Book excerpt: Readers of the first Fletcher Hanks volume―I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets―were stunned by its pop surrealism and outright violent mayhem. This larger second volume, when combined with the first, comprises the complete comics work of the heretofore forgotten Golden Age visionary. Fletcher Hanks was the first great comic book auteur. That is, he wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered all of his own stories. He completed an astonishing 48 stories in three years from 1939-1941. As a one-man-cartooning-band, his work packs the wallop of a unique and unified artistic vision. He was a true comics visionary. In the earliest days of the comic book, before censorship, it was “anything goes!”―and in the tales of Fletcher Hanks, anything went!