Month: November 2007

By Russ Manning (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN13: 978-1-56971-151-4

I first came across this little gem as a British hardcover annual published by Treasure Hour Books, produced by the American licensee for the European market – a common practice back then for the relatively few truly international brands like Tarzan or Mickey Mouse.

Russ Manning was an absolute master of his art, most popularly remembered for the Star Wars newspaper strip, Magnus, Robot Fighter and both the comic-book and newspaper strip incarnations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s immortal Lord of the Jungle. Like many of his predecessors his Tarzan work never strayed far from the canonical texts and in this particular case he combined the fabulous Lord Greystoke with another of Burroughs’ fantastic creations. ‘Caspak’ was an island where creatures from all eras of time existed simultaneously, and which were featured in the novels The Land that Time Forgot, The People that Time Forgot and Out of Time’s Abyss as well as a couple of incomprehensibly successful movies.

In this beautifully illustrated volume Tarzan accompanies his friend Van Clenard on a voyage to Peru. The heartsick young man is following his troubled fiancé Lya Billings who has gone missing whilst hunting for Caspak and the hidden secret of her own birth.

When the pair finally find her it is in a fabulous and terrible land where cave-men live alongside dinosaurs and where bloody danger waits at every turn. To rescue Lya and escape the Island they have first to solve the mystery of how evolution ran wild, in a world where human aggression and cupidity seem to be the only constant…

Manning was not only a master draughtsman of the classical school but also a storyteller of unparalleled brilliance. This old fashioned adventure is joy to behold and a delight to read. Pure magic for action-fans of all ages…

© 1974, 1996 Edgar Rice Burroughs Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

By Dennis O’Neil, Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-690-0

One of DC’s best comics series of the 1980’s finally makes it into the trade paperback format, due no doubt to the hero’s major role in the ambitious weekly comic maxi-series 52.

The Question, created by Steve Ditko, was Vic Sage, a driven, justice-obsessed journalist who sought out crime and corruption irrespective of the consequences. This Charlton ‘Action-Hero’ was purchased by DC when Charlton folded and was the template for the compulsive Rorschach when Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons first drafted the miniseries that would become the groundbreaking Watchmen. The contemporary rumour-mill had it that since the creators couldn’t be persuaded to produce a spin-off Rorschach comic the company went with a reworking of the Ditko original.

An ordinary man pushed to the edge by his obsessions, Vic Sage used his fists and a mask that made him look utterly faceless to get answers (and justice) whenever normal journalistic methods failed. After a few successes around the DC universe Sage got a job in the town where he grew up.

Hub City was a hell-hole, the most corrupt and morally bankrupt municipality in America. Mayor Wesley Fermin was a degenerate drunken sot and the real power was insane cleric Reverend Jeremiah Hatch, whose hand-picked gang of “heavies” are supplemented by the world’s deadliest assassin, Lady Shiva.

Reuniting with Aristotle Rodor, the philosopher-scientist who created his faceless mask and other gimmicks, Sage determines to clean up The Hub, but despite early victories against thugs and grafters, he is easily defeated by Shiva, and left to the mercies of Hatch and his gang. A brutal beating by the gangsters breaks every bone in his body, and after shooting him in the head they throw his body in the freezing waters of the river.

Obviously, he doesn’t die. Rescued by the inscrutable Shiva, but crippled, he is sent into the wilderness to be healed and trained by O’Neil’s other legendary martial arts creation, Richard Dragon. A year passes…

It’s a new type of hero who returns to a Hub City which has degenerated even further. Sage’s girlfriend is now the Mayor’s wife, Reverend Hatch has graduated from thugs to terrorist employees, and his madness has driven him to actually seek the destruction of Humanity. Will the new Question be sufficient answer to the problems of a society so utterly debased that the apocalypse seems like an improvement?

Combating Western dystopia with Eastern Thought and martial arts action is not a new concept but the author’s spotlight on cultural problems rather than super-heroics make this series O’Neil’s most philosophical work, and the quirky, edgy art imbues this darkly adult, powerfully sophisticated thriller with a maturity that is simply breathtaking.

This is a story about dysfunction: Social, societal, political, emotional, familial and even methodological. The normal masked avenger tactics don’t work in a “real”-er world, and some solutions require better Questions…

© 1986, 1987, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Alan Moore, Gene Ha, Todd Klein & Art Lyon (America’s Best Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-1491-6

Diverging from the more of less contemporary adventures of a pan-dimensional police force getting the job done in a city populated entirely of super-beings, gods and monsters: Alan Moore and Gene Ha here take us back to the beginning and incorporate the origin of Neopolis into a memorable tale of political and social upheaval that blends crime-drama, horror movie and period thriller into a seamless love story, an evocation of the very history of the comic book itself.

In 1949 a fresh political philosophy is creating a new America, and all the superheroes, villains, robots, aliens, super-naturals and just plain do-gooders that won the war and kept the home front safe are being compulsorily relocated to a brand new city, far away from normal citizens.

Into this bold new experiment comes a huge variety of extra-special beings: Everything from Nazi mad scientists, vampires, costumed heroes, and especially war heroes. Skywitch was a German aviator who fought with the Allies, and on her first day she meets 16 year old Jetlad, who shot down his first Nazi plane before his tenth birthday.

They strike up an unlikely friendship as they attempt to forge new “normal” lives in the burgeoning social experiment of Neopolis. But even if the World is new, nature is not and soon many inhabitants are returning to their old habits. Perhaps the newly minted police force isn’t such a lousy career path after all…

Although a tight and gripping thriller and a sterling origin tale for an award winning comic series, this is actually a compelling and elegiac expression of reality ending a Golden Age, with beautiful characterisations of extraordinary people rendered real by Gene Ha’s faded documentary-style illustration. Here is a lovely book that any mature reader will enjoy and cherish.

© 2005 America’s Best Comics LLC. All Rights Reserved.

By Alex Raymond (Checker BPG)
ISBN: 1-933160-26-8

The fourth collection of the legendary Sunday comic strip – covering the period from June 12th 1938 to January 21st 1940 – continues the astonishing parade of wonders that bedazzled and captivated the world, with each sabbath instalment somehow topping the last in a seemingly endless progression of drama, excitement and fantasy. Raymond’s faultless blend of classicism and feudal futurism electrified the reading public, and his sagas captured the imagination of generations.

The previous volume ended with Flash and his fellow rebels hidden beneath Ming’s city when the monstrous despot floods the subterranean tunnels to destroy them, resulting in a massive collapse throughout the metropolis. This book opens with ‘The Tyrant of Mongo’ (which originally ran until March 5th 1939) and sees the surviving rebels strike back and even capture the merciless villain only to lose him due to the traitorous schemes of an ambitious woman.

Betrayed and sore pressed, the rebels escape as Ming gloats, thinking Flash dead at last. The fugitives return to Arboria where Prince Barin hides them once more, but evil never rests and Ming replaces one of the surviving rebels with his best spy. Once again the hero turns the tables, but must leave his sanctuary before Ming destroys it…

On March 12th 1938 ‘Ice Kingdom of Mongo’ began, and proved to be a visual high-point even by the monumentally impressive standards of this feature. Flash, Dale, Zarkov and faithful man-at-arms Ronal fly northwards to the pole but are forced to crash-land when the fierce cold freezes their rocket tubes. At the mercy of hideous snow beasts, they are rescued by Queen Fria of the polar kingdom of Frigia, but the fugitives are no safer in the sumptuous halls of her fabulous home than they were on the icy wastes. A spiteful courtier, Count Malo, attempts to murder Flash, and Dale and Ronal are taken as slaves by ice giants whilst on a hunting trip, with only Flash and the Queen left to rescue them.

After that unforgettable sequence, and with the giants defeated, the refugees settle in Frigia, but it becomes clear that many nobles see Flash as a threat to their ambitions, since the unmarried Fria is obviously smitten by the newcomer. A series of “mishaps” culminate in open assassination attempts and even a coup. Events spiral out of control with spectacular results and personal and political intrigues pale into insignificance when the entire kingdom is imperilled by a huge monster that lives in a glacier…

The never-ending adventure went from one hairsbreadth escape, fight or chase to another, but Checker’s subdivision into the two long epics here is logical and satisfying. It’s hard to grasp that when Raymond and script collaborator Don Moore first created these spellbinding sagas they were only working from the most general of plans, with no conception of their eventual perpetuation in posterity of the periodical drama in these lush and lavish volumes.

Along with Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) and Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates/Steve Canyon), Raymond’s work on Flash Gordon is pivotal to the development of comic art. This strip influenced everybody who followed. If you’ve never seen this work, your comic reading life is tragically incomplete. But it’s never too late…

© 2005 King Features Syndicate Inc. ™ Hearst Holdings, Inc