Ms. Tree - Heroine Withdrawal!

Titan's Hard Case Crime brand strikes again with the fifth Ms.Tree collection gathering together stories from the series by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. The first story in this collection titled Heroine Withdrawal picks up right after the violent events of the final page of the last volume. 

As the three issue saga titled "Mureta Means Death" gets underway, Ms.Tree has killed the pedophile and serial murderer who had kidnapped her son. The police are again put out that she's taken the law into her own hands. An old ally named Dan Green returns to the fold, having recovered as best he can from injuries suffered from a bombing by the Muerta crime family. Sporting a glass eye and a hook, Green seeks his own vengeance on the patriarch of the Muerta clan and for a time is locked up for his murder. Later secrets are revealed and needless to say this installment ends with an unexpected death. 

After the events of the last bloody finale, we get a two-issue story titled "Right to Die" in which Ms.Tree is drawn into the always ferocious abortion debate. She is ordered by the court to leave her detective work to her employees and give up her gun. An old ally of her husband shows up and wants to blow up a clinic. When the clinic is blown up, there is still a mystery to be solved. No matter how you feel about this topic this is a pretty good mystery story. 

Because she was swept up in the violence of the abortion clinic, she violated the court's order and is sent to jail. The two-issue story titled "Prisoner Cell Block Hell" has our heroine forced to deal with all sorts of threats coming at her from both inside and outside the jail. As usual she finds a bit if corruption which kicks off the usual mayhem. 

Her lawyer arranges for her to not got to trial but she must submit to psychiatric observation and so she is admitted to a clinic for extended treatment. The story titled "Heroine Withdrawal" lends its name to the collection itself and proves pivotal. While under treatment she discovers that perhaps she must change. At the same time a political murder comes to her attention, and she puts her staff on that project. 

The collection closes with the three-issue story titled "The Other Cheek" in which a reformed and medicated Ms.Tree seeks to change her approach to life despite the dangers that lurk around every corner. Collins chooses to tell this story from several points of view, giving insights into the other characters in this saga. Not least of which is her son, who ends up staying with his grandmother again with tragic consequences. As is obvious from the last cover, she gets over her pacifism. 

The volume closes with a Mike Mist prose story about a suicide that wasn't. 

The death count in these stories is stunning. Perhaps it's because I'm reading them all together and not monthly, but I frankly don't think it's possible to get a true count of bodies in these stories. It feels different given the relative realism that Collins tries to bring to the series, unlike a book like say the Punisher which is more hyperbolic. Another issue is the price of this collection, which has gone up considerably since the beginning of the series. There's one more volume I think, so I'll stick it out for now. 

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The First Kingdom - The Birth Of Tundran!

There is nothing in comics quite like Jack Katz's The First Kingdom. This is nothing less than a modern epic in the tradition of the classics The Iliad and The Odyssey. While it may lack the poetic profundity of those Homerian epics, this nearly eight-hundred page saga nonetheless aspires to be something far greater than anything produced in comics at the time. Only the Fourth World material for DC by Kirby approaches it in scope. I had most of the issues once upon a time, but I traded them away as I did most of my Indy stuff. Titan Books collected the saga some years ago and I am sorry it took me so long to catch up. 

Katz was a comics veteran of long standing having begun working in comics in 1943 for Fawcett Comics and went on to alongside Simon and Kirby in the 50's and with Stan Lee at Atlas and elsewhere. Katz used a barrage of pen names and even shows up in some Marvel comics such as the Sub-Mariner as "Jay Hawk". But he wanted to do something greater. To do that he'd have to leave mainstream comics and work independently. That meant at the time the Underground. Like Kirby, Katz moved to California where the Underground movement was centered. Finding publishers like Bud Plant, he began his epic yarn, and it would take him twelve years to complete at a rate of two magazines per year. 

The debut issue of The First Kingdom is a rugged beginning. Katz's style, despite his years of experience, had not fully jelled and the style of storytelling he was interested in changed dramatically in the first several issues. He begins with a cramped multi-panel approach which is loaded with text and little visual splendor. As the series progresses the art will open up until the pages almost become a series of full-page images. This transformation will take a while. 

We are introduced to our world, a strange one which has risen after the utter destruction of the Earth's civilizations after an atomic war. With technology vaporized, the few survivors live in a post-apocalyptic world of strange giant beasts and ceaseless tribal warfare. This warfare is conducted with sword edges and spear tips. The world is also the home of creatures called "Trans-Gods", tall powerful folk who set themselves apart from mere mankind and seem possessed of strange powers. Some few of these gods are fascinated by men and that's a source of constant friction. 

The first part of the saga is concerned with a man named Darkenmoor who we follow from his youth. He loses all those he cares for in the savage world and we follow him as he finds others to love, most notably a woman named Nedlaya. A goddess named Selowan is fascinated with Darkenmoor and despite the prohibitions of her society interacts with him. We follow Darknemoor through one harrowing experience after another as he battles for his life and the lives of others. 

Eventually after a great deal of suffering Darkenmoor becomes ruler of a great kingdom and eventually he will have a son. That son will be named Tundran, and it is Tundran who is the main protagonist of this sprawing tale. Like great epics Katz has taken his time in introducing his characters and his themes, and this generational story is just beginning after four issues. This is an amazing way to begin, and not reveals the grand scale of Katz's storytelling but demonstrates a trust in his audience. Following this story required a lot of patience. 

And then there is the other story. Running alongside the doings of Darkenmoor and his rise to power and glory, we get elaborate flashbacks which tell us of space travelers from an advanced race who came to Earth when its nuclear threat was determined to be dire, but who get here too late. These travelers are the Gods who inhabit part of the new world, or at least they are sort of. I hesitate to reveal too much here as there is much of the secret power of The First Kingdom in this side of the tale. 

At the end of the first volume from Titan Books, we have got our feet underneath us. We have met our immense cast (with more to come) and we have seemingly met our primary hero as well as the girl who will share his life. She has an origin even stranger than his, but the less said the better on that front. 

The First Kingdom is a bit of a tough read, especially at first when Katz's storytelling is not as supple as it needs to be to tell the story. The story is also hurt by a barrage of strange terms which you get used to as the story rolls along, but which threw me early on. The new terms give the story a fresh strangeness but can be confusing. Also, one thing one needs to get used to reading Katz's saga is the nudity. Women go around topless in this story almost all the time, as do the men but no one gets upset at that. Often full nudes are used, but all of this is done tastefully. While it was racy for its time, there is nothing about The Fist Kingdom which suggests its intent is in any way pornographic. Katz just seems to like to draw the human body and he does so with gusto. His figures are almost invariably slender, often strangely so as in the case of the gods. This saga is a deep dive, but worth the effort. 

Much more to come. 

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Sherlock Holmes - The War Of The Worlds!

I first read this wonderful pastiche two decades ago when I stumbled across the Warner paperback edition in my local library. I was just thumbing through the rather sparse paperback science fiction section and there it was. I knocked out to find two of my favorite things (Sherlock Holmes and War of the Worlds) had been blended together in what seemed a delightful brew. 

A story blending two of my favorite yarns was irresistible. I snatched it up, raced home and read it almost immediately. I confess I contemplated keeping it, but honesty prevailed, and I returned it to the library. But my good deed was not rewarded as alas that library copy, I enjoyed went missing and I was unable to find another until some years ago Titan Books started to reprint some of the more memorable Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

The saga began in 1969 in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction when Wade Wellman assisted by his famous father Manly W. Wellman wrote "The Adventure of the Martian Client". The younger Wellman had been inspired by the movie A Study in Terror which had the Baker Street sleuth tackling Jack the Ripper. 

Several years later in 1972 they revisited the concept in another issue of TMoFandSF with the story "Venus, Mars, and Baker Street".

The idea seemed too good to let go and so they worked up a few more installments and created the patchwork "novel" Sherlock Holmes - The War of the Worlds which came out from Avon in 1975. This is the edition I first read.

The story reveals its origins in its construction. We first meet Sherlock Holmes when in partnership with Professor Edward Challenger he locates and plumbs the depths of a mysterious crystal egg found in an out of the way curio shop. The pair realize they are seeing a distant location, another world in fact, the world of Mars.

Soon enough the world becomes award of the Martians when the cylinders begin to drop. We follow first Holmes and then later Challenger in separate adventures as try to survive the onslaught of the Martian machines. But all the while they plot what might work to defeat the invaders.

Watson joins the team as the inevitable end of the invasion becomes evident. There are lots of fun bits of business calling back to the classic H.G. Wells story which spawned the fun, but the Wellmans seem to want to present in Holmes and the braggart Challenger a more defiant humanity than does Wells, a humanity who doesn't shrink in times of war but rises to face the challenge.

If you're a fan of either Sherlock Holmes or The War of the Worlds, or like me both, you must read this wonderful saga. It will offer up fascinating insights into both.

And I haven't even mentioned Sherlock's fascinating relationship with Mrs. Hudson. Hoo Boy!

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Ms. Tree - The Cold Dish!

The Hard Case Crime Ms. Tree reprints from Titan Books began at the end. Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty wanted to put their best foot forward and they considered the work for DC in the early 90's the best. But reading those stories revealed a lot of back history that informed this detective series which hugged close to continuity. In Ms. Tree - The Cold Dish we at last get to see the beginnings of the strip, and we get to see the characters appear and develop. 

The series began as a black and white serial in among many other such comics in the pages of the early Indy pioneer Eclipse Magazine. The publisher Dean Mullaney specifically asked Collins for a detective strip and Collins tapped his partner on the Mike Mist Minute Mysteries to take the artistic reins. It's fun to see Terry Beatty's art develop as the series takes on an ever-increasing sense of realism. 

The first Ms. Tree story was "I, for an Eye" and begins with the death of Mike Tree, the hardboiled detective inspired by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. In fact, the original conceit is that Michael Tree (the heroine) is a doppelganger for Hammer's Velma and and the series is something of a what if Velma actually got hitched to Hammer. Of course, it ends in relative misery and a more than reasonable amount of blood. The series ran for six chapters, and we meet the cast of the book -- Ms. Michael Tree, Effie the secretary, and two operatives named Dan Green (to reflect his experience) and Roger Freemont who is a longtime partner of the deceased Mike Tree. We encounter the first wife of Mike's named Anne and his son named Mike also. (Seems like half the cast is named "Mike".) Needless to say, Ms.Tree does find her husband's killer and takes prompt action. 

The series proved popular and shifted over to color comics with the second yarn titled "Death Do Us Part". The fallout from the first case is beginning to show up. Ms.Tree takes a vacation and ends up in the middle of a double homicide. Turns out it is connected to the Muerta crime family who likely had her husband killed as well. We meet a new fellow named Patrick Rushing who writes crime novels. Tree and Rushing have a small fling, but their romance seems to be constantly interrupted with mayhem and death. We also meet Sgt. Rafe Valer, a former partner of Mike Tree's when he was a cop and a reliable ally for Ms.Tree inside the police force. This one has secrets inside of secrets and while you might see the twist coming, it's still a nice ride. 

"A Cold Dish" is the third and longest Ms.Tree saga to date in the run and of course lends its title to the collection as a whole. Beatty's growth as an artist is more and more evident as the series continues to define its style of barebones comic storytelling. This one begins with a tragedy close to home which again is tied into the Muereta family and the bodies drop with rapidity. Ms.Tree must take on a new responsibility which will in many ways make this series distinctive from others. She becomes a mother of sorts and that creates complications when the threats get very close to home. We meet Mr. Hand, a Brit who helps Ms.Tree protect someone she cares about. There is some great action in this one, story which feels more like a movie than any of the stories to this point. There is some poignant and lasting tragedy, and a bevy of bodies drop before this one is over. 

From the ninth issue of Ms.Tree we get the "Mohawk Mystery". This has Tree team up with Mike Mist and together they try to figure out what happened to a gangster and his loot which disappeared many years before at the snowbound Mohawk Mountain Lodge. This one has that classic whodunnit feel as we meet various suspects and learn details in a race to figure it out before our four-color detectives. It's a nifty little breather after the very heavy epic from the previous issues. 

Also included in this tome are two prose stories by Collins about Ms.Tree. "Red Light" is brief encounter in which a violent pimp gets some rough justice. "The Little Woman" is a story about a married couple who learn tragically that trying to hold on too tightly only leads to suffering. 

These adventures are bit rough around the edges in some places and the art reproduction leaves a bit to be desired. I got the sense most of it was scanned from existing comics and not that much done to clean it up. All in all though, a dandy package and it makes me look forward to the fourth volume which is due out later this autumn titled Deadline. Next week I'll be taking a gander at the only Ms.Tree prose novel titled Deadly Beloved. 

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Ms. Tree - Skeleton In The Closet!

The first of Hard Case Crime's Ms. Tree books captured a series of stories from DC's Ms. Tree Quarterly which formed a defacto graphic novel. This second volume gets the rest, stories which are as they say "torn from the headlines". These are provocative stories about provocative subjects, but the treatment is thoughtful and not completely exploitational. Collins and Beatty seem intent on creating stories that strike on sensitive subjects but offering some level of context. 

The first titled "The Devil's Punchbowl" deals with Satanism and specifically the craze which seemed to whip through the early 90's about Satan worshippers sacrificing creatures including people. It's a murder tale of course about a young girl who left an unquiet home and found, for a time, some comfort in a cult. When her body turns up, seemingly marked up as if for a ritual, Ms. Tree is hired by her parents to get to bottom of it. Collins is careful to showcase how cults and fear of cults can affect communities.

From the fourth issue comes "Skeleton in the Closet" which deals with gay rights and the struggles inside and outside the gay community to deal with issues such as "Outing". The world has come so far on this issue since this story was published that it seems a bit quaint in places but that's not the fault of Collins and Beatty who try to present a sensitive issue in a sensitive way while at the same time treating the reader to rather intense murder yarn. The characters in this story, even ones we are familiar with have some rough ideas and things to say. An important revelation seals this dandy story. 

"Cry Rape" from issue five follows quite closely on after the previous tale and like its predecessor is set on a college campus. Young women who are subjected to sexual harassment and even rape, are the focus here. Like the previous story Ms. Tree's stepson Mike is at the center of his story and his attitudes are complicated by indicative of those of a less enlightened era. Like the story about gay bashing, this one seems somewhat dated, though both are still very much concerns for our modern times. We have not come as far as we imagine in this are for certain. 

From issue six we get "Horror Hotel", a splendid whodunnit that smacks of Richard Matheson's Hell House as well many movies of the haunted house variety. Ms. Tree is among a group of folks hired to examine an old mansion presumably haunted by decades of abuse and murder. There are deceptions galore in this fast-paced humdinger of a tale and as to whether ghosts are real, Collins and Beatty seem to leave the door open to that fundamental question. I'm always taken by how Beatty can draw the most gruesome scenes but make then seem so well managed and clean. 

Next the volume reaches back to issue twenty-eight of Renegade's Ms. Tree run with "Roger's Story". This sleek black, white and red little gem of betrayal and deceit gives us necessary backstory to understand better the next story in this collection. 

The Ms. Tree series at DC ended with issue ten titled at the time a Ms. Tree Special. This story takes Tree Investigations team to Vietnam where a mystery which ties two of our main characters is explored. It's fascinating story, which has a real twist I actually didn't see coming. Most of the time in stories this short a reader can guess the ending or get close, but I confess that Collins and Beatty genuinely surprised me with this one. 

The collection closes out with a short story titled "Louise" by Collins which itself was nominated for an Edgar Award. This is a sleek and trim reading experience. The Ms. Tree stories in this collection felt like television episodes put on paper, with neatly defined characters and some twists but rarely confounding. Collins and Beatty stick to the expectations of the hard-nosed detective genre but fill in the spaces with more compassion than one often finds in stories of this kind. 

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Tiger, Tiger Burning Slow!

I've been wanting to read Lord Tyger for several years. I scooped it up when Titan Books published a few years back as part of their Philip Jose Farmer Grandmaster series. I kept putting off getting into it until the time was ripe to plow though it with the gusto a Farmer book deserves. Finally, the time came, and I began, but within a few chapters I detected trouble on the horizon.

Sadly, I have to say that this story of a young and vital and brutal "Ras Tyger" is overwrought. By that I mean despite is great skills Farmer has created a book here which becomes its own worst enemy with scenes and sequences which lumber on and on long after any vital effect is disappeared. The early parts of the story which show Ras learning about some inconsistencies in the jungle environment in which he is being raised are intriguing, but the mystery is not sufficient to support the rambling and repetitive nature of the investigation.

Also, Ras often takes time (as does Farmer) to diddle with the local natives. I'm not insulted by that, it's part of a Farmer novel and I know that going in, but it seems in this instance to be gratuitous after a while and bogs down the forward progression of the narrative.

I trust most stories by Farmer to clutch me by the throat and never let go. This one lets me loose repeatedly. Because of that it's taken me many months to finally finish this book which eventually dawdles to a reveal which is almost too obvious from the get-go.

Maybe I'm not in on the joke here, but the payoff is far too little after a much too long wait. Cut this book in half and you have a spirited yarn, but please cut it down.

For the first time I have to say I cannot recommend a Farmer novel, a unique experience.

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