Dr Mesmer's Revenge

by Donne Avenell, Carlos Cruz (Illustrator)

AN ANCIENT EVIL RETURNS!

After several artefacts are stolen from his home, the mysterious Egyptologist Dr. Mesmer resurrects a five-thousand-year-old mummy called Angor – a Pharaoh possessed with great mystical power. Together they set out to retrieve the missing items, bringing terror and destruction in their wake!

Can anybody stop them? Both the army and constabulary will need to work together in order to stop Dr. Mesmer and his unearthly ally! Spanish superstar artist Carlos Cruz (Dan Dare) and Donne Avenell (The Saint), bring you a complete tale of bandage-wrapped terror and mayhem!

Originally serialised in Lion and Thunder from 16th October 1971 - 21st October 1972.

128 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2019

Reviews

[Merl Fluin · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone ever asks me what is meant by the phrase "Surrealism's popular accomplices", I might just point them towards this volume. Lurid, ludicrous, chaotic, demented, convulsive, beautiful.

(I read the paperback edition, not the Kindle. I doubt you'd get the full impact of the artwork on a Kindle screen, though I might be wrong.)

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all the art is wonderful, full of that scratchy menace that so much Fleetway thrillers with a horror bent of the period have. It manages to look exotic yet also traditionally British, with enough horror thrills to propel the story ahead

And what a story. What a fucking story. Firstly, if we ignore the rather odd two part prequel which ends the book (which bizarrely also manages to make Mesmer look sympathetic and a dick simultaneously), it’s basically the story of an Egyptian relic obsessive whose house is burgled and ends up on a wildly unsuccessful revenge spree with a mummy of a king who he initially is rude to, then is deferential to for a couple of episodes and then just thinks “fuck it” and starts shouting at it, by which point the mummy is visibly broken by Mesmer and just rolls with it all

The plot feels a bit like a horror story written by a hyperactive seven year old, with not so much plot holes as huge gulfs of narrative weirdness spread throughout. Mesmer can apparently travel through time and happily brings a bunch of ancient Egyptians into the seventies for a bit but never thinks he can replace his stolen relics by collecting them from their origin point. This would have saved him SO MUCH BOTHER. His enemies are two policemen who seem to just decide they are the Mesmer squad and frankly just dump their other duties to chase a man who, lest we forget, only starts with all this nonsense because someone nicked his stuff

And there’s also a really weird sense that every town in this seventies Britain has some sort of Egyptian exhibit of some kind. Even a travel agents has some relics just lying about. There’s not only a mummy film that our mummy comically turns up to a screening of - sometimes this book feels like it’s actually a comedy, like some kind of Indiana Jones farce via Ray Cooney - but he also interrupts filming of ANOTHER one (and briefly runs amock on the set of a western that’s being made, one of precisely no westerns made in the U.K. ever that weren’t comedies). At one point the army get some bazookas out and destroy some priceless relics because one of the policemen has accidentally got himself floating down a sewer in a sarcophagus

I tell you, it’s absolute nonsense. One of the most ridiculous things I have ever read. None of it ever makes sense and it feels like the writer had zero attention span and was almost certainly making it up as he went along. All of this sounds like it’s terrible and it really isn’t. It’s gonzo surrealist comedy knockabout genius and I adored it. Probably the funniest thing I have read all year

[Alex Sarll]

The first panel makes sure we know we're in for a wild ride: a perfectly normal street in a Midlands suburb, except that one house is an ominous pyramid. By the second page, some crooks with very little knack for risk assessment are inside and pilfering Dr. Mesmer's collection of Egyptian relics; before the first installment is done, the mummified pharaoh Angor is being awoken from his ancient slumber to go after them. And if Angor doesn't seem a terribly Pharaonic name, well, that gives you some hint of how closely this adheres to Egyptological norms. Hell, it's not even that fussed about horror movie convention: beyond the usual implacable shambling and deadly embraces, Angor can also walk through walls and fire energy beams, and that's before he starts accumulating various occult and scientific power-ups (I particularly enjoyed the bit where he gets overcharged and can only dissipate the build-up by punching out a Routemaster). But why would he bother using intangibility to hide when it's much funnier to have him camouflage himself by standing in front of a horror film poster, or lose himself among the other bandaged figures in a hospital, or a fancy dress party? Not just the abilities, but Dr. Mesmer's goals, wobble furiously from one week to the next; it's very much the 'guy comes through the door with a gun' school of storytelling, except why limit yourself to guys and guns when it could be anything vaguely Egyptian-themed, the more batshit the better? Hell, in one side-story, he even varies the source, and if one might be tempted to put unpleasant constructions on the series' distinctly loose approach to Egyptian theology, maybe it helps that the one time it's still more flagrantly inaccurate - not to mention bringing in occult powers Mesmer ultimately admits are too risky even for him - is when it starts missing with the dark and ancient powers of - Devon! By the end, Mesmer has progressed from attempting to retrieve his stolen stuff to attempting to mummify the world with magic dust, and I began to wonder whether RTD might have seen this at a formative age. Either way, it's thoroughly entertaining nonsense.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the opener of this British comics collection, three hoods burgle eccentric Egyptologist Dr. Mesmer. Rather than trust to the law, Mesmer resurrects the Egyptian mummy Angor to hunt the thieves down, using his powers to phase through walls and blast people who get through his way.
The art is good but the story here is mediocre. Part of the problem is that the constable who first becomes aware of Mesmer soon becomes overshadowed by a police inspector — it would be more fun if the constable were fighting a lone battle. More generally, whatever the magic touch is that many Brit strips have for me, this one doesn't have it.

[Robbie Carnegie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great fun read - ambitious and irreverent

[Tilly Storr · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a stoater! Fun from start to finish. The artwork is supberb and the story fulfils every expectation. They don't come better than this!

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A straightforward idea that is fleshed out and extended. Dr. Mesmer is a great villain and the supernatural powers he gives the mummy are cool. I was surprised that it held up so well.
More euro comics!