Category: Nick Fury

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S.H.I.E.L.D. by Lee & Kirby: The Complete Collection


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, John Severin, Don Heck, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Howard Purcell, Ogden Whitney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9901-4

Veteran war-hero Nick Fury debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963): a grizzled, world-weary and cunning CIA Colonel at the periphery of the really big adventures.

What was odd about that? Well, the gruffly capable everyman was already the star of the minor publisher’s only war comic, set twenty years earlier in (depending on whether you were American or European…) the middle or beginning of World War II.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous combat comics series, similar in tone to later movies such as The Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen and had launched in May of that year. Although Fury’s later self became a big-name star when espionage yarns went global in the wake of popular sensations like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the elder iteration was given a second series beginning in Strange Tales #135 (August 1965).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by a subversive, all-encompassing, hidden enemy organisation. The saga came with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry and, later, iconic imagineering from Jim Steranko whose visually groundbreaking graphic narratives took the art form to a whole new level (but that’s a subject of another Complete Collection…).

For those few brief years with Steranko in charge, the S.H.I.E.L.D. series was one of the best strips in America – if not the world – but when the writer/artist left just as the global spy-fad was fading, the whole concept faded into the background architecture of the Marvel Universe…

This astounding full-colour paperback compendium, however, deals with the outrageous, groundbreaking, but still still carefully wedded-to-mundane-reality iteration which set the scene. Here Jack Kirby’s genius for gadgetry and gift for dramatic staging mixed with Stan Lee’s manic melodrama to create a tough and tense series which the new writers and veteran artists that followed turned into a non-stop riot of action and suspense…

This stunning hardback omnibus gathers those early days of spycraft; comprising Fantastic Four #21, Tales of Suspense #78 and Strange Tales #135-150 – spanning December 1963 to November 1966 – and providing timeless thrills for lovers of adventure and intrigue.

Fantastic Four #21 introduced the latter-day Fury as a CIA agent seeking the team’s aid against a sinister demagogue called ‘The Hate-Monger’ (by Lee & Kirby with inks by comics veteran George Roussos, under the protective nom-de-plume George Bell) just as the 1960s espionage vogue was taking off, inspired by James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man.

Fury craftily manipulated Marvel’s First Family into invading a sovereign nation in the throes of revolution in a yarn cracking with tension and action.

The main event starts next as Strange Tales #135 (August 1965) saw the Human Torch solo feature replaced by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. – which back then stood for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division…

In the rocket-paced first episode, Fury is asked to volunteer for the most dangerous job in the world: leading a new counter-intelligence agency dedicated to stopping secretive subversive organisation Hydra. With assassins dogging his every move, the Take-Charge Guy with the Can-Do Attitude quickly proves he is ‘The Man for the Job!’ in a potent twelve-page thriller from Lee, Kirby & Dick Ayers.

Even an artist and plotter of Kirby’s calibre couldn’t handle another strip at that busiest of times so from the next issue “The King” cut back to laying out episodes, allowing a variety of superb draughtsmen to flesh out the adventures. Even so, there’s probably a stunning invention or cool concept on almost every page that follows…

‘Find Fury or Die!’ brought veteran draughtsman John Severin back to the company; pencilling and inking the Kirby’s blueprints as Fury becomes the target of incessant assassination attempts and we are introduced to the masked Supreme Hydra…

The tension ramps up in the next instalment as a number of contenders are introduced – any of whom might be the obscured overlord of evil – even as S.H.I.E.L.D. strives mightily but fails to stop Hydra launching its deadly Betatron Bomb in ‘The Prize is… Earth!’

Despite the restrictions of the Comics Code, these early S.H.I.E.L.D. stories were stark and grim and frequently carried a heavy body count. Four valiant agents died in quick succession in #137 and the next issue underscored the point in ‘Sometimes the Good Guys Lose!’ with further revelations of Hydra’s inner workings.

Fury and fellow Howling Commando war heroes Dum-Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones meanwhile played catch-up after Hydra assassins invade S.H.I.E.L.D. and almost eradicate Fury and munitions genius Tony Stark: the only man capable of destroying the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over the world. Although Nick saves the inventor, he is captured in the process…

Tortured by Hydra in #139’s ‘The Brave Die Hard!’ (with Joe Sinnott replacing Severin as finisher) Fury finds an unlikely ally in Laura Brown: Supreme Hydra’s daughter and a young woman bitterly opposed to her father’s megalomaniacal madness.

Even with only half a comic book per month to tell a tale, creators didn’t hang around in those halcyon days and #140 promised ‘The End of Hydra!’ (Don Heck & Sinnott) as a S.H.I.E.L.D. squad invades the enemy’s inner sanctum to rescue the already-free-and-making-mayhem Fury, just as Stark travels into space to remove the Betratron Bomb with his robotic Braino-Saur system. The end result left Hydra temporarily headless…

Strange Tales #141 saw Kirby return to full pencils (inked by Frank Giacoia pseudonymously moonlighting as Frank Ray) for the mop-up and ‘Operation: Brain Blast!’ as Mentallo – a renegade from S.H.I.E.L.D. ESP division – joined with technological savant the Fixer to attack the organisation as the first step in an ambitious scheme to rule the world.

The raid began in ‘Who Strikes at… S.H.I.E.L.D.?’ (illustrated by Kirby with Mike Demeo – AKA – Esposito) with the deadly rogues hitting hard and fast: seizing and mind-controlling Fury before strapping him to a mini-H-bomb. None too soon, however, Dugan and the boys come blasting in ‘To Free a Brain Slave’ in #143 with Howard Purcell & Esposito embellishing Kirby’s layouts.

A new and deadly threat emerged in #144 as ‘The Day of the Druid!’ saw a mystic charlatan target Fury and his agents with murderous flying techno-ovoids. Happily, new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit Jasper Sitwell was on hand to augment the triumphant fightback in ‘Lo! The Eggs Shall Hatch!’ by Heck & Esposito over Kirby.

As Marvel continuity grew evermore interlinked, ‘Them!’ saw Captain America team with Fury in the first of the Star-Spangled Avenger’s many adventures as a (more-or-less) Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Taken from Tales of Suspense #78 (June 1966: scripted by Lee with Kirby full pencils and Giacoia inks), the story saw the WWII wonders battling an artificial assassin with incredible chemical capabilities after which Nick sought the creature’s mysterious makers in Strange Tales #146 ‘When the Unliving Strike!’ (Kirby, Heck & Esposito).

As technological Special Interests group Advanced Idea Mechanics courted Fury’s governmental and military masters, promising incredible weapons if only they sacked that barbaric slob Fury, the S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo was getting close to exposing A.I.M.’s connection to “Them” and an old enemy thought long gone…

A concerted whispering campaign and “briefing-against” seemingly sees Fury ousted in ‘The Enemy Within!’ and put on trial in ‘Death Before Dishonor!’ (scripted by Kirby with Heck & Esposito finishing his layouts) but it’s all part of a cunning counter-plan which results in a shattering conclusion and ‘The End of A.I.M.!’ in #149 (with script from Denny O’Neil, and art by Kirby & Ogden Whitney).

As depicted by Lee, Kirby, John Buscema & Giacoia, a malign and devilishly subtle plan is finally uncovered in Strange Tales #150 as Fury’s team put together clues from all the previous year’s clashes and come to one terrifying conclusion: ‘Hydra Lives!’…

This sets the scene for the bombastic debut by Jim Steranko, but that’s to be seen in another collection at another time…

Here the epic espionage extravaganza wraps up with appetising Afterword ‘Against the Hordes of Hydra’ by Lee and a treasure trove of original art pages comprising covers, pencils and inked pages – and even try-out pages – by Kirby, Severin, Whitney and Buscema, plus a rousing 1965 House Ad plugging not just the Espionage elite but the simultaneously debuting Sub-Mariner strip in Tales to Astonish #70.

Fast, furious and fantastically entertaining, these high-octane vintage yarns are a superb snapshot of early Marvel Comics at their creative peak and should be part of every fanboy’s shelf of beloved favourites.
© 2015 Marvel Characters. Inc. All rights reserved.

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Secret Warriors volume 5: Night


By Jonathan Hickman, Mirko Colac, Alessandro Vitti, David Marquez & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4803-6

In his “Infinity-formula” extended career, Marvel’s immortal secret agent Nick Fury fought in every war since WWII, worked for the CIA and ran numerous iterations of superspy agency S.H.I.E.L.D.; generally finding over and again that nobody could be trusted – not to stay clean and decent – in a world of temptation.

Worse yet, even the best of men could be forced to whatever was necessary given the right motivation…

Too many times the spooks “on our side” became as debased as the bad guys in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion, oppression and ambition.

The taste of betrayal and those seeds of doubt and mistrust never went away, and following a succession of global crises – including a superhero Civil War and the rise of a certified maniac to the second most powerful position in America – Fury was ousted as S.H.I.E.L.D. director.

His immediate successor Tony Stark proved to be a huge – if well-meaning – mistake, and after an alien invasion by Skrulls the entire organisation was mothballed. He was replaced by the dynamic Norman Osborn and his cultishly loyal H.A.M.M.E.R. outfit. It was a case of giving a rabid fox the keys to the henhouse…

As America’s Director of National Security, the former Green Goblin instituted a draconian “Dark Reign” of oppressive, aggressive policies which turned the USA into a paranoid tinderbox.

The nation’s Top Fed was specifically tasked with curbing the unchecked power and threat of a burgeoning metahuman community, but he was also covertly directing a cabal of the world’s greatest criminals and conquerors; intent on divvying up the planet between them. The repercussions of Osborn’s rise (and inevitable fall) were felt throughout and featured in many series and collections throughout the entire fictive universe.

His brief rule also drastically shook up the entrenched secret empires of the planet and his defeat destabilised many previously unassailable clandestine Powers and States…

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

The indomitable freedom fighter had always known that to do the job properly he needed his own trustworthy forces and no constraints. To this end he had spent decades secretly sourcing and stockpiling his own formidable, unimpeachable army. Decades in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided him with mountains of data on metahumans. From these he had compiled “Caterpillar Files” covering many unknown, unexploited and, most importantly, untainted potential operatives who might one day metamorphose into true assets…

His first move was to assemble a crack squad of super-human agents. Team White initially comprised Yo Yo Rodriguez AKA Slingshot, neophyte mystic Sebastian Druid, Jerry “Stonewall” Sledge, J.T. “Hellfire” James, instinctive leader Daisy Johnson – codenamed Quake – and the terrifyingly volatile Alexander: a 12-year old boy with incredible power.

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

In the aftermath of the wave of crises the old soldier had come across a truly shocking piece of intel: for most of his career, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been no more than a deeply submerged and ring-fenced Hydra experiment.

All Fury’s world-saving triumphs had been nothing more than acceptable short-term losses for a secret society which claims to reach back to ancient Egypt, secretly steering the world for millennia.

However since Osborn and the Skrull invasion had shaken things up, the old war-dog now had an honest chance of wiping out his perfidious many-headed, faceless foe forever…

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

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

Their rabid rapid expansion also gave Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisation…

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

Some of them got their wish when the good guys launched a daring raid and stole three of the mothballed colossal flying fortress warships dubbed Helicarriers, laying the groundwork for an imminent, unavoidable and very public shooting war…

Fury’s counterattack failed spectacularly and in the resultant chaos that followed things only got worse…

Now Hydra has once more splintered into factions again leaving Strucker embroiled in a globe-spanning vendetta with Soviet-founded subversive organisation Leviathan. Moreover, their once-covert conflict has escalated into a monstrously damaging and destructively public shooting war resulting in thousands of collateral civilian casualties all over Earth…

Written throughout by Jonathan Hickman, this fifth complex and intriguing espionage epic collects Secret Warriors #20-24 (November 2010-March 2011) and opens with the eponymous 3-parter ‘Night’ and ‘How Did Things Ever Come to This?’ (art by Mirko Colak and Alessandro Vitti) wherein Fury briefs his diminished White team – Hellfire, Stonewall, Slingshot, Daisy, Phobos and human teleporter Eden Fesi – about the growing crisis and tells them how they’re going to stop it.

Once the squad’s preparations to raid and eradicate Hydra’s key base are finalised, the traitor in Fury’s handpicked team takes the first opportunity to pass on the plans to the always-one-step-ahead opposition…

Infiltrating the supposedly unsuspecting Gehenna Base in ‘This is How it was Always Going To Be’ Team White find a veritable army of hostiles led by Gorgon, Strucker and Madame Hydra waiting for them, but still manage to plant a devastating “mountain-breaker” bomb before beginning a frantic retreat. In the melee Fury and Phobos are separated from the rest.

Confronted by Gorgon, the boy-god tricks his grizzled human mentor into leaving before turning to duel the Gorgon. After a shattering battle with enchanted swords Alex dies heroically, enigmatically stating “this is how it’s supposed to be”…

The tragedy concludes with ‘I Gave Everything I Had’ as the mountain-breaker – aided by Daisy’s quake powers – detonates and Fury pragmatically drives his protégés to a secret rendezvous where his back-up escape plan is waiting.

The old warrior then selects one of the squad to join him in a rearguard action and, as they hold back the Hydra hordes, makes it plain that he’s aware of the greedy treachery which caused this debacle and Phobos’ death.

Only Fury rejoins the rest of Team White as they make their hairsbreadth escape…

In the aftermath, Strucker fumes, his frustration at fever pitch and his power further diminished by the desertion of The Gorgon and Madame Hydra. He is not expecting his faithful subordinate Kraken to try to kill him…

Illustrated by Alessandro Vitti, ‘Rebirth’ offers an elucidatory flashback which clarifies the mechanics of the team’s lucky escape. Six months previously Fury had very publicly kicked junior sorcerer Sebastian Druid out, declaring him a liability.

It was another ruse and ‘There Is No Out’ reveals how the portly mage was subsequently hot-housed by cyborg SHIELD agent John Garrett whose draconian training program turned the sad sack into a lethally capable operative in complete control of his eldritch abilities.

As a graduation test Garrett had Druid assassinate one of the Leviathan leaders and make it appear as if Hydra was behind the killing…

The Beginning of The End commences with ‘Wheels Within Wheels Part One’ (art by David Marquez & Vitti) as another strand of Fury’s Byzantine scheme seemingly falls apart. A year ago and unknown to all, he had activated another, completely covert Caterpillar team of super-agents, led by his own son Mikel.

Now ‘I Did My Best’ reveals how that entire squad falls in battle against Hydra rebel Hive and a shell-shocked, heartbroken and utterly beaten Nick Fury surrenders himself to Kraken and his Hydra host…

To Be Concluded…

This excellent exercise in tense suspense and Machiavellian manipulation also includes a stunning ‘Cover gallery’ by Jim Cheung and Paul Renaud to supplement the bleak, engagingly cynical, convoluted, over-the-top action and dazzling cloak-and-dagger conflicts: employing enough intrigue to bamboozle even the most ardent espionage aficionado, with the added bonus that far less knowledge of Marvel continuity is necessary to fully appreciate this particularly intense and engaging effort to the full.
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Tim Townsend, Al Vey & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-628-1

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Scott “Cyclops” Summers – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved mentor and father-figure Professor Charles Xavier.

In the aftermath Summers united with former comrades Magik, Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This attitude appalled many of his friends and associates, creating a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s legion of protégés. Discarding Scott, his surviving “First Class” team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train future X-generations of mutant kids through traditional methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Westchester, New York.

The opposing sides of the mutant question frequently clashed as the world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the young…

When Xavier’s teenaged First Class of X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Grey School but following the events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank “Beast” McCoy, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, Warren “the Angel” Worthington, fiercely idealistic young Scott, Jean Grey, as well as teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura “X-23” Kinney and even Grey School Head Professor Kitty Pryde shockingly defected to the mutant terrorist band they were summoned to counteract.

After a very public humiliation of Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine conflict had already heated up when the elder Cyclops – utterly convinced of his species’ imminent and inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s student wishing to join his own academy, the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them…

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #19.NOW and #20-24 (May-October 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend (and additional inkers Jamie Mendoza, Mark Irwin, Victor Olazaba, Wayne Fauch & Jon Holdredge) rake the coals as a long-brewing plot pot boils over and the answers to a few long-running questions shake both mutant and human antagonists…

The eponymous 4-part drama opens in Atlanta where recently expelled Extinction student David Bond – AKA Hijack – is “detained” by a squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. heavies personally led by Director Maria Hill demanding to know the location of Scott Summers.

Almost from the start Magneto had been playing a double (or even treble) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to Hill whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he was doing for her.

He then went missing after visiting the island of Madripoor where he found shapeshifter Mystique had created her own mutant utopia from the former rogue state. This exactly coincided with Alison Blaire, S.H.I.E.L.D. Mutant Liaison code-named Dazzler, being replaced by the chameleonic mutant Machiavelli …

Now the ongoing duel between the planet’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping force and the Extinction faction is swiftly coming to a head.

The situation has been tensely escalating for months. The Extinction leaders had all suffered inexplicable major alterations to their powers after Xavier’s death and their public appearances usually resulted in attacks by robotic super-Sentinels which S.H.I.E.L.D. denied all knowledge of.

It was as if some undetected third force was in play…

In Madripoor the real Dazzler is in a coma, her body used to produce the highly addictive drug Mutant Growth Hormone. However when reprehensible Fred (The Blob) Dukes uncovers the secret it’s not long before his old boss Magneto knows too…

Meanwhile in Canada, Summers and time-bending student Eva Bell have used super computer Cerebro to hone in on a new mutant in Chicago and led the team into an ambush. The Sentinels awaiting their arrival possess the ability to disrupt their powers but happily are completely unable to withstand Magik’s demonic gifts…

Then in the catastrophic aftermath of the clash Cyclops sees common humanity again turning against his kind and declares war on S.H.I.E.L.D….

In Atlanta, Hill has gleaned only one useful titbit of information from Hijack. She now knows Summers is convinced S.H.I.E.L.D. is behind the Sentinel attacks but as she moves her team out to Chicago in the awesome and formidable Helicarrier she is psychically invaded by the mutants who probe her mind for confirmation.

In an act of bravado she opens her mind and shows that she knows nothing of the mechanical monsters. What she cannot prove – even to herself – is that some other faction of the Byzantine organisation is responsible, so she contacts her mutant expert Special Agent Dazzler…

And elsewhere the true power behind attacks gloats as his endgame approaches…

Back at base Summers finally deduces how their unknown foe has been targeting them with Sentinels and closes down Cerebro, whilst in Atlanta Hijack decides to strike out on his own, blithely unaware that he is being followed.

A brilliant, unconventional tactician, Cyclops makes a move nobody expects and pays a call on the Jean Grey School and enlists the aid of the elder Hank McCoy: his former comrade and a man who now despises him and everything he stands for…

However as he tries to question the Beast, his malfunctioning optic power goes wild and destruction rains down on the School just as, in the skies above, Hill arrives in the Helicarrier and Dazzler issues S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ultimatum…

Meanwhile in Madripoor the outraged Magneto has freed the real Alison, but as they make their way back to America the crisis is already peaking. On the grounds of the decimated school Hill and Summers face off but, even with suspicions at fever pitch on both sides, talk rather than action seems to be winning through.

Seeing all his schemes unravelling the mystery mastermind is forced into precipitate action, overriding the Helicarrier’s weaponry controls and raining down death and destruction on mutants and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery alike.

When Magneto and Dazzler arrives at the hidden Extinction Base he picks up the impatiently waiting students and fellow tutors before heading for Westchester to confront Mystique-as-Dazzler, unaware of the shattering clash already underway and utterly ignorant of the fact that the expelled and angry Hijack is also racing there…

At the Grey School the dreaded Mutant Extinction looks to be in full swing as the co-opted Helicarrier is reinforced by an army of Sentinels, driving outlaw Homo Superior, officially sanctioned X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery into a desperate alliance…

Bombastic and spectacular, all the plot threads and devious twists are drawn together and the true villains thoroughly dealt with in a classic and staggering resolution which will delight fans of mutant mayhem and Fights ‘n’ Tights furore… but this superb action-fest doesn’t end here.

Kris Anka steps in to render the last two issues – a shocking chapter in the then-ongoing Mortal Sins Crossover Event which begins when the sensational She-Hulk turns up at the battered Jean Grey School. She has a distressing and disturbing function to execute in her role as metahuman lawyer Jen Walters: the reading of ‘The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier’…

The first onerous and almost impossible task is to gather all the aggrieved, bereaved and estranged students of the pioneering mutant messiah in one room…

In the secret Canadian fortress that houses the Extinction Team and students of the New Xavier School Alison Blaire is considering what Mystique did to her. She is not coping well…

And in South Carolina a young man named Matthew feels the first stirrings of unrelenting power within his body. Soon he will be the only survivor of a catastrophic detonation and the target of all S.H.I.E.L.D.’s deadly anti-mutant technologies and capabilities…

Eventually Cyclops is convinced to attend the reading, much to the dismay and disgust of his former team-mates.

Everybody knows that Xavier considered Scott his son and believes the first X-Man will be the main beneficiary despite also being the Professor’s murderer. Tension is high as this thought simmers in every mind even though Cyclops has already declared that he won’t accept any bequest…

However when the recorded video message finally plays what the great saviour reveals is no dispensing of gifts and chattels but a disclosure of Charles Xavier’s greatest, darkest secret…

To Be Continued…

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka, Alexander Lozano, J. Scott Campbell, Adi Granov and Terry & Rachel Dodson as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Combining incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a colossal amount of comicbook carnage, this is a wonderfully cathartic conclusion and restart which no Costumed Drama addict could possibly resist.

™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Winter Soldier: The Bitter March


By Rick Remender, Roland Boschi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-597-0

Once upon a time Captain America and youthful partner James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes cut a swashbuckling swathe thorough Nazis, madmen and monsters in every region of the Second World War.

In April 1945, following the tragic mission which killed the boy and hurled the Sentinel of Liberty into a decades long frozen slumber, an experimental Soviet spy sub recovered Bucky’s maimed body from the seas where it fell. Russian spymaster Vasily Karpov dreamed of extracting the fabled Super Soldier serum from the corpse but was doubly frustrated to discover that the indomitable young warrior was never augmented by the formula, nor was he completely dead…

Still, waste not, want not…

From the 1950s until the late 1980s the Soviets reputedly employed an infallible “ghost” assassin all over the world; utilising astoundingly efficient executions and deftly arranged accidents to secure the KGB’s aims. Moreover, whatever surveillance did capture the phantom hitman between 1955 and 1976 indicated that the killer didn’t age…

If you want the full story of how Bucky became an infallible human weapon of Communist oppression, check out Captain America: Winter Soldier Dossier Edition, but for today this scintillating new period yarn – collecting issues #1-5 of Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (April-September 2014) – offers a cool all-new, Cold War super-spy thriller starring that indomitable fallen idol as well as fascinating insights into the character of latest ideological Cap nemesis The Iron Nail…

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been fighting the good fight since the end of WWII and this tale begins in 1966 when friendly rivals Nick Fury and Ran Shen are the outfit’s top operatives. Always bickering – good-naturedly, of course – the duo split up and attempt different methods of penetrating the formidable Castle Hydra alpine fortress and abduct two Nazi scientists who have devised a means of synthesising gold.

Brash, audacious and cocky, Shen is almost killed by the revolting Madam Worm before being embarrassingly rescued by Fury, but as the now compromised agents try to fly their captives – Peter and Milla Hitzig – out of the citadel, a third force intervenes.

Believed-mythical Soviet spook The Winter Soldier tries to snatch the creators of the Alchemy Formula for the USSR and only Fury’s last ditch counterattack drives him off. Now, with Fury missing – presumed dead – Shen must drag his captives through hostile country and arctic conditions or make a final sanction to keep their secret out of both Russian and Hydra hands…

Three days later they trek into the Warsaw Pact state of Nrosvekistan, where Shen calls for an extraction. The best S.H.I.E.L.D. can do is tool him up and advise him to hop a train to West Berlin. However before he can get to the station the infallible, relentless Winter Soldier reappears and the trio barely escape with their lives…

During the melee Shen hits his foe with a live power-line and the colossal shock temporarily stuns the cyborg, allowing the fugitives to get away. What Ran does not know is that the assassin was most debilitated by a wave of unexpected memories which saw him fighting in a strange costume beside lost hero Captain America…

Barely making the train, the trio catch their breath. Soon Milla is tending the agent’s wounds, much to her husband’s disgust. Neither ex-Nazi wants to go to America or Russia but with everybody gunning for them, the fanatical Peter is biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to take control of the situation…

Unknown to Shen the rogue scientist has already contacted Hydra who insert a recovery team on the train: telepathic assassin The Drain and electrical executioner Shocky Dan…

As the Hydra killers covertly confer with Peter, the Drain realises that Herr Hitzig is just a greedy charlatan and hanger-on. His diffident wife is the one who actually created the Alchemy Formula and she is currently warming to the smooth, suave charms of the good-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent…

When the killers smash into their compartment they find Shen again battling the unstoppable Winter Soldier and make short work of them both…

With the horrified Milla a captive, the Drain disposes of her useless husband and prepares to move her back to the fortress, but despite being severely wounded, Shen is still in the game. Moreover, the Soldier, again dosed with electricity and instantly deprogrammed by the telepathic Drain, has thrown off decades of brainwashing and switched sides…

Another spectacular battle breaks out on the now runaway and rigged-to-explode train but when the inevitable detonation comes Shen and Milla have already escaped…

The Drain meanwhile has dealt with the shell-shocked Bucky and followed the fleeing duo, using his psychic powers to murder a town full of people who have come to their aid. His mental assaults also have a devastating affect on Shen – who has developed feelings for Milla – and when bloody but unbowed Bucky arrives it takes all his determination to shake the agent out of his funk and track the mental monster and his struggling prize through the constantly falling snows…

When they catch up, Shen deals with the Drain in a most unprofessional and final manner before he, Bucky and Milla hole up in a handy cabin to await better weather. As each reconsiders their past lives and uncertain futures they are blithely unaware that a Soviet hit squad and the infallible Nick Fury are hot on their trail, each side determined that if they can’t have the Alchemy Formula nobody will…

When all the shooting stops, the Russians only have their assassin back, nobody has Milla and Shen has no hope of a happy tomorrow…

Fast-paced, frantic and compellingly cynical, the story of why Ran Shen took the dark path that set him against America only tangentially involves the star draw Winter Soldier, but nevertheless delivers a gripping saga of intrigue, passion and explosive action.

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Roland Boschi, this blockbusting tribute to the spy-soaked Swinging Sixties is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Andrew Robinson, In-Hyuk Lee, Chris Eliopoulos, Agustin Alessio, Rags Morales, Adi Granov and even offers a photo-cover from the movie, as well as AR icon add-on sections which allow the Marvel Augmented Reality App to grant access to story bonuses once you download marvel.com’s free code onto your smartphone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ and © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Uncanny X-Men: the Good, the Bad, the Inhuman


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Marco Rudy, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-609-0

When the teenaged “First Class” of Charles Xavier’s X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

However after the tragic events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank “the Beast” McCoy, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, Warren “the Angel” Worthington, Scott Summers, young Jean Grey, teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura “X-23” Kinney and the School’s Head Professor Kitty Pryde defected to the mutant terrorist band known as the Extermination Team.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the staunch and steadfast elder Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – had killed his beloved father-figure Xavier.

In the aftermath Old Summers united with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protégés.

Discarding Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids through his traditional methods at the Jean Grey School.

The two opposing sides of the mutant question clashed constantly, as the modern world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the young…

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heated up when Summers – utterly convinced of his species’ inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s School student wishing to join his own academy – the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them…

The bold ploy succeeded in luring away Angel and the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, before the situation was further muddied when both X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants radicals from the future travelled back to address the issue of the time-displaced First Class.

As a result of that “Battle of the Atom” Cyclops found himself offering sanctuary to his youngest old friends, his callow earlier self and the girl who had given her life for him… twice…

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #14, 15.INH, 16-18 (January-May 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend take a deft turn into a lighter tone, beginning with ‘Initiation’ (offering additional inking by Jamie Mendoza, Al Vey, Mark Irwin & Victor Olazaba) as the new kids bond with the extraordinary other students through the shared pain of Elder Cyclops’ draconian physical training regimen…

In a quieter moment Emma takes the unprepossessing Benjamin Deeds under her wing; fascinated by his seemingly feeble ability to make himself physically and psychically likable and trustworthy…

For a field test, she unleashes the nervous lad at a gambling palace in Atlantic City before setting a more risky task: waltzing into a high security S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hand-deliver the mutant band’s ultimatum to America’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping force…

Kris Anka then limns issue #15.INH – an offbeat tie-in to the then-ongoing Inhumanity Publishing Event. During the previous blockbuster Infinity, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill.

As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it would create millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not necessarily different races…

When Frost and Pryde accompany the academy’s girl contingent on a sybaritic shopping-fest in London, they encounter Latverian tourist Geldhoff just as his Terrigen-triggered transformation completes. However, whilst trying to convince him to return with them to the New Xavier School, they succumb to the panicky trans-human’s explosive new power, allowing obsessive A.I.M. geneticist Dr. Monica Rappaccini to swoop in and add Geldhoff to her rapidly expanding collection of potentially profitable specimens…

All along Magneto has been playing a double (or even treble?) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her.

Now (with art by Bachalo & Co), after meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dazzler, he is lured to the island of Madripoor to discover that Machiavellian shapeshifter Mystique has created her own mutant utopia in the former rogue state. He never returns to the New Xavier School…

Undaunted by the loss of a faculty member, the tough-love/education continues as the kids are dumped in the middle of a hostile nowhere and told to survive the monsters residing there. However one of the kids makes a huge mistake and even Nick Fury Jr. and the Avengers cannot save him from Cyclops’ harsh and very final judgement…

The drama concludes in psychedelic style (courtesy of Marco Rudy & colourist Val Staples) as Cyclops and his appalled team return to base and discover that Jean has been abducted by the alien Shi’ar. Also missing is Kitty Pryde and the rest of the time-tossed First Class…

This triggers a brutal flashback to the recent moment when Scott and Kitty lethally “negotiated” the terms under which she and her charges would join his group and his subsequent painful conversations with his teenaged-again One True Love and baffled and betrayed younger  self.

And now he has to face the fact that they are gone and he cannot save them…

To Be Continued…

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka and Alexander Lozano, plus another photo-cover featuring TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet, The Good, the Bad, the Inhuman is a smart, sassy and amazingly engaging read: a fun-filled, fury-fuelled saga which craftily combines incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a mere modicum of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.

™ & © 2013, 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Wolverine: Killable


By Paul Cornell, Alan Davis, Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer & Karl Kesel (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-541-3

Perennially punching-above-his-weight, feral fury James Howlett, AKA Logan, AKA Wolverine has been many things in his very long life, but some of the most significant changes have only occurred in recent years.

Possibly the most significant new deal comes in this cruelly cutting collection written by Paul Cornell which was originally released as issues #7-13 of Wolverine volume 5 (cover-dated September 2013 to March 2014) and presaged a new look, new title and potentially new character to come…

At the conclusion of the previous saga the Canadian Crusader and a desperate coterie of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had repulsed an invasion by a sentient virus from an incredible alien “microverse” which almost united humanity under one all-dominant intellect.

However, although Wolverine’s astounding healing factor had proven crucial in defeating the infective invasion, the defeated pathogenic plunderer had managed to turn off his mutant healing ability in the final encounter, leaving the formerly immortal warrior little more than a tough old guy with enhanced senses and really heavy metal bones…

Before this transformative  unfolds, ‘Mortal’ (illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici & Karl Kesel) describes how the barely recuperating James Howlett adapts to his new normal and realises for the first time just how much of his previous moment-to-moment existence revolved around instantly healing from everything ranging from a shaving cut to jumping off a building.

Now aging and feeling constant and protracted niggling pain, he realises he has to unlearn all the instincts and reactions of at least one lifetime. He simply cannot fathom how to continue as a hero and hunter, no matter how much advice is offered by the likes of sympathetic comrade warriors Nick Fury Jr., the Beast, Thor and Storm…

Rattled, unsure and perhaps afraid for the first time in his life, he doesn’t need the call to arms that comes when the news arrives that mutants and metahumans who can control viruses are being systematically murdered all over the planet…

Alan Davis & Mark Farmer return to illustrate the 6-part ‘Killable’ which begins as Wolverine sneaks a hand-picked team into African world power Wakanda, seeking to steal crazed criminal The Host from custody.

She is the last remaining being with the power to affect micro-organisms…

S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to confirm that the recently repulsed Virus has returned and may be controlling one of the most technologically advanced and paranoid nations on Earth but as Storm, Fury and unflappable surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it “Fronken-schteen”) spring the incarcerated metahuman, Wolverine is inevitably confronted by the lethally efficient Black Panther and is soon in a ferocious fight he can’t win.

With some relief he accepts a truce when the Feline Avenger offers it. It seems the Panther was well aware of the viral threat and was simply using the infiltration to make it tip its communal hand…

However even as the mission winds down Wolverine receives a shocking communication. Murderous mutant Mystique has invaded his home at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and threatened the students under his care…

By the time he reaches America it’s all over, but instead of killing kids the spitefully manipulative witch has simply trashed all his possessions and stolen his most treasured memento – an ancient Katana.

It doesn’t take much to deduce her motives. She’s messing with his head whilst issuing a challenge on behalf of her new boss Sabertooth…

Victor Creed is Wolverine’s most despised and tenacious foe, possessed of the same powers and skills he once boasted but now leader of a manic deviant sect of ninja cult The Hand…

Promising the assembled X-Men not to do anything stupid, Wolverine nevertheless sneaks off to track down Creed and his sword. He hasn’t fooled Kitty Pryde however and she follows him, even as elsewhere S.H.I.E.L.D. technos attempt to weaponise the furiously unstable Host in their plan to destroy the Virus which is slowly taking over the planet…

It’s clearly open season on Wolverine. En route to his rendezvous with Mystique his aircraft is blasted out of the sky by mercenary Batroc the Leaper who sees an easy chance to enhance his rep by killing the most infamous mutant on Earth. Instead the blistering battle only inspires Logan to some semblance of his former combative self. He and Kitty continue their pursuit of Creed’s creatures to Montana where another ambush – by acupuncture assassin Fiber – is narrowly circumvented, but not without more long-term damage to Wolverine’s ailing body…

The world is falling city by city to the Virus as The Host’s power slowly builds, and as she marshals her expanding resources she lets slip that only the microversial microbe monster could restore Wolverine’s healing factor…

Mystique’s trail leads to Alberta, Canada and a shopping mall built on the site of the estate where James Howlett was born in the 18th century. Wolverine’s birthplace seems like a suitably poetic venue for a final showdown, but the innocent bystanders still inside only add distraction and potential disaster to the mix.

Reluctantly enlisting the aid of local cops, Pryde and Wolverine search the near-deserted complex and are not surprised when the building goes into lockdown, trapping them in the dark with fanatical ninjas and a gauntlet of aggrieved old enemies including Lord Deathstrike and Silver Samurai.

The embattled mutants are also keenly aware that shapeshifting Mystique could be any one of their enemies… or allies…

And in the greater world S.H.I.E.L.D.’s latest data indicates that the Virus is only thirty minutes away from infecting the entire world’s population…

As Kitty and Wolverine battle for their lives in Canada, the hyper-energised Host is deployed to attack the Virus, but that means little to exhausted, punch-drunk, pushed beyond his limits Logan who abandons every vestige of humanity in his struggle to survive.

And when he is at his lowest ebb, Sabertooth attacks…

Beaten, crushed and demoralised, Wolverine lies bleeding on the floor as one of the bystanders approaches him.

The body is the last host of the defeated and globally retreating Virus. With no chance of victory it offers to restore his healing powers and return him to all he was if he will only offer it sanctuary…

As Wolverine sees another bizarre vision of the cosmic observer known as The Watcher (indicating that whatever is going on it’s of significance to the entire universe), he croaks “No”…

To Be Continued…

Non-stop visceral action and shocking suspense carry this explosive yarn from high-octane start to explosive finish and this gripping yarn also includes a beautiful gallery of covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Matthew Waite, Leinil Francis Yu and David Lopez. Also upping the entertainment ante are the now-standard added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Captain America: Loose Nuke


By Rick Remender, Carlos Pacheco, Nic Klein, Klaus Janson, Mariano Taibo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

ISBN: 978-1-84653-578-9

After spending twelve years in the hellish Dimension Z, raising a child and saving the indigenous people from the depredations of insane Hitlerian über-geneticist Arnim Zola, the Star Spangled Avenger finally returned Earth with the experimenter’s turncoat daughter Jet Black to discover mere hours had passed in the “real” world.

The extra-dimensional life sentence had cost Steve Rogers too much. As well as his boy Ian, on-again-off-again girlfriend Sharon Carter had also perished in the rescue bid which returned him to a world he barely remembered and no longer felt a part of…

Collecting issues #11-15 of Captain America volume 7 (November 2013-March 2014), the breakthrough saga begins with ‘A Fire in the Rain’: opening in a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility where doctors work to remove the last vestiges of Zola’s pernicious poisons from Cap’s battered body.

As the hero dwells on his dying mother’s words, uttered in their Depression-era New York City hovel decades ago, the medical expertise of Henry Pym and Bruce Banner excise the final remnants of a virus which was slowly growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside Captain America: a biological Fifth Column furiously fighting for control of the weary body.

In recovery the doctors and S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill acknowledge that, despite a dozen relative years having passed, Rogers still looks like a young man. The Super Soldier serum that originally created him might well have made the Avenger immortal…

Jet meanwhile is being brutally debriefed by the new movie-compliant Nick Fury Jr. (long story short: he’s the African-American son of the original – see Battle Scars for further details) but is compelled to let her go when Cap arrives and has her remanded to his own custody.

The super-girl bred and trained for war saved his life in Dimension Z at great personal cost and he is determined to give her a decent life in the strange new world they both feel lost in…

Meanwhile in the eastern European state of Nrosvekistan normal daily commerce is grotesquely interrupted when a bare-chested madman with the Stars and Stripes on his face begins wantonly killing men, women and children. Frank Simpson, AKA Nuke, underwent many top secret procedures at the Weapon Plus program to turn him into a Captain America for the Vietnam generation.

Sadly the result was a drug-addled super-psychotic obsessed with American casualties who now wants to win all the wars his proud nation lost or walked away from… just like the recent peace-keeping mission to this Balkan backwater…

In Brooklyn, Rogers moves Jet into his memento-stuffed apartment but, still unable to reconnect with his distant life, subsequently torches every scrap of his past before turning his face to the uncertain future…

The extended ‘Loose Nuke’ saga then opens with a chilling flashback as determined devoted socialist Ran Shen literally wakes a sleeping dragon to gain the power necessary to reshape the unforgiving, disappointing world.

In the now, the Falcon calls on Captain America to learn the shocking details of his extra-dimensional odyssey and realises his closest friend is on the edge of a nervous breakdown…

In Nrosvekistan the army has been deployed but cannot match the manic ferocity of Nuke and his as yet undisclosed backers. The conflict is about to become a major political embarrassment for the USA, however, as Daily Bugle freelancer Samantha Chan – on the trail of a clique of missing billionaires – films the bloodbath and attempts to post it online…

And in China Ran Shen – now called the Iron Nail – plans amidst the satisfying horrors of his punishment camp: a hidden mine where greedy exploitative capitalists are made to toil and die in the conditions they have forced on billions of others across the globe…

‘Live Weapons!’ fills in some backstory as in 1969 the original Nick Fury confronts a S.H.I.E.L.D. sleeper agent who appears to have changed sides and joined Mao Zedong‘s inner circle. Moreover Ran Shen then tried to oust the Chairman and failed, making him persona non grata everywhere…

When Shan used the dragon’s power to escape S.H.I.E.L.D. custody not even the cunningly infiltrated soviet Winter Soldier was able to stop him…

Once more in the present, Falcon takes a call to get Captain America ready for action somehow. Images of a madman slaughtering civilians and planting American flags over their bodies are about to go public, and Maria Hill needs a true icon of the nation to be seen ending his rampage if her internet blocking strategy fails…

She also needs someone to stop a freelance reporter from dropping America into another potentially lethal media firestorm by any means necessary…

The resulting battle of ideological wonder warriors further decimates the battered little country and serves to give Cap even more reason to doubt the point of his existence, especially since, after subduing the psychologically impaired and pitiable Nuke, Rogers resolves to find out what made a patriot into a monster…

From his hidden realm, former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Shen is pleased that his ambition to drive an Iron Nail into the heart of the West is proceeding. Thus he causes his unwitting deluded pawn to detonate like his namesake in the very heart of his hated foe’s citadel, whilst simultaneously activating the long-dormant and extremely classified Weapon Minus test warrior: an LSD-dosed, psychedelic psychological super soldier codenamed Dr. Mindbubble ready, willing and extremely able to share his terrifying sensibilities with the wider capitalist world…

To Be Continued…

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Nic Klein, Klaus Janson & Mariano Taibo, this blockbusting battle of ideologies is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Pacheco & Dean White, Jim Cheung & Laura Martin, Leonel Castellani and Francesco Mattina, plus AR icon add-on sections which allow the Marvel Augmented Reality App to grant access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Fast, furious and ferociously controversial, this long-overdue examination of a patriotic icon with a conscience representing a nation which has increasingly sidelined its people is a welcome twist that should challenge and delight fans old and new alike.

™ & © 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Wolverine: Hunting Season


By Paul Cornell, Alan Davis, Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-541-3

Following all the desperate and life-altering debacles of recent years, the emergent race dubbed Homo Sapiens Superior has, after the epochal events of Avengers versus X-Men, won something of a fresh start and clean slate for most mutants, especially the perennially punching-above-his-weight feral fury Wolverine.

The company initiative MarvelNOW!, having reinvigorated the entire continuity, the various flavours of X-champion are generally starting life anew and this collection, gathering issues #1-6 of Wolverine volume 5 (cover-dated May-September 2013), proffers a compellingly attractive and decidedly different side of the Canadian Crusader which – like companion series Savage Wolverine – explores the man beyond the blood-blind berserker of yesteryear…

Scripted by Paul Cornell and illustrated initially by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer and then Mirco Pierfederici, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer, the all-out action and sinister subversion begins with the eponymous 4-part ‘Hunting Season’ right in the middle of the mayhem as our horrified hero desperately tries to talk down a spree-killer in the midst of a body-strewn hostage situation in a Mall. Partially disintegrated, Wolverine can only attempt to reason with the man until his arms and legs grow back…

Mild-mannered Robert Gregson is acting really weird and has an impossibly powerful supergun. He’s calm, rational and displays diffident concern to his young son Alex as he systematically vaporises all the shoppers in the arcade. By the time he turns the raygun on the boy, Wolverine is just healed enough to stop the complacent killer. Amidst charred bones and human ashes the cops burst in and Logan sees old friend and NYPD Detective Chieko Tomomatsu in the lead.

In the blistered aftermath nobody realises that the odd odour which permeated Gregson now emanates from Alex, until the kid attacks them all and flees with the gun. As he utilises the hand cannon to ravage the city, Wolverine is in close pursuit. Refusing to eviscerate a 10-year old, he tries to Alex keeps talking but the boy sounds like a dispassionate boffin absentmindedly taking notes…

Across town a trio of cops intercepts a gang of drug-dealers and they too suddenly acquire a strange smell and completely detached attitude. In unison, they turn on and dispatch the guy who turned up late…

Repeatedly dodging instant incineration, the Clawful Canuck corners Alex high up on a construction site and confirms that something has possessed the lad. Desperately trying to establish contact with the controlling force – which refers to itself in the plural – Wolverine is horrified as the kid jumps to his doom and the gun finds another triggerman before the slaughter continues…

When the new Nick Fury (long story short: the son of the original and looks like the African American S.H.I.E.L.D. Director from the assorted movies – see Battle Scars for further details) arrives and downs the shooter, the gun flies off before anyone can stop it…

As Wolverine brings the superspy up to speed, he has a bizarre vision and the cosmic observer known as The Watcher appears – only to the mutant’s enhanced senses – thus indicating that whatever is going on it’s a danger to the entire universe…

Oddly enough, the first stop in sorting the problem is a bar. Guernica on West Fourth is a superhero hostelry and a very unique think-tank meets there. As well as a comicbook writer, there’s an odds-maker on superhero battles, a professional powers cataloguer and the current CEO of repair conglomerate Damage Control, but what the fast-healing hero needs is the services of talented and unflappable surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it “Fronken-schteen”), possibly the only sawbones capable of removing the smart-bullet Alex embedded in the mutant’s shoulder.

The last in line of such a fateful dynasty is necessary since Logan’s flesh knits back together faster than most scalpels can cleave it. The brainstorming/field surgery session also leads to one inescapable conclusion: whoever or whatever is possessing people acts like an airborne virus…

The gun meanwhile has found those co-opted cops and robbers. Fury and Wolverine are right behind them and subsequently uncover a plot to explode a bomb full of those pesky microbe invaders over Yankee Stadium during the biggest game of the season…

Logan of course spectacularly foils the plot but since he can still see The Watcher, the confused champion knows things aren’t quite over yet…

‘Drowning Logan’, illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer, Zach Fischer, Karl Kesel & Tom Palmer, takes up the story as the insidious organisms, now evolved to deceive Wolverine’s sense of smell, possess an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier crew – Fury Jr. included – and then capture the one being able to resist their mind-bending infection.

Trapped with a trio of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents also (temporarily) immune to the takeover terrors and a fading phone-link to the Guernica group, the Feral Fury must defeat an army of friends and colleagues housing an unstoppable invasion force before it’s judgement day for our universe. Thankfully a clue to the microbial possessors’ incredible origins lead to a fantastic counter-attack and their eventual repulsion – but not without shocking personal cost to the formerly fast-healing hero…

To Be Continued…

Hunting Season also includes a beautiful gallery of 16 covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Jason Keith, Olivier Coipel, Salvador Larroca, Skottie Young, Humberto Ramos, Mike Deodato Jr., Ed McGuiness & Pascal Campion, and comes with the now-standard added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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


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

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

Too many times the spooks “on our side” became as debased as the bad guys in a world where covert agencies were continually exposed as manipulative, out-of-control tools of subversion and oppression.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rabid rapid expansion also gave Fury an opportunity to place one of his own deep within the organisation…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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Secret Warriors volume 1: Nick Fury, Agent of Nothing


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At no stage did he ask for permission or approval…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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