Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island


By Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Rick Remender, Humberto Ramos, Stefano Caselli  & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-501-7

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically and controversially altered for the ‘Brand New Day’ publishing event a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, so if this is your first Web-spinning yarn in a while – or if you’re drawing your cues from the movies – prepare yourself for a little confusion. That being said, this classy collection of Web-spun wonderment is more accessible than most: a spectacular summer blockbuster yarn with New York overwhelmed by monsters, a hideous all-consuming threat and packed to the spiracles (look it up: I’m being clever again) with returning villains from Spidey’s less complicated glory-days…

Gathering Spider-Island: Deadly Foes, Amazing Spider-Man #666-672, Venom #6-8, and background material, original art, text-features and interviews from Marvel Spotlight Spider-Island, the manic Marvel mayhem commences when clone-builder Miles Warren AKA The Jackal resurrects the warped Peter Parker doppelganger Kaine and upgrades him for malicious purposes and a hidden new boss; turning the recent cadaver into a monstrous multi-limbed humanoid Tarantula…

Meanwhile in ‘Prologue: the One and Only’ the webslinger is riding a wave of popularity in New York City despite every effort of new Mayor J. Jonah Jameson and even in his civilian identity is having a pretty good life. The original hard-luck kid has a great, well-paid job designing high-tech gadgets, is fast friends with the city’s greatest scientists Tony Stark and Reed Richards and even has a devoted, hot, new girlfriend; forensic cop Carlie Cooper.

But now, something very strange is happening: all over Manhattan people are starting to manifest spider-powers and government asset Flash Thompson is put on alert in his role as new black-ops agent Venom, keeping the supposedly retired and disabled war-hero from the bedside of his estranged and terminal father…

When Peter recently lost his Spider-sense, clairvoyant arachnid hero Madame Web convinced him to study martial arts with Shang-Chi, fabled Master of Kung Fu, to prepare for a dire future crisis, but his hectic schedule – constantly moving from Horizon Labs to Fantastic Four HQ and Avengers Mansion – means he is one of the last to know that a manufactured plague is turning New York into a city of Spider People, just as Jackal, Tarantula and their sultry secret leader are unleashing yet another arachnoid atrocity…

‘The Amazing Spider-Manhattan’ sees the infestation grow as Carlie reveals she has Spider-powers and the Jackal assembles an army of arachnid-enhanced thugs to plunder and run riot, further spreading the contagion. A city-wide epidemic forces Jameson to close all exits from the New York and quarantine the populace as the superheroes begin a desperate holding action against a wave of wall-crawling criminals.

When the original-and-genuine tries to join them in ‘Peter Parker, the Unspectacular Spider-Man’ he is sent away since he’s indistinguishable from many of the thugs, but the indomitable lad soon finds a way to strike back and even recruit reinforcements for the hard-pressed defenders.

Across town Venom is stalking the cause of the plague and Eddie Brock, originally possessed by the selfsame alien Symbiote, discovers that he has become a natural cure for the Spider-infection: a living ‘Anti-Venom’…

The covert paramilitary predator had overcome and captured the Jackal’s new Spider-King, but the whole operation was a trick; allowing the beast to sneak thousands of spider-babies out of the quarantined city, ready to infect the entire country. Moreover when Flash discovers that the original identity of the horrific Spider-King was in fact America’s greatest hero he is caught between honour and duty…

In ‘Arachnotopia’ Peter Parker is leading the fightback but helpless to combat the next stage of the disease as victims begin to mutate from spider-powered humans into carnivorous, monstrous eight-legged freaks. His life is made even more difficult when he sees Carlie so clearly using his powers better than he ever did…

Meanwhile Reed Richards, frantically seeking a cure, sees that complete infestation of Manhattan is only a matter of hours away…

With the mystery mastermind revealed there are ‘Spiders, Spiders Everywhere’ but a glimmer of hope remains as Flash/Venom infiltrates the Queen’s arachnoid inner circle, just as Peter’s old flame Mary Jane Watson discovers her own inner arthropod and joins the struggle armed with an advantage no other infectee can – or would want to – boast…

The next Venom instalment sees Flash clash with Anti-Venom before dragging the all-too-willing Brock back to Reed Richards…

Meanwhile the Queen has established mental contact with every victim and uses them as a battery: a web of life feeding her transformative energy and, when the cure is synthesised, she compels all her thralls to resist it and the people administering it…

In the final Venom episode Flash valiantly tackles the Queen head-on but is easily defeated. Luckily one of the first infectees to be cured was that legendary hero trapped inside the Spider-King…

Unfortunately the disease has already reached peak infection and the triumphant Queen transforms into a skyscraper-sized arachnoid colossus ready and able to turn the world into a planet of spiders. With everything to fight for and no hope, Mary Jane and a most unexpected ally lead one final assault by the remaining assembled heroes on the monumental monstrosity, giving the one true Amazing Spider-Man a valiant last chance to spectacularly save everyone…

In ‘Epilogue: the Naked City’ a city wide “Morning After” focuses on the staggering aftermath of the climactic clash and cannily resets the scene for a fresh start in the Spidey universe with departures, arrivals and a whole new outlook for Marvel’s most iconic hero…

Although not necessary, readers might also benefit from a quick re-reading of Spectacular Spider-Man: Disassembled, but this gloriously bombastic rollercoaster action-romp from writers Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente and Rick Remender, illustrated by Humberto Ramos, Stefano Caselli, Tom Fowler, Minck Oosterveer, Carlos Cuevas, Victor Olazaba & Karl Kesel forms not only a terrific Fights ‘n’ Tights tale but also serves as a stand-alone saga and perfect jumping-on point for readers new or returning. With the aforementioned added features pages and a stunning gallery of variant covers by

Ramos, Greg Land, Gabriele Dell’Otto, Stephanie Hans & Stuart Immonen Spider-Island is possibly one of the best Spider-Man books in years.

This British edition of Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island is set for release on January 19th 2012.
™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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X-Men: Schism


By Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, Tim Seeley, Billy Tan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-502-4

Radical change – or at least the appearance of such – is a cornerstone of modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth.

A case in point is this rather impressive restating of the Mutant paradigm from Marvel wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the old days…

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

This utterly engrossing tome (collecting X-Men Schism #1-5, Generation Hope #10-11 and X-Men ReGenesis) finds the world’s mutant population reduced to a couple of hundred desperate souls living in self-imposed exile on an island dubbed “Utopia” located in San Francisco Bay.

Although generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions are high and with X-Men team-leader Cyclops running the colony in an increasingly draconian manner, his relationship with war-weary second-in-command Wolverine is slowly, inexorably deteriorating…

Matters come to head when Logan refuses to train the latest batch of kids in combat techniques, concerned that these newest mutants are being cheated of their childhoods, after which Quentin Quire, a 16-year old anarchist telepath provokes an frantic armed response from human world leaders at an arms limitation conference intended to convince humanity to abandon their “defensive” anti-mutant weapons; which generally equates to giant robotic Sentinels of various vintages…

With the world once again on alert against “Homo Superior” attacks, every nation is frantically rearming, but the robots have all degenerated into rampaging menaces attacking their owners – if they work at all – and the assembled mutants and assorted superheroes are kept busy saving humans from their own bellicose paranoid folly…

Meanwhile a bunch of very human rich kids make a move of their own. The greedy, remorseless and ambitious scions of munitions millionaires, human traffickers and deranged scientists have waited long enough for what’s theirs and, after murdering their parents and guardians, take over the Hellfire Club to initiate their scheme of ruling the Earth before they hit puberty…

As their cynical, vicious plan unfolds, the embattled Utopians become the unwitting target of increasingly bloody attacks and Cyclops and Wolverine catastrophically clash over the role of the super-powered children in their care, almost oblivious of the launch of the new super-Sentinel devised by the impatient new Hellfire kids…

Although Utopia is saved in the nick of time, the policy-split leads to a sundering of the Mutants as Wolverine leads many of the youngest kids and some of Cyclops’ oldest, but most disappointed and disaffected, friends to a place where they can attempt a different way of living, leaving the island as a highly visible fortress against and target of human aggression; populated by warriors and militaristic genocide-survivors ready to take the Race – or perhaps more correctly, Species – War to their oppressors…

The core miniseries was scripted by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, Cam Smith, Mark Farmer & Mark Roslan with Kieron Gillen writing the intersecting chapters from Generation Hope and the epilogue X-Men ReGenesis drawn by Tim Seeley and Billy Tan, respectively.

If you crave fast, furious and fulfilling Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction this is a nearly perfect one-shop stop for your edification and delectation.

X-Men Schism is scheduled for release on January 19th 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd. ™ and © 2012 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 22: Amazing-Spider-Man 41-50 & Annual 3


By Stan Lee, John Romita Sr. & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-914-6

The rise and rise of the wondrous web-spinner continued and even increased pace as the decade progressed, and by the time of the tales in this fourth sumptuous hardcover (collecting Amazing Spider-Man #41-50 and Annual 3, spanning October 1966 to July 1967) Peter Parker and friends were on the way to being household names as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. Meanwhile John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear.

Now he was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

With issue #41 and ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’ Romita took complete artistic control, inking his own pencils in a blockbusting rip-roarer as a super-strong spy tasked with abducting J. Jonah Jameson‘s astronaut son was stopped by the Astounding Arachnid, who found the victim a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’ saw John Jameson mutated by space-spores and go on a terrifying rampage in a explosive, entertaining yarn only really remembered for the last panel of the final page…

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag for years; a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May whom Peter had narrowly avoided – and the creators had skilfully not depicted – for the duration of time that our hero had been involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly Gwen Stacy. In that last frame the gob-smacked young man finally realised that he been ducking the hottest chick in New York for two years!

‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ in #43 gave the horn-headed villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship.

The Marvel mayhem continued with the return of a tragedy-drenched old foe as Stan & John reintroduced biologist Curt Conners in #44′s ‘Where Crawls the Lizard!’. The deadly reptilian marauder threatened Humanity itself and it took all of the wall-crawler’s resourcefulness to stop him in the cataclysmic concluding chapter ‘Spidey Smashes Out!’

Issue #46 introduced another all-new menace in the form of seismic super-thief ‘The Sinister Shocker!’ who proved little match for the Web-spinner whilst ‘In the Hands of the Hunter!’ brought back a fighting-mad and extremely vengeful Kraven to menace the family of Peter Parker’s new best friend Harry Osborn.

Apparently the obsessive big-game hunter had entered into a contract with Harry’s father (the super-villainous Green Goblin until a psychotic break turned him into a traumatised amnesiac) and now the Russian rogue wanted paying off or payback…

Luckily Spider-Man was on hand to dissuade him, but it’s interesting to note that at this time the student life and soap-opera sub-plots became increasingly important to the mix, with glamour girls Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy (superbly delineated by the masterful Romita) as well as former bully Flash Thompson and the Osborns getting as much or more “page-time” as Aunt May or the Daily Bugle staff, who had previously monopolised the non-costumed portions of the ongoing saga.

Amazing Spider-Man #48 introduced Blackie Drago: a ruthless thug who shared a prison cell with one of the wall-crawler’s oldest foes. At death’s door the ailing super-villain revealed his technological secrets, enabling Drago to escape and master ‘The Wings of the Vulture!’

Younger, faster, tougher, the new Vulture defeated Spider-Man and in #49′s ‘From the Depths of Defeat!’ battled Kraven the Hunter until a restored and reinvigorated Wall-crawler stepped in to thrash them both.

Issue #50 introduced one of Marvel’s greatest villains in the first of a three part yarn that saw the beginnings of romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy and the death of a cast member, re-established Spidey’s war on cheap thugs and common criminals (a key component of the hero’s appeal was that no criminal was too small for him to bother with) and saw a crisis of conscience force him to quit in ‘Spider-Man No More!’ only to return and become entangled ‘In the Clutches of… the Kingpin!’ (inked by Mike Esposito, moonlighting from DC as Mickey Demeo).

The remaining two chapters of that groundbreaking, gang-busting triptych are reproduced in the next volume but there’s still one last treat in store…

This chronicle concludes with ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ (Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3 and out of sequence – so if you’re that way inclined read this tale first) as the World’s Mightiest Heroes offered the Web-Spinner membership in the team and an end to most of his pecuniary and P.R. woes if he could capture the Hulk.

As usual all was not as it seemed but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (on layouts), Don Heck & Demeo/Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy package that made those summer specials a kid’s ultimate delight.

Topped off with a cover gallery and glorious pin-ups of the entire cast of Peter Parker’s life, one last Ditko action-page and a group shot of Spidey with all the heroes stronger than him, this classic compendium is the ideal way to introduce or reacquaint readers with the formative Spider-Man. The brilliant adventures are superb value and this series of books should be the first choice of any adult with a present to buy for an impressionable child.

…Or for their greedy, needy selves…
© 1966, 1967, 1997 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fear Itself: the Home Front


By Howard Chaykin, Christos N. Gage, Benjamin McCool, Peter Milligan, Mike Mayhew, Ty Templeton and many various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-495-9

Marvel’s 2011 multi-part, inter-company braided mega-saga focused on Captain America, Thor and the Avengers, recounting how an ancient Asgardian menace resurfaced, possessing a band of the planet’s mightiest mortals and compelling them to wreak unimaginable death and destruction on the global population whilst he drank the terror the rampage generated.

To accompany and expand the series Marvel released a seven-part anthology miniseries which offered brief continuing sagas and snapshots which focused on the peripheries of the main event.

Although every issue contained a chapter of each story-strand, this tome sensibly organises the tales into discrete story-blocks so with the “The Worthy” – Sin, the Hulk, Juggernaut, Absorbing Man, Titania, Attuma, Grey Gargoyle and Thing – storming through cities awash with slaughter in other books, Fear Itself: the Home Front opens with disgraced teen hero Speedball who had caused the deaths of six hundred innocent civilians and sparked the Civil War and Superpowers Registration Act clandestinely returned to the town of Stanford where his impulsive act had turned into a metahuman massacre…

Guilt-wracked the lad had been sneaking back in his secret identity of Robbie Baldwin to work as a volunteer, but when he is exposed by the mother of one of his victims the outraged citizens want to lynch him. Lucky for him a horde of escaped super-criminals pick that moment to turn up and the kid gets the chance to save some lives.

Not that that makes any difference to the grieving, angry people of Stamford…

And then the ensorcelled Juggernaut and Attuma hit town just ahead of a colossal tidal wave and the psychotic slaughterers The Sisters of Sin…

Powerfully written by Christos N. Gage and illustrated by Mike Mayhew & colourist Rainier Berado, ‘The Home Front’ is a splendid Coming-of-Age redemption tale, swiftly followed by four-part saga ‘The Age of Anxiety’ (by Peter Milligan, Elia Bonetti & John Rausch) as resurrected and future-shocked 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo leads a group of similar vintage dubbed the Atlas Foundation (Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namora, Gorilla-Man, love-goddess Venus, the Uranian Marvel Boy and wonder-robot M11) against an upsurge of hate-group attacks. Something is causing all the supremacists to rise up in a wave of venom and hatred and it all leads back to the Nazi cult which first found the mystic hammers of the Asgardian Serpent-god…

‘The Chosen’ by (Fred van Lente, Alessandro Vitti & Javier Tartaglia) reveals how the next generation of Avenging heroes are triumphantly Assembled by their natural leader… at least that’s what the manipulative Prince of Power believes. His less-than-happy recruits Thunderstrike, Spider-Girl, Powerman and junior Wolverine X-23, however, think otherwise in a light action-packed and cynically sassy three-part thriller which sees the unlikely lads and lasses save Hawaii from a horrifying catastrophe.

Ordinary people are the focus of later tales. Jim McCann, Pepe Larraz & Chris Sotomayor describe how the war of the gods affects the Oklahoma town of Broxton, located in the shadow of the Fallen City of Asgard in ‘There’s No Place Like Homeless’ and Corinna Bechko, Lelio Bonaccorso & Brian Reber recount a subway crisis involving Tiger Shark, a mugger and terrified mom Liz Allan in ‘Between Stations’ before Ben McCool & Mike Del Mundo show how medical maverick and vigilante predator on “Big Phamaceutical” businesses Cardiac suffers a moral ‘Breakdown’…

Forgotten hero Blue Marvel saves a nuclear sub and begins a slow return to the world in ‘Legacy’ by Kevin Grevioux, MC Wyman, John Wycough & Wil Quintana, Native crusader American Eagle smartly settles a hilariously dark dispute between anglos and tribesmen in ‘Red/White Blues’ by Si Spurrier & Jason Latour and ‘Fear and Loathing in Wisconsin’ hilarious leavens the horror with a magically quirky yarn from Elliott Kalan & Ty Templeton starring the Great Lakes Avengers, before the book concludes with a powerfully poignant vignette as Captain America meets the real heroes in Brian Clevinger, Pablo Raimondi & Veronica Gandini’s ‘The Home Front Lines’…

Howard Chaykin wrote and illustrated a series of delightful single-page star-segment visual epigrams ‘A Moment With… J. Jonah Jameson’, ‘A Moment With… the Purple Man’, ‘A Moment With… the People of Paris’, ‘A Moment With… Kida of Atlantis’, ‘A Moment With… Mr. Fear’, ‘A Moment With… Dust’, and ‘Another Moment With… J. Jonah Jameson’ which intersperse the shorter pieces, and there is of course a full cover gallery to add to all the fun and thrills of this brilliantly broad and bombastic bunch of mini Marvel Tales.

Fear Itself: The Home Front is scheduled for publication on January 18th, 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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Ghost Rider: Fear Itself


By Rob Williams, Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-499-7

In recent times Marvel has eschewed colossal braided mega-crossover events in favour of smaller, themed mini-epics but following the release of the Captain America and Thor films – not to mention the upcoming Avengers celluloid blockbuster – the time obviously seemed right to once more plunge their entire Universe into cataclysmic chaos and rebirth.

This collection gathers the prologue an 5-issue miniseries which reintroduced the Ghost Rider to contemporary continuity and can even be read without reference to the Fear Itself core volume and subsequent spin-off books (stemming from the 30-odd regular titles, miniseries and specials the saga expanded into).

In the main storyline an antediluvian Asgardian menace resurfaces and by possessing a selection of Earth’s heroes and villains sets in motion a terrifying bloodbath of carnage to feed on the fear of mankind and topple the established Norse pantheon. With that much spiritual energy unleashed its no surprise that other supernatural entities begin to feel threatened…

Years ago carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan – or arch-liar Mephisto, as he actually was – followed the letter, but not spirit of the contract. Crash Simpson died anyway and when the Dark Lord came for Johnny only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation.

Temporarily thwarted Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast demon Zarathos – the spirit of vengeance.

In later years Blaze briefly escaped his doom and a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison.

Now in a classy fright-fest by Rob Williams (Cla$$war, 2000AD‘s Low Life) and artists Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & Sean Parsons, with additional art from Valerio Schiti, the Angel from Hell possesses a new host and is unleashed again to punish the guilty, beginning in the Prologue issue ‘Give Up the Ghost’ wherein the emotionally shattered but still valiantly heroic Blaze – once again bonded to the flaming phantom – is tricked by the mysterious adept Adam into surrendering the curse to a more than willing new vessel…

As the fear-mongering “Worthy” decimate the planet and humanity’s psyche, a female Ghost Rider roars through the ruins on her flaming bike saving the innocent and destroying the things which prey on mortals, but finds her match in the transformed Asgardian herald Skadi…

Meanwhile the liberated Blaze is confronted by his lifelong tormentor Mephisto who reveals that he is not the only Great Big Liar in creation: Adam, who claims to be the First Man, has a plan for the new Ghost Rider which will alter mankind forever…

Adam wants to eradicate all sin on Earth using the gullible, girlish novitiate acolyte Alejandra as his weapon but that is actually an even worse proposition and fate than anything any devil could devise…

Driven by conscience, Blaze makes another Devil’s Bargain to save humanity whilst the sheltered child who now contains the Ghost Rider begins to carry out Adam’s plan with staggering success.

Raiding Adam’s hidden temple. Blaze joins forces with British Zombie wizard Seeker – who knows far more than he’s letting on – just as Adam’s devoted disciple begins to find her own mind and path…

With the planet sliding swiftly into physical cataclysm and psychic Armageddon can the disparate forces of Free Will unite in time to save us all from salvation…?

The book ends on a superbly powerful human note as the mortal who eventually retains the power of Zarathos goes on a mission of old-fashioned vengeance only to be confronted with the most appalling of father figures…

Cool, action-packed, mightily moving and wryly witty, this is a splendid reinvention of a character who has been in equal amounts both the best and worst of Marvel’s mighty pantheon and one well worth a little of your time and money.

Ghost Rider: Fear Itself is scheduled for British release on January 12th 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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Daredevil and the Punisher: Child’s Play


By Frank Miller & Klaus Janson (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-087135-351-1

Here’s another slim, sleek and sublimely enticing lost treasure from the early days of graphic novel compilations that will undoubtedly enthral fans of hard-bitten, high-calibre Fights ‘n’ Tights fracas.

Released in 1988, this full-colour 64-page compendium collected three unforgettable issues of Daredevil (#182-184 from May-July 1982) which perfectly encapsulated everything that made the first Frank Miller run such a momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series…

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Miller himself, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Frank Castle saw his family gunned down in Central Park after witnessing a mob hit and thereafter dedicated his life to eradicating criminals everywhere. His methods are violent and permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Wolverine comes to mind) the Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public shifted its communal perspective – Castle never toned down or cleaned up his act nor did his moral compass ever deviate…

The story goes that Marvel were reluctant to give The Punisher a starring vehicle in their standard colour comic-book line, feeling the character’s very nature made him a bad guy and not a good one.

Debuting as a deluded villain in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), Castle was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. & Ross Andru, in response to popular prose anti-heroes such as Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and at of other returning Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime.

Maybe that genre’s due for a revival as sandy GI boots hit US soil in the months to come…?

The crazed crime-crusher had previously starred in Marvel Preview #2 (1975) and Marvel Super Action #1 (1976) but as these were both black-and-white magazines aimed at a far more mature audience: however in the early 1980s a number of high profile guest-shots: Captain America #241, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 (covered recently in Sensational Spider-Man) and the extended epic here, convinced the Powers-That-Be to finally risk a miniseries on the maniac vigilante (see The Punisher by Steven Grant & Mike Zeck. You all know where that led…

In this collection, a reeling Matt Murdock is trying to cope with the murder of his first love Elektra when ‘Child’s Play’ sees Castle clandestinely removed from prison by a government spook to stop a shipment of drugs the authorities can’t touch.

Once he’s killed the gangsters, however, The Punisher refuses to go back to jail…

This story, concerning school kids using drugs, was begun by McKenzie & Miller but shelved for a year, before being reworked into a stunningly powerful and unsettling tale once Miller and Klaus Janson assumed the full creative chores on the title. When Matt Murdock visits a High School he is a helpless witness as a little girl goes berserk, attacking staff and pupils before throwing herself out of a third floor window.

She was high on Angel Dust and as the appalled hero vows to track down the dealers he encounters her bereaved and distraught younger brother Billy, determined to exact his own vengeance and later the coldly calculating Castle who has the same idea and far more experience…

The hunt leads inexorably to a certain street pusher and DD, Billy and the Punisher all find their target at the same time. After a spectacular battle the thoroughly beaten Daredevil has only a bullet-ridden corpse and Billy with a smoking gun…

The kid is innocent – and so, this time at least, is Castle – and after Murdock proves it in court, the investigation resumes with the focus falling on the pusher’s boss Hogman. When DD’s super-hearing confirms the gangster’s claims of innocence his alter-ego Murdock then successfully defends the vile dealer, only to have the exonerated slime-ball gloatingly admit to having committed the murder after all…

Horrified, shocked, betrayed and determined to enforce justice, DD finds a connection to a highly-placed member of the school faculty deeply involved with Hogman in the concluding ‘Good Guys Wear Red’ but far too late: Castle and Billy have both decided the end the matter Hogman’s way…

Tough, disturbing, beautiful and chillingly plausible, this epic encounter redefined both sides of the heroic coin for a decade to come and remains one  of the most impressive stories in both character’s canons.

With creator biographies and commentaries from Ralph Macchio, Mike Baron and Anne Nocenti this oft re-printed tale (in 2000 it was repackaged and released with a new cover as The Punisher vs. Daredevil) marks a genuine highpoint in the serried careers of both horrifically human heroes and is well worth tracking down.
© 1988 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Human Torch #2-5A

New Expanded Review

By Carl Burgos, Bill Everett & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1624-9

Marvel Comics took quite some time before producing expensive hardbound volumes reprinting their earliest comic adventures and this collection of the first four solo outings for one of Timely/Marvel’s Holy Trinity, despite re-resenting some of the most well-regarded and revered adventures of the Golden Age, provides a few solid and somewhat expensive possible reasons why.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh and hyper-critical: I must admit that there was a lot of material here that I have been waiting most of my life to read. I am however a complete comic nut with broad taste and mutable standards. There are shameful horrors and truly pitiful examples of the medium lurking in my dusty comics boxes. I am not a new, casual or particularly discriminating punter.

Hi – my name’s Win and I’m an old comics collector …

During the early Golden Age, novel ideas and sheer exuberance could take you far, and as the alternative means of entertainment escapism for most kids were severely limited, it just wasn’t that hard to make a go of it as a comic book publisher. Combine that with a creative work-force which kept being drafted, and it’s clear to see why declining standards of story and art didn’t greatly affect month-to-month sales during World War II, but promptly started a cascade-decline in super-hero strips almost as soon as GI boots hit US soil again.

In 1940 the comicbook industry was in a frantic expansion mode and every publisher was trying to make and own the Next Big Thing. The Goodman pulp fiction outfit leapt into the new industry and scored big with anthology Marvel Comics in late 1939 (which became Marvel Mystery with the second issue), with both the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner finding huge favour with the burgeoning, fickle readership. Two out of seven was pretty good: Action and Detective Comics only had the one super-star apiece…

An editorial policy of rapid expansion was in play: release a new book filled with whatever the art and script monkeys of the comics “shop” (freelance creative types who packaged material on spec for publishing houses: Martin Goodman bought all his product from Lloyd Jacquet’s Funnies Inc.) dreamed up, keep the popular hits and disregard everything else.

In quick succession Daring Mystery Comics #1 (January. 1940) and Mystic Comics #1 (March 1940), followed with limited success and a rapid turnover of concepts and features. Timely Comics – or occasionally Red Circle – as the company then called itself, had a huge turnover of characters who only made one or two appearances before vanishing, never to be seen again until variously modern revivals or recreations produced new improved versions of heroes like the Black Widow, Thin Man, original Angel, Citizen V or Red Raven.

That last one is especially relevant. Although fresh characters were plentiful, physical resources were not and when the company’s fourth title Red Raven #1 was released with an August 1940 cover-date it failed to ignite any substantial attention with either title character or B-features Comet Pierce, Mercury, Human Top, Eternal Brain and Magar the Mystic, despite being crammed with the stunning early work of young Jack Kirby.

The entire magazine was killed and its publishing slot and numbering handed over to a proven seller. Thus, Human Torch debuted with #2 (Fall 1940) – the first issue to solo star the flammable android hero, and introduced his own fiery side-kick.

Just so’s you know; the next two releases fared a little better: Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) and at long last, a solo book for Sub-Mariner (Fall 1941)…

Although the material in this collection is of variable quality and probably not to the tastes of modern fans; for devotees of super-heroes, aficionados of historical works and true Marvel Zombies there’s still lots to offer here…

After a knowledgeable and informative introduction by Roy Thomas, the hot-dogging begins with ‘Introducing Toro – the Flaming Torch Kid’ by Carl Burgos as the blazing star discovered a circus boy who possessed all his own incendiary abilities before fighting a criminal strongman with a ray-gun. The misnamed elder Torch was actually a miraculous android and not at all human but here he found a plucky, excitable teen assistant who would become his faithful comrade for the remainder of his career…

This was followed by Bill Everett’s ‘Sub-Mariner Crashes New York Again!!!’ as the sub-sea Prince once more attacked America, after which ‘Carl Burgos’ Hot Idea’ and ‘Bill Everett’s Hurricane’ were text features supposedly detailing how the respective creators came up with their tempestuous brain-children

The remaining stories are pretty pedestrian. ‘The Falcon’ by Paul Reinman features a young District Attorney who corrected legal shortcomings and miscarriages of justice as a masked vigilante, ‘Microman’ (Harold Delay & Paul Quinn) stars a young boy exploring his own garden at insect size and Mandrake knock-off ‘Mantor the Magician’ by Al Gabriele saw a fez-topped modern wizard battle crooks posing as ghosts.

Joe Simon’s Fiery Mask debuted in Daring Mystery #1 and ended his career here with ‘The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses’ as the multi-powered physician hunted a remorseless mad doctor terrorising the city…

Issue #3 is actually pretty impressive, with an ambitious and spectacular untitled 40-page Torch epic which saw Toro seduced by Nazism, before seeing the patriotic light and burning off Hitler’s moustache, whilst the text piece ‘Hot and Wet’ had the two elemental stars debate whose creator was best before a 20-page Sub-Mariner crossover (anticipating Marvel’s successful policy of the 1960s onward) found Namor and the Torch teaming up to trash Nazi vessels destroying Allied convoys, before scuttling a full invasion together.

By Human Torch #4 much of the work is obviously being ghosted to a greater or lesser degree. The Torch takes way too long solving the ever-so-simple ‘Mystery of the Disappearing Criminals’, after which Ray Gill introduced star-spangled hero The Patriot in a 2-page text piece.

At least Everett was still very much in evidence and on top form when the Sub-Mariner took ten beautiful pages to save an Alaskan village from plague, blizzards, an onrushing glacier and incendiary bombs in a genuine forgotten classic before lacklustre Captain America knock-off The Patriot shambled through a proper comic-strip tale of Bundist (that’s German/American Nazi sympathizers to you, kid) saboteurs to close the issue.

That line-up continued in the last issue reprinted here (Human Torch #5A, Summer 1941 and the “A” is because the series did a little lock-step and caught up with itself: the next issue would also be a #5). The fiery star and his Flaming Kid clashed with a mad scientist named Doc Smart in ‘The March of Death’, then joined forces again with Namor in a Stan Lee scripted prose vignette entitled ‘The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner Battle the Nazi Super Shell of Death!’

Sub-Mariner and guest-star the Angel followed, fighting Nazi zombies in ‘Blitzkrieg of the Living Dead’ (attributed to Bill Everett, but clearly overwhelmed by lesser hands in the inking and perhaps even pencilling stages) and The Patriot wraps thing up in a bold and experimental job by future art great Sid Greene wherein the Red, White and Blue Home-front Hero tracked down a Nazi who killed by playing the violin…

I’m happy to have this book, warts and all, but I can understand why anyone other than a life-long Marvel fan would baulk at the steep price-tag in these days of austerity, with a wealth of better-quality and more highly regarded Golden Age material available. Still, value is one thing and worth another, so in the end it’s up to you…
© 1940, 1941, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Fear Itself


By Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Scott Eaton, Stuart Immonen & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-494-2

Recently at Marvel, colossal braided mega-crossover events have been somewhat downplayed in favour of smaller mini-epics (the last biggie was Secret Invasion in 2008, I think), but following the release of the Captain America and Thor movies – not to mention the upcoming Avengers celluloid blockbuster – the time obviously seemed right to once more plunge their entire Universe into cataclysmic chaos and rebirth.

Collecting the one-shot Fear Itself Prologue: the Book of the Skull (March 2011) and the subsequent seven-issue core miniseries (which branched out into 30-odd other regular titles, miniseries and specials) this certainly spectacular puff-piece effectively presents a world-changing blockbuster via the comic equivalent of edited highlights whilst tempting readers to find the detail in the numerous spin-off books.

Quite simply: you can happily have old-fashioned funny-book fun and thrills just reading the basic story here and, should you want more, that’s available too

‘Book of the Skull’ by Ed Brubaker, Scott Eaton & Mark Morales follows Sin, daughter of the Fascist monster as she and Baron Zemo uncover a mystic weapon summoned to Earth during World War II, but rendered temporarily harmless in 1942 by The Invaders Captain America, Bucky and Sub-Mariner.

Only it wasn’t so much harmless as waiting for someone with the right blend of madness, need, hunger and sheer evil to wield it…

‘Fear Itself’ by Matt Fraction, Stuart Immonen & Wade von Grawbadger then opens with ‘The Serpent’ as global civil unrest and disobedience escalates into rioting as Sin picks up the mystic hammer which has been waiting for her, and transforms her into Skadi, herald of a dark and deadly menace from out of antediluvian Asgardian history…

The Home of the Gods has fallen to Earth in Oklahoma and, as Iron Man and the Avengers rally there to rebuild the Shining City, Odin appears and forcibly abducts the entire populace, even Thor, whom he has to batter into unconsciousness first.

Meanwhile Skadi has freed ancient fear-feeding god the Serpent from his prison on the sea-floor…

Soon seven other hammers turn the world’s most powerful denizens into harbingers of terror and mass destruction in ‘The Worthy’…

The Juggernaut, Hulk, Absorbing Man, Titania, Attuma, Grey Gargoyle and Thing are devastating the planet, generating global fear to feed the freed Asgardian outcast and in ‘The Hammer that Fell on Yancy Street’ the Avengers suffer their first tragic fatality, whilst in the nether-space which once housed the Citadel of the Gods the imprisoned Thor joins a secret rebellion against the clearly deranged Odin.

The All-Father plans to starve the fear-feeding Serpent of his food-source by scouring Earth of all life…

With ‘Worlds on Fire’ and the carnage and bloodletting ever-increasing, Thor escapes to Earth determined to aid his human allies and thwart his father’s insane scheme, just as retired hero Steve Rogers once again takes up the mantle of America’s Greatest Hero, and Iron Man forms an unlikely alliance to craft magical weaponry to combat the chaos before ‘Brawl’ finds the hammer-wielding Worthy uniting to crush human resistance, with the death-toll and slaughter escalating to extinction-event levels in ‘Blood-Tied & Doomed’ before Iron Man returns to turn the tide and save what remains of the day and humanity in the cataclysmic finale ‘Thor’s Day’ as the true history of the Gods is revealed and all Earths heroes, human, mortal or other, unite for one tragic last hurrah…

And make no mistake, this time even some of the A-list stars don’t make it…

Not that that means anything in comics, but it does make for an impressive – and breathtaking, beautifully illustrated – read, whilst the four portentous Epilogues (by a host of guest-creators) hint at more horror and heartbreak to come…

Owing far more to the aforementioned recent rash of movies and the general timbre of the times than the rugged mythologies created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, this is nevertheless a pretty effective cosmic punch-up which resets the playing field for the next few years and should make very friendly future reading for new and returning fans tantalised by the company’s Hollywood iterations.

With a splendid gallery of variant covers from Joe Quesada, Steve McNiven, Pablo Manuel Rivera, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Terry Dodson, Billy Tan, Humberto Ramos, Ed McGuinness, Mike McKone, this plot-light and action-overloaded epic should delight newer or less continuity-locked readers of Costumed Dramas and adventurous art lovers everywhere…

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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Spider-Man vs. Venom


By David Michelinie & Todd McFarlane (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 2-48852-363-8,   2nd edition 978-0-87135-616-1

There was a period in the mid 1990s where, to all intents and purposes, the corporate monolith known as Marvel Comics seemed to have completely lost the plot. An awful lot of stories from that period will hopefully never be reprinted, but some of them weren’t completely beyond redemption.

During the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars of 1984-1985, Spider-Man picked a super-scientific new costume which turned out to be a hungry alien parasite which slowly began to permanently bond to its unwitting wearer.

After being discovered and removed by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four “the Symbiote” ultimately escaped and, like a crazed and jilted lover, tried to re-establish its relationship with the horrified hero; seemingly destroying itself in the attempt.

During a stellar run of scripts by David Michelinie, the beast was revived with a new host and became one of the most acclaimed Marvel villains of all time, helped in no small part by the escalating popularity of rising star artist Todd McFarlane…

This rapidly rushed out compendium from 1990 collected literally every scrap of extant material featuring the new nemesis, comprising a teaser page from Amazing Spider-Man #298 (March 1988), two from #299, the entirety of #300 and an epic showdown from # 315-317 (May-July 1989).

Those orphan pages show a shadowy bestial character obsessing over clippings of the Wall-crawler before breaking into the apartment of Peter and Mary Jane Watson-Parker, before the main event begins with ‘Venom’ wherein the monstrous shape-shifting stalker, having terrorised Peter’s new bride, begins a chilling campaign to psychologically punish Spider-Man.

Venom is a huge hulking, distorted carbon copy of the Web-spinner: a murderous psychopath constituted of disgraced reporter Eddie Brock (who obsessively hates Parker the photo-journalist) permanently bonded with the bitter, rejected parasite whose animalistic devotion was spurned by an ungrateful host who even tried to kill it…

The story is a stunning blend of action and suspense with an unforgettable classic duel between Good and Evil which famously saw Spider-Man finally return to his original Ditko-designed costume and kicked off a riotous run of astounding stories from Michelinie & McFarlane, culminating in the titanic triptych ‘A Matter of Life and Debt!’, ‘Dead Meat’ and ‘The Sand and the Fury!’ with Brock bloodily breaking out of super-penitentiary The Vault to resume his campaign of hate while the oblivious Spider-Man is preoccupied with meta-thug Hydro Man and Peter Parker is embroiled in a deadly gambling debt drama concerning Aunt May’s current beau Nathan Lubensky…

Making his way across America, Venom begins to hunt his enemy’s nearest and dearest, starting with old flame and occasional crime-fighting comrade Black Cat, before moving on to Mary Jane and even frail old May Parker…

Pushed to breaking point Spider-Man gives Venom what he’s been demanding: a final all-out, one-on-one battle to the death…

Of course neither character died and the savage, shape-changing Symbiote – a perfect dark-side version of the Amazing Arachnid – went on to his own blood-drenched series. Eventually the spidery foes reached a tenuous détente and Venom became a “Lethal Protector”, dispensing his highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but Spider-Man’s hometown.

This run of tales pushed the Wondrous Web-spinner to a peak of popularity and critical acclaim, with tense, terse tales of terror and triumph which inevitably resulted in ultimate arch-villain Venom gradually rehabilitating just enough to become one of the grim-and-gritty, dark anti-heroes which positively infested comics of that era (which explains why they’re also included in the sturdy compendium Spider-Man: Birth of Venom which additionally features Secret Wars #8, Amazing Spider #253-259, Fantastic Four #274 and Web of Spider-Man #1).

Whichever book you find however, if you’re a big fan of frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights action comics these are tales you just can’t ignore.
© 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man: the Saga of the Alien Costume


By Tom DeFalco, Roger Stern, Ron Frenz, Rick Leonardi & various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-396-2

In the mid 1980s as part of a huge attention-getting exercise Spider-Man exchanged his heavily copyrighted and thoroughly trademarked costume whilst on another planet during the first Marvel Secret Wars. It was replaced with a magnificently stylish black and white number for the duration of the 12 issue maxi-series in his own titles (except the all-reprint Marvel Tales, of course) which over the course of the year revealed the true horrifying nature of the extraterrestrial  ensemble…

Collecting Amazing Spider-Man #252-259 (May-December 1984), continuity-wise this captivating extended epic opens at the conclusion of the Secret Wars Saga with Spider-Man and Curt Connors – occasionally the lethally maniacal monster called the Lizard – explosively returning to Earth after a week when most of the world’s heroes and villains had simply vanished.

To clear up any potential confusion: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars debuted in May 1984 and ran for twelve monthly issues until April 1985. In it a selection of metahumans good and bad were shanghaied by a godlike being dubbed The Beyonder and compelled to interminably battle each other. All other Marvel comics of that month chronologically happened in the apparent aftermath of that struggle with most of the heroes and villains returned, coyly refusing to divulge what had happened on Battleworld …a cheap but extremely effective ploy which kept fans glued to the Limited Series in the months that followed.

This compendium from 1988 opens with an introduction and design sketches before catapulting us into action in ‘Homecoming!’ by Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz & Brett Breeding as spectators in Central Park see a mysterious black garbed stranger explode out of an alien artefact … only the first of many costumed characters to escape the Beyonder’s world.

Spider-Man takes the shell-shocked Connors back to his family and then begins to explore his new uniform: a thought controlled, self-activating, metamorphic ball with chameleon capabilities and able to construct webbing out of its own mass. The smart-cloth is astonishing, but weary Peter Parker has family to see and a city to reacquaint himself with. The hero promises himself he’ll further research the incredible material at a later date…

The wonderful Rick Leonardi & Bill Anderson illustrated DeFalco’s powerful crime thriller ‘By Myself Betrayed!’ wherein a prominent football player, sucked into gambling and match-fixing, dragged the Web-spinner into conflict with new gang-lord The Rose. As his new uniform increasingly, obsessively amazes Peter with its rather disturbing autonomy (it comes to him unbidden and regularly envelops him while he sleeps), the hero uncomprehendingly alienates his beloved Aunt May when he drops out of college…

‘With Great Power…’ (inked by Joe Rubinstein) found the wall-crawler battling terrorist mercenary Jack O’Lantern for possession of the hi-tech battle-van designed and built by the terrifying Hobgoblin when he should have been reconciling with May, whilst ‘Even a Ghost Can Fear the Night!’ (DeFalco, Frenz & Rubinstein) introduced charismatic septuagenarian cat-burglar Black Fox (whose outfit coincidentally resembled Spidey’s new kit) who became a hapless pawn of the merciless but cash-strapped Red Ghost and his Super-Apes.

Compelled to rob until he was caught by Spider-Man, the Fox orchestrated a spectacular battle between the Wall-crawler and the Ghost before getting away with all the loot…

‘Introducing… Puma!’ found an increasingly weary and listless Spider-Man attacked by a Native American super-mercenary hired by the Rose. The Arachnid’s gang-busting crusade in partnership with reformed thief/new girlfriend Black Cat was making life too hot and unprofitable for the ambitious mobster. That calamitous clash carried over into ‘Beware the Claws of Puma!’ furiously escalating until criminal overlord The Kingpin stepped in to stop it, forcing the Rose to ally himself with the murderous Hobgoblin. The issue ended with an exhausted Parker confronted with a stunning revelation from his old lover Mary Jane Watson…

The shock prompted Peter into seeking out ‘The Sinister Secret of Spider-Man’s New Costume!’ Plagued by nightmares, perpetually tired and debilitated the Web-spinner visited the Fantastic Four and was disgusted and horrified to learn that his suit was alive: a parasite slowly attaching itself to him body and soul…

Meanwhile Hobgoblin and the Rose’s uneasily alliance had resulted in bloody, undeclared war on the Kingpin…

With Reed Richards’ help the creature was removed from Spider-Man and imprisoned and this collection concludes with the poignant ‘All My Pasts Remembered!’ as Mary Jane finally tells Peter her tragic life story after which the free, reinvigorated and re-dedicated hero determined to put a stop to Hobgoblin for good…

But that’s a tale for another tome…

This run of tales marvellously rejuvenated the Amazing Arachnid and kicked off a period of superbly gripping and imaginative stories, culminating with the creation of arch hero/villain Venom (which is why these tales can also be found in the sturdy compendium Spider-Man: Birth of Venom with addition material from Secret Wars #8, Amazing Spider #298-300, 315-317, Fantastic Four #274 and Web of Spider-Man #1).

Whichever book you buy, if you’re a fan of superhero comics these are tales you just don’t want to miss.
© 1988 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.