Author: Now Read This

By Cefn Ridout & Charlie Adlard (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-0156-X

Don’t be fooled by the title and brace yourself for a disappointment if you’re a huge fan of the World War II Howling Commando and irascible leader of the planet’s most advanced espionage agency. Although he gets top billing, Nick Fury is largely absent from the post-Cold War proceedings in this well-intentioned if erratic thriller that is in actuality the spiritual conclusion to the sage of the mysterious Night Raven.

As seen in Night Raven: the Collected Stories (ISBN13: 978-1-85400-557-3), Night Raven: House Of Cards (ISBN13: 978-1-85400-288-4) and as yet un-collected illustrated prose adventures from various British Marvel publications, Night Raven was a masked vigilante who fought crime in New York and Chicago in the years between World Wars I and II. In later years he became locked in a bloody, relentless vendetta with the immortal villainess Yi Yang, Queen of the Dragon Tong.

When a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset is murdered inside the US embassy in Moscow soon after the fall of the Soviet system, expatriate Russian super agent and Avenger Natasha Romanoff is dispatched to unravel the secrets the new rulers don’t want revealed.

What she discovers is the incredible fate of the fearsome urban legend now known as Black Bird as he slaughters his way through bureaucrats and Russian Mafia alike in his single-minded mission to destroy the woman who kept him from a peaceful grave.

Superbly illustrated by Charlie Adlard this is nonetheless an uncomfortable blending of genres, with a strange pace to it: almost as if there’s been some savage trimming and pruning with no thought to narrative cohesion. Pretty and adventurous, it’s probably only of real interest to real aficionados.

© 1995 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-48576-378-7

In the build-up to the universe-altering Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9), DC released a number of themed miniseries, each of which was designed to set scenes, generate storylines, and generally warm up the audience for the Big Event. Each of these miniseries ended on a whopping cliffhanger and was then swiftly rushed out as a trade paperback collection. These ice-breakers were Day of Vengeance (ISBN 1-84576-230-4) The Omac Project (ISBN 1-84576-229-0) Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN 1-84576-231-2) and Villains United (ISBN 1-84576-232-0) – and you should probably lump in the Clip-book compilation Prelude to Infinite Crisis (ISBN 1-84576-209-6) which extracted pertinent snippets from a host of DC comics and the much more readable Identity Crisis (ISBN 1-34576-126-X) for a full set. (See separate reviews via the Archive)

The problem with the first four series/collections is that even as teaser tales and set-ups they were somewhat incomplete and inconclusive, necessitating the creation of intermediate one-shot Specials to bridge the gap between the individual storylines and Infinite Crisis itself (ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9 or ISBN: 978-1-84576-404-3 for the trade paperback). Those bridging specials are collected in this volume.

Day of Vengeance: The Ninth Age of Magic is by Bill Willingham, Justiniano and Walden Wong and deals with a last-ditch attempt by Earth’s magical practitioners to pacify a crazed and apocalyptic Spectre, whilst Rann-Thanagar War: Hands of Fate is written by Dave Gibbons with art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Marc Campos, Oclair Albert and Michael Bair finds a group of superheroes discovering the real causes of the war during a brutal battle in the depths of intergalactic space.

The Omac Project: the Lazarus Protocol is by Greg Rucka and Jesus Saiz and has Checkmate and a rag-tag bunch of superheroes deal with the deadly remnants of the rogue Brother Eye satellite as it crashes to Earth, and Gail Simone, Dale Eaglesham, Art Thibert and Drew Geraci bring the six super-villains who wouldn’t join Luthor’s Bad-guy Society into final conflict with the mastermind’s forces before everybody gets reconstructed by the final act of Infinite Crisis in Villains United: A Hero Dies but One.

If I’ve seemed a little disparaging here it’s not that the material is deficient or mediocre. These are good, strong stories, well told and wonderfully illustrated, but they are floating about without context in this compendium of middle-bits from a bigger story. The ineptitude of this sort of production and packaging utterly galls me. Could it have hurt so much to wait until these tales were published before rushing out the collections laboriously detailed above?

The best place for these adventures is in those books, not here as a separate volume. A big event like Infinite Crisis generates a lot of outside interest and – hopefully – new readers. To send them scurrying all over the landscape for the complete story is bad enough, but when the collections aren’t even complete all you have is a disgruntled purchaser who won’t come back. And it’s also not fair for dedicated fans – who we all know have already bought the original comics – to have yet another expensive book to add to their monthly bill.

Let’s hope for a little more joined-up thinking for those inevitable future publishing events.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0959-9

If you’re not a fan or follower of superheroes or extreme continuity comics, you might want to just skip this book: Otherwise be prepared for some fairly complex fight-in-tights interplay. Also, don’t even think about attempting this without first reading Crisis on Infinite Earths (ISBN: 978-1-5638-9750-4)!

Still with us? Okay, then…

To celebrate the anniversary of the biggest comics event of the 1980s, DC decided to revisit Crisis on Infinite Earths and boost sales and media exposure with another End-of-Everything mega-crossover. Out of this premise would come a cascade of tie-in titles, entwined storylines and a continuous high level of follow-up events, One Year Later, 52, Countdown, etcetera ad nauseum. Every character in the DCU must be permanently tanked on tranquilisers these days…

Spoiler Alert: I’m about to blow the ending of Crisis on Infinite Earths so if you still haven’t read it, do it now or deal with the consequences.

After a cataclysmic battle at the dawn of time all the remaining alternate universes were combined into one. Barring some continuity after-shocks, life itself was saved and reality was returned to its natural progress. Four remnants from worlds that had now never existed – Superman and Lois Lane from Earth 2, Alexander Luthor from Earth 3 and Superboy from Earth Prime, departed Reality itself for a nebulous, paradisiacal other place and the universe continued on.

As DC restarted its heroic history disquieting anomalies occasionally manifested, but generally everything progressed smoothly – as much as it can in superhero comics. But as the years passed the stories and events became grimmer, grittier, altogether darker and nastier. Superman was killed by Doomsday and came back (The Death and Return of Superman Omnibus ISBN: 978-1-4012-1550-7), opening the doorway of death for other returnees. The Justice League lobotomised Dr. Light (see Identity Crisis ISBN: 1-34576-126-X), Wonder Woman executed the telepathic despot Maxwell Lord (Superman: Sacrifice ISBN: 1-84576-243-6) and Batman had become a paranoid sociopath.

Heroes had become indistinguishable from villains, and in a place beyond space and time four survivors of a different kind of Reality looked on in horror and despair. Observing such events the last denizens of the multiverse realised that a dreadful mistake had been made and it was up to them to rectify it…

The seven issues of Infinite Crisis brought together all the various threads of various DCU titles as young Luthor, Superboy Prime and Mr and Mrs Superman tried in their own ways to unpick and reweave the fabric of a universe they deemed faulty. The attendant books Day of Vengeance (ISBN 1-84576-230-4) The Omac Project (ISBN 1-84576-229-0) Rann-Thanagar War (ISBN 1-84576-231-2) and Villains United (ISBN 1-84576-232-0) iterate their earliest clandestine efforts, funnelling into and culminating in this rather messy, unwieldy epic (as do storylines from a host of other individual titles) and after cataclysmic events a reality is salvaged if not actually saved.

For safety’s sake you’d best also include the Infinite Crisis Companion (ISBN: 978-1-48576-378-7) and Superman: Infinite Crisis (ISBN: 978-1-84576-342-8) on your shopping list if you’re going to attempt this ambitious but unnecessarily complex magnum opus which aims so very high and nearly achieves all it set out to.

Concocted by Geoff Johns and Phil Jimenez, assisted by George Pérez, Jerry Ordway, Ivan Reis and Andy Lanning, this is tantalisingly close to being a classic, but the muddle and bombast are only really accessible to the already conversant hardened fan whilst the new readers that came in the wake of the hype, (unlike the better structured Crisis on Infinite Earths) must have been left reeling by the overwhelming intricacy here, not to mention the frankly boggling number of characters in play without any seeming purpose or narrative contribution.

Like its predecessor this story will inform all DC adventures for years to come so it’s pretty much compulsory reading for fans, and to be fair, it is beautiful and impressive to look upon, but my major concern – as always – is getting more people reading comics and this one is just too much like hard work for the fresh and inexperienced punter.

© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Marv Wolfman & George Pérez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-5638-9750-4

There are a number of books I’ve held off reviewing for – I thought – obvious reasons. If a reader comfortable with the superhero genre hasn’t read certain landmarks like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns by now then surely I’ve been largely wasting yours and my time here. Nevertheless I’m reliably informed that many readers, new and old alike, have “never got around to” some of the most significant graphic narratives ever produced so here I am metaphorically poking the negligent with a stick until they do…

In 1985 the Editorial Powers-That-Be at DC Comics were celebrating fifty years of publishing, and on a creative upswing that had been a long time coming. As part of the festivities, and in a purported attempt to simplify five decades of often conflicting stories, a decision was made to concoct a truly epic, year-long saga that would impact every single DC title and reconstruct the entire landscape and history of the DC Universe, with an appearance – however brief – by every character the company had ever published. Easy-peasy, Huh?

Additionally, this new start would end the apparent confusion of multiple Earths with similarly named and themed heroes that had been deterring (sic) new readers. The hefty result of these good intentions was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and enabled the company to reinvigorate many of their most cherished – if moribund – properties. They’ve been trying to change it back ever since.

Plotted long in advance of launch, threads and portents appeared for months in DC’s regular titles, mostly to do with a mysterious arms-and-information broker known as The Monitor. With his beautiful assistant Harbinger he had been gauging each and every being on every Earth with a view to saving all Reality. At this time that Reality consisted of uncountable variations of universes existing “side-by-side”, each with differences varying from slight to monumental. It transpires that at the very beginning of time an influence from the future caused Reality to fracture…

Now a wave of anti-matter was scything through the Cosmic All destroying these separate universes. And before each Armageddon a tormented immortal named Pariah materialised. As the book opens he arrives on an Earth, as its closest dimensional neighbours are experiencing monumental geo-physical disruptions. It’s the end of the World…

Just in case you haven’t experienced this phenomenal example of superhero spectacle by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, aided and abetted by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo and Jerry Ordway, suffice to say that there is villainy behind the catastrophe and the action is tinged with tragedy – as many major heroic figures, from the grand to the nondescript die valiantly – fall in the struggle to preserve some measure of life in the doomed multiverse.

Full of plot twists and intrigue this Cosmic Spectacle set the benchmark for all future crossover publishing events, not just DC’s, and is still a qualitative high point seldom reached and never yet surpassed. As well as being a superb blockbuster in its own right and accessible to even the greenest neophyte reader, it is the foundation of all DC stories since 1985 and absolutely vital reading before attempting such modern epics as Infinite Crisis.

© 1985, 2001, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

A MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL

By Stan Lee & John Buscema, with Tom DeFalco (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-427-6

This self-indulgent but oddly entertaining galactic eye-candy featuring the legendary icon of the counter-culture generation once again sees the ex-herald of planet-devouring Galactus as a tragic saviour and Christ metaphor. Now however it’s not our troubled humanity but the overwhelming power of slavers from space that threatens humanity, and there’s a lot less breast-beating and soul-searching and rather more cosmic action.

The story by Stan Lee (and Keith Pollard) has a rather odd genesis. Commissioned in the early 1980s by Jim Shooter, Lee’s original plot was apparently much transformed in the eight years it took to draw. By the time it was dialogued it was a much different beast and Lee almost jokingly disowns it in his afterword. Nevertheless there’s lots to enjoy for the fan who doesn’t expect too much in this tale of love and death in the great beyond.

After a frantic rush through cosmic gulfs the Silver Surfer crashes into the home of Reed and Sue Richards, just ahead of the colossal invasion craft of the monstrous Mrrungo-Mu, who has been drawn to our world by the well-intentioned but naïve Nasa probe Voyager III.

The Surfer’s homeworld Zenn-La has already been depopulated by the awesome space slaver and Earth is next. Moving swiftly, and exploiting the good intentions of an Earth scientist, the Enslavers incapacitate all the world’s super-beings and prepare to enjoy their latest conquest, but they have not accounted for the vengeful resistance of the Surfer or the debilitating power of the love Mrrungo-Mu is himself slave to: for the unbeatable alien is weak and helpless before the haughty aloofness and emotional distance of his supposed chattel Tnneya…

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

© 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-841-6

Hard on the heels of the superb Shazam!: Monster Society of Evil collection (ISBN: 978-1-84576-389-3) comes this welcome addition to DC’s Greatest Stories… line, featuring some wonderful moments from the stellar, if chequered career of the World’s Mightiest Mortal. First seen in the February 1940 issue of Whiz Comics (#2 – there was no #1) to cash in on the sales phenomenon of Superman, he was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck.

‘Introducing Captain Marvel’, drawn in style reminiscent of early Hergé, saw homeless orphan newsboy Billy Batson lured into an abandoned subway tunnel to a meeting with the millennia old wizard Shazam. At the end of a long life fighting evil, the white-bearded figure grants the lad the power of six gods and heroes (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury) and tells him to carry on the good fight. In thirteen delightfully clean and simple pages Billy gets his powers, has his secret origin revealed (he’s heir to a fortune embezzled by his crooked uncle Ebenezer) gets a job as a radio reporter and defeats the mad scheme of Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana who is holding the airwaves of America hostage.

Originally dispensing the sort of summary justice as his contemporaries, the character soon distanced himself from the pack – Man of Steel included – by an increasingly light, surreal and comedic touch, which made Captain Marvel (Billy’s alter ego could beat everybody but copyright lawyers; during his years of inactivity the trademarked name passed to a number of other publishers before settling at Marvel Comics) the best-selling comics character in America. For a period Captain Marvel Adventures was published twice a month, and he was the star in a number of other titles too.

In the formative years however, there was actually a scramble to fill pages. From Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (1941) comes an untitled drama of alien slavers produced in a bit of a hurry by Golden Age Dream-Team Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. It’s fair to say that this rarity was included for its name-value alone, but the third tale, ‘The Trio of Terror’ (The Marvel Family #21, 1948), is prime stuff from Beck and the brilliant and prolific writer Otto Binder, full of sly whimsy as three demons escape the netherworld to plague ours.

Many of the storytelling innovations we find commonplace were invented by the creative folk at Fawcett – the original publisher’s of Captain Marvel. From Captain Marvel Adventures #137 (1952) comes ‘King Kull and the Seven Deadly Sins’ by Binder and Beck, wherein the beast king from a pre-human civilisation frees the embodiments of Man’s greatest enemies to plague the planet. These are wholesome tales for the entire family however, so don’t worry – “Lust” has become “Injustice” and “Wrath” is “Hatred”, here.

There are two yarns from the good Captain’s final year of Golden Age publication. DC, in their original identity of National Periodical Publications, had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 was released, and the companies had been slugging it out ever since. In 1953, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate.

DC eventually acquired all rights, titles and properties to the characters. But that last year saw some of the best tales in the entire run, represented here by the wonderfully surreal ‘Captain Marvel Battles the World’ (Captain Marvel Adventures #148, September1952, by Binder and Beck), and ‘The Primate Plot’ (The Marvel Family #85, July 1953), a dramatic and very funny precursor to the movie Planet of the Apes, by Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger. Beck would return to commercial and magazine illustration, but Binder and Schaffenberger soon joined the victorious opposition, becoming key Superman creators of the next few decades.

In 1973 DC decided to revive the Captain for a new generation and see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns. From the comicbook re-titled, for those pesky copyright reasons, Shazam!, the tale that bought him back was written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by the wonderful C.C. Beck.

‘In the Beginning… /The World’s Wickedest Plan’ (from Shazam! #1, February 1973) retold the origin and explained that the Captain, his super-powered family and all the supporting cast (there’s a very useful seating chart-cum-biography page provided for your perusal) had been trapped in suspended animation for twenty years by the invidious Sivana Family who had subsequently been trapped in their own Suspendium device.

The sales and fan rivalry of the Man of Steel and The Big Red Cheese (Sivana’s pet name for his stout-hearted nemesis) had endured for decades and in 1974 Julius Schwartz took full advantage by having the two finally – if notionally – meet. Superman #276 featured ‘Make Way for Captain Thunder’ by Elliot S! Maggin, Curt Swan and Bob Oksner, a trans-dimensional tussle to delight ten-year-olds of all ages. Incidentally, Captain Thunder was one of the titles considered in 1940 before Fawcett went with the Marvel name.

Beck was legendarily unhappy with the quality of stories he was being given to draw and soon left the series. One of his assistants and stable-mates from the Fawcett days had been a Superman Family mainstay for nearly twenty years and smoothly fitted into the vacated lead-artist position. Kurt Schaffenberger was delighted to again be drawing one of his all-time favourite assignments again, and his shining run is represented here by #14’s ‘The Evil Return of the Monster Society’ scripted by Denny O’Neil in 1974.

Captain Marvel’s blend of charm, drama and whimsy made and remade many fans, even prompting a live action TV series, but never enough to keep the series going in such economically trying times. Despite its cancellation however, the series persevered in back-up slots in other magazines and the character still made the occasional bombastic guest-appearance such as 1984’s DC Comics Presents Annual #3.

‘With One Magic Word’ saw Sivana steal the mystic lightning that empowered Billy Batson, leading to a Battle Royale with not just the Marvel Family but also the Supermen of both Earth’s 1 and 2 (this was mere months before Crisis on Infinite Earths lumped all these heroes onto one terribly beleaguered and crowded world). This cracking 40 page romp was plotted by long-time fan Roy Thomas, written by Joey Cavalieri and illustrated by the fabulous Gil Kane.

Now fully part of the DC universe Captain Marvel popped up everywhere. He was even part of Justice League International for awhile. From L.E.G.I.O.N ’91 #31 (1991), by Alan Grant and Barry Kitson, came the wickedly funny slugfest ‘Where Dreams End’, as the big guy has to try and reason with a drunk and hostile Lobo, and when he once more had his own series, spinning off from the superb original graphic novel The Power of Shazam! (ISBN: 978-1-56389-153-3), a new high-point of quality entertainment was achieved – and sustained – by Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause and Dick Giordano.

‘Yeah – This is a Face Only a Mother Could Love…’ (from The Power of Shazam! #33, 1997) is a powerful and poignant treatment of intolerance and the collateral damage of superhero encounters as Billy tries to help a school-friend hideously scarred by his arch-foe the Arson Fiend, and is possibly the best and least known story in the book.

This lovely compilation ends with a zesty delight from the all-ages Adventures in the DC Universe comicbook (#15, 1998). Steve Vance, John Delaney and Ron Boyd created a testing time for Billy when Zeus decided to see if Billy was actually worthy of his power in ‘Out of a Dark Cloud’.

Captain Marvel is a genuine icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This collection, which only scratches the surface of the canon of delights produced over the years, is a perfect introduction to the world of comics and one that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.

© 1940, 1941, 1948, 1952, 1953, 1973, 1974, 1984, 1991, 1997, 1998, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Adapted by Michael Lark (A Byron Preiss Book/Fireside Books)
ISBN: 0-684-82933-9

If you’re going to adapt classic, evocative crime novels into graphic narrative you really can’t start with better source material than Raymond Chandler. His fifth novel, The Little Sister, was published in 1949 after nearly a decade of hard living and work as a Hollywood screenwriter and it is a perfect example of his terse yet poetic hard-boiled style.

All the beloved and iconic imagery is present in Michael Lark’s static snapshot style as prim Orfamay Quest hires the laconic Marlowe to track down her missing brother, a spiritual soul who seems to have gone off the rails since hitting the sin city of Los Angeles. Little Orfamay seems wound up pretty tight for such a run-of the-mill case, but the world-weary detective starts to take things a little more seriously when the corpses start showing up…

This taut and twisted compote of mobsters, blackmail and double-dealing is a fine example of a tale adapted well, the underplayed art and direction augmented by controlled pace and a sensitive use of a deliberately limited colour palette. A cool look at a period classic, this is a crime-fan’s dream book, and what’s truly criminal is that it’s been allowed to slip out-of-print.

© 1997 Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Text of The Little Sister © 1949 Raymond Chandler, © renewed 1976 Mrs Helga Greene. All Rights Reserved.