RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Post-Apocalyptic stories in comics

I'll open this list with one of my favorites, KAMANDI.



I actually think this series, while arguably being a swipe of Planet Of The Apes, actually does those movies one better, in that they give a wide variety of sentient animals and visuals, such as Dominion of the Devils, UFO's and aliens, mutated cosmonauts, a rat-infested underwater New York City. And a well done story with an ages-old legend of the "Mighty One", who as portrayed could either be the real Superman or just the costume of an actor portaying him in movies or television.

Planet of the Apes stayed in one area of the world, whereas in Kamandi he travels and allows you to see post-apocalyptic cultures worldwide. Plus Ben Boxer, the survey team, Tracking Site and lots of other surprises.
KAMANDI remains one of my favorite comics series of all time.


Recently released in two omnibus editions, the first reprinting 1-20, and the other due to be released in a couple months, reprinting 21-40

Which is somewhat retarded, because DC just previously released Kamandi Archives vol 1 (issues 1-10) and 2 (issues 11-20).


Here's the complete first issue of KAMANDI by Kirby, including a map of Kamandi's post-disaster world.
KAMANDI 1, November 1972

or all 40-plus issues at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Kamandi-The-Last-Boy-On-Earth/Issue-1?id=48625

Y the last man

Yeah, I've heard good things about that series, and from what I've seen, most or all of the series is out in trades now.
Just haven't gotten to it yet.

Another one I've re-read recently, and have read several times, PUNISHER: THE END, by Garth Ennis and Richard Corben, out in 2004.

I like that his post-apocalyptic adventure is basically to seek vengeance for the nuclear destruction of the world.



Complete story to read online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Punisher-The-End/Full?id=94425

Superman #295 (January 1976) established that the costume seen in Komandi was indeed Superman's, and that Earth A.D. is an alternate future for Earth-One, distinct from that of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Yeah that was a good story,too bad Jason Aaron fucked that up with his own Punisher end story.

Was that the "Punisher battles Marvel zombies who aren't actually zombies" one?

I thumbed through it in the store. Lord did that suck.

And, speaking of Zombies, someone should mention "the Walking Dead."

Never heard of it. What's it about?

it's about zombies that can walk.

...except for the handicapped ones.

A slower version of Marvel Zombies.

Is MARVEL ZOMBIES basically a Marvel/superhero version of the WALKING DEAD?

I've always considered the Resident Evil movies, with things orchestrated by the Umbrella Corporation, and an army of Mila Jovovich experimentally enhanced clones, to be a more interesting concept than WALKING DEAD.

Another fun series was DOOMSDAY+1, with some of the first work by then-unknown newcomer John Byrne. I purchased the first issue off the stands in 1975.
It wasn't until I was reading X-MEN in 1980 that I looked through my collection and realized both were illustrated by the same guy.

Reprinted as DOOMSDAY SQUAD by Fantagraphics in 1985 (publishing the previously unrealeased 7th issue for the first time) and reprinted again by ACG in 1998.




Complete series online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-1?id=153140#2
(issues 7-12 are reprints of issues 1-6)

Another of my favorites is the Killraven series in AMAZING ADVENTURES 18-39, mostly by Don McGregor and Craig Russell, the series that established both these then-newcomers as leading talents.



If I had not read the series and relied on someone else describing the basic concept to me, I would think it sounds stupid. But once you get past the first few issues by other writers and artists, and into the McGregor/Russell issues, it's very well done.
It's loosely a sequel to H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.

In the Killraven series, the Martians returned 100 years later in 2001, and this time successfully conquer and enslave Earth's population.
There are many original aspects in the storyline beyond that basic concept. The martians breed humans for food, and also for gladiatorial games, which is where Killraven emerges from. The martians also employ humans in ways similar to the way Nazis employed Jews as guards in concentration camps, and they have similar twisted and sadistic tendencies. All mixed in with futuristic cities and technology.
Killraven is part of a small band of "Freemen" who wander tyhe continent and rally resistance against martian rule, and implied, are the core that will eventually defeat the martians. The interaction of this small group is beautifully portrayed, and remarkably optimistic for an apocalyptic future storyline, with outstanding prose for its time, and a lot of humor.

Issue 18 is mostly by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, who pencilled the first 11 pages. But apparently it took Neal Adams forever to pencil the book, and they took it away from him and had Howard Chaykin complete the first issue, all inked by Frank Chiaramonte.

Issues 19 and 20 are also illustrated by Chaykin, inked by Frank McLaughlin, these two transitional issues were unspectacular and typical Marvel fare.

Issues 21-24 begin Don McGregor's writing of the strip, and the humor, characterization and beautiful prose begin to develop immediately. Herb Trimpe illustrated these issues, and this diminished them for me. But there were still the beginnings of what was to come.
Issue 25 is illustrated by Rich Buckler
Issue 26 is by Gene Colan.
I liked this variety of artists, because you got to see how their vision of the series differed from Craig Russell's.

Beginning with issues 27-31, 32, 34, 36, 37 and 39, the series finally took full shape. Russell and McGregor apparently had trouble making deadlines, and there were fill-in issues (at least partially) in issues 30, 33, 35 and 38, the latter two pencilled by Keith Giffen. But the issues around these fill-ins are ones to treasure, clearly labors of love.

The series ended in 1976, but then was later continued in a KILLRAVEN Marvel Graphic Novel in 1983. Both McGregor and Russell's styles had changed in the intervening years, but while some aspects were different, the magic was essentially still there.



All these were collected in a black-and-white "Essential" type collected edition a few years ago, but I still prefer them in their original form.

complete series at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Amazing-Adventures-1970/Issue-18?id=88006

KAMANDI (issue 15) and Killraven (AM ADV 24) both have stories that came out in 1974, and each brought the Watergate tapes into their respective futures in delightfully absurd ways.



In KAMANDI 15, the Watergate tapes are played very loud on some kind of audio-cannon, to torture Kamandi and members of the tiger civilization that accompany him.

They are more quietly woven into the Killraven story.
It's amusing how in neither story are they recognized for their historic significance.

That's part of the fun of reading post-apocalyptic stories. Despite the world being in ruins, the historic artifacts that are a mystery to the characters in the story are all familiar to us as readers.

Frank Miller's RONIN.




I loved the first issue, some of the best pages of Frank Miller's career. Great visual storytelling, and a wild mix of medeival Japanese ninjas and post-Apocalyptic New York City, with a futuristic military complex built on the ruins. Although all is not what it seems until the final issue.

I was a bit put off by how the art increasingly resembled Moebius in issues 2-6, but the story has grown on me over the years.

I think it suffered greatly in popularity because it took Miller FOREVER to produce those issues, and it didn't come out on a regular basis, that many got tired of waiting for. It gained revived interest after Miller's later DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, YEAR ONE and DAREDEVIL runs were released in collected trades.


Complete series online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Punisher-The-End/Full?id=94425

A pretty cool page of Wood art, from TWO-FISTED COMICS 33, depicting the bombing of Hiroshima.





Complete story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Two-Fisted-Tales/Issue-33?id=135736#27



One comic book artist is actually a survivor of Hiroshima, and did a comic published in the U.S. as I SAW IT (1982) detailing what he witnessed firsthand, his survival of the bombing and his life in the decades after, living with radiation burns, and the social aftermath he observed in Japan in the 27 years after.

I actually never read this one. But it sounds like a fun sequel to the story in KAMANDI 29, where a cult of apes worship a Superman costume. And in the KAMANDI 29 story, I loved the mystery and ambiguity the story left, that it could either be a Superman costume that the apes only believed belonged to Superman, a fictitious character that down the generations they came to believe was real, or that it might actually be the real Superman's costume.








The SUPERMAN 295 story sounds like an interesting reversal, where Superman travels to Kamandi's future. Although KAMANDI 29 ended so perfectly, it would have to be one heck of a story to do it one better.



Pages 2 and 3 of issue 29, where the apes Kamandi meets have carved Superman's legend as they know it into a giant monument, in comic book form.


KAMANDI 29 story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Kamandi-The-Last-Boy-On-Earth/Issue-29?id=89218

Always loved this series until the last few issues when they brought in Keith Giffen as artist, and he ruined it.

I actually liked HEX when it transformed from a western book to a futuristic series.

HEX story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Hex/Issue-1?id=54066#3


Although I can't judge on Giffen's HEX run, since I wasn't reading at the point he took over. Giffen was a fantastic artist in 1982-1983 (LEGION 285-306, and FLASH 306-313.) But he definitely was not doing his best work by the time he took over HEX several years after that period.

Another classic that somehow slipped my mind, the Claremont/Byrne/Austin "Days of Future Past" storyline in X-MEN 141-142.



A 1984-esque future, where the Sentinel robots had taken over North America, and the remaining nations were about to launch a nuclear war to prevent them from taking the rest.
Published in 1980, about an impossible far away future set in 2013. Now a year in the past!

I'm glad the Claremont/Byrne/Austin team stayed together long enough to give us this and several other stories. The two-part rematch with Alpha Flight in X-MEN 139-140, this "Future Past" two-parter in 141-142, and the final story with Kitty Pride's Christmas battle with an alien in issue 143.

The sentinel-dominated dark future was interesting, as was the killing off of virtually all of the Marvel heroes, and the time-travel aspect. I loved after Jean Grey was killed off in the "Dark Phoenix" storyline (where she was actually planned by Claremont/Byrne to live, and have a daughter, until Jim Shooter editorially ruled that she had to be killed, changing the ending of X-MEN 137).
And it took awhile for Claremont to adjust to the altered ending and resolve his former longterm planning for the series. Claremont originally planned to have Scott Summers and Jean Grey have a daughter over the next year, Rachel, who would become a major character. To adjust to Jean Grey dying, Claremont in later issues has their eliminated daughter Rachel "time-slip sideways" from a parallel Earth into Marvel continuity, from an alternate future, to bring her back!

X-MEN 141-142 complete story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Uncanny-X-Men-1963/Issue-141?id=22820

BBQ Wolverine, from X-MEN 142 !

Up to the point it was published, I'd never seen a hero killed off this graphically. No doubt part of what has made this such an an enduringly popular storyline.
Ultimately an alternate-future equivalent of a Superman "imaginary story", but still...

these days, Wolverine will still survive that kind of death. Like he did in the events that lead to Civil War.

Also, the Sentinel's dialogue strikes me as out of character. They were supposed to be machines that don't have emotions, they shouldn't talk like arrogant supervillains.

These are new more highly evolved Sentinels, with high-technology robot PMS !

Hey, what about THE WALKING DEAD?

Another KAMANDI story, issue 35, "The Soyuz Survivor" where Kamandi is taken into orbit around the Earth and comes in contact with a Soviet astronaut (mutated by radiation into something unhuman) who reveals that the Great Disaster (that Kirby always portrayed up to this point as a great natural upheaval, perhaps a globe-wide earthquake) that in this case the Soviets had orbiting missiles in their space station, and an audio recording of two Rusians cosmonauts aboard the orbiting sattellite, observed the Earth being destroyed from their vantage point in space. And observed in the recording what appeared to be nuclear explosions all over the earth.

It could have been nuclear war, or nuclear missile bases or nuclear power plants blown up by earthquakes. In the recording, one cosmonaut wanted to launch their nukes in what he believed would be a retaliatory nuclear attack, the other thought it would just be more pointless destruction. The recording ends with nuclear shockwaves impacting the Russian satellite, killing one Russian, and mutating the other into the creature Kamandi meets aboard the orbiting satellite.

Kirby tells a very engaging story, but skillfully leaving out details of what happened, which just adds to the mystery, leaving certain aspects to heat the imagination. With one of the best double-page spreads of the series, looking down from orbit at Earth, from the spacecraft Kamandi and his friends came into orbit aboard.


KAMANDI 35, complete story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Kamandi-The-Last-Boy-On-Earth/Issue-35?id=89225

Basil Wolverton, a devout convert to Christianity, did a set of illustrations in the 1950's depicting events from the book of Revelation, used by the Worldwide Church of God, first published across several issues of Plain Truth magazine in 1954-1955.
The same set of images, in color.




Dark Horse more recently published them in a two-issue miniseries titled FANTASTIC FABLES, presenting this and other early art by Wolverton.




And again collected in at least two hardcover books

Another I love, from ALIEN WORLDS 3, July 1983, a 10-page story titled "The Inheritors", a hauntingly beautiful story by Bruce Jones, with art by Scott Hampton, taking place after the self-annihilation of the human race in a nuclear war, and aliens coming to earth to re-populate it, but having to go through a series of painful surgeries to adapt to Earth's environment. They feel sadness, both for the death of human civilization, and also for having to leave their world to repopulate the earth.
With a few dying mutant humans running loose, not quite dead yet, but dying.

It has a twist ending that is reminiscent of "Judgement Day" from WEIRD FANTASY 18 (1953), that is widely regarded as the single best story EC ever published. Also somewhat reminiscent of Bradury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES. With two other stories in this issue by Ken Steacy and Tom Yeates. All three great reading.


Complete story online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Alien-Worlds/Issue-3?id=109400

I was just flipping through an anthology series in my collection called TIME TWISTERS reprinting early 1980's British material by guys like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. It's pretty cool to see them developing their talent in stories with clever twists that are generally between 2 and 8 pages. Many of them, even at that early stage, quite clever.

"Quality Comics" was a late-1980's/early 1990's imprint of SQ Productions, who published one of my favorite underground/alternative comics.
HOT STUF' from 1974-1978, an anthology that had a lot of nice work by Buckler, Corben, Adams, Morrow, Barr, Colon and others.
SQ also produced a lot of beautiful portfolios of the late 1970's and 1980's, including some of my favorites by Wrightson, Kaluta, Chaykin, Adams and Fastner/Larson.

Another title I enjoyed from Quality/SQ was a brief title called TEX BENSON, a beautifully illustrated Flash Gordon parody by a guy named Chuck Roblin. SQ also published a nice TEX BENSON Portfolio.

Another I enjoyed from Marvel/Epic, a series called PSYCHONAUTS that's a series complete in 4 issues. A group with special abilites teleports to abandoned post-Apocalyptic ruins of cities around the world, long after they were abandoned.

It has really detailed art that looks reproduced from pencils, that looks more like Michael Kaluta to me than Japanese art. I've never seen anything else by this artist, but it's definitely worth checking out.

In some ways similar to KAMANDI, wandering across the Earth through the ruins of abandoned great cities.

Courtesy of the DiversionsOfTheGroovy-site, here's DOOMSDAY +1 issue 1 in its entirety, for your reading pleasure:

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/01/byrne-ing-to-read-doomsday-1-1.html
With links to issues 2, 3, 4 and 5.

or at:
https://comiconlinefree.com/doomsday-1-1975/issue-1/2

or most easily navigated at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Doomsday-1-1975/Issue-1?id=153140#2

Thanks to this website that has every issue online...

https://comiconlinefree.com/y-the-last-man-2002/issue-1

... I just read all 60 issues over the last 4 days.


I like it more for the humor, characters, and story twists than for the post-apocalyptic setting. It never really gives you any panoramic overviews of the world post-disaster (see just about any two page spread in KAMANDI, where Kirby gives you the goods. Likewise McGregor/Russell in AMAZING ADVENTURES/Killraven.)

But Y, THE LAST MAN is at many points very funny, and goes in a lot of unexpected directions. The art is rather lackluster, and is completely driven by the story. In some ways Vaughan's writing reminds me of Grell's writing, for the most part very cinematic, brisk and fast-moving, with a minimum of text and dialogue.

What I disliked most about it was the ridiculously pointless amount of profanity. "Fucking fuck!" That was a sample of actual dialogue from one issue. Particularly offensive is using God or Jesus Christ as if they were swear words.
I definitely pick up that Vaughan is a self-loathing white liberal secular humanist, and his jabs at Christians and Republicans, who he throughout speaks of with contempt, are views that are sure to alienate half his audience. I only got through all 60 issues because they were free, and very fast reading. It took me at most 25 or 30 hours to read 60 issues, probably less.

I thought it was entertaining with a lot of funny moments, but it's not a series I'll look back on as one of my favorites and reread over and over, as I have with, say, Alan Moore's work, or O'Neil/Adams stuff, or Levitz/Giffen Legion, or Kirby's KAMANDI, DEMON, OMAC and Fourth World titles.

Y THE LAST MAN is a bit too cynical, profanity-laden, and too much of a trendy hippie-slacker Mellenial-audience targeted book. The lead character to me could just as easily be Peter Parker or Kyle Rainer, and is certainly drawn as to be a double for either one of those two.

So while entertaining it just doesn't rise to the level of a comic book classic. In particular issues 51 and 60, I'm not entirely sure I know exactly what was going on.

Lots of sex jokes, complicated love triangles with funny twists, and monkey-poop-flinging jokes. I enjoyed much of it. But not quite my cup of tea.

Among the sexiest, best illustrated and borderline pornographic post-apocalyptic adventures, DRUUNA, that I first saw serialized in HEAVY METAL magazine.

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Druuna/Issue-1?id=94195#1

I didn't know till now there were eight 64-page issues. Or what might better be termed 8 hardcover graphic albums.

For the post-apocalyptic collection, SLASH MARAUD, by the well-established collaborative team of Moench and Gulacy. A dystopian future alien invasion biker book, with a lot of clear trendy visuals that reflect the mid/late 1980's.


The complete 6-issue series to read online at:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Slash-Maraud/Issue-1?id=149498


Another I liked from the same period by Moench and Gulacy was SIX FROM SIRIUS 1-4.
And a sequel, SIX FROM SIRIUS II 1-4
Both also released as individual collected trades.
Moench and Gulacy also did a great two-part Soviet/Cold-War story in BATMAN 393 and 394 about the same time. And a later Hugo Strange story less to my liking in BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 11-15.

But the ultimate Moench/Gulacy collaboration for me remains their 1970's run on MASTER OF KUNG FU 18-50 (Gulacy's run began a little before Moench took over as writer in issue 22. And Englehart/Starlin began the story in SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION 15-17, after which the series was re-named MASTER OF KUNG FU.)

Moench and Gulacy seemed on paper to be a natural choice to do Batman but their work on the character, separately and together, never gelled for me

The two-part story in BATMAN 393 and 394 worked for me.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Batman-1940/Issue-393?id=18047

The later one they did in BATMAN:LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT 11-15 I'd agree with you on.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Batman-Legends-of-the-Dark-Knight/Issue-11?id=37997
Despite serviceably good art (though slightly less tightly illustrated than the two-part BATMAN 393-394 story) the 5-part LEGENDS story with Hugo Strange was not up to the same standard.

God... I just read the first 3 issues of the SLASH MARAUD series. The dialogue is horrible. It combines two things I hate: street punk thug dialogue, and fake pseudo-hip future slang dialogue. I read this when it first came out over 30 years ago, and found it a lot more tolerable.
Among the various gang characters, there's also an ebonics-talking street punk black female character, a cardboard cutout two -dimensional stereotype french female punk character named "Beret" (who wears a beret like French women probably haven't worn since World War II).
And several thug characters who look and talk like 1950's motorcycle gang punks. One keeps saying things like "Hey hey, daddy-o!"
The aliens throughout are slang-referenced as "fuzzballs" by the gang characters. And one of the aliens likes human stripper/hooker girls, eats a lot of hamburgers and hot dogs, and periodically says "Rock and roll!" I wish I was kidding.
Just awful.
I can't believe this book was published in this form. Like many comics I've unfortunately read, it was in desperate need of an editor and revision before going to print, which it never got. And behold the hideous 6-issue thing that was stillborn as a result.


Here's a Marvel graphic novel, CONAN: THE SKULL OF SET (1989) by Moench and Gulacy, that was far more clever and intelligently scripted. And leaves you feeling much more at the end like you read a satisfying and good story.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Marvel-.../Full?id=154836

Offering a better apocalyptic future story, from ALIEN WORLDS 7, here's "Ride the Blue Bus" by Bruce Jones, with both pencils and inks by George Perez.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Alien-Worlds/Issue-7?id=109404#29

It's a Ray Bradbury-esque story, of a cheerful optimistic kid growing up in the radioactive waste after a nuclear war. You as the reader can see telltale signs, but the kid doesn't see that his parents and neighbors' hair and teeth are falling out and they're slowly dying. But despite the sadness around him, the kid seems to be okay. And his inspiration and hope for a better life is a blue bus that drives by, from some area that is radiation free. He dreams of the bus stopping for him, and being able to take a ride just once on "the blue bus".

Just 6 pages, and a very rare example of Perez doing both pencils and inks, and nicely colored. I'm hard pressed to think of another example where Perez did the full art himself.

ALIEN WORLDS, and other Bruce Jones-written and edited books for Pacific Comics, such as TWISTED TALES, SOMERSET HOLMES, BERNI WRIGHTSON: MASTER OF THE MACABRE, PATHWAYS TO FANTASY and SILVERHEELS, all rank among my favorites for the beautiful art, coloring, and overall beautiful design of their line of books. I think they set the standard that Marvel, DC, Eclipse, First and other publishers never quite equalled in that era.

.

It occurs to me that another post-apocalyptic series (although more of a space-travel science fiction series, as well as a romance with Alanna) is Adam Strange, in MYSTERY IN SPACE 53-91, by Fox and Infantino.
On the planet Rann, they had a devastating global nuclear war, from which a thousand years after, the people of Rann are still struggling to recover from.
https://viewcomiconline.com/mystery-in-space-1951-issue-53/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Strange




Infantino reluctantly left the Adam Strange series in 1964, assigned to work on the "new look" Batman in DETECTIVE 327-369.

The series continued after Infantino's last issue in MYSTERY IN SPACE 91 for a few more issues, by artist Lee Elias, but it just wasn't the same without Infantino. The series was remarkably upbeat and optimistic for a post-apocalyptic series. Because it was more about Adam Strange as the hero of Rann, using his wits to repel one race of alien invaders after another., with Rann's nuclear war history mostly as a backdrop occasionally mentioned. The series also focused on the unrequited love of Adam Strange and Alanna.
I first read these stories reprinted in STRANGE ADVENTURES 217-244 (1969-1973), in what seemed like a very long and well received series of reprints.

Since then about 15 years ago, they were also reprinted in three DC Archives volumes.
And just as I got the third volume, they announced an omnibus hardcover of the same issues.


Here are all the Infantino issues, in MYSTERY IN SPACE 53-91 :
https://viewcomiconline.com/mystery-in-space-1951-issue-53/

And while I'm less enthusiaastic about the three origin story issues that preceded the Infantino run, here are the three Sekowsky issues in
SHOWCASE 17-19 in 1958-1959 :
https://viewcomiconline.com/showcase-issue-17/


I also really enjoyed the wedding story of Adam Strange and Alanna, in JLA 120-121.
https://viewcomiconline.com/justice-league-of-america-1960-issue-120/

And a few Adam Strange team-up stories in three issues of BRAVE AND THE BOLD in issues 90 ( a good "last Batman story", by Haney and Andru/Esposito), issue 161 (by Haney and Aparo), and issue 190 (by Barr and Infantino/Trapani)
https://viewcomiconline.com/category/the-brave-and-the-bold-1955/

And a SECRET ORIGINS 17 story, Aug 1987, where Infantino once again pencilled Adam Strange in his origin re-telling. Why Murphy Anderson was not selected as inker (instead of Tony DeZuniga) is a mystery to me. Writing and art that re-tells the origin story, but for me strayed a bit too far from its Silver Age appeal. Thanks to DeZuniga, Infantino's art was virtually unrecognizable.
https://viewcomiconline.com/secret-origins-1986-issue-17/

As compared with this "Space Museum" tribute in SECRET ORIGINS 50, also pencilled by Infantino, and beautifully inked by George Perez, that I think in both story and art perfectly re-captures the Silver Age stories it was tribute to.
https://viewcomiconline.com/secret-origins-1986-issue-50/

Adam Strange's run was one of the brightest lights of the Silver Age. And likewise Infantino's FLASH run and DETECTIVE COMICS run, particularly the Elongated man backup stories in DETECTIVE. And Gil Kane's THE ATOM, and Kubert's HAWKMAN, and the early Zatanna crossover appearances. All very fondly remembered. A wonderful blend of beautiful art, whimsey and optimism across all of these Schwartz-edited titles. In Adam Strange's case, even amid the aftermath, a thousand years after a nuclear war on Rann.

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Bringing a little Biblical apocalyse to the post-apocalyptic topic, this offering from Jack Chick's THE CRUSADERS series, issue 5.

https://viewcomiconline.com/the-crusaders-1974-issue-5/




For those unfamiliar with the series, each issue has these two Christian missionaries, Jim Carter and Tim Clark, sent on missions to different parts of the world, to aid people against political and spiritual threats. And once there, enlighten people what Bible scripture foretells about the threat they face.

In issue 1, they travel to communist-occupied Rumania, where they help smuggle in the Bible on microfilm, to spread the gospel and allow the Rumanians to teach scripture and print their own bibles, The two missionaries clash with the KGB, who try to discredit and undermine them.

Issue 2 is set in southern California, and deals with runaways who unwittingly make friends with Satanists, and are unwittingly drugged and used as human sacrifices.

Issue 3 is set in southern Africa, about an African nation's dictator, who was savagely beaten at a young age by imperial British soldiers, sparking a lifelong hatred of whites that drove him to become an oppressive dictator. He also allies with Chinese-looking communists who seek to use his country as part their communist global expansion. One of the best illustrated issues. The dictator character somewhat resembles then-revolutionary and later prime minister Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Issue 4 is set in India, and deals with demonic posession.

Relevant to this discussion, in issue 5 the two crusaders are sent to Israel on a mission, and a Bible scholar they meet discusses details of Israeli history and end-time Bible prophecy, the rise of the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet, a revived Roman empire (ten nations with ten kings, "the beast with ten horns", that unite under the AntiChrist in end times), the 7-year Tribulation period, and the battle of Armageddon (Armageddon comes from Har Megiddo, or the hill of Megiddo, a high-ground hill overlooking the valley of Jezreel, where the battle of Armageddon is foretold will be fought, that in Biblical times had a watchtower fort built on top of it.

This issue was released in 1975, so it has some amusing dated elements such as hippies and peace signs, with giant tattoos of 666 symbols on everyone's foreheads. Whereas in the current era, we know this "number of the beast" required mark on everyone's right hand and forehead would be in invisible chip form that can be electronically scanned. And the global threat of Soviet communism has shifted since 1991, in modern times to be a world more dominated by a Chinese communist threat than a Russian one. Although the Russians still have enough missiles to blow up the world, or be reigned into a war in the Middle East, in alliance with Arab nations, that could bring about the same basic scenario of a global conflagration.
While a serious story and an informative review of Biblical end-time prophecy, these dated anachronisms in the story and other bits of deliberate silliness make them fun to read, such as the zealous communist spies everywhere: "I must notify Moscow at once, my Comrades will be pleased."

Issue 6 deals with Evolution, and anti-Christian messaging in popular culture.

Issue 7 explores archaeological history that supports the existence of Noah's Ark, that several documentaries have shown to still remain on Mount Ararat on the northeasternmost edge of Turkey, where the two missionaries travel on their assignment that issue.

The two best issues of the series for me are issues 3 and issue 7, that also have the best art. Issue 5 is another nice offering to the series.
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-crusaders-1974-issue-3/
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-crusaders-1974-issue-7/

Here's another updated link to larger scans of the complete DOOMSDAY +1 issues 1-6 (also reprinted as 7-12 in the same order), that load more quickly and are easier to navigate.
https://comiconlinefree.net/doomsday-1-1975/issue-1/full
On this site, you can click to select in the upper left, to either view one page at a time, or "full" and view the full issue you can more easily scroll through.


[ ViewComicOnline, also has these same issues, that are my current preferred online reading site. They are complete and work now. But weirdly, previously, issues 1-6 were on their website missing the last page of each issue. And then the reprints in 7-12 also were all missing the last page of each issue. But fixed and working now.
https://viewcomiconline.com/doomsday-1-1975-issue-1/

And frustratingly, neither ViewcomicOnline.com or ComicOnlineFree.net have scans of Fantagraphics' DOOMSDAY SQUAD reprints that provide better offset printing of the same DOOMSDAY+1 Byrne issues, and for the first time present a 7th previously unpublished story for the series by Byrne, reprinted from the CHARLETON BULLSEYE fanzine. Oh well, at least you have the above site where you can read the original 1975-1976 issues...
And less easy to navigate, but still there as a backup, the DiversionsOfTheGroovy site scans of them as well, from before these other online libraries were created.

ReadComicOnline also has them too, but is still having problems, that currently has a ridiculous amount of pop-up ads that re-open as soon as you close them. ]

___________________________________________-

An updated link to the complete issue for ALIEN WORLDS 3:


I also updated the second link above so you can read the full story for WEIRD FANTASY 18 (Al Feldstein story, Joe Orlando art)

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From WEIRD FANTASY 17, Jan 1953, the Ray Bradbury story "There Will Come Soft Rains", adapted by Al Feldstein and Wallace Wood.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Weird-Fantasy-1951/Issue-17?id=124729


A wonderfully quiet post-Apocalyptic tale, where nuclear war has killed off all the humans, and for a while anyway, the timer-set lights still go on, the sprinklers still run every day, and to some degree the cities and suburbs continue their routine, even in the absence of humans. That in some ways is chilling, but also gives a surface appearance of normalcy.



In an interview of Ray Bradbury, in a funny account, Bradbury told how he noticed in the early 1950's, EC Comics was unashamedly swiping his stories and doing uncredited adaptations.
Bradbury sent a letter to managing editor William Gaines, saying "You know, I really enjoyed your adaptation of my story, but I haven't received your royalty check yet..."

After which Gaines sent him a check, and they became friends, and led to many more credited Bradbury story adaptations.

Also in this issue is the story "The Aliens", another post-Apocalyptic tale, observing Earh's destruction through the eyes of observing aliens, by Feldstein and Al Williamson. The origin of the famous humorous alien-language phrases "Squa Tront" and "Spa Fon". That also spawned two EC fanzines using the same names.

SQUA TRONT 1-14 (July 1967 - March 2022)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=172261

SPA FON 1-5 ( 1966 - Sept 1969)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=35146388

https://comiconlinefree.net/druuna/issue-1/full
New updated link.

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Another post-Apocalyptic offering is SABRE, initially a black-and-white graphic novel by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy (1978)

The black and white graphic novel was also released in more or less its original form in a 2nd printing(1979) , then 10th anniversary, 20th anniversary, and 30th anniversary re-releases.
(The various printings of the 8" X 11" b&w graphic novel version: ) https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=sabre+&pubid=&PubRng=

For the black-and-white graphic novel version, I like the 20th anniversary version the best, it has the clearest printing and the strongest binding. And has the nicest logo, that it was displayed with in ads when first released, but had a different logo on the 1st (1978) and 2nd (1979) editions when actually published. To my knowledge the logo in the ads was not used on the actual published book until the 20th anniversary edition in 1998.
In the 1st 1978 edition, this also had the distinction of being the very first Eclipse publication.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sabre-1998/Full?id=159378 (b & w graphic novel, 20th anniversary edition, 1998 )


But I first read the McGregor / Gulacy story as the first 2 issues of the SABRE full-color comics series, when re-released in that form in 1982. Eclipse's first comic book series as well. While the b & w 1978 graphic novel version is interesting to see in its original form, I prefer the 1982 two-issue comic book color version.
Full issues online to read at :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sabre/Issue-1?id=123387 (color comic series, issues 1-14)



I thought the first 2 issues by McGregor/Gulacy, and the 3rd issue by McGregor and Graham/Freeman beginning a new storyline, were all fantastic, both in writing and art.
To be honest, beyond that, I felt the story and art changed direction and become not as compelling.
Though there are also some nice backup stories by Sutton (issue 3), "The Incredible Seven" by B.C. Boyer (issues 4-6), Kent Williams (issues 7 -8, and many covers), Michael Bair (issues 9-10, a k a, Mike Hernandez), and Denys Cowan (issue 12)

But in the initial issues, I like the swashbuckling heroism and optimism of the character, in what is essentially set (issues 1 and 2) in all but name in the post-apocalyptic remains of Walt Disney World, with Sabre and his band of mercenary drifters and some innocent bystanders defying an authoritarian and corrupt police state that governs what's left of the world. With a lot of humorous ironies and twists thrown in, amid an intelligent and well-written story.

The series ran a total of 14 issues.
Issues 1 and 2 are a complete story.
Issues 3-9 complete a second storyline, with art by Billy Graham.
And issues 10-14 with art by Jose Ortiz, the third and final storyline.

Old Man Logan is a really good post apocalyptic Marvel story, marred only by the fact that bleak post apocalyptic marvel stories are a dime a dozen, and Marvel not knowing when to quit as they stretched out the Old Man Logan universe as far as it could go, until the character itself got folded into the 616 continuity.

I never heard of it till you mentioned it.
But yeah, looking it up, I can easily see Marvel turned it into a minor franchise :

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=old+man+logan&pubid=&PubRng=

I guess it starts with this 5-issue series in 2015:

OLD MAN LOGAN
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Old-Man-Logan-2015/Issue-1?id=18626


Followed by a 50-issue second series beginning in 2016 :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Old-Man-Logan-2016/Issue-1?id=18835

Plus a lot of other ANNUAL issues, one-shots and collected trades.
If Marvel did several TRUE BELIEVERS reprint issues, I guess they consider it a big deal in Marvel's continuity and history.
And that's not even including some other storylines you mention with "616", that I have no familiarity with.

Something to explore after the holiday.
I've been joking for years that you need a Phd. in Comic Book Continuity to read the new books, and this appears to be just the latest example.

Wolverine was part of the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST story in X-MEN 141-142 (mentioned earlier in the topic) , which is well received by many, including me.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Uncanny-X-Men-1963/Issue-141?id=22820

I guess we were lucky back then, that Marvel didn't think to maximize that storyline into a massive franchise, like they did with this OLD MAN LOGAN one.

It's not just a storyline. There was a period where the mainstream continuity Wolverine died, and he was replaced by Old Man Logan (in all the teams). It's poorly handled, too. Unlike his version in the miniseries, Old Man Logan in the mainstream 616 continuity is basically the same character, just with grey hair (grizzled, with a lot of emotional baggage and frequent problems with his age is not a defining trait, because normal Wolverine already has those qualities.)

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So... he became a cranky old Wolverine who needed to take his Midol?

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Man...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-616

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Universe

... as if the Marvel continuity were not already complicated enough.

It's gratifying how viscerally both editors Tom Brevoort and Joe Quesada thoroughly reject the "Earth 616" term.
As apparently do many others in the Marvel offices they refer to but don't name, as staff who agree with them and don't use the term.




I actually read these Dave Thorpe, Alan Moore and Alan Davis stories about 25 years ago, reprinted in the U.S. in a title called X-MEN ARCHIVES 1-7, and at the time didn't realize they had any significance at all, that apparently spawned the idea for this "Earth 616" thing.
The Thorpe, Moore and Davis stories were apparently given a greater significance retroactively by other writers and artists in later storylines.

all 7 issues at :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/X-Men-Archives-Featuring-Captain-Britain

They can reject it as much as they want, even the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the videogames have started assigning each other numbers. DC's not doing so well either. I don't even know what their mainstream continuity designation is, but they have letters and numbers for each Earth.

Yeah, I think it's a case of Quesada, Brevoort and their editorial staff being the older generation (about the same age as me), and therefore resistant to the whole "Earth 616" thing.
Whereas the newer generation of Marvel editors, and readers, and Marvel movie fans, maybe were introduced to Marvel with the "616" thing, and so are not resistant to it.

If you grow up with dumb stuff, I guess it seems less dumb.
And that's no doubt true of a lot of the stuff I grew up with and love too.

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Another I enjoyed is the Atomic Knights, that ran in every 3rd issue from STRANGE ADVENTURES 117 to 160, from June 1960 -January 1964.
The entire series written by John Broome, with all art by Murphy Anderson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Knight#The_original_Atomic_Knights

117 “The Rise of the Atomic Knights” (16 pages), June 1960 ... (also r in issue 217, pages 1-8 of story, and 218, pages 9-16, April and June 1969)
120 “The Menace of the Water-Raider” (8 pages), Sept 1960
123 “The Cavemen of New York” (9 pages), Dec 1960 ............ ( r in 219, Aug 1969 )
126 “The Lost City of Los Angeles” (9 pages), March 1961 ...... ( r in 220, Oct 1969 )
129 “World Out of Time” (9 pages), June 1961 ..........................( r in 221, Dec 1969 )

132 “Thanksgiving Day--1990" (9 pages), Sept 1961 ................( r in 222, Feb 1970 )
135 “War In Washington” (9 pages), Jan 1962 ...........................( r in 223, April 1970 )
138 “The Attack of the Giant Dogs” (9 pages), Mar 1962 ...........( r in 224, June 1970 )
141 “Menace of the Metal-Looters” (9 pages), June 1962 .........( r in 225 , Aug 1970)
144 “When the Earth Blacked Out” (15 pages), Sept 1962 ........( r in 226, Oct 1970 )

147 “The King of New Orleans” (16 pages), Dec 1962 ...............( r in 227, Dec 1970 )
150 “The Plant That Hated Humans” (16 pages), March 1963....( r in 228, Feb 1971 )
153 “Danger In Detroit” (15 pages), June 1963 ..........................( r in 229, April 1971 )
156 “Threat of the Witch-Woman” (16 pages), Sept 1963 ...........( r in 230, June 1971 )
160 “Here Come the Wild Ones” (15 pages), Jan 1964 ..............( r in 231, Aug 1971 )

So 15 issues total, spanning 4 years. It was a delightfully upbeat and very Silver-Age-ish post-Apocalyptic vision. As in other post-nuclear-war stories of the 1950's and 1960s, whether in comics or movies or TV shows, I'm always struck by how polite everyone is, so well mannered, so clean cut, as they fight in the post-Apocalyptic ashes for the last can of beans. One thing that stuck out for me visually was their riding mutated giant dalmation dogs as horses. And also the notion of wearing medeival suits of armor from a museum, and holding rituals like King Arthur and his knights sitting at round table meetings, discussing how they would organize and resolve their survival issues.

I also like how they traveled each story to a different city almost every issue, so that whatever part of the country you lived in as a reader, you got visuals of the local region you were familiar with in the bombed-out post World War III future, as well as seeing the rest of the country.

Years later, right after the Neal Adams Deadman run ended (STRANGE ADVENTURES 205-216) in 1969, DC then made STRANGE ADVENTURES a reprint book for the remainder of its run in issues 217 - 244.
Reprinting one Adam Strange story per issue, and one Atomic Knights story per issue.

And it was with these issues that I first discovered and enjoyed both Adam Strange, and the Atomic Knights.
All but one of the Atomic Knights stories were reprinted, in order (217-231), with the single exception for some reason of issue 120 ( “Menace of the Water-Raider”").
And a thick slice of the more numerous Adam Strange stories were also reprinted.

Another thing I loved was the nuclear war that destroyed the world being well known to the characters as October 29 1986.
There were two guys working at DC in the 1980's and one of them was a huge enthusiast of the Atomic Knights, I think maybe Jack C. Harris and Cary Burkett. And in a DC editorial around 1987, that I haven't been able to find again, one of the 2 discussed how one day he got a phone call from the other, saying "Hey Jack, guess what? It's October 29 1986...." !!

When I first posted this, there were not scanned issues posted online to read.
But there are now :

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Psychonauts/Issue-1?id=233242

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The links from 5 years ago are obsolete, so here it is updated with working links.

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Another brief series from Marvel's Epic Comics line that I recently re-read, THE LAST AMERICAN, a 4-issue series from 1990-1991,
by writers Alan Grant and John Wagner, with art by Mick McMahon :



It begins with an army Captain named Ulysses Pilgrim, who is awakened by service robots from cryogenic freezing, about 20 years after a nuclear war, and is apparently the only person in the U.S., or by all appearances the entire world, left alive after a nuclear war. And in flashbacks you see that he was specifically cryo-frozen to be awakened after 2 decades for the specific mission of looking for survivors, after the full effects of the nuclear war have played out (sifting through the ruins as "commander of the U.S. Deep Reserves") .

So Pilgrim travels across the terrain and rubble of the New York, New Jersey, Washington DC, and Virginia region looking for signs of life and survivors.
And meanwhile he is coping with the loss of his remembered wife and child, presumed to be dead.

And in his mind in flashbacks and music and TV clips, and the programmed human-like comments of the service robots around him, while searching the ruins he re-lives the past in his mind, convincing himself that culture still exists. Part of the robots' programmed orders, it is learned, is to keep him content, and from going over the mental brink and committing suicide.

And after watching the "Duck and Cover" 1950's public service film of how to protect yourself from a nuclear explosion, among Pilgrim's many delusional fantasies, he imagines having conversations with the animated turtle in that film, kind of like a devil/angel on his shoulder, along with imagined conversations with LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and other dead presidents, and nuclear scientists like Einstein, who were responsible for creating the nuclear deterrent, the patriotic cold-war rhetoric, and ultimately the war, that he now lives in the bombed-out remains of.

He goes back and forth between near-suicidal depression, and an optimistic hip-ho-away-we-go optimism that they're just about to find survivors and bring back the world to the way it was.

An interesting and sometimes darkly humorous study of the effects of nuclear war, and of the fake optimism of nuclear survivability in the cold war era, that such a war could be winnable, and through one character, an introspection of coming to grips with that reality, of what aftermath of such a war would truly be like.

All 4 issues online at :

THE LAST AMERICAN
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Last-American/Issue-1?id=131434

SUPERMAN 295 story :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Superman-1939/Issue-295?id=16127

When G-man first posted this way back in September 2012, we didn't have the luxury of an online library to pull up instantly and read a given issue in. But in the years since, we now do, and I finally got around to reading it.

I both did and didn't like it.

On the plus side, it does follow the basic story elements from KAMANDI 29, and develops them in a whimsical early/mid 1960's Silver Age DC sort of way(as Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin were good at re-creating in ACTION and SUPERMAN issues of that 1970's era) rather than a 1970's Kirby way.
Where TECHNICALLY issue 295 follows the KAMANDI 29 storyline, but does introduce a lot of playful new Silver Age-type twists, and all is not what it seems. Where a Green Lantern from the future drops in at the end to explain everything, and confesses his own role in the charade

But on the negative side, Kirby's story in KAMANDI 29 is far better told, and with far more striking visuals to carry it along from start to finish. It's really hard to compete with Kirby, especially when it deliberately takes the previous KAMANDI 29 storyline in a completely different direction.

While not credited with being in the same continuity as KAMANDI 29 and SUPERMAN 295, a later 1984 issue has a 4-page Frank Miller story in SUPERMAN 400, and also has several other future Superman stories in that issue, by Williamson, Kaluta, Rogers/Austin, Pini, Janson, and Steranko, that also play with the future legend of Superman.
But the Miller one most closely follows the costume and ambiguous element of possibly being the actual costume of Superman, or possibly just a stage costume, not that of the real Superman.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Superman-1939/Issue-400?id=16245

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In the 1970's era, only Jim Aparo did a satisfying version of Kirby's characters in a non-Kirby story.

I'm thinking in particular of this story in BRAVE AND THE BOLD 120, where Batman is transported into the future (or one possible future) and has a shared adventure with Kamandi, in the remains of Mount Rushmore park in Souh Dakota.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-120?id=31220



There was a second BRAVE AND THE BOLD story in issue 157, Dec 1979, , that was the reverse, with Kamandi being transported back to our present, and having a shared adventure with Batman in Gotham City. I honestly didn't like his one nearly as much.
But the story in 120 was great, and had a very consistent feel to the Kirby KAMANDI run.

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-157?id=31257

Aparo demonstrated a similar consistency witth other Kirby series, in other BRAVE AND THE BOLD issues
109 (THE DEMON) https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-109?id=31209
112 (MISTER MIRACLE) https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-112?id=31212
128 (MISTER MIRACLE) https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-128?id=31228

And one last issue by Bob Haney, wih John Calnan/Bob McLeod art, that is more of a mixed bag.
137 (THE DEMON) https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Brave-and-the-Bold-1955/Issue-137?id=31237


The O'Neil / Vosburg story in 1st ISSUE SPECIAL 13 was also a nice offering, consistent enough with Kirby to work.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/1st-Issue-Special/Issue-13?id=85359


I was not nearly as pleased with Conway and Newton's revival of NEW GODS in 12 -19 . I like Gerry Conway on his JLA run with Perez, and on other series. I like Don Newton on THE PHANTOM, BATMAN, Shazam in WORLD'S FINEST, and other series. But while interesting for a few issues, their work together on NEW GODS was inconsistent with the previous Kirby run and O'Neil/Vosburg's 1st ISSUE SPECIAL 13 issue, just completely different characters.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/New-Gods-1977/Issue-12?id=88514

Nor was the Englehart/Rogers run on MISTER MIRACLE 19-22 consistent with Kirby either.
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Mister-Miracle-1971/Issue-19?id=47336

Nor was the Gerber/Golden run in MISTER MIRACLE 23-25. Both good in their own way, but not consistent with the Kirby run
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Mister-Miracle-1971/Issue-23?id=47344

Despite a number of these writers and artists otherwise being very talented and producing many of my favorites on other titles, their efforts on Kirby's characters came off way short of what Kirby himself did on these series.
Which is to say, Kirby is a very difficult act to follow.

Updated, with a new working link to the full story.

DRUUNA volume 3 : CREATURA
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Creatura/Full?id=166340 - 60 pages



The volumes in order are :

1. MORBUS GRAVIS (1985) 62 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Summer 1986 issue

2. MORBUS GRAVIS II (1987) 62 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Spring 1968 issue

3. CREATURA (1990) 61 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Nov 1992 issue

4. MANDRAGORE (1992) 49 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Sept 1995

5. CARNIVORA (1995) 58 pages
r in HEAVY METAL SPECIAL EDITION, Sep 1993

6. APHRODISIA (1997) 51 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Sept 1997

7. THE FORGOTTEN PLANET (2000) 62 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, May 2001

8. CLONE (2003) 60 pages
r in HEAVY METAL, Nov 2003

Also a slight correction. I previously said 8 volumes that are Druuna stories.
In addition there are 3 collected sketchbooks of Druuna ( not stories).

and ANIMA 1 and 2 (2016) (portfolio only? I only saw listings for the two portfolios. )


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Eleuteri_Serpieri