Captain Gravity!

The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. (More on that in a moment.) The artwork by Keith Martin and Robert Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figures are clumsy in places. I want to be kind, but it has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. 

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series. I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.

The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first story line survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action. There's a back-up story with Captain Gravity teaming with a hero named Force by Jim Owens and artist Courtney Huddleston. This one is not at all like the other stuff in the book and feels out of place. This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. 

The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding! (See above and the top of this post.) Here are the covers for the original run. 

If that were all that was in the Captain Gravity universe, then I'd regard it as a curiosity only. But happily there is a splendid second volume. 

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually, anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story by Jason Dysart, Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy but with more emotion. It's not a rip-off in any way, but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with good old fashioned American racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets. There's a depth to the story missing from much material of this kind and the last page is simply awesome. Oh, and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.

Here are the covers for the original run. 

Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril is one of the best comic book stories I've ever read. I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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The Pull Of Gravity!

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story by Jason Dysart, Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy. It's not a rip-off but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with good old fashioned American racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets.

I highly recommend this story to one and all. There's a depth to the story missing from much material and the last page is awesome. Oh and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.


The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. The artwork by Keith Martin and Robert Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figure are clumsy in places. It has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. The backgrounds are better. Overall it's a C- at best where the Sal Velluto-Bob Almond work on the sequel is A+.

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series. I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.


The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first story line survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action. This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding!

I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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

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The Not-So Phleet-Phooted Phantom!

With the long-awaited arrival of The Phantom #6 from Hermes Press we at long last get the final installment of a Phantom yarn which has been unfolding now for nearly two years. Hermes is a lot of things, but despite their name, swift ain't one of them. Peter David and Sal Velluto worked together to bring a story with some potent action, some striking callbacks to the earliest days of the original Phantom strip by Lee Falk, and the whole is presented under some striking covers which repeat an interesting motif of distinctive texture for the background with a portrait style for key images. 

The story begins with the always threatening Singh Brotherhood seeking out a mysterious hidden land and to that end they threaten the lives of some humble natives and one in particular who knows the way. Word gets to the Phantom who along with Diana Palmer rushes to help. They discover though that a mysterious Jungle Man is also there to solve the problem.

Ironically the mysterious Jungle Man turns out to be Jimmy Wells, a man Diana knew and (who for a time might have been thought to be the Phantom even by Falk himself before he abandoned the idea). He seems to be a man of an unusually long life who has grown up in the jungle and raised by elephants after the death of his parents, civilized but ferocious all the same, and he is married to a mysterious woman named June who turns out to be the Baroness, the former leader of the notorious Sky Band.

The quartet patch up their differences and head to the mysterious land of Ophir, hidden in a forbidden jungle inside a mountain. The Phantom fends off an attack from fighter planes and is thought to be lost. Diana, June, and Jimmy head on to the mountain but soon fall victim to the powerful queen of the natives there.

Needless to say the reports of the Phantom's demise are overdone and he survives to join up with Diana and the gang in the city, using his guile to force the information of the mountain kingdom from a member of the Singh Brotherhood. 

They are all taken captive though and pitted against one another. The queen's son seems very like Jimmy Wells and assumptions are made as to his parentage. The Singh Brotherhood resurface and joined by the King of the mountain tribe form a fatal threat to the heroes.

A battle ensues and the the heroes are saved, and the threat of the Singh Brotherhood is forestalled yet again. The new allies return to their jungle home atop an elephant, and the Phantom and Diana return to their own jungle to keep watch over their people. All is once again right with the world...for now.

This is a striking story with a wonderful awareness of classic Phantom lore. It reads very quickly, the brisk pace making for an exciting yarn. There are questions left unanswered and to be frank some of the characterizations seem a bit off at times (especially Diana) but overall a solid Phantom story. I just wish they hadn't taken so long to get it out. The artwork by Velluto does seem to suffer a bit as the story nears its end, though I cannot really tell if it's because of changes he made or the techniques of publication.

Advertised though in the back is a ad for the next Hermes new Phantom story, this one by Ron Goulart. Hopefully this one will hit the stands more frequently. 

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Phantom Threes!

It's an odd day since later I hope to pick up not one Phantom comic book from my local store, but two, and ironically both are number three issues. In a legal morass of rights ownership I will never fathom both Hermes Press and Dynamite Comics currently have the rights to publish new adventures of the classic Lee Falk comic strip costumed jungle hero.

Hermes is in the middle of publishing a six-issue story by Peter David and Sal Velluto done in a classic comic book storytelling style I can really sink my teeth into. Alas the frequency of publication has made following the story a bit of a chore since months and months pass between installments. Hermes has rigorously, if not fluidly, issued reprints of the vintage comic strips and comic books themselves, and I'm happy to see material of this kind being done by them, but I'd love to see it published with a greater fidelity to the predictable.

Arguably even more maddening is the absolute calamity the knotheads at Dynamite have made of their King Features "celebration". The plan, I guess, was to publish five four-issue books with an integrated storyline starring some of King Features' most recognizable stars. It began with a bang under an exceedingly handsome set of covers by Darwyn Cooke, but swiftly fell into disrepair. By my present count we currently have a full set of four comics starring Flash Gordon, three starring Jungle Jim, two featuring Prince Valiant, and only one with Mandrake the Magician. Today, if it arrives as planned, we will finally get three comics focused on the Phantom (this version is Lothar of Mandrake fame under the mantle). The storyline is a shambles and the frustration at even discovering when these books are coming out has been palpable.

I can say with no small amount of certainty that I will not follow another Dynamite series after this. I will wait for the trades, if they appear, but this utter contempt for and complete lack of respect for the reading public is one of the reasons I abandoned practically all periodical pamphlet comics eight years ago.

But all that said, I am pleased to find two Phantom comics waiting for me today. As I wrap up my school year with the obligatory paperwork woes, I have some fun pending at the close of business.

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The Phleet-Phooted Phantom!

The debut issue of The Phantom from Hermes Press was simply smashing. The gorgeous artwork by Sal Velluto is refreshingly old-school, giving us a lush fully rendered interior which is nonetheless rock-solid storytelling.  Peter David's story begins with a nice domestic calm for "The Ghost Who Walks" and Diana Palmer, but quickly finds our hero and his best girl on the trail of the Singh Brotherhood. They go to rescue a man who knows the secret of an oddly familiar lost city named "Ophir" -- wink wink, nudge nudge.

Sample Pages by Sal Velluto

We'll soon have two Phantom series by two different companies (Hermes and Dynamite) in the U.S. at the same time. Odd. There is a dispute between the companies as to holds the rights. It calls to mind the time some years ago when Dynamite first took hold of the rights when Moonstone seemed still to have some at least limited access to them.

Here are the alternate covers. The artwork for these is also contained inside the issue as well as some delicious Velluto pencil work, so save your shekels.

Sal Velluto

Graham Nolan

Alex Saviuk

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The Phantom Sallies Phorth!

Hermes Press which has been releasing Phantom reprints for some years now has just announced that they are publishing some new Phantom adventures later this year. That's fantastic as the artwork is supplied by the awesome Sal Velluto, one of the finest artists of recent years, a guy with a lush vivid style. Here's the news bulletin:

"The Phantom returns to comic books with Hermes Press!  Starting in September, Hermes Press will begin the release of an all-new, six part mini-series featuring the classic Ghost Who Walks, helmed by super-star writer Peter David with artwork by seasoned veteran and Phantom chronicler extraordinaire Sal Velluto.

Hermes Press Publisher Daniel Herman observed that, “When we asked King Features to allow us to build on the mythos of The Phantom we were clear that we wanted to expand the canon of one of comics’ greatest legends by embracing the character and his history, and by building on it.  We want to create new stories that Lee Falk would be proud of!”

Herman said that the selection of Peter David was the obvious choice as he is a well known fan of the strip and understands its mythos.  David has written extensively for comic books for over twenty-five years, as well as for television and film. He is currently hard at work creating a story arc that fans won’t want to miss.

David pointed out that, “I’ve been a huge Phantom fan for years, and even had the chance to work on him for DC many years ago.  I’m thrilled that Daniel approached me about this series and I’m taking the opportunity to produce a story I’ve literally been thinking about for a couple of decades.  I’m very much looking forward to seeing Sal’s pencils and putting the book out there for the fans.”

Velluto is also hard at work crafting the art for issue #1.  “This will be a classic story that will attract both fans and those who have yet to enjoy the adventures of The Phantom,” he commented.

Issue #1 will be solicited in August Previews and will hit comic shops boasting two covers by Velluto as well as variants by seasoned Phantom artists Alex Saviuk and Graham Nolan.  A special poster created by Velluto will also be released at the San Diego Comic-Con to mark the new series.

“For the last five years Hermes Press has published reprints of Lee Falk’s classic comic strip together with our comprehensive reprint series of the Gold Key, King, and Charlton Comics adventures of The Phantom—now we’ll have the opportunity to add to that material with original comic books,” Herman said, adding, “We couldn’t be more excited and we think fans will be too.”

I have no idea how this affects Dynamite's work with the Phantom character. He was most recently part of their King's Watch storyline, but that has shifted its focus on just Flash Gordon for now. Curious indeed.

Here's a glimpse of the greatness Velluto brings to the "Ghost Who Walks" with some outstanding covers from Sweden's Egmont "Fantomen" series:

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Captain Gravity!

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy. It's not a rip-off but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets.

I highly recommend this story to one and all. There's a depth to the story missing from much material and the last page is awesome. Oh and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.


The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. The artwork by Keith Martin and Rober Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figurework is clumsy in places. It has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. The backgrounds are better. Overall it's a C- at best where the Sal Velluto-Bob Almond work on the sequel is A+.

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series.

I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.


The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first storyline survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action.

This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding!

I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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