Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man Volume 4: Friendly Neighborhood


By Paul Tobin, Roberto Di Salvo, Matteo Lolli, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5257-6

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

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

The process began in 2003 when the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, merging it with the 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 the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The reconstituted classics were then replaced by all-original yarns.

Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk, running until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man which carried on the established continuities.

This digest-sized collection collects issues #13-16 of that second iteration and sees Paul Tobin firmly in the driving seat, deftly blending action with humour and even inserting a little low level soap opera romance as 16-year old Peter Parker continues his first steps as reluctant yet driven superhero Spider-Man. Even after all the time he has prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, fighting crime and injustice, he’s still just a kid learning the ropes and pretty much in over his head all the time…

Illustrated by Roberto Di Salvo, the drama begins with our hero and his Aunt May vacationing in Britain. Whilst the senior Parker checks out antiques shops and farmers’ markets in Devon, her poor nephew has found a spot of bother on Dartmoor, beside British “Scooby Gang” T.U.F.F. (Teenage Ultimate Forteans Forever).

Following reports of monster sightings on the moors, Spidey and Co. unite with jungle lord Ka-Zar and his smilodon ally Zabu to crush a ring of exotic pet smugglers selling dinosaurs stolen from the Savage Land in ‘Raptor of the Baskervilles’.

A tricky task at the best of times, their valiant endeavour almost ends in disaster when the thieves bring in mutant maniac Sabretooth to kill the pesky, interfering kids…

Back in the Big Apple, the Web-spinner then teams up with Police Captain George Stacy to stop a run of armoured car heists perpetrated by Mysterio. ‘The Illusionist’ (Matteo Lolli & Pallot) had liberally dosed the heroes with hallucinogenic gases but was unaware of Spider-Man’s secret weapon: Peter Parker’s mutant girlfriend Sophia Sanduval who can communicate with animals and works as a part-time operative of the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency. “Chat” has got a lot of unusual animal resources at her disposal and is more than willing to lend some assistance…

The critter-whisperer is of even greater use when Doctor Doom seizes control of the UN whilst she and Peter are attending on a school trip. With delegates held hostage and a deadly bomb hidden on the premises, Chat and her bestial buddies play a key role saving the day in ‘Council of Doom’ (Di Salvo art) whilst all Spidey has to do is keep the Iron Dictator and his deadly army of robot doubles distracted. Well, that and not die…

Wrapping up the narrative action is ‘Magically Suspicious’ (Lolli & Pallot) as insane enchanter Baron Mordo seeks to open the gates of hell and let the Elder Eldritch Ones loose on Earth.

To facilitate their return he has pre-emptively unleashed a horde of demonic wraiths to take out the world’s superheroes, leaving only Spider-Man, Chat and Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange free to lead the extremely messy resistance…

These Spidey super stories (accompanied by a cover gallery from Barry Kitson, Patrick Scherberger, Edgar Delgado, Ale Garza & Chris Sotomayor and a big bundle of pin-ups by the likes of John Romita Senior, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Salvador Larroca and more) are all exceptionally enjoyable escapades, but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps sit better with older kids…

Fast-paced and impressive, brightly and breezily leavening light-hearted action with loads of sly laughs, this book shows the alternative web-spinner at his wall-crawling best with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” whilst the stories take great pains to keep the growing youth-oriented sub-plots pot-boiling on but as clear as possible.

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an amazing and arguably more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born two or three generations away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Essential X-Men volume 1


By Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Bob Brown, Tony DeZuniga & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2376-7

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced Scott “Cyclops” Summers, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, Warren “Angel” Worthington, Jean “Marvel Girl” Grey and Hank “The Beast” McCoy: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier.

He was a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior; considered by many who knew him as a living saint.

After nearly eight years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 during another periodic downturn in superhero comics. Just like in the closing years of the 1940s, mystery men faded away as supernatural mysteries and traditional genre themes dominated the world’s entertainment fields…

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe, whilst the bludgeoning Beast was opportunistically transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom.

Then, with sales of the spooky stuff waning in 1975, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot as part of the company’s line of Giant-Size specials and history was made…

This groundbreaking monochrome monolith of mutant mayhem first appeared in 1996, offering an economical, phonebook (remember those?) sized mass-market collection for newbies and neophytes catch-up to the sun-bright excitement of those exuberant and pivotal early stories.

Collecting Giant Size X-Men #1 and issues #94-119 of the definitely “All-New, All-Different” X-Men (spanning May 1975 to March 1978), this titanic tome traces the reinvigorated merry mutants from young, fresh and delightfully under-exposed innovations to the beginnings of their unstoppable ascendancy to ultimate comicbook icons…

Without pause or preamble, the epic voyage begins with a classic mystery monster mash from Giant Size X-Men #1. In ‘Second Genesis!’ Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (the artist hot from his stint reviving DC’s equally eclectic fan-fave super-team The Legion of Super-Heroes) detailed how the original squad – sans new Avengers recruit The Beast – had been lost in action, leaving Xavier to scour Earth and the entire Marvel Universe for replacements.

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire was added a one-shot Hulk adversary dubbed the Wolverine, but the bulk of time and attention was lavished upon original creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic-seeming German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin who could turn into a living steel Colossus and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The second chapter of the epic introductory adventure ‘…And Then There Was One!’ reintroduced battered, depleted but unbowed team-leader Cyclops who swiftly drilled the newcomers into a semblance of readiness before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a rampaging rapacious mutant eco-system and rescuing the “real” team should have led to another quarterly Giant-Size issue, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was swiftly reworked into a two-part tale for the rapidly reconfigured comicbook which became a bimonthly home to the new team.

Those epic beginnings are supplanted by a trio of vignettes explaining how the heroes’ formidable abilities function, beginning with ‘Call Him… Cyclops’ from X-Men #43, revealing the secrets of his awesome eye-blasts in pithy quickie by Thomas, Werner Roth and John Verpoorten whilst Stan Lee, Arnold Drake, Roth & Verpoorten performed similar duties with ‘I, the Iceman!’ from #47.

Finally, from X-Men #57 comes a chattily entrancing rundown describing Marvel Girl’s psionic abilities in ‘The Female of the Species!’ from Thomas, Roth & Verpoorten.

X-Men #94 (August 1975) offered ‘The Doomsmith Scenario!’ – plotted by Editor Wein, scripted by Chris Claremont and with Bob McLeod inking man-on-fire Dave Cockrum – in a canny Armageddon-shocker as the newly pared-down strike-squad (minus Sunfire and still-recuperating Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, Havok and Lorna Dane) were despatched by the Beast – calling in a favour from Avenger’s HQ – to stop criminal terrorist Count Nefaria starting an atomic war.

The insidious mastermind had invaded America’s Norad citadel with a gang of artificial superhumans and accidentally escalated a nuclear blackmail scheme into an inescapable countdown to holocaust, leaving the untrained, unprepared mutants to storm in to save the world in epic conclusion ‘Warhunt! (inked by Sam Grainger).

One of the new team didn’t make it back…

X-Men #96 saw Claremont take charge of the writing (albeit with some plotting input from Bill Mantlo) for ‘Night of the Demon!’ Guilt-wracked Cyclops blamed himself for the loss of his team-mate, and in his explosive rage accidentally unleashed a demonic antediluvian horror from earth’s dimmest prehistory for the heroes-in-training to thrash.

The infernal Nagarai would return over and again to bedevil mankind, but the biggest innovation in this issue was the introduction of gun-toting biologist/housekeeper Moira MacTaggert and the first inklings of the return of implacable old adversaries…

Issue #97 started a long-running, cosmically-widescreen storyline with ‘My Brother, My Enemy!’ as Xavier, tormented by visions of interstellar war, tried to take a vacation, just as Havok and Lorna (finally settling on superhero nom de guerre Polaris) attacked: apparently willing servants of a mysterious madman using Cyclops’ old undercover alter ego Eric the Red.

The devastating conflict segued into a spectacular, 3-part saga as pitiless robotic killers returned under the hate-filled auspices of mutantophobic Steven Lang and his mysterious backers of Project Armageddon. The action began with #98’s ‘Merry Christmas, X-Men…the Sentinels Have Returned!’

With coordinated attacks capturing semi-retired Marvel Girl plus Wolverine, Banshee and Xavier, Cyclops and the remaining heroes had to co-opt a space shuttle and storm Lang’s orbital HQ to rescue them in ‘Deathstar Rising!’ (inks by Frank Chiaramonte): another phenomenal all-action episode.

Accompanied by a magical pinup of portraits by Cockrum, the saga concludes on an agonising cliffhanger with the 100th issue anniversary tale. ‘Greater Love Hath no X-Man…’ (with Cockrum inking his own pencils) sees the new X-Men apparently battle the original team before overturning Lang’s monstrous schemes forever.

However, their catastrophic clash had destroyed the only means of escape and, as a colossal solar flare threatened to eradicate the satellite-station, the only chance of survival meant certain death for another X-Man.

As #101 unfolded, scripter Claremont & artist Cockrum were on the on the verge of utterly overturning the accepted status quo of women in comics forever…

The team consisted of old acquaintance and former foe Sean “Banshee” Cassidy, Wolverine, and new creations Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus, led by field-leader Cyclops and part-timer Jean Grey – still labouring under the nom-de guerre Marvel Girl… but not for much longer…

‘Like a Phoenix from the Ashes’ (inked by Frank Chiaramonte) saw a space-shuttle spectacularly crash into Jamaica Bay. The X-Men had safely travelled in a specially-shielded chamber but Marvel Girl had to needed manually pilot the vehicle, unprotected through a lethal radiation storm.

As the mutants fled the slowly sinking craft, a fantastic explosion propels the impossibly alive Jean into the air, clad in a strange gold and green uniform and screaming that she is “Fire and Life Incarnate… Phoenix!”

Immediately collapsing, the critically injured girl is rushed to hospital and a grim wait begins.

Unable to explain her survival and too preoccupied to spare time for teaching, Xavier packs Banshee, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm and Colossus off to the Irish mutant’s home in County Mayo for a vacation, blissfully unaware that Cassidy Keep has been compromised and is now a deadly trap for his new students…

Within the ancestral pile, Sean’s mutant cousin Black Tom has usurped control of the manor and its incredible secrets before – at Eric the Red’s behest – contriving an inescapable ambush, assisted by an old X-Men enemy.

‘Who Will Stop the Juggernaut?’ (Grainger inks) sees the inexperienced heroes in over their heads and fighting for their lives, but still finds room to reveal the origins of Storm and provide an explanation for her crippling claustrophobia, before ‘The Fall of the Tower’ cataclysmically concludes the tale with mutant heroes and the Keep’s Leprechaun colony (no, really!) uniting to expel the murderous usurpers.

Although bi-monthly at the time, the series kicked into confident top gear with ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Magneto’ as the weary warriors then divert to Scotland to check on Moira MacTaggert’s island lab: a secret facility containing many mutant menaces the X-Men have previously defeated.

It’s a very bad move since the ever-active Eric has restored the dormant master of magnetism to full power. The mutant terrorist had been turned into a baby – a strangely common fate for villains in those faraway days – but was all grown up again now… and indulging in one last temper tantrum…

Freshly arrived from America, Moira and Cyclops are only just in time to lead a desperate, humiliating retreat from the triumphant Master of Magnetism. Scott doesn’t care: he realises the entire affair has been a feint to draw the heroes away from Xavier and Jean…

He needn’t have worried. Although in ‘Phoenix Unleashed’ (inks by Bob Layton) Eric orchestrated an attack by Firelord – a cosmic flamethrower and former herald of Galactus much like the Silver Surfer – Jean is now fully evolved into a being of unimaginable power who readily holds the fiery marauder at bay…

In the interim a long-standing mystery is solved as the visions which had haunted Xavier are revealed as a psychic connection with a runaway princess from a distant alien empire. Lilandra of the Shi’ar had rebelled against her imperial brother and whilst fleeing had somehow telepathically locked onto her trans-galactic soul-mate Xavier.

As she made her circuitous way to Earth, embedded Shi’ar spy Shakari had assumed the role of Eric the Red and attempted to remove Lilandra’s potential champion before she arrived…

During the blistering battle which follows the X-Men’s dramatic arrival, Shakari snatches up Lilandra and drags her through a stargate to their home galaxy, and with the entire universe imperilled, Xavier urges his team to follow. All Jean has to do is re-open a wormhole to the other side of creation…

A minor digression follows as overstretched artist Cockrum gains a breather via fill-in “untold” tale of the new team featuring an attack by psychic clones of the original X-men in ‘Dark Shroud of the Past’ (by Bill Mantlo, Bob Brown & Tom Sutton, inside a framing sequence from Cockrum).

The regular story resumes in a wry tribute to Star Trek as ‘Where No X-Man Has Gone Before!’ (Claremont, Cockrum & Dan Green) finds the heroes stranded in another galaxy where they meet and are defeated by the Shi’ar Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of the Legion of Super Heroes), until bold interstellar rebel/freebooters the Starjammers bombastically arrive to turn the tables again and uncover a mad scheme to unmake the fabric of space-time.

Lilandra’s brother Emperor D’Ken is a deranged maniac who wants to activate a cosmic artefact known alternatively as the M’Kraan Crystal and “the End of All that Is” in his quest for ultimate power. He’s also spent time on Earth in the past and played a major role in the life of one of the X-Men…

This tale (from issue #107) was Cockrum’s last for years. He would eventually return to replace the man who replaced him. John Byrne not only illustrated but also began co-plotting the tales and as the team roster expanded the series rose to even greater heights. It would culminate in the landmark “Dark Phoenix” storyline which saw the death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character and the departure of the team’s heart and soul. The epic cosmic saga also seemed to fracture the epochal working relationship of Claremont and Byrne.

Within months of publication they went their separate ways: Claremont staying with the mutants whilst Byrne moved on to establish his own reputation as a writer on series such as Alpha Flight, Incredible Hulk and especially his revolutionised Fantastic Four…

There and then though, the X-Men and Starjammers battled the Crystal’s astoundingly deadly automated guardians, as this final chapter saw the newly puissant Phoenix literally save Reality in a mind-blowing display of power and skill.

Trapped inside a staggering other-realm, and appalled and enthralled by the intoxicating, addictive nature of her own might, Phoenix rewove the fabric of Reality and for an encore brought the heroes home again.

The conclusion of this ambitious extended saga was drawn by Byrne and inked by Terry Austin and their visual virtuosity was to become an industry bench-mark as the X-Men grew in popularity and complexity.

However, even though the bravura high-octane thrills of “Armageddon Now” seemed an unrepeatable high-point, Claremont & Byrne had only started. The best was still to come…

In ‘Home Are the Heroes!’ Wolverine finally began to develop a back-history and some depth of character as technological wonder Weapon Alpha attacked the recuperating team in an attempt to force the enigmatic Logan to rejoin the Canadian Secret Service. Renamed Vindicator Alpha would later return with Alpha Flight – a Canadian super-team which would eventually graduate to their own eccentric high-profile series.

Next follows a rather limp and hasty fill-in as ‘The “X”-Sanction’ (illustrated by Tony DeZuniga & Cockrum), sees cyborg mercenary Warhawk infiltrating the mansion in search of “intel” for a mysterious, unspecified master before getting his shiny silver head handed to him…

After a magical pinup of the extended team by Arthur Adams (the cover of Classic X-Men #1 from 1986) the saga got back on track with ‘Mindgames’ (Claremont, Byrne & Austin) as Beast visits a circus in search of the new team which has been missing for weeks.

His presence disrupts a devilish scheme by Mesmero to subjugate the mutant heroes through false memories and implanted personalities but the reawakened team’s vengeance is forestalled when their greatest enemy ambushes them…

In X-Men #112 they fight and fail leaving ‘Magneto Triumphant!’ and his enemies helplessly imprisoned miles beneath Antarctica in the follow-up ‘Showdown!’ However, by the time the Homo Superior tyrant returns after terrorising the humans of Australia, the X-Men have broken free and are waiting for him…

In the apocalyptic battle which follows the base is utterly destroyed and Magneto grievously wounded. With boiling lava flooding everywhere, only Beast and Phoenix manage to reach the surface and in horror realise they are the only survivors…

They could not be more wrong. Unable to go up, the remaining mutants tunnelled downwards and ‘Desolation!’ turned to joy as they emerged into the antediluvian wilderness dubbed the Savage Land.

Linking up with old ally Ka-Zar, the team slowly recover in a dinosaur-filled paradise but the idyll is shattered when former foe Karl Lykos succumbs to an old addiction and absorbs their mutant energies to become lethal leather-winged predator Sauron…

His ‘Visions of Death!’ are readily dispelled by the assembled heroes, but he’s just the first course in a campaign of terror after barbarian queen Zaladane revives proto-god Garokk as the figurehead of her army of conquest…

When their meddling disrupts the tropical climate of the sub-polar region, Ka-Zar and the X-Men invade their noxious citadel ‘To Save the Savage Land’ but the battle demands the best and worst from the young warriors before the job is done…

With the distasteful task completed, the mutants opt to try a perilous sea-passage back to the outside world…

X-Men #117 begins with their rescue by an Antarctic exploration vessel and slow torturous voyage to Japan, before lapsing into an untold tale of Charles Xavier before he lost the use of his legs. ‘Psi War!’ is full of clever in-filling insights as it details how the dispirited, restless young telepath fetched up in Cairo and met his first “Evil Mutant”…

Amahl Farouk used his psionic abilities to rule the city’s underworld: a depraved, debauched monster who thought he was beyond justice. The enraged, disgusted Xavier defeated the beast and in doing so found his life’s purpose…

This initial volume concludes with a revelatory two-part epic as the X-Men – still believed dead by Xavier, Jean and the wider world – arrive in Agarashima just as the port is being devastated by a vast firestorm. ‘The Submergence of Japan!’ (inked by Ricardo Villamonte) saw tectonic terrorist Moses Magnum undertake a most audacious blackmail scheme, countered by the valiant mutants who had briefly reunited with old – and still belligerently surly – comrade Sunfire.

Perhaps he was just surprised to discover Wolverine had unsuspected connections to Japan and had turned the head of local highborn maid Lady Mariko. A bigger surprise awaited the American specialist the government had consulted. Misty Knight was Jean Grey’s roommate in Manhattan and grieved with her at the X-Men’s deaths. Now she has to tell Cyclops his girl has moved on and Professor X has abandoned Earth for the Shi’ar Empire…

Of course all of that might be moot if they can’t stop Magnum and his Mandroid army sinking Japan into the Pacific, but after a catastrophic conflict inside a volcano there’s a seasonal reunion in store for all in the Austin inked ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…’

The immortal epics compiled here are available in numerous formats (including colour softcover editions and luxurious and enticing hardbacks) but there’s just something both immediate and emphatic about seeing them in stark, potent monochrome…

Entertaining, groundbreaking and incredibly intoxicating, these adventures are an invaluable grounding in contemporary fights ‘n’ tights fiction no fan or casual reader can be allowed to ignore.
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1996 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Death Sentence: London


By Montynero & Martin Simmonds with John Pearson & Jimmy Betancourt (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-507-3

For most of us Sex Sells. If that’s not you and you’re easily shocked or offended, stop Right Here, Right Now and come back for a less grown-up review tomorrow.

As for the salacious, tawdry, vulgar majority of humanity, however, fornication is a force that will not be resisted and we’re always gagging for it.

One outrageous potential result of that inescapable biological imperative was recently explored in a dark, decadent fable from writer, artist and games designer Montynero who, with illustrator Mike Dowling, crafted a ferociously effective satire on modern attitudes in Death Sentence.

After an initial and truncated appearance in Clint Magazine in 2012 the sexily sordid saga was retooled as a breakthrough 6-issue miniseries which took the comics world by storm when released in 2013.

Something that good was bound to be tried again and a series followed, of which Death Sentence: London – illustrated now by Martin Simmonds – is but the first compulsive compilation…

In the World That’s Coming a sexually transmitted disease known as G+ is spreading rapidly through the population. It is invariably fatal and kills in six months. For that length of time, however, the victim “suffers” from increased vigour, stamina, sex drive and even develops super powers…

The true extent of the threat only became apparent to the public after media darling, affirmed libertine and proud G-Plus carrier David “Monty” Montgomery used his exponentially-expanding psychic powers to kill Britain’s government, royal family and one million Londoners.

Having crowned himself King of Britain, Monty was only stopped by two other critically enhanced G-Plus sufferers: frustrated artist Verity Fette and shambolic fading rock star Daniel Waissel AKA Weasel.

More through luck than effort – and despite the interference of a UN Taskforce, covert US super-weapon deployment and best attempts of the British military – the wonder kids narrowly managed to kill Monty in a blockbusting super-battle televised around the world. The conflagration especially terrified the assorted world governments who collectively feared their days of ruling the masses were over…

Britain’s bosses had been aware of the growing crisis for ages and had already tasked its shadowy Department of National Security to deal with it. The usual tactics of murder, blackmail, disinformation and cover-ups proved ineffective, however, and soon something else was being considered.

At least Verity died in the final battle and what’s left of the UK’s Powers-That-Be now only have sybaritic, self-destructive Weasel to manage until the disease finally kills him…

In the meantime, on a remote Scottish island, a very nice old lady runs a vast secret base beneath the heather where she and her team toil away with no sense of scientific niceties – or ethics – as they strive to find a cure for G+…

Dr. Lunn had been helping sufferers for quite a while. She crash-trained Verity and Weasel in the use of their abilities (also providing space, time, tuition and medical-grade drugs) before siccing them on the out-of-control Monty…

Following handy recap ‘Previously in Death Sentence’ the story resumes with ‘“A” Bomb on Wardour Street’ as Weasel is riotously fêted by the metropolitan populace whilst über-ambitious Old Etonian London Mayor Tony Bronson seethes and schemes. There’s a power-vacuum in the country at this moment and he’ll be buggered if he lets anyone else fill it… especially some oikish, pox-ridden musical miscreant…

An ocean away, undercover Fed Jeb Mulgrew is closing his latest case when everything goes tits-up after his targets display out of control super-powers. Luckily his keenly-observing back-up team are equipped with the latest horrific innovation in anti-G-Plus ordnance…

At City Hall, Tony’s latest opportunistic sound-bite does nothing to slow the looting tearing up the remainder of London; much of it seemingly orchestrated by new dissident movement the Invaders. The spreading violence even reaches a nearly deserted fast-food franchise where an armed robbery is foiled, giving first notice that Verity might not be dead after all…

As Jeb tries to reconnect with his wife and home in Texas, London sees another bloody crime stopped by the enigmatic Artgirl and Tony snaps, declaring martial law in His city…

Each episode is followed by a carefully-tailored supplemental feature and here ‘The Age of the Super G’ exposes the Americans’ thermonuclear contribution to Monty’s demise before the comics saga continues with ‘Uprising’ as Weasel attends a rally in Brixton. The borough is in the process of declaring its independence and seceding from Tory-infested London and big-business corrupted Britain…

Bronson’s response is uniquely typical: ramping up military action, closing down social media and arresting G+ carriers whilst ordering the public to stop having sex until a cure is found.

When tanks roll up during a memorial service, Weasel is just in the mood to share the misery he’s been feeling since Monty killed his little boy, but in the victorious aftermath it’s the anonymous mask-wearing Invaders who are making converts and dictating policy on the streets of Brixton…

In Texas, things just aren’t working out for Jeb so when his bosses ask him to infiltrate British intelligence and steal their potential cure for the super-sex plague, he can’t wait to start…

After a faux magazine feature on Creighton Baines and how his alien-masked Invaders haunt protest sites and agitate for social change, the story starts again in ‘Eton Rifles’ as dedicated journalist Fincham is handed a certain dossier by a mole with suspicious intent. Soon the Chronicle‘s top scribe is making things hot for golden gibbon-esque, sexually-deviant Tony…

As tensions escalate everywhere, Verity assuages her own through increasingly bawdy encounters as she drifts ever closer to isolated, segregated, curfew-enduring Brixton. She has no idea that she’s been targeted for immediate assassination, but then again, her would-be executioners have no idea how powerful she now is…

Preceded by excerpts from reputable rag The Chimes – detailing the rise of international angst and the stalling of the World Powers debating a space-based weapons ban – ‘Sitting Here’ sees a turf war brewing between local gangster Retch and weed-dealing newcomer Roots. Both have their supporters and both are high-functioning G-Plus victims, with all the deadly benefits that condition brings…

As Tony’s Territorials rumble into Brixton savage violence erupts, but he’s elsewhere, busily indulging his nasty copulatory habits. Fincham, meanwhile, is tracking a rumour about a Scottish Island and a woman who might have a cure, even as Retch and Roots clash for control of their streets…

Following snippets from The Chronicle News – revealing the not-so-quiet war for dominance between power-hungry Mayor Bronson and top surviving aspirant Party-leader Michael DeGraves – the Mayor gets a rude and ribald awakening as the winner of the Brixton gang rumble exposes the hypocrite’s nasty upper-class peccadilloes in ‘Burn’. Across town, Verity gives doggedly determined Fincham an exclusive, comprehensive interview which will never see print…

Later, as Bronson strives frantically to keep ahead of the political game, an intimate well-wisher makes a big mistake by approaching G+ sufferers in tune with the old guard and hereditary rulers. They can be of immense service to this Sceptr’d Isle… after they pass a training course at a facility on a certain Scottish island…

An excerpt from Creative Review debating ‘Artgirl: High Art of Graffiti?’ leads the tale to a temporary halt in ‘Kill at Will’ as Dr. Lunn welcomes a new bioanalyst – who looks remarkably like American Jeb Mulgrew – to her little secret empire. In Brixton, meanwhile, the military are moving in to wipe out all resistance but are totally unprepared for the unlikely, unstable convergence of all London’s omega-level G-Plus super-beings waiting for them…

And then long-range telemetry shows that Verity’s condition has taken a terrifying and impossible turn nobody could have predicted…

To Be Continued…

Packed with plenty of bonus features including a breathtaking covers and variants selection by Montynero, Death Sentence: London is an uproarious adult fairytale blending superhero tropes with outrageous cheek, deliriously shocking situations and in-your-face irreverence.

Buy it, read it and spread it around to anyone you fancy… and maybe some you don’t…
Death Sentence ™ and © 2014 Montynero, Mike Dowling and Titan Comics. All rights reserved.

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Civil War Prelude: New Warriors


By Zeb Wells, Skottie Young & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9361-6

After a TV reality show starring superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders. The Federal government quickly instituted and mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community.

A terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of Liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and, in many cases, anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented in scenes reminiscent of America’s War Between the States, with “brother pitted against brother”. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right…

So just how did that all come to pass?

A few years earlier – at least in comicbook time – a team of super-powered teenagers had got together to do good their way. Created by Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz (before being assigned to Fabian Nicieza & Mark Bagley to spectacularly develop), the New Warriors consisted of a bunch of failed young super-doers led by Dwayne Taylor; a grim ‘n’ gritty kid millionaire with a grudge, a battle suit and tricked-out skateboard who called himself Night Thrasher (I still wince at the name…).

At inception, his select squad consisted of hyper-kinetic Speedball, mutant Firestar, telekinetic Vance Astrovic/Marvel Boy/Justice, a re-invigorated Nova, the Human Rocket, and Sub-Mariner’s niece Namorita: a line-up seemingly designed to flop, but one which swiftly proved the old adage about there being no bad characters, only bad handling…

They made their first appearance in Thor #411-412 before storming straight into their own title, and took the world by storm. However, over the following years their popularity waxed and waned as the membership roster changed. Eventually they broke up and went their separate ways.

In the summer of 2005 writer Zeb Wells and cartooning wunderkind Skottie Young (with some colouring assistance from Jean-Francois Beaulieu and letterer Randy Gentile) took the quirkily unconventional kid cadre in a whole new direction…

Collecting New Warriors volume 3 #1-6 (from August 2006 to February 2006) this wild and witty romp opens with ‘Pilot’ and sees the heroes on the road, bringing metahuman justice to the American hinterland.

It’s not their idea. As part of a Taylor Foundation refinancing deal, Night Thrasher has licensed his team to a Reality-TV company who are with them every moment as they voyage through the nation.

Although certain they’re sitting on Ratings-Gold, the producers have still insisted on a few changes to shore up the shaky demographics. So joining Thrasher, Nova, Namorita and Speedball is hulking, sweaty, pitiable nerd Microbe – a germ empath who has the strange ability to communicate with infinitesimal and single-celled life forms…

He also won’t shower in case he harms his little friends…

The show’s premise is simple. Lots of small towns have metahuman problems but no superheroes to tackle them. The Warriors will come to you and viewers get a fabulous intimate peek inside the glamorous world of costumed crusading…

Their first stop is Fairbury, Illinois where ferocious villains Tiger Shark and Armadillo have been quietly hiding since breaking out of super penitentiary the Vault. Opening the door to the strange new spandex-clad pizza delivery guy was their big mistake, but the camera crew’s constant demand for retakes is almost as fraught with peril…

In Salinas, Kansa everything seemed pretty hunky-dory until eccentric millionaire John Burrow decided to free the entire contents of his private zoo. By the time the Warriors roll up, the city is under siege by beasts acting far smarter than they should…

Plan A for dealing with the problem is then summarily scuppered by officious TV censor Erika Hopson whose strident efforts on behalf of S.P.O.T.A. (Society for the Protection of Television Animals) ensures the hairy escapists are treated with dignity and respect…

Vetoing Thrasher and Nova entirely, Erika ensures only the gentler-seeming members tackle the liberated critters in Burrow’s ‘Animal House’, but nobody told her the real cause of all the problems was the Red Ghost‘s cosmically empowered Super-Apes…

Driving their outside broadcast van through Kansas in ‘How Many Superheroes Does It Take…?’ the screen stars are fifty miles from Wichita when the next crisis erupts. With the bus broken the team are just chilling in the middle of nowhere and relating how they got sucked into this latest embarrassing idiocy, blithely unaware that elsewhere corporate Movers-&-Shakers are sharing secrets about Microbe and planning their next move to make the New Warriors the perfect team for their purposes…

That step materialises when demographically-ideal but appallingly obnoxious addition Debrii is foisted on the Warriors as they reach Nüponder, Minnesota in search of a strange creature stealing pets. The little paradise is a company town servicing a German-based automobile manufacturer but from the start the kids realise something isn’t right in ‘Nütown, Nücar, Nümember…’

Then, after the team barely survive an attack by their oldest enemy Terrax, Microbe’s little friends expose the true secret of the adoring, so-very-normal citizens, leading to a cataclysmic clash with the Machiavellian mechanoids of the Mad Thinker in ‘The New Warriors’ Excellent Adventure Episode 105: Nüponder, Michigan’…

The TV Show went on indefinite hiatus with a blockbusting finale in ‘The Valley of the Jerks: Episode 106: Smyrna, Delaware’ as the sadder, disgruntled but no wiser Warriors reached the East Coast in the middle of a snow storm, just in time to free a rustic rural hamlet from their own amplified bad attitudes and the malign shenanigans of the Corruptor as he schemes to extend his power-range by weaponising, exporting and disseminating his own mind-bending bodily fluids…

Fast, furious and outrageously funny, this book has precious little to do with the ponderous, po-faced and decidedly apocalyptic mega event Civil War, other than that their revived TV show trigged the Stamford massacre. It is, however, a hilariously clever and splendidly light-hearted peek at the sillier side of the Marvel experience and one both tried-&-true fans and fresh faced neophytes can enjoy equally… so go do that.
© 2005, 2006, 2015 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Iron Man volume 1: Heart of Steel


By Fred Van Lente, James Cordeiro, Ronan Cliquet, Scott Koblish, Amilton Santos, Gary Erskine & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2644-7

In 2003 the ever-expanding House of Ideas instituted the Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a new and younger readership.

The enterprise was tweaked in 2005, with core titles morphing into 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 included Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man. These all chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were all cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

Most of the re-imagined tales have since been collected in gleefully inviting digest-sized compilations such as this one which features the first four forays starring the gadget-laden Golden Avenger.

In original mainstream continuity, supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his 1963 debut when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam, observing the efficacy of weaponry he’d designed, the arch-technocrat wünderkind was critically wounded and captured by a local warlord.

Put to work with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead built an electronic suit to keep his heart beating and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a small jump into a second career as a high-tech hero in Shining Super-Armour…

Conceived in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when the economy was booming and “Commie-bashing” was America’s favourite national pastime, the emergence of a suave new Edison using Yankee ingenuity, wealth and invention to safeguard the Land of the Free and better the World seemed an obvious development.

Combining the then-sacrosanct tenet that technology and business in unison could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble paladins battling evil, the Invincible Iron Man seemed an infallibly successful proposition.

Over the subsequent decades Tony Stark has been depicted as a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, civil servant, statesman, and even spy-chief: Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

For most of that period his best friend and frequent stand-in was James Rhodes, a former military man who acted as pilot, bodyguard, advisor, co-conspirator and occasional necessary conscience. “Rhodey” even replaced Iron Man when Stark succumbed to alcoholism and eventually carved out his own chequered career as remorseless mechanised warrior and weapon of last resort War Machine…

Here Rhodey is again reduced to a technical support role and joined by a supporting cast member of a much earlier vintage. Secretary and hyper-efficient factotum Pepper Potts has been in the picture since the seventh adventure (way back in October 1963), evolving from love-struck typist into a businesswoman and hero in her own right. Here a middle ground is struck and she’s Stark’s trusted Executive Administrator, confidante and general dogsbody…

Culled from Marvel Adventures Iron Man #1-4 (July-October 2007) this machine-tooled, perfect packet of explosive yarns is written throughout by Fred Van Lente, with colours from Studio F’s Martegod Gracia and letters by Blambot’s Nate Piekos and also includes a Cover Gallery supplied by Comics legend Michael Golden.

As ever, these stories are intended to bring newcomers up to speed on key points and characterisation whilst updating the material and begins with ‘Heart of Steel’ – winningly illustrated by James Cordeiro & Scott Koblish – which once again modifies the technological wizard’s origin in tune with modern sensibilities…

It all begins as a huge robotic monster attacks Manhattan and Stark suits up in his latest miracle-armour to tackle the beast. The clash sends his mind racing back six months to the moment when the spoiled multi-billionaire idol and smug was publicly challenged by esteemed scientist Gia-Bao Yinsen. The venerable sage accused Stark of selling his war-weapons to anybody with money and thereby letting them be used to destroy the island of Madripoor…

Upset by the confrontation, the young genius shrugged it off until he was summarily abducted by techno-terrorists Advanced Idea Mechanics. They wanted him to build more death-toys for them and were pretty sure he would cooperate. Tony’s heart was grievously damaged in their attack and only AIM’s doctors could keep him alive…

Dumped in a top-of the line lab/workshop, Tony found old Yinsen was also a prisoner and together they devised mobile, weaponised life-support units to fight their way to freedom. Although Yinsen didn’t make it, his final words changed Stark’s life forever…

As also illustrated by Cordeiro & Scott Koblish, Iron Man’s greatest enemy is then reintroduced in ‘Enter the Dragon’. When Stark’s Chinese factory is suddenly depleted of its entire workforce, he charges to the rescue and clashes with supreme tech-genius the Mandarin: a descendent of Genghis Khan who intends topping his ancestor in the world-conquest stakes.

Employing his monumental mechanical wyrm to attack the Great Wall, the maniac makes a pretty good start until Iron Man gets heavy…

Pepper takes centre-stage in ‘The Creeping Doom’ (with art by Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos) as the Stark jet touches down in a desert wilderness to interview genetic engineer and botanist Samuel Smithers who has a few radical ideas about revolutionising global Agribusiness. Sadly, by the time they arrive, Sam has moved beyond the need for investors: having merged with his creations to become a marauding Plantman intent on seizing the world for the floral kingdom.

The only use he has for meaty organic matter is for mulch and compost, but he has reckoned without the sheer cunning of his adversaries…

Wrapping up this collection is ‘Hostile Takeover’ (with Cordeiro & Gary Erskine making the pictures) as Stark Board member Justin Hammer tries to manipulate stock and gain control of the company.

His method is flawless. Hire the infallible Spymaster to hack Iron Man’s armour, sending Tony’s “bodyguard” on a destructive rampage through the city – with Stark helpless inside it – and just watch the stock price fall until it’s time to make his killing. Hammer’s big mistake was assuming Pepper and Rhodey were the sort of servile flunkies he preferred to hire at Hammer Industries…

Rocket-paced, spectacularly exciting and enthralling with plenty of sharp wit to counterpoint the drama and suspense; these riotous super-sagas are a splendid example of Iron Man’s versatility that will delight Fights ‘n’ Tights fans of all ages and vintage.
© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Daredevil Season One


By Antony Johnson, Wellinton Alves, Nelson Pereira & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5643-7

Much as I’d love to believe otherwise, I accept that the Cold War era, transistor-powered, pre-cellphone masterpieces of my youth are often impenetrable to younger fans – even when illustrated by graphic gods like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Joe Orlando or Wally Wood.

Perpetual renewal – or at least the constant tweaking of the background ephemera which passes for it in our business – is the irresistible force driving modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

Even for minor or secondary stars the process is inescapable, with increasing supra-comicbook media adjuncts (films, TV, movies, games, Films and FILMS) dictating that subjects be constantly updated because the powers-that-be believe goldfish-minded consumers of today apparently can’t understand or remember anything that’s more than one week or three cinematic releases old.

Alternatively, one could argue that for popular characters or concepts with a fifty-year pedigree, all that dogmatic back-history can be a creative deadweight and readership-daunting deterrence, so radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity like a conceptual thinning of the herd…

Publishing ain’t no democracy, however, so it’s comforting to realise that many of these retrofits are exceptionally good comics tales in their own right and anyway, the editors can call always claim that it was an “alternate Earth” story the next time the debut saga is modernised…

Released in 2012, Daredevil: Season One was part of an all-new hardback graphic series intended to renovate, modify and update classic origin epics (accompanying Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-Man): all clearly intended as background story-bibles for newer, movie-oriented fans and readers.

Written by Anthony Johnson (Dead Space, Wasteland, the Alex Rider graphic novels) with competent, workmanlike art from Wellinton Alves & Nelson Periera (Nova, Incredible Hulks, Red She-Hulk) it was far more of an in-filling exercise than radical restoration or reconstruction, leaving most of the canon untouched, and using signature battles against super-foes as background to tell a more contemporary story of City Hall corruption, as young lawyers Matt Murdock and Franklin “Foggy” Nelson fought to save a place of worship from civil malfeasance and racketeering depredations.

Young Matt grew up in the slums, raised by his father Battlin’ Jack Murdock; a second-rate prize-fighter. Determined that the boy would amount to something, Jack extracted a solemn promise from his boy never to fight. Mocked by other kids, who called him “Daredevil”, Matt stuck to his vow, but secretly trained his body to physical perfection.

One day he saved a blind man from a speeding truck, only to be struck in the face by its radioactive cargo. His sight was burned away but his other senses were super-humanly enhanced and he gained a sixth, “radar-sense”.

He told no-one, not even his dad…

Key events are all visited in swift, economic manner before jumping to Daredevil’s first night when the adult Matt donned a distinctive mask and costume to hunt down his father’s killers…

Battlin’ Jack was a boxer in dire financial straits. As his career declined he signed with The Fixer, knowing full well what the corrupt promoter expected from his fighters. Yet somehow his career blossomed. Never aware that he was being set up, Murdock got a shot at the Big Time, but when ordered to take a dive, he adamantly refused. Winning was the proudest moment of his life and when his bullet-riddled corpse was found, the cops had suspicions but no proof…

Heartbroken Matt graduated college with a law degree and set up in business with his room-mate Foggy. They hired a lovely young secretary named Karen Page and opened an office in Murdock’s childhood-home district of Hell’s Kitchen. With his life on track Matt now had time to resolve his father’s murder.

A old promise and his new limits as an officer of the Court stopped him from acting as Murdock…but what if he became “somebody else”…?

In the climactic clash the Fixer perished and the fresh revelations begin here as Daredevil lights a candle in St. Finnian of Clonard Catholic Church. Now that his mission of vengeance has concluded, serious doubts begin to bedevil him, but unbeknownst to the neophyte Man Without Fear, his accidental midnight meeting with the new priest are the start of a critical new relationship.

Just how much so he doesn’t realise it until after meeting the Fantastic Four and defeating high-voltage villain Electro. The next day Father Mullen hires Nelson and Murdock to save St. Finnian’s from being closed down by the City’s corrupt Land Board…

A further distraction occurs when Karen is kidnapped by Leland Owsley – the infamous Owl – and the city almost succumbs to the pheromone-fuelled mental-domination of Killgrave, the Purple Man…

Daredevil still feels he hasn’t got to grips with his superhero persona and is oblivious as diligent Foggy proceeds with the case, uncovering an odd connection between Mullen, the Land Board and golden boy Mayoral candidate Councilman William Doyle. Whilst Daredevil and the media are distracted by the Mysterious Masked Matador, a hitman starts making Doyle’s problems go away, and, finally forced to use his brains instead of his fists, Matt finally starts connecting the dots of a criminal tragedy that goes back decades and spans the continent…

Despite pressure mounting from all directions to drop the St. Finnian’s case, Matt and Foggy persist, until Daredevil is again diverted, this time by the mighty-muscled Ox and electrified bandit the Eel, working for mad menace Zoltan Drago in a Fellowship of Fear…

After that climactic battle Matt finally realises his true place in the city’s superhero pantheon and makes some drastic changes to his modus operandi, but it might be too late as Foggy, Karen and Mullen have vanished. With no time to spare Matt swings into action, ready to give the Devil his Due…

Also included in this enticing, compelling hardback is the lead story from the then-latest reboot of the Man Without Fear: (Daredevil #1, 2011, by Mark Waid, Paulo Rivera & Marcos Martin), returning the grim Avenger to his swashbuckling roots in a bombastic battle against teleporting terror The Spot plus ‘A Bonus Tale’ by Waid & Martin, charmingly detailing how his super-senses work.

Fast-paced and action-packed, this entire package rips along like a TV show recap, spartan, on-point and tantalising, and despite poor response from comics aficionados remains a solid primer for newcomers looking for a little brief background to the history and the characters.
© 2011 and 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Hulk volume 4: Tales to Astonish


By Peter David, Juan Santacruz, Raul Fernandez & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2981-3

In 2003 the ever-expanding House of Ideas instituted the Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a new and younger readership.

The enterprise was tweaked in 2005, evolving into Marvel Adventures with core titles morphing into 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 included Super Heroes, The Avengers, Iron Man and Hulk. These ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

Most of the re-imagined tales have been collected in cheerfully inviting digest-sized compilations such as this one which features the final four mini-epics from the Green Giant’s own short-lived series. In the original mainstream continuity Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result he would unexpectedly transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury when distressed or surprised.

Alternating between occasional hero and mindless monster, he rampaged across the Marvel Universe for years, finally finding his size 700 feet to become one of young Marvel’s most resilient stars.

A hugely popular character both in comics and greater global media beyond the printed page, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and direction to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

Culled from Marvel Adventures Hulk #13-16 (covering September to December 2008) this quirky quartet of tales features Banner and the Hulk in essentially the same roles older fans will remember: a brilliant scientist and hunted man who turns into a fury-fuelled green gargantuan when provoked. The major difference of this version – other than the updating to modern times – is that here former juvenile delinquent Rick Jones was his lab-assistant when the gamma blast hit Banner and joins in his fugitive flight across America bringing a lab monkey (dubbed “Monkey”) which he stole before escaping from the army units of general Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross…

For months the tortured trio have been making their way across the country staying below the radar, seeking a cure for Bruce’s condition and somehow always stumbling across rampaging villains and conflicted heroes who don’t know whether to help the Hulk or fight him…

If you’re of a compulsive disposition continuity-wise, these breezily bombastic blockbusters all take place on Marvel’s Earth-20051 but you should also be aware of one other thing: outrageous humour – from broad slapstick to surreal whimsy to bitingly sharp continuity in-jokes – plays a big part in the proceedings…

Written throughout by Peter David, winningly illustrated by Juan Santacruz & Raul Fernandez, with colours from Angel Marin and letters by Dave Sharpe, events kick off with ‘Are You My Mummy?’ as Bruce, Rick and Monkey sneak into New York City only to find the populace have been turned into shambling zombies wrapped in rotting bandages – even the Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Mighty Avengers…

When the enwrapped heroes attack Bruce “Hulks out” and battles his way to Central Park, leaving Rick to be chased into a museum. Here the terrified teen discovers mutant maniac the Living Pharaoh is behind the catastrophe, but after Monkey swipes the villain’s control wand the mutant uncontrollably shifts into cosmic powerhouse the Living Monolith.

This only gives the frustrated Hulk a better, bigger target to smash…

The fugitives are in town to surreptitiously use the Gamma-tech and atomic devices of Bruce’s old mentor Professor Trimpe in their quest for a cure, but as they break into his lab in ‘Small Doubts’ they are disturbed by janitor Sam Sterns and, in the melee that follows, the machinery goes wild and Banner goes green and the trio are sucked through a wormhole into a subatomic world.

Before long they’re battling to save its benighted, downtrodden masses from the emotion-warping tyrant Psycho-Man…

Eventually catapulted back to their own size and situation, they’re just in time to rescue the United Nations’ delegates and diplomats from ‘Following the Leader’. The release of all that gamma energy had turned floor-sweeper Sterns into an evil, giant-headed super-genius able to grow androids in instants and mind-control humans (especially politicians) who knew he could rule the world more efficiently that self-serving humans…

Thankfully Trimpe’s all-purpose accelerator in conjunction with Hulk’s unreasoning anger and pummelling fists are enough to handle the crisis and, after dumping megalomaniac and his plastic minions into the Microverse, Rick, Bruce and Monkey can finally try to sort out that cure…

Tragically that’s not to be as a sudden anti-nuclear protest upsets the applecart. Although the distraction allows our heroes to sneak into the lab, they are caught by sadistic spy Emil Blonsky. Impersonating a security guard, the killer had planned on swiping some plutonium, but now he’s prepared to settle on simply blowing up the nuclear plant…

In the resulting struggle Trimpe’s machines trigger again and Bruce is mutated to ‘The 7th Level’ into an ever more monstrous Hulk.

Blonsky fares even worse, metamorphosed into a ghastly gamma-spawned Abomination able to pound the Hulk to pulp and still determined to turn the entire state into a radioactive hole in the ground…

Fast-paced, enthralling and deliciously witty, these riotous super-sagas are augmented by a pulse-pounding cover gallery by Sean Gordon Murphy, David Nakamura & Guru eFX, Santacruz & Vicente Cifuentes, Tom Grummett, Gary Martin & Moose Bauman.

Never the success the company hoped, Marvel Adventures was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD TV shows designated “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these kid-friendly comics collections are still an intriguing, astonishingly entertaining and more culturally accessible means of introducing long-established stars and concepts to newcomers and represent a fantastic reservoir of fresh and entertaining Fights ‘n’ Tights fun for all lovers of the genre.
© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Captain America and Black Widow


By Cullen Bunn, Francesco Francavilla & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6528-6

The Star-Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940, confidently launched straight into his own title. Captain America Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and made the flag-draped hero an unstoppable, overwhelming overnight success.

The absolute and undisputed star of Timely Comics’ “Big Three” (the other two being Human Torch and Sub-Mariner), Cap was also amongst the very first to fade as the Golden Age ended.

With the Korean War and Communist aggression gripping the American psyche, freedom fighting Steve Rogers was revived in 1953 – along with Torch and Subby – for another brief tour of duty before quickly sinking back into obscurity…

A resurgent Timely – now calling itself Marvel Comics – drafted him again in Avengers #4. It was March 1964 and Vietnam was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American public. This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually bemoaning the tragic, heroic death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) during the final days of World War II, the resurrected Sentinel of Liberty stole the show; promptly graduating to his own series and title as well.

He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, struggling to find an ideological niche and stable footing in a precarious and rapidly changing modern world. After decades of vacillating and being subject to increasingly frantic attempts to keep the character relevant, in the last years of the 20th century a succession of stellar writers finally established his naturally niche: America’s physical, military and ethical guardian…

In continuity terms, Cap is a rough contemporary of Natasha Romanoff (sometimes Natalia Romanova): a Soviet Russian spy who came in from the cold and stuck around to become one of Marvel’s most successful female stars.

The Black Widow started life as a svelte, sultry honey-trap during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days, battling against Iron Man in her debut exploit (Tales of Suspense #52, April, 1964).

She was subsequently redesigned as a torrid tights-&-tech super-villain before defecting to the USA, falling for an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – and finally becoming an agent of SHIELD, freelance do-gooder and occasional leader of the Avengers.

Throughout her career she has always been considered ultra efficient, coldly competent, deadly dangerous and yet somehow cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours. As her backstory evolved, it was revealed that Natasha had undergone experimental processes which enhanced her physical capabilities and lengthened her lifespan, as well as assorted psychological procedures which had messed up her mind and memories…

Despite always being a fan-favourite, the Widow only truly hit the big time after the release of the Iron Man, Captain America and Avengers movies, but for us unregenerate comics-addicts her printed-page escapades have always offered a cool yet sinister frisson of dark delight.

This particular all-action pairing collects Captain America (… and the Black Widow) #636-640 from November 2012 to February 2013, during which time Cap’s own title had become a team-up vehicle, with previous part-time partners including Bucky/Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Namor.

A good deal of that period had been spent thwarting the schemes of a mysterious villain with incredible resources and astoundingly grandiose schemes. Her name was Kashmir Vennema and this book describes how she was finally brought low…

The tale opens in Central Park as the Black Widow meets a mole to secure crucial intel. Although she was apparently incarcerated by Cap weeks ago, Vennema is still murderously active and the files reveal her secret. “Kash” is a high-end broker: supplying arms, tech, information, people or whatever her elevated clientele desire. Her motto is “Infinite profit in infinite worlds” and her organisation plunders the entire multiverse for suitable wares, before selling them to the worst despots of an uncountable number of Earths.

Moreover, the reason for her success is that everyone who works for her is a Kashmir doppelganger recruited from every alternate world…

Even as the Widow absorbs the implications of these revelations, in some other place a Doctor Doom dies whilst conducting business with a Vennema: their meeting ending in bloody assassination at the hands of infallible sniper Natasha Romanoff. This implacable Black Widow is working for an unknown client who plans to end the Vennema scourge forever…

And on our Earth at maximum detention centre The Raft, Hawkeye and Captain America interview the captive Kashmir and realise she is not of this Earth…

Acting on information received the Sentinel of Liberty later interrupts another buy between a Vennema and a terrorist group. The Secret Empire are looking to buy enslaved metahumans from other Americas but are driven off by the fighting-mad super-soldier. Tragically Cap is totally unprepared for the Black Widow to show up and murder Kashmir. Only after she tries to kill him too does he realise that she’s not his Black Widow…

Things look pretty bleak until she is suddenly taken out by her own counterpart, but the ‘Superhero Horror’ only increases when Vennema Multiversal HQ realises the deal has gone sour and the supreme “Kash” orders all evidence dumped. That involves a dimensional transport trap which lands Cap, Natasha and the killer Widow in a dustbin dimension where all Vennema’s failures and embarrassments end up…

Forging an uneasy alliance with the other Natasha, Cap goes scouting and walks into a catastrophic war amidst the ruins…

‘Tripod Terror’ sees the heroes ferociously battling crazed survivors of other cover-ups, unaware that Kash has despatched her metahuman Hunt Squad – culled from numerous worlds – to ensure their destruction, but the tables are about to be turned thanks to the ‘Raging Reptiles’ of alternate Earth inmate Curt Connors.

This plane’s Lizard is also its Doctor Octopus and he has redemption in mind. He only thought to help his people after a great war but his meddling resulted in a planet of monsters…

Now as the Hunt Squad attacks, Connors buys time for Cap and the Widows to escape, plunging into uncontrolled inter-dimensional chaos and fetching up on a myriad of incredible alternates before finally finding the mystery client who ordered the hits on the assorted Kashmirs.

She has her own team of oddly familiar metahuman champions and wants to dismantle Vennema Multiversal. With Captain America and two Black Widows ‘Taking it to the House’, the hostile takeover is brief and very bloody…

But when the dust at last settles is the convoluted interconnected web of Realities actually a better, safer place?

A dazzling display of pure Fights ‘n’ Tights razzamatazz, this short, sharp and super-heroically sweet team-up tale from scripter Cullen Bunn and illustrator Francesco Francavilla captivatingly capitalises on the popularity of the filmic iterations of these particularly long-lived metahuman marvels whilst playing delicious games with the established comics continuity. The end result is a fast and furious treat all action addicts will be unable to resist.
© 2012, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Incredible Hulk: Boiling Point


By Bruce Jones, Lee Weeks, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0905-1

Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result he would unexpectedly transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury when distressed or surprised. As both occasional hero and mindless monster he rampaged across the Marvel Universe for years, finally finding his size 700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of young Marvel’s most resilient features.

A hugely popular character both in comics and greater global media beyond the printed page, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and direction to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

One of the most impressive runs of was by noted thriller and horror writer Bruce Jones (see especially his impressive Hitchcock pastiche Somerset Holmes or sci fi sagas Arena and Silverheels) who injected some long-neglected suspense and a sense of building menace back into the saga, by referencing both classic 1960s cult TV series The Fugitive and the Jade Juggernaut’s own small screen hit from the 1970s…

This slim tome (re-presenting issues #40-44 of the second Incredible Hulk comicbook volume from July to October 2002) combines his moody, humanistic writing with the understatedly workmanlike yet potently effective illustration of Lee Weeks & Tom Palmer to stunning effect in this beguiling middle-sequence of a shocking extended saga of shadowy conspiracies and government malfeasance.

Previously: perpetually running from the authorities and himself, Banner had finally lost all hope in the aftermath of one of the Hulk’s bouts of mindless destruction which devastated Chicago and resulted in the death of a little boy, Ricky Myers. However, as the dejected scientist fled across America, one faltering step ahead of the authorities and his own battered conscience, he became aware of an incredible conspiracy and realised all was not as it seemed.

For one thing, a warring team of professional assassins were hunting him for an as-yet unknown client…

Both Slater and his rival/partner Sandra Verdugo had been co-opted by a cabal of Men in Black with an unspecified interest in ramping up anti-Hulk hysteria. They also wanted Banner taken alive and had gifted their agents with the power of resurrection…

Their exhausted target meanwhile had found a way to keep his rampaging Other under control and away from the world, even though his pursuers had often pushed him to the very brink…

The relentless pursuit resumes in rural Miser, Colorado where a tense hostage situation suddenly becomes a major crisis. It’s bad enough that a pink-slip has turned one overstressed wage-slave into a gun-toting nut-job holding a group of terrified citizens in the town’s only convenience store. It’s a potential problem that shell-shocked big city ex-cop and former SWAT-negotiator Sally Riker is a suicidal burnout with PTSD. It’s a terrifying prospect that one cop is down and bleeding out, with only an eerily calm drifter keeping the deranged gunman talking.

However, ‘Boiling Point’ is only reached when a taskforce of Feds inexplicably invade the town… As they brusquely take charge, in side the Ready-Mart, the strangely-placid stranger uses his pre-arranged safe-word code to tell Sally that they’re all impostors…

‘Poker Face’ opens with imposing FBI Agent Pratt briefing his shadow team to trigger Banner’s change to the Hulk, whilst “allowing” Sally to enter the store to negotiate all the captives’ release. With all his ducks in place, Pratt thinks he can end any witness problems with a Waco-style “accidental” exchange of gunfire, but has not taken into account Riker’s paranoia or Banner’s instincts…

When the Hulk at last manifests in ‘All Fall Down’, Pratt breaks out the futuristic weaponry he’s been hiding; primed to get a gamma-ray blood-sample before taking the beast captive…

With Miser razed by the Green Gargantuan and Pratt’s team killed by their murderous boss, the exultant agent then heads off to meet his mysterious masters, with a heavily tranquilised Banner in tow. The triumphant operative is confident his crimes will never be reported, but has not counted on Sally Riker’s survival skills and hunger for vengeance and answers…

Before too long she freed the Hulk and Pratt is faced with the cost of his sins as Sally, Banner and the Beast teach him the danger of unleashing ‘The Beast Within’…

These tension-packed tales focus primarily on Banner and judiciously limit the use of the Jade Juggernaut to the point that the monster almost becomes a ghost: terrifying, dreaded but largely unseen. This Hulk is an oppressive force of calculated salvation and last resort rather than mere reader-friendly graphic destruction and gratuitous gratification.

Like all great monsters he lurks in the shadows, waiting for his moment…

One of the most underrated and impressive Hulk yarns of all, this book is the middle of three self-contained volumes which utterly reinvigorated the character of both Banner and his Altered Ego, cleverly refocusing the series for the 21st century. If you’re new to the series or looking for an excuse to jump back on, this book – and its companions – are for you…
© 2002, 2003 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Avengers: Captain America


By Scott Gray, Roger Langridge, Todd Dezago, Roger Stern, Craig Rousseau, Matteo Lolli, Lou Kang, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4562-3

Since its earliest days Marvel always courted the youngest comicbook consumers. Whether animated tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids and Calvin – or as in the 1980s Star Comics line – an entire imprint for originated or licensed comics targeting peewee punters, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

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

In 2003 the company instituted a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko, mixing it with the remnants of the manga-based Tsunami imprint, all intended for a younger readership.

The experiment was tweaked in 2005, evolving into Marvel Adventures with core titles transformed into 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. Additional Marvel Adventures series included Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

Those tales have all been collected in welcoming digest-sized compilations such as this one which gathers a selection of yarns starring the Sentinel of Liberty. This particular patriotic play-list comprises three all-ages tales – taken from Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #8 and 12, plus an early outing from Marvel Age Spider-Man Team-Up #2 and rounded out with a mainstream continuity yarn from Captain America volume 1 #255 from March 1981.

The Sentinel of Liberty was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched straight into his own Timely Comics’ (Marvel’s earliest iteration) title. Captain America Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and was a monster smash-hit. Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also one of very the first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s Cap was briefly revived – as were his two fellow superstars – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more needed them. When the Stars-&-Stripes Centurion finally reappeared he finally found a devoted following who stuck with him through thick and thin.

Soon after taking over the Avengers, he won his own series and, eventually, title. Cap waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in American history but always struggled to find an ideological place and stable footing in the modern world, plagued by the trauma of his greatest failure: the death of his boy partner Bucky…

If you’re of a slavish disposition continuity-wise, the first three Star-Spangled sagas all occur on Marvel’s Earth-20051 whilst the last is situated in the regulation Earth-616.

It opens with an updated origin – in keeping with the later filmic iteration – as ‘The Legend Reborn’ (by Scott Gray & Craig Rousseau as seen in MASH #8, April 2009) sees World War II’s greatest hero decanted from an arctic iceberg by agents of SHIELD.

Future-shocked and mistrusting, Steve Rogers breaks out of protective custody and explores the 21st century beside teen-rebel and street-performer Rick Jones, until secret society Hydra try to “recruit” him and Cap is finally forced to pick a side…

The introductory epic is augmented by an enticing war-time tale. ‘Spy for the Cameras!’ (Roger Langridge & Rousseau) finds Cap and annoyingly plucky reporter Rosalind Hepburn exposing an undercover plot in Hollywoodland…

Issue #12 (August 2009) saw Cap and Rick return in ‘Web of Deceit’ by Gray & Matteo Lolli. Here the time-lost hero is transported into Hydra’s digital domain to face unimaginable and lethally implausible peril, until Rick’s buddies in the Online Brigade log in to save the day…

This is followed by another deliciously wry WWII romp from Langridge & Rousseau, with news-hen Rosalind, Cap and Bucky battling a prototype mutant cyborg in ‘If This Be P.R.O.D.O.K.!’

‘Stars, Stripes and Spiders!’ is by Todd Dezago, Lou Kang & Pat Davidson (originally debuting in Marvel Age Spider-Man Team-Up #2, December 2004 and inspired by Len Wein and Gil Kane’s tale from the original Marvel Team-Up #13).

When a certain wall-crawling high-school student and part-time hero stumbles into Captain America tackling an AIM cadre stealing a super-soldier serum, the nervous lad learns a few things about the hero game from the guy who wrote the book. Not making that lesson any easier is petrifying super-villain the Grey Gargoyle…

Closing out this fast-paced primer of patriotic action is a classic retelling of Cap’s early career by Roger Stern & John Byrne. The story was the finale in a superb run by the duo: a mini-renaissance of well-conceived and perfectly executed yarns epitomising all the fervour and pizzazz of Captain America in his glory days. ‘The Living Legend’ is a moody, rocket-paced origin saga which was the definitive version of the hero’s nativity for decades…

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 collected stories are still an intriguing, amazingly entertaining and superbly accessible means of introducing characters and concepts to kids born sometimes three generations or more away from the originating events.

Beguiling, enthralling and impressive, these riotous super stories are extremely 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 kids…

© 1981, 2000, 2009, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.