Graphic Novels – Page 121

June 9, 2014June 18, 2014

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted

By Brahm Revel & Cristiane Peter (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-586-4

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories intended for older readers. More parallel to rather than actually outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased. Eventually these Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited seriesâ€¦

Marvel Knights X-Men: Haunted #1-5 originally ran from January-May 2014 and featured a particularly messy murder mystery and prime example of why baseline humanity should fear the mutants in their midstâ€¦ and vice versa.

In case you forgotâ€¦

In 1975 Len Wein & Dave Cockrum revived a revered but painfully uncommercial fan favourite with Giant Size X-Men #1, replacing most of the 1960s team – Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl, Beast, Lorna Dane and Havok – with a second generation of edgier international mutants young and old.

With both field-leader Cyclops and wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier remaining to carry on the dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race with terrifying extra abilities, the stage was set for â€œAll New, All Differentâ€ adventures, and the fledgling squad rapidly became the company’s biggest hit and asset, as well as largest pool of captivating characters.

Comic fans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for untold tales and details, so this grim and gritty, chronologically non-specific yarn featuring Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey,the Beast and Rogue will certainly appeal to older readers with a taste for nasty businessâ€¦

Written and illustrated by Brahm Revel with colour art by Cristiane Peter, the tale begins when telepathic Rachel picks up the psychically broadcast murder of a young unknown mutant. The most potent sense she got was that the boy was being huntedâ€¦

A little technological research by Hank McCoy pinpoints a cluster of three new mutants in rural West Virginia so the team heads off to the Appalachian boondocks. Further poking around had also revealed an unholy number of missing kids in that desolate areaâ€¦

With Wolverine already on edge over the prospect of somebody hunting mutant children, he and fellow covert specialists Kitty and Rogue arrive in a bleak, forbidding and primitive town and start poking around.

Rogue in particular feels the oppressive tone of a time and milieu she thought she had long left behind. Almost as soon as the suspicious strangers arrive, Wolverine arouses the ire of the local biker gang in their favourite watering hole, but while he does what he does best Kitty has found one of the mutants in the backâ€¦

Teenaged Krystal is a drug dealer for her uncle Jasper – the town sheriff – and can control minds, so she easily escapes the X-Men. She is also quite partial to the illicit and unique narcotic produced by cultish isolationists â€œThe Cooksâ€ in their secluded compound and soon after taking another dose is cornered by the patiently searching heroes.

Explaining the situation, the strangers take the oddly subdued Krystal – who lies about her true power – with them as they track down another mutant energy signature.

The trail leads to a cabin in the deep woods, a place the girl is clearly terrified of, and soon all four are experiencing impossible visions.

Wolverine has no time to ponder as he is ambushed by arch-nemesis Sabretooth and a brutal fight ensues. Rogue is then jumped by her former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants compatriots Mystique, Blob and Pyro and soon the shabby hut is filled with an army of old X-enemies and all-out war is underwayâ€¦

Realising something strange is going on, Wolverine battles his way to a young girl at the centre of the savage melee and discovers that deeply troubled Darla is cursed with the ability to materialise other people’s memoriesâ€¦

As he tries to reach her, the vision of the mutant boy’s murder plays out again for all to seeâ€¦

Back at the bar, Jasper delivers the latest batch of the new drug from The Cooks and suggests that the bikers get rid of the prying mutie strangers in townâ€¦

As the X-Men try to calm the deeply troubled dream-weaver, Krystal suddenly blurts out that Darla was the one who killed the missing boy, resulting in the cruel death materialising yet again and sending Wolverine into a murderous rage.

It’s all his team-mates can do to stop him gutting Darla on the spotâ€¦

In an effort to calm the situation the mutants all drive back to town, but when no adult is looking, Krystal slips Darla a bunch of pills from her stash and the memory-girl’s power goes into overdriveâ€¦

As Sentinels, evil mutants and demons from the X-Men’s past ravage the town, whilst the heroes turn on each other with homicidal intent, in the woods The Cooks, believing their particular apocalypse has arrived, head towards town to kill all the humans they can findâ€¦

Darla is off her head and out of control. However, as the town burns, with Rogue and Wolverine engrossed in trying to kill each other and a manifested army of old foes trying to kill everybody else, the truth slowly begins to emerge.

The Cooks’ special ingredient is bled out from captive mutants, boosting their product’s effect on humans and causing even nastier reactions in any Homo Superior who take it. Moreover, the doom-cultists believe that by taking the stuff they can become mutants themselves, leaving behind mortality and freeing them to slaughter the doomed genetic dead-ends of humanityâ€¦

As doped-up, despairing Darla discovers how to control her psychic constructs the chaos spirals to a bloody crescendo and Kitty, largely unaffected by the madness of malignant memories, realises that they have all been played for suckers.

Unfortunately even after the true cause of all the bloodshed comes clean, the carnage has reached a point beyond anybody’s controlâ€¦ and then comes inspirationâ€¦

Not all memories are bad and Kitty’s past is filled with valiant friends and heroes who would give their lives over and again to save the innocent and punish the guiltyâ€¦

With covers and variants by Revel & Peter and Paolo Rivera, Haunted is simultaneously a smart, convoluted mystery and breathtaking primal action comics spectacle that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

June 7, 2014June 6, 2014

Captain America: the Definitive Platinum Edition Reloaded

By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Englehart, John David Warner, Mark Gruenwald, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Ed Brubaker, Steve Harris, Al Avison, Al Gabriele, Dick Ayers, John Romita Sr., Frank Robbins, Kieron M. Dwyer, Ron Garney, Ivan Reis, Butch Guice, Luke Ross, Mitch Breitweiser & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-580-2

The Sentinel of Liberty was created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby at the end of 1940 and confidently launched in his own title Captain America Comics #1, cover-dated March 1941. He was an overwhelming overnight success. He was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely – now Marvel – Comics’ â€œBig Threeâ€ (the other two being Human Torch and Sub-Mariner) and amongst the very first to fade as the Golden Age ended.

When the Korean War and Communist aggression gripped the American psyche in the 1950s Steve Rogers was briefly revived in 1953 – with the Torch and Sub-Mariner – before sinking once more into obscurity until a resurgent Marvel Comics called him up again in Avengers #4.

It was March 1964 and the Vietnam conflict was just beginning to pervade the minds of the American publicâ€¦

This time he stuck around. Whilst perpetually agonising over the tragically heroic death of his young sidekick (James Buchanan Barnes AKA Bucky) during the final days of the war, the resurrected Mr. Rogers stole the show in the Avengers, then promptly graduated to his own series and title as well.

He waxed and waned through the most turbulent period of social change in his nation’s history, constantly struggling to find an ideological niche and stable footing in the modern world.

After decades of vacillating and being subject to increasing frantic attempts to keep the character relevant, in the last years of the 20th century a succession of stellar writers finally established his naturally niche: America’s physical, military and ethical guardianâ€¦

Now as part of the always entertaining Marvel Platinum Definitive Editions series,this tantalising treasury of less-told tales offers some intriguing landmarks from Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #7, Captain America Comics #3-4, Tales of Suspense #75-76, Captain America volume 1, #186, 363-364, 444 and #615.1, Avengers volume 3 #52-54 and the one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield?: spanning nearly 75 years of the Star Spangled Avenger’s tumultuous tour of duty.

Following Editor Brady Webb’s effulgent Foreword, the action opens with a fascinating and insightful exploration of Steve Roger’s war-time relationship with his idol President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in ‘An Ending’ by Brian K. Vaughn, Steve Harris & Rodney Ramos from Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #7 (March 1999) before the bombastic Simon & Kirby – aided and abetted by Al Avison and Al Gabriele – show everybody how it’s done with a brace of tales from the Golden Age of comicbooks.

Captain America Comics #3, May 1941 featured ‘The Return of the Red Skull’‘; an explosive 17-page epic wherein non-stop action and eerie mood accompanied the Nazi nemesis as he attacked New York with a colossal boring machine but couldn’t tell Cap and Bucky from a brace of fraudulent criminal impostorsâ€¦

A month later the same team exposed ‘Captain America and the Unholy Legion’ wherein the Patriotic Paladins convincingly crushed a cunning conspiracy and routed a Nazi-controlled army of beggars terrorising the city.

FromMarch and April 1966 Tales of Suspense #75-76 details Cap’s first meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter who had ’30 Minutes to Live!’ (Dick Ayers pencils over Kirby layouts with John Tartaglione inking) after couriering a deadly explosive packageâ€¦

The enigmatic Agent 13 would eventually become Cap’s long-term girl-friend and this bombastic bout also saw the debut of Gallic mercenary Batroc the Leaper in a taut 2-part countdown to disaster ending with #76’s‘The Gladiator, The Girl and the Glory’, illustrated by John Romita Senior.

Captain America volume 1 #186 (June 1975) featured a turning point in a protracted campaign against American corruption and the returned Red Skull which had seen the Sentinel of Liberty abandon his identity to become Nomad – the â€œMan without a Countryâ€ – before resuming his Red, White and Blue destiny.

Reprinted here is climactic conclusion ‘Mind Cage!’ (by writers Steve Englehart & John David Warner, limned by Frank Robbins & Mike Esposito) which revealed – as the villain attempted to overrun S.H.I.E.L.D. – that our titular hero’s greatest friend and ally The Falcon was in truth a Cosmic Cube creation and helpless puppet of the Fascist felon…

Mark Gruenwaldwas one of the longest-serving scripters of theStar Spangled Avenger and is represented here by Captain America volume 1 #363-364 (November-December 1989, wherein the All American hero battled his physical and ethical antithesis Crossbones in ‘Moon over Madripoor’. The Skull’s chief enforcer had kidnapped reformed villainess Diamondback and dragged her to the pirate island but was unable to defeat the Sentinel of Liberty in his impromptu ‘Man Trap’ (both issues illustrated by Kieron M. Dwyer & Dan Bulanadi)â€¦

In 1995, after a truly heroic and generally under-appreciated run, Gruenwald surrendered his post, going out on a high note by actually killing Captain America, as the super-serum that made him the world’s most perfect physical specimen degraded in his bloodstream, causing a total bodily collapse.

This cleared the decks for a spectacular relaunch from Mark Waid & Ron Garney in issues #445-448. Before that saga began, however, the duo – with the inking assistance of Mike Sellers – offered this unique perspective on the hero’s legacy in ‘Hope and Glory’ (Captain America volume 1 #444 October 1995) as a hostage crisis in Washington DC forced the bereft Avengers to overcome a seemingly insurmountable problem by asking â€œwhat would Cap do?â€â€¦

This is followed by the concluding 3 chapters of the 14-part Kang Dynasty storyline, which saw the Tyrant from Tomorrow finally conquer our planet and time (first seen in Avengers volume 1 #52-54, May-July 2002 as detailed by Kurt Busiek, Ivan Reis & Randy Emberlin, Dwyer & Rick Remender).

The epic counterattack was well underway on three fronts when Captain America led a daring sortie by a veritable army of Avengers against the Reiver of History’s orbiting Damocles Base. This resulted in a cataclysmic and ultimately cathartic hand-to-hand clash with Kang which would decide the fate of humanity and forever prove that Steve Rogers was its staunchest defender.

Although perhaps the Sentinel of Liberty’s finest moment, the extract here would surely be better understood and certainly better enjoyed in a collection of the entire sagaâ€¦

During the superhero Civil War Captain America led an anti-government faction of heroes who refused to surrender their liberties and identities to the Super-Human Registration Act. After spirited resistance and the death of too many friends at the hands of former comrades, the star spangled rebel surrendered himself to the government and was assassinated on the steps of a Federal Courthouse.

Naturally, nobody believed he was really deadâ€¦

His place and role was taken up by his long-dead first sidekick. Years previously Bucky had been captured by the Soviets and used as their own super-assassin – The Winter Soldier. There’s no truer maxim than â€œnobody stays dead in comicsâ€, however, and after being rescued from his unwanted spy-role the artificially youthful (now and part-cyborg) Barnes reluctantly stepped into his mentor’s crimson bootsâ€¦

The politically-charged thriller Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? (Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice & Luke Ross) is set squarely in the immediate aftermath of the original’s return from the dead (details of which can be found in Captain America Reborn)â€¦

Here, however, the former Winter Soldier ponders his future in the wake of the â€œrealâ€ Captain America’s resurrection and considers returning the role and unique Star-emblazoned disc to its rightful owner.

Meanwhile Steve, fresh from a timeless suspension where he perpetually relived his life over and again, combats the agonisingly haunting memories by taking to the snow-bound streets where he encounters his replacement and super-spy Black Widow battling the ferociously brutal Mr. Hyde.

Content to merely observe his old partner at first, he is soon invited to join the fray and, after the dust settles, the comrades-in-arms come to an understanding. Barnes will stay as the one and only Sentinel of Liberty. After all the new President of the USA has a far more strategic role in mind for his mentor Steven Rogersâ€¦

This rousing recollection concludes with the State-of-the-Union style recap issue Captain America volume 1 #615.1 from May 2011 by Brubaker & Mitch Breitweiser who recount the history of the many men who filled the role as an old, old friend manipulates the retired Rogers into once more taking up the role he was re-born forâ€¦

With covers by Ron Frenz, Kirby, Simon, Gene Colan, Gil Kane, Dwyer, Garney, Gerald Parel & Daniel AcuÃ±a, a healthy host of in-depth info pages about ‘Winter Soldier’, ‘Falcon’, ‘Sharon Carter’, ‘Batroc the Leaper’, ‘Crossbones’ and ‘Red Skull’, plus an erudite discussion on the evolution of sidekicks in Mike Conroy’s ‘The True Origin of Bucky Barnes’, this power-packed primer is an ideal introduction for readers familiar with the recent movie iteration and looking to increase their familiarity with the grandfather of all patriotic champions.

Filled with drama, tension and blockbuster action, this an ideal tool to turn curious film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.
Â© 2014 Marvel. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. British edition published by Panini UK.

June 6, 2014June 18, 2014

Cinebook Recounts Battle of Britain

By Bernard Asso, illustrated by Francis BergÃ©se colours by FrÃ©dÃ©ric BergÃ©se & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-84918-025-2

There’s the distant drone of a commemorative flight of Dakotas in my ears as the scenic South Coast of England celebrates the 70^th Anniversary of D-Day. So in a somewhat misplaced and time-insensitive tip of the hat I thought I’d take a peek at a classic slice of â€œOur Finest Hoursâ€ as seen through an oddly pan-European titbit that has much to recommend itâ€¦

Originally titled Le Bataille d’Angleterre and seen here as Biggles and The Battle Of Britain, the material in this album sprang out ofthe continent’s decades-long love affair with the plucky British aviator.

Biggles is huge all over Europe, particularly in Holland, Germany, Belgium and France, which makes it doubly galling that apart from a big run of translations in India, only a short-lived Swedish interpretation of his comicbook exploits (see W.E. Johns’ Biggles and the Golden Bird) and a paltry few from the Franco-Belgian iteration licensed by British outfit Red Fox in the mid 1990s – which included this very volume – have ever made the move back to Blightyâ€¦

Hopefully some enterprising publisher will be willing to brave the Intellectual Property rights minefield involved and bring us all more of his superb graphic adventures one dayâ€¦

Happily, as this tome is more of a documentary than a drama and the Air Ace doesn’t feature, publisher Cinebook have twice released this fine and visually erudite mini epic by historian Bernard Asso and the utterly compelling Francis BergÃ©se.

Like so many artists involved in aviation stories, BergÃ©se (born in 1941) started young with both drawing and flying. He qualified as a pilot whilst still a teenager, enlisted in the French Army and was a reconnaissance flyer by his twenties. At age 23 he began selling strips to L’Ã‰toile and JT Jeunes (1963-1966) after which he produced his first air strip Jacques RenneforZorro. This was soon followed by Amigo, Ajax, Cap 7, Les 3 Cascadeurs, Les 3 A, Michel dans la Course and many others.

BergÃ©se worked as a jobbing artist on comedies, pastiches and WWII strips until 1983 when he was offered the plum job of illustrating the venerable and globally syndicated Buck Danny. In the 1990s the seemingly indefatigable BergÃ©se split his time, producing Danny dramas and Biggles books. He retired in 2008.

In this double-barrelled dossier delight from 1983, his splendidly understated, matter-of-fact strip illustration is used to cleverly synthesise the events following the defeat at Dunkirk to the Battle of Britain (1940) and the eventual turnaround in May 1941. Combining and counterpointing the works of famous figures like Churchill, Hitler, Douglas Bader and Goering with key tactical players such as Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Galland and MÃ¶lders and relating actual tales of individual valour in the skies, the fact-packed narrative tracks the actions and experiences of specious winged warriors Leutnant Otto Werner and True Brit Flight Lieutenant James Colby as they struggle to survive in the skies over England.

The saga deals with the early days of terrifying air duels, later Blitz bombings, Albion’s logistical trials and eventual triumphs with factual expertise, but also affords a human face on each side of the conflictâ€¦

The latter half of the book then switches time and focus as Asso & BergÃ©se detail The Bombing of Germany (1943-1945) paying especial attention to Air Chief Marshal Harris‘ controversial tactic of â€œTerror Bombingâ€ and its effects on allies and enemies – and innocents.

Here Colby has transferred to Britain’s Bomber Command, trading Hurricanes and Spitfire for Lancasters, Halifaxes and B-17 Flying Fortresses. Major Werner is there too, as the Allies’ campaign slowly destroys the Nazi War Machine and the embattled Ace graduates from prop-powered Fockers and Messerschmitts to the first jet-planes – but too lateâ€¦

Cunningly converting dry dusty history into stellar entertainment, Asso & BergÃ©se brilliantly transform statistical accounts and solid detail into powerful evocative terms on a human scale that most children will easily understand, whilst never forgetting the war had two sides, but no â€œusâ€ or â€œthemâ€â€¦

Whilst perhaps not as diligent or accurate as a school text, Cinebook Recounts: Battle of Britain (part of a graphic history strand that also includes The Falklands War and The Wright Brothers making distant events come alive) offers a captivating and memorable introduction to the events that no parent or teacher can afford to miss, and no kid can fail to enjoy.

June 2, 2014

Superman Chronicles volume 8

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Leo Nowak, Paul Cassidy, Ed Dobrotka, John Sikela & Fred Ray (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2647-3

The American comicbook industry – if it existed at all today – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

The ebullient, effervescent, spectacular Man of Tomorrow spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and, within three years of his 1938 debut, his intoxicating blend of action and social wish-fulfilment had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant excess and explosively dashing derring-do.

Re-presented in this eighth pulp-revering Superman Chronicles edition, collecting the breathtaking yarns from Action Comics #44-47 and Superman #14-15 (January-April 1942) in chronological publishing order – and in as near-as-dammit recapturing the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially won the imagination of a generation.

Superman‘s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, World’s Finest Comics and his own dedicated title whilst a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16^th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5^th that year, which garnered millions of new fans.

A thrice-weekly radio serial launched on February 12^th 1940 and, with a movie cartoon series, games, toys, apparel and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s heroâ€¦

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these captivating tales of villainy, criminality, corruption and disaster are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No â€œto be continuedsâ€ here!

This epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel and the burgeoning Superman Studio (Joe Shuster spending most of his time and declining eyesight on the newspaper strip) continued to set the funnybook world on fire, and are accompanied throughout by the eye-popping covers of Fred Ray, whose creative genius was responsible for some of the most unforgettable iconic images and patriotic graphics on the genreâ€¦

As most of these early tales were untitled, for everyone’s convenience – especially your reviewer’s – the tales here have been given descriptive appellations by the editors and we begin here with ‘The Caveman Criminal’ from Action #44, illustrated by Leo Nowak & Ed Dobrotka, wherein crooks capitalised on a frozen â€œDawn Manâ€ who thawed out and went wild in the crime-ridden Metropolis, after which Superman #14 (January/February 1942 and again primarily a Nowak art affair) opened with ‘Concerts of Doom!’

Here a master pianist discovered just how mesmerising his recitals were and joined forces with unpatriotic thieves and dastardlyÂ saboteurs, after which the tireless Man of Tomorrow was hard-pressed to cope with the reign of diabolical destruction caused by ‘The Invention Thief’.

John Sikela inked Nowak’s pencils in a frantic high fantasy romp resulting from the Man of Steel’s discovery of a friendly mermaid and malevolent fishmen living in ‘The Undersea City’ before more high-tension and catastrophic graphic destruction signalled Superman’s epic clash with sinister electrical savant ‘The Lightning Master’.

Action Comics #45 by Nowak & Ed Dobrotka saw ‘Superman’s Ark’ girdle the globe to repopulate a decrepit and nigh-derelict city zoo, whilst Action #46 featured ‘The Devil’s Playground’ (credited here to Paul Cassidy) wherein masked murderer The Domino stalked an amusement park wreaking havoc and instilling terror.

In the bimonthly Superman #15 ‘The Cop Who was Ruined’ (Nowak) found the Metropolis Marvel clearing the name of framed detective Bob Branigan – a man who even believed himself guilty – whilst scurvy Orientals menaced the nation’s Pacific fleet in ‘Saboteurs from Napkan’ with Sikela again lending his pens and brushes to Nowak’s pencil art.

Thinly veiled fascist oppression and expansion was spectacularly nipped in the bud in ‘Superman in Oxnalia’ – an all-Sikela art job, but Nowak was back on pencils for a concluding science fiction thriller ‘The Evolution King’ wherein a malignant mastermind artificially aged his wealthy, prominent victims until the invulnerable Man of Steel stormed inâ€¦

This splendid compilation concludes with a blockbusting, no-holds-barred battle which was only the opening skirmish in a bigger campaign. Action #47 (Sikela) revealed how Lex Luthor gained incredible abilities after acquiring the incredible ‘Powerstone’, making the mad scientist temporarily Superman’s physical equal – if not mental – matchâ€¦

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, the endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster’s shadows continued to create the basic iconography of superhero comics for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.
Â© 1942, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 30, 2014May 29, 2014

Superman: Phantom Zone

By Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Rick Veitch, Tony DeZuniga & Bob Smith (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4051-6

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the greatest casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is the terrific tales which suddenly â€œnever happenedâ€.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale binning of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.

Thankfully DC is not as slavishly wedded to continuity as its readership and understands that a good story is worth cherishing. This slim, trim spectral selection gathers the superb 4-issue miniseries The Phantom Zone from January-April 1982 and the very last pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Zone yarn from DC Comics Presents #97 (September 1986), whilst simultaneously celebrating the stylish and enthralling scripting of unique comics voice Steve Gerber.

The riotous recapitulation of all that lost Man of Tomorrow mythology begins in ‘The Haunting of Charlie Kweskill!’ when the eponymous Daily Planet paste-up artist collapses at work. The solitary little dweeb has been sleeping badly, plagued by nightmares of a life on the long-gone world of Krypton.

His dreams reveal how brilliant scientist Jor-El devised a non-lethal way to deal with Krypton’s most incorrigible criminals: human monsters such as Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Dr. Xadu, sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul, potential dictator General Dru-Zod and even Jor’s own crazy cousin Kru-Elâ€¦

Many lesser menaces such as psionic aberrants Az-Rel and Nadira were also banished to the twilight realm, as well as stranger outcasts like callous biological experimenter Nam-Ek, but the one who most catches Charlie’s attention is convicted fraudster Quex-Ul; a Kryptonian who was Charlie’s doppelgangerâ€¦

The dreams are all true, telepathic broadcasts beamed at Charlie by the Zone inmates from within the plane of timeless intangibility. Quex-Ul had been one of them, surviving long after Krypton died, but was innocent of his crimes. He had been framed and mind-controlled by a mastermind who had deservedly perished when the Red Sun world detonated.

After Superman corrected the injustice and released the poor dupe, Qwex-Ul had saved the Man of Steel from a Gold Kryptonite trap, losing all his inherent Kryptonian abilities and memory in the process. The grateful, heartsick Action Ace had found the amnesiac a job at the Planet and almost forgot his alien origins in the years since. Charlie’s former fellows had notâ€¦

Their telepathic onslaught has turned Kweskill into a somnambulistic slave, unknowingly spending his nights breaking into labs and stealing high-tech components. Superman, slowly putting the puzzle pieces together, is just too late to thwart the stealthy scheme and as he bursts into Charlie’s apartment a hastily cobbled together Phantom Zone device hurls him and the hapless mind-slave into the ghostly region, whilst simultaneously freeing a legion of the cruellest criminals in existenceâ€¦

The saga continues with ‘Earth Under Siege!’ as Superman and Charlie helplessly watch Zod, Jax-Ur, Va-Kox, Faora and Kru-El immediately take off to undertake the next stage of their plan, leaving passively nihilistic Az-Rel and Nadira to negligently torture monstrous Nam-Ek with their psychic talents and mock the ranting liturgies of religious zealot Jer-Em, whose manic bigotry and fundamentalist isolationism caused the death of every person in Argo Cityâ€¦

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on the city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet detonated. Eventually Argo turned to Green Kryptonite like most of the detonated world’s debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished.

On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.

As the emotionally disconnected, disaffected and doubly alienated youths laconically saunter through Metropolis; casually slaughtering cops and citizens, Zod’s far more motivated cronies have reached Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and destroyed the only means of returning them to their extra-dimensional dungeon.

The next move is to attack the Justice League satellite, hurling it and occupants Flash, Zatanna, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm and Aquaman on a non-stop trajectory out of the Solar System. When the rampant Kryptonians destroy all Earth’s communications satellites and trigger a mass launch of nuclear missiles, Wonder Woman and Supergirl narrowly avert atomic Armageddon whilst the frantic Man of Tomorrow can only watch in horrorâ€¦

Not every Zone inhabitant is a criminal. For instance the Daxamite Mon-El was exposed to common lead in ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp from Superboy #89, June 1961) and his lingering, inexorable death was only forestalled by depositing the dying alien in the Zone until a cure could be foundâ€¦

Now, as Green Lantern confronts the Zod Squad on Earth only to be soundly beaten and have his Power Battery stolen, Mon-El informs Charlie and Superman of a possible back way out of the realm of hellish nullityâ€¦

On Earth, as Wonder Woman subdues Nam-Ek, Supergirl checks in with Batman, desperately trying to ascertain where her cousin Superman has gone. As the Dark Knight heads to Metropolis to investigate, Kara returns to the Fortress only to be ambushed by the Kryptonian escapees and beaten near to deathâ€¦

With no other choice, Charlie and Superman reluctantly pass through a dimensional portal even the obsessed villains were too scared to risk and encounter surreal madness in ‘The Terror Beyond Twilight!’â€¦

Back in the physical world of touch and time, Supergirl saves herself from ghastly atomic disintegration as Charlie and Superman pass through stormy turbulence and a tedious waiting-room-realm before arriving on a peculiar plane where they are confronted by luscious sirens with impossible riddles and exploding heads.

Their narrow escape from the Priestesses of the Crimson Sun only leads them to Kryptonian wizard Thul-Kar who magicked himself into the Zone in ages past and now slavishly serves an erratic and malevolent sentient universe named Aethyr.

It wants to consume Charlie and Superman but only by passing through it can they reach the physical world againâ€¦

On Earth, chaos reigns. Batman is utterly unable to pacify the extremist Jer-Em, who deems the planet impure, unclean and unholy. He would rather die than soil his Kryptonian purity here.

â€¦And high above the planet, the other freed villains have their own plan to fix the situation: a gigantic Phantom Zone Cannon which will inexorably and eternally banish Earth into the twilight dimension in the course of one full rotationâ€¦

The drama comes to a tragic conclusion in ‘The Phantom Planet!’ as Az-Rel and Nadira, having found kindred spirits amongst Metropolis’ disenfranchised Punk Rock counter culture – and killed them – encounter Jer-Em in martyr mode. The now suicidal cleric is quite keen on taking the rest of the apostate Kryptonians with himâ€¦

As the world turns into intangibility, in France Faora has briefly resumed her passion for murdering males – before they’re all gone – whilst in Aethyr’s universe an appalling sacrifice enables Superman to return to physicality in time to lead a last desperate charge, saving the day and puttingÂ the villains back where they belongâ€¦ those still alive, that isâ€¦

The remainder of the fantastic chronicle recounts the tying up of all those intriguing concepts and loose ends in a spectacular sidebar to the end of DC’s original universe.

In 1986 the company celebrated its fiftieth year with the groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths: radically overhauling its convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All the Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending this back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing the opportunity for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology.

One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of DC Comics Presents(#97) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foesâ€¦

Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to the imminent end of the multiverse, this dark yarn built on Gerber’s landmark miniseries and revealed that the dread region of nothingness was in fact the sentient echo of a dead universe which had always regarded the creatures deposited within it as irritants and agonising intruders.

Now as cosmic carnage reigned Aethyr, still served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, caused the destruction of the Bizarro World and the deification and corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk as well as the subsequent crashing of Argo City on Metropolis.

As a result Zod and his fellow immaterial inmates were freed to wreak havoc upon Earth – but only until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merged with and absorbed the felons before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Kryptonâ€¦

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and these timeless tales of charm, joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to comeâ€¦
Â© 1982, 1986, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 29, 2014May 28, 2014

Mighty Avengers volume 2: Venom Bomb

By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Marko Djurdjevic, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez, Victor Olazaba & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2369-9

After a TV reality show starring superheroes The New Warriors went hideously wrong and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of ordinary folk in Stamford, Connecticut, popular opinion turned massively against masked crusaders.

The Federal Government rushed through a scheme to licence, train and regulate all metahumans but the plan split the superhero community and a terrified and indignant merely mortal populace quivered as a significant faction of their former defenders, led by the ultimate icon of liberty, Captain America, refused to surrender their autonomy and anonymity to the bureaucratic vicissitudes of the Superhuman Registration Act.

The Avengers and Fantastic Four, bedrock teams of the Marvel Universe, fragmented in scenes reminiscent of America’s War Between the States, with â€œbrother pitted against brotherâ€ and as the conflict inexorably escalated it became clear to all involved that the increasingly bitter fighting was for souls as much as lives.

Both sides battled for love of Country, Constitution and personal Liberty and both sides knew they were rightâ€¦

Following the divisive and brutal Civil War, Tony Stark (a staunch advocate of the SRA) formed a squad of registered, Government-sanctioned heroes. His S.H.I.E.L.D.-backed Mighty Avengers were designed to take care of business whilst he worked on his â€œFifty States Initiativeâ€, the objective of which was to eventually field teams of trained and licensed superheroes in every State of the Union.

Firstly, though, he had to restore public confidence, especially as the unregistered, rogue New Avengers continued to defy his orders to surrender to government authority: saving lives and crushing evil without his permissionâ€¦

This second scintillating volume, gathering Mighty Avengers #7-11 (March-July 2008) is written throughout by Brian Michael Bendis and primarily illustrated by Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba, and begins with an opening shot in the then-forthcoming company event Secret Invasion.

‘Venom Bomb Part One’ finds New Avenger Spider-Woman switching sides to bring Stark the corpse of a Skrull who had replaced ninja assassin Elektra. Her own team thought they could handle the prospect – and feared Stark and/or his squad might also be alien infiltrators – but Jessica Drew, a triple agent simultaneously working for S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra and the rebel Avengers felt that only by going to the Nation’s security chief could the situation be successfully handledâ€¦

Stark keeps the corpse secret but invites Drew to join his team in hopes that her presence will cause any Skrulls in his Avengers to betray themselves. However, no sooner has Stark officially inducted the Arachnid Amazon to the squad (field leader Ms. Marvel, Black Widow, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Sentry and Grecian war god Ares), over their very strident protests, than a tiny ball of stellar debris crashes into New York City and unleashes an horrific, highly communicable plagueâ€¦

The capsule contains a voracious iteration of the alien Symbiote Spider-Man inadvertently brought back from The Beyonder‘s Battleworld and contact instantly transforms any organism into a voracious duplicate Venom.

Soon the city is a seething mass of rampaging, shapeshifting monsters – which is almost a relief for Stark as his constant scrutiny has detected no impostors. More worrying though is a desperate snatched conversation with Sentry’s wife Lindy, who begs the genius to find a way to de-power or kill her husband before his growing mental instability makes him a threat to the entire planetâ€¦

As the team deploys to the infection site the Wasp is pondering her last meeting with size-changing ex-husband Henry Pym (formerly Ant-Man, Giant Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket) when the erratic genius upgraded her powers. Unfortunately the ability to become a giant only makes her a bigger target and lethal liability when the rabid Venoms attack and infect herâ€¦

Thankfully Iron Man and the more or less than human Wonder Man, Ares, Sentry and Ms. Marvel are immune to the transformative terrors but then they encounter Hawkeye and Wolverine‘s New Avengers already on scene, and see that the outlaw heroes have succumbed to the contagion, becoming â€œVenomisedâ€ versions of their former selvesâ€¦

Using all his scientific resources, Stark synthesises a cure for the plague whilst his comrades hold the line, but in the aftermath the restored Hawkeye accuses him of being responsible for the murder of Captain America and the parlous state of the world.

Still reeling with guilt, Iron Man rockets into orbit to discover more weaponised venom bombs, and Ms. Marvel chooses not to arrest the SRA-resistors, allowing the New Avengers make their escapeâ€¦

In space Iron Man examines the bomb’s point of origin and discovers the satellite was built by Doctor Doom. Enraged and determined to make a political point Stark then deploys his team to invade the sovereign state of Latveriaâ€¦

With additional art from Marko Djurdjevic ‘Doom’s Castle’ opens with the Iron Tyrant indulging his passions with volatile sorceress Morgana Le Fey in the distant past, but his dangerous dalliance is soon forgotten when he returns to his own citadel to discover that his Venom satellite has prematurely triggered and a battalion of angry Avengers are attempting to kick his portcullis inâ€¦

The earth-shattering battle which follows sees the dictator soundly beaten but, on the verge of defeat, his Time Platform is damaged and the temporal malfunction causes the Golden Avenger, Sentry and Doom to plunge helplessly into the pastâ€¦

Presented as a visual pastiche of 1970’s Marvel Comics stories, ‘Time is on No One’s Side’ picks up the tale as Sentry discovers that his history is not as he remembers whilst watching his younger self battling dark mastermind The Void. Elsewhere in old New York, time-lost Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom resume their deadly duel until the panicking Sentry finds them and forces a truceâ€¦

Realising at last the incredible danger inherent in Sentry losing it, Doom leads his fellow chronal castaways to the era’s only known location of a time machine.

Unfortunately that’s Doom’s own device, confiscated by the Fantastic Four and cached in the Baxter Building and the bid to use it is interrupted by a fighting mad Thing named Ben Grimmâ€¦

Eventually however the trio triumph and travel back to their own Now, but only Iron Man and Sentry actually arrive, just in time to be caught in a monumental explosionâ€¦

This cataclysmic clash concludes as, in the Dark Ages, Doom and Le Fey collude and the witch-queen teaches her amorous pupil how to construct an army of demons.

Thus reinforced Doom returns to the 21^st century before Iron Man and Sentry and unleashes his horde of horrors on the rest of the Mighty Avengers. Crushed by the unholy horrors the team are soon trussed up as trophies of the devil doctor but nobody expected Spider-Woman to display an unprecedented power, disrupting Doom’s devices, freeing the team and demolishing his castle.

By the time Iron Man and Sentry pop back into reality it’s all over bar a colossal (and previously seen) detonation and the resounding defeat of the master of Latveria who subsequently becomes the most famous international terrorist ever arrested by S.H.I.E.L.Dâ€¦.

With covers by Bagley and Frank Cho and a selection of astounding inked cover samples by Cho, Danny Miki & John Dell, Venom Bomb offers another slick and stylish slice of breathtaking all-action entertainment which soundly sets the scene for the startling Secret Invasion main event which followed, but also reads astounding well on its own merits.

This is another Fights ‘n’ Tights â€œmust-readâ€ for insatiable thrill-chasers everywhere.
Â© 2007, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 28, 2014May 27, 2014

Batman – Streets of Gotham volume 2: Leviathan

By Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2906-1

With all the furore and hype surrounding the death and inevitable resurrection of Batman cunningly orchestrated by Grant Morrison, everybody seemed so concerned with what was going to happen next that they apparently ignored what was actually occurring in the monthly comicbooks in their hands.

Now with the dust long settled let’s take a look at one of the better satellite-series to come out of the braided Batman R.I.P./Final Crisis/Last Rites/Batman Reborn/Return of Bruce Wayne publishing eventsâ€¦

In the aftermath of the epochal loss of the Gotham Guardian, a sustained and epic Battle for the Cowl ensued amongst the fallen hero’s closest allies. Eventually Dick Grayson succeeded his lost mentor, carrying on the tradition if not the methodology of the Dark Knight, with Bruce Wayne’s League of Assassins-trained son Damian continuing as the headstrong and potentially lethal latest iteration of Robin, the Boy Wonderâ€¦

This sterling submission, illustrated throughout by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs, collects the contents of the monthly Batman: Streets of Gotham # 5-11 (October 2009-April 2010) and offers grim glances at the hellish everyday lives of citizens in the worst city on Earth, beginning with the 2-part ‘Leviathan’ – scripted by Chris Yost – wherein the life of a young, hope-filled Gotham priest is examined and tested over painful years before a calamitous crisis of conscience bloodily eruptsâ€¦

As his faith falters, the unpredictable Huntress frantically stalks Man-Bat Kirk Langstrom, convinced the self-mutated manhunter has finally slipped into carnivorous madness. Ignoring orders from Birds of Prey leader Barbara â€œOracleâ€ Gordon to merely subdue her quarry, the ruthless vigilante is determined to end forever the leather-winged horror’s attacks on Gotham’s citizens before eventually their ferocious extended struggle sends them smashing through the skylight of St. Aloysius‘ to land at the feet of troubled Father Mark.

â€¦And that’s when the poor padre hears the voice in his ear telling him to kill both â€œThe Beastâ€ and â€œThe Harlotâ€â€¦

As Batman and Robin track new esoteric stealth weaponry being sold to premier gang boss Black Mask, in the church’s vault Father Mark struggles to carry out the Word of God. The order keeps coming, somehow further infuriating the already rabid Man-Bat, and Huntress at last realises that rather than going rogue Langstrom has been reacting to a threat only his bat-like super-senses can detect.

As the invisible killer forgoes cunning enticement for heavy ordinances the Dark Knight crashes in to save the day, but it’s Father Mark who actually executes a benison of salvation and finds redemptionâ€¦

Scripted by the superb Paul Dini, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ then offers a dark Seasonal treat as Batman and Robin track demented tinkerer and part-time Santa Humpty Dumpty to his lair and discover a dormitory full of dead children.

However, as monstrous vigilante Abuse has already found, the tragic felon isn’t a killer, but instead is simply trying to â€œfixâ€ the broken creatures he keeps finding floating in the riverâ€¦

The discovery deeply affects the usually cocksure Boy Wonder, who is as determined as orphan Colin Wilkes, who escapes the nuns’ scrutiny every night to hunt adults who hurt children as the hulking, mutated Abuseâ€¦

And further upriver, psychopathic serial killer Mr. Zsasz puts his latest acquisitions to work, duelling to the death for the appreciative viewers and bettors of his underground juvenile gladiatorial boutsâ€¦

The case goes onto the backburner in the 2-part ‘Hardcore Nights’ (written by Mike Benson) when Jim Gordon alerts Batman to a spate of savage killings. Every victim is a career criminal and the Commissioner’s thoughts naturally tend to another vigilante in town, but the Gotham Gangbuster uncovers a link to a certain sex club worker and a darkly devious web of deceit, jealousy and murderâ€¦

Dini returns to script the last two tales in this compilation as ‘Heroes’ reveals how frail Colin gained his strange powers and abiding passion to punish abusers after the fear-mongering Scarecrow used the boy as a guinea pig for the madman’s terror-toxins and doses of super-steroid Venom.

Origin over, the tale returns to the present day as the lad uses himself as bait for whoever is snatching kids and runs into the scarily intense Damian trying the same stratagemâ€¦

Soon shanghaied by Zsasz, the over-confident boys are soon fighting for their lives in the mass-murderer’s ghastly arena, but by the time Batman arrives for the ‘Final Cut’ they have already demolished the foul fight club and one of them had to talk the other out of taking vengeance Old Testament styleâ€¦

Bleak, ominously poignant and powerfully downbeat, Streets of Gotham is a visceral, imaginative and deliciously off-balance stage for the varied bat-cast to display their efficacy in frantic psycho-thrillers and moody crime capers set on the darkest avenues in all of comicsâ€¦
Â© 2009, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

May 24, 2014May 23, 2014

Uncanny Avengers: Ragnorok Now

By Rick Remender, Steve McNiven, Daniel AcuÃ±a, Laura Martin & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-571-0

If you haven’t read the Avengers for a while then you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant hero Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android warrior The Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape Reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her beloved sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As years passed, loss drove Wanda mad and when she finally slipped utterly over the edge her resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avenger comrades. The effects of her actions spread to reshape the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in the team’s dissolution and climactic reboot (Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers: Breakout).

The team had barely recovered from that catastrophe before she overwrote Reality again, altering recent Earth history such that mutants ruled over a society where humans or â€œsapiensâ€ were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end, living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took a legion of champions and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (in House of M), but in the aftermath less than 200 mutants existed on Earthâ€¦

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her quest for redemption during the Avengers versus X-Men where the World’s Mightiest Heroes strove against the remaining mutants for control of Hope Summers: a girl born to be the mortal host of implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them by manifesting their dream of making Earth a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior and hell for humanity.

At the height of Avengers versus X-Men mankind was briefly enslaved by resurgent mutants before the selfish appetites of omnipotent Phoenix Force caused those possessed by it to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable â€œDark Phoenixâ€.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the aspiration of peaceful mutant/human co-existence, returned – only to be killed by his most devoted discipleâ€¦

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers in a joint effort to overthrow the cosmic avatar but, in the days following the departure of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and newly liberated mankind fell into its old habits of intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outragesâ€¦

When undying Ã¼ber-Nazi Red Skull stole Xavier’s brain to appropriate the deceased mutant’s awesome telepathic abilities, his subsequent terrorist outrages were halted by a new team of Avengers: one formed by Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the rising tide of inter-species hostilityâ€¦

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-wars, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by publicly adopting Xavier’s utopian vision. To that end he convened the high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising human and mutant heroes working together.

The quintessential Avenger chose former government agent Havok (Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers) to lead the team, which consisted of himself, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wolverine, Sunfire, Wonder Man and the Wasp.

Later, at a press conference inducting the latter two, the group was ambushed by the Grim Reaper and the clash ended with Rogue killing the psychopath in full view of the watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wastedâ€¦

Still reeling from that setback the Unity Division were then thrust into cosmic overdrive as the bewildering rivalry between arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his elder self Immortus resurfaced with the attack of future-reared mutant Dark Messiahs The Apocalypse Twinsâ€¦

It began in 11^th century Scandinavia in 1013AD as youthful rebel Thor was attacked by En Sabah Nur, undying mutant Apocalypse and agent of the all-powerful Space Gods dubbed Celestials.

The grotesque creature sought to safeguard the future by promoting the triumph of only the very strongest mutants, and his defeat of the arrogant Thunderer compelled the shamed godling to accept the aid of his malevolent half-brother Loki who â€œfoundâ€ a spell which transformed Thor’s battleaxe JarnBjorn into a weapon capable of rending even Celestial defensesâ€¦

Apocalypse was being guided in his seemingly random attacks by former enemy Pharaoh Rama-Tut (another incarnation of Kang) who advocated pre-emptive strikes on certain beings: those whose descendents would one day unite to resist the mutant advocate of Survival of the Fittest: the ancestors of a group called Avengersâ€¦

Thor’s hunt for revenge took him to medieval London just as En Sabah Nur attacked the next name on Rama-Tut’s list; a near-feral warrior named Folkbern Loganâ€¦

The Pagan soldier was battling Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen when Thor – wielding JarnBjorn – arrived. After saving Logan, destroying the servants and grievously wounding Apocalypse, Thor returned to Asgard and Odin’s fury, even as somewhere in time Apocalypse realised he has been a gulled puppet of Rama-Tutâ€¦

The real winner was Kang who quietly commandeered JarnBjorn: a weapon even Space Gods could not endureâ€¦

In our present, Apocalypse had been recently killed. Many creatures attempted to replace him as mutant messiah/exterminator of humanity and on solar-orbiting Starcore Station his son Genocide petitioned the Celestials to accept him as their new agent.

Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos; their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. The Apocalypse Twins then exercised their claim by using JarnBjorn to achieve the impossible, executing the previously-omnipotent Celestial Gardener: thereby endangering the very fabric of existenceâ€¦

Having successfully defended Rogue from murder charges at a S.H.I.E.L.D. hearing, Havok attempted to keep her busy – and out of sight – by sending her after Magneto when news arrived that The Peak (Earth’s early warning space station) was under attack.

The Scarlet Witch’s relationship with Wonder Man had been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him, and the traumatised energy being had reacted in many odd ways. For one thing he became a pacifist, willing to help the team in every way possible except by fightingâ€¦

The Avengers were unable to save The Peak from the Twins, who crashed the station on Rio de Janeiro. Although Thor and Sunfire saved the city from utter obliteration the rest of the team were far more concerned with a secret freshly uncovered: Wolverine’s role in the death of the Twin’s birth-father, X-Man and Archangel Warren Worthingtonâ€¦

The Twins are mainly reacting to years of cruel deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation in a private concentration camp in 4145AD, Eimin and Uriel eventually deduced their patron’s motives were self-serving and resolved only to trust each other whilst saving their speciesâ€¦

To that end the adult Apocalypse Twins constituted their own squad of Horsemen to winnow humanity and its heroes. These latest heralds of Mutant Rapture and human Armageddon were not the bio-engineered living creatures Apocalypse preferred, though. Eimin and Uriel instead opted for a quartet of dead apostles – Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper – to pave their way to mutant ascendancyâ€¦

When Immortus informed Captain America of the plot and the ghastly consequences should the Twins win the war to control all times, spaces and realities, he also included details of Wolverine’s murderous past and the Unity team split over issues of philosophy and pragmatismâ€¦

Thus Havok was hard-pressed to keep the heroes united before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, everyone a remorseless killer with deep emotional ties to the heroes who died at the hands of Avengersâ€¦

The squad split up to tackle the Apocalypse agents, but the attacks were only intended to mask the Twins’ secret agenda: compelling the reality-shredding Scarlet Witch to use her world-warping powers to bring about their long-desired ascendancy by triggering the Mutant Raptureâ€¦

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #12-17 (published November 2013 to April 2014), this timeless confection kicks everything into chaos and calamity as, following a trenchant glimpse at the twins’ harrowing formative years under Kang’s oversight, Earth’s mutant defenders experience the first rumblings of a Big Change.

On the orbiting Apocalypse Ark, Eimin and Uriel deftly work their wiles on Wanda and Simon Williams, urging her to cast a reality-warping spell to save all Homo Superior beings, utilising Wonder Man’s ionic energy to fuel the change. The guilty lovers are resolved to resist but don’t know what kind of creatures they are dealing withâ€¦

Down in the city of Socotra, Havok, Captain America and the Wasp attempt to destroy a Tachyon Dam preventing Immortus from delivering reinforcements from the corridors of history but are attacked by the revenant Banshee even as, far above them, Simon and Wanda discuss the Rapture.

All the Twins intend is to use the Witch to teleport every mutant on Earth into the ark which will then take them all to Jupiter where they can carve out their own world in peaceful isolation. Where’s the harm in that?

â€¦And in a distant future Kang’s reality starts to crumble around himâ€¦

As Cap and Co continue their struggle against Banshee, on a far distant world Thor is fully engaged in saving the inhabitants from waves of gamma lava, but whilst the Apocalypse Twins further entreat and beguile Wanda and Simon, in the bowels of their vessel undead Daken tortures his captive father Wolverine with horrific physical abuse and a crushing catalogue of the Canadian Champion’s many murderous bad decisionsâ€¦

Having left her companions to deal with Banshee, Wasp’s assault on the Tachyon Dam is interrupted by Sentry. The most powerful hero on Earth when he was alive, he is now even stronger thanks to the malign tinkering of the Twins.

Cap and Havok then uncover a possible way to defeat the seemingly unbeatable Eimin and Uriel, as Sunfire and Rogue rescue the nigh-expired Wolverine and decide that, whatever the cost, Wanda must never be allowed to alter existence againâ€¦

As waves of change unmake entire future eras, ‘The Day Nor the Hour’ finds Kang extracting key warriors from each expiring epoch, gathering his own army of retaliation, whilst in the Ark, Simon and Wanda prepare to usher in the Mutant Rapture. Hurtling towards them with death in their hearts Rogue and Sunfire have no idea that their fellow Avengers have their own secret plan to thwart the Twins and not even the last-minute arrival of Wolverine is enough to prevent a horrific triple tragedyâ€¦

With casualties mounting ‘Rapture’ begins and all over Earth mutants fade away, reintegrating in hibernation coffins deep within the Twins’ ship, revealing that Eimin and Uriel had anticipated Wanda’s duplicity and taken steps to counteract her plan.

Elsewhere the Wasp is outmanoeuvring Sentry when Thor arrives to seal the monster’s fate, whilst in space Captain America and Havok boldly attack the Twins head on before ultimate disaster arrives in the planet-sized form of Exitar, the Celestials’ official executioner and sentient Extinction Event.

When Thor and Wasp join their surviving comrades aboard ship, the sidereal colossus – reacting to the personal threat of enchanted Jarnbjorn – decrees that Earth must dieâ€¦

‘Yesterday Didn’t Exist’ opens as Immortus’ legion of heroes, still trapped on the other side of the Tachyon barrier, anxiously await their chance to reinforce the Avengers whilst on embattled Earth-in-the-now, Tony Stark, Doctor Doom and the Vision rally an army of metahumans – good and evil – to forestall Exitar’s cataclysmic death sentence.

Learning too late from the Wasp how the Twins framed mankind for killing Celestials, the assembled champions battle on with desperation as far above the Unity Avengers fight valiantly but inexorably fall to the mutant messiahs.

With grim finality everything ends as the Apocalypse Twins intended as ‘Ragnarok Now’ depicts the destruction of Earth and the heartbreak of its only survivorâ€¦

To Be Continued?

Scripted by Rick Remender and limned by Steve McNiven, John Dell, Jay Leisten & Dexter Vines (with Daniel AcuÃ±a illustrating #13) this spectacular if somewhat convoluted saga may be a bit daunting for casual readers, but dedicated followers of cosmic Costumed Dramas will no doubt adore the fantastic premise and blockbusting scope of events.

With covers-&-variants by John Cassaday & Laura Martin, Leonel Castellani, McNiven, Justin Ponsor & Davew McCaig, this titanic tome also includes a selection of extra content in the form of AR icon sections with trailers, character bios, creator commentaries and oodles more. The Marvel Augmented Reality App pages grant access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet, so for the Full Monty you should do that too, right?
â„¢ & Â© 2013 and 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

May 23, 2014May 25, 2014

Iron Man: Iron Metropolitan

By Kieron Gillen, Joe Bennett, Agustin Padilla & Scott Hanna (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-595-6

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

Of course, he was also a founder member of the world’s most prominent superhero assemblage, the Mighty Avengers, and affirmed Futurist; an impassioned advocate of inevitable progress by way of building better tomorrowsâ€¦

For a popular character/concept weighed down with a fifty-year pedigree, radical reboots are a painful periodic necessity. To stay fresh and contemporary, Stark’s origin and Iron Man’s continuity have been radically revised every so often, but never so drastically as during this latest revamp – the latest collected chronicle of which re-presents Iron Man volume 5, #18-22 and Inhumanity event tie-in Iron Man #20.INH, from November 2013 to March 2014.

What Just Happened: following a few notable escapades in outer space the once-jaded Armoured Avenger uncovered a few surprises in his own past (for which see the two-volume Iron Man: The Secret Origin of Tony Stark)â€¦

Rigellian Recorder 451 – one of millions of sentient automatons programmed to travel the universe acquiring knowledge – had developed a programming flaw and struck out on its own, slowly furthering its own secret agenda.

The renegade revealed to Tony that it had been watching over the Earthly inventor since before he was born, and had worked with his parents Howard and Maria to genetically alter their unborn child and make it a technological super-warrior capable of defending Earth from exponentially increasing alien attacks that were to come as the universe responded to the deadly potential of Mankindâ€¦

What 451 never knew was that Howard Stark was deeply suspicious and, after decoding the genetic alterations the Recorder had installed in the foetus, tampered with some of themâ€¦

451 claimed Tony had been designed to pilot an apocalyptic doomsday weapon left behind from the beginnings of creation when the Celestial Space Gods were at war with a rival force for control of everything. Stark’s inventiveness, aggression and fascination with armour technologies were merely programmed expressions of his ultimate purpose: to pilot world-shattering, five-mile high warsuit The Godkillerâ€¦ and there was nothing he could do to escape his awful destinyâ€¦

After a spectacular struggle Stark defeated and destroyed the deranged robot Rigellian and returned to Earth where further enquiries into his family’s shady history uncovered an astonishing, life-altering discovery kept hidden for years by his brilliantly paranoid father: Tony had an older brother who was the actual subject of 451’s genetic manipulation.

Arno Stark was a bed-ridden technological genius who was forever trapped in an Iron Lung, locked away and raised in isolation at the Maria Stark Foundation Hospice, but now the brothers were gloriously reunited. There was only one small caveat to Tony’s unbounded joy. He was no blood relation to Arno, but apparently secretly adopted as a ploy to deceive 451â€¦

Scripted by Kieron Gillen and illustrated primarily by Joe Bennett & Scott Hanna, the latest stage in the evolution of Iron Man is Iron Metropolitan which begins with an ominous glance thirty years into the future where Tony and Arno Stark proudly gloat over the completion of their super-cities and space elevator technology before their devoted AI H.E.L.E.N. rebels and sabotages everything, subsequently ripping Earth apartâ€¦

The prophecy is only a computer simulation and does not deter the present day Stark Brothers from initiating their first joint venture: saving humanity from self-inflicted extinction by building perfect cities for modern men and women to live inâ€¦

Meanwhile in London, ever-indignant radical journalist and social gadfly Abigail Burns is seduced by a sentient flaming Ring which deems her worthy to become a Mandarinâ€¦

Before introducing best friend and corporate CEO Pepper Potts to his still mainly clandestine bro Arno, Tony announces his intention of turning the deserted – except for the criminal gangs which infest it – Mandarin City into a prototype modern metropolis.

The private island off the coast of mainland China has been ignored and avoided by the nations of the world since the villain’s death and will be the perfect site on which the Starks can make their vision liveâ€¦ but only after driving out the Triads and other vermin profiting from a legally tenuous citadel no world power is confidant enough to annexeâ€¦

Whilst on a roll, Tony then upgrades his personal AI system. He calls this new electronic Major Domo H.E.L.E.N.

Soon the contentious island is a whirlwind of construction and Pepper brings aboard canny publicist Marc Kumar, whose first press conference – blathering about creating better ways to live in the technological marvel dubbed Troy – goes south when his old lover Abigail turns up.

It gets really unpleasant after she swiftly graduates from barracking the arrogant â€œhypocritical capitalistsâ€ to blasting buildings as the inflammatory Red Peril, and the disaster is further derailed when another Mandarin Ring manifests an explosive statement of destructive intentâ€¦

As Tony suits up to tackle Red Peril, from the security of his hospital bed Arno takes remote control of their city’s mechanical police force; dispatching thousands of empty Armour suits as a Trojan Guard to save lives and property.

In the aftermath, Tony calls in former War Machine pilot James Rhodes (now all decked out as the Iron Patriot) to discuss the clear and present danger of The Mandarin’s Power Rings and their quest for new hosts. Rhodes supervises S.H.I.E.L.D. Weapons Vault Omega and is appalled to discover that the ten deadly adornments he’s guarding are only an illusionâ€¦

Agustin Padilla then illustrates the Inhumanity tie-in issue Iron Man #20.INH which describes how the most recalcitrant of those missing Rings scours the Earth for the perfect host, rejecting the likes of the Hulk, Venom and Red Skull in favour of somebody more pliableâ€¦

During the blockbusting Infinity event, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it created millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not different racesâ€¦

When it all happened, thuggish waste of space Vic Kohl saw his despised family transformed whilst he remained pitifully normal and incorrectly deduced that he was not of their blood. Going on a self-loathing drunken bender he was targeted by the malicious Nightbringer Ring and simultaneously picked up by Iron Man’s latest Mandarin-hunting devicesâ€¦

In the resultant clash Kohl’s dormant Inhuman genes and latent Terrigen exposure finally kicked in and the drunken whiner was remade into something dark, angry and uniquely different.

Escaping the Golden Avenger but subsequently rejected and abandoned by the Inhumans’ current leader Medusa, Vic accepted his Ring’s urgings and angrily declared himself The Exileâ€¦

Back at the ongoing storyline, Tony occupies the Troy Geostationary Orbital Platform and ponders a murder campaign orchestrated by mystery Ring-wearer Lord Remaker. Although a work-in-progress, Troy now houses half a million people, 106 of whom have died in the terrorist’s hellish bomb-blasts.

When Red Peril returns to the skies over their city, the Starks are quick to react, but Abigail evades Iron Man and vanishes into the streets of Troy, seeking answers to questions nobody likes to hear. She also gets her Ring to explain what it wants, and the shocking details send her desperately seeking the other Ring-wearers active in the Iron Metropolisâ€¦

When she finds The Exile and a former gang boss using the Remaker Ring to take back the city Stark â€œstoleâ€ from him, Abigail unexpectedly allies herself with the capitalists she’s always despised rather than the murderous maniacs who think she’s on their side – but not before the monsters launch a monumental missile strike at Stark’s HQâ€¦

Moments too late, Tony watches his dream burn, and believes Arno died with it. Thus he is ecstatic to discover that his bed-bound brother had secretly constructed his own monstrous life-support Armour, which overwhelmingly joins him and Red Peril in crushing Lord Remaker and Exile.

With the Trojan Guard they drive off the malcontents, but when Abigail impetuously chases Remaker she only glimpses his mutilated corpse and missing Ring before an unknown assailant attacks and takes hersâ€¦ and her handsâ€¦

Saved by Iron Man, the still rebellious reporter angrily explains what the Rings’ agenda entails, before again lambasting Tony about his utopian arrogance. The diatribe hits home and he is forced into making a heartrending decisionâ€¦

And in another place, a sinister eldritch figure exults as he examines his three blood-soaked Rings before laying his plans to secure the remaining sevenâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Bold, suspenseful and riotously action-packed, this expansive repositioning of the Golden Avenger comes with a cover-&-variants gallery by Paul Rivoche and Hajime Sorayama plus a photo-cover featuring the TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
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.

May 20, 2014May 20, 2014

X-Men volume 2: Muertas

By Brian Wood, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Clay Man, Barry Kitson, Kris Anka, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-592-5

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters, so when the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men launched it was no real surprise to see that the leading line-up comprised exclusively women warriors.

This second collected chronicle, scripted by Brian Wood, re-presenting issues #7-12 (from November 2013 to March 2014) takes the conceit a stage further by introducing an all-girl gang of baddies to the mixâ€¦

The eponymous triptych ‘Muertas’ – lavishly illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson and Barry Kitson, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel & Terry Pallot – commences the sinister suspense as Colombian cartel princess Ana Cortes assumes her recently deceased dad’s tenuous position at the head of the bloody table and, to consolidate her position, invites underworld tech-facilitator Reiko to implant nanites and memory downloads that will body-modify the ambitious teenager.

Her first mistake is allowing her body to become the physical host of carnage-crazed mutant-hating cyber-assassin Yuriko Oyama AKA Lady Deathstrikeâ€¦

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, vampire mutant Jubilation Lee is happily hearing how her official adoption of mystery baby Shogo is proceeding apace when multi-powered and recently resurrected wonder woman Monet St. Croix returns to the fold, looking for a place to rest and recuperateâ€¦

As the former Generation X team-mates verbally spar upstairs, down deep in the bowels of the school bestial scientist Hank McCoy is assessing the changes in former cop Karima Shapandar: a human friend previously infected with Omega Sentinel systems and transformed into the ultimate mutant eradicator. Apparently her lethal state was more or less cured during a horrifying battle against an ancient and malevolently sentient meteor-borne infectionâ€¦ Arkea.

When the Earth was still brand new and cooling, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the very start. They clashed and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed hereâ€¦

Billions of years later, John Sublime – current body of the victorious sentient bacterial life form – fought the X-Men. In various forms he had continuously survived on Earth since life began but was no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior.

Then one momentous day he surrendered himself to his enemies at the Jean Grey School in the light of an urgently manifesting mutual threatâ€¦

Sublime abides by possessing biological organisms, and he came to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology and electricity as well as meat – has returned to the planet, hungry for revenge on him and wanting to control everything else in existenceâ€¦

Possessing humans and mutants alike, Arkea determined to supersede life on Earth, but her possession, upgrading and alteration of suitable organic-vehicles led to a cataclysmic confrontation (see X-Men: Primer) and she was declared destroyed – but for so many beings in the Marvel Universe, Death is neither fatal nor finalâ€¦

Back in the now Lady Deathstrike makes her move, sending an army of cartel soldiers to steal the Omega Sentinel from the X-School, but has to change her plans on the fly when Monet and the now merely-mortal Karima drive off her army of gun-toting thugs.

Forced to regroup and reassess, Ana/Yuriko opts to recruit her own super-powered gang and begins by hiring manic multiple personality mutant assassin Typhoid Mary who goes on a daring reconnaissance mission which nets Deathstrike all the files on Arkea and even a living sample of the inimical electronic nemesis.

Ana foolishly considers the specimen as the ultimate body upgrade and even the formidable Sublime cannot convince her otherwise, but after a brief battle the sample proves to be dead. Sadly during the skirmish Yuriko learned that the Arkea hive consciousness may still be alive in other meteoric shardsâ€¦

By the time Monet tracks him down, Deathstrike and Typhoid are in Norway seeking to extract a promising fallen star where they uncovered the prison of Amora the Enchantress; stripped of her Asgardian magic and locked in a force bubble by the Mighty Thor.

Seduced by the promise of her powers fully restored by the thing in the meteorite, Amora enlists in Ana’s army, a vengeful association she calls The Sisterhoodâ€¦

With the world facing imminent destruction from a new Arkea assault, Storm, Psylocke, Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) and Jubilee call on Israeli mutant hero and Mossad agent Sabra who, along with mystery superman Gabriel Shepherd, track Deathstrike and new Arkea to Dubai.

Before the team can strike, however, Monet streaks in, displaying all her terrifying power, but is too late. Arkea has possessed technician Reiko and begun augmenting the othersâ€¦ not for their benefit, but her ownâ€¦

Extending her control across the planet, Arkea activates an army of broken, abandoned Sentinels, sending them marching across the Pacific sea floor to attack Americaâ€¦

The crisis grows in the second trilogy ‘Ghosts’ (art by Kris Anka & Clay Man) as, fleeing Monet’s blockbusting attack, Arkea drags her increasingly scared acolytes across the world, intent on augmenting the ranks of the Sisterhood by resurrecting two of the most lethal women ever to have faced the X-Men.

As Jubilee leads a squad of older students from the School to Catalina Island to intercept the Sentinels, in New York Arkea/Reiko uses Amora’s restored Asgardian magic to reanimate the immortal life-leeching horror Selene and Ana realises the full gravity of what she has unleashedâ€¦

As a too-late act of redemption, the repentant Cortes summons the X-Men to the Sisterhood’s location, but by the time the resurgent heroes arrive Arkea has excised Ana and similarly revived the hellish Red Queen Madelyne Pryorâ€¦

Sadly for the cocksure bacterial conqueror, her ungrateful revenants are more than happy to trade a threat to human existence in exchange for their own immediate survival, but as the X-Men spectacularly end the threat of Arkea again, more than one triumphantly weary woman warrior is forced to wonder if they the traded a greater evil for exigent salvationâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed and stuffed with engaging soap opera riffs, this bombastic extremely enjoyable collection is merely a prelude to greater Fights ‘n’ Tights traumas to come but is at least amply augmented by a lovely cover-and-variants gallery by the Dodsons, John Cassaday, David Marquez & Gerard.
â„¢ & Â© 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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