Get Thee To A Rookery!

I was a Warren fan at just the right moment to latch onto The Rook by Bill DuBay and Luis Bermejo. As the collection notes, these are stories "from the pages of Eerie", a magazine which at this point in time shifting away from the one-off horror tales which had defined it as a younger version of Creepy. Eerie was giving the world offbeat heroes from across the span of space, time, and imagination, many with a decidedly anti-heroic nature. One of the good guys was Restin Dane, a handsome swashbuckling adventurer who just also happened to be a marvelous inventor and who became master of time travel.

(Gulacy's cover as published -- minus the fabulous details.)

The first stories of The Rook saga are far and away the best. In these stories, collected under an robust Paul Gulacy cover presented for the first time in all its detailed glory, we meet Restin and his ancestor Bishop Dane, his robot assistant Manners, and others who fill the rough and tumble adventures with heart and specific character. These stories have the whipsaw charm that time travel stories can deliver with twists and turns coming at a breakneck pace.

If you read no other Rook stories, read these presented in The Rook Archives Volume 1. These are the ones which fixed the character into the popular imagination. He would become arguably for a time Warren's most popular character and his run only ended when his creator Bill DuBay left Warren for other climes.

The second volume of The Rook Archives is quite good as we continue to follow the temporal-challenging adventures of Restin Dane and his cohorts. But the gloss is beginning to come off the creation just a bit. There is a certain formula which is settling in to the story telling which cuts against the freshness which had marked the earliest issues. Also attempts at comedy fall a bit short of hitting the mark and that always leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Among the highlights in this tome are a beautiful story drawn by the incomparable Alex Nino. Also quite strong is the final story entitled "Quarb and the Warball" which revives the uncanny sense of time travel  and also is based to some extent on fan ideas. Luis Bermejo does an absolute fantastic job on Bill DuBay's script.

The crossover with the Vampirella magazine is a focus of this volume and it's a perfectly good story, but not the best in the volume by any measure, save for the ability to look at the lovely Vampi and her associate Pantha.

With the third volume of The Rook Archives we see the end of the first phase of Rook adventures. Luis Bermejo leaves the strip and to my eye much of the charm which he brought to the characters especially the lovely ladies is lost. Stepping in to fill that void are capable artists like Alfredo Alcala, Jim Starlin, and Jim Janes, but none of these captures the fragile essence of the Rook. We get instead stories which seem interchangeable in many sci-fi comics.

Also there becomes a fixed story telling notion that Restin Dane, the titular Rook will act alone while in a parallel story his elder Bishop Dane and his robot Manners travel lines that will ultimately intersect with the primary story, if not directly then thematically. Frankly it seems that after establishing the cast in the earliest stories, Bill DuBay doesn't quite know how to manage them all. He clearly wants to move on from the Alamo stories, but can't seem to drop the cast. The girls especially have almost nothing to do and disappear entirely in certain tales.

The advent of Lee Elias is a good move as his lush black lines go far to recall the Bermejo original artwork. But for most of this volume he  is not present. It's fun sci-fi with that specific Warren flavor, but nothing in these stories really says "Rook".

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Nexus Omnibus Volume One!

I've tried to live a life with few regrets, but when it comes to reading comics, one regret I have for certain is that I did not keep up with Steve Rude's and Mike Baron's Nexus series as it rambled across the comics medium. This rather adult and sometimes sardonic re-imagining of the classic Space Ghost character for a harder, meaner universe has a lot to offer.

I was all in for Nexus from almost the beginning, starting with the second magazine-sized black and white issue from Capitol Comics. I pretty quickly nabbed the debut sporting its decidedly awesome Paul Gulacy cover image, and it was off.

The origin of Nexus is one of the best in comics. He's a driven, nearly mad protagonist who slays mass murderers, himself being the son of one such villain. He grew up isolated and alone save for some possibly imaginary alien friends on a the moon Ylum and became empowered in ways both frightening and even to him mysterious. Great, great premise -- a sleek spaceship arrives unexpectedly and a handsome and enigmatic figure emerges to confront some killer with his crimes and deliver judgment and punishment simultaneously. Powerful stuff!

The book became a color offering in regular size for a time from the small Capitol brand before they went bust.

That's when I abandoned ship. Not because as Judah Macabee screams above, that I was bored, but because financially I had to choose to support a growing family and not read nearly every independent comic book on the market.  Because as we all know with great responsibility comes great need for ready cash flow.

When Nexus migrated to First Comics, I didn't follow. So, when I sat down with the Nexus Omnibus Volume One, these stories were all brand new to me. Imagine buying up comics and storing them inside a cave for decades before you can read and enjoy them. That's what finding this omnibus reprint is like in many ways, these are comics I've never read, but always wanted to and now I can for small money and with relative ease. Fantastic!

The First Comics run begins with a salty crossover as Mike Baron's Badger gets a guest-shot in a trilogy of Nexus issues which finds him and Judah crossing over into a bewildering world located within a black hole. It's clever and witty stuff from the gang, and a swift entertaining read.

The collection ends with a trio of stories which begin to address the mystery of the origins of Nexus and of Ylum itself. For all the froth and bother in the front of these narratives, there is always a deep dark core which gives Nexus a gravity missing from many other comics. This is at once light entertaining fare and profoundly disturbing material, all inside the same package -- a wonderful balancing act by Baron and Rude.

The second omnibus awaits. 

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MiracleMan Book Two: The Red King Syndrome!

The Red King Syndrome is the title of the second "Book" of Miracleman stories and focuses on our hero's conflict with his creator Emil Gargunza. In the fanciful Marvelman comics of the 50's Gargunza was the Dr. Sivana figure, a gnomish scientist with everlasting evil intent, and in these new tales for a fresh audience in the 80's he's not changed all that much. His motivations have deepened, he's a product of the Fascist states and now has his own agenda to breed superhumans so that he somehow will be able to live forever. He is a ghastly and bloodthirsty figure as presented in these stories, a man utterly concerned with his own wants to the utter exclusion of all others. Not all our characters will survive this tribulation. 

While Miracleman is attempting to save his pregnant wife from the clutches of the mad doctor, Johnny Bates is dealing with his own demon, Kid Miracleman. We are privy to his mind as the two personalities vie for control. The extended story ends with a birth which is presented in quite graphic terms. Not unlike the exploitation movies of the 30's these scenes merely show the biological process, but nonetheless require a warning for readers who might be shocked by such imagery. 

The artwork in these stories is passed among several diverse hands. Alan Davis handles the thrust of the first several chapters, but he is replaced by Chuck Austen who is in turn supplanted by Rick Veitch. John Ridgeway also delivers a very winsome story starring the late Young Marvelman. 

The last Warrior magazine to feature "Marvelman" in a painting by Mick Austen. 

The series moves past its Warrior magazine origins and slips over to Eclipse Comics who reprint the earlier chapters before beginning new material changing the name to "Miracleman". These books feature cover art by Jim Starlin, Paul Gulacy, Tim Truman and John Totleben among others. 

The Red King Syndrom was collected in this handsome volume touting a John Bolton cover. 

Marvel reprinted the stories decades later with mostly Alan Davis covers thought others took part as well. These stories are for mature audiences for the graphic representation of both life and death. A comic book hovers dangerously close to real life, the fantasy becomes almost too potent for many. Good stuff indeed! 

Next time we visit Olympus!

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Master Of Kung Fu - Fight Without Pity!

Master of Kung Fu - Fight Without Pity is all about the art of Paul Gulacy. Gulacy had become the regular artist on the series, albeit with many fill-in jobs by other talents since the departure of Jim Starlin. He was a young and rough talent but one could see his Steranko-inspired style cohering with each job he turned in. With this volume he has come of age and his artwork is simply stunning. The stories created by him and Dough Moench are among the most compelling in the long run of the series. 

The new distinctive direction begins with a trio of tales in which Shang-Chi agrees to work officially for Sir Nayland Smith and his secret service. His first mission is to confront a drug trafficker named Velcro. Shang-Chi pursues him to his remote island fortress and battles his agents Razorfist and the whip-wielding Pavane. I want to note that as much as I love and appreciate his work, the Masterof Kung Fu series was hampered by some indifferent Gil Kane covers which only hint at the quality of the work beneath those covers. In general, the covers are much too similar and I'm hard pressed to attach any single memory to most of them. 

Sal Buscema steps in to give Gulacy a hand with a story about secret documents aboard a ship filled with all manner of dangerous folk. 

Gulacy is back in time for a trilogy featuring the menace of Mordillo, an eccentric villain who turns out to be someone close to the organization. Pavane is back and we encounter the peculiar Brynocki, an an artificial man with real feelings. Mordillo has a secret island (don't they all) which is whimsical and filled with threats from nursery rhymes and fables. Most importantly we meet for the first time Leiko Wu, an agent of Smith's outfit and a fetching love interest for Shang-Chi. 

Then we get an offbeat two-part tale from Moench drawn by Keith Pollard about a magical circus of sorts filled with a menagerie of mythical and mysterious creatures, all led by a man named Moon Sun. This is a strange tale which brought to my mind The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney which was made into a movie starring Tony Randall. 

In Master of Kung Fu's one and only annual he meets Iron Fist for the first time and the two martial arts heroes battle a magician named Quan-St'ar in the land of S'hara-Sharn, a land which is the dark opposite of K'un-L'un. Once again Keith Pollard does the artistic honors. Pollard's art is not especially well suited to martial arts action but his storytelling is very concise. 

Then Shang-Chi finds himself going to rescue a damsel in distress who doesn't want his help since she's fallen in love with Shen Kuei, the Cat, the "villain" of the story. Gulacy's artwork continues to get even more refined as Shang-Chi begins to look more and more like movie icon Bruce Lee. 

We encounter the "Murder Agency" in the next issue which sets up a number of plot elements which will play out as the series progresses. Gulacy's artwork is exquisite in this Moench story which introduces us to another cast member, a disgraced former agent named Larner. 

The story is interrupted by a fill-in of sorts drawn by Sal Buscema in which Shang-Chi reflects back four years earlier when he came into conflict with his "brother" Midnight. We get to see these two characters before they come to a death match in the second adventure of the series. 

Gulacy is back in fine form as the story of the Murder Agency unfolds. It turns out it has connections to the other main character in this comic book - Fu Manchu. We get a superior villain in these issues named Shockwave who combines martial arts with high voltage. He gives Shang-Chi a pretty good drubbing, his worst defeat of the series.  Of course Shang-Chi recovers. 

Shang-Chi and Clive Reston come up against the Golden Daggers, an outfit of former Si-Fan who serve Fah Lo Suee. The battle between her and her father is coming to dramatic climax and the world itself is in the balance. There has been much intrigue in the series, and hidden villains are revealed and Sir Nayland Smith himself finds himself facing his mortality. 

Then we are treated to Doug Moench's and Paul Gulacy's masterpiece. Gulacy has had wonderful inkers on the series such as Dan Adkins among others, but when Pablo Marcos steps in the artwork becomes luminescent. Shang-Chi is now in full Bruce Lee mode as he is just one of Nayland Smith's agents working to forestall Fu Manchu's latest threat which will destroy the world by destroying the Moon itself. To make these stories even tastier we get a break from the regular narration from Shang-Chi's point of view and each chapter is related from a different character such as Clive Reston, Sir Nayland Smith, Blackjack Tarr, and Leiko Wu with Fu Manchu himself narrating the final installment. 

Though he had never done a cover before, Gulacy supplies a magnificent portrait of Shang-Chi for the epilogue. Jim Craig takes over the art chores as the team that saved the world from Fu Manchu decides to go their separate ways. Moench is throwing aside the espionage angle for a time, as his partner Paul Gulacy bids a farewell to the series which made his reputation. 

Keith Pollard is back on art in a weird and wild story which see the return of Rufus T. Hackstabber. This is a story set in Morroco and offers the reader more than a few echoes of the Bogie classic. Other familiar faces appear in a story which is actually a sequel to the third issue of the Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu series. 

This volume closes out with the Ernie Chan cover for a reprint of the twentieth issue of Master if Kung Fu. We also get some choice ads, covers and original artwork. A very handsome Epic volume this is indeed. 

Though he was almost never able to do any covers for the series when he was the main artist, Paul Gulacy did return to the series from time to time to gives us another glimpse of his singular vision of Shang-Chi. These covers are not contained in the Epic volume but since this tome bids a farewell to Gulacy I thought it fair to include them. 

There's a little bit more Master of Kung Fu to come as he will team up from time to time with Iron Fist in the pages of The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. The Dojo takes a gander next week. 

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