Category: Marvel Superheroes

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X-Factor volume 9: Invisible Woman Has Vanished


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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

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

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

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Savage Wolverine volume 2: Hands on a Dead Body


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Captain America: Living Legend


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Infinity volume 2


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Infinity volume 1


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The once unbeatable Kree are only the latest to fall…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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

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The Arms of the Octopus


By Mike Costa, Chris Cosentino, Kris Anka, Jake Wyatt, Michael Dialynas & Dalibor Talajić (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-577-2

Here’s a welcome return to those (relatively) uncomplicated Good Old Days, when you could pick up a comic or book without Ph.D. level preparation and just read for the sheer fun of it.

Collecting the linked serial from 2013’s All-New X-Men Special #1, Indestructible Hulk Special and Superior Spider-Man Team-Up Special (and incongruously including the Wolverine: In the Flesh One-Shot), The Arms of the Octopus offers just such a jolly “Blast from the Past” in a gripping tale of time-banditry, courtesy of writer Mike Costa.

Illustrated by Kris Anka All-New X-Men Special #1starts the ball rolling with ‘Elegy in the Classroom’ as time-displaced mutant teenagers Hank (the Beast) Pym, Bobby (Iceman) Drake, Scott (Cyclops) Summers and Jean (Marvel Girl) Grey spend their first vacation day on a trip to Manhattan and get a full-on face-full of 21st century future shock.

Escaping the bleeping sound and blinding visual fury of the telecommunications era, the kids head for Central Park where young Hank is smitten by a poetry-reading college girl. After catching a mugger, the Beast expects her to run screaming, but she’s actually so intrigued at meeting a mutant she invites him back to see her lab.

Hank knows it well: before he and the teen X-Men were brought into their own future he studied there under Gamma-medicine radiation research pioneer David Jude. Decades later the genius is still in residence, but now his field of endeavour is Temporal Displacement…

Dr. Jude is remarkably sanguine about meeting his young-looking old student, but before any questions can be asked the lab is brutally attacked by Doctor Octopus, also oddly youthful and emitting huge amounts of Gamma rays.

As the rest of the X-Men join the bombastic battle the clash inevitably draws the attention of the Superior Spider-Man…

The Wallcrawler is astounded and furious. What the kids – or anybody else for that matter – don’t realise is that for months now the mind of Otto Octavius has inhabited the Amazing Arachnid’s frame and to see his earlier self running wild in 2013 drives the cerebral bodysnatcher into a state of unthinking outrage…

After fractiously cooperating with the mutant kids, Spider-Man defeats Doc Ock and drags him back to Jude’s time-lab, where examination of the Gamma-drenched mystery maniac leads to only one conclusion: some form of time travel…

The X-kids are living proof of concept and with some reluctance the arrogant Arachnid admits that he needs to consult with an expert…

‘For a Friend Whose Work has Come to Triumph’ (illustrated by Jake Wyatt in (Indestructible Hulk Special #1) picks up the tale as S.H.I.EL.D. Specialist Bruce Banner is helicoptered in and, after getting over his astonishment at meeting genuine time travellers, gets stuck into unravelling the enigma of the radioactive rogue.

Before too long however another distraction hits the campus: a blockbusting assault by old Hulk foe the Abomination. The Gamma-irradiated gargoyle is one of Banner’s oldest enemies, and he’s been dead for years…

As the physicist gets green and mean to tackle the threat, the theory of a temporal anomaly caused by the displaced X-teens seems confirmed. Thus the mutants take Spider-Man and Dr. Jude back to their school to check out the time machine which brought them back to the future just as the Hulk makes a shocking discovery defeating his rampaging opponent.

…And in the copter speeding to Westchester, Jude realises he’s been rumbled and makes his move…

The chronal conundrum concludes in ‘With Mercy for the Greedy’ (Superior Spider-Man Team-Up Special #1, with art by Michael Dialynas) as the Machiavellian scientist (Jude, not Ock-in-Spidey for a change) uses previously concealed gamma radiation powers to blow up the transport before heading after the coveted time machine, leaving the assorted heroes in lethal freefall…

Following a suitably spectacular cooperative save, the X-kids and Spider-Man set off on the villain’s trail whilst Banner and Pym frantically work on a method of containing the real radioactive menace. Eventually everything ends up in a ferocious fight before a measure of order is restored and grudging respect is meted out all round…

Blending sinister suspense with riotous action and devilishly clever scenes of outright hilarity, this is a marvellously accessible romp no fan of clear-cut Costumed Dramas should miss and is followed by a rather strange – and unconnected – outing for the world’s favourite mutant.

Illustrated by Dalibor Talajić, Wolverine: In the Flesh is written by – and implausibly co-stars – celebrity chef Chris Cosentino; detailing the hunt for cannibal killer the Bay Area Butcher.

The satanic serial killer’s reign of terror can only be ended after the Canadian mutant recruits his old culinary chum to offer insights into the haute cuisine methodology of cutting meat and invaluably intimate knowledge of San Francisco’s Food Truck culture.

Little do either know that their prey is fed up “serving Man” and needs just one little ingredient for his pièce de résistance: a suitably trussed, tied and marinated mutant…

Light, quirky and mordantly piquant, this one won’t be to everyone’s taste…

With covers by Alexander Lozano and Tim Seeley, The Arms of the Octopus offers casual readers and faithful fans alike a smart break from cosmic epics and should certainly whet the appetite for all the monumental Marvel madness heading our way in the months to come.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Avengers volume 3: Infinity Prelude


By Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, Mike Deodato Jr., Stefano Caselli, Marco Rudy, Marco Checchetto, Frank Martin & Edgar Delgado & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-565-9

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

This core title of the vast Avengers franchise (which can include Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Arena, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Young Avengers, and more) conceptually links the many series and stars together, and here resumes an extended storyline which began when an incredibly ancient trio of “Gardeners” – robotic Aleph, seductive Abyss and passionate Ex Nihilo – turned Mars into the staging post for their latest project: remaking Earth into a worthy perfect world.

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

For Earth their keystone project was growing a new form of man: a prototype Adam to supersede humanity…

The Avengers defeated them, at the second time of trying, with an expansion team comprising Wolverine, Spider-Man, Falcon, Spider-Woman, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, former X-mutants Cannonball and Sunspot, teleporter/reality shaper Eden Fesi (AKA Manifold), pan-dimensional superman Hyperion, cosmic crusader Captain Universe and alien mystery-woman Smasher augmenting seasoned regulars Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Although thwarted, Ex Nihilo and Abyss remained on Mars after the heroes took custody of their modern Prometheus. Tony Stark set out to understand the being left in the Avengers’ care and cracked the enigma of the strange creature – now calling himself Nightmask – who predicted an imminent end to everything and the advent of another extinction-level threat…

Elsewhere, as the aliens’ bio-attacks radically transformed and evolved flora, fauna and geography at six separate strike-sites – demanding constant attention from both superheroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. – obscure elements of the Infinite aligned, with Nightmask and Captain Universe simultaneously becoming aware of a shattering “White Event”…

Reality is composed of discrete universes all held apart by an infinite crimson underspace dubbed the Superflow. Here and now that immemorial barrier was somehow fragmenting, as the timeless alien engineers who maintained it stood by, helpless…

White Events herald the ascension of a universe. Normally the cosmic process throws up Nightmask as herald, and creates a Justice, a Cipher, occasionally a Spitfire and invariably, a being of infinite power: a Starbrand. This last now happens on Earth, but in our universe the entire machinery of the multiverse has been broken…

Iron Man leads a team to a smoking, five-mile wide crater and finds traumatised teen Kevin Connor at the centre of devastation , singled out by celestial source-code and now wielding the power of a living planetary defence system…

As the confrontation devolves into catastrophic combat, Connor easily thrashes the assembled Avengers before Nightmask intervenes, arbitrarily transporting the Starbrand to Mars where Abyss and Ex Nihilo are waiting…

There Kevin learns how, after millennia of world “improvements”, utterly bored Ex Nihilo tweaked his eternal brief and did something a little different with the Origin Bombs dropped on Earth. The alien had no prior idea what results his meddling might achieve, but after billions of years and missions, at least it would be different…

Teleporting back to Earth with only the best of intentions, Connor and Adam assist the Avengers in dealing with O-Bomb biological fallout in Croatia and Saskatchewan, blithely unaware that when the mutagenic hard rain first fell there were in fact seven strikes…

In the wilds of Norway, ruthless techno-terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics successfully harvested the horrific result of that unnoticed Origin-strike and soon their unwise meddling will yield catastrophic results…

Collecting Avengers volume 5 #12-17 (cover-dated July-October 2013), the ongoing Big Picture series continues to set the scene for the time and space-bending crossover event Infinity. Written by Hickman and Nick Spenser, with art by Mike Deodato Jr. & Frank Martin, the breathtaking saga begins anew in ‘Evolve’ as the Avengers visit the Antarctic Savage Land strike and discover a band of fast-growing androgynous humanoid children. Happily the results of this O-strike are apparently benign and the weary heroes resolve to teach the bizarre foundlings how to live in their dinosaur paradise.

A curriculum is hard to agree upon: Thor, Hyperion, Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and especially Spider-Man (increasingly exhibiting the harsh, uncompromising character of Otto Octavius: see Superior Spider-Man) have very different ideas of what the kids need.

It’s certainly not basic survival skills: each child is a living power battery, not requiring sleep, food, respiration or fuel of any discernible nature…

They do respond to attention and are eager to interact, however; accepting each lesson with equanimity. They also have a strange affinity with Captain Universe, who has begun identifying herself as “The Mother”…

Lulled into an air of laxity, the heroes are caught off-guard when a wave of monstrous genetic amalgams attack, allowing an old adversary to abduct some of the incredible waifs for his own experimental program.

Only the unexpected intervention of SavageLand demi-deity Garrock, the Petrified Man allows the heroes to find the compulsively meddling High Evolutionary, disassemble his monumental Terminus robot and free the kids in the concluding ‘Strong’…

The prologue to Infinity then begins with ‘The Signal’ (illustrated by Stefano Caselli) as the remaining pockets of new life are identified as parts of a colossal cosmic mechanism. The O-bomb creatures in India and Australia both construct inexplicable beacons and beam out a message declaring “World Terminal”, whilst back in civilisation Bruce Banner sets his prodigious intellect to solving a global crisis but can find no solution.

Every six minutes, all electro-mechanical activity on Earth shuts down: electrical grids black out, nuclear power plants melt down, automatic weapons systems – such as nuclear arsenals – trigger and every plane or satellite above humanity’s heads becomes an inert, downward-plunging projectile. With all the heroes desperately deployed to offset catastrophe and perform damage control, Banner at last ascertains that the all Origin-bomb sites are components of a massive biological beacon for transmitting a message deep into space…

The call sent, the multi-faced giants spawned in India mysteriously teleport to Australia, joining huge bugs ravaging Perth, with a contingent of Avengers frantically striving to contain them as Banner searches for a still-missing part of the puzzle.

That piece is currently emerging on A.I.M. Island. The robotic horror foolishly and hubristically nurtured by the techno-terrorists responds to the activated cosmic beacon, mercilessly devastating the warrior scientists even as the Avengers at last triumph down under in ‘Sent and Received’.

As the champions take stock, Captain Universe brings Manifold to another galaxy to witness the Beginning of the End…

Far above Earth, Nightmask conscientiously schools Kevin in the subtle uses of the Starbrand as billions of light-years away on Galador, an alien scout ravages the invincible homeworld of the Space Knights. Meanwhile the thing from A.I.M. Island has fulfilled its role as protector of the signalling system, crushing the Avengers ‘To the End’…

This action-heavy, portentous collection concludes with ‘…To the Light’ as A.I.M. chief Superia attempts to regain control of her alien terror toy. As she subsequently prepares to murder the assorted unconscious and wounded Avengers fortuitously left lying around, Manifold blinks back in and savagely stops the would-be killers.

It’s almost an afterthought: he’s come back with terrifying intel and a message from The Mother…

To have even the slightest chance of surviving what’s coming, the team will need to convince Abyss and Ex Nilhilo to join the Avengers…

To Be Continued…

Utter Fights ‘n’ Tights overload that will delight fans of doom-drenched Costumed Dramas, this tome also offers a stunning covers-and-variants gallery by Francis Leinil Yu, Sunny Gho & Daniel Acuña and digitally-diverting extra content – trailers, character bios, creator video commentaries, behind the scenes features and more – for tech-savvy consumers courtesy of AR icon sections all accessible through a free digital code and the Marvel Comics app for iPhone®, iPad®, iPad Touch® & Android devices at Marvel’s Digital Comics Shop.

™ and © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2: Angela


By Brian Michael Bendis with Neil Gaiman, Sara Pichelli, Olivier Coipel, Valerio Schiti, Francesco Francavilla, Kevin Maguire & Mark Morales (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-570-3

Since its momentous rebirth in the early 1960s Marvel Comics was synonymous with making superheroes more realistic. However the little publisher always maintained a close connection with the fantastic space-opera and outrageous cosmic calamity that typified its pre-renaissance – as cherished by oldsters like me who grew up reading their “Hairy-underpants Monsters from Beyond” stuff.

With Space bigger than ever (a little cosmology humour there), one of the resurgent company’s earliest concepts has had a major revamp and now ranks as one of the most entertaining titles to come out of 2012’s MarvelNow! group-wide reboot.

There’s even a major blockbuster movie scheduled for release this August…

The Guardians of the Galaxy were created by Arnold Drake and Gene Colan for try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes (#18, January 1969): a band of freedom fighters dedicated to liberating star-scattered Mankind from domination by the sinister, reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon.

A rare “miss” for the creatively on-fire publisher, they then vanished into limbo until 1974, when Steve Gerber incorporated them into Marvel Two-In-One, Giant Size Defenders and The Defenders, wherein assorted 20th century champions travelled a millennium into the future to ensure humanity’s liberation and survival.

This led to the Guardians’ own short-lived series in Marvel Presents (February 1976-August 1977) before premature cancellation again left them floating around the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars for such cosmically-tinged titles as Thor, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One and The Avengers.

In 1990 they secured a relatively successful second series (#62 issues, annuals and spin-off miniseries) before cancellation struck again in July 1995.

This isn’t them; that Future was a Prelude…

In 2006 a monumental crossover epic involved most of Marvel’s 21st century space stars in an “Annihilation” Event, and led writing team Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning to reconfigure the Guardians concept for contemporary times and tastes.

Amongst the stalwarts initially in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord, Quasar, Nova, Thanos, Star-Lord, Moondragon, Super-Skrull, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Drax the Destroyer and a host of previously established alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Watchers, Xandarians, Shi’ar et al., all falling before a invasion of rapacious Negative Zone beasties unleashed by undying horror Annihilus.

The saga spawned specials, miniseries and new titles (subsequently collected in many volumes) and inevitably led to a follow-up event…

In Annihilation: Conquest, the cast expanded to tackle new threat, adding – and sometimes subtracting – such interstellar luminaries as Adam Warlock, the Inhumans, Kang the Conqueror, Blastaar, the Magus, Captain Universe, fallen Celestial Madonna Mantis, anamorphic adventurer Rocket Raccoon and gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” Groot, a walking killer tree and one-time “Monarch of Planet X”, amongst others…

I’ve covered part of that cataclysmic clash elsewhere and will get to the rest one day: suffice to say that by the end of the successive Annihilations and subsequent intergalactic War of Kings, a new, pan-species Guardian group had appointed itself to defend the recovering civilisations and prevent such calamities from ever happening again.

This isn’t them either… not so much…

A few years later and many more cosmic crises, the remnants of those many Sentinels of the Spaceways got the band back together, still determined to make the universe a safe place (for specifics you should consult Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1: Cosmic Avengers).

Thus this second compelling chronicle (collecting Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2 #4-10 from July 2013-January 2014) resumes the immensely absorbing interstellar interactions of a bunch of alien freaks and the human heroes who fight beside – when not actually with – them. Moreover, this time it all ties neatly into the overarching mainstream Marvel continuity…

Brian Michael Bendis continues the tale of Peter Jason Quill – half-breed Terran son of J’Son of Spartax: undisputed ruler of an interstellar empire but no friend of Earth – and his allies in pacifying an unruly and unforgiving universe as Drax, Rocket Racoon, Groot and Gamora (“Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy”) spend some downtime in a bar with their newest recruit, Tony Stark…

Iron Man had been spending time exploring the universe and become embroiled in the self-appointed Guardians’ ongoing trouble with a compact of major cosmic powers and principalities. A coterie of these had formed a Council of Galactic Empires and unilaterally declared Earth “off limits”: quarantined from all extraterrestrial contact.

That high-minded declaration hadn’t stopped one of the Signatories – the scurrilous reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon – from launching a sneak attack on London and being soundly thrashed by Quill, Stark and Co…

After open-minded “Ladies Man” Stark scores an amatory epic fail with Gamora (a wry episode which delivers plenty of laughs for his new comrades who can’t let it lie for the rest of the book), the viridian virago storms out to cool off and is ambushed by an alien bounty hunter.

Despite her formidable prowess she is only saved by the arrival of the Guardians who have just finished trashing a bar and the squad of Spartax soldiers who walked in on their drunken carousing…

With no information on who else now wants them dead, the disparate legion of the lost head back into space and a fateful dalliance with destiny…

Still being crushingly snubbed by Gamora, Stark occupies himself learning new ways to repair his comparatively primitive armour under the guidance of the aggravatingly disparaging racoon whilst Quill takes a secret meeting in one of the universe’s many unsavoury, unwelcoming armpits.

Starlord’s consultation with former ally Mantis about a bizarre episode (wherein he seemed to experience an inexplicable and debilitating chronal mindquake) provides no answers and he is forced to go ask the last person in creation he ever wanted to see again…

Meanwhile, Stark and the remaining Guardians have spotted an unidentifiable lifeform approaching Earth and rush to incept her before she can do any damage…

They reason they can’t identify her is because she’s from another universe and time. Angela (created by Neil Gaiman for Spawn #9 in 1993 and, after much legal foofawraw, brought under Marvel’s auspices in Age of Ultron) is lost and baffled, approaching a world her people have always considered a fairytale or religious myth when the still disgruntled Gamora smashes her into the moon, grateful for an excuse to work off her pent-up hostilities…

The satellite’s oldest inhabitant – Uatu the Watcher – is reeling from the conflict. Not because of its savage intensity but because he knows what Angela is and how she simply cannot be present in this Reality…

Quill however is pumping the mad Titan Thanos for information on his own time troubles and realises he has just poked the biggest bear in existence. The Death-Lover declares that humanity’s perpetual tampering with the time-stream has broken the universe and brought our pathetic mud-ball to the attention of races and powers that won’t let Mankind muck up Reality any longer…

Rushing back to his birthworld, Star-Lord finds his team faring very badly against the mysterious Angela and pitches in. When she is finally, spectacularly subdued, Uatu appears and proffers dire warnings for all Reality…

With uncharacteristic diplomacy Quill then coaxes the enigmatic intruder into relating her story. Apparently she’s a Hunting Angel from a place called Heven, fallen through a gaping crack in Everything That Is…

Drawn to Earth – a place her race reveres but considers a beautiful fiction – she was ambushed by Gamora, who cannot believe Star-Lord’s next move: freeing Angela and, after personally conducting her on a tour of the world, letting her go free…

At this time almost all of Marvel’s titles had been building to a big Avengers-centric crossover event dubbed Infinity, and the next two issues (#8-9, stunningly illustrated by Francesco Francavilla) form the Guardians’ contribution to the epic, in which a double crisis afflicts our particular portion of space.

As Thanos invades Earth for his own dark personal motives, an ancient spread of races from far beyond attack those stellar empires still recovering from the Annihilation outrages and the War of Kings. It’s nothing personal: this invading alien Armada is tasked with eradicating every Earth in every dimension and the Kree, Skrulls, Badoon, Galadorians, Spartax, Shi’ar and all the rest are simply guilty of associating with humans…

With all the Avengers called into space to fight beside their former enemies, Earth is helpless when enemy E.T.’s overwhelm The Peak (the planet’s orbital defence citadel) and Abigail Brand – Director of  the Sentient World Observation & Response Department – sends a desperate distress call to Star-Lord.

His affirmative answer enrages Gamora, already bristling from the knowledge Quill has been fraternising with the despised Thanos and she quits…

With Iron Man also gone, Star-Lord, Groot and the Raccoon sneakily infiltrate the station (Drax doesn’t do unobtrusive) but quickly fall foul of the superior forces and only the sudden return of Angela saves the day. When Gamora and Drax then join the fray the Guardians are magnificently triumphant… but at a terrible cost…

This volume then closes with a far-lighter “Girls Night Out-rageous” (#10, illustrated by Kevin Maguire) as Gamora and Angela enjoy a blistering bonding session and action-comedy moment whilst visiting the Badoon homeworld Moord, freeing the reptilians’ vast contingent of enslaved races and accidentally uncovering an impossible connection between the scurvy raider race and Angela’s dimensionally displaced people…

Bright, breezy, bombastic and immensely enjoyable, the Guardians of the Galaxy offer fast and furious adventure and captivating thrills, spills and chills, and this volume also includes a beautiful gallery of two dozen covers-&-variants by Pichelli & Justin Ponsor, Adi Granov, J. Scott Campbell, Julian Totino Tedesco, Brandon Peterson, Francavilla, John Tyler Christopher, Maguire, Paul Renaud, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., Terry Dodson, Milo Manara, Paolo Manuel Rivera, Mark Brooks, Leonel Castellani and Adam Kubert plus a wealth of as-standard added extras provided by a multitude of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) offering story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superior Carnage


By Kevin Shinick, Stephen Segovia, Dennis Crisostomo, Don Ho & Dan Mexia (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-567-3

Back in the anything goes, desperate hurly-burly of the late 1980s and 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 enemy 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 détente and Venom became the “Lethal Protector”, dispensing his own highly individualistic brand of justice anywhere but New York City.

But then the symbiote went into breeding mode; spawning a junior version which merged with serial psycho-killer Cletus Kasady. Utterly amoral, murderously twisted and addicted to both pain and excitement, he became the terrifying metamorphic Carnage: a murder-crazy monster tearing a bloody swathe through the Big Apple before an army of superheroes caught him and his equally lethal “family” (as seen in the crossover epic Maximum Carnage).

One of the most dangerous beings on Earth, eventually Kasady was executed with his remains dumped safely into high-Earth orbit.

However, “safe” is an extremely relative word and eventually the crimson killer returned…

More recently, as part of the MarvelNow! restart event, Spider-Man underwent a startling shake-up which left arch villain Otto Octavius in control of the Wallcrawler’s body and permanently installed in Peter Parker’s brain.

The hero’s mind had been maliciously transferred and trapped in the dying body of Dr. Octopus where, despite his every desperate effort, Parker perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame. With his final efforts he bombarded the psychic invader with his full unvarnished memories and forced Octavius to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice, binding Ock to living the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his enemy and earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission. However, Octavius’ personality gradually was in control, resulting in a cold, calculating and obsessively Superior Spider-Man.

Scripted by Kevin Shinick (Avenging Spider-Man, Robot Chicken) with art from Stephen Segovia, Dennis Crisostomo, Don Ho & Dan Mexia, this slim, grim tome collects the 5-issue miniseries Superior Carnage (September 2013-January 2014), beginning in an undisclosed containment facility where the recently recaptured Kasady -lobotomised in a clash with the Scarlet Spider – has been transferred to be dumped and forgotten.

Sadly it only makes the monster available to another ruthless maniac…

The Wizard has his own problems: once one of the smartest men on Earth, a battle with Black Bolt has left him with induced and progressive dementia which will soon kill him. Desperate to prove himself to his son (who couldn’t care less), the sinister savant uses mind-control tech to release Carnage – dormant since Kasady became functionally brain-dead – and lets the bloodthirsty beast run wild amongst the prison population…

The Wizard’s goal is to revive and restock his gang The Frightful Four, but he hits a slight snag when the beast proves uncontrollable due to the simple fact that Kasady has no mind…

Lucky for the bewildered boffin his already-restored ally Klaw is still loyal. The creature is composed of solidified sound and easily subdues the rampaging Carnage, since the only vulnerabilities symbiotes possess are no tolerance for fire and extreme sonic frequencies…

With Plan A a bust, the increasingly unstable Wizard then transfers the alien parasite to his confederate Karl Malus, a wheelchair-bound rogue surgeon who is far from happy to be the monster’s new home, but upon whom the aforementioned mind-control mechanisms will work…

And all this time the Superior Spider-Man has been hunting the escapees: dedicating his vast crimefighting resources to seeking out the Wizard, even though he believes there’s little to fear from a demented ex-genius and brain-dead serial killer…

Impossibly, the impromptu tactic works and Malus’ intellect has had a transformative effect on the alien, which now augments its lethal metamorphic abilities with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry.

Delighted and delirious, the rapidly declining Wizard then leads his team in a murderous assault on City Hall, attacking New York’s controversial Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. The big brain has no intention of surviving the foray and fully intends to go out in a headline-grabbing blaze of glory…

It’s just as well, as Malus’ grip on the Carnage creature is slowly slipping…

The doomed desperadoes are just too late. Spider-Man has deployed his own mercenaries to spirit Jameson away, but has in turn severely underestimated the threat posed by the invaders.

Only after all of his men are slaughtered does the Wallcrawler realise his error, and is further shocked when the Wizard – despite his declining faculties – discerns that he’s fighting Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man’s body…

When the Wizard’s control fades Carnage then takes over its host and goes completely wild, beating Spider-Man and destroying Klaw, but as the sound-master’s body explodes, the uncontained fury blasts the Symbiote off and out of Malus…

And into the Wizard…

Shock follows shock as the tales escalates to a spectacular and fearsomely foreboding conclusion that will satisfy every Fights ‘n’ Tights fan’s wildest dreams whilst promising even nastier surprises in days to come…

Smart, sharp, fast-paced and addictively action-packed, this stand-alone saga keeps tensions high and the suspense bubbling, and this creepy chronicle also includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Clayton Crain, Marco Checchetto and Raffa Garres.
The Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this
™ & © 2013 and 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.

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Indestructible Hulk volume 3: S.M.A.S.H. Time


By Mark Waid, Matteo Scalera, Kim Jacinto & Mahmud Asrar (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-574-1

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

He has, inescapably, then undergone numerous radical changes in scope, character and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling…

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

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

Modern comics are all about the next Big Event and throughout 2013 numerous Marvel titles experienced a few temporal troubles. This latest Hulk collection also tenuously ties in to those ongoing time travel travails, which all ostensibly arose from the after-effects of dramatic disruptions in the (Marvel) universes’ conjoined time-streams. The root cause was The Avengers unmaking of the Age of Ultron, but don’t fret as the stories here stand well enough on their own…

The big change in the Hulk’s fortunes occurred after S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill was persuaded to provide perennial fugitive Banner with resources and funding in order to sanitise his scientific reputation. In return Hill could call on the Hulk as a living weapon of last resort…

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

For the foreseeable future and as long as possible he would manage – rather than seek cures for – his affliction. Additionally, in return for S.H.I.E.L.D. science labs and trained assistants – generally in the isolated facility of Nuclear Springs, Nevada (AKA “Bannerville”) – the bombastic boffin would also give the agency first use of many of his discoveries and inventions…

This guest-star packed third volume details the next cataclysmic chapter in the ever-eventful life of Dr. Banner and his mean green alter ego (collecting Indestructible Hulk #11-15, cover-dated September 2013 to January 2014) with scripter Mark Waid letting the emerald engine of destruction loose on a multiplicity of Marvel’s genre-adventures roots…

Banner and his team are just getting back to business (after a agonising sojourn in Jotunheim, realm of Asgardian Frost Giants) when the irascible genius is summoned to an ultra-secret division of S.H.I.E.L.D. to apply his unique gifts to a cataclysmic situation. Even before seeing the Temporal Irregularity Management and Eradication site Banner knows something big is up: the Hulk’s last mission had included a surprise attack by a brand spanking new 75-year-old American bomber packed with ancient skeletons in flight suits…

The 5-part ‘Agent of T.I.M.E.’ (illustrated by Matteo Scalera, Kim Jacinto & Mahmud Asrar) continues as Banner meets the secret project’s prize prisoner. Zarrko the Tomorrow Man, has been an inmate of the facility for two decades – even though for that entire period he has been continually battling Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man on the outside in a variety of centuries.

He explains the impossible paradox by describing – as he has continually for over twenty years – how, thanks to constant meddling, the Timestream is broken and all of reality is in imminent danger of shattering.

Thanks to recent events the S.H.I.E.L.D. higher-ups are at last prepared to believe him…

Stuck in his cell, helplessly emitting time-warping radiations, Zarrko again repeats his warnings: even with the armour and screening technologies he has provided, mere mortals cannot survive in the roaring chronal currents. Only the Hulk can be sent to key time points to fix the escalating chaos.

It’s pretty urgent he goes soon, too, since Chronarchists from beyond now are targeting weak spots in time, intent on overwriting the past to cement their own futures…

Banner is dead set against the idea until Zarrko reminds him that people and places are dropping out of reality every moment: people like Betty Ross, Banner’s ex-wife and now the riotous Red She-Hulk.

In the crowded lab only he and the Tomorrow Man remember her… and even Bruce is having trouble recalling her name…

The Chronarchists are also the reason the Hulk’s intellect is so mutable: his Gamma-charged existence is a threat to their victory so they have been tampering with his personal history…

Resigned to his task Banner acquiesces, allowing Zarrko and the T.I.M.E. technologists to set him up for the trip. Since he’ll need to stay “Hulked” for the duration Banner’s personality is duplicated in a free-floating, self-powered Recording Observation Bot, which effectively means the scientist and savage who have always despised each other will be working as a team…

The first stop is Arizona in 1873 where the Big Green Galoot and his floating metal sidekick/brain join Western legends Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid in battling dinosaurs and the Chronarchist Tok Baltusar who has enslaved a town and tried to turn the local silver mine into his personal factory for producing time-warping nano-alloys…

The bizarre aggregation of heroes eventually overcomes the temporal infiltrator but the Hulk is explosively propelled back to the sixth century and another heroic crisis: the too-early fall of Camelot…

Expelled from his citadel by Chronarchist Valdar Ahd (employing a legion of warriors from all ages), King Arthur even welcomes the assistance of a gross green ogre and its talking, flying box as he, Merlin and the puissant Black Knight lead the surviving paladins of the Table Round in a battle to restore honour and save the right and proper future…

After spectacularly and destructively dealing with the chronal iconoclast, R.O.B./Banner and the ferociously fluctuating Hulk are rather at a loss to track down the final temporal tamperer.

Following a host of false trails only leads into a procession of clashes with old foes such as the Abomination, Sandman and Fin Fang Foom, all cunningly placed in time-ambushes throughout a rapidly and constantly revising history to delay interference in a hidden mastermind’s true scheme…

Each subtle distraction further diminishes Hulk and the recording of Banner before, as time is literally about to run out, the answer occurs to the rapidly failing brainbox in a box…

At an atomic test site R.O.B. can barely remember, a scientist named Banner argues with his assistant Igor, his girlfriend Betty and her father – military martinet General Thunderbolt Ross – about the imminent detonation of the world’s first Gamma-bomb. Then when a kid drives onto Ground Zero, the Banner dashes out to save him, only to be caught in the blast…

This time though, a monolithic green giant pushes him aside and takes the full hit of raging radiation…

The rapidly failing Banner/R.O.B. has deduced their quarry’s when-&-whereabouts seconds too late, blinking in to the event just in time for the Hulk to be bombarded with a second dose of mutative energy – exactly as his time-bending opponents had intended…

With all his programs failing, the robot rapidly downloads his remaining memories into his pre-radiated organic self, leaving a horrified, physically powerless but utterly up-to-speed Bruce Banner to face the enraged atrocious monstrosity of a “Hulk-Squared”…

Or not.

Finally freed of the curse of the Hulk before he ever carried it, Banner is tempted to let the new status quo stand… until he realises that the last Chronarchist’s tampering has also deleted his beloved Betty from the timeline…

The heartbroken savant has only one chance to put things right: defeat the last time-bender Khotto – and the now-obvious Machiavellian mastermind behind the entire audacious history-warping scheme – no matter the cost…

And when the dust of centuries finally settles, Banner’s world is back the way it should be, although the weary savant cannot help but feel that something, somewhere, somehow has changed in a way he cannot yet fathom…

Packed with the now-standard 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 whatsit) and a stunning cover-&-variants gallery by Mukesh Singh, Michael Del Mundo & Leonel Castellani, this is a smart, comfortingly convoluted and amazingly compelling read: a fun-filled, fury-fuelled saga which brilliantly mixes incredible adventure with clever characterisation and an addictive excess of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.
™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.