Marvel Superheroes – Page 67

September 23, 2014September 22, 2014

All-New X-Men: One Down

By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger and many and& various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-626-7

When bestial mutant Henry McCoy learned he was dying, he indulged in a spot of time-travel in a last-ditch attempt to give his life meaning. Seeking to prevent a species war, he brought the young, naive X-Men of his own youth into the future to reason with his radicalised former comrade Scott Summers, praying the still idealistic and hopeful teens could reason with Mutant Enemy Terrorist No. 1 and divert him from a path of doctrinaire madnessâ€¦

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Cyclops back to his senses, the confrontation hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy miraculously cured his older self, boy-Henry and the rest of the X-Kids were trapped in their own future and began gradually defecting to the radicalised teamâ€¦

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, this stellar saga collects All-New X-Men #25-29 (published from June to August 2014), taking the time-displaced teens to the ends of the universe and even further into uncharted temporal territoryâ€¦

The mind-shattering rematch commences in All-New X-Men #25 (illustrated by Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger and a host of guest-artists) and follows a dramatic change in young Jean Grey’s status as the team catches their collective breath after being shanghaied to the ends of the universe by Gladiator and the Shi’ar who sought to exterminate the timelost telepotent before she could become a host vessel for the Phoenixâ€¦

Already the teen quintet have been reduced to four as the younger Cyclops elected to remain in space with Corsair of the Starjammers– the father he believed dead and gone for most of his young lifeâ€¦

The future-locked Angel, Iceman, Beast, and Jean are stretched to their emotional breaking point. Since an attack by Evil Mutants masquerading as X-Men from the future (X-Men: Children of the Atom) they have faced the very real prospect of never returning to their own time; risking destroying all reality with every moment they aren’t back there and, worst of all, watching Jean go slowly crazy trying not to become the impossibly perfect superwoman everybody keeps talking about in such hushed tonesâ€¦

The celebratory 25^th issue is something of a visual tour de force as the elder Beast has a dreamlike visitation showing him the alternate futures and realities that have been eradicated because of his precipitate act of bringing the teen heroes into todayâ€¦

Short on plot but fascinating fans with tantalising glimpses of rosters both familiar and fantastic, what follows is a feast of vignettes, scary, dramatic and even funny, illustrated by David Marquez, Bruce Timm, Arthur Adams, David Mack, Robbi Rodriguez, Lee Bermejo, Kent Williams, J.G. Jones, Maris Wicks, Jason Shiga, Dan Hipp, Jill Thompson, Paul M. Smith, Skottie Young, Ronnie del Carmen, J. Scott Campbell, Max Wittert, Jake Parker and Bob Wiacek; some of which, I’m sure, we’ll be seeing again one dayâ€¦

The narrative resumes with Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger at the artistic helm again with #26 and Jean’s own nightmares regarding the change in her power-set brought on by the Shi’ar confrontation and her brush with the Phoenix force. She finds a measure of solace in the unsuspected solicitude of the older Cyclopsâ€¦

Meanwhile outside in the Canadian wilderness surrounding the fortress-like New Charles Xavier School, Angel is trying to explain to X-23 (a teenage female clone of Wolverine) that young Scott has dumped her for a life of adventure with his dad. When she storms off she is ambushed by the last person she expected to seeâ€¦

Later, when Professor Kitty Pryde sends out search parties, they find her near-dead form and rush her back to safety inside the citadelâ€¦ but it isn’t herâ€¦

The duplicity is the first gambit in a second attack by the future Brotherhood – hulking monster Ice-Thing, Deadpool, a Hank McCoy somehow consecrated to evil, psychotic shapeshifter Raze, super-strong Molly Hayes (from the Runaways) and Marvel Girl’s psionic remnant Xorn – led by the son of Charles Xavierâ€¦

Chapter three reveals the uncanny origins of the wicked Xavier and his crusade to destroy his father’s legacy. As the invaders storm the facility, Xorn turns the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe – into a telepathic torture engine to torment and take out the studentsâ€¦

In the melee one casualty discovers a new superpower and the tables turn when the real X-23 bursts in, eager to pay back her recent murder in kindâ€¦

Xavier’s objective is Jean and, as he psychically engages her, his insane true motivations are revealed for the first time, as is a fortuitous secret – not all of his team are volunteersâ€¦

He is also completely unaware of and unprepared for the changes wrought by her ordeal in outer space and soon the battle goes catastrophically against him. The one good thing about time travel, however, is that that you can try, try, try againâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Dark, moody, chronally complex, convoluted and explosively cathartic, One Down blends brooding tension and sinister suspense with staggering all-out action and comes with a stunning 10 covers-&-variants gallery by Immonen, Von Grawbadger, Rafael Grampa, Frank Cho, Alex Ross and Matthieu Forichon as well as AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) for access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smartphone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 22, 2014September 19, 2014

Uncanny Avengers: Avenge the Earth

By Rick Remender, Daniel AcuÃ±a & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-627-4

If you haven’t read the Avengers for a while then you’ve got lots of catching up to do.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant hero Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android warrior The 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 beloved sons were mere magical constructs which subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

Years passed and the loss drove Wanda mad. When she finally slipped over the edge her resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avenger comrades. The effects of her actions spread to reshape the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in the team’s dissolution and climactic reboot (Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers: Breakout).

The team had barely recovered from that catastrophe before she overwrote Reality again, altering recent Earth history such that mutants ruled over a society where humans were an evolutionary dead-end, living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took a legion of champions and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (see House of M), but in the aftermath less only 198 mutants existed on Earthâ€¦

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

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them by manifesting their dream of making Earth a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior and hell for humanity.

At the height of the clash mankind was briefly enslaved by resurgent mutants before the appetites of the omnipotent Phoenix Force caused those possessed by it to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable â€œDark Phoenixâ€.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the aspiration of peaceful mutant/human co-existence, returned – only to be killed by his most devoted discipleâ€¦

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers in a joint effort which overthrew the cosmic avatar but, in the days following the departure of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with fresh resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and it wasn’t long before mankind fell into its old habits of intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outragesâ€¦

When undying Ã¼ber-Nazi Red Skull stole Xavier’s brain and appropriated the deceased mutant’s awesome telepathic abilities, his terrorist outrages were halted by a new team of Avengers: one formed by Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the rising tide of inter-species hostilityâ€¦

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-wars, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – when not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by publicly adopting Xavier’s utopian vision. To that end he convened the high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising human and mutant heroes working together.

The quintessential Avenger chose former government agent Havok (Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers) to lead the team, which consisted of himself, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wolverine, Sunfire, Wonder Man and the Wasp.

Later, at a press conference inducting the latter two, the group was ambushed by the Grim Reaper and the clash ended with Rogue killing the psychopath in full view of the watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wastedâ€¦

Still reeling from that setback the Unity Division were then blasted into universal overdrive as the eternal rivalry between arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his elder self Immortus resurfaced with the attack of future-reared mutant Dark Messiahs The Apocalypse Twinsâ€¦

Through temporal manipulation they appropriated mystic Asgardian war-axe JarnBjorn – a weapon capable of killing even space god Celestials – and set about reordering our present where all-powerful scourge Apocalypse had recently been killed.

Many attempted to replace him as mutant messiah and exterminator of humanity. On solar-orbiting Starcore Station his son Genocide petitioned the terrifying Celestials to accept him as their new agent.

Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos; their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. The Apocalypse Twins exercised their claim by using JarnBjorn to murder the supposedly-omnipotent Celestial Gardener: framing humanity for the blasphemy and thereby endangering the very fabric of existenceâ€¦

The Scarlet Witch’s relationship with Wonder Man had been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him, and the traumatised energy being had reacted in many odd ways. For one thing he became a pacifist, willing to help the Avengers in every way possible – except by fighting – and eventually declared himself Wanda’s devoted loverâ€¦

The Avengers could not stop the Twins crashing the space-station on Rio de Janeiro, although Thor and Sunfire did save the city from utter obliteration.

The Twins were reacting to years of cruel deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation in a private concentration camp in 4145AD, Eimin and Uriel eventually deduced their patron’s motives were self-serving and resolved only to trust each other whilst saving their own embattled speciesâ€¦

To that end they constituted their own squad of Four Horsemen of Apocalypse to winnow humanity and its heroes. These latest heralds of mutant Rapture and human Armageddon were not the bio-engineered living creatures their predecessor preferred, though. Instead Eimin and Uriel opted for a quartet of dead apostles – Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper – to pave their way to mutant ascendancyâ€¦

When Immortus informed Captain America of the plot and the ghastly consequences should the Twins win the war to control all times, spaces and realities, he also included undisclosed details of Wolverine’s murderous past, and the Unity team split over issues of philosophy and pragmatismâ€¦

Thus Havok was hard-pressed to keep the Avengers focused before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, and their attack failedâ€¦

The Twins were actually enacting a secret agenda: tricking Wanda and her lover into using her world-warping powers to bring about the long-desired Mutant Raptureâ€¦

Despite destroying Uriel, the Uncanny Avengers could not stop Eimin from altering the timeline. Earth was obliterated by Celestial Executioner Exitar and Planet X became the homeworld of the entire mutant race.

Six years later, Havok, his wife The Wasp and time-travel expert The Beast work as a resistance cell, trying to unmake the new history and restore a reality they feel to be the right oneâ€¦

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #18-22 (published May-September 2014), this time-rending confection kicks everything into chaotic overload as Alex Summers battles old mutant foes and even former friends on a world which is a literal paradise for Homo Superior. Despite the best efforts of Magneto and his fanatical followers they eventually succeed but reality does not immediately revert.

Instead Kang appears with an army of the multiverse’s greatest villains – and even a few future heroes – with some bad newsâ€¦

Although the Dam is down, this reality will persist unless Havoc can gather the survivors of the Uncanny Avengers and send their consciousnesses back in time to prevent the key events from ever transpiring.

To ensure Alex complies, Kang then steals his daughter Katie, promising to keep her safe from all the necessary time-alterations, but the grizzled mutant knows a veiled threat and extortion when he sees themâ€¦

Eimin is also aware of the temporal manipulations and rouses the mutant defenders of Planet X to stop Havok, Wasp and Beast. Amongst the hit-squad sent to foil them are their oldest friends and even Alex’s brother Cyclops.

Amidst the spectacular clashes, another scheme is being played out and the resistors’ hopeless cause is successful due to a last-minute switching of allegiances by a mutant high in the hierarchy of power of the X-Worldâ€¦

Soon the minds of Alex, Wasp, Sunfire, Wolverine and Thor are back in their younger bodies just as Earth is facing its final moments. Some heroes warn Wanda and Wonder Man that they are being tricked by Eimin whilst others intercept Tony Stark and the Vision as they obliviously prepare to lead a coalition of Avengers, Doctor Doom plus an army of metahumans – good and evil – against the planet-sized Exitar: the outraged Celestials’ official executioner and sentient Extinction Event.

Forearmed with future knowledge, the humans destroy the lethal Celestial, but this only leaves the duplicitous and Machiavellian Kang and his Chronos Corp in control of the miraculously saved and restored world. The entire campaign has been orchestrated by the Conqueror to place him in ultimate control of the universeâ€¦

Kang, however, has not reckoned on the determination and outrage of grieving father Havok, nor the last ditch heroics of his ultimate rival Immortus and a hastily convened Infinity Watch of cosmic champions including The Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Nova, the Phoenix, Starfox and Universal Protector Captain Mar-Vellâ€¦

In the shattering aftermath of that final all-out confrontation, most – but not all – Avengers are restored to life, and many who have been resurrected will never be the same, physically or emotionally.

And the thought occursâ€¦ what will the Celestials do when they learn of their punishing agent’s death?

Scripted by Rick Remender, gloriously illustrated by Daniel AcuÃ±a, and offering a covers-&-variants by AcuÃ±a, Greg Land, Frank D’Armata, Lee Weeks, Paul Mounts, Katie Cook, In-Hyuk Lee, Agustin Alessio, Rob Guillory and John Tyler Christopher, here is pure superhero adventure at its most apocalyptic.

This bombastic, bewildering, breathtaking, utterly compulsive and convoluted saga may be a bit daunting for casual readers, but dedicated followers of high-octane Costumed Dramas will no doubt adore the fantastic premise, incredible action and staggering scope of events.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 20, 2014September 18, 2014

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March

By Rick Remender, Roland Boschi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-597-0

Once upon a time Captain America and youthful partner James Buchanan â€œBuckyâ€ Barnes cut a swashbuckling swathe thorough Nazis, madmen and monsters in every region of the Second World War.

In April 1945, following the tragic mission which killed the boy and hurled the Sentinel of Liberty into a decades long frozen slumber, an experimental Soviet spy sub recovered Bucky’s maimed body from the seas where it fell. Russian spymaster Vasily Karpov dreamed of extracting the fabled Super Soldier serum from the corpse but was doubly frustrated to discover that the indomitable young warrior was never augmented by the formula, nor was he completely deadâ€¦

Still, waste not, want notâ€¦

From the 1950s until the late 1980s the Soviets reputedly employed an infallible â€œghostâ€ assassin all over the world; utilising astoundingly efficient executions and deftly arranged accidents to secure the KGB’s aims. Moreover, whatever surveillance did capture the phantom hitman between 1955 and 1976 indicated that the killer didn’t ageâ€¦

If you want the full story of how Bucky became an infallible human weapon of Communist oppression, check out Captain America: Winter Soldier Dossier Edition, but for today this scintillating new period yarn – collecting issues #1-5 of Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (April-September 2014) – offers a cool all-new, Cold War super-spy thriller starring that indomitable fallen idol as well as fascinating insights into the character of latest ideological Cap nemesis The Iron Nailâ€¦

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been fighting the good fight since the end of WWII and this tale begins in 1966 when friendly rivals Nick Fury and Ran Shen are the outfit’s top operatives. Always bickering – good-naturedly, of course – the duo split up and attempt different methods of penetrating the formidable Castle Hydra alpine fortress and abduct two Nazi scientists who have devised a means of synthesising gold.

Brash, audacious and cocky, Shen is almost killed by the revolting Madam Worm before being embarrassingly rescued by Fury, but as the now compromised agents try to fly their captives – Peter and Milla Hitzig – out of the citadel, a third force intervenes.

Believed-mythical Soviet spook The Winter Soldier tries to snatch the creators of the Alchemy Formula for the USSR and only Fury’s last ditch counterattack drives him off. Now, with Fury missing – presumed dead – Shen must drag his captives through hostile country and arctic conditions or make a final sanction to keep their secret out of both Russian and Hydra handsâ€¦

Three days later they trek into the Warsaw Pact state of Nrosvekistan, where Shen calls for an extraction. The best S.H.I.E.L.D. can do is tool him up and advise him to hop a train to West Berlin. However before he can get to the station the infallible, relentless Winter Soldier reappears and the trio barely escape with their livesâ€¦

During the melee Shen hits his foe with a live power-line and the colossal shock temporarily stuns the cyborg, allowing the fugitives to get away. What Ran does not know is that the assassin was most debilitated by a wave of unexpected memories which saw him fighting in a strange costume beside lost hero Captain Americaâ€¦

Barely making the train, the trio catch their breath. Soon Milla is tending the agent’s wounds, much to her husband’s disgust. Neither ex-Nazi wants to go to America or Russia but with everybody gunning for them, the fanatical Peter is biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to take control of the situationâ€¦

Unknown to Shen the rogue scientist has already contacted Hydra who insert a recovery team on the train: telepathic assassin The Drain and electrical executioner Shocky Danâ€¦

As the Hydra killers covertly confer with Peter, the Drain realises that Herr Hitzig is just a greedy charlatan and hanger-on. His diffident wife is the one who actually created the Alchemy Formula and she is currently warming to the smooth, suave charms of the good-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agentâ€¦

When the killers smash into their compartment they find Shen again battling the unstoppable Winter Soldier and make short work of them bothâ€¦

With the horrified Milla a captive, the Drain disposes of her useless husband and prepares to move her back to the fortress, but despite being severely wounded, Shen is still in the game. Moreover, the Soldier, again dosed with electricity and instantly deprogrammed by the telepathic Drain, has thrown off decades of brainwashing and switched sidesâ€¦

Another spectacular battle breaks out on the now runaway and rigged-to-explode train but when the inevitable detonation comes Shen and Milla have already escapedâ€¦

The Drain meanwhile has dealt with the shell-shocked Bucky and followed the fleeing duo, using his psychic powers to murder a town full of people who have come to their aid. His mental assaults also have a devastating affect on Shen – who has developed feelings for Milla â€“ and when bloody but unbowed Bucky arrives it takes all his determination to shake the agent out of his funk and track the mental monster and his struggling prize through the constantly falling snowsâ€¦

When they catch up, Shen deals with the Drain in a most unprofessional and final manner before he, Bucky and Milla hole up in a handy cabin to await better weather. As each reconsiders their past lives and uncertain futures they are blithely unaware that a Soviet hit squad and the infallible Nick Fury are hot on their trail, each side determined that if they can’t have the Alchemy Formula nobody willâ€¦

When all the shooting stops, the Russians only have their assassin back, nobody has Milla and Shen has no hope of a happy tomorrowâ€¦

Fast-paced, frantic and compellingly cynical, the story of why Ran Shen took the dark path that set him against America only tangentially involves the star draw Winter Soldier, but nevertheless delivers a gripping saga of intrigue, passion and explosive action.

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Roland Boschi, this blockbusting tribute to the spy-soaked Swinging Sixties is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Andrew Robinson, In-Hyuk Lee, Chris Eliopoulos, Agustin Alessio, Rags Morales, Adi Granov and even offers a photo-cover from the movie, as well as AR icon add-on sections which allow the Marvel Augmented Reality App to grant access to story bonuses once you download marvel.com’s free code onto your smartphone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 19, 2014September 18, 2014

Deadpool vs. Carnage

By Cullen Bunn, Salvador Espin, Mike Henderson, Aaron Kim Jacinto & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-613-7

Stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made popular fiction protagonists and light-hearted, exuberant bloodbath comics will always find an appreciative audienceâ€¦

Deadpool is Wade Wilson (yes, a thinly disguised knockoff of Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke the Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical abnormalities but practically immortal, invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

He is also a certifiable loonâ€¦

The wisecracking high-tech â€œMerc with a Mouthâ€ was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian â€œWeapon Xâ€ project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall-busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has become one of Marvel’s iconic, nigh-inescapable characters, perennially undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes, reboots and more before always, inevitably, reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the endâ€¦

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s-early1990s, fad-fever and spin-off madness gripped the superhero genre in America as publishers hungrily exploited every trick to bolster flagging sales.

In the melee Spider-Man spawned an intractable archenemy called Venom: deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock who bonded with Peter Parker’s Secret Wars costume (a semi-sentient alien parasite dubbed the Symbiote) to become a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Webspinner.

Eventually the arachnid adversaries reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became the â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

However, when the symbiote went into breeding mode it spawned a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, they became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a death-crazed monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal â€œfamilyâ€ (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed and his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit. Of course â€œsafeâ€ is an extremely relative term and eventually the crimson killer returnedâ€¦

Following a clash between The Superior Spider-Man (Otto Octavius‘ mind in Peter Parker’s body) and the Wizard, Kasady was resurrected but separated from his increasingly self-aware symbiote…

Written throughout by Cullen Bunn, this sublimely continuity-light and baggage-free bloody kill spree collects Superior Carnage Annual (April 2014) and the subsequent 4-part miniseries Deadpool vs. Carnage (June-August 2014), gorily repositioning the scarlet slaughterer for his next assault on the cowering Marvel Universe.

The all-action abattoir-fest opens with Superior Carnage Annual (illustrated by Kim Jacinto, Mike Henderson and colourist Jay David Ramos) as the recently recaptured Kasady – lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – awaits medical assessment in Kramer Penitentiary. Psychologist Dr. Jenner is interviewing the unrepentant but clearly cognitively recovered felon to see if he is mentally competent to be tried for his crimes, but the headshrinker also has a secret agendaâ€¦

In New York City, the symbiote is barely contained in an unbreakable tube on Spider Island (fortress base of the Superior Spider-Man), raging in destructive fury against imprisonment and terrifying the mercenaries guarding it.

When an inmate at far-distant Kramer tries to kill Kasady the captive creature goes instantly berserk before apparently expiring.

Meanwhile at Morse Laboratories in New Mexico, researcher Carla Unger is working late, examining a few scrapings taken from the symbiote. Despite the risks, it’s way better than cooking dinner for her abusive husband Will, but when the seemingly-dormant scarlet shreds suddenly possess her, she heads home for a final family mealâ€¦

The symbiote is going to find Cletus, and is soon hopping from body to body, gaining strength whilst leaving a trail of corpses across America, but it is all too late. Power-mad Dr. Jenner, hungry to be the symbiote’s permanent host and exasperated that his first attempt to kill Kasady failed, stifles the dying inmate in the prison infirmary, but when the thing from another world final arrives it rejects him before reanimating its preferred host’s corpseâ€¦

Reunited and resurgent, the component parts that comprise the revitalised Carnage then begin taking an awful vengeance on everybody at the institutionâ€¦

Some time later Deadpool vs. Carnage opens with the scarlet slayer still enjoying an extended if motiveless murder spree throughout the Midwest.

In his apartment and own world, Wade Wilson is channel surfing TV stations and suddenly divines a personal message from the universe telling him to stop Carnageâ€¦

After a few false starts and more nudging from everyday objects like billboards, video games and comics, the Manic Merc finally stumbles across Kasady in an abandoned housing development in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the two unkillable kooks start fighting.

It seems to be pretty even until Cletus’ homicidal old squeeze Shriek turns up and ambushes Deadpoolâ€¦

This really isn’t the kind of tale that depends on plot, but if you’re a fan of hyperkinetic Warner Brothers cartoons where two protagonists try increasingly outrageous and escalating methods of mass destruction to destroy each other then you’ll adore the frantic, blackly hilarious duel which only ends after Deadpool picks up a bunch of symbiotes of his own – and a cool shape-changing dog – from a secret military base where the government has been trying to weaponise the alien parasites for the armyâ€¦

Sharp, fast-paced and excessively, addictively action-packed, this wry and sanguine rollercoaster romp also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Rafa Garres, Glenn Fabry & Adam Brown and Leinil Francis Yu: offering a complication free riot of gratuitous gory fun and thrills that will delight the appetites for graphic destruction of Fights ‘n’ Tights fans everywhere.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 17, 2014September 16, 2014

Captain America: The Iron Nail

By Rick Remender, Nic Klein, Pascal Alixe & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-604-5

After spending twelve years in hellish Dimension Z, raising a child and saving the indigenous people from the depredations of insane Hitlerian Ã¼ber-geneticist Arnim Zola, Captain America finally returned to Earth with the experimenter’s turncoat daughter Jet Black to discover mere hours had passed in the â€œrealâ€ world.

The extra-dimensional incarceration had cost Steve Rogers too much. As well as many friends and comrades, his adopted son Ian and on-again-off-again girlfriend Sharon Carter had also perished in the rescue bid which returned him to a world he barely remembered and no longer felt a part ofâ€¦

Purged of the last vestiges of Zola’s influence (Henry Pym and Bruce Banner having excised a virus which was growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside Rogers), the Sentinel of Liberty was despatched by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill to the eastern European state of Nrosvekistan where deranged, drug-dependent US super-soldier Frank Simpson, AKA Nuke, was very publicly slaughtering innocent men, women and children in America’s nameâ€¦

The abused battle veteran was apparently part of an extended Weapon Plus military program: undergoing many top secret procedures to turn him into a Captain America for the Vietnam generation.

Sadly the result was a chemically-addled hyper-psychotic obsessed with American casualties who now wanted to win all the wars his proud nation had previously lost or walked away fromâ€¦ such as the recent peace-keeping mission to this Balkan backwaterâ€¦

Elsewhere, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and latter day messianic socialist Ran Shen had aroused a sleeping dragon for power to reshape the world to his liking. Now called the Iron Nail he was determined to destroy greedy, exploitative destructive capitalism using tools and techniques taught him by Nick Fury (Senior) and Chinese iconoclast Mao Zedong…

Of course Ran Shen had already tried to oust the Chairman during his lifetime and failed, making him persona non grata just about everywhereâ€¦

Rogers won the Balkan battle of American ideological wonder warriors – at the cost of starting to doubt the point and purpose of his existence – and immediately resolved to learn what could turn a fellow patriot into such a monster.

Shen, ecstatic that his ambition to drive a spike into the heart of the West was succeeding, then detonated the captive Nuke like his namesake in the centre of The Hub, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most secure citadel.

This was merely preamble to his true goal: activating the long-dormant, extremely classified Weapon Minus test warrior. This was an LSD-dosed, psychedelic psychological super-soldier codenamed Dr. Mindbubble, ready, able and extremely willing to share his terrifying expanded sensibilities with the wider, corrupt Establishment worldâ€¦

Collecting issues #16-20 of Captain America volume 7 (March – August 2014), the ongoing saga begins with a thematic break. In ‘The Iron Nail Prologue: A Choice’ (illustrated by Pascal Alixe), as her new guardian fights for survival in Nrosvekistan, Jet takes a slow disdainful reconnaissance of her new city only to be confronted by a coterie of her father’s erstwhile allies. Sadly for them, she is immune to the vile rantings of the Red Skull and declines the overtures of his insidious S-Menâ€¦

The main event resumes in the first chapter of ‘The Iron Nail’ as deranged Dr. Mindbubble takes Nick Fury Jr. captive (long story short: he’s the African-American son of the original – see Battle Scars for further details) in the ruins of the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.

In New York, Steve is showing Jet the sights. The super-girl bred and trained for war saved his life in Dimension Z at great personal cost and he is determined to give her a decent life in New York, but when they interrupt an assassination attempt by agents of Ran Shen, he is shamed by the intolerant behaviour of the hedge fund rat-bastard they savedâ€¦

Thankfully Director Hill calls in just then urging him to get to the Hub as soon as possible.

As they assess the carnage left by Simpson’s death and detonation, Hill informs Cap of the missing Weapon Minus even as Jet’s super senses locate one of the few survivors, Cap’s partner The Falconâ€¦

Already disgusted with the procession of appalling creations his country has devised in the name of security, Cap’s peace of mind takes another hit when Hill reveals that Dr. Mindbubble was conceived as a potential countermeasure for rogue super soldiers – but the cure was then deemed worse than the afflictionâ€¦

The so-very-mad doctor meanwhile has used his ability to seize minds through hallucination to force Fury to activate S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ultimate doomsday weapon. As Cap and Falcon reach the top-secret Sahara base, the Armageddon machine dubbed Gungnir is already active and they have no choice but to board the flying monolith as Mindbubble and Ran Shen aim it towards its destiny with mind-warped Maria Hill at the controlsâ€¦

Even the full mobilised might of S.H.I.E.L.D. is unable to down the mechanized monster and Cap’s interior resistance is slowed by the horde of enslaved agents aboard. Iron Nail triumphantly shoots down all opposition and aims the colossal death machine towards Nrosvekistan.

His plan is to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and American influence by having the commercial and political superpower act as a murdering bully before the eyes of the worldâ€¦

Determined and alone, Captain America fights his greatest battle to save the hostages and a nation he embodies but no longer trusts, but although Mindbubble is (relatively) easy meat the dragon-based mystical powers of the Nail take a horrific toll on Liberty’s Greatest Champion.

What the Falcon rescues from the rubble of his greatest victory is no longer Captain America. In truth he is ‘Super-Soldier No More’â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Nic Klein and Pascal Alixe, this staggering clash of ideologies and Fights ‘n’ Tights Realpolitik is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Alixe, Klein, Glenn Fabry, Lee Bermejo, Chris Eliopoulos, Frank Kozik, Rags Morales and Mike Perkins.

Frantic, fast-paced and furiously action-packed, this examination of the heart of patriotic fervour delivers a killer punch and closing twist which will challenge and delight fans of both the comicbook and cinematic Star Spangled Avenger alike.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 12, 2014September 11, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet volume 1 – Electro and Sandman

By Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Joe Kelly, Adam Kubert, Barry Kitson, Paul Azaceta, JM Ken Niimura, Javier Pulido & Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3871-6

Nerdy school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, whilst seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy.

His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered, and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need. For years the brilliant young champion suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foeâ€¦

During a particularly hellish period a multitude of disasters seemed to ride hard on his heels and a veritable army of old enemies simultaneously resurfaced to attack him (an overlapping series of stories comprising and defined as â€œThe Gauntletâ€), before Parker’s recent tidal wave of woes was revealed to be the culmination of a sinister, slow-building scheme by the surviving family of one of his most implacable foes – and one who had long been despatched to his final reward.

Spanning January and February 2010, the first skirmishes in that campaign of terror are collected here, having originated in Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man #612-616 and as pertinent extracts from Web of Spider-Man #2, as old foes returned to trouble a hero already reeling from the fact that his most despised and crazy enemy has just been made the second most powerful man in Americaâ€¦

Officially psychotic Norman Osborn has bedevilled both Spider-Man and Peter for years. His abused son Harry was the misunderstood hero’s greatest friend but the stress and strain, over time, turned the Osborn heir into a drug addict, a costumed carbon copy of his old man and, latterly, a certifiable basket case.

Callously oblivious, Norman – through various machinations – became America’s Security Czar: the â€œtop-copâ€ in sole charge of the beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed community.

Capitalising on the Skrull Secret Invasion he rose to power on a tidal wave of public popularity but soon instituted an oppressive Dark Reign, driving the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes underground and forming his own team of deadly Dark Avengers, all in the grossly debased name of â€œnational securityâ€â€¦

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing a formidable suit of â€œrequisitionedâ€ Iron Man armour and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even whilst covertly conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

From Dark Reign: The List – Amazing Spider-Man, ‘The Last Name’ by Dan Slott, Adam Kubert & Mark Morales finds the whiny media liberals of digital news-source Front Line (populated and staffed by all the ethical reporters from the former Daily Bugle) searching for ways to expose Osborn’s true nature and plans.

When Joe Robertson reminds Parker that no narcissist egomaniac ever destroyed anything he was in, the Astounding Arachnid invades the high tech Oscorp Tower and makes off with incriminating recordings of the former Green Goblin torturing prisoners and testing weapons on human subjects.

With his new position imperilled, Osborn dons the Iron Patriot Armour and gives chase, consequently devastating much of Midtown as he exultantly thrashes his greatest foe. However he’s too late to stop Parker from uploading the films to the world wide web and his brutal behaviour in front of the gathered witnesses is his first big mistake. Now the public are talking, wondering and starting to remember what he used to beâ€¦

‘Gauntlet Origins: Electro’ (written by Fred Van Lente and illustrated by Barry Kitson from Web of Spider-Man #2) then discloses just how blue collar electrical lineman Max Dillon came to grips with the power he developed after being hit by lightning. Stealing components from Stark Industries, being disdained and rejected by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all fostered his determination to be a big shot one day and make everybody payâ€¦

Amazing Spider-Man #612-614 cumulatively bring ‘Power to the People’ (Mark Waid & Paul Azaceta) as, against a backdrop of rolling power outages and an economic downturn, Dillon makes his move after hiring the Mad Thinker to stabilise and augment his famously erratic electrical abilities.

Unfortunately that calls for more cash than he’s got and soon Electro is looking to make more – and quicklyâ€¦

Rather than robbery, however, he cunningly opts for a very public crusade against skeevy and controversial publisher Dexter Bennett who has just been deemed too big to fail. Awarded a huge government bailout to keep his trashy newspaper The DB (nee Daily Bugle) open, the billionaire is clearly living large even as decent, hard working Americans are suffering the biggest recession in historyâ€¦

The campaign leads to riots in the streets and Electro makes his move, offering Bennett the chance to buy off the electrical agitator with a quick cash injection.

â€¦And that’s when Spider-Man tracks down the Thinker’s lair and spoils the perfect planâ€¦

With his scheme in ruins, all that’s left for Dillon is revenge and destruction and deathâ€¦

As the dust finally settles after a spectacular clash which demolishes a New York landmark, Dillon is visited in jail by an old ally who offers another chance for paybackâ€¦

A backup in Amazing Spider-Man #612, ‘The Other Woman’ by Joe Kelly & JM Ken Niimura then cheekily examines the odd relationship of Spider-Man and amoral adventuress Black Cat, contrasting their commitment-free flings to Peter’s ongoing problems with old flames like Mary Jane Watson and intriguing new co-worker Norah Winters before ‘Keemia’s Castle’ (Amazing Spider-Man #615-616 by Van Lente & Javier Pulido) sees the start of another baffling mysteryâ€¦

Carlie Cooper is a CI for the police and when robbery and murder evidence in her custody goes missing she turns to science whiz Peter Parker to clear her name. The trail leads the unlikely sleuth to the South Bronx and a missing girl named Keemia Alvarado.

Keemia’s mother was something of a prison groupie and her relationship with metamorphic felon Flint Marko – the Sandman – apparently resulted in a child. After fact – and suspicion – checking with journalist Betty Brant, Spider-Man puts a few together and heads out to closed-for-the-winter Governors Island where he finds his reformed former foe and the missing girl.

Marko denies all knowledge of the crimes. All he wants is to spend time with his little princess and he uses his new power to create autonomous sandy doppelgangers to emphatically press home his point.

It’s only after defeating the outnumbered arachnid that the stunned Sandman realises that some of his duplicates are more autonomous – and bloodthirstily evil – than othersâ€¦

Fast, furious, and easily combining frantic action with moving character vignettes and ferociously addictive soap opera melodrama, these tales are offbeat even by Spider-Man’s standards – which is no bad thing – but sometimes suffer from a surfeit of unaddressed backstoryâ€¦ which rather is.

Nonetheless, the stories here are clever, compelling and beautifully illustrated throughout, so art lovers and established fans have plenty to enjoy. Moreover the explosive, if occasionally confusing, Fights ‘n’ Tights rollercoaster is graced with an expansive gallery of covers-&-variants by Adam Kubert, Jelena Kevic Djurdjevic, Marko Djurdjevic, Paolo Rivera, Frank Cho, Adi Granov, Ed McGuiness and Joe Quinones

All in all, this is that oddest and most disappointing of beasts: a great story but an unsatisfactory bookâ€¦
Â© 2009, 2010, Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

September 9, 2014September 8, 2014

Loki Agent of Asgard: Trust Me

By Al Ewing, Lee Garbett & Nolan Woodard (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-600-7

One of Marvel’s richest seams of pure imagination, the Nine Realms impacted by the mighty races of Asgard and its satellites have always offered stirring, expansive tales of a non-traditional nature to comicbook readers.

As iconic a character as his adoptive sibling Thor, God of Evil Loki has worked his vile, self-serving machinations for millennia and was rightly deemed one of the most diabolical villains in creation.

Things are different now.

What you need to know: after millennia of doctrinaire double-dealing and abusive micro-management All-Father Odin is gone, and the governance of his puissant kingdom, having been briefly misruled by his sons Thor and Balder, has been left to his wife Freyja and sister goddesses Idunn and Gaea who act in concert as a co-operative â€œAll-Motherâ€.

The city they rule from now resides on Earth a few paltry feet above the ground of Broxton, Oklahoma and has been renamed Asgardiaâ€¦

Moreover the eternally capricious and malign Loki has undergone some shocking changes too. Resurrected from death and hell by his eternally optimistic half-brother Thor, the trickster has recently endured life as a woman and been reborn again as an (ostensibly) innocent boy-child whilst his long-suffering and constantly betrayed family attempt one final gambit to reform the villain and raise a true and decent scion of Asgard.

Collecting Loki Agent of Asgard issues #1-5, published between April and August 2014 and captivatingly concocted by scripter Al Ewing, illustrator Lee Garbett and colour artist Nolan Woodard, this initial compilation traces the latest career path of the apparently reformed great trickster.

Now, after mooching around being generally benevolent and non-threatening as one of the Young Avengers, the former menace is approaching physical maturity and discovers that the All-Mother of Asgardia have a use for a smart young man who is still at heart the wily, devious God of Mischief – nor will they take nay for an answerâ€¦

Asgardians all understand the overwhelming, inescapable force and power generated by Stories, and the triumvirate have an intriguing proposition for Loki. In ‘Trust Me’, as payment for his performing certain tasks as a one-man Asgardian Secret Service, they will delete select portions of his appalling life history from every record in the Nine Realms, one insidious exploit per mission.

It’s a most tempting deal. For as long as that fearsome history remains it will always pull at him, dragging him back to what he once was, so the reincarnated godling is keen to diminish the temptations of his past, escape the heavy chains of reputation and prophecy and be his own man at lastâ€¦

With the promise of becoming less potentially evil through each successive task, Loki sets out on his first case. Over the years there has been a slow, steady bleed of gods and artefacts from Asgard to the lesser realms and now the All-Mother wants those things back where they belong.

Thus the callow trickster invades Avengers Tower and battles Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, messing with their extensive database on him whilst extracting a horrific Asgardian monster secretly possessing noble Thor.

However, as always with the Trickster, things are not quite what they seemâ€¦

In ‘Loki and Lorelei, Sitting in a Tree’ he is despatched to retrieve the seductively wanton sorceress who has been preying on humans, gods and monsters for years and, during an unlikely night of Speed Dating, makes the charming acquaintance of Verity Willis, a mortal with the unfortunate gift of being able to see through any lie, subterfuge of illusionâ€¦

Lorelei’s trail leads to Monte Carlo and a monumental heist – which the Asgardian agent takes for his own – but he subsequently lets the witch go. The mischief-maker has a plan brewing and is putting together select crew. He might be working for the authorities now and trying to modify his behaviour, but he is still Lokiâ€¦

Nobody is playing a straight game. In ‘Your Life is a Story I’ve Already Written’ the shocking identity of the vile spirit that possessed Thor is revealed. Despite being a prisoner of the All-Mother, the most wicked creature in the Nine Realms reveals thus how in ages past he deviously implicated the boy Odin in senseless murder and orchestrated the conditions whereby proto-god Sigurd the Ever-Glorious came to possess the unrelenting, unstoppable, truth-rending sword Gram.

As a result of many Machiavellian machinations, young Odin became Lord of all the Realms years before his time, Gram was safely locked away until Loki could claim it and Asgard grew to be mighty and all-conqueringâ€¦ but now the devil in his dungeon waits for the final pieces in his astoundingly long game to fall into placeâ€¦

The saga returns to the present where ‘Lets You & Him Fight’ finds the long absent Sigurd attempting to reclaim the irresistible Gram from young Loki but subsequently press-ganged into the trickster’s secret service.

These diversions are also starting to gain the unwelcome attention of the All-Mother who have also tasked their Earthly Agent with bringing back in the millennially truant Sigurd.

To expedite matters they have cited the ferocious Exdesir as back-up, but a bunch of short-tempered Valkyries is the last thing Loki needs watching him at this fragile juncture.

â€¦And that’s before arch tempter Mephisto involves himself in the scheme, seeking to gull a few unwary gods into signing infernal contracts of damnation by flaunting hidden truths like jewelsâ€¦

All the crafty conniving results in a cosmic confrontation in Asgardia with ‘This Mission Will Self-Destruct in Five Seconds’ as Loki’s crew breach the mythical city-state in search of answers to the All-Mother’s increasingly off-kilter behaviour and the truth about the creature not so safely locked in the citadel’s deepest dungeonâ€¦

Sly, cool and witty, exceedingly engaging, fast and funny – like all the very best caper stories – this canny, time-bending chronicle succeeds in deftly delineating the reborn Loki as a sharp operator doing good deeds whilst never actually proving whether he’s really reformed or is still a subtle and beguiling Master of Evilâ€¦

This delicious Costumed Drama also offers digitally-diverting extra content for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop as well as a glorious covers-and-variants gallery by Jenny Frison, Frank Cho, Mike Del Mundo & Olivier Coipel.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 6, 2014September 4, 2014

X-Factor volume 8: Overtime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 29, 2014

Ultimate Fantastic Four volume 3: N-Zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sue simply vanished without a traceâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continuedâ€¦

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

August 23, 2014August 22, 2014

Essential Avengers volume 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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