Superman's Metropolis (Superhero)

 

by Jean-Marc Lofficier, Randy Lofficier, Roy Thomas, Ted McKeever (Illustrator)

Publisher : DC Comics (January 1, 1997)

 Softcover, 69 pages

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This was back when comics could afford to take weird risks, and thus was born DC’s Elseworlds. This imprint’s comics were alternate realities which deviated from the established continuity of DC's regular comics. This had been done before with DC “imaginary stories” in some of the 1950s and 60s and the Marvel title What If - BTW why haven’t they collected any of the second volume of What If which came out in the late 80s? All mine where destroyed by a flood, I remember them being pretty good. Elseworlds however went above and beyond, putting the characters into radically different scenarios and settings. The most classic being probably Red Son where Superman lands in Russia instead of Kansas, The Doom Which came to Gotham, Mike Mignola’s Lovecraftian Batman take, and of course Kingdom Come. 

This book combines the origin of Superman with the legendary silent film sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis. It’s incredible how well these two stories connect. This story essentially retells Metropolis’ plot with the cast of Superman in its place. They’re all there - Clark Kent, his father and mother, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Lex Luthor,  Lana Lang, and Lois Lane. Interestingly, the metaphor of the original is underlined by the use of Superman, since the film hyper-textualizes various aspects of Neitzian philosophy, ie. the rise of the Superman to dominate society. This is reflected in a literal way with Superman having been “technologically hypnotized” by Luthor to forget his alien past and his superpowers. Thus when the moment comes for the Superman to arise, he literally finds his power and destroys the oppressor.  

The only snag I would say is that if you haven’t seen the film Metropolis then you are missing out on the nuisances of this work and McKeever’s artistic style which blends itself perfectly to the German Expressionism of the 1920s. Without the context, it’s just a weird Superman story in an old fashioned sci-fi setting.

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Seekers and Saviors (The Enchanted World)

 

by Tristram Potter Coffin & the Editors of Time-Life Books

Publisher : Time Life Education; First Printing edition (February 1, 1986)

Hardcover, 143 pages

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“These rough magics manifested themselves in a bewildering variety of ways - in such intelligent animals as the miller’s cat, in beings who had human form but were not human, in unseen powers that could change the shapes of things or even open the door between death and life. Their nature was unknown: The life of the elder world followed no rules that men and women could understand. Sometimes these powers were inimical to mortals, because humankind had intruded on the earth that was once theirs. When that happened, people had to defend one another courageously stand alone, using the human virtues of loyalty and love as defenses against inhuman enemies. But when, by some unfathomable caprice, the beings and powers of the elder age of the world inclined favorably towards humanity, then men and women could control them, and use them in weapons in mortal affairs.”

Volume 12 in the Enchanted World series from Time-Life Books. This appears to be one of their catch-all books made up from leftover stories which didn’t fit under the other titles or was cut from said titles due to space constraint. Even the title Seekers and Saviors is a bit nebulous. With previous volumes such as Fairies and Elves or Giants and Ogres you knew what kinds of stories to expect. This title paints with a pretty broad brush.

That’s not to say these are bad stories, but they are motley mix. The first chapter, “Under the Wing of Magic”, deals with stories were innocents - or idiots- are protected from harm and driven towards fortune by unstated forces from beyond. The weird tale of Puss in Boots is relayed here, along with a Scottish Cinderella variation called Rashin Coatie -or “coat of rushes” - and a host of others. Those of pure hearts, taken advantage of by evil, then helped by benevolent forces from beyond.

Chapter Two - “Tests of Loyalty and Love” - deals with people overcoming a magical curse or creature for the benefits of others. In this part we see the tale of Ali Baba, Castor and Pollux, along with the strange Swedish tale of the Swan Brothers and their devoted sister, Sigurny. While Chapter 3 - “Strong Arms, Sturdy Hearts” -  deals with heroes, mostly knights from King Arthur’s court, Sir Gwain and Bel Inconnu, who use loyalty, bravery, and force of arms to destroy magic spawned evil every time. These stories are all exemplified by amazing artwork.

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Lost Girl (Drama)

by Nabiel Kanan

Publisher : Nbm Pub Co (March 1, 1999)

Softcover, 96 pages

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While on vacation with her parents in the British countryside, an inexperienced teenager, Beth, becomes fascinated with an older girl who lives on the edges of society. Her new, nameless pal sleeps with strangers, steals cars, breaks in and loots the tourist’s summer cottages. But is she real, or some sort of Tyler Durden hallucination?

This stranger ignites an adolescent rebelliousness within Beth, but no sooner does she smoke her first joint and ride bareback on a horse, than the vacation comes to an end. The real world is beckoning her back to duties and responsibilities; homework and chores. The friend disappears, leaving one to wonder if this spirit of restlessness has taken residence within Beth. The ending seems to suggest so.

A lot of people seem to dislike this book, but I say it is a competent work, if deliberately understated. It feels real, even with the possibly supernatural elements, and not overly dramatic, angsty nonsense one often sees on these entering puberty stories. The art is both sparse, yet deep, perfectly blending with the material. I felt this was a fine execution of the material, despite what other reviewers have said.

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Giants and Ogres (The Enchanted World)

 

by Tristram Potter Coffin & the Editors of Time-Life Book

Publisher : Time-Life Books; First Edition (October 1, 1985)

Hardcover, 143 pages

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"The Earth's Memory: Long after the last giants vanished from the earth, their imprints lingered on the landscape, souvenirs of an age of wonders. The trails where generations of giants trod were marked by mountain clefts and winding valleys. The footprints of giants formed lake beds, and massive boulders lay where giants had hurled them in sport or in anger. No doubt some of nature's own handiwork was mistakenly ascribed to giants, but many features of the planet seemed to lend themselves to no other explanation."

The 11th volume of The Enchanted World series should have been called Giants, Ogres, and Trolls as quite a lot of the stories near the end revolve around trolls. The book opens by stating that at the dawn of time, the giants were the mightiest of beings, creatures whom even the gods dreaded. It was from the giants that the Greek and Norse gods had to seize their power. Even after, as was seen in the Northlands where the giants held to their power the longest, the gods looked to the giants as equals, beings to whom they would turn in search of wisdom. Which is the stated theme of the entire volume. Essentially, each story consists of man tricking and destroying the elder race.

Giants eventually adapted into mortal society. Some, such as Bran the Blessed, went on to become kings and heroes. Others befriended and watched over the peasantry. As the giants' waning speeded up, they grew increasingly hostile to humans. They became enemies of humanity, attacking whenever they could. Their cousins, the trolls and the ogres, became total marauders, raping human women and eating human babies.

So far this volume has the only example in the series of The Enchanted World repeating a story. Here they repeat the tale – the original pre-Arthurian version – of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This story had already been told in the Legends of Valor volume, albeit with a different protagonist, that of the Irish hero Cuchulain. Even if you want to argue that they are two different stories because of the different main characters, even a cursory glance through them will reveal that the plot is exactly the same. Making up for this is the stellar art which is amazing and varied.

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The Seventh: A Parker Novel (Crime)

 

by Richard Stark  (Author), Luc Sante (Foreword)

Publisher : University of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (August 15, 2009)

Softcover, 168 pages

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“It was as convoluted and twisted as a Chinese puzzle. The police were looking for the Canaday killer. A group of professional bandits was also looking for the Canaday killer. And the police, to round it off, were looking for the professional bandits. If the Canaday killer were looking for either the police or the bandits, then everything would be tied in the ultimate knot. Well, they all had to start bumping into each other pretty soon. Too many people were milling around in the same restricted area; sooner or later they had to start making contact.”

I came to the Parker series late, never even having heard of the series until the Darwin Cooke (RIP) graphic novel adaptations started to come out. After devouring those in a gulp, I was curious about more of them. Now that the good Mr. Cooke has passed beyond, I decided to read the actual source itself - GASP!, I know- the unthinkable. Luckily, the University of Chicago Press has recently - more or less - republished all twenty four volumes of this series.

Author Richard Stark

The Seventh, also the seventh novel of a series, follows the aftermath of a perfect score, where Parker and six others rob the proceeds from a college football game. Only afterwards is Parker robbed and the woman he was shacked up with is killed. This begins Parker’s savage hunt to regain his seventh of the split and find out who was behind it all. One of his own crew? Or a random stranger.

This is a pretty straightforward slam-bang novel. The plot is the center of the story, and the idea of character development is laughable - except in the sense when they go from alive to dead. You do get a sense of each member of the crew, but very briefly. Parker is still the same stone-wall brutal killer as in all the other novels. There are no real twists or turns, the plot has revelations, but not gimmicky ones.  If you’re looking for a quick crime novel, then take a gander at the Seventh.

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Original Paperback Cover

Spells and Bindings (The Enchanted World Series)

 

by Tristram Potter Coffin & the Editors of Time-Life Books

Publisher : Time Life Education; First Edition (October 1, 1985)

Hardcover, 143 pages

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“In her curious statement lay an explanation that was difficult for mortals to comprehend. The scraps and shreds of magic that lingered on into an age of Arthur and beyond were relics of the dawn of time, when the riot of creation had not settled into the stable patterns that humans depended upon. The forces of enchantment were paradoxical to human minds. In themselves neither good nor evil, they had the potential for both good or evil, like the Irish Queen’s love-engendering wine.”

I must give a hearty congratulations to the author(s) for managing to string together a disparate collection of tales from all across the map and up and down history, while placing them securely under the banner of this title. While the title may have been strung together by leftover stories, not fitting into the other titles in the series, or being cut from them for space reasons, they all snugly fit together under the idea of Spells and Binding. 

While the three chapters  - “Double Edged Power:; “Webs of Enchantment”; “Deliverance from Magic’s Coils” - attempt to split the stories into some alternate type of theme, the basic logic behind the ideas of magical spells and so forth is that they derive from the old powers, chaos, which ruled and shaped before the coming of the Christian religion and its principles of order, reason, and education. Nearly all the stories revolve around a spell being cast through malice, or broken by ignorance to the detriment of all involved.

Nearly all of the tales, you most likely have read before: Bluebeard, Psyche and Eros, Sleeping Beauty, The Princess and the Frog, the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Pandora’s Box, various tales of Morgan Le Fey, and so on, and so on. Again, it’s mostly elementary school stories, with a few extra old Irish tales tossed in, but the art excels itself. I think the art for this book is some of the best (if not the best in the series). That’s what sets this volume apart.

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                                  The Enchanted World Time-Life Books 1987 TV commercial

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth Volume 15: Cometh the Hour (Horror)

 

by Mike Mignola (Author), John Arcudi (Author), Laurence Campbell (Illustrator)

Publisher : Dark Horse Books (April 11, 2017)

Softcover, 144 pages

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The end of the Hell on Earth saga, where the Ogdru Jahad, the ancients dragons of evil, come finally come back to Earth to remake the world in their own image. Since they’ve come, we’ve seen civilization fall apart, heroes and villains die in fantastic manners, and Hell itself overrun and destroyed with Satan’s throat slit by Hellboy himself. It’s the absolute Cthulhu event we’ve always wanted to see, but have never been treated to before. This volume wraps everything up by collecting issues 143-147.

It’s difficult to describe the action without spoilers, so SPOLIERS, the final remnants of the players come together to place doomsday apparatus in place - the last contingence operation in hopes of stopping the Ogdru Jahad, one of whom has now fully manifested on Earth and is busy transforming humanity into frog creatures and hatching thousands of monsters by the hour. After launching the remaining nuclear stockpile at the Dragon, the Russians let loose the Watchers, the first angels, thrown down for mating with human women and birthing the Ogdru Jahad. While Elizabeth Sherman and Johann, blow the monsters apart one by one, until the ultimate revelation falls upon Johan who has his mind transferred into the WWII Sledgehammer suit, causing him to act.

Some people have complained about the ending of the cycle, saying it’s almost a deus ex machina, but I must say that the hints about how the Dragon would be stopped was foreshadowed here and there, it isn’t the greatest AH-HA ending you might want. However the death toll in these issues, and adding up all the others in this series, is correspondingly high for an apocalyptic event. I was satisfied.  But I have to say that only one of the Dragons has been destroyed, and much of their offspring are still about. So the show’s not over.

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GI Joe: A Real American Hero, Vol. 24 - Snake Hunt (War)

 

by Larry Hama  (Author), Robert Atkins (Illustrator), Netho Diaz (Illustrator)

Publisher : IDW Publishing; Illustrated edition (February 16, 2021)

Softcover, 248 pages

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It's been a while since we had a GI Joe graphic novel and I've been champing at the bit for it's inevitable arrival. Now there have been a few feeble reboots along the way by IDW, but unless it's written by Larry Hama it always seems second rate. Volume 24 is a double sized edition, collecting ten issues, numbers 266 - 275.

This is a culmination of a lot of issues, this is a ten part story featuring every single GI Joe member - the ones left alive that is, though all of them, including the dead ones, are featured on the issue covers. Along with that nearly every vehicle, both Joe and Cobra, is featured, along with the entire Dreadnok crew - even Zanzibar- shows up. On the other end, ever type of cobra trooper - vipers, technovipers, alley vipers, etc., are there to fight. The only thing missing is the leftover old Cobras. Raptor, Big Boa, Croc Master, and so on. This is a nod to nostalgia and the old fandom and a welcome one at that.

The plot revolves around Cobra kidnaping Throwdown, believing him to be Danke Eyes. Cobra is not aware that Snake Eyes is dead. The plan is to put him into the brainwave scanner and turn him into the ultimate Cobra agent. Once Throwdown is grabbed, the entire Joe team rolls out to rescue him. Joining them were Zartan, the Dreadnoks, Destroy, The Baroness, the Iron Grenadiers, and the return of the October Guard.

It's essentially a straight forward plot with lots of shooting, backslaps, rah to the joes, boos to the cobras. It looks like half the Joes were injured. They bust into Springfield, shoot the place up, and blast back out. It culminates in issue 275, which is entirely made from splash panels and is completely silent - a nod to the classic issue 21. Absolutely loved it.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst