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Lat’s Lot- the Second Collection


By Datuk Mohammad Nor Khalid AKA “Lat” (Berita Publishing)
No ISBN:

Mohammad Nor Khalid is probably Malaysia’s most beloved and prolific cartoonist, having begun his professional career aged 13 and working continuously in comics, strip illustration and journalism as well as the editorial and political works that have made him a household name in Asia.

Born in 1951 the son of a government clerk in the Malaysian military, the artist spent his early life in a rural village (superbly captured and eulogised in his graphic recollection Kampung Boy) before moving to the city in 1962 – with those later autobiographical reminiscences and observations recalled in cartoon sequel Town Boy. As early as 1960 the precocious nine-year old was selling his drawings – or trading them for cinema tickets.

Exposed to a steady diet of music, films and imported comics such as Beano and Dandy, as well as home-grown material such as the bombastic adventure strips of Raja Hamzah, within two years Khalid was supplementing the family income with his edgy, exuberant and sublimely inclusive drawings.

Mentored by senior cartoonist Rejab bin Had (known nationally as “Rejabhad”) the boy sold his first comicbook series Tiga Sekawan (Three Friends Catch a Thief) to Sinaran Brothers Publishers who believed the postal submissions came from an adult professional. Khalid, saddled with his baby nickname “bulat” – which means “round” – from an early age, turned the moniker into the diminutive and distinctive pen-name Lat by which a goodly portion of the world now knows him…

In 1968, he began the weekly strip Keluarga Si Mamat (Mamat’s Family) for Berita Minggu, the Sunday edition of national newspaper Berita Harian. The series ran for 26 years.

On leaving school, Lat became a crime reporter for Berita Harian in the capital Kuala Lumpur, but in 1974 switched to drawing full-time after a cartoon feature in Hong Kong paper Asia Magazine (on the Malaysian circumcision ceremony Bersunat) brought him to the attention of editor-in-chief Tan Sri Lee Siew Yee of the New Straits Times. Unaware that the artist was already an employee, the big boss promptly commissioned a series of cartoons entitled Scenes of Malaysian Life. The paper thereafter also dispatched Lat on a four-month sabbatical toEngland where he studied atSt. Martin’sCollege ofArt inLondon. Whilst there, Lat was exposed to such varied and iconoclastic draughtsmen as Gerald Scarfe, Frank Dickens and Ralph Steadman…

On his return, the inspired young craftsman totally transformed Scenes of Malaysian Life and in 1975 was made chief editorial cartoonist with absolute carte blanche to draw whatever he liked…

Working for such prominent national newspapers Lat blended astute observation, palpable honesty, utter neutrality and a superbly self-deprecating ironic gentility with a keen sense of what ordinary Malaysians knew, felt and were interested about.  In 1978 his first compilation book was released and, ever-bolshie, I’ve decided to review the second one, which was rushed out a few months later to cope with the frantic demand for more, more, more…

Ceaselessly working, Lat has published more than 20 books and cartoon collections and branched out into animation, design, merchandising and even theme-park creation. He’s also produced an animated feature (‘Mina Smiles’) promoting literacy for Unesco.

This glorious over-sized 144 page monochrome masterpiece features 74 of his very best strips and panels, covering all aspects of the Malaysian experience both at home and abroad – even the experiences and emotions of Lat’s ‘Trip Across U.S.A.’ so eerily echo my own ( or indeed anyone’s) first trip to the Big Country…

The full page cartoon statements on ‘Going to Work’, ‘The Long Wait’, ‘Married Life’ and longer pieces dedicated to such diverse topics as Elvis impersonators, ‘Penang Revisited’, ‘Police Force: the Way We Were’ and the Tamil/Bollywood romance of ‘Velappan and Minachi’ display the author’s wickedly sly sense of the absurd, and there’s a stinging selection of political scoops such as ‘Hussein and the Pay Rise’, ‘Pay Claims’, ‘Endau – Rompin Summit’, ‘Asri’s Story’ and ‘Visitor from Japan’ to smirk over.

Poignant childhood memories such as ‘Football in the Kampung’, ‘Life with Dad’, ‘Football Fever’, ‘Exam Time’, ‘Hostel Life’, ‘Metrication Woes’, ‘Our First Woman Soccer Referee’ and ‘Down Negri Way’, the hidden depths of sardonic surreality in ‘My Ardent Fan’, ‘Let’s Do the Bump’ or ‘My Fair Body’ sit happily beside razor-sharp commentaries about ordinary folk in ‘The Male Look’, ‘The Short Cut’, ‘Panorama’ and many more to tickle the fancy.

Moreover the bustling multi-national, multi-faith, complicated but wonderfully functional melting pot is superbly celebrated in such strips as ‘In an Indian Restaurant’, ‘The Hawkers’, ‘At the Tea Stall’, ‘Fasting Time Again’, ‘A Hakka Wedding’, ‘The Orang Putehs’ and so many others which make this book above everything else a perfect advert for an exotic land and welcoming society we should all have on our “must see” list…

In 1994 Lat was awarded the honorific “Datuk” (equivalent to our own Knighthood) by the Sultan of Perak, recognising the cartoonist’s contribution to promoting social harmony and understanding through his years of artistic endeavour.

Referencing recognisable dashes of Searle’s unsavoury oik Nigel Molesworth with an amazing aura of madcap cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, these superb specimens display the vibrant life of a completely different culture – so comfortingly like to our own – but are, most impressively, a brilliant and uniquely personal peek into the mind and heart of a perfect artistic ambassador: one we should all be far more aware of.
© 1978 Berita Publishing Sdn. Bhd. All rights reserved.

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Tiger Tim Annual 1951


By various (the Amalgamated Press)
No ISBN

Feeling particularly nostalgic and wistful over the sad news about The Dandy’s imminent departure/transfiguration from the realm of newsprint, I’m going to look at a book from the era ofBritain’s comics heyday.

Normally I’d review graphic novels and trade paperback collections with a view to the reader and potential purchaser hopefully becoming a fan or even addict of the picture-strip medium. Here though, I’m simply applying modern critical sensibilities to one of the landmark items and indeed, an entire genre of pictorial edification which seems forever lost; permanently removed from the contemporary cultural scene.

If, however, you’re lucky enough to stumble across a copy or indeed any similar vintage volume, I hope my words convince you to acquire it. As ever, my real purpose and sinister scheme is to create a groundswell or even a little ripple in the entertainment ether, since I’m back on my high and wide horse about the paucity of classic vintage strips, stories and comics material available to the young and older readers of the 21st century.

So much magical material is out there in print limbo. Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of happy punters once again. On one level the tastes of the public have never been more catholic than today and a sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base.

Let’s make copyright owners aware that there’s money to be made – not loads, admittedly, but some – from these slices of our childhood, and modern technology has never been more adept at capturing, preserving and disseminating these lost and disintegrating classics…

yourgrandadscomics.org – if we build it, they will come…

Tiger Tim’s Annual 1951 was released by The Amalgamated Press in 1950 (the dating was year-forward on these colourful, bumper, hard-backed premium editions so the book would have been released in the Autumn intended as a Christmas staple) with the 1948 London Games (if not Sir Ludwig Guttman’s largely unknown International Wheelchair Games – which grew into the Paralympics of today) an already fading memory. The people’s thoughts were already turning to the upcoming Festival of Britain and the perennial rumours that rationing would be eased – if not ended.

For kids, radio, comics and being outside in the fresh air were the order of the day. DC Thomson’s exuberant and anarchic stable of titles were still the favourites, although new high class entry the Eagle was increasingly dictating the way things should and could be done.

Although far less open to change, Alfred Harmsworth’s Amalgamated Press was the other prolific powerhouse purveyor of children’s papers, with a pedigree that stretched back to the end of the 19th century and a stranglehold on syndicated and licensed characters (especially film and radio stars) which kept well-intentioned, nostalgic parents coming back for more…

Their undisputed super-star was the phenomenally popular Tiger Tim and his gang of chums The Bruin Boys (Jumbo Elephant, Willie Ostrich, Georgie Giraffe, Bobby Bruin, Jacko Monkey, Joey Parrot, Porkyboy Pig and Fido Pup) who all spent their days learning to be civilised at Mrs Bruin’s Boarding School, originally rendered by Julius Stafford Baker but eventually to grow into a multi-artist enterprise encompassing many of the country’s greatest – if uncelebrated – artists.

Tim had first appeared in Harmsworth’s Daily Mirror in 1904, and graduated in 1909 to the weekly Playbox supplement for children in ‘The World and His Wife’.

The Rainbow weekly colour comic began in February 1914 and Tim was the cover feature until its demise in 1956. In 1919 Tiger Tim’s Weekly (née Tales) also launched and he had been the star of his own annual since 1921 (first one dated 1922 – got it now?). At a time when merchandising deals for children’s features were in their infancy,

the characters were so popular that Britains – the toy soldier manufacturers – launched a line of lead figures to sell alongside their more militaristic and farm animal fare.

In this twilight years album, the line-up as ever includes not only the anthropomorphic Tim and Co. (with five strip prose stories and a magical double page cartoon spread) but also a number of general features (prose and strip), fact pieces and many puzzles and games for its young readership to keep the nippers engrossed – and quiet – for hours…

One more thing and an admittedly shameful one: when this book was released, our views of other races and cultures ranged from the patronisingly parochial to the outrageously insular to the smugly intolerable and unforgivable.

As with every aspect of British – Hell, all “White Culture” – there was an implicit assumption of racial superiority – notwithstanding the fact that every empire is built on multi-nationality; and even within living memory WWII could not have been won by white warriors alone.

Which brings us head-on into the arena of ethnic stereotyping. All I can say is what I always do: the times were different. Mercifully we’ve moved beyond the obvious institutionalised iniquities of casual racism and sexism and are much more tolerant today (unless you’re obese, gay, a smoker, a liberal, or childless and happy about it), but if antiquated attitudes and caricaturing might offend you, don’t read old comics – it’s your choice and your loss.

Moreover, the class and even regional differences underpinning this entire era are far more dangerous – just look at Sexton Blake and Tinker or middleclass educated Dan Dare and his canny, competent but ultimately comedic “Ee baih gum, sidekick” Digby…

Historic portrayals and inclusions of other races have always and will always be controversial and potentially offensive from our contemporary standpoint, and we have thankfully moved on since those ignorant times. It’s not really even an excuse to say, at least in our post-war comics, that baddies were mostly our own kind and differently-hued cultures were generally friendly, noble savages not trying to eat us…

Nor will this diversion ameliorate the shock of an illustrated song at the back of this particular book: I’m saying nothing now but By Crikey you’ll know when we get to it…

This 1950’s annual begins in traditional manner: following a stunning painted frontispiece for an adventure story at the back, Tim’s terrors kick off proceedings with ‘The Fancy Dress Show’ – a prose romp wherein the mischievous scholars are themselves pranked.

All the strips in the Annual are of the traditional “block-&-pic” sort with a progression of beautifully rendered drawings in panels accompanied by a paragraph of typeset words, and the ‘Lazy Prince’ delightfully depicts the tale of a Baker’s boy who trades places with the bored heir to the throne after which bear-cub ‘Mickey Mischief’ got into hot water and other ingredients in the kitchen…

Illustrated poem ‘Runaway Oranges’ is followed by ‘The Best Sort of Capstick’, a story of a poorly-dressed Prince, rounded off by half-page strip ‘Funny Dobbin’ after which the partially-coloured portion of the book opens with a quartet of pixie-like lads and their pet pig in the strip ‘The Brownie Boys and Old King Cole’.

After an illustrated spread featuring the Bruin Boys and the other stars of the book at ‘The School Play’ and ‘The Tree-Top Tuck-Shop Man’ (illustrated by the magnificent S.J. Cash), three little piggies got ‘In a Tangle’ and F. L. Cromptoy(?) depicted the toy cinema story ‘Half-Price day for Dollies’ before it was back to prose for ‘Plucky Frank Saves the Old Windmill’.

Herbert Foxwell was the star illustrator on Tim’s adventures and he probably also limned the prose piece ‘Striped Paint – a Father Christmas Mystery’ after which the anonymous strip ‘A Message from Castle Grim’ found young Robin Hood rescuing ten-year old Maid Marian from a dungeon whilst ‘Flippy to the Rescue’ described the fate of a talking plane who proved he wasn’t too old to fly.

The half-page strip ‘Clever Spot’ is followed by a stylish retelling of ‘There Was an Old Woman (Who Lived in a Shoe)’ and the picture strip ‘Sunshade Ships’ with ingenious kittens The Tibbles helping out after a flood before the ‘Bruin Boy Band’ leads to a lot of noise about who ate all the pies…

Games and puzzles were a big part of the Annual experience and ‘Dolly’s Birthday’ combines strip-thrills and compelling conundrums in one, after which the text drama ‘Enter Two Professors’ features impostors and high jinks at Deepwell School.

‘Fairy Folk Tree’ is another illustrated rhyme courtesy of M. Newhouse whilst ‘The Brownie Boys of Dr. Acorn’s School’ tried to re-enact the events of the Cat and the Fiddle with the usual outcome after which puzzle-strip ‘The Lost Princess’ combined epic adventure with a series of tests for the readers and ‘Comical Crackers’ found Tiger Tim and Chums swapping a few japes and Christmas games of their own.

‘A Short Poem about a Long Dog’ is followed by a glorious animal excursion in ‘The Regatta’ by Cowell, whilst text-wise Peter the Page got into big trouble with ‘The Wizard’s Hat’ and mean Mr. Miggley-Moley learned too late the benefits of sharing ‘A House Underground’ in a truly splendid two-colour strip.

Professor Snook became ‘The Stay-at-Home Explorer’ in a rhyming saga, and fear of the dark unnecessarily afflicted ‘The Brownie Boys of Dr. Acorn’s School’ before Tim and the Boys went on holiday in ‘Hurrah for the Seaside!’ and ‘Puzzle Pantomimes’ led into a bold rescue mission for a little girl in the strip ‘Molly’s Redskin Chum’.

King Dandy was compelled to extreme measures to remove unwelcome familial squatter Count Crunch in the text tale ‘Camping Out!’– hilariously illustrated by R. Payton – before those three piggies returned to transform their homemade aeroplane into a ‘Flying Clothes Line’.

There was old-fashioned pirate peril for young Jack Ready when the valiant “Ship’s Powder-monkey” was aided by a furry-tailed young gallant on ‘Monkey Island’ whilst, after ‘A Funny “Tail” of Christmas Eve’, the Chinese lad Ting-a-Ling learned the power of ‘The Magic Ring’, a prose tale capped off with a two-panel strip about Old Mother Hubbard‘s dog.

‘Tubby Enjoys a Joke as much as a Feast’ revelled in the hoary delights of japes and food parcels from home, after which ‘The Brownie Boys of Dr. Acorn’s School’ were lost in a nautical dream and the cleverest and greediest of the Bruin Boys stunned everybody by admitting ‘Porky Likes Work!’

‘Funny Jokes on Parade’ is followed by a strip concerning a poor working lad and a ‘Lucky Book’ after which impoverished King Popcorn regrets ‘The Royal Spring-Clean’ but still reaps a happy reward.

The book proper ends with that illustrated sing-along page so brace yourself and remember “context is everything” for ‘All Aboard for Darkietown’ before dashing on to the closing letter from the feline star in ‘Greetings to all from Tiger Tim’ and an ad for Rainbow and Playbox. The back cover is also an advert – for Cadbury’s Bourneville Cocoa – cunningly disguised as a maze for the kids to solve.

Children’s staples such as detective mysteries, school stories, sea-faring adventures, westerns past and present with studied additions to myths, fairy-tales and pantomime stories were always the bread and butter of these books, all trauma-free yarns meant to thrill while creating a love of reading.

What they considered age-appropriate children’s content might raise a few eyebrows these days. Popular fiction from a populist publisher will always embody some underlying assumptions unpalatable to some modern readers, but good taste was always a watchword when producing work for younger children, and some interactions between white children and other races is a little utopian, perhaps. The more insidious problem as I’ve already suggested arises from the accepted class-structures in some of the stories and the woefully un-PC sexism throughout.

None of this detracts one jot from the sheer creative power of the artists involved, and all we can hope for is that the reader uses judgement and perspective when viewing or revisiting material this old. Just remember Thomas Jefferson kept slaves, it’s only been unacceptable to beat your wife since the 1980’s, and in some areas even today people who die in police custody apparently only have themselves to blame…

So before I go off on another one or get on to another government watch list, let’s return to the subject at hand and say that despite all the restrictions and codicils this is a beautiful piece of children’s entertainment in the time-honoured fashion of Enid Blyton, Dodie Smith and Arthur Ransome, with lovely illustrations that would make any artist weep with envy.

You and your kids deserve the chance to see it for yourself.
© 1950 The Amalgamated Press.
Which I’m assuming is now part of IPC Ltd., so © 2012 IPC Ltd.

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Bad Girls


By Steve Vance, Jennifer Graves, Christine Norrie, J. Bone & Daniel Krall (DC comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2359-5

Ever since English-language comics “grew up” and proclaimed they weren’t “just for kids anymore” the industry and art form has struggled to produce material that would appeal to young consumers and a general teen readership.

And Girls. We’ve never been able to keep enough girls reading comics – or even talking to us, if I’m brutally honest…

Haunted by a terrifying suspicion that the core buyers were a specific hooked generation who aged with the passing years and would die out without renewing or replenishing the buying base, mainstream companies have, since the 1990’s, frantically sought ways to make the medium as attractive to new and youthful buyers and potential fans.

Fighting a losing battle on format – it’s always going to be sequential pictures, whether on a screen or in some kind of book or pamphlet, requiring a basic ability to read – and never able to combat the vibrant, bells-and-whistles immediacy of TV, DVDs, streamed video or games consoles, comic producers, apparently distrusting the basic innate strengths of our medium, could only repeatedly attempt to appeal to young consumers’ other sensibilities and interests.

Leaving aside the obvious – and ancient – failed tactic of making comicbook iterations out of their perceived rival entertainments, the only other way to entice newbies into our playground has been to widen the genre divides and offer fresh or imported ideas, stories and art styles that (like manga) might appeal to people who don’t normally think of comics as entertainment.

Sadly most of those – good, bad or indifferent – went unread anyway, because they were only advertised in comics and retailed through dedicated in comicbook stores – infamous as impenetrable girl-free zones…

One such delightful lost experiment was released by DC as a 5-part miniseries in 2003. Author Steve Vance’s best comics work is child-accessible, with long and intensely enjoyable runs on the animation-inspired Adventures in the DC Universe and Simpsons Comics (among others) and in this witty blend of high school comedy and science fiction conspiracy movie, he and artist co-creator Jennifer Graves had a huge amount of sly fun producing what could still be a perfect Teen Movie in the manner of Heathers, Bring It On, Mean Girls, John Tucker Must Die or even Teen Wolf.

As a comicbook, however, it just never found the wide audience it deserved, so kudos to DC for reviving it as a graphic collection in 2009. After all, it’s never too late …

Almost every American kid endures the savage crucible of organised education, and the youthful attendees of San Narciso High are a pretty typical bunch. Even in a brand new institution opening for its very first day, there are the faceless majority and nerds and jocks and the popular ones: all part of the mythically perennial melting pot.

… And then there’s Lauren Case, a forthright, sensible young lady who has changed schools many, many times.

In ‘Girl Power’ she starts off well-enough, safely lost in the crowd, but before the first morning is over, an acrobatic and painful encounter with science geek Ronald Bogley leads to a face off with the community’s ultra-spoiled princesses Tiffany, Brittany, Destinee and Ashley.

Ms Case suffers the hallowed punishment of a crushing snub from the haughty Mean Girls whilst the Jock Squad – ever eager to impress the de facto rulers of the roost – treat poor Ronald to the traditional watery going-over in the restrooms. However a dunking in the oddly purple toilet water results, for just a split second, in the nerd gaining the strength to smash walls in his bare hands. Alert to all sorts of possibilities, Ronald fills a drinking bottle with the lavender lavatory liquid for testing in his lab…

Later in science class Lauren is partnered with Ronald and inadvertently blows up the lab, but at least she makes friend out of quick-thinking Simone who puts out the resultant conflagration.

At the end of a very trying first day Lauren offers a hand of peace and guiltily patronising friendship to the bespectacled geek – who is utterly smitten with her – when the Princess Pack turns up, intrigued that the new girl’s propensity for mischief and mayhem might make her eligible for their condescending attention. She might even, with a lot of hard work, become one of them…

Knowing anything they want is theirs by divine right, the girls drink the strange purple juice Ronald left and invite Lauren to join them at a club that night…

With their departure Ronald comes out of hiding and shows her his science project; lab mice Snowie and Doodles who are demonstrating increased vitality after drinking the purple potion he “discovered”…

Hating herself, Lauren joins the Popular People at Club Trystero and strikes up a conversation with Simone, but quickly drops her when the anointed ones show up. Soon she is lost in the swirl of drink, music and attentive, fawning, testosterone-fuelled boys but gets a severe unreality check when the spoiled ones abruptly begin demonstrating super-powers (Brittany – shape-shifting, Destinee – invisibility, Tiffany – flight and Ashley – super-strength), trashing the place with sublime indifference and their usual casual disregard to consequences.

Knowing that the insanely entitled girls will be more vile and malicious than ever, she tells Ronald, who reveals that after closely observing his beloved mice, he’s discovered that the liquid only imparts permanent abilities to females.

He then suggests that Lauren become a superhero to battle Tiffany and her terrible tarts, but naturally she hotly rejects his insane suggestion. Realising only he can now stop the bad girls, Ronald rushes to the toilets for more of the purple water only to find a repair crew fixing the damage he caused and the water there is fresh, clear and very, very, normal…

In ‘Party Girls’ (illustrated by Christine Norrie & J. Bone) the Petty, Pretty Things are going firmly off the rails, with stealing test answers and framing others for indiscretions – just because they can – quickly graduating to raiding ATMs, purloining booze and shop-lifting.

Meanwhile Ronald accidentally stumbles upon the true source of the purple power juice and begins more testing, unaware that a Federal investigation team is covertly examining the damaged washroom and other odd occurrences in San Narciso…

At an unsanctioned party the girls go wild, at last realising that their incredible abilities can make them… celebrities!

In her egomaniacal smugness Tiffany causes one boy severe injury but when the police arriveBrittanyturns into a cop and “escorts” her sinister sisters out of custody…

Narrowly escaping arrest herself, Lauren awakes the next morning feeling awful and gradually realises that she can read minds…

With her new cacophonous and distracting ability it doesn’t take long to discover that Ronald has dosed her with the mystery fluid, but ‘Mindfield’ offers temptation beyond endurance, as her power – once she gets the hang of it – makes Lauren’s life so much easier. Still a probationary member of Tiffany’s clique, she also becomes privy to the terrified intimate thoughts of Destinee, Ashley and Brittany, and what they really feel about themselves and their self-obsessed leader. Aware of how close to the dark side she has drifted, Lauren confides everything to Simone. Meanwhile Agents Osgood and Buckner are keenly watching the Bad Girls’ every move and when Destinee is caught shoplifting again a frantic chase results in the invisible girl’s death…

‘Girl, Intercepted’ (art by Norrie & Daniel Krall) opens at the funeral with Destinee, Ashley and Tiffany far more concerned about how they’re dressed than the fate of their departed… associate… uncaring of the rumours now circulating. Lauren decides to use her power to surreptitiously help her school mates and teachers – although for some reason she cannot read science teacher Mr. Heisenberg’s mind – but Ronald has his own problems: Snowie and Doodles have broken free of their cage and escaped…

At least that’s what Heisenberg wants the geeky kid to believe…

Events come to an unbelievable head after the girls finally discover Lauren’s sneaky secret power and throw her out of a skyscraper, before going on one final petulant rampage. In a torrent of frantic revelation the agents’ true aims are exposed, the origin of the power-potion disclosed, Heisenberg’s schemes are uncovered and a few more astounding surprises unleashed in ‘All Bad Things Must Come to an End’: a thrilling and cynically satisfying conclusion that will delight fun-loving readers and viewers alike.

This fabulous engaging tome also includes the gallery of spiffy covers by Darwyn Cooke and a Sketches section of Jennifer Graves’ production designs.

By the Way: DC are currently offering a swathe of games-based adaptations specifically aimed at their more mature consumers whilst simultaneously winding down the Cartoon Network comics division which has always produced superb introductory strip material for those pre-school and very young readers who must surely be the industry’s best hope for a new generation of potential life-long fans.

I’m Just Saying…
© 2003 Steve Vance and Jennifer Graves. All Rights Reserved. Cover, text and compilation © 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files 01


By John Wagner, Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson, Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-90426-579-0

Britain’s last great comic icon could be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s also well on the way to becoming the longest-lasting adventure character in our admittedly meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he first appeared in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD – and now that the Dandy’s slated for cancellation, veterans Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan might one day be overtaken in the comedy stakes too…

However with at least 52 2000AD strips a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and later The Metro), the Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections and even two rather appalling DC Comics spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

Bolland by his own admission was an uneconomically slow artist and much of his Dredd work appeared as weekly portions of large epics with other artists handling other episodes,

Judicial Briefing: Dredd and his dystopian ultra-metropolis of Mega-City One – originally it was to be a 21st century New York – were created by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others, but with the major contribution coming from legendary writer John Wagner, who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own and several pseudonyms.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper and more efficient than humans, and jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom has reached epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate…

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future (In)Tense with all the key analogues for successful science fiction (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The planet is divided into political camps with post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with the Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs. The Eastern lawmen are militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards – so just imagine what they’re actually like…

They are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realise is that the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Such was not the case when the super-cop debuted in 2000AD Prog (that’s issue number to you) #2 (March 5th 1977), stuck at the back of the new weekly comic in a tale finally scripted after much intensive re-hashing by Peter Harris and illustrated by Mike McMahon & Carlos Ezquerra.

The blazing, humourless, no-nonsense (all that would happily come later) action yarn introduced the bike-riding Sentinel of Order in the tale of brutal bandit Whitey whose savage crime spree was ended with ferocious efficiency before the thug was sentenced to Devil’s Island – a high-rise artificial plateau surrounded by the City’s constant stream of lethal, never-ending, high-speed traffic…

In Prog 3 he investigated The New You in a cunning thriller by Kelvin Gosnell & McMahon wherein a crafty crook tried to escape justice by popping into his local face-changing shop, whilst #4 saw the first appearance of the outcast mutants in The Brotherhood of Darkness (Malcolm Shaw & McMahon) when the ghastly pariahs invaded the megalopolis in search of slaves.

The first hints of humour began in Prog 5’s Krong by Shaw & Ezquerra, with the introduction of Dredd’s Italian cleaner Maria, wherein deranged horror film fan and hologram salesman Kevin O’Neill – yes it’s an in-joke – unleashed a giant mechanical gorilla on the city. The issue was the first of many to cover-feature old Stone Face…

Frankenstein 2 pitted Dredd against an audacious medical mastermind hijacking citizens to keep his rich aging clients in fresh, young organs, after which #7 saw ruthless reprobate Ringo’s gang of muggers flaunting their criminality in the very shadow of The Statue of Judgement until Dredd lowered the boom on them…

Charles Herring & Massimo Belardinelli produced the Antique Car Heist in #8, which first indicated that the super-cop’s face was hideously disfigured, when the Judge tracked down a murderous thief who stole an ancient petrol-burning vehicle, after which co-creator John Wagner returned in Prog 9 to begin his staggering run of tales with Robots, illustrated by veteran British science fiction artist Ron Turner, which set the scene for an ambitious mini-saga in #10-17. The gripping vignette was set at the Robot of the Year Show, and revealed the callous cruelty indulged in by citizens upon their mechanical slaves as a by-product of a violent blackmail threat by a disabled maniac in a mechanical-super chair…

Those casual injustices paved the way for Robot Wars (alternately illustrated over the weeks by Ezquerra, Turner, McMahon & Ian Gibson) wherein carpenter-robot Call-Me-Kenneth experienced a mechanical mind meltdown and became a human-hating steel Spartacus, leading a bloody revolution against the fleshy oppressors. The slaughter was widespread and terrible before the Judges regained control, helped in no small part by loyal, lisping Vending droid Walter the Wobot, who became at the epic’s end Dredd’s second live-in comedy foil…

With order restored a sequence of self-contained stories firmed up the vision of the crazed city. In Prog 18 Wagner & McMahon introduced the menace of mind-bending Brainblooms cultivated by a little old lady career criminal, Gerry Finley-Day & John Cooper described the galvanising effect of the Muggers Moon on Mega-City 1’s criminal class whilst Dredd demonstrated the inadvisability of being an uncooperative witness…

Wagner & McMahon introduced Dredd’s bizarre paid informant Max Normal in #20, whose latest tip ended the profitable career of The Comic Pusher, Finley-Day & Turner turned in a workmanlike thriller as the super-cop tackled a seasoned killer with a deadly new weapon in The Solar Sniper and Wagner & Gibson showed the draconian steps Dredd was prepared to take to bring in mutant assassin Mr Buzzz.

Prog 23 launched into all-out ironic satire mode with Finley-Day & McMahon’s Smoker’s Crime when Dredd trailed a killer with a bad nicotine habit to a noxious City Smokatorium, after which Malcolm Shaw, McMahon & Ezquerra revealed the uncanny secret of The Wreath Murders in #24. The next issue began the feature’s long tradition of spoofing TV and media fashions when Wagner & Gibson concocted a lethal illegal game show in You Bet Your Life whilst #26 exposed the sordid illusory joys and dangers of the Dream Palace (McMahon) and #27-28 offered some crucial background on the Judges themselves when Dredd visited The Academy of Law (Wagner & Gibson) to give Cadet Judge Giant his final practical exam. Of course for Dredd there were no half measures or easy going and the novice barely survived his graduation…

With the concluding part in #28, Dredd moved to second spot in 2000AD (behind brutally jingoistic thriller Invasion) and the next issue saw Pat Mills & Gibson tackle robot racism as Klan-analogue The Neon Knights brutalised the reformed and broken artificial citizenry until the Juggernaut Judge crushed them.

Mills then offered tantalising hints on Dredd’s origins in The Return of Rico! (McMahon) when a bitter criminal resurfaced after twenty years on the penal colony of Titan, looking for vengeance upon the Judge who had sentenced him. From his earliest days as a fresh-faced rookie, Joe Dredd had no time for corrupt lawmen – even if one were his own clone-brother…

Whitey escaped from Devil’s Island (Finley-Day & Gibson) in Prog 31, thanks to a cobbled-together device that turned off weather control, but didn’t get far before Dredd sent him back, whilst the fully automated skyscraper resort Komputel (Robert Flynn & McMahon) became a multi-story murder factory that only the City’s greatest Judge could counter before Wagner (frequently using the pseudonym John Howard) took sole control for a series of  savage whacky escapades beginning with #33’s Walter’s Secret Job (Gibson) as the besotted droid was discovered moonlighting as a cabbie to buy pwesents for his beloved master.

McMahon and Gibson illustrated the two-part tale of Mutie the Pig: a flamboyant criminal who was also a bent Judge, and performed the same tag-team effort for The Troggies, a debased colony of ancient humans living under the city and preying on unwary citizens…

Something of a bogie man for wayward kids and exhausted parents, Dredd did himself no favours in Prog 38 when he burst in on Billy Jones (Gibson) and revealed a massive espionage plot utilising toys as surveillance tools, and tackled The Ape Gang in #39 (19th November 1977 and drawn by McMahon), seamlessly graduating to the lead spot whilst shutting down a turf war between augmented, educated, criminal anthropoids in the unruly district dubbed “the Jungle”…

The Mega-City 5000 was an illegal and murderously bloody street race the Judges were determined to shut down, but the gripping action-illustration of the Bill Ward drawn first chapter was sadly overshadowed by hyper-realist rising star Brian Bolland, who began his legendary association with Dredd by concluding the mini-epic in blistering, captivating style in Prog 41.

From out of nowhere in a bold change of pace, Dredd was then seconded to the Moon for a six-month tour of duty in #42 to oversee the rambunctious, nigh-lawless colony set up by the unified efforts of three US Mega-Cities there. The place was as bonkers as Mega-City One and a good deal less civilised – a true Final Frontier town…

The extended epic began with Luna-1 by Wagner & Gibson, with Dredd and stowaway Walter almost shot down en route in a mysterious missile attack and then targeted by a suicide bomb robot before they could even unpack.

‘Showdown on Luna-1’ introduced permanent Deputy-Marshal Judge Tex from Texas-City whose jaded, laissez-faire attitudes got a good shaking up as Dredd demonstrated he was one lawman who wasn’t gong to coast by for the duration of his term in office. Hitting the dusty mean streets, Dredd began to clean up the wild boys in his town by outdrawing a mechanical Robo-Slinger and uncovering another assassination ploy. It seemed that reclusive mega-billionaire Mr. Moonie had a problem with the latest law on his lunar turf…

Whilst dispensing aggravating administrative edicts like a frustrated Solomon, Dredd chafed to hit the streets and do some real work in #44’s McMahon-limned ‘Red Christmas’. An opportunity arose when arrogant axe-murderer Geek Gorgon abducted Walter and demanded a showdown he lived to regret, whilst ’22nd Century Futsie!’ (Gibson) saw Moonie Fabrications clerk Arthur Goodworthy crack under the strain of over-work and go on a destructive binge with Dredd compelled to protect the Future-shocked father’s family from Moonie’s over-zealous security goons.

The plotline at last concluded in Prog 46 with ‘Meet Mr. Moonie’ (Gibson) as Dredd and Walter confronted the manipulative manufacturer and uncovered his horrific secret. The feature moved to the prestigious middle spot with this episode, allowing the artists to really open up and exploit the colour centre-spread, none more so than Bolland as seen in #47’s Land Race as Dredd officiated over a frantic scramble by colonists to secure newly opened plots of habitable territory. Of course there’s always someone who doesn’t want to share…

Ian Gibson then illustrated 2-part drama ‘The Oxygen Desert’ in #48-49, wherein veteran moon-rat Wild Butch Carmody defeats Dredd using his superior knowledge of the airless wastes beyond the airtight domes. Broken, the Judge quits and slides into despondency but all is not as it seems…

Prog 50 saw the debut of single-page comedy supplement Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd – but more of that later – whilst the long-suffering Justice found himself knee-boot-deep in an international interplanetary crisis when ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ (Bolland) against a rival lunar colony controlled by the Machiavellian Judges of the Sov-Cities bloc escalated into assassination and a murderous politically-fuelled land grab. The issue was settled in ostensibly civilised manner with strictly controlled ‘War Games’ yet there was still a grievously high body-count by the time the moon-dust settled… This vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funny…

Bolland also illustrated the sardonic saga of ruthless bandits who were up for a lethal laugh in #52’s The Face-Change Crimes, using morphing tech to change their appearances and rob at will until Dredd beat them at their own game, before Wagner & Gibson crafted a four-part mini-epic (Progs 53-56) wherein motor fanatic Dave Paton’s cybernetic, child-like pride-and-joy blew a fuse and terrorised the domed territory, slaughtering humans and even infiltrating Dredd’s own quarters before the Judge finally stopped Elvis, The Killer Car.

Bolland stunningly limned the savagely mordant saga of a gang of killer bandits who hijacked the moon’s air before themselves falling foul of The Oxygen Board in #57, but only managed the first two pages of 58’s Full Earth Crimes leaving Mike McMahon to complete the tale of regularly occurring chaos in the streets whenever the Big Blue Marble dominated the black sky above…

It was a fine and frantic note to end on as with ‘Return to Mega-City’ Dredd rotated back Earthside and business as unusual. Readers were probably baffled as to why the returned cop utterly ignored a plethora of crime and misdemeanours, but Wagner & McMahon provided the logical and perfect answer in a brilliant, action-packed set-up for the madcap dramas to come.

This first Case Files chronicle nominally concludes with Wagner & McMahon’s Firebug from Prog 60 as the ultimate lawgiver dealt with a crazed arsonist literally setting the city ablaze and discovered a venal motive to the apparent madness, but there’s still a wealth of superb bonus material to enjoy before we end this initial outing.

Kicking off proceedings and illustrated by Ezquerra is the controversial First Dredd strip which was bounced from 2000AD #1 and vigorously reworked – a fascinating glimpse of what the series might have been, followed by the first Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd stwips (sowwy – couldn’t wesist!) from 2000AD Progs 50-58.

Scripted by Joe Collins, these madcap comedy shorts were an antidote to the savage and brutal action strips in the comic and served to set the scene for Dredd’s later full-on satirical lampoonery.

Tap Dancer was illustrated by Ian Gibson and dealt with an embarrassing plumbing emergency whilst Shoot Pool! (Gibson) saw the Wobot again taking the Judge’s instructions far too literally…

Brian Bolland came aboard to give full rein to his own outrageous sense of the absurd with the 5-part tale of Walter’s Brother, a bizarre tale of evil twins, a cunning frame-up and mugging that inevitably resulted in us learning all we ever needed to know about the insipidly faithful and annoying rust-bucket. Dredd then had to rescue the plastic poltroon from becoming a prate of the airwaves in Radio Walter before the star-struck servant found his 15 seconds of fame as the winner of rigged quiz-show Masterbrain, and this big, big book concludes with a trio of Dredd covers from Progs 10, 44 and 59, courtesy of artists Ezquerra, Kev O’Neill and McMahon.

Always mesmerising and beautifully drawn, these short punchy stories starring Britain’s most successful and iconic modern comics character are the constantly evolving narrative bedrock from which all the later successes of the Mirthless Moral Myrmidon derive. More importantly, they timeless classics that no real comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on. Even my local library has copies of this masterpiece of British literature and popular culture…

© 1977, 1978, 2006 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved. Judge Dredd & 2000AD are ® &™ Rebellion A/S.

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Ghost Rider – Danny Ketch Classic volume 1


By Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira with Jimmy Palmiotti (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3735-1

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters and one of the most enduring was a certain flaming-skulled vigilante dubbed the Ghost Rider.

Carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze had sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan, or arch-liar Mephisto as he actually was, followed the letter, but not spirit, of the contract and Crash Simpson died anyway.

When the Demon Lord came for Blaze only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was liberated from the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life.

As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…

From that dubious period of fashionably “Grim ‘n’ Gritty” super-heroics in the early 1990s comes this slight but engagingly fast-paced horror-hero re-imagining courtesy of writer Howard Mackie and artists Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira, which quickly secured the new Ghost Rider status as one of the hottest hits of the period.

This first Danny Ketch Classic volume reprints issues #1-10 of the revitalised series spanning May 1990 – February 1991, and opens, following a reminiscence from the author, with the bonanza-sized introductory tale ‘Life’s Blood’ which sees young Danny and his photographer sister Barbara looking for Houdini’s tomb in the vast Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn on the eve of Halloween.

Unfortunately they stumble into a bloody criminal confrontation between ninjas and gangsters over a mysterious briefcase. Discovered, the siblings flee but Barb is hit by an arrow, whilst the case itself is snatched by a juvenile gang who plague the wooded necropolis.

The ninjas and their macabre leader Deathwatch are the victors of the fire-fight and are soon hunting for their hard-won prize and the witnesses…

In an adjacent junkyard Danny is helplessly watching Barb bleed out when his attention is caught by a glowing pair of eyes. Closer inspection reveals them to be an arcane design on the gas-cap of an abandoned motorbike. The ninjas, having caught the girl who stole the briefcase, are closing in on the Ketch kids when Danny, his hands soaked in his sister’s blood, touches the glowing bike symbol and is inexplicably transformed into a spectral horror, burning with fury and indignation – a Spirit of Vengeance hungry to assuage the pain of innocent blood spilled with inhuman vitality, toting an infinitely adaptable bike chain and a mystic “Penance Stare” which subjected the guilty to unimaginable psychic pain and guilt…

The Blazing Biker makes short work of the ninjas, but when the police arrive and find him standing over the dying Barbara, they naturally jump to the wrong conclusion…

As the Ghost Rider flees on a bike with wheels of fire, causing spectacular amounts of collateral carnage, Barb is rushed to hospital, where a re-transfigured, bruised, bleeding and totally confused Danny finds her the next morning…

In the richest part of Manhattan, Wall Street shark and psionic monster Deathwatch makes a ghastly example of the man who lost his briefcase twice even as his rival for its possession, criminal overlord Wilson Fisk, similarly chastises his own minions for failure.

The contents of the case are not only hotly disputed but utterly lethal and both factions will tear Brooklyn apart to get them…

Meanwhile the teen thieves known as the Cyprus Pool Jokers find three canisters in that purloined case and hide them all over the vast cemetery, unaware that both Deathwatch’s ninjas and the Kingpin’s hoods are hunting for them. At Barbara’s bedside Danny is plagued by guilt and anger. Unable to help his comatose sister the lad determines to investigate what happened to him. When he awoke the blazing bike had returned to a normal configuration and now Danny climbs aboard and heads back to Cyprus Hills to look for answers just as the competing packs of killers are turning the streets into a free-fire zone.

Riding straight into the bloodbath, Danny sees his bike gas-cap glowing again and, almost against his will, slams his palm onto it, unleashing his skeletal passenger once again…

Devastating the assembled mobsters and murderers, the Ghost Rider then takes wounded Cyprus Pool Jokers Ralphie and Paulie to hospital and another pointless confrontation with the authorities…

‘Do Be Afraid of the Dark!’ finds open war between Deathwatch and the Kingpin’s forces for the canisters neither side possesses, with the Ghost Rider roaming the night tackling the increasingly savage hunters on both sides. The girl Paulie has admitted that she has no idea where two of the containers could be, since the Jokers split up to hide them and she’s now the last of them…

The urban horror escalates when Deathwatch’s metahuman enforcer Blackout joins the hunt: a sadistic man-made vampire with the ability to manipulate fields of complete darkness. This psychotic mass-murderer targets entire families and starts his search by “questioning” the cops who attended the initial battle in the graveyard…

Danny is on the verge of a breakdown, snapping viciously at his mother and girlfriend Stacy and utterly unable to share the horror that his life has become. Between days at Barb’s bedside, and nights as the slave to a primal force obsessed with blood and punishment, Ketch is drowning…

When Blackout tracks down the recovering Ralphie, the Ghost Rider is too late to save the young felon’s parents and only just manages to drive the vampire away before the boy too succumbs, leading to the inevitable final clash in ‘Deathwatch’, wherein the Wall Street dilettante’s forces find the canisters before being overwhelmed by the Kingpin. Ever pragmatic, the ninja-master simply surrenders, but the wildly unpredictable Blackout refuses to submit and slips into a berserker rage of slaughter, before escaping with the containers and terrified hostage Paulie.

The albino maniac knows the canisters contain a toxin that will wipe out New York and harbours an impossible plan to use them to kick-start an atomic war which will produce a nuclear winter on an Earth he would inevitably rule. However his delusional dreams are ended when the Ghost Rider appears and engages the vampire in blistering battle.

Incensed beyond endurance, Blackout savagely bites the blazing biker, but instead of blood sucks down raw, coruscating hellfire which leaves his face a melted, agonising ruin and burns the canisters to harmless slag…

Issue #4 found Danny, unable to resist the constant call to become the Furious Flaming Apparition, decide to lock up the cursed motorcycle beyond the reach of temptation in faraway Manhattan, only to find it had a mind of its own when a clash between a biker gang and an old Thor villain trapped both Ketch and an car full innocent bystanders in a subterranean parking garage. ‘You Can Run, but You Can’t Hyde!’ taught the troubled young man that the Rider was a cruel necessity in a bad world, an argument confirmed by the beginning of an extended subplot in which children began vanishing from the streets of Brooklyn…

The very epitome of Grim’n’Gritty stopped by for a two issue guest-shot in #5-6 as ‘Getting Paid!’ and ‘Do or Die!’ saw a mysterious figure distributing free guns to children, drawing the attention of not just the night-stalking Spirit of Vengeance but also the merciless, militaristic vigilante Frank Castle, known to criminals and cops alike as The Punisher.

The weapons are turning the city into a deadly battleground, but the cops and unscrupulous TV reporter Linda Wei seem more concerned with stopping the Ghost Rider’s campaign against the youthful killers than ending the bloodshed. Danny decides to investigate in his mortal form and quickly finds himself in over his head, but for some reason the magic medallion won’t transform him. He is completely unaware how close he was to becoming the Punisher’s latest statistic…

The situation changes that night and the flaming-skulled zealot clashes with the Punisher before uniting to tackle the true mastermind – a manic anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist terrorist known as Flag-Smasher.

With the insane demagogue determined to unleash a storm of death on Wall Street, the driven anti-heroes are forced to briefly unite to end the scheme and save the “bad” kids and the system that created them…

‘Obssesion’ in #7, illustrated solely by Texeira, saw the return of animal-trainer and contortionist the Scarecrow, who had barely troubled Iron Man, the X-Men and Captain America in his early days, but after having slipped into morbid thanophilia had become a death-preoccupied maniac who presented a truly different threat to the mystic agent of retribution.

A far greater menace was seen – or rather, not seen – with the return of Blackout who silently stalked Danny Ketch, savagely slaughtering everybody who knew him. Not even the police guards at Barbara’s hospital bedside could stop the fiend with half-a-face…

Through dreams Danny debated his cursed existence with the Spirit of Vengeance in #8’s ‘Living Nightmare’ (Mackie, Saltares & Texeira) constantly bemoaning his fate but seemingly unable to affect the implacable, terrifying being he couldn’t stop becoming. Adding to his fevered nights were visions of Deathwatch, Barbara and the vile psycho-killer Blackout.

As Blackout continued to murder anybody coming into contact with the troubled Ketch – who was seemingly paralysed by his dilemma – girlfriend Stacy neared the end of her training as a cop, and her father increased patrols to catch the blazing Biker. Impatient and scared, the Cypress Hills Community Action Group took controversial steps to safeguard their streets by hiring maverick private security company H.E.A.R.T. (Humans Engaging All Racial Terrorism – truly one of the naffest and most inappropriate acronyms in comics history) who promptly decided Ghost Rider was the cause of all the chaos and went after him with an arsenal of high-tech military hardware and a helicopter gunship…

The Spirit of Vengeance was already occupied, having found Blackout attacking a girl, but their final showdown was interrupted when the fiery skeleton was attacked by a colossal Morlock (feral mutants who live in tunnels beneath New York) who mistook the saviour for the assailant…

Issue #9 guest-starred the X-Factor – a reformed X-Men team comprising Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman and the Beast who uncover the mystery of the missing children in ‘Pursuit’ (with additional inks by Jimmy Palmiotti) when they follow the Ghost Rider and Morlocks under the city.

Tragically, Blackout too is on the Blazing Biker’s trail and finds in the concrete depths even more victims to torture Danny Ketch’s breaking heart and blistered soul before their climactic last clash…

This volume ends on a thematic cliffhanger with ‘Stars of Blood’ as Danny begins a new phase of life reconciled to his burden. When a series of horrific murders are attributed to a publicity-seeking serial killer named Zodiak, the boy begins investigating the deaths and discovers that the haunted gas-cap is again inactive, although it does transform him later when he stumbles over a couple of kids fighting…

Arcanely active again, the Ghost Rider then follows a convenient tip to the astrological assassin and discovers a far more prosaic reason for the string of slayings before an inclusive and unsatisfying battle with the insufferable, elusive Zodiak.

Meanwhile across town, the humiliated H.E.A.R.T. team accept a commission from Deathwatch to destroy the Spirit of Vengeance, whilst in the western USA the previous victim of the curse of Zarathos is riding his motorcycle hard, determined to get to New York and destroy the latest Ghost Rider as soon as possible…

To Be Continued…

This expanded re-issue of the 1991 Ghost Rider Resurrected trade paperback also includes the cover and introduction to that volume, pin-ups by Saltares, Texeira & Palmiotti and a full cover gallery and, despite being markedly short on plot and utterly devoid of humour, does deliver the maximum amount of uncomplicated thrills, spills and chills for action-starved fight fans.

If you occasionally feel that subtlety isn’t everything and yearn for a vicarious dose of simple wickedness-whomping, this might well be the book for you…
© 1990, 1991, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Both


By Tom Gauld & Simone Lia (Bloomsbury)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-065-2

Tom Gauld is a Scottish cartoonist whose works have appeared in Time Out and the Guardian. He has illustrated such children’s classics as Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man and his own books include Guardians of the Kingdom, 3 Very Small Comics, Robots, Monsters etc., Hunter and Painter and The Gigantic Robot.

At the prestigious RCA he met fellow genetically-predisposed scribbler Simone Lia – author of Please God, Find me a Husband! and Fluffy (a Bunny in Denial), kids books Billy Bean’s Dream, Follow the Line, Red’s Great Chase and Little Giant and she produced the strips ‘Sausage and Carrots for The DFC and ‘Lucie’ for Phoenix Comic as well as the Guardian and Independent.

Clearly comics kindred spirits, Gauld and Lia formed Cabanon Press in 2001and began self-publishing quirky, artily surreal strips and features. Their first two publications enigmatically entitled First and Second were collected in 2002 as Both and serve as a shining example of the kind of uniquely authorial/literary cartoon creativity and wonderment British pen-jockeys excel at.

Likened to the works of Edward Gorey, their studied, intense tirades, animorphic escapades and meanderingly perambulatory excursions are more Stream of subtly steered Consciousness than plotted stories: eerily mundane progressions mesmerisingly manufactured and  rendered in a number of styles to evoke response if not elicit understanding.

Which is a long-winded and poncey way of saying: “This stuff is great! You’ve got to see this…”

Within these digest sized, hard-backed monochrome pages you will encounter a talking table lamp, sensitive sentient food, quarrelsome knights, and socially inept and incompatible astronauts, and discover the human tragedy of contracting ‘Road Leg’.

There are of course bunnies, big bugs, sheep, steamrollers, the frustrations of ‘Outside’, love poems, comedy feet and a belligerent, outraged sweetcorn kernel, plus vignettes like ‘I’m in Love’ before the low-key domestic serial ‘End of Season Finale’ introduces off-duty Mexican Wrestlers, as well as political insight from the ‘Bread and Bhagi Show’ and psychological thrills courtesy of ‘Monkey Nut and Harrowed Marrow’. There are, however, no ducks…

Some comics pretty much defy description and codification – and a good thing too.

The purest form of graphic narrative creates connections with the reader that occur on a visceral, pre-literate level, visually meshing together on a page to produce something which makes feelings – if not necessarily sense.

When creators can access that pictorially responsive area of our brains as well as these two by ricocheting around the peripheries of the art form with such hilariously enticing and bizarrely bemusing concoctions, all serious fans and readers should sit up and take notice.

No more hints: go find this fabulously funny book now.

© 2003 Tom Gauld and Simone Lia. All rights reserved.
You can see more of their work at www.tomgauld.com and simonelia.com

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Rose


By Jeff Smith & Charles Vess (Cartoon Books)
ISBN: 978-1888963113

In Bone Jeff Smith created a fully-realised fantasy milieu with which to tell an astounding magical epic as much Tex Avery and Walt Kelly as J. R. R. Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm. Once the prime series was firmly up and running, much of the rich and textured back-story of that incredible world was further fleshed out and filled in by the author in collaboration with top-flight fantasy illustrator Charles Vess in an enchanting dark fable simply entitled Rose.

Many years ago the Harvestar princesses ‘Briar and Rose’ learned the origins of the world and its creatures. When the land was fresh and reality was still closely linked to the world of dreams the first dragon Mim kept the balance between them. However when the malevolent spirit called Lord of the Locusts possessed her, this primal dreamer went mad and began to destroy everything. Mim’s own dragon children were forced to battle her and after horrendous, blood-soaked clashes they triumphed by turning her to stone, burying the rapacious Locust Lord forever. From debris and carnage the valley was created…

Rose is a gifted but inattentive young student, blessed with a great affinity for The Dreaming World, but her elder sister Briar’s “Dreaming Eye” is blind. Most people assume that when the time comes it is Rose who will inherit the throne and role of the People’s protector…

And that day seems not far off when their father tells them that they must depart for Old Man’s Cave and their graduation test. The sisters had been schooled for years by mystic philosophers called The Disciples of Venu to become Veni-Yan-Cari or “Awakened Ones”, strong in the ways of the Dreaming Arts, but the girls never imagined that the day to take up their responsibilities would come so soon.

‘Our Brightest Hope’ opens with the sagacious Great Red Dragon discussing the sisters with the mystic Headmaster. However the gravest news concerns the river dragon Balsaad who may have turned down an old, dark path…

At dawn a small party of soldiers led by Palace Guard Captain Lucius Down escorts the girls on their trip and Rose, as always, brings along her valiant talking hounds Cleo and Euclid. As they set off Briar is even more acerbic and crabby than usual until Rose is overwhelmed by one of her “gitchy” premonitions. The feeling is strong, disorienting but brief and perhaps simply caused by the distracting proximity of the astonishingly hunky Lucius…

The feelings persist throughout the trip and Captain Down, ever-cautious, soon discovers one of the giant rat-creatures known as “Hairy Men” stalking the party, but drives it off with little fuss.

Soon the pilgrims are ensconced at an inn in the village of Oak Bottom where the girls stayed years before as toddlers, enjoying simple, open hospitality. Rose’s interest in Lucius is clear to all and aspects of her awakening gifts manifest with embarrassing frequency. However the noble Captain seems bizarrely concerned with the comfort of ‘The Ice Queen’ Briar…

When the girls at last are safely deposited with their tutors at the cave in ‘We Ask, Teach’ the surly elder girl seems determined to be difficult, challenging the sages at all points and Rose again feels sympathy for her sibling’s lack of the Family’s hereditary powers. Later Rose has a strangely disturbing dream where she and the dogs respond to a small dragon’s pleas for help and rescue it from a river. The scenes suddenly become nightmarish as she is drawn into a dark cavern by a monstrous giant insect which has smothered her mother and father with fiercely clinging locusts…

Shaken and anxious Rose decides to skip school and play with Euclid and Cleo but annoyingly encounters the scolding Red Dragon who chides her for neglecting her responsibilities. However as she rides back, the dogs spot a figure they think is Briar heading up a remote path. Following, a fearsome apparition terrifyingly orders them to ‘Turn Back’ and a storm of grasshoppers attacks, but undaunted Rose and her loyal hounds persevere and are ambushed by the dragon of her dream, grown to colossal size and bristling with mocking ferocity…

‘Balsaad’ is only driven off after a brutal struggle in which Rose severs his hand with her sword and the chastened princess then rushes to her tutors to inform them but is intercepted by Briar who advises her not tell of her dream and its real-world repercussions in ‘The Warning’…

With the season’s first snows falling Rose is summoned to ‘The Cave’ and questioned by the Headmaster, admitting to having encountered the rogue dragon ravaging the countryside but, heeding her beloved elder sister, denies any knowledge of or pertinent dreams about the creature or its dreaded “Emancipator”. Even whilst suspecting that her elders already know the truth Rose sticks to her story and trusts in her sister, confiding that she is going out into the blizzard to destroy Balsaad.

Her faith in Briar is badly shaken however, when she accidentally spots the beguiled Lucius sneaking into her elder sister’s room…

As the heartbroken Rose marches ‘Into the Night…’ accompanied by Euclid and Cleo she discovers a nocturnal gathering of the normally timid Hairy Men, moving to an irresistible rendezvous at some silent command as the nearby hamlet is being eradicated by the rampant Balsaad until he too responds when ‘The Master Calls’, reaffirming his commitment to the hidden Emancipator’s scheme to free the Lord of the Locusts in ‘The Pact’.

At last given license to destroy all the humans – and those pesky dogs – Balsaad roars off whilst Rose, Euclid and Cleo again encounter the Red Dragon in ‘Frozen’. The antediluvian Scarlet Sage is unable to dissuade the indomitable Princess and regretfully advises how to defeat the beast and the hideous sacrifice Rose must enact to make things right…

At ‘Midnight’ Lucius and his men are ambushed by a rabid army of rat creatures leaving just Rose and dogs to save Oak Bottom in an epic battle against the black river-wyrm and his manipulative master but, just as the benevolent Red Dragon predicted, for Rose to fulfil ‘The Promise’, the tragic princess has to abandon all her hopes, dreams and aspirations before reluctantly destroying the greatest love of her life…

Far darker in tone than the series it spun off from, the saga of Rose combines classic mythic themes and borrowed legends to tell a deeply moving parable about family, duty and responsibility, captivatingly made real by one of the world’s greatest fantasy illustrators.

Lovely, thrilling and unforgettable entertainment for anybody with an ounce of imagination…
Rose is ™ & © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeff Smith. All rights reserved.

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Thor volume 2


By Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr. with John Buscema, Klaus Janson & Jerry Ordway  (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4632-2

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The tale   introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

The series grew from formulaic beginnings battling aliens, commies and cheap thugs into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming the Mighty Thor where, after years of bombastic adventuring, the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined and finally clarified to explain how the immortal godling could also be locked within frail Don Blake.

The epic saga took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…

Time passed, Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later.

In July Mighty Thor volume 2 opened with ‘In Search of the Gods’ by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, which with its ‘Deal with the Devil!’ depicted the return of the lost god and the Avengers after more than a year way from the home cosmos only to find that hallowed Asgard had been devastated and deserted.

Moreover, back on Earth the Thunderer was reinstated into the “real” world just in time to die in battle against the annihilating Asgardian artefact known as the Destroyer. Whilst the Avengers struggled on against the unstoppable creature, the godling’s spirit was snatched from the realm of death-goddess Hela by mysterious mystic powerhouse Marnot before being melded with the dying body of EMT Jake Olsen: an innocent killed during the struggle thanks to Thor’s negligence.

The resurrected Storm Lord again walked the Earth but only as the dormant-until-summoned alter-ego of another frail mortal host: duly defeating the Destroyer, battling sea-monsters of sea-goddess Sedna, sparring with Hercules and being framed for attacking and devastating Olympus…

The true architects of most of this mayhem were a pantheon of previously unknown Dark Gods – Perrikus, Adva, D’Chel, Slottoth, Tokkots and Majeston Zelia – so powerful that they managed to take possession of the fallen Fabled Realm and bar Thor’s return to Asgard…

This second compilation collects the contents of issues #9-13 and the 1999 Thor Annual and sees the end of that first extended story-arc beginning with ‘Answers’ by regular writer Dan Jurgens and guest illustrators John Buscema & Jerry Ordway as a very old robotic menace returns when a couple of young punks luck into the operating system for android bandit Replicus. Whilst the earthbound Thunder God is taking care of business in Asgard, the Dark usurpers are crowing over the ravaged, tortured bodies of his best friend Balder, betrothed Lady Sif and mighty sire Odin, all the while scheming how to destroy the last remaining free Asgardian…

Thor is just as keen on meeting his elusive tormentors and finally gains insight from the enigmatic Marnot who reveals a long ago day when the early Asgardians encountered the pantheon of cruel gods enslaving the realm of Narcisson and were propelled into a brutal all-out war.

Against all logic the Narcisson’s won and were on the verge of eradicating the Asgardians until a juvenile Thor turned the tide and enabled Odin and his surviving warriors to carry the day. With the dark gods defeated and imprisoned the All-Father then wiped the memories of the triumphant warriors to spare them the trauma and loss of so many comrades and loved ones. But now somehow the Narcisson gods were free and had at last conquered the Eternal Realm.

Armed at last with knowledge, Thor began to prepare for the invasion and liberation of Asgard…

The campaign began in the three part saga ‘The Dark Wars’ by Jurgens, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson as the human Jake Olsen frantically began to set his complex human affairs in order. The conjoined hero was blithely unaware that Dr. Jane Foster – Don Blake’s first love – had deduced his godly secret and that an unknown hand was setting him up to take the fall for selling stolen hospital drugs…

Before the exiled prince was ready, however, Perrikus attacked New York demanding a duel with the Odin-son and threatening to kill the Lady Sif if the Thunderer didn’t show. With the gateway to Asgard clear, Thor charges in to find the city as bad as ever and his loved ones broken toys of the Dark Gods. Enraged he attacks but after a blockbusting battle his magic mallet is cloven in half and he feels himself impossibly transforming back into mortal Jake Olsen…

Forced to flee into a sewer drain, Olsen discovers a horrific underworld beneath the fallen city and is captured by trolls in the very bowels of Asgard. The frail human is being worked to death as far above the black pantheon are unable to detect any trace of the vanished Thor, but feels a burst of untrammelled hope and joy when he discovers that many of his missing comrades are also enslaved in the noisome pits…

However before Olsen can attempt to rescue them the vile Tokkots appears and whisks him back to the throne-room and the waiting Narcissons, but Perrikus is furious that he cannot battle his true enemy but only a mortal shell, until the broken battered human falls on the remnant of mystic Mjolnir and is transformed into a fighting mad Storm Lord…

Unexpectedly Thor flees into inter-dimensional space, realising that pride and fury are not enough and that what he really needs are potent allies…

The fearsome finale begins as Thor convinces the deadly Destroyer and Hercules to raid the once-Golden Realm in a blistering last charge against the Dark Ones and their massed minions whilst he raids the depths to free the Asgardian survivors and activates a cleverly concealed ally. Soon Odin, Sif and Balder are free too and the fall of the Narcissons is seemingly assured – but the malignant invaders still have one last nasty card to play…

It proves not enough and eventually the brutalised Asgardians are triumphant, after which the epilogue ‘The Work of Odin’ answers many questions – such as the true identity of manipulative schemer Marnot, the ultimate fate of the human trapped within the deadly Destroyer’s shell and the fate of both light and dark gods…

This excessively action-packed, if plot light, chronicle is completed by the inclusion of the 1999 Thor Annual which at last revealed why Thor arrived back in our universe so much later than his Avenging Allies.

Written and pencilled by Jurgens with inks from Janson ‘The Tears of a God’ found Thor visiting the Fantastic Four and describing the dimensional rip which left him partially amnesiac and filled with ineffable sadness, before – for our eyes only – the story was fully disclosed…

After battling Doctor Doom in the space between worlds, Thor and the Iron Dictator were cast onto an alien planet where the wounded Thunderer was nursed to health by a mysterious outcast named Ceranda. Somehow unable to leave the desolate world, the lost scion of Asgard grew slowly closer to the beautiful hermit, whilst elsewhere Doom was taking control of the a subterranean society and co-opting their technology and resources to his selfish needs…

The last thing the Lord of Latveria needed for escape was Thor’s dimension-spanning hammer and he knew the true reason why it wasn’t working…

This tale of dark desire and selfish love ended badly all round so perhaps its best that after the battle and return to Earth Thor had no memory of the weeks spent with the bewitching Ceranda…

Whilst not to everyone’s taste, this blistering Fight’s ‘n’ Tights epic is a cosmic clash fan’s delight and the artwork is undeniably some of the best of the modern Marvel Age, so if you want your pulse to pound and your graphic senses to swim this is the ideal item for you.
© 1998, 1999, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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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 all…

In almost every conceivable way the “try-out title” 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 reactions…

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 “smoke-eater”.

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’…

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 so…

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 “Five-and-Dime” half-price bins. What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was … 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 “Hard Water”). 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 later…

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 answers…

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 Mystery…

If you wanted to play editorially safe you could argue that were simply another para-military band of adventurers like the long running Blackhawks… 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 died… 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 “adrenaline junkies”, 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 “Prof” 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 fulfilled…

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 fastest…

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 21st 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 “dizzy dames” 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 saying…

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 running…

‘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-bliss…

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 him…

‘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 right…

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

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’…

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 “masked” 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 system…

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 it…

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 run…

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.

…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 development….

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 Hunter… 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 abductors…

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 refugees…

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 fast…

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 can…

© 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.