Category: Marvel Superheroes

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X-Men: Manifest Destiny


By Jason Aaron, James Asmus, Mike Carey, Frank Tieri, Steven Segovia, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Michael Ryan, Chris Burnham, Takeshi Miyazawa, Ben Oliver & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3951-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Most people have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise and even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particular jumping-on tome, so let’s just plunge in as our hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

At this particular juncture, the evolutionary offshoot portentously dubbed Homo Superior was at its lowest ebb. This follows the catastrophic House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein former Avenger Wanda Maximoff AKA The Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals. Most of those genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to establish an enclave on an island dubbed “Utopia” in San Francisco Bay…

Spanning cover-dates October 2008 – April 2009, this utterly engrossing tome re-presents Wolverine: Manifest Destiny #1-4, X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler plus the lead strip and selected short stories from the anthological X-Men Manifest Destiny #1-5: one of a number of collections cataloguing various mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to that relocation offer.

This account of some who answered the call to “Go West, Young Mutant” opens with the Wolverine: Manifest Destiny miniseries (by scripter Jason Aaron and artists Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz Luque & Noah Salonga) wherein long-lived wanderer Logan is plagued by freshly-returned memories as he wanders the streets of Chinatown, suddenly, painfully aware that, at least in this part of San Francisco, he is not welcome…

The nigh-indestructible mutant was born at the end of the 19th century, but over decades his mind and memories have been constantly tampered with by friends and foes alike. Recently. however, a steady procession of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, over-brainwashed life has seeped back. He recalls a breach of trust and broken promise made to the citizens of Chinatown 50 years previously and is determined to make amends and restitution, beginning with an unhappy confrontation in ‘Enter the Wolverine’…

Nevertheless, the hero is reviled by the old men who remember him, and attacked by an army of triad gangsters and kung fu warriors determined to eradicate the humiliation he heaped upon their forefathers…

Outmatched and beaten near to death by massed Tong fighters, the barely resisting Wolverine is further imperilled when old girlfriend Lin turns up in ‘Black Dragon Death Squad to the Edge of Panic’: a septuagenarian crime-boss still furious that he deserted her half a century past and keen to avenge the insult by setting her mystic martial arts warriors on him…

Suffering the worst beating of his long and fractious life, Logan barely escapes into the sewers as the long-suffering San Francisco cops arrive to be greeted with stony silence. As usual, the close-knit community refuses to have anything to do with unworthy interfering outsiders…

Chinatown has always been policed by The Black Dragon: a supreme crime boss who takes tribute from civilian and Tong societies alike, and in return ensures peace and a healthy business environment. Now, far below the incensed citizenry, slowly recuperating Logan recalls how ‘Once Upon a Time in Chinatown’ he breezed into the thriving ghetto just as current chief Lo Shang Cho began overstepping traditional boundaries and acting like an old world tyrant.

Naturally the newcomer had to intervene, but after killing the bullying despot and routing his ruthless thugs, the cocky victor had shirked his responsibility, refusing to be the new Black Dragon before insulting the entire community by leaving.

His brief paramour Lin was compelled to take his place to maintain order, but over the decades she became as cruelly corrupt and debased as her predecessor… and now the man who ruined her life has returned, seemingly not one day older or wiser…

Whilst recovering, the deeply penitent Wolverine has been tutored by Master Po: the kung fu sensei who first tried to teach him to fight like a man and not an animal. It didn’t work then but this time the Black Dragon commands unbeatable magical warriors Rock of the Buddha, Fist of Fire, Storm Sword and Soulstriker and the mutant simply cannot win with his usual mindless berserker methods…

Covertly seeking to rally support and drive out the “bad criminals” forever, Logan attempts to recruit some of the area’s martial arts Schools and Dojos to his cause in the blistering finale but as usual, events get away from him. Fists and feet too soon start furiously flying in ‘The Way of the Black Dragon’ leading to a triumph of sorts and a new role for the transplanted, redeemed wanderer…¦

This spectacular and bombastic homage to Hong Kong action cinema and comics perfectly blends East and West wonderment in a beautiful, intoxicating manner and also includes a glorious guest-shot from vintage 1970s stalwarts Lin Sun, Abe Brown and Bob Diamond, the legendary Sons of the Tiger (one of US comics’ earliest martial arts series, from #1-19 of mature-readers magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, April 1974-December 1975).

One-shot X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler follows, with ‘Quitting Time’ – by James Asmus, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes – focussing on the swashbuckler-turned-priest hunting for the higher meaning in the eradication of mutants and his own place in the X-Men.

Answers are possibly forthcoming in a request to visit a museum dedicated to him in the German village where he was almost killed by pitchfork-wielding bigots who believed he was a demon…

At that time Charles Xavier saved him: inviting him to join the mutant team, setting him on the path of the hero. However, all these years later as he meets his former persecutors, the troubled cleric still feels like an unclean outsider and realises he has been brought to his homeland under false pretences. Another “demon” is plaguing Winzeldorf and, with a child missing, the villagers expect one monster to catch the other. Of course, far more is going on than meets the eye, and tragedy triggers confrontation with a true devil as satanic Mephisto appears, hungry for despoiled and tarnished souls…

‘Kill or Cure’ by Mike Carey, Michael Ryan & Victor Olazaba was lead strip in miniseries X-Men: Manifest Destiny and follows radical changes in the life of founding X-Man Robert Drake. As Iceman, he had been fighting for most of his adult life, but when shapeshifter Mystique poisons him with a genetically keyed neural inhibitor, his powers run amok and he imagines his end is near.

Embarking on a trip to Utopia and medical ministrations of best friend Hank “The Beast” McCoy, Drake is dogged and sabotaged every step of the way by Mystique, who apparently wants him dead but seems reluctant or unable to finish him off, despite his weakened condition and wildly fluctuating powers…

Surviving many assaults, Iceman experiences an exponential leap in his abilities but a final clash on the Bay Bridge proves his understanding of her incomprehensible motives and actions is far from complete…

A short story section opens with a comedic clash between matter-detonating mutant Boom-Boom and cheesy Homo Superior shoplifter Kuwa in a broadly slapstick tale of slapstick broads by Asmus, Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn, after which Nightcrawler pops up again in a pretty but downbeat psycho-drama.

As the teleporting hero faces old foes in a Danger Room simulation, he is forced to confront his deep doubts and true feelings for a lost comrade in the bittersweet ‘Work it Out’ (Asmus & Takeshi Miyazawa). ‘Nick’s’ by Frank Tieri, Ben Oliver & Frank D’Armata ends matters on a moodily oppressive note after Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler pay a disturbingly heavy-handed visit to a former Evil Mutant with the intention of keeping the already-reformed character on the straight and narrow…

This stirring and excessively entertaining tome comes with a selection of cover reproductions from Dave Wilkins, Brandon Peterson, Humberto Ramos & Brian Reber and Michael Turner and pages of stunning designs, roughs and colour studies by Segovia featuring assorted kung fu warriors and the Sons of the Tiger.
© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.

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The Invaders Classic: The Complete Collection volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Frank Robbins, Rich Buckler, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Jim Mooney, Carl Burgos, Don Rico, Lee Elias, Alex Schomburg, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9057-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

The adage never grows stale: the best place to see American superheroes in action is in World War II, thrashing Nazis and their evil Axis allies. And yes, that includes their so-numerous copycats and contemporary legatees like Hydra, The National Southern Baptist Convention, Reclaim, The LGB Alliance and The Bullingdon Club too… whether contemporaneously or retroactively…

That was especially true in the 1970s when many guilt-free hours were devoted to portraying the worst people on Earth getting their just deserts (or just getting mocked in shows like Hogan’s Heroes and films like The Producers or To Be or Not to Be). In an era of generational backward-looking fostering cosy familiarity and with Lynda Carter on TV screens crushing the Third Reich every week in The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, admitted aficionado and irredeemable nostalgist Roy Thomas (Conan the Barbarian, X-Men, All-Star Squadron, Wonder Woman, Shazam!, Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Daredevil ad infinitum) sought to revisit the “last good war”. Here he would back-write a super-team comprising Marvel’s (or rather Atlas/Timely’s) “Big Three” – Captain America, Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch – and however many minor mystery-men as he could shoehorn in…

Long before this series debuted, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the hybrid offspring of a sub-sea Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer: immensely strong, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics.

He first caught the public’s attention as part of the elementally electrifying “Fire vs. Water” headlining team in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and Marvel Mystery Comics from the next issue) alongside The Human Torch, but had debuted earlier in the year in monochrome Motion Picture Funnies, a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers.

Swiftly becoming one of the new company’s biggest draws, Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, as Atlas, the company briefly revived the Big Three and Everett returned for an extended run of superb fantasy tales. The time wasn’t right and the title sunk again.

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby began reinventing comics in 1961 with Fantastic Four, they revived the forgotten amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, yet decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero, embittered at the loss of his sub-sea kingdom – seemingly destroyed by American atomic tests. He also became a dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with the FF’s Sue Storm.

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe, squabbling with assorted heroes like Daredevil, The Avengers and X-Men before securing his own series as half of “split-book” Tales to Astonish with fellow antisocial antihero The Incredible Hulk, eventually returning to solo stardom in 1968.

Crafted by Carl Burgos, the original Flaming Fury burst into life as a humanoid devised by troubled, greedy Professor Phineas Horton. Instantly igniting into a malfunctioning uncontrollable fireball whenever exposed to air, the artificial innocent was consigned to entombment in concrete but escaped to accidentally imperil New York City until he fell into the hands of malign mobster Sardo. His attempts to use the android as a terror weapon backfired and the hapless, modern day Frankenstein’s Monster became a misunderstood fugitive. Even his creator only saw the fiery Prometheus as a means of making money.

Gradually gaining control of his flammability, the angry, perpetually rejected android opted to make his own way in the world. Instinctively honest, he saw crime and wickedness everywhere and resolved to do something about it. Indistinguishable from human when not afire, he joined the police as Jim Hammond, tackling ordinary thugs even as his volcanic alter ego battled outlandish fiends like Asbestos Lady. Soon after, the Torch met his opposite number when the New York City Chief of Police asked him to stop the savage Sub-Mariner from destroying everything. The battles were spectacular but inconclusive, and only paused after policewoman Betty Dean brokered a tenuous ceasefire.

The Torch gained a similarly powered junior sidekick Toro, but both vanished in 1949: victims of organised crime and Soviet spies working in unison. They spectacularly returned in 1953’s revival, renewing their campaign against weird villains, Red menaces and an assortment of crooks and gangsters before fading again. In the sixties it was revealed that atomic radiation in the Torch’s body finally reached critical mass and Jim – realising he was about to flame out in a colossal nova – soared into the desert and went up like a supernova…

Jim Hammond was resurrected many times in the convoluted continuity that underpinned the modern House of Ideas and is with us still…

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of national turmoil and frantic patriotic fervour, Captain America was a dynamic, emphatically visible response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat to democracy. Consequently, the concept quickly lost focus and popularity once hostilities ceased. The Sentinel of Liberty was lost during post-war reconstruction, only to briefly reappear after the Korean War: a harder, darker Cold Warrior hunting monsters, subversives and “Reds” who lurked under every American bed.

He vanished once more, until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience the Land of the Free’s most turbulent, culturally divisive era. He became a mainstay of the Marvel Revolution in the Swinging Sixties, but arguably lost his way after that, except for a politically-fuelled, radically liberal charged period under scripter Steve Englehart.

Despite everything, Captain America evolved into a powerful symbol for generations of readers and his career can’t help but reflect that of the nation he stands for…

Devised in the fall of 1940 and on newsstands by December 20th, Captain America Comics #1 was cover-dated March 1941, and an instant monster, blockbuster smash-hit. He had boldly and bombastically launched in his own monthly title with none of the publisher’s customary caution, and instantly was the undisputed star of the Big Three. He was, however, the first to fall from popularity as the Golden Age ended.

You know the origin story like your own. Simon & Kirby depicted scrawny, enfeebled patriot and genuinely Good Man Steven Rogers – after constant rejection by the Army – is recruited by the Secret Service. Desperate to stop Nazi expansion, the passionate kid joined a clandestine experiment to create physically perfect super-soldiers.

I have no idea if the irony of American Übermenschen occurred to the two Jewish kids creating that mythology, but here we are…

When a Nazi infiltrated the project and murdered the pioneering scientist behind it all, Rogers was the only successful result and became America’s not-so-secret weapon. When he was lost, others took up the role and have periodically done so ever since. I might be wrong, but as I recall every substitute and replacement was white and male…

When Thomas was writing The Avengers, issues #69-71 featured a clash with Kang the Conqueror spanning three eras. It saw some of the team dumped in WWII Paris and manipulated into fighting in situ Allied costumed champions. When that memorable minor skirmish was expanded and extrapolated upon in 1975, history was (re)made…

Re-presenting Giant-Sized Invaders #1, The Invaders #1-22 & Annual #1, Marvel Premiere #29-30, and Avengers #71 – collectively spanning June 1975 to November 1977 – this initial foray charts the course of the team and exponentially expands Marvel lore and history, opening with an extended multi-chapter romp.

Cover-dated June 1975, and crafted by Thomas, Frank Robbins (Johnny Hazard, Batman, Superboy, The Shadow, Morbius/Adventure into Fear, Captain America, Man from Atlantis) & Vince Colletta, ‘The Coming of the Invaders!’ saw a revisionist Big Three saving British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during a US visit in December 1941…

Nazi spies and saboteurs are crushed by boy marvel Bucky and ‘A Captain Called America!’ who is then recruited by the FBI to safeguard a mystery dignitary. The duo are ordered to cooperate with another extraordinary operative in ‘Enter: the Human Torch!’.

A tale of sinister super-science unfolds, revealing how Nazi Colonel Krieghund and the enigmatic Brain Drain have bult their own super-soldier. Master Man (AKA Ubermensch) has already beaten the Fiery Fury and sidekick Toro in pursuit of the plot. Grudging associates at best, the quartet of heroes rush to Chesapeake Bay in time to see how ‘The Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ when Master Man targets Churchill’s battleship. On the clash’s conclusion, the grateful premier suggests the saviours shelve their innate animosity for the duration and work together to crush the Axis alliance.

The blockbuster origin tale is augmented here by its accompanying editorial ‘Another Agonizingly Personal Recollection by Rascally Roy Thomas’…

The launch was a huge success and The Invaders #1 (August) was rushed out. Like Giant-Size X-Men #1, an in production second issue was rapidly retooled, with the first half appearing as ‘The Ring of the Nebulas!’ and ‘From the Rhine… a Girl of Gold!’ with the new team relocated to blitz-blasted London and arriving in the middle of shattering air raid. As their flying compatriots bring down German bombers, Cap and Bucky land Namor’s Atlantean sky-sub Flagship and help clear burning buildings of casualties and rescue a strange, shellshocked woman who – although amnesiac – proves to be ‘A Valkyrie Rising!’ With “Hilda’s” help the heroes infiltrate ‘Beyond the Siegfried Line!’ and invade Brain Drain’s citadel only to be ambushed by a trio of Teutonic gods…

Following second editorial ‘Okay Axis, Here We Come!’, the saga explosively concludes in the second bimonthly issue (cover-dated October) as ‘Twilight of the Star-Gods!’ reveals the incredible truth about Hilda, Loga, Donar and Froh, the source of Brain Drain’s scientific advances and why it’s bad to abuse and exploits guest from other planets…

Action was never far away and #3 opened with the triumphant Invaders saving a convoy from U-Boats before briefly returning to America to forestall a ‘Blitzkrieg at Bermuda’. The crisis was instigated by an Atlantean traitor siding with and working for the Nazis.

Namor’s alliance with the Allies only existed because the Germans had depth-charged his undersea city to eradicate its sub-human inhabitants, but now a rogue named Merrano has artificially augmented his strength and led a cadre of Atlanteans and sea beasts against surface bases. The aquatic blockbuster was once Namor’s chief scientist and has misused Atlantean technology for his own purposes as U-Man. Regal pride stung, Namor demands to fight the traitor alone, sparking a split with his newfound comrades. In the end, he and Bucky go on without the others or any official sanction….

As the marine man-monster and his hordes head for Churchill’s secret meeting in the Caribbean, the quarrellers at last agree that ‘U-Man Must be Stopped!’ and take all necessary steps, spurred on and umpired by Namor’s human girlfriend Betty Dean.

The drama intensified with #5 (March 1976) as Thomas expanded his niche universe by creating a second squad of masked stalwarts. Pencilled by Rich Buckler and Dick Ayers, with inks from Jim Mooney. ‘Red Skull in the Sunset!’ opens a 4-issue epic which sees the Invaders captured by the ultimate fascist and turned into weapons against America. Only Bucky – disregarded as too puny to exploit – remained free. The tale continued in #6 (‘…And Let the Battle Begin!’ with art by Robbins & Colletta May) and also crossed over into Marvel Premiere #29’s ‘Lo, The Liberty Legion!’ & 30’s ‘Hey Ma,! They’re Blitzin’ the Bronx’ (April and June 1976) wherein Bucky recruited a number of new superheroes and made them into a team to defeat the Invaders and scupper the Skull’s schemes.

As delivered by Thomas, Don Heck, & Colletta the recruits – The Patriot, Whizzer, Miss Marvel, Blue Diamond, Red Raven, Jack Frost and the Thin Man – came from assorted Timely strips of the 1940s and remained state-side as Home Front heroes. A fabulously engaging primal romp, the epic is inexplicably divided, with the Marvel Premiere instalments (the second and fourth/final chapters) relegated to the back of the book along with editorial features ‘Give Me Liberty – or Give Me The Legion!’ parts 1 and 2.

With the confusion and reputations all cleared up, the liberated Invaders return to war-torn London for #7 (July 1976) to tackle ‘The Blackout Murders of Baron Blood!’, with a costumed German vampire terrorising the capital. During a nighttime assault, the Torch saves Air Raid Warden Lady Jacqueline Falsworth from the bloodsucker and is gratefully introduced to her father: a legendary “masked spy-buster of World War One”.

James Montgomery Falsworth had worked with an international group of proto-superheroes dubbed Freedom’s Five, and on hearing of the vampire, comes out of retirement to finish his duel with the Kaiser’s top secret weapon…

Meanwhile, the other Invaders have also clashed with Baron Blood and are happy that ‘Union Jack is Back!’ (inked by Frank Springer): blithely unaware that the beast is actually a member of Falsworth’s household waiting to pick them off at his leisure. It begins as Union Jack is crippled by Blood and seemingly helpless to save his daughter from being drained in #9’s ‘An Invader No More!’

With justice finally served, the need for a deadline-saving reprint sees #10 mix new framing sequence ‘The Wrath of the Reaper!’ with a remembrance amongst the heroes as they rush father and daughter to hospital: ‘Captain America Battles the Reaper!’ by Al Avison & Al Gabriele as first seen in Captain America #22 (January 1943) rowdily recounted the failure of one of Adolf Hitler’s top agents…

The new history resumed in #11 as Montgomery learns he will never walk again, and Jacqueline is saved by an emergency transfusion of the Torch’s artificial, instantly regenerating blood. However, the combination of vampiric body fluids and the Torch’s liquid fuel source transform her into something new and powerful…

In another wing of the hospital, refugee Dr Gold has been building an advanced warsuit which he inexplicably turns on the Invaders until Jacqui lends a fast and fiery hand on the ‘Night of the Blue Bullet!’

As she seeks to replace her father on the team as Spitfire, Captain America ferrets out the reason for Gold’s betrayal and orders a rescue mission ‘To the Warsaw Ghetto!’ to save the boffin’s hostage brother Jacob. The foray is a complete disaster and the squad is captured by macabre Gauleiter Eisen, but his triumph is short-lived as it provokes Jacob to summon ancient forces in #13’s ‘The Golem Walks Again!’

A new team debuted in the next issue with ‘Calling… The Crusaders!’ as a (mostly) British ensemble – comprising Spirit of ‘76, Ghost Girl, Captain Wings, Thunderfist, Tommy Lightning and Dyna-Mite – start outshining The Invaders and boosting morale. Tragically all is not as it seems and a deadly propaganda coup is barely thwarted in concluding episode ‘God Save the King!’

Penciller Jim Mooney joined Thomas and inker Springer for #16 and the start of an extended epic in ‘The Short, Happy Life of Major Victory!’ It begins when US soldier Biljo White (that’s an in-joke I’m not explaining here) is snatched off London’s streets despite the best efforts of Captain America and Bucky. It transpires that the young PFC is the creator of a comic book hero whose origin so-closely mirrors the actual process that turned Steve Rogers into a living weapon that the Nazis have deduced he must have inside knowledge…

Fuelled by guilt and outrage, Cap leads the team straight to Hitler’s Berchtesgaden fortress, only to have entire team ambushed and defeated by a re-invigorated Master Man.

Biljo has been tortured by sadistic officer Frau Rätsel, but only revealed under deep hypnosis how he heard the story of a super soldier in a bar: recalling a key clue allowing her to perfect Brain Drain’s Master Man process.

At that moment a male superior reprimands her for exceeding her authority (Aryan dogma being that women were only meant for breeding and entertainment purposes) and her violent rebuttal causes an explosion that wrecks the lab and totally changes her. ‘The Making of Warrior Woman, 1942!’ consequently frees the Allied captives, but their short-lived liberty ends when Master Man and the newly-minted Krieger-Frau (Warrior Woman) double-team them. With Captain America hurled to his death and the others despatched to Berlin to provide an obscene spectacle, events take a sudden shocking turn in #18 as ‘Enter: The Mighty Destroyer!’ reintroduces another Golden Age Great by way of a complex web of family ties and debts of honour finally repaid…

When Cap was thrown off the mountain, he was saved by a mystery-man who had been fighting behind enemy lines since 1941, terrorising the Wehrmacht through a one-man war of attrition. He reveals that he was imprisoned in Hamburg where fellow inmate Professor Erich Schmitt made him swallow his own version of the super-soldier serum to keep it from the Nazis. The potion made him a veritable superman and he’s been making them pay ever since. He also reveals to Cap his real name…

As they prepare an assault to free The Invaders, in England Spitfire has met with former Crusader Dyna-Mite and discovered some painful family secrets. Ignoring orders to say out of harms way, she commandeers a plane and heads for Germany with the Tiny Titan. Insubordination is a proudly inherited trait however, and the heroes cannot prevent wheelchair-bound Lord Falsworth and his “chauffeur” Oskar joining the expeditionary force…

Bach in Berchtesgaden, the ruthless infiltration is successful but too late. Namor, Bucky, Torch and Toro have already been shipped to Berlin for public execution, before #19’s ‘War Comes to Wilhelmstrasse’ sees Captain America’s futile attempt to save them foiled and his capture, augmented by the untold tales of Falsworth’s son Brian and companion Roger Aubrey. Conscientious objectors, they had shamefully gone to Berlin before vanishing years prior to war being declared, only for one of them to suddenly return as Dyna-Mite.

Another deadline debacle allowed a brace of classic reprints to resurface in #20 and 21 with climactic conclusion ‘The Battle of Berlin!’ cleft in two. The first half sees the Allied heroes saved from death by a revitalised Union Jack and the resultant battle for freedom allow Krieger-Frau to dodge the forced marriage to Master Man that Hitler had ordered…

That issue also held a colorized reshowing of ‘The Sub-Mariner’ by Everett from Motion Picture Funnies, after which ‘The Battle of Berlin! Part Two!’ follows the traumatic flight bac to Britain and the critical injury suffered by one of the heroes…

Another Everett ‘The Sub-Mariner’ mini-masterpiece – from Marvel Mystery Comics #10 (August 1940) – then sees the sea prince targeted by murderous surface men…

Their plane ditched in the English channel, The Invaders are saved by the Navy and treatment begins for bullet-riddled Toro. Again reduced to anxious waiting, the team learn how he began his career in #22’s ‘The Fire That Died!’ (by Thomas, Mooney & Springer and adapted from The Human Torch #2: September 1940).

Ending the official chronology is Invaders Annual #1 (November 1977),which tells the other side of the originating story from Avengers #71, from the viewpoint of the 1940s heroes. Moreover, each individual chapter is crafted by a veteran who worked on the characters during the Golden Age. The mission begins with ‘Okay, Axis… Here We Come!’ by Thomas, Robbins & Springer, with the heroes separately pursuing insidious supervillains. ‘The Human Torch’ battles The Hyena as limned by Alex Schomburg; Don Rico’s ‘Captain America’ clashes with Agent Axis and ‘Sub-Mariner’ sinks The Shark thanks to Lee Elias & Springer, before the Invaders are teleported to Paris by a mysterious power.

That’s Kang and his opponent the Grandmaster meddling with time to facilitate a duel with three Avengers from 1969, and concludes here with ‘Endgame: Part II’. A semblance of sense is afforded by Thomas’ essay ‘Okay, Axis… Here We Come – Again!’

Woefully misfiled, the contents of Marvel Premiere #29 & 30 are next, before we end with the opening shot from the Avengers #71, by Thomas, Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger. ‘Endgame!’ was the final chapter in a triptych that saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes hijacked to the future to by old enemy Kang: living pieces in a cosmic chess-game with an omnipotent alien. If the Avengers fail – Earth would be eradicated from reality. the tale was significant for introducing 2/3 superteams: Squadron Supreme, Squadron Sinister and The Invaders. The saga culminated with The Vision, Black Panther and Yellowjacket sent to 1941 to fight the WWII incarnations of Namor, Human Torch and Captain America…

With covers by Robbins, John Romita Sr., Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Ed Hannigan, Alex Schomburg, Joe Sinnott & Frank Giacoia, this is a no-nonsense, albeit convoluted thrill-ride for continuity-addicts and fervent Fights ‘n’ Tights fans that is full of fun from first to finish.
© 1969, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Incredible Hulk Epic Collection volume 7: And Now… The Wolverine (1974-1976)


By Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302933609 (TPB/Digital edition)

Bruce Banner was a military scientist caught in a gamma bomb detonation of his own devising. As a result of ongoing mutation, stress and other factors caused him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury.

After an initially troubled few years, the irradiated idol finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of young Marvel’s most popular features. After his first solo-title folded, Hulk shambled around the slowly-coalescing Marvel Universe as guest star and/or villain of the moment, until a new home was found for him in “split-book” Tales to Astonish: sharing space with fellow misunderstood misanthrope Namor the Sub-Mariner, who proved an ideal thematic companion from his induction in #70.

As the 1970s tumultuously unfolded, the Jade Juggernaut settled into a comfortable – if excessively, spectacularly destructive – niche. A globe-trotting, monster-mashing plot formula saw Banner hiding and seeking cures for his gamma-curse, alternately aided or hunted by prospective father-in-law US General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and his daughter – the afflicted scientist’s unobtainable inamorata – Betty, with a non-stop procession of guest-star heroes and villains providing the battles du jour.

Herb Trimpe made the Hulk his own, displaying a gift for explosive action and unparalleled facility for drawing technology – especially honking great military ordnance and vehicles. Beginning with Roy Thomas, a string of skilful scripters effectively played the Jekyll & Hyde card for maximum angst – and ironic impact – as the monster became a ubiquitous foundational pillar of Marvel’s pantheon. You were nobody in the MU until you fought the Hulk…

This compulsive compendium revisits Incredible Hulk #179-200 and Annual #5 (cover-dates September 1974 to June 1976), heralding big changes. it opens without preamble as the Gamma Goliath returns to Earth after a cosmic collision with Adam Warlock on Counter Earth. Soon, the artistic reins would pass to another illustrator inextricably associated with the Jade Juggernaut, whilst writer Len Wein continued to insert fresh ideas and characters, redefining the man-monster for the modern age…

Incredible Hulk #179 signalled a long-overdue thematic reboot as Wein signed on as writer and editor with strong ideas on how to put some dramatic impact back into the feature. Illustrated by Trimpe & Jack Abel, ‘Re-enter: The Missing Link!’ sees the Hulk lose patience during his return rocket-ship trip: bursting out of his borrowed vessel just as America’s military defences start shooting at it.

Crashing to earth in the mining district of Appalachia, he reverts to befuddled Bruce Banner, and is kindly cared for by the dirt-poor Bradford family. They have a habit of taking in strays and have already welcomed a strange, huge yet gentle being they’ve christened Lincoln.

As time passes Banner recognises his fellow lodger as a former Hulk foe known as the Missing Link. The colossal brute is neither evil nor violent (unless provoked) but is lethally radioactive, and the fugitive physicist faces the dilemma of having to break up a perfect happy family before they all die slowly and horribly.

Link, of course, refuses to cooperate or go quietly…

Next comes the second most momentous story in Hulk history which starts with ‘And the Wind Howls… Wendigo!’ (#180, October 1974,). Here the Green Giant gallivants across the Canadian Border and encounters a witch attempting to cure her brother of a curse which has transformed him into a rampaging cannibalistic monster. Unfortunately, that cure means Hulk must become a Wendigo in his stead…

It is while the Great Green and Weird White monsters are tearing into each other that mutant megastar Wolverine first appears – in the very last panel – leading into the savage fist, fang and claw fest that follows.

‘And Now… The Wolverine!’ captivatingly concludes the saga as the Maple nation’s top-secret super-agent is unleashed upon both the Emerald Goliath and the mystical man-eating Wendigo in an action-stuffed romp teeming with triumph, tragedy and lots of slashing and hitting. The rest is history…

Back south of the border, Major Glenn Talbot – after being captured and tortured by (Soviet-era) Russians – has been reunited with his wife and family and is eagerly expecting a meeting with President Gerald Ford. With Trimpe taking sole charge of the art chores, ‘Between Hammer and Anvil!’ finds the ever-isolated Hulk meeting and forever losing a true friend in compassionate welcoming hobo Crackerjack Jackson.

The action portion of the tale centres on two escaped convicts who despise each other but are forced to endure togetherness because of an alien chain which shackles them together. Whilst it imparts overwhelming physical power and endurance it means they are tied together forever. It’s not nearly enough, however, to stop a fighting-mad, heartbroken Hulk…

Restlessly roaming, the broken behemoth stumbles into a return match with voltaic vampire and life-stealer ZZZAX in ‘Fury at 50,000 Volts!’, promptly wrecking a new life Banner surreptitiously starts carving out for himself in Chicago…

‘Shadow on the Land!’ finds the wandering man-mountain battling shadily insubstantial extraterrestrial invader Warlord Kaa – a revival from the company’s pre-superhero monsters & aliens anthology era – who foolishly takes possession of the Hulk’s shadow and thinks himself untouchable and indestructible…

Their close encounter leads to Banner’s capture by Hulkbuster Base commander Colonel Armbruster just in time for the US President’s visit and a shocking ‘Deathknell!’ as the truth about Banner’s romantic rival (and Betty’s new husband) Glenn Talbot is exposed when the so-trustworthy Major attempts to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief.

During the attendant death and chaos, Hulk busts out and General Ross regains his shattered credibility by recapturing the man-beast. Sadly, Soviet infiltration of the base is rife and a hidden traitor dons experimental super-armour to continue the deadly attacks in ‘The Day of the Devastator!’ This time, when the Jade Juggernaut smashes their common foe, the American army are suitably grateful…

Sometime later, S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence gatherers discover the real Talbot is still a prisoner in Siberia and that Hulkbuster Base’s current problems have all been caused by a vindictive Soviet mutant genius they’ve all battled before…

With Joe Staton joining the team as inker, ‘There’s a Gremlin in the Works!’ (IH #187) sees the return of the sinister spawn of the man-monster’s very first foe The Gargoyle. The son is a vicious and ambitious juvenile mastermind with vast resources and secret plans far beyond merely serving the Soviet state, and is holding Talbot at his polar fortress Bitterfrost…

He is fully prepared and eagerly anticipating Ross and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clay Quartermain’s clandestine rescue bid, but all the cyborg super-soldiers and giant mutant monster dogs in the world are not enough when stowaway Banner joins the mission subsequently gets scared and goes full green…

The freakish fiend’s personality-altering technology is exposed in ‘Mind Over Mayhem!’, but as the stalwart heroes desperately flee the base with Talbot’s comatose body, Hulk seemingly dies in the citadel’s explosive death-throes. Nothing is further from the truth and #189 sees the monster battle The Mole Man to secure a miracle-remedy for a sightless little Russian girl in ‘None Are So Blind…!’

Veteran Hulk illustrator Marie Severin inks Trimpe on ‘The Man Who Came Down on a Rainbow!’ as alien philanthropist Glorian whisks the solitary colossus to a veritable promised land in the stars, only to have the idyll shattered by invading Toad Men hungry for the secret power fuelling the personalised paradise…

Despite murdering Glorian, ‘The Triumph of the Toad!’ (Trimpe & Staton) is short-lived and catastrophically self-destructive when the enraged Hulk and cosmically puissant Shaper of Worlds extract a measure of justice for their fallen friend…

Unwillingly banished back to Earth, the Green Giant lands in Scotland and gets between feuding hotheads with violently opposing attitudes to ‘The Lurker beneath Loch Fear!’, after which Banner makes his way home way to America where Ross and Quartermain have recruited a famous psychologist to fix the catatonic Talbot…

‘The Doctor’s Name is… Samson!’ finds formerly gamma-powered psychiatrist Leonard Samson falling victim to another scientific fustercluck. Accidentally resurrected as a lime-tressed superstrong superhero, he is still unable to cure his current patient. For that he needs Banner, but when the wish comes true, the savant just isn’t tough enough to hold onto him…

After almost a decade pencilling the strip, Trimpe moved on to other things and Incredible Hulk #194 saw Sal Buscema take over in ‘The Day of the Locust!’ (with Wein & Staton still doing what they did best).

Lost in the American heartland, the Hulk stumbles upon young lovers pursued by an overly possessive dad determined to end the affair. However, this angry, overreaching tiger-parent is a former X-Men adversary who can enlarge insects to immense size, so the kids are more than grateful for the assistance of a Jolly Green Cupid. With Samson and the US Army one step behind, the meandering man-monster then befriends a small boy running away from home in ‘Warfare in Wonderland!’

Eager for any advantage, Ross tricks gamma-powered maniac The Abomination into attacking the Hulk but is unprepared for the green gladiators teaming up rather than tussling again in #196’s ‘The Abomination Proclamation!’…

Typically, the villain’s innate viciousness soon alienates his temporary ally and, after triumphing in another spectacular battle, Hulk blasts off on a runaway rocket and is apparently atomised when it blows up…

To Be Continued?

You bet and right away as #197 (by Wein, Buscema & Joe Staton) reveals that the detonation merely left Hulk unconscious in the Florida Everglades, where the invidious Collector has made his latest lair and gleefully gathers up a trio of terrors. The phenomena fanatic is on a monster kick and – having scooped up Banner and a mute young man who is in actuality undead transmorph The Glob – feels he secured the perfect set as ‘…And Man-Thing Makes Three!’.

However, the immortal maniac has grossly underestimated the deeply-buried humanity of his living trinkets and inevitably faces a mass-escape and loss of all his living exhibits after sparking ‘The Shangri-La Syndrome!’

Behind a Jack Kirby cover, Hulk Annual #5 (November 1976) was the first all-new King-Size compendium since 1968 and featured a massive monster-mash, reviving a half dozen iconic threats and menaces from the company’s pre-superhero phase. Written by Chris Claremont, with art by Sal B & Jack Abel, ‘And Six Shall Crush the Hulk!’ offers little in the way of plot but mountains of monumental action as a procession of resurrected relics and reprobates attack one after another. It begins with ‘Where There’s Smoke, There’s Diablo!’, ‘And Taboo Shall Triumph!’ before ‘It Is Groot, the Monster from Planet X!!’ who weighs in. Outnumbered but undaunted, Hulk fights on in ‘For I am Goom!!’ whilst ‘Beware the Blip!’ piles on the pressure until an evil mastermind in the shadows is revealed as grudge-bearing Defenders foe Xemnu in ‘A Titan Shall Slay Him!’ Even exhausted, the Hulk is too much for the spiteful schemer, whom I’m sure you recall was called “The Living Hulk” on his 1960 debut in Journey Into Mystery #62…

Back in monthly mag and building up to a spectacular anniversary, Incredible Hulk #199 finds ambivalent frenemies Leonard “Doc” Samson and General Ross employing all of America’s most advanced assets in ‘…And SHIELD Shall Follow!’ (Wein, Sal B & Staton) to capture the critically necessary Green Gargantuan, but in the end it’s the headshrinker’s sheer guts and determination which win the day, allowing a big anniversary issue #200 resolution as Hulk is reduced to infinitesimal size and injected into amnesiac Glenn Talbot’s battered brain. There he battles materialised memories and a cruel sentient tumour as ‘An Intruder in the Mind!’

The struggle to restore the mind of Banner’s rival for Betty Ross-Talbot’s undying affections is not without complications, however, and at the moment of his greatest triumph and sacrifice, Hulk suffers a major setback and begins uncontrollably shrinking beyond the ability of Samson and his team to reach or rescue him…

Now it’s To Be Hulk-inued…

This catastrophically cathartic tome is rounded out with the cover to Giant-Size Hulk #1, the covers and some interior pages from Hulk-themed Marvel Treasury Edition #5, crafted by John Romita, Marie Severin and Trimpe, as well as the last’s double page pin-up of Hulk foes from that tabloid-sized graphic treat, as well as house ads, #1 and a gallery of original art pages by Trimpe and Buscema. Also included is Sal’s 1960s try-out art page, doubling as a FOOM caption competition, and the corresponding winning entry from Russ Nicholson. John Romita’s first design sketches for Wolverine precede more house ads as well as covers and frontispieces by John Byrne & Abel and Trimpe from later Hulk/Wolverine reprint collections and closes with unused covers by Ed Hannigan and Trimpe.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the movies, cartoons, TV shows, games, toys and action figures are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better, so why not Go Green – even if it’s only in your own delirious head?
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks volume 6


By Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Jerry Bingham, Ron Wilson, George Pérez, Michael Netzer, Frank Springer, Gene Day, Pablo Marcos, Chic Stone & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3293-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing, or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel awarded their most popular hero the same deal DC had with Batman in The Brave and the Bold. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in The Human Torch.

In those distant days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since superheroes were actually in a decline, they may well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas carried on the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most popular star. They began with a brace of test runs in Marvel Feature #11-12 before awarding him his own team-up title, with this sixth stirring selection gathering the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #61-74, covering March 1980-April 1981.

Preceded by a comprehensive and informative reverie in Ralph Macchio’s Introduction, the action resumes with the title continuing to rectify its greatest flaw. The innate problem with team-up tales was always a lack of continuity – something Marvel always prided itself upon. Writer/editor Marv Wolfman had sought to address this during his tenure through the simple expedient of having stories link-up through evolving, overarching plots which took Ben from place to place and from guest to guest. The trick was perfected in the vast-scaled, supremely convoluted saga known as The Project Pegasus Saga – as featured in the previous volume.

A stellar epic began in #61 with ‘The Coming of Her!’ (by Mark Gruenwald, Jerry Bingham & Gene Day) as time-travelling space god/31st century Guardian of the Galaxy Starhawk became embroiled in the birth of a female counterpart to artificial superman Adam Warlock.

The distaff genetic paragon awoke fully empowered and instantly began searching for her predecessor, dragging Ben Grimm’s girlfriend Alicia Masters and mind goddess Moondragon across the solar system, arriving where issue #62 observed ‘The Taking of Counter-Earth!’

Hot on their heels, The Thing and Starhawk catch Her just as the women encounter a severely wounded High Evolutionary, and discover the world so carefully built and casually discarded by that self-created science god has been stolen…

United in mystery, the strange grouping follow the planet’s trail out of the galaxy and uncover the incredible perpetrators but Her’s desperate quest to secure her predestined, purpose-grown mate ends in tragedy when she learns ‘Suffer Not a Warlock to Live!’

Clearly on a roll and dedicated to exploiting Marvel Two-in-One’s unofficial role as a clean-up vehicle for settling unresolved plotlines from cancelled series, Gruenwald & Macchio then dived into ‘The Serpent Crown Affair” in #64.

‘From the Depths’ (illustrated by Pérez & Day) sees sub-sea superhero Stingray approach FF boffin Reed Richards in search of a cure for humans who had been mutated into water-breathers by Sub-Mariner foe Doctor Hydro: a plotline begun in 1973 and left unresolved since the demise of the Atlantean prince’s own title.

Richards’ enquiries soon found the transformation had been caused by The Inhumans’ Terrigen Mist, but when he had Ben ferry the mermen’s leader Dr. Croft and Stingray to a meeting, the trip was cut short by a crisis on an off-shore oil rig, thanks to an ambush by a coalition of snake-themed villains.

The ‘Serpents from the Sea’ (art by Bingham & Day) were attempting to salvage dread mystic artefact the Serpent Crown, and would brook no interference, but luckily the Inhumans had sent out their seagoing stalwart Triton to meet the Thing…

Meanwhile, alternate-Earth “Femizon” Thundra had been seeking the men responsible for tricking her into attacking Project Pegasus but had fallen under the spell of sinister superman Hyperion – a pawn of corrupt oil conglomerate Roxxon. At that time, their CEO Hugh Jones possessed – or had been possessed by – the heinous helm…

With the situation escalating, Ben had no choice but to call in an expert and before long The Scarlet Witch joins the battle: her previous experience with the relic enabling the heroes to thwart the multi-dimensional threat of ‘A Congress of Crowns!’ (Pérez & Day) and a devastating incursion by diabolical primordial serpent god Set…

With Armageddon averted, Ben diverted to Pegasus to drop off the now-neutered crown in #67 and found old ally Bill Foster had been diagnosed with terminal radiation sickness due to his battle with atomic foundling Nuklo. Thundra, seduced by promises of being returned to her own reality, wises up in time to abscond from Roxxon in ‘Passport to Oblivion!’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Ron Wilson, Day & friends), but hasn’t calculated on being hunted by Hyperion. Although outmatched, her frantic struggle does attract the chivalrous attentions of Ben and superhero-neophyte Quasar…

Marvel T-I-O #68 shifted gears with The Thing meeting former X-Man The Angel as they stumble into – and smash out of – a mechanise murder-world in ‘Discos and Dungeons!’ (art by Wilson & Day), after which ‘Homecoming!’ finds Ben contending with the time-lost Guardians of the Galaxy whilst striving to prevent the end of everything. The proximate cause is millennial man Vance Astro who risks all of reality to stop his younger self ever going into space…

Issue #70 offered a mystery guest team-up for ‘A Moving Experience’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Mike Nasser/Netzer & Day) as Ben is again mercilessly pranked by old frenemies The Yancy Street Gang, and ambushed by genuine old foes when he helps Alicia move into new digs. Then, the so-long frustrated Hydromen finally get ‘The Cure!’ (Wilson & Day) after Ben and Reed travel to the Inhuman city of Attilan.

Sadly, a cure for the effects of Terrigen is also a perfect anti-Inhuman weapon, and when the process is stolen by a trio of freaks, the trail leads to a brutal clash with a deadly Inhuman renegade wielding ‘The Might of Maelstrom’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Wilson & Chic Stone). The pariah is intent on eradicating every other member of his hidden race and just won’t stop until he’s done…

In Marvel Two-In-One #73, Macchio, Wilson & Stone tie up loose ends from the Pegasus epic as Ben and Quasar pursue Roxxon across dimensions to another Earth where the rapacious plunderers have enslaved a primitive population and begun sending their pillaged oil back here via a ‘Pipeline Through Infinity’ (#74), whilst Gruenwald, Frank Springer & Stone celebrate the festive season with ‘A Christmas Peril!’ as Ben and the Puppet Master are drawn into the Yuletide celebrations of brain-damaged, childlike, immensely powerful Modred the Mystic…

Fiercely tied to the minutia of Marvel continuity, these stories from Marvel’s Middle Period are certainly of variable quality, but whereas some might feel rushed and ill-considered they are balanced by some superb adventure romps still as captivating today as they ever were.

Bolstered by house ads and original art and covers by Bingham, Day & Pérez; with biographies for the legion of creators contained herein. Most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s lots of fun to be found for young and old readers.
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Secret Invasion


By Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Francis Yu, Mark Morales & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3297-4 (TPB/Digital edition Marvel) 978-1-84653-405-8 (TPB Panini/Marvel UK)

The Skrulls are shape-shifting aliens who have threatened Earth since the second issue of Fantastic Four, and have long been a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After decades of use and misuse the insidious invaders were made the stars of a colossal braided mega-crossover event beginning in April 2008 and running through all the company’s titles until Christmas. That landmark worlds-shaking epic has since been adapted to the company’s burgeoning, blockbuster Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you were a real fan, you’d have already seen the first episode…

We, however, are all about the comics so let’s revisit the stunning and all-pervasive source material. The premise is simple enough: the everchanging, corruptive would-be conquerors have undergone a mass religious conversion and are now utterly, fanatically dedicated to taking Earth as their new homeworld. To this end they have replaced over an unspecified time a number of key Earth denizens – including many of the world’s superheroes.

When the lid is lifted on the simmering plot, no defender of the Earth truly knows who is on their side…

Moreover the cosmic charlatans have also unravelled the secrets of humanity’s magical and genetic superpowers, creating amped-up equivalents to Earth’s mightiest. They are now primed and able to destroy the heroic defenders in face-to-face confrontations.

With the conquest primed to launch, everything starts to unravel when Elektra dies in battle and is discovered to be an alien, not a ninja. Soon, two teams of Avengers (Iron Man, The Sentry, Wonder Man, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Ronin, Echo, Cloak and Black Widow) and certain agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  are covertly investigating in discrete operations. All are painfully aware that they have no way of telling friend from foe…

Crisis and confusion are compounded when a Skrull ship crashes in the primordial Savage Land, releasing a band of missing heroes claiming to have been abducted and experimented on. Among them are another Spider-Man, Luke Cage, recently killed Captain America Steve Rogers, Phoenix/Jean Grey and Thor, plus other heroes believed gone forever. Some must be Skrull duplicates but are they the newcomers or the ones facing them…?

As the champions second guess each other, the second strand triggers. Earths space defence station S.W.O.R.D. is blown up and a virus rips through the internet shutting down crucial systems including the Starktech comprising the operating systems of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Iron Man’s armour…

Now all over Earth, Skrulls attack and heroes – and even villains such as Norman (Green Goblin) Osborn – respond and retaliate in a last ditch effort to survive: a war of survival that ends in shock, horror and unforeseen disaster…

Rather than give any more away, let me just say that if you like this sort of blockbuster saga you’ll be in seventh heaven, and a detailed familiarity is not vital to your understanding. However, for a fuller understanding, amongst the other Secret Invasion volumes accompanying this, you should particularly seek out Secret Invasion: the Infiltration, Secret War (2004), Avengers Disassembled, and Annihilation volumes 1-3, as well as the Avengers: Illuminati compilation.

This American volume contains all 8 issues of the core miniseries plus a monumental covers-&-variants gallery (31 in total) by Gabriele Dell’Otto, Steve McNiven, Leinil Yu, Mel Rubi, Frank Cho, Laura Martin and Greg Horn, and a series of chilling house ads imploring us to ‘Embrace Change’, but is just one of 22 volumes comprising the vast number of episodes in convergent storylines of the saga.

Fast-paced, complex, superbly illustrated and suitably spectacular, this twisty-turny tale and its long-term repercussions reshaped the Marvel Universe, heralding a “Dark Reign” that pushed all the envelopes. If you are a comics newcomer, and can find the British edition from Panini, it also includes one-shot spin-off Who Do You Trust? and illustrated data-book Skrulls which claims to provide a listing and biography for every shapeshifter yet encountered in the Marvel Universe (but if they left any out, could you tell?).
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Visionaries: John Romita, Sr.


By John Romita Sr., with Stan Lee, Roger Stern & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1806-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

We lost one of last giants of the industry this week when John Romita died on Monday. He was 93 and his work is inextricably woven into the Marvel canon: permeating and supporting the entire company’s output from top to tail and from the Sixties to right now… and even before the beginning of the House of Ideas actually began. 

One of the industry’s most polished stylists and a true cornerstone of the Marvel Comics phenomenon, the elder John Romita began his comics career in the late 1940s (ghosting for other artists) before striking out under his own colours. eventually illustrating horror and other anthology tales for Stan Lee at Timely/Atlas.

John Victor Romita was born and bred in Brooklyn, entering the world on January 24th 1930. From Brooklyn Junior High School he moved to the famed Manhattan School of Industrial Art, graduating in 1947. After spending six months creating a medical exhibit for Manhattan General Hospital he moved into comics, in 1949, with work for Famous Funnies. A “day job” working with Forbes Lithograph was abandoned when a friend found him inking and ghosting assignments, until he was drafted in 1951. Showing his portfolio to a US army art director, after boot camp at Fort Dix New Jersey, Romita was promoted to corporal, stationed on Governors Island in New York Bay doing recruitment posters and allowed to live off-base… in Brooklyn. During that period he started doing the rounds and struck up a freelancing acquaintance with Stan Lee at Atlas Comics…

He illustrated horror, science fiction, war stories, westerns, Waku, Prince of the Bantu (in Jungle Tales), a fine run of cowboy adventures starring The Western Kid and 1954’s abortive revival of Captain America, and more, before an industry implosion derailed his – and many other – budding careers. Romita eventually found himself trapped in DC’s romance comics division – a job he hated – before making the reluctant jump again to the resurgent House of Ideas in 1965. As well as steering the career of the wallcrawler and so many other Marvel stars, his greatest influence was felt when he became Art Director in 197. He had a definitive hand in creating or shaping many key characters, such as Mary Jane Watson, Peggy Carter, The Kingpin, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Satana ad infinitum.

This celebratory volume from 2019 re-presents Amazing Spider-Man #39, 40, 42, 50, 108, 109, 365; Captain America & The Falcon #138; Daredevil #16-17; Fantastic Four #105-106; Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #-1; Vampire Tales #2; and material from Strange Tales #4; Menace #6, #11; Young Men #24, 26; Western Kid 12; Tales To Astonish #77; Tales Of Suspense #77 spanning cover-dates December 1951 to July 1997. It opens with a loving Introduction from John Romita Jr., sharing the golden days and anecdotal insights on the “family business”. Not only the second son but also his mother Virginia Romita were key Marvel employees: she was the highly efficient and utterly adored company Traffic Manager for decades.

A chronological cavalcade of wonders begins with official first Marvel masterwork ‘It!’. Possibly scripted by Lee and taken from Strange Tales #4 (December 1951), we share a moment of sheer terror as an alien presence tales over the newest member of a typical suburban family…

Next is verifiable Lee & Romita shocker ‘Flying Saucer!’ (Menace #6, August 1953) and a sneaky invasion attack preceding the first Romita superhero saga as seen in Young Men #24, December 1953.

In the mid-1950s Atlas tried to revive their Timely-era “Big Three” (and super-hero comics in general) on the back of a putative Sub-Mariner television series intended to cash in on the success of The Adventures of Superman show. This led to some impressively creative comics, but no appreciable results or rival in costumed dramas.

Eschewing here the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner segments – and with additional art from Mort Lawrence – ‘Captain America: Back From the Dead’ features a communist Red Skull attacking the UN, with school teacher Steve Rogers and top student Bucky coming out of retirement to tackle the crisis. The Star-Spangled Avenger gets another bite of the cherry in ‘Captain America Turns Traitor’ (Young Men Comics #26, March 1954) with guest shots for Subby and the Torch as the Sentinel of Liberty apparently goes from True Blue to a deadly shade of Red…

Latterly reimagined as one of the modern Agents of Atlas, ‘I, the Robot!’ began as a deadly threat to humanity in Menace #11, and is followed here by a yarn from Romita’s first residency as the wandering hero Tex Dawson and his dauntless dog Lightning and super steed Whirlwind survive sudden stampedes and tackle vile horse butchering killers in a tale from his own eponymous title (Western Kid #12, October 1956)…

Atlas collapsed soon after, due to market conditions when a disastrous distribution decision resulted in their output being reduced to 16 titles per month, distributed by arch rival National Comics/DC. Under those harsh conditions the Marvel revolution started small but soon snowballed, drawing Romita back from ad work and drawing romances for DC.

Romita’s return began with inking and a few short pencilling jobs for the little powerhouse publisher’s split books. Tales To Astonish #77 revealed ‘Bruce Banner is the Hulk!’ (March 1966, written by Lee, laid out by Jack Kirby and finished by the returning prodigal) with the gamma goliath trapped in the future and battling the Asgardian Executioner, whilst in his home era, Rick Jones is pressured into revealing his awful secret…

The Captain America story for May 1966’s Tales of Suspense # 77 added inker Frank Giacoia/Frank Ray to the creative mix for ‘If a Hostage Should Die!’: recounting a moment from the hero’s wartime exploits with a woman he loved and lost. These days we know her as Captain Peggy Carter…

After a brief stint in his preferred role as inker, Romita took over illustrating Daredevil with #12, following a stunning run by Wally Wood & Bob Powell. Initially Kirby provided page layouts to help Romita assimilate the style and pacing of Marvel tales, but soon “Jazzy Johnny” was in full control of his pages. He drew DD until #19, by which time he had been handed the assignment of a lifetime… The Amazing Spider-Man!

A backdoor pilot for that jump came in Daredevil #16-17 (May and June 1996) with ‘Enter… Spider-Man’ wherein criminal mastermind Masked Marauder manipulates the amazing arachnid into attacking the Man Without Fear. The schemer had big plans, the first of which was having DD and the wallcrawler kill each other, but after Spidey almost exposes Matt Murdock’s secret in ‘None are so Blind!’ they mend fences and go after the real foe…

By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months Ditko resigned, leaving Marvel’s second best-selling title without an illustrator. Nervous new guy Romita was handed the ball and told to run. ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and ‘Spidey Saves the Day!’ – “Featuring the End of the Green Goblin!” – as it so dubiously proclaimed) was the climactic battle fans had been clamouring for since the viridian villain’s debut. It didn’t disappoint – and still doesn’t today.

Reprinted from issues #39 and 40 (August & September 1966 and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito as “Mickey Demeo”), this remains one of the best Spider-Man yarns ever, and heralded a run of classic sagas from the Lee/Romita team that actually saw sales rise, even after the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Ditko. If you need further convincing, it sees the villain learn Peter Parker’s identity, capture and torture our hero and share his own origins before falling in the first of many final clashes…

Amazing Spider-Man #42 heralded ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, with John Jameson (Jonah’s astronaut son) mutated by space-spores and going on a Manhattan rampage. It’s a solid, entertaining yarn that is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag in the series for years: a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May who Peter had avoided – and Ditko skilfully never depicted – for the duration of time that our hero had been involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly Gwen Stacy.

Now, in that last frame the gobsmacked young man finally realises that for years he’s been ducking the “hottest chick in New York”! I’m sure we all know how MJ has built her place in the Marvel Universe…

Issue #50 (July 1967) featured the debut of one of Marvel’s greatest villains in the first chapter of a 3-part yarn that saw the first stirrings of romance between Parker and Gwen, the death of a cast regular, and re-established the webslinger’s war on cheap thugs and common criminals. Here it all begins with a crisis of conscience that compels him to quit in ‘Spider-Man No More!’

Romita was clearly considered a safe pair of hands and “go-to-guy” by Stan Lee. When Jack Kirby left to create his incredible Fourth World for DC, Romita was handed the company’s other flagship title – in the middle of an on-going storyline. Here we focus on Fantastic Four #105-106 (December 1970 and January 1971 and both inked with angular, brittle brilliance by John Verpoorten). and ‘The Monster’s Secret’.

Scripted by Lee, they comprise a low-key yet extremely effective suspense thriller played against a resuming subplot of Johnny Storm’s failing romance. When his Inhuman girlfriend Crystal is taken ill – preparatory to writing her out of the series – Reed Richards’ diligent examination reveals a potential method of curing the misshapen Thing of his rocky curse.

Tragically, as Ben Grimm is prepped for the radical process in ‘The Monster in the Streets!’ a mysterious energy-beast begins tearing up Manhattan. By the time ‘The Monster’s Secret!’ is exposed, the team strongman is almost dead and Crystal is gone… seemingly forever.

Romita briefly and regularly returned to the Star-Spangled Avenger in the 1970s and June 1971’s Captain America & The Falcon #138 reveals how ‘It Happens in Harlem!’ sporting a full art job by Romita, Lee’s tale sees new hero The Falcon foolishly try to prove himself by capturing the outlaw Spider-Man, only to be himself kidnapped by gang lord Stoneface. Cue a spectacular three-way team up and just desserts all round…

The Amazing Spider-Man was never far from Romita’s drawing board and in #108 the secret of high school bully Flash Thompson – freshly returned from the ongoing war in Indochina – finally unfolds ‘Vengeance from Vietnam!’ With Romita inking his own pencils, it details how our troubled war hero was connected to an American war atrocity that left a peaceful village devastated and a benign wise man comatose and near-dead. The events consequently set a vengeful cult upon the saddened soldier’s guilt-ridden heels, which all the Arachnid’s best efforts could not deflect or deter.

The campaign of terror is only concluded in #109 as ‘Enter: Dr. Strange!’ sees the Master of the Mystic Arts divine the truth and set things right… but only after an extraordinary amount of unnecessary violence…

Marvel was expanding and experimenting as always and a horror boom saw them move into mature reader monochrome magazines. In Vampire Tales #2 (October 1973), Roy Thomas scripted a short vignette of a woman apparently imperilled who turned out to be anything but. Delivered in moody line and wash, Devil’s Daughter Satana began her predations via Romita before joining the Macabre Marvel Universe. Her debut is supplanted by a house ad…

Commemorating the hero’s 30th anniversary, Amazing Spider-Man 365 (August 1992) carried a bunch of extras including sentimental reverie ‘I Remember Gwen’ (Tom DeFalco, Lee & Romita) before we close with a wild ride from Roger Stern, inked by Al Milgrom.

‘There’s a Man Who Leads a Life of Danger’ comes from July 1997’s Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #minus 1: an adventure of Peter Parker’s parents and part of the Flashback publishing event. It pits the married secret agents against deadly Baroness Adelicia von Krupp and guest-stars a pre-Weapon-X Logan/Wolverine in a delightful spy-romp.

Added extras here include Romita’s unused splash page from Young Men Comics #24, character designs for Robbie Robertson, Mary Jane, Captain Stacy and his daughter Gwen, John Jameson, The Prowler, Wolverine and The Punisher; Fan sketches and doodles; an Amazing Spider-Man poster (painted); the covers of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1 & 2 (ditto) plus original proposal art for the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip. There are also covers for F.O.O.M. #18, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987), New Avengers #8 and Mighty Marvel Heroes & Villains (with Alex Ross) and a vintage self-portrait.

This is absolutely one of the most cohesive and satisfactory career compilations available and one no fan should miss.
© 2019 MARVEL.

For a slightly different selection, I’d advise also tracking down Marvel Masters: The art of John Romita Sr (ISBN: 978-1-84653-403-4), although that’s not available in digital formats.

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The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Ultimate Collection


By Joe Casey, Scott Kolins, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5937-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Time for another 60th Anniversary shout out…

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop apparently marauding monster The Incredible Hulk.

The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst the team’s colourful ranks…

For Marvel’s transformational rebirth in the early 1960’s, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took their lead from a small but growing band of costumed characters debuting or reimagined and revived at the Distinguished Competition. Julie Schwartz’ retooling of DC’s Golden Age stars had paid big dividends for the industry leader, and as the decade turned Managing Editor Lee’s boss (uncle/publisher Martin Goodman) insisted his company should go where the money was.

Although National/DC 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 who had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

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

So a procession of new costumed heroes was created, with Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko focussing on all-original 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 Uncle Martin…

After nearly 18 months, during which the fledgling House of Ideas churned out a small stable of leading men (but only two sidekick women), Lee & Kirby finally had enough players to stock an all-star ensemble – the precise format which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and thus swiftly assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and 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, and, despite a few rocky patches, the series grew into one of the company’s perennial best sellers.

The early Avengers yarns became a cornerstone of the company’s crucially interlinked continuity. As decades passed they were frequently revisited and re-examined, and in 2005 Joe Casey and artist Scott Kolins (with colourists Morry Hollowell & Will Quintana) took the occasional exercises in creativity a little further: offering an 8-issue modernising miniseries adding devious – some would say cynically calculating – back-writing to the original stories. The epic was packed with post-modern in-filling for a more mature readership, exposing secrets and revealing how the team actually came to hold its prominent and predominant position in the Marvel Universe…

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1-8 ran fortnightly from January to April 2005 and was successful enough to warrant a second season. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes II #1-8 repeated the gambit from January to May 2007, and with both epics gathered in this splendid, no-nonsense compilation.

Chronologically set between Avengers #1 and 2, the drama begins as industrialist Tony Stark reviews media coverage of the coalition of mystery men currently residing in his family’s townhouse. He ponders how best to keep such diverse and headstrong personalities as Ant Man, The Wasp, Thor and the Hulk together. Across town in a seedy bar, young troublemaker and pool-hustler Clint Barton can’t understand why folks are so nervous about the “masked freaks”…

Two weeks later, the team has fallen apart and the Avengers are actually hunting their gamma-fuelled former colleague. In the course of calamitous events they unexpectedly recover a legendary form from a coffin of ice floating in sea…

The gradually assimilation of partially amnesiac WWII legend Captain America into a terrifying and seemingly mad new era is not without problems, and the iconic, grimly experienced warrior is soon keenly aware of seething tensions besetting the team he has joined.

Iron Man still fervently pursues an exalted Federal status for the Avengers, but the Army are baulking: clearly set on putting the wilfully independent powerhouses under military jurisdiction. After a ferocious clash with Lava Men from Earth’s deep interior, word finally comes. The powers that be have created an all-encompassing “Avengers Priority Security Status” – but only for as long as the fickle public’s new darling and National Treasure Captain America stays with them…

Self-made scientific genius Hank Pym created the roles of Ant Man and the Wasp (AKA debutante girlfriend Janet Van Dyne) but his inherent and growing mental instability has caused him to push further and harder ever since he joined the ranks of a group that includes a patriotic living legend, an infallible metal juggernaut and an apparent god.

Now operating as Giant Man he is letting feelings of inadequacy drive a wedge between him and his lover, even as the Army ups the pressure to take over the team. Meanwhile, modern-day Rip Van Winkle Steve Rogers increasingly sinks into survivor’s guilt over the comrades he failed to save in the war. That internalised torment kicks into overdrive when Nazi war criminal and archfoe Baron Zemo comes out of hiding to attack the Avenger through his Masters of Evil…

When an invader out of time strikes, the Avengers finally and very publicly prove their worth to the nation and its government, and with Kang the Conqueror sent packing, the team at last secures favoured-but-fully-independent security clearance.

…And in the streets, a wanted vigilante dubbed Hawkeye saves Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis from muggers and they strike up a most irregular friendship…

Missions come thick and fast but the internal tensions never seem to dissipate. In far distant Balkan Transia fugitive mutants Wanda and Pietro desperately search for a place where they can feel safe, whilst in America Cap is increasingly fixated on tracking down Zemo.

After a battle with crime syndicate leader Count Nefaria leaves the Wasp near death, Giant Man also edges closer to a complete breakdown. With a surgeon battling to save her, Pym swears he’s going to quit and take her away from all the madness. Before that can happen, Zemo returns, abducting the Sentinel of Liberty’s teenaged friend Rick Jones…

In response, the team acrimoniously divides, with Cap trailing the monomaniac to Bolivia whilst the majority of Avengers remain for a final battle against the Masters of Evil. Meanwhile below stairs, Jarvis and Clint are concocting a sneaky scheme of their own…

As the death-duel in Bolivia concludes, in Germany two restless young mutants orchestrate their return to America and – with some collusion from Jarvis – Hawkeye “auditions” for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

As Cap and Rick wearily and so slowly make their way back to civilisation, Iron Man deals with Government fallout after learning that their Red, White and Blue poster boy is missing. Soon news leaks out that the rest of the team are quitting and that Stark has lined up a wanted vigilante and two outlaw mutants to replace them…

The initial secret history lesson concludes with astounded Captain America’s re-emergence and reluctant accession to leadership: riding herd on a team of obnoxious, arrogant young felons he is expected to mould into true champions…

The rest is history…

The second bite of the cherry (by Casey, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & Quintana) focuses on a later time when the Avengers are in resurgent form. The Founders have all returned at a time when Pym (now calling himself Goliath), The Wasp and Hawkeye are joined by enigmatic African monarch The Black Panther. The action commences immediately following the expanded team’s being attacked by an android called The Vision – whom they promptly signed up (in Avengers #58, if you’re keeping count). Apparently the density-shifting “synthezoid” was created by robotic nemesis Ultron – a murderous AI created by Pym whilst suffering one of his frequent psychotic breaks – before switching allegiances…

We open as the highly-suspect new Avenger is impounded by S.H.I.E.L.D. for investigation and clearance. Their ostensible reason is that another autonomous murder mechanism – Super-Adaptoid – has escaped from custody and humanity can’t be too careful…

In the Philippines, the real cause of all the anti-technology tension and overweening suspicion are busy. Science terrorists Advanced Idea Mechanics have secretly stolen the Adaptoid and are seeing how they can improve an already ultimate killing machine…

At a clandestine S.H.I.E.L.D. base, interrogator Jasper Sitwell has met his match in The Vision, but perseveres in trying to dig out dirt on the android and its “master” Ultron. The Panther meanwhile has foregone his status as a VIP dignitary to teach at an inner city school under the alias Luke Charles. What he finds there is a true education…

Hawkeye too is under pressure as his lover The Black Widow reveals she’s going back into the spy-game. With Pym close to apoplexy at the government’s quasi-legal rendition of the Vision, nobody is in a particularly good mood when S.H.I.E.L.D.  supremo Nick Fury (the white one who fought in WWII) demands the team head to the Philippines to investigate A.I.M.’s latest enterprise.

With Fury’s carrot-&-stick pep talk ringing in their ears the heroes – rejoined by the just released Vision – jet away, unaware that in Manhattan an assassination plot against King T’Challa/Mr. Charles has brought one of Panther’s greatest enemies to America…

The heroes are challenged over the Pacific skies by a mass-produced army of Super-Adaptoids and are soon engaged in the fight of their lives…

Overwhelmed, they are in danger of being swamped before Goliath valiantly turns himself into as colossal human rampart to stem the tide and save the endangered island population whilst his comrades rush to destroy A.I.M.’s superbase…

Left all alone, Pym fights in maddened frenzy and becomes increasingly obsessed with how human the things he is incessantly slaughtering seem to be. By the time the triumphant team get Goliath home, he is a deeply traumatised shell of a man…

Luke Charles returns to school in time to be deeply embroiled in a bullying case that will inevitably end in gunplay and tragedy. And then the apparently recuperating Hank Pym goes missing…

Soon after, a new, excessively brutal hero named Yellowjacket is making news even as Agent Sitwell again targets the Vision for further debriefing: specifically, Pym’s “massacre” of mechanical lifeforms on A.I.M. Island. This time he’s brought in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top psychologist Agent Carver to try and get under the subject’s artificial skin…

The spies are in heated argument with Hawkeye when Yellowjacket breaks in, claiming to have murdered the Man of Many Sizes and demanding to take Goliath’s place on the team…

Nobody is fooled. Everyone recognises the abrasive stranger as Pym gone far off the deep end, but Carver prevents them from saying anything. She advises that he is clearly inches from being utterly incurable and devises a treatment to cure him which basically comprises “play along and don’t do anything to upset the crazy man”…

That even includes allowing Yellowjacket to kidnap the Wasp and agreeing to let him marry his hostage…

The wedding is held at Avengers Mansion and includes a Who’s Who of heroes along for the ride (The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Black Knight and Doctor Strange) but the scheme spirals out of control when The Circus of Crime – not privy to the details of the service – use the gathering as an opportunity to kill all America’s costumed champions in one go…

With Hawkeye and the blushing bride hostages and the first to be despatched, the deadly dilemma shocks Pym back to his rightest senses, but in the aftermath many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are butchered as Wakandan assassin Death Tiger gets ever closer to fulfilling his own mission of murder…

To cap off all the chaos, the still-at-large Super-Adaptoid also attacks, determined to expunge “race-traitor” The Vision who has perpetrated the ultimate betrayal by siding with inferior humanity and denying the innate superiority and inevitable ascension of mechanical and artificial lifeforms…

Politically savvy, wryly trenchant and compellingly action-packed, this extremely impressive Fights ‘n’ Tights chronicle is a superb addition/codicil to the annals of The Avengers and would serve as perfect comics vehicle for movie fans in search of a print-fix for their costumed crusader cravings…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis volume 1


By Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer& various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4500-4 (HB/Digital Edition) 978-0-7851-4501-1 (TPB/ Digital Edition)

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchising success, The Avengers celebrate their 60th anniversary in September 2023, so let’s again acknowledge and anticipate that landmark event with another glorious past triumph…

Once upon a time Norman Osborn was America’s Security Czar: an untouchable “top-cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed and metahuman community.

When the former-but-still-deranged Green Goblin at last but inevitably overplayed his hand, a coalition of outlawed champions united to defeat him, and his fall from grace was staggering and total.

The chaos and carnage led to a new Age of Heroes, and as part of that resurgence, original Captain America Steve Rogers was appointed Supreme Commander of US metahuman resources. He promptly set about redefining the what, who and how of the World’s Mightiest Heroes which launched a flotilla of new teams and titles, with Avengers volume 4 being the official spine of the comic book franchise.

Available in a number of formats, this initial collection gathers issues #1-6 as written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by John Romita Jr. with inkers Klaus Janson & Tom Palmer colourist Dean White and letterer (VC’s) Cory Petit adding to the spectacle and wonderment. The book spans cover-dates July to December 2010) and opens with a peek at a terrifying future before skipping back to Now where a triumphant, reunited army of heroes is trying to democratically decide just who goes where and does what…

Those deliberations are rudely interrupted in ‘Next Avengers Part One’ when time-tyrant Kang the Conqueror beams in with a frantic warning. He barely opens his mouth before he’s blasted across the city by the wary, twice-shy heroes, but as they converge to press their attack the Conqueror stops all hostilities by brandishing an ultimate weapon.

Iron Man Tony Stark prevents his comrades from finishing off Kang as he recognises the Dark Matter Accelerator. It’s something he thought up and swore never to build. The only way the future Fuhrer can have it is if Stark made it and gave it to him…

In the cautious ceasefire that follows, Kang explains he’s come to beg the aid of the Avengers. In his current future he is one of a team that includes the children of the Avengers, united to stop life-loathing Artificial Intelligence Ultron from exterminating humanity.

They have at last succeeded in destroying the mechanoid marauder but the children are now an even greater menace. Moreover, Kang’s attempts to stop them have resulted in time itself shredding… and all of reality is now collapsing…

The arrogant time-terrorist expects the Avengers to stop their errant offspring, but as Rogers heads off all debate to arbitrarily assemble teams, back in the future Kang and his hidden allies make preparations to carry out their true scheme…

Not every past Avenger is keen to answer the call to reassemble. Simon Williams has come to believe the team has done more harm than good and threatens to stop them if they start up again. ‘Wonder Man Attacks?!!’ sees him make good on his warning whilst a small squad locate Kree outcast Noh-Varr The Protector to request his expertise in time travel.

As the alien and Stark’s efforts finally bear fruit, Wonder Man brutally engages the entire team. In the resultant blockbusting battle, something goes terribly wrong, and an alternate Apocalypse and his horrendous Horsemen materialise, intent on ending mankind.

As the embattled titans swiftly mobilise to tackle the next crisis, a ‘Menace from Beyond Time’ manifests as various time-streams and realities begin to coalesce and overlap in New York City. With All of Everything endangered, a unit of heroes heads into the unhappy future leaving their harried comrades to hold back a tidal wave of time-tossed menaces – and the occasional misplaced hero such as Killraven and Devil Dinosaur…

Far away from now, Iron Man, Wolverine, replacement Captain America James “Bucky” Barnes and Noh-Varr witness first-hand the cataclysmic war against Ultron before being ambushed by the next generation in ‘Only the Good Die Young’.

Back in their home era, a multitude of past menaces – from cavemen to cowboys to cosmic devourer Galactus – are keeping the majority of Avengers busy, whilst in the foredoomed tomorrow the questing quartet are painfully discovering they’ve been played by Kang yet again…

Full explanations are promised by an incredibly aged Tony Stark and the architect of the chronal rescue plan: Bruce Banner in his gamma-charged arch-villain persona of ‘The Maestro’…

With two Starks, an incredibly sagacious and experienced Banner and new element Noh-Varr all intent on fixing the problem, the sorry story soon comes out. All of creation’s future is stuck in a temporal loop: a cosmic “Groundhog Day” with Kang interminably trapped battling Ultron. Now, with the odds altered by the historical Avengers, there’s a real chance to make things right in one final ‘Battle for the Future’…

Tragically, as Thor’s clash with Galactus escalates and the assembled Avengers resolutely resist Apocalypse and his minions in the now, there may not be a past to return to…

Layers of murderous duplicity are peeled back in ‘Next Avengers Part 6: Conclusion’ as a cunning solution to the Ultron-Kang impasse is conceived. However, even as reality reasserts itself and four weary heroes return home, old man Stark takes the risky chance of giving his younger self a deadly device and a portentous warning from the future…

Epic in scale, vast in scope and overflowing with action, this a magnificently rendered tale that might bewilder new readers looking for a post-movie fix, but will delight dyed-in-the-wool Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics. It comes with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Romita Jr., Janson & Dean White, John Romita Sr., Greg Land & Morry Hollowell, Jim Cheung & Justin Ponsor, Alan Aldridge, Phil Jimenez & D’Armata, plus a massive combined variant cover by Marko Djurdjevic.
© 2018 MARVEL.

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Warlock Marvel Masterworks volume 2



By Jim Starlin, with Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubinstein, Al Milgrom, Alan Weiss, Dave Hunt & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3511-1 (HB/Digital edition)

During the early 1970s the first inklings of wider public respect for the medium of graphic narratives began to blossom in English-speaking lands. This followed avid response to pioneering stories such as Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams’ “relevancy” Green Lantern run, Stan Lee & John Buscema’s biblically allegorical Silver Surfer or Roy Thomas’ ecologically strident antihero Sub-Mariner. These all led a procession of thoughtfully-delivered attacks on drugs in many titles, and a long running undeclared campaign to support positive racial role models and include characters of colour everywhere on four-colour pages.

Part of a movement and situation mirrored in Europe and Japan, our comics were inexorably developing into a vibrant platform of diversity and forum for debate, engaging youngsters in real world issues germane and relevant to them.

In 1972, Thomas had taken the next logical step: transubstantiating an old Lee & Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor for the Questioning Generation…

Debuting in FF #66 (September 1967) mystery menace Him was re-imagined by Thomas & Gil Kane as a modern interpretation of the Christ myth: stationed on an alternate Earth far more like our own than that of Marvel’s fantastic universe.

Re-presenting Strange Tales #178-181, Warlock #9-15, Marvel Team-Up #55, Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 – collectively spanning cover-dates February 1975 to the end of 1977, this epic astral adventure also offers a context-soaked Introduction from comics historian/documentarian Jon B. Cook.

For latecomers and those informed only by movies…

It all began with The Power of… Warlock as the artificial man’s origin story – a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists – was goosed up after meeting man-made and self-created god The High Evolutionary. He was wrapped up in a bold new experiment to replicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. He replayed – on fast-forward – the development of life, intent on creating humanity without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill…

It might well have worked, but when the Evolutionary wearied, his greatest mistake cruelly intervened. Man-Beast was a hyper-evolved wolf with mighty powers, ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. He despoiled humanity’s rise, and ensuring the Counter-Earth’s development exactly mirrored its template – with the critical exception of the superheroic ideal. This beleaguered world suffered all mankind’s woes but had no extraordinary beings to save or inspire them.

A helpless witness to desecration, Him crashed free of his life-supporting cocoon to save the Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies -a legion of similarly evolved rogue animal-humanoids dubbed “New-Men”). When the despondent, furious science god recovered, he wanted to erase his failed experiment but was stopped by his rescuer.

As a powerless observer, Him had seen the potential and value of embattled humanity. For all their flaws, he believed he could save them from the many imminent dooms caused by their own unthinking actions – pollution, over-population, wars and intolerance. His pleas convinced the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance…

The wanderer was hurled down to Counter-Earth, equipped with a strange gem to focus his powers, a mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own – Adam Warlock…

He battled long and hard and even gathered a band of faithful followers, but was constantly defeated and frustrated by human intransigence and Man-Beast’s forces, who had infiltrated and corrupted all aspects of society – especially America’s political hierarchy and the Military/Industrial complex.

After 8 issues of his struggle and a couple of interventions by Earth’s Incredible Hulk, the saga apparently ended when messianic Adam Warlock died and was reborn, thwarting Satan-analogue Man-Beast with the aid of the Jade Juggernaut: delivering a karmic coup de grace before ascending from Counter-Earth to the beckoning stars…

When the feature returned at the end of 1974 the tone, just like the times, had hugely changed. In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, hopeful positivity and comfortable naivety had turned to world-weary cynicism and the character was draped in precepts of inescapable doom in the manner of doomed warrior Elric. It was a harbinger of things to come…

The story continues in Strange Tales #178 as ultra-imaginative morbid maverick Jim Starlin (Captain Marvel, Master of Kung Fu, Infinity Gauntlet, Dreadstar, Batman, Kid Kosmos) turns the astral wanderer into a Michael Moorcock-inspired death-obsessed, constantly outraged but exceedingly reluctant and cynical cosmic champion.

The slow spiral to oblivion begins in February cover-dated Strange Tales #178, where Starlin introduces alien Greek Chorus Sphinxor of Pegasus to recap the past by asking and answering ‘Who is Adam Warlock?’

Handling everything but lettering – that’s left to Annette Kawecki – Starlin has solitary wanderer Warlock brooding on a desolate asteroid in the Hercules star cluster just as a trio of brutes attack a frightened girl. Despite his best efforts they execute her, proud of their status as Grand Inquisitors of the Universal Church of Truth and ecstatic to remove one more heathen unbeliever…

Appalled to have failed another innocent, Warlock employs the Soul Gem at his brow to briefly resurrect her and learns of an all-conquering ruthless militant religion intent on converting or eradicating all life. His search triggers a chilling confrontation as ‘Enter The Magus!’ sees the living god of the UCT attack him and crushingly reveal an awful truth: the being who has subjugated countless worlds, exterminated trillions and fostered every dark desire of sentient beings is his own future self.

Adam Warlock than swears that he will battle this impossible situation and do whatever is necessary to prevent himself becoming his worst nightmare…

With Tom Orzechowski on words and Glynis Oliver-Wein doing colours, Starlin’s pilgrimage continues as Warlock attacks an UCT war vessel transporting rebels, “degenerates” and “unproductives” from many converted worlds. The church only deems basic humanoids as sacred and saveable, with most other shapes useful only as fodder or fuel. They make an exception for the universally deplored, vulgar and proudly reprobate race called “Trolls”. In the dungeon-brig of the ship Great Divide, Adam finds his gloomy mood irresistibly lifted by disgusting lout Pip: a troll revelling in his “independent manner and cavalier ways” and not frightened by the imminent death awaiting them all.

Meanwhile, mighty, enhanced true believer Captain Autolycus has received a message from the Temporal Leader of the Faithful. The Matriarch has decided to ignore The Magus’ instruction to capture Warlock and keep him unharmed.

As Adam instructs his fellow prisoners in the nature of rule, Autolycus acts on her command, losing his entire crew and perishing when Warlock breaks loose. After escaping the ‘Death Ship!’, Adam realises Pip has stowed away, keen to share a new adventure, but lets it go. He has a bigger problem: in the climactic final battle, the Soul Gem refused his commands, acting on its own to consume Autolycus’ memories and persona, locking them inside the twisted champion’s head…

In ST #180’s ‘Judgment!’ (with additional inking by Alan Weiss), Pip and Warlock have submerged themselves in the heaving masses of Homeworld whilst hunting the living god they oppose. Terrified of the uncontrollable spiritual vampire on his brow, Adam tries to remove it and discovers it has already stolen him: without it he will perish in seconds…

Pushed into precipitate action and living on borrowed time, Warlock invades the Sacred Palace and is offered a curious deal by the Matriarch and is captured when he refuses. Subjected to ‘The Trial of Adam Warlock’, the appalled adventurer endures a twisted view of the universe courtesy of Grand Inquisitor Kray-Tor, even as in the city, Pip thinks he scored with a hot chick. In truth, he’s been targeted by public enemy number one. Gamora is called “the deadliest woman in the whole galaxy” and has plans for Adam, which include him being alive and free…

Back in court, the golden man has rejected Kray-Tor’s verdict and, disgusted and revolted by the proceedings, foolishly lets his Soul Gem feed. The carnage he triggers and subsequent guilt leaves him catatonic and in the hands of the Matriarch’s cerebral reprogrammers…

Starlin was always an outspoken and driven creator with opinions he struggled to suppress. His problems with Marvel’s working practises underpin ST #181’s ‘1000 Clowns!’ as old pal Al Milgrom inks a fantastic recap and psychological road trip inside the hero’s mind. None of the subtext is germane if you’re just looking for a great story however, and – in-world – Warlock’s resistance to mind-control is mirrored by Pip and Gamora’s advance through the UCT citadel to his side.

Embattled by the psychic propaganda assaulting him, Warlock retreats into the safety of madness, and learns to his horror that this has been what The Magus wanted all along. Now the dark messiah’s victory and genesis are assured…

The triumph was celebrated by the resurrection of the hero’s own title and – cover-dated October 1975 – Warlock #9 revealed the master plan of Adam’s future self. Inked by Steve Leialoha ‘The Infinity Effect!’ saw the mirror images in stark confrontation with evil ascendent, unaware that Gamora was an agent of a hidden third party and that all the chaos and calamity was part of a war of cosmically conceptual forces.

The saga heads into the Endgame as the Magus explains in cruel detail how he came to power and that Adam’s coming days are merely his past, before summoning abstract terror The In-Betweener to usher in their inevitable transformation. There is one problem however: the first time around Adam/Magus was never attacked and almost thwarted by an invisible green warrior woman.

Crushed by the realisation that he will become a mass-murdering spiritual vampire, Warlock reels as the hidden third element arrives to save everything…

‘How Strange My Destiny!’ (#10, inked by Leialoha) finds Pip, Gamora, Adam and mad Titan Thanos battling 25,000 cyborg Black Knights of the Church rapturously paying ‘The Price!’ of devotion in a stalling tactic until the In-Betweener arrives…

Kree Captain Mar-Vell narrates a handy catch-up chapter detailing ‘Who is Thanos?’ as the beleaguered champions escape, before ‘Enter the Redemption Principle!’ explores some of the Titan’s scheme and why he opposes the Magus and his Church, even as the victorious dark deity realises that Thanos’ time probe is the only thing that can upset his existence…

How Strange My Destiny – with finished art by Leialoha from Starlin’s layouts – continues and concludes in #11 as ‘Escape into the Inner Prison!’ sees the Magus and his Black Knight death squads brutally board Thanos’ space ark. A combination of raw power and the Soul Gem buy enough time for Warlock and the troll to use the time probe, which dumps them in the future, just as In-Betweener arrives to convert the hero and supervise ‘The Strange Death of Adam Warlock!’, resulting in a reshuffling of chronal reality and Thanos’ triumph…

After months of encroaching and overlapping Armageddons, Warlock #12 diverts and digresses in ‘A Trollish Tale!’ as Pip’s addiction to hedonism and debauchery entraps him in professional harlot Heater Delight’s plan to escape a life on (non)human sexual trafficking in a star-roaming pleasure cruiser. He’s happy with the promised reward for his efforts, but hadn’t considered that her pimp might object to losing his meal ticket…

Drama returns with a bang in #13 as ‘…Here Dwells the Star Thief!’ introduces a threat to the entire universe stemming from a hospital bed on Earth. New England’s Wildwood Hospital houses Barry Bauman, whose life is blighted by a total lack of connection between his brain and nerve functions. Isolated and turned inward for his entire life, Barry has discovered astounding psychic abilities, the first of which was to possess his nurse and navigate an unsuspected outer world. His intellect also roams the endless universe and brooding, doomed Warlock is there when Barry consumes an entire star just for fun…

Outraged at the wilful destruction, Warlock uses his own powers to trace the psionic force and resolves to follow it back to the planet of his original conception and construction even as ‘The Bizarre Brain of Barry Bauman’ explores the Star Thief’s origins and motivations before formally challenging Adam to a game of “stop me if you can”…

Spitefully erasing stars and terrorising the Earth as Warlock traverses galaxies at top speed, Bauman knows a secret about his foe that makes his victory assured, but still lays traps in his interstellar path. The ‘Homecoming!’ is accelerated by a shortcut through a black hole but when Adam arrives at the Sol system, he receives a staggering shock: his journeys and simple physics have wrought physical changes making it impossible to ever go home again…

Sadly for Barry, his gleeful frustration of his foe distracts him just when he should be paying close attention to his physical body…

As the series abruptly ended again (November 1976), Starlin returned to full art & story chores in #15’s ‘Just a Series of Events!’ Exiled from Earth, Adam rants as elsewhere, Thanos moves on his long-term plans. Without the threat of The Magus, his desire for total stellar genocide can proceed, but he worries that his adopted daughter Gamora might be a problem. He should be more concerned about his own nemesis-by-design Drax the Destroyer…

The saga then pauses with Adam, confronting a host of plebian injustices and seemingly gaining dominance over his Soul Gem…

Vanished again, Adam Warlock only languished in limbo for a few months. In mid-December 1976, Marvel Team-Up #55 (cover-dated March 1977) addressed his altered state as Bill Mantlo, John Byrne & Dave Hunt crafted ‘Spider, Spider on the Moon!’

For reason too complicated to explain here, Spider-Man had been trapped in a rocket and blasted into space and was happily intercepted and left in the oxygenated-and heated Blue Area. Warlock then assisted the Arachnid and mysterious alien The Gardener against overbearing ephemera collector The Stranger. He sought possession of the Golden Gladiator’s life-sustaining Soul Gem, but soon discovered an equally fascinating alternate choice…

Despite his sporadic and frankly messy publishing career, Warlock has been at the heart of many of Marvel’s most epochal and well-regarded cosmic comic classics, and ending this compendium is probably the very best: an extended epic spanning two summer annuals and seemingly signalling the end on an era…

‘The Final Threat’ (by Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) comes from Avengers Annual #7, which sees Protector of the Universe Mar-Vell AKA Captain Marvel and Titanian ultra-mentat Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending catastrophe. Their premonitions are confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a soul gem-fuelled weapon to snuff out stars like candles…

Spanning interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall alien invasion and prevent the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

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

With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving webspinner heads for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, and unaware that The Thing also has a history with the terrifying Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the mismatched Champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans for long enough to free the Avengers before the Universe’s true agent of retribution ends the Titan’s threat forever… at least until next time…

The sidereal saga seemingly done, this collection also offers bonus treats in the form of 16 pages of unused pencils by Alan Weiss. The photostats come from an issue lost in transit, and are supplemented by before-&-after panels judged unsuitable by the Comics Code Authority, the various production stages of Starlin & Weiss’ cover art for Warlock #9, with sketches, designs, frontispieces and full pages of original art.

Also on view are Starlin’s wraparound covers from 1983 reprint series Warlock Special Edition #1-6 and 1992-1993’s Warlock reruns (#1-6) in support of the Infinity Gauntlet, plus pertinent house ads and full biographies.

Ambitious, unconventional and beautiful to behold, Warlock’s adventures are very much a product of their tempestuous, socially divisive times. For many, they proved how mature comics might become, but for others they were simply pretty pictures and epic fights with little lasting relevance. What they unquestionably remain is a series of crucial stepping stones to greater epics: unmissable appetisers to Marvel Magic at its finest.
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1: Legacy


By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Paul Pelletier, Rick Magyar & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3326-1 (HB/Digital edition) 978-0-7851-3338-4 (PB)

Following twin cosmic catastrophes (the invasion of our cosmos by the Negative Zone legions of Annihilus and consequent incursion of the shattered survivors of parasitical Phalanx) Marvel breathed new life in many of its moribund cosmic comics characters, and none more so than the rough agglomeration of rootin’, tootin’, blaster-shootin’ outer space reprobates that formed a new 21st century iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Although heralded since its launch in the early 1960s with making superheroes more realistic, Marvel Comics also maintained its intimate affiliation with outlandish and outrageous cosmic calamity (as wonderfully embodied in their pre-superhero “monster-mag” days), and with an upcoming big-budget movie imminently expected this was a property the company needed to keep in the public eye…

The original Guardians were created by Arnold Drake in 1968 for try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes (#18, cover-dated January 1969): a rag-tag bunch of future-based freedom fighters dedicated to liberating star-scattered humanity from domination – if not extermination – by the sinister Brotherhood of Badoon.

Initially unsuccessful, the space squad floated in limbo until 1974 when Steve Gerber incorporated them into Marvel Two-In-One #4 & 5, Giant Size Defenders #5 and The Defenders (#26-29, July-November 1975), wherein assorted 20th century champions voyaged a millennium into Tomorrow to ensure mankind’s very survival.

This in turn led to the Guardians’ own short-lived series (Marvel Presents #3-12: February 1976-August 1977) until abrupt cancellation left them roaming the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars in such titles as Thor, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One and The Avengers. In June 1990 they were back again, securing a relatively successful series (#62 issues, plus annuals and a spin-off miniseries) until the axe fell again in July 1995.

This isn’t them; this is another bunch…

By 2006, reading tastes had once more turned to sky-watching and a massive crossover event involving most of Marvel’s space specialists erupted throughout the Marvel Universe. Annihilation – brainchild of writing team Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, resulted in a vast reconfiguration (pre- configuration?), creating a set of Galactic Guardians for modern times and tastes.

Among the stalwarts in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord (and other heralds of the world-eater), Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Tana Nile, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, and a Watcher as well as a host of alien civilisations including the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar, and more, all relentlessly falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by undying insectoid horror Annihilus.

That conflagration spawned its own wave of specials, miniseries and new titles and – inevitably – led to a follow-up event…

In Annihilation: Conquest – with Kree and Skrull empires splintered, the Nova Corps of Xandar reduced to one single operative, and wild, ancient gods returned – a sizable proportion of those Negative Zone invaders had tenuously established themselves in territories once home to untold billions.

The Kree Supreme Intelligence was gone and arch-traitor Ronan had become a surprisingly effective ruler of the empire’s remnants. Cosmic Protector Quasar was dead, and Phyla-Vel, (daughter of the first Captain Marvel) had inherited both his powers and title…

Whilst she and psychic demi-goddess Moondragon worked with pacifist Priests of Pama to relieve the suffering of starving survivors, Star-Lord Peter Quill toiled with Ronan to shore up battered interstellar defences of the myriad races in the decimated space-sector.

Quill then brokered an alliance with the Spaceknights of Galador (an old and noble cyborg species most famously represented by 1980s hero Rom) to enhance the all-pervasive etheric war-net, unaware that the system had been treacherously compromised.

When activated, it instantaneously overwrote its own protocols, installing malware that left everywhere ruled by a murderous, electronic sentient parasitic species known as the Phalanx. Their cybernetic credo was “peace and order through assimilation”…

Once again a rag-tag rabble desperately united to repel a cosmic invasion, with Quill commanding a Kree resistance division/Penal Strike Force. The highly engaging intergalactic Dirty Half-Dozen comprised Galactic Warrior Bug (originally from the 1970’s toy/comic-adaptation phenomenon The Micronauts); the current Captain Universe, Shi’ar berserker Deathcry, failed Celestial Madonna Mantis, anamorphic outsider Rocket Raccoon and magnificently whacky “Kirby Kritter” Groot – a Walking Tree and one-time “Monarch of Planet X”.

In combination with stellar stalwarts Drax, “Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy” Gamora and Adam Warlock, the organic underdogs and other special all-stars turned back the techno-parasites and were left to set the saved, badly battered universe back on an even(ish) keel…

The success of all that intergalactic derring-do led in turn to a new series with this initial tome – collecting from July-December 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy (volume 2) #1-6.

It begins with some of the recently acquainted adventurers in the midst of saving the universe a little bit more…

‘Somebody’s Got To Do It’ (by Abnett & Lanning, with art by Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar) reveals how – thanks to fellow human Nova’s prompting – Star-Lord determined to create a pro-active defence force to handle the next inevitable cosmic crisis as soon as it starts.

To that end, he convinced Drax, Gamora, Groot, Phyla-Vel, Warlock and the raccoon to relocate with him to pan-species science-station Knowhere (situated in the hollowed-out skull of a dead Celestial Space God) to start putting out a never-ending progression of interstellar brush-fires before they become really serious…

The station is guarded and run by Cosmo – a Russian dog with astounding psionic abilities – and is where old comrade Mantis now works as chief medic. It also offers unlimited teleportational transport which the team needs as it tries to prevent an out-of-control Universal Church of Truth Templeship crashing into a time/space distortion and shredding the fabric of reality…

Soon the surly scratch squad are battling savagely crazed missionary-zealots – powered by the worship of enslaved adherents channelled through the vessel’s colossal Faith Generators whilst desperately attempting to divert it before it impacts the fissure in space. Such a collision would cause catastrophic destruction across the galaxy, but the UCT crusaders only see heretics interfering with their mission to convert unbelievers…

The crisis is exacerbated by another small problem: there are very nasty things on the other side of the fissure that really want to come and play in our universe, and when one of them breaks through, the only thing to do is sacrifice the entire ship…

In the aftermath, Warlock reveals that the string of cosmic Armageddons has fundamentally damaged the nature of space, and more fissures will certainly appear. He wants to repurpose the team to find and close them all before anything else escapes.

And on Sacrosanct, homeworld of the Universal Church of Truth, the Matriarch issues a decree for her Cardinals to deal with the interfering unbelievers…

‘Legacy’ sees the squad dash into another Reality rupture which has recently spewed out a huge chunk of limbo-ice, only to find the temporal effluvia is encasing a chunk of Earth’s Avengers Mansion and another appalling atrocity hungry for slaughter. As it attacks, they are saved by a rapidly-thawing, time-lost costumed champion hurling a circular shield with concentric circles and a single star…

The confused hero says he is Vance Astrovik – Major Victory of the Guardians of the Galaxy. He has travelled back from the 30th century, but can’t remember why – or if even if he’s arrived in the right reality…

As the mystery man is probed by telepathic, precognitive Mantis, Quill and Warlock drag the team off to seal another Fissure, and are ambushed by a unit of Cardinals as they enter a vast Dyson Sphere where something horrific is hunting…

As pitched, merciless battle breaks out on the Sphere in ‘Beyond Belief’, Mantis and Major Victory are attacked in Knowhere’s sickbay by a being of incredible power. Astrovik calls the assailant Starhawk, but Mantis can’t glean any information about him from any future she can see…

Within the Sphere, the war between Guardians and Cardinals is abruptly terminated as the bio-horror infesting the solar system-sized construct attacks. Trapped and desperate, Gamora is severely damaged when she uses the artefact’s captive sun to destroy it…

Back home in Knowhere to recuperate in ‘Damages’, the squad is caught in the latest of a series of escalating acts of sabotage. However, the real shock comes as amongst the 38 dead are three Skrulls. The rapacious shape-shifting conquerors have somehow infiltrated the many races using the science station…

Apparently able to defeat all the base’s detectors and confound all the telepaths in situ, the reviled pariahs provoke a wave of panic and top cop Cosmo is soon being challenged by Gorani and Cynosure of the Administrative Council, both demanding swift, strong action…

The news sparks a wave of paranoia and panic amongst the inhabitants and mystery man Astrovik is targeted by a mob, leading to Quill’s team being confined to quarters, where Drax overhears a shocking exchange between Star-Lord and Mantis…

The final two issues here form part of a major company-wide crossover but thankfully can stand alone from that event. It all begins with ‘Deception – a Secret Invasion Story’, wherein Drax goes rogue, hunted throughout the station by super-powered cops whilst his team undergo a trial. Of course, with a suffix like “the Destroyer” there’s little reason to trust the big green galoot, and no chance to stop him as he trashes Cynosure’s superteam The Luminals…

Things take a darker turn as Starhawk reappears – this time as a woman – determined to stop the wrong future from happening, as elsewhere, one of group is revealed to be concealing and protecting the dreaded Skrulls,

…And in the bowels of the station Drax expedites his plan to flush out the shape-shifters: after all, everybody knows that they revert to their own forms on death so all he has to do is kill everyone in Knowhere to find them…

The frankly brilliant conclusion occurs in ‘Death – a Secret Invasion Story’ which cleverly and spectacularly wraps up the crossover whilst positioning the assorted heroes for the next major story arc by splitting them up: a fairly natural reaction once the Guardians learn what Quill had Mantis do to create his proposed pro-active strike-force in the days following the Phalanx’s defeat…

This stunning stellar treasure-chest includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Clint Langley & Nic Klein, with a dozen of Langley’s unused Cover Options; a magnificent double-page pencil-art spread by Pelletier plus a Concept Artwork section on the new improved and savagely sinister Starhawk to astound and amaze all lovers of astral action and gritty, funny fantastic fantasy.

Smart, breathtaking adventure with loads of laughs and tremendous imagination, this is superb stuff crucial to your complete enjoyment and, hopefully, set to be re-issued in the wake of the forthcoming major movie…
© 2008 and 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.