Road To Perdition 2 - On The Road!

Road to Perdition began as the last of the Pardox Mystery line but it's wild success both on the newsstand and in theaters meant a sequel was almost essential. Not really a sequel really, but a continuity implant. The story of the "Angel of Death", a mob enforcer who loses his family to mob violence leaving only himself and his son on a desperate journey seeking safety was a long and winding one and Max Allan Collins wrote the story with room to expand from the inside. In Road to Perdition 2 - On the Road we are treated to some of the harrowing adventures the father and son team encountered. 

"Oasis" us drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez with inks by Joe Rubinstein. The art lacks a bit of the edge of the original, but no one can argue that Garcia-Lopez can't tell a rousing story. The Sullivans find refuge of sorts on a remote farm when the boy comes down with Scarlet Fever. They find haven because the wife of the farmer was a friend of Sullivan's wife and a former romantic interest of his. Two bounty hunters called "The Two Jacks" get on the trail and things come to a head as one might expect. The plight of farms during the depression is highlighted to some extent by this yarn. 

"Sanctuary" sees Steve Lieber take on the art chores. We learn that Mike Sullivan has a history with one of the two bounty hunters still seeking him which complicates things when a brutal killer escapes from a chain gang looking for vengeance against the Two Jacks for killing his brothers. We meet Queenie, a singular woman who gambles and once owned her own gambling house in NYC. She is an associate of the Two Jacks. This story has a little bit of a flashback, and we meet an exceedingly famous criminal from the Old West who gives a young Mike Sullivan a hand when he needed it most. (Hint: Paul Newman who played the role of Mike's boss Looney in the movie version of Road to Perdition also played this western outlaw as well.)

In "Detour" Garcia-Lopez returns with inks by Lieber. Our stories come together when the object of Mike Sullivan's quest for vengeance escapes his keepers from the Capone outfit and seeks his own revenge on the woman who he knows helped the Sullivans in the first installment. The Two Jacks and Queen return as well in a story set largely in Kansas City, itself a notoriously wide-open mob town in the Depression Era. The Angel of Death must make some different choices in this finale of the story about saving a life and not taking one, an event which brings the father and son even closer together. 

(Jose Garcia-Lopez Pencils)

These stories are not as compelling as the original. I'm an unabashed Jose Garcia-Lopez fan but his work is too idealistic for a story of such gritty criminal events. It's handsome and he does a fantastic job, but the atmosphere is not there. Lieber gets closer but his storytelling is not quite a sharp. It's always difficult to make stories which are continuity implants have much impact since we know that our players will survive to fight another day. It might add context, but it cannot have the emotional involvement of the original saga. That said, I recommend this one for anyone who wants to savor these classic Collins stories of a crime in an era which has become part of the American mythology. 

There is a third volume of the series titled Return to Perdition, which I only became aware of when I prepared these reviews. It was done in 2012 for Vertigo Comics and Terry Beatty joins Collins for this sequel which moves the story ahead a generation into the early 1970's. Maybe I'll get around to getting a copy and reading it someday. 

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We Spoke Out - The Calypso Connection!

Captain America is the original World War II hero and in this follow up to the story in which we learn he helped liberate the fictional death camp called "Diebenwald" we learn more about the suffering of Cap's landlady Anna Kappelbaum. In Captain America #245 we discover that she was sexually assaulted by the commandant of the camp, a fellow named Klaus Mendelhaus. She happens to see Mendelhaus and soon after is approached by Nazi hunter Aaron Heller and his daughter. They find  Mendelhaus who seems to be regretful of his many crimes and Anna is unable to kill him when given the chance. Heller's daughter does shoot him down when her father dies of a heart attack. 

This story written by Roger McKenzie and drawn by Carmine Infantino and Joe Rubenstein is a nifty rousing adventure, but somehow its message of folks need to forgive seems a little underdeveloped. I understand that victims like Anna need to forgive for their own sake and not for their attackers, but Mendelhaus seems a little too pat in this story, a bit too sympathetic for my tastes. He's a mass murderer and rapist and those are mighty crimes indeed. 

Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. 

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War And Remembrance!

A few years after the end of The Invaders, the war years for Timely's greatest heroes was recognized and remembered in the pages of Captain America. The creative team at that time on the book was Roger Stern and John Byrne, two Charlton alumni who had made quite an impression on the fans of the day on very good issues of The Avengers. In fact, according to Stern it was a leftover plot from those Avengers days which found its way into a very memorable two-part Cap tale. Joe Rubinstein is doing the inking by the way.

Cap is living life in the United States with his new girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal when he gets a coded message from Lord Montgomery Falsworth, the former Union Jack that Baron Blood, a vampire the Invaders had battled a few times during WWII was back and menacing the countryside. Cap drops everything and flies to meet his old colleagues. He finds not only the very aged Lord Falsworth, but his daughter Jacqueline, now Lady Crichton, the mother of a grown son named Kenneth her own super-speed powers as Spitfire having diminished over the decades. Her brother Brian, the man who was the second Union Jack is revealed to have died in a car accident in 1953. Quickly Cap learns what Lord Falsworth suspects and goes to the Tower of London to confirm that indeed Baron Blood has escaped his tomb. He then meets Kenneth and his friend Joey Chapman a commoner, just before Baron Blood reveals himself and attacks Cap.

In the second installment Cap is able to repulse the vampire who flees to hide again among the population, his identity still unknown. Eventually things come to a head and Baron Blood is defeated of course, his secrets laid bare and a new Union Jack, the third in the line, is initiated into battle. I don't want to spoil too much of his story as its a real dandy by Stern and Byrne.

 They'd created several nifty stories before revisiting the Invaders, and I noticed glancing at this volume that several of them seem to have been fondly remembered by the folks who made the second Cap movie.

Stern and Byrne closed their run by re-working Cap's origin for the 40th anniversary issue (see the top of this post) and cleaned up some of the confusing details which had accumulated in the story over the decades.

Here's the cover to the collection of nine Cap stories that Stern and Byrne did before they left the comic amid some controversy.

And here's the original cover, a humdinger for sure.

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The Invaders - One Minute Later!

This tasty commission by Joe Rubinstein and regular The Invaders inker Frank Springer is one of many which take one of the countless images portrayed on iconic comic book covers and as the question of what would happen one minute later.

The classic cover in question  this time is this one by John Romita for the very first issue of the regular The Invaders series.

For many many more Invaders One-Minute-Later covers check out this link. There's some exceedingly sweet artwork by the likes of Alan Kupperberg, Ron Wilson, Rick Hoberg, Mike Grell, Keith Pollard, Trevor Von Eden, and many more.

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The Thanos War!

The Thanos War is a highlight of Marvel's Bronze Age, the signature storyline which established the career of Thanos creator Jim Starlin and will presumably supply the plot (of sorts) for the next big-screen Avengers event. Marvel has now collected what has been dubbed "The Thanos War" in a hefty trade titled The Avengers Versus Thanos. It's not a magical title, not even a particularly good one, but it the collection does a good thing, it puts together the saga of the assembled Marvel heroes, in particular Captain Marvel, Warlock, and Iron Man , as they combat the nihilistic nightmares of the the Mad God Thanos.

The collection begins with Iron Man #55 dated February 1973 which debuted many of Starlin's concepts, including Drax the Destroyer and  Thanos himself. Alas "The Thanos War" began one issue earlier technically, but we'll get to that later. This issue has been collected many times with select issue of Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel #25 gives us the third installment of the saga and moves it to the title which will carry the brunt of the battle against The Mad God.

Mar-Vell struggles against Thanos, battling his vassels such as Super-Skrull and The Controller in a struggle which transforms the hero himself. It is in this conflagration that Captain Marvel becomes cosmically aware.

The battle shifts from the pages of "The Most Cosmic Superhero of All!" to Marvel Feature where The Thing and Iron Man battle against the Blood Brothers once again.

And now we come to this collection's flaw. Not included is Iron Man #54 by Mike Friedrich and George Tuska from an idea by Subby creator Bill Everett. This issue introduced the alluring, shiny-pated "Madame MacEvil", who we would later come to know as the always charming Moondragon and so this comic book  is technically the first chapter in The Thanos War despite the odd fact it predates Starlin's introduction of the core concepts.

That issue is not included but is summarized to help readers seque into a trio of Daredevil issues by Steve Gerber, Don Heck, Bob Brown, and Sal Buscema which feature Moondragon and some really nasty baddies like Dark Messiah, Ramrod and the always delightful Angar the Screamer.

Captain Marvel even stops by, as the story in his comic continues to build.

At the climax of Mar-Vell's struggle against Thanos the story slides over seamlessly to The Avengers #125 for one exquisite issue by Steve Englehart, John Buscema, and Dave Cockrum. The Assemblers take on the Mad God.

Before the saga finally concludes its first chapter in the pages of Captain Marvel. The Thanos threat is ended.

But then many months later Starlin takes over the reins of Warlock and brings back his evil Titan. Thanos walks again and threatens the whole universe.

The battle kills Warlock, but the threat of Thanos is abated a second time.

Then the saga reaches its final phase. That is introduced in a brief short story in the back of Logan's Run #6, which reintroduces Thanos and Drax the Destroyer.

Then the finale of finales starts in the epic two-part tale told in two annuals in the summer of 1977, four years after it began.

First in the pages of The Avengers Annual the battle against Thanos continues yet again.

Until the threat is seemingly ended once and for all in Marvel-Two-In-One Annual, the assembled heroes of Earth against the Mad God.

It's really neat to have all these parts of Jim Starlin's sprawling saga in one place, a hefty but still handy trade which can be read easily. In full color, even at a thirty dollar plus price, this package is something of a bargain for those who have not yet read this epic, or for folks like me who have but want to experience it all over again.

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