Category: Marvel Superheroes

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The Mighty Avengers: The Unspoken


By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Khoi Pham, Sean Chen & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3746-7

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over the decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst their colourful ranks…

At one time in recent years Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) had, through various machinations, replaced Tony Stark as America’s Security Czar: the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to ultra-technological threats and all metahuman influences…

Under Stark’s tenure a Superhuman Registration Act had resulted in a divisive Civil War amongst the costumed community with tragic repercussions, but the nation and the world were no safer and the planet was almost lost to an insidious Secret Invasion by alien Skrulls.

After executing the Skull leader on live TV, Osborn’s popularity skyrocketed, and when Stark was inevitably fired the former villain got his job. Slowly at first, he began to exert overt control over America: instigating an oppressive “Dark Reign” which saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes driven underground.

To cement his position Osborn actually replaced the Avengers with his own hand-picked coterie of criminals and impostors.

Eventually however the madman’s reach exceeded his grasp and Founding Avenger Henry Pym took back the hallowed name and formed his own squad of champions to restore both the team’s reputation and his own.

In the past the periodically mentally unstable Dr. Pym created the roles of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket to fight crime, disaster and injustice, but since the Skrulls killed his former wife (she was actually only mutated and lost in another dimension: it’s comics and nobody dies forever) he’s been calling himself The Wasp in her honour…

Aided by the mystic machinations of Wanda Maximoff, the once-reviled Scarlet Witch, Pym reluctantly gathered a disparate group of veterans and neophytes under his banner. Former Young Avengers Stature and a juvenile Vision joined Hercules, child prodigy Amadeus Cho, U.S. Agent and faithful butler Edwin Jarvis in a reorganised, revitalised gang which was soon augmented by robotic siren Jocasta, forcibly encoded with the lost Janet Van Dyne‘s brain patterns and memories.

This fact has generated a few problems: for a start she was increasingly drawn to Pym, a man Jan was married to for years and a bi-polar genius who has just changed his powers and identity yet again…

The presence of the Scarlet Witch soon draws her twin brother Quicksilver back into the fold, but even after defeating an attempt by Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. agency to shut them down and surviving a fractious quarrel with the Fantastic Four, Pym’s Avengers are far from settled into their new role.

That might be due to the fact that the Witch is actually a subversive impostor: the team’s oldest foe pursuing a Machiavellian and deadly personal agenda…

Plotted by Dan Slott and written by Christos Gage, this all-action volume collects Mighty Avengers #27-31 (September 2009-January 2010) and opens with a history lesson from the hidden race known as Inhumans.

Illustrated by Khoi Pham & Allen Martinez, the flashback shows how current monarch Black Bolt and his cousins Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak impossibly overthrew the reigning king – the most powerful Inhuman ever born – because he overstepped his authority and stole the race’s most puissant weapon The Slave Engine.

The device was created to balance the scales should the teeming hordes of humanity ever attack the pitifully small race of outcasts but the complacent and too-soft King deemed it an abomination and hid it from his fellows.

Although defeated and banished he would not return it, and for his crime his name was stricken from all records and was forever ‘Unspoken’…

Now, uncounted years later, U.S. Agent and Quicksilver are in Tibet amidst rumours that an unknown Inhuman might be allying with unfriendly power China. Having married into Black Bolt’s family the super fast mutant instantly recognises the towering figure for who he really is and panics…

Elsewhere Pym is conducting a tour of the Avengers new HQ. The Infinite Avengers Mansion is an immeasurable trans-dimensional palace with doors that can open into anywhere…

Back in the Himalayas, U.S. Agent’s fears of a Sino/Inhuman pact are laid to rest when China’s entire metahuman military division The People’s Defense Force is deployed to attack the trespassing Unspoken… and soundly thrashed in mere moments…

Over the intervening years the dethroned, pro-human king – exiled with only a few mentally deficient, slavish Alpha Primitives for company – has suffered agonies of loneliness and is now resolved to trigger the Slave Engine and destroy humanity, whilst back at the Infinite Mansion Stature has her suspicions about Wanda confirmed when she sees the Witch intercept and delete Quicksilver’s SOS alarm call.

However before she can warn anybody the plucky teenager is mystically gagged by the gloating sorceress…

As the China crisis worsens, Stature finds a way to circumvent her handicap and invites some old Young Avenger pals to the mansion for a party, hoping the inevitable rambunctious chaos will give her an opportunity to act. The ploy works especially well since Clint Barton (former Hawkeye and current New Avenger Ronin) gatecrashes the bash and instantly attacks the woman who once killed him…

Pym meanwhile is oblivious to all mundane events. Having reconciled with FF leader Reed Richards he is embarking on an exploratory foray into Macrospace, intent on growing beyond the limits of the universe in search of new discoveries…

As Hawkeye and the Young Avengers inconceivably drive off the faux Witch in the Infinite Mansion, the battle is almost lost in the East where the Unspoken has finally unleashed his race’s ultimate weapon: a crystal compound which turns humans into Alpha Primitives…

At home, free to speak at last, Stature tells the assembled heroes of Quicksilver’s alert and they immediately deploy to Tibet…

Sean Chen, Mark Morales & Craig Yeung take over the illustration as Pym escapes the boundaries of Reality and meets the conceptual being Eternity, whilst back on Earth Jarvis calls in even more Avengers for the upcoming battle against the Unspoken.

Tragically, most of them are susceptible to the Inhumans’ mutagenic weapon and the army of heroes seems destined to fail, until Pym dramatically returns.

His conference with the personification of Universal Life proved fruitful as Eternity promoted him to the position of Earth’s Scientist Supreme. Now armed with confidence, knowledge, imagination and terrifying technology, he begins the Avengers counterattack…

Another remarkably self-contained, clear-cut and astonishingly engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure, this sterling tome also offers a gallery of covers and variants by Khoi Pham, Crimelab’s Allen Martinez & John Rauch and Howard Chaykin: perfectly exemplifying all that’s great in fanciful, all-action superhero storytelling.
© 2009, 2010  Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved

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The New Avengers volume 1: Sentry


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ultimate Fantastic Four volume 1: The Fantastic


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Danny Miki, John Dell & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1393-5

After Marvel’s financial – and indeed creative – problems in the late 1990s, the company came back swinging. A key new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture. The Ultimate imprint abandoned monumental 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 supposed contemporary 21st century audience and a chance to get in on the ground floor.

Peter Parker was once 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 everywhere…

The experiment began in 2000 with a post-modern take on Ultimate Spider-Man with Ultimate X-Men following in 2001 and Avengers retread The Ultimates in 2002.

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 continuity baggage.

The new universe prospered and soon filled up with more reinterpreted, morally ambiguous heroes and villains and eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor. In 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” 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.

This volume collects Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-6 (February to July 2004), the fourth pillar of Marvel’s radical new edifice; more tweaked than reconceived by writers Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Millar, and illustrated in a lush, painterly manner by artists Adam Kubert, Danny Miki, John Dell and digital-colourist Dave Stewart.

The biggest change to the concept was a rather telling one: all four heroes were far younger than their mainstream antecedents…

Whereas in the original, middle-aged maverick genius Reed Richards, trusty friend Ben Grimm, sort-of 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 and mutated the quartet into quirky freaks, here events transpired rather differently…

The saga opens with telling snapshots from the unpleasant life of infant prodigy Reed: a lonely super-genius increasingly despised by his abusive blue-collar dad, bullied at school and obsessed with other dimensions. His only friend is classmate sports star Ben Grimm, who has unaccountably appointed himself the uber-nerd’s protector…

Reed’s life changes on the day his High School science project – teleportation – catches the eye of a clandestine government talent scout from a high powered think tank. He’s offered a place at a New York facility for budding geniuses and Reed’s dad couldn’t be happier to be rid of him – especially as the school pays parents for the privilege of educating their odd, smart kids…

The Baxter Building was a wonderland of top-flight resources, intellectual challenges and guarded support, but it was still a school and the kids were expected to produce results…

The ideas factory is run by brilliant Professor Storm and, although the administrator’s son Johnny was there mostly as a courtesy, Storm’s daughter Sue is one of the biggest young brains on Earth… and pretty too…

Reed’s teleportation researches were only a necessary preliminary to his greater goal. The boy had long posited – and now proved – the existence of a strange sub-dimension – a place the Baxter scientists call the Negative Zone – and with their aid the next five years were largely spent in trying to fully access it.

Regular studies continued too, with a few casualties. Some burn out like young Phineas Mason but creepy, arrogant, insular Victor Van Damme, after a particularly galling incident with Reed, somehow manages to swallow his animosity. Soon they are working together to crack the dimension calculations…

The tutors also walk psychologically fine lines. One such is creepy aberrant Dr. Arthur Molekevic, whose constant barracking of the not-overachieving-enough young boffins leads to a breakdown, unsanctioned experiments with artificial life and eventual expulsion by the military brass who actually run the establishment…

Jumping to now, 21-year-old Reed and his fractious lab partner Victor are in Nevada for the first full test of the N-Zone teleport system, with the Storms along for the ride. As the army technicians count down, Van Damme is still kvetching about the final hotly-contested calculations, but Richards is doubly distracted.

Firstly, young backpacker Ben Grimm has just wandered into camp to see his old sidekick after more than a decade apart, but most importantly snotty teen Johnny has just revealed that sister Sue has the hots for the obsessed and diffident Reed…

The test firing is a literal catastrophe.

The site is devastated in a shattering release of energy and Reed awakens some distance away as an amorphous blob of eerily boneless flesh, mistaken by the soldiers for an extra-dimensional invader.

In Mexico, Ben awakens to find he’s become a huge rocky orange monster, and Johnny eventually calls in from a hospital bed in France. He keeps catching on fire without ever burning himself…

Sue has just vanished without a trace…

Eventually gaining control of his limbs and the acceptance of the grown-ups, Reed discovers Victor had changed the settings just before the test, but now he can’t be found either…

Susan regains consciousness in a strange place with a familiar and unwelcome companion. Arthur Molekevic has become an actual Mole Man, re-populating ancient, previously inhabited colossal caverns 1.4 miles beneath New York with a selection of his dish-grown monsters and homunculi. Somehow she had materialised right at his scurvy, sweaty feet…

The rapidly reunited Reed and Johnny are joined by the tragically incredulous Ben at the BaxterBuilding and begin to learn how to control their incredibly altered states, even as the unctuous, unpleasantly foetid Mole Man is exploring his unwilling guest’s newfound and unwanted ability to bend light rays.

The unsavoury savant postulates that somehow the quartet had been projected through N-Space, utterly unprotected from whatever transformative energies and unknown physical laws might apply there, and their new gifts and appearances are the result.

The madman’s knowledge of current affairs above ground is easily explained. Ever since his ignominious dismissal – after which he had retreated to these mysterious subterranean vaults – he has kept an unceasing eye on his former pupils by tapping into every camera and computer feed in the BaxterBuilding…

He also reveals that he loves Sue and that she actually rematerialised three miles from Vegas, but his faithful creatures carried her all the way back to him. Moreover, as a gesture of his sincere affection, he has despatched one of his most gargantuan creatures due up to fetch her beloved brother…

On the surface when the monster erupts out of the ground, Johnny’s biggest worry is that it might be Sue, but soon he, Reed and Ben have soundly defeated it, despite being complete neophytes with their powers. Instead of receiving grateful thanks they are summarily attacked by the Army who accuse them of being rogue mutants…

Whilst Dr. Storm tries to placate the terrified soldiery, Reed talks his new comrades into jumping into the mile deep hole and finding out where the beast came from… straight into a cataclysmic clash with their old teacher and his apparently unlimited legions…

With a cover gallery by Bryan Hitch and Kubert plus design sketches by Hitch, this smart, fast, action-packed and brimful of teen-oriented humour for the era of the acceptable nerd and go-getting geek offers a solid 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.
© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Thunderbolts Classic volume 1


By Kurt Busiek, Peter David, Mark Bagley, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5309-2

At the end of 1996 the “Onslaught” publishing event removed the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man and Avengers from the Marvel Universe and shared continuity, ceding creative control to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee for a year. At first the “Image style” comics got all the attention, but a new title created to fill the gap in the “old” universe quickly proved to be the true star sensation of the period.

Thunderbolts was initially promoted as a replacement team book: brand new and untried heroes pitching in because the beloved big guns were dead and gone. Chronologically the team debuted in Incredible Hulk # 449 (cover-dated January 1997), a fairly standard game of “heroes-stomp-monster”, but that seemingly mediocre tale is perhaps excusable in retrospect…

With judicious teaser guest-shots abounding, Thunderbolts #1 premiered in April and was an instant mega-hit, with a second print and a rapid-reprint collection of the first two issues also selling out in days.

This classic compendium gathers all the early appearances of the neophyte team from January to July 1997: the Hulk tale, Thunderbolts #1-5, the Minus -1 special and 1997 Annual, plus their portion of Tales of the Marvel Universe one-shot and Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7.

Sadly although the stories are still immensely enjoyable this book simply can’t recapture the furore the series caused in its early periodical days, because Thunderbolts was a sneakily high-concept series with a big twist: one which – almost impossibly for comics – didn’t get spilled before the “big reveal.”

The action here starts with issue #1 and ‘Justice… Like Lightning’ as Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley & Vince Russell introduce a new team who begin to clear the devastated, post-Onslaught streets of New York of resurgent super-villains and thugs making the most of the hero-free environment. Amongst the Thunderbolts’ efforts is a resounding defeat of scavenger gang the Rat Pack, but although they rout and round up the looters, the leader escapes with his real prize: homeless children…

Captain America tribute/knock off Citizen V leads the valiant newcomers who comprise size-shifting Atlas, super- armoured Mach-1, beam-throwing amazon Meteorite, sonic siren Songbird and human toybox Techno, and the terrified, traumatised citizenry instantly take them to their hearts.

But these heroes share a huge secret…

They’re all super-villains from the sinister Masters of Evil in disguise, and Citizen V – or Baron Helmut Zemo as he truly prefers – has major Machiavellian long-term plans…

When unsuspecting readers got to the end of that first story the reaction was instantaneous shock and jubilation.

The aforementioned, untitled Hulk tale anachronistically appears next, as Peter David, Mike Deodato Jr. & Tom Wegrzyn pit the neophytes against the Jade Juggernaut in their campaign to win the hearts and minds of the World, promptly followed by the Tales of the Marvel Universe tale ‘The Dawn of a New Age of Heroes!’ as the group continue to do good deeds for bad reasons, readily winning the approval of cynical New Yorkers.

Thunderbolts #2 ‘Deceiving Appearances’ (Busiek, Bagley & Russell) finds them garnering official recognition and their first tangible reward. After defeating the Mad Thinker at a memorial service for the Fantastic Four and Avengers and rescuing “orphan” Franklin Richards, the Mayor hands over the departed FF’s Baxter Building HQ for the team’s new base of operations…

Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7 ‘Old Scores’ by Busiek, Sal Buscema & Dick Giordano sees them even fool the spider-senses of everybody’s favourite wall-crawler whilst clearing him of a clever frame-up and taking down the super-scientific Enclave. However the first cracks in the plan begin to appear as Mach -1 and Songbird (AKA the Beetle and Screaming Mimi) begin to fall for each other and dream of a better life, whilst Atlas/Goliath starts to enjoy the delights and rewards of actually doing good deeds.

And whilst Techno (The Fixer) is content to follow orders for the moment, Meteorite – or Moonstone – is laying plans to further her own personal agenda…

Thunderbolts #3 finds the team facing ‘Too Many Masters’ (illustrated by Bagley & Russell) as dissension begins to creep into the ranks. The action comes from rounding up old allies and potential rivals Klaw, Flying Tiger, Cyclone, Man-Killer and Tiger-Shark who were arrogant enough to trade on the un-earned reputation as new Masters of Evil.

One of the stolen kids from issue #1 then resurfaces in ‘A Shock to the System’. Hallie Takahama was one of the prizes taken by the Rat Pack and her new owner has since subjected her to assorted procedures which have resulted in her gaining superpowers.

Her subsequent escape leads to her joining the Thunderbolts as they invade Dr. Doom‘s apparently vacant castle to save the other captives from the monstrous creations and scientific depredations of rogue geneticist Arnim Zola.

However, the highly publicised victory forces Citizen V to grudgingly accept the utterly oblivious and innocent Hallie to the team as trainee recruit Jolt…

Thunderbolts Annual 1997 follows: a massive revelatory jam session written by Busiek with art from Bagley, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ron Randall, Gene Colan, Darick Robertson, George Pérez, Chris Marrinan, Al Milgrom, Will Blyberg, Scott Koblish, Jim Sanders, Tom Palmer, Bruce Patterson, Karl Kesel & Andrew Pepoy, which could only be called ‘The Origin of the Thunderbolts!’

In brief instalments Jolt asks ‘Awkward Questions’ of V and Zemo offers a tissue of lies regarding the member’s individual origins…

Beginning with V’s ostensible intentions in ‘The Search Begins’, gaining ‘Technical Support’ from Fixer, examining Songbird’s past in ‘Screams of Anguish’, obscuring the Beetle’s ‘Shell-Shocked!’ transformation and how ‘Onslaught’ brought them all together, the fabrications continue as ‘To Defy a Kosmos’ reveals to everyone but Jolt how ionic colossus Goliath was snatched from incarceration in another dimension before ‘Showdown at the Vault’ brought Moonstone into the mix with men she had previously betrayed…

Thunderbolts #5 then introduced more ‘Growing Pains’ as the team took a personal day in civvies in Manhattan, only to be targeted and attacked by Baron Strucker of Hydra, using one of Kang the Conqueror‘s Growing Man automatons…

The comics content of this collection concludes with Thunderbolts Minus #1; part of a company-wide event detailing the lives of heroes and villains before they started their costumed careers.

‘Distant Rumblings!’, illustrated by Steve Epting & Bob Wiacek, examined key events in the lives of two Baron Zemos, mercenary Erik (Atlas) Josten, unscrupulous psychiatrist Karla (Moonstone) Sofen, trailer-trash kid and future Songbird Melissa Gold, frustrated engineer Abner Jenkins AKA the Beetle and gadgeteering psychopath P. Norbert Ebersol who parleyed a clash with an amnesiac Sub-Mariner into a thrilling life as Hydra’s prime technician and Fixer…

Also offering a promotional page from Marvel Vision #13, a ‘Thunderbolts Fact-File’, a golden Age ad for the original Citizen V, covers-&-variants by Bagley, Deodato Jr. and Carlos Pacheco, Busiek’s introduction from the 1998 and 2001 collected editions, and 12 pages of character designs describing the metamorphosis of second-strung villains into first rung heroes, this is a solid superhero romp that managed to briefly revitalise a lot of jaded old fan-boys, but more importantly it is a strong set of tales that still pushes all the buttons it’s meant to nearly 20 years after all the hoopla has faded.

Well worth a moment of your time and a bit of your hard-earned cash.
© 1997, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men: Breaking Point


By Kieron Gillen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Carlos Pacheco, Ibraim Roberson, Cam Smith, Dan Green & Nathan Lee (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5226-2

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise so even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particularly well-crafted jumping-on tome.

At this juncture, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Superior was at its lowest ebb. This followed the House of M and Decimation storylines wherein Wanda Maximoff (former Avenger Scarlet Witch, ravaged by madness and wracked by her own chaotic reality-warping power) reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with three simple words…

Whilst the majority of Earth’s mutants were rendered human, the freakish few remaining accepted an earnest offer to relocate to San Francisco: reconciled to self-imposed exile on Utopia Island in the Bay. Gathered in a defensive enclave and led and defended by the X-Men, they still found that trouble was always happy to follow them…

Although they were invited by the forward-thinking Mayor and generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions grew as leader Cyclops ran the colony in an ever more draconian and militaristic manner.

His relationship with war-weary second-in-command Wolverine was slowly, inexorably deteriorating as they squabbled over methods and ideology for the imperilled X-nation, each interpreting the idealistic, Cooperative Co-existence dream of Professor Charles Xavier in increasingly different ways…

This sleek, slim compilation – written throughout by Kieron Gillen – re-presents Uncanny X-Men #534.1 and Uncanny X-Men #535-539 (cover-dated June to August 2011) and details the fate of young veteran Kitty Pryde who, at the time of this tome, was trapped in an intangible state and unable to communicate or interact with her fellows.

This was especially painful for her as she had just rekindled an intimate relationship with her childhood sweetheart Piotr Rasputin, the steely giant known as Colossus.

First, however, PR guru and supreme spin doctor Kate Kildare has a new, almost impossible brief.

Infamous outlaw mutant terrorist Magneto is now an X-Man living on Utopia and she has the unenviable task of “selling” him as a reformed and benevolent character to the watching, distrustful world…

Fortunately for everybody concerned, a splinter group of Advanced Idea Mechanics has picked this very moment to blackmail San Francisco’s business community with an “Earthquake machine”, so the Mayor asks the mutant refugees for a big favour…

Illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Cam Smith, Dan Green & Nathan Lee, this bright and breezy caper offers plenty of thrills and a few clever surprises whilst restating the mutant paradigm for new and old fans alike.

The main body of this compelling compilation concerns the 4-part ‘Breaking Point‘ – limned by Terry & Rachel Dodson – which sees the war-loving aliens from The Breakworld come to Earth.

Their last clash with the X-Men resulted in Kitty’s present impermanent state and only concluded after Colossus crushed their brutal leader Powerlord Kruun in personal combat. Now months later, a vast colony ship warps into human space, claiming to carry refugees fleeing the collapse of their unique social order and meekly seeking sanctuary…

Their planetary civil war occurred because Piotr, after maiming Kruun, refused to stay and rule over Breakworld…

With the sarcastic assistance of Abigail Brand, Director of the Sentient World Observation & Response Department, the asylum-seeking newcomers are transferred from The Peak (Earth’s orbital defence outpost) to Utopia and seem to be genuinely attempting to assimilate.

Unfortunately, proud, shamed Kruun soon surrenders to a momentary weakness of will and attacks his despised benefactors. Within minutes the supreme soldier has overcome the X-Men, gravely wounded Colossus and even found a way to harm Pryde in her untouchable state…

Watching Rasputin bleed out, Kitty flees seeking aid and, while the ever-vigilant Wolverine tackles the resurgent Powerlord, strikes a shocking deal with Kruun’s adored and tragic paramour Haleena…

Despite all the grim portents, this gripping thriller surprises with a relatively happy ending all round, before artist Ibraim Roberson closes out the collection with the gritty fable ‘Losing Hope’.

The X-enclave was ecstatic when Cyclops’ daughter Hope was born. As the first new mutant since Decimation she was heralded as a Messiah – before being snatched away and reared in the far future by her half-brother Nathan Summers AKA doomsday warrior Cable.

She returned soon after as a rather rebellious teenager to lead a small gang of other Homo Superior newborns. She also had a dangerously valuable gift: she could kickstart mutant powers…

Here the dour, dutiful, fun-loathing lass is convinced by BFFs Transonic and Oya to go shopping on the mainland, only to be abducted by former X-foe Crimson Commando. When the brutal WWII super-soldier lost his mutant abilities during Decimation, his long years and numerous surgical augmentations began to agonisingly catch up to him. He expects Hope to reactivate his X-Gene and won’t take no for an answer…

Although he was prepared for Wolverine to track and fight him, the Commando utterly underestimated Hope’s stubborn resistance to torture and ruthless manner in dealing with threats…

Graced with a beautiful covers-&-variants gallery by Pacheco, the Dodsons, Simone Bianchi, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgardo & Dave Johnson, Breaking Point is exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining: a stirring, supremely sensuous sublimely illustrated slice of mutant mayhem that is another stunning example of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy for fans and dabblers to marvel at.
© 2011 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.

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X-Factor volume 9: Invisible Woman Has Vanished


By Peter David, Bing Cansino & Valentine De Landro (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4656-8

Since its debut in 1982, X-Factor has been the irresistibly cool and inarguably perfect umbrella title for all manner of Marvel mutant teams. One of the most engaging was created by writer Peter David in 2006; always blending stark action, cool mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and even social issues into a regular riot of smart and clever Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.

The core premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – a former member of the government-controlled iteration of the team – appropriating the name for his specialist metahuman private detective agency: X-Factor Investigations. Setting up shop in the wake of “The Decimation” he and his constantly fluctuating team began by trying to discover why most of the world’s mutants had become normal humans overnight…

Marvel crossover event House of M saw reality overwritten when mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch had a mental breakdown, changing history so that “Homo Superior” out-competed base-line humans and drove the “sapiens” to the brink of extinction. It took every hero on Earth and a huge helping of luck to correct the situation, but in the aftermath, less than 200 super-powered mutants remained on Earth.

Originally debuting as X-Factor volume 3, the series was renumbered after 50 issues -magically becoming #200 of volume 1 with the next issue – and this sterling compilation gathers that issue and #201-203 (spanning December 2009 to March 2010), finding Madrox and most of his team relocated from Detroit to New York and about to walk into a world of trouble…

Illustrated by Bing Cansino, Marco Santucci & Patrick Piazzalunga, the story begins after a very grave prologue (that’s a pun, son) as up past bedtime little kids Franklin and Valeria Richards turn up at X-Factor Investigations in need of adults who will listen…

Even scarily brilliant and cosmically powered children have trouble getting grown-ups to take them seriously, so when the offspring of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman can’t get The Thing or the Human Torch to listen to their concerns they go looking elsewhere…

The team (consisting of Guido “Strong Guy” Carosella, shapeshifter Darwin, extra-dimensional warrior Shatterstar, de-powered mutant Rictor, lucky star Longshot and multi-powered mutant super-woman Monet St. Croix AKA M) are working through some issues of their own, but Madrox sagely offers to take the kids back and check things out…

Former X-Factor stalwart Siryn is gone. She’s still coming to terms with carrying – and horrifically losing – Madrox’ baby and doesn’t want to see him, especially as he’s completely obsessed with enigmatic missing teammate Layla Miller.

Not only is “Butterfly” another unwise romantic complication, but she is also morally mutable, annoyingly secretive, immensely powerful and working to a ruthless agenda of her own – and Jamie just can’t get over her…

At the Baxter Building Madrox doesn’t buy Reed Richards‘ off-hand story that he and the wife had a spat so she just stormed off.

Whilst Guido and Shatterstar get into a pointless, devastating brawl with Ben (the Thing) Grimm, distracting the attention of the Smartest Man in the World, Jamie and Rictor take the opportunity to check out a few nooks and crannies and realise the kids were right: the leader of the FF is either an impostor or homicidally crazy…

As Shatterstar astonishingly humiliates Grimm in battle, Madrox arranges to meet with Valeria later. Elsewhere, State Department official Valerie Cooper regretfully informs Monet that her Ambassador father has been kidnapped by terrorists…

Having obtained an object owned by the missing mother, Longshot’s psychometric abilities are called upon to read the past and see what truly happened to Sue Richards. However, his vision is co-opted by the long-missing Layla who somehow speaks to him in real time and tells him to bring the team to Latveria – kingdom of terrifying dictator Doctor Doom…

However, just as Shatterstar opens a space-warp to the Balkan graveyard Layla indicated, an infuriated and vengeful Thing attacks, disrupting the teleportation and marooning half the investigators in the most dangerous country on Earth. Back in New York, Guido gets a call from little Franklin and Valeria. They are running for their lives from Daddy who is intent on killing them both…

After Monet, Madrox and the furious Thing follow through the warp, Grimm calms down enough to join M and Shatterstar in broaching Doom’s castle whilst Jamie’s lads open up a grave and find a missing member of the FF… but not the one they were looking expecting…

The solution to the mystery is sharp, shocking and fabulously entertaining, revealing both Doom’s improbable part in the drama and one of the many secrets of Layla Miller…

That’s followed by the untitled tale from #203 (illustrated by Valentine De Landro & Pat Davidson) wherein Monet and Guido, fed up with the State Department’s stalling over her father’s kidnap, impatiently invade a sovereign South American nation to save him.

When their plane is shot down Monet goes missing so Strong Guy smashes into a local drug cartel HQ and learns just who’s taken her.

His blockbusting rescue mission almost falters when he’s confronted by magical monsters and one of the oldest villains in the Marvel Universe, using the indomitable Wonder Girl as his personal buffet and first aid kit…

To Be Continued…

Even though the main event ends on a cliffhanger, there’s one more narrative treat left here as ‘Matters of Faith’ (with art by Karl Moline & Rick Magyar and originally seen as a back up feature in X-Factor #200) details what Siryn had been doing whilst the team was been busy battling.

Months previously her father Sean Cassidy – X-Man Banshee – died. Already traumatised through losing the baby she had conceived one stupid drunken night with Madrox, Theresa travelled to her “Da’s” grave in Ireland. The last thing she needed to see was one of Madrox’ duplicates…

This one however was created years ago and, like so many others, never rejoined the prime Jamie. In fact he’s become a priest and has some unique insights to offer her troubled mutant soul…

Bold, beguiling and mature in a way most adult comics just aren’t, this is a wonderful Costumed Drama experience for everybody who loves superhero soap operas and comes with a covers-&-variants gallery by Esad Ribic, Morry Hollowell, David Yardin, Kevin Maguire & Nathan Fairbairn and Tom Raney & Gina Going.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Savage Wolverine volume 2: Hands on a Dead Body


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Captain America: Living Legend


By Andy Diggle, Adi Granov, Agustin Allessio & Eddie Robson (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-573-4

The Star-Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and confidently launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely Comics’ (Marvel’s early predecessor) “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner – and one of the first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

With the Korean War and Communist aggression dominating the Republic’s psyche, in 1953 he was briefly revived – as were Sub-Mariner and the Torch – before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics called him back to duty in Avengers #4. It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American public…

Everything changed for a little company called Marvel when the assembled heroes recovered the body of US Army Private Steve Rogers floating in a block of ice and consequently resurrected World War II’s Sentinel of Liberty.

With this act bridging the years from Timely/Atlas Comics (which had in fact begun with Sub-Mariner’s return in Fantastic Four #4 rather than the creation of Johnny Storm as a new kid Torch in #1), Marvel acquired a comforting longevity and potential-packed pre-history: lending an enticing sense of mythic continuance to the fledgling company that instantly gave it the same cachet and enduring grandeur of market leader National/DC.

This time Cap stuck around: taking over the Avengers, winning his own series and eventually a solo title. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, always struggling to find an ideological place and stable footing in the modern world. In 2006, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became a rebel and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Even more has happened in the last decade or so and, since the movies finally made him a Star-Spangled Star, the patriotic powerhouse has emerged with a solid, unassailably resolute presence no fan of modern Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction would dream of trifling with.

It also helps to have really excellent creators willing to try something a bit different with the venerable character and add contemporary gloss to the mix…

Such is certainly the case with Captain America: Living Legend: a 4-issue miniseries by Andy Diggle, Adi Granov, Agustin Allessio & Eddie Robson, released between December 2013 and February 2014 and now available as a short, sharp and shocking example of contemporary Cold War Terror.

Spanning the hero’s entire career, the adventure opens in the Bavarian Alps in April 1945 where Russian and US commando squads compete to capture German rocket scientists. The “Ivans”, wastefully led by ambitious patriotic fanatic Vladimir Illyich Volkov, are succumbing to stiff Nazi resistance until Captain America intervenes, but even the coolly competent crusader is unable to prevent the impetuous and arrogant Volkov from being shot in his moment of triumph…

Siberia, 1968: whilst the Sentinel of liberty slumbered in deep freeze, Cosmonaut Volkov led a secret mission to land a Soviet on the Moon before the Americans, and again deliver a crushing propaganda blow to the West. Unfortunately the lunar explorer encountered something alien and uncanny on its first Dark Side orbit and the mission was erased from Russian history…

Low Earth Orbit, Today: pacifist energy scientist Lauren Fox initiates her Dark Energy Utilisation System and lets something cruel and black and utterly inimical into our reality. The D.E.U.S. satellite smashes to Earth in Siberia, and within hours Sharon Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D. has despatched Captain America to investigate why the plunge seemed controlled – and stop the Russians getting hold of whatever caused the disaster as well as Fox’s D.E.U.S tech…

In the frozen north Colonel Gridenko is already leading a contingent of troops through a vast rugged barricade. It was built forty years ago to keep something alien and deadly from escaping…

When he finds the perimeter guards all dead at each other’s hands, he fears the latest space-borne visitation is proof that the original horror is still alive…

Captain America parachutes into the arctic hostile territory, tracking D.E.U.S’ trajectory and soon finds Dr. Fox. When he learns what happened on her space station he knows the Russians are not the real problem…

After Volkov’s capsule landed in Siberia in 1968, the cosmonaut was found to have been bizarrely altered by his experience. By 1973 the science city he was taken to had become a vast necropolis. As young Gridenko led the pitifully few survivors out, he witnessed The State sealing the site and start erasing all mention of the monstrous events…

As Captain America and Dr. Fox head towards the abandoned complex they are attacked by appalling alien predators: ghastly amalgamations of human and machine, possessed by a hunger to kill. Fighting onwards they soon link up with the remainder of the grizzled Russian Colonel’s expeditionary force – those that haven’t become man-machine marauders…

Reluctant allies, East and West must unite to brave Gridenko’s lair and destroy the unknown monstrosities it holds, but their foe still has many surprises and perils in store for his old rival and the rest of humanity…

Fast, furious and ferocious, Captain America: Living Legend is a gripping and spooky riff on classic alien infiltration horror movies which offers plenty of classy thrills, spills and chills that will delight superhero and fear fans alike. This slim tome also includes a huge cover-&-variants gallery by Granov, Neal Adams, Ulises Farinas, Daniel Brereton, Michael D. Allred,  Sal Buscema, Francesco Francavilla, Walt Simonson, John Cassaday & Jim Starlin, and boasts a wealth of digital extra content for consumers using the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Infinity volume 2


By Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Francis Yu, Mike Deodato Jr., Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis, Gerry Alanguilan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-587-1

My reviews are always far too long (and long-winded) so go re-read the one for Infinity volume 1 before starting here…

Infinity volume 2, written throughout by Jonathan Hickman, collects the final three issues of the eponymous 6-part miniseries and the attendant interlocking appearances of the World’s Mightiest Super-Heroes from The Avengers (volume 5 #21-23) and New Avengers (#11-12) which first saw print between December 2013 and January 2014.

Big long story short: Whilst most of the Avengers are off-planet, fighting beside former alien enemies against a massive armada of primal ancient entities determined to wipe out every Earth in the multiverse, the death-loving Titan Thanos has invaded their homeworld, destructively seeking his lost son…

The chronicle of cosmic calamity recommences here – after a copious cast-list and succinct recap – with Infinity #4 (illustrated by Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver), as ‘The Last Lesson’ sees Captain America and Shi’ar emperor Gladiator begin their desperate ploy to liberate the Kree warriors whose guiding Supreme Intelligence has capitulated to the seemingly unbeatable Builders.

On Earth, ‘Thane’, son of Thanos, obliviously toils as a healer in the hidden Inhumans colony of Orollan, whilst in New York the struggle between Black Bolt and Thanos has caused the Inhumans’ floating city Attilan to crash onto the metropolis below. But even though the Titan is ultimately victorious ‘The Change’ provoked by the explosion of the meta-empowering Terrigen Bomb has shifted the balance of power in favour of nigh-conquered humanity. It has also transformed benevolent Thane into the very antithesis of his former self…

And on conquered Hala, Thor savagely delivers the embattled alliance’s response to the Builders’ demands: recruiting the defeated Kree back into the fold with ‘A Prayer’…

‘Emancipation’ begins in Avengers #21 (with art by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerry Alanguilan) as ‘The Promise of the Universe’ finds the newest Avenger Ex Nihilo in attendance of the still comatose Captain Universe as ‘The Second Wave’ sees a host of subdued worlds throw off the Builders’ yoke.

It is not enough and the apparently infinite resources and materiel of the invaders soon regains them the upper hand. With no other choice, the flagging allies reluctantly turn to Negative Zone overlord Annihilus who unleashes a horde of monster bugs in a voracious Annihilation Wave. It is still not enough…

In ‘The Promise Fulfilled’, when Captain Universe at last revives, the “Mother of Creation” goes directly to the Builder leaders, demanding an explanation and cessation, but her ancient children are determined to end all iterations of Earths and disavow her. As she reluctantly kills them, the last one orders all the incomprehensible trillions in their fleet to carry on and “destroy everything”…

New Avengers #11(‘Builders’ with art by Mike Deodato Jr.) finds Wakanda wavering under intensified assaults from Thanos’ Cull Obsidian, whilst Black Panther T’Challa is whisked off-planet with the rest of the clandestine Illuminati cabal by a Builder Aleph unit to observe at first hand the destruction of ‘All These Worlds’. The trip actually takes them to a different reality…

The proposed lesson in futility fails, but by appealing to the sublime rationality of their “guests” the abductors expose Dr. Strange‘s hidden parasitic controller before revealing that Earth is the axis point causing the entire multiverse to spiral towards utter extinction. Surely rational beings can accept the necessity of surgically excising a threat to all life…

Meanwhile on their Earth, Black Panther Princess Regent Shuri has been forced to retreat, leaving an arsenal of world-destroying bombs in Thanos’ hands…

Infinity #5 exposes the ‘Left Hand of Death’ (Jerome Opeña & Weaver art) as ‘Of Suns and Storms’ follows the resurgent Avengers liberating conquered worlds until word arrives that Earth has fallen to Thanos, after which ‘This Ebony Now’ switches focus to Orollan where Thane has become an uncontrollable death ray generator.

Horrified, the former healer is easily swayed by treacherous Ebony Maw who offers containment and control in return for future favours…

When Thanos is informed that his son has been located he rushes off to personally dispatch the last humiliating stain on his record, commanding his Black Order to ready the bombs to obliterate Earth even as in space the gratefully victorious Alien Alliance offers their remaining ships to the Avengers to liberate their own world ‘In the Shadows of The Giants’…

‘To the Earth…’ (Avengers #22, by Yu & Alanguilan) presages that ‘Homecoming’ as the rescue fleet attacks Thanos’ home on Titan, after which ‘Plans and Intentions’ lead to an attack on the orbital station The Peak before moving homeward with ‘A Greater Purpose’…

Avengers #23 takes up the tale ‘…To the Very End’ (Yu & Alanguilan) as, after ‘A Word from the Heavens’ with Captain America, Iron Man spearheads a mission in Wakanda to shut down the doomsday bombs, whilst the battle for The Peak goes badly until unconventional assistance arrives in ‘Homecoming’, after which Infinity #6 (Opeña & Weaver) draws the conflict to a stunning close as the scattered Terran heroes link up to confront the ‘Tyrant’ and forcibly take back the world.

However Thanos’ final fall is engineered by his most hated enemy before the ‘Epilogue’ details how the bloody, battered and unbowed Avengers with the aid of their grateful alien Allies begin a period of reconstruction and preparation for whatever comes next.

New Avengers #12 (Deodato Jr.) brings the epic to close as ‘Endgame’ concentrates on the futures of the individual Illuminati and the planet they arrogantly shepherd.

As their extra-dimensional captive oracle Black Swan is swift to point out, since the smartest minds on Earth were all but useless in predicting, forestalling or coping with mere Builders, what happens when the being and forces they fear come looking for humanity?

A bombastic, big budget blockbuster meant to shock and awe (even if not always make sense), this is comics as sheer spectacle and works exceedingly well as such, but might intimidate or confuse those with a less than passionate affinity for costumes and carnage.

This closing chronicle also offers a gallery of 28 stunning covers-and-variants by Adam Kubert, Deodato Jr., Laura Martin, Yu, In-Hyuk Lee, Ryan Stegman, Skottie Young, Opeña, Sara Pichelli, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, and Daniel Acuña plus more digitally added-content (trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind-the-scenes features etc.) for consumers able to access the embedded AR icons’ with the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Infinity volume 1


By Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver, Leinil Francis Yu, Mike Deodato Jr., Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis, Gerry Alanguilan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-566-6

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reformed the entire overarching continuity: a drastic reshuffle and rethink of characters, concepts and brands with an eye to winning new readers and feeding the company’s burgeoning movie blockbuster machine…

Moreover all the disparate story strands were slowly building and combining to kick off the Next Big Thing with the cosmically revamped Avengers titles forming the spine of an encroaching mega-epic.

The intergalactic Hammer of Doom finally fell as a two-pronged all-out attack which saw an impossibly ancient threat materialise to wipe out life in the cosmos whilst Earth itself was targeted by an old enemy with a long memory and monstrous agenda…

The culmination of the ever-unfolding pan-galactic saga is written by Jonathan Hickman, with the first half collected in Infinity volume I: re-presenting the first three issues of the eponymous miniseries plus interlocking issues of The Avengers (volume 5 #18-20) and New Avengers (#9-10) – spanning October and November 2013.

What Came Before: In recent Avengers episodes an impossibly ancient trio of galactic “Gardeners” – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – attempted to remake Earth into something special. To that end they bombarded the world with “Origin bombs”, seeding locations with bizarre, exotic and uncompromising new life-forms.

When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the invaders claimed to have been tasked by The Builders, first species in creation, and their Mother of the Universe to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on all worlds. Although the World’s Mightiest Heroes defeated the intruders and set about mitigating the effects of the O-bombs on Earth, it seemed increasingly futile as global threats seemingly multiplied without surcease.

Evidence also indicated that the very structure and celestial mechanics of the multiverse were catastrophically unravelling.

And then rumours began of an incredible alien armada heading directly for Earth…

It all starts here with the miniseries’ first issue as ‘Infinity’ (illustrated by Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, John Livesay & David Meikis) focuses on Saturnian moon Titan where death-driven despot Thanos dispatches his monstrous Outrider to demand ‘The Tribute’ from another newly enslaved world in his growing interstellar empire.

Some of the Dark Lord’s most effective agents are already on Earth, stalking the planet’s greatest champions and ‘Constructing Apocalypse’…

Sixty thousand light-years away an even bigger threat is mopping up the puissant Space Knights of Galador. Various varieties of Builders – of the same ancient order that spawned Aleph, Abyss and Ex Nihilo – have razed the planet whilst unearthly new Avenger Captain Universe (whom the Gardeners call “Mother”) can only look on with despair as her wayward children destroy another world tainted by contact with Earth…

‘Orbital’ finds Captain America and Hawkeye cleaning out a nest of Skrulls in Palermo, but these invaders are far from the arrogant, treacherous warriors they’re accustomed to. The shapeshifters are scared, cowering refugees, fleeing and hiding from something incomprehensibly bad…

‘What was Hidden, Now Uncovered’ then focuses on the Inhumans‘ floating city Attilan, currently parked above Manhattan, where Outrider prepares to extract secrets from the brain of slumbering monarch Black Bolt. Even as the supremely powerful Inhuman foils the ghastly intrusion, the Avengers have regrouped following Captain Universe’s return with warnings of an oncoming impossibly vast Builder Armada. It merely confirms what Earth’s deep space monitoring already shows: The fleet is bearing directly on Earth and any race or empire in the way is summarily destroyed as the invaders move ever closer.

The once unbeatable Kree are only the latest to fall…

When a distress call arrives from the rulers of the Galactic Council representing Kree, Skrulls, Badoon, Spartax, Brood and Shi’ar, the Avengers are soon ‘Outbound’, resolved to stop the fleet long before it reaches Earth.

Severely wounded, Outrider returns to Titan to inform Thanos that the thing he seeks most in the universe has been hidden on Earth by Black Bolt, prompting an invasion by the Titan’s own fleet long before the Builders can arrive. Moreover, almost all the planet’s infernal metahuman champions have left for Kree space…

The tale continues as ‘Worlds Rise’ in Avengers #18 (‘Avengers Universe 1’ with art by Leinil Francis Yu & Gerry Alanguilan) as the hard-pressed leaders of the Council convene a frantic war cabinet and consider unleashing the Negative Zone hordes of former foe Annihilus to bolster the welcome – if humiliating – aid of the Earth heroes. The result is seen in ‘Fall into Singularity’ wherein the massed fleets of the embattled species engage the Builder Armada and are utterly routed…

‘The Stones, Shattered’, New Avengers #9, then introduces Thanos’ deadly subordinates ‘The Cull Obsidian’ (art by Mike Deodato Jr.). As Titanian forces sweep Earth seeking a reality-shaping Infinity Gem, pockets of desperate resistance – Reed (Mr. Fantastic) Richards and Iron Man in America, both Black Panthers of futuristic African nation Wakanda and Wolverine‘s X-Men in Westchester – battle on.

In Atlantis, however, Namor the Sub-Mariner surrenders to the sinister Proxima Midnight whilst Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Strange is corrupted and conquered by the Ebony Maw – the most personally ambitious of Thanos’ lieutenants…

In Africa, hope swells as the twinned Panthers route the colossal Black Dwarf and his legions, but when T’Challa is summoned to an emergency meeting of The Illuminati (a clandestine cabal of Earth’s intellectual and factional powerhouses working to guide and dictate the future of the world: current membership comprising Black Bolt, Namor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Reed Richards, Hank “the Beast” McCoy and T’Challa) the victory sours…

Following a fact page on The Black Order or Cull Obsidian (revealing all you need to know about Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Black Dwarf, Supergiant and the Ebony Maw), the epic resumes with Infinity #2 ‘Fall’ (illustrated by Opeña & Weaver), as ‘From Titan, the Horde’ invade The Peak: Earth’s orbital defence outpost, run by Abigail Brand, Director of the Sentient World Observation & Response Department (a sidebar story resolved in Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2: Angela).

Meanwhile ‘The Gauntlet’ sees Corvus Glaive occupy Attilan, requesting a secret that Black Bolt refuses to share and demanding a show of tribute: the lives of all Inhumans between 16 and 22 years old…

The silent monarch has other ideas: dangerous notions involving his greatest foe and brother Maximus the Mad…

In deep space ‘A War in the Heavens’ has left the Avengers broken and scattered amongst the survivors of the Galactic alliance forces. Captain America, Spider-Woman, Hulk, Hyperion, Smasher and Thor join Shi’ar emperor Gladiator in destroying advance Builder scouts but still don’t trust Ex Nihilo enough to employ his power against his progenitors.

That changes when the Gardener sees his ancestral life-generating brethren employed as mobile bio-weapons on a Shi’ar agri-world and with outrage realises that his former masters have all gone crazy…

On Earth ‘A Convenient Lie’ at last reveals Thanos’ true motivation when Black Bolt informs the rest of the Illuminati that the Titan is devastating Earth in search of a lost son…

‘Binary Collapse’ opens Avengers #19 (‘Building Towards Collapse’ with art by Yu), wherein another Avengers squad – Carol “Captain Marvel” Danvers, Hawkeye, Sunspot and Cannonball endure capture and inquisition at the hands of a sinister Ex Nihila, whilst ‘Behemoth’ follows Manifold, Shang-Chi and Spider-Woman as they minister to the wounded on a malfunctioning ring-world.

Captain America and Thor in the meantime strive to convince the quarrelling leaders of the Council to let them take charge of the fight-back before ‘All These Things we’ve Made’ reveals that at least one of the alien overlords is callously and covertly suing for peace with the Builders…

It’s a fool’s errand and the invaders use the embassage to target a shattering attack against the Council’s concealed location…

On Earth New Avengers #10 reveals ‘The Thanos Seed’ (Deodato Jr. art) as Black Bolt explains to the Illuminati how the death-obsessed Thanos has been scouring the universe in search of the children he sired in his earlier, wilder days; now determined to eradicate every vestige of life he has ever spawned.

One such – born to an Inhuman mother – has been reared in the isolation of a lost colony of the genetically disparate secret race…

‘Favor and Disfavor’ focuses on the Titan’s typically unforgiving response to Black Dwarf’s failure in Wakanda before the Illuminati begin ‘The Hunt’ for the missing son, all unaware that Stephen Strange is a slave to the will of the Ebony Maw…

‘Submit or Perish’ opens Infinity #3 (‘Kingdoms Fall’ illustrated by Opeña & Weaver) with a chilling list of familiar species who have capitulated to the Builders with Ronan of the Kree deeply regretting that his own leader The Supreme Intelligence has just joined that growing list. As the Council fractures into self-serving disunity, Captain America rallies the panicking rulers with a cruel and cunning plan…

It begins on Kree homeworld Hala a day later, where warlord Ronan surrenders his forces to a Builder. At that moment a suicide attack on the victor’s fleet distracts all attention, allowing commandos to take and destroy the invaders’ squadron of gigantic planet-razing super-dreadnought ‘World Killers’ …

With the tide humiliatingly turned the Builder fleet divides, with the main portion heading onwards to Earth whilst a full third remains to eradicate the resistance, unaware that the ploy within a ploy has served to free all the captive Avengers and unleash the unstoppable force of Ex Nihilo’s greatest Terran triumph – overwhelming human planetary defence system Kevin Connor… the Starbrand…

On Earth, metahuman resistance to the Cull Obsidian’s armies mounts, and when Thanos personally attacks Black Bolt the Inhuman triggers ‘What Maximus Built’, drenching the planet in the genetically transformative Terrigen Mists and creating whole new armies of incredibly empowered super-warriors…

This initial volume concludes with ‘The Words of a Gardener’ (Avengers #20, by Yu) as the liberated Avengers are met by Ex Nihila with ‘The Offer’.

Over-matched and with Hala still in Builder hands, Shi’ar, Skrull and Avenger strategists ponder ‘The Edge of Annihilation’ and consider unleashing their Negative Zone ace in the hole, whilst elsewhere ‘Without Judges we are Lost’ sees Ex Nihilo and Abyss surprised as all the Builders’ Gardener sub-class plead to be allowed to switch sides and battle their deranged masters…

But above Hala, Captain America – after considering all the angles in ‘One Man Kneels’ – offers the Allies’ complete surrender to the Builder in residence…

To Be Continued…

A true blockbuster event filled with ferocious action and bewildering plot back-&-forth, there’s a daunting amount of continuity to ignore here, but for tried-and-true cosmic comics lovers and doom-drenched Costumed Dramas fans the effort is certainly worth it.

This titanic tome also offers a gallery of 37 stunning covers-and-variants by Adam Kubert, Deodato Jr., Laura Martin, Yu, Art Adams, Mark Brooks, Shane Davis, Marko Djurdjevic, In-Hyuk Lee, Phil Jimenez, Ron Lim, Alexander Maleev, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Opeña, Steve McNiven, Simone Bianchi, Leonel Castellani, Daniel Acuña and John Cassaday and a wealth of extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for those consumers au fait with the AR icons accessed via a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.