Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Avengers: the Last White Event


By Jonathan Hickman, Dustin Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-569-7

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! reset 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…

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #7-11 (cover-dated May to July 2013), this ongoing big picture series is again written by the scarily impressive Jonathan Hickman; someone with a distinct gift for mixing “mind-boggling” with “thrilling” and making it all seem easy.

This corner of the grand superhero sub-set (with others including Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers, Avengers Assemble and Avengers Underwear Secrets – sorry, that last one’s still imaginary) could be seen as the spine which conceptually links the many series and stars together.

In the previous volume an incredibly ancient trio of “Gardeners” – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – landed on Mars to begin work on their latest project: remaking Earth into something special.

To attain their ends they bombarded the third rock from the sun with bio-mutational “Origin bombs”, seeding locations with new, exotic and deadly life-forms. When the Avengers went after the perpetrators, the infinitely old invaders claimed to have been tasked by the first species in creation and The Mother (of the entire universe) to test and, whenever necessary, eradicate, recreate and replace life on other worlds.

For Earth their major exhibit was a new form of man: a prototype Adam to supersede humanity…

Captain America responded by gathering an expanded contingent of Avengers: the old trusted team and a new expansion squad of champions gathered from across the globe. This auxiliaries comprised Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider-Woman, master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi (now calling himself Manifold), pan-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic crusader Captain Universe and alien mystery-woman Smasher to augment the old regulars Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Although the Gardeners were thwarted, Ex Nihilo remained on Mars after the Avengers took custody of his handmade modern Prometheus. The menace bided his time, waiting whilst Tony Stark sought to decode and understand the Adam left in the Avengers’ care. When at last Earth’s greatest inventor cracked the mystery, the strange creature – now calling himself a Nightmask – promptly predicted an imminent end to everything and the advent of another extinction-level threat…

Elsewhere as the ancient aliens’ six bio-attacks radically transformed and evolved flora, fauna and geography at the strike-sites – which needed constant attention from the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. – arcane elements of the Infinite were aligning and both Nightmask and Captain Universe became instantly aware of a shattering “White Event”…

Reality is composed of discrete universes held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Now with that immemorial barrier somehow fragmenting, the timeless engineers who maintain it can only stoically observe as ‘The Last White Event’ (illustrated by Dustin Weaver, with hues from Justin Ponsor) brings destruction and a global doom device to the Avengers’ world.

As Nightmask explains – in the most obscure terminology – a White Event heralds the ascension of a universe. Usually the cosmos provides a Nightmask as herald, and creates a Justice, a Cipher, occasionally a Spitfire and – inevitably – a being of infinite power: a Starbrand. This has just happened again, but this particular universe – and the entire machinery of the multiverse – is broken…

After the artificial man pinpoints the ground-zero location of the trigger event, Iron Man leads the team to a smoking, five-mile wide crater which was once a small suburban college town. The edgy heroes discover a traumatised young man at the centre of devastation…

‘Starbranded’ (Adam Kubert & Ponsor) describes how the celestial source-code which ensures the right person receives ultimate power had failed and, rather than being suitable or even capable, bullied, needy kid Kevin Connor was the very last person who should become a living planetary defence system…

As the confrontation devolves into catastrophic combat, with Connor easily thrashing the likes of Thor and the Hulk, cosmically aware Captain Universe realises that even for such a rare occurrence as a White Event, something is fundamentally wrong with the Big Picture.

Adam/Nightmask then abruptly intervenes, arbitrarily transporting Connor to Mars where Abyss and Ex Nihilo are waiting…

‘Star Bound’ (Weaver, Mike Deodato Jr. & Ponsor) picks up the tale as, after another impatient fight, Starbrand learns how, after millennia of home world “improvements”, bored Ex Nihilo tweaked his eternal brief and did something a little different with the Origin Bombs he dropped on Earth…

The alien had no idea what results his meddling might achieve, but at least after billions of years it would be different…

Teleporting back to Earth with only the best of intentions, Connor and Adam land in Croatia in time to encounter the fruit of Ex Nihilo’s meddling but their good intentions produce only disaster and when the Avengers arrive the situation only escalates…

After a handy cryptography-key page for the alien ‘Builder Machine Code’ used throughout the stories, a clever change of pace sees a group of Avengers sent to Saskatchewan at the request of the Canadian government. The province was also the site of an Origin Bomb strike and the appalling changes to the area were at first investigated by the team of Canadian heroes from Omega Flight. They didn’t come back.

Now in ‘Validator’ (drawn by Deodato Jr. and colour-rendered by Frank Martin), with all contact lost Wolverine leads a team into the dark heart of the mutated environment to discover a terrifying secret …

When the mutagenic hard rain first fell nobody realised that there were in fact seven bio-bombs. In desolate Norway, the ruthless techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics were unhampered as they harvested the horrific result of that particular Origin-strike.

Thus this second globe-girdling collection closes with ‘Wake the Dragon’ (Deodato Jr. & Martin) as a team of espionage-adept Avengers – Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Spider-Woman, Sunspot, Cannonball and Shang-Chi – travel to Hong Kong to gather intel and stop the sale of whatever doomsday bioweapons AIM has crafted from their researches…

As seduction, cajolery, bribery and inevitably outrageous violence all prove insufficient to the task, only the Master of Kung Fu’s “old ways” and spiritual purity are able to divine the incredible, deadly truth behind all the layers of secrets and lies…

To Be Continued…

Utter Fights ‘n’ Tights magic that will delight fans of doom-drenched Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning covers-and-variants gallery by Dustin Weaver, Justin Ponsor, Joe Quinones & Daniel Acuña and the now mandatory extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections  all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.
™ and © 2013 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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Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Thor Reloaded


By Stan Lee, Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Jack Kirby, Keith Pollard, Walter Simonson, J. Michael Straczynski & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-552-9

With another Asgardian Epic about to open in cinemas around the world, here’s a tie-in trade paperback collection designed to perfectly augment the filmic exposure and cater to movie fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience.

One more sterling Marvel Platinum/Definitive Edition, this treasury of tales reprints intriguing landmarks from Journey into Mystery #112, Thor volume 1 #136, 300-301, 345-348 and 363, Thor volume 3, #12 and Thor volume 1 #600, which will serve to answer many questions the silver screen story might throw up and provide a immense amount of bombastic mythically barbarous fun.

Moreover, in addition to the mandatory Stan Lee Foreword, this compendium contains text features detailing the secrets and statistics of Odin, Kurse, Loki and Malekith, culled from the encyclopaedic Marvel Universe Handbook, plus Mike Conroy’s scholarly trawl through comicbook mythology in ‘The True History of the Norse Gods’.

In case this is your first storm-chase: crippled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an old walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the presumed mythical Norse God of Thunder.

Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, courtesy of the increasingly experimental graphic genius Jack Kirby…

This titanic tome’s blistering battle-fest begins with ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’ from Journey into Mystery #112 by Stan Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone (January 1965) and a glorious gift to all those fans who perpetually ask “Who’s strongest…?”

Possibly Kirby & Stone’s finest artistic collaboration, it details a private duel between the two super-humans which occurred during a general free-for-all between The Avengers, Sub-Mariner and the morally ambivalent, always angry Green Goliath. The raw, breathtaking spectacle of that tale is followed by a portentous vignette from the ongoing back-up feature which was fleshing out the cosmology of the burgeoning Marvel Universe.

Whereas the rapidly proliferating continuity grew ever more interconnected as it matured, with assorted superheroes literally tripping over each other as they contiguously and continually saved the world from their New York City bases, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and Kirby’s transcendent imagination increasingly pulled the Thunderer away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes.

Admittedly the son of Odin popped back every now and then, but clearly for “King” Kirby, Earth was just a nice place to visit whilst the stars and beyond were the right and proper domain of the Asgardians and their adversaries.

Thus from issue #97 on (October 1963), each issue also carried a powerfully impressive supplementary series. Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics (in every sense of the word). Initially adapting the original Scandinavian folk tales but eventually with all-new material particular to the Marvel pantheon, he built his own cosmos and mythology, which underpinned the company’s entire continuity.

Inked by Vince Colletta, ‘The Coming of Loki’ (also JiM #112) was a stylish retelling of how Odin came to adopt the baby son of Laufey, king of the Frost Giants…

As the saga of Thunder God grew from formulaic beginnings into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination, Journey into Mystery inevitably became (The Mighty) Thor with #126, but in this collection we skip to #136 (January 1967) where the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship with mortal love interest Jane Foster were re-examined and finally ended.

A turning point in the feature’s history, ‘To Become an Immortal!’ saw All-Father Odin transform her into a goddess and invite her to dwell in Asgard, but Jane’s frail human mind could not cope with the wonders and perils of the Realm Eternal and she was mercifully restored to mortality and all but written out of the series.

Lucky for the despondent Thunder God the beauteous Warrior-Maiden Sif was on hand…

Thor settled into an uninspired creative lethargy after Kirby left (for DC to invent New Gods, Darkseid, The Fourth World, Kamandi, The Demon, Omac and more). Without his unbridled imagination stories subsequently suffered a qualitative drop and, once illustrator replacement John Buscema moved on too, the series languished in the doldrums until a new visionary was found to expand the mythology once again…

There were a few flourishes of the old magic, however. When Roy Thomas took over scripting he cleverly attempted to rationalise history, legend and the Marvel Universe in an extended storyline which revealed the true nature of the gods and revealed that Germanic folk heroes Siegfried, Sigurd and others were prior incarnations of Thor.

He also revealed that the gods of Earth had a hidden connection with the star-spanning Celestials and their earthly invention the Eternals…

Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid-70s and The Eternals debuted in 1976 in a series obviously at odds with and removed from regular company continuity. The tale revealed that giant alien gods had visited Earth in epochs past, gene-gineering proto-hominids into three distinct species: Human Beings; god-like super-beings who called themselves Eternals and monstrous, genetically unstable but highly intelligent creatures dubbed Deviants.

Moreover the Celestials had periodically returned to check up on their experiment…

Never a comfortable contemporary fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe, comic explorer Kirby played out his fascinations with Deities, the Cosmos and Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended and Kirby left again, other creators quickly co-opted the concept into regular continuity. From the end of that lengthy Asgardian epic (beginning either in issue #272 or #283 depending on your temperament) comes the blistering conclusion in Thor #300 – October 1980 – and the gripping epilogue from #301 one month later.

Written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio with art by Keith Pollard & Gene Day, ‘Twilight of the Gods’ saw Thor finally uncover the truth about his origins and affinity for Midgard, before learning of an ancient inter-pantheon pact to oppose the Celestials in ‘Whatever Gods There Be…’

The Prince of Asgard then rushed to his dying sire’s aid and spearheaded the resistance to the Space Gods for the climactic ‘Day of Alpha’…

Through devious means Earth was saved from the alien’s destructive judgement, but only at the cost of all his people. Thor #301 found the Storm Lord petitioning the planet’s other deities for a portion of their power to restore the fallen in ‘For the Life of Asgard!’ by Gruenwald, Macchio, Pollard & Stone.

Walter Simonson had, for a brief while, been one of those artists slavishly soldiering to rekindle Kirby’s easy synthesis of mythology, science fiction and meta-humanist philosophy, but with little more success than any other.

However, always deeply invested in Kirby’s daring, exploratory, radical visionary process, when he assumed complete creative autonomy of the title in November 1983 – he was at last free to let loose and brave enough to bring his own unique sensibilities to the character.

The result was an enchantingly addictive body of work (#337-382 plus the Balder the Brave miniseries) that moved beyond Kirby’s Canon and dragged the title out of a creative rut which allowed Simonson’s own successors to also introduce genuine change to a property which had stagnated for 13 years.

The first iconic story-arc introduced alternate Thunder God Beta Ray Bill and began a slow, steady march to a cataclysmic clash with the ultimate destroyer Surtur: a stupendous overarching graphic monolith which addressed the horrendously over-used dramatic device of the Doom of the Gods which had haunted this series since the mid-1960s…

The epic was made up of compartmentalised tales such as the eerie supernatural thriller reprinted here. From Thor #345-348, July to October 1984, comes the tale of Eric Willis, human guardian of a long lost Asgardian artefact who finally loses his incredibly long battle against dark Fae killers in ‘That Was No Lady’, even as the Thunderer is courted by comely maiden Lorelei.

The Godling is blithely unaware that she is the sister of the Enchantress and planning to make him her slave through a magic potion…

In the next issue – inked by Terry Austin – Willis’ son Roger inherits the burden of keeping the Casket of Ancient Winters from sinister Dark Elf overlord Malekith the Accursed, and teams up with a rather distracted Thor whose Asgardian race has been at war with Malekith’s people since time immemorial. But whilst ‘The Wild Hunt!’ harries his enemies, the demonic destroyer captures Lorelei and drags her ‘Into the Realm of Faerie!’

When Roger and Thor go after them the Thunderer is attacked by super elf Algrim the Strong who would have killed Thor had not impatient Dark Elf thrown both combatants into a fiery pit…

All alone Roger is helpless to protect the Casket from Malekith who at last unleashes ‘The Dark and the Light’ (Bob Wiacek inks) allowing Surtur to escape from his eternal prison…

‘This Kurséd Earth…!’ from #363 (January 1985) was part of the Secret Wars II publishing event set after the Surtur conflict ended, and saw omnipotent being The Beyonder come to Earth in search of philosophical answers to imponderable questions. Adopting a trial by ordeal methodology, the alien resurrected and augmented Algrim and allowed him to hunt Thor, even as guest stars Power Pack and Beta Ray Bill attempted to reason with the oddly sympathetic obsessed berserker…

The series continued, folding in the late 1990s, to restart in an impressive second volume as part of the Heroes Return publishing event, but the same toothy problems of direction still lingered.

And so, at last the cosmic dramas all concluded with the Really, Truly, We Mean It, End of the Gods and True Day of Ragnarok, wherein Thor himself instigated the final fall to end an ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless overbeings who had manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time began…

Even so the franchise restarted in 2007 with volume 3 and the Storm Lord back from the dead. Conjoined once more with Don Blake he was looking for the displaced citizens of a somehow restored but empty Asgard, which now floated a few dozen feet above the barren flats of Brockton, Oklahoma.

Thor volume 3, #12, (January 2009) offers ‘Diversions and Misdirections’ by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales revealing how, with Odin gone and Asgard now Earthbound, implacable Loki has joined with Death Goddess Hela to dishonour and destroy his hated half-brother.

The first step requires the God of Mischief to travel back in time to that long gone moment when his father Laufey battled Odin…

Thor resumed its original numbering in April 2009 and volume 1 #600, by Straczynski, Coipel, Marko Djurdjevic & Morales, saw the insidious villain’s ultimate ‘Victory’ after resurrecting the long deceased proto-Asgardian Bor and tricking the progenitor of all Norse Gods into attacking Earth and battling his own grandson Thor… to the death…

With covers by Kirby, Stone & Colletta, Pollard, Simonson, Djurdjevic, Olivier & Morales and Gabrielle Dell’Otto, this fulsome primer is less an introduction for readers unfamiliar with the stentorian Thunder God and more a cleverly constructed appendage for the film sequel.

However, I can’t deny that what’s on offer here is of great quality and well able to stand as great examples of the comicbook hero at his most memorable and entertaining. Most importantly this is a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation too.

Filled with non-stop tension and blockbuster action, this an ideal tool to make curious film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.

© 2013 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. British edition published by Panini UK.

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Black Widow: the Name of the Rose


By Marjorie Lui & Daniel Acuña, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4700-8

The Black Widow started life as a svelte and sultry honey-trap Russian agent during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days. Natasha Romanoff was subsequently redesigned as a super villain, fell for an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – and finally defected; becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., freelance do-gooder and occasional leader of the Avengers.

Throughout her career she has been considered efficient, competent, deadly dangerous and somehow cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours. As her backstory evolved, it was revealed that she had undergone experimental Soviet procedures which had enhanced her physical capabilities and lengthened her lifespan, as well as assorted psychological processes which had messed up her mind and memories…

Always a minor fan favourite, the Widow only really hit the big time after being in the Iron Man and Captain America movies, but for us unregenerate comics-addicts her print escapades have always offered a cool, sinister frisson of delight.

This particular caper compilation originally surfaced as the first story arc of her short-lived 2010 comicbook series, (reprinting Black Widow volume 4 #1-5, June to October), but first opens with a short tale from the Enter the Heroic Age one-shot from July of that year.

‘Coppélia’, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson, saw Natasha back in the former U.S.S.R. to retrieve a package sought by assorted intelligence agencies, international arms dealers and even more nasty, untrustworthy types. Sadly, that also perfectly describes her own bosses…

Eponymous epic ‘The Name of the Rose’ (by Marjorie Lui & Daniel Acuña) commences as gargantuan old country ally Black Rose rendezvous with his erstwhile comrade to warn her that someone has made her a target…

Despite the timely warning the sultry spy still falls to an ambush attack and regains consciousness on an operating table. There’s a hole in her stomach from where her assailant had unlocked her most shameful secret and surgeons are desperately working to save her…

In attendance are former lovers Logan AKA Wolverine, Tony (Iron Man) Stark and current boyfriend Bucky (Captain America) Barnes, as Natasha is keenly aware since she is awake and can hear them. Paralysed, she can only think back to how this all started a day earlier when she received a black rose in an envelope marked “remember Natasha”…

As she is wheeled into Recovery, Wolverine goes hunting for her assailant, but finds himself unable to take vengeance for his friend…

In hospital, the Widow rouses from a dream of her youth on the Russian Front in WWII and finds Logan guarding her. He now knows what was taken from her and is prepared to back off as the still surgically traumatised ex-agent attempts to escape from the ward which is also her prison.

In a darkened room an anonymous spook informs Hawkeye, Stark and Captain America that for as long as she’s been their “friend” Natasha has been gathering data on them – and on everybody she has ever met…

Whilst they defend her, elsewhere Pepper Potts is shot by assassin-for-hire Lady Bullseye, and as Stark rushes to her side the spymaster casually reveals that the Widow’s files describe the best way to get to the inventor is through his cherished assistant…

On the run Natasha retreats to one of her scrupulously maintained safe-houses to recuperate and re-arm. Once fully tooled up, the Black Widow goes hunting by making herself a target and is confronted by lethal renegade Elektra who’s rather annoyed at finding she’s in those exposed files too. But then, so are all the people who ever trusted the Widow…

Barely surviving the clash, Natasha is later found and nursed by Black Rose. Having deduced a piece of the puzzle she then heads to London in pursuit of the hidden mastermind who has exposed her and stolen her clandestine insurance policy.

Because that’s all it was…after all, she would never have used any of that accumulated information unless she had to, would she?

These damning ruminations are interrupted by a trio of assassins from her KGB days and the resulting battle leads to even more deaths but further revelations and recriminations…

Pursued by friend and foe alike the quest takes Natasha to Russia and a final chilling confrontation with Lady Bullseye before her beloved Bucky finally finds her…

From here on the build up to the splendidly convoluted, sharply smart conclusion is so gripping and twisty that I’d be a real meany to even consider spoiling it for you. Suffice to say all answers are forthcoming and the bad guys get what’s coming to them in a most spectacular and resoundingly gratuitous manner…

This captivating and astoundingly beautiful tome is rounded out by ‘Black Widow Saga’ – a comprehensive prose and picture recap of ‘The Early Years’, programming and conditioning secrets of ‘The Red Room’, as well as Natasha’s ‘Spy & Saboteur’ exploits, ‘The Super Hero Life’, origins of ‘The New Black Widow’ and ‘The Deadliest Days’ of her latter life.

Also included are a gallery of covers by Acuña, Travel Foreman, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Stephanie Hans & Joe Quinones, accompanied by a photographic Movie Variant and a one page Black Widow introductory strip by Fred Van Lente & McKelvie to make this such a superb example of genre-blending Costumed Drama that you’d be thoroughly suspect and probably mentioned in dispatches for neglecting it.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men: Lovelorn


By Matt Fraction, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Mitch Breitweiser, Daniel Acuña & Justin Ponsor (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2999-8

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

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

Most of those genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to relocate to San FranciscoBay, but of course, trouble is always happy to make house calls…

This sleek, slim tome re-presents Uncanny X-Men #504-507 and Uncanny X-Men Annual volume 2, #2, cover-dated January-May 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing the assorted mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer in a publishing event dubbed Manifest Destiny.

This compelling compilation commences with the 4-part ‘Lovelorn: Every Little Bit Hurts’, scripted by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson with colourist Justin Ponsor, beginning as Russian expatriate Piotr Rasputin languishes in remorse and agonises over the recent fate which took his beloved Kitty Pryde from him.

Colossus‘ moping is beginning to affect every survivor at the newly occupied Greymalkin Facility on the Marin Headlands so leader Scott “Cyclops” Summers and Emma Frost, ex-White Queen of the Hellfire Club resort to tough love, ordering him to get his head together.

The uncrowned rulers of the mutant enclave are going through a tense patch in their own rocky relationship. The telepathic Frost is chafing over the fact that Scott is keeping one small section of his mind permanently closed to her probes and her resentment is growing daily…

As Piotr wanders through San Francisco’s Russian quarter in the Richmond District he stops for a snack in a diner and finds the owners being harassed by mobsters from the old country. Against his better judgement he agrees not to interfere, but then realises the gang leader is a mutant… one he recognises from his childhood…

Founding X-Men Angel and the Beast are in Argentina trying to recruit one of Earth’s oldest mutants for a unique “think tank”. In the 1930s abrasive and obnoxious super-genius James Bradley worked with Phineas Horton to create the android Human Torch before becoming the masked vigilante Doctor Nemesis. Now, preternaturally spry, he spends his days hunting down those Nazi war criminals he didn’t finish off during WWII.

He has no interest in helping the X-Men undo the effects of the Scarlet Witch’s spell – but none of that matters to the high-tech neo-Nazi supermen hunting Nemesis in turn…

Suddenly the world changes again as reports of a massacre leak out of Alaska. Terrorists have razed remote Cooperstown to burning rubble, apparently because a mutant baby was born there…

Already anti-mutant activist Simon Trask is stirring the flames of panic and prejudice as a Press Statement from his Humanity Now Coalition asks if this is true “what happens when one is born in your town?”

With anti-mutant hysteria growing and Trask actively lobbying in Washington, Cyclops, Beast and Emma visit the San Francisco Mayor. However, even with most of the feared and despised genetic outcasts now housed in her city and the entire population potentially at risk from fanatics and mutant-hunters, Sadie Sinclair stands firm on her offer of sanctuary.

She does however eventually suggest that they relocate the community to an uninhabited, more fortifiable island in the Bay…

Colossus is hunting. The thug in the diner was the same tattooed mutant monster who had terrorised and blackmailed his family in Russia long before the X-Men were formed. Now that he has spread his web to America and Piotr has found the reasons he needed to resume the role of hero…

As what passes for normality returns to the X-enclave Scott broods on his daughter Hope, first mutant born after “the Decimation” and currently lost in future with his son Nathan AKA Cable. Emma broods because she still can’t read her man’s mind and, in the Yukon, mutant tech-morph Madison Jeffries broods on his impending demise at the clamps, claws, grippers and wires of the autonomous mechanical life forms he’s just created.

His certain doom is deferred when Beast, Angel and Dr. Nemesis arrive to offer him a position in their “X-Club”…

In San Francisco Piotr has decided on a long game and joined the mutant racketeer’s gang, and Emma’s fretting has turned to nights filled with bad dreams. As Trask’s hate-message spreads, an increasing number of former mutants and their parents begin to arrive begging for sanctuary and Colossus only adds to the influx crisis when he rescues a cargo of trafficked Russians and brings them the relative safety of the X-enclave.

After dealing with the mech-things, the ever-expanding science team has travelled to Japan to recruit atomic mutation expert Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi where the reclusive paranoid has a slight problem.

He’s trapped on a remote island by the giant monsters he created to protect him from being abducted by the Soviets and the travellers only survive the Brobdingnagian assaults after Angel is forced to reveal his own deadly transformative secret to his astounded and horrified colleagues…

Back in San Francisco, Colossus ends his infiltration of Tattoo’s mob in decisive manner when Emma – never a big fan of men who abuse girls – invites herself along for the ride…

Later the reassembled and victorious mutants enjoy a moment of relative calm but are blithely unaware of the distant reawakening of an old and dreaded foe…

This engaging Costumed Drama then concludes with a lengthy examination of the history and motives of Emma Frost in ‘White Queen, Dark Reign’ from Uncanny X-Men Annual #2, illustrated by Mitch Breitweiser on modern-day chapters with Daniel Acuña handling the scenes from her sordid serried past…

When she was young and a villainous consort of Hellfire Club ruler Sebastian Shaw, the precocious telepath was “expected” to get cosy with Atlantean monarch and public enemy Prince Namor of Atlantis. Now the new US Metahuman Security Supremo Norman Osborn (see Dark Avengers volume 1: Assemble) has invited both Emma and Namor to join his covert cabal of criminal masterminds and global outlaws, the conniving Frost sees an opportunity to pay a few old and still-painful debts…

Exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining, this stirring, supremely sensuous Fights ‘n’ Tights tome is treasure trove of treats for fans of sexy superheroes and combat connoisseurs and also includes a selection of cover reproductions and variants by Mr. & Mrs. Dodson, Greg Land & Michael Golden

© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.

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By Jason Aaron & Simone Bianchi (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-543-7

In the wake of the epochal Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured as a jumping on point for new and returning readers. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the superhero universe an inviting, interesting place to visit.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, of course, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Thus in advance of the forthcoming comics event Infinity and his own movie debut, the renegade Mad Titan Thanos got his own tell-all 5-issue miniseries (running from April to August 2013) collected here as a brooding, moody and extremely gory chronicle of rejection, depravity, insanity and death.

Lots and lots of death…

Thanos first appeared in Iron Man #55, as did his nemesis Drax the Destroyer, in the prelude to an epic campaign of conquest from 1972-1974 which appeared in Captain Marvel #25-33 with side skirmishes in Marvel Feature #12 and  Avengers #125 plus a few issues of Daredevil. The alien “Masterlord” seemed obsessed with conquest and destruction; using an army of space pirates, a coterie of super-villains and the wish-fulfilling Cosmic Cube to attain his ends.

In the end Thanos transformed himself into God and was revealed to be in love with the personification of Death herself. Only a cosmic entity who had awaited his emergence for eight billion years eventually turned the tide of terror.

This tale was a key event in Marvel history, innovative and still deeply thrilling on a raw, visceral instinctual level. Thanos, the death-obsessed master-villain, was a critical and commercial success in all his appearances: battles with Captain Marvel, the Avengers, the Thing and Spider-Man, whilst his destruction at the hands of the agent of Universal Life Adam Warlock was an absolute highpoint in superhero storytelling.

Thanos died but was of course brought back from The Great Beyond to resume redressing the imbalance between the Living and the Dead to please his mistress. He also worked hard fulfilling equally dark and deranged agendas of his own – such as waging an all-out war for hands-on control Reality and becoming the Supreme Being…

Scripted by Jason Aaron and beautifully illustrated by Simone Bianchi, this fearsome glance into the formative years of the Scourge of Life begins amidst the shattered ruins of Titan where Thanos regularly returns to cogitate amongst the fragments of his earliest atrocities.

The moon of Saturn had been home to an offshoot race of Eternals for millennia when the boy was born to saviour, supreme scientist and leader A’Lars and his wife Sui-San. The babe was born disfigured, a mutant amongst a population of perfect people. However it was the chilling look in the child’s eyes and not his deformities which prompted the exhausted mother to try and kill him the moment she first held him…

With Sui-San under permanent medical restraint, the freak grew up lonely but not outcast – although something in him made all the other kids uncomfortable. Eager to please and fit in, young Thanos exhibited great scientific aptitude but only ever really had one friend, a girl who constantly challenged him to greater and more incisive enquires – especially biology…

To tell more would ruin some delightfully dark passages and spoil an extremely engaging reconstruction of the Cosmic Destroyer as he transitions from comicbook mad dictator into that most popular of modern monsters, the serial psycho-killer.

Suffice to say that the saga of how Thanos leaves home, destroys home, becomes a pirate and sires an army of children before at last discovering his true vocation and destiny is a most intriguing and plausible journey: one that will impress contemporary readers and most die-hard fans alike.

Also included are pages of extra content for tech-minded consumers via the AR icon option (a printed portal providing code for free digital copy on Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app which includes trailers, character bios, video commentaries and more) as well as a good-old-fashioned cover-and-variants gallery by Bianchi, Marko Djurdjevic, Carlo Barberi, Mark Brooks, Skottie Young, Ed McGuiness & Mike Deodato Jr.

™ & © 2013 Marvel. 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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Thor God of Thunder: Godbomb


By Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Butch Guice & Tom Palmer (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-551-2

In the wake of the epochal Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company’s entire continuity was reconfigured. From that point on the banner MarvelNOW! indicated a radical repositioning and recasting of all the characters in an undertaking designed to keep the more than 50-year-old universe interesting to readers old and new alike.

This involved a varying degree of drastic rethink for beloved icons, concepts and brands, always, of course, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Collecting Thor, God of Thunder #6-11 (cover-dated May-October 2013) and scripted throughout by Jason Aaron, this blistering cosmic chronicle again encompasses a multitude of eras as the Lord of Lightning ends an epic war to save all deities throughout Creation from the sadistic depredations of Gorr, the God-Butcher…

It all began when the present-day Thor heard a prayer from another planet and voyaged to the arid planet Indigarr where a devout girl called out to alien gods because her own had been murdered.

The Thunderer’s intervention and investigations took him to the pan-cosmic metropolis Omnipotence City, where divinities from every world and time had gathered since the universe began. He found there that pantheons across the universe had been mysteriously disappearing or dying for millennia…

Moreover, as he was constantly intercepted and ambushed by monstrous black beasts he remembered a ghastly time when he was young and boisterous in Iceland and Russia and an alien foe had slaughtered his followers before capturing and torturing him. Although he had eventually overcome the insane god-hating Gorr, the present crisis had much in common with that awful, humiliating occasion…

Meanwhile, at the end of time in a universe with no gods left, an aged, one-eyed, one-armed Thor was the Last King of Asgard, unceasingly defending his Great Hall from an unending horde of savage black beasts that hungered for his doom…

Thanks to perseverance, the ramblings of broken alien minor deity Shadrak and the benisons of the enigmatic Time Gods, the contemporary Storm Lord at last learned the impossibly cruel, history-shredding scheme of the God Butcher: to invade the time-stream, unmake history and achieve a utopian “Godless Age”…

The Celestial Slaughterman was over the moon when his 21st century nemesis arrived in Asgard at the end of eternity. Now the temporal terror had two Thors to torment as he completed his awful agenda…

The saga resumes in this volume with a slight digression as ‘What the Gods Have Wrought’ (illustrated by Butch Guice & Tom Palmer) reveals the brutal ancient origins of the primitive Gorr on a hellish world where all his children died long slow deaths. Discarding the gods who had abandoned him, the enraged apostate then stumbles into a duel between two cosmic beings and kills them both after the battle leaves them spent and helpless.

One of the celestial beings had employed a black energy force, and that eerie weapon then transferred its power and allegiance to Gorr. Revelling in revenge achieved, the barbarian reshaped the dark force into armour before flying into space seeking more gods to kill…

By time’s end he had eradicated almost all of them – apart from a captive population he kept to torture and fuel his ultimate weapon…

The 5-part ‘Godbomb’ – illustrated by Esad Ribic – then opens with ‘Where Gods Go to Die’. In the final future the mature and ancient Thors gird themselves for battle as, in 893AD, young Thor is attacked by Gorr’s minions and becomes the latest captive of the God Butcher’s slaughter camp…

In the now at the Library of Omnipotence City, Shadrak reveals his hidden nature and what Gorr made him build. The Librarian is appalled at what the “God of Bombs and Explosions” has wrought…

Brought to be broken at the end of eternity, the juvenile Storm Lord meets the last deities in creation – including his own eventual granddaughters Atli, Ellisiv and Frigg – before learning the meaning of sacrifice and humility as a ‘God in Chains’. His unending torment is only leavened by his meeting the son of Gorr – a kind and decent boy who worships his own red-handed sire as a god…

The ultimate bomb is fed by the deaths of gods and when ready it will explode, sending killing energies through time to destroy all gods everywhere. The captive deities are intent on sabotaging it, but before they can find a volunteer Atli realises her boy-grandfather has already gone…

The attempt fails completely leaving the Godbomb utterly unscathed. There is no sign of young Thor. Unknown to all, the boy has been blasted into space to be fortuitously rescued by a flying dragon boat carrying two older versions of himself. Set on war, ready to die and uniquely sharing ‘Thunder in the Blood’, the Boy, Man and Dotard turn towards what will be a fateful Final Battle…

From here on the story becomes a magnificent spectacle of heroic sacrifice and glorious action as the trinity of Thors defeats the ultimate enemy and sets Reality to rights in a tale of blistering action and exultant adventure, cleverly capitalising on the Thunder God’s key conceptual strengths, producing a saga to shake the heavens and delight fans of both the comics and the movies.

Also included herein are swathes of extra content for tech-savvy consumers via the AR icon option (described as code for a free digital copy on the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop: a special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app – including cover recaps, behind the scenes features and more) as well as a cover-and-variants gallery by Ribic, Gabriele Dell’Otto and Julian Totino Tedesco.
™ & © 2013 Marvel. 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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Rogue Touch


By Christine Woodward (Hyperion)
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1102-5

It seems that the signature genre of comics – the superhero – has at last gained some degree of literary legitimacy. Even if you ignore the collected pulp exploits of Doc Savage or The Shadow, or the assorted novelisations and prose forays from funnybook publishers capitalising on the early success of series like Wild Cards with their own key brands, the timbre of modern times has allowed costumed do-gooders and crazed masterminds to finally break into “real” publishing.

Now even proper book companies have many titles that blend crime, horror, science fiction and the peculiarly comicbook cult of the Over-Man into their mainstream fare.

With that in mind here’s something a little different and probably more in tune with the tastes of female readers, Young Adults and those fans possessing only a passing familiarity with X-Men continuity.

LET ME BE SPECIFIC. THIS IS A NOVEL. THERE ARE NO PICTURES INSIDE.

In the Marvel Universe Rogue was first seen as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: a disturbed young girl cursed with a power that stole abilities and memories from anybody who touched her skin-to-skin.

It was an ability she could not control or turn off, and any overlong fleshy contact resulted in the victim falling into a coma with their entire history and essence drained into her. Rogue then became a reluctant jailer with stolen powers and personalities locked in her head forever.

Played as a “bad-girl” and mystery woman for years, Rogue grew to become one of the most popular characters in the excessively large X-cast, winning her own miniseries where it was first revealed that as a young girl her powers manifested just as she was kissing her first love Cody Robbins…

With the boy she wanted imprisoned in her head whilst his body permanently shut down, the girl knew she was a freak and monster who must never again experience human contact…

This novel picks up a little later and never mentions any aspect of the Marvel Universe as it begins the story of 20-year old Anna Marie: a reluctant recluse working a dead-end night job at a small bakery in Jackson, Mississippi.

Always wrapped head-to-toe in many layers, the odd night owl one night sees a weird lurking man almost waiting for her. She takes steps to avoid him, the way she avoids everybody who might accidentally touch her and suffer the horrific consequences…

However the non-incident rattles her and gives boss Wendy Lee an excuse to fire her…

All but unemployable and strapped for cash, Anna Marie is forced to apply for food stamps, but waiting in line she sees the same creepy, good-looking guy. However when she challenges him she inadvertently calls attention to the fact that he’s pulling some kind of scam and security guards chase him from the building.

She sees her stalker again on the streets and realises that even in the Mississippi heat the guy is cold and really, really hungry. Without really knowing why, she gives him some of her food stamps…

Over the next few days they keep meeting and become friendlier, but James is a strange and cagy man with an accent she can’t place and the weirdest gaps in his knowledge of everyday life.

Her prospects don’t improve and one night, reduced to desperation, Anna Marie breaks into the bakery, intent on taking food to the value of the severance check she didn’t get. Tragically, Wendy Lee discovers her and in the scuffle makes contact…

Now with a young boy and an old lady stuck in her head, the horrified, guilt-ridden girl realises she has to steal a car and get out of town as soon as possible …and that’s when James drives up, offering her a ride to anywhere she wants…

Thus begins an epic and immensely engaging rollercoaster ride across America as the mismatched loners discover each other and the incredible secrets both are concealing. He prefers to be called “Touch” rather than James and has impossible gifts too. As she slowly allows herself to love the boy, “Rogue” – as he insists on calling her – is forced to accept just how much of a stranger he is… especially once the super-scientific pursuers and monster animals chasing him start to close in on her too.

He also knows far more about her than he at first let on…

Draped in the eternal allure of two kids in love and on the run, and designed to attract readers raised on Roswell High, Sookie Stackhouse, Twilight and generations of road-buddy movies, in Rogue Touch Christine Woodward successfully translates the X-Men’s memory-&-power-leeching Southern Belle into a compelling, alienated but ultimately powerful, self-reliant and triumphant woman in an increasingly fantastic and dangerous world.

Immensely readable and engaging, this is a supremely cunning and clever confection: easily affixable to Marvel’s mutant mythology should you be so inclined, but also a completely self-contained science fiction/young romance thriller that will delight the aficionados of all those so-successful alienated teen prose franchises. There’s even room and scope for a sequel or two…

™ & © 2013 Marvel and Subs. All Rights Reserved.

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Superior Spider-Man: A Troubled Mind


By Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Ryan Stegman, Victor Olazaba & Cam Smith (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-538-3

Over the years the Wondrous Wallcrawler has undergone many evolutions, refits and even backsliding revisions, but his latest evolution – springing out of the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #700 – is certainly the most radical character change of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

In that issue the personality of Peter Parker died and Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body, becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man.

Parker’s mind had been transferred into the rapidly failing body of the super-villain where, despite every desperate effort, in the end he perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame. Now Octopus is permanently installed in the Amazing Arachnid’s body and living Peter’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements…

The situation is not completely intolerable. At the moment of the villain’s greatest triumph Parker forced Octavius to relive and experience every moment of tragedy and sacrifice that made Spider-Man the champion he was.

From that emotional turmoil came understanding and the villain reformed, swearing to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his enemy; honestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission and equally guided by the binding principle that “with great power comes great responsibility”…

However the megalomaniac within proved hard to suppress and the new web-spinner incessantly worked to prove himself a better man: augmenting the hero’s gadgets and methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, adding advanced weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises.

Otto went back to college because he was appalled Parker had no doctorate and even tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man has become New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has embraced the Web-spinner, all but appropriating the wallcrawler as a deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible phantom of Peter Parker lurking within the deepest recesses of the overwritten mind of Spider-Man…

The helpless ghost is an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius but increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, some of Parker’s oldest friends are beginning to suspect something hinky is happening.

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew of Peter’s incredible secret life and is increasingly reminded of the last time Spider-Man fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He also claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…

Everybody accepts Spider-Man has changed. Not only is he more efficient these days, but he’s far more brutal too. Giving bad-guys like Boomerang and the Vulture the thorough thrashings they so richly deserve plays really well with the public and, after a deadly hostage siege, the hero’s status with city cops peaked after the Amazing Arachnid executed the sociopathic perpetrator Massacre…

Written by Dan Slott, A Troubled Mind collects issues #6-10 of The Superior Spider-Man (released March-July 2013) and continues following the author’s introductory summation ‘Superior Minds’.

Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba illustrated ‘Joking Hazard’ which sees prankster villains Jester and Screwball win vast popular acclaim for their “harmless” public humiliations of the rich and powerful – such as Mayor Jameson.

Even though the pair are actually using their internet site to phish financial details from the millions of viewers who access their posts, the world loves them – but not the new Spider-Man, who horrifically overreacts to being made to look a fool…

Meanwhile, as Parker and new romantic interest Anna Maria Marconi negotiate the obstacles to Peter obtaining his doctorate – a mission not helped by the candidate’s innate smug arrogance – the Avengers are becoming extremely concerned about their young comrade’s erratic behaviour, whilst in the shadows a new Hobgoblin carefully lays plans to conquer the city…

The multi-part ‘Troubled Mind’ then commences with ‘Right Hand Man’ as Robin Hood villain Cardiac returns, still stealing technology to treat patients who can’t afford medical care. With a little girl in desperate need of advanced brain scanning, the rogue raids an impound facility and liberates a device devised by the dead madman Otto Octavius. He cannot understand why former frenemy Spider-Man seems to take the theft so personally…

The ghost of Peter Parker later feels a swell of hope when the Avengers forcibly arrest his stolen body and subject it to a battery of tests. Sadly, the Avengers in ‘Proof Positive’ don’t include geniuses like Tony Stark or Henry Pym, and cannot properly interpret the data their machines provide.

Doc Ock can, however, and now realises why occasionally he feels inexplicable resistance when his angry, violent natures boils over…

With Octavius exultant and Parker’s ghost crushed, the wallcrawler tracks down Cardiac’s illegal free hospital to retrieve “his” scanner, only to feel his righteous indignation crumbling at the sight of the dying little girl the maverick surgeon is trying to help…

Consumed by guilt, the Superior Spider-Man uses the purloined scanner to perform brain surgery on the child but, after saving her, retains the scanner to perform a similar service upon himself…

‘Gray Matters’ discloses how the Avengers’ tests revealed a phantom echo of Peter’s brain patterns beneath his own freshly encoded, dominant patterns and how, with the aid of his scanner, Otto hunts down and forever erases the aggravating voice within his skull…

Now wiped forever free of that annoying shadow of conscience, the finally triumphant mad doctor can celebrate his ‘Independence Day’ (art by Ryan Stegman & Cam Smith) completely devoid of limiting considerations such as pity or humanity. Of course, the same applies to the new iterations of supervillains such as White Dragon, The Owl and Tombstone, organised by Hobgoblin as the vanguard of an unstoppable army of evil to take New York City…

More importantly, with Phantom Parker no longer incessantly, fruitlessly screaming in his head, the hero’s nearest and dearest are coming to the inescapable conclusion that there is something just plain wrong with “Peter”…

To Be Continued…

Capped off with a selection of Ramos’s design sketches in ‘Superior Insight’ augmenting a gallery of his covers, this astounding reinvention carries as standard that wonder-of-21st-century invention AR icon sections. These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages offer access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it has become something of a norm, but this incarnation – for however long it lasts – is one that no fan or newbie can afford to miss: shocking, clever and impossibly addictive.

™ & © 2013 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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Marvel Adventures Avengers volume 9: The Times They Are A’Changin’


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Ig Guara, Casey Jones, Christian Vecchia & Sandro Ribeiro (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3832-7

Since its earliest days Marvel has always courted young comicbook audiences. Whether through animation tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or Calvin, the House of Ideas always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days, however, accessible child-friendly titles are in decline and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company generally prefers to create adulterated versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and subsequently merged it with remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic.

The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, Power Pack, Hulk and The Avengers, which ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This particularly light-hearted digest-sized collection re-presents issues #32-35 of Marvel Adventures Avengers (from 2009) and offers a succession of stand-alone yarns that will delight fans with a sense of humour and iota of wit…

What You Need To Know: this incarnation of the World’s Mightiest Superheroes operates an “open-door” policy where almost every metahuman marvel might turn up for duty. However – presumably because of their TV cartoon popularity – the Wondrous Wallcrawler and Jade Juggernaut are on scene in almost every episode…

Written throughout by Paul Tobin, the fast-paced fun begins with ‘The Big Payoff’ illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Christian Vecchia, wherein the team gets a most unpleasant visit from Special Agent Clark Harvey of the Internal Revenue Service.

This weaselling civil servant is ostensibly there to collect the individual Avengers’ taxes, but it’s all a ploy to blackmail the team into forcing a bunch of defaulting villains into paying up…

Smart and deviously hilarious, the clashes between Giant-Girl, Spider-Man and Luke Cage against Whirlwind, the Web-spinner and erudite philosophical monster/political activist Oog or Man-Bull versus Iron Man are entertainment enough, but Iron Man and Giant-Girl overmatched against the Absorbing Man and the childlike Hulk convincing assassin Bullsesye to do his patriotic duty are literally priceless…

When jungle king Ka-Zar visits from the Antarctic lost world all he can think about is learning how to use a car. Sadly Wolverine, Storm, Giant-Girl, Hulk and Spidey all feel safer battling an invasion of super-Saurians unleashed by Stegron the Dinosaur Man than sitting in the same vehicle as the Lord of the Savage Land in ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’ (art by Ig Guara & Sandro Ribeiro)…

When ancient Egyptian magicians turn time into an out of control merry-go-round, ‘Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos!’ (Lolli & Vecchia) are caught up in the assorted eras of chaos, with Ant-Man, Giant-Girl, Tigra, Storm, the Wallcrawler and Hulk frantically fighting just to keep up…

This titanic tiny tome then concludes on a romantic note in ‘Lovers Leaper’, rendered by Casey Jones, when all the female Avengers head off for a vacation break. They foolishly thought Captain America, Cage, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Wolverine could handle things for awhile, but boys will be slobs and soon the HQ is a ghastly mess of “man-cave” madness…

Moreover, since Hawkeye now needs a date for the Annual Archer Awards, he tries an on-line dating service and manages to upload not just his but all his buddies’ information onto the site…

With seemingly every eligible lady – super-powered and not – in New York City subscribing to the Lovers Leap site, the unsuspecting heroes are soon being bombarded by an army of annoyed women who think they’ve been stood up by the utterly oblivious Avengers.

…And when they try to get the owner to remove their details, the heroes discover former French bad-guy Batroc the Leaper is in charge and unwilling to do them any favours…

Smart and fun on a number of levels, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and many solid laughs, this book really offers a fabulous alternative to the regular Marvel Universe angst and agony.

Even with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” the stories are superbly thrilling and beautifully depicted: a perfect introduction for kids and adults alike to the vast realm of adventure we all love…

In 2012 the Marvel Adventures line was superseded by specific comicbook titles tied to Disney XD TV shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born often two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Indestructible Hulk volume 2: Gods and Monster


By Mark Waid, Walt Simonson, Matteo Scalera & Bob Wiacek (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-562-8

Once upon a time, Bruce Banner was merely a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, undue stress could cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unimaginable strength and fury. As both occasional hero and blockbusting brute he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular characters and earliest multi-media titan.

Thus, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

In recent years the number of Gamma-mutated monsters thundering through the Marvel Universe has proliferated to inconceivable proportions. The days of Bruce getting green with anger at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from TV or movie incarnations would be wise to anticipate a smidgen of unavoidable confusion.

By the time of the game-changing Avengers versus X-Men mega-crossover relaunch there were numerous Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and all kinds of ancillary rainbow-coloured atomic berserkers roaming around, but now with that house-cleaning exercise concluded, the subsequent MarvelNOW! event saw the Jade Giant in a stripped-down, back-to-basics version which should find favour with new and old fans alike.

But it’s definitely not your old Hulk anymore…

This stunning guest-star packed second volume details the next cataclysmic chapter in the ever-eventful life of Banner and his raging Emerald Animus (collecting Indestructible Hulk #6-10, cover-dated June-September 2013) wherein scripter Mark Waid pushes the boundaries even further whilst providing a breathtaking procession of astounding action and compelling drama…

The big transformation began when S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill was convinced to provide Banner with resources and funding to sanitise his scientific reputation in return for her utilising the Hulk as a living weapon of last resort in the agency’s armoury…

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner had lost years of success, progress and peer renown whilst trying to destroy the Hulk. Concerned about his legacy, the fugitive genius had decided to make future headlines as a scientist, not a devastating force of nature.

For the foreseeable future and as long as possible he would manage, rather than seek cures for, his affliction. Moreover, in return for a S.H.I.E.L.D. lab and trained assistants, Banner would also give the agency first use of many of his discoveries and inventions…

Fast-paced and furious, ‘Gods and Monster’ – illustrated by Walt Simonson with Bob Wiacek – opens at the- isolated facility of Nuclear Springs, Nevada (AKA “Bannerville”) where Bruce and his team use a sliver of mystic metal Uru to open a portal to Jotunheim.

Banner theorises that the icy realm contains the most efficient superconductor in creation and, leaving climatologist Melinda Leucenstern to monitor the gateway, leads the rest of his people – biologist Patricia Wolman, renewable energies researcher Randall Jessup and molecular engineer Daman Veteri – into the frozen wastes in search of new breakthroughs… and to teach one of his staff a much-needed life-lesson.

The Uru sliver came from Thor‘s hammer Mjolnir and, soon after finding the sought after Eiderdürm liquid metal, the away party are greeted by the Asgardian Thunder God himself, come to warn them that the inimical indigenous Frost Giants don’t like trespassers.

He also mentions that he has not seen Midgardians in ages and doesn’t recognise Banner…

As the frozen monsters attack, Banner “Hulks out” and joins the Thunderer in routing the horrors. However, during the protracted battle, one of the Jotuns discovers the portal and attempts to cross into the Earth plane.

Thanks to Melinda’s quick thinking and Hill’s honking big gun, it fails, but the team are now trapped on the other side…

When Banner resumes control of himself, he realises the portal has not only spanned dimensions but also dropped them in the past, something the S.H.I.E.L.D. boffins are also keenly aware of as they try fruitlessly to repair the device…

Stranded in Jotunheim, the voyagers finish their mining and ponder a way home, unaware that the Frost Giants, hungry to invade the warm mortal lands, have magically substituted one of their own for a mortal trespasser…

When Hill and a squad of agents finally reopen the gateway the monsters attack en masse and only the shattering power of Thor and the Hulk can prevent utter disaster…

Matteo Scalera then illustrates ‘Blind Rage’ – a superbly dark, high-tension thriller which reveals how Banner has a Plan B in effect should S.H.I.E.L.D. welch on their deal…

One of the few people the Hulk – as opposed to his intellectual alter ego – trusts is lawyer Matt Murdock, the sightless sentinel Daredevil, and the attorney holds papers that will reveal the pact to the so-judgemental public if Hill oversteps herself.

Thus, when a mission to stop an illicit shipment of super-weapons takes Banner to Manhattan, he takes the opportunity to link up with the Man without Fear whilst the brutal mop-up is ongoing…

Unfortunately one of the Euro-trash Agence Byzantine mercenaries escapes with an ultrasound bazooka capable of flooring the Hulk, forcing the mismatched allies to track it down before it reaches its intended purchaser – one of the vilest villains in history…

Bombastic, hilarious, revelatory and vicariously rewarding, the Red and Green crusade through the bowels of the Big Apple is sublimely entertaining and even offers a brooding portent of a rift between Banner and his “boss” in the days to come…

Sharp, refreshingly straightforward and gloriously addictive, this latest stage in the conflict-packed life of the world’s most iconic split personality offers incredible adventure, smart characterisation and intoxicating excess for fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction, and includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Simonson, Paolo Rivera, Dale Keown & Stephane Roux plus the now-customary AR icons (Marvel’s Augmented Reality App: printed portals giving access to story bonuses and extras for everyone who downloaded the free software from marvel.com onto a smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet doohickey).
™ & © 2013 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.