Category: Graphic Novels

Posted on

Showcase Presents Batman volume 1

New revised Review

By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Ed Herron, Carmine Infantino, Sheldon Moldoff Joe Giella & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1086-1

I’m assuming everybody here loves comics and that we’ve all had the same unpleasant experience of trying to justify that passion to somebody. Excluding your partner (who is actually right – the living room floor is not the place to leave your D*&$£! funny-books) many people still have an entrenched and erroneous view of strip art, resulting in a frustrating and futile time as you tried to dissuade them from that opinion.

If so, this collection might be the book you want next time that confrontation occurs. Collected here in incontrovertible black-and-white are tales which reshaped the Dynamic Duo and set them up for global Stardom – and subsequent fearful castigation from fans – as the template for the Batman TV show of the 1960s. It should be noted, however, that the producers and researchers got their creative impetus from the stories of the era preceding the “New Look Batman” as well as the original movie serial of the 1940s…

So what have we here?

By the end of 1963, Julius Schwartz had revived much of DC’s line – and the entire industry – with his modernization of the Superhero, and was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusader. Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down the core-concept, downplaying all the aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales, bringing a cool modern take to the capture of criminals and even overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself.

The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol, but far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of Gotham City. This initial cheap ‘n’ cheerful Showcase Presents… compendium collects the Bat-Sagas from Detective Comics #327-342 (cover-dated May 1964 to August 1965) and Batman #164-174 (June 1964-September 1965) – 38 stunning stories that reshaped a legend.

The revolution began with the lead yarn in Detective #327, written by John Broome, illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella at the very peak of their creative powers, before being fully formalised in two tales in Batman #164.

‘The Mystery of the Menacing Mask! was a cunning “Howdunnit?” that was long on action and peril, as a criminal “underground railroad” led the Caped Crusaders to a common thug who seemed able to control the heroes with his thoughts. The venerable title was clearly refocusing on its descriptive, evocative title for the foreseeable future and to ram the point home a new back-up feature was introduced, “The Stretchable Sleuth” Elongated Man. This comicbook was to be a brain-teaser from now on…

In Batman, action and adventure were paramount. ‘Two-Way Gem Caper!‘ pitted Batman and Robin against a slick criminal named Dabblo, but the villain wasn’t the star of this tale. Almost as an aside, a new Batcave and refashioned Wayne Manor were introduced, as well as a sleek, compact new Batmobile; more sports-car than super-tank.

This story was written by Ed “France” Herron and drawn by “Bob Kane”. Veteran inker Giella was tasked with finishing the contents of all Bat-books in a bid to generate a recognisable uniformity in the stories.

A new semi-regular feature also debuted in that issue. The Mystery Analysts of Gotham City was a club of Detectives and crime-writers who met to talk about their cases. It always resulted in an adventure like ‘Batman’s Great Face-Saving Feat!’ (Herron & Kane) wherein eager applicant Hugh Rankin applied his Private Eye talents to discovering the Gotham Gangbuster’s true identity to win a seat at the sleuths’ table. Suffice it to say he had to reapply…

‘Gotham Gang Line-Up!’ completed the transformation of Batman. Written by original co-creator Bill Finger and pencilled by Kane, this mediocre crime-caper from Detective #328 is most remarkable for the plot-twist wherein long-serving butler Alfred sacrificed his life to save the heroes; prompting Dick Grayson’s Aunt Harriet to move into Wayne Mansor.

From this point the adventures fell into a pattern of top-of-the-line tales punctuated by utterly exceptional occasional epics of drama, mystery and action. These would continue until the infamous TV show’s success became so great that it actually began to inform – or taint – the kind of story in the comics themselves. And while I’m into editorial asides: whenever the credits read “Bob Kane” the artist usually doing the drawing was unsung hero Sheldon Moldoff…

‘Castle with Wall-To-Wall Danger!’ (Detective #329), written by Broome and pencilled by Infantino, was a captivating international thriller which found the heroes braving a deadly death-trap in Swinging England in pursuit of a dastardly thief, whilst eerie science fiction saga ‘Man Who Quit the Human Race!’ (Gardner Fox, Kane & Giella) which led in Batman #165 proved that fantastic fantasy still had a place in the Gotham Guardian’s world.

A potential new love-interest was introduced in the back-up tale, ‘The Dilemma of the Detective’s Daughter!’, courtesy of Herron & Kane, as student police women Patricia Powell left cop-college and hit the mean streets of the city. Over in Detective #330, Broome & “Kane” detailed a new kind of crime in ‘The Fallen Idol of Gotham City!’ wherein a mysterious phenomenon turned ordinary citizens into blood-hungry mobs on command. In Batman #166, ‘Two-Way Deathtrap!’ saw a couple of petty thugs set up the perfect ambush after finding a pipeline into the Batcave whilst ‘A Rendezvous with Robbery!’ featured a return engagement for Pat Powell during a frantic crime caper: both tales from Herron & Kane.

A rare full-length story in Detective #331 guest-starred Elongated Man as the ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men’ (Broome & Infantino) teamed the Costumed Sleuths against a super-scientific felon, after which a Rogues Gallery super-villain finally appeared in ‘The Joker’s Last Laugh’ (Broome & “Kane”) in #332, utterly set on switching places with the Caped Crimebusters in his own manic manner…

Batman #167 presaged a ‘Zero Hour for Earth!’ (Finger & Kane) as international espionage pulled the Dynamic Duo from Gotham into a global manhunt for secret society Hydra whilst Detective #333 pitted the heroes against a faux goddess and real telepaths in the‘Hunters of the Elephants’ Graveyard!’, written by Fox and illustrated by Infantino.

‘The Fight That Jolted Gotham City! opened Batman #168 with a blockbusting battle between the Masked Manhunter and temporarily deranged circus strongman Mr. Muscles and the Mystery Analysts resurfaced to close the book by explaining ‘How to Solve the Perfect Crime… in Reverse!’ (both tales by Herron & Moldoff).

The opening shot in an extended war against an incredible new foe dubbed The Outsider began in Detective #334 with the introduction of Grasshopper… ‘The Man Who Stole from Batman!’ (Fox & Moldoff), whilst ‘Trail of the Talking Mask!’ by Fox & Infantino in #335 gave the Dynamic Due an opportunity to reinforce their sci-fi credentials in a classy high-tech thriller guest starring PI Hugh Rankin.

Wily, bird-themed bad-man The Penguin returned in Batman #169 to make the Caped Crusaders his unwilling ‘Partners in Plunder!’ (Herron & Moldoff) after which inker Sid Greene made his debut delineating ‘A Bad Day for Batman!’, in which our hero overcame many vicissitudes of cruel coincidence to nab a determined thief.

Detective #336 (Fox, Moldoff & Giella) featured ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’ and found a broom-riding crone attacking the Dynamic Duo at the Outsider’s behest. In later months the witch was revealed to be sultry sorceress Zatanna, but most comics cognoscenti agree this was not the original plan, but rather cannily back-written during the frantic months of “Batmania” that followed the debut of the TV show (for a fuller explanation check out JLA: Zatanna’s Search).

An intriguing new foe made his mark in Batman #170 when highly professional thief Roy Reynolds ran rings around the Gotham Gangbusters – at least at first – as the ‘Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks!’ (Fox & Moldoff) and Bill Finger provided a captivating, human-scaled drama in ‘The Puzzle of the Perilous Prizes!’ which enabled Joe Giella to show off his pencilling as well as inking skills.

‘The Deep-Freeze Menace!’ (Detective #337 by Fox & Infantino) was a captivating fantasy chiller pitting Batman against a super-powered caveman encased in ice for 50,000 years, whilst the caped crime-buster gained his own uncanny advantage in #338 after a chemical accident threatened to make ‘Batman’s Power-Packed Punch!’ too dangerous to be near…

After an absence of decades ‘Remarkable Ruse of The Riddler!’ reintroduced the Prince of Puzzlers in Batman # 171; a clever book-length mystery from Fox & Moldoff which did much to catapult the previously forgotten villain to the first rank of Bat-Baddies, after which DC’s inexplicable (but deeply cool) long-running love-affair with gorillas resulted in a cracking doom-fable as ‘Batman Battles the Living Beast-Bomb!’ (Fox & Infantino in Detective #339) highlighted the hero’s physical prowess in a duel of wits and muscles against a sinister super-intelligent simian.

Broome returned to script the eerie conundrum drawn by Moldoff which led in Batman #172. ‘Attack of the Invisible Knights!’ proved to be wicked science not ancient magic, whilst Batman’s own technological advances played a big part in the backup ‘Robin’s Unassisted Triple Play!’ (Fox, Moldoff & Greene), which gave the Boy Wonder plenty of scope to show off his own crime-busting skills against a murderous gang of bandits.

Detective #340 saw the long-running war against Batman escalate when ‘The Outsider Strikes Again!’ (Fox & Moldoff), giving further clues to the hidden foe’s incredible abilities by animating everyday objects – and even the Batmobile – to attack the Caped Crusaders, after which Broome & Infantino detailed the cinema-inspired, catastrophic campaign of ‘The Joker’s Comedy Capers!’ in #341.

Criminal mastermind and blackmailer Mr. Incognito offered ‘Secret Identities For Sale’ in the first tale of Batman #173, after which creators Broome and Moldoff were joined by inker Sid Greene for ‘Walk Batman – To Your Doom!’; a sinister psychological murder-plot years ahead of its time.

‘The Midnight Raid of the Robin Gang!’ (Broome & Moldoff) in Detective #342, hinted at the burgeoning generational unrest of the 1960s as the faithful Boy Wonder seemed to sabotage his mentor before signing up with a pack of costumed juvenile delinquents, and this first collection of Caped Crusader Chronicles concludes with the all Fox & Moldoff Batman #174: starting with a brutal story of street-fighting as the Gotham Guardian was ambushed and became ‘The Human Punching Bag!’ before the Mystery Analysts found themselves the intended victims of a “Ten Little Indians” murder-scheme in ‘The Off-Again, On-Again Lightbulbs!’ (inked by Greene).

No matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, to a large portion of the world Batman is always going to be the “Zap! Biff! Pow!”, affably lovable, caped buffoon of that 1960s television show. It really was that popular.

But whether you tend towards the anodyne light-heartedness of then, the socially acceptable psychopathy of the current movie franchise or actually just like the comicbook character, if you can make a potential convert sit-down, shut up and actually read these wonderful adventures for all (reasonable) ages, you might find that the old adage “Quality will out” still holds true. And if you’re actually a fan who hasn’t read this classic stuff, you have an absolute treat in store…
© 1964, 1965, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Revenge of the Living Monolith – Marvel Graphic Novel #17


By David Michelinie, Mark Silvestri, Geoff Isherwood & many various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-083-1

Marvel don’t generally publish original material graphic novel these days but once they were market leader in the field with a range of “big stories” told on larger pages emulating the long-established European Album (285 x 220mm rather than the standard 258 x 168mm of today’s books) featuring not only proprietary characters in out-of-the-ordinary adventures but also licensed assets like Conan, creator-owned properties like Alien Legion and new character debuts.

This extended experiment with big-ticket storytelling in the 1980s and 1990s produced some exciting results that the company has never come close to repeating since. Many of the stories still stand out today – or would if they were still in print.

Released in 1985, Revenge of the Living Monolith is a conventional but highly enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller paying glorious homage to those long-gone blockbuster movies with colossal monsters stomping urban population centres into kindling, yet still finds room to add some impressive character gloss to one of Marvel’s most uninspired villains.

Conceived and concocted by Editor Jim Owsley, scripted by David Michelinie and illustrated by Mark Silvestri & Geoff Isherwood (with nearly 4 dozen additional last-minute contributors!) this bombastic yarn is delightfully accessible to all but the most green reader of comics delivering action, tension and winning character byplay to both the faithful readership which made Marvel the premier US comics publisher for such a long time and even the newest kid on the block….

The plot itself is simple and effective: when young Ahmet Abdol was growing up in Cairo, he was bullied and abused for his intellect and imagination. Only the love and devotion of the lovely Filene kept him sane during the years of struggle until he became Egypt’s most respected historian.

However his “sacrilegious” twin discoveries that the ancient Pharaohs were super-powered mutants and that he shared their ancient bloodline brought only scorn, mob violence and shattering tragedy to Abdol and especially to his beloved wife and baby daughter. When his own cosmic powers manifested in the wake of the bloody incident, Abdol was abducted and deified by an ancient cult who saw him as their Living Pharaoh.

After battling the X-Men, Thor and Spider-Man in his mountainous, monstrous incarnation of the Living Monolith the defeated Last God-King was imprisoned in Egypt where he festered and schemed…

After years in forgotten isolation Abdol finally frees himself and begins an incredible plot to remove all his enemies and transform himself into a Cosmic-powered God, beginning by capturing the Fantastic Four and making them his living batteries. Unfortunately even at the point of his apotheosis Abdol is not beyond further heartbreak and a tragedy of his own making provokes him into an agonising rampage of destruction through New York City, with only She-Hulk, Captain America and Spider-Man on hand to combat the swathe of destruction…

Including last-minute cameos from most of Marvel’s costumed pantheon, this spectacular superhero saga is a perfect, if brief, distraction from the world’s woes for every fan of mainstream comics mayhem.
™ & © 1985 Marvel Comics Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Essential Ms. Marvel volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Dave Cockrum, Mike Vosburg & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2499-3

Until relatively recently American comics and especially Marvel had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. Although there was a woman starring in the very first comic of the Marvel Age, the Invisible Girl took years to become became a potent and independent character in her own right.

The company’s very first starring heroine was Black Fury, a leather-clad, whip-wielding crimebuster from the newspaper strips created by Tarpe Mills in April 1941. She was repackaged as a resized reprint for Timely’s funnybooks and renamed Miss Fury for a four-year run from 1942-1946 – although the tabloid strip survived until 1952. Fury was actually predated by the Silver Scorpion who debuted in Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), but she was relegated to a minor position in the book’s line-up and a very short shelf-life.

Miss America first appeared in the anthology Marvel Mystery Comics #49 (November1943), created by Otto Binder and artist Al Gabriele and after a few more appearances won her own title in early 1944 received her own book. Miss America Comics lasted but she didn’t as with the second issue (November1944) the format was changed, becoming a combination teen comedy/fashion/domestics tips magazine, and feisty super-heroics were steadily squeezed out. The publication is most famous now for introducing virginal evergreen teen ideal Patsy Walker.

A few others appeared immediately after the War, many spin-offs and sidekicks such as female Sub-Mariner Namora (debuting in Marvel Mystery Comics #82, May 1947 and graduating to her own three issue series in 1948), the Human Torch‘s secretary Mary Mitchell who as Sun Girl starred in her own three issue 1948 series before becoming a wandering sidekick and guest star in Sub-Mariner and Captain America Comics.

Masked detective Blonde Phantom was created by Stan Lee and Syd Shores for All Select Comics #11 (Fall 1946) and sort-of goddess Venus debuted in her own title in August 1948, becoming the gender’s biggest success until the advent of the Jungle Girl fad in the mid-1950s; mostly by dint of the superb stories and art by the great Bill Everett and by ruthlessly changing genres from crime to romance to horror every five minutes…

Jann of the Jungle (by Don Rico & Jay Scott Pike) was just part of an anthology line-up in Jungle Tales #1 (September 1954), but took over the title with the eighth issue (November 1955). Jann of the Jungle continued until issue June 1957 (#17) and spawned a host of in-company imitators such as Leopard Girl, Lorna the Jungle Queen and so on…

During the costumed hero boom of the 1960s Marvel experimented with a title shot for Madame Medusa in Marvel Super-Heroes (#15, July 1968) and a solo series for the Black Widow in Amazing Adventures # 1-8 (August 1970-September 1971). Both were sexy, reformed villainesses, not wholesome girl-next-door heroines… and neither lasted alone for long.

As the costumed crazies craze began to subside in the 1970s, Stan Lee and Roy Thomas looked into creating a girl-friendly boutique of heroines written by women, beginning with Claws of the Cat by Linda Fite, Marie Severin & Wally Wood and Night Nurse by Jean Thomas and Win Mortimer (both #1’s cover-dated November 1972). A new jungle goddess Shanna the She-Devil #1, by Carole Seuling & George Tuska, debuted in December 1972; but despite these impressive creative teams none of these fascinating experiments lasted beyond a fifth issue.

Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, caught every one’s attention in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973) and eventually gained her own series and The Cat mutated into Tigra, the Were-Woman in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974) but the general editorial position was that books about chicks didn’t sell.

The company kept trying and eventually found the right mix at the right time with Ms. Marvel who launched in her own title cover-dated January 1977. She was followed by the equally copyright-protecting Spider-Woman in Marvel Spotlight #32 (February 1977, winning her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1, February 1980) as well as the music-biz sponsored Dazzler who premiered in Uncanny X-Men #130 that same month, before inevitably graduating to her own book.

Ms. Marvel was actually Carol Danvers, a United States Air Force security officer introduced in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (March 1968): the second episode of the saga of Kree warrior Mar-Vell, who had been dispatched to Earth as a spy after the Fantastic Four had repulsed the aliens twice in two months (see Essential Fantastic Four volume 4 and Essential Captain Marvel volume 1).

The series was written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Gene Colan and the immensely competent Carol investigated the Mar-Vell’s assumed identity of Walter Lawson for months until she was caught up in a devastating battle between the now-defecting alien and his nemesis Yon-Rogg. She was caught in a climactic explosion of alien technology and pretty much vanished from sight until Gerry Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott revived her for ‘This Woman, This Warrior!’ (Ms. Marvel #1, January 1977) as a new chapter began for the company and the industry…

This volume, collecting Ms. Marvel #1-23, relevant portions of Marvel Super-Heroes Magazine #10-11 and Avengers Annual #10, opens with the irrepressible and partially amnesiac Danvers moving to New York to become editor of “Woman” a new magazine for modern misses published by Daily Bugle owner J. Jonah Jameson. Never having fully recovered from her near-death experience, Danvers had left the military and drifted into writing, slowly growing in confidence until the irascible publisher had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…

At the same time as Carol was getting her feet under a desk a mysterious new masked heroine began appearing, such as when she pitched up to battle the sinister Scorpion in a brutal bank raid. The villain narrowly escaped to rendezvous with Professor Kerwin Korwin of AIM (a high-tech secret society claiming to be Advanced Idea Mechanics) who had promised to increase the Scorpion’s powers and allow him to take long-delayed revenge on Jameson – whom the demented thug blamed for his freakish condition…

Danvers had been secretly having premonitions and blackouts since her involvement in the final battle between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg and had no idea she was transforming into Ms. Marvel. Her latest vision-flash occurred too late to save the publisher from abduction but her “Seventh Sense” did allow her to trace the Scorpion before her unwitting new boss is injured, whilst her incredible physical powers and knowledge of Kree combat techniques enabled her to easily trounce the maniac.

‘Enigma of Fear!’ featured a return engagement for the Scorpion as Korwin and AIM made Ms. Marvel their latest science project. Whilst the Professor turned himself into an armoured assassin codenamed Destructor, Carol’s therapist Mike Barnett made an analytical breakthrough with his patient and discovered she was a masked metahuman even before she did. Although she again felled the Scorpion Ms. Marvel was ambushed by the Destructor, but awoke in #3 (scripted by Chris Claremont) to turn the tables in ‘The Lady’s Not For Killing!’

Travelling to Cape Canaveral to interview old friend Salia Petrie for a women astronauts feature, Danvers was soon battling an old Silver Surfer foe on the edge of space and all her occluded memories returned just in time for a final confrontation with the Destructor during which she almost learnt that ‘Death is the Doomsday Man!’ (by Claremont, Jim Mooney & Sinnott).

Android Avenger the Vision guest-starred in #5 as Ms. Marvel crossed a ‘Bridge of No Return’. After Dr. Barnett revealed he knew her secret, Carol was forced to battle the Vision when AIM tricked the artificial hero into protecting a massive, mobile “dirty” bomb, before ‘…And Grotesk Shall Slay Thee!’ pitted her against a subterranean menace determined to eradicate the human race, culminating in a waking ‘Nightmare!’ when she was captured by AIM’s deadly leader Modok and all her secrets were exposed to his malign scientific scrutiny.

Grotesk returned in #8 as ‘The Last Sunset…?‘ almost dawned for the entire planet, whilst ‘Call Me Death-Bird!’ (illustrated by Keith Pollard, Sinnott & Sam Grainger) introduced a mysterious, murderous avian alien who would figure heavily in many an X-Men and Avengers saga, but who spent her early days allied to the unrelenting forces of AIM as they attacked once more in ‘Cry Murder… Cry Modok!’ (art by Sal Buscema & Tom Palmer).

Frank Giacoia inked #11’s ‘Day of the Dark Angel!’ wherein supernal supernatural menaces Hecate, the Witch-Queen and the Elementals attacked the Cape, preventing Carol from rescuing Salia Petrie and her space shuttle crew from an incredible inter-dimensional disaster…

The astonishing action continued in ‘The Warrior… and the Witch-Queen!’ (Sinnott inks) before ‘Homecoming!’ (Mooney & Sinnott) explored Carol’s blue collar origins in Boston as she battled a pair of marauding aliens and ‘Fear Stalks Floor 40’ (illustrated by Carmine Infantino & Steve Leialoha) pitted her against her construction worker, anti-feminist dad even as she was saving his business from the sinister sabotage of the Steeplejack.

Mooney & Tony DeZuniga provided the art for ‘The Shark is a Very Deadly Beast!’ as undersea villain Tiger Shark kidnapped the Sub-Mariner’s teenaged cousin Namorita and only Ms. Marvel, after a brief side trip to Avengers Mansion, was on hand to provide succour in ‘The Deep Deadly Silence!’ (inked by Frank Springer). ‘Shadow of the Gun!’ (Mooney & DeZuniga) enhanced the X-Men connection by introducing shape-shifting mutant Mystique in a raid on S.H.I.E.L.D. to purloin a new super-weapon, which saw impressive service in #18’s ‘The St. Valentine’s Day/Avengers Massacre!’ (Mooney & Ricardo Villamonte): a blockbuster battle that featured the beginning of a deadly plot from within the distant Kree Imperium.

The scheme swiftly culminated in ‘Mirror, Mirror!’ (Infantino & Bob McLeod) as the Kree Supreme Intelligence attempted to reinvigorate his race’s stalled evolutionary path by kidnapping the Earth/Kree hybrid Carol Danvers. However with both her and Captain Marvel hitting his emissary Ronan the Accuser eventually the plotters took the hint and went home empty handed…

Ms. Marvel #20 saw a great big makeover as Carol Danvers finally created her own look and identity in ‘The All-New Ms. Marvel’ courtesy of Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek wherein the utterly re-purposed hero tackled a hidden kingdom of intelligent post-atomic dinosaurs infesting the American deserts, leading to a catastrophic clash with ‘The Devil in the Dark!’ (inked by Al Milgrom).

Now one of the most hands-on, bombastic battlers in the Marvel pantheon, she was more than ready for a return match with Death-Bird in ‘Second Chance!’ (art by Mike Vosburg & Mike Zeck), but thrown for a total loop when she was fired from Woman Magazine. All these changes came too late as the series’ sales had earmarked it for cancellation. ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ (inked by Bruce D. Patterson) resolved the long-running disappearance of Salia Petrie in a tale guest-starring the time travelling Guardians of the Galaxy, just in time for the end of the road.

The series ended there but two more stories were in various stages of preparation and finally saw print in 1992 (the Summer and Fall issues of oversized anthology publication Marvel Super-Heroes Magazine #10-11) beginning with an untitled, ferocious fight with mutant maniac Sabretooth (by Claremont & Vosburg), followed by ‘Cry, Vengeance!’ (by Claremont, Simon Furman, Vosburg & Mike Gustovich) as Ms. Marvel, now a card-carrying Avenger, faced off against Mystique and her brotherhood of Evil Mutants. This tale features an additional section which explained how Carol was attacked by the young mutant Rogue, permanently lost her powers and memory and was eventually reborn as the cosmic being Binary: which is all well and good but somewhat takes the punch out of the last tale in this collection.

Admittedly Ms. Marvel only has a peripheral role in ‘By Friends… Betrayed!’ from Avengers Annual #10 (1981, by Claremont, Michael Golden & Armando Gil), as a powerless, amnesiac Carol Danvers was rescued from drowning by Spider-Woman, prior to Mystique and Rogue launching an all-out attack on the World’s Mightiest Heroes whilst attempting to free the Brotherhood from custody.

Spectacular and utterly compelling the tale seemed to write a satisfactory conclusion to Carol’s career but in comics nothing is forever…

This comprehensive monochrome chronicle also includes full entries on Death-Bird, Captain Marvel, the Kree and Rogue, taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook.

Always entertaining, often groundbreaking and painfully patronising (occasionally at the same time), the early Ms. Marvel, against all odds, grew into the modern Marvel icon of capable womanhood we see today. These adventures are a valuable grounding of the contemporary champion but also still stand up on their own as intriguing examples of the inevitable fall of even the staunchest of male bastions – superhero stories…

© 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1992, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Kingdom Come


By Mark Waid & Alex Ross (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2034-1

In the mid 1960s a teenaged Jim Shooter wrote a couple of stories about the Legion of Super-Heroes set some years into the team’s own future. Those stories of the adult Legionnaires revealed hints of things to come that shackled the series’ plotting and continuity for decades as eager, obsessed fans (by which I mean all of us) waited for the predicted characters to be introduced, presaged relationships to be consummated and heroes to die.

By being so impressive and similarly affecting the astonishing miniseries Kingdom Come accidentally repeated the trick and has subsequently painted the entire DC Universe into the same creative corner…

Envisaged and designed by artist Alex Ross as DC’s answer to the epic and groundbreaking Marvels, Kingdom Come was released as a 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries in 1996 to rapturous acclaim and, although set in the future and an “imaginary story” released under DC’s Elseworlds imprint, almost immediately began to affect the company’s mainstream continuity.

Set approximately twenty years into the future the grandiose saga details a tragic failure and subsequent loss of Faith for Superman and how his attempt to redeem himself almost led to an even greater and ultimate apocalypse.

The events are seen through the eyes and actions of Dantean witness Norman McCay, an aging cleric co-opted by Divine Agent of Wrath the Spectre after the pastor officiated at the last rites of dying superhero Wesley Dodds. As the Sandman, Dodds was cursed for decades with precognitive dreams which compelled him to act as an agent of justice.

The first chapter ‘Strange Visitor’ shows a world where metahumans have proliferated to ubiquitous proportions: a sub-culture of constant, violent clashes between the latest generation of costumed villains and vigilantes, all unheeding of the collateral damage they daily inflicted on the mere mortals around them.

The shaken preacher sees a final crisis coming, but feels helpless until the darkly angelic Spectre comes to him and takes him on a voyage of unfolding events and to act as his human perspective whilst the Spirit of Vengeance prepares to pass final judgement on Humanity. First stop is the secluded hideaway where farmer Kal-El has hidden himself since the ghastly events which compelled him to retire from the Good Fight and the eyes of the World.

The Man of Steel was already feeling like a dinosaur when newer, harsher, morally ambiguous mystery-men began to appear. After the Joker murdered the entire Daily Planet staff and hard-line new hero Magog executed him in the street, the public applauded the deed and, heartbroken and appalled, Superman disappeared for a decade. His legendary colleagues also felt the march of unwelcome progress and similarly disappeared.

With Earth left to the mercies of dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes, civil unrest soon escalated. The younger heroes displayed poor judgement and no restraint with the result that within a decade the entire planet had become a chaotic arena for metahuman duels.

Civilisation was fragmenting. Flash and Batman retreated to their home cities and made them secure, crime-free solitary fortresses. Green Lantern built an emerald castle in the sky, turning his eyes away from Earth and into the deep black fastnesses of space. Hawkman retreated to the wilderness, Aquaman to his sub-sea kingdom and Wonder Woman returned to her hidden paradise. She did not leave until Armageddon came one step closer.

When Magog and his Justice Battalion battled the Parasite in St. Louis the result was a nuclear accident which destroyed all of Kansas and much of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Overnight the world f aced starvation as America’s breadbasket turned into a toxic wasteland. Now with McCay and the Spectre invisibly observing, Princess Diana convinces the bereft Kal-El to return and save the world on his own terms…

In ‘Truth and Justice’ a resurgent Justice League led by Superman begins a campaign of unilateral action to clean up the mess civilisation has become; renditioning “heroes” and villains alike, imprisoning all dangerous elements of super-humanity, telling governments how to behave, all utterly unaware that they are hastening a global catastrophe of Biblical proportions as the Spectre invisibly gathers the facts for his apocalyptic judgement.

In the ensuing chaos, crippled warrior Bruce Wayne rejects Superman’ paternalistic, doctrinaire crusade and allies himself with mortal humanity’s libertarian elite – Ted (Blue Beetle) Kord, Dinah (Black Canary) Lance and Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen – to resist what can only be a grab for world domination by the meta-human minority. As the helpless McCay watches in horror Wayne’s group makes its own plans; another dangerous thread in a tapestry of calamity…

At first Superman’s plans seem blessed to succeed, with many erstwhile threats flocking to his banner and his rules of discipline, but as ever there are self-serving villains with their own agendas. Lex Luthor organises a cabal of like-minded compatriots – Vandal Savage, Catwoman, Riddler, Kobra and Ibn Al Xu’ffasch, Son of the Demon Ra’s Al Ghul – into a “Mankind Liberation Front”.

With Captain Marvel as their slave, the group are determined the super-freaks shall not win and their cause is greatly advanced once Wayne’s clique joins them…

‘Up in the Sky’ sees events spiral into a deadly storm as McCay, still wracked by his visions of Armageddon, is shown the Gulag where all the recalcitrant metahumans have been dumped and sees how it will fail, learns from restless spirit Deadman that the Spectre is the Angel of Death and watches with growing helplessness as Luthor’s plan to usurp control from the army of Superman leads to a shocking confrontation, betrayal and a deadly countdown to the End of Days. The deadly drama culminates in a staggering battle of superpowers, last moment salvation and a second chance for humanity in ‘Never-Ending Battle’…

Thanks to McCay’s simple humanity the world gets another chance and this edition follows up with an epilogue ‘One Year Later’ which end this ponderous epic on a note of renewed hope…

This edition comes with an introduction by author and past DC Comics scribe Elliot S. Maggin, assorted cover reproductions and art-pieces, an illustrated checklist of the vast cast list and a plethora of creative notes and sketches in the ‘Apochrypha’ section, plus ‘Evolution’: notes on a restored scene that never made it into the miniseries.

Epic, engaging and operatically impressive Kingdom Come continues to reshape the DC Universe to this day and remains a solid slice of superior superhero entertainment, worthy of your attention.
© 1996, 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Sandman Presents The Furies


By Mike Carey & John Bolton (Vertigo)
ISBN: hardback 978-1-5638-9935-5, softcover 1-4012-0093-1

Even though the enchanting worlds of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman extravaganza have been generally hived off into their own authorial pocket universe these days, many of the elements and characters were drawn from pre-existing series and a number of them survived it to return to the greater DC universe.

Here one of the most poorly used women in comics got a chance to be the star in her own story for a change in a dark and moody semi-sequel to the events of Sandman: The Kindly Ones and Sandman: the Wake (which I must get around to reviewing one day…).

Lyta Hall has one of the most convoluted histories in comics continuity: pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths she was originally the daughter of Earth-2’s Wonder Woman, before being retro-fitted as the child of WWII heroine Helena Kosmatos AKA Fury: a Greek heroine possessed and empowered by The Eumenides: those fearsome implacable Furies of Grecian myth tasked with punishing all who spill the blood of kin…

Once the myriad Earths were blended into one in 1986 Lyta retroactively became the child of a Greek WWII heroine. Following in Mama’s footsteps she became a member of teen superteam Infinity Inc., where she loved and was impregnated by the son of Hawkman. He died and was subsumed into the Realm of Dreams as the red-and-gold 1970s Sandman created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (for which check out The Sandman), after which Lyta married his ghost and moved into the dream-world. Missing for years she finally gave birth to a son Daniel, who was subsequently abducted by Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming.

In maternal madness and frustrated revenge Lyta set in motion the events which finally culminated in the Dream Master’s death and the installation of her lost baby as the new Master of Dreams.

The oneiric Daniel returned his mother to Earth under a spell of protection to ward off revenge from the supernatural forces she had exploited or offended; but Lyta was far from healed or even sane – nor was she safe…

There’s even more to her career set after this story but that’s for another time and place.

Three years after the climactic cosmic drama Lyta is a woman on the edge: under psychiatric observation, given to mood-swings, self-destructive acts, fits of violent rage and sweeping depressions. She is moments away from being dumped and forgotten in an institution; off the rails and obsessed with a missing child the physical universe knows never existed…

As a last resort her analyst convinces Lyta to join a theatrical troupe, indulge in some hopefully cathartic art-therapy and make a few friends she won’t sleep with or punch out, whilst in the Sublime Realms beyond reality a terrifying ancient foe of gods and men has freed himself from eternal torment and begun hunting the beings who betrayed and imprisoned him…

Events are shaped and the Goatsong Theatre Group is inexplicably offered the chance to perform in Athens, wellspring of Greek tragedy. How lucky for them then, that new recruit Lyta Hall is fluent in the language, history and customs? Capitalising on the mystical perturbations following Morpheus’ passing, the monstrous Cronus is closing in on Hermes and laying traps in the mortal world, ensnaring those pitiful, disposable wretches slowly warming to the troubled once-super-heroine. The cosmic patricide and unwilling father of gods is uncaring of the fact that his quest will bring him into conflict with the fearsome Furies who have hungered for his punishment since the dawn of time…

Cronus has a cunning plan…

Despite its convoluted antecedents this eerie, mythological horror story from Mike Carey is a compelling and inventive adult fable with a powerful kick and a disturbing message about love, friendship, duty and family, whilst artist John Bolton, who used this tale to shift his creative style from lush and mannered painterly illustration to a stronger, more photo-based expressionist form, excels in capturing mundane fantasy and inconceivable reality as diametrically opposed worlds collide.

Stylish, quirky and immensely impressive this nominal epilogue to Gaiman’s Sandman saga was released as an original hardcover graphic novel and is still generally available in a softcover edition.
© 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

World of Krypton


By Paul Kupperberg, Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte (DC/Tor Books)
ISBN: 0-523-49017-8

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly “never happened”. The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Silver Age readers buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in the incredible blanks about the lost world through the delightful and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s Superman – and an issue of Superman Family – carried a back-up series entitled ‘The Fabulous World of Krypton’ relating “Untold Tales of Superman’s Native Planet” (so long overdue for a complete trade paperback collection) by a host of the industry’s greatest talents which further explored that defunct wonderland.

Many of those twenty-seven vignettes were referenced alongside the key Krypton-starring issues of the Superman franchise in 1979 when scripter Paul Kupperberg and artists Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte synthesised the scattered back-story details into DC’s first miniseries World of Krypton.

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a nifty black and white paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from the much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell (who was always the go-to guy for any detail of fact or trivia concerning the company’s vast comics output). This magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds is a grand old slice of comics fun and nostalgia long overdue for a critical reappraisal and a wider audience.

The story opens with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on the moon: a document from his deceased father Jor-El which details the scientist’s life, career and struggle with the nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near extinction.

As the Man of Steel listens on, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite all the sinister efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them, how he discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone ray, uncovered the lost technology of a dead race which provided the clues to Kal-El’s escape rocket, and learns his father’s take on Superman’s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…

He feels his father’s pain when Brainiac stole the city of Kandor, when rogue scientist Jax-Ur blew up the inhabited moon of Wegthor, when civil war almost wracked the planet thanks to the deranged militarist General Zod and when his own cousin Kru forever disgraced the noble House of El…

Heavily referencing immortal classics such as ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ (Superman volume 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton mini-epics ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’, ‘Moon-Crossed Love’, ‘Marriage, Kryptonian Style’ and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…

Moreover the sensitive and meticulous reformatting of the original miniseries by editor Bridwell and designers Bob Rozakis, Shelley Eiber & Alex Saviuk makes this book one of the most smoothly readable of all paperback comic collections.

Although not that easy to find, World of Krypton is still worth tracking down and until DC get around to gathering the Krypton chronicles into the kind of compendium they deserve this is still your best shot at seeing the evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady days of yore…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents Green Lantern volume 5


By Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Mike Grell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-224-6

Returning to the usual phonebook-sized black and white tome, this fifth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (re-presenting the contents of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76-89 – barring the all-reprint #88 – and the emerald back-up strips from Flash #217-221, 223-224, 226-228, 230-231, 237-238, 240-243, 245-246) generated groundbreaking, landmark tales from Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams that totally revolutionised the industry, whilst registering such poor sales that the series was cancelled and the heroes unceremoniously shipped into the back of another comicbook. Gradually the emphasis shifted back to crime, adventure and space opera and Green Lantern grew popular enough for his own solo title once more….

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade) Denny O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams utterly redefined superhero strips with their relevancy-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment masked boy-scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution.

‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) is a landmark in the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as newly-minted ardent liberal Green Arrow challenged GL’s cosy worldview when the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wore business suits, had expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and would happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

Of course, the fact that the story is a brilliant crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones magnificently illustrated doesn’t hurt either…

O’ Neil became sole scripter with this story and, in tight collaboration with ultra-realistic art-genius Adams, instantly overturned contemporary costumed dramas with their societally-targeted relevancy-driven protest-stories. The book became Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Emerald Archer Oliver Queen constantly mouthing off as a radical, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis whilst staid, quasi-reactionary GL Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard.

At least the Ring-Slinger was aware of his faults and more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

At the time this compendium of stories first appeared DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (which, in comic-book terms meant “young writers”) being given much leeway: a veritable wave of fresh, raw talent akin to the very start of the industry, when excitable young creators ran wild with imagination… Their cause wasn’t hurt by an industry in rapid commercial decline: costs were up and the kids just weren’t buying funnybooks in the volumes they used to…

‘Journey to Desolation’ in #77 was every bit as groundbreaking.

At the conclusion of the last issue an immortal Guardian of the Universe – hereafter known as “the Old Timer” was assigned to accompany the Emerald Duo on a voyage to “discover America”: a soul-searching social exploration into the dichotomies which divided the nation. First stop brought the trio to a poverty-stricken mining town run as a private kingdom by a ruthless entrepreneur happy to use agent-provocateurs and Nazi war criminals to keep his wage slaves in line.

When a young protest singer looked likely to become the next Bob Dylan and draw unwelcome publicity, he had to be eliminated – as did the three strangers who drove into town at just the wrong moment…

Although the heroes provided temporary solutions and put away viciously human criminals, these tales were remarkably blunt in exposing bigger ills and issues that couldn’t be fixed with a wave of a Green Ring; invoking an aura of helplessness that was metaphorically emphasised during this story when Hal was summarily stripped of much of his power for no longer being the willing, unquestioning stooge of his officious, high-and-mighty alien masters…

The confused and far-more-mortal Green Lantern discovered another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ when Black Canary joined the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her relationship with Green Arrow, she was waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Unfortunately Joshua was more Manson than Messiah and his brand of Peace and Love only extended to white people: everybody else was simply target practise…

The plight of Native Americans was stunningly high-lighted in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’ as corporate logging interests attempted to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, once more causing the Green Knights to take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help, whilst #80 added a science fiction gloss to a tale of judicial malfeasance in ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (inked by Dick Giordano).

When the Old Timer used his powers to save Green Lantern rather than prevent a pollution catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest, he was chastised by his fellow Guardians and dispatched to the planet Gallo for judgement by the supreme arbiters of Law in the universe.

His earthly friends accompanied him and found a disturbing new administration with a decidedly off-kilter view of justice…

Adams’ staggering facility for capturing likenesses added extra-piquancy to this yarn that we’re just not equipped to grasp four decades later, with the usurping, overbearing villain derived from the Judge of the infamous trial of anti-war protesters “The Chicago Eight”.

Insight into the Guardians’ history underpinned ‘Death Be My Destiny!’ when Lantern, Arrow and Canary travelled with the now-sentenced Old Timer to the ancient world of Maltus (that’s a pun, son: just type Thomas Robert Malthus into your search engine of choice or even look in a book) and found a world literally choking on its own out-of-control population. The uncanny cause cast unlovely light on the perceived role and worth of women in modern society…

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #82 returned briefly to traditional yarn-spinning in ‘How do you Fight a Nightmare?’ (with additional inks from Berni Wrightson) as Green Lantern’s greatest foe unleashed Harpies, Amazons and all manner of female furies on the hapless hero before Black Canary and Green Arrow could turn the tide, whilst ‘…And a Child Shall Destroy Them!’ crept into Hitchcock country to reintroduce Hal Jordan’s old flame Carol Ferris and take a pop at education and discipline in the chilling tale of a supernal mutant in thrall to a doctrinaire little martinet.

Wrightson also inked #84’s staggering attack on out-of-control consumerism, shoddy cost-cutting and the seduction of bread and circuses in ‘Peril in Plastic’ before the comics world changed forever in the two-part saga ‘Snowbirds Don’t Fly’ and ‘They Say It’ll Kill Me…But They Won’t Say When!’

Depiction of drug abuse had been strictly proscribed in comicbooks since the advent of the Comics Code Authority, but by 1971 the elephant in the room was too big to ignore and both Marvel and DC addressed the issue in startlingly powerful tales that opened Pandora’s dirty box forever. When the Green Gladiators were drawn into conflict with a vicious heroin-smuggling gang Oliver Queen was horrified to discover his own sidekick had become an addict…

This sordid, nasty tale did more than merely preach or condemn, but actively sought to explain why young people turned to drugs, just what the consequences could be and even hinted at solutions older people and parents might not want to consider. Forty years on it might all seem a little naïve, but the earnest drive to do something and the sheer dark power of the story still delivers a stunning punch.

For all the critical acclaim and astonishingly innovative work done, sales of Green Lantern/Green Arrow were in a critical nosedive and nothing seemed able to stop the rot. Issue #87 featured two solo tales, the first of which ‘Beware My Power!’ introduced a bold new character to the DCU. John Stewart was a radical activist: an angry black man always spoiling for a fight and prepared to take guff from no-one. Hal Jordan was convinced the Guardians had erred when they appointed Stewart as Green Lantern’s official stand-in, but when a bigoted US presidential candidate tried to foment a race war the Emerald Gladiator was forced to change his tune.

Meanwhile bankrupted millionaire Oliver Queen was faced with a difficult decision when the retiring Mayor of Star City invited him to run for his office. ‘What Can One Man Do?’ written by Elliot Maggin, posed fascinating questions for the proud rebel by inviting him to join “the establishment” he despised, and do some lasting good. The decision was muddied by well-meaning advice from his fellow superheroes and the tragic consequences of a senseless street riot…

Issue #88 was a collection of reprints (not included here) and the series went out on an evocative, allegorical high note in #89 as ‘…And Through Him Save a World…’ (inked by Adams) pitted jobs and self-interest at Carol Ferris’ aviation company against clean air and pure streams in an naturalistic fable wherein an ecological Christ-figure made the ultimate sacrifice to save our planet and where all the Green Heroes’ power could not affect the outcome…

Although the groundbreaking series folded there, the heroics resumed a few months later in the back of The Flash #217 (August-September 1972). ‘The Killing of an Archer!’ began a run of short episodes which eventually led to Green Lantern regaining his own solo series. The O’Neil, Adams & Giordano thriller related how Green Arrow made a fatal mistake and accidentally ended the life of a criminal he was battling. Devastated, the broken swashbuckler abandoned his life and headed for the wilderness to atone or die…

The next episode ramped up the tension as a plot against the Archer was uncovered by Green Lantern and Black Canary in ‘Green Arrow is Dead!’ whilst ‘The Fate of an Archer’ saw Canary critically injured and GL track down Oliver Queen just in time to save her life…

Dick Giordano assumed full illustration duties with ‘Duel for a Death List!’ and the concluding ‘Death-Threat on Titan!’ (Flash #220-221) as the feature returned to its science fiction roots to concentrate solely on Green Lantern once more. In this pacy yarn aliens with an ancient link to the GL Corps began eliminating ring-wielders in preparation for a fantastic strike against the Guardians of the Universe.

Issue #223 continued the interstellar intrigue as an alien interloper attacked in ‘Doomsday… Minus Ten Minutes!’ whilst the next issue presented a clever, thoroughly grounded crime-caper ‘Yellow is a Dirty Little Color!’

In #226-Neal Adams drew his last GL tale ‘The Powerless Power Ring!’ before Dick Dillin, Giordano & Giacoia completed the trilogy in #227-228 with ‘My Ring… My Enemy!’ and ‘My Enemy… Myself!’ wherein atmospheric phenomena, bad mushrooms and invading aliens all combined to make the will-powered weapon a lethal liability.

Flash #230-231 featured ‘The Man From Yesterday!’ and ‘The Man of Destiny!’ (Dillin & Tex Blaisdell) as GL saved one of America’s Revolutionary heroes from aliens who had shanghaied him centuries previously, whilst #233-234 ‘World That Bet on War!’ & ‘And the Winner is Death!’ (Dillin, Terry Austin & Giordano) pitted the Emerald Avenger against gambling-crazed extraterrestrials who used soldiers from Earth history as their games-pieces…

With Flash #237-238 and 240-243 new art sensation Mike Grell came aboard for a six part saga that precipitated Green Lantern back into his own title. Beginning with ‘Let There Be Darkness!’ (inked by Bill Draut) the watchword was “cosmic” as the extra-galactic Ravagers of Olys undertook six destructive, unholy tasks in Green Lantern’s space sector. After thwarting their scheme to occlude the sun over planet Zerbon, destroying the photosynthetic inhabitants, the hero picked up a semi-sentient starfish sidekick in ‘The Day of the Falling Sky!’(Blaisdell inks) whilst preventing the artificial world of Vivarium from collapsing in upon itself.

‘The Floods Will Come!’ brought the Olys to planets Archos, where they attempted to submerge all the landmasses and drown the stone-age dwellers thriving there and Jotham, where the Ravagers almost extinguished the sun in ‘To Kill a Star!’

Earth was the target in ‘All Creatures Great and Small!’ as the Olys used their incredible technology to shrink all mammals but no sooner had Green Lantern negated that threat than the invaders’ de-evolutionary weapons were activated in ‘Dust of the Earth!’ (Austin inks).

Luckily a hominid GL was even more formidable than his Homo Sapiens self…

The buzz of the O’Neil/Grell epic assured Green Lantern of his own series once more, but before the re-launch Flash #345-346 presented one last two-part, back-up bonanza as Dillin & Austin illustrated the eerie mutation of vegetable-themed villain Jason Woodrue who transformed himself into a horrendous monster in ‘Perilous Plan of the Plant Master!’ before subjecting GL to ‘The Fury of the Floronic Man!‘

From challenging tales of social injustice back to plot-driven sagas of wit and courage, packed with a shining, optimistic sense of wonder and bristling with high-octane action, these evergreen adventures signalled the end of the Silver Age of Comics. Illustrated by some of the most revered names in the business, the exploits in this volume closed one chapter in the life of Green Lantern and opened the doors to today’s sleek and stellar sentinel of the stars.

© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Family Man


By Jamie Delano, Ron Tiner, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, Dean Motter & others (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-978-9

You’ve either heard of Hellblazer by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be brief. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, John Constantine is a mercurial modern wizard, a morally ambivalent, self-serving trickster, neither friend nor foe to mankind and a hell-addicted chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. Or so he’d have you think…

He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. He is nothing like Keanu Reeves. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void… the magician that is, not the actor…

After years of tackling primordial, unearthly horrors and all manner of thaumaturgic terrors John Constantine finally faced the greatest Bete Noir of modern times when he faced an all-too human killer in one of the most disturbing sagas of the series’ always controversial history…

Collecting the chilling extended epic from Hellblazer #23-24 and #28-33, the first inkling of the terror in store comes with ‘Larger Than Life’ (laid out by Dean Motter and illustrated by Ron Tiner) as the urban mage checks in with an old acquaintance and opens the door on a storm of blood and horror. Jehosophat “Jerry the Dealer” O’Flynn is a trader in arcane artefacts as well as more mundane commodities, but the day Constantine popped in his host was knee deep in novel trouble – in fact he was being hounded by creatures from literature who wanted him to come home…

Devotees of Jasper Fforde’s Bookworld series will feel they’re on familiar ground here but this sag is much more terror-tale than fantasy fable and first saw print in 1989…

Tiner assumed full artistic chores with the next issue as Constantine, living in O’Flynn’s empty house, encountered one of the trader’s nastiest customers. When an old gentleman came calling for his reserved merchandise the shifty sorcerer took a crafty peek and realised Jerry had been sourcing victims for ‘The Family Man’ – a serial killer who slaughters entire households.

What the killer gave Jerry was even more revolting…

In ‘Thicker Than Water’ (illustrated by Tiner and Kevin Walker) the trickster was visited by the ghosts of the Family Man’s latest foray, killed after Constantine handed Jerry’s research to that nice old man. Meanwhile retired policeman Sammy Morris has been thinking.

He’s been thinking he should have killed the man at Jerry’s place: so he taps a few old contacts on the Force and soon has all their files on John Constantine. Now he knows the unsuspecting man’s friends, his habits and that the troublesome loner has a father, sister and niece in Liverpool – a proper little family unit…

Whilst Constantine dealt in his own ruthless manner with the people profiting from the serial killer’s trades to O’Flynn, the monster paid a visit to Constantine’s kin with brutal, bloody results and the unsettled urban mage realised that he must be next on the “to-do” list…

Preparing himself for a completely unfamiliar kind of mortal combat, Constantine turned to old mate Chas Chandler, subsequently turning the cab driver into another target in ‘Sick at Heart’.

Hunted, horrified and knowing the rest of his family are next, the Hellblazer went undercover and on the run, dreading yet keenly anticipating a final confrontation with his relentless nemesis in ‘Fatality’ (Delano, Tiner and Mark Buckingham).

Sean Phillips illustrated the eerie aftermath of that final clash in ‘Mourning of the Magician’ as the surviving members of the Constantine clan gathered for the funeral and the exhausted, emotionally numbed wizard was forced to confront his troubled childhood whilst laying to rest one more unquiet spirit.

‘New Tricks’ is a savage, darkly amusing chiller from guest writer Dick Foreman and artist Steve Pugh as Constantine was dragged into a nasty scrap when a series of disappearances led to a reincarnated feral horror in a junkyard and ‘Sundays are Different’ ends this volume on an uncharacteristically gentle note as Delano, Motter & Mark Pennington provided a surreal moment of rest and contemplation when Constantine travelled to the strangest place he’d ever known before coming back to Earth with a soft bump and a refreshed attitude. Good thing too, because there’s horror aplenty still in store…

Hellblazer has always held up a dark mirror to the times it was written in, whilst somehow consistently maintaining a timeless quality of sublime shock and horror that no fan of suspense could ever resist. If you haven’t experienced the truly British taste of sour fear, sardonic whimsy and nihilistic aplomb under bleak, unrelenting adversity there’s no better time to start. He’s ready when you are…

© 1989, 1990, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Ultimate Comics Captain America


By Jason Aaron & Ron Garney (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-489-8

In 2000, when Marvel hived off portions of their established continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers than the 1960s Lee/Kirby/Ditko ongoing monolith, they started with the most popular characters – Spider-Man and the X-Men – only gradually adding analogues for the remaining characters and trademarks.

Even when the Mighty Avengers finally appeared, renamed the Ultimates in 2002, readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of the alternative heroes and villains – including a remarkably familiar yet staggeringly different “Living Legend of World War II”.

Frail Steve Rogers still underwent radical experimentation to become America’s first super-soldier and after a brief stellar career as the living symbol of his war-beleaguered nation, disappeared in a blazing explosion. He was resurrected from a block of ice in modern times and re-assumed his place at the forefront of masked heroes. However, this Sentinel of Liberty was no costumed boy-scout, but rather a deadly and remorseless warrior: a master strategist and supremely skilled street-fighter always ready to apply the ultimate sanction. In short: a conscienceless killer.

In Ultimate Comics Captain America the eternal soldier is on the trail of rogue states seeking to duplicate the super-soldier serum which created him at the behest of his new government masters, when he is captured and subjected to horrendous torture and indoctrination by a living ghost…

Whilst Steve Rogers slept in the ice, America continued its march to global dominance and when the Vietnam conflict escalated the Military sought to recreate Captain America by transforming starry-eyed patriotic kid Frank Simpson into a living embodiment of the American war machine…

Tragically Vietnam was a different kind of war and Simpson (an iteration of the deeply troubled villain Nuke created by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli in Daredevil: Born Again) broke under the weight of the dirty jobs and corrupt missions he was assigned to carry out. One day he walked into the jungle and was never seen again…

Now Simpson is back and has clearly discovered how to duplicate the serum that empowers him; selling it to North Korea, Iran and anybody else dedicated to the downfall of the “the Land of the Free”…

Ignoring official orders to stand down, Steve Rogers hunts his successor – who has already thoroughly defeated him once – only to stumble on the USA’s greatest nightmare. Overmatched, outfought and easily captured by Simpson, Rogers is subjected to a terrifying re-education program that opens his eyes to what his country became whilst he slept and the kind of nation Captain America now stands for…

The stark, savage and nihilistically modern Ultimates Comic universe is well-stocked with dark-and-gritty doppelgangers of the gleaming pantheon crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but since its inception at the turn of the century, the imprint has resolved into something which can easily stand on its own merits, as seen in this wonderful tale (originally published as Ultimate Comics Captain America #1-4).

With the impending imminent release of the latest Captain America movie, a large number of graphic novel collections starring the Sentinel of Liberty have been commissioned and this brutal, beautiful fable of frustrated idealism and corrupted patriotism is one of the very best of recent vintage, in this, that or any other universe.

Written by Jason (Scalped) Aaron, revisiting the source material of his Vertigo classic The Other Side and stunningly illustrated by Ron Garney, whose art on the mainstream hero (see Captain America: Operation Rebirth) returned the Star-Spangled Avenger to dizzying heights of popularity after decades in the doldrums, Ultimate Comics Captain America is a breathtaking, thought-provoking examination of duty and honour and a fabulously entertaining rollercoaster ride of action and adventure for older readers. It’s also a gloriously accessible tale for anybody approaching the character for the very first time…

Tense, compelling, morally challenging and explosively cathartic, this saga of conjoined yet eternally antagonistic ideologies in savage confrontation is absolute comics gold of the very highest quality: challenging, compelling and wildly satisfying.

™ and © 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

Posted on

Ultimate Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man: Prelude


By Brian Michael Bendis, David LaFuente, Sara Picheli, Joёlle Jones, Jamie McKelvie, Skottie Young & Chris Samnee (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-486-7

Marvel’s Ultimates sub-imprint began in 2000 with key characters and concepts retooled to bring them into line with the tastes of modern readers – a potentially discrete and fresh new market from the baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the universe which had sprung from the fantastic founding talents of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee – or most likely – one unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage that had accumulated around the originals.

Eventually this darkly nihilistic alternate universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

Although a huge seller (for modern comics at least) the saga was largely slated by the fans who bought it. The ongoing new “Ultimatum Comics” line quietly back-pedalled on its declared intentions, quietly soldiering on without “mentioning the war…”

The key and era-ending event was a colossal wave that inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and this latest compendium (assembling issue #15 of the post-Tsunami Ultimate Comics Spider-Man series and #150-155 of the same comicbook after it reverted to its original pre wash-rinse-reset-spin-cycle numbering) continues the superhero soap opera of young survivors readjusting to their altered state.

However time is a great reconciler and now the revitalised imprint is slowly gaining ground and winning favour as this third collection of the other Wallcrawler surely attests.

Peter Parker is fifteen (but looks 12), the perennial hard-luck loser kid: a secretive yet brilliant geek just trying to get by in a world where daily education is infinitely more trouble than beating monsters and villains. Between High School and slinging fast food (Burger Frog is his only source of income since the Daily Bugle drowned) he still finds time to fight crime although his very public heroics during the crisis have made him a beloved hero of police and citizenry alike – which is the creepiest thing he has ever endured.

He lives in a big house with his Aunt May and despite his low self-esteem inexplicably has stellar lovelies such as Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson (his ex-squeeze) and others seemingly hungry for his scrawny bod. He even briefly dated mutant babe Kitty Pride: remember when not having a girlfriend was the very definition of “loser”?

Many kids were made homeless after the deluge and with schools and accommodation stretched to breaking point, May Parker opened her doors to a select band of orphaned super-kids like the Human Torch, Iceman and even the troubled – and tempting – Gwen, all living anonymously in the relatively unaffected borough of Queens.

At the end of the previous volume a shapeshifting villain replaced Parker, virtually assaulting both Mary Jane and Gwen and committing crimes as Spider-Man whilst the real Peter and J. Jonah Jamison languished in captivity. During their eventual escape the ruthless publisher deduced Parker’s Arachnid identity and got shot in the head. Now with super-spy organisation S.H.I.E.L.D taking charge of the aftermath Peter finds his fate in the hands of a bunch of take-charge adults who think they know what’s best for him…

The grown-ups, including Government super-team Ultimates Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, decide to teach him how to be a proper hero, so not only does the poor kid have to untangle the mess the Chameleons made of his turbulent love-life, but Peter has to go to a “summer school” where he’s the only pupil…

Meanwhile at his regular school old enemy Bombshell – another jailbait hottie – enrols in his class, claiming she’s turning over a new leaf just as Mary Jane and Gwen face off resulting in one of them running away from home…

Meanwhile extreme burglar Black Cat and criminal mastermind Mysterio have come to an impasse regarding a piece of property previously owned by the recently murdered Kingpin. Unfortunately the Zodiac Key is an extinction-level artefact activated by thought so as they struggle for it whole chunks of New York are vaporised.

Having drawn the short-straw Iron Man is Spidey’s reluctant mentor when the disaster hits and the two supremely outclassed science-geeks are all that’s available to save the day in a crisis which could end the Earth itself…

In the aftermath Peter and once nemesis Jonah Jamison strike an unexpected deal and all Peter’s girl problems converge as Gwen, Mary Jane and Kitty Pryde attend his sixteenth birthday party. It all ends on a remarkably happy note but this volume is, after all, only a prelude…

As ever these stories are as much about the tribulations of growing up as saving the world and writer Bendis superbly blends comedy, teen angst, melodrama and frantic action in a seamless stream of clever scenes and thrilling set pieces, all superbly illustrated by David LaFuente, Sara Picheli, Joёlle Jones, Jamie McKelvie, Skottie Young & Chris Samnee to produce one of the most enjoyable takes on the wall-crawler in decades.

This series is constantly improving and always offers marvellously compelling and enjoyable costumed drama that easily overcomes its opportunistic origins. An absolute must for every fun-loving jaded superhero fan…

™ and © 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.