Category: Graphic Novels

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Inhuman: Genesis


By Charles Soule, Ryan Stegman, Joe Madureira, Marte Gracia & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-623-6

During mega-crossover blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and clashed with The Inhumans‘ ruler Black Bolt. The almighty monarchs wrestled to a standstill and, as a last resort, the embattled Inhuman king crashed the flying city of Attilan onto New York and into the Hudson River. This act was simultaneously linked to a release of the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions.

Follow-up event Inhumanity traced the effects of that global inundation as millions of mortals were killed or transformed by Terrigen fallout, proving that Human and Inhuman were not necessarily different races…

The Inhumans came into existence 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the genetics of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.

Millennia later Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race that subsequently developed, took that meddling to its ultimate end by devising the Terrigen Mist process, which enabled citizens to mutate into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power.

The measure originally met with much opposition and many citizens of Attilan quit the city forever, setting up their own isolated enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their less evolved cousins.

Even as Inhumans retreated further into myth, isolation and dogma, and lately moved away from earth to carve place in the wild voids of deep space, their alien-altered genetic heritage was slowly spreading and disseminating throughout baseline humankind.

Now the Terrigen cloud slowly mixing with the biosphere has activated all those dormant genes, metamorphosing unsuspected millions into new lives and forms.

All this came to the attention of global guardians The Avengers when Inhuman royal diplomat Karnak became their unlikely prisoner. In comfortable custody, the wily warrior described the last moments of the mobile metropolis, how his people evacuated the doomed city and passed en masse through the chimerical living teleport door Eldrac; scattered to the place that living portal deemed they “most needed to be”…

Whilst Karnak ruminated, his cousin Queen Medusa arrived. Believing herself widowed and facing the shattering burden of saving her people without the aid of the messianic Black Bolt, she was further shaken when her ferociously logic-enslaved kinsman continued his evaluations and calculations until, suddenly arriving at an inescapable conclusion he simply would not abide, he killed himself before her eyes…

Since that moment Medusa and the world’s metahuman heroes have sought to contain the crisis, but the rise of many factions – from criminal scientists and exploitative geneticists to full-blooded rogue Inhumans (like exiled former king The Unspoken) – all seeking to monopolise the transformative pods and super-powered “NuHumans” are making the task increasingly difficult.

The job is even further complicated by the recent emergence of clandestine Inhuman colonies which have hidden themselves from both humanity and the denizens of Attilan for thousand of years also seeking to steal or recruit their share of the exposed and mutated new people…

Collecting Inhuman #1-6 (from June 2013 to November 2014), the epic Genesis of a race in crisis resumes as Queen Medusa struggles to integrate the many scattered factions of Attilan Inhuman, returning – and often hostile – “lost tribes” and burgeoning NuHumans into a united whole.

The tale of ‘The Queen in the Sky’ by writer Charles Soule, illustrators Ryan Stegman & Joe Madureira and colourist Marte Gracia begins in Bergen as the Terrigen cloud forever changes another horrified mortal, whilst in New York Medusa is informed that long-missing Eldrac has been finally located…

Back in Norway Nuhuman Kristian is shaken from shock by a wild creature named Lash who offers his own skewed and biased take on Inhuman history and a lethally partisan doctrine of survival worthiness. The ferocious judge hails from the clandestine enclave of Orrolan and believes that only the truly deserving should benefit from the blessing of Terrigen transformation…

In Battery Park the Queen patiently negotiates with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who have mistaken Eldrac for a piece of rubble. That done she then passes through his psychically-triggered portal to land in Illinois in the middle of a firefight…

She is just in time to save pregnant Gabriela, her brother-in-law Dante and the ghastly cocoon-pod which used to be their mother from Lash’s murderous attack. The Darwinian scourge of NuHumans is delighted to be held at bay by Dante’s furious flame-throwing abilities and chooses to withdraw instead of facing the furious Medusa…

The next chapter finds Dante and family safely ensconced in the remains of Attilan where it rests as the Hudson River’s latest island and resisting the urgings and insistent probings of Inhuman surgeon Vinatos. The short-tempered doctor is unable to make these latest converts understand that their mother has failed transformation and simply died within her cocoon…

There is a more urgent matter to be addressed, however. Dante’s tendency to explode into uncontrollable flammable fury is posing a danger to all and Medusa assigns her cousin and chief warlord Gorgon to teach the boy control.

His methods are brutal but extremely effective…

Gabriela is a problem less easily handled. Although she has not – apparently – been affected by the Mist cloud, her unborn baby has…

As Medusa entertains human envoy Captain America – visiting the tiny sovereign state in a friendly and not-at-all official capacity – in Brooklyn former gangster Lineage rehearses for his own impromptu audience. He feels his newly gained ability to glean knowledge from anybody he shares DNA with – ancient or modern – will be of great interest to the embattled queen, but will have to wait as news comes in that A.I.M. agents are attempting to confiscate a fragment of Attilan from Central Park…

The bloody battle is mercifully brief once she and the Sentinel of Liberty join forces to end the murderous endeavour…

In the aftermath the Queen uses her people’s advanced technology to broadcast a message to the world inviting everyone touched by Terrigen transformation to become part of the new nation of Attilan, but her big day out ends on a shocking note when Lineage finally approaches with hints of much-missed husband Black Bolt’s intentions at the moment he instigated the Terrigen release…

Issue #3 finds Lash back in Orrolan with a boy named Jason: someone who has survived his first test of worthiness. The lad is then introduced to other super-powered residents but cannot help wonder what their uncompromising mentor’s final game plan is…

In Attilan Dante’s training is going well and Gabby suggests that his new Inhuman name should be “Inferno”. The title seems to inspire him and he begs to be allowed to join the secret squad Medusa is leading against Lash…

The surprise invasion of Orrolan is shockingly sudden and the subsequent battle savage and short. Jason – AKA Flint – exacts massive damage through his control of stone and rock, but the Queen’s goal is not conquest but union. When Lash hears what Lineage has to say he reluctantly withdraws his opposition to her plans and rule…

With Lash’s charges now part of the constantly-expanding population of Attilan, the next chapter sees the introduction of enigmatic seeker “Reader” who spectacularly saves young Nuhuman Xiaoyi from a division of Chinese soldiers rooting out potential “security threats” to the People’s Republic.

Whilst that’s occurring, on Attilan island thunder god Thor is on hand when Medusa opens the borders to human tourists and traders. The event almost ends in a bloodbath when assassins try to kill her, but after the Avenger and Inferno apprehend the shooters only the queen is unsurprised to find her assailants are all NuHumans…

As Lineage works behind the scenes, cautiously ingratiating himself to anybody of potential use to him, Medusa experiences a massive shock when her nation’s greatest monster resurfaces with an astounding demand…

Long ago Black Bolt and his cousins Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak impossibly overthrew the reigning king – the most powerful Inhuman ever born. The monarch had overstepped his authority and stole the race’s most puissant weapon, the Terrigen-fuelled Slave Engine.

The device was created to balance the scales should the teeming hordes of humanity ever attack the pitifully small race of outcasts, but the complacent and too-soft King deemed it an abomination; stealing and hiding it from his fellows.

Although defeated and banished he would not return it, and for his crime his name was stricken from all records and was forever “Unspoken”. When he returned in recent times all pretence of nobility was abandoned and he tried to eradicate humanity and conquer the world…

The story resumes here and now in ‘Empty Throne’ as the villain – now wizened, aged and powerless – repeats an offer of marriage to Medusa, declaring his right and ability to lead the Inhumans to glory. When that ploy fails he tries to convince the appalled and still grieving Medusa that he knows where vanished Black Bolt is…

Across the water in Greenwich Village Inferno is listening to Jason’s incredible life story. The African boy had been adopted by American parents but only learned after the Terrigen outbreak that he had been born into one lost tribe of Inhumans and brought to the USA by another. By the time Lash found him Jason was the only survivor of the body-warping fallout…

Medusa knows that the fallen king’s true purpose is to ferret out any remaining Terrigen to restore his faded powers and locks the audacious scoundrel up. It is exactly what The Unspoken intended and he uses his ages-old technical knowledge of the fallen city to uncover one last stash of the miracle crystals and take over…

When Dante, Jason and new NuHuman friend Naja try to return to Attilan they are brusquely turned away by armed guards. Realising something bad is happening and desperate to get back to Gabby, Inferno leads a three-person commando raid and, with the aid of Dr. Vinatos, succeeds in tipping the balance back in Medusa’s favour in a brutal ‘Trial by Fire’.

The cost however is both tragic and horrific…

With the Unspoken securely imprisoned, Lineage again begins his games within games, secretly taunting the defeated usurper with stolen Terrigen crystals as he reveals that he truly knows where Black Bolt is… and who’s got him…

To Be Continued…

Blending themes of growth and alienation with hearty slices of excessive action and political intrigue, Inhuman: Genesis also offers a gallery of 11 covers-&-variants by Stegman, Madureira, Gracia, Jeff Scott Campbell, Humberto Ramos and Ed McGuinness, and comes with a selection of digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Suspenseful, dramatic, action-packed and brandishing a potent metaphorical message, this is a compelling and entertaining slice of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction to satisfy the most jaded comicbook palates.

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

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Wolverine: 3 Months to Die


By Paul Cornell, Elliot Kalan, Kris Anka, Pete Woods, Salvador Larroca, Jonathan Marks & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-631-1

James Howlett, AKA Logan, AKA Wolverine, has faced a multitude of impossible situations in his long and bloody life but possibly the most groundbreaking shake-up only came at the conclusion of Wolverine: Killable which saw the mayhem-making mutant Methuselah coming to terms with the fact that his healing factor – and therefore his virtual immortality – were gone, removed by a sentient virus from an incredible alien microverse.

No longer able to properly defend himself nor, most importantly, his loved ones and innocent civilians from the likes of monsters such as Mystique or Sabretooth, he underwent a great deal of soul-searching and solution seeking to offset a seemingly insurmountable power loss.

As if to emphasise the point his most despised and unrelenting foe Victor Creed – tenacious, savage and still possessing the powers and skills Howlett once boasted, then renewed his campaign of terror upon his woefully diminished enemy.

As current leader of deviant sect of ninja cult The Hand, the mutant monster dubbed Sabretooth orchestrated a murderous snipe-hunt which killed dozens of helpless humans at a shopping mall whilst leaving the helpless Canadian Crusader physically crushed, emotionally humiliated and spiritually broken…

In response Logan switched to high-tech guns and armour, abandoning all his friends and comrades to run with a new – bad – crowd. Supported by a band of young super-powered criminals (Lost Boy, Fuel, Reflex and Pinch) Logan seemed to have gone to the dark side by joining the gang of up-and-coming underworld boss The Offer…

The truth was far more palatable. When S.H.I.E.L.D. learned Sabretooth was seeking a weapon of cosmic capacity they tapped Logan to go deep undercover with a potential rival to the Hand’s new Lord in a Byzantine scheme to stop him. The subterfuge was total and even led to Logan clashing with old friends like Thor…

Fully immersed in his covert role, Wolverine began an affair with new crony Pinch – who had subsequently come into possession of the reality-rending device – when Sabretooth caught up to the gang. Betrayed and incensed the heartbroken and furious thief was in no mood to be reasonable when Logan pleaded with her to hand over the planet-shattering globe.

Creed however made a telling counter-offer: give him the device and he would stop his Hand ninjas from killing the daughter Pinch thought she had safely hidden from the consequences of her so-dangerous lifestyle…

Written primarily by Paul Cornell, 3 Months to Die collects the contents of Wolverine volume 6, #8-12 and Wolverine Annual #1(August-October 2014), concluding the shocking saga of the fall of a legend…

The action begins with an eerie and portentous 2-part digression as ‘Games of Deceit and Death’ (illustrated by Kris Anka and colourist David Curiel) suddenly finds Wolverine transported to the island of Itsukushima where Master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi and living weapon Iron Fist have invited the emotionally-adrift old warrior in order that he might enter “The Secret Temple of Death on Holiday”.

At the height of his last battle with Creed, Wolverine – although possessing the upper hand – hesitated and could not finish his enemy. Now the martial artists are offering a spiritual solution for the baffled, desperate and demoralised Logan which involves having a heart-to-heart with the conceptual being who is the embodiment of Death…

Meanwhile in Sabretooth’s lair the Hand’s master is still dickering with Pinch for possession of the world-warping globe, but when her trusted boss the Offer secretly switches sides the negotiations take a most unwelcome turn.

Back at the temple Wolverine has quelled his doubts and entered for a debate with Death, whilst in the mundane world the Offer has sold out all his former associates. Gleaning Logan’s whereabouts from Lost Boy, the duplicitous dealer informs Creed who promptly dispatches an army of ninjas to destroy at last his personal nemesis…

The concluding chapter then finds Iron Fist and Shang-Chi frantically battling that army even as, deep within the temple, Wolverine learns a few startling truths from the creature he has for so long fed whilst himself avoiding.

At Hand HQ Creed has taken control of the globe and the first Logan learns of it is when the ghost of Fuel suddenly appears, begging him to go back and save Pinch, Lost Boy and the rest…

Spiritually reinvigorated and fortified, Wolverine heads for the final confrontation with Sabretooth, utterly oblivious to the fact that Death has been playing with him as part of a much deeper game…

‘The Last Wolverine Story’ (art by Pete Woods and Curiel) opens as Wolverine returns to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning for a reconciliation with his mutant students and X-Men comrades before going after Creed.

Sabretooth meanwhile has established a New York base from where he intends to use the globe to rewrite reality: creating a world perfectly tailored to his highly specific predatory needs. He has also realigned himself with Machiavellian shapeshifting schemer Mystique to ensure his every dream comes bloodily true…

Blessed with a new enlightenment, Wolverine has eschewed his usual lone wolf tactics and sought out allies. The first to be contacted are the eclectic think-tank of the Guernica Bar. Situated on West Fourth, the legendary dive is a superhero hostelry where a most select crew regularly and above all quietly meet…

As well as comicbook writer Harold Harold, there’s an odds-maker on superhero battles, a professional powers cataloguer and the current CEO of repair conglomerate Damage Control as well as unflappable Weird Science surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it “Fronken-schteen”) amongst others.

However no sooner does the Feral Fury arrive than the bar is invaded by more murderous ninjas and in the resultant melee Harold reveals a potent secret which holds the horde at bay until thunder god Thor pops in to save the day, just moments ahead of Nick Fury Junior and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Despite the willing legion at his back, for strategic reasons Logan opts to invade Creed’s base in alone to free the hostages, but inevitably his mission ends up in a massive and escalating running battle. As the good guys are increasingly tied up fighting wicked alternate universe versions of themselves, the pivotal contest becomes the one it always has been: Wolverine against Sabretooth.

This time however it doesn’t end in the usual oft-replayed, inconclusive stalemate…

Following the catastrophic, catagoric conclusion Cornell, Salvador Larroca & Rachelle Rosenberg offer a short What If? vignette from Wolverine #12 in ‘That Which Didn’t Happen’ which re-examines the pivotal moment when the sentient virus offered to return Logan’s healing factor in return for fealty.

In this piece he said yes and Harold Harold is one of the last beings on Earth to suffer the ghastly consequences of that choice…

‘Wolf and Cub’ by Elliot Kalan, Jonathan Marks & Jose Villarrubia (from Wolverine Annual #1) ends this iteration of the long-lived legendary hero as Logan, feeling his age at last, takes adoptive daughter/former mutant/friendly vampire Jubilation Lee and her own recently-adopted baby Shogo for a walk on the wild side.

Feeling Death breathing down his neck, Wolverine takes his biped family into the wooded wilderness to meet the wolves who adopted him when he was at his most feral and mindless, but their camping trip takes a tragic turn when they encounter a husband and wife still suffering the effects of their experiences in Afghanistan…

The PTSD-afflicted Brad reacts with fear and violence when he sees a wild man apparently offering a baby to wolves and his frantic shots cripple Logan and decimate his lupine brethren.

Taking the child to what they think is safety, the soldier couple have no idea of the horror they’ve unwittingly unleashed by stealing a vampire’s child…

Tense suspense, non-stop visceral action, compelling mystery and an aura of impending, inescapable doom flavour this enticing chronicle from high-octane start to fraught finish and this splendidly entertaining treat also includes a dozen stunning covers-&-variants by Steve McNiven & Laura Martin, Dustin Nguyen, Ryan Stegman & Edgar Delgado and Ed McGuiness to delight and amaze all fan’s of fast and furious Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Hulk: Banner D.O.A.


By Mark Waid, Mark Bagley, Andrew Hennessy & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-619-9

Once upon a time, Robert Bruce Banner was merely a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma-bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, any undue stress could cause him to transform into a gigantic green monster of unimaginable strength and fury.

As both occasional hero and bombastic brute he rampaged across the landscape for decades, becoming one of comics’ most popular characters and most enduring multi-media titans.

Over the years he has undergone numerous radical changes in scope, character and format to keep his stories fresh and his exploits explosively compelling, whilst the number of gamma-galvanised grotesqueries crashing about the Marvel Universe has proliferated to inconceivable proportions.

The days of Bruce going green with anger at the drop of a hat are long gone, so anybody taking their cues from TV or movie incarnations would be wise to anticipate a smidgen of unavoidable confusion…

In a world of numerous Hulks, She-Hulks, Abominations and every kind of ancillary colour-swatched atomic berserker, the MarvelNOW! event saw the Jade Giant reinvented in a stripped-down, back-to-basics but startlingly original manner which energised new and old fans alike.

The big change occurred after S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill was “persuaded” to provide perennial fugitive Banner with resources and funding in order to sanitise his devastated scientific reputation. In return Hill could call on the Hulk as a living weapon of last resort…

One of the smartest men on Earth, Banner had lost years of success, progress and peer renown whilst trying to cure himself of the Hulk. Concerned about his legacy, the fugitive genius had at last decided to make his future headlines as a scientist, not a shattering force of nature – for as long as he could possible manage – rather than fruitlessly seek to cure his affliction. Additionally, in return for S.H.I.E.L.D. science labs and trained assistants, the beleaguered boffin would give the spy agency first use of his discoveries and inventions…

Despite the occasional catastrophic aberration now and then, the arrangement proved a success and both Banner and his emerald other became valued assets of the global peacekeeping force and key components of the latest assemblage of Mighty Avengers. However, after facing an escalating string of string of crises – the latest of which involved sinister scientific maverick Ted Goodrich and his reactivated rogue think-tank The Enclave – Banner was assassinated…

This volume (collecting Hulk #1-4, published from June-August 2014) picks up the tale as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents forcibly second brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Aaron Carpenter for a top secret medical emergency.

The opening of 4-part saga ‘Who Shot the Hulk’ finds the medical wizard cautiously operating on old college associate Banner; marvelling at the precision needed to shoot someone in the brain twice and not kill them whilst simultaneously terrified that his slightest misstep could unleash the monster within…

As Carpenter works other teams finishing harvesting gamma-infused flesh, blood and other biological samples but he only begins to suspect something is awry when the shadow-enshrouded lead operative instructs him to implant a device which will allow the Hulk to be controlled like a weapon.

…And then the mystery-man admits that they are not S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at all…

Thankfully the decision to connect the device is taken out of Carpenter’s hands when one of his surgical team allows Banner to awaken and the furious Hulk manifests…

As chaos ensues the impostors attempt to kill everybody but the Gamma Goliath is unstoppable. In the resulting carnage the medics all escape but the villains vanish…

Two weeks later genuine S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives Maria Hill and Phil Coulson track down a “John Doe” in a rural hospital and are apprised of the long-missing Bruce Banner’s condition. One of the three smartest men on Earth is physically fine but irrevocably brain damaged…

The story picks up as Hill and Coulson pursue a fruitless task in trying to determine who shot, abducted and tried to weaponise the Hulk. The list is too long to contemplate but, even as they ponder, the mystery-man is using Banner’s bio-samples to resurrect the one old foe S.H.I.E.L.D. have confidently crossed off their list…

Meanwhile in Hightown, Colorado Reverend and Ms. Bassey are caring for their severely impaired grandson Bobby. They are particularly careful to never let him become overly frustrated or angry. Later, however, when a pack of bullies target the simpleton things get exceedingly strange as the thugs are suddenly surrounded by heavily armed agents and the truth comes out…

No sooner is Banner’s covert protective custody exposed than another crisis erupts and Hill is forced to actually brutalise the child-like man and rouse the Hulk within. The reason becomes clear when definitely deceased gamma monster The Abomination smashes into the town like a missile. Their enigmatic evil enemy has resurrected the creature using Banner’s DNA, unleashing a radioactive zombie programmed to hunt and destroy its debilitated nemesis…

As the enraged jade juggernauts wade into each other and subsequently raze the town, Hill realises it’s only a feint when masked soldiers phase through the walls in a sneak attack…

In the third episode Hill, despite easily defeating the ghost warriors, loses control of the overall situation when The Avengers, alerted by the escalating catastrophe in Colorado, storm in to rescue their long-missing comrade. Amidst a blockbusting battle Banner appears, with very little sign of ever having been lobotomised by bullets.

His recovered intellect doesn’t stay long and he quickly destabilises into confusion, fear and worse. As the Avengers struggle to stop the gamma-zombie, Hill realises Hulk’s gamma-charged rapid-healing abilities are restoring Banner’s brain but not his mind and warns Bruce that if he fully transforms his personality might be erased forever.

With the Avengers utterly unable to slow Abomination’s attack, Banner has only one choice to make…

The final chapter opens with a flashback to the moment Banner first convinced Hill to let him join S.H.I.E.L.D. It involved blackmail and the placing of incriminating time-sensitive files with ferociously independent lawyer Matt Murdock – AKA Daredevil – to ensure that if anything happened to the fugitive physicist everybody would suffer…

Back in the now, with hell unleashed in Hightown, the Hulk finds an unbeatable advantage and destroys the undead Abomination, seemingly dooming Banner forever. When the dust settles the Avengers claim the debilitated victor and Iron Man swears to save his childhood intellectual rival. Some time later, through use of the most dangerous and proscribed bio-technology available, he seemingly succeeds…

As Hill reaches an unhappy accommodation with Daredevil, in Tony Stark‘s futuropolis Troy one troubling question remains unanswered. Although apparently restored to rational brilliance, there is still a troubling doubt about the rapidly recovering patient. What cost has the biologically potent remedy had on the traumatised mind and battered soul within? Can Banner possibly be the same man he was before?

To Be Continued…

Sporting a stack of AR icons (Marvel’s Augmented Reality App featuring printed portals to online story bonuses and extras for everyone who downloaded the free software from marvel.com onto a smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet) and a Baker’s Dozen of covers-&-variants by Jerome Opeña, Dean White, Bagley, Jason Keith, Michael Del Mundo, Chris Samnee, Gerald Parel, Mike Grell & Skottie Young, this razor-sharp, tension-soaked, blisteringly action-packed and astonishingly compelling read offers a fantastic new beginning for one of Marvel’s oldest and greatest star turns.

This fresh and exciting epic brilliantly mixes astounding adventure with clever characterisation and an addictive excess of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights spectacle into a tale no comics fan could possibly resist.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Superman: Critical Condition


By J.M. DeMatteis, Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb, Mark Schultz, Carlo Barberi, Pascual Ferry, Kano, Doug Mahnke, Mike McKone, Cary Nord, Pablo Raimondi, Duncan Rouleau & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-949-3

Superman has been altered and adjusted continually over his many decades of fictive life since Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic inspiration first appeared in Action Comics #1. Moreover, every refit and reboot has resulted in appalled fans and new devotees in pretty much equal proportion, so perhaps the Metropolis Marvel’s greatest ability is the power to survive change…

Although largely out of favour these days as the myriad strands of accrued mythology are being carefully reintegrated into an overarching, all-inclusive multi-media dominant, film-favoured continuity, the grittily stripped-down, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel (as re-imagined by John Byrne and superbly built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen) resulted in some stunning high points.

Actually, no sooner had the Byrne restart demolished much of the accrued iconography which had grown up around the “Strange Visitor from Another World” over fifty glorious years than successive creators began expending a great deal of time and ingenuity putting much of it back, albeit in terms more accessible to a cynical and well-informed audience far more sophisticated than their grandparents ever were.

Even so, by the mid-1990’s Byrne’s baby was beginning to look a little tired and the sales kick generated by the Death of and Return of Superman was fading, so the decision was made to give the big guy a bit of a tweak for the fast-approaching new millennium: bringing in new writers and artists and gradually moving the stories into more bombastic, hyper-powered territory.

The fresh tone was augmented by a new sequence and style of trade paperback editions and this third collection gathers material from The Adventures of Superman #579-580, Superman: Man of Steel #101-102, Action Comics #766-767, Superman: Metropolis Secret Files and Origins #1 and Superman #158, covering June and July 2000.

The “City of Tomorrow” is slowly coming to terms with the fact that it has been transformed into an often-terrifying technological wonderland after a cyber-attack by future fiend Brainiac-13, but the Man of Steel is trying to cope with far weightier issues. Despite exposing The Parasite who had been impersonating Lois Lane-Kent, the Man of Tomorrow was unable to force the location of his missing wife from the leech before he/it died. With his one true love lost and maybe dead, Superman also had to admit that something was killing him from the inside…

‘Pranked!’ (Adventures of Superman #579 by J.M. DeMatteis, Mike McKone & Marlo Alquiza) opens proceedings here as Superman scours the city, convinced Lex Luthor knows something about Lois’ disappearance. He soon distracted however when the maniacal Prankster strikes again.

Having no time for the killer idiot’s japes, he reacts impulsively and is ambushed by a new foe dubbed The Adversary. The mystery strongman and Prankster (even with a B-13 upgrade of his own) are no match for the enraged Man of Steel, but that angry concern and overconfidence only lead Superman into a Kryptonite trap…

The saga continues in ‘All Fall Down’ (Superman: Man of Steel # 101 by Mark Shultz, Pablo Raimondi & José Marzan Jr.) as the rapidly expiring Metropolis Marvel crashes into the technological wonderland built by John Henry Irons AKA Steel.

With the inventor Superman devises a means of boosting his depleted solar energy reserves to fight off the K-radiation exposure, but rather than rest and recuperate, the weary hero then disguises himself in another attempt to broach Luthor’s Lair. The bid fails ignominiously and the ailing hero is caught, beaten and kicked out like a dog…

As he is picked up off the street by another worried ally, back at the “Steelworks”, Irons makes a chilling discovery regarding Superman’s condition…

‘Metropolica’ (Superman: Metropolis Secret Files #1, by Joe Kelly, Pascual Ferry & Alvaro Lopez) then takes us on a strange diversion as Luthor sets his formidable bodyguards Hope and Mercy the task of finding the missing Lois Lane. For once innocent of mischief, the Machiavellian multi-billionaire needs to know who is acting against his interests in his own domain.

Although the mission exposes a lot of secrets about the City of Tomorrow, Lois’ whereabouts is not one of them…

Action Comics #766 then concludes the hunt as Batman steps in – over the increasingly feeble protestations of the clearly-dying Man of Steel – in ‘D.O.A.’ (by Kelly, Cary Nord & Jason Baumgartner). The Dark Knight’s methodology and attitudes might be unwelcome, but as Superman follows him through the most sordid and squalid regions of the city he cannot fault their efficacy; especially when, against all hope, they find Lois alive.

With his wife at last returned Superman’s energy finally fades and he collapses…

The eponymous ‘Critical Condition’ then begins with ‘Little Big Man’ (from Superman #158 by Jeph Loeb, Duncan Rouleau & Jaime Mendoza) as a desperate band of scientists assemble at S.T.A.R. Labs to try and save Superman from a poison or infection which is destroying him by making his powers go wild.

With Irons are Doctors Sarah Charles, Kitty (Rampage) Faulkner and Professors Bridgette Crosby and Ray Palmer, but their combined efforts seem doomed to failure until Jimmy Olsen tells Lois of a call to the Daily Planet tip-line.

Soon she is frantically chasing sorceress and petty criminal La Encantadora who has horrifying details about what is wrong with the Man of Steel…

Palmer meanwhile has opted to undertake a “Fantastic Voyage” inside Superman, accompanied by Steel, Supergirl and Superboy but as the Atom shrinks his emergency team into the patient’s boiling hot bloodstream he has no idea that more than one of his party is concealing a deadly secret…

In ‘Green Universe’ (Adventures of Superman #580, by J.M. DeMatteis, Carlo Barberi & Juan Vlasco) the Girl of Steel – currently the earthly abode of a fallen angel – is attacked by antibodies shaped like memories even as Superboy and Steel locate a Kryptonite tumour that suddenly attacks them…

In the outer universe Lois’ search for Encantadora has brought her into conflict with infallible assassin Deathstroke the Terminator, who has instructions to stop the witch sharing her knowledge at all costs. As the women flee the masked killer, back at the lab a late arrival proves to Palmer that one of the heroes he has micro-injected into Superman is both an impostor and an assassin…

With the patient alternately flatlining and nearly exploding, the latecomer is rapidly “atomised” and sent ‘Inside Superman’ (Shultz, Doug Mahnke & Tom Nguyen, Superman: Man of Steel #102) to warn the unwary Super-Squad.

Simultaneously Lois and Encantadora explosively arrive in time to inform the scientists what has been gradually poisoning Superman for months, but before Atom and his colleagues can act Deathstroke also bursts in, ready to kill everyone if it means the Action Ace’s end…

Everything comes to a compulsive and catastrophic climax in ‘Death’s Door’ (Action Comics #767, by Kelly, Kano & Alquiza) as the mystery poisoner is revealed, Terminator thwarted and the Super-Squad triumphantly restores Superman to full health, ready for the next confrontation in the Never-Ending Battle…

With a cover gallery by McKone, Alquiza, Manke, Nguyen, Schultz, Cam Smith, Danny Miki, Ian Churchill & Norm Rapmund, this epic life-and-death struggle offers drama, doom, shock, spectacle and surprises which no lover of the Fights ‘n’ Tights genre can help but adore: a compelling soap opera super-melodrama which remains a high point of the canon and a sheer delight for all fans of pure untrammelled Action fiction.
© 2000, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Ultimates volume 1: Super-Human


By Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0960-0

After Marvel’s financial problems and creative impasse in the late 1990s, the company took stock, braced itself and came back swinging. A critical new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture.

The Ultimate imprint abandoned monumental continuity – which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset – to re-imagine major characters in their own self-sufficient universe, offering varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to the contemporary 21st century audience and offer them a chance to get in on the ground floor.

These revised star concepts all sported fresh, fashionable, modernistic, scientifically feasible rationales for all those insane super-abilities and freaks manifesting everywhere…

The nervy publishing experiment began in 2000 with a post-modern take on the Ultimate Spider-Man. Ultimate X-Men followed in 2001, and the Mighty Avengers were radically refashioned into The Ultimates in 2002 with Ultimate Fantastic Four finally and officially joining the party in 2004.

Creepy vigilante Spider-Man was still Peter Parker but now the secrets of the high-school geek – brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors – were shared with certain loved ones. The world was increasingly plagued by mutants: a dangerous, oppressed ethnic minority scaring the pants off the ordinary Americans they hid amongst.

The still clandestine Fantastic Four were two science nerds and their dim pals transformed by a science accident into monsters, and global peacekeeping militia S.H.I.E.L.D. had a UN mandate to keep a wary eye on anything or -body regarded as extraordinary.

The stories, design and even tone of the heroes were retooled for the perceived-as-different tastes of a more mature readership: those tired of or unwilling to stick with precepts originated by inspirational founding fathers Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, or (hopefully) new consumers unprepared or unwilling to deal with five decades (seven if you include Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of interconnected story baggage.

This new universe quickly prospered and soon filled up with more refashioned, morally ambiguous heroes and villains but eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor.

Eventually, in 2008, imprint-wide decluttering exercise “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of superhumans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto…

Long before that, however, the third reinvention to win a (semi) regular series was The Ultimates and this slim volume collects the first stunning story-arc (spanning March-August 2002), revealing the less-than-noble motives behind forming the team whilst scrutinising the pitifully flawed individuals who will eventually comprise the squad…

Written by Mark Millar with art by Bryan Hitch & Andrew Currie, it all begins in 1945 with ‘Super-Human’ as Captain America leads an American Army raid on an impregnable Nazi base in Iceland.

Steve Rogers has been chemically remade into the perfect warrior. The grimly uncompromising symbol of freedom is the only successful result of a project to create super-soldiers but has turned the tide in numerous battles across the war torn world. Now, with combat companion Bucky Barnes and a battalion of doomed men, he races to stop a prototype atomic missile aimed at the heart of the Land of the Free.

Too late to prevent the hell-weapon’s launch, the valiant crusader clings to the missile and suicidally brings it down over the polar seas, saving the world and passing into legend…

And in 2002, at the top of Mount Everest, controversial industrialist Tony Stark makes a decision that will change his world forever…

The second chapter begins right now in New York City following the devastating rampage of a monstrous Hulk. Robert Bruce Banner had been working on recreating the super-soldier formula for years but had only succeeded in turning himself into an unstoppable horror of unrepressed rage which tore the city apart and terrified the teeming masses of the world

Now his boss – S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo Nick Fury – approaches the supposedly cured and recuperating Banner regarding a long-term plan to create a state-controlled team of metahumans to face the uncertainties of the rapidly changing world. Banner had been in charge of the R&D, but now Fury is bringing in a despised rival over him to lead the project…

At the Super-Soldier Research Facility in Pittsburgh biologist Henry Pym and his wife Janet Van Dyne are celebrating their promotions. Pym has already demonstrated devices that allow him to control insects but his greatest success is Jan herself.

She can reduce her size, grow wings and fire devastating stings. The arrogant scientist can’t wait to laud all his new ideas for superhumans over Banner…

Back in the Big Apple Stark is exulting in his new Iron Man armour and discussing his upcoming role in the slowly coalescing team S.H.I.E.L.D. super-team with Fury.

At S.H.I.E.L.D.’s new HQ – the Triskelion – Pym smugly confronts his disgraced and fallen rival before demonstrating his newest triumph by growing extremely ‘Big’…

Relegated to the fruitless and seemingly impossible dead-end task of recreating the original super-soldier serum, Banner’s self-respect takes another agonising knock after hearing how a Stark deep sea expedition has recovered the still living body of Captain America…

’21st Century Boy’ opens with Pym testing his abilities in his new costumed identity as Giant Man before switching scenes to the Triskelion where Banner and Fury’s interview with Steve Rogers goes catastrophically awry. Only Pym’s last minute intervention stops the revived and disbelieving hero from trashing the entire base…

With Fury as his guide Rogers slowly reconciles to life decades after he “died”, but visiting the aged and dying Bucky (who married Steve’s fiancée after he was lost) and his own parents’ graves only fills him the ultimate warrior with apathy. It takes a direct request from the current President to convince Captain America to join Fury’s growing squadron of metahumans…

In ‘Thunder’, as Jan helps Steve adapt to the everyday shocks of living in the future, Fury pursues his last selection for the team. However Thor is utterly unlike the others, free from ambition, patriotism or informed self-interest. The libertarian rebel, radical activist and anti-capitalist hippie claims to be an actual god and wants nothing to do with state-sponsored fascism…

Frustrated, Fury returns home in time to be drawn into a session of badinage and mockery aimed at the now-redundant Banner and his new team’s lack of anybody to fight. The chinwagging is overheard by the crushed scientist who subsequently uses Rogers’ blood samples to amp up his own chemical concoctions. Before long the monster is loose again and providing the PR opportunity The Ultimates have been begging for…

‘Hulk Does Manhattan’ finds the mismatched and woefully unprepared team chasing the terrifying engine of destruction as he catastrophically tears through the city, but they are no match for the beast until Thor – ever-mindful of the harm inflicted upon innocent mortals – explosively and unexpectedly joins the fight…

This first outing then ends on a disturbingly dark note as Thor, Rogers and Stark have a frank and distressing discussion of their possible futures even as ‘Giant Man vs. The Wasp’ exposes the toxic relationship of the apparently perfect metahuman couple.

As the lovers’ argument escalates, the true secret of Jan’s powers is exposed, things are said which can’t be unsaid and the domestic dispute explodes into wilful murder…

To Be Continued…

With a cover-&-variants gallery by Hitch, Currie & Paul Mounts, this fascinatingly slick and cynical saga offers a sharp and sinister entrée into one of Marvel’s other Universes that will impress open-minded vintage fans of the medium just as much as the newcomers they were ostensibly aiming for. Moreover, if you’re a fan of Marvel’s movie enterprises, this is one of the tales that most resemble – and, indeed, informed – them, so you should be right at home…
© 2002, 2005 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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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 (“sapiens”) 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-changing…

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 titles…

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 options…

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 light…

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 Sentinels…

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 Sapiens…

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 different…

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 Earth…

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 spree…

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 “Human Avengers”. 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 overwrote…

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 Charles…

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 of  M’s forces as Layla works her own special mutant magic and reawakened mystic master Stephen Strange attempts to deal with Wanda…

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 planet…

…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.

“No more Mutants”…

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 human…

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 work…

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

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.
© 2005, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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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 “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who transformed at will into a living steel Colossus, and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John “Thunderbird” 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 “Dark Phoenix” 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 “Mutant Genesis” 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 stayed…

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 world…

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 “burnout”. 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 advantages…

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 organisation…

The drama commences with ‘A Cry of… 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 “questioning”. The confrontation quickly devolves into all-out war and leads to an horrific explosive tragedy…

Meanwhile in an Omaha orphanage an old foe prepares for another vile assault on the misunderstood heroes…

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 perpetrated…

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 claw…

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

…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 facts…

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 felons…

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 other…

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 powers…

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 genes…

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 mutant…

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 mind…

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 burnout…

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 affairs…

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 them…

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 Callisto…

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

To Be Continued…

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