Publisher: Dynamite
Writer: Roger Langridge
Artist: Felipe Cunha
Editor: Nate Cosby
Release date: OUT NOW!
Price: $3.99

Before illusionist David Copperfield, before Dynamo Magician Impossible, heck, even before Paul Daniels there was Mandrake the Magician! Widely acknowledged as the world’s first superhero, Mandrake was created by Lee Falk who also created The Phantom, and began life as one of the legendary King Features syndicated comic strips in 1934.

Wearing a top hat and a David Niven moustache, Mandrake the Magician has used his array of hypnotic and psychic powers to enthral readers and inspire magic based characters ever since. And now Dynamite have taken up the challenge of bringing the oldest cape swinger in town into the twenty-first century. And a first-rate job they’re doing of it. The cape and the ‘tache are still there and, although much fun is had with his supposed age, a subtle artistic makeover gives him a younger look. In the early days of comicbooks every hero looked like someone’s Dad, but now he could be an older brother, which is much easier to relate to.

This issue picks up the story after Earth has narrowly survived an alien invasion, which has knocked Earth’s technology back a hundred years. It opens with Mandrake in the clutches of the demon Acheron, who has possessed the body of Mandrake’s true love, Narda. Aided by the witch Karma, and his long-time friend Lothar, Mandrake must fight to save her before the planet succumbs to the rule of a seventh-level demon.

If that isn’t a recipe for classic Mandrake the Magician adventure, told in a new yet timeless fashion I don’t know what is. Mandrake may well have been the first, and on this evidence the original could still be the best.

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker