Category: Spider-Man

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House of M Ultimate Edition


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fearing the world might end at any second they frantically search until they are all consumed by a blinding light…

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

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

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

Especially how a moment ago the world was completely different…

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

Appalled, he leaps from the ominous floating aircraft carrier dominating New York and plunges to Earth…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No more Mutants”…

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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

™ & © 2005 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Dark Avengers: Ares


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Accepting the challenge of turning ordinary soft soldiers into a puissant warrior elite, Ares loses himself in the task until manipulative goddess Hera manifests to “warn” him that his son – her grandson – is in danger…

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

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

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

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

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

© 2006, 2009 and 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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New Avengers volume 3: Secrets and Lies


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems


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

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

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

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

In case you forgot…

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

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

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

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

He made a lot of enemies…

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

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

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

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

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

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

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Amazing Spider-Man volume 10: New Avengers


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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

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The New Avengers volume 1: Sentry


By Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, Mark Morales & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1672-1

During Marvel’s rebirth in the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took their lead from a small but growing band of costumed characters debuting or reviving at the Distinguished Competition.

Julie Schwartz’ retooling of DC Comics’ Golden Age mystery-men had paid big dividends for the industry leader in recent years, and Editor Lee’s boss (publisher Martin Goodman) insisted that his company should get in on the act too.

Although National/DC had achieved incredible success with revised and updated versions of the company’s old stable, the natural gambit of trying the same revivification process on characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

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

So a procession of new costumed heroes began, with Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko churning out numerous inventive and inspired “super-characters”.

Not all caught on: The Hulk folded after six issues and even Spider-Man would have failed if writer/editor Lee hadn’t really, really pushed his uncle, the publisher…

Even so, after nearly 18 months during which the fledgling House of Ideas had created a small stable of leading men (but only a sidekick woman), Lee & Kirby finally had enough players to stock an “all-star” group – a format which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and even higher sales…

Cover-dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion programme which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men and, despite a few rocky patches, the series soon grew into one of the company’s perennial top sellers.

However times and tastes always change and after four decades, during the latter part of 2004, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” were shut down and rebooted in a highly publicised event known as Avengers Disassembled.

Of course it was only to replace them with both The New and The Young Avengers. Affiliated comic-books Thor, Iron Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Captain America, and Fantastic Four ran parallel, quasi-interconnected story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

The entire tale revealed the worst day in the team’s history as staunch Avenging veteran the Scarlet Witch was discovered to have gone crazy, attacking the team who had been her family and causing the destruction of everything they held dear.

With several members dead, Captain America and Iron Man disbanded the team and turned out the lights.

The most important development from that epic ending was The New Avengers, and this second collection gathers issues #7-10 from that celebrated revamp (covering July to September 2005) with additional fact pages culled from New Avengers: Most Wanted Handbook as scripter Brian Michael Bendis, with artists Steve McNiven & Mark Morales, further redefined the nature of group heroics for a darker, more complex century.

Following an orchestrated breakout of a lethal legion of super-villains from floating ultra penitentiary The Raft, Captain America had convinced metahuman first responders Luke Cage, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jessica (Spider-Woman) Drew, Spider-Man and Iron Man to join a new iteration of Avengers. On the Raft they had been assisted by Matt Murdock, (recently “outed” as Daredevil by the media) and a mystery prisoner named Bob Reynolds who nobody seemed to know anything about…

Reynolds or Sentry – the most powerful being on Earth – had in fact volunteered to be incarcerated for the murder of his own wife… who was still alive…

Tentatively united, the team – sans Bob who had vanished – rocketed to the Antarctic Savage Land (a sub-surface wonderland of cavemen, dinosaurs and even stranger things, left in splendid isolation as a UN Protectorate) to recapture Karl Lykos, who fed on mutant energy to become reptilian monster Sauron. Apparently he was the actual target of the orchestrated breakout…

The impromptu mission was an unmitigated disaster with the disparate champions marooned, mauled by dinosaurs and captured by mutant mega-genius Brainchild and his Mutates.

Lykos’ escape had been engineered by the evil experimenter, who considered humans as guinea pigs and wanted to eradicate them all. Happily the neo-Avengers’ mission overlapped with the intentions of Wolverine, who had independently resolved to end the threat of Sauron forever, no matter who got in the way…

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

There were even scarier discoveries to come. The mass-escape had exposed the fact that many of the criminals held on the Raft had been officially dead for years and Cap’s new recruits had to face the prospect that the Free World’s greatest peacekeeping force might be partly – or even completely – corrupt. After all they were demonstrably stockpiling super-weapons, exotic elements and even metahumans for what could not possibly be any good reason…

Volume two opens with part one of 4-chapter saga ‘The Sentry’ as Tony Stark begins a report to fellow over-achieving, high-minded individuals Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, Prince Namor, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt (later revealed as elitist heroic clandestine cabal The Illuminati) about the reformation of the Avengers and the menace of the 46 still-at-large Raft escapees. Eventually the discussion turns to the potentially world-shattering mystery of Bob Reynolds…

On Long Island, Stark’s new comrades Spider-Woman, Cage, Spider-Man and Wolverine are trying to arrest Asgardian-powered street-thug The Wrecker, whilst under the Nevada Desert Director Maria Hill leads a S.H.I.E.L.D. team trying to re-arrest the despondent, semi-catatonic Sentry who never returned after helping to quell the breakout.

She is unhappy that Iron Man and Captain America have invited themselves along, but far more upset that Reynolds seems to be completely insane; terrified of some nebulous, evil other self he calls “The Void”…

Stark has done his homework. The only references to the Sentry on the entire planet are from some old forgotten comicbooks, so he found and brought along the writer of the pamphlets and another tangentially linked individual.

The scribe doesn’t upset the cowering powerhouse nearly as much as Lindy Reynolds, the wife Bob clearly remembers killing…

Following ‘Alien Agenda’ (an extract from an old Sentry comicbook craftily scripted by Paul Jenkins and classily rendered by Sal Buscema), the mystery in the Nevada cave deepens as, confronted with conflicting truths, Bob Reynolds vanishes in a slash of energy…

An emergency meeting of the Illuminati then dredges up a disquieting fact. Even these most puissant forces for good have never heard of Sentry, but shockingly Reed’s personal computer has. As it reels off a tidal wave of records and files it becomes apparent that the mightiest minds on Earth have all been tampered with…

Soon happy suburbanite Bob wakes up on a sunny morning to discover almost every superhero in America on his front lawn and in stunned disbelief then watches them fall to the malignant power of The Void…

The heroes have not come unprepared. The first prong of their assault is a collection of record tapes Sentry made for Mr. Fantastic, detailing how he was having periodic memory lapses where he kept forgetting who he was and suppositions about the true psychic nature of The Void.

Sadly, thanks to telepath Emma Frost, all these revelations are only occurring within his mind whilst his almighty body is occupied smashing the largest assemblage of metahuman power on Earth, but it’s all merely a preamble to Reynolds psychically curing himself…

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

The apparently healed hero then joins the team, but only, as Stark advises his Illuminati brethren, to keep him closely monitored…

Plot-light and blockbustingly all-action, this volume also includes the 50-page New Avengers: Most Wanted Handbook, which provides information and a list of various metahuman prisons in the MU and detailed data and threat-assessment reports by the costumed champions on the Raft fugitives they missed; specifically Armadillo, Barbarus, Blackout, Blood Brothers, Brothers Grimm, Bushwacker, Carnage, Centurious, Chemistro, Constrictor, Controller, Corruptor, Count Nefaria, Crossbones, Crossfire, Crusader, Cutthroat, Deathwatch, Dr. Demonicus, Foolkiller, Graviton, Grey Gargoyle, Griffin, Hydro-Man, Jigsaw, King Kobra, Mandrill, Mentallo, Mr. Fear, Mr. Hyde, Molecule Man, Nitro, Purple Man, Rampage, Razor-Fist, Sauron, Scarecrow, Shockwave, Silver Samurai, Slug, Tiger Shark, Typhoid Mary, U-Foes, Vermin, Wrecking Crew and Zzzaxx…

With covers-&-variants by David Finch, Steve McNiven, Neal Adams, John Romita Sr., Herb Trimpe & Sal Buscema this is a deliciously plain and simple Fights ‘n’ Tights fiesta for the devoted fanbase and another terrific  jumping-on point for readers familiar with the TV animation series and movie franchises of the World’s Greatest Superheroes.
© 2005, 2006, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Savage Wolverine volume 2: Hands on a Dead Body


By Zeb Wells, Joe Madureira & Jock (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-557-4

Company kick-start initiative Marvel NOW! having reinvigorated the entire continuity, assorted varieties of X-stars generally began life anew and this sharp, scintillating compilation – gathering issues #6-11 of Savage Wolverine (published between August 2013 and January 2014) – captures two of the feral fury’s most savage sagas in a volume reaffirming the character’s breadth and versatility.

In the first triptych, scripted by Zeb Wells with art by Joe Madureira, the Canadian Crusader is feeling his hard-won humanity slipping away again as he languishes in guilt over all the people he’s killed.

Even fellow Avenger and naive ray of sunshine Spider-Man is unable to lift his spirits, and things take an ever darker turn when svelte and sullen assassin Elektra turns up, looking for a favour…

Ninja organisation The Hand – currently led by Wilson Fisk, the American crimelord known as The Kingpin – have stolen the corpse of former hitman Bullseye and, having been killed by the dead man before being resurrected by ninja magic herself, she is determined to stop the criminal cult from offering the same unique service to her murderer…

In need of a like-minded ally she wants Wolverine to join her in raiding Fisk’s New York fortress, leaving him unaware that Kingpin is undergoing a crisis of management and has previously reached out to Elektra…

Fisk’s grip of the Hand is not uncontested and a troublesome faction has called in the cult’s Arbiters to test the colossal Gaijin’s worthiness. A highly formalised challenge having been issued, the big boss is expecting a revived killer-corpse to come after him and has therefore resorted to recruiting former foes to his cause…

The increasingly incensed berserker mutant of yesteryear slowly resurfaces as Wolverine and Elektra wade through an army of ninjas – and the sinister supernatural forces of the Arbiters themselves – but are still too late to stop the resurrection ritual.

Tragically for Fisk and the rebel faction alike, the Arbiters have their own agenda and what comes hunting for the Kingpin is a far crueller weapon than a mere zombie assassin…

The second tale in this collection couldn’t be further from the seedy, double-dealing international crime scenario.

Written and illustrated by the ever-entertaining Jock, the untitled 3-part tale is a moodily enigmatic mystery which begins with Wolverine’s sudden and extremely painful arrival on an alien world.

The transplanted tracker has no idea how he was taken or where off Earth he is, but nonetheless brutally tackles bug-beasts and marauding monsters in his solemn, stoic struggle to stay alive.

His abductors have another surprise in store and release a small boy to hunt the mutant, but Logan soon turns the tables and befriends – or more accurately “tames” – the wild child whom he names Kouen…

The boy shares all his mutant abilities and even has retractable metal claws…

Their odyssey of survival on an unforgiving world is cut short when the mysterious technicians running the experiment try to reclaim their guinea pigs… and make the mistake of letting Wolverine find their secret lab….

They make an even bigger one when they let him see the ranked canisters – each with a small pitiful copy of Kouen in it…

With covers-and-variants by Madureira, Jock, Mike Perkins, Walt Simonson & Francesco Francavilla, Savage Wolverine: Hands on a Dead Body returns the mutant megastar to realms and milieus generally ignored in his recent mainstream appearances, and certainly lives up to its name here with this brace of fast, furious and blisteringly bombastic visceral yarns: a stirring reminder of days past and mysteries still to be resolved…
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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The Arms of the Octopus


By Mike Costa, Chris Cosentino, Kris Anka, Jake Wyatt, Michael Dialynas & Dalibor Talajić (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-577-2

Here’s a welcome return to those (relatively) uncomplicated Good Old Days, when you could pick up a comic or book without Ph.D. level preparation and just read for the sheer fun of it.

Collecting the linked serial from 2013’s All-New X-Men Special #1, Indestructible Hulk Special and Superior Spider-Man Team-Up Special (and incongruously including the Wolverine: In the Flesh One-Shot), The Arms of the Octopus offers just such a jolly “Blast from the Past” in a gripping tale of time-banditry, courtesy of writer Mike Costa.

Illustrated by Kris Anka All-New X-Men Special #1starts the ball rolling with ‘Elegy in the Classroom’ as time-displaced mutant teenagers Hank (the Beast) Pym, Bobby (Iceman) Drake, Scott (Cyclops) Summers and Jean (Marvel Girl) Grey spend their first vacation day on a trip to Manhattan and get a full-on face-full of 21st century future shock.

Escaping the bleeping sound and blinding visual fury of the telecommunications era, the kids head for Central Park where young Hank is smitten by a poetry-reading college girl. After catching a mugger, the Beast expects her to run screaming, but she’s actually so intrigued at meeting a mutant she invites him back to see her lab.

Hank knows it well: before he and the teen X-Men were brought into their own future he studied there under Gamma-medicine radiation research pioneer David Jude. Decades later the genius is still in residence, but now his field of endeavour is Temporal Displacement…

Dr. Jude is remarkably sanguine about meeting his young-looking old student, but before any questions can be asked the lab is brutally attacked by Doctor Octopus, also oddly youthful and emitting huge amounts of Gamma rays.

As the rest of the X-Men join the bombastic battle the clash inevitably draws the attention of the Superior Spider-Man…

The Wallcrawler is astounded and furious. What the kids – or anybody else for that matter – don’t realise is that for months now the mind of Otto Octavius has inhabited the Amazing Arachnid’s frame and to see his earlier self running wild in 2013 drives the cerebral bodysnatcher into a state of unthinking outrage…

After fractiously cooperating with the mutant kids, Spider-Man defeats Doc Ock and drags him back to Jude’s time-lab, where examination of the Gamma-drenched mystery maniac leads to only one conclusion: some form of time travel…

The X-kids are living proof of concept and with some reluctance the arrogant Arachnid admits that he needs to consult with an expert…

‘For a Friend Whose Work has Come to Triumph’ (illustrated by Jake Wyatt in (Indestructible Hulk Special #1) picks up the tale as S.H.I.EL.D. Specialist Bruce Banner is helicoptered in and, after getting over his astonishment at meeting genuine time travellers, gets stuck into unravelling the enigma of the radioactive rogue.

Before too long however another distraction hits the campus: a blockbusting assault by old Hulk foe the Abomination. The Gamma-irradiated gargoyle is one of Banner’s oldest enemies, and he’s been dead for years…

As the physicist gets green and mean to tackle the threat, the theory of a temporal anomaly caused by the displaced X-teens seems confirmed. Thus the mutants take Spider-Man and Dr. Jude back to their school to check out the time machine which brought them back to the future just as the Hulk makes a shocking discovery defeating his rampaging opponent.

…And in the copter speeding to Westchester, Jude realises he’s been rumbled and makes his move…

The chronal conundrum concludes in ‘With Mercy for the Greedy’ (Superior Spider-Man Team-Up Special #1, with art by Michael Dialynas) as the Machiavellian scientist (Jude, not Ock-in-Spidey for a change) uses previously concealed gamma radiation powers to blow up the transport before heading after the coveted time machine, leaving the assorted heroes in lethal freefall…

Following a suitably spectacular cooperative save, the X-kids and Spider-Man set off on the villain’s trail whilst Banner and Pym frantically work on a method of containing the real radioactive menace. Eventually everything ends up in a ferocious fight before a measure of order is restored and grudging respect is meted out all round…

Blending sinister suspense with riotous action and devilishly clever scenes of outright hilarity, this is a marvellously accessible romp no fan of clear-cut Costumed Dramas should miss and is followed by a rather strange – and unconnected – outing for the world’s favourite mutant.

Illustrated by Dalibor Talajić, Wolverine: In the Flesh is written by – and implausibly co-stars – celebrity chef Chris Cosentino; detailing the hunt for cannibal killer the Bay Area Butcher.

The satanic serial killer’s reign of terror can only be ended after the Canadian mutant recruits his old culinary chum to offer insights into the haute cuisine methodology of cutting meat and invaluably intimate knowledge of San Francisco’s Food Truck culture.

Little do either know that their prey is fed up “serving Man” and needs just one little ingredient for his pièce de résistance: a suitably trussed, tied and marinated mutant…

Light, quirky and mordantly piquant, this one won’t be to everyone’s taste…

With covers by Alexander Lozano and Tim Seeley, The Arms of the Octopus offers casual readers and faithful fans alike a smart break from cosmic epics and should certainly whet the appetite for all the monumental Marvel madness heading our way in the months to come.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superior Carnage


By Kevin Shinick, Stephen Segovia, Dennis Crisostomo, Don Ho & Dan Mexia (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-567-3

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and early1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales. In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable enemy called Venom: deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker‘s Secret Wars costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite dubbed the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Webspinner.

Eventually the arachnid adversaries reached a brooding détente and Venom became the “Lethal Protector”, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

But then the symbiote went into breeding mode; spawning a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, he became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a murder-crazy monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal “family” (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed with his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit.

However, “safe” is an extremely relative word and eventually the crimson killer returned…

More recently, as part of the MarvelNow! restart event, Spider-Man underwent a startling shake-up which left arch villain Otto Octavius in control of the Wallcrawler’s body and permanently installed in Peter Parker’s brain.

The hero’s mind had been maliciously transferred and trapped in the dying body of Dr. Octopus where, despite his every desperate effort, Parker perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame. With his final efforts he bombarded the psychic invader with his full unvarnished memories and forced Octavius to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice, binding Ock to living the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his enemy and earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission. However, Octavius’ personality gradually was in control, resulting in a cold, calculating and obsessively Superior Spider-Man.

Scripted by Kevin Shinick (Avenging Spider-Man, Robot Chicken) with art from Stephen Segovia, Dennis Crisostomo, Don Ho & Dan Mexia, this slim, grim tome collects the 5-issue miniseries Superior Carnage (September 2013-January 2014), beginning in an undisclosed containment facility where the recently recaptured Kasady -lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – has been transferred to be dumped and forgotten.

Sadly it only makes the monster available to another ruthless maniac…

The Wizard has his own problems: once one of the smartest men on Earth, a battle with Black Bolt has left him with induced and progressive dementia which will soon kill him. Desperate to prove himself to his son (who couldn’t care less), the sinister savant uses mind-control tech to release Carnage – dormant since Kasady became functionally brain-dead – and lets the bloodthirsty beast run wild amongst the prison population…

The Wizard’s goal is to revive and restock his gang The Frightful Four, but he hits a slight snag when the beast proves uncontrollable due to the simple fact that Kasady has no mind…

Lucky for the bewildered boffin his already-restored ally Klaw is still loyal. The creature is composed of solidified sound and easily subdues the rampaging Carnage, since the only vulnerabilities symbiotes possess are no tolerance for fire and extreme sonic frequencies…

With Plan A a bust, the increasingly unstable Wizard then transfers the alien parasite to his confederate Karl Malus, a wheelchair-bound rogue surgeon who is far from happy to be the monster’s new home, but upon whom the aforementioned mind-control mechanisms will work…

And all this time the Superior Spider-Man has been hunting the escapees: dedicating his vast crimefighting resources to seeking out the Wizard, even though he believes there’s little to fear from a demented ex-genius and brain-dead serial killer…

Impossibly, the impromptu tactic works and Malus’ intellect has had a transformative effect on the alien, which now augments its lethal metamorphic abilities with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry.

Delighted and delirious, the rapidly declining Wizard then leads his team in a murderous assault on City Hall, attacking New York’s controversial Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. The big brain has no intention of surviving the foray and fully intends to go out in a headline-grabbing blaze of glory…

It’s just as well, as Malus’ grip on the Carnage creature is slowly slipping…

The doomed desperadoes are just too late. Spider-Man has deployed his own mercenaries to spirit Jameson away, but has in turn severely underestimated the threat posed by the invaders.

Only after all of his men are slaughtered does the Wallcrawler realise his error, and is further shocked when the Wizard – despite his declining faculties – discerns that he’s fighting Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man’s body…

When the Wizard’s control fades Carnage then takes over its host and goes completely wild, beating Spider-Man and destroying Klaw, but as the sound-master’s body explodes, the uncontained fury blasts the Symbiote off and out of Malus…

And into the Wizard…

Shock follows shock as the tales escalates to a spectacular and fearsomely foreboding conclusion that will satisfy every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan’s wildest dreams whilst promising even nastier surprises in days to come…

Smart, sharp, fast-paced and addictively action-packed, this stand-alone saga keeps tensions high and the suspense bubbling, and this creepy chronicle also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Clayton Crain, Marco Checchetto and Raffa Garres.
The Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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The New Avengers volume 1: Breakout


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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