Wrath of The Spectre

Writer: Michael Fleisher

Artists: Jim Aparo, Frank Thorne, Ernie Chua, Mike DeCarlo, Pablo Marcos, Russell Carly

Collects: Adventure Comics issues 431-440, Wrath of the Spectre issues 1-4

Published by DC Comics

When I was a kid, my mom used to read me moral stories. Stories that would instill in me a basic sense of right and wrong. Someone (I can’t remember who, at this moment) said something like ‘In this universe, there is a right and a wrong, and that distinction is not difficult to make…lord knows he must have said it long, long ago, for we don’t live in a black and white world anymore – shades of grey prevail all over. I’ve always been interested in The Spectre…actually, scratch that – I’ve always been interested in characters whose basic costume is garish green – Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Poison Ivy, Count Vertigo, Swamp Thing – you get it. And The Spectre was one of them. After a short trade of the (criminally uncollected) Spectre series by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, I craved…no, make that hungered for more Spectre.

And with this volume, I got that, and a lot of other things, including the moral stories I write about above. This series combines a lot of things. It doesn’t have a lot of moral ambiguity (I’ll not fault them that, they came from simpler times) which was present in spades in the later series. Each Spectre series brought to the table something different. The Forties series (Jerry Siegel and Bernard Bailey) featured creepy, simplistic stories that worked. The late Eighties series (Doug Moench and Gene Colan) were eerie mystery stories, which had a weird charm of their own. The nineties series (John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake) intermingled real life politics and heavenly affairs. In the introduction to this book by Peter Sanderson, Mike says that he considers the stories as a kind of black comedy. I’d rather say that its Panchatantra meets Sherlock Holmes meets EC Comics.

Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

Writer: Neil Gaiman

Artist: Dave McKean

Collects: Black Orchid issues 1-3

Published by Vertigo

Beauty, like vanity is fleeting. That is, in a nutshell, the message of this story. It isn’t a story as much as it’s the feel of a story. It was something fresh and new at the time it was released, and I daresay, almost twenty five years later, it still holds up perfectly well – if you see it for what it is. And what was it? Black Orchid was a little known character from DC’s stable of supernatural heroes whom I couldn’t be bothered to look up, not because I had doubts regarding the quality of the classic material (and in these days of new 52s and AvXs, I find myself visiting a lot of classic material), it was just so that I always had things to read that I knew to be reliably…good. Also, this was Neil Gaiman’s first outing across the waters, just as it was Dave McKean’s.

Just when she is at the cusp of a revelation regarding underworld proceedings in an ongoing investigation, Black Orchid is discovered. So as not to fall victim to the familiar trope of villains boasting their schemes giving the ‘hero’ time to ‘loosen their bonds’ or somesuch, the head goon immediately shoots her in the head. Black Orchid survives, just to face a fire which eventually kills her. Or it would have, had she been really alive….because, to purists, there is a notable difference between the words grown, bred, and alive. If there is, I don’t know what it is.

Week In Review : Deadpool #1 + Earth 2 #6

...and more madness for this week as we play catch-up! Other reviews for the week are HERE and these two wrap up our picks of the new comics this week. 

Stick around and we'll have more coming hot and fresh to your plate asap!

Deadpool #1 (Marvel)

Story : Gerry Duggan & Brian Posehn

Art : Tony Moore

(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)

(Insert Morgan Freeman voice here) “A new era dawns upon us. Marvel has begun its reboot. Although Deadpool believes it is not a reboot.”

Deadpool finally gets his Marvel NOW issue #1, and I couldn’t be happier! Now you’re probably wondering, “What? How is Anant happy with a reboot?”

It’s simple:

1. Deadpool is here. Giving him this series means he isn’t getting phased out. (like all his other titles, I miss Deadpool Corps and Deadpool Team-Up.)

2. Deadpool is fighting ZOMBIES!!!! And not just any zombies, Presidential Zombies.

3. His healing factor is back!!

Week In Review : 47 Ronin #1 + Before Watchmen Moloch #1 + Colder #1

Pardon the belated posts this week folks, the festivites of Diwali (amongst other things) had us terribly short on time and we were not able to post these up sooner! 

47 Ronin #1 (Dark Horse)

Story : Mike Richardson

Art : Stan Sakai

(Reviewed by Anubhav Dasgupta)

There is a saying that the tale of the Forty Seven Ronin is the definitive Japanese story. From what I’ve gathered, it’s a tale that more or less commands a huge chunk of their culture, much like our myths of Ram and the Mahabharata.

“To know the tale of 47 Ronin is to know Japan.”

And that’s not far off from the truth. 47 Ronin feels like a very Japanese tale. There are some stories that just feel classy, that feel noble, like Seven Samurai, Citizen Kane, Kumonoso Jo and this comic feels like one of those stories. It doesn’t cheat you with gimmicks and cheap shocks, but simply tells a story, and a good one at that.

Week In Review : AvX Consequences #4 + Bedlam #1

It's been a big week folks and we had some great comics reviewed for you and now we bring the final new-release reviews for the past week - two monster reviews of books you really should be checking out in our estimation. Enjoy!

- Akshay the Amused

AvX Consequences #4 of 5 (Marvel)

Story : Kieron Gillen

Art : Mark Brooks

(Reviewed by Mayank Khurana)

Who knew that the mediocre AvX summer event could lead to such a fantastic series!

For me it was all marked by inscrutable agendas, out-of-character actions and an overdone “fight first-speak later” mentality. The entire event left a sour taste, despite it being a culmination of so many story lines that I've been following and collecting avidly these last eight years.

I'd almost decided to not read AvX : Consequences as I thought it'd be a cash grab from the “House of Ideas” and didn't think that it would matter. Shows how much I know! I only picked it up because of the writer attached to it, Keiron Gillen, the man behind the awesome Journey Into Mystery and a brilliant run on Thor. He once again rewarded my faith in him by making AvX Consequences THE story to follow if you are remotely interested in the mutant side of Marvel-U.

Week In Review : Avenging Spiderman Annual #1 + Happy #2 + Masters of the Universe: The Origin of Skeletor OS

Avenging Spiderman Annual #1 (Marvel)

Story : Rob Williams

Art : Brad Walker (pencils), John Livesay (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colour)

(Reviewed by Anant Sagar)

The Thing and Spidey have been teaming up quite a bit lately. That and Spidey has a good relationship with the FF so this team up makes sense.

The good part about this issue had to be the art. Its fluid and the characters are really well drawn. Spiderman looks fluid and flexible and seems to jump from panel to panel with ease.

Having a team up with the Thing and throwing in the “Richards Kids”, Franklin and Val, makes it fun. Those kids are fun to read. The dialogues given to them made me laugh.

Superman: Eradication - The Origin of the Eradicator

DECIPHERING DC

Writers: Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, Jerry Ordway

Artists: Dan Jurgens, Kerry Gammill, Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Dennis Janke, Brett Breeding, Art Thibert and Andy Kubert

Collects: Adventures of Superman issues 460, 464, 465, Superman issues 41, 42 and Action Comics issues 651, 652.

Published by DC Comics

Welcome to another edition of Deciphering DC as we continue our look into Superman as he runs through the nineties. The tone and feeling of the soap-opera stylings of a weekly book had been established some time ago to give us a more or less continuous story, as certain authors did carry on and advance a few plot points in their own series.
This would continue throughout the nineties, until every one of these creators would leave their titles. Jerry Ordway was the first to leave, then Roger Stern and finally Dan Jurgens, signaling the end of an era, all to be replaced by Jeph Loeb, Joe Kelly, Stuart Immonen and Mark Schultz to begin the "new look Superman" (best epitomized by Ed McGuinness' version of Superman). But here, we're get ting ahead of ourselves.