Review: Kid Colt, Outlaw #106, September 1962

I was feeling nostalgic, so I bought all the issues available on Kindle of KID COLT, OUTLAW, one of my favorite Western comic books when I was a kid. The first one I read, eager to see if it held up, was #106, with a cover date of September 1962. The cover art is by Jack Kirby with inks by Dick Ayers, a combination I always loved.

As usual, the Kid Colt story in this issue was written by Stan Lee with art by Jack Keller. In “The Circus of Crime!”, our hero Kid Colt (an outlaw unjustly accused of a crime and forced to go on the run) is being chased by a posse when he throws in with a traveling circus in order to elude pursuit. The owner of the circus seems a little too eager to shelter a wanted outlaw, but we quickly discover there’s a reason for that: the circus performers are all outlaws, too, and use their travels to cover up their bank robbing spree! Well, the Kid’s not going to put up with this, of course, so we get some nice scenes of him clashing with the strongman, the knife thrower, the acrobats, the tightrope walker, etc. In the end, he brings the owlhoots to justice and rides off before the local law can corral him. Lee’s script moves along nicely, as they always did, and other than constantly misspelling Abilene as Abiline, it comes across as reasonably authentic for a Western yarn. I always liked Jack Keller’s art when I was a kid, but it seems a little inconsistent to me now with some excellent panels and some that are rather crude and sketchy. But I still found it enjoyable.

The lead story has 13 pages, and it’s followed by a couple of 5-page backup stories. “The Black Mask”, again written by Lee but with art by Dick Ayers this time, is a pretty traditional tale about a lawman trying to track down a masked bandit. Even though it’s only 5 pages, it has a couple of minor plot twists in it. Ayers’ art is really good, too, reminding me of Joe Kubert in places. I don’t know what sort of reputation Ayers has these days as an artist, but I loved his long run on SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS and consider him Kirby’s second-best inker from those days, behind Joe Sinnott.

The issue wraps up with a 5-page Kid Colt story, again by Lee and Keller, called “Fury at Fort Tioga”. The Kid is captured and winds up at a fort under attack by Apaches. He comes up with a novel way of ending the attack. This is kind of an oddball story and I’m not sure I buy the plot, but it’s the kind of ending you don’t see often in a Western comic book from those days.

Overall, I enjoyed this issue quite a bit. It’s nice to read a simple, well-told comic book story that has a beginning, middle, and end and no need to read the previous 400 issues to know what’s going on. If you’re hankerin’ to give the Kid a try, you can find the e-book edition on Amazon.

Review: Tex: Challenge at the Old Mission - Pasquale Ruju, Sergio Tisselli, Luca Barbieri, Walter Venturi

Tex Willer is the hero of a very long-running Italian comic book series that debuted in 1948. The creation of writer Gian Luigi Bonelli and artist Aurelio Galloppini, Tex is both a Texas Ranger and an adopted member of the Navajo tribe, of which he becomes a chief known as Night Eagle. Neither of those things keeps him from gallivanting all over the West and having all sorts of adventures that have been chronicled by dozens of Italian comics creators and an occasional American, too.

Recently I backed a Kickstarter for a collection of hardcover Tex Willer graphic novels translated into English. The boxed set of six volumes is beautiful. I’ve just read the first one, TEX: CHALLENGE AT THE OLD MISSION, written by Pasquale Ruju with art by Sergio Tisselli. In this story, Tex and his sidekick Kit Carson (who is also a Texas Ranger; historical accuracy is not something with which this series greatly concerns itself) are in Arizona to rescue a white woman named Patricia Graves from the Apaches who have taken her captive. Patricia is the wife of an army colonel who broke a treaty with the Apaches, and the chief, Octavio, kidnapped her as a means of taking revenge on the colonel.

However, there’s more to the story than that, as there usually is, and although Tex and Kit succeed in freeing Patricia after a stand-off at the old mission of the title, that’s not the end. Things do come to a satisfying conclusion, though.

Tisselli’s impressionistic artwork isn’t the sort that usually appeals to me, but I have to admit, I like it. It has a strong sense of storytelling and dramatic action. Ruju’s terse, understated script is effective. The combination makes for an enjoyable Western yarn.

This volume includes a bonus short story entitled “A Rag Horse”, written by Luca Barbieri with art by Walter Venturi. I liked this one even better. It’s a simple tale about Tex tracking down the killers of a family of settlers in New Mexico. Venturi’s artwork is much more traditional than Tisselli’s, and Barbieri’s script is even leaner than Ruju’s, with many wordless panels. The poignant story works very well.

I guess you could call these Spaghetti Western comics. The tone is certainly similar to Spaghetti Western movies. I happen to like those, so it’s no surprise I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the others in the set. It appears that backing the Kickstarter was the only way to get these limited editions, but other Tex graphic novels are available on the website of the publisher, Epicenter Comics.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Team Zero - Chuck Dixon

Some of the first comic books I remember reading are an issue of OUR ARMY AT WAR that I read at a cousin’s house and an issue of G.I. COMBAT I bought at Tompkins’ Drug Store when it was on Main Street in an old wooden building that’s now well over a hundred years old and still there. [It's now a very good burger joint.] The drug store is long gone, though, along with its soda fountain and spinner rack of funny books. However, I digress. My point is that I’ve been a fan of war comics for almost fifty years [more than sixty years now, good grief], so it’s not surprising that I enjoyed a recent trade paperback from DC/Wildstorm reprinting their Team Zero mini-series from a couple of years ago.

When Image Comics first came on the scene in the mid-Nineties, I read quite a few of the titles in their Wildstorm imprint, which is now part of DC, of course. My favorite was DEATHBLOW, and I also liked a character called Grifter who appeared in their WILDC.A.T.S. title. Both Deathblow and Grifter appear in the World War II yarn TEAM ZERO . . . but not the same Deathblow and Grifter. No superheroics here. This is a straight-out war story following a specially-assembled team of commandos dropped far behind enemy lines in the waning days of the war to snatch up the German rocket scientists at Peenemunde before the Soviet army can get its hands on them. It’s exactly the sort of assignment that in another comics era would have been given to Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (and what a great comic book that was for a lot of years). The soldiers recruited for this mission are given code-names that would later figure prominently in the Wildstorm Universe – Deathblow, Grifter, Backlash, Claymore, etc. – but with one exception, they’re not the same characters. That tenuous connection to what comes later chronologically isn’t really important to the reader’s enjoyment of this story; TEAM ZERO can be read as a complete stand-alone.

It’s written by Chuck Dixon, who was one of my favorite comics authors during the Nineties with his work on AIRBOY and THE PUNISHER. There’s plenty of action in the story, a few plot twists, and plenty of blood ’n’ guts, as you’d expect from a war comic. I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it to any comics fans out there.

(This post, which appeared originally on June 10, 2008, is a good example of how the world is an odd place, and the Internet has made it even more so. When I wrote this review, I was just a long-time fan of Chuck Dixon's work. These days, I consider him a good friend, and I've even been privileged to edit a few novels in his very popular Levon Cade series. The trade paperback edition of TEAM ZERO that I read back in 2008 is out of print, but e-book editions of the six comic book stories it collects are available on Amazon and I still highly recommend them if you're a fan of gritty, well-written war yarns.)

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy - Chester Gould

When I was a kid (funny how many of my posts start out that way), one of the features on the front page of the comics section in the Sunday newspaper was DICK TRACY. So I grew up reading this comic strip about the square-jawed police detective. Unfortunately, that was during an era in which the strip’s creator, author, and artist Chester Gould had taken it in some weird directions, getting away from the hardboiled police action and bringing in more and more science-fictional elements, such as hidden civilizations on the Moon. I read DICK TRACY anyway and enjoyed it, although it was never one of my favorites.

THE CELEBRATED CASES OF DICK TRACY, an oversized volume containing more than a dozen storylines ranging from Tracy’s first case in 1931 to episodes from the late Forties, is an excellent introduction to this classic strip, featuring numerous examples of the things that made DICK TRACY a success: hardboiled, even brutal, action with fistfights, elaborate death traps, and shoot-outs in which characters, both good and bad, actually died; grotesque villains with colorful names like Flattop, Mumbles, and the Brow; and at least an attempt to be realistic when it comes to police work, making TRACY an early example of the police procedural.

Chester Gould’s plotting, writing, and willingness to pull no punches in his stories are what made this strip work. The artwork starts off pretty crude, and while it improves some with time, it never comes close to the level of, say, Milton Caniff, Alex Raymond, or Hal Foster. But by the Forties it’s good enough not to detract from Gould’s fast-moving storylines. My main complaint about this volume is that it reprints only the daily strips, leaving out the Sunday pages that were part of the continuity. As a result, there are some jarring gaps in the action where the reader has to figure out what happened on Sunday from the context of Monday’s strip. This isn’t a huge problem, but it can be annoying.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I have another Dick Tracy collection, THE THIRTIES: TOMMYGUNS AND HARD TIMES, which reprints practically the entire first two years of the strip, and I’m looking forward to reading it, too.

(This post originally appeared on June 26, 2007. I don't believe I got around to reading TOMMYGUNS AND HARD TIMES, and six months after this post, that copy was lost in the Fire of '08. I don't recall ever replacing it . . . until now. My interest in Dick Tracy has been rekindled recently by reading the new strips being published on GoComics.com. The current writer, Matthew K. Manning, and artist, Howie Noel, are taking a very vintage approach to the strip and spinning a great yarn so far. So I ordered a copy of TOMMYGUNS AND HARD TIMES as well as another classic Tracy collection. With luck I'll be writing reviews of those books before another 18 years go by!)

Western Webcomic: The Ranger and the Spectacular Steed - Luke Varner

I've recently discovered this new webcomic that mixes Westerns, steampunk, and horror. Written and drawn by Luke Varner, it's a lot of fun and I'm enjoying reading it. It's available on Instagram, and you can find it here. Here are a couple of early Sunday strips you should be able to click on to read.

Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition - Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson

In the summer of 1973, I drove up to Denton, Texas, to look for an apartment because I was attending what was then North Texas State University and didn’t want to live in the dorm again when the fall semester started. While I was there, I stopped by Fultz News Agency on the square downtown to check out the comic books and paperbacks. One of the comics I picked up was an issue of DETECTIVE COMICS with a new back-up feature: MANHUNTER, a revival of an old Golden Age character brought to the current day and enmeshed in a thriller/espionage plotline. It was written by Archie Goodwin, a writer whose work I enjoyed, with art by Walter Simonson, a relative newcomer.

I became a fan immediately, and since I was already buying DETECTIVE on a regular basis to read the Batman stories in it, I followed the Manhunter story as well and thoroughly enjoyed it. But it was designed to be a limited storyline, and after half a dozen backup stories and a full-length crossover with Batman, that was it. The whole thing came to an end, and while I remembered it fondly, I never reread it in the more than five decades since then.

However, recently I noticed that the digital version of the collected edition was on sale, so I picked it up and read the whole thing again. Sometimes that proves to be a mistake. A while back on Kindle Unlimited I noticed another series I’d read 50+ years ago that was written and drawn by one of my favorite comics creators (who shall remain nameless), so I revisited it. I read part of the first issue, said to myself, “This makes no sense at all”, and returned it. Sometimes you just had to be there when it was new.

Thankfully, that’s not the case with MANHUNTER. I still thought it was great. I love the way Goodwin and Simonson tied it in with the original Golden Age character. The plot is maybe a tad bit thin, but the scripts move right along and Simonson’s art is excellent. The crossover with Batman is handled well. There’s an epilogue by Simonson published after Goodwin passed away, a silent story with no dialogue but using the plot Goodwin and Simonson worked out, and it’s quite good, too. I was glad I gave this one another try. If you read it back then, maybe you should revisit it, too. If you’ve never read it but enjoy Silver Age DC, it’s well worth checking out.

By the way, I did find an apartment on that trip to Denton. It was a crappy little place on Normal Street, for those of you familiar with Denton. I lived there for a year, which was the only time of my life I could say with any justification that I lived on Normal Street. I didn't care for apartment living and commuted for the rest of my college career, even though it was a pretty long drive. I do have a few good memories from that year to go with the noisy neighbors and lousy plumbing.

Review: Convict Commandos: Frenzy of Fear (Commando #4571) - Alan Hebden

With the exception of Private "Jelly" Jakes -- the unit's resident coward -- the Convict Commandos were among the most fearless fighters in the British Forces. So why were they running in terror from a unit of Germans leaving their quaking comrade behind in their haste? Something was badly awry, something had happened to throw the Convict Commandos into a Frenzy Of Fear.

A few years ago I read a bunch of digital issues of COMMANDO, the long-running British war comic, and some of my favorites were in a series called Convict Commandos, created and written by legendary comics author Alan Hebden with art by Manuel Benet. As you might guess from the series title, these stories chronicle the exploits of three criminals recruited to be commandos -- strongman Titch Mooney, knife expert Smiler Dawson, and burglar and explosives expert Jelly Jakes -- and the officer who leads them on their mission, Lt. Guy Tenby. I've decided to pick up where I left off and read the rest of the series, starting with this one from 2013, which is still available on Amazon. It's a fine yarn with a particularly good plot, as the Convict Commandos set out to destroy a Nazi radar jamming operation in occupied Greece, only to encounter a menace that forces them to act nothing like their usual selves. It's a clever, very entertaining tale, and if you're a fan of war comics, I give it a strong recommendation.

Review: Conan the Barbarian: Thrice Marked for Death - Jim Zub and Doug Braithwaite

When the latest incarnation of the Conan comic book series began being published, I decided to read the individual issues as they came out, just like I did in the old days—the difference being that I read them digitally instead of on cheap newsprint. (For the record, I prefer cheap newsprint over digital, but I prefer digital over slick paper.) After finishing the first story arc, however, I decided to wait for the collected edition of the next arc. It just seemed simpler that way, plus I get to read the stories one right after the other.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN: THRICE MARKED FOR DEATH reprints issues #5-8 of the series and deepens Conan’s involvement with the mysterious and deadly Black Stone. It’s written by Jim Zub and the art is by Doug Braithwaite. The story begins with Conan in the city of Shadizar, mourning the death of Belit, the pirate queen and great love of his life, who Conan met in Robert E. Howard’s classic story “Queen of the Black Coast”. Short flashbacks to Conan’s time with Belit run throughout these stories. The main storyline, however, involves Conan being hired along with several other thieves to steal an artifact from one of the local temples. Things go wrong. Evil ensues. Lot of people die. And Conan is left in a heap of trouble.

Despite the dreaded “To Be Continued” at the end of this book, I enjoyed THRICE MARKED FOR DEATH quite a bit. Jim Zub’s script is fast-paced and packed with action, and more importantly, he writes a version of Conan that is recognizably REH’s character. Really, that’s what you’re looking for in a Conan pastiche. Doug Braithwaite’s art is excellent, with good storytelling and a gritty quality that really works well with the story.

All of this is leading up to a big crossover event featuring numerous Howard characters besides Conan. I’m not that fond of the idea of doing that, but given Zub’s track record, I’m cautiously optimistic that he can pull it off. I certainly intend to continue reading in order to find out. In the meantime, THRICE MARKED FOR DEATH is an entertaining yarn and is available in e-book and trade paperback editions.

The Savage Sword of Conan #2 - Jim Zub, Richard Pace, Patrick Zircher

For a while there, I was reading all the new Conan comics from Titan, as well as the new prose stories, and I read and enjoyed the first issue of the new SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. Then I kind of just stopped. Not intentionally. I just wandered away as I have a tendency of doing. But it’s time to get caught up on them again, so I started with the second issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

Most of the pages are taken up by a long Conan yarn called “Leaving the Garden” written by Jim Zub with artwork by Richard Pace. It begins with a badly wounded Conan waking up after having been buried alive following a battle. Naturally, he doesn’t stay underground. A flashback establishes that he was traveling with a merchant caravan ambushed by inhuman attackers. The rest of the story deals with him recovering and seeking vengeance for what happened to his companions.

This is a good story with plenty of action broken up by the occasional poignant moment. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Jim Zub so far. My only complaint about this script is that “Leaving the Garden”, while it fits, isn’t the sort of dramatic title I’ve come to expect on a Conan story. I also have to say that the artwork isn’t to my taste at all. I suspect it’s the kind of art that either resonates with a reader or it doesn’t. It didn’t in my case.

This issue also features the second installment of a Solomon Kane serial written and drawn by Patrick Zircher, an adventure that finds Kane battling a supernatural menace in his native England. Art and script are superb on this story. So far it’s one of the best Solomon Kane comics stories I’ve read.

Despite the reservations mentioned above, there’s enough to like about this issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN that I don’t hesitate to give it a strong recommendation for Conan and Robert E. Howard fans. It’s available in both print and digital editions.

The Steel Noose - Arnold Drake

I’ve been aware of Arnold Drake’s work as a comic book writer for a long, long time, having been a fan of one of his best-known creations, the Doom Patrol, ever since those stories began appearing in DC’s MY GREATEST ADVENTURE comic more than half a century ago. In the Seventies, I was also a regular reader of his GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY series for Marvel. But I had no idea he was also a novelist until Black Gat Books reprinted THE STEEL NOOSE, originally published by Ace Books in 1954. It’s an Ace that I just never came across over the years.

THE STEEL NOOSE is narrated by fast-talking, wise-cracking New York gossip columnist Boyd McGee, who moves in a world of cabbies, tycoons, gamblers, chorus girls, gangsters, and cops. An item he includes in his column inadvertently gets him mixed up in multiple murders and the hunt for half a million dollars in blackmail loot. Boyd gets beaten up more than once but dishes out some punishment, too. And of course, there are also several beautiful women involved in the convoluted plot.

Drake could have played this pretty straight, and in some stretches he does, but for a lot of the novel, the genuinely funny banter dished out by Boyd as he navigates this labyrinth of crime puts me in mind of something else. It’s like reading the novelization of a Bob Hope movie that was never made. Boyd McGree isn’t exactly cowardly like the characters Hope usually played, but every quip he made, I heard it in Hope’s voice. To a Bob Hope fan like me, reading THE STEEL NOOSE was a hugely entertaining experience. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Drake had Hope in mind while he was writing this. And it’s fitting, at least to me, that a decade later, Drake was writing DC’s THE ADVENTURES OF BOB HOPE comic book, which I read occasionally in those days, although not as much as I should have because I tended not to pick up anything except superhero, Western, and war comics. I’m sure I missed some good stuff.

As far as I know, THE STEEL NOOSE is Arnold Drake’s only novel. That’s kind of a shame because it’s really good and he might have given us more like it. On the other hand, if he’d been a successful novelist, we might never have had the Doom Patrol and the Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m not sure I’d make that trade, but I’m very glad Black Gat Books decided to reprint this one. You can pre-order it on Amazon, and I give it a high recommendation.

The Savage Sword of Conan #1

There’s a lot of nostalgia involved with me reading a new issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. I remember quite well buying issues of the original magazine of that title back in the Seventies at Lester’s Pharmacy, walking across the highway to my house, and reading great stories by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, and Alfredo Alcala, as well as articles about Robert E. Howard and his work by Fred Blosser, who I’m privileged to call a friend all these years later. I read SSOC for many years after that.

So when I heard that Titan Comics was bringing back THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, I knew I’d have to give it a try. This time, however, I read the digital version, something I never would have dreamed possible fifty years ago when I read the original magazine. It looks excellent as an e-book, too.

There are several variant covers for this first issue of the revived magazine. The one that came up when I opened it is the primary one, I think. It was painted by Joe Jusko, and it’s superb. I really like it.

After a foreword by Roy Thomas (and I’m always glad to read anything Roy has to say), the Conan story, which takes up most of the book, is “The Dragon Horde”, written by John Arcudi with art by Max Von Fafner. Arcudi’s name is familiar to me, although I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him. Von Fafner is brand-new to me. But I enjoyed both of their contributions here. Arcudi’s script, which finds Conan serving as a mercenary general in the army of a Hyrkanian prince trying to overthrow his brother, is violent and fast-paced with a few effective twists and turns. Von Fafner’s art, while it doesn’t appeal to me as much as Rob de la Torre’s in Titan’s color Conan comic, is suitably gritty and his storytelling is solid for the most part. I did have to look at a few panels a second time to make sure what was happening. Overall, “The Dragon Horde” is an entertaining yarn and definitely reminiscent of the original SSOC.

“Sacrifice in the Sand” is a short prose story about Conan by Jim Zub, the scripter of the above-mentioned color comic. It’s good for what it is, but the length keeps it from developing any more than the most basic plot. It’s certainly well-written and entertaining enough that I’d be interested in reading more Conan prose stories by Zub.

The highlight of the issue is “Master of the Hunt”, part 1 of a serialized Solomon Kane story written and drawn by Patrick Zircher. This tale of a monster breaking through the barrier between worlds and terrorizing a remote area of Wales is a terrific yarn. Zircher captures Solomon Kane very well both visually and in his lean, fast-paced script. I’m really looking forward to the next part of this story.

So I’m very pleased to see that THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN is back, and I think everyone involved in this issue did themselves proud.

Violet Rising #1 - Tony Petry, Rodney Jean-Etienne, Ihuoma Nnabuchi, Tuyi Ekes

I admit I don’t keep up with modern comics very well, but from what I’ve seen I have no interest in what the big companies are doing these days. But there are still good comic books being produced, you just have to know where to look for them. VIOLET RISING #1, from Alp Comics and Tony Petry, is the first issue of what looks like will be an excellent series in the classic superhero style.

Homicide detective Toya Robinson is haunted by the unsolved murders of several family members including her father and her husband. She’s raising her young son with some help from her mother. Then her twin brother, who’s a championship boxer, is kidnapped, and hard on the heels of that, Toya’s son James disappears, as well. This leads her to some family secrets that change everything, as she discovers the mysterious project that her scientist parents were working on . . .

The script by creator Tony Petry and Rodney Jean-Etienne is top-notch, packed with action and a few humorous touches and plenty of drama. The artwork by Ihuoma Nnabuchi and Tuyi Ekes does a good job of storytelling with some really effective perspectives on the action. This is a solid production all the way around and made me eager to read the second issue, which I hope will be coming along soon.

You can buy a digital edition of VIOLET RISING #1 here. Print copies are also available by contacting Petry at petry(underscore)tony(at)yahoo(dot)com or on X (formerly Twitter) @TonyPetry3. It’s good stuff whether you’re a new comics fan or an old-timer like me.

 

Batman & Superman in World's Finest: The Silver Age, Volume One - Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, et al.

When I was a kid I was a sporadic reader of the Superman and Batman team-ups in WORLD’S FINEST. I only had so much money to spend on comic books. Now there’s lots of stuff I never read back in the day that I can catch up on. For the past couple of months, I’ve been reading BATMAN & SUPERMAN IN WORLD’S FINEST: THE SILVER AGE, VOLUME ONE, which reprints the first meeting of Superman and Batman from SUPERMAN #76 in 1952 and then the regular Superman/Batman series from WORLD’S FINEST #71-94, from 1954 to 1958 . . . which was before I could read, so I couldn’t have read them anyway. Most of the stories were written by Edmond Hamilton. Several are by Bill Finger, the co-creator of Batman. The art is mostly by Dick Sprang, the regular Bat-artist in the Fifties. A few stories were drawn by the great Curt Swan, the iconic Superman artist as far as I’m concerned. It’s an entertaining volume, especially the story where Luthor and The Joker team up.

But . . . these short (12 pages), gimmicky, stand-alone stories don’t have much impact. The villains are mostly petty crooks with stupid schemes, and there’s never any real sense of danger for our heroes. I can understand why, after a steady diet of stories like this, the stuff that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko came up with over at Marvel just a few years later was like a punch in the gut to the comics readers of the time. The difference is really stark (no pun intended). Despite that, I enjoyed this collection and already have the second one on my Kindle. For long-time comics fans, it’s worth reading. Available in paperback and e-book editions.

The Avengers: War Across Time - Paul Levitz and Alan Davis

One day in September 1964, I woke up too sick to go to school. I was in sixth grade, although that’s not really relevant to this post. But I started feeling better as the day went on, so by that afternoon when my mother announced that she was going to the drugstore, I asked if I could come along.

Well, of course, you know how she reacted. She glared at me and said, “If you were too sick to go to school, you’re too sick to go to the drugstore.” I explained that I was getting over whatever was bothering me and just wanted to get out for a little while. I didn’t mention what I actually wanted, which was to check the comic book and paperback spinner racks at Tompkins’ Pharmacy because I hadn’t been there in a while.

I talked her into it—I could be very persuasive where reading matter was concerned—and during our trip to the drugstore that afternoon I bought several comic books, one of which was THE AVENGERS #8 featuring the debut of a villain who would prove to be iconic, Kang the Conqueror. How do I know I picked up that particular comic on that particular day? I can’t explain it other than to say that I have a trick brain for some things, and knowing where and when I bought a certain book or comic book is one of those tricks.

Now, the point of all this reminiscing is that I recently read a collection of a new mini-series from Marvel Comics (the first thing I've read from Marvel in ages) called THE AVENGERS: WAR ACROSS TIME, which is set in the classic Marvel era (or as I call it, my childhood) and is a direct sequel to THE AVENGERS #11 and features Kang the Conqueror as the villain. It was written by Paul Levitz, his first script for Marvel after literal decades as a writer/editor for DC, and drawn by Alan Davis, one of the latter-day comics artists whose work I like quite a bit.

Levitz’s script hits all the right beats from that era: the Avengers battle their former member The Hulk, they encounter the menacing Lava Men (who first appeared in THE AVENGERS #5, bought by me off the spinner rack in Trammell’s Pak-a-Bag Grocery—there’s that trick brain again), and a king of the dwarves steals Thor’s hammer, which he can do because he helped forge it, causing Thor to turn back into Dr. Don Blake. Kang is behind all this, and in the course of their struggle against him, the Avengers see bizarre visions of their future, most of which will turn out to be true.

This is just great fun for an old comics codger like me. Thor spouts mock-Shakespearean dialogue. Captain America, who hasn’t been an Avenger for long after being thawed out from the ice, is brave and stalwart. The Wasp spends most of her time in flirtatious banter but is courageous and capable when she needs to be. Iron Man and Giant Man alternate between being science nerds and walloping bad guys. To be honest, Alan Davis’s artwork isn’t quite as good as I’ve seen it in the past, but it’s still worlds better than most of what you’ll find in modern comics, and he can draw a story so that you know what’s going on, again something that’s lacking in a lot of comics these days.

So, is THE AVENGERS: WAR ACROSS TIME as good as vintage Lee/Kirby? No, but I never expected it to be. For one thing, I’m not eleven years old anymore. The best modern comics can do is remind me of that time, not recreate it. But this one certainly does remind me of those days, and I had a fine time reading it. If you have good memories of that era, too, I give it a high recommendation. You can find it in trade paperback and digital forms on Amazon.

And hey, any excuse to wallow in nostalgia, right?

Tex: The Lonesome Rider - Claudio Nizzi and Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert was one of the first comic book artists whose style I could recognize immediately, based on my reading of his Sgt. Rock stories in OUR ARMY AT WAR and then a little later the Enemy Ace stories in various DC war comics. I loved his work in those comics and then later when DC began publishing TARZAN and Kubert both wrote and drew the stories.

A recent discussion on the WesternPulps email group about Western comics published in Europe reminded me that about twenty years ago, Kubert illustrated a long graphic novel about Tex Willer, a Western hero who’s been appearing in Italian comics for more than fifty years. TEX: THE LONESOME RIDER is one of the few Tex Willer stories that’s available in English, and I’d been meaning to read it, so I found an affordable copy on-line and ordered it.

Tex is both a Texas Ranger and an honorary chief of the Navajo tribe, but that’s really all I know about him. In this book, he’s out of his usual bailiwick since he’s going to visit some old friends of his, a married couple with a beautiful daughter. But when Tex arrives at their ranch, he discovers that the whole family has been murdered by four hardcase drifters. He sets off on their trail after burying his friends and vowing to avenge them.

The script by veteran TEX writer Claudio Nizzi plays very much like a Spaghetti Western movie (well, duh) or a Piccadilly Cowboys paperback from the Seventies. Tex trails one of the killers to a town run by the outlaw’s brother and a corrupt sheriff. Another section of the book takes Tex to a showdown in a ghost town, and then he ventures into an Apache village where he winds up fighting for his life against another of his quarry. There’s nothing in this story that Western readers haven’t seen many, many times before, but of course, how well it’s executed means everything.

And this is where Kubert comes in. His art is extraordinary and lifts a competent script into an excellent Western graphic novel. TEX: THE LONESOME RIDER is printed in black and white, which allows Kubert to make very effective use of light and shadow and contrast. His storytelling is fantastic, which you’d expect from someone with many decades of experience in the comics business. With some comics artists, I have to look at a page multiple times and ask myself what’s happening there, but not with Kubert. The action flows clearly and effortlessly from panel to panel. His close-ups, especially in scenes where Tex steps out of the shadows to confront his enemies, are very effective. I expected to like the art in this book, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

I suspect that as an introduction to Tex Willer, THE LONESOME RIDER isn’t very typical of the character, but I enjoyed it very much and think it’s well worth reading for Western comics fans. I already have several more English-language collections from the Italian comics and I’m looking forward to reading them so that I can get a sample of Tex’s regular adventures.

Conan the Barbarian #2: Bound in Black Stone, Part 2 - Jim Zub and Rob de la Torre

I've read the second issue of the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN comic book and continue to be very impressed. This is Part 2 of the storyline "Bound in Black Stone", which finds Conan, still a relatively young mercenary and adventurer, and his companion, the Pictish female scout Brissa, on the run from and battling a horde of undead warriors flooding north from Aquilonia into Cimmeria.

Jim Zub's script is very good, striking a perfect balance between dialogue and captions. I'm no expert on modern comics, as I've said many times, but my impression is that captions are somewhat frowned upon by many of today's writers. That makes Zub's effective use of them very refreshing to me. I grew up reading Stan Lee, remember, and Stan wrote great captions. So did most of the other comics scripters of the Sixties and Seventies.

Rob de la Torre's art continues to be fantastic. His storytelling and attention to detail are excellent. Like Zub's writing, de la Torre's art really fits this character.

If I have one quibble, it's a very minor one. The necessity to write story arcs that can be reprinted in trade paperbacks sometimes leads to a slower pace than I like. So far this hasn't been a real problem in this series, but I do feel that the story could move along just a little faster. But that feeling hasn't detracted from my enjoyment, and based on the three issues I've read so far (I read the Free Comic Book Day prequel but didn't blog about it), I give CONAN THE BARBARIAN a very high recommendation directed at long-time fans and newcomers alike. I read the digital edition of the second issue, and I've already pre-ordered the third issue.

Red Sonja: The Ballad of the Red Goddess - Roy Thomas, Esteban Maroto, and Santi Casas

Back in my comic book reading days, I was never a big fan of the character Red Sonja. Not really a Robert E. Howard character but more Howard-adjacent, let's say, she was very loosely based on the character Red Sonya in Howard's historical adventure yarn "The Shadow of the Vulture". So in reality she was actually created by scripter Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith, with her visual appearance being revamped early on by artist Esteban Maroto. Mind you, these are not bad things. Roy Thomas is one of my all-time favorite comics writers, and Maroto and Windsor-Smith are top-notch artists. But when Red Sonja got her own book, I read it only sporadically, and although I had copies of all six novels by David C. Smith and Richard Tierney that featured the character, I never got around to reading them before they were lost in the Fire of '08. These days copies of the novels tend to be pretty expensive, so I've never replaced them.

All that said, when I came across a digital version of the graphic novel RED SONJA: THE BALLAD OF THE RED GODDESS available on Kindle Unlimited, I didn't hesitate to download and read it. Maybe it was time to reevaluate the character, I told myself. And with a script by Roy Thomas and art by Esteban Maroto, the two guys who basically came up with the character, it seemed like a good bet whether it turned me into a Red Sonja fan or not.

The jury is still out on that, but I really enjoyed this graphic novel done originally for a Spanish publisher several years ago. Thomas's script is an origin story with a framing sequence. It covers ground that has been covered to a certain extent in previous stories but fleshes it out in an enjoyable fashion. The tale even provides a reasonable explanation for the infamous chain-mail bikini the character wears, over and above the idea of appealing to horny male comic book readers in the Seventies. (Hey! I resemble that remark!) The action is good, Sonja is a likable character, and while this doesn't break any new ground, it's a perfectly acceptable sword-and-sorcery yarn that entertained me quite a bit. Maroto's art is very good (I've always liked his work) and the art in the framing sequence by Santi Casas is good as well.

There are e-book editions of other Red Sonja collections that reprint the original comics run from the Seventies. Might be time to check them out, too.

Conan the Barbarian #1 - Jim Zub and Roberto de la Torre

I was a regular reader of the comics CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN back in the Seventies and Eighties. I still remember how excited I was when I spotted a copy of CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 on the comics rack in a little convenience store in my hometown. In those days we didn’t know months in advance what comics were coming out. I didn’t even know Marvel had a Conan series in the works. But being a huge fan of Robert E. Howard’s work, I grabbed that issue and thoroughly enjoyed the story by Roy Thomas and the art by Barry Windsor-Smith, although he may have still been billed as Barry Smith at that point. (As an aside, I don’t recall ever purchasing another comic book at that particular store. I didn’t stop in there very often.) When SSOC came out, I bought most of the issues at Lester’s Pharmacy, my main comics source. Great stuff all around, including the articles about Howard and his work by a guy named Fred Blosser, who I’m honored to call my friend all these years later.

When Dark Horse started publishing Conan comics 18 years ago (That long? Really?) with scripts by Kurt Busiek and art by Cary Nord, I read and enjoyed the trade paperback collecting the first several issues. My review of it is here. But I didn’t continue reading that version and haven’t even sampled any of the issues from other publishers since then. I was out of the loop, as they say, when it comes to Conan and comics.

But then, having seen several mentions of it, on a whim I picked up a digital copy of the first issue of a new Conan series from Titan Comics. CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 is written by Jim Zub, an author I know nothing about, with art by Roberto de la Torre, another unknown to me, and a main cover (there are numerous variants) by Dan Panosian, whom I’ve at least heard of. Now that you’ve waded through all the obligatory nostalgia above, what did I think of this new comic, you ask?

Well, I liked it. Quite a bit, in fact.

Zub’s script finds Conan still a relatively young man but with several years of mercenary experience behind him, heading back to his homeland of Cimmeria for a visit. He’s still in northern Aquilonia, stopping over at a tavern where he gets in a fight with the captain of the mercenary company he belongs to, and then a Pictish warrior woman shows up with the unhappy news that a horde of demon-possessed Picts are about to swarm over the place and kill them all. Much hacking and slashing ensues before the issue ends on a cliffhanger of sorts.

I get the feeling that Zub’s Conan isn’t quite REH’s character, but pretty darned close. Don’t ask me for specifics, it’s more of a gut feeling, but although I’m confident that Zub has read the original stories, his Conan seems filtered through all the previous Conan comics stories by Roy Thomas, Chuck Dixon, and a dozen or more other writers. But as I said, he comes close, close enough that I found the character believable and engaging. De la Torre’s artwork is very influenced by John Buscema, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Buscema’s Conan is the definitive comics version of the character. Honestly, even when I’m reading Howard’s original stories, Buscema’s Conan is who I see in my head. So I’m pleased with de la Torre has done here. The variant covers, many of which are included with the digital edition I read, are very good, too.

Overall, I found the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN to be the equal of any of the previous versions not written by Thomas or Dixon, and I enjoyed it enough that I’ve already pre-ordered the second issue. If you’re a fan of Conan comics, you definitely should check it out.

Creepy Archives, Volume 1 - Archie Goodwin, et al.

The black-and-white Warren horror magazines just didn’t show up on the newsstands where I grew up when I was a kid. The first Warren magazine I remember seeing was VAMPIRELLA #27 in 1973. I picked it up, enjoyed it, learned of the existence of CREEPY and EERIE, and began seeking them out. I enjoyed them all. In fact, one of the first times my writing ever saw print was a fan letter published in an issue of EERIE. But I was very late coming to these magazines and never saw the early issues, although I came across an occasional reprint of a story from them.

Now those early issues are being reprinted in very handsome volumes, so out of curiosity more than anything else, I picked up Volume One of the CREEPY ARCHIVES, which reprints issues #1-5 of the flagship Warren title. They have great covers by Frank Frazetta and Jack Davis. The artwork on the stories themselves is by Reed Crandell, Gray Morrow, Angelo Torres, Al Williamson, Joe Orlando, Jack Davis, and Alex Toth. It’s just magnificent, stunning, however you want to describe it. Just great stuff, story after story.

Most of the scripts are by Archie Goodwin, who was also the editor of the magazine. Otto Binder contributes the scripts for two installments of an adaptation of his pulp series about Adam Link, Robot, and there are a few other stories by various hands. And here’s where I’m going to annoy some fans. As much as I love Archie Goodwin’s work (the Manhunter series he and Walt Simonson did is fantastic, and he wrote a lot of other great comics), I didn’t care much for the stories in this volume. These short, twist-ending tales are very formulaic and predictable, and even spacing them out over several months, as I did, the sameness bothered me. I know, I’m being hypocritical. Anybody who loves the Spicy pulps as much as I do shouldn’t be complaining about anything being formulaic. But that’s the way this book came across to me, great art but mediocre stories. Quite possibly you had to be there, and if I’d been buying the individual issues at the drugstore and reading them when they were new, I might feel completely differently about them.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of these magazines, this is a beautiful book and probably well worth your time and money. Whether I’ll continue picking up these Archives editions, I don’t know. I might give the second volume a try.

The Saint Settles a Score - Keith Chapman

When I was in junior high, it would have been difficult to decide who was my favorite fictional character: the Saint, Doc Savage, or Ben Grimm. I'm sure it depended on what I was reading at the time. But I loved all three of them and still do. I've written before about how I discovered the Saint and told the story again in the introduction I provided for the most recent reprint of THE SAINT IN MIAMI, which is available in an inexpensive e-book edition and can even be read for free if you have Kindle Unlimited.

So I don't know how I missed "The Saint Settles a Score", a 16-page Saint comic book story from the early Sixties written by Keith Chapman, an old friend of this blog. It was reprinted on Gary Dobbs' Tainted Archive blog a number of years ago, but I'm just now catching up to it. And I'm glad I did, because it really takes me back to those days when I was devouring Saint stories as fast as I could get my hands on them.

"The Saint Settles a Score" is very much influenced by Leslie Charteris's early stories about the character. Simon Templar answers a call for help from an old friend, a professional burglar who's opposed to violence. The fellow is in trouble, and it catches up to him quickly when he keeps a rendezvous with Simon. He's gunned down by some thugs and lives just long enough to put Simon on the trail of his killers, an investigation that involves wealthy art dealers, a beautiful blonde, a fabulously valuable painting, and some deadly double crosses.

Chapman's script is swift, humorous in places, and has plenty of action. Its light yet adventurous tone matches up very well in comparison to Charteris's Saint yarns. The art, furnished by an unknown Spanish artist, does a pretty good job of capturing Simon's personality and conveying the action. All in all, this is a very good story and I really enjoyed reading it.

If you're a Saint fan and missed this one like I did, you can find all 16 pages in two posts on the Tainted Archives blog, here and here. Be sure and read the comments, too, as they contain further information about the story and Chapman's involvement with the character. Check out this post, as well, for more background. It's great stuff.