T
Teen Titans: Beast Boys & Girls
featuring Ben Raab and Geoff Johns
(Art by Justiniano, Chris Ivy, Tom Grummett and Lary Stucker)
Book 3. Two stories focusing on Gar Logan AKA Beast Boy AKA Changeling. The first story, from before this current run of Titans, sees Gar cut loose from the Teen Titans and return to Hollywood in the hopes of reviving his acting career. His efforts are derailed, however, when he finds himself accused of murder and begins to doubt his own memory. The second story sees Gar mysteriously cured of his powers but then finds kids across San Francisco turning into green animals.
I can't honestly say I've ever given much thought to Beast Boy as a character, his name, power set and visual look all contributing to me writing him off as a goofy comic relief superhero. Here, however, we get the chance to learn a bit more about who he is, where he comes from and what, ultimately, makes him a worthy member of the Titans. It was an experience that I certainly valued and enjoyed. Over the course of these two stories (one from the late-90s and one from the early-2000s) I developed a much stronger interest and attachment to the character in a way that genuinely made me totally reassess how I felt about him. It's not often a graphic novel manages to fundamentally change how you look at an established superhero, so credit to the writers for that.
Aside from the excellent character work done for Gar, the actual plots of these stories are pretty bland and cliche. The first amounts to 'long-lost child of a supervillain seeks revenge' and the second is an equally unoriginal 'person ruined by hero/hero's family seeks revenge'. Neither of them are outright bad but they're not exactly good either.
Overall it's how much we get to know Beast Boy that makes this book worth reading. If you don't like Beast Boy, then maybe give this a try and see if it changes your mind.
3 out of 5
The Amalgam Age Of Comics: The DC Comics Collection
featuring John Byrne, D. G. Chichester, Ron Marz, Mark Waid, Gerard Jones, Larry Hama and Dave Gibbons
(Art by John Byrne, Scott McDaniel, Jose Luise Garcia-Lopez, Jim Balent, Howard Porter, Dave Gibbons, Derek Fisher, Terry Austin, Kevin Nowlan, Ray McCarthy and John Dell)
Six stories from the Amalgam Universe starring Wonder Woman Ororo Munroe, Catsai and Dare, Doctor Strangefate, the JLX, Dark Claw and Super Soldier.
In case you didn't know the Amalgam Universe was a mash-up of the two title franchises from 1996's 'Marvel Versus DC/DC Versus Marvel' event (reviewed here), which saw familiar characters from Marvel and DC merged (amalgamated, see?) into new ones. For me, I was always particularly impressed by how cleverly the heroes that got merged were chosen. Sure, there's obvious ones like Hawkeye and Green Arrow but there were also much cleverer ones like Superman and Captain America or, a personal favourite, Sabretooth and Joker being combined into the Hyena.
The stories on offer here are, naturally, a mixed bag but none are outright bad and even the less interesting ones let us explore the marvellous potential of this new universe, such as seeing the JLX go toe-to-toe with the Judgement League Avengers. I found that the highlight of the book was Chichester's 'Assassins: Political Suicide' starring Dare (a female mash-up of Daredevil and Deathstroke) and Catsai (a combination of Catwoman and Elektra). It's surprisingly adult in tone and a compelling tale of two femmes fatales taking on New Gotham's criminal Mayor The Big Question (Riddler/Kingpin). The only downside was Chichester's insistance on including references to the original Marvel and DC characters in the dialogue which is just too on-the-nose.
The big downside to the book overall is that each of these stories was released as a one-shot comic purporting to be part of an ongoing series (that conceit even carries over into having actual letters pages from fictional lifelong fans of Amalgam). Whilst an amusing idea, what it means for the stories here is that they feel incomplete in the way that reading a single comic of any ongoing series would. Personally I would have happily read a complete story arc featuring any of these characters. Imagine how great a full-length Dark Claw (Batman/Wolverine) graphic novel would've been.
4 out of 5
The Amalgam Age Of Comics: The Marvel Comics Collection
featuring Chuck Dixon, John Ostrander, Gerard Jones, Howard Mackie, James Felder, Karl Kesel and Barbara Kesel
(Art by Cary Nord, Gary Frank, Jeff Matsuda, Salvador Larroca, Mike Wieringo, Roger Cruz, Cam Smith, Mark Pennington, Art Thibert, Jaime Mendoza, Larry Stucker, Al Milgrom, Gary Martin, Karl Kesel and John Holdredge)
Six stories from the Amalgam Universe starring Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Diana Prince, the Punisher, Magneto and the Magnetic Men, Speed Demon, Spider-Boy and X-Patrol.
The Amalgam Universe was created by the merging of the Marvel and DC Universes in the 1996 event story 'Marvel Versus DC/DC Versus Marvel' (reviewed here), leading to major characters from both publishers being amalgamated into new ones. For example here, DC's Etrigan the Demon and the Flash are mashed-up with Ghost Rider to become the Speed Demon.
This is definitely the worse of the two anthologies of 'The Amalgam Age of Comics', with largely weaker stories but also less interesting mash-up characters. Also, as with that other book, the conceit that these stories are pretending to be part of larger ongoing series once again leaves the offerings here feeling unfinished and unsatisfying.
It's not all bad and the first and last stories on offer here are definitely the highlights. The first features Bruce Wayne, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. going on the offensive against the Green Skull, with his mentors Nick Fury and Sgt. Rock rushing to back him up. With the mantle of sort-of-Batman taken by Logan in the Amalgam Universe, I felt that head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a really appropriate role for Bruce's personality. The last story in the book stars X-Patrol, a mash-up of X-Force and Doom Patrol. Both of those original teams are ones I'm a fan of, so I found the adventures of Niles Cable's team to be pretty engaging.
3 out of 5
The Avengers: Road To Marvel's The Avengers
featuring Peter David, Joe Casey, Justin Theroux and Fred Van Lente
(Art by Sean Chen, Victor Olazaba, Scott Hanna, Barry Kitson, Ron Lim, Tom Palmer, Stefano Gaudiano, Matthew Southworth, Tim Green II, Felix Ruiz, Matt Camp, Luke Ross, Neil Edwards, Crimelab Studios, Daniel Green, Javi Fernandez, Andy Smith and Richard Elson)
A tie-in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase 1, featuring an adaptation of Iron Man, stories bridging that movie and Iron Man 2 and a tie-in to Captain America: The First Avenger.
This book opens with an adaptation of the movie which launched the MCU and I have to say it's by far the best comic-to-movie-back-to-comic adaptation I've read to date. Peter David does a great job of not only knowing which scenes from the movie to include, but also manages to capture the irreverent charm of Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark, upon which the success of the movie ultimately hinged. It made me want to immediate re-watch Iron Man, which I would say means this story is a success.
The series of stories bridging the gap between the first and second Iron Man movies aren't of quite such pitch-perfect quality, but they still do a really good job of actually feeling like they belong in the movie continuity, something which some tie-in comics fail at. It's not enough to have the same characters as the movies; the world they live in has to feel the same as it did in the movies and the writers achieve that here. It's also fun to see a bit more of characters who would go on to have far larger roles in the MCU, including Nick Fury, Coulson, Black Widow and General Ross.
The book finishes out with 'Captain America: First Vengeance' by Fred Van Lente, which is a thoroughly enjoyable expansion of the first Captain America film. It shows the backstories of several important characters like the Red Skull and Doctor Erskine, as well as letting us see Cap and the Howling Commandos taking down Hydra bases which was sadly largely skipped over in the movie itself.
All told this is a solid collection of stories which nicely capture the feel, tone and excitement of those first few years of Marvel movie magic (Stan Lee would be so proud of that alliteration).
4 out of 5
The Avengers: The Coming Of The Avengers/Ultron Unlimited
featuring Stan Lee and Kurt Busiek
(Art by Jack Kirby, George Perez and Al Vey)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 24. In the first of two stories we get to see the very first assembling of the Avengers as they're tricked into thinking the Hulk is on a murderous rampage by Loki. The second story has the Avengers facing public relations problems when their old enemy Ultron launches his latest and most deadly attempt to wipe out organic life.
I've got to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by Lee's first-ever Avengers story. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with the story being told, in fact having a villain as iconic as Loki be what brings these heroes together was a nice touch (one which Joss Whedon reused for the first Avengers movie). No, the problem is that the coming together of Marvel's mightiest heroes (*wink*) doesn't actually feel very triumphant. They just sort of all end up in the same place and say, more or less, "Well, since we're all here, I guess we can probably work together...". I was hoping for something a bit more bombastic, I suppose.
What I didn't like about Kurt Busiek's 'UItron Unlimited' is a lot harder to pin down, but I definitely didn't like it. Honestly, there's nothing overtly wrong with this story and it does, in fact, have the bombastic coming-together of mighty heroes to save the day that I felt Lee's story had been missing. I also liked that Ultron is far from an unemotional robot and is instead a complete raving lunatic, with twisted family-issues, who succeeds in devastating the population of a small European nation (things that Joss Whedon reused for the second Avengers movie).
One of the things that I definitely didn't like was George Perez's artwork. He is a great comics artist, but I found everything here to just be too busy, focusing on cramming as much into every panel as possible rather than focusing on what was necessary for the storytelling. I think that maybe Perez's artwork combined with lots of minor niggles to just sour the story overall for me.
2 out of 5
The Black Knight: Magneto Walks The Earth/The Black Knight Lives Again/Vampire State
featuring Roy Thomas and Paul Cornell
(Art by John Buscema, George Tuska, Leonard Kirk, Mike Collins, Ardian Syaf, Adrian Alphona, Jay Leisten, Robin Riggs and Craig Yeung)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 39. Stories of the Dane Whitman incarnation of the (other) armoured Avenger beginning with the first time he put on the costume up to his work as part of Britain's magical super-team MI13.
The first two stories here, by Thomas, are actually part of one single narrative in which Magneto is drawn back to Earth (it's pretty vague as to why he's not on Earth, mind you) and captures Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Dane then dons the mantle of his uncle, who was a supervillain, and rushes to tell the other Avengers. Thomas unfortunately follows the Stan Lee method of introducing new heroes by having the Black Knight immediately get into a fight with the Avengers for no good reason. Honestly, I'm so sick of reading that exact plot play out when seeing these first appearances of characters. On a slightly weird note, this story seems to take place at a time when Magneto and the Maximoff twins have no idea that they're father and son/daughter, something which was a little jarring to read at first.
The majority of the book, however, is taken up by Cornell's 'Vampire State' in which Count Dracula and his vampire army decide that Britain is going to be their new vampire utopia and set about trying to conquer these Sceptred Isles. I have read some MI13 before but I still thrown off by Cornell's habit of dropping you right into things assuming you know every character and their entire backstory. It took me quite a while to get my head around the situation and the significant players, making this a poor jumping-on point for any reader new to MI13. However, once I'd gotten to grips with all of that, I really started to enjoy the story and was interested to see how it mixed up all of Marvel's major vampire characters (except Morbius, I guess), including Dracula, Baron Blood, Spitfire and even Blade.
3 out of 5
The Books Of Faerie
featuring Bronwyn Carlton and John Ney Rieber
(Art by Peter Gross)
Two stories tying-in to The Books of Magic series featuring the young magician Tim Hunter. In the first story we learn the tale of how the purely human Tim is also the son of the Faerie Queen Titania, as we follow the young child Maryrose into the land of Faerie and see how she eventually becomes its queen. The second story has a child of the Free Land crossing to Earth in search of Tim.
I very much enjoyed the first story here rooted as it is in not only the real-world folklore of fairies, but also Neil Gaiman's take on that world which kicked off 'The Books of Magic'. There's magic and mystery to it, but also politics and treachery as Titania is forced to go to great lengths to preserve her place as Queen whilst also hiding her human heritage.
The second story I found much less engaging and which seemed to rely much more on knowledge of elements from The Books of Magic series that I don't have. It's a less coherent tale and has a much less satisfying narrative arc.
3 out of 5
The Doctor Who Storybook 2007
featuring Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Tom MacRae, Jonathan Morris, Justin Richards, Robert Shearman, Nicholas Briggs and Steven Moffat
(Art by Martin Geraghty and Fareed Choudhury)
Eight illustrated short stories (one of which is actually a comic) starring David Tennant's Tenth Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler. Here the Doctor and Rose are confronted with malfunctioning terraforming devices, a sentient painting, a super-intelligent and vengeful cat, and more.
I happened upon the 2009 Storybook by chance some time ago and was surprised to find it filled with proper Who short stories, not the kiddie-friendly rubbish I'd expected, so I actively sought this book and the 2008 one out. I wasn't disappointed either, because these are absolutely proper short stories to delight Who fans and, honestly, some of the scenes and concepts are actually pretty adult. If anything, that is how this book taps into the appeal of the show (ostensibly a children's show) so well.
The quality of the stories here is mixed, of course, and averages out at 'fine' overall. But there are two of the stories which stood out for me, the first of which is Mark Gatiss' 'Cuckoo-Spit'. Honestly, the actual narrative of that story isn't amazing but what made it stand out is the fact that it's told through the diary entries of a boy in the 1970s who is so clearly modelled after some of Gatiss' own life experiences ('I really like Graham but I AM NOT A PUFF OR ANYTHING') that it adds real depth and heart to the reading experience.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise that the stand-out story here, 'Corner of the Eye', was brought to us by (at the time) future showrunner Steven Moffat. There are concepts in this story that are clearly prototypes that he'd go on to develop and adapt into elements of the TV series like Prisoner Zero living in Amy's house for over a decade or the way the Silence work. But quite aside from its obvious influence on later Who, it's just a really good creepy tale with some dark twists and a great sting-in-the-tail ending.
3 out of 5
The Doctor Who Storybook 2008
featuring Tom MacRae, Gareth Roberts, Robert Shearman, Paul Magrs, Jonathan Morris, Nicholas Briggs, Justin Richards and Nicholas Pegg
(Art by Martin Geraghty and David A Roach)
Seven short stories and a short comic featuring the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and Martha Jones. Here the Doctor has to contend with talking cats and dogs, a hotel full of zombies and suspicious undersea cities amongst other puzzles and dangers.
This is the third of these Storybooks that I've read and is easily the least enjoyable. The others all had stand-out stories which really felt like they made it worthwhile to seek out these seemingly childish illustrated books, mostly thanks to the likes of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, but here none of the stories is good enough to justify the book as a whole.
The truth is that almost all of the stories on offer here are pretty bland and forgettable. There is one exception, however; Nicholas Pegg's 'Deep Water' which is clever enough in its premise that I genuinely think it would make a solid episode of the TV series itself (which is about as high praise as any story in this sort of anthology could ever hope for). But despite that story, this book is definitely one you won't be sorry to miss.
2 out of 5
The Doctor Who Storybook 2009
featuring Paul Magrs, James Moran, Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Clayton Hickman, Keith Temple, Nicholas Pegg, Gary Russell and Jonathan Morris.
(Art by Rob Davis)
This book could easily be dismissed as just a kids' cash-in book from its cover but, as follows the old saying, you'd be misjudging it. It is in fact an anthology of seven prose short stories and one comic strip featuring the Tenth Doctor (as played by David Tennant) and his companion Donna Noble. What makes this particularly interesting is that many of the stories are written by writers who've worked on episodes of the TV series itself.
Here the Doctor faces such trials as a hostile theme park, a floating city, an old enemy, the disappearance of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, an apologetic artificial intelligence, the voyage of the Argonauts, a schoolboy vital to the Norman invasion and a lost alien hiding in a school.
It's a mixed bag on offer, as you'd expect, but I have to say all of the stories did a great job of capturing the Doctor's manic enthusiasm. My favourite story by far was 'Cold' by Mark Gatiss (of League of Gentlemen and Sherlock fame), a writer whose scriptwork I have long enjoyed. 'Cold' is told through letters written by the protagonists and builds up the layers of the story in the manner of the 19th Century gothic literature that both I and Gatiss are fans of. Added to this classic style of storytelling is the fact that the alien invader featured will be familiar to those who remember the pre-Christopher Ecclestone days of Doctor Who.
3 out of 5
The Essential Guide To Captain Marvel
featuring Chris Claremont and Kelly Sue DeConnick
(Art by Carmine Infantino, Bob McLeod, Dave Cockrum, Bob Wiacek, Al Milgrom, Dexter Soy and Marcio Takara)
Consisting of seven comic issues from across the history of Carol Danvers, this book also includes information, artwork and interviews related to the title character. Here we see Carol's first heroic incarnation as Ms Marvel, the debut of her iconic black/blue costume, her emergence with a new identity as Binary and her acceptance of the mantle of Captain Marvel.
This book functions (and was specifically intended) as a jumping-on point for people to get up to speed with the character for the release of the MCU movie 'Captain Marvel'. The seven issues/four stories chosen here all represent important and defining moments in Carol Danvers' career as a superhero, helping to give a really good sense of who the character is, what she's been through and who she is now. If you know nothing about Captain Marvel, then this is definitely the book to fill in the gaps in your knowledge.
Unfortunately for me, I've been reading stories about the character almost my entire life, so what I got out of this book was just a somewhat random jumble of stories that didn't offer much that I'd not seen before. Well, except for Carol's battle with a secret race of iguana-people. I definitely hadn't seen that before, but that was probably for the good.
So, a good 'getting to know you' book for new readers, but pretty pointless for a long-term reader like myself.
2 out of 5
The Flash: Rogue War
featuring Geoff Johns and John Broome
(Art by Howard Porter, John Livesay, Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacola)
Part of the DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection. The title story sees the various members of the supervillain group known as the Rogues errupt into open conflict with each other with the Flash, not to mention the people of Keystone City, caught in the middle. The second story here features the debut appearance of the Rogues' leader, Captain Cold.
The Flash's enemies are among the weirder and, to a certain extent, sillier supervillains in DC's pantheon but there's something genuinely engaging about seeing this motley collection of baddies in all-out melee with one another. For much of its length the title story is very much about the Rogues, with Wally West, Bart Allen and Jay Garrick just caught in the middle.
I enjoyed it slightly less when the story does a sudden 90-degree turn into a time-travel tale featuring both Zoom and Reverse-Flash as the antagonists. It does allow a nice moment, however, in which Barry Allen shows up to save Wally (despite having been dead since 1986).
The throwback story 'The Coldest Man on Earth, from 1957, is perfectly fine but is simply an example of a tale from the days of comics when every week saw the introduction of a new themed supervillain.
3 out of 5
The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told
featuring Gardner Fox, Bill Finger, Denny O'Neil, Frank Robbins, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Alan Brennert and Mike W. Barr
(Art by Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Jack Burnley, Charles Paris, Lou Schwartz, Dick Sprang, Sheldon Moldoff, Stan Kaye, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Frank Robbins, Jim Aparo, Walt Simonson, Joe Staton, George Freeman and Jerry Bingham)
Published to celebrate Batman's 50th Anniversary (way back in 1989), this collection features twenty-one stories from across those five decades.
The word 'greatest' is very subjective, as you'll certainly find if you read this anthology of Batman stories. The greatest Batman stories are 'Year One' and 'The Dark Knight Returns' by Frank Miller, Alan Moore's 'The Killing Joke' and 'The Long Halloween' by Jeph Loeb. None of those stories is featured in this book. Honestly, a far more accurate title would've been 'Some of the More Influential Batman Stories Ever Told', but I can certainly see that this is less punchy than the title they went with.
What we get here, then, is a range of stories which have some larger significance to the Batman mythos, be it the first appearance of the Batarang or the first time some of the Dark Knight's villains team-up (Penguin and Joker, if you were wondering). Unfortunately, the quality of the storytelling, both in terms of writing and art, is very much of its time, which means that the stories from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s tend to be shallow, obvious and slapsticky. Plus, there's just so many puns. However, the stories originally published in the 70s and 80s show the more mature sensibilities that Batman's niche in comics has come to be synonymous with, making them much more enjoyable. For me, the highlight was Alan Brennert's 1983 story 'The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne', which tells the story of how the Batman of Earth-2 finally gives up his solitary life to marry Catwoman. It was a really interesting 'what if...?' scenario that we'll probably never see play out for the mainstream version of Batman.
One final note is that, like watching a Batman movie-marathon, you should prepare yourself to see Bruce's parents shot over and over again throughout this book. Although, interestingly, this book does feature a reprint of the very first story where that detail of Batman's backstory was told (nearly ten years after the character was first created), so at least we get the original before having to see all the repeats.
Ultimately, there's just too much outdated storytelling on offer here to make this book appealing to modern audiences. It's worth a read for people wanting to get a sense of Batman's real-world story, but not if your just looking for good quality in-universe adventures of the Caped Crusader.
2 out of 5
The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told
featuring Jerry Siegel, Otto Binder, Bill Finger, Leo Dorfman, Jack Kirby, Elliot Maggin, Alan Moore and John Byrne
(Art by Joe Shuster, John Sikela, Wayne Boring, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, Al Plastino, George Papp, Curt Swan, Sheldon Moldoff, George Klein, Jack Kirby, Murphy Anderson, Dave Gibbons, John Byrne and Terry Austin)
A collection of stories starring the Man of Steel ranging from his early comics days in 1940 all the way up to his post-Crisis reinvention in 1986. Among these stories are significant moments such as the revelation of Superman's origin on Krypton and the introduction of characters like Mr. Mxyztplk, Supergirl (albeit as a magic wish-based love interest) and Bizarro.
This book is mostly content from the Gold and Silver Ages of comics and that, frankly, is mostly terrible. The plotting is obvious, albeit with plot-holes you could pass New Krypton through, the dialogue is cheesy and the stories are wildly inconsistent, both with each other and with established Superman lore (for example, one story opens with Superman sleeping through his alarm and being awoken by the phone, which he can telepathically tell is Perry White calling - no explanation of how someone with super-hearing could sleep through an alarm and never any mention again of Superman's telepathic caller ID powers).
The latter handful of stories, in particular those by Alan Moore and John Byrne, are a huge step up in terms of quality but they are much, much too little too late to make this book anything more than a tedious slog to get through. The only other thing of interest is seeing how many of the bonkers early stories got revamped for use in the Modern Age of comics (not least the idea of Superman being split into a Red version and a Blue version).
There's a YouTube channel called Casually Comics in which the host, Sasha Wood, dives into Gold and Silver Age comics (including some of those featured here) with wit, insight and charm. Go and watch some of those videos instead of forcing yourself to read this. Unless you're a big fan of the Gold and Silver Ages, in which case there's no hope for you.
2 out of 5
The Legend Of Shang-Chi
featuring John Ostrander, Antony Johnston, Jonathan Hickman and Alyssa Wong
(Art by Pasqual Ferry, Jaime Mendoza, Sebastian Fiumara, Leandro Fernandez, John Lucas, Mike Deodato and Andie Tong)
Released to coincide with the cinema release of 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings', this book contains four stories of the Master of Kung Fu. In the first he works with the Heroes for Hire on a mission to Madripoor, he then finds himself caught up in the events of the 'Spider-Island' crossover, thirdly has to undertake an undercover a mission as a member of the Avengers and finally confronts Lady Deathstrike for possession of a magical sword.
Despite being a life-long Marvel fan, I have to admit to never having much interest in Shang-Chi. However, Simu Liu's charismatic and engaging performance as the character in what rapidly became one of my favourite MCU movies turned me around on Shang-Chi. Unfortunately, this was not the book to win me over to the comics incarnation of the character.
These four short stories feel very randomly chosen with no unifying theme, not even simply being particularly important moments in the character's history. Instead what we get here are 'some middle-of-the-road Shang-Chi stories'. None of them are bad but none of them are great either. Perhaps worse is the fact that in two of them Shang-Chi isn't even the focus, being just one face among an ensemble (the Heroes for Hire and the Avengers).
Ultimately this book just feels a bit too much 'hastily put-together cash-in'.
2 out of 5
The Silver Surfer: Origin Of The Silver Surfer/The Herald Ordeal
featuring Stan Lee and Ron Marz
(Art by John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, M. C. Wyman, Ron Lim and Tom Christopher)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 34. In the first of these two stories we see the tale of how Norrin Radd saves his homeworld Zenn-La by agreeing to serve the world-devouring entity Galactus. In the second Galactus empowers the monstrous and genocidal new herald Morg, prompting the Silver Surfer to gather the other former heralds Air Walker, Firelord, Nova and Terrax to stop him.
I was already pretty familiar with the Surfer's origin story, although this is the first time I've seen it in its entirety, so there wasn't anything too surprising about the first story here. Although, that said, I was intrigued by the suggestion that Norrin's motivation wasn't simply to save his world, but was also to gain the chance to explore the universe.
The second story definitely made up for any shortcomings of the first, however. I've always enjoyed tales featuring Galactus' varied cadre of heralds and therefore enjoyed seeing them forced to team-up to defeat the newest being given the Power Cosmic. They are an ill-fitting bunch with a range of personalities but that's what makes it so much more interesting to see them cooperating to a common purpose, even the villainous Terrax the Tamer. If you're new to the Surfer's cosmic adventures then it might all be a bit overwhelming for you, but for me it felt like a brilliant narrative crescendo that leaves a beloved character dead.
4 out of 5
The Vision: Behold... The Vision!/Avengers Icons - The Vision
featuring Roy Thomas and Geoff Johns
(Art by John Buscema, Marie Severin, George Klein, Ivan Reis and Joe Pimentel)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 42. In the first of these two stories we see the first appearance of the Vision, as he is sent to destroy the Avengers by Ultron. The second story has an amnesiac Vision seeking out the original creator of his android body in an attempt to recover his memories.
Altogether too many Marvel superheroes were first introduced by having them fight existing heroes for spurious, sometimes ridiculous, reasons. I have to say that of all the iterations of that I've read, this one works the best. It makes a certain kind of sense that an insane machine intelligence like Ultron (Ultron-5, if you want to be exact) would send an artificial human in its stead. However, despite being more convincing, that doesn't actually make it a good way of introducing the character and the fact that Vision goes instantly from "Kill the Avengers!" to "Help the Avengers!" has no drama or nuance to it.
The second story here, by Johns, definitely has more drama and nuance, but still isn't amazing. It's nice to see the Vision's story loop back to its links with the WWII-era Human Torch and reveal that the same AI technology was stolen by the Nazis, who used it to create the psychopathic Gremlin. However, the combination of Vision's amnesia and the one-time-only characters it features make this feel like a sidequest for the character without any significant impact.
3 out 5
The Warriors Three: Dog Day Afternoon/Marvel Fanfare
featuring Bill Willingham and Alan Zelenetz
(Art by Neil Edwards, Scott Hann and Charles Vess)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 32. The Warriors Three, Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral, have long been side characters in Marvel's Thor stories but in these two tales the adventuring Asgardians take centre stage. The first story has the Warriors Three charging towards their long-fated final confrontation with the monstrous Fenris Wolf, whilst the second story sees the three warriors attempting to foil one of Loki's mischievious plots.
The Warriors Three are very much C-list Marvel heroes and unlike many characters featured in Thor's adventures they have no actual basis in Norse mythology, being entirely an invention of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. These things made me wary of this book to begin with by, honestly, I enjoyed the characters in their minor roles in the Thor movies, so it was worth a look.
What we get here are a couple of stories which are much more fanciful than most Marvel tales, coming across as sort of modern day fairy tales rather than mythological epics or superhero action stories. There's an element of whimsy to these stories, particularly Zelenetz's 'Marvel Fanfare', that you might not otherwise find in a Marvel graphic novel. It's not entirely unwelcome, either; making for a nice change of pace.
The long and short of it, however, that these are minor tales of minor characters and you wouldn't be missing anything major if you skipped this book.
3 out of 5
The Wasp: The Creature From Kosmos/Avengers - Under Siege
featuring H. E. Huntley, Stan Lee and Roger Stern
(Art by Jack Kirby, Don Heck, John Buscema and Tom Palmer)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 15. In the first of these two stories we get to see the introduction of Janet Van Dyne, AKA The Wasp, to the Marvel Universe as an ally to Hank Pym's Ant-Man. The main story then jumps ahead 20 years to when Janet is acting as the elected leader of the Avengers and has to deal with the team being targeted by the powerful Masters of Evil.
The Wasp's introduction is, honestly, somewhat less than auspicious as she is treated with the sensibilities of 1960s media towards young women, which is to say that she's a bit ditzy and more or less swoons whenever Ant-Man is near. I mean, I've seen much worse depictions of women in comics, but it's still not great to see a character who would go on to be so important to the Marvel Universe treated as a bit of a 'silly little girl'. It's also a bit uncomfortable to see Hank describe the love-struck Janet as a child, knowing full-well in hindsight that he absolutely returns her affections.
'Avengers: Under Siege' does a nice job of highlighting just how far the Wasp came from those early 1960s appearances, by diving into a story with her as the chosen leader of the Avengers (at a time when Captain America is an active member, so it's not just be default). Unfortunately, the other Avengers still treat her differently due to being a woman, either indulging enfatuation with her (in the case of Black Knight) or disrespecting her authority (Hercules). This would feel like a poignant comment about the misogyny facing successful women if not for the fact that the story chooses to include a scene in which Janet is lounging around in her bikini, apparently for no other reason than to depict her in a bikini. (Perhaps the most depressing thing is that another 20 years later Janet was still being treated the same way by the writers, when in Mark Millar's Ultimates her go-to combat move versus the Hulk was to flash her boobs).
Sexual politics aside, the main story is interesting in that is sees the Avengers thoroughly defeated by the Masters of Evil and having to win the day from an underdog position, which makes a nice change for the collective of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. It's not enough to redeem the book's faults, but it's a nice premise.
2 out of 5
The Winter Soldier: Out Of Time/The Bitter March
featuring Ed Brubaker and Rick Remender
(Art by Steve Epting and Roland Boschi)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 94. Two stories, the first of which shows the moment when it is revealed to Captain America that the deadly Soviet assassin he's been pursuing is none other than his former comrade in arms Bucky Barnes. The second story flashes back to the depths of the Cold War as agents of SHIELD and Hydra vie with the Winter Soldier on a mission to kill or capture former Nazi scientists.
The first story here, by Brubaker, is something of an insult and ruins the entire book. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but it is simply a single issue taken from a larger storyline, so we don't get the beginning of the story and we don't see any of the impact of the revelation of Bucky being alive. It is included here simply because the editors of this series wanted to claim this book had an important early moment for the character. The truth is, aside from one panel where Cap looks shocked, the discovery of the Winter Soldier's identity goes completely unaddressed and you actually feel more let down than if this book didn't include the revelation at all. I genuinely hate it when compilation books like this drop in a random issue that doesn't have a complete story to tell. It's lazy.
The second story, Remender's 'The Bitter March', is much better at being a complete story but also suffers some of the same drawbacks. Because it's a flashback to Bucky's Winter Soldier days in the Cold War we don't get to see anything of his past (apart from a few short flashbacks to Cap giving him advice) and this is well short of his redemption, so there's not satisfying conclusion either. I will say that I enjoyed seeing his true memories attempting to break through his Soviet conditioning though, allowing him some moments of heroism.
2 out of 5
The Wizards Of Odd
featuring Terry Pratchett, Lord Dunsany, John Collier, Henry Kuttner, Eric Frank Russell, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stephen Donaldson, F. Anstey, James Branch Cabell, Fredric Brown, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Brian W. Aldiss, Avram Davidson, Douglas Adams, H. G. Wells, C. S. Lewis, Reginald Bretnor, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A mixed bag of short stories here, ranging from the excellent to the excrement, which really fell short of my expectations considering the who's who of writing talent included. Also, for the most part, the book's claim to 'comic tales of fantasy' is unfounded; there's not much fantasy and even less comedy.
The real treat in this compilation is the short additions to well-established series, such as Le Guin's Earthsea, Leiber's Lankhmar and Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide. Also, my personal favourite is the Discworld City Watch story which involves a hilarious, and typically Pratchett, take on the old Punch and Judy shows.
Ultimately, however, this anthology contains just too much pointless dross to be worth the money.
2 out of 5
The X-Men: Children Of The Atom/X-Men
featuring Joe Casey and Stan Lee
(Art by Steve Rude, Andrew Pepoy, Jack Kirby and Paul Reinman)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 17. In 'Children of the Atom' we see a world where mutants are just beginning to emerge into the public consciousness. As fear and hatred for the mutants grows, Professor Charles Xavier attempts to recruit a number of vulnerable young people to attend his new academy. The second story here is the first-ever appearance of the X-Men and sees the team of mutant teens joined by their newest member, Marvel Girl, take on Magneto for the first time.
I wasn't really getting into this book to begin with. The set-up of the growing hatred towards mutants and the various scenes which were clearly allegories for things like race relations, anti-semitism and homophobia all felt pretty obvious to me. Mutants have been used allegorically in Marvel almost since their beginning so to have it all rehashed felt unnecessary. Put simply, these themes had already been done better before (see Chris Claremont's iconic run, for example).
However, toward the tail-end of the first story it started to come together for me a bit more because it explores how Professor X's original plan to merely create a defensive mutant militia is diverted by his relationships with the actual students, eventually changing their remit to be one of proactively helping the world instead of merely protecting against it.
Narratively, the last scene of 1999's 'Children of the Atom' flows perfectly into the first scene of 1963's 'X-Men', but the connection doesn't go much further than that. Like so many stories from the 60s, Lee's original X-Men adventure has some very dated moments, not least the horrible way that all of the male X-Men immediately sexually objectify Jean Grey when she arrives at the school. Even Xavier, who is her teacher don't forget, refers to her for the first time as 'a most attractive young lady'. The story becomes much less uncomfortable, however, when the X-Men actually go into action against Magneto. The iconic villain was the best element of this story, appearing on the page pretty much fully-formed as he would be for decades to come.
3 out of 5
Thor: The Dark World - Prelude
featuring Christos Gage, Craig Kyle and Jason Aaron
(Art by Lan Medina, Don Ho, Scot Eaton, Ron Lim, Andrew Hennessy, Rick Magyar and Ron Garney)
A tie-in to the second Thor film. Here we get the comics adaptation of the first Thor movie, as well as the titular Prelude which bridges the gap between it and the sequel. Finally, from the mainstream Marvel Universe, we get a story in which Malekith the Accursed escapes imprisonment bent on vengeance and murder.
The second Thor film is not well-loved, for good reason, but I can't say I ever hated it as much as some. It's therefore interesting to take a step back in time to before the movie came out when, in the wake of The Avengers (or, as we were forced to put up with in the UK due to frankly ridiculous copyright fears, Marvel's Avengers Assemble), there was a lot of excitement about what the next Thor outing would bring.
The first part of this book, the adaptation of the first Thor movie, is actually pretty good. That movie was never the deepest or most beloved MCU film but it was a solid action film with theatrical Shakespearean overtones (which is what you get if you get Kenneth Brannagh to direct) and it lends itself surprisingly well to being adapted back into the comics medium; something which is not always true of superhero movies or TV shows. The titular Prelude does a good job of building off of that foundation and shows us details like how Thor got to Earth in The Avengers, what Jane was up to during the Battle of New York and how the Asgardians set about bringing peace to the troubled Nine Realms.
The book is, surprisingly, let down by the one story which is part of the true Marvel Universe. I've never really thought Malekith was a particularly compelling villain and nothing in this story does anything to convince me. Honestly, his breakout of the mystical prison actually led to unfavourable comparisons in my mind to Tai Lung's breakout in Kung-Fu Panda.
3 out of 5
Thor: The Power Of Thor/Avengers Disassembled: Thor
featuring Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Michael Avon Oeming and Daniel Berman
(Art by Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott and Andrea Divito)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 11. In the first of two stories here we get the first ever appearance of the modern Marvel Comics Thor, as Doctor Donald Blake finds a staff in Norway which turns out to actually be the mighty hammer Mjolnir. The second story tells of Ragnarok; the death of the gods and the fall of Asgard itself.
The first story is an iconic piece of Marvel lore and is a fun mash-up of Norse mythology and 1960s science fiction, with the newly empowered Thor going toe-to-toe with the 'Stone Men from Saturn'. It's good fun but I found that here it's spoiled somewhat by having been recoloured with modern digital techniques. Sometimes these modern updatings work fine, but here it clashes really badly with Jack Kirby's iconic art style, robbing the story of some of its classic provenance.
I was particularly impressed by the second story (variously called 'Avengers Disassembled: Thor' and 'Ragnarok' depending on which title page you're looking at here) which takes Thor back to the character's mythological roots. Michael Avon Oeming and Daniel Berman do a great job of capturing the tone of classic Norse mythology and there is a distinct air of both melancholy and inevitability to the events of Ragnarok which feels very appropriate to the cataclysmic passing of an entire pantheon of gods.
4 out of 5
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 1 - Power Play
featuring Bill Mantlo, Ralph Macchio, Jim Salicrup, Steve Parkhouse and Simon Furman
(Art by Frank Springer, Kim DeMulder, Mike Esposito, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey, John Ridgeway, Mike Collins and Jeff Anderson)
The stories which began the entire Transformers franchise, including the original 4-issue Marvel miniseries which first introduced the primary Autobots and Decepticons and set up their battle for supremacy on Cybertron and Earth. Also included are the first issues of the UK run of Transformers stories, which filled in weekly between the monthly US comics.
It's hard to appreciate how influential in the Transformers mythos these stories are. Until Bob Budiansky (acting as Editor to the US comics) laid out the ground work of the Autobot/Decepticon war and the individual character traits of the main characters, they were just a gimmicky new toy from Hasbro (adapted from Japanese robot toys). The stories laid out here therefore are the true start of Transformers as a storytelling franchise (before even the iconic cartoon) and should be appreciated for that.
All that said, there were still a couple of surprises for someone, like me, who's been Transformers fan since childhood in the 80s. I was genuinely shocked to see that for one issue of the original miniseries, the Autobots get help fighting the Decepticons from none other than Spider-Man. So, if you want to see black-suit Spidey webbing-up Megatron, this is the place. Similarly, I always thought that the Ark crashing four million years ago and yet still creating the Dinobots from observing the world outside was just a massive plot hole, but here we learn that the Dinobots were based on inhabitants of Marvel's dinosaur-filled anachronistic Savage Land.
Don't be deceived into thinking that these stories are particularly enjoyable though. Unfortunately, the US comics are very exposition-heavy and clumsily plotted by very much a B-Team of Marvel writers and the UK comics, whilst showing a little more subtlety in both their art and writing, feel almost like an off-brand copy rather than official content. Honestly, getting through this book was a bit of a chore.
2 out of 5
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 10 - Trial By Fire
featuring Bob Budiansky and Simon Furman
(Art by Frank Springer, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey, Jose Delbo, Dave Hunt, Will Simpson, Tim Perkins and Dan Reed)
Beginning with a miniseries and continuing on into the pages of both Transformers US and Transformers UK, these are the stories that introduced the Headmasters and Targetmasters (as well as new combiner teams) to the canon of the Robots in Disguise. Here Autobot leader Fortress Maximus leads a group of like-minded Autobots to the planet Nebulos, where they hope to escape the eon-long Transformer civil war. However, tension with the native Nebulans eventually leads to the arrival of Decepticon pursuers led by Scoponok.
The main body of this book is Bob Budiansky's 'Headmasters' miniseries, which then folds into the main line US Transformers series as the story moves to Earth. It has to be said that, as a result of following a small and focused group of characters through most of the book, this felt much more cohesive than some other Marvel-era Transformers stories. Even the UK stories don't feel as totally at-odds as they have on occasion because, although tangential stories, they feature the same core characters and themes.
For me the downside to this book stems from the reason these stories were originally published. The writers were given the task of introducing a new raft of Hasbro's toys to the fanbase and that means there are numerous moments in the book which amount to little more than a roll-call of the new Transformers available to buy now! Whilst I can intellectually acknowledge that the Transformers comics only exist to promote the toy line, it nevertheless detracts heavily from the enjoyability of these stories as stories.
3 out of 5