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October 15, 2012October 12, 2012

Mighty Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest

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

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop the Incredible Hulk. The Mighty Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course you realise this means warâ€¦.

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

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

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

October 14, 2012October 12, 2012

Showcase Presents the Legion of Super-Heroes

By James Shooter, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Curt Swan, J. Winslow Mortimer, George Tuska, Dave Cockrum, Murphy Anderson, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2185-0

Once upon a time, a thousand years from now, a band of super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join themâ€¦

Thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino when the many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958) just as the revived superhero genre was gathering an inexorable head of steam in America. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten over and over again to comply with editorial diktat and popular fashion.

This sturdy, drama-drenched fourth massive monochrome compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from June 1968 to September 1970, originally seen in Adventure Comics #369-380 and the reprint issue #403, plus back-up tales from Action Comics #378-392 – a time when the superhero genre again dipped in popularity. Also included in this enchanting tome are the tentative first forays of the team’s slow revival as an alternating back-up feature in Superboy with game-changing exploits from issues #172-173, 176, 183-184, 188 190 and 191, covering March 1971 to October 1972.

During this period the youthful, generally fun-loving and carefree Club of Champions peaked; having only just evolved into a dedicated and driven dramatic action series starring a grittily realistic combat force in constant, galaxy-threatening peril. Although now an overwhelming force of valiant warriors ready and willing to pay the ultimate price for their courage and dedication, science itself, science fiction and costumed crusaders all increasingly struggled against a global resurgence in spiritual questioning and supernatural fictionâ€¦

The main architect of the transformation was teenaged sensation Jim Shooter, whose scripts and layouts (generally finished and pencilled by the astoundingly talented and understated Curt Swan) made the series accessible to a generation of fans growing up with their heads in the Future but as the fashions shifted, the series was unceremoniously ousted from its ancestral home and full-length adventures to become a truncated back-up feature in Action Comics. Typically, that shift occurred just as the stories were getting really, really good and truly matureâ€¦

The tense suspense begins with Adventure Comics #369’s ‘Mordru the Merciless!’ (Shooter, Swan & Jack Abel) when the Legion was attacked by their most powerful enemy, a nigh-omnipotent sorcerer the entire assemblage had only narrowly defeated once before.

A sneak attack had shattered the team and only four escaped, using a time bubble to flee to the remote and archaic time-period where Superboy lived. With him came Mon-El, Shadow Lass and Duo Damsel, the last remnants of a once-unbeatable force.

Mordru’s magic was stronger though and even the time-barrier could not daunt himâ€¦ Even disguised as mere mortals, the fugitive Legionnaires’ courage shone through. When petty gangsters took over Smallville, the teen heroes quashed the parochial plunderers and then opted to return to the 30^th century and confront Mordru, only to discover that he’d found them firstâ€¦

The saga concluded in #370 and ‘The Devil’s Jury!’ wherein the band again broke free and hid in plain sight by temporarily wiping their own memories to thwart the Dark Lord’s probes. Against appalling odds and with only Clark Kent‘s best friend Pete Ross and Insect Queen Lana Lang to aid them, the heroes’ doomed last stand only succeeded when Mordru’s overbearing arrogance caused his own downfall.

Then when the exhausted fugitives got back the future they joyously discovered that Dream Girl and benign sorceress White Witch had undone the deluded Dark Lord’s worstâ€¦

Extortion and espionage were the order of the day in #371’s ‘The Colossal Failure!’ when a Legionnaire’s parents were abducted and the hero was forced to botch missions. Ordered to retrain at the high security Legion Academy Colossal Boy was subsequently caught selling the team’s training secrets and cashiered from the organisationâ€¦

This issue then offered ‘When Superboy Walked Out on the Legion!’ illustrated by George Papp, wherein hyper-advanced and snobbish aliens threatened Smallville unless Superboy left Earth and joined their band of press-ganged heroes. It took ingenuity, a faux civil war and massive destruction to finally convince the alien autocrats to let the assembled champions return to their own home-worldsâ€¦

Colossal Boy’s tale of woe concluded in Adventure #372 when his still-loyal buddies uncovered the cause of the expelled giant’s dilemma and tracked him to a ‘School for Super-Villains!’ (Shooter, Swan & Abel), where the fallen hero was compelled to teach a horde of metahuman rogues all the LSH’s secrets.

Luckily and thanks to the expedited induction of apprentice – ergo unknown – heroes Timber Wolf and Chemical King, the good guys were able to infiltrate and shut down this first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Villainsâ€¦

Golden Age veteran J. Winslow Mortimer replaced Swan from #373 onwards as ‘The Tornado Twins!’ Don and Dawn Allen ran rings around and generally humiliated the assembled heroes – but all for a very good cause, before ‘Mission: Diabolical!’ in #374 focussed on the future equivalent of organised crime when most of the Legionnaires were ambushed and held hostage by the insidious Scorpius gang.

Hard-pressed by rival outfit Taurus, the mobsters had decided to â€œrecruitâ€ a team of heroes to equal their enemies’ squad of hyper-powered goons, Rogarth, Mystelor, Shagrek, Quanto and Black Mace. Of course, after infiltrating and defeating their foes, the press-ganged kids – Supergirl, Element Lad, Dream Girl, Ultra Boy and Matter-EaterLad – were double-crossed by Scorpius and would have died if not for a fortuitous intervention by the Legion of Substitute Heroesâ€¦

Next followed a powerful and devious 2-part thriller in #375-376 which introduced galactic-roving heroes The Wanderers and saw those temporarily-insane-and-evil alien champions battle the United Planets’ metahuman marvels – who were far more concerned with determining who would be crowned ‘The King of the Legion!’

The matter was only relevant because a trans-dimensional challenger had demanded a duel with the â€œmightiest Legionnaireâ€, but when the dust settled the only hero left standing was chubby comic relief Bouncing Boyâ€¦

When the triumphant winner was spirited away to another cosmos he arrived in a feudal wonderland – complete with comely princess – menaced by a terrifying invader. Unfortunately the hero was soon exposed as shape-shifting Durlan Legionnaire Reep Daggle and not the human Chuck Taine, but he manfully overcame his abductors’ initial prejudice and defeated the usurper threat Kodar. The freakish victor even won the heart of Princess Elwinda before being tragically rescued and whisked back across a permanently sealed dimensional barrier by his legion buddies who mistook a Royal Wedding for ‘The Execution of Chameleon Boy!’

A welcome edge of dark and bitter cynicism was creeping into Shooter’s stories, and ‘Heroes for Hire!’ (pencilled by Mortimer and inked by Jack Abel) saw the team begin charging for their unique services, but it was only a brilliant ploy to derail the criminal career of Modulus, an avatar of sentient living planet Modo who had turned the world into an unassailable haven for the worst villains of the galaxyâ€¦

Issue #378 started another tense and moving 2-parter which began when Superboy, Duo Damsel, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra and Brainiac 5 were poisoned and found themselves with only ‘Twelve Hours to Live!’

With no cure possible the quintet separated to spend their last day in the most personally satisfying ways they could – from sharing precious moments with soon-to-be bereaved family to K-Kid’s one-man assault on the Fatal Five – only to reunite in their final moments and die togetherâ€¦

The incredible conclusion began when a hyper-advanced being calling itself a Seeron froze time and offered to cure the practically dead victims – but only if new arrivals Ultra Boy, Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Star Boy, Lightning Lad and Chemical King returned to his universe and defeated an invasion by brutes invulnerable to all the mighty mental powers of the intellectual overlordsâ€¦

However even as the shanghaied Legionnaires triumphed and returned, their comrades had been found and afforded the honour of ‘Burial in Space!’â€¦

Happily a brilliant last-minute solution enabled the dead to rise just in time to lose their long-held position in Adventure Comics as changing tastes and shrinking sales prompted an abrupt change of venue.

‘The Legion’s Space Odyssey!’ (# 380 dated May 1969, by Shooter, Mortimer & Abel) saw a select band of Legionnaires teleported to the barren ends of the universe and laboriously battle their way home against impossible odds, which included the â€œdeathâ€ of Superboy and persistent sabotage by the Legion of Super-Pets.

Of course there was a perfectly rational and reasonable excuse for the devious scheme and the tale is best remembered by fans for being the mission on which Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy first got togetherâ€¦

From #381 onwards Adventure was filled with the 20^th century exploits of Supergirl whilst the LSH took over her secondary spot in Action Comics, beginning with a reprint in #377 which is not included here.

Original shorter ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ began in #378 (July 1969) with ‘The Forbidden Fruit!’ by Shooter, Mortimer & Mike Esposito wherein Timber Wolf was deliberately addicted to a hyper-narcotic lotus in a bold scheme to turn the entire team into pliable junkies. Fortunately the hero’s true love for Light Lass allowed him to overcome his awful burden, whilst in #379’s ‘One of us is an Impostor’, E. Nelson Bridwell, Mortimer & Murphy Anderson offered a clever mystery yarn to baffle Mon-El, Dream Girl, Element Lad, Shadow Lass and Lightning Lad when thermal thug Sunburst and a clever infiltrator threatened to tear the team apart from withinâ€¦

Duo Damsel declared war on herself in #380 when her other body fell under the sway of an alien Superboy and turned to crime, leaving only Bouncing Boy to clean up the psychological mess of ‘Half a Legionnaire?’ (Shooter, Mortimer & Abel) whilst in #381, Matter-Eater Lad revealed his lowly origins and dysfunctional family to lonely Shrinking Violet and ended up ‘The Hapless Hero!’ battling her absurdly jealous absentee boyfriend Duplicate Boy – the mightiest hero in the universeâ€¦

In #382 a covert team comprising Ultra Boy, Karate Kid, Light Lass, Violet and Timber Wolf attempted to quell a potential super-robot arms-race and found that to succeed they might have to ‘Kill a Friend to Save a World!‘, after which the still-heartbroken Durlan found an Earthly double of his lost love Elwinda.

However when he morphed into her ideal man he quickly saw the folly of ‘Chameleon Boy’s Secret Identity!’ – a true tear-jerker with the hint of a happy ending from Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel.

Shooter left his perfect job with #384 but signed off in style with his landmark ‘Lament for a Legionnaire!’ With art misattributed to Mortimer but in fact a welcome fill-in job by the superb Curt Swan & Abel, it told how Dream Girl’s infallible prophecy of Mon-El’s demise came true whilst his shocking resurrection introduced a whole new thrilling strand to the Lore of the Legion.

Bridwell, Mortimer & Abel showed a vengeance-crazed killer’s quest for ultimate retribution fail in ‘The Fallen Starboy!’ and then crafted Action Comics #386’s ‘Zap Goes the Legion!’ wherein cunning female foe Uli Algor believed she had outthought and outfought the juvenile agents of justice but had forgotten one crucial detailâ€¦

Then in #387 the creators delightfully added a touch of wry social commentary when the organisation had to downsize and lay off a Legionnaire for tax purposes after the government declared that the team had ‘One Hero Too Many!’

Action #388 was an all-reprint Supergirl giant, but the now revenue-compliant Club of Heroes returned in #389 with ‘The Mystery Legionnaire!’ by Cary Bates, Mortimer & Abel, which explained how robot dictator Klim was defeated by a hero who didn’t exist, whilst Bridwell’s ‘The Tyrant and the Traitor’ in #390 reflected the political turmoil of the 1970’s with a tale of guerrilla atrocity, destabilising civil war and covert regime change.

The Legion Espionage Squad was tasked with doing the dirty work, but even Chameleon Boy, Timber Wolf, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl were out of their depth and only ‘The Ordeal of Element Lad!’ in the next issue saved the undercover unit from ignominious failure and certain death.

Action #392 (September 1970) temporarily ended the feature’s unbroken run in a low-key but gripping yarn from Bates, Mortimer & Abel which included alternate dimensions and preposterous testing of ‘The Legionnaires that Never Were!’

The Frantic Futurians weren’t gone too long. In 1971 a concerted push to revive the Teen Tomorrow Warriors began with the March-dated Superboy # 172 and ‘Brotherly Hate!’ by Bridwell & George Tuska. The sharp, smart yarn detailed the convoluted origins of twins Garth and Ayla Ranzz AKA Lightning Lad and Light Lass and their troubled relationship with older brother Mekt – the deadly outlaw Lightning Lordâ€¦

At the same time Adventure Comics #403 (April 1971) was released; an all-Legion reprint special which also included new ‘Fashions from Fans’ reinterpreted by Bridwell, Ross Andru & Esposito as well as a comprehensive ‘Diagram of Legion Headquarters Complex’, included here for your delight and delectationâ€¦

Some of those fan-costumes – generally the skimpier ones designed for the girl heroes – were adopted for the ongoing backups appearing in Superboy, which continued the comeback with ‘Trust Me or Kill Me!’ in #173 by Bates & Tuska. In that tense tale Superboy had to devise a way to determine which Cosmic Boy was his true friend and which a magical duplicate wrought by malefic Mordruâ€¦

The origin of Invisible Kid and the secrets of his powers were examined when a crook duplicated the boy genius’ fadeaway gifts in #176’s ‘Invisible Invader!’, whilst Bates, Tuska & Vince Colletta reported on the ‘War of the Wraith-Mates!’ in #183 when energy entities renewed an eons-old war of the sexes by possessing Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Karate Kid and Princess Projectra.

Superboy #184 hinted at the days of greatness to come with ‘One Legionnaire Must Go!’ Matter-Eater Lad was framed and replaced by his own little brother in a tale by Bates, but the big advance was the inking of LSH fanatic Dave Cockrum over Murphy Anderson’s pencils. The neophyte artist would gradually transform the look, feel and fortunes of the Legion before moving to Marvel and doing the same with an almost forgotten series entitled X-Menâ€¦

With issue #188’s Bates scripted ‘Curse of the Blood-Crystals!’ (July 1972), Anderson began inking Cockrum; the sixth stunning back-up tale of a now unstoppable Legion revival that would eventually lead to the team taking over the entire comicbook. This clever yarn of cross-and-double-cross found a Legionnaire possessed by a magical booby-trap and forced to murder Superboy – but which of the two dozen heroes is actually the prospective killerâ€¦?

Superboy #190 featured ‘Murder the Leader!’ as the Fatal Five attacked during the election of a new Legion Commander and rival candidates Saturn Girl and Mon-El had to work together if either was to take the top job, after which this volume concludes with the stunning thriller ‘Attack of the Sun-Scavenger!’ by Bates & Cockrum from #191.

In a staggering burst of comics brilliance, the manic solar scoundrel Dr. Regulus again attacked Sun Boy and his Legion comrades, using his own death as the key to ultimate victoryâ€¦

The Legion is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in funnybook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom. Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League or Marvel’s Fantastic Four– fired up the interest and imaginations of generations of readers and underpinned the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future days as soon as possible.
Â© 1968-1972, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 13, 2012October 12, 2012

X-Men: Worlds Apart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 12, 2012October 11, 2012

Limits book 1

By Keiko Suenobu, translated by Mari Morimoto (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-93565-456-8

Travelling a little off the beaten ShÅjo or â€œgirl’s comicâ€ path is a newly translated work by the marvellous Keiko Suenobu, whose latest series Limit has just been released byNew York publisher Vertical.

Born in KitakyÅ«shÅ«, Fukuokain March 1979, Suenobu graduated from the Universityof Tsukubabefore beginning her creative career with the school romance Happy Tomorrow, before gravitating towards darker themes of conformity, social pressure and bullying in Vitamin and the moving, controversial and award-winning Raifu – translated as Life by TokyoPop in 2006.

The author took her interest in the nastier side of school life to imaginative extremes in 2009 when Limit began serialisation in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Friend. Now this rather dark and exceptionally grim tale – which will definitely appeal to a readership far beyond the general ShÅjo target-market of young girls – is available in English and might well be a future classic.

Mizuki Konno is lucky – and wise – enough to fit with the â€œIn-Crowdâ€ at her all-girls school. Acceptably cute and suitably smart, she has learned to make no waves and accept that the ways things work is the way things should be. The popular girls – like undisputed teen goddess Sakura Himezawa – make the rules, and the rest conform. It’s a simple matter of survivalâ€¦

If you’re physically different or interested in odd things, like dumpy manga-fan and tarot reader Arisa Morishige, life can be hell. Only the strongest personalities, such as bookish, decent and determinedly wound-tight non-conformist Chieko Kamiya have any chance of standing up to the constant bitchy pressure to comply, accept and keep your place in the hierarchy of ‘A Perfect World’â€¦

Everything changes however when Sakura’s class drives off for an extended visit to an Exchange Camp in the wilderness. Every class spends a week roughing it with nothing more than a communal scythe and their ever-present cell-phones to hold back the horrors of nature, but with this last trip of the semester things go tragically wrong.

High in the mountains the coach driver has a heart attack and the vehicle, packed with excited girls and their harried teacher, plunges catastrophically into a wooded hidden valley.

Only five girls survive, and undisputed queen of the modern world Sakura isn’t one of themâ€¦

As Konno drags the shell-shocked Haru Ichinose (Sakura’s devoted deputy, utterly unable to function without her) out of the wreckage some time later, she sees smoke from a fire. Tracking the signal they find middle-ranking Chikage Usui with her leg splinted and bandaged outside a cave. The wounded lass has been saved and succoured by the coldly efficient Kamiya, who has also scavenged everything potentially useful from the crash site.

At the back of the cave Morishige sits inside a pentagram, casting the cardsâ€¦

Kamiya has brusquely taken charge, organising resources and outlining options until the girls can be found and rescued, but introspective Konno can barely grasp the strange situation and the new rules of survival. Events take an even nastier turn when the Tarot reader suddenly explodes in jubilation, claiming her prayers have been answered and her tormentors all punishedâ€¦

Indifferent, ambiguous pragmatist Konno is forced to confront a new world order in ‘The Strong vs. the Weak’ as the increasingly unstable Morishige takes control.

After panicking and unsuccessfully failing to climb out of the box valley, Konno returns to find the bereft Haru attacking the former class pariah but Morishige’s big and burly frame – which brought her such cruel treatment in school – is now the most valuable asset in this new environment and moreover she has also found that wickedly lethal scytheâ€¦

The new queen easily defeats her attacker and then regales the horrified girls with a litany of all the cruel acts she saw the perfect princesses constantly inflict upon each other during their wonderful school days.

Haru is unable to accept the change of status and even refuses Konno’s overtures to become allies just as the ascendant Morishige casts the cards again and sees a future where only the strong will surviveâ€¦

With food already running out, events spiral towards deadly conflict as Konno recalls better days that weren’t actually that great, only to be dragged back to reality when Morishige decides to split the remaining rations four ways. The clearly unstable would-be witch has established her own social hierarchy with the pragmatically compliant Kamiya as â€œRoyaltyâ€, Usui a â€œCommonerâ€ and the roles of â€œServantâ€ and â€œSlaveâ€ still to be determined by her under ‘The Empress’ Rules’â€¦

Haru is provisionally a Slave but since they don’t get food she must fight Konno to determine who gets the final privileged – and rewarded – role of Servant… to the deathâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Rather inaccurately likened to Michael Lehmann’s 1988 cult black comedy Heathers (although perhaps influenced by Koushun Takami’s novel Batoru Rowaiaru or Kinji Fukasaku’s filmic adaptation Battle Royale) but certainly deriving much of its energising concepts from William Golding’s landmark tale Lord of the Flies, this bleak, viciously introspective and effectively chilling tale marries beautiful illustration to fearsome examination of what civilised folk consider acceptable behaviour and asks some entertainingly challenging questions.

This book – which also includes a charming glance at the author’s methodology in the mini-feature My Workroom – is printed in the traditional Japanese right to left, back to front format.
Â© 2012 Keiko Suenobu. All rights reserved.

October 11, 2012October 9, 2012

Thor/Iron Man: God Complex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 10, 2012October 8, 2012

Planetes volume 1

By Makoto Yukimura, translated and adapted by Yuki Nakamura & Ann Wenger (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59182-262-2

The hard, gritty mystery and imagination of space travel, so much a component of immediate post-World War II industrial society, once again captivated a legion of level-headed imagineers at the end of the 20^th century when relative newcomer Makoto Yukimura rekindled interest in near-space exploration in all its harsh and grimy glory with this inspiring â€œnuts-and-boltsâ€ manga series which explored the probable rather than the possibleâ€¦

Yukimura (born in Yokohamain 1976, just as the once-ambitious American space program was languishing in cash-strapped doldrums and five long years before the first space shuttle launch) began his professional life as an assistant to veteran creator Shin Morimura before launching his independent career with the Planetes.

Working exclusively for Kodansha, his award-winning premier Seinen series ran in Weekly Morning magazine from January 1999-January 2004 and was later collected as four tankÅbon volumes. The serial easily made the jump to a popular anime series and Yukimura – after producing SayÅnara ga Chikai node for Evening magazine – has since 2005 abandoned the future for the past and concentrated his creative energies on the monolithic historical epic Vinland Saga – serialized in Weekly ShÅnen Magazine and Afternoon – and filling 11 bloodcurdling volumes to dateâ€¦

The premise of Planetes is devilishly simply and powerfully engaging. Humanity is a questing species but cannot escape its base origins. In 2074 space travel and exploitation is practically commonplace but as we’ve conquered the void between Earth and the asteroid belt and prepare to exploit the outer planets, the once-pristine void around us has become clotted with our obsolete tech and casually discarded rubbish.

Even the most minute piece of junk or debris falling through hard vacuum is a high-speed, potentially deadly missile, and to keep risk to a minimum hardy teams of rugged individualists have to literally sweep the heavens free of our discarded crap.

‘A Stardust Sky’ begins with the death of a passenger on a commercial low-orbit space liner before jumping six years forward to introduce a trio of these celestial dustbin-men scooping up Mankind’s negligent cast-offs and unconsidered detritus.

Hachirota Hoshino is the newest member of the team, a kid who craves becoming a real astronaut and famous explorer like his dad and even dreams of one day owing his own prestige spaceship. However excitable â€œHachimakiâ€ is quickly becoming disenchanted with the dreary, dull and disgusting daily life of drudgery aboard DS-12 – a sanitation/cargo ship fondly dubbed Toybox but little better than the discards he and his two comrades daily scoop up or destroyâ€¦

These days there’s something wrong with the sombre, stoic Russian, Yuri Mihairokov.

The big man is increasingly distracted, blanking out, staring vacantly into the Wild Black Yonder as the cleaners orbit the Earth at 8 kilometres per second. Events come to head when a shard of micro-debris holes their ramshackle vessel and an old timer reveals the Russian’s tragic secret.

Long ago Yuri and his wife were on that shuttle and when it was holed she died. Heartbroken, her husband – one of the few survivors – returned to space to clear the deadly trash that took his wife, but he never forgot her.

Later, whilst drifting in the void the solitary astronaut sees a glitter, and her keepsake compass just floats into his hand, brought back to him by the winds of space. Beguiled, Yuri falls into Earth’s Gravity Well and only Hachimaki’s most frantic efforts save his comrade from a fiery death.

Safely back in free orbit, the Russian opens his gauntleted fist. On the compass are scratched his wife’s final thoughts as death took her – â€œplease save Yuriâ€â€¦

The poignant, bittersweet and deeply spiritual initial episode is followed by ‘A Girl from Beyond the Earth’ wherein young Hoshino slowly and impatiently recovers from a broken leg in the hospital of the moon colony Archimedes Crater City.

These tales are laced with the most up-to-date space science available to author Yukimura, and the recent discovery that extended time spent in low or zero-gravity radically weakens bones and muscles was the lynchpin of this moving brush with another youngster bound irrevocably to the void.

When a doctor suggests returning to full-gravity Earth to recuperate the easy way, Hachi is in two minds and sorely tempted. His commander and fellow debris-destroyer Fee Carmichael and an old 20-year veteran pour scorn on the quitter’s option. All real astronauts know that once back on the home world few ever return to space.

The lad is still tempted though until he strikes up a friendship with a thin, wasted young woman. Nono has been on Luna for twelve years and dreams of blue skies and open seas but will never see them. After aged Mr. Roland chooses to spend the rest of his life among the stars, Hachimaki learns Nono’s incredible sad secret and at last abandons all thoughts of forsaking the starsâ€¦

The focus stays on nicotine-fiend Fee Carmichael as she struggles to enjoy a well-deserved vice in ‘A Cigarette under Starlight’ in Orientale Basin Underground City a few months later. With breathing-oxygen at a premium, smokers must juggle their addiction for the weed with their dedication to life in space and poor Fee has been Jonesing for a drag for far too long. Now though, even whilst on shore-leave at a station big enough and sufficiently civilised to house a designated smoking area, the Toybox’s chief is still unable to indulge her vice.

An ideological terrorist group called the Space Defense Fighters want to keep the void pristine and free of Mankind’s polluting influence and have been detonating bombs in outposts all over the moon. Their latest outrages targeted the base’s vending machines and smoking rooms so the authorities have sealed them all in the name of public safety.

Driven near to distraction, Fee snaps and lights up in the public toilets, forgetting that smoke detection devices and fire countermeasures are automatic, incredibly sensitive and painfully effectiveâ€¦

Humiliated, sodden but undeterred, she takes off for another city and a solitary snout (for all you non-Brits that’s a particularly derogatory term for having a smoke) and finds the only guy more in need of a drag than her. Of course setting bombs is nervous work and a quick ciggy always calms his nervesâ€¦

The frustration is too much and Fee returns to her job but the SDF’s explosive campaign doesn’t end. Their latest scheme is the creation of deadly Kessler Syndrome wave (a blast or impact which changes the trajectories of free-floating orbital scrap and debris, making even more debris/shrapnel and aiming it like a hard rain of lethal micro-missiles)â€¦

With a commandeered satellite directed inexorably at a space station, the terrorists intend to detonate their captured vehicle and shred the habitat – which coincidentally carries the last smokes in space – shooting it out of the sky and creating a lethal chain reaction making high-orbit space forever un-navigableâ€¦

Unsure of her own motives Fee uses the DS-12 to suicidally shove the stolen projectile away from the station and into Earth’s atmosphereâ€¦

In ‘Scenery for a Rocket’, as Fee recuperates in Florida, Hachimaki brings Yuri to visit Japan and falls back into a violent and historic sibling rivalry with baby brother Kyutaro, a rocketry prodigy even more determined to conquer space than his surly fanatical brother or their absentee astronaut father Goroâ€¦

Happily the Russian’s calming influence begins to repair fences between the warring Hoshino boys, but not before a series of explosive confrontations lead to Yuri finally passing on his beloved wife’s compassâ€¦

This first passionately philosophical and sentimentally suspenseful chronicle concludes with ‘Ignition’ as Fee, Yuri and Hachimaki reunite in time for the junior junkman to suffer an almost career-ending psychological injury. Although utterly unharmed by a rogue solar flare, the lad was completely isolated in the void for so long that he developed post-traumatic â€œDeep-Space Disorderâ€.

If he could not shake off the debilitating hallucinatory condition his life in space was over. Nothing the experts of the Astronaut Training Center did seemed to work, but fortunately Yuri knew just what prodding could awaken the wide-eyed, Wild Black Wonder in his feisty little comradeâ€¦

Tense, sensitive and moodily inspirational, these tales readily reinvigorate and reinvent the magical allure of the cold heavens for newer generations and this authentic, hard-edged and wittily rational saga is a treat no hard-headed dreamer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to missâ€¦

This book – which also includes prose biographies of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, Herman Julius Oberth & Werhner von Braun in ‘A Brief History of Modern Rocket Science’ – are printed in the traditional Japanese right to left, back to front format.
Â© 2001 Makoto Yukimura. All rights reserved. English text Â© 2003 TOKYOPOP Inc.

October 9, 2012October 8, 2012

Thunderbolts – Cage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 8, 2012October 6, 2012

Philosophy – A Discovery in Comics

By Margreet de Heer with Yiri T. Kohl (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-698-3

There’s no use denying it: Annual Gift-Giving Season isn’t far off and it’s never too early to think of the ideal item for that troublesome family/friend unit. So here’s something that might fit the bill for any argumentative soul fed up with socks, pants and pen-setsâ€¦Â Â

It has long been a truism of the creative arts that the most effective, efficient and economical method of instruction and informational training has been the comic strip.

Advertising mavens have for over a century exploited the easy impact of words wedded to evocative pictures, and public information materials frequently use sequential narrative to get hard messages over quickly and simply. Additionally, since World War II, carefully crafted strips have been constantly used as training materials in every aspect of adult life from school careers advice to various branches of military service – utilising the talents of comics giants as varied as Milton Caniff, Will Eisner (who spent decades producing reams of comic manuals for the US army and other government departments), Kurt Schaffenberger and Neil Adams.

These days the educational value and merit of comics is a given. Larry Gonick in particular has been using the strip medium to stuff learning and entertainment in equal amounts into the weary brains of jaded students with such tomes as The Cartoon History of the Universe, The Cartoon History of the United States and The Cartoon Guide toâ€¦ series (Genetics, Sex, Computers, Non-Communication, Physics, Statistics, the Environment and more).

Japan uses a huge number of manga text books in its schools and universities and has even released government reports and business prospectuses as comic books to get around the public’s apathy towards reading large dreary volumes of public information.

So do we, and so do the Americans.

I’ve even produced one or two myself.

Now the medium has been used to sublimely and elegantly tackle the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation and creation of the mind of Manâ€¦

Margreet de Heer was born in 1972 into a family of theologians and despite some rebellious teen forays to the wild side of life – fascinatingly covered in the ‘Know My Self’ section of this fabulous graphic primer – studied Theology for 9 years at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating in 1999 she decided to become a cartoonist – and did – but also worked at the wonderful comics and cool stuff emporium/cultural icon Lambiek in Amsterdam.

Whilst there she collaborated with industry expert Kees Kousemaker on a history of Dutch comics before becoming a full-time professional in 2005, with commissions in publications as varied as Yes, Zij aan Zij, Viva Mama, Flo’, Jippo, Farfelu and NRC.Next.

In 2007 she began a series of cartoon philosophical reports for the newspaper Trouw, which prompted a perspicacious publisher to commission a complete book on this most ancient of topics. Filosofie in Beeld was released in 2010 and translated into English by NBM this year as Philosophy – a Discovery in Comics.

This gloriously accessible tome, crafted by a gifted writer with a master’s grasp of her subject, opens with the core concept ‘What is Thinking?’ examining the processes of mind through a number of elegantly crafted examples before moving onto ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’

Those paradigms of ‘Self-Awareness’, ‘Logical Thinking’, ‘Language’, ‘Symbols’, ‘Abstract Thinking’ and ‘Humor’ are captivatingly covered before the history and cognitive high points of civilisation are disclosed with ‘The Foundation of Western Philosophy’.

This potted history of ‘Dualism’ relates the life stories, conceptual legacies and achievements of ‘Socrates’ and the ‘Socratic Discourse’, his star pupil ‘Plato’ and the universal man ‘Aristotle’, all winningly balanced with a balancing sidebar autobiography in ‘Know My Self’ plus some cogent observations and a few comparisons with the Eastern philosophy of ‘Unity’â€¦

‘Medieval Philosophy’ deals with the influence of the Christian Church on ‘Augustine’ and ‘Thomas Aquinas’, the â€œGreat Thinkersâ€ of early Europe, examining the warring concepts of ‘Free Will’ and ‘Predestination’ and exploring the lives of ‘Erasmus’ and ‘Humanism’, ‘Descartes’ and his maxim ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ and ‘Spinoza’ whose consummate faith-based dictum was ‘Know Thyself’â€¦

The charming, beguiling foundation course continues with ‘What is Reality?‘ bringing us up to the modern age with ‘And Now’ with another brilliantly clever diversion as de Heer includes the ‘Personal Philosophies’ of families and friends.

Her husband – and this book’s colourist – Yiri bases his outlook on the incredible life of outrageous comedian ‘George Carlin’, her aged friend Gerrit looks to ‘Nietzsche’, mother-in-law Yolanda modelled herself on Cambridge lecturer and intellectual ‘George Steiner’ whilst De Heer’s little brother Maarten prefers to shop around picking up what he needs from thinkers as varied as ‘Aldous Huxley’ to cartoonist ‘Marten Toonder’ as well as bravely putting her money where her mouth is and revealing her own thoughts on Life, the Universe and Everything and asking again ‘What Do You Think?’â€¦

This is a truly sharp and witty book – and the first of a trilogy that will also deal with Religion and Science – which splendidly reduces centuries of contentious pondering, violent discussion and high-altitude academic acrimony to an enthralling, utterly accessible experience any smart kid or keen elder would be happy to experience. Clear, concise, appropriately challenging and informatively funny Philosophy – A Discovery in Comics is a wonder of unpretentious, exuberant graphic craft and a timeless book we can all enjoy.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for anybody with a brain or heartâ€¦ 9/10

October 7, 2012October 6, 2012

The Brave and the Bold volume 2: The Book of Destiny

By Mark Waid, George PÃ©rez, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1838-6 (hc)Â Â 978-1-4012-1861-4 (tpb)

The Book of Destiny is a mystical ledger which charts the history, progress and fate of all Reality and everything in it – except for the four mortals entrusted with its care at the end of The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luckâ€¦

The death-defying Challengers of the Unknown – cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut Prof. Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan – live on borrowed time and were bequeathed the terrifying tome by Destiny of the Endless since their lives are not included within its horrifying pagesâ€¦

After the staggering spectacle of the previous Brave and the Bold story-arc, here Mark Waid, George PÃ©rez and inkers Bob Wiacek & Scott Koblish are joined by co-penciller Jerry Ordway for a stunning sequel featuring most of the DC universeâ€¦

This compilation collects issues #7-12 of the high-energy, all-star revival of the venerable DC title and plays novel games with the traditional team-up format when a mysterious mage begins manipulating heroes and villains in a diabolical alchemical scheme to transform the cosmos foreverâ€¦

Beginning with ‘Scalpels and Chainsaws’ wherein Wonder Woman and the ever-abrasive Power Girl rub each other the wrong way (oh please, what are you, ten!?) whilst tackling an undead invasion, the case takes a strange turn and the Princess of Power accidentally discovers the Caped Kryptonian has been brainwashed into trying to murder her cousin Supermanâ€¦

Their ill-tempered investigations lead to the fabled Lost Library of Alexandria and a disastrous confrontation with the deranged Dr. Alchemy, but he too is only a pre-programmed pawn – of a sinister presence called Megistus – who needs Power Girl to use the mystical artefact known as the Philosopher’s Stone to turn the Fortress of Solitude into pure Red Kryptoniteâ€¦

Thanks to Wonder Woman’s battle savvy, the plot is frustrated and the stone thrown into the sunâ€¦ just as Megistus intendedâ€¦

All this has been read in the mystic chronicle by the Challengers and their fifth member Dr. June Robbins – whose merely mortal existence and eventual doom are tragically recorded in the Book. They rush off to investigate the universe-rending menace even as ‘Wally’s Choice’ brings the Flash and his rapidly aging children Jai and Iris West into unwelcome contact with manipulative genius Niles Caulder and his valiant Doom Patrol. â€œThe Chiefâ€ claims he can cure the twins’ hyper-velocity malady, but Caulder never does anything for selfless reasonsâ€¦

With no other hope, Wally and wife Linda acquiescence to the mad doctor’s scheme which relies on using elemental hero Rex Mason to stabilise their kids’ critical conditions. It might even have worked, had not Metamorpho been mystically abducted mid-process â€“ consequently transforming the children into bizarre amalgams of Negative Man and Robot Manâ€¦

Worst of all, Flash was almost forced to choose which child to save and which should dieâ€¦

Thinking faster than ever, the Scarlet Speedster beat the odds and pulled off a miracle, but in a distant place the pages of the Book were suddenly possessed and attacked the Challengersâ€¦

‘Changing Times’ featured a triptych of short team-up tales which played out as the Men that History Forgot battled a monster made of Destiny’s pages, beginning as the robotic Metal Men joined forces with young Robby Reed who could become a legion of champions whenever he needed to Dial H for Hero.

Sadly not even genius Will Magnus could have predicted the unfortunate result when crushingly shy robot Tin stuck his shiny digit in the arcane Dialâ€¦

Next, during WWII the combative Boy Commandos were joined by the Blackhawks in battling animated mummies intent on purloining the immensely powerful Orb of Ra from a lost pyramid, after which perpetually reincarnating warrior Hawkman joined substitute Atom Ryan Choi in defending Palaeolithic star-charts from the marauding Warlock of Ys, none of them aware that they were all doing the work of the malignly omnipresent Megistusâ€¦

The fourth chapter paralleled the Challengers’ incredible victory over the parchment peril with a brace of tales which saw the Man of Steel travel to ancient Britain to join heroic squire Brian of Kent (secretly the oppression-crushing Silent Knight) in bombastic battle against a deadly dragon, whilst the Teen Titans‘ second ever case found Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash in Atlantis for the marriage of Aquaman and Mera.

Unfortunately Megistus’ drone Oceanus crashed the party, intent on turning Aqualad into an enslaved route map to the future…

And inCalifornia, the Challengers attempted to save Green Lantern’s Power Battery from being stolen only to find it in the possession of an ensorcelled Metamorphoâ€¦

As the Element Man easily overwhelmed Destiny’s Deputies, Jerry Ordway assumed the penciller’s role for issues #5-6.

‘Superman and Ultraman’ saw the natural enemies initially clash and then collaborate at the behest of an alternate universe’s Mr. Mixyezpitelik, who revealed the appalling scope and nature of Megistus’ supernal transformational ambitions, leading to a gathering of the heroic clans and a blistering Battle Royale in the roaring heart of the Sunâ€¦

With the fate of reality at stake and featuring a veritable army of guest stars ‘The Brave and the Bold’ wrapped up the saga with a terrible, tragic sacrifice from the noblest hero of all, whilst subtly setting the scene for the upcoming Final Crisisâ€¦

With fascinating designs and pencil art from Ordway to tantalise the art lovers, this second captivating collection superbly embodies all the bravura flash and dazzle thrills superhero comics so perfectly excel at. This is a gripping fanciful epic with many engaging strands that perfectly coalesce into a frantic and fabulous free-for-all overflowing with all the style, enthusiasm and sheer exuberant joy you’d expect from the industry’s top costumed drama talents.

The Brave and the Bold: The Book of Destiny is another great story with great art, ideal for kids of all ages to read and re-read over and over again.
Â© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 6, 2012October 5, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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