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Mandrake the Magician®: The Complete King Years volume 1


By Lee Falk & Phil Davis, Fred Fredericks, Don Heck, Andre LeBlanc & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-098-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Vintage Magical Mystery Masterpiece… 9/10

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had first tried to sell the strip a decade previously. Initially drawing the strip too, Falk soon replaced himself, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublime draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, it was soon supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page which launched on February 3rd 1935.

Falk sold Mandrake to King Features Syndicate years earlier as a 19-year old college student, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to the strip full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old master raconteur settled in to begin his life’s work: entertaining millions with his astounding tales.

Falk – who also created the first costumed superhero in moodily magnificent manhunter The Phantom – spawned an entire comicbook subgenre with his first creation. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (and usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery.

Characters such Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of … the Magician such as Zanzibar, Zatara, Kardak ad infinitum all borrowed heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery who graced the pages of the world’s newspapers and magazines.

In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and also became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Italy and Scandinavia. As seen and described in Eileen Sabrina Herman’s ‘Introduction: The Magic behind Mandrake’ the Magician was a major star of page & screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness. This erudite appreciation also includes tantalising merchandise and memorabilia and movie posters plus original art by not just by Falk, Davis, Ray Baily, Don Heck, and Fredericks but also a stunning Phantom team-up pic from Don Newton.

Over decades he’s been a star of radio, movies, chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television animation (as part of the cartoon series Defenders of the Earth). With that came the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk worked on Mandrake and “The Ghost who Walks” until his death in 1999 (on his deathbed he was laying out one last story), but also found a few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller. However, even he couldn’t keep up with the demand, which is where this collection comes in…

Between 1966 and 1967, King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars – Popeye, Flash Gordon, The Phantom and Mandrake – developed after the characters had enjoyed newsstand stardom under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics.

Mandrake was no stranger to funnybooks, having featured in the David McKay Company’s 1939 Magic Comics (1939-1949 and Dell’s Four Color #752, as reformatted strip reprints and in new material. He was also a major player for child-friendly Big Little Books.

This initial archival full-colour volume gathers the pertinent contents of Mandrake the Magician #1-5, spanning September 1966 to May 1967, plus back-up material from Flash Gordon #1-3, and also includes a wealth of unseen art and candid photos.

As part of a cross-selling policy at that period, King Comics revived the ancient practise of adding short story vignettes of other stars to their publications. The Magician regularly added mystery and imagination to the line-up of Earth’s greatest interstellar explorer…

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a famous, suave globe-trotting troubleshooter: always accompanied by faithful African partner Lothar and beautiful companion (eventually, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne. Together forever, they faced the uncanny, solved crimes and fought evil.

With covers by Don Heck & Mike Peppe, André LeBlanc and Fred Fredericks, all these stories are scripted by Dick Wood before Gary Poole takes over with the second story in #4. The show begins with a monochrome inside front cover feature from then-current strip artist Fred Fredericks who shared secrets of Mandrake’s mountaintop home in ‘Danger Drive to Xanadu’. Harold “Fred” Fredericks had taken over art production when Davis died in 1965, and assumed full creative duties when Falk himself passed on in 1999.

Here, however, Wood, Don Heck & André LeBlanc open festivities by detailing ‘Menace of the City Jungle!’, wherein Mandrake and Lothar volunteer to clean up a crime-infested park and its extended locality by playing hapless bait for an army of bandits and muggers. The combination of illusion, hypnotism and brute force is so successful, the duo then have to devise a scheme to stop the cops feeling slighted and inadequate!

Werner Roth & LeBlanc then expose ‘The Flying Phantom!’, as the city is plagued by an uncanny plunderer employing magic carpets and winged horses until Mandrake steps in to foil the thief and spoil the trick…

Fredericks then concludes his monochrome travelogue of ‘The House of Wonders’ for the inside back cover, after which the November cover-dated, all Wood & LeBlanc second issue opens with a truly tense sci fi drama. All Earth can hear the increasingly panicked pleas and threats of an alien space craft hurtling to its doom, but no tool of mankind seems able to see or save ‘The Spectre from Space’. Thankfully, Mandrake is around and able to apply his wisdom to the crisis…

A far more plebian police problem is solved when gangster Lucky Larry Yates opens his law-defying gamblers palace, and Mandrake is called in to exorcise ‘The Phantom Casino’…

Mandrake the Magician #3 (January 1967) addressed global politics after despondent British nuclear scientist Dr. Andrew Crane decides to save the world from itself by allowing enemy agents to use his ultimate weapon in a deterrence demonstration. Of course, foreign spies can’t be trusted and the free world needs Mandrake’s talents to save ‘The Doomsday Man’ from himself and everybody else from utter annihilation…

A sudden change of pace brings the magician and Lothar way out west to expose a rowdy ghost terrorising a frontier town. However, when brazen “bandito” Pancho Valdez proves immune to Mandrake’s gifts, the cunning conjuror simple switches to brain power to stop ‘The Terror of the Haunted Desert’…

Crime was the spur for Wood’s last outing as a magician’s convention is threatened by ‘The Black Wizard!’ who mimics the signature tricks of many magnificent showmen – until Mandrake and Lothar expose the mastermind behind the crimewave – after which Gary Poole joins LeBlanc to detail an insidious impersonator targeting High Society. This malign malcontent even puts Mandrake in jail before the magician can foil ‘The Frame-Up’… or does he?

Ray Bailey illustrated #5 (May 1967) beginning with a nautical campaign as Mandrake and Lothar spectacularly dismantle a ultra-modern pirate band in ‘Cape Cod Caper’, after which ‘The Fear Mongers’ sees warring kingdoms pacified and their (intimately related) rulers reconciled after a bizarre faux alien invasion…

Those aforementioned backup stories begin with Wood, Heck & LeBlanc’s ‘Midnight with Mandrake’ from Flash Gordon #1 (September 1966) as a gang of thieves unleashes sleeping gas on a city crowd, only to have Mandrake change it from soporific to an hallucinogen…

‘The Laughing Clown Caper’ then pits the wanderers against a malevolent mountebank seeking to wreck a rival’s career, whilst ‘The Little Giant’ sees the worldly wizard give an undersized fight promoter a psychological boost to deter local bullies and fight-fixing thugs. As an added bonus, the original art for this entire uncredited story (maybe Wood and Frank Springer?) is also included here, preceding a lavish and fascinating look at the strip and comic book career of an artistic legend as Spike Barkin conducts a copiously illustrated and informative ‘Focus: Interview with Fred Fredericks’.

This thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, spooky chills and sheer elegance in equal measure. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them. Sprinkled liberally with original art pages, this a delicious, nostalgia-drenched triumph is perfect for the Halloween season: straightforward, captivating eerie action-adventure that has always been the staple of comics fiction. If that sounds like a good time to you, that’s Magic!
Mandrake the Magician® © 1966-1967 and 2015 King Features Syndicate, Inc.; Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with Permission. All rights reserved.

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Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age volume 2


By David Michelinie, Gerry Conway, Carla Conway, David Anthony Kraft, Steve Englehart, Bob Haney, Martin Pasko, Nestor Redondo, Fred Carrillo, Keith Giffen, Michael Netzer, Murphy Anderson, Ernie Chan & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9422-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Moodily, Moss-Bedecked Entertainment Perfection… 9/10

The first fan-sensation of the modern era – now officially enshrined as the Bronze Age – of American comic books – Swamp Thing has powerful popular fiction antecedents and in 1972 was seemingly a concept whose time had come again. Prime evidence was the fact that Marvel were also working on a man-into-mucky, muddy mess character at the very same time.

Both Swampy and the Macabre Man-Thing were thematic revisions of Theodore Sturgeon’s classic novella It, and bore strong resemblances to a hugely popular Hillman Comics star dubbed The Heap. He/it sloshed through the back of Airboy Comics (née Air Fighters Comics) from1943 onwards and my fan-boy radar suspects Roy Thomas’ marsh-monster the Glob (from Incredible Hulk #121, November 1969 and #129, June 1970) either inspired both DC and Marvel’s creative teams, or was part of that same zeitgeist.

It should also be remembered that in the autumn of 1971 Skywald – a very minor player with big aspirations – released a monochrome magazine in their Warren Comics knock-off line entitled The Heap.

For whatever reason, by the end of the 1960s superhero comics were in another steep sales decline, again succumbing to a genre boom led by a horror/mystery resurgence. A swift rewriting of the Comics Code Authority augmented the changeover and at National/DC, veteran EC comics star Joe Orlando became editor of House of Mystery and sister title House of Secrets.

These returned to short story anthology formats and gothic mystery scenarios, taking a lead from TV triumphs such as Twilight Zone and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery.

Referencing the sardonic narrator/storyteller format of those EC horror titles, Orlando created Cain and Abel to shepherd readers through brief, sting-in-the-tail yarns produced by the best new and established creators the company could hire. Artists Neal Adams, Mike Kaluta, and especially Bernie Wrightson produced some of their best work for these titles, and the vast range of spin-offs the horror boom generated at DC.

The 12th anthology issue of the resurrected House of Secrets (#92, June/July 1971) cemented the genre into place as the industry leader. There writer Len Wein & Wrightson produced a throwaway gothic thriller set at the turn of the 19th century, wherein gentleman scientist Alex Olsen was murdered by his best friend with his corpse dumped in a swamp.

Years later, Olsen’s beloved bride – now the unsuspecting wife of the murderer – was stalked by a shambling, disgusting beast that seemed to be composed of mud and muck…

The tale struck an immediate chord with the public. That issue was the best-selling DC comic of that month, and reader response was fervent and persistent. By all accounts, the only reason there wasn’t an immediate sequel or spin-off was that the creative team didn’t want to produce one. Eventually however, bowing to interminable pressure, and with the sensible idea of transplanting the concept to contemporary America, Swamp Thing #1 appeared on newsstands in the Spring of 1972. It was an unqualified hit and instant classic…

Wein & Wrightson produced 10 issues together: an extended, multi-chaptered saga of justice and vengeance encompassing a quest for answers that was at once philosophically typical of the time and a prototype for the story-arc and mini-series formats that dominate today’s comics. They also used each issue/chapter to pay tribute to a specific sub-genre of timeless horror story whilst advancing the major plot…

When Alec and Linda Holland retreated deep into the Louisiana Bayou to work on a bio-restorative formula to revolutionise global farming, they had no idea criminal organisation “The Conclave” was after their research. Despite the best efforts of Secret Service agent Matt Cable, the lab was bombed and Linda died instantly. Alec – showered with his own formula and blazing like a torch – hurtled to a watery grave in the swamp. He did not die…

Transformed by the formula (and remember, please, this was prior to Alan Moore’s landmark re-imagining of the character) Holland transformed into a huge man-shaped thing: immensely strong, barely able to speak, and seemingly composed of living plant matter. Holland’s brain still functioned, however, and he vacillated between finding his wife’s killers and curing his own monstrous condition. Cable, misinterpreting the evidence, became obsessed with killing the beat, believing it caused the deaths of his two friends and charges…

Swamp Thing travelled the world, encountering the darkest outbreaks of classic supernature and the insatiable greed of human beasts before eventually convincing Cable of his innocence and true identity. Joined by Abigail Arcane – niece of archenemy and necromantic sorcerer Anton Arcane – they roamed a nation and world increasingly beset by uncanny terrors and macabre plots, with new allies like mystery man Bolt at their side.

Wein’s last issue was #13, having ushered in a new direction for Nestor Redondo – who replaced Wrightson with #11 – to display his own gifts and quickly become the artistic driving force.

Born in 1928 at Candon, Ilocas Sur in the American Territory of the Philippines, Redondo was influenced by US strips like Tarzan, Superman, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon which were immensely popular in the entertainment-starved Pacific Archipelago.

Drawing from an early age, Nestor emulated his brother Virgilio – who worked as a comics artist in the young country. The Philippines became a commonwealth in 1935, and achieved full-independence from the USA in 1946, but maintained close cultural links to America.

Nestor’s parents pushed him into architecture but within a year he returned to comics. A superb artist, he far outshone Virgilio – and everybody else – in the cottage industry. His brother switched to writing and they teamed up: producing some of the best strips the Islands had ever seen, the most notable and best regarded being Mars Ravelo’s Darna.

Capable of astounding quality and incredible speed, by the early 1950s Nestor was drawing for many titles. Publications like Pilipino Komiks, Hiwaga Komiks and Espesial Komiks were fortnightly and he usually worked on multiple series simultaneously, pencils and inks. He also produced a wealth of covers.

In 1953, he adapted MGM film Quo Vadis for Ace Publications’ Tagalong Klasiks #91-92. Written by Clodualdo Del Mundo, it was serialized to promote the movie in country, and impressed MGM so much that they offered 24-year old Nestor a US job and full residency. He declined, thinking himself too young to leave home yet.

Ace was the country’s biggest comics publisher, but by the early 1960s they were in dire financial straits. In 1963 Nestor, Tony Caravana, Alfredo Alcala, Jim Fernandez, Amado Castrillo and brother Virgilio set up their own company CRAF Publications, Inc., but times were against them and publishers everywhere. Around this time, America called again, in the form of DC and Marvel Comics.

By 1972, US based Tony DeZuñiga had introduced Filipino artists to US editors. Nestor drew horror tales for House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Unexpected, Phantom Stranger, Secrets of Sinister House, Witching Hour, Weird War Tales; Marvel’s Man-Thing; and an astonishingly lovely run on Rima the Jungle Girl (loosely adapting W. H. Hudson’s seminal 1904 novel Green Mansions), before joining Swamp Thing.

He also worked on Lois Lane and the Tarzan franchise, and in 1973 produced literary adaptations including Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for Vincent Fago’s Pendulum Press Illustrated Classics (later reformatted as Marvel Classics Comics). In later years, he moved to Marvel to ink and eventually fully illustrate The Savage Sword of Conan.

During his DC period he was tapped to draw an adaptation of King Arthur which DC killed before it was completed (once again some pages survive and the internet is your friend if you want to see them) but did limn tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Edition: The Bible.

This epic bayou bonanza gathers the last of the original Swamp Thing run (#14-25), plus guest appearances from Challengers of the Unknown #81-87; The Brave and the Bold #122 & 176 and DC Comics Presents #8 (spanning cover-dates January/February 1975 to July 1981) .

Roving America during a period of political instability tainted by cultural hedonism and paranoia, Cable, Abby, Bolt and miserable misshapen Alec Holland (whom they had recently broken out of federal custody) continually stumbled into weird and deadly situations. With writer David Michelinie joining Redondo, proceedings open here with ‘The Tomorrow Children’ (ST #14, January/February 1975).

Separated again, Holland’s human helpers search for him as the depressed nomad discovers an isolated Bayou community of simple folk persecuting a family of freakish kids. Swamp Thing drives off one murderous mob, but stories of the outcast kids’ uncanny powers and the plain facts of strange accidents and mysterious disappearances won’t go away. By the time the townsfolk return to destroy the “demon children”, Holland has discovered radioactive waste is causing all the problems, but far too late to prevent tragedy or promote understanding…

Swamp Thing then falls under ‘The Soul-Spell of Father Bliss’: a seemingly serene and benign cleric with demonically disturbing notions on how to restore faith to his disinterested flock. When Cable and Abby finally find Swamp Thing, it’s not Alec Holland inside the vegetable colossus and only an ultimate sacrifice can save them and humanity from the priest’s folly…

In the awful aftermath, Bolt is captured by agents unknown and the restored Holland-Thing leads a rescue party against an old adversary. Typically, the venture is derailed by cruel fate and the monster ends up alone on tiny Kalo Pago island in the middle of a revolution. On one side is a viciously repressive military government while the rebels are led by High Priestess Laganna – who has a direct line to zombie gods.

Caught in the middle, Holland cannot stem the tide of terror on the climactic ‘Night of the Warring Dead’…

ST #17 finds Bolt a prisoner of resurrected former Conclave chief Nathan Ellery, but when Abby, Cable and Swamp Thing finally stumble into his HQ, the maniac’s mercenaries, mechanical myrmidons and global mind-control contraption ‘The Destiny Machine’ at first appear to be an unbeatable opposition. But only at first…

Fleeing the destruction they have partially wrought, the victorious heroes crash land in an idyllic hamlet filled with violently murderous old folk. Its apologetic administrator claims Serenity is an experimental “ultimate retirement facility”, but before long is revealed as a demonic  ‘Village of the Doomed’ requiring all Holland’s power to escape and exorcise…

Cover-dated October 1975, The Brave and the Bold #122 then counts down ‘The Hour of the Beast!’ Bob Haney & Jim Aparo detail the awesome spectacle of Swamp Thing’s return to Gotham City and efforts to save it from a monstrous vegetable infestation. When Holland then becomes a target for a profit crazed showman, it needs all Batman’s ingenuity to save his ally and his city…

That same month in Swamp Thing #19, Gerry Conway joined Redondo to reveal ‘A Second Time to Die’ as a very familiar muck monster prowls Florida’s Everglades and – barely sentient – is befriended elderly Seminole hermit Ho’tah Makanaw. Nearby, Abby Cable and Bolt drive into Gatorberg, seeking their lost companion and following rumours of a big green monster…

The town is far from friendly but one boy is happy to take them to the old Indian who might know something of what they’re seeking…

Events take a drastic turn when the plant giant attacks a government drilling installation even as Ho’tah reveals a magical secret and sets the stage for an incredible clash in the next issue when Swamp Thing Holland battles incredible duplicate ‘The Mirror Monster’ for all the wrong reasons and for people who don’t deserve his aid…

Although the quality of the storytelling was getting better, the times were turning against the horror medium and as Michelinie returned in #21, it was for a science fictional romp as Holland was abducted by alien collector/slaver Solus. The bitterly contested escape left the monster stranded in an American desert and captured by rogue scientists battling madness-inducing contagion in their top secret atomic weapons base. Of course, definitions of “victim” or “cure” for ‘The Solomon Plague’ depended on who was doing the diagnosing, and when the “patients” started resisting treatment Holland could only watch helplessly as nature took its course…

Another attempt at a new direction began in Swamp Thing #23 as Conway & Redondo unleashed ‘Rebirth and Nightmare’, with a mystery mastermind targeting the moss monster and despatching costumed nemeses Sabre and Thrudvang, the Earth Master, even as the lonely wander made contact with his long-lost – and never-mentioned – smarter brother Edward Holland…

Their combined efforts to concoct a cure are initially successful despite Sabre’s surprise attack, but as we all know “no good deed goes unpunished”…

Cover-dated August/September 1976, an era ended with #24 as Conway, David Anthony Kraft, Ernie Chan & Fred Carrillo all collaborated on ‘The Earth Below’ as human but still traumatised Alec Holland faces Sabre, even more costumed crazies and ultimately tectonic terror Thrudvang, all craving the bio-regenerative formula still afflicting the former plant monster…

That catastrophic cliffhanger clash was never completed as the title was cancelled without warning or fanfare, just as it was about to formally join the superhero section of the DCU. It was probably for the best. As the Vertigo imprint would prove in a later age, some champions need sophisticated darkness to properly thrive…

As for the Bronze Age, Swamp Thing became a part of the army that hung around waiting to be picked for guest shots or even a revival. With the superhero genre recovering, one old concept granted a new shot ultimately led to fresh shoots for Holland.

The Challengers of the Unknown was a bridging concept. As superheroes were being revived in 1956 here was a super-team – the first of the Silver Age – but with no powers, basic utilitarian uniforms instead of costumes and the most dubious of motives – Suicide by Mystery. They debuted in Showcase #6 (cover-dated February 1957 and on sale in early November of 1956) and followed up in #7, 11 & 12 before gaining their own title (#1-77, May 1958-January 1971, plus a reprint revival in #78-80 in 1973).

They were a huge hit and major players in their time, striking 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 situation made their success all but inevitable. Conceived by inspirational human hit-factory Jack Kirby – before his move across town to co-create the Marvel Universe – the solid adventure concept and imperfect action heroes he left behind were idealised everyman characters for the tumultuous 1960s – an era before superheroes overtook anthological genre heroes to secure a virtual chokehold on comic book pages.

Kirby had developed a brilliantly feasible concept and heroically archetypical characters in cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut “Prof.” Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan. The Challengers of the Unknown were four (extra)ordinary mortals; heroic troubleshooter and explorers who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call “adrenaline junkies”, they communally decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they should dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. The quartet would risk their lives for KNOWLEDGE and, naturally, JUSTICE.

They were joined by an occasional fifth member, beautiful (of course) scientist June Robbins in their second appearance (‘Ultivac is Loose!’ in Showcase #7, March/April 1957), and she became a hardy perennial, frequently popping up to solve puzzles, catch criminals and generally deal with aliens, monsters, mad boffins and assorted supernatural threats. Over the decade other Challengers audited this core group, but none as bizarre as those that popped in during their late 1970s resurgence…

The return began in 1976 as a try-out serial in Super-Team Family #8-10 (January-May 1977) and led to the launch of Challengers of the Unknown #81 (June/July 1977). Crafted by Conway, Michael Netzer (nee Nasser) & Bob Wiacek, it’s included here and sees the boys and June Robbins defeat an old super-foe in ‘Multi-Man’s Master Plan’. In the course of the battle, Prof is diagnosed with an appalling, life-threatening fungal infection that dictates the team heading to Perdition, Pennsylvania, with persistent wannabe hanger-on Gaylord Clayburne desperately seeking to insert himself into the rescue mission…

Older fans will know that’s where Holland first defeated a Lovecraftian horror (Swamp Thing #8): a tale fully reprised in CotU #82, as Conway, Netzer & Joe Rubinstein reveal ‘The Lurker Below’, examine the ‘Legacy of the Damned’, expose ‘The Soul Predator’ and ruthlessly respond as ‘The Lurker Rises’…

As a deranged priest seeks to manifest cancer-god M’Nagala, Keith Giffen & John Celardo take over art duties with #83 as the embattled Challs seek to close ‘Seven Doorways to Destiny’. As Prof succumbs to fungal assimilation, aid comes as Clayburne recruits human Dr. Alec Holland as a potential ‘Savior from the Swamp?’ even as ‘The Gods Crawl Closer’. Unknown to the vainly striving Challengers, the subsequent battle reverts Holland to his vegetable form, but ‘Monsters, Good and Evil’ cannot stop the ghastly devil until Holland’s ultimate sacrifice. His triumph over M’Nagala goes completely unnoticed…

Issue #84 finds the human heroes attempting ‘To Save a Monster’ called Prof Haley, but falter until the spirit of Boston Brand occupies and cures him ‘When Deadmen Walk’. In the meantime the Challs learn Holland is the Swamp Thing and seek to make amends. With unperceived aid from Brand, they track the bog beast down only to find he/it has been taken over by Multi-Man…

The threat is covertly countered by Deadman, who sticks around when the Challs offer the plant monster a place on the team, just as Challengers of the Unknown #85 introduces ‘The Creature from the End of Time!’ as ‘The Box from Beyond’ materialises in Toronto, spawning murderous ‘Monsters and Men’ and necessitating a ‘Flight into the Future’…

The team had hoped to consult legendary specialist Rip Hunter, Time Master, but learn he and his team have been missing for a decade…

Disappointed but undeterred, the Challs (minus angry quitter Red Ryan but with unsuspected stowaway Deadman) take off for 12 million AD, leaving recuperating Prof behind to face an unsuspected menace…

Penultimate issue #86 solves the mystery of Rip Hunter as the heroes encounter ‘The War at Time’s End’, whilst recap ‘The Way it Began’ restates the convoluted path and events that brought the situation about.

The dismantling of humanity’s final dystopia begins as ‘If This is Tomorrow, You Must Be Rip Hunter!’, leads to the Challenger team investigating ‘Time Times Terror’ and discovering ‘A Pit by Any Other Name’ before the saga concludes in complete chaos with #87 (June/July 1978) as the  ‘Twelve Million Years to Twilight’ pits the human heroes against mutated terrors of the dominant Sunset Lords.

In the end, the future of humanity depends on monsters ghost and primitives enacting an ‘Assault on Sunset’ to secure ‘Twilight’s Last Glimmer’, courtesy of Carla & Gerry Conway, Giffen & Celardo.

Once again, an abrupt cancellation was the reward for valorous service and all players returned home to be shelved again. This compendium closes with a brace of superhero team-ups and a lost treat for true devotees, beginning with DC Comics Presents #8 (April 1979), as ‘The Sixty Deaths of Solomon Grundy!’ by Steve Englehart & Murphy Anderson pairs bog beast with the Man of Steel. Still believing he was a transformed human and not an enhanced plant, Swamp Thing here searches the sewers of Metropolis for a cure to his condition, only to stumble onto a battle between Superman and the mystic zombie who was “born on a Monday…

Crafted by Martin Pasko & Aparo, an encore in The Brave and the Bold #176 (July 1981) reunites Batman and Swamp Thing in a convoluted tale of Bayou-based murder and frame-ups in ‘The Delta Connection’ before the previously unpublished contents of Swamp Thing #25.

With the series cancelled, in-production story ‘The Sky Above’ by Kraft, Chan & Carillo is presented here as plot, script, uncoloured cover 16 pages of layouts, the pencils and inks in a clash with Hawkman that really should have officially taken place…

Also offering covers by Redondo, Aparo, Chan, Netzer, Neal Adams, Rubinstein, Rich Buckler, Jack Abel, Frank Giacoia, Alex Saviuk, Dick Giordano, José Luis García-López and Mike Kaluta; editorial material from Challengers of the Unknown #86 and an unused cover by Rick Veitch & Michelle Madsen, this collection comprises a genuine landmark of the art form, with stories that are superb examples of old-fashioned comics wonderment, from a less cynical and sophisticated age, but with a passion and intensity that cannot be matched. And, ooh, that artwork…

If you love comics you must have his buried treasure.
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Haunt of Horror: Lovecraft


By H.P. Lovecraft adapted by Richard Corben with Jeff Eckleberry (MARVEL MAX)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3287-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Richard Corben was one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, who sprang from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in graphic narrative storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision.

He is equally renowned for his mastery of airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales. In later years he has become an elder statesman of horror and fantasy comics lending his gifts and cachet to such icons as John Constantine, Hulk, Hellboy, Punisher and Ghost Rider as well as new adaptations and renditions of literary classics by the likes of William Hope Hodgson, and the master of gothic terror Edgar Allan Poe.

Corben never sold out and American publishing eventually caught up, finally growing mature enough to accommodate him – due in no small part to his own broad and wickedly pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, Corben graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comic books of the Comics Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontent older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent. These folks were increasingly making the kind of material Preachers and Mummy and their Lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creativity honed by the resplendent and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben responded with numerous small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Skull, Slow Death, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – which featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired cartoons and strips blending the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… honestly crafting the kind of stories they would like to read.

Corben inevitably graduated to more professional – and paying – venues. As his style and skills developed, he worked for Warren Publishing in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He also famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Soon after, he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as multi-million-selling album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped creating comics but preferred personal independent projects or working with in-tune collaborators such as Bruce Jones, Jan Strnad and Harlan Ellison.

In 1975, Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and quickly became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal, cementing his international reputation in the process. Garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was been regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he seemingly fell out of favour – and print – in his own country. Through it all he never strayed far from his moss-covered roots.

Corben died in 2020.

This particular tome gathers a 2007 return to adaptations of classic literary horror canon. First published as a 3-issue limited series, it features adaptations of poems and stories by an undisputed master of supernal terror: H.P. Lovecraft. The tales are radical reworkings of the troubled author’s works, rendered in line and gray-tones, and each sequential narrative reinterpretation is accompanied by its original prose iteration.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in August 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island and his life in New England was one of gradual loss and despair. His father was institutionalised when he young, and a comfortable life of wealth ended when his grandfather died. Enduring privation, he lost his mother to another asylum in 1919. He married in 1924 after moving to New York, where his writing for Weird Tales and other pulp fiction magazines drew acclaim – and even acolytes – but little by way of commercial security.

He returned to New England in 1926 and wrote ever more fevered and chilling tales of weird science, fantasy and horror fiction. In the next 11 years he penned some of the most disturbing stories in literature, centred around his belief in Civilizational decline and Cosmicism: affirming the insignificance of humanity and its ultimate fragility and inability to endure in a harsh, unforgiving universe.

He is best remembered today for his Cthulhu Mythos: an elder god cosmology as seen in The Call of Cthulhu and other stories.

Lovecraft died in 1937 as a result of stomach cancer.

This selection of speculative meanderings opens with ‘Dagon’, as an ailing and oppressed marine researcher records how a close call with a German U-boat catapulted him onto a lost isle of monsters and ancient artefacts, and forever marked him as prey for an indescribable horror. The original prose vignette follows, after which ‘The Scar’ tells of betrayal and abandonment as a young man opts to save himself but not his companion from hellish plants: – a grisly episode eerily expanded upon from the poem ‘Recognition’ as collected in the tome Fungi from Yuggoth.

From the same book comes both the poem ‘A Memory’ and chilling icy exploration as Jack searches the desolate region that claimed his father and finds a relic that that dooms him via fatal family connection to lost and malign cultists of Shub Niggurath…

The second issue began with ‘The Music of Erich Zann’, as an impoverished student recalls how long ago he lived in a hilltop hovel where an elderly fellow boarder played bizarre melodies that shook the world and summoned arcane atrocities before – again bordered by a text version – another extract from Fungi from Yuggoth finds a flood survivor desperately searching for her lost love in the body-packed detritus of ‘The Canal’…

Sticking with the bulletins from Yuggoth, ‘The Lamp’ focuses on an unexpected and angry archaeological breakthrough that is alive and hungry after four millennia, before the final issue opens with extended scary satire ‘Arthur Jermyn’ and thereafter its primary text ‘Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family’. In a wry change of pace, it traces – via his proud descendants -the history and heritage of a gentleman explorer and anthropologist who in 1750 discovered a lost kingdom and injected some new blood into an old, old race.

Of course the miscegenation has resulted in some few throwbacks and anomalies in the hallowed English lineage since then…

Another ravening predator inhabits ‘The Well’ foolishly dug by southern farmer Seth Atwood, one using love and thirst to draw in victims, and our last glimpse of the outer dark comes through ‘The Window’ of a desolate old house as an orphan son returns to discover what took his parents 25 years ago…

A potent and evocative peep into the nastiest places in creation, this collection also includes ‘Cover Sketches’ and ‘Promotional Images’, plus a selection of inked pages prior to the application of the cloaking grey tones.

Infamous for his dark, doom-laden horror stories, Lovecraft was a pioneer of the subgenre of supernal, inescapable terror and under Corben’s imaginative scrutiny, the grim gloomy odes and yarns take on a whole new level of distressing dissonance. This compelling collection of classic chillers is a modern masterpiece of arcane abomination and inhuman horror no shock addict of mystery lover will want to miss.
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Deadman: Book One


By Arnold Drake, Jack Miller, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3116-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

As the 1960s ended, a massive superhero boom became a slow but certain bust, with formerly major successes no longer able to find enough readers to keep them alive. The taste for superheroes was diminishing in favour of more traditional genres, and one rational editorial response was to reshape costumed characters to fit evolving contemporary tastes.

Publishers swiftly changed gears and even staid, cautious DC reacted rapidly: making masked adventurers designed to fit the new landscape. Newly revised and revived costumed features included roving mystic troubleshooter The Phantom Stranger and golden age colossus The Spectre, whilst resurgent traditional genres spawned atrocity-faced WWII spy Unknown Soldier and cowboy bounty hunter Jonah Hex, spectral western avenger El Diablo and game-changing monster hero Swamp Thing, spearheading a torrent of new formats, anthologies and concepts.

Moreover, supernatural themes and horror-tinged plots were shoehorned into those superhero titles that weathered the trend-storm. Arguably, the moment of surrender and change had arrived with the creation of Boston Brand in the autumn of 1967, when venerable science fiction anthology Strange Adventures was abruptly retooled as the haunted home of an angry ghost…

Without fanfare or warning, Deadman debuted in #205 with this first collection (of five) re-presenting that origin event and thereafter, pertinent contents from #206-213: cumulatively spanning cover-dates October/November 1967 to July/August 1968. The drama is preceded by Introduction ‘How Deadman Came to Life’ by originator Arnold Drake and the Foreword – ‘A Most Unusual Character’ by Carmine Infantino – each reminiscing, recapitulating and confirming just how daring and unprecedented the new kind of hero was…

Then it’s straight into eerie action with ‘Who Has Been Lying in My Grave?’ – by Arnold Drake, Carmine Infantino & George Roussos – as we attend the funeral of high wire acrobat Boston Brand: a rough, tough, jaded performer who had seen everything and masked a decent human heart behind an obnoxious exterior and cynical demeanour.

As “Deadman”, Brand was the star attraction of Hills Circus and lover of its reluctant owner Lorna Carling, as well as a secret guardian for the misfits it employed and sheltered. That makeshift “family” includes simple-minded strongman Tiny and Asian mystic Vashnu, but also had a few bad eggs too… people like alcoholic animal trainer Heldrich and chiselling carnival Barker Leary.

The aerialist kept them in line… with his fists, whenever necessary…

One fateful night, Brand almost missed his cue because of Leary and Heldrich’ antics and also because he had to stop local cop Ramsey harassing Vashnu. It would have better if he had been late, because as soon as he started his act – 40 feet up and without a net – someone put a rifle slug into his heart…

Despite being dead before he hit the ground, Brand was scared and furious. Nobody could see or hear him screaming, and Vashnu kept babbling on that he was the chosen of Rama Kushna – “the spirit of the universe”. The hokum all came horribly true as the entity astonishingly made contact, telling Brand that he would walk among men until he found his killer…

The sentence came with some advantages: he was invisible, untouchable, immune to the laws of physics and able to take possession of the living and drive them like a car. His only clue was that witnesses in the audience claimed that a man with a hook had shot him…

Outraged, still disbelieving and seemingly stuck forever in the ghastly make-up and outfit of his performing persona, Deadman’s first posthumous act is to possess Tiny and check out the key suspects. Soon the dormant Hercules finds that the cop and Heydrich are involved in a criminal conspiracy, but they definitely are not Brand’s murderers…

Eventually, the ghost learns a shocking fact: his desperation is not worth the life of anyone else and he must not let his anger put his “vessels” in harm’s way…

Second episode ‘An Eye for An Eye!’ was scripted by Drake, and was Adams’ illustrative debut. Originally inked by Roussos, here it is rather unfairly reinked by Adams and further enhanced by modern colouring techniques. I understand how the artist should have autonomy and agency in his own work, but for the sake of chronology and authenticity, I take quite a bit of umbrage on behalf of old “Inky”, whose efforts seem unfairly judged and slighted by these revisions…

That being said, the tale is a strong one and indicates a sea change in narrative style as Deadman expedites his hunt for justice. The stories henceforth focus on those who are temporarily occupied by Brand: a string of episodic encounters that mirrored the protagonist of contemporary hit TV series The Fugitive (and by extension, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables), with an unfairly accused victim searching for personal justice all across America, to the benefit of many people in crisis.

Here, that’s young Jeff  Carling, who’s fallen in with a dangerous biker gang and is set up to pay for their crimes. He’s also Lorna’s brother, which is how Deadman gets involved in the mess, after learning the cash-strapped kid had taken out a life insurance policy on the circus star just before the Hook struck…

Having saved the kid from a perfect frame, Brand resumes his search and, as Jack Miller took over scripting in #207, is forced to ask ‘What Makes a Corpse Cry? The hunt leads him to revisit the night he saved bar girl Liz Martin from a drunken assault by her boss Rocky Manzel, but when the spook checks in, he finds Liz and boyfriend Paul being terrorised by Rocky, who coldly implies he caused the death of her last protector…

Even after using his ghost gifts to disqualify Manzel, Deadman is compelled to help the young lovers, and exposes the club owner’s criminal secret, but once again almost causes the death of his human ride…

Miller & Adams were providing a very different reading experience with innovative, staggeringly powerful art, but struggled with deadlines, and ‘How Many Ways Can a Guy Die?’ was delivered in 4 parts across Strange Adventures #208 and 209. The revelatory tale introduces Brand’s trapeze artist rival Eagle, who had tried to kill him years before, and now seeks to replace him in the circus and Lorna’s bed – whether she wants him or not…

When Deadman again borrows Tiny to dissuade the brute, Eagle threatens the gentle strongman with the same thing Brand got and the ghost is convinced his quest is almost over. However, the truth is far crueller, and when Deadman uncovers his rival’s actual scheme, the cost to Tiny and alternate vessel Pete is far too high…

The hunt stalled again, Brand finally thinks to check the official police investigation in #210’s ‘Hide and Seek’ (cover-dated March 1968). To his disgust, he finds the case is cold, with assigned detective Michael Riley dishonourably discharged from the force due to the testimony of a man with a hook…

Sensing a breakthrough, Deadman possesses Riley and, visiting the other “witness” to the former cop’s reported use of excessive force, uncovers a devious plot. Sadly, despite clearing Riley’s name, Brand misses The Hook who coldly disposes of the only man who could describe him before fleeing to Mexico…

Hot on the trail, Deadman arrives in El Campo in #211, and endures a shocking surprise in ‘How Close to Me My Killer?’ as Miller’s last story introduces wayward twin brother Cleveland Brand. Flashbacks show the sibling had plenty of motive to murder his showbiz brother, but as the tale unfolds, Boston learns he has an unsuspected niece and his people-trafficking but repentant brother needs some haunted help to save smuggled “wetback” labourers from a Texan businessman looking to whitewash his criminal endeavours…

Adams took over scripting with #212 and ‘The Fatal Call of Vengeance’ sees another change of direction, adding more conventional fantasy elements to the mix as Cleveland and his daughter Lita head north to Hills Circus.

Wearing his brother’s costume, Cleve revives the Deadman act and, in Mexico, a man with a hook sees a headline and rushes back to the USA.

Faster than any jet, Boston is already there and watches helplessly as his brother makes himself a target of the unknown killer. The phantom is also completely spooked by new lion tamer Kleigman who is rude and unfriendly and is missing his right hand…

With everyone at odds, both Boston’s returned killer and the circus family set traps with disastrous results, but in the end the Hook escapes again and it’s Tiny who’s left bleeding out from a gunshot…

This first collection concludes with a dip into the madly metaphysical as ‘The Call from Beyond!’ tests Deadman’s abilities to the limit as he enters Tiny’s consciousness to promote his recovery and break a assumed-fatal coma. Following that miracle, the restless revenant repays his debt by saving the reputation and life of Tiny’s surgeon Dr. Shasti after the medical savant is duped by murderous con artist/medium Madam Pegeen…

With groundbreaking covers by Infantino, Sekowsky, Roussos & Adams and ‘Biographies’ of the creators involved, this spectral delight perfectly captures the tone of an era in transition through a delirious run of comics masterpieces no ardent art lover or fanatical fear aficionado can do without.
© 1967, 1968, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher – a Johnny Constantine Graphic Novel


By Ryan North, Derek Charm & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0123-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Moody, Mirthful and Magical… 8/10

In recent years DC has opened up its shared superhero universe: generating Original Graphic Novels featuring its stars in stand-alone adventures for the demographic inappropriately dubbed Young Adult. To date, results have been rather hit or miss, but when they’re good, they are very good indeed. An ideal example is this cheery chiller reinterpreting the formative years of DC’s magical bad boy: particularly concentrating on his early relationship with things that go bump in the night…

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be brief. Created in 1985 by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch & John Totleben during a groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, the unlikeliest of heroes is a mercurial modern mage, a dissolute chancer and self-appointed mystic fixer who plays like an addict with magic – on his own terms for his own ends.

He is not a good guy. He is not a nice person, but all too often, he’s all there is between us and the void…

Winning his own series by clamorous popular demand, Constantine’s own series Hellblazer premiered in 1988, during the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US but at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in England. We’re pretty much singing the same songs now as back then but – with 5th rate Britain’s Got Talent cover-artist wannabes as our revolving-door leaders – that’s something little Johnny will surely get around to sorting if he gets another outing…

In 1988, creative arts and Liberal attitudes were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. The long-running series started with relatively safe horror plots, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature, chequered history and odd acquaintances. Even then, discriminating fans were aware of a joyously anti-establishment political line, rebellious nature and wildly metaphorical underpinnings. Racism, Darwinian politics, gender fluidity, plague, famine, gruesome supernature and more were everywhere in the dark dystopian purview of John Constantine – a world of bleeding-edge mysticism, Cyber-shamanism and political soul-stealing.

Relax. That is not the Constantine you’re looking at here…

Courtesy of writer Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics, Adventure Time, Slaughterhouse-Five, Power Pack, Machine of Death, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, How to Invent Everything, Star Trek – Lower Decks) and illustrator Derek Charm (Jughead, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Uncle Scrooge, Jughead’s Time Police, Star Wars Adventures) – assisted by letterer Wes Abbott – we’re meeting a wily wizard in waiting: someone apparently without conscience or impulse control who bears more than a passing resemblance to juvenile parental burden Dennis the Menace – but more the malign mischief maker from The Beano than Hank Ketchum’s wayward waif…

It begins in London where a cocky kid pops into a sweetshop. Unfortunately, Archibald Junior’s Discount Confections is no ordinary purveyor of tasty treats, but then again, Johnny Constantine is no ordinary kid…

Behind a cheesy façade of fragrant gleaming bottles, jars and bags, this exotic emporium has a back room where ghosts, demons and world-devouring cosmic entities can also snatch a little snacky something. It just another eldritch secret that Johnny – who calls himself “Kid Constantine” – somehow knows. The boy has an astounding affinity for magic and has even befriended a few lesser devils, but he also has a weakness for Archibald’s magic chocolates.

Sadly, this latest shoplifting lark endangers all of Earth and, haunted by angry ghosts, the Kid has to take refuge with a pack of low-grade demons.

He’s been casually manipulating his parents for a while now, and fooling himself that he’s a wicked cool Jack the Lad, but he learns a few hard truths as he even wears out his welcome with the unholy monsters, and immediately opts to try boarding school to evade further repercussions. Best of all, the place is in America…

It’s pretty far away, but Johnny doesn’t mind. He’s always been better off alone. Just look what happened to the last friend he foolishly shared his magical gifts with…

With terrifying ease, the unaccompanied boy rocks up at The Junior Success Boarding School in Massachusetts, but his charm and roguish manner can’t help him adjust, settle in or make any friends on campus. In fact, he’s actually starting to feel a bit lonely… until a bit of lazy, labour-saving magic is spotted by fellow sixth grade outsider Anna.

The Kid is just starting to think he might have made a mistake coming to America when she comes clean and confesses that she too can make little miracles…

Our gobsmacked loner thinks long and hard before letting his guard down, but soon they are friends and co-conspirators, playing pranks and testing their limits. It seems the best of all worlds until their homeroom teacher Ms. Kayla starts behaving strangely…

Formerly the nicest adult in school, she abruptly changes, spitefully singling out Johnny and Anna for special attention and cruel psychological bullying. Before long, the supernatural students are using their gifts to learn what caused the transformation, but discover it’s far worse than they could ever have imagined…

Facing a deadly existential supernatural threat, Kid Constantine does what he always does and runs away, deserting Anna and the school, but everything changes when he hits the forests surrounding the institution and meets a potentially life-changing ally in the huge form of a witch-hunting demon called Etrigan…

Chastened and emboldened, the Kid makes a decision that will change his life: returning to school, joining Anna and the Demon in ending a monstrous menace more terrible than anyone could have imagined…

Rowdy, rousing and riotous – and sublimely stuffed with twists, shocks and enticing snippets of DC lore – the battle against unforgiving evil culminates in a clever piece of misdirection and some stellar sleight of hand as valiant Anna and duty-driven Etrigan see their bad boy come good and save everything…

This tale is done in one but the book also offers a lengthy excerpt from Jeffrey Brown’s Batman and Robin and Howard that is also worth some of your time and attention…

Bold, beguiling, brilliantly entertaining and deliciously uplifting, The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher is a magical rite of passage and smartly funny adventure with a twist to charm and thrill full-on fans and nervous neophytes alike: one introducing a new wondrous world with a rousing reminder that there is magic everywhere.
© 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Son of Satan Classic


By Gary Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Warner, Bill Mantlo, Mike Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Sonny Trinidad, P Craig Russell, Ed Hannigan, Russ Heath, Jim Starlin & various (Marvel)
ISBN:  978-3029-0104-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

As the 1960s closed, American comics were in turmoil, reflecting the greater society they were being published in – the one full of reactionary establishment types, turbulent rebellious youth, black people and their multi-ethnic supporters all agitating for universal Civil Rights and impressionable kids looking for entertainment and getting an education along the way.

In that cauldron – one fully addressed and depicted in comics books as much as laws and the Comics Code would allow – dissatisfaction and the need for change permeated everyone’s mind and the desire for a new way gripped the national and international consciousness.

Superheroes had dominated for most of the decade: peaking globally with a rush of outrageously daft, “Camp” humour excess before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Business never sleeps, however, and in their place, TV, movies and comics returned to familiar old genres like westerns, war, science fiction and especially horror stories: although these too benefitted from and were changed by expanded consciousness and enlightened social attitudes.

For Marvel, the problem must have been particularly acute: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby had rebuilt an ailing minor publisher into a close contender for the top spot, on the backs of gaudily attired mystery men, but now that the bubble seemed to have both deflated and burst… for a second time.

Since other genres were now piquing the still-presumed mostly adolescent interests of comics core readership – like the alternative “cool” vibe attached to the modern notion of disenchanted, unchained youth (and generally ones riding motorbikes) – all publishers were looking for fresh and different ways forward.

To counter the abrupt downturn in superhero sales, the Comics Code prohibition against horror stories and iconography was hastily amended to facilitate the resurrection of scary material and bolster an industry in economic freefall. With terror tales and magical situations back in a big way, a new crop of anthologies and supernatural heroes and monsters started to thrive, supplementing the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins that had been gradually infiltrating the formerly science-only scenarios of the superhero who had weathered the downturn by tackling horror themes and villains…

It should be noted that more mature scary stories had been available since the mid-60s in the monochrome publications of Jim Warren and his imitators, who had deftly sidestepped Comics Code embargos by redefining their graphic output as “magazines” not comics. Now the likes of Eerie and Creepy had some real competition…

Lifting the CCA ban sparked a mass spawning of horror titles of varying degrees of potency and excess. Whether new material or reprints from before and after the instigation of the Code, the inexorable wave of thrillers and chillers helped even more venerable costumed crusaders close their doors and – temporarily at least – bite the dust.

Almost overnight, nasty monsters became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and a parade of pre-code reprints refreshed jaded palates whilst making sound financial sense. However, the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination with supernatural themes was best catered to by adapting already-popular and well-known cultural icons (all long out of copyright) before gambling on new concepts and an untested readership.

Whereas DC quickly cornered the market in new anthology tales – in the mordantly dark vein of Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry and more – Marvel’s attempts at new, stand-alone anthological vehicles proved less successful and they soon shifted editorial efforts to their strong suite: developing ongoing characters in a shared universe. centred

The House of Ideas combined the new trend with their established style to create dark and tragic adventure heroes and even explored having unrepentant villains – like Dracula – as chief protagonist. As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics must be adapted and incorporated into the continuity. Marvel was still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC in 1970 (where he would conjure his own chilling legends with Spirit World and The Demon) and new Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas cannily greenlit a new character combining freewheeling, teen-friendly biker themes with the all-pervasive horror-furore…

Are you up for a bit more context before we really begin?

When proto-monster star Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1970) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved quickly and instituted a string of shocking super-stars. The began with a tragic wild beast and cruelly cunning predator – Werewolf by Night and The Tomb of Dracula – before chancing something truly new: a devil-haunted biker who could tap into both the motorcycling chic of movie Easy Rider and the global supernatural zeitgeist.

Preceded by god-touched western star Red Wolf and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night a new Ghost Rider premiered in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972), and in turn led to the birth of the troubled subject of this Classic collection.

The graphic grimoire gathers the earliest exploits of Daimon Hellstrom as first seen in Ghost Rider #1-2, Marvel Spotlight #13-24, and Son of Satan #1-8, plus pertinent crossovers from Marvel Team-Up #32 and Marvel Two-In-One #14. Said saga spanned September 1973 to February 1977.

And will need even more background to with your continued indulgence…

Stunt-biker Johnny Blaze sold his soul to Satan to save his adopted father-figure Crash Simpson from cancer, but was cheated by the Devil. When the Lord of Lies came to collect his due, Johnny’s devoted and virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpson interceded and partially redeemed her man. Although her purity prevented Satan’s victory, the Devil was only temporarily thwarted and took a measure of vengeance by afflicting Blaze with a body that burned with the fiery torments of Hell every time the sun set…

Initially haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals, the traumatised biker soon left the city for the solitary desert, perpetually battling The Deceiver’s countless agents who were tasked with shattering Roxanne’s loving aura of protection and claiming Blaze for Hell.

As part of these adventures Blaze battled a diabolical cult led by First Nations medicine man Snake Dance who sought to sacrifice Roxanne. The Ghost Rider barely saved her and – after dodging gun-happy cops – rushed her to hospital, where he was again attacked, this time by the Medicine Man’s daughter, Linda Littletrees, who revealed her own intimate connection to the Infernal…

The confrontation culminated in a devastating eldritch assault as she revealed her hidden role as satanic siren Witch-Woman…

That epic duel opens this compendium with Ghost Rider #1 (cover-dated September 1973, by Gary Friedrich, Tom Sutton & Syd Shores), further extending the escalating war between Blaze and the Devil and using the conflict to introduce a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant slot in Spotlight: one owing much to the tone of the times and the imminent release of movie blockbuster The Exorcist…

It transpires that Linda Littletrees isn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as ‘A Woman Possessed!’, but when her father and her fiancé Sam Silvercloud call in a Boston-based exorcist named Daimon Hellstrom, they are utterly unprepared for the kind of assistance this demonologist offers.

A Roxanne slowly recuperates, Blaze is still on the run from the police and Ghost Rider #2 sees the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (illustrated by Jim Mooney & Shores) before the tale concludes in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’, courtesy of Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaramonte.

Here it is revealed that religious scholar Hellstrom has a long and painfully suppressed inner self, and that the exorcist is actually a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his diabolical dad.

Unleashed and liberated, the Prince of Hell swiftly rushes to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start, continues to take the pressure off the flaming-skulled hero.

We learn that the star-crossed career of the perpetually divided champion is comprised of a war between a devout demonologist and the Prince of Pandemonium: a studious, spiritual scholar sharing one body with a rebellious, sadistically violent demonic alter ego dubbed “the Darksoul”, and the Devil’s true spawn and legacy…

Friedrich, Trimpe & Chiaramonte reveal the source of the conflict in Marvel Spotlight #13’s as ‘When Satan Walked the Earth!’ takes Hellstrom back to the house he was reared in to find and read his mother’s diary.

Victoria Hellstrom’s words describe an enigmatic, beguiling stranger who swept her off her feet and subsequent early years of wedded bliss. How she bore a son and, three years after, a daughter. The toe shifts as the writer notes her husband’s increased absences, and the day she found her man and his girl-child performing a macabre blood-oath ritual sacrifice in the cellar of the idyllic family home…

When her spouse revealed himself as Satan Incarnate, the writer went quite mad.

With his mother institutionalised, his sister taken into care and their father vanished, the grieving shellshocked son entered a seminary and studied for the priesthood.

The diary ends with the writer’s death, but Daimon’s reawakened memories stir and he recalls how, on his 21st birthday his heritage came for him. Following an irresistible call, the student followed a disembodied voice through  portal to Hell and saw his father once more…

Offered all the twisted power and malign glory of a seat by the Devil’s side, Hellstrom rebelled, rejecting and battling his father and triggering a short-lived revolution in The Pit, before escaping with Satan’s all-powerful infernal Trident. The unique pitchfork is made of exotic mineral Netheranium: the only substance (other than prayer, piety, devotion and that other holy stuff) that can weaken the Devil. Best remember this is a comic book, and notionally an all-ages one at that…

Thus, after an untold age suppressing his own dark passenger, Daimon Hellstrom reaches an accommodation with his other self and prepares to take the war to the father they both despise…

At this time, Steve Gerber was Marvel’s undisputed Wizard of Weird: a brilliant, erudite, sensitive and ingenious writer who could make almost any off-the-wall concept accessible to readers – everything from Man-Thing to Howard the Duck, Daredevil to Sub-Mariner, Marvel Two-In-One to Iron Man.

He assumed the writer’s reins with Marvel Spotlight #14, joining artists Mooney & Sal Trapani in lying out a career path for the infernal antihero. It began with ‘Ice and Hellfire’ as the demonologist relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, at the request of Gateway University parapsychologist Dr. Katherine Reynolds. She has been terrorised and terrified by a string of bizarre apparitions and periodic poltergeist phenomena plaguing the campus…

Hellstrom soon uncovers an infestation of Ikthalon ice demons, and that these vile visitors and frozen furies are not invaders but have been summoned. In order to defeat them he takes Reynolds into his confidence and is enraged but unsurprised when she fails him…

Resorting to his father’s tactics to repulse the demons, Hellstrom sticks around for reasons he cannot fathom, and #15 (an all-Mooney art job) sees him endure a sinister physical change as a monstrous – possibly prophetic – dream propels him into a state of permanent chaos as his divergent natures fully merge into one eternally warring personality.

Accepting a lecturer’s position at Gateway, Hellstrom then disrupts an undergraduate ‘Black Sabbath’ and clashes again with his father – in his demonic iteration Baphomet – to save the souls of some stupidly curios students…

Trapani inked #16 as ‘4000 Holes in Forest Park!’ lure the exorcist into a very public media circus when a mysterious overnight event entices every kind of whacko out of the woodwork… as well as far less harmless loons like Christian End-Timers and a depraved Legion of Nihilists…

Inevitably the park explodes into a religion-fuelled riot, and when the Son of Satan intervenes, his supernal hellfire gimmick only exacerbates matters, igniting the scattered holes to form a colossal blazing pictogram. When the image then materialises into physical life, Dr. Reynolds and Divinity student Byron Hyatt are hurled back in time to the days before Atlantis sank, resulting in a shattering confrontation and startling glimpse at how magic reshaped the world in MS #17’s ‘In the Shadow of the Serpent!’ Schooled by legendary sorceress Zhered-Na, Hellstrom learns the necessity of catastrophe and the cosmic purpose of disaster, as well as his true role in existence before returning to the present with his fellow voyagers.

Gene Colan stepped in with #18, and – inked by Chiaramonte – takes the exorcist into a ‘Madhouse!’ when Katherine drags Daimon to a party attended by faculty and fellow parapsychologists only to find the festivities befouled by an act of animal cruelty.

The next morning Hellstrom learns that the house burned down after he left, and – curiosity aroused – investigates the ruins and detects psychic evil of tremendous potency. The fresh trail leads to young Melissa who has become the new home of truly ancient evil…

However, even after seemingly banishing ghastly Allatou back to damnation, the rescue mission continues as #19 (inked by Mike Esposito) then pits the exorcist against the girl’s fully-occupied parents in ‘Demon, Demon, Who’s Got the Demon?’: a brutal struggle that only ends when Daimon abandons holy lore and crushes his opponent with the Devil’s despised power and tactics…

Sal Buscema & Al McWilliams limned #20 as ‘The Fool’s Path!’ sees Satan’s Son targeted by a bizarre tarot reader and attacked by her animated cards. Three covers from previous SoS collections then offer a brief pause before #21 concludes the manic mystery in ‘Mourning at Dawn!’ with Joe Giella inks – exposing Madame Swabada’s incredible true nature… The battle concludes in the Bob McLeod inked ‘Journey into Himself!’ with Daimon corporeally confronting his past and a legion of demons and – ultimately – the true cause of all his woes…

Marvel Team-Up #32 – by Gerry Conway, Buscema & Vince Colletta – then offered a fiery collaboration between Human Torch Johnny Storm and Hellstrom. The exorcist inflicts ‘All the Fires in Hell…!’ on a demon possessing Johnny’s best pal Wyatt Wingfoot and assorted fellow members of his Native American Keewazi tribe. An era ended in Marvel Spotlight #23, as Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Sal B & Dan Green declare ‘In this Light, Darkness!’ with Hellstrom looking to conclude his unfinished business with the Legion of Nihilists before leaving St. Louis. The task is delayed when aged sage Father Darklyte seeks to test the scholar, only to be exposed for the menace he is…

The inheritor of Hell ended his tenure in Spotlight with #24 (October 1975) as Chris Claremont, Buscema & McLeod made him ‘Walk the Darkling Road!’ after mortal satanist Gloria Hefford summons Kthara, the Mother of Demons. Travelling to Los Angeles, Daimon seeks to save her, but is manipulated into clashing with his despised younger sister Satana: a girl after her daddy’s heart…

Even after uniting to stop Kthara, no bridges are built or fences mended between the infernal siblings…

The dispossessed Dauphin of Darkness moved into his own place as – cover-dated December 1975 – The Son of Satan #1 proclaimed ‘The Homecoming!’ as scripter John Warner, splash page artist Jim Starlin and story illustrator Jim Mooney took the eccentric exorcist into strange new territory as Hellstrom returned to the family house only to find it defiled. By invading Hell, he then learns that civil war has come to the pit as his father struggles against a usurper called The Possessor: a human who can control demons…

The war spreads, enveloping a well-meaning Navajo shaman in ‘The Possession!’ – illustrated by Sonny Trinidad – and emptying his village of living souls. As Hellstrom probes the history of the Possessor his inquiries take him back to Hell where the deranged super-psychic has his tool Nightfire lead ensorcelled tribesmen in an attack on the infernal hierarchy that the exorcist is barely able to stop in concluding clash ‘Demon’s Head’…

Another brief diversion takes us to Marvel Two-In-One #14 where Bill Mantlo, Trimpe & John Tartaglione take Ben Grimm to a western ‘Ghost Town!’ for a spooky encounter with spectres and demons. The notoriously superstitious Thing thought he was on a mission of mercy, but needed much merciful magical assistance from exorcist Daimon Hellstrom to escape the deadly grip of sinister spectre Jedediah Ravenstorm…

The final days of Daimon begin in SoS #4 as Warner, P. Craig Russell & Trinidad form a ‘Cloud of Witness!’ when the scholar returns to academia and meets Georgetown (that’s Washington DC) educator Saripha Thames. He believes he’s a specialist researcher, but is unaware that a hidden mastermind is actually studying him under laboratory conditions…

As always, plagued by incomprehensible dreams, Hellstrom gets an inkling of what’s in play when he’s accosted by higher being the Celestial Fool and challenged over his dual nature…

The mental and spiritual assault intensifies in ‘Assassin’s Mind’, with Daimon apparently unable to control his powers or Darksoul, even as new nemesis Mindstar ups the cosmic stakes before #6 begins pulling the strands together in ‘House of Elements!’ (pencilled by Ed Hannigan).and the mystery is explosively resolved in #7’s ‘Mirror of Judgement!’ by Warner & Trinidad.

The series concluded on an artistic high with #8 as Mantlo and Russ Heath – with additional art from John Romita – offered a treatise on temptation as a disturbing phantom begs ‘…Dance with the Devil My Red-Eyed Son!’. By dragging the Son of Satan through the inferno and history’s greatest flashpoints, someone attempts to seduce and soil his soul. Ultimately however, who can say who tempts whom?

This bombastic broadside of metaphysical mastery also includes the Son of Satan Preview article from Monsters Unleashed #3; Comics Code rejected pages, art from Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries and a selection of reprint covers to complete a superb journey to Comics’ darkest side.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade compelled increasingly criticism-averse controversy-shy, commercially astute Corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these tales into watered-down generic and apparently more palatable demonic analogues like Mephisto, Satannish, Marduk Kurios and other equally-naff downgrades. Never forget, however, that the original intent of Ghost Rider, spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana was to tap into the era’s global fascination with supernature and satanism, which had begun with epochal films and novels like Rosemary’s Baby. Please remember these aren’t your modern and feeble Hell-Lite horrors, but concern the real-deal Infernal Realm (as much as the Comics Code would allow) and reflect good people struggling to save their souls from bad breaks and Faustian bargains, so brace yourselves, hold steady and accept no supernal substitutes…
2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Superman & Batman vs Vampires & Werewolves


By Kevin VanHook & Tom Mandrake (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2292-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Man of Tomorrow and the Dark Knight are two characters who have, for the most part, escaped their lowly comics origins to join a meta-fictional literary landscape populated by the likes of Mickey Mouse, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. As such their recognition factor outside our industry means that they get to work in places and with other properties that might not appeal to funny-book purists.

Take for example this out-of-print tale that piles on heaped helpings of monster-bashing, and which, despite a host of guest-stars, felt on release more like a test launch than a assured hit and has since become as vanishingly vaporous as its arcane antagonists…

Superman & Batman vs. Vampires & Werewolves is an intriguing, if flawed, oddment (with one of the clunkiest titles ever imagined) that should have appealed to the casual reader, especially if they’re not too adamantly wedded to the comic book roots and continuity of the DC Universe.

Prowling the streets of Gotham City, Batman comes across a partially devoured corpse and is promptly boots-deep in an invasion of mindless berserker vampires and werewolves who turn the city into a charnel house. Helpless to combat or contain the undead rampage, the Caped Crimebuster accepts the aid of enigmatic (but rational) vampire Marius Dimeter and his lycanthropic counterpart Janko who grudgingly ally themselves with the hero to track down Herbert Combs – a truly deranged scientist resolved to traffic with the Realms Beyond.

To facilitate his goals, Combs turned Janko and Dimeter into the accursed creatures they are and unleashed his plague of horrors on America to further his research. The bonkers boffin is infecting more helpless humans and has become an actual portal for Lovecraftian beasts to invade our reality…

Superman joins the fray just as one of these Elder God nightmares is unleashed, but even after its defeat he’s no real help: hampered more by his ethical nature than utter vulnerability to magic. Far greater aid is provided by super-naturalist Jason Blood and his Demonic alter-ego, whilst Kirk Langstrom – who can transform into the monstrous Man-Bat at will – provides both scientific and brutally efficient clean-up assistance.

Fellow harder-edged heroes such as Wonder Woman, Nightwing and Green Arrow turn up and join the battle to great effect, but after their admittedly impressive cameos and participatory contributions inexplicably wander off before the overarching threat is ended…

Nuh-uuh! Once a team-up begins, comics guys (who aren’t paid big bucks like big-name guest actors) don’t leave until the day is saved!!

So it’s up to the headliners – with Dimeter and Janko – to finally restore order and normality, even though the cost is high both in blood and convictions…

At the last, the superheroes are – relatively – victorious, but the ending is rather ambiguous and leaves the impression that the whole affair has been a pilot for a Dimeter spin-off…

This was clearly a break-out publishing project, aimed at drawing in new readerships like those occasional movie tie-ins that drive professional fans crazy, and on that level the daft and inconsistent plot can be permitted, if not fully forgiven.

VanHook (Flash Gordon, Bloodshot, G.I. Joe, Red Tornado) makes more films than comics these days and the tale is certainly most effective on the kind of action and emotional set-pieces one sees in blockbuster flicks: so even if there are far too many plot holes big enough to drive a hearse through, the sensorial ride should carry most readers through. Most importantly, the moody art of Tom Mandrake (Grimjack, The Spectre, Batman, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter) is – as ever – astoundingly powerful: dark, brooding and fully charged for triumph and tragedy…

So if not perhaps for every reader, there’s a great deal of sinful pleasure to be found here. And let’s face it: who doesn’t like monster stories or finding out “who would win if”…
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Supernatural: Origins & Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh


Supernatural: Origins
By Peter Johnson, Geoff Johns, Matthew Don Smith & various (DC/WildStorm)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1701-3 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-84576-754-7 (TPB Titan Books edition)

Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh
By Brian Wood, Grant Bond, Matthew Don Smith & various (DC Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3506-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Comics have always enjoyed a long, successful affiliation and nigh-symbiotic relationship with television, but in these days when even the ubiquitous goggle-box business is paralysed and endangered by on-demand streaming, too many channels and far too much choice, the numbers and types of program that migrate to funnybooks is increasingly limited.

Excluding kids’ animation shows, cult fantasy adventure series now predominate in this dwindling arena and one of the best to make that transition to the printed page was the epic monster-fighting saga of two brothers literally on the road to Hell as they tracked down unnatural horrors, mystical malignancies and all the unexplainable things that treat humanity as fair game and delicious delicacies…

Over 15 seasons of 327 episodes and spanning from September 13th 2005 to November 19th, 2020, TV series Supernatural followed Sam and Dean Winchester whose lives were forever changed when a yellow-eyed demon killed their mother. The horrific event drove distraught John Winchester into a life of eternal wandering: stalking and killing impossible beasts and horrors he now knew lurked in every shadow.

Years later, rumours still abound that the show will return… soon!

After growing up from a baby on the road to hell, Sam got out of the life and tried to live a normal existence before being dragged back when his surly, alienated brother called to say that their dad had gone missing. It happened right about the time Sam’s girlfriend was killed by a fiery demon…

If you’re looking for a spooky, rowdy, funny binge watch, go no further. Moreover, as we do comics here and the series was rapidly picked up for a spinoff funnybook series, you could also enjoy some printed scary stories…

Supernatural: Origins is an impressive official prequel to the epic show, following the dysfunctional Winchester family in the days, months and years after the boys’ mother floated up into the air and spontaneously combusted. It left their father with unanswerable questions, a hunger for vengeance and two rather unnatural kids to raise…

After Mary’s death, John packs toddler Dean and baby Sam into his car and goes into a spin of booze and bar-fights, until he meets palm-reader Missouri Mosley. The prognosticator offers veiled answers and a glimpse into a world of mumbo-jumbo which is proven to be savagely real when an unseen thing kills Mary’s best friend Julie. She was babysitting the traumatised boys at the time of her demise, and lodged in her ghastly remains was a huge, rune-carved fang from no creature ever born on Earth…

Armed only with hints into the true nature of the world, the former marine begins a quest for the tooth’s owner and in Tempe, Arizona meets prickly, reclusive scholar Fletcher Gable. He identifies it as belonging to a Black Shuck… a Hellhound…

Sending the senior Winchester on to a reported sighting of such in California, the savant offers a further gift: a blank journal to record the notes, photos, clippings, drawings, thoughts and experiences that will inevitably occur and need reporting now that father and sons are irrevocably set on their particular road to Perdition…

The wise man and his latest student are both painfully unaware that Winchester is himself being hunted…

When Mary’s formidable brother Jacob comes looking for the boys and fearing the worst (although he has no idea of what the can worst actually be), he too is embroiled in the quest – to his eternal regret – and only the arrival of the mysterious shadower saves John from becoming the latest casualty of the hellhound…

‘Hunter’ – more job description than name – helps Winchester clear up the mess and cover up the evidence before introducing the now-doubly bereaved and shell-shocked single parent to the full horror of the hidden world of the Supernatural. It’s 1983 and all Hell’s breaking loose…

Winchester becomes part of an amorphous hidden association of loners known as Hunters: mortals who’ve lost loved ones, seen the truth and had the guts to look for payback. Partnered with his brusque and enigmatic mentor, John Winchester is still looking for a golden eyed demon and a hellhound with a missing fang as he tackles his first monster – a leaping carnivore known as a “Heeler” with Hunter and another clean-up man named Ichi.

Sadly, by the time the trio return to the grimly unique bar called Harvell’s Roadhouse – where Sam & Dean have been waiting under the lethally efficient care of waitress Ellen – John is a full-blooded monster killer. Good thing too, as Ichi isn’t friendly or human anymore…

Thus begins a perilous pattern: John and Hunter dumping the kids on someone oblivious or horribly in on the secret for a few days as they take care of business. That journal rapidly fills up with accounts of incredible horror…

Winchester learns fast and, after meeting a resurrected priest who grants him a few precious, tainted moments with Mary’s spirit, he and his extremely hands-on senior partner revisit Fletcher Gable with useful intel on the rune-carved fang. Before long they’re headed to one of the spookiest locations in America and an appalling gauntlet of terrors, a confrontation with the hellhound and its master, inevitable betrayal and an explanation for all that the bereaved father and his sons have endured…

Dotted with moving, telling “flashbacks” – like the moment in 1991 when independent, lethally dangerous Dean has enough and tries to run away, abandoning dad and little brother to an interminable legion of monsters – this initial chronicle also includes a short tale of the boys by Geoff Johns, Phil Hester & colourist JD Mettler.

‘Speak No Evil’ harks back to a day in 1989 when taciturn Sam asked his big brother just how their mother died. He might even have received an answer if a demon hadn’t smashed through the motel window just then, locked in a death grip with their father…

This rip-snorting, tense and moody thriller lives up to the demands of the dedicated TV following and still fulfils all that’s demanded of a horror comic for readers who haven’t tracked the torturous trail of the Winchesters, and this chilling compendium even offers in-process views of covers by Tim Sale, plus pin-ups, working drawings and sketches by series illustrator Matthew Dow Smith.

 

Supernatural: The Dogs of Edinburgh compiles volume 4 #1-6 from 2011, and was written by Brian Wood (DMZ, X-Men, Northlanders, Moon Knight), with art from Grant Bond (Revere, The Clockwork Girl) & Matthew Don Smith. It examines a different piece of the past and sees Sam returning to Scotland after years away.

Back then, he was no killer of killers but a student on a research grant from Stamford University. His journey of discovery to Edinburgh University was initially educational, but immensely brightened by meeting mysterious lass Emma – “of the Isles” – who seemed interested in exactly the same arcane nonsense he was. She was also really pretty…

It turned out that Emma was a Breaker – the Scottish equivalent of Hunters – and as they grew closer she showed him the mystic highlights of the ancient city. He found himself falling, but was also increasingly aware that Emma wasn’t like other girls…

Meeting ghosts and battling an immortal who ran with feral city demon-dogs and controlled numerous crime rackets, they got too close, ended a monster menace together and inevitably parted…

As opening arc ‘The Dogs of Edinburgh’ gives way to present-day sequel ‘Emma of the Isles’, Sam examines a stash of notes, photos and a plane ticket. After all this time Emma has sent them to him and now he’s heading back to Scotland…

The mystery trek leads him to a remote village on the coast and a reserved room at the Clachan Inn. There he reads decades of clippings about drowned girls, but finds no sign of Emma. By the time she finally makes contact, the Hunter has deduced what’s behind the countless deaths, if not why, and the ghastly dreams he’s been experiencing are starting to form a pattern..

A charming legend becomes ghastly truth after he is attacked by nocturnal predators and saved by Emma, who gradually shares the truth of her origins but not her plan to end an eternal cycle of death and procreation. All they have to do is survive a determined assault by an entire tribe of “Selkies”…

This time, however, Sam is no unseasoned kid. He’s a trained hunter, with a lethally-skilled brother who will drop everything and cross an ocean to save his family. All Sam has to do is stay alive and hope to divine what Emma really is and what she really wants…

With covers by Dustin Nguyen and a tranche of concept art by Grant Bond, this twisted romance is a powerful seasonal mystery yarn to delight fright fans and another example of the eerie adventures that made Supernatural such an undying delight.

Punchy, powerful and spookily addictive… get them before they get you…
© 2008 Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are © Warner Bros Entertainment, Inc.
© 2012 Warner Bros. Television Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Supernatural and all characters, distinctive likenesses and related elements are © 2011, 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

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Superman vs Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition


By Neal Adams, Denny O’Neil, Dick Giordano, Terry Austin, Gaspar Saladino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2841-5 (HB/Digital edition)

It’s a fact (if such mythological concepts still exist): the American comic book industry would be utterly unrecognisable without the invention of Superman. His unprecedented adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation quite literally created a genre if not art form.

Within three years of his June 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and – once the war in Europe and the East embroiled America – patriotic relevance.

If only in comic book terms, Superman is master of the world, having utterly changed the shape of a fledgling industry and entertainment in general. There have been newspaper strips, radio and TV shows, cartoons, games, toys, apparel, merchandise and blockbusting movies. Everyone on Earth gets a picture in their head when they hear the name.

Another icon – a magnificently human one – was a sporting legend who became a paragon of black liberation and human equality, as well as global symbol of power, endurance and dignity. He was an American prizefighter who started life as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., before finding his true name and purpose…

Born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17th 1942 – so, technically, also a son of the Golden Age – Clay began boxing at age 12. He won titles and acclaim – and later notoriety – not simply for his incredible sporting achievements but for his quick wits, cultural savvy and moral standing. Gold medal Olympian, World heavyweight champion, critic, pundit and street poet, in 1966 Clay took on the American government and paid a high personal price for refusing to fight a white man’s war in Vietnam.

A forceful lifetime advocate of equal rights, in 1964, the Conscientious Objector had converted to Islam and formally renounced his “slave name”, adopting new appellation Muhammad Ali. A living symbol of black pride during the Civil Rights era, Ali retired from boxing in 1981, concentrating on commercial, social, political and philanthropic works. He was declared Sportsman and Sports Personality of the (20th) Century by Sports Illustrated and the BBC respectively, and died in June 2016 from complications associated with Parkinson’s disease.

As part of his campaign to draw attention to his causes, in 1977 “The Greatest” agreed to a headline-grabbing exhibition bout with the “World’s Greatest Superhero” which was released in January 1978 in the flashy, oversized tabloid iteration that was the decade’s equivalent of today’s prestige print formats. Originally published as All-New Collectors’ Edition volume 7, #C-56, the project was very much the baby of another phenomenon of the era…

Neal Adams was born on Governors Island, New York City, on June 15th 1941. His family were career military and he grew up on bases across the world. In the late 1950s, Adams studied at the High School of Industrial art in Manhattan, graduating in 1959.

As the turbulent, revolutionary 1960s opened, the illustrator had worked in advertising and ghosted some newspaper strips whilst trying to break into comics. In pursuing a commercial art career – advertising and “real art” – he did some comics pages for Joe Simon at Archie Comics (The Fly and that red-headed kid too) before becoming one of the youngest artists to co-create and illustrate a major licensed newspaper strip: Ben Casey, based on a popular TV medical drama series. His first attempts to find work at DC were not successful…

That comic book fascination never faded, however, and as the sixties progressed Adams drifted back to National/DC, working on covers as inker or penciller. After “breaking in” via anthological war comics, he eventually found himself at the vanguard of a revolution in pictorial storytelling, much of it with similarly socially-inclined writer Denny- O’Neil (with whom he had spearheaded an age of “relevancy” in Green Lantern/Green Arrow)…

As well as a comics iconoclast, Adams was a tireless social activist and campaigner. His mission as champion of creators rights even finally secured some long-ignored liberties and rewards for the formerly invisible stars of comic books like Jerry Seigel & Joe Shuster…

For the high-profile Superman vs Muhammad Ali project – immortalised here in a splendidly oversized (187 x 283 mm) commemorative Deluxe collection – Adams even latterly assumed much of the writing thanks to his affinity for the stars and the subject. He also gets in the first word in his ‘Introduction’ before the saga begins…

As well as worthy and well-intentioned, the bombastic saga is also intoxicatingly exciting and well-executed: a classic invasion tale that finds the Man of Steel helpless before an encircling alien armada pointing appalling weapons at the world. Unable to counter the overwhelming force determined to eradicate or enslave troublesome humanity before they become a threat to all the civilised species of the universe, Superman must play a more devious game…

The Scrubb are a warrior race demanding Earth provide a representative champion to fight a single-combat duel as the means of determining the fate of their species. Forced to play the game by the rules of Scrubb leader Rat’Lar, Superman assumes he will fight for Earth, but is challenged by new friend Muhammad Ali who quite reasonably points out that the hero is only an adopted earthman, even as he shares a few fight tips in ‘Training’…

The fight to be the challenger is also manipulated by Rat’Lar, who broadcasts the event across the galaxies to cow and intimidate rival civilisations. The emperor makes great capital of the ‘Preliminary’ bout with the de-powered Kryptonian batting valiantly but in vain against the kid from Kentucky.

The result was never in doubt. Without powers, Superman could never handle Ali, and soon the grievously beaten superhero is stretchered out of the ring, leaving the boxer to face Scrubb champion Hun’Ya in the ‘Main Event’…

Exactly as Superman and Ali had planned…

Culminating in a battle of wits and blockbusting demonstration of human and superhuman brawn, this cathartic revel was never about showing whose hero is best, but how underdogs working together can defeat any opposition, even nasty aliens who have no intention of acting in good faith or fighting with honour…

Spectacular hokum, magnificently rendered, this is a treat for the eyes and endlessly re-readable, and this Deluxe tome enhances the visceral fun with loads of extras such as the original wraparound cover, and a ‘Seating Chart’ for the dozens of ringside celebrities Adams added to it plus some candid behind-the-scenes revelations in an ‘Afterword’ from then-DC publisher Jenette Khan. Moreover, art fans and history-buffs can delight in a selection of pencil page layouts and roughs in a copious ‘Sketches’ section, which includes script pages and creator ‘Bios’.

Fast, furious, enthralling and extremely rousing, Superman vs Muhammad Ali celebrates a classic moment of comics history: one that is endlessly appealing and rewarding, and one no fan should be without.
© 1978, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Muhammad Ali and all associated marks are trademarks of Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC © MAE LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter Digital Omnibus


By Mark Ellerby, with additional colours by Adam Cadwell (Great Beast Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-285-4 (Digest HB)

When the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted, its mix of sassy teen culture, wry humour, scary adventure, soap opera group dynamics and supremely quotable zingers utterly revolutionised popular entertainment – but not as much as the kick-ass star who proved once and for all that girls could be action heroes.

In the wake of the phenomenon, cartoonist Marc Ellerby (Love the Way You Love, Phonogram: The Singles Club, Ellerbisms, Rick and Morty, Regular Show, Doctor Who) deployed the sarcastic whimsical contrariness we Brits are so grievously afflicted with and belatedly devised a wry riposte to the saga of the mystically superpowered American “Chosen One” and her dedicated team of troubleshooters…

Between 2009 and 2014, Ellerby self-published five issues (and a few extra bits) of Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter – the sublimely daft exploits of a plucky, determined and utterly normal girl who splits her time between going to college and holding back the malign forces of darkness lurking all around us.

In 2012, the majority of these Kitchen Sink/School Daze/Eldritch Exploits were coloured and gathered in a Digital Omnibus. Here you can comfortably enjoy a jolly jump back in time and space to see how the nuts and bolts of saving humanity works with hilarious hits from Chloe Noonan #1-4, Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012, Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 and material from Paper Science #5 and Solipsistic Pop #2-3.

The preternatural perils are preceded by ‘Just a quick word! An introduction from the author’ wherein we learn the origins of the feature and how and why it was remastered, before we finally meet the snarky, sarky, brittle “plain Jane” B-lister who’s nobody’s first choice to save the world…

As well as benefitting from added colour, these terror tales have been chronologically adjusted so keep your wits about you as Chapter 1/ Chloe Noonan #1 takes us to a chip shop in Raven Dale where two students are chatting. Chloe is reluctantly revealing she’s in a band to ingenuous hottie Zoe Fox, when the dowdy, meek-seeming redhead gets an urgent call. For reasons she cannot understand, Noonan suddenly breaks protocol – and her oath of secrecy – and invites Zoe to come along as she tackles a rampaging monster. Her duty is onerous, unpaid and voluntary, so they have to take the bus…

It’s a long ride, made truly interminable by having to disabuse her new friend of ridiculous TV-fuelled notions of the job’s glamour, innate magic powers and skill with ancient weaponry, but eventually they locate the beastly Dahgul. It is not willing to come along quietly…

Forced to consult irascible mentor Professor Lemon Barley, the increasingly pissed off Chloe resorts to her favourite solution – nets and really big bombs – but is then stuck babysitting the beast while she plays a gig with the band…

Issue #2 opened with an inconclusive clash against drunken lobster-horror Pinchy, before another tedious day at Raven’s Dale College commences. Watching guys – especially cute but gormless Doug Stonebridge – hitting on Zoe does nothing to lift her mood, especially after her new self-elected BFF blurts out Cloonan’s monster-hunting sideline. More grief about her failures from Barley follows, and the absolute end comes when Pinchy – AKA Skaldjur – invades the college looking for girls, booze and a rematch and sparking a riot. Chloe might be merely human – and not very fit – but the brute has turned up just when she really needed to hit something and gets just what he deserves…

She’s barely regained her composure when the top secret clean-up crew show up, delivering pat disinformation and trying to impress pretty little Zoe…

Chapter 3 comes from Paper Science #5: a brief encounter with band nerds and ice creams, before Chloe Noonan #3 reveals how bandmate Zach pilfers arcane lore from Chloe’s bag and enhances the latest gig by summoning arcane armageddon in the form of an awakened Kraken…

Thankfully, a full-on angry rant seems to be Chloe’s private superpower…

A brace of shorts from Solipsistic Pop #3 and #2 reveals how Chloe & Zoe deal with a gang of monster-seeming Chavs and annoying girl band Pozzy Pops before chapter 7 presents the full-length fun of Chloe Noonan #4 with the “Nooners”, Zoe and Doug spending an unpleasant night clubbing, only to find that even supernal haunts crave a good time, cheap drinks and ear-splitting beats. However, when Chloe tries to lay down the law, she gets an unlikely schooling in monster politics…

Chloe Noonan #3 delivers the next instalment as drunken Doug falls foul of supernatural Chavs (think Devil-Moomins) in a deserted playground, and Zoe drags her “Nooners” out of a well-earned sleep to save his undeserving ass after which ‘Trick or Treat’ (from Chloe Noonan Halloween Special 2012) sees awestruck Zoe dressing up as her hero for a spot of fancy-dress, door-to-door begging on October 31st. Of course, prowling darkened streets with a happier, prettier, sexier version of herself is everything Chloe dreaded it would be, and she’s in no mood to dick about when the real monsters turn up to celebrate “their” special day…

Wrapping up the spooky selection is the Chloe Noonan Christmas Special 2012 with the surly supernaturalist and Professor Barley dutifully and pointlessly hunting an unknown antagonist and enduring ‘A Very Noony Christmas’ whilst everybody else is getting outrageously inebriated at a major college party…

Accompanying the morose mirth is a ‘Cover Gallery’ (fronts and backs!) including a spiffy art print; a selection of ‘Fan Art’ by Will Kirkby, Tom Humberstone, Liz Prince and Luke Pearson and a fulsome (29 pages) and fascinating dip into the author’s ‘Annotated Sketchbook’ as well as a ‘Biography’ of the creator.

Fun, funny, fiercely foolish and fabulously entertaining, this ancient arcane artefact is as fresh and festive as it ever was. Forget the Chosen One and just choose Chloe Noonan.
™ & © 2009-2012, 2020 Marc Ellerby. All rights reserved.