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Warlock: The Power Of... Warlock/Warlock And The Infinity Watch
featuring Roy Thomas and Jim Starlin
(Art by Gil Kane, Dan Adkins, Angel Medina, Rick Leonardi, Terry Austin and Bob Almond)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 37. In the first of these two stories we see how the entity known only as Him encounters the High Evolutionary and is reborn as Adam Warlock, tasked with defending the world of Counter-Earth. The second story leaps forward to the aftermath of 'The Infinity Gauntlet' and has Warlock deciding to give up his godlike powers and distribute the Infinity Gems among a team of protectors.
Cards on the table; I've never particularly liked Adam Warlock or the stories involving him. Unlike so many of Marvel's characters I therefore had no fond nostalgia for him to fall back on when reading this book and, in all honestly, the stories here only reinforced my dislike of the character.
Warlock was an attempt to give a Marvel twist to none other than Jesus Christ, the way that they had previously done for gods and heroes from other religious pantheons. Whilst I'm no fundamental Christian to be offended by the very idea of this, I certainly feel that the finished product is very poor. They should have kept the Jesus parallels either very subtextual or make them overt and actually use them to say something significant. Instead they fall in the middle and it comes across as half-hearted and limp, as well as largely pointless.
Of the two stories here, the first is definitely the worst, consisting largely of the High Evolutionary just expositing his plans to make an identical copy of Earth but to make it a paradise. Naturally his plans get spoiled and the new Counter-Earth is just as violent and troubled as the real one, needing Warlock to save it. This leaves us, the readers, wondering why there needs to be an alternate Earth at all. Arguably it's so that Warlock can't just call in the Avengers or Fantastic Four to help, but that then begs the question of why this story is set in the Marvel Universe in the first place.
The only really engaging thing I found in this book, in Starlin's story, was the concept of Warlock having the powers of a god, being confronted by Marvel's other godlike beings (Celestials, Eternity, Galactus, the Living Tribunal and others) and deciding to relinquish his power. There is a little bit of exploration of how losing his godlike powers affects Warlock personally, which I found interesting, but not nearly enough for my tastes.
2 out of 5
Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader? And Other Batman Tales
featuring Neil Gaiman, Alan Grant, Mark Verheiden and Alan Moore
(Art by Andy Kubert, Scott Williams, Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Mike Hoffman, Kevin Nowlan, Sam Keith, Bernie Mireault, Matt Wagner, Pat Broderick, Dick Giordano and George Freeman)
Part of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, this is a collection of stories from some of the most influential comics writers, exploring the psychology of some of his greatest enemies as well as looking at the nature of Batman stories themselves.
I'd actually read most of what's on offer here before but it was nevertheless nice to revisit some of these stories, particularly those by Neil Gaiman (my favourite author, in case I hadn't mentioned it). Far more than having a plot, these are stories about the characters themselves and, in a very meta way, about how Batman stories have been told and where they fit into our culture. If you're looking for a Batman book which just follows him beating up thugs and foiling a supervillain, this definitely isn't it. Gaiman's titular 'Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?' in particular is a meditation on Batman more than anything else.
We also get some villains explored in a nice way too, with a media film crew doing a documentary in Gotham about supervillains who they barely even believe in. Here we get some interesting new takes on familiar faces like Penguin, Two-Face and Riddler. The latter (once again by Gaiman) is particularly good in that it explores how the character reacts in-universe to the changing tone of Batman stories in the real world from the campy fun of the 50s and 60s to the grittier tales of the 70s and 80s; "No one ever really hurt anybody. Not really. Nobody died. You look around these days - it's all different. It's all changed. The Joker's killing people for God's sake! Did I miss something? Was I away when they changed the rules?".
Alan Moore's story was the only one here that was completely new to me and was therefore the highlight of the book. Here we get a story focusing on Clayface III (Preston Payne - the one whose body is corrosive goo and has to wear a containment suit), a much more tragic character than the more familiar incarnations of the villain. It's the story of his deranged love affair with a shop mannequin and how his paranoid mind interprets her silences, the way she stares away from him and the day he finds her in her underwear in the lingerie department. It's a (predictably) brilliantly told story and highlights that even though Clayface is a murderous lunatic, even he has the capacity for great love and the painful tragedy that often goes hand in hand.
4 out of 5
Wolverine: And Now... The Wolverine/Get Mystique
featuring Len Wein and Jason Aaron
(Art by Herb Trimpe, Jack Abel and Ron Garney)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 55. Here we get the first ever story to feature the iconic clawed mutant as the Canadian government sends him to fight both the Hulk and the Wendigo. The second story has Wolverine setting out to hunt down and kill Mystique for her numerous betrayals.
I was genuinely surprised by how fully-formed Wolverine is in his first appearance, with the character being totally recognisable as the Logan we know despite the story coming out years before he was developed to any great depth (his original costume is a near-miss, however). Wein does the all-too-common and often annoying Marvel trick of introducing a new hero by having them fight an existing one, but at least here it feels justified. If the raging Hulk started having a slug-fest in your country, you'd definitely send your own superhero to try and stop him.
Jason Aaron's 'Get Mystique' is a traditional revenge story like you see in classic Westerns, with Logan hunting his enemy from town to town until he finally catches up for a final showdown. It's well-written and beautifully illustrated. What I liked most about it is the way it contrasts the two main characters, showing how despite his rough edges Wolverine has grown as a person through his association with the X-Men in a way that Mystique is incapable of.
4 out of 5
Wolverine Battles The Incredible Hulk
featuring Len Wein and Mary Jo Duffy
(Art by Herb Trimpe, Jack Abel, Ken Landgraf and George Perez)
Two stories, beginning with the very first appearance of the Wolverine in the pages of 'The Incredible Hulk'. The second story features Logan getting into a bar brawl with the Avenger Hercules.
When the behemoths Hulk and Wendigo start having a slugfest in Canada, the Canadian government are pretty justified in sending in their secret weapon; Weapon X. It's always interesting to go back and see how recognisable comic book characters are in their first appearances and I have to say that, aside from a slightly goofy mask on his costume, Wolverine is fully-formed and recognisable. Even the abrasive attitude, which would become the character's signature character trait, is present. The story itself is nothing particularly special, but I definitely enjoyed the three-way fight between the Hulk, Wolverine and Wendigo.
The second story is a short self-contained fluff piece, but it has one thing going for it. Often when heroes fight each other it's for spurious and unconvincing reasons, but here I can definitely see the grumpy Logan getting into a bar brawl with the obnoxiously macho Hercules. They're both the type to brawl just because brawling's fun, so it feels fitting in that respect.
3 out of 5
Wolverine: Dangerous Games
featuring Gregg Hurwitz, Simon Spurrier, Rick Remender, Christopher Yost, Todd Dezago, Mike Carey and Macon Blair
(Art by Marcelo Frusin, Ben Oliver, Jerome Opena, Koi Turnbull, Sal Regla, Steve Kurth, Serge LaPointe, Scott Kolins, Moose Baumann and Vasilis Lolos)
A collection of Wolverine one-shots that see him hunting reluctant bank robbers, being hunted himself by a British aristocrat, rescuing a teenage mutant from kidnappers, saving a family from an unnatural forest fire and more.
What if Wolverine was grumpy and he used his claws to stab people who made him angry. That's it. That's the book. Because these are a bunch of one-shots by writers who don't usually write Wolverine, each one is self-contained, of little consequence and has to hit all of the obvious Wolverine tropes. It's pretty disappointing, considering some of the creative talent involved.
I was tempted to bump my rating up a bit based on the fact that Mike Carey's 'Firebreak', in which a blinded Logan has to lead a family through a burning forest, was particularly good, but Simon Spurrier's horrible British toff stereotype in his story was so bad that I changed my mind. Sure, entitled fox-hunting aristocrats are absolutely the scum of the Earth and one of the worst things we Brits have contributed to human society (along with tabloid journalism) but by turning them into a caricature, you make them silly and unbelievable. It also feels weirdly like an American take on a British person, which is particularly odd because Spurrier is British. Perhaps he was pandering to a US audience? I don't know, but I hated it.
2 out of 5
Wolverine: Old Man Logan - Berzerker
featuring Jeff Lemire and Mark Millar
(Art by Andrea Sorrentino, Steve McNiven, Dexter Vines and Mark Morales)
Two stories. In the first, titular, story following the break up of the Warzones, Old Man Logan awakes in the present day and sets out on a quest to prevent the bleak future that he's from by killing those responsible for it. The second story is a follow-up to the original 'Old Man Logan' story and sees Logan extracting revenge for the murder of his family.
There's something comfortingly familiar about seeing a mutant travel back in time to try to prevent a bleak future. Between 'Days of Future Past' (reviewed here), Bishop and Cable this is not a new idea for Marvel's mutants, but that doesn't actually make it feel stale here. In fact, it is Logan slowly noticing the differences between his timeline and the one he finds himself in that makes for the most intriguing element of the book. With help from Hawkeye Kate Bishop and old man Steve Rogers, Logan comes to see that maybe his bleak future has already been averted in this world.
The second story is what lets this book down for me. Once upon a time I liked Mark Millar's dark take on familiar characters but at this point it just seems excessively bleak and calculatingly nasty. Do you really want to see a story where Bruce Banner and his family are incestuous, baby-eating cannibals? If you do, then you may just be a psycho. I'd be genuinely interested to find out why Millar hates superheroes so much that he's made it his mission in life to show them all as monsters, but in a world where the MCU has proven that superheroes can be heroic and still be taken seriously, I'm bored with what Millar's selling.
3 out of 5
Wolverine Origins: Deadpool
featuring Daniel Way, Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld
(Art by Steve Dillon and Rob Liefeld)
Two stories, the first of which sees Deadpool hired to kill Wolverine, leading to a vicious no-holds-barred battle across San Francisco. The second story is a throwback to 1983 and Deadpool's first appearance in the pages of New Mutants.
You may think that with a title like 'Wolverine Origins: Deadpool' this book would explore the two characters' linked history in the Weapon Plus programme or perhaps reveal some of the later history between them. Turns out that you'd be totally wrong to think that. With the exception of a couple of short flashbacks where we learn that Wade's dad was a jerk, there is absolutely no exploration of the histories or origins of either title character here. Instead what we get is a big, dumb series of action scenes featuring two mean who, more or less, can't be killed or even permanently harmed. As a result, it's pretty underwhelming and boring.
The flashback New Mutants story is interesting from an academic standpoint of seeing how Deadpool first appeared and how his first meeting with Cable went down but beyond that is similarly underwhelming and boring. Also, Liefeld's art is just the worst.
2 out of 5
Wonder Man: The Coming Of The Wonder Man/When Avengers Clash/Avengers Two - Wonder Man & Beast
featuring Stan Lee, Jim Shooter and Roger Stern
(Art by Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Sal Buscema, Pablo Marcos, Mark Bagley and Greg Adams)
Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Book 30. Three stories from across nearly forty years of the ionic Avenger. Here we have Wonder Man's first ever appearance as an agent of Baron Zemo, tasked with destroying the Avengers from within. In the second story Wonder Man must face not only the Vision, whose brain patterns were based on his own, but also his biological brother, the supervillain Grim Reaper. The third story has Wonder Man travelling to L.A. to deal with loose ends from his past accompanied by the Beast.
The biggest problem with this book for me is one that may not be a problem for some readers, so bear that in mind. My problem was that, to my mind, Wonder Man is not a particular interesting or engaging superhero. I'm not sure why that is since he has a range of superpowers and a varied villain-turned-hero-turned-corpse-turned-hero-again backstory, but the simple truth is that I've never found Simon Williams to be an engaging Marvel protagonist and this book didn't change that opinion at all. If you already like Wonder Man, then you can pretty much ignore me and just enjoy the book for yourself.
Stan Lee's initial story is a fairly straightforward 'duped by a supervillain into fighting the heroes' story that Lee seemed to write every other week back in the 60s. It's not bad, but there's nothing here that makes it stand out really.
The second story, by Shooter, is a bit more engaging, with Wonder Man having to deal with two consequences of his death and resurrection; the use of his brain patterns to create the Vision and the fact his brother Eric became a supervillain specifically to take revenge for Simon's death. Unfortunately the framing of the confrontation with the Grim Reaper, in which the heroes are forced to have a mock trial to see whether Wonder Man or Vision are the real Simon, is just bizarre.
Roger Stern's story was the least engaging for me. It more or less has Wonder Man, recently returned from death for the second time, moping about how he used to be a villain and how he used to be dead. Those things would make for interesting character points if it weren't for the fact that this takes place in a world where half of the superheroes out there used to be villains and/or have returned from death. It just feels like an extended scene of Wonder Man whining and Beast making really, really terrible jokes.
2 out of 5
Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles
featuring George Perez, Len Wein, John Byrne, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Geoff Johns and Brian Azzarello
(Art by George Perez, Bruce Patterson, John Byrne, Drew Johnson, Ray Snyder, Rags Morales, David Lopez, Tom Derenick, Georges Jeanty, Karl Kerschl, Mark Propst, BIT, Dexter Vines, Bob Petrecca, Nelson, Chris Batista, Fernando Dagnino, Doug Hazlewood, Raul Fernandez, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Cliff Chiang)
A collection of stories running through the 80s, 90s, 00s and all the way up to 2013. Here we see Diana fight against her mightiest foes such as Ares, Cheetah, Medousa and the armies of Darkseid, as well as going toe-to-toe with other heroes such as Superman and Power Girl.
This is very much a 'does what it says on the tin' situation as these stories drop us into the action usually mid-story arc just for the fight highlights. This means that we get a really interesting range of battles for the Amazon princess, but it also means that pretty much none of the tales on offer here constitute a complete self-contained story. This means that as a reading experience, this collection feels severely lacking in the narrative department.
However, some of the fights here are genuinely really good. I've always liked the one from the Countdown to Infinite Crisis arc where Superman is mind-controlled by Max Lord and Wonder Woman is the only hero who has any chance of stopping the Last Son of Krypton. I also enjoyed the one where (again through mind control/manipulation) Power Girl fights Diana. Across the course of their battle we get a genuinely interesting chance to compare and contrast these two powerhouse heroines, whilst also seeing their mutual respect develop. It's odd that those should be my favourite moments of this book, however, because I usually hate 'hero fights hero for contrived reasons' stories.
If you just want to see Wonder Woman in action then there's a lot for you in this book but, personally, I prefer a good narrative and that's not something really on offer here.
3 out of 5