Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy


By Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell (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 this new continuation, picking up where Amazing Spider-Man #700 shockingly ended, is probably the most radical character revamp yet and the boldest of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

There is no way to avoid this so be prepared to suffer at least temporary consternation and a major spoiler alert. If you don’t want to know what’s happened to Marvel’s signature character, stop now and read no further.

For those who remain: for the majority of the aforementioned anniversary epic, the mind of Peter Parker had been transferred into the rapidly failing body of deranged super-creep Otto Octavius and, despite his every valiant effort, in the end perished with that decrepit, expiring frame.

Now the former Doctor Octopus is permanently installed in the Amazing Arachnid’s body and ready to assume his life… with a few minor alterations and improvements…

The outlook for humanity is not as bleak as it might seem: on the very brink of defeat Parker pulled off a brilliant coup and forced Octavius to emotionally relive every moment of tragedy and sacrifice that made Spider-Man the champion he was.

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

Written by Dan Slott with art by Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell, My Own Worst Enemy collects issues #1-5 of The Superior Spider-Man (cover-dates March- May 2013) and opens with ‘Hero or Menace?’ as the still shell-shocked and guilt-tinged amalgam answers the call to duty when a new iteration of his old gang the Sinister Six begins a series of daring raids.

Boomerang, The Shocker, Speed Demon, Overdrive, a new female Beetle and robot prototype The Living Brain are attacking a science lab when the resolute Wallcrawler swings in with great intentions. Sadly when the opposition proves too much, the transplanted terror quickly reverts to type and flees.

…Until he spots an innocent in danger and, despite himself, turns back to effect a spectacular rescue and drive off his foes with a savage efficiency quite unlike Spider-Man and more fitting to a super-villain…

Appropriating the Living Brain for himself, “Parker” then reports for work at commercial think-tank Horizon Labs, determined to make stopping The Six his priority. Fellow workers notice a distinct change in their once easy-going pal and, after a cagy chat with head genius Max Modell, the arrogant, egotist agonisingly realises that every new scientific achievement, breakthrough and triumph will henceforward be credited to his greatest enemy.

There is one advantage however: as Parker, Octavius is rekindling an intimate relationship with the stunning female Mary Jane Watson…

When the Sinister Six attack again the Superior Spider-Man is waiting. A coldly methodical rationalist, the ingenious savant has deduced their plans and laid a trap: countering their numerical and power advantages by setting technological ambushes, stroking his own ego by calling the press in advance so that they can record his triumph.

However he almost blows it all by flying into a rage and nearly beating Boomerang to death.

Octavius has no idea what finally stays his hand: no conception that some portion of Peter Parker’s consciousness survives and is beginning to have a tangible effect on his purloined life…

As ‘The Peter Principle’ opens, the new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man has become New York’s darling. Even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson has embraced the Web-spinner, to the utter incredulity of not only the imperceptible phantom of Parker but also two of his former girlfriends.

Mary Jane and Police CSI Officer Carlie Cooper both know of Peter’s secret life and are discussing how much he’s changed. However when MJ reveals she’s considering getting back together with him, Carlie is reminded of something. The last time Spider-Man fought Doc Ock the killer maniac broke her arm. He also claimed that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…

The new Parker is exultant. He has spent his day improving Spider-Man’s costume, gimmicks and methodology, building spy robots to patrol the city for him while he plans a scientific strategy to bed Mary Jane, to the petulant horror of his unsuspected in-house voyeur.

Before the campaign can progress however another old Spider-foe resurfaces as The Vulture strikes, employing children as surrogate flying thieves working to steal one final big score for the ancient crook….

‘Everything You Know is Wrong’ opens as Jameson takes the City’s relationship with Spider-Man one step further towards full legitimisation, whilst MJ reels from a shocking announcement from “Peter” and Carlie’s suspicions begin to obsess her. The Web-spinner’s hunt for the Vulture is also stalled.

Octavius had a special affinity with the wily old bird and isn’t keen on catching him, but that all changes when he realises just how the flying Fagin truly regards his flock, inadvertently inflicting Otto’s horrific and revelatory childhood memories on the hapless ghost Parker. The appalling injuries the hero then inflicts on the Vulture push Carlie towards the only logical conclusion possible…

This stunning reinvention ends with a staggeringly potent 2-parter beginning with ‘The Aggressive Approach’ wherein the hidden Otto Octavius continues to shine at Horizon, smugly producing groundbreaking technologies until he is reminded that the body he wears never finished college.

Ego gutted by Parker having no doctorate, he determines to return to University and win the coveted honorific, even as at Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane the lethal sociopath Massacre escapes, leaving another trail of bodies. The ever-present shade of the true Peter Parker is appalled and wracked with guilt. He once had the chance to end the killer’s atrocities and chose not to…

The new Spider-Man has no such qualms and promises Mayor Jameson that will not be the outcome this time…

Unknown to all, the Wallcrawler’s greatest foe is also readying himself for a return match even as ‘Emotional Triggers’ finds Octavius turning all his intellect and resources to finding the murderous Massacre.

Well, almost…

With Phantom Parker incessantly and fruitlessly screaming at him, the decidedly less excitable Spider-Man first takes time off to cultivate a new lady-friend and satiate his culinary appetites before tackling the fugitive psycho-killer, who has meanwhile formed an alliance with an unscrupulous businesswoman keen on using his ability to grab headlines and air-time to promote her company.

Eventually, however, the Wallcrawler’s robot eyes find Massacre, and Spider-Man leads a SWAT team against the emotionless mass murderer, ending a horrific hostage crisis in a manner no real hero ever would…

This marvellously intriguing fresh start includes the usual cover-&-variants gallery – by Stegman, Mike Deodato, Jr., Joe Quesada, Camuncoli, J. Scott Campbell, Adi Granov, Humberto Ramos, Skott Young, Ed McGuiness, Simone Bianchi & Mike Bagley – behind-the-scenes production feature ‘Superior Insight’ and the now obligatory 21st century extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections.

These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

If you’ve never read a Spider-Man comic in your life you can start right here. Honestly, everything you need to start fresh and cold is covered in this smart spin, even if nobody in fandom really believes Peter Parker is gone for good…

™ & © 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: The God Butcher


By Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-533-8

In the wake of the game-changing 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, I’m sure, with one wary eye on how the material would look on a movie screen…

Collecting Thor, God of Thunder #1-5 (cover-dated January-April 2013) by Jason Aaron & Esad Ribic, this big, bold blockbuster saga simultaneously unfolds over three separate eras and offers a spectacular clash as the bellicose Lord of Lightning faces his ultimate adversary…

It begins in Iceland in 893AD where a young god revels amongst his Viking worshippers, slaying monsters and bedding mortal maids in the days before he proved himself worthy enough to wield the mystic mallet Mjolnir.

During his revels a dismembered corpse washes up, terrifying the valiant Norsemen. They have never seen the like but Thor recognises it as a god from another pantheon, slaughtered and dismembered like meat…

In the now, Thor is summoned into deep space and the parched planet Indigarr. The Thunderer has mystically heard the desperate prayer of a little girl and on his arrival brings rain and salvation to her dying world.

Celebrated as a saviour, the Storm Lord wonders aloud why the people did not pray to their own gods – across the entire universe, all civilisations and peoples have deities – and learns they are dead. Investigating further he locates Indigarr’s god-palace and discovers the entire pantheon was tortured to death ages ago…

As a monstrous black beast ambushes him he remembers a horrific experience more than a millennium past and knows fear…

In the furthest future, an aged Thor sits in a shattered Great Hall of Asgard. He has only one arm and one eye and is the last god – perhaps the last being – in existence …except for the uncountable hordes of savage black beasts that surround him…

The cosmic conundrum continues in ‘A World without Gods’ as, in Iceland, Thor leads a bold band of worshipful reivers on a quest into what will one day be Russia and encounters a being who has killed all the gods of the Slavs.

Appropriating one of the perished pantheon’s flying horses Thor soars aloft to challenge the mysterious God Butcher and, amidst a welter of ‘Blood in the Clouds’, eventually defeats the maniacal alien Gorr…

In the present, an enraged Thunder God, having honourably disposed of the celestial corpses, sets off to discover the truth of the situation…

Arriving at the pan-cosmic metropolis of Omnipotence City, where gods of every world and time have met since the universe began, the Thunderer discovers that over the eons many divinities have gradually stopped visiting.

After consulting the infinitude of scrolls in ‘The Hall of the Lost’, Thor journeys to many of the worlds and finds the same thing over and again: slaughtered, desecrated corpses and planets bereft of godly life. Each of them does harbour a brutal black beast though…

In ancient Russia the Thunder godling recovers after seven days in a coma, tended by his faithful Vikings. Seeking to confirm his victory, Thor subsequently searches the icy wastes and finds the last of the Slavic Celestials, left as a swiftly expiring signpost to a rematch with the diabolical divinity-slayer…

In our time Thor and Avenger ally Iron Man visit the same region, scouting the cave where Thor ended the menace of Gorr, the God Butcher in the 9th century.

After all he has seen in space, however, the Thunderer is questioning his memory and conclusions. Wiser and warier than his youthful incarnation, the Prince of Asgard dispatches the Golden Avenger to warn Earth’s other pantheons of their imminent peril before entering the cave he’d last visited more than a thousand years ago…

At the very end of days the dotard Thunder God continues to slay black beasts, hungry for the honourable death they will not allow him…

And in the 21st century the Lord of Storms finds not his foe, but a pathetically broken alien god the Butcher has left with a personal message – “It’s all your fault, Thor…”

At the end of time ‘The Last God in Asgard’ is left to fight again but never die, as in the now, Thor and broken alien deity Shadrak return to Omnipotence City following a slipped reference to something called “Chronux” and stumble into a raid by beast creatures determined to erase all reference to it from the infinite library of the eternal omnopolis.

In 893AD the awful truth of what occurred in Gorr’s cavern is revealed, as the present-day Thor follows a faint hope to the planet of the Time Gods and learns the impossibly grandiose, history-shredding scheme of the Butcher.

Gorr meanwhile has uncovered the true origin-story of universal life and invades the corridors of time to achieve his ‘Dream of a Godless Age’…

The Celestial Slaughterman is even more elated when his 21st century nemesis is catapulted to Asgard at the end of eternity. Now the chronal marauder has two Thors to play with – for as long as he wishes…

To Be Continued…

Dark, complex, expansive and disturbing, this cruelly compelling yarn perfectly capitalises on the Thunder’s God’s key conceptual strengths to offer a decidedly different take on the venerable hero – one that should delight fans who think they’ve seen it all.

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 the usual available-to-all expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Ribic, Skott Young, Daniel Acuña, Joe Quesada, Olivier Coipel & Rajko Milosevic Guera.

™ & © 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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Heroes for Hire: World War Hulk


By Zeb Wells, Fred Van Lente, Clay Mann, Alvin Lee, Leonard Kirk, Alé Garcia, James Cordeiro, Terry Pallot & John Bosco (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-7851-2800-7

After a TV reality show starring actual superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders. The US government mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community, and an indignant, terrified general populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders refused to surrender to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Super-Human Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four fragmented and, as the conflict escalated, it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right.

At the heart of the savage clash of ideologies, bionic detective Misty Knight and her ninja partner Colleen Wing assembled a squad of warriors to do some real good during the worst of times…

Knight and Wing – the Daughters of the Dragon – were former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist, and revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refused to comply with the SHRA.

However the new squad – ex-thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, sadistic martial arts polymath Tarantula and super-mercenary Paladin – soon found themselves at odds with the tricky path they were following as their promised role (only apprehending villains) began to suffer increasing “mission creep”…

Moreover as they tracked their sanctioned targets, they lost a comrade (Atlantean powerhouse Orka), credibility and the trust of all sides in the Civil War…

This collection, gathering issues #11-15 and primarily scripted by Zeb Wells, brings down the curtain on the second Heroes for Hire series (spanning August to December 2007) and saw the team founder and die amidst internal strife and the end of the world …

This particular Armageddon was the result of The Incredible Hulk returning to Earth after months away on another planet.

He had been peremptorily exiled to a brutal, barbaric world by Reed Richards, Dr. Strange and Tony Stark but found lasting love and family there. However, when the savage paradise was destroyed by Earthly technology, the Grim Green Giant returned to his homeworld at the head of an alien coalition of survivors dubbed The Warbound, determined to exact vengeance in kind…

The frantic call to arms begins in ‘Infestation’ (illustrated by Clay Mann & Terry Pallot) as the H4H team land in New York after a mission in the antediluvian Savage Land and walk into a city under martial law.

The job had been to capture a missing link Homo Habilis specimen (dubbed Moon Boy) for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s science division, but during the expedition, unknown to the others, insect avatar Humbug was taken by colossal bugs long-vanished from the rest of the world, leaving his friends to believe him dead and eaten.

He was subsequently found, but somehow changed: no longer the whiny clown they knew. Powerful, confident and slightly frightening, he informed them that they had to rush home to fight a threat to the entire planet. His friends had no idea what Earth’s ancient insect masters of had transformed their laughable companion into…

Brought up to speed by S.H.I.E.L.D., the heroes join the mobilisation to resist Hulk and the Warbound, ignoring the bizarre warnings of Humbug that the true threat was “the warrior-beetle and his queen”…

Seeing no profit, Paladin leaves even as the frantic insect master, wracked by inexpressible contacts with the invader-bugs, rushes off into the locked-down city. Following, Shang-Chi and the others discover their deranged comrade stalking bizarrely cute insect scavengers. As they try to befriend one of the “Hivelings”, Humbug casually dismembers it and showers them with its “blood”…

These tales were accompanied by a sidebar serial, ‘Killer Instincts’ (by Fred Van Lente, John Bosco & Pallot), wherein the absconding Paladin discovers S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new super-agent Scorpion raiding the NYPD’s confiscated super-weapon and evidence warehouse and gets into a fight he can’t win…

‘Subjugation’ (Wells, Mann & Pallot) finds the team and Moon Boy – fully-cloaked from the scout aliens’ chemical senses by bug ichor – infiltrating the Warbound flagship until the ultra-advanced King Miek penetrates the subterfuge.

Humbug chooses to slip away rather than warn his companions, leaving them all to be captured as he confronts the true threat to Earth. Tragically when he faces the sinister Brood Queen her presence is too much and the man-bug becomes her helpless thrall…

Meanwhile, back at ‘Killer Instincts’ (Van Lente, Bosco & Pallot), the struggle between Paladin and Scorpion escalates as both combatants begin employing all the stashed gimmicks impounded there…

‘Incarceration’ reveals how the situation goes from bad to worse as Humbug turns on his former comrades, allowing them to be tortured. However, whereas the Brood Queen sees his connection to Earth’s insect overlords as a means of subverting the entire planet – and making it her new global nest – Miek only sees a rival…

When the King demands to know which one of the infiltrators killed his Hiveling, Humbug blames Tarantula. Shocked and appalled, but refusing to snitch on Humbug, Colleen claims she did it and both women are dragged off to be tortured to death…

‘Killer Instincts’ concludes with the apparent death of Paladin, but the whole fight has been orchestrated as a test, with Scorpion utterly unaware who has been pulling her psychotic strings…

‘Procreation’ (Wells, Alvin Lee, Mann & Pallot) then finds Misty, Shang, Black Cat and Moon Boy casually discarded in Central Park as their framed companions are made the hosts and food for a new generation of horrific bugs…

As the Brood Queen prepares to do likewise to all of New York, Paladin steals a S.H.I.E.L.D. super-tank, links up with the remaining members of Heroes For Hire and leads a last charge into the proto-nest under MadisonSquareGarden…

The final confrontation comes in ‘Extermination’ (with art by Lee, Leonard Kirk, Alé Garcia, James Cordeiro & Pallot) as the heroes brutally clash with Humbug and discover how little humanity remains in his ghastly mutated form.

Defeated and discarded by their former sidekick, the Heroes regroup to rescue Colleen and Tarantula.

As Humbug agonisingly transforms into his ultimate form, the surprise secret weapon of the Insect Lords ends the threat of the Brood Queen, and one member of H4H takes uncharacteristic measures to end both Humbug’s dishonourable career and a beloved comrade’s eternal suffering.

Tragically, even in the aftermath of it all, there’s one final betrayal for the broken heroes to endure…

Dark, destructive and decidedly downbeat, this turbulent tome closed the books on the Commerce-fuelled Champions with a distinct tinge of unfinished business and led to a third iteration in 2010…

Before this lot shut up shop, however, there’s still space to mention that this collection includes a cover gallery by Clayton Henry, Takeshi Miyazawa, Sana Takeda & Francis Tsai, and again strongly recommend this splendidly gritty, witty, funny, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed series which will surely delight all older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
© 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Iron Man Reloaded


By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Len Kaminski, Matt Fraction, Don Heck, George Tuska, Greg LaRocque, Kev Hopgood, Salvador Larroca, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-529-1

With Summer Movie Blockbuster season hard upon us Marvel has again sagaciously released a wealth of film-inspired tie-in books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comicbook experience.

Produced under the always intriguing Marvel Platinum/Definitive Editions umbrella, this treasury of tales gathers a few of the more impressive but happily less obvious landmarks from the Steel Sentinel’s extensive canon; this time cannily focusing on sinister mastermind, ultimate arch-enemy and movie menace the Mandarin.

Contained herein are high-tech hi-jinks from Tales of Suspense #50, Iron Man volume 1, #21-22, 68-71, 291 & 500, Marvel Team-Up #146 and Iron Man volume 5 #19, (listed on Marvel’s Database as Invincible Iron Man volume 1 #19), spanning 1964 to 2011, which offers a fair representation of what is quite frankly an over-abundance of riches to pick from…

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, cruel Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armour…

Since then the inventor and armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, Federal politician, affirmed Futurist, Statesman and even Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, and, of course, one of the world’s most prominent superheroes with the Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept lumbered with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful but vital periodic necessity. To keep contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been drastically revised every so often with the crucible trigger event perpetually leapfrogging to America’s most recent conflicts. As always, change is everything but, remember Man, these aren’t just alterations, these are upgrades…

After the now-mandatory introduction from Stan Lee, the star-studded action begins with ‘The Hands of the Mandarin!’ from Tales of Suspense #50 wherein the wonderful Don Heck returned as regular penciller and occasional inker after a brief absence, and Lee introduced The Golden Avenger’s first major menace: a modern-day Fu Manchu who terrified the Red Chinese so much they tricked him into attacking America in the hope that one threat would destroy the other.

In response Iron Man invaded the mastermind’s oriental citadel where, after a ferocious but futilely inconclusive fight, he simply went back home to the Land of the Free.

The furious Mandarin held a grudge however and would make himself arguably Iron Man’s greatest foe.

Of course whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a glamorous millionaire industrialist, scientist and a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s soon relegated his suave, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business manifestly the new zeitgeists of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting a few tricky questions from their increasingly politically savvy readership.

With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore, the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America…

Iron Man #21-22 (January & February 1970, by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska & Joe Gaudioso) found the multi-millionaire trying to get out of the arms business and – following a heart transplant – looking to retire from the superhero biz.

African-American boxer Eddie March, became ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark, free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved him for years, was briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unfortunately, unknown to all, Eddie had a major health problem of his own…

As Stark pursued a romantic future with business rival Janice Cord, her chief researcher and would-be lover Alex Niven was revealed as a Russian fugitive using her resources to rebuild the deadly armour of the Crimson Dynamo. The renegade easily overcame the ailing substitute Avenger and, when Soviet heavy metal super-enforcer Titanium Man resurfaced with orders to arrest Niven, a three-way clash ensued. Stark was forced to take up his metal burden again – but not before Eddie was grievously injured and Janice killed in #22’s classic ‘From this Conflict… Death!’

Stark’s romantic liaisons always ended badly. Four years later he was ardently pursuing Roxie Gilbert, a radical pacifist and sister of his old enemy Firebrand. She, of course, had no time for a man with so much blood on his hands…

Iron Man #68-71 (June to November 1974) was the opening sortie in a multi-part epic which saw mystic menace The Black Lama foment a war amongst the World’s greatest villains with ultimate power and inner peace as the promised prize. Written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by Tuska & Mike Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ as the Mandarin struggled to free his mind, which was currently trapped in the dying body of Russian villain the Unicorn.

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently “liberated” People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother, a POW missing since the last days of the war. Then the Americans were separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the Yankee Imperialists. The attack was abruptly ended when Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power the mind-transfer back into his own body.

Reinstated in his original form, the Chinese Conqueror began his campaign in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival oriental overlord Yellow Claw. Firstly though, he had to crush Iron Man who had tracked him down and freed Sunfire in ‘Confrontation!’ That bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into space…

‘Who Shall Stop… Ultimo?’ found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking the Mandarin’s castle as the sinister Celestial duelled the Claw to the death, with both Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and forced to mop up the sole survivor of the contest in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw!’…

‘Hometown Boy’ (September 1984, by Tony Isabella, Greg LaRocque & Esposito) comes from the period when Stark succumbed to alcoholism and lost everything and his friend and bodyguard Jim Rhodes took over the role of Golden Avenger.

As Stark tried to make good with a new start-up company, this engaging yarn from Marvel Team-Up #146 sees the substitute hero still finding his ferrous feet whilst battling oft-failed assassin Blacklash at a trade fair in Cleveland, as much hindered as helped by visiting hero Spider-Man…

Despite successfully rebuilding his company, Stark’s woes actually increased. Iron Man # 291 (April 1993) found the technocrat trapped in total paralysis and using a neural interface to pilot the armour like a telemetric telepresence drone. He had also utterly alienated Rhodey who had been acting as his proxy in a tailored battle suit dubbed War Machine…

Concluding an epic saga, ‘Judgment Day’ by Len Kaminski & Kev Hopgood explosively revealed how the two feuding friends achieved a tentative rapprochement whilst battling a proverbial army of killer robots and death dealing devices programmed to hunt down Rhodes at all costs…

Invincible Iron Man #19 comes from December 2009 by Matt Fraction &Salvador Larroca. During this time the Federal initiative known as Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes and Stark was appointed the American government’s Security Czar – the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom. As Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. he was the last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

However his mismanagement of various crises led to the arrest and assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in an almost-successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, Stark was replaced by rehabilitated villain and recovering split-personality Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin), who assumed full control of the USA’s covert agencies and military resources, disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his new umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

Osborn was still a monster at heart however and wanted total power. Intending to appropriate all Stark’s technological assets, the “reformed” villain began hunting the fugitive ex-Avenger. Terrified that not only his weaponry but also the secret identities of most of Earth’s heroes would fall into a ruthless maniac’s hands, Stark began to systematically erase all his memories, effectively lobotomising himself to save everything…

‘Into the White (Einstein on the Beach)’ reveals the conclusion of that quest as Stark, little more than an animated vegetable wearing his very first suit of armour, faced his merciless adversary in pointless futile battle, whilst in America faithful aide Pepper Potts, the Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last deputy director Maria Hill raided Osborn’s base to retrieve a disc with Tony’s last hope on it and simultaneously engineer the maniac’s ultimate defeat…

The comics portion of this winning compilation concludes with the lead tale from Iron Man volume 1 #500 (March 2011) wherein the generally recovered Stark is plagued by gaps in his mostly restored memory.

‘The New Iron Age’ by Matt Fraction, Carmine di Giandomenico, Nathan Fox, Haim Kano & Salvador Larroca, is a clever, twice-told tale which begins when Stark approaches sometime ally and employee Peter Parker in an effort to regain more of his lost past.

Stark is plagued by dreams of a super-weapon he may or may not have designed, and together they track down the stolen plans for the ultimate Stark-tech atrocity which has fallen into the hands of murderous anti-progress fanatics resulting in spectacular showdown of men versus machines…

Contiguously and interlaced throughout the tale are dark scenes of the near future where the Mandarin has conquered the world, enslaved Tony Stark and his son Howard and, with the ruthless deployment of Iron Man troopers and that long-ago designed super weapon, all but eradicated humanity.

With Earth dying, rebel leader Ginny Stark leads the suicidal Black Widows in one last charge against the dictator, armed with primitive weapons, aided by two traitors within the Mandarin’s household and guided by a message and mantra from the far forgotten past…

The book is rounded out with pertinent covers from Jack Kirby, Tuska, Esposito, Jim Starlin, Dave Cockrum, Ron Wilson, John Romita Sr., LaRoque, Bob Layton, Hopgood & Larroca, plus a dense and hefty 21 pages of text features, including ‘The Origin of the Mandarin’ by Mike Conroy and history, background and technical secrets of Crimson Dynamo, Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Mandarin, Pepper Potts, Stark Industries, Titanium Man and War Machine.

This thoroughly entertaining accompaniment to the cinema spectacle is also a well-tailored device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice the newcomers and charm the veteran Ferro-phile.
© 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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Avengers: Avengers World


By Jonathan Hickman, Jerome Opeña, Adam Kubert & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

ISBN: 978-1-84653-536-9

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the entire continuity in the ongoing, never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones – a problem increasingly affecting all publishers of print periodicals, not just comicbooks…

For the House of Ideas this meant a drastic reshuffle and rethink of key characters, concepts and brands and, since movie media darlings the Avengers are the most public of the company’s current super-successes, the “World’s Mightiest Heroes” understandably got the most impressive – and accessible – refit.

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #1-6 (cover-dated February-April 2013), this big picture series is written by Jonathan Hickman (The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four and more); someone with a flair for making the truly mind-boggling thrilling and readily digestible. This sector of the superhero sub-set (the others being Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers and Avengers Assemble) could be seen as the spine which conceptually links the many series and stars together.

The bombastic adventure begins with a cataclysmic 3-part yarn that firmly sets a formidable new standard as the team evolves from plain old world- to periodic universe-savers…

‘Avengers World’ (drawn by Jerome Opeña and colour-rendered by Dean White) finds Iron Man and Captain America pondering past errors and potential future crises before laying plans to make Earth’s defenders a truly unstoppable army. The opportunity to test the plan soon arises as a trio of god-like creatures arrive on Mars and begin bombarding our world with bio-mutational “Origin bombs”.

When core group Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk, Iron Man and Cap arrive on the Red Planet to stop the assaults, they find the once desolate landscape teeming with exotic, deadly life-forms and are soundly thrashed by the robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo. To show their diffident disdain, the terraforming terrors return the battered Star Spangled Avenger to Earth to let the obsolescent masses know their time is done…

‘We Were Avengers’ (with colours from White, Justin Ponsor & Morry Hollowell) sees the infinitely old creatures claim to have been tasked by the first species in creation and their “Mother” (of the entire universe) to test and, when necessary, eradicate, recreate, and replace life on other worlds.

As Ex Nihilo slowly tinkers with the prototype Adam that will supersede humanity on Earth, Captain America has gathered the first of the proposed expanded contingent: old comrades and new champions gathered from across the globe.

Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider Woman, master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi and Captain Marvel are joined by former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi (now calling himself Manifold), extra-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic entity Captain Universe and alien mystery woman Smasher, even as six more DNA-warping blockbuster bombs fall on some of Earth’s most populated and remote regions.

With monsters devastating and remaking our world, Cap leads his utterly unprepared squad back to Mars and ‘The Garden’ (coloured by White, Frank Martin & Richard Isanove) for the shattering final battle where a most unexpected secret is revealed…

With the cosmic trio defeated, the back stories of the expanded Avengers are then explored, beginning with Hyperion in ‘The Death and Resurrection of Major Titans’ (illustrated by Kubert & Laura Martin).

Although Ex Nihilo’s bio-attacks have ended, the things already transformed and evolved at the previous strike-sites still need to be tackled, but when an Avengers task force is dispatched to sanitise the dinosaur preserve of the Savage Land they find the techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics already in situ and exploiting the unnatural disaster…

Particularly troubled is Hyperion, since the treatment of some of the less menacing newly evolved creatures causes the other causes the other-dimensional Atomic Ace to revisit some very unpleasant aspects of his own past, and interactions with AIM…

None of the triumphant heroes realise that there were in fact seven bio-bombs and, in desolate Norway, an AIM team has found the terrifying result of that Origin-strike…

As Tony Stark seeks to understand the “Adam” left in Avengers’ care after Ex Nihilo departed, ‘Superguardian’ (Kubert & Frank Martin) reveals the origins of ordinary Iowa-farmgirl Izzy Dare, who found a fragment of lost Shi’ar technology and was transformed into alien super-soldier Smasher.

Moreover Izzy’s new status then draws her, Cap, Wolverine, Hulk, Falcon and Manifold into a shooting war on the other side of the universe as that alien empire’s Imperial Guard are attacked by overwhelming invading forces.

Only after defeating the mystery raiders does the combined Terran/Shi’ar force realise that their foes were not hungry for conquest but frantically fleeing an even greater menace…

This stunning tome concludes with ‘Zen and the Art of Cosmology’ as philosophical warrior Shang-Chi attempts to divine the tragic secrets of the traumatised human flotsam hosting the eerily puissant energy force known as Captain Universe. However even as the empathetic fist-fighter unlocks the horrific tale of broken mother Tamara Devoux, arcane elements of the Infinite are aligning and both Adam and the cosmic crusader are suddenly aware of a shattering “White Event” beginning even as they speak…

To Be Continued…

Pure superhero magic that will delight every fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy, this book comes with a stupendous, sublime and expansive covers-and-variants gallery: two dozen superb images by Dustin Weaver & Justin Ponsor, Steve McNiven, Esad Ribic, Hastings, Jeff Scott Campbell, Scott Young, John Romita Jr., Adi Granov, Mark Brooks, Daniel Acuña, Dale Keown & Frank D’Armata, Paulo Manuel Rivera and Carlos Pacheco, and a cryptography-key page for the alien ‘Builder Machine Code’ used throughout the stories. As standard now, there are also selections of extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections best 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. This collection also features special augmented reality content available exclusive through the Marvel AR app – including cover recaps, behind the scenes features and more.

Can’t say fairer than that, eh?

© 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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Fantastic Four: Disassembled


By Mark Waid, Karl Kesel, Paco Medina, Mike Wieringo & Juan Vlasco (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1536-6

The Fantastic Four is rightly regarded as the most pivotal series in modern comics history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a strikingly fresh manner of engaging readers’ imaginations and attention. The heroes are felt by fans to be more family than team and, although the roster has temporarily changed many times over the years, the line-up always inevitably returns to the original core group of maverick genius Reed Richards, wife Sue, trusty friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s younger brother Johnny; all survivors of a privately-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

After crashing back to Earth, the quartet found they had all been mutated into freaks. Richards’ body became astoundingly elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying monster who, unlike his comrades, could not reassume a semblance of normality on command.

This particular game-changing compilation gathers issues #514-519 (August-December 2004), highlighting more of the spectacular run by writer Mark Waid and much-missed illustrator Mike Wieringo; celebrating their “back-to-basics” approach which utterly rejuvenated the venerable property and marked one more ending of an era.

What You Need To Know: after banishing their greatest enemy to Hell, the team attempted to save Doctor Doom‘s now-leaderless nation of Latveria. To do this, Reed unilaterally seized control of the postage-stamp kingdom to keep it being from being torn apart and swallowed by its land- and tech-hungry Balkan neighbours.

Although done for the right reasons, Mr. Fantastic’s drastic solution alienated friends and allies – and even his own team-mates – and lost him the respect and support of the entire world.

Contemporaneously in the Marvel Universe: as the FF became unloved pariahs and practically bankrupt, 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 Young Avengers).

The event spilled over into the regular titles of current team members and affiliated comic-books such as Spectacular Spider-Man, with close allies the Fantastic Four inexorably drawn into their Big Show.

Said Show consisted of the worst day in superhero history as the unsuspectedly insane Scarlet Witch attacked the Avengers from within, resulting in the utter destruction of everything they held dear and the death of several members and associates. The side-bar sagas collected here concentrate on the uncalculated fall-out of that devastating sequence of events…

It begins in the 3-part ‘Dysfunctional’ (by Karl Kesel, Paco Medina & Juan Vlasco) when, with the heroes at their lowest ebb, incorrigible arch-foe The Wizard targets them, using a new roster of his antithetical cohorts in The Frightful Four. This iteration (Hydro-Man, the Trapster and mysterious new pyrokinetic “Fire Maiden” Salamandra) start enacting the Wizard’s devious plan just as Johnny finds his new girlfriend Cole Wittman at the centre of a bizarre series of tectonic disasters.

When she is invited back to FFHQ for tea and tests, shock follows shocks as Cole reluctantly lets the Wizard’s minions in…

The poor girl is the unwitting product of the evil super-genius’ genetic tinkering: a test-tube baby combining his and Salamandra’s DNA and somehow able to affect gravity. It is, unfortunately, an ability the poor dupe has no control over…

As the two FF’s spectacularly clash and the villains come out on top, the Wizard’s true intentions are revealed as he murderously disposes of one of his own to make way for Daddy’s little girl to join his team. Moreover he has broadcast the entire battle to the world, in his arrogant determination to prove his superiority to the fallen Reed Richards…

Battered but unbroken the heroes pick themselves up, determined to find their foes and rescue Cole. The girl is already regretting her actions as her “father” elatedly reveals the circumstances of her creation and exults in the success of his greatest “experiment”…

The staggering counterstrike almost goes horribly wrong when Salamandra’s true nature is exposed, resulting in a catastrophic struggle and a tragic pyrrhic victory for the Fantastic Four…

The main event sees the return of creators Waid & Wieringo (with Kesel inking) for ‘Fourtitude’ as Halloween finds the team on the road to recovery if not public redemption. Reed has already rebuilt their fortune with a brief flurry of invention and profitable patents – such as the self-inflating, self-retrieving basketball – and, as darkness falls, cosmic calamity offers Fantastic Four, Inc. a chance to restore their shredded reputation…

Out of the darkness of space four monumental alien pylons crash into the waters around Manhattan and begin sucking the island up into the void. With the Avengers gone, the Mayor has no choice but to turn to the pariah-team to save his city and perhaps the world…

They are already at work rescuing citizens when the call comes and soon Richards and his comrades have penetrated one of the vast constructs to discover the horrible truth behind Manhattan’s abduction.

Benevolent alien technologist Zius had discovered a way to mask planets from the attention of world-devouring Galactus, potentially saving trillions of lives and possibly resulting in the eventual doom by starvation of the cosmic cannibal. However he has learned that on Earth a counter to his process exists.

Thus he has raced to our world to remove that single threat to universal salvation.

It doesn’t take long to determine that the force in question is Sue, whose powers include making the unseen visible. Zius was willing to throw New York into the Sun to ensure the safety of the cosmos, but with the World-Eater undoubtedly getting closer every moment she surrenders herself in return for the island’s safe return…

Desperate Reed quickly devises a way to obviate the necessity to kill his wife and the aliens prepare to leave, satisfied but utterly unaware of the brilliant stratagem Richards has used to bluff them.

As New York rejoices in the triumph of its now restored and redeemed champions, Sue discovers she is now a Human Torch whilst her brother possesses the critical invisibility power.

…And that’s when the star god arrives and takes possession of the mortal threat to his infinite existence…

To Be Continued…

With an eye-catching cover gallery by Gene Ha, Morry Hollowell, Wieringo, Kesel & Paul Mounts, this compulsively engrossing epic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction truly carries on the legacy of mind-bending imagination and breathtaking excitement established by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Epic and engaging, this is a treat for comics fan and newcomers alike – even if you need to get the next volume too…
© 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Manifest Destiny


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

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 portentously dubbed Homo Superior is at its lowest ebb. This follows the catastrophic House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein former Avenger Wanda Maximoff AKA the Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals.

Most of these genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to establish an enclave on an island dubbed “Utopia” in San Francisco Bay, and this utterly engrossing tome re-presents Wolverine: Manifest Destiny #1-4, X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler plus the lead strip and selected short stories from the anthology X-Men Manifest Destiny #1-5 and covers the period October 2008 – April 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing various mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer.

This account of some who answered the call to “Go West, Young Mutant” opens with the 4-issue miniseries Wolverine: Manifest Destiny (by scripter Jason Aaron and artists Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz Luque & Noah Salonga) wherein the long-lived wanderer known as Logan is plagued by some freshly-returned memories as he wanders the streets of Chinatown, painfully aware that, at least in this part of San Francisco, he is not welcome…

The bestial, nigh-indestructible mutant was born at the end of the 19th century, but over the decades his mind and memories have been constantly tampered with by friends and foes alike. Recently. however, a steady procession of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, over-brainwashed life has gradually seeped out.

He recalls a breach of trust and broken promise made to the citizens of Chinatown fifty years previously and is determined to make amends and restitution, beginning with an unhappy confrontation in ‘Enter the Wolverine’…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The one-shot X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler follows as ‘Quitting Time’ (by James Asmus, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes) focuses on the swashbuckler-turned-priest as he seeks for higher meaning in the eradication of mutants and his own place in the X-Men.

An answer is perhaps forthcoming in a request to visit a museum dedicated to him in the German village where he was almost killed by pitchfork-wielding bigots who believed he was a demon…

At that time Professor Charles Xavier saved him and invited him to join the mutant hero team, setting him on the path of the hero. However, all these years later as he meets his former persecutors, the troubled cleric still feels like an unclean outsider and realises he has been brought to his homeland under false pretences. Another “demon” is plaguing Winzeldorf and, with a child missing, the villagers are expecting one monster to catch the other.

Of course there is far more going on than meets the eye, and inevitable tragedy leads to a confrontation with a genuine devil when the satanic Mephisto appears, hungry for despoiled and tarnished souls…

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

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

Surviving her many assaults, Iceman realised an exponential leap in his abilities but their final confrontation on the Bay Bridge proved that his understanding of her incomprehensible motives and actions was far from complete…

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

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

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

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Heroes for Hire: Ahead of the Curve


By Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, Zeb Wells, Al Rio, Clay Mann, Scott Koblish, Tom Palmer & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN 978-1-7851-2363-6

After a TV reality show starring actual superheroes went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders. The Federal government quickly mandated a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community, and an indignant, terrified general populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders refused to surrender their autonomy – and in many cases, anonymity – to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Super-Human Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented with “brother pitted against brother”. As the conflict escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country and Constitution and both sides knew they were right. At the heart of that savage battle of ideologies, bionic-armed detective Misty Knight and her ninja-trained partner Colleen Wing put together a squad of new and accomplished warriors to do some real good during the worst of times…

Knight and Wing – AKA the Daughters of the Dragon – are former associates of Power Man & Iron Fist, and initially revived their old firm Heroes for Hire to apprehend metas who refused to comply with the SHRA. However their new squad – reformed thief Black Cat, Kung Fu Master Shang-Chi, insect avatar Humbug, Atlantean strongman Orka, bloodthirsty martial artist Tarantula and super-mercenary Paladin – soon all found themselves at odds with the tricky path they were following as their promised role (only apprehending villains) began to suffer increasing “mission creep”…

Moreover as they tracked their sanctioned targets, a deadly menace from the past was hunting them…

This collection, gathering issues #6-10 of the second Heroes for Hire comicbook series (from March-July 2007), saw the already tarnished team seek to survive financially hard times following a split with their S.H.I.E.L.D. paymasters – even if it meant not being too picky about their clients…

Most innocuous of these was little genius Billy who offered the entire contents of his piggybank if the Heroes would help him recover his robot friend Vic from super-villains who had stolen him…

Almost simultaneously a more lucrative case materialised when shady Diamond District enforcer Louis Kravits came looking for metahuman help and forced Misty to split the squad in ‘Guns, Gems, Robots and Terrorists!’

Most of the team would concentrate on a gang of power-armoured gem-thieves and their hidden high-tech supplier, whilst a less-than-thrilled Humbug would render whatever assistance deemed necessary to reunite Billy with his ambulatory toy.

It would prove to be a truly disastrous misallocation of resources…

As Misty’s squad hunts for the exultant and overconfident thieves and their loot, Humbug learns just why little kids are such a trial; convinced he’s on a wild goose chase until his billions of arthropod eyes scattered throughout the city lead them to a certain sewer where the ludicrously lethal Headmen are hidden. They have just finished reprogramming Vic, a damaged and discarded killer Doombot…

The Headmen were initially a trio of thematically linked scientists and savants, all “stars” of Marvel’s pre-superhero fantasy anthologies, grouped together by the late, great Steve Gerber in The Defenders. With the inclusion of the weirdly salacious Ruby Thursday, compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan (whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test-subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him), body hopping, quadriplegic mystic Chondu and near-as-dammit boneless scientist Jerry Morgan, they became a macabre cadre of skull-stealing mercenary maniacs who seemed to perpetrate wickedness just because they could…

As the bulk of Heroes for Hire thrash the tooled-up robbers and subsequently track their exo-suits to a ship in Brooklyn, the seriously overmatched Humbug is captured and subjected to Nagan’s latest surgical atrocity…

Aboard ship Misty’s group is ambushed by their prey – revealed as old Avengers foes Grim Reaper and Man-Ape, augmented by a female terrorist named Saboteur – and awaken to find themselves trapped with a downward-counting nuke…

Zeb Wells replaced Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti as scripter with issue #8 as, never daunted, the Heroes save New York and get rid of the bomb, but, whilst following a paper-trail to their enemies, receive a bizarre cry for help from Humbug’s insect minions. Dividing the H4H stalwarts, Misty sends Shang-Chi, Orka and business manager Otis after the missing bug-wrangler whilst she leads the women on a “Girls’ Night Out” to crush the Reaper and his “Death-Cadre”…

Tragically one of the boys just cannot take the Headmen and their shabby robot seriously and pays a fatal price, driving the Master of Kung Fu to a shameful lack of restraint and uncanny depths of violence as he avenges his fallen comrade and the cruel damage done to Humbug…

Worst of all neither gig actually results in a payoff, a fact disgraced former member Paladin exploits when he shows up with well-paying, uncomplicated “clean” case…

Nobody has seen the mercenary since he betrayed them all and tried to sell their friend Captain America to the Government (for refusing to comply with the Super-Human Registration Act in Heroes for Hire: Civil War) but now the glib gladiator has an offer they simply can’t refuse: capturing a proto hominid specimen from the primeval Savage Land and delivering him safely to scientists desperate to examine his uniquely untainted genes.

The boffins are offering each member of the snatch squad a million dollars…

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s science division are frantic to get their hands on the diminutive Homo Habilis but he is best-buddies pals with a fiercely protective crimson Tyrannosaur – which old-time fans will recognise as Jack Kirby’s outrageously cool adventure heroes Devil Dinosaur and sidekick Moonboy…

Outvoted, the still furious Misty can only go along with her team as they head to Antarctica and an antediluvian nightmare (with Al Rio surrendering the pencilling chores to Clay Mann for #9-10)…

The Savage Land is a fantastic repository of creatures from Earth’s most distant epochs, and even as his team-mates are attacked by beasts – and beast-men – Humbug is taken by insects long-vanished from the rest of the world, leaving his friends to believe him dead and eaten…

Completely out of their depth, the Heroes soon accomplish their distasteful mission but find themselves in deadly danger from the flora and fauna of the perilous paradise until Humbug reappears to save them.

He is completely changed: no longer the whiny clown they knew. Powerful, confident and slightly frightening, he informs them that they must all return to New York immediately to fight a threat to the entire planet, However the team have no idea what the ancient insect masters of Earth have transformed their oafish ally into…

This bombastic book also includes a cover gallery by Billy Tucci, Mark Sparacio & Mike Golden to cap a splendidly gritty, witty, funny, fast-paced and spectacularly action-packed, menu of menace and manic adventure to delight all older fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
© 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Uncanny Avengers: The Red Shadow


By Rick Remender, John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-528-4

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

Sadly this isn’t a merely Marvel problem but a malaise affecting the entire global comics industry, but that struggle for survival does occasionally produce some truly stellar reading results as in this impressive fusion of two grand old franchises, allowing writer Rick Remender and artists John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales to take the latest brigade of the “World’s Mightiest Superheroes” in a fascinating old new direction.

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #1-5 (cover-dated December 2012-May 2013), this astounding reaffirmation of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction opens with the eponymous 4-part thriller depicting the creation of a new, politically correct and provocatively inclusive team combining human and mutant heroes, tasked with proving that mutant visionary Charles Xavier‘s dream of lasting cooperation and mutual amity between Home Sapiens and Superior was not impossible…

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time the mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married the android hero Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As the years passed their loss slowly, imperceptibly drove Wanda mad and when she at long last slipped completely over the edge and destroyed a number of her Avenger team-mates, the effects of her power and actions affected and reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in a dramatic reboot event known as Avengers Disassembled.

No sooner had the team recovered from that catastrophe than reality was overwritten again when she had another breakdown and altered Earth history such that Magneto’s mutants ruled over a society where normal humans (“sapiens”) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every hero on Earth and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (in another colossal company crossover dubbed House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her redemption during Avengers versus X-Men wherein the World’s Mightiest Heroes strove against the remaining mutant outcasts for control of young Hope Summers: a girl predestined to become mortal host to the implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them whilst empowering their dream of turning the planet into a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before inevitably the rapacious, selfish destructive hunger of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent energy transformed the unifying, rallying figure of head freedom-fighter Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, into another seemingly unstoppable and insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the policy of peaceful mutant/human co-existence returned, only to be killed by his most trusted, devoted disciple…

Professor X’s death forced X-Men and Avengers to unite against the true threat but, in the days that followed the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to appear, and liberated humanity again fell into its old habits of species intolerance and violent, bigoted vigilante outrage…

After disturbing scenes of brain surgery, our story now begins in ‘New Union’ as Wolverine leads the bereaved Homo Superior students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in services for their fallen inspirational Moses (or perhaps more accurately Martin Luther King). Meanwhile in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. detention centre an unrepentant Cyclops is paid a visit by his brother.

Also known as the government-sanctioned mutant agent Havok, Alex Summers is appalled at the unflinching hard-line attitude of his apparently irredeemably radicalised sibling who seems oblivious to the damage his crusade has done to Xavier’s Dream. On exiting the facility, Alex is met by Captain America and Thor who have an enticing yet frightening proposal for the shaken former head of America’s X-Factor mutant task-force…

The Sentinel of Liberty is painfully aware that America’s mutant minority has been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and is hungry to make amends by making real Xavier’s vision. To that end he wants to create a new high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising humans and mutant heroes working together.

He also wants Havok to lead the team…

Even as Alex and the Avenger elder statesmen discuss the deeply contentious and heavy-handed proposal, an old, vile threat has resurfaced. Mutant terrorist Avalanche launches a devastating assault, slaughtering hundreds of New Yorkers, before killing himself when Thor, Captain America and Havok intervene. The atrocity has no apparent motive but the killer seems to have undergone recent cranial surgery…

Elsewhere the desperately repentant Scarlet Witch tries to pay her condolences at Xavier’s shrine but is attacked by furiously indignant X-Man Rogue before they are both ambushed and captured by a squad of metahumans faithful to a monster claiming to be the true Red Skull.

The Nazi hate-monger has plans to eradicate the sub-human mutant race forever, and now that he has stolen the deceased Professor X’s brain – and telepathic powers – nothing can stop him…

The horror grows in ‘Skulduggery’ as Wolverine joins the heroes at the scene of Avalanche’s holocaust/suicide, confirming that the mass-mover had fully reformed and this disaster must have a hidden architect. Although dubious of Cap’s “positive PR” solution, the feral mutant is also convinced that someone is trying to foment genocide and agrees with Thor that they need to be stopped… permanently…

Answers come when the Red Skull pre-empts television broadcasts, urging humanity to rise up and destroy the mutants who are the cause of all America’s woes. It’s the same vile message as espoused in Depression-era Germany seven decades ago, but this time enforced on believers and resisters alike by Xavier’s irresistible psychic powers.

Soon, brainwashed mortals are slaughtering anybody deemed different. The message is backed up and subtly reinforced by the Fascist’s deadly deputy Honest John, the Living Propaganda, even as the Skull’s other S-Men – Goat-Faced Girl, Dancing Water, The Insect, Mzee and Living Wind – tend to their master’s mutant captives…

Soon however Rogue and Wanda have escaped, but their flight through the monster’s hidden fortress is abruptly halted when they discover the appalling remains of Xavier, allowing the Nazi madman to make them his mindless slaves.

The Worst Fiend in History has big plans: if he can bend Wanda to his will, perhaps she can be made to rewrite reality again to the deranged Nazi’s debaseded design…

‘Skull & Bones’ sees the madman and his puppets begin their eradication campaign in Manhattan as the Crimson Hatemonger seizes direct control of ordinary humans and orders them to slaughter all mutants in an orgy of destruction with only Cap, Havok, Thor and Wolverine to battle the rampage of rampant unchecked hatred and fear in ‘Thunder’.

With so many mystical mindbenders on his team, it’s not long before Teutonic deity Thor is also seduced and beguiled by the Skull and set upon his erstwhile mutant comrades; but sadly for the briefly triumphant S-Men their leader’s iron hold on the Scarlet Witch has subsequently slipped…

Against all odds, the mismatched Politically Correct Paladins score an unlikely victory and drive off the Skull, forcing the still-unconvinced Havok to admit that his proposed new team might actually help remould the nation’s fears and opinions…

This initial collection concludes with a tantalising glimpse of things to come in an untitled fill-in from Remender, Coipel & Morales which publicly launches the Avengers Unity Division amidst a flurry of time-bending hints and portents.

Interspersed with pithy glimpses of old adversaries Immortus, Kang the Conqueror and Onslaught as well as the advent of ancient, portentous devil-babies the Apocalypse Twins (all murderously jockeying for position), the first Press Conference of the official team – Havok, Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wonder Man, the Wasp and Sunfire – goes horribly wrong when implacable undead enemy the Grim Reaper attacks, resulting in a shocking death which looks set to undermine all that hard-won pro-mutant progress in one bloody instant…

To Be Continued…

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with wry suspense, this new look at an old concept is magnificent fun and promises even greater thrills and chills to come.

This book also includes a vast, sublime and expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Cassaday, Mark Brooks, Sara Pichelli, Neal (not, as attributed, Arthur) Adams, Coipel, Skotti Young, Ryan Stegman, Adi Granov, Mark Texeira, J. Scott Campbell, Simone Bianchi and Milo Manara and a selection of now obligatory 21st century extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections.

These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 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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Indestructible Hulk: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.


By Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-535-2

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, stress or other factors would cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. As both occasional hero and mindless monster he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular comicbook features and multi-media titans.

As such, 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 Banner getting angry and going Green at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from the 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 randomly rainbow-coloured atomic berserkers roaming the planet, but now with that 2012 house-cleaning exercise concluded, the follow up MarvelNOW! event revived the Jade Giant in a stripped-down, back-to-basics, mercifully continuity-lite version which should find favour with new and old fans alike.

But it’s definitely not a Hulk anyone has ever seen before…

This first volume details the next blockbusting chapter in the ever-eventful life of Banner and his raging Emerald Animus (collecting Indestructible Hulk #1-5, cover-dated January-May 2013) rapturously reported as the epic and eponymous 5-part ‘Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

It all begins as Maria Hill – latest Director of the perilously all-pervasive security agency Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate – closes in on a deadly menace to humanity in a small rural American diner.

Suddenly Bruce Banner sits down beside her and shares an epiphany he had whilst again trying to eradicate his deadly condition…

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner has lost years of success, progress and well-deserved peer renown whilst trying to destroy the Hulk. Now, concerned about his reputation and legacy, the fugitive genius has decided to make headlines as a scientist, not a brutal, devastating force of nature.

For the foreseeable future and as long as possible he will manage, rather than seek to cure, his affliction. Moreover, if S.H.I.E.L.D. will provide funding, a lab, assistants and resources, he will not only improve the world with his inventions but also allow Hill to use his uncontrollable alter ego as a deployable living weapon in times of crisis…

If she accepts, the most cutting-edge, hard-pressed and overstretched spy outfit on Earth can reap the unimaginable benefits of “Hulk Smash, Banner Builds”…

Even before Hill can fully evaluate the offer Banner has proved his worth by saving her already-deployed S.H.I.E.L.D. task-force from the unexpected ramifications of an ill-planned raid on the diabolical Mad Thinker‘s secret lair…

Pushed into a corner by the terrifyingly brilliant, coldly confident Banner, S.H.I.E.L.D. sets about fulfilling their side of the deal only to have intellectual rival Tony Stark barge in, obnoxiously assuming the super-spies are all mind-controlled or just plain crazy…

The intransigent Iron Man is soon forced to reserve judgement after he accompanies Banner on his next assignment, experiencing first-hand the theoretical thinker’s ingenuity and sheer determination – but only after a traditional trading of Earth-shattering blows…

The search for assistants smart and mad enough to work with Banner begins in the third chapter even as the ruthlessly mercenary tech-merchants of Advanced Idea Mechanics attempt to kidnap another secretive scientific prodigy in an insane scheme to revive one of their oldest terror weapons.

Unfortunately, after covertly switching Banner with the target, the Hulk horrifically emerges to find himself again battling the deadly robotic Quintronic Man – unfortunate for AIM, that is…

This superbly effective and vicariously rewarding compilation concludes with a spectacular 2-part saga set at the bottom of the sea, after Banner’s first meeting with his staff in their uncompromisingly isolated facility of Nuclear Springs, Nevada (dubbed “Bannerville”) is cut short by yet another urgent mission.

This time his increasingly callous paymasters want Banner to aim the Hulk at a sub-sea invasion of magical monsters decimating ships in the Pacific. The beasts are being directed from the sunken city of Lemuria and controlled by barbaric Atlantean terrorist warlord Attuma: a water-breathing maniac who has repeatedly tried to enslave or eradicate all surface-crawling life…

However even equipped with the latest breathing technologies and backed up by the Chinese Navy’s most awesome Dreadnought submersible, the Green Goliath is quickly overmatched and foundering out of his depth…

Throughout this series the Hulk had been portrayed as a savagely mindless engine of destruction, but when he is rescued by aquatic freedom fighters Mara and Canor, although Banner’s intellect provides the clues needed to save Lemuria, the formerly elemental Jade Juggernaut solves the problem of Attuma’s mystic monster arsenal with chillingly rational efficiency…

Smart, refreshingly straightforward and gloriously wry, this latest wrinkle in the convoluted conflict-packed life of the world’s most iconic split personality offers bombastic action, sharp characterisation and genuinely gripping adventure as writer Mark Waid and illustrators Leinil Francis Yu & Gerardo Alanguilan explore fantastically uncharted and potentially priceless new territory in the history of the marauding man-monster, so no spectacle-starved, thrill-deprived fan should miss this opportunity to Go Green.

This tome also includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Yu, Joe Quesada, Charles Paul Wilson III, Walt Simonson, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., Simone Bianchi, Chris Stevens and Pasqual Ferry, 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 doo-dad).

™ & © 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.