Month: February 2011

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Y- The Last Man: volume 8 Kimono Dragons


By Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra Goran Sudžuka & José Marzán (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-358-9

When a plague killed every male on Earth, only Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand survived in a world made instantly utterly all-girl. With a government agent and a geneticist escorting him across the devastated American continent to a Californian bio-lab, all the young man could think of was re-uniting with his girlfriend Beth, trapped in Australia when the disaster struck.

The romantic fool trekked from Washington DC overland to California, getting ever closer to his fiancée, whom he presumed had been stranded in Oz since civilisation ended. His reluctant companions were secret agent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann, who was trying to solve the mystery of his continued existence. The latter feared she might have actually 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, 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 also stalking them across the ultra-feminised, ravaged and now utterly dis-United States.

After four years and some incredible adventures Yorick (a mediocre student but a rather proficient amateur magician and escapologist) and entourage made it to Australia, only to discover Beth had set off for Paris a year previously. Along the way Dr. Mann had discovered the truth: the reason Yorick was alive was that Ampersand was inexplicably immune and had the disgusting habit of “sharing” his waste products – if Yorick couldn’t duck fast enough…

As this book opens (reprinting issues #43-48 of the award-winning comics series) the lad and his extremely tolerant lasses have reached Japan, following a ninja who had stolen the crucially important monkey. ‘Kimono Dragons’ (illustrated by Pia Guerra & José Marzán Jr.) finds the wanderers in Yokogata Port, joined by Rose, the ship’s captain who befriended them. They soon split up though, when Ampersand’s tracking device starts working again: Yorick and 355 follow it to Tokyo, whilst Rose and Allison explore a different path.

Dr. Mann is a brilliant scientist, but not as smart as her parents: both radical geneticists with major personal issues. She is convinced that her mother had something to do with the plague and Ampersand’s abduction. She’s right too, but as she and Rose reach the elder Doctor’s rural laboratory they have no idea that the pesky little simian has escaped and is loose in Tokyo somewhere. They are equally unaware that the lethally ruthless ninja is searching for the lost capuchin too…

Meanwhile, the heavily disguised Yorick and 355 have reached Tokyo, a city seemingly unchanged by the disaster… but appearances can be horrifyingly deceiving…

…And in Kansas, Yorick’s sister finds a hidden enclave where she sees proof that he is no longer the last male alive (See Y The Last Man volume 3: One Small Step)…

Ampersand’s trail has led Yorick and 355 into conflict with the now all-women Yakuza. They find an ally in undercover cop You, but her plan doesn’t inspire much confidence…

…And when Allison’s mother – let’s call her Dr. Matsumori – finally appears, Rose and Allison are too slow to prevent a bloody assault. As the aging doctor works to save a life, she reveals the hidden agendas and reasons why American politicians, Israeli soldiers and greedy opportunists around the globe have been hunting Yorick and Ampersand for the last four years…

In Tokyo the raid to recover the monkey has also gone brutally awry, but the big surprise occurs in Yokogata, as Allison learns who the Ninja actually works for and who has orchestrated the whole affair… the family member who actually designed and released the plague…

As renegade Israeli General Tse’Elon invades the Kansas enclave where Hero Brown is helping to raise the last children born on Earth, ‘Tin Man’ (with art from Goran Sudžuka& José Marzán Jr.) traces the convoluted history of Dr. Allison Mann as her biologist parents broke scientific barriers, ethical codes and each other’s hearts fighting over her affections and reveals the implications of the broken family’s genetic meddling,  before this volume closes with ‘Gehenna’ (Sudžuka& Marzán Jr.), an equally illuminating examination of General Tse’Elon’s past: how she rose to power before the fall of man, and how far she’ll go to achieve her ends, ending the book on a chilling cliffhanger…

By crafting his slow-burning saga with carefully sculpted, credible characters and situations Vaughan built an intellectually seductive soap-opera fantasy of telling power. As the impressive conclusion neared, this well-paced, dryly ironic, moving and clever tale blossomed into a very special tale that should delight any fan of mature fiction. Bear down, the best is yet to come…
© 2006 Brian K Vaughan & Pia Guerra. All Rights Reserved.

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Passionate Two-Face Book 1


By Youjung Lee (NetComics)
ISBN: 978-1-60009-177-3

Here’s an intriguing change of pace from the usual manga/manhwa love story: one aimed at a slightly older and more discerning audience.

Sangbaek Oh is a thoughtful young food science student desperately in love with Hyeji Min, the girl next door. He’s adored her since elementary school and now, back from his first term at University, he can’t wait to see his girl again. Unfortunately the boy’s got it bad, spying on her with high-powered binoculars, whilst his vapid, shallow parents blather on oblivious to his distressing preoccupation.

Of course spies often see things they shouldn’t and the hormone-crazed Sangbaek is devastated when his observations catch Hyeji getting distressingly intimate with some scumbag playboy in her own bedroom. The swine doesn’t even treat her decently: he’s a callous bully – but really good-looking…

Crushed, but deciding to play it cool, the lovelorn fool pretends nothing has happened when he goes out with Hyeji next day, but his discoveries have turned his creepily innocent interest into something far more carnal. His mind aflame with licentious images, he is utterly unprepared for the next blow. His truly beloved knows about his habits and doesn’t want to see him anymore – especially as she is preparing for her new career as a movie actress…

Sangbaek is destroyed and throws himself into an alligator pit at the Zoo, but when even they reject him (being too well-fed by their conscientious keepers) he notices, just before passing out, an old man taking photos of his distress.

As Hyeji pursues her disdainful new man Sangbaek regains consciousness in the home of the old photographer and his juvenile delinquent daughter Mihee. It transpires that the guy is a movie make-up artist who was captivated by the dumped lad’s agonised expressions. Moreover he knows Hyeji’s new beau – Gobong Choi, “the virgin hunter” owner and producer of soft-porn studio Climax Productions. Moreover, that inveterate womaniser is looking for fresh talent as he prepares to begin making far harder films…

Determined to save Hyeji from the path of inevitable degradation, Sangbaek confronts the sleazebag and gets thoroughly beaten up although he does manage to rescue the drunken, unconscious girl from Gobong’s clutches. After a night of terrific temptation and sweet childhood memories whilst she gradually sobers up, she delivers the ultimate rejection…

His life shattered Sangbaek can only watch from afar as Hyeji follows her wrong path. However when the papers begin advertising for a co-star to “work” with the new starlet the make-up man and his daughter offer him an incredible chance to be with his degraded love once more. They can make him a new face and he can win Hyeji back. He knows it will work; after all, hasn’t the old man being running around Seoul for weeks, perfectly disguised as Sangbaek and getting off with lots of young women?

The plan set, the make-up master exacts a strange price. He will turn Sangbaek into the most handsome actor in the world, but in return he must surrender all rights to his own face and original identity…

Thought-proving, darkly funny and just a little bit scary, this is a compelling fantasy tale of love, desire and obsession that is both extremely engaging and terrifically appealing. Even if you aren’t a fan of manga or the far edgier Korean manhwa equivalent, this enticing adult romance series might just change you forever…
© 1997 Youjung Lee. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 NetComics.

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StormWatch: Change or Die


By Warren Ellis, Oscar Jimenez, Tom Raney, & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-631-6

StormWatch was the UN’s Special Crisis Intervention unit; created to manage global threats and superhuman menaces with international ramifications. From their Skywatch satellite in orbit above Earth they observed, waiting for a member nation to call for help…

The multinational mini-army 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”.

The title sprang from 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 honest enthusiasm but soon bogged down for lack of ideas.

Warren Ellis took over the moribund morass 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.

This volume collects and concludes the comicbook’s first volume with issues #48-50 and bridges the gap to the second volume’s issues #1-3 with the extremely rare – and short – StormWatch Preview edition, all scripted by Ellis as he re-redefined the masked hero for a new millennium.

The action and suspense begins with ‘Change or Die’ (with art from Tom Raney & Randy Elliott) as the StormWatch team are targeted by a ruthless band of superhumans, led by a long dormant superman who first began fighting social injustice before World War II. After years of planning these underground wonder warriors are boldly using their powers to wipe out all the inequities of the old World Order and build a better world. Of course that means doing away with armies, politicians, all governments and any superheroes who don’t agree with them…

This more than any other is the tale which introduced The Authority – in concept at least – to the comics world, as the ambitious but completely best-intentioned team (including prototype versions of both The Doctor and The Engineer) strike on many fronts, turning deserts into gardens, brutally wiping out brutal dictatorships and revealing all those dirty little secrets to the global populace…

In a bid to save “human civilisation” Weatherman authorises all of StormWatch for a kill mission… but even as Bendix’s true character and plans are revealed the poor suckers on the front line – and even their idealistic antagonists – discover amidst bloody, spectacular battle that the real enemy in the way of a global paradise is, always, human nature…

Following the apocalyptic events which wrapped up the first series ‘Terminal Zone’ (illustrated by Oscar Jimenez & Chuck Gibson) opens with new Weatherman Jackson King and the surviving team members going through their paces in a rather subversive public relations exercise before ‘Strange Weather’ (rendered by the mob-handed art-horde of Jimenez, Michael Ryan, Jason Gorder, Mark McKenna, Richard Friend, Eduardo Alpuente & Homage Studios) launches the new adventures as StormWatch metahumans raid a clandestine US facility illegally weaponising US troops and other lethal biological materials.

It appears that America is willfully breaking UN Resolutions restricting the creation of super-soldiers; but is this the work of militant terrorists and disaffected renegades or does the chain of command reach higher – perhaps to the White House itself?

The team is soon hip-deep in DNA horrors and official hypocrisy when they infiltrate a sleepy Alabama town and the Federal government declares war on StormWatch…

Dark, scary and rabidly political, the tension and intrigue are ramped up to overload, but as always the hip and cynical message is leavened with spectacular action, mind-blowing big science thrills and magically vulgar humour.

Mixing tradition with iconoclastic irreverence this volume cleared the way and set the scene for the landmark step-change of The Authority and although certainly not to everybody’s taste, these perfect post-modern superhero sagas definitely deliver a blast of refreshing cool air for the jaded, world weary older fan.
© 1997, 1998, 1999 WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Young Justice: A League of Their Own


By Peter David, D. Curtis Johnson, Todd Nauck, Ale Garza & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-197-7

There are many facets that contribute to the “perfect mix” in the creation of any continuing character in comics. How much more so then, when the idea is to build a superhero team that will stand out from the seething masses that already exist? In the mid-1990s a fresh batch of sidekicks and super-kids started cropping up at DC after some years of thematic disfavour, and as the name and modus operandi of the Teen Titans was already established something new needed to be done with them.

But why were kid crimebusters back at all? Ignoring the inherent stupidity – and illegality if you acknowledge child-endangerment laws – of superhero apprenticeships for trainees who can’t even shave yet, why should callow champions appeal at all to comics readers?

I don’t buy the old line about giving young readers someone to identify with: the kids I grew up with all wanted to be the adult who drove the whatever-mobile, not a snotty smartass brat in short pants. Every mission would be like going to school with your dad…

I suspect it’s actually the reverse case: duffers like me with responsibilities and chores could fantasize about being powerful, effective and dangerously irresponsible: able to beat people up without having to surrender that hormone-fuelled, irredeemably juvenile frat-boy capacity for goofy fun that we’ve all missed ever since it finally died away…

After a delightfully cool try-out miniseries (see Justice League: World Without Grown-Ups) the latest crop of “ands…” soon stampeded into their own highly habit-forming monthly series. Also included in that introductory graphic novel collection was a subtly distressing tale wherein Robin, Superboy and Impulse rescued a young girl composed entirely of smoke and vapour from a supposedly benign federal agency: the Department of ExtraNormal Operations.

This second collection (repackaging issues #1-7 of the monthly comicbook with portions of Young Justice Secret Files #1) features fan-favourite writer Peter David scripting some inspired, tongue-in-cheek, gloriously self-referential adolescent lunacy, beginning with ‘Young, Just Us’ (illustrated by Todd Nauck & Lary Stucker) wherein the unlikely lads go for a sleepover in the old Justice League Secret Sanctuary and fall into a whole new career.

When a nearby archaeological dig uncovers an ancient New Gods Supercycle the boys are too busy vandalising the decommissioned mountain lair until the android Red Tornado objects. Before things become too tense the boys are called to the dig-site where DEO operatives Fite and Maad are attempting to confiscate the alien tech. After a brief skirmish with a fabulously mutated minor villain (transformed by a booby trap!) the bike adopts the kids and makes a break for it…

After a brief interlude with the pneumatically empowered Mighty Endowed the action switches to the Middle East for ‘Sheik, Rattle and Roll’ where the semi-sentient trans-dimensional cycle has brought Robin, Superboy and Impulse. Apparently uncounted years ago an Apokoliptian warrior named Riproar was entombed beneath a mountain after stealing the bike from New Genesis. Now the machine, enslaved to the thief’s ancient programming, is compelled to free the monster, but it has brought some superheroes to fight Riproar once he’s loose. Of course, they’re rather small heroes…

Hilariously victorious, the kids return to America just in time for Halloween and a riotous Trick or Treat time travel romp as meddling kids dabbling in magic snatch a nerdy Fifth Dimensional scholar out of his appointed place – endangering the entire continuum. Sadly, although YJ’s best efforts in ‘The Issue Before the One Where the Girls Show Up!’ restore reality they might have had a delayed bad influence on the quietly studious Master Mxyzptlk…

A bunch of chicks join the boys’ club in ‘Harm’s Way’ as writer David unerringly injects some dark undercurrents into the frenetic fun. Impulse’s sometime associate Arrowette (a second generation trick archer forced into the biz by her fearsome stage-struck mother) is being hunted by a psychotic youth who intends to become the world’s greatest villain and that aforementioned mist-girl Secret and the latest incarnation of Wonder Girl are dragged into the clinically sociopathic Harm’s lethal practice run before the assembled boys and girls finally manage to drive him off…

D. Curtis Johnson, Ale Garza & Cabin Boy then step in for ‘Take Back the Night’ as Secret leads the now fully-co-ed team in a raid against the clandestine and quasi-legal DEO orphanage-academy where metahuman kids are “trained” to use their abilities. It seems an awful lot of these youngsters aren’t there voluntarily or even with their parents’ approval…

‘First, Do No Harm’ (David, Nauck & Stucker) sees the return of the malevolent young nemesis as he invades their HQ and turns Red Tornado into a weapon of Mass destruction (that’s a pun that only makes sense after I mention that the Pope guest-stars in this tale). As the Justice League step in, the tale wraps up with a majestic twist ending…

The senior superstars are concerned about the kid’s behaviour and set a test, but since this is comics, that naturally goes spectacularly wrong in ‘Judgement Day’ as the ghost of alien horror Despero turns the simulation into a very practical demonstration of utter mayhem…

This terrific tome concludes with the edgy and hilarious ‘Conferences’ as the assorted guardians and mentors convene for a highly contentious parents/teachers evening, blissfully unaware that their boy and girls have snuck off for an unsanctioned – and unchaperoned – overnight camping trip together. As ever, it’s not what you’d expect but it is incredibly entertaining…

Teen issues and traditional caped crusading are perfectly combined with captivating adventure and deft, daft home-room laughs in this magical blend of tension and high jinks, comedy, pathos and even genuine horror in Young Justice.

The secret joy of sidekicks has always been the sheer bravura fun they inject into a tale and this book totally epitomises that most magical of essences. Unleash your inner urchin with this bright shiny gem and pray that now the kids have their own cartoon show DC will finally get around to releasing all the Young Justice tales in graphic novel collections.
© 1998, 1999, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Fuc_ __u, _ss__le: Blecky Yuckerella volume 4


By Johnny Ryan (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-415-3

Johnny Ryan is a comedian who uses comics as his medium of expression. Whether in his own Angry Youth Comix, or the many commissions for such varied clients as Nickelodeon, Hustler, Mad, LA Weekly and elsewhere, his job and mission is to make laughter. Depending on your point of view he is either a filth-obsessed pervert smut-monger or a social iconoclast using the same tactics as Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks to assault the worst and/or most hidebound aspects of society.

His wild, loose cartoon drawing style is deceptively engrossing, and his seeming pictorial Tourette’s Syndrome of strips and gags involving such grotesque signature characters as Boobs Pooter (world’s most disgusting stand-up comedian), Loady McGee and Sinus O’Gynus will, frankly, appal many readers, but as with most questions of censorship in a Free Society, they are completely at liberty neither to buy nor read the stuff.

Ryan dubs his stinging graphic assaults on American culture ‘misanthropic comics’ and one of the most effective has been Blecky Yuckeralla. Originally running weekly in The Portland Mercury and Vice Magazine from 2003 before switching to Ryan’s own on-line site the strip was based on traditional, anodyne comics features and referenced many other popular art forms. This fourth bi-annual collection collects the last 99 four-panel pages up to and including the final episode which ran on www.johnnyryan.com on 30th July 2010.

Blecky is an ugly, unsavoury, unsanitary and very stupid girl: a cunning reinterpretation of Ernie Bushmiller’s beloved Nancy strip, with plenty of comics, movies and media pastiches thrown in too. There’s Bucksley – a ghastly, grotesque Richie Rich-clone, nerdy “boyfriend” Wedgie, guardian Aunt Jiggles and a host of guest-victims for the shocking puns and fouls antics of the little girl from hell …or maybe it’s New Jersey.

Here you’ll find gross, vulgar and shocking gags about sex, defecation, farting, bodily functions, feminine hygiene, and even the ultimate modern whited sepulchers, TV, money, religion, politics, race and sexual abuse. There are no safe areas or taboo subjects. Blecky and Co are equally free with cute animals, presidents, film stars, assorted Holy Books and even 9-11…

Depending on who you are and your social outlook this final collection is as brilliant or as appalling as the previous three so if you’re prudish, sensitive or concerned about moral standards – don’t buy this book. There’s plenty of us who will…

© 2010 Johnny Ryan. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Thor volume 3


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2149-7

Whereas the rapidly proliferating Marvel Universe grew ever more interconnected as it matured with the assorted superheroes literally tripping over each other as they contiguously and continually saved the world from their New York City bases, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby increasingly pulled the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes.

Admittedly the son of Odin would pop back for an adventure or two, but it is clear that for Kirby, Earth was just a nice place to visit whilst the stars and beyond were the right and proper domain of the Asgardians and their foes.

Crippled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an old 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.

Soon each issue also carried a spectacular back-up series. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics (in every sense of the word).

This third mind-boggling monochrome collection, encapsulating the absolute zenith of the fantastic feature, reprints Mighty Thor #137-166, spanning February 1967 to July 1969, as a new era dawned for the no-longer Earthbound Thunder God. At the end of the previous volume Thor had just lost his human paramour Jane Foster, but rediscovered his childhood sweetheart, the goddess Sif, now all grown up and a fierce warrior maid to boot.

A good thing too, since ‘The Thunder God and the Troll!’ (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta) which introduced the bestial menace of Ulik saw open warfare begin between the Asgardians and their implacable troglodytic foes. During spectacular carnage and combat Sif was captured and the Thunderer rushed to Earth to rescue her, whilst legions of monstrous subterraneans attacked the very heart of the kingdom…

The Tales of Asgard feature was being gradually wrapped up, but still offered Kirby a place to stretch his creative muscles. ‘The Tragedy of Hogun!’ (Lee, Kirby & Colletta) began revealing the gripping history of the dour warrior in an Arabian Nights pastiche which introduced Mogul of the Mystic Mountain.

In ‘The Flames of Battle!’ Thor was reunited with Sif but deprived of his magical mallet, courtesy of exotic technology the trolls had mysteriously developed. Did the malign invaders have a new ally or a terrifyingly powerful slave? Trapped on Earth, the hammerless Thor had no means of returning to the realm beyond the Rainbow Bridge whilst in Asgard, the war went badly and the heroic gods were close to defeat…

‘The Quest for the Mystic Mountain!’ found Hogun and his comrades edging closer to revelation and vengeance, which culminated in a truly stunning Kirby spectacle in #139 as the wandering warriors discovered ‘The Secret of the Mystic Mountain!’ in the Tales of Asgard segment whilst the lead story ‘To Die Like a God!’ wrapped up the Troll War in eye-popping style as Thor and Sif invaded the bowels of the Earth to save the day…

Thor #140 began a short run of compete, single episode tales heavy on action, starting with ‘The Growing Man!’ as Thor headed back to Earth and discovered New York under attack by a synthetic warrior who grew larger and stronger with every blow struck against him. Time travelling marauder Kang the Conqueror was behind the Brobdignagian brute, whilst in the back-up ‘The Battle Begins!’ Hogun and friends were menaced by a terrifying genie.

In #141 Thor faced ‘The Wrath of Replicus’, a bombastic, bludgeoning epic involving gangsters, alien and super-robots, counter-pointed by stunning fantasy as the wandering Asgardian warriors met ‘Alibar and the Forty Demons!’

‘The Scourge of the Super Skrull!’ pitted Thunder god against an alien with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, whilst in Asgard a new menace was investigated by Sif and the indomitable Balder. The back-up saw Kirby’s seamless melange of myth and legend go into overdrive as ‘We, Who are About to Die…!’ found young Thor and the Warriors Three facing all the mystic menaces of Mogul.

Thor #143 opened another extended epic with ‘…And, Soon Shall Come: the Enchanters!’ (inked by the magnificent Bill Everett) as Sif and Balder found a deadly trio of wizards plotting to overthrow All-Father Odin, only to fall prey to their power. Escaping to Earth they link up with the thunderer, but they have been followed… Everett also inked the Tales of Asgard instalment ‘To the Death!’ as comic relief Volstagg took centre stage…

Colletta return as inker with ‘This Battleground Earth!’, where two Enchanters attacked whilst the third duelled directly with Odin in the home of the gods. At the back the Mogul declared ‘The Beginning of the End!’

At the height of the battle in the previous issue Odin had withdrawn all the powers of his Asgardian followers, leaving Sif, Balder and Thor ‘Abandoned on Earth!’ Victorious, the All-Father then wanted his subjects home, but his son again chose to stay with mortals, driving Odin into a fury. Stripped of his magical abilities, alone hungry and in need of a job the once-god became embroiled with the Circus of Crime: hypnotised into committing an audacious theft…

The Tales of Asgard feature wrapped up in spectacular fashion with ‘The End!’, to be replaced in the next comicbook issue with the Inhumans – but as that’s a subject for a separate volume, the remainder of this chronicle is all-Norse action, beginning in #146 with ‘…If the Thunder Be Gone!’

Deprived of all but his natural super-strength Thor was helpless against the nefarious Ringmaster’s mesmerism and stole a life-sized, solid gold bull, but when the police interrupted the raid the hero awoke to find himself a moving target. Things got worse when he was arrested in ‘The Wrath of Odin!’ and left a sitting duck for the vengeance of his malign brother Loki. However, the god of Evil’s scheme was thwarted when Sif and Balder rushed to Thor’s rescue, provoking Odin to de-power and banish them all in ‘Let There be… Chaos!’

Even as all this high powered frenzy was occurring a brutal burglar was terrorising New York. The Wrecker was Public Enemy #1 and when he broke into the house where Loki was hiding the cheap thug achieved his greatest coup – intercepting a magic spell from the formidable Norn Queen intended to restore the mischief maker’s evil energies. Now charged with Asgardian forces the Wrecker went on a rampage with only the weakened Thor to resist him…

Issue #149 entered new territory with ‘When Falls a Hero!’ as, after a catastrophic combat the Wrecker killed Thor. ‘Even in Death…’ found the departed Thunder God facing Hela, Goddess of Death, whilst Balder and Sif hunted the Norn Queen and Loki. Hoping to save her beloved Sif entered into a devil’s bargain and surrendered her soul to animate the Destroyer, an unstoppable war-machine, unaware that the Thunderer had already convinced Death to release him…

‘…To Rise Again!’ saw the Destroyer, fresh from crushing the Wrecker, turn on the resurrected Thor as Sif was unable to communicate with or overrule the death machine’s pre-programmed need to kill. The situation was further muddled when Odin arbitrarily restored Thor’s godly might, prompting the Destroyer to go into lethal overdrive…

Meanwhile in the wilds of Asgard, Ulik the Troll attacked Karnilla, Queen of the Norns and Balder offered to be her champion if Sif was freed from the Destroyer…

‘The Dilemma of Dr. Blake!’ reached an epic turning point as Thor joined his lost companions to battle Ulik, only to lose his newly re-energised hammer to Loki, who fled to Earth with it. In hot pursuit the heroes followed and Sif was gravely wounded in ‘…But Dr. Blake Can Die!’ wherein Thor reverted to his mortal guise and operated on the dying goddess – an opportunity for further attack Loki could not resist, but which courage and ingenuity managed to frustrate…

A kind of order was restored but soon threatened again in Thor #154 when the vanquished Ulik accidentally released an ancient unstoppable beast in ‘…To Wake the Mangog!’

A creature imprisoned by Odin in his ancient prime, the monster now rampaged towards the heart of Asgard to trigger Ragnarok in ‘Now Ends the Universe!’ laying waste to everything in its path. All the Golden Realm’s resources were unable to slow its deadly progress in ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ but the valiant delaying tactics, depicted in unimaginably powerful battles scenes from Kirby – a genius on fire – resulted in a last-minute save in #157’s ‘Behind Him… Ragnarok!’

The peculiarities of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were examined and finally clarified next; beginning with ‘The Way it Was!’ – a framing sequence by Lee, Kirby & Colletta that book-ended  the very first Thor story ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ (inked by Joe Sinnott). This neatly segued into ‘The Answer at Last!’ which took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed Blake was no more than a Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…

With his true identity re-established Thor then answered a call from the Colonisers of Rigel, plunging into the depths of space to face a cosmic menace. ‘And Now… Galactus!’ reintroduced old companion the Recorder and pitted the Eater of Worlds against the living Planet Ego, a clash concluded with the Thunderer’s aid in ‘Shall a God Prevail?’ The Cosmic wonderment then escalated in ‘Galactus is Born!’ as Asgardian magic finally revealed a tantalising fragment of the space god’s origins…

For #163 and 164 Thor was returned to Earth to battle an invasion from the future. ‘Where Demons Dwell!’ found the recuperating Sif investigating a bizarre energy vortex until captured by mutate monsters controlled by the rogue Greek god Hades. Reunited with Thor the pair decimated the horrors from tomorrow ‘Lest Mankind Fall!’ and as Balder joined them in cataclysmic combat a mysterious cocoon hatched a man-made God…

‘Him!’ (Thor #165) and its conclusion ‘A God Berserk!’ close this hugely enjoyable collection in fine style as the creature created by evil scientists to conquer mankind and who would eventually evolve into the tragic cosmic savior Adam Warlock (as seen in Essential Fantastic Four volume 4) woke amidst the turmoil of the battle and seeing Sif, decided it was time he took a mate…

Trailing the naive superhuman Balder witnessed Thor’s descent into brutal “warrior-madness”, and as this volume ends with a shaken, penitent Thunder God eager to pay penance for his unaccustomed savagery, the best and last of Kirby’s Asgardian adventures still remain as part of the next collection.

More than any other Marvel strip Thor was the feature where Jack 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.

The Kirby Thor is a high-point in graphic fantasy and all the more impressive for their sheer timeless readability. These tales are an absolute must for all fans of the medium.
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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King of the Flies Volume 2: The Origin of the World


By Mezzo & Pirrus, translated by Helge Dascher with Dag Dascher & Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-390-3

Scary stories are everywhere, even in the most ordinary of suburban paradises: when DC Comics started calling Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing stories “Sophisticated Suspense” in the 1980s, to differentiate them from the formulaic “Set ’em up and then go Boo!” traditions of the horror comics medium, this kind of subtle, disorienting, creeping disturbia is exactly what they were aspiring to. Cleverly constructed, laconically laid out in the classic nine-panel-grid picture structure and rendered in comfortingly mundane style a la Charles Burns, King of the Flies is a landmark in metafictional mystery tales.

In volume 1, noted crime comics creators Pascal (Mezzo) Mesenburg and Michel Pirus introduced readers to the community of Hallorave and the eponymous Eric, a very troubled young man with a predilection for donning a gigantic Fly mask. A budding sociopath, the lad is into drugs, sex (consenting and otherwise), booze, introspection and instant gratification… but in that he’s not much different from the other residents of this little slice of Heaven. He also sees dead people occasionally – and again, he’s not the only one.

The book unfolded in seemingly unconnected vignettes narrated in the first person by a broad cast of unhappy campers and this second volume of three continues the tradition, but with the disparate threads increasingly overlapping and interlocking: the inevitable denouement seemingly inescapable and darkly bloody…

‘The Origin of the Species’ opens with Eric idly daydreaming of killing his mom’s new man Francis before heading out for Marie’s place. She isn’t Eric’s girlfriend really but she is sweet and easy and despises her parents too. Things kick off when gangster reprobate Ringo shows up and tells them to look after a bag he’s carrying.

Eric is cool but Marie takes a peek, finding bundles of cash and a bowling pin inside. Later that day Eric saves an old guy from drowning because he fancied the geezers young girlfriend Karine: once again his uncontrolled desires are screwing up his life…

‘Departures/Arrivals’ follows Karine, showing her dysfunctional relationship with her bitch of a mother and how her aged lover Becker dies of a heart attack in an airport. Karine is pregnant and Eric sees opportunity…

In ‘Come Back’ we see that Damien has no luck. Not only is he killed by a genuinely remorseful drunk driver, but his last mortal sight is the three thugs who chased him to his demise and his girl screwing his best friend Eric. He’s far more mellow as a ghost though, pitying his killer and hanging out with Becker, just as dead but far less sanguine about Eric, who’s now moved on to Karine… Damien’s ex-girl Sal was always wild and she too is making use of Eric’s hound-dog ways…

‘Flesh Safari’ returns the spotlight to Eric. His stepdad is wise to him but Marie’s father still trusts him to look after his little girl. When the youngsters go to a rich kid’s party at Coralie’s place, Fly boy is set up and humiliated, but does meet a new friend in the outcast intellectual David, before spitefully punishing Marie by sleeping with his host’s mother…

‘Maternal Damage’ shows the turmoil afflicting Marie’s mother and just how close to the breaking point she is, whilst ‘Superhero’ follows Eric as Sal leads him into trouble and somebody administers a particularly efficient punishment beating. Moreover, even though Eric has done with Marie he can’t bear her seeing a new guy and inflicts some rough injustice of his own.

We learn some intriguing and unsavoury insights about David in ‘Robin Redux’ before the focus switches to Ringo: a full-throttle psychopath who isn’t happy at all when he asks for his bag back and Eric discovers somebody’s taken it…

Ringo sees ghosts too, but they are no help when his Boss Ramos gets heavy. Eric and Marie are in deep trouble until somebody intercedes from ambush and there’s one more phantom in the cast…

‘Crazy Horse’ finds Eric still haunting Karine until he has a strange and disturbing encounter with Marie’s dad and this intermediate book ends on a foreboding spiritual high note with ‘2,969 Light Years From Earth’ as Damien takes steps to protect his loved ones from an angry spirit and each other. Meanwhile, the bag thief is revealed and the repercussions of all the messed up crap the residents have been inflicting on each other is coming to a head. The doorbell rings…

…And readers will have to wait for the concluding book to discover how this stunning, mesmerising amalgam of Twin Peaks, Desert Palms, Peyton Place, The Omen and Blue Velvet plays out. A stylish and magical portmanteau saga of a community cursed with an excess of human frailty – lust, rage, greed, despair and especially shallow selfishness – this is a story that will surprise, compel, distress and haunt anybody with even half an imagination.

Darkly addictive, casually violent and graphically sexual, King of the Flies is “adults only” and well worth waiting until you’re 18 for…
© 2005 Glenat Editions/Drugstore. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Return of Mister X


By Gilberto, Mario & Jaime Hernandez, Dean Motter & others (Graphitti Designs)
ISBN: 0-936211-03-2

It’s the same old story.

Sometimes chaos and acrimony can produce something uniquely beautiful. At the height of the 1980s independent comics explosion a group of very talented individuals briefly got on long enough to produce a visual masterpiece that perfectly captured the tone of the times, before personalities, fame, money and conflicting ideas brought everything down in disaffection and anger.

In 1983 illustrator and designer Dean Motter created an iconic visual image of a trench-coated bald man in smoked glasses. That evocative beginning grew into the concept of a tormented genius, drawn back to atone for his greatest creation – an incredible retro-futuristic metropolis. It was the 1980’s: the era of style over substance and fortunes and careers had been built on so much less…

Motter took the concept to Canadian indie publisher Vortex and brought in more experienced comics artists Paul Rivoche and Klaus Schönefeld to further develop the series. After an initial appearance in the company’s anthology Vortex #2 and a stunning poster campaign by Rivoche a new comicbook debuted. Already creative differences were pulling the team apart. Some session creators were needed to finish the job…

‘The Return of Mr. X’, scripted by Gilberto and Mario Hernandez with Motter, illustrated in a slick and compelling celebration of pure, synthesised-and-street-ready nostalgia by the inimitable Jaime Hernandez (all lavishly coloured by Rivoche and Schönefeld) blended a veritable bucket-load of cool influences into a staggeringly impressive melange of German Expressionism and American Film Noir, referencing also elements of pop science fiction, gangster movies, Art Deco, Bauhaus architectural design, LA street culture and the budding lexicon of graphic imagery from a brand new phenomenon – the music video…

Although Los Bros departed after completing the first story-arc in issue #4, citing payment disputes, the series carried on until 1985 with another ten issues by Motter and artist Seth rounding out volume 1: after which a second, black and white volume by writer Jeffrey Morgan illustrated by Shane Oakley, D’Iraeli and Ken Holewczynski was released in 1989. Since then the character has appeared sporadically under diverse hands including Motter, Bill Sienkiewicz, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and others. Most recently Dark Horse revived Mr. X in 2008.

Once upon a time an inspired architect designed the perfect city. With a brilliant mathematician as his partner they proposed the glorious concept of Radiant City, man-made paradise and City of Tomorrow. But as the city grew the scientist killed himself and the artist went mad: pushed by the drug he had invented to stave off time-wasting sleep. Perhaps the real reason was all the betrayals by friends, associates and his lover…

His brains scrambled, Walter Eichmann abandoned his “City of Dreams” allowing others to short-cut, adulterate and bastardize his unique mind-massaging “psychetecture” into something not soothing and beneficial but subtly dangerous. In his absence the rooms and buildings became twisted. The dwellings slowly poisoned the minds and souls of the citizens who occupied them. Le Corbusier called houses “machines for living” and the demented Eichmann had allowed them to become psychological war machines…

Years later, clean, relatively sane, cadaverous and hungry for redemption the mysterious Mr. X comes back to his city, now a gaudy, forbidding, vile and corrupted metropolis. He is armed with the intimate secrets of its genesis and determined to make amends, but to repair the mind-altering topography of the dark Somnopolis he will have to face all his old friends – men and women tainted by years dwelling in his creation and even more greedy, violent and ruthless than they were…

This material has been collected numerous times, but I’m concentrating on the first time: a sleek, luxurious tome which gathered those landmark first four issues – and more specifically the glorious signed, numbered hardback edition produced by high-end specialist printer/publisher Graphitti Designs.

In addition to the wonderful classic adventure this chronicle also includes a full colour by plate-page by Jaime, signed by all concerned, a huge designs, page-roughs and sketches section dubbed the X-files (that’s a catchy title: somebody should do something with that…) plus superbly pithy, short graphic sidebar novelettes entitled Tales From Somnopolis by Gilbert and Mario.

There’s also a tipped in colour plate reproducing Motter’s very first image of Mr. X (originally the cover for Patrick Cowley’s album Megatron Man).

Sexy, scary and funny, compelling and visually astounding, this tale – and this particular edition of it – absolutely captured and epitomised an era where how you looked was as or even more important than what you did – and the very special saga subsequently influenced a generation of comics creators, movie directors and video makers.

Whichever version you read The Return of Mr. X is a saga you must not miss.
© 1986 Vortex Comics Incorporated. All Tights Reserved. This edition © 1986 Graphitti Designs.

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Butterscotch (The Flavour of the Invisible)


By Milo Manara, translated by Tom Leighton (Eurotica/NBM) or (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-109-4 NBM or 978-0-87416-047-5 Catalan

If the cover images haven’t already clued you in, for some folks the graphic novel under review here will be unacceptably dirty. If that’s you, please stop here and come back tomorrow when there will something you’ll approve of but which will surely offend somebody else.

I’m feeling all grown up and continental today, so here’s a long overdue review of a milder masterpiece by one of the world’s greatest graphic eroticists. Originally translated into English by Catalan in 1987 it was re-released in 2002 under NBM’s Eurotica imprint, but has since languished in that great big limbo-land of the inexplicably Out-of-Print…

Maurilio Manara (born September 12th 1945) is an intellectual, whimsical craftsman with a dazzling array of artistic skills ranging from architecture, product design, painting and of course an elegant, refined, clear-clean line style with pen and ink. He is best known for his wry and always controversial sexually explicit material – although that’s more an indicator of our comics market than any artistic obsession.

He studied painting and architecture before becoming a comic artist in 1969, beginning with the Fumetti Neri series Genius, worked on the magazine Terror and in 1971 began his adult career (see what I did there?) illustrating Francisco Rubino’s Jolanda de Almaviva. In 1975 his first major work, a reworking of the Chinese tales of the Monkey King, was released as Lo Scimmiotto (‘The Ape‘).

By the end of the seventies he was working for Franco-Belgian markets where he is still regarded as an A-list creator. It was while working for Charlie Mensuel, Pilote and L’Écho des savanes that he created his signature series HP and Giuseppe Bergman for A Suivre.

In 1986 he wrote and drew, in his inimitable blend of social satire, bawdy burlesque and saucy slapstick, the incredible tale of the ultimate voyeur’s dream in Il profumo dell’invisibile, translated here as ‘Butterscotch’ …

The star is a rather brilliant and incredibly innocent nerd-physicist who has invented a lotion which can bend light rays around anything smeared with it. He also has an unnerving and utterly sexless fascination with prima ballerina Beatrice D’Altavilla – which is a pity as she is a heartless, sadistic bitch and the biggest slut in creation.

Honey is Beatrice’s extremely liberated, licentious and hot-blooded associate (Beatrice don’t do “friends”) and when she discovers the naked, semi-invisible man in the dancer’s bedroom she feels it her duty to show the innocuous stalker what his dream girl is really like…

Sadly there are none so blind as those who will not see, especially if we can’t see them either, and her various attempts to open his invisible eyes lead to violence and a bizarre sexual co-dependence (what with Beatrice being far too virginal and perfect for that nasty, dirty stuff…)

As Honey perpetually and ever-more frantically attempts to prove the existence of her invisible man – whose cloaking lotion smells powerfully of Butterscotch – her already low position in the ballerina’s entourage plummets and the abuses intensify.

Finally however, as Honey grows increasingly closer to the omnipresent, unseen (but regularly felt) voyeur, she finally shows him Beatrice’s true nature, leading to a tempestuous climax nobody expected and some might not survive…

Couched in Manara’s beautifully rendered, lavish line-work this highly explicit and sexually charged tale casts fascinating light on what people can’t and won’t see around them. Absolutely for adults only, Butterscotch is a captivating exploration of love, obsession and misperception.

Raunchy, funny and extremely hard to find, this is a book desperately worthy of a new edition.
© 1987 Milo Manara. English Language edition © 1987 Catalan Communications. © 2002 NBM. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful


By Mike Carey, Leonardo Manco, Giuseppe Camuncoli & Lorenzo Ruggiero (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-450-0

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a hell-addicted chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. He is nothing like Keanu Reeves. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void… the magician that is, not the actor…

That’s the only slice of levity you’ll get here, as with Reasons to be Cheerful writer Mike Carey took the world-weary warlock through some of the most infernal horrors he’s ever encountered as another of the Trickster’s infernal and impromptu devil’s bargains came roaring back to bite him on the arse…

Following on and expanding the traumas seen in Hellblazer: Stations of the Cross this volume collects issues #201-206 of the magnificent Vertigo comicbook, but before the main course ensues, opens with a terrifying palate-clearing one-off thriller.

In ‘Event Horizon’ (illustrated with dark passion by Leonardo Manco) the now-retired urban mage is dragged back into the mire of supernatural horror when a greedy low-life gangster-wannabe hires some street thugs to burgle Constantine’s lock-up and steal all those “valuable antiques” he has squirreled away. Of course the assorted ne’er-do-wells soon realise to their everlasting regret that some things just aren’t up for grabs…

Throughout this creepy morality play on “don’t take what isn’t yours” the aging mage is one step behind the action and clearly off his game, so when the four-part ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ begins he is utterly unable to even comprehend the danger he’s stepped into…

At the climax of the previous graphic novel the magician “married” a she-demon, and trapped in a nightmarish suburban family hallucination fathered three devil-babies. Now those Hell-brats have come to visit and, full of childish glee, have begun torturing and murdering his every surviving friend and associate – a very small club indeed…

Constantine only becomes aware when his oldest enemy comes to his aid, just in time for some last-minute heroics to save life-long pal Chas Chandler and one of his two remaining blood-kin…

Dragged back into the life he’d thought and prayed he had finally escaped, Constantine prepares to return to Hell and save that last, lost soul… but that’s the meat of the next collection as the final tale in this book digresses to follow the freshly exorcised Chas.

In ‘Cross Purpose’ (illustrated by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Lorenzo Ruggiero), still twisted, tainted and shell-shocked by the demon who recently rode his soul, Chas goes on a rampage of uncharacteristically bad behaviour before trying to pick up the pieces of a life seemingly shattered forever.

But some things just can’t be forgiven…

This relentlessly dark British series is always drenched with savage tensions, bloody confrontations and the perfect blend of supernal terror and contemporary angst. Hellblazer is the perfect horror-comic and one no mature modern fan can afford to miss.

© 2004, 2005, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.