Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Dark Avengers: Molecule Man


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, Rain Beredo & Greg Horn (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3854-9
One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of freshly minted individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Mighty Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package, and over the years the roster has waxed and waned until almost every character in their universe – and even some from others – has at some time numbered amongst their serried ranks.

After years of valiant, if often controversial service to humanity, when the draconian Federal initiative known as Superhuman Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes, Tony Stark AKA Iron Man was appointed the American government’s Security Czar – the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom: Director of high-tech enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and last word in all matters involving metahumans and the USA’s vast costumed community…

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

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

The erstwhile Spider-Man villain had begun his climb back to respectability after taking charge of the Government’s Thunderbolts Project; a penal program which offered a second chance to super-criminals who volunteered to undertake Federally-sanctioned missions…

Not content with commanding legitimate political and personal power, Osborn also secretly conspired with a coalition of major menacing masterminds to divvy up the world between them. The Cabal was a Star Chamber of super-villains all working towards a mutually beneficial goal, but such egomaniacal personalities could never play well together and cracks soon began to show, both in the criminal conspiracy and Osborn himself.

As another strand of his long-term plan, the Homeland Security overlord subsequently sacked the Avengers and formed his own, more manageable team consisting of replacements and outright impostors…

Constantly courting public opinion, Osborn launched his Avengers whilst systematically building up a new, personally loyal high-tech paramilitary rapid-response force. Moreover, seemingly to keep himself honest, he hired ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. hardliner Victoria Hand as his Deputy Director, tasked with watching the recovering madman for any signs of regression into criminal insanity…

His second-in-command was also occupied with the day-to-day running of the organisation whilst he concentrated on keeping Greek War-God Ares, mentally-disturbed superman Sentry and altruistic, dimensionally displaced alien Noh-Var – now dubbed Captain Marvel – unaware of his true intentions.

His other recruits were content with the sweet perks and devious deals on offer. Bullseye, Moonstone, Venom and Wolverine‘s psychotic son Daken Akihiro happily counterfeited Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and the irascible mutant Avenging X-Man, especially as Osborn had confiscated and repurposed Tony Stark’s greatest inventions into his own suit of super-armour, retooled and finished to invoke impressions of both Captain America and the Golden ex-Avenger. Iron Patriot was always at the forefront of his hand-picked team, leading from the front as a true American hero should…

Collecting issues #9-12 (December 2009-March 2010) of the controversial Dark Avengers series scripted by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Mike Deodato & colourist Rain Beredo, this volume begins to catalogue the cracks in the façade.

As Osborn starts to become unglued, the God of War takes a personal day and follows his son Alexander.

Nick Fury, driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away when S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. From an unassailable, unsuspected vantage point Fury picked his battles and slowly gathered assets and resources he’d personally vetted or built…

The indomitable freedom fighter had always known that to do the job properly he needed his own trustworthy forces and no political constraints. To this end he had long endeavoured to clandestinely stockpile his own formidable team, which included a crack squad of super-human operatives: Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry “Stonewall” Sledge, J.T. “Hellfire” James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, and the terrifyingly volatile Alexander: a 12-year old boy of incredible power.

The child Phobos was destined to become a true god – the personification of Fear – but until then his daily-developing divine gifts were Fury’s to use…

Now Ares tracks his delinquent child to the lair of his commanding officer’s most dangerous enemy. Instead of all-out combat, however, the confrontation with Fury leads to a shaky détente and an improbable deal…

The main part of this volume then deals with the faux team’s most perilous challenge, as a string of uncanny disappearances in back-of-beyond hamlet Dinosaur, Colorado ties in with Osborn’s desire to keep his bored and dangerous team occupied.

However when the more-than-godlike Sentry is apparently vaporised, the grand schemer realises the magnitude of the unidentified menace and mobilises his entire organisation.

But as his team approach ground zero and the still unknown foe, each is whisked into a personalised hell (illustrated in painted sections by Greg Horn) wherein impossibly overwhelming Molecule Man Owen Reece sits in judgement and metes out appalling punishments on the interlopers who have desecrated his private paradise and playground…

With only Victoria Hand left the situation looks dire, but the former S.H.I.E.L.D. bean-counter undertakes a brilliant last-ditch stratagem which delays events long enough for Sentry to somehow reassemble himself and battle the most powerful creature in existence to a standstill…

Not even Sentry himself realised just how strong he truly was, and as that terrifying fact sinks in Osborn continues to mentally unravel – even as his erstwhile Cabal ally Loki attacks…

To Be Concluded…

This portentous, doom-drenched psycho-drama builds breathtaking suspense whilst delivering blistering action in a slowly-intensifying progression as part of the “Dark Reign” company-wide crossover which impacted upon the entire Marvel Universe, yet besides being a component of an overarching epic, still holds together effectively as an entertaining one-off read for casual Fights ‘n’ Tights fans…

Also included to enhance the appeal are a cover gallery by Deodato & Beredo, a wealth of Characters Designs and unused material, a 4-page article on the Cover Process, Norman’s Dream Sketchbook by Greg Land and an information feature on Molecule Man taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook.

Although definitely not a book for younger fans, this is another striking saga from author Bendis, packed with intrigue and action, magnificently illustrated and offering an engaging peek at the sinister side of superheroics and the deadly downside of good intentions.
© 2009 and 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Avengers volume 7


By Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George Pérez, Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4453-3

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

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

This monumental seventh monochrome tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ extraordinary exploits from issues #140-163 of their monthly comicbook (spanning November 1975-September 1975), also includes material from Avengers Annual #6 plus a crossover appearance from Super-Villain Team-Up #9.

This era saw revered and multi-award winning scripter Steve Englehart surrender the writing reins to Gerry Conway during a period of painful recurring deadline problems – before neophyte wunderkind Jim Shooter came aboard to stabilise and reshape the cosmology and history of the Marvel Universe through the adventures of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Opening this epochal tome is ‘The Phantom Empire!’ (Avengers #141, by Englehart, George Pérez & Vince Colletta), which began another complex, multi-layered epic combining superheroic Sturm und Drang with searing – for 1975, at least – political commentary.

It all began when new member The Beast was ambushed by mercenaries from corporate behemoth Roxxon Oil.

He was saved by ex-Avenger Captain America who had been investigating the company on a related case and, after comparing notes, realised something very big and very bad was going on…

Linking up with Thor, Iron Man, other trainee Moondragon and the newly returned newlyweds Vision and Scarlet Witch, the pair learned of another crisis building as Hawkeye had gone missing, probably captured by time tyrant Kang the Conqueror…

Just as the Assemblage was agreeing to split into teams, former child model Patsy Walker-Baxter (star of a bunch of Marvel’s girl’s market comics such as Patsy Walker and Patsy & Hedy) burst in, threatening to expose Beast’s secret identity…

When he had first further mutated, Hank McCoy had attempted to mask his anthropoid form and Patsy had helped him in return for his promise to make her a superhero. Now she had resurfaced prepared to use blackmail to make him honour his vow. She got dragged along as one squad (Cap, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Vision) joined Beast’s as he returned to his old lab at Brand/Roxxon… where they were ambushed by alternate Earth heroes the Squadron Supreme…

Moondragon and Thor meanwhile co-opted sometime ally Immortus and followed Hawkeye back to 1873 but were also bushwhacked, finding themselves battling Kang beside a coterie of cowboy legends including Kid Colt, Night Rider, Ringo Kid, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid in ‘Go West, Young Gods!’ even as the present-day team learned that their perilous plight involved a threat to two different dimensions’ situations because Roxxon had joined with the corporations which had taken over the Squadron Supreme’s America – thanks to the malignly mesmeric Serpent Crown of Set…

The Wild West showdown culminated in the apparent death of a deity in ‘Right Between the Eons!’ (Avengers #143, inked by Sam Grainger). Elsewhen, the 20th century heroes were beginning their counterattack in the esoteric weaponry factory at Brand, and during all that running wild the heroes found the technologically advanced, ability-enhancing uniform of short-lived adventurer The Cat in a storeroom.

When Patsy put it on the hero-groupie neophyte dubbed herself Hellcat in ‘Claws!’ (Mike Esposito inks)…

Soon after, the Avengers were cornered by the Squadron and as battle recommenced Roxxon president Hugh Jones played his trump card and transported all the combatants to the other Earth…

The dreaded deadline doom hit just at this crucial juncture and issues #145-146 were taken up with a 2-part fill-in by Tony Isabella, Don Heck & John Tartaglione with additional pencils by Keith Pollard for the concluding chapter.

‘The Taking of the Avengers!’ revealed how a criminal combine had taken out a colossal contract on the World’s Mightiest Superheroes but even though ‘The Assassin Never Fails!’ the killer was thwarted and Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast, Vision and Scarlet Witch – plus Wasp, Yellowjacket and the Falcon all safely returned to their various cases untroubled by the vagaries of continuity or chronology which makes this rather impressive yarn such a annoyance in this specific instance…

The trans-dimensional traumas finally resumed in Avengers #147 which described the ‘Crisis on Other-Earth!’ (Englehart, Pérez & Colletta). With the corporate takeover of the other America revealed to have been facilitated by use of the mind-bending mystical serpent crown, the Scarlet Witch took possession of the sinister helm and her team-mates tried desperately to keep the overwhelming Squadron Supreme from regaining it.

On our Earth Hawkeye brought Two-Gun Kid to the modern world but decided to go walkabout rather than rejoin his fellow Avengers even as Thor and Moondragon began searching for their missing colleagues…

It was back to business in #148 as ‘20,000 Leagues Under Justice!’ (Grainger) featured the final showdown and the Avengers’ victory over a wiser and repentant Squadron Supreme, and as the heroes returned to their home dimension ‘The Gods and the Gang!’ reunited them with Moondragon and the Thunder God to clean up Brand/Roxxon. The Corporate cabal still had one trick left to play however: a colossal and biologically augmented Atlantean dubbed Orka, the Human Killer Whale…

Avengers #150 saw an official changing of the guard as ‘Avengers Assemble’ by Englehart, Pérez, Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland – supplemented part-way through by half of ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (reprinted from #16 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) – settled the membership question and made way for new scripter Gerry Conway in #151 whose ‘At Last: The Decision’ (with additional scripting by Jim Shooter & Englehart and art from Pérez & Tartaglione) set the group off on new, less cosmic adventures.

No sooner had the long-delayed announcement been made (this membership drive had begun in Avengers #137 after all) though, than a mysterious crate disgorged the long-dead body of Wonder Man which shockingly shambled to its feet and accused the stunned android Vision of stealing his mind…

Long ago Simon Williams had been turned into a human powerhouse by arch-villain Baron Zemo and used as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the team, but eventually gave his life to redeem himself. After he was buried his brain patterns were used to provide an operating system for The Vision, inadvertently creating a unique human personality for the cold thing of plastic wires and metal…

In #152 ‘Nightmare in New Orleans!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear as the team began a search for the fallen Wonder Man’s grave robber/re-animator, in a tale by Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott which soon found the team facing voodoo lord Black Talon in New Orleans…

‘Home is the Hero!’ reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank (AKA super fast superhero The Whizzer). In a tragic tale of desperation the aged speedster sought the heroes’ help before he was seemingly possessed and attacked the team.

Avengers Annual #6 answered all the mysteries and wrapped up the storyline with ‘No Final Victory’ (illustrated by Pérez, Esposito, Tartaglione & Vohland), as a conspiracy involving the Serpent-helmed Living Laser, Whizzer’s government-abducted son mutant son Nuklo and rogue US Army General Pollock almost succeeded in conquering California if not America – until the resurgent Avengers laid down the law…

Also included in the annual – and here – was ‘Night Vision’ by Scott Edelman & Herb Trimpe: a stirring solo story of the Android Avenger battling super swift psychopath Whirlwind.

In Avengers #154 ‘When Strikes Attuma?’ Conway, Pérez & Pablo Marcos began a blockbuster battle bonanza which was in part a crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up (this series followed the uneasy coalition of Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner). The initial chapter found the Vision captured by subsea barbarian Attuma even as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were ambushed and defeated by the warlord’s augmented Atlantean thrall Tyrak the Treacherous.

The scheme was simple enough: use the enslaved surface champions as cannon fodder in an assault against Namor…

At this time US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had recently signed a non-aggression pact with the Dictator of Latveria with Doom subsequently blackmailing the Sub-Mariner into serving as his unwilling ally. One American vigilante observed no such legal or diplomatic niceties. The Shroud thought he had freed the Atlantean from his vow by “killing” Doom but the villain had survived the assault: rescued and secretly imprisoned by Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namorita and girlfriend Tamara under the misguided apprehension that they could force the Metal-shod Monarch into helping Atlantis and their lost Prince.

SVT-U #9 carried on the epic encounter with the heroes now ‘Pawns of Attuma’ (scripted by Bill Mantlo, drawn by Jim Shooter & Sal Trapani) as the Avengers were unleashed upon the Atlanteans, only to discover Doom now in charge and easily able to thwart their half-hearted assault.

In Avengers #155 the beaten heroes were helpless, leaving only confused, despondent and battle-crazed Namor ‘To Stand Alone!’ (Conway Perez & Marcos), joined by lone stragglers the Beast, Whizzer and Wonder Man to hunt down the triumphant barbarian sea lord.

The epic conclusion came in ‘The Private War of Doctor Doom!’ (Avengers#156, by Shooter, with art from Sal Buscema & Marcos) wherein the liberated and furious heroes joined forces to crush Attuma whilst simultaneously preventing Doom from turning the situation to his own world-conquering advantage…

In #157 ‘A Ghost of Stone!’ (Conway, Heck & Marcos) addressed a long-unresolved mystery of the Black Knight – his body had been petrified whilst his soul was trapped in the 12th century – as a strange force reanimated the statue and set it upon the weary heroes, after which ‘When Avengers Clash!!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) saw the revived and now fully-recovered Wonder Man clash with an impossibly jealous Vision over the Scarlet Witch.

That Wanda loved the android Avenger was seemingly forgotten as his “borrowed” brain patterns fixated on the logical assumption that eventually his flesh-and-blood wife would gravitate to a normal man with his personality rather than stay married to a mere mobile mechanism…

Domestic tantrums were quickly laid aside when the entire team – plus late arrivals Black Panther and Thor) battled research scientist Frank Hall following an accident which gave him complete control over the forces of gravity…

Apparently unstoppable, Graviton almost destroyed New York in #159 as ‘Siege by Stealth and Storm!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) resulted in a savage clash and the unbeatable villain defeating himself…

Avengers #160 featured Eric Williams, the deranged Grim Reaper. With portentous hints of a hidden backer and his dead brother seemingly returned, he conducted ‘…The Trial!’ (Shooter, Pérez & Marcos) to see whether Wonder Man or the Vision was the “true” Simon Williams… but didn’t like the answer he got…

The next issue extended the sub-plot as ‘Beware the Ant-Man’ found the team attacked by a frenzied Henry Pym, whose mind had regressed to mere days after the Avengers first formed. The crazed hero had allied with the homicidal robot he no longer remembered creating and was unwittingly helping it build ‘The Bride of Ultron!’ (#162), pitifully oblivious that for the almost completed Jocasta to live his own wife Janet had to die…

At the close the Avengers believed they had finally destroyed the murderous mechanoid, but they were wrong…

This classic collection of costumed clashes closes with Shooter, George Tuska & Marcos’ stand-alone tale ‘The Demi-God Must Die!’ wherein mythological maniac Typhon returns to capture the team. Despite forcing Iron Man to attack Hercules (to save his hostage Avenging comrades), and even after lots of spectacular smashing, the scheme naturally fails and the World’s Mightiest are triumphant again…

This type of heroic adventure might not be to every reader’s taste but these – and the truly epic yarns that followed – set the tone for fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights 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 century…

No lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book and fans who think themselves above superhero stories might also be pleasantly surprised…
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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X-Men – Battle of the Atom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Stuart Immonen, Frank Cho, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound mutant telepath Charles Xavier. Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington III, Jean Grey and Henry McCoy were taken under the wing of the enigmatic Professor X as he enacted his dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was noble, inspirational and worth dying for, and over the years many mutants battling under the X-banner did just that. The struggle to integrate mutants into society seemed to inevitably result in conflict, compromise and tragedy.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their formers associates.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm and stayed true to Xavier’s dream. Opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids whilst honouring Xavier’s Dream, they are continuing his methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the direction of new Head Professor Kitty Pryde…

Things got really complicated after Hank McCoy discovered he was dying. Obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity, the Beast used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war. By bringing the five youngsters back to the future he hoped to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops and fix everything before his impending death…

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Scott back to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Scott was stopped…

The elder Cyclops and his “Extinction Team” face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, and her to Cyclops. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been repeatedly targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

All these tales were detailed in X-titles which resulted from the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking the various mutant bands in strange new directions.

Scripted primarily by Brian Michael Bendis, this chronal chronicle collects all the issues in a crossover affecting those niche X-titles through September and October 2013 – specifically All-New X-Men #16-17, Uncanny X-Men #12-13, X-Men #5-6 and Wolverine & the X-Men #36-37, bracketed by the bookend miniseries X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1-2; a plot-light but action-packed, tension-drenched time-travel drama which sets up the next year’s worth of mutant mayhem…

It all begins with X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1, illustrated by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger, wherein Magik, using her teleportational ability to traverse time and space, travels into the future to see what tomorrow holds for her kind. The answer seems to be Sentinels, increased human hatred and never-ending conflict…

Back in the now, Professor Pryde is continuing the First Class kids’ on-the-job training against an emergent and very ticked off mutant when more of the mystery sentinels attack. Like evil cavalry the Extermination team materialise and the ideological opponents pitch in together, but in the melee young Cyclops is killed by a stray blast and his older self blinks out of existence. Thankfully even as the entire area begins to shake and fall apart, mutant healer Triage is able to resurrect the dying X-Man. The disruptions cease, but the near-disaster reopens the old argument: the Original Five X-Men are endangering all of existence by being in their own future…

Resolute Kitty overrules young Jean Grey and orders the Beast to send them back, but when he activates the time-cube a strange yet familiar band of X-Men tumble out of it…

The tale resumes in All-New X-Men #16 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) as the Extinction team (which now includes Jean Grey School defectors Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced young Angel) review the attack and consider the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be behind the new Sentinels. Meanwhile at the Grey School the intruders (an elderly Kitty Pride, the grandson of Charles Xavier, an Iceman-Hulk, Deadpool, a further mutated Beast, adult Molly Hayes from the Runaways and mystery telepath Xorn) are demanding that the Original 5 be sent back to their own time immediately…

Or else…

Naturally a huge fight breaks out and in the confusion the traumatised Scott and Jean steal a plane, running away to make sense of all the pressure and acrimony. Most importantly, although the future X-Men’s minds were psi-screened, young Marvel Girl had picked up something indefinable and threatening with her new telepathic abilities…

In the aftermath, as tempers cool Xorn removes her mask and reveals herself as the fugitive girl’s bitter, wiser, fiercely determined older self…

X-Men #5 (art by Davis Lopez) picks up the pace as the now tentatively combined teams set off after the kids. Storm, however, gives her all-female squad different instructions: Rogue and Psylocke join the main party whilst Pryde, Rachel Grey (the confusingly alternate Earth daughter of a different Cyclops and Jean Grey) and vampiric-mutant Jubilee are tasked with guarding the remaining Originals, little Henry McCoy and Bobby Drake…

Never good at obeying orders, they instead follow Scott and Jean themselves, provoking another all-X confrontation and allowing the runaways to bolt for ruined mutant sanctuary Utopia… where the Extinction team are already waiting…

Uncanny X-Men #12 (Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Al Vey) ramps up the tension as the “mutant terrorists” learn of the future X-Men and their mission. It is then that Magik reveals her own time-travel jaunt and (some) of what she’s been keeping to herself…

In the light of these events the Extinction-ers are split: Cyclops wanting to help the youngsters whilst Emma rebels and announces that she’ll be helping Xorn and her crew send all the early X-Men back where they belong…

That resolution only lasts as long s it takes to meet their descendents and legacies. Wolverine & the X-Men #36 (Giuseppe Camuncoli & Andrew Currie) quickly finds all three generations of mutants in brutal intercine combat which only ends when young Jean at last acquiesces to the constant pressure and promises to take her team back where they came from…

Then all hell breaks loose as the real Future X-Men show up…

Thanks to Magik, the true defenders of Xavier’s dream have travelled back to Now, following the instigators of an assassination atrocity committed at the crowning moment of mutant/human cooperation. Colossus, Wiccan, Ice Master, Wolverine (AKA Jubilee), Quentin “Phoenix” Quire, Kymera and Sentinel-X  plan to ensure the madness will end before it begins…

No more spoilers from me then except to say that Cam Smith & Terry Pallot help with inks on X-Men #6 and the concluding X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2 is written by Jason Aaron with portentous ‘Epilogues‘ by Bendis & Brian Wood, illustrated by Esad Ribic, Camuncoli, Currie, Tom Palmer & Kristopher Anka.

In that stunning, ever-escalating blockbuster clash the various iterations of Once-and-Future mutant champions switch sides and back again, fight, quip, discover which presumed ally is behind the new Sentinels and in some cases give their lives to preserve everything good before it all turns out OK – at least for the moment…

When the smoke clears a new chapter will begin with the Original kids willing but now unable to return to their time, the JeanGreySchool forever changed, friendships and alliances destroyed and Cyclops’ Extinction team immeasurably stronger…

Unfortunately, the most psychotic and potentially lethal monster from the future never made it back to the future and might possibly be stalking the heroes of today, and the time-disruptions caused by the assorted chronally-misplaced persons bodes badly for the continuance of existence…

X-Men: Battle of the Atom also includes many pinups and a huge cover-&-variants gallery by Art Adams, Simone Bianchi & Frank Martin, Frazer Irving, Ed McGuiness & Dexter Vines, Marte Gacia, Lopez, Phil Noto, Stefano Casselli & Andres Mossa, Frank Cho, Shane Davis, Nick Bradshaw, Stephanie Hans, Adi Granov, Immonen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, Bachalo, Anka, Milo Manara and Esad Ribic.

™ & © 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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Pow! Annual 1970


By various (Odhams Books)
ASIN: B003VUO2SC

This splendidly intriguing item is one of my favourite childhood delights: addictively captivating at the time and these days a fascinating indicator of the perceived tastes of Britain’s kids. Most importantly it’s still a surprisingly qualitative read with its blend of American adventure strips playing well with a selection of steadfastly English and wickedly surreal comedy material.

With Scotland’s DC Thomson steadily overtaking their London-based competitors throughout the 1960s, the sheer variety of material the southerners unleashed to compete offered incredible vistas in adventure material and – thanks especially to the defection of Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid to monolithic comics publishing giant Amalgamated Press (created by Alfred Harmsworth at the beginning of the twentieth century) – had finally found a wealth of anarchic comedy material to challenge the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and their unruly ilk.

During that latter end of the period the Batman TV show sent the entire world superhero crazy and Amalgamated had almost finished absorbing all its rivals such as Eagle‘s Hulton Press to form Fleetway/Odhams/IPC.

Formerly the biggest player in children’s comics, Amalgamated had stayed at the forefront of sales by latching onto every fad: keeping their material contemporary, if not fresh. The all-consuming company had been reprinting the early successes of Marvel comics for a few years; feeding on the growing fashion for US style adventure which had largely supplanted the rather tired True Blue Brit style of Dan Dare or DC Thompson’s Wolf of Kabul.

“Power Comics” was a sub-brand used by Odhams to differentiate those periodicals which contained reprinted American superhero material from the company’s regular blend of sports, war, western adventure and gag comics – such as Buster, Lion or Tiger. During the Swinging Sixties these ubiquitous weeklies did much to popularise the budding Marvel characters and universe in this country, which was still poorly served by distribution of the actual American imports. Fantastic and its sister paper Terrific were notable for not reformatting or resizing the original artwork whilst in Wham!, Pow! or Smash!, an entire 24-page yarn could be resized and squeezed into 10 or 11 pages over two weeks…

Pow! launched with a cover date of January 31st 1967, combining home-grown funnies such as Mike Higgs’ The Cloak, Baxendale’s The Dolls of St Dominic’s, Reid’s Dare-a-Day Davy, Wee Willie Haggis: The Spy from Skye and many others, British originated thrillers such as Jack Magic and The Python and resized US strips Spider-Man and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After 53 weekly issues the title merged with Wham!, that combination running until #86 when it was absorbed into Smash! Nevertheless, the title generated a number of annuals, even though, by 1969 when this annual was released, the trend generated by TV Batmania was dying.

Interest in superheroes and fantasy in general were on the wane and British weeklies were diversifying. Some switched back to war, sports and adventure stories whilst with comedy strips on the rise again, others became largely humour outlets.

This was one of the last Odhams Christmas compendia to feature imported Marvel material: from then on the Americans would handle their own Seasonal books rather than franchise out their classics to mingle with the Empire’s motley, anarchic rabble.

The content is eclectic and amazingly broad, beginning with a complete but compacted retelling of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby from January 1964.

The full-colour WWII tale found the doughty warrior ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’; beaten and humiliated in a duel with an Aryan nobleman. Soon filmed footage was used as a Nazi propaganda tool and Fury hero was a broken man – until one of his men realised the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbook. The riotous rematch went rather better…

This was followed by a welter of gag strips beginning with an outing for Graham Allen’s The Nervs (revolting creatures that lived inside and piloted unlovely schoolboy Fatty) after which The Swots and the Blots (probably drawn by Mike Lacey) ushered in the economical 2-colour section with another Darwinian example of schoolboy Good vs. Evil and an unnamed substitute for Mike Higgs rendered the comedy caper The Cloak vs. Cloakwoman…

Next up is a short Marvel sci fi thriller as ‘Escape into Space!’ (from Tales of Suspense #42 June 1963 by Lee, Larry Lieber & Matt Fox) sees a convict escape to freedom into the void – or does he…? – before Wee Willie Haggis – the Spy from Skye scotches a plot to nobble Scotland’s prime (in)edible export and Percy’s Pets finds the obsessed animal enthusiast in deep water after getting hold of a hyena and crocodile…

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #5 provides a factual page devoted to ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ to restart the full colour fun, which continues with another Swots and the Blots romp ‘n’ riot after which idiot espionage continues with The Cloak vs. Blubberman…

Back then to red-&-black for the not-resized Amazing Spider-Man #36 (May 1966, by Lee and Steve Ditko) as the Wallcrawler faces deranged super strong thief the Looter in ‘When Falls the Meteor!’

The magnificently strange comic villain Grimly Feendish then fails in another bid to get rich nefariously before tiny terror Sammy Shrink restarts a final segment of full-colour wonders with more boyish pranks, after which the reformatted ‘Death of a Hero’ (Fantastic Four #32, November 1964, by Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone) uncovers the secret of Sue and Johnny Storm‘s father: a convict who gains incredible power as the rampaging Invincible Man…

This is a strange and beloved book for me and these are all great little adventures, even though I suspect it’s more nostalgia for a brilliant childhood rather than any intrinsic merit. Feel perfectly free to track this down and contradict me if you like though…
© 1969 The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited.

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Superior Spider-Man volume 4: Necessary Evil


By Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Livesay & John Dell (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-581-9

Amazing Spider-Man #700 began one of the most impressive reboots of the Spider-Man mythology and was certainly the most striking and compelling character shake-up of all the MarvelNOW! relaunches.

In that issue, all that was Peter Parker apparently died when Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind had been transferred and trapped in the dying body of the super-villain where, despite his every desperate effort, in the end Peter perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame, arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Man.

Now the coldly calculating Octopus is permanently installed in the Wondrous Wallcrawler’s body and successfully living Peter’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements…

At first the situation did not seem completely hopeless. At the moment of the monster’s greatest triumph Parker inflicted his full unvarnished memories on the psychic invader, forcing Octavius to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice which combined to make Spider-Man the compulsive do-gooder that he was.

From that enforced emotional turmoil came a bitter understanding. Otto had a change of heart and swore to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his greatest enemy; earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission, guided by Peter’s abiding principle: “with great power comes great responsibility”…

However Octavius’ ingrained monomania proved hard to suppress and the usurped web-spinner constantly toiled to prove himself the better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, constantly adding advanced tech and refining new weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as the original had…

Otto went back to college because he arrogantly refused to live life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the Web-spinner; all but adopting the Arachnid as his deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible psychic shard of Peter which still screamed in frustration within the deepest recesses of the hero’s overwritten consciousness…

The helpless ghost was an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius yet increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Moreover, more and more of Parker’s oldest friends began to suspect something amiss…

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew Peter’s secret identity and recalled the last time Spidey fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s body…

The public seems happy with how Spider-Man has changed. Not only is he exceedingly more efficient, but far more brutal too: practically crippling bad guys like Boomerang, Vulture and Scorpion. This new hard-line attitude actually increased the webslinger’s approval rating and, after a hostage siege, his status peaked after he executed the psychotic perpetrator Massacre…

Eventually Octavius realised there was a noble passenger in his head and eradicated the last vestiges of his enemy’s presence – at the cost of many of Parker’s later memories and fully liberated extended his campaign of modernised crime-fighting.

Helping Jameson after the Spider-Slayer and other super-felons broke loose on The Raft penitentiary, Spider-Man then blackmailed the Mayor into donating the now empty edifice for a base. The Superior wallcrawler designed a new costume, built giant war-tanks and even hired henchmen to help him clean up the city for the decent, law-abiding citizens.

“Parker’s” personal life is all but over and he’s constantly harassed for a lack of productivity by employer Max Modell at technological think-tank Horizon Labs. He still wants that elusive doctorate, however, and is prepared to put up with lots of grief from his lecturer Dr. Lamaze – even though the oaf is a bumbling fool even more stupid than when he was Otto Octavius’ college lab partner. At least Parker’s blossoming romance with brilliant Anna Maria Marconi is still progressing satisfactorily…

From his transformed citadel on the now-renamed Spider Island II, Spider-Man watches over his city through the electronic eyes of thousands of tiny Spider-bots…

There’s still lots he doesn’t see though: resurgent and hidden criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) is successfully completing his own campaign to take over the underworld with his Goblin Army Cult.

To that end he has transformed young Phil Urich – latest iteration of The Hobgoblin – into his latest living weapon: a Goblin Knight to lead his armies to inevitable victory…

Meanwhile, Carlie Cooper has shared her suspicions about Spider-Man with her friend and Captain Yuri Watanabe (who secretly moonlights as costumed vigilante The Wraith). Together the women have been gathering definitive proofs of their suspicions regarding the Wallcrawler; and now with an Island fortress and a mercenary gang to pay for they have a money trail to follow…

Most dangerous of all, disgraced former Horizon employee Ty Stone is still free: a malevolent genius and subtle manipulator with a deadly agenda all his own slowly building his own powerbase…

This latest collection ties in to the various time travel stories and stems from the after-effects generated by the disruptions in the (Marvel) universes caused by the Avengers unmaking the Age of Ultron, but don’t fret as the stories work well enough on their own…

Illustrated by Ryan Stegman & John Livesay, the 3-part story-arc Necessary Evil begins with ‘Let’s Do the Time Warp Again’ and a glimpse at Nueva York in 2099, where Miguel O’Hara is knee-deep in a chronal crisis. His entire world is unravelling, with dinosaurs and other time-lost threats materialising even as his archenemy (and biological father) Tyler Stone of world-owning corporation Alchemax is gradually disappearing thanks to some threat to an ancestor in 2013…

A Word to the Wise: At a time when Marvel’s product quality was at an all time low, and following a purported last minute dispute between the company and prodigal son John Byrne (who had re-invented himself by re-inventing Superman), the House of Ideas launched a whole new continuity strand with all-new heroes (and franchise extensions) set more than a century into the future.

The world was a corporate dystopia, the scenarios were fantastical and the initial character-pool was predictable if not actually uninspired. A lot of the early material was by any critical yardstick sub-par. But there was also Spider-Man 2099.

Some analogue of the wall-crawler is always going to happen in any Marvel imprint (anybody remember Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham?), and in those insane days of speculator-led markets (where greedy kids – and adults – dreamed of cornering the market in “Hot Issues” and becoming instant squillionaires) the future wallcrawler was a spectacular example of quality creators producing superior work (don’t take my word for it, just check out Spider-Man 2099: Genesis)…

In 2099 world governments were openly in the capacious pockets of huge multi-national corporations which controlled every aspect of society. All superheroes had been gone for decades, although their legends still comforted the underclass living at the fringes – and below the feet – of the favoured ones who could survive in a society based on unchecked, rampant free-marker capitalism.

Miguel O’Hara was a brilliant young geneticist fast-tracked and swiftly rising through the ranks of Alchemax. He enjoyed the privileges that his work (creating super-soldiers for the company) won him. He loved solving problems and despite interference from salary-men and corporate drudges he made a major breakthrough: a technique to alter genetic make-up and combine it with DNA from other organisms…

Following a demonstration which went grotesquely awry the arrogant scientist made a big mistake and threatened to quit. Unwilling to lose such a valuable asset CEO Tyler Stone poisoned O’Hara with the most addictive drug in existence – one only available from Alchemax – to keep him loyal.

The boy wonder was then forced to use his genetic modifier, resetting his physiology to purge the addiction from his cells. However one of the lab assistants he used to bully saw a chance for some payback and sabotaged the attempt, adding spider DNA to the matrix…

Miguel became the ultimate rebel in his time and was at the cutting edge of a new “Age of Heroes” fighting Stone and Alchemax as well as many other menaces. He eventually discovered the other reason for his privileged fast tracking: his mother’s long-ago affair which had resulted in a son…

Now O’Hara had to ally with Stone and stop the temporal threat in 2013 – to save his world and his own life…

In New York, Horizon labs are under threat: a corporate takeover by Allan Chemical (owned by Parker’s old school flame Liz Allan-Osborn) but orchestrated by the conniving Ty Stone, who had been sabotaging the Think-Tank’s experiments and stock price for months.

The geniuses there use experimental time-tech to record Stones perfidious deeds, but when they first turn on the machine Spider-Man 2099 explodes out of it, desperate to stop the chronal anomaly before his future dies. Before too long however he is confronted by this era’s wondrous webslinger.

O’Hara’s not worried: after all he and his predecessor have met before and fought as allies. Unfortunately that adventure is not one that remained in his memory after Ock removed the last vestiges of Peter’s consciousness…

Because of this, ‘Smack to the Future’ finds the Spider-Men in savage combat, leaving Ty Stone to continue his machinations unobstructed: absorbing Horizon and taking over the company that results from the hostile takeover.

He’s thinking perhaps… Al-Chem-Max?

With the future rapidly unravelling, the scene changes to the Caribbean where Yuri and Carlie are chasing down the final piece in their detective jigsaw puzzle in the concluding chapter ‘Event Horizon’, where a last minute save sees the Superior Spider-Man and his notional legatee vanish into an explosive time glitch. Only one reappears when the crisis is over and Parker/Octavius has no memory of what has happened…

And in 2099, Tyler Stone gloats; his world is safe and, by destroying Alchemax’ time tech, he has stranded “his” Spider-Man where nobody can save him…

It’s back to business with artists Giuseppe Camuncoli & John Dell as ‘Still Standing’ takes a look back to just after Octavius triumphed in stealing Spider-Man’s body and life. Following that cataclysmic clash a John and Jane Doe were admitted to hospital. She was considerably disturbed by hallucinations in which she saw the “Great Web coming undone” and “all the Spiders dying” whilst he kept deliriously demanding where Otto Octavius was…

Retuning to the present day, the ever-efficient Spider-Man encounters super-thief and some-time adventure Black Cat. As a former lover, the feline felon expects her former beau to go easy on her as usual, but is astonished at his new attitude and the savage beating she receives before he leaves her to the cops…

In the meantime the hospitalised John Doe is released, intent on some secret task to perform, as the increasingly acerbic and domineering Peter Parker wheedles money from his Aunt May and her husband to start his new tech company – backing up that investment with the last of Dr. Octopus’ off-shore hidden funds.

Carlie is tracking those accounts and sets off to give her findings to the Avengers but she doesn’t make it…

And at his Doctoral Board meeting the exultant Parker gets a stunning shock after his successful presentation is ruined by Lamaze who accuses the candidate of plagiarising the work of another scientist: his old college chum Otto Octavius…

This portentous package concludes with ‘Lethal Ladies’ as Doc Ock’s old girlfriend Stunner goes on a rampage, tearing up the town in her solid hologram form, forcing the Superior Spider-Man into a battle he just doesn’t want to fight.

As Carlie discovers that there’s no corpse in the tentacled super-villain’s grave, only to be abducted, Spider-Man uses Stunner’s equipment to solve his Doctoral problem with Don Lamaze, utterly unaware that the Goblin Army Cult now possesses Carlie’s proof of who’s really living in Peter Parker’s skull…

To Be Continued…

Scripted as ever by Dan Slott, Necessary Evil collects issues #17-21 of the fortnightly Superior Spider-Man (4th September-13th November 2013), ramping up the tension in advance of truly shocking revelations to come, and this titanic time-busting tome includes a covers-&-variants gallery by Stegman, Camuncoli, Humberto Ramos, Mike McKone, J.G. Jones, Olivier Coipel, Leonel Castellani, J. Scott Campbell & Adi Granov

This up-to-the minute tech-heavy reinvention is naturally accompanied with some AR icon sections – Marvel Augmented Reality App pages which provide access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this iteration – for however long it lasts – is one no lover of high-octane adventure should miss: smart, shocking and incredibly addictive.
™ & © 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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X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain


By Fred Van Lente & Dennis Calero (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4437-3

When fictional heroes and villains become really popular – to the point where fans celebrate their births and deaths and dress up like them at the slightest opportunity or provocation – eventually a tendency develops to explore other potential character facets that the regular, cash-cow continuity might normally prohibit.

DC invented a whole company sub-strand of “Imaginary Stories” and Marvel asked “What If…?” sharing glimpses of alternate realities. Even television series got into the act with shows like Star Trek, Roswell and Stargate SG-1 offering coolly jarring, different takes on their established stars and scenarios.

The little dark gem of alternate continuity on offer today comes from an intriguing experiment in 2009 wherein Marvel took many of their biggest stars and reconfigured them for a universe drenched in the tone, lore and ephemera of pulp fiction and Film Noir: a dark land where shiny gleaming super-powered heroes were replaced by bleakly paranoid, deeply flawed and self-serving individuals just trying to get by as best they could…

X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain is actually a sequel to the initial foray and benefits from not having to explain or differentiate the so-similar seeming stars from the bastions of the regular continuity. It ran as a 4-issue miniseries from February-May 2010 offering a moody glimpse of a world with no heroes, only shades of villainy. Nevertheless it still provides a satisfying slice of suspenseful entertainment for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans in search of something genuinely edgier than their regular fare. After all, the big draw for the jaded is that these folks might actually die and stay that way…

What You Need to Know: situated in the 1930s, these X-Men are not mutants with incredible, science-defying powers but rather a gang of mentally disturbed juvenile delinquents. They had been lab rats for rogue psychiatrist Charles Xavier in his School for Gifted Youngsters, where he strove to exacerbate rather than cure their various anti-social behaviours.

The batty boffin believed that sociopathy was the next stage in human behavioural development and spent his days training and refining the criminal talents and tendencies of his disturbed charges – until he was exposed and thrown in jail on Riker’s Island Prison.

The truth came out after the body of one of his “students” was washed up on the shore, covered in odd, three bladed knife slashes…

There is one costumed mystery man on the scene during these parlous times. Nosy, troublesome reporter Tom Halloway is not-so-secretly also a violent vigilante dubbed The Angel and the hunt for him preoccupied many familiarly different characters such as corrupt Chief of Detectives Eric “Magnus” Magnisky, his troubled children Peter and Wanda, casino owner Remy LeBeau, mobster Unus the Untouchable and drug runner Sean Cassidy…

This sequel volume opens with a public scandal as the government’s secret prison camp at Genosha Bay is exposed. Charges of torture and Applied Eugenics are levelled against the operators but despite rising protests the prison still carries on its inhumane treatments on the legion of sociopaths held there without Due Process or Representation.

In other news: due to lack of evidence, “Professor of Crime” Xavier is freed from Riker’s, arrogantly swearing to track down the killer of his recently assassinate “friend” Magnus…

A continent and ocean away, some of his former successes are cutting their way through the jungles of Madripoor and hordes of berserk headhunters as they try to find the lost temple of Cyttorak and retrieve a fabulous gem.

Sharpshooter Scott “Cyclops” Summers and unpredictable seagoing brawler Captain Logan are temporarily with the Angel, following a map provided by bootlegger and mercenary Cain Marko. They don’t give much credence to the native legends of vengeance inflicted on transgressors by Cyttorak’s “Juggernaut” but that soon changes when Marko is found in the no-man’s land around GenoshaBay, crushed to pulp. Of the enormous jewel there is no trace…

Peppered with evocative flashbacks, the story and trail leads Angel – who learned most of his nasty bag of tricks from Cain – to the USA’s extraterritorial prison and the shocking revelation that Xavier is secretly in charge…

Despite being captured and subjected to the Professor X’s methods of persuasion – administered by the warped woman Warden Frost – Halloway soon breaks free and begins pursuing the how and the who of Marko’s murder.

Fighting his way past the Professor of Crime’s newest protégés, a big burly Russian and an exotic black woman with a white Mohawk haircut, he is recaptured before he can reach Logan’s boat and sometime allies Cyclops and Eugene “Puck” Judd.

Undergoing more of Xavier’s “treatments”, the Angel is then confronted with the scientist’s secret weapon: his own thoroughly crazy – sociopathic – twin brother Robert Halloway…

The period drama and sinister suspense kick into compelling overdrive as the various parties hunting the Gem clash when the action shifts from noir detective to pulp sci-fi and the Professor’s true plan emerges. With the government’s covert connections exposed, and all surviving participants trapped aboard a huge flying battleship, the real value of the Gem of Cyttorak is revealed and, amidst flying fists, double- and triple-crosses abound.

As the agendas of all interested parties crash together thousands of feet above Manhattan, only antisocial violence works and at last a kind of justice is won…

Bleak, cynical and trenchantly effective, this excellent thriller by scripter Fred Van Lente and illustrator Dennis Calero provides a huge helping of thrills and chills that would work equally well even if you had never heard of Marvel’s mighty mutants.

This pocketbook sized collection also includes a covers and variants gallery by Calero as well as a dozen original art pages shot prior to the digital colouring stage.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Primer


By Brian Wood, Olivier Coipel, David Lopez, with Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was worth fighting for, and over the years a small army of mutants battled under the X-banner, but the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy.

These included Jean’s death (twice), Warren’s mutilation (and murder), Hank’s uncontrollable progressive mutations and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation following his possession by the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones.

Those tales were detailed in a number of titles which sprang out of the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking various X-iterations in truly bizarre new directions.

This particular chronicle collects issues #1-4 of the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men (from May to August 2013) and also includes a pertinent classic yarn from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 circa May 1989.

Over the decades the many and various X- titles have been notable for the number of strong female characters created, and this new iteration from scripter Brian Wood & artist Olivier Coipel finally takes the logical step of drafting an all-girl squad to save the world from an appalling primal threat…

Inked by Mark Morales, the action begins with a little backstory and reveals how, when the world was still brand new, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the start. They fought and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed on Earth and developed…

Billions of years later, former X-Man Jubilation Lee takes a commercial flight out of Bulgaria, looking for help from her old friends. She’s inherited a baby with a few problems and is being followed by possibly the most dangerous man on Earth…

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, tutors Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke and Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) are having trouble getting through to some of the more intransigent mutant students. When they get a call from Jubilee, the X-Men drop everything and dash off to intercept her as she heads for the only home and family she has ever really known…

When the man on her trail is revealed to be John Sublime – current body of an ancient sentient bacterial life form which has lived on Earth since life began and no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior – the X-Men expect the worst, but are astounded when he comes to the School and promptly surrenders without a fight…

Sublime survives by possessing organisms and he’s come to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology – has returned to the planet, looking for revenge on him and control of everything else in existence…

Meanwhile, escorting Jubilee and her baby, Storm, Rogue and Kitty get first-hand experience of the threat as the train they’re on is derailed by an unknown force. Barely escaping, they unwittingly bring the menace into the school where Arkea slips into the dormant form of Karima Shapandar: a human friend infected with Omega Sentinel systems and designed to be the ultimate mutant eradicator…

All they want to do is share old stories and coo over Jubilee’s baby, but with Arkea in control and determined to supersede life on Earth, the girls are drawn into a terrifying war on two fronts. The sinister sister takes control of the Danger Room and locks down the entire school before transmitting herself to Budapest where Jubilee first acquired the mysterious baby she’s named Shogo…

Leaving Kitty and the students to save the school and themselves from a deadly time-bomb, Storm, Psylocke, Marvel Girl, Rogue and Jubilee head for Eastern Europe and track Arkea to a medical complex where humans augmented with medical implants and technology provide Arkea with hundreds of suitable meat-vehicles. As the final battles surges to a crescendo, the warrior women are terrified that the only way to stop the cyber-parasite is to kill her numerous hosts…

When that conundrum is satisfactorily solved, David Lopez, Cam Smith & Norman Lee step in to illustrate an epilogue chapter guest-starring Wolverine who recaps old times with Jubilee as the female X-team sort out their agendas and chain of command whilst trying to stop a passenger jet crashing to destruction…

To supplement the advent of this new grouping, this all-action outing also includes the comedic adventure ‘Ladies Night’ by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 May 1989) which saw the first appearance of Jubilee.

When off-duty X-gals Storm, Rogue, Psylocke and Dazzler head for an undercover dose of downtime they encounter a streetwise, “Mall Rat” runaway with mutant powers, just as the emporium’s management hire a hapless squad of mutant hunters to clear up their Homo Superior problem…

Fast-paced, whimsical and owing a huge debt to the movie Ghostbusters, the riotous romp closes this Fights ‘n’ Tights fest on a rare and welcome light note, but of course there’s still more bang for your buck…

X-Men: Primer also includes a vast and beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Coipel, Amanda Connor, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Silvestri & Green, Joe Madureira, Mark Brooks, J. Scott Campbell, Arthur Suydam, Mike Deodato Jr., Milo Manara, Ed McGuiness, Humberto Ramos, Kevin Wada, Skottie Young, Kris Anka & Sara Pichelli plus the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to many story bonuses providing you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Iron Man: The Secret Origin of Tony Stark Part 2


By Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, Dale Eaglesham, Carlo Pagulayan, Jay Leisten & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-563-5

Supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his 1963 debut in Tales of Suspense #39 when, as a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of weaponry he had designed, the arch-technocrat wunderkind was critically wounded and captured by a Communist warlord.

Put to work inventing for the Red Menace with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead built a prototype Iron Man suit to keep his heart beating and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a small jump into a second career as a high-tech Knight in Shining Armour…

Ever since then the former armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, affirmed Futurist, civil servant, Statesman, and even spy-chief: Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

Of course, he was also a found member of the world’s most prominent superhero assemblage, the Mighty Avengers…

For a popular character/concept weighed down with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful periodic necessity. To stay fresh and contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been radically revised every so often, but never so drastically as with the upgrade featured in this saga (originally seen as issues #12-17 of the post-MarvelNOW! relaunched Iron Man volume 5, September-August 2013) by scripter Kieron Gillen which concludes, with plenty of action and even a few twisty surprises, ‘The Secret Origin of Tony Stark’…

It Happened Like This: desperate for a change in his too-hectic life, Iron Man opted to explore the cosmos and linked up with self-appointed universal police force the Guardians of the Galaxy. After driving off star pirates he availed himself of the luxurious hospitality of the effete, aristocratic and decadently beautiful Voldi Tear.

One of the most ancient races in the cosmos, the Voldi had long mastered the art of living graciously off the kindness of strangers with all their needs met by a sacred artefact – the Heart of the Voldi – which drew infinite power from numerous cosmic entities.

The party-animal Voldi had an open-door policy for most races and beings – even welcoming 30-foot tall robotic killers such as Freelance Peacekeeping Agent Death’s Head (never, ever call him a bounty hunter!) – but Stark suddenly found every hand against him when he was accused of Deicide.

Apparently the Voldi worshipped the Phoenix Force which Stark and his allies did indeed destroy the last time it attacked Earth (as seen in Avengers vs. X-Men)…

Stuck in a cell, Stark was rescued by a Rigellian Recorder – one of millions of sentient automatons programmed to travel the universe acquiring knowledge. Recorder 451 however, had developed a programming flaw and struck out on its own.

Surprisingly sympathetic to Stark’s plight, the mechanoid suggested a way out of the mandatory death sentence but used the distraction to steal the immensely powerful Heart.

The mechanoid had been furthering his own centuries-old secret agenda all along and deemed the subsequent cosmic cataclysm which eradicated the Voldi as a “necessary evil”.

However 451 hadn’t finished with Stark yet, saving him even as the benighted party-aliens expired in an apocalyptic attack from the cosmic Celestial they had exploited for eons.

Furious and disgusted, Stark swore vengeance on the murderous mechanoid and, after checking in with the Guardians of the Galaxy and exhausting all his own leads, hired Death’s Head (the greatest tracker in all time and space) to ferret out 451.

Their mission proved successful, but probably because the Freelance Peacekeeper was working for 451 all along. The Rigellian renegade then revealed how he had been watching over the Earthly inventor since before he was born, and indeed had worked with his parents Howard and Maria Stark to genetically alter their unborn child and make it a technological super-warrior capable of defending Earth from the exponentially increasing alien attacks that were to come as the universe responded to the deadly potential of Mankind…

451 had worked with the Starks in a complex scheme on Earth in the era before superheroes returned, battling infiltrating aliens beside such Marvel stalwarts as Lieutenant “Thunderbolt” Ross, special agents Jimmy Woo and “Dum Dum” Dugan and others.

Illustrated by Dale Eaglesham, Carlo Pagulayan, Scott Hanna & Jay Leisten, this titanic extraterrestrial tome opens with the third chapter of the revelatory epic and ‘The Best Offense’ finds the appalled inventor apparently helpless, in dire straits and lost in the uncharted depths of the universe, as he hears how his father and his stalwart crew cleaned up a pack of insidious Grey ETs secretly running Las Vegas. What neither Tony nor 451 knew however was that Howard Stark was deeply suspicious and, after decoding the genetic alterations the Recorder had installed in the foetus, tampered with some of them…

Here and now in deep space, 451 reveals how Tony has been designed to pilot an apocalyptic doomsday weapon left behind from the beginnings of creation when the Celestial Space Gods were in a deadly war with a rival force for control of everything…

Stark’s inventiveness, aggression and fascination with exo-skeletons were all expressions of his ultimate purpose: to pilot the world-shattering, five-mile high suit of combat armour dubbed The Godkiller… and there’s nothing he can do to escape his awful destiny…

With the Heart of the Voldi powering the immense doom weapon, 451 explains how Stark will defend Earth from all threats by eradicating whoever the Recorder tells him to, even as, on the world of Hope’s Pustule, Death’s Head discovers the provenance of his robotic former employer and just how large is the price on his shiny head. Unsurprisingly, he decides to look him up again…

Stark, after refusing to comply with 451, is struggling to regain control of his cyber-hacked Iron Man gear deep in the guts of the Godkiller when Death’s Head appears, but rather than an ally the Peace Keeper soon becomes another deadly foe as 451 takes control of him too…

Determined to bend Stark to his will, the Recorder also starts up the antediluvian super-suit. Although Stark was built to meld with it, 451 can exert enough control to make it destroy a planet and aims it at Hope’s Pustule…

Beaten, the human inventor surrenders and puts on the enslaving control helmet, only to have the ancient war-armour reject him…

The Recorder doesn’t believe Starks protestations, however, and after the Godkiller wipes out its objective in a single pass, 451 programs it with a new target… Earth.

With no other option, Stark dives headlong into final battle with the now clearly deranged robot Rigellian and once again saves the day and – almost too late – the Earth, in a spectacular showdown within the planet-smashing menace.

But even with humanity saved and the hero back in the bosom of his human friends there’s still a mystery to solved as ‘The Secret Origin of Tony Stark: Conclusion’ brilliantly ties all the plot strands and clues together as the Armoured Avenger delves into his family’s shady history and makes an astonishing, life-altering discovery kept hidden for years by his brilliantly paranoid father…

Blockbusting, rocket-paced and cleverly drawing together fringe continuity events to make a new cohesive whole, this frantically furious romp offers a brand new take on the Golden Avenger and this epochal volume also includes an Afterword from Gillen, a cover-and-variants gallery by Land, Paul Renaud & Leonel Castellani plus even more digital extras via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z Part 2


By Rick Remender, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna, Thomas Palmer, Dean White & Rachelle Rosenberg (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-534-5

The MarvelNOW! publishing event, which began at the end of 2012, gave the House of Ideas an irresistible opportunity to try a few different things with its vast catalogue of characters: options a tad more imaginative than simply killing somebody off or changing the identity of the hero under the mask…

One of the most visually arresting experiments was Castaway in Dimension Z which explored the Star-Spangled Avenger’s undisclosed early childhood in Depression-eraNew York City whilst simultaneously removing the Sentinel of Liberty from every vestige of his oh-so-familiar milieu and comfort zone.

The stunning, all-action conclusion collecting the fortnightly Captain America volume 7, issues #6-10 (released between April 17th and 28th August 2013) carries on from

What Has Gone Before: Steve Rogers and extremely patient girlfriend Sharon Carter (a lethally competent Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.) were investigating a phantom subway carriage when she temporarily derailed his train of thought. After years of waiting, she impulsively asked the WWII veteran to marry her, only to lose him to a cunningly laid trap which chained, drugged and catapulted Captain America into an impossible other universe…

He awoke strapped to a machine beside a baby in a glass tank. Extreme geneticist and Fascist war-criminal Arnim Zola was responsible, determined to extract the Super-Soldier serum which had kept Steve the world’s most perfect man for nine decades…

At a critical juncture of the procedure the still-groggy champion broke free and battled his way to freedom through an army of genetically reconstructed horrors…

Zola screamed to his prior achievement “daughter” Jet Black that the Avenger had killed her brother, unaware that Steve had rescued the baby.

Trapped in Zola’s pocket dimension the fugitive hero then spent years rearing the boy – whom he named Ian – whilst Zola’s ever-increasing mutant army hunted him. Eventually the ultimate freedom fighter became champion of the indigenous Phrox: people driven to the edge of extinction by Zola’s armies.

The deranged geneticist was determined to exterminate them and repopulate with his ghastly creations. Jet led the monsters; a revenge-fuelled fighting fury intent on killing her brother’s murderer. In the subterranean caverns of the Phrox Steve and Ian found friendship and time to heal in relative security, but the Castaway Avenger was hiding a ghastly secret: Zola had infected him with a virus that was slowly growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside the hero: a biological Fifth Column furiously fighting for control of their battered body…

Nearly a decade later, Steve, his Phrox allies and combat veteran Ian are in the final stages of the war with Zola and his ever-improving forces. The invaders are inexorably closing in whilst the thing in Steve gained strength until at last his boy saw and heard the infection for himself…

Knowing the end was near Cap gambled everything on breaching Zola’s fortress and trying to get back to Earth for medical assistance and perhaps Avengers reinforcements.

The plan was thwarted when Jet led the mass-produced legion of monsters in an all-out attack on Phrox.

The devastating assault was a total success. However, as she caught her impossibly alive brother and beat Captain America to near-death, Jet began to experiences doubts. If the man she hated all her life had loved and protected her brother and was a valiant, honourable foe, what else might be untrue?

Her hesitation drove Zola to new depths of atrocity, but Steve managed to survive the biologist’s blistering final assault. As Zola ordered the extermination of the Phrox and Ian was taken away for re-indoctrination, in the ruins Steve took a knife and cut Zola’s appalling agent out of his body and made a plan. After 11 years on the defensive and on the run, Captain America was going to bring the war to his hated enemy…

Brutal, bewildering, bewitching and bombastic, Rick Remender & John Romita Jr.’s boldly unconventional, action-packed saga concludes in truly spectacular fashion here as the Sentinel of Liberty invades Zola’s citadel of science and once more faces Jet even as Ian slowly succumbs to the geneticist’s brainwashing.

The timing, as ever, is incredibly fortuitous. The mad scientist’s decades-long scheme is in its final stages and his entire colossal fortress is converting into a flying Battle Station, ready to re-enter Earth’s dimension and infect millions of human beings with the geneticist’s clonal copy virus. Humanity will soon be extinct and only Arnim Zolas will remain.

Jet’s frantic battle with Captain America completes her own moral transformation, but no sooner does she switch sides that the freshly re-programmed Ian – now calling himself Leopold – ambushes his former foster father beside a ghastly twisted monster clone of Steve.

Jet, meanwhile, has freed the last remnants of the nearly extinct Phrox race only to be challenged by her deeply disappointed dad. Many levels above Steve, having crushed his doppelganger, is near to death, unable to withstand the frenzied attack of Ian/Leopold.

The death blow never comes. Sharon Carter arrives in a blaze of light and hope to shoot Captain America’s boy. She has been trying to re-open the dimensional portal for almost thirty minutes…

Relative time differentials notwithstanding, Earth is still in imminent danger of utter disaster and as the three mismatched champions unite to save it the tension mounts to unbearable heights. After the spectacular final conflict only two will return from Dimension Z…

And in what remains of that now unreachable pocket realm, the Phrox start their slow return from extinction’s abyss, safeguarded by a champion they call Nomad…

Epic, cataclysmic and stunningly grandiose, the Homeric ten-year struggle of Captain America under alien skies looks set to impact mightily upon the warm, upbeat and heroically optimistic adventurer but only time will tell…

The breathtaking illustration of John Romita Jr., inkers Klaus Janson, Scott Hanna & Thomas Palmer and colour-renderers Dean White and Rachelle Rosenberg is simply too good to be true, and this visual fest is augmented by a cover-and-variants gallery by Romita Jr., Janson, Paqual Ferry & Alexander Maleev, plus the now as-standard AR icon add-on sections.

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

Magnificently reminiscent of the spectacular, innovative 1976-1977 Jack Kirby run on the Star-Spangled Avenger, this bombastic science-fiction epic of freedom fighting fantasy is a delicious, mysterious and mesmerising all-action extravaganza no Fights ‘n’ Tights can afford to ignore.

™ & © 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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Uncanny X-Men volume 2: Broken


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Fraser Irving, Kris Anka, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Mark Irwin & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-555-0

Following many poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted mutant heroes over the last few years, and spinning off from the events of Avengers versus X-Men, the MarvelNOW! event reshaped the entire continuity, pushing the various factors of X-iterations in truly innovative directions.

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, a very special bunch of kids were singled out by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Insular Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, wealthy Adonis Warren Worthington III, insecure Jean Grey and bookish anthropoidal Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a driven man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – dubbed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – as heroes, ambassadors and living symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation and murder, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation.

The formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader eventually killed Xavier before eventually joining with old (demon-possessed) ally Magik and former foes Magneto and White Queen Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving the mutant race at the cost, if necessary, of the human one.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s dream, opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

Furthermore when McCoy discovered he was dying, he became obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity.

To that end Beast used time-travel tech in his last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing the five youngsters back to the future to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than restoring Scott’s to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened his renegade heart and strengthened his warped resolve.

Moreover, after the boy McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Cyclops was stopped…

All that occurred in All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday but there was a flipside and that story was told in Uncanny X-Men: Revolution.

This slim second chronicle, collecting Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #6-11, (July-October 2013) and again scripted by Brian Michael Bendis furthers the counter-argument as the outlaw mutants continue their struggle to save their endangered species.

Cyclops and his Extinction Team face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, but also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

Most worryingly of all , since their possession by the Phoenix Force (Avengers versus X-Men) the natural gifts of Summers, ex-lover Frost, Magik and Magneto are no longer reliable, flaring from overload to ineffectuality, leaving the mutant leaders “Broken” in both powers and spirit…

On the other hand, however, new mutants are appearing in increasing numbers all over, with more impressive talents than ever before and, by carefully avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ crew are winning the media war: gaining the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious, the young…

The terrorists have begun training youngsters in their alternative institution – the Charles Xavier School for Mutants – and even poached some kids from the Jean Grey School. Raw recruits Eva “Tempus” Bell, shape-shifting Benjamin Deeds, healer Christopher Muse – AKA Triage – and the golden sphere-projecting Fabio Medina – have been joined by the psychically conjoined, socially-challenged Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced teenager Warren “The Angel” Worthington…

Fraser Irving illustrates the first story arc here as demon-tainted llyana Nikolievna Rasputina – better known as Magik – resumes her struggle against dark god Dread Dormammu. That malign tyrant had been absorbing the hellish realm of Limbo which she rules as The Darkchylde and which fuels her mutant teleporting power…

In Atlanta another young man finds his mutant power activating, just as Dormammu shanghais Cyclops’ entire team. Trapped in hell, teachers and students alike are thrown into soul-rending, life-or-death combat with one of the vilest monsters in creation.

At the same time, Mara Hill, acknowledging S.H.I.E.L.D. is losing the PR battle, recruits former X-Man Alison Blair – Dazzler – to be the Government’s public face on Mutant Affairs…

Ilyana’s powers encompass both time and space and she now adroitly uses the faculty to become a student of magician Doctor Strange in the past, allowing her to learn what she needs to frustrate Dormammu, but in the subsequent clash Cyclops becomes painfully aware of how much he and his adult comrades have lost in terms of their vital powers and abilities…

With Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend assuming the art chores, the saga resumes in more prosaic territory. Although surviving the harrowing confrontation unscathed, Fabio is so freaked out that he quits school. Frantic to regain some sense, safety and normality in his life he asks to be taken home to his parents. Unfortunately, when the completely understanding Extinction Squad take him back to San Diego, S.H.I.E.L.D. is watching and waiting. No sooner have the mutants blinked out than the spooks move in…

In AtlantaDavid Bond is innocently testing his new power when police arrive and shoot him. They barely escape with their own lives after an Extinction team led by Emma arrives. Young Celeste is especially keen on making the trigger-happy humans suffer for their prejudice…

Triage has promptly healed David and the new guy’s awesome ability to telekinetically move and interface with machinery impresses everybody – even though Cyclops and Magneto are clearly distracted. The mutant figureheads are increasingly combative regarding their powers crisis situation, but remain united in the conviction of coming mutant extinction at human hands.

Their differences on how to head off the encroaching holocaust are shelved once they learn of Dazzler’s attempt to take Fabio in for “questioning” which had resulted in a very public escalation in tension and a superpower firefight…

The Extinction team move to rescue Fabio from custody aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and depart with a minimum of fuss, utterly unaware that the Alison they verbally sparred with is in fact a deadly shape-shifting infiltrator with an agenda all her own…

Irving returns to illustrate issues #10-11 (with additional art by Kris Anka) as the kids’ training reveals a new aspect to Eva’s time-powers. Maria Hill in the interim has demanded Magneto capture and hand over Cyclops…

The team leader is currently preoccupied by a human protest march in Michigan, where college students have come together en masse in support of Mutant Rights.

Sadly, when he decides the team should join the campus event, it offers a perfect opportunity for a new super-Sentinel determined to kill mutants no matter how many innocent humans get in the way…

Dark, cynically astute and utterly compelling, this alternative X-outing mixes staggering action, paranoiac suspense and slowly-mounting tension with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom to deliver a marvellously enjoyable continuation of the nihilistic end of the once directionless mutant franchise.

Even so, there’s still room for some effectively trenchant humour and this series offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike – as long as you also read the companion All-New X-Men volumes…

Broken includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Irving, Bachalo Ronnie Del Carmen, J. Scott Campbell & Neal Adams and the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) giving access to story bonuses once you download the code – gratis – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.