Marvel Superheroes – Page 79

March 3, 2013March 2, 2013

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Divided We Fall, United We Stand

By Brian Michael Bendis, David Marquez & Pepe Larraz (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-523-9

When Spider-Man died, a new hero arose in his image â€¦

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of a 21st century readership – a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Leeâ€¦ or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the months that followed, plucky Peter Parker and his fellow meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world, but just as Spider-Man finally gained a measure of acceptance and was hailed a hero by the masses, he took a bullet forÂ Captain America and very publicly met his end during a catastrophic super-villain showdown â€¦

In the aftermath, child prodigy Miles Morales gained suspiciously similar powers and began the same deadly learning curve: coping with astounding new physical abilities, painfully discovering the daily costs of living a life of lies and realising how an inescapable sense of responsibility is the most seductive method of self-harm and worst all of possible gifts.

He was helped and hindered in equal amounts by his Uncle Aaron: a career super-criminal dubbed The Prowlerâ€¦

This compilation (collecting Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #11-18, August 2012-February 2013 and written throughout by Brian Michael Bendis) follows Miles and his close circle of confidantes from ordinary tragedy and peril into total chaos as America succumbs to a second Civil War when global crises, ineffectual leadership and rogue elements in power converge and whole swathes of ordinary Americans secede from the Unionâ€¦

A day resident at the prestigious BrooklynVisionsAcademyBoarding School, Miles spends only weekends at home and is coming to terms with some unpleasant truths. Foremost is that he has secrets to keep from his parents, but also poisoning the air is the fact that his father used to be a street-thug and now passionately hates costumed heroes – like Spider-Man.

The Prowler has been secretly grooming Miles ever since some of his loot bit the youngster, transforming him into a super-strong and fast kid who can walk up walls, turn invisible and deliver a devastating venom charge through his hands,Â and the action opens here as the manipulative creep tricks Miles into attacking Mexican gang-lord and prospective new Kingpin of Crime the Scorpion.

The action (illustrated by David Marquez) begins with a blistering raid on the Mexican’s plush new club where, in the heat of battle, the novice wall-crawler at last realises Aaron isn’t reforming or making amends, but simply clearing out the opposition for his own attempt to take over New York’s underworldâ€¦

Events come to a tragic head when the gangster accosts Miles at school and tries to blackmail him with threats of telling the boy’s father all about Spider-Man, resulting in a devastating showdown. Equipped with years of criminal experience and an ingenious arsenal of gadgets he murdered underworld tech-savant The Tinkerer for, Aaron goes crazy, determined to finish his rebellious nephew.

The fight inevitably escalates, endangering a busload of civilians who all apparently see the neophyte wall-crawler first save them before killing the Prowler in a horrific explosionâ€¦

Meanwhile in the wider world: In the wake of the global inundation, ongoing internecine strife amongst the covert ops community, and deadly brushfire wars all over the planet, ousted spymaster Nick Fury regained control of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of agents and officially-sanctioned super-squad The Ultimates as well as clandestine task-force The Avengers, just as civilisation began coming apart at the seamsâ€¦

Metahumans had become the preferred â€œWeapons of Mass Destructionâ€ and personal superpowers were the focus of a terrifying global arms race. In Asia, emergent federated nation SEAR dissolved into bloody conflict soon after developing a serum that randomly sparked fantastic abilities in ordinary humans. The plan had been to win the organic arms race but events quickly overtook the leadership when they tried to stack the deck by simultaneously releasing a virus that neutralised genes which triggered natural mutations.

With a plague preventing the birth of any more mutants and lab-produced metahumans roaming the streets, SEAR collapsed from internal dissent and open warfareâ€¦

From the conflict, dual metahuman nations were established and both Celestials and Eternals began offering super-powers to anybody brave or greedy enough to want themâ€¦

When WWII super soldier Captain America vanished, the gods of Asgard, who had been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth, were slaughtered by a new fantastic race called the Children of Tomorrow, whose appearance presaged a deadly fight for control of Earth by the Maker – disgraced former superhero Reed Richards.

The deranged genius had created a high-tech Dome where enhanced time, forced evolution and ruthless scientific augmentation enabled the inhabitants to hyper-develop thousands of years in the space of a few days.

The war against the Dome involved most of the world’s metahumans, allowing corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Flumm to oust Fury and blackmail Bruce Banner into attacking the future city. The Hulk’s assault went tragically wrong, however, once The Maker convinced the man-monster to switch allegiances and the American President, distracted by one too many crises, allowed genocidal anti-mutant activists to turn the southwest into their own hunting preserve, inspired by the hate-filled preachings of Reverend William Strykerâ€¦

With Sentinels and militias controlling Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Oklahoma, and carrying out a successful campaign of extermination, and Texas declaring independence, many other states saw opportunity and followed suit, even as the President launched the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal at the ever-evolving Dome.

The nuclear fusillade and a metahuman attack could not obliterate the Dome but the component intelligence of the living City was badly damaged. In retaliation Richards unleashed the Hulk and a very special Child of Tomorrow he had cultured without the knowledge of the Dome hive-mind. The child detonated with nuclear force in the Capitol, utterly eradicating WashingtonDC and the American governmentâ€¦

Even though the Dome was no longer an urgent threat, President Howard – who only the day before was the earnest but under-qualified new Secretary of Energy – was in already well in over his head.

With a nuclear-armed Texas threatening the Union, Sentinels rampaging through the southwest and militant local militias sparking rebellions all over the country, the President declared martial law as the nation splintered around him. Flumm was also rapidly losing his grip and could not handle more bad newsâ€¦

And then word arrived that Captain America had returned from his self-imposed exileâ€¦

(For fuller comprehension the reader is strongly advised to consult companion Ultimate Comics series X-Men and The Ultimates. These will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hoursâ€¦)

With the Land of the Free ripped apart by a rash of local rebellions and actual state secessions, this binary publishing event – designed to create a jumping-on point for new readers – opens for Spider-Man with the 2-part ‘Divided We Fall’ as the Sentinel of Liberty stops in New York long enough to learn that there’s a new – 13-year old – wall-crawler.

Keenly aware that the previous Spider-Man died because of him, Captain America overreacts and hunts down Miles, just when as the boy is trying to deal with being accused of murder â€“ and unsure whether or not he was actually guiltyâ€¦.

A battle against opportunist thief Batroc the Leaper is a cathartic relief for the troubled boy but things get complicated again aftr during a shocking, surprise confrontation with May Parker, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson which changes Miles’ life forever.

Peter Parker’s loved ones have been following the new boy’s short career and now they give the poor kid their full support and approval – as well as the original martyr’s web-shooters and secret formula.

At last Spider-Man will be a web-spinner againâ€¦ unless the furious and outraged Captain America shuts him down for goodâ€¦

The clash of wills is only resolved when the rampaging Rhino breaks loose and Spidey saves the day, leading the Star Spangled Avenger to grudgingly permit the kid to carry onâ€¦ under strict adult supervision and training.

The saga culminates with the concluding 4-chapter ‘United We Stand’ (illustrated by Marquez & Pepe Larraz) as Civil War explodes west of the Rocky Mountains and, in locked-down New York, Spider-Man gets a huge boost when he learns from the cops that he wasn’t responsible for the Prowler’s death.

However, even as the ebullient arachnid rushes to enlist in the Ultimates’ push to retake America, his own strait-laced father is being arrested for breaking curfew. The horrible ramifications of this misunderstanding will bring the loving, concerned parent to the edge of insanityâ€¦

Cap is still trying to make his exuberant teenaged volunteer go home when a devastating attack by Hydra-backed separatists plunges Miles into the thick of the action. Convinced by the boy’s conviction if not capability, the Sentinel of Liberty at last welcomes the new kid to the team.

Events quickly overtake everybody however when President Howard is informed by seditious elements of his own government that he has no official mandate to rule. In the middle of the war the over-burdened leader calls an emergency Recall Electionâ€¦

With the election and daily battles on every news channel, the tirelessly fighting Captain America is elected to the battered nation’s highest office even though he was unaware that he was a candidate. Without breaking step, the hero gratefully accepts before getting back to the job of re-Uniting the Statesâ€¦

The fighting shifts to Casper, Wyoming for the final battle against a million-strong militia manipulated by the secret magical mastermind behind the entire crisis, with President America in the vanguard as usual. Sadly, Spider-Man is elsewhere, lost and near deathâ€¦

The boy was partnered with the constantly objecting Spider-Woman Jessica Drew – who obnoxiously insisted that he was too young to be there at all. Far worse than his wounds and prospects is Miles’ suspicion that she might have been right after allâ€¦

The fighting was fast and furious but after a spectacular skirmish the Amazing Arachnid saved the President’s life and was knocked out. He woke up wounded and lost in the flat vastness of Wisconsin with a Hydra-controlled Giant-Woman trying to squash him like a bug.

Nobody was there to see him achieve his most impressive victory ever, but even though he was feted all the way back to New York as the victorious Union forces began the long, tedious job of consolidating power whilst attempting Reconstruction and Reconciliation, Miles had bigger problems.

He now had even bigger secrets and a far more complex double-life to keep from his folks and his father was acting really, really strangelyâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This extra-long volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants (by Kaare Andrews. Jorge Molina, David Marquez, Rainier Beredo, Sara Pichelli & Adi Granov) and this so-contemporary saga also incorporates a 21st century extra for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind, as many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story bonuses once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.
â„¢ & Â© 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

March 1, 2013February 28, 2013

Ultimate Comics the Ultimates: Divided We Fall, United We Stand

By Sam Humphries, Billy Tan, Timothy Green II, Luke Ross & Terry Pallot (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-524-6

The Ultimate Comics imprint launched in 2000, upgrading and reformatting hallowed Marvel characters and concepts for a presumed-more sophisticated modern audience: one that mostly comprised older readers rather than the youngsters who had participated in the company’s 1960s rise to glory.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the â€œUltimatumâ€ story-arc culminated in a reign of terror which wiped out dozens of the new super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist/messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. Ever since The Deluge, the world has been stumbling from crisis to catastropheâ€¦

This volume, collecting Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates issues #13-18 (September 2012 – January 2013) is part of an imprint-wide crossover which saw America fall into urban chaos and civil war, with the saga affecting and seen from the points of view of a newly blooded Spider-Man, a revitalised team of Ultimates and the last remaining X-Menâ€¦

How We Got Here: In the wake of the global inundation, ongoing internecine strife amongst the covert ops community, and deadly brushfire wars all over the planet, ousted spymaster Nick Fury regained control of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of secret agents and officially-sanctioned super-squad The Ultimates as well as clandestine task-force The Avengers, just as civilisation was coming apart at the seamsâ€¦

Metahumans had become the preferred â€œWeapons of Mass Destructionâ€ and personal superpowers were the focus of a terrifying global arms race. In Asia, emergent nation SEAR (SouthEastAsianRepublic) dissolved into bloody conflict soon after developing a serum which randomly sparked fantastic abilities in ordinary humans. Their plan had been to win the organic arms race but events quickly overtook the leadership when they tried to stack the deck by simultaneously releasing a virus that neutralised genes which triggered natural mutations.

With random metahumans roaming the streets, SEAR collapsed from internal dissent and open warfareâ€¦

From the conflict, dual metahuman nations were established and both Celestials and Eternals began offering super-powers to anybody brave or greedy enough to want themâ€¦

Meanwhile American hero Spider-Man was murdered, resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America went AWOL and the gods of Asgard, who had been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth, were slaughtered by a new fantastic race called the Children of Tomorrow.

The Children were the results of a fantastic experiment by the Maker – disgraced, deranged former superhero Reed Richards – who created a high-tech Dome where enhanced time and ruthless scientific augmentation enabled the inhabitants to hyper-evolve thousands of years in the space of a few days.

The Dome inexorably expanded into a voracious semi-sentient super-city and absorbed much of Western Europe, despite every effort of the region’s superhumans, until vengeful Thor broke into the marauding metropolis and, with the aid of boffin Sam Wilson (AKA the Falcon), Iron Man Tony Stark (and his sentient brain-tumour side-kick), Captain Britain, Hawkeye, Black Widow and the elevated Celestials of Xorn and Eternals of Zorn stopped the incursion by excessive violence and by turning the dome dwellers against their increasingly doctrinaire and draconian leader.

At the same time, corrupt S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Flumm forced Fury out and blackmailed Bruce Banner into attacking the Dome. The Hulk‘s enforced assault went tragically wrong, however, once The Maker convinced the man-monster to switch allegiances and the American President, distracted by one too many crises, allowed anti-mutant activists to turn the southwest into their own hunting preserveâ€¦

With Sentinels and militias controlling Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Oklahoma, and other states threatening secession, the President launched the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal at the ever-evolving Dome. To ensure no interference, the Commander-in-Chief also invoked â€œthe Winter Protocolsâ€ and ordered S.H.I.E.L.D. to capture or kill all Ultimates and Avengersâ€¦

The nuclear fusillade and the metahuman attack could not obliterate the Dome but the component intelligence of the living City was badly damaged. In retaliation Richards unleashed the Hulk and a very special Child of Tomorrow he had cultured without the knowledge of the Dome hive-mind. The child detonated with nuclear force in the Capitol, utterly eradicating WashingtonDC and the entire governmentâ€¦

Stunned by the loss of the entire ruling structure of America, self-promoted Director Flumm was further incensed when Fury, Falcon, Hawkeye and the Widow all escaped captureâ€¦

Although the Dome was no longer a credible or urgent threat, President Howard – who only a day previously was the earnest but under-qualified Secretary of Energy – was in over his head. With a nuclear-armed Texas quitting the Union and declaring itself an independent nation, mutant-hunting Sentinels rampaging through the southwest states and militant local militias sparking rebellions all over the country, the last thing he needed to hear was that the Ultimates and Avengers are all free.

Forced to overreact, the President declared martial law as the nation splintered around him. Flumm too was rapidly losing control and could not cope with more bad newsâ€¦

And then word arrived that Captain America had returned from his self-imposed exileâ€¦

(For fuller comprehension the reader is strongly advised to consult companion series Ultimate Comics: X-Men 1 & 2 and previous volumes of this series. These will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hoursâ€¦)

With the Land of the Free ripped apart by numerous small rebellions and full state secessions, this twinned publishing event – designed to create a jumping-on point for new readers – opens with the 2-part ‘Divided We Fall’ (by Sam Humphries, Billy Tan, Timothy Green II & Terry Pallot) as Director Flumm is compelled by President Howard to deploy the hated and unruly Ultimates, overruling the S.H.I.E.L.D. boss’s warning that they cannot be controlledâ€¦

Even as the harried leader appoints veteran administrator spy and former White House administrator Carol Danvers his Chief of Staff, news pictures come in of Captain America battling in New Mexico, whilst in New York, Iron Man Stark is galvanised into action again and calls Thor away from the massive graveyard that holds the remains of his entire race. It’s time to put the old band back togetherâ€¦

Cap is on a rampage of indignant patriotic fury: destroying Sentinels and thrashing murderous mutant hunters. When he’s finally joined by his former comrades the revolution of hate swiftly collapses as the heroes forcibly drag the abandoned states back into the Union.

None of them are aware of the long-term role played by an enigmatic rabble-rouser and power-broker named Morez, who slips away to one of the other areas where he’s successfully fomented dissent, even as the Sentinel-held territories fall to resurgent American Forces â€¦

Forced out of the shadows, Morez reappears in Texas, convincing the businessmen and corporate heads that run the New Republic to fire their prized solitary nuke at New York City. Instantly apprised, Iron Man, Thor and the Sentinel of Liberty join the other Ultimates in invading the Lone Star Nation, with less than fifteen minutes to find the missile’s abort code and avert another bloodbathâ€¦

Meanwhile Morez has contacted the head of the Senate Emergency Powers Committee and convinced ambitious Senator Underwood to have the government look the other way whilst the manipulator facilitates Wyoming becoming an independent militia-run nationâ€¦

As the heroes rip Dallas apart in their successful attempt to stop the missile, Thor notices an odd symbol on the gold used by the Republic’s ex-movers and shakers and begins to suspect that another Asgardian escaped the exterminationâ€¦ the Evil Oneâ€¦

Howard too feels the rug ripped out from under him when Underwood finds a dubious legal precedent and claims the new President has no official mandate to rule. In the middle of the Civil War there’s going to be an emergency Recall Electionâ€¦

And on the West Coast, the constantly moving Morez offers deadly weaponised WASP security drone technology to the radical hippies, free thinkers and Silicon Valley entrepre-nerds who have assumed control of Washington State, Oregon and California: decent dudes whose freedom loving new country is currently being swamped by American refugees and Internally Displaced Persons from the embattled USAâ€¦

The hard-fought war of reunification occurs in the 4-part ‘United We Stand’ (illustrated by Luke Ross) and sees the well-meaning free thinkers of the West Coast Nation become accidental mass-murderers when Morez assumes control of the WASPs and lets them loose upon the refuges flooding across the new border. With the election and the genocide both filling the media airwaves, Howard orders Captain America not to intervene in California, but the Star-Spangled legend decides to listen to the higher authority of his conscienceâ€¦

Following a surprise meeting with Fury, Captain America goes west, linking up with Hawkeye and Black Widow to spectacularly save victims live on TV. As Morez switches his attention to Wyoming, all over the country voters begin exercising their mandate with a surprise â€œWrite-in candidateâ€â€¦

When Thor and Iron Man destroy the automated system unleashed by Morez, the grateful West Coasters are happy to rejoin the nation just as the Sentinel of Liberty receives a call and is informed that he’s the new Presidentâ€¦

Rapidly sworn in, Steven Rogers remains in costume and appoints Carol Danvers his political operative as he stays in the field dragging his America out of Civil War. As she navigates the stormy waters stirred up by the infuriated Senator Underwood, the Ultimates are ending the bloody feud between North and South Carolina and forcing them both back into the United States. Thor, suspecting Asgardian influence, heads to top secret Project Pegasus in Wyoming as Cap ends weeks ofÂ urban anarchy and territorial tumult by the Great Lakes Liberation Front in Michigan by sheer presence and charismaâ€¦

With their influence impossibly slipping away, Flumm and Underwood finally go too far when they try to assassinate their Red, White and Blue Commander-in-Chief, leaving the assembled Ultimates free to concentrate on their true foe at last.

In Wyoming, Morez’s true identity is finally revealed and the evil Asgardian makes his play at last using the secret of Pegasus to enslave the state and turn terrified citizens into willing warriors in his army of rebellion: a Hydra of hate aimed at America’s heartâ€¦

Moreover there will be no help from Thor: guilt and the villain’s new weapon have made the Thunderer a helpless slave of the malign manipulatorâ€¦

In Wyoming, as the ensorcelled Hydra forces clash with S.H.I.E.L.D. and a small force of loyal metahumans including the new Spider-Man, Giant-Woman Cassie Lang and Invisible Woman Sue Richards – last survivor of the legendary Fantastic Four – the real battle for Liberty is only won when Iron Man, Thor and President America defeat the Evil One in the skies above the embattled, sundered nationâ€¦

This bombastic battle for life, liberty and honour is designed to be read independently of the other strands (in Ultimate Comics X-Men and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man) if desired, so I’m not going to spoil the manner in which new President of the forcibly re-United States moves forward after the victory, but of course such a dictatorial beginning isn’t to everyone’s taste and naturally there’s more trouble brewing in the wingsâ€¦

The darkly trenchant, nihilistically cynical Ultimate fare, with its signature post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but successfully surmounts those limits here by offering a powerfully uplifting message of hope for the determinedly worthy that is both satisfying and keenly tantalising. However for maximum impact you really should read those other two collections in this triptych of comics delightsâ€¦

As usual the volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants – by Michael Komarck and Adi Granov – and this so-contemporary saga also incorporates a 21^st century extra for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind, as many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story bonuses once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Don’t touch that dial yet, fans, there’s still more to comeâ€¦
â„¢ & Â© 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

February 27, 2013February 26, 2013

Ultimate Comics X-Men: Divided We Fall, United We Stand

By Brian Wood, Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Carlo Barberi, Agustin Padilla, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-525-3

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed-more sophisticated tastes of modern readers and free from decades of extraneous story baggage.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men – and many other superhumans, good and bad – died, and in the aftermath anybody classed as â€œHomo Superiorâ€ had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hiddenâ€¦

Mutants had always been feared and despised. As the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were generally believed to be an intrinsically hostile species: the new race destined to take the world from humanity as we took it from the Neanderthalsâ€¦

This volume, collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men issues #13-18 (August – December 2012), is part of an imprint-wide crossover which saw America fall into chaos and civil war, with the events affecting and seen from the points of view of a new Spider-Man, a restored team of Ultimates and the current crop of X-Menâ€¦

The world had been stumbling from crisis to catastrophe ever since the Deluge (for fuller comprehension the reader is also advised that a thorough reading of companion series Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates volumes 1 & 2 will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hours) when word was leaked that all the mutants proliferating around the globe were the result of a 50-year old covert program of genetic manipulation which had slipped from American control, rather than a process of inexorable evolution and natural selection.

Humanity went crazy and a wave of violent prejudice quickly threatened the existence of the feared and despised metahuman lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, bloodshed grew to global panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), and the President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The super-swift manipulator had a Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanityâ€¦

Quicksilver planned to co-opt the latest Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker had outwitted him by taking personal control of the entire program.

The hate-filled preacher then unleashed every killer robot in America’s arsenal to hunt down all remaining mutants wherever they might be hiding, turning a large part of the southwest USA into a killing zone where the freaks were held in experimental facilities, just waiting to dieâ€¦

However in Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the humans guards and slaughtering Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the normals had been secretly perpetrating against the captives they erupted into open rebellion.

Tragically, before the situation could escalate further, the sky filled with unstoppable Nimrods who began their program of total eradication by indiscriminately targeting human and aberration alikeâ€¦

â€¦And after the camps, the Nimrods turned their attention on those human cities which foolishly allowed mutants to live amongst them, before beginning to construct their own robotic god and master – a Supreme Sentinel which somehow gained the personality of the recently killed Reverend Strykerâ€¦

Simultaneously in Washington DC, the President and the entire Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack from Reed Richards‘ future men of the Dome (that’s all in the Ultimates volumes) whilst Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War beganâ€¦

Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence and had gathered a few young mutants together for safety. After vanishing during the burgeoning Asian conflict her role had been taken up by â€œMutant Terroristâ€ and public enemy Kitty Prydeâ€¦

Now Jimmy Hudson (whose dead father Wolverine had been revealed as the Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’), languished in hiding with Pryde as well as Iceman Bobby Drake, Marian â€œRogueâ€ Carlisle and Human Torch Johnny Storm, all on the run ever since their friend and fellow teen prodigy Peter Parker was murdered in his Spider-Man identityâ€¦

The kids had been laying low after Stryker was killed trying to eradicate all of New York’s mutants in a televised ambush. The kids had all survived and subsequently become accidental guardians to a group of mutant children found in tunnels beneath the cityâ€¦

Written in entirety by Brian Wood, the unRealpolitik begins with ‘Born Free’ (art by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot) as Kitty and her band reel in shock as President Howard officially cedes control of the Sentinel-held southwest states to human anti-mutant militias and mechanical murderers; legitimising the mass murder of their rare breedâ€¦

Unable to abide any more, Pryde decides to make a stand and invites any who feel the same to join her as she travels across her hostile homeland to Camp Angel. Only Johnny declines: as a mere enhanced human, he believes he’ll be safely left alone to look after their young mutant charges. He’s tragically mistaken and has sorely misjudged how much mankind can hate the differentâ€¦

The twinned event begins with ‘Divided We Fall‘ and the 2-part ‘Road Worn’ as the freedom fighters escape from New York and slowly make their way across the broken country to Sentinel-subdued Arizona/New Mexico/Utah/Oklahoma, encountering and defeating vile prejudice and murderous men, but only by surrendering to those worst aspects of behaviour that they apparently share with savage unforgiving humanityâ€¦

At their lowest point the teen rebels link up with the long-undercover Nick Fury and a young mutant Paige Guthrie. The disgraced and disavowed superspy has been secretly saving the hunted Homo Superior and hiding them from the hordes of would-be genetic purifiersâ€¦

Now with inspirational and gutsy fighters to inspire his demoralised charges, Fury takes a back seat and schools Kitty in the role of Mutant Messiah for the upbeat fight back of ‘United We Stand:’ (illustrated by Barberi, Medina, Vlasco & Agustin Padilla)â€¦

The desperate campaign begins with an assault on a newly constructed death-camp and the visible destruction of a brace of the not-so-invulnerable Nimrods, but these robot killers have hidden advantages the freedom fighters are painfully unaware of.

Soon the colossal Super Sentinel that thinks it is William Stryker is on the move with his entire artificial army assembled to wipe out the stain of mutants foreverâ€¦

As other sectors of the sundered country begin their own climactic last battles, in the southwest states the tiny mutant force faces its greatest martial threat and emerges as an independent Mutant Nation, but victory only brings new problemsâ€¦

This bombastic battle for life, liberty and honour is deliberately tangential to the other story arcs comprising the full saga (and can thus be read independently if desired), so I’m not going to spoil the manner in which Kitty’s magnificent triumph is soured, except to say that the new President of the forcibly re-United States extends the hand of friendship and cooperation whilst simultaneously offering the rebel leader the most punishing of choicesâ€¦

The darkly trenchant, nihilistically cynical Ultimate fare, with its trademark post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but sweetens the deal here by offering a powerfully uplifting message of hope for the determinedly worthy that is both satisfying and keenly tantalising. However for maximum impact you really should read the other two collections in this triptych of comics delightsâ€¦

As usual the volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants by Kaare Andrews, Dave Johnson & Phil Noto, Jorge Molina & Adi Granov, and this up-to-the-minute epic also incorporates 21^st century extras for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.

Many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Stay tuned, fans, there’s much more to comeâ€¦
â„¢ & Â© 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

February 25, 2013February 23, 2013

X-Men – First Class: Finals

By Jeff Parker, Amilcar Pinna, Roger Cruz & Colleen Coover, Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-4051-3348-3

Radical perpetual change – 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 – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the intervening decades the franchise has repeatedly represented, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth to give a solid underpinning to all the modern Mutant mayhem.

A case in point is this rather impressive and deliriously fun-filled restating of the Mutant paradigm from Marvel wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the good old daysâ€¦

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-Men franchise, and newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory, so let’s plunge in as the hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minorityâ€¦

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/Angel, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast: very special youngsters and students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

The team was also occasionally supplemented by magnetic minx Polaris and cosmic powerhouse Havok – although they were usually referred to respectively if not respectfully as Lorna Dane and Scott’s brother Alex.

After nearly a decade of eccentric, mind-blowing adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 when mystery and supernatural horror themes once again gripped the world’s entertainment fields causing a consequent sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint package, the mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players across the Marvel Universe whilst the Beast was further mutated into a monster to cash in on the new boom. A few years later Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a risky Giant-Size one-shot as part of the company’s line of over-sized specials. The introduction of a fresh team of mutants made history and began a still-burgeoning frenzied phenomenonâ€¦

In 2006 those deliriously naive secret school days inspired X-Men First Class (a comicbook iteration, not the movie) which once again updated and reinterpreted the seminal 1960s adventures for a far more sophisticated modern audience (as had happened twice before in the intervening decades).

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old material and creating new stories by in-filling cases and teaming the teenaged school squad with assorted guest stars such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing, Gorilla-Man, Thor and Invisible Woman, and even leading to a number of spin-off series based on the same winning â€œuntold X-talesâ€ format.

However all good things come to an end – until the next time a few years from now – and the junior league finally had to move on into their later lives and rejoin the ongoing Marvel Universe continuity. Thus in 2009 the 4-issue miniseries X-Men – First Class: Finals revealed the story of the student heroes’ graduation and fed directly into the tale which would introduce the All-New, All Different modern teamâ€¦

Written throughout by Jeff Parker and coloured by Val Staples, the end begins with ‘Seniorities’ – illustrated by Roger Cruz – wherein the boys inexplicably find themselves in a fantastic realm and at last shamefully realise that they are conscious and experiencing the newly telepathic Jean’s dreams. The visual tour and fearful panorama make them all realise how far they’ve come since joining the XavierSchool.

The Professor would know what to do but he’s gone nowâ€¦

Back in the waking world later, a Danger Room training session gets inexplicably out of hand resulting in lots of collateral damage, but the kids are soon in genuine peril when horrific and formidable mutant marauder Frederick comes calling, looking for a rematch with Cyclopsâ€¦

Each chapter here is broken up with a comedic short by Parker & Colleen Coover so, after ‘Scott and Jean Go on a Date!’, the suspense recommences with ‘Beginning of the End’ (by Amilcar Pinna & Cruz) as the vengeful monstrosity attempts to make Summers pay for past indignities by killing the so-serious class captain’s classmates. The overmatched heroes are only saved when one of their most feared enemies materialises, trashes Frederick and promptly vanishes againâ€¦

As Henry McCoy ponders a job offer from the multinational Brand Corporation following his graduation (for the outcome of that you’ll need to check out Essential Classic X-Men volume 3), the anxious students track a mutant sighting on electronic wonder-computer Cerebro.

The trail leads into the wilds of upstate New York and as the baffled champions search for answers they are attacked by an animated and extremely hostile pile of junk and machine scraps that look like the ghost of arch-enemy Magnetoâ€¦

Following the charmingly daft interlude of ‘X-Date part 2’, the dread doom resumes in ‘Higher Learning’ as the inexplicable attacks and mystery rescues continue until the freshly returned Charles Xavier steps in to solve the riddle. However it’s actually Scott who deduces the true nature and origin of the ongoing threat, and after the madly whacky ending of ‘X-Date part 3’, the team unite to quell the insane attacks by entering and exorcising ‘The Mind of Jean Grey’â€¦

This thoroughly entertaining read keeps the continuity baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering a vibrant fun and fast-paced rollercoaster thriller packed with smart laughs, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots before the rather jarring jump to the added extra of the aforementioned Giant Size X-Men #1 from 1975.

Reprinted in full here the big, big blockbuster details how the original team was lost in action, forcing the distraught Professor X to scour Earth for replacementsâ€¦

Recruiting established old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire plus Hulk villain and Canadian secret agent Wolverine, most of the Professor’s time and attention was invested in unexploited and hidden mutants scattered around the globe.

One such was Kurt Wagner, a demonic-looking German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, whom Xavier saved from a religious lynch mob, after which the quest focussed on young Russian farm worker Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus; embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar – who was cajoled and pressured into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird, and Ororo Monroe, a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess and would be known as Storm. These raw replacements were all introduced in the stirring opening chapter ‘Second Genesis’â€¦

‘â€¦And When There Was One!’ found wounded team-captain Cyclops swiftly drilling the far from willing or eager team before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoaâ€¦ the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a sentient mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to another Special, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a 2-parter for the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing today.

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining, the saga perfectly wrapped up the school days of the First Class and led perfectly into a sequel series starring the newcomers and offering more untold moments of mutant mirth and mayhemâ€¦
Â© 1975, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

February 23, 2013February 20, 2013

Secret Warriors volume 2: God of Fear, God of War

By Jonathan Hickman, Alessandro Vitti, Ed McGuiness, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- 3865-5

Marvel’s very own immortal secret agent Nick Fury had in his time fought in every war since WWII, worked for the CIA and run numerous iterations of superspy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., generally finding over and again that nobody could be trusted – not to stay clean and decent – in a world of temptation or, worse yet, to never baulk at doing whatever was necessary to save the planet.

Too many times the spooks â€œon our sideâ€ became as debased as the bad guys in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.

The taste of betrayal and those seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away and following a succession of global crises – including a superhero Civil War – Fury was replaced as S.H.I.E.L.D. director.

His successor Tony Stark proved to be a huge mistake and after an alien invasion by Skrulls, the organisation was mothballed: replaced by the manically dynamic Norman Osborn and his cultishly loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. outfit. As America’s Director of National Security, the former Green Goblin and recovering psychopath instituted a draconian â€œDark Reignâ€ of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the nation into a paranoid tinderbox and as the nation’s Top Fed he was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of the burgeoning metahuman community.

He was, however, also directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise (and inevitable fall) were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive universe.

His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret empires of the planet, and his ultimate defeat destabilised many previously unassailable clandestine Powers and Statesâ€¦

Fury, a man driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. From this unassailable unsuspected vantage point Fury picked his battles and slowly gathered assets and resources he’d personally vetted or builtâ€¦

The indomitable freedom fighter had always known that to do the job properly he needed his own trustworthy forces and no political constraints. To this end he had long endeavoured to clandestinely stockpile his own formidable, unimpeachable army. Decades in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided him with mountains of data on metahumans from which he compiled â€œCaterpillar Filesâ€ on many unknown, unexploited, untainted potential operatives who might one day metamorphose into powerful assetsâ€¦

His first move was to assemble a crack squad of super-human operatives. Team White initially comprised Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry â€œStonewallâ€ Sledge, J.T. â€œHellfireâ€ James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, and the terrifyingly volatile Alexander: a 12-year old boy with incredible power.

The child Phobos was destined to become a true god and personification of Fear but until then his daily-growing divine gifts were Fury’s to use… if he daredâ€¦

In the aftermath of the wave of crises the old soldier had come across a truly shocking piece of intel: for most of his career, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been no more than a deeply submerged and ring-fenced asset of Hydra. All Fury’s world-saving triumphs had been nothing more than acceptable short-term losses for a secret society which claimed to reach back to ancient Egypt, secretly steering the world for millennia.

However since Osborn and the Skrull invasion had shaken things up so much, the old warhorse now had an honest chance to wipe out the perfidious faceless foe foreverâ€¦

Hydra too had been badly damaged by the crisis, and as the dust settled Baron Wolfgang von Strucker sought to capitalise on the chaos to regenerate the cult in his own image, seizing all fallow assets, technology and even experienced operatives abandoned by friends and enemies alikeâ€¦

To this end, Strucker co-opted breakaway factions of Hydra and convened a new hierarchy of deadly lieutenants loyal to him alone. However even with Viper, Madame Hydra, Kraken, Silver Samurai, The Hive and resurrected mutant ninja the Gorgon on board, the prospect of wedding super-science and corporate rapaciousness with ancient magic and millennial covert cabals was a risky ploy…

The rabid rapid expansion also gave Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisationâ€¦

To further bolster his own relatively meagre forces, Fury reached out to selected old S.H.I.E.L.D. comrades and especially his former second-in-command Dum-Dum Dugan who had gathered up the most trustworthy agents and veterans into a private security agency – the Howling Commandos Private Military Company. Warriors to the last, they were all looking for one last good war and a proper way to dieâ€¦

Some of them got their wish when the good guys launched a daring raid and stole three of the mothballed colossal flying fortress warships dubbed Heli-Carriers, laying the groundwork for an imminent, unavoidable and very public shooting warâ€¦

Written throughout by Jonathan Hickman, this second intriguing and complex espionage epic declassifies material from Dark Reign, The List and Secret Warriors #7-10 from 2009, and opens in stunning style with ‘I Know Who You Work For’ (illustrated by Alessandro Vitti) as Fury secures operating capital for his private war by sending the team to rob a bank – a decent, reliable, reputable financial institution which just happens to be a covertly owned corporate holding of Hydraâ€¦

The audacious act prompts Strucker to reach out to Osborn who in turn condescends to deal with Fury as an insulting, double-edged â€œfavourâ€ to the despised former Nazi war-criminal. Osborn’s greatest advantage is his own team of Dark Avengers: ferocious ersatz heroes masquerading as genuine, altruistic champions of justice. One of the most formidable is Grecian war-god Ares. The Olympian is also the father of Fury’s wild-card agent Phobosâ€¦

The terrifying celestial child is snooping in Fury’s office with older but no-wiser bad influence J.T. James when they intercept a distress call from ex-Avenger and former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Black Widow. She needs extraction immediately but when â€œFuryâ€ rendezvous with her and partner Songbird, the desperate agents are all ambushed by Osborn’s Thunderbolts – a penal battalion of super-villains, purchasing pardons by doing dirty jobs for the Federal governmentâ€¦

In New York, captured and confronted by the Security Czar in ‘I’m the Perfect Means to an End’, Fury is shot in the head and everybody thinks it’s all over – until Phobos climbs out of the undetectable Life Model Decoy (a trusty robot duplicate the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director has utilised for decades to save his life from assorted threats)â€¦

The real Fury is actually in Virginia with another old operative.

John Garrett is 90% mechanical after years of dutiful service to his country but the cyborg is prepared to risk all he’s got left for the right causeâ€¦

Back in the Big Apple, Team White agents J.T. and new recruit Eden Fesi attempt a rescue but it’s Phobos who saves them all by confronting Osborn head-on – earning the grudging respect of Ares who lets them all go. It’s not a reprieve, though, just a decent head startâ€¦

The rest of the squad are with severely wounded team-mate Yo Yo Rodriguez – whose arms have been replaced with mechanical limbs – when Alexander, J.T. and Eden teleport home with Ares, the Dark Avengers and lots of H.A.M.M.E.R. grunts hard on their heels in ‘The Starting Point is Everything’. With the base automatically initiating a data-purge and self-destruct program, Team White stage a spectacular holding action allowing everyone to relocate to a safe houseâ€¦

And in Virginia, Garrett begins investigating former S.H.I.E.L.D. op Seth Waters, now a big-wig in the Department of the Treasury and just possibly a life-long dedicated Hydra agentâ€¦

Ed McGuiness & Tom Palmer provide the interlude ‘Start the Clock End Game’ wherein Nick breaks into the heart of Osborn’s citadel to put the Security Director on notice even as Waters is exposed as an agent of long-dormant terrorist group and universal threat Leviathan.

With Fury as Osborn’s willing hostage, H.A.M.M.E.R. officers and Dark Avengers lead the savage interrogation but Waters has unsuspected resources and distractingly suicides – just as the immortal superspy intended – allowing Fury to escape from the lion’s den with invaluable intelligence and ‘Leviathan Technical Data’ (all the bases, maps, files and diagrams any conspiracy nut could ever need to untangle the web of intrigue all diligently laid out for our perusal).

‘There Will Always Be War’ wraps up this saga with the full history of Phobos, beginning with an ancient parable of a forgotten war between the gods of Greece and Japan, the crafting of god-killing weapons and rare, telling insights into how Ares and Alexander grew apart.

A secret deal between undying war god and immortal spy is revealed before the fearsome inescapable fate and cost of inheritance is at last made clear to the slowly-maturing future god of Fearâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This excellent exercise in tense suspense and Machiavellian manipulation also includes a stunning ‘Cover gallery’ by Jim Cheung as well as variant covers from McGuinness, Adi Granov, Frank Cho & Gerald Parel to supplement the wry, engagingly cynical, blackly comical, staggeringly over-the-top action and dazzling cloak-and-dagger conflicts: employing enough intrigue to bamboozle even the most ardent espionage aficionado, with the added bonus that far less knowledge of Marvel continuity is necessary to fully appreciate this particularly intense and engaging effort to the full.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

February 19, 2013February 18, 2013

The Runaways: Rock Zombies

By Terry Moore, Chris Yost, James Asmus, Takeshi Miyazawa, Sara Pichelli, Emma Rios, Norman Lee, Craig Yeung & Roland Paris (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4074-0

The Runaways are a bunch of super-powered kids whose parents lied to them.

Whilst conveying an aura of affluent respectability, the adults were in actuality a secret cabal of super-criminals: â€œThe Prideâ€. These extremely circumspect and clandestine villains played it smart for years and ran Los Angeles without the populace knowing they even existed – and were so ruthlessly dominant that most of the baddies and monsters in the Marvel Universe gave the city a wide berth.

When the appalled, betrayed offspring discovered the truth they rebelled and ran away (Duh!) and after many trials and tribulations – including the death of some of the pesky kids – the young absconders confronted, overthrew and eradicated their progenitors, with the unwelcome result that LA became a newly open city and soft target for ambitious costumed ne’er-do-wells and malevolent masterminds.

The orphans were briefly placed with well-meaning, clueless social services, but before long the renegades – who had inherited assorted powers, talents and devices, if not the amoral proclivities of their progenitors – were compelled to bolt: preferring to stick together on the streets rather than be separated again.

They also felt responsible for and were driven to protect the city they had unwittingly endangered. It was a dangerous wild life and the kids lost friends and recruited new members of the dysfunctional family with alarming frequency

â€¦But not all of them were trustworthy eitherâ€¦

The underlying premise of this series is that adults can’t be trusted – only your friends – and this volume (collecting volume 3, issues #7-10 of the monthly comic-book) sees the kids, after adventures in New York and another century, resettled back in LA and endeavouring to taking their self-imposed role of city defenders seriously.

The current roster comprises Nico Minoru, last in a long line of hereditary sorcerers, whilst Karolina Dean was once the compliant daughter of two domineering aliens intent on global conquest. The extraterrestrial Valley Girl has just lost her lover (rebellious shape-shifting, gender-fluid apprentice Super-Skrull Prince Xavin) who sacrificed him/her/itself to save Karolina from vengeful alien invaders.

Little Molly Hayes is much younger than the others, a super-strong, invulnerable child of evil mutant parents, whilst oafish teen Chase Stein was the son of genuine mad scientists. He might not have inherited their intellects but he has got lots of toys from their arsenal. He also sort of inherited the genetically-augmented 87th century empathic dinosaur Old Lace when her adored previous owner Gertrude Yorkes was killed by the Pride.

Gert’s folks were time-travelling bandits and would-be world conquerorsâ€¦

The latest editions to the group are Victor Mancha, who can control electricity and manipulate metals; gifts his â€œfatherâ€ – genocidal robotic despot Ultron – considered quite useful in the secret weapon he was building and growing, and little Klara Prast, a 12-year Swiss girl rescued from her abusive husband in 1907. She can accelerate the growth and control the motion of plants, and thinks the 21^st century is a joyous paradisiacal wonderlandâ€¦

As this book opens with the 3-part tale ‘Rock Zombies’ by Terry Moore and artists Takeshi Miyazawa, Norman Lee, Craig Yeung & Roland Paris, the voluntary outcasts are back in LA LA land just taking it easy and bonding.

Over at radio station KZIT however, ambitious, greedy power-mad DJ Val Rhymin is chatting to an old friend. Wicked wizard and accountant Monk â€œMotherâ€ Theppie has come far since the demise of the Minorus who kept the city’s magical denizens tightly bound, and Val’s talk of making zombies has produced a dark inspiration in the cagy mage/treasurer.

He can’t just magic up an army of enslaved undead, but he could use a transformation spell on something that many people have communally experienced. Something like plastic surgery, for exampleâ€¦

It’s Los Angeles: who knows how many people that sort of spell might affectâ€¦?

As Nico, Karolina and the younger girls tackle a hostage stand-off, Val is layering the spell into his latest dub mix and whilst the team are blithely vacationing in the desert the demented DJ plays it repeatedly on his show.

By the time the gang hit the city again, thousands of monster-zombies are rampaging through the sunny streets gathering booty for their avaricious master, and when Nico uses her mystic weapon the Staff of One to stop the ghastly rioters the spell is warped and hundreds of individual victims merge into a colossal composite horrorâ€¦

Whilst she was in the past, the Last of the Minorus was captured and tortured by her own ancestor, a witch determined to make Nico attain her full potential. That scheme has clearly worked as her spells are fantastically stronger and drastically misfire every time she tries oneâ€¦

After a further disastrous attempt to save the ensorcelled zombies, the kids withdraw and instead go after Rhymin at the Hollywood Bowl where he waits for his slaves to bring all the money and jewels they’ve been ordered to steal.

Also there is Mother, who attempts to steal Nico’s Staff – and regrets it for the last three seconds of his lifeâ€¦

With the wizard gone it doesn’t take the kids long to reverse the spell and save the day but Nico is now terrified by how lethally uncontrollable her power has becomeâ€¦

Issue #10 offered two tales, beginning with the hilarious ‘Mollifest Destiny’ by Chris Yost & Sara Pichelli. Molly is a super-strong and tough mutant going through those difficult bossy-boots years but she’s faithful, loyal and extremely protective of her friends.

Elsewhere in the world, the world’s mutant population was reduced to a couple of hundred desperate souls, following the temporary madness of the Avenger Scarlet Witch (as seen in the various House of M story-arcs).

Most of the empowered survivors banded together in self-imposed exile on Utopia Island in San Francisco Bay: 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 whilst telepath Emma Frost sent out a psychic summons offering all remaining mutants sanctuary.

Heeding the call, little Mollie reluctantly obeyed but she would rather have stayed with her friendsâ€¦

â€¦And after a very short while trying to deal with the hyper-active, super-curious, annoyingly perky, indestructible and incredibly destructive little girl, Colossus, the Beast, Frost, Cyclops and especially Wolverine were more than happy to return her to them – especially after Wolverine saw how Mollie dealt with a gang of super-villains who wanted to take revenge on the turbulent tyke for the unexpiated sins of her parentsâ€¦

The stories end with a warmly informative character piece by James Asmus & Emma Rios, which finds the reunited runaways playing ‘Truth or Dare’ in the Malibu beach house they have appropriated.

As well as learning more about each other, the kids discover just how unruly Nico’s Staff has become after it grotesquely interacts with another mystic talisman recently confiscated from racist cult The Sons of the Serpent. There’s kissing and violence and giant snakes and icky grossness, dudesâ€¦

With covers and variants by Humberto Ramos, David LaFuente & Christina Strain, cover production art by LaFuente and design sketches from Rios, this marvellously upbeat and deliciously funny thriller is a superbly entertaining, thought-provoking Fights ‘n’ Tights treasure bursting with wit, action, horror, humour, charm and poignant passion, once more proving that superhero comics can surmount their escapist, gratuitous power-fantasy roots and deliver stories of depth and even joy.

February 7, 2013February 6, 2013

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four

By Christos Gage & Mario Alberti with Bill Mantlo, Mike Zeck, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4423-6

After a shaky start in 1962, The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the groundbreaking creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four. Eventually the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera became the model for an entire generation of younger heroes who imperceptibly began elbowing aside the staid, more mature costumed-crimebusters of previous publications and eras.

Since the 1970s the Astounding Arachnid and his hard-luck alter ego Peter Parker have become full-blown multimedia icons and survived every manner of seemingly insane reboot and upgrade to become globally real in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, Tarzan, Superman, Batman and Harry Potter.

The Fantastic Four are – more often than not – maverick genius Reed Richards, his fiancÃ©e (later wife) Sue Storm, their trusty friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny, driven survivors of a independently-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the quartet found that they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and, eventually, project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was mutated into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

A core element of superhero comics is the â€œteam-upâ€ wherein costumed champions unite to tackle a greater than usual threat, or even each other; a sales-generating tactic taken to its logical extreme at Marvel wherein most early encounters between masked mystery men were generally prompted by jurisdictional disputes resulting in usually spectacular punch-ups before the heroes finally got on with allying to confront the real menaceâ€¦

Combining Marvel’s biggest franchise and most creatively influential series, this slim, slick tome collects the 4-issue miniseries Spider-Man/Fantastic Four (from August to September 2010) by scripter Christos Gage and artist Mario Alberti, reprising their earlier trawl through key points of Marvel history affecting the wall-crawler and assorted iterations of X-Men.

Also focussing on the long, convoluted, inextricably interwoven relationship of the solitary web-spinner and the First Family of Superheroics, this compilation also offers an earlier crossover of the icons first seen in Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 and Fantastic Four #218 (both from May 1980).

The first chapter of the main story is set just after stuffy Mr. Fantastic and Sue Storm announced their engagement, a time when Peter Parker had just started college at Empire State University.

A ‘Crisis on Campus’ was triggered when the institution hosted a secret conference of world leaders and Victor Von Doom, absolute monarch of Balkan kingdom Latveria, demanded his arch-foes the FF should be his bodyguards. With the State Department pushing all the patriotism buttons the furious foursome had no choice but to reluctantly complyâ€¦

Intended merely as a means to aggravate and humiliate his enemies, the ploy became deadly serious when enraged Atlantean Prince Namor and his sub-sea legions attacked the meeting seeking vengeance on Doom.

Events escalated when the Iron Dictator refused to stay locked in a super-secure Panic Room and possessed the body of the Human Torch to personally rebuke the Sub-Mariner‘s insults. Total catastrophe seemed unavoidable until the physically overmatched web-spinner proffered a brilliantly sneaky way to break up the cataclysmic fightâ€¦

Unknown to all participants, however, a clandestine time-travelling foe was the chaos as cover to acquire elements necessary to bring about the downfall of his greatest foes and the very rewriting of historyâ€¦

‘Symbiosis’ skips forward a few years to the time after the first Secret Wars, when Spider-Man discovered that his new smart-tech black costume was in fact an alien parasite. The uniform had attempted to bond permanently to Peter and had to be forcibly removed and contained by Reed and the FF.

The strange invader (see Spider-Man vs. Venom and Amazing Spider-Man: the Saga of the Alien Costume for further details) would eventually bond with deranged, disgraced reporter Eddie Brock, becoming Venom, a savage, shape-changing dark-side version of the Astounding Arachnid, but in this untold aside the cosmic creature broke free almost immediately, seizing control of Richards, temporary replacement She-Hulk and eventually Reed’s son Franklin.

The boy possessed dormant power on a level to reshape the universe and, as Spider-Man selflessly attempted to lure the Symbiote away by offering himself as a sacrifice, the mysterious time-thief again surreptitiously stepped in to purloin another artefact crucial to his planâ€¦

Once the heroes had at last repelled and incarcerated the parasite peril, the saga shifted forward to the time when Skrull outlaw De’Lila invaded Earth, with her own people hot on her viridian high heels.

Evading heavy pursuit she attacked the FF and seemingly killed them. Disguised as a grieving Sue Richards she then recruited four heroes – The Hulk, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and Spider-Man – to hunt down the murderers.

Their quest took them deep into the bowels of the Earth and battle with the Mole Man and his legion of monsters, before she was exposed and defeated. The shapeshifting psionic siren had been seeking a semi-sentient ultimate weapon called a Technotroid and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ occurs minutes after the close of the original story (for which see Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed) as the temporal raider frees De’Lila from her Skrull captors as a deadly diversion whilst he takes the essence of the Technotroid for himself

Deprived of her trademark duplicity but with her telepathic abilities augmented, the temptress simply makes most of the men and Skrull cops her love-slaves and sets them upon Sue, new temp Sharon â€œShe-Thingâ€ Ventura and Spider-Man, forcing the irrepressible wall-crawler to use the most shocking of tactics to free the males from their murderous stuporsâ€¦

The decade-long scheme of the mystery time-bandit is finally revealed in the concluding chapter ‘Family Values’ as – in the present – Spider-Man is lured to the Fantastic Four’s HQ and attacked with the rest of the team by one they had long considered to be part of their exotic extended family, lost in combat years agoâ€¦

Armoured with ultimate power and sporting a colossal chip on his shoulder, the prodigal intends to destroy Dr. Doom and offers the astounded gathering a chance to prove their loyalty by joining himâ€¦

When they try to humour the clearly disturbed assailant he cracks and all hell breaks looseâ€¦

However not all the heroes’ power can affect the attacker but Spider-Man, child of misuse, ill-fortune and isolation thinks he sees a kindred damaged spirit in the maniacal marauderâ€¦

Wry, witty, explosively action-packed, bombastic and genuinely moving, this clever re-evaluation of the bonds between the First Family and the solitary Spider-Man is a delightful celebration of everything that made Marvel such a force for change in the industry, and it’s a real shame that new readers won’t be able to pick up on the historical continuity scholarship that underpins a great fun yarn. That being said, this is still a funnybook frolic the freshest newbie to comics can easily followâ€¦

Following the fearsome festivities is a section of sketches, pencils, unused and working drawings from Alberti, before the compilation concludes with an old-school saga from Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 and Fantastic Four #218.

The action begins when ESU student Peter Parker goes on a class jaunt on a party boatÂ and is lured into a trap by the Frightful Four in ‘Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death’ by Bill Mantlo, Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney.

The villains had broadsided the wall-crawler after new recruit Electro impersonated the Human Torch and, in the concluding ‘When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!’ (FF #218 by Mantlo, John Byrne & Joe Sinnott, the Trapster repeats the tactic to ambush the crime-busting quartet, allowing his comrades the Wizard and Sandman to take over the Baxter Building citadel of the heroes.

â€¦At least until the fighting-mad web-spinner finally breaks free to launch an unstoppable counter attackâ€¦

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with all these characters, and even occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory in this magnificently compelling Costumed Drama, so if you’re looking for some fun-friendly Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy this could well be the one for youâ€¦
Â© 1980, 2010 and 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

February 4, 2013February 3, 2013

Spider-Man: With Great Powerâ€¦

By David Lapham & Tony Harris, with Jim Clark, Stefano Gaudiano and Matt Milla (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1968-5

One of the most astounding comicbook stories ever began with the sublime origin tale of ‘Spider-Man!’ by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko in the last issue ofÂ Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated September 1962); describing in 11 captivating pages the parable of Peter Parker, a smart but alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a High School science trip.

Discovering he had developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural genius in the fields of chemistry, physics and engineering – the boy did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a giftâ€¦Â he tried to milk for all it was worth in the hormone-fuelled determination to get girls, prestige, fame, money and girls.

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 after a TV interview, the self-aggrandized Peter didn’t lift a finger to stop the felon, only to find when he returned home that his guardian and uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazy 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, and tragically realised that it was the crook he couldn’t be bothered to stop.

His social irresponsibility had led to the death of the man who raised him and the boy swore to always use his powers to help othersâ€¦

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was one familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant monsters and flying cars – this stuff could happen to anybodyâ€¦

From that tortuous beginning Spider-Man swiftly evolved into one of the world’s most popular heroic characters with generations of writers returning to, mining and refining that simple tale for every possible nuance.

In 2008 star creators David Lapham and Tony Harris (with inkers Jim Clark and Stefano Gaudiano and colourist Matt Milla) took a hard look at the origin and came up with an impressive fresh avenue previously unexplored: what exactly happened during Parker’s brief fling with showbiz celebrity?

The result was a 5-issue miniseries under the elite Marvel Knights imprint that impressively added an even greater edge of tragedy and recrimination to the lad’s subsequent campaign and injusticeâ€¦

Opening with the key page from the Lee/Ditko classic, most of this turbulent tale is set pretty much between those two panels and finds â€œthe Spider-Manâ€ signed up with a cheesy wrestling federation. The masked and obsessively secretive kid is obnoxiously revelling in his newfound power amongst these shady adult characters yet still being bullied in his â€œnormalâ€ life at High School: continually harassed by jock Flash Thompson whilst fruitlessly lusting after queen of the popular kids Liz Allenâ€¦

Uncle Ben and Aunt May are increasingly concerned by their sweet, clever boy. He’s become secretive, argumentative and unnaturally rebellious. Although they’ve been expecting it for years, the â€œTroubled Teenâ€ phase is still a bit of shock and the solicitously understanding seniors combat it by giving the boy a clunky old car to show they accept his growing independenceâ€¦

With the kid being taught all the tricks of show-fighting by the welcoming but jaded older wrestlers in the fight-stable, promoter Monty Caabash sees his compulsively anonymous new find as his ticket to the big time – and so do his gangster backers. With a lucrative West Coast TV sport show in the offing, they just can’t afford to lose their mysterious cash-cow, but the adulation and ready money is turning Peter’s head.

He dumps Uncle Ben’s gift in favour of a sports car only to wreck in a crazy drag race with Flash: an incident which puts him in an E.R., although his worried guardians have no idea since the unruly kid is frequently staying out all night these daysâ€¦

As Monty invests more time and money in his prize fighter, the boy becomes a New York sensation and the promoter’s worldly-wise associate Tiffany LeBeck sees a way to use her own mature charms to win a piece of the millions Spider-Man could generate.

Before long the sex-starved kid is beguiled and besotted by the older woman’s charms and she becomes his manager; promising an inevitably clash with Monty’s ruthless backers.

At school Parker’s increased confidence has enabled him to make real headway with Liz too. With everything going right the ebullient boy spends some time back in his lab inventing a way to increase his cachet by inventing webbing and web-shooters: tricks that will make him even more spectacular in the ring and on the screenâ€¦

New York loves the mysterious celebrity and goes into media frenzy mode – all except the contrary publisher of the Daily Bugle. Inexplicably incensed, J. Jonah Jameson wants to know the truth about this Amazing Spider-Man and begins a highly provocative campaign against the wrestler and his managementâ€¦

There are bigger stories. The first team of superheroes since WWII has emerged, battling monsters and villains with shining valour and full public disclosure. Spider-Man even watched the Fantastic Four in action once, battling the horrific spawn of the Miracle Man.

The kid was sitting in a safe skyscraper perch with one of his groupies nestled safely in his armsâ€¦

Peter doesn’t care about bad publicity and unfair comparisons: he’s a celebrity sportsman, not a crime-busting crusader. Even when a thief runs right past him after a TV interview, he does nothing. That’s the police’s jobâ€¦

Ditching school, chasing girls, falling further under Tiffany’s slowly seductive influence, Peter gets a huge reality check when, during a confrontation with Uncle Ben outside a nightclub where he’s spent all night dancing with Liz, a colossal monster attacks the city, raining death and destruction upon hundreds of helpless citizens. Despite himself the boy explodes into action, saving Ben and his traumatised date, but horrifically failing to rescue a trapped stranger, even after the impressive man-monster dubbed The Thing comes to his assistanceâ€¦

Shocked, confused and deeply upset in the aftermath, Parker gets blind drunk and returns to Tiffany’s boudoir, only to pass out too soonâ€¦ Waking up face to face with Monty’s extremely unsavoury bosses he discovers the kind of people’s he’s involved with as chief hood Mr. Angel explains the facts of life.

Hollywood means big, legitimate money and Jameson’s smear campaign is making the TV execs nervous. So if everybody wants heroes like the FF, Spider-Man is going to be one – even if the mob has to set up kittens to rescue and slobs to saveâ€¦

Peter complies but his heart isn’t in it: it’s only by sheer luck that he doesn’t cause the deaths of dozens of people and when that doesn’t placate Angel the racketeer opts to end his problems by shutting up Jameson for goodâ€¦

Even Tiffany can’t handle that however and when she drunkenly reveals the scheme to her besotted boy Peter, he puts his mask back on and heads out to change his destiny foreverâ€¦

With Jameson saved and his life back on track, Peter heads home to reconcile with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, only to find he house surrounded by police carsâ€¦

Dark, gritty, subtly sophisticated and rationally reasonable, this clever exploration of the in-between moments adds those layers of meaning to the tragic tale that modern, mature readers seem to dote on and, child of the simplistic Sixties though I am, even I found this extension of the classic story to be both beguiling and exceptionally entertaining.

February 3, 2013February 2, 2013

Essential Daredevil volume 5

By Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Bob Brown, Don Heck, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2762-3

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for much of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wisecracking his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor he’s been seen as in latter years.

After spending years in a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page Murdock took up with former client and Russian Ã©migrÃ© Natasha Romanoff, the infamous and notorious spy dubbed The Black Widow.

She was railroaded and framed for murder and prosecuted by Matt’s best friend and law partner Foggy Nelson before the blind legal eagle cleared her. Subsequently leaving New York with her for the wild wacky and West Coast, Matt joined the prestigious San Francisco law firm of Broderick & Sloan but adventure, disaster and intrigue seemed capable of finding the Sightless Swashbuckler anywhereâ€¦

This fifth Essential collection re-presents Daredevil #102-125, covering August 1973 to September 1975, and also includes Marvel Two-in-One #3 wherein twin storylines converged, and the action opens with DD searching for recently escaped psychedelic assassin Angar the Screamer.

However Hornhead’s diligent quest instead brought him into conflict with a merciless and similarly displaced old foe when ‘Stilt-Man Stalks the City’ (by Chris Claremont, Syd Shores & Frank Giacoia). The skyscraping scoundrel had first kidnapped the daughter of an inventor in order to extort enhanced weaponry out of the traumatised tinkerer but wasn’t expecting interference from his oldest adversary or his new utterly ruthless paramourâ€¦.

No sooner had DD and the Widow ended the miscreant’s rampage than #103 saw a team-up with Spider-Man as a merciless cyborg attacked the odd couple whilst they posed for roving photojournalist Peter Parker in ‘â€¦Then Came Ramrod!’ by Steve Gerber, Don Heck & Sal Trapani.

The barely-human brute was after files in Murdock’s safe and hinted of a hidden master, but ultimately his blockbusting strength was of little real use against the far faster veteran heroesâ€¦

Even whilst the distracted Murdock was realising that his own boss was sabotaging the attorney’s cases, the mystery manipulator was hiring warped mercenary Sergei Kravinoff to make Daredevil ‘Prey of the Hunter!’ Matt’s priorities changed when Kraven abducted Natasha, and even after the hero had rescued her, explosively returned to defeat them both, throwing the hero to his death over a cliffâ€¦

Daredevil #105 saw Natasha brutally avenge her man’s murder, but Murdock was far from dead, having being teleported from the jaws of doom by a ‘Menace from the Moons of Saturn!’ (inked by Don Perlin). In a short sequence pencilled by Jim Starlin, the earthborn Priestess of Titan Moondragon was introduced, and revealed how she had been dispatched to Earth to counter the schemes of death-worshipping proto-god Thanos. She also inadvertently disclosed how she had allied with a respected man of power and authority, providing him with a variety of augmented agents such as Dark Messiah, Ramrod and Angarâ€¦

Gerber, Heck & Trapani then brought the expansive extended epic closer to culmination as the manipulator was unmasked in ‘Life Be Not Proud!’ but not before the wily plotter had redeployed all his past minions,Â shot his misguided ally Moondragon, usurped a Titanian ultimate weapon and unleashed a life-leeching horror dubbed Terrex upon the world.

With all Earth endangered, DD, the Widow and guest-star Captain Marvel were forced to pull out all the stops to defeat the threat, and only then after a last-minute defection by the worst of their enemies and a desperate ‘Blind Man’s Life!’ courtesy of Gerber, Bob Brown & Sal Buscema.

A new direction began in #108 when DD noticed Natasha using increasingly excessive force on the thugs they stalked. Their heated arguments were forcibly curtailed when Matt’s oldest friend – and current New York DA Foggy Nelson – was shot and she refused to rush to his side with Murdockâ€¦

Back in the Big Apple, Matt meets Foggy’s radical student sister Candace and learns of a plot by a mysterious organisation called Black Spectre to steal government printing plates. En route to stop the raid the Scarlet Swashbuckler is intercepted by a larcenous third party whose brutal interference allows the sinister plotters to abscond with the money making plates in ‘Cryâ€¦ Beetle!’ illustrated by Brown & Paul Gulacy.

Even the arrival of the cops can’t slow the bludgeoning battle against the Beetle in ‘Dying for Dollar$!’ (Brown & Heck), but even as the exo-skeletoned skell breaks away in NYC, in San Francisco Natasha is attacked by a terrifying albino mutant called Nekra Priestess of Darkness, who wants to recruit her into Black Spectre.

After tracking down and defeating the Beetle, Daredevil meets Africa-based adventuress Shanna the She-Devil, unaware that the fiery American ex-pat is back seeking bloody vengeance against the same enemies who have attacked Foggy, Natasha and the entire US economyâ€¦

The next chapter appeared in Marvel Two-in-One #3 (May 1974, by Gerber, Sal Buscema & Joe Sinnott) and offered a peek ‘Inside Black Spectre!’ as destabilising attacks on US prosperity and culture fomented riot in the streets of the beleaguered nation.

Following separate clue trails the Thing linked up with the Man Without Fear to invade the cabal’s flying HQ but they were impossibly overcome soon after discovering that the Black Widow had defected to the rebelsâ€¦

Issue #110 saw the return of Gene Colan – inked by Frank Chiaramonte – as the plot further developed in ‘Birthright!’ revealing that Black Spectre was an exclusively female and minorities staffed organisation, led by a pheromone-fuelled male mutant called Mandrill.

One of the first â€œChildren of the Atomâ€, the ape-like creature had suffered appalling abuse and rejection until he found the equally ostracised Nekra, but once they met and realised their combined power, they swore to make America payâ€¦

‘Sword of the Samurai!’ (Brown & Jim Mooney) in Daredevil #111 opened with DD and Shanna attacked by a monstrous Japanese warrior even as the She-Devil at last disclosed her own tragic reasons for hunting Nekra and Mandrill. When she too is taken by Black Spectre – who want to dissect her to discover how she can resist Mandrill’s influence – DD is again attacked by the outrageously powerful Silver Samuraiâ€¦

Triumphing over impossible odds DD then infiltrates the flying fortress in #112 before the spectacular conclusion ‘Death of a Nation?’ (with art by Colan & Giacoia) finds the mutant duo seemingly achieving their ultimate goal by desecrating the White House and temporarily taking symbolic control of America.

â€¦But only until Shanna, the freshly-liberated Natasha and the fighting mad Man without Fear marshal their utmost resourcesâ€¦

Even with the epic over Gerber still kept popping away at contemporary issues as with #113 ‘When Strikes the Gladiator!’ – illustrated by Brown & Vince Colletta – which began with the Black Widow calling it a day, continued with Candace Nelson being arrested by for treason, teased with the girl being kidnapped by one of DD’s most bloodthirsty foes and culminated with the creation of a new major villain and an attack by Marvel’s most controversial monster heroesâ€¦

Ted Sallis was a government scientist hired to recreate the Super-Soldier serum that turned a puny volunteer into Captain America. Due to corporate interference and what we today call â€œmission creepâ€, the project metamorphosed into a fall-back plan to turn humans into monstrous beings that could thrive in the most polluted of toxic environments.

When Sallis was subsequently captured by spies and consumed his serum to stop them from stealing it, he was transformed into a horrific mindless Man-Thing and lost in the swamps of Floridaâ€¦

Candace, an idealistic journalism student, had later uncovered illicit links between Big Business, her own university and the Military’s misuse of public funds in regard to the Sallis Project but when she attempted to blow the whistle the government decided to shut her up. More worryingly, scientific mastermind Death-Stalker could think of far more profitable uses for a solution that made unkillable monstersâ€¦

Trailing Candy’s abductors to Citrusville, Florida, Daredevil was ambushed by Gladiator and his macabre senior partner, but saved after a furious fracas by the mysterious Man-Thing in #114’s ironically entitled ‘A Quiet Night in the Swamp!’ (Brown & Colletta). The mastermind managed to escape however and returned to New York where he tried to kill Foggy and track down the clandestine, still operating continuation of the Sallis Project. Even though DD arrived in time to foil the maniac in #115’s ‘Death Stalks the City!’ the staggering duel ended inconclusively and the potential mass-murderer’s body could not be found.

Colan & Colletta reunited for ‘Two Flew Over the Owl’s Nest!’ as Daredevil returned to San Francisco in search of reconciliation with Natasha only to blunder into the latest criminal enterprise of one of his oldest enemies.

This time however The Owl isn’t waiting to be found and launches an all-out attack on the unsuspecting DD and the Widow.

Claremont scripted the conclusion over Gerber’s plot, with Brown & Colletta back on the art as Natasha and Shanna desperately hunt for the missing Man without Fear before the avian arch-criminal can add him to the pile of purloined personalities trapped in the diabolical ‘Mind Tap!’â€¦

With Gerber moving on, a little messy creative shuffling resulted in ‘Circus Spelled Sideways is Death!’ (#118 by Gerry Conway, Heck & Colletta) as Daredevil left Natasha, resettled in New York and promptly battled the infamous Circus of Crime and their latest star turn – a bat-controlling masked nut called Blackwing – after which Tony Isabella took the authorial reins with a clever piece of sentimental back-writing in ‘They’re Tearing Down Fogwell’s Gym!’ rendered by Brown & Heck.

As Murdock negotiates a plea deal for Candace, the man who trained his boxer father comes by with a little problem. It seems a crazy crooked doctor is offering an impossible muscle and density boosting treatment that can turn ordinary pugilists into unstoppable monstersâ€¦

Daredevil #120 then began an extended story-arc which focussed on the re-emergence of the world’s most powerful secret society.

‘â€¦And a Hydra New Year!’ (Isabella, Brown & Colletta) saw the Black Widow hit New York for one last attempt to make the relationship work only to find herself – with Matt and Foggy – knee-deep in Hydra soldiers at a Christmas party.

The resurgent terrorist tribe has learned that America’s greatest security agency needs to recruit a legal expert as one of their Board of Directors and, determined to prevent the accession of ‘Foggy Nelson, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D’ at all costs, have dispatched the formidable El Jaguar and an army of thugs to stop him before he can start.

Thankfully Nick Fury and his crack commandos arrive in time to drive off the attackers but the rumour is true and Foggy is now a marked manâ€¦

Both issues #120 and 121 were supplemented by text pages outlining the convoluted history of Hydra and they’re reprinted here too to keep us all in the arcane espionage loopâ€¦

The new organisation has scoured the ranks of the criminal classes – and Marvel’s back catalogue – for its return and the likes of Dreadnought, Commander Kraken, Man-Killer, Mentallo, The Fixer, Blackwing and many other golden oldies happily toil for the enigmatic new Supreme Hydra as he continually strives to take out the increasingly harried Foggy. Eventually they succeed in capturing the portly DA and Natasha goes off the deep end in #122’s ‘Hydra-and-Seek’, turning New York into an active war-zone as she hunts for clues, culminating in a brutal showdown and ‘Holocaust in the Halls of Hydra!’

The times and mood were changing however and the last two issues comprise a turn to darker, more gothic dramas beginning with #124 and the advent of a vigilante killer patterned on an old pulp fiction hero.

‘In the Coils of the Copperhead!’ by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Colan & Klaus Janson courted the controversial gritty realism then remaking Batman over at DC Comics as the Widow finally really and truly walked out on DD, leaving the frustrated hero to bury himself in the mystery of a murdering madman overreacting to petty crime and leaving a trail of bodies behind himâ€¦

Foggy meanwhile was up for re-election and losing on all counts to the too-good-to-be true Blake Tower but Matt couldn’t offer any help as he had tracked down the secret of the vigilante. The resultant clash didn’t go the Scarlet Swashbuckler’s way, however, and he started issue #125 with the terrifying realisation that ‘Vengeance is the Copperhead!’ (Wolfman, Brown & Janson) before achieving a last-minute skin-of-the-teeth hollow victoryâ€¦

The marvellous monochrome tome also includes unseen preliminary covers to issues #104, 107 & 115 by Gil Kane and Jim Starlin plus Marvel Universe Handbook pages giving the low-down on the Man without Fear, technical specs on his handy Billy-Club and the convoluted official intelligence on the Black Widow.

As the social upheaval of the 1960sand early 1970s receded, the impressively earnest material was gradually being replaced by fabulous fantasy tales which strongly suggested the true potential of Daredevil was in reach. These beautifully illustrated yarns may still occasionally jar with their heartfelt stridency, naivety and often-outdated attitudes but the narrative energy and sheer exuberant excitement of these classic adventures are delights no action fan will care to miss.

January 31, 2013January 30, 2013

Secret Warriors volume 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing

By Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Stefano Caselli (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851- 3864-8

Just as the 1960s espionage fad was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man, Nick Fury the spy debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963 – between #4 and 5 of his own blistering battle mag), a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel lurking at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes.

He was already the star of the little company’s only war comic: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable and decidedly over-the-top, raucous and wild WWII series similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen.

When spy stories went global in the wake of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. the elder iteration was given a second series (in Strange Tales #135, August 1965) set in the then-present. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tension and sinister schemes of World Conquest by hidden, subversive all-encompassing enemy organisation Hydra – all gift-wrapped with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgets and explosive high energy.

Once iconic imagineer Jim Steranko took charge, layering in a sleek, ultra-sophisticated edge of trend-setting drama, the series became one of the best and most visually innovative strips in America – if not the world.

When the writer/artist left and the spy-fad faded, the whole concept simply withdrew into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe, occasionally resurfacing in new series but increasingly uncomfortable to read as the role of spooks â€œon our sideâ€ became ever more debased in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.

In 1989 a six issue prestige format miniseries reinvigorated the concept. As a company targeting the youth-oriented markets, Marvel had experienced problems with their in-house clandestine organisation. In most of their other titles, US agents and â€œthe Fedsâ€ were now usually the bad guys and author Bob Harras used this theme as well as the oddly quirky self-referential fact that nobody aged in comic continuity to play games with the readers.

Fury had discovered that everybody in his organisation had been â€œturnedâ€ and was now an actual threat to freedom and democracy. His core beliefs and principles about leading â€œthe Good Guysâ€ betrayed and destroyed, he went on the run, hunted by the world’s most powerful covert agency with all the resources he’d devised and utilised now turned against him.

After that story was resolved S.H.I.E.L.D. was reinvented for the 1990s: a new leaner organisation, nominally acting under UN mandate, soon pervaded the Marvel Universe. The taste of betrayal and those seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away thoughâ€¦

Following a number of global crises – including a superhero Civil War – Fury was replaced as S.H.I.E.L.D. director. His successor Tony Stark proved to be a huge mistake and after an alien invasion by Skrulls, the organisation was mothballed: replaced by the manically dynamic Norman Osborn and his cultishly loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. outfit.

Osborn’s ascent was an even bigger error. As America’s Director of National Security the former Green Goblin and recovering psychopath instituted a draconian â€œDark Reignâ€ of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the nation into a paranoid tinderbox. AsAmerica’s top Fed he was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of the burgeoning metahuman community.

This spectacularly poor choice was, however, also directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise and fall were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive universe. His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret powers of the planet and his ultimate defeat destabilised many previously unassailable empiresâ€¦

Fury, a man driven by duty, fuelled by suspicion and powered by a serum which kept him vital far beyond his years, didn’t go away. He just went deep undercover and continued doing what he’d always done – saving the world, one battle at a time. Even after Osborn was gone, Fury stayed buried, preferring to fight battles his way and with assets and resources he’d personally acquired and builtâ€¦

This beguiling and complex superspy thriller collects material from Dark Reign, New Nation and Secret Warriors #1-6 from 2008, beginning with a short recap of the current global crises, a gathering of heroic strangers and a reaffirmation of Captain America’s maxim that a few good men can change the world in ‘I Will Be the One Man’â€¦

Fury had long known that to do the job properly he needed his own resources and no political constraints. Thus he had clandestinely built up his own formidable and unimpeachable resources. Decades in charge at S.H.I.E.L.D. provided him with mountains of data on metahumans from which he compiled â€œCaterpillar Filesâ€ on a host of unknown, unexploited, untainted potential operatives who might metamorphose into powerful assetsâ€¦

With the nations and covert organisations in disarray he moved to fix the mess with a squad of dedicated super-human operatives. But it was a truly dangerous game, as evidenced by the fact that one of Fury’s most valued but volatile assets is the 12-year old son of Grecian war-god Ares. Phobos is destined to become the new god of Fear…

Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, Sebastian Druid, Jerry â€œStonewallâ€ Sledge, J.T. â€œHellfireâ€ James and Daisy Johnson, codenamed Quake, were his first picks, dubbed Team White and activated whilst Osborn was still in power.

Simultaneously battling both Hydra and H.A.M.M.E.R. forces whilst rendering a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. facility useless to both agencies, the squad picked up valuable intelligence in ‘Come with Me and Save the World’, prompting Fury to break into the White House and apprise the new President of his intentions and the current status quo.

At no stage did he ask for permission or approvalâ€¦

He kept the worst of the intel to himself. For most of his career S.H.I.E.L.D. had been no more than a deeply submerged asset of Hydra and all his victories nothing more acceptable losses for a secret society reaching back to ancientEgyptand which had been secretly steering the world for millennia.

Now Osborn and the Skrull invasion had shaken things up so much, Fury had an honest chance to truly wipe out the perfidious organisation foreverâ€¦

‘Autofac’ then provides all the maps, data files and diagrams any conspiracy nut could ever need to untangle the web of assorted secret agencies, before ‘My Desire is Eternal’ shifts focus to the recent past when current Hydra supremo Baron Wolfgang von Strucker battled Skrull infiltrators.

In the months that followed, Hydra too was attacked, seemingly destroyed, but now Strucker sought to capitalise on the chaos and regenerate the cult in his own image, necessitating seizing all fallow assets, technology and even experienced operatives abandoned by friends and enemies alikeâ€¦

As Team White slowly grew closer Strucker was recruiting breakaway factions of Hydra, unhappily marrying super-science and generational cabals with ancient magic. This rabid rapid expansion did however give Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisationâ€¦

Now as Strucker creates a new hierarchy of deadly lieutenants – Viper, Madame Hydra, Kraken, Silver Samurai, The Hive and resurrected mutant ninja the Gorgon – Fury cautiously expands his own organisation, reaching out to old S.H.I.E.L.D. comrades he feels worthy of trust. It’s too little and too late. In ‘After a While You Simply Are What You Are’ finds Team White taking their first casualty and experiencing their biggest defeat when Daisy leads the squad against Gorgon as his forces attempt to kidnap an entire division of forcibly â€œretiredâ€ S.H.I.E.L.D. telepaths from the defunct and discredited Esper Agent section.

With the situation escalating, Druid and field-leader Daisy are sent to the Australian Outback to recruit a replacement for Team White from Fury’s Caterpillar Files. Meanwhile the old man himself goes to his oldest surviving friends for help and Phobos and J.T. rashly snoop in the secretive leader’s office and find something quite incredible in ‘It’s the World That’s Changed: I Haven’t Not One Bit’.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. was shut down, second-in-command Dum-Dum Dugan gathered up his most trusted fellow agents and veterans and went private, founding the Howling Commandos Private Military Company. Warriors to the last, they’ve been looking for one last good war and a proper way to die.

As they are reacquainting themselves with their old boss, in Australia Daisy and Druid find unexpected success with the extraordinarily powerful but oddly naÃ¯ve mystical teleporter and reality shaper Eden Fesi but realise that’s only because his mentor Gateway wouldn’t let him go with the guys from Hydraâ€¦

As Strucker’s cabal laid their plans and continued to accrue men and materiel, Fury and the Howling Commandos moved to secure some heavy armaments of their own, sneak attacking The Dock – a H.A.M.M.E.R. base where the mothballed fleet of colossal flying fortresses known as Heli-Carriers were stored.

Sadly Hydra knew they were coming and took the opportunity to lay an ambush of their own. With Fury swiftly losing beloved comrades and the three-way battle going against his veteran forces, things looked bad until Team White chose to disobey orders and teleported in for a blockbusting rescue mission in ‘Summon the Horde Wake the Beast’â€¦

As the surviving Commandos escaped with three Heli-Carriers, the Secret Warrior put Daisy through a terse debrief, and she ferociously defended herself, claiming Team White only broke protocol and disobeyed orders because Fury pressed his Panic Buttonâ€¦ Something he claims didn’t happenâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This excellent exercise in tense suspense and Machiavellian manipulation also includes a stunning ‘Cover gallery’ by Jim Cheung to supplement the wry, engagingly cynical, blackly comical and gloriously excessive cloak-and-dagger conflicts: employing enough intrigue to bamboozle even the most ardent espionage aficionado, although I fear that a thorough grounding in Marvel continuity might be necessary to fully appreciate this intense and engaging effort to the full.
Â© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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