Mark Farmer

A pretty forgettable actionfest follow-up to some of the major revelations in "Identity Crisis", but some of the character work, particularly with Zatanna, Marian Manhunter, Green Arrow and Batman, is pretty decent, and the major, heartbreaking suspicion Batman reveals at the end of the story is so good it goes a long way towards justifying the entire book.

A bumper collection featuring twelve stories about the pretty young Psi Judge from 2000AD. The stories vary in length and come in the episodic style of British comics. This is a good thing as having to fill twenty pages, say, can lead to padding. Here each story is only as long as it needs to be.

The British origins also mean a blessed lack of soap opera themes. Instead there is black humour as in ‘Four Dark Judges’ when Judge Death is slaughtering the residents of the Ronald Reagan show more Block for the aged and infirm. ‘Dodder for it!’ cries an alarmed oldster. Alan Grant scripted most of these stories but John Wagner co-wrote the first three. Whoever’s responsible it’s a great line. The Dark Judges are from an alternate dimension and decided long ago that since only living people committed crime eradicating all life was the best policy. Logically they should have committed suicide once that was done. Instead they came to our dimension. They were defeated and this is their return. The second tale ‘The Possessed’ features demonic possession, which I find odd in a science-fiction setting but it was well done.

There are thirteen stories and to go through them all one by one would involve a tedious repetition of superlatives. Suffice to say they are all good and several are excellent. A short tale about Judge Corey and a whale entitled ‘Leviathan’s Farewell’ is probably the best in the book and also the best story of any kind I’ve read for a while. It should have won awards. ‘Engram’ is a longer story which gives us and Anderson revelations about her childhood. Very moving stuff for a ‘comic’.

Alan Grant does have fun too. ‘Triad’ features a murderous skeleton and the Block Ness monster so Anderson has to consult the Department of Fortean Events. ‘The Random Man’ has a chap who throws dice to decide what he will do next. Unfortunately the dice keep telling him to kill people. Anderson catches up with him in Luke Reinhart alley, for where Grant riffs and spoofs on other writers work he does acknowledge it.

‘Prepare to die, fleshy one!’ shouts killer ‘robot’ Bill as he attacks the Judge. This is unkind and untrue for she is slim and lovely. Bill, a.k.a. ‘The Prophet’ believes he is the chosen one, preparing the way for those who will come after by killing all the fleshy ones. Bill is bonkers but the story is fun.

The art is at least 80% of the graphic novel form, I think, and a great story won’t get transmitted without pleasing pictures. Happily Wagner and Grant are well served by the numerous talents gathered here. Brett Ewins deserves honourable mention for the first two tales and David Roach does a bang up job on several others. The honourable exception to my enjoyment was Carlos Ezquerra, though he only drew ’The Random Man’ so there wasn’t much of him. He’s honoured because he co-created Judge Dredd and the whole look of Mega-City one but I personally don’t much like his style.

2000AD has made a huge contribution to the genre over the last few decades and these bumper collections offer an excellent chance to grab the best of it at bargain rates. They are an Essential Showcase (geddit?) for the best of British and this one in particular is a really good read.

Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/ show less

If a movie were going to be made of the Killraven mythos, stripping it down to its "essentials" and containing the story, yet still leaving the door open for a sequel, this would be it. Because that's what we have here: a leaner, meaner version of the story that sprawled all over the place under Don McGregor's authorship. (Also, the breasts are even perkier, which I would not have thought possible.) The story here is obviously designed to appeal to old and new fans alike, with some surprises show more that are effective because reading the old comics mean you expect something to go a different way than it does. Some of the character changes work-- Old Skull knows what the first person is-- and some don't-- Carmilla was more interesting as a scientist than a gladiatrix. Sometimes you don't miss what you had until it was gone, and the feel of this is vastly different without McGregor's philosophical ponderings... it's more a straight-up action story and less a reflection of the problems of the present day like a The War of the Worlds spin-off should be. The action works well, though, especially the stunning climax. I'd watch this movie, though I'd mourn the loss of the tone McGregor had brought... tone I hadn't even recognized until it was gone. show less

A twenty-three-year-old successfully navigates a massive aircraft over open water for eighteen hours - and it's the first time he has been up in a plane! That's what happened to Mark Farmer just after Pearl Harbor. The aircraft was Pan American's famed Clipper, flying from San Francisco to Hawaii. When the U.S. entered World War II the Navy had no transport aircraft capable of flying to Hawaii. The solution was to take over Pan American Airways, and give them military seaplanes to extend show more their service on to Australia by "island hopping" on coral atolls. Farmer's book paints a vivid picture of these flights and the affect that "civilization" had on these people who found themselves in the middle of someone else's war. show less