Lone Justice - Crash!

Lone Justice by Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley is spread across two trade volumes, both popping for twenty bucks, so the idea of taking a chance on a brand-new character for nearly forty dollars is a bit off-putting. I relented to temptation after reading and enjoying classic Wheatley storytelling in the Mars volume, also from IDW. I took the gamble, and it paid off in spades.

This is a fantastic story, well told and blessed with lush, beautiful compelling artwork. It's a pulp yarn in the vintage tradition, set in a mythical city during the Great Depression, it tells the story of Lone Justice, a masked vigilante who is at the end of his string financially in his struggle against the mysterious foe called "Scion". He is in reality Octavius Brown the seemingly indolent son of a pillar of the community who has served his community in secret for many years. He is ably assisted by Mrs.Solstice, the family's longtime servant and once upon a time by a scientist named Gus Gotmoggen and once had a partner named Lady Fortune. His partners have turned from him, put off by the times and by his unwillingness to fight for things which in their minds truly matter. He has become too much a defender of the status quo and is blind to the broader suffering the hard times have wrought. Now he needs help to keep up the fight and he cannot find it, so he finds himself down and out but still driven to make a difference. How he will make that difference is discovered when he meets a young woman named Jean who helps him find a way forward.
 

"Crash!" is the actual title of this story which unfolds over the course of both trades. It was originally produced for the internet at the ComicMix website and is gathered together here. It's a story with power and punch and real actual heart which hits all the right notes for its pulp roots as well as showing how those old tales can still have something important to say to us in these modern days when sprawling economic disruption is again within living memory. 

The artwork by Wheatley is simply outstanding. He apparently painted these pages which have a powerful cinematic flair and read unerringly and with momentum. I'd love to read more in this universe, but it seems unlikely. But we have this story, one which will please pulp fans immensely and will have something to offer those wanting a bit of modern commentary in their tales.

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Titanic Tales Featuring The Spider!

Titanic Tales was not a title I jumped at when I first saw it. Back in 1998 when it dropped the near twenty-dollar price point was more painful than it is today for one thing. Also, I was only beginning to get deeply interested in pulp heroes aside from some comic appearances at Marvel and DC. But eventually I did pick it up and I'm so happy I did, because it is chock full of fantastic and delightfully nasty tales of all sorts. The catchphrase "Lurid Pulp Stories to Rot Your Brain!" is rather accurate. And there is no more lurid story in the collection than the one starring The Spider titled "Burning Lead for the Walking Dead" by Mark Wheatley. This is a full-on comic story in a tome which is predominantly prose. 

As you can see from this draft of the cover art, the original title was "Eat Flesh, Drink Blood, Break Heads!" That's accurate but I prefer the more poetic title they landed on. And if you look closely at the cover art above, you'll see the "Cannibal Queen" as she's called in the story is munching on part of a leg and not just brushing her hair back as the published cover shows. The story is fifty pages of straightforward action as Richard Wentworth, Nita Van Sloan, and Commissioner Kirkpatrick visit a swanky new eatery in the big city. They are invited inside this place which sports exotic decorations and taken to a private room to enjoy their meal. But soon the Spider makes his appearance and discovers the restaurant is actually designed to process and deliver human remains as fancy food for the elite. In the dark recesses of "The Pit" the Spider finds said elite reduced to slavering zombies hungry for live human meat. It's all he and his allies can do to elude the cannibals as well as two deadly white tigers the Cannibal Queen keeps as pets. Mark Wheatley's spry light artwork helps this heady brew go down, but it's not a story for the meek. 

I discovered this cover on the internet suggesting the story had been reprinted by Moonstone in the early 2000's in an expanded format. But I cannot find any evidence that this version was ever actually published, but only advertised. I certainly don't remember seeing it and I've been a bit of a Moonstone fan for some time. Whatever the case, the new cover art is dandy indeed. 

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The Web Of Crime!

Audiences have always cottoned to heroes who are resolute and have the courage of their convictions. The Shadow was such a hero, and he was rough and tough and very successful, so much so that imitators came into being. In The Spider, a vintage pulp hero published originally by Popular Publications beginning in the 1930's they found a hero who was not afraid to take the law into his own hands like The Shadow, in fact he was quite ready and willing to hand down death sentences to those he deemed worthy.  The Spider as written by Norvell Page and others is the best of those, following the model but being just different enough to garner his own following. This month I want to spend some time with The Spider and explore his grim menacing world. Thanks to publishers like Moonstone, Baen, Vanguard and others, there is a lot of great Spider material out there, from reprints of the original pulps to new novels and short stories, and even comic book and movie serial adaptations. Below are some of the works I'm hoping to get to this month. 

But The Spider did not fight crime alone. There are plenty of other vigilantes who took a bite out of crime and I'd like to visit and revisit with some of those distinctive agents of justice. See below for a chamber full of options such as Lone Justice, The Black Beetle, Monstermen, and The Dreamwalker. 

And sometimes telling the difference between the good guys (or gals) and the bad ones can be a little difficult. Hardboiled dicks come in all genders it seems as we see with the classic It Rhymes with Lust by Arnold Drake and Matt Baker, Fiction Illustrated's Schlomo Raven by Tom Sutton and Chandler by Jim Steranko, Ms. Tree- Deadline by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty, and Johnny Dynamite by Pete Morisi. 

And crime can strike anywhere, even the "most magical place on the Earth". So, it seems only appropriate to check out the devious doings of Mickey Mouse's arch enemy The Phantom Blot. The Blot debuted in the Mickey Mouse comic strip but proved popular enough to even get his comic book series from Gold Key in the 1960's. 

Crime makes for good anthologies as well as evidenced by DC's Greatest Detective Stories Ever Told and The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics. Both tomes have delightful surprises between their mysterious covers. 

And look for an overview of the early career of Marvel's famous crime crusher, the Punisher. Frank Castle rose to fame in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and took the world by storm, shot by shot. These early tales allow a reader to enjoy the evolution of Marvel's toughest character. 

And I want to take a little time tomorrow to talk about the late great Steve Ditko who gave us two of comics most relentless crime fighters in The Question and Mr. A. Mr. A's stories have most recently been gathered together in the pages of Avenging World. 

And I mentioned Max Allan Collins earlier. He's a fecund writer of mysteries of all kinds and some of the ones I enjoy most are a trio of stories he fashioned which take a look at infamous crimes committed within the comics community, or perhaps might have been. 

And then there's more film such as the hard-nosed Blade Runner which adapts Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick with gritty determination. Also on hand is the somewhat more tongue-in-cheek trio of tales about Trancers which features a tough as nails detective named Jack Deth of all things. Also look for the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a strange movie which has an even more bizarre connection to The Spider. 

That's a lot on my plate this month of Thanksgiving, and there's more I haven't mentioned. But we in America like to eat hearty during this month. So, strap in and come with me down some pretty dark crime alleys at Dojo this month. But be sure to keep your heads down amigos, the bullets are flying. 

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Jonny Quest - The Comico Comics!

I do not know why after so many years that Jonny Quest finally at long last got a comic book series, but thanks to the little company Comico he did. And it's a cracker too. Doug Wildey was involved deeply with the early days of the strip, drawing amazing covers and even giving Quest fans three lush and beautiful adaptations of vintage Quest episodes in Jonny Quest Classics. Oh that he had been able to do a comic adaptation for all of the original twenty-six, but I'll enjoy what I have in all its beauty and be thankful.

The main comic book was handled by a who's who of comic book talent from the era with covers by Dave Stevens, Ken Steacy, Dan Spiegle, Ernie Colon, Wendy Pini, Carmine Infantino and others gracing the comic. The interiors were done for the most part by the team of Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley. I'll confess that at the time their offbeat and kinetic style was not my ideal of how to present the Quest universe, but over time I have more and more appreciated the light and fresh approach they brought to the book. They managed to tap into the luster of Wildey's world without mimicking it in a mawkish or constrictive way. The series ran for several years, thirty-one regular issues with two special editions. All of it had at least a mote of the classic Quest magic and it opened the Quest universe up in a number of creative ways. It's astounding that these comics have never been reprinted in any way, especially in a world in which nearly all comics have been reprinted. They certainly deserve to find a new audience. For now, we have only the back issue bins. Me, I was lucky enough to be there when they arrived on the stands and I was savvy enough never to let them leave. They are worth the quest.

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