Marvel Superheroes – Page 76

August 23, 2012August 23, 2012

Thor volume 2

By Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr. with John Buscema, Klaus Janson & Jerry OrdwayÂ (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4632-2

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The taleÂ Â introduced crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror he was trapped in a cave wherein lay an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, the puny human smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

The series grew from formulaic beginnings battling aliens, commies and cheap thugs into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming the Mighty Thor where, after years of bombastic adventuring, the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined and finally clarified to explain how the immortal godling could also be locked within frail Don Blake.

The epic saga took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth and finally revealed that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian construct designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassionâ€¦

Time passed, Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee and Rob Liefield during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught publishing event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later.

In July Mighty Thor volume 2 opened with ‘In Search of the Gods’ by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, which with its ‘Deal with the Devil!’ depicted the return of the lost god and the Avengers after more than a year way from the home cosmos only to find that hallowed Asgard had been devastated and deserted.

Moreover, back on Earth the Thunderer was reinstated into the â€œrealâ€ world just in time to die in battle against the annihilating Asgardian artefact known as the Destroyer. Whilst the Avengers struggled on against the unstoppable creature, the godling’s spirit was snatched from the realm of death-goddess Hela by mysterious mystic powerhouse Marnot before being melded with the dying body of EMT Jake Olsen: an innocent killed during the struggle thanks to Thor’s negligence.

The resurrected Storm Lord again walked the Earth but only as the dormant-until-summoned alter-ego of another frail mortal host: duly defeating the Destroyer, battling sea-monsters of sea-goddess Sedna, sparring with Hercules and being framed for attacking and devastating Olympusâ€¦

The true architects of most of this mayhem were a pantheon of previously unknown Dark Gods – Perrikus, Adva, D’Chel, Slottoth, Tokkots and Majeston Zelia – so powerful that they managed to take possession of the fallen Fabled Realm and bar Thor’s return to Asgardâ€¦

This second compilation collects the contents of issues #9-13 and the 1999 Thor Annual and sees the end of that first extended story-arc beginning with ‘Answers’ by regular writer Dan Jurgens and guest illustrators John Buscema & Jerry Ordway as a very old robotic menace returns when a couple of young punks luck into the operating system for android bandit Replicus. Whilst the earthbound Thunder God is taking care of business in Asgard, the Dark usurpers are crowing over the ravaged, tortured bodies of his best friend Balder, betrothed Lady Sif and mighty sire Odin, all the while scheming how to destroy the last remaining free Asgardianâ€¦

Thor is just as keen on meeting his elusive tormentors and finally gains insight from the enigmatic Marnot who reveals a long ago day when the early Asgardians encountered the pantheon of cruel gods enslaving the realm of Narcisson and were propelled into a brutal all-out war.

Against all logic the Narcisson’s won and were on the verge of eradicating the Asgardians until a juvenile Thor turned the tide and enabled Odin and his surviving warriors to carry the day. With the dark gods defeated and imprisoned the All-Father then wiped the memories of the triumphant warriors to spare them the trauma and loss of so many comrades and loved ones. But now somehow the Narcisson gods were free and had at last conquered the Eternal Realm.

Armed at last with knowledge, Thor began to prepare for the invasion and liberation of Asgardâ€¦

The campaign began in the three part saga ‘The Dark Wars’ by Jurgens, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson as the human Jake Olsen frantically began to set his complex human affairs in order. The conjoined hero was blithely unaware that Dr. Jane Foster – Don Blake’s first love – had deduced his godly secret and that an unknown hand was setting him up to take the fall for selling stolen hospital drugsâ€¦

Before the exiled prince was ready, however, Perrikus attacked New York demanding a duel with the Odin-son and threatening to kill the Lady Sif if the Thunderer didn’t show. With the gateway to Asgard clear, Thor charges in to find the city as bad as ever and his loved ones broken toys of the Dark Gods. Enraged he attacks but after a blockbusting battle his magic mallet is cloven in half and he feels himself impossibly transforming back into mortal Jake Olsenâ€¦

Forced to flee into a sewer drain, Olsen discovers a horrific underworld beneath the fallen city and is captured by trolls in the very bowels of Asgard. The frail human is being worked to death as far above the black pantheon are unable to detect any trace of the vanished Thor, but feels a burst of untrammelled hope and joy when he discovers that many of his missing comrades are also enslaved in the noisome pitsâ€¦

However before Olsen can attempt to rescue them the vile Tokkots appears and whisks him back to the throne-room and the waiting Narcissons, but Perrikus is furious that he cannot battle his true enemy but only a mortal shell, until the broken battered human falls on the remnant of mystic Mjolnir and is transformed into a fighting mad Storm Lordâ€¦

Unexpectedly Thor flees into inter-dimensional space, realising that pride and fury are not enough and that what he really needs are potent alliesâ€¦

The fearsome finale begins as Thor convinces the deadly Destroyer and Hercules to raid the once-Golden Realm in a blistering last charge against the Dark Ones and their massed minions whilst he raids the depths to free the Asgardian survivors and activates a cleverly concealed ally. Soon Odin, Sif and Balder are free too and the fall of the Narcissons is seemingly assured – but the malignant invaders still have one last nasty card to playâ€¦

It proves not enough and eventually the brutalised Asgardians are triumphant, after which the epilogue ‘The Work of Odin’ answers many questions – such as the true identity of manipulative schemer Marnot, the ultimate fate of the human trapped within the deadly Destroyer’s shell and the fate of both light and dark godsâ€¦

This excessively action-packed, if plot light, chronicle is completed by the inclusion of the 1999 Thor Annual which at last revealed why Thor arrived back in our universe so much later than his Avenging Allies.

Written and pencilled by Jurgens with inks from Janson ‘The Tears of a God’ found Thor visiting the Fantastic Four and describing the dimensional rip which left him partially amnesiac and filled with ineffable sadness, before – for our eyes only – the story was fully disclosedâ€¦

After battling Doctor Doom in the space between worlds, Thor and the Iron Dictator were cast onto an alien planet where the wounded Thunderer was nursed to health by a mysterious outcast named Ceranda. Somehow unable to leave the desolate world, the lost scion of Asgard grew slowly closer to the beautiful hermit, whilst elsewhere Doom was taking control of the a subterranean society and co-opting their technology and resources to his selfish needsâ€¦

The last thing the Lord of Latveria needed for escape was Thor’s dimension-spanning hammer and he knew the true reason why it wasn’t workingâ€¦

This tale of dark desire and selfish love ended badly all round so perhaps its best that after the battle and return to Earth Thor had no memory of the weeks spent with the bewitching Cerandaâ€¦

Whilst not to everyone’s taste, this blistering Fight’s ‘n’ Tights epic is a cosmic clash fan’s delight and the artwork is undeniably some of the best of the modern Marvel Age, so if you want your pulse to pound and your graphic senses to swim this is the ideal item for you.
Â© 1998, 1999, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 15, 2012August 14, 2012

Captain America: Road to Reborn

By Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin, Luke Ross, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4175-4

The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (now Marvel) Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also among the very first to fade at the end of the Golden Age.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression dominated the American psyche in the early 1950s he was briefly revived – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – in 1953 before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics once more brought him back in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) in the final days of the war, the resurrected Steve Rogers first stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well. He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in US history, but always struggled to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

Eventually, whilst another morally suspect war raged in the real world, during the Marvel event known as Civil War he became an anti-government rebel and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that always assumed-dead sidekick. The truth was far more tragic. Bucky had been captured by the Russians and over decades had been brainwashed into becoming an infallible assassin before being turned loose as the lethal Soviet super-agent, The Winter Soldier.

Once rescued and cured of his unwanted enemy-agent role the artificially youthful and part-cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s big crimson bootsâ€¦

This powerful patriotic thriller, written as ever by Ed Brubaker, examines the nature and value of patriotism and collects Captain America issues #49-50 before returning to the original numbering for the anniversary #600 and follow-up #601.

After years of commercially advantageous restarts, volume 5 (#50 of the regular comicbook) was followed a month later by volume 1, #600, dated August 2008, setting in play characters and plot-threads which led up to the inevitable resurrection of the original Star-Spangled Avenger – details of which where subsequently revealed in Captain America Rebornâ€¦

The drama initially unfolds in ‘Sentinel of Liberty’ – illustrated by Marcos Martin – which recapitulates in graphic newsreel form the WWII careers of Captain America and Bucky from their origins to the formation of metahuman combat unit The Invaders and the tragic loss of the All-American Allies to the nefarious Baron Zemo. Picking up after Steve Rogers was revived by Sub-Mariner and the Mighty Avengers, the history lesson then follows his second glorious life until it was cut short on the steps of that infamous Courthouseâ€¦

‘The Daughter of Time’ finds Sharon Carter in her old Virginia home, recovering from her ordeal as a captive and puppet of the Red Skull, Arnim Zola and Dr. Faustus, and horribly traumatised by the knowledge that their programming forced her to shoot her beloved Steve Rogers. Seeking a less painful reality she visits the institutionalised Peggy Carter – who was Captain America’s lover during WWII – and shares again the stories and memories she first heard as an avid little girl. As she listens, she dreads the moment that Alzheimer’s finally takes her Aunt’s mind and life foreverâ€¦

Sam Wilson, the high-flying Falcon, is busy searching for William Burnside, a deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.

As a student Burnside was obsessed with the Sentinel of Liberty and had diligently divined the hero’s true name, rediscovered most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Star-Spangled Avenger and even had his identity and features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action Steve Rogers.

Volunteering his services to the FBI, then conducting a nationwide war on spies, subversives and suspected commies, Burnside and impressionable youngster Jack Monroe briefly became Captain America and Bucky; crushing every perceived threat to the nation.

Sadly it soon became apparent that their definition of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, independent women and anybody who disagreed with the governmentâ€¦

After a few short months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly â€œretiredâ€ as the super-soldier serum he and Monroe used turned them into super-strong, raving, racist paranoids.

Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty only to be defeated by Cap, the Falcon and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. Although Monroe was eventually cured, Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real America, most recently as an integral part of the Skull, Zola and Faustus’ plot to plant a Nazi stooge in the Oval Office.

When the scheme was foiled, the doppelganger Cap had escaped and disappeared into the nation’s heartlandâ€¦

Back in Virginia a chance meeting with an old friend of Steve’s leads to one more horrific discovery and more of Sharon’s occluded memories return. At last she recalls that during her domination by Dr. Faustus, she was knifed and lost the baby she was carrying: Steve Rogers’ unborn child and last legacyâ€¦

At the Larkmore Clinic Peggy is reliving old times and secrets with her lover. In her bewildered state of mind it’s still the 1940s and the sweet man beside her is Steve, not William Burnsideâ€¦

Back at the Carter residence Sharon awakens from another nightmare of recovered memories, but in these a mysteriously obscured figure is trying to make himself clear. Could the real Captain America still be alive?

‘Days Gone By’ (Ross & Magyar) focuses on Jim Barnes on his birthday, as the technically octogenarian replacement Cap recalls his early life and relives his glory days with Steve and the Invaders. Unbidden though, he also remembers the horrors of his life as a communist living weapon before his newfound Avenger comrades threw him the party of a lifetimeâ€¦

Captain America #600 opens with the two-page ‘Origin’ – a reprinted retelling from Alex Ross, Paul Dini & Todd Klein first seen in 2002’s Captain America: Red, White and Blue, after which Butch Guice, Howard Chaykin, Rafael Albuquerque, David Aja, Mitch Breitweiser, Frank D’Armata, Edgar Delgado & Matt Hollingsworth all collaborate on Brubaker’s ‘One Year Later’ in which a vigil on the Courthouse steps draws a number of seemingly unconnected characters into dramatic conflict.

In ‘Sharon Carter’s Lament’, impelled by her unveiled memories, the still-reeling ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent savagely tracks down the other participants in Cap’s shooting and uncovers the weapon she used on her lover. She is elated to discover it is not a normal gunâ€¦

A cunning fugitive travelling through the economically ravaged Middle America, Burnside –‘The Other Steve Rogers’ – reviews again his own origins. When an unwise thief tries to rob him, the â€œBad Capâ€ gets an inkling of how to turn his life aroundâ€¦

Before the Super-Soldier serum was used on Rogers it was shamefully pre-tested on Negro volunteers, leading to the very first Captain America being briefly a black soldier named Isaiah Bradley.

His life and sacrifice covered up for decades, Bradley was a forgotten hero but his grandson Elijah, afflicted with the same unflinching sense of right and wrong, has recently become a star-spangled vigilante codenamed the Patriot and worked as a Young Avenger. In ‘The Youth of Today’ he has a life changing encounter with Rikki Barnes, the dimensionally-displaced sidekick of an alternate universe Sentinel of Libertyâ€¦

‘Crossbones and Sin’ were lovers as well as being the Red Skull’s enforcer and daughter respectively. As back-up shooter for the Captain America hit, Crossbones had been a model prisoner at the H.A.M.M.E.R. Federal Holding Facility. Then some fool guard taunted him that Sin had also been captured and was badly wounded in the infirmaryâ€¦

‘The Avengers Dilemma’ is simple: Norman Osborn, Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and de facto Federal overlord of American metahuman affairs, has declared the proposed candlelit vigil an illegal gathering. Barnes, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Luke Cage and the others are not going to let that stop themâ€¦

After an ironic interlude observing ‘The Red Skull’s Delerium’ whilst the malign disembodied intelligence is trapped in a mechanical corpse designed by Zola, ‘The Vigilant’ dramatically divulges the surprising confrontation between Cap’s many friends and mourners and Osborn’s deadly Dark Avengers with a despondent and defiant American public looking nervously onâ€¦

Also included in that memorable comicbook milestone were a number of shorts from past contributors to the ever-lasting legend beginning with ‘In Memoriam’ by Roger Stern, Kalman Andrasofszky & Marte Gracia, wherein old friend Josh Cooper and Steve’s one-time girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal get together to remember the man and the legend in their own way, whilst ‘The Persistence of Memorabilia’ by Mark Waid, Dale Eaglesham & Paul Mounts describes the hero’s legacy as Cap’s greatest fan liquidates his entire collection of keepsakes and mementoes to further the fallen hero’s work in his own inadequate wayâ€¦

Topping off the celebrations are a comedic tribute ‘Passing the Torch’ by Fred Hembeck and the prose reminiscence ‘My Bulletin Board’ from Cap’s co-creator Joe Simonâ€¦

A different kind of commemoration filled issues #601 (September 2009) as legendary artist and oft-time Cap illustrator Gene Colan (assisted by colour artist Dean White rendering moody hues over the master’s inimitable â€œpainting-with-pencil style) delivers one last impressive WWII yarn to close the comics part of this classic chronicle.

Scripted by Brubaker, the eerie epic reveals Captain America and Bucky’s determined and relentless pursuit of a sinister leech haunting the bloody Allied frontlines of Bastogne in 1945, mercilessly turning gallant G.I.’s into vile and vicious vampires in ‘Red, White and Blue-Blood’â€¦

The book is rounded out with a stirring tribute to Colan and gallery of cover reproductions from Marko Djurdjevic, Alex Ross, Colan and Steve Epting.

Despite being thoroughly mired in the minutia of the Star-Spangled Hero’s history, this thoroughly readable and exceedingly pretty collection is a fascinating examination of political idealism and personal loss and generally avoids the usual trap of depending too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity.

Tried-and-True Fights ‘n’ Tights thrills, spills and chills that should serve to make a casual reader a die-hard devotee.
Â© 2009 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

August 13, 2012August 10, 2012

X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back

By Kathryn Immonen & Sara Pichelli (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4676-6

Pixie is Megan Gwynn, a purportedly Welsh mutant with fairy wings, a sparkly dust which causes hallucinations, a talent for mass teleportation and an affinity for sorcery. In her earlier appearances she battled necromantic monster Belasco and former New Mutant Magik and gained an eldritch super-weapon called the Souldagger which usually reposes safely inside her chest.

Originally something of a minor pest and a perennial X-Man-in-training, she has become a key player in the fortunes of the World’s Most Harried sub-species, having survived the numerous slaughters which have decimated her classmates, perpetual mystic attacks from assorted devils and elder gods such as the N’Garai and repeated assaults by mutant-hunters of all description.

That’s pretty much all you need to know (although the rest of her immensely convoluted back-story does make for interesting and entertaining reading) to enjoy this delightful, game-changing tale – originally released as a 4-part miniseries in 2010 – which set up the elfin X-Man for a far bigger role in the madcap mutant multiverse.

Written by Kathryn Immonen in a breezy, sassy girl-power style and superbly illustrated by Sara Pichelli, the action kicks off with Megan and BFFs Ruth Aldine, Laura Kinney, Hisako Ichiki and Cessily Kincaid strutting their stuff as the most popular girls in High School – as usual.

Only thing is Pixie, Blindfold, X-23, Armor and Mercury aren’t simple spoiled human brats but mutant warriors in training, and none of them particularly like the fairy dust flinger anywayâ€¦

Megan is in some distress: the comforting reality of a normal – if appallingly obnoxious and privileged – life is constantly unravelling and revealing glimpses of demons, monsters and excessive violence. Why is she constantly seeing such things?

Meanwhile on Utopia Island, isolated enclave of Earth’s few remaining Homo Superior, Pixie’s mother – and a genuine Faerie elder – has come looking for her daughter with the news that her father wasn’t actually the man who sired herâ€¦

Moreover a headcount reveals Mercury, Armor, X-23 and Pixie are missing, leaving Blindfold and classmates Rockslide and Anole to reluctantly seek help from baffled and harassed teachers Psylocke and Nightcrawlerâ€¦

The missing girls have been abducted by an ambitious and overreaching demon dubbed Saturnine who is feeding them all tailored illusions powered by Megan’s own hallucinogenic dust. The foul hell-beast had a plan to achieve ultimate power by bringing Megan’s dark side out and capturing her Fey mother, but increasingly, Pixie is reshaping the unreal fantasy world to suit her own tastes and everything is slowly sliding out of his controlâ€¦

Back on Utopia, Nightcrawler and the kids have called in snarky headmistress Emma Frost, and the White Queen is extremely unhappy to be bothered with such trifles. Only when the precognitive Blindfold begins experiencing terrible future-flashes does Frost take executive action in her own draconian mannerâ€¦

In the otherworldly demon-dungeon Pixie is beginning to turn, attacking her friends with the eldritch Souldagger just as her still-searching mother tracks down Megan’s siblings: equally aberrant daughters of her beguiling mutant birth-father.

It appears Megan is the child of one of the X-Men’s most insidious enemiesâ€¦

In Saturnine’s lair things are not going well. Pixie’s resistance is threatening to overturn all his multifarious plans. Moreover, the mutant maid’s distress should have drawn her puissant mother into his trap but â€œMrs. Gwynnâ€ is still conspicuously absent. To cap it all, the X-Girls Pixie stabbed with her Souldagger have been cleansed of her mystic glamours and are attempting to break freeâ€¦

It all hits the fan at once as Pixie rejects Saturnine’s illusions just as X-23, Mercury and Armor bust loose at the very instant Mrs. Gwynn and Megan’s extremely wicked step-sisters arrive. Hard on their heels are an extremely upset Emma Frost with a squad of X-Men and the chaotic battle lines are drawn for apocalyptic confrontationâ€¦

His plans all in tatters and resorting to mindless violence at last, the demonic guardian of the Road of Lost Souls and his unholy hordes are astounded when Pixie seemingly turns on her rescuers and allies before giving Saturnine a mighty soulsword all of his own and the key to ultimate powerâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed but still laced with devilishly clever sharp-clawed humour, this is a uncomplicated Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller that should appeal as much to casual girl readers as died-in-the-spandex aging X-Fans.

July 26, 2012July 25, 2012

Stan Lee Presents the Amazing Spider-Man volume 2

By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, with Jack Kirby (Marvel/Pocket Books)
ISBN: 978-0-67181-444-1

Perhaps I have a tendency to over-think things regarding the world of graphic narrative, but it seems to me that the medium, as much as the message, radically affects the way we interpret our loves and fascinations. Take this pint-sized full-colour treat from 1978.

It’s easy to assume that a quickly resized, repackaged paperback book collection of the early comics extravaganzas was just another Marvel cash-cow in their perennial â€œflood the marketplaceâ€ sales strategy – and maybe it was – but as someone who bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years I have to admit that this compact version has a distinct charm and attraction all its ownâ€¦

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby followed the same path which had worked so tellingly for DC Comics, but with less obviously successful results.

This is another brilliant glimpse at how our industry’s gradual inclusion into mainstream literature began and is one more breathtaking paperback package for action fans and nostalgia lovers, offering yet another chance to enjoy some of the best and most influential comics stories of all time.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, from the mid-1970s Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats. As the decade closed, purpose-built graphic collections and a string of new prose adventures tailored to feed into their all-encompassing continuity began oh, so slowly to appear.

Whereas the merits of the latter are a matter for a different review, the company’s careful reformatting of classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb and recurring effort to generate back-history primers and a perfect – if perilous – alternative venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds.

The dream project was never better represented than in this classy little crime-busting collection. Marvel was frequently described as â€œthe House that Jack Builtâ€ and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comicbook story-telling, but there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was: one whose creativity and even philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, broad lines of Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, voluntarily diffident to the point of invisibility, though his work was both subtle and striking.

Innovative, meticulously polished, and often displaying genuine warmth and affection, Ditko’s art and storytelling always managed to capture minute human detail as he ever explored the man within. He found heroism, humour and ultimate evil; all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity’s scope and consciousness. His drawing could be oddly disquietingâ€¦ and, when he wanted, certainly scary.

Drawing extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for Stan Lee, Ditko had been given his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with Fantastic Four and the ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk but there was no indication of the renaissance to come when the already cancelled Amazing Fantasy #15 cover-featured a brand new and somewhat eerie adventure character.

Of course, by now you’re all aware of how outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy and determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire needâ€¦

After a shaky start 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 and 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.

This second resized, repackaged Fights ‘n’ Tights bonanza (reprising Amazing Spider-Man #7-13 from 1963-1964) opens, after the mandatory Stan Lee Prologue, with an encore appearance of the Wall-crawler’s first super-powered foe, as a murderous septuagenarian flying bandit at first defeated his juvenile nemesis before falling to the Web-spinner’s boundless bravery and ingenuity in a spectacular duel above the city in ‘The Return of the Vulture’.

Fun and youthful hi-jinks were a signature feature of the series, as was Parker’s budding romance with â€œolder womanâ€ Betty Brant, a secretary at the Daily Bugle where Peter Parker worked part-time.

Such â€œSalad daysâ€ exuberance was the underlying drive in #8â€²s lead tale ‘The Living Brain!’ when an ambulatory robot calculator threatened to expose Spider-Man’s secret identity before running amok at beleaguered Midtown High, just as Parker was finally beating the stuffings out of school bully and personal gadfly Flash Thompson.

This riotous romp was accompanied by ‘Spiderman Tackles the Torch!’ (a short and sweet vignette drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Ditko) wherein a boisterous wall-crawler gate-crashed a beach party thrown by the flaming hero’s girlfriendâ€¦ with explosive consequences.

Amazing Spider-Man #9 was a qualitative step-up in dramatic terms as Peter’s aged Aunt May was revealed to be chronically ill – adding to the lad’s financial woes – and the action was supplied by ‘The Man Called Electro!’ a super-criminal with grand aspirations.

Spider-Man was always a loner, never far from the dark, grimy streets filled with small-time thugs and criminals and with this tale, wherein he also quells a prison riot single handed, Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism began to show through; a predilection confirmed in #10â€²s ‘The Enforcers!’, a classy mystery where a masked mastermind known as the Big Man used a position of trust at the Bugle to organize all the New York mobs into one unbeatable army against decency.

Longer plot-strands were also introduced as Betty mysteriously vanished (her fate to be revealed in the next issue and here the next chapter), but most fans remember this one for the spectacularly climactic seven-page fight scene in an underworld chop-shop that has still never been topped for action-choreography.

The taint of tragedy again touched Parker with a magical two-part adventure ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ which saw the return of the lethally deranged and deformed scientist – complete with formidable mentally-controlled metal tentacles – and the disclosure of a long-hidden secret which had haunted poor Betty Brant for years.

The dark, doom-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension stretched from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and cannily tempered the trenchant melodrama with stunning fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only the masterful Ditko could orchestrate it.

This tension-drenched tiny tome concludes with the introduction of a new super-threat and ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ as a seemingly eldritch bounty-hunter hired by Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to capture Spider-Man eventually revealed his own dark agenda.

Of course the menace was only ended after another mind-boggling battle, this time through the various exotic sets and props of a TV studioâ€¦

These mini-masterpieces of drama, action and suspense immaculately demonstrated the indomitable nature of this perfect American hero, and I suppose in the final reckoning how you come to the material is largely irrelevant; just as long as you doâ€¦

These immortal epics are available in numerous formats.
Â© 1978 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

July 25, 2012July 24, 2012

Rogue

By Howard Mackie & Mike Wieringo (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0171-0

The mutant mystery woman known as Rogue began life as a super-villain and member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: a disturbed young girl cursed with a power that stole traits, abilities and memories from anybody who touched her skin.

It was an ability she could not control or even turn off and any overlong skin-to-skin contact resulted in the victim falling into a coma with their entire history and essence drained into her. Rogue then became a reluctant jailer with stolen powers and personalities locked in her head forever.

After doing just such to Ms. Marvel whilst a member of the Brotherhood, Rogue joined the X-Men in sheer desperation and slowly became a trusted team-player, but she still had her secretsâ€¦

Played as a â€œbad-girlâ€ and mystery woman for years, Rogue grew to become one of the most popular characters in the excessively large cast, and in 1995 won her own beautifully illustrated 4-issue miniseries which at last revealed a few more tantalising secrets, whilst dragging her through a very personal crisis that struck right to the heart of the burgeoning and increasingly convoluted X-franchise continuityâ€¦

Written by Howard Mackie, beautifully drawn by the late and much-missed Mike Wieringo and inked by X-Men veteran Terry Austin, the tale opens with ‘An Affair to Remember’ as the mighty, mysterious mutant is called to Mississippi and the bedside of a comatose boy named Cody.

Meanwhile in New Orleans the deadly External Candra attends a funeral for the recently deceased ruler of the Assassins’ Guild. The all-powerful mutant goddess bears the X-Men a grudge and wants to use leader-elect Bella Donna to exact her vengeanceâ€¦

Donna’s ex-husband is Remy Lebeau and the Assassin-mistress has her own scores to settle with the man now known as Gambit and his new paramourâ€¦

Suffering from a love that cannot be realised, Gambit and Rogue have grown close. Now she reveals how, as kids, Cody was the first boy to kiss her and how her burgeoning power stole his entire vitality in that first tender moment, plunging him into an irreversible slumber and locking his memories within herâ€¦

Now Cody’s body is failing, but as Rogue visits him super-powered assassins attack and steal his inert body. Bella Donna, herself a victim of Rogue’s memory-stealing curse, appears as the assassins flee and warns the heartbroken mutant that everything she cares for will be taken from herâ€¦

In ‘Choices’ Rogue gets a much-needed heads-up from creole witch-woman Tante Mattie – currently the only thing keeping Cody from lingering death – and a warning to rush to Gambit’s side, whilst in New Orleans the Mistress of Death begins to realise the folly of her relationship with the autocratic Externalâ€¦

When Gambit is ambushed by Bella Donna’s agents, Rogue spectacularly saves his bacon but cannot bring herself to accept his help in finding Cody.

Flying alone to â€œThe Big Easyâ€ she plunges straight into an army of Bella Donna’s most lethal guildsmen, all powerfully augmented by Candra’s unlimited mutant mightâ€¦

‘The Gauntlet’ finds Rogue battling hard and hopelessly, with Gambit frantically rushing to her aid, despite an injunction over his head. When he married Bella, Lebeau was an heir of the Thieves Guild and their union was intended to end a centuries-old rivalry, but his wilful nature scotched those plans and now he is forbidden from entering New Orleans on pain of death.

Despite one last warning from an old comrade, Gambit plunges heedlessly into the fray and is quickly overcome, but against all odds Rogue has battled her way through and is looking for a final confrontationâ€¦

One the double-dealing Candra is eager to facilitate, as she transports the exhausted Rogue to Bella Donna’s lair, before neutralising the frenzied foes’ amazing abilities and forcing them to battle with nothing more than fists and nails and mortal musclesâ€¦

The end comes brutally in ‘Back to Life!’ as, on the edge of victory, the Mistress of Assassins is again betrayed by the ruthlessly manipulative External, whose true interest all along has been Gambitâ€¦

Meanwhile the severely-wounded Rogue has finally overcome Bella Donna and still found determination enough to face and thwart Candraâ€¦

â€¦And in the still and silent aftermath the battered but unbowed Southern Siren is granted one final moving moment with Codyâ€¦

Furiously fast-paced and action-stuffed, this gloriously illustrated, mile-a-minute mutant mayhem – with a crazed cod-Cajun flavour to it – is a fearsomely full-on Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller that will astound and delight all fans of the genre.
Â© 1995 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

July 22, 2012July 22, 2012

Wolverine and the X-Men: Regenesis

By Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau, Matteo Scalera, Nick Bradshaw & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-513-0

Radical revision – or at least the appearance of such – is a cornerstone of modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth. However, with such regular re-fitting, even getting back to basics can be just as new and fresh as completely starting overâ€¦

A case in point is this wonderfully fun and frolicsome return to the old days, set immediately after the catastrophic events of X-Men Schism.

What You’ll Need To Knowâ€¦

When the world’s mutant population was reduced to a couple of hundred desperate souls, most of them banded together in self-imposed exile on Utopia Island in San Francisco Bay, in a defensive enclave led and defended by the X-Men. Although generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions were high and leader Cyclops ran the colony in an increasingly draconian and military manner.

His relationship with war-weary second-in-command Wolverine was slowly, inexorably deteriorating as they squabbled over the methods and ideology of the X-nation, each interpreting the idealistic, Cooperative Co-existence dream of Professor Charles Xavier in increasingly different waysâ€¦

Matters came to head after Logan refused to train the latest batch of mutant children as warriors, concerned that they were being cheated of their childhoods. Then 16-year old anarchist telepath Quentin Quire – who called himself Kid Omega – provoked a terrified armed response from humanity by disrupting an arms-limitation conference intended to convince Homo Sapiens to abandon their â€œdefensiveâ€ anti-mutant weapons – giant robotic Sentinels. All hell broke looseâ€¦

With the world once again panicked into insanity and individual nations declaring war on Homo Superior, the assembled mutants and assorted superheroes are kept busy saving humans from their own bellicose paranoid folly, allowing a bunch of very human, sociopathic rich kids to make a lethal power-play against their own parents.

The greedy, remorseless, ambitious and impatient scions of munitions millionaires, human traffickers and deranged scientists had waited too long for what they considered theirs and, after murdering their adult guardians, took over the Hellfire Club to initiate a bold scheme of ruling the Earth before they hit pubertyâ€¦

Their cynical, vicious plan involved using the threat of mutants to stampede humans into buying the Club’s new, outrageously expensive Super-Sentinels, profiting from death and terror as the wisely wealthy always hadâ€¦

In a devastating, if brief, war the embattled Utopians become the unwitting target of increasingly bloody attacks and Cyclops and Wolverine catastrophically clashed over the role of the super-powered children in their care, and although Utopia was ultimately saved in the nick of time, the policy-split led to a sundering of the Mutants as Wolverine took many of the youngest kids and some of Cyclops’ oldest, but most disappointed and disaffected, friends to a place where they could attempt to rekindle Xavier’s first endeavour – a school where mutants could live relatively normal livesâ€¦

The separation hopefully left Utopia Island as the highly visible fortress against and target for human aggression; populated by warriors and militaristic genocide-survivors ready to take the Race – or perhaps more correctly, Species – War to the oppressors, with the kids allowed to grow up in peace and safetyâ€¦

Of course it didn’t work out that wayâ€¦

Following on from the epochal events of X-Men Schism, this utterly engrossing tome (collecting Wolverine and the X-Men #1-7, from 2011) returns to the far lighter, fun-laced thrills of the 1960s Merry Mutants and opens with a 3-part epic in ‘Welcome to the X-Menâ€¦ Now Die!’

Reluctant and decidedly unsure headmaster Wolverine is getting a much needed pep-talk from Professor X as the new Jean Grey School for Higher Learning opens on the site of the old X-Mansionâ€¦

Nervously occupying a daily evolving super-scientific facility, the faculty staff includes the Beast, Iceman, Kitty Pryde, Husk, Cyclops’ telepathic daughter Rachel Grey and other former X-Men, whilst the ever-growing student population comprises a number of earthly mutants old and new and even selected aliens such as a gentle and compassionate Brood and the obnoxious, troublesome, belligerent spoiled-brat heir to the star-spanning Shi’ar.

Admittedly Lord Kubark was only grudgingly accepted in return for past favours and cutting-edge alien techâ€¦

Even as Chief administrator Kitty desperately attempts to convince the local School Board Inspectors that the institution poses no threat to the community or kids, the first crisis erupts as Kade Kilgore, Black King of the pre-pubescent Hellfire Club, launches an attack on the school, which he considers a personal affront to his plans.

Launching an attack by his lab-grown army of Frankenstein’s Monsters, Kade mischievously transforms the inspectors into ravening horrors. With the very land under the establishment turned into a colossal monster determined to eradicate everything above it, things look bleak until Iceman leads the other teachers in a spirited counterattack.

Quire is deemed an â€œOmega-level threatâ€ by the Avengers, so Wolverine’s plans to turn him into a socialised asset are being closely scrutinised by Captain America, but when Rachel – with the unsuspected aid of Kid Omega – divines that the tectonic assault is being perpetrated by a cloned and brainwashed seed of Krakoa the Living Island (see Marvel Masterworks volume 11) the tide begins to turnâ€¦

With a little deft psychic surgery by the arrogant anarchist – for reasons even he can’t really explain – the all-terrain terror becomes the latest addition to the student body and repulses the other attacks after which Wolverine and cameo-star Matt â€œDaredevilâ€ Murdock retaliate in a way little Kade least expectsâ€¦

In a tale delightfully depicted by Nick Bradshaw and with the scene firmly set, the tone switches to raucous, action-packed hilarity as the long-suffering faculty come to grips with the unique daily challenges presented by their charges. The cyborg assassin and guest lecturer Deathlok foreshadows horrors to come when he demonstrates his Tachyon vision on the class. Broodling Broo, Shi’ar Student Prince Kid Gladiator and particularly Genesis (a boyish clone of arch-horror Apocalypse) hear predictions that give everyone cause for concernâ€¦

Meanwhile, another First-Class X-Man returns to the fold; but Warren Worthington is not the Angel of old and gives old friends Iceman and the Beast extreme cause for concernâ€¦

Of course the one with most cause for concern is celibate headmistress Kitty Pryde who went to bed with a headache and woke up eight months pregnantâ€¦

Trouble is mounting and the school is close to bankruptcy. Desperate for funds, Wolverine takes Kid Omega to an alien gambling station in a dubious ploy to win billions through Quire’s psionic abilities, whilst at the school the Beast diagnoses the true cause of Kitty’s condition. Somehow she’s been infected by a horde of microscopic Brood (the real, ghastly, voracious body-stealing, egg-implanting cosmic horror kind utterly unlike the erudite, genteel freak Broo), and after the headstrong Kid Gladiator invades her body via shrinking technology, the Beast has no choice but to follow, leading a determined team of students on a Fantastic Voyage into the Headmistress’ bloodstreamâ€¦

Meanwhile, in space a deadly alien hunter who uses Brood as hunting dogs is hurtling towards Earth and the Schoolâ€¦

On Planet Sin, Wolverine and Quentin are making millions but have underestimated the casino owners’ ingenuity and determination to discourage cheating, whilst within Kitty’s circulatory system, the mutants’ school field trip is slowly eradicating the micro-Brood infestation. However, when full-sized Brood-warriors invade the School, young Broo and Kitty are forced into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse simply to survive before Ã¼ber-alien Xanto Starblood reveals himself as the cause of all their woesâ€¦

An Extreme Xeno-Zoolologist, Starblood’s entire universe-view is offended by the existence of a benign Broodling and he’s taken drastic measures to correct the Cosmos’ mistake, but even as the micro-students finish cleaning up Kitty’s small parasite problem Broo, pushed to far, suddenly proves to the alien academic that he’s not that far removed from his mercilessly marauding forebearsâ€¦

And in deep space, Quire pilots the ship back from Planet Sin. He and Wolverine have escaped the Gambler’s wrathâ€¦ but hardly intactâ€¦

Fast, furious, funny and fulfilling, the whole splendid affair was scripted by the wickedly sharp Jason Aaron, illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau, Matteo Scalera and Nick Bradshaw with additional inking from Jaime Mendoza, Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Mark Irwin, Victor Olazaba, Walden Wong, Norman Lee, Jay Leisten & Cam Smith. As always there’s a glorious gallery of covers and variants from the likes of Bachalo, Townsend, Bradshaw, Frank Cho, Ed McGuinness and Mark Brooks.

If you crave full-on, uncomplicated yet witty and rewarding Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction this is another near-perfect one-stop shop for your edification and delectation.

July 16, 2012July 14, 2012

Captain America: Two Americas

By Ed Brubaker, Luke Ross, Butch Guice, Rick Magyar, Dean White & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4511-0

The Star Spangled Avenger was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and launched in his own title (Captain America Comics, #1 cover-dated March 1941) with overwhelming success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely (now Marvel) Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ – the other two being the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. He was also among the very first to fade at the end of the Golden Age.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

Over the course of three volumes he was replaced by that always assumed-dead sidekick. In fact Bucky had been captured by the Soviets and turned into their own super-agent, The Winter Soldier.

Once rescued from his unwanted spy-role the artificially youthful and part-cyborg Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s big crimson bootsâ€¦

This politically-charged thriller written by Ed Brubaker collects the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? and issues #602-605 of the monthly comicbook, set squarely in the immediate aftermath of the original Star-Spangled Avenger’s return from the dead (details of which can be found in Captain America Reborn)â€¦

The rabble-rousing tale of ideology and patriotism begins with that one-shot (illustrated by Luke Ross and Butch Guice), as the former Winter Soldier ponders his future in the wake of the â€œrealâ€ Captain America’s resurrection and considers returning the role and unique Star-emblazoned disc to its rightful owner.

Meanwhile Steve Rogers, fresh from a timeless suspension where he perpetually relived his life over and again, combats the haunting memories by taking to the snow-bound streets where he encounters his replacement and super-spy Black Widow battling the ferociously brutal Mr. Hyde.

Content to merely observe his old partner at first, he is soon invited to join the fray and, after the dust settles, the comrades-in-arms come to an understanding. Bucky Barnes will stay as the one and only Sentinel of Liberty: the President of the USA has a far more strategic role in mind for his mentor Steven Rogersâ€¦

One that will have to wait for another tale as this tome jumps directly to the eponymous ‘Two Americas’ (with art by Ross, Guice & Rick Magyar) and picks up the trail of the deranged duplicate who briefly played Captain America in the 1950s whilst the original languished in icy hibernation in the arctic.

William Burnside was a student from Boise, Idaho, obsessed with Captain America. The lad had ferreted out the hero’s true name, rediscovered most of the super-soldier serum which had created the Star-Spangled Avenger and even had his name and features changed to perfectly mimic the Missing-In-Action Steve Rogers.

Sadly it soon became apparent that their definition of such included not just criminals but also non-whites, independent women and anybody who disagreed with the governmentâ€¦

After a few short months the reactionary patriot had to be forcibly â€œretiredâ€ as the super-soldier serum he and Monroe used turned them into super-strong, raving, racist paranoids.

Years later when the fascistic facsimiles escaped their suspended animation in Federal prison they attacked the real Sentinel of Liberty only to be defeated by Cap, his partner Sam Wilson (AKA the Falcon) and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. Although Monroe was eventually cured, Burnside’s psychosis was too deeply rooted and he returned many times to tangle with the man he felt had betrayed the real Americaâ€¦

Used most recently as a pawn of the Red Skull, malign psychologist Dr. Faustus and genetic trickster Arnim Zola in a plot to plant a Nazi stooge in the Oval Office, the dark Captain America had escaped and fled to the nation’s heartland.

When police in Idaho raided a den of reactionary separatist fanatics the Watchdogs, they were slaughtered by the delusional Sentinel of Liberty who had aligned himself with them in a crazed bid to take back the nation for right-thinking ordinary people like himself.

Alerted by rogue agent Nick Fury, Barnes and the Falcon head for the economically depressed Midwest where the crumbling economy and lack of prospects has driven hard-pressed hardworking folk into the open arms of the seditionists.

Intending to infiltrate the movement now led by the faux Captain America, things go badly wrong when Burnside recognises Barnes from his college researchesâ€¦

Intent on starting a second American Revolution, the crazed patriot ambushes the newest Cap and the Falcon and, whilst planning to set off the biggest bomb in history against the Hoover Dam, demands that Barnes returns to his first and proper heroic identity to become the Bucky to Burnside’s one-and-only Captain Americaâ€¦

Determined to convince the equally time-lost Winter Soldier that modern America must be destroyed and the Good Old Days restored, Burnside is still savvy enough to use the hostage Falcon to achieve his ends, but far too prejudiced to accept that a mere black man – a flunky sidekick – could be competent enough to foil his plansâ€¦

Imprisoned on a train packed with explosives, Sam busts free and trashes his Watchdog jailers and with the aid of a simple working Joe (yes, a proper â€œordinary Americanâ€) diverts the runaway bomb, whilst Burnside and his fanatics invade Hoover Dam with an even more devastating device, ready to send a message that will spell the end of the country and signal the return of the madman’s cherished if illusory idealised America.

However when Bucky overhears that the Falcon is safe he immediately lashes out, tackling the old world warrior head-on and stopping the insane incursion with ruthless efficiencyâ€¦

This thoroughly readable and exceedingly pretty collection also includes a cover and variant gallery from Gerald Parel, Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Javier Rodriguez for art lovers.

A fascinating examination of political idealism and the mutability of patriotism, this sharp and scary saga avoids the usual trap of depending too much upon a working knowledge of Marvel continuity and provides in situ what little back-story new readers might need, fairly thundering along to its climactic conclusion, providing thrills, spills and chills in full measure for all fans of Fights ‘n’ Tights action.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

July 12, 2012July 14, 2012

Avengers: X Sanction

By Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-514-7

As the new Avengers film screens across the world, Marvel has released more books and trade paperback collections to maximise exposure and cater to those movie fans wanting to follow up the cinematic exposure with a comicbook experience.

This particular short and sweet saga from megastar scripter Jeph Loeb & the art team supreme Ed McGuinness & Dexter Vines engagingly entangles two filmic franchises as the World’s Mightiest Superheroes and Marvel’s misunderstood mutants clash in a time-busting tale originally released at the end of 2011 as the 4-part miniseries Avengers: X Sanction.

And that was merely the prologue to a summer-long publishing event which pitted Avengers against X-Men in a catastrophic all-out warâ€¦

Superbly self-contained, this epic encounter opens with Captain America, Iron Man, Red Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and other heroes responding to a mass-escape by super-villains from the Lethal Legion when the Falcon is shot by a hidden sniper and spirited awayâ€¦

Only the Sentinel of Liberty notices something amiss and follows the abductor to a freighter in the harbour, where he finds his friend trapped in a containment tube and wired to a colossal cache of explosives. The sniper is revealed as sometime-ally Nathan Summers AKA Cable, a mutant warrior from the far future possessing awesome psionic abilities yet cursed with an incurable, progressive techno-organic virus which is inexorably consuming his flesh and only held in check by the victim’s indomitable force of willâ€¦

In temporally tantalising forward flashbacks it is revealed that Cable is at last succumbing to his infection. He has a day to live and has travelled back from the end of time to unmake history and save his daughter Hope (destined to prevent the planet’s doom) from being killed. Unfortunately that can only be achieved by murdering the Avengersâ€¦

After a spectacular battle Cable also subdues Captain America just as Iron Man notices his missing comrades and tracks them to the Hudson River. Plagued by half memories and lost moments with Hope, Cable attacks and after a shattering struggle also overwhelms the Armoured Avenger, only to be ambushed by the brutally efficient Red Hulkâ€¦

Wracked by the final stages of his fleshly consumption, Cable is vastly overmatched, even with the timely martial assistance of his future mentor Blaquesmith, but Summers’ handicap becomes an advantage when the techno-organic contagion abandons his dying frame and infects the Crimson Colossusâ€¦

As Cable prepares to execute his targets, X-Men Cyclops and Hope burst in, intent on talking him down. Faced with his father and imminently endangered daughter (an outrageously long and overly-complicated time travel story which isn’t germane or necessary to know here: just Google it afterwards, ok?), Cable falters but can’t be dissuadedâ€¦

Just as he prepares to save the future by killing everyone present, the final players arrive when Spider-Man and Wolverine crash inâ€¦

Unable to stop and mere minutes from his own end, Cable attacks again knowing that no sacrifice is too great to prevent the death of Hope and the salvation of Earthâ€¦

Fast, furious and wickedly compelling, this time-twisting all-action thriller delivers a mighty punch without any real necessity to study beforehand that comics-continuity veterans and film-fed newbies alike will relish.

The comicbooks in this short series also sported a host of variant covers and the extensive gallery at the back includes simply stunning images from McGuinness, Bryan Hitch, Joe Quesada, Carlo Pagulayan, Stephen Platt, Ian Churchill, Steve Skroce and four from Leinil Francis Yu to delight and astound the artistically astute amongst you.

July 10, 2012July 9, 2012

Hulk: Skaar, Son of Hulk

By Greg Pak, Ron Garney, Jackson Guice & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- (hb)Â Â 978-0-7851-2714-7 (tpb)

Once upon a time, Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress or other factors caused him to regularly transform into a gigantic green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. As both occasional hero and mindless monster he has rampaged across the Marvel Universe for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most popular comicbook features and multi-media titans.

As such, he has often undergone radical changes in scope and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compellingâ€¦

In recent years the number of Gamma-mutated monsters rampaging across the Marvel landscape has proliferated to inconceivable proportions. The days of Banner getting angry and going Green at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from the TV or movie incarnations will be wise to assume a level of unavoidable confusion. There are now numerous assorted Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and all kinds of ancillary atomic berserkers roaming the planet, so be prepared to experience a little confusion if you’re coming to this particular character cold. Nevertheless these always epic stories are generally worth the effort so persist if you can.

During the more than year-long ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline of 2006-2007, the Jade Juggernaut was exiled in space and crashed on the distant, brutally primitive world Sakarr, where he was enslaved as a gladiator before rising to briefly become messiah-king of the entire place by defeating the terrifying Red King.

He married an incredibly powerful once-enemy with ancient, ancestral tectonic gifts dubbed Caiera the Oldstrong, unknowingly spawned a son, and lost his new wife when the ship that brought him to Sakaar explodedâ€¦

Bereft and enraged he returned to Earth, oblivious of what he had left behindâ€¦

This collection gathers the first six issues of the spin-off series Skaar, Son of Hulk, the one -shot Savage World of Sakaar and a short piece from the anthology Hulk Family: Green Genes covering August 2008 – February 2009, written in its entirety by film director and screenwriter Greg Pak. Each issue of Son of Hulk was divided into a main feature illustrated by Ron Garney and/or Jackson â€œButchâ€ Guice and an ancillary back-up ‘Shadow Tales’ with Guice supplying all the drawing, and everything was lavishly coloured by Paul Mounts.

The blockbusting barbarian action begins with a quick and ominous recap before the gestating egg of the interplanetary lovers, left to quicken in a lake of fire when the shuttle exploded, gives violent birth to a monstrous green child that easily defeats the myriad horrors and beasts of the burning swamps. Already fast, tough and durable, the bestial boy screams its name and can apparently hear the voice of his deceased Oldstrong mother as he battles his way out of his ‘Cradle of Fire’â€¦

Within a month, the rapidly maturing waif he has saved a group of survivors from the Red King’s successor, Axeman Bone, who has ordered his armies to kill every newborn they can find, acting on prophecies offered by the enigmatic shadow-priests he has enslavedâ€¦

A year later the Son of Hulk is finally assassinated by the dragon-riding Bone and a messianic movement begun by the re-enslaved masses falters. But if Skaar is dead then who or what is the approximately teen-aged, mute, green-skinned youth who attacks the bloody tyrant’s camp..?

Elderly ex-slave Old Sam claims that it’s only a beast from the swamps, but he’s been secretly educating the creature for his own ends. When Skaar crushes Bone and his cohort of war-reptiles, the dictator’s imperial rival Princess Omaka senses a potential threat – or ally – in ‘Blood of the Dragon’â€¦

‘Shadow Tales part 1’ takes a sidebar look at Bones’ defeat from the tyrant’s camp and through the eyes of slaves who have survived three different rulers in short succession, but although long gone, the Hulk’s unique legacy remains. As the Green King he freed the different peoples of Sakaar and his blood even reinvigorated new plant growth in arid deserts. Of course those fresh and sustaining vines now consume anybody who comes near themâ€¦

‘The Princess and the Beast’ finds Omaka and Old Sam discussing their plans for the brutish boy before Bone attacks again and the Princess decides to kill the emerald distraction. However as the armies and deadly cybernetic wildebots close in, Skaar reveals his greatest secret: he is both smart and able to talk, as he proves when routing Bones’ forces with strength of arm and savage strategyâ€¦

The sorely wounded Axeman takes centre stage in ‘Shadow Tales part 2’ remembering when he was merely chief general in the armies of the ruthless potentates Omaka and the Red King, after which Savage World of Sakaar provides a selection of short tales fleshing out the ferocious history and culture of Planet Hulk.

With art from Carlo Pagulayan, Timothy Truman, Timothy Green II, Gabriel Hardman & Jason Paz, campfire stories told by the wandering rebels reveal the birth and childhood of Axeman Bone, Omaka’s defeat by Skaar’s mother Caiera whilst they both served the Red King, and how the still-infant Son of Hulk befriended the giant swamp-bugs and won his characteristic battle tattoos, before closing with a Moses-like miracle as the Green Teen leads the salvation-hungry hordes who follow him through the deadly garden grown from his father’s spilled bloodâ€¦

And at every turn Skaar tells them he is not their messiah, he just wants the Old Powerâ€¦

Skaar, Son of Hulk #4 finds the Boy Behemoth still following Old Sam’s guidance and millennial footsteps as he retraces ‘The Prophet’s Walk’, overcoming elemental weather and appalling monsters – with his unwelcome followers more than ever convinced that he is the Second Coming – before confronting one of Bones’ Shadow Priest slaves, as steeped in the ancient Oldstrong power as his mother Caiera had been; a phenomenon expanded upon in ‘Shadow Tales part 3’â€¦

‘Fall of the Prophet’ sees the Green Pretender on the edge of defeat against Oldstrong Hiro-Amin – even despite the unwanted aid of Omaka – until Old Sam reveals the astonishing true history and nature of the world-shaking genetic gifts Skaar has inherited, and ghostly advice from Caiera enables her embattled son to defeat the Axeman’s unbeatable, fanatical living weaponâ€¦

‘Shadow Tales part 4’ focuses on the broken Hiro-Amin as he reveals the story behind the boy passed off as Skaar and long-ago executed by Bones. His audience is a child-slave named Hiro-Kala – a boy with an unsuspected connection to both Skaar and the Incredible Hulkâ€¦

This saga rushes to a cataclysmic cliffhanger in ‘Heroes and Monsters’ as Skaar marches to a final confrontation with Axeman Bone whilst the planet reels from the devastating disturbances caused by his battle with the Oldstrong slave. With the Jade Juvenile’s followers unable to decide if he is saviour Sakaarson or ultimate destroyer Worldbreaker, Old Sam finally discloses the origins of all that savage world’s myths and legends just as a revitalised Red King and Skaar meet face to faceâ€¦

With the Old Power in his grasp Skaar then turns to see herald of planetary disaster, the Silver Surfer, waiting to confront himâ€¦

The comicbook carnage concludes with a glimpse of Skaar’s early days with Old Sam in ‘School for Savages’ (from Hulk Family: Green Genes and illustrated by Jheremy Raapack & Greg Adams),wherein the untutored wild-child displays the first hints of his destiny by routing a barbarian cannibal horde and finally mastering the wearing of pants all in one dayâ€¦

This collection also includes a cover and variant gallery by Garney, Carlo Pagulayan, Julie Bell, David Yardin & Francis Tsai, plus character designs and cover sketches and pencils by Pagulayan and Garney.

Although painfully short on plot, depending too much on a working familiarity with what’s come before and insufferably ending on a trenchant cliffhanger which means you’d be well advised to have the sequel at hand before you start, there’s still a lot to recommend this blistering, all-action rollercoaster if you’re a fan of magnificent mindless graphic mayhem â€“ and what follower of the Hulk isn’t?
Â© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

July 6, 2012July 5, 2012

Silver Surfer: In Thy Name

By Simon Spurrier & Tan Eng Huat (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2749-9

Although pretty much a last minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s scintillating creation the Silver Surfer quickly became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Swinging 1960s Marvel Universe, and one character Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Tasked with finding planets for space-god Galactus to consume, one day the Silver Surfer discovered Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakened his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his master and help the FF save the world.

In retaliation, Galactus imprisoned his one-time herald on Earth, making him the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice. In 1968, after increasingly frequent guest-shots and even a solo adventure in the back of Fantastic Four Annual #5, the Surfer finally got his own (initially double-sized) title at long last.

The last questing, vital soul of a soft and decadent civilisation, Norrin Radd allowed himself to be transformed into gleaming herald in a Faustian bargain with Galactus to save his home-world Zenn-La from the planet-devouring cosmic entity. His eventual emancipation never gave him the opportunity to permanently return to his place of birth, nor settle down with his lost love Shalla Bal, whom he had forsaken for a life of service to the Great Destroyer.

The Silver Surfer was always a pristine and iconic character when handled well – and sparingly – yet once he gained and sustained a regular comic book presence in the 1980s he became somewhat diminished; lessâ€¦ special.

After a strong start his adventures became formulaic and even dull. In reworking the character for the modern market, a huge amount of the mystique that made the critically beloved but commercially disastrous Christ allegory from the Stars a cause celebre was lost.

In recent times the Space-bound Scout has been used more sparingly and with greater innovation as in this fanciful fable from scripter Simon Spurrier, artist Tan Eng Huat and colourist Jose Villarrubia, originally released as a four-part miniseries in 2007.

Adrift and aimless, the Silver Surfer glides through the trackless void, pondering the nature of life and how vastly varied but fundamentally similar it seems throughout creation, when he is suddenly attacked by organ-pirates determined to reduce him to saleable spare partsâ€¦

When a colossal starship drives off the grisly bandits the sky-rider meets the sublimely civilised Explorocrat Ruqtar Koil, urbane envoy-at-large and dutiful Minister Plenipotentiary of the star-spanning Ama Collective.

Norrin is extremely impressed with the grandiose, genteel and winningly cultured fellow voyager and the vast peacefully utopian alliance of scholars and explorers he represents, as epitomised by their holy credo the Binarc – â€œto improve ourselves, and seek others who wish the sameâ€…

However, after accepting an invitation to visit Ama-Prime, the Surfer experiences a few nagging doubts after meeting the autocratic and far too unctuous Empress, but is easily assuaged by the calm serenity of her manifested paradise world.

Some time later his peaceful reveries are interrupted when Koil begs a small favourâ€¦

Brekknis is a poor and primitive â€œripening worldâ€ whose unhappy natives are currently under threat from a ravening demon apparently made from old ghosts. Dispatched to assist the lowly aborigines, the Explorocrat felt the Surfer’s power might be beneficial, but when the Silver Sentinel sees how the Ama envoy treats the poverty-stricken people his suspicions return.

Brekk leader Accordite Tol-Wes paints a very different picture of the Collective: one of haughty disdain, galling paternalism and enforced cultural solidarity. To ensure right and rational thinking, the Ama long ago closed all the Brekk churches and templesâ€¦

When the demon manifests it is revealed as a monstrous monolith of rage comprised of broken war-machines and slaughtered soldier’s spirits screaming â€œvengeance for genocideâ€â€¦

After the Surfer’s incredible Cosmic Power dispatches the creature, a strange thing happens: the stunned and grateful primitives fall to their knees and declare Norrin to be their promised messiah the Lightlordâ€¦

When the Empress visits her troubled and uncivilised Brekknian children, her offhand manner and an assassination attempt – quickly thwarted by the Surfer – inexorably ramps up festering tensions and the Star-born Scout clandestinely confers with Tol-Wes for the other side of the story.

Long ago the Brekk were a militant and warlike people who found a measure of peace in a new religion which united their world. However when they tried to take their gospel to other worlds, they quickly encountered the atheistic Ama Collective who took them into their star-girdling fold and made them quit their extreme and foolishly fanatical ideas of Faith and higher powersâ€¦

Now with the Lightlord’s long promised return, the Brekk will rise and throw off the yoke of the impious invadersâ€¦

Refusing the ridiculous role of messiah, Norrin attempts to defuse the escalating situation, but is attacked again by organ pirates and succumbs to a force even greater than his ownâ€¦

Koil and the pirates are working together and the Sky-Rider is simply an expendable piece in a vast Machiavellian game. Crucified on Brekknis, the Surfer realises that the Ama want a final war with the Brekk, but he has tragically underestimated the fanatical missionary zeal of the equally blood-hungry, faith-fuelled fundamentalistsâ€¦

Refusing to be a figurehead for the forthcoming madness, Norrin flies away but discovers a horrific secret: the Ama are holding hostage the offspring of a sublime trans-dimensional being, forcing its â€œmotherâ€ to reshape events in ways that will make the outcome of desired conflict a brutal certaintyâ€¦

Confronted at last by a truly innocent victim in this sorry affair, the Surfer tries once more to broker a ceasefire but, with both rationalist autocrats and religious maniacs determined to exterminate each other, is at last forced to combat the bloodshed with his own brand of overwhelming firepower and desperate duplicityâ€¦

Sadly, some things, such as prejudice, hatred and fanaticism are beyond physical force or reasoned argumentâ€¦

This is a sharp, cynical political allegory of colonial expansionism and callous manipulation delivered with classic British wit, dry understatement and heartfelt, bitter resignation, cloaked in the gleaming armour of a spectacular cosmic action-clash, courtesy of the splendidly imaginative art and colours.

This slim but beguiling tome also includes a cover gallery by Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald and a sketch section featuring Tan Eng Huat’s remarkable concept designs for the many and varied aliens populating the tale.
Â© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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