Fallen Tree!

In this ultimate collection of Ms. Tree stories Terry Beatty's artwork (with assists from Gary Kato) really tightens up and becomes more realistic. He'll be given more time to work on the stories the series will shrink to seven pages a month, letting reprints of Johnny Dynamite stories from the 1950's help fill up the comic. Mike Mist is on hand as always. 

The collection kicks off with a timely New Year's Eve story and shows how violent the world of Ms. Tree can be. A crazy killer shows up to a celebration with a machine gun and starts killing. It's up to Ms. Tree to find a way to first survive and then stop the menace. Both Effie and Rafe Valer play big parts in this story titled "New Year's Evil". 

Issue thirty-six is not included in this collection. But you can find the lead story in the YOe Books Johnny Dynamite collection. I took a look at that here. 

In four very taught issues featuring the story "The Bloody Badge", Ms. Tree is forced to go to Los Angeles and solve the murder of her father, a rock steady cop who is killed and then disgraced by making it seem as if he was involved with the drug market. We meet many new people, most importantly Ms. Tree's younger sister. It is heavily implied but not confirmed that Michael Tree's father is Joe Friday from countless Dragnet shows on the radio and television. The story is dedicated to Jack Webb. 

We then are treated a wild story in which Ms. Tree's adopted son is kidnapped along with the daughter of Dominique Mureta. The women have had a tense truce for some time, but the demands of these kidnappers seem to be creating a showdown. To be frank Ms. Tree's role as mother has been pretty lame as she's killed multiple people in front of her son, as well as long absences either fighting criminals, recovering in an asylum, or doing a stint in jail. When his bodyguard and tutor is still recovering from wounds, she decides to send him to a private school renowned for its security. 

"Murder Cruise" is as delightful read. It's got that classic mystery feel to it, less of the dark noir that permeates the series. In this one the entire Ms. Tree outfit plus Mike Mist are on a cruise. The story is  divided day by day as they make stops at various Caribbean islands. Mist has tagged along because a former partner of his was murdered and clues suggest the Cruise company might be involved. When there is a second murder after a few failed attempts the full team are on the case. In the last chapters a dressed ball is given which allows Beatty to have fun with costumes. If you look closely, you'll see Gary Kato's hero Jigsaw at the party as well. 

"Music to Murder Buy" from the Ms. Tree Rock and Roll Summer Special is about a rich musician and former member of the 60's group The Keys is killed and both Mike Mist and Ms. Tree are on hand to sort out the mystery and locate the culprit. They are most certainly not Annette and Frankie. 

The Renegade series closes out with a robust story which puts Ms. Tree in as much danger as she's ever faced in a story titled "Rendezvous with Death". Her services as a bodyguard are requested, but the danger is more than she expected. Does Ms. Tree end up in heaven or hell, the answer might be in this story. It doesn't end the way you think it will. 

But it's not over yet. The series will shift over to DC Comics where the creators will have access to full color and longer formats. More on that next time. 

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Heroine Withdrawal!

Titan's Hard Case Crime brand strikes again with the fifth Ms.Tree collection gathering together stories from the series by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. The first story in this collection titled Heroine Withdrawal picks up right after the violent events of the final page of the last volume. 

As the three issue saga titled "Mureta Means Death" gets underway, Ms.Tree has killed the pedophile and serial murderer who had kidnapped her son. The police are again put out that she's taken the law into her own hands. An old ally named Dan Green returns to the fold, having recovered as best he can from injuries suffered from a bombing by the Muerta crime family. Sporting a glass eye and a hook, Green seeks his own vengeance on the patriarch of the Muerta clan and for a time is locked up for his murder. Later secrets are revealed and needless to say this installment ends with an unexpected death. 

After the events of the last bloody finale, we get a two-issue story titled "Right to Die" in which Ms.Tree is drawn into the always ferocious abortion debate. She is ordered by the court to leave her detective work to her employees and give up her gun. An old ally of her husband shows up and wants to blow up a clinic. When the clinic is blown up, there is still a mystery to be solved. No matter how you feel about this topic this is a pretty good mystery story. 

Because she was swept up in the violence of the abortion clinic, she violated the court's order and is sent to jail. The two-issue story titled "Prisoner Cell Block Hell" has our heroine forced to deal with all sorts of threats coming at her from both inside and outside the jail. As usual she finds a bit if corruption which kicks off the usual mayhem. 

Her lawyer arranges for her to not got to trial but she must submit to psychiatric observation and so she is admitted to a clinic for extended treatment. The story titled "Heroine Withdrawal" lends its name to the collection itself and proves pivotal. While under treatment she discovers that perhaps she must change. At the same time a political murder comes to her attention, and she puts her staff on that project. 

Issue twenty-eight of the series is not in this collection. It is a bit of an anomaly in that it deals with Roger Freeman, the stalwart right hand of Ms. Tree's operation. It will show up in another collection later. 

The collection closes with the three-issue story titled "The Other Cheek" in which a reformed and medicated Ms.Tree seeks to change her approach to life despite the dangers that lurk around every corner. Collins chooses to tell this story from several points of view, giving insights into the other characters in this saga. Not least of which is her son, who ends up staying with his grandmother again with tragic consequences. As is obvious from the last cover, she gets over her pacifism. 

The volume closes with a Mike Mist prose story about a suicide that wasn't. 

The death count in these stories is stunning. Perhaps it's because I'm reading them all together and not monthly, but I frankly don't think it's possible to get a true count of bodies in these stories. It feels different given the relative realism that Collins tries to bring to the series, unlike a book like say the Punisher which is more hyperbolic. 

The Ms. Tree comic series at Renegade comes to a bloody conclusion in the next Ms. Tree volume titled Fallen Tree. More on that tomorrow.  

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Melvin The Monster Day!

Joe Maneely was born on this day in 1926. Maneely was a key artist in Marvel's Atlas years, and he illustrated many of their stars including the focus of today's Dojo celebration -- Melvin the Monster. Maneely was Stan Lee's favorite artist and without his untimely death, the Marvel era might have never happened since there would have been less need for Jack Kirby. 

The success of Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace created in 1951 brought on a predictable wave of imitators, all with various and sundry names. The 1956 Atlas version dubbed "Melvin the Monster" was one. 

The beautiful cover above by Joe Maneely catches that "Ketchamesque" feel wonderfully while still maintaining a particular unique character which is distinctly Maneely. To read a Melvin the Monster story check out this link. 

Marvel brought out these stories in reprint at the very beginning of the Bronze Age, but for some reason changed Melvin's name to "Peter the Little Pest". I guess that name seemed less robust and so less potentially offensive.

Or more likely the scions at Marvel wanted to avoid confusion with John Stanley's Melvin Monster created in the 60's. 

The title was even called "Petey" for one issue, a name even less vivid. (I have the lame notion somehow when I see these that they might interpreted by some archiving "Marvelite" someday as the boyhood adventures of a rascally Peter Parker.) Comparing some of the covers above, you can see how Melvin/Peter changed, not only in name, but in demeanor over the decades. Somehow the idea of what kids were seems to have undergone a fundamental adjustment, shifting from threatening beasts over to cute creatures. 

But the "Peter the Pest" name sure is less potentially toxic than what Atlas changed Melvin's name to in the last issue of the original run. Here the tyke gets called "Dexter the Demon". Yikes!


Someone once suggested that Peter the Pest might be Peter Gyrich all grown up. Although I find no indication of it on the official websites regarding Henry Peter Gyrich's history, I think it's a very compelling and interesting theory. His desire for secrecy might explain the myriad names associated with this past and Gyrich sure deserves the description of "Monster", "Demon", and "Pest" if any character in the Marvel Universe does.

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Deadline!

The Ms.Tree stories by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty in this collection are some of the earliest, from 1984 and 1985 when the series was picked up by Aardvark -Vanaheim and later Renegade Press. The printing is different than that from Eclipse since only two-colors are used, sometimes red tones and sometimes blue. This limited color might not have worked for all comics, but it served the noir world of Ms. Tree quite well. It should also be noted that Gary Kato is assisting on the artwork in these stories. 

The first four issues of this collection deal with a single story entitled "Deadline" which gave its name to the complete Titan collection as well. Ms. Tree is drawn into a string of serial murders which at first  appear to be random, but then relate to events which took place years before when Michael Tree (then named Friday) went to high school. Those events involved a gang rape. The killer is relentless and for a time seems connected to the Muerta mob as well. A reporter tries to get Ms. Tree to assist him on this case, but that turns out poorly. 

"Skin Deep" deals with a hot topic in those 80's years, a black beauty queen who had some nude pictures which might end up in a porn magazine. Ms. Tree is hired to investigate on the behalf of her friend and ally on the police force, Rafe Valer. His sister is the beauty queen in question. It's an interesting solution.  As it turns out, pornography will be an element of other stories in this collection. 

Aardvark-Vanaheim had been run by Dave Sim and his wife Deni Loubert (Sim as artist and owner and Loubert as publisher). When they divorced it created a schism which was reflected in the fact that both companies are named as publishers of this Ms.Tree story. This story titled "Runaway" deals with young kids who run away from home and find themselves swept up in all manner of dangerous situations. The problem is brought home to Ms.Tree when her stepson does indeed run away. A desperate search is made, and she meets other parents who have lost their kids. Eventually her search leads her to confront a murderous pedophile. 

We jump ahead a few years for the next story published by Renegade Press only. The artwork on these stories seems a little more refined in some ways, the two-color approach being used with some more subtlety. The story titled "Runaway II" deals again with kids who have left home but this time focuses on young women who get snapped up into pornography, both of the printed and cinematic kind. One young woman has seemingly killed herself and Ms. Tree is searching for another and finds her, but she seems to have found some measure of control in her life. There are many characters in this story who are neither good nor evil, but supremely human and at times exceedingly weak. That said, there is a real threat as Ms. Tree discovers when she finds herself trussed up with Christmas lights. 

The collection closes out with a story titled "Death, Danger, and Diamonds" which sees Ms. Tree and Mike Mist team up. They are up against a couple of thugs named Bert and Ernie who are not afraid to kill. The two along with a young woman who sought Mist's help would set up couples and rob them. When the girl is killed, Mist and Ms. Tree head to Honolulu to get to the bottom of this scandalous threat. This one is in black and white as it was originally produced for one of Renegade's 3-D books. 

All of these Ms. Tree stories are gritty and have a depth of character uncommon in many if not most comics of the era. Since these stories are in the tradition of Mike Hammer, Michael Tree is not shy about using her gun. It's hard to see how she doesn't get into more trouble with the police with the bodies she drops here and there and seemingly everywhere. But still it's great to have these stories in a highly readable format from Titan. 

The Ms. Tree saga reasserts its chronological order when it continues in the next volume titled Heroine Withdrawal. That's for day after tomorrow. 

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