Showcase Presents – Page 5

November 17, 2012

Showcase Presents the Flash volume 4

By John Broome, Gardner Fox, Frank Robbins, Carmine Infantino, Ross Andru & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2297-0

Barry Allen was the second speedster to carry the name of Flash, and his debut was the Big Bang which finally triggered the Silver Age of comics after a series of abortive original attempts such as Captain Flash, The Avenger, Strongman (in 1954-1955) and remnant revivals (Stuntman in 1954 and Marvel’s â€œBig Threeâ€, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner & Captain America from 1953 to 1955).

Although none of those – or other less high-profile efforts – had restored the failed fortunes of masked mystery-men, they had presumably piqued readers’ consciousness, even at conservative National/DC. Thus the revived human rocket wasn’t quite the innovation he seemed: alien crusader Martian Manhunter had already cracked open the company floodgates with his low-key launch in Detective Comics #225, November 1955.

However in terms of creative quality, originality and sheer story style The Flash was an irresistible spark and after his landmark first appearance in Showcase #4 (October 1956) the series – eventually – became a benchmark by which every successive launch or reboot across the industry was measured.

Police Scientist – we’d call him a CSI today – Barry Allen was transformed by an accidental lightning strike and chemical bath into a human thunderbolt of unparalleled velocity and ingenuity. Yet with characteristic indolence the new Fastest Man Alive took three more try-out issues and almost as many years to win his own title. However when he finally stood on his own wing-tipped feet in The Flash #105 (February-March 1959), he never looked backâ€¦

The comics business back then was a faddy, slavishly trend-beset affair, however, and following a manic boom for superhero tales prompted by the Batman TV show the fickle global consciousness moved on to a fixation with of supernatural themes and merely mortal tales, triggering a huge revival of spooky films, shows, books and periodicals. With horror on the rise again, many superhero titles faced cancellation and even the most revered and popular were threatened. It was time to adapt or dieâ€¦

At the time this fourth collection of his own hard-won title begins, the Vizier of Velocity was still an undisputed icon of the apparently unstoppable Superhero meme and mighty pillar of the costumed establishment, but dark days and changing fashions were about to threaten his long run at the topâ€¦

Reprinting the transitional issues #162-184 (from June 1966 to December 1968), this compilation shows how Flash had set into a comfortable pattern of two short tales per issue leavened with semi-regular book-length thrillers; always written by regular scripters John Broome or Gardner F. Fox and illustrated by Carmine Infantino (and Joe Giella) but that safe format was about to radically change.

Flash #162 featured the Fox-penned sci-fi chiller ‘Who Haunts the Corridor of Chills?’ in which an apparently haunted fairground attraction opened the doors into an invasion-mystery millions of years old and stretched the Scarlet Speedster’s powers and imagination to the limit, whilst the next issue offered two tales by globe-trotting author Broome.

‘The Flash Stakes his Life – On – You!’ took an old philosophical adage to its illogical but highly entertaining extreme when criminal scientist Ben Haddon used his gadgets to make the residents of Central City forget their champion ever existed. That then had the incredible effect of making the Flash fade away and, were it not for the utter devotion of one hero-worshipping little girlâ€¦

By contrast ‘The Day Magic Exposed Flash’s Secret Identity!’ is a sharp duel with a dastardly villain as approbation-hungry evil illusionist Abra Kadabra escaped prison and traded bodies with the 64^th century cop sent to bring back to face future justice, leaving the Speedster with an impossible choice to make.

Issue #164 held another pair of fast fables. ‘Flash – Vandal of Central City!’ by Broome, found the hero losing control of his speed and destroying property every time he ran. Little did he know old enemy Pied Piper was back in townâ€¦ Kid Flash then solo-starred in the Fox tale ‘The Boy Who Lost Touch with the World!’ as Wally West’s nerdy new friend suddenly became periodically, uncontrollably intangibleâ€¦

With Flash #165 and ‘One Bridegroom too Many!’ Broome, Infantino & Giella took a huge step in the character’s development as Barry finally married his long-time fiancÃ©e Iris West. This shocking saga saw the hero’s sinister antithesis Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash attempt to replace him at the altar in a fast-paced, utterly beguiling yarn which also posed a Gordian puzzle for Barry.

Should the nervous newlywed reveal his secret identity to Iris – who had no idea she was marrying a superhero – or say nothing, maintaining the biggest lie between them and pray she never, ever found out? Every married man already knows the answer* but for us secretive little kids reading this the first time around, that question was an impossible, imponderable quandary…

Building soap opera tension by fudging the issue, #166 carried on as usual with Broome’s delicious comedy ‘The Last Stand of the Three-Time Losers!’ which saw a cheesy bunch of no-hoper thieves accidentally discover an improbable, exploitable weakness in Flash’s powers and psyche, after which the Monarch of Motion became a ‘Tempting Target of the Temperature Twins!’ when Flash sprained his ankle just as Heat Wave and Captain Cold chose to renew their almost-friendly rivalry in Central Cityâ€¦

With #167 Sid Greene became the series’ inker and kicked off his run with a light-hearted but accidentally controversial Fox/Infantino tale that utterly incensed the devoted readership. ‘The Real Origin of The Flash!’ introduced Heavenly Helpmate – and Woody Allen look-alike – Mopee who had long ago been ordered to create the accident which transformed a deserving human into the Fastest Man Alive.

Tragically, Mopee had cocked-up and was now back on Earth to rectify his mistake and it took all of Flash’s skill, ingenuity – and patience – to regain his powers. The story is a delightfully offbeat hoot but continuity-conscious fans have dubbed it apocryphal and heretical ever sinceâ€¦

Less contentious was Fox’s back-up yarn ‘The Hypnotic Super-Speedster!’ which allowed Kid Flash an opportunity to bust up a gang of thieves, prank a theatrical mesmerist and give a chubby school chum the athletic thrill of a lifetime.

Broome then produced for #168 a puzzling full-length thriller in which the Guardians of the Universe sought out the Flash and declared ‘One of our Green Lanterns is Missing!’Â Even as the Scarlet Speedster hunted for his missing best buddy, he was being constantly distracted by a gang of third-rate petty thugs who had somehow acquired incredible futuristic super weaponsâ€¦

Flash #169 was an all-reprint 80-Page Giant represented here by its stunning cover and an illuminating ‘How I Draw the Flash’ feature by Carmine Infantino, followed by a full-length Fox thriller in #170. ‘The See-Nothing Spells of Abra Kadabra!’ found the Vizier of Velocity hexed by the cunning conjuror and unable to detect the villain’s actions or presence. Sadly for the sinister spellbinder, Flash had help from his visiting Earth-2 predecessor Jay Garrick and JSA pals Doctors Fate and Mid-Niteâ€¦

‘Here Lies The Flash – Dead and Unburied’ (Fox, Infantino & Greene) pitted the restored speedster against Justice League foe Doctor Light, who was attempting to pick off his assembled enemies one at a time whilst #172 offered a brace of Broome blockbusters beginning with ‘Grodd Puts the Squeeze on Flash!’ which saw the super-simian blackmail his nippy nemesis into (briefly) busting him out of a Gorilla City cell, whilst ‘The Machine-Made Robbery!’ featured the return of that most absent-minded Professor Ira West. Luckily son-in-law Barry was around to foil a perfidious plot by cunning criminals. The genius’ new super-computer was public knowledge, and by clever crooks wanted to hire the device, secretly intent on designing a perfect crime.

Issue #173 featured a titanic team-up as Barry, Wally West and Jay Garrick were separately shanghaied to another galaxy as putative prey of alien hunter Golden Man in ‘Doomward Flight of the Flashes!’ However Broome’s stunning script slowly revealed layers of intrigue and the Andromedan super-safari concealed a far more arcane purpose for the three speedy pawns, before the wayward wanderers finally fought free and found their way home again.

In 1967 Infantino was made Art Director and Publisher of National DC and, although he still designed the covers, Flash #174 was his final full-pencilling job. He departed in stunning style with Broome’s ‘Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains!’ in which Mirror Master Sam Scudder discovered a fantastic looking-glass world where the Scarlet Speedster was a hardened criminal constantly defeated by a disgusting do-gooder reflecting champion.

Stealing the heroic Mirror Master’s secret super-weapon Scudder called in fellow Rogues Pied Piper, Heat Wave, Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang and The Top to enjoy their foe’s final downfall but they were not ready for the last-minute interference of the other, evil, Barry Allenâ€¦

When Infantino left, most fans were convinced the Flash was ruined. His replacements were highly controversial and suffered most unfairly in unjust comparisons – and I count myself among their biggest detractors at the time – but in the intervening years I’ve leaned to appreciate the superb quality of their work.

However, back in a comics era with no invasive, pervasive support media, Flash #175 (December 1967) was huge shock for the fans. With absolutely no warning, ‘The Race to the End of the Universe!’ proclaimed E. Nelson Bridwell as author and introduced Wonder Woman art-team Ross Andru & Mike Esposito as illustrators.

Moreover the story was another big departure. DC Editors in the 1960s had generally avoided such questions as which hero is the strongest/fastest/best for fear of upsetting some portion of their tenuous and perhaps temporary fan-base, but as the superhero boom slowed and the upstart Marvel Comics began to make genuine inroads into their market, the notion of a definitive race between the almighty Man of Steel and the â€œFastest Man Aliveâ€ had become an inevitable, increasingly enticing and sales-worthy proposition.

After a deliberately inconclusive first race around the world – for charity – (‘Superman’s Race with the Flash’, Superman #199, August 1967, reprinted in the themed volume Superman Vs Flash) the stakes were catastrophically raised in the inevitable rematch from Flash #175.

The tale itself found the old friendly rivals compelled to speed across the cosmos when ruthless alien gamblers Rokk and Sorban threatened to eradicate Central City and Metropolis unless the pair categorically settled who was fastest. Bridwell added an ingenious sting in the tale and logically highlighted two classic Flash Rogues, whilst Andru & Esposito delivered a sterling illustration job in this yarn – but once more the actual winning was deliberately fudged.

Broome produced a few more stories before moving on and #176 offered two of his best. ‘Death Stalks the Flash!’ tapped into the upsurge in spooky shenanigans when Iris contracted a deadly fever and her hyper-fast hubby ran right into her dreams to destroy the nightmarish Grim Reaper after which ‘Professor West – Lost Strayed or Stolen?’ delightfully inverts all the old absent-minded gags. Barry’s Father-in-Law successfully underwent a memory-enhancing process but still managed to get inadvertently involved with murderous felonsâ€¦

Fox then produced one of the daftest yet most memorable of Flash thrillers in #177 as The Trickster invented a brain-enlarging ray and turned his arch-foe into ‘The Swell-Headed Super-Hero!’ after which #178’s cover follows – being merely another all-reprint 80-Page Giantâ€¦

Written by newcomer Cary Bates and Gardner Fox, Flash #179 (May 1968) was another landmark. The prologue ‘Test your Flash I.Q.’ and main event ‘The Flash – Fact of Fiction?’ took the multiple Earths concept to its logical conclusion by trapping the Monarch of Motion in â€œourâ€ Reality, where the Sultan of Speed was just a comic-book character! Offering a simultaneous alien monster mystery this rollercoaster riot was a superb introduction for Bates who eventually became the regular writer of the series and the longest serving creator of the legend of Barry Allen.

First though, jobbing cartoonist Frank Robbins added Flash to his credits by scripting an almost painfully tongue-in-cheek oriental spoof accessing everything from Kurosawa to You Only Live Twice to his own Johnny Hazard strip (see Johnny Hazard: Mammoth Marches On).

In #180 Barry and Iris visited friends in Japan and became embroiled in a deadly scheme by fugitive war criminal Baron Katana to turn the clock back and restore feudal control over Nippon using ‘The Flying Samurai’ – a sinister plot unravelled after only the most strenuous efforts of the newlyweds in an all-action conclusion ‘The Attack of the Samuroids!’

Broome’s last hurrahs came in #182 with the clever return of Abra Kadabra whose futuristic legerdemain and envy of real stage magicians compelled him to turn the speedster into ‘The Thief Who Stole all the Money in Central City!’ whilst ‘The Flash’s Super-Speed Phobia!’ saw an unlikely accident inflict a devastating if temporary psychological disability on the fleet thief-taker.

The tone of the stories was changing. Aliens and super science took a back-seat to less fantastic human-scaled dramas, and Robbins scripted the last two tales in this tome beginning with a devilishly deceptive case of bluff and double-bluff as Barry Allen became ‘The Flash’s Dead Ringer!’ in a convoluted attempt to convince crime-boss the Frog that the police scientist wasn’t also the Fastest Man Alive, before proving that he too was adept at high concept fabulism in #184 when a freak time-travel accident trapped Flash millennia in the future after accidentally becoming the apparent ‘Executioner of Central City!’

These tales first appeared at a time when superhero comics almost disappeared for the second time in a generation, and perfectly show the Scarlet Speedster’s ability to adapt to changing fashions in ways many of his four-colour contemporaries simply could not. Crucial as they are to the development of modern comics, however, it is the fact that they are brilliant, awe-inspiring, beautifully realised thrillers which can still amuse, amaze and enthral both new readers and old lags. This lovely compendium is another must-read item for anybody in love with the world of graphic narrative.
Â© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
* In case you’re not married, or not a man, the answer is: Fake your own death and move to Bolivia. And if you find a woman there, always tell her everything before she asks or finds out.

October 31, 2012October 30, 2012

Showcase Presents Ghosts

By Leo Dorfman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-836-1

Boo! Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a perfect slice of sinister comics spookiness for everyoneâ€¦ 8/10

American comicbooks started rather slowly until the invention of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and established a new entertainment genre. Implacably vested in World War Two, the superman swept all before him (occasional her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional themes and heroes resurfaced, and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in their reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and, as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

As well as Western, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent. Gradually another cyclical revival of spiritualism and public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly more-ish horror comics. These spanned the range from EC and Simon & Kirby’s astoundingly mature and landmark scary fictions to grotesquely exploitative eerie episodes from pale imitators and even wholesome, family-friendly fear tales from the industry’s biggest players.

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the (December 1951/January 1952) release of The House of Mystery, at the same time turning venerable anthology Sensation Comics (the magazine that had starred Wonder Woman since 1942) into a fantasy vehicle with he-men such as Jonny Peril battling the encroaching unknown with issue #107.

That conversion was completed when the title became Sensation Mystery with #110 in July 1952.

Everything changed when a hysterical censorship scandal and governmental witch-hunt created a spectacular backlash (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 into your search engine at any timeâ€¦ You can do that because it’s more-or-less still a free country).

The crisis was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority became sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, even though the appetite for suspense was still high. For example: in 1956 National introduced the sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November-December cover-date and specialised in taut human interest tales in a fantasy milieu.

Stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which dominated the market until the 1960s when super-heroes (which had started to creep back after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. When the cape-and-cowl craziness peaked and popped, sales began bottoming out for Costumed Dramas and comics faced another punishing sales downturn.

Nothing combats censorship better than falling profits. As the end of the 1960s saw the superhero boom end with so many titles dead and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too, the publishers took drastic action.

This real-world Crisis led to the surviving players in the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of spooky stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious â€œno-brainer.â€

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillersâ€¦

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, spooky comics came back to quickly dominate the American funnybook market for more than half a decade. DC started by converting The House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into mystery suspense mags in 1968 and followed by resurrecting House of Secrets (August-September 1969) which had been cancelled in 1966.

Soon supernatural mystery titles were the dominant force in the marketplace and DC began a steady stream of launches along narrowly differing thematic lines. There was gothic horror romance title Sinister House of Secret Love, a combat iteration in Weird War Tales and from late summer 1970 a bold new book which proudly boasted â€œTrue Tales of the Weird and Supernatural!â€ and challenged readers to read on if they daredâ€¦

This first monochrome encyclopaedia of the eerie and uncanny collects the first 18 issues of Ghosts, covering like a shroud September/October 1970 to September 1973 with lead scripter and supernatural enthusiast Leo Dorfman producing most of the series’ original material for a title he is generally credited with creating.

Dorfman was one of the most prolific scripters of the era (also working as David George and Geoff Brown) and a major scripter of comic horror stories for many DC and Gold Key titles.

The thrills and chills begin with a graphic ‘Introduction’ from Tony DeZuniga – probably scripted by editor Murray Boltinoff – before ‘Death’s Bridegroom’ (Dorfman & Jim Aparo) told of a conniving bluebeard conman who finally picked the wrong girl to bilk and jilt. Sam Glanzman illustrated the fearsome tale of a shipbuilder slain while sabotaging a Nazi U-Boat who returned as a vengeful ‘Ghost in the Iron Coffin’, after which ‘The Tattooed Terror’, by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Sy Barry, offers a slice of Golden Age anxiety from Sensation Mystery #112 (November 1952) when a career criminal is seemingly haunted by his betrayed partner.

Broome, Infantino & Frank Giacoia then relived ‘The Last Dream’ (Sensation Comics #107, December 1951-January 1952) when a 400-year old rivalry resulted in death for a 20^th century sceptic, and this initial issue ends with a Western mystery in ‘The Spectral Coachman’ by Dorfman & Tony DeZuniga.

Issue #2 began with a predatory ghost-witch persecuting a Carpathian village in ‘No Grave can Hold Me’ by Dorfman, John Calnan & George Tuska, whilst ‘Mission Supernatural’ (art by Bob Brown & Wally Wood) revealed a WWII secret which perpetually plagued a modern English airport.

A brace of revered reprints begin with light-hearted romp ‘The Sorrow of the Spirits’ from House of Mystery #21 (December 1953, by Jack Miller, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley) wherein a plague of famous phantoms attempted to possess their descendents’ bodies whilst ‘Enter the Ghost’ (Joe Samachson & Ruben Moreira from House of Mystery #29, August 1954) found an actor endangered by a dead thespian jealous of anyone recreating his greatest roleâ€¦

With Dorfman still writing the lion’s share of the new material, DeZuniga illustrated the sorry fate of an unscrupulous diver who was seduced by the discovery of a ‘Galleon of Death’ whilst Miller & Irwin Hasen’s ‘Lantern in the Rain’ (originally from Sensation Mystery #113, January/February 1953) recounted an eerie railroad episode, and Dorfman & Glanzman reunited to tell an original tale of ‘The Ghost Battalions’ who still haunted the world’s battle sites from Gallipoli to Korea.

Dorfman & DeZuniga visited 17^th century Scotland for #3’s opening occult observation wherein a sea-born princess demanded her child back from a wicked Laird in ‘Death is my Mother’, after which ‘The Magician who Haunted Hollywood’ (George Kashdan & Leonard Starr, from HoM #10, January 1953) revealed how actor Dick Mayhew might have been aided by a deceased escapologist when he played the starring role in the magician’s bio-picâ€¦

‘The Dark Goddess of Doom’ drawn by Calnan, revealed how a statue of Kali dealt with the ruthless collector who stole her, after which the anonymously authored ‘Station G.H.O.S.T.’ (limned by Moreira from HoM #17, August 1953) disclosed how a man’s scheme to corruptly purchase a house haunted by his ancestor went weirdly awry.

Tuska drew the saga of a WWII pilot who crashed into a desert nightmare and fatefully met a ‘Legion of the Dead’, whilst after a reprinted fact file on ‘Ghostly Miners’, Jerry Grandenetti depicted the story of a French landowner who unwisely disturbed a burial ground and met ‘The Screaming Skulls’â€¦

Ghosts #4 began with the secret history of one of America’s most infamous killers in ‘The Crimson Claw’ (Tuska & cover artist Nick Cardy) before ‘The Ghostly Cities of Gold’ (Grandenetti) revealed the truth about fabled, haunted Cibola and the first reprint featured ‘The Man Who Killed his Shadow’ (Miller, Swan & Burnley, HoM #16, July 1953) wherein a murdered photographer reached from beyond the grave for justice.

Thereafter Ernie Chan drew ‘The Fanged Spectres of Kinshoro’ with a Big Game hunter pitting 20^th century rationality against an ancient Ju-Ju threat, whilst the superb team of Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris had a chance to shine again with ‘The Legend of the Black Swan’ (HoM #48, March 1956) wherein three sceptical American students in Spain have an eerie encounter with doomed 17^th century sailors. This issue then concluded on ‘The Threshold of Nightmare House’ with Calnan & Grandenetti illustrating the inevitable doom of a woman who was haunted by her own ghostâ€¦

During the invasion of China in 1939 a greedy Japanese warlord met his fate – and the spirits of the Mongol warriors whose tomb he robbed. Issue #5’s lead tale ‘Death, the Pale Horseman’ (by Dorfman & Art Saaf) was followed by ‘The Hands from the Grave’ (Calnan) which somehow saved a young tourist from an early death, after which reprint ‘The Telltale Mirror’ (by an unknown author & Grandenetti from HoM #13, April 1953) showed the dread downside of owning a looking glass that reflected the futureâ€¦

Original yarn ‘Caravan of Doom’ (Jack Sparling), which told of an uncanny African warrior aiding enslaved Tommies in WWI Tanganyika, was balanced by the uncredited reprint ‘The Phantom of the Fog’ (illustrated by Moreira, from HoM #123, June 1962) wherein valiant rebels overthrow a petty dictator with the apparent aid of an oceanic apparition, before Grandenetti’s ‘The Hearse Came at Midnight’ ended the issue with spoiled college frat boys learning an horrific lesson about hazing and initiation ritesâ€¦

With Ghosts #6 the page count dropped from 52 to 32 pages and the reprint stories were curtailed in favour of all-new material. Proceedings began with Dorfman & Saaf’s cautionary tale of an avaricious arcane apothecary when ‘A Specter Poured the Potion’ before ‘Ride with the Devil’ (Calnan) told of a most unexpected lift for an unwary hitchhiker whilst ‘Death Awaits Me’ (Grandenetti) revealed the eerie premonition that marked the bizarre death of dancer Isadora Duncan.

A rare DC outing for mercurial comics genius Richard E. Hughes closed this slimline edition with ‘Ghost Cargo from the Sky’, illustrated by Sparling and exposing the incredible power of wishing to Pacific Islanders in the aftermath of WWII.

Michael William Kaluta stood in for Cardy as cover artist for #7 but Dorfman remained as writer, beginning with ‘Death’s Finger Points‘ (Sparling art) as a bullying Australian sheep farmer fell foul of the aborigines he’d abused, whilst President in waiting Lyndon B. Johnson was only the latest VIP to learn the cost of ignoring a Fakir’s warning in the Saaf-illustrated ‘Touch not my Tomb’. Calnan then closed things out with ‘The Sweet Smile of Death’ in a doomed romance between a 20^th century photographer and a flighty Regency phantom who refused to let this last admirer goâ€¦

‘The Cadaver in the Clock’ (art by Buddy Gernale) opened Ghosts #8, as a succession of heirs learned the downside of an inheritance which perforce included a mummified corpse inside a grand chronometer, but Glanzman’s ‘The Guns of the Dead’ showed a far more beneficial side to spectres when US marines were saved by their deceased yet unstoppable sergeant in 1944. ‘Hotline to the Supernatural’, lovingly limned by the wonderful Nestor Redondo, recounted numerous cases of supernatural premonition, whilst ‘To Kill a Tyrant’ (Quico Redondo) implausibly linked the incredible last hours of Rasputin to the so-necessary death of Stalin decades laterâ€¦

Issue #9 begins with Calnan’s ‘The Curse of the Phantom Prophet’ as an Indian holy man continued his war against the insolent British and rapacious white men long after his death by firing squad, ‘The Last Ride of Rosie the Wrecker’ (gloriously illustrated by Alfredo Alcala) detailed the indomitable determination of a destroyed US tank that shouldn’t have been able to move at all, and Grandenetti’s ‘The Spectral Shepherd of Dartmoor’ showed how a long-dead repentant convict still aided the weak and imperilled in modern Britain. Events end on an eerie note when vacationers see horrific apparitions but discover that ‘The Phantom that Never Was’ has created a real ghost out of a hoax disaster in a genuine chiller drawn by Bob Brown & Frank McLaughlin.

Fact page ‘Experimenters Beyond the Grave’ by Dorfman & Win Mortimer details the attempts of Harry Houdini, Mackenzie King and Aldous Huxley to send messages from the vale of shades before the storytelling resumes in #10 with the Gerry Talaoc/Redondo Studio illustrated tale of a Vietnamese Harbinger of Doom in ‘A Specter Stalks Saigon’. Increasingly a host of superb Filipino artists would take on the art chores for the ubiquitous Dorfman’s scripts such as ‘The Ghost of Wandsgate Gallows’ by Chan, which detailed the inevitable fate of an English noble who hired and then betrayed a contract killer. Although naval savant Sam Glanzman could be the only choice for the US maritime mystery ‘Death Came at Dawn’, Nestor Malgapo artfully handled the horrific saga of ‘The Hell Beast of Berkeley Square’ which for decades slaughtered guilty and innocents alike in prosperousMayfairâ€¦

Ghosts #11 opened with Eufronio Reyes (E.R.) Cruz’s contemporary thriller wherein Nazi war criminals recovering long hidden loot finally paid for their foul crimes in ‘The Devil’s Lake’, before Chan delineated a subway journey where the ‘Next Stop is Nowhere’.

Past master Grandenetti visually captured ‘The Specter Who Stalked Cellblock 13’ of San Quentin, and Bob Brown returned to illustrate the story of a church organ which killed anyone who played it in ‘The Instrument of Death’, before Jack Sparling charted the sinister coincidences of ‘The Death Circle’ which dictated that every US President elected in a year ending in zero has died in office.

Of course not everyone today is happy that the myth has been debunkedâ€¦

Ghosts #12 featured ‘The Macabre Mummy of Takhem-Ahtem’ (Calnan art) which was more a traditional monster-mash than purportedly true report, after which ‘Chimes for a Corpse’ (Grandenetti) saw a German watchmaker die for his malicious treatment of an apprentice before the always amazing Glanzman-limned ‘Beyond the Portal of the Unknown’ closed proceedings in magnificent style when French soldiers in 1915 uncover a terrible tomb and unleash a centuries old vendetta of vengeanceâ€¦

Dorfman & Brown opened issue #13 with ‘The Nightmare in the Sandbox’, which detailed a war of voodoo practitioners carried out in Haitian garden, whilst ‘Voice of Vengeance’ (Calnan) depicted the macabre vengeance of marionettes on the embezzling official who silenced their maker. ‘Have Tomb, Will Travel’ (Talaoc) sees contract killers who used a scrap yard to lose their latest corpse discover their brand new car comes with his unquiet spirit as an angry extra before Nestor Redondo depicts the inexplicable experience of two lost GIs who spend a night in a castle that isn’t there and endure ‘Hell is One Mile High’â€¦

In #14 an heirloom wedding dress that came with a curse didn’t stop Diane Chapman from marrying her young man in Gernale’s ‘The Bride Wore a Shroud’, whilst ‘Death Weaves a Web’ (by George Kashdan & Chan) found a bullying uncle live to regret destroying his little nephew’s spider collection – but not for longâ€¦

‘Phantom of the Iron Horseman’ (Talaoc) saw a young train driver and a host of passengers saved from disaster by the spirit of his disgraced grandfather and the issue ends with a catalogue of global portents that warned of the appalling Aberfan tragedy in 1966 in Cruz’s ‘The Dark Dream of Death’.

Gernale opened #15 with ‘The Ghost that Wouldn’t Die’, another case of domestic gold-digging, ectoplasmic doppelgangers and living ghosts, whilst ‘A Phantom in the Alamo’ (Carl Wessler & Glanzman) revealed the ghastly fate of the American who sold out the valiant defenders to the Mexican invaders. Alcala lent his prodigious gifts to the Balkan tale of a corpse collector who abandoned morality and began profiteering from his sacred trust in ‘Who Dares Cheat the Dead?’ and Rico Rival delineated a gripping yarn wherein a corrupt surgeon was haunted by the hit-and-run victim he’d silenced in ‘Hand from the Grave’.

Ghosts #16 told of a Spanish gypsy cursed to see ‘Death’s Grinning Face’ whenever someone was going to die in a stirring thriller from Rival, and Glanzman again displayed his uncanny knack for capturing shipboard life – and death – when after 25 years a deserter finally joins his dead comrades in ‘The Mothball Ghost’. Talaoc then delineated Napoleon Bonaparte’s services to France after the Little Corporal died and became ‘The Haunted Hero of St. Helena’â€¦

Issue #17 saw a phantom lady save flood-lost children in Dorfman & Alcala’s moving ‘Death Held the Lantern High’ after which editor Murray Boltinoff & Talaoc revealed ‘The Specters Were the Stars’ when a film company tried to capture the horror of the 1920 Ulster Uprising before Kashdan & Calnan exposed the seductive lure and inescapable power of gypsies using ‘The Devil’s Ouija’ to combat centuries of prejudiceâ€¦

This first terrifying tome terminates with Ghosts #18 and Alcala’s account of a hateful Delaware medicine chief who still lured white men to his watery ‘Graveyard of Vengeance’ centuries after his death, whilst Abe Ocampo detailed the surprising ‘Death of a Ghost’ at the hands of an very smug inventor who had just moved into a haunted mansion.

Frank Redondo described how villagers in old Austria knew young Adolf would come to a bad end because the boy had ‘The Eye of Evil’ and the spookiness at last ceases with ‘Death Came Creeping’ by Ernesto Patricio & Talaoc when a visiting Egyptian merchant and his unique pet stop an American sneak thief’s predations in an age-old mannerâ€¦

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s almost certain that they saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators.

Everybody loves a good healthy scare – especially today or even on those dark Christmas nights to come – and this beautiful gathering of ethereal escapism is a treat fans of fear and fantastic art should readily take to their cold, unbeating hearts.
Â© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 14, 2012October 12, 2012

Showcase Presents the Legion of Super-Heroes

By James Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Curt Swan, J. Winslow Mortimer, George Tuska, Dave Cockrum, Murphy Anderson, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2185-0

Once upon a time, a thousand years from now, a band of super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join themâ€¦

Thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino when the many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) just as the revived superhero genre was gathering an inexorable head of steam in America. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten over and over again to comply with editorial diktat and popular fashion.

This sturdy, drama-drenched fourth massive monochrome compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from June 1968 to September 1970, originally seen in Adventure Comics #369-380 and the reprint issue #403, plus back-up tales from Action Comics #378-392 – a time when the superhero genre again dipped in popularity. Also included in this enchanting tome are the tentative first forays of the team’s slow revival as an alternating back-up feature in Superboy with game-changing exploits from issues #172-173, 176, 183-184, 188 190 and 191, covering March 1971 to October 1972.

During this period the youthful, generally fun-loving and carefree Club of Champions peaked; having only just evolved into a dedicated and driven dramatic action series starring a grittily realistic combat force in constant, galaxy-threatening peril. Although now an overwhelming force of valiant warriors ready and willing to pay the ultimate price for their courage and dedication, science itself, science fiction and costumed crusaders all increasingly struggled against a global resurgence in spiritual questioning and supernatural fictionâ€¦

The main architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (generally finished and pencilled by the astoundingly talented and understated Curt Swan) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up with their heads in the Future but as the fashions shifted, the series was unceremoniously ousted from its ancestral home and full-length adventures to become a truncated back-up feature in Action Comics. Typically, that shift occurred just as the stories were getting really, really good and truly matureâ€¦

The tense suspense begins with Adventure Comics #369’s ‘Mordru the Merciless!’ (Shooter, Swan & Jack Abel) when the Legion was attacked by their most powerful enemy, a nigh-omnipotent sorcerer the entire assemblage had only narrowly defeated once before.

A sneak attack had shattered the team and only four escaped, using a time bubble to flee to the remote and archaic time-period where Superboy lived. With him came Mon-El, Shadow Lass and Duo Damsel, the last remnants of a once-unbeatable force.

Mordru’s magic was stronger though and even the time-barrier could not daunt himâ€¦ Even disguised as mere mortals, the fugitive Legionnaires’ courage shone through. When petty gangsters took over Smallville, the teen heroes quashed the parochial plunderers and then opted to return to the 30^th century and confront Mordru, only to discover that he’d found them firstâ€¦

The saga concluded in #370 and ‘The Devil’s Jury!’ wherein the band again broke free and hid in plain sight by temporarily wiping their own memories to thwart the Dark Lord’s probes. Against appalling odds and with only Clark Kent‘s best friend Pete Ross and Insect Queen Lana Lang to aid them, the heroes’ doomed last stand only succeeded when Mordru’s overbearing arrogance caused his own downfall.

Then when the exhausted fugitives got back the future they joyously discovered that Dream Girl and benign sorceress White Witch had undone the deluded Dark Lord’s worstâ€¦

Extortion and espionage were the order of the day in #371’s ‘The Colossal Failure!’ when a Legionnaire’s parents were abducted and the hero was forced to botch missions. Ordered to retrain at the high security Legion Academy Colossal Boy was subsequently caught selling the team’s training secrets and cashiered from the organisationâ€¦

This issue then offered ‘When Superboy Walked Out on the Legion!’ illustrated by George Papp, wherein hyper-advanced and snobbish aliens threatened Smallville unless Superboy left Earth and joined their band of press-ganged heroes. It took ingenuity, a faux civil war and massive destruction to finally convince the alien autocrats to let the assembled champions return to their own home-worldsâ€¦

Colossal Boy’s tale of woe concluded in Adventure #372 when his still-loyal buddies uncovered the cause of the expelled giant’s dilemma and tracked him to a ‘School for Super-Villains!’ (Shooter, Swan & Abel), where the fallen hero was compelled to teach a horde of metahuman rogues all the LSH’s secrets.

Luckily and thanks to the expedited induction of apprentice – ergo unknown – heroes Timber Wolf and Chemical King, the good guys were able to infiltrate and shut down this first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Villainsâ€¦

Golden Age veteran J. Winslow Mortimer replaced Swan from #373 onwards as ‘The Tornado Twins!’ Don and Dawn Allen ran rings around and generally humiliated the assembled heroes – but all for a very good cause, before ‘Mission: Diabolical!’ in #374 focussed on the future equivalent of organised crime when most of the Legionnaires were ambushed and held hostage by the insidious Scorpius gang.

Hard-pressed by rival outfit Taurus, the mobsters had decided to â€œrecruitâ€ a team of heroes to equal their enemies’ squad of hyper-powered goons, Rogarth, Mystelor, Shagrek, Quanto and Black Mace. Of course, after infiltrating and defeating their foes, the press-ganged kids – Supergirl, Element Lad, Dream Girl, Ultra Boy and Matter-EaterLad – were double-crossed by Scorpius and would have died if not for a fortuitous intervention by the Legion of Substitute Heroesâ€¦

Next followed a powerful and devious 2-part thriller in #375-376 which introduced galactic-roving heroes The Wanderers and saw those temporarily-insane-and-evil alien champions battle the United Planets’ metahuman marvels – who were far more concerned with determining who would be crowned ‘The King of the Legion!’

The matter was only relevant because a trans-dimensional challenger had demanded a duel with the â€œmightiest Legionnaireâ€, but when the dust settled the only hero left standing was chubby comic relief Bouncing Boyâ€¦

When the triumphant winner was spirited away to another cosmos he arrived in a feudal wonderland – complete with comely princess – menaced by a terrifying invader. Unfortunately the hero was soon exposed as shape-shifting Durlan Legionnaire Reep Daggle and not the human Chuck Taine, but he manfully overcame his abductors’ initial prejudice and defeated the usurper threat Kodar. The freakish victor even won the heart of Princess Elwinda before being tragically rescued and whisked back across a permanently sealed dimensional barrier by his legion buddies who mistook a Royal Wedding for ‘The Execution of Chameleon Boy!’

A welcome edge of dark and bitter cynicism was creeping into Shooter’s stories, and ‘Heroes for Hire!’ (pencilled by Mortimer and inked by Jack Abel) saw the team begin charging for their unique services, but it was only a brilliant ploy to derail the criminal career of Modulus, an avatar of sentient living planet Modo who had turned the world into an unassailable haven for the worst villains of the galaxyâ€¦

Issue #378 started another tense and moving 2-parter which began when Superboy, Duo Damsel, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra and Brainiac 5 were poisoned and found themselves with only ‘Twelve Hours to Live!’

With no cure possible the quintet separated to spend their last day in the most personally satisfying ways they could – from sharing precious moments with soon-to-be bereaved family to K-Kid’s one-man assault on the Fatal Five – only to reunite in their final moments and die togetherâ€¦

The incredible conclusion began when a hyper-advanced being calling itself a Seeron froze time and offered to cure the practically dead victims – but only if new arrivals Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Star Boy, Lightning Lad and Chemical King returned to his universe and defeated an invasion by brutes invulnerable to all the mighty mental powers of the intellectual overlordsâ€¦

However even as the shanghaied Legionnaires triumphed and returned, their comrades had been found and afforded the honour of ‘Burial in Space!’â€¦

Happily a brilliant last-minute solution enabled the dead to rise just in time to lose their long-held position in Adventure Comics as changing tastes and shrinking sales prompted an abrupt change of venue.

‘The Legion’s Space Odyssey!’ (# 380 dated May 1969, by Shooter, Mortimer & Abel) saw a select band of Legionnaires teleported to the barren ends of the universe and laboriously battle their way home against impossible odds, which included the â€œdeathâ€ of Superboy and persistent sabotage by the Legion of Super-Pets.

Of course there was a perfectly rational and reasonable excuse for the devious scheme and the tale is best remembered by fans for being the mission on which Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy first got togetherâ€¦

From #381 onwards Adventure was filled with the 20^th century exploits of Supergirl whilst the LSH took over her secondary spot in Action Comics, beginning with a reprint in #377 which is not included here.

Original shorter ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ began in #378 (July 1969) with ‘The Forbidden Fruit!’ by Shooter, Mortimer & Mike Esposito wherein Timber Wolf was deliberately addicted to a hyper-narcotic lotus in a bold scheme to turn the entire team into pliable junkies. Fortunately the hero’s true love for Light Lass allowed him to overcome his awful burden, whilst in #379’s ‘One of us is an Impostor’, E. Nelson Bridwell, Mortimer & Murphy Anderson offered a clever mystery yarn to baffle Mon-El, Dream Girl, Element Lad, Shadow Lass and Lightning Lad when thermal thug Sunburst and a clever infiltrator threatened to tear the team apart from withinâ€¦

Duo Damsel declared war on herself in #380 when her other body fell under the sway of an alien Superboy and turned to crime, leaving only Bouncing Boy to clean up the psychological mess of ‘Half a Legionnaire?’ (Shooter, Mortimer & Abel) whilst in #381, Matter-Eater Lad revealed his lowly origins and dysfunctional family to lonely Shrinking Violet and ended up ‘The Hapless Hero!’ battling her absurdly jealous absentee boyfriend Duplicate Boy – the mightiest hero in the universeâ€¦

In #382 a covert team comprising Ultra Boy, Karate Kid, Light Lass, Violet and Timber Wolf attempted to quell a potential super-robot arms-race and found that to succeed they might have to ‘Kill a Friend to Save a World!‘, after which the still-heartbroken Durlan found an Earthly double of his lost love Elwinda.

However when he morphed into her ideal man he quickly saw the folly of ‘Chameleon Boy’s Secret Identity!’ – a true tear-jerker with the hint of a happy ending from Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel.

Shooter left his perfect job with #384 but signed off in style with his landmark ‘Lament for a Legionnaire!’ With art misattributed to Mortimer but in fact a welcome fill-in job by the superb Curt Swan & Abel, it told how Dream Girl’s infallible prophecy of Mon-El’s demise came true whilst his shocking resurrection introduced a whole new thrilling strand to the Lore of the Legion.

Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel showed a vengeance-crazed killer’s quest for ultimate retribution fail in ‘The Fallen Starboy!’ and then crafted Action Comics #386’s ‘Zap Goes the Legion!’ wherein cunning female foe Uli Algor believed she had outthought and outfought the juvenile agents of justice but had forgotten one crucial detailâ€¦

Then in #387 the creators delightfully added a touch of wry social commentary when the organisation had to downsize and lay off a Legionnaire for tax purposes after the government declared that the team had ‘One Hero Too Many!’

Action #388 was an all-reprint Supergirl giant, but the now revenue-compliant Club of Heroes returned in #389 with ‘The Mystery Legionnaire!’ by Cary Bates, Mortimer & Abel, which explained how robot dictator Klim was defeated by a hero who didn’t exist, whilst Bridwell’s ‘The Tyrant and the Traitor’ in #390 reflected the political turmoil of the 1970’s with a tale of guerrilla atrocity, destabilising civil war and covert regime change.

The Legion Espionage Squad was tasked with doing the dirty work, but even Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl were out of their depth and only ‘The Ordeal of Element Lad!’ in the next issue saved the undercover unit from ignominious failure and certain death.

Action #392 (September 1970) temporarily ended the feature’s unbroken run in a low-key but gripping yarn from Bates, Mortimer & Abel which included alternate dimensions and preposterous testing of ‘The Legionnaires that Never Were!’

The Frantic Futurians weren’t gone too long. In 1971 a concerted push to revive the Teen Tomorrow Warriors began with the March-dated Superboy # 172 and ‘Brotherly Hate!’ by Bridwell & George Tuska. The sharp, smart yarn detailed the convoluted origins of twins Garth and Ayla Ranzz AKA Lightning Lad and Light Lass and their troubled relationship with older brother Mekt – the deadly outlaw Lightning Lordâ€¦

At the same time Adventure Comics #403 (April 1971) was released; an all-Legion reprint special which also included new ‘Fashions from Fans’ reinterpreted by Bridwell, Ross Andru & Esposito as well as a comprehensive ‘Diagram of Legion Headquarters Complex’, included here for your delight and delectationâ€¦

Some of those fan-costumes – generally the skimpier ones designed for the girl heroes – were adopted for the ongoing backups appearing in Superboy, which continued the comeback with ‘Trust Me or Kill Me!’ in #173 by Bates & Tuska. In that tense tale Superboy had to devise a way to determine which Cosmic Boy was his true friend and which a magical duplicate wrought by malefic Mordruâ€¦

The origin of Invisible Kid and the secrets of his powers were examined when a crook duplicated the boy genius’ fadeaway gifts in #176’s ‘Invisible Invader!’, whilst Bates, Tuska & Vince Colletta reported on the ‘War of the Wraith-Mates!’ in #183 when energy entities renewed an eons-old war of the sexes by possessing Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Karate Kid and Princess Projectra.

Superboy #184 hinted at the days of greatness to come with ‘One Legionnaire Must Go!’ Matter-Eater Lad was framed and replaced by his own little brother in a tale by Bates, but the big advance was the inking of LSH fanatic Dave Cockrum over Murphy Anderson’s pencils. The neophyte artist would gradually transform the look, feel and fortunes of the Legion before moving to Marvel and doing the same with an almost forgotten series entitled X-Menâ€¦

With issue #188’s Bates scripted ‘Curse of the Blood-Crystals!’ (July 1972), Anderson began inking Cockrum; the sixth stunning back-up tale of a now unstoppable Legion revival that would eventually lead to the team taking over the entire comicbook. This clever yarn of cross-and-double-cross found a Legionnaire possessed by a magical booby-trap and forced to murder Superboy – but which of the two dozen heroes is actually the prospective killerâ€¦?

Superboy #190 featured ‘Murder the Leader!’ as the Fatal Five attacked during the election of a new Legion Commander and rival candidates Saturn Girl and Mon-El had to work together if either was to take the top job, after which this volume concludes with the stunning thriller ‘Attack of the Sun-Scavenger!’ by Bates & Cockrum from #191.

In a staggering burst of comics brilliance, the manic solar scoundrel Dr. Regulus again attacked Sun Boy and his Legion comrades, using his own death as the key to ultimate victoryâ€¦

The Legion is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in funnybook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom. Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League or Marvel’s Fantastic Four– fired up the interest and imaginations of generations of readers and underpinned the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future days as soon as possible.
Â© 1968-1972, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

August 22, 2012August 26, 2012

Showcase Presents Showcase volume 1

By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-364-1

This review is incredibly long. If you want to skip it and just buy the book – because it’s truly brilliant – then please do. I won’t mind and you won’t regret it at allâ€¦

In almost every conceivable way the â€œtry-out titleâ€ Showcase created the Silver Age of American comicbooks and is responsible for the multi-million dollar industry and nascent art form we all enjoy today.

For many of us, the Silver Age is the ideal era and a still-calling Promised Land of fun and thrills. Varnished by nostalgia (because it’s the era when most of us caught this crazy childhood bug), the clean-cut, uncomplicated optimism of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced captivating heroes and compelling villains who were still far less terrifying than the Cold War baddies then troubling the grown-ups. The sheer talent and professionalism of the creators working in that too-briefly revitalised comics world resulted in triumph after triumph all of which brightened our young lives and still glow today with quality and achievement.

The principle was a sound one and graphically depicted in the very first issue: the Editors at National were apparently bombarded with readers’ suggestions for new titles and concepts and the only possible way to feasibly prove which would be popular was to offer test runs and assess the fans reactionsâ€¦

This magnificent monochrome tome starts firmly ensconced in the age of genre thrillers and human adventurers, covering the first 21 issues from that historic series, spanning March/April 1956 to July/August 1959, and starts the ball rolling with the first and last appearances of Fireman Farrell in a proposed series dubbed Fire Fighters.

Following the aforementioned short ‘The Story Behind Showcase’ by Jack Schiff & Win Mortimer, the realistic dramas begin in ‘The School for Smoke-Eaters’ by Schiff and the superb John Prentice, which introduced trainee fireman Mike Farrell during the last days of his training and desperate to simultaneously live up to and escape his father’s fabulous record as a legendary â€œsmoke-eaterâ€.

The remaining stories, both scripted by Arnold Drake, dealt with the day-to-day drama of the job: first in ‘Fire under the Big Top’ wherein an unscrupulous showman ignored Farrell’s Fire Inspection findings with tragic consequences, then in ‘Fourth Alarm’ which mixed an industrial dispute over fireman’s pay, a crooked factory owner and a waterfront blaze captured on live TV in a blisteringly authentic tale of human heroism.

Showcase #2 featured Kings of the Wild: tales of animal bravery imaginatively related in three tales scripted by Robert Kanigher – who had thrived after the demise of superheroes with a range of fantastical genre adventures covering western, war, espionage and straight adventure. ‘Rider of the Winds’, stunningly illustrated by Joe Kubert, told the tale of a Native American lad and his relationship with his totem spirit Eagle, ‘Outcast Heroes’ (Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) related how an orphan boy’s loneliness ended once he befriended a runaway mutt who eventually saved the town’s kids from a flood and ‘Runaway Bear’, drawn by Russ Heath, used broad comedy to describe how an escaped circus bruin battled all the horrors of the wilderness to get back to his comfortable, safe life under the Big Top.

Issue #3 debuted Kanigher & Heath’s The Frogmen in an extended single tale following candidates for a US Underwater Demolitions Team as they moved from students to successful undersea warriors. Beginning with ‘The Making of a Frogman’ as the smallest diver is mocked and chided as a ‘Sardine’ by his fellows – especially the ones nicknamed ‘Shark’ and ‘Whale’ – but persevering and forging bonds until the trio were dumped into blazing Pacific action in ‘Flying Frogmen’, eventually learning the worth of teamwork and sacrifice by destroying a Japanese Sub base in ‘Silent War’â€¦

The feature, if not the characters, became a semi-regular returning strip in All-American Men of War #44 (April #1957) and other Kanigher-edited war comics: making Frogmen the first but certainly not the last graduate of the try-out system. The next debut was to be the most successful but the cautious publishers took a long, long time to make it soâ€¦

No matter which way you look at it, the Silver Age of the American comic book began with The Flash. It’s an unjust but true fact that being first is not enough; it also helps to be best and people have to notice. The Shield beat Captain America to the news-stands by over a year yet the former is all but forgotten today.

The industry had never really stopped trying to revive the superhero genre when Showcase #4 was released in late summer of 1956, with such precursors as The Avenger (February-September 1955), Captain Flash (November 1954-July 1955), Marvel’s Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and the aforementioned Sentinel of Liberty (December 1953-October 1955) and even DC’s own Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until the end of the 1960’s and almost the end of superheroes again!) still turning up in second-hand-stores and â€œFive-and-Dimeâ€ half-price bins. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was â€¦ well, everything!

Once the DC powers-that-be decided to try superheroes once more, they moved pretty fast themselves. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner and Golden-Age Flash scripter Robert Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age, aided and abetted by Carmine Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the previous incarnation.

The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in the exploding chemicals of his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry took his superhero identity from a comic book featuring his predecessor (a scientist named Jay Garrick who was exposed to the mutagenic fumes of â€œHard Waterâ€). Designing a sleek, streamlined bodysuit (courtesy of Infantino – a major talent who was rapidly approaching his artistic and creative pinnacle), Barry Allen became the point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and the entire industry.

‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ (scripted by Kanigher) and ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier’ (written by the superb John Broome) are polished, coolly sophisticated short stories that introduce the comfortingly suburban superhero and firmly establish the broad parameters of his universe. Whether defeating bizarre criminal masterminds such as The Turtle or returning the criminal exile Mazdan to his own century, the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power. Nonetheless the concept was so controversial that despite phenomenal sales, rather than his own series the Fastest Man Alive was given a second Showcase tryout almost a year laterâ€¦

Showcase #5 featured the last comics concept in years that didn’t actually develop into an ongoing series, but that’s certainly due to the changing fashions of the times and not the quality of the work that made up the three crime yarns comprising the cops-&-robbers anthology Manhunters. ‘The Greatest Villain of all Time’ by Jack Miller & Mort Meskin told how Hollywood screenwriter-turned-police detective Lt. Fowler was dogged by a madman who was playing for real all the fantastic bad guys the mystery author had once created, whilst in ‘The Two Faces of Mr. X’ (Miller, Curt Swan & Sy Barry) a male model was drafted by the FBI to replace a prominent mob-boss. Unfortunately it was the day before the gangster was scheduled for face-changing plastic surgery.‘The Human Eel’ (Miller & Bill Ely) pitted a cop unable to endure heights against an international high-tech rogue who thought he knew all the answersâ€¦

The next tryout was on far firmer fashion grounds and was the first feature to win two issues in a row.

The Challengers of the Unknown were a bridging concept. As the superhero genre was ever so cautiously being alpha-tested in 1956 here was a super-team – the first new group- entry of the still-to-be codified Silver Age – but with no uncanny abilities or masks, the most basic and utilitarian of costumes, and the most dubious of motives: Suicide by Mysteryâ€¦

If you wanted to play editorially safe you could argue that were simply another para-military band of adventurers like the long running Blackhawksâ€¦ but they weren’t.

A huge early hit – winning their own title before the Flash (March 1959) and just two months after Lois Lane (March 1958, although she had been a star in the comics universe since 1938 and even had TV, radio and movie recognition on her side), the Squad struck a chord that lasted for more than a decade before they finally diedâ€¦ only to rise again and yet again. The idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success all but inevitable.

Jack Kirby was – and still is – the most important single influence in the history of American comicbooks. There are quite rightly millions of words written about what the man has done and meant, and you should read those if you are at all interested in our medium. I’m going to add a few words to that superabundance in this review of one of his best projects, which like so many others, he perfectly constructed before moving on, leaving highly competent but never as inspired talents to build upon.

When the comic industry suffered a collapse in the mid 1950’s, Kirby returned briefly to DC Comics where he worked on mystery tales and the Green Arrow back-up strip whilst creating the newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force. He also re-packaged for Showcase an original super-team concept that had been kicking around in his head since he and long-time collaborator Joe Simon had closed the innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics.

After years of working for others, Simon and Kirby had finally established their own publishing company, producing comics with a much more sophisticated audience in mind, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by the anti-comic book pogrom of US Senator Estes Kefauver and the psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham. Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less experimental, companies.

The Challengers of the Unknown were four extraordinary mortals; heroic adventurers and explorers brought together for a television show who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call â€œadrenaline junkiesâ€, they decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they would dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. They would risk their lives for Knowledge and, of course, Justice.

Showcase #6, dated January/February 1957 – which meant it came out in time for Christmas 1956 – introduced pilot Ace Morgan, wrestler Rocky Davis, daredevil acrobat Red Ryan and scholarly marine explorer â€œProfâ€ Haley in a no-nonsense short by Kirby, scripter Dave Wood and inkers Marvin Stein and Jack’s wife Roz, before devoting the rest of the issue to a spectacular epic with the doom-chasers hired by duplicitous magician Morelian to open an ancient container holding otherworldly secrets and powers in ‘The Secrets of the Sorcerer’s Box!’

This initial story roars along with all the tension and wonder of the B-movie thrillers it emulates, and Kirby’s awesome drawing resonates with power and dynamism as the heroes tackle ancient horrors such as ‘Dragon Seed!’, ‘The Freezing Sun!’ and ‘The Whirling Weaver!’

The fantasy magic continued in the sequel, a science fiction crisis caused when an alliance of Nazi technologies and American criminality unleashed a terrible robotic monster. Scripted by Kirby himself, ‘Ultivac is Loose!’ (Showcase #7, dated March/April 1957) introduced the beautiful and capable boffin Dr. June Robbins, who became the fifth Challenger at a time when most comic females had returned to a subsidiary status in that so-conservative era. As her computers predicted ‘A Challenger Must Die!’ the lads continued their hunt for the astonishing telepathic, sentient super-robot who inadvertently terrorised ‘The Fearful Millions’ but soon found their sympathies with the tragic artificial intelligence after ‘The Fateful Prediction!’ was fulfilledâ€¦

Showcase #8 (June 1957) again featured the Flash and led with another Kanigher tale. ‘The Secret of the Empty Box’, a perplexing but pedestrian mystery, saw Frank Giacoia debut as inker, but the real landmark was the John Broome thriller ‘The Coldest Man on Earth’.

With this yarn the author confirmed and consolidated the new phenomenon by introducing the first of a Rogues Gallery of outlandish super-villains. Unlike the almost forgotten Golden Age the new super-heroes would face predominantly costumed foes rather than thugs and spies. Bad guys would henceforth be as visually arresting and memorable as the champions of justice. Captain Cold would return time and again as the pre-eminent Flash Foe and Broome would go on to create every single member of Flash’s classic pantheon of super-villains.

The issue and this compilation also includes a filler reprint ‘The Race of Wheel and Keel’ by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & Harry Lazarus, probably from Real Fact Comics and recounting the true story of how in 1858 a shipping magnate and stagecoach tycoon devised a contest to show which method of transportation was the fastestâ€¦

When Lois Lane – arguably the oldest supporting character/star in the Superman mythology if not DC universe – finally received her own shot at a solo title, it was very much on the terms of the times.

I must shamefacedly admit to a deep, nostalgic affection for her bright and breezy, fantastically fun adventures, but as a free-thinking, (nominally) adult liberal of the 21^st century I’m simultaneously shocked nowadays at the jolly, patronising, patriarchally misogynistic attitudes underpinning too many of the stories.

Yes, I’m fully aware that the series was intended for young readers at a time when â€œdizzy damesâ€ like Lucille Ball or Doris Day played to the popular American gestalt stereotype of Woman as jealous minx, silly goose, diffident wife and brood-hungry nester, but to ask kids to seriously accept that intelligent, courageous, ambitious, ethical and highly capable females would drop everything they’d worked hard for to lie, cheat, inveigle, manipulate and entrap a man just so that they could cook pot-roast and change super-diapers is just plain crazy and tantamount to child abuse.

I’m just sayingâ€¦

Showcase #9 (cover-dated July/August 1957) featured Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in three tales by Jerry Coleman, Ruben Moreira & Al Plastino and opened with the seminal yarn ‘The Girl in Superman’s Past’ wherein Lois first met red-headed hussy Lana Lang, childhood sweetheart of Superboy and a pushy conniving go-getter out to win Lois’ intended at all costs. Naturally Miss Lane invited Miss Lang to stay at her apartment and the grand rivalry was off and runningâ€¦

‘The New Lois Lane’ aggravatingly saw Lois turn over a new leaf and stop attempting to uncover his secret identity just when Superman actually needed her to do so and the premier concludes with the concussion-induced day-dream ‘Mrs. Superman’ as Lois imagines a life of domestic super-blissâ€¦

The next issue (September/October 1957) featured three more of the same, all illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, beginning with ‘The Jilting of Superman’ scripted by Otto Binder, wherein the Man of Tomorrow almost fell for an ancient ploy when Lois pretended to marry another man to make the alien oaf realise what she meant to himâ€¦

‘The Sightless Lois Lane’ by Coleman told how a nuclear accident temporarily blinded the journalist, but her unexpected recovery almost exposed Clark Kent‘s secret when he callously changed to Superman in front of the blind girl, after which Binder delightfully detailed the contents of ‘The Forbidden Box from Krypton’: a cache of devices dug up by a Smallville archaeologist originally packed by Jor-El and intended to aid the infant superbaby on Earth. Of course when Lois opened the chest all she saw was a way to become as powerful as the Man of Steel and soon became addicted to being a super-champion in her own rightâ€¦

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane launched into her own title scant months later, clearly exactly what the readers wantedâ€¦

Showcase #11 (November/December 1957) saw the Challengers return to combat an alien invasion on ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’, with the unique realist Bruno Premiani inking a taut doomsday chiller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats even today, as whilst searching for missing Antarctic explorers the lads discovered an under-ice base where double-brained aliens were preparing to explosively alter the mass and gravity of Earth.

‘The Tyrans’, although intellectually superior, are no match for the indomitable human heroes and with their Plan A scotched, resort to brute force and ‘The Thing That Came out of the Sea’ even as Prof scuttles their aquatic ace in the hole with ‘One Minute to Doom’â€¦

By the time of their last Showcase issue (#12, January/February 1958) they had already won their own title. ‘The Menace of the Ancient Vials’ was defused by the usual blend of daredevil heroics and ingenuity (with the wonderful inking of George Klein, not Wally Wood as credited here) as international spy and criminal Karnak stole a clutch of ancient chemical weapons which created giants and ‘The Fire Being!’, summoned ‘The Demon from the Depths’ and created ‘The Deadly Duplicates!’ before the pre-fantastic four were able to put their enemy down.

Flash zipped back in Showcase #13 (March/April 1958) in a brace of tales pencilled by Infantino and inked by Joe Giella. ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’, written by Kanigher, followed the Scarlet Speedster as he tackled atomic blackmail in Paris, foiled kidnappers and rebuilt a pyramid in Egypt, dismantled an avalanche in Tibet and scuttled a pirate submarine in the Pacific whilst Broome’s ‘Master of the Elements’ introduced the outlandish chemical criminal Al Desmond who ravaged Central City as Mr. Element until the Flash outwitted him.

One final try-out issue – inked by Giacoia – cemented the Flash’s future: Showcase#14 (May/June 1958) opened with Kanigher’s eerie ‘Giants of the Time-World!’ as the Fastest Man Alive smashed dimensional barriers to rescue his girlfriend Iris West from uncanny cosmic colossi and stamped out an alien invasion plan, after which Al Desmond returned with an altered M.O. and new identity as Doctor Alchemy whose discovery of the mystic Philosopher’s Stone made him ‘The Man who Changed the Earth!’ This stunning yarn was a memorable and worthy effort to bow out on, but it would still be a nearly a year until the first issue of his own title finally hit the stands.

To reiterate: Showcase was a try-out comic designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, Lois Lane, Challengers of the Unknown and Flash and Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld now urged his two Showcase editors to create science fiction heroes to capitalise on the twin zeitgeists of the Space Race and the popular fascination with movie monsters and aliens.

Jack Schiff came up with a â€œmaskedâ€ crimefighter of the future who debuted in issues #15 and 16 whilst Julie Schwartz decided to concentrate on the now in the saga of a contemporary Earth explorer catapulted into the most uncharted territory yet imagined.

Showcase #15 (cover-dated September/October 1958) commenced without fanfare or origin the ongoing adventures of Space Ranger in ‘The Great Plutonium Plot’ plotted by Gardner Fox, scripted by pulp sci-fi veteran Edmond Hamilton and illustrated by Bob Brown.

The hero was in actuality Rick Starr, son of a wealthy interplanetary businessman who spent his free time battling evil and injustice with incredible gadgets and devices and the assistance of his shape-shifting alien pal Cryll and capable Girl Friday Myra Mason. When Jarko the Jovian space pirate began targeting only ships carrying the trans-uranic element, Rick suspected a hidden motive and donning his guise of the Space Ranger laid a cunning trap, which revealed a hidden mastermind and a deadly ancient device which endangered the entire solar systemâ€¦

From his base in a hollow asteroid, Space Ranger ranged the universe and ‘The Robot Planet’ took him and his team to Sirius after discovering a diabolical device designed to rip Sol’s planets out of their orbits. At the end of his voyage Starr discovered a sublime civilisation reduced to cave-dwelling and a mighty computer intelligence intent on controlling the entire universe unless he could stop itâ€¦

Issue #16 opened with ‘The Secret of the Space Monster’ (plot by John Forte, scripted by Hamilton, illustrated by Brown) as Rick, Myra and Cryll investigated an impossible void creature and uncovered a band of alien revolutionaries testing novel super-weapons after which ‘The Riddle of the Lost Race’ (Fox, Hamilton & Brown) took the team on a whistle-stop tour of the Solar system in pursuit of a vicious criminal and the hidden treasures of a long-vanished civilisation.

A few months later Space Ranger was transported to science fiction anthology Tales of the Unexpected, beginning with issue #40 (August 1959) and holding the lead and cover spot for a six year runâ€¦

One of the most compelling stars of those halcyon days was an ordinary Earthman who regularly travelled to another world for spectacular adventures, armed with nothing more than a ray-gun, a jetpack and his own ingenuity. His name was Adam Strange, and like so many of that era’s triumphs, he was the brainchild of Julius Schwartz and his close team of creative stars.

Showcase #17 (cover-dated November-December 1958) proclaimed Adventures on Other Worlds, courtesy of Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs, and told of an archaeologist who, whilst fleeing from enraged natives in Peru, jumped a 25 foot chasm only to be hit by a stray teleport beam from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. He materialised on another world filled with giant plants and monsters, and was rescued by a beautiful woman named Alanna who taught him her language via a cunning contrivance.

‘Secret of the Eternal City!’ revealed that Rann was a planet recovering from atomic war, and the beam was in fact a simple flare, one of many sent in an attempt to communicate with other races.

In the four years (speed of light, right? As You Know, Bob, Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light-years from Sol) that the Zeta-Flare travelled through space, cosmic radiation converted it into a teleportation beam. Until the radiation drained from his body Strange was to be a very willing prisoner on a fantastic world of mystery, adventure and romance…

And an incredibly unlucky one apparently, as no sooner had Adam started acclimatising than an alien race named The Eternals invaded, seeking a mineral that would grant them immortality. Strange’s courage and sharp wits enabled him to defeat the invaders only to have the radiation finally fade, drawing him home before his adoring Alanna could administer a hero’s reward.

â€¦And thus was established the principles of this beguiling series. Adam would intercept a Zeta-beam hoping for some time with his alien sweetheart, only to be confronted with a planet-menacing crisis.

The very next of these, ‘The Planet and the Pendulum’ saw him obtain the crimson-and-white spacesuit and weaponry that became his distinctive trademark in a tale of alien invaders, attacking a lost colony of Rannians on planetary neighbour Anthorann which also introduced the subplot of Rann’s warring city-states, all desperate to progress and all at different stages of recovery and developmentâ€¦.

The next issue featured the self-explanatory ‘Invaders from the Atom Universe’ with sub-atomic marauders displacing the native races until Adam unravelled their nefarious plans and ‘The Dozen Dooms of Adam Strange’ wherein the hero had to outfox the dictator of Dys who planned to invade Alanna’s home-city Rannagar.

With this last story Sachs was replaced by Joe Giella as inker, although the former did ink Showcase #19’s stunning Gil Kane cover, (March/April 1959) which saw the unwieldy Adventures on Other Worlds title replaced with the eponymous logo Adam Strange.

‘Challenge of the Star-Hunter’ and ‘Mystery of the Mental Menace’ were classic puzzle tales wherein the Earthman had to outwit a shape-changing alien and an all-powerful energy-being, and after so doing Adam Strange took over the lead spot and cover of the anthology comic Mystery in Space with the August issue of that year.

Clearly on a creative high and riding a building wave, Showcase #20 (May/June 1959) introduced Rip Hunterâ€¦ Time Master and his dauntless crew as ‘Prisoners of 100 Million BC’ (by Jack Miller & Ruben Moreira in a novel-length introductory escapade which saw the daredevil physicist, his engineer friend Jeff Smith, girlfriend Bonnie Baxter and her little brother Corky travel back to the Mesozoic era, unaware that they were carrying two criminal stowaways.

Once there the thugs hi-jacked the Time Sphere and held it hostage until the explorers helped them stock up with rare and precious minerals. Reduced to the status of castaways Rip and his team became ‘The Modern-Day Cavemen’ but when an erupting volcano caused ‘The Great Beast Stampede’ the chrononauts finally turned the tables on their abductorsâ€¦

Miller was always careful to use the best research available but never afraid to blend historical fact with bold fantasy for Hunter’s escapades, and this volume concludes with an epic follow-up in ‘The Secret of the Lost Continent’ (Showcase #21, July/August, 1959, illustrated by Sekowsky & Joe Giella) wherein the Time Masters jumped progressively further back in time in search of Atlantis.

Starting with a dramatic meeting with Alexander the Great in 331BC, the explorers follow the trail back centuries to ‘The Forbidden Island’ of Aeaea in 700BC and uncover the secret of the witch Circe before finally reaching 14,000BC and ‘The Doomed Continent’ only to find the legendary pinnacle of early human achievement to be a colony of stranded extraterrestrial refugeesâ€¦

Rip Hunter would appear twice more in Showcase before winning his own comic and the succeeding months would see the Silver Age kick into frantic High Gear with classic launches coming thick and fastâ€¦

These stories from a uniquely influential comicbook truly determined the course of the entire American strip culture and for that alone they should be cherished, but the fact they are still some of the most timeless, accessible and entertaining graphic adventures ever produced is a gift that should be celebrated by every fan and casual reader.

Buy this for yourself, get it for your friends and get a spare just because you canâ€¦

July 24, 2012July 23, 2012

Showcase Presents the Losers Volume 1

By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, John Severin, Ken Barr & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3437-9-8

The Losers were an elite unit of American soldiers formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge (later supplemented by the Fighting Devil Dog â€œPoochâ€) were Pacific-based Marines; debuting in All-American Men of War #67, (March1959) and running for fifty issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959-August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud was a native American fighter pilot who shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82. The â€œNavaho Aceâ€ flew solo until issue #115, (1966) and entered a brief limbo until the final component of the Land/Air/Sea team was filled by Captain Storm, a disabled PT Boat skipper who fought on despite his wooden left leg in his own eponymous 18-issue series from 1964 to 1967. All three series were created by comicbook warlord Robert Kanigher.

The characters had all pretty much passed their individual use-by dates when they were teamed-up as guest-stars in a Haunted Tank tale in 1969 (G.I. Combat #138 October), but these â€œLosersâ€ found a new resonance together in the relevant, disillusioned, cynical Vietnam years and their somewhat nihilistic, doom-laden group anti-hero adventures took the lead spot in Our Fighting Forces #123 for a run of blistering yarns written by Kanigher and illustrated by such giants as Ken Barr, Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman, John Severin and Joe Kubert.

With the tag-line â€œeven when they win, they loseâ€ the team saw action all over the globe, winning critical acclaim and a far-too-small but passionate following. This magnificent monochrome tome collects that introductory tale from the October 1969 G.I. Combat and the complete formative run of suicidal missions from Our Fighting Forces #123-150 (January /February 1970-August/September 1974), after which comicbook messiah Jack Kirby took over the series for a couple of years and made it, as always, uniquely his own. For that seminal set you must see Jack Kirby’s The Losers Omnibus (no really, you must. That’s an order, Soljerâ€¦)

Kanigher often used his stories as a testing ground for new series ideas, and G.I. Combat #138 (October 1969) introduced one of his most successful. ‘The Losers!’, illustrated by the magnificent hyper-realist Russ Heath, saw the Armoured Cavalry heroes of the Haunted Tank encounter a sailor, two marines and grounded pilot Johnny Cloud, each individually and utterly demoralised after negligently losing all the men under their respective commands.

Guilt-ridden and broken, the battered relics were inspired by tank commander Jeb Stuart who fanned their sense of duty and desire for vengeance until the crushed survivors regained a measure of respect and fighting spirit by uniting in a combined suicide-mission to destroy a Nazi Radar towerâ€¦

By the end of 1969 Dirty Dozen knock-off Hunter’s Hellcats had long outlived their shelf-life in Our Fighting Forces and with #123 (January/February 1970) evacuated in the epilogue ‘Exit Laughing’ which segued directly into ‘No Medals No Graves’, illustrated by Scottish artist Ken Barr (whose stunning work in paint and line has graced everything from Commando Picture Library covers, through Marvel DC and Warren, to film, book and TV work) and picked up the tale as Storm, Cloud, Gunner and Sarge sat in enforced, forgotten idleness until the aforementioned Lieutenant Hunter recommended them for a dirty, dangerous job no sane military men would touchâ€¦

It appears Storm was a dead ringer for a British agent – even down to the wooden leg – and the Brass needed the washed-up sailor to impersonate their vital human resource. The only problem is that they wanted him to be captured, withstand Nazi torture for 48 hours and then break, delivering damaging disinformation about a vast commando raid that wouldn’t be happeningâ€¦

The agent would do it himself but he was actually deadâ€¦

And there was even work for his despondent companions as a disposable diversionary tactic added to corroborate the secrets Storm should hopefully betray after two agonising daysâ€¦

Overcoming all expectation the â€œBorn Losersâ€ triumphed and even got away intact, after which Ross Andru & Mike Esposito became the regular art team in #124 when ‘Losers Take All’ showed how even good luck was bad, after a mission to liberate the hostage king of a Nazi-subjugated nation saw them doing all the spectacular hard work before losing their prize to Johnny-come-lately regular soldiersâ€¦

‘Daughters of Death’ in #125 found the suicide squad initially fail to rescue a scientist’s children only to blisteringly return and rectify their mistakes, Of course, by then the nervous tension had cracked the Professor’s mind, rendering him useless to the Allied causeâ€¦

‘A Lost Town’ opened with The Losers undergoing a Court Martial for desertion. Reviled for allowing the obliteration of a French village, they faced execution until an old blind man and his two grandkids revealed what really happened in the hellish conflagration of Perdu, whilst in ‘Angels Over Hell’s Corner’ a brief encounter with a pretty WREN (Women’s Royal Navy Service) in Blitz-beleaguered Britain drew the unit into a star-crossed love affair that even death itself could not thwartâ€¦

In a portmanteau tale which disclosed more details of the events which created The Losers, Our Fighting Forces #128 described the ‘7 11 War’ wherein a hot streak during a casual game of craps presaged disastrous calamity for any unlucky bystander near to the Hard Luck Heroes, after which ‘Ride the Nightmare’ saw Cloud endure horrifying visions and crack up on a mission to liberate a captive rocket scientist, before the team again became a living diversion in #130’s ‘Nameless Target’. However, by getting lost and hitting the wrong target, The Losers gifted the Allies with their greatest victory to dateâ€¦

John Severin inked Andru in OFF #131, in preparation to taking over the full art chores on the series, and ‘Half a Man’ hinted at darker, grittier tales to come when Captain Storm’s disability and guilty demons began to overwhelm him. Considering himself a jinx, the sea dog attempted to sacrifice himself on a mission to Norway but had not counted on his own brutal will to surviveâ€¦

Back in London, Gunner & Sarge were temporarily reunited with ‘Pooch: the Winner’ (#132 by Kanigher & Severin), prompting a fond if perilous recollection of an exploit against the Japanese in the distant Pacific. However, fearing their luck was contagious, the soldiers sadly decided the beloved â€œFighting Devil Dogâ€ was better off without themâ€¦

Dispatched to India in #133’s ‘Heads or Tails’, The Losers were ordered to assassinate the â€œthe Unholy Threeâ€ – Japanese Generals responsible for untold slaughter amongst the British and native populations. In sweltering lethal jungles, they only succeeded thanks to the determined persistence and sacrifice of a Sikh child hiding a terrible secret.

Our Fighting Forces #134 saw them brutally fighting from shelled house to hedgerow in Europe until Gunner cracked. When even his partners couldn’t get him to pick up a gun again it took the heroic example of indomitable wounded soldiers to show him who ‘The Real Losers’ wereâ€¦

Issue #135 began a superb extended epic which radically shook up the team after ‘Death Picks a Loser’. Following an ill-considered fortune telling incident in London, the squad shipped out to Norway to organise a resistance cell, despite efforts to again sideline the one-legged Storm. They rendezvoused with Pastor Tornsen and his daughter Ona and began by mining the entire village of Helgren, determined to deny the Nazis a stable base of operations.

Even after the Pastor sacrificed himself to allow the villagers and Americans time to escape, the plan stumbled when the explosives failed to detonate and Storm, convinced he was a liability, detonated the bombs by handâ€¦

Finding only his wooden leg in the flattened rubble, The Losers were further stunned when the vengeful orphan Ona volunteered to take the tragic sailor’s place in the squad of Doomed Menâ€¦

The ice-bound retreat from Helgren stalled in #136 when she offered herself as a ‘Decoy for Death’ leading German tanks into a lethal ambush, after which Cloud soloed in a mission to the Pacific where he found himself inspiring natives to resist the Japanese as a resurrected ‘God of the Losers’â€¦

Reunited in OFF #138, the Bad Luck Brigade became ‘The Targets’ when sent to uncover the secret of a new Nazi naval weapon sinking Allied shipping. Once more using Ona as bait they succeed in stunning fashion, but also pick up enigmatic intel regarding a crazy one-eyed, peg-legged marauder attacking both Enemy and Allied vessels off Norwayâ€¦

Our Fighting Forces #139 introduced ‘The Pirate’, when a band of deadly reivers attacked a convoy ship carrying The Losers and supplies to the Norwegian resistance. Barely escaping with their lives the Squad was then sent to steal a sample of a top secret jet fuel but discovered the Sea Devil had beaten them to it.

Forced to bargain with the merciless mercenary for the prototype, they found themselves in financial and combat competition with an equally determined band of German troops who simply wouldn’t take no for an answerâ€¦

‘Lostâ€¦ One Loser’ revealed that Ona had been with Storm at the end and was now plagued by a survivor’s guilty nightmares. Almost convincing her comrades that he still lived, she led the team on another mission into Norway, the beautiful traumatised girl again used herself as a honey trap to get close to a German bigwig and found incontrovertible proof that Storm was dead when she picked up his battered, burned dog-tagâ€¦

Still troubled, she commandeered a plane and flew back to her home to assassinate her Quisling uncle in #141’s ‘The Bad Penny’, only to be betrayed to the town’s German garrison and saved by the pirate who picked that moment to raid the occupied village for loot.

Even with the other Losers in attendance the Pirate’s rapacious rogues were ultimately triumphant but when the crippled corsair snatched Ona’s most treasured possession, the dingy dog-tag unlocked many suppressed memories and Storm (this is comics: who else could it be?) remembered everythingâ€¦

Answers to his impossible survival came briskly in OFF #142 and ‘Â½ a Man’ concentrated on the Captain’s struggle to be reinstated. Shipping out to the Far East on a commercial vessel, he was followed by his concerned comrades and stumbled into an Arabian insurrection with three war-weary guardian angels discreetly dogging his heel.

Back with The Losers again in #143, Storm was soon involved in another continued saga as ‘Diamonds are for Never!’ found the Fatalistic Five sent to Africa to stop an SS unit from hijacking industrial diamonds for their failing war effort. However, even after liberating a captured mine from the enemy, the gems eluded the team as a pack of monkeys made off with the glittering prizesâ€¦

Hot on their trail in ‘The Lost Mission’ the pursuers stumble onto a Nazi ambush of British soldiers and determine to take on their task â€“ demolishing an impregnable riverside fortressâ€¦

Despite being successful the Squad are driven inland and become lost in the desert where they stumble into a French Foreign Legion outpost and join its last survivor in defending ‘A Flag for Losers’ from a merciless German horde and French traitorâ€¦

Still lost in the trackless wastes they survived ‘The Forever Walk!’ in #146, battling equally-parched Nazis for the last precious drops of water and losing one of their own to a terrifying sandstormâ€¦

In ‘The Glory Road!’ the sun-baked survivors encountered the last survivor of a German ambush, but British Major Cavendish seemed unable to differentiate between his early days as a star of patriotic films and grim reality and when a German patrol captures them all the mockery proves too much for the troubled martinetâ€¦

Again lost and without water, in #148 ‘The Last Charge’ saw The Losers save a desert princess and give her warrior father a chance to fulfil a prophecy and die in glorious battle against the Nazi invaders, whilst #149 briefly reunited the squad with their long-missing member before tragically separating again in ‘A Bullet for a Traitor!’

This volume concludes with ‘Mark our Graves’ in #150 as The Losers linked up with members of The Jewish Brigade (a special British Army unit) who all paid a steep price to uncover a secret Nazi supply dumpâ€¦

Although a superbly action-packed and moving tale, it was an inauspicious end to the run and one which held no hint of the creative culture-shock which would explode in the pages of the next instant issue when the God of American Comicbooks blasted in to create a unique string of â€œKirby Klassicsâ€…

With covers by Joe Kubert, Frank Thorne and Neal Adams, this grimly efficient, superbly understated and beautifully rendered collection is a brilliant example of how war comics changed forever in the 1970s and proves that these stories still pack a TNT punch few other forms of entertainment can hope to match.
Â© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

July 23, 2012July 22, 2012

Shazam! Archives volume 3

By Bill Parker, Rod Reed, C.C. Beck, George Tuska, Pete Costanza, Mac Raboy & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 01-56389-832-2

One of the most venerated and beloved characters of America’s Golden Age of comics, Captain Marvel was created in 1940 as part of a wave of opportunistic creativity which followed the stunning success of Superman in 1938.

Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett champion quickly moved squarely into the area of light entertainment and even straight comedy, whilst as the years passed the Man of Steel increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action, drama and suspense.

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s acronymic name – invoking the powers of legendary patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

Publishing house Fawcett had first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans named Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, before branching out into books and general interest magazines. Their most successful publication – at least until the Good Captain hit his stride – was the ubiquitous boy’s building bible Mechanix Illustrated and, as the decade unfolded, the scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both the art and plots of the Marvel Family titles.

Captain Marvel was the brainchild of writer/editor Bill Parker and brilliant young illustrator Charles Clarence Beck who, with his assistant Pete Costanza, handled most of the art on the series throughout its stellar run. At first the full-grown hero was a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse whilst junior alter ego Billy was the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, bold, self-reliant and resourceful youth overcoming impossible odds by pluck, grit and sheer determinationâ€¦

After homeless orphan newsboy Billy was granted access to the power of legendary gods and heroes he won a job as a roaming radio reporter for Amalgamated Broadcasting and first defeated the demonic Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, setting a pattern that would captivate readers for the next 14 yearsâ€¦

At the height of his popularity Captain Marvel outsold Superman and was even published twice-monthly, but as the Furious Forties closed tastes changed, sales slowed and Fawcett saw the way the wind was blowing. They settled an infamous long-running copyright infringement case begun by National Comics in 1940 and the Big Red Cheese vanished – as did so many superheroes – becoming little more than a fond memory for older fansâ€¦

This third magnificent deluxe full-colour hardback compendium re-presents a strip from anthology compendium America’s Greatest Comics, the second and third issues of Captain Marvel Adventures, his exploits from the fortnightly Whiz Comics #21-24 and also happily includes a selection of stunning covers from the plethora of extra and reprint editions generated by the Good Captain’s overnight success.

Although there was increasing talk of inevitable war amongst the American public; all these tales – spanning March to November 1941 – were created long before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and consequently have their share of thinly-veiled saboteur and spy sagas which permeated the genre until official Hostilities were finally established. Of more interest perhaps is that at this period the stories – many of them still sadly uncredited – still largely portray Marvel as a grimly heroic figure not averse to slaughtering the truly irredeemable villain and losing no sleep over itâ€¦

Following a nostalgic and highly educational Foreword by movie producer, author, historian and fan Michael Uslan, the wonderment commences with the magnificent Mac Raboy cover to America’s Greatest Comics #1 and the C.C. Beck illustrated thriller ‘Ghost of the Deep’ which led off that issue.

The merits of the ongoing court-case notwithstanding, Fawcett undeniably took many of their publishing cues from the examples of Superman and Batman. Following on from a brace of Premium editions celebrating the New York World’s Fair, National Comics had released World’s Finest Comics; a huge, quarterly card-cover anthology featuring a host of their comicbook mainstays in new adventures, and early in 1941, Fawcett produced a 100-page bumper comic dedicated to their own dashing new hero and the other mystery-men in their stable: Spy Smasher, Bulletman, Minute Man and Mr. Scarlet & Pinky and others.

‘Ghost of the Deep’ was an extra-long saga and canny mystery wherein a hooded mastermind used purloined technology to wage a campaign of terror against American Naval interests on both coasts before Billy and the Captain scotched his plans in a tale very much the template for the character’s futureâ€¦

Meanwhile in Captain Marvel Adventures #2 (Summer 1941) the hero was still undergoing some on-the-job cosmetic refinements. In those formative years as the World’s Mightiest Mortal catapulted to the first rank of superhero superstars, there was actually a scramble to fill pages and just as CMA #1 had been farmed out to up-and-coming whiz-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, the next two issues were rapidly compiled by mostly anonymous scripters and another rising star who drew the issues in a hurry, working from Beck and Parker’s style guides.

Young George Tuska added a raw, lean humanist vivacity to the tales beginning with ‘World of the Microscope’ wherein Sivana returned and dosed Billy and erstwhile ally Queen Beautia with a shrinking solution and left them at the mercy of bacterial monsters until Captain Marvel turned the tiny tables on him, after which a deadly stampede of giant spider robots presaged an ‘Invasion from Mars’, until the Big Red Cheese taught our planetary neighbours a lasting lesson in getting along.

DC/National Periodical Publications had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 hit the stands and the companies slugged it out in court until 1953 when, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate.

As a result most merchandising outfits steered well clear of Fawcett, compelling the publisher to generate toys, games, premiums and promotions themselves. The only notable exception was the blockbusting Adventures of Captain Marvel Movie Serial from Republic Pictures. Consequentially Fawcett used their magazines comicbooks to promote the films and practically invented Product Placement to plug their in-house merchandise.

‘The Curse of the Scorpion’ was an uncredited text feature which recapped the first episode of the movie serial and urged readers to follow the saga at their local cinemas after which the strip thrills resumed with Tuska’s ‘The Pirate’s Treasure’ (written by Rod Reed) as Billy investigated the murder of an old sailor and was press-ganged onto a modern-day buccaneer’s boat. Before long the radio reporter and his mighty avatar were embroiled in a war between rival South Seas rogues and the issue rousingly concluded with the Reed & Tuska saga of ‘The Arson Fiend’, a murderous supernatural firebug who acted out the frustrations of his ineffectual fire-insurance salesman alter egoâ€¦

Captain Marvel Adventures #2 (Fall 1941) opened with ‘The Menace of Muscles McGinnis’ wherein the toughest gangster in town tried to take over Billy’s radio station and literally had the wickedness beaten out of him by the unbeatable Crimson Crime-crusher, after which he was again targeted by the World’s Maddest Scientist who wanted to conquer the USA with ‘Sivana’s Paralyzing Gas’â€¦

‘The Terror of the Goptas’ saw an ancient cult attack tall buildings and their architects, but although the devotees were acting to defend their cloud-living gods their new leader had far more mundane motivesâ€¦ The issue ended with another Sivana scheme as the Devil Doctor devised a synthetic zombie powered by the life-force of 1000 animals but little dreamed that ‘The Beast-Ruler’ might have his own agenda, such as uniting all of nature to eradicate humanityâ€¦

Whiz Comics #21 (September 5^th 1941) featured ‘The Vengeful Four’ (illustrated by Beck) and saw Sivana gather three other villains to attack the hero in his youthful identity. What luck then that three other kids named Billy Batson were in town and that the magic of Shazam apparently extended to themâ€¦

Fat Billy, Tall Billy and Hill Billy took to trouncing thugs in a trice and, as the Three Lieutenant Marvels, would become frequent guest stars in years to comeâ€¦

Written and illustrated by Beck, #22’s ‘The Temple of Itzalotahui’ was a turning point for the series. Tying into and deriving from the continuity of the movie serial, Billy gained an assistant in the form of Whitey Murphy, who was a co-star in the film iteration, but the real sea-change was the shift to light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek adventure as the lads travelled to Central America to search for a third cast member and found ancient Mayans and modern resource raidersâ€¦

Whiz #23 began a two-part thriller that again derived from product placement. ‘The Bal Masque’ found Billy and Whitey travelling to Washington DC to safeguard an Ambassador and his daughter at a grand soiree. The diplomats were unwitting couriers for a new defence code and when ruthless German agents struck Captain Marvel was drawn into a twisted web of cross and double-cross which culminated in a blistering sea battle in ‘The Secret of the Ring’ (24^th November 28^th 1941, by Beck & Costanza)â€¦

With the code lost the Solomon-inspired Marvel swiftly devised a new cipher, and from that issue onwards, readers could decode secret messages in every storyâ€¦ as long as they were fully paid-up members of the new Captain Marvel Fan Clubâ€¦

This nostalgic delight concludes not only with pages of biographical details on all the creators but also a brace of covers from two unique reprint compilations rushed out to satisfy the voracious demands of the hero’s burgeoning readership. Captain Marvel Thrill Book sports a stunning piece of Beck brilliance whilst Xmas Comics #1 by Raboy is a slice of pure comicbook mythology every art lover dreams of possessing.

DC eventually acquired the Fawcett properties and characters and in 1973 revived the Captain for a new generation to see if his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns.

Re-titled Shazam! due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright convention, the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of charactersâ€¦

Nevertheless Captain Marvel is a true icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. These magical tales again show why The Big Red Cheese was such an icon of the industry and proves that these timeless, sublime comic masterpieces are an ideal introduction to the world of superhero fiction: tales that will appeal to readers of any age and temperamentâ€¦
Â© 1941, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

July 15, 2012July 13, 2012

Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol Volume 1

By Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-218-9

1963 was the year when cautious comicbook publishers finally realised that superheroes were back in a big way and began reviving or creating a host of costumed characters to battle outrageous menaces and dastardly villains.

Thus it was that at National Comics venerable anthology-mystery title My Greatest Adventure dipped its toe in the waters with a radical take on the fad and introduced a startling squad of champions with their thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era that subtly informed the parent comic.

No traditional team of masked adventurers, the cast comprised a robot, a mummy and an occasional 50-foot woman, who joined forces with and were guided by a brusque, domineering, crippled mad scientist to fight injustice in a whole new wayâ€¦

Covering June 1963 to February 1966, this first quirky monochrome compilation collects the Fabulous Freaks’ earliest exploits from My Greatest Adventure #80-85 and thereafter, issues #86-101 of the renamed title once overwhelming reader response compelled editor Murray Boltinoff to change it to the Doom Patrol.

The dramas were especially enhanced by the drawing skills of Italian cartoonist and classicist artist Giordano Bruno Premiani whose highly detailed, subtly humanistic illustration made even the strangest situation dauntingly authentic and grittily believable as with the premier tale ‘The Doom Patrol’ scripted by Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, which saw a mysterious wheelchair bound scientist summon three outcasts to his home promising to change their miserable lives forever.

Competitive car racer Cliff Steele had died in a horrific pile up, but his undamaged brain had been transplanted into a fantastic mechanical body. Test pilot Larry Trainor had been trapped in an experimental stratospheric plane and become permanently radioactive, with the dubious benefit of gaining a semi-sentient energy avatar which could escape his body to perform incredible stunts for up to a minute at a time.

To pass safely amongst men Trainor had to constantly wrap himself in special radiation-proof bandages.

Ex-movie star Rita Farr had been exposed to mysterious gases which gave her the unpredictable and, at first, uncontrolled ability to shrink or grow to incredible sizes.

These outcasts were brought together by brilliant but enigmatic Renaissance Man The Chief, who sought to mould the solitary misfits into a force for good and quickly proved his point when a mad bomber attempted to blow up the city docks. The wheelchair bound savant directed the trio of strangers in defusing it and no sooner had the freaks realised their true worth than they were on their first missionâ€¦

In the second chapter ‘The Challenge of the Timeless Commander’ an incredibly ancient menace tried to capture a fallen alien ship, intent on turning its extraterrestrial secrets into weapons of world conquest, culminating in ‘The Deadly Duel with General Immortus’ which saw the Doom Patrol dedicate their lives to saving humanity from all threats.

My Greatest Adventure #81, solely scripted by Drake, featured ‘The Nightmare Maker’ combining everyday disaster response – saving a damaged submarine – with a nationwide plague of monsters. Stuck at base, The Chief monitored missions by means of a TV camera attached to Robotman’s chest, and quickly deduced the uncanny secret of the beasts and their war criminal creator Josef Kreutz.

A clever espionage ploy outed the Chief – or at least his image, if not name – in #82’s ‘Three Against the Earth!’, leading the team to believe Rita a traitor. When the cabal of millionaires behind the scheme were revealed as an alien advance guard who assumed the wheelchair-bound leader to be a rival invader, the inevitable showdown nearly cost Cliff what remained of his lifeâ€¦

‘The Night Negative Man Went Berserk!’ in #83 spotlighted the living mummy when a radio astronomy experiment interrupted the Negative Man’s return to Larry Trainor’s body, pitching the pilot into a coma and sending the ebony energy creature on a global spree of destruction. Calamity piled upon calamity when crooks stole the military equipment constructed to destroy it and only desperate improvisation by Cliff and Rita allowed avatar and host to reuniteâ€¦

Issue #84 saw ‘The Return of General Immortus’ as ancient Babylonian artefacts led the team to the eternal malefactor, only to have the wily warrior turn the tables and take control of Robotman. Even though his comrades saved him Immortus escaped with the greatest treasures of all timeâ€¦

My Greatest Adventure #85 was the last issue and featured ‘The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below’, monstrous subterranean horrors fuelled by nuclear forces. Despite having tricked Elasti-Girl into resuming her Hollywood career, the paternalistic heroes were pretty grateful when she turned up to save them all from radioactive incinerationâ€¦

An unqualified success, the comicbook transformed into The Doom Patrol with #86 and celebrated by introducing ‘The Brotherhood of Evil’, an assemblage of international criminals and terrorists led by French genius-in-a-jar The Brain and his greatest creation, a super-intelligent talking gorilla dubbed Monsieur Mallah. The diametrically opposed teams first crossed swords after brotherhood applicant Mr. Morden stole Rog, a giant robot the Chief intended for the US militaryâ€¦

DP #87 revealed ‘The Terrible Secret of Negative Man’ when Brotherhood femme fatale Madame Rouge tried to seduce Larry. When the Brain’s unstoppable mechanical army invaded the city, Trainor was forced to remove his bandages and allow his lethal radiations to disrupt their transmissionsâ€¦

An occasional series of short solo adventures kicked off in this issue with ‘Robotman Fights Alone’, wherein Cliff was dispatched to a Pacific island in search of an escaped killer, only to walk into a devastating series of WWII Japanese booby-trapsâ€¦

All the mysteries surrounding the team’s leader were finally revealed in issue #88 with ‘The Incredible Origin of the Chief’, a blistering drama which told how brilliant but impoverished student Niles Caulder received unlimited funding from an anonymous patron interested in his researches on extending life. Curiosity drove Caulder to track down his benefactor and he was horrified to discover the money came from the head of a criminal syndicate who claimed to be eons oldâ€¦

Immortus had long ago consumed a potion which extended his life and wanted the student to recreate it now that the years were finally catching up. To insure Caulder’s full cooperation, the General had a bomb inserted in the researcher’s chest and powered by his heartbeat â€¦

Building a robot surgeon, Caulder tricked Immortus into shooting him, determined to thwart the monster at all costs. Once clinically dead, his Ra-2 doctor removed the now-inert explosive and revived the bold scientist, but tragically the robot had been too slow and Caulder lost the use of his legsâ€¦

Undaunted, the Man Who Lived Twice then destroyed all his research and went into hiding for years, with Immortus unaware that Caulder had actually succeeded in the task which had stymied history’s greatest doctors and biologistsâ€¦

Now, under the alias of super-thief The Baron, Immortus had captured the Doom Patrol and demanded a final confrontation with the Chief. Luckily the wheelchair-locked inventor was not only a biologist and robotics genius but also adept at building concealed weaponsâ€¦

In #89 the team tackled a duplicitous scientist who had devised a means to transform himself into ‘The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Menace’ and ‘The Private War of Elasti-Girl’ saw the Maid of Many Sizes use unsuspected detective skills to track down a missing soldier and reunite him with his adopted son before ‘The Enemy within the Doom Patrol’ saw shape-shifting Madame Rouge infiltrate the team and almost turn them against each other.

Issue #91 introduced multi-millionaire Steve Dayton who created a superhero persona solely to woo and wed Rita Farr. With such ambiguous motivations ‘Mento – the Man who Split the Doom Patrol’ was a radical character for the times, but at least his psycho-kinetic helmet proved a big help in defeating the plastic robots of grotesque alien invader Garguaxâ€¦

DP #92 found the team confronted by a temporal terror in ‘The Sinister Secret of Dr. Tyme’ with the abrasive Mento again saving the day whilst ‘Showdown on Nightmare Road’ in #93 saw The Brain’s latest monstrous scheme result in the evil genius being planted inside Robotman’s skull and poor Cliff transplanted into a horrific beast, until the Chief out-played the French Fiend at his own gameâ€¦

Bob Brown stepped in to illustrate #94’s lead feature ‘The Nightmare Fighters’ with an eastern mystic’s uncanny abilities swiftly debunked by solid American science but Premiani was around to render the solo-feature ‘The Chief â€œStandsâ€ Alone’ wherein Caulder eschewed his deputies’ aid to bring down bird-themed villain The Claw with a mixture of wit, nerve and weaponised wheelchair.

When The Chief attempted to cure Rita and Larry in DP #95 it resulted in switched powers and the ‘Menace of the Turnabout Heroes’, so naturally that would be the very moment the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man would pick for a return bout, whilst in #96, on ‘The Day the World Went Mad!’, the Patrol’s frantic investigations revealed that the global wave of insanity was caused by a deadly alliance of the Brotherhood, Garguax and Immortus, which they were helpless to counteractâ€¦

In issue #97 that sinister syndicate attacked Earth by transforming innocent citizens into crystal, spectacularly resulting in ‘The War against the Mind Slaves’, the return of Mento and a stunning showdown on the moon, after which #98 saw both ‘The Death of the Doom Patrol’ – a grievous over-exaggeration on behalf of transmutational foe Mr. 103, who was actually compelled to save Caulder from radiation poisoning – and the Brown-drawn solo-thriller ’60 Sinister Seconds’ in which Negative Man had to find and make safe four atomic bombs in different countries within as minuteâ€¦

Brown also handled both tales in Doom Patrol #99, starting with an old-fashioned battle against a deranged entomologist whose mechanical insects delivered ‘The Deadly Sting of the Bug Man’ and proceeding to the groundbreaking first appearance of shape-shifting juvenile delinquent ‘The Beast-Boy’ who burgled than saved the team with his incredible ability to become any animal he could imagine.

A vast extended storyline began with #100 and ‘The Fantastic Origin of Beast-Boy’ (illustrated by Premiani) wherein the obnoxious kid was revealed as orphan Gar Logan, a boy being slowly swindled out of his inheritance by his ruthless guardian Nicholas Galtry.

The conniving accountant had even leased his emerald-hued charge to scientist Dr. Weir for assorted experiments, but when the Patrol later tackled rampaging dinosaurs, the trail led to Gar who at last explained his uncanny powers.

Whilst in Africa as a toddler Logan had contracted a rare disease and his scientist father tried an experimental cure which left him the colour of cabbage but with the ability to change shape at will.

Now it appeared that Weir has used the lad’s altered biology to unlock the secrets of evolutionâ€¦ or had he?

Despite foiling the scheme the team have no choice but to return the boy to his guardian, but Rita is not prepared to leave the matter unresolvedâ€¦ The anniversary issue also saw the start of an extended multi-part thriller exploring Cliff’s early days after his accident and subsequent resurrection beginning with ‘Robotmanâ€¦ Wanted Dead or Alive’. Following Caulder’s implantation of Cliff’s brain into the mechanical body the shock drove the patient crazy and Steele went on a city wide rampageâ€¦

This first fantastic collection concludes with Doom Patrol #101 and the riotous romp ‘I, Kranus, Robot Emperor!’ wherein an apparently alien mechanoid had a far more terrestrial and terrifying origin, but the real meat came from the subtle war between Galtry and the Chief for possession of Beast Boy.

The tale ended on a pensive cliffhanger as the Patrol then dashed off to rescue fellow adventurers the Challengers of the Unknown â€“ a tale for the next volume, I’m afraidâ€¦

There was still however the second instalment of the Robotman saga, saw the occasionally ration, if paranoid Cliff Steele hunted by the authorities and befriended by crippled, homeless derelicts in ‘The Lonely Giant’â€¦

Although as kids we all happily suspended disbelief and bought into the fanciful antics of the myriad masked heroes available, somehow the exploits of the Doom Patrol – and their surprisingly synchronistic Marvel counterparts the X-Men (freaks and outcasts, wheelchair bound geniuses, both debuting in the summer of 1963) always seemed just a bit more â€œrealâ€ than the usual caped and costumed crowd.

With the edge of time and experience on my side it’s obvious just how incredibly mature Drake and Premiani’s take on superheroes actually was and these superbly engaging, frantically fun and breathtakingly beautiful tales should rightfully rank amongst the finest Fights ‘n’ Tights tales ever told.
Â© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2009 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

July 13, 2012July 12, 2012

Showcase Presents the Haunted Tank volume 2

By Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Irv Novick, Joe Kubert, Sam Glanzman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0789-8

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was one of the most distinctive authorial voices in American comics, blending rugged realism with fantastic fantasy in his signature war comics, as well as in horror stories, westerns and superhero titles such as Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Hawkman, Metal Men, Batman plus other genres too numerous to cover here.

Kanigher sold his first stories and poetry in 1932, wrote for the theatre, film and radio, and joined the Fox Features shop where he created The Bouncer, Steel Sterling and The Web, whilst providing scripts for Blue Beetle and the original Captain Marvel.

In 1945 he settled at All-American Comics as both writer and editor, staying on when the company amalgamated with National Comics to become the forerunner of today’s DC. He wrote Flash and Hawkman, created Black Canary and Lady Cop, and many memorable villainesses such as Harlequin and Rose and the Thorn. This last temptress he redesigned during the relevancy era of the early 1970s into a schizophrenic crime-busting super-heroine who haunted the back of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, which Kanigher also scripted.

When mystery-men faded out at the end of the 1940s, Kanigher moved into westerns and war stories, becoming in 1952 writer/editor of the company’s combat titles: All-American War Stories, Star Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War. He created Our Fighting Forces in 1954 and added G.I. Combat to his burgeoning portfolio when Quality Comics sold their line of titles to DC in 1956, all the while working on Wonder Woman, Johnny Thunder, Rex the Wonder Dog, Silent Knight, Sea Devils, Viking Prince and a host of others.

In 1956 he scripted ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt’ – the first story of the Silver Age which introduced Barry Allen as the new Flash to the hero-hungry kids of the world.

Kanigher was a restlessly creative writer and frequently used his uncanny but formulaic adventure arenas as a testing ground for future series concepts. Among the many epochal war features he created were Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, The War that Time Forgot and The Losers as well as the irresistibly compelling â€œcombat ghost storiesâ€ collected here in this second stupendously expansive war-journal.

This terrific monochrome tome re-presents more blockbusting exploits of boyhood friends Jeb Stuart Smith, Arch Asher, Slim Stryker and Rick Rawlins from G.I. Combat #120-156 (October/November 1966 – October/November 1972), a period during which superheroes rose to astonishing global dominance before almost vanishing into history once more.

Apparently immune to such tenuous trendiness, the battle-hardened veterans of the M-3 Stuart Light Tank – named for the legendary Confederate Army General who was a genius of cavalry combat, and haunted by his restless spirit – soldiered on, battling threats mortal and often metaphysical on many fronts during World War II, becoming (after Sgt. Rock) DC’s most successful and long-lived combat feature.

The tales were generally narrated by Jeb as he manned the Commander’s spotter-position (head and torso sticking out of the top hatch and completely exposed to enemy fire whilst driver Slim, gunner Rick and loader Arch remained relatively safe inside) constantly conversing with his spectral namesake who offered philosophy, advice and prescient, if often veiled, warnings â€¦

Throughout the early days Jeb’s comrades continually argued about what to do with him. Nobody believed in the ghost and they all doubted their commander’s sanity, but since he began seeing the General, Stuart Smith had become a tactical genius and his â€œgiftsâ€ were keeping them all alive against incredible oddsâ€¦

This volume opens with G.I. Combat #120 ‘Pull a Tiger’s Tail!’, illustrated by Irv Novick, detailing how, after accompanying both Sgt. Rock and Navajo fighter-pilot Johnny Cloud, on sorties, Jeb defied orders to capture a giant Tiger tank his own wayâ€¦

Another spiritually-sponsored warrior, Cloud regularly saw a mounted Indian Brave dubbed Big-Brother-in-the Sky galloping across the heavens during his missions.

The inspirational Russ Heath illustrated #121’s ‘Battle of Two Wars!’ wherein after rescuing a shell-shocked pigeon the tankers are inexplicably drawn back to WWI to save Sgt Rock’s father, who then returns the favour once the Stuart returns to its proper time whilst in ‘Who Dies Next?’ (#122 and with art from Novick), the General issued a dire proclamation that one of their own would not last the day out – a forecast that came true in a most shocking mannerâ€¦

Heath returned to the art with #123’s ‘The Target of Terror!’ as guest star Mlle. Marie returned with news of a secret weapon to be destroyed at all costs. Unfortunately the French Resistance leader had partial amnesia and didn’t remember exactly what or where, whilst in ‘Scratch that Tank!’ the crew’s shiny new replacement vehicle was a cause of acute embarrassment until it finally gained a few praiseworthy combat scarsâ€¦

G.I. Combat #125 decreed ‘Stay Aliveâ€¦ Until Dark!’ as Jeb’s sorely reduced battle-group attempted to hold too much ground with too few tanks, culminating in a Horatian last stand in the shattered, cloistered streets of a tiny French town, after which the crew endured deadly desert warfare in a desperate search for Panzers hidden by a cunning ‘Tank Umbrella!’

Novick illustrated the two-fisted ‘Mission – Sudden Death!!’ in #127 as Mlle. Marie led the tank-jockeys far from their comfort zone in an infantry raid to rescue her captured father before Heath returned to limn ‘The Ghost of the Haunted Tank!’, a superbly evocative thriller in which the crew finally cracked during a brutal massed Panzer assault and restrained their clearly delusional commander for his own good. However when solid, no-nonsense Slim took the observer’s spot he too began to see the spectral sentinel and was forced to act on the apparition’s strategic adviceâ€¦

Issue #129 is pure Kanigher poesy as ‘Hold that Town for a Dead Man!’ saw the tankers roll past an American soldier expired at his post, and swear to eradicate the foes who felled himâ€¦ and when the blistering cat-and-mouse duel seemed to go against the crew they were saved by an impossible burst of gunfire fired by a cold, stiff handâ€¦

In the afterlife all great military commanders sponsored mortal combatants. General Stuart was stuck looking after a pack of â€œDamned Yankeesâ€, but the other side also had phantom patrons.

G.I. Combat #130 saw the return of savage shade Attila the Hun, who directly attacked his revenant rival in a deadly ‘Battle of the Generals!’ with Jeb watching helplessly whilst trying to save his tank from mundane but just as murderous German panzer, artillery and air attacksâ€¦

Their next mission took the crew and a band of savage child-warriors (the short-lived and controversial Kid Guerrillas of Unit 3 who had debuted in a Sgt. Rock tale in Our Army at War #194, June 1968) into the heart of Paris to rescue Mlle. Marie from the Gestapo in #131’s ‘The Devil for Dinner!’ after which Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella stepped in to illustrate the follow-up wherein the Belle of La Resistance led Jeb and the boys – bizarrely disguised as a circus troupe – against merciless SS leader ‘The Executioner!’

The artists stayed on for #133’s ‘Operation: Death Trap’ as the Haunted Tank and crew were parachuted into North Africa to liberate enslaved natives working in a German diamond mine, before, following a ‘Special Battle Pinup’ of the tankers by Joe Kubert, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito signed up for a stint, beginning with ‘Desert Holocaust’ wherein the boys dealt out vengeance for the three MacBane brothers, sibling tank-commanders slaughtered by the Afrika Korps.

Continuity was never a big concern for Kanigher and stories would often occur in no logical or chronological order. In #135 they were back in France battling paratroopers and air-lifted Panzers with only aged WWI survivors to aid them in ‘Death is the Joker’ whilst ‘Kill Now – Pay Later!’ pitted Tank against Nazi U-Boat and Jeb against its driven doom-obsessed Commander in an improbable duel, before Russ Heath returned in #137 to illustrate the African adventure ‘We Can’t See!’ wherein the lads were all temporarily blinded but nevertheless succeeded in destroying a poison gas cache thanks to aid of a little Arab boy.

Kanigher often used his stories as a testing ground for new series ideas and G.I. Combat #138 introduced one of his most successful in ‘The Losers!’ when the Armoured Cavalry unit encountered a sailor, two marines and old friend Johnny Cloud, all utterly demoralised after losing all the men in their respective commands.

Inspired by Jeb and a desire for revenge, the crushed survivors regained a measure of respect and fighting spirit after surviving a certain suicide-mission and destroying a Nazi Radar towerâ€¦

The new team were formed by amalgamating three old war series together. Gunner and Sarge (later supplemented by Pooch, the Fighting Devil Dog) were Pacific-based Marines debuting in All-American Men of War #67, March 1959 and ran for fifty issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959-August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud was a native American fighter pilot who shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82.

The â€œNavaho Aceâ€ flew solo until issue #115, (1966) whilst Captain Storm was a disabled PT Boat skipper who fought on despite his wooden left leg in his own eponymous 18-issue series from 1964 to 1967. All three series were originally created by comicbook warlord Kanigher and The Losers soon returned as an elite unit of suicide-soldiers to star in Our Fighting Forces.

G.I. Combat #139 again saw the Haunted Tank parachuted into an Arabian nightmare when the crew interrupt a funeral and save the widow from being forced onto the pyre with her deceased husband. ‘Corner of Hell’ saw Jeb wed and lose his bride to Nazi sympathizers and an ancient prophecyâ€¦

Issue #140 featured a reprint not included here – although the new Kubert introduction page is – and the graphic narratives resume with ‘Let me Liveâ€¦ Let me Die!’ as Kanigher & Heath confronted the topics of race and discrimination in a powerful tale describing the plight of African-American soldiers who were used as porters, gravediggers and ammunition carriers but forbidden from bearing or actually using arms.

When Jeb arrived at a recently decimated ammo dump the sole survivor of the Segregated Negro unit demanded to accompany the crew and be allowed to fight and die like a man. Rushing to reinforce Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company and despite the thinly veiled disdain of Slim, Arch and Rick, when Jeb was wounded the valiant tag-along finally got his chanceâ€¦

G.I. Combat #142 found Jeb obsessed with the moment of his own death in ‘Checkpoint – Death!’ but when the General wasn’t forthcoming soon forgot it about as an unseasonal snowstorm turned the world into a frozen hell, after which ‘The Iron Horseman!’ saw a frustrated WWI tanker finally get at chance to be a hero when Panzers attacked a convent and Jeb’s crew were ambushed. There follows an informational spread ‘Battle Album: General Stuart Light Tank M31A’ by Kubert, before #144 revealed a retrofitted origin for the Haunted Tanker in ‘Every Man a Fort!’ (illustrated by Heath). Now with Jeb a Northern Yankee, the tale revealed how he had to win the respect of Southerners Rick, Slim and Arch with his fists before they’d let him call himself Jeb Stuart, and cemented that bond during their first foray under fire in North Africaâ€¦

The desert milieu continued in #145’s ‘Sun, Sand & Death!’ when a sandstorm forced the tank off-course and led them to an abandoned B-25 bomber, giving the dying pilot a chance to redeem his lost honour, whilst #146 saw the M-3 and its crew endure debilitating hazards battling the Afrika Korps but still persevere when the General advised Jeb to ‘Move the World!’â€¦

For some Americans the wounds of the Civil War still festered, as Jeb discovered when he encountered the hostile commander of a ‘Rebel Tank’ in #147. Of course, the Germans were happy to remind the feuders who was currently doing all the shooting, whilst in #148 ‘The Gold-Plated General!’ (a thinly disguised analogue of George S. â€œBlood and Gutsâ€ Patton) demanded a spit-and-polish war, but even under combat conditions led by painful exampleâ€¦

American services discrimination was again confronted in G.I. Combat #149 when a Jewish soldier joined the division in ‘Leave the Fighting to Us!’ Many of the good guys had to eat their words when the tank group liberated a Nazi concentration campâ€¦

A major visual change came in #150 with ‘The Death of the Haunted Tank!’, which saw the M-3 destroyed in combat and the crew jury-rig a jigsaw replacement from the remnants of other scrapped and abandoned and, unsurprisingly, bigger, more powerful vehicles.

Proving again that men and not the machine were the heart of the partnership, the General stuck around, and when the new Haunted Tankers passed through an alpine village they relived a mediaeval battle against barbarian invaders in #151’s ‘A Strong Right Arm!’ before bringing a Nazi infiltrator aboard who turned their homemade rolling fortress into a deadly ‘Decoy Tank’ to lure Allied forces into an ambushâ€¦

Comics and animation legend Doug Wildey replaced Heath for #153 as sentimental fool Jeb adopted a lost piglet, orphan puppy and lame duckling before completing his tank’s transformation to ‘The Armored Ark!’ by packing in a homeless and displaced family, all while tracking down and eradicating a hidden Nazi rocket silo, after which the series took on a far grittier and raw feel with the addition of a new regular artist.

With G.I. Combat #154 (June/July 1972), unsung master and battle-scarred veteran Sam Glanzman began his decades-long association with the feature, pencilling and inking the blistering improbable ‘Battle Prize!’ wherein the Haunted Tank and crew were captured and paraded before Hitler in Berlin before busting loose and heading East. Hijacked by Polish Resistance fighters soon the Yanks were stranded in ice-bound, siege-locked Russiaâ€¦

Shamefully, Sam Glanzman is one of the least highly-regarded creators in American comics, despite having one of the longest careers and certainly one of the most unique styles. His work, in genres from war to mystery, westerns, science fiction, sword & sorcery, horror, fantasy and even graphic autobiography is passionate, powerful, subtly engaging and irresistibly compelling.

With a solid, uniquely rough-hewn style he has worked since the 1940s on a variety of titles for many companies, mostly on anthology material for fantasy, mystery, war and adventure titles, but also on serial characters such Attu, Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, Hercules and Jungle Tales of Tarzan for Charlton, Kona and Voyage to the Deep for Dell/Gold Key: magnificent action sagas that fired the imagination and stirred the blood, selling copies and winning a legion of fans amongst his fellow artists if not from the small but over-vocal fan-press.

His most significant works are undoubtedly the two semi-autobiographical graphic novels A Sailor’s Story and Wind, Dreams and Dragons although his Vietnam set ‘The Lonely War of Willie Schultz’ and the subtly beguiling U.S.S. Stevens (and if anybody from DC is reading this, those 46-odd U.S.S. Stevens strips are so-very-long-overdue for the trade paperback treatmentâ€¦).

Glanzman, born in 1924, is still active today producing online strips and a new USS Stevens story is forthcoming in October 2012.

G.I. Combat #155 undertook ‘The Long Journey’ as the Haunted Tank experienced the worst horrors of war whilst trekking across the embattled Eastern Front, aided by Russian partisans, women, children and dotards as they fought off the fascists with every drop of their blood and sweat whilst making their way to a port and the normal warâ€¦

This second sterling tome ends with the crew back in Africa where the desert and the German vie for the privilege of destroying the beleaguered tankers and their frantic search for fuel and water drags them ‘Beyond Hell’â€¦

An added attraction for art fans and battle buffs are the breathtaking covers by Heath and Kubertâ€¦

These spectacular tales took the Haunted Tank through tumultuous times when America fervently questioned the very nature and necessity of war. Vietnam was progressively blighting the nation’s sensibilities, and in response DC’s war comics addressed the issue and also confronted the problems of race and gender roles in a most impressive and sensitive manner.

As always they combine spooky chills with combat thrills and a fierce examination of both war and warriors but always offer a powerful human message that has never dated and may well rank this work amongst the very best war stories ever produced.
Â© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008, DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

June 29, 2012June 28, 2012

Showcase Presents Wonder Woman volume 4

By Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Irving Novick & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-474-9

Wonder Woman was created by psychologist and polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and uniquely realised by respected illustrator and co-creator Harry G. Peter just as the spectre of World War II began to directly affect America.

Using the pen-name Charles Moulton, Marston scripted all her adventures until his death in 1947, whereupon Robert Kanigher took over the writer’s role. H. G. Peter soldiered on with his unique artistic contribution until he passed away in 1958. Wonder Woman #97, in April of that year, was his last hurrah and the end of an era.

With the exception of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and a few innocuous back-up features, costumed heroes had all but vanished at the end of the 1940s, replaced by mostly mortal champions in a deluge of anthologised genre titles until Showcase #4 rekindled the public’s interest in costumed crime-busters with a new iteration of The Flash in 1956.

From that moment the fanciful floodgates opened wide once more, and whilst re-inventing Golden Age Greats such as Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman, National/DC gradually updated all the those venerable veteran survivors who had weathered the backlash and none more so than the ever-resilient Amazing Amazon â€¦

Artists Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, who had illustrated every script since Wonder Woman #98 in May of 1958, finally bowed out during the dog-days of this pivotal monochrome collection (re-presenting issues #157-177, October 1965-August 1968), graduating to Superman, Brave & the Bold, The Flash and eventually new Kanigher combat creation The Losers, whilst the Amazing Amazon floundered on the edge of cancellation – as indeed she had done for much of the 1960s.

Writer/editor Kanigher had constantly reinvented much of the original mythos, tinkering with her origins and unleashing her on an unsuspecting world in a fanciful blend of girlish whimsy, rampant sexism, strange romance, alien invasion, monster-mashing and utterly surreal (some would say-stream-of-consciousness) storytellingâ€¦

By the time this volume opens the Silver Age superhero revival was at its peak and, despite individual stories of stunning imagination and excellence, the format and timbre of Wonder Woman was looking tired and increasingly out of step with the rest of National/DC’s gradually gelling – and ultimately shared – continuity but, by its close, costumed characters were again in decline and a radical overhaul of Diana Prince was on the cardsâ€¦

While all the other champions and defenders were getting together and teaming up at the drop of a hat – as indeed was the Princess of Power in Justice League of America – within the pages of her own title a timeless, isolated fantasy universe was carrying on much as it always had.

The madcap mythological mayhem began with the first of a two-part shocker from Wonder Woman #157 when Diana followed her beloved on a suicide mission to Red China – or Oolong Island, at least – where an insane and obnoxious giant cybernetic menace was planning to launch Nuclear Armageddon against the West.

Captured and transformed into ‘I – the Bomb!’ Steve Trevor was only saved by Amazon science but still had to endure separation and ‘The Fury of Egg Fu’ in #158 before crushing the ovoid outlaw once again.

Kanigher never forgot he was writing comicbooks and he took pains to constantly point it out to the readership – even though their preference might not be to have narrative rules, and suspension of disbelief flouted whilst fourth walls were continually broached. With ‘The End – or the Beginning?’ which closed out the issue, he gathered all the vast cast of the series in his office and told them that most of them were fired. Readers were then challenged to guess who would be back for the Big Change in #159â€¦

The promised reboot consisted of a full switch to the faux 1940’s stories road-tested in #156 (see Showcase Presents Wonder Woman volume 3) and began with ‘The Golden Age Secret Origin of Wonder Woman’ wherein we saw the humbling and self-exile of the Amazons, and how thousands of years later baby Diana was shaped from clay and given life by goddesses Athena and Aphrodite. Growing to mighty maturity, the girl then rescued downed Air Force pilot Steve Trevor and after winning a divinely-ordained contest travelled back to â€œMan’s Worldâ€ to conquer injustice and aggression through Amazon strength and ideals.

There was even room for a follow-up tale in which their journey was interrupted by enemy agents who brought down Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane on ‘Doom Island’, only to discover the staggering power of America’s latest defenderâ€¦

Issue #160 found her battling deranged bandit The Cheetah who took her Amazonian Bracelets of Submission and inadvertently unleashed all Diana’s pent-up hostility in ‘The Amazon of Terror’ before arch foe Mars psychically prompted a brilliant if misogynistic mutant midget to attack her in ‘Dr. Psycho’s Revenge’â€¦

WW #161 opened with a convoluted clash against freelance spy Countess Draska Nishki whilst rival film companies battled to produce the ultimate filmic Pharaonic epic. Happily ‘The Curse of Cleopatra’ proved to be industrial espionage and not ancient Egyptian evil and, undaunted, Diana then foiled a crooked attempt to steal Steve’s knowledge by Nishki and Angle Man who shrank inside his skull. Determined to save her beloved’s honour the Amazon had to win an incredible ‘Battle Inside of a Brain!’

‘The Startling Secret of Diana Prince’ opened #162 and disclosed how the Paradise Island Ã‰migrÃ© purchased the identity and papers of lovelorn Army Nurse Diana Prince in order to be close to Trevor at all times before ‘The Return of Minister Blizzard’ pitted Wonder Woman against an icy usurper determined to steal the throne and heart of a polar princess by giving her Manhattan as a giftâ€¦

Psycho returned in #163 and used an evolutionary advancement device to turn a two-ton anthropoid into curvaceous eight-foot tall blonde berserker. ‘Giganta – the Gorilla Girl’ then attacked the Amazon, determined to have Steve as her mateâ€¦ ‘Danger – Wonder Woman’ then reintroduced the Machiavellian Paula von Gunta – also inexplicably hot for Trevor – who used thugs, hypnosis and the Amazon’s own magic weapons in her campaign to remove her romantic rival.

Issue #164 featured a full-length thriller wherein the Power Princess was almost bamboozled into marrying Steve’s commanding officer General Darnell, before being compelled by Angle Man and her own magic lasso into attacking America in ‘Wonder Womanâ€¦ Traitor’ whilst in #165 ‘Perils of the Paper Man’ found an incredible parchment pariah turn to crime in an effort to win the Amazon’s heart before ‘The Three Fantastic Faces of Wonder Woman’ were made manifest by the irrepressibly evil Dr. Psycho.

In #166 ‘The Sinister Schemes of Egg Fu, the Fifth’ to steal US submarines were quickly scrambled by the Amazing Amazon whilst in ‘Once a Wonder Womanâ€¦!’ Diana’s attempts to win Steve in her unglamorous mortal persona were accidentally foiled by the perfidious Cheetah and WW# 167 offered up ‘The Secret of Tabu Mt.’ when the real Diana Prince needed help rescuing her new husband from a lost Aztec tribe, after which Steve shamefully used the ‘Strange Power of the Magic Lasso’ to make the Amazon his slave for a dayâ€¦

After inexplicably forgiving the sod, in #168 Diana almost lost her magical lariat in ‘Three Hands on the Magic Lasso’ when a ruthless collector hired Giganta, Dr. Psycho and Paula von Gunta to steal it for him whilst ‘Never in a Million Years’ found Diana back on Paradise Island attempting to forcibly dissuade a love-struck Amazon from following a man back to America.

The Golden Age veneer was gradually slipping and it once again seemed that the series was sliding towards oblivion. Middle period fantasy elements began to reappear, so when Mars created an almost unstoppable menace in #169, guile and passion at last won the day when ‘Wonder Woman Battles the Crimson Centipede’ after which General Darnell renewed his romantic campaign when the Amazon was trapped in ‘The Cage of Doom!’

A duplicate of Steve created by Dr. Psycho in #170 psychologically tortured and almost destroyed ‘The Haunted Amazon’ and unconquerable alien apes could only be stopped by ‘Wonder Woman – Gorilla’ after which WW#171 saw vacationing Amazons sucked into the ‘Terror Trap of the Demon Man-Fish’ before a malign miniscule malcontent reared his furry head again in the crime caper ‘Menace of the Mouse Man!’

Veteran war artist Irv Novick took over the art with #172 (October 1967) and ‘A Day in the Life of an Amazon’ presented a slightly more realistic edge, even though the portmanteau tale saw Diana crush costumed criminals, fight a giant baby and blitz an alien invasion whilst ‘The Amazing Amazon Crime!’ found her hard-pressed to defeat a felonious android facsimileâ€¦

Firmly re-established back in the late Sixties, #173 revealed ‘Wonder Woman’s Daring Deception’ when a jealous Amazon tried to usurp her position as ambassador to Man’s World after which she briefly became ‘Earth’s Last Human’ until a neat time-travel trick enabled her to go back in time and foil a Martian sneak attack. In #174 her boyfriend at last got to outshine Diana when mysterious power-pills (courtesy of Angle Man) enabled the Air Force pilot to become a superhero in ‘Steve Trevor – Alias The Patriot’ whilst ‘Wonder Woman vs. the Air Devils!’ ended the issue in a tense duel between the Princess of Power and the self-proclaimed King of Crimeâ€¦

With the end in sight and after decades at the helm, Kanigher managed one last genuine surprise twist in #175 when ‘Wonder Woman’s Evil Twin!’ from a parallel Earth attacked, determined to take everything our heroine cherished, but his final script was something of an anticlimax when the ‘Threat of the Triple Stars’ (#176 June 1968) found the Amazon seriously outmatched by three brothers whose sibling rivalry extended to seeing whom could out-power, woo, overwhelm and wed her. Apparently she had no say in the matterâ€¦

The final tale in this volume – and indeed of the old Amazing Amazon â€“ was a fill-in by Bill Finger, J. Winslow Mortimer & Jack Abel, and one of the best tales of the entire run.

‘Wonder Woman and Supergirl vs. the Planetary Conqueror!’ (August 1968) detailed how interplanetary marauder Klamos had briefly tired of battle and sought a mate. Abducting the most powerful females from a host of worlds, the astral emperor forced them to battle for the â€œhonourâ€ of being his bride. In a thrilling, gritty tale, the Girl of Steel and Amazing Amazon at last showed their mettle – and feminist credentials – by trashing everything and exposing a colossal deception at the heart of an evil empire that spanned a dozen galaxies.

It was a splendid high note to end on. With the next issue Mike Sekowsky would begin a root and branch overhaul that would see Steve murdered, Diana stripped of her powers and the Amazons gone from the Earth. A whole new kind of Wonder Woman was comingâ€¦ and can be seen in the magical quartet of full-colour collections Diana Prince: Wonder Woman, and hopefully one day in an equally stunning monochrome Showcase edition such as this oneâ€¦

Always wild, bold, action-packed, thrilling and utterly delightful, whilst often mind-boggling and practically incomprehensible by modern narrative standards, these exuberant, effulgent fantasies are usually illogical and occasionally just plain bonkers, but in those days adventure in the moment was paramount and if you could put rationality and consistency aside for a moment these utterly infectious romps simply sparkled then and now with fun, thrills and sheer spectacle.

Wonder Woman is rightly revered as a focus of female strength, independence and empowerment, but the welcoming nostalgia and easy familiarity of such innocuous imaginative fairytales must be a magical escape for open-minded readers, whilst the true, incomparable value of these stories is the incredible quality entertainment they still offer.
Â© 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 201 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

June 11, 2012June 10, 2012

Legion of Super Hero Archives volume 7

By Jim Shooter, Curt Swan, George Klein, Pete Costanza, Jim Mooney & Sheldon Moldoff (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-398-3

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest hero of all time and formed a club of champions. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join themâ€¦

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history constantly tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten time and time again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

This stunning and sturdy, action packed seventh full-colour deluxe hardback collection re-presents tales from the disparate Superman Family titles which saw the early zenith of the team in sagas from their own feature spanning Adventure Comics #359-367 from August 1967 to April 1968 cover-dates, with a Legion-starring tale from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106 (October 1967) thrown in at no extra cost.

This period completed the Tomorrow Team’s transformation from wholesome, humorous and generally safe science fiction strip into a grittily determined army of galactic warriors dedicated to universal peace and, after an effusive and fulsome Foreword from sometime Legion scripter Tom Peyer, the action starts fast, picks up speed and just keeps goingâ€¦

The architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (generally finished and inked by veterans Curt Swan & George Klein) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up in the Futureâ€¦

Adventure #359 found the entire team of once-beloved and trusted champions disbanded and on the run as ‘The Outlawed Legionnaires!’ thanks to the manipulations of a devious old foe, only to rousingly regroup and comprehensively counter-attack in #360’s conclusion ‘The Legion Chain Gang!’

Once again restored to their position as a key component of United Planets Security in ‘The Unkillables!’, a small superhero squad consisting of Bouncing Boy, Duo Damsel, Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl, Karate Kid, Shrinking Violet, Superboy, Star Boy, Collossal Boy, Light Lass and Brainiac 5 were then assigned to protect alien ambassadors the Dominators from political agitators, assassins and a hidden traitor in a tense thriller illustrated by Jim Mooney, after which ‘The Lone Wolf Legion Reporter!’ (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106, by Shooter & Pete Costanza) found the young newsman seconded to the 30th century to help with the club newspaper. Sadly he was far better at making news than publishing itâ€¦

Adventure Comics #362 found the Legion scattered across three worlds as mad scientist Mantis Morlo refused to let environmental safety interfere with his experiments in ‘The Chemoids are Coming!’, resulting in a lethally ‘Black Day for the Legion!’â€¦

Shooter & Costanza then topped their gripping two-parter by uncovering ‘The Revolt of the Super-Pets!’ in #364, when the crafty rulers of planet Thanl attempted to seduce the animal adventurersÂ Krypto, Streaky, Beppo the Super-Monkey, super-horse Comet and amorphous telepathic blob Proty II from their rightful – subordinate – positions with sweet words and palatial new homesâ€¦

When the isolated world of Talok 8 went dark and became an ultra-militaristic threat to the UP, their planetary champion Shadow Lass led Superboy, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy and Karate Kid on a reconnaissance mission which resulted in the disastrous ‘Escape of the Fatal Five!’ – illustrated by the returning Swan & Klein, whose time was increasingly being taken up with work in Superman and Action Comics).

The despicable quintet then almost conquered the UP itself and were only frustrated by the defiant, last ditch efforts of the battered heroes in the blistering conclusion ‘The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!’

In grateful thanks the Legion were gifted with a vast new HQ but before the paint was even dry a vast paramilitary force attempted to invade the slowly rebuilding planet Earth in #367’s ‘No Escape from the Circle of Death!’ (with additional inking by Sheldon Moldoff) ending this classic collection with a blockbuster battle and revelatory encounter which would reshape DC continuity in the years to comeâ€¦

The Legion is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom.

Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League – enflamed the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and underpinned the industry we all know today.

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