This week, I have mostly been reading...

"Steve!" I hear you cry. "What have you been reading lately and when are you going to review it?"

Well, I've been reading quite a lot lately - and I'm going to be reviewing almost none of it.

This isn't because a strange new wave of apathy has swept across my living room. It's because most of the comics I've read lately, I don't have anything to say about that I've not said about other issues in their respective series.

For instance, much as I love Charlton's Midnight Tales, I can't think of anything to say about issues #5 and #12 that I didn't say in my reviews of issues #8 and #9.

Therefore, in the absence of fresh new opinions, I'm going to give you a quick round-up of what I've been looking at.

It's the second part of the Red Rajah saga, as the girl Defenders take on the boy Defenders and make a better job of it than the boys ever did.

Don McGregor's Panther's Rage kicks off with T'Challa returning to Wakanda, only to find everyone's a bit fed-up of him.

Jack Kirby's short-lived take on the Avenger gives us men turning into monsters, as the Avenger gains a new sidekick and strikes a blow for racial equality in the pulp era.

It's like a cross between The Man Who Fell To Earth and Whistle Down The Wind, as Warlock arrives on Counter-Earth and promptly gains a bunch of disciples.

Gil Kane's art's fabby but Roy Thomas lays on the religious allegory so hard it's like being run over by a copy of the Bible.

It's more winningly quirky pleasantness from easily my favourite Charlton series, as Professor Coffin and Arachne have a Hellbound diversion.

And they're back again.

Reading The Shadow was the first time I ever liked Frank Robbins' artwork.

Here, the scarf-tastic super-doer finds himself mixed up in showbiz shenanigans.

With Frank Robbins still in charge, the Shadow's up against a smuggling operation at Niagara.

It's the Shadow vs the Avenger in the battle to see whose comic's going to be cancelled first. While the strip's still here, there's plenty of lovely E R Cruz artwork to savour.

More E R Cruz on the inside and a classic cover by Mike Kaluta on the outside, as the Shadow finds himself up against a town full of Satanists.

Or does he?

One of my Kung Fu faves, as Shang-Chi finds himself up against his best friend Midnight, from the era when Jim Starlin was still on the art and proving there was more to his repertoire than being Cosmic.

Midnight Tales #9. The Sorceress.

Being the wild and windy rebel I am, I never went to university but if my local college had been anything like the one in Charlton Comics' Midnight Tales #9, I most definitely would have. Not only would I have been sat next to the most appealing woman ever to have been named after a spider but I'd be studying how to do magic spells.

As part of her studies, Professor Coffin's niece Arachne's researching the life of a late sorceress called Tanya. This framing device gives us the set-up for a triptych of tales about the life of said mystic.

In the first, we get a glimpse of the sorceress' childhood, in which the five year old Tanya decides to summon a horrifying demon to free her mother who's been arrested for witchcraft, but then finds it all goes wrong in the nicest possible way. I may be showing my ignorance but I've never associated artist Tom Sutton with cuteness but, here, he and the ubiquitous Nicola Cuti give us a tale that could only fail to warm the coldest of hearts.

Next we get a bit of insubstantial fluff as, in her courting days, Tanya comes up against an evil witch out to steal her boyfriend. It's easily the weakest of the three stories and, with an ending that just appears for no reason other than to bring the story to a close, it feels like it might as well never have existed.

Last, we get a tale in which the elderly Tanya, now running an occult bookstore in what's more or less the modern day, has to help the victim of an American Indian curse, before the framing story ends with a twist that's neither gripping nor strong but at least ties things off in time for the pages to run out.

As with Midnight Tales #8, it's all tension-free stuff, designed to be more diverting than chilling but, thanks to the lightness of its touch, plus the framing device of Arachne's somewhat fickle crush on her university professor, it gets by on charm and well-meaningness where lesser Charlton comics might sink.

Midnight Tales #8. Arachne & the Midnight Philosopher in, "Amnesia."

With their not-quite-glossy covers, serrated page edges and artwork that didn't always line-up properly with the paper they were printed on, you didn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to notice that Charlton Comics were put together a fair bit more cheaply than the likes of Marvel and DC. But that was a large part of their charm. Everyone, after all, loves an underdog, and few comic companies felt underdoggier than Charlton.

Bearing in mind that a couple of years ago, I bought a bunch of Charlton comics and was somewhat disappointed by them, I didn't exactly have high hopes when, a few days ago, I bought two issues of Midnight Tales. I remembered them with affection but, then again, I'd remembered the likes of Ghostly Haunts and Dr Graves with affection and they'd done nothing for me upon adult re-reading.

Happily, Midnight Tales is the comic that bucked the trend because I really enjoyed both mags. You'd be hard pressed to call their contents spine-tingling because that clearly wasn't the aim. Midnight Tales, with its anchor characters of Professor Coffin and his niece Arachne was patently meant to divert and amuse rather than terrify. I'd say this was a wise decision as, even in the 1970s, there was a limit as to how blood-curdling you could be if you wanted to retain that Comics Code stamp.

So, instead, Midnight Tales #8, sees Charlton ever-present Nicola Cuti giving us a framing story as, called to an isolated island by their friend Charlie, Arachne and the Professor try to discover the identity of a mysterious young woman he's found himself saddled with. As the girl doesn't remember who she is, Charlie's named her Amnesia and, as they try to work out just where she came from, we're given clues via a trio of short stories.

The first involves a Scottish fishing village whose inhabitants set out to destroy a sea monster that's eating all the fish stocks - only to discover why killing the thing wasn't such a good idea after all. The twist doesn't really stand up to scrutiny but it's oddly pleasing and the thing's strikingly drawn by Tom Sutton.

The second tale concerns a man whose obsessive quest to find Atlantis causes him to neglect his wife, leading to disaster for all concerned.

Finally we get the tale of two ne'er do wells who steal what seems to be a giant pearl from a sunken city, only to attract the wrath of the "pearl's" rightful owners.

Now that these stories have been told, we at last get the revelation as to who Amnesia is and what she's doing there.

The nature of Amnesia isn't exactly what you'd call a shock, bearing in mind the watery nature of all these tales and that she was found, "on the rocks," but the reason she's there's a nice touch and adds to the air of affability of it all. The real genius of the comic is the use of Coffin and Arachne as the framing device. Unlike the framing characters of DC's horror mags, they aren't narrators as such, more investigators, and they each have a defined personality, with the always reasonable Coffin and the somewhat tactless Arachne.

Reading these two comics has genuinely made me want to go out and get all the other issues of Midnight Tales. Sadly that's not going to be a Herculean feat, as there aren't that many of them. The title lasted just eighteen issues before the plug was pulled, proving there's no justice in the world. But, with a Hollywood seemingly scraping the bottom of every comic book barrel it can find, for inspiration, I demand it raises its sights and gives us a Professor Coffin and Arachne movie. Knowing the huge weight this blog carries in such quarters, I have no doubt I'll get my wish.


Potential further reading: