Resurrectionists: Near Death Experienced


By Fred Van Lente, Maurizio Rosenzweig & Moreno DiNisio (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-760-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Surely everybody loves a cool crime caper yarn? If so, and yet still seeking a little something extra, here scripter Fred Van Lente (Action Philosophers, Archer & Armstrong, Cowboys & Aliens, X-Men: Noir, Brainboy, MODOK’s 11) delivers another riotously rewarding, big-picture concept to astound fans of films and funnybooks alike.

Illustrated by Italian team Maurizio Rosenzweig (Frontiersman, Laida Odius, Davide Golia, Clown Fatale) and colourist Moreno DiNisio (The Scumbag, Black Science, Dead Body Road), the tale is both frighteningly simple and terrifyingly complex…

Once upon a time 3000 years ago in ancient Egypt, an architect named Tao finished a tomb for a dangerously ambitious priest. Unfortunately, august cleric Herihor yearned to be Pharaoh instead of the Pharaoh (yeah, that’s an utterly unconnected Iznogoud reference!) and felt that the necessary precautions to ensure his ambitions in this life and the next should include killing everyone who worked on the project, …even Tao’s pregnant wife Maya

Meanwhile in the present day, major thief Jericho Way is stealing relics to order for a mysterious client with big pockets and extremely fixed tastes. The disgraced former architect has no idea why the mystery man only wants Egyptian stuff, or that the so-shy client is technically someone he’s known for many centuries…

With brother-thief Mac, Jericho is planning to boost some scrolls from a museum, but has become aggravatingly distracted by dreams of himself in another time and place. The master planner is blithely unaware that a lot of very strange and dangerous people are somehow cognizant of the changes he’s going through – after all they’ve been there before innumerable times – and are now extremely concerned about the life-decisions he’s going to make over the next few days…

The first inkling that something is up comes after a particularly intense “dream” as Jericho realises that he can now read the ancient Egyptian scrawl on the scroll he’s just swiped…

Simultaneously, long ago, in Herihor’s tomb, Tao – having escaped his pursuers but now hopelessly lost – settles down to die. Soon he is shocked and astounded to see another face…

Tomb robbers – also called “Resurrectionists” – have already broken into his impregnable design but their triumph now offers him a way out …and opportunity for revenge…

And as Jericho shares his memories of those robbers with Mac, he notes the recurring resemblances to recent acquaintances, and it all becomes clear that he and his new co-crew have been working on that revenge and this robbery for a very long time indeed…

Revealing a mystic vendetta than spans millennia and an undying love affair, this supremely engaging supernatural saga sees a gang of archetypal thieves locked in an eternal duel of wits and wills against a monster who has co-opted the Afterlife through the most devious and patient methods ever conceived. However, since the ragtag band of rogues can call upon the experiences of every person they have ever been, maybe this time they’re going to pull off the Crime of the Ages and at last obtain vengeance and peace in equal measure…

A delicious melange of spooky reincarnation yarn, edgy conspiracy-thriller and all-action buddy-movie come heist-caper, this is a brilliantly conceived and executed tale with plenty of plot twists you don’t want me to reveal, but which will intoxicate and astound all lovers of devious and deranged dark fantasy.

…And where’s the movie of this masterpiece?
Resurrectionists © 2014, 2015 Fred Van Lente and Maurizio Rosenzweig. All rights reserved.

The Question: Pipeline


By Greg Rucka, Cully Hamner, Laura Martin, Dave McCaig & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3041-8 (TPB)

As created by Steve Ditko, The Question was Vic Sage: a driven, obsessed journalist who sought out crime and corruption irrespective of the consequences. The Charlton Comics “Action-Hero” line was acquired by DC – along with a host of other cool and quirky outsiders – when the B-List company folded in 1983, and the ultimate loner became the template for the compulsive vigilante Rorschach when Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons first drafted the miniseries which would become Watchmen.

An ordinary man pushed to the edge by his upbringing and obsessions, Sage used his fists and a mask that made him look faceless to get answers (and, consequently, justice) whenever normal journalistic methods failed.

After a few minor successes around the DC universe Sage got a job in the town where he grew up. Hub City (purportedly based on East St. Louis) was a true urban hell-hole: the most corrupt and morally bankrupt municipality in America. When Sage started cleaning house as his faceless alter ego, he was promptly killed, rescued and resurrected by the inscrutable Shiva – “World’s Deadliest Assassin”.

Crippled, Sage journeyed into the wilderness to be healed and trained by Denny O’Neil’s other legendary martial arts creation, Richard Dragon.

Eventually, a new kind of hero resurfaced in Hub City, philosophically inquisitive rather than merely angry and frustrated, but still cursed with a drive to understand how and why things universally go bad. Aligning himself with his old intellectual mentor and ethical sounding board Professor Aristotle Rodor, Sage set about cleaning up “The Hub” and finally getting a few answers…

Spinning out of DC’s 52 (2006-2007) and Countdown to Final Crisis (2007-2008) mega-events, disgraced Gotham City cop Renee Montoya was selected and trained to take up the faceless mask and obsessions of the shadowy hero when Sage slowly succumbed to cancer.

First as his disciple and then as his heir (and after being masterfully schooled in martial arts by Dragon) she took up Sage’s quest. Montoya was soon drawn into a secret war with the passionate adherents of a malign “gospel of All Things Evil” alternatively known as the Books of Blood or the Crime Bible.

This legendary antithetical tract was said to counter all that is good in the world: justifying and codifying all that is wrong. Driven by a need to understand the evils she fights and stop the spread of this monstrous belief, the new Question hunted down the remaining copies of the book and the distinct factions which protected them and promoted the terrible teachings.

Her path eventually pitted her against the secret master of the “Dark Faith”: immortal Vandal Savage, who was believed by many to be the human species’ first murderer…

Collecting a stunning back-up series originally from Detective Comics #854-865 (August 2009 to July 2010), this globe-girdling saga of corruption and depravity is by writer Greg Rucka, illustrator Cully Hamner and colourists Laura Martin & Dave McCaig opens in the aftermath of that apocalyptic confrontation.

Montoya and inherited ally “Tot” Rodor are ensconced in their desolate lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, looking for a new case: sorting through emails from a “help-offered” website they’d set up…

Eventually, a particular message catches Renee’s eye. Hector Soliz is an illegal immigrant who has searched for his sister ever since she went missing. He foolishly trusted the “coyote” who originally smuggled him into America to do the same for Louisa, but never took into account that, for men like Varga, pretty young girls have a value far beyond simple cargo to be smuggled across a closed border…

Taking the case, Renee is soon breaking into the flesh peddler’s home and dealing harshly with Varga’s brutal thugs. There she finds a bed with chains and a camera set-up…

After undergoing some especially intense enquiries, the coyote gives up the name of the man he eventually sold Louisa to: millionaire shipping exporter Gordon Chandless.

Gettng into the businessman’s palatial HQ isn’t much harder, but overconfidence costs The Question dearly when she is surprised and overpowered by hulking bodyguard Mr. Bolt and his handy tasers…

Unable to pry any answers from his faceless captive, Chandless opts for her quiet removal, and by the time The Question escapes a watery death-trap and returns in a very bad mood, the wily trafficker is already gone…

Painfully aware that she’s tracking an evil enterprise of vast proportions, Renee uses Tot’s data-mining skills to track the mogul of misery to a luxury Hollywood lair: going in blazing, and utterly disdainful of his army of heavies. They might be unable to stop the implacable Question, but two of them are capable enough to kill their own boss at the clandestine command of his master…

Despite being back at square one in regard to the criminal hierarchy, Renee now has a location on a certain container vessel ready to ship out with a new cargo of slaves. Righteous indignation, cold fury and lucky intervention by the FBI soon sees all the victims safe and free – including little Louisa Soliz…

‘Pipeline: Chapter Two’ moves the story on as The Question continues her crusade to destroy the trafficking empire: slowly and violently working her way up a chain of scum and crushing individual enterprises whilst inexorably zeroing in on the major player behind the network of sin and misery…

Such costly interventions prompt the mystery leader to fight back hard, and during her raid on a top-of-the-range hot car franchise, bad guys retaliate with a devious and deadly ambush of their own. That’s when Montoya’s secret weapon makes her presence known and the crooks all end up maimed or worse at the hand of the relentless unforgiving Huntress

Helena Bertinelli was mob royalty but, following the type of massacre considered an occupational hazard for “The Family”, she disappeared. The only survivor of a major hit, she trained: becoming a masked avenger mercilessly punishing all gangsters, whilst defending ordinary folk. She especially despises those who prey on children…

Huntress and The Question continue busting rackets across the world, methodically dismantling the network whilst climbing the ladder to the big boss. They finally provoke an overwhelming response in the form of super-assassin Zeiss.

It’s all part of a deeper plan conceived by the vengeful vigilantes, who promptly co-opt the mercenary killer to give up his unassailable paymaster. However, their tactics revolt Tot and the elderly scholar resigns.

Undeterred, but now deprived of crucial technical support, the determined duo head for Gotham City where Helena introduces The Question to the top-secret leader of the all-female super-team known as the Birds of Prey. Former GCPD detective Montoya cannot believe that Commissioner Gordon’s mousey dweeb daughter Barbara was once Batgirl and is now covert anti-crime mastermind Oracle…

Her irresistible cyber-probing soon has the duo invading an underworld server-farm in Odessa which – after a studied application of maximum force – provides a money trail to the Pipeline overlord. Sadly, when they sneak onto Oolong Island, they walk straight into a trap…

The rogue state is the ultimate expression of Capitalism. Populated by criminals and mad scientists of many nations, it maintains its precarious independence by selling proscribed technologies to anyone with money, proudly free from the annoying oversight of law or hindrance of morality…

President-for-Life Veronica Cale starts by torturing her captive heroes, but after debating with The Question, soon sees that the most profit doesn’t necessarily stem from staying bought…

Soon, Montoya and Bertinelli are on the final stretch: sneaking into Syria and invading the stronghold of the man who has turned humans into commodities and exported sin and horror on a global scale. Unfortunately, the wickedest man alive is ready and waiting for them…

The cataclysmic ultimate confrontation is as much theosophical debate as brutal beat-down, and in the final reckoning the allies must become enemies for the best possible reasons before finding anything approaching an acceptable answer to their dilemmas…

Moody, fast-paced, challenging and astoundingly action-packed, this stylish book also offers a hugely engaging ‘Sketchbook’ section from Cully Hamner, offering developmental glimpses into his evolution of the characters; a fascinating 8 pages of layouts and roughs and amazing set designs for story-locations which will delight and amaze all lovers of comic art.

Compelling and breathtaking, Pipeline exposes the dark underbelly of mainstream Fights ‘n’ Tights comics, proving that you don’t need graphic excess to tell hard-hitting tales.

© 2009, 2010, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

S.H.I.E.L.D. volume 1: Perfect Bullets


By Mark Waid, Carlo Pacheco, Humberto Ramos, Alan Davis, Chris Sprouse, Mike Choi, Chris Renaud & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9362-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Just as the 1960s espionage fad was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man, war hero Nick Fury “re-debuted” in Fantastic Four #21 as a spy.

That was December 1963 – between issues #4 and 5 of his own blistering battle mag – where the perpetually grizzled warrior was re-imagined as a cunning CIA colonel lurking at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes into taking on a racist demagogue with a world-shattering secret…

Fury was already the star of the little company’s only war comic: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable and decidedly over-the-top, wild WWII-situated series similar in tone to later movies like The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch and The Dirty Dozen.

With spy stories globally going gonzo in the wake of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the veteran’s elder iteration was given a second series (launching in Strange Tales #135, August 1965), set in the then-present. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions and sinister schemes of World Conquest by hidden, subversive all-encompassing enemy organisation Hydra, graphically gift-wrapped with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgets and explosive high energy. It was set solidly at the heart of the slowly burgeoning Marvel Universe…

Once iconic imagineer Jim Steranko took charge, layering in a sleek, ultra-sophisticated edge of trend-setting drama, the series became one of the best and most visually innovative strips in America, if not the world.

When the writer/artist Steranko left and the spy-fad faded, the whole concept simply withdrew into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe: occasionally resurfacing in new series but growing increasingly uncomfortable to read as the role of spooks “on our side” became ever more debased in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.

In 1989, a 6-issue prestige format limited series reinvigorated the concept. As a company targeting the youth-oriented markets, Marvel had experienced problems with their in-house clandestine organisation. In almost all of their other titles, US agents and “the Feds” were usually the bad guys. Author Bob Harras employed this theme as well as the oddly quirky self-referential fact that nobody aged in comic continuity to play games with the readers…

Here, Fury had discovered that everybody in his organisation had been “turned” and was now an actual threat to freedom and democracy. With his core beliefs and principle of leading “the Good Guys” betrayed and destroyed, he went on the run, hunted by Earth’s most powerful covert agency, but with all the resources he’d devised and utilised now turned against him.

Part of the resolution saw S.H.I.E.L.D. reinvented for the 1990s: a leaner, cleaner, organisation, notionally acting under UN mandate, and proactive throughout the Marvel Universe. Moreover, Fury’s taste of betrayal and well-planted seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away…

Following numerous global crises – including a superhero Civil War – Fury was replaced as director. His successor – Tony Stark – proved to be inadequate and a huge mistake. Following an alien invasion by Skrulls, the organisation was mothballed: replaced by the manically dynamic Norman Osborn and his fanatically loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. project. As America’s top Fed, he was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of the burgeoning metahuman community.

Osborn’s ascent was an even bigger error. As America’s Director of National Security, the former Green Goblin and not-really-recovering psychopath instituted a draconian “Dark Reign” of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the nation into a paranoid tinderbox.

This spectacularly poor choice was, however, also directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive continuity. His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret powers of the planet and his ultimate defeat destabilised many previously unassailable empires…

Fury, an old man driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away. He just went deep undercover to continue doing what he’d always done: save the world, one battle at a time. Even after Osborn was gone, Fury stayed buried, preferring to fight battles his way and with assets and resources he’d personally acquired and clandestinely built…

Since the concept became an integral part of Marvel’s cinematic and TV universe, the comics division has laboured to find a way to rationalise their two wildly dissimilar iterations of S.H.I.E.L.D. In 2015 scripter Mark Waid and a rotating squad of illustrators finally settled on a way to square that circle…

S.H.I.E.L.D. – now the acronym for Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division – is a major player in defending humanity from the unimaginable, but movie icon Phil Coulson, his core TV team of Melinda May, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, plus hybrid versions of print-turned-screen stars like Bobbi (Mockingbird) Morse have been deftly hived off into their own niche of comic book continuity. Here Coulson runs an official sub-agency where – supplemented by S.H.I.E.L.D. resources – his own geekishly vast and deep knowledge of metahuman trivia and contacts with the entire super-heroic community combine to tackle unnatural crises on a case-by-case basis…

The result is a fresh and supremely appetising blend of spies, sinister secret villains and super folk that is a joy to behold…

Collecting issues #1-6 of the breakthrough series (technically S.H.I.E.L.D. volume 3, spanning February to July 2015, if you’re keeping count) this tome commences with the eponymous ‘Perfect Bullets’ (illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Mariano Taibo & Jason Paz, and Dono Sanchez Almara providing the colours) as S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Ops Supreme Commander Coulson rallies a barely wet-behind-the-ears unit to tackle a middle-eastern terrorist who has somehow latched onto a magic sword allowing him to summon all the monsters of mythology to batter the Earth.

As all the planet’s public superheroes wage a losing war against the invasion of gargantuan terrors, Coulson’s unit rapidly identifies the blade’s true owner before deploying the two ideal superheroes able to counter its threat…

Sadly, however, with the sword restored to its rightful place and wielder, a hidden extra-dimensional presence is unleashed, forcing Coulson to improvise a final solution…

Then, adding funny to the fast and furious, a brace of comedic shorts follows. Crafted by Joe Quesada and starring boy-genius Fitz and his digital avatar H.E.N.R.Y., these strips were originally concocted to amuse the cast and crew of the TV show…

The all-comic book action resumes with ‘The Animator’ (art by Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazabo & Edgar Delgado) as Xenobiology specialist Simmons is sent undercover to a High School in Jersey City to crack a smuggling ring. Of course, as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Ops mission, the contraband being sought is not drugs of guns or something equally mundane, but rather weapons and tech stolen from super-villains.

Everything instantly goes bad when a Wizard power-glove stashed in a locker spontaneously activates, causing a riot. Thankfully, fresh new Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan is a student at the beleaguered institution and steps up, impressing Coulson in the process…

Sadly, it’s not the only crisis on campus, as bio-plasm from genetic meddler Arnim Zola infects the cafeteria food, turning hungry kids into ravenous horrors.

With that catastrophe stomach-churningly averted, Fitz and H.E.N.R.Y. make another mirthful appearance before Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and colourist Matthew Wilson make the pictures for ‘Home Invasion’ as Coulson, Spider-Man and mystic parolee Mr. Rasputin break into the bewitched citadel of Doctor Strange, confronting mystic mercenaries hired to plunder the storehouse of its magical wonders.

The thieves think they have it covered but their meddling unleashes forces imperilling all of Earth. Moreover, in the aftermath, Coulson sees something which sets him thinking that one hand might be behind the many threats his team has recently tackled…

After another delightful Fitz and H.E.N.R.Y. escapade, Chris Sprouse, Carl Story & Almara illustrate a deeply disturbing tale as Invisible Woman Susan Richards is seconded to the Special Ops unit to save a reluctant Hydra informant from a radioactive prison five miles underground. Sadly, as ‘Fuel’ unfolds she discovers the truly vicious duplicity of her opponents and endures cruel whims of fate as the Mole Man attacks everybody and Coulson is forced to intervene before atomic Armageddon ensues…

The fifth instalment begins drawing disparate plot points together as Earth’s mystics and supernatural champions are systematically gunned down by an assassin firing purpose-built ‘Magic Bullets’ (with art by Mike Choi and colourist Rachelle Rosenberg)…

With his resources reduced to the Scarlet Witch and professional sceptics Fitz & Simmons, Coulson uncovers a connection to Asgard and a mystery magical mastermind, only to have his team supernaturally suborned as the hidden manipulator makes his long-anticipated move…

This immensely entertaining epic concludes as Earth is afflicted with an arcane plague transforming humanity into mindless monsters, compelling Coulson to assemble a squad of intellect-deficient atrocities – Zombie Simon Garth, The Living Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster and Man-Thing – into an all-new unit of Howling Commandos to invade the ‘Dark Dimensions’ (illustrated by Paul Renaud & Romulo Farjado, Jr.) to stop the contagion and its creator at the source.

…And, because he’s the sneaky bastard he is, Coulson also takes along a secret weapon: the last villain anyone might expect to save the universe…

Fast-paced, action-packed, imaginative, thrilling, funny and superbly illuminated throughout, Perfect Bullets offers fantastic enjoyment for any Fights ‘n’ Tights fan with a smattering of Marvel history in their heads, but will especially reward any TV devotee willing to peek into the convoluted comic book universe all modern movie Marvels sprang from.
© 2015 Marvel Characters. All rights reserved.

Batman & Superman in World’s Finest Comics: The Silver Age volume 1


By Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Alvin Schwartz, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, John Fischetti, Charles Paris, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6833-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Some things were just meant to be: Bacon & Eggs, Rhubarb & Custard, Chalk & Cheese…

For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest team”. They were friends as well as colleagues and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes (in effect, the company’s only costumed superstars) could cross-pollinate and, more importantly, cross-sell their combined readerships.

This most inevitable of Paladin Pairings first occurred on the Superman radio show in the early 1940s, whereas in comics the pair had only briefly met whilst on a Justice Society of America adventure in All-Star Comics #36 (August-September 1947) – and perhaps even there, they missed each other in the gaudy hubbub…

Of course, they had shared the covers of World’s Finest Comics from the outset, despite never crossing paths inside: sticking firmly to their specified solo adventures within. For us pictorial continuity buffs, the climactic real first time was in the pages of Superman’s own bi-monthly comic (#76, May/June 1952).

That yarn kicks off this stunning compendium of Silver Age solid gold, accompanied here by the lead story from World’s Finest Comics #71 through 94; spanning July/August 1954 to May/June 1958.

Science fiction author Edmond Hamilton was tasked with revealing how Man of Steel and Caped Crusader first met – and accidentally uncovered each other’s identities – whilst sharing a cabin on an over-booked cruise liner. Although an average crime-stopper yarn, it was the start of a phenomenon. The art for ‘The Mightiest Team in the World’ was by the brilliant Curt Swan and inkers John Fischetti & Stan Kaye.

With dwindling page counts, rising costs but a proven readership and years of co-starring but never mingling, World’s Finest Comics #71 presented the Man of Tomorrow and Gotham Gangbuster in the first of their official shared cases wherein the Caped Crusader became ‘Batman – Double for Superman!’ (by Alvin Schwartz, with Swan & Kaye providing pictures) as the merely mortal hero trades identities to preserve his comrade’s alter ego and – latterly – his life…

‘Fort Crime!’ (Schwartz, Swan & Kaye) has them unite to crush a highly-organised mob with a seemingly impregnable hideout, after which Hamilton returned for ‘Superman and Batman, Swamis Inc.’, a sharp sting-operation that almost goes tragically awry. Next, an alien invader prompts insane rivalry resulting in ‘The Contest of Heroes’ (Bill Finger, Swan & Kaye, in WFC #74.

The same creative team produced ‘Superman and Robin!’ wherein a disabled Batman can only fret and fume as his erstwhile assistant seemingly dumps him for a better man, whilst ‘When Gotham City Challenged Metropolis’ (by Hamilton, Swan & Charles Paris) catches the champions at odds as their hometowns over-aggressively vie for a multi-million-dollar electronics convention.

A landmark tale by Hamilton, Swan & Kaye invented a new sub-genre when a mad scientist’s accident temporarily removes the Caped Kryptonian’s powers and creates ‘The Super Bat-Man!’ in #77. The theme would be revisited for decades to come…

Arguably Batman’s greatest illustrator joined the creative crew ‘When Superman’s Identity is Exposed!’ (by Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Kaye) as a mysterious source keeps revealing the Man of Steel’s greatest secret, only to be exposed as a well-intentioned disinformation stunt. The tone switches to high adventure as the trio become ‘The Three Musicians of Bagdad’ – a stunning time-travel romp from Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye – after which the Gotham Gazette faces closure days before a spectacular crime-expose, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane join dilettante Bruce Wayne as pinch-hitting reporters on ‘The Super-Newspaper of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Charles Paris). Then, ‘The True History of Superman and Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, #81) finds a future historian blackmailing the heroes into restaging their greatest exploits so his erroneous treatise on them will be accurate…

Hamilton also produced a magnificent and classy costumed drama when ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’ visit 17th century France to solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, whilst Finger wrote a brilliant and delightful caper-without-a-crime in ‘The Case of the Mother Goose Mystery!’ after which Hamilton provides insight on a much earlier meeting of the World’s Finest Team with ‘The Super-Mystery of Metropolis!’ in #84, all for Sprang & Kaye to enticingly illustrate.

Hamilton, Swan, Sprang & Kaye demonstrate how a comely Ruritanian Princess inadvertently turns the level-headed heroes into ‘The Super-Rivals (or does she?), before monolithic charity-event ‘The Super-Show of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) nearly turns into a mammoth pay-day for unscrupulous con-men.

‘The Reversed Heroes’ (Finger, Sprang & Ray Burnley) once again catches the costumed champions swapping roles after Batman and Robin gain powers thanks to Kryptonian pep-pills found by criminal Elton Craig, ironically just as Superman’s powers fade…

As conceived by Hamilton, Sprang, Kaye, World’s Finest #87 revealed ‘Superman and Batman’s Greatest Foes!’ with “reformed” villains Lex Luthor and The Joker ostensibly setting up in the commercial robot business – which nobody really believed – after which seminal sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) reprised a meeting of Batmen from many nations, but added an intriguing sub-plot of an amnesiac Superman and a brand-new costumed champion…

That originating tale appeared in Detective Comics #215, January 1955 becoming a key plank of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman: The Black Glove serial: you should read that one too…

That evergreen power-swap plot was revived in #90’s ‘The Super-Batwoman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) when the “headstrong heroine” defies Batman to resume her costumed career and is quickly compelled to swallow Elton Craig’s last Krypton pill to prevent criminals getting it…

A stirring time-busting saga of ‘The Three Super-Sleepers’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) sees our heroes fall into a trap causing them to slumber for 1000 years and awaken in a fantastic world they can never escape, but of course they can and – once back where they belonged – ‘The Boy from Outer Space!’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) details how a super-powered amnesiac kid crashes to Earth and briefly becomes Superman’s sidekick Skyboy, even as ‘The Boss of Superman and Batman’ (author unknown, but impeccably illustrated as always by Sprang & Kaye) sees a brain-amplifying machine turn Robin into a super-genius more than qualified to lead the trio in their battle against insidious rogue scientist Victor Danning

Wrapping up this initial compendium with comfortable circularity, the Man of Tomorrow replaces the Caped Crusader with a new partner and provokes a review of ‘The Origin of the Superman-Batman Team’ courtesy of Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, suspending these supremely enticing Fights ‘n’ Tights triumphs on an epic high.

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: The Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this titanic tome are a veritable feast of witty, charming thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.
© 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Annihilation Classic


By Todd Dezago, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Bill Mantlo, Doug Moench, Scott Edelman, Roy Thomas, Pat Broderick, Fred Hembeck, Derec Aucoin, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Paul Ryan, Mike Mignola, Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3410-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

With the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to open on May 5th, here’s a brief reminder of what comics did to inspire the phenomenon: still a grand example of cosmic hero wonderment…

Annihilation was another of those company-wide publishing events that “Changed the Marvel Universe Forever” (and don’t they all?). which ran for most of 2006, involving most of the House of Ideas’ outer space outposts and cosmic characters. Among the stalwarts in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord, Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, The Watchers and a host of alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar, et al, all falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by the insectoid horror Annihilus.

If you’re new to the Marvel universe and that bewildering list of daunting data didn’t leave you screaming in frustration, then please read on…

As is usual in these public herd-thinnings, a number of good guys and bad died and had their trademark assumed by newer, glitzier models whilst some moribund careers got a successful and overdue shot in the arm…

The event spawned a number of specials, miniseries and new titles (subsequently collected as three volumes plus this Annihilation Classic compilation reprinting key and origin appearances of some major players) and led to follow-up event Annihilation: Conquest. Of particular interest to fun-loving screen-watchers might be early appearances of Galaxy Guardians Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Starlord and Adam Warlock

This sharp selection comprises of and contains pertinent material from Bug #1, (March 1997), Tales to Astonish #13, (December 1960), Nova #1, (September 1976), Quasar #1 (October 1989), Rocket Raccoon #1-4 (May-August 1995) ,Marvel Spotlight #6 (May 1980), Logan’s Run #6 (June 1977) and Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972) and opens with the frenetic and light-hearted solo outing for Galactic Warrior Bug (originally a cheeky stalwart from the 1970’s toy-license phenomenon Micronauts)…

In ‘Apples and Oranges’ by Tod Dezago, Derec Aucoin, Rich Farber & Ralph Cabrera, the insectivorid from the Microverse accidentally clashes with all-consuming cosmic menace Annihilus and gets stuck in a time/space warp.

Bounced around the history of the Marvel Universe, the warring weirdoes reveal their unheralded contributions to the origin stories of a number of the company’s greatest stars before Bug finally triumphs…

With accompanying pinup by Pat Broderick and hilarious game pages by Fred Hembeck including ‘Bug’s Brain-Tik-lers’, ‘The Help Bug Right the Time/Space Continuum Board Game’, ‘What’s Wrong with This Picture?’ and ‘Bug’s Catch-All Activity Page’, this is a splendidly engaging and irreverent treat, followed by an absolute classic of the gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” genre as a humble biologist saved earth from a rapacious walking tree in ‘I Challenged Groot! The Monster from Planet X!’ (Tales to Astonish #13 by Stan Lee/Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers).

Next to grab the spotlight is The Man Called Nova who was in fact a boy named Richard Rider. A working-class nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker – except he was good at sports and bad at learning – Rich attended Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Other superficial differences to the Spider-Man canon included girlfriend Ginger and best friends Bernie and Caps, but Rich did have his own school bully, Mike Burley…

An earlier version, “Black Nova” had apparently appeared in the author Marv Wolfman’s fan-mag Super Adventures in 1966 (produced with fellow writer Len Wein), but following a few revisions and artistic make-over by the legendary John Romita (Senior) the Human Rocket launched into the Marvel Universe in his own title, beginning in September 1976, ably supported by the illustration A-Team of John Buscema & Joe Sinnott.

‘Nova’ – borrowing heavily from DC’s Silver Age Green Lantern franchise as well as Spider-Man’s origin – is structured like a classic 4-chapter Lee/Kirby early Fantastic Four fable, and rapidly introduced its large cast before quickly zipping to the life-changing moment in Rider’s life when a star-ship with a dying alien aboard transferred to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeper and warrior.

Rhomann Dey tracked a deadly marauder to Earth. Zorr had already destroyed the idyllic world of Xandar, but the severely wounded vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide. Trusting to fate, Dey beams his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rider is struck by the energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening the teen realises he has gained awesome powers …and the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion…

Wendell Vaughn debuted in 1977 as S.H.I.E.L.D. super-agent Marvel Boy (Captain America #217), graduating and rebranding as Quasar during a stint as security chief of Project Pegasus during the early 1980s. He finally got an origin with his own title Quasar #1 (cover-dated October 1989).

He learned ‘The Price of Power!’ courtesy of Mark Gruenwald, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi in a rousing romp wherein he washes out of agent training for lack of a killer instinct. Whilst acting in a security detail, Wendell dons alien quantum wrist-bands to stop them being stolen by AIM, even though they had vaporised every S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who had test-piloted them.

As well as not dying, he gained incredible quantum light powers and began a brief but glorious career as an Avenger and Protector of the Universe…

Rocket Raccoon was a minor character who appeared in brief backup sci fi serial ‘The Sword in the Star’ (specifically in Marvel Preview #7 in 1976). He won a larger role in Incredible Hulk #271 (May 1982), and like Wolverine years before, refused to go away quietly.

Reprinted here in its entirety is the 4-issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries (May to August 1985, as crafted by Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, Al Gordon & Al Milgrom): a bizarre, baroque sci-fi fantasy blending the edgy charm of Pogo with the biting social satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all whilst ostensibly describing a battle between Good and Evil in a sector of space completely crazy even by comicbook standards.

Rocket was one of many talking animals populating the impenetrable, inescapable Keystone Quadrant; a Ranger in charge of keeping the peace as robots and anamorphic beasties went about their holy, ordained task of caring for the distinctly odd and carefree humans known as The Loonies on their idyllic, sybaritic planet Halfworld.

However when a brutal shooting war between voracious apex toymakers Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne led to Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla Otter being kidnapped, the planet went wild, or more accurately… Animal Crackers’

In rescuing her, Rocket and his faithful deputy Wal Rus had to contend with a murderous army of mechanised Killer Clowns, face an horrific, all-consuming bio-weapon at ‘The Masque of the Red Breath’ and even team up with arch-foe and disreputable mercenary bunny Blackjack O’Hare before uncovering the horrendous truth behind the mad society he so tirelessly defended in ‘The Book of Revelations!’

The final chapter then shook everything up as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’ saw the end of The Loonies, allowing Rocket and his surviving companions to escape the confines of the eternally segregated Keystone Quadrant into the greater universe beyond…

Starlord (without the hyphen) premiered in 1976, headlining monochrome mature-reader magazine Marvel Preview # 4. He appeared thrice more – in #11, 14 and 15 – during the height of a Star Wars inspired Science Fiction boom.

Years previously, the warrior prince of an interstellar empire was shot down over Colorado and had a fling with solitary Earther Meredith Quill. Despite a desire to remain in idyllic isolation, duty called her starman back to battle and he left, leaving behind an unborn son and a unique weapon. A decade later, the troubled boy saw his mother assassinated by alien lizard men.

Peter Jason Quill vengefully slew the creatures with Meredith’s shotgun, before his home was explosively destroyed by a flying saucer.

The newly-minted orphan awoke in hospital, his only possession a “toy” ray-gun his mother had hidden from him his entire life. Years later his destiny found him, as the half-breed scion was elevated by the divinity dubbed the “Master of the Sun”, becoming StarLord. Rejecting both Earth and his missing father, Peter chose freedom, the pursuit of justice and the expanse of the cosmos…

Here, from Marvel Spotlight volume 2 #6, Doug Moench & Tom Sutton revisit and clarify that origin as the pacifistic Quill and his sentient starship return to Sol and discover the truth about his nativity and ascension as well as the true nature of The Master of the Sun…

Logan’s Run was a short-lived licensed property tie-in, and #6 incongruously featured a 5-page short starring mad Titan Thanos in battle against his precision-crafted nemesis Drax the Destroyer: a typically inconclusive, explosively violent out-world clash over ‘The Final Flower’ crafted by Scott Edelman & Mike Zeck.

This star-studded compilation then concludes with an allegorical masterpiece by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane & Dan Adkins from Marvel Premiere #1. During a time of tremendous social upheaval Thomas transubstantiated an old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor. Debuting as a dreaded mystery menace, the character dubbed Him was re-imagined as a contemporary interpretation of the Christ myth and placed on a world far more like our own than the Earth of Marvel’s superhero-stuffed universe.

‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock!’ adroitly recapitulates the artificial man’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. After facing the FF, Him subsequently escaped to the stars and later initiated a naive clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to his all-encompassing cocoon to evolve a little bit more.

Now that stellar shell is picked up by the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary who is obsessed with a bold new experiment. Our hand-made hero observes as the savant creates a duplicate Earth on the far side of the sun, fast-forwarding through billions of years of evolution in mere hours. The man-god’s intent is to create a civilisation without aggression or rancour, but the Evolutionary collapses from exhaustion just as proto-hominid becomes Homo Sapien and his greatest mistake takes instant advantage of his exhaustion to meddle with fate…

Years previously Man-Beast had been hyper-evolved from a wolf and instantly became his creator’s nemesis. Now he and his equally-debased minions invade the ship and interfere with the experiment: reintroducing evil to the perfect creatures below and, in fact, making them just like us. At incredible speed Earth’s history re-ran with the creature in the cocoon afforded a ring-side seat to humanity’s fall from grace…

When the High Evolutionary awakes to fight Man-Beast’s army, Him explodes from his shell to help rout the demons, who flee to despoiled Counter-Earth. With calm restored, the science-god prepares to sterilise his ruined experiment: a world now indistinguishable from our own. No superheroes; disease and poverty rampant; injustice in ascendance and moments away from nuclear Armageddon… but the cosmic newborn begs him not to.

He claims the evil tide can be turned and pleads for the Evolutionary to stay his hand. The grieving, despondent creator agreed… but only until the rechristened Adam Warlock should admit that humanity is beyond redemption…

This ends a magnificent compendium of genuine magical Marvel moments: an eclectic but hugely entertaining procession of thrills, spectacle and laughs no comic fan or interested neophyte could possibly resist. And when you’ve read all this, you’ll be properly primed for some wide screen wonders too…
© 2020 MARVEL.

The Brave and the Bold volumes 1 & 2: The Lords of Luck and The Book of Destiny


The Lords of Luck By Mark Waid & George Pérez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-649-8 (US HB) 978-1-84576-649-8 (TPB)

There are so many great graphic novels and compilations available these days that it’s always a shock when I realise how many more are still out of print. Here’s a classic example just begging for revival and digital editions…

The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck collects the first 6 issues of another revival of a venerable DC title (technically volume 3 and spanning April -September 2007): returning it not only to the fitting team-up format we all enjoyed, but doing so with such style, enthusiasm and outright joy that I’m reduced to a gawping, drooling nine-year-old again.

Here Mark Waid, George Pérez and inkers Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish crafted an intergalactic romp through time and nether dimensions, ripping across the DC Universe in a funny, thrilling and immensely satisfying murder-mystery-come-universal-conquest saga.

When Batman and Green Lantern (in part one ‘Roulette’ and concluding episode ‘The Girl Who Knew Too Much’) discover absolutely identical corpses hundreds of miles apart it sets them on the trail of probability-warping aliens and the missing Book of Destiny – a mystical chronicle of everything that ever was, is, and will be!

And yes, that makes this a notional tie-in to The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and his coterie of classy creatives…

Each issue/chapter highlights a different team-up and eventually the hunt by Adam Strange, Blue Beetle (‘The Lord of Time’), Destiny (of the Endless, no less in chapter 4 ‘The Garden of Destiny’), the Legion of Super Heroes (‘The Batman of Tomorrow’), Lobo, Supergirl (‘Ventura’) and a mystery favourite from long-ago (you’ll thank me for not blowing the secret, honestly!) plus an incredible assortment of cameo stars coalesces into a fabulous free-for-all that affirms and reinforces all the reasons I love this medium.

With the value-added bonus of an annotated exploration of Waid & Pérez’s creative process to entrance the aspiring creator-of-tomorrow, this is a great story with great art, and is perfect for all ages to read and re-read over and over again. So let’s hope that happens soon…

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

The Book of Destiny

By Mark Waid, George Pérez, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-4012-1838-6 (HB) 978-1-4012-1861-4 (TPB)

The Book of Destiny is a mystical ledger which charts the history, progress and fate of all Reality and everything in it – except for the four mortals entrusted with its care at the end of The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck. The death-defying Challengers of the Unknown – cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut Prof. Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan – live on borrowed time and were bequeathed the terrifying tome by Destiny of the Endless since their lives are no longer included within its horrifying pages…

After the staggering spectacle of the previous Brave and the Bold story-arc, here Waid & Pérez, with inkers Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish are joined by co-penciller Jerry Ordway for a stunning sequel featuring most of the DC universe…

This compilation collects issues #7-12 (volume 3 from December 2007-June 2008) of the high-energy, all-star revival of the venerable DC title: playing novel games with traditional team-up format as a mysterious mage begins manipulating heroes and villains in a diabolical alchemical scheme to transform the cosmos fundamentally and forever…

Beginning with ‘Scalpels and Chainsaws’ – wherein Wonder Woman and the ever-abrasive Power Girl rub each other the wrong way (oh please, what are you, ten!?) whilst tackling an undead invasion, the case takes a stranger turn and Kara-Zor-L accidentally discovers the Caped Kryptonian has been brainwashed into trying to murder her cousin Superman

Their ill-tempered investigations lead to the fabled Lost Library of Alexandria and a disastrous confrontation with the deranged Dr. Alchemy, but he too is only a pre-programmed pawn – of a sinister presence called Megistus – who needs Power Girl to use the mystical artefact known as the Philosopher’s Stone to turn the Fortress of Solitude into pure Red Kryptonite…

Thanks to Wonder Woman’s battle savvy, the plot is frustrated and the stone thrown into the sun… just as Megistus intended…

All this has been perused in the mystic chronicle by the Challengers and their fifth member Dr. June Robbins – whose merely mortal existence and eventual doom are tragically recorded in the Book. They rush off to investigate a universe-rending menace even as ‘Wally’s Choice’ brings The Flash and his rapidly aging children Jai and Iris West into unwelcome contact with manipulative genius Niles Caulder and his valiant Doom Patrol. “The Chief” claims he can cure the twins’ hyper-velocity malady, but Caulder never does anything for selfless reasons…

With no other hope, Wally and wife Linda acquiescence to the mad genius’ scheme – which relies on using elemental hero Rex Mason to stabilise their kids’ critical conditions. It might have worked, had not Metamorpho been mystically abducted mid-process – consequently transforming the children into bizarre amalgams of Negative Man and Robot Man

Worst of all, Flash is almost forced to choose which child to save and which should die…

Thinking faster than ever, the Scarlet Speedster beats the odds and pulls off a miracle but, in a distant place, the pages of the Book are suddenly possessed and abruptly attack the Challengers…

‘Changing Times’ features a triptych of short team-up tales which play out as the Men that History Forgot battle a monster made of Destiny’s pages, beginning as the robotic Metal Men joined forces with young Robby Reed who could become a legion of champions whenever he needs to Dial H for Hero.

Sadly not even genius Will Magnus could have predicted the unfortunate result when crushingly shy robot Tin stuck his shiny digit in the arcane Dial…

Next, during WWII the combative Boy Commandos are joined by The Blackhawks in battling animated mummies intent on purloining the immensely powerful Orb of Ra from a lost pyramid, after which perpetually reincarnating warrior Hawkman joined All-New Atom Ryan Choi in defending Palaeolithic star-charts from the marauding Warlock of Ys.

None of them are aware that they are doing the work of malignly omnipresent Megistus…

The fourth chapter paralleled the Challengers’ incredible victory over the parchment peril with a brace of tales seeing the Man of Steel travel to ancient Britain to join heroic squire Brian of Kent (secretly the oppression-crushing Silent Knight) in bombastic battle against a deadly dragon, whilst the Teen Titan’s untold second ever case finds Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash in Atlantis for the marriage of Aquaman and Mera.

Unfortunately Megistus’ drone Oceanus crashes the party, intent on turning Aqualad into an enslaved route map to the future…

And in California, the Challengers attempted to save Green Lantern’s Power Battery from being stolen only to find it in the possession of an ensorcelled Metamorpho…

As the Element Man easily overwhelms Destiny’s Deputies, Jerry Ordway assumed the penciller’s role for issues #11-12.

‘Superman and Ultraman’ saw the natural enemies initially clash and then collaborate at the behest of an alternate universe’s Mr. Mixyezpitelik, who reveals the appalling scope and nature of Megistus’ supernal transformational ambitions, leading to a gathering of the heroic clans and a blistering Battle Royale in the roaring heart of the Sun…

With the fate of reality at stake and featuring a veritable army of guest stars ‘The Brave and the Bold’ concludes the saga with a terrible, tragic sacrifice from the noblest hero of all, whilst subtly setting the scene for the then-upcoming Final Crisis

With fascinating designs and pencil drawings from Ordway to tantalise the art lovers, this second captivating collection superbly embodies all the bravura flash’n’dazzle thrills superhero comics so perfectly excel at. This is a gripping fanciful epic with many engaging strands perfectly coalescing into a frantic and fabulous free-for-all overflowing with all the style, enthusiasm and exuberant joy you’d expect from top costumed drama talents.

The Brave and the Bold: The Book of Destiny is another great story with great art, ideal for kids of all ages to read and re-read over and over again.
© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Yakari volume 20: The Cloud Maker


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-074-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin, who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou.

Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration. Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that groundbreaking strips such as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Over the decades, much of Derib’s stunning works have featured his beloved Western themes: magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led him to his deserved mega-stardom.

Debuting in 1969, it traces the eventful, nomadic life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains – according to this tale, in the vicinity of the Great Lakes Basin. The stories are set sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores, but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – is up to 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain took on the writing in 2016.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, little Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave – and can, thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle, converse with all animals…

In 1995, Le souffleur de nuages was the 21st European album, but – as always with the best books – the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and sublimely accessible, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

Here and now it is painfully topical as Yakari’s wandering people are stranded as springtime rains inundate the entire region. When the downpour finally stops, the land is devasted by flooding and the little wonder and his valiant pony decide to check on all their animal pals. Happily, Little Thunder is an excellent swimmer…

They don’t go far before meeting beaver patriarch Thousand-Mouths, whose frantic efforts to rally the clan for a major repair job to the lodge and dams is being hampered by bone idle slacker Wooden Bed. Just like any teenager, he just wants to sleep…

Water is everywhere, and the landscape is a sea broken by tiny islands. The prairie dog colony are marooned on one, waiting until it all recedes so they can clear out their great burrow. They are also nervously contemplating the ominously cloud-filled sky…

Pressing on, the horse and his boy reach a flooded forest and find raccoon Black Mask and his kin fractiously sharing a tree with grumpy owl. Nobody is happy, but all are resigned to waiting out the weather…

That night, back in camp and very much appreciating being warm and dry, Yakari has one of his special, prophetic dreams. It shows him more rains washing away his tipi (tent) until it is washed up onto a big white cloud…

Happily, morning brings better news. The waters have clearly receded, but – still perplexed by his vision – Yakari rides Little Thunder back along yesterday’s route just to check. Everywhere, industrious animals are clearing up and making good, and with so much to see and beasts to check on, the pair are far from home when the sun sets.

Bedding down under a large rock, they are later awakened by an odd cry coming from the river. Closer examination in the morning reveals the disturbance came from a pond linked to the swiftly flowing waters. Oddly, a small cloud is escaping from the turbulence. When Yakari dives in for a closer look, he is abruptly raised up into the air by a giant white fish surfacing under him!

The incredible snow-white monster turns out to be a chatty and gregarious beast calling itself a “white whale”. The curious Beluga had travelled along the swollen river from the “Great Water” Yakari had seen when travelling with spirit creature Nanabozho. Soon they are all trading life stories…

The boy names his new chum Peeleepee because of the cry it constantly utters, and discovers that despite living in the ocean, the newcomer needs air to live, water to support his weight and makes clouds from the top of his head…

In a remarkably short time they are all great friends and have learned lots of each other’s worlds. The boy and the beluga even trade tricks and acrobatic games, but the idyl is rudely shattered when a passing toad points out that, while they’ve been romping, the waters have further evaporated. The great white wonder is now trapped in an isolated pond far from the river it needs to live or get home by…

Snotty but smart, the amphibian then suggests a possible solution, but it takes all of Yakari’s friends working together, sheer luck, applied physics and the boy’s considerable negotiating skills to ensure the safety of the stranded newcomer before this ending turns out happy…

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right beside Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins. It’s never too late to start reading something wonderful, so why not get back to nature as soon as you can?
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud – Lombard s. a.) – 2000. All rights reserved. English translation 2022 © Cinebook Ltd.

Bizarro Comics! – The Deluxe Edition


By a big bunch of very funny people AKA Jessica Abel, Todd Alcott, Rick Altergott, Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Gregory Benton, Charles Berberian, Aaron Bergeron, Nick Bertozzi, Ariel Bordeaux, Rand & David Borden, Ivan Brunetti, Eddie Campbell, Jim Campbell, Dave Cooper, Leela Corman, Mark Crilley, Jef Czekaj, Farel Dalrymple, Brian David-Marshall, Paul Dini, Paul Di Filippo, D’Israeli, Evan Dorkin, Mike Doughty, Eric Drysdale, Ben Dunn, Philippe Dupuy, Sarah Dyer, Phil Elliott, Hunt Emerson, Maggie Estep, Bob Fingerman, Abe Foreu, Ellen Forney, Liz Glass, Paul Grist, Matt Groening, Tom Hart, Dean Haglund, Tomer & Asaf Hanuka, Dean Haspiel, Danny Hellman, Sam Henderson, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Matt Hollingsworth, Paul Hornschemeier, Dylan Horrocks, Nathan Kane, John Kerschbaum, Chip Kidd, Derek Kirk Kim, James Kochalka, John Krewson, Michael Kupperbaum, Tim Lane, Roger Langridge, Carol Lay, Jason Little, Lee Loughridge, Matt Madden, Tom McCraw, Pat McEown, Andy Merrill, Scott Morse, Peter Murrietta, Tony Millionaire, Jason Paulos, Harvey Pekar, Will Pfeifer, Paul Pope, Patton Oswalt, Brian Ralph, Dave Roman, Johnny Ryan, Alvin Schwartz, Marie Severin, R. Sikoryak, Don Simpson, Jeff Smith, Jay Stephens, Rick Taylor, Raina Telgermeier, Craig Thompson, Jill Thompson, M. Wartella, Andi Watson, Steven Weissman, Mo Willems, Kurt Wolfgang, Bill Wray, Jason Yungbluth, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1012-9 (HB/Digital)

Here am big, dull shopping list of top-ranking cartoonists from beginning of twenty-oneth century. Bunch of names not very entertaining, but what they draw and write am, especially when taking loving pot-shots at beloved DC Comics icons and moments…

I’ll happily go on record and say that practically all of the fun and true creativity in comics has come out of the ‘alternative’ or non-mainstream writers and artists these days. To prove my point I’d list a bunch of things, and very near the top of that list would be this book -actually two older, smaller books sensibly nailed together in 2021.

In its near 90 years of comics publishing, DC Comics has produced many of the most memorable, most engaging and most peculiar comic characters and concepts you could imagine. For all that, they also managed to stir echoes and forge a deep and abiding affection in the hearts and minds of some of the most creative people on the planet.

As I’ve already said, the material in this titanic tome of titters (sorry, apparently I’m channelling my inner Frankie Howerd today) first emerged in a brace of cartoon anthology volumes: Bizarro Comics and Bizarro World in 2001 and 2005, disrespectively.

They delivered fast and furious skits, sketches and gags by profoundly engaged – often deeply disturbed – fans turned pros. There was a heavy dependence on small-press and self-published creators all used to having complete control of their work…

It was all meant to make you laugh and feel longing for simpler whackier times, and the Introduction by Kyle Baker should be all you need to steer you through what follows.

If I were you, I’d stop here and just buy the book, but just in case you’re a stubborn holdout, I’m going to add to my editor and proof-reader’s many woes by listing exactly who is in the thing, what they did and even add a few critical comments, just to earn my keep.

Then I’ll make my poor staff read the book too, just to cheer them up after all my word salad…

Following Matt Groening’s Bizarro Comics cover (which you get here for free) lurks a hilarious framing sequence, as a monstrous unbeatable creature attempts to conquer Mr Mxyzptlk’s 5th dimensional home. Chris Duffy & Stephen DeStefano – aided by legendary cartoonist and colourist Marie Severin – tell a weird and wonderful tale of outlandish failed Superman clone Bizarro that begins in ‘Bizarre Wars Part One’ and diverges into a wonderland of individual battles against cosmic games player A.

As the appointed defender of the entire endangered dimension, Bizarro resorts to a heretofore unsuspected ultimate power: producing comic strips featuring unfamiliar adventures of DC’s most recognizable heroes that come to life …ish.

Cue a veritable Who’s Who of the cool and wonderful of modern comics creating a plethora of wacky, dreamy, funny, wistful and just plain un-put-downable strips that would delight any kid who read comics but then accidentally grew up.

In rapid rollercoaster fashion and Fighting the Goof Fight for reality come ‘Bizarro-X-Ray One’ by Gregory Benton, Bizarro-X-Ray Two’ by John Kerschbaum and Bizarro-X-Ray Three’ by Gilbert Hernandez – all coloured by Tom McCraw. Sam Henderson & Bob Fingerman reconvene the ‘Super-Pets’ whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson expose Green Lantern in ‘The Afterthoughts’. Chip Kidd & Tony Millionaire revisit early days of ‘The Bat-Man’ in stylish monochrome before Henderson, Dean Haspiel, Bill Oakley & Matt Madden recount the silly charm-packed saga of ‘Captain Marvel and the Sham Shazam’

Baker & Elizabeth Glass test the mettle of ‘Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter!’ and Aquaman endures double trouble as Evan Dorkin, Brian David-Marshall, Bill Wray & Matt Hollingsworth draw attention to ‘Silence of the Fishes’ before Andy Merrill & Jason Little douse the Sea King in ‘Porcine Panic!’

Fingerman, Pat McEown, Oakley & Hollingsworth inflict ‘The Tinnocchio Syndrome’ on The Metal Men before Andi Watson, Mark Crilley & Lee Loughridge orchestrate ‘Wonder Girl vs Wonder Tot’ and James Kochalka, Dylan Horrocks & Abe Foreau pit Hawkman against ‘The Egg-Napper!’, even as ‘The GL Corps: The Few, The Proud’ glean more story glory courtesy due to Will Pfeifer, Jill Thompson, Clem Robins, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon.

Horrocks, Jessica Abel & Madden then see Supergirl and Mary Marvel have a moment in ‘The Clubhouse of Solitude’ whilst Nick Bertozzi & Tom Hart tune in to ‘Kamandi: The Last Band on Earth!’ before Jeff Smith, Paul Pope & Loughridge depict Bizarro demanding ‘Help! Superman!’ as Jef Czekaj & Brian Ralph confront Aquaman with ‘The Man Who Cried Fish!’ in advance of Wonder Woman pondering ‘One-Piece, Two-Piece, Red-Piece, Blue-Piece’ on a shopping trip organised by Fingerman & Dave Cooper.

Ellen Forney, Ariel Bordeaux & Madden probe a young girl’s ‘Bats Out of Heck’ and Eddie Campbell, Hunt Emerson, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon went full-on Batmaniacal in ‘Who Erased the Eraser’ before Crilley & Watson negotiate a shocking ‘First Contact’ with The Atom, after which The Batman invites us ‘Inside the Batcave’ with Pope & Jay Stephens as tour guides.

Dorkin, D’Israeli & Digital Chameleon expose ‘Solomon Grundy: Bored on a Monday’ before Alvin Schwartz, Roger Langridge & Loughridge debut ‘The Most Bizarre Bizarro of All’ and Ivan Brunetti, Dorkin & Sarah Dyer reveal ‘That’s Really Super, Superman!’ to The World’s Finest Team whilst Dorkin, Carol Lay, Tom McCraw & Digital Chameleon invite everyone to ‘The J’onn J’onzz Celebrity Roast’ before Bordeaux, Forney & Madden share ‘Wonder Woman’s Day Off’

The initial volume and that framing Mxyzptlk yarn are coming to a close as Dorkin, Wray, John Costanza & Hollingsworth craft ‘Unknown Challenges of the Challengers of the Unknown’ and Dorkin, Steven Weissman & Dyer go to bat for all the forgotten creature sidekicks in ‘Without You, I’m Nothing’ before Duffy, DeStefano, Phil Felix, Severin & Digital C reunite for the climactic conclusion of ‘Bizarre Wars – Part Two’

If you haven’t heard of anybody on that overwhelming list then get Googling. Then get this book and get enjoying.

No? that’s okay… There’s More…

The turn of this century was a particularly fraught time – aren’t they always? – and one of the best ways to combat the impending travail was to make people laugh. A follow up to the remarkably successful Bizarro Comics again invited a coterie of alternative comics creators (and guests!) to make sport of various hallowed DC icons. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and all the lesser gods were dragooned into more tales humorous, dolorous and just plain peculiar, drawn in an eye-wrenching range of styles. Many of those involved continued to display a disturbing knowledge of, if not respect for, the DC continuity of the 1960s whilst others seem to centre on the TV and Movie interpretations, but the fondness for times gone by was readily apparent throughout.

Behind a Bizarro World cover from Jaime Hernandez, Rian Hughes & Coco Shinomiya is unsurprisingly story ‘Bizarro World’ by Duffy, Scott Morse, Rob Leigh & Dave Stewart as a couple of unwary kids fall into a universe stuffed to overflowing with everyday super people…

Answers come from a crusty reporter with extensive files and notes from many stringers…

Kidd, Millionaire & Jim Campbell review ‘Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder’ and Merrill, Langridge & Madden get seasonally silly in ‘Jing Kal-El’, whilst Mo Willems, Forney & Madden reveal ‘The Wonder of it All’ for the youthful feminist before Foreu, Kochalka & Madden have shapeshifter Chameleon Boy ask ‘Where’s Proty?’

Nostalgia and childish wish-fulfilment masterfully merge in pants-wettingly funny ‘Batman Smells’ by American National Treasures Patton Oswalt, Fingerman & Stewart, whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson channel ‘The Spectre’ and Jasons Yungbluth & Paulos confirm with Hal Jordan that ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ even as Aaron Bergeron & Kerschbaum revel in ‘The Power of Positive Batman’

Mike Doughty & Danny Hellman’s Fish-out-of-water ‘Aquaman’ segues into another true Stand Out story: ‘Batman: Upgrade 5.0’ by Dean Haglund & Peter Murrieta, illustrated by Don Simpson, before comics bad boy John Ryan joins Dave Cooper to explore being ‘Super-Dumped’ via the sad story of Clark and Diana

Elsewhere, Dorkin & M. Wartella retroactively introduce Batman to ‘Monkey, the Monkey Wonder’ whilst comics verité legends Harvey Pekar & Dean Haspiel declare ‘Bizarro Shmizarro’ just as Dylan Horrocks, Farel Dalrymple & Paul Hornschemeier proposition ‘Dear Superman’ on behalf of a youngster with a secret…

‘The Red Bee Returns’ courtesy of Peter Bagge, Gilbert Hernandez & Madden, after which Eric Drysdale, Tim Lane, Oakley & Madden organise ‘The Break’ for the JLA. Dorkin & Watson then find The Legion of Super-Heroes ‘Out with the In Crowd’ just as Todd Alcott, Michael Kupperman & Ken Lopez detail the ‘Ultimate Crisis of the Justice League’

Tomer & Asaf Hanuka join Lopez & Campbell to define ‘Batman’ whilst Paul Dini & Carol Lay have the very last word on ‘Krypto the Superdog’ and Ariel Bordeaux & Rick Altergott unwisely launch ‘Legion.com’ before mercurial Harvey Dent enjoys a ‘Dinner for Two’ thanks to Dorkin & Iva Brunetti…

Maggie Estep & Horrocks take on ‘Supergirl’ and her horsey history before Leela Corman & Tom Hart steer a ‘Power Trip’ for Batgirl, Wonder Woman and the Girl of Steel, whilst Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist & Phil Elliott schedule ‘A Day in the Life in the Flash’ before hilariously reprising their manic madness via ‘The Batman Operetta’

Bizarro returns in an activity page from his ‘Daily Htrae’ – by Dorkin & R. Sikoryak – and the GL Corps turn Japanese in ‘Lantern Sentai’ from Rand & David Borden of Studio Kaiju, manifested by multi-talented Benn Dunn. Philippe Dupuy & Charles Berberian then offer a continental touch in ‘Batman of Paris’, Kurt Wolfgang & Brian Ralph have fun with ‘The Demon’ and John Krewson, Dorkin & Dyer expose ‘Kamandi, The Laziest Boy on Earth’.

Despite all the craziness, the best has wisely been left until last and end begins with The Justice League of America regretting ‘Take Your Kids to Work Day’ (by Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier) whilst ultimate manservant Alfred Pennyworth conducts his master’s business as a “Personal Shopper” thanks to Kyle Baker & Elizabeth Glass, before we finish with Deadman who learns with horror – from Paul Di Filippo & Derek Kirk Kim – that ‘Good Girls Go to Heaven. Bad Girls Go Everywhere’

What do you get if you give a whole bunch of vets and alternative comics creators carte blanche and a broad brief? You should get this.
© 2001, 2005, 2021 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Hedy Lamarr: An Incredible Life


By William Roy & Sylvain Dorange, translated by Montana Kane (Humanoids/Life Drawn)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-619-4 (PB/Digital edition)

It’s been a man’s world almost from the start, and for so very long, most roles we’ve allowed for women have been ones that benefit us. Just why are so many female heroes young, pretty, buxom and nearly naked?

…And don’t even try to mansplain away why and how we Lords of Creation settle down with a housekeeper/mother who provides fringe benefits, comfort breaks and data storage. “Honey, do I like this?” “Darling, where are my…?”

Happily, despite all our most determined efforts, women keep on being independent, resolute, optimistic, free thinking and autonomous: constantly confounding male expectations and forcing us to gaslight, denigrate, diminish or bully them back into submission… or at least ominous silence…

It doesn’t always work, but at least whenever they achieve triumphant, spectacular highs and enjoy their own lives, it’s on their own terms – at least until some guy finds a way to make them regret it…

Let’s see an example of that as it happened to one of the most important human beings in modern history. Hedy Lamarr: La plus belle femme du monde was released in 2018: a superbly engaging, vividly realised passion project by writer, artist and documentarian William Roy (De Père en FIV, Freud, Le moment venu) and multi-disciplined illustrator Sylvain Dorange (For Justice: The Serge & Beate Klarsfeld Story, Gisèle Halimi – Une jeunesse tunisienne, Un conte de l’Estaque, Les Promeneurs du Temps, Psychotique). It quickly became one of the most important biographies of recent times. You can even read it in English or online…

Delivered in non-sequential snippets and clippings, it all slots together like a puzzle to show how, as a Viennese youngster, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler developed two life-long passions: acting and learning how things worked. The latter obsession came thanks to her beloved father Emil, a progressive, forward-looking banker who shared at every opportunity a profound love of knowledge and tinkering with his beautiful child …

Concerned by the uninvited attention their daughter’s looks were garnering, Hedwig’s parents decided to never comment on her appearance. However, as she grew from pretty child to ravishing young woman, those looks inevitably shaped her world.

As a teenager one passion dominated: so much so that the model student began taking unsanctioned truant days to pursue acting – especially in the burgeoning, high-tech film business. When her parents learned of the school absences, they granted her leeway to explore those options. Hedwig initially sought to become a script girl, but once again her beauty took her to a different destination and one moment as an “extra” opened up a whole new world…

Emil loved how she shared his fascination with how things worked, but primarily he just wanted her to be happy. Thus, Hedwig learned to roll with life’s punches – and in later life there were many – but was generally supported in her wild endeavours. She never realised how the acting lessons her father willingly paid for would lead to her becoming a notorious, global figure of infamy after a highly sexualised nude scene in 1933 drama Extase

Just as the film was being banned in Austria, neighbouring Germany welcomed a new Chancellor. Adolf Hitler would affect the girl’s life in unimaginable ways…

Retreating from celluloid to a life of stage acting, Hedwig was pursued by astoundingly rich manufacturer and businessman Friedrich “Fritz” Mantel. Dazzled by wealth, rapt attention, and honied words, she eventually married him.

Despite her Jewish ancestry, as the wife of Mussolini’s best friend and the Third Reich’s favourite arms dealer/munitions supplier, Hedwig spent the early years of Nazism cushioned from a growing horror. Hosting dinner parties for human monsters whilst incessantly, invisibly overhearing fascinating details about the new weapons hubby was pioneering quickly paled, and Mantel’s obsessive possessiveness and controlling behaviour soon made her realise the liaison was a huge mistake.

Whilst displaying his trophy wife like a prize, and bedecking her with jewels and gems, Mantel had spent a fortune buying up and destroying every print of Extase. No man would ever cast lascivious eyes on his property ever again…

Increasingly terrified, Hedwig crafted a plan and escaped her marriage, eventually landing in London in 1937. At that time American movie mogul Louis B. Mayer – supreme dictator of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios – was there to scout out sophisticated European film talent fleeing growing social unrest…

Like so many women and girls maturing in that era, Hedwig learned to be suspicious of authority and men in powerful positions: to keep her secrets to herself whenever possible. She probably always sought assured security and never believed she had it, even at the top of a wildly fluctuating showbiz career. At least inventing kept her grounded and allowed her to find an escape that was purely personal. Mayer was a lifeline, but he too came with conditions…

In 1938, Hedy Lamarr began her tenure as a Screen Goddess with the movie Algiers. Mayer had her billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world” and changed her name to evoke that of deceased silent movie star Barbara La Marr. According to this version of her story, he also never stopped urging her to enhance her bust…

A wash of films followed, of remarkably varying quality, but work, acclaim, marriage and the heady social whirl wasn’t a satisfying existence. When war came, Hedy was eager to help. It coincided with her first meeting engineering marvel/millionaire playboy Howard Hughes. He wasn’t as impressed as others by her looks, but wanted to hear all about her inventions…

Almost as notorious as any role she played, Hedy knew many men, but had few male friends. Foremost of those she did persist with was George Carl Antheil, a “piano prodigy” who had first outraged the musical establishment in 1924 with his Ballet Mechanique score.

The Dadaist work was delivered by player-pianos working in synch with airplane engines, and Antheil had meticulously cut out the player rolls of each instrument personally, in a monumental feat of pre-computer coding and programming…

Antheil was also an acclaimed and published endocrinologist who supported his family by composing Hollywood film music, and first met Hedy Lamarr during another of her fruitless, pointless searches for a safe way to embiggen her boobs…

In the course of their friendship they discussed German torpedoes and – recalling past dinner conversations amongst Nazi bigwigs – Hedy had an idea that would have shortened the war; and did change the way all humanity communicates…

Typically, Lamarr and Antheil’s un-jammable torpedo was poo-poohed and rejected by the US Navy and a congressional committee who were astonished to notice that the project had no actual Male Scientists attached to it. It’s a good thing the inventors had every bit of the work, concept and attendant programming patented…

One admiral did helpfully suggest that she could serve her country best by selling war bonds, so she did, in record-breaking amounts…

Years passed, husbands and families came and went, and Hedy’s career devolved from megastar to TV guest celebrity to self-imposed exile. In 1960 she got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and six years later an autobiography she maintained she never wrote was released. It pretty much trashed what was left of her reputation.

It all turned around for her in 1996, when her son Anthony Loder was contacted by representatives of the burgeoning telecommunications industry. They really needed to speak to the inventors – and patent-holders – of a frequency-hopping system devised to protect torpedoes from being jammed. It was also the absolute best way to connect multiple electronic devices via radio waves”. We call it wi-fi these days…

This is an emphatic, empathetic dramatisation of a much-told tale and an inevitable, inescapable theme, but Hedy Lamarr: An Incredible Life shows not that resilience pays off, or that it all works out in the end, but that remarkable achievements cannot be buried or diminished…

After all, how many gullible kids tricked into getting their baps out change the entire world, all of human culture and get an asteroid and a quantum telescope named after them, let alone get awarded an anniversary goggle doodle and inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame, and are interred in a National Honorary grave?

Admit it, though, it was the bit about her baps that made you sit up and pay attention, right?

The struggle continues…
© 2018 La Boîte à Bulles. All Rights Reserved. This edition © 2018 Humanoids, Inc., Los Angeles (USA).

A Treasury of Victorian Murder Compendium II


By Rick Geary (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-907-6 (Digest HB)

Master cartoonist Rick Geary is a unique presence in both comics and true crime literature. His compelling forensic dissections – in the form of graphic novel reconstructions – of some of the most infamous and groundbreaking murder mysteries since policing began never fail to beguile or entertain.

Although outrageously still unavailable digitally, for many years Geary’s unblinking eye powerfully probed the last hundred years or so in his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series. Prior to that, he first began graphically capitalising on a fascination with Mankind’s darker aspects way back in 1987, via a delicious anthologised tome entitled A Treasury of Victorian Murder.

That initial volume and 3 of the 8 that succeeded it (Jack the Ripper, The Fatal Bullet and The Beast of Chicago) were combined and re-issued in 2012 as a splendidly morbid monochrome deluxe hardback – because, after all, bloody murder is always a black and white affair…

More of his most compelling past triumphs were gathered into a second blockbusting 400-page monochrome hardback to delight fans of the genre and, without a shadow of a doubt, make new converts out of the as yet unconvinced…

Combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and meticulously detailed pictorial extrapolation with his gift for recounting the ruthless propensities of humans throughout history, Geary ceaselessly scoured police blotters, newspaper archives and even history books to compile more irresistibly infectious social sins and felonious infractions.

His unique cartooning style is the perfect medium to convey starkly factual narratives in a memorable, mordant and undeniably enjoyable manner. Each epic endeavour is accompanied by an Introduction and scholarly Bibliography, with most adaptations also offering splendidly informative maps and diagrams to set the stories firmly in place.

Starting off this largely ladykiller-laden catalogue of crime is The Borden Tragedy, digging through an abundance of details surrounding one of the most infamous – if not mythic – crimes ever perpetrated.

In Fall River, Massachusetts on August 4th 1892, prosperous self-made man Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby were found slain inside their own home. Death in both cases was caused by multiple axe blows.

Rather than his later neutral narrative stance, here Geary illustrates the “first-hand account” of an acquaintance of youngest daughter Lizzie Borden who – after much inept investigation and public speculation – was settled upon by the authorities as the likeliest suspect.

Many and various suppositions, theories, scandals and gossip-points are scrupulously examined as she stands trial for the crimes – a case muddled by a subsequent axe-murder whilst Lizzie was actually in custody – and the spotlight follows her through the much-protracted case, past her acquittal and to her eventual death in 1927…

The graphic re-enactment is accompanied by a copious photo and text section featuring a wealth of ‘Press Clippings of the Time’ as well as a reproduction of ‘Borden’s Indictment’ and The Boston Advertiser article on her eventual “Not Guilty” verdict.

The Mystery of Mary Rogers concerns the assault and murder of a New York City cigar shop girl which mesmerised the citizenry in 1841. Such was the furore that author Edgar Allen Poe appropriated the events for his C. Auguste Lupin tale The Mystery of Marie Roget: a rather unwise move, since he knew the deceased and thereby opened himself up to loudly-voiced suspicions of complicity…

The facts are that on the 28th July 1841, a number of well-to do-citizens left stifling Manhattan Island for the Jersey Shore and there discovered the body of the “Segar Girl” floating in the Hudson; battered, strangled and with her hands tied across her chest.

A hasty autopsy and even quicker inquest, held under insultingly cavalier circumstances, produced no culprits or suspects but somehow managed to throw suspicion on everyone from the men who pulled her out of the water to her drunken suicidal fiancée and even her own mother…

A talking point for all and sundry from the highest society paragon to the lowliest street trash, her death produced ever-more scandalous revelations and groundless lewd rumours – all scrupulously explored by Geary – over the next few years, but the case remains unsolved still…

The Saga of the Bloody Benders began in largely unsettled Kansas, during the period immediately following the American Civil War, when a family of German-speaking immigrants settled near the Osage Trail. There they built a General Store-&-Hotel equidistant between the nascent townships of Cherry Vale, Parsons and Thayer.

By the time they vanished four years later, provably ten but probably many, many more travellers and settlers had been robbed and murdered. Thereafter, the insalubrious Benders simply vanished from the sight of man…

Geary, with supreme style and dry wit, presents the facts and the best of the rumours in his inimitable style to create yet another unforgettable masterpiece of Gothic whimsy.

The Case of Madeleine Smith focused on the true and scandalous secret affair between Emile L’Anglier, a low-born French clerk, and prim, proper, eminently respectable Miss Madeleine Smith, daughter of a wealthy Scottish merchant.

The slow poisoning of the Gallic Romeo led to a notorious trial in the 19th century and the eventual verdict shocked everyone and satisfied nobody…

The entrancing chronicle of carnage and venality concludes with the epic account of The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, covering the 62 days from 4th March to May 4th 1865, when actor John Wilkes Booth and a band of like-minded Confederate diehards schemed to murder the President (and other Northern politicians they held responsible for the destruction of the South), and how their wild plot came to startling, implausible fruition…

Following the Inauguration Ceremony for his second Term of Office, the normally fatalistic and security-disparaging President Lincoln was troubled by unease, disquiet and dreams of assassination. They might have been possibly generated by the sack-full of death threats stashed away by his Secretary John Hay.

Elsewhere, Secessionist sympathiser Booth was planning a blow for revenge and personal immortality, but increasingly found his co-conspirators a disappointing bunch. Driven and desperate, he persevered for his cause…

All the many players are scrutinised in Geary’s careful examination, with the peculiar circumstances that left Lincoln vulnerable counterbalanced by insights and minutiae provided into his less-than-fanatical nemeses.

Only one of the many assassinations planned by the Secessionist cabal came to anything, and following that foul deed, grisly death-watch and post mortem, Geary’s depiction of the bold but inept manhunt which followed is capped here by Booth’s satisfyingly dramatic end, leaving nothing but the artist’s masterful summing up to ask the questions nobody has answered yet and leave us all with the certain knowledge that this too is a murder still largely unexplained if not unsolved…

These compelling cold cases are a perfect example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simplistic fantasy entertainment, and such merrily morbid murder masterpieces as these should be mandatory reading for every mystery addict and crime collector.

Such seductive storytelling, erudite argument and audacious drawing produce an irresistible dash and verve which makes for unforgettable reading: Geary is a unique talent in the comic industry, as much for his style as his subject matter and methodology in telling tales. Always presenting both facts and the theories – contemporary and modern – with chilling graphic precision, captivating clarity and devastating dry wit, he attacks criminology’s greatest mysteries with a force and power even Oliver Stone would envy, and every true crime podcaster should admire…
© 1997-2007, 2015 Rick Geary.