Marvel Superheroes – Page 56

September 6, 2014September 4, 2014

X-Factor volume 8: Overtime

By Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Andrew Hennessey, Pat Davidson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3837-2

Since its debut in 1982, X-Factor has been a splendidly effective umbrella title for many uniquely off-kilter iterations of Marvel’s mutant phenomena. Undoubtedly the most impressive and enduring assemblage was created by writer Peter David in 2006; mixing starkly violent suspense with cool detective mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action – and even slyly addressing social issues in a regular riot of superbly adult Costumed Drama.

The premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – veteran of a formerly government-sponsored (and controlled) team – appropriating the name for his own specialist metahuman private detective agency: X-Factor Investigations.

Setting up shop in the wake of â€œThe Decimationâ€, which had reduced the world’s mutant population to a couple of hundred empowered individuals and millions of distressingly humanised (ex) Homo Superior, he and a perpetually fluctuating team set out to discover why and how it had happenedâ€¦

What Happened Was: crossover event House of M saw reality overwritten when mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch had a mental breakdown, changing history and reality so that mutantkind out-competed base-line humans, driving â€œsapiensâ€ to the brink of extinction.

It took every hero on Earth, a huge helping of luck and a strange little girl named Layla Miller to correct that situation, but in the aftermath, the abhorred inheritor species had been winnowed to less than 200 super-powered souls â€¦

Madrox later expanded his brief to specialise in strange cases and metahuman mysteries, but spent an awful lot of unprofitable time dealing with the machinations of insidious menaces like the Karma Project and scheming immortal Damian Trypâ€¦

This temporally-twisted tome collects X-Factor volume 3 #46-50 and X-Factor Special: Layla Miller (September 2009-December 2009), wrapping up a few long-running plot threads whilst answering some pertinent questions about the team’s most enigmatic member.

Madrox and Co. had relocated to scenic Detroit to avoid interference from old boss and Office of National Emergency bureaucrat Valerie Cooper but she and her Federal flunkies had pursued, and continued with attempts to put the team under government control.

Following the tragic loss of Madrox and TheresaRourke Cassidy‘s (AKA Siryn) baby, the multiple man went off the deep end and on a monolithic bender which might have ended in his suicide or murder, if not for somehow fully-grown Layla Miller who suddenly popped up to drag him into a furious future where humans and mutants were engaged in a vicious struggle for survival dubbed The Summers Rebellion.

The detective had been summoned by the formidable Ruby Summers and her elderly but still scary dad Cyclops to find out why key members of their mutant army kept winking out of existence, but for Madrox it just felt like being abused and exploited by a different bunch of supposed friendsâ€¦

Abandoned in the present, Theresa took charge at X-Factor Investigations, assigning de-powered Julio Richter (AKA Rictor) and astoundingly attractive Longshot as bodyguards for frightened former-mutant Lenore Wilkinson who was having problems with a stalker.

However, as Guido â€œStrong Guyâ€ Carosella, super-woman Monet St. Croix – AKA â€œMâ€ – Armando â€œDarwinâ€ MuÃ±oz and Shatterstar are subsequently called in to help protect the perpetually endangered Lenore, a new menace surfaces.

Psychic assassin Cortex is capable of dominating and warping even the most determined minds and before long the teammates are battling each other to the death even as, eighty years up-time, the nature of physical existence is failing and the embattled mutants are forced to consult a big brain to save everything else before they can save their species.

With few choices available Layla takes Madrox and Ruby to aged, senile Victor Von Doom who already knows quite a lot about their recurring reality problems, whilst in the past crafty, craven Cortex overextends himself trying to simultaneously mentally manipulate Shatterstar and Monet into killing their comrades.

Despite his diminished condition Doom knows the cause of the disappearances and tantalises his visitors with possible solutions to the a time-crisis, even as elsewhere, Future America’s Presidential Special Advisor Dr. Anthony Falcone ponders the expense of sending Cortex back to eradicate the ancestors of current Summers Rebellion mutants.

Somehow that simple covert task has morphed into pre-emptively dealing with X-Factor and the inexplicably pivotal Madroxâ€¦

Falcone’s ill timed and ill-advised intervention distracts his technologically-augmented chronal killer just as he is completing the mission, giving Shatterstar an opportunity to shrug off Cortex’s mind-lock and save the dayâ€¦

Scripted throughout by David and illustrated by Valentine De Landro & Pat Davidson, the adventure continues with ‘X-It Strategies’ as the President loses confidence in Falcone’s plan to end America’s Mutant problem and tries to remove his now-unnecessary stooge.

The anti-mutant fanatic has been long-prepared for such a move and activates a contingency plan, taking personal control of the nation’s vast army of Sentinels, whilst in The Now Cortex regains the advantage, using his psychic slave Monet to press his attack.

In the future Doom discloses how he built the device used to alter history and gave it to Falcone, also letting slip that he has had a decades-long relationship with Layla, but the revelation is quickly sidelined when a trio of Omeganoid Sentinels blast inâ€¦

Cortex/M’s assault founders in old Detroit when Siryn arrives, but the spirited resistance falters when Sentinels materialise and – as per their programming – attack all the mutants in front of themâ€¦

In the future Madrox is experiencing relief and horror in equal amounts. They have just been saved by Ruby’s boyfriend Trevor Fitzroy whose portal-power has sent the trio of murderous mechanoids who knows where. Until this moment the Multiple Man only knew the charmingly cocky teen as a malevolent and rapacious – adult – evil mutant vampire who tried to destroy the X-Men numerous timesâ€¦

Whilst Falcone uses battalions of Sentinel to secure his own ascension, in the past three that he no longer controls are blasting every mutant in sight. Unable to complete his mission in the growing chaos, Cortex is jumped by the miraculously lucky Longshot and their battle gives Monet the chance to forever throw off his technoid infection and influenceâ€¦

Enraged beyond endurance she smashes into the killer and discovers he’s Madrox in a hoodieâ€¦

With the fabric of time unravelling ‘The Cortex Equation’ reveals a few secrets as the old enemy behind so many of Jamie’s problems is shown to be the power behind Falcone even as demented old Doom has a surprising confrontation with Cyclops.

In the present Siryn and Monet are still battling the apparently unbeatable Cortex who is exposed as one of Jamie’s â€œdupesâ€.

Madrox’s duplicates are autonomous facsimiles of him. Often displaying one particular aspect of his emotional makeup they can live their own lives for years until he touches them and they are reabsorbed – whether he or they want to. Being self-aware, some abscond, never wanting to come back and â€œdieâ€. This one went to the future and fell into the hand of a truly evil geniusâ€¦

Beaten but seemingly unkillable, Cortex teleports away from the furious women and goes after original target Lenore, but is interrupted by Darwin and the late arriving Guido, Rictor and Shatterstar who have just experienced a most elucidating (and sophisticatedly hilarious) road trip which encompassed angry priests, love-sick suicides, and some frank revelations about gender – and species – orientations.

After such a journey, they’re in the mood for some palate-cleansing violenceâ€¦

Eighty years from then in Philadelphia, Falcone’s Sentinel brigade is ravaging the population – mutant and otherwise. When the Summers’ Army counterattack they are greeted as heroes by humanity.

However, even decrepit and out of his mind Doom is still Doom, and he betrays the alliance, plucking Cortex back to the future, overriding his command systems and ordering him to â€œkill all the mutantsâ€â€¦

X-Factor #50 (with additional art by Craig Yeung) spectacularly wraps up everything as Falcone and his sinister sponsor track Cortex and despatch Sentinels to wipe out the despised Homo Superior. They might not have time, though, as Doom’s new puppet is wreaking havoc amongst the mutant warriors.

First to die is Fitzroy, and the situation worsens when Doom takes control of Cyclops tooâ€¦

Cortex meanwhile is stalking the apparently ineffectual Layla, but she takes off when Jamie appears for a final confrontation with his rogue appendageâ€¦

Distraught Ruby pleads with Layla to use her real power, and after much deliberation – and to save the time line – she finally acquiesces.

Although everyone thinks she’s some kind of prescient or precog, Miller’s actual mutant power is to raise the dead. It doesn’t matter much when she reanimates cats or butterflies, since nobody really notices when they come back without soul or conscience, but when someone like Fitzroy is resurrected as a being of selfish evil all humanity might sufferâ€¦

At that moment the Sentinels arrive and terrifyingly merge into one colossal unit designed to carry out Falcone’s long-planned mutant extinction. With everybody dying Fitzroy fatally drains Cortex and uses the stolen energies to open a portal sending the amalgamated Armageddon-Sentinel to where it can do the most harmâ€¦

In the shell-shocked aftermath Madrox and Layla use Doom’s time machine to rejoin X-Factor in the present, sensibly leaving the future to fend for itself.

A little later she tracks down her younger self and reveals just how the enigmatic young lady learned how to â€œknow stuffâ€, starting the cycle again, for the first timeâ€¦

Although intricate, action-packed, beguiling, cathartic and immensely enjoyable, X-Factor: Overtime is utterly impenetrable on its own and if you read it (and you really should) make sure it’s in conjunction with its immediate predecessor X-Factor: Time and a Half.

This supremely entertaining Fights ‘n’ Tights delight also includes the chillingly effective X-Factor Special: Layla Miller, which covers the beginning of the Summers Rebellion in that turbulent tomorrow, where a mute girl named Layla escapes from a mutant â€œContainment Centreâ€ to link up with fugitive Homo Superior and begin the toppling of an oppressive totalitarian American in the powerfully evocative ‘Stuff Happens’ by David, De Landro, Andrew Hennessy & Davidson.

Augmented by a covers-&-variants gallery by David Yardin, Nathan Fairbairn, Paolo Raimondi, Brian Reber and Boo Cook, this volume is complex, compelling, compulsive and supremely funny in a way most adult comics just aren’t. X-Factor is a splendid example of mature Costume Dramas for everyone who needs wit to underpin their superhero soap opera shenanigans.
Â© 2008, 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 29, 2014

Ultimate Fantastic Four volume 3: N-Zone

By Warren Ellis, Adam Kubert & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-904159-93-1

After Marvel’s financial problems and creative roadblock in the late 1990s, the company came back swinging. A critical new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for an older and more sophisticated â€œyouth cultureâ€.

The Ultimate imprint abandoned monumental long-grown continuity – which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset – to re-imagine major characters in their own self-sufficient universe, offering varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to the contemporary 21^st century audience and offer them a chance to get in on the ground floor.

Peter Parker became again a nerdy high-school geek, brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors, and mutants were a dangerous, oppressed ethic minority scaring the pants off the ordinary Americans they hid amongst. There were also fresh and fashionable, modernistic, scientifically feasible rationales for all those insane super-abilities manifesting everywhereâ€¦

The experiment began in 2000 with a post-modern take on Ultimate Spider-Man. Ultimate X-Men followed in 2001 and the Mighty Avengers were remodelled, becoming The Ultimates in 2002.

The stories, design and even tone of the heroes were reworked to cater to the apparently-different tastes of a new readership: (hopefully) new consumers unprepared or unwilling to deal with five decades (seven if you include Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of interconnected story baggage.

The experiment prospered but quickly filled up with refashioned, morally ambiguous heroes and villains. Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor.

In 2008, imprint-wide decluttering exercise â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of superhumans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

Long before then, though, Marvel’s original keystone concept was given its Ultimate work out and this third tumultuous collection, gathering Ultimate Fantastic Four #17-12 (January to June 2005), relates how a subtly different, still clandestine Awesome Foursome explosively came to public attention in their brand new, yet chillingly familiar world.

The most significant change to Stan & Jack’s breakthrough concept was a rather telling one: all four heroes were far, far younger than their mainstream antecedentsâ€¦

Whereas in the original, middle-aged maverick genius Reed Richards, doughty college buddy Ben Grimm, ineffectual girlfriend Sue Storm and her younger brother Johnny survived a privately-funded space-shot which foundered when cosmic rays penetrated their vessel’s inadequate shielding before mutating into a quartet into quirky freaks, here a child prodigy and lonely super-genius was increasingly despised by his abusive blue-collar dad.

Bullied at school and obsessed with other dimensions, Reed’s only friend was classmate and school sports star Ben, who had unaccountably appointed himself the wonder-nerd’s protectorâ€¦

Reed’s life changed the day his High School science project – teleportation – caught the eye of a government talent scout from a high powered think tank. Soon the kid was ensconced in a federally funded New York facility for budding geniusesâ€¦

Run by Professor Franklin Storm, the Baxter Building was a wonderland of top-flight resources, intellectual challenges and guarded support, but the school was primarily an ideas factory and the 100 strange, bright kids were expected to produce resultsâ€¦

The Chief Administrator’s little boy Johnny was there mostly as a courtesy, but daughter Sue was a biology prodigy and one of the biggest young brains on Earthâ€¦

Reed’s teleportation researches were just a necessary preliminary to his greater goal: mastery of a strange sub-dimension – a place the Baxter scientists call the Negative Zone. With their aid the passing years were largely spent in trying to fully access it, but regular studies continued too, with quite a few burn-outs and casualties.

Some kids thrived on the aggressive hot-housing; especially creepy, arrogant, insular Victor Van Damme who, after a particularly galling incident with Reed, somehow managed to swallow his seething animosity to collaborate on cracking the dimension calculationsâ€¦

At last 21-year-old Reed and still-fractious lab partner Victor were shipped out to Nevada for the first full test of the N-Zone teleport system. The Storm kids went along for the ride, but as army technicians counted down, Victor argued with Reed before secretly changing the still hotly debated and contested calculationsâ€¦

At that moment backpacker Ben Grimm had wandered into camp to see his old sidekick after more than a decade apart, and snotty Johnny distracted Reed by disclosing that his sister Sue had the hots for the long-obsessed but crushingly shy wonderboyâ€¦

The test firing was a literal catastrophe. The site was devastated in a shattering release of energy with Reed regaining consciousness some distance away as an amorphous blob of eerily boneless flesh, mistaken by the soldiers for an extra-dimensional invader.

Ben came to in Mexico, a huge rocky monster, and Johnny eventually called in from a hospital bed in France. He kept catching on fire without ever burning himselfâ€¦

Sue simply vanished without a traceâ€¦

She was eventually recovered from miles below New York City, gifted with invisibility and force field powers but captured by disgraced, long-missing Baxter boffin Arthur Molekevic: a literal Mole Man re-populating ancient, previously inhabited caverns with a selection of his own dish-grown monsters and homunculiâ€¦

The unsavoury savant had deduced that the quartet’s uncontrolled projection through N-Space – utterly unprotected from whatever transformative energies and unknown physical laws might apply there – had transformed them on some unfathomable fundamental level. Their incredible new gifts and appearances were the resultâ€¦

When Mole Man attacked the surface world the foursome had chaotically united to defeat him – although their participation had been covered up by the army, as were all their subsequent activities.

This third 6-part saga – by Warren Ellis, Adam Kubert, and inkers John Dell, Scott Hanna, Mark Morales, Nelson and Larry Stucker plus digital colour wizard Dave Stewart – picks up the story after Reed and his companions met again their old classmate Victorâ€¦

Always seeking the most intimate secrets of their incredible transformations, Reed’s quest for a cure to their conditions temporarily stalled after his clash with â€œDr. Doomâ€, but upon returning to the Baxter Building the young genius resumed researching and as this tale opens has not only deduced how Johnny’s flame powers actually work but also discovered something new about the enigmatic N-Zoneâ€¦

Before long he has convinced Dr. Storm – and military liaison General Thaddeus Ross – to let him pilot a reconditioned space shuttle into the mystery realmâ€¦

Greed and the thought of potential military advantage eventually seduce the reluctant adults in charge and soon the mutated quartet are exploring a completely new kind of space in a dimension previously impossible to define.

As they progress, Reed and Sue deduce that the crimson otherspace might be a sub-universe in the process of dying. The sheer amazement of the revelation is quickly surpassed however when they pick up a signal that can only have been made by thinking beingsâ€¦

Johnny doesn’t really care: for the first time since he got his powers, he’s feeling sickâ€¦

Their rendezvous with an immense creature leads to a meeting with a wide variety of life forms on a colossal, ramshackle space station, but Ben has a hit upon a worrying thought that has escaped the wonderstruck Reed. If your world was ending, wouldn’t you try to find another?

Soon the heroes are being feted by the bizarre ancient insectoid their translator tech describes as â€œNihilâ€. The ruler of a ragtag world of survivors from a myriad races and species is happy to share knowledge, explaining the true nature of multiversal architecture and the perilous state of the N-Zone.

Unfortunately as Johnny’s condition worsens and the humans prepare to take him back to Earth for medical treatment, the arthropod alien shows his true colours, attempting to kill Ben and Reed, determined to make their fresh, healthy young universe his ownâ€¦

Breaking free and making a desperate dash for home, the explorers inadvertently bring a legion of hungry monsters with them and Earth learns of its newest heroes when the team is forced to battle the ravening hungry horrors who so spectacularly crash into Las Vegasâ€¦

With their unlikely triumph captured by a thousand phones and cameras, the Fantastic Four are now the world’s latest super-sensations and no amount of military manoeuvring can change the factâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Rocket-paced, razor sharp and blisteringly action-packed, this riotous romp is also awash with smart engaging teen-oriented humour for the era of the acceptable nerd and go-getting geek, delivering another sublimely enthralling alternate view of Marvel’s most important title that will impress open-minded old fans of the medium just as much as the newcomers they were ostensibly aiming for.
Â© 2004, 2005 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

August 23, 2014August 22, 2014

Essential Avengers volume 8

By Jim Shooter, George PÃ©rez, David Michelinie, Tom DeFalco, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6322-0

The Avengers always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even if the team’s Big Three – Iron Man, Captain America and Thor – are absent, it simply allows the lesser lights and continuity players to shine more brightly.

Although the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, constantly churning, open door policy, human-scale narrative drivers featured the regulars without titles of their own whose eventful lives played out only within these stories and no others.

This electric eighth black and white compilation collects Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ extraordinary exploits from issues #164-184 of the monthly comicbook (spanning October 1977-June 1979), the contents of Avengers Annuals #7 and 8 plus the concluding half of an acclaimed crossover epic from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2.

During this period Jim Shooter, having galvanised and steadied the company’s notional flagship, moved on, leaving David Michelinie to impress his own ideas and personality upon the team, even as Cosmic Doomsmith Jim Starlin recruited the team to inscribe an epic ending to his seminal interpretation of tragic antihero Adam Warlockâ€¦

Opening this titanic tome is a stunning 3-part saga by Shooter, John Byrne & Pablo Marcos which reinvented one of the team’s oldest adversaries.

It began in #164 wherein, after months of speculation and experimentation, the resurrected Wonder Man was finally discovered to have evolved into a creature of pure ionic energy. Elsewhere, aging Maggia Don Count Nefaria had recruited Whirlwind, Power Man (the original mercenary who had undergone the same transformative experiment as Wonder Man) and Living Laser to amass plunder for him, but the tactic was mere subterfuge.

After the thieves trashed a squad of Avengers, Nefaria used his flunkies’ bodies as template and power source to turn himself into a literal Superman and attack the already battered heroes in ‘To Fall by Treachery!’

The tension built in #165 as ‘Hammer of Vengeance’ saw the lethally out-powered team fall, only to be saved by elderly speedster The Whizzer who pointed out that, for all his incredible strength, Nefaria too was an old man with death inevitably dogging his heels.

Panicked and galvanised, the Overman went berserk, carving a swathe of destruction through the city whilst seeking a confrontation with Thunder God Thor and the secret of his immortality.

Before too long he had reason to regret his demandsâ€¦

The surprise arrival of the Thunderer in ‘Day of the Godslayer!’ ended the madman’s dreams but also highlighted growing tensions within the victorious teamâ€¦

This superb thriller is followed by‘The Final Threat’ (Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, which saw Captain Marvel and Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of an impending cosmic catastrophe.

Their premonitions were confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrived with news that death-obsessed Thanos had amassed an alien armada and built a soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candlesâ€¦

Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestalled the stellar invasion and prevented the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun – but only at the cost of Warlock’s lifeâ€¦

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

With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man headed for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, unaware that The Thing also had a history with the terrifying Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans enough so that the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution were able to end the Titan’s threat foreverâ€¦ or at least until next timeâ€¦

Back in the monthly an epic of equal import was about to unfold. Shooter’s connection to the series, although episodic, was long-lived and produced some of that period’s greatest tales, none more so than the stellar – if deadline-plagued – saga which unravelled over the succeeding months: a sprawling tale of time-travel and universal conquest which began in Avengers #167-168 and, after a brief pause, resumed for #170 through 177.

In previous issues a difference of opinion between Captain America and Iron Man over leadership styles had begun to polarise the team and tensions started to show in #167 with ‘Tomorrow Dies Today!’ by Shooter, George PÃ©rez & Marcos.

In the Gods-&-Monsters filled Marvel Universe there are entrenched and jealous Hierarchies of Power, so when a new player mysteriously materialises in the 20^th Century the very Fabric of Reality is threatenedâ€¦

It all kicked off when star-spanning 31^st century superheroes Guardians of the Galaxy materialised in Earth orbit, hotly pursuing a cyborg despot named Korvac.

Inadvertently setting off planetary incursion alarms, their minor-moon sized ship was swiftly penetrated by an Avengers squad, where, after the customary introductory squabble, the future men – Charlie-27, Yondu, Martinex, Nikki, Vance Astro and enigmatic space God Starhawk – explained the purpose of their missionâ€¦

Captain America had fought beside them to liberate their home era from Badoon rule and Thor had faced the fugitive Korvac before so peace soon broke out, but even with the resources of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes the time travellers were unable to find their quarryâ€¦

Meanwhile on Earth a new and mysterious being named Michael is lurking in the background. At a fashion show staged by the Wasp he achieves a psychic communion with model Carina Walters and they both vanishâ€¦

Avengers #168 reveals ‘First Blood’ and stirs up more trouble as Federal liaison and hidebound martinet Henry Peter Gyrich begins making like bureaucratically hot for the maverick team. In Colorado meanwhile Hawkeye gets a shock as his travelling partner Two-Gun Kid vanishes before his eyes whilst in suburban Forest Hills Starhawk – in his female iteration of Aleta – approaches a quiet residenceâ€¦

Michael/Korvac’s plan consists of subtly altering events as he gathers strength in secret preparation for a sneak attack on those aforementioned Cosmic Hierarchies. His entire plan revolves around not being noticed. When Starhawk confronts him the villain kills the intruder and instantly resurrects him without the ability to perceive Michael or any of his worksâ€¦

The drama screeches to a halt in #169, which declared ‘If We Should Failâ€¦ The World Dies Tonight!’ The out of context potboiler – by Marv Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Dave Hunt – saw Cap, Iron Man and Black Panther travel the planet in search of doomsday bombs wired to the failing heart of a dying man before the major mayhem resumed in #170 with ‘â€¦Though Hell Should Bar the Way!’ by Shooter, PÃ©rez & Marcos.

As Sentinel of Liberty and Golden Avenger finally settle their differences, in Inhuman city Attilan ex-Avenger Quicksilver suddenly disappears even as dormant mechanoid Jocasta (designed by maniac AI Ultron to be his bride) goes on a rampage and escapes into New York City.

In stealthy pursuit and hoping her trail will lead to Ultron himself, the team stride into a trap ‘â€¦Where Angels Fear to Tread’ but nevertheless triumph thanks to the hex powers of the Scarlet Witch, the assistance of pushy, no-nonsense new hero Ms. Marvel and Jocasta’s own rebellion against the metal monster who made her.

However at their moment of triumph the Avengers are stunned to see Cap and Jocasta wink out of existenceâ€¦

The problems pile up in #172 as Watchdog-come-Gadfly Gyrich is roughly manhandled and captured by out-of-the-loop returnee Hawkeye and responds by rescinding the team’s Federal clearances.

Thus handicapped the heroes are unable to warn other inactive members of the increasing disappearances as a squad of heavy hitters rushes off to tackle marauding Atlantean maverick Tyrak the Treacherous who is bloodily enacting a ‘Holocaust in New York Harbor!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson)â€¦

Answers to the growing mystery are finally forthcoming in ‘Threshold of Oblivion!’, plotted by Shooter, with David Michelinie scripting for Sal Buscema & D(iverse) Hands to illustrate.

As the vanishings escalate the remaining Avengers (Thor, Wasp, Hawkeye and Iron Man), with the assistance of Vance Astro, finally track down their hidden foe and beam into a cloaked starship to liberate the ‘Captives of the Collector!’ (Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Dave Wenzel & Marcos)â€¦

After a staggering struggle the heroes triumph and their old foe reveals the shocking truth: he is in fact an Elder of the Universe who foresaw cosmic doom millennia ago and sought to preserve special artefacts and creatures – such as the Avengers – from the slowly approaching apocalypse.

As he reveals that predicted end-time is here and that he has sent his own daughter Carina to infiltrate the Enemy’s stronghold, the cosmic Noah is obliterated in a devastating blast of energy. The damage however is done and the entrenched hierarchies of creation may well be alertedâ€¦

Issue #175 began the final countdown as ‘The Endâ€¦ and Beginning!’ (Shooter, Michelinie, Wenzel & Marcos) saw the amassed and liberated ranks of Avengers and Guardians follow the clues to Michael as the new god shared the incredible secret of his apotheosis with Carina, before ‘The Destiny Hunt!’ and ‘The Hopeâ€¦ and the Slaughter!’ (Shooter, Wenzel, Marcos & Ricardo Villamonte) saw the entire army of champions destroyed and resurrected as Michael easily overpowered all opposition but faltered for lack of one fundamental failingâ€¦

Spread through a series of lesser adventures the overarching epic ponderously and ominously unfolds before finally exploding into a devastating and tragic Battle Royale that is the epitome of superhero comics. This is pure escapist fantasy at its finest.

Despite being somewhat let down by the artwork when the magnificent George Perez gave way to less enthusiastic hands such as Sal Buscema, David Wenzel and Tom Morgan, and cursed by the inability to keep a regular inker (Pablo Marcos, Klaus Janson Ricardo Villamonte and Tom Morgan all pitched in), the sheer scope of the epic plot nevertheless carries this story through to its cataclysmic and fulfilling conclusion.

Even Shooter’s reluctant replacement by scripters Dave Michelinie and Bill Mantlo (as his editorial career advanced) couldn’t derail this juggernaut of adventure.

If you want to see what makes Superhero fiction work, and can keep track of nearly two dozen flamboyant characters, this is a fine example of how to make such an unwieldy proposition easily accessible to the new and returning reader.

After the death and triumphant resurrection of the heroes Avengers Annual #8 gets back to business with a spectacular Fights ‘n’ Tights clash in ‘Spectrums of Deceit!’ by Roger Slifer, PÃ©rez, Marcos & Villamonte, wherein the sentient power-prism of arch villain Doctor Spectrum begins possessing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, leading the team into another blockbusting battle against the Squadron Sinister and ethically ambivalent Femazon Thundraâ€¦

A complete change of pace came in Avengers #178. ‘The Martyr Perplex!’ by Steve Gerber, Carmine Infantino &Rudy Nebres saw Beast targeted by master brainwasher The Manipulator in a tense psycho-thriller teeming with shady crooks and government spooks, after which Tom DeFalco, Jim Mooney, Al Gordon & Mike Esposito concocted a 2-part yarn introducing tragic mutant Bloodhawk and an ambitious hitman in ‘Slowly Slays the Stinger!’

Whilst the Stinger cautiously executed his plan another squad of heroes return with Bloodhawk to his desolate island home of Maura for a ‘Berserkers’ Holiday’, just in time to battle an animated and agitated stone idol.

When they returned victorious Stinger was waiting and the assemblage lost its newest ally foreverâ€¦

Avengers #181 introduced new regular team Michelinie & Byrne – augmented by inker Gene Day – as ‘On the Matter of Heroes!’ had Agent Gyrich lay down the law and winnow the army of heroes down to a federally acceptable seven.

As the Guardians of the Galaxy headed back to the future, Iron Man, Vision, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Beast and Wasp had to placate Hawkeye after he was rejected in favour of new member The Falcon – parachuted in to conform to government quotas on affirmative actionâ€¦

Almost immediately Gyrich’s plans were in ruins as a strange gipsy sorcerer attacked, claiming Wanda and Pietro were his long lost children. He stole their souls, trapping them in little wooden dolls, and the resultant clash in #182’s ‘Honor Thy Father’ (inked by Klaus Janson) only created more questions, as overwhelming evidence seemed to confirm Django Maximoff‘s story; compelling the Witch and Quicksilver to leave with him on a quest for answersâ€¦

This breathtaking collection concludes with a 2-part confrontation by Michelinie, Byrne, Janson & D. Hands from Avengers #183-184.

‘The Redoubtable Return of Crusher Creel!’ began as Ms. Marvel was cleared by Gyrich to replace Wanda whilst elsewhere in the Big Apple the formidable Absorbing Man decided to quit being thrashed by heroes and leave the country. Unfortunately his departure plans included kidnapping a young woman â€œfor companyâ€ and led to a cataclysmic showdown with the heroes and Hawkeye (who was determined to win back his place on the team) leading to carnage, chaos and a ‘Death on the Hudson!’â€¦

These truly epic yarns set the tone for the compulsive, calamitous Costumed Dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the so slick and cool 21st centuryâ€¦

No lovers of superhero sagas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book, and fans who think themselves above Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will also be pleasantly surprisedâ€¦
Â© 1977, 1978, 1979, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 19, 2014August 18, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2: War of Kings Book 1

By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Paul Pelletier, Brad Walker, Carlos Magno, Wes Craig & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3339-1

Following twin cosmic catastrophes (the invasion of our cosmos by Annihilus and legions of Negative Zone monsters plus a subsequent assault on the shattered survivors by parasitical invading Phalanx techno-horrors) our corner of the universe was left reeling and frantically trying to rebuild.

During that period of instability and crisis, Star-Lord Peter Quill assembled a rag-tag team of alien warriors with the intention of acting as a pre-emptive peace-keeping and disaster management force.

They comprised Quill, Adam Warlock, Gamora â€œthe Deadliest Woman in the Galaxyâ€, Drax the Destroyer, latest Quasar Phyla-Vell, anamorphic adventurer Rocket Raccoon and gloriously whacky â€œKirby Kritterâ€ Groot, a constantly regenerating killer tree and one-time â€œMonarch of Planet Xâ€.

The squad was supported by telepathic precog and failed Celestial Madonna Mantis and Cold War Soviet superdog Cosmo, both high in the controlling hierarchy of intergalactic research think-tank Knowhere, situated in the hollowed-out skull of a dead Celestial Space Godâ€¦

Before too long they were battling on many fronts after discovering that the fabric of the cosmos – stretched, mauled, abused and abraded by continual crises – had begun to unravel in various hotspots, allowing access to things from outside reality: very nasty things that really, really wanted to come and play in our universeâ€¦

Whilst closing one such rift the team recovered a huge chunk of â€œlimbo-iceâ€ and found the temporal effluvia was encasing a chunk of Avengers Mansion, an appalling atrocity hungry for slaughter and a strange costumed hero holding Captain America‘s legendary shieldâ€¦

The amnesiac outcast alternately called himself Vance Astrovik and Major Victory, claiming to be part of a 30^th century group of freedom-fighters called The Guardians of the Galaxy. He had travelled back from the future but could not remember what for, why or even if he had eventually arrived in the right universeâ€¦

Before the suspicious heroes could explore further, Knowhere and especially Astrovik were targeted by another future-born being – Starhawk – and the base was subject to infiltration by shapeshifting Skrulls.

In fighting off the attack Quill’s team accidentally discovered that when they initially convened, Star-Lord had urged Mantis to telepathically â€œnudgeâ€ the war-weary warriors into joining his proposed team.

Quite understandably on hearing this, they all quitâ€¦

Perhaps a better term would be mutinied as weeks later the majority were still putting out cosmic brush fires, but without the manipulative betrayer Star-Lordâ€¦

This particular collection – gathering Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2 #7-12 spanning November 2008 to April 2009 – acts as prologue to yet another cosmos-rending crisis wherein the battered Shi’ar Empire, ruled at this time by mutant Vulcan (half brother of Scott and Alex Summers) battled for its very existence against the resurgent Kree, led at first by Ronan the Accuser but eventually Black Bolt of the earthborn genetic weapons known as Inhumans.

The convoluted saga involved a host of space-themed characters, crossed over into many titles and served to forge closer links between the Earth-based Marvel Universe and its far-flung intergalactic outliers, eventually encompassing and engulfing such diverse elements as the X-Men, Nova Corps, Darkhawk, Starjammers and many moreâ€¦

Here however there is the barest inkling of what is to come as writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning describe ‘No Future’ (illustrated by Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar) wherein the constantly gender-shifting captive Starhawk shares his/her shaky memories of the future and the fall of tomorrow’s galactic guardians with telepathic canine Ã©migrÃ© Cosmo whilst elsewhere Rocket, Groot, Mantis, Major Victory and Galactic Warrior Bug (from 1970’s phenomenon The Micronauts) struggle to prevent a Spartoi colony world from being ravaged by technologically enhanced undead monsters.

In a flash of memory Astrovik recognises them as precursors of the Badoon terror battalions he knows as â€œZomsâ€ just as he discovers a colossal factory churning out fresh horrors from the remains of the colony’s populaceâ€¦

Half a galaxy away Adam Warlock and Gamora have invaded a citadel of the Universal Church of Truth responsible for the latest rips in the fabric of space/time whilst Drax and Phyla-Vell are searching a planet of spiritualists and get a disturbing message from someone long deadâ€¦

And, further still from any of them, Peter Quill wakes up a captive of bombastic tyrant Blastaar, deep inside the subspace hell of the Negative Zoneâ€¦

How he got there is revealed in ‘Past Mistakes’ (with art by Brad Walker & Victor Olazaba), disclosing how the guilt-ridden Star-Lord returned to Kree homeworld Hala to aid their resistance only to be ambushed by notional leader Ronan who has commissioned the reconstruction of a lethal atrocity weapon dubbed the Babel Spireâ€¦

Quill’s moral and physical objections were overruled by superior force before the fallen hero was cast into the N-Zone whilst all his erstwhile comrades soldiered on without him in their own sectors of a growing universal disasterâ€¦

The self-appointed lord of the Negative Zone and unlikely ally of the Accuser wants Quill’s help. King Blastaar has a plan to invade Earth againâ€¦

At that time Earth’s smartest minds had built an other-dimensional jail – codenamed 42 – where they unceremoniously dumped a wide variety of super-felons and enhanced maniacs. ‘Prison Break’ (Walker, Carlos Magno, Olazaba & Jack Purcell) found Blastaar pitting his armies against the supposedly impenetrable fortress, determined to capture its single portal back the positive matter universeâ€¦

The penitentiary, long abandoned by its correctional officers, was being run by some of the less crazy inmates such as vigilante and former Captain America sidekick Jack Flag who had organised a stiff resistance to Blastaar’s bloody, besieging legions.

Quill, sent in by Blastaar as an ambassador to convince the humans to surrender, instead links up with the cons and they hatch a plan to unlock the one-way transmat portal and ship the surviving cons back home, but dealing with maniacs like Gorilla-Man Arthur Nagan, hacker Skeleton Ki, winged killer Condor and mutated mauler Bison proves as fraught with peril as betraying Blastaarâ€¦

In the outer universe, whilst Drax and Quasar seek a way to reunite with dead and possessed champion Moondragon, Quill uses a captive telepath to send a message to his former comrades. In response Cosmo uses Knowhere’s tech to despatch Rocket, Bug, Groot, Mantis and Major Victory to his aidâ€¦

Unfortunately they materialise on the wrong side of the invading forces just as a traitor opens the doors to the killer king’s forcesâ€¦

‘Blastaared!’ (Walker, Olazaba, Rodney Ramos & John Livesay) finds the reunited heroes battling for their lives inside 42 as, on the throneworld of the Universal Church of Truth, Warlock confronts his own appalling future before regretfully taking control over the merciless theocracy.

Pulling off a minor miracle, the Guardians and last penal survivors beam back to our reality, even as in a dark cell Starhawk realises that the war she/he had fought so hard to forestall is beginningâ€¦

The last two tales in this collection (illustrated by Wes Craig) yield focus to Drax and Phyla-Vell, beginning with ‘Welcome to Oblivion’ wherein the recently murdered duo awake in a deathlike dimension to be challenged by a number of deceased heroes and villains such as her father Mar-Vell and murderous maniac Maelstrom. The Avatar of Oblivion has been slowing leading the seekers to this pocket purgatory with psychic breadcrumbs of Moondragon’s essence in a scheme to escape back to the lands of the livingâ€¦

The resurrection shuffle spectacularly concludes in ‘Sacrifice’ as ghostly champion Wendell Vaughn – the first Quasar – boldly appears to aid Drax and Phyla’s rescue of Moondragon before sending them all back to the world of breath and light.

However plots within plots are constantly unfolding and in truth a new Avatar of Death has manifested, allowing the cosmic entity known as Oblivion to anticipate a forthcoming â€œEnd Warâ€â€¦

This stunning stellar treasure-chest also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Clint Langley, Jim Valentino, Brandon Peterson, David Yardin and Paul Renavo to complete a sharp, breathtaking adventure with loads of laughs and tremendous imagination.

On its own terms this is superb stuff well worth seeking out, but Fights ‘n’ Tights completists might be wise to remember this is only the tip of a cataclysmic cosmic iceberg and the full picture spans at least six other volumesâ€¦
Â© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 15, 2014August 16, 2014

Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Guardians of the Galaxy

By Arnold Drake, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Bill Mantlo, Jim Valentino, Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Gene Colan, Mike Mignola, Timothy Green, Paul Pelletier & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-601-4

With another Marvel filmic franchise kicking off around the world, here’s a timely tie-in trade paperback collection designed to perfectly augment the cinematic exposure and cater to movie fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience.

Part of the always rewarding Marvel Platinum/Definitive Edition series, this treasury of tales reprints intriguing landmarks and key moments from Marvel Super Heroes #18, Marvel Preview #11, Rocket Raccoon #1-4, Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1, #1, Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord #1-4 and Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1, spanning January 1969-July 2008, and hopefully answering any questions the silver screen story might throw up whilst providing an immense amount of spectacularly bombastic fighting fun.

One thing to recall at all times though is that there are two distinct and separate iterations of the team. The film concentrates on the second but there are inescapable connections between them so pay attention hereâ€¦

Moreover, in addition to the sparkling Brady Webb Foreword, this compendium contains text features detailing the secret history and statistics of Drax, Gamora, Groot, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord, plus Mike Conroy’s scholarly trawl through comicbook history in ‘The True Origin of the Guardians of the Galaxy’.

Although heralded since its genesis in the early 1960s with making superheroes more realistic, The House of Ideas has also always maintained its close connection with outlandish and outrageous cosmic calamity (as best exemplified in their pre-superhero â€œmonster-magâ€ days), and their pantheon of much-travelled space stalwarts maintain that delightful â€œAnything Goesâ€ attitude in all of their many and varied iterations.

This titanic tome’s blistering battle-fest begins with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Earth Shall Overcome!’ first seen in combination new-concept try-out/Golden Age reprint vehicle Marvel Super Heroes #18 (cover-dated January 1969). The terse, gritty episode introduced a disparate band of freedom fighters battling to save Earth from occupation and humanity from extinction at the scaly hands of the sinister, reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon.

It all starts when Jovian militia-man Charlie-27 returns home from a six month tour of scout duty to find his entire colony subjugated by invading aliens. Fighting free, he jumps into a randomly programmed teleporter and emerges on Pluto, just in time to scotch the escape of crystaline scientist Martinex.

Both are examples of human genetic engineering: subspecies designed to populate and colonise Sol system’s outer planets but now potentially the last of their kinds. After helping the mineral man complete his mission of sabotage – blowing up potentially useful material before the Badoon can get their hands on it – the odd couple set the teleporter for Earth and jump…

Unfortunately the invaders have already taken the homeworld.

The Supreme Badoon Elite are there, busily mocking the oldest Earthman alive. Major Vance Astro had been the world’s first intersolar astronaut; solo flying in cold sleep to Alpha Centauri at a fraction of the speed of light.

When he got there 1000 years later, humanity was waiting for him, having cracked trans-luminal speeds a mere two centuries after he took off. Now he and Centauri aborigine Yondu were a comedy exhibit for the cruel reptilian conquerors who were eradicating both of their racesâ€¦

The smug invaders were utterly overwhelmed when Astro broke free, utilising the psionic powers he had developed in hibernation before Yondu slaughtered them with the sound-controlled energy arrows he carried.

In their pell-mell flight the pair stumbled across the incoming Martinex and Charlie-27 and a new legend of valiant resistance was bornâ€¦

The eccentric team, as originally envisioned by Arnold Drake, Gene Colan & Mike Esposito in 1968, were presented to an audience undergoing immense social change, with dissent in the air, riot in the streets and with the Vietnam War on their TV screens every night.

Perhaps the jingoistic militaristic overtones were off-putting or maybe the times were against the Guardians since costumed hero titles were entering a temporary downturn, but whatever the reason the feature was a rare â€œMissâ€ for Marvel and the futuristic freedom fighters were not seen again for years.

They floated in limbo until 1974 when Steve Gerber incorporated them into some of his assigned titles (Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders), wherein assorted 20^th century champions travelled a millennium into the future to ensure humanity’s survival. Rejuvenated by exposure the squad rededicated themselves to liberating star-scattered Mankind, and eventually gained a short-lived series in Marvel Presents (#3-12, February 1976-August 1977, but not represented here) before cancellation left them roaming the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars in such cosmically-tinged titles as Thor, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One and most significantly The Avengers.

In June 1990 they secured a relatively successful relaunch (#62 issues + annuals and spin-off miniseries) before cancellation again claimed them in July 1995.

However before we get there this volume highlights two seemingly unrelated characters who made their debuts elsewhere in the 20^th century Marvel Universe.

Starlord (without the hyphen) premiered in black-&-white mature-reader magazine Marvel Preview # 4 in 1976, appearing thrice more – in #11, 14 and 15 – during the height of the Star Wars inspired Science Fiction explosion.

Years previously a warrior prince of an interstellar empire was shot down over Colorado and had a brief fling with solitary Earther Meredith Quill. Despite his desire to remain in idyllic isolation, duty called the starman back to the battle and he left, leaving behind an unborn son and a unique weaponâ€¦

A decade later, the troubled boy saw his mother assassinated by alien lizard men. Peter Jason Quill vengefully slew the creatures with Meredith’s shotgun, before his home was explosively destroyed by a flying saucer.

The orphan awoke in hospital, his only possession a â€œtoyâ€ ray-gun his mother had hidden from him his entire life. Years later his destiny found him, as the half-breed scion was elevated by the divinity dubbed the â€œMaster of the Sunâ€, becoming StarLord. Rejecting both Earth and his missing father Peter chose freedom, the pursuit of justice and the expanse of the cosmos.

In his second outing (Marvel Preview #11, Summer 1977) Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin crafted a classic space opera which saw the deity-appointed galactic policeman scupper a slaving ring and follow a string of clues back to his own incredible origins.

Presented here in the original monochrome, that tale opens on decimated agrarian planet ‘WindhÃ¶lme’ where fisherman’s son Kip sees his entire community abducted like cattle by alien criminals. Aboard their vessel he is befriended by feisty fellow abductee Sandy but before they can enact their childish dreams of revenge the slaver dreadnought is attacked by Starlord and his sentient super vehicle â€œShipâ€â€¦

The traffickers are no match for the aggrieved heroes and, after the victims have been repatriated, psychic interrogation leads Kip, Sandy and the stellar paladin up the criminal chain to flesh-peddler and imperial favourite Kyras Shakti on his debauched pleasure world ‘Cinnibar’.

The monolithic battle there reveals even greater Royal involvement, drawing Starlord to ‘Sparta’, and a shocking family connection before ‘The Hollow Crown’ sees Quill uncover his true origins when he is unexpectedly reunited with his alien father. Despite renewed emotional ties the hero forswears a life of impossible luxury for the heavens, duty and justiceâ€¦

Rocket Raccoon was a minor character who appeared in backup serial ‘The Sword in the Star’ (Marvel Preview #7 in 1976). He won a larger role in Incredible Hulk #271 (May 1982), and like Wolverine years before refused to go away quietly.

Reprinted here in its entirety is the 4-issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries (cover-dated May to August 1985 and crafted by Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, Al Gordon & Al Milgrom), a bizarre and baroque sci-fi fantasy which blended the charm of Pogo with the biting social satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all whilst ostensibly describing a battle between Good and Evil in a sector of space crazy even by comicbook standards.

Rocket was one of many talking animals in the impenetrable, inescapable Keystone Quadrant; a Ranger in charge of keeping the peace as robots and anamorphic beasties went about their holy tasks of caring for the distinctly odd and carefree humans known as The Loonies on their idyllic, sybaritic planet Halfworld.

However when a brutal shooting war between voracious apex toymakers Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne led to Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla Otter being kidnapped, the planet went wild, or perhapsâ€¦ ‘Animal Crackers’.

In rescuing her, Rocket and his faithful deputy Wal Rus had to contend with a murderous army of mechanised Killer Clowns, face an horrific, all-consuming bio-weapon at ‘The Masque of the Red Breath’, and even team up with arch-foe and disreputable mercenary bunny Blackjack O’Hare before uncovering the horrendous truth behind the mad society he so tirelessly defended in ‘The Book of Revelations!’

The final chapter then shook everything up as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’ saw the end of The Loonies, allowing the Raccoon and his surviving companions to escape the confines of the eternally segregated Keystone Quadrant into the greater universe beyondâ€¦

Back on Earth, a speculator-fuelled boom in comics sales led to Marvel launching a bunch of new titles in the early 1990s. Amongst them was Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1, #1, once again focusing on the 31^st century centurions.

Conceived, written and drawn by Jim Valentino – with Steve Montano inking – the debut issue reprinted here reprised the entire eccentric combined careers of Vance, Yondu, Charlie and Martinex (plus later recruits Mercurian Nikki and Starhawk – an alien god who shared a single body with his estranged wife Aleta) as the team set off on a quest.

They were following a string of ancient clues to recover Captain America‘s legendary shield, only to fall foul of cyborg-enhanced warrior ‘Taserface!’

For the rest of that epic journey and their battle against the alien Stark race who had based their entire warrior culture on Iron Man‘s armour, you’ll need to track down one of the many other GotG collections flooding out nowâ€¦

In 2006 a massive crossover involved most of Marvel’s 21^st century space specialists in a spectacular Annihilation Event, leading writing team Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning to confiscate and reconfigure the Guardians concept for modern times and tastes.

Among the stalwarts in the big event were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord (and other previous heralds of the world-eater), Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile, Gamora (â€œDeadliest Woman in the Galaxyâ€), Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax (the Destroyer), a Watcher and many previously established alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar et al., all falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by insectoid horror Annihilus..

After that shooting match subsided the decimated sectors and empires were left helpless as sentient, aggressive all-subsuming technological parasite The Phalanx struck, absorbing and thriving inside all the machines and electronic engines the shaken civilisations were using to rebuild in a follow-up apocalypse designated Annihilation: Conquest.

From that second sidereal saga came the beginnings of the Guardians the world has gone crazy over – specifically the side-bar miniseries Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord #1-4 from September-December 2007 and which is reprinted here in full.

What You’ll Need to Know: in the scarred and war-torn realm of known space, still reeling from the chaos of the Annihilation Wave and its aftermath, both the Kree and Skrull empires are splintered, Xandar‘s Nova Corps (the universal police force) has been reduced to a single agent, ancient gods are loose and a sizable number of the Negative Zone invaders have tenuously established themselves in territories stolen from the billions of dead sentients that once populated the cosmos.

The Supreme Intelligence is gone and arch-villain Ronan has become a surprisingly effective ruler of the Kree remnants. Cosmic Protector Quasar is dead and Phyla-Vell, daughter of the first Captain Marvel has inherited both his powers and nameâ€¦

Whilst Phyla and psychic demi-goddess Moondragon were working with the pacifist Priests of Pama to relieve the suffering of starving survivors, Peter Quill (no longer Star-Lord) was working with Ronan and the pitiful Kree remnants on Hala to shore up the battered communal interstellar defences of the myriad races in the sector.

Quill had brokered an alliance with the Spaceknights of Galador (an old noble cyborg species most famously represented by 1980s hero Rom) which should enhance the all-pervasive etheric war-net, but once uploaded the data instantly causes disastrous problems throughout the system.

In seconds all technology in the region is compromised: overruled and overwritten by a ruthlessly efficient electronic sentience whose cybernetic credo is â€œpeace and order through assimilationâ€. Once more organic life is facing total extinctionâ€¦

On Pama, Phyla and Moondragon are targeted by repurposed Kree automatons as the Phalanx attempt to destroy any credible resistance before cutting off the entire quadrant from the rest of the universe.

If life was to survive this threat it must besaved by the champions trapped insideâ€¦

The 4-part miniseries Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord – written by Keith Giffen and illustrated by Timothy Green II, Victor Olazaba & Nathan Fairbairn, finds the former Cosmic Avenger stripped of his powers and hi-tech enhancements – all liabilities when facing a predator species that infests electronic devices – and forcibly seconded to a Kree resistance division.

Here he is tasked with turning a bunch of Kree convicts into a Penal Strike Force (a highly engaging intergalactic Dirty Half-Dozen) to take out the complex where the Phalanx are perfecting an efficient way to assimilate organics into their electro-mechanistic hive-mind.

The Kree were once the major bad-guy race in the Marvel mainstream, so whoever they consider criminals look surprising like failed heroes to us. Firstly there’s Galactic Warrior Bug (originally from 1970’s phenomenon Micronauts), the current Captain Universe (ditto), the Shi’ar berserker Deathcry, failed Celestial Madonna Mantis, the so-very-far-from-home Rocket Raccoon and gloriously whacky â€œKirby Kritterâ€ Groot: a Walking Tree and one-time â€œMonarch of Planet X.â€

With this reluctant team in tow and using natural abilities and decidedly primitive Earth weapons the squad invades Hala – central beachhead of the Phalanx – to discover and destroy the augmented assimilation project, but they have drastically underestimated the remorselessly callous creativity of the electronic invadersâ€¦

Happily the Phalanx have no grasp of the ingenuity, bloody-minded determination and willingness to die stupidly for a cause that afflicts organics and heroesâ€¦

Sharp, witty and engaging, this is a magnificent romp full of humour, shocks and thrills no comic fan could possibly resistâ€¦

The roaring success of all that intergalactic derring-do led to a new rootin’, tootin’, blaster-shootin’ conclave of outer space reprobates who formed a new 21^st century iteration and this titanic tome concludes its comics cavalcade with Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2, #1, (July 2008) wherein some of those recently acquainted adventurers get back into the business of saving the universeâ€¦

‘Somebody’s Got To Do It’ – by Abnett, Lanning, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar – reveals how, due to fellow Earthling Nova’s prompting, Star-Lord forms a pro-active defence force to handle the next inevitable cosmic crisis as soon as – if not before – it starts.

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

The station is guarded and run by Cosmo – an elderly Soviet dog with astounding telepathic abilities – and is where Mantis now works as chief medic. It also offers unlimited teleportational transport which the team soon needs as it tries to prevent an out-of-control Universal Church of Truth Templeship from crashing into a time/space distortion and shredding the fabric of realityâ€¦

Soon the surly scratch squad are battling savage, crazed missionary-zealots empowered by the worship of enslaved adherents channelled through the Templeship’s colossal Faith Generators whilst desperately attempting to divert the vessel before it impacts the fissure in space.

Such a collision would cause catastrophic destruction to the galaxy but the UCT crusaders only see heretics trying to interfere with their mission to convert unbelieversâ€¦

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 destroy the Templeshipâ€¦

In the aftermath, Warlock reveals that the non-stop string of cosmic Armageddons since Annihilus’ invasion has fundamentally damaged the substance of space and inevitably more fissures will 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 unbelieversâ€¦

With covers by Colan & Esposito, Ken Barr, Mignola & Gordon, Valentino, Nic Klein, and Clint Langley, this spectacular slice of riotous star-roving is a non-stop feast of tense suspense, surreal fun and blockbuster action: another well-tailored, on-target tool to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm even the most jaded slice ‘n’ dice fanatic.

<br />

August 9, 2014

Marvel Masterworks volume 16: Amazing-Spider-Man 31-40 & Annual 2

By Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr. & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-730-5

After a shaky start The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Fantastic Four. Before too long the quirky, charming, action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes impatiently elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old thirty-something mystery-men of previous publications and hallowed tradition.

The rise and rise of the wondrous Web-spinner continued and even increased pace as the Swinging Sixties unfolded and, by the time of the tales in this third sumptuous hardcover (re-presenting Amazing Spider-Man #31-40 and including Annual 2, originally released between December 1965 and September 1966), Peter Parker and friends were on the way to being household names as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

Sadly by 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator.

In the coincidental meantime John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Before long he was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

In this momentous compilation of (mostly) chronological Arachnoid adventures, the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero successfully challenged the dominant Fantastic Four as Marvel’s top comicbook both in sales and quality.

Ditko’s off-beat plots and quirkily bizarre art had reached an accommodation with the slick and potent superhero house-style that Jack Kirby had developed (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could), with a marked reduction of signature line-feathering and moody backgrounds plus a lessening of concentration on totemic villains.

Although still very much a Ditko baby, The Amazing Spider-Man had attained a sleek pictorial gloss whilst Lee’s scripts were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator. Although Lee’s assessment of the audience was probably the correct one, disagreements with the artist over the strip’s editorial direction were still confined to the office and not the pages themselves.

However an indication of the growing tensions could be seen once Ditko began being credited as plotter of the storiesâ€¦

After a period where old-fashioned crime and gangsterism predominated, science fiction themes and costumes crazies started to return full force here as the world went gaga for superheroes and the creators experimented with longer storylines and protracted subplotsâ€¦

When Ditko abruptly left, the company feared a drastic loss in quality and sales but it didn’t happen. John Romita (senior) considered himself a mere â€œsafe pair of handsâ€ keeping the momentum going until a better artist could be found but instead blossomed into a major talent in his own right, and the Wallcrawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated paceâ€¦

Change was in the air everywhere. Included amongst the milestones for the ever-anxious Peter Parker collected here are graduating High School, starting college, meeting true love Gwen Stacy and tragic friend/enemy Harry Osborn and the introduction of arch nemesis Norman Osborn. Old friends Flash Thompson and Betty Brant subsequently begin to drift out of his lifeâ€¦

The fabulous four-colour fantasy opens – following the standard Stan Lee Introduction – with Â ‘If This Be My Destinyâ€¦!’ from issue #31 which depicted a spate of high-tech robberies by the Master Planner and a spectacular confrontation with Spider-Man. Also on show was the aforementioned college debut, first sight of Harry and Gwen and Aunt May on the edge of death.

This led to indisputably Ditko’s finest and most iconic moments on the series – and perhaps of his entire career. ‘Man on a Rampage!’ showed Parker pushed to the very edge of desperation as the Planner’s men made off with the chemicals that might save Aunt May, resulting in an utterly driven, berserk Wallcrawler ripping the town apart trying to find them.

Trapped in an underwater fortress, pinned under tons of machinery, the hero faced his greatest failure as the clock ticked down the seconds of May’s lifeâ€¦

This in turn produced the most memorable visual sequence in Spidey history as the opening of ‘The Final Chapter!’ took five full, glorious pages to depict the ultimate triumph of will over circumstance. Freeing himself from tons of fallen debris Spider-Man gave his absolute all delivering the medicine May needed, to be rewarded with a rare happy endingâ€¦

Russian exile Kraven the Hunter returned in ‘The Thrill of the Hunt!’ seeking vengeance by impersonating the Web-spinner whilst #35 offered ‘The Molten Man Regretsâ€¦!’: a plot-light but inimitably action-packed combat classic as the gleaming bandit foolishly resumed his career of pinching other peoples jewelsâ€¦

Amazing Spider-Man #36 featured a deliciously off-beat, almost comedic turn in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’ as deranged scientist Norton G. Fester began stealing museum exhibits whilst calling himself the Looterâ€¦

In retrospect these brief, fight-oriented tales, coming after such an intricate, passionate epic as the Master Planner saga, should have been seen as some sort of clue that things were not going well, but the fans had no idea that ‘Once Upon a Time, There was a Robotâ€¦!’ which featured a beleaguered Norman Osborn being targeted by his disgraced ex-partner and some eccentrically bizarre murder machines in #37 and the tragic comedy of ‘Just a Guy Named Joe!‘ – wherein a hapless sad-sack stumblebum boxer gains super-strength and a bad-temper – were to be Ditko’s last arachnid adventures.

When Amazing Spider-Man #39 appeared with the first of a two-part adventure that featured the ultimate victory of the Wall-Crawler’s greatest foe no reader knew what had happened â€“ and no one told themâ€¦

‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and ‘Spidey Saves the Day! (â€œFeaturing the End of the Green Goblin!â€)’ calamitously changed everything whilst describing how the arch-foes learned each other’s true identities before the Goblin â€œperishedâ€ in a climactic showdown. It would have been memorable even it the tale didn’t feature the debut of a new artist & a whole new manner of story-tellingâ€¦

Issues #39 and 40 (August – September 1966) were a turning point in many ways, and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) they still stand as another of the greatest Spider-Man yarns of all time, heralding a run of classic tales from the Lee/Romita team that saw sales rise and rise, even without the seemingly irreplaceable Ditko.

Earlier in 1965 however the artist was blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential superhero. ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’ was the lead story in the second Spider-Man Annual (October of that year and filled out with vintage Spidey classics).

The entrancing fable unforgettably introduced the Webslinger to arcane other realities as he teamed up with the Master of the Mystic Arts to battle power-crazed wizard Xandu in a phantasmagorical, dimension-hopping masterpiece involving ensorcelled zombie thugs and the stolen Wand of Watoomb.

After this story it was clear that Spider-Man could work in any milieu and nothing could hold him backâ€¦

Also included from that immensely impressive landmark are more Ditko pin-ups in ‘A Gallery of Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes’ – exposing such nefarious ne’er-do-wells as The Scorpion, Circus of Crime and the Beetle, making this astounding tome one of the most impressive Spider-Man books you could ever read, even if later editions have slightly altered contents. If you want to experience the quintessential magic of the Amazing Arachnid this book has to be your first stopâ€¦
Â© 1965, 1966, 1996 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 6, 2014August 5, 2014

Ultimate Annuals volume 1

By Mark Millar, Brian K. Vaughn, Brian Michael Bendis, Jae Lee, Tom Raney, Mark Brooks, Jaime Mendoza Steve Dillon,& various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2035-3

After Marvel’s financial problems and creative impasse in the late 1990s, the company took stock, braced itself and came back swinging. A critical new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture.

The Ultimate imprint abandoned monumental long-grown continuity – which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset – to re-imagine major characters in their own self-sufficient universe, offering varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to the contemporary 21st century audience and offer them a chance to get in on the ground floor.

Creepy vigilante Spider-Man Parker was not-so-secretly a high-school geek, brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors whilst mutants were a dangerous, oppressed ethnic minority scaring the pants off the ordinary Americans they frequently hid amongst.

The Fantastic Four were two science nerds and their dim pals transformed into monsters, and global peacekeeping force S.H.I.E.L.D. kept them all under control with their own metahuman taskforce humbly designated The Ultimatesâ€¦

The revived series all sported fresh and fashionable, modernistic, scientifically feasible rationales for all those insane super-abilities and freaks manifesting everywhereâ€¦

The experiment began in 2000 with a post-modern take on Ultimate Spider-Man. Ultimate X-Men followed in 2001, and the Mighty Avengers were reworked into The Ultimates in 2002 with Ultimate Fantastic Four joining the party in 2004.

The stories, design and even tone of the heroes were retooled for the perceived-as-different tastes of a new readership: those tired of or unwilling to stick with precepts originated by inspirational founding fathers Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, or (hopefully) new consumers unprepared or unwilling to deal with five decades (seven if you include Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of interconnected story baggage.

The new universe quickly prospered and soon filled up with more refashioned, morally ambiguous heroes and villains but eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor.

Eventually, in 2008, an imprint-wide decluttering exercise â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of superhumans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

Long before that, however, Marvel’s original keystone concepts were awarded their own celebratory summer specials and this stellar volume collects Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual#1, Ultimate X-Men Annual#1, Ultimate Spider-Man Annual#1 and The Ultimates Annual#1 (all from October 2005): a selection of relatively stand-alone sagas displaying the daringly different tone of the alternate yet chillingly familiar world.

The compilation kicks off with ‘Enter the Inhumans’ by Marl Millar, Jae Lee and colourist June Chung from Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual#1 wherein dim but pretty party boy Johnny Storm gets involved with a runaway princess bride.

The ethereally beautiful girl is named Crystal and she is fleeing from an arranged marriage to her creepy, crazy cousin Maximus. The match was decreed by her sister Medusa and King Black Bolt, rulers of a hidden race of super-powered parahumans who have concealed their existence from humanity for ten thousand years.

Even after the Human Torch almost dies defending her, Crystal is successfully abducted, compelling Reed, Sue, Ben and recuperating Johnny to go after her into the heart of hidden city Attilan, thanks to the teleporting talents of the princess’ faithful giant bulldog Lockjawâ€¦

The subsequent confrontation with the lethally powerful Inhuman Royal Family leads to an inconclusive resolution but a shattering end to the lost cityâ€¦

Romance plays a part in the next tale too. ‘Ultimate Sacrifice’ by Brian K. Vaughn, Tom Raney, Scott Hanna & Gina Going (Ultimate X-Men Annual#1) finds Nick Fury warning Charles Xavier that the unstoppable Juggernaut has escaped and is hunting the mutant girl he holds responsible for all his recent woesâ€¦

Unfortunately for everyone, Rogue has absconded to Las Vegas in the company of sexy bad-boy thief Gambit, where the rampaging monster maniac finally corners the duplicitous duo. Tragically Juggernaut completely underestimates his former squeeze’s lethal powers and the self-sacrificing ingenuity of the besotted Cajunâ€¦

The most significant change to Stan, Jack and Steve’s breakthrough concepts was a rather telling one: all the heroes were conceived as being far, far younger than their mainstream antecedents. This even affected the sensational Spider-Man tales wherein – after decades of comicbook stardom – the perennially youthful Peter Parker was at last portrayed as a proper High School kid rather than a stodgy 40-year old geek trapped in a teen’s bodyâ€¦

In ‘More than you Bargained For’ by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Brooks, Jaime Mendoza, Scott Hanna & Dave Stewart – from Ultimate Spider-Man Annual#1 – the guilt-driven lad’s constant round of villain thrashing is derailed when cute but shy mutant Kitty Pryde makes the first tentative moves in her painfully adorable bid to make the mysterious hero her boyfriendâ€¦

That sweet, silly and utterly charming yarn is followed by a far darker and cunningly convoluted tale focusing on S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo Nick Fury and his long-term plan to mass produce an army of metahumans in ‘The Reserves’ by Millar, Steve Dillon & Paul Mounts.

Rather than highlighting stars like Iron Man and Captain America, the story follows the far from smooth development of a legion of Rocketmen, Goliaths, weather based warriors â€œThe Four Seasonsâ€ and the short, tragic career of heroic hopeful super-soldier Lieberman. Of course the one-eyed master strategist has no time for regrets as he’s busy trying to avoid becoming the latest successful contract of infallible hitman Mister Nixâ€¦

Rocket-paced, razor sharp and blisteringly action-packed, this riotous romp is also liberally dosed with teen-oriented humour for the era of the acceptable nerd and go-getting geek, offering a smart and beguiling entrÃ©e into of Marvel’s other Universe that will impress open-minded old fans of the medium just as much as the newcomers they were ostensibly aiming for.
Â© 2005, 2006 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

August 1, 2014

Wolverine: Mortal

By Paul Cornell, Ryan Stegman, Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer & Karl Kesel (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-606-9

James Howlett, AKA Logan, AKA Wolverine has faced a multitude of impossible situations in his long and danger-filled life but possibly the most groundbreaking shake-up only came at the conclusion of Wolverine: Killable which saw the mayhem-making mutant Methuselah coming to terms with the fact that his healing factor – and therefore his virtual immortality – were gone, courtesy of a sentient virus from an incredible alien â€œmicroverseâ€.

Now he could no longer properly defend himself and, most importantly, his loved ones and innocent civilians from the likes of monsters such as Mystique or Sabretooth.

To emphasise that point his most pernicious foe Victor Creed – tenacious, savage, still possessing the powers and skills Howlett once boasted and current leader of a deviant sect of ninja cult The Hand – orchestrated a murderous snipe-hunt which killed dozens of helpless humans at a shopping mall whilst leaving the helpless Canadian Crusader physically crushed, emotionally humiliated and spiritually brokenâ€¦

Written by Paul Cornell, the first seven issues of Wolverine volume 6 (spanning February to May 2014) offer a brand new look and fresh modus operandi for the down but never out outlaw heroâ€¦

The action begins with the 4-part‘Rogue Logan’ (illustrated by Ryan Stegman & Mark Morales, with David Baldeon, John Livesay & Scott Hanna) which finds Logan in high-tech armour running with a new – bad – crowd.

Supported by a band of young super-powered criminals – Lost Boy, Fuel, Reflex and Pinch – Logan appears to have lost his way; joining the gang of up-and-coming underworld boss The Offerâ€¦

The feral fury seems blithely unaware that his new boss is in negotiation with and opposition to Creed/Sabretoothâ€¦

He also appears to have gone completely off the rails. When The Offer uncovers a S.H.I.E.L.D. mole in his base, it is Wolverine who eagerly shoots the agent in the headâ€¦

Flashing back to weeks earlier when all Logan’s comrades were failing to help him come to terms with his losses and failures, ‘Bad Advice’ reveals how a tense confrontation with the Superior Spider-Man changed his perspectiveâ€¦

The Wallcrawler (at that time Doctor Octopus inhabiting Peter Parker‘s body) and a near-death experience when Logan joined old sidekick Jubilee and the X-Men in a battle against killer mechanoids led the powerless old warrior to a serious reappraisal and the adoption of a mechanised ablation-armour outfit devised by a brilliant master of robotics. It also resulted in Wolverine quitting the X-Men and the Jean Grey School of Higher Learningâ€¦

The truth comes out in the third chapter. S.H.I.E.L.D. has learned that Sabretooth is seeking a weapon of cosmic importance and understandably wants him stopped. Their Byzantine plan involves Logan going deep undercover with a potential rival to the Hand’s new Lord and even fighting old allies like Thorâ€¦

Fully immersed in his role and unwisely starting an affair with new comrade Pinch, Logan is fully in ‘His Own Skin’ (illustrated by Gerardo Sandoval) when the mission proper begins. This involves invading The Hand’s home base on the pirate island of Madripoor, where the Canadian Canucklehead revives his old identity of debonair rogue Patch – much to the astonished hilarity of his youthful posseâ€¦

The scheme to stop Sabretooth is a multinational deal and when Patch makes contact with already-in-place assets Faiza Hussain and Peter Wisdom of Britain’s paranormal spy agency MI-13 (outrageously aided and abetted by the Carry-On Team‘s Charles Hawtrey as technical adviser â€œOâ€!) Pinch realises with horror that her new man is a plant. Quite understandably she throws a major wobblyâ€¦

Forced to act precipitately, Logan goes after Sabretooth in ‘The Madripoor Job’ and is just in time to see him acquire the mysterious ultimate weapon and promptly lose it again to one of the thieving mutated monkeys infesting the island.

Giving chase Wolverine reunites with his extremely disappointed gang as the glowing orb defends itself by manifesting an army of Wolverines from different realitiesâ€¦

During the subsequent melee Sabretooth catches up and by the time our hero battles free of his doppelgangers the heartbroken and furious Pinch is in possession of the artefact. As Wolverine pleads with her to hand over the potentially planet-shattering globe, Creed makes her a counter-offer: give him the device and he’ll tell his Hand ninjas not to kill the baby daughter she had kept safely apart from her deadly lifestyleâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Tense suspense, non-stop visceral action, compelling mystery and superbly surreal comedy moments carry this gripping yarn from high-octane start to fraught finish and this splendidly devious â€œMan from M.U.TA.N.T.â€ espionage extravaganza also includes a beautiful gallery of covers-&-variants by Stegman & Edgar Delgado, Kristafer Anka, Katie Cook, Frank Kozik, Jerome OpeÃ±a and Greg Horn.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

July 30, 2014August 16, 2014

Origin II

By Kieron Gillen, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-590-1

After years of mystery and imagination, in 2001 the perennially punching-above-his-weight feral fury Wolverine was finally accorded a definitive back-story in the miniseries Origin: the True Story of Wolverine.

The Canadian Wildman had captivated audiences from his earliest appearances in the X-Men comics, and did it all over again for a far larger audience in his movie incarnation, but the story when it came did not please or satisfy everyone.

Now writerKieron Gillen, artist Adam Kubert and colourist Frank Martin have collaborated on in-filling the next chapter and their 5-part miniseries Origin II (February to July 2014) makes an extremely appetising if perhaps controversial titbit to add to the canonical menuâ€¦

In Canada at the turn of the 19^th century, 12 year old Rose was hired as the companion of sickly child James Howlett, on the palatial estate of his wealthy grandfather. Among the servants she befriended an all but feral child called Logan, abused son of the estate groundskeeper and general handyman.

Tragedy occurred one night as a murder-suicide shattered the uneasy stability of the gothic estate forever, forcing Rose and the Wolverine-to-be to flee for their lives. For years they lived life on the run, eventually settling in a quarrying camp where the harsh conditions and physical toil rapidly matured the sickly mutant.

However even here the repercussions of the Howlett Estate tragedy inevitably found them leading to a final, appalling confrontation in which a hasty unplanned unsheathing of bone claws cost Rose her lifeâ€¦

A few years later: It’s 1907 in the icy wilds of Canada. A man more beast than human runs with the wolves, fully accepted by the pack as one of them. Their harsh but happy life is destroyed however when a colossal white bear enters the territory. The creature doesn’t know how to eat like other bears and inexorably tracks the pack to its den before destroying the cubs.

The Wolfish Man’s peace of mind is shattered and after almost dying in killing the beast an even greater tragedy begins. The loss of his family has forced the not-wolf to start thinking againâ€¦

The Polar Bear was no unhappy wanderer, but introduced by men into the unfamiliar wilderness. Now showman Hugo Haversham, the trapper Creed and his disfigured woman Clara are scouring the icy wastes for other potentially profitable attractions. Creed and Clara share some strange secret; and react badly when their erstwhile employer – creepy English scientist Dr. Nathaniel Essex – turns up in the frozen frontier town.

He clearly knows something of her amazing affinity with animals and Creed’s uncanny healing abilities and is very angry that the entrepreneur has appropriated the butchered bear carcass for his circus showâ€¦

Haversham knows a dangerous rival when he sees one, too, and takes the first opportunity to leave when Creed announces they are heading out.

The scientist continues his own endeavours, using his paramilitary â€œMaraudersâ€ to disseminate a poison gas of his own devising in the deep woods, intent on finding what killed his white bearâ€¦

The tactic proves disastrous as the fumes drive a bizarre clawed aborigine to attack and butcher the gas-masked Marauders. Moreover the attacker seems utterly immune to the deadly vapoursâ€¦

Essex’s remaining men pursue, driving the furious wild man straight into Creed’s traps. Although the snares don’t stand up to his claws, the human beast is helpless against Clara’s uncanny calming influence. To cruel Creed’s mounting fury the connection seems to be mutualâ€¦

Soon, suitably caged, the Clawed Man of the Woods is the star attraction of Hugo the Great’s Travelling Circus. Regularly tortured and baited by Creed and fawned upon by Clara, the no-longer mute beast-man has only one thought in his head: the sight of another beloved blond girl dying on his clawsâ€¦

Essex is still in the picture too: following the show and trying to buy the feral exhibit for his ongoing experiments. When his frustrated patience finally expires so does Hugo – thanks to Essex’s gas – leaving the rapid-healing Clawed Man to undying agonies on the sinister scientist’s vivisection tablesâ€¦

When all hope seems lost, Clara, having convinced Creed to help, breaks her new pet out and the trio flee into the night. Thanks to the torture – or perhaps Clara’s devotion – the poor, benighted creature who now calls himself Logan has begun to speak againâ€¦

A month later the fugitives are starving in New York City and Creed has had enough. He is not there when Essex’s men try to capture Clara’s wild lover and does not see history tragically, bloodily repeat itselfâ€¦

He does however join the heartbroken, traumatised Logan in going after Essex, whilst happily concealing the true nature and extent of Clara’s powersâ€¦

The man who will be Mr. Sinister is unrepentant and working on his next project: an impossibly tempting solution that can lobotomise the imbiber and eradicate all painful memoriesâ€¦

The saga ends in more horrific score-settling before Logan escapes into the night and into history, but this tales still has a couple of shocking twists to revealâ€¦

Brutal, visceral and compulsive; cleverly laying as much intriguing groundwork for future stories as answering long-asked questions, Origin II is a superior yarn that will delight true aficionados of the complex Canadian crusader and this engaging tome also includes an impressive covers-&-variants gallery by Kubert & Martin, Salvador Larroca & David Ocampo, Steve Leiber, Salva Espin & Pete Pantazis and Skottie Young.

<br />

July 29, 2014August 16, 2014

Marvel Platinum: the Definitive X-Men

By Stan Lee, Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Grant Morrison, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Brent Eric Anderson, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Frank Quitely & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-599-4

Here’s another addition to the sterling Marvel Platinum/Definitive Edition series: a long-awaited treasury of tales reprinting certified landmarks from Uncanny X-Men #1, 141-142 and 281, Giant Size X-Men #1, Marvel Graphic Novel #5, X-Men volume 2, #1 and New X-Men #114-116 thereby providing a prodigious primer containing an immense amount of marvellously mythological mutagenic madness and Fights ‘n’ Tights fun.

Moreover, this mammoth tome offers a cover gallery by Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky, Gil Kane & Cockrum, John Byrne & Terry Austin, Brent Anderson, Whilce Portacio & Art Thibert, Jim Lee & Scott Williams and Frank Quitely, an informative Foreword from editor Brady Webb, a vast text feature detailing the complex and convoluted history of the veritable army of heroes to have worn and Mike Conroy’s scholarly trawl through comicbook mythology in ‘The True Origin of the X-Men.

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott â€œSlimâ€ Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III codenamed Angel, and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

These teens were very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

Scripted by Stan Lee ‘X-Men’ opens with the boisterous students welcoming their newest classmateâ€¦ Jean Grey (promptly dubbed Marvel Girl) – a beautiful young woman possessing the ability to move objects with her mind.

Whilst the Professor is explaining the team goals and mission in life an actual Evil Mutant, Magneto, is single-handedly taking over American missile-base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unassailable threat, the master of magnetism is nonetheless valiantly driven off by the young heroes on their first outing in under 15 minutesâ€¦

It doesn’t sound like much, but the gritty, dynamic power of Kirby’s art, solidly inked by veteran Paul Reinman, imparted a raw aggressive energy to the tale which carried the bi-monthly book irresistibly forward.

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

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

Their title was cancelled then revived at the end of the year as a modest reprint vehicle: the missing mutants reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe. The Beast was made over into a monster to fit the fashion of the times.

Then in the summer of 1975, at the behest of Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum revived and refashioned the mutant mystique with a brand new team in Giant Size X-Men #1.

The big, big blockbuster details how the original team was lost in action, forcing the distraught Professor X to scour Earth for replacementsâ€¦

Recruiting already-established old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire – plus recent Hulk foe and Canadian secret agent Wolverine – most of Xavier’s time and attention was invested in unexploited and hidden new mutants scattered around the globe.

One such was Kurt Wagner, a demonic-looking German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, whom Xavier saved from a religious lynch mob. Another was young Russian farm worker Peter Rasputin who could transform into a living steel Colossus and a third embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled and pressured into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The final replacement was Ororo Monroe, a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess and would be known as Storm. These raw replacements were all introduced in the stirring opening chapter ‘Second Genesis’â€¦

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

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

The revision was an unstoppable hit and soon grew to become the company’s most popular and high quality title. In time Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and as the team roster shifted and changed the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark â€œDark Phoenixâ€ storyline which saw the death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character.

In the aftermath team leader Cyclops left and a naive teenaged girl named Kitty Pryde signed upâ€¦

Next in this compilation comes a brace of supremely impressive and influential issues. Uncanny X-Men #141-142 (January & February 1980) perfectly encapsulate everything that made the outrageous outcasts such an unalloyed triumph and touchstone of youthful alienation.

‘Days of Future Past’ by Claremont, Byrne & Austin depicts an imminently approaching dystopian apocalypse wherein mutants, paranormals and superheroes will have been eradicated by Federally-controlled Sentinel robots, who would then rule a shattered world on the edge of utter annihilation. New York will be a charnel pit with most surviving mutants kept in concentration camps and only a precious few free to fight a doomed and futile war of resistance.

The middle-aged Kitty is the lynchpin of a desperate plan to unmake history. With the aid of telepath named Rachel (eventually to escape that time-line and become the second Phoenix) Pryde swaps consciousness with her younger self in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the pivotal event which created the bleak, black tomorrow where all her remaining friends and comrades are being pitilessly exterminated one by valiant oneâ€¦

‘Mind Out of Time’ sees the mature Pryde in our era, inhabiting her juvenile body and leading her disbelieving X-Men team-mates on a frantic mission to foil the assassination of US senator David Kelly on prime-time TV by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – super-powered terrorists determined to make a very public example of the human politician attacking the cause of Mutant Rightsâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed, spectacularly multi-layered, bitterly tragic and tensely inconclusive – as all such time-travel tales should be – this cunning, compact yarn is indubitably one of the best individual stories of the Claremont/Byrne era and set the mood, tone and agenda for the next decade of mutant mayhemâ€¦

The series went from strength to strength and the franchise inexorably expanded. In 1982 a fresh generation of students enrolled in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Following hard on the heels of that X-line expansion with The New Mutants, Marvel capitalised on the buzz a year later by releasing a hard-hitting original Marvel Graphic Novel (#5) which emphasised the harsher aspects of alienation and bigotry which underpinned relations between Homo Sapiens and Superior in a stunningly effective modern parable starring the misunderstood mutants in a landmark tale truly worthy of the company’s hot new format.

‘God Loves, Man Kills’ is a grim cautionary tale: one of the most disturbingly true-to-life in the entire canon and opens with the murder of two children. The â€œPurifierâ€ zealots responsible then proudly display the bodies in the playground where they died with the placard â€œmutiesâ€ around their necks.

When mutant terrorist/freedom fighter Magneto finds the bodies the stage is set for one of the X-Men’s darkest casesâ€¦

Fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker is the demagogue of the hour: his evangelical crusade against unholy, ungodly mutants has made him rich and powerful whilst his sinister secret death-squads have enabled him to undertake the latest stage of his mission in the full, controversial glare of the public eye. He even has powerful friends and allies within the Governmentâ€¦

Stryker’s divinely-inspired mission is to incite a race-war and eradicate the entire emergent sub-species, using not only his television ministries to whip up public fear and hatred, but with a private army of merciless mutant-hating racist killers.

His next step involves taking out the X-Men and begins when Professor Xavier, Cyclops and Storm are seemingly assassinated after participating in a TV debate.

When news of their deaths reaches the test of the team, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler track down the assailants and discover that their friends are captives of Stryker’s Purifiers, just as old enemy Magneto appears, proposing a temporary truceâ€¦

Meanwhile Colossus’s sister Illyana and Kitty Pryde have stumbled upon the captives’ fate and been attacked too. Kitty escapes and goes on the run with murderous Purifiers hot on her trailâ€¦

Stryker has been busy: whilst happily torturing his captives he has devised a way to use Xavier’s telepathic abilities to destroy mutants and all those with latent mutant genes at one genocidal stroke.

As the hate-peddler’s plans enter the final stage Magneto and the remaining X-Men prepare for their most important battle, but the showdown on live TV from Madison Square Gardens offers many surprises and reversals of fortune as Stryker, in his paranoid hubris, overestimates the power of blind prejudice and the underestimates the basic humanity of the common man â€¦

This tale is perhaps the most plainspoken and shocking example of mutants as metaphors for racial abuse in society and the stark message herein, savagely delivered by author Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson at the very top of their game, made explicit the power of bigotry and the ghastly repercussions of allowing it to bloom uncontestedâ€¦

Moving, scary and immensely influential, God Loves, Man Kills is the X-Men at their most effective and movie-going readers will recognise much of the tale since it formed the basis for the X-Men film sequel X2.

This moving epic is followed by the first tantalising snippet of another landmark extended saga. The team had grown in popularity and was split into Blue and Gold teams by Xavier; the division engendering the launch of another X-title.

In Uncanny X-Men #281 (October 1991) ‘Fresh Upstart’ by Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio & Art Thibert over a Byrne script saw new villains The Upstarts – led by Shinobi Shaw and Trevor Fitzroy – murderously target the Hellfire Club elite such as cyborg Donald Pierce and White Queen Emma Frost and her young protÃ©gÃ©s The Hellions, with Storm’s Gold team Archangel, Colossus, Iceman and Jean Grey unable to stop the slaughter.

The same monthClaremont, Jim Lee & Scott Williamsscored monumental sales with X-Men volume 2, #1 wherein Magneto is drawn out of self-imposed exile in ‘Rubicon’.

The weary freedom fighter had distanced himself from Earthly affairs but is gulled by ambitious, devious mutant firebrand Fabian Cortez and his band of Acolytes into renewing his defence of oppressed mutants by attacking Earth and stealing nuclear missiles.

Xavier and Cyclops’ Blue team – Beast, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue and Psylocke â€“ were able to thwart his attempt but only pushed the master of magnetism further into the clutches of the murderously Machiavellian Acolytesâ€¦

New X-Men #114-116 (July to September 2001) wraps up this spectacular comics collection of comicbook X-cellence with a 3-part saga that changed the landscape of Marvel continuity and introduced psychic apex mutant predator Cassandra Nova in a globe-girdling yarn of primal terror.

‘E is for Extinction’ by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely – with Tim Townsend, Dan Green & Mark Morales – saw the creepy old lady gorily secure the DNA of the last surviving Trask (the troubled family which had first invented Sentinels) and cause the robotic nemeses to undergo uncontrolled mechanical evolution before eradicating more than eleven million mutants on their safe haven island state Genosha.

She then turned her attention to the Xavier school and met her match in Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Wolverine and Emma Frost – who was undergoing her own starling secondary metamorphosis.

In the aftermath Professor X made a personal decision which would change the nature of human/mutant relations foreverâ€¦

Despite the minor quibble that the â€œUpstartsâ€ story is unsatisfactorily incomplete, I can’t deny that what’s on offer here is of great quality and indisputably excellent examples of the mighty mutants at their most memorable and entertaining.

Most importantly this is another perfectly-designed literary device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnations too. Filled with non-stop tension and blockbuster action, this the ideal tool to make film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.

<br />

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: