Category: Avengers

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The New Avengers volume 1: Breakout


By Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1479-6

During the Marvel rebirth in the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby aped a tactic which had recently paid big dividends for DC Comics, but with initially mixed results.

Although Julie Schwartz had achieved incredible success with revised and modernised versions of the company’s Golden Age greats, the natural gambit of trying the same revivification process on characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

The Justice League of America-inspired Fantastic Four featured a new Human Torch but his subsequent solo series began to founder almost as soon as Kirby stopped drawing it. Sub-Mariner was back too, but as a villain, as yet incapable of carrying his own title…

So the costumed character procession continued: Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko churning out numerous inventive and inspired “super-characters”. Not all caught on: Hulk lost his title after six issues and even Spider-Man would have failed if writer/editor Lee hadn’t really, really pushed his uncle, the publisher…

Thus, after nearly 18 months during which the fledgling House of Ideas had created a small stable of leading men (but only a sidekick woman), Lee & Kirby settled on combining their meagre stock of individual stars into a group – which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and even higher sales…

Cover-dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men…

Despite a few rocky patches, the series soon grew into one of the company’s perennial top sellers, but times and tastes always change and after four decades, in September to December 2004, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled.

Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and The Young Avengers. Affiliated comic-books Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man also ran parallel but not necessarily interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as the Scarlet Witch was revealed to have gone crazy, betraying the team who had been her family and causing the destruction of everything they held dear and the death of several members. That all happened in issues #500-503, plus the one-shot Avengers Finale.

The most important major change from that epic ending was The New Avengers, and this slim tome collects the first six issues from that celebrated revamp (covering January to June 2005) as Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch – with inking assistance from Danny Miki, Mark Morales, Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba – redefined the nature of group heroics for a darker, more complex age.

The six-chapter saga ‘Breakout’ begins six months after the day Tony Stark shut down the Avengers and withdrew all funds, backing and support…

Somewhere in the city a shadowy client hires super-villain Electro to facilitate the escape of a certain individual from the metahuman super High Security prison The Raft.

The lock-up is located on an island in New York City Harbour: a high-tech exemplar of space-age confinement, keeping hundreds of super-thugs and deadly monsters safely away from decent folks, all efficiently operated and maintained by superspy peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D.

One particular day, lawyers Foggy Nelson and his partner Matt (Daredevil) Murdock are visiting a mystery prisoner at the behest of Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. In accordance with security protocols they are accompanied by S.H.I.E.L.D. super-agent Jessica Drew – formerly costumed crusader Spider-Woman – but have also brought their own metahuman bodyguard in the formidable form of Luke Cage AKA Power Man.

They picked the worst possible day. As a city-wide sudden power blackout disables the technologies suppressing the powers of the inmates, Electro’s attack shatters the walls and, having secured his target, the mega-volt mercenary opens all the cells and tells the exultant escapees to have fun whilst he flees…

At the first sign of trouble Peter Parker switched to Spider-Man and headed for The Raft, snagging a ride on an official helicopter. When it is shot down, he is pulled from the freezing waters by Captain America who had diverted the chopper to get to the endangered island…

Far below the surface level, Agent Drew has shepherded her charges to relative safety, leaving Foggy in the cell of the man they’d come to interview. Bob Reynolds, a superhero known as Sentry, is the most powerful being on Earth and has allowed himself to be incarcerated for the murder of his own wife…

As Nelson tries to break through to the shell-shocked, nigh-comatose superhuman, Drew, Cage and Daredevil are engaging in a brutal holding action against an army of enraged psychos, whilst at the surface level Spidey and Cap are fighting for their lives.

Things go bad when the web-spinner’s arm is broken, whilst down in Sentry’s cell the sadistic metamorph Carnage finds a way to reach the cowering Foggy…

The inevitable bloodbath rouses Sentry from his stupor and the Golden Gladiator explodes out of the Raft, carrying Carnage to his doom in deep space, whilst on the surface level Iron Man’s blockbusting arrival begins to turn the tide against the army of maniacs…

The third chapter opens with Stark and Steve Rogers discussing the recently pacified penitentiary and the obvious need for the Avengers to reform. Captain America’s urgent belief that it was fate calling a new team together nearly sways the arch-rationalist – as does the fact that forty-two of the worst malefactors managed to get away in the chaos – but Iron Man remains uncommitted until Cap can get some – or any – of the staunch loners they fought beside to join the proposed New Avengers team…

Always undaunted, the Star-Spangled Avenger starts talking and soon Spider-Woman, Cage and Spider-Man are aboard. Daredevil again declines to join any group and the enigmatic Sentry just goes back to his cell…

Captain America even convinces S.H.I.E.L.D. to rehire the immediately cashiered Jessica as liaison between the agency and Avengers – although current Director Maria Hill is hostile to both her and the formation of a new team. Little do any of them know that Spider-Woman’s loyalties divide not two ways, but three…

The first order of business is to find Electro and discover who he was specifically after. The trail leads to Boston, another blistering battle but no joy, forcing Drew to try radical tactics on the remaining, re-incarcerated super-freaks in an attempt to divine the identity of the cause of all their problems.

Soon the rag-tag band are rocketing to the Savage Land – a sub-surface wonderland of cavemen, dinosaurs and other strange creatures left in splendid isolation as a UN Protectorate – to recapture Karl Lykos, a man who feeds on mutant energy to become the reptilian monster Sauron…

The excursion is a disaster: they are marooned, attacked by giant lizards and captured by mega-genius Brainchild and his band of Mutates. Lykos’ escape had been engineered by the ruthless experimenter, who still considers humans as guinea pigs and seems intent on eradicating mankind, but the proto-Avengers’ biggest problem is a former ally.

Wolverine has also tracked the fugitive to the Antarctic paradise and intends to end the threat of Sauron forever… no matter who gets in the way…

He is just too late and the great reptile is reborn. However, during the subsequent battle the heroes uncover an even greater horror. Global good guys S.H.I.E.L.D. have apparently enslaved the indigenous people of the region and are using them to mine alien wonder element Vibranium.

Unfortunately, the secret is guarded by ultra-operative Yelena Belova, the new Black Widow and she is quite prepared to destroy them – and the entire installation – to preserve the secret…

In the appalling aftermath the astounded Avengers make more ghastly discoveries. The Raft breakout also exposed the fact that many of the criminals held there had been reported dead for years and the new team – which now includes Wolverine – have to face the prospect that the Free World’s greatest peacekeeping force may be partly (or wholly) corrupt: stockpiling deadly elements, super-weapons and even metahumans for what cannot possibly be any good reason…

Shaken and betrayed, The New Avengers resolve to find out why, whatever the cost…

Smart, bombastic and laced with tension and brilliant hilarity, this was – and remains – a superb moment of innovation and bold thinking that truly revitalised a moribund concept, With covers-&-variants by Finch, Miki & Frank D’Armata, Steve McNiven, Joe Quesada,. Trevor Hairsine, Olivier Coipel, Jim Cheung, Richard Isanove, Adi Granov and Bryan Hitch, this is a grand jumping-on point for readers who love Fights ‘n’ Tights Fiction and fans familiar with either the TV animation series or movie blockbuster iterations of the World’s Greatest Superheroes.
© 2004 and 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Dark Avengers: Molecule Man


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, Rain Beredo & Greg Horn (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3854-9
One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of freshly minted individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Mighty Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package, and over the years the roster has waxed and waned until almost every character in their universe – and even some from others – has at some time numbered amongst their serried ranks.

After years of valiant, if often controversial service to humanity, when the draconian Federal initiative known as Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes, Tony Stark AKA Iron Man was appointed the American government’s Security Czar – the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom: Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

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

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

The erstwhile Spider-Man villain had begun his climb back to respectability after taking charge of the Government’s Thunderbolts Project; a penal program which offered a second chance to super-criminals who volunteered to undertake Federally-sanctioned missions…

Not content with commanding legitimate political and personal power, Osborn also secretly conspired with a coalition of major menacing masterminds to divvy up the world between them. The Cabal was a Star Chamber of super-villains all working towards a mutually beneficial goal, but such egomaniacal personalities could never play well together and cracks soon began to show, both in the criminal conspiracy and Osborn himself.

As another strand of his long-term plan, the Homeland Security overlord subsequently sacked the Avengers and formed his own, more manageable team consisting of replacements and outright impostors…

Constantly courting public opinion, Osborn launched his Avengers whilst systematically building up a new, personally loyal high-tech paramilitary rapid-response force. Moreover, seemingly to keep himself honest, he hired ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. hardliner Victoria Hand as his Deputy Director, tasked with watching the recovering madman for any signs of regression into criminal insanity…

His second-in-command was also occupied with the day-to-day running of the organisation whilst he concentrated on keeping Greek War-God Ares, mentally-disturbed superman Sentry and altruistic, dimensionally displaced alien Noh-Var – now dubbed Captain Marvel – unaware of his true intentions.

His other recruits were content with the sweet perks and devious deals on offer. Bullseye, Moonstone, Venom and Wolverine‘s psychotic son Daken Akihiro happily counterfeited Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and the irascible mutant Avenging X-Man, especially as Osborn had confiscated and repurposed Tony Stark’s greatest inventions into his own suit of super-armour, retooled and finished to invoke impressions of both Captain America and the Golden ex-Avenger. Iron Patriot was always at the forefront of his hand-picked team, leading from the front as a true American hero should…

Collecting issues #9-12 (December 2009-March 2010) of the controversial Dark Avengers series scripted by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Mike Deodato & colourist Rain Beredo, this volume begins to catalogue the cracks in the façade.

As Osborn starts to become unglued, the God of War takes a personal day and follows his son Alexander.

Nick Fury, driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away when S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. From an unassailable, unsuspected vantage point Fury picked his battles and slowly gathered assets and resources he’d personally vetted or built…

The indomitable freedom fighter had always known that to do the job properly he needed his own trustworthy forces and no political constraints. To this end he had long endeavoured to clandestinely stockpile his own formidable team, which included a crack squad of super-human operatives: Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry “Stonewall” Sledge, J.T. “Hellfire” James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, and the terrifyingly volatile Alexander: a 12-year old boy of incredible power.

The child Phobos was destined to become a true god – the personification of Fear – but until then his daily-developing divine gifts were Fury’s to use…

Now Ares tracks his delinquent child to the lair of his commanding officer’s most dangerous enemy. Instead of all-out combat, however, the confrontation with Fury leads to a shaky détente and an improbable deal…

The main part of this volume then deals with the faux team’s most perilous challenge, as a string of uncanny disappearances in back-of-beyond hamlet Dinosaur, Colorado ties in with Osborn’s desire to keep his bored and dangerous team occupied.

However when the more-than-godlike Sentry is apparently vaporised, the grand schemer realises the magnitude of the unidentified menace and mobilises his entire organisation.

But as his team approach ground zero and the still unknown foe, each is whisked into a personalised hell (illustrated in painted sections by Greg Horn) wherein impossibly overwhelming Molecule Man Owen Reece sits in judgement and metes out appalling punishments on the interlopers who have desecrated his private paradise and playground…

With only Victoria Hand left the situation looks dire, but the former S.H.I.E.L.D. bean-counter undertakes a brilliant last-ditch stratagem which delays events long enough for Sentry to somehow reassemble himself and battle the most powerful creature in existence to a standstill…

Not even Sentry himself realised just how strong he truly was, and as that terrifying fact sinks in Osborn continues to mentally unravel – even as his erstwhile Cabal ally Loki attacks…

To Be Concluded…

This portentous, doom-drenched psycho-drama builds breathtaking suspense whilst delivering blistering action in a slowly-intensifying progression as part of the “Dark Reign” company-wide crossover which impacted upon the entire Marvel Universe, yet besides being a component of an overarching epic, still holds together effectively as an entertaining one-off read for casual Fights ‘n’ Tights fans…

Also included to enhance the appeal are a cover gallery by Deodato & Beredo, a wealth of Characters Designs and unused material, a 4-page article on the Cover Process, Norman’s Dream Sketchbook by Greg Land and an information feature on Molecule Man taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook.

Although definitely not a book for younger fans, this is another striking saga from author Bendis, packed with intrigue and action, magnificently illustrated and offering an engaging peek at the sinister side of superheroics and the deadly downside of good intentions.
© 2009 and 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Avengers volume 7


By Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George Pérez, Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4453-3

The Avengers always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even when Marvel’s major players like Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are absent, it simply allows the team’s lesser lights and continuity players to shine more brightly.

Although the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy, the human-scale narrative drivers were the regulars without titles of their own and whose eventful lives played out only within these stories and no others.

This monumental seventh monochrome tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ extraordinary exploits from issues #140-163 of their monthly comicbook (spanning November 1975-September 1975), also includes material from Avengers Annual #6 plus a crossover appearance from Super-Villain Team-Up #9.

This era saw revered and multi-award winning scripter Steve Englehart surrender the writing reins to Gerry Conway during a period of painful recurring deadline problems – before neophyte wunderkind Jim Shooter came aboard to stabilise and reshape the cosmology and history of the Marvel Universe through the adventures of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Opening this epochal tome is ‘The Phantom Empire!’ (Avengers #141, by Englehart, George Pérez & Vince Colletta), which began another complex, multi-layered epic combining superheroic Sturm und Drang with searing – for 1975, at least – political commentary.

It all began when new member The Beast was ambushed by mercenaries from corporate behemoth Roxxon Oil.

He was saved by ex-Avenger Captain America who had been investigating the company on a related case and, after comparing notes, realised something very big and very bad was going on…

Linking up with Thor, Iron Man, other trainee Moondragon and the newly returned newlyweds Vision and Scarlet Witch, the pair learned of another crisis building as Hawkeye had gone missing, probably captured by time tyrant Kang the Conqueror…

Just as the Assemblage was agreeing to split into teams, former child model Patsy Walker-Baxter (star of a bunch of Marvel’s girl’s market comics such as Patsy Walker and Patsy & Hedy) burst in, threatening to expose Beast’s secret identity…

When he had first further mutated, Hank McCoy had attempted to mask his anthropoid form and Patsy had helped him in return for his promise to make her a superhero. Now she had resurfaced prepared to use blackmail to make him honour his vow. She got dragged along as one squad (Cap, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Vision) joined Beast’s as he returned to his old lab at Brand/Roxxon… where they were ambushed by alternate Earth heroes the Squadron Supreme…

Moondragon and Thor meanwhile co-opted sometime ally Immortus and followed Hawkeye back to 1873 but were also bushwhacked, finding themselves battling Kang beside a coterie of cowboy legends including Kid Colt, Night Rider, Ringo Kid, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid in ‘Go West, Young Gods!’ even as the present-day team learned that their perilous plight involved a threat to two different dimensions’ situations because Roxxon had joined with the corporations which had taken over the Squadron Supreme’s America – thanks to the malignly mesmeric Serpent Crown of Set…

The Wild West showdown culminated in the apparent death of a deity in ‘Right Between the Eons!’ (Avengers #143, inked by Sam Grainger). Elsewhen, the 20th century heroes were beginning their counterattack in the esoteric weaponry factory at Brand, and during all that running wild the heroes found the technologically advanced, ability-enhancing uniform of short-lived adventurer The Cat in a storeroom.

When Patsy put it on the hero-groupie neophyte dubbed herself Hellcat in ‘Claws!’ (Mike Esposito inks)…

Soon after, the Avengers were cornered by the Squadron and as battle recommenced Roxxon president Hugh Jones played his trump card and transported all the combatants to the other Earth…

The dreaded deadline doom hit just at this crucial juncture and issues #145-146 were taken up with a 2-part fill-in by Tony Isabella, Don Heck & John Tartaglione with additional pencils by Keith Pollard for the concluding chapter.

‘The Taking of the Avengers!’ revealed how a criminal combine had taken out a colossal contract on the World’s Mightiest Superheroes but even though ‘The Assassin Never Fails!’ the killer was thwarted and Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast, Vision and Scarlet Witch – plus Wasp, Yellowjacket and the Falcon all safely returned to their various cases untroubled by the vagaries of continuity or chronology which makes this rather impressive yarn such a annoyance in this specific instance…

The trans-dimensional traumas finally resumed in Avengers #147 which described the ‘Crisis on Other-Earth!’ (Englehart, Pérez & Colletta). With the corporate takeover of the other America revealed to have been facilitated by use of the mind-bending mystical serpent crown, the Scarlet Witch took possession of the sinister helm and her team-mates tried desperately to keep the overwhelming Squadron Supreme from regaining it.

On our Earth Hawkeye brought Two-Gun Kid to the modern world but decided to go walkabout rather than rejoin his fellow Avengers even as Thor and Moondragon began searching for their missing colleagues…

It was back to business in #148 as ‘20,000 Leagues Under Justice!’ (Grainger) featured the final showdown and the Avengers’ victory over a wiser and repentant Squadron Supreme, and as the heroes returned to their home dimension ‘The Gods and the Gang!’ reunited them with Moondragon and the Thunder God to clean up Brand/Roxxon. The Corporate cabal still had one trick left to play however: a colossal and biologically augmented Atlantean dubbed Orka, the Human Killer Whale…

Avengers #150 saw an official changing of the guard as ‘Avengers Assemble’ by Englehart, Pérez, Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland – supplemented part-way through by half of ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (reprinted from #16 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) – settled the membership question and made way for new scripter Gerry Conway in #151 whose ‘At Last: The Decision’ (with additional scripting by Jim Shooter & Englehart and art from Pérez & Tartaglione) set the group off on new, less cosmic adventures.

No sooner had the long-delayed announcement been made (this membership drive had begun in Avengers #137 after all) though, than a mysterious crate disgorged the long-dead body of Wonder Man which shockingly shambled to its feet and accused the stunned android Vision of stealing his mind…

Long ago Simon Williams had been turned into a human powerhouse by arch-villain Baron Zemo and used as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the team, but eventually gave his life to redeem himself. After he was buried his brain patterns were used to provide an operating system for The Vision, inadvertently creating a unique human personality for the cold thing of plastic wires and metal…

In #152 ‘Nightmare in New Orleans!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear as the team began a search for the fallen Wonder Man’s grave robber/re-animator, in a tale by Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott which soon found the team facing voodoo lord Black Talon in New Orleans…

‘Home is the Hero!’ reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank (AKA super fast superhero The Whizzer). In a tragic tale of desperation the aged speedster sought the heroes’ help before he was seemingly possessed and attacked the team.

Avengers Annual #6 answered all the mysteries and wrapped up the storyline with ‘No Final Victory’ (illustrated by Pérez, Esposito, Tartaglione & Vohland), as a conspiracy involving the Serpent-helmed Living Laser, Whizzer’s government-abducted son mutant son Nuklo and rogue US Army General Pollock almost succeeded in conquering California if not America – until the resurgent Avengers laid down the law…

Also included in the annual – and here – was ‘Night Vision’ by Scott Edelman & Herb Trimpe: a stirring solo story of the Android Avenger battling super swift psychopath Whirlwind.

In Avengers #154 ‘When Strikes Attuma?’ Conway, Pérez & Pablo Marcos began a blockbuster battle bonanza which was in part a crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up (this series followed the uneasy coalition of Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner). The initial chapter found the Vision captured by subsea barbarian Attuma even as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were ambushed and defeated by the warlord’s augmented Atlantean thrall Tyrak the Treacherous.

The scheme was simple enough: use the enslaved surface champions as cannon fodder in an assault against Namor…

At this time US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had recently signed a non-aggression pact with the Dictator of Latveria with Doom subsequently blackmailing the Sub-Mariner into serving as his unwilling ally. One American vigilante observed no such legal or diplomatic niceties. The Shroud thought he had freed the Atlantean from his vow by “killing” Doom but the villain had survived the assault: rescued and secretly imprisoned by Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namorita and girlfriend Tamara under the misguided apprehension that they could force the Metal-shod Monarch into helping Atlantis and their lost Prince.

SVT-U #9 carried on the epic encounter with the heroes now ‘Pawns of Attuma’ (scripted by Bill Mantlo, drawn by Jim Shooter & Sal Trapani) as the Avengers were unleashed upon the Atlanteans, only to discover Doom now in charge and easily able to thwart their half-hearted assault.

In Avengers #155 the beaten heroes were helpless, leaving only confused, despondent and battle-crazed Namor ‘To Stand Alone!’ (Conway Perez & Marcos), joined by lone stragglers the Beast, Whizzer and Wonder Man to hunt down the triumphant barbarian sea lord.

The epic conclusion came in ‘The Private War of Doctor Doom!’ (Avengers#156, by Shooter, with art from Sal Buscema & Marcos) wherein the liberated and furious heroes joined forces to crush Attuma whilst simultaneously preventing Doom from turning the situation to his own world-conquering advantage…

In #157 ‘A Ghost of Stone!’ (Conway, Heck & Marcos) addressed a long-unresolved mystery of the Black Knight – his body had been petrified whilst his soul was trapped in the 12th century – as a strange force reanimated the statue and set it upon the weary heroes, after which ‘When Avengers Clash!!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) saw the revived and now fully-recovered Wonder Man clash with an impossibly jealous Vision over the Scarlet Witch.

That Wanda loved the android Avenger was seemingly forgotten as his “borrowed” brain patterns fixated on the logical assumption that eventually his flesh-and-blood wife would gravitate to a normal man with his personality rather than stay married to a mere mobile mechanism…

Domestic tantrums were quickly laid aside when the entire team – plus late arrivals Black Panther and Thor) battled research scientist Frank Hall following an accident which gave him complete control over the forces of gravity…

Apparently unstoppable, Graviton almost destroyed New York in #159 as ‘Siege by Stealth and Storm!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) resulted in a savage clash and the unbeatable villain defeating himself…

Avengers #160 featured Eric Williams, the deranged Grim Reaper. With portentous hints of a hidden backer and his dead brother seemingly returned, he conducted ‘…The Trial!’ (Shooter, Pérez & Marcos) to see whether Wonder Man or the Vision was the “true” Simon Williams… but didn’t like the answer he got…

The next issue extended the sub-plot as ‘Beware the Ant-Man’ found the team attacked by a frenzied Henry Pym, whose mind had regressed to mere days after the Avengers first formed. The crazed hero had allied with the homicidal robot he no longer remembered creating and was unwittingly helping it build ‘The Bride of Ultron!’ (#162), pitifully oblivious that for the almost completed Jocasta to live his own wife Janet had to die…

At the close the Avengers believed they had finally destroyed the murderous mechanoid, but they were wrong…

This classic collection of costumed clashes closes with Shooter, George Tuska & Marcos’ stand-alone tale ‘The Demi-God Must Die!’ wherein mythological maniac Typhon returns to capture the team. Despite forcing Iron Man to attack Hercules (to save his hostage Avenging comrades), and even after lots of spectacular smashing, the scheme naturally fails and the World’s Mightiest are triumphant again…

This type of heroic adventure might not be to every reader’s taste but these – and the truly epic yarns that followed – set the tone for fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the so slick and cool 21st century…

No lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book and fans who think themselves above superhero stories might also be pleasantly surprised…
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Uncanny Avengers volume 3: The Apocalypse Twins


By Rick Remender, Gerard Gorman Duggan, Daniel Acuña & Adam Kubert (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-564-2

In the aftermath of the Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! repositioned and recast the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android hero The Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape Reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her beloved sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As years passed her loss slowly drove Wanda mad, and when she finally slipped completely over the edge the resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avengers team-mates. The effects of her actions subsequently reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in climactic reboot Avengers Disassembled.

The team had barely recovered from that catastrophe before she overwrote Reality again, altering recent Earth history such that mutants ruled over a society where humans or “sapiens” were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every champion on Earth and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (another colossal crossover – House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her quest for redemption during the aforementioned Avengers versus X-Men with the World’s Mightiest Heroes striving against the remaining mutants for control of Hope Summers: a girl born to be mortal host to the implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them by manifesting their dream of making Earth a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before, inevitably, the selfish appetites of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the aspiration of peaceful mutant/human co-existence returned, only to be killed by his most devoted disciple…

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers but, in the days following the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and liberated mankind again fell into its old habits: intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outrages…

When undying über-Nazi the Red Skull stole Xavier’s brain and appropriated the deceased mutant’s awesome telepathic abilities, his terrorist outrages were halted by a new team of Avengers: one formed by Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the rising tide of inter-species hostility…

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-hatred, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by continuing Xavier’s utopian vision. To that end he convened the high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising human and mutant heroes working together.

The quintessential Avenger chose former government agent Havok (Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers) to lead the team, which consisted of himself, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wolverine, Sunfire,and the squad’s bloody baptism of fire saw them stop the Skull’s freakish army of bio-engineered S-Men and seemingly prove the promise of the premise.

However at a very public press conference inducting two new members – Wonder Man and the Wasp – they were attacked by ancient enemy Grim Reaper. The clash ended when mutant Rogue slaughtered the psychopath in full view of the horrified watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wasted…

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #6-11 (cover-dated June to October 2013), and the spin-off Uncanny Avenger AU #8 (July), this astounding celebration of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction kicks everything into time-busting cosmic overdrive as the harried heroes fall prey to the bewildering machinations of arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his most potent pawns The Apocalypse Twins…

It all begins in Scandinavia in 1013AD where/when a young, cocky and rebellious Thor is attacked by En Sabah Nur, immortal mutant Apocalypse and agent of the all-powerful Space Gods dubbed Celestials. The grotesque creature believes he is safeguarding the future by promoting the triumph of only the very strongest mutants, but all the petulant Thunderer knows is that he has been shamed and thrashed by a freak with an unfair advantage – star-forged armour…

Apocalypse is guided in his seemingly random attacks by former enemy Pharaoh Rama-Tut who advocates pre-emptive attacks on certain beings: those whose descendents would one day unite to resist the mutant advocate of Survival of the Fittest: the ancestors of a group called Avengers…

In Asgard Thor learns that his father Odin is subject a non-aggression pact with the Celestials but is too headstrong and angry to put aside his grievance. When sternly told to drop the matter, the furious godling finds suspiciously handy help from his malevolent half-brother Loki who shows him a spell which can enchant Thor’s battle-axe JarnBjorn into a weapon capable of rending even Celestial armour…

Delighted with his new unstoppable blade, Thor goes looking for a rematch and does not see that a stranger has been masquerading as his brother…

The Storm Lord arrives in primitive London just as Apocalypse attacks the next name on Rama-Tut’s list; a warrior named Folkbern Logan…

The Pagan soldier has been attacked by Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen and Thor is the answer to his prayers, wielding JarnBjorn with devastating effect. Saving Logan, destroying the servants and grievously wounding Apocalypse he returns to Asgard only to be severely admonished by Odin, even as elsewhen Apocalypse realises he has been played for a fool by Rama-Tut. The real winner is Kang who quietly takes his intended prize – a weapon even Space Gods cannot endure…

In our present, Apocalypse has been recently killed and many deadly creatures vie for the dubious honour of assuming his mantle and role as mutant messiah/exterminator of humanity. Thus on solar-orbiting Starcore Station his appalling son Genocide petitions the Celestials to accept him as their new agent…

The Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos, their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. However when the enigmatic Apocalypse Twins materialise, they exercise their claim as true heirs by using JarnBjorn to achieve the impossible: executing the omnipotent Celestial Gardener and thereby endangering the very fabric of existence…

On Earth Havok has just successfully defended Rogue from murder charges at a S.H.I.E.L.D. hearing and attempts to keep her busy and out of sight by sending her after Magneto when news arrives that Earth’s alien early warning satellite The Peak is under attack.

Wanda meanwhile is trying to talk with WonderMan. Their relationship has been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him and the traumatised energy being is undergoing a few confusing life-changes. For one thing he’s now become a pacifist. He will help the team in every way possible… except by fighting…

Despite all efforts the Avengers are unable to save The Peak from the Twins, who use the fallen Celestial’s vehicle to send the station crashing down on Rio de Janeiro. Although Thor and Sunfire are able to save the city from obliteration the rest of the team are more concerned with a secret they have just uncovered: Wolverine’s hidden role in the death of the Twin’s birth-father – the former X-Man Warren Worthington, AKA Archangel…

Whilst all this is occurring Captain America is fighting for his life in war-torn South Sudan and manoeuvred into uncovering a message from a mysterious ally purporting to know what is actually going on.

The Twins are also aware of layers of deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation Eimin and Uriel are beginning to suspect their patron’s motives and each other’s dedication. These qualms do not prevent them from detonating an atomic blast just as the rest of the Avengers arrive to supplement Thor and Sunfire…

The Marvel Universe is a busy place and whilst this saga was unfolding another major event was simultaneously unfolding in the pages of Age of Ultron. There, a time-warping event created an alternate Earth where the malign mechanoid took over the world from a point in Earth’s future. The epic spawned a plethora of “extra” issues – such as Uncanny Avengers #8AU – wherein the characters from the alternate timeline spawned by the temporal tribulations offered decidedly different tales of our most famed champions.

In this chronal digression – written by Gerard Gorman Duggan and illustrated by Adam Kubert – we glimpse the formative years of the Apocalypse Twins as Kang temporarily frees his twisted children from his private concentration camp in 4145AD. The Lord of Time had been raising them in such harsh conditions to temper them for future roles, but now seeks to test his charges with a first mission of assassination.

The target is veteran Red, White and Blue Sentinel of Justice Colonel America but the operation does not go according to plan…

Returning with #9 to the regularly scheduled tale Ragnarok Now! displays the deepening rift in the Unity team as the resurgent adult Apocalypse Twins continue their campaign for mutant ascendancy by constituting their own squad of Horsemen to winnow humanity and its heroes. These heralds of Mutant Rapture and human disaster are not the bio-engineered creatures their true father preferred however.

The children of En Sabah Nur instead opt for a quartet of dead horrors to pave their way to triumph…

In Sudan meanwhile, Captain America digests information received from the godlike Immortus – another “master of time” and purportedly Kang’s reformed future self. The decidedly untrustworthy savant has entrusted the Star Spangled Avenger with the actual nature of reality and revealed why the Twins must be stopped as well as the ghastly consequences should they win the ongoing war to control all times, spaces and realities…

When Cap then learns of Wolverine’s murderous past actions the team splits over philosophy and pragmatism. Havok is hard-pressed to keep the heroes united before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper: all deadly killers with deep emotional ties to the heroes and all of whom died at the hands of Avengers…

As the Unity squad splits up to tackle the Apocalypse agents, the calamitous clashes only mask the Twins’ secret agenda: they have seemingly seduced the reality-shredding Scarlet Witch to their cause, convincing her to use her world-warping curse to bring about their long-desired ascendancy as instigators of the Mutant Rapture…

To Be Continued…

Scripted by Rick Remender and illustrated by Daniel Acuña, this rather confused and somewhat convoluted, but exceedingly spectacular, complex and ambitious epic may be a bit daunting for casual readers but dedicated followers of mutant mayhem will no doubt adore the fantastic premise and blockbusting scope of events.

Also provoking much applause and approbation are a gallery of covers and variants by John Cassaday & Laura Martin, Milo Manara and Jim Cheung, whilst the selection of 21st century extra content in the form of AR icon sections includes trailers, character bios, creator commentaries and oodles more. The Marvel Augmented Reality App pages grant access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet. So you should do that too, right?
™ & © 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.

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Avengers: the Last White Event


By Jonathan Hickman, Dustin Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-569-7

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reset 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…

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #7-11 (cover-dated May to July 2013), this ongoing big picture series is again written by the scarily impressive Jonathan Hickman; someone with a distinct gift for mixing “mind-boggling” with “thrilling” and making it all seem easy.

This corner of the grand superhero sub-set (with others including Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers, Avengers Assemble and Avengers Underwear Secrets – sorry, that last one’s still imaginary) could be seen as the spine which conceptually links the many series and stars together.

In the previous volume an incredibly ancient trio of “Gardeners” – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – landed on Mars to begin work on their latest project: remaking Earth into something special.

To attain their ends they bombarded the third rock from the sun with bio-mutational “Origin bombs”, seeding locations with new, exotic and deadly life-forms. When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the infinitely old invaders claimed to have been tasked by the first species in creation and The Mother (of the entire universe) to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on other worlds.

For Earth their major exhibit was a new form of man: a prototype Adam to supersede humanity…

Captain America responded by gathering an expanded contingent of Avengers: the old trusted team and a new expansion squad of champions gathered from across the globe. This auxiliaries comprised Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider-Woman, master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi (now calling himself Manifold), pan-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic crusader Captain Universe and alien mystery-woman Smasher to augment the old regulars Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Although the Gardeners were thwarted, Ex Nihilo remained on Mars after the Avengers took custody of his handmade modern Prometheus. The menace bided his time, waiting whilst Tony Stark sought to decode and understand the Adam left in the Avengers’ care. When at last Earth’s greatest inventor cracked the mystery, the strange creature – now calling himself a Nightmask – promptly predicted an imminent end to everything and the advent of another extinction-level threat…

Elsewhere as the ancient aliens’ six bio-attacks radically transformed and evolved flora, fauna and geography at the strike-sites – which needed constant attention from the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. – arcane elements of the Infinite were aligning and both Nightmask and Captain Universe became instantly aware of a shattering “White Event”…

Reality is composed of discrete universes held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Now with that immemorial barrier somehow fragmenting, the timeless engineers who maintain it can only stoically observe as ‘The Last White Event’ (illustrated by Dustin Weaver, with hues from Justin Ponsor) brings destruction and a global doom device to the Avengers’ world.

As Nightmask explains – in the most obscure terminology – a White Event heralds the ascension of a universe. Usually the cosmos provides a Nightmask as herald, and creates a Justice, a Cipher, occasionally a Spitfire and – inevitably – a being of infinite power: a Starbrand. This has just happened again, but this particular universe – and the entire machinery of the multiverse – is broken…

After the artificial man pinpoints the ground-zero location of the trigger event, Iron Man leads the team to a smoking, five-mile wide crater which was once a small suburban college town. The edgy heroes discover a traumatised young man at the centre of devastation…

‘Starbranded’ (Adam Kubert & Ponsor) describes how the celestial source-code which ensures the right person receives ultimate power had failed and, rather than being suitable or even capable, bullied, needy kid Kevin Connor was the very last person who should become a living planetary defence system…

As the confrontation devolves into catastrophic combat, with Connor easily thrashing the likes of Thor and the Hulk, cosmically aware Captain Universe realises that even for such a rare occurrence as a White Event, something is fundamentally wrong with the Big Picture.

Adam/Nightmask then abruptly intervenes, arbitrarily transporting Connor to Mars where Abyss and Ex Nihilo are waiting…

‘Star Bound’ (Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & Ponsor) picks up the tale as, after another impatient fight, Starbrand learns how, after millennia of home world “improvements”, bored Ex Nihilo tweaked his eternal brief and did something a little different with the Origin Bombs he dropped on Earth…

The alien had no idea what results his meddling might achieve, but at least after billions of years it would be different…

Teleporting back to Earth with only the best of intentions, Connor and Adam land in Croatia in time to encounter the fruit of Ex Nihilo’s meddling but their good intentions produce only disaster and when the Avengers arrive the situation only escalates…

After a handy cryptography-key page for the alien ‘Builder Machine Code’ used throughout the stories, a clever change of pace sees a group of Avengers sent to Saskatchewan at the request of the Canadian government. The province was also the site of an Origin Bomb strike and the appalling changes to the area were at first investigated by the team of Canadian heroes from Omega Flight. They didn’t come back.

Now in ‘Validator’ (drawn by Deodato Jr. and colour-rendered by Frank Martin), with all contact lost Wolverine leads a team into the dark heart of the mutated environment to discover a terrifying secret …

When the mutagenic hard rain first fell nobody realised that there were in fact seven bio-bombs. In desolate Norway, the ruthless techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics were unhampered as they harvested the horrific result of that particular Origin-strike.

Thus this second globe-girdling collection closes with ‘Wake the Dragon’ (Deodato Jr. & Martin) as a team of espionage-adept Avengers – Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Sunspot, Cannonball and Shang-Chi – travel to Hong Kong to gather intel and stop the sale of whatever doomsday bioweapons AIM has crafted from their researches…

As seduction, cajolery, bribery and inevitably outrageous violence all prove insufficient to the task, only the Master of Kung Fu’s “old ways” and spiritual purity are able to divine the incredible, deadly truth behind all the layers of secrets and lies…

To Be Continued…

Utter Fights ‘n’ Tights magic that will delight fans of doom-drenched Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning covers-and-variants gallery by Dustin Weaver, Justin Ponsor, Joe Quinones & Daniel Acuña and the now mandatory extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections  all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ and © 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.

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Black Widow: the Name of the Rose


By Marjorie Lui & Daniel Acuña, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4700-8

The Black Widow started life as a svelte and sultry honey-trap Russian agent during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days. Natasha Romanoff was subsequently redesigned as a super villain, fell for an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – and finally defected; becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., freelance do-gooder and occasional leader of the Avengers.

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

Always a minor fan favourite, the Widow only really hit the big time after being in the Iron Man and Captain America movies, but for us unregenerate comics-addicts her print escapades have always offered a cool, sinister frisson of delight.

This particular caper compilation originally surfaced as the first story arc of her short-lived 2010 comicbook series, (reprinting Black Widow volume 4 #1-5, June to October), but first opens with a short tale from the Enter the Heroic Age one-shot from July of that year.

‘Coppélia’, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson, saw Natasha back in the former U.S.S.R. to retrieve a package sought by assorted intelligence agencies, international arms dealers and even more nasty, untrustworthy types. Sadly, that also perfectly describes her own bosses…

Eponymous epic ‘The Name of the Rose’ (by Marjorie Lui & Daniel Acuña) commences as gargantuan old country ally Black Rose rendezvous with his erstwhile comrade to warn her that someone has made her a target…

Despite the timely warning the sultry spy still falls to an ambush attack and regains consciousness on an operating table. There’s a hole in her stomach from where her assailant had unlocked her most shameful secret and surgeons are desperately working to save her…

In attendance are former lovers Logan AKA Wolverine, Tony (Iron Man) Stark and current boyfriend Bucky (Captain America) Barnes, as Natasha is keenly aware since she is awake and can hear them. Paralysed, she can only think back to how this all started a day earlier when she received a black rose in an envelope marked “remember Natasha”…

As she is wheeled into Recovery, Wolverine goes hunting for her assailant, but finds himself unable to take vengeance for his friend…

In hospital, the Widow rouses from a dream of her youth on the Russian Front in WWII and finds Logan guarding her. He now knows what was taken from her and is prepared to back off as the still surgically traumatised ex-agent attempts to escape from the ward which is also her prison.

In a darkened room an anonymous spook informs Hawkeye, Stark and Captain America that for as long as she’s been their “friend” Natasha has been gathering data on them – and on everybody she has ever met…

Whilst they defend her, elsewhere Pepper Potts is shot by assassin-for-hire Lady Bullseye, and as Stark rushes to her side the spymaster casually reveals that the Widow’s files describe the best way to get to the inventor is through his cherished assistant…

On the run Natasha retreats to one of her scrupulously maintained safe-houses to recuperate and re-arm. Once fully tooled up, the Black Widow goes hunting by making herself a target and is confronted by lethal renegade Elektra who’s rather annoyed at finding she’s in those exposed files too. But then, so are all the people who ever trusted the Widow…

Barely surviving the clash, Natasha is later found and nursed by Black Rose. Having deduced a piece of the puzzle she then heads to London in pursuit of the hidden mastermind who has exposed her and stolen her clandestine insurance policy.

Because that’s all it was…after all, she would never have used any of that accumulated information unless she had to, would she?

These damning ruminations are interrupted by a trio of assassins from her KGB days and the resulting battle leads to even more deaths but further revelations and recriminations…

Pursued by friend and foe alike the quest takes Natasha to Russia and a final chilling confrontation with Lady Bullseye before her beloved Bucky finally finds her…

From here on the build up to the splendidly convoluted, sharply smart conclusion is so gripping and twisty that I’d be a real meany to even consider spoiling it for you. Suffice to say all answers are forthcoming and the bad guys get what’s coming to them in a most spectacular and resoundingly gratuitous manner…

This captivating and astoundingly beautiful tome is rounded out by ‘Black Widow Saga’ – a comprehensive prose and picture recap of ‘The Early Years’, programming and conditioning secrets of ‘The Red Room’, as well as Natasha’s ‘Spy & Saboteur’ exploits, ‘The Super Hero Life’, origins of ‘The New Black Widow’ and ‘The Deadliest Days’ of her latter life.

Also included are a gallery of covers by Acuña, Travel Foreman, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Stephanie Hans & Joe Quinones, accompanied by a photographic Movie Variant and a one page Black Widow introductory strip by Fred Van Lente & McKelvie to make this such a superb example of genre-blending Costumed Drama that you’d be thoroughly suspect and probably mentioned in dispatches for neglecting it.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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By Jason Aaron & Simone Bianchi (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-543-7

In the wake of the epochal Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured as a jumping on point for new and returning readers. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the superhero universe an inviting, interesting place to visit.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, of course, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Thus in advance of the forthcoming comics event Infinity and his own movie debut, the renegade Mad Titan Thanos got his own tell-all 5-issue miniseries (running from April to August 2013) collected here as a brooding, moody and extremely gory chronicle of rejection, depravity, insanity and death.

Lots and lots of death…

Thanos first appeared in Iron Man #55, as did his nemesis Drax the Destroyer, in the prelude to an epic campaign of conquest from 1972-1974 which appeared in Captain Marvel #25-33 with side skirmishes in Marvel Feature #12 and  Avengers #125 plus a few issues of Daredevil. The alien “Masterlord” seemed obsessed with conquest and destruction; using an army of space pirates, a coterie of super-villains and the wish-fulfilling Cosmic Cube to attain his ends.

In the end Thanos transformed himself into God and was revealed to be in love with the personification of Death herself. Only a cosmic entity who had awaited his emergence for eight billion years eventually turned the tide of terror.

This tale was a key event in Marvel history, innovative and still deeply thrilling on a raw, visceral instinctual level. Thanos, the death-obsessed master-villain, was a critical and commercial success in all his appearances: battles with Captain Marvel, the Avengers, the Thing and Spider-Man, whilst his destruction at the hands of the agent of Universal Life Adam Warlock was an absolute highpoint in superhero storytelling.

Thanos died but was of course brought back from The Great Beyond to resume redressing the imbalance between the Living and the Dead to please his mistress. He also worked hard fulfilling equally dark and deranged agendas of his own – such as waging an all-out war for hands-on control Reality and becoming the Supreme Being…

Scripted by Jason Aaron and beautifully illustrated by Simone Bianchi, this fearsome glance into the formative years of the Scourge of Life begins amidst the shattered ruins of Titan where Thanos regularly returns to cogitate amongst the fragments of his earliest atrocities.

The moon of Saturn had been home to an offshoot race of Eternals for millennia when the boy was born to saviour, supreme scientist and leader A’Lars and his wife Sui-San. The babe was born disfigured, a mutant amongst a population of perfect people. However it was the chilling look in the child’s eyes and not his deformities which prompted the exhausted mother to try and kill him the moment she first held him…

With Sui-San under permanent medical restraint, the freak grew up lonely but not outcast – although something in him made all the other kids uncomfortable. Eager to please and fit in, young Thanos exhibited great scientific aptitude but only ever really had one friend, a girl who constantly challenged him to greater and more incisive enquires – especially biology…

To tell more would ruin some delightfully dark passages and spoil an extremely engaging reconstruction of the Cosmic Destroyer as he transitions from comicbook mad dictator into that most popular of modern monsters, the serial psycho-killer.

Suffice to say that the saga of how Thanos leaves home, destroys home, becomes a pirate and sires an army of children before at last discovering his true vocation and destiny is a most intriguing and plausible journey: one that will impress contemporary readers and most die-hard fans alike.

Also included are pages of extra content for tech-minded consumers via the AR icon option (a printed portal providing code for free digital copy on Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app which includes trailers, character bios, video commentaries and more) as well as a good-old-fashioned cover-and-variants gallery by Bianchi, Marko Djurdjevic, Carlo Barberi, Mark Brooks, Skottie Young, Ed McGuiness & Mike Deodato Jr.

™ & © 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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


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

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

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

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and subsequently merged it with remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic.

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

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

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

Written throughout by Paul Tobin, the fast-paced fun begins with ‘The Big Payoff’ illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Christian Vecchia, wherein the team gets a most unpleasant visit from Special Agent Clark Harvey of the Internal Revenue Service.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smart and fun on a number of levels, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and many solid laughs, this book really offers a fabulous alternative to the regular Marvel Universe angst and agony.

Even with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” the stories are superbly thrilling and beautifully depicted: a perfect introduction for kids and adults alike to the vast realm of adventure we all love…

In 2012 the Marvel Adventures line was superseded by specific comicbook titles tied to Disney XD TV shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born often two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Age of Ultron


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Waid, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-542-0

Blockbuster crossovers are an intrinsic part of the comics business these days and before us doddery older fans can even catch our collective breath here’s the next big change (actually the second phase of the MarvelNOW! root and branch reboot), with attention focused on the Avengers as the launch of the next movie looms before us.

From March to June 2013 a massive, time-bending Armageddon extravaganza revealed the ultimate triumph of Ultron – the insidious and genocidal artificial intelligence originally invented by troubled tinkerer Henry Pym (AKA Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, The Wasp, et al), and the stupefying saga was augmented by more than a dozen sidebar stories occurring in Fantastic Four, Superior Spider-Man, Ultron #1AU, Wolverine and the X-Men, Avengers Assemble Uncanny Avengers and Fearless Defenders…

This impressively bombastic, streamlined and rocket-paced epic collects the core 10-part miniseries Age of Ultron and also includes as thematic epilogue Age of Ultron #10AI, with the drama beginning on a recently devastated Earth with human scum bartering lives and dignity amidst the ruins.

Hawkeye is on a solo mission to rescue a fellow superhero captured by barbaric, debased survivors of some apocalyptic attack which overnight blasted civilisation back to the Stone Age.

After freeing the barely-living Spider-Man from the dregs, the archer learns that the wall-crawler had been intended for trade with the new rulers of the world – legions of soulless, silently hovering, ever-vigilant Ultron Sentinels…

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, chapters #1-5 are illustrated by Bryan Hitch and Pauls Neary and Mounts and detail how the last Avengers and other metahumans – Captain America, Iron Man, Emma Frost, She-Hulk, Luke Cage, Storm, Invisible Woman & Wolverine amongst others – link up with similar pockets of superhuman resistance, such as Moon Knight and the Black Widow in San Francisco and Black Panther, Taskmaster and Red Hulk in Chicago, to discover just how Ultron achieved his shocking ultimate victory…

By sacrificing two comrades the assemblage determine that the attack came from the future via a contemporary proxy and, thanks to the intercession of a long-forgotten ally, the bulk of the team head off into tomorrow via Dr. Doom‘s time machine to crush the malign machine-monster forever.

Wolverine however has another idea, and despite being overruled by the majority and followed by Invisible Woman, travels into the recent past to assassinate Pym before he built the Artificial Oedipal Atrocity…

Issues #6-9 (with art from Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco & Roger Martinez) reveals the horrific implications of Wolverine’s time-busting red-handed revisionism when he and Sue Richards return to find a world in even more horrifying condition.

With Pym gone the Skrull-Kree war engulfed Earth and in the savage aftermath 6th century sorceress Morgana Le Fey and Dr. Doom united to decimate the survivors…

After seeing what the time-shift had done to old friends such as Tony Stark, Charles Xavier, Cyclops, The Thing, Doctor Strange, Star-Lord, The Hulk and even himself, Wolverine knows he has to back and undo Pym’s fate…

And in a furious future the Avengers Task force is losing the battle against Ultron’s perfect, mechanised human-free society…

It all comes together in the shock and surprise-stuffed tenth chapter (illustrated by Alex Maleev, Hitch, Butch Guice, Peterson, Pacheco, Roger Bonet, Tom Palmer, David Marquez & Joe Quesada) as the much-travelled mutant meets a most unexpected obstacle and Pym himself devises the solution to save humanity and the much-abused time-line.

It’s almost enough: however the chronal catastrophes have had a disastrous “Butterfly Effect” on the fabric of reality and beings from beyond the multiverse (and indeed originally from another publishing company) are drawn into events yet to unfold in the months to come…

The collection concludes with a charming and clever epilogue issue reviewing and revising the origin of Hank Pym – Man of Many Names and Sizes – in ‘It Was Not a Wonderful Life’ (written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Andre Lima Araújo & Frank D’Armata), adroitly setting the scene for forthcoming series Avengers A.I.

With covers by Hitch, Neary & Mounts, Peterson, Sara Pichelli & Marte Gracia plus 30 variants by J. Scott Campbell, Mike Deodato Jr., Rock-He Kim, Marko Djurdjevic, Ed McGuiness, Skottie Young, Jung-Geun Yoan, In-Hyuk Lee, Adi Granov, Pacheco, Francis Leinil Francis Yu, Peterson, Jorge Molina, Joe Quesada, Mark Brooks, Salvador Larroca & Paola Rivera, this a spectacularly visual treat for fans of the time-buster genre which also reinforces Marvel’s game plan to make the stories more accessible to casual readers and non-comicbook fans.

Naturally the book also includes the now-standard added extras provided by many AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which are your gateway to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 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.

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Young Avengers: Style > Substance


By Keiron Gillen, Jaime McKelvie & Matthew Wilson with Mike Norton (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-560-4

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the universe in the ongoing, never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones – a problem increasingly affecting all publishers of print periodicals, not just comicbooks…

For the House of Ideas this meant a drastic reshuffle and rethink of key characters, concepts and brands and, since movie media darlings the Avengers are the most public of the company’s current super-successes, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” understandably got the most impressive – and accessible – refit. Happily it also meant a fresh lease of life for some favourites who had been lost in the titanic turbulence of periodical publishing…

Collecting material from the anthological MarvelNOW! Point One and the first five issues of Young Avengers volume 2 (from January to May 2013), this enticingly quirky reconfiguration combines original team members Wiccan, Hulkling and Kate Bishop – AKA Hawkeye – with notional newcomers Noh-Varr (don’t call him Marvel Boy!), Miss America and a reincarnated child who used to be Loki, Asgardian god of Evil.

Following scripter Kieron Gillen’s explanatory and motivational Foreword, a prologue on another Earth introduces suave, smarmy and charming Kid Loki who tries to induce former associate America Chavez to travel to Earth-616 and kill retired Young Avenger Billy (Wiccan) Kaplan.

After Miss America gives the devious little toe-rag the sound super-thrashing he deserves and delivers a stern warning that she will be watching him, the boy-god simply moves to Plan B and advertises ‘Wanted: Young Avengers’…

Illustrated throughout by Jaime McKelvie – assisted by Mike Norton and colourist Matthew Wilson – the series proper opens on “Earth-Earth” (that’s 616, right?) with ‘Style > Substance’ as new young lovers Kate Bishop and trans-dimensional Kree warrior Noh-Varr bask in a rosy glow in his luxurious spaceship, whilst in New York Billy Kaplan realise his boyfriend has been cheating on him.

Not sex though: teenaged shape-shifting Skrull Teddy Altman has been secretly sneaking around fighting crime, even after the lovers both swore to never be superheroes again…

After all they have a good life now: Billy’s so-cool parents even let them share a bed in the family home.

After a painful heart-to-heart talk, Wiccan decides to use his incredible reality-warping powers to do something nice for his lonely, orphaned alien boyfriend and probes the infinite multiverse to find Teddy’s beloved, deceased foster-mother – or at least the closest thing to her… and inadvertently triggers the end of creation.

Close by, Miss America is still watching Loki, but soon realises that maybe this time the Trickster might have been on the up and up…

Billy and Teddy are still oblivious to the threat in ‘DYS’ as “Mrs. Altman” settles into her new existence. She is in fact a cosmic parasite: appropriating and controlling living parents and even capable of resurrecting utterly compliant dead mums and dads…

The awful truth emerges when “she” lays down new ground rules for the boys and Wiccan is unable to send the protoplasmic horror back…

Frantically fleeing they head for Avengers Mansion only to find “Mother” already there, proving to the awesome assemblage that she truly does know best before sending the boys to their room in an antiseptic dungeon dimension.

With the maternal atrocity loose, Kid Loki has moved on with Plan B. After rescuing Hulkling and Wiccan he attempts to recruit them, but the distrustful pair instead subdue him and drag the Trickster to Asgardia (currently located in Broxton, Oklahoma) where adult Norse Gods can hopefully take control of the situation.

Sadly Mother is everywhere now and the teens are ignored by the Asgardians but not the resurrected giant Laufey – Loki’s cannibalistic and extremely angry biological father…

Mercifully ever vigilant, Miss America hurtles to the rescue in ‘Parent Teacher Disorganization’ only to have her own dead and cosmically scattered matrons both appear to admonish and belittle her. In a blink Loki teleports the kids back to New York for a brief period of catching-up and temporary truces, whilst Wiccan tries to contact the only really competent teenager he knows.

Kate however is unavailable and merely sends him odd text messages…

Loki has a potential solution but nobody likes it. All he needs to do is “borrow” Wiccan’s ability to Control And Reshape All Reality for ten minutes…

Before he can convince them, the assorted enslaved and reconstituted super-parents appear with Mother and overwhelm the rebellious kids just as Hawkeye and Noh-Varr show up in ‘Deus Ex Machine Gunner’, spectacularly busting everybody loose as an army of enraptured adults and reborn zombie parents converge on the kids. Retrenching, the troubled teens prepare to make their last stand in Central Park…

With the end in sight Wiccan agrees to Loki’s terms and transfers his power in ‘The Art of Saving the World’. To the astonishment of all concerned it works and Loki honours his end of the deal.

Not as anybody expected, however, and in the aftermath the weary teens find themselves bound together in an inescapable manner and forced to leave behind everything they knew and begin a life of nomadic wandering…

As yet this corner of the World’s Mightiest superhero sub-set (the others being plain old Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers and Avengers Assemble) are all alone on the fringes but I’m sure there will be crossover madness ahead …

Fun, frantic and ferociously thrilling superhero magic that will delight every fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy, this book includes a stupendous, sublime and expansive covers-and-variants gallery: eleven superbly playful images by McKelvie & Wilson, Bryan Lee O’Malley & Nathan Fairbairn, Skottie Young, David LaFeunte, Jim Cheung, Stephanie Hans & Tradd Moore,

There are also selections of extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of the now-standard added extras provided by 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.
™ & © 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.