The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus volume 1


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko with Jack Kirby, Art Simek, Sam Rosen, Jon D’Agostino, John Duffy, Ray Holloway & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4563-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Entertainment Perfection… 10/10

The Amazing Spider-Man celebrated his 60th anniversary in 2022. However, I’m one of those radicals who feel that 1963 was when he was really born, so let’s close this year with one last acknowledgement of that…

Marvel is often termed “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comic book storytelling. However, there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was: one whose creativity and philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, gleaming futurism that resulted from Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, diffident to the point of invisibility, but his work was both subtle and striking: innovative and meticulously polished. Always questing for affirming detail, he ever explored the man within. He saw heroism and humour and ultimate evil all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, decidedly creepy.

Crafting extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for and with Stan Lee, Ditko had been rewarded with his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters: an ilk which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with The Fantastic Four and so-ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk, but there was no indication of the renaissance ahead when officially just-cancelled Amazing Fantasy featured a brand new and rather eerie adventure character…

This compelling compilation re-presents the rise of the wallcrawler as originally seen in Amazing Fantasy #15, The Amazing Spider-Man #1-38, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 & 2 plus material from Strange Tales Annual #2 and Fantastic Four Annual #2 collectively spanning cover-dates August 1962-July 1966). It is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Sam Rosen, Art Simek, Jon D’Agostino, John Duffy and Ray Holloway and sadly an anonymous band of colourists. As well as a monolithic assortment of nostalgic treats at the back, this mammoth tome is dotted throughout with recycled Introductions from Stan Lee, taken from the first four Marvel Masterworks editions devoted to the webspinner and includes editorial announcements and the ‘Spider’s Web’ newsletter pages for each original issue to enhance that wayback machine experience…

The wonderment came and concluded in 11 captivating pages: ‘Spider-Man!’ tells the parable of smart but alienated Peter Parker, a kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a high school science trip. Discovering he has developed arachnid abilities – which he augments with his own natural engineering genius – he does what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift – he tries to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Creating a costume to hide his identity in case he makes a fool of himself, Parker becomes a minor celebrity – and a vain, self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief flees past, he doesn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returns home that his Uncle Ben has been murdered.

Crazy for vengeance, Parker stalks the assailant who made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, only to find that it is the felon he couldn’t be bothered with. Since his irresponsibility led to the death of the man who raised him, the boy swears to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars – this stuff could happen to anybody…

Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 (cover-dated September 1962) – the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costumed capers, but it was also the last issue of Ditko’s Amazing playground. With this volume you’ll find the ‘Fan Page – Important Announcement from the Editor!’ that completely misled fans as to what would happen next…

The tragic last-ditch tale struck a chord with readers and by Christmas a new comic book superstar was ready to launch in his own title, and Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Charlton action hero Captain Atom.

Holding on to the “Amazing” prefix memories, bi-monthly Amazing Spider-Man #1 arrived with a March 1963 cover-date and two complete stories. It also prominently featured the Fantastic Four and took the readership by storm. The opening tale, again simply entitled ‘Spider-Man!’, recapitulated the origin whilst adding a brilliant twist to the conventional mix.

Now the wall-crawling hero was feared and reviled by the general public thanks in no small part to newspaper magnate J. Jonah Jameson who pilloried the adventurer from spite and for profit. With time-honoured comic book irony, Spider-Man then had to save Jameson’s astronaut son John from a faulty space capsule in extremely low orbit…

Second yarn ‘Vs the Chameleon!’ finds the cash-strapped kid trying to force his way onto the roster – and payroll – of the FF whilst elsewhere a spy perfectly impersonates the webspinner to steal military secrets: a stunning example of the high-strung, antagonistic crossovers and cameos that so startled jaded kids of the early 1960s. Heroes just didn’t act like that and they certainly didn’t speak directly to the fans as in ‘A Personal Message from Spider-Man’ that’s reprinted here…

With his second issue, our new champion began a meteoric rise in quality and innovative storytelling. ‘Duel to the Death with the Vulture!’ catches Parker chasing a flying thief as much for profit as justice. Desperate to help his aunt make ends meet, Spider-Man starts taking photos of his cases to sell to Jameson’s Daily Bugle, making his personal gadfly his sole means of support.

Matching his deft comedy and moody soap-operatic melodrama, Ditko’s action sequences were imaginative and magnificently visceral, with odd angle shots and quirky, mis-balanced poses adding a vertiginous sense of unease to fight scenes. But crime wasn’t the only threat to the world and Spider-Man was just as (un)comfortable battling “aliens” in ‘The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!’

Amazing Spider-Man #3 introduced possibly the apprentice hero’s greatest enemy in ‘Versus Doctor Octopus’: a full-length saga wherein a dedicated scientist survives an atomic accident only to discover his self-designed mechanical “waldoes”/tentacles have permanently grafted to his body. Power-mad, Otto Octavius initially thrashes Spider-Man, sending the lad into a depression until an impromptu pep-talk from Human Torch Johnny Storm galvanises the arachnid to one of his greatest victories. Also included is a stunning ‘Special Surprise Bonus Spider-Man Pin-up Page!’…

‘Nothing Can Stop… The Sandman!’ was another instant classic wherein a common thug gains the power to transform to sand (in another pesky nuclear snafu), invades Parker’s school, and must be stopped at all costs, after which1963’s Strange Tales Annual #2 featured ‘The Human Torch on the Trail of the Amazing Spider-Man!’

This terrific romp from Lee & Kirby with Ditko inking details how the wallcrawler is framed by international art thief The Fox, instigating an early “Marvel Misunderstanding Clash” and is followed by short story ‘The Fabulous Fantastic Four meet Spider-Man!’: re-examining in an extended re-interpretation that first meeting from the premiere issue of the wallcrawler’s own comic and taken from Fantastic Four Annual #1.

With Ditko on pencils and inks again, Amazing Spider-Man #5 saw the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ – not so much winning as surviving his battle against the deadliest man on Earth. Presumably he didn’t mind too much, as this marked the transition from bi-monthly to monthly status for the series. In this tale Parker’s nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displays depths beyond the usual in contemporary comicbooks, beginning one of the best love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Eventual mentor Dr. Curtis Connors debuts in #6 when Spidey comes ‘Face-to-face With… The Lizard!’ as the wallcrawler fights far from the concrete canyon comfort zone of New York – specifically in the murky Florida Everglades. Parker was back in the Big Apple in #7 to breathtakingly tackle ‘The Return of the Vulture’ in a full-length action extravaganza.

Fun and youthful hi-jinks were a signature feature of the series, as was Parker’s budding romance with “older woman” Betty Brant, Jameson’s secretary/PA at the Bugle. Youthful exuberance was the underlying drive in #8’s lead tale ‘The Living Brain!’ wherein an ambulatory robot calculator is tasked with exposing Spider-Man’s secret identity before running amok at beleaguered Midtown High, just as Parker is finally beating the stuffings out of bully Flash Thompson.

This 17-page triumph was accompanied by ‘Spiderman Tackles the Torch!’: a 6-page vignette drawn by Kirby and inked by Ditko, wherein a boisterous wallcrawler gate-crashes a beach party thrown by the flaming hero’s girlfriend – with suitably explosive consequences…

Amazing Spider-Man #9 is a qualitative step-up in dramatic terms, as Aunt May is revealed to be chronically ill and adding to Parker’s financial woes. Action is supplied by ‘The Man Called Electro!’ – an accidental super-criminal with grand aspirations.

Spider-Man was always a loner, never far from the streets and small-scale-crime, and with this tale – wherein he also quells a prison riot single handed – Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism starts to proliferate: a predilection confirmed in #10’s ‘The Enforcers!’ (AKA Fancy Dan, Montana and The Ox). This is a classy mystery with a masked mastermind known as The Big Man, using a position of trust to organise all New York mobs into one unbeatable army against decency.

Longer plot-strands are also introduced as Betty mysteriously vanishes, although most fans remember this one for the spectacularly climactic 7-page fight scene in an underworld chop-shop that has still never been beaten for action-choreography.

The wonderment intensifies (after a Lee Introduction) with a magical 2-part yarn. ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ sees the lethally deranged and deformed scientist return and the disclosure of a long-hidden secret which had haunted Parker’s girlfriend Betty Brant for years.

The dark, tragedy-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension stretches from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and cannily tempers trenchant melodrama with spectacular fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only Ditko could orchestrate it.

A new super-foe premiered in Amazing Spider-Man #13 with ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ as publisher J. Jonah Jameson hires a seemingly eldritch bounty-hunter to capture Spider-Man before eventually letting slip his own dark criminal agenda, whilst #14 offers an absolute milestone in the series as a hidden criminal mastermind manipulates a Hollywood studio into making a movie about the wall-crawler. Even with guest-star opposition The Enforcers and Incredible Hulk, ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ is most notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy.

Jungle superman and thrill-junkie (and modern movie star!) ‘Kraven the Hunter!’ makes Spidey his intended prey at the behest of embittered former-foe the Chameleon in #15, and promptly pops up again in the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual (1964) that follows.

A timeless landmark and still magnificently thrilling battle, tale, the ‘Sinister Six’ begins after a band of villains comprising Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture and Dr Octopus abduct May Parker and Betty, forcing Spider-Man to confront them without his powers – lost in a guilt-fuelled panic attack.

A staggeringly compelling Fights ‘n’ Tights saga, this influential tale featured cameos (or, more honestly, product placement segments) by every other extant hero of the budding Marvel universe.

Also included in the colossal comic compendium were special feature pages on ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’ and comedic short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Created Spider-Man’ plus a gallery of pin-up pages featuring ‘Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes!’ – (the Burglar, Chameleon, Vulture, Terrible Tinkerer, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Doctor Doom, The Lizard, Living Brain, Electro, The Enforcers, Mysterio, Green Goblin and Kraven the Hunter) – as well as pin-ups of Betty and Jonah, Parker’s classmates and house, and even heroic guest stars…

Amazing Spider-Man #16 extended that circle of friends and foes as the webslinger battles The Ringmaster and Circus of Evil, meeting a fellow loner hero in a dazzling ‘Duel with Daredevil’. This delightful diversion segued into an ambitious 3-part saga, beginning in Amazing Spider-Man #17 wherein our rapidly-maturing hero touches emotional bottom before rising to triumphant victory over all manner of enemies in ‘The Return of the Green Goblin!’, as the wallcrawler endures renewed print assaults in the Daily Bugle from its rabid publisher just as his enigmatic veridian archvillain opened a sustained war of nerves and attrition, using The Enforcers, Sandman and an army of thugs to publicly humiliate the hero. To exacerbate matters, Aunt May’s health took a drastic downward turn…

Resuming with ‘The End of Spider-Man!’ and explosively concluding in triumphal big finish ‘Spidey Strikes Back!’ – featuring a turbulent team-up with friendly rival the Human Torch – this extended tale proved fans were ready for every kind of narrative experiment (single issue or two stories per issue were still the norm in 1964) and Stan & Steve were more than happy to try anything.

With ‘The Coming of the Scorpion!’, Jameson let his obsessive hatred for the cocky kid crusader get the better of him: hiring scientist Farley Stillwell to endow a private detective with insectoid-based superpowers. Sadly, the process drove mercenary Mac Gargan mad before he could capture Spidey, leaving the webspinner with yet another lethally dangerous meta-menace to deal with…

That issue closed with pin-up of ‘Peter Parker and Ol’ Webhead’ before #21 highlights a hilarious love triangle in ‘Where Flies the Beetle’ as the Torch’s girlfriend uses Peter Parker to make the flaming hero jealous. Unfortunately, the Beetle – a villain with high-tech insect-themed armour – is simultaneously stalking Doris Evans as bait for a trap. As ever, Spider-Man was simply in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest.

This issue also offers a stunning and much reprinted Ditko Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of ‘Spider-Man’ before ASM #22 preeeeeeeesents… ‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace!’: affording a return engagement for the Circus of Crime with splendidly outré action and a lot of hearty laughs provided by increasingly irreplaceable supporting stars Aunt May, Betty Brant and Jameson, before #23 delivers a superb thriller blending the mundane mobster and thugs that Ditko loved to depict with the more outlandish threat of a supervillain attempting to take over all the city’s gangs.

‘The Goblin and the Gangsters’ is both moody and explosive, the supervillain’s plot foiled by a cunning competitor and the driven hero’s ceaseless energy, and this tale is complemented by a Ditko Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of ‘Spidey’ that amazingly features all the supporting cast and every extant villain in his rogue’s gallery…

Another recurring plot strand debuted in #24, as a dark brooding tale had the troubled boy question his own sanity in ‘Spider-Man Goes Mad!’. The sinister stunner sees a clearly delusional wallcrawler seeking psychiatric help, but there’s more to the matter than simple insanity, as an insidious old foe unexpectedly returns, employing psychological warfare…

Amazing Spider-Man #25 once more sees our obsessed publisher take matters into his own hands. ‘Captured by J. Jonah Jameson!’ introduces Professor Smythe – whose dynasty of robotic Spider-Slayers would bedevil the webslinger for years to come – hired to remove Spider-Man for good.

Issues #26 & 27 comprise a captivating 2-part mystery and deadly duel between Green Goblin and an enigmatic new criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect arachnid epic, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense crimebusting thrills and all-out action.

ASM #28’s ‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ is a tale of science gone bad and remains remarkable today not only for spectacular action sequences – and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced – but also as the story in which Peter Parker graduates from High School.

Ditko was on peak form and fast enough to handle two monthly strips. At this time he was also blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential superhero. Two extremely disparate crusaders met in ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’: lead story in the second super-sized Spider-Man Annual (released in October 1965 and filled out with vintage Spidey classics). The entrancing fable unforgettably introduced the Amazing Arachnid to arcane other realities as he teamed up with the Master of the Mystic Arts to battle power-crazed mage Xandu in a phantasmagorical, dimension-hopping masterpiece involving ensorcelled zombie thugs and the stolen Wand of Watoomb. After this, it was clear that Spider-Man could work in any milieu and nothing could hold him back…

Also from that immensely impressive landmark are more Ditko pin-ups via ‘A Gallery of Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes’ – highlighting such nefarious ne’er-do-wells as The Circus of Crime, The Scorpion, The Beetle, Jonah’s Robot and The Crime-Master.

Back in the ever-more popular monthly mag, ASM #29 warned ‘Never Step on a Scorpion!’ as the lab-made larcenous lunatic returned, seeking vengeance on not just the webspinner but also Jameson for turning a disreputable private eye into a super-powered monster…

Issue #30’s off-beat crime-caper then cannily sowed seeds for future masterpieces as ‘The Claws of the Cat!’ depicted a city-wide hunt for an extremely capable burglar (way more exciting than it sounds, trust me!), plus the introduction of an organised gang of thieves working for mysterious new menace The Master Planner.

Sadly, by this time of their greatest comics successes, Lee & Ditko were increasingly unable to work together on their greatest creations. Ditko’s off-beat plots and quirky art had reached an accommodation with the slickly potent superhero house-style Kirby had developed (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could). The illustration featured a marked reduction of signature line-feathering and moody backgrounds, plus a lessening of concentration on totemic villains, but – although still very much a Ditko baby – Amazing Spider-Man‘s sleek pictorial gloss warred with Lee’s scripts. These were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator.

Lee’s assessment of the audience was probably the correct one, and disagreements with the artist over editorial direction were still confined to the office and not the pages themselves. However, an indication of growing tensions could be seen once Ditko began being credited as plotter of the stories…

After a period where old-fashioned crime and gangsterism predominated, science fiction themes and costumed crazies returned full force. As the world went gaga for masked mystery-men, the creators experimented with longer storylines and protracted subplots. When Ditko abruptly left, the company feared a drastic loss in quality and sales but it didn’t happen. John Romita (senior) considered himself a mere “safe pair of hands” keeping the momentum going until a better artist could be found, but instead blossomed into a major talent in his own right, and the wallcrawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace.

Change was in the air everywhere. Included amongst the milestones for the ever-anxious Peter Parker collected here are graduating High School, starting college, meeting true love Gwen Stacy and tragic friend/foe Harry Osborn, plus the introduction of nemesis Norman Osborn. Old friends Flash Thompson and Betty Brant subsequently begin to drift out of his life…

‘If This Be My Destiny…!’ in #31 details a spate of high-tech robberies by the Master Planner culminating in a spectacular confrontation with Spider-Man. Also on show is that aforementioned college debut, first sight of Harry and Gwen, with Aunt May on the edge of death due to an innocent blood transfusion from her mildly radioactive darling Peter…

This led to indisputably Ditko’s finest and most iconic moments on the series – and perhaps of his entire career. ‘Man on a Rampage!’ shows Parker pushed to the edge of desperation as the Planner’s men make off with serums that might save May, resulting in an utterly driven, berserk wallcrawler ripping the town apart whilst trying to find them.

Trapped in an underwater fortress, pinned under tons of machinery, the hero faces his greatest failure as the clock ticks down the seconds of May’s life…

This in turn generates the most memorable visual sequence in Spidey history as the opening of ‘The Final Chapter!’ luxuriates in 5 full, glorious pages to depict the ultimate triumph of will over circumstance. Freeing himself from tons of fallen debris, Spider-Man gives his absolute all to deliver the medicine May needs, and is rewarded with a rare happy ending…

Russian exile Kraven returns in ‘The Thrill of the Hunt!’, seeking payback for past humiliations by impersonating the webspinner, after which #35 confirms that ‘The Molten Man Regrets…!’: a plot-light, inimitably action-packed combat classic wherein the gleaming golden bandit foolishly resumes his career of pinching other people’s valuables…

Amazing Spider-Man #36 offers a deliciously off-beat, quasi-comedic turn in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’, with deranged, would-be scientist Norton G. Fester calling himself The Looter to steal extraterrestrial museum exhibits…

In retrospect these brief, fight-oriented tales, coming after such an intricate, passionate epic as the Master Planner saga should have indicated something was amiss. However fans had no idea that ‘Once Upon a Time, There was a Robot…!’ – featuring a beleaguered Norman Osborn targeted by his disgraced ex-partner Mendel Strom, and some eccentrically bizarre murder-machines in #37 and the tragic tale of ‘Just a Guy Named Joe! – wherein a hapless sad-sack stumblebum boxer gains super-strength and a bad-temper – would be Ditko’s last arachnid adventures.

And thus an era ended…

As added enticements – and alone worth the price of this collection of much-reprinted material – is a big gallery of extras beginning with ‘…Does Whatever a Spider Can: A Lee/Ditko Amazing Spider-Man Lexicon’ and a selection of essays by Arlen Schumer, Jon B Cooke and Blake Bell including Lee’s ‘The World’s Best-Selling Swinger’. Also on view is the entire debut tale from AF #15, in original art form, taken from the Library of Congress where it now resides, fully curated and commented upon by historian and scholar Blake Bell. Also on view are unused Ditko covers, sketches, layouts and early monochrome pin-ups (33 pages in total), unretouched cover art for AS #11 & 35, and a barrage of pulse-pounding house ads, “Bullpen Bulletin” pages plus a photo-feature on the Marvel Bullpen circa 1964.

The treats go on with rare Ditko T-shirt designs, posters and ad art, plus a range of Marvel Masterworks covers with Kirby and Ditko’s original images enhanced by painters Dean White and Paul Mounts. Also included are a cover gallery for 1960s reprint vehicle Marvel Tales (#1-28 by Ditko and latterly Marie Severin) as well as Mighty Marvel Masterworks collection covers by Michael Cho and Alex Ross’ Omnibus cover art. Although other artists have inked his narratives, Ditko handled all the art on Spider-Man and these lost gems demonstrate his fluid mastery and just how much of the mesmerising magic came from his pens and brushes…

Full of energy, verve, pathos and laughs, gloriously short of post-modern angst and breast-beating, these fun classics – also available in numerous formats including eBook editions – are quintessential comic book magic constituting the very foundation of everything Marvel became. This classy compendium is an unmissable opportunity for readers of all ages to celebrate the magic and myths of the modern heroic ideal: something no serous fan can be without, and an ideal gift for any curious newcomer or nostalgic aficionado.

Happy Unbirthday Spidey and many, many more please…
© 2022 MARVEL.

Captain Marvel: The Many Lives of Carol Danvers


By Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, David Michelinie, Howard Mackie & Mark Jason, Kurt Busiek, John Jackson Miller, Brian Reed, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Gene Colan, John Buscema, Carmine Infantino, John Byrne, Dave Cockrum, Tomm Coker, George Pérez, Jorge Lucas, Paulo Siqueira, Adriana Melo, Dexter Soy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2506-2 (TBP/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Miraculous Ascension to Marvel At… 8/10

In comic book terms, the soubriquet “Marvel” carries a lot of baggage and clout, and has been attached to a wide number of vastly differing characters over many decades. In 2014, it was inherited by comics’ first mainstream first rank Muslim superhero, albeit employing the third iteration of pre-existing designation Ms. Marvel.

Career soldier, former spy and occasional journalist Carol Danvers – who rivals Henry Pym in number of secret identities – having been Binary, Warbird, Ms. Marvel again and ultimately Captain Marvel – originated the role when her Kree-based abilities first manifested. She experienced a turbulent superhero career and was lost in space when Sharon Ventura became a second, unrelated Ms. Marvel. This iteration gained her powers from the villainous Power Broker, and after briefly joining the Fantastic Four, was mutated by cosmic ray exposure into a She-Thing

Debuting in a sly cameo in Captain Marvel (volume 7 #14, September 2013) and bolstered by a subsequent teaser in #17, Kamala Khan was the third to use the codename. She properly launched in full fight mode in a tantalising short episode (All-New MarvelNow! Point One #1) chronologically set just after her origin and opening exploit. We’ll get to her another day soon, but isn’t it nice to see her annoying trolls on screen as well as in print?

Here we’re focusing on Carol Danvers in many of her multifarious endeavours, glimpsed via a wide set of comics snapshots spanning cover-dates March 1968 to September 2012, and comprising Marvel Super-Heroes #13, Ms. Marvel #1, 19, Avengers #183-184, Uncanny X-Men #164, Logan: Shadow Society, Avengers (1998) #4, Iron Man (1998) #85, Ms. Marvel (2006) #32-33, and Captain Marvel (2012) #1.

She began as a supporting character as the House of Ideas pounced on finally vacant property title Captain Marvel and debuted in the second instalment. Marvel Super-Heroes #13 picks up where the previous issue ended. That was ‘The Coming of Captain Marvel!’ – derived directly from Fantastic Four #64-65, wherein the quartet defeated a super-advanced Sentry robot marooned on Earth by a mythical and primordial alien race the Kree. They didn’t stay mysterious for long and despatched a mission to spy on us…

Dispatching a surveillance mission, the Kree had to know everything about us. Unfortunately, the agent they chose – Captain Mar-Vell – was a man of conscience, whilst his commanding officer Colonel Yon-Rogg was his ruthless rival for the love of the ship’s medical officer Una. No sooner has the dutiful operative made a tentative planet-fall and clashed with the US Army from a local missile base than the instalment – and this preamble – ends.

We begin here as Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & Paul Reinman took over for ‘Where Stalks the Sentry!’ as the spy assumes the identity of recently killed scientist Walter Lawson to infiltrate that military base and immediately arouses the suspicions of security Chief Carol Danvers. He is horrified to discover the Earthlings are storing the Sentry defeated by the FF on site. Yon-Rogg, sensing an opportunity, reactivates the deadly mechanoid. As it goes on a rampage, only Mar-Vell stands in its path…

Over many months Mar-Vell and Danvers sparred and shuffled until she became a collateral casualty in a devastating battle between the now-defected alien and Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel #18 (November 1969). Caught in a climactic explosion of alien technology (latterly revealed to have altered her biology), she pretty much vanished until revived in Ms. Marvel #1 (January 1977). Crafted by Gerry Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott, ‘This Woman, This Warrior!’ heralded a new chapter for the company and the industry…

Here irrepressible and partially amnesiac Danvers has relocated to New York to become editor of “Woman”: a new magazine for modern misses published by Daily Bugle owner J. Jonah Jameson. Never having fully recovered from her near-death experience, Danvers left the military and drifted into writing, slowly growing in confidence until the irascible publisher made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…

At the same time as Carol is getting her feet under a desk, a mysterious new masked “heroine” (sorry, it was the 70s!) started appearing and as rapidly vanishing, such as when she pitches up to battle the sinister Scorpion as he perpetrates a brutal bank raid.

The villain narrowly escapes to rendezvous with Professor Kerwin Korwin of Advanced Idea Mechanics. The skeevy savant promised to increase Scorpion’s powers and allow him to take long-delayed revenge on Jameson – whom the demented thug blames for his freakish condition…

Danvers has been having premonitions and blackouts since the final clash between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg and has no idea she transforms into Ms. Marvel during fugue state episodes. Her latest vision-flash occurs too late to save Jameson from abduction, but her “Seventh Sense” does allow her to track the villain before her unwitting new boss is injured, whilst her incredible physical powers and knowledge of Kree combat techniques enable her to easily trounce the maniac.

Danvers eventually reconciles her split personality to become a frontline superhero and is targeted by shape-shifting mutant Mystique in a raid on S.H.I.E.L.D. to purloin a new super-weapon. This triggers a blockbuster battle and features the beginnings of a deadly plot originating at the heart of the distant Kree Imperium…

The scheme culminates with our third tale as ‘Mirror, Mirror!’ (Chris Claremont, Carmine Infantino & Bob McLeod) sees the Kree Supreme Intelligence attempts to reinvigorate his race’s stalled evolutionary path by kidnapping Earth/Kree hybrid Carol Danvers. However, with both her and Captain Marvel hitting hard against his emissary Ronan the Accuser, eventually the Supremor and his plotters take the hint and go home empty-handed…

Avengers #183-184 from May and June 1979 then see her seconded onto the superteam by government spook Henry Peter Gyrich just in time to face The Redoubtable Return of Crusher Creel!’ Courtesy of David Michelinie, John Byrne, Klaus Janson & D(iverse) Hands, a breathtaking all-action extravaganza sees Ms. Marvel replace the Scarlet Witch just as the formidable Absorbing Man decides to leave the country and quit being thrashed by heroes. Sadly, his departure plans include kidnapping a young woman “for company”, leading to a cataclysmic showdown with the heroes resulting in carnage, chaos and a ‘Death on the Hudson!’

Carol was later attacked by young mutant Rogue, and permanently lost her powers and memory. Taken under the X-Men’s wing she went into space with The Starjammers and was eventually reborn as cosmic-powered adventurer Binary: the exact how of which can be seen in Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Bob Wiacek’s ‘Binary Star!’ from Uncanny X-Men #164 (December 1982)…

Jumping to December 1995, one-shot Logan: Shadow Society – by Howard Mackie, Mark Jason, Tomm Coker, Keith Aiken, Octavio Cariello & Christie Scheele – delves into Danvers’ early career as set pre-debut of the Fantastic Four. She links up with a sometime associate to counter a new and growing menace… something called “mutants”. She has no idea about the truth of her savagely efficient partner Logan but certainly understands the threat level of the killed called Sabretooth

Following the Heroes Return event of 1997, a new iteration of The Avengers formed and in #4 (May 1998), Kurt Busiek, George Pérez, Al Vey & Wiacek decree there are ‘Too Many Avengers!’ prompting a paring down by the founders and admission of Carol in her newest alter ego Warbird, just in time to trounce a few old foes, whilst Iron Man #85/430 (August 2004, by John Jackson Miller, Jorge Lucas &Antonio Fabela), sees the beginning of the end in a prologue to the Avengers Disassembled event as Warbird is caught up in the breakdown…

Brian Reed, Paulo Siqueira, Adriana Melo, Amilton Santos, Mariah Benes & Chris Sotomayor then collaborate on a revelatory dip into the early life of USAF officer Major Carol Danvers as a chance encounter with boy genius Tony Stark gets her captured by the Taliban, tortured and turned into a secret agent in ‘Ascension’ and ‘Vitamin’: a brace of epic gung ho Top Gun meets Jason Bourne tales from Ms. Marvel (2006) #32-33 (December 2008 & January 2009), before this collection reaches its logical conclusion with her being officially proclaimed “Earth’s Mightiest Hero” in Captain Marvel #1 (September 2012) as Kelley Sue DeConnick, Dexter Soy & Joe Caramagna depict Carol’s embracing her past lives to accept the legacy, responsibility and rank of her universe-saving Kree predecessor…

With covers and variants by Colan, John Romita & Dick Giordano, John Romita Jr. & Joe Rubinstein, Pérez & Terry Austin, Cockrum & Wiacek, Coker & Aiken, Pérez & Tom Smith, Steve Epting & Laura Martin, David Yardin & Rain Berado, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vine, Javie Rodriguez and Adi Granov, plus dozens of sketches, layout and original art pages, this epic retrospective is a superb short cut to decades of astounding adventure.

In conjunction with sister volume Captain Marvel vs Rogue (patience!, we’ll get to that one too) these tales are entertaining, often groundbreaking and painfully patronising (occasionally at the same time), but nonetheless, detail exactly how Ms. Marvel in all her incarnations and against all odds, grew into the modern Marvel icon of affirmative womanhood we see today.

In both comics and on-screen, Carol Danvers is Marvel’s paramount female symbol and role model. These exploits are a valuable grounding of the contemporary champion but also stand on their own as intriguing examples of the inevitable fall of even the staunchest of male bastions: superhero sagas…
© 2020 MARVEL.

Mighty Marvel Masterworks Doctor Strange volume 2: The Eternity War


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4887-0 (PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Magical Marvel Unleashed… 10/10

When the emergent House of Ideas introduced a warrior wizard to their burgeoning pantheon in the summer of 1963 it was a bold and curious move. Bizarre adventures and menacing monsters were still incredibly popular, but most mention of magic or the supernatural (especially vampires, werewolves and their eldritch ilk) were harshly proscribed by a censorship panel dictating almost all aspects of story content. Almost a decade after a public witch-hunt led to Senate hearings on the malign influences of words and pictures in sequence, comics were ferociously monitored and adjudicated by the draconian Comics Code Authority. Even though some of the small company’s strongest sellers were still mystery and monster mags, their underlying themes and premises were almost universally mad science and alien wonders, not necromantic or thaumaturgic terrors.

Companies like ACG, Charlton and DC – and Atlas/Marvel – got around edicts against mystic thrills and chills by making all reference to magic benign or even humorous; the same tone adopted by TV series Bewitched about a year after Doctor Strange debuted. That eldritch embargo probably explains writer/editor Stan Lee’s low-key introduction of Steve Ditko’s mystic adventurer: an exotic, twilight troubleshooter inhabiting the shadowy outer fringes of society…

Prior to being Marvel, the company had already published a quasi-mystic precursor: balding, trench-coated savant. Doctor Droom – later rechristened (or is that re-pagan-ed?) Dr. Druid – had an inconspicuous short run in Amazing Adventures (volume 1 #1-4 & #6: June-November 1961).

He was a psychiatrist, sage and paranormal investigator tackling everything from alien invaders to Atlanteans (albeit not the ones Sub-Mariner rules). Droom was subsequently retro-written into Marvel continuity as an alternative candidate and precursor for Stephen Strange‘s ultimate role as Sorcerer Supreme.

After a shaky start, the Master of the Mystic Arts became an unmissable icon of the cool counter-culture kids who saw, in Ditko’s increasingly psychedelic art, echoes and overtones of their own trippy explorations of other worlds. That might not have been the creators’ intention but it certainly helped keep the mage at the forefront of Lee’s efforts to break comics out of the “kids-stuff” ghetto…

This enchanting full colour paperback compilation – also available as a digital download – gathers the spectral sections of Strange Tales #130-146 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2: spanning cover-dates March 1965 to July 1966. With no fuss or muss, a classic extended saga opens with ‘The Defeat of Dr. Strange’ as an enigmatic outer-dimensional sponsor enters into a pact with arch-foe Baron Mordo. He will be supplied with infinite power and ethereal minions in return for the death of Earth’s magical guardian. With the Ancient One assaulted and in a deathly coma, Strange is forced to go on the run: a fugitive hiding in the most exotic corners of the globe as remorseless, irresistible forces close in all around him…

A claustrophobic close shave trapped aboard a jetliner in in #131’s ‘The Hunter and the Hunted!’ expands into cosmic high gear a month later as Strange doubles back to his sanctum and defeats the returning foe The Demon only to come ‘Face-to-Face at Last with Baron Mordo!’ Crumbling into weary defeat as the villain’s godly sponsor is revealed, the hero is hurled headlong out of reality to materialise in ‘A Nameless Land, A Timeless Time!’ before confronting tyrannical witch-queen Shazana.

Upon liberating her benighted realm, Strange resumes being the target of relentless pursuit: recrossing hostile dimensions and taking the fight to his foes in ‘Earth Be My Battleground’.

Returning to the enclave hiding his ailing master, Strange gleans a hint of a solution in the mumbled enigmatic word “Eternity” and begins searching for more information as, in the Dark Dimension, a terrified girl seeks to sabotage Dread Dormammu’s efforts to empower Mordo…

As the world went superscience spy-crazy and Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. took over the lead spot with Strange Tales #135, the Sixties also saw a blossoming of alternative thought and rebellion. Doctor Strange apparently became a confirmed favourite of the blossoming Counterculture Movement and its recreational drug experimentation subculture. With Ditko truly hitting his imaginative stride, it’s not hard to see why. His weirdly authentic otherworlds and demonstrably adjacent dimensions were utterly unlike anything anyone had ever seen or depicted before…

‘Eternity Beckons!’ as Strange is lured to an ancient castle where an old ally betrays him and, after again narrowly escaping Mordo’s minions, the Mage desperately consults the aged senile Genghis in #136: a grave error in judgement. Once more catapulted into a dimension of deadly danger, Strange barely escapes a soul-stealing horror after discovering ‘What Lurks Beneath the Mask?’

Back on Earth and out of options, the Doctor is must test his strength against the Ancient One’s formidable psychic defences to learn the secret of Eternity in ‘When Meet the Mystic Minds!’ Barely surviving the terrible trial, he uses newfound knowledge to translates himself to a place beyond reality and meet the embodiment of creation in ‘If Eternity Should Fail!’

His quest for solutions or extra might failed, he despondently returns to Earth to find his mentor gone and his unnamed female friend prisoners of his worst enemies in anticipation of a deadly showdown…

Strange Tales #139 warns ‘Beware…! Dormammu is Watching!’, but as Mordo – despite being super-charged with the Dark Lord’s infinite energies – fails over and again to kill the Good Doctor, the Overlord of Evil loses all patience, dragging all concerned into his domain.

Intent on making a show of destroying his mortal nemesis, Dormammu convenes a great gathering before whom he will smash Strange in a duel using nothing but ‘The Pincers of Power!’ He is again bathed in ultimate humiliation as the mortal mage’s wit and determination score a stunning triumph in concluding episode ‘Let There Be Victory!’

As the universes tremble, Doctor Strange wearily heads home, blithely unaware his enemies have laid one last trap. The weary victor returns to his Sanctum Sanctorum; unaware his foes have boobytrapped with mundane explosives.

Scripted by Lee and plotted and illustrated by Ditko, Strange Tales #142 reveals ‘Those Who Would Destroy Me!’ as Mordo’s unnamed disciples prepare one final stab at the Master of the Mystic Arts. They would remain anonymous for decades, only gaining names of their own – Kaecillius, Demonicus and The Witch – upon their return in the mid-1980s.

Here, however, they easily entrap the exhausted wizard warrior, imprisoning him with a view to plundering all his secrets. It’s a big mistake as – in the Roy Thomas dialogued sequel ‘With None Beside Me!’ – Strange outwits and subdues his captors…

In #144 Ditko & Thomas take the heartsick hero ‘Where Man Hath Never Trod!’ Although Dormammu was soundly defeated and humiliated before his peers and vassals, the demonic tyrant takes a measure of revenge by exiling Strange’s anonymous female collaborator to realms unknown. Now, as the Earthling seeks to rescue her while searching myriad mystic planes, he stumbles into a trap laid by the Dark One and executed by devilish collector of souls Tazza

On defeating the scheme, Strange returns to Earth and almost dies at the hands of far weaker, but sneakier, wizard Mister Rasputin in a yarn scripted by Dennis O’Neil. The spy and swindler uses meagre mystic gifts for material gain but happily resorts to base brutality ‘To Catch a Magician!’

All previous covers had been Kirby S.H.I.E.L.D. affairs but finally, with Strange Tales #146, Strange and Ditko won their moment in the sun. Although the artist would soon be gone, the Good Doctor remained, alternating with Fury’s team until the title ended.

Ditko & O’Neil presided over The End …At Last!’ as deranged Dormammu abducts Strange before suicidally attacking the omnipotent embodiment of the cosmos called Eternity.

The cataclysmic chaos ruptures the heavens over infinite dimensions and when the universe is calm again both supra-deities are gone. Rescued from the resultant tumult, however, is the valiant girl Strange had loved and lost. She introduces herself as Clea, and although Stephen despondently leaves her, we all know she will be back…

This sideral swansong was Ditko’s last hurrah. Issue #147 saw a fresh start as Strange went back to his Greenwich Village abode under the auspices of co-scripters Lee & O’Neil, with comics veteran Bill Everett suddenly and surprisingly limning the arcane adventures. More of that next time.

Before that though there are still treats in store, beginning with a pinup published in 1967’s Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics #10 before we revel in one last Lee/Ditko yarn to enthral and beguile: Although a little chronologically askew, it is very much a case of the best left until last.

In October 1965 ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’ (from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2) was the astonishing lead feature in an otherwise vintage reprint Spidey comic book. The entrancing fable unforgettably introduced the webslinger to arcane adventuring and otherworldly realities as he unwillingly teams up with the Master of the Mystic Arts to battle power-crazed wizard Xandu: a phantasmagorical, dimension-hopping masterpiece involving ensorcelled zombie thugs and the purloined Wand of Watoomb

After this story it was clear Spider-Man worked in any milieu and nothing could hold him back – and the cross-fertilisation probably introduced many fans to Lee & Ditko’s other breakthrough series.

But wait, there’s even more! Wrapping up the proceeding is a contemporary T-shirt design by Ditko, and the briefest selection of original art.

Doctor Strange has always been the coolest of outsiders and most accessible fringe star of the Marvel firmament. This glorious grimoire is a magical method for old fans to enjoy his world once more and the perfect introduction for recent acolytes or converts created by the movie iteration to enjoy the groundbreaking work of two thirds of the Marvel Empire’s founding triumvirate at their most imaginative.
© 2023 MARVEL.

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man: Peter Parker vs The X-Men


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Ben Dewey, Christian Nauck, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4116-7 (Digest PB/Digital edition)

In 2003 the House of Ideas instituted a Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a newer, younger readership. The enterprise was modified in 2005, with core titles reduced to Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The tone was very much that of the company’s burgeoning TV cartoon franchises, in delivery if not name.

Supplemental series including Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were cancelled. In their place came new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. Most of the re-imagined tales were collected in gleefully inviting digest-sized compilations and digitised like this torrid tome. It re-presents #58-61 – the final four stories – from February to May 2010, and all scripted throughout by Paul (No Romance in Hell, Plants vs Zombies) Tobin.

What You Need to Know: 16-year-old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for little more than six months. In that time, he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, driven to fight injustice. However, as a kid just learning the ropes, he’s pretty much in over his head all the time.

The most persistent major hassle is the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, whose goombahs and street-thugs perpetually attack the wallcrawler on sight, spurred on by a $500,000 bounty on the kid’s web-covered head…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too, but of great help and constant comfort is High School classmate Sophia Sanduval – the extremely talented Chat – who can communicate with animals and knows Peter’s secret…

Following a handy introductory recap page, we open with him ‘Wanted’ (illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Terry Pallot) when the protracted vendetta against the Torinos is suddenly punctuated by wanted posters for the webslinger on every tree, fence and lamppost. During another brutal but pointless clash with the mobsters, the harassed hero is aided by a very capable masked woman in a red dress who introduces herself as the Blonde Phantom. She’s behind the find-Spidey posters but only because she wants to offer him a job with her Blonde Phantom Detective Agency…

Cautiously hearing her out, Spidey shares his strange and complex personal life with the sultry sleuth, telling her about Chat and how Gwen Watson claims to be going out on dates with his alter ego, something Peter adamantly denies. He doesn’t even have time for the girlfriend he’s got…

Gwen’s dad is Police Captain George Stacy – who also knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics. The senior cop acts as a mentor and sounding board, but has some very hard words concerning anyone taking money for doing good deeds. Peter kind-of agrees with him, but Aunt May is in desperate need of cash to repair the foundations of her house…

Conflicted Peter still hasn’t decided to meet up with Blonde Phantom, but as another band of Torinos jump them, the resulting battle reminds him that the last time he took money for being Spider-Man, Uncle Ben died…

The guilt-ridden kid sadly declines the glamorous gumshoe’s offer but is later astounded when Captain Stacy provides a welcome – and acceptably legitimate – financial solution to May’s money woes.

Blonde Phantom isn’t too disappointed either: she got Chat’s contact details out of Peter before they parted…

Pencilled by Ben Dewey, eponymous epic ‘Peter Parker vs. the X-Men’ finds the wallcrawler and Chat having an earnest heart-to-heart about their relationship – and Gwen’s persistent and insistent claims to still be going out on dates with Peter – when alarmed squirrels warn them that they are being spied on by a stranger with “three big fingers”. A rapid and thorough investigation results in nothing but a strange whiff of sulphur…

After they go their separate ways, the hero is again ambushed by Torinos, but one of them – later revealed as the grandson of The Family’s Big Boss Berto – helps him escape. George Stacy later warns him the increasingly impatient mobsters have finally hired some specialist help: engaging the services of super-assassin Bullseye – the Man who Never Misses…

Bewildered and extremely nervous our hero heads home only to find Wolverine spying on him. When the Arachnid attacks the clawed mutant he is assaulted by a whole squad of X-Men, and only after a frantic fray discovers they’ve come to offer help to a fellow mutant…

When he finally convinces them that he isn’t a Homo Superior kid, the embarrassed outsider heroes realise that mutant detector Cerebro must have been registering the girl he was with… the one who talks to pigeons and squirrels…

With pencils by Christian Nauck, ‘I’ve Got a Badge!’ focuses on the return of teenaged thief/mutant mindbender Silencer as Chat – now in training with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency – explains to a baffled Peter that she can’t remember being his girlfriend, even though all her animal associates assure her it’s totally true.

Mysteries begin to unravel after Captain Stacy offers Spider-Man a Consultant position with the NYPD, asking him to help apprehend Silencer… who has been robbing the city blind.

Whilst searching for her and dreaming of a life where cops aren’t always after him, young Torino kid Carter takes an opportunity during one more gang hit to warn the wallcrawler Bullseye is after him…

Heading for Chat’s place, Peter finds Silencer in residence and calls in the cops, only to discover the bandit is actually his girlfriend’s BFF Emma Frost

Choosing to help Emma escape, Peter sacrifices his chance for an easier life, and discovers to his dismay in the concluding chapter Emma is also behind all his romantic woes, meddling with both Gwen and Chat’s minds because she wants the webslinger for herself. Of course, the animals know what’s going on and when they tell Chat the fur – and webbing – flies…

Never the success the company hoped, Marvel Adventures was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories remain an intriguing, amazingly entertaining and more accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced, enthralling and impressive, these Spidey super stories are intensely enjoyable yarns, although parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and might perhaps better suit older youngsters…
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Marvel Adventures Avengers: Thor and Captain America


By Paul Tobin, Scott Gray, Todd DeZago, Ronan Cliquet, Ron Lim, Lou Kang & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5584-3 (Digest PB)

In 2003 the House of Ideas instituted a Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a newer, younger readership. The enterprise was modified in 2005, with core titles reduced to Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The tone was very much that of the company’s burgeoning TV cartoon franchises, in delivery if not name.

Supplemental series including Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were cancelled. In their place came new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

Most of the re-imagined tales were collected in gleefully inviting digest-sized compilations and digitised; this – except for a electric version – was the case with this engaging ensemble featuring fabulous  forays starring the God of Thunder or Sentinel of Liberty and their Avenging allies: a quartet of all-ages tales from the second volume of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes (#13-16, spanning June-September 2011).

The action opens with a mythological masterpiece by Paul Tobin, Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos wherein plucky novice hero Nova is invited by Avenging comrades Thor and Valkyrie to accompany them on an annual errand for All-Father Odin.

In the distant past when Asgardians warred with Trolls, godling messenger Glane failed in his mission and was banished to the ghastly Fields of the Fallen to pay penance by continually battling the Golden Realm’s vilest enemies. Periodically, Thor has been sent to add new tasks to the sinning failure’s heavy burden, and this year – as the Thunderer and Valkyrie ready themselves for the trip – they invite starstruck neophyte Nova along.

However, as the trio war their way through horrific monsters and overwhelming odds, Nova finds himself increasingly uncomfortable with the sentence meted out to Glane. He even begins doubting the motives of his immortal mentors. All that changes once he meets and battles beside the convicted penitent…

Originating in MASH #14, ‘Out of Time!’ is by Todd DeZago, Ron Lim & Scott Koblish (inspired by Gerry Conway & Ross Andru’s tale from the original Marvel Team-Up #7). Here, the Lord of Storm intercepts Spider-Man after the wallcrawler is blasted high into the sky whilst battling raving maniac the Looter.

That happy coincidence occurs just a bizarre force freezes time around them. When the heroes discover that only they have escaped a devastating weapon deployed by Trollish tyrant Kryllk the Conqueror to paralyze and overwhelm both Asgard and the mortal plane, they must divide their strength to simultaneously smash the conqueror in Manhattan and Asgard if they are to set time running free again…

Captain America takes the spotlight in #15 as ‘Back in Time’ (Tobin, Cliquet & Santos) finds him battling Neanderthals with ray-guns in a National Forest after tracking down rogue geneticists who have stolen a huge amount of plutonium.

A mere mile away, Peter Parker’s girlfriend Sophia Sanduval is getting back to nature and chilling with her furry, scaly and feathered friends. As Chat, the mutant teen’s power to communicate with animals makes her a crucial component of the mystery-solving Blonde Phantom Detective Agency, but even she has never seen anything like the wave of extinct creatures which appear after Cap begins battling the tooled-up cavemen.

Soon Chat has been briefed on the deadly experiments of rogue technologist Jerrick Brogg. The villain’s ambition is to build an army out of revived extinct creatures, but she and helps The Star-Spangled Avenger frustrate those save all the beasts he has re-created from short painful lives of terror and brutal exploitation, before putting the maniac away for good.

Wrapping up the action comes ‘Stars, Stripes and Spiders!’ by DeZago, Lou Kang & Pat Davidson (based on Len Wein & Gil Kane’s tale from Marvel Team-Up #13). When a certain wallcrawling high-school student/occasional masked hero stumbles into Captain America tackling an AIM cadre stealing super-soldier serum, the nervous lad learns a few things about the hero game from the legendary guy who wrote the book. Sadly, not making that lesson any easier is petrifying supervillain Grey Gargoyle, whose deadly touch almost ends Spidey’s homework worries – and continued existence – forever…

Fast, furious, funny and enthralling, these riotous mini-epics are extremely enjoyable yarns, although parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the level of violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action”…
© 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Iron Man Reloaded


By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Len Kaminski, Matt Fraction, Don Heck, George Tuska, Greg LaRocque, Kev Hopgood, Salvador Larroca, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-529-1 (TPB)

It’s hard to encapsulate six decades of excellence but as the Golden Avenger celebrates his anniversary, here’s a rare old gem from ten years gone, still readily available, that has a pretty good go at just that…

Produced under the always intriguing Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales gathers a some of the more impressive but happily less obvious landmarks from the Steel Sentinel’s extensive canon; this time cannily focusing on sinister mastermind, ultimate arch-enemy The Mandarin.

Contained herein are high-tech hi-jinks from Tales of Suspense #50, Iron Man volume 1, #21-22, 68-71, 291 & 500, Marvel Team-Up #146 and Iron Man volume 5 #19, (listed on Marvel’s Database as Invincible Iron Man volume 1 #19), cumulatively spanning 1964 to 2011, and offering a fair representation of what is quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick from…

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since debuting in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover-dated March 1963) when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armour…

Since then the inventor/armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, Federal politician, affirmed Futurist, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and, of course, one of Earth’s most prominent superheroes with The Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a decades-long pedigree, radical reboots were and are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to America’s most recent conflicts. As always, change is everything but, remember, these aren’t just alterations, these are upgrades…

After a mandatory introduction from co-originator Stan Lee, the star-studded action begins with ‘The Hands of the Mandarin!’ from Tales of Suspense #50 wherein the wonderful Don Heck returned as regular penciller and occasional inker after a brief absence, and Lee introduced The Golden Avenger’s first major menace. This was a contemporary Fu Manchu who terrified the Red Chinese so much they manoeuvred him into attacking America in the hope that one threat would destroy the other. Please, if you can, remember that these were simpler, less evolved and far more casually racist times than today…

In response, the Golden Avenger invades the mastermind’s Chinese citadel where, after a ferocious but futilely inconclusive fight, he simply goes back home to the Land of the Free. The furious Mandarin holds a grudge, however, and would make himself arguably Iron Man’s greatest foe.

Of course, whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a glamorous millionaire industrialist, scientist and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business manifestly the new zeitgeists of the young (and how right they were!), the Metal Marvel and Stark International were soon confronting tricky questions from their increasingly politically savvy readership. With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore, the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America…

Iron Man #21-22 (January & February 1970, by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska & Mike Esposito-as-Joe Gaudioso) found the multi-zillionaire trying to get out of the arms business and – following a heart transplant – looking to retire from the superhero biz. African-American boxer Eddie March became ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark, free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved him for years, was briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unknown to all, Eddie had a major health problem of his own…

As Stark pursued a romantic future with business rival Janice Cord, her chief researcher and would-be lover Alex Niven was revealed as a Russian fugitive using her resources to rebuild the deadly armour of the Crimson Dynamo. Niven easily overcame the ailing substitute Avenger and, when Soviet heavy metal super-enforcer Titanium Man resurfaced with orders to arrest the defector, a 3-way clash ensued. Stark was forced to take up his metal burden again – but not before Eddie was grievously injured and Janice killed in #22’s classic tragedy ‘From this Conflict… Death!’

Stark’s romantic liaisons always ended badly. Four years later he was ardently pursuing Roxie Gilbert, a radical pacifist and sister of his old enemy Firebrand. She, of course, had no time for a man with so much blood on his hands…

Iron Man #68-71 (June to November 1974) was the opening sortie in a multi-part epic which saw mystic menace The Black Lama foment a war amongst the World’s greatest villains with ultimate power and inner peace as the promised prize. Crafted by Mike Friedrich, Tuska & Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ as the Mandarin struggled to free his mind (at that time trapped in the dying body of Russian villain the Unicorn).

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently “liberated” People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother: a POW missing since the last days of the war. The Americans were soon separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the Yankee Imperialists. The attack abruptly ended when Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power a mind-transfer back into his own body.

Reborn in his original form, the deranged dictator began his campaign in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival “oriental overlord” Yellow Claw. First, though, he had to crush Iron Man who – in ‘Confrontation!’ – had tracked him down and freed Sunfire A bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into space…

‘Who Shall Stop… Ultimo?’ found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking Mandarin’s castle even as the tyrant duelled the Claw to the death, with Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and left to mop up the contest’s survivor in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw!’

‘Hometown Boy’ (September 1984, by Tony Isabella, Greg LaRocque & Esposito) comes from the period when Stark again succumbed to alcoholism and lost everything, whilst friend and bodyguard Jim Rhodes took over the role of Golden Avenger. As Stark tried to make good with a new start-up company, this engaging yarn from Marvel Team-Up #146 sees the substitute hero still finding his ferrous feet whilst battling oft-failed assassin Blacklash at a trade fair in Cleveland, as much hindered as helped by visiting hero Spider-Man

Despite successfully rebuilding his company, Stark’s woes actually increased. Iron Man #291 (April 1993) found the turbulent technocrat trapped in total body paralysis: using a neural interface to pilot the armour like a telemetric telepresence drone. He had also utterly alienated Rhodes who had been acting as his proxy in a tailored battle suit dubbed War Machine

Concluding an extended epic saga, ‘Judgment Day’ by Len Kaminski & Kev Hopgood explosively revealed how the feuding friends achieved a tentative rapprochement whilst battling a legion of killer robots and death dealing devices programmed to hunt down Rhodes at all costs…

From December 2009 comes Invincible Iron Man #19, courtesy of Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca. At this time, Federal initiative the Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes and Stark was appointed the American government’s Security Czar: “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., he was also the last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

However, his heavy-handed mismanagement of various crises led to the arrest and the assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in an almost-successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, Stark was replaced by rehabilitated villain and recovering split-personality Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin), who assumed full control of the USA’s covert agencies and military resources. He disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his new umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

Osborn was still a monster at heart, however, and wanted total power. Intending to appropriate all Stark’s technological assets, the “reformed” villain began hunting the fugitive former Avenger. Terrified that not only his weaponry but also the secret identities of most of Earth’s heroes would fall into a ruthless maniac’s hands, Stark began to systematically erase all his memories, effectively lobotomising himself to save everything…

‘Into the White (Einstein on the Beach)’ delivers the conclusion of that quest as Stark, little more than an animated vegetable wearing his very first suit of armour, faced his merciless adversary in pointless futile battle, whilst in America faithful aide Pepper Potts, The Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last deputy director Maria Hill raided Osborn’s base to retrieve a disc with Tony’s last hope on it and simultaneously engineer the maniac’s ultimate defeat…

The comics portion of this winning compilation concludes with the lead tale from Iron Man #500 (March 2011) wherein a mostly recovered Stark is plagued by gaps in his mostly restored memory.

‘The New Iron Age’ by Matt Fraction, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & Salvador Larroca, is a clever, twice-told tale beginning when Stark approaches sometime ally and employee Peter Parker in an effort to regain more of his lost past. Stark is plagued by dreams of a super-weapon he may or may not have designed, and together they track down the stolen plans for the ultimate Stark-tech atrocity which has fallen into the hands of murderous anti-progress fanatics resulting in a spectacular showdown of men versus machines…

Contiguously and interlaced throughout the tale are dark scenes of the near future where the Mandarin has conquered the world, enslaved Tony Stark and his son Howard and, with the ruthless deployment of Iron Man troopers and that long-ago-designed super weapon, all but eradicated humanity.

With Earth dying, rebel leader Ginny Stark leads the suicidal Black Widows armed with primitive weapons in one last charge against the dictator, aided by two traitors within the Mandarin’s household and guided by a message and mantra from the far forgotten past…

The book concludes with covers from Jack Kirby, Tuska, Esposito, Jim Starlin, Dave Cockrum, Ron Wilson, John Romita Sr., LaRoque, Bob Layton, Hopgood & Larroca, plus a dense and hefty 21 pages of text features, including ‘The Origin of the Mandarin’ by Mike Conroy and history, background and technical secrets of Crimson Dynamo, Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Mandarin, Pepper Potts, Stark Industries, Titanium Man and War Machine.

A thoroughly entertaining accompaniment tailored to the cinematic Marvel Fan, this is also a splendid device to make curious movie-goers converts to the comic incarnation: another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm the veteran Ferro-phile.
© 2013 Marvel. 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.

Marvel Adventures Avengers volume 9: The Times They Are A‘Changin’


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Ig Guara, Casey Jones, Christian Vecchia & Sandro Ribeiro (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3832-7 (PB/Digital edition)

Time for another anniversary shout-out, so let’s celebrate the fact that The Avengers #1 (cover-dated September 1963 but on sale from July 2nd) was sold out on newsstands all over America by today’s date…

In 2003, the House of Ideas created a Marvel Age line updating classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko before merging it with remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic.

The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with core titles Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man carrying all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, Power Pack, Hulk and The Avengers, which ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This particularly light-hearted digest-sized collection re-presents issues #32-35 of Marvel Adventures Avengers (from 2009), offering stand-alone yarns to delight fans with a sense of humour and iota of wit…

What You Need To Know: this incarnation of the World’s Mightiest Superheroes operates an “open-door” policy where almost every metahuman marvel might turn up for duty. However – presumably because of their TV cartoon popularity – the Wondrous Wallcrawler and Jade Juggernaut are on scene in almost every episode…

Written throughout by Paul Tobin (No Romance in Hell, Plants vs Zombies), an avalanche of fast-paced fun begins with ‘The Big Payoff’ illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Christian Vecchia, wherein the team gets a most unpleasant visit from Special Agent Clark Harvey of the Internal Revenue Service.

This weaselling civil servant is ostensibly there to collect individual Avengers’ taxes, but it’s all a ploy to blackmail the team into forcing a bunch of defaulting villains into paying up…

Smart and deviously hilarious, the clashes between Giant-Girl, Spider-Man and Luke Cage against Whirlwind, the web-spinner and erudite philosophical monster/political activist Oog or Man-Bull versus Iron Man are entertainment enough, but Iron Man and Giant-Girl overmatched against the Absorbing Man and the childlike Hulk convincing assassin Bullseye to do his patriotic duty are utterly priceless…

When jungle king Ka-Zar visits from the Antarctic lost world, all he can think about is learning how to use a car. Sadly Wolverine, Storm, Giant-Girl, Hulk and Spidey all feel safer battling an invasion of super-saurians unleashed by Stegron the Dinosaur Man than sitting in the same vehicle as the Lord of the Savage Land in ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, with art by Ig Guara & Sandro Ribeiro…

When ancient Egyptian magicians turn time into an out-of-control merry-go-round, ‘Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos!’ (Lolli & Vecchia) are caught up in the assorted eras of chaos, with Ant-Man, Giant-Girl, Tigra, Storm, the wallcrawler and Hulk frantically fighting just to keep up…

Rendered by Casey Jones, this titanic tiny tome concludes on a romantic note in ‘Lovers Leaper’ when all the female Avengers head off for a vacation break. They foolishly thought Captain America, Cage, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Wolverine could handle things for a while, but boys will be slobs and soon the HQ is a ghastly mess of “man-cave” madness…

Moreover, since Hawkeye now needs a date for the Annual Archer Awards, he tries an on-line dating service, and uploads not just his but all his buddies’ information onto the site…

With seemingly every eligible lady – super-powered and not – in New York City subscribing to the Lovers Leap site, our unsuspecting heroes are soon being bombarded by an army of annoyed women who think they’ve been stood up by the utterly oblivious Avengers.

… And when they try to get the owner to remove their details, the heroes discover French former bad-guy Batroc the Leaper is in charge and unwilling to do them any favours…

Smart and fun on many levels, bright, breezy and bursting with light-hearted action and loads of solid laughs, this book offers a fabulous alternative to regular Marvel Universe angst and agony. Even with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” these stories are superbly thrilling and beautifully depicted: a perfect introduction for kids and adults alike to the vast realm of adventure we all love…

These collected stories present an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born generations away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 1: Amazing


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Scott Koblish & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4118-1 (Digest PB/Digital edition)

Since its earliest days Marvel always courted the youngest audiences. Whether animated tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or Calvin, the House of Ideas always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days, however, general kids’ interest titles are on the wane and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large, small, and even portable, the company prefers to create child-friendly versions of its own pantheon, making an eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company established a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko all mixed in with remnants of their manga-based Tsunami imprint, also intended for a younger readership. The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed in Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man with reconstituted classics replaced by all new stories. Additional series included Marvel Adventures series Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These ran until 2010 when all were cancelled and replaced by new – continuity-continuing -volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This digest-sized collection gathers the first four stories from the 2010 iteration and actually starts in the middle of the action – although writer Paul Tobin and artists Matteo Lolli and Scott Koblish (with inkers Christian Dalla Vecchia, Terry Pallot Koblish & Andrew Hennessy) take great pains to keep the stories as clear as possible.

Sixteen year old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for about six months. In that time he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, driven to fight injustice. However, as a kid just learning the ropes, he’s pretty much always in over his head…

The opening tale finds him on a crusade against the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, attempting to expose their bought-and-paid-for Judge Clive Baraby, whilst ex-girlfriend and wannabe journalist Gwen dogs his webbed heels and her father Police Captain George Stacy – who knows the boy’s secret but allows him to continue his vigilante antics – picks up all the well-thumped thugs the incensed wall-crawler leaves in his wake.

Even though Spidey can’t touch corrupt Baraby, his campaign of attrition has the Torinos on the ropes, so the Mafioso engage the services of super-assassin Bullseye to kill the Web-spinner. However, the Man who Never Misses is infuriatingly slow to act and soon there’s an open contract on the kid crusader…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too. Since he and Gwen split, the lad has taken up with schoolmate Sophia Sanduval – an extremely talented lass nicknamed Chat – who also knows Pete’s secret, can communicate with animals and has a part-time job with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency

She also pays attention in class and suggests how what they learned in history can be used to trap the untouchable Baraby.

The second story opens with a brutal dognapping and leads inexorably to a clash with merciless mercenary Midnight when the villain invades Peter’s school during a martial arts exhibition by Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Along the way, Chat introduces Pete to new buddy Flapper – a very wise owl indeed – and new kid Carter Torino enrols at the school. How does this troubled new boy know the constantly watching Bullseye?

Before the subplots get too intens,e however, Midnight and his ninjas attack Shang-Chi and Spider-Man joins the fracas, subsequently learning some things from the combat expert – including who to return that stolen dog to…

Whilst close-mouthed gang-prince Carter gets closer to Gwen, Wolverine guest-stars in an third untitled tale as Chat asks her bug-boy beau to help hunt down the wild-haired mutant for a client who wants Logan to model their hair gel. Typically, whenever the Clawed Canadian appears trouble isn’t far behind, and when a gang of Torino goons jumps Wolverine, Spidey is forced to join the carnage. And that’s when Bullseye makes his move…

As conflicted Carter Torino confronts his criminal family, the volume concludes with a savage showdown between Bullseye and the sorely outmatched Spider-Man …and sees the death of one of the supporting cast…

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to those Disney XD television shows designated as Marvel Universe Cartoons, but these tales are still an intriguing and more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born generations away from the originating events.

Fast-paced and impressive, these Spidey tales are extremely enjoyable yarns but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action”…
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Werewolf by Night Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Roy & Jean Thomas, Mike Ploog, Werner Roth, Ross Andru, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3346-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Now a star of page and screen, Werewolf by Night could be described as the true start of the Marvel Age of Horror. Now technically supplanted by modern Hopi/Latino lycanthrope Jake Gomez – who’s shared the designation since 2020 – these trials of a turbulent teen wolf opened the floodgates to a stream of Marvel monster stars and horror antiheroes.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In 1970, as Marvel consolidated its new position of market dominance – even after losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so employing a wave of new young talent, but less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was a mass-move into horror titles (or more accurately “monster titles” – the CCA still vetoed “horror”): a response to an industry down-turn in superhero sales, and a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight scary monsters became again acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too), the creative aspect of the revived fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics would be incorporated into the print mix and shared universe mix as readily as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel launched a line of sinister superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire…

Werewolf by Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western-era hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by Ghost Rider). In actuality, the series title, if not the actual character, was recycled from a classic pre-Comics Code short suspense-thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953. Marvel always favoured using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. The Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as hairy underpants monsters or throwaways in some anthology or other.

Accompanied by an introductory reminiscence from Roy Thomas, this copious compendium collects the early adventures of a young West Coast wild one by re-presenting the contents of Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf by Night volume 1 #1-8 and a guest-shot from Marvel Team-Up #12 cumulatively covering February 1972 to August 1973.

The moonlit madness begins with that landmark first appearance, introducing teenager Jack Russell, who is suffering some sleepless nights…

Cover-dated February 1972 and on sale as 1971 closed, ‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2) was written by Gerry Conway and moodily, magnificently illustrated by Mike Ploog in the manner of his old mentor Will Eisner. The character concept came from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas, describing the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday – which began with nightmares and ends in something far worse.

Jack’s mother and little sister Lissa are everything a fatherless boy could hope for, but new stepdad Philip and creepy chauffeur Grant are another matter. Try as he might, Jack can’t help but see them as self-serving and with hidden agendas…

At his party that evening, Jack has an agonising seizure and flees into the Malibu night, transforming for the first time into a ravening vulpine man-beast. At dawn, he awakes wasted on a beach to learn his mother has been gravely injured in a car crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

Sneaking into her hospital room, the distraught teen hears her relate the story of his birth-father: an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply, but locked himself away three nights every month…

The Russoff line is cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reach 18 years of age. Jack is horrified on realising how soon his sister will reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell makes her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set, with the traumatised wolf-boy uncontrollably transforming three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment begins in earnest with the beast attacking the creepy chauffeur – who had doctored those car-brakes – but refraining – even in vulpine form – from attacking Philip Russell…

The second chapter sees the reluctant nocturnal predator rescue Lissa from a rowdy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the cops, only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome dubbed the Darkhold. This legendary spell-book is the apparent basis of the Russoff curse, but when Jack can’t produce the goods, he’s left to the mercies of ‘The Thing in the Cellar!’

Surviving more by luck than power, Jack’s third try-out issue fetches him up on an ‘Island of the Damned!’: introducing aging Hollywood screenwriter Buck Cowan, who will become Jack’s best friend and affirming father-figure as they jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s evil stepdad.

Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance, leaving the kid nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had Laura Russell killed leads them to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

The episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as an added incentive to buy Werewolf by Night #1 (cover-dated September 1972), wherein Frank Chiaramonte assumed inking duties with ‘Eye of the Beholder!…

Merciless biological freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse abduct the entire Russell family whilst looking for the Book of Sins, until – once more – a fearsome force of supernature awakes to accidentally save the day as night falls…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck deposit the trouble-magnet grimoire with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but are still hunted because of it. Jack quits the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading forests and surf for concrete canyons but life is no easier.

In #2, dying scientist Cephalos seeks to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own existence, living just long enough to regret it. Meanwhile, Joquez successfully translates the Darkhold: an accomplishment allowing an ancient horror to possess him in WbN #3, in ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!’

Whilst the werewolf is saddened to end such a noble life, he feels far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who craves a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in the Franke Bolle inked ‘The Danger Game’. Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin, Jack must then deal with Kane’s deranged brother, who wants the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ (by Len Wein & Ploog) after which ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Bolle inks again) finds the beast – and Jack, once the sun rises – a pitiful captive of seedy mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks.

The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. “Old-school cop” Lou Hackett is an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane – and every bit as cruelly savage – but his off-the-books investigation hardly begins before the Swami’s plans fall apart in concluding part ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast is safely(?) roaming loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky and penultimate monster-mash when an ancient demon possesses a cute little bunny in Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!’, after we which we pause for now with a slight but stirring engagement in Marvel Team-Up #12, where Wein, Conway, Ross Andru & Don Perlin expose a ‘Wolf at Bay!’

As webspinning wallcrawler meets wily werewolf, they initially battle each other – and ultimately malevolent mage Moondark – in foggy, fearful San Francisco before Jack heads back to LA for more feral fury in a future issue…

With covers by Neal Adams& Tom Palmer, Ploog, Gil Kane and John Romita, this collection is supplemented with an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight#4; a gallery of original Ploog art pages and a previous collection cover by Arthur Adams & Jason Keith. A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this tome shares some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling chillers to delight any fear fan or drama addict. If you crave a few fun frightmares, go get your paws on this.
© 2022 MARVEL.

Secret Invasion


By Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Francis Yu, Mark Morales & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3297-4 (TPB/Digital edition Marvel) 978-1-84653-405-8 (TPB Panini/Marvel UK)

The Skrulls are shape-shifting aliens who have threatened Earth since the second issue of Fantastic Four, and have long been a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of use and misuse the insidious invaders were made the stars of a colossal braided mega-crossover event beginning in April 2008 and running through all the company’s titles until Christmas. That landmark worlds-shaking epic has since been adapted to the company’s burgeoning, blockbuster Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you were a real fan, you’d have already seen the first episode…

We, however, are all about the comics so let’s revisit the stunning and all-pervasive source material. The premise is simple enough: the everchanging, corruptive would-be conquerors have undergone a mass religious conversion and are now utterly, fanatically dedicated to taking Earth as their new homeworld. To this end they have replaced over an unspecified time a number of key Earth denizens – including many of the world’s superheroes.

When the lid is lifted on the simmering plot, no defender of the Earth truly knows who is on their side…

Moreover the cosmic charlatans have also unravelled the secrets of humanity’s magical and genetic superpowers, creating amped-up equivalents to Earth’s mightiest. They are now primed and able to destroy the heroic defenders in face-to-face confrontations.

With the conquest primed to launch, everything starts to unravel when Elektra dies in battle and is discovered to be an alien, not a ninja. Soon, two teams of Avengers (Iron Man, The Sentry, Wonder Man, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Ronin, Echo, Cloak and Black Widow) and certain agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  are covertly investigating in discrete operations. All are painfully aware that they have no way of telling friend from foe…

Crisis and confusion are compounded when a Skrull ship crashes in the primordial Savage Land, releasing a band of missing heroes claiming to have been abducted and experimented on. Among them are another Spider-Man, Luke Cage, recently killed Captain America Steve Rogers, Phoenix/Jean Grey and Thor, plus other heroes believed gone forever. Some must be Skrull duplicates but are they the newcomers or the ones facing them…?

As the champions second guess each other, the second strand triggers. Earths space defence station S.W.O.R.D. is blown up and a virus rips through the internet shutting down crucial systems including the Starktech comprising the operating systems of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Iron Man’s armour…

Now all over Earth, Skrulls attack and heroes – and even villains such as Norman (Green Goblin) Osborn – respond and retaliate in a last ditch effort to survive: a war of survival that ends in shock, horror and unforeseen disaster…

Rather than give any more away, let me just say that if you like this sort of blockbuster saga you’ll be in seventh heaven, and a detailed familiarity is not vital to your understanding. However, for a fuller understanding, amongst the other Secret Invasion volumes accompanying this, you should particularly seek out Secret Invasion: the Infiltration, Secret War (2004), Avengers Disassembled, and Annihilation volumes 1-3, as well as the Avengers: Illuminati compilation.

This American volume contains all 8 issues of the core miniseries plus a monumental covers-&-variants gallery (31 in total) by Gabriele Dell’Otto, Steve McNiven, Leinil Yu, Mel Rubi, Frank Cho, Laura Martin and Greg Horn, and a series of chilling house ads imploring us to ‘Embrace Change’, but is just one of 22 volumes comprising the vast number of episodes in convergent storylines of the saga.

Fast-paced, complex, superbly illustrated and suitably spectacular, this twisty-turny tale and its long-term repercussions reshaped the Marvel Universe, heralding a “Dark Reign” that pushed all the envelopes. If you are a comics newcomer, and can find the British edition from Panini, it also includes one-shot spin-off Who Do You Trust? and illustrated data-book Skrulls which claims to provide a listing and biography for every shapeshifter yet encountered in the Marvel Universe (but if they left any out, could you tell?).
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.