Category: Graphic Novels

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Iron Man: Extremis – Enhanced Edition


By Warren Ellis & Adi Granov (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-527-7

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has played many roles in the Marvel Universe since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, as visitor to an East Asian war-zone, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists. Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors.

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer became a liberal capitalist, eco-pioneer, space pioneer, Federal politician, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

…And, of course, one of the world’s most prominent superheroes with the Mighty Avengers…

First conceived in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when the economy was booming and “Commie-bashing” was an American obsession, the emergence of a glamorous new Thomas Edison using Yankee ingenuity, wealth and determination to safeguard the Land of the Free and better the World was an inevitable development. Combining the then-sacrosanct faith that technology and Capitalism in unison could solve any problem with the universally evocative imagery of noble knights battling evil, the Invincible Iron Man seemed an infallibly successful proposition.

Of course whilst Tony Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a sexy millionaire industrialist and secretly a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour he built with his own two hands – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history.

With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from myriad abuses of big business abounding, the zeitgeists of the young shifted leaving the Golden Avenger and Stark International facing some tricky questions from the increasingly politically savvy readership.

With money, fancy gadgetry and unthinking patriotism not quite so cool anymore, the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America …

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to feature America’s most-recent conflicts.

Thus, whereas the debut tale saw the inventor captured by Viet Cong guerrilla Wong Chu, who ordered his dying hostage to build weapons or perish from shrapnel embedded in his chest, later revamps had that life-preserving chest-plate and weaponised armour evolve as defiant responses to oriental mastermind the Mandarin and Chinese bandits before this latest logical upgrade brought the hero fully into the 21st century…

With the third Iron Man movie hurtling like a missile towards us, The House of Ideas has re-released an augmented collection of Warren Ellis’ updating of the legend: one wherein the always-futuristic noble knight got a stunning cyberpunk upgrade in a tale which directly influenced the filmic franchise and led to illustrator Adi Granov working as a designer and producer on the cinema interpretation.

Collecting Iron Man volume 4, issues #1-6 – January 2005-April 2006 – the fable follows the continuity-shattering “Disassembled” publishing event (involving and affecting The Avengers, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man himself), which rebooted a number of core concepts and repositioned the inventor-hero as a driven futurist attempting to expiate the blood on his hands at any and all costs…

Although Stark has cut himself loose from official Governmental affiliations and all military contracts, abandoning guns and bombs to return to the life of a maverick entrepreneur, happily risking profits for the betterment of humanity, once upon a time he was an inspired deviser of death-dealing inventions…

Everything kicks off somewhere in Texas when dangerous men utilise stolen science to create a volunteer monster even as, in New York, shell-shocked, weary Stark struggles to get his life on course. Things aren’t made any easier by a conscience-shaking interview with journalist John Pillinger: a forthright, honest individual determined to pick at old scabs by reviewing Stark’s deadly contributions to America’s inhuman arsenal of destruction.

In an uncompromising exchange, Stark is reminded again that his cluster-bombs and landmines have killed so many more than enemy combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan…

With his own Board of Directors daily undermining the head of Stark International, trying to sideline him so that they can go back to building weapons, Stark’s only refuge is the good works performed by his secret identity.

So, when a respected researcher kills himself at biological innovation firm Futurepharm, and the company’s latest project goes missing, Tony jumps at the chance to help its founder – and old girlfriend – Maya Hansen…

Once upon a time they were brilliant young idealists who believed their innovations would reshape humanity, both inspired and influenced by scientific philosopher and truly radical thinker Sal Kennedy and both unhappy at the dirty compromises their work demanded, if they were to build a better world. Now, years later, they both seem closer to achieving their naïve dreams…

The stolen bio-package is codenamed “Extremis”: a nano-tube solution designed to overwrite human biology and cure any disease or injury. This also makes it a super-soldier serum capable of making a body, faster, stronger, tougher and able to build new organs with unsuspected capabilities.

In a hidden place, a man named Mallen comes out of the mutative coma caused by taking Hansen’s Extremis solution. He is no longer remotely human…

As Maya and Tony catch up with their old mentor Sal and are forced to ponder some unpalatable ethical dilemmas, Mallen is invading a Texas FBI office, slaughtering fifty agents and innocent bystanders with uncanny powers.

Long ago his radical, white supremacist family were killed in a domestic siege by Federal Agents, and now the vengeful anti-government libertarian militiaman is just starting his campaign to reclaim his America for his people…

He’s quickly tracked and intercepted by Iron Man and a terrifying battle between technology and biology, Government tool and freedom fighter, super-machine and enhanced man ensues. The Armoured Avenger doesn’t have a chance…

Crushed and broken by Mallen, Stark is perilously wounded and trapped inside his broken billion-dollar toy. The Extremis-enhanced terrorist is simply too strong and far too fast. Slowly dying, Iron Man convinces Maya to take him to Futurepharm, where he reveals his true identity to the astounded scientist and convinces her to give him a diluted, specifically-tailored dose of her incredible restorative…

As the serum goes to work, reconfiguring his system and incorporating elements of armour and processing systems within his body, Stark’s mind wanders back to the distant day when he was captured by Al Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan.

Wounded, with shrapnel pressing against his heart, he and fellow prisoner Ho Yinsen were ordered to make weapons for their captors, but instead built a device to hold the lethal metal shards in place. The chest-plate soon evolved into a mobile weapons system and Stark broke free – but not without terrible consequences…

History repeats itself now as Stark again contrives a weapon-suit to overcome his problems – but this time he’s not wearing or piloting it. Now he truly is an Iron Man inside and out…

All that’s left for the new Avenger is the final battle against Mallen, one last duel between brutal past and shining future, and one more breathtaking betrayal…

Short, sweet, shocking and surprisingly engaging, this compelling Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller offers breakneck pace, astounding action and superbly suspenseful realpolitik, ethical and philosophical quandaries that will satisfy any fan who likes their fantasy tinged with a touch of contemporary hyper-authenticity.

This book also includes a stunning cover-gallery by the artist and a selection of features taken from Marvel Spotlight: Iron Man Movie from 2008, such as the Granov interview, ‘Iron Man to the Extreme’, more stunning art samples in ‘Covering Adi Granov’ and a history and appreciation of the Extremis project in Mike Conroy’s ‘Extreme Visions’.

Gritty, clever and hard-hitting, this is another explosively entertaining yarn to delight established fans with the added distinction of being self-contained and readily accessible to new, returning or casual readers.

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

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Julio’s Day


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-606-5

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichéd, stereotypical ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most prominent in destroying the comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario (occasionally) and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi tinted hi-jinx of punky young things Maggie & Hopey – the outrageously beguiling las Locas – as well as heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar.

Supreme synthesists, Los Bros Hernandez Boys enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences, conceptual and actual; everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers and the emergent exotica of American Hispanic pop culture to iconic German Expressionism. There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of the young: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – for which please hear alternative music and punk rock.

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions, but Jaime’s slick, enticing visual feasts explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild, whilst “Beto” exhaustively crafted a hyper-authentic rural landscape and playground of wit and passion created for his extended generational saga Heartbreak Soup: a quicksilver chimera of breadline Latin-American village life with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast.

Everything from life, death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences through a powerfully effective primitivist style which blended the stylised mythologies and iconographies of comics, music, recreational drugs, gangs, sex, forceful, capable, dominating women and the inescapable bonds of family using a narrative format which is at the graphic vanguard of Magical Realism.

There’s fiction, there’s Meta-fiction and then there’s Gilbert Hernandez. In addition to his astonishingly captivating Palomar tales he has authored stand-alone books such as Sloth, Grip, Birdland and Girl Crazy, all marked by his boldly compelling, disingenuous artwork and a mature, sensitive adoption of literary techniques by writers like Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has amplified and, visually at least, made his own.

He then went on to examine filmic and literary influences such as Roger Corman, John Cassavetes, Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson as he broke new ground and reprocessed the cultural influences that shaped all us baby-boomers, with “adaptations” of the trashy B-Movies which featured as perennial plot “maguffins” in his stories and affected his cast of characters. Those became a little more actual in his “adaptations” of thrillers like Chance in Hell, The Troublemakers and Love from the Shadows…

Always winning critical acclaim but seldom financial reward, the brothers eventually went their own ways, but a few years ago creatively reunited to produce annual collections of new material in their particularly peculiar shared or, rather, adjacent pen-and-ink universes and this rapturously beguiling pictorial elegy began in Love and Rockets volume II, #1 but remained unfinished until completed in this stark evocative monochrome hardback.

Here Gilbert foregoes many of the signature elements he invented and the chaotically frenetic youth-fuelled backdrop he’s famous for to patiently detail the moving life-story of an ordinary man… and, of course, once you start looking you realise there’s really no such thing as ordinary…

It’s about families and friends, the secrets we must keep and how, even though the World changes, sometimes we just can’t…

I’d be doing you and the author a huge disservice by going into too much detail, but suffice to say that somewhere in Southern California a baby is born in 1900. From the start Julio is nourished and cherished by a loving family – all except his uncle Juan, whom only the infant’s older sister Sofia realised should be kept well away from all children at all costs…

Over 100 pages, until his passing in 2000, Julio grows up with friends Tommy and Araceli, dimly aware of yet barely affected by humanity’s great crises, although the fierce uncompromising nature of the times and the elements and environment shape the people of the village just as powerfully as any global war or Stock Market crash.

One tragic slip in a mere mudslide would come to affect the family for three tragic generations…

Moreover even in such placid outreaches, bullying, cruelty, bigotry and intolerance exist in abundance to mould young hearts and minds…

As he grows to maturity, Julio loses family, makes new friends and comes to realises he has a secret he cannot share with anyone: one that, despite the way the times change society before his eyes, he just cannot admit…

Dedicated to the proposition that big history happens somewhere else but its effects touch us all, this warm-hearted, deceptively heart-wrenching, challenging, and incontrovertibly groundbreaking epic is a grown-up comics fan’s dream come true and proves how far the medium has progressed.

From traditional world saving, anodyne fist-fights, fanciful fantasies and children’s escapism to the likes of Maus, One Bad Rat, Palestine, Persepolis, Pride of Baghdad Sailor Twain and so many more, comics have been continually evolving until they not only produce material equal to other art forms, but with Julio’s Day – the diamond point of the cutting edge of graphic narrative – at last arrive at masterpieces which can only be truly told as graphic narratives

…As you will surely see…

© 2013 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Ultimate Comics Iron Man: Demon in the Armour


By Nathan Edmondson & Matteo Buffagni (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-526-0

The upcoming third Iron Man film has naturally inspired a few new releases and this one, following the latest refit of the alternate Ultimate Marvel Universe (in the Divided We Fall/United We Stand publishing event), is a pretty good place for new or returning readers to get acquainted with the franchise…

The Marvel Ultimates project started in 2000 with a thoroughly modernizing refit of key characters and concepts to bring them into line with contemporary “ki-dults” – perceived to be a completely different buying public to us baby-boomers and our declining descendents.

Eventually even this streamlined new universe became as crowded and continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing publishing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is comics, after all) wiped out loads of heroes and villains as well as millions of ordinary mortals.

Even after, slowly rebuilding this darker, grimmer continuum, it had to happen again in 2012 as a perilously destabilised world sank into international metahuman anarchy and America succumbed to a mass secession of rogue states resulting in a second Civil War before the remaining heroes, surviving mutants and a new Spider-Man brought a measure of peace and stability to the planet…

From this latest aftermath comes a post-apocalyptic thriller (reassembling issues #1-4 of Ultimate Comics Iron Man from October 2012-January 2013) which simultaneously explores the past and future of Tony Stark: über-genius weapon-smith, world-class philanderer, amiable drunk, cancer victim and the latest arrogant financial Master of the Universe from a dynasty of armaments manufacturers and profiteers.

Demon in the Armour (and yes, it has been spelled differently for this British Edition) opens with the Golden Avenger spectacularly stopping a railway theft of super-guns before flashing back to earlier times when the rebellious son broke away from his overbearing father Howard Stark and attempted to set up his own company with cherished pal and partner Josey Gardner.

It was one of the last times he defied his dad’s demands.

Despite everything Tony tried, Stark senior was determined that his son would assume control of the family business, and as always, what the old man wanted he got. Six months later, Josey died in a plane crash but by then Tony was too busy in his new role to notice much…

Howard Stark was a complex man: over four decades he had built his small firm into a globe-girdling colossus, and although he never had time for family or sentiment there was always room for one more lesson on how Tony should run it once the old boss was gone…

Back in the present, the current owner is apprised of a brutal sabotage attack which masked a hacking attack. When Iron Man investigates the multi-pronged security breach he is completely outmanoeuvred by a mysterious “Mandarin” organisation which has infiltrated the company databases and even overridden control of Stark’s impregnable armoured suit.

The enigmatic ghost company claim they now own Stark Industries, just as they always have…

With the grudging assistance of ex-girlfriend, former boss super-spy and current White House Insider Carol Danvers, Tony and his major domo Jarvis track Mandarin to shell-company South Pacific Financial in Hong Kong, but the group has such strong ties to the Chinese Government – and the clout to make almost any problem go away – that even the USA officially considers them too big to mess with…

None of which matters one iota to Stark who, hot for answers and payback, ignores advice from friends, orders from the government and simple common sense to invade the company HQ in Hong Kong, only to again fall victim to the mal-ware and unlimited resources of Mandarin…

Barely escaping intact and with China personally suing him, the unrepentant Stark calls in a favour from military man James Rhodes (pilot of the US Air Force iteration of Stark armour dubbed War Machine)… who cheerily refuses…

A dedicated patriot, Rhodey has no time for the self-absorbed inventor and his headstrong manner, but when the latest Mandarin ploy compromises America’s Stark-built automated drone-system and causes untold damage, he joins Carol in a last-ditch scheme to destroy the sinister phantom cabal.

Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite data pinpoints an uncharted PacificIsland as the probable home base of Mandarin, but when Iron Man blazes in, Tony is easily overwhelmed. Mandarin has him exactly where it has always wanted him and the overmatched, outfoxed inventor subsequently discovers the family secrets and appalling obligations he could never have imagined as well as an unobtrusively all-pervasive foe unlike any other he has ever faced…

Luckily the unlikely hero always had plans and allies to match his impulsive nature and selfish indignation…

Cunning, devious, fast-paced and action-packed, this sharp, straightforward thriller perfectly fills the bill as a place to jump on to the Iron Man experience as writer Nathan Edmondson & artist Matteo Buffagni (ably augmented by colourist Andy Troy) fill in some questions about Tony Stark and reboot the Technological Titan just in time for the next movie…

With covers and variants by Frank Stockton & Gabrielle Dell’otto, this is a deliciously wry, cynical shocker: another breathtakingly effective yarn only possible outside the Marvel Universe and one which will resonate with readers who love the darkest side of science fiction and superheroes as well as casual readers who know the company’s movies better than the comicbooks.

Heavy on attitude and action and over almost too quickly, this is another splendid tale that leaves the reader genuinely hungry for more…

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

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Star Trek: the Further Adventures of the Starship Enterprise – Marvel Illustrated Books


By Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Tom DeFalco, Luke McDonnell, Joe Brozowski, Mike Nasser, Tom Palmer & Klaus Janson (Marvel/)
ISBN: 0-939766-00-0

The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise might not have actually reached any new worlds, yet it certainly has permeated every civilisation here on Earth, with daily live-action and animated screen appearances appearing somewhere on the planet and comics iterations generated in a host of countries long lying fallow and unseen.

If only somebody could sort out the legal and logistical hassles so we could see again those stunning UK strips which appeared in Joe 90, TV21, TV Comic and Valiant from such fabulous creators as Angus Allan, Harry Lindfield, Mike Noble, Alan Willow, Ron Turner, Jim Baikie, Harold Johns, Carlos Pino, Vicente Alcázar, John Stokes and others, I might die a happy, nostalgia-drowned boy…

In the meantime however, here’s a little-seen lost artefact and another early glimpse at how our industry gradually became mainstream literature or “graphic novels”: a pulse-pounding paperback package for action fans, fantasy freaks and movie-lovers alike.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats and, as the 1970s closed, purpose-built paperback collections and a string of new prose tales tailored to feed into their burgeoning brand began to emerge as the company continued its crusade to break into regular, real-world bookshops.

The company’s careful reformatting of their own classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb series of primers and a perfect new venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds. In addition, by judicious partnerships with major film and TV properties, they expanded the market share for their little books in real shops and stores.

In this particular case the fact that the mighty Star Trek franchise’s comicbook requirements were being serviced by a stridently ascendant Marvel (after years with the commercial diffident Western/Gold Key Comics) made for an ideal repackaging opportunity…

The Further Adventures were all set in the days after Star Trek: the Motion Picture (which rebooted the long-dormant phenomenon and allowed Marvel to produce a vastly underrated 18-issue series) and recounted new exploits of the starship Enterprise and older, wiser, re-united Federation voyagers James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, Montgomery Scott, Nyota Uhura and Pavel Chekov.

This full-colour delight reformatted three of very best comicbook episodes and begins with ‘Eclipse of Reason’ by Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Luke McDonnell & Tom Palmer (originally seen in issue #12, March 1981) wherein the comrades are reunited with former Yeoman Janice Rand.

She has since married Kadan of Phaeton, an alien being composed of pure thought and volunteered for a one-way trip with him and an equally disembodied crew beyond the energy barrier that seals off our galaxy from the rest of the universe. However as in the TV episode “Where No Man has Gone Before”, collision with the barrier produces terrifying psionic anomalies and the exploratory starship U.S.S. Icarus turns back, its conceptual crew driven mad and determined to return home at all costs.

With the anti-matter powered ship on a collision course with the densely populated planet, Kirk, Spock and Rand must overcome extraordinary perils to save an entire world and a unique, extraordinary love…

Pasko, Joe Brozowski & Palmer collaborated on ‘Like a Woman Scorned’ (from previous issue #11, February 1981) wherein the Enterprise was despatched to evacuate a cult leader from a radiation-drenched colony world and Scotty was unhappily reunited with bitter old flame Andrea Manning – and her charismatic guru Carl Wentworth.

Even as the reluctant evacuee began exerting an uncanny persuasion and fomenting actual rebellion aboard ship, the downhearted engineer and his beloved ship began to suffer impossible attacks from creatures out of dark fairytales, leaving Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy to divine the incredible secret to the inimical invasion…

Last included is the marvellously twisted ‘Tomorrow or Yesterday’ (Tom DeFalco, Mike Nasser & Klaus Janson from #7 October 1980) wherein a landing crew beams down to doomed world Andrea IV to rescue the indigenous primitives from a devastating radiation cloud only to find the natives welcoming, aware of the danger but strangely unworried.

To make matters worse the encroaching Rad-storm has made return to the enterprise all but impossible.

In the great square the mystery deepens as destruction looms, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy observe the natives praying to statues of the Saviours destined to save them all: perfect likeness of the Federation Officers sculpted 24,000 years previously…

With time running out, the desperate heroes find themselves trapped amongst blithely unworried masses, all patiently waiting for the prophesied messiahs to save them – just as they have already done…

Smart, effective and lovingly executed, these classic yarns are long overdue for a compilation re-release (as far as I’m aware the stories from this comics series were only ever available in this paperback and as part of a CD-Rom package), and Trekkies, Trekkers and comics aficionados alike should rowdily unite to agitate until some publisher gets the message…
© 1980, 1981 Paramount Picture Corporation. All rights reserved. At that time Star Trek was ™ Paramount Picture Corporation.

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Wolverine Origins: Romulus


By Daniel Way, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3539-5

Ever since his glory days in the All–New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly James Howlett has been a fan-favourite who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve.

Always skirting the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, Wolverine soldiered on, a tragic, brutal, misunderstood hero cloaked in mysteries and contradictions until society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders.

Debuting as a foe for the Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and maybe even caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (since the original miniseries Origins revealed the hero had been born at the end of the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.

Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and increasingly revelatory disclosures regarding in his extended, conveniently much-brainwashed life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed a lot of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but doesn’t remember most of it.

This permanently unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, so from June 2006 to July 2010 supplementary series Wolverine Origins, for a 50-issue run, began revealing certain discrete pockets of that rich but occluded seam of comicbook gold.

Short and feisty, Logan has always threatened and promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim, savage collection (gathering issues #37-40 of Wolverine Origins from), the panting comicbook public once again gets what it’s never stopped clamouring for…

Wolverine is the ultimate tracker and for months has been hunting for his own past. His search has revealed one inescapable, horrific fact: for most of his life the mutant has been repeatedly manipulated and tortured by a madman. Over decades a mysterious mastermind has been invisibly moving in and out of his life: even exerting complete mental dominance over the wandering warrior.

Only recently has Logan realised this and by setting all his prodigious instincts and tracking skills to the task, is at last closing in on the sadistic phantom he only knows as Romulus…

The infinitely patient phantom is the force behind numerous programs such as Weapon X (which first agonisingly bonded miracle metal Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton) and is dedicated to manufacturing and augmenting appalling human killing machines.

Of late Logan has been confronted by many of Romulus’ greatest successes, overcoming walking tragedies and monstrous atrocities such as tortured US super-soldier Nuke, old associates Wildchild and Sabretooth, foes Cyber and Omega Red and even his own, now-adult, psychotic son Daken.

Crisscrossing the globe, the implacable stalker has gradually come closer to finding his ancient tormentor, discovering ever-more chilling details about his shadowy opponent. Now he is ready for a final showdown…

The eponymous 4-part ‘Romulus’ opens with Wolverine in Russia following the mastermind’s trusted factotum Victor Hudson to the brutal Vutluga Prison, where a modern pestilence is plaguing hope-starved, desperate inmates and warders alike. As the infuriated mutant moves in for the long-deferred confrontation he’s been hungering for he realises he’s been set up in another stupid test… just as the life-leeching Omega Red ambushes him…

The staggeringly brutal battle goes to Wolverine – but only just – and as the exhausted victor staggers outside he falls prey to fellow feral mutant Wildchild.

Dragging the battered hero to a steel mill and a doom even Wolverine’s legendary healing factor can’t overcome, the boastful brat reveals a shocking truth.

Inhuman Romulus is apparently thousands of years old and considers himself the planet’s absolute apex predator. Logan’s quarry has spent centuries creating, shaping and honing his own successor. To this extent he has bred, if not actually farmed, Wolverine’s bloodline – among others – for generations: constantly improving human killers through technology and the crucibles of torment and combat, even killing Logan’s first wife Itsu and stealing the son the X-Man never knew existed…

Moreover, although Logan was the preferred option to succeed him, Romulus has always had other prospects in play and is content to stand well back and let the very best killer win…

Wildchild’s plan comes undone when the seemingly unstoppable Omega Red intervenes, resulting in one more cutthroat clash as another of Romulus’ frontrunners falls. Soon after, with the aid of Russian super-spy The Black Widow, Wolverine’s last rival falls and the master manipulator finally reveals himself for the climactic last battle…

It doesn’t end in the way you’d expect…

With covers by Doug Braithwaite & Art Lyon, variants from Mike Mayhew, Herb Trimpe and Simone Bianchi, fact-files on Omega Red and Logan and a comprehensive bibliography in ‘Wolverine: the Reading Chronology’, this plot-light, carnage-driven collection of gory delights is a vicarious thrill for the devoted but might well be hard to follow for new or returning readers.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman and Robin volume 1: Batman Reborn


By Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-213-0

The Final Crisis cost Earth dearly, but only the superheroic community really understood the scale of the true loss. In the process of defeating invading evil god Darkseid, the mighty Batman had been lost.

In the aftermath of that epochal loss, a secret, sustained and epic Battle for the Cowl ensued amongst the fallen hero’s closest allies and disciples before eventually Dick Grayson succeeded his lost mentor.

Carrying on the tradition of the Dark Knight, the new Batman took it upon himself to complete the education of Bruce Wayne‘s League of Assassins-trained son Damian, continuing the rehabilitation with the headstrong and potentially lethal lad as the latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonder…

In 2009, the post-Crisis Dynamic Duo debuted in new series Batman & Robin; core title of a refreshed and edgy franchise with scripter Grant Morrison joined by preferred partner and collaborator Frank Quitely. This collected volume gathers the first six issues and hits the ground running in a spectacular 3-part thriller aptly entitled ‘Batman Reborn’…

It all begins with ‘Domino Effect’ as yet another baroque and murderously bizarre villain invades the benighted city. However the recklessly manic Mr. Toad‘s spectacular rise and fall merely presages the arrival of a much more macabre gang of criminals and their mad master Professor Pyg…

At home in a new Bat Bunker, the Caped Crusaders are undergoing a difficult period of adjustment with the obnoxious Damian constantly testing his unwanted senior partner at every opportunity, but their relationship takes a solid upswing once they start patrolling Gotham in the new flying Batmobile…

Whilst Pyg is happily mutilating one of his less trustworthy flunkies and turning the fool’s daughter Sasha into his latest slave by burning one of his slave masks onto her face, more of his myriad vassals are raiding Police Headquarters to spring Toad in a bravura display of ruthless abandon. Despite Batman and Robin being on hand, the odiously outrageous freaks comprising ‘The Circus of Strange’ are almost too much for the heroes to handle…

Once the battle is over, however, Robin again overreacts and sullenly storms off, falling into a subtle trap set by Pyg…

With Batman hot on his trail, Robin faces a dire crisis of conscience and confidence when, in the blistering finale ‘Mommy Made of Nails’, he and the Dark Knight save Sasha from Pyg only to lose her to someone far worse…

Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion provided the art for the second story-arc ‘Revenge of the Red Hood’ as the most dangerous contender for Bruce Wayne’s legacy returned with a bloody Plan B…

Another orphan taken in by Batman, Jason Todd once served valiantly as the second Boy Wonder, but his many psychological problems remained hidden and unresolved even after he was murdered by the Joker.

Subsequently resurrected by one of the frequent Cosmic Upheavals that plague the DC Universe (Infinite Crisis if you’re interested, but it all happened off-camera and post hoc…), the boy took on the identity of the Red Hood and began cleaning up Gotham his way: using Batman’s training and the merciless tactics of the villains he remorselessly stalked.

When the role of Dark Knight became vacant Todd tried to make the mask and the mission his own, but was resoundingly defeated by Grayson.

Now, still determined to deliver the heroes Gotham City always deserved, he recruits the traumatised Sasha, dragging her from hospital to become his sidekick and ‘Red Right Hand’: beginning a lethal campaign against small-time creeps like Lightning Bug before graduating to the city’s super-criminal aristocracy such as Black Mask, Two-Face and the Penguin…  

Even the arrival and assistance of enigmatic British masked sleuth Oberon Sexton AKA Gravedigger isn’t enough to staunch the terror, and Batman and Robin are compelled to play catch-up as the homicidal vigilantes cut a brutal, bloody swathe through the streets. Both teams are blithely unaware of even greater chaos in store as global crimelord El Penitente, fed up with caped clowns interfering with his business, dispatches the world’s most infallible punisher to deal with the mess. The Eater of Faces is coming…

The carnage continues until Red Hood and ‘Scarlet’ crash a crime conference and come face to face with the CapeCrimebusters, resulting in a catastrophic but inconclusive clash of arms and ideology. The war comes to an unexpected end when Batman and Robin are soundly defeated and captured by their dark counterparts.

Meanwhile a few miles away a plane lands in Gotham, filled with flayed corpses gorily announcing that ‘Flamingo is Here!’

Before long the ultimate assassin has tracked the Hood and his homely help to their hideout, easily overpowering and humiliating them, but the deadly debacle has given the Dark Knights time to break free for the most dangerous fight of their lives…

Accompanying the covers and variants (by J.G. Jones, Andy Kubert, Tony S. Daniel, Quitely & Tan) is ‘Batman Redrawn’, an extended sketchbook and commentary section by Morrison, Quitely & Tan, offering an issue-by-issue tour of the re-imagining process that led to the new state of play.

Bold, explosive and breathtaking, this furious renewal and reboot of the World’s most successful comics franchise is a highly-charged, high-octane action extravaganza both impressive and imaginative. If you were bored with Batman, this might well make you a fan all over again…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men: First Class volume 1


By Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan & Victor Olazaba (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5313-9

Radical perpetual change – or the appearance of such – is a driving force in modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the decades the franchise has repeatedly reinterpreted, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth to give a solid underpinning to all the modern Mutant mayhem.

A case in point is the impressive and deliciously upbeat restating of the Mutant paradigm wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the good old days…

In 1963, The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/Angel, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast: very special youngsters and students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

The team was also occasionally supplemented by magnetic minx Polaris and cosmic powerhouse Havok – although they were usually referred to respectively if not respectfully as Lorna Dane and Scott’s brother Alex.

After eight years of eccentric, quirky adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 when mystery and supernatural themes once again gripped the world, causing a consequent sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a reprint vehicle, the mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players across the Marvel Universe whilst the Beast was further mutated into a monster to cash in on the new big thing. Then in 1975 Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a risky Giant-Size one-shot as part of the company’s line of over-sized specials. The introduction of a fresh team of mutants made history and began a still-burgeoning frenzied phenomenon…

In 2006 those deliriously naive secret school days inspired X-Men: First Class (a comicbook iteration, not the movie) which once again updated the seminal 1960s adventures for a far more sophisticated modern audience (as had happened twice before in the intervening decades).

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-franchise so newcomers and occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory, so let’s plunge in as the hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old material around new stories, in-filling cases and teaming the teenaged school squad with assorted adult guest-stars such as Man-Thing, Invisible Woman, Gorilla-Man and those included in this book. The series inevitably led to a slew of spin-off series based on the same winning “untold X-tales” format.

However all good things come to an end – until the next time a few years from now – and the junior league finally had to move on into their later lives and rejoin the ongoing Marvel Universe continuity. Thus in 2009 the 4-issue miniseries X-Men First Class: Finals revealed how the student heroes’ graduation fed directly into the introduction of the All-New, All Different modern team…

This rousing compilation – illustrated throughout by Roger Cruz with inks from Victor Olazabo – is an introductory/best of edition with series scripter Jeff Parker picking his favourite stories from the initial run (specifically issues #1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 plus a cracking vignette from 2007’s X-Men: First Class Special) and opens with ‘X-Men 101’ as youngest student Bobby Drake writes a letter to his mum, giving the lowdown on his new classmates and detailing the eventful last few days.

The edited highlights include a battle against an utterly alien hive-mind, rich-kid pal Warren being possessed, childish pranks going scarily awry on a quick field-trip to the Arctic and the saving of the oldest creature on earth from well-meaning but oblivious scientists…

Warmer climes beckon next as Professor X takes the kids on a vacation to Florida, playing anonymous matchmaker to Scott and Jean, whilst star scholar Hank and the Angel get stuck with hunting for scientist Curt Connors, who has once more mutated into a deadly human-hating saurian scourge in ‘The Bird, the Beast and the Lizard’. In the end however it was Iceman who held the key to their success…

Issue #4 then gave us a glimpse into the inner world of Cyclops with ‘Seeing Red’ as he is targeted by an escaped demon from the Ruby Realm of Cyttorak and the team require the aid of Doctor Strange to set two dimensions to rights…

Dr. Donald Blake appears in ‘The Littlest Frost Giant’ as the X-Men battle an Ice Troll, unaware that young Bobby is being hunted by an ancient Viking cult intent on awakening the primal monster and Lord of Winter Ymir. However once they make their move the villainous Vanir are soon in over their heads and the aroused and angry Frost Giant can only be stopped by the hard-pressed mutants and their new friend The Mighty Thor…

Young romance is in the air when ‘Who Wants to Date a Millionaire?’ finds Warren skipping classes to make out with European hottie and newly-reformed member of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Wanda Maximoff. Sadly the Scarlet Witch‘s twin brother Pietro is the old fashioned protective type and Quicksilver‘s enraged over-reaction endangers an entire playground full of kids before the X-Men can satisfactorily calm the situation down…

The all-new classic cases conclude with a short, sharp skit wherein Iceman and the Beast are dispatched by mutant-detecting electronic wonder-computer Cerebro to find a hidden Homo Superior lurking within the vaudevillian confines of ‘The Museum of Oddities’, brilliantly illustrated by the superb Kevin Nowlan.

This perfect primer also includes the usual cover gallery – by Marko Djurdjevic and Nowlan – plus character designs and model sheets by Cruz and pencilled cover sketches from Djurdjevic for art lovers to drool over.

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending outrageous adventure with raucous humour and sheer comradely warmth and affection, this thoroughly beguiling collection always keeps the continuity baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering vibrant fun and fast-paced rollercoaster thrills packed with smart laughs, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots.

For moments of mutant mirth and mayhem gloriously free of angst and overkill, these tales are without doubt top of the class…
© 2006, 2007, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Spider-Man & the Secret Wars


By Paul Tobin, Patrick Scherberger, Clayton Henry & Terry Pallot, with Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck & John Beatty (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4449-6

Presented in the manner of the company’s all-ages Marvel Adventures format, this notionally “in-continuity” tale offers cosmic thrills, chills and light drama by in-filling on one the House of Ideas’ biggest successes. Assiduously revisiting the epic “maxi-series”, writer Paul Tobin, penciller Patrick Scherberger and inkers Clayton Henry & Terry Pallot have cannily crafted an engagingly expanded selection of Spider-sagas faithful to the original whilst adding a contemporary complexity and depth to the iconic wall-crawler

This highly satisfying digest-sized collection collects the 4-issue miniseries from February-May 2010, and also re-presents the original Secret Wars #1 (May 1984) and its opening chapter by James Shooter, Mike Zeck & John Beatty.

The premise of the original 1980s blockbuster was that an all-powerful alien calling itself The Beyonder abducted an army of Earth heroes and villains to an alien purpose-built Battleworld created as an arena in which to prove which was mightier – Good or Evil.

Whilst by no means a new plot, it gave the entire company a massive commercial boost and allowed a number of major series to radically retool at a time when comicbook sales were in a dire downturn. This canny slice of infilling explores some of the saga’s untold moments in an engaging and appealing way, adding contemporary sensibilities and a lighter take to a classic but rather dated and straightforward Fights ‘n’ Tights yarn.

I would strongly suggest however, that if you’ve never seen the original epic, you track it down before tackling Spider-Man & the Secret Wars – it’s not actually necessary but you will get the most out of the new material that way…

The drama opens at a most critical moment, seconds after the almighty Molecule Man has dropped an entire mountain on top of the embattled heroes. With the Incredible Hulk holding up millions of tons of rock, the entombed good guys perforce take a few moments to chill and reminisce.

Top of Spider-Man’s list is the many gaffes he’s made since arriving, particularly the way he’s treated Captain America and the monstrous Green Goliath currently holding all their lives in his big green hands…

Thanks to heroic teamwork, all of the buried brigade eventually emerge safely but the wall-crawler has learned a hard lesson in a most harrowing manner…

The second chapter also focuses strongly on damaging mis- and pre-conceptions as the residents of Denver, Colorado – simultaneously shanghaied by the Beyonder and dumped on his remodelled planet as some kind of control group – is assaulted by a horde of marauding aliens, and the heroes form a living barricade with the valiant but all-too-human civilian defenders to lives and property.

They are surprisingly assisted by arch-nemesis and ultimate evil Doctor Doom, but try as he might Spider-Man cannot fathom the Iron Dictator’s true purpose…

At one critical juncture the world-devouring cosmic god Galactus decided to end the contest early by eating Battleworld, prompting a desperate alliance by the transplanted heroes and villains to stop him. Here, portions of their combined assault are examined in detail as Spider-Man experiences bizarre reality-warping episodes – a natural side effect of proximity to the perilous planetivore – and flashes back and forward through his personal past and futures, experiencing happiness and the darkest of imagined terrors…

The original miniseries culminated with Doom actually stealing the Beyonder’s power and becoming omnipotent. In this modern re-visitation, that conditional triumph is examined as the web-spinner is granted a taste of paradise by the troubled new god who is finding it hard to hang on to lust for conquest, or even personal ambition, after achieving all-consuming divinity…

The cleverly introspective human adventure is capped off by a re-presentation of the original saga’s first issue from 1984, wherein ‘The War Begins’ with the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four, Magneto, the Hulk and the utterly out-of-his-depth Spider-Man all teleported into the deep unknown to see a galaxy destroyed and a world constructed purely so that a cosmic force could determine which of two philosophies was correct.

Arrayed against them were Doom, Galactus, Molecule Man, Ultron, the Lizard, Dr. Octopus, the Enchantress, Absorbing Man, Kang the Conqueror and the Wrecking Crew, all of whom had no problem with a disembodied voice telling them “Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours”…

Unceremoniously dumped on the brand new world the sides split into factions and the War began…

This blockbusting little box of delights also includes a full cover gallery by Scherberger, Christina Strain, Chris Sotomayor, Veronica Gandini, Jean-Francis Beaulieu, Zeck & Beatty as well as pages of Scherberger’s early character sketches.

Fast-paced and impressive, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and some solid sly laughs, this book really sees the alternative web-spinner hitting his wall-crawling stride with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” whilst the stories take great pains to keep the growing youth-oriented soap opera sub-plots pot-boiling on but as clear as possible.

In 2012 the Marvel Adventures line was superseded by specific comicbook titles tied to Disney XD TV shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born often two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events. However even though these Spidey super stories are extremely enjoyable yarns, parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and might perhaps better suit older kids…
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Spider-Man: Fever


By Brendan McCarthy with Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 987-0-7851-4125-9

It wasn’t too long before Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s astonishing Spider-Man proved himself a contemporary hero who fitted every possible milieu and scenario; at home against cheap hoods, world-busting super-menaces or the oddest of alien incursions, and this superbly outré modern masterpiece celebrates that astounding versatility by reprising one of the most brilliantly bizarre team-ups from the early Marvel Age.

The legendary classic first meeting of Mystic Master and Webbed Wall-crawler occurred in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 and it’s happily included in this slim beguiling tome which features über-imaginative narrative art trendsetter Brendan McCarthy’s tribute to Ditko’s dazzling graphic magic.

London-born McCarthy came to prominence in comics on 2000AD before branching out into international comics stardom whilst pursuing a parallel career in film, television and design. His most notable works range from Strange Days and Paradax to Judge Dredd, Zenith, Sooner or Later, Skin, Rogan Gosh and innumerable stunning covers whilst his moving media credits include The Storyteller, Highlander, Lost in Space, Reboot, the upcoming Mad Max 4: Fury Road and so much more.

Collected here is a digitally-psychedelic, intoxicatingly appealing yarn 3-issue miniseries from 2010, written and illustrated by McCarthy – with lettering and additional colouring from old comrade Steve Cook – which begins with the web-spinner battling old foe The Vulture even as Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange explores a few Outer Realms and inadvertently activates an ancient trap set in an old grimoire – the Lost Journal of Albion Crowley…

The “webwaze” energy escapes into the very architecture and infrastructure of New York City, finding its way to the cornered Vulture and possessing the bad old bird before passing through him, permeating and infecting the Arachnoid Avenger…

As Strange further examines the cursed chronicle, he discovers the sorry tale of Crowley and his unlucky acolyte Victor Neumenon, whose long ago trans-dimensional forays led them into fateful contact with cosmically peripheral spider-demons dubbed Arachnix, who haunted the darkest corners and crannies of Creation.

Both were subjected to unimaginable atrocity at the many hands of the hairy horrors, but only Crowley returned to recount his experiences…

Meanwhile the ensorcelled Spider-Man, reeling in delirious torment, has instinctively crawled into the bathroom of Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum where his now-tainted soul is snatched away by arcane Arachnix hunter Daddy Longlegs, who drags the essence of the hero to its hideous homelands to be devoured by the ghastly King Korozon…

Arriving too late to assist, the Master of the Mystic Arts gives chase through increasingly impossible planes of existence, following the ethereal webwaze paths in his frenzied attempts to save his old friend from utter horror and damnation…

Along the way the wizard meets keenly helpful void-dwellers Fetch Doggy Fetch and Pugly even as Peter Parker’s enmeshed spirit faces consumption by the Eight-Legged Tribe. However the hero’s dual nature confounds the beasts who cannot determine if he is Spider – and therefore kin – or Man, and thus the most appealing meal ever presented to any Arachnix.

To decide his prey’s future fate Korazon despatches the befuddled soul-shell through the Insect Gate to catch the fabled feast known as the Sorror-Fly from the home dimension of all arthropods. If the arbitrary man-spider can snare the elusive treat he is their brother, but if he returns empty-handed he’s just lunch…

Whilst the englamoured hero hunts in the insect realm, Strange rescues fellow Earth-born traveller Ms. Ningirril, trapped during her dimensional Walkabout. In gratitude the Antipodean wanderer provides the mage with useful intelligence, sound advice and a safer, swifter means of navigating his search for Spider-Man…

In a fantastic City of Termites the befuddled hero has succeeded in his task and is dragging the woeful Sorror-Fly back to the Arachnix: succumbing with each moment to the inexorable, bestial allure of his Spider side, even as the garrulous meal he holds relates the dread history of the insect dimension and a prophecy of telling magnitude.

As the Sorcerer Supreme and his allies fortuitously arrive, the Fly transforms back to a form he has not held for over a century, presaging the redemption and cure of the fallen Wall-crawler and the spectacular end to an infinitude of eight-legged terrors…

Bold, ambitious and visually off the wall, this superb magical mystery tour is perfectly accompanied by that aforementioned first meeting.

In 1965 Steve Ditko was blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential and daringly different superhero. Amazing Spider-Man King Size Annual #2 cover featured ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’ and stupendously introduced the web-slinger to whole other realities and menaces when he accidentally interrupted an attack by wannabe wizard Xandu upon the Master of the Mystic Arts.

The villain had stolen the puissant Wand of Watoomb from Strange to achieve ultimate power, and when that pesky interfering Spider-Man butted in, the power-crazed dilettante banished him to an alien dimension – but not before the hero’s webbing snatched the arcane artefact from Xandu’s hand and took it with him…

Cue an involuntary incredible journey to phantasmagorical, mind-bending worlds pursued by unstoppable zombie slaves and a desperately determined Doctor Strange in a dimension-hopping masterpiece of mystery and imagination…

Moody, creepy and staggeringly engrossing, this eerie eldritch escapade also includes the author/artist’s ‘Notes on the Design and Story Ideas for Spider-Man: Fever’ – a selection of commentary, roughs and sketches offering a fascinating glimpse of into the creative process of a truly unique talent…
© 1965 and 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Deadpool volume 4: Monkey Business


By Daniel Way, Carlo Barberi, Tang En Huat, Dalibor Talajić & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4531-8

Bloodthirsty, stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made for popular comics protagonists. Deadpool is Wade Wilson (and yes he is a thinly disguised knockoff of DC’s Slade Wilson AKA Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a scarred, grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical unpleasantries but practically invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian “Weapon X” project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has come and gone with frightening frequency, undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes and reboots, but always inevitably reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

This gloriously continuity-light and baggage-free romp collects issues #19-22 of Deadpool volume 4 and also includes the (originally digital) One-Shot origin tale of Simian Sensation and World’s Greatest Assassin Hit-Monkey, all from 2010.

A sucker for sentiment and plagued with an urge to be better than he is, in the extended saga ‘Whatever a Spider Can’ (Daniel Way, Carlo Barberi, Juan Vlasco & Sandu Florea), Wade Wilson has decided to give up the murder-for-profit business model in favour of a life as a conventional superhero, but lacks both a mentor and commitment. Thus in ‘Start Spreadin’ the News’ he turns up in New York City looking to learn the ropes from a far-from-welcoming web-spinner, just as Spider-Man discovers a massacre in the back of his favourite Deli…

Wrong conclusions are reached on all sides: the copious blood-spatter indicates a killer who hops about and shoots from walls and ceiling and the wall-crawler knows it wasn’t him…

Tracking down Deadpool – who has set his incredible healing factor the nigh-impossible task of saving his intestines and dignity from the effects of forty street-vendor hotdogs – the Amazing Arachnid takes a lot of convincing before he believes the Merc wasn’t responsible for the murders… but only the merest hint to stay well downwind of the reformed killer’s turbulent digestive process…

After Wade examines the crime scene he has only one suggestion as to the actual perpetrator: a stone-cold killer who’s a legend in the assassin community and never takes just one job per city. Moreover he only goes after really unique targets like a hit-man with a healing factor…

The four-handed hunter has other killers in his sights too and, as Spider-Man and Deadpool bicker and snipe, Hit-Monkey is dispassionately dispatching a couple of cops using their positions for ruthless gain. Soon however he has tracked down Wade and it seems the only way to stop the anthropoid assassin is to just let him shoot the Merc with the mouth until he finally shuts up…

Sadly the simian soon learns that it takes more than just bullets to keep Wade down, and Spider-Man becomes an unwilling pawn and collateral damage in Deadpool’s sorry excuse for a plan to get the monkey off their backs forever…

In the explosive aftermath of the killers’ final confrontation Wade sneaks out of town and heads south, only to have his bus hijacked by cops pretending to be robbers in rural Georgia. Unfortunately, them Good Ol’ Bad Boys has a electrically-charged super-hick on their side and, when the astonished Deadpool finally recovers, the keen wannabe-hero resolves to clean up the county in ‘Do Idiots Dream of Electric Stupidity?’ (with art by Tang En Huat.

Luckily, even though it is really hard to tell the good guys from the robber scum in Dukes of Hazzard territory, the former killer has unsuspected help from the most unlikely sources…

The remainder of this slim engaging tome is given over to the anthropoid super-star discovery of the decade…

Something of an overnight sensation, ‘Hit-Monkey’ quickly graduated to an online solo story on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and that weirdly moving eponymous origin tale was rapidly reprinted in comicbook format in April 2010, written by Way and illustrated by Dalibor Talajić.

The fabled furball’s history was revealed as, years ago, a desperate killer for hire fled the authorities in the heart of a chilling Asiatic winter and almost died before being found by loving monkeys living near and often within the hot springs of a mountain thermal pool.

All but one of the simians welcomed the human in their wordless, loving way, and that young dissident assiduously watched the interloper, keenly observing as the human practised all his killing arts in preparation for the day when the cops and soldiers would find him.

When they finally came and the winter night erupted into hot brutal butchery, there was only one to avenge the slaughter – and he was far from human as he extracted his bitter brand of justice…

Although staying close to his superhero roots and the X-franchise that spawned him, Deadpool is more often than not a welcome break from the constant sturm und drang of his Marvel contemporaries: weird, wise-cracking, and profoundly absurd on a satisfyingly satirical level. This is a great reintroduction to comics for fans who thought they had outgrown the fights ‘n’ tights crowd.

Including covers and variants by Jason Pearson, Marko Djurdjevic & Frank Cho, this frenetic blend of light-hearted, surreal, fighting frolics and incisive, poignant relationship drama is absolutely compulsive reading for dyed-in-the-wool Fights ‘n’ Tights fans who might be feeling just a little jaded with four-colour overload.
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.