Marvel Superheroes – Page 58

June 18, 2014June 18, 2014

Indestructible Hulk volume 4: Humanity Bomb

By Mark Waid, Mahmud Asrar, Clayton Mann & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-620-5

Once upon a time, Bruce Banner was merely a military scientist accidentally caught in a Gamma-bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, any undue stress could cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unimaginable strength and fury.

As both occasional hero and bombastic brute he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of comics’ most popular characters and most enduring multi-media titans.

Over the years he has undergone numerous radical changes in scope, character and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling whilst the number of Gamma-galvanised grotesqueries crashing about the Marvel Universe has proliferated to inconceivable proportions.

The days of Bruce going green with anger at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from TV or movie incarnations would be wise to anticipate a smidgen of unavoidable confusionâ€¦

In a world of numerous Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and every kind of ancillary colour-swatched atomic berserker, the MarvelNOW! event saw the Jade Giant reinvented in a stripped-down, back-to-basics but startlingly original manner which energised new and old fans alike.

The big change in his fortunes occurred after S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill was persuaded to provide perennial fugitive Banner with resources and funding in order to sanitise his devastated scientific reputation. In return Hill could call on the Hulk as a living weapon of last resortâ€¦

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner had lost years of success, progress and peer renown whilst trying to cure himself of the Hulk. Concerned about his legacy, the fugitive genius had at last decided to make his future headlines as a scientist, not a shattering force of nature – for as long as he could possible manage – rather than fruitlessly seek to cure his affliction. Additionally, in return for S.H.I.E.L.D. science labs and trained assistants, the beleaguered boffin would give the spy agency first use of his discoveries and inventionsâ€¦

This volume details the final days of this cataclysmic chapter in the ever-eventful life of Dr. Banner and his angry green alter ego (collecting Indestructible Hulk #16, 17.INH, 18.INH, 19.INH, 20 and Indestructible Hulk Annual #1, spanning January-March 2014) with scripter Mark Waid going out on a unforgettable high.

These days comics are all about the next Big Publishing Event and this latest Hulk collection capitalises on the tide of Inhumanity to bring this particular iteration to a spectacular climax â€¦

During earlier mega-blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions, proving that human and Inhuman were not necessarily different racesâ€¦

After being marooned in mystical ice-hell Jotunheim and then having to outwit Zarrko the Tomorrow Man and repair the fracturing time-stream, Banner and his team are way behind the greenly envious genius’ schedule to prove himself smarter than Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym and all the other assorted big-brains who have outshone and pitied him over the years of his afflictionâ€¦

Thus in ‘Humanity Bomb: Prelude’ (by Waid & Mahmud Asrar)Banner is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to get back on track. After blackmailing the Military-Industrial complex for â€œblack bagâ€ funds, the inventor goes on a spree of tinkering only to be beaten to the patent office post over and over again by his oblivious intellectual rivals.

With his temper fraying, only calm, cool assistant Randall Jessup seems able to keep him from â€œHulking Outâ€, so it’s with some relief that Banner hears of a rushed – and highly suspect – S.H.I.E.L.D. mission to an ancient Meso-American pyramid in Mexico where he can exorcise some pent-up frustrationâ€¦

They only want Renewable Energy expert Jessup on-site, but Banner is not a man to take â€œnoâ€ for an answer anymore – which is lucky considering the original purpose of the monolith and the things waiting insideâ€¦

Indestructible Hulk Annual #1 then offers a look into Banner’s – and Tony Stark’s – boyhood via a ‘Journey into Science’ (Jeff Parker & Asrar) as Dr. Derenik Zadian – the charismatic but mercenary scientific genius who taught and then advised the two prodigies to go into weapons research – returns as a threat to the entire world. Iron Man and the Hulk must reluctantly invade the monster-stuffed island their renegade mentor is now literally part-and-parcel ofâ€¦

‘Humanity Bomb’ (by Waid, Clay Mann, Seth Mann, Miguel Sepulveda, Jheremy Raapack, Tom Grummett, Joe Bennett, Karl Kesel, Ruy JosÃ©, Andrew Hennessy & Scott Hanna) then opens as Stark and Pym meddle with Banner’s proposed solution for the still-propagating clouds of airborne Terrigen Mistâ€¦

Already under relentless, self-induced pressure to succeed, the unwelcome intervention stresses Banner, but not as much as the S.H.I.E.L.D. edict that his entire research team are to be held in â€œlock-downâ€ since one of them has tested positive for the genes that react to Terrigen exposureâ€¦

Thus, when Iron Man, Giant-Man and The Beast arrive, insultingly demanding to check his work before proceeding, Banner goes ballistic. To be fair though, his quick fix is a bomb and everybody is painfully aware of how well his last radical radioactive explosive device turned outâ€¦

When the physicist goes green and crazy the assembled Avengers are unable to stop him stealing the bomb and escaping into the unsuspecting worldâ€¦

The resulting chase and cataclysmic clash causes the bomb to detonate over Tulsa, Oklahoma with horrific and astounding results. In the aftermath the now pacified physicist’s solution is deconstructed and the reason for its failure to end the spread of â€œTerrigenesisâ€ determined.

Banner is blithely unaware that his team have broken out of custody and flown after him. They are unaware that the cure hasn’t worked – until one of them suddenly turns into a monster that feeds on rageâ€¦

Inevitably the fresh new travesty of nature clashes spectacularly with the Hulk but, even after a seeming solution reverses the Terrigen transformation, the danger is not over. Elsewhere, maverick scientist Ted Goodrich has rebuilt and reactivated the rogue think tank dubbed The Enclave (which numbered growing the first artificial godling Him/Adam Warlock amongst its numerous wonders and breakthroughs) and has targeted Banner’s recently reverted aideâ€¦

That bombastic battle apparently goes the Good Guys’ way but after reporting back to Maria Hill one more shock and another impossible tragedy awaits the understandably at-the-end-of-his tether Bruce Bannerâ€¦

Sporting a stack of AR icons (Marvel’s Augmented Reality App featuring printed portals to online story bonuses and extras for everyone who downloaded the free software from marvel.com onto a smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet) and a stunning cover gallery by Asrar & Dave McCaig, this sharp, action-packed and astonishingly compelling read offers a fun-filled, fury-fuelled shocking end to the epic which brilliantly mixes incredible adventure with clever characterisation and an addictive excess of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.

June 16, 2014June 18, 2014

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: 30th Anniversary Edition

By Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, Bob Layton, John Beatty & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-589-5

Has it been thirty years? Cripes!: stir the Horlicks and break out the Zimmer framesâ€¦

The â€œmaxi-seriesâ€ which started the seemingly insatiable modern passion for vast, braided mega-crossover publishing events originally came about because of an impending action figures licensing deal with toy manufacturing monolith Mattel.

Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, a great advocate of tales accessible to new, younger readers as well as the dedicated fan-base, apparently concocted the rather simplistic but amazingly engaging saga starring the House of Ideas’ top characters as a result of urgings from a potential major licensor. He then built his tale around a torrent of unsolicited, inspirational mail from readers, all begging for one huge dust-up between all the heroes and villainsâ€¦

The 12-issue Limited Series launched with a May 1984 cover-date and closed (April 1985) with a double-sized blockbusting battle that left many characters changed forever – or as least as â€œForeverâ€ as comics getâ€¦

The premise of the secret saga was that an all-powerful force calling itself The Beyonder abducted an army of Earth heroes and villains – and the most dreaded destroyer in the universe – in its quest to understand the emotion of desireâ€¦

The enigmatic, almighty entity dumped them all on a colossal purpose-built Battleworld created from and populated with fragments of other planets as a vast arena in which to prove which was better â€“ self-gratification or sacrificeâ€¦

In his introductory reminiscence ‘The War to End All Wars’, Shooter recounts the concatenation of circumstances which led to the creation of the series, after which an tantalising page clipped from the Daily Bugle outlines the mounting mystery of a seemingly unconnected legion of missing heroes before the furious Fights ‘n’ Tights epic opensâ€¦

As crafted by Shooter, Mike Zeck & John Beatty, ‘The War Begins’ found the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, Magneto, the Hulk and utterly out-of-his-depth Spider-Man all teleported into the deep unknown to see a galaxy destroyed and a world constructed before their astounded eyes. This was achieved purely so that a cosmic force could determine which of two philosophies was correct.

Arrayed against them were Doctor Doom, Molecule Man, Ultron, Dr. Octopus, the Lizard, the Enchantress, Absorbing Man, Kang the Conqueror, the Wrecking Crew and Galactus, all of whom had no problem with a disembodied voice telling them â€œslay your enemies and all you desire shall be yoursâ€â€¦

Whilst the villains instantly turn on each other, the Devourer of Worlds doesn’t care for the offer and attacks the disembodied force, only to be smashed casually and unceremoniously onto the brand new world below. The heroes too touch ground but dissent starts to split them into suspicious factions. The mere presence of mutant supremacist Magneto on their â€œteamâ€ divides the champions along human and mutant linesâ€¦

Elsewhere Doctor Doom tries to explain the underlying threat to his fellow villains in the huge super-scientific citadel they have commandeered, but the rogues refuse to listen.

Exasperated, the Monarch of Latveria decides to swallow his pride and consult with despised rival Mr. Fantastic but is blasted out of the skies by his greedy, treacherous companions before he finds the heroes’ camp. The bushwhackers then rashly go on to attack the gathered Good Guysâ€¦ and The War beginsâ€¦

‘Prisoners of War!’ sees the first of many pitched battles, but as the cataclysmic conflict proceeds, elsewhere Doom, having survived the sneak attack, is on site to see Galactus revive and ominously repair to a mountain top to begin his own unique responseâ€¦

Leaving the cosmic glutton to his own devices, the Iron Tyrant returns to the fortress of evil; dubbing it Doombase as he reprograms the dormant AI Ultron to be his slave.

He is waiting when the thoroughly trounced malefactors limp home, having lost the Lizard, Enchantress, Kang and Thunderball, Bulldozer and Piledriver of the Wrecking Crew to the heroes.

The triumphant yet troubled victors have occupied their own city-sized futuristic castle-complex where, after imprisoning their captives, they soon return to bickering with each other. The suspicions of some human heroes quickly drives Magneto away – taking the Wasp as a hostage – but even as the remaining mutants begin to feel the weight of prejudice, bigger problems manifest.

As the rocky Thing unexpectedly reverts to merely mortal Ben Grimm, on his distant mountain top Galactus is preparing to consume Battleworldâ€¦

The suspense builds in ‘Tempest Without, Crisis Within!’

As the master of magnetism discusses a truce with the Wasp, in the hero citadel Spider-Man misconstrues an overheard conversation and accidentally sparks a schism between human and mutants.

Whilst the webslinger and Hulk remain with Reed Richards, The Thing, Human Torch, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man (unknown to all Jim Rhodes not Tony Stark), Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and She-Hulk, the much-aggrieved X-Men Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine and diminutive space-dragon Lockheed follow increasingly doctrinaire Charles Xavier’s demands to separate from the assemblage and join Magnetoâ€¦

Doom meanwhile has used his fortress’ alien technology to turn two mysteriously-arrived earth girls into super-powered allies. When his remaining forces attack the heroes at dawn, the power of Volcana and Titania tips the balance against the defenders, deprived as they are of the might of the now-missing mutantsâ€¦

Thor too is gone. Having journeyed with the captive Enchantress to a pocket dimension – hoping to persuade her to switch sides – he returns too late to stop the felons freeing their comrades and crippling the Torch and Captain Marvelâ€¦

Bob Layton stepped in to pencil the next two chapters, beginning with ‘Situation: Hopeless!’ wherein the resurgent rogues move to end the war by having Molecule Man drop an entire mountain range on the already-reeling heroes. Trapped under 50 billion tons of rock – only barely held up by the Atlas-like Hulk – the heroes are rallied to hold on by Captain America whilst Reed and Iron Man devise a technological solution to their dilemma.

Outside, Thor’s unexpected return almost overwhelms the exultant evildoers, but he too is eventually destroyedâ€¦

As the dust settles, Doom kills the newly liberated Kang (for shooting him down as he flew to confer with Richards), blithely unaware that Thor has survived and escaped to rescue his buried comradesâ€¦

In another quadrant, as the X-Men arrive at Magneto’s bastion – giving the Wasp a chance to escape – the recently disinterred heroes find an alien village in the shadow of Galactus’ peak where a comely healer named Zsaji uses her empathic abilities to heal the battered, wounded warriors from Earthâ€¦

However even as Ben unpredictably becomes the Thing again, Galactus makes his next moveâ€¦

Above the skies of Battleworld, the Devourer’s solar system sized starship materialises, signalling ‘The Battle of Four Armies!’ At Doombase meek, socially inept Molecule Man Owen Reece is starting to blossom under the romantic attentions of Marsha Rosenberg AKA Volcana and, after being teased and bullied by the Wrecking Crew, smashes them all and flies off to be alone with her.

Whilst Magneto and Xavier attempt to communicate with the disdainfully oblivious Galactus, the X-Men speed to assist the human heroes against an outlaw assault on Zsaji’s village. In the melee Colossus is gravely injured and only saved by the healer’s intervention.

For him it is true love at first sightâ€¦

Oblivious to the conflict Doom, meanwhile, has again accomplished the impossible and invaded Galactus’ shipâ€¦

Zeck returned for ‘A Little Deathâ€¦’ in which the Wasp, frantically making her way back to her friends, encounters and befriends the savage, confused Lizard.

Thousand of miles above her, Doom’s explorations have led him to find and restore sonic scourge Klaw. The malign, sentient sound wave had been trapped in the system-ship for months but although reconstituted in a solid-vibrational body construct, the Master of Sound is completely crazyâ€¦.

Xavier’s confrontational leadership style is causing contention amongst his students and Colossus is having his heart broken every time he sees Zsaji fawn and simper over the shallow, lustful – human – Torchâ€¦

As Captain America and the big brains strategise ways to stop Galactus, Cyclops, Wolverine and Rogue unexpectedly rout a pack of bad guys on a mission for Doom which leaves the nigh-omnipotent Molecule bleeding out. Elsewhere, however, the fates are less kind when the Wasp, still cosying up to the Lizard, is ambushed and murdered by the Wrecking Crew.

The primordial predator is unable to save her, but his vengeance is terrible to beholdâ€¦

And back at the Healer’s village a new player is about to enter the frayâ€¦

‘Berserker!’ introduces a new Spider-Woman and reveals where Titania and Volcana came from. Whilst assembling his war world The Beyonder appropriated segments of many other planets, including an entire suburb of Denver, Colorado from Earthâ€¦

Before the enigmatic arachnid can explain further the Wreckers blaze in to dump the Wasp’s corpse and gloat, but the Star Spangled Avenger refuses to let his enraged comrades pursue the killers. He needs everyone to stay ready for the moment when Galactus starts to eat the planet and the billions of kidnapped innocents unhappily inhabiting itâ€¦

As the villains retreat with the wounded Molecule Man they are ambushed by the rest of the X-Men and Magneto, resulting in another savage yet inconclusive battle, whilst high above them all Doom continues to plunder Galactus’ home. When the World Eater finally notices him, the Master of Latveria is casually expelled and sent crashing like a bug to the planet below â€¦

Back at Doombase She-Hulk, filled with righteous rage and ignoring Cap’s orders, attacks the amassed murderers alone. After a ferocious fight she eventually succumbs to their greater force and ruthless brutalityâ€¦

So when Xavier informs the heroes that his mutants will stand guard over Galactus, the Sentinel of Liberty at last lets his enraged comrades loose to take on the killers and live up to the name â€œAvengersâ€â€¦

She-Hulk is near death when ‘Invasion!’ (inked by Beatty & Jack Abel) opens, as the champions of justice thrash their enemies with great enthusiasm, especially the enigmatic new Spider-Woman. In the course of the spectacular melee, Spider-Man single-handedly beats the impossibly strong Titania and his costume is destroyed.

As they imprison the crushed criminals, Captain America finds Doom, slumped in defeat and despair. Whilst the triumphant heroes use matter-shaping machines to repair their clothing and uniforms, the Wall-crawler accidentally uses a different device and receives a new all-black costume similar to Spider-Woman’sâ€¦

His, however, can change shape, colour and design, is thought-activated and somehow produces an inexhaustible supply of webbing. In the days to come on Earth he will learn to deeply regret his errorâ€¦

Back in the village Zsaji has pulled out all the stops and resurrected the seemingly dead Wasp, but any joy the victors might feel is instantly erased as Professor X broadcasts a desperate telepathic alarm: Galactus is at last beginning to consume the planetâ€¦

As the X-Men begin their ‘Assault on Galactus!’ the human heroes rush back to assist them, but Reed Richards – the greatest intellect on Earth – suddenly has a flash of insight and vanishes as the Devourer teleports him to a private conference.

At that moment Doom rouses himself from his despondent funk, having conceived a grand plan of his own to conquer both Galactus and The Beyonder, erasing forever the humiliation of his ignominious defeatâ€¦

Due in part to his discussion with Reed, the Cosmic Carnivore abandons Battleworld and instead absorbs his own system-shipâ€¦

In the confusion Doom makes his move, using a hastily constructed device to absorb all the omnipotent instigator’s power and deal out ‘Death to the Beyonder!’

Despite being all but incinerated in the struggle, the Iron Tyrant uses the stolen energies to rebuild himself and declare the Secret War over with Doom the sole victorâ€¦

In ‘â€¦And Dust to Dust!’, having successfully stolen the Beyonder’s power, he exults in the joys of becoming omnipotent. However the troubled new god finds it hard to hang on to lust for conquest, or even personal ambition after achieving all-consuming divinity, and his benign acts and vapid indolence betray a certain lack of drive and ambitionâ€¦

With heroes and villains nervously awaiting the new supreme one’s next move, events take a subtly disturbing turn as a strange energy wisp begins to possess a succession of heroes as it makes its way ever closer to the Doom Deityâ€¦

The other do-gooders remain deep in conference, debating their response to the self-proclaimed saviour of the universe. At the moment they finally decide to oppose him they are all vaporised by a bolt of energyâ€¦

Of course it doesn’t end there as the resurgent Beyonder battles through heroic and villainous proxies to reclaim his purloined power and put everything to rights – sort of – in the blockbusting finale ‘â€¦Nothing to Fear!’

Although perhaps a little dated and rather straightforward – although peppered with plenty of convoluted and clever plot twists – this bombastic box of delights still reads exceedingly well (especially for younger readers) and this commemorative edition also includes a couple of added extras.

‘The Toys’ features many of the action figures, packaging and ads for all us kids to salivate over and the whole show concludes with scholarly overview ‘The Birth and Legacy of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars’ which rounds off the cosmic nostalgia-fest by discussing the secret origins of mega-crossovers from crucial prototype Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions to a few of the more memorable descendants such as Civil War, Age of Ultron and Infinityâ€¦

Fast-paced, pretty-looking and impressively action-packed, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars was – and still is – sheer comicbook magic that no true aficionado of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction can do without.

â„¢ & Â© 1984, 1985, and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

June 12, 2014June 18, 2014

All-New X-Men/Guardians of the Galaxy: The Trial of Jean Grey

By Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli, Stuart Immonen, David Marquez, Wade Von Grawbadger & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

When bestial mutant Henry McCoy learned he was dying, he used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to give his life meaning. Seeking to prevent a species war, he brought the young, naive X-Men of his youth into the future to reason with his radicalised former comrade Scott Summers, praying the still idealistic and hopeful teens could reason with Mutant Enemy Terrorist No. 1 and divert him from his path of doctrinaire madnessâ€¦

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Cyclops back to his senses, the confrontation hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy miraculously cured his older self, boy-Henry and the rest of the X-Kids were trapped in their own future and began gradually defecting to the radicalised teamâ€¦

And Elsewhere in Infinity: a few years ago a plethora of cosmic crises forced the champions and remnants of many heroic races to band together and save the cosmos. Although said crises were largely averted, some of those Sentinels of the Spaceways eventually got the band back together, more determined than ever to make the universe a safe place (for specifics you should consult Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers and Angela).

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, this stellar crossover saga combined the two disparate gangs of outcasts: The Trial of Jean Grey collects All-New X-Men #22.NOW, 23-24 and Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW, 12-13 (from January to March 2014), taking the time-displaced teens to the ends of the universe and even further into uncharted temporal territoryâ€¦

The crossover cataclysm commences in All-New X-Men #22.NOW (illustrated by Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger) and opens in the wilds of Canada at the New Charles Xavier School– formerly the Weapon X facility where Wolverine and so many other mutants were ruthlessly experimented upon and â€œimprovedâ€.

Here the future-shocked Angel, Iceman, Beast, young Cyclops and Jean Grey are feeling the building tension of their new normal: facing the prospect of never returning to their own time; risking destroying all reality with every moment they aren’t back there and, worst of all, watching Jean go slowly crazy trying not to become the impossibly perfect superwoman everybody keeps talking about in such hushed tonesâ€¦

As part of that resolution Jean had been tentatively exploring her romantic options, consequently sowing confusion amongst her hormonal teenaged confreres. This now results in a painfully fraught spat with ostensibly predestined husband (young) Scott Summers.

As tempers flare the facility is suddenly stormed by a squad of extraterrestrial commandos who, despite spirited resistance from the assorted X-Men and other mutants, capture Jean and blast off for parts unknownâ€¦

Mere seconds later another band of weirdoes turn up: The Guardians of the Galaxy are aghast and furious at arriving too lateâ€¦

Guardians of the Galaxy #11.NOW (with art by Sara Pichelli) then flashbacks to fill in the details as Star-Lord Peter Jason Quill is ambushed in an alien bar by a Skrull bounty hunter.

The half-breed Terran is the unloved son of J’Son of Spartax – undisputed ruler of an interstellar empire – but no friend of Earth. The wayward scion and his allies in pacifying an unruly and unforgiving universe Drax, Rocket Racoon, Groot, Gamora (â€œDeadliest Woman in the Galaxyâ€) and newest extra-dimensional recruit Angela are all on the run from the militaristic Spartoi and their alliesâ€¦

The self-appointed Guardians’ ongoing troubles stem from a compact of major cosmic powers and principalities. This coterie of rulers had formed a Council of Galactic Empires and unilaterally declared Earth â€œoff limitsâ€: quarantined from all extraterrestrial contact, but that high-minded declaration hadn’t stopped some of the signatories from breaking their own embargo or being mighty ticked off whenever Quill’s crew kicked them off Terra and back into space.

Cold and distant J-Son of course, had his own good – if undisclosed – reasons for wanting his son curbed and controlledâ€¦

However whilst the Skrull was stalking Star-Lord, the Council was meeting and Emperor Kallark of the Shi’ar (AKA alien superman Gladiator) was informing his colleagues that Jean Grey – former host to the overweening Phoenix Force – was back and he was going to try her for her crimesâ€¦ even though the chronally displaced child hadn’t technically committed them yetâ€¦

When wily techie Rocket Racoon intercepts a message about an intended Shia’ar raid on Earth, the Guardians race to stop them, butâ€¦

All-New X-Men #23 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) picks up the tale in space as the Guardians and X-Men hurtle after the commandos, shattering Shi’ar ships that get in their way, even as far ahead of them Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of DC’s Legion of Super Heroes) telepath Oracle begins to debrief Jean and chillingly share her future history with her.

The exotic psionic seems oddly sympathetic and considerate of the Terran teenager’s unhappy predicamentâ€¦

Her pursuers meanwhile are encountering increasingly harsh resistance – until help arrives in the form of the bombastic, swashbuckling Starjammersâ€¦

GotG #12 (illustrated by Pichelli, Immonen & Von Grawbadger) sees young Cyclops receive the shock of his life as he finds that the freebooting rebels’ leader is his own long-dead dad Christopher Summers. He hates the Shi’ar with a passion and good reason and now goes by the name Corsairâ€¦

As father and son ecstatically embrace, on Planet Spartax Quill’s sire is taking steps to offset the disaster he knows will come if Kallark carries out his insane plan to kill the time-lost Jean Grey. He had originally intended to do nothing, but now that his own son has become involvedâ€¦

As the combined rescue-force infiltrates the Empire’s most secure planet, Jean’s show-trial is beginning. Kallark – despite the continued objections of Oracle – confronts the frail-seeming Earthling with the planetary genocides perpetrated by her older self whilst possessed by the Phoenix and callously demands her plea for crimes she has not yet, if ever, committedâ€¦

All-New X-Men #23 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) ramps up the tension as J-Son bursts in, declaring the defendant’s innocence and asking if the Shi’ar have not already done enough.

In the aftermath of the Phoenix’s rampage Gladiator had exterminated every one of Jean’s relatives – in case the cosmic entity had some affinity with the family’s genetics – but this latest action seems like nothing more than vindictive, cowardly paranoiaâ€¦

The revelation is a huge mistakeâ€¦

In the world outside, Starjammers, Guardians and X-Men are getting closer and closer, using guile and force of arms to cut their way through the massed military forces, but their efforts are wasted.

Jean, horrified by the fate of her family, has tapped unknown reserves and become something never experienced in her previous future history. As such, the Imperial Guard are utterly unable to contain herâ€¦

As Gladiator’s forces pursue they are countered by the late arriving Guardian- Starjammer-X force in the spectacular and climactic Guardians of the Galaxy #13 (illustrated by Pichelli & David Marquez). Jean’s evolution and Cyclops’ determination are key to ending the ill-advised intergalactic travesty of justice, but in the weary aftermath, as Quill’s people return the mutants to their homeworld, a tricky new romance has been kindled and one of the time-tossed teen nomads is noticeably missingâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Fast, furious, funny and fantastically thrilling, The Trial of Jean Grey combines cosmic intrigue and dashing derring-do with hilarious characterisation and passionate soap opera angst and comes with a stunning 17 covers-&-variants gallery by Immonen, Von Grawbadger, Pichelli, Dale Keown & Chris Samnee as well as AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) for access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

What more could any entertainment-starved child of the wondering stars demand?

June 11, 2014June 18, 2014

Uncanny X-Men: the Good, the Bad, the Inhuman

By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Marco Rudy, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-609-0

When the teenaged â€œFirst Classâ€ of Charles Xavier’s X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

However after the tragic events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank â€œthe Beastâ€ McCoy, Bobby â€œIcemanâ€ Drake, Warren â€œthe Angelâ€ Worthington, Scott Summers, young Jean Grey, teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura â€œX-23â€ Kinney and the School’s Head Professor Kitty Pryde defected to the mutant terrorist band known as the Extermination Team.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the staunch and steadfast elder Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – had killed his beloved father-figure Xavier.

In the aftermath Old Summers united with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protÃ©gÃ©s.

Discarding Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids through his traditional methods at the Jean Grey School.

The two opposing sides of the mutant question clashed constantly, as the modern world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the youngâ€¦

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heated up when Summers – utterly convinced of his species’ inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s School student wishing to join his own academy – the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on themâ€¦

The bold ploy succeeded in luring away Angel and the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, before the situation was further muddied when both X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants radicals from the future travelled back to address the issue of the time-displaced First Class.

As a result of that â€œBattle of the Atomâ€ Cyclops found himself offering sanctuary to his youngest old friends, his callow earlier self and the girl who had given her life for himâ€¦ twiceâ€¦

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #14, 15.INH, 16-18 (January-May 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend take a deft turn into a lighter tone, beginning with ‘Initiation’ (offering additional inking by Jamie Mendoza, Al Vey, Mark Irwin & Victor Olazaba) as the new kids bond with the extraordinary other students through the shared pain of Elder Cyclops’ draconian physical training regimenâ€¦

In a quieter moment Emma takes the unprepossessing Benjamin Deeds under her wing; fascinated by his seemingly feeble ability to make himself physically and psychically likable and trustworthyâ€¦

For a field test, she unleashes the nervous lad at a gambling palace in Atlantic City before setting a more risky task: waltzing into a high security S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hand-deliver the mutant band’s ultimatum to America’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping forceâ€¦

Kris Anka then limns issue #15.INH – an offbeat tie-in to the then-ongoing Inhumanity Publishing Event. During the previous blockbuster Infinity, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill.

As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it would create millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not necessarily different racesâ€¦

When Frost and Pryde accompany the academy’s girl contingent on a sybaritic shopping-fest in London, they encounter Latverian tourist Geldhoff just as his Terrigen-triggered transformation completes. However, whilst trying to convince him to return with them to the New Xavier School, they succumb to the panicky trans-human’s explosive new power, allowing obsessive A.I.M. geneticist Dr. Monica Rappaccini to swoop in and add Geldhoff to her rapidly expanding collection of potentially profitable specimensâ€¦

All along Magneto has been playing a double (or even treble?) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her.

Now (with art by Bachalo & Co), after meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dazzler, he is lured to the island of Madripoor to discover that Machiavellian shapeshifter Mystique has created her own mutant utopia in the former rogue state. He never returns to the New Xavier Schoolâ€¦

Undaunted by the loss of a faculty member, the tough-love/education continues as the kids are dumped in the middle of a hostile nowhere and told to survive the monsters residing there. However one of the kids makes a huge mistake and even Nick Fury Jr. and the Avengers cannot save him from Cyclops’ harsh and very final judgementâ€¦

The drama concludes in psychedelic style (courtesy of Marco Rudy & colourist Val Staples) as Cyclops and his appalled team return to base and discover that Jean has been abducted by the alien Shi’ar. Also missing is Kitty Pryde and the rest of the time-tossed First Classâ€¦

This triggers a brutal flashback to the recent moment when Scott and Kitty lethally â€œnegotiatedâ€ the terms under which she and her charges would join his group and his subsequent painful conversations with his teenaged-again One True Love and baffled and betrayed youngerÂ self.

And now he has to face the fact that they are gone and he cannot save themâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka and Alexander Lozano, plus another photo-cover featuring TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet, The Good, the Bad, the Inhuman is a smart, sassy and amazingly engaging read: a fun-filled, fury-fuelled saga which craftily combines incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a mere modicum of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.

June 9, 2014June 18, 2014

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted

By Brahm Revel & Cristiane Peter (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-586-4

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories intended for older readers. More parallel to rather than actually outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased. Eventually these Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited seriesâ€¦

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted #1-5 originally ran from January-May 2014 and featured a particularly messy murder mystery and prime example of why baseline humanity should fear the mutants in their midstâ€¦ and vice versa.

In case you forgotâ€¦

In 1975 Len Wein & Dave Cockrum revived a revered but painfully uncommercial fan favourite with Giant Size X-Men #1, replacing most of the 1960s team – Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Beast, Lorna Dane and Havok – with a second generation of edgier international mutants young and old.

With both field-leader Cyclops and wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier remaining to carry on the dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race with terrifying extra abilities, the stage was set for â€œAll New, All Differentâ€ adventures, and the fledgling squad rapidly became the company’s biggest hit and asset, as well as largest pool of captivating characters.

Comic fans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for untold tales and details, so this grim and gritty, chronologically non-specific yarn featuring Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey,the Beast and Rogue will certainly appeal to older readers with a taste for nasty businessâ€¦

Written and illustrated by Brahm Revel with colour art by Cristiane Peter, the tale begins when telepathic Rachel picks up the psychically broadcast murder of a young unknown mutant. The most potent sense she got was that the boy was being huntedâ€¦

A little technological research by Hank McCoy pinpoints a cluster of three new mutants in rural West Virginia so the team heads off to the Appalachian boondocks. Further poking around had also revealed an unholy number of missing kids in that desolate areaâ€¦

With Wolverine already on edge over the prospect of somebody hunting mutant children, he and fellow covert specialists Kitty and Rogue arrive in a bleak, forbidding and primitive town and start poking around.

Rogue in particular feels the oppressive tone of a time and milieu she thought she had long left behind. Almost as soon as the suspicious strangers arrive, Wolverine arouses the ire of the local biker gang in their favourite watering hole, but while he does what he does best Kitty has found one of the mutants in the backâ€¦

Teenaged Krystal is a drug dealer for her uncle Jasper – the town sheriff – and can control minds, so she easily escapes the X-Men. She is also quite partial to the illicit and unique narcotic produced by cultish isolationists â€œThe Cooksâ€ in their secluded compound and soon after taking another dose is cornered by the patiently searching heroes.

Explaining the situation, the strangers take the oddly subdued Krystal – who lies about her true power – with them as they track down another mutant energy signature.

The trail leads to a cabin in the deep woods, a place the girl is clearly terrified of, and soon all four are experiencing impossible visions.

Wolverine has no time to ponder as he is ambushed by arch-nemesis Sabretooth and a brutal fight ensues. Rogue is then jumped by her former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants compatriots Mystique, Blob and Pyro and soon the shabby hut is filled with an army of old X-enemies and all-out war is underwayâ€¦

Realising something strange is going on, Wolverine battles his way to a young girl at the centre of the savage melee and discovers that deeply troubled Darla is cursed with the ability to materialise other people’s memoriesâ€¦

As he tries to reach her, the vision of the mutant boy’s murder plays out again for all to seeâ€¦

Back at the bar, Jasper delivers the latest batch of the new drug from The Cooks and suggests that the bikers get rid of the prying mutie strangers in townâ€¦

As the X-Men try to calm the deeply troubled dream-weaver, Krystal suddenly blurts out that Darla was the one who killed the missing boy, resulting in the cruel death materialising yet again and sending Wolverine into a murderous rage.

It’s all his team-mates can do to stop him gutting Darla on the spotâ€¦

In an effort to calm the situation the mutants all drive back to town, but when no adult is looking, Krystal slips Darla a bunch of pills from her stash and the memory-girl’s power goes into overdriveâ€¦

As Sentinels, evil mutants and demons from the X-Men’s past ravage the town, whilst the heroes turn on each other with homicidal intent, in the woods The Cooks, believing their particular apocalypse has arrived, head towards town to kill all the humans they can findâ€¦

Darla is off her head and out of control. However, as the town burns, with Rogue and Wolverine engrossed in trying to kill each other and a manifested army of old foes trying to kill everybody else, the truth slowly begins to emerge.

The Cooks’ special ingredient is bled out from captive mutants, boosting their product’s effect on humans and causing even nastier reactions in any Homo Superior who take it. Moreover, the doom-cultists believe that by taking the stuff they can become mutants themselves, leaving behind mortality and freeing them to slaughter the doomed genetic dead-ends of humanityâ€¦

As doped-up, despairing Darla discovers how to control her psychic constructs the chaos spirals to a bloody crescendo and Kitty, largely unaffected by the madness of malignant memories, realises that they have all been played for suckers.

Unfortunately even after the true cause of all the bloodshed comes clean, the carnage has reached a point beyond anybody’s controlâ€¦ and then comes inspirationâ€¦

Not all memories are bad and Kitty’s past is filled with valiant friends and heroes who would give their lives over and again to save the innocent and punish the guiltyâ€¦

With covers and variants by Revel & Peter and Paolo Rivera, Haunted is simultaneously a smart, convoluted mystery and breathtaking primal action comics spectacle that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

May 29, 2014May 28, 2014

Mighty Avengers volume 2: Venom Bomb

By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Marko Djurdjevic, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez, Victor Olazaba & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2369-9

After a TV reality show starring superheroes The New Warriors went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of ordinary folk in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders.

The Federal Government rushed through a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and 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 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 â€œbrother pitted against brotherâ€ and as the conflict inexorably 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, Constitution and personal Liberty and both sides knew they were rightâ€¦

Following the divisive and brutal Civil War, Tony Stark (a staunch advocate of the SRA) formed a squad of registered, Government-sanctioned heroes. His S.H.I.E.L.D.-backed Mighty Avengers were designed to take care of business whilst he worked on his â€œFifty States Initiativeâ€, the objective of which was to eventually field teams of trained and licensed superheroes in every State of the Union.

Firstly, though, he had to restore public confidence, especially as the unregistered, rogue New Avengers continued to defy his orders to surrender to government authority: saving lives and crushing evil without his permissionâ€¦

This second scintillating volume, gathering Mighty Avengers #7-11 (March-July 2008) is written throughout by Brian Michael Bendis and primarily illustrated by Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba, and begins with an opening shot in the then-forthcoming company event Secret Invasion.

‘Venom Bomb Part One’ finds New Avenger Spider-Woman switching sides to bring Stark the corpse of a Skrull who had replaced ninja assassin Elektra. Her own team thought they could handle the prospect – and feared Stark and/or his squad might also be alien infiltrators – but Jessica Drew, a triple agent simultaneously working for S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra and the rebel Avengers felt that only by going to the Nation’s security chief could the situation be successfully handledâ€¦

Stark keeps the corpse secret but invites Drew to join his team in hopes that her presence will cause any Skrulls in his Avengers to betray themselves. However, no sooner has Stark officially inducted the Arachnid Amazon to the squad (field leader Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Sentry and Grecian war god Ares), over their very strident protests, than a tiny ball of stellar debris crashes into New York City and unleashes an horrific, highly communicable plagueâ€¦

The capsule contains a voracious iteration of the alien Symbiote Spider-Man inadvertently brought back from The Beyonder‘s Battleworld and contact instantly transforms any organism into a voracious duplicate Venom.

Soon the city is a seething mass of rampaging, shapeshifting monsters – which is almost a relief for Stark as his constant scrutiny has detected no impostors. More worrying though is a desperate snatched conversation with Sentry’s wife Lindy, who begs the genius to find a way to de-power or kill her husband before his growing mental instability makes him a threat to the entire planetâ€¦

As the team deploys to the infection site the Wasp is pondering her last meeting with size-changing ex-husband Henry Pym (formerly Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket) when the erratic genius upgraded her powers. Unfortunately the ability to become a giant only makes her a bigger target and lethal liability when the rabid Venoms attack and infect herâ€¦

Thankfully Iron Man and the more or less than human Wonder Man, Ares, Sentry and Ms. Marvel are immune to the transformative terrors but then they encounter Hawkeye and Wolverine‘s New Avengers already on scene, and see that the outlaw heroes have succumbed to the contagion, becoming â€œVenomisedâ€ versions of their former selvesâ€¦

Using all his scientific resources, Stark synthesises a cure for the plague whilst his comrades hold the line, but in the aftermath the restored Hawkeye accuses him of being responsible for the murder of Captain America and the parlous state of the world.

Still reeling with guilt, Iron Man rockets into orbit to discover more weaponised venom bombs, and Ms. Marvel chooses not to arrest the SRA-resistors, allowing the New Avengers make their escapeâ€¦

In space Iron Man examines the bomb’s point of origin and discovers the satellite was built by Doctor Doom. Enraged and determined to make a political point Stark then deploys his team to invade the sovereign state of Latveriaâ€¦

With additional art from Marko Djurdjevic ‘Doom’s Castle’ opens with the Iron Tyrant indulging his passions with volatile sorceress Morgana Le Fey in the distant past, but his dangerous dalliance is soon forgotten when he returns to his own citadel to discover that his Venom satellite has prematurely triggered and a battalion of angry Avengers are attempting to kick his portcullis inâ€¦

The earth-shattering battle which follows sees the dictator soundly beaten but, on the verge of defeat, his Time Platform is damaged and the temporal malfunction causes the Golden Avenger, Sentry and Doom to plunge helplessly into the pastâ€¦

Presented as a visual pastiche of 1970’s Marvel Comics stories, ‘Time is on No One’s Side’ picks up the tale as Sentry discovers that his history is not as he remembers whilst watching his younger self battling dark mastermind The Void. Elsewhere in old New York, time-lost Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom resume their deadly duel until the panicking Sentry finds them and forces a truceâ€¦

Realising at last the incredible danger inherent in Sentry losing it, Doom leads his fellow chronal castaways to the era’s only known location of a time machine.

Unfortunately that’s Doom’s own device, confiscated by the Fantastic Four and cached in the Baxter Building and the bid to use it is interrupted by a fighting mad Thing named Ben Grimmâ€¦

Eventually however the trio triumph and travel back to their own Now, but only Iron Man and Sentry actually arrive, just in time to be caught in a monumental explosionâ€¦

This cataclysmic clash concludes as, in the Dark Ages, Doom and Le Fey collude and the witch-queen teaches her amorous pupil how to construct an army of demons.

Thus reinforced Doom returns to the 21^st century before Iron Man and Sentry and unleashes his horde of horrors on the rest of the Mighty Avengers. Crushed by the unholy horrors the team are soon trussed up as trophies of the devil doctor but nobody expected Spider-Woman to display an unprecedented power, disrupting Doom’s devices, freeing the team and demolishing his castle.

By the time Iron Man and Sentry pop back into reality it’s all over bar a colossal (and previously seen) detonation and the resounding defeat of the master of Latveria who subsequently becomes the most famous international terrorist ever arrested by S.H.I.E.L.Dâ€¦.

With covers by Bagley and Frank Cho and a selection of astounding inked cover samples by Cho, Danny Miki & John Dell, Venom Bomb offers another slick and stylish slice of breathtaking all-action entertainment which soundly sets the scene for the startling Secret Invasion main event which followed, but also reads astounding well on its own merits.

This is another Fights ‘n’ Tights â€œmust-readâ€ for insatiable thrill-chasers everywhere.
Â© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 23, 2014May 25, 2014

Iron Man: Iron Metropolitan

By Kieron Gillen, Joe Bennett, Agustin Padilla & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-595-6

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 had designed, the arch-technocrat wunderkind was critically wounded and captured by a Communist warlord.

Put to work with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead built a prototype Iron Man 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 Knight in Shining Armourâ€¦

Ever since then the former armaments manufacturer has been 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.

Of course, he was also a founder member of the world’s most prominent superhero assemblage, the Mighty Avengers, and affirmed Futurist; an impassioned advocate of inevitable progress by way of building better tomorrowsâ€¦

For a popular character/concept weighed down with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful periodic necessity. To stay fresh and contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been radically revised every so often, but never so drastically as during this latest revamp – the latest collected chronicle of which re-presents Iron Man volume 5, #18-22 and Inhumanity event tie-in Iron Man #20.INH, from November 2013 to March 2014.

What Just Happened: following a few notable escapades in outer space the once-jaded Armoured Avenger uncovered a few surprises in his own past (for which see the two-volume Iron Man: The Secret Origin of Tony Stark)â€¦

Rigellian Recorder 451 – one of millions of sentient automatons programmed to travel the universe acquiring knowledge – had developed a programming flaw and struck out on its own, slowly furthering its own secret agenda.

The renegade revealed to Tony that it had been watching over the Earthly inventor since before he was born, and had worked with his parents Howard and Maria to genetically alter their unborn child and make it a technological super-warrior capable of defending Earth from exponentially increasing alien attacks that were to come as the universe responded to the deadly potential of Mankindâ€¦

What 451 never knew was that Howard Stark was deeply suspicious and, after decoding the genetic alterations the Recorder had installed in the foetus, tampered with some of themâ€¦

451 claimed Tony had been designed to pilot an apocalyptic doomsday weapon left behind from the beginnings of creation when the Celestial Space Gods were at war with a rival force for control of everything. Stark’s inventiveness, aggression and fascination with armour technologies were merely programmed expressions of his ultimate purpose: to pilot world-shattering, five-mile high warsuit The Godkillerâ€¦ and there was nothing he could do to escape his awful destinyâ€¦

After a spectacular struggle Stark defeated and destroyed the deranged robot Rigellian and returned to Earth where further enquiries into his family’s shady history uncovered an astonishing, life-altering discovery kept hidden for years by his brilliantly paranoid father: Tony had an older brother who was the actual subject of 451’s genetic manipulation.

Arno Stark was a bed-ridden technological genius who was forever trapped in an Iron Lung, locked away and raised in isolation at the Maria Stark Foundation Hospice, but now the brothers were gloriously reunited. There was only one small caveat to Tony’s unbounded joy. He was no blood relation to Arno, but apparently secretly adopted as a ploy to deceive 451â€¦

Scripted by Kieron Gillen and illustrated primarily by Joe Bennett & Scott Hanna, the latest stage in the evolution of Iron Man is Iron Metropolitan which begins with an ominous glance thirty years into the future where Tony and Arno Stark proudly gloat over the completion of their super-cities and space elevator technology before their devoted AI H.E.L.E.N. rebels and sabotages everything, subsequently ripping Earth apartâ€¦

The prophecy is only a computer simulation and does not deter the present day Stark Brothers from initiating their first joint venture: saving humanity from self-inflicted extinction by building perfect cities for modern men and women to live inâ€¦

Meanwhile in London, ever-indignant radical journalist and social gadfly Abigail Burns is seduced by a sentient flaming Ring which deems her worthy to become a Mandarinâ€¦

Before introducing best friend and corporate CEO Pepper Potts to his still mainly clandestine bro Arno, Tony announces his intention of turning the deserted – except for the criminal gangs which infest it – Mandarin City into a prototype modern metropolis.

The private island off the coast of mainland China has been ignored and avoided by the nations of the world since the villain’s death and will be the perfect site on which the Starks can make their vision liveâ€¦ but only after driving out the Triads and other vermin profiting from a legally tenuous citadel no world power is confidant enough to annexeâ€¦

Whilst on a roll, Tony then upgrades his personal AI system. He calls this new electronic Major Domo H.E.L.E.N.

Soon the contentious island is a whirlwind of construction and Pepper brings aboard canny publicist Marc Kumar, whose first press conference – blathering about creating better ways to live in the technological marvel dubbed Troy – goes south when his old lover Abigail turns up.

It gets really unpleasant after she swiftly graduates from barracking the arrogant â€œhypocritical capitalistsâ€ to blasting buildings as the inflammatory Red Peril, and the disaster is further derailed when another Mandarin Ring manifests an explosive statement of destructive intentâ€¦

As Tony suits up to tackle Red Peril, from the security of his hospital bed Arno takes remote control of their city’s mechanical police force; dispatching thousands of empty Armour suits as a Trojan Guard to save lives and property.

In the aftermath, Tony calls in former War Machine pilot James Rhodes (now all decked out as the Iron Patriot) to discuss the clear and present danger of The Mandarin’s Power Rings and their quest for new hosts. Rhodes supervises S.H.I.E.L.D. Weapons Vault Omega and is appalled to discover that the ten deadly adornments he’s guarding are only an illusionâ€¦

Agustin Padilla then illustrates the Inhumanity tie-in issue Iron Man #20.INH which describes how the most recalcitrant of those missing Rings scours the Earth for the perfect host, rejecting the likes of the Hulk, Venom and Red Skull in favour of somebody more pliableâ€¦

During the blockbusting Infinity event, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it created millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not different racesâ€¦

When it all happened, thuggish waste of space Vic Kohl saw his despised family transformed whilst he remained pitifully normal and incorrectly deduced that he was not of their blood. Going on a self-loathing drunken bender he was targeted by the malicious Nightbringer Ring and simultaneously picked up by Iron Man’s latest Mandarin-hunting devicesâ€¦

In the resultant clash Kohl’s dormant Inhuman genes and latent Terrigen exposure finally kicked in and the drunken whiner was remade into something dark, angry and uniquely different.

Escaping the Golden Avenger but subsequently rejected and abandoned by the Inhumans’ current leader Medusa, Vic accepted his Ring’s urgings and angrily declared himself The Exileâ€¦

Back at the ongoing storyline, Tony occupies the Troy Geostationary Orbital Platform and ponders a murder campaign orchestrated by mystery Ring-wearer Lord Remaker. Although a work-in-progress, Troy now houses half a million people, 106 of whom have died in the terrorist’s hellish bomb-blasts.

When Red Peril returns to the skies over their city, the Starks are quick to react, but Abigail evades Iron Man and vanishes into the streets of Troy, seeking answers to questions nobody likes to hear. She also gets her Ring to explain what it wants, and the shocking details send her desperately seeking the other Ring-wearers active in the Iron Metropolisâ€¦

When she finds The Exile and a former gang boss using the Remaker Ring to take back the city Stark â€œstoleâ€ from him, Abigail unexpectedly allies herself with the capitalists she’s always despised rather than the murderous maniacs who think she’s on their side – but not before the monsters launch a monumental missile strike at Stark’s HQâ€¦

Moments too late, Tony watches his dream burn, and believes Arno died with it. Thus he is ecstatic to discover that his bed-bound brother had secretly constructed his own monstrous life-support Armour, which overwhelmingly joins him and Red Peril in crushing Lord Remaker and Exile.

With the Trojan Guard they drive off the malcontents, but when Abigail impetuously chases Remaker she only glimpses his mutilated corpse and missing Ring before an unknown assailant attacks and takes hersâ€¦ and her handsâ€¦

Saved by Iron Man, the still rebellious reporter angrily explains what the Rings’ agenda entails, before again lambasting Tony about his utopian arrogance. The diatribe hits home and he is forced into making a heartrending decisionâ€¦

And in another place, a sinister eldritch figure exults as he examines his three blood-soaked Rings before laying his plans to secure the remaining sevenâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Bold, suspenseful and riotously action-packed, this expansive repositioning of the Golden Avenger comes with a cover-&-variants gallery by Paul Rivoche and Hajime Sorayama plus a photo-cover featuring the TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

May 20, 2014May 20, 2014

X-Men volume 2: Muertas

By Brian Wood, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Clay Man, Barry Kitson, Kris Anka, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-592-5

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters, so when the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men launched it was no real surprise to see that the leading line-up comprised exclusively women warriors.

This second collected chronicle, scripted by Brian Wood, re-presenting issues #7-12 (from November 2013 to March 2014) takes the conceit a stage further by introducing an all-girl gang of baddies to the mixâ€¦

The eponymous triptych ‘Muertas’ – lavishly illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson and Barry Kitson, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel & Terry Pallot – commences the sinister suspense as Colombian cartel princess Ana Cortes assumes her recently deceased dad’s tenuous position at the head of the bloody table and, to consolidate her position, invites underworld tech-facilitator Reiko to implant nanites and memory downloads that will body-modify the ambitious teenager.

Her first mistake is allowing her body to become the physical host of carnage-crazed mutant-hating cyber-assassin Yuriko Oyama AKA Lady Deathstrikeâ€¦

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, vampire mutant Jubilation Lee is happily hearing how her official adoption of mystery baby Shogo is proceeding apace when multi-powered and recently resurrected wonder woman Monet St. Croix returns to the fold, looking for a place to rest and recuperateâ€¦

As the former Generation X team-mates verbally spar upstairs, down deep in the bowels of the school bestial scientist Hank McCoy is assessing the changes in former cop Karima Shapandar: a human friend previously infected with Omega Sentinel systems and transformed into the ultimate mutant eradicator. Apparently her lethal state was more or less cured during a horrifying battle against an ancient and malevolently sentient meteor-borne infectionâ€¦ Arkea.

When the Earth was still brand new and cooling, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the very start. They clashed and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed hereâ€¦

Billions of years later, John Sublime – current body of the victorious sentient bacterial life form – fought the X-Men. In various forms he had continuously survived on Earth since life began but was no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior.

Then one momentous day he surrendered himself to his enemies at the Jean Grey School in the light of an urgently manifesting mutual threatâ€¦

Sublime abides by possessing biological organisms, and he came to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology and electricity as well as meat – has returned to the planet, hungry for revenge on him and wanting to control everything else in existenceâ€¦

Possessing humans and mutants alike, Arkea determined to supersede life on Earth, but her possession, upgrading and alteration of suitable organic-vehicles led to a cataclysmic confrontation (see X-Men: Primer) and she was declared destroyed – but for so many beings in the Marvel Universe, Death is neither fatal nor finalâ€¦

Back in the now Lady Deathstrike makes her move, sending an army of cartel soldiers to steal the Omega Sentinel from the X-School, but has to change her plans on the fly when Monet and the now merely-mortal Karima drive off her army of gun-toting thugs.

Forced to regroup and reassess, Ana/Yuriko opts to recruit her own super-powered gang and begins by hiring manic multiple personality mutant assassin Typhoid Mary who goes on a daring reconnaissance mission which nets Deathstrike all the files on Arkea and even a living sample of the inimical electronic nemesis.

Ana foolishly considers the specimen as the ultimate body upgrade and even the formidable Sublime cannot convince her otherwise, but after a brief battle the sample proves to be dead. Sadly during the skirmish Yuriko learned that the Arkea hive consciousness may still be alive in other meteoric shardsâ€¦

By the time Monet tracks him down, Deathstrike and Typhoid are in Norway seeking to extract a promising fallen star where they uncovered the prison of Amora the Enchantress; stripped of her Asgardian magic and locked in a force bubble by the Mighty Thor.

Seduced by the promise of her powers fully restored by the thing in the meteorite, Amora enlists in Ana’s army, a vengeful association she calls The Sisterhoodâ€¦

With the world facing imminent destruction from a new Arkea assault, Storm, Psylocke, Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) and Jubilee call on Israeli mutant hero and Mossad agent Sabra who, along with mystery superman Gabriel Shepherd, track Deathstrike and new Arkea to Dubai.

Before the team can strike, however, Monet streaks in, displaying all her terrifying power, but is too late. Arkea has possessed technician Reiko and begun augmenting the othersâ€¦ not for their benefit, but her ownâ€¦

Extending her control across the planet, Arkea activates an army of broken, abandoned Sentinels, sending them marching across the Pacific sea floor to attack Americaâ€¦

The crisis grows in the second trilogy ‘Ghosts’ (art by Kris Anka & Clay Man) as, fleeing Monet’s blockbusting attack, Arkea drags her increasingly scared acolytes across the world, intent on augmenting the ranks of the Sisterhood by resurrecting two of the most lethal women ever to have faced the X-Men.

As Jubilee leads a squad of older students from the School to Catalina Island to intercept the Sentinels, in New York Arkea/Reiko uses Amora’s restored Asgardian magic to reanimate the immortal life-leeching horror Selene and Ana realises the full gravity of what she has unleashedâ€¦

As a too-late act of redemption, the repentant Cortes summons the X-Men to the Sisterhood’s location, but by the time the resurgent heroes arrive Arkea has excised Ana and similarly revived the hellish Red Queen Madelyne Pryorâ€¦

Sadly for the cocksure bacterial conqueror, her ungrateful revenants are more than happy to trade a threat to human existence in exchange for their own immediate survival, but as the X-Men spectacularly end the threat of Arkea again, more than one triumphantly weary woman warrior is forced to wonder if they the traded a greater evil for exigent salvationâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed and stuffed with engaging soap opera riffs, this bombastic extremely enjoyable collection is merely a prelude to greater Fights ‘n’ Tights traumas to come but is at least amply augmented by a lovely cover-and-variants gallery by the Dodsons, John Cassaday, David Marquez & Gerard.
â„¢ & Â© 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

May 19, 2014May 16, 2014

All-New X-Men volume 4: All-Different

By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Brandon Peterson, Mahmud Asrar, Wade Von Grawbadger, Chris Claremont, Bob McLeod, Stan Lee, Louise & Walter Simonson, Roy Thomas & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-585-7

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the five youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and living symbols in his campaign to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Scott Summers’ radicalisation.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the idealistic, staunch and steadfast Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their former associates.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream. Opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids whilst honouring Xavier’s Dream, they pursued his proven processes and methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the direction of new Head Professor Kitty Prydeâ€¦

Things got really complicated after McCoy discovered he was dying. Obsessed with the idea that the naive original First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy Terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity, the Beast used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war.

By bringing the five youngsters back to the future he hoped to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops and fix everything before his impending deathâ€¦

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Scott back to his senses, the confrontation hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy miraculously cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until â€œbadâ€ Scott was stoppedâ€¦

The two sides of the mutant question clashed constantly, as the modern world experienced constant change and attacks from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious, the youngâ€¦

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heated up when Summers – utterly convinced of his species’ inevitable extinction at human hands – offered a place to any student wishing to join his own academy: one dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than wait for mankind to turn on themâ€¦

The bold ploy succeeded in luring away Angel and the psychically conjoined, emotionally-challenged Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, before the situation was further muddied in X-Men: Battle of the Atom when both X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants radicals from the future travelled back to address the issue of the time-displaced First Class.

In the resultant clashes the kids were rendered incapable of returning to their original place in historyâ€¦

In the aftermath, with the Jean Grey School forever changed, Pryde was unwilling to remain with her former colleagues and joined the Extinction Team. The First Class – now willing but unable to resume their postponed lives and tragic destinies – followed her, making Cyclops’ faction immeasurably strongerâ€¦

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, All–Different re-presents All-New X-Men #18-21 from January to March 2014 and also includes the contents of the celebratory anthology X-Men Gold #1, as well as a stunning cover-&-variants gallery by Brandon Peterson, Julian Totino Tedesco, Kevin Nowlan & Chris Sotomayor, Olivier Coipel, Stuart Immonen and even a photo-cover featuring the TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Illustrated by Immonen with Wade Von Grawbadger, the tense suspense begins as Kitty renews her childhood friendship with Illyana â€œMagikâ€ Rasputin whilst the original X-class settle into the secret Extinction base.

Buried in the wilds of Canada it was once the Weapon X facility where Wolverine and so many other mutants were ruthlessly experimented upon and â€œimprovedâ€â€¦

Although heartily welcomed by Angel the newbies are experiencing a few problems. Celeste seems determined to pick a fight with rapidly-evolving telepath Jean and Henry is troubled that Magneto is so different from the raving maniac who (by his reckoning) was trying to slaughter them all mere relativistic weeks agoâ€¦

The simian supermind has some other difficulties, paramount of which is Jean’s completely ignoring their recent passionate clinch. Scott the younger is also troubled by that. He’s seen all the records and knows that he and Jean are destined to marry, but she seems determined to change that fate at all costsâ€¦

Despite all the teen tumult, Kitty continues training her charges: resolute that they will become warriors capable of surviving everything the uncertain future will throw at them. The first challenge comes almost immediately as mutant-detection system Cerebro pinpoints a potential new candidate in Miamiâ€¦

Peterson limns the second chapter as Magik warps the young X-Men in just as their target is ambushed by a band of Purifier zealots: bible-bashing fanatics who believe mutants are unholy abominations God ordered them to eradicate. A tremendous battle ensues and Jean’s still-uncontrollable telepathy gives her a peek inside the tormentors’ ugly minds, just as the police arrive.

Idealistic Scott completely misreads the situation and when he tries to hand the Purifiers over, the terrified cops open fire on the scary mutantsâ€¦

Kitty meanwhile has followed the desperate girl who was the Purifiers’ target and is shocked to see another former student. Thankfully Magik is able to shift everybody back to the hidden academy before events got too bloodyâ€¦

Laura Kinney was dubbed X-23 when she was a subject of the Weapon X sadists and it takes some time before she reconciles to being back in that now sanitised hellhole.

She is a teenaged clone grown from Wolverine’s DNA, with all his abilities and a lot of psychological problems, but as she slowly adapts to her new normal she finds herself strangely attracted to young Scott. More worrying is the fact that it might be mutualâ€¦

Nevertheless, soon after Kitty and Illyana lead the indignant, righteously enraged student team and Laura in a raid on the Florida Purifiers, only to be totally overwhelmed by their leader who possesses a metahuman power they cannot withstandâ€¦

In a telling flashback (illustrated by Mahmud Asrar and referencing the landmark X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills), it is revealed that pious bigot and demagogue Reverend William Stryker had allied with the techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics to treat his son for an embarrassing and unwelcome â€œillnessâ€, before Peterson resumes the present-day drama with the juvenile X-Men being tormented and tortured by the now-adult and even crazier than his dad junior Stryker.

When current A.I.M. supreme scientist Monica Rappaccini answers his call, he very foolishly ignores her advice not to harm the time-displaced kids, uncaring of the potential for undoing the entire universe, but his hubristic gloating and Rappaccini’s greedy harvesting of priceless mutant DNA gives the trussed-up teens time to recover and their unified counterattack soon has the fanatic’s forces in full retreat and staring real retribution in the faceâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This volume also collects assorted in-filling untold tales from the ever-changing team’s history, created for 50^th Anniversary one-shot X-Men Gold #1. The parade of all-star vignettes begins with an untitled novelette by Chris Claremont & Bob McLeod, set soon after Rogue joined the team and following the heroes return from Japan. Focussing on young Kitty Pryde, the tale pits the assembled mutants and freebooting Starjammers against a skyscraper-sized Sentinel and its constantly evolving progenyâ€¦

Following that is ‘The Sorrow Beneath the Sport’: a nostalgic romp by Stan Lee and Louise Simonson, riotously rendered by Walter Simonson wherein freshly inducted First Class Cyclops, Angel, Beast and Iceman spectacularly spar in an oafish contest to decide who gets to date new student Marvel Girl, after which Roy Thomas & Patrick Olliffe detail the first calamitous meeting of Banshee and Sunfire on their way to the fateful rendezvous with Professor X in Giant-Size X-Men #1â€¦

‘Options!’, by Len Wein & Jorge Molina, adds a sidebar to that landmark tale as crazy Canadian secret agent Wolverine assesses his new team-mates and calculates the best way to kill each of them should the need arise before ‘Dreams Brighten’ (Fabian Nicieza & Salvador Larroca) wraps things up with a peek at a hard-won utopia where Xavier and Magneto count the cost of achieving their Homo Superior Promised Landâ€¦

Enthralling and engaging, All-Different also includes AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

May 17, 2014May 16, 2014

Essential Iron Man volume 5

By Mike Friedrich, Bill Mantlo, Len Wein, Roger Slifer, Steve Gerber, P. Craig Russell, George Tuska, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Chic Stone, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6733-4

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, whilst a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, savage 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 Armourâ€¦

Conceived in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when the economy was booming and â€œCommie-bashingâ€ was America’s favourite national pastime, the emergence of a suave, gleaming 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.

Whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a celebrity millionaire industrialist/scientist and alternatively a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his secret alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s quickly relegated Iron Man’s rather unctuous, â€œcan-doâ€ image to the dustbin of history and, with ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business forming the new zeitgeists of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting some tricky questions from the 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 â€¦

This sixth mammoth monochrome compilation covers another new start and change of direction for the Steely Centurion out of that transitional period, reprinting Iron Man #62-75, 77-87 and Annual #3 (September 1973 to June 1976): a period when the title experienced an unprecedented and often uncomfortable number of creative personnel changes even as the nation suffered radical and divisive schisms of ideology, an energy crisis and discoâ€¦

With Mike Friedrich scripting, the action opens in Detroit where Stark is inspecting one of his factories until former Maggia assassin ‘Whiplash Returns!’ (art by P. Craig Russell, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia & John Romita Sr.), raging for revenge and especially ticked off that his girlfriend has been made his boss, after which an extended epic began in #63 with ‘Enter: Dr. Spectrum’, illustrated by George Tuska & Esposito.

Here, as Tony Stark relentlessly – and fruitlessly – romantically pursues pacifist dissident Roxie Gilbert in Detroit, obnoxious Ugandan financier and diplomat Dr. Kinji Obatu visited the Long Island plant and was attacked by a gang of masked thugs.

The assault was repelled thanks to the timely assistance of stand-in Iron Man Eddie March, who was promptly offered a bodyguard job by the creepy ambassador and invited to accompany him to a meeting with Stark in â€œMotor Cityâ€.

No sooner did they arrive however than photonic fiend Dr. Spectrum ambushed the inventor, only to be driven off by the Armoured Avenger after a titanic and costly struggle. A far more serious problem emerged later when old friend Happy Hogan accused Tony of having an affair with his wife Pepperâ€¦

Spectrum struck again in the next issue, with a similar lack of success, before Happy blew his top and took a swing at Stark, but that confrontation was curtailed when a gigantic monster kidnapped the just-arrived Obatu in ‘Rokk Cometh!’

When the beast targeted Roxie, the exhausted Iron Man intervened but was too drained to resist the relentless Spectrumâ€¦

Issue #65 revealed ‘The Cutting Edge of Death!’ when the Golden Avenger learned the true parasitical nature of Spectrum’s Power Prism as it transferred itself from the wilfully disobedient villain Obatu to the worn-out hero. Its glee was short lived though as the possessed Iron Man was challenged by recently arrived comrade the Mighty Thor, resulting in a blockbusting ‘Battle Royal!’ which only ended after the Thunderer crushed the crystal conqueror to discovered the dying man inside the armour was neither Tony Stark nor Obatuâ€¦

As a consequence of that climactic clash of myth and mechanism, IM #67 saw the impostor Iron Man temporarily mutated by Stark’s medical miracle machine the Cobalt Enervator into a rampaging monster in ‘Return of the Freak!’ but no sooner had the real Armoured Avenger and surgeon Don Blake (who we all know was Thor back then) stopped and saved the berserk victim than Stark was drawn into another conflict in South East Asiaâ€¦

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, inner peace and a magical Golden Globe as the promised prizes.

Written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by Tuska & Mike Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ where the Mandarin struggled to free his consciousness, currently trapped within the dying body of Russian super-villain the Unicorn.

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently â€œliberatedâ€ People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother Marty, a POW missing since the last days of the war. Before long however the Americans were separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the intrusive Yankee Imperialists.

The attack abruptly ended after Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power a mind-transfer back into his own body and, reinstated in his original form, the Chinese Conqueror began his own campaign of combat in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival oriental overlord The Yellow Claw.

Firstly, though, he had to crush Iron Man who had tracked him down and freed Sunfire in ‘Confrontation!’ That bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into spaceâ€¦

‘Who Shall Stopâ€¦ Ultimo?’ then found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking the Mandarin’s castle as the sinister Celestial duelled the Claw to the death, with both Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and forced to mop up the sole survivor of the contest in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw! (Confrontation Part 3)‘â€¦

After all the Eastern Armageddon a change of pace was called for, so Stark took in the San Diego Comicon in #72’s ‘Convention of Fear!’ (by Friedrich, Tuska & Colletta from a plot by Barry Alfonso) only to find himself ambushed by fellow incognito attendees Whiplash, Man-Bull and The Melter who were made an offer they should have refused by the ubiquitous Black Lamaâ€¦

Next issue the Super-Villain War kicked into high gear with ‘Turnabout: a Most Foul Play!’ (art by Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard & Jim Mooney and a premise by letterer Tom Orzechowski).

After Pepper, Happy and Tony buried the hatchet at Stark International’s Manila plant, Iron Man returned to Vietnam and a deadly clash with the Crimson Dynamo in a hidden high-tech jungle city which was subsequently razed to the ground by their explosive combat.

Iron Man #74’s ‘The MODOK Machine!’ (Jones, Pollard & Dick Ayers) brought the Black Lama’s contest to the fore as the Mad Thinker electronically overrode the Avenger’s armour and set helpless passenger Stark upon the malevolent master of AIMâ€¦

Without autonomy, the Golden Gladiator was easily overwhelmed and ‘Slave to the Power Imperious!’ (inked by Chic Stone) saw him dragged back to the Thinker’s lair and laid low by a strange psychic episode even as MODOK finished his foe and apparently turned the still-enslaved steel-shod hero on his next opponentâ€¦ the Yellow Claw.

Whilst this was happening, elsewhere radical terrorist Firebrand was somehow sharing Stark’s Black Lama-inspired â€œpsycho-feedbackâ€ episodesâ€¦

The tale ended on a twisty cliffhanger as the Claw destroyed MODOK and his clockwork puppet Avenger, only to discover that the Thinker was not only still alive but still held the real Iron Man captive.

That was quite unfortunate as the following issue – #76 – blew its deadline and had to reprint Iron Man #9 (represented here by just the cover) before Friedrich, Jones & Stone’s ‘I Cry: Revenge!’ saw the fighting mad hero break free of the Thinker’s control, just as Black Lama teleported the Claw in to finish his final felonious opponent.

Still extremely ticked off, the Armoured Avenger took on all comers but was ambushed by the late arriving Firebrand who had been psionically drawn into the melee.

As Iron Man went down, the Lama declared non-contestant Firebrand the ultimate victor, explaining he had come from an alternate universe before duping the unstable and uncaring rabble-rouser into re-crossing the dimensional void with himâ€¦

Although a certifiable maniac and cold-blooded killer, Firebrand was also Roxie Gilbert’s brother and the groggily awakening Iron Man felt honour-bound to follow him through the rapidly closing portal to elsewhereâ€¦

The deadline problems persisted, however, and the next two issues were both hasty fill-in tales, beginning with #78’s ‘Long Time Gone’ by Bill Mantlo, Tuska & Vince Colletta which harked back to the Avenger’s early days and a mission during the Vietnam war which first brought home the cost in blood and misery that Stark’s munitions building had caused, whilst ‘Midnite on Murder Mountain!’ (scripted by Friedrich) saw the hero emphatically end the scientific abominations wrought by deranged geneticist and determined mind-swapper Professor Kurakillâ€¦

At last Iron Man #80 returned to the ongoing inter-dimensional saga as ‘Mission into Madness!’ by Friedrich, Chic Stone & Colletta, saw the multiversal voyagers arrive in a very different America where warring kingdoms and principalities jostled for prestige, position and power.

Here the Lama was revealed as King Jerald of Grand Rapids, a ruler under threat from outside invaders and insidious usurpers within. He’d come to Earth looking for powerful allies but had not realised that travel to other realms slowly drove non-indigenous residents completely crazyâ€¦

With the mind-warp effect already destabilising Iron Man and Firebrand, it was fortunate that treacherous Baroness Rockler made her move to kill the returned Jerald immediately, and the Earthlings were quickly embroiled in a cataclysmic ‘War of the Mind-Dragons!’ before turning on each other and fleeing the devastated kingdom for the less psychologically hazardous environs of their homeworldâ€¦

With the extended epic finally completed Mike Friedrich moved on, and Iron Man #82 welcomed a new era and tone as Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin & Jack Abel revamped the armour just in time for the Red Ghost and his super simians to kidnap super genius Tony Stark in ‘Plunder of the Apes!’

Debuting in that issue was NYPD detective Michael O’Brien, who held Tony responsible and accountable for the tragic death of his brother Kevin. The researcher had been Stark’s confidante until his mind snapped and he died wearing a prototype suit of Guardsman armour, but Mike smelled a cover-upâ€¦

IM #83 revealed ‘The Rage of the Red Ghost!’ (inked by Marie Severin) as the deranged Russian forced Stark to cure his gradual dispersal into his component atoms only to realise, following a bombastic battle, that the inventor had outwitted him yet again, after which Wein, Roger Slifer, Trimpe & John Tartaglione detailed how the Enervator again turned the grievously injured Happy into a mindless monster, but this time flooded him with so much Cobalt radiation that he became a ticking inhuman nuke on the ‘Night of the Walking Bomb!’

The tense tick-tock to doom was narrowly and spectacularly stopped in ‘â€¦And the Freak Shall Inherit the Earth!’ (Slifer w/Wein, Trimpe, Severin) after which Mantlo, Tuska & Colletta revived and revamped one of the Golden Avenger’s oldest and least remembered rogues when disgraced thermal technologist Gregor Shapanka dumped his loser status as Jack Frost and attacked Stark International in a deadly new guise in # 86’s ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Blizzard!’

Despite his improved image the sub-zero zealot couldn’t quite close ‘The Icy Hand of Death!’, leaving this cracking chronicle to conclude with Iron Man Annual #3 (June 1976) and ‘More or Lessâ€¦ the Return of the Molecule Man!’ by Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema & Abel.

Whilst Tony Stark looked into developing some soggy Florida real estate, Â a little girl found a strange wand and was possessed and transformed by the consciousness of one of the most powerful creatures in existenceâ€¦

Although Iron Man was helpless to combat the reality-warping attacks of the combination petulant girl/narcissistic maniac, luckily for the universe, the shambling elemental shocker dubbed Man-Thing had no mind to mess with or conscience to troubleâ€¦

Finally closing the cover on this stellar compilation is a short cover gallery from the all-reprint Iron Man Annual #1 and 2 and Giant-Size Iron Man #1.

With this volume Marvel completely entrenched itself in the camp of the young and the restless who experienced at first hand and every day the social upheaval America was undergoing.

Their rebellious teen sensibility and increased political conscience permeated the company’s publications as their core audience moved beyond Flower Power protests towards a generation of acutely aware activists. Future tales would increasingly bring reformed capitalist Stark into many unexpected and outrageous situationsâ€¦

But that’s the meat of another review, as this engrossing graphic novel is done. From our distant vantage point the polemical energy and impact might be dissipated, but the sheer quality of the comics and the cool thrill of the eternal aspiration of man in perfect partnership with magic metal remains.

These Fights ‘n’ Tights classics are amongst the most underrated but impressive tales of the period and are well worth your time, consideration and cold hard cashâ€¦
Â© 1973, 1974, 1974, 1976, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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