Category: Marvel Superheroes

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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 figure…

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 down…

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 Accelerator…

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 Evolutionary…

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 21st Century…

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 bill…

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 lair…

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 potions…

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 of  Evil…

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 betrayed…

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 Circuit…

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.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Thunderbolts – Cage


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

At the end of 1996 the “Onslaught” 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 “Image style” books got all the attention, but a new title created to fill the gap in the “real” 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 mind…

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 Czar…

As the “top-cop” 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-soldiers…

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 Raft…

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 Universe…

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 salvation…

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-Thing…

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

‘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 Gods…

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 hunt…

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 protégés, 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 mankind…

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 cell…

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 restored…

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 …
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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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 – which only coincidentally, I’m sure – initially resembled that filmic feel…

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 stick…

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 will…

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 away…

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 thunder…

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 Midgard…

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 night…

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’…

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 suspended…

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 …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 Giant…

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 funnybooks…

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’…

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 friendship…

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 “commie-busting” 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 as  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 mind…
© 1962, 1963, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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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 “real” 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 If… 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 “Alterniverse” tales…

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-1218…

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 “Time-Broker” 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 ‘Déjà 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 Magneto…

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 other…

‘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 mission…

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’…

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 war…

Of course the problem with using perfect doppelgangers is that they can also turn the tables on you…

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 missions…

And ultimately full disclosure into the very nature of the Exiles existence and the truth about the time, space and the multiverse…

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 return…

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 #6…

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.

Maybe…
© 2009, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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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 “top-cop” 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.

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-soldiers…

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 heroes…

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 horrors…

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 death…

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 Veil…

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 too…

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 protégés, 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 mankind…

‘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 Magneto…

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’…

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 grounds…

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 moments…

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 cell…

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 deal…

‘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 coming…

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 profile…

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 side…

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 too…

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.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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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 “top cop” 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 “Dark Reign” 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 justice…

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 father…

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 Evil…

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 Universe…

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 threats…

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 Marvel…

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 obstacle…

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 authority…

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 it…

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

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 “Asgardian incident” 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 Asgardians…

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

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 “Hawkeye” remove the aggravating hurdle of Lindy Reynolds forever…

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 “real” 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 terror…

But not here…

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 bars…

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, folks…

© 2009, 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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NYX: Wannabe


By Joe Quesada, Josh Middleton, Robert Teranishi, Nelson & Chris Sotomayor (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1243-3

Not all Mutants in the Marvel Universe are found and mentored by heroes, villain or the ever-vigilant Federal Government. Some are just left to fend for themselves in a harsh and unforgiving world. That was the premise of an edgy but ill-starred seven issue X-Men spin-off created by scripter Joe Quesada and artists Josh Middleton & Robert Teranishi between 2003 and 2005: a much delayed and deadline-doomed saga which also introduced Wolverine’s “daughter” X-23 (originally an animation character) to the comic book continuity as part of a pack of homeless runaway mutant teenagers.

NYX: (New York: district X) Wannabe follows the troubled life of Kiden Nixon, who we first see as an innocent ordinary toddler witnessing her adored cop father gunned down in the streets. A decade later she is a very troubled bad-girl constantly battling her mom, her skeevy ratbag younger brother and everybody else; perpetually in trouble at school and just not giving a damn.

When she gets into a faceoff with juvenile gangbanger Hector Morales the violence and potential tragedy is only averted by teacher Cameron Palmer, who is pitifully unaware of how deep the animosities run…

When Hector attacks Kiden’s only friend Kara, the emotionally troubled but fiercely protective Nixon girl lashes out and an unsuspected power kicks in for the first time, leaving Morales with a shattered arm and Kiden horrified at what she might be…

If Cameron is baffled and traumatized by the bewildering event, Kiden is on the edge of reason and her positively toxic home environment doesn’t help. Waiting for the disciplinary hammer to fall at school and living in the middle of a frustrating and exasperating war between her male siblings and mother almost proves too much for the girl, but there’s worse waiting at Rudolph Giuliani High where the humiliated Hector has smuggled a gun past the metal detectors…

When he shoots at her, Kiden’s time-freezing power spontaneously activates again and she easily disarms the static would-be killer. However when the world moves again she finds that Miss Palmer has been hit by the bullet she had so easily avoided…

Kiden vanished for good that day, and six months later her tormented teacher has gone to pieces. The shock and trauma proving just too much, one typical day Cameron Palmer takes all her meds at once, slits her wrists in the bathtub and lets go of it all, only to be fortuitously found by Kiden Nixon, back from a chronological walkabout that has taken a little while, six months or many years, depending on your perspective…

As Kiden waits by Cameron’s hospital bedside, fending off the cops’ questions with practised maturity, across town a nigh-autistic child-hooker greets an old client with very specialised tastes. This john doesn’t want simple sex from Zebra Daddy‘s star turn, he just wants to be cut; deep and hard and often…

Daddy is the nastiest pimp in the Flatiron district and his clients and contacts are very powerful…

Kiden is avoiding her family and stays with Cameron after her discharge, but cannot get her to accept that her former pupil is a mutant, nor that her being shot was the student’s fault. Still despondent, Palmer threatens to call Child Protective Services unless Kiden goes home…

Nixon has another secret: for ages she has been receiving guidance and messages from the bloody ghost of her dead father, and that night he directs her to a sleazy hotel in the nastiest part of town. Following, Cameron finds Kiden in a room with a bleeding corpse, and an underage girl covered in blood and with claws projecting from the backs of her hands…

In the Bronxhardworking young Tatiana Caban uncomplainingly mixes her part-time jobs with schoolwork, but finds her greatest joy in caring for the veritable colony of stray animals she has gathered in the derelict ruins of the Borough. Meanwhile Cameron, the rescued cutter girl and Kiden sit in a Diner. The teacher is at last listening to her lost former student as the refugee girl describes her runaway months: when she learned how to use her powers, stopping and starting her personal time-line. Despite the obvious pitfalls it wasn’t all bad: avoiding cops, brutes and rapists eventually turned into living wild and free with fellow homeless kids and even finding first love…

Eventually she returned home only to have her brother chase her away without ever seeing their mother or the new family she was marrying into. Sleeping in an ally that night her murdered father came to her and told Kiden to go to her teacher’s apartment…

Tatiana’s home life is no picnic either with her mother preferring the company of bad men to caring for her own kids, but nothing like as bad as the story the hooker – “Jade” -tells Kiden and Cameron about how her latest trick really died. …and then dead Dad appeared again…

With issue #5 of the sporadically released and permanently deadline-missed series, artist Robert Teranishi and inkers Nelson & Chris Sotomayor replaced Josh Middleton, just as a flashback revealed how psychotic pimp Zebra Daddy took the news that a major repeat customer was dead and his best money-maker was in the wind with a couple of stray girls…

In Cameron’s flat, the ghost – who only Kiden can see – is telling her to get out now and only moment’s later Daddy and his crew bursts in, all guns blazing…

Next morning Tatiana’s life changes forever as her mutant power triggers at school. Tragically that “gift” is to become an anthropomorphic form of any animal whose blood she touches – such as that wounded puppy she picked up on the way to class…

Her spectacular public transformation into a dog-faced girl sparks an anti-mutant riot in school and the terrified teen is hounded down Main Street by a crazed mob, until she runs straight into the hiding Kiden and her fugitive friends.

Zebra Daddy is going ballistic. Until the girls are safely disposed of, his business is a liability and potential death sentence, but none of his gang can find Jade or her friends. Lucky for him he knows someone who can help…

Bobby Soul is a mutant too, a guy who can project his consciousness into others and possess them. As “Felon”, Bobby was a real asset to Daddy’s business but these days the guy was retired, spending his time looking after his severely mentally challenged and mute little brother. Nonetheless, Bobby could be persuaded to do a favour for an old comrade, especially as the money was so useful and his ex-boss promised nobody was going to get hurt…

Of course Daddy is unaware of the downside of Felon’s gift: all that time spent in other people’s heads meant that Bobby’s own memories were slowly eroding…

Events cascade to a bloody climax once Bobby’s powers ferret out the runaway girls and he passes on the information to ZD. However with his mission accomplished Bobby returns to his radically-impaired dependent and is horrified to see the blood-spattered ghost of a policeman hovering above the somnolent “Lil’ Bro”…

With the dead white guy giving advice and instructions, Bobby realises how he’s been fooling himself and the errors of his solitary ways before setting off to make amends, well aware of what Zebra Daddy and his goons are really intending to do…

Of course nobody can conceive of what Kiden, Jade and “Catiana” are capable of either…

Dark, harsh and pitilessly gritty this troubled tale of truly troubled teens effectively delves beneath the sordid underbelly of the urban cityscape to deliver a suspenseful, mature blend of mutant mayhem and hard-hitting social drama that will appal some Fights ‘n’ Tights fans but hopefully appeal to readers looking for an edge of tawdry realism in the fantasy fiction.

This collection also includes an exhaustive sketchbook section by Middleton, an examination of the cover creation process, an unused finished cover and extensive pencil art pages to enthral those with a need to know and a desire to make their own graphic epics one day.
© 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Spider-Girl: Who Killed Gwen Reilly?


By Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4319-2

During a truly scary sales downturn in comicbook sales that afflicted the mid-1990s, American publishers tried all manner of stunts and ideas to retain their rapidly-diminishing readerships. Marvel especially attempted ever-wilder schemes to bolster sales and the one with the most lasting effect, if not success, was to create a pocket universe of interlocking titles featuring the offspring of mainstream characters such as The Avengers and Spider-Man.

Kicking off with a throwaway tale in What If…? volume 2, #105 (February 1998 and clumsily asking ‘What If Mary Jane had never lost the baby, and Spider-Man had a Spider-Girl?’) the notion launched a batch of younger, ostensibly contemporary characters battling modern menaces in the old-fashioned way.

That introductory yarn was eventually re-released as Spider-Girl #0 and is reprinted at the end of this collection of recent episodes which primarily gathers the Alternate Arachnoid Avenger’s short stories from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-8 and back-up strips from Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4.

May “Mayday” Parker is the daughter of Peter Parker and wife Mary Jane, and she developed arachnoid superpowers whilst in High School, giving writer/creator Tom DeFalco a chance to rehash the teen-angst shtick of the primal, all-hallowed – and supremely successful – Stan Lee/Steve Ditko days of the company’s infancy.

What with disapproving parental units to dodge, vengeful enemies to tackle, lots of guest stars and the hell that has always been school days to wade through, it frequently felt like a pretty cynical attempt to recapture the glory days, but it was extremely entertaining, worked well and struck a chord with the Faithful.

Spider-Girl became Marvel’s longest running female-starring solo-title, outliving by years every other book in the “MC2” Universe.

Although she is much less a nerd than her father ever was – I suspect modern kids aren’t so ready to own their alienation issues, and besides, reading comic books is enough geekiness for anyone to admit to – Mayday still endured the traditional torments of teen life, but after many months her concerned guardians grudgingly accepted her need to help humanity as a bona fide super-hero and so, whilst perpetually dealing with classroom politics, hesitant romantic overtures, crushes and strained relations with the rest of the second-generation Marvel Offspring (such as Darkdevil, Stinger, The Buzz, New Avengers and the Fantastic Five), Spider-Girl gradually became a fixture of the alternate future Marvel Universe.

Eventually Mayday’s popularity waned and her first volume ended with issue #100 in 2005, only to return a year later for a 30-issue run as The Amazing Spider-Girl before transferring to support strip status in the anthological Amazing Spider-Man Family (#5-8) and simultaneously as a part of Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited webcomic experiment in 2009 as Spectacular Spider-Girl.

Thereafter Mayday sprang into the back of the latest incarnation of Web of Spider-Man, out into a 4-issue miniseries (Spectacular Spider-Girl again) and the finale one-shot Spider-Girl: The End.

I think I got all that right, but…

This quirky collection opens with the pertinent parts of Amazing Spider-Man Family #5-8, by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema, and asks ‘Who is Gwen Reilly?’ A very brief recap of those 130 intervening issues reminds us of May’s origins and how she is currently acting as big sister to her own clone who had been grown in secret by the maniacal secret society The Order of the Goblin. Subsequently she gained the metamorphic powers – and weaknesses – of the sinister alien Symbiote which had created Venom and Carnage…

The clone – who of course claims to be the original May – is wildly unstable and prone to viciously excessive violence, as seen when the girls encounter a robbery in the street, part of an escalating gang war between New Yorkcrime kingpin Black Tarantula and potential cyborg usurper Silverback…

Peter and Mary Jane Parker, barely coping with their new son’s physical problems, are more concerned that there are two teenaged May’s in the house but whilst the clone solves that problem with her shape-shifting abilities, she is far more reluctant to surrender her claim to the actual identity of the “real” daughter of Spider-Man…

That all changes at school next morning when she rolls up as sexy, flamboyant wild-child “cousin” April Parker and begins to steal all May’s friends. The senior Parker goes ballistic that night at home but is cut short when another impossible girl turns up.

Gwen Reilly claims to be the long-lost daughter of Peter’s brother Ben but is clearly unaware that the identity was just a fictitious persona used by a Spider-Man clone in the years before the Wall-crawler was maimed in battle against the Green Goblin and retired from costumed crusading…

When the stranger leaves, May and April follow her but are separated by another gang crime. When May finally catches up she finds her doppelganger standing over the brutalised corpse of the mystery girl…

‘Who Killed Gwen Reilly? ratchets up the tension as May calls her dad – now a forensic scientist working in the NYPD crime lab – to deal with the mystery. Most troubling is April’s callous disregard for the stranger’s death: is it possible her emotionally stunted double could actually have committed the murder, despite all her protestations of innocence?

Certainly the female facsimile is no stranger to mischief, using her shape-shifting power to covertly cosy-up to the boy May shyly adores, but with a slaying to solve, Spider-Girl pushes it all onto a back-burner and seeks assistance from demonic do-gooder Darkdevil, before being ambushed by one of her father’s oldest and most savage foes…

As a result of her hopeless battle against Tombstone, May is left for dead and dumped in the New Jersey Pine Barrens whilst April is busy saving victims of a tenement blaze in ‘Into the Fire!’ but once the crisis is over, the clone ruthlessly ends the Granite Gangster’s threat for ever and simply assumes May’s identity, even fooling Peter and Mary Jane as she luxuriates in finally becoming the only child and declaring ‘There’s a New Spider-Girl in Town!’…

The convoluted commotion continued without missing a beat in Web of Spider-Man (2009) #1-4, as two lazy thugs cut corners and dump May’s battered, broken body short of their regular disposal spot, thus allowing the supposed corpse a last, desperate chance to escape in ‘Angels and Devils’. Scared and furious, the gunsels track the wounded warrior but are attacked by a monstrous winged beast which can only be the mythical Jersey Devil…

Struggling back to relative civilisation May sneaks into her home, utterly unaware that “Spider-Girl” has been ambushed by the deadly Goblin Queen in ‘Like a Fury Scorned!’ The last heir of the twisted Osborn legacy was responsible for creating the Mayday clone and the Gwen Reilly conspiracy but is in a desperate war with her sire’s Order of the Goblin  personality cult. Claiming April as her spiritual sister, Fury has captured the spider-clone with the heartfelt intention of making her an ally.

May, meanwhile, has recovered and deduced how April has attempted to replace her. Heading to school and eager to reclaim her life, the bruised battler stumbles straight into another catastrophe as Goblin Queen attacks, attempting to kill René DeSantos, an influential member of the Order whose unfortunate and unaware daughter Simone is a classmate of the real Ms Parker…

Barely surviving the shattering attack, May and Darkdevil unite to track down Fury in ‘Whom Gods Destroy’, backed up by erstwhile Spider-clone super-menace Kaine – now a very senior and Special Federal Agent – and raid her lair only to find the morally ambiguous and definitely untrustworthy April in full Carnage Symbiote mode as the Goblin Queen’s ally…

The saga culminates in a blockbuster brouhaha as ‘They First Make Mad!’ brings the house down and sets events in motion for the final chapter in Mayday Parker’s fantastic life…

But that’s not included here, even though there’s still plenty of web-spinning wonderment on show.

First up is a terrifically enjoyable run of vignettes from Amazing Spider-Man Family #1-4, set in the same futureverse, but in the early years when May was still a baby. Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man by DeFalco, Frenz & Sal Buscema opened with the still-active and cash-strapped Wall-Crawler battling the lethal Lizard whilst Mary Jane discussed the pressure of ‘Family Ties!’ with the mutated biochemist – and potential employer’s – distraught and desperate wife and child…

After a horrific drive-by shooting ‘Those Who Never Return!’ explored the understandable worries of the wife of a practising superhero confronted by a situation where only her hubby could make things right, the absolutely brilliant ‘Common Ground’ (illustrated by Todd Nauck) found Pete and MJ in a bustling, frustrating hospital Emergency Room, frantically waiting to see a doctor after baby May catches her first cold.

It’s not the place you want to see short-tempered super-villain the Rhino trying to cut the line because his beloved ancient auntie is really sick…

The domestic delights finish up with ‘Career Paths’ as a very convincing and sympathetic thief takes the young Marrieds hostage for the very best of reasons and for a very galling ride, after which this tome concludes with that aforementioned What If?/Spider-Girl #0 yarn.

‘Legacy… in Black and White’, illustrated by Frenz & Bill Sienkiewicz, relates how ordinary lass May Parker suddenly found herself possessed of incredible abilities just as the last Green Goblin inexplicably attacked her fuddy-duddy crime lab daddy. When her mother revealed the long-kept secret of his former life, the horrified girl only had one real choice to make…

Even though the stories are capable and well produced and accompanied by a superb cover gallery by Frenz, Paulo Siqueira, Joe Suitor, Nuno Plati, Pasqual Ferry & Jelen Djurdjevic to enchant the eyes, this is a truly odd book to read: starting in the middle, proceeding without conclusion to the penultimate, skipping back to a prologue and ending at the beginning.

Even after all the Spider-Girl issues I’ve read from the feature’s inception I found myself regularly stopping to check elsewhere before being able to continue with this collection, so I’ve never been more serious when I say don’t read this unless you’re well versed in the arcane arachnid arcane and lore or need a headache to get out of some even more onerous task…

Even so: if some editor would kindly re-order and re-release this tome I’d happily give the Weirdly Winsome Webbed Wonder another go…
© 1998, 2009 & 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Runaways


By Joss Whedon, Michael Ryan & Rick Ketchum, Jay Leisten, Andrew Hennessy, Victor Olazaba & Roland Paris (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-408-9

The Runaways are a bunch of super-powered kids whose parents kept from them the rather surprising news that were secretly a cabal of would-be world conquerors called “The Pride”. These extremely circumspect and clandestine villains played it smart for years and completely controlledLos Angeleswithout the populace knowing they even existed – which was why all the baddies and monsters in the Marvel Universe generally hung out aroundNew Yorkand the East Coast.

After many trials and tribulations – including the death of some of the rebellious kids – the young absconders overthrew and eradicated their progenitors, with the unwelcome result that LA became a soft target and open city for ambitious costumed ne’er-do-wells.

The orphans were all placed with well-meaning but clueless social services, forcing them to again run away, taking to the streets again.

Preferring life together and driven to protect the city they unwittingly endangered, the kids even found a few new recruits but not all of them were trustworthy either…

The underlying premise of this series is that adults can’t be trusted – only your friends and comrades – and this volume (collecting volume 2, issues #25-30 of the monthly comic-book) takes that to deliciously ludicrous extremes whilst simultaneously exploring a long-neglected era of America’s metahuman history, and even dabbling in a little doomed romancing as only the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dollhouse could conceive it…

Visiting the Big Apple, the fugitive kids encountered such obstructive and overbearing adult luminaries as Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and Wolverine as well as the skeevyNew York underclass who were the Runaways’ East Coast counterparts…

Even after returning to their nominal home turf things weren’t easy and they even inconclusively clashed with the Federal Government…

The current roster comprises Nico Minoru, last in a long line of hereditary sorcerers, whilst Karolina Dean was once the compliant daughter of two domineering aliens intent on global conquest. But now they’re gone she’s unexpectedly entered into a loving relationship with the rebellious shape-shifting, gender-fluid apprentice Super-Skrull Prince Xavin that they had previously arranged for her to wed as a condition of truce between their warring civilisations…

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

Gertrude’s folks were time-travelling bandits and would-be world conquerors…

The latest edition to the group is Victor Mancha, who can control electricity and manipulate metals; gifts his “father” (robotic despot Ultron) considered quite useful in the secret weapon he was building and growing…

As this story opens the outcasts are back in the City that Never Sleeps (but Steals your Stuff if You Do), painfully aware of their legal status and parents’ reputation. In unfamiliar territory and perilously isolated, they enter into a deal with nefarious Wilson Fisk, the ganglord who truly rules New York. The kids want license to move about freely, unmolested by cops, heroes and Social Services. In return the Kingpin wants them to “acquire” a certain object for him…

…And across the sleeping city, a very old woman and her monstrous guardian angel wait for events to tragically replay themselves out…

With Gert dead, Nico has become leader – a role she neither wants nor believes herself qualified to perform – and reluctantly acquiesces to the ponderous crime-lord’s wishes, committing the kids to breaking into a skyscraper citadel and purloining a mysterious egg-like chronometer, but the mission goes horrendously wrong when urban vigilante Frank Castle explosively intervenes…

However The Punisher is himself ambushed by a ghastly winged apparition who apparently wants to kill the kids himself. Caught flat footed, the youngsters run away and regroup at the Leapfrog (their futuristic vehicle and another useful tool inherited from the deceased Yorkes) but are again surprised by Castle.

The ever-prepared and action-savvy Punisher learns a painful lesson however when he lets little Molly get too close and catches a super-punch somewhere between his chest armour and knee-guards…

Chase meanwhile has examined the object and realised it’s something his parents built using the Yorkes’ future tech…

When they meet up with the Kingpin, the mountainous malcontent attempts to double-cross them, but his ninjas are no match for the furious betrayed kids and in the melee the monster angel reappears and gives Victor a message…

On the run again the fugitives bundle into the Leapfrog and Chase plugs the stolen artefact into the dashboard. There is a strange flash of light and the ship crashes into an alley… in 1907…

Talking over their options the kids deduce that the time-jump was pre-programmed and therefore the deceased Yorkes must have cached helpful technology in this era. Setting out to search the primitive city they stumble upon a tenement fire and unhesitatingly use their flamboyant abilities to save the women and children trapped in what turns out to be a completely legal sweatshop.

The rubbernecking spectators don’t seem too shocked and the reason soon becomes apparent when shady character Eddie Gunnam introduces himself…

Carrying a lucky magic walking stick and calling himself The Swell, Eddie is part of a growing band of metahumans he calls “Wonders of the Modern Age”. Soon he’s introducing the time-lost tribe to own his band of ragamuffin companions; aerial dancer Lillie “The Spieler” McGurty, diminutive Creeper, brutish tomboy Hoyden, The Yellow Kid, Dead George Pelham and a hulking winged bravo named Tristan…

In this harsh exploitative world the street urchins try their best to survive but hard times are made worse by a brewing war between two gangs of Wonders with diametrically opposed philosophies: the nominally virtuous but ruthless Upward Path and The Sinners, a savage band of criminals led by a mysterious husband and wife team with fantastic inventive skills…

Karolina is distracted. During the fire she had tried to rescue a little Swiss immigrant girl – barely Molly’s age – only to see the waif use incredible plant hyper-acceleration abilities to save herself. The alien princess tracked the child to her home where her brutal, indolent father was beating the household’s only breadwinner for her laziness. With Molly in tow Karolina returns the next day and offers Klara Plast refuge, but the frightened lass is too scared to leave her husband…

Before she can be convinced, a riot between unionists and vicious strike-breakers erupts and Victor, seeing Spieler in all her combative flying glory, feels the first buzz and whirr of love in his artificial heart, utterly unaware that jealous Tristan is already besotted with her…

Across town Nico has raided a bank in search of the Yorkes’ stash of devices but has been captured by the Upward Path. Whilst torturing the future girl, their resident sorceress reveals that Nico is her direct descendent, but tragically for the time-tossed captive, loyalty to family has never been a Minoru trait…

The Swell, meanwhile has introduced Xavin and Chase to the Sinners and discovered that the enigmatic bosses are the Yorkes from an earlier period of their personal timelines…

The future felons instantly realise what has happened but are stunned to discover their daughter will die fighting them, allowing the Runaway lads to bust loose, as miles away Victor and Lillie cavort in the sky, lost in the sheer giddy exuberance of first love…

As a final showdown between the Sinners and The Upward Path inexorably approaches, the foredoomed but forewarned Yorkes make radical plans to escape their fate and change the history of the future…

The brutal bloody finale and all-out war of the Wonders leaves a trail of bodies in the streets ofNew Yorkand pits friend against friend until they discover a doomsday bomb set by the destiny-challenging Futurians…

Chase, however, has been busy and devised a way to save the day that allows the kids to return to the present day with the newest member of their youthful outcast family…

Sadly however in the aftermath, the original instigator of all the chronal chaos and calamity is revealed and has again failed to change the past or reverse the foolish decision she made on a dirty street in 1907…

Sexually frank but never explicit, this is a superbly well-reasoned and executed, thought-provoking and imaginatively mature Fights ‘n’ Tights tale from Whedon, stuffed to bursting with wit, action, horror, humour, charm and poignant passion and magically illustrated by Michael Ryan (ably assisted by inkers Rick Ketchum, Jay Leisten, Andrew Hennessy, Victor Olazaba & Roland Paris) which proves that superhero comics can surmount their escapist, gratuitous power-fantasy roots and deliver stories of true depth and worth.
© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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JLA/Avengers


By Kurt Busiek & George Pérez, coloured by Tom Smith & lettered by Richard Starkings (DC/Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1957-4

Fair Warning: this review deals with the very bedrock of superhero comics. If you’re not utterly au fait with the continuity minutiae of Marvel and DC Comics, this review won’t make much sense, and might well cause migraines or dizziness and could well prevent you from operating gigantic universe-bending machineries.

If you’d rather read something else I’ll quite understand and will hopefully see you tomorrow…

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new costumed crusader stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the industry we’ve wanted our idols to meet, associate, battle together – and if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their arch-enemy one more time.

For many years that immature “who’s strongest/fastest/toughest?” preoccupation could only be addressed within individual company boundaries, but once publishers at DC and Marvel realised the sales potential of inter-continuity crossover clashes in the 1970s a veritable torrent of “impossible” superhero mash-ups (of generally excellent artistic quality but mired in inescapably mediocre plots) followed, all generally suffering from the protective partisanship of their legal owners.

After all, who wanted their pantheon to come off second-best in any confrontation?

When a much-touted and eagerly anticipated meeting of the Avengers and Justice League of America famously foundered due to irreconcilable creative differences between the sponsoring publishers, the crossover practise was shelved for years until cooler heads, a general sales decline and the far less hide-bound attitudes of smaller new companies (such as Valiant and Image) who simply found a negotiated way to make these temporary mergers work amicably and effectively, revitalised the whole concept and practise…

Which is a shame as Busiek is one of the most skilled writers in the business, easily ably to inject telling personal emotion and poignant character revelation into the driest plot – but here there’s simply not enough room…

Gathering together the deluxe 4-issue miniseries from 2003-2004, this powers-packed tome opens with a joint Introduction from the co-instigators of the Silver Age of Comics, Julie Schwartz and Stan Lee, after which the non-stop creative chaos begins with ‘A Journey into Mystery’ as the obsessive monster Krona smashes his way into the Cosmos we’ll call Marvel.

The cosmic intruder is a renegade Guardian of his own Universe, driven insane by an insatiable hunger to learn the origin of Reality. His previous rabid inquiries had already introduced evil into his own once-innocent continuum, shortened its sidereal lifespan and reduced an incomparable multiverse to a few straggling survivor dimensions, but now his impassioned search has brought him to a previously unreachable and unsuspected parallel realm only to encounter a being almost his equal…

En Dwi Gast, a puissant conniving being dedicated to games of chance, contests of power and duels of skill, is an Elder of the Universe and one of the most powerful creatures in this existence, but even The Grandmaster is helpless before Krona’s fanatical assault and manic inquisition. Nevertheless the wily immortal manages to inveigle Krona into a diverting little side-bet…

A month later, the world’s greatest champions in two vastly differing dimensions find themselves battling incomprehensible threats from beyond their reality. Investigations indicate that invaders from an alternate Earth are inexplicably appearing and causing devastating damage.

It also seems that the too-incompatible realms are colliding…

Offering a solution, the Grandmaster appears to the Justice League of Americaand sets them off in search of twelve objects of sublime power (six from each Earth) that will end the crisis. On Marvel Earth the morally ambiguous New God Metron tasks the Avengers with the same goal and soon the duped heroes are all engaged in furious and escalating clashes across two worlds, culminating in a shattering confrontation on Earth-DC…

In a place beyond physics and geography, the size-shifting Atom has hitched a ride with the unsuspecting Grandmaster and becomes privy to a private conversation with the New Genesisian God of Knowledge.

However, even after discovering the real nature of the crisis and the true threat involved, the hapless hero is unable to reach either fooled friends or foes to warn them…

‘A Contest of Champions’ open with the JLA and Avengers at war above Metropolis whilst the cooler heads of Batman and Captain America have both deduced that something is not kosher. The two surreptitiously declare a truce and leave their unnaturally enraged comrades to their futile battles and continued competition for the dozen arcane objects of power, and instead track down the Atom in the Grandmaster’s non-dimensional lair.

The deeper plan is revealed: the Grandmaster’s game is rigged and the prize Krona is vying for is possession of Galactus: a being from the reality that preceded the Big Bang…

Meanwhile the massed armies of heroes have finished their savagely fought duels. The Grandmaster’s side has been victorious…

…Which means nothing to Krona who simply blasts the Elder, cruelly claiming and dismantling the prized Galactus as nothing more than a new research tool. However the renegade Guardian has been duped: En Dwi Gast was after the twelve objects all along and uses them to reorder the realities and the once-incompatible Earths…

In a world of constant turmoil and ‘Strange Adventures’, the JLA and Avengers are now old allies, frequently pairing to battle overwhelming menaces in union, but Captain America can’t shake the feeling that something is not right. On anther Earth Batman has the same notion, as blips in reality and temporal hiccups shift heroes and even replace them with dead or departed predecessors. It’s soon clear that Existence is in big trouble and when Superman and Iron Man travel into space they observe huge metaphysical hands catastrophically mashing the two Earths together…

With chaos rising and all life threatened, the constantly changing teams are led by the inscrutably unfathomable Phantom Stranger to a place beyond where the dying Grandmaster – who has once again underestimated the merciless, self-destructive and utterly determined Krona – warns them of the imminent end of all since the Guardian is quite prepared to take the universe apart to find out how it began…

As both worlds shudder and shatter, all the heroes of the earths mobilise to save lives, allowing ‘The Brave… and the Bold’ JLA and Avengers to pursue Krona into the void for one last battle to preserve and restore the universes, but even here a double game is being played: Metron and the Grandmaster have one last surprise in store for when the status quo is inevitably restored…

With guest-shots from just about everybody created by the two comicbook companies over seven decades, there’s a awful lot of crowded, blistering action but not a lot of room for character or plot, but even so most action fans will find something to rave over. Moreover, for art lovers this book is a sublime treat, with some of Pérez’s most spectacular illustration, ably augmented by a stunning cover gallery at the back featuring all four of his stellar wraparound covers.

It’s fair to say that I’m not a great fun of such profit-led pairings, but there’s still enough of the fan-boy in me to viscerally thrill at armies of costumed stalwarts bashing the bezonkers out of each other and, even if the story is forced and patently menu-led (one from company A, one from Company B, over and over again…), there are still some nice fanatic-friendly touches and witty in-jokes whilst inarguably the artwork – every millimetre stuffed with manic detail and wry, deferential tributes and touches – is amongst the very best George Pérez has ever produced.

If you like this sort of thing this is certainly one of the best of its ilk…

© 2003, 2004, 2008 DC Comics and Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.