Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Secret Invasion Fantastic Four


By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Barry Kitson (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851

Since Fantastic Four #2 (cover-dated January 1961) the Skrulls have been a pernicious cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of use and misuse, the insidious intergalactic infiltrators were finally made the stars of a colossal braided mega-crossover event beginning in April 2008 and running through all the company’s titles until Christmas.

The premise of Secret Invasion was simple: the former all-encompassing empire had been crippled and scourged by a devastating catastrophe which destroyed much of their power, and the race subsequently underwent a mass fundamentalist religious conversion. They became utterly resolved and dedicated to make Earth their new homeworld – just as their ancient scriptures foretold…

To this end they gradually replaced a number of key Earth denizens – most notably superheroes and villains. When the plot was first uncovered no defender of the Earth truly knew who was on their side…

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

Not all Skrulls were fanatics however. Earth also harboured a few dissidents opposed to the new regime or non-fanatics simply unwilling to get properly involved, and one of them became the unlikely star of the 3-issue Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four (July-September 2008) which makes up the premiere half of this tantalising tome. The rest of the book collects a triptych of her earlier appearances from Fantastic Four #300 and #357-358 (March 1987 and October-November 1991)…

Scripted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, pencilled by Barry Kitson and inked by Mick Gray, Scott Hanna, Paul Neary & Kitson, the main event opens with ‘No One gets Out Alive!’ and sees Invisible Woman Susan Richards ambushed at a most intimate moment and replaced by a sinister Skrull. A little later “she” calmly walks into the team’s top security home/HQ and catapults the entire top of the building into the eerie sub-space Negative Zone, trapping The Thing, Human Torch and the children Franklin and Valeria in an inescapable dimension of horror…

Stuck without their genius leader, Ben and Johnny are stuck trying to fend off the horrific, invasive beasts of the realm as at length “Sue” reveals herself to be Lyja – the Skrull agent Johnny once unwittingly married…

The drama continues as, after initial frantic and unresolved-issue fuelled combat Johnny and Lyja enjoy a sort of rapprochement and determine to join forces to bring everyone out of the Negative Zone. Linking up with Ben and the most formidable little kids in comics, the makeshift family battle their way across the ghastly inner cosmos to one of Reed Richards‘ ongoing experiments – a super-penitentiary for super-criminals too dangerous for incarceration on Earth – to find an evil super-genius willing to help them return to save the world from the imminent and possibly already ongoing Secret Invasion…

Fun, frolicsome, action-packed and delightfully entertaining, this slight but charming family furore is counterbalanced with a selection of earlier Lyja appearances beginning with ‘Dearly Beloved…’ (Fantastic Four #300 by Roger Stern, John & Sal Buscema), wherein the Thing returned to Earth after an extended stay in outer space to find his best friend the Torch about to marry his old girlfriend Alicia Masters…

After understandable friction and some fist-flinging Grimm sadly accepted the situation and even stood up as Best Man for his pal, but only Alicia’s evil step-father The Puppet Master had any suspicion at the true nature of events…

After a further 50-odd issues of wedded bliss the truth was shockingly revealed in FF #357 with Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi’s ‘The Monster Among Us!’ as Puppet Master linked up with manic mentalist Mad Thinker and inadvertently forced Mrs. Storm to reveal her true nature…

This prompted the Fantastic Four to stage a rescue bid into Skrull Space to discover ‘Whatever Happened to Alicia?!’ in the concluding #358…

Heading into deadly danger the team encountered a new major menace in the super-augmented Paibok the Power Skrull but were mercifully aided by his old inamorata Lyja, who had gone native, professing to now love her human husband…

She even claimed to be carrying Johnny’s baby…

With covers by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, Mike McKone, John & Sal Buscema, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi and despite the cliff-hanging nature of the extra material, Secret Invasion Fantastic Four is a smart and slickly engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights romp that will meet every fan’s ecstatic approval.
© 1987, 1991, 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Avengers volume 1: The Ultron Initiative


By Brian Michael Bendis & Frank Cho (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2368-2

The Patriot Act changed America as much as the destruction of the World Trade Towers, and it’s fair to say that popular arts grow from the social climate as much as the target audience.

In post 9-11 America, creators and consumers now think different thoughts in different ways. Thus the company that first challenged the middle-class suburban status quo of the comic industry in the late 1960s made Homeland Security and the exigencies of safety and liberty the themes of a major publishing event in 2006.

After a TV reality show starring superheroes The New Warriors went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds 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 “brother pitted against brother”. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

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

The Ultron Initiative, re-presenting the first half-dozen issues of Mighty Avengers (volume 1, May 2007-February 2008) by Brian Michael Bendis & Frank Cho, is a gloriously wry and raunchy rollercoaster ride blending blockbuster action with cocky optimism and often outrageous humour which only serves to intensify the shocks and horror of a truly terrifying scenario starring Marvel’s ultimate mechanoid monster.

Following the divisive and brutal Civil War, staunch advocate of the SRA Tony Stark constituted a new Government-approved, S.H.I.E.L.D.-backed team of Avengers to take care of business whilst he worked on his Fifty States Initiative idea.

The objective was to eventually field squads of trained and licensed superheroes in every State of the Union, but first he had to restore public confidence…

The initial and so-sophisticated story-arc begins as he recalls recruiting Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Sentry and first-timer Ares, God of War just in time to tackle an invasion of monsters led by the Mole Man. Just as the new team send them packing Iron Man suddenly succumbs to a body-and-armour warping assault that apparently absorbs Stark and leaves in his place a gleaming naked metalloid reproduction of Janet Van Dyne…

Ultron was originally created by size-changing erratic genius Henry Pym AKA Ant-Man before – in a Fights ‘n’ Tights riff on the classical Oedipus myth – the manic mechanoid evolved, hating his “father” and desiring his “mother”.

Having transferred that hatred to the Avengers, here the metal maniac has usurped his mum’s form, parading around naked in a shiny metallic semblance of the Wasp, whilst boasting of collaterally wrecking the Mole Man’s kingdom in “her” campaign to destroy the true foe.

The new Ultron easily overmatches even the most mighty Avenger and Jan is compelled to call in her estranged ex-husband to try and deal with the mess he originally created. Everybody is praying that somewhere within the gleaming murderous form Tony Stark still lives…

In Avengers Initiative training facility Camp Hammond, Pym and new girlfriend Tigra are enjoying some downtime when the call comes, and he is hustled off under close arrest by S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel just as, above New York City, Ultron hacks herself into the spy agency’s networks and shuts down all their operations. With Black Widow forced to take manual command of the organisation – everybody in earshot at least – the team begins a fresh if doomed attack only to receive a glimmer of hope in the form of an unhackable, failsafe, low-tech pre-programmed Iron Man suit with an inbuilt contingency plan…

Jan-tron meanwhile has re-tasked orbiting satellites to scourge the Earth of organic life and is in the process of advertising it to terrified TV-watching humanity when Pym arrives.

Notoriously unstable, he knows the other heroes don’t trust him – he barely trusts himself – and as Wonder Man and Sentry race to destroy the chain of orbital death dealers he struggles to find a way to back door his way into his ferociously hyper-evolved invention. In retaliation, Jan-tron goes on the attack, commandeering a brigade of spare Iron Man Armours to engage the team whilst she seemingly butchers Sentry’s wife Lindy…

However with the Avengers proving more difficult to stop than calculated and the satellite ring disabled, the A.I. is forced to resort to the uninspired tactic of taking over Earth’s nuclear stockpiles even as Ares and Pym devise a way to destroy Jan-tron.

The only catch is that they have to activate it from inside her primary body – and even if it works there’s no guarantee that Stark’s physiology will survive the process…

With covers-&-variants by Cho and Francis Leinil Yu and stunning design sketches by the former included, this is a slick, sly and sublimely entertaining all-action rollercoaster romp which deliciously sets the scene for many compelling and far darker sagas to come, but also reads astounding well on its own merits.

Definitely one for inveterate thrill-chasers everywhere.

© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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New Avengers volume 3: Secrets and Lies


By Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch, Rick Mays, Frank Cho, Danny Miki, Jason Martin & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1706-3

In 2004, after decades as one of Marvel’s most successful series, “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled.

Of course it was only to reboot and replace the long-running and long in the tooth team with both The New and The Young Avengers mere months later.

The fresh iteration emerged six months later, culled from the ranks of Marvel’s A-Listers – possibly the most sales-savvy team of superheroes to carry the fabled Avengers ID card – with a few intriguing, underused characters mixed in to add spice, suspense and sub-plots.

Although wearing the trappings of the new, more in-your-face Marvel Universe, Secrets and Lies is at heart an all-action set-up for forthcoming events Civil War and Secret Invasion with scripter Brian Michael Bendis positioning his many players for the epic game-changing adventures ahead.

The contents herein are gathered from New Avengers issues #11-15 (November 2005 – March 2006) with additional material from Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 (September 2005) and follow a rather strenuous bout of world-saving…

What Has Gone Before: following an orchestrated breakout of a lethal legion of super-villains from floating ultra-penitentiary The Raft, Captain America convinced metahuman first responders Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Iron Man and sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew to form a new superhero squad.

During the riot they had been ably assisted by Matt Murdock, (recently “outed” as Daredevil in the media) and a mystery prisoner named Bob Reynolds who nobody seemed to know anything about. Reynolds or Sentry – the most powerful being on Earth – had in fact volunteered to be incarcerated for killing his wife Lindy… but she was still alive…

Tentatively united, the Avengers – sans Bob – rocketed to the Savage Land (a sub-surface wonderland of cavemen, dinosaurs and stranger things, kept in splendid isolation as a UN Protectorate) to recapture mutant Karl Lykos, who fed on energy to become reptilian monster Sauron.

He had been the actual objective taken during the mass escape…

The impromptu mission was an unmitigated disaster with the disparate champions marooned, mauled by monsters and captured by mutant mega-genius Brainchild until their paths crossed with X-Man Wolverine on his mission to stop Sauron.

Uneasy allies, the heroes subsequently discovered that an apparently rogue faction of S.H.I.E.L.D. had enslaved indigenous peoples of the region, using them to mine the miracle element Vibranium and generally pillage the primordial paradise.

There were even scarier discoveries to come. The breakout had exposed the fact that many of the criminals on the S.H.I.E.L.D.-run Raft had been officially dead for years… Cap’s raw recruits had to face the prospect that the Free World’s greatest peacekeeping force might be partly – or even completely – corrupt. After all, they were demonstrably stockpiling super-weapons, stealing exotic elements and “disappearing” metahumans for what could not possibly be any good reason…

The team then solved the mystery of Sentry, revealing that Bob Reynolds was actually an incomprehensibly powerful superhero excised from history and the memories of fellow costumed champions such as Reed Richards by the psychic manipulations of mutant spellbinder Mastermind and an enigmatic schemer dubbed The Void…

Realising that the brain-tweaking has left Reynolds dangerously unstable, the team called in nearly every superhero in America but they were not enough and only psychic surgery by White Queen Emma Frost allowed Bob to throw off the conditioning.

When the breakthrough finally came and the villains behind brainwashing Sentry and mindwiping the world were exposed, Sentry’s psionic backlash instantly transformed the Avengers’ monumental and far-distant New York skyscraper, creating an eerie ebony Watchtower above it in the blink of an eye…

Sentry was invited to join the New Avengers, blissfully unaware that it’s more to do with keeping an eye on him than the immense power he brings to the squad…

With this team determined to be more proactive, the 3-part ‘Ronin’ opens in full swing as a mighty masked ninja rampages through the underworld in Osaka, Japan. In flashback Captain America again fails to convince Matt Murdock to enlist, but the Man Without Fear has an intriguing suggestion for a potential replacement. The job is for a covert investigation of a possible merger between Hydra, The Hand and the Yakuza…

The covert crusader penetrates to the heart of the criminal alliance and finds Silver Samurai (another Raft escapee, but one who was apparently renditioned to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody clandestinely and without Due Process) dickering with Madame Hydra about their possible coalition…

Unfortunately Ronin is followed and ambushed just as he reaches the Avengers – hiding in the plush penthouse of Stark Enterprises in Osaka – forcing the heroes to battle a tidal wave of fanatical ninja assassins…

As the battle rages Spider-Woman confronts Madame Hydra, revealing she is working for the terrorist cabal, but is soon forced to capture the queen of evil to preserve her own cover. When Silver Samurai at last enters the fray the fighting actually ceases as he quite reasonably points out that he is on sovereign foreign soil and was illegally abducted by S.H.I.E.L.D.

With no other choice and far more concerned about the mounting evidence of rogue elements in S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers return to the US with the captive Madame Hydra, but something goes amiss in their Quinjet and the lethal terrorist escapes.

Spider-Woman, who might have stopped her, instead saves Captain America from certain death, whilst mystery man Ronin joins the team full-time and reveals her incredible secret to her new comrades…

‘Choices’ (by Bendis, Rick Mays & Jason Martin from Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1) then details Jessica Drew’s fall from grace and explains the fortuitous return of her failing powers prior to the Breakout, whilst exploring the true allegiances of the double-agent who apparently acts as an Intel gatherer for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra whilst actually reporting on both of them to a third faction…

New Avengers #14 pushes the tense suspense further with ‘Secrets and Lies’ (illustrated by Frank Cho) as Cap takes Jessica aside and demands to know what hold Hydra has over her. She breaks, telling him everything and reveals she’s working against both sides for maverick superspy Nick Fury who needs to know what’s happening within S.H.I.E.L.D. – an organisation he ran for years… before they ousted him…

With confirmation from Fury himself the team tentatively accept her, just in time for their latest crisis…

In ‘Public Relations’ Tony Stark officially launches possibly the least-popular roster in Avengers history – mutant Wolverine, media pariah Spider-Man, ex-convict Luke Cage and the mysterious all-powerful basket-case known as the Sentry.

At least Carol Danvers AKA Ms. Marvel, Binary, Warbird (and probably a bunch more code-names by the time you read this) are on hand to pitch in and offer some much-needed if temporary credibility…

Even so the press are less than enthusiastic. J. Jonah Jameson of the Daily Bugle has carried out a hate campaign against Spider-Man for years, and despite – or perhaps because of – Stark’s blithe platitudes and shameless bribe, has every intention of pillorying the new Avengers every chance he gets…

Couple all that with a positively hostile US Government and a new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director who’s ruthless when defied and possibly evil too, and To Be Continued… sounds positively agonising doesn’t it?

Dark, gritty, complex and spectacularly action-packed, with covers-&-variants by Finch & Miki, Cho, Andrea Di Vito & Laura Villari, this is another supremely enticing Fights ‘n’ Tights fiesta for the incorrigible fans, and one more ideal jumping-on point for readers familiar with the animation series and movie franchises of the World’s Greatest Superheroes.
© 2005, 2006, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Factor volume 6: Secret Invasion


By Peter David, Larry Stroman, Valentine De Landro, Nelson, Vincenzo Cucca & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2865-6

Since its debut in 1982, X-Factor has been the irresistibly cool and perfect umbrella title for all manner of Marvel mutant teams. Arguably the most impressive and enduring was created by writer Peter David in 2006; blending stark action, cool mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy, fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action and even social issues into a regular riot of smart and clever Costumed Drama.

The core premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – a former member of the Federally controlled iteration of the team – appropriating the name for his metahuman detective agency: X-Factor Investigations. Setting up shop in the wake of “The Decimation”, he and his perpetually fluctuating team began by trying to discover why most of the world’s mutants had become normal humans overnight…

What We All Knew: Marvel crossover event House of M saw reality overwritten when mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch had a mental breakdown, changing history and reality so that “Homo Superior” out-competed base-line humans and drove the “sapiens” to the brink of extinction.

It took every hero on Earth, a huge helping of luck and a strange little girl named Layla Miller to correct the situation, but in the aftermath, less than 200 super-powered mutants remained on Earth…

This alien-infested endeavour gathers X-Factor volume 3, #33-38 (spanning September 2008-March 2009) plus a crossover from She-Hulk volume 2 #31, and finds Madrox and Co. relocated to scenic Detroit (hoping to avoid Government interference from old boss and current Office of National Emergency supremo Valerie Cooper) and about to walk into a world of trouble…

Scripted throughout by David, the adventure opens with the extended saga ‘He Loves You’ and ‘The Darwin Awards’ – illustrated by Larry Stroman & John Sibal – wherein ultra-adaptive mutant Armando Muñoz and his obnoxious new friend Longshot are chilling in the streets and getting into trouble.

In truth, the luck-bending former X-Man is causing the trouble by provoking a fight with a street gang, in order to see how his new pal Armando can handle himself…

Across town XF Investigations – consisting of Jamie, Guido “Strong Guy” Carosella, Theresa “Siryn” Rourke, de-powered mutant Rictor and multi-powered super-woman Monet St. Croix (AKA “M”) are talking to their latest client.

Hector Muñoz isn’t the best dad in the world but after too long apart he wants to be reunited with his estranged son. The firm are his last hope of seeing his little Armando again…

They take the case and soon realise their client’s son is one of Earth’s few remaining empowered mutants. They know him as Darwin…

Even as they start tracking him down, Madrox is confronted by Valerie Cooper. Not only has she tracked them to Detroit but she threatens to tell the rest of his team of truth about the XFI’s relationship to O*N*E unless they drop the case immediately and take on a mission for her…

Out on the streets Darwin has escaped the incensed thugs and reunites with Longshot. Although his gift is to instantly evolve to survive any threat, his power is non-selective and he has no idea his companion is actually a shape-shifting Skrull, part of an advance force targeting Earth’s metahuman protectors…

Since Fantastic Four #2 the Skrulls have been a pernicious cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of use and misuse the insidious infiltrators were made the stars of a colossal braided mega-crossover event beginning in April 2008 and running through all the company’s titles until Christmas.

The premise of Secret Invasion was simple: the former intergalactic empire had been crippled and scourged by a devastating catastrophe which destroyed much of their power, and subsequently underwent a mass fundamentalist religious conversion. They became utterly resolved and dedicated to make Earth their new homeworld – just as their ancient scriptures foretold.

To this end they gradually replaced a number of key Earth denizens – most notably superheroes and villains. When the plot was first uncovered no defender of the Earth truly knew who was on their side…

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

Not all Skrulls were fanatics however. Earth unknowingly harboured a few dissidents opposed to the new regime and one of them – Jazinda – had been befriended by former Avenger Jennifer Walters.

In She-Hulk volume 2 #31 ‘The Darwin Awards’ continued (with art by Vincenzo Cucca & Vincenzo Acunza) as the jade giantess and her alien assistant hit Detroit looking for a Skrull scout called Talisman and stumble into an ill-tempered clash with X-Factor just as the bizarre gumshoes locate Darwin.

The evolutionary dupe has no idea She-Hulk and Jazinda’s prey is actually his new best buddy Longshot…

As the battle inevitable escalates in X-Factor #34, Talisman is forced to reveal himself and explain that he was trying to get the baffled Darwin to convert to the Skrull cause, but he has seriously overestimated Armando’s sense of isolation and underestimated She-Hulk’s determination to kick his alien ass…

With the invader in captivity, #35 slows the pace with ‘Best Intentions’ (Stroman & Sibal) as Armando is reunited with his father and Madrox goes home happy with a cheque.

Soon after, however, Madrox, Rictor and Monet are called to a hospital where Hector Muñoz is fighting for his life. With no other option, Jamie has M use her psionic powers to probe the comatose man’s memories to find out what happened to him and the missing mutant…

Back at the office Guido opens the door to find Longshot and goes ballistic. It takes a hilarious while to convince him that this lucky star is the real deal, unerringly drawn to Detroit by his mercurial probability-altering gifts…

And in a hidden lab facility a very nasty gentleman named Mr. Maru and his Karma Project biologists are performing extremely unpleasant experiments on a subject who agonisingly adapts and evolves to each and every invasive procedure and torturous test…

Longshot is a creature from another reality and his most annoying power – for guys at least – is that all women find him irresistible.

A more welcome talent is his psychometric vision which allows him to view past scenes. With it he backtracks Hector’s movements to the moment when Darwin was abducted and sees with horror how the senior Muñoz sold his son to the Karma Project and got a bullet for his troubles…

Valentine De Landro & Craig Yeung assume the artistic duties for ‘The Big Bang’ as the incensed detectives trail Darwin, whilst in Maru’s facility the terrible trials are rapidly pushing the ever-evolving captive into more dangerous and unmanageable adaptations. When Madrox and Co. arrive, their rescue of Darwin takes a typically violent turn…

Back at the office, Theresa, heavily pregnant with Jamie’s baby, has been on light duties. The last thing she needs is a confrontation with Cooper, who threatens to confiscate her unborn child for government use…

The story continues in #37, with the team wading through Maru’s paramilitary forces and successfully liberating Darwin.

Usually Jamie’s duplicates are obedient even whilst displaying some degree of autonomy. The frequently personify some of his own characteristics, but these days are increasingly going their own way.

When one of them severely oversteps the mark and sadistically executes a Karma soldier, the detective knows there’s more trouble in store…

First though, having fought their way in, the heroes have to fight their way back out, a problem exacerbated by the Karma Project’s latest innovation: hordes of once-human cannon fodder genetically altered to employ Darwin’s adaptation ability…

Back at the ranch, Theresa and Val’s “civil” conversation goes seriously bad, culminating in a crisis when her waters break…

The drama concludes for now with ‘Smart Business’, illustrated by Nelson, Stroman & Sibal, as the battle in the rogue lab is ended in a most unconventional manner whilst Rictor and Theresa’s dash for the hospital is misinterpreted by the amassed Feds from O*N*E and results in a manic gunfight and a shocking casualty…

To Be Continued…

Brash, thrilling, compulsive and always maturely hilarious in a way most adult comics just aren’t, X-Factor is a splendid of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy for everyone who loves superhero soap operas, and this volume comes with a covers-&-variants gallery by Boo Cook, Mike Mayhew & Andy Troy and Mike Deodato Jr. & Rain Berado.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Avengers: No Single Hero


By Al Ewing, Greg Land & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-568-0

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reformed the entire overarching continuity: a drastic reshuffle and rethink of characters, concepts and brands with an eye to winning new readers and feeding the company’s burgeoning movie blockbuster machine…

Moreover many disparate story strands were slowly congealing to kick off the Next Big Thing with the cosmically expanded Avengers titles forming the spine of an encroaching mega-epic.

The colossal Infinity storyline detailed that grandiose advance into Armageddon as an intergalactic Hammer of Doom fell with an all-out attack by an impossibly ancient race. The Builders claimed to have fostered all life in the universe, but now they were attempting to rectify their mistake on Earth – and woe betide any species or intergalactic civilisation that got in their way.

When the Avengers mobilised most of their assemblage off-planet to tackle the threat before it reached us, old enemy Thanos of Titan took advantage of the dearth of metahuman defenders to invade, leaving the world’s remaining superheroes with an almost impossible task…

Written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Greg Land & Jay Leisten, Mighty Avengers volume 2 #1-5 (released between November 2013 and March 2014) describes how some of those left behind united as a resistance and stayed together as a decidedly different kind of crusading team…

The action begins as Thanos heads for Earth where blithely unaware former Avenger Luke Cage is pitting his Heroes for Hire apprentices – White Tiger and a new, teenaged Power Man – against seasoned super-thief The Plunderer. Their efforts are interrupted and derided by the Superior Spider-Man who orders them to quit and insultingly offers Cage’s kids a real job.

Everybody sees that the Wallcrawler has become insufferable since he technologically upgraded his act and hired a paramilitary gang to act as his deputies. Many of his oldest friends even think he might be going crazy. What no one knows is that the mind inside the arachnid hero’s head is actually arch villain Otto Octavius AKA Doctor Octopus who, despite a passionate initial desire to reform is slowly reverting to his original manner and habits…

The Web-spinner’s derision spurs White Tiger into quitting but only fuels her male teammates into trying harder to prove Spider-Man wrong…

Elsewhere ex-Avenger Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon but now calling herself Spectrum) is getting back into the crimebusting game after a bout of retirement. She sorting out her costume and talking over old times with an enigmatic fellow champion when the first wave of the Titan’s invasion force smashes into New York.

Donning a store-bought comedy costume, the stranger joins Monica as a generic “Spider Hero” and converges on the landing site where Cage and the still-enraged Superior Spider-Man are battling Thanos’ soldiers and ferocious warlord Proxima Midnight…

Elsewhere Mystic Master Doctor Strange has been possessed and corrupted by the Ebony Maw – the most personally ambitious of Thanos’ lieutenants – whilst at the bottom of the sea forgotten hero Dr. Adam Brashear receives a cosmic visitor.

The Blue Marvel is thus stirred from a lengthy self-imposed exile and grudgingly agrees to return to the world which shunned and sidelined him…

In New York ‘The Assembly’ give battle but the Amazing Arachnid seems more concerned with suing his “copyright infringer” than defeating the invaders and Spectrum is gravely wounded by Midnight.

As Cage tackles Proxima, the ordinary citizens are emboldened and join the struggle, compelling ever-watching Thanos to order a retreat.

It’s not over though, as the ravaged metropolis is then assaulted by an overwhelming aspect of voracious Elder God Shuma-Gorath, summoned by the enslaved Stephen Strange. The rampant horror gleefully begins transforming native New Yorkers into ghastly demon duplicates…

As Blue Marvel rockets to the rescue, temporarily stymieing the devil god and healing Spectrum, the mystically empowered White Tiger and Power Man arrive and Spider Hero, demonstrating a keen knowledge of arcane rites devises a scheme to drive Shuma-Gorath back to its own dimension for good.

Cage then has a eureka moment and realising ‘No Single Hero’ could have managed, declares that they are all Avengers…

Once parked above Manhattan, the Inhumans‘ floating city Attilan was destroyed during the war and its ruins now languish in the Hudson River. Moreover when Thanos personally attacked Black Bolt, the embattled Inhuman monarch released genetically transformative Terrigen Mists and created a host of new super-powered warriors from the ranks of the humans below…

Issue #4 is set after the invasion is finally repelled and the city engrossed in rapid reconstruction. The space-bound Avengers are still missing off-world but life is returning to normal.

Sleazy entrepreneur Jason Quantrell despatches his industrial spy Quickfire – a recent recipient of Terrigen-induced abilities – to raid the sunken citadel in search of fresh mutagens that he can monetise whilst in Times Square Cage has turned his old Gem Theatre offices into a storefront Avengers HQ.

He has a bold new idea: opening the heroic volunteer brigade to the public who can come to them with meta-related problems or issues of injustice. Even though Reservist The Falcon has come aboard Spider-Man is becoming increasingly intolerant, alternately demanding to be placed in charge and ordering Cage’s crew to cease and desist.

Unable to convince them, the furious wallcrawler storms off…

Meanwhile Spider Hero – who has some ominous magical acquaintances older fans will recognise – has detected an encroaching mystic crisis and resolved to stay. Adopting the vacant costume and identity of martial arts mystery man Ronin, he invites the team to join him in stopping an impending burglary in Attilan…

It’s not Quickfire’s illegal raid that’s the problem but rather that she’s going to inadvertently awaken the slumbering submerged threat of the Death Walkers if somebody doesn’t stop her…

However, whilst the latest Ronin lead the Avengers to the already happening monster catastrophe, Octavius returns to the Gem Theatre and in a manic fit of frustrated rage attacks Cage with all the paramilitary resources he can muster: mercenaries, spider-robots and urban assault vehicles all primed to shut down the Avengers forever.

Happily the harassed Hero for Free had already contacted his lawyer and is delighted to follow Jennifer Walters‘ guidance… which basically boils down to “She-Hulk Smash!”…

Fast furious and fantastically offbeat, this epic epistle also offers a gallery of stunning covers-and-variants by Land, Steve Epting,  Bryan Hitch, Jason Latour, Carlo Barberi, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Leonel Castellani, J. Scott Campbell, Francesco Francavilla, Mark Bagley, Salvador Larroca, Ron Wimberly, Daniel Acuña and Kalman Andrasofszky and a wealth of extra content online for those consumers au fait with the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 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.

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Thor, God of Thunder volume 3: The Accursed


By Jason Aaron, Nic Klein, Ron Garney, Emanuela Lupacchino, Das Pastoras & Tom Palmer (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-575-8

Since his creation by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962) the spectacular adventures of the Thunder God have encompassed everything from crushing petty crime capers to saving universes from cosmic Armageddon. As the decades passed he has also survived numerous reboots and re-imaginings to keep the wonders of fabled Asgard appealing to an easily jaded readership.

The latest shake-up came after blockbuster publishing event Avengers versus X-Men. From that point on, the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all characters in an undertaking designed to keep the more than 50-year-old shared universe interesting to readers old and new alike whilst cannily crafting material suitable for inclusion in the assorted burgeoning movie franchises.

Don’t take my word for it, just Search-Engine-of-Choice how many Marvel characters have been or will be hitting screens soon and how many more are “in development”…

However, as fortuitous fallout, many formally moribund stars are getting a serious rethink in their printed homes too, as this latest compendium of modern mythological mayhem happily proves.

Collecting Thor, God of Thunder #12-18 (cover-dated November 2013 to March 2014) and scripted throughout by Jason Aaron, this third contemporary chronicle slickly and simultaneously accesses the Lord of Lightning’s mythological roots, fantasy trappings and comicbook continuity to tell a classical quest tale with a decidedly Post Modern slant.

It all begins with a moving, untitled downtime episode illustrated by Nic Klein. After travelling the universe and meeting himself in two separate eras Thor returns to Midgard Realm and the Earth he so deeply loves, spending precious people-time with old friends. Visiting his favourite pub, a treasured acquaintance on Death Row and many other normal decent folk always serves to remind him of why he fights so hard for humankind. The elevating vignettes include being the graduation Prom date for S.H.I.E.L.D. Cadet Rosalind Solomon and a sobering conversation with his one-time true love Jane Foster who declines all his offers to find a mystic cure for her cancer…

The main event then begins with ‘The Accursed: The Great Niffleheim Escape or The Svartalfheim Massacre’ limned by Ron Garney and colourist Ive Svorcina, as the Realm of the Dead is invaded by a fanatical band of Dark Elves who endure appalling horrors to liberate one of the most inimical creatures ever to have breathed.

In the city of Asgard, floating above Broxton, Oklahoma, a Congress of delegates from the mystical Nine Worlds of Norse Existence is disrupted when the Dark Elf ambassador keels over in psychic shock, screaming “Svartalfheim is burning!”

Thor, valiant Sif and the Warriors Three rush to the distant dimension and encounter an atrocity: former tyrant Malekith the Accursed is back and inflicting genocide on his own people.

Holding the heroes at bay by threatening a hostage, the Dark Elf Overlord declaims that he intends to scourge his now too-docile race before dealing with the rest of the Nine Realms. To that end he has unleashed the ferocious Wild Hunt…

The carnage escalates in ‘The Accursed Part Two’ as the Dwarves of Nidavellir, currently offering sanctuary to Svartalfheim‘s Queen Alflyse, become Malekith’s next target, whilst in Asgard All-Mother Freyja, still hosting a conference designed to end animosity between the ever-warring Realms, informs her son Thor that he cannot pursue the massacre-mad Dark Lord.

At least not alone, but he can be the Aesir representative in a League of Realms acting in concert to destroy him. Despite understandable reluctance the Thunderer eventually agrees, joining Light Elf Sir Ivory Honeyshot, Screwbeard the Dwarf, Mountain Giant Oggmunder Dragglevladd Vinnsuvius XVII and Ud the Troll in sworn quest to end the menace. Inviting herself along is the villain’s former hostage. Despite – or probably because – he maimed and shamed her, sorceress Lady Wazira of the Dark Elves is determined to join in the grim chase…

By the time they all get to Nidavellir, the Dwarf stronghold is a broken charnel house and despite a pitched battle once again Malekith and his fanatics outmanoeuvre Thor and escape.

Throughout the frantic foray the innate prejudices and overt hostilities of the League have been Malekith’s greatest assets, but as the battered pursuers follow him into the Light Elf idyll of Alfheim they score their first victory over his forces and begin to bond. Things soon turn sour again though when they reach the land of Giants, and ‘Bury My Heart in Jotunheim’ sees one of the League heroically perish.

Worst of all Malekith begins his own Dark Alliance, aligning with the malignant, pernicious Frost Giants…

After another cataclysmic but inconclusive battle, the surviving heroes pursue their foes into the dead and abandoned Realm of Vanaheim and realise that there must be a traitor amongst them. On very little real evidence the Thunderer decides who it is and acts accordingly…

‘I Thor… Condemn Thee to Die’ (by Garney & Emanuela Lupacchino) then sees the League seemingly dissolved with only Thor and Wazira following their vile quarry to Midgard where an enclave of Dark Elf refugees are holding a Council of the Unhallowed in the caverns beneath Manhattan.

They have joined together to form a response in regard to the rampages of their former ruler, but the only thing these arrogant lords despise more than interference from the Leaguers is each other. However their tribal grudges vanish when Malekith and his Wild Hunt crash the party…

The saga of The Accursed spirals to a blockbusting, shocking conclusion when, despite becoming ‘The God Who Saved the Elves’ (art by Lupacchino & Garney), Thor has true victory snatched from his grasp by the arbitrary nature of the supposed victims in the affair and has to retire knowing the threat is only stalled, not ended…

After the modern day mayhem this superb fantasy feast ends on a poignant, nostalgic note with a fable of Thor’s Dark Ages days in Scandinavia.

More than a millennium ago the young Storm God caroused and adventured amongst mortals, and ‘Days of Wine and Dragons’ – stunningly illustrated by Das Pastoras – details a salutary episode wherein the wining, wenching, wandering Thunderer became drinking buddies with a colossal, fun-loving wyvern and learned to his eternal shame and regret that even gods and monsters must ever remain true to their natures…

This bombastic book of battles, triumphs and tragedies comes equipped with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Garney, Esad Ribic, Walter Simonson, Humberto Ramos, David Johnson, Leonel Castellani and even a photo cover taken from Thor: The Dark World as well as the ever-popular swathes of extra content available via the AR icon option (providing special augmented reality content available exclusively through the Marvel AR app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop).

™ & © 2013 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.

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Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems


By Matt Kindt, Marco Rudy & Val Staples (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-576-5

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories aimed at older readers. Whilst more askance than outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased, but eventually the Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited series…

The classic days of the Amazing Arachnid (i.e. pre-or-post Otto Octavius as The Superior Spider-Man) briefly returned and were subject to a visually impressive plot-light treatment in Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems #1-5 which ran from December 2013 to April 2014 and featured a startling scenario for everybody’s favourite original hard-luck hero.

In case you forgot…

Outcast, orphaned science-nerd schoolboy Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities which subsequently developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered by a burglar Peter could have stopped but didn’t because he refused to get involved.

Permanently traumatised and feeling irreconcilably responsible for Ben’s death, the 15-year old determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need.

Parker loved and lost many more close friends and family during his crime-busting, world-saving career, but eventually won a measure of joy from all the heartache when he married the girl next door, Mary Jane Watson…

For years the brilliant, indomitable everyman hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation whilst his notorious alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe.

He made a lot of enemies…

Sometimes basics is best in storytelling and the plot here is one constant chase and battle as Parker takes a crummy freelance photo gig and is ambushed, drugged and kidnapped in ‘Let the Games Begin’…

Spider-Man battles his way off a plane past a gauntlet of costumed villains but the ‘Arachnophobia’ even continues in the ocean before ‘Combat’ transfers the action to a submarine stuffed with prior punks and perils until the battered but incomprehensibly driven Wallcrawler meets at last ‘The Most Dangerous Player’ on a tropical island.

He thinks he’s worked it all out but Peter still hasn’t faced the instigator of his woes and master of his 99 foes. That happens in the blistering conclusion ‘Game Over’…

Scripter Matt Kindt’s catalogue of carnage moves things along at a rollercoasting rocket’s pace but the artwork here deserves the most attention.

This tale is primary a stunning exercise in visual acuity and dexterity from Marco Rudy and colourist Val Staples. Explosive, panoramic, even psychedelic in places, the pictorial narrative sublimely pushes Parker to the extreme limits as the hero faces an army of enemies before finally uncovering the twisted brain behind the concerted attack and finding his ultimate enemy is neither who nor what he ever expected…

With covers and variants by Rudy and Carlo Barberi, this is a stripped down, breathtaking primal comics experience that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

™ & © 2013 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.

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Fantastic Four: First Family


By Joe Casey, Chris Weston & Gary Erskine (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1703-2

The Fantastic Four has long been considered the most pivotal series in modern comicbook history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions.

More a family than a team, the roster has changed many times over the years but always eventually returns to the  original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, who have together formed the vanguard of modern four-colour heroic history.

The quartet are actually maverick genius Reed Richards, his wife Sue, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious and impetuous younger brother Johnny Storm; survivors of an independent, non-governmental space-shot which went horribly wrong once ferociously mutative Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found that they had all been hideously changed into outlandish freaks.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and form force-fields, Johnny could turn into self-perpetuating living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

The sheer simplicity of four archetypes – mercurial boffin, self-effacing distaff, solid everyman and hot-headed youth, uniting to triumph over accident and adversity – shone under Stan Lee’s irreverent humanity coupled to Jack Kirby’s rampant imagination and sense of adventure.

However, after decades of erratic quality and floundering plotlines following the original creators’ departures, Marvel’s First Family began a steady climb in quality at the beginning of the 21st century which culminated in their own blockbuster film franchise.

To augment the increased casual interest, in 2006 a canny, edgy retelling of the team’s earliest days was produced as a 6-issue miniseries by scripter Joe Casey and illustrators Chris Weston & Gary Erskine, re-examining the quartet’s coming to terms with their new status in terms far more in keeping with the cynical, jaded 21st century…

It opens with ‘There’s Was a Crash…’ as USAF General Walter Montgomery is called to a top secret military installation where four survivors of a fallen space-shot are being held. They were human once but have been hideously mutated by Cosmic radiation.…

The boy keeps bursting into flames, whilst his older sister is totally transparent. The pilot has become a rock-like atrocity and the General’s old friend Dr. Richards has been reduced to a catatonic mound of shapeless flesh.

His coma has nothing to do with the accident however. The scientist is locked into a cerebral mindscape where he is being lectured to by a fifth cosmic ray survivor…

The entity is explaining some facts of life. The facility they are in is a Air Force base designed to hold a variety of cosmically mutated humans. This is not the Government’s first Rodeo…

In ‘Late-Night Creeping’ Sue Storm surreptitiously escapes her cell to check on her companions, but boyfriend Reed is still beyond reach inside his own head. Dr. Franz Stahl is currently explaining to him that a fallen meteor supercharged with C-radiation has been transforming humans under USAF supervision for months and his own forced evolution is the most significant result.

Seeing Richards as a kindred spirit, the mind-ghost shares his radical theories of evolutionary dominance with his fellow future man but Richards remains unconvinced…

‘The Afterburn’ sees Ben Grimm’s fiancée run screaming from him and prompting a minor riot, allowing Stahl to take matters into his own psychic hands and instigate a further distracting crisis. Provoking one of his fellow monstrous transformees to go on a ‘Cosmic Ray Rampage’, the doctor escapes whilst the super-powered quartet gamely assist the soldiers in stopping the unholy horror.

In return Montgomery agrees to release the four on their own recognizance with assurances of Federal backing…

‘Remember the Alamo’ occurs just after the events of Fantastic Four #1, beginning when the heroes escape the atomic destruction of Mole Man‘s Monster Island. Reed later briefs Montgomery and they plan to formalise the team. However, Reed is still being regularly mentally shanghaied by Stahl, whose agenda to improve humanity begins with the culling of his own far-too mundane family in ‘Domestic Disturbance’…

Ben then heads for a disastrous drink in his old neighbourhood in ‘The Homecoming Dance’ even as Johnny, Reed and Sue all realise that their old “normal” lives are forever denied them.

A Mole Man monster resurfaces in New York ready for ‘Round Two’ and Franz again tries to convince the elastic hero to aid his plan to forcibly fix mankind, but Sue begins to worry that her man has lost all interest in a normal domestic future…

After General Montgomery sets up the four in a fabulous new, government funded HQ – The Baxter Building – the outcasts quickly begin to fall apart in ‘The Ties That Bind’ and no one is available when Stahl invades the Air Force’s secret Cosmic facility in ‘Evolutionary Modern’, intent on taking the life-warping meteor

In ‘Cold, Hard…’ Sue, Johnny and Ben discuss Reed’s distraction and underhandedness whilst the subject of their grievances has opted to tackle Franz in ‘Alone + Easy Target’…

As they rush to save him, Reed is locked in psychic combat with Stahl, who has used the meteor to mutate the base personnel into a legion of monsters and has begun his ‘Extinction Event’ for humanity. The battered hero is losing however until his erstwhile cosmic comrades fight their way in and are pulled into the mental arena of ‘Signs and Salvation’ to happily tip the balance…

The titanic battle ends with a ‘Mind’s Eye Open’ leaving the four closer than ever and set upon together ‘Finding Destiny’…

Dark, grimly post-modern and disregarded by many purists, First Family nevertheless offers a compelling rationalisation of epochal events from simpler times framed in the context of a more cynical century and certainly inviting to fans of a more grounded, less optimistic society. It’s also a pretty good yarn for open-minded fans who love the baroque theatrics of modern superhero stories.
© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man volume 10: New Avengers


By J. Michael Straczynski, Mike Deodato Jr., Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1764-4

When the original hard-luck hero became a full-time Avenger (as seen in New Avengers: Breakout), Peter Parker foolishly hoped that his life might finally be on the upswing, but of course every step forward results in two leaps back for the Wondrous Wallcrawler…

Crafted by scripter J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. with Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer, New Avengers collects Amazing Spider-Man #519-524 (June-November 2005) and examines a period of tense and fractious adaptation in the ultimate loner’s life beginning with ‘Moving Up’ and the tragic aftermath of a fire which has destroyed May Parker‘s house and rendered both the old lady and her family/tenants Peter and Mary Jane homeless.

As the heartbroken women rummage through ashes and rubble for any salvageable mementos, billionaire Tony Stark arrives and invites them all to live in his grandiose and futuristic skyscraper in the centre of Manhattan. It’s the very least he can do for his new Avenging comrade, but the grateful trio have no idea of the trouble they’ve stepped into by accepting…

Meanwhile, all over America the glorified parvenu gangsters who currently control the criminal organisation Hydra are being rounded up by passionate and disgruntled usurpers determined to return the once-deadly secret society to its fanatical terrorist roots…

The rejuvenated evil underground empire begins its terrifying resurgence in ‘Acts of Aggression’ by unleashing their greatest weapon: a squad of super-powered killers insidiously patterned on Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye and Thor. Their first cataclysmic rampage is only barely contained by the assembled New Avengers.

However, Peter doesn’t need his Spider Sense to realise that there’s some deeper game in play, and by using his press contacts at the Daily Bugle discovers the chaos was used to cover the arrival of smuggled missile components…

His overconfident buddies are more interested in catching the hit-and-run “Hydra-vengers” and Mary Jane is all wrapped up in her imminent stage debut, so nobody is ready for the next surprise.

Whilst Peter follows a slim lead and accidentally exposes the criminal cabal’s new Supreme Hydra, his wife heads back to Stark Tower and experiences ‘Unintended Consequences’ when she is door-stepped by a sleazy tabloid journalist who says he knows her secret…

Terrified of Spider-Man’s identity being exposed she thinks fast and brazenly bluffs, but next morning awakens to headlines screaming that she’s having an affair with party-mad playboy Tony Stark…

Hydra meanwhile have moved up their schedule, planning to launch a rocket filled with assorted plagues, bacilli and toxins into America’s largest aquifer…

Having finally convinced Iron Man and the others, ‘Moving Targets’ finds Spider-Man infiltrating the subterranean Hydra Bunker and confronting an army of gun-toting maniacs as well as the facsimile Avengers…

Desperately trying to stay alive until Captain America, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine and Stark can find him, the Astounding Arachnid is forced to take ‘Extreme Measures’ when the toxic rocket blasts off…

Everything neatly wraps up in ‘All Fall Down’ as Spidey saves the day but has to recuperate from the lethal – for anyone else – germ exposure. With Peter incapacitated, Stark deals with Mary Jane’s media situation in a manner both slick and terrifying…

It’s not all good though: there’s a recurring and possibly fatal medical complication the weary Wallcrawler refuses to share with either family or his heroic friends…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Deodato Jr., Kaare Andrews, Terry & Rachel Dodson and Tony Harris – augmented by behind-the-scenes designs stage pages – this canny chronicle delivers a rocket-paced, straightforward thriller stuffed with sentiment and outrageous hilarity (amongst other mad moments Aunt May has a disturbing fling with Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis – at least as far as her nephew is concerned: it’s loaded with sly laughs for the rest of us…).

Despite the foreshadowed conclusion this is a cracking Fights ‘n’ Tights romp every action fan will adore. This is super-heroics at its most satisfying.
© 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain America: Winter Soldier Dossier Edition


By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, John Paul Leon, Michael Lark & Tom Palmer (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-579-6

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

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

When the Korean War and Communist aggression gripped the American psyche in the 1950s Steve Rogers was briefly revived – along with Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity… until a resurgent Marvel Comics called him up again in Avengers #4. It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American public…

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the tragic heroic death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) during the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well.

He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, constantly struggling to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

After decades of vacillating and being subject to increasing frantic attempts to keep the character relevant, in the last years of the 20th century a succession of stellar writers finally established his naturally niche: America’s physical, military and ethical guardian…

This powerfully subversive saga, written by Ed Brubaker and mostly illustrated by Steve Epting, collects Captain America volume 5 issues #1-9 and #11-14 – spanning January 2005 to April 2006 (#10 being part of the altered reality event House of M and sensibly omitted here) – and features the opening sallies in a truly vast and expansive examination of the character: one which would result in the Sentinel of Liberty becoming a rebel, a traitor, an outlaw, a corpse and, eventually, a messiah…

It would also rewrite one of the founding precepts of Marvel history whilst making the notoriously reactionary fans love it.

And yes, Captain America: Winter Soldier Dossier Edition has been released to tie in with the upcoming movie release. Deal with it. That’s the only way publishers make money selling comicbooks these days…

The 6-chapter ‘Out of Time’ opens in the wake of a catastrophic but ultimately inconclusive clash with the Red Skull (part of the crossover Avengers Disassembled) but actually begins with a flashback to five years earlier, when the Nazi nemesis bargained with ex-KGB General Aleksander Lukin: an ideological hardliner turned arms-dealing Oligarch selling off mothballed experimental technologies and secret Soviet weapons to finance his plans in the world after Communism.

The Skull is particularly interested in a vintage suspended animation capsule, but is unwilling to trade information or access to the reality-warping Cosmic Cube for it…

In the present, the Skull broods on his next scheme to torture and destroy Captain America.

He has spent much of the intervening half-decade meticulously gathering shards and fragments and now possesses the barest shell of a Cube. It still needs fuel and time to fully reconstitute itself…

Rogers is not doing well. He feels responsible for the Avengers recent dissolution and the death of so many of his comrades and has begun morbidly dwelling on the past. Episodes from World War II where he and Bucky battled together blend into cases from after he was thawed out of a block of ice to find himself in a future far more dangerous than he ever believed possible…

The grim, world-weary and rather shell-shocked Star Spangled Soldier is beginning to worry his nearest and dearest with his uncharacteristically excessive actions and ill-judged behaviour. Especially concerned is former girlfriend and senior S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Agent 13. Sharon Carter questions him about the brutality of his recent actions in stopping a terrorist plot to destroy Coney Island but doesn’t really accept his answers…

As he settles into his new civilian apartment, the brooding, inconsolable old soldier is completely unaware that the Skull is watching his every move. That surveillance comes to a shocking end when a sniper’s bullet ends the monster’s life and a mystery intruder steals the skeletal framework of the Cosmic Cube …

When Cap is alerted to his arch foe’s death he refuses to believe the news and his own narrow escape, even after the extensive autopsy and corroborating evidence. Moreover, he’s increasingly afflicted with memories of his WWII service, but now the memories are paralysingly traumatic and sometimes include events that never happened…

Investigations reveal the Skull had also been planning cataclysmic conflagrations in New York, Paris and London with the resultant loss of life used to power the wish-fulfilling Cube, and when an anonymous call alerts Nick Fury at S.H.I.E.L.D. the peacekeeping agency explodes into action.

As Captain America and Sharon tackle a super-bomb beneath Manhattan they encounter opposition from Skull loyalist Crossbones and a dissident wing of AIM (the original creators of the Cube) but triumph regardless.

Cap heads for Paris to spectacularly stop the next device and crush another division of Advanced Ideas in Destruction, but in London Union Jack and his S.H.I.E.L.D. team only find the Fascist Fury’s forces slaughtered and the final terror weapon missing…

And in Pittsburgh, Cap’s former partner Jack Monroe AKA Nomad is abducted and murdered…

On Wall Street, Lukin’s far reaching plans are slowly coming to fruition, but devoted comrade Leon is worried. Even as the Oligarch successfully takes control of American energy conglomerate Roxxon his aide harps on that the General’s use of the diminished and curtailed Cosmic Cube is somehow affecting him…

With dreams and hallucinations still plaguing him, Steve is then informed of another atrocity and rushes to Arlington National Cemetery where the graves of the other two heroes to serve as Captain America have been desecrated. He is unaware that Fury and Sharon are keeping an even nastier surprise from him…

When he leaves, Cap is seized by a violent memory flash of himself and Bucky being tortured by Baron Zemo in 1945, just as the vengeance-crazed Crossbones attacks. The brutal thug had been tipped off to Cap’s whereabouts by an anonymous Russian…

Elsewhere the gun which killed the Skull has been found. It’s covered in the fingerprints of sometime S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Jack Monroe. When Sharon tracks him down she walks into a trap…

By the time Fury and Steve reconvene, the grizzled spymaster has compiled a skimpy file on Lukin which prompts another memory flashback: recalling a particularly horrific event in Russia in 1942. The Star Spangled ex-Avenger begins to connect the dots between himself, the Skull and the Russian…

The first story arc concludes as Steve investigates the British fort where Bucky died and which features so strongly in his “wrong” memories. He still doesn’t realise Fury is keeping something from him but gets the message when he returns to the USA and rescues Sharon from her mysterious metal-armed assailant.

It’s another trap. As Agent 13 warns him that the elusive killer looks like a grown up Bucky and the killer waiting in ambush opts not to shoot, the Skull’s missing super-bomb detonates, eradicating a large part of Philadelphia, charging up Lukin’s Cosmic Cube…

The ongoing saga then takes a moment’s pause as Captain America #7 explores the ghastly final months of a hero who had lost his way in ‘The Lonesome Death of Jack Monroe’, illustrated by John Paul Leon & Tom Palmer.

Once upon a time in the 1950s the eponymous sidekick had been taken under the wing of William Burnside, a deranged fan who turned himself into a duplicate of Steve Rogers and briefly played Captain America whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.

As a student Burnside was obsessed with the Sentinel of Liberty and had diligently divined the hero’s identity, reconstructed most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Patriotic Paragon and even had his own features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action legend.

Using the serum on both of them, Burnside volunteered their services to the FBI – who were then embroiled in a nationwide war on spies, subversives and suspected commies – and he and impressionable young Jack seamlessly became Captain America and Bucky returned; crushing every perceived threat to the nation.

It soon became apparent however that their definitions of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, intransigent, uppity women and anybody who disagreed with the government…

After some months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly “retired” because the super-soldier serum had turned him and Monroe into super-strong raving, racist paranoids.

Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real, reawakened hero only to be defeated by Cap, the Falcon and Sharon.

Although Monroe was eventually cured and even worked as an assistant to the original (as well as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and solo vigilante), Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted, and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real America.

Now Monroe faces his greatest trial: medical tests have revealed that the ersatz Super Soldier serum has degraded in his system, destroying Jack’s immune system, causing blackouts, hallucinations, blind rages and worse.

The dying wannabe has little time left and only wants to make his last weeks count by taking out an insidious drug ring, but he can’t tell what real and what isn’t and doesn’t even remember where he is half the time…

With the poignant, tragic interlude concluded the overarching epic resumes with ‘The Winter Soldier’ (issues #8-10 and 11-14, illustrated by Epting with Michael Lark handling the flashback scenes in #9)…

Now realising that a great part of Lukin’s plan is simply to make him suffer, Captain America resumes the chase, determined to bring the devious Russian to justice, but before that a deep secret is revealed as, in April 1945, an experimental Soviet spy sub commanded by Vasily Karpov picks up the maimed body of Bucky Barnes from the seas where it fell.

The ambitious Russian spymaster has dreams of extracting the fabled Super Soldier serum from the corpse but is doubly frustrated to discover that the indomitable young warrior was never treated to the formula, and is also not quite dead…

In New York in the now, Captain America has seen the dossier Fury has been hiding. Using modern facial recognition techniques and by collating a half a century of security and surveillance photos, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s boffins have managed to prove one of the spy trade’s most fantastic spook stories…

From the 1950s until the late 1980s the Soviets reputedly employed an infallible “ghost” assassin all over the world; infallibly using murder and arranged accidents to secure the KGB’s aims. Moreover anybody can now see that between 1955 and 1976 the identified killer aged less than five years…

The face is Bucky’s and the last photo is from airport cameras near where the gun which killed the Red Skull was found.

Billionaire mogul Aleksander Lukin was Karpov’s fanatically loyal KGB protégé, heir to all the brainwashing secrets and obscene scientific treatments that must have turned a valiant American boy hero into a ruthless cunning killer…

Forced to accept the horrible truth, Steve and Fury organise an illegal raid on Lukin’s recently purchased private country, only to find they have been outfoxed again. The new owner of US conglomerate Roxxon has already bought his way into the highest echelons of the White House and is far beyond the reach of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the living embodiment of American courage and integrity…

Unfortunately for the triumphant Oligarch his stolen tool is cursed. The malignant, restored Cosmic Cube not only affects his mind but actively moves against him, placing the KGB’s full files on Winter Soldier into Captain America’s hands.

Lukin determines to get rid of the treacherous and far too dangerous Cube, ordering his increasingly rebellious living weapon to bury it in the deepest, most secure hole on the planet, whilst Steve, armed with knowledge and bolstered by real memories of what his former partner was, enlists comrades-in-arms the Falcon, Iron Man and Sharon to help him intercept his former friend…

Sharon is happy to help: after all, even though Cap is aiming to save and restore his lost friend, she knows there’s only one sure cure for a multiple mass murderer like the Winter Soldier…

With a covers-&-variants gallery by Epting & Joe Jusko, Winter Soldier Dossier Edition is a huge and hugely entertaining, stellar Stars and Stripes Fights ‘n’ Tights saga: a bombastic blockbusting, blisteringly good yarn for lovers of suspenseful action drama and recent converts familiar with the filmic iterations of the flag-wearing franchise.
™ & © 2005, 2006 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.