Avengers – Page 20 – Now Read This!

September 9, 2014September 8, 2014

Loki Agent of Asgard: Trust Me

By Al Ewing, Lee Garbett & Nolan Woodard (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-600-7

One of Marvel’s richest seams of pure imagination, the Nine Realms impacted by the mighty races of Asgard and its satellites have always offered stirring, expansive tales of a non-traditional nature to comicbook readers.

As iconic a character as his adoptive sibling Thor, God of Evil Loki has worked his vile, self-serving machinations for millennia and was rightly deemed one of the most diabolical villains in creation.

Things are different now.

What you need to know: after millennia of doctrinaire double-dealing and abusive micro-management All-Father Odin is gone, and the governance of his puissant kingdom, having been briefly misruled by his sons Thor and Balder, has been left to his wife Freyja and sister goddesses Idunn and Gaea who act in concert as a co-operative â€œAll-Motherâ€.

The city they rule from now resides on Earth a few paltry feet above the ground of Broxton, Oklahoma and has been renamed Asgardiaâ€¦

Moreover the eternally capricious and malign Loki has undergone some shocking changes too. Resurrected from death and hell by his eternally optimistic half-brother Thor, the trickster has recently endured life as a woman and been reborn again as an (ostensibly) innocent boy-child whilst his long-suffering and constantly betrayed family attempt one final gambit to reform the villain and raise a true and decent scion of Asgard.

Collecting Loki Agent of Asgard issues #1-5, published between April and August 2014 and captivatingly concocted by scripter Al Ewing, illustrator Lee Garbett and colour artist Nolan Woodard, this initial compilation traces the latest career path of the apparently reformed great trickster.

Now, after mooching around being generally benevolent and non-threatening as one of the Young Avengers, the former menace is approaching physical maturity and discovers that the All-Mother of Asgardia have a use for a smart young man who is still at heart the wily, devious God of Mischief – nor will they take nay for an answerâ€¦

Asgardians all understand the overwhelming, inescapable force and power generated by Stories, and the triumvirate have an intriguing proposition for Loki. In ‘Trust Me’, as payment for his performing certain tasks as a one-man Asgardian Secret Service, they will delete select portions of his appalling life history from every record in the Nine Realms, one insidious exploit per mission.

It’s a most tempting deal. For as long as that fearsome history remains it will always pull at him, dragging him back to what he once was, so the reincarnated godling is keen to diminish the temptations of his past, escape the heavy chains of reputation and prophecy and be his own man at lastâ€¦

With the promise of becoming less potentially evil through each successive task, Loki sets out on his first case. Over the years there has been a slow, steady bleed of gods and artefacts from Asgard to the lesser realms and now the All-Mother wants those things back where they belong.

Thus the callow trickster invades Avengers Tower and battles Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, messing with their extensive database on him whilst extracting a horrific Asgardian monster secretly possessing noble Thor.

However, as always with the Trickster, things are not quite what they seemâ€¦

In ‘Loki and Lorelei, Sitting in a Tree’ he is despatched to retrieve the seductively wanton sorceress who has been preying on humans, gods and monsters for years and, during an unlikely night of Speed Dating, makes the charming acquaintance of Verity Willis, a mortal with the unfortunate gift of being able to see through any lie, subterfuge of illusionâ€¦

Lorelei’s trail leads to Monte Carlo and a monumental heist – which the Asgardian agent takes for his own – but he subsequently lets the witch go. The mischief-maker has a plan brewing and is putting together select crew. He might be working for the authorities now and trying to modify his behaviour, but he is still Lokiâ€¦

Nobody is playing a straight game. In ‘Your Life is a Story I’ve Already Written’ the shocking identity of the vile spirit that possessed Thor is revealed. Despite being a prisoner of the All-Mother, the most wicked creature in the Nine Realms reveals thus how in ages past he deviously implicated the boy Odin in senseless murder and orchestrated the conditions whereby proto-god Sigurd the Ever-Glorious came to possess the unrelenting, unstoppable, truth-rending sword Gram.

As a result of many Machiavellian machinations, young Odin became Lord of all the Realms years before his time, Gram was safely locked away until Loki could claim it and Asgard grew to be mighty and all-conqueringâ€¦ but now the devil in his dungeon waits for the final pieces in his astoundingly long game to fall into placeâ€¦

The saga returns to the present where ‘Lets You & Him Fight’ finds the long absent Sigurd attempting to reclaim the irresistible Gram from young Loki but subsequently press-ganged into the trickster’s secret service.

These diversions are also starting to gain the unwelcome attention of the All-Mother who have also tasked their Earthly Agent with bringing back in the millennially truant Sigurd.

To expedite matters they have cited the ferocious Exdesir as back-up, but a bunch of short-tempered Valkyries is the last thing Loki needs watching him at this fragile juncture.

â€¦And that’s before arch tempter Mephisto involves himself in the scheme, seeking to gull a few unwary gods into signing infernal contracts of damnation by flaunting hidden truths like jewelsâ€¦

All the crafty conniving results in a cosmic confrontation in Asgardia with ‘This Mission Will Self-Destruct in Five Seconds’ as Loki’s crew breach the mythical city-state in search of answers to the All-Mother’s increasingly off-kilter behaviour and the truth about the creature not so safely locked in the citadel’s deepest dungeonâ€¦

Sly, cool and witty, exceedingly engaging, fast and funny – like all the very best caper stories – this canny, time-bending chronicle succeeds in deftly delineating the reborn Loki as a sharp operator doing good deeds whilst never actually proving whether he’s really reformed or is still a subtle and beguiling Master of Evilâ€¦

This delicious Costumed Drama also offers digitally-diverting extra content for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop as well as a glorious covers-and-variants gallery by Jenny Frison, Frank Cho, Mike Del Mundo & Olivier Coipel.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

August 23, 2014August 22, 2014

Essential Avengers volume 8

By Jim Shooter, George PÃ©rez, David Michelinie, Tom DeFalco, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6322-0

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

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

This electric eighth black and white compilation collects Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ extraordinary exploits from issues #164-184 of the monthly comicbook (spanning October 1977-June 1979), the contents of Avengers Annuals #7 and 8 plus the concluding half of an acclaimed crossover epic from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2.

During this period Jim Shooter, having galvanised and steadied the company’s notional flagship, moved on, leaving David Michelinie to impress his own ideas and personality upon the team, even as Cosmic Doomsmith Jim Starlin recruited the team to inscribe an epic ending to his seminal interpretation of tragic antihero Adam Warlockâ€¦

Opening this titanic tome is a stunning 3-part saga by Shooter, John Byrne & Pablo Marcos which reinvented one of the team’s oldest adversaries.

It began in #164 wherein, after months of speculation and experimentation, the resurrected Wonder Man was finally discovered to have evolved into a creature of pure ionic energy. Elsewhere, aging Maggia Don Count Nefaria had recruited Whirlwind, Power Man (the original mercenary who had undergone the same transformative experiment as Wonder Man) and Living Laser to amass plunder for him, but the tactic was mere subterfuge.

After the thieves trashed a squad of Avengers, Nefaria used his flunkies’ bodies as template and power source to turn himself into a literal Superman and attack the already battered heroes in ‘To Fall by Treachery!’

The tension built in #165 as ‘Hammer of Vengeance’ saw the lethally out-powered team fall, only to be saved by elderly speedster The Whizzer who pointed out that, for all his incredible strength, Nefaria too was an old man with death inevitably dogging his heels.

Panicked and galvanised, the Overman went berserk, carving a swathe of destruction through the city whilst seeking a confrontation with Thunder God Thor and the secret of his immortality.

Before too long he had reason to regret his demandsâ€¦

The surprise arrival of the Thunderer in ‘Day of the Godslayer!’ ended the madman’s dreams but also highlighted growing tensions within the victorious teamâ€¦

This superb thriller is followed by‘The Final Threat’ (Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, which saw Captain Marvel and Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of an impending cosmic catastrophe.

Their premonitions were confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrived with news that death-obsessed Thanos had amassed an alien armada and built a soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candlesâ€¦

Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestalled the stellar invasion and prevented the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun – but only at the cost of Warlock’s lifeâ€¦

Then ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2) saw Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares, which disclosed how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now held the Avengers captive whilst he again prepared to extinguish Sol.

With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man headed for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, unaware that The Thing also had a history with the terrifying Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans enough so that the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution were able to end the Titan’s threat foreverâ€¦ or at least until next timeâ€¦

Back in the monthly an epic of equal import was about to unfold. Shooter’s connection to the series, although episodic, was long-lived and produced some of that period’s greatest tales, none more so than the stellar – if deadline-plagued – saga which unravelled over the succeeding months: a sprawling tale of time-travel and universal conquest which began in Avengers #167-168 and, after a brief pause, resumed for #170 through 177.

In previous issues a difference of opinion between Captain America and Iron Man over leadership styles had begun to polarise the team and tensions started to show in #167 with ‘Tomorrow Dies Today!’ by Shooter, George PÃ©rez & Marcos.

In the Gods-&-Monsters filled Marvel Universe there are entrenched and jealous Hierarchies of Power, so when a new player mysteriously materialises in the 20^th Century the very Fabric of Reality is threatenedâ€¦

It all kicked off when star-spanning 31^st century superheroes Guardians of the Galaxy materialised in Earth orbit, hotly pursuing a cyborg despot named Korvac.

Inadvertently setting off planetary incursion alarms, their minor-moon sized ship was swiftly penetrated by an Avengers squad, where, after the customary introductory squabble, the future men – Charlie-27, Yondu, Martinex, Nikki, Vance Astro and enigmatic space God Starhawk – explained the purpose of their missionâ€¦

Captain America had fought beside them to liberate their home era from Badoon rule and Thor had faced the fugitive Korvac before so peace soon broke out, but even with the resources of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes the time travellers were unable to find their quarryâ€¦

Meanwhile on Earth a new and mysterious being named Michael is lurking in the background. At a fashion show staged by the Wasp he achieves a psychic communion with model Carina Walters and they both vanishâ€¦

Avengers #168 reveals ‘First Blood’ and stirs up more trouble as Federal liaison and hidebound martinet Henry Peter Gyrich begins making like bureaucratically hot for the maverick team. In Colorado meanwhile Hawkeye gets a shock as his travelling partner Two-Gun Kid vanishes before his eyes whilst in suburban Forest Hills Starhawk – in his female iteration of Aleta – approaches a quiet residenceâ€¦

Michael/Korvac’s plan consists of subtly altering events as he gathers strength in secret preparation for a sneak attack on those aforementioned Cosmic Hierarchies. His entire plan revolves around not being noticed. When Starhawk confronts him the villain kills the intruder and instantly resurrects him without the ability to perceive Michael or any of his worksâ€¦

The drama screeches to a halt in #169, which declared ‘If We Should Failâ€¦ The World Dies Tonight!’ The out of context potboiler – by Marv Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Dave Hunt – saw Cap, Iron Man and Black Panther travel the planet in search of doomsday bombs wired to the failing heart of a dying man before the major mayhem resumed in #170 with ‘â€¦Though Hell Should Bar the Way!’ by Shooter, PÃ©rez & Marcos.

As Sentinel of Liberty and Golden Avenger finally settle their differences, in Inhuman city Attilan ex-Avenger Quicksilver suddenly disappears even as dormant mechanoid Jocasta (designed by maniac AI Ultron to be his bride) goes on a rampage and escapes into New York City.

In stealthy pursuit and hoping her trail will lead to Ultron himself, the team stride into a trap ‘â€¦Where Angels Fear to Tread’ but nevertheless triumph thanks to the hex powers of the Scarlet Witch, the assistance of pushy, no-nonsense new hero Ms. Marvel and Jocasta’s own rebellion against the metal monster who made her.

However at their moment of triumph the Avengers are stunned to see Cap and Jocasta wink out of existenceâ€¦

The problems pile up in #172 as Watchdog-come-Gadfly Gyrich is roughly manhandled and captured by out-of-the-loop returnee Hawkeye and responds by rescinding the team’s Federal clearances.

Thus handicapped the heroes are unable to warn other inactive members of the increasing disappearances as a squad of heavy hitters rushes off to tackle marauding Atlantean maverick Tyrak the Treacherous who is bloodily enacting a ‘Holocaust in New York Harbor!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson)â€¦

Answers to the growing mystery are finally forthcoming in ‘Threshold of Oblivion!’, plotted by Shooter, with David Michelinie scripting for Sal Buscema & D(iverse) Hands to illustrate.

As the vanishings escalate the remaining Avengers (Thor, Wasp, Hawkeye and Iron Man), with the assistance of Vance Astro, finally track down their hidden foe and beam into a cloaked starship to liberate the ‘Captives of the Collector!’ (Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Dave Wenzel & Marcos)â€¦

After a staggering struggle the heroes triumph and their old foe reveals the shocking truth: he is in fact an Elder of the Universe who foresaw cosmic doom millennia ago and sought to preserve special artefacts and creatures – such as the Avengers – from the slowly approaching apocalypse.

As he reveals that predicted end-time is here and that he has sent his own daughter Carina to infiltrate the Enemy’s stronghold, the cosmic Noah is obliterated in a devastating blast of energy. The damage however is done and the entrenched hierarchies of creation may well be alertedâ€¦

Issue #175 began the final countdown as ‘The Endâ€¦ and Beginning!’ (Shooter, Michelinie, Wenzel & Marcos) saw the amassed and liberated ranks of Avengers and Guardians follow the clues to Michael as the new god shared the incredible secret of his apotheosis with Carina, before ‘The Destiny Hunt!’ and ‘The Hopeâ€¦ and the Slaughter!’ (Shooter, Wenzel, Marcos & Ricardo Villamonte) saw the entire army of champions destroyed and resurrected as Michael easily overpowered all opposition but faltered for lack of one fundamental failingâ€¦

Spread through a series of lesser adventures the overarching epic ponderously and ominously unfolds before finally exploding into a devastating and tragic Battle Royale that is the epitome of superhero comics. This is pure escapist fantasy at its finest.

Despite being somewhat let down by the artwork when the magnificent George Perez gave way to less enthusiastic hands such as Sal Buscema, David Wenzel and Tom Morgan, and cursed by the inability to keep a regular inker (Pablo Marcos, Klaus Janson Ricardo Villamonte and Tom Morgan all pitched in), the sheer scope of the epic plot nevertheless carries this story through to its cataclysmic and fulfilling conclusion.

Even Shooter’s reluctant replacement by scripters Dave Michelinie and Bill Mantlo (as his editorial career advanced) couldn’t derail this juggernaut of adventure.

If you want to see what makes Superhero fiction work, and can keep track of nearly two dozen flamboyant characters, this is a fine example of how to make such an unwieldy proposition easily accessible to the new and returning reader.

After the death and triumphant resurrection of the heroes Avengers Annual #8 gets back to business with a spectacular Fights ‘n’ Tights clash in ‘Spectrums of Deceit!’ by Roger Slifer, PÃ©rez, Marcos & Villamonte, wherein the sentient power-prism of arch villain Doctor Spectrum begins possessing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, leading the team into another blockbusting battle against the Squadron Sinister and ethically ambivalent Femazon Thundraâ€¦

A complete change of pace came in Avengers #178. ‘The Martyr Perplex!’ by Steve Gerber, Carmine Infantino &Rudy Nebres saw Beast targeted by master brainwasher The Manipulator in a tense psycho-thriller teeming with shady crooks and government spooks, after which Tom DeFalco, Jim Mooney, Al Gordon & Mike Esposito concocted a 2-part yarn introducing tragic mutant Bloodhawk and an ambitious hitman in ‘Slowly Slays the Stinger!’

Whilst the Stinger cautiously executed his plan another squad of heroes return with Bloodhawk to his desolate island home of Maura for a ‘Berserkers’ Holiday’, just in time to battle an animated and agitated stone idol.

When they returned victorious Stinger was waiting and the assemblage lost its newest ally foreverâ€¦

Avengers #181 introduced new regular team Michelinie & Byrne – augmented by inker Gene Day – as ‘On the Matter of Heroes!’ had Agent Gyrich lay down the law and winnow the army of heroes down to a federally acceptable seven.

As the Guardians of the Galaxy headed back to the future, Iron Man, Vision, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Beast and Wasp had to placate Hawkeye after he was rejected in favour of new member The Falcon – parachuted in to conform to government quotas on affirmative actionâ€¦

Almost immediately Gyrich’s plans were in ruins as a strange gipsy sorcerer attacked, claiming Wanda and Pietro were his long lost children. He stole their souls, trapping them in little wooden dolls, and the resultant clash in #182’s ‘Honor Thy Father’ (inked by Klaus Janson) only created more questions, as overwhelming evidence seemed to confirm Django Maximoff‘s story; compelling the Witch and Quicksilver to leave with him on a quest for answersâ€¦

This breathtaking collection concludes with a 2-part confrontation by Michelinie, Byrne, Janson & D. Hands from Avengers #183-184.

‘The Redoubtable Return of Crusher Creel!’ began as Ms. Marvel was cleared by Gyrich to replace Wanda whilst elsewhere in the Big Apple the formidable Absorbing Man decided to quit being thrashed by heroes and leave the country. Unfortunately his departure plans included kidnapping a young woman â€œfor companyâ€ and led to a cataclysmic showdown with the heroes and Hawkeye (who was determined to win back his place on the team) leading to carnage, chaos and a ‘Death on the Hudson!’â€¦

These truly epic yarns set the tone for the compulsive, calamitous Costumed 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 centuryâ€¦

No lovers of superhero sagas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book, and fans who think themselves above Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will also be pleasantly surprisedâ€¦
Â© 1977, 1978, 1979, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

July 28, 2014

Avengers World: A.I.M.Pire

By Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spenser, Stefano Caselli, Rags Morales & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-596-3

Post-Infinity, the reshaping of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into an unbeatable legion of justice continues in the new title Avengers World which serves the function of a core title from which other associated series would derive direction. Of course, that’s pretty much irrelevant if all you want is high stakes, high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights fun in the traditional Summer Blockbuster mannerâ€¦

Scriptedby Jonathan Hickman & Nick Spenser with art by Stefano Caselli, Avengers World: A.I.M.Pire collects the first five issues (cover-dated January to June 2014) and includes a pertinent portion from one-shot All-New Marvel Now! Point One which nicely sets the ball rolling for the unending rollercoaster ride to come.

The drama begins as Captain America and Bruce Banner attempt to restore relations and rebuild bridges with peacekeeping security organisation S.H.I.E.L.D. by doing a favour for long-suffering Director Maria Hill.

During the Origin Bomb bombardment by planetary sculptor-turned-probationary Avenger Ex Nihilo (see Avengers: Avengers World and The Last White Event), large parts of the planet were subjected to forced, random and rapid evolution, and now Hill needs a team of seasoned metahumans to go into a transformed area of Canada which has already cost the lives of national superteam Alpha Flight.

However in a frantically fast-changing world she supersedes her own request when news comes in from the rogue state of Madripoor. Apparently the pacific island is burningâ€¦

An espionage stealth team consisting of Shang-Chi, The Falcon, Black Widow and Wolverine are soon in play but the bloody civil unrest only masks a deeper problem.

In the meantime Avengers Nightmask, Hawkeye, Spider-Woman and Starbrand are dispatched to Velletai in Italy when the entire population vanishes. Soon after arriving all contact is lost with the teamâ€¦

At S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ Banner has been crunching data and pinpoints the newly autonomous nation known as A.I.M. Island as the crux of the cluster of strange crises. He also realises the island is changing shape and size and Cap reacts by sending relative neophytes Cannonball, Sunspot and Smasher in to investigateâ€¦

On Madripoor Shang-Chi has divined the reason for the unrest: mystic ninja clan The Hand, at the behest of most recent Master The Gorgon, have enacted a ritual whose collateral effects have enflamed the populace. The true purpose, however, was to awaken the unbelievably vast dragon the island rests upon. Tragically the Avengers are too late to stop the creature taking flight wearing Madripoor as a hatâ€¦

In Velletai, things are going badly too. The heroes have found a City of the Dead beneath the surface and the frantic departed are all screaming in Starbrand’s headâ€¦

The third prong of a triple threat manifests over A.I.M. Island as Smasher, Sunspot and Cannonball are easily captured by the techno-terrorists and delivered to the Scientist Supreme in his grand new capital city Barbuda: soon-to-be hub from where A.I.M. will rule the worldâ€¦

The second chapter begins with the trio languishing in Barbuda even as the island continues its exponential growth. Whilst Captain America readies his rescue team, Smasher – latest Superguardian of the Shi’ar Empire and granddaughter of Golden Age hero Captain Terror – is being given a guided tour by Scientist Supreme Andrew Forson. His honeyed words are a mere trick to lull her suspicions before he turns her into the nation’s latest super-weapon with the aid of the cabal’s hidden ally: a cosmic force designated The Entropic Manâ€¦

High over Southeast Asia, in Mardipoor, Shang-Chi valiantly challenges the Gorgon to single combat only to be cruelly beaten and tossed over the edge into the void, whilst in Velletai the heroes are attacked by undead monsters and Kevin Connor is forced to confront the hundreds of classmates and neighbours who died when the White Event explosively transformed him into Starbrandâ€¦

On the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier Director Hill addresses the Avengers’ glaring lack of a mystic member by seconding neophyte wizard Sebastian Druid whilst Cap prepares an away-team to rescue the prisoners of A.I.M. island/continent.

Druid divines the nature of the Velletai situation: the location is a spirit trap built by the Entropy worshipping Cult of Yagzan. What he doesn’t know, however, is that control of the City has been usurped by infernal Avengers’ arch-foe Morgan Le Fayâ€¦

Events spiral out of control as Cap and Iron Man try to draw reality-warping former team-mate Manifold back into action, only to discover that the Australian is still trying to repair his abilities, which were damaged during the Infinity crisis.

His salvation only begins after a strange and painfully close encounter with Captain Universe who is still somewhat trapped in her role as â€œMother of Creationâ€â€¦

With time running out for Earth on three fronts, Manifold then teleports back to gather the remaining Avengers and transport then to the most significant battle of their livesâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Rounding off this action-packed, tantalising teaser tome is ‘Short Term Fixes’ by Nick Spenser & Rags Morales from All-New Marvel Now! Point One which reveals the background to Smasher, Sunspot and Cannonball’s mission to A.I.M. Island and the devious backroom dickering between Hill and the Sentinel of Liberty which led to the current relationship between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengersâ€¦

This collection also offers digitally-diverting extra content for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop as well as a plethora of astounding covers-and-variants by John Cassaday& Laura Martin, Jung-Geon Yoon, Morales, Mike Deodato Jr., In-Hyuk Lee, Art Adams, Milo Manara, Skottie Young, Carlo Barberi, Chris Samnee, Simone Bianchi, Agustin Alessio, Ron Garney & Steve McNiven.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

July 24, 2014July 23, 2014

Avengers: Adapt or Die

By Jonathan Hickman, Salvador Larroca, Mike Deodato Jr., Butch Guice, Esad Ribic, Steve Pugh & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-583-3

Following an unending string of universe-shattering crises, Iron Man and Captain America swallowed old animosities and united to reshape The Avengers into a planetary defence force more army than voluntary association, with more than twenty active members – human or alien or something less clear cut – whose specialities range from stealth and counter-intelligence to sheer, blockbusting stopping power.

The posture and attitude also changed as the new group actively sought out potential disaster points rather than waiting for trouble to start.

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #24-28 (covering December 2013 to April 2014), the ongoing Big Picture series as scripted by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated Salvador Larroca, Mike Deodato Jr., Butch Guice, Esad Ribic & Steve Pugh continues to lay down the law, beginning with a Christmas present from 3030ADâ€¦

From that distant tomorrow comes a far-futuristic iteration of the Armoured Avenger bearing a timely warning of danger to interrupt a much-needed decompression barbecue on top of Avengers Tower.

Inside the building Steve Rogers and Tony Stark are working. Following twin invasions by the extra-galactic Builders and Thanos of Titan plus a mutagenic plague of new metahumans triggered by the Inhumans (Infinity and Inhumanity), the master strategists are readying the latest design of their â€œAvengers Machineâ€ for safeguarding mankindâ€¦

On materialisation Iron Man 3030 panics. This cannot be the right place or time. There are heroes present that history never recorded as Avengersâ€¦

After the mandatory clash of arms the situation settles enough for the assemblage to take heed of the time-traveller who warns that a ‘Rogue Planet’ has been aimed at the Earth like a giant bulletâ€¦

With time to prepare, the heroes relocate to their frontier outpost on Mars and enact a truly original solution which leaves Earth with a monolithic secret weapon for future emergenciesâ€¦

A chilling murder mystery then begins when size-changing savant Hank Pym is found dead amongst a mass of slaughtered New Yorkers in ‘Carve a Holeâ€¦ Climb Inside’. With an Avenger murdered, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill makes the case her topmost priorityâ€¦

As the investigation proceeds, the truth slowly comes out. Resurgent techno-terrorist cabal A.I.M. has been unwisely exploring the fringes between universes and plucked a sextet of Avengers from their own Earth in the moments before it died as part of the ongoing collapse of the multiverse.

As previously established, Reality is composed of discrete universes all held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Now that immemorial barrier is somehow fragmenting, with the timeless alien engineers who maintain it helpless to stop the carnage whenever an Earth drifts into contact with another Earth. On those occasions at least one is always obliteratedâ€¦

A.I.M. has no grudge against their rescued finds and lets them loose upon the world as they prepare for the next phase of their research into other dimensions. Unfortunately General America, Thorr, Iron Monger, Ant-Man, Wasp and their lobotomised Hulk are no heroes and establish their credentials by slaughtering an entire district of annoying New Yorkersâ€¦

In ‘Look Aroundâ€¦ There’s No Way Out’ Director Hill’s suspicions prove unfounded as the real Avengers go into action and the true facts unfold.

Months ago A.I.M., using genetic material stolen from the World’s Mightiest Heroes, upgraded their latest design of Super-Adaptoid, intent on tasking the six uncanny mechanoids with exploring the void between universes. The crazy scientists unwisely made their creations autonomous, self-aware and able to draw on an armoury of Avenger abilities: well able to mine the multiverse for technological treasures.

They never considered that new experiences might reshape their creatures’ programming or desires and foolishly despatched the Adaptoids to capture the extra-dimensional Avengers as they ran amok on Earth. In the resultant clash Ant-Man was killed and the enslaved Hulk broke free and fledâ€¦

Reverting to Bruce Banner the trans-dimensional fugitive made for a safe house he hoped his doppelganger also secretly maintained, whilst at A.I.M. HQ the Explorer Class Adaptoids took advantage of their newly-won free will and seized control of their own destiniesâ€¦

‘Only Dirtâ€¦ Six Feet Deep’ opens with Dr. Banner coming face to face with his other-Earthly counterpart and taking a very uncharacteristic chance even as on A.I.M. Island the Scientist Supreme reacts very badly to the news that his prime experiment is completely out of control. The variant Avengers have made savage contact with this Earth’s heroes and a devastating battle is wrecking the Big Apple. He wants all evidence of A.I.M. involvement eradicatedâ€¦

The battle is just going the good guys’ way when an utterly out of control Hulk turns up and attacks everyone, giving the A.I.M. units a perfect opportunity to step in and surreptitiously extract the evil Avengersâ€¦

In the aftermath Bruce confronts Tony Stark, carrying ‘The Case’ and claiming to have deduced the billionaire inventor’s long-term goals. In a tense stand-off he reveals that he – not his double – was recovered by A.I.M. forces and has subsequently ensured that the evil Avengers will not be back.

Even as Captain America was agreeing to surrender the rampaging out of control Hulk to Maria Hill’s custody, Banner was learning from the Scientist Supreme that all the universes are dying – a fact Stark has concealed from his team-mates.

The rogue physicist reasoned the how and why of Iron Man’s recent actions and drive to reshape the Avengers. He also deduced that Stark had reformed the intellectual star-chamber dubbed The Illuminati to make all the really hard decisions and take those actions his fellow heroes would baulk atâ€¦

As Stark admits everything and makes Banner a shocking offer, in the trans-dimensional void the free will Adaptoids meet something strangely familiar and begin their next evolutionâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

A spectacular Fights ‘n’ Tights overload that will delight and astonish lovers of cosmic Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning 28 covers-and-variants gallery by Ribic, Deodato Jr., Agustin Alessio, Simone Bianchi, Joe Quinones, Carlo Barberi, J. Scott Campbell, Daniel AcuÃ±a, John Tyler Christopher, Lee Garbett, Tom Scioli, Walt Simonson, Art Adams, Michael Allred, Kris Anka, Alex Ross and Dustin Weaver, as well as digitally-diverting extra content for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

July 22, 2014July 21, 2014

Mighty Avengers volume 2: Family Bonding

By Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti, Greg Land, Jay Leisten & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-607-6

The colossal Infinity storyline detailed a staggering two-pronged threat to humanity: intergalactic eradication via all-out attack by an impossibly ancient race dubbed The Builders and – whilst the Avengers mobilised most of their assemblage off-planet to thwart that armada – a separate savage invasion at the behest of Thanos of Titan, who took advantage of the dearth of metahuman defenders to crush mankindâ€¦

In the Avengers’ absence, family man Luke Cage led a spirited superhero resistance movement and in the aftermath as the planet rebuilt itself, elected to keep his Mighty Avengers together as a decidedly different kind of crusading teamâ€¦

Opening a storefront operation in his old Gem Theatre office, Cage’s intention was to bring the Avengers back to ordinary people.

His bold new idea: opening the heroic volunteer brigade to the public who can come to them with meta-related problems or issues of injustice or help the costumed folk in any way they feel able.

The core empowered team comprises The Falcon, Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon but now calling herself Spectrum), sidelined and forgotten 1960s black superman Dr. Adam Brashear AKA Blue Marvel, She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters, old comrade Iron Fist and a couple of promising if troubled new kids: VÃctor â€œPower Man 2.0â€ Ãlvarez and Ava Ayala, the latest mortal to become the godly avatar White Tiger.

Also helpfully hanging around is a mystically savvy mystery hero who helped out in an early case and now borrows the hand-me-down guise and gear of masked marauder Roninâ€¦

Scripted by Al Ewing, Mighty Avengers volume 2 #6-10 (April-September 2014) opens with the first shots rendered by Valerio Schiti for a sinisterly seditious saga wherein Falcon tracks a far-right radical who has just torched an anti-capitalist bookshop.

Elsewhere Cage is having an uncomfortable conversation with Brashear.

Required in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy to cease public activities lest his example harm the already torturous pace of racial integration in America, Blue Marvel has only recently returned to public life; stirred from a lengthy self-imposed exile due to the impending and building crises threatening Earth.

He doesn’t welcome veiled accusations that his past capitulation actually hindered progress and justice for his fellow African-Americans, but before the discussion can get anywhere meaningful, a cosmic alarm calls the mighty Marvel away â€¦

All conversation is shelved when Ava joins the gathering. She has suffered intolerable personal losses in recent days, heaped atop a long-unsatisfied desire to avenge her murdered family and the chilling pact she has recently made with the primeval Tiger God who supplies her strength, speed and martial arts mastery – for a price. She cannot remember the last time she restedâ€¦

On Liberty Island Spectrum and She-Hulk are testing the junior Power Man’s limits before returning to base, but the evening goes into overdrive when Falcon radios in that his book burner was working for army renegade and paramilitary extremist Gideon Mace.

On a lonely rooftop Ava Ayala overhears that the man who slaughtered her family has been released from the psychiatric institution which kept him from her, and the White Tiger cries out to her broken soulâ€¦

The story resumes as the fury-filled girl allows her predatory patron deity to take full control of their shared body in return for the promise of justice. Her Avenger friends quickly mobilise to stop her from crossing a line there’s no coming back from, but Victor and Iron Fist are no match for her feral feline rageâ€¦

Mace has been adopted as the spokes-figure for a shady but powerful hard right lobbying organisation called the American Policy Research Initiative, and their despicable lawyers make it clear that should anything happen to their poster-boy, the repercussions would be litigious and catastrophic for the store front champions.

With no choice but to play bodyguard to a bloodthirsty, bigoted maniac, the Avengers are waiting when White Tiger attacks. Ava almost defeats them all before finally succumbing to overwhelming force.

She awakens securely bound in Kadesh – Brashear’s undersea super-science fortress – with her friends desperately trying to contact one of their numerous supernatural allies to loosen the Tiger God’s grip on her.

Although Blue Marvel compliantly vanished from America for fifty years, Brashear covertly carried on the good fight under a number of aliases in Europe, Asia and the greater universe. Now a distress call comes in alerting him that techno-terrorists and old enemies W.E.S.P.E. have sponsored an extra-dimensional incursion of devastating force. When the old soldier hurtles off to fix it, he is accompanied by Spectrum and She-Hulk.

Behind the catastrophe is flamboyant, novice mad scientist Dr. Positron who has a deeply personal score to settle with Brashearâ€¦

As the away team tackle his deadly robo-insects and the remaining Avengers bicker on over how best to help Ava, in her cell the indomitable captive White Tiger takes her fate into her own hands and finally puts her manipulative power-patron in his proper placeâ€¦

On Positron’s base Brashear faces shock after shock as his deranged foe opens a portal to the astounding Neutral Zone (where matter and anti-matter collide yet somehow co-exist), liberating Marvel’s long lost son Kevin from a ghastly, torturous imprisonmentâ€¦

Issue #9 (illustrated by Greg Land & Jay Leisten) opens with enigmatic eldritch warrior Ronin targeted by an increasingly varied army of ninja were-beasts, whilst on the island of Dr. Positron, Kevin Brashear – mutated to monstrous size and shape – gradually oozes though a cascading dimensional portal and Blue Marvel shares his most tragic secret.

From the 1970’s until the early years of the new superheroic age, â€œDoc Brashearâ€ and his super-genius son clandestinely combatted a host of uncanny evils until one day their arch-nemesis Evald Skorpion opened a hole into infinity and Kevin was sucked into it.

To save the world, a doting parent resolutely sacrificed his sonâ€¦

Now as the colossal thing that was Kevin ponderously squeezes out of the wormhole, the terrifying effects of that sojourn in other-space can be fully seen, compelling heroes and villain to unite in putting the tragic victim back there at all costsâ€¦

In New York meanwhile a flock of were-roosters and snake-ninjas have succeeded in battle against the mystery hero, exposing his shocking identity to the world as a prelude to their expediting the coming of the appalling Age of the Deathwalkersâ€¦

The epic adventure concludes – for now – with an intoxicating Original Sin crossover (another mega-major publishing event which disclosed many of the Marvel Universe’s most closely guarded secrets) as Blue Marvel is summoned to the moon to comply with the last wishes of a dead friend.

Whilst Cage and Co. resist mounting mystical menaces in New York, Adam ponders an impossible situation. Over his many years of isolation and ostracization, the seemingly immortal superman somehow became close to the aloof, remote and unshakably distant cosmic entity known as Uatu the Watcher.

Now the omnipotent sidereal witness has been murdered by agents unknown and the deeply shaken defender of the Earth is further astounded and gratified when Uatu’s significant other Ulana gives their baby into his safekeepingâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by Land & Leisten Family Bonding is a fast, furious, fabulously inventive and fantastically offbeat collection combining eerie horror, amazing action and outrageous humour into an unforgettable frolic no Fights ‘n’ Tights fanboy could possibly resist.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

June 16, 2014June 18, 2014

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: 30th Anniversary Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For him it is true love at first sightâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 29, 2014May 28, 2014

Mighty Avengers volume 2: Venom Bomb

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

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

The Federal Government rushed through a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and a terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

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

Both sides battled for love of Country, Constitution and personal Liberty and both sides knew they were rightâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 3, 2014May 5, 2014

Superior Spiderman: the Superior Venom

By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba, Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez and various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-584-0

With this superb reinterpretation of the Amazing Arachnid iteration clearly approaching an ending or final resolution, the tension in this sublime series is again ratcheted up by scripter Dan Slott in The Superior Venom which collects issues #22-25 of Superior Spider-Man (4th September-13th November 2013) and Superior Spider-Man Annual #1.

Where Were You Whenâ€¦?: in an apocalyptic final battle Peter Parker apparently died and Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind had been imprisoned in the dying body of the super-villain where, despite his every desperate effort, at last Peter perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame.

This left the coldly calculating Octopus permanently installed in the Wondrous Wallcrawler’s body and successfully living out Parker’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvementsâ€¦

At first the situation did not seem utterly hopeless. As his foe exulted in triumph, Parker had inflicted his full unvarnished memories on the psychic invader, forcing unwary Otto to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice which combined to make Spider-Man the compulsive do-gooder that he was.

From that enforced emotional turmoil came a bitter understanding. Ock had a change of heart and swore to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his greatest enemy; earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission, guided by Peter’s abiding principle: â€œwith great power comes great responsibilityâ€â€¦

However Octavius’ ingrained monomania proved impossible to suppress and the usurper constantly toiled to prove himself the better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and slapdash methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, constantly adding advanced tech and refining new weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as the original hadâ€¦

Otto even took Parker’s frame back to college because he arrogantly refused to live life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the Web-spinner; practically adopting Spider-Man as his deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible psychic fragment of Peter which still screamed in frustration within the deepest recesses of the hero’s overwritten consciousnessâ€¦

The helpless ghost was an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius yet increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Simultaneously, more and more of Parker’s oldest friends began to suspect something amissâ€¦

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew Peter’s secret identity and recalled the last time Spidey fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s bodyâ€¦

The public initially seemed happy with how Spider-Man had changed. Not only was he more efficient, but far more brutal too. This new hard-line attitude actually increased the webslinger’s approval rating and, following a hostage siege, his status peaked after he executed the psychotic perpetrator Massacreâ€¦

Eventually Octavius realised there was a noble passenger in his head and eradicated the last vestiges of his enemy’s presence – at the cost of many of Parker’s useful memories – but the trade-off was a fully liberated mind able to make darker decisions whilst instigating his revolution in crime-fighting.

Helping Jameson after Spider-Slayer and other super-felons rioted on The Raft, the hero blackmailed the Mayor into donating the now empty edifice as a base of operations. The superior wallcrawler designed a new costume, built giant Arachnaut war-tanks and even hired a gang of henchmen to help him clean up the city for the decent, law-abiding citizens.

Despite winnowing â€œParker’sâ€ personal life to a less distracting level, Ock still wanted that elusive doctorate and whilst negotiating the petty bureaucracy of Academia Parker began a romance with brilliant Anna Maria Marconi â€¦

From his transformed citadel on the now-renamed Spider Island II, Spider-Man watches over his city through the electronic eyes of thousands of tiny Spider-bots, keeping a special lookout for resurgent hidden criminal mastermind Goblin King (an updated and even crazier Green Goblin Norman Osborn) who was slowly completing his own campaign to take over the underworld with his Goblin Army Cult.

To that end the emerald maniac transformed young Phil Urich – latest iteration of The Hobgoblin – into a Goblin Knight to lead his armies to inevitable victoryâ€¦

Meanwhile, Carlie shared her suspicions about Spider-Man with friend and Police Captain Yuri Watanabe (who secretly moonlights as costumed vigilante The Wraith) and together they set about gathering definitive proofs of their suspicions regarding the Wallcrawler.

Since Spidey now has an Island fortress and a mercenary gang to pay for, they even had a money trail to followâ€¦

However Carlie’s investigations alerted all the wrong people and she was abducted by the Goblin Armyâ€¦

This rocket-paced chronicle opens with ‘Hostage Crisis’ from Superior Spider-Man Annual #1, scripted by Christos N. Gage and illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez, which sees potential disaster stemming from the leaked (cover) story that Peter Parker is the technical wizard building all the Superior Spider-Man’s gadgets.

The secretly embedded hero/villain is just starting to repair his relationship with Aunt May and her wealthy husband (J. Jonah’s dad Jay Jameson): helplessly re-experiencing the lad’s abiding affection for the gracious old lady when vampiric villain Blackout kidnaps her.

The darkness-generating undead psychopath has got wind of the Parker connection and wants Peter to sabotage Spider-Man’s gadgets, but he has not reckoned on the insane degree of sadistic violence the new hardline Superior Wallcrawler might inflict on anyone threatening those under his protectionâ€¦

Sadly for the increasingly complacent Octavius, he is equally unaware that May is a witness to the ferocious punishment beating the Webslinger delivers. Thus, even though the upshot of the rescue is that the Parker clan is categorically â€œoff-limitsâ€ to every rational denizen in the criminal fraternity, May now wants Peter to sever all ties to the monstrous Spider-Manâ€¦

And even more disturbing, nobody ever accused the Green Goblin of rationalityâ€¦

Over in Superior Spider-Man the 4-part saga ‘Darkest Hours’ commences with ‘Beginnings’ as Betty Brant investigates a new Crime Master, terrified that he may be her wayward brother Bennet when old boyfriend Eugene â€œFlashâ€ Thompson intervenes.

He still has feelings for the plucky journalist and is prepared to risk his top-secret, covert US operative job for herâ€¦

Once upon a time Spider-Man spawned an implacable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Parker’s alternate costume: a semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote which the wallcrawler first picked up during Secret Wars.

Brock became a savage, shape-changing, dark-side version of the Wallcrawler, but after numerous spectacular clashes, the arachnid adversaries eventually reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became a â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

Since thenmany other hosts have bonded with the ebony parasite, including Brock’s wife Ann Weying, Mac Gargan AKA the Scorpion, mobster Angelo Fortunato, Mayoral assistant Edward Saks and even Franklin Richards and members of the Fantastic Four.

Eventually the Government took control of the Symbiote and offered it – with strings attached – to Flash: Spider-Man’s greatest fan and a war-hero who came back from Afghanistan without his legs.

A recovering alcoholic, Eugene became the star of a military black-ops operation which uses the Symbiote to carry out under-the-radar missions vital to US security.

In return, Thompson gets to be a hero (of sorts), feel useful again, serve his country and get out of his wheelchair prison for 48 hours at a time. Agent Venom even became a Secret Avenger, serving directly under Steve Rogers.

Of course there were drawbacks: the parasite is a voracious deadly menace, constantly seeking to permanently bond to its wearer, and is classed as one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. If the new Venom should go berserk, or if the human host stays bonded for more than two days, his war-room controllers will simply detonate explosives attached to Thompson’s body and start the project over with another volunteer. It’s what they had to do with the previous wearer, after allâ€¦

Now however Flash is risking everything for Betty, infiltrating the gang with his shapeshifting abilitiesâ€¦

Elsewhere his oldest friend Dr. Peter Parker is taking things to a new level by launching his own tech start-up company. Apparently gripped by exuberance – if not monomania – the very proud owner of Parker Industries is showing around his major investors, May and Jay Jameson, introducing them to medical maverick Elias Wirtham and offering his aunt the gift of a lifetimeâ€¦

The doughty old lady has lived with chronic pain ever since her leg was injured in a criminal attack, but now Peter has devised a cybernetic implant which will enable her to walk normally againâ€¦

In a seedier part of town Captain Watanabe searches for her missing partner Carlie Cooper and comes to the understandable but erroneous conclusion that Spider-Man is responsible for her abrupt disappearanceâ€¦

As the Spider henchmen continually scan the city for signs of the Goblin Gang they notice Venom battling Crime Master’s gang and alert their boss. Soon the entirety of the Spider force is tracking what they perceive as one of the most dangerous entities on the planetâ€¦

In ‘Complications’ the spectacular clash results in Flash’s defeat, but the new Spider-Man has no recent memory of Parker’s school days bully so when Venom escapes the Wallcrawler sets off in relentless, obsessive pursuit.

Deep in a hidden place Carlie is suffering at the hands of the Green Goblin who is desperate to glean all she knows about Spider-Man (information the troubled Osborn has himself forgotten)â€¦

Eager to introduce May and Jay to new significant other Anna Maria, â€œPeterâ€ arranges a dinner party at his apartment, but the preparations are interrupted when wheelchair-bound Flash turns up, looking to his old friend for shelterâ€¦

Another plot strand begins in the Mayor’s office where Jonah Jameson, fed up with Spider-Man’s exploitative extortion, commissions shady genius Tyler Stone of Alchemax to build a new generation of Spider-Slayer robots to protect the city.

The unscrupulous technologist is happy to turn the project over to his new protÃ©gÃ© Michael O’Mara who unbeknownst to any is the temporally stranded Spider-Man of 2099â€¦

The dinner party is a disaster. Peter is obsessively concentrating on Flash and doesn’t realise how disturbed old-fashioned May is that the prospective mother of the next generation of Parkers is a â€œlittle personâ€. After all, he never once mentioned Anna Marie’s dwarfismâ€¦

Too furious and impatient to play it cautiously, Peter shrugs off all the nonsensical emotionalism, concentrating on tricking Thompson – and the precious Symbiote – into his labs with the lure of fully responsive cybernetic legsâ€¦

The bait works and soon Spider-Man joins Dr. Wirtham (who moonlights as Robin Hood bandit Cardiac) in overseeing a procedure whose real purpose is to separate the man from the Symbiote.

It all goes horrifically awry and the ghastly invader attaches itself to the Wallcrawler, consequently reawakening the very worst instincts of the insane old Doctor Octopus and the fanatical, amalgamated defender of the weak becomes a sinisterly new horror: ‘The Superior Venom’â€¦

As the diabolically driven creature goes on a crimebusting rampage, treating muggers, murders and litterbugs with equal savagery, the Green Goblin declares war on his rival (and cheap knock-off) Roderick Kingsley who has been franchising super-villain gigs as the Hobgoblin.

On a roll and finally losing patience with his cop captive, Osborn doses Carlie with mutagenic chemicals to transform her into one of his faithful acolytes. The forcibly crazed new Monster seems delighted to join his vile viridian familyâ€¦

The Parker clan’s troubles also peak when Mary Jane Watson attempts to broker a peace between May and Peter and only succeeds in forcing her ex to terrifyingly transform into Venom before everybody’s appalled eyes. Luckily Yuri arrives to drive him off, giving MJ time to call in the Avengers to take down the out of control Ã¼ber-symbioteâ€¦

In ‘Conclusion’, with the city being devastated by the alien horror Flash – unable to survive without the ravening parasite – manages to trick the beast back into his body, seemingly giving the now coolly rational Octavius a golden opportunity to claim all his recent aberrant violent behaviour was caused by previous exposures to the creature.

â€¦But whilst Parker’s friends and family are prepared to accept that line, ever-suspicious Iron Man has secured proof that the Superior Spider-Man has been lying from the very startâ€¦

Worst of all, the possession of Otto by the beast has awaked an aggravating ghost in his head he had thought long deadâ€¦â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This carnage-crammed chronicle includes a covers-&-variants gallery by J.G. Jones, J. Scott Campbell, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Stefano Caselli & Frank Kozik and more up-to-the minute AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App pages which provide access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet).

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this iteration – for however long it lasts – is one no lover of relentless action and diabolically devious drama should miss: clever, cunning, shocking and completely addictive.

May 1, 2014May 5, 2014

House of M Ultimate Edition

By Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/ Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-0-184653-582-6

Once upon a time the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision and they had – through the agency of magic and Wanda Maximoff‘s undiagnosed ability to reshape reality – twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real, and as the years passed the shock of that revelation drove her insane.

After tipping completely over the edge Wanda engineered the destruction of her other family – the vast and varied assemblage of superheroes called the Avengers – and even caused the death of former husband and some of her oldest friends.

The World’s Mightiest Heroes were shut down and rebooted in a highly controversial storyline known as Avengers Disassembled, which resulted in the formation of both The New and Young Avengers. The publishing event also spilled over into the solo titles of team members and affiliated comicbooks such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man, which all ran parallel story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest companions and causing the destruction of everything they held dear. The chaos-storm was only ended when mystic master Doctor Strange and mutant patriarch Charles Xavier took the dazed and crazed Wandainto their personal care.

This follow-up company crossover conjunction – released originally and primarily as an 8-issue miniseries from August to November 2005 – saw reality rewritten again as Wanda apparently had another major lapse in concentration; rejigging history such that mutants now dominated a society where normal humans (â€œsapiensâ€) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations. Moreover her true father Magneto ruled the mutants, head of a glorious dynasty which exerted political control over the entire planet.

It took a dedicated band of heroes and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle, but in the aftermath almost no mutants were leftâ€¦

Re-presenting the core fortnightly miniseries House of M this Ultimate Edition also contains covers and variants by Esad Ribic, Joe Quesada, Terry Dodson, John Cassaday, Brandon Peterson, Mike McKone, Greg Land, Salvador Larocca, Chris Bachalo and Joe Madureira, as well as a critical overview of the tale and its attendant spin-off miniseries entitled ‘The Legacy of the House of M’, but annoyingly only a quarter of The Pulse – an inspired 12 page faux issue of that world’s top mutant gossip mag, which offered engaging and pertinent snippets of congruent stories in other titlesâ€¦

Following a handy scene-setting recap page the drama begins in devastated former mutant homeland Genosha, where Xavier frustratedly admits that his psychic surgeries are not helping Wanda.

The desire to restore her non-existent children is too strong and she constantly tinkers with reality to make her whims real. After much impassioned debate with her despondent father Magneto and brother Quicksilver, Professor X finally admits defeat and considers other optionsâ€¦

Meanwhile in New York Wonder Man, Ms. Marvel and The Falcon visit the New Avengers at Stark Tower preparatory to the latest iteration of the team going public. Thus they are on hand when the X-Men come calling: summoned by Xavier to discuss the final fate and disposition of the Scarlet Witch.

In Genosha her father and brother argue on: one seeing no option but the final sanction and the other determined that Wanda must not die.

Opinion is just as divided amongst Avengers and X-Men. Unable to reach a decision, the assemblage opt to visit Wanda and try to get through to her one last time, but by the time they reach Genosha she is gone.

Fearing the world might end at any second they frantically search until they are all consumed by a blinding lightâ€¦

The second chapter begins in a very different New York, where decrepit nonagenarian war hero Steve Rogers draws a well deserved pension, millionaire celebrity Peter Parker, his wife Gwen and their son Richie as well as May and Ben Parker all live in lofty luxury and teeming billions of mutants run the world, all safeguarded and policed by colossal robotic Sentinelsâ€¦

All the heroes who sought out the Witch now live perfect lives that match their deepest, most secret hearts’ desires, but there is a painful undercurrent of tension amongst the rapidly declining, soon to be extinct Homo Sapiensâ€¦

Wolverine awakes screaming. His greatest desire has always been to recover his lost memories: destroyed and discarded by more than a century of brainwashing, mind-wiping and intervention by a succession of sinister enemies. As consciousness returns he remembers everything.

Especially how a moment ago the world was completely differentâ€¦

In this new universe he is leader of an elite team of mutant peacekeepers. The Red Guard are the prime enforcers of the House of M and agents of the Royal Family of Magneto: de facto rulers of Earth.

Appalled, he leaps from the ominous floating aircraft carrier dominating New York and plunges to Earthâ€¦

Healing factor in overdrive he then lurches through the streets of the city searching for Xavier and a solution to this insurmountable problem. Hard on his heels are his former subordinates in the Red Guard, all convinced their ruthless commander has gone crazy.

In his frantic flight, the desperate fugitive stumbles into old comrade Luke Cage who is, in this world, a cunning gangster leading a band of human rebels fighting mutant oppression. Shockingly, amongst his motley crew is masked archer Hawkeye – one of the cruellest casualties of the Scarlet Witch’s first killing spreeâ€¦

Playing with his grandchild in the idyllic paradise of Genosha, Magneto is unaccountably troubled at the perfection of his existence even as, in New York, Sentinels track and attack Cage’s â€œHuman Avengersâ€. Thanks to teleporter Cloak, Wolverine and a few of the gang escape, taking with them a strange little girl named Layla Miller.

She is a mutant and amongst her arcane and undisclosed power-set is the ability to reawaken a person’s memories of the world Wanda overwroteâ€¦

Convinced Magneto had used his crazy daughter to remake the world to his advantage, Wolverine is exultant to have a weapon that can offset all the dictator’s advantages, and with Cage begins tracking down and restoring his former allies. The game plan remains unchanged: find Xavier and use his telepathic powers to force the Witch to restore the real world.

In Genosha, meanwhile, Magneto again finds himself drawn to the simple tomb of his greatest friend and occasional enemy Charlesâ€¦

The next stage in Wolverine’s campaign is to use his now restored and grimly determined Avenger and X-Men allies to take control of the helicarrier above New York, piloting it to Genosha and engaging the House ofÂ M’s forces whilst Layla works her own special mutant magic and reawakened mystic master Stephen Strange deals with Wandaâ€¦

Throughout the horrifying ordeal everybody involved has assumed that Magneto made his daughter reorder reality to suit his dark ambitions, but the Doctor’s confrontation shockingly reveals a different hand and motive behind the grand change and, as the universe begins to unravel once more, the appalled and furious Master of Magnetism unleashes his own power against the traitor who betrayed his friends, family, species and planetâ€¦

â€¦And at the heart of the chaos and carnage Wanda Maximoff, whether at the peak of her madness or in a chilling moment of clarity, utters three little words.

â€œNo more Mutantsâ€â€¦

Dawn breaks on New York City and all the battered participants at the centre of the apocalyptic struggle awake in their own – as far as they know – proper beds. For those that remember, the world seems back to its true state, but after gathering together the shell-shocked protagonists compare notes and realise some things don’t jibe.

Wolverine still has all the memories of his long and previously clouded life; Wanda has vanished; there is evidence that Hawkeye might be alive again and, most unbelievable of all, the almost one million members of the mutant sub-species are now only human.

Across the Earth less than 200 super-powered Homo Superior remain. Governments are scrabbling to process the fact and form policies whilst the pedagogues of the religious right claim God has smitten the unclean and exhort decent – human – men and women to finish the good workâ€¦

Scientist Henry Pym has an even more chilling warning. Reminding us of Einstein’s dictum â€œEnergy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to anotherâ€, he ominously ponders on where all the powers, radiations and assorted exotic energies formerly wielded by the ex-mutant population have goneâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Although Marvel continuity was skilfully interwoven throughout the event, this particular tale stands alone perfectly without any need to refer to the many attendant miniseries: offering an engaging, fast-paced thriller by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel & Tim Townsend, brimming with tension and stuffed with bombastic action

House of M is an action-packed, spectacular adventure that will delight lovers of epic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy and beguile casual readers looking for an easy entry into the madcap world of Costumed Dramas.

April 17, 2014April 21, 2014

Dark Avengers: Ares

By Kieron Gillen, Michael Avon Oeming, Travel Foreman, Manuel Garcia, Stefano Gaudiano, Derek Fridolfs, Mark Pennington & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4406-9

After years of valiant, if often controversial, service to humanity, when the draconian Federal mandate known as the Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes, Tony Stark was hastily appointed the American government’s Security Czar – a â€œtop copâ€ in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. he became the very last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed communityâ€¦

Stark’s subsequent 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, he 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 Thunderbolts Project; a penal program which offered a second chance to super-criminals who volunteered to undertake Federally-sanctioned missionsâ€¦

Not content with 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 mutually beneficial goals, but such egomaniacal personalities could never play well together and cracks soon began to show, both in the criminal conspiracy and Osborn himselfâ€¦

As another strand of his long-term plan, the Homeland Metahuman Security overlord subsequently sacked Iron Man’s Mighty Avengers and created his own, more manageable team consisting of compliant turncoats, tractable replacements and outright impostors. Constantly courting public opinion, Osborn launched his Avengers whilst systematically building up a personally loyal high-tech paramilitary rapid-response force.

One of Stark’s last Avenger recruits had been the Grecian war god Ares. Although a former villain (since debuting in Thor #129 in 1966 he had repeatedly battled both Hercules and the Avengers), he was seen by Stark as a fitting replacement for Founder member Thor, providing mythic hitting power and knowledge of non-earthly lore.

Ares was content to stay on when Osborn took over. The war god was always happy to serve under a truly strong commanderâ€¦

A hard hero for harsh modern tastes, Ares is the star of this slim companion volume to the Dark Reign publishing event, gathering an eponymous initial 5-issue miniseries from 2006 by Michael Avon Oeming & Travel Foreman as well as the later 3-issue Dark Avengers: Ares run from 2009.

This myth-tinted martial chronicle opens with Oeming & Foreman’s canny reappraisal of the former foeman as the war lord, quietly living under the radar in New York and cursing all the works of his father and the Hellenic tradition of advancement through patricide, is called once more to duty for the brother-gods he despises.

Toiling as a simple builder, John Ares had dedicated himself to raising his son Alexander in a manner utter removed from the draconian, traditional manner of his own youth.

Thus when Hermes appears, demanding he return to wage war on Olympus’ latest enemies, Ares sends him packing. When his boy is abducted, all that resolve goes out the window and the Man of War is catapulted into a blistering ongoing campaign between his Hellenic brethren and invading devil-gods from the East.

Ares’ rage is initially aimed at Zeus, who has taken his own grandson as a bargaining chip, but by the time the War Lord reaches besieged Olympus, battered brothers Hercules, Apollo and Achilles regretfully admit that the boy has been taken by the unstoppable forces of undead deity Amatsu Mikaboshi – the August Star of Heaven – and held in the chill, dreary mist-lands of the Eastern Deadâ€¦

As the son of a god, Alexander has a birthright of power. Destined to become the God of Fear, the boy is plied with subtle gifts and undergoes many cunning treatments as the Japanese Death Lord endeavours to make the boy his greatest weapon in an eternal war of expansionâ€¦

In the rubble of Olympus, Ares cares nothing for cosmic politics: he wants his son back and is quite prepared to kill his own sire to achieve his aims. Nonetheless bloody years pass without progress as Alexander slowly succumbs to the blandishments of his captors and becomes the demon’s new lord of combat. Eventually even mighty Zeus goes down and the siege of Olympus staggers on until war god and son are pitted against each other on a field of the fallen.

Even with the belated and largely unwanted assistance of Japan’s Lords of Light the contest goes badly and comes down to a life or death duel between the dejected Ares and his bewitched and patricidal Alexanderâ€¦

With a classically tragic, fore-fated combat cleverly, spectacularly and comprehensively subverted, restored father and son happily return to Earth for Dark Avengers: Ares (written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Manuel Garcia, Stefano Gaudiano & Mark Pennington) as the War Lord of Osborn’s Avengers is personally asked by the Security Czar to train the inexperienced paramilitary legions of H.A.M.M.E.R.

Accepting the challenge of turning ordinary soft soldiers into a puissant warrior elite, Ares loses himself in the task until manipulative goddess Hera manifests to â€œwarnâ€ him that his son – her grandson – is in dangerâ€¦

On returning to earth Ares had entrusted Alexander to the care of rogue super-agent Nick Fury, but was never confident that the boy was truly secure. Now assembling his untested cadre of â€œShadesâ€, he again goes hunting and tracks the child to an abandoned base, only to realise once again why he despises his family.

The war god had sired many sons in his millennia of existence and Hera had never specifically said Alexander was the child in perilâ€¦

The family life of the Greek gods was always an open pit of horror, cruelty and tragedy, and monstrous Kyknos has somehow emerged from the forgotten corridors of the past and realm of Hades, sponsored by vile uncle Pluto to exorcise his own daddy issues through blood and pain and macabre slaughterâ€¦

As much a gritty vehicle for the poor mortal â€œred-shirtâ€ Shades as the Hellenic hero, this is another dark and turbulent tale of tension and slaughter that will sit well with lovers of grim, sardonic cosmic adventure.

Although definitely not a book for younger fans, this is a magnificently illustrated and emotionally intriguing offering, providing an engaging peek at the sinister side of antiheroes and the deadly downside of family and duty.

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