Marvel Superheroes – Page 83

October 20, 2012October 20, 2012

Marvels – Eye of the Camera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Horrified and disgusted, Sheldon collapsesâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 18, 2012October 18, 2012

Marvels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nevertheless Sheldon cannot stop following the exploits of the phenomenons he’s dubbed â€œMarvelsâ€â€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 15, 2012October 12, 2012

Mighty Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest

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

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

In recent years, Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) had, through various machinations, replaced Tony Stark asAmerica’s Security Czar: the â€œtop copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to ultra-technological threats and all metahuman influencesâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She even approaches the out-of-favour Iron Manâ€¦

The boy Cho – â€œseventh smartest person on the planetâ€ has deduced that a Chaos Cascade is warping the laws of physics and threatens humanity but whilst Osborn’s Avengers are wasting time fighting the catastrophic symptoms, the young genius has come to someone potentially even sharper to help tackle the causeâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course you realise this means warâ€¦.

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

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

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

October 13, 2012October 12, 2012

X-Men: Worlds Apart

By Christopher Yost, Diogenes Neves & Ed Tadeo, Priest, Sal Velluto & Bob Almond, Chris Claremont & John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3533-3

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants: Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 as mystery and all things supernatural once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields and provoked a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom, until Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot in 1975 as part of the company’s line of Giant-Sized specials.

Giant Size X-Men #1 detailed how the classic team had been lost in action, leaving Xavier to scour the Earth for a replacement team. Recruiting old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire and one-shot Hulk villain Wolverine, most of the savant’s time and attention was invested in newcomers Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus, embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird and a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess.

Ororo Munroe AKA Storm was actually the lost daughter of African royalty and an American journalist, and after joining Xavier’s team spent years fighting the world’s most deadly threats as part – and often leader – of the outlaw unloved, distrusted mutant hero horde, but eventually left her second home to marry a boy she had met whilst trekking across the Dark Continent decades previously.

In Fantastic Four #52 (August 1966) an incredible individual calling himself the Black Panther tested himself against the Cosmic Quartet and disclosed in the next issue how, as a child, he had lost his father to a ruthless scientist’s mercenary army when they invaded his hidden African homeland Wakanda.

The young Prince T’Challa had single-handedly avenged the murder of his father T’Chaka and driven off the raiders, and inherited the role of king and spiritual leader of his people. Eventually The Black Panther became a member of the Mighty Avengers and introduced his country to the world, with technologically-advanced Wakanda swiftly advancing to the forefront of nations by trading its scientific secrets and greatest natural resource – the incredible alien mineral Vibranium.

Whilst a boy wandering the plains of Africa, he had met a beautiful young girl with incredible powers trekking from Egypt to West Africa and years later found her again as one the X-Men. Slowly rediscovering old feelings the pair married and Storm became the First Lady of Wakandaâ€¦

This compilation, collecting the 4-issue miniseries X-Men: Worlds Apart from 2008-2009 plus Black Panther volume 3, #26 (January 2001) and material from Marvel Team-Up #100 (December 1980), follows the African Queen through her darkest hours and affords a little space to examine key moments in her tempestuous relationship with the earthly agent of the very-real Panther God.

The romance commences with the eponymous ‘Worlds Apart’ crafted by Christopher Yost, Diogenes Neves, Ed Tadeo & Raul TreviÃ±o with the action opening in New York’s sewers where Storm and some-time comrade Scott â€œCyclopsâ€ Summers seek to convince hidden Morlock refugees to join the West Coast mutant enclave and safe-haven known as Utopia. When she suddenly called back toAfrica, Ororo’s erstwhile friend contentiously questions her loyaltiesâ€¦

Even as the august and elevated co-ruler of a fabulous kingdom, Ororo iq adi T’Challa is still painfully aware of humanity’s – and more specifically her own subjects’ – bigotry regarding the genetic offshoot politely dubbed Homo Superior, so when one of her protÃ©gÃ©s – young Wakandan mutant Nezhno Abidemi – is accused of murder she rushes to defend him.

â€¦But the evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible and damningâ€¦

Nevertheless, she knows something is amiss and when she arbitrarily frees him the entire country turns against her: even her husband wants her bloodâ€¦

The cause soon smugly reveals himself as Amahl Farouk, a sinister, corrupting telepath she and Charles Xavier had killed years ago, when Ororo was only an orphan child-thief in Cairo. Sadly the monster evolved then into a malign body-stealing psychic force; an untouchable Shadow King feeding on hatred and polluting everything it touchesâ€¦

Biding its time the Shadow King has insinuated itself into Wakanda, stoking ill-feeling throughout. Now wearing her beloved T’Challa, it plans on extracting a much-postponed final vengeanceâ€¦

As the poisonous presence gloats Ororo realises it is not just her at risk: the Shadow King has simultaneously taken Cyclops in America and is using her fellow X-Man as a weapon to kill the only earthly threat to Farouk’s power – the supreme telepath Emma Frost who is also Scott Summers’ loverâ€¦

With an entire nation and the precious body of her beloved mercilessly hunting her and Nezhno, the wondrous weather-warrior must first direct her powers half-a-world away to stop Cyclops whatever the cost, before somehow destroying a foe no power on Earth can touch.

Happily the Spiritual co-ruler of Wakanda has her own direct line to the country’s cat god – or is that goddess?

Short, sharp, spectacularly action-packed and wickedly satisfying – especially the climactic battles with the assembled X-Men and friendly rival Cyclops – this bombastic Fights ‘n’ Tights adventure is bafflingly complemented with ‘Echoes’ (from Black Panther #26, created by Priest, Sal Velluto & Bob Almond and the first part of a longer epic entitled ‘StÃ¼rm und Drang – a Story of Love and War’).

Here T’Challa’s childhood friendship with Ororo is slowly and painfully re-cultivated during an incursion into Wakanda by alien-hunting US Federal Agents and a barely-civil embassy from the secret race known as Deviants, all seeking possession of an unearthly parent and child and eventually forcing a drastic reaction from the sympathetic African heroesâ€¦

As an orphaned part of an ongoing storyline this interlude, though smart and pretty, is pretty baffling and aggravating too, ending as it does on an unsatisfying cliffhanger, and unless you already know the greater tale, is far more annoying than elucidatingâ€¦

This intriguing safari into the unknown concludes with the far more pleasing story of Ororo and T’Challa’s first meeting as kids in the wilds of Africa. This tale first appeared as a back-up in Marvel Team-Up #100 in 1980 and cleverly revealed how the kids enjoyed an idyllic time on the veldt (reminiscent of Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s 1908 novel The Blue Lagoon) until a South African commando team tried to kidnap the Wakandan prince as a bargaining chip.

Now as adults in America they are hunted by the vicious Afrikaner Andreas de Ruyter who has returned, attempting to assassinate Ororo, before seeking to exact final revenge upon the Black Panther. Cue long-delayed lover’s reunion and team-raid on an automated House of Horrorsâ€¦

Always designed as an outreach project to draw in audience demographics perceived to be short-changed by mainstream Marvel, Storm and the Black Panther have proved to be a winning combination in terms of story if not sales, and Worlds Apart is the kind of tale that should please most fans of the genre and followers of the film franchise.
Â© 1980, 2001, 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 11, 2012October 9, 2012

Thor/Iron Man: God Complex

By Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Scot Eaton, Jaime Mendoza, Jeff Huet, Lorenzo Ruggiero & Veronica Gandini (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-936211-4911-8

Two of Marvel’s oldest stars and perennial fan favourites, the Norse God of Thunder and Armoured Avenger, have in their long and chequered careers been the staunchest of allies, fiercely squabbling brothers-in-arms and latterly sworn foes.

In this short, sweet and fabulously straight-shooting traditional team-up however, past grudges are largely forgotten as old foes return with a formidable new master on a fantastic crusade to forever change the world.

Re-presenting the bombastic 4-issue miniseries from 2010, God Complex opens with a horrific assault by a brooding brute on Baron Mordo, resulting in the theft of the evilest of magicians’ mightiest talisman. Simultaneously, the latest ultra-high tech orbital weapons platform of avaricious armaments magnate Moses Magnum is destroyed and its key systems stolen by a mysterious armoured figureâ€¦

In Oklahoma the rubble that was Asgard (see Siege and Siege: Dark Avengers) is being slowly checked and cleared by Earthling Emergency teams and latter-day Norse Gods when the workers free a very excitable and ticked-off dragon. Happily, recently reunited Avengers Thor and Iron Man are there to control the irked fire-drake until the beast’s owner Volstagg can calm the poor pet downâ€¦

With the infernal rampage suppressed, the work is then interrupted by Steve Rogers – former Captain America and current Chief of National Security – who dispatches the Armoured Avenger toRussia to investigate a runaway Particle Acceleratorâ€¦

It’s a trap and Iron Man is ambushed by the latest upgrade of the Crimson Dynamo just as back in Oklahoma, Thor is ambushed by ultimate troll Ulik, tasked with retrieving the formidable, unstoppable Asgardian war-armour dubbed the Destroyer.

Although more than a match for their old enemies, the heroes are surprised and subsequently defeated by hidden adversary Diablo and former ally the High Evolutionaryâ€¦

The latter – an obsessive human geneticist who evolved animals into New Men before turning himself into a cosmic deity – has long dreamed of creating his own gods and now, allied with the malign immortal alchemist, has embarked on his latest experiment: to marry science to sorcery to produce a new supreme being – the one true God of the 21^st Centuryâ€¦

For raw material his willing subordinates have been gathering magical artefacts and the most cutting-edge technological components. The last thing needed was a suitable human Petri-dish and vessel. Brilliant, bold Tony Stark ideally fits that billâ€¦

However even as the Evolutionary begins Iron Man’s enforced apotheosis, the hero counterattacks, whilst the bruised but unbowed Thor – and an unlikely ally – hunt for the villains who stole the Destroyer, tracking the sinister god-makers to their unlikely lairâ€¦

The consequent catastrophic clash looks set to end in victory for the heroes when the demonic Diablo turns the Avengers against each other with his mystic potionsâ€¦

Even as the triumphant High Evolutionary begins his the longed-for final transformation, Diablo finally shows his true colours and hijacks the metamorphosis, just as he’d always intended, transcending his merely human villainy to become an omnipotent modern God ofÂ Evilâ€¦

However even with the ambitions of centuries at last fulfilled, Diablo has not reckoned on the unfailing courage and determination of heroes or the anger of a master of science frustrated and betrayedâ€¦

Splendidly spectacular and visually stunning, this blistering action-epic concludes with one of the best and certainly most literal Deus ex Machina in comics to leave lovers of the genre breathless in wonder and appreciation.

This tumultuous tome also finds space to include text features from the movie tie-in Thor Spotlight, including ‘Abnett/Lanning on Iron Man/Thor: a DnA Q&A’ by Jess Harold, the comedic ‘Iron Man/Thor: Behind the Scenes’, a look at ‘Classic Thor/Iron Man Team-Ups’ from Dana Perkins and a fabulous sneak-peak at Scot Eaton’s many Design Sketches for Crimson Dynamo, Mordo’s Amulet, Ulik and his upgrades and the all-important Cloaking Circuitâ€¦

Impossibly recapturing and even improving upon those hallowed and traditional clear-cut, uncomplicated cataclysmic cosmic conflicts of yore, scripters Abnett and Lanning, penciller Eaton, inkers Jaime Mendoza, Jeff Huet & Lorenzo Ruggiero and colourist Veronica Gandini all splendidly combine here to make God Complex a pure joy that will delight fans and readers old and new.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 9, 2012October 8, 2012

Thunderbolts – Cage

By Jeff Parker & Kev Walker (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4775-6

At the end of 1996 the â€œOnslaughtâ€ publishing event excised the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man and Avengers from the Marvel Universe, unwisely handing over creative control to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee for a year. For the early part of that period the â€œImage styleâ€ books got all the attention, but a new title created to fill the gap in the â€œrealâ€ universe eventually proved to be the real breakthrough of the period.

Thunderbolts was initially promoted as a replacement team-book; untried champions pitching in because the superhero big guns were dead and gone. They consisted of Captain America clone Citizen V, size-shifting Atlas, super-armoured Mach-1, energy-casting virago Meteorite, sonic siren Songbird and human weapon Techno.

A beleaguered and terrified populace instantly took them to their hearts, but these heroes shared a huge secret – they were all super-villains in disguise and Citizen V (or Baron Helmut Zemo as he actually was) had nasty plans in mindâ€¦

Ultimately defeated by his own scheme as his criminal underlings (Mach-I AKA the Beetle, Techno/the Fixer, Atlas/Goliath, Songbird/Screaming Mimi and even the deeply disturbed Meteorite/Moonstone) increasingly yearned to be the heroic ideals they posed as, Zemo was ousted and the Thunderbolts carved out a rocky career as genuine, if controversial, champions under a succession of leaders.

During the superhero Civil War the ever-changing squad – generally comprised of felons looking to change their ways or escape punishment – became Federal hunters, tracking and arresting metahumans who refused to surrender to the Super-Human Registration Act. Eventually the team fell under the aegis of government hard-man Norman Osborn.

Through various deals, deeds and malign machinations Osborn – the former Green Goblin – sought to control the Thunderbolt project as a stepping-stone to becoming became theUSA’s Security Czarâ€¦

As the â€œtop-copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, the psychotic Osborn dominated America’s costumed and metahuman community. Replacing super-spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. with his own all-pervasive H.A.M.M.E.R. Directorate, the deadly despot saw Captain America arrested and defamed after setting the world’s heroes at each other’s throats; deliberately dedicating all his energies to securing overwhelming political power to match his scientifically-augmented strength and overwhelming financial clout.

Numerous appalling assaults on the nation occurred on his watch, including the Secret Invasion by shape-shifting Skrull infiltrators and his own draconian, oppressive response – dubbed Dark Reign – wherein Osborn drove the World’s Mightiest Heroes underground and formed his own team of deadly Dark Avengers.

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led this team, wearing appropriated Tony Stark technology and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even whilst betraying his country by conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

He finally overreached himself by overruling the American President and directing an unsanctioned military incursion on godly citadel Asgard (see Siege and Siege: Dark Avengers) and when the fugitive outlawed heroes at last reunited to stop him, Osborn’s fall from grace and subsequent incarceration led to a new Heroic Age.

In the aftermath it was discovered that the Security Chief’s monstrous manipulations were even more Machiavellian than suspected. One of his most secret initiatives was the kidnapping of super-powered children: tragic innocents he tortured, psychologically abused and experimented upon in a drive to create the next generation of fanatically loyal super-soldiersâ€¦

Those traumatised and potentially lethal kids became the responsibility of the exonerated and reassembled Avengers who decided to teach the surviving lab rats how to be heroes in a new Avengers Academy whilst Osborn, beaten but not broken, was incarcerated in ultra high-security penitentiary The Raftâ€¦

Collecting material from the Enter the Heroic Age one-shot and Thunderbolts #144-147 (July-October 2010) this new direction, written by Jeff Parker, illustrated by Kev Walker and coloured by Frank Martin, sees the Legion of the Lost reformed with a fresh brief and a new leader to once again offer penitence, potential redemption and probable death to the defeated dregs of the Marvel Universeâ€¦

The drama begins with the arrival on the high-tech island prison of Osborn and a new intake of monstrous convicts who pretty soon learned the ropes at the calloused hands of Luke Cage, Power Man, former Hero for Hire, reserve Avenger and latest director of the Thunderbolts Program. The no-nonsense hard-man offered a last-chance way for some ofAmerica’s worst malefactors to pay back their immense debt to society and maybe buy a slice of salvationâ€¦

Issue #144 took up the story as new Warden John Walker (originally super-soldier U.S.Agent before he was maimed during the Siege of Asgard) and Cage began selecting potential recruits in ‘The Boss’.

With original and genuinely reformed Thunderbolts Fixer and Mach-V as Cage’s trusted deputies, the dangerously ambivalent sociopath Moonstone opportunistically joined the best of a reluctant, conflicted and very bad bunch which comprised deranged phasing hacker Ghost, the weary, dispirited mystic mobile monolith Juggernaut and Captain America’s antithesis Cross-Bones, one of the most ruthless killers in existence.

Offering technical support was size-shifting Scientist Supreme and Avengers Academy headmaster Hank Pym (alternatively known as Ant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, The Wasp and Giant-Man), who had devised a most unique method of transportation for the penal battalion: one that utilises the unsuspected teleportational talents of the macabre but insentient monster called the Man-Thingâ€¦

However before the team could even undergo basic training the intransigent Zemo attacked the inescapable isle, determined to reclaim his old teamâ€¦

‘Field Test’ offered a surprise or two before Cage took control again and the squad set off on an emergency first mission: tracking down a trio of man-eating trolls ravaging the Oklahoma countryside and presumably escaped from Asgard after Osborn’s ill-fated attack on the dimensionally-displaced City of the Godsâ€¦

That grisly outing promptly led to another crisis-response from the woefully untrained unit as they were then dispatched to New Guinea to rescue scientists and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents investigating mutagenic, metahuman-creating Terrigen crystals found in a cave.

The mission was another tragic debacle. There was no cure for what the techs had uncovered and then become, so the salvation run turned into a grim and nasty bug huntâ€¦

This sleek, effective thriller concludes its dramatic presentation with the intermediate part of a crossover tale which began and ended in Avengers Academy and offered some intriguing insights into the ongoing personal rehabilitation of Juggernaut Cain Marko.

The students at the unique school were being trained under a hidden agenda: although officially declared the most accomplished of Osborn’s next generation protÃ©gÃ©s, the sextet Reptil, Finesse, Striker, Hazmat, Mettle and Veil were actually adjudged the most experimented upon, abused and psychologically damaged. The Academy not only wanted to turn them into heroes but also intended to ensure the prodigies were not incurably corrupted potential menaces to all mankindâ€¦

The crossover tale ‘Scared Straight’ (see Avengers Academy: Permanent Record) revealed how toxic nightmare Hazmat, animated Iridium golem Mettle and slowly dissipating gas-girl Veil turned a school-trip to The Raft into an attempt to gain revenge on their erstwhile tormentor.

Although the most secure and infallible jail on the planet, nobody realised just what Hazmat could really do and when the power went out she and her equally incensed classmates headed straight for Osborn’s Solitary cellâ€¦

Their ill-conceived ploy also released an army of irate and murderous villains and the new Thunderbolts were forced to prove how far they had come by choosing which side they were now on. More important than showing Cage and Warden Walker, the convicts and once-pariahs had to examine their own unsuspected ethical changes and how far they had progressed before order was finally, brutally restoredâ€¦

This collection also includes a superb cover gallery by Marko Djurdjevic, Bryan Hitch & Karl Kesel, Larry Stroman, Frank Martin, a wealth of character designs and pages of un-inked art fromWalkerto complete a wry, clever and suspenseful action-adventure package that all fans of gritty superhero action will adore â€¦
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

October 6, 2012October 5, 2012

Thor the Mighty Avenger volume 1: the God Who Fell to Earth

By Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Leiber, Joe Sinnott & Dick Ayers (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4121-1

For many older fans – and of course I mean me too – Thor was the comic that truly demonstrated the fevered and unfettered imagination of Jack Kirby – at least until he relocated to DC at the beginning of the 1970s and really let rip. Living galaxies, the conquest of Evolution: gods, heroes and aliens, machines with emotions and humans without, the strengths and liabilities of family ties and the inevitability of creation itself, all played out on the pages of the Thunder God’s action-packed comic-books.

Once the King left, the series struggled for decades, with only the Kirby-inspired pastiche by Walt Simonson in the mid-1980s offering any kind of quality continuation of action and imagination, although more recent years have certainly seen a few bold attempts to plough their own creative furrow.

In 2010, no doubt on the back of the major motion picture release, Marvel commissioned a superb new interpretation of the iconic but periodically unsustainable star and his convoluted mythos from the irrepressibly wonderful New Zealand writer/artist Roger Langridge (Judge Dredd Megazine, Batman, Star Wars, Fin Fang Four, The Muppet Show, Popeye and Snarked! as well as his own hilarious Fred the Clown and my personal favourite Knuckles the Malevolent Nun amongst so many others) and artist Chris Samnee (Mighty Avengers, Rocketeer, Daredevil etc.) which stripped away most of the baffling accumulated overblown ephemera and created a fresh vibrant new start â€“ which only coincidentally, I’m sure – initially resembled that filmic feelâ€¦

The saga unfolds in stormy Bergen, Oklahomawhen junior curator Jane Foster sees a twisted rainbow one night and a week later is suddenly promoted to head a department of the Bergen War Memorial Museum. Almost immediately she’s called on by Security to deal with a giant hobo trying to whack one of the exhibits with a gnarled old walking stickâ€¦

That night whilst strolling with her boyfriend Jim she encounters the young – and exceedingly well-mannered – bum again, hurtling through a bar window very much against his willâ€¦

The cause is a monstrous, hulking brute who had been harassing women in the hostelry, but even after Jane joins the fray the ugly thug easily overpowers them and beats the chivalrous vagabond near to death before inexplicably running awayâ€¦

Battered and grateful, Jane and Jim ignore their better judgement and help the dying blonde wanderer – who calls himself Thor – back to the Museum, where he finally and unexpectedly smashes the Viking urn he’d attacked earlier. Grasping a short-handled hammer the shabby lad is miraculously transformed in a flash of lightning and blast of thunderâ€¦

Jane has witnessed the impossible and has to accept that the amnesiac Thor may well be the legendarily mythic Scandinavian hero. He certainly isn’t sure: although possessed of incredible might, his memories are clouded and he only vaguely recalls a fight with his father Odin before waking up in a field, banished to this mortal realm of Midgardâ€¦

With nowhere else to go he accepts Jane’s offer to crash at her apartment even as elsewhere a frantic cloaked figure confronts local scientific sage Dr. Lewis Stephens.

Calvin Zabo is desperate for more of the savant’s transformative crystals and is prepared to kill for them, and once the sociopath has them he swiftly regains his hulking, brutish form and goes hunting for the fools who spoiled his fun in the bar last nightâ€¦

This series is simply stuffed with hilarious lines and comedy set-pieces and, following a delicious moment when the Thunder God encounters his first telephone answering machine, the exiled godling hurtles to the museum to spectacularly save Jane from the malevolent monster who calls himself ‘Hyde’â€¦

A cleverly reformulated Marvel Universe begins to impinge on the series with ‘Here be Giants’ when scientist Henry Pym (and his girlfriend Janet Van Dyne) comes to investigate the murder of his old mentor Dr. Stephens. Thor meanwhile has been plagued with nightmares and wakes to find his brother Loki implanting visions within his tousled head, whilst at the museum Jane’s antics have got her suspendedâ€¦

As she takes the Thunder God shopping to cheer herself up, Pym, in his dual identities of Ant-Man and Giant-Man, follows a chemical trail from the crime scene and intercepts the bemused boutiquers â€¦and that’s the moment when Loki’s hoodoo in the Thunderer’s head kicks in, causing the stranded Scion of Asgard to see the size-shifting scientist as a dreaded Frost Giantâ€¦

Fortunately Pym’s heroism and science proves more than a match for sinister ancient sorcery, else the magnificent concluding adventure of the re-imagined Storm Lord couldn’t happen – and it’s one of the most charming and gently amusing stories in all of Marvel’s seven-plus decades of publishing funnybooksâ€¦

Lost and lonely on a weird world of mortals, Thor’s spirits are inestimably raised when three old comrades from Asgard come calling, luring the dispirited Prince on a ‘Boys’ Night Out’â€¦

Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg are valiant and boisterous companions (who know more about Thor’s banishment than they let on) and so whilst Jane wisely decides to go out with her own gal pals, the Asgardians decide to check out the old country – courtesy of a magical flying goat chariot. Unfortunately old maps, fog and intoxication make for missed destinations and stopping in London for directions to Norway, the celestial carousers soon settle in for a night of bevies at a hostelry frequented by uptight and touchy superhero Captain Britain.

Cue ale-fuelled misunderstanding, inevitable punch-up and maudlin vows of eternal friendshipâ€¦

Collecting issues #1-4 (September-December 2010) of the rebooted series and also offering a host of stunning cover reproductions and variants by Samnee and Kirby, this sparkling tome ends with the first two appearances of the original iteration from Journey into Mystery.

Issue #83 (cover-dated August 1962) featured the tale of crippled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation inNorway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing, he was trapped in a cave where he found an old, gnarled walking stick. When in his frustration he smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his puny frame was transformed into Norse God of Thunder, the Mighty Thor!

Plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber and illustrated by Kirby & Joe Sinnott (at this juncture a full illustrator, Sinnott became Kirby’s primary inker for his Marvel work) ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ is pure early Marvel: bombastic, fast-paced, gloriously illogical and captivatingly action-packed. The hugely under-appreciated Art Simek was the letterer and logo designer.

They were making it up as they went along – not in itself a bad thing – and the infectious enthusiasm showed in the next adventure ‘The Mighty Thor Vs. the Executioner’ from JiM #84 and inked by Dick Ayers: a classic â€œcommie-bustingâ€ tale, very much of its time with a thinly disguised Fidel Castro wasting his formidable armies in battle against the earthbound immortal in a tale designed to display the vast power and varied abilities of the godly superman.

Most importantly Jane Foster was introduced here as Blake’s faithful nurse, a bland cipher adored from afar by the timid alter-ego of mighty hero.

Early death is a comic book tradition that strikes many brilliant series later deemed brilliant, groundbreaking or ahead of their time: past casualties have included the Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the first volume of the Silver Surfer, Steve Ditko’s Beware the Creeper and the Ditko/Gil Kane Hawk and the Dove as well as almost all of Kirby’s Fourth World Trilogy. Tragically cancelled after only 8 issues, Thor the Mighty Avenger still stands out asÂ sublime example of a contemporary revamp done right and will certainly only grow in renown as years go by. Moreover, if you’ve never tried Marvel’s fare or find superhero comics not to your taste this might well be a book to change your mindâ€¦
Â© 1962, 1963, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 5, 2012October 4, 2012

Exiles – Point of No Return

By Jeff Parker, Salva Espin, Casey Jones & Karl Kesel (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4044-3

If you’re a fan of comics the head-spinning concept of multiple realities is probably one that holds no terrors. Indeed most superhero, fantasy and science fiction series eventually resort to the tried-and-true theme of alternate heroes and villains as it’s a certified, easily fixable way to test out new ideas and character-traits without the danger of having to reboot your star’s entire continuity if the fans hate it.

Marvel came to the concept relatively late. Whilst DC were radically winnowing and rationalising their own multiverse in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the House of Ideas was only cautiously expanding its own Alternity.

Although such surrogate Earthers as Thundra, Arkon, Mahkizmo, Gaard and the Squadron Supreme had cropped up in the Fantastic Four and Avengers, the comicbook which truly built on the idea was What If?, an anthological series wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher offered peeks into a myriad of other worlds where key â€œrealâ€ continuity stories were replayed with vastly different outcomes.

The first volume (48 issues between February 1977 and June 1988) posed such intriguing questions as ‘What Ifâ€¦ Loki had Found the Hammer of Thor?’, ‘the Fantastic Four had not gained Their Powers?’ or ‘Spider-Man’s Clone had Lived?’ and when the title relaunched in 1989 for another 115 issues including ‘What If Wolverine was Lord of the Vampires?’ and ‘What if Captain Marvel had not Died?’, the tales were all back-written into an over-arching continuity and began to catalogued as variant but equally viable Earths/universes and alternate timelines.

There have been seven more volumes since and a series of â€œAlterniverseâ€ talesâ€¦

In case you’re wondering, those gritty Ultimate Marvel sagas all occur on Earth-1610, the Age of Apocalypse happened on Earth 295, the Squadron Supreme originally hailed from Earth-712 and the mainstream Marvel tales take place on Earth-616, whilst we readers all dwell on the dull, ordinary Earth-1218â€¦

In 2001 the concept took a big jump and developed its own internal consistency as an amorphous team of mutants and heroes from that multiplicity of universes were brought together by a mysterious â€œTime-Brokerâ€ to correct mistakes and clear blockages in the fabric of the multiverse.

Reality is a plethora of differing dimensions, you see, and if things go awry in one it can have a cumulative and ultimately catastrophic effect on all of them. Led by super-teleporter Blink (who had her own miniseries and starred in the aforementioned X-Men storyline Age of Apocalypse) and guided by the shape-shifting Morph, this constantly fluctuating squad of rejects zapped from dimension to dimension doing the cosmic Dyno-Rod thing for eight years and 119 issues of Exiles and New Exiles before the series was rebooted in 2009.

Scripted by Jeff Parker and illustrated by Salva Espin, the adventure begins with ‘DÃ©jÃ Vu’ as mysterious manipulators debate whilst scanning the discernible totality of existence looking for suitable members to staff the latest iteration of reality-repairmen. This time they’re concentrating on heroes plucked from the moment of their inevitable deaths – with the intention of causing as little disruption as possible to the continuum – and select Lorna ‘Polaris’ Dane (Earth-8149, daughter of Magneto and last survivor of a world ruled by mutant-hunting Sentinels) and the bestial Avenger Hank McCoy from 763.

Also included is T’Chaka, heir of the Black Panther and Storm on 1119, mutant tech-smith Forge from 2814 and Wanda Maximoff, The (non-Scarlet) Witch of 8823 and another daughter of a different Magnetoâ€¦

Snatched from their inescapable dooms, the quintet meet Blink and are briefed by the obnoxiously cavalier Morph on their mission, and are soon reluctantly infiltrating an universe where visionary Charles Xavier was murdered and his best friend Eric Lensherr gathered all the mutants on Earth into a nation united in a cold war against humanity.

There is something decidedly off about the far-from utopian new nation of Genosha. Even as constant attacks by the equally-united Homo Sapiens are getting closer and closer to eradicating the mutants forever, Magneto rules like an emperor, with only his charismatic presence holding the populace together. Moreover whilst former X-Men and Evil Mutants barely tolerate each other, the monarch’s own daughters Wanda and Lorna openly seek to destroy each otherâ€¦

‘Long Live the King’ (with additional art by Casey Jones & Karl Kesel) sees the Exiles’ attempts to infiltrate and destabilise the court go catastrophically awry, leading to their exposure and capture. Busted loose by reserve and-non-mutant T’Chaka, the Reality Re-aligners uncover the truth about Xavier’s death and are witness to an incipient palace coup, but before they can act upon their dramatic change of fortune the team’s mysterious masters order them to abandon the missionâ€¦

Blink’s teleport takes them to Earth-10102, a desert world apparently devoid of life. ‘OK Computer’ (Parker, Casey & Kesel) sees the Exiles attempting to derail and restore a planet where mechanical marvels The Vision, Ultron, Machine Man and Jocasta had joined the X-Men’s now-sentient, mutant-detecting Cerebro super-computer in a plan to eradicate the human genome. However, having already exploded a neutron device which caused humanity to vanish from the Earth, the artificial autocrats seemed in an unassailable position. What could the six sojourners possibly do to rectify this situation?

Possibilities arise after the team easily defeats a squadron of robotic Sentinels and the Ambulatory Automatons personally confront the Exiles. It seems there is a schism between Cerebro and its artificial allies – who are not at all what they seem – and the complacent computer tyrant is quite wrong to assume ‘The Humans are Dead’â€¦

The revival came to an abrupt and rather rushed end with ‘Closure’ as the team, having resoundingly succeeded in putting one Reality back on course, returned to the Genosha state and attempted to complete their aborted first mission.

Even with Magneto gone that universe was still endangered as long as the disparate mutant camps remained allied, but with their own undetectable incarnations of Polaris and the Witch, it was relatively simple to sow dissent and start a filial civil warâ€¦

Of course the problem with using perfect doppelgangers is that they can also turn the tables on youâ€¦

With the job done – at the cost of only one Exile’s life – the team had earned some shore-leave but the vacation unexpectedly led to betrayal, a revolt within the team and a shocking revelation about the mysterious group who fed them their missionsâ€¦

And ultimately full disclosure into the very nature of the Exiles existence and the truth about the time, space and the multiverseâ€¦

Although intended as an ongoing series, Exiles volume 2 only ran six issues before being summarily cancelled – so swiftly in fact that this enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights romp offers a hint at what might have been by including scripts for the aborted issues #7 and 9 as well as the unused script pages for #6, which were replaced at the last moment with a neat and tidy, all-action wrap-up, happy ending and up-beat promise of an eventual returnâ€¦

Other added-value attractions include lots of preliminary character sketches by Espin, a variant covers gallery by Dave Bullock, Mark Irwin, Anthony Washington, Jason Chan & Mike Grell, as well as Espin’s unused cover, layout and thumbnail artwork intended for #6â€¦

Notwithstanding the hackneyed concept and truncated conclusion, this not such a bad package, but might feel a little rushed in places. Moreover, by relying overmuch on a familiarity with the minutiae of Marvel continuity, this rollercoaster ride might well confuse or deter the casual reader.

Still, if you’re prepared to accept the fact that you won’t get all the gags and references you might enjoy the light tone, sharp dialogue and pretty pictures and, unlike almost all other comicbooks, at least here the dead stay dead.

I think. Perhaps.

October 3, 2012October 3, 2012

Avengers Academy: Permanent Record

By Christos Gage, Mike McKone, Jorge Molina & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4495-3

The psychotic Norman Osborn had obsessively dogged Spider-Man/Peter Parker for years before deliberately repurposing himself and dedicating all his energies to securing overwhelming political power to match his scientifically augmented strength and overwhelming financial clout.

Through various finely calculated machinations the former Green Goblin becameAmerica’s Security Czar: the â€œtop-copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to theUSA’s costumed and metahuman community.

Under his draconian tenure the Superhuman Registration Act led to the Civil War, which saw Captain America arrested, murdered and resurrected, and the world’s heroes set at each others throats.

Numerous appalling assaults on mankind occurred on his watch, including the Secret Invasion by shape-shifting Skrull infiltrators and his oppressive response – dubbed Dark Reign – wherein Osborn drove the World’s Mightiest Heroes underground and formed his own team of deadly Dark Avengers.

Not content with commanding all the covert and military resources of the USA, Osborn personally led the team, wearing appropriated Tony Stark technology and calling himself the Iron Patriot, even while conspiring with a coalition of major super-villains to divvy up the world between them.

He finally overreached himself and led an unsanctioned assault on Asgard (see Siege: and Siege: Dark Avengers) and when the fugitive outlawed Avengers at last reunited to stop him, Osborn’s fall from grace and subsequent incarceration led to a new Heroic Age.

With Osborn incarcerated – if not broken – those traumatised and potentially lethal kids became the responsibility of the exonerated and reassembled Avengers who decided to teach the surviving lab rats how to be heroesâ€¦

Avengers Academy: Permanent Record collects material from Enter the Heroic Age one-shot and issues #1-6 (June 2010 -January 2011) of the eponymous comicbook series written by Christos Gage, with each of the tales focussing on one of the dead end kids in particular.

It all begins with a mustering of the students in ‘Admissions’ (illustrated by Mike McKone) as young Humberto Lopez AKA Reptil again attempts to escape from Osborn’s diabolical H.A.M.M.E.R. lab. He gets a lot further than ever before and runs straight into a squad of Avengers in the process of dismantling the scientific house of horrorsâ€¦

The series proper launched with the tragic tale of geeky High School wallflower Madeline Berry, recruited by an unctuous Osborn in ‘Permanent Record part 1’ with honeyed promises to make her a glamorous hero.

Once she joined however, she was scientifically probed and tortured to improve her innate ability to transform into any number of gases or vapour, but never told that her condition would ultimately lead to her total discorporation and deathâ€¦

Now safely ensconced in the Avengers Academy, her dream is at last coming true and headmaster Dr. Hank Pym (the size-shifting genius alternatively known as Ant-Man, Goliath, The Wasp, Yellowjacket and Giant-Man) is desperately seeking to cure her ongoing disintegration. As a stopgap, the fading flower has been wrapped in head to toe high-tech bandages and uses the code-name Veilâ€¦

All the kids abused by Osborn’s ruthless quest for empowered pawns are similarly damaged and the school has been ostensibly devised to train them as tomorrow’s champions, but core-tutors Pym, Tigra, Justice, Speedball and Quicksilver harbour a secret agenda tooâ€¦

During a combat training session wherein Speedball puts the entire team through their paces, the physically-perfect Polymath phenomenon Finesse discovers the teachers were not playing straight and later the students hack into the institution’s computers and find the awful truth.

Rather than the most accomplished of Osborn’s protÃ©gÃ©s, the sextet were actually deemed the most abused and damaged. The school not only wants to turn them into heroes but is also intended to investigate whether the prodigies are incurably corrupted and potential menaces to all mankindâ€¦

‘Gifted & Talented’ concludes the first story-arc as robotic sometime Avenger Jocasta joins the faculty and the ultra-accomplished but emotionally stunted Jeanne Foucault claims centre-stage. Finesse has an immeasurable IQ and can instantly duplicate any physical skill or ability she sees, but the arrogance this has caused makes her hard to tolerate. Moreover her innate and ruthless drive to excel and utter lack of empathy makes her potentially the most dangerous kid in the bunch.

Determined to learn everything she can from the Avengers, Finesse convinces the others to play along with the tutors no matter how wild, dangerous or dull the outlandish curriculum becomes and simply bide their time. When Pym suggests that her gifts seem similar to super-villain Taskmaster, she then targets Quicksilver attempting extortion and even seduction in a scheme to glean the terrorist secrets imparted to the former evil mutant by his father Magnetoâ€¦

The crossover tale ‘Scared Straight’ began in #3 – and although the pertinent segment from Thunderbolts #147 doesn’t make it into this compilation the story doesn’t much suffer from its omission – with part 1 drawn by McKone and inked by Andrew Hennessy, focussing on the embittered walking disaster Hazmat.

Jennifer Takeda was one of the popular girls in school: Honor Roll, track star, lots of credit cards and going with the hottest guy in class – until during their first real make-out session her powers kicked in and she was left with a ‘Boyfriend in a Coma’â€¦

Apparently her body naturally manufactures bio-toxins, chemical poisons, industrial waste and even hard radiation, and when her terrified doctors locked her away in a sterile lab Norman Osborn offered a way out and a cure.

Of course he lied and she too ended up in his technological testing groundsâ€¦

Forced to wear a full-body containment suit, the twisted teen became a reluctant student atAvengersAcademy, but when she heard that a school trip was planned to the High-Security super-penitentiary where Osborn was imprisoned, she positively hungered to go.

None of the kids were fooled by the educational visit. It was clearly just a ploy by the adults to show them what happened to bad guys, but Jennie, Mettle and Veil just needed to be alone with their former exploiter for a few brief momentsâ€¦

Although the most secure and infallible jail on the planet, nobody realised just what Hazmat could really do and when the lights went out she headed straight for Osborn’s cellâ€¦

With the adult heroes tackling the power outage and released army of villains, ‘Fix You’ (inked by Rick Ketchum & Cam Smith) revealed the origin of hunky Hawaiian Ken Mack whose idyllic life ended the day his skin fell off and he found he was a scarlet horror of living Iridium metal. With Hazmat and Veil, Mettle broke into his lying tormentor’s cell but like his classmates found himself unable to exact his longed-for pound of flesh.

Not because of any moral reserve, but because Osborn offered them an incredible dealâ€¦

‘Fame’ by Jorge Molina & Hennessy, turned to the painfully obnoxious and ambitious Striker, a human electrical dynamo whose celebrity-whore/political groupie mother was determined to mine his gifts the way she had her own with a succession of entrapped men. Brandon Sharpe was doing the minor metahuman showbiz-circuit when Osborn recruited him and needed no compulsion to work with the mad mastermind. All the big bad boss had to do was keep the drugs, girls and money comingâ€¦

Now however, there was an inkling of something honest and good in his life, like when he beat the murderous Whirlwind after the crazed psycho jumped the team on a day out inNew York. He felt great then – until he realised his mother had set the thing up to raise her boy’s public profileâ€¦

This initial term concludes with Reptil and ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ (McKone, Hennessy, Ketchum, Smith, Dave Meikis & Rebecca Buchman), as the kid who can transform into dinosaurs (parts of them anyway) assesses his progress in the life he always wanted: an incredible girlfriend, life as a superhero and even leader of his own team.

Sadly, he’s also smart enough to see the house of cards it’s all built on and aware that all the lies and hidden agendas – from teachers and students alike – can bring it all down in an instant.

Especially if he chooses the wrong sideâ€¦

Sharp, clever and witty, this wry yet morally ambiguous series is stuffed with humour, suspense and breathtaking action and offers some smart fresh insights into the lives of teen heroes that will delight fans of the Fights ‘n’ Tights genre. There’s dozens of cool guest stars tooâ€¦

This collection also includes a superb variant cover gallery by Marko Djurdjevic, J.S, Rossbach & McKone, a Meet the New Class info feature and ‘Head of the Class’: an illustrated interview with scripter Gage.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

September 28, 2012September 27, 2012

Siege: Dark Avengers

By Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4812-8

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Mighty Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package, and over the years the roster has waxed and waned until almost every character in their universe – and even some from others – has at some time numbered amongst their serried ranks.

In recent years, Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) has, through various machinations, become the American government’s Security Czar: the â€œtop copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to all metahuman threats and theUSA’s costumed community…

Under his draconian tenure the Superhuman Registration Act led to the Civil War, Captain America was arrested, murdered and resurrected, and numerous horrific assaults on mankind occurred: including the alien Skrulls’ Secret Invasion and Osborn’s oppressive â€œDark Reignâ€ which saw the World’s Mightiest Heroes driven underground, after which the mercurial mastermind replaced them with his own team.

These ersatz Dark Avengers comprised of dupes, puppets and a core of deadly super-villains disguised as long-established champions of justiceâ€¦

As well as commanding all of America’s covert agencies and military resources under his umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R., Osborn also had his own suit of Iron Man armour and as Iron Patriot led his hand-picked team, which included Greek God of War Ares, befuddled golden superman Sentry and a dimensionally displaced alien dubbed Marvel Boy.

The more familiar public faces were Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man played by criminal psycho-killers Bullseye, Moonstone and Venom. Osborn even convinced Wolverine‘s deeply disturbed son Daken Akihiro to masquerade as his despised mutant fatherâ€¦

Not content with such commanding political and personal power, Osborn also secretly conspired with a coalition of major menacing masterminds to divvy up the world between them. The Cabal was a Star Chamber of super-villains comprising Osborn, Asgardian God Loki, gang-boss The Hood, mutant Emma Frost, the sociopathic Taskmaster, Sub-Mariner and Doctor Doom, all working towards a mutually beneficial goal, but such egomaniacal personalities can’t play well together and cracks soon began to show, both in the criminal conspiracy and Osborn himself.

He finally overreached himself and led an unsanctioned assault on Asgard as Iron Patriot, promising to conquer theEarthboundCityof the Aesir for Loki, which prompted Doom to violently quit the group, resulting in a disastrous all-out battle between the assembled Masters of Evilâ€¦

When the fugitive Avengers reunited to stop him, Osborn’s fall from grace and subsequent incarceration led to a new Heroic Age, but before that happy moment there was a great deal of nefarious chicanery and double-dealing still to come…

This gritty action-packed tome, written by Brian Michael Bendis, collects the final fateful story-arc from Dark Avengers #13-16 and the first Annual, cataclysmically concluding the long and slow-building drama as part of a company-wide crossover event which reset the entire Marvel Universeâ€¦

The countdown to chaos begins here with that aforementioned Annual, illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza & Al Vey, wherein the despondent Marvel Boy realises just what kind of men he’s allied with and goes AWOL.

Ensign Noh-Varr was a true hero in his own alternate dimension: a dedicated, decorated serving spacer; champion of the galaxy-spanning Kree Empire and passionate disciple of the ruling compound-intellect known as the Supreme Intelligence. However, since arriving on this planet he’d been manipulated and continually forced into dishonourable deeds until he could stomach no more.

Absconding with his cache of advanced weapons-tech, Noh-Varr undergoes a voyage of personal discovery on the streets ofNew York. He is befriended by feisty student Annie and almost inadvertently creates a huge tragedy when Osborn dispatches the utterly unstoppable Sentry to bring back the Dark Avengers’ errant extraterrestrial poster-boy.

Barely surviving a battle which decimates much of the City’s college district, the erstwhile Marvel Boy manages to escape and shamefully hide. His spirit all but broken, he manages to contact his cosmic mentor across the myriad infinities and receives a startling promotion when the Supreme Intelligence upgrades his tools and assigns him to protect Earth from all threatsâ€¦

Moreover, even though Osborn’s minions are unable to track the reborn star-warrior, other eyes are upon Noh-Varr and the fugitive true Avengers have bold plans for the new Captain Marvelâ€¦

Illustrated by Mike Deodato, the last hurrah of Osborn’s Avengers begins with some horrific revelations about Bob Reynolds, the too-good-to-be-true, nigh-omnipotent nice-guy metahuman Sentry. Not only is his established origin a deranged spin-doctor’s dream of heroic nonsense-mythology, but his true nature has proven too much for his wife Lindy.

Unable to stand the lies and tension any longer, she murders her husband in an off-guard moment, only to see him resurrect with no trace of any injury. The golden hero is afflicted with a deadly split-personality and the decent human within him is constantly and increasingly spectacularly battling to defeat the evil thing inside.

Not even suicide can long keep the malevolent Void beast quiet. To make matters worse, Osborn is actively conspiring with the ruthlessly evil half to eradicate the well-meaning, benevolent Robert Reynolds persona who is the only thing holding back what might well be the most malign and powerful force in existence.

The most annoying stumbling block is Bob’s deep love for his wife, but the ever-scheming Iron Patriot has the perfect solution to that minor obstacleâ€¦

Osborn is no stranger to inner turmoil and conflict. Part of him is earnestly striving to do the right thing – as he sees it – for America. Only his deputy Victoria Hand is close enough to see the spectre of the psychotic Green Goblin constantly nibbling away at the Security Czar’s resolve and conscience, but her attention is too often distracted.

Currently the cause is the wanton Moonstone/Ms. Marvel who is working her way through the Avenger’s roster; using sex to undermine the team’s cohesion and challenge Osborn’s authorityâ€¦

Just as Hand acts to assert her own dominance on the murderous crew, Sentry’s Void manifests and almost destroysNew York, until Osborn makes one final deal with itâ€¦

Things get a little complicated here and readers are strongly advised to consult Siege before continuing. However to recap for the sake of this reviewâ€¦

Asgard at that time was trapped in the Earthly realm and currently floating scant metres above the soil of Broxton, Oklahoma. Using his position as Chief of Homeland Security and capitulating to demands by evil god Loki, Osborn manufactured an â€œAsgardian incidentâ€ and launched an all-out invasion on the GleamingCity. The Iron Patriot actually overruled the American President and committed all the long-cultivated metahuman resources of H.A.M.ME.R., the Dark Avengers and a villainous penal battalion dubbed The Initiative to destroy the sorely pressed and time-lost Asgardiansâ€¦

This rash act also compelled an enraged and outvoted Dr. Doom to turn on the Cabal and unleash a deadly nanite swarm inside Osborn’sAvengersTowerâ€¦

Our story resumes here with Dark Avengers #15 as, with the Tower swiftly falling to Doom’s invading host and the team savagely counter-attacking, Osborn uses the opportunity to have â€œHawkeyeâ€ remove the aggravating hurdle of Lindy Reynolds foreverâ€¦

With the Void fully free and unleashed at last, the end of this saga results in a blockbusting knock-down, drag-out fight which sees the scattered and fugitive â€œrealâ€ superheroes such as Captain America, Nick Fury, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Vision and all the other underground Secret Avengers triumphantly emerge to aid the Mighty Thor in ending Norman’s reign of terrorâ€¦

But not hereâ€¦

All that also occurs in Siege whilst this compelling but incredibly frustrating chronicle ends with the brooding aftermath of the epic wherein the vindicated true Avengers mop up their Dark replacements, mourn their dead, and put the disgraced Osborn behind barsâ€¦

This is a beautiful and powerful Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller full of fabulous incidents of character, suspense and adventure, all magnificently rendered by incredibly talented creators – as further proved by the cover gallery, Bachalo’s sketch pages and even Bendis’ pithy Afterword – but the inescapable truth here is that this book is only half the story (at the very least) and will be all but incomprehensible to new and casual readers.

Caveat so very Emptor, folksâ€¦

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: