Written
by Ben Raab, Ron Goulart. Illustrated by Fernando Blanco, Mike Collins.
Inks by Fernando Blanco, Art Nichols.
Colours: Ken Wolak, Dawn Groszewski, Paul Mounts. Letters: Terri Boyle, Chuck Maly. Editor: Garett Anderson, Joe Gentile.
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Patsy Walker: Hellcat
The TPB collection mainly reprints the 2008 mini-series, but it also includes a shorter story first serialized in an anthology comic. Since I've only read the mini-series, I've just posted the review here in my mini-series section.
The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks 2003 (SC TPB) 162 pages
Written
by Ben Raab, Ron Goulart. Illustrated by Fernando Blanco, Mike Collins.
Inks by Fernando Blanco, Art Nichols.
Colours: Ken Wolak, Dawn Groszewski, Paul Mounts. Letters: Terri Boyle,
Chuck Maly. Editor: Garett Anderson, Joe Gentile.
Reprinting: The graphic novels "The Singh Web", "The Treasure of Bangalla", "The Ghost Killer" - plus covers; author commentaries; overview of the Phantom's history by Ed Rhoades; sketchbook reproductions.
Rating: * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Moonstone Books
Created in 1936 as a newspaper comic strip, the Phantom -- nicknamed The Ghost Who Walks -- is conssidered the first costumed superhero. Mixing elements of Tarzan with conventional crimebusters, the Phantom lives in the jungles of Bangalla, but is equally at home pursuing evil doers to the big city. The character has had an erratic history in comics, with everyone from King Features to DC Comics having a go at him. He has also appeared in other mediums: paperback novels in the 1970s, and a decently budgeted motion picture starring Billy Zane in 1996. It was the -- surprisingly faithful -- motion picture that was my first true exposure to the character, and though the film was uneven, it was also a lot of fun and is well worth searching for at your local video store.
Despite all this, the Phantom remains an obscure character -- the movie bombed, the on-going newspaperr strip is carried only by a few papers. Ironically, today this American creation seems to be more popular overseas, particularly in Scandinavian countries, and Australia.
Recently though, a fledgingly company, Moonstone Books, is hoping to resurrect the Phantom in the comic books, initially with a series of graphic novels, three of which have been collected in this TPB collection.
These stories aren't meant to radically re-imagine the concept. Rather these simply present the Phantom in a different format, but keep the tone of the newspaper strip and the movie -- light, even frothy adventure-suspense tales, with lots of running about and the Phantom given to light-hearted banter. It's meant to be old fashioned adventure.
And the creators mostly succeed, which is both a plus and a minus.
The three stories here are fast and unpretentious, and though there is some murder and mayhem, it's generally "clean" fun, lacking a nasty, or "gritty" edge that too many modern storytellers use as a substitute for true sophistication. The villains are generally real world sort of foes -- art thieves, gun runners. However, one story, "The Singh Web", is evocative of the mysticism of the 1996 movie in that it involves a struggle for a mystical artifact (in fact, much of the plot seems reminiscent of the film!).
There's a lot of old fashioned "pulp" flavour to the stories, with a couple of tales beginning with expeditions into the jungle, or one involving the tried-and-true sinister sanitorium. For those not as keen on mainstream super heroes, with their garish villains, fantasy/sci-fi plots, and convoluted continuities, these stories are more down to earth, and you don't really need any prior knowledge about the Phantom. Though it's worth noting that the symbols on the Phantom's rings are meant to be a skull and a stylized cross respectively -- rather than a swastika which the latter, quite unfortunately, sort of resembles!
The downside to all this can be that the stories are very light. There's little characterization, or deep emotion, or thoughtful asides, and the dialogue remains fairly workmanlike. The writers take their "all in good fun" attitude seriously. Probably the best is the final story, "The Ghost Killer", in which a little more emphasis is put on the Phantom's relationship with his wife, Diana, giving more heart to the proceedings.
It's also kind of, well, unspectacular. In a comic book, the stories should be limited only by what a writer can imagine and an artist can draw. The stories here seem budget-conscious, like episodes of a TV series, or at best, like TV movies. The action tends to be fistfights, and shoot-outs, in non-descript jungle settings, or urban milieus. I'm not saying each story needed a fight on a dirigible, or a chase through a quicksand infested swamp, but something might've been nice.
Given that some of the (very few) other Phantom stories I've read included a quest for a lost expedition, climaxing in a fight with a giant spider, or the Phantom out of his milieu on board a passenger ship hijacked by modern day pirates, or stories that took advantage of the multi-generational aspect of the character to present adventures set in the past, the stories here seem a tad...prosaic. Although there is a token nod to the fact that the Phantom mantle is passed from father to son, as "The Singh Web" is set in the 1930s, while the other stories appear more modern.
Even when a story concept started out interesting, by the time it made it to the page, it seems to have been watered down. Scripter Ben Raab, in a commentary, says that the premise for the "Ghost Killer" was to pit the Phantom against a world class assassin determined to prove the fallacy of the jungle saying that the Phantom cannot die. But in the story itself, the assassin isn't particularly smart, or powerful. Her great plan is to simply ambush the Phantom with a bunch of armed mercenaries! In the end, she seems a minor foe at best.
The art is a little disappointing, particularly when contrasted with the dramatic, painted cover of this collection by Doug Klauba. Fernando Blanco draws two stories, and his style seems to improve a bit between them, from the "Singh Web" where it's kind of cartoony and angular, to "The Ghost Killer", where he's toned it down a bit, and the work is stronger. There's also more of a cheesecake-y approach in that latter story, with the lady assassin depicted in tight shirts or dressing in a bikini for very little reason. Obviously that can be a plus, depending on your views. On the down side, Blanco is one of those modern artists who can't resist drawing in blood and spit even for what should be a gag pratfall as a bad guy runs into a tree! So much for a kinder, gentler storytelling sensibility.
Mike Collins draws the Ron Goulart-scripted "The Treasure of Bangalla", and although there's less of the cartoony exaggeration of Blanco, the work is a bit stiff and dry. I'm not really sure what the overall history of the Phantom's art chores has been, but one of the few Phantom comics I have is a 1970s Charlton issue by the late, great Don Newton, and it set a standard in my mind that Blanco and Collins fail to meet.
Comic book writer Raab scripts two of the tales, Ron Goulart just one. Goulart, a novelist and comic strip writer (the 1970s Star Hawks strip), gained some wider recognition a few years ago "helping" William Shatner to write his popular -- and very pulp-flavoured -- TekWar novels. (You can often recognize recurring Goulart-ian touches in his works, such as spelling news as Newz, which also occurred in TekWar.)
In the end, The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks is still an enjoyable, pulpy read. Maybe not a classic, but ingratiating in its very unpretentiousness.
Cover price: $__ CDN./ $16.95 USA.
Plastic Man - 80 Page Giant 2003 (HC TPB) 80 pages
Written by Jack Cole, Arnold Drake, Steve Skeates, Dave Wood. Art by Jack Cole, Gil Kane, Ramona Fradon, Jim Mooney.
Colours/letters: various
Reprinting: stories from Police Comics (Quality Comics) #1, 13, Plastic Man (Quality Comics) #3, House of Mystery (DC) #160 and the full issues of Plastic Man (DC) #1, 11 (1941-1976)
Rating: * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by DC Comics
Reviewed Mar. 2012
This Plastic Man "Annual" was part of a series of one-shots DC published as a nostalgic homage to the days when they used to put out 80 page reprint compilations -- hence why even the "DC" logo on the cover is the design used in the 1960s, and there's a "Comics Code" label. Plastic Man, of course, had never had an actual annual before -- indeed, DC only acquired the rights to the character midway through the 1960s!
And whether these "lost annuals" strictly count as "TPB"s is debateable...but you're as likely to find them (if you can find them) on the TPB shelf as in the back issues bin.
This reprints five comic book stories -- two from his seminal 1940s days, two from the 1960s, one from the 1970s -- and one a short text story (some comics used to include a short text story so they could label themselves a "magazine" as opposed to a "comic book" and so take advantage of cheaper postal rates).
Plastic Man was, of course, a kind of unusual property in comics...more a comedy series than straight super hero adventure -- the humour veering from just general whimsy within the super hero framework to actual parodying and spoofing comics and other media. There must be something about a stretchable hero that just lends itself to humour, as the similarly powered Elongated Man -- though not out-and-out comedy -- was definitely light-hearted. In recent years, DC I think has altered Plas' character to make him more the comic relief within team comics like JLA -- basically a goofball character. But as these tales show, that wasn't his true personality. He had his wacky side, and had goofy adventures, but Plas himself was a smart, level-headed hero -- a top agent for, initially, the F.B.I. then the more fictionalized N.B.I.
This collection could be labelled "Plastic man...Firsts" because most of the tales fall under such a category. Included are Plastic Man's very first appearance (6 pgs), followed by the story that first introduced his long time sidekick, Woozy Winks (9 pgs). Then we have a story of Dial-H-for-Hero, a series appearing in the pages of House of Mystery (in an era when it wasn't focused so much on horror and ghost stories) about a teen hero, Robby Reed, who would transform into various super beings to fight crime. Normally the personas were original to the comic, but at this point DC had just recently obtained the rights to Plastic Man and decided to test the waters by having Robby transform into Plastic Man (among other characters) -- so though it's not the true Plastic Man, it does mark the "first" new appearance of the character in the Silver Age. This then led to the real character getting his own comic, the first issue reprinted here in its entirety written by Arnold Drake -- no stranger to quirky super heroes from his work on the Doom Patrol -- and artist Gil Kane, here letting his hair down a bit for the comedic series. It's still recognizably Kane, but showing a side to his style not normally seen (though as this was the only issue he drew, whether he enjoyed the change, I don't know). The 1960s series only ran 10 issues, then was revived in the 1970s (now with Steve Skeates and Ramona Fradon as writer and artist) but resuming the same numbering, hence why it's also a "first" issue...even though it's #11!
Personally, my strongest memories of Plastic Man are from just a few years later (as a back up feature in Adventure Comics and others) drawn by Joe Staton, an artist ideally suited to the mix of comedy and super hero action like few others. It's too bad nothing was included from that period.
As it is, this is a decent sample of the character -- even as, perhaps, nothing stands out much. Much has been written of the brilliance and imagination of the original Jack Cole stories, but I'll admit, his stuff (including one or two tales I've read elsewhere) hasn't struck me as being intrinsically better, or funnier, than some other eras. The Dial-H-for-Hero story is more straight faced (though hardly sombre) before the character veered back into comedy, with arguably Arnold Drake's issue being the most consistently funny...or at least, amusing (benefitting from Kane's art). Even the short text story isn't bad -- compared to some other short prose-in-comics stories I've read.
All are generally agreeable page turners, and the collection does do a good job both of highlighting different eras, and representing seminal stories (though I repeat -- I'd liked to have seen something from Staton). So if you're looking for a Plastic Man sampler...this is a decent effort.
Original cover price: $6.95 USA.
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