Funnily enough, this was where I came in. My very first issue of Akira was the issue the whole epic did a sort of hard reset from urban sci-fi psychic action thriller to urban post-apocalyptic psychic war cosmic sci fi body horror mega bomboozlebugaaboom. Yes, I ran out of words for what this turned into, and my very fist issue plunged me head first into it and I had no idea who these people were, what was going on or why but I freaking LOVED it. Kaneda isn't even in this stretch of the story, he's off floating in nowhere with the top halves of several buildings and a load of doomed screaming soldiers. As far as I was concerned the most awesome central protagonist was Chiyoko who carried small portable missiles under her cloak and smushed rapist's heads with them and then blew up his friends. Chiyoko's the best.

Anyway, Neo-Tokyo is devastated and cut off, a fleet of warships hovering off the coast and special ops forces slipping in. Tetsuo's set up a new Empire all of his own, with Akira as the figurehead, using psychic powers to inspire religious fanaticism and drugged food to control his followers. Lady Miyako has opened her temple to refugees, Kei and Chiyoko are caring for the other psychic children and the Major is plotting revenge.

Lots of bloody confrontations and chasing and psychic blow-outs build to Tetsuo going cold-turkey and lashing out wildly with his powers while his followers invade Miyako's temple. Fun and games! It literally never stops, the relentless pacing, the escalation and destruction and bloodshed. Neo Tokyo hasn't stopped E*X*P*L*O*D*I*N*G you know.

Kanedaaaaaa's back! Where was he? Who knows! How'd he get back and how'd he survive? No idea! But he's just the thing to liven up the quiet life of Neo Tokyo with a bit of his healthy rebelliousness and undying thirst for revenge against his once-best-friend Tetsuoooooooo! But Tesuooooo wants to hit the moon's eye like a big pizza pie and also throw a few fighter jet planes around like toys and begin his disgusting mutation into a mindless blob of flesh and metal.

Furious action rips across the page as Kaneda and Tetsuo clash in the olympic stadium. There are also special forces armed with bio-weapons and bikers with machine guns and Akira-worshipping junkies and a fleet of bomber planes and a trio of psychics exerting their power through Kei and the Major armed with a whole freakin' space laser. Kaneda's got a laser rifle and Tetsuo is transforming into a monstrosity and his powers are starting to resonate with Akira's which will probably blow up the world and there's ANOTHER freakin' space laser and the whole thing is epic destruction on a massive scale, horrifying and beautiful.

The Locke children are not having an easy time of it. Still dealing with all the grief and trauma served up to them by the bucketful, their mother is gradually losing her grip and their new friend is some sort of immortal evil murderer manipulating them to get his hands on magical keys. But Bodie's found a key that literally lets people into their heads and it's about to cause all sorts of trouble.

Masterfully constructed and genuinely pretty scary.

Guy with a sword kills a lot of people. He has a kid with him. As a model of parenting it leaves something to be desired. As an exmination of bonds of family and loyalty and codes of honour in Edo period Japan when the social system defined by the bushido code of the samurai is beginning to decline, it's a masterpiece. One the personal executioner of the Shogun, Ogami Itto wanders the countryside with his young son as an assassin for hire as part of a long quest for vengeance. In exquisitely depicted action scenes set against a beautifully depicted natural world and a brilliantly recreated historical period, Itto wastes anyone who gets in his way, rich or poor, samurai or yakuza, priest or tyrant. Mesmerising.

Lone Wolf And Cub isn't a simple tale of a guy setting out to savagely kill lots of people because of sad back-story stuff. Ogami itto is bound by notions of honour and loyalty and proprietary behaviour, so when he decides to carve his way through Japanese society he does it as part of a rigid and tortuous spiritual journey, a state of being that makes him a living incarnation of death, and he's taken his son along for the ride, adding to the mounting sense of epic tragedy. The duels he fights in particular with other samurai are expressions of martial styles, spiritual philosophy and exquisite manners. It all seems ridiculous, and obscenely wasteful of human life and potential, but it is utterly riveting.

It's ten years since a bunch of huge space things landed all over the planet and proceded to do absolutely nothing except every now and then leak some sort of poisonous waste that kills everything it touches. There's nothing worse than mysteries from outer space descending from on high and then ignoring the locals completely as of they really don't matter - that'd be enough to drive any round the bend. A young artist enters a city in China where artists live in the shade of a Tree. A New York poltician contemplates a run for Mayor. A research station in Svalbard discovers a black flower growing around the base of their Tree. An Italian woman chafes under the protection of small-time fascist hoodlums, and the president of Somalia eyes the Tree on his border with a strategic eye.

This is a big, sweeping, global epic about art, science, technology, politics, survival and living with the utter indifference of the mysteries of the universe, and possibly the best thing Ellis has ever done, and I say that knowing Injection is probably the second-best thing he's ever done, so well done Ellis for still firing on all those cylinders.

Brilliantly spooky and nasty story about a family fleeing tragedy and troubles only to find themselves in the middle of wytch-haunted woods. Traumatised daughter Sailor is seeing things and hearing things, but can they be real? It becomes gradually apparent that she has been pledged to the horrible things that live in the trees and under the ground, but who pledged her and can she be saved? Claustrophobic and nightmarish and brilliantly creepy and atmospheric.

After the Arctic tree went kablooey, survivor Jo Creasy is sent to the Orkneys to keep an eye out for more black flowers. In New York, the Mayor elect lays some plans to clear the decks of old foes and old friends. All around the world the Trees continue to exert their silent, invisible pressure on the tiny humans around them. A brilliant distillation of the modern sense of creeping, impending, invisible catastrophe being studied by some, ignored by most and changing everything in small increments and sudden nasty little bursts of disaster. The all-encompassing inevitability is a potent metaphor for environmental collapse and socio-political constriction. Heavy, but awesome.

Alice and friends go back to space for a special ceremony to mark the colonisation of a new planet by the human's ex-enemies. Intercepted by a big ship belonging to another alien race with their eye, or eye-stalks, on the planet, it's not long before Alice and friends are hurled out of the nearest airlock to prove that the aliens mean business. Certain death beckons! But also adventure and suspense, rescue and revolution, heroism and betrayal! Space Hostages is rousing and enjoyable and manages to feel like old-school science fiction and at the same time fresh and new.