Spider-Man – Page 13 – Now Read This!

January 18, 2016January 17, 2016

Essential Amazing Spider-Man volume 7

By Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1879-4

After a shaky start in 1962 The Amazing Spider-Man quickly rebounded, soon proving a sensation with kids of all ages and rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Soon the quirky, charming, action-packed comicbook soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

You all know the story: Peter Parker was a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Discovering he had developed astonishing arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, finding, to his horror, that it was the selfsame felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help othersâ€¦

Since that night the Wondrous Wallcrawler has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

The Amazing Spider-Man was always a comicbook that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base and this seventh exceedingly enthralling monochrome compilation of chronological web-spinning adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero through one of the most traumatic periods of his career.

By the time of these tales Lee’s hand-picked successor Gerry Conway was giving way to fresher authorial hands. Nevertheless, scripts continued to blend contemporary issues (which of course often feel quite outdated from here in the 21st century, Man!) with soap opera subplots to keep older readers as glued to the series as the outrageous adventure and bombastic battle sequences beguiled the youngsters.

Thematically, there’s further decline in the use of traditional crimes and gangsters, overwhelmed by outlandish villains, monsters and capers, but the most sensational advance was a super-science plot which would reshape the nature of the web-spinner’s adventures for decades to comeâ€¦

Nevertheless the Wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth; defining being a teenager for young readers of the 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations.

High School nerd Peter Parker had grown up and gone to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggled there too, developed a stress ulcer but found true love with policeman’s daughter Gwen Stacyâ€¦

This volume, spanning November 1974 to September 1976, collects Amazing Spider-Man #138-160, Annual #10 and incorporates team-up tales from Giant-Size Spider-Man #4-5. Eagle-eyed completists might notice the third Giant-Size issue has been omitted: that’s because there the Wallcrawler met Doc Savage and Marvel no longer hold the license to publish the magnificent Man of Bronzeâ€¦

With no particular fanfare the action opens with Conway still very much in charge as ‘Madness Meansâ€¦ the Mindworm!’ – illustrated by Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt – finds Parker relocating downmarket to Queens in time to encounter a macabre psychic parasite feeding of the denizens of the district. Then issue #139 introduces a bludgeoning brute with a grudge against J. Jonah Jameson on the ‘Day of the Grizzly!’ When Spidey intervenes he is beaten and handed over to the costumed crazy’s silent partner the Jackal who melodramatically reveals he knows the hero’s true identity. Even though Peter escapes his diabolical trap in ‘â€¦And One will Fall!’ the maniac flees and remains at largeâ€¦

A long-running comedy thread ends as the ridiculous Spider-Mobile ends up in the river, but the Wallcrawler barely has time to care as an apparently dead enemy returns in #141’s ‘The Man’s Name Appears to beâ€¦ Mysterio!’

Despite the psychological assaults escalating and Pete continually questioning his own sanity, the mystery is solved in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff!’ before Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 (April 1975 and inked by Mike Esposito) which sees an eagerly-anticipated reappearance of Marvel’s most controversial antihero in an expanded role.

‘To Sow the Seed of Death’s Day’ finds the Webslinger forced into one of the Punisher‘s cases when ruthless arms dealer Moses Magnum perfects a lethal chemical-weapon and begins testing it on randomly kidnapped victims.

Tracking down the monster in ‘Attack of the War Machine!’, the unlikely comrades infiltrate his ‘Death-Camp at the Edge of the World!’ before summary justice is dispensedâ€¦ as much by fate as the heroes’ actionsâ€¦

The Lone Gunman was created by Conway, John Romita Sr. and Andru; an understandably muted response to popular prose anti-heroes like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner: the cutting edge of a bloody tide of fictive Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s.

Although one of the industry’s biggest hits from the late 1980s onwards, the compulsive vengeance-taker was an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comicbooks. His methods were always excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow or Wolverine come readily to mind) Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective; he never toned down or cleaned up his actâ€¦

That same month in Amazing Spider-Man 143 ‘â€¦And the Wind Cries: Cyclone!’ saw Peter in Paris to deliver a ransom for the kidnapped Jameson and battling a hyper-fast French super-villain. The story was average but the real kicker was the overly-fond farewell casual chum Mary Jane Watson expressed: a kiss that finally shifted traumatised, depressed Peter’s thoughts from his beloved and recently murdered Gwenâ€¦

Conway, Andru, Giacoia & Hunt capitalised on the situation when Pete returned as #144 launched ‘The Delusion Conspiracy’ and #145 exposed a baffled girl’s confusion and terror at everyone’s reactions when she comes home and the entire world screams ‘Gwen Stacy is Alive â€¦and, Wellâ€¦?!’

With Gwen somehow resurrected and Peter on the edge of a breakdown, Aunt May was hospitalised just in time for another old foe to strike again in ‘Scorpionâ€¦ Where is Thy Sting?’, but the real kick in the tale was irrefutable scientific reports which proved the increasingly bewildered Miss Stacy was not an impostorâ€¦

Giant-Size Spider-Man #5 (July 1975, inked by Esposito again) offers a strange yet welcome break from the mental tension as ‘Beware the Path of the Monster!’ sees Parker despatched to Florida to photograph the macabre Man-Thing only to discover the lethal Lizard is also loose and hunting ‘The Lurker in the Swamp!’ It takes all the web-spinner’s power and the efforts of a broken man in sore need of redemption to set things right in the climactic conclusion ‘Bring Back my Man-Thing to Me!’â€¦

Back in the Big Apple for #147, Peter finds some answers as further tests prove Gwen is a clone – remember, this was new and cutting-edge stuff in 1975 – but all too soon he’s distracted by another foe bad-guy with a grudge and hungry to prove ‘The Tarantula is a Very Deadly Beast’ (Andru, Esposito & Hunt).

It’s all part of a convoluted revenge scheme and the hero is ambushed by a mesmerised Gwen at the behest of an archfiend as ‘Jackal, Jackal, Who’s Got the Jackal?’ at last shares some shocking truths about one of Peter’s most trusted friends before the Delusion Conspiracy explosively concludes with #149’s ‘Even if I Live, I Die!’ (Andru & Esposito).

Learning he and Gwen had been cloned by their biology teacher Miles Warren, the Amazing Arachnid has to defeat his alchemical double in a grim, no-holds-barred identity-duel, with neither sure who’s the real McCoy. The battles eventually results in the copy’s deathâ€¦ maybeâ€¦

That moment of doubt over who actually fell informs anniversary issue Amazing Spider-Man #150, as Archie Goodwin, Gil Kane, Esposito & Giacoia take the hero down memory lane and up against a brigade of old antagonists to decide whether ‘Spider-Manâ€¦ or Spider-Clone?’ survived that final fight, before new regular scripter Len Wein joins Andru & John Romita Sr. to launch a new era of adventureâ€¦

After disposing of his duplicate’s corpse in an incineration plant, Spider-Man finds time to let Peter Parker reconnect with his long-neglected friends. However a jolly party is soon disrupted as blackouts triggered by a super-menace lead the Wallcrawler into the sewers for a ‘Skirmish Beneath the Streets!’, resulting in our hero almost drowning and nearly being ‘Shattered by the Shocker!’ (Andru, Esposito & Giacoia) in the conclusive return engagementâ€¦

A moving change-of-pace tale sees a blackmailed former football star give his all to save a child in ‘The Longest Hundred Yards!’ (Andru & Esposito) but it is left to Spider-Man to make the computer-crook culprits pay, after which #154 reveals ‘The Sandman Always Strikes Twice!’ (art by Sal Buscema & Esposito) – but with little lasting effect – until murder-mystery ‘Whodunnit!’ cunningly links three seemingly unconnected cases in a masterful â€œBig Revealâ€â€¦

A long-running romance-thread resulted in the oft-delayed wedding of Pete’s old flame Betty Brant to reporter Ned Leeds, but the nuptials are interrupted by a new costumed crook in ‘On a Clear Day, You Can Seeâ€¦ the Mirage’ (Andru & Esposito), even as a sinister hobo who had been haunting the last few yarns came fully into the spotlightâ€¦

Much of the previous Essential Spider-Man volume was taken up with a protracted struggle for control of New York with Spidey and elderly May Parker caught in the middle. The devilish duel concluded with a nuclear explosion and the seeming end of two major antagonists but #157 exposed ‘The Ghost Who Haunted Octopus!’ when the debased long-limbed loon turned to Aunt May for his salvation.

With Peter in attendance, the many-handed menace seeks to escape a brutal ghost but their combined actions actually liberate a pitiless killer from inter-dimensional limbo in ‘Hammerhead is Out!’, leading to a savage three-way showdown with Spidey ‘Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm-in-Arm with Doctor Octopus’ to save the horrified Widow Parkerâ€¦

A new insectoid arch-foe debuted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #10, courtesy of plotter Wein, scripter Bill Mantlo and artists Kane, Esposito & Giacoia as ‘Step into my Parlorâ€¦’ depicts obsessed Spider-hater Jameson hiring unscrupulous biologist Harlan Stilwell to create a tailor-made nemesis to eradicate the Wallcrawler.

Elsewhere that detested hero is breaking up a vicious hostage situation manufactured by psychotic Rick Deacon, but when the killer escapes and breaks into a certain lab he is rapidly transformed into a winged wonder-man hungry for payback on the web-spinner in ‘â€¦Said the Spider to the Fly!’

This copious compendium then concludes with the opening shot in an extended epic as a criminal inventor who is one of the web-spinner’s oldest enemies recovers Spidey’s ditched vehicle and tricks it out to hunt down its original owner if #160’s ‘My Killer the Car!’ (Wein, Andru & Esposito)â€¦

Despite some qualifications this is still a superb selection starring an increasingly relevant teen icon and symbol. Spider-Man at this time became a crucial part of many youngsters’ existence and did so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow.

Blending cultural veracity with glorious art whilst making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and sense of powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive prime time melodrama moments, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

The tales in this again proved Spider-Man was bigger than any creator and was well on the way to becoming as real as Romeo and Juliet, Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan.
Â© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2011 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 3, 2015December 2, 2015

Mighty Avengers volume 3: Secret Invasion Book 1

By Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, Koi Pham, John Romita Sr., Danny Miki, Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3010-9

Following the divisive and brutal superhero Civil War, Tony Stark (a staunch advocate of the draconian, nigh-totalitarian Super-Human Registration Act) formed a squad of Government-sanctioned heroes. His SHIELD-backed Mighty Avengers were designed to take care of business whilst he worked on his â€œFifty States Initiativeâ€, the objective of which was to eventually field teams of federally trained and licensed superheroes in every State of the Union.

Firstly, though, he had to restore public confidence, especially as the unregistered, rogue New Avengers continued to defy his orders to surrender to government authority: saving lives and crushing evil without his permission. Things never seemed to go Stark’s way however, and a series of catastrophic crises led inexorably to Earth succumbing to alien infiltration and conquest.

This seditious third volume is written throughout by Brian Michael Bendis and gathers Mighty Avengers #12-15 (June-August 2008), re-presenting some of the opening sallies in the major event dubbed Secret Invasion wherein the torturously unfolding plan by the shapeshifting Skrulls finally turns into a red-hot shooting war.

Since Fantastic Four #2 (January 1961), the Skrulls have been a pernicious cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of frustrating failure, the insidious intergalactic infiltrators were finally made the stars of a colossal braided crossover which ran from Spring to Christmas 2008 throughout all the company’s titles.

The premise? The aliens’ former all-encompassing empire had been crippled and scourged by a devastating catastrophe which destroyed much of their star-spanning power. Consequently the survivors underwent a mass fundamentalist-religious conversion: utterly resolved and dedicated to make Earth their new homeworld – just as their ancient scriptures foretoldâ€¦

To this end they imperceptibly replaced a number of Earth denizens – mostly superheroes, villains and/or their close associates. When the plot was finally exposed no defender of the Earth truly knew who was on their sideâ€¦

Moreover, the Skrulls had also unravelled the secrets of Earth magic and humanity’s unique genetics, creating legions of amped-up equivalents to the world’s mightiest heroes and villains. During this period they hid amongst us, primed and waiting to destroy mankind’s champions in head-to-head confrontations.

Not all Skrulls were fanatics however. Earth also harboured a few carefully hidden dissidents opposed to the new regime and non-fanatics simply unwilling to get properly involvedâ€¦

The mysteries start to unravel in the ‘The Awakening’ from #12-13 (illustrated by Alex Maleev) where a fugitive and closeted Nick Fury – on the run for manipulating an Avengers squad into attacking the sovereign state of Latveria – discovers his current squeeze is actually a shapeshifting alien. Taking the appropriate steps, he sneaks back into SHIELD to warn his replacement Maria Hill that she can trust no-oneâ€¦

Always playing a deeply convoluted game, he then contacts Spider-Woman – his mole in the Avengers, SHIELD and Hydra – to warn her of Skrull infiltration before activating his own plan B, gathering his long-cached cadre of super-powered non-entities and agents never on anybody’s radar. Then he sets all the pieces tumbling into turbulent motionâ€¦

The untitled issue #15 – illustrated by Khoi Pham & Danny Miki – returns focus to Stark’s Mighty Avengers team (field leader Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Sentry and Grecian war god Ares), all blithely going about their heroic business unaware that trusted major-domo Edwin Jarvis has been replaced by a high-ranking Skrull.

When the revelation day at last arrives the treacherous insider instigates a chilling plan to take incomprehensibly powerful superman Sentry out of action by attacking his mind and those he loves mostâ€¦

The campaign of terror concludes with a chilling flashback illustrated by John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson & Tom Palmer, revealing how a dedicated proponent of the Super-Human Registration Act, a key component of Iron Man’s Fifty States Initiative and Founding Avenger was long ago replaced by a Skrull. What that augurs for humanity, only the coming weeks and months can tellâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by Marko Djurdjevic and Bendis’ full script for issue #12 this slim tome offers another slick and stylish slice of breathtaking all-action entertainment which adds depth and weight to the impressive and appealing Secret Invasion main event but also reads perfectly well on its own merits.

Here is another Fights ‘n’ Tights â€œmust-readâ€ for insatiable thrill-chasers everywhere.
Â© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

November 26, 2015November 25, 2015

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 3

By Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Bill Kunkel, Gary Friedrich, Sal Buscema, John Byrne, Dave Wenzel, Kerry Gammill & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3068-0

The concept of team-up books – an established A-lister joining or battling (frequently both) less well-selling company co-stars – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of a new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those halcyon simpler times editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure and since super-heroes were actually in a decline at that time, they may well have been right.

Nevertheless when it launched in March 1972, Marvel Team-Up was the second official Spider-Man title (an abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man was created for the more respectable – and expensive – magazine market in 1968 but folded after two issues) and it immediately began bucking the downward trend for costumed crusaders.

Encompassing December 1976 to November 1978, this third mammoth monochrome Essential edition gathers the most consistently excellent period of the cathartic collaborations from Marvel Team-Up #52-73, 75 and includes the first Annual.

The thrills, spills and chills commence with ‘Danger: Demon on a Rampage!’: a rather rushed pairing of Spidey and Captain America from Gerry Conway, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito which saw the heroes unite to take down Gallic mercenary Batroc and an enraged monster that had slipped out of an adjacent dimension.

This is followed by an epic length adventure from Marvel Team-Up Annual #1 by Bill Mantlo, Buscema & Esposito (from a plot by Mantlo, Chris Claremont & Bonnie Wilford). ‘The Lords of Light and Darkness!’ featured Spider-Man and the then-newly minted and revived X-Men, Banshee, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, Phoenix and Cyclops helping Charles Xavier combat a pantheon of scientists mutated in an atomic accident and elevated to the ranks of gods.

Like most deities, the puissant ones believed they knew what was best for humanityâ€¦

Mantlo then teamed with John Byrne & Frank Giacoia to bring closure to a tale begun – and left hanging – in Marvel Premiere #31.

MTU #53 revealed a ‘Nightmare in New Mexico!’ as The Hulk met troubled and AWOL gene-splicing experiment Woodgod whilst the tragic construct fled from corrupt Army Colonel Del Tremens. By the time the Wallcrawler dropped in, the monstrous fugitives had joined forces leaving him a ‘Spider in the Middle!’ (with Esposito inks).

As Tremens tried to suppress the calamitous crisis and his own indiscretions by killing everybody, the final scene saw the Web-spinner trapped in a rocket and blasted into spaceâ€¦

Marvel Team-Up #55 found our ‘Spider, Spider on the Moon!’ (Mantlo, Byrne & Dave Hunt) as cosmic Avenger Adam Warlock intercepted the ship and joined the Web-spinner and mysterious alien The Gardner in battling the Stranger for possession of the Golden Gladiator’s life-sustaining Soul Gemâ€¦

Back on Earth but still a trouble-magnet, in #56 Spider-Man – assisted by Daredevil -faced ‘Double Danger at the Daily Bugle!’ (Mantlo, Sal B & Hunt) after Electro and Blizzard took the entire Newsroom hostage, after which Claremont came aboard as full scripter, starting a complex extended thriller embroiling the Wallcrawler in a deadly espionage plot which began ‘When Slays the Silver Samurai!’ (art by Sal Buscema & Hunt).

After being saved from a lethal ambush by the Black Widow, Spidey takes possession of a strange statuette but is diverted aiding Ghost Rider against The Trapster in ‘Panic on Pier One!’ (Pablo Marcos inks) before he can investigate further. Another distraction comes when MTU #59 declares ‘Some Say Spidey Will Die by Fireâ€¦ Some Say by Ice!’ (Claremont, Byrne & Hunt) as veteran Avenger Yellowjacket is apparently murdered by rampaging maniac Equinox, the Thermo-Dynamic Man and the Amazing Arachnid is hard-pressed to stop the traumatised Wasp exacting bloody vengeance in ‘A Matter of Loveâ€¦ and Death!’

The secret of the statuette is revealed in #61 as the Human Torch joins his arachnid frenemy in battle against Super-Skrull and learns ‘Not All Thy Powers Can Save Thee!’, before the furious clash escalates to include Ms Marvel in ‘All This and the QE2’â€¦

Despite the very best efforts of Claremont & Byrne their Kung Fu fantasy Iron Fist never achieved the kind of traction of their collaboration on the X-Men, and the living weapon lost his circulation battle with issue #15 of his own title. The series ended in spectacular fashion, but the cancellation was clearly unplanned, as two major subplots went unresolved: private detective Misty Knight had disappeared on an undercover assignment to investigate European gang-boss John Bushmaster and Danny was suffering repeated attacks on his chi by the mysterious Steel Serpentâ€¦

Frustrated fans didn’t have to wait long for a resolution though: Marvel Team-Up was becoming the creative team’s personal clearing house for unresolved plot-lines. Issues MTU #63 and 64 (November & December 1977) exposed the secret of the sinister K’un Lun exile on the ‘Night of the Dragon’ before Rand and Spidey – with the assistance of Daughters of the Dragon Misty Knight and Colleen Wing – ended the threat in blistering martial arts manner in ‘If Death Be My Destiny!’

After a short and sweet flurry of original adventures in his own UK title, Captain Britain eventually succumbed to the English version of funnybook limbo – his title subsumed by a more successful one with CB reduced to reprints. Soon after, he pyrrhically debuted across the water in ‘Introducing Captain Britain’ by originating scripter Claremont in Marvel Team-Up #65, illustrated by Byrne & Hunt.

The story portrayed Brian Braddock on student transfer to Manhattan as the unsuspecting house-guest of Peter Parker. Before long the heroes had met, fought and then teamed-up to defeat the flamboyant hit-man games-obsessed Arcade with the transatlantic tale concluding in #66 as the abducted antagonists systematically dismantled the maniac’s ‘Murderworld’.

The mystery of a long-vanished feline were-woman warrior was resolved in ‘Tigra, Tigra, Burning Bright!’ as the Webslinger was targeted by Kraven the Hunter, using the Feral Fury as his enslaved attack beast until Spider-Man broke her conditioning, after which Claremont, Byrne & Bob Wiacek explored ‘The Measure of a Man!’ in #68 as the Arachnid philanthropically returned the captive Man-Thing to his swamp habitat and encountered horrific demon D’Spayre torturing benevolent enchanters Dakimh and Jennifer Kale. It took every ounce of courage from both man and monster to defeat the dark lordâ€¦

A clash with Egyptian-themed thieves drew Spidey into the years-long duel between cosmic powered X-Man Havoc and his nemesis the Living Monolith in ‘Night of the Living God!’ (inked by Ricardo Villamonte), but when the battle turns against them it needs the might of Thor to stop the ravening astral menace in ‘Whom Gods Destroy!’ by Claremont, Byrne & Tony DeZuÃ±igaâ€¦

This epic clash signalled an end to the good times as MTU downshifted to short filler tales which began with #71 and ‘Deathgarden’ by Bill Kunkel, Dave Wenzel & Dan Green as Spider-Man and the Falcon rushed to secure an antidote from the perfidious Plantman for a poison killing Captain America whilst ‘Crack of the Whip!’ (Mantlo & Jim Mooney) found the Web-spinner and Iron Man battling Maggia stooges Whiplash and The Wraith, and in #73 Daredevil helped still ‘A Fluttering of Wings Most Foul!’ (Gary Friedrich, Kerry Gammill & Don Perlin) when the Owl set a trap for his most despised foesâ€¦

Due to contractual difficulties, Marvel Team-Up #74 – which featured a bizarre and hilarious pairing with TV’s Not-Ready-For-Primer-Time Players and Saturday Night Liveâ„¢ – has been omitted, but this collection of top-rate comics entertainment still end on a stellar high as Claremont, Ralph Macchio, Byrne & Al Gordon unite in tribute to the New York Fire Department with #75’s ‘The Smoke of That Great Burning!’ wherein Spider-Man and Luke Cage are caught up in a robbery and hostage crisis which soon turns into a major conflagrationâ€¦

This epic tome is padded out with an art-lover’s dream: a run of Marvel Tales covers (#193-199, 201-207, 235-236, 255, 262, 263) by the likes of Dave Cockrum, Todd McFarlane, Sam Kieth and others, plus the cover of Giant-Size Spider-Man #1, and it also includes info pages from the Marvel Universe Handbook on Black Widow, Captain Britain, Havok, Living Monolith, Silver Samurai and The Stranger.

These stories here are of variable quality – ranging from the barely acceptable to utterly superb – but all have an honest drive to entertain and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about.

Although not really a book for the casual or more maturely-oriented enthusiast, there’s tons of great Fights ‘n’ Tights action here and younger readers will have a blast, so why not consider this tome for your â€œMust-Haveâ€ libraryâ€¦
Â© 1976, 1977, 1978, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 23, 2015May 22, 2015

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 2

By Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, Ron Wilson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2173-3

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was an en bloc creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority mandates.

The concept of team-up books – an established star joining or battling (frequently both) less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch.

In those halcyon simpler times editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless Marvel Team-Up was the second official Spider-Man title (an abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man was created for the more respectable – and expensive – magazine market in 1968 but folded after two issues) when it launched in March 1972, and immediately began bucking the downward trend for costumed crusaders.

Spanning September 1974 to November 1976, this second Essentially mammoth monochrome compilation gathers the turbulent collaborations from Marvel Team-Up #25-51 plus a crossover tale from Marvel Two-In-One # 17 and opens with ‘Three into Two Won’t Go!’ (by Len Wein, Jim Mooney & Frank Giacoia) as Daredevil joins the Wondrous Wallcrawler in thrashing inept costumed kidnappers Cat-Man, Bird-Man and Ape-Man, after which MTU #26 finds the Torch and Thor battling to save the world from Lava Men in ‘The Fire This Time…’ by Wein, Mooney, Giacoia & Dave Hunt.

At this time, in a desperate effort to build some internal continuity into the perforce brutally brief encounters, the scripter introduced a shadowy trio of sinister observers with an undisclosed agenda who would monitor superhero episodes and eventually be revealed as providers of outrageous technologies for many of the one-shot villains who came and went so quicklyâ€¦

They weren’t involved when the Chameleon framed Spider-Man (again) and tricked the Hulk into freeing a man from the New York Men’s Detention Center for the most unexpected reason of all in #27’s ‘A Friend in Need!’ (Wein, Mooney & Giacoia), but did have a hand in ‘The City Stealers!’ (#28 by new regular creative team Gerry Conway, Mooney & Vince Colletta) when strange mechanoids swiped the island of Manhattan, forcing Spidey and Hercules (mostly Hercules) to drag it back to its original positionâ€¦

Marvel Team-Up #29 displays a far less amicable pairing as flaming kid Johnny Storm and patronising know-it-all Iron Man butt heads whilst tracking a seeming super-saboteur in ‘Beware the Coming of Infinitus! or How Can You Stop the Reincarnated Man?’

Spider-Man and The Falcon then find that ‘All That Glitters is not Gold!’ in #30 whilst tracking a mind-control drug back to its crazy concoctor Midas, the Golden Man before Mooney bowed out in MTU #31 as the Webspinner and Iron Fist experience time unravelling whilst battling reverse-aging Drom, the Backwards Man ‘For a Few Fists More!’

Conway and Colletta welcomed Sal Buscema aboard as penciller in #32 for a fiery collaboration between the Human Torch and Son of Satan who inflicted ‘All the Fires in Hellâ€¦!’ on a demon which had possessed Johnny’s pal Wyatt Wingfoot and assorted fellow members of his Native American Keewazi tribe.

The search for continuity continued in #33 when Spider-Man and Nighthawk acrimoniously tackle raving mega-nutcase Norton Fester – who had forgotten he had super strength – in ‘Anybody Here Know a Guy Named Meteor Man?’

Whilst Nighthawk was happy to drop the case at the earliest opportunity, his Defenders comrade Valkyrie was ready to step in and help Spidey finish off the looney Looter, but they both missed the real threat: mutant demagogue Jeremiah, Prophet of the Lord, who had acquired Fester’s home to house his mind-controlled cult of human psychic batteries in ‘Beware the Death Crusade!’

The latter maniac’s predations were ended in Marvel Team-Up #35 when the Torch and Doctor Strange saved Valkyrie from becoming a sacrifice in the zealot’s deranged ‘Blood Church!’ whilst in #36 Spider-Man was kidnapped and shipped off to Switzerland by assuredly insane Baron Ludwig Von Shtupf, who proclaimed himself The Monster Makerâ€¦

‘Once Upon a Time, in a Castleâ€¦’ the bonkers biologist wanted to pick-&-mix creature traits and had already secured The Frankenstein Monster to practise on, but after the Webslinger busts them both out and they stumble upon sexy SHIELD Agent Klemmer their rapid counterattack goes badly wrong after Von Shtupf unleashes his other captive – the furiously feral Man-Wolf – and only big Frankie can prevent a wave of ‘Snow Death!’

As new creative team Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito take over, the Amazing Arachnid is back in the USA for issue #38, meeting The Beast and barely surviving the ‘Night of the Griffin’ when the former X-Man’s constantly-evolving manmade monster foe goes on a ruthless murder spreeâ€¦

Another extended epic begins when Spider-Man and the Torch are simultaneously targeted by supposedly deceased archenemies Crime-Master and The Big Man in #39’s ‘Any Number Can Slay!’ The masked mobsters are fighting for control of the city and each has recruited their own specialist meta-thugs – Sandman and The Enforcers respectively – but the shady double-dealers are all utterly unprepared for the intervention of mystic martial arts mavens The Sons of the Tiger in #40’s ‘Murder’s Better the Second Time Around!’â€¦

Mantlo and Buscema then undertook a truly impressive and ambitious epic with a time-&-space spanning multi-parter which saw the Amazing Arachnid visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows beginning with ‘A Witch in Time!’ in Marvel Team-Up #41.

The opening instalment saw mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch abducted by infamous witch-hunter Cotton Mather who used Doctor Doom‘s time machine to drag her back to Salem in 1692. Her plight was observed by Spider-Man who naturally followed but he failed to save her and was himself accused of infernal sorcery in that rabid Massachusetts townâ€¦

Whilst Mather fanned hysterical flames of paranoia, the Avenger’s synthezoid husband time-travelled to her side in #42’s ‘Visions of Hate!’, only to fall before the witch-finder’s mysterious power too. As the innocents of Salem prepare themselves for death, the heroes make their escape but fall to Mather’s hitherto unseen benefactor The Dark Rider.

Just as the master manipulator reveals himself however the stakes change again when a severely affronted Doctor Doom appears angrily demanding to know who’s been playing with his toys in #43’s ‘A Past Gone Mad!’

The frantic battle against an immortal chronal predator seems predestined to fail until the time-tides are unexpectedly turned in MTU #44 with the last-minute arrival of mind-goddess Moondragon but in the aftermath Spider-Man tragically discovers that history is well-nigh impossible to alter in ‘Death in the Year Before Yesterday!’

The Arachnid is the last to return to the 20^th century but his departure in issue #45 results in deadly diversions and ‘Future-Shock!’ as he lands in devastated (alternate future) New York City 2019 where Warrior of the Worlds Killraven helps him survive numerous attacks by mutants and Martians in terrifying tripods before sending him back on his way home..

Unfortunately before he gets there the Wallcrawler experiences another shocking stopover in ‘Am I Now or Have I Ever Been?’, with cyborg warrior Deathlok saving him from a mutant hive-mind in a Manhattan shattered by war a mere fifteen years after his own lost and longed-for eraâ€¦

A scared, sad and sobered Spider-Man finally makes it home in Marvel Two-In-One #17 just in time for a crossover with The Thing. That blockbuster opens with ‘This Cityâ€¦ Afire!’ by Mantlo, Sal B & Esposito where, after battling beside Ka-Zar in the Savage Land, big Ben Grimm is ignominiously returned to the Big Apple by mutated madman Basilisk who has created an erupting volcano in the Hudson Riverâ€¦

Already reeling, Spidey swings into action for the cataclysmic conclusion in Marvel Team-Up #47 where Mantlo, Ron Wilson & Dan Adkins render the spectacular clash of heroes who boldly proclaim ‘I Have to Fight the Basilisk!’

MTU #48 begins another suspenseful extended saga when ‘Enter: the Wraith!’ (Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito) introduces Police Captain Jean DeWolff as Spidey and Iron Man struggle to stop a mad bomber using model planes to destroy city landmarks and Stark International properties. As the heroes fruitlessly pursue leads, the enigmatic Wraith turns his attention upon them and proves to be not only connected to Jean but some kind of psionic metahumanâ€¦

With Iron Man again the guest-star, issue #49 reveals that ‘Madness is All in the Mind!’ as the masked maniac resumes his irresistible psychic assaults and explosive attacks on New York and the tragic story of Jean’s Police Commissioner dad and murdered cop brother comes out.

However the connection between them and the unstoppable villain are only exposed after the Webslinger recruits Master of Mystic Arts Doctor Strange to apply his unique gifts to the problem in #50’s ‘The Mystery of the Wraith!’

The saga and this character-packed compilation conclude with Marvel Team-Up #51 and ‘The Trial of the Wraith!’ by a most unusual panel of judges whose hidden abilities are not enough to prevent one last crack of the whip by the unrepentant renegadeâ€¦

These stories and illustration of these tales are of variable quality – frankly ranging from just plain daft to utterly gripping – but all have an honest drive to entertain and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about.

Although not really a book for the casual or more maturely-oriented enthusiast there’s lots of fun on hand and younger readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your libraryâ€¦
Â© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

April 26, 2015April 24, 2015

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man by Brian Bendis volume 4

By Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, David Marquez, Justin Ponsor & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-6503-3

When the Ultimate Spider-Man died, writer Brian Michael Bendis and Marvel promised that a new hero would arise from the ashesâ€¦

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of 21^st century readers – apparently a wholly different demographic from us baby-boomers and our descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Leeâ€¦ or perhaps just those unable or unwilling to deal with five decades (seven if you include Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Of course the darkly nihilistic new universe soon became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 cleansing exercise â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which killed dozens of super-humans and millions of mere mortals in a devastating tsunami that inundated Manhattan courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the months that followed, plucky Peter Parker and his fellow meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world, but just as Spider-Man finally gained a measure of acceptance and was hailed a hero by the masses, he took a bullet for Captain America and very publicly met his end during a catastrophic super-villain showdown â€¦

In the aftermath, child prodigy Miles Morales gained suspiciously similar powers (super-strong and fast and able to walk up walls, plus invisibility and a crippling â€œvenom-chargeâ€) and started out on the same deadly learning curve: coping with astounding new physical abilities, painfully discovering the daily costs of living a life of lies and realising how a crippling sense of responsibility is the most seductive method of self-harm and worst of all of possible gifts.

He was helped and hindered in equal amounts by his uncle Aaron: a career super-criminal dubbed The Prowler. Things started to go spiral out of control the night Aaron Davis died in battle with the new arachnid hero in town, but now – months later – the repercussions of the televised event have finally caught up with the boy who would be Spider-Manâ€¦

Written throughout by Bendis, this luxurious hardcover collection (re-presenting Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #16.1 and #19-25, from December 2012 to June 2013) finds the juvenile wall-crawler recovering in the aftermath of a second War Between the States.

That internecine conflict almost destroyed the Republic but has left the traumatised public in no mood to tolerate mysteries or put up with unexplained and potentially dangerous characters and vigilantes.

The action opens with jump-on tale ‘Point One’ (illustrated by David Marquez

from Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #16.1) wherein unscrupulous reporter Betty Brant uses her considerable investigative skills to establish a link between The Prowler, the second Spider-Man, the genetic experiments of Norman Osborn and a guy named Morales.

As she digs deeper and follows the brief career of the new hero, Betty not only uncovers the remains of the genegineered spider which transformed Miles, but also learns far more than she should have from disgraced Oscorp biochemist Dr. Conrad Marcus, as well as engendering the unwelcome interest of scientific monolith Roxxon Industries and a brutal, relentless monstrosityâ€¦

The main event is 4-part epic ‘Venom War’ (art by Sara Pichelli) which opens in the days following the civil war. Child prodigy Miles and best-bud/superhero trainer Ganke are back at Brooklyn Visions Academy Boarding School. Miles spends only weekends at home, and now he and his confidante are eagerly attempting to master Peter Parker‘s web-fluid formula and wrist-shooters which the inexperienced hero has recently inherited.

As a mysterious monster raids and wrecks Roxxon’s HQ, in Manhattan homicide cop and ex-SHIELD agent Mariah Hill is investigating the bloody murder of a journalist. Her interviews at the Daily Bugle all lead her to the Davis/Morales home in Brooklyn.

Marcus’ dad Jefferson Davis has become an involuntary and extremely camera-shy celebrity because of his stand against the secessionist organisation Hydra. When a film crew bursts into the family home he understandably goes ballistic and kicks them to the kerb, but his fury is futile in the face of the towering, metamorphic horror known as Venom, which chooses that moment to attack the person it accuses of being Spider-Manâ€¦

The next chapter opens seconds later as the beast lunges, and in the family home Miles suits up and springs into battleâ€¦

The clash is savage and terrifying. As the TV parasites carry on filming, Jefferson joins the severely overmatched Spider-Man only to be smashed and broken like a bugâ€¦

The Arachnid kid goes crazy but his best efforts – and the fusillade of shots from the just- arrived cops – are useless. Only after the shattered lad employs his devastating venom blasts does he succeed in driving off the amorphous atrocityâ€¦

The shocking struggle has been broadcast all over the world. Elsewhere in Brooklyn two girls cherished by the original web-spinner immediately drop what they’re doing and rush to the scene of the battleâ€¦

Many months previously, as part of the crowd of grateful strangers attending Peter Parker’s memorial, Miles and Ganke had talked to another mourner, a girl who was intimate with the murdered hero. Gwen Stacy offered quiet insights to the boy child who had just acquired his powers and then altered the course of his life forever by sharing a simple mantra: â€œwith great power comes great responsibilityâ€â€¦

Now she and Mary Jane Watson arrive at the crime scene ready to share their experience in keeping secrets just as attending detective Mariah Hill reaches the conclusion that the shell-shocked boy crying on the stairs is Spider-Manâ€¦

His mother Rio Morales is in the ambulance taking Jefferson to hospital and Miles is in no state to fend off questions from an experienced SHIELD interrogator or even speak to his equally traumatised buddy Ganke, but Gwen and Mary Jane certainly are and quickly shut down the situation and terminate the interview.

As they explain all the ghastly secrets of the Venom monster and its connection to the Parker family, speculation leads the youngsters to the idea that maybe the genetic quirk which made Peter Spider-Man might be repeated in the Morales familyâ€¦

Deep below their feet the shapeshifting symbiote is reconstituting. Soon it breaks out of the sewers to again consume human hosts. The consciousness in charge of the marauding terror hasn’t given up its search for Spider-Man and is all too quickly bursting into the hospital where Rio is waiting for word on her husbandâ€¦

The shocking conclusion begins with news of the assault reaching Miles. Hill, convinced she is right, gives Miles crucial advice for the battle she knows his coming. By the time Spider-Man reaches the medical centre Venom is carving a bloody swathe through the patients and doctors and the consequent clash is terrifying to behold.

With bodies falling everywhere Miles eventually finds a grotesque and dreadful way to stop the beast and expose the villain within, but in the aftermath realises that the awful cost has been another person he lovesâ€¦

As the ruthless boss of Roxxon now makes Spider-Man his only priority, in Brooklyn Miles wakes from a deep sleep and realises his life has changed forever. At last he understands the horror and tragedy which underpins the legend of Spider-Man. This time though, the response to a death in the family is not guilty defiance and an urge to make things right, but a crushing, total surrenderâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by Sara Pichelli, this is a tense, breathtaking action-packed, thriller full of the humour and drama which blessed the original Lee/Ditko tales: a controversial but worthy way to continue and advance the legend that Fights ‘n’ Tights addicts will admire and adoreâ€¦ Â© 2012, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

March 14, 2015March 13, 2015

Spider-Man Noir book 2: Eyes Without a Face

By David Hine & Carmine Di Giandomenico, with June Chung (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4450-2

When fictional heroes and villains become really popular – to the point where fans celebrate their births and deaths and dress up like them at the slightest opportunity or provocation – eventually a tendency develops to explore other potential character facets that the regular, cash-cow continuity might normally prohibit.

DC invented a whole company sub-strand of â€œImaginary Storiesâ€ and Marvel asked â€œWhat Ifâ€¦?â€, sharing glimpses of alternate realities. Even television series got into the act with shows like Star Trek, Roswell and Stargate SG-1 offering coolly jarring, different takes on their established stars and scenarios.

The nasty little gem of alternate continuity on view today stems from Marvel’s intriguing experiment of 2009 wherein many of their biggest stars were reconfigured and set back in time: populating a universe drenched in the tone, lore and ephemera of pulp fiction and Film Noir. This iconic 1930s milieu was a grim and grimy land where shiny gleaming super-powered heroes were replaced by stark, paranoid, deeply flawed and self-serving individuals just trying to get by as best they couldâ€¦

Spider-Man Noir: Eyes Without a Face is a sequel to an initial â€œoriginâ€ yarn and benefits from not having to explain or differentiate the so-similar seeming stars from the bastions of the regular continuity.

It ran as a 4-issue miniseries from February to May 2010, offering a glimpse into a moody world with no heroes, only varying shades of villainy. Nevertheless it still provides a satisfying slice of suspenseful entertainment for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans in search of something genuinely edgier than their regular fare. After all, the big draw for the jaded is that these folks might actually die and stay that wayâ€¦

What You Need to Know: living in Depression-era New York City, the nephew of liberal activists Ben and May Parker was bitten by a strange tropical spider, developing rather strange attributes. The hot-headed radical used those newfound abilities and the files of reporter/extortionist Ben Urich to bring down the corrupt Mayor and his audacious criminal partner Norman Osborn AKA The Goblin.

Sadly the clearing-out of the town’s most powerful individuals only allowed a whole new echelon of murderous scum to come to the fore.

Now a junior photojournalist for the crusading Daily Bugle, Peter Parker moonlights as the trench-coated, wall crawling mystery man dubbed the Spider-Man, striving to keep the streets clean and give the little guys a break in an uncaring world of callous giantsâ€¦

It all begins ‘Around Midnight’ in September 1933. The Spider-Man has prowled the dark streets for eight months but despite his best efforts crime is still rampant. Local Bureau of Investigation Chief Agent Jean De Wolfe is running out of informants as new underworld supremo Crime Master exerts growing control over the mobs, aided by his taciturn enforcer â€œThe Sandmanâ€.

When the Arachnid Avenger discovers a theatre full of slaughtered crooks he heads straight for his paramour and occasional ally Felicia Hardy, hopeful that she’s overheard something at her Black Cat Nightclub – a speakeasy regarded as neutral territory by crooks and cops alike.

She is less than forthcomingâ€¦ at least with informationâ€¦

Heading home to the Bowery Welfare Center in the grey morning light, Peter meets old friend and fellow agitator Robbie Robertson. The hothead is sounding off about new President Franklin Roosevelt and questioning how his proposed New Deal reforms will affect the situation of black people in Americaâ€¦

The brilliant and passionate young man works for the city’s segregated newspaper The Negro World and knows how things really work. Furthermore, Robbie shares with his old marching comrade suspicions that the government have something covert going on with prominent biologist Dr. Otto Octavius on Ellis Island. Being â€œa colouredâ€, Robbie has been refused an interview. Perhaps Peter could use his Bugle credentials to facilitate the matter?

Three days later the journalists are being greeted – albeit with exceeding different degrees of warmth – by the researcher’s assistant Curtis Connors before being ushered into a lab where wheelchair-bound and severely handicapped Octavius is finishing up appallingly sadistic experiments on a number of primatesâ€¦

As they return to Manhattan, Robertson declares that something even worse is going on and resolves to go back for a look without the scientist’s Aryan-seeming minders tagging along. He doesn’t share his suspicions that the doctor’s passion for mind-control surgeries might be connected to a rash of disappearances of black citizens from Harlemâ€¦

‘Night Music’ follows escalating gang conflict as Crime Master tightens his stranglehold on the mobs and the Spider-Man spectacularly raids Harlem nightspot Seventh Heaven to discover what manager Fat Larry claims is just a faked-up dungeon room for clients with â€œexotic tastesâ€. It smells like the real thing to Peterâ€¦

Later, as Parker gloats over his first scoop for the Bugle, Robbie’s dad comes knocking. His proud, brilliant, too-inquisitive boy has gone missingâ€¦

Introducing his prospective daughter-in-law Gloria, the elder Robertson explains Robbie had been looking into reports of missing blacks and a possible white supremacy movement in New York. He was especially concerned about inroads into the government and possible links to Nazi Germanyâ€¦

Having been roundly abused by the police when they tried to report him missing, the desperate family have come to Peter hoping he might have an idea.

He has only one and immediately rushes out to a nightclub in Harlem.

Elsewhere in town Octavius’ supplier of raw material and suitable test subjects is being carpeted by his clandestine backer Josef Ansell. Crime Master has no interest in the theories of the American Nazi party but revels in the power of his new position. He is not happy to hear his boss screaming over his performance and failure to deal with the Spider-Man.

Later, in the devil’s doctor’s fortress of obscene science, Octavius and Josef debate theories of racial purity and controlling the sub-human races through the creepily dispassionate butcher’s radical new surgical discovery. Today we call it lobotomisingâ€¦

Berlin favours simply eradicating the lower orders but Octavius is convinced his scheme is better. Surely it’s more economically sensible to simply remove the capacity for rebellion and employ the sub-humans as tractable, ever-obedient slaves?

Considering the argument won he turns his attention back to Robbie, trussed up but awake on an operating tableâ€¦

The Spider-Man, meanwhile, has reached Seventh Heaven to check out that dungeon again only to walk into a trap. Leading the overconfident army of thugs are Crime Master and his hulking Sandman, a brute seemingly oblivious to pain or injuryâ€¦

Acting on a tip, De Wolfe and his team break in just in time to save the ambushed arachnoid from being beaten to death. As ‘Blues in the Night’ further unfolds, the battered vigilante shares his knowledge of the Negro disappearances and profound belief that Otto Octavius is behind them.

Still reeling, Peter then goes to Felicia for comfort and medical assistance but she can’t minister to him for long. She has a very important client coming who doesn’t like to share. However when she inadvertently questions her mystery high-roller about the Harlem abductions she tips her hand and the Crime Master sadistically makes her regret nosing into his businessâ€¦

With his shielding veils of respectability and political secrecy tearing all around him, Josef frantically prepares to up stakes and relocate to somewhere more isolated and less troublesome like Tuskegee, Alabama, but the vengeful Arachnid is already deep within the Ellis Island facility and has seen what’s been done to Robbieâ€¦

The horrific pot of bubbling hatreds boil over in ‘Endless Night’ as obsessed Octavius rails against his backers whilst Crime Master and his goons ignore his protestations and get rid of the â€œlivestockâ€ and evidence of the doctor’s â€œscientific breakthroughsâ€.

By the time the Spider-Man joins the fight the supremacist thug and theoretician have almost killed each other but that doesn’t prevent the outraged avenger exacting his own measure of vengeanceâ€¦

If he had known what Crime Master had left of Felicia, The Spider-Man might not have gone so easy on the monstersâ€¦

Bleak, gutsy, galvanising and trenchantly effective, this excellent period thriller by scripter David Hine & illustrator Carmine Di Giandomenico offers a stunningly suspenseful serving of dark drama and gripping action which would work equally well even if you had never heard of Marvel’s wondrous wallcrawler.

This pocketbook sized collection also includes a covers gallery by Di Giandomenico with variants by Dennis Calero as well as original art pages of variant options, inked art shot prior to the digital colouring stage and an extended script excerpt by Hine & Fabrice Sapolsky from issue #1, illustrated with character design sketches by Di Giandomenico.
Â© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 27, 2014June 17, 2014

House of M

By Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1721-6

When mutant Avenger the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision they conceived – through the agency of magic and Wanda Maximoff”s undiagnosed ability to reshape reality – twin boys.

Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real and, as the years passed, the shock of that revelation slowly drove her insane.

After tipping completely over the edge Wanda engineered the destruction of her other family – the vast and varied assemblage of the Avengers – orchestrating the death of her former husband and some of their oldest friends.

The World’s Mightiest Heroes were shut down and rebooted in a highly controversial storyline known as Avengers Disassembled, which resulted in the formation of both The New and Young Avengers. That publishing event also spilled over into the solo titles of team members and affiliated comicbooks such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man, which all ran parallel story-arcs to accompany the main attraction.

The tale told of the worst day in the Avenger’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest companions and causing the destruction of everything they held dear. The chaos-storm was only ended when mystic master Doctor Strange and mutant patriarch Charles Xavier took the dazed and crazed Wandainto their personal protective care.

This follow-up company crossover conjunction – by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel & Tim Townsend and released originally and primarily as an 8-issue miniseries from August to November 2005 – saw reality rewritten again when Wanda apparently had another major lapse in concentration; reformatting history such that Homo Superior now dominated a society where mere humans (â€œsapiensâ€) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

Moreover her true father Magneto ruled the mutants; regal head of a glorious dynasty which exerted political control over the entire planet.

It took a dedicated band of heroes and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle, but the repercussions of the repair job were both profound and world-changingâ€¦

Re-presenting the core fortnightly miniseries House of M, and The Pulse: Special Edition, this collection also contains covers and variants by Esad Ribic, Joe Quesada & Danny Miki, Terry & Rachel Dodson, John Cassaday, Brandon Peterson, Mike McKone, Greg Land & Matt Ryan, Salvador Larroca, Chris Bachalo, Joe Madureira, Tim Townsend & Olivier Coipel, and The Pulse – an inspired 12 page faux issue of M-world’s top mutant gossip mag, which offers engaging and pertinent snippets of congruent stories in other titlesâ€¦

Following a handy scene-setting recap page the drama begins in devastated former mutant homeland Genosha, where Xavier is at last forced to admit that his psychic surgeries are not helping Wanda.

The desire to restore her non-existent children is too strong and the traumatised Scarlet Witch constantly tinkers with reality to make her dreams real. After much impassioned debate with her despondent father Magneto and brother Quicksilver, Professor X finally weighs up the horrific potential consequences and considers other optionsâ€¦

Meanwhile in New York Wonder Man, Ms. Marvel and The Falcon visit the New Avengers at Stark Tower preparatory to the latest assemblage going public. Thus they are on hand when the X-Men come calling: rallied by Xavier to discuss the final fate and disposition of the Scarlet Witch.

In Genosha her father and brother argue on: one seeing no option but the final sanction and the other determined that Wanda must not die.

Opinion is just as divided amongst Avengers and X-Men. Unable to reach a decision, the huge group opt to visit Wanda and try to get through to her one last time.

By the time they reach Genosha she has vanished. Fearing the world might end at any second they frantically search until they are all consumed by a blinding lightâ€¦

The second chapter begins in a very different New York, where decrepit nonagenarian war hero Steve Rogers draws a well deserved pension, millionaire celebrity Peter Parker, his wife Gwen, son Richie and close relatives May and Ben Parker all live in lofty luxury and teeming billions of mutants run the world, safeguarded and policed by colossal robotic Sentinelsâ€¦

All the heroes who sought out the Witch now live perfect lives that match their deepest, most secret hearts’ desires, but there is a painful undercurrent of tension amongst the rapidly declining, soon to be extinct Homo Sapiensâ€¦

Wolverine awakes screaming. His greatest desire has always been to recover his lost memories: destroyed and discarded by more than a century of brainwashing, mind-wiping and intervention by a succession of sinister enemies. As consciousness returns he remembers everything.

Especially how a moment ago the world was completely differentâ€¦

In this new universe he is leader of an elite team of mutant peacekeepers. The Red Guard are the prime enforcers of the House of M and agents of the Royal Family of Magneto: de facto rulers of Earth.

Appalled he leaps from the ominous floating aircraft carrier dominating New York and plunges to Earthâ€¦

Healing factor in overdrive he then lurches through the streets of the city searching for Xavier and a solution to this insurmountable problem. Hard on his heels are his former subordinates in the Red Guard, all convinced their formerly ruthlessly rational commander has gone crazy.

In his frantic flight, the desperate fugitive stumbles into other-world old comrade Luke Cage who is, in this place, a cunning gangster leading a band of human rebels fighting mutant oppression. Shockingly, amongst his motley crew is masked archer Hawkeye – one of the cruellest casualties of the Scarlet Witch’s first killing spreeâ€¦

Playing with his grandchild in the idyllic paradise of Genosha, Magneto is unaccountably troubled at the perfection of his existence even as, in New York, Sentinels track and attack Cage’s â€œHuman Avengersâ€. Thanks to teleporter Cloak, Wolverine and a few of the gang escape, taking with them a strange little girl named Layla Miller.

She is a mutant and amongst her arcane and undisclosed power-set is the ability to reawaken a person’s memories of the world Wanda overwroteâ€¦

Convinced Magneto used his crazy daughter to remake the world to his advantage, Wolverine is exultant to have a weapon to offset all the dictator’s advantages and with Cage begins tracking down and restoring former allies.

The game plan remains unchanged: find Xavier and use his telepathic powers to force the Witch to restore the real world.

In Genosha, meanwhile, Magneto again finds himself drawn to the simple tomb of his greatest friend and occasional enemy Charlesâ€¦

The next stage in Wolverine’s campaign is to use his now restored and grimly determined Avenger and X-Men allies to take control of the Helicarrier dominating New York, piloting it to Genosha and engaging the House ofÂ M’s forces as Layla works her own special mutant magic and reawakened mystic master Stephen Strange attempts to deal with Wandaâ€¦

Throughout the horrifying ordeal everybody involved has assumed that Magneto made his daughter reorder reality to suit his dark ambitions, but the magician’s confrontation shockingly reveals a different hand and motive behind the grand change and, as the universe begins to unravel once more, the appalled and furious Master of Magnetism unleashes his own power against the traitor who betrayed his friends, family, species and planetâ€¦

â€¦And at the heart of the chaos and carnage Wanda Maximoff, whether at the peak of her madness or in a chilling moment of clarity, utters three little words.

â€œNo more Mutantsâ€â€¦

Dawn breaks on New York City and all the battered participants at the centre of the apocalyptic struggle awake in their own – as far as they know – proper beds. For those that remember, the world seems back to its true state, but when the shell-shocked protagonists gather together to compare notes they realise some things don’t jibe.

Wolverine still has all the memories of his long and previously clouded life; Wanda has utterly vanished again; there is evidence that Hawkeye might be alive again and, most unbelievable of all, the almost one million members of the mutant sub-species are now just humanâ€¦

Across the Earth less than 200 super-powered Homo Superior remain. Governments are scrabbling to process the fact and form policies whilst the pedagogues of the religious right claim God has smitten the unclean and exhort decent – human – men and women to finish the good workâ€¦

Scientist Henry Pym has an even more chilling warning. Reminding us of Einstein’s dictum â€œEnergy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to anotherâ€, he ominously ponders on where all the powers, radiations and assorted exotic energies formerly wielded by the ex-mutant population have goneâ€¦

Although Marvel continuity was skilfully interwoven throughout the event, this particular tale stands alone perfectly without any need to refer to the many attendant miniseries: offering an engaging, fast-paced thriller brimming with tension and stuffed with bombastic spectacle.

House of M is an action-packed, spectacular adventure that will delight lovers of epic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy and beguile casual readers looking for an easy but enthralling entry into the madcap world of Costumed Dramas.
Â© 2005, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 5, 2014December 4, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man: The Parker Luck

By Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Joe Caramagna, Humberto Ramos, Javier Rodriguez, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Chris Eliopoulos, Victor Olazaba & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

ISBN: 978-1-84653-612-0
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a classic return and reinvention â€¦ 8/10

Outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s neglect his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need.

For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foeâ€¦

In 2013 Amazing Spider-Man #700 saw all that was Peter die when Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind was locked into the villain’s expiring body where, despite his every effort, at the last apparently Parker perished with and within that decrepit frame.

Installed in a strong and vital body, the coldly calculating Doctor Octopus began living his enemy’s life, albeit with some minor but most necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements: arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Manâ€¦

Octavius’ monomania proved hard to suppress and the overwritten webspinner was driven to prove himself a better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spying â€œSpiderbotsâ€ to patrol â€œhisâ€ city, adding advanced tech and new weaponry to his uniform and, most importantly, acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as his predecessor hadâ€¦

Arrogant Otto went back to college because he refused to live his stolen life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson. The ultra-efficient new Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the hero – all but adopting the Astounding Arachnid as his deputy – but the situation could not last.

As Spider-Man ambitiously extended his campaign of 21^st century crime-fighting â€œParkerâ€ won a doctorate and opened his own tech company whilst entering into a romance with brilliant college Teaching Assistant Anna Maria Marconi.

The self-appointed guardian increasingly monitored his metropolis through the electronic eyes of millions of spiderbots from his citadel on the renamed Spider Island II, but when resurgent criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) tried to take over the city with his Goblin Army Cult the resultant clash gave the dormant but indomitable personality of Peter Parker a chance to fight free.

Dramatically reclaiming his body and place in the world he ended the Goblin threat but not before the immense destruction trashed his good name and reputation with the people he had savedâ€¦

Moreover, now that he’s back Peter still he has to deal with all the incredible changes in his personal life created by his gone-but-not-forgotten foeâ€¦

Scripted by Dan Slott and illustrated by Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba, The Parker Luck collects issues #1-6 of Amazing Spider-Man volume 3 (cover-dated June-November 2014), delivering a bold fresh start that begins with a revised view of the hero’s origin in ‘Lucky to be Alive’.

It turns out that when that fateful radioactive spider attacked the nerdy science student thirteen years previously it didn’t die immediately. In fact it managed to sink its fangs into another youngster before expiringâ€¦

Back in the present the reinvigorated Spider-Man is back in the swing of things and having the most embarrassing day of his life. Attempting to capture The Menagerie (a gang of fauna-themed thieves comprising White Rabbit, Hippo, Pandamania and Skein) the hero barely manages to incapacitate them before the fabric-dissolving felon previously known as Gypsy Moth disintegrates his costumeâ€¦

Although he is quick enough to rescue his identity-shielding mask he’s far too late to save his dignity, and the world – thanks to the magic of camera phones and the internet – gets to see far more of the hero than they might have wanted. Luckily he had presence of mind enough to use his webbing to whip up a pair of modesty preserving (sort of) silk pantsâ€¦

Heading back to the apartment he doesn’t remember buying, Parker finds Anna Marie waiting. He’s been trying to find a way to end their engagement but although she’s already found his â€œdump the girlfriendâ€ notes she has other things on her mind now.

Watching the battle against the Menagerie online she saw something only she might recognise and realised her boyfriend was Spider-Man.

She was still at this point utterly unaware that she had actually fallen for Otto Octavius in that distinctive if borrowed body, and the man currently in her life quite sensibly considered her to be a complete stranger.

Unable to dissuade her from her conclusions, Peter comes clean and gains a new – if now strictly platonic – ally.

Barely in time too, as the webbing he used to save the world’s blushes had been previously improved by Ock and just won’t dissolve like his old formulation used toâ€¦

Immediately prior to his cascade of crises, Peter had held his first press conference as the boss of a major tech company and officially severed the outfit’s previously-trumpeted association with Spider-Man, but couldn’t understand why all his employees were terrified of him.

It was already turning into that kind of day whilst elsewhere more trouble brewedâ€¦

Super-menace Electro is currently (get it?) on a rampage. Thanks to the Superior Spider-Man monkeying with his brain, high-voltage villain Max Dillon had lost control of his powers and become an uncontrollable danger to himself and everyone around him.

Elsewhere former Mayor Jameson reels in fury. Thanks to his association with the Superior Spider-Man and resultant destruction to the city he has had to resign and even his beloved Daily Bugle now wants nothing to do with himâ€¦

The first of a selection of sidebar shorts returns to Electro’s dilemma in ‘Recapturing That Old Spark’ (Slott with Christos Gage, illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez) as fugitive felon Max Dillon, stung by the taunts of a new generation of costumed criminals, attempts to reclaim his fearsome reputation by springing every super-villain held in an upstate maximum security prison.

Unfortunately, thanks to the illicit brain surgery of â€œSpider-Manâ€, he can no longer control his power and, in the resultant meltdown, fries the entire institution. In the horrific aftermath fully half the staff and inmates are dead and Electro swears to make the Wallcrawler payâ€¦

The first consequence of his actions is seen in ‘Crossed Paths’ (Slott, Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell & Cam Smith) as the botched break allows inmate Felicia Hardy to escape incarceration. The Black Cat was a high end thief who had an on-again, off-again affair with the original Spider-Man, but the Octavius iteration betrayed her, outed her and jailed her.

With her identity exposed she lost everything, especially her anonymity and aura of infallibility so she too wants revengeâ€¦

Wrapping up all the extra features is humorous vignette ‘How My Stuff Works’ by Joe Caramagna & Chris Eliopoulos; providing a deceptively sharp, palate-cleansing glimpse at the webslinger’s powers and gimmicks before more fresh hells start unfoldingâ€¦

The drama continues with a teasing prelude set in an opulent bunker where a young woman with all Spider-Man’s powers and more whiles away her days before segueing back to Peter’s apartment where he and Anna Maria have reached an unconventional, cards-on-the-table accommodationâ€¦

Elsewhere in the city Dillon visits his last friend with tragic repercussions and sometime later Spider-Man, still suffering the embarrassing after-effects of super-webbing underpants, finally has something go his way when The Avengers – after corroborating his incredible explanation – readmit him to the teamâ€¦

Later however at Parker Industries, a new problem arises when unscrupulous colleague Sajani Jaffrey informs him that the company’s most promising line of research is going down the tubes. Peter’s problem is that robotic nanites were the speciality of Octavius and young Doctor Parker is completely out of his depth. Thankfully Anna Maria has a way of fixing the problem whilst saving the kid’s face.

Too soon, though, things get very dark when Electro goes on a Spider-hunting rampage. After a destructive but inconclusive clash with the bad guy and subsequent sobering pep talk with old frenemy Johnny Storm, Parker then announces that his company is shifting priorities and will put all its efforts into creating super-villain containment facilities and perhaps even curesâ€¦

Whilst in her secret bunker Cindy Moon once again fails to escape back to the real world, on the Upper West Side the Black Cat luxuriates in her return to criminality and, in a grimy building in Alphabet City, Electro fumes, flares and goes even more madâ€¦

Parker’s old and new worlds collide when he takes a team of boffins to the site of Electro’s latest trauma and meets again fireman Pedro Olivera – the new boyfriend of his old flame Mary Jane Watson.

The situation in Alphabet City escalates and as buildings burns Spidey and Pedro become fast friends: a sight missed by Jonah Jameson who has been forced to swallow both pride and principles and start work as a presenter on infotainment network The Fact Channel.

As the Wallcrawler and Pedro clear a blazing warehouse, Black Cat ambushes her former lover using her â€œbad luck powersâ€ and the heroes barely escape with their lives.

In her smug retreat however Felicia stumbles over the mentally unstable Dillon and recruits a dangerous but determined allyâ€¦

Days pass and as Parker increasingly creeps out his bewildered employees trying to be their friend, Sanjani realises she has to do something drastic. When he’s not harassing the peons, her formerly manically focused boss is frequently missing and she’s fed up with Marconi covering for himâ€¦

This fourth issue and the next one are part of the monumental Original Sin crossover event and finds our hero desperately trying to convince every costumed crusader he knows that all his recent behaviours were caused by Doc Ock when the world changes foreverâ€¦

Spider-Man is at ground zero when rapidly mutating maniac The Orb detonates a bomb full of all humanity’s deepest secrets and thus suddenly knows everything about Cindy Moonâ€¦

Hurtling across town to the bunker she’s been pent in for thirteen years, Peter runs into a recorded message from deceased Spider-Shaman Ezekiel Sims (see Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home)â€¦

He first met the frustratingly enigmatic old man with spider-powers whilst being stalked by an immortal, man-shaped beast named Morlun. The supernal horror fed on superheroes but far preferred the ancient and totemic animal spirits which forced or enabled the creation of so many champions and monsters throughout Earth’s long history. Exactly like the one which had actually given Parker his own iteration of the eternal Spider force, in factâ€¦

Breaking into the bunker Peter is promptly attacked by the half-crazed Cindy, who was incarcerated unhappily but more or less willingly. When she first developed her own powers Ezekiel sought her out her and convinced her she could only be safe behind the cloaking defences of his technological hideaway.

When Peter explains that he’s already killed Morlun she calms down and exultantly creates a new identity for herself. Within moments Spider-Man and Silk are swinging joyously from the rooftops.

â€¦And on the other side of the world, a patient monster smiles, having finally scented the â€œspider-brideâ€ he’s been waiting so long forâ€¦

As they speed across town Peter realises that not only is his companion faster and stronger than he is with a far more effective Spider sense, but she can also generate webbing from within her body naturallyâ€¦

His idle speculations end when they arrive at her parent’s place only to discover that the Moons are long gone. In trying to console Cindy Pete then lets slip that Morlun has died twice and she explodes in terror and anger. Furiously pointing out that it only proves that the beast can come back from the dead, she concludes correctly that the horror is probably already coming for themâ€¦

Their argument escalates into savage combat but at the height of the battle a different passion overwhelms them bothâ€¦

Part five begins as vengeance-obsessed Felicia makes her next move by viciously ousting super thug The Eel and taking over his gang and rackets. As she carves out a place in New York’s criminal hierarchy, at the Fact Channel Jonah is ignominiously and incestuously arranging his first scoop by investigating on air the plans of his â€œbrother-in-lawâ€ Peter Parker (Aunt May having recently married Jonah’s father, of courseâ€¦).

Barely able to keep their sticky hands off each other, Cindy and Peter are fortuitously interrupted by Anna Maria who promptly drags him off to the studio in hopes that he can salvage the plummeting reputation of Parker Industries, but that possibility seems shot all to hell when Black Cat and Electro attack the set. Sadly for them they weren’t expecting two spectacular Spider peopleâ€¦

Driven away, the crazed outlaws regroup for one final attempt at revenge but their shattering ambush is turned against them in the blockbusting, battle-frenzied finale which sees Silk and Spider-Man triumph over impossible odds and start to take control of their fatefully intertwined livesâ€¦

This astoundingly absorbing chronicle tome includes a monolithic covers-&-variants gallery of 60 stunning images (including many preproduction sketches and pencil/ink art examples) by Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Alex Ross, Terry Dodson, Mike Perkins, John Romita Sr., Marcos Martin, Pop Mahn, Neal Adams, Jerome OpeÃ±a, John Cassaday, Kevin Maguire, J. Scott Campbell, Barry Bradfield, Adi Granov, Chris Samnee, Dale Keown, Kevin Nowlan, Mico Suayan, Greg Horn, Ed McGuinness, Simone Bianchi, Mike Deodato, Tim Sale, Frank Cho, Stephanie Hans, Skottie Young, Nick Bradshaw, Steve Epting, Luke Ross and John Tyler Christopher, and come with AR icon sections – Marvel Augmented Reality App pages providing access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Sensational, spectacular and indeed amazing, The Parker Luck brilliantly mixes outrageous fun and bombastic action with irresistible soap opera tension to recharge the batteries of comics’ most misunderstood hero and lay the groundwork for further enticing and unmissable perils, tragedies and triumphs in the days to come.

To Be Continuedâ€¦
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 19, 2014September 18, 2014

Deadpool vs. Carnage

By Cullen Bunn, Salvador Espin, Mike Henderson, Aaron Kim Jacinto & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-613-7

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made popular fiction protagonists and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics will always find an appreciative audienceâ€¦

Deadpool is Wade Wilson (yes, a thinly disguised knockoff of Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke the Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities but practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loonâ€¦

The wisecracking high-tech â€œMerc with a Mouthâ€ was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian â€œWeapon Xâ€ project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always, inevitably, reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the endâ€¦

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s-early1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable archenemy called Venom: deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s Secret Wars costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite dubbed the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Webspinner.

Eventually the arachnid adversaries reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became the â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

However, when the symbiote went into breeding mode it spawned a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, they became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a death-crazed monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal â€œfamilyâ€ (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed and his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit. Of course â€œsafeâ€ is an extremely relative term and eventually the crimson killer returnedâ€¦

Following a clash between The Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius‘ mind in Peter Parker’s body) and the Wizard, Kasady was resurrected but separated from his increasingly self-aware symbiote…

Written throughout by Cullen Bunn, this sublimely continuity-light and baggage-free bloody kill spree collects Superior Carnage Annual (April 2014) and the subsequent 4-part miniseries Deadpool vs. Carnage (June-August 2014), gorily repositioning the scarlet slaughterer for his next assault on the cowering Marvel Universe.

The all-action abattoir-fest opens with Superior Carnage Annual (illustrated by Kim Jacinto, Mike Henderson and colourist Jay David Ramos) as the recently recaptured Kasady – lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – awaits medical assessment in Kramer Penitentiary. Psychologist Dr. Jenner is interviewing the unrepentant but clearly cognitively recovered felon to see if he is mentally competent to be tried for his crimes, but the headshrinker also has a secret agendaâ€¦

In New York City, the symbiote is barely contained in an unbreakable tube on Spider Island (fortress base of the Superior Spider-Man), raging in destructive fury against imprisonment and terrifying the mercenaries guarding it.

When an inmate at far-distant Kramer tries to kill Kasady the captive creature goes instantly berserk before apparently expiring.

Meanwhile at Morse Laboratories in New Mexico, researcher Carla Unger is working late, examining a few scrapings taken from the symbiote. Despite the risks, it’s way better than cooking dinner for her abusive husband Will, but when the seemingly-dormant scarlet shreds suddenly possess her, she heads home for a final family mealâ€¦

The symbiote is going to find Cletus, and is soon hopping from body to body, gaining strength whilst leaving a trail of corpses across America, but it is all too late. Power-mad Dr. Jenner, hungry to be the symbiote’s permanent host and exasperated that his first attempt to kill Kasady failed, stifles the dying inmate in the prison infirmary, but when the thing from another world final arrives it rejects him before reanimating its preferred host’s corpseâ€¦

Reunited and resurgent, the component parts that comprise the revitalised Carnage then begin taking an awful vengeance on everybody at the institutionâ€¦

Some time later Deadpool vs. Carnage opens with the scarlet slayer still enjoying an extended if motiveless murder spree throughout the Midwest.

In his apartment and own world, Wade Wilson is channel surfing TV stations and suddenly divines a personal message from the universe telling him to stop Carnageâ€¦

After a few false starts and more nudging from everyday objects like billboards, video games and comics, the Manic Merc finally stumbles across Kasady in an abandoned housing development in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the two unkillable kooks start fighting.

It seems to be pretty even until Cletus’ homicidal old squeeze Shriek turns up and ambushes Deadpoolâ€¦

This really isn’t the kind of tale that depends on plot, but if you’re a fan of hyperkinetic Warner Brothers cartoons where two protagonists try increasingly outrageous and escalating methods of mass destruction to destroy each other then you’ll adore the frantic, blackly hilarious duel which only ends after Deadpool picks up a bunch of symbiotes of his own – and a cool shape-changing dog – from a secret military base where the government has been trying to weaponise the alien parasites for the armyâ€¦

Sharp, fast-paced and excessively, addictively action-packed, this wry and sanguine rollercoaster romp also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Rafa Garres, Glenn Fabry & Adam Brown and Leinil Francis Yu: offering a complication free riot of gratuitous gory fun and thrills that will delight the appetites for graphic destruction of Fights ‘n’ Tights fans everywhere.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 12, 2014September 11, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet volume 1 – Electro and Sandman

By Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, Adam Kubert, Barry Kitson, Paul Azaceta, JM Ken Niimura, Javier Pulido & Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3871-6

Nerdy school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, whilst seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy.

His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered, and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need. For years the brilliant young champion suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foeâ€¦

During a particularly hellish period a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as â€œThe Gauntletâ€), before Parker’s recent tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

Spanning January and February 2010, the first skirmishes in that campaign of terror are collected here, having originated in Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #612-616 and as pertinent extracts from Web of Spider-Man #2, as old foes returned to trouble a hero already reeling from the fact that his most despised and crazy enemy has just been made the second most powerful man in Americaâ€¦

Officially psychotic Norman Osborn has bedevilled both Spider-Man and Peter for years. His abused son Harry was the misunderstood hero’s greatest friend but the stress and strain, over time, turned the Osborn heir into a drug addict, a costumed carbon copy of his old man and, latterly, a certifiable basket case.

Callously oblivious, Norman – through various machinations – became America’s Security Czar: the â€œtop-copâ€ in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed community.

Capitalising on the Skrull Secret Invasion he rose to power on a tidal wave of public popularity but soon instituted an oppressive Dark Reign, driving the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes underground and forming his own team of deadly Dark Avengers, all in the grossly debased name of â€œnational securityâ€â€¦

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing a formidable suit of â€œrequisitionedâ€ Iron Man armour and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even whilst covertly conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

From Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, ‘The Last Name’ by Dan Slott, Adam Kubert & Mark Morales finds the whiny media liberals of digital news-source Front Line (populated and staffed by all the ethical reporters from the former Daily Bugle) searching for ways to expose Osborn’s true nature and plans.

When Joe Robertson reminds Parker that no narcissist egomaniac ever destroyed anything he was in, the Astounding Arachnid invades the high tech Oscorp Tower and makes off with incriminating recordings of the former Green Goblin torturing prisoners and testing weapons on human subjects.

With his new position imperilled, Osborn dons the Iron Patriot Armour and gives chase, consequently devastating much of Midtown as he exultantly thrashes his greatest foe. However he’s too late to stop Parker from uploading the films to the world wide web and his brutal behaviour in front of the gathered witnesses is his first big mistake. Now the public are talking, wondering and starting to remember what he used to beâ€¦

‘Gauntlet Origins: Electro’ (written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Barry Kitson from Web of Spider-Man #2) then discloses just how blue collar electrical lineman Max Dillon came to grips with the power he developed after being hit by lightning. Stealing components from Stark Industries, being disdained and rejected by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all fostered his determination to be a big shot one day and make everybody payâ€¦

Amazing Spider-Man #612-614 cumulatively bring ‘Power to the People’ (Mark Waid & Paul Azaceta) as, against a backdrop of rolling power outages and an economic downturn, Dillon makes his move after hiring the Mad Thinker to stabilise and augment his famously erratic electrical abilities.

Unfortunately that calls for more cash than he’s got and soon Electro is looking to make more – and quicklyâ€¦

Rather than robbery, however, he cunningly opts for a very public crusade against skeevy and controversial publisher Dexter Bennett who has just been deemed too big to fail. Awarded a huge government bailout to keep his trashy newspaper The DB (nee Daily Bugle) open, the billionaire is clearly living large even as decent, hard working Americans are suffering the biggest recession in historyâ€¦

The campaign leads to riots in the streets and Electro makes his move, offering Bennett the chance to buy off the electrical agitator with a quick cash injection.

â€¦And that’s when Spider-Man tracks down the Thinker’s lair and spoils the perfect planâ€¦

With his scheme in ruins, all that’s left for Dillon is revenge and destruction and deathâ€¦

As the dust finally settles after a spectacular clash which demolishes a New York landmark, Dillon is visited in jail by an old ally who offers another chance for paybackâ€¦

A backup in Amazing Spider-Man #612, ‘The Other Woman’ by Joe Kelly & JM Ken Niimura then cheekily examines the odd relationship of Spider-Man and amoral adventuress Black Cat, contrasting their commitment-free flings to Peter’s ongoing problems with old flames like Mary Jane Watson and intriguing new co-worker Norah Winters before ‘Keemia’s Castle’ (Amazing Spider-Man #615-616 by Van Lente & Javier Pulido) sees the start of another baffling mysteryâ€¦

Carlie Cooper is a CI for the police and when robbery and murder evidence in her custody goes missing she turns to science whiz Peter Parker to clear her name. The trail leads the unlikely sleuth to the South Bronx and a missing girl named Keemia Alvarado.

Keemia’s mother was something of a prison groupie and her relationship with metamorphic felon Flint Marko – the Sandman – apparently resulted in a child. After fact – and suspicion – checking with journalist Betty Brant, Spider-Man puts a few together and heads out to closed-for-the-winter Governors Island where he finds his reformed former foe and the missing girl.

Marko denies all knowledge of the crimes. All he wants is to spend time with his little princess and he uses his new power to create autonomous sandy doppelgangers to emphatically press home his point.

It’s only after defeating the outnumbered arachnid that the stunned Sandman realises that some of his duplicates are more autonomous – and bloodthirstily evil – than othersâ€¦

Fast, furious, and easily combining frantic action with moving character vignettes and ferociously addictive soap opera melodrama, these tales are offbeat even by Spider-Man’s standards – which is no bad thing – but sometimes suffer from a surfeit of unaddressed backstoryâ€¦ which rather is.

Nonetheless, the stories here are clever, compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout, so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover the explosive, if occasionally confusing, Fights ‘n’ Tights rollercoaster is graced with an expansive gallery of covers-&-variants by Adam Kubert, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Marko Djurdjevic, Paolo Rivera, Frank Cho, Adi Granov, Ed McGuiness and Joe Quinones

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