Marvel Superheroes – Page 54

December 27, 2014June 17, 2014

House of M

By Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1721-6

When mutant Avenger the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision they conceived – through the agency of magic and Wanda Maximoff”s undiagnosed ability to reshape reality – twin boys.

Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real and, as the years passed, the shock of that revelation slowly drove her insane.

After tipping completely over the edge Wanda engineered the destruction of her other family – the vast and varied assemblage of the Avengers – orchestrating the death of her former husband and some of their oldest friends.

The World’s Mightiest Heroes were shut down and rebooted in a highly controversial storyline known as Avengers Disassembled, which resulted in the formation of both The New and Young Avengers. That publishing event also spilled over into the solo titles of team members and affiliated comicbooks such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man, which all ran parallel story-arcs to accompany the main attraction.

The tale told of the worst day in the Avenger’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest companions and causing the destruction of everything they held dear. The chaos-storm was only ended when mystic master Doctor Strange and mutant patriarch Charles Xavier took the dazed and crazed Wandainto their personal protective care.

This follow-up company crossover conjunction – by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel & Tim Townsend and released originally and primarily as an 8-issue miniseries from August to November 2005 – saw reality rewritten again when Wanda apparently had another major lapse in concentration; reformatting history such that Homo Superior now dominated a society where mere humans (â€œsapiensâ€) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

Moreover her true father Magneto ruled the mutants; regal head of a glorious dynasty which exerted political control over the entire planet.

It took a dedicated band of heroes and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle, but the repercussions of the repair job were both profound and world-changingâ€¦

Re-presenting the core fortnightly miniseries House of M, and The Pulse: Special Edition, this collection also contains covers and variants by Esad Ribic, Joe Quesada & Danny Miki, Terry & Rachel Dodson, John Cassaday, Brandon Peterson, Mike McKone, Greg Land & Matt Ryan, Salvador Larroca, Chris Bachalo, Joe Madureira, Tim Townsend & Olivier Coipel, and The Pulse – an inspired 12 page faux issue of M-world’s top mutant gossip mag, which offers engaging and pertinent snippets of congruent stories in other titlesâ€¦

Following a handy scene-setting recap page the drama begins in devastated former mutant homeland Genosha, where Xavier is at last forced to admit that his psychic surgeries are not helping Wanda.

The desire to restore her non-existent children is too strong and the traumatised Scarlet Witch constantly tinkers with reality to make her dreams real. After much impassioned debate with her despondent father Magneto and brother Quicksilver, Professor X finally weighs up the horrific potential consequences and considers other optionsâ€¦

Meanwhile in New York Wonder Man, Ms. Marvel and The Falcon visit the New Avengers at Stark Tower preparatory to the latest assemblage going public. Thus they are on hand when the X-Men come calling: rallied by Xavier to discuss the final fate and disposition of the Scarlet Witch.

In Genosha her father and brother argue on: one seeing no option but the final sanction and the other determined that Wanda must not die.

Opinion is just as divided amongst Avengers and X-Men. Unable to reach a decision, the huge group opt to visit Wanda and try to get through to her one last time.

By the time they reach Genosha she has vanished. Fearing the world might end at any second they frantically search until they are all consumed by a blinding lightâ€¦

The second chapter begins in a very different New York, where decrepit nonagenarian war hero Steve Rogers draws a well deserved pension, millionaire celebrity Peter Parker, his wife Gwen, son Richie and close relatives May and Ben Parker all live in lofty luxury and teeming billions of mutants run the world, safeguarded and policed by colossal robotic Sentinelsâ€¦

All the heroes who sought out the Witch now live perfect lives that match their deepest, most secret hearts’ desires, but there is a painful undercurrent of tension amongst the rapidly declining, soon to be extinct Homo Sapiensâ€¦

Wolverine awakes screaming. His greatest desire has always been to recover his lost memories: destroyed and discarded by more than a century of brainwashing, mind-wiping and intervention by a succession of sinister enemies. As consciousness returns he remembers everything.

Especially how a moment ago the world was completely differentâ€¦

In this new universe he is leader of an elite team of mutant peacekeepers. The Red Guard are the prime enforcers of the House of M and agents of the Royal Family of Magneto: de facto rulers of Earth.

Appalled he leaps from the ominous floating aircraft carrier dominating New York and plunges to Earthâ€¦

Healing factor in overdrive he then lurches through the streets of the city searching for Xavier and a solution to this insurmountable problem. Hard on his heels are his former subordinates in the Red Guard, all convinced their formerly ruthlessly rational commander has gone crazy.

In his frantic flight, the desperate fugitive stumbles into other-world old comrade Luke Cage who is, in this place, a cunning gangster leading a band of human rebels fighting mutant oppression. Shockingly, amongst his motley crew is masked archer Hawkeye – one of the cruellest casualties of the Scarlet Witch’s first killing spreeâ€¦

Playing with his grandchild in the idyllic paradise of Genosha, Magneto is unaccountably troubled at the perfection of his existence even as, in New York, Sentinels track and attack Cage’s â€œHuman Avengersâ€. Thanks to teleporter Cloak, Wolverine and a few of the gang escape, taking with them a strange little girl named Layla Miller.

She is a mutant and amongst her arcane and undisclosed power-set is the ability to reawaken a person’s memories of the world Wanda overwroteâ€¦

Convinced Magneto used his crazy daughter to remake the world to his advantage, Wolverine is exultant to have a weapon to offset all the dictator’s advantages and with Cage begins tracking down and restoring former allies.

The game plan remains unchanged: find Xavier and use his telepathic powers to force the Witch to restore the real world.

In Genosha, meanwhile, Magneto again finds himself drawn to the simple tomb of his greatest friend and occasional enemy Charlesâ€¦

The next stage in Wolverine’s campaign is to use his now restored and grimly determined Avenger and X-Men allies to take control of the Helicarrier dominating New York, piloting it to Genosha and engaging the House ofÂ M’s forces as Layla works her own special mutant magic and reawakened mystic master Stephen Strange attempts to deal with Wandaâ€¦

Throughout the horrifying ordeal everybody involved has assumed that Magneto made his daughter reorder reality to suit his dark ambitions, but the magician’s confrontation shockingly reveals a different hand and motive behind the grand change and, as the universe begins to unravel once more, the appalled and furious Master of Magnetism unleashes his own power against the traitor who betrayed his friends, family, species and planetâ€¦

â€¦And at the heart of the chaos and carnage Wanda Maximoff, whether at the peak of her madness or in a chilling moment of clarity, utters three little words.

â€œNo more Mutantsâ€â€¦

Dawn breaks on New York City and all the battered participants at the centre of the apocalyptic struggle awake in their own – as far as they know – proper beds. For those that remember, the world seems back to its true state, but when the shell-shocked protagonists gather together to compare notes they realise some things don’t jibe.

Wolverine still has all the memories of his long and previously clouded life; Wanda has utterly vanished again; there is evidence that Hawkeye might be alive again and, most unbelievable of all, the almost one million members of the mutant sub-species are now just humanâ€¦

Across the Earth less than 200 super-powered Homo Superior remain. Governments are scrabbling to process the fact and form policies whilst the pedagogues of the religious right claim God has smitten the unclean and exhort decent – human – men and women to finish the good workâ€¦

Scientist Henry Pym has an even more chilling warning. Reminding us of Einstein’s dictum â€œEnergy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to anotherâ€, he ominously ponders on where all the powers, radiations and assorted exotic energies formerly wielded by the ex-mutant population have goneâ€¦

Although Marvel continuity was skilfully interwoven throughout the event, this particular tale stands alone perfectly without any need to refer to the many attendant miniseries: offering an engaging, fast-paced thriller brimming with tension and stuffed with bombastic spectacle.

House of M is an action-packed, spectacular adventure that will delight lovers of epic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy and beguile casual readers looking for an easy but enthralling entry into the madcap world of Costumed Dramas.
Â© 2005, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 16, 2014December 16, 2014

X-Men Forever 2: Back in Action

By Chris Claremont, Todd Grummett, Rodney Buchemi & various Terry Austin, Brent Anderson & Joe Rubenstein (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4664-3

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

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 refashioned as a monster fit for the global uptick in scary stories until Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum revived and reordered the Mutant mystique with a brand new team in 1975’s Giant Size X-Men #1.

Old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire joined one-shot Hulk villain Wolverine and all-original creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather â€œgoddessâ€ Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who transformed at will into a living steel Colossus, and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John â€œThunderbirdâ€ Proudstar in a makeshift squad.

Chris Claremont became scripter with the next tale – which saw Thunderbird become the first X-Man to die in action – and the new revision prospered.

It became an unstoppable hit and was soon the company’s most popular and high quality title. In time Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and as the team roster shifted and changed the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark â€œDark Phoenixâ€ storyline which saw the death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character.

In the aftermath team leader Cyclops left and a naive teenaged girl named Kitty Pryde signed up. The stellar saga seemed to fracture the epochal working relationship of Claremont and Byrne, however. Within months of publication they went their separate ways: Byrne moved on to establish his own reputation as a writer on series such as Alpha Flight, Incredible Hulk and especially his revolutionised Fantastic Four, whilst Claremont stayed with the burgeoning mutants’ population.

He only left after scripting the â€œMutant Genesisâ€ storyline in X-Men #1-3 in 1991, at the height of the group’s popularity and following an unbroken sixteen year run. The team carried on evolving, facing crisis after crisis under a number of writers – including on occasion Claremont himself.

However in 2009 the author was offered a unique opportunity, thanks to the concept of Alternate Earths. Although published years later, X-Men Forever was set immediately after Mutant Genesis and ostensibly followed the heroes as Claremont would have written them had he stayedâ€¦

The project turned into a regular series which ran 24 issues (August 2009- July 2010) until a catastrophic climax saw the heroes sacrifice far too much to once more save their worldâ€¦

Collecting X-Men Forever 2 #1-5 – spanning August to October 2010 – this slim chronicle from another universe focuses on a very different squad of heroes, written as ever by Claremont.

The world has recently reeled to the revelation that most mutants suffer from a genetic malady dubbed â€œburnoutâ€. As revealed by Professor X, the condition causing super-powered mutation comes at a price and most meta-gifted Homo Superior will die young: their lifespans curtailed by as much as half due to their genetic advantagesâ€¦

The world became a far deadlier and more desperate place on hearing the news.

Now the Beast is dead and Wolverine has been murdered by Storm. Kitty (AKA Shadowcat) has somehow had one of her beloved mentor’s Adamantium claws grafted to her arm. Nightcrawler Kurt Wagner and Rogue Anna Marie Raven have accidentally traded power-sets.

The aforementioned weather goddess has taken control of African nation Wakanda whilst a pre-teen version of her has replaced her on the team.

Former foe Sabertooth – maimed and blinded – has become an unlikely and still barely trusted recruit and even founding father Charles Xavier is gone: taken by the Shi’ar Empire. Now S.H.I.EL.D. Supremo Nick Fury notionally directs the mutants’ missions.

The remaining still-reeling stalwarts include Cyclops, Gambit and telepath Jean Grey, whilst geneticist Moira MacTaggert struggles to serve as science officer to the still outcast and frequently outlaw organisationâ€¦

The drama commences with ‘A Cry ofâ€¦ Vengeance!’ illustrated by Tom Grummett, Cory Hamscher & Wil Quintana as, following the loss of Hank McCoy and Tony Stark (foiling a plot to eradicate all mutants by secret combine The Consortium), the Avengers arrive at the X-Mansion intent on taking the survivors in for â€œquestioningâ€. The confrontation quickly devolves into all-out war and leads to an horrific explosive tragedyâ€¦

Meanwhile in an Omaha orphanage an old foe prepares for another vile assault on the misunderstood heroesâ€¦

It might well be a wasted effort. When the dust settles at the Xavier place all that the Avengers can see is a colossal three-mile wide crater. The release of power has somehow interacted with the Skrull and Shi’ar technologies cached at the school and detonated with cosmic force.

Nothing remains and the repentant superheroes depart, utterly unaware of the immense scam that has been perpetratedâ€¦

The story resumes ‘Six Weeks Later’ as the world – some of it at least – mourns the loss of the mutant champions. As Earth’s media continually rehashes the events looking for answers and somebody to blame, in Wakanda Queen Perfect Storm rages. Now she will never be able to make Kitty pay for disfiguring her with Wolverine’s transplanted clawâ€¦

With Fury gone, mutant-hating racist Ziggy Trask is elected chief of S.H.I.EL.D., and in Colorado Warren â€œThe Angelâ€ Worthington gathers all the surviving heroes who have worn the â€œXâ€, swearing to keep them safe from an ever-more hostile world.

â€¦And in New York, publisher J. Jonah Jameson despatches journalist Peter Parker to get pictures of the federally embargoed disaster site. Nobody can truly believe the X-Men are gone but even Spider-Man’s notoriously crazy luck and fierce optimism cannot ascertain the true factsâ€¦

Only when Parker is again webswinging through the Big Apple does a truth emerge when he stumbles on a mugging, only to find a woman who looks uncannily like the deceased Nightcrawler foiling the felonsâ€¦

The astounding truth begins to seep out in ‘A Night on the Town!’ ashapeshifting mastermind Mystique tours underworld dives looking for information on her two presumed dead children. At that very moment Spider-Man is confronting one of them exhibiting all the powers of the otherâ€¦

Meanwhile at the geographical location of the X-Mansion – albeit one second out of phase with the universe – Fury, a select team of S.H.I.EL.D. volunteers and the dearly not-departed X-Men are all going frantic. Six weeks of lying low in an adjacent dimension are endangered because Rogue got cabin-fever and lost control of her new teleporting powersâ€¦

From inside their Skrull-enabled, other-dimensional hidey-hole, Cyclops despatches a stealthy retrieval team whilst in Omaha a malign scientist plans to abduct a hero’s surviving relatives, determined not to lose the crucial Summers genesâ€¦

In New York Spider-Man and Anna Marie while way their cares thrashing common thugs but things get nasty quickly when Ziggy Trask’s S.H.I.EL.D. Sentinel mechanoids zero in on the errant mutantâ€¦

Close by, Jean, Kurt and Kitty assess the situation but are ambushed by more murderous robots. As battle is joined they are saved by the heroes they were hunting and Mystique who has a starling offer in mindâ€¦

With art by Rodney Buchemi, Greg Adams & Quintana, ‘Stolen Lives!’ then cuts back to the mansion where Moira and Sabertooth have been kidnapped by Morlocks who have easily traversed the trans-dimensional divide.

Even as Fury and Cyclops dubiously ponder Mystique’s request to join the team the intruders are making their escape, intent on executing their former persecutor and using Moira’s research to stave off their own imminent deaths from mutant burnoutâ€¦

As Agent Daisy Dugan organises a pursuit squad, her boss Fury is interrogating Mystique and learning to his horror for just how many decades the shapeshifter has involved herself in his affairsâ€¦

As Cyclops, Dugan, Kitty and Gambit enter the Morlock tunnels under New York, they are completely unaware that the young version of Storm has followed; intent on proving she is nothing like her treacherous older iteration.

As the heroes close in on the abductors, nobody realises that Trask’s S.H.I.EL.D. goons have targeted all of themâ€¦

Whilst mutants battle each other in ‘Dead Reckoning!’ (Buchemi, Adams & Quintana), back at the mansion Mystique’s debriefing has taken a disturbing turn as Jean is forced to confront her hidden feelings for the murdered Wolverine. In the tunnels the chaotic combat has reached an impasse but the moment when a truce could save them all is lost as Trask’s S.H.I.EL.D. agents burst in. Only some few escape thanks to the intervention of former Morlock leader Callistoâ€¦

Moreover, unless something happens quickly, the X-Men’s hard-won cloak of grave anonymity looks to have disappeared like smoke in the windâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by Tom Grummett, Cory Hamscher, Terry Austin and Quintana, this quixotic mixture of intriguing Might-Have-Beens and exotic action offers all of Claremont’s soap opera bravura whilst displaying a fine sense of having-one’s-cake-and-eating-it-too for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 11, 2014December 10, 2014

X-Force volume 12: Scar Tissue

By Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Emanuela Lupacchino, Pat Davidson, Guillermo Ortega & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4655-1

Since its 1980s debut, X-Factor has been a superbly effective umbrella title for many uniquely off-kilter iterations of Marvel’s mutant phenomena. Indisputably the most impressive and enduring assemblage was created by writer Peter David in 2006; mixing starkly violent suspense with cool detective mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action even whilst slyly and subtly addressing social issues in a regular riot of superbly adult Costumed Drama.

It all began when Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – a veteran of the formerly government-sponsored (and controlled) team – appropriated the name for his own to create the specialist metahuman private detective agency X-Factor Investigations.

Setting up shop in the wake of â€œThe Decimationâ€, which had reduced the world’s mutant population to a couple of hundred empowered individuals and millions of distressingly humanised (ex) Homo Superior, he and a perpetually fluctuating team set out to discover why and how it had happened and, once that was settled, just kept goingâ€¦

This splendid sampling of strange happenings – written as ever by your man David – collecting X-Factor #213-219 (February-July 2011) commences with ‘Keeping Things’, illustrated by Valentine De Landro, Pat Davidson & Jeromy Cox, as the freshly liberated from Asgardian-hell-Niffleheim heroes recuperate in Las Vegas after a nasty brush with Death Goddess Hela.

Braving damnation to rescue obnoxious oik Pip the Troll, the mutants had faced an eternity of undead combat until Armando â€œDarwinâ€ MuÃ±oz stretched his hyper-evolving gift to the utmost and became something far more than mortal to secure their release.

Now he finds that he just does not fit on Earthâ€¦ as a succession of increasingly tense PTSD style confrontations with gamblers, gangsters and even his team-mates proves.

Eventually he takes his leave and walks out into the desert to be aloneâ€¦

The recently rescued troll is eager to take his place, but X-Factor deftly duck him by matter-shifting back to New York, forgetting that the malodorous little troglodyte can teleport too. Pip is resolute in wanting to reward their deeds by serving them, but he actually has a secret boss and private agenda dictating his actionsâ€¦

When mystery-powered mutant Layla Miller, Guido â€œStrong Guyâ€ Carosella, Theresa Rourke Cassidy (AKA Siryn), alien enigmas Longshot and Shatterstar all joined Madrox in his quixotic bid to save the troll, they behind left psionic super-woman Monet St. Croix – who was involved in a private case – and former lovers Rictor and Rahne â€œWolfsbaneâ€ Sinclair.

The latter pair were dealing with the repercussions of Rahne’s swiftly developing pregnancy but Madrox now believes he has some shocking news for the already shell-shocked father-to-be.

Whilst in Niffleheim, Shatterstar (Rictor’s current lover) clashed with deceased wolf-god Hrimhari, where the vulpine zombie claimed Wolfsbane’s condition was his doingâ€¦

Thanks to a prenatal scan Rictor already knows and is dealing with being lied to in an uncharacteristically mature mannerâ€¦

Issue #214 – with art from Emanuela Lupacchino, Guillermo Ortega & Matt Milla – then focuses on Armando as he wanders the wastelands trying to come to terms with his transformation. His solitary ruminations are derailed when a showgirl appears, chased by a colossal dragon.

Stepping in as any hero would, Darwin soon finds himself trapped in a bizarrely off-kilter ghost town facing down a gun-toting angel of death and herald of biblical Armageddon who calls himself â€œTierâ€. The triggerman is straight out of The Book of Revelations and also claims that Rahne is/will be his mother, but the final climactic showdown only leaves more questions than answersâ€¦

De Landro, Davidson &Cox illustrate ‘Stake Out’ as, back in the Big Apple, the detectives are hired to prove that a man’s death-by-vampire attack (the story is set during the crossover event Curse of the Mutants) was more than it appeared. Distraught daughter Adina is convinced that her new stepmother is responsible, but when Layla and Madrox investigate they find a far more complex and chilling scenario in effect: one where all the players are both right and wrong in every aspect of their accusations and suspicionsâ€¦

The remains of this volume focus on the fallout of the aforementioned solo case undertaken by Monet. When the abrasive telepath had agreed to psi-probe a woman plagued by dreams of atrocity she was rather surprised when her mental recalibrations scored a total success. Now the costs of that victory begin to hurt as mentally healed â€œNoelle Blancâ€ tracks down some former army comrades who don’t remember her at allâ€¦

Illustrated by Lupacchino, Ortega & Milla the tale begins to unfold as Mayor J. Jonah Jameson calls in a long-promised favour from Madrox and demands the detectives discover who murdered the former publisher’s oldest friend General Sam Ryanâ€¦

As Spider-Man nosily tries to find out what JJJ’s up to, in Nebraska Noelle has turned a flamethrower on a meek doctor and awoken the dormant memories of another woman soldier transformed by a top-secret military experimentâ€¦

The revelations continue in ‘Deep Scars’ as the cyber-enhanced war-girls go looking for their final comrade – and more revenge – even as Madrox, Rictor, Shatterstar and Longshot investigate the General’s assassination in a graveyard and find a connection to a super-secret projectâ€¦

Back in NYC increasing civil unrest leaves the remaining team-members stuck on bodyguard detail during a street protest, but it’s Jameson’s troubleshooting clandestine employee Black Cat who first discovers Blanc (nee Ballistique) and now un-deprogrammed allies Sylvius and Rococo as they move in to add Jonah to their lengthy list of successful hits. Strangely, though, despite the human weapons wanting the Mayor dead, that’s clearly not their endgameâ€¦

In the ensuing chaotic melee of a manufactured riot Guido goes down and does not get up againâ€¦

The drama continues in ‘Man Down!’ as the riot turns into a bloody debacle and the shooters make their escape. Guido dies on the operating table but incredibly revives later, yet only Layla is not overjoyed at the seeming miracleâ€¦

The drama concludes in ‘Lies, Damned Lies’ as Monet goes crazy, kidnapping the Mayor and compelling him to reveal the truth about Ryan. Years ago the General and scientist Dr. Young Soo Pock conceived a black ops revision to America’s Super Soldier program.

Strategic Capture And Retrieval (or S.C.A.R.s) gave three female volunteers numerous cybernetic enhancements which turned them into unstoppable killers. Sadly it also made them crazy and they began taking mercenary jobs before being caught, decommissioned and given mind-numbing amnesia.

Unfortunately even the US Military had turned the project down from the outset and Ryan had asked his old fried Jameson to fund it. The patriotic fool did and now the S.C.A.R.s girls have their memories back and they want revenge on everybody who messed with themâ€¦

As Layla apologizes to the bewildered Guido for what’s she â€œdone to himâ€ Madrox and the team have tracked down Young Soo Pock, arriving just as the cyber killers are extracting their revenge. A monumental battle ensues, but although Monet mercilessly deals with Ballistique for killing Guido she’s quite happy to let the others goâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by David Yardin & Sonia Oback and ‘Opening the Sketchbook’ – an original-art crammed biography feature on artist Emanuela Lupacchino by John Rhett Thomas – this volume continues a superb run of challenging, compelling, compulsive and supremely scary funny tales, making this iteration of X-Factor the ideal example of mature Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction: utterly indispensable for everyone who needs wit to underpin their superhero soap opera shenanigans.
Â© 2011, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

December 9, 2014December 8, 2014

Invincible Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted volume 2

By Matt Fraction, Salvador Larroca & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3685-9

Supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his 1963 debut when, as a VIP visitor in a conflict zone observing the efficacy of weaponry he had designed, the arch-technocrat wÃ¼nderkind was critically wounded and captured by a local warlord.

Put to work with the spurious promise of medical assistance upon completion, Stark instead built a prototype Iron Man suit to keep his heart beating and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a small jump into a second career as a high-tech Knight in Shining Armourâ€¦

Ever since then the former armaments manufacturer has been a liberal capitalist, eco-warrior, space pioneer, civil servant, Statesman, and even spy-chief: Director of the world’s most scientifically advanced spy agency, the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.

During the time when the Federal initiative known as the Super-Human Registration Act led to Civil War between costumed heroes, Stark was appointed the US government’s Security Czar: – a â€œtop copâ€ in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, tasked with overseeing every aspect of the legislation’s enactment. He became the absolute last word in all matters involving the USA’s vast metahuman communityâ€¦

However his mismanagement of a succession of crises led to the arrest and assassination of Captain America and an unimaginable escalation of global tension and destruction, culminating in a so-nearly successful Secret Invasion by shape-shifting alien Skrulls.

Discredited and ostracised, Stark was replaced by ostensibly rehabilitated super-villain Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin), who assumed full control of America’s covert agencies and paramilitary resources. The ultimate control freak disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed the nation under the aegis of his new umbrella organisation H.A.M.M.E.R.

Publicly acclaimed as a recovering schizophrenic, Osborn was still a deranged monster at his core and craved total power. Intending to appropriate all Stark’s resources, the â€œreformedâ€ villain began stripping all of the ex-Avenger assets; financial, technological and even psychological.

Terrified that not only his weaponry but also the files containing the secret identities of almost all of Earth’s heroes would fall into a ruthless maniac’s hands, Stark systematically erased all his databases and began the process of doing the same with his own memories, effectively lobotomising himself to save everything before going on the run in a hopeless but valiant attempt to give his few remaining allies time to pull off a miracleâ€¦

Concluding the Dark Reign saga ‘World’s Most Wanted’ from Invincible Iron Man #14-19 (August to December 2009), the culmination of the global hunt for the fallen technocrat is crafted by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca (plus colourist Frank D’Armata) and opens here with ‘The Shape of the World These Days’ as the fugitive’s flight to his chain of long-hidden â€œArmoriesâ€ across the planet sees him reverting to ever-earlier iterations of his fabled Iron Man suits as his ability to think diminishes.

Entering Russia clad in his first upgrade of the original mobile iron lung built to save his life, Stark is targeted by missile defences and shot down only to be confronted by old comrade Dmitri Bukharin wearing the Soviet-era war-suit known as Crimson Dynamo.

Over in New Jersey, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s last deputy director Maria Hill is on the run from H.A.M.M.E.R. forces and not that far away Stark’s trusted CEO Pepper Potts – using her own Osborn-embargoed armour codenamed Rescue – detects the use of StarkTech and heads for Russiaâ€¦

Tony needs to get to Kirensk but knows he would be easily spotted by H.A.M.M.E.R. satellite surveillance and thus trades armour with Dmitri even as Pepper breaks her Cease-&-Desist order and jets to Eastern Europe. As expected Osborn easily spots her and demands that Russia grant his forces leave to enter their territory. High-ranking Colonel Dmitri Bukharin gleefully refusesâ€¦

In New York, Hill has made contact with another trusted ally of Iron Man, even as Stark heads deeper inland. High above the snowy wastes Rescue intercepts him, unaware that, his memory riddled with holes, her friend, employer and occasional lover does not recognise her.

The Crimson Dynamo’s attack brings them both explosively to earth even as another ex-lover surreptitiously lines up her sniper rifle. International criminal Madam Masque is Osborn’s willing ally, ready to end Stark as soon as America’s Chief of Homeland Security gives her the wordâ€¦

‘The Danger We’re All In’ sees Hill rendezvousing with the Black Widow in New York, desperately trying to pass on the enigmatic computer drive Stark begged her to get to new Captain America Bucky Barnes whilst in Russia Tony and Pepper’s enforced romantic interlude is interrupted by Masque. As H.A.M.M.E.R. agents ambush the frantic spies in America, half a world away Masque works out some major unresolved issues by torturing Tony’s new girlfriend while he’s out getting firewoodâ€¦

When Stark returns Masque’s passions switch from hatred to something else, giving Pepper time to activate the Rescue suit in ‘Titan of the Nuclear Age’. Osborn meanwhile is starting to come unglued waiting for news, but he’s probably better off not knowing how his agent’s obsession has resulted in a cataclysmic battle and shattering detonation in Kirenskâ€¦

In New York the Widow has stashed her exhausted companion in a safe place whilst she tries to discover what’s so important about the Stark drive, but H.A.M.M.E.R.’s influence is everywhere and even her most secure contacts can no longer be trustedâ€¦

Clad once again in his archaic Mark 4 suit, ‘Ashes and Snow’ finds Tony Stark flying towards Afghanistan and the site of his original iron apotheosis. His mind is all but gone and he’s running on instinct and sheer determination now. He’s completely unaware that Madame Masque has crawled out of the wreckage of his penultimate Armory and is informing Osborn that she will be returning to America. Potts is dead and the Rescue armour is now a much prized spoil of warâ€¦

Sensing victory, Osborn despatches a H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier to Russia to pick up his agent, smugly brushing aside Russian protests even as his stateside operatives close in on Hill and the Widow. However their arrest catches the attention of a certain Star Spangled Avengerâ€¦

As the once brilliant and mighty Stark enters the war-torn region he’s been so eager to reach, the nearly completely mind-wiped Iron Man is blasted from the sky by a rocket propelled grenadeâ€¦

‘Kids with Guns vs. the Eternal Angel of Death’ begins with the diminished inventor staggering into the cave lab where he and Chinese scientist Ho Yinsen first built the Iron Man so many years ago. As he reviews the original suit cached there he is interrupted by the boy warriors who shot him down and forced to brutally confront his many sins as a red-handed weaponsmithâ€¦

Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of H.A.M.M.E.R., Mariah Hill and Black Widow discover they have a most unexpected ally as they make a concerted break for freedom, whilst elsewhere in the organisation Osborn’s rollercoaster mental state is forcing more than one dedicated agent to reconsider their own loyaltiesâ€¦

As part of his takeover Osborn co-opted all Stark’s incredible war-suits, even repurposing one for his own use as the â€œIron Patriotâ€, but as Hill and Widow break out a devastating virus attacks all the confiscated StarkTechâ€¦

‘Into the White (Einstein on the Beach)’ details the conclusion of Stark’s quest and his greatest triumph as the former genius, now little more than an animated vegetable clad in his very first iron suit, faces Osborn wearing the most sophisticated armour Tony has ever designed.

He engages his merciless adversary in pointless, futile battle, being brutally smashed to bloody smears, whilst back in America his faithful allies have retrieved the drive from Osborn’s citadel and laid the groundwork for the exultant maniac’s ultimate defeatâ€¦

Of course Stark will never know. Before he was battered into a Persistent Vegetative State by Osborn, his last memories faded, leaving nothing of his former selfâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

The tumultuous tome is rounded out with covers & variants by Larocca and Christopher Jones plus a number of the former’s unfinished pencil/ink art pages from this stunning, astoundingly engrossing thriller which will equally delight those seeking more cinema-style spectacle as well as print-based Fights ‘n’ Tights fans of the comic incarnation.
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

December 5, 2014December 4, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man: The Parker Luck

By Dan Slott, Christos Gage, Joe Caramagna, Humberto Ramos, Javier Rodriguez, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Chris Eliopoulos, Victor Olazaba & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

ISBN: 978-1-84653-612-0
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a classic return and reinvention â€¦ 8/10

Outcast, geeky school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s neglect his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need.

For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foeâ€¦

In 2013 Amazing Spider-Man #700 saw all that was Peter die when Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind was locked into the villain’s expiring body where, despite his every effort, at the last apparently Parker perished with and within that decrepit frame.

Installed in a strong and vital body, the coldly calculating Doctor Octopus began living his enemy’s life, albeit with some minor but most necessary alterations, upgrades and improvements: arguably becoming a wholly Superior Spider-Manâ€¦

Octavius’ monomania proved hard to suppress and the overwritten webspinner was driven to prove himself a better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and methodology with millions of spying â€œSpiderbotsâ€ to patrol â€œhisâ€ city, adding advanced tech and new weaponry to his uniform and, most importantly, acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as his predecessor hadâ€¦

Arrogant Otto went back to college because he refused to live his stolen life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson. The ultra-efficient new Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the hero – all but adopting the Astounding Arachnid as his deputy – but the situation could not last.

As Spider-Man ambitiously extended his campaign of 21^st century crime-fighting â€œParkerâ€ won a doctorate and opened his own tech company whilst entering into a romance with brilliant college Teaching Assistant Anna Maria Marconi.

The self-appointed guardian increasingly monitored his metropolis through the electronic eyes of millions of spiderbots from his citadel on the renamed Spider Island II, but when resurgent criminal mastermind Goblin King (former Green Goblin Norman Osborn) tried to take over the city with his Goblin Army Cult the resultant clash gave the dormant but indomitable personality of Peter Parker a chance to fight free.

Dramatically reclaiming his body and place in the world he ended the Goblin threat but not before the immense destruction trashed his good name and reputation with the people he had savedâ€¦

Moreover, now that he’s back Peter still he has to deal with all the incredible changes in his personal life created by his gone-but-not-forgotten foeâ€¦

Scripted by Dan Slott and illustrated by Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba, The Parker Luck collects issues #1-6 of Amazing Spider-Man volume 3 (cover-dated June-November 2014), delivering a bold fresh start that begins with a revised view of the hero’s origin in ‘Lucky to be Alive’.

It turns out that when that fateful radioactive spider attacked the nerdy science student thirteen years previously it didn’t die immediately. In fact it managed to sink its fangs into another youngster before expiringâ€¦

Back in the present the reinvigorated Spider-Man is back in the swing of things and having the most embarrassing day of his life. Attempting to capture The Menagerie (a gang of fauna-themed thieves comprising White Rabbit, Hippo, Pandamania and Skein) the hero barely manages to incapacitate them before the fabric-dissolving felon previously known as Gypsy Moth disintegrates his costumeâ€¦

Although he is quick enough to rescue his identity-shielding mask he’s far too late to save his dignity, and the world – thanks to the magic of camera phones and the internet – gets to see far more of the hero than they might have wanted. Luckily he had presence of mind enough to use his webbing to whip up a pair of modesty preserving (sort of) silk pantsâ€¦

Heading back to the apartment he doesn’t remember buying, Parker finds Anna Marie waiting. He’s been trying to find a way to end their engagement but although she’s already found his â€œdump the girlfriendâ€ notes she has other things on her mind now.

Watching the battle against the Menagerie online she saw something only she might recognise and realised her boyfriend was Spider-Man.

She was still at this point utterly unaware that she had actually fallen for Otto Octavius in that distinctive if borrowed body, and the man currently in her life quite sensibly considered her to be a complete stranger.

Unable to dissuade her from her conclusions, Peter comes clean and gains a new – if now strictly platonic – ally.

Barely in time too, as the webbing he used to save the world’s blushes had been previously improved by Ock and just won’t dissolve like his old formulation used toâ€¦

Immediately prior to his cascade of crises, Peter had held his first press conference as the boss of a major tech company and officially severed the outfit’s previously-trumpeted association with Spider-Man, but couldn’t understand why all his employees were terrified of him.

It was already turning into that kind of day whilst elsewhere more trouble brewedâ€¦

Super-menace Electro is currently (get it?) on a rampage. Thanks to the Superior Spider-Man monkeying with his brain, high-voltage villain Max Dillon had lost control of his powers and become an uncontrollable danger to himself and everyone around him.

Elsewhere former Mayor Jameson reels in fury. Thanks to his association with the Superior Spider-Man and resultant destruction to the city he has had to resign and even his beloved Daily Bugle now wants nothing to do with himâ€¦

The first of a selection of sidebar shorts returns to Electro’s dilemma in ‘Recapturing That Old Spark’ (Slott with Christos Gage, illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez) as fugitive felon Max Dillon, stung by the taunts of a new generation of costumed criminals, attempts to reclaim his fearsome reputation by springing every super-villain held in an upstate maximum security prison.

Unfortunately, thanks to the illicit brain surgery of â€œSpider-Manâ€, he can no longer control his power and, in the resultant meltdown, fries the entire institution. In the horrific aftermath fully half the staff and inmates are dead and Electro swears to make the Wallcrawler payâ€¦

The first consequence of his actions is seen in ‘Crossed Paths’ (Slott, Gage, Giuseppe Camuncoli, John Dell & Cam Smith) as the botched break allows inmate Felicia Hardy to escape incarceration. The Black Cat was a high end thief who had an on-again, off-again affair with the original Spider-Man, but the Octavius iteration betrayed her, outed her and jailed her.

With her identity exposed she lost everything, especially her anonymity and aura of infallibility so she too wants revengeâ€¦

Wrapping up all the extra features is humorous vignette ‘How My Stuff Works’ by Joe Caramagna & Chris Eliopoulos; providing a deceptively sharp, palate-cleansing glimpse at the webslinger’s powers and gimmicks before more fresh hells start unfoldingâ€¦

The drama continues with a teasing prelude set in an opulent bunker where a young woman with all Spider-Man’s powers and more whiles away her days before segueing back to Peter’s apartment where he and Anna Maria have reached an unconventional, cards-on-the-table accommodationâ€¦

Elsewhere in the city Dillon visits his last friend with tragic repercussions and sometime later Spider-Man, still suffering the embarrassing after-effects of super-webbing underpants, finally has something go his way when The Avengers – after corroborating his incredible explanation – readmit him to the teamâ€¦

Later however at Parker Industries, a new problem arises when unscrupulous colleague Sajani Jaffrey informs him that the company’s most promising line of research is going down the tubes. Peter’s problem is that robotic nanites were the speciality of Octavius and young Doctor Parker is completely out of his depth. Thankfully Anna Maria has a way of fixing the problem whilst saving the kid’s face.

Too soon, though, things get very dark when Electro goes on a Spider-hunting rampage. After a destructive but inconclusive clash with the bad guy and subsequent sobering pep talk with old frenemy Johnny Storm, Parker then announces that his company is shifting priorities and will put all its efforts into creating super-villain containment facilities and perhaps even curesâ€¦

Whilst in her secret bunker Cindy Moon once again fails to escape back to the real world, on the Upper West Side the Black Cat luxuriates in her return to criminality and, in a grimy building in Alphabet City, Electro fumes, flares and goes even more madâ€¦

Parker’s old and new worlds collide when he takes a team of boffins to the site of Electro’s latest trauma and meets again fireman Pedro Olivera – the new boyfriend of his old flame Mary Jane Watson.

The situation in Alphabet City escalates and as buildings burns Spidey and Pedro become fast friends: a sight missed by Jonah Jameson who has been forced to swallow both pride and principles and start work as a presenter on infotainment network The Fact Channel.

As the Wallcrawler and Pedro clear a blazing warehouse, Black Cat ambushes her former lover using her â€œbad luck powersâ€ and the heroes barely escape with their lives.

In her smug retreat however Felicia stumbles over the mentally unstable Dillon and recruits a dangerous but determined allyâ€¦

Days pass and as Parker increasingly creeps out his bewildered employees trying to be their friend, Sanjani realises she has to do something drastic. When he’s not harassing the peons, her formerly manically focused boss is frequently missing and she’s fed up with Marconi covering for himâ€¦

This fourth issue and the next one are part of the monumental Original Sin crossover event and finds our hero desperately trying to convince every costumed crusader he knows that all his recent behaviours were caused by Doc Ock when the world changes foreverâ€¦

Spider-Man is at ground zero when rapidly mutating maniac The Orb detonates a bomb full of all humanity’s deepest secrets and thus suddenly knows everything about Cindy Moonâ€¦

Hurtling across town to the bunker she’s been pent in for thirteen years, Peter runs into a recorded message from deceased Spider-Shaman Ezekiel Sims (see Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home)â€¦

He first met the frustratingly enigmatic old man with spider-powers whilst being stalked by an immortal, man-shaped beast named Morlun. The supernal horror fed on superheroes but far preferred the ancient and totemic animal spirits which forced or enabled the creation of so many champions and monsters throughout Earth’s long history. Exactly like the one which had actually given Parker his own iteration of the eternal Spider force, in factâ€¦

Breaking into the bunker Peter is promptly attacked by the half-crazed Cindy, who was incarcerated unhappily but more or less willingly. When she first developed her own powers Ezekiel sought her out her and convinced her she could only be safe behind the cloaking defences of his technological hideaway.

When Peter explains that he’s already killed Morlun she calms down and exultantly creates a new identity for herself. Within moments Spider-Man and Silk are swinging joyously from the rooftops.

â€¦And on the other side of the world, a patient monster smiles, having finally scented the â€œspider-brideâ€ he’s been waiting so long forâ€¦

As they speed across town Peter realises that not only is his companion faster and stronger than he is with a far more effective Spider sense, but she can also generate webbing from within her body naturallyâ€¦

His idle speculations end when they arrive at her parent’s place only to discover that the Moons are long gone. In trying to console Cindy Pete then lets slip that Morlun has died twice and she explodes in terror and anger. Furiously pointing out that it only proves that the beast can come back from the dead, she concludes correctly that the horror is probably already coming for themâ€¦

Their argument escalates into savage combat but at the height of the battle a different passion overwhelms them bothâ€¦

Part five begins as vengeance-obsessed Felicia makes her next move by viciously ousting super thug The Eel and taking over his gang and rackets. As she carves out a place in New York’s criminal hierarchy, at the Fact Channel Jonah is ignominiously and incestuously arranging his first scoop by investigating on air the plans of his â€œbrother-in-lawâ€ Peter Parker (Aunt May having recently married Jonah’s father, of courseâ€¦).

Barely able to keep their sticky hands off each other, Cindy and Peter are fortuitously interrupted by Anna Maria who promptly drags him off to the studio in hopes that he can salvage the plummeting reputation of Parker Industries, but that possibility seems shot all to hell when Black Cat and Electro attack the set. Sadly for them they weren’t expecting two spectacular Spider peopleâ€¦

Driven away, the crazed outlaws regroup for one final attempt at revenge but their shattering ambush is turned against them in the blockbusting, battle-frenzied finale which sees Silk and Spider-Man triumph over impossible odds and start to take control of their fatefully intertwined livesâ€¦

This astoundingly absorbing chronicle tome includes a monolithic covers-&-variants gallery of 60 stunning images (including many preproduction sketches and pencil/ink art examples) by Ramos, Edgar Delgado, Alex Ross, Terry Dodson, Mike Perkins, John Romita Sr., Marcos Martin, Pop Mahn, Neal Adams, Jerome OpeÃ±a, John Cassaday, Kevin Maguire, J. Scott Campbell, Barry Bradfield, Adi Granov, Chris Samnee, Dale Keown, Kevin Nowlan, Mico Suayan, Greg Horn, Ed McGuinness, Simone Bianchi, Mike Deodato, Tim Sale, Frank Cho, Stephanie Hans, Skottie Young, Nick Bradshaw, Steve Epting, Luke Ross and John Tyler Christopher, and come with AR icon sections – Marvel Augmented Reality App pages providing access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Sensational, spectacular and indeed amazing, The Parker Luck brilliantly mixes outrageous fun and bombastic action with irresistible soap opera tension to recharge the batteries of comics’ most misunderstood hero and lay the groundwork for further enticing and unmissable perils, tragedies and triumphs in the days to come.

To Be Continuedâ€¦
â„¢ & Â© 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.

December 1, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy: Guardians Disassembled

By Brian Michael Bendis, Dan Slott, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Nick Bradshaw , Jason Masters, Todd Nauk, Cameron Stewart, David Marquez, Michael Oeming , Paolo Siqueira, Ronan Cliquet de Oliveira, Phil Jimenez, Dexter Soy, Gerardo Sandoval & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-636-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fabulous Fun for Cosmic Connoisseursâ€¦ 7/10

A few years ago a plethora of cosmic crises forced the champions and remnants of many heroic races to band together and save the cosmos. Although said crises were largely averted, some of those Sentinels of the Spaceways eventually got their band back together, determined to keep the universe a safe place. After a lot of quibbling they finally agreed to call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The boisterous, officially unaligned rabble were led by a half-breed Terran who was revealed to be the unloved son of J’Son of Spartax – undisputed ruler of an aggressively militaristic interstellar empire – and no friend of Earthâ€¦

Peter Quill AKA Star-Lord was aided in pacifying an unruly and increasingly martial universe by Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Racoon, Groot, Gamora (â€œDeadliest Woman in the Galaxyâ€) and extra-dimensional new recruit Angela whilst staying one step ahead of the militaristic Spartoi and their alliesâ€¦

The self-appointed Guardians’ ongoing troubles stem from a recent compact of major interstellar powers and principalities. This coterie of rulers had formed a Council of Galactic Empires and unilaterally declared Earth â€œoff limitsâ€; quarantined from all extraterrestrial contact, but that high-minded declaration hadn’t stopped some of the signatories from breaking their own embargo or being mightily ticked off whenever Quill’s crew kicked them off Terra and back into space.

Not long ago the situation worsened when Emperor Kallark of the Shi’ar (AKA alien superman Gladiator) informed his kingly colleagues that Jean Grey – former host to the overweening Phoenix Force – was back from the dead and he was going to try her for her crimesâ€¦ even though, as a chronally displaced child, she hadn’t technically committed them yetâ€¦

With the Guardians’ timely assistance this venture led to another galling debacle and defeat for the Shi’ar by Earth’s X-Men. Individually every leader of the Council had reason to want the Guardians dead and thus they singly opened covert operations against them. Cold and distant J-Son, of course, had his own good – if undisclosed – reasons for wanting his son curbed and controlled, if not deadâ€¦

This treasury of space terrors and attendant sidebar tales collects Free Comic Book Day: Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 #14-17 and Captain Marvel volume 7 #1 spanning June-September 2014, plus pertinent historic material from Amazing Spider-Man #654 (April 2011) augmenting and clarifying the big screen experience for new readers who might not know as much about the latest Earth-born addition to the squad whilst providing an immense amount of spectacularly bombastic fighting fun for all.

Following a most useful recap page, further enticing background is provided by ‘Welcome to the Guardians of the Galaxy’ by Brian Michael Bendis, Nick Bradshaw, Scott Hanna & Morrie Hollowell (from Free Comic Book Day: Guardians of the Galaxy #1, July 2014) as erstwhile Guardian Tony Stark runs down the history and capabilities of the stellar centurions before offering paraplegic war veteran Eugene â€œFlashâ€ Thompson his vacated place on the teamâ€¦

The story picks up in GotG #14 with the soldier – in his transmorphic guise of Agent Venom – beginning his tour of duty by visiting an armaments fair on crossroads world Knowhere with the intention of upgrading his weapons. The culture-shocked earthling is accompanied and watchdogged by resurrected (and cosmically reconstructed) fellow Earther Draxâ€¦

Whilst Flash is gone, however, the assembled forces of the Council strike, overwhelming the Guardian’s ship and capturing the skeleton crew aboardâ€¦

As Star-Lord awakens in custody on Spartax, elsewhere Gamora is ambushed by a bounty hunter she previously humiliated. Hauled off to Moord, homeworld of the Brotherhood of Badoon, she fully expects to die; but not soon and certainly not quietly.

On Knowhere, another sneak attack captures Drax despite Venom’s every effort to save his new comrade, and on a cell in Spartax, J-Son confronts his wayward heir with the (utterly erroneous) fact that nobody can save the Guardians now, before disclosing just what he needs from his sonâ€¦

The second chapter (with additional art by Cameron Stewart) opens with Rocket under the scalpels of questing Kree vivisectionists, even as Gamora is being tortured to death by a legion of Badoon monsters on Moord. Drax awakens on a Shi’ar space station and finds himself on trial by Kallark for daring to aid the X-Men. The grizzled warrior’s only response is to challenge Gladiator to a duelâ€¦

Back on Knowhere Thompson is relieved to be rescued by a team of Avengers but soon smells a rat and discovers he has fallen into the shape-shifting hands of a band of Skrulls intent on separating him from the alien Symbiote which provides all his powers. In deep space the malevolent Brood, having tired of their examinations of Groot, jettisoned the tree being into space to fall blazing into the atmosphere of searing, arid hellworld Rigel 8.

Negotiations having stalled on Spartax, Peter Quill tells dad exactly what he thinks of him before leaping to his death out of a skyscraping citadel windowâ€¦

Issue #16 (illustrated by Bradshaw, David Marquez & Jason Masters) furiously follows up as the tide finally turns in favour of the hard-pressed heroes. As the Skrulls fatefully learn the folly of messing with a symbiote and its chosen host, Gladiator at last gives Drax the death match he’s been demanding and on Moord inexplicably absent cosmic hunter Angela locates her missing partner-in-carnage Gamora. The resultant loss of (Badoon) life is incomprehensibleâ€¦

Plunging to his death on Spartax, Quill is plucked from disaster by the just-in-time intergalactic Avenger Carol Danvers – a feat he smugly claims prior knowledge of – and discloses that his revelatory conversations with J-Son have been broadcast to the entire populace. With the whole empire aware of their ruler’s plans for – and opinions of – his subjects, rebellion begins to shake the homeworldâ€¦

In a far distant place the strategically savvy Kree Supreme Intelligence realises the tables have turned and orders his researchers to put Rocket back together, speculating that perhaps it’s time for the cagily conservative pragmatists to consider their options with the impossibly formidable Quill and Coâ€¦

With art by Bradshaw and Michael Avon Oeming, the Guardians portion of the collection concludes as Star-Lord and Danvers escape Spartax and begin rounding up their errant membership, assisted by freely offered intel from the Kree Supremor. However many – especially Groot and Rocket – are neither whole nor heartyâ€¦

Only one member remains missing and the reunited team wearily make their way to Knowere to begin their search for Agent Venomâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

The remainder of this sterling chronicle offers a delightful plethora of additional insights and personal exploits beginning with the lowdown on Flash Thompson’s unique association with one of the most terrifying creatures in the universeâ€¦

‘Rebirth’ by Dan Slott, Paolo Siqueira, Ronan Cliquet de Oliveira & Greg Adams first appeared as a back-up in the monster-sized Amazing Spider-Man #654.

Once upon a time Spider-Man spawned an implacable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with the alien entity Parker brought back from the Secret Wars.

The â€œhigh-tech smart-suitâ€ was in fact a semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote and almost ended up possessing and consuming the horrified hero until Parker escaped and destroyed it. Or so he thoughtâ€¦

Brock willing joined with the creature to become a savage, shape-changing, dark-side version of the Wallcrawler, but after numerous spectacular clashes, the arachnid adversaries eventually reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became a â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

Since then many other hosts have bonded with the ebony parasite, including Brock’s wife Ann Weying, Mac Gargan AKA the Scorpion, and even Franklin Richards and other members of the Fantastic Four.

Eventually the Government took control of the Symbiote and in this terse tale we see how the military then offered it – with many strings attached – to Flash Thompson: Spider-Man’s greatest fan and a war-hero who came back from Afghanistan without his legs.

A recovering alcoholic, Eugene became the star of a military black-ops operation which uses the Symbiote to carry out under-the-radar missions vital to US security.

In return, Thompson gets to be a hero (of sorts), feel useful again, serve his country and get out of his wheelchair prison for 48 hours at a time. Agent Venom even became a Secret Avenger, serving directly under Steve Rogers.

Of course there were drawbacks: the parasite is a voracious deadly menace, constantly seeking to permanently bond to its wearer, and is classed as one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. If the new Venom should go berserk or if the human host stays bonded for more than 48 hours, his war-room controllers will simply detonate explosives attached to Thompson’s body and start the project over with another volunteer. It’s what they had to do with the previous wearer, after allâ€¦

This is followed by the untitled story of how Avenger Carol Danvers finally deems herself worthy of her universe-saving predecessor and accepts the mantle of Captain Marvel (Captain Marvel volume 7 #1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick & Dexter Soy).

The process involves a titanic struggle against the Absorbing Man, a pithy pep talk from Sentinel of Liberty Captain America, mild mockery from Spider-Man and the funeral of her greatest inspiration before the cosmic champion heads of to the stars and a rendezvous with Star-Lordâ€¦

A fascinating peek into the â€œchildhoodâ€ of an iconic star comes next as Andy Lanning, Phil Jimenez, Livesay & Antonio Fabela take us to Planet X to tell ‘Groot’s Tale’ before the marvellous madness ends with a tantalising glimpse of Things to Come as Dan Abnett, Gerardo Sandoval & Rachelle Rosenberg visit Earth circa 3014 and reintroduce Arnold Drake, Gene Colan & Steve Gerber’s original Guardians of the Galaxy in ‘Fight for the Future’.

As â€œoldest Earthman aliveâ€ Vance Astro, Jovian militia-man Charlie-27, crystalline scientist Martinex, Centauri warrior shaman Yondu and all knowing space god Starhawk brutally demolish a Badoon concentration camp on conquered planet Terra, they are searching for one particular prisoner: young Geena Drake whom the portents show holds the fate of humanity in her scabby teenaged handsâ€¦

Thrilling, edgy and ferociously fast-paced, this spectacularly seductive tome also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Bradshaw, Ed McGuinness, Mark Farmer, Justin Ponsor, Joe Quesada, Dexter Vines, Javier Rodriguez, Adi Granov and Alvara plus a bunch of electronic extra attractions provided by AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) offering access to story bonuses and background bumph once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ & Â© 2011, 2012, 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.

November 29, 2014

Silver Surfer: New Dawn

By Dan Slott, Michael and Laura Allred & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-617-5

Although pretty much a last minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s scintillating Silver Surfer quickly became a watchword for quality, depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe and thus a character Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Tasked with finding planets for space god Galactus to consume, and despite the best efforts of intergalactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, one day the Silver Surfer arrived on Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakened his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his voracious master and help the FF save the world.

In retaliation, Galactus imprisoned his former herald on Earth, making him the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his supreme sacrifice.

In 1968, after increasingly frequent guest-shots, the exiled Norrin Radd finally got his own title and quickly became an icon of the counterculture: a questing, misunderstood seeker of truths and allegorical Christ-figure, exposing through his own suffering Man’s dual nature of noble sacrifice and ingrained inhumanity to and intolerance of just about everythingâ€¦

The isolated alien’s travails and social observations elevated him to a metaphoric status for an audience which was maturing and rebelling against America’s creaking and unsavoury status quo, but years passed, times changed and eventually the Shining Skyrider escaped his terrestrial trap; returning to the stars and becoming a stellar crusader and restless explorer of infinity.

Now after numerous sidereal sea-changes he’s back in a gloriously light, bright and witty fantasy setting, courtesy of writer Dan Slott and artist Michael Allred (with colours as always by Laura Allred and letters from VC’s Clayton Cowles), which deliciously rekindles the sheer wonder of the multiverseâ€¦

Collecting issues #1-5 of Silver Surfer volume 7 (May to September 2014) and a teaser tale from All-New Marvel Now! Point One, the mind-expanding begins twelve years ago in ‘The Most Important Person in the Universe’ on a night when twin girls unknowingly wished upon the scintillant stratospheric Silver Surfer, thinking him a poor lonely shooting star burning out as it crashed to earth.

Outgoing and gregarious Eve certainly fulfilled her casual whim, becoming a globe-girdling nomad, spending her days as a living advert for her dad’s New England guest-house in timeless, unchanging idyllic Anchor Bay.

Introverted sister Dawn stayed behind, reluctant to ever leave her paradisiacal homeâ€¦

Today, in the depths of space, Norrin is performing another act of benevolent mercy, eager as ever to atone for the uncountable lives he ended as Galactus’ food-finding scout. As he completes his task the repentant hero is approached by mysterious alien the Incredulous Zed who also desperately needs his aid.

The excitable executive runs a fantastic artificial world named The Impericon, but the wary skyrider has never heard of it. The reason why is simplicity itself: due to its unique power source – which casually warps the established laws of physics – the pan-species, planet-sized â€œImpossible Palaceâ€ holiday resort has been able to mask itself from the infallible senses of Galactus and his numerous heralds for centuriesâ€¦

Now the entire structure faces certain doom and Zed wants the Surfer to be his latest champion in battle against the marauding Queen of Nevers. Norrin happily accepts but Zed is the cautious, distrusting type and uses his â€œMotivatorâ€ to ensure the hero’s very best efforts.

As it has done so many times before, the device scans all of infinity and takes hostage the most important being in the appointed champion’s life, but the Surfer is completely baffled when he finds an Earth girl he does not know deposited in a block of cells amongst the nearest and dearest of hundreds of fallen warriorsâ€¦

Despite Zed’s double-dealing Norrin still wants to save the Impericon so ‘Everything and All at Once’ sees him flash into the void only to discover a floating field of his deceased predecessors. Moreover, his opponent is an extremely aggrieved Conceptual Entityâ€¦

Stay-at-home Dawn Greenwood adapts to her alien surroundings with admirable aplomb and within hours of captivity has orchestrated a prison break taking along with her all the other hostages, but in deep space the Surfer knows none of this. His anticipated confrontation with the personification of All Possible Alternative and Potential Futures is agonisingly one-sided.

However as Norrin Radd continues to strive valiantly he comes to a startling conclusion: he is fighting the victim and not the aggressor in a cosmic power struggleâ€¦

Concluding that The Impossible Palace only exists because it runs on the Never Queen’s stolen heart, he rapidly doubles back to infiltrate the Impericon and retrieve it, but finds that mysterious Earth girl who’s supposed to be important to him has already taken care of thatâ€¦

Realising the jig is up, the real ruler of the artificial world despatches Zed with the uncanny extra-universal blade which first excised the all-powerful organ from the Queen of Never and Norrin is compelled to break off and stop the crazed thief.

Dawn, meanwhile, has taken the purloined power source and ‘Change of Heart’ reveals her inner strength as she leads the hostages to safety and, by returning the infinite pump, restores infinite choice, infinite hope and infinite potential to all of Realityâ€¦

Still unsure how the girl can possibly be personally significant to him, the Surfer escorts the unflappable teenager back to Earth, only to be intercepted by the Guardians of the Galaxy as they patrol Sol’s system.

Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Gamora, Groot, Agent Venom, Star-Lord and Carol â€œCaptain Marvelâ€ Danvers are pledged to stop alien menaces harming Earth and indigenous threats getting off-world to imperil – or just annoy – stellar civilisations, but eventually they give the roving voyagers a provisional clean bill of health.

Norrin is far more concerned about meeting his oddly engaging charge’s family. After he reluctantly agrees to stay at the Greenwood Inn and experience life as an Earthman he soon relaxes and learns to kick back a bitâ€¦

Sadly he’s picked the absolute worst moment to de-power, eat food and sleep. When old allies Doctor Strange and the Hulk suddenly turn up they reveal that a periodic cosmic conjunction of planets has allowed dream demon Nightmare to manifest and turn the world into a realm of escalating insanity.

With horror the heroes quickly realise that almost all of humanity is asleep – even the Surfer and themselves – with only his excitable new best bud awake to stop the dream lordâ€¦

Her methodology is uniquely her own, but the Greenwood girl rises to the occasion and in the aftermath her unlikely but crucial connection to the restless wanderer is revealed, leaving ‘New Dawn’ a much-changed child: one who is willing and even hungry to see all of everything, everywhere, beside the gleaming ever-soaring Silver Surferâ€¦

Although published before the current series began, ‘Girl on Board’ from All-New Marvel Now! Point One (March 2014) very much epitomises the tone of the new adventures as Norrin and his platonic protÃ©gÃ© visit a water world to experience a moment of rare cosmic beauty and spirituality but instead stumble into a bunch of star pirates causing trouble.

The unavoidable – if spectacular – punch-up is the very least part of this charming tale of interspatial tourism and youthful self-awareness buildingâ€¦

Funny, smart, warm and wonder-filled, this astoundingly addictive tome also includes a gallery of covers and variants by the Allreds, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Salvador Larroca, Francesco Francavilla, Chris Samnee, Skottie Young, Adi Granov and Gerald Parel, plus extra treats provided by 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.
â„¢ & Â© 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.

November 25, 2014

Thor, God of Thunder: The Last Days of Midgard

By Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Agustin Alessio, Ive Svorcina & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-603-8

Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, The Mighty Thor began his stellar career in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), delivering an unceasing procession of spectacular adventures which encompassed everything from crushing crime capers and smashing sinister super-villains to saving entire universes from cosmic doom.

As the decades passed he survived numerous reboots and re-imaginings to keep the wonders of fabled Asgard appealing to an increasingly jaded readership. An already exceedingly broad range of scenarios spawned even greater visual variety after the Thunderer’s introduction to the pantheon of cinematic Marvels and his ongoing triumphs as a bona fide burgeoning movie franchise.

The most recent publishing iteration of Marvel’s most tempestuous hero began by simultaneously focusing on the Storm Lord in the past, present and future with this compilation (gathering Thor, God of Thunder #19.NOW to 24, cover-dated April to September 2014) bringing that conceit to its natural, if staggeringly apocalyptic, conclusion.

Crafted primarily by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, this chronicle visits two vastly separated eras as the Lord of Storms tackles two ultimate enemies of Earth in two distinctly different times.

‘The Last Days of Midgard’ opens with an appraisal of how, across the universe, many worlds are inexplicably dying, whilst on Earth Thor is renewing his ineffable bond with the blue planet he loves so much. Having recently made the acquaintance of junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Rosalind Solomon and been more than a little impressed, he is thus on hand when she begins her job in the agency’s new Environmental Hazard division by uncovering a high-tech underwater Japanese whaling fleet hunting inside a UN undersea preserve.

As her solo assault fails Solomon is surprised – and a little annoyed – to be rescued by the almighty storm god who soon routs and destroys the poachers. Meanwhile in Alaska the new CEO of super-corporation Roxxon is unveiling his latest moneymaking scheme.

Unctuous wunderkind Dario Agger is proudly publicising his new project to bring clean – if exorbitantly expensive – mined ice for drinking water from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Of course he fails to mention his company’s covert activities: deliberately polluting water tables, melting Earth’s icecaps and befouling the atmosphere.

Under his new business model Roxxon intends to ecologically destabilise the planet so that they can monetise their brand of high-tech stopgap solutionsâ€¦

Agger’s first foray goes embarrassingly awry when Thor hijacks his press launch; hand-delivering an entire mountain of clean ice and promising all the Earth might ever needâ€¦

Furiously brushing aside Agent Solomon’s thinly veiled threat that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on to him, the self-proclaimed god of money vows vengeance and brings in his lawyers and lobbyists. Superheroes and even S.H.I.E.L.D. enforce laws, but corporations own the politicians who make and – where necessary – rewrite themâ€¦

In the far distant future the universe is winding down and All-father Thor is a weary, maimed but still stubborn god. The end of time has almost no deities left in it, save the aged, one-eyed, one-armed Last King of Asgard, with only his (recently liberated from slavery yet ferociously independent) granddaughters Atli, Ellisiv and Frigg for company.

He spends his days sitting on and mourning the burned out, nigh-dead Earth he loves so much, but his ancient passions for the planet are stoked back to blazing fury when world-devourer Galactus arrives determined to consume at last the only celestial morsel ever to frustrate his unending hungerâ€¦

As the second issue opens King Thor banishes his fiery granddaughters back to Asgard whilst he prepares to die at long last defending his barren charge even as back in the Now his younger self has returned to the town of Broxton, Oklahoma; a place he sometimes calls home.

After a previous Ragnarok brought the extra-dimensional realm of Asgard to destruction and scattered the souls of the gods, a mysterious voice summoned the deceased Thor back to life – on Earth – in a crack of shattering thunder. Revived for an unspecified purpose the solitary godling swiftly set about retrieving the souls of his fellow Aesir, all scattered and hidden inside human hosts, and set up Asgard-on-Earth a few paltry feet above the ground of Oklahomaâ€¦

Following many battles and conflicts the mystic floating city – now dubbed Asgardia – was officially declared an Embassy of the Gods by the US government, and life for the rural humans below settled down to a pattern of strangely heightened, intense friendly cooperation with their amazing neighboursâ€¦

Outraged at what Solomon has told him of Roxxon and contemptuous as ever of mortal laws, Thor then causes the destruction of all the corporation’s flying pollution factories, provoking Agger to move the hero up his agenda and retaliate…

In his corporate lair the billionaire revels in the power of money and science whilst murderously â€œinspiringâ€ his ineffectual think-tank to find solutions to his god problem. The gory brainstorming session soon arrives at a perfect response but inadvertently reveals a stunning secret about the cruel plutocratâ€¦

As Agger sets his plans into motion, at the end of time the last King of Asgard refuses to surrender his beloved Earth to Galactus and, as the battle ferociously escalates, readies himself to die gloriously with his wounded worldâ€¦

The third chapter sees the apparent defeat of the elder god, whilst in his past the unstoppable power of money and influence as applied by Roxxon has moved clerical mountains and brought misery to the younger Thunderer.

The corporation has moved into Broxton with a spurious scheme to bring jobs, prosperity and progress to the isolated farming town. Of course the first step is buying up all the land they can and splitting up the community. That is quickly followed by establishing a second wave of atmosphere-poisoning flying factories over their bewildered headsâ€¦

Correctly assessing what Thor’s furious impatient response will be, smug Agger is waiting with a legion of lawyers and writs waiting to serve the god with injunctions, cease-&-desist orders and damages suits. After the CEO refuses the Asgardian’s offer to buy back Broxton with the unlimited wealth of the Eternal Realm, only Rosalind Solomon’s frantic pleading stops the enraged Thor from blowing his top and getting himself arrested or even deported from Earthâ€¦

In a distant Tomorrow Galactus has defeated the ancient Thunder Lord and thrown his battered body into space, whilst in the Now Agger initiates the next phase in his blueprint for vengeance, summoning monstrous troll Ulik and his troglodytic legions to literally undermine Broxton and Asgardia and slay Thor when he inevitably intervenesâ€¦

Issue #22 opens with the world-devourer preparing to render the defenceless future Earth to rubble when the incomparable and ever defiant Atli, Ellisiv and Frigg return, bearing an arsenal of god-killing weapons, whilst in present day Oklahoma Thor resorts to guile and patience – two things he is legendarily short of – as Rosalind leads the fight back against Roxxon.

Things soon go wrong though when she is targeted by hungry trollsâ€¦

As defeated King Thor rallies at the end of the universe and storms towards the place where the most ultimate of weapons is cached, in the present Thor confronts Agger and is astonished to see him transform into a bloodthirsty beast easily the match of a godâ€¦

The final chapter features even more spectacular cataclysmic combat on two time-fronts with ravening monsters equally served their just deserts, topped off with a brace of twist endings each serving to set the scene for forthcoming dramas, but the graphic drama does not quite end there.

Thor, God of Thunder #24 featured ‘The Last Days of Midgard Epilogue: Adieu, Midgard, Adieu’ (illustrated by Agustin Alessio & colourist Ive Svorcina with Ribic), and here offers a downbeat conclusion to the bombastic epic as beaten but undeterred Dario Agger pleads possession by uncanny forces and puts all Roxxon’s resources behind a campaign to remove the terrifying, alien, immigrant Asgardians from American – if not Earth’s – holy soilâ€¦

Amidst an aura of almost constant super-powered strife, it’s ludicrously easy to sway public opinion and All-Mother Freyja decides its time for the repaired and fully restored wonder city to leave for another, more welcoming place in the unending cosmos. But before they go Thor has one last invaluable gift for all the friends in Broxton he feels he has failedâ€¦

This blistering book of battles, trickery, triumphs and tragedies comes equipped with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Ribic, Alessio, Pascal Campion, Jenny Parks, Simone Bianchi, Nic Klein, Clay Mann and Ron Garney, plus bunches of extra content available via the AR icon option (providing special augmented reality content available exclusively through the Marvel AR app for iPhoneÂ®, iPadÂ®, iPad TouchÂ® & Android devices and Marvel Digital Comics Shop).

Furious, fun and fabulous Fights ‘n’ Tights furore no superhero fantasy fan could possibly resist.
â„¢ & Â© 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.

November 22, 2014

X-Factor volume 11: Happenings in Vegas

By Peter David, Sebastian Fiumara, Valentine De Landro, Emanuela Lupacchino, Pat Davidson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4655-1

Since its debut in the 1980s, X-Factor has been a splendidly effective umbrella title for many uniquely off-kilter iterations of Marvel’s mutant phenomena. Undoubtedly the most impressive and enduring assemblage was created by writer Peter David in 2006; mixing starkly violent suspense with cool detective mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action – and even slyly addressing social issues in a regular riot of superbly adult Costumed Drama.

The premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – veteran of a formerly government-sponsored (and controlled) team – appropriating the name for his own, to create the specialist metahuman private detective agency X-Factor Investigations.

This splendid sampling of strange happenings – written as ever by Peter David – collects X-Factor #207-212 (September 2010 – February 2011), exploring some less well scrutinised elements of the immortal themes of Love and Death in a most unique mannerâ€¦

Recently returned to New York from the wilds of Detroit (by way of the furious future), Madrox and literal mystery woman Layla Miller have no trouble settling in as ‘Lost Souls’ – illustrated by Sebastian Fuimara – opens with a stunning and statuesque client decked out in skimpy green sheen hiring X-Factor to track down a missing man and stolen pendant.

Her effect on the usually ambivalent-to-ladies, luck-manipulating alien Longshot is a study in weapons-grade pulchritude and should really have tipped off the detectives that all was not rightâ€¦

Elsewhere Guido â€œStrong Guyâ€ Carosella, Armando â€œDarwinâ€ MuÃ±oz and psionic super-woman Monet St. Croix are back from South America, having rescued the latter’s abducted dad from drug-lords and mystic menace Baron Mordo. To facilitate their escape Monet had to promise to let the dying sorcerer steal her life energies, but once on safe ground again the wizard finds that he has bitten off more than he can chewâ€¦

At a shooting range, young lovers Rictor and Shatterstar are working out a few emotional problems like men do, whilst a multitude of Madroxes and his unforgiving ex Theresa Rourke Cassidy (AKA Siryn) have located the fugitive thief Gofern. However, when they challenge the roistering rogue, things take a distinct left turn into pure wyrdâ€¦

Back home, Rictor’s former girlfriend Rahne â€œWolfsbaneâ€ Sinclair accidentally interrupts him and Shatterstar making up and her shock is transparent and devastating. It’s pretty mutual however as the furiously feral transmorph seems to be extremely pregnant with what Rictor assumes is his childâ€¦

The untitled second part opens with Rahne taking out her not-just hormonal anger on her boyfriend’s boyfriend whilst in a dingy dive across town Gofern – now revealed as objectionable alien oik Pip the Troll – fights desperately to regain the amulet Madrox has confiscated. He claims the piece was the only thing protecting himâ€¦

Whilst the rest of the team strive to stop Wolfsbane killing Shatterstar, back at the bar things get very cold as outraged Asgardian Death Goddess Hela manifests to reclaim the obnoxious jester who dared to run from herâ€¦

The action switches to Las Vegas in ‘Strip Search’ (Lupacchino & Davidson) as a hand-picked squad track the Queen of the Nordic Damned. Madrox is determined to cancel the contract and rescue poor shmuck Pip from the underworld, but the trail seems to lead to nothing but frustration.

Splitting up, Layla, Shatterstar, Siryn and Guido manage to wreck most of the town before Longshot’s luck powers draw them to vacationing Jane Foster (former love of Thor and expert on many things Asgardian) who advises them that the last thing they should do is attract the mercurial goddess’ attentionâ€¦

Never ready to accept good advice, Madrox sets Longshot loose on the casinos and almost bankrupts the city before Hela takes the blatant baitâ€¦

Valentine De Landro illustrates the untitled next chapter as, back in the Big Apple, Monet agrees to psi-probe a woman plagued by dreams of atrocity and is frankly astounded by a rare, easily achieved success. Rictor and Rahne meanwhile go for an ultrasound scan and discover something most unsettling and inexplicably lupine and mystical about their impending sprogâ€¦

The action returns to a secret necropolis of Nevada for ‘Staying in Vegas’ (Lupacchino & Davidson) with the wayward away team under attack by an unending horde of undying warrior zombies. Whilst Hela idly tortures Pip in Niffleheim, his would-be saviours battle effectively but not tirelessly in the lands above.

They’re almost glad when the formidably daunting thunder god Thor – having received a phone call from an old friend – explosively storms in and takes commandâ€¦

The saga astoundingly concludes as the unlikely and constantly sniping assemblage invades the nether regions to save the troll, much to Hela’s amusement. When challenged, she hands over the malodorous little troglodyte with a shrug and a smile.

She’s already bored with Pip and instead wants Longshot for her new toy, but when spurned the Queen of Hell is still in a good mood and grants them leave to depart.

Of course the exit is on the other side of her realm, but surely crossing the hostile, frozen perdition whilst every corpse and monster in her power tries to kill them won’t be any problemâ€¦?

As the heroes doggedly battle their way across the tundra of terror, Shatterstar is specifically targeted by recently deceased wolf-god Hrimhari, who claims the gleeful alien adventurer smells of his one true love. With horror Siryn remembers how the lupine lord once had a fling with the absent Wolfsbaneâ€¦

With inevitable doom at hand, coldly calculating Madrox challenges Hela directly, gambling Darwin’s ability to hyper-evolve and counter every threat to his existence will provide a means to beat the death goddessâ€¦

Against all odds it does and they all – even Pip – escape, but the horrifying effects and shattering power of gentle Armando’s latest adaptation don’t fade even after they are all safely back on Earthâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by David Yardin, this volume continues a superb run of challenging, compelling, compulsive and supremely scary funny tales, making this iteration of X-Factor the ideal example of mature Costume Dramas: utterly indispensable for everyone who needs wit to underpin their superhero soap opera shenanigans.

November 20, 2014November 19, 2014

Uncanny X-Men: Sisterhood

By Matt Fraction, Greg Land, Yanick Paquette, Terry Dodson, Jay Leisten, Karl Story & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4105-1

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters and the balance has never rested solely on the side of light.

For every valiant woman – or indeed super-powered, conflicted teenage girl – fighting the good fight there has been a shady lady playing for the dark side.

This particular collection – gathering Uncanny X-Men #508-512, cover-dated June to August 2009 – primarily features a stupendous clash between the maligned mutant mavericks and a dastardly coterie of extremely wicked women warriors but also offers a fascinating insight into the occluded history of one of the endangered species’ most enigmatic survivorsâ€¦

At this point in time, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Sapiens Superior is at its lowest ebb. As seen in both House of M and Decimation storylines, Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff – ravaged by madness and her own reality-warping power – reduced the world’s multi-million plus mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with three simple wordsâ€¦

Most of the remaining genetic outsiders accepted a generous and earnest offer to relocate to San Francisco but, of course, trouble is always happy to make house callsâ€¦

Scripted throughout by Matt Fraction, the 4-part saga ‘Sisterhood’ – illustrated by Greg Land, Jay Leisten and colourist Justin Ponsor – opens following the shocking news of a massacre in Cooperstown, Alaska.

Terrorists had razed the isolated town to burning rubble because of reports that the first mutant baby since The Decimation had been born thereâ€¦

Anti-mutant activist and passionate bigot Simon Trask was quick to stir the flames of panic and prejudice with his Humanity Now Coalition pushing the government to end the threat of mutants forever. With hysteria growing, even previously neutral outcasts began making their way to the mutant enclave of the Greymalkin Industries Facility on the Marin Headlands. However, even with an ever-growing host of feared and despised genetic pariahs housed in her city and the entire population potentially at risk from fanatics and mutant-hunters, Mayor Sadie Sinclair still stands firm on her offer of sanctuary.

The dark drama commences in a secluded private cemetery in Tokyo as the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants disinter a certain body. They are interrupted by probability-bending sometime X-ally Domino whose main talent seems to be landing in the wrong place at the right time.

Sadly, even her odds-altering powers and superspy training are not enough to stop the grave-robbing, and Regan and Martinique Wyngarde (daughters of the malevolent Mastermind), psychic assassin Chimera, cyborg killer Lady Deathstrike, extra-dimensional witch Spiral and the infernal spirit of Red Queen Madelyne Pryor get away with the corpse of ninja legend Kwannonâ€¦

In San Francisco Henry McCoy convenes his newly convened X-Club; a unique think tank comprising human geneticist Kavita Rao, mutant tech-savant Madison Jeffries, atomic mutation expert Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi and former Nazi-hunting mutant mystery man James Bradley AKA Doctor Nemesis.

The Beast carefully outlines their intended goal: finding a way to reactivate the millions of mutants â€œcuredâ€ by the Scarlet Witch. Their first session soon concludes that she has somehow switched off the power-creating â€œX-Geneâ€ in most of the mutant population, but they need to know more about the origin of their own species before they can turn them all on againâ€¦

Elsewhere in the city the Sisterhood have completely resurrected the purloined corpse and filled the body with a former hostâ€¦ or at least one of themâ€¦

Long ago (Uncanny X-Men #256-258, in fact) priests of ninja cult The Hand mystically transposed the mind of telepath Betsy Braddock – AKA Psylocke – into the physical shell of a lethally effective adherent named Kwannon. The brainwashing and mystic body-swapping turned the English Rose into a sultry, sexy Chinese bodyguard/concubine/siren and perfect gift for the undisputed overlord of the Orient, The Mandarin.

After much ado, myriad battles and many years, both mind-switched incarnations died in combat, but now the Red Queen has succeeded in reuniting the long-separated soul and form of the elite killerâ€¦

As the X-Men reach out and enlist former Canadian mutant hero – and media-savvy global Gay celebrity – Jean-Paul Beaubier (one-time Alpha Flight member Northstar), the sinister Sisterhood moves on to the next stage of Pryor’s convoluted game-planâ€¦

With the enclave happily acclimatising and being welcomed by the mellow Californians, the demagogue Trask springs his latest nasty surprise from Washington DC. Proposition X demands legislation to ensure the mandatory sterilisation of mutants and all humans carrying the X-Geneâ€¦

The news drives the younger mutants at Greymalkin into a fury, whilst in the science labs cooler heads have devised a potential plan to study the origins of their kind: all they have to do is travel back in time and get blood samples from the first humans to conceive a mutant childâ€¦

Outmanoeuvred, the usually reticent and inspirationally obnoxious Bradley is forced to admit having been born in 1906, and that his own parents might well be the best possible candidatesâ€¦

Before they can act, though, the Sisterhood invade the Facility using a prisoner in the detention centre to deactivate all the psychic security provisions. The assault is devastating and catches the X-Men completely off guard, but Pryor’s big mistake is underestimating the determination and sheer bloody-mindedness of student heroes X-23, Armor, Pixie and the telepathic gestalt called the Stepford Cuckoosâ€¦

Following the kids’ counterstrike, the swift recovery and retaliation of the adult X-folk quickly drives the Sisterhood out, but Wolverine is forced to admit that the invaders got what they came for: a lock of hair from Jean Grey he’s been treasuring since her death.

The sample could provide the ghostly Pryor with the genetic material needed to grow herself a new body – one with all the power of the nigh-omnipotent Phoenixâ€¦

The conclusion (with additional art by Terry & Rachel Dodson) sees the desperate X-Men rush to foil the plot and spectacularly triumph, not only ending the threat of cosmic resurrection but incidentally reclaiming one of their own fallen from the graveâ€¦

Following that all-out cosmic-tinged clash ‘The Origin of the Species’ (illustrated by Yanick Paquette & Karl Story) offers a taste of steam-punk and tragedy as the postponed jaunt to the dawn of the Mutant Age finally gets underway.

Accompanied by the restored Psylocke and Archangel, Beast’s â€œX-Clubâ€ of super science geeks pop back to San Francisco in 1906 on an extremely tight deadline to get blood samples from Dr. Nemesis’ parents but stumble into the birth of their worst nightmareâ€¦

Inventor Nicola Bradley and his wife Catherine have been striving to complete a generator that will provide free, unlimited broadcast power for humanity but are increasingly being threatened by thugs and brigands determined to steal it.

Cornelius Shaw and his mentor Lord Molyneux are using the sybaritic Hellfire Club to fund Bradley’s experiments but they want his incredible engine for purposes far darker than lighting the world.

Molyneux has visions of mankind crushed under the monstrous heel of a new superior race – â€œOvermenâ€ – and needs the battery to power his colossal mechanical Sentinel. Against that even the aberrations-to-come will be helplessâ€¦

He’s also behind the attempted raids; hedging his bets in case Bradley cannot complete the job, so when the freakish X-Club turns up he knows the time to act is nowâ€¦

Thankfully – and perhaps instinctively inspired by his wife’s pregnancy – Bradley solves the final problem, but soon regrets his actions as the Hellfire lords take his device and unleash a marauding mechanical myrmidon upon the populace.

â€¦And that’s when the strangers with wings and blue fur and other incredible abilities reveal themselvesâ€¦

Concluding in calamity, catastrophe and cruel, heartbreaking irony, this smart slice of time-tampering neatly wraps up a superb sample of Mutant Mayhem: at once exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining.

This slim, stirring, supremely sensuous Fights ‘n’ Tights tome also includes a selection of cover reproductions and variants by Land, Ponsor, Paquette, Edgar Delgado, Laura Martin, J. Scott Campbell & StÃ©phane Roux, resulting in a treasure trove of treats for all fans of sexy superheroes and combat connoisseurs alike

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