Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Astonishing X-Men: Exogenetic


By Warren Ellis, Phil Jiminez & Andy Lanning (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3169-4

By now you’re either aware or not of mutant continuity, so in the spirit of this high octane, terse, gritty and bombastic monster-mashing thriller, I’ll forego the usual catch-up scorecard and précis and simply state that new readers can jump on with the minimum of confusion and, aided by the skilful use of banter, be readily brought up to cruising speed. Set in the aftermath of M-Day when the world’s mutant population was horrifically reduced to a couple of hundred Children of the Atom, the current official team of Cyclops, White Queen Emma Frost, Wolverine, Storm, the Beast and spunky Japanese teen Hisako Ichiki (AKA Armor) convene to tackle the latest threat to Earth’s dwindling mutant race.

To counter hostile public opinion in a world that has always hated and feared mutants, these heroes have renounced their traditionally clandestine lifestyle to fight their battles in the glare of the media. The new agenda is simple: carry on saving the day but do it in such a way that the world knows who to thank. Thus they can slowly change humanity’s attitudes and misperceptions whilst still doing their job.

It all sounded so easy…

Exogenetic opens with Abigail Brand and her agents of S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation & Response Department) sterilising yet another alien-infested asteroid base before succumbing to an overwhelming counterattack from the horrific invaders – parasitic Brood who have repeatedly attempted to ingest and assimilate our mutant champions.

Barely escaping, she heads back to Earth in a doomed ship where her helpless ground officers call in a little Homo Superior help…

Her craft is heading for a catastrophic crash into San Francisco, so it’s lucky that bestial Hank McCoy – the X-Men’s brilliant technical wizard and Brand’s current boyfriend – is heading the rescue mission, but even after a spectacular last-minute save nobody is truly safe…

In the gawping city-crowds avidly rubber-necking below is mutant Laurie Collins …but she’s been dead for months. The resurrected Wallflower suddenly mutates into a monstrous, marauding organic Sentinel indiscriminately determined to kill X-Men and human San Franciscans alike; firing off “her” inbuilt and reconfigured Brood drones in the way robotic Sentinels utilise missiles and ray-blasts…

After another breathtakingly bombastic imbroglio the mutants are eventually victorious, but forensic examinations of the remains indicate that Laurie was regrown, modified with ET DNA and mechanically augmented by agents unknown based on doomsday files stolen from McCoy’s own database and cell bank.

Someone has plundered the X-Men’s own secret technologies and desecrated their honoured dead…

Moreover the illicit harvester of dead X-Genes seems intent on using the purloined powers, stolen mechanisms and alien plasm to create an army to wage an all-out war of genocide on the Earth’s paltry remaining mutants…

With Abigail’s help the horrified heroes track down elderly geneticist Kaga who has apparently spent more than a decade on his plan to eradicate Earth’s Homo Superior. However after invading his floating storehouse of exotic and exhumed weaponry the appalled and traumatised X-Men discover that their race’s greatest foe has the most incredible and oddly logical motive for his fanatical crusade…

Untroubled by extraneous subplots or meandering sidebar storylines, starring an horrific host of “monsterised” old friends and foes whilst irresistibly combining stunning action and superb characterisation: this is a staggeringly impressive and addictive summer blockbuster.

Forthright, uncomplicated, and unforgettable, this riotous rollercoaster of thrills still finds moments for wrenching empathy and laugh-out-loud gags as the team again triumphs against impossible odds, and creators Warren Ellis, Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning have a perfect grasp of their charges here, and even leave a sting in the tale to end on….

Collecting Astonishing X-Men #31-35 (with text features from Astonishing X-Men/Amazing Spider-Man: the Gauntlet Sketchbook), this book also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Jimenez, Frank D’Armata, Travis Charest & Justin Ponsor, plus a copiously illustrated lengthy interview with the artist discussing his approach and techniques to illustrating the saga in ‘Sketching Out Phil Jimenez’.
© 2009, 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Dark Avengers volume 1: Assemble


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, Will Conrad & Rain Beredo (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3852-5

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.

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

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 metahuman criminals who volunteered to perform 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…

Collecting the first six issues of the controversial Dark Avengers title by Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato & colourist Rain Beredo (from March-September 2009), this beguiling, suspenseful chronicle commences a slow-building saga as part of the “Dark Reign” company-wide crossover event intended to reset the entire Marvel Universe…

The drama opens in 690AD as time-bending sorceress Morgana Le Fay spies on a coterie of 21st century masters of menace comprising Doctor Doom, Asgardian God Loki, gang-boss The Hood, mutant Emma Frost, ambivalent anti-hero the Sub-Mariner and the ostensibly reformed media darling Osborn…

Constantly courting public opinion the former Green Goblin launched his Avengers whilst building up a new, personally loyal high-tech paramilitary rapid-response force. Moreover, seemingly to keep himself honest, Osborn then 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 – giving Osborn time to convince Greek War-God Ares, mentally troubled golden superman Sentry and altruistic, dimensionally displaced alien Noh-Var – now dubbed Captain Marvel – to enlist on his team.

Unable to any recruit any other established champions, the master planner then offered devious deals to criminal psycho-killers Bullseye, Moonstone, Venom and Wolverine‘s deeply disturbed son Daken Akihiro to impersonate actual heroes Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and the irascible mutant X-Man.

It still wasn’t enough for the cunning control freak. The answer finally came when he found a huge cache of Stark-built Iron Man suits. With a little judicious tinkering Osborn soon had his own super-armour, retooled and finished to invoke impressions of both Captain America and the Golden ex-Avenger. Now, as the Iron Patriot he could personally lead his hand-picked team from the front as a true hero should…

The first mission was nothing to boast of however as a H.A.M.M.E.R. diplomatic team escorted Dr. Doom back to his devastated homeland of Latveria, ravaged by a S.H.I.E.L.D. punitive mission in retaliation for the Dictator’s numerous outrages. No sooner had the escorts arrived though than Le Fay attacked, eager to kill Doom for a thousand slights and his previous treatment of her…

The second, flashback-filled issue fills in some blanks in the mystic rivals’ shared history as the Sinister Sorceress unleashes her horde of horrors against Doom and the American Agents, precipitating a deadly response from the Iron Patriot and his private army…

Soon the ersatz Avengers are knee-deep in gore as they mercilessly destroy the witch’s minions and when the unstoppable Sentry tears off Morgana’s head it seems their first mission is a complete success.

However Le Fay is the Mistress of Time and simply returns with a greater force, killing Sentry in her determination to kill Doom – until another Avenger brutally ends her only to be her first target on her next appearance. The pattern just keeps repeating and soon Iron Patriot is almost out of Avengers…

The third issue opens with more flashbacks as Osborn uses psychological warfare to bind the emotionally damaged Bob Reynolds to him. The too-good-to-be-true, nigh-omnipotent nice-guy metahuman is secretly afflicted with an alternate personality dubbed The Void and only a slavish, puppy-like devotion to childhood sweetheart-and-wife Lindy enables Sentry to resist the horrendous dark urgings of his other self…

Osborn has convinced the golden hero that his deadly split-personality is a fiction that can be fought – but they’re both quite wrong…

Back at the battle Doom and Osborn combine technological resources to take the fight back to Le Fay in the far past and undo most of her victories, even restoring Latveria to a measure of its former self. Only Sentry cannot be resurrected and the grim Americans head home pondering the early loss of their most powerful member. When they reachNew Yorkhowever Sentry is waiting for them and with horror Osborn realises that it’s not Bob Reynolds in charge of that tousled golden head…

Episode #4 changed tack by confronting a big issue head on. A crisis had occurred when the true Hawkeye attempted to expose his Avenger duplicate as a sham and Osborn quickly manufactured a televised confession which brilliantly turned the tables on his accuser by pushing all the viewers’ buttons. Now the reformed Goblin was merely a decent American patriot recovering from mental illness, thanks to the grace of God, and anyone who said otherwise a sick, ungrateful, godless traitor…

The former villain is on an unbeatable roll: after all didn’t he also talk down the Void and re-establish Bob as dominant personality in the composite meta-human time bomb of the reborn Sentry? Yet Osborn still isn’t as secure as he thinks: cracks begin to appear when the counterfeit Ms. Marvel begins her campaign to seduce and control her Avenger comrades. Without even knowing why she needs to undermine the team’s cohesion and challenge Osborn’s authority, the rogue former psychiatrist beds naive Noh-Var and lets slip to the innocent alien dupe the kind of people his fellow “heroes” truly are…

This first collection spirals to spectacular climax when a rebel band of Atlanteans attackLos Angelesand Osborn’s demand for a show of retaliatory force provokes a split in the Cabal. Unsatisfied when the Sub-Mariner quits the league of villains, the increasingly unstable Security Czar then sends his puppet Sentry into the depths of the ocean to deliver a very clear reprimand – one which leaves only one Atlantean alive…

And as Osborn discovers that his Captain Marvel has gone AWOL the manic, chaos-loving goblin voice inside the head ofAmerica’s Top Cop begins to laugh exultantly…

To Be Continued…

Certainly not one for younger fans, this is another striking saga from author Bendis, packed with intrigue, suspense and breathtaking action, magnificently illustrated and supplemented by a glorious cover gallery and variants by Deodato & Beredo, Marko Djurdjevic, Adi Granov, Mike Choi, Daniel Acuña, Stefano Caselli, Khoi Pham & Rafa Sandoval.

Experimenting boldly with narrative sequencing and contrasting time frames, flipping back and forth across a number of story-threads and superbly building tension through misinformation, Dark Avengers: Assemble is mired in the minutiae of Marvel Universe history, so whilst this offers a moodily different take on Fights ‘n’ Tights thrillers that will impress devotees of the genre and continuity, newer readers need to be prepared to put up with a little contextual confusion. Nevertheless, although the tale might be all but incomprehensible to casual readers, this clever display of comics creativity illustrates the mature extremes to which “straight” superhero stories can be pushed.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Venom: Birth of a Monster – a Marvel Pocketbook British Edition


By Peter David, David Michelinie, Rick Buckler, Todd McFarlane & various (Marvel/PaniniUK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-052-4

After a shaky start in 1962 The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Soon the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old costumed-crimebusters of previous publications.

You all know the story: Peter Parker was a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Discovering he had developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – Peter did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such a gifts: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, only to find that it was the felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night the Wondrous Wall-crawler has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

Although nominally a collection dedicated to the savagely driven, alien-infected vigilante who was amongst the Web-spinner’s greatest foes, Venom: Birth of a Monster only devotes a fraction of its content to the deadly dark double. Instead this Marvel Pocketbook compendium from 2007 collects the superbly powerful but barely relevant ‘Sin-Eater saga’ from Spectacular Spider-Man # 107-110 in 1985, and the contents of Amazing Spider-Man #298-300 (March-May 1988) which led to the actual debut of the Savage Symbiotic Sentinel…

The drama begins with chapter 1 of ‘Death of Jean DeWolff: Original Sin’ by Peter David, Rich Buckler & Brett Breeding, which begins with the eponymous lady cop who was Spider-Man’s only friend in the NYPD already murdered by a mystery assailant. In the stunned aftermath the department goes into cop-killer overdrive.

Meanwhile the Amazing Arachnid is savagely dealing with a trio of muggers who have robbed and brutalised a senior citizen. Ernie Popchik is a tenant at May Parker‘s boarding house and the senseless assault on the old man has enraged the hero to breaking point. His mood isn’t helped when the arresting cops inform him of Jean’s demise…

Forcing himself into the case, Spidey befriends lead detective Stan Carter, even as in a church across town a desperate young man attempts to expiate his recent sins in the confessional booth…

The next morning sightless crusader Matt Murdock (AKA Daredevil) is drawn into the affair when he successfully defends the three muggers and sets them back on the street. Peter Parker is in court and further incensed as justice again seems to be not only blind by indifferent. The controversial presiding Judge Horace Rosenthal is one of Murdock’s oldest friends, and when the lawyer later visits in his chambers, his super-senses detect a sinister presence…

Before anyone can react a ski-masked figure overwhelms Matt and blasts the judge point blank with a sawn-off shotgun…

‘Sin of Pride’ (with additional inks by Josef Rubinstein, Kyle Baker & Pat Redding) opens moments later in the street where Peter and his Aunt May are consoling the shaken and still-terrified Popchik, who can’t believe his attackers are free again. Suddenly the masked shooter erupts out of the courthouse and instantly provokes a panic. Ditching May and Ernie, Parker changes to Spider-Man and confronts the killer who casually blasts him. The hero’s incredible abilities easily enable him to dodge the shots, but in the heat of pursuit Spider-Man has forgotten that he’s in the middle of a crowded street…

Horrified, the wall-crawler attends to the collaterally injured, allowing the murderous Sin-Eater to make his escape. With no other choice, the badly shaken hero is forced to resort to plain old detective work to solve the maniacal mystery and finds that Jean DeWolff had indulged a secret passion for the Amazing Arachnid…

There are many mourners attending the murdered Police Captain’s funeral, but across the cemetery, only Matt Murdock and close family attend the interment of the killer’s second victim. However as the Rosenthal ceremony concludes Matt’s super-hearing detects the Sin-Eater’s distinctive heartbeat wafting from the gathered crowd of cops, politicians, clerics and celebrities across the still, green park…

The Daredevil in mufti is unable to isolate the source but now has a pool of suspects to track… which is reduced by one when, that night, the maniac kills the Reverend  Bernard Finn in the Confessional…

The tension shifts into overdrive in ‘He Who is Without Sin’ (David, Buckler & Breeding) when political opportunist Reverend Tolliver stirs up racial divisions and Peter learns that one of the bystanders he recklessly endangered has died. Pushed to breaking point, Spider-Man futilely tries to pry a lead from Wilson Fisk, New York’s Kingpin of Crime, but coincidentally discovers that Daredevil was there before him… The web-spinner, now nearing boiling point, then terrorises a local gang-boss and recklessly endangers a small child in his desperate urgency to find the Sin-Eater…

It all comes to a head at the Daily Bugle building later, when the scattergun killer comes looking for J. Jonah Jameson and is anticlimactically subdued by Peter Parker and other journalists. The malevolent vigilante is Emil Gregg, a simple schizophrenic driven by voices to do the Lord’s work, but when Daredevil confronts the captive at Police Headquarters, his hearing soon discerns that this Sin-Eater is merely a deluded copycat…

Meanwhile at Jameson’s mansion the authentic assassin is attempting to kill the absent publisher’s wife and Peter’s best friend Betty Brant-Leeds…

The shocking conclusion ‘All My Sins Remembered’ (Bucker and the inking army known as “M. Hands”) sees Spider-Man save the day and expose the real killer, but also explode in uncontrolled fury as his shock and betrayal erupts into a misguided, frustration-fuelled dust-up with Daredevil.

And in the subway, traumatised Ernie Popchik shoots three young thugs acting tough and intimidating defenceless passengers…

By way of background: During the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars of 1984-1985, Spider-Man picked up a super-scientific new costume which was actually a hungry alien parasite which slowly began to permanently bond to its unwitting wearer.

After being discovered and removed by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four “the Symbiote” ultimately escaped and, like a crazed and jilted lover, tried to re-establish its relationship with the horrified hero; seemingly destroying itself in the attempt.

During a stellar run of scripts by David Michelinie, the beast was revived with a new host and became one of the most acclaimed Marvel villains of all time, helped in no small part by the escalating popularity of rising star artist Todd McFarlane…

The action continues here with another only tangentially germane two-part thriller ‘Chance Encounter’ and ‘Survival of the Fittest!’ from Amazing Spider-Man #298-299, by Michelinie, McFarlane and Bob McLeod.

The story details how Spider-Man stumbles across a coterie of Survivalist millionaires covertly constructing a lavish high tech gated community in which to ride out the fall of civilisation in opulent splendour and lethally protected luxury. The scheme was only exposed when a series of weapons shipments went missing and Spidey’s old enemy Chance was kidnapped. Although a sharp action adventure in its own right – and very enjoyable – each of these tales concludes with a teaser showing a shadowy, bestial figure obsessing over clippings of Spider-Man…

The mystery is revealed in the anniversary issue #300 with the landmark introduction of ‘Venom’ wherein the monstrous shape-shifting stalker, having terrorised Peter’s new bride Mary Jane, begins a chilling campaign to psychologically punish Spider-Man.

Venom is a huge hulking, distorted carbon copy of the web-spinner: a murderous psychopath constituted of disgraced reporter Eddie Brock and the now eternally bonded bitter, rejected parasite whose animalistic devotion was spurned by its former ungrateful host. Parker had even tried to kill the faithful loving Symbiote…

Brock obsessively hates Parker for the craziest of reasons: when Emil Gregg was arrested, Brock was the first – and exclusive – reporter to reveal him as the Sin-Eater.

When the real killer was exposed hours later, Brock lost his job, his career and his grip on reality. As he hit the skids Brock blamed photo-journalist Parker for the debacle, but at his lowest moment, the rejected, starving Symbiote found him. As they merged, human and alien realised they hungered for vengeance on the self-same man…

The story is a stunning blend of action and suspense with an unforgettable classic duel between Good and Evil which famously saw Spider-Man finally return to his original Ditko-designed costume. It also kicked off a riotous run of astounding stories from a fresh generation of game-changing creators…

The savage, shape-changing anti-hero Рa perfect dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid Рwent on to his own blood-drenched series and eventually the spidery rivals reached a tenuous d̩tente.

Although I’ve carped about this book’s incongruent and perhaps misleading title, Venom: Birth of a Monster does reproduce some of the most powerful, entertaining and cruelly forgotten tales of the hard-luck hero’s long and stellar canon. If it’s simply fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action and excellent comics enjoyment you’re after, this might well be a very pleasant way to while away your midnight hours…
© 1985, 1988, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. A British edition published under license by Panini S.p.A.

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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 2: Spectacular


By Paul Tobin, Roberto Di Salvo, Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet, Amilton Santos & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4560-8

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

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

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and combined it with the remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic. The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man which carried on the established continuities.

This digest-sized collection collects issues #5-8 of that second (2010) iteration and picks up where Spider-Man: Amazing left off. Paul Tobin continues scripting whilst 16-year old Peter Parker rounds out his first year as a reluctant – if driven – superhero: the mysterious Spider-Man.

Even after all the time he has prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, fighting crime and injustice, he’s still just a kid learning the ropes and pretty much in over his head all the time…

Illustrated by Roberto Di Salvo, the drama begins with the hero battered and close to death following his savage battle with manic assassin Bullseye. Meanwhile top gang enforcer Flip is still masterfully doing his illegal job, which he hates, especially all the lying to his wife – when big boss Berto Torino calls him in for a special mission.

Somewhere Spider-Man is holed-up and helpless. If Flip can find and finish the pestiferous punk there’s a $2 million pay-off up for grabs…

Across town Peter’s girlfriend Sophia Sanduval is frantic with worry. As a mutant who can communicate with animals and a part-time operative of the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency, “Chat” has got a lot of unusual resources at her disposal, but not even Wolverine and the X-Men can help her lost and wounded boy wonder…

Happily her bestial buddies make more progress. A horde of animals locate the unconscious wall-crawler and loyally cluster around his unconscious, recuperating form in a protective cordon…

Alerted by her birds, Chat rushes across town to his side, but the brutally efficient Flip is also closing in…

By the time she reaches Peter, the Mafioso is dealing with the severely battered wall-crawler – but her animal shelterers have already performed a redemptive miracle…

In school next day the bandage-bedecked Peter Parker is properly teased and quizzed by his class-mates, especially ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy and her controversial new beau Carter Torino (her father is a New York cop who turns a blind eye to Parker’s vigilante sideline and the boy is the unwilling heir-apparent to the city’s paramount criminal empire).

Taking it all in stride, Peter also gets a stern talking-to from Chat and Police Captain George Stacy, both urging the guilt-fuelled hero to take it easy for a while. There’s little chance of that however, when a class trip to a museum is interrupted by murderous maniac Dr. Octopus…

When the still-sub-par Spider-Man leaps painfully into the fray, the furious Chat is forced to call in a favour and reinforcements by asking morally ambivalent psionic mutant Emma Frost AKA Silencer to take a telepathic hand in the affair…

An artistic fill-in by Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos sees a hilarious training session with Wolverine and ghostly X-Man Kitty Pryde turn into a bizarre comedy of errors when the Torinos try to buy off Spider-Man, whilst protestors (pro and anti) at a mutant rights rally are attacked by gun-toting gangsters afraid of losing their jobs to super-powered thugs-for-hire…

The flirty and fearsome Silencer rears her seductive head again in the final tale (art by Di Salvo & Terry Pallot), when Chat gets all snarky after refusing to introduce the increasingly bugged Peter to her enigmatic and never-seen older sister.

Burning with curiosity, Peter has trouble keeping within his boundaries, even after Chat helps him disastrously try out a new and “less-unlucky” heroic identity, but sparks fly when Silencer asks for their aid in taking out deadly mutant fire-starter Cinder and subsequently repays Chat by messing with Spider-Man’s obsessive mind…

These Spidey super stories are extremely enjoyable yarns, but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps better suit older kids…

Fast-paced and impressive, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and loads of sly laughs, this book really sees the alternative web-spinner hitting his wall-crawling stride with the violence toned down and “cartooned-up” whilst the stories take great pains to keep the growing youth-oriented soap opera sub-plots pot-boiling on but as clear as possible.

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Super-Hero Squad – Infinity Sword Quest


By Mark Hoffmeier, Cort Lane, Todd Dezago, Eugene Son, Christopher Jones, Marcelo Dichiara & Leonel Castellani (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4741-1

The link between children’s comics, television and toys is a long established and mutually beneficial one and too vast to go into here. Suffice it to say that these used to be the big three methods of parting kids from their money and sparking their budding imaginations.

Even if the printed page now lags far behind, there are still moments when they can again fill every moment of a consumer’s life. Of course these days that definition includes children up to and including age 120.

In 2006 Hasbro released an action-figure line of Marvel icons portrayed in the Japanese Chibi or “Super Deformed” style, which reduces (tee hee) characters to chubby, cute child-like caricatures. Although intended for a fairly young market, the toys were fervently collected by all ages and types of fan, leading inexorably in 2009 to an animated cartoon entitled The Super Hero Squad Show.

Amongst further merchandising and licensing spin-offs was a one-shot tie-in comicbook followed by a continuing funnybook feature (initially online daily at Marvel.com) dedicated to the far kinder, gentler adventures of good guys and bad guys who inhabited the fantastic, thrill-packed but angst-free environs of Super Hero City.

This nifty Pocketbook edition collects strip material from Marvel Super Hero Squad #1-4, Super Hero Squad #1-2 plus Marvel Super Hero Squad: Hero Up! and, should you be wondering, the tales reprinted here are still part of the overarching comics continuity, with Marvel classifying this absolutely alternate Reality as Earth-91119…

Here’s all you need to know: the heroes live in a huge and pleasant city doing good things whilst the nasties all lurk in a bad part of town dubbed Villainville.

The child-friendly fun mostly consists of stopping supreme evil genius Doctor Doom from getting his galvanised gauntlets on mysterious but awesomely powerful crystals known as “Infinity Fractals”. These shiny shards are imbued with all sorts of uncanny properties that the wicked weirdo and his mean and moody minions are eager to possess…

It all begins on ‘Freaky Fractal Friday’ (by Mark Hoffmeier, Cort Lane & Christopher Jones) when Wolverine’s hot dog lunch is interrupted by M.O.D.O.K. invading X-Men HQ in search of one of the precious power-stones. In the ensuing battle the fractal switches their minds and the late-arriving Hulk, Thor and Iron Man are completely fooled…

Happily Ms. Marvel is not and foils the great-big-giant-evil-head in mutant’s clothing when he invades the heroes’ Heli-Carrier in search of more Fractals…

‘And Lo, There Shall be a Reptil!!’ (Todd Dezago, Lane & Marcelo Dichiara) introduces brash and obnoxious teenager Humberto Lopez, who dug up a Fractal in his garden and gained the power to change into various bits of dinosaurs.

Naturally he made a costume to fight crime but only made himself a target for Doom, Abomination and The Blob until Captain America stepped in. The Super Hero Squad then took over the garrulous Reptil’s mystery man education and made the short-tempered Wolverine his personal teacher…

The same creative team crafted ‘Imperius Wrecks!’ which sees Dr. Doom causing sub-sea quakes which accidentally destroy Namor the Sub-Mariner‘s underwater city. This causes the rather pompous Prince of Atlantis to mistakenly invade the surface world and, even with the regular champions and additional heroes She-Hulk, Ant-Man, Tigra, The Thing, Falcon and Hawkeye – in their swim-suits, naturally – the battle goes badly, especially after Doom offers his own team to the aquatic invaders.

Against the Atlantean armies and Crimson Dynamo, The Toad, Bulldozer, Whirlwind, Zzaxx, The Melter and Paste Pot Pete, the good guys are hard-pressed until Iron Man salvages Doom’s submerged machine and Namor learns who his real enemy is…

‘Every Inhuman Has its Day’ (Eugene Son, Cort Lane & Dichiara) finds Reptil on patrol in Pterodactyl form before saving a colossal dog from deadly dragon Fin Fang Foom and the rest of Doom’s cronies. Adopting the stupendous stray, Humberto soon discovers that the pooch he calls “Skippy” has powers too and can get out of any pen, cage or locked room.

…And that’s when mighty Inhumans Black Bolt, Medusa, Triton, Gorgon and Karnak arrive, determined to rescue young Crystal‘s teleporting pet from the humans who must have stolen him…

Even with the assistance of the Silver Surfer the Super Hero Squad are in for the fight of their lives before calmer heads – and paws – prevail…

After a flurry of gorgeous pin-ups and variant covers the terrific tales continue with ‘Baby on Board!’ by Dezago & Leonel Castellani, wherein Doom at last reveals the origin of the incredible Fractals scattered all over Earth.

Fragments of a gigantic cosmic scimitar which exploded aboveSuperHeroCity, the glowing shards offer infinite power to their possessor and the Steel Supremo’s latest plan to get them involves using his time machine to travel back to before the Infinity Sword detonated…

Unbelievably the heroes have been forewarned by a mysterious comicbook which detailed the Demon Doctor’s entire plan and they pre-emptively attack the Lethal Legion in their stronghold. During the frantic fray the time machine is damaged and everyone except Reptil is turned into a baby.

It’s a good thing that, even as toddlers, Doom and Iron Man were the smartest inventors on the planet…

‘Bowling for Squaddies!’ (Dezago & Dichiara) finds the nefarious Wrecking Crew of Wrecker, Thunderball, Piledriver and Bulldozer sneaking out of Villainville for a night off when Doom catches them. As punishment he despatches them to help the petrifying Grey Gargoyle steal some art-work. When they are confronted by the assembled Super Hero Squad the newcomer’s “stone touch” proves a huge advantage. Sadly it’s not a power he can turn off and soon even the bad guys have been temporarily turned into statues after which Hulk takes centre stage in ‘The Fixit!’ (illustrated by Castellani) and proves that sometimes brute force is the answer to every problem…

A Valentine’s Day debacle is declared when ‘Love is in the Air!’ (Dezago & Castellani) and bad girls Enchantress and Mystique compete to see who can get most boys to love them. Little drips like Mole Man are no effort but what about the Super Hero Squad? And to prove their love the Dashing Defenders could be made to hand over all the recovered Fractals stockpiled in their HQ…

Of course it all goes pear-shaped not heart-shaped and the wicked women only just escape, after which this first cheerful Chibi cartoon chronicle concludes with a brace of short romantic interludes illustrated by Dichiara.

‘Reptil’s’ Lonely Valentine!’ shows how the cocky schoolboy waits in vain for a billet-doux from some (or even one) of his female classmates and completely misses the potential true love doing everything bar kicking him to get his attention, whilst ‘Hulk’s Secret Valentine!’ finds the Bellicose Behemoth teased and lectured by his hooked-up hero comrades before finally revealing his own true love…

Graced with vivid Hero Profiles of Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Falcon & Silver Surfer and stuffed with cool covers and mini-poster pin-ups, this tiny tome is a light-hearted, clever, wholesome and often intentionally hilarious treat. These teeny-weeny epics are a delightful way of bringing youngsters into the superhero fold – especially Marvel’s truly vast pantheon of characters – and, just like their original iterations, well able to stand up to infinite re-readings…
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 1: Amazing


By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Scott Koblish & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4118-1

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

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

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and mixed in with the remnants of the manga-based Tsunami imprint, all intended for a younger readership. The experiment was tweaked in 2005 becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all new stories. Additional series included Marvel Adventures series Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new – and continuity-continuing – volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This digest-sized collection collects the first four stories from the second (2010) volume and actually starts in the middle of the action – although writer Paul Tobin and artists Matteo Lolli and Scott Koblish (as well as inkers Christian Dalla Vecchia, Terry Pallot Koblish & Andrew Hennessy) take great pains to keep the stories as clear as possible.

Sixteen year old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for little more than six months. In that time he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers ofNew York, driven to fight injustice. However as a kid just learning the ropes he’s pretty much in over his head all the time…

The opening tale finds him on a crusade against the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, and attempting to expose their bought-and-paid-for Judge Clive Baraby, whilst ex-girlfriend and wannabe journalist Gwen dogs his webbed heels and her father Police Captain George Stacy – who knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics – picks up all the well-thumped thugs the incensed wall-crawler leaves in his wake.

Even though Spidey can’t touch the corrupt Baraby, his campaign of attrition has the Torinos on the ropes and the Mafioso have engaged the services of super-assassin Bullseye to kill the Web-spinner. However, the Man who Never Misses is infuriatingly slow to act and soon there’s on open contract on the kid crusader…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too. Since he and Gwen split, the lad has taken up with schoolmate Sophia Sanduval – an extremely talented lass nicknamed Chat – who knows Peter’s secret, can communicate with animals and has a part-time job with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency…

She also pays attention in class and suggests how what they learned in history can be used to trap the untouchable Baraby…

The second story opens with a brutal dog-napping and leads inexorably to a clash with merciless mercenary Midnight when the villain invades Peter’s school during a martial arts exhibition by Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Along the way Chat introduces Pete to new buddy Flapper – a very wise owl indeed – and new kid Carter Torino enrols at Parker’s school. How does the troubled new boy know the constantly watching Bullseye…?

Before the subplots get too intense however,Midnightand his ninjas attack Shang-Chi and Spider-Man joins the fracas, subsequently learning a few things from the combat expert – including who to return that stolen dog to…

Whilst close-mouthed gang-prince Carter gets closer to Gwen, Wolverine guest-stars in the third untitled tale when Chat asks her bug-boy beau to help hunt down the wild-haired mutant for a client who wants Logan to model their hair gel. Typically, whenever the Clawed Canadian appears trouble isn’t far behind, and when a gang ofTorino goons jumps Wolverine, Spidey is forced to join in the carnage. And that’s when Bullseye makes his move…

As conflicted Carter Torino confronts his criminal family, this volume concludes with a savage showdown between Bullseye and the sorely overmatched Spider-Man and also sees the death of one of the supporting cast…

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to those Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and more culturally accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced and impressive, these Spidey tales are extremely enjoyable yarns but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and would perhaps better suit older kids…
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Spider-Man: Venom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Art Thibert & Rodney Ramos (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2873-1

After Marvel’s financial – and indeed creative – problems in the later 1990s, the company came back swinging. A key new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture. The ‘Ultimate‘ imprint abandoned the monumental continuity which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset, and the company’s major characters were given a separate universe to play in, with varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to a contemporary 21st century audience.

Peter Parker was once again a nerdy high-school geek, brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors, and there was a fresh and fashionable, more modern and scientifically feasible rationale for the spider bite which imparted impossible arachnoid abilities.

Uncle Ben still died because of his lack of responsibility. The Daily Bugle was still there as was the outrageous J. Jonah Jameson. But now in a more cynical, litigious world, well-used to cover-ups and conspiracy theories, arch-foe Norman Osborn – a corrupt, ruthless billionaire businessman – was behind everything.

Any gesture towards the faux-realism of traditional superhero fare was surrendered to a tried-and-tested soap-opera melodrama that inevitably links all characters together in invisible threads of karmic coincidence and familial consanguinity, but, to be honest, it seldom hurt the narrative. After all as long as internal logic isn’t contravened, subplots don’t have to make sense to be entertaining.

By reworking key moments of Lee & Ditko’s Spider-Man – and their myriad successors – writer Brian Michael Bendis and illustrator Mark Bagley succinctly captured the core values of the original and certainly re-cast in it terms that newer readers readily assimilated. The Ultimate Peter Parker spoke to modern teen readers in the same way the 1960s incarnation spoke to me and my peers…

Collecting issues #33-39 of Ultimate Spider-Man from 2003, this premiere hardcover edition introduces an alternative vision for the web-spinner’s most memorable foe of recent vintage, and upped the angst-quotient by revealing untold connections with Peter’s long-dead parents.

The convoluted, clotted web of coincidence and continuity which had eventually bogged down the original Spider-Man was just beginning to creep into these tales, but perhaps that’s unavoidable if you’re concocting contemporary super-heroics.

What you need to know: Parker is the perennial hard-luck loser kid, a brilliant geek just trying to get by in a world where daily education is infinitely more scary than monsters and villains. His alter ego’s already shaky reputation has been destroyed by a burglar, who impersonated Spider-Man, went on a very public crime-spree and murdered Police Captain George Stacy.

Whilst Peter was dealing with the deadly doppelganger his widowed Aunt May was inviting Stacy’s orphaned daughter Gwen to move into the Parker household. In the aftermath Pete’s girlfriend and confidante Mary Jane Watson dumped him, unable to deal with the constant stress of having an underage superhero and perpetually potential corpse for a lover…

Shell-shocked and emotionally gutted by his bad break-up, Peter broods and mopes around the house until he finds an old box of junk which contains notes and video tapes of his 5-year old self and his parents; dead for a decade in a plane crash.

The idyllic scenes show a picnic in the park, attended by geneticists Richard and Mary Parker, their research partners the Brocks, Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Although he had forgotten, Eddie Brock Jr., despite being an older kid, was young Pete’s best friend for years – almost a brother…

Eddie’s folks had also died in the crash and the boy had been forced to leave the city and live with his grandparents.

All fired up, Peter tracks down Eddie and, discovering he’s now a student at Empire State University, resolves to find his old buddy and show him the tapes. So eager is the Arachnid kid that he doesn’t even glance at the notes and files in the box: enigmatic records pertaining to an incredible, radical cancer-cure code-named the Venom Project…

Under the tutelage of Dr. Curt Connors (whom Spidey once battled when the scientist temporarily mutated into a sentient Lizard), Eddie has grown into the coolest guy imaginable: a science student carrying on their father’s work and a player with lots of great-sounding advice about girls…

At the end of a great day on Campus, Eddie takes Peter to the labs and shows his bro-besotted pal “the work” – a shared inheritance from their departed fathers which will change the world forever…

The miracle-cure is a gloopy black liquid based on Ray Parker’s DNA: designed to coat a cancer sufferer’s entire body in a living bio-suit that would boost the victim’s system and repair organic malfunctions, and as Eddie shows it off he also discloses how corporate skulduggery scuttled the bold project even before the groundbreaking technologists died in that mysterious crash…

The suspicious and embittered Brock has spent years reconstructing the project using notes and samples kept by his grandfather. Now the student is close to total, vindicating success…

Back in High School Pete wants to confront Mary Jane, but Gwen advises against it. However when college-guy Eddie shows up in flashy sports car she joins the distracted Parker in another jaunt to ESU…

Fuming for hours at the imagined cause of his parents’ death and how well Gwen is getting on with Eddie, Parker breaks into the university labs to “obtain” his own test samples of the Venom prototype and is horrified when the goo attacks and utterly envelops his body…

That night, a new Spider-Man rampages through New York, clad in deepest black. Stronger, faster, tougher, far more reckless and wild and spectacularly crushing crimes big and small. After brutally foiling a celebrity kidnapping and easily trashing super-villain the Shocker, the dark Spider tackles a petty thief who reminds him of Uncle Ben’s killer and, lost in an emotional flashback, mutates into a fanged horror which tries to eat the gun-toting thug…

Petrified and aghast, Peter comes to his senses in time and tries to escape but the suit won’t let him go until the panicked lad blunders into high tension power cables and crashes to earth in the cemetery where his parents are buried…

Eddie is far from the cool guy he seems. After trying to take advantage of Gwen the frustrated frat boy sees TV footage of the Black Spider-Man and puts the pieces together. Rushing to the lab he finds Peter with the Venom sample and demands to know everything. Peter’s desperate warnings seem to hit home and he allows Parker to destroy the potentially homicidal sludge. Returning home he finds the still-shaking Gwen who tells him what Eddie did and slowly realises that his childhood friend might not be the paragon he imagined…

Brock meanwhile has retrieved another sample in his ongoing series of Venom experiments and activated it with his own body…

Plagued by nightmares, Peter seeks out Mary Jane who again rejects him and his dangerous lifestyle, whilst at ESU Eddie’s rash act has already cost the life of the cleaning woman who tried to help the mewling ebony mess on a lab floor.

Next day at Midtown High, Peter’s Spider-Sense alerts him to incredible peril and he realises that the suit has copied his memories and passed them on. Eddie has become a ravening, shape-shifting carnivorous version of Spider-Man, fuelled by a now unsuppressed psychotic paranoia and hatred…

With Richard Parker’s video-taped fears and misgivings on the Venom Project and life in general echoing in his head, Peter confronts the exultant, mutated Eddie and is soundly thrashed. The big black beast is going wild: slaughtering cops and civilians, whilst only really craving Peter. The savage suit is madly trying to reunite with Peter’s memories and Parker DNA…

In the pointless battle that follows, the monstrous avatar is vaporised by lightning and Peter flees. Dodging cops who want to arrest him for his various impostors’ crimes, the totally traumatised kid runs straight into the formidable Nick Fury.

The Director of covert security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is the government’s go-to guy: responsible for superhuman affairs and crises. Moreover he had previously threatened to draft Spider-Man once he turned eighteen…

Despondent and dejected, the boy surrenders and begs to be cured of the curse of Arachnid powers, but instead receives an unexpected and life-changing pep-talk… Bewildered Peter again breaks into the ESU lab and meets Dr. Connors, wearily examining the vaults from which all the remaining Venom samples have been removed…

This version of the Wondrous Wall-crawler is very close to the movie iteration – surely a welcome benefit for all converts from celluloid to paper adventuring – and this book also includes added value features ‘Venom Arc Outline’ and 8 pages of beautiful Bagley pencils for the assorted comics and collection covers.

Moody and scary, but far more-concerned with angst-ridden melodrama than Fights ‘n’ Tights action, this thriller ends on a pensive, low-key and unsatisfactorily inconclusive note, deferring the eventual, inevitable showdown with the Venom-Brock amalgam to another day and leaving tragic Peter Parker even more conflicted and confused than before…

And that’s probably the point. Frenetic and compelling, the geeky charisma of the misunderstood alienated outsider fuels and permeates this readable pot-boiler of turbulent teen-tribulation and fashionable school-daze. Light yet addictive, this glossy super-soap brings great comics entertainment to the post-literate generation.
© 2003, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvels – Eye of the Camera


By Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Jay Anacleto & Brian Haberlin (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1386-7

The poignant story of New York photo-journalist Philip Aaron Sheldon, whose career was inextricably intertwined with the rise of meta-humanity, continues in this long-delayed sequel by writers Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern, illustrated by Jay Anacleto and coloured by Brian Haberlin.

Before the generational saga concludes however, this chronicle – collecting the 6-issue miniseries from 2009-2010 – commences with a Stern reflection on the series in ‘Looking Through the Viewfinder’ after which the reportage returns as ‘Just One Little Thing’ finds the independent but aging photo-journalist considering a more sedentary job as photo editor for a great metropolitan newspaper – just as the first reports of the Fantastic Four leak out at the beginning of the 1960s.

In a world filled with reports of alien invasions and atomic monsters like the Hulk, people are far more scared by the prospect of mutants – aberrant evolutionary offshoots of humanity destined to replace us – superseding mankind. Phil’s daughters are plagued with nightmares. So are many adults…

Soon after the X-Men went public and Captain America returned, the world somehow became a constantly accelerating rollercoaster of incredible wonder and constant peril. Now years later, seeking some sense of perspective, Sheldon visits the site of the rocket-launch which took Reed Richards, Ben Grimm and Sue Storm and her little brother Johnny into space and returned them as cosmic-powered Marvels.

For the photo-journalist this is the key event and first page of the new chapter in history, but the visit doesn’t afford him much insight or perspective and he returns home to discover fate has a far more intimate surprise in store. A visit to the doctor reveals that Phil has lung cancer…

In ‘Making Sense of the World’ the prospect of imminent, mundane death shakes Sheldon. Determination to provide for his family galvanises the ailing journalist, and he vigorously pursues a long-delayed sequel to his book Marvels but he’s revolted by his publisher’s suggestion that he should concentrate on the darker aspects of the metahuman phenomenon – rogues, villains and monsters…

In a world peppered with flamboyant champions battling atomic crazies and even supernatural horrors like the Son of Satan, Phil can’t get past the incredible paralysing irony that his own doctors want to shoot him full of chemicals and radiation…

One scary night, after being saved from muggers by Spider-Man, Sheldon decides that this book – if it’s going to be his last – will accentuate the positive and not glorify the worst of the Marvels’ universe. His legacy will be to show the world that there’s nothing to be scared of…

He begins to think twice in ‘Making Sense of the World’ as brutally merciless vigilantes such as the Punisher, Wolverine and Ghost Rider monopolise the news and his illness slowly grinds him down. However after meeting his old assistant Marcia Hardesty working for a TV network his bounce-back begins, especially after the chemotherapy pushes his disease into remission. Prowling the streets of New York however, catching great shots of new guys like Iron Fist, Yellowjacket and a host of new Avengers, Phil can’t help but see how few exploits are clear-cut and simple.

The staggering collateral damage from superhero incidents is increasing: homes destroyed and families traumatised, and one battle involving the X-Men even devastated much of JFK airport. Many new heroes are indistinguishable from actual monsters…

In ‘Shadows Within’ whilst Phil is out carousing, with old reporter pals when Jonah Jameson is kidnapped and the veteran photo-journalist sees with his own eye Spider-Man collaborating with and apparently actively condoning the murderous tactics of wanted felon The Punisher.

Horrified and disgusted, Sheldon collapses…

The disappointment and disillusion continue in ‘Deep Wounds’. Everywhere Sheldon looks he sees his beloved, admired Marvels betraying their principles and even becoming subject to tawdry celebrity scandals. It all comes to a head when Bugle journalist Ben Urich is stabbed by enigmatic warrior Elektra and founding Avenger Henry Pym is indicted for stealing radioactive materials…

The World rolls inexorably on and Phil struggles to complete his book, but when almost every hero and many of the villains vanish for a week, their return is followed by the advent of an unbelievably powerful being called the Beyonder. Huge swathes of the Earth are transformed and the planet is mere days from utter obliteration. When the Bugle’s Now Magazine begs the retired veteran to go and take the last pictures of Armageddon, the consummate professional acquiesces and is present when the Marvels impossibly repair the damage and achieve their greatest triumph…

Inspired anew and surfing a wave of public approval, Phil returns: forging ahead with his much-delayed sequel. Things are going great, and then one day he finds the cancer is back…

In ‘A Whole Lot of Paper’ Phil faces his final deadline, with wife Doris and the girls pitching in, even looking for new material as the metahumans and mutants constantly proliferate. Impatient and dying, Phil is heartened when Marcia turns up offering her services but his determination is fading even as his body succumbs to the mundane horror eating it from within. Dictating his copy from a hospital bed, his strength is failing fast and his thoughts are inextricably drawn to the past.

He wakes to find a stranger in his room and is reunited with a now grown Maggie, the Homo Superior child the Sheldons sheltered during the worst of the early anti-mutant unrest.

As a team of X-Men very publicly sacrifice their lives to save the world in Dallas, Texas, Phil finally discovers how his bravely generous act had not only saved one life but also created a modern-day saint in a forgotten corner of the world. As Doris, Jenny and Beth are joyfully reunited with Maggie, the recorder of Marvels passes away quietly in ‘Closing the Book’, content and secure in the knowledge that his legacies will be carried forward…

Although steeped as ever in the cosy minutiae of mainstream Marvel continuity, Busiek and Stern have performed a canny magician’s trick in generalising moments of comicbook detail until new readers can absorb and accept the events as parts of a greater narrative, whilst for slavish fanboys like me, offhand remarks and references have all the added weight of a shared if distanced history, like the Kennedy Shooting, Live Aid, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Who Shot JR and so much more…

Eye of the Camera also relentlessly trades on the fact that there’s no more sentimental creature than a comics reader and this small sequel, whilst lacking the impact of the original blockbuster, offers a moving and insightful end to the most human and approachable Watcher in the Marvel Universe.

This collection also includes a copious ‘Sources’ section, detailing the assorted comics which are referenced throughout the tale, and Busiek’s extended commentary in ‘Marvels: Eye of the Camera -The Outlines’ recounting the original plot before time, distance and changing fashion evolved the story.

That development is also included in ‘Marvels: Eye of the Camera Revised – the Look Ma, no Flashbacks Edition’ and the book ends with a peek at the ‘Art Process’ from Anacleto’s layouts and full pencils to Haberlin’s finished digital paint colours.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters. Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvels


By Kurt Busiek & Alex Ross (Graphitti Designs/Marvel)
ISBN: 0-936211-47-4

Every so often a series, miniseries or story-arc comes along in mainstream comics which irrevocably alters the landscape of the art-form, if not the business. After each such event the medium is never quite the same again…

One such work was the 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries Marvels by jobbing scripter Kurt Busiek and then just-breaking illustrative artist Alex Ross.

I’m usually quite reticent in suggesting people read stuff I know damn well they’ve probably already seen, but as I actually want to review the long, long, long-delayed sequel it’s probably best to start at square one, right?

…And just for clarity’s sake my copy is the 1994 Deluxe, Signed and Numbered Limited Hardcover edition produced under license by Graphitti Designs. It’s pretty spiffy and has, I gather, a few little extras not included in other editions, but is of course far from the only version available…

This tale is all about history and human perspective and follows the working life of photo-journalist Phil Sheldon, whose career closely paralleled the dawn of the modern heroic era; when science, magic, courage and overwhelming super-nature gave birth to an Age of Marvels…

After a lovely painted plate containing those aforementioned signatures and a heartfelt dedication to Jack Kirby, writer Kurt Busiek offers his light-hearted reminiscences and mis-rememberings on how the project came about, liberally illustrated with pictures, designs and sketches from the meticulous Alex Ross’ art files, after which the saga opens with ‘A Time of Marvels’…

In 1939 a gaggle of ambitious young newspapermen are discussing the War in Europe. Brash J. Jonah Jameson is trying to dissuade his shutterbug pal Phil Sheldon from heading overseas, claiming there’s plenty of news still inNew York…

Unconvinced, Phil heads to his next assignment: a press conference with scientific crackpot Professor Phineas T. Horton. The photographer’s head is filled with thoughts of journalistic fame and glory on distant battlefields and he almost misses the moment Horton unveils his artificial man: a creature that bursts into flame like a Human Torch…

From that moment Sheldon’s life changes forever. His love-hate fascination with the fantastic miracles which rapidly, unceasingly follow in the fiery wake of the inflammatory inhumanoid is used to trace the history of superhumanity and monstrous menace which comprises the entire canon of what we know as the Marvel Universe.

Soon the android is accepted as a bona fide hero, frequently battling with aquatic invader Sub-Mariner like elemental gods in the skies above the city whilst the seemingly-human vigilante supermen like The Angel constantly ignore the law and daily diminish Phil’s confidence and self-worth. It’s as if by their well-meaning actions these creatures are showing that mere men are obsolete and insignificant.

The photographer’s feelings of ineffectuality and inadequacy having crushed his spirit, Phil turns down the War correspondent assignment and descends into a fearful funk. He even splits up with his fiancée Doris Jaquet: after all, what kind of man brings children into a world with such inhuman horrors in it?

Nevertheless Sheldon cannot stop following the exploits of the phenomenons he’s dubbed “Marvels”…

It all changes with the arrival of patriotic icon Captain America. With theLand ofLiberty in the War at last, many once-terrifying titans have become the nation’s allies and secret weapons, turning their awesome power against the Axis foe and winning the fickle approval of a grateful public.

However, some were always less dutiful than others and when the tempestuous Sub-Mariner again battled the Torch, Prince Namor of Atlantis petulantly unleashed a tidal wave against New York and Phil was injured snapping the event.

Even after the loss of an eye, Phil’s newfound belief in the Marvels doesn’t waver and he rededicates himself to his job and Doris; happily going to Europe where his pictures of America’s superhuman Invaders crushing the Nazi threat become part of the fabric of history…

The second chapter skips to the 1960s where Sheldon, wife Doris and daughters Jenny and Beth are, like most New Yorkers, at the epicentre of another outbreak of meta-humanity – a second Age of Marvels…

Two new bands of costumed heroes are operating openly: a Fantastic Foursome comprising Reed Richards, Ben Grimm and Sue and Johnny Storm and another masked, anonymous team who hide their identities and call themselves Avengers. There are also numerous independent costumed characters streaking across the skies and hogging the headlines, which Jonah Jameson – now owner and publisher of the newspaper he once wrote for – is none too happy about. After all he has never trusted masks and is violently opposed to this new crop of masked mystery-men…

Phil is still an in-demand freelancer, but has had a novel idea and signs a deal for a book of his photos just as the first flush of popular fancy begins to wane and the increasing anxiety about humanoid mutants begins to choke and terrify the man in the street…

When the mysterious X-Men are spotted, Sheldon is caught up in a spontaneous anti-mutant race-riot and is appalled to find himself throwing bricks with the rest of the out-of control mob. He’s even close enough to hear their leader dismissively claim “They’re not worth it”…

Shocked and dazed, he goes home to his nice, normal family but the incident won’t leave him, even as he throws himself into his work and his book. He worries that his daughters seem to idolise the Marvels. “Normal” people seemed bizarrely conflicted, dazzled and besotted by the celebrity status of the likes of Reed Richards and Sue Storm as they prepared for their upcoming wedding, yet prowling the streets in vigilante packs lest some ghastly mutant show its disgusting face…

Events come to a head when Phil finds his own children harbouring a mutant in the cellar. During WWII Phil photographed the liberation of Auschwitzand looking into the huge deformed orbs of “Maggie” he sees what he saw in the eyes of those pitiful survivors. His basic humanity eventually wins out and Phil lets her stay, but he can’t help dreading what his friends and neighbours might do if they find such a creature mere yards from their own precious families…

The hysteria just keeps on growing and the showbiz glitz of the Richards/Storm wedding is almost immediately overshadowed by the catastrophic launch of anthropologist Bolivar Trask‘s Sentinels. At first the mutant-hunting robots seem like humanity’s boon but when they usurp their programming and attempt to take over Earth it is the despised and dreaded Homo Superior who save all mankind.

Of course the man in the street knows nothing of this and all Phil sees is more panicked mobs rioting and destroying their own homes…

In fear for his family he rushes back to Doris and the girls, only to find that Maggie has vanished: the unlovely little child had realised how much her presence had endangered her benefactors. They never saw her again…

Chapter 3 focuses on the global trauma of ‘Judgement Day’ as the shine truly starts coming off the apple. Even though crises come thick and fast and are as quickly dealt with, vapid, venal humanity begins to become jaded with its burgeoning costumed community and once-revered heroes are plagued by scandal after scandal. Exhausted, disappointed and dejected, Phil shelves his book project, but fate takes a hand when the skies catch fire and an incredible shiny alien on a sky-borne surfboard announces the end of life on Earth…

The planet-devouring Galactus seems unstoppable and the valiant, rapidly-responding Fantastic Four are humiliatingly defeated. Phil, along with the rest of the world, embraces the end and wearily walks home to be with his loved ones, repeatedly encountering humanity at its best and nauseating, petty, defeated worst.

However, with the last-minute assistance of the Silver Surfer, who betrays his puissant master and endures an horrific fate, Reed Richards saves the world, but within days he is accused of faking the entire episode and Sheldon, disgusted with his fellow men, explodes in moral revulsion…

Some time later Phil’s photo-book is finally released in the concluding ‘The Day She Died’. Now an avowed and passionate proponent of masked heroes, humanity’s hair-trigger ambivalence and institutionalised rushes to judgement constantly aggravate him even as he meets the public and signs countless copies of “Marvels”.

The average American’s ungrateful and ingracious attitudes rankle particularly since the mighty Avengers are currently lost in another galaxy defending Earth from collateral destruction in a war between the rival galactic empires of the Kree and the Skrulls, but the most constant bugbear is old associate Jonah Jameson’s obsessive pillorying of the mysterious Spider-Man.

Phil particularly despises a grovelling, ethically-deprived young freelance photographer named Peter Parker who constantly curries favour with the Daily Bugle’s boss by selling pictures that deliberately make the Wall-crawler look bad…

Phil’s book has brought a measure of success, and when the aging photographer hires young Marcia Hardesty as a PA/assistant whilst he works on a follow-up, he finds a passionate kindred spirit. Still, everywhere Sheldon looks costumed champions are being harried, harassed and hunted by two-faced citizens and corrupt demagogues, although even he has to admit some of the newer heroes are hard to like…

Ex-Russian spy the Black Widow is being tried for murder, protesting students are wounded by a Stark Industries super-armoured thug and in Times Square a guy with a murky past is touting himself as a Hero for Hire…

When respected Police Captain George Stacy is killed during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, Jameson is frantic to pin the death on the Web-spinner but hero-worshipping Phil digs deeper. He interviews many witnesses, including the murderously malign, multi-limed loon himself, and consequently strikes up a friendship with Stacy’s lovely daughter Gwen, a truly sublime young lady who is inexplicably dating that unscrupulous weasel Parker…

One evening, hoping for another innocuous chat with the vivacious lass, Phil sees her being abducted by the Green Goblin and, desperately giving chase, watches as his vaunted hero Spider-Man utterly fails to save her from death. Her murder doesn’t even rate a headline; that’s saved for industrialist Norman Osborn who was found mysteriously slain that same night…

Gutted, worn out and somehow betrayed, Sheldon chucks it all in, but seeing that Marcia still has the fire in her belly and wonder in her eyes, leaves her his camera and his mission…

Immediately following is a fulsome Appendix section which reprints Ross’ preliminary origin of the Golden Age Human Torch as first seen in Marvels issue #0 and his laudatory Afterword and Acknowledgements, before a wealth of Images begins, consisting of promotional art pages and a stunning double-page pin-up of ‘X-Women’.

There are also model sheets and studies for Namor, Ben Grimm, Dr. Doom, Tony Stark and Iron Man, the Black Widow, Gwen Stacy, Black Panther and others.

Even more artistic treats include illos for a proposed Iron Man 2020 series, the Inhumans, Hobgoblin, more X-Women, the cover to Marvels #0 and a lavish painted recreation of Amazing Fantasy #15 which served as a cover for Heroes Illustrated.

Although this titanic tale traces the history of Marvel continuity, the sensitive and evocative journey of Phil Sheldon is crafted in such a way that no knowledge of the mythology is necessary to understand the plot; and would indeed be a hindrance to sharing the feelings of an ordinary man in extraordinary times.

One of Marvel’s and indeed the genre’s greatest.

But you probably already know that and if you don’t what are you waiting for…?
© 1994 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest


By Dan Slott, Khoi Pham, Rafa Sandoval, Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz, Harvey Tolibao & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3746-7

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of 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.

Over the decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst their colourful ranks.

In recent years, Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) had, through various machinations, replaced Tony Stark asAmerica’s Security Czar: the “top cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to ultra-technological threats and all metahuman influences…

Under Stark’s tenure a Superhuman Registration Act had resulted in a divisive Civil War amongst the costumed community with tragic repercussions, but the nation and the world were no safer.

At one stage the planet was almost lost to an insidious Secret Invasion by alien Skrulls leading to Osborn’s succession and the former villain’s exerting overt control over America by instigating an oppressive “Dark Reign” which saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes driven underground. To cement his position Osborn actually replaced the Avengers with his own hand-picked team of criminals and impostors.

From that particularly troubled time comes this fast and furious compilation collecting issues #21-26 of Mighty Avengers (2009) and material from Secret Invasion: Requiem wherein Stark/Iron Man’s lack of leadership and poor judgement during the crisis has led returned founding-member Henry Pym to seize control of the Avengers.

What You Need to Know: the Skrulls are shape-shifting aliens who’ve bedevilled Earth ever since Fantastic Four #2 and they’ve long been a pernicious cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After years of humiliation and defeat the metamorphic malcontents finally hit on a winning plan, and to this end they gradually replaced a number of key Earth denizens – most notably superheroes and other metahumans.

When the plot was first uncovered it led to a confrontation between Earth’s champions and a Skrull ship full of what appeared to be old friends – some of whom had been dead for years. Were they escaped humans or yet another army of newly undetectable super-Skrulls? With no defender of the Earth knowing who to trust the planet almost fell to a determined massed onslaught…

With all stories written by Dan Slott, ‘How I’ll Remember You’ (illustrated by Khoi Pham & colourist Chris Sotomayor) opens proceedings as robotic Avenger Jocasta looks through the copious wardrobes of Janet Van Dyne whose ultimate sacrifice ended the Skrull assaults. Although the Wasp died, her memory patterns were encoded in the very confused robot and the conflicting data is beginning to cause a few problems…

For a start she is increasingly drawn to Pym, a man Jan was married to for years and a bi-polar genius who has just changed his powers and identity again. In the past Dr. Pym created the roles of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket, but now he’s calling himself the Wasp…

The 3-part ‘Earth’s Mightiest’ begins with ‘The Smartest Man in the Room’ (inked by Crimelab Studios’ Allen Martinez & Danny Miki) and sees two survivors of the decimated Young Avengers sifting through the rubble of the group’s iconic Mansion when the long-gone Scarlet Witch appears. The last time she was seen her madness caused the deaths of many team-mates and the dissolution of the Avengers, but now the enigmatic figure seems intent on putting the band back together.

As well as now commanding all of America’s covert agencies and military resources under his umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R., Osborn also has his own suit of super-armour. As Iron Patriot he leads a hand-picked team which includes Greek War-God Ares, golden superman Sentry, a new Marvel Boy and seemingly familiar heroes Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and Wolverine (played by criminal killers Bullseye, Moonstone, Venom and the clawed mutant’s deeply disturbed son Daken) on high profile missions as part of a prolonged charm offensive.

Whilst Iron Patriot leads his ersatz team in media-hogging missions, the juvenile Vision and Stature are manipulated by the Scarlet Witch into joining Hercules, child genius Amadeus Cho, U.S.Agent, the Hulk and even faithful butler Edwin Jarvis as they petition Pym to reorganise and revitalise the Avengers.

She even approaches the out-of-favour Iron Man…

The boy Cho – “seventh smartest person on the planet” has deduced that a Chaos Cascade is warping the laws of physics and threatens humanity but whilst Osborn’s Avengers are wasting time fighting the catastrophic symptoms, the young genius has come to someone potentially even sharper to help tackle the cause…

Pym deduces that the crisis has originated in the mystic provinceof Transia and he’s right. On haunted Mount Wundagore the cursed mystic Modred has been working to bring Cthon, god of Chaos to Earth through the terrifyingly puissant tome the Darkhold.

By the time the scratch-team reach the Balkan ground zero however, the mage has succeeded in his task and the demon deity strides the Earth in the once-comatose body of the Witch’s brother Quicksilver…

‘The Writing on the Wall’ opens with a Cthonic crisis slowly wrecking the planet, even as the extremely unwelcome Iron Man strong-arms his way onto the team and straight into a knock-down, drag-out tussle with the ever-irascible Hulk. Pym and the rest of his ill-fitting squad ignore them and instead brave Modred’s lair where the size-shifting scientist gleans a possible solution.

It all has to do with Quicksilver’s mind and soul which are now trapped in the pages of the discarded Darkhold…

The first epic concludes with ‘Three Little Words’ when, in final battle with the disunited defenders, the smugly omnipotent Cthon stupidly underestimates the devious subtlety of the Shrinking Man’s science…

In the happy aftermath with the demon-god banished and both Quicksilver and the World restored, the Scarlet Witch disappears again, taking with her a dark and very damaging secret…

On a high, the Mighty Avengers decide to stick together in ‘Chasing Ghosts’ (with art by Rafa Sandoval, Roger Bonet Martinez & John Rauch) as the provocatively intransigent Witch orchestrates a distracting clash with Nazi bee hive-mind Swarm whilst her obsessed mutant speedster brother Quicksilver desperately tries to catch a few moments alone with his estranged and oddly acting sister.

Meanwhile Osborn (who is also secretly conspiring with a Cabal of super-villains including Asgardian God Loki, gang-boss The Hood, mutant Emma Frost, Taskmaster, Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom) finally acts to remove his Avenging rivals by sending H.A.M.M.E.R. troops to shut down Pym’s trans-dimension laboratory/citadel…

With the lab slowly detaching from the Real World and Pym’s impossible, hush-hush dream project critically endangered, the embattled heroes split up as the final story-arc ‘Mighty/Fantastic’ (illustrated by Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz, Harvey Tolibao, Noah Salonga, Jean-Francois Beaulieu & June Chung) finds The Wasp forced into conflict with one of his oldest friends and allies.

By most people’s standards Reed Richards is the Smartest Man Alive, but when he is asked by Pym to return a device which could save the dissolving extra-dimensional lab, the leader of the Fantastic Four makes a big mistake by saying no and even questioning the erstwhile Ant-Man’s intellect and stability.

Of course you realise this means war….

Desperate and really ticked off, Pym and his team launch an assault on the FF to regain the urgently needed doodad in a tension-drenched caper dubbed ‘The Baxter Job’ which culminates in a spectacular, impossibly even-matched fracas and a delightfully off-beat but apropos ending in ‘You Can’t Get There from Here’…

Remarkably self-contained and clear-cut for a book so mired in multiple complex continuities, Earth’s Mightiest offers a huge amount of fun, thrills and tense suspense which will delight fans of Costumed Dramas.

This sterling tome also offers a gallery of covers used and unused from Khoi Pham, Marko Djurdjevic, Crimelab Studios’ Allen Martinez, Dave McCaig, Danny Miki, Dean White, Jason Keith, and a Dark Reign teaser ad by Daniel Acuña.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.