’ depicting Happy Sam briefly replaced by a spit-and-polish officer who soon learns the limitations of his ways after which, in #12, a raid on a V1 factory in the heart of Europe seemingly prompts Dino to join the Nazis ‘When a Howler Turns Traitor!’

It was just a pre-arranged ploy of course, but sadly nobody told the American commander, who latterly stuck the star in front of a firing squad…

This issue also included a Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of Fury by Ayers.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13 is arguably the best issue of the entire 167 issue run. The title says it all…

‘Fighting Side-by-Side with… Captain America and Bucky!’ reunited Lee, Kirby & Ayers in a blistering battle yarn wherein the Howlers cross paths with the masked Sentinels of Liberty after both teams stumble across a top-secret Nazi operation to build an invasion tunnel under the channel to England. To resort to the terms of the times: “Wah-Hoo!”…

Ayers was back to pencil #14 with Lee scripting and Roussos inking a minor milestone as harassed Adolf Hitler decrees the creation of a Nazi answer to Fury’s elite attack force. All ‘The Blitzkrieg Squad of Baron Strucker!’ have to do is lure the Howlers to a V2 rocket base and spring their trap… Yeah, that’s all…

Irregular supplemental feature Weapons of War provides all the gen on the ‘B-26 Martin Marauder’ to inform and entertain in equal amounts before Steve Ditko stepped in to ink Ayers in issue #15 as ‘Too Small to Fight, Too Young to Die’ relates an ill-fated mission in Holland to destroy the dykes and flood the occupation forces. The job goes drastically awry and the Howlers “flee” back to Britain with nothing but a broken-hearted boy named Hans Rooten – who has no idea that his despised quisling father is in fact the Allies’ top spy in the region…

The boy is adopted as the Howlers’ plucky mascot but can’t accompany them when the squad is despatched to Africa in #16 to eradicate yet more Nazi super-weapons in ‘A Fortress in the Desert Stands!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia using the pseudonym Frankie Ray). From there it’s only a short camel-ride south until the ragtag rovers encounter spear-wielding natives and nasty Nazis engaged in a battle of Hearts & Minds ‘While the Jungle Sleeps!’ (by Lee, Ayers & Vince Colletta).

All this time the chalk-and-cheese romantic relationship between Nick and Lady Pamela Hawley has been developing to the point where the Yankee lout is ready to propose. That all ends in #18 (with Chic Stone inks) when, as the unit is busy sinking a German battleship in a Norwegian port, she is ‘Killed in Action!’

Crushed and crazy, Fury goes AWOL in the final tale of this collection, remorselessly hunting down the leader of the bomber flight which had targeted the hospital she worked in before extracting ‘An Eye for an Eye!’ in a satisfyingly shocking Lee story sensitively rendered by Ayers & Giacoia. The Howlers go along for the ride, but whether to help their leader or hold him back is debatable…

Gilding this gladiatorial lily, the book signs off with a wealth of stunning original art pages from Kirby and Ayers, several contemporary house ads, and previous collection covers. Whereas close rival DC increasingly abandoned the Death or Glory bombast at this time in favour of humanistic, almost anti-war explorations of war and soldiering, Marvel’s take always favoured action-entertainment and fantasy over soul-searching for ultimate truths. On that level at least, these early epics are stunningly effective and galvanically powerful exhibitions of the genre.

Just don’t use them for history homework.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2019 Marvel All rights reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents the Atom volume 1


By Gardner Fox & Gil Kane with Murphy Anderson, Sid Greene, Mike Sekowsky & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1363-3 (TPB)

There’s a glorious wealth of classic comics superhero material available for fans these days, but whether in archival volumes or digital editions, an inexplicable amount of classy material remains in limbo. Prime case in point is the subject of today’s re-review: a veteran champion with an immaculate pedigree, a TV presence and sublime creative teams, who yet languishes in the realm of the currently unavailable…

Julius Schwartz had already ushered in the Silver Age of American Comics with his Showcase successes Flash, Adam Strange and Green Lantern, but his fourth attempt to revive and revitalize a “Golden Age Great” had stalled when Hawkman (who debuted in Brave and the Bold #34, February/March 1961) could not find an immediate audience. Undeterred, Schwartz persevered with the Winged Wonder, whilst moving forward. For Showcase #34 (September/October 1961) he revived and retooled a pint-sized strongman of the 1940’s Justice Society of America, resulting in a fascinating science-fiction champion and eternal underdog.

Professor Ray Palmer is a young physicist working on the compression of matter whose day job is teaching at Ivy Town University. He is wooing career girl Jean Loring, who wants to make her name as a trial lawyer before settling down as Mrs. Palmer (c’mon, it was the 1960s). One evening, Ray finds an ultra-dense fragment of White Dwarf Star Matter, which propels his researches in a new direction. By converting some of the degenerate matter into a lens he is able to shrink objects, but frustratingly, they always explode when he attempts to restore them to their original state.

As fiercely competitive as his intended bride, Ray keeps his progress secret until he can perfect the process. One day, the couple take a group of youngsters on a science hike to Giant Caverns, where a cave-in traps the entire party. As they all lie trapped and dying Ray secretly activates his reducing lens to shrink himself, and employs the diamond engagement ring he carries to carve a tiny fissure in the rock face into an escape hole. Expecting to explode at any second, he is astounded to discover that some peculiar combination of circumstances permit to him to safely return to his normal 6-foot height with no ill effects.

With his junior charges safe, Ray returns to his lab to find the process only works on his own body: all other subjects still catastrophically detonate. Somewhat disheartened, he ponders his situation and his new-found abilities…

And thus ended ‘The Birth of the Atom!’:a taut and intriguing short tale written by Gardner Fox and dynamically illustrated by Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson, which was supplemented in that Showcase issue by the spectacular ‘Battle of the Tiny Titans!’, wherein a 6-inch tall, teleporting alien becomes the unwilling slave of petty thief Carl Ballard and goes on a crime-spree in Ivy Town.

Jean is called in to defend a bank-teller accused of embezzlement – after all, the woman claims her cash-drawer was emptied by a little genie – and Ray determines to clandestinely help her using his newest innovation, a suit made from White Dwarf material, which can alter not only his height but also his weight and mass.

The story is thrilling and entrancing, not to mention astonishingly inventive – including such gimmicks as the molecule-sized Atom traveling along telephone wires – but the art – which allowed Kane to combine the usual long-shots, mid-shots and close-ups with glorious, balletic, full-body action poses – made this and all subsequent Atom adventures a symphony of human dynamism.

Ray’s patronising sexism in secretly aiding his dearly beloved was explained away over the years as a simple eagerness to help her achieve her career goals so she could then settle down as his bride…

Some text pages featuring a potted history of the original Al Pratt Atom and the science behind that phone trick filled out Showcase #34… and Schwartz was back on track with another instant hit.

The second try-out issue opted for a complete done-in-one story. ‘The Dooms from Beyond!’ is a spectacular tale of witches, curses and murderous trickery in pursuit of an inheritance, capped with biographies of Fox, Kane and Anderson – a true rarity in a time when most publishers preferred their staff to toil in anonymity.

The final Showcase try-out again featured two adventures; the first of which – ‘Prisoner in a Test Tube!’ – introduced a recurrent theme in the Tiny Titan’s career: Cold War Espionage. The American/Soviet arms-and-ideas race figured heavily in the life of patriotic physicist Ray Palmer and in the collegiate circle of Ivy Town where even Jean’s father was a scientist carefully watched by both CIA and KGB.

In this pensive thriller, a brief moment of East-West détente allows the Reds to replace a visiting Hungarian professor with a deadly doppelganger until the Atom takes a diminutive hand, after which it’s back to basics with super-science and criminal conundrums in the mystery of ‘The “Disappearing Act” Robberies!’

Editor Schwartz knew he had a sure thing. Barely breaking stride to count the sales figures, the bi-monthly Showcase stint segued into a bi-monthly feature title. The Atom #1 debuted with a June/July 1962 cover-date highlighting a spectacular full-length yarn entitled ‘Master of the Plant World!’ This pitted the hero against Jason Woodrue (later famed as the sentient vegetable Floronic Man) as an extra-dimensional botanist who enslaves Earth’s supernatural plant spirits in a scheme to conquer our world.

It’s followed by ‘The Oddest Man on Earth!’: another superb scientific mystery, counter-pointed by the return of Carl Ballard in the action-packed revenge thriller ‘The Prisoners who Vanished!’, and with #3 our hero finally faces a costumed arch-foe as flamboyant thief Chronos begins his obsessive career in ‘The Time Trap!’

That issue was doubly significant, if singly themed. Second tale ‘The Secret of the Atom’s Lamp!’ introduces Ray’s mentor and colleague Professor Alpheus Hyatt and his “Time-Pool”: a 6-inch wide energy field that opened onto other eras. Hyatt believed it to be an intriguing but useless scientific oddity, occasionally extracting oddments from it by blindly dropping a fishing line through it. Little did he know his erstwhile student was secretly using it to experience rousing adventures in other times and locations, such as this initial exploit in which the diminutive daredevil visits Arabia in 850 AD and unravels the true story of Aladdin. This charming, thrilling and unbelievably educational yarn set a format and high benchmark for some of the Atom’s best and most well-loved exploits…

Our hero joined the Justice League of America with issue #14 (September 1962) and The Atom #4 (December 1962/January 1963) featured ‘The Machine that Made Miracles!’: a prototypical crossover story in which the hero helps League mascot Snapper Carr solve a baffling mystery with aliens at the bottom of it, whilst ‘The Case of the Innocent Thief!’ offers a cool procedural crime yarn, as once more a client of Jean Loring’s occasions some clandestine legal aid from the Tiny Titan…

Issue #5 opened with a smart science-fiction thriller as the Mighty Mite journeys to a sub-atomic civilisation in ‘The Diamond of Deadly Dooms!’ (with a delightful art contribution from the great Mike Sekowsky) before ‘The Specter of 3000-Moons Lake!’ tests the hero’s detective skills in an eerie tale of bogeymen and bandits.

‘The Riddle of the Two-Faced Astronaut!’ in #6 was actually a cunning crime-caper, but the real highlight is another Time-Pool tale wherein our hero meets and masters infamous rogue Dick Turpin in ‘The Highwayman and the Mighty Mite!’ The next issue formed part of Editor Schwartz’s charm offensive to promote Hawkman as Winged Wonder encounters Tiny Titan in a full-length spectacular, world-threatening epic ‘The Case of the Cosmic Camera!’

Justice League villain Dr. Light opens a campaign to pick off his foes one by one when he subjects the Atom to a ‘Lock-up in the Lethal Lightbulb!’ in #8 and master craftsman Sid Greene began occasional inking duties with the deft mystery of ‘The Purloined Miniatures’ which completed that issue.

‘The Atom’s Phantom Double!’ is another high-tech fantasy of deadly doppelgangers, complimented by ‘The Seaman and the Spyglass!’ (Greene inks again) wherein the Mighty Mite proves instrumental in Hans Lippershey‘s invention of telescopes, incidentally aiding explorer Henry Hudson shape the destiny of the USA, courtesy of the ubiquitous Time-Pool.

‘Ride a Deadly Grenade!’ is another breathtaking all-action Cold-War spy-thriller, whilst ‘The Mysterious Swan-Maiden!’ was just a crafty scam exposed by the scientific adventurer, but Atom #11 truly tested the Tiny Titan’s deductive mettle with both ‘Trouble at the Ten-Year Club’ and the Greene inked fantasy thriller ‘Voyage to Beyond!’

A technological master-criminal briefly made our hero his weapon-of-choice in ‘Danger… Atom-Gun at Work!’ after which charming Time-Pool tale ‘The Gold-Hunters of ’49!’ allows the compact champion to meet his literary hero Edgar Allan Poe in #12, with which issue Greene became regular inker (necessitated by Hawkman finally getting his long-awaited and Murphy Anderson-illustrated solo-feature).

Chronos returned in #13’s ‘Weapon Watches of the Time-Wise Guy!’, with Anderson returning to ink procedural drama ‘I Accuse Ray Palmer… of Robbery!’, but super-science was increasingly the order of the day as our hero then endures ‘The Revolt of the Atom’s Uniform!’ in #14, and battles spies with ‘Illusions for Sale!’ and the crafty Hyper-Thief in ‘The Super-Cracker who Defied the Law!’ in #15.

Atom #16 was another mind-boggling novel where yet another criminal scientist brought about the bizarre ‘Fate of the Flattened-Out Atom!’ before this immensely dynamic treat for eyes and imagination concludes with #17’s ‘Case of the Hooded Hijackers!’ (wherein Gil Kane displayed his love of gangster movies and potent talent for caricature) and finishes big with another magical Time-Pool extravaganza as the Tiny Titan visits the year 1888 and retrieves ‘Jules Verne’s Crystal Ball!’

The Atom was never a major name or huge success, but from reading these witty, compelling tales by Gardner Fox, where Gil Kane first mastered the fluid human dynamism that made him a legend, you’d be hard-pressed to understand why. This is sheer superhero perfection, and long overdue for a closer look.
© 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.