Aug. 14.
Basil Wolverton is one of the greatest, most idiosyncratic talents in
comic book history. Though he is best known for his humorous
grotesqueries in MAD magazine, it is his science-fiction
character Spacehawk that Wolverton fans have most often demanded be
collected. The wait is over, as The Complete Spacehawk features every story from Spacehawk’s intergalactic debut in 1940 to his final, Nazi-crushing adventure in 1942.
Spacehawk
is the closest thing to a colorfully-costumed, conventional action hero
Wolverton ever created, yet the strip is infused with Wolverton’s
quintessential weirdness: controlled, organic artwork of strangely
repulsive aliens and monsters and bizarre planets, and stories of
gruesome retribution that bring to mind Wolverton’s peer, Fletcher
Hanks. Spacehawk had no secret identity, no fixed base of operations
beyond his spaceship, and no sidekicks or love interests. He had but one
mission in life: to protect the innocent throughout the Solar System,
and to punish the guilty. He was a dark — yet much more visually playful
— counterpart to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
The Complete Spacehawk
also includes the character’s final and rarely-seen Earthbound
adventures. As the U.S. became involved in World War II, Spacehawk
returned to 20th Century America to join the United States’ efforts in
defeating fascism, which he does by patrolling the Earth’s stratosphere,
looking for wrongdoing.
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