Category: X-Men

Posted on

X-Men – First Class: Finals


By Jeff Parker, Amilcar Pinna, Roger Cruz & Colleen Coover, Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-4051-3348-3

Radical perpetual change – or at least the appearance of such – is a cornerstone of 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 intervening decades the franchise has repeatedly represented, 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 this rather impressive and deliriously fun-filled restating of the Mutant paradigm from Marvel wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the good old days…

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-Men franchise, and newcomers or 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…

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 nearly a decade of eccentric, mind-blowing adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 when mystery and supernatural horror themes once again gripped the world’s entertainment fields causing a consequent sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint package, 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 boom. A few years later Marvel 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 and reinterpreted the seminal 1960s adventures for a far more sophisticated modern audience (as had happened twice before in the intervening decades).

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old material and creating new stories by in-filling cases and teaming the teenaged school squad with assorted guest stars such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing, Gorilla-Man, Thor and Invisible Woman, and even leading to a number 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 the story of the student heroes’ graduation and fed directly into the tale which would introduce the All-New, All Different modern team…

Written throughout by Jeff Parker and coloured by Val Staples, the end begins with ‘Seniorities’ – illustrated by Roger Cruz – wherein the boys inexplicably find themselves in a fantastic realm and at last shamefully realise that they are conscious and experiencing the newly telepathic Jean’s dreams. The visual tour and fearful panorama make them all realise how far they’ve come since joining the XavierSchool.

The Professor would know what to do but he’s gone now…

Back in the waking world later, a Danger Room training session gets inexplicably out of hand resulting in lots of collateral damage, but the kids are soon in genuine peril when horrific and formidable mutant marauder Frederick comes calling, looking for a rematch with Cyclops…

Each chapter here is broken up with a comedic short by Parker & Colleen Coover so, after ‘Scott and Jean Go on a Date!’, the suspense recommences with ‘Beginning of the End’ (by Amilcar Pinna & Cruz) as the vengeful monstrosity attempts to make Summers pay for past indignities by killing the so-serious class captain’s classmates. The overmatched heroes are only saved when one of their most feared enemies materialises, trashes Frederick and promptly vanishes again…

As Henry McCoy ponders a job offer from the multinational Brand Corporation following his graduation (for the outcome of that you’ll need to check out Essential Classic X-Men volume 3), the anxious students track a mutant sighting on electronic wonder-computer Cerebro.

The trail leads into the wilds of upstate New York and as the baffled champions search for answers they are attacked by an animated and extremely hostile pile of junk and machine scraps that look like the ghost of arch-enemy Magneto…

Following the charmingly daft interlude of ‘X-Date part 2’, the dread doom resumes in ‘Higher Learning’ as the inexplicable attacks and mystery rescues continue until the freshly returned Charles Xavier steps in to solve the riddle. However it’s actually Scott who deduces the true nature and origin of the ongoing threat, and after the madly whacky ending of ‘X-Date part 3’, the team unite to quell the insane attacks by entering and exorcising ‘The Mind of Jean Grey’…

This thoroughly entertaining read keeps the continuity baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering a vibrant fun and fast-paced rollercoaster thriller packed with smart laughs, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots before the rather jarring jump to the added extra of the aforementioned Giant Size X-Men #1 from 1975.

Reprinted in full here the big, big blockbuster details how the original team was lost in action, forcing the distraught Professor X to scour Earth for replacements…

Recruiting established old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire plus Hulk villain and Canadian secret agent Wolverine, most of the Professor’s time and attention was invested in unexploited and hidden mutants scattered around the globe.

One such was Kurt Wagner, a demonic-looking German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, whom Xavier saved from a religious lynch mob, after which the quest focussed on young Russian farm worker Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus; embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar – who was cajoled and pressured into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird, and Ororo Monroe, a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess and would be known as Storm. These raw replacements were all introduced in the stirring opening chapter ‘Second Genesis’…

‘…And When There Was One!’ found wounded team-captain Cyclops swiftly drilling the far from willing or eager team before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a sentient mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to another Special, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a 2-parter for the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing today.

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining, the saga perfectly wrapped up the school days of the First Class and led perfectly into a sequel series starring the newcomers and offering more untold moments of mutant mirth and mayhem…
© 1975, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Gorilla-Man


By Jeff Parker, Jason Aaron, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Bob Q. Sale & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4911-8

Apes have long fascinated comics audiences, and although Marvel never reached the giddy heights of DC’s slavish and ubiquitous exploitation of the Anthropoid X-factor, the House of Ideas also dabbled in monkey madness over its long years of existence.

This slim mixed-bag of a tome gathers newer adventures of happily hirsute hero Ken Hale – gregarious Gorilla-Man of resurrected 1950s super-group pioneers Agents of Atlas – culled from the eponymous 2010 three-issue miniseries and supplemented with pertinent material from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, X-Men First Class #8, plus assorted earlier interpretations of Ape Avengers culled from the company’s back catalogue of anthology horror and mystery titles: specifically Men’s Adventures #26, Tales to Astonish #28 and 30 and Weird Wonder Tales #7.

What you need to know: the Agents of Atlas comprise rejuvenated 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo and similarly vintaged superhuman crusaders Namora (Sub-Mariner’s cousin), spurious love-goddess Venus, a deeply disturbing unhuman Marvel Boy from Uranus, primitive wonder-robot M11 and the aforementioned anthropoid avenger. As the Atlas Foundation, these veterans surreptitiously fight for justice and a free world as the nominal leaders of a clandestine crime-cult which still thinks it’s being patiently guided towards the overthrow of all governments. The real power behind the organisation however is a terrible mystical dragon named Lao…

The modern mainstream saga concentrates on ‘Ken Hale, the Gorilla-Man: The Serpent and the Hawk’ – from Jeff Parker & Giancarlo Caracuzzo – by exploring the anthropoid adventurer’s origins following a particularly bizarre battle against spidery cyborg Borgia Omega.

In search of another action-packed mission, Hale spots a familiar face on an Atlas “wanted poster” and heads for Africa, flashbacking his past for us along the way.

Missouri, 1930 and a visiting big-shot spots something in a poor orphan kid holding his own against seven bigger boys who picked the wrong dirt-grubber to bully…

J. Avery Wolward was a millionaire man-of-intrigue with interests all over the globe and for the next decade little Kenny became his companion and partner in a series of non-stop escapades that would make Indiana Jones green with envy. Ken learned a lot about life and loyalty, eventually discovering that Wolward owed much of his success to a mystical snake walking stick.

Now that cane is in the hands of an African crime-lord calling himself Mustafa Kazun who is well on the way to stealing an entire country and building an empire of blood…

Each issue of the miniseries was augmented by comedic faux email conversations between Hale and his social networking fans, which delightfully act here to buffer the transitions between modern menace and reprinted monkey mystery tales.

The first of these is ‘It Walks Erect!’ taken from 1974’s Weird Wonder Tales #7 (which itself rescued the yarn from pre-Comics Code Mystery Tales #21(September 1954).

The story (by an unknown author and illustrated by the brilliant Bob Powell) concerns compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test-subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him…

Slavish fanboys like me might remember Nagan as the eventual leader of arcane villain alliance The Headmen… but probably not…

Hale’s origin resumes as he and local agent Ji Banda are attacked by Kazun’s enslaved army, but that doesn’t stop the simian superman describing how a clash with Wolward’s arch-rival Bastoc to recover an ancient bird talisman in Polynesia led the then-full-grown soldier-of-fortune to split with his mentor and enlist in the US military just before Pearl Harbor…

By the time the war ended Wolward was gone and the magnate’s daughter Lily had inherited both the family business and the walking stick…

After another message-board break, the classic ‘I Am the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #28 February 1962, by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) revealed how criminal genius Franz Radzik developed a mind-swapping process so that he could use a mighty ape’s body to commit robberies.

Sadly the big brain forgot that, with its personality in a human body, the anthropoid might have its own agenda and plenty of opportunity…

The conclusion of ‘The Serpent and the Hawk’ then sees Hale link up with a tribe of gorillas to overturn Kazun’s schemes and unlock the secret of the stick, even as his mind is firmly replaying his bad marriage to Lily, subsequent decline into drunken dissolution, recruitment by the arcane Mr. Lao, and eventual confrontation with the previous Immortal Gorilla-Man…

The role is an inherited one and a curse. To kill the undying Gorilla is to become him, and the previous victim had by this time had enough. Even after Hale refused to end the creature’s torment, it relentlessly followed him until it could trick the drunken mercenary into taking on the curse…

However, after linking up with 1950s heroes like Jimmy Woo and Venus, Hale found it truly liberating grew to accept his new status…

Thus when Kazun’s true identity is revealed and the weary adventurer offered a permanent if Faustian cure, Gorilla-Man makes the only choice a true champion can…

A final text presentation precedes Lee, Lieber, Kirby & Ayers’ ‘The Return of the Gorilla Man’ (from Tales to Astonish #30, April 1962) wherein Radzik, still locked in a gorilla’s body, escapes captivity and frantically attempts to prove to scientists how smart he is.

Big mistake…

Further insight into Hale is provided by ‘My Dinner with Gorilla-Man’ by Jason Aaron & Caracuzzo from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, as a desperate man with nothing to lose hunts down the ageless anthropoid, intent on fulfilling the ageless equation: “Kill the Gorilla and live forever”…

This is followed by a glorious romp from X-Men: First Class #8. ‘Treasure Hunters’ by Jeff Parker & Roger Cruz finds the debut generation of Xavier’s mutants – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman and Marvel Girl – hunting for their missing teacher in the Congo. Along the way they encounter a talking gorilla who becomes their guide, inadvertently pulling reclusive hermit Hale out of a decades-long funk…

This collection concludes with the seminal supernatural suspense thriller which first introduced ‘Gorilla Man’ to the world. Again by an anonymous writer (possibly Hank Chapman) and illustrated by the wonderful Robert (“Bob Q”) Sale, this evocative chiller from Men’s Adventures #26 (March 1954) offers a far grittier take on the origin as a man terrified of dying and plagued by nightmares of fighting apes hears a crazy legend and heads for Kenya and an inescapable, horrific destiny…

Also included is a selection of 21st century covers by Dave Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Dave McCaig, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado & Marko Djurdjevic, with the vintage frontages represented by Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber and Dick Ayers.

Outrageous, over the top and never taking itself seriously, this is a riot of hairy scary fun-filled frolics and a perfect antidote to po-faced Costumed Dramas.
© 1954, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Cable volume 3: Stranded


By Duane Swierczynski, Paul Gulacy, Gabriel Guzman, Mariano Taibo & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 979-0-7851-4167-9

The son of X-Man Scott Summers and a clone of Jean Grey, Nathan Christopher Summers was infected with a techno-organic virus as a baby. He was only saved by being sent through time, subsequently spending his formative years in the far future where he became an unlikely and largely unwilling saviour of assorted humankinds against mutant overlord Apocalypse and his vile minions such as the clone-warrior Stryfe.

Afflicted with a stubborn certainty that he always knew best – probably due to his hard-earned foreknowledge and weary experience of how bad the days to come would be – Nathan evolved into time-travelling super-soldier Cable and gradually inserted himself into the lives of key figures in mutant history: figures such as Professor Charles Xavier and his own father Cyclops – the Moses and King David of mutant-kind…

Using his phenomenal psionic abilities to hold at bay the incurable, progressive condition inexorably consuming his flesh and only held in check by the victim’s indomitable force of will, the mysterious grizzled veteran slowly began interacting with and reshaping the past…

Hope Spalding-Summers was the first Homo Superior born on Earth after M-Day, when the temporarily insane mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch used her reality-warping powers to eradicate almost all fellow members of her terrifying sub-species from existence.

Considered by many to be some sort of mutant messiah, the newborn girl was “appropriated” by militant warrior Cable – no stranger to the role of Sole Saviour – who raised her in the furious future, training her in all manner of lethal survival skills before she inevitably found her way back to the present where she was adopted by X-Men supremo Scott Summers AKA Cyclops.

Hers was a horrifically memorable childhood as this slim, satisfying collection (gathering issues #16-20 of the monthly Cable comicbook from July-November 2009) will surely attest…

From the start Hope had implacable foes hunting her. The most resourceful was another time-tossed former X-Man, Lucas Bishop, who was convinced the child would cause the diabolically dystopian alternate reality he originated in. To prevent such horror ever occurring, Bishop determined to kill her before she could become a mutant anti-Christ and not even Cable’s frequent temporal relocations would deter him…

With the entire time-busting saga scripted by Duane Swierczynski, the action here begins with the 2-part ‘Too Late for Tears’ – illustrated by legendary comics icon Paul Gulacy – as Cable and nine-year-old Hope prepare to again jump into the safely camouflaging corridors of chronality after a particularly contentious battle.

However, the increasingly rebellious girl strikes out at her protector during a fateful moment and the time-shift goes wrong…

Hope materialises in the same post-apocalyptic location but two years earlier in time and, with no further information to go on, endeavours to make herself secure until Cable finds her. Stuck in her future, Cable patiently waits for her to “catch up” but his techno-viral contagion flares up and threatens to end his appalling life before she gets then…

And 127 years prior to Cable’s latest crisis Bishop activates his own time-machine and remorselessly continues his pursuit of Hope…

Stuck, but not without resources, the girl explores a dying Earth where only two warring cities are still inhabited. Soon she is approached by a young boy named Emil who is instantly smitten by the lethally self-sufficient waif…

Just as Cable forces back his latest bout of all-consuming transmogrification by invasive code, Bishop arrives and a deadly destructive but ultimately inconclusive battle breaks out. The follower’s plan is obsessively simple: as soon as he sees Hope he will end her by detonating a nuclear device inside his body.

But she isn’t with Cable any longer…

In another era, Emil has gradually broken Hope’s wall of distrust but, just as she feels she can finally relax, the girl discovers that the revered spiritual head of the boy’s band of survivors is her very familiar foe. The “Arch-Bishop” has been so patiently waiting for his time-bending bête-noir to resurface…

The seemingly benevolent holy man has no problems wiping out his entire flock to finish her for good but Hope perpetually avoids him and Bishop just can’t trigger the nuke until he’s absolutely certain.

And two long years later, Cable moves into one of the two cities, makings plans, winning allies and waiting, waiting, waiting…

When at last 11-year old Hope is reunited with Cable, it’s as both cities are on the verge of mutual destruction and the mutant has no time for her protests. He has spent his time constructing a working space ship and after forcibly dragging his furious charge aboard takes off for the safety of space leaving a heartbroken Emil behind. Happily for the lovesick lad the wonderful Archbishop can also construct star-craft. Very soon they will all be reunited…

Artists Gabriel Guzman & Mariano Taibo take over for the eerie alien encounter ‘Brood’ beginning with ‘Bishop Takes Pawn’ wherein Bishop and Emil lead their people into a final battle with Cable’s ship and crew on the edges of the solar system. Thankfully the boy finds Hope before the mutant hunter does and she convinces her long-lost paramour of the deranged cleric’s true intentions before falling to Bishop’s murderous rage.

With nuclear obliteration seconds away events overtake all the manic participants as both ships – locked together in the vacuum of deep space – are invaded by creatures even more ferociously dangerous…

The Brood are ghastly alien parasites and rapacious intelligent body-stealers who lay eggs in hosts and use the victims’ genetic material to augment their unborn generations. For uncounted centuries they have greedily hungered for the exceptional advantages gained by infecting mutants and metahumans…

In ‘Queen Takes Bishop’ the disgusting matriarch of the invading beasts specifically targets Hope as her overwhelming spawn decimate the last remnants of humanity aboard both ships. However, the little lass has met Brood before and knows just how to deal with them. Elsewhere Bishop and Cable also manage to survive the appalling assault, both obsessed with finding Hope for their drastically opposing reasons…

As an entire space fleet of the noxious beasts zero in on the last humans alive, Bishop utterly succumbs to his obsession by allying himself with the Brood Queen to ensure the final fate of Hope, but has completely underestimated the child’s resiliency, Cable’s compulsive dutiful determination, and the unmatchable power of young love in the blazing conclusion ‘Checkmate’…

Time-travel tales often disappoint and frequently make people’s heads hurt, but this bombastic romp (augmented by covers and variants by Dave Wilkins & Rob Liefeld) manages to always stick to the point, offering sly tributes – and some not so much – to Les Miserables and Alien whilst following the pain-wracked consumption of Cable by of his own non-fleshly invaders through a clever and poignant Fights ‘n’ Tights sci fi horror drama that will impress and delight older fans of the genre(s).

© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Avengers Academy: Arcade – Death Game


By Paul Tobin, Terry Kavanagh, Chris Claremont, David Baldeon, Chris Marrinan, Michael Nasser, Rich Buckler & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5630-7

Whilst acting as America’s Chief of Metahuman Affairs Norman Osborn grotesquely abused his position. One of his various nefarious projects was locating and conditioning young ultra-empowered individuals with the intention of creating an army of lethal freaks utterly subservient to his will.

When the former Green Goblin was finally brought to book this most secret initiative was exposed and the kidnapped, psychologically warped, technologically abused kids were taken into safekeeping by The Avengers.

The traumatised and potentially lethal teens became their responsibility and the weary warriors decided to teach the surviving lab rats how to be heroes before they could fall into being monsters and villains…

Arcade, on the other hand, was a spoiled trust-fund brat who discovered a talent for invention and a psychotic passion for flamboyant assassination when his unfortunate father cut him off. The malignant patricide then turned his new hobby into an obsessive life-long game of death for profit…

Arcade – Death Game collects the story from Avengers Academy King Size #1 and also offers two earlier appearances of the mirthful Master of Mechanistic Mayhem from Spider-Man #25 and Marvel Team-Up volume 1 #89.

When Avengers-in-training Humberto Lopez AKA Reptil, Madeline “Veil” Berry, Jeanne Foucault, the polymath phenomenon dubbed Finesse, and human dynamo Striker – who much prefers his stage name and persona to being ordinary Brandon Sharpe – were given a rare day off. Temporarily freed from crushing classes, the kids are let loose in New York City but are quickly targeted by the baroque bad guy, desperate to reclaim his formerly fearsome reputation by killing a few superheroes. Always ambitious,Arcade has simultaneously set up to assassinate not only the proto-Avengers but also another squad of kid crusaders…

The Young Allies are Spider-Girl (Latina Anya Sofia Corazon, formerly arachnoid avenger Araña), super-strong Toro AKA bovine metamorph Benito Serrano and relative child-hero veteran Firestar.  This trio of unsupervised titanic teens also fall into Arcade’s Machiavellian clutches when the maniac unleashes a deceptively devilish division of robot duplicates to deliver the meta kids to his latest deadly theme-park of terror…

Happily the crazed contract killer had completely underestimated the intelligence of Reptil and sheer bloody determination of Spider-Girl, so it wasn’t long before all the junior heroes were loose and really, really peeved…

This fun and furious frolic from Paul Tobin, David Baldeon & Jordi Tarragona is then followed by ‘Why Me?’ (Spider-Man #25, August 1992) by Terry Kavanagh, Chris Marrinan & Chris Stegbauer: a rather slight interlude in which the Wondrous Wall-crawler scurries over to England to meet with old pal Captain Britain and gets suckered into a virtual reality war against mutant superteam Excalibur – all courtesy of the malevolently manipulative Arcade – who had once again bitten off far more than he could chew…

‘Shootout over Centre Ring’ by Chris Claremont, Michael Nasser, Rich Buckler & Josef Rubinstein is a far better tale, first seen in Marvel Team-Up #89 (January 1980) and revealing how the web-spinner and X-Man Nightcrawler were propelled into an acrobatic alliance after an unscrupulous Texan millionaire showman from the mutant’s circus past resurfaces with a plan to assassinate Spider-Man as a publicity stunt.

Amos Jardine had originally hired Arcade but later went with a lower bid from hitman Cutthroat, consequently discovering that the only thing the Grinning Gamesman hated more than costumed crusaders was a welcher…

Classic Fights ‘n’ Tights action and lots of bizarre laughs distinguish this engaging piece of all-action eye-candy, and this collection also includes a cover gallery by Ed McGuinness, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson, Mark Bagley, Al Milgrom, Buckler & Rubinstein, plus pencils, layouts and sketches by McGuinness, Samnee and Baldeon and a handy prose profile of the eponymous assassin himself…
© 1980, 1992, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong


By Greg Pak, Greg Land & Matt Ryan (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1924-8

In the X-Men’s corner of reality The Phoenix is a universal force of creation and destruction. It first possessed mutant telepath Jean Grey when the team flew through a spectacular solar storm and seemingly transformed the mortal Marvel Girl into a passionate and capricious being of practically godlike power.

When she was first possessed by the fiery force Jean became an unstoppable hero of infinite puissance and an overwhelming champion of Life, but eventually the power corrupted her and she devolved into Dark Phoenix: a wanton god of world-killing appetites.

After succumbing to the addictive lure of her abilities the fiery force consumed an entire populated planet and, after battling both X-Men and the Imperial Guard of the Shi’ar Empire to a standstill, momentarily lost control to its own human avatar. Stricken with remorse Jean contrived to end her own life in the ancient Kree outpost known as the Blue Area of the Moon.

After some years Jean was miraculously resurrected, married her true love Scott “Cyclops” Summers and continued as a much diminished mutant hero. Eventually, however, she regained – or was taken by – the Phoenix powers. With her marriage failing, Jean died in combat against a being who seemed to be long-term foe/friend Magneto and subsequently ascended to become an even more cosmic entity, The White Phoenix of the Crown.

In this collection, re-presenting the 2005 five issue miniseries Phoenix – Endsong (scripted by Greg Pak and illustrated by Greg Land & Matt Ryan), the fundamental force again appears, hungrily seeking a companion-host and, as ever, utterly uncaring about the repercussions of its selfish actions…

The drama begins far away across the universe as a Shi’ar ship attacks the flaming entity and, with unprecedented awareness, the host-less energy flees towards Sol and the home of its most beloved avatar. Soon, on Earth Wolverine is accosted by a vagrant, questing thought-form and realises something isn’t right…

The ghost of the Phoenix visits many of Jean’s old friends and familiar places before finding her one-and-only Scott in the arms of another telepath and at last realises that if it wants Jean back it will have to resurrect her.

No problem…

Jean’s desiccated corpse fights with all the will she possessed in life but thePhoenixis unstoppable. By the time Wolverine reaches her grave Jean Grey is a living, breathing woman again – and unwilling receptacle of the most savage and irresistible power in the universe…

Confused yet triumphant the Phoenixdecides to give Jean everything she had always wanted, including her ideal man. Scott of course, has moved on since her demise and now loves devastatingly capable hellion Emma Frost.

No problem…

As the childish, spiteful creature attempts to reconstruct Jean’s past and erase all her rivals, the pursuing Shi’ar warp in, determined to destroy the fire entity before it reaches its peak of power, whilst on the world below Wolverine alerts Scott and the X-Men to their imminent peril…

Cyclops is grimly determined in the face of the news. His Jean died to save the universe from the Phoenix and this thing that has returned isn’t her, so must be ruthlessly dealt with. As the mutant heroes mobilise, however, the Phoenix attacks, whilst deep in their underground labs, deceased fantastically dangerous Homo superior Supremacist Quentin Quire – the terrifying Kid Omega – has been recalled to life by the Force’s earlier probes and reconstitutes his destroyed body. Topping even that he attempts to resurrect his own lost love Sophie – part of a telepathic collective dubbed the Stepford Cuckoos who died stopping his last petulant rampage.

But for all his power the lovesick boy just can’t make the miracle work a second time…

The X-Men are unable to stopPhoenix. She easily overcomes them and the desperate Shi’ar before teleporting to the North Pole with Wolverine. The aliens are now far more concerned that Quire might be an even more suitable host for the flaming force and threaten to eradicate the planet with a custom-made singularity…

At the top of the world Wolverine unleashes his claws but the thing that isn’t Jean just won’t die and all he accomplishes is the weakening of the last vestiges of control her conscience had exerted on thePhoenix.

By the time Cyclops and the X-Men arrive the universal firebird is moments away from getting everything it ever wanted and the stage is set for another cosmic tragedy to unfold. However love has always been thePhoenix’s weakness and Scott, Wolverine and all the assembled X-Men who ever knew Jean will do whatever is necessary to preserve her memory and spirit…

Action-packed but often only barely avoiding a descent into the mercilessly maudlin, this is a lovely piece of comicbook eye-candy which suffers from the twin perils of a surfeit of unexplained continuity and too much heavy-handed sentimentality. If you’re a long-term or effusively passionate new fan there’s a lot to enjoy but other than the exceedingly pretty pictures (supplemented by a wealth of variant covers and 5 pages of pencils prior to the application of ink and colour), casual readers probably won’t find the ride a very comfortable one.

Which might be a problem…
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

AVX Versus


By Adam Kubert, Stuart Immonen, Steve McNiven, Ed McGuinness, Salvador Larroca, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Brandon Peterson, Kaare Andrews, Leinil Francis Yu, Tom Raney, Jim Cheung & various writers & artists (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-519-2

Mass metahuman mega-mosh-ups – call ’em braided crossover events if you want – are an intrinsic part of comicbook publishing these days, and Marvel’s big thing of the moment acknowledges a few utterly basic home truths. Most saliently, fans seem to want to see extravagant hero-on-hero action and – almost as crucial – that the stories must look very pretty showing it.

Avengers Vs. X-Men employed the company’s most successful movie franchise stars in spectacular fashion as the World’s Mightiest Heroes – and Spider-Man – strove against the misunderstood mutant outcasts for control of young Hope Summers; a girl destined to become the mortal host of an implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix. The tale involved incessant turmoil, sacrifice and death, and the conquest, reshaping and – almost – the destruction of humanity before a relatively stable status quo was tenuously restored.

It also featured a blistering array of dynamic duels between a host of fan-favourite characters, and Marvel cannily produced a bombastic and winningly tongue-in-cheek subsidiary 6-issue miniseries which isolated and spotlighted those cataclysmic combats, all safely removed from the tedious task of progressing the overarching storyline…

This admittedly delicious dose of sheer, visually visceral escapism superbly caters to the big kid in all of us comics fans, giving us just what we truly want: men in tights and buxom women in very little attempting to bash each others’ brains in for the most specious of motives…

Divided into a series of Matches taken as snapshots from the ongoing epic and even boldly declaring a winner to – most of – the bouts (I’m not crass enough to spoil the fun by revealing who won any of these tussles – just buy the book… it’s great fun), the furious fireworks begin with ‘Magneto, Master of Magnetism vs. The Invincible Iron Man’ by scripter Jason Aaron and illustrator Adam Kubert…

Match 2 features ‘The Thing vs. Namor the Sub-Mariner’ by Kathryn & Stuart Immonen with Wade von Grawbadger, whilst Steve McNiven & John Dell raucously reveal the outcome of ‘Captain America vs. Gambit’ before the 4th duel depicts a seemingly mismatched travesty with ‘The Amazing Spider-Man vs. Colossus’ by Kieron Gillen & Salvador Larroca.

Ben Grimm returns as ‘The Thing vs. Colossus’ (by Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines) tears up the Blue Area of the Moon and Match 6 features another bout of moon madness as rival Russians rumble in ‘Black Widow vs. Magik’ by Christopher Yost and art-team supreme Terry & Rachel Dodson.

Martial arts mayhem ensues in Match 7 as ‘Daredevil vs. Psylocke’ by Rick Remender & Brandon Peterson adds a darkly human scale to the proceedings before it’s back to peril of godlike proportions when ‘The Mighty Thor vs. Emma Frost’ (by Kaare Andrews) literally shakes the Earth. Match 9 from Matt Fraction, Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan features a nasty, dirty grudge fight in ‘Hawkeye vs. Angel’ and emotions spiral completely out of control in ‘Storm vs. Black Panther’ (Aaron & Tom Raney) as the married couple work out their domestic problems in eye-popping combat.

The key clash of the parent series and this sidebar excursion occurs when the planet’s twin saviours spectacularly butt heads in ‘Scarlet Witch vs. Hope’ by Gillen, Jim Cheung, Mark Morales & Mark Roslan, after which the remainder of the book is taken up with lighter moments and outright comedy capers beginning with the insanely cool ‘Verbal Abuse’ by Brian Michael Bendis & Jim Mahfood.

The hilarity continues with ‘Science Battle!’ by the Immonens, ‘Captain America vs. Havok’ by Mike Deodato Jr. & Adam Kubert, the insanely manic ‘Red Hulk vs. Domino’ by McGuinness, a duel of devoted domestics in ‘Toad vs. Jarvis’ by Christopher Hastings & Jacob Chabot, the wickedly lascivious daydream ‘Spider-Woman vs. X-Women (kinda)’ by Loeb & Art Adams, the eccentric ‘Iron Fist vs. Iceman’ by Aaron & Ramón Pérez, and it all ends with a resumption of the appropriate perspective in the gloriously silly ‘How We Roll’ from Dan Slott & Katie Cook…

The covers and variants gallery collects the stunning artistic efforts of Kubert, Immonen, Javier Pulido, McNiven, Terry Dodson, Andrews, Raney and others and, although this fast, funny and furious collection doesn’t boast any of the App-augmentations of the core series (if you are experiencing web-based withdrawal you can always resort to the digital sidebar episodes available on Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men: Infinite website), the sheer rollercoaster riot of exuberant energetic comicbook action will indubitably delight and enthral any fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.

Magnificently simplistic, this adventure extravaganza also packs the prerequisite punch to stun and beguile comics-continuity veterans and film-fed fanboys alike.
™ & © 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A,Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

Posted on

Avengers versus X-Men


By Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, John Romita Jr., Olivier Coipel, Adam Kubert, Frank Cho & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-518-5

The mainstream comics industry is now irretrievably wedded to blockbuster continuity-sharing mega-crossover events and rashly doling them out like epi-pens to Snickers addicts with peanut allergies.

At least these days, however, if we have to endure a constant cosmic Sturm and extra-dimensional Drang, the publishers take great pains to ensure that the resulting comics chaos is suitably engrossing and always superbly illustrated…

Marvel’s big thing of the moment is the extended clash between mega-franchises Avengers and X-Men, which began in Avengers: X Sanction when time-lost mutant Cable attempted to pre-emptively murder a select roster of the World’s Greatest Heroes to prevent a cosmic tragedy.

Hope Spalding-Summers was the first mutant born on Earth after the temporarily insane Avenger Scarlet Witch used her reality-warping powers to eradicate almost all the mutants in existence. Considered a mutant messiah, Hope was raised in the future before inevitably finding her way back to the present where she was adopted by X-Men supremo Scott Summers AKA Cyclops.

Innumerable signs and portents have always indicated that she was a reincarnated receptacle for the devastating cosmic entity dubbed The Phoenix…

This mammoth collection gathers the core 12-issue fortnightly miniseries from April to October 2012 which saw humanity and Homo Superior go to war to possess the celestial chosen one, and also includes the prequel Avengers vs. X-Men #0 which laid the plot groundwork for the whole blockbusting Brouhaha.

Moreover this up-to-the minute epic also incorporates 21st century extras for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind. Many pages contained herein are marked by an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

The entire tale is also supported by digital sidebar episodes available on Marvel’s Avengers vs. X-Men: Infinite website.

…Or like me you could simply concentrate on and revel in the staggeringly spectacular, plot-light but stunningly rendered old-fashioned, earth-shattering punch-up barely contained in this titanic tome…

Necessarily preceded by a double-page scorecard of the 78(!) major players, the story begins with a pair of Prologues (by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron & Frank Cho) as a now-sane and desperately repentant Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff tries to make amends and restore links with the Avengers she betrayed and attacked. However, even after defeating an attack by manic mutate MODOK and an personal invitation from Ms. Marvel to come back, the penitent mutant is sent packing by her ex-husband The Vision and the other male heroes she manipulated.

Meanwhile in Utopia, the West Coast island fortress that houses the last 200 mutants on Earth, an increasingly driven Cyclops is administering brutally tough love to adopted daughter Hope. The young woman is determined to defy her inescapable destiny as eventual host for the omnipotent Phoenix force on some far future day and is regularly moonlighting as a superhero. Sadly she’s well out of her depth when she tackles the sinister Serpent Society and Daddy humiliatingly comes to her rescue.

…And in the depths of space the ghastly firebird of life and death comes ever closer to Earth…

In the first chapter (by Bendis, John Romita Jr. & Scott Hanna) the catastrophically powerful force of destruction and rebirth nears our world and the perfect mortal host it hungers for and needs to guide it, frantically preceded by desperate hero-harbinger of doom Nova, who almost dies to deliver a warning of its proximity and intent. Soon the Avengers and government are laying plans, whilst in Utopia Scott Summers is pushing Hope harder than ever. If thePhoenix cannot be escaped from or avoided, perhaps he can make his daughter strong enough not to be overwhelmed by its promise of infinite power…

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning ex X-Man and current Avenger Wolverine is approached by Captain America and regretfully leaves his position as teacher to once again battle a force that cannot be imagined…

With even his fellow mutants questioning his tactics and brutal pushing of Hope, Cyclops meets CaptainAmericafor a parley. On behalf of the world, the Sentinel of Liberty wants to take Hope into protective custody but the mutant leader, distrustful of human bigotry and past duplicity, reacts violently to the far-from-diplomatic overtures…

Jason Aaron scripts the second instalment as frayed tempers lead to an all-out battle on the shores of Utopia, and personal grudges fuel the brutal conflict. As the metahuman war rages, Wolverine and Spider-Man surreptitiously go after the hidden Hope, but even far off in space the Phoenix force has infected her and she blasts them…

Meanwhile in the extra-solar void Thor, Vision, War Machine and a select team of secret Avengers confront the mindlessly onrushing energy construct…

Chapter 3 is scripted by Ed Brubaker and begins with the recovering Wolverine and Wallcrawler considering how to catch the missing hyper-powerful Hope with both the Avengers and recently departed X-Men chasing her. When the feral mutant clashes over tactics with Captain America, the resulting fight further divides the Avengers’ forces whilst in episode 4 – authored by Jonathan Hickman – as the easily defeated space defenders limp back to Earth, Hope and Wolverine meet at the bottom of the world and devise their own plans fore her future…

All over the planet heroes are hunting the unhappy chosen one, and the clashes between mutants and superhumans are steadily intensifying in ferocity, but the fugitive pair soon evade all pursuit by stealing a rocket and heading to the ancient Blue Area of the Moon where revered mutant Jean Grey first died to save the universe from the Phoenix.

When the former Marvel Girl was first possessed by the fiery force she became a hero of infinite puissance and a cataclysmic champion of Life, but eventually the power corrupted her and she devolved into Dark Phoenix: a wanton god of planet-killing appetites…

As an act of valiant contrition, Jean permitted the X-Men to kill her before her rapacious need completely consumed her in the oxygen-rich ancient city on the lunar surface (of course that’s just the tip of an outrageously long and overly-complicated iceberg not germane or necessary to us here: just search-engine the tale afterwards, ok?), but when Hope finally reaches the spot of her predecessor’s sacrifice she finds that she’s been betrayed and that the Avengers are waiting… and so are mutants Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Magik and Namor the Sub-Mariner. With battle set to begin again, the battered body of Thor crashes into the lunar dust and the sky is lit by the blazing arrival of the Phoenix avatar…

Matt Fraction scripts the 5th chapter as the appalling firebird attempts to possess Hope, who then realises she has completely overestimated her ability to handle the force, even as Avengers and X-Men again come to blistering blows.

Some distance away super-scientists Tony Stark and Henry Pym deploy their last-ditch anti-Phoenix invention but it doesn’t work as planned… When the furious light finally dies down, the infernal energy has possessed not Hope but the five elder mutants who turn their blazing eyes towards Earth and begin to plan how best to remake it…

Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales begin their stint as illustrators with the 6th, Hickman-scripted instalment, as ten days later old comrades Magneto and Charles Xavier meet to discuss the paradise Earth has become – especially for mutants. Violence, disease, hunger and want are gone but Cyclops, Emma, Sub-Mariner, Magic and Colossus are distant, aloof saviours at best and the power they share incessantly demands to be used more and more and more…

Myriad dimensions away in the mystical city of K’un L’un, kung fu overlord Lei Kung is warned that an ancient disaster is repeating itself on Earth and dispatches the city’s greatest hero Iron Fist to avert overwhelming disaster, even as fearful humanity is advised that their old bad ways will no longer be allowed to despoil the world. Naturally the decree of a draconian “Pax Utopia” does not sit well with humanity, and soon the Avengers are again at war with the last few hundreds of mutantkind. This time however the advantage is overwhelmingly with the underdogs and their five godlike leaders…

A last ditch raid to snatch Hope from Utopia goes catastrophically wrong until the long-reviled Scarlet Witch intervenes and rescues the Avengers and Hope.

Astounded to realise that Wanda’s probability-altering gifts can harm them, the Phoenix Five declare all-out, total war on the human heroes…

In the 7th, Fraction-scripted, chapter the Avengers are hunted down all over the planet and the individual personalities of the possessed X-Men begin to clash with each other. As Iron Fist, Lei Kung and Stark seek a marriage of spiritual and technological disciplines, the Sub-Mariner defies the Phoenix consensus to attack the African nation of Wakanda…

Adam Kubert & John Dell took over the art from issue #8 with Bendis’ script revealing how an army of Avengers and the power of Wanda and Xavier turned the tide of battle, but not before a nation died…

Moreover, with Namor beaten, his portion of Phoenix-power passed on to the remaining four, inspiring hungry notions of sole control amongst the possessed…

In #9 (by Aaron, Kubert & Dell) as the hunt for heroes continues on Earth, in K’un L’un Hope is being trained in martial arts discipline by the city’s immortal master, and in sheer guts and humanity by Spider-Man, and when Thor is captured the Avengers stage an all-out assault and by some miracle defeat both Magik and Colossus. Tragically that only makes Cyclops stronger still and he comes looking for his wayward daughter…

Brubaker writes the 10th chapter as Cyclops invades K’un L’un with horrific consequences whilst on Earth Emma Frost succumbs to the worst aspects of her nature and begins to enslave friend and foe with her half of the infinitePhoenix force. At the same time CaptainAmerica and Xavier are laying plans for one last “Hail Mary” assault…

And in the mystic city Hope finally comes into her power and incredibly blasts Cyclops out the other reality and back to the moon where the tragedy began…

Bendis, Coipel & Morales created the penultimate instalment as the rapacious destructive hunger of the Phoenix causes Cyclops to battle Emma, even as the unifying figure of Xavier draws X-Men and Avengers to unite against the true threat, as with issue #12 (Aaron, Kubert & Dell) Cyclops finally descends into the same hell as his beloved, long-lost Jean by becoming the seemingly unstoppable and insatiable Dark Phoenix with only the assembled heroes and the resigned Hope prepared to stop him from consuming the Earth…

The series generated a host of variant covers (I lost count at 87) by Cho, Jason Keith, Jim Cheung, Laura Martin, Stephanie Hans, Romita Jr., Ryan Stegman, Carlo Barberi, Olivier Coipel, Morales, Skott Young, Arthur Adams, Nick Bradshaw, Carlo Pagulayan, Sara Pichelli, J. Scott Campbell, Jerome Opeña, Mark Bagley, Dale Keown, Esad Ribic, Adam Kubert, Alan Davis, Humberto Ramos, Leinil Francis Yu, Adi Granov and Billy Tan which will undoubtedly delight and astound the artistically adroit amongst you…

Fast, furious and utterly absorbing – if short on plot – this summer blockbuster is an extreme Fights ‘n’ Tights extravaganza that certainly delivers a mighty punch without any real necessity to study beforehand that comics-continuity veterans and film-fed fanboys alike will relish.
™ & © 2012 Marvel and subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A,Italy. All Rights Reserved. A British edition published by Panini UK, Ltd.

Posted on

Astonishing X-Men: Exogenetic


By Warren Ellis, Phil Jiminez & Andy Lanning (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3169-4

By now you’re either aware or not of mutant continuity, so in the spirit of this high octane, terse, gritty and bombastic monster-mashing thriller, I’ll forego the usual catch-up scorecard and précis and simply state that new readers can jump on with the minimum of confusion and, aided by the skilful use of banter, be readily brought up to cruising speed. Set in the aftermath of M-Day when the world’s mutant population was horrifically reduced to a couple of hundred Children of the Atom, the current official team of Cyclops, White Queen Emma Frost, Wolverine, Storm, the Beast and spunky Japanese teen Hisako Ichiki (AKA Armor) convene to tackle the latest threat to Earth’s dwindling mutant race.

To counter hostile public opinion in a world that has always hated and feared mutants, these heroes have renounced their traditionally clandestine lifestyle to fight their battles in the glare of the media. The new agenda is simple: carry on saving the day but do it in such a way that the world knows who to thank. Thus they can slowly change humanity’s attitudes and misperceptions whilst still doing their job.

It all sounded so easy…

Exogenetic opens with Abigail Brand and her agents of S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation & Response Department) sterilising yet another alien-infested asteroid base before succumbing to an overwhelming counterattack from the horrific invaders – parasitic Brood who have repeatedly attempted to ingest and assimilate our mutant champions.

Barely escaping, she heads back to Earth in a doomed ship where her helpless ground officers call in a little Homo Superior help…

Her craft is heading for a catastrophic crash into San Francisco, so it’s lucky that bestial Hank McCoy – the X-Men’s brilliant technical wizard and Brand’s current boyfriend – is heading the rescue mission, but even after a spectacular last-minute save nobody is truly safe…

In the gawping city-crowds avidly rubber-necking below is mutant Laurie Collins …but she’s been dead for months. The resurrected Wallflower suddenly mutates into a monstrous, marauding organic Sentinel indiscriminately determined to kill X-Men and human San Franciscans alike; firing off “her” inbuilt and reconfigured Brood drones in the way robotic Sentinels utilise missiles and ray-blasts…

After another breathtakingly bombastic imbroglio the mutants are eventually victorious, but forensic examinations of the remains indicate that Laurie was regrown, modified with ET DNA and mechanically augmented by agents unknown based on doomsday files stolen from McCoy’s own database and cell bank.

Someone has plundered the X-Men’s own secret technologies and desecrated their honoured dead…

Moreover the illicit harvester of dead X-Genes seems intent on using the purloined powers, stolen mechanisms and alien plasm to create an army to wage an all-out war of genocide on the Earth’s paltry remaining mutants…

With Abigail’s help the horrified heroes track down elderly geneticist Kaga who has apparently spent more than a decade on his plan to eradicate Earth’s Homo Superior. However after invading his floating storehouse of exotic and exhumed weaponry the appalled and traumatised X-Men discover that their race’s greatest foe has the most incredible and oddly logical motive for his fanatical crusade…

Untroubled by extraneous subplots or meandering sidebar storylines, starring an horrific host of “monsterised” old friends and foes whilst irresistibly combining stunning action and superb characterisation: this is a staggeringly impressive and addictive summer blockbuster.

Forthright, uncomplicated, and unforgettable, this riotous rollercoaster of thrills still finds moments for wrenching empathy and laugh-out-loud gags as the team again triumphs against impossible odds, and creators Warren Ellis, Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning have a perfect grasp of their charges here, and even leave a sting in the tale to end on….

Collecting Astonishing X-Men #31-35 (with text features from Astonishing X-Men/Amazing Spider-Man: the Gauntlet Sketchbook), this book also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Jimenez, Frank D’Armata, Travis Charest & Justin Ponsor, plus a copiously illustrated lengthy interview with the artist discussing his approach and techniques to illustrating the saga in ‘Sketching Out Phil Jimenez’.
© 2009, 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Posted on

X-Men: Worlds Apart


By Christopher Yost, Diogenes Neves & Ed Tadeo, Priest, Sal Velluto & Bob Almond, Chris Claremont & John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3533-3

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants: Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 as mystery and all things supernatural once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields and provoked a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom, until Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot in 1975 as part of the company’s line of Giant-Sized specials.

Giant Size X-Men #1 detailed how the classic team had been lost in action, leaving Xavier to scour the Earth for a replacement team. Recruiting old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire and one-shot Hulk villain Wolverine, most of the savant’s time and attention was invested in newcomers Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus, embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird and a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess.

Ororo Munroe AKA Storm was actually the lost daughter of African royalty and an American journalist, and after joining Xavier’s team spent years fighting the world’s most deadly threats as part – and often leader – of the outlaw unloved, distrusted mutant hero horde, but eventually left her second home to marry a boy she had met whilst trekking across the Dark Continent decades previously.

In Fantastic Four #52 (August 1966) an incredible individual calling himself the Black Panther tested himself against the Cosmic Quartet and disclosed in the next issue how, as a child, he had lost his father to a ruthless scientist’s mercenary army when they invaded his hidden African homeland Wakanda.

The young Prince T’Challa had single-handedly avenged the murder of his father T’Chaka and driven off the raiders, and inherited the role of king and spiritual leader of his people. Eventually The Black Panther became a member of the Mighty Avengers and introduced his country to the world, with technologically-advanced Wakanda swiftly advancing to the forefront of nations by trading its scientific secrets and greatest natural resource – the incredible alien mineral Vibranium.

Whilst a boy wandering the plains of Africa, he had met a beautiful young girl with incredible powers trekking from Egypt to West Africa and years later found her again as one the X-Men. Slowly rediscovering old feelings the pair married and Storm became the First Lady of Wakanda…

This compilation, collecting the 4-issue miniseries X-Men: Worlds Apart from 2008-2009 plus Black Panther volume 3, #26 (January 2001) and material from Marvel Team-Up #100 (December 1980), follows the African Queen through her darkest hours and affords a little space to examine key moments in her tempestuous relationship with the earthly agent of the very-real Panther God.

The romance commences with the eponymous ‘Worlds Apart’ crafted by Christopher Yost, Diogenes Neves, Ed Tadeo & Raul Treviño with the action opening in New York’s sewers where Storm and some-time comrade Scott “Cyclops” Summers seek to convince hidden Morlock refugees to join the West Coast mutant enclave and safe-haven known as Utopia. When she suddenly called back toAfrica, Ororo’s erstwhile friend contentiously questions her loyalties…

Even as the august and elevated co-ruler of a fabulous kingdom, Ororo iq adi T’Challa is still painfully aware of humanity’s – and more specifically her own subjects’ – bigotry regarding the genetic offshoot politely dubbed Homo Superior, so when one of her protégés – young Wakandan mutant Nezhno Abidemi – is accused of murder she rushes to defend him.

…But the evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible and damning…

Nevertheless, she knows something is amiss and when she arbitrarily frees him the entire country turns against her: even her husband wants her blood…

The cause soon smugly reveals himself as Amahl Farouk, a sinister, corrupting telepath she and Charles Xavier had killed years ago, when Ororo was only an orphan child-thief in Cairo. Sadly the monster evolved then into a malign body-stealing psychic force; an untouchable Shadow King feeding on hatred and polluting everything it touches…

Biding its time the Shadow King has insinuated itself into Wakanda, stoking ill-feeling throughout. Now wearing her beloved T’Challa, it plans on extracting a much-postponed final vengeance…

As the poisonous presence gloats Ororo realises it is not just her at risk: the Shadow King has simultaneously taken Cyclops in America and is using her fellow X-Man as a weapon to kill the only earthly threat to Farouk’s power – the supreme telepath Emma Frost who is also Scott Summers’ lover…

With an entire nation and the precious body of her beloved mercilessly hunting her and Nezhno, the wondrous weather-warrior must first direct her powers half-a-world away to stop Cyclops whatever the cost, before somehow destroying a foe no power on Earth can touch.

Happily the Spiritual co-ruler of Wakanda has her own direct line to the country’s cat god – or is that goddess?

Short, sharp, spectacularly action-packed and wickedly satisfying – especially the climactic battles with the assembled X-Men and friendly rival Cyclops – this bombastic Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure is bafflingly complemented with ‘Echoes’ (from Black Panther #26, created by Priest, Sal Velluto & Bob Almond and the first part of a longer epic entitled ‘Stürm und Drang – a Story of Love and War’).

Here T’Challa’s childhood friendship with Ororo is slowly and painfully re-cultivated during an incursion into Wakanda by alien-hunting US Federal Agents and a barely-civil embassy from the secret race known as Deviants, all seeking possession of an unearthly parent and child and eventually forcing a drastic reaction from the sympathetic African heroes…

As an orphaned part of an ongoing storyline this interlude, though smart and pretty, is pretty baffling and aggravating too, ending as it does on an unsatisfying cliffhanger, and unless you already know the greater tale, is far more annoying than elucidating…

This intriguing safari into the unknown concludes with the far more pleasing story of Ororo and T’Challa’s first meeting as kids in the wilds of Africa. This tale first appeared as a back-up in Marvel Team-Up #100 in 1980 and cleverly revealed how the kids enjoyed an idyllic time on the veldt (reminiscent of Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s 1908 novel The Blue Lagoon) until a South African commando team tried to kidnap the Wakandan prince as a bargaining chip.

Now as adults in America they are hunted by the vicious Afrikaner Andreas de Ruyter who has returned, attempting to assassinate Ororo, before seeking to exact final revenge upon the Black Panther. Cue long-delayed lover’s reunion and team-raid on an automated House of Horrors…

Always designed as an outreach project to draw in audience demographics perceived to be short-changed by mainstream Marvel, Storm and the Black Panther have proved to be a winning combination in terms of story if not sales, and Worlds Apart is the kind of tale that should please most fans of the genre and followers of the film franchise.
© 1980, 2001, 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Exiles – Point of No Return


By Jeff Parker, Salva Espin, Casey Jones & Karl Kesel (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4044-3

If you’re a fan of comics the head-spinning concept of multiple realities is probably one that holds no terrors. Indeed most superhero, fantasy and science fiction series eventually resort to the tried-and-true theme of alternate heroes and villains as it’s a certified, easily fixable way to test out new ideas and character-traits without the danger of having to reboot your star’s entire continuity if the fans hate it.

Marvel came to the concept relatively late. Whilst DC were radically winnowing and rationalising their own multiverse in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the House of Ideas was only cautiously expanding its own Alternity.

Although such surrogate Earthers as Thundra, Arkon, Mahkizmo, Gaard and the Squadron Supreme had cropped up in the Fantastic Four and Avengers, the comicbook which truly built on the idea was What If?, an anthological series wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher offered peeks into a myriad of other worlds where key “real” continuity stories were replayed with vastly different outcomes.

The first volume (48 issues between February 1977 and June 1988) posed such intriguing questions as ‘What If… Loki had Found the Hammer of Thor?’, ‘the Fantastic Four had not gained Their Powers?’ or ‘Spider-Man’s Clone had Lived?’ and when the title relaunched in 1989 for another 115 issues including ‘What If Wolverine was Lord of the Vampires?’ and ‘What if Captain Marvel had not Died?’, the tales were all back-written into an over-arching continuity and began to catalogued as variant but equally viable Earths/universes and alternate timelines.

There have been seven more volumes since and a series of “Alterniverse” tales…

In case you’re wondering, those gritty Ultimate Marvel sagas all occur on Earth-1610, the Age of Apocalypse happened on Earth 295, the Squadron Supreme originally hailed from Earth-712 and the mainstream Marvel tales take place on Earth-616, whilst we readers all dwell on the dull, ordinary Earth-1218…

In 2001 the concept took a big jump and developed its own internal consistency as an amorphous team of mutants and heroes from that multiplicity of universes were brought together by a mysterious “Time-Broker” to correct mistakes and clear blockages in the fabric of the multiverse.

Reality is a plethora of differing dimensions, you see, and if things go awry in one it can have a cumulative and ultimately catastrophic effect on all of them. Led by super-teleporter Blink (who had her own miniseries and starred in the aforementioned X-Men storyline Age of Apocalypse) and guided by the shape-shifting Morph, this constantly fluctuating squad of rejects zapped from dimension to dimension doing the cosmic Dyno-Rod thing for eight years and 119 issues of Exiles and New Exiles before the series was rebooted in 2009.

Scripted by Jeff Parker and illustrated by Salva Espin, the adventure begins with ‘Déjà Vu’ as mysterious manipulators debate whilst scanning the discernible totality of existence looking for suitable members to staff the latest iteration of reality-repairmen. This time they’re concentrating on heroes plucked from the moment of their inevitable deaths – with the intention of causing as little disruption as possible to the continuum – and select Lorna ‘Polaris’ Dane (Earth-8149, daughter of Magneto and last survivor of a world ruled by mutant-hunting Sentinels) and the bestial Avenger Hank McCoy from 763.

Also included is T’Chaka, heir of the Black Panther and Storm on 1119, mutant tech-smith Forge from 2814 and Wanda Maximoff, The (non-Scarlet) Witch of 8823 and another daughter of a different Magneto…

Snatched from their inescapable dooms, the quintet meet Blink and are briefed by the obnoxiously cavalier Morph on their mission, and are soon reluctantly infiltrating an universe where visionary Charles Xavier was murdered and his best friend Eric Lensherr gathered all the mutants on Earth into a nation united in a cold war against humanity.

There is something decidedly off about the far-from utopian new nation of Genosha. Even as constant attacks by the equally-united Homo Sapiens are getting closer and closer to eradicating the mutants forever, Magneto rules like an emperor, with only his charismatic presence holding the populace together. Moreover whilst former X-Men and Evil Mutants barely tolerate each other, the monarch’s own daughters Wanda and Lorna openly seek to destroy each other…

‘Long Live the King’ (with additional art by Casey Jones & Karl Kesel) sees the Exiles’ attempts to infiltrate and destabilise the court go catastrophically awry, leading to their exposure and capture. Busted loose by reserve and-non-mutant T’Chaka, the Reality Re-aligners uncover the truth about Xavier’s death and are witness to an incipient palace coup, but before they can act upon their dramatic change of fortune the team’s mysterious masters order them to abandon the mission…

Blink’s teleport takes them to Earth-10102, a desert world apparently devoid of life. ‘OK Computer’ (Parker, Casey & Kesel) sees the Exiles attempting to derail and restore a planet where mechanical marvels The Vision, Ultron, Machine Man and Jocasta had joined the X-Men’s now-sentient, mutant-detecting Cerebro super-computer in a plan to eradicate the human genome. However, having already exploded a neutron device which caused humanity to vanish from the Earth, the artificial autocrats seemed in an unassailable position. What could the six sojourners possibly do to rectify this situation?

Possibilities arise after the team easily defeats a squadron of robotic Sentinels and the Ambulatory Automatons personally confront the Exiles. It seems there is a schism between Cerebro and its artificial allies – who are not at all what they seem – and the complacent computer tyrant is quite wrong to assume ‘The Humans are Dead’…

The revival came to an abrupt and rather rushed end with ‘Closure’ as the team, having resoundingly succeeded in putting one Reality back on course, returned to the Genosha state and attempted to complete their aborted first mission.

Even with Magneto gone that universe was still endangered as long as the disparate mutant camps remained allied, but with their own undetectable incarnations of Polaris and the Witch, it was relatively simple to sow dissent and start a filial civil war…

Of course the problem with using perfect doppelgangers is that they can also turn the tables on you…

With the job done – at the cost of only one Exile’s life – the team had earned some shore-leave but the vacation unexpectedly led to betrayal, a revolt within the team and a shocking revelation about the mysterious group who fed them their missions…

And ultimately full disclosure into the very nature of the Exiles existence and the truth about the time, space and the multiverse…

Although intended as an ongoing series, Exiles volume 2 only ran six issues before being summarily cancelled – so swiftly in fact that this enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights romp offers a hint at what might have been by including scripts for the aborted issues #7 and 9 as well as the unused script pages for #6, which were replaced at the last moment with a neat and tidy, all-action wrap-up, happy ending and up-beat promise of an eventual return…

Other added-value attractions include lots of preliminary character sketches by Espin, a variant covers gallery by Dave Bullock, Mark Irwin, Anthony Washington, Jason Chan & Mike Grell, as well as Espin’s unused cover, layout and thumbnail artwork intended for #6…

Notwithstanding the hackneyed concept and truncated conclusion, this not such a bad package, but might feel a little rushed in places. Moreover, by relying overmuch on a familiarity with the minutiae of Marvel continuity, this rollercoaster ride might well confuse or deter the casual reader.

Still, if you’re prepared to accept the fact that you won’t get all the gags and references you might enjoy the light tone, sharp dialogue and pretty pictures and, unlike almost all other comicbooks, at least here the dead stay dead.

I think. Perhaps.

Maybe…
© 2009, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.