Cracking Cap page

I bought a skipload of bronze age Captain America at Kapow. It's largely great. Just finished issue 227 which sports this terrific cover...

Mein Gott!

Amazing!

The plot here is that the Red Skull has taken over the SHIELD helicarrier, turned all the operatives on board into Red Skulls and taken Nick Fury hostage. He straps Fury up to some solar powered death ray which will incinerate Fury once the sun hits its mirror. Top stuff.

Anyway, Cap fights his way to Fury just as he's about to get roasted, at which point the Skull starts his inevitable head fuck speech about Bucky. That moment gives us this quite splendid page...

Click it to see it nice and large. My issue is a bit yellow, but I think you can still appreciate some great storytelling here. Tip-top job by Sal Buscema. Love how the panels flow vertically as well as horizontally. Brilliant way to show a lot of stuff happening at the same time while maintaining the sense of drama and urgency. Tick-tock-tick-tock - Know what I mean? And what about this panel...

That's eye-popping, face-stretching, spit-flecked horror for you there, folks!

Magic.

Scans from Captain America #227, November 1978. Written by Roger McKenzie. Drawn by Sal Buscema.

PS - It's not really Nick Fury! He'd never scream in the face of death. It's a SHIELD 'life model decoy' (obviously!) which the Skull used to trap Cap into making a rescue attempt. Ah, this issue is so gloriously ridiculous.

New old tat!

Samples of tat I bought at Kapow!

self-aware panel...

Great (but arguably ruined) cover...

Click pic to enjoy BIG Wrightson horror GOLD!

If only those Twisted Tales Comics hadn't had that banner take up a third of the cover! This Wrightson piece is good as it is, but if it had been allowed a bit of extra headroom (excuse the pun) it would've been even better. All they had to do was superimpose the title on the sky. Instead they slapped it on a bright orange background and cut off the top of the psycho killer. I bet there was a moon in the original drawing. Tossers.

Scans from Captain America #222, 1978 and Twisted Tales #2, 1983

The Balaclava of Liberty

This year's must-have fashion accessory for the criminally deranged?

Yes, it's a Captain America Ski Mask!

Now you can bankrob, murder or rape AND let your victims know that you're a big fan of Marvel comics.

Ideal.

Buy yours HERE

Shopping List

A very short shopping list for me this week...

Green Lantern #52

Northlanders #26

Captain America #604

Secret Warriors #14

I'm skipping the new Millar book, Nemesis, because I'm just about done with limited series at the moment. I'll pick it up in trade.

Almost dropped Northlanders because I've fallen behind by a few issues and it would probably make more sense to pick the stories up in the trade format which they are written for. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating - I think the single issues of Northlanders would really benefit from some decent back matter. It's what keeps me buying Criminal in floppy format and I wouldn't even be considering switching up to trade if Northlanders followed suit. Yes it would entail a price hike to $3.50 (probably) but I have a feeling that this wouldn't hit the numbers too hard. When you're dealing with a series so rooted in real world history, it makes perfect sense to have some accompanying historical text pieces. At least I think so.

Green Lantern continues its zombie-like shamble through Blackest Night, an event which I've enjoyed for the most part, but which I'm ready to see wrap up now. More plot, (as opposed to character), driven shenanigans await, no doubt.

The current Captain America story has been top notch and I look forward to reading the latest installment. However, given the fact that I have zero interest in the back-up story, I am a mite hacked off at the price hike. Pretty soon comics will all be $3.99 with no back-ups, but for the moment I'd rather they kept Cap at $2.99 and spared us the Nomad bilge.

Secret Warriors has its moments. It can be tough keeping track of a large - and for the most part C list - cast but there's enough cool stuff going on in the background to keep me coming back, and the cast of baddies is an impressive one. Say what you like about Mark Millar, but Gorgon is one of the few decent new Marvel villains. He's a genuinely creepy, nasty piece of work who is badass enough to be a player for many years to come. Hickman's done him well in Secret Warriors too.

Very short reviews...

So yeah, I was going to write some sort of review of the first two Red Hulk trades wasn't I? No time, no time. Soz. Maybe Tuesday. Put it in your diaries...Tuesday: avoid reading Sutton's bilge on Hulk book that no-one else likes.

Briefly then...

Green Lantern #44: Martian Manhunter comes back from dead. Has fight with Flash and Green Lantern. John Stewart experiences enjoyable "Oh fuck" moment. Terrific fun.

Captain Britain #15: Last issue of cancelled series. Wraps up Dracula story. Features Space SAS who would've been a lot cooler if they didn't look so much like Buzz Lightyear...

Blackest Night Tales of The Corps #2: Throwback to the '80s GL Corps Annuals which Geoff Johns plundered for his run on GL. Nice short stories about aliens, and a bonus hokey explanation of all the various lantern colours and their symbols by Ethan van Bonkers.

Amazing Spidey #600: Read the first few pages before falling asleep. Rest of the comic could be utter pony for all I know, but as a spin on what it means to be a super-villain, this little four pager on Doc Oc is brilliant.

Captain America #601: After some humming and hawing with Mr Salmond, I eventually settled on the black and white variant of this Gene Colan pencilled special. Listen, some of the art is a bit ropey, but equally some of it is utterly glorious. Given the fact that Colan is a half-blind octogenarian, this rates as an absolute triumph.

Watched...The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters: Super documentary film about man-boys and their obsession with old school arcade games. If you haven't seen this, then go grab yourself a torrent, it's a rich study of emotional retardation and the near autistic world of competitive retro gaming. STEVE WIEBE FTW!

A few quick reviews

Captain America #600

I love Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. I've been buying it from the start and rate it as Marvel's most consistent book, BUT issue #600 was a letdown. To be honest with you, I haven't even finished it. I mean the Golden Age reprint in the back looks interesting and all, but I just can't get through the plodding guff that precedes it. All those people mooching around mourning Steve Rogers - pah! Who cares? As for the "bombshell" moment when Sharon Carter realises that Steve might not be dead after all? Damp squibbage.

So, a rare weak issue in an otherwise fantastic run, and one which will be of no interest to the general public who Marvel told us would be queuing around the block to get their hands on it. I don't know, do we really need Steve Rogers at the mo? He's only been dead five minutes, bringing him back now feels like a bit of a swizz, especially since Bucky's hardly had time to breathe in the role.

Flash Rebirth #3

I'm unsure what happened in this issue. Barry Allen had a race with Superman, reaching such an incredible speed that he ended up in the speed clouds or whatever they are. He repeated the name of his missus a lot and had a chat to two dead speedsters before meeting the big baddie. I enjoyed it and all, but this utterly impenetrable stuff to all but the most rabid of DC fanboys. Thought Van Sciver's insanely detailed art was really top notch this issue - his most Bollandesque yet.

Incognito #4

I'm a bit fed up of sweary, violent superhero comics at the moment, but I'll make an exception for this because it's so damn good. One use of the C word in this ish, a bunch of the coolest super-villains I've seen in ages and another great essay on a forgotten pulp hero from Jess Nevins + an end which makes it clear that the story is about to move into a new phase. Top stuff.

Cap's Black!

This isn't strictly true. I mean nothing's been confirmed yet, but I'm convinced that Captain America is about to go black. Issue #600 (yeah that numbering is fucked up) has been timed to coincide with some sort of big Marvel press release. I'm guessing that this is the announcement of the long awaited Captain America movie AND, if rumours are to be believed, the news that Will Smith will play the lead role in that film. So all makes sense eh?

Either The Falcon or The Patriot from The Young Avengers will take over from Bucky. I'm totally convinced of this. So convinced that I told boss man at the new shop that this was going to happen. His thoughts obviously turned to Obama variant covers (you could see the £ signs flashing in his eyes) and he was instantly on the blower to Diamond ordering more copies (I shit you not).

Things are actually running pretty smoothly with the new shop now. They have got their head round my pull-list and I'm getting all of my titles. The latest issue of Irredeemable didn't show up yesterday, but they'll have it for me next week so I'm cool with that. Friendly bunch of people working there and I'm still only a tube journey away from Gosh and all my manga and Indie needs.

EDIT: Kyle Baker's blog has me 110% certain that Cap's going to be black SEE FOR YOURSELVES! More info on Isaiah Bradley HERE

NERDGASM!

Classic Mike Zeck Cap cover

Double A+ Steve McNiven homage

Scan A: Cover to Captain America Annual #8, 1986

Scan B: Panel from Wolverine (Old Man Logan) #72, May 2009

Two to read

A brief couple of recommendations for you: Secret Warriors #3, in which a World-weary Nick Fury leads a team of super-powered greenhorns against the might of HYDRA. And Captain America Comics #1, a Marvel 70th Anniversary special which partly retells Cap's origin story.

Secret Warriors is ACE! A Marvel mash-up of classic super-team and espionage comics that manages to evoke the feel of the silver age Fury books, while at the same time being as innovative as a modern day Marvel comic can be.

Writer Jonathan Hickman is putting together a tight and intelligent story that hangs on a really big, fresh juicy idea. I don't want to spoil things by revealing his hook - suffice to say it's a proper universe changer!

All of which means that while Secret Warriors will work well in trade, it's important enough to the future of the Marvel U to merit a monthly audience. Of course, the fact that Hickman writes a mean single issue helps - there are no wasted words here, but there is still plenty of meat in those 22 pages to command more than the usual 10 minutes of attention that most comics take to read. 

Artist Stefano Caselli also deserves a lot of credit. He etches years of experience into Nick Fury's face, maintains a consistency of style that makes it easy to follow a large cast of characters, and draws some kinetically charged fight scenes that demonstrate a good understanding of visual storytelling. 

Mention must also go to colourist Daniele Rudoni, who gradually tones down the palette over the course of issue #3, until all colour disappears and we are left with a black and white comic which drives home Fury's increasing sense of urgency and focus. A top read and a proper, sharp Marvel comic - just like they should be.

Captain America Comics #1 is written by James Robinson. But while his story is every bit as readable as you'd expect it to be, the fact that we've already seen Cap's origins re-examined elsewhere (Mythos, The Ultimates) mean that it breaks little new ground. 

What makes this such a special comic is the art by Marcos Martin. It's not just the fact that he draws so well, it's the things that Martin does with his layouts that make him worthy of your attention. Right from the off here, he's playing with conventions, placing cap outside the panels on Page 1, using thought bubbles to draw the eye across the page on page two, and later,  in a beautiful double-page splash, walking Steve Rogers through a 40s street which stands frozen in time. It's beautiful stuff which channels the likes of Ditko, Eisner, Kirby and Cooke. 

It's so easy on the eye, that it seems almost effortless. But when you look at the vehicles, the buildings, the clothes and the hairstyles of the characters it's clear just how much research Martin has put into getting the look of the period right. Not only that, but he's drawn the weediest pre-super soldier serum Steve Rogers ever! The man is a genius. Best artist working in comics today. FACT!

On your knees and suck it Cap!

or am I just seeing stuff that's not really there again?

Notes on some comics I read yesterday

I read eight comics yesterday and they were all good. Here's the what and why of them all...

Green Lantern Corps #31

Delayed, delayed, but worth the wait. Krib - a particularly creepy lady alien from the Sinestro Corps who steals babies and stores them in a cage that grows out of her back - goes toe to toe with a giant green foetus. Meanwhile the guardians say no to jiggy jiggy while Mongul says yes and chills with some scantily clad extra terrestrials. Bonkers brilliance.

Fantastic Four #562

At this point I realise that I'm the only person in the world enjoying Millar and Hitch's Fantastic Four. Well yah boo sucks to the rest of you, you don't know a good Fan 4 comic when you see it! Big super-hero funeral shenanigans that give Hitch the chance to draw EVERYONE. Some nice characterisation of Franklin Richards, and a decent dash of talking heads between Doom and Reed.

Captain America #45

Not much to say really, just another solid issue in a consistently good run. Luke Ross and the mighty Butch Guice provide pencils, but it might as well be Steve Epting, because it looks as good as ever.

Incognito #1

Brubaker and Phillips new book from Marvel's Icon imprint. The Super-Villain in witness protection thing is a decent idea and this issue does a good job of setting the scene for what promises to be an interesting tale. It is slightly reminiscent of Millar's Wanted, but given how good that was, this is no bad thing. Lovely colouring job from Val Staples, and a very interesting text piece in the back on the early days of The Shadow.

Marvel Zombies #3

This Fred Van Lente fellow is a proper geezer. First he produces Comic Book Comics, one of my favourite books of last year,  then he does this - a sequel to a sequel that not only succeeds in outdoing the first two chapters in the zombies trilogy, but is also quite easily the best Marvel comic on the stands at the time of writing. 

Honestly, this comic is ACE. First off, van Lente has taken the Aaron Stack Machine Man from Warren Ellis's Nextwave and made him even more awesome than he was in that book. Then he's somehow made the whole Marvel Zombies thing seem fresh and exciting DESPITE the fact that (pardon the pun) it's an idea that should be dead in the water by now. AND, on top of all that he's produced an action packed page turner of a story loaded with witty dialogue. 

The art by Kev Walker looks just like Sean Phillips' stuff on the first two books which lends the story the feel of a proper continuation and also means that it looks flat out fantastic. Issue #3 features a quite sensational sequence where Machine Man nicks the bike of zombie Ghost Rider and outruns a trio of Marvel's most famous speedsters. I read it, put it down and muttered "fuck, that was excellent!" 

THIS is why I buy super-hero comics folks. Sadly there's only one issue left. Make sure you buy the trade.

Gigantic #2

Robots, satire and sick humour - this is sooooooooo 2000AD. Which is excellent given how shite the real 2000AD is these days. Rick Remender is kicking arse at Dark Horse, and this tale of intergalactic reality TV gone wrong is threatening to top the other grade A goodness he's been producing for the company. I still think that the colour palette is a touch muted for the robot smashing, planet busting style story, but it's a minor quibble. Top notch sci-fi.

Superman #683

What happened to the Creature Commandos? I'm getting confused. Oh well, I still enjoyed this. Part nine of the New Krypton saga and those pesky Kandorians are getting madder by the minute. An enjoyable super-hero romp.

Final Crisis Secret Files

Written by Len Wein, this is a look at Libra's origin. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but do have a couple of reservations about it. Firstly, the interior art isn't much cop. Sorry, but it isn't. I think my main gripe with it is that the artist chooses to ignore drawing backgrounds in a lot of his panels, thus we get a shot of Big Ben with no Houses of Parliament, and a warehouse which is quite literally empty and, as a result pretty uninteresting to look at. Several of the figures are also out of proportion. There you go. 

NEVERTHELESS, the story was OK. It's a heavy-handed retelling of a tale originally written in the 70s (I think) complete with exposition heavy dialogue and corny set pieces. Sounds dreadful, right? well it is in a way, but I also found it strangely refreshing, a nice change from the well written comics we've got used to. 

I say DC let that Len Wein fellow write more throwback super-hero romps, but next time give him an artist who can bring his work to life - Berni Wrightson would be alright I reckon!

Cap date raped!

And with that I've just guaranteed my blog a heap of hits from some very sick Google searches.

Scan taken from Essential Captain America vol #1. Originally from Tales of Suspense #82

A visit to a London Comic Market

To the mart with Mr Wheatley and chum Gareth.

A particularly shabby affair I must say. Turnout was way down on July's stinkfest, leaving most of the dealers ashen faced. The rows of 25p and 50p boxes grow longer by the month and the dealers trying to get rid of expensive silver age books are virtually redundant. There might still be money at the top end of the back issue market, but for the boys knocking out mid-grade bronze and silver age comics the game is almost up. No wonder these purveyors of four colour treasure look so fucking miserable.

Still, as Gareth remarked, they could improve their chances of survival by at least trying to be customer friendly. He's got a point. To the newcomer many of these scowling misery guts can be off-putting. Often they're too engaged in discussing how terrible business is to pay any attention to potential customers. In the case of those knocking out comics at basement prices, they can't even be bothered to put their stock in alphabetical order.

Yeah, yeah, I know that bargain bins are traditionally chaotic and non alphabetical. But if you were having a hard time making cash (as a lot of these blokes seem to be) wouldn't you consider organising your stock? I'm sure it would boost sales among casual punters looking for specific titles. Not that the dealers seem to agree.

"Have you got any Batman?" I heard one bloke (who was clearly frustrated by the chaotic jumble of yellowing junk he was faced with) ask.

"Yes" smirked the dealer "They're filed under TW for twenty five pence"

Ho-Hum. Didn't stop me buying a stack of cheap tat from him obviously. Not that I was too happy with him when, on returning home, I discovered that a couple of his comics had pages missing. CUNTTTTTTTTT!!!!

It wasn't all bad news. I picked up a few lovely bargains including Adventure Comics #390, which features a quality story about Comet the Super-Horse and his frankly species inappropriate feelings for Supergirl...


Needless to say he gets his wish, transforming (via some goddess or other's spell) into a cowboy before getting it on with Supergirl...

Click the image to enjoy this inappropriate moment in full

Marvellous, if mildly disturbing, stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

Also shoved in the old nerd sack: this copy of Action Comics...

I like that cover a lot, Superman looks like he's straining to have a shit while laying waste to Metropolis. Class.

A couple of crappy old Cap issues including this one...

Margaret Thatcher: Nazi Hunter
(Actually that's quite a good idea)

And various mouldering horror comics, full of brilliant old ads like this...

Strangely old looking teens? Or...

ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah anyway, shit like that is what keeps me going back, but every month's mart is shabbier than the last. Let's face it, there's just no place for it in a world of cheap reprints and Ebay bargains. The event is dying on its arse, and pretty soon it's just going to be me, a desperate dealer and a couple of boxes of Bunty in a huge and otherwise empty hall.

Until next month...

Nightwear of the rich and famous

It's kind of passe to dwell on Batman and Robin's latent homosexuality, although you know...


ahem, yes, anyway, putting the obvious aside it is interesting to note that Golden age Batman and Robin slept in their costumes, something which they share with bronze age Doom...


But not their Golden age Marvel counterparts Cap and Bucky...


or indeed Laurel and Hardy...

Brief comments on the stuff I've been reading

The End League #3

Deliberately derivative, yet devoid of the faith in the power of good to overcome evil which many would consider essential to any superhero book; The End League isn't going to make all spandex fans happy. Writer Rick Remender likes superheroes, (you'll recognise the archetypes on show here), but he doesn't think humans are necessarily very heroic, and the world of The End League is one where the existence of super-powered folk spells disaster for the planet.

Given that it's essentially a "What If the bad guys won" story, there are parallels to be drawn with Mark Millar's Wanted, but The End League is so pessimistic that it makes Wanted look like the Beano. Quite how this will play out in the long run I don't know. It's a novel take on a tired old genre, but then so was Robert Kirkman's excellent Irredeemable Ant-Man, and look what happened to that.

While I fear cancellation then, I hope enough people out there get behind The End League to make it last. Remender's voice is a unique one and I'm keen to see where he's going with this. His work on Fear Agent and Crawl Space shows a certain reverence for the Sci-fi and Horror comic genres, but his take on superheroes is different. This is no nostalgic tribute to the genre, it's a bitterly pessimistic treatise.

Captain America #38
In many ways this is just as bleak as The End League, which (given that it's a mainstream Marvel title) makes it all the more impressive. We all know that the world's in a mess at the moment and Cap reflects that fact.

A word too for Steve Epting who hits the high notes with his pencilling on this issue. The fight scene between Bucky the Falcon and a bunch of AIM agents is as dynamic a looking superhero beat 'em up as you'll see anywhere.

Black Summer #6
Bleak, bleak, bleak. Are you sensing a theme here?

Check out the Juan Jose Ryp's splash on pages 2+3 for a bunch of unexpected special guest appearances. I've spotted Sponge Bob, Mario, Pebbles, Shrek and this fellow who I can't quite place...


any ideas?

Nice to see Ryp sending his famously overly detailed work up. The man's a marvel.

Fantastic Four #557
This has been taking a real bashing, but I like it. Millar is doing a particularly fine job with Reed Richards. It's easy to portray Richards as a pipe smoking bore with no sense of fun, but Millar wants us to know that he's not called Mr Fantastic for nothing. This is a man who in the space of 22 pages climbs into giant Galactus-Transformer to save the world, travels back in time and gives his missus a ring containing a micro-galaxy as an anniversary present.

Fantastic indeed.

SHORTS

In my rather slapdash guide to the comic shops of London's West End, I named Orbital as my favourite place to buy comics. Well, I have to say that since I wrote that guide, GOSH! has overtaken Orbital as my comic shop of choice. It's cleaner, more welcoming and stocks a wider range of non-spandex comics. Orbital is still worth a visit for the 50p boxes, but GOSH! are better in just about every department EXCEPT for back issues. They even have their own BLOG now.

With all that in mind, I'm planning to go back and do a Stalinist style revision of my original guide to the West End. I'm sorry, I know it's wrong. It'll be up tonight.

*************************************************************************************

From Captain America #35...

Bucky Barnes morphs into a young Mel Gibson.

*************************************************************************************

I've been rereading my copy of The DC Universe stories of Alan Moore over the last day or so and it's clear that Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons were hugely influenced by it when putting together the current run of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps.

I've banged on at great and unnecessary length about Tygers. But the compendium also features the story "For the man who has everything" which stars Mongul and a plant called Black Mercy. It's a classic which Johns reprises in Green Lantern #7 and #8.

We also get stories featuring The Spider Guild and Bolphunga, both of whom pop up in the Green Lanterns Corps. Then of course there's the first appearance of Mogo and errm, did I mention Tygers?

If you are enjoying Green Lantern then the Moore compendium is a must. Even if you're not, how can you say no to a book which features both Killing Joke AND Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Highly recommended.

*************************************************************************************

Talking of Tygers (again), I'm guessing that Moore was partly inspired to write the story after reading the Ray Bradbury classic "Here there be Tygers".

Even if the similarities aren't immediately obvious, the story was definitely on his mind when he created Mogo. If you don't know the Bradbury classic, then I recommend tracking it down. Failing that, this funky old Russian cartoon adaptation should suffice...

Shorts

A successful visit to the comic mart yesterday. Managed to get a few missing Titans issues, one of the two issues of Nightforce I was looking for and all of the remaining issues of Geoff Johns' run on Green Lantern for £1 each.

Sadly there was no sign of The Crunch, Dice Man or Warlock.

Next time.

***************************************************************************************

So now I have those missing Green Lantern issues, I've started reading the Johns run from the beginning again. That means going back to Green Lantern Rebirth, a story which I finished today. Great art from van Sciver (He makes Batman look like a real bat) and interesting to see Johns laying the groundwork for Sinestro Corps two years before the event itself.

I read rebirth when it came out, but it's much more enjoyable to read in hindsight. The moment where Parallax senses a disciple of fear in Batman was great. What a top Sinestro Corps member he'd have made. Might yet happen.

*************************************************************************************

For anyone enjoying Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America, I strongly recommend listening to his recent interview with John Siuntres HERE. He also chats about Criminal.

*************************************************************************************

More action figure based shenanigans from Will and Ben...



If you missed the first part, you can see it HERE


Top stuff.

Three things I liked about Cap #32

Captain America #32 rocks!

It's got telepathic falcons...

"weet weet Redwing want millet"

It's got RAID!...


And best of all it's got Bucky kicking shit in a straitjacket

WITH added BUDDA BUDDA!

What more do you want from a superhero comic?*


*The correct answer is Nazis

Golden age crank calls

Evil Adolf Hitler is expecting an important call from his pal The Lord of Death.

The phone rings...





Panels from All Winner Comics #1 (Summer 1941)
reprinted in The Golden Age of Marvel Comics Vol#2

Mein Gott!!!

Don't be thinking brilliance like this only happened in the silver age...

Thank you Brubaker and Epting, thank you.