Marvel Superheroes – Page 80

January 13, 2013January 12, 2013

Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home

By J Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr. & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-90415-900-1(TPB) Â Â Â Â Â Â : 978-1-90600-000-7 (HB)

Outcast, orphaned science-nerd schoolboy Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he subsequently developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered by a burglar Peter could have stopped but didn’t because he didn’t want to get involved.

Too late the traumatised boy determined to always use his powers to help those in dire need and for years the brilliant young hero endured privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego suffered public condemnation and mistrust as Spider-Man valiantly battled all manners of threat and foeâ€¦

During this perpetual war for the ordinary underdog Parker faced many uncanny, bizarre and inexplicable menaces but always clung doggedly to his scientific rationalistic view of reality, all whilst desperately trying to keep his driven double life concealed from his frail surviving guardian Aunt Mayâ€¦

Following a catastrophic bankruptcy scare – both money and ideas – in the late 1990s Marvel returned reinvigorated and began refitting/retooling all their core character properties. In 1999 the expansive Spider-Man franchise was trimmed down and relaunched as two new titles – Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker: Spiderman and the constricting, fad-chasing policy of mindlessly chasing sales at any cost was replaced by a measured concentration on solid, character-based storytelling and strong art.

This particular collection, re-presenting Amazing Spider-Man volume 2, #30-35, (June â€“ November 2001) heralded the debut of J. Michael Straczynski as scripter and the return of fan-favourite John Romita Jr. – inked here by Scott Hanna – as well as a fundamental shift in the life of the harried hero.

The first of these issues also began the practice of double numbering: listing the issues from the beginning of Stan Lee & Steve Ditko’s original volume 1 series. Thus this book also or alternatively can be viewed as featuring issues #471-476. I’m sure that’s much clearer nowâ€¦

What you need to know: after all the turbulence and tragedy in Peter’s life, he married vivacious glamour girl Mary Jane Watson but their lives were continually blighted by terror and malice. After being kidnapped and held for months by a stalker who faked her death, Mary Jane was finally rescued by Spider-Man who had never given up hope. However the constant tension had finally proved too much and the restored Mrs. Parker left Peter for a life of relative normality inHollywoodâ€¦

The action begins with ‘Transformations: Literal & Otherwise’ as a bitter and shaken wall-crawler began acting out his frustrations and looking for ways to change his loser’s life. Aimlessly wandering he passes his old High School and sees how the once venerable edifice has become a grim and forbidding urban war-zone, offering not hope but brutality to all the kids trapped thereâ€¦

With much to ponder Spider-Man takes to the night streets and is startlingly accosted by a mysterious old man who seems to have similar powers. The enigmatic but oddly trustworthy Ezekiel also knows his preciously-guarded secret identity and whilst leading him a merry chase over the skyscrapers casts doubt on all the assumptions Peter has cherished regarding the origins of his powers and abilitiesâ€¦

Meanwhile down at the Docks, a monstrous withered creature has arrived. The man-shaped beast bids his unwilling servant make preparations for the next hunt, before finally consuming the last of the captured superhero who has sustained him in his tedious journey to theNew Worldâ€¦

The mystery deepens in ‘Coming Home’ as the perplexed Parker makes a momentous decision and applies to become a science teacher at his old school. He is painfully unaware that both Ezekiel and the horrifying Spider hunter are making their own plans for him.

Peter’s day is not without incident however as the school is attacked by a lone gunman, hunting the bullies who made his life a living hell.

In ‘The Long, Dark Pizza of the Soul’ the new teacher suddenly becomes the Principal’s Pet when Ezekiel donates a huge sum of money in Parker’s name, and begins explaining to the baffled boffin the true nature of the legacy of Spider-Man and the ancient totemic animal spirits which have forced or enabled the creation of so many champions and monsters throughout Earth’s long history.

He also warns of the ghastly thing which has preyed upon them for millennia: a beast that is now here for the latest iteration of the Spider force. The aged arachnoid savant then offers to share the high-tech hidey hole he has had constructed to wait out the predator’s passingâ€¦

Never one to hide from trouble Peter refuses and is soon drawn into catastrophic battle with the beast who, calling himself Morlun, begins a sadistic rampage through town, determined to draw out his prey by slaughtering the mortal innocents Spider-Man so slavishly protects. Fighting with all his skill and power in ‘All Fall Down’ the embattled hero barely survives the first clash and only survives the first feeding because his implacable nemesis wants to prolong the experience…

Reeling from the impossible assault of the mystical Morlun, Parker begs assistance from Ezekiel, who after decades of hiding from the unstoppable, insatiable beast, understandably refuses. ‘Meltdown’ finds the utterly outclassed and hopeless Web-spinner preparing for his inevitable demise and making his final goodbyes when the peckish predator again begins tormenting innocents to draw out his target. Forced to fight again Peter prepares for death when Ezekiel, shamed and inspired by the youngster, attacks Morlun.

And dies.

With nothing left to lose Peter returns to the science that has always been his greatest companion in the blistering finale ‘Coming Out’ and incomprehensibly scores his greatest, as ever, unsung victory.

Shattered and broken the victor staggers back to his apartment and collapses in the tattered shreds of his costumeâ€¦ just as Aunt May blithely lets herself in to do her meek, mild, little boy’s laundryâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Stuffed with astounding action and with uproarious humour leavening the shocking tense suspense, this stellar tale of triumph and tragedy spectacularly repositioned Spider-Man for the next few years and kick-started a whole new kind of Arachnoid adventure, perfectly counterbalancing years of formulaic, hide-bound variations on a played out theme.

An extras-packed hardback re-issue of this tale was the first release in Panini’s ambitious Ultimate Graphic Novels Collection, and should you secure a copy of that you can also delight in a text history of Spider-Man in ‘Originsâ€¦’, biographies of Straczynski and John Romita Jr. and a thrilling artists Gallery with examples by many of the gifted creators who have limned the Wondrous Wall-crawler â€“ namely Steve Ditko, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, John Byrne, John Romita Sr., Todd McFarlane & Mark Bagley.

Also included is a Rogues Gallery/Call of the Wild feature depicting some of the totemic and animalistic villains who have plagued the hero over the years (Chameleon, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, Scorpion, Rhino, Man-Wolf, Jackal, Tarantula, Black Cat and Puma), a Further Reading list of pertinent recommendations and a selection of sketches by original comicbook cover artist J. Scott Campbell.

January 5, 2013January 5, 2013

Fantastic Four by Waid & Wieringo Ultimate Collection Book 2

By Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo, with Casey Jones, Karl Kesel & Larry Stucker (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5658-1

The Fantastic Four has long been considered the most pivotal series in modern comics history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging readers’ imaginations and attention. Regarded by fans as more as a family than a team, the roster has changed many times over the years but one which inevitably reverts again to its original core group.

Those steadfast stalwarts are maverick genius Reed Richards, wife Sue, their tried and true friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s younger brother Johnny; survivors of a privately-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 astoundingly elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and project force-fields, Johnny could turn into living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not reassume a semblance of normality on command.

This compilation gathers issues #67-70 of the 3^rd volume (before the series reverted to its original numbering) and then #500-502 plus bonus material from the Directors Cut edition of #500, highlighting the spectacular run by writer Mark Waid and much-missed illustrator Mike Wieringo, gloriously celebrating their â€œback-to-basicsâ€ approach which utterly rejuvenated the venerable property in 2003.

Key to that revival was a thorough reassessment and reappraisal of the team and their greatest enemy as seen in ‘Under her Skin’ (FF #67, May 2003, inked by Karl Kesel) wherein Victor Von Doom at last abandoned his technological gifts and inclinations, rejecting them for overwhelming sorcerous might to humiliate and destroy his greatest rival Reed Richards.

All he had to do was sacrifice his greatest love and only hope of redemptionâ€¦

This terrifying glimpse into Doom’s past and shocking character study in obsession was the prologue to a 4-part epic entitled ‘Unthinkable’ which opened one month later and would end with the resumption of the title’s original numbering in Fantastic Four #500.

Waid’s greatest gift is his ability to embed hilarious moments of comedy into tales of shattering terror and poignant drama, and it’s never better displayed than here when the First Family of Superheroes suddenly find their daily antics and explorations ripped from them. The method is straightforward enough: Doom attacks them through their children, using baby Valeria as a medium for eldritch exploitation and sending firstborn Franklin to Hell, a payment to the demons to whom the debased doctor has sold the last dregs of his soulâ€¦

A supreme technologist, Richards had never truly accepted the concept of magic, but with Master of the Mystic Arts Dr. Strange oddly unwilling to help, the reeling and powerless Mr. Fantastic nonetheless leads his team to Latveria for a showdown, still unable to grasp just how much his arch-foe has changed.

Invading the sovereign – if rogue â€“ nation, the team fight the greatest battle of their lives but lose anyway. The normally quicksilver mind of Richards seems unable to deal with the new reality and the FF are locked away in prisons specifically and sadistically designed to torment them. As a sign of his utter disdain, Doom locks his broken rival in a colossal library of grimoires and mystic manuscripts, knowing the defeated, dogmatic scientist can never make use of what is there. Big mistakeâ€¦

Before attacking the FF, Doom had ensorcelled Dr. Strange, but had greatly underestimated Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. Struggling to free himself, the mage establishes contact with Richards and begins to teach the unbelieving ultra-rationalist the basic of magicâ€¦

By the time Doom discovers his danger, Reed has freed his comrades and daughter and in the catastrophic battle which ensues the Iron Dictator replaces Franklin in as the hostage of Hell, but not before, in one final act of malice, he maims Reed Richards with a searing mystic retaliation, melting half his face by means which neither magic nor medicine can mendâ€¦

Although victorious, the Fantastic Four are far from winners. Doom’s assault upon the family has scarred them all, but none more so than Franklin, whose time in Hell has left him deeply traumatised and almost catatonic. In the 2-part follow-up ‘5^th Wheel’ (illustrated by Casey Jones), Sue and Ben desperately search for treatments that can break through the boy’s wall of silence whilst Johnny begins a campaign to drag Reed out of a post-traumatic funk. The only thing that seems to motivate the obsessively brooding inventor is a half-baked scheme to use Doom’s captured time-machine and visit the dictator’s boyhoodâ€¦

Meanwhile in the now, a visit to a funfair has resulted in a breakthrough – of sorts – forFranklin, but only reveals that the boy is still, in so many ways, trapped in hell. â€¦And for Johnny there’s a terrifying realisation that his infallible, perfect Brother-in-Law is going to shoot the still innocent Victor Von Doom before the child can grow into the greatest menace in historyâ€¦

Superbly entertaining, immensely exciting and genuinely challenging, this run of tales was a sublime renaissance for the â€œWorld’s Greatest Comics Magazineâ€ and this collection also includes a wealth of bonus material from the Director’s Cut anniversary edition, including a cover gallery, deleted scenes and outtakes, with commentary from Waid & Wieringo, pencil cover sketches, unused draughts and designs, a rundown of the creative process from script to finished page, Stan Lee’s original treatment for Fantastic Four #1, a tribute section from cartoonist Fred Hembeck, and a reproduction of every cover in the series’ monumental run.

What more do you need to know?

January 3, 2013January 2, 2013

Cable volume 3: Stranded

By Duane Swierczynski, Paul Gulacy, Gabriel Guzman, Mariano Taibo & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 979-0-7851-4167-9

The son of X-Man Scott Summers and a clone of Jean Grey, Nathan Christopher Summers was infected with a techno-organic virus as a baby. He was only saved by being sent through time, subsequently spending his formative years in the far future where he became an unlikely and largely unwilling saviour of assorted humankinds against mutant overlord Apocalypse and his vile minions such as the clone-warrior Stryfe.

Afflicted with a stubborn certainty that he always knew best – probably due to his hard-earned foreknowledge and weary experience of how bad the days to come would be – Nathan evolved into time-travelling super-soldier Cable and gradually inserted himself into the lives of key figures in mutant history: figures such as Professor Charles Xavier and his own father Cyclops – the Moses and King David of mutant-kindâ€¦

Using his phenomenal psionic abilities to hold at bay the incurable, progressive condition inexorably consuming his flesh and only held in check by the victim’s indomitable force of will, the mysterious grizzled veteran slowly began interacting with and reshaping the pastâ€¦

Hope Spalding-Summers was the first Homo Superior born on Earth after M-Day, when the temporarily insane mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch used her reality-warping powers to eradicate almost all fellow members of her terrifying sub-species from existence.

Considered by many to be some sort of mutant messiah, the newborn girl was â€œappropriatedâ€ by militant warrior Cable – no stranger to the role of Sole Saviour – who raised her in the furious future, training her in all manner of lethal survival skills before she inevitably found her way back to the present where she was adopted by X-Men supremo Scott Summers AKA Cyclops.

Hers was a horrifically memorable childhood as this slim, satisfying collection (gathering issues #16-20 of the monthly Cable comicbook from July-November 2009) will surely attestâ€¦

From the start Hope had implacable foes hunting her. The most resourceful was another time-tossed former X-Man, Lucas Bishop, who was convinced the child would cause the diabolically dystopian alternate reality he originated in. To prevent such horror ever occurring, Bishop determined to kill her before she could become a mutant anti-Christ and not even Cable’s frequent temporal relocations would deter himâ€¦

With the entire time-busting saga scripted by Duane Swierczynski, the action here begins with the 2-part ‘Too Late for Tears’ – illustrated by legendary comics icon Paul Gulacy – as Cable and nine-year-old Hope prepare to again jump into the safely camouflaging corridors of chronality after a particularly contentious battle.

However, the increasingly rebellious girl strikes out at her protector during a fateful moment and the time-shift goes wrongâ€¦

Hope materialises in the same post-apocalyptic location but two years earlier in time and, with no further information to go on, endeavours to make herself secure until Cable finds her. Stuck in her future, Cable patiently waits for her to â€œcatch upâ€ but his techno-viral contagion flares up and threatens to end his appalling life before she gets thenâ€¦

And 127 years prior to Cable’s latest crisis Bishop activates his own time-machine and remorselessly continues his pursuit of Hopeâ€¦

Stuck, but not without resources, the girl explores a dying Earth where only two warring cities are still inhabited. Soon she is approached by a young boy named Emil who is instantly smitten by the lethally self-sufficient waifâ€¦

Just as Cable forces back his latest bout of all-consuming transmogrification by invasive code, Bishop arrives and a deadly destructive but ultimately inconclusive battle breaks out. The follower’s plan is obsessively simple: as soon as he sees Hope he will end her by detonating a nuclear device inside his body.

But she isn’t with Cable any longerâ€¦

In another era, Emil has gradually broken Hope’s wall of distrust but, just as she feels she can finally relax, the girl discovers that the revered spiritual head of the boy’s band of survivors is her very familiar foe. The â€œArch-Bishopâ€ has been so patiently waiting for his time-bending bÃªte-noir to resurfaceâ€¦

The seemingly benevolent holy man has no problems wiping out his entire flock to finish her for good but Hope perpetually avoids him and Bishop just can’t trigger the nuke until he’s absolutely certain.

And two long years later, Cable moves into one of the two cities, makings plans, winning allies and waiting, waiting, waitingâ€¦

When at last 11-year old Hope is reunited with Cable, it’s as both cities are on the verge of mutual destruction and the mutant has no time for her protests. He has spent his time constructing a working space ship and after forcibly dragging his furious charge aboard takes off for the safety of space leaving a heartbroken Emil behind. Happily for the lovesick lad the wonderful Archbishop can also construct star-craft. Very soon they will all be reunitedâ€¦

Artists Gabriel Guzman & Mariano Taibo take over for the eerie alien encounter ‘Brood’ beginning with ‘Bishop Takes Pawn’ wherein Bishop and Emil lead their people into a final battle with Cable’s ship and crew on the edges of the solar system. Thankfully the boy finds Hope before the mutant hunter does and she convinces her long-lost paramour of the deranged cleric’s true intentions before falling to Bishop’s murderous rage.

With nuclear obliteration seconds away events overtake all the manic participants as both ships – locked together in the vacuum of deep space – are invaded by creatures even more ferociously dangerousâ€¦

The Brood are ghastly alien parasites and rapacious intelligent body-stealers who lay eggs in hosts and use the victims’ genetic material to augment their unborn generations. For uncounted centuries they have greedily hungered for the exceptional advantages gained by infecting mutants and metahumansâ€¦

In ‘Queen Takes Bishop’ the disgusting matriarch of the invading beasts specifically targets Hope as her overwhelming spawn decimate the last remnants of humanity aboard both ships. However, the little lass has met Brood before and knows just how to deal with them. Elsewhere Bishop and Cable also manage to survive the appalling assault, both obsessed with finding Hope for their drastically opposing reasonsâ€¦

As an entire space fleet of the noxious beasts zero in on the last humans alive, Bishop utterly succumbs to his obsession by allying himself with the Brood Queen to ensure the final fate of Hope, but has completely underestimated the child’s resiliency, Cable’s compulsive dutiful determination, and the unmatchable power of young love in the blazing conclusion ‘Checkmate’â€¦

Time-travel tales often disappoint and frequently make people’s heads hurt, but this bombastic romp (augmented by covers and variants by Dave Wilkins & Rob Liefeld) manages to always stick to the point, offering sly tributes – and some not so much – to Les Miserables and Alien whilst following the pain-wracked consumption of Cable by of his own non-fleshly invaders through a clever and poignant Fights ‘n’ Tights sci fi horror drama that will impress and delight older fans of the genre(s).

December 29, 2012December 27, 2012

Thor: Latverian Prometheus

By Kieron Gillen, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Stan Lee, Billy Tan, Ryan Stegman, David Aja & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4372-7

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

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

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

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

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues with the Thunder God reappearing a few weeks later. After many phenomenal adventures the second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004) which once-and-for-all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end an ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who had manipulated the inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

You can’t keep a profitable property down or a great comics character unresurrected, so he was reborn again as a mysterious voice summoned Thor back to life – and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) – in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary Lord of Asgard swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts and set up Asgard on Earth a few paltry feet above the ground ofBroxton,Oklahomaâ€¦

As this small, simple community with some intriguing neighbours increasingly became the focus of cosmic events, newly arrived big city doctor Don Blake was corporeally merged with Thor and became the mortal host for the God of Thunderâ€¦

What you need to know: when wicked trickster god Loki orchestrated his half-brother Thor’s exile from Asgard, Balder the Brave became the latest leader of the displaced deities. However the real power was always the skulking schemer who slowly convinced the new king to relocate the population of the floating kingdom to Latveria: absolute fiefdom of malign technological tyrant Doctor Doom.

No one knew then that the trickster had long been Doom’s ally in a cabal of ultimate evilâ€¦

The Iron Dictator, adept in science and sorcery, had always been gripped by a voracious lust for power and quickly began to kidnap and vivisect his Asgardian guests, determined to divine the secrets of their immortality and powers. The clandestine campaign of terror was only exposed by Bill Junior, the mortal beloved of goddess Kelda Stormrider, who sacrificed his life to tell Balder the truth about their unctuous host.

Meanwhile in Broxton, ravening Doombots attacked and almost killed Don Blake in an attempt to destroy his Thunderous alter egoâ€¦

Collecting issues #604-606 of Thor from 2009, this grim fairytale also includes a solo story of the Prince of Asgard’s sometime paramour from the Sif one-shot and portions of the anniversary Thor #600.

The tale (by Kieron Gillen, Billy Tan & Batt) resumes here with the vengeance-crazed Kelda invading Doom’s fortress only to become his latest victim and test subject. In the Asgardian camp Balder marshals his forces to rescue his stolen subjects, unaware that Loki has prevented Thor from heeding the clarion summons. In Broxton, however, the maimed Blake has already pieced together evidence and deduced where his attackers originated with a little help from his friends in the metahuman communityâ€¦

The God of Mischief has been arrested by Balder but still schemes to save his neck and cause further hurt where he can. Dragged along as the enraged Asgardians assault Castle Doom, he witnesses the horrors the Master of Latveria has wrought when hideous technologically augmented corpses attack the besiegers at the Doctor’s imperious command. The shocking abominations swiftly gain the upper hand until a furious Thor appears and directly engages with Doom, but the battle is halted when the villain produces Kelda’s ravaged corpse and Loki gleans a way to restore her to life.

All Thor has to do is defeat Doom, invade his citadel and recover her still beating heart from the monster’s laboratoryâ€¦

Unfortunately standing in the way is the ultimate expression of the Devil Doctor’s Asgardian researches: a new and deadly iteration of science and sorcery patterned on Odin’s ultimate weaponâ€¦ the Destroyer.

As Thor battles furiously for his immortal life, Balder takes advantage of the distraction to enter Doom’s lair and grant tragic final rest to the abused remains of the subjects he so grievously failed before rescuing and restoring Keldaâ€¦

Even after the heroes have won their most inconclusive victory the diabolical duo of Loki and Doom are still at large, still unpunished and still plottingâ€¦ against each other as much as their heroic Asgardian enemiesâ€¦

This dark and brutal tome continues with ‘I am the Lady Sif’, a solo tale starring the warrior goddess Sif crafted by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Ryan Stegman, Tom Palmer & Victor Olazaba.

The war-maiden is in Broxton, recuperating and taking stock of her interminable life after an age of shame wherein Loki possessed her body and locked her soul in the withered frame of a dying mortal. The shame he brought to her reputation still burns and chokes even after she finally escaped his curseâ€¦

Although the Oklahomans are doing their best to raise her spirits, she remains downcast until old comrade Beta Ray Bill storms through the pub doors looking for Asgardian assistanceâ€¦

Bill first gained his own measure of Asgardian might when magic hammer Mjolnir deemed the Korbinite worthy and transformed the alien refugee into a warped duplicate of Thor, enabling him to save his space-faring race from a horde of demons who erased their civilisation and were implacably hunting them to extinctionâ€¦

Even after Bill, Thor, Sif and sentient starship Skuttlebutt defeated the threat and the homeless aliens voyaged on through the depths of space to some eventual Promised Land, a new insidious menace manifested and their once-trusty vessel has been possessed. Bill and his comely companion Ti Asha Ra desperately need a mighty non-Korbinite to scour the ship of its inimical infernal infestation and return hope to the remains of his race.

Just the job to perk up an ailing, down-in the-dumps sword-maidenâ€¦

Also included in this eclectic mix is a slight but pretty elegiac appreciation of the Thor canon by Stan Lee & David Aja celebrating the character’s stellar history in the manner of a lovely info-mercial, and the tome is topped off with a comedic cartoon â€œMini-Marvelsâ€ spoof ‘Welcome Back Thor’ by Chris Giarusso.

Dark, brooding and ferocious, this is a cosmic Costumed Drama that will enthral and delight fans of both comicbook and filmic iterations.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

December 27, 2012December 24, 2012

Avengers Academy: Arcade â€“ Death Game

By Paul Tobin, Terry Kavanagh, Chris Claremont, David Baldeon, Chris Marrinan, Michael Nasser, Rich Buckler & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5630-7

Whilst acting as America’s Chief of Metahuman Affairs Norman Osborn grotesquely abused his position. One of his various nefarious projects was locating and conditioning young ultra-empowered individuals with the intention of creating an army of lethal freaks utterly subservient to his will.

When the former Green Goblin was finally brought to book this most secret initiative was exposed and the kidnapped, psychologically warped, technologically abused kids were taken into safekeeping by The Avengers.

The traumatised and potentially lethal teens became their responsibility and the weary warriors decided to teach the surviving lab rats how to be heroes before they could fall into being monsters and villainsâ€¦

Arcade, on the other hand, was a spoiled trust-fund brat who discovered a talent for invention and a psychotic passion for flamboyant assassination when his unfortunate father cut him off. The malignant patricide then turned his new hobby into an obsessive life-long game of death for profitâ€¦

Arcade – Death Game collects the story from Avengers Academy King Size #1 and also offers two earlier appearances of the mirthful Master of Mechanistic Mayhem from Spider-Man #25 and Marvel Team-Up volume 1 #89.

When Avengers-in-training Humberto Lopez AKA Reptil, Madeline â€œVeilâ€ Berry, Jeanne Foucault, the polymath phenomenon dubbed Finesse, and human dynamo Striker – who much prefers his stage name and persona to being ordinary Brandon Sharpe – were given a rare day off. Temporarily freed from crushing classes, the kids are let loose in New York City but are quickly targeted by the baroque bad guy, desperate to reclaim his formerly fearsome reputation by killing a few superheroes. Always ambitious,Arcade has simultaneously set up to assassinate not only the proto-Avengers but also another squad of kid crusadersâ€¦

The Young Allies are Spider-Girl (Latina Anya Sofia Corazon, formerly arachnoid avenger AraÃ±a), super-strong Toro AKA bovine metamorph Benito Serrano and relative child-hero veteran Firestar. Â This trio of unsupervised titanic teens also fall into Arcade’s Machiavellian clutches when the maniac unleashes a deceptively devilish division of robot duplicates to deliver the meta kids to his latest deadly theme-park of terrorâ€¦

Happily the crazed contract killer had completely underestimated the intelligence of Reptil and sheer bloody determination of Spider-Girl, so it wasn’t long before all the junior heroes were loose and really, really peevedâ€¦

This fun and furious frolic from Paul Tobin, David Baldeon & Jordi Tarragona is then followed by ‘Why Me?’ (Spider-Man #25, August 1992) by Terry Kavanagh, Chris Marrinan & Chris Stegbauer: a rather slight interlude in which the Wondrous Wall-crawler scurries over to England to meet with old pal Captain Britain and gets suckered into a virtual reality war against mutant superteam Excalibur – all courtesy of the malevolently manipulative Arcade â€“ who had once again bitten off far more than he could chewâ€¦

‘Shootout over Centre Ring’ by Chris Claremont, Michael Nasser, Rich Buckler & Josef Rubinstein is a far better tale, first seen in Marvel Team-Up #89 (January 1980) and revealing how the web-spinner and X-Man Nightcrawler were propelled into an acrobatic alliance after an unscrupulous Texan millionaire showman from the mutant’s circus past resurfaces with a plan to assassinate Spider-Man as a publicity stunt.

Amos Jardine had originally hired Arcade but later went with a lower bid from hitman Cutthroat, consequently discovering that the only thing the Grinning Gamesman hated more than costumed crusaders was a welcherâ€¦

Classic Fights ‘n’ Tights action and lots of bizarre laughs distinguish this engaging piece of all-action eye-candy, and this collection also includes a cover gallery by Ed McGuinness, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson, Mark Bagley, Al Milgrom, Buckler & Rubinstein, plus pencils, layouts and sketches by McGuinness, Samnee and Baldeon and a handy prose profile of the eponymous assassin himselfâ€¦
Â© 1980, 1992, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 26, 2012December 23, 2012

Fantastic Annuals 1968, 1969, 1970

By various (Odhams)
No ISBNs

Fantastic was the flagship of the â€œPower Comicsâ€ sub-brand used by Odhams to differentiate those periodicals which contained reprinted American superhero material from the company’s regular blend of sports, war, western and adventure comics. During the mid-1960s these captivating ubiquitous British weeklies did much to popularise the budding Marvel characters and universe in this country. With its sister paper Terrific the comic was notable for not reformatting or resizing the original artwork. In Wham!, Pow! and Smash! an entire 24 page adventure could be squeezed into 10 or 11 pages over two weeksâ€¦

However, although the all-action comic featured Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men in chronological tales (with a few gags and a UK generated adventure feature), the annuals were a far more exotic and intriguing mixed bag…

The 1968 book – released in December 1967 – opens with the full-colour Thor thriller ‘When Magneto Strikes!’ (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Chic Stone from Journey into Mystery #109, October 1964) recounting a blistering battle beneath the sea between the Thunder God and mutant master of Magnetism before plunging on after with the home-produced fantasy adventure ‘The Temple of Zentaca’ wherein a two explorer pals, their dog and a handy super-rifle foil a plot by a manic mad scientist in a cunning, anonymous yarn probably illustrated by the great Luis Bermejo Rojo.

After a rather bland and uncredited science fiction prose vignette ‘The Fugitives’ the Annual lapses into traditional two tone mode (red and black) and offers a Marvel monster yarn ‘The Man Who Hated Monstro!’ (from Journey into Mystery #92, May 1963 by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Paul Reinman) before launching into the bombastic ‘Beware of the Blob!’ (X-Men #3 1963, Lee, Kirby & Reinman) wherein the mutant teens tackle an immovable human mountain and his evil carnival, followed by a magical Stan Lee/Steve Ditko sci fi yarn ‘I Used to beâ€¦ Human!’ â€¦also taken from JiM #92.

‘Colossus!’ is another British weird mystery saga illustrated by European master JosÃ© Ortiz Moya, with a young man obtaining ultimate vengeance for the murder of his father by animating a giant stone statueâ€¦

Full colour is restored for the prose short ‘The Invaders’ and the book closes with the captivating Lee/Robert Bernstein/Kirby classic ‘Iron Man vs Doctor Strange!’ (or ‘The Stronghold of Doctor Strange!’ as it originally was: a mad scientist who paved the way for the later Master of the Mystic Arts and whose one-and-only appearance was in Tales of Suspense #41, May 1963).

This fabulous collection blew me away Christmas morning and still makes my weary pulse race todayâ€¦

One year later the magic resumed with Fantastic Annual 1969, which began with a beautiful double-page painted frontispiece featuring the entire heroic pantheon contained therein before the X-Men battled artificially enhanced giant insects in ‘The Plague of the Locust!’ (from X-Men #24, September 1966, by Roy Thomas, Werner Roth & Dick Ayers) after which ‘Miniman the Incredible Crusader’ debuted in a spectacular clash with insane roboticist Dr. Tome; another uncredited fantasy thriller illustrated by a tantalisingly familiar artist tragically unknown to meâ€¦

With talk of moonshots in the air the ‘Conquest of Space’ was an inevitable but endearing text feature, followed by the red and black section which kicked off with folksy fantasy masterpiece ‘Humans Keep Out!’ (Journey into Mystery #86, November 1962) by Stan Lee and the marvellous Don Heck, who also illustrated the untitled Iron Man thriller which followed, pitting the Armoured Avenger against the wicked Count Nefaria and invaders from the Moon.

(For your peace of mind the story was originally entitled ‘If a Man be Mad!’, scripted by Al Hartley and inked by Mike Esposito from Tales of Suspense #68, August 1965).

After another ‘Conquest of Space’ page ‘All About Iron Man’ reprinted a selection of fact pages and pin-ups disclosing the technical secrets of old Shellhead, whilst ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’ (Lee, Kirby & Chic Stone from Journey into Mystery #112, January 1965) gave us one of the very best frantic fight-fests in Marvel’s entire history before Lee & Ditko leavened the mood with a classy time travel thriller ‘Prophet of Doom!’ (from Tales of Suspense #40, April 1963) whilst Lee & Sol Brodsky shone light on the incredible unknown with ‘Mr. Flubb’s Torch’ (originally the more euphonius â€œFlashlightâ€ in the October 1963 ToS #46)â€¦

After one final ‘Conquest of Space’ full colour was restablished and this year’s model concluded with a magnificent adventure of home-grown superman Johnny Future who travelled to the end of the universe to defeat the invincible Disastro in a stunning tale probably scripted by Alf Wallace and illustrated by the inimitable Luis Bermejo.

Fantastic Annual 1970 saw the end of the era. Interest in superheroes and fantasy in general were on the wane and British weeklies were gradually switching back to war and sports stories. This was one of the last Odhams Christmas compendiums to feature imported Marvel material: from then on the Americans would handle their own Seasonal books rather than franchise out their classics to mingle with the Empire’s motley, anarchic rabble.

The frantic fun started in full colour with the contents of X-Men #40, January 1968, by Roy Thomas, Don Heck & Dick Ayers, wherein the merry mutants tracked down an alien robot Frankenstein in ‘The Mark of the Monster!’ after which the switch to red and black synchronised with ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ – a genuine Marvel Masterwork by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Chic Stone from Fantastic Four Annual #2, September 1964, which revealed the pride and folly which shaped one of the greatest villains in comics.

‘The Haunted House!’ (or ‘I Speak of the Haunted House’ from Tales of Suspense #42, June 1963) is a splendid example of Lee and Ditko at their light-hearted best, whilst Thor displayed his warrior acumen battling ‘The Evil of Loki!’ in a severely edited, almost truncated reprint of ‘The Day Loki Stole Thor’s Magic Hammer!’ (Lee, Robert Bernstein & Joe Sinnott from Journey into Mystery #92, May 1963). At least it was in full colour, as was the group pin-up page featuring the Thunder God, the X-Men and Iron Man traced off by a Power Comics art junior – possible Steve Parkhouse or Barry (Windsor) Smith – after which the two colour printing returns as the Armoured Avenger is ‘Suspected of Murder!’

The supposed victim was, of course, his own alter-ego Tony Stark in this tense, guest-star studded yarn by Lee, Heck & Dick Ayers (from Tales of Suspense #60, December 1964) after which ‘The March of the Steelmen’ offered another excellent but uncredited science fiction thriller, pitting a brace of upstanding British researchers against an uncanny invasion of unstoppable metallic warriors from a sub-atomic worldâ€¦

The final tale, in full colour, introduces another indomitable domestic hero as ‘Matt Marvel – Lawman of the Future’ pitted all his incredible resources against maddest of scientists Doctor Merlin in a mind-boggling battle of wits and wiles with the world at stake…

These stunningly more-ish collections are mostly tasty treats for we backward-looking baby-boomers, but even though the Marvel material has been reprinted ad infinitum, there’s still a wealth of excellent and intriguing home-made heroic action going begging here, and it’s long past due for some enterprising publisher to gather all that quirky British invention into a modern compendium of weird warriors and wonders.

Anybody here tempted by a new/old UK Action Forceâ€¦?
Â© 1969 Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited. Selected material Â© Marvel Comics Group (1963, 1964) 1969.

December 23, 2012December 22, 2012

X-Men: Phoenix – Endsong

By Greg Pak, Greg Land & Matt Ryan (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1924-8

In the X-Men’s corner of reality The Phoenix is a universal force of creation and destruction. It first possessed mutant telepath Jean Grey when the team flew through a spectacular solar storm and seemingly transformed the mortal Marvel Girl into a passionate and capricious being of practically godlike power.

When she was first possessed by the fiery force Jean became an unstoppable hero of infinite puissance and an overwhelming champion of Life, but eventually the power corrupted her and she devolved into Dark Phoenix: a wanton god of world-killing appetites.

After succumbing to the addictive lure of her abilities the fiery force consumed an entire populated planet and, after battling both X-Men and the Imperial Guard of the Shi’ar Empire to a standstill, momentarily lost control to its own human avatar. Stricken with remorse Jean contrived to end her own life in the ancient Kree outpost known as the Blue Area of the Moon.

After some years Jean was miraculously resurrected, married her true love Scott â€œCyclopsâ€ Summers and continued as a much diminished mutant hero. Eventually, however, she regained – or was taken by – the Phoenix powers. With her marriage failing, Jean died in combat against a being who seemed to be long-term foe/friend Magneto and subsequently ascended to become an even more cosmic entity, The White Phoenix of the Crown.

In this collection, re-presenting the 2005 five issue miniseries Phoenix – Endsong (scripted by Greg Pak and illustrated by Greg Land & Matt Ryan), the fundamental force again appears, hungrily seeking a companion-host and, as ever, utterly uncaring about the repercussions of its selfish actionsâ€¦

The drama begins far away across the universe as a Shi’ar ship attacks the flaming entity and, with unprecedented awareness, the host-less energy flees towards Sol and the home of its most beloved avatar. Soon, on Earth Wolverine is accosted by a vagrant, questing thought-form and realises something isn’t rightâ€¦

The ghost of the Phoenix visits many of Jean’s old friends and familiar places before finding her one-and-only Scott in the arms of another telepath and at last realises that if it wants Jean back it will have to resurrect her.

No problemâ€¦

Jean’s desiccated corpse fights with all the will she possessed in life but thePhoenixis unstoppable. By the time Wolverine reaches her grave Jean Grey is a living, breathing woman again – and unwilling receptacle of the most savage and irresistible power in the universeâ€¦

Confused yet triumphant the Phoenixdecides to give Jean everything she had always wanted, including her ideal man. Scott of course, has moved on since her demise and now loves devastatingly capable hellion Emma Frost.

No problemâ€¦

As the childish, spiteful creature attempts to reconstruct Jean’s past and erase all her rivals, the pursuing Shi’ar warp in, determined to destroy the fire entity before it reaches its peak of power, whilst on the world below Wolverine alerts Scott and the X-Men to their imminent perilâ€¦

Cyclops is grimly determined in the face of the news. His Jean died to save the universe from the Phoenix and this thing that has returned isn’t her, so must be ruthlessly dealt with. As the mutant heroes mobilise, however, the Phoenix attacks, whilst deep in their underground labs, deceased fantastically dangerous Homo superior Supremacist Quentin Quire – the terrifying Kid Omega – has been recalled to life by the Force’s earlier probes and reconstitutes his destroyed body. Topping even that he attempts to resurrect his own lost love Sophie – part of a telepathic collective dubbed the Stepford Cuckoos who died stopping his last petulant rampage.

But for all his power the lovesick boy just can’t make the miracle work a second timeâ€¦

The X-Men are unable to stopPhoenix. She easily overcomes them and the desperate Shi’ar before teleporting to the North Pole with Wolverine. The aliens are now far more concerned that Quire might be an even more suitable host for the flaming force and threaten to eradicate the planet with a custom-made singularityâ€¦

At the top of the world Wolverine unleashes his claws but the thing that isn’t Jean just won’t die and all he accomplishes is the weakening of the last vestiges of control her conscience had exerted on thePhoenix.

By the time Cyclops and the X-Men arrive the universal firebird is moments away from getting everything it ever wanted and the stage is set for another cosmic tragedy to unfold. However love has always been thePhoenix’s weakness and Scott, Wolverine and all the assembled X-Men who ever knew Jean will do whatever is necessary to preserve her memory and spiritâ€¦

Action-packed but often only barely avoiding a descent into the mercilessly maudlin, this is a lovely piece of comicbook eye-candy which suffers from the twin perils of a surfeit of unexplained continuity and too much heavy-handed sentimentality. If you’re a long-term or effusively passionate new fan there’s a lot to enjoy but other than the exceedingly pretty pictures (supplemented by a wealth of variant covers and 5 pages of pencils prior to the application of ink and colour), casual readers probably won’t find the ride a very comfortable one.

Which might be a problemâ€¦
Â© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

December 22, 2012December 21, 2012

Hulk: Red and Green

By Jeph Loeb, Arthur Adams, Frank Cho, Herb Trimpe & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2884-7

Once upon a time, military scientist Bruce Banner was accidentally caught in a Gamma Bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress and sundry other triggers regularly caused him to transform into a gigantic green monster of impossible strength and fury. Alternately – often simultaneously – cast as both mindless monster and unlikely occasional hero, he rampaged across the fictional landscape for decades, becoming one of Marvel’s most successful comicbook features and multi-media megastars.

An incredibly popular character in global pop culture, the Hulk has periodically undergone radical changes in scope and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compellingâ€¦

In recent years the number of Gamma-mutated monsters stomping around the Marvel universe proliferated to inconceivable proportions. The days of Banner getting angry and going Green at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from the TV or movie incarnations will be wise to assume a level of unavoidable confusion. With assorted Hulks, progeny proto-Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and all manner of ancillary atomic berserker roaming the planet, be prepared to experience a little confusion if you’re coming to this relatively cold. Nonetheless, these always epic stories are generally worth the effort, so persist if you can.

Even if you are familiar with Hulk history, ancient and modern, you might be forgiven for foundering on the odd point of narrative, so this book, collecting a more-or-less self-contained episode of gamma-generated chaos and calamity from 2008-2009, offers a cathartic dose of destructive diversion, with lashings of tension, suspense and even laughs with a minimum of head-hurting continuity conundrums.

What you need to know: a new, intelligent and ruthlessly efficient Red Hulk has been spotted throughout America – clearly not Bruce Banner but nevertheless quite able to hold his own against such powerhouses as The Abomination and even Thor. His origins and intentions unknown, the Rubicund Rogue guards his human identity with terrifying ferocityâ€¦

This will all eventually be revealed as part of an overlong, ongoing plot by the world’s wickedest brain-trust to conquer everything (latterly revealed in the epic Fall of the Hulks sequence) but here and now the action and mystery are all that matterâ€¦

When released as monthly comics, the issues in question (Hulk volume 2, #7-9 with portions of King Size Hulk #1) ran as â€œsplit-book’sâ€ featuring short separate instalments of both the Magenta and Jade Juggernauts, and this titanic tome opens with a 3-parter by scripter Jeph Loeb and artists Arthur Adams & Walden Wong. In ‘Where Monsters Dwell’ an appalled Dr. Banner grimly comes to accept that there’s another unstoppable horror on the loose spawned by his long-gone dabbling with Gamma rays. Meanwhile inCanada the subject of his researches has a brief, brutal and decidedly final encounter with the cursed and cannibalistic once-human creature known as the Wendigo before heading south. Little does the Crimson Colossus realise that there is more than oneâ€¦

The second chapter found Banner in hot pursuit and tracking his torrid target to Nevada in time to encounter a plague of Wendigos in the city’s casinos, prompting a fortunate flashback to the physicist’s Gamma-grey alter-ego Mr. Fixit and a catastrophically destructive â€œteam-upâ€ with Avengers Moon Knight, Sentry and Ms. Marvel that ends with him turning green, mean and moronic in ‘What Happens in Vegas’ â€¦

The cataclysmically chaotic clash of unlikely protectors and proliferating people-eaters in ‘World’s Finest’ leads to a spectacular fighting finish and another off-kilter guest-shot for the exceedingly eccentric Brother Voodoo before the crisis is contained in the concluding ‘Jackpot’â€¦

Meanwhile the subject of Banner’s search had been detained elsewhere. In ‘Wait until Dark’ (limned by Frank Cho) the Sensational She-Hulk was brutally beaten and brought to the brink of death by the sadistic Scarlet Savage, but resilient and undaunted called in a few friends for a rematch in ‘Hell Hath No Furyâ€¦’

Backed up by S.H.I.E.L.D., She-Hulk, Thundra and the Valkyrie trail the Red Devil to Mount Rushmore and seemingly overwhelm the bloody brute but, as seen in ‘â€¦Like a Woman Scorned!’, the devious deviant is more cunning than any previous Hulk and turns ‘The Revenge of the Lady Liberators’ (augmented at the end by Invisible Woman, Storm, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Tigra and Hellcat) into an opportunity to recruit a willing accomplice for his long-term goalsâ€¦

Also included in this collection is a terse, gripping eulogy to a despised and departed villain as Loeb and Emerald legend Herb Trimpe detail ‘The Death and Life of the Abomination’ an assortment of covers and variants by Adams, Cho, Trimpe, Sal Buscema & Chris Sotomayor and Ed McGuiness, pages of unlinked pencils and layouts from Adams, and ‘Hulk Web’, ‘Hulk Airport’ and ‘Hulk Ice’- a selection of bonus comedy strips by Audrey Loeb & Chris Giarrusso.

If staggering, blockbusting Fights ‘n’ Tights turmoil is your fancy, a Hulk of any colour is always going to be at the top of every thrill-seeker’s hit listâ€¦
Â© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

December 20, 2012January 5, 2013

The Mighty Thor: Everything Burns

By Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Alan Davis, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Stephanie Hans, Barry Kitson, Mark Farmer & Jay Leisten (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-521-5

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

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

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with brand new first issues. The Thunder God reappeared a few weeks later. After many phenomenal adventures that second volume concluded with issues #84-85 (November-December 2004) which once-and-for-honestly-all depicted the Really, Truly, We Mean It! End of the Gods and Day of Ragnarok as Thor himself instigated the final fall to end a ceaseless cycle of suffering and destruction, ultimately defeating the ruthless beings who had manipulated the exalted inhabitants of Asgard since time beganâ€¦

You can’t keep a profitable property down or a great comics character un-resurrected, so he was reborn again when a mysterious voice summoned Thor back to life – and Earth (us fans call it Midgard) – in a crack of spectacular thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary and reigning Lord of Asgard swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow godlings, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts before establishing Asgard on Earth, a few paltry feet above the ground of Broxton, Oklahomaâ€¦

This small and simple community had experienced a few intriguing neighbours before and eventually adapted to the newcomers despite the chaos, hell and Federal grief the Asgardians seemed to perpetually attract.

This spectacular game-changing epic was designed to celebrate the feature’s anniversary as part of the â€œ50 Years of Thunderâ€ event and collects The Mighty Thor #18-22 as it crossed over with issues #642-645 of sister-series Journey into Mystery through the latter half of 2012 and effectively clears the slate for a whole new approach in futureâ€¦

What you need to know: after millennia of doctrinaire double-dealing and abusive micro-management All-Father Odin is gone, banished to another dimension, with his puissant kingdom Asgard ruled by his wife Freyja and a council of sister goddesses who act as a co-operative â€œAll-Motherâ€.

Moreover the eternally capricious and malignant Loki has undergone a few shocking changes too. Resurrected from death and hell by his eternally optimistic half-brother Thor, the trickster has endured life as a woman and currently exists as a (presumably) innocent boy-child: his long-suffering and constantly betrayed family attempting one final gambit to reform the villain and raise a true and decent scion of Asgard.

It seems to be going quite wellâ€¦

With Matt Fraction, Alan Davis & Mark Farmer taking the Thor segments and Kieron Gillen & Carmine Di Giandomenico on the JiM chapters the saga opens in the newly re-named Asgardia where Freyja dreams of the dark days in prehistory when Odin and his race of Aesir battled her father Freyr, ruler of rival bellicose pantheon the Vanir.

The resulting war was so brutal than when Odin finally claimed victory and forcibly merged the tribes through arranged marriage to Freyja, the new â€œAsgardiansâ€ excised all mention of the conflict from the annals of the kingdom.

However, although a peacefully united god-tribe for uncounted eons, no participant on either side truly forgot the hideous pact which the hard-pressed Vanir had made with demonic fire-lord Surtur in their direst hour of need nor the appalling toll taken during that climactic final climactic clash with their Aesir opponentsâ€¦

On Earth today strange phenomena occur with disturbing frequency: dead birds fall from the skies in flames, spontaneous blazes and conflagrations erupt which not even weather god Thor can extinguish with storm or blizzardâ€¦

And in Hel, at the base of the Nine Realms, the roots of the world-ash Yggdrasil are engulfed in flameâ€¦

In Mephisto’s infernal domain the tempter believes he has discerned Loki’s grand scheme whilst in Vanaheim Freyja’s brooding unforgiving sister Gullveig receives an embassage and awesome gifts from an anonymous source. In Asgardia-above-Broxton a concerned council dispatches a party of warriors to investigate its Vanaheim province where the deeply symbolic Temple of Union is ablaze with flames that cannot be extinguished. However when Thor and his comrades Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral lead the mission to the distant conflagration they are attacked and routed by Gullveig and her Vanir troops using terrifying new weapons from another pantheon. The ancient feud is not only fully rekindled but spreading like wildfireâ€¦

Thor consults with his redeemed but still canny half-brother in Asgardia but, even as the juvenile sorcerer gropes to understand the machinations of trusted friends turned foe, Loki reveals his greatest mistake since resurrection, whilst in the metaphysical Otherworld which houses Britain’s communal subconscious, that nation’s newest deities â€œthe Manchester Godsâ€ reveal their unwitting and ill-conceived alliance with Reality’s greatest Enemy.

To empower their apotheosis, Wilson and his lords of steam and industry and commerce had employed the craftily offered gifts of the fire demon. The divine Engines of Albion’s Gods of the Cities were the products of Surtur’s hellish forge and now the Lord of Conflagration is exacting a deadly tithe; one increasingly turned against the embattled Aesirâ€¦

Following a stormy confrontation wherein Thor putsWilsonand his pantheon on warning, the Asgardian prepare for war against the Vanir. Their resolve is tested when evidence is found incriminating Freyja and the members of the All-Mother as traitorsâ€¦

With Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral leading, a lynch mob moves to arrest both the Queen and the always-guilty-of-something Loki and Thor is forced to defend the last members of his family from his oldest friendsâ€¦

Only the forceful presence of guardian god – and purebred Vanir-man – Heimdall contains the explosive situation and reunites the fractured Asgardians, subsequently dispatching them throughout the Nine Realms where Surtur’s demonic forces are laying waste to everything.

For the sake of unity the assembled All-Mother go into voluntary house arrest but panicked Loki flees, convinced he can only trust himself to solve the crisisâ€¦

He travels to the land of the dead but abjectly fails to convince dark goddess Hela and her consort Tyr to assist in the war against the Fire Demon, whilst in Muspelheim Surtur and his mysterious ally debate their ultimate plans for the harried, overconfident and increasingly powerless Loki and are waiting when the rejuvenated Prince of Asgard inevitably sneaks into the Demon’s Realm in a vain effort to be the conquering heroâ€¦

Soon, in Asgardia valiant Volstagg begins to regret accepting the role of war-king as the conflict against Surtur and the Vanir goes from bad to worse.

In Muspelheim Loki has seemingly turned the situation to his advantage after debating with Surtur and his hidden ally, but it’s hard to find a position of advantage when the Fire Lord’s unswerving, unshakable goal is to burn all life in the universe to cold dead ashesâ€¦

However, even as a child Thor’s half-brother is still undoubtedly the wiliest, most cunning creature in creation and Loki has a plan â€¦but is he truly reformed and do his schemes benefit all the Asgardians or only, ultimately, himselfâ€¦?

The story then explodes into a fearsome melee on all fronts of existence that will enthral fans of cosmic carnage and spectacular action with shining heroism and base betrayal revealing all that is great and self-destructive in Thor and his warrior clan, but even with the last-minute return of a long-lost supernal saviour, the defeat of Surtur’s excoriating scheme and a semblance of normality restored, there is still drama and revelation aplenty in this epic and enchantingly bombastic tale.

The suspenseful aftermath concludes with telling re-examinations of both Loki and Thor (this last illustrated by Barry Kitson) and the disclosure of shocking surprises that will utterly change everything in the world of the godsâ€¦

With covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Stephanie Hans, Pasqual Ferry, Steve McNiven, and an eye-popping montage by most of the artists who’ve worked on the strip over the last five decades, this truly galvanic chronicle combines staggering conflict on a universal scale with fiercely probing characterisation and astounding revelations which add a subtle depth and intensity never before seen in these iconic comic heroes. Magnificently beguiling, this adventure extravaganza packs the proper punch to stun and subjugate comics-continuity veterans and film-fed fanboys alike and will delight Fights ‘n’ Tights followers for years to come

December 19, 2012December 17, 2012

Immortal Weapons

By many & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3848-8

Once upon a time little Danny Rand travelled with his parents and uncle to the chilly Himalayas, searching for the â€œlost city of K’un Lunâ€ which only appears once every ten years. Within spitting distance of their goal, the boy’s father Wendell was murdered by the uncle and Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save her child. Alone in the wilderness, the city found him and he spent the next decade mastering all forms of martial arts.

As soon he was able, Danny returned to the real world intent on vengeance, further armed with a mystic punch gained by killing the dragon Shou-Lao the Undying. When Iron Fist eventually achieved his goal the lad was at a loose end and – by default – a billionaire, as his murderous uncle had turned the family business into a multi-national megalith.

Iron Fist sprang out whole-heartedly out of the 1970s Kung Fu Craze, by way of a heartfelt tribute to Bill Everett’s golden Age super-hero Amazing Man (who appeared from 1939-1945 in Centaur Comics) from character originators Roy Thomas and Gil Kane.

The series ran hot and cold in Marvel Premier (#15-25; May 1974 – October 1975), before Chris Claremont & John Byrne steadied the ship and went on to produce a superb run of issues in his own title (Iron Fist #1-15, November 1975 – September 1977) which you can enjoy in the blockbusting, board-breaking Essential Iron Fist volume 1.

After cancellation the character drifted until paired with street-tough hero-for-hire Luke Cage. Power Man & Iron Fist ran from #51 until the book ended in 1986 (#125). The K’un Lun Kid has died, come back and cropped up all over the Marvel universe as guest star, co-star and even in a few of his own miniseries.

Recently revived and somewhat re-imagined as The Immortal Iron Fist, the new series revealed that there has been a steady progression of warriors bearing the title for centuries – if not millennia – and that K’un L’un was not the only magic city. In fact there were at least six others and each had its own supreme martial arts wonder warriorâ€¦

There are in fact seven mystical cities in this universe and every 88 years their celestial inter-dimensional orbits coincide to permit a grand martial arts tournament. In the course of the most recent contest we were introduced to a bunch of bizarre and baroque battlers who proved interesting enough to warrant their own shot at stardomâ€¦

This spin-off collection concentrates on those alternative champions whilst extemporising on differing aspects of Chinese kung fu culture in popular arts such as cinema, gathering the 5-issue miniseries Immortal Weapons from 2010. The all out action begins with the tempestuous and overbearing ‘Fat Cobra: the Book of the Cobra’ by Jason Aaron & artists Mico Suayan, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Roberto de La Torre, Khari Evans, Victor Olazaba & Arturo Lozzi, and finds the burly braggart enjoying wine, women and song – especially women and extra-especially wine – when writer Carmichael appears. Although the very old and very drunk warrior has forgotten, in a more sober moment he commissioned the research to find out everything about the bombastic champion of Peng Lai. Not just because a mighty warrior needs his life recorded, but because after so many years of combat, copulation and booze, Fat Cobra has forgotten.

The petrifiedCarmichaelknows his sponsor won’t like what he has discoveredâ€¦

‘Bride of Nine Spiders: The Spider’s Song’ (by Cullen Bunn & Dan Brereton, inked by Tom Palmer, Gaudiano & Mark Pennington) also examines the origins of the sinister siren, but links it to a terse tale of terror as one of the demi-divine warrior’s arcane arachnids is trapped on Earth in 1935 and becomes the most coveted eldritch artefact in the world.

When the spider passes to debauched billionaire Desmond Guille, a rival collector hires the infallible Jason Krieg and his team to steal it, but by the time the thieves invade Guille’s island fortress, the Queen of Spiders has at last returned to reclaim her lost love and the mercenaries are trapped in an uncanny nest of appallingly horrorâ€¦

The oppressive bustling urban nightmare of Colonial Hong Kong is the setting for ‘Dog Brother: Urban Legend’ (by Rick Spears & Tim Green II) as starving foundlings struggle to stay alive in an underworld of ruthless savagery and horrifying depravity, buoyed up only by legends of the mythic champion of the Under-City who only fights for the most weak, lost, abandoned and forgotten.

But just how much must brutalised, emaciated Sihing and Sidai endure before they have fallen far enough for Dog Brother to notice themâ€¦?

The next offering examines the nature of an unconquerable Amazon tribe betrayed and enslaved by their own men.

Gulled by the heroic Tiger, a slave nation is only saved when his own cosseted, pampered child rejects the honeyed lies which have kept women in silken bondage. Listening to the clarion call of her own body, the indomitable child recovers not just her honour and power but the destiny of her defeated broken people in ‘Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter: All this Useless Beauty’ by Duane Swierczynski, Khari Evans, Victor Olazaba & Allen Martinez.

‘Prince of Orphans: The Loyal Ten Thousand Dead’ is a spectacular Chinese ghost story from David Lapham, & Arturo Lozzi, as Iron Fist is summoned by the spectral champion John Aman to counter the threat of a legion of vengeful warrior spirits cheated by a false Emperor two millennia past. If they can’t have him, the innocents living in one of the most populous cities on Earth will just have to do, so Danny and the Prince are in for one hell of a fight. At least there’s a dragon on their side – if it doesn’t eat or fry them firstâ€¦

Each original issue also contained a brief episode starring the controversial Champion of K’un L’un. ‘The Immortal Iron Fist: Caretakers’ was written by Duane Swierczynski with the first two chapters illustrated by Travel Foreman & Gaudiano and the concluding three by Hatuey Diaz.

When Jada Frey got home one night, drug-pushers looking for her older brother murdered their dad and kidnapped her baby brother to force their target out of hiding. Luckily for Jada her kung fu sensei Danny Rand wouldn’t take â€œleave me aloneâ€ for an answerâ€¦

Comfortably mixing traditional costume-capers with the best of movie martial arts fantasy, horror movies and urban gangster thrillers, this terrific tome blends compellingly exotic action with supernatural thrills and trenchant, mordant laughs for an explosively visceral time that should appeal equally to superhero fans and martial arts mavens alike.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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