Avengers – Page 25 – Now Read This!

August 15, 2012August 14, 2012

Captain America: Road to Reborn

By Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin, Luke Ross, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4175-4

The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (now Marvel) Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also among the very first to fade at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s he was briefly revived – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more brought him back in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) in the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers first stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, but always struggled to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

Eventually, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became an anti-government rebel and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that always assumed-dead sidekick. The truth was far more tragic. Bucky had been captured by the Russians and over decades had been brainwashed into becoming an infallible assassin before being turned loose as the lethal Soviet super-agent, The Winter Soldier.

Once rescued and cured of his unwanted enemy-agent role the artificially youthful and part-cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s big crimson bootsâ€¦

This powerful patriotic thriller, written as ever by Ed Brubaker, examines the nature and value of patriotism and collects Captain America issues #49-50 before returning to the original numbering for the anniversary #600 and follow-up #601.

After years of commercially advantageous restarts, volume 5 (#50 of the regular comicbook) was followed a month later by volume 1, #600, dated August 2008, setting in play characters and plot-threads which led up to the inevitable resurrection of the original Star-Spangled Avenger – details of which where subsequently revealed in Captain America Rebornâ€¦

The drama initially unfolds in ‘Sentinel of Liberty’ – illustrated by Marcos Martin – which recapitulates in graphic newsreel form the WWII careers of Captain America and Bucky from their origins to the formation of metahuman combat unit The Invaders and the tragic loss of the All-American Allies to the nefarious Baron Zemo. Picking up after Steve Rogers was revived by Sub-Mariner and the Mighty Avengers, the history lesson then follows his second glorious life until it was cut short on the steps of that infamous Courthouseâ€¦

‘The Daughter of Time’ finds Sharon Carter in her old Virginia home, recovering from her ordeal as a captive and puppet of the Red Skull, Arnim Zola and Dr. Faustus, and horribly traumatised by the knowledge that their programming forced her to shoot her beloved Steve Rogers. Seeking a less painful reality she visits the institutionalised Peggy Carter – who was Captain America’s lover during WWII – and shares again the stories and memories she first heard as an avid little girl. As she listens, she dreads the moment that Alzheimer’s finally takes her Aunt’s mind and life foreverâ€¦

Sam Wilson, the high-flying Falcon, is busy searching for William Burnside, a deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.

As a student Burnside was obsessed with the Sentinel of Liberty and had diligently divined the hero’s true name, rediscovered most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Star-Spangled Avenger and even had his identity and features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action Steve Rogers.

Volunteering his services to the FBI, then conducting a nationwide war on spies, subversives and suspected commies, Burnside and impressionable youngster Jack Monroe briefly became Captain America and Bucky; crushing every perceived threat to the nation.

Sadly it soon became apparent that their definition of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, independent women and anybody who disagreed with the governmentâ€¦

After a few short months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly â€œretiredâ€ as the super-soldier serum he and Monroe used turned them into super-strong, raving, racist paranoids.

Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty only to be defeated by Cap, the Falcon and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. Although Monroe was eventually cured, Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real America, most recently as an integral part of the Skull, Zola and Faustus’ plot to plant a Nazi stooge in the Oval Office.

When the scheme was foiled, the doppelganger Cap had escaped and disappeared into the nation’s heartlandâ€¦

Back in Virginia a chance meeting with an old friend of Steve’s leads to one more horrific discovery and more of Sharon’s occluded memories return. At last she recalls that during her domination by Dr. Faustus, she was knifed and lost the baby she was carrying: Steve Rogers’ unborn child and last legacyâ€¦

At the Larkmore Clinic Peggy is reliving old times and secrets with her lover. In her bewildered state of mind it’s still the 1940s and the sweet man beside her is Steve, not William Burnsideâ€¦

Back at the Carter residence Sharon awakens from another nightmare of recovered memories, but in these a mysteriously obscured figure is trying to make himself clear. Could the real Captain America still be alive?

‘Days Gone By’ (Ross & Magyar) focuses on Jim Barnes on his birthday, as the technically octogenarian replacement Cap recalls his early life and relives his glory days with Steve and the Invaders. Unbidden though, he also remembers the horrors of his life as a communist living weapon before his newfound Avenger comrades threw him the party of a lifetimeâ€¦

Captain America #600 opens with the two-page ‘Origin’ – a reprinted retelling from Alex Ross, Paul Dini & Todd Klein first seen in 2002’s Captain America: Red, White and Blue, after which Butch Guice, Howard Chaykin, Rafael Albuquerque, David Aja, Mitch Breitweiser, Frank D’Armata, Edgar Delgado & Matt Hollingsworth all collaborate on Brubaker’s ‘One Year Later’ in which a vigil on the Courthouse steps draws a number of seemingly unconnected characters into dramatic conflict.

In ‘Sharon Carter’s Lament’, impelled by her unveiled memories, the still-reeling ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent savagely tracks down the other participants in Cap’s shooting and uncovers the weapon she used on her lover. She is elated to discover it is not a normal gunâ€¦

A cunning fugitive travelling through the economically ravaged Middle America, Burnside –‘The Other Steve Rogers’ – reviews again his own origins. When an unwise thief tries to rob him, the â€œBad Capâ€ gets an inkling of how to turn his life aroundâ€¦

Before the Super-Soldier serum was used on Rogers it was shamefully pre-tested on Negro volunteers, leading to the very first Captain America being briefly a black soldier named Isaiah Bradley.

His life and sacrifice covered up for decades, Bradley was a forgotten hero but his grandson Elijah, afflicted with the same unflinching sense of right and wrong, has recently become a star-spangled vigilante codenamed the Patriot and worked as a Young Avenger. In ‘The Youth of Today’ he has a life changing encounter with Rikki Barnes, the dimensionally-displaced sidekick of an alternate universe Sentinel of Libertyâ€¦

‘Crossbones and Sin’ were lovers as well as being the Red Skull’s enforcer and daughter respectively. As back-up shooter for the Captain America hit, Crossbones had been a model prisoner at the H.A.M.M.E.R. Federal Holding Facility. Then some fool guard taunted him that Sin had also been captured and was badly wounded in the infirmaryâ€¦

‘The Avengers Dilemma’ is simple: Norman Osborn, Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and de facto Federal overlord of American metahuman affairs, has declared the proposed candlelit vigil an illegal gathering. Barnes, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Luke Cage and the others are not going to let that stop themâ€¦

After an ironic interlude observing ‘The Red Skull’s Delerium’ whilst the malign disembodied intelligence is trapped in a mechanical corpse designed by Zola, ‘The Vigilant’ dramatically divulges the surprising confrontation between Cap’s many friends and mourners and Osborn’s deadly Dark Avengers with a despondent and defiant American public looking nervously onâ€¦

Also included in that memorable comicbook milestone were a number of shorts from past contributors to the ever-lasting legend beginning with ‘In Memoriam’ by Roger Stern, Kalman Andrasofszky & Marte Gracia, wherein old friend Josh Cooper and Steve’s one-time girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal get together to remember the man and the legend in their own way, whilst ‘The Persistence of Memorabilia’ by Mark Waid, Dale Eaglesham & Paul Mounts describes the hero’s legacy as Cap’s greatest fan liquidates his entire collection of keepsakes and mementoes to further the fallen hero’s work in his own inadequate wayâ€¦

Topping off the celebrations are a comedic tribute ‘Passing the Torch’ by Fred Hembeck and the prose reminiscence ‘My Bulletin Board’ from Cap’s co-creator Joe Simonâ€¦

A different kind of commemoration filled issues #601 (September 2009) as legendary artist and oft-time Cap illustrator Gene Colan (assisted by colour artist Dean White rendering moody hues over the master’s inimitable â€œpainting-with-pencil style) delivers one last impressive WWII yarn to close the comics part of this classic chronicle.

Scripted by Brubaker, the eerie epic reveals Captain America and Bucky’s determined and relentless pursuit of a sinister leech haunting the bloody Allied frontlines of Bastogne in 1945, mercilessly turning gallant G.I.’s into vile and vicious vampires in ‘Red, White and Blue-Blood’â€¦

The book is rounded out with a stirring tribute to Colan and gallery of cover reproductions from Marko Djurdjevic, Alex Ross, Colan and Steve Epting.

Despite being thoroughly mired in the minutia of the Star-Spangled Hero’s history, this thoroughly readable and exceedingly pretty collection is a fascinating examination of political idealism and personal loss and generally avoids the usual trap of depending too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity.

Tried-and-True Fights ‘n’ Tights thrills, spills and chills that should serve to make a casual reader a die-hard devotee.
Â© 2009 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

July 12, 2012July 14, 2012

Avengers: X Sanction

By Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-514-7

As the new Avengers film screens across the world, Marvel has released more books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comicbook experience.

This particular short and sweet saga from megastar scripter Jeph Loeb & the art team supreme Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines engagingly entangles two filmic franchises as the World’s Mightiest Superheroes and Marvel’s misunderstood mutants clash in a time-busting tale originally released at the end of 2011 as the 4-part miniseries Avengers: X Sanction.

And that was merely the prologue to a summer-long publishing event which pitted Avengers against X-Men in a catastrophic all-out warâ€¦

Superbly self-contained, this epic encounter opens with Captain America, Iron Man, Red Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and other heroes responding to a mass-escape by super-villains from the Lethal Legion when the Falcon is shot by a hidden sniper and spirited awayâ€¦

Only the Sentinel of Liberty notices something amiss and follows the abductor to a freighter in the harbour, where he finds his friend trapped in a containment tube and wired to a colossal cache of explosives. The sniper is revealed as sometime-ally Nathan Summers AKA Cable, a mutant warrior from the far future possessing awesome psionic abilities yet cursed with an incurable, progressive techno-organic virus which is inexorably consuming his flesh and only held in check by the victim’s indomitable force of willâ€¦

In temporally tantalising forward flashbacks it is revealed that Cable is at last succumbing to his infection. He has a day to live and has travelled back from the end of time to unmake history and save his daughter Hope (destined to prevent the planet’s doom) from being killed. Unfortunately that can only be achieved by murdering the Avengersâ€¦

After a spectacular battle Cable also subdues Captain America just as Iron Man notices his missing comrades and tracks them to the Hudson River. Plagued by half memories and lost moments with Hope, Cable attacks and after a shattering struggle also overwhelms the Armoured Avenger, only to be ambushed by the brutally efficient Red Hulkâ€¦

Wracked by the final stages of his fleshly consumption, Cable is vastly overmatched, even with the timely martial assistance of his future mentor Blaquesmith, but Summers’ handicap becomes an advantage when the techno-organic contagion abandons his dying frame and infects the Crimson Colossusâ€¦

As Cable prepares to execute his targets, X-Men Cyclops and Hope burst in, intent on talking him down. Faced with his father and imminently endangered daughter (an outrageously long and overly-complicated time travel story which isn’t germane or necessary to know here: just Google it afterwards, ok?), Cable falters but can’t be dissuadedâ€¦

Just as he prepares to save the future by killing everyone present, the final players arrive when Spider-Man and Wolverine crash inâ€¦

Unable to stop and mere minutes from his own end, Cable attacks again knowing that no sacrifice is too great to prevent the death of Hope and the salvation of Earthâ€¦

Fast, furious and wickedly compelling, this time-twisting all-action thriller delivers a mighty punch without any real necessity to study beforehand that comics-continuity veterans and film-fed newbies alike will relish.

The comicbooks in this short series also sported a host of variant covers and the extensive gallery at the back includes simply stunning images from McGuinness, Bryan Hitch, Joe Quesada, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Platt, Ian Churchill, Steve Skroce and four from Leinil Francis Yu to delight and astound the artistically astute amongst you.

June 9, 2012June 17, 2012

Avenging Spider-Man: My Friends Can Beat Up Your Friends

By Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira, Greg Land, Leinil Francis Yu, Jay Leisten & Gerardo Alanguilan (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-509-3

Since Spider-Man first joined the Avengers he has spent a lot of time questioning his worth and fittingness and that nervous insecurity informs this delightful compendium of brief sidebar stories starring the wall-crawler and individual members of the World’s Mightiest Heroes in team-up action.

Collecting the first five issues of team-up title The Avenging Spider-Man, which began at the end of 2011 – presumably to capitalise on the then-impending Avengers film release – this engaging and upbeat compendium is as big on laughs as mayhem, as you’d expect with award-winning Robot Chicken scripter Zeb Wells at the keyboardâ€¦

The madcap mayhem begins with a three-part collaboration illustrated by Joe Madureira and co-starring military monolith Red Hulk wherein the subterranean Moloids once ruled over by the Mole Man attack during the New York Marathon and kidnap Mayor J. Jonah Jameson.

The only heroes available are the criminally mismatched and constantly bickering web-spinner and Crimson Colossus, who follow, by the most inconvenient and embarrassing method possible, the raiders back into the very bowels of the Earthâ€¦

There they discover that an even nastier race of deep Earth dwellers, the Molans, led by a brutal barbarian named Ra’ktar, have invaded the Mole Man’s lands and now are intent on taking the surface too. The only thing stopping them so far is a ceremonial single-combat duel between the monstrous Molan and the surface world â€œkingâ€ Mayor Jamesonâ€¦

Understandably Red Hulk steps in as JJJ’s champion, with the Wall-crawler revelling in his own inadequacies and insecurities again, but when Ra’ktar kills the Scarlet Steamroller (don’t worry kids, it’s only a flesh wound: a really, really deep, incredibly debilitating flesh wound) Spider-Man has to suck it in and step up, once more defeating impossible odds and saving the day in his own inimitable, embarrassing and hilarious wayâ€¦

Next up is a stand alone story pairing the web-spinner with the coolly capable and obnoxiously arrogant Hawkeye (limned by Greg Land & Jay Leisten) which superbly illustrates Spider-Man’s warmth, humanity and abiding empathy as the fractious allies foil an attempt by the sinister Serpent Society to unleash poison gas in the heart of the city, but without doubt the undisputed prize here is a magical buddy-bonding yarn featuring Captain America which charismatically concludes this compendium.

The wonderment begins when some recently rediscovered pre-WWII comics strips by ambitious and aspiring kid-cartoonist Steve Rogers leads to a mutual acknowledgement of both Cap and Spidey’s inner nerdâ€¦ and just in case you’ve no soul, there’s also plenty of spectacular costumed conflict as the Avengers track down and polish off the remaining scaly scallywags of the Serpent Society in a cracking yarn illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilanâ€¦

By turns outrageous, poignant, sentimental, suspenseful and always intoxicatingly action-packed, this is a welcome return to the good old fun-stuffed thriller frolics Spider-Man was born forâ€¦

June 6, 2012June 5, 2012

Battle Scars

By Cullen Bunn, Matt Fraction, Christopher Yost, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-512-3

What happens when everything you think you know is proven to be a lie? How does a practical, self-reliant normal man cope?

Short, sharp, supremely shocking and superbly entertaining, this collected six-part ‘Shattered Heroes’ miniseries was set in the aftermath of the Fear Itself company-wide crossover and focused on troubled American Army Ranger Marcus Johnson, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who overnight found himself in an impossible situation a million miles from the sane and sensible – if understandably deadly – world he knew.

Afflicted by PTSD after all he experienced as a soldier, and with the world still recovering from the visceral global panic of â€œthe Fearâ€ (when dark Asgardian Gods almost destroyed the world through a wave of supernatural terror), Johnson returns home to attend his mother’s funeral.

Nia Johnson was a simple Atlanta schoolteacher killed in a terror-inspired street riot.

Or was sheâ€¦?

On leave for the burial, Johnson discovers evidence that his mother was actually assassinated by mercenaries who then attack him in broad daylight. Hot on their heels comes super-hitman Taskmaster and the baffled soldier is only saved by the intervention of Captain America and a new iteration of the covert agency Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

Without any explanation Johnson is taken into protective custody but, determined to get some answers, escapes and stumbles his baffled way through the insane world of superhumans and secret societies where everybody is a costumed lunatic and they’re all trying to kill him or recruit him.

With only his best buddy Ranger Phil â€œCheeseâ€ Coulson to depend on, Johnson battles an army of maniacs who literally want his blood, discovers his mother’s incredible secret, and learns of his connection to one of the oldest and most valiant heroes in the Marvel Universe in a spectacular, compelling and rocket-paced rollercoaster ride which fittingly introduces him to a world he never wanted or even believed inâ€¦

Without, I hope, giving too much away, I’ll suggest that the contemporary trend of rationalising and aligning comicbook and screen versions of superhero scenarios clearly inspired this classy espionage super-saga and its ties to the interlocking Avengers/Iron Man/Thor/Captain America mega-movie franchise. If I’m being vague, I apologise, but if you’ve seen the movies, read this book and you’ll see what I mean.

If you’re not a devout movie maven, however, read the book anyway.Â The sheer quality of the tale by storymen Cullen Bunn, Matt Fraction, Christopher Yost and artists Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy seems certain to make this marvellous yarn a guaranteed hit and crucial keystone of 21^st century Marvel continuity.
A British Edition â„¢ & Â© 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. and published by Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

May 23, 2012May 22, 2012

Essential Avengers volume 6

By Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, Gerry Conway, Bob Brown,
Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3058-1

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

Of course all the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which means that most issues includes somebody’s fave-rave – and the boldly grand-scale impressive stories and artwork are no hindrance either.

This monolithic and monumental sixth tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ world-saving exploits (presenting in crisp, stylish monochrome the astounding contents of issues #120-140 of their monthly comic book between March 1974 and October 1975, plus Giant-Size Avengers #1-4 and crossover appearances in Captain Marvel #33 and Fantastic Four #150), saw scripter Steve Englehart examine the outer limits of Marvel history and cosmic geography as he took readers to the ends of their universe and the beginning of timeâ€¦

Opening this epochal tome is ‘Death-Stars of the Zodiac!’ from Avengers #120, by Steve Englehart, Bob Brown & Don Heck, wherein terrorist astrological adversaries and super-criminal cartel Zodiac attacked again with a manic plan to eradicate everyone in Manhattan born under the sign of Gemini, with heroes Thor, Iron Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Swordsman and Mantis seemingly helpless to stop them.

In the blistering battle of #121’s ‘Houses Divided Cannot Stand!’, illustrated by John Buscema & Heck, even the added assistance of Captain America and the Black Panther is of little advantage and with Mantis injured the team begin to question her mysterious past, only to be lured to their seeming doom and ‘Trapped in Outer Space!’ (Brown & Mike Esposito) before at last turning the tables on their fearsome foes after the criminal Libra revealed a shocking secretâ€¦

Avengers #123, depicted by Brown & Heck, began a vast and ambitious saga with ‘Vengeance in Viet Nam – or – An Origin For Mantis!’ as Libra’s claim to be Mantis’ father (a story vigorously and violently denied by the Martial Arts Mistress) brought the team to Indo-China.

The criminal ex-mercenary declared that he left the baby Mantis with pacifistic Priests of Pama after running afoul of a local crime-lord, but the bewildered warrior-woman has no memory of such events, nor of being schooled in combat techniques by the Priests. Meanwhile the gravely wounded Swordsman has rushed to Saigon to confront his sadistic ex-boss Monsieur Khruul and save the Priests from being murdered by the gangster’s thugsâ€¦ but was again too late. It is the tragic story of his wasted lifeâ€¦

Issue #124 found the team stumbling upon a scene of slaughter as clerics and criminals lay dead and a monstrous planet-rending alien horror awoke in ‘Beware the Star-Stalker!’ by J. Buscema & Dave Cockrumâ€¦

Mantis was forced to accept that her own memories were not real after Avengers #125, which unleashed ‘The Power of Babel!’ when a vast alien armada attacked and, in combating it, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were trapped out of phase with their home-world.

This blockbuster battle bonanza was a crossover, and the penultimate episode of the spectacular Thanos War Saga that had featured in Captain Marvel, Marvel Feature and Iron Man, and included in this compendium is ‘The God Himself!’ scripted by Englehart from Captain Marvel #33 (plotted and illustrated by Jim Starlin & Klaus Janson) wherein the mad Titan Thanos finally fell in combat to the valiant Kree warrior: a stunning piece of comics storytelling which stands up remarkably well here despite being seen without benefit of the preceding ten chaptersâ€¦

It was back to business in #126 as in ‘All the Sights and Sounds of Death!’ (Brown & Cockrum) villains Klaw and Solarr attacked Avengers Mansion in a devious attempt to achieve vengeance for past indignities, after which Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler & Dan Adkins returned to the fold to delve into superhero history with ‘Nukloâ€¦ the Invader that Time Forgot!’ for the first quarterly edition of Giant-Size Avengers.

The stirring saga reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank AKA The Whizzer in a tragic tale of desperation as the aged speedster begged the heroes’ help in rescuing his son: a radioactive mutant locked in stasis since the early 1950s. Unfortunately within the recently unearthed chrono-capsule the lad has grown into a terrifying atomic horrorâ€¦

Moreover while in the throes of a stress-induced heart-attack the Whizzer let slip that he was the also the father of mutant Avengers Scarlet Witch and Quicksilverâ€¦

In Avengers #127 Sal Buscema & Joe Staton signed on as regular art team with ‘Bride and Doom!’ when the team travelled to the hidden homeland of the Inhumans for the marriage of the aforementioned Quicksilver to elemental enchantress Crystal only to stumble into a uprising of the genetic slave-race known as Alpha Primitives.

Once again the robotic giant Omega had incited the revolt but this time it was controlled by an old Avengers enemy who revealed himself in the concluding chapter of the crossoverâ€¦

Fantastic Four #150 featured ‘Ultron-7: He’ll Rule the World!’ by Gerry Conway, Buckler & Joe Sinnott, in which an impossible battle of FF, Inhumans and Avengers was ended by a veritable Deus ex Machina after which, at long last ‘The Wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver’ ended events on a happy note.

But not for long: in Avengers #128’s ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Dead!’ (Englehart, Sal Buscema & Staton) the FF‘s nanny Agatha Harkness began tutoring Wanda Frank in actual sorcery to augment her mutant power, unwittingly allowing dark mage Necrodamus access to the Mansion and their souls, whilst the increasingly troubled Mantis began making a play for the Scarlet Witch’s synthazoid boyfriend The Vision; heedless of the hurt and harm she would bring to her current lover The Swordsmanâ€¦

In #129 ‘Bid Tomorrow Goodbye!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear when Kang the Conqueror appeared, determined to possess the legendary female figure he called the Celestial Madonna.

Apparently this anonymous creature would birth the saviour of the universe, and since no records survived disclosing which of the three women in Avengers Mansion at that crucial moment she actually was, the time-reaver was determined to abduct all three and forcibly make Kang the inevitable father of the childâ€¦

This time not even the assembled Avengers could stop him and, after crushing and enslaving them, Kang made off with Wanda, Harkness and Mantis, with only the swiftly declining Swordsman free to contest himâ€¦

The tale continued into Giant-Size Avengers #2 with ‘A Blast from the Past!’ (illustrated by Cockrum) as reluctant returnee Hawkeye rushed to the team’s rescue, reuniting with old adversary Swordsman and an enigmatic entity named Rama-Tut who claimed to be Kang’s reformed future selfâ€¦

Against all odds the merely mortal heroes managed to free the enslaved Avengers and rout the unrepentant Kang – but only at the cost of the Swordsman’s lifeâ€¦

Avengers #130’s ‘The Reality Problem!’ (Sal Buscema & Staton) found the heartbroken and much chastened Mantis joining the team in Vietnam to investigate her mysteriously clouded past, only to be drawn into pointless combat with Communist exiles Titanium Man, Radioactive Man and Crimson Dynamo, thanks to the petty manipulations of sneak thiefÂ The Slasherâ€¦

The brief battle concluded and the trail then led to ‘A Quiet Half-hour in Saigon!’ during which the American Adventurers were again attacked by Kang who trapped them in Limbo and unleashed a Legion of the Unliving against themâ€¦

With another time-villain Immortus added to the mix, ‘Kang War II’ saw temporarily resurrected heroes and villains Wonder Man, 1940’s android Human Torch, the Monster of Frankenstein, martial arts assassin Midnight, the ghostly Flying Dutchman and Baron Zemo decimate the Avengers and the trauma and tragedy were further exacerbated as Mantis kept seeing the spectre of her deceased loverâ€¦

This absorbing thriller by Englehart, Thomas Sal Buscema & Staton segued inexorably into Giant-Size Avengers #3’s ‘â€¦What Time Hath put Asunder!’ illustrated by Cockrum & Joe Giella, which saw Earth’s Mightiest Heroes pull victory from the ashes of defeat and receive a unique gift from one of the assembled Masters of Timeâ€¦

Avengers #133 began ‘Yesterday and Beyondâ€¦’ (Englehart, S. Buscema & Staton) as the team followed Mantis to the beginnings of recorded Galactic history and the unravelling of her true past, whilst Vision was dispatched to glimpse his own obscure and complex origins; a double quest which encompassed the Kree and Skrull empires, the defeated Star-Stalker and deceased Priests of Pama and Thanos, and the telepathic Titan dubbed Moondragon, as well as a goodly portion of classic superhero history in ‘The Times That Bind!’ before #135 revealed that ‘The Torch is Passed!’ (illustrated by George Tuska & Frank Chiaramonte) and brought all the disparate elements together in Giant-Size Avengers #4.

‘â€¦Let All Men Bring Together’ (art by Heck & Tartaglione) climaxed the long-standing romance between the Scarlet Witch and Vision and another far more cosmic union with a brace of weddings and the ultimate ascension of the Celestial Madonna – even though demonic extra-dimensional despot Dormammu did try to spoil the showâ€¦

A new era was supposed to begin in Avengers #136 but a deadline was missed and instead ‘Iron Man: DOA’ by Englehart, Tom Sutton & Mike Ploog was reprinted from Amazing Adventures #12, wherein the newly mutated and furry Hank McCoy AKA the Beast had attacked the Armoured Avenger whilst mind-controlled.

Although an excellent story in its own right, it rather gave the game away for the next issue after the painfully depleted team declared ‘We Do Seek Out New Avengers!!’ (art by Tuska & Vince Colletta) and amongst the applicants – which included Moondragon, Yellowjacket and the Wasp – was an athletic, enigmatic guy bundled up in a raincoatâ€¦

No sooner had the introductions begun than a cosmic interloper attacked, hunting for the honeymooning Witch and Vision, but the ‘Stranger in a Strange Man!’ was far from his expected level of puissance and the heroes soon smelled a rat – unfortunately not before the Wasp was gravely injuredâ€¦

After all the intergalactic hyper-cosmic extravaganzas and extended epic-ing, Avengers #139 ‘Prescription: Violence!’ and #140’s ‘A Journey to the Center of the Ant’ end this volume on a comfortingly down-to-Earth scale as the malevolent Whirlwind tried to murder the bed-ridden Wasp and her devoted defender Yellowjacket succumbed to a growing affliction which doomed him to exponentially expand to his death until the refreshed, returned Vision and the bludgeoning Beast saved the dayâ€¦

Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart were at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of story-makers, brilliantly building on and consolidating the compelling creation of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko: spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder-machine of places and events that so many others were inspired by and could add to. In this volume, between them they also showed how much more graphic narratives could become and these terrific tales are perfect examples of superhero sagas done just right.

Although not to every reader’s taste these fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights masterpieces can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, so no lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book.
Â© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

May 8, 2012May 8, 2012

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade

By Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Alan Davis, Olivier Coipel & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-485-0

As the new Avengers film screens across the world, Marvel has again released a bunch of tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comics experience.

This stunning yarn is every bit as epic as any big screen extravaganza but does depend a bit too much on a thorough grounding in Avengers lore so newbies might struggle a bit with the minutiaeâ€¦

Once upon a time the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision and they had – through the agency of magic and Wanda’s unsuspected ability to reshape reality – twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that the boys were not real (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers) and as the years passed the tragedy drove the Scarlet Witch to insanity.

When Wanda tipped completely over the edge and destroyed at least three of her team-mates, the â€œWorld’s Mightiest Heroesâ€ were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled. Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and Young Avengers. The event also spilled over into the regular titles of current team members, and affiliated comic-books such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man ran parallel but not necessarily interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Big Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest friends and causing the destruction of everything they held dear.

In the later company crossover event House of M reality was rewritten (yes, again!) when she had another breakdown and altered Earth continuity so that Magneto’s mutants ruled a society where normal humans (â€œsapiensâ€) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations. It took every hero on Earth and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle and in the aftermath almost no mutants were left on Earthâ€¦

Needless to say in recent time Wanda Maximoff has not been anybody’s favourite person so it’s perhaps lucky that no one on Earth seems to know her current whereaboutsâ€¦

This compilation collects portions of Uncanny X-Men #526, Avengers: the Children’s Crusade #1-9 and Avengers: the Children’s Crusade – Young Avengers issue #1 (published in comicbook form from October 2011 to March 2012) which comprised the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

This gripping but convoluted tale opens with ‘Rebuilding’ (from X-Men #526 by author Allan Heinberg and artists Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales) as the aging Magneto, now loosely aligned with the remaining mutants in the semi-autonomous enclave â€œUtopiaâ€, learns that two members of the teen superhero team Young Avengers bear an impossible similarity to the twins his daughter conjured up years ago.

Moreover, the ultra-swift Speed and sorcerous Wiccan bear an uncanny resemblance to Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch at the same ageâ€¦

Can these superhero twins possibly be his grandchildren? When he decides to investigate, X-Man and Avenger Wolverine warns the master of Magnetism to leave them aloneâ€¦ or elseâ€¦

The story proper begins with Young Avengers Stature, Vision, Hulkling, Hawkeye, Patriot, Speed and Wiccan battling the racist terrorists Sons of the Serpent just as the elder Avengers arrive. When the child sorcerer displays a terrifying burst of power, alarm bells start ringing for Captain America, Iron Man and Ms. Marvel who have also noticed the startling similarities to their crazed and deadly former memberâ€¦

In a world where the impossible happens every day and twice on Sundays, Wiccan has always suspected that Wanda was his true mother, and as the veteran heroes seek to curb his rapidly developing powers the boy mage convinces his team-mates to accompany him on a search for the missing Scarlet Witch and the true story of how and why she went badâ€¦

Every Young Avenger has a different motive for the quest: for Speed it’s a chance to prove his annoying twin wrong, whilst Hulkling sees a chance to give his boyfriend Wiccan a sense of peace and closure. For Stature it’s the remote possibility of resurrecting the father Wanda murderedâ€¦

As the kids break out of Avenger custody they are joined by Magneto, sparking a clash with Wolverine and the rest of the â€œAâ€ Teamâ€¦

Bloodshed is avoided only by Wiccan transporting his friends and the Mutant Mastermind to the Balkan nation of Transia where Wanda and her brother Pietro grew up. Here they discover that Quicksilver – who blames his father and the Avengers in equal part for his beloved sister’s fate – is waiting.

â€¦And so is Wanda herselfâ€¦

Except that it’s only a carefully constructed android facsimile, but one which takes the reluctant and inimical fellow questers to the door of one the world’s most dangerous men, who has been harbouring the Scarlet Witch ever since the cataclysmic events following her magical decimation of the planet’s mutant populationâ€¦

Meanwhile the Avengers have recruited Wonder Man – who was brought back from the dead by Wanda – but he proves to be an unreliable ally once he realises that the World’s Mightiest Heroes intend to kill the Witch at the first sign of troubleâ€¦

In Avengers: the Children’s Crusade – Young Avengers issue #1, illustrated by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, founding member Iron Lad returns to finish the mission he gathered the young heroes for.

The futuristic technologist is the teen iteration of Kang the Conqueror and formed the Young Avengers to prevent himself growing into the merciless Master of Time, but as this pithy behind-the-scenes and out of continuity saga shows, history and destiny are not easily cheatedâ€¦

Back in Avengers: the Children’s Crusade #5 the chaos builds and the fabric of reality itself begins to unravel as Wanda and her notional boys are reunited and discover the true nature of her powers.

All Wanda wants to do is make amends whilst the man who claims to have caused all her breakdowns is prepared to keep her at all costs. Just as the Avengers arrive, determined to save the world from their former comrade, all hell breaks loose. When Iron Lad rejoins his team in real time he changes the recent past and the situation escalates to a catastrophic crescendo when the X-Men turn up, seeking justice for all the mutants â€œWandaâ€ destroyed in her crazy daysâ€¦

With the dead rising, history unmaking itself and the true villain seizing control of all creation the stage is set for a truly tragic and spectacular climaxâ€¦

Bombastic and cosmically broad in scope, this impressive tale by Allan (Wonder Woman, JLA, Sex and the City, The O.C., Gilmore Girls, Grey’s Anatomy) Heinberg seeks to undo and reset key milestones of Marvel history with boldness and generally succeeds in all his goals, aided by the impressive art of Jim Cheung and inkers Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis & Dexter Vimes, but although this yarn will delight long-time fans I fear casual and new readers will struggle to pick up the nuances or even follow the plot. Still, the spectacular alternate cover gallery by Cheung, Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, Travis Charest and Art Adams will enthrall art fans and the impetus afforded by the film release will certainly draw new followers to this extremely attractive package with many small and big screen connections.

April 26, 2012April 25, 2012

Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Neal Adams, John Byrne, Kurt Busiek, George PÃ©rez, Brian Michael Bendis & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-507-9

The Avengers have always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in one single basket pays off big-time: even when all Marvel’s all-stars such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man were absent, it merely allowed the team’s lesser lights to shine more brightly.

Of course all the founding stars regularly featured due to the rotating, open-door policy which meant most issues included somebody’s fave-rave – and the boldly grand-scale impressive stories and artwork were no hindrance either.

Under the Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales reprints some obvious landmarks from the pantheon’s serried history, specifically Avengers volume 1 #1, 4, 57, 93, Avengers West Coast #51-52, Avengers volume 3, #10-11, Avengers volume 1 #503, Avengers Finale and New Avengers #3 which, whilst not all absolutely â€œdefinitiveâ€ epics, certainly offer a sublime snapshot of just how very great the ever-shifting team of titans can be.

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee and Jack Kirby aped the tactic which had worked so tellingly for DC Comics, but with mixed results. Julie Schwartz had incredible success with revised and modernised versions of the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed natural to try and revive the characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days. The JLA inspired Fantastic Four featured a new Human Torch and before long Sub-Mariner was back tooâ€¦

As the costumed hero revival brought continuing success, the next stage was obvious and is covered here at then end of the volume by historian Mike Conroy’s informative essay ‘The True Origin of the Avengers’â€¦

The concept of combining individual stars into a group had already made the Justice League of America a commercial winner and inspired the moribund Atlas outfit of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko to invent many â€œsuper-charactersâ€ after the Fantastic Four. Nearly 18 months later the fledgling House of Ideas had a viable stable of leading men (but only sidekick women) so Lee & Kirby assembled a handful of them and moulded them into a force for justice and even higher salesâ€¦

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had truly kick-started the Silver Age of comics and this stunning historical retrospective begins as it should with two stories from the groundbreaking Lee/Kirby run which graced the first eight issues of the World’s Mightiest Heroes.

Seldom has it ever been done with such style and sheer exuberance. Cover-dated September, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Menâ€¦

‘The Coming of the Avengers’ is one of the cannier origin tales in comics. Instead of starting at a zero point and acting as if the reader knew nothing, Stan & Jack (plus inker Dick Ayers) assumed readers had at least a passing familiarity with their other efforts and wasted very little time or energy on introductions.

In Asgard Loki, god of evil, was imprisoned on a dank isle, hungry for vengeance on his half-brother Thor. Observing Earth he espied the monstrous, misunderstood Hulk and engineered a situation wherein the man-brute seemingly went berserk to trick the Thunder God into battling the monster. When the Hulk’s sidekick Rick Jones radioed the Fantastic Four for assistance, Loki diverted the transmission and smugly waited for the mayhem to manifest.

Unfortunately for him, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp also picked up the SOSâ€¦.

As the heroes converged in the American Southwest to search for the Jade Giant they realized that something was oddly amissâ€¦

This terse, epic, compelling and wide-ranging yarn (New York, New Mexico, Detroit and Asgard in 22 pages) is Lee & Kirby at their bombastic best and one of the greatest adventure stories of the Silver Age and is followed by the long-awaited return of the last of the â€œBig Threeâ€â€¦

Avengers #4 (March 1964) was a true landmark of the genre as Marvel’s greatest Golden Age sensation was revived. ‘Captain America Joins the Avengers!’ has everything that made the company’s early tales so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior (that most of the readers had never heard of!) returned in our time of greatest need, stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky, aliens, gangsters, Sub-Mariner and even wry social commentary. This story by Lee, Kirby & George Roussos just cannot be bettered.

In #57 (October 1968) Roy Thomas, John Buscema & George Klein produced a Golden Age revival of their own as ‘Beholdâ€¦ the Vision!’ introduced a terrifying android apparition designed by arch-foe Ultron to destroy the heroes. Sadly not appearing here is the conclusion wherein the eerie, amnesiac, artificial man with complete control of his mass and density discovered a fraction of his origins and joined the human heroesâ€¦.

Avengers #89-97 comprised perhaps the most ambitious and certainly boldest saga in Marvel’s early history: an astounding epic of tremendous scope which dumped Earth into a cosmic war the likes of which comics fans had never before seen and creating the template for all multi-part crossovers and publishing events ever since.

The Kree-Skull War captivated a generation of comics readers and from that epic comes the extra-long ‘This Beachhead Earth’ (Avengers #93 November 1972, by Thomas, Neal Adams & Tom Palmer) as the Vision was almost destroyed by alien invaders and Ant-Man was forced to undertake ‘A Journey to the Center of the Android!’ to save the android’s unconventional life. Thereafter the Avengers became aware of not one but two alien presences on Earth: bellicose Kree and sneaky shape-shifting Skrulls, beginning a ‘War of the Weirds!’ on our fragile globe.

Acting too late, the assembled team were unable to prevent the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Captain Marvel from being abducted by the Skrullsâ€¦

That cliff-hanging drama is followed by a revelatory two-part tale from Avengers West Coast #51-52 (November and December 1989) by John Byrne & Mike Machlan which opens with ‘I Sing of Arms and Heroesâ€¦’ wherein the Scarlet Witch hunted for her missing children only to discover some horrifying truths about them and her own powers. The tragedy was only resolved when demonic foe Master Pandemonium and supernal arch-tempter Mephisto deprived her of everything she had ever believed, wanted or loved in ‘Fragments of a Greater Darkness’â€¦

Avengers volume 3, #10-11 (November and December 1998) by Kurt Busiek, George PÃ©rez, Al Vey & Bob Wiacek) recaps the history and celebrates the team’s anniversary with a parade in ‘Pomp and Pageantry’ until the ghostly Grim Reaper hijacked the affair and attacked them through the medium of their own dead yet resurrected members Wonder Man, Mockingbird, Swordsman, Hellcat, Dr. Druid, Thunderstrike and Captain Marvel. At the same time the increasingly unstable Scarlet Witch learned the true nature of her reality-altering powers in the catastrophic concluding clash ‘â€¦Always an Avenger!’

A few years later the â€œWorld’s Mightiest Heroesâ€ were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled. Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and The Young Avengers. Affiliated comic-books Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man ran parallel but not necessarily interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as a trusted comrade betrayed the World’s Mightiest Superteam resulting in the destruction of everything they held dear and the death of several members, all of which originally appeared in issues #500-503 plus the one-shot Avengers Finale.

From that epic event comes the closing chapter ‘Chaos part four’ (#503, December 2004, by Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch, Olivier Coipel & Danny Miki) wherein the uncomprehending, surviving heroes discovered and reluctantly despatched the true author of all their woes and losses, after which the moody and elegiac Avengers Finale signalled the end of an era in a powerful tribute by a host of creators including Bendis and artists Finch, Miki, Frank D’Armata, Alex Maleev, Steve Epting, Lee Weeks, Brian Reber, Michael Gaydos, Eric Powell, Darick Robertson, Mike Mayhew, Andy Troy, David Mack, Gary Frank, Mike Avon Oeming, Pete Patanzis, Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, Steve McNiven, George PÃ©rez, Mike Perkins, Neal Adams & Laura Martin.

It is undeniably one of the best superhero â€œLast Battlesâ€ ever created, and loses little impact whether it was your five hundredth or first experience with these tragic heroes.

Shocking and beautiful, there was a genuine feeling of an â€œEnd of Daysâ€ to this epic Armageddon.

The final comics tale in this sturdy volume comes from New Avengers #3 (March 2005) as, in the aftermath of a massive breakout of super-villains, Captain America and Iron Man tried to put the band back together with a whole new generation including Luke Cage, Spider-Woman and the Amazing Spider-Man.

‘Breakout Part 3’ is just a fraction of a longer epic by Bendis, Finch, Allen Martinez, Miki & Victor Olazaba, but ends this action-adventure compendium on a solid note indicating that the best is still yet to comeâ€¦

Also contained herein is an extensive prose feature covering the history of the team, the aforementioned ‘true origin’ piece and a raft of classic covers to tantalise and temptâ€¦

This book is one of the very best of these perennial supplements to cinema spectacle, but more importantly it is a supremely well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too. If there’s a movie sequel, I’m sure Marvel has plans for reprinting much of the masterful material necessarily omitted here, but at least until then we have a superb selection to entice newcomers and charm the veteran American Dreamers.
â„¢ and Â© 1963, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1989, 1998, 2004, 2005, 2012 Marvel & subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

April 20, 2012April 19, 2012

Avengers Origins

By Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa, Mike Benson, Adam Glass, Sean McKeever,
Kathryn Immonen, Kyle Higgins, Alex Siegel & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-508-6

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Mighty Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package and over the years the roster has waxed and waned until almost every character in their universe has appeared within those hallowed pages.

Now fifty years later with a blockbuster live-action movie about to bust wide open and the franchise set to go global, the classic backstories of five of the Assembled Avengers get a 21^st century make-over to compliment those already afforded to film favourites Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man and the Hulk.

These captivating re-interpretations and updatings originally appeared as 5 individual one-shots at the end of 2011 and are collected here as a superb primer and introduction to the deluge of Avengers material still to comeâ€¦

The revelations begin with ‘Ant-Man & the Wasp’ (by writer Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa and artist Stephanie Hans) as, with the murder of his wife still fresh in mind, research scientist Henry Pym discovers how to shrink and is befriended by a very special ant. Soon the fringe theorist is expiating his grief by battling crooks and monsters as the Astonishing Ant-Man until flighty design student Janet Van Dyne sets her cap for him. When her father is killed by a horror from space she finally understands Pym and forces him to use his technological wizardry to transform her into an avenging human Waspâ€¦

‘The Vision’ – scripted by Kyle Higgins & Alex Siegel with art by Stephane PergerÂ – is set a few years later when the Avengers are fully established and follows the moral struggle of the eerie android who believes he was built by robotic tyrant Ultron to destroy the World’s Mightiest Heroes. That programming only lasted until his first clash with his targets after which something uniquely human grips the artificial assassinâ€¦

Mike Benson, Adam Glass and artist Dalibor Talajic retell the formative events which turned young gangsta Carl Lucas into ‘Luke Cage’: how the street punk was framed for drug running by his best friend, sent to federal lock-up, and survived an unsanctioned medical experiment which turned him into a human tank. Adding to the classic origin tale of vengeance that saw the fugitive con become a Hero for Hire is the pivotal life-changing tragedy which turned that desperate bad-man into a true champion of justiceâ€¦

‘Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver’ by Sean McKeever & Mirco Pierfederici follows the teen-aged gypsy twins as they flee human superstition and bigotry and fall into the hands of mutant terrorist Magneto. When their interminable battles against the X-Men and the increasing instability of their terrifying master proves too much they make a bold jump and apply for membership with a true band of brothersâ€¦

This captivating chronicle concludes with the boyhood of ‘Thor’ (by Kathryn Immonen & Al Barrionuevo, with additional art by Michel Lancombe & Jeff Huet) as the wild and unruly heir of Odin is drawn into constant mischief by his half-brother Loki. Their treatment of child-goddess Sif finally prompts the All-Father to take steps and Thor’s life changes forever when he is charged with overseeing the creation of the Hammer Mjolnir.

Once he proves worthy of wielding it the Thunderer-to-be immediately oversteps his bounds and Odin is compelled to teach his arrogant first-born a lesson that will change the destiny of Asgard and Earth foreverâ€¦

By wisely leaving the established canon largely unchanged, concentrating on infilling moments and addressing only the most glaringly outdated attitudes of the originals, these new stories successfully tread that fine line which means that readers completely unaware of the characters’ histories can enjoy the fundamental core of the Avengers appeal without old-timers like me feeling too alienated or patronised.

And of course, should you want to, all of those original masterpieces are readily available to enjoy in numerous reprint collections, such as the relevant Essential Editions or Marvel Masterworks series, and I strongly urge you to read those tooâ€¦

As a rule I’m always cautious about updates and reboots of classic comics material but I must admit that such things are a necessary evil as the years roll on, and when the deed is done with sensitivity and imagination (not to mention dynamic, spectacular aplomb) I can only applaud and commend the effort.
â„¢ & Â© 2012 Marvel & subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A, Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

April 2, 2012April 8, 2012

Essential Avengers volume 5

By Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Barry Windsor-Smith, Rich Buckler, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2087-4

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

Of course all the founding stars regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which means that most issues includes somebody’s fave-rave – and the boldly grand-scale impressive stories and artwork are no hindrance either.

This monolithic and monumental fifth tome, collecting the absolute best of the Mighty Avengers‘ world-saving exploits (presenting in crisp, stylish black and white the astounding contents of issues #98-119 of their monthly comic book between April 1972 and February 1974, plus crossover appearances in Daredevil #99 and The Defenders #8-11), saw scripter extraordinaire Roy Thomas hand over the reins to an even more imaginative and groundbreaking author who took the team to dizzying new imaginative and dramatic heightsâ€¦

Opening this epochal tome is ‘Let Slip the Dogs of War’ from Avengers #98, by Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith & Sal Buscema, which finds harried heroes Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Thor, all survivors of the recently concluded Kree-Skrull War, debating the loss of their comrade Goliath, missing in action since he explosively stopped an alien warship from nuking Earthâ€¦

As the Thunderer headed for Asgard and its magic scrying mirrors, the fruitless debate was curtailed when war-mongering demagogue Mr. Tallon began inciting riot in the streets of New York. The gathered crowds attacked the Avengers when they tried to quell the unrest and it was soon evident that the war-hawk had supernatural assistanceâ€¦ and in the dimensional void the Thunder God found all access to the Immortal Realms had been cut offâ€¦

By the time Thor returned to Earth his comrades had been bewitched too. Joining with the seemingly immune Vision in a last-ditch, hopeless battle, he fought their best friends until the tide was turned by a perfectly aimed arrowâ€¦ heralding the return of Goliath to his original Hawkeye identity.

Moreover he had with him another Avenger: an amnesiac Hercules, Prince of Power, whose only certain knowledge was that Earth and Asgard were doomedâ€¦

‘â€¦They First Make Mad!’ (inked by Tom Sutton) extended the epic as the Avengers called on all their resources to cure Hercules and decipher his cryptic warning whilst the World’s leaders seemed determined to hurl the planet into atomic Armageddon.

As Hawkeye revealed his miraculous escape from death in space and how he found Hercules the call went out, summoning every hero who had ever been an Avenger. Suddenly two Grecian Titans materialised to trounce the team, dragging the Prince of Power back to Olympusâ€¦

The epic concluded in the staggeringly beautiful anniversary 100^th issue ‘Whatever Gods There Be!’ (inked by Smith, Joe Sinnott & Syd Shores) as thirteen Avengers – including even the scurrilous Swordsman and blockbusting Hulk – invaded the home of the Gods to discover old enemy the Enchantress and war god Ares behind the entire malignant plotâ€¦

With the supernatural wonderment concluded new penciller Rich Buckler – doing his best Neal Adams impersonation – took over the art, limning a Harlan Ellison/Roy Thomas tale, inked by Dan Adkins.

‘Five Dooms to Save Tomorrow!’ was based on an Ellison novella from 1964 and found the Avengers battling Leonard Tippit, an ordinary man granted incredible power so that he could murder five innocent humans beings whose innocuous continued existence nevertheless threatened Earth’s future.

Determined to stop him whatever the ultimate consequences, the murky moral quandary tested the Avengers to their utmost, but they were on firmer, more familiar ground in #102 when the Grim Reaper returned, offering to place the Vision’s consciousness in a human body in return for the android’s aid in ‘What to Do Till the Sentinels Come!’ (Thomas, Buckler & Sinnott) as the mutant hunting robots kidnapped the Scarlet Witch and attempted to eradicate the threat of Homo Superior foreverâ€¦

The budding romance between the Witch and the Vision revealed tensions and bigotries in the most unexpected places as the cataclysmic tale continued with ‘The Sentinels are Alive and Well!’ with the team searching the globe for the monstrous mechanical marauders before being captured whilst invading their Australian Outback hive. The tale concluded in ‘With a Bangâ€¦ and a Whimper!’ as the assembled heroes thwarted the robots’ intention to sterilise humanity – but only at the cost of two heroes’ livesâ€¦

The grieving Scarlet Witch took centre stage in #105 as ‘In the Beginning wasâ€¦ the World Within!’ (by new scripter Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Jim Mooney) found the team travelling to South America and encountering cavemen mutants from the lost world known as the Savage Land, after which the Avengers discovered ‘A Traitor Stalks Among Us!’ (illustrated by Buckler, George Tuska & Dave Cockrum) as the revelation that perennial sidekick Rick Jones had become atomically bonded to alien hero Captain Marvel triggered a painful flashback in the memory-blocked Captain America, and an old foe turned the team against itself.

Avengers #107 revealed ‘The Master Plan of the Space Phantom!’ (Jim Starlin, Tuska & Cockrum) and his complex and sinister alliance with the Grim Reaper as the love-sick Vision finally accepted the offer of a human body.

Unfortunately, the corpus on offer was the Star-Spangled Avenger’sâ€¦

‘Checkâ€¦ and Mate!’, illustrated by veteran Avenger artist Don Heck and inkers Cockrum & Sinnott, wrapped up the intriguing saga in spectacular fashion as an army of Avengers thrashed the Phantom, the Reaper and the hordes of Hydra as well but the true climax was the Vision and Witch’s final acknowledgement of their love for each other.

The announcement provoked a storm of troubleâ€¦

In #109 Hawkeye, who’d always carried a torch for the beautiful Wanda, quit the team in a dudgeon. ‘The Measure of a Man!’ (Heck & Frank McLaughlin) found the heartsick archer duped by billionaire businessman Champion and almost causing the complete destruction of California before wising up and saving the day, after which the depleted team of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision and Black Panther investigated the disappearance of mutant heroes the X-Men and were thoroughly beaten by an old enemy with a new power.

‘â€¦ And Now Magneto!’ (Englehart, Heck, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito) ended with half the team brainwashed captives of the master-villain and the remaining crusaders desperately searching for new allies whilst in San Francisco and the crossover Daredevil and the Black Widow #99 (May 1973, by Steve Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Syd Shores) The Mark of Hawkeye!’ found Natasha Romanoff’s old boyfriend fetch up on the Widow’s doorstep, determined to reclaim her, culminating in the Archer’s sound and well-deserved thrashing.

When the last Avengers arrived, asking him to return and assist he refused, but DD and the Widow didn’tâ€¦

The story resumed in ‘With Two Beside Them!’ (Englehart, Heck & Esposito) saw the West Coast vigilantes successfully help the ragtag heroes rescue the X-Men and Avengers enslaved by the malevolent Magneto. With the action over, Daredevil returned to California but the Black Widow chose to stay with the World’s Mightiest Heroesâ€¦

Avengers #111 introduced a new supernatural menace in ‘The Lion God Lives!’ (by Heck & Frank Bolle) wherein a rival African deity sought to destroy the human Avatar of his great rival The Panther God. As the Black Panther and his valiant comrades tackled that threat in the wings an erstwhile ally and enemy and his exotic paramour made their own plans for the teamâ€¦

Prejudice was the theme of #113’s ‘Your Young Men Shall Slay Visions!’ (Bob Brown & Bolle) as a horde of fundamentalist bigots offended by the â€œunnatural loveâ€ of Wanda and the Vision turned themselves into human bombs to destroy the sinful, unholy couple whilst the ‘Night of the Swordsman’ in #114 (Brown & Esposito) formally introduced the reformed swashbuckler and the enigmatic psychic martial artist Mantis to the team just in time to thwart the Lion God’s latest scheme

One of author Englehart’s other assignments was the anti-hero team The Defenders and since issue #4 he had been carefully putting players in place for a hugely ambitious cross-over experiment: one that would turn the comics industry on its head.

The classic confrontation finally commenced in Avengers #115 with a lead story ‘Below Us the Battle!’ (Brown & Esposito) wherein the still-understaffed heroes travelled to England and the castle of the Black Knight, only to encounter mystic resistance, a troglodytic race of scavengers and a comrade long missing…

The issue also contained a little prologue, ‘Alliance Most Foul!’, which saw other-dimensional Dark Lord Dormammu and Asgardian god of Evil Loki united to search for an ultimate weapon which would give them ultimate victory against all their foes.

This despotic duo would trick the Defenders into securing the six component parts by â€œrevealingâ€ that the reconstructed Evil Eye could restore the Black Knight – who had been turned to stone by the Enchantress months previously – a plan that began in a similar prologue at the end of Defenders #8â€¦

‘Deception’ (Englehart, Sal Buscema & Esposito) was the first chapter in ‘The Avengers/Defenders Clash’ as a message from the spirit of the Black Knight was intercepted by the twin gods of evil, leading directly to ‘Betrayal!’ in Avengers #116, wherein the Avengers, hunting for their missing comrade, â€œdiscoverâ€ that their oldest enemies Hulk and Sub-Mariner may have turned the Black Knight to stone.

The third chapter ‘Silver Surfer Vs the Vision and the Scarlet Witch’ comprises the remainder of that issue, illustrated by Brown & Esposito, wherein the rival teams split up: one to gather the scattered sections of the Eye and the other to stop them at all costsâ€¦

Defenders #9 (art by Buscema & McLaughlin) began with the tense recap ‘Divide â€¦and Conquer’ before ‘The Invincible Iron Man Vs. Hawkeye the Archer’ and ‘Dr. Strange Vs. the Black Panther and Mantis’ shed more suspicion and doubt on the mystical malcontents’ subtle master-plan.

Avengers #117 ‘Holocaust’, ‘Swordsman Vs the Valkyrie’ and the turning point ‘Captain America Vs Sub-Mariner’ (Brown and Esposito) led to the penultimate clash in Defenders #10 (Buscema & Bolle) ‘Breakthrough! The Incredible Hulk Vs Thor’ and the inevitable joining together of the warring camps in ‘United We Stand!’, but sadly too late as Dormammu seized the reconstructed Evil Eye, using its power to merge his monstrous realm with ours.

Avengers #118 provided the cathartic climactic conclusion in ‘To the Death’ (Brown, Esposito & Giacoia) as all the other heroes of the Marvel Universe battled the demonic invasion whilst the Avengers and Defenders plunged deep into the Dark Dimension itself to end the threat of the evil gods forever (or at least for the momentâ€¦).

With the overwhelming cosmic threat over the victorious Defenders attempted to use the Eye to cure their stony comrade only to find that his spirit had found a new home in the 12^th century. In #11’s ‘A Dark and Stormy Knight’ (inked by Bolle), Dr. Strange, the Valkyrie, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner , Hawkeye and the Hulk battled black magic during the Crusades, failed to retrieve the Knight and went their separate ways – as did departing scripter Englehart who surrendered scripting of the â€œNon-Teamâ€ to concentrate his creative energies on the World’s Mightiest Heroes.

This epic monochrome collection concludes with a delightfully traditional spooky Halloween tale as the Avengers, warned by clairvoyant vision from Mantis, head to Rutland, Vermont for the ‘Night of the Collector’ (#119, illustrated by Brown & Heck); encountering old friends, a dastardly foe and blistering action and suspenseâ€¦

These terrific tales are perfect examples of superhero sagas done just right and also a pivotal step of the little company into the corporate colossus. Englehart’s forthcoming concoctions would turn the Marvel Universe on its head and pave the way for a new peak of cosmic adventureâ€¦

March 16, 2012March 14, 2012

Essential Astonishing Ant-Man

New Extended review

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0822-1

Marvel Comics initially built its fervent fan base through strong and contemporarily relevant stories and striking art, but most importantly by creating a shared continuity that closely followed the characters through not just their own titles but also through the many guest appearances in other comics.

Such an interweaving meant that even today completists and fans seek out extraneous stories to get a fuller picture of their favourite’s adventures.

In such an environment, series such as Marvel’s Essentialâ€¦ and DC’s Showcase Presentsâ€¦ are an economical and valuable commodity which approaches the status of a public service for collectors.

If you’re of a particularly picky nature – and what true comic fan isn’t? – you could consider the Astonishing Ant-Man to be one of the earliest heroes of the Marvel Age of Comics. He first appeared in Tales to Astonish #27 (cover-dated January 1962), in one of the men-vs.-monsters anthology titles that dominated in those heady days of Science Fiction Double-Feature B-Movies.

This episodic, eclectic and eccentric black and white compendium (gathering the pertinent portions of Tales to Astonish #27 and the series which ran from #35-69: September 1962-July 1965) collects all the solo outings of a brilliant but troubled scientist who became an unlikely superhero and begins with what was just supposed to be another throwaway filler thriller.

The 7-page short introduced Dr Henry Pym, a maverick scientist who discovered a shrinking potion and became ‘The Man in the Anthill!’ discovering peril, wonder and even a kind of companionship amongst the lowliest creatures on Earth and under it.

This engaging piece of fluff, which owed more than a little to the classic movie The Incredible Shrinking Man, was plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber and stunningly illustrated by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.

Obviously the character struck a chord with someone since, as the DC Comics-inspired superhero boom flourished, Pym was rapidly retooled as a full-fledged costumed do-gooder in issue #35 (September 1962) which featured ‘The Return of the Ant-Man’ by Lee, Larry Lieber, Kirby & Ayers. The plot concerned a raid by Soviet agents (this was at the height of Marvel’s ‘Commie-Buster’ period when every other villain was a Red somebody or other and rampaging socialism was a cultural bÃªte noir) wherein Pym was captured and held prisoner in his own laboratory.

Forced to use the abandoned shrinking gases and cybernetic devices he’d built to communicate with ants, Dr. Pym soundly trounced the spies and determined to use his powers for the good of Mankind.

The same creative team produced the next four adventures beginning with ‘The Challenge of Comrade X!’ (Tales to Astonish #36) wherein an infallible Soviet super-spy was dispatched to destroy the Diminutive Daredevil, after which Ant-Man was temporarily ‘Trapped by the Protector!’ – a cunning jewel-thief and extortionist who ultimately proved no match for the Tiny Titan.

‘Betrayed by the Ants!’ featured the debut of arch-foe Egghead, a maverick and mercenary research scientist who attempted to usurp the hero’s control of insects whilst ‘The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!’ saw a return to scary monster stories as a radioactively mutated, super-intelligent bug sought to eradicate humanity with only Hank Pym able to stop himâ€¦

Sol Brodsky replaced Ayers as inker for ‘The Day that Ant-Man Failed!’ (TTA #40), with a deadly Hijacker robbing trucks and pushing the shrinking inventor to new heights of ingenuity, after which Kirby too moved on: his lavishly experimental perspectival flamboyance replaced by the comfortingly realism and enticing human scale of new illustrator Don Heck who limned a classy alien invasion yarn in ‘Prisoner of the Slave World!’ and depicted a mesmerising menace who could control people with ‘The Voice of Doom’ (TTA #42).

The following issue H. E. Huntley (AKA veteran writer/artist Ernie Hart) replaced Lieber as scripter with ‘Versus the Mad Master of Time’ – a run-of-the-mill mad – or rather, disgruntled and misguided – scientist yarn but the next issue (TTA #44) saw Kirby return to pencil a significant change to the series.

‘The Creature from Kosmos’ (inked by Heck) introduced The Wasp – Pym’s bon vivant crime-fighting partner – in a double-length tale that featured a murderous alien marauder who killed her father as well as the secret origin of Ant-Man. In a rare and uncharacteristic display of depth we learned that Pym was a widower: his Hungarian wife Maria having been murdered by Communist agents, irrevocably changing the young scientist from a sedentary scholar into a driven man of action.

Ant-Man used his discoveries to endow Janet with the power to shrink and fly; she became his crime-fighting partner and together they overcame ‘The Terrible Traps of Egghead’ (Lee, Huntley & Heck) before travelling to Greece and thwarting another alien invasion in ‘When Cyclops Walks the Earth!’

Back in the USA the Diminutive Duo battled mystic trumpeter Trago in ‘Music to Scream By’ and then defeated an avaricious weapons designer who built himself a unique battle suit to become super-thief ‘The Porcupine!’ before the next big change came with Tales to Astonish #49’s ‘The Birth of Giant-Man!’.

Lee scripted and Kirby returned to pencil the epic story of how Pym learned to enlarge, as well as reduce, his size just in time to tackle the threat of trans-dimensional kidnapper the Eraser. In the next issue Steve Ditko inked The King in ‘The Human Top’, the first chapter of a two-part tale which showed our hero struggling to adapt to his new strength and abilities. The blistering concluding episode ‘Showdown with the Human Top!’ was inked by Dick Ayers who would draw the bulk of the stories until the series’ demise. Also with this issue (TTA #51) a back-up feature ‘The Wonderful Wasp Tells a Tale’ began, blending horror vignettes narrated by the heroine, fact-features and solo adventures. The first is a chilling space thriller ‘Somewhere Waits a Wobbow!’ crafted by Lee, Lieber and George Roussos in his Marvel identity of George Bell.

The super-hero adventures settled into a rather predictable pattern from now on: individually effective enough but rather samey when read in quick succession.

First up is a straight super-villain clash in ‘The Black Knight Strikes!’ by Lee & Ayers from TTA #52, supplemented by the Wasp’s homily ‘Not What They Seem!’ whilst #53 led with another spectacular battle-bout ‘Trapped by the Porcupine!’ and finished with a Wasp yarn ‘When Wakes the Colossus!’ by Lee, Lieber & Heck before #54 saw Heck briefly return to illustrate the Crusading Couple’s catastrophic trip to Santo Rico in ‘No Place to Hide!’, where they became trapped and powerless in the South American banana republic run by brutal commie agent El Toro, which was neatly counter-balanced by the Wasp’s sci fi saga ‘Conquest!’ by Lee, Lieber & Brodsky.

An implacable old enemy defeated himself in ‘On the Trail of the Human Top!’ when the psychotic killer stole Giant-Man’s size changing pills in #55, after which Lee, Lieber & Bell produced the Wasp’s tale of ‘The Gypsy’s Secret!’

A stage conjuror was far more trouble than you’d suspect in ‘The Coming of The Magician!’; even successfully abducting the Wasp before his defeat, which she celebrated by regaling us all with the tall tale ‘Beware the Bog Beast!’ (Lee, Lieber & Paul Reinman) after which TTA #57 featured a big guest-star as the size-changing duo set out ‘On the Trail of the Amazing Spider-Man!’ courtesy of Lee, Ayers & Reinman, with the sinister Egghead waiting in the wings, whilst the Wasp actually had a solo adventure with ‘A Voice in the Dark!’ by Lee, Lieber & Chic Stone.

These were not only signs of the increasing interconnectivity that Lee was developing but also indicated that the strip was losing impetus. In a market increasingly flooded with superheroes, the adventures of Giant Man were not selling as well as they used toâ€¦ Captain America cameo-ed in #58’s battle with a giant alien ‘The Coming of Colossus!’ which was supplemented by the Wasp’s lone hand played against her old enemy in ‘The Magician and the Maiden!’

The beginning of the end came in Tales to Astonish #59 and ‘Enter: the Hulk!’ with the Avengers inadvertently prompting Giant-Man to hunt down the Green Goliath. The remainder of that all-action issue offered ‘A Giant-Man Bonus Special Feature: Let’s Learn About Hank and Janâ€¦’ from Lee, Ayers & Reinman.

Although the Human Top engineered that blockbusting battle, Lee was the real mastermind as, with the next issue The Hulk began to co-star in his own series and on the covers whilst Giant-Man’s adventures shrank back to a dozen or so pages.

The first half-sized yarn was ‘The Beasts of Berlin!’ – a throwback in many ways to the daft old days as the duo smuggle themselves over the Wall and into the Russian Sector to battle Commie Apes (no, really!) behind the Iron Curtain.

The writing was on the wall by issue #61. With the Hulk already most prominent on the covers, substandard stories and a rapid rotation of artists, it was obvious Giant-Man was waning. ‘Now Walks the Android’ was a fill-in rather rapidly illustrated by Ditko & Bell starring Egghead and his latest technological terror whilst ‘Versus the Wonderful Wasp’ (by Golden Age icon Carl Burgos & Ayers) recycled an ancient plot wherein a thief stole Giant-Man’s costume and equipment leaving the mere girl to save the day.

‘The Gangsters and the Giant’ in #63, by Lee, Burgos & Stone incestuously reproduced the plot of #37 with the gem-stealing Protector there re-imagined here as â€œthe Wreckerâ€ after which ‘When Attuma Strikes’ (Burgos & Reinman) offered some crumb of imagination and wit as Hank and Jan split up and the poor lass managed to get herself abducted by an undersea tyrant. This last was scripted by incredibly under-appreciated and almost anonymous comics veteran Leon Lazarus.

One last attempt to resuscitate the series came with the addition of another Golden-Age legend. Bob Powell signed on as artist for issue #65’s ‘Presenting the New Giant-Man’ (scripted by Lee, inked by Heck) wherein the Man of Many Sizes got a better costume and powers but almost died at the hands of a cat and spider he accidentally enlarged.

With a fresh new look, these last five issues are actually some of the best tales in the run, but it was clearly too late.

Frankie (Giacoia) Ray inked Powell for ‘The Menace of Madam Macabre’, with a murderous oriental seductress attempting to steal Pym’s secrets and Chic Stone inked ‘The Mystery of the Hidden Man and his Rays of Doom!’ wherein a power-stealing alien removed Pym’s ability to shrink to insect size before the series concluded with a powerfully impressive two-parter in Tales to Astonish #68 and 69) ‘Peril from the Long-Dead Past’ and ‘Oh, Wasp, Where is Thy Sting?’, inked by Vince Colletta and John Giunta respectively.

So far along was the decline that Al Hartley had to finish what Stan Lee started, i.e. concluding a tense and thrilling tale of the Wasp’s abduction by the Human Top and the retirement of the weary, shell-shocked heroes at the saga’s end.

(Gi)-Ant-Man and the Wasp did not die, but instead joined the vast cast of characters which Marvel kept in relatively constant play through team books, via guest shots and in occasional re-launches and mini-series.

Despite variable quality and treatment the eclectic, eccentric and always fun exploits of Marvel’s premier â€œodd coupleâ€ remain an intriguing and engaging reminder that the House of Ideas didn’t always get it right, but generally gave their all to entertaining their fans.

By turns superb, stupid, exciting and appalling this Essential tome epitomises the best and worst of Early Marvel (with the delightful far outweighing the duff) and certainly won’t appeal to everybody, but if you’re a Fights ‘n’ Tights fan with a forgiving nature the good stuff here will charm, amaze and enthral you whilst the rest could just be considered as a garish garnish to provide added flavourâ€¦
Â© 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2002, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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