Punisher War Journal 12 - Acts of Vengeance

The late 1980s saw the Punisher surge to such popularity that within two years he had gone from having no series at all to being only the second Marvel character to have two ongoing monthly series. The two titles largely orbited each other in their early years, making passing reference to events in the other series but normally avoiding crossovers. Companywide events can be harder to avoid but rather than running one long story told over all titles (as with the Spider-Man books both here and during "Inferno"), it instead goes for a two-parter in the older title and then a sequel that readers of the other series don't need to be aware of. It's not immediately obvious why this is, although if Punisher War Journal was only sold in the direct market then it may have been to avoid confusing newsstand readers who would only have been able to access half of the story. It also means that sequential collections of either title don't contain the parts from the other.

Punisher War Journal #12

Story: Carl Potts
Pencils: Jim Lee
Inks: Al Milgrom
Background inks: Don Hudson
Letters: Jim Novak
Colours: Gregory Wright
Assistant Editor: Rob Tokar
Editor: Don Daley
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Unfortunately for contemporary readers this would all have fallen down due to the order in which the books were released. Despite clearly taking place in the order Punisher #28, Punisher #29, Punisher War Journal #12 and Punisher War Journal #13, they were instead released in the order Punisher War Journal #12, Punisher #28, Punisher War Journal #13 and Punisher #29, thus beginning the sequel even before the original story. This arrangement looks even odder when noting that Carl Potts was the editor on Punisher and the writer on Punisher War Journal. One possible explanation is that Punisher War Journal began coming out approximately every six weeks but stepped up the frequency to monthly with issue #10 and this threw the planned schedule with no time to insert a fill-in to restore it.

The problems don't arise until nearly halfway through the issue when we get a scene of the Kingpin and Doctor Doom continuing their taunting of one another about how easy it would be to take the Punisher down, with Doom brushing aside his reasons for not doing so in the earlier story before the Kingpin takes on the task and opts to contract Bushwhacker, a former foe of Daredevil. The method of recruitment is interesting, with the mysterious stranger first sent to bribe a news anchor on "CMN", a twenty-four-hour news channel that Bushwhacker watches, to deliver coverage that approves of the vigilante but disapproves of the mercenary. Then he contacts Bushwhacker, claiming the Punisher is an ally of Daredevil as the clincher.

Earlier in the issue we get a classic use of the split page technique to provide parallels and contrasts between the two strands of the story, as Bushwhacker is introduced whilst on a missing to kill a modern artist who is also a low-level mutant, whilst the Punisher attacks a group of drug importers by the dock. It's a good sequence in its own right but it also helps to introduce the Punisher to readers who may be encountering him for the first time, though this effect is limited when the issues are put in chronological order. Later the Punisher's origin is used in the story, further introducing him but also providing a rationale for how Bushwhacker is able to locate him when he makes his annual pilgrimage to the site where his family were killed.

Normally the villains in Punisher stories don't live past the end of the story, making it difficult to accumulate a long-term set of recurring foes. However as Bushwhacker originated from another series there's a possibility he could be an exception. An ex-priest who then worked for the CIA before turning mercenary, he has a cybernetic arm that can form itself into a variety of guns, making him difficult to literally disarm. His history compares and contrasts well with the Punisher, suggesting good future potential.

Overall this is a pretty strong issue that works well in introducing both the hero and foe and setting up the conflict in a way that works for both new and regular readers. It's unfortunate that at the time this came out of sequence but now that's no longer an issue.

Punisher War Journal #12 has been reprinted in:

• Acts of Vengeance Crossovers Omnibus (2011)
• Punisher War Journal by Carl Potts & Jim Lee (2016)

Uncanny X-Men 258 - Acts of Vengeance

The third and final issue of the X-Men's contribution to the crossover may include the phrase "act of vengeance" but otherwise there's still no indication of the wider events going on. Given that these issues are the most reprinted and best known of the whole thing, it's a pity such an absent image has been left for many reasons them in subsequent years. The "act of vengeance" in question is carried out by the Hand on their own old foe, Wolverine, with no sign of the wider scheme of trading enemies. The Mandarin returns for the showdown but with no mention of his current associates.

Uncanny X-Men #258

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Jim Lee
Inker: Scott Williams
Colourist: Glynis Oliver
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Instead this story, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Jim Lee, see the conclusion of the Hand's corruption of Psylocke as they seek to do the same to Wolverine. Meanwhile the Mandarin makes a more rudimentary attempt to alter Jubilee so as to de-Americanise her as she is "a daughter of the Middle Kingdom" even though she doesn't speak the language and feels thoroughly American. Emphasising the Mandarin as a modern-day Chinese nationalist, seeking to advance power through economics, technology and crime, has brought the villain a long way from being an "imitation Fu Manchu" in some underground wizard's lair and shows that he can be made to work in the modern era without resorting to worn out stereotypes.

Much of the issue is focused on attempts by the Hand to transform Wolverine though he keeps on fighting it and the mentalscape scenes aren't as interesting as the ones with Psylocke two issues ago. However the continued presence of illusions of both Carol Danvers and Nick Fury offers complications as they start to appear to Psylocke via a mental link with Wolverine, adding to the madness. Elsewhere Jubilee struggles against her captors and also against their determination to push her into a traditional Chinese role, even declaring "No speakee Chinese -- only American!" Her powers are getting stronger to the point where she lets off a huge blast that devastates the Mandarin's mansion, a prelude to the final battle.

The Mandarin is finally seen in his armour in this issue, which he strangely wears beneath one of his robes, but once again the colouring is confusing - the cover has the standard dark and light blue but inside it's depicted in red and grey. We see the outcome of Psylocke's conditioning and it's a pity that she doesn't actually free herself but instead has to be rescued by Wolverine and his own demons. The battle is also notable for another direct quoting of the Batman movie when Wolverine asks the Mandarin "you ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?", a question that neither understands. Marvel at the time didn't need to be constantly homaging and quoting the big DC movie and these references have dated heavily.

As ever, this isn't really a good chapter of the wider crossover since the three issues as a whole have ignored the broader set-up completely. As the conclusion of an X-Men story arc this is more a straightforward issue for moving the plots forward, but the failure to revert Psylocke's race change was a missed opportunity to quickly undo what is ultimately a very bad idea.

Uncanny X-Men #258 has been reprinted in:

• Uncanny X-Men Acts of Vengeance (Boxtree, 1995)
• X-Men: Mutations (1996)
• X-Men Visionaries: Jim Lee (2002)
• Essential X-Men volume 9 (2009)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossover Omnibus (2011)
• X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume 1 (2011)

Uncanny X-Men 257 - Acts of Vengeance

This issue continues events in Hong Kong. Wolverine arrives in Hong Kong and it's here that we start to see the boundaries between his own series and this one break down, with an impact on the wider chronology.

Uncanny X-Men #257

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Jim Lee
Inker: Josef Rubinstein
Letterers: All Available
Colourist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Wolverine solo title had launched during the period when the X-Men were presumed dead and in fact operating out of a ghost town in the Australian outback. Rather boldly the series did not simply copy the set-up but instead established Wolverine as having another home in Madripoor, a fictional city state in east Asia with a strong touch of Singapore about it. The early issues also saw Wolverine avoiding his conventional costume, instead using a mostly black jump suit, and disguising himself with an eye-patch, a feature much mocked by readers but subsequently explained away as "When somebody with claws and a temper wants to believe he's fooling people, well... no one wants to be the one to say, 'Hey, Wolvie what's with the stupid eyepatch?'" These arrangements lasted while Claremont was writing the solo title but then were clawed away a bit under Peter David before Archie Goodwin moved the series onwards, as seen in the relevant crossover chapters in Wolverine #19 and #20. But one side effect of the arrangements is that Wolverine's own chronology in the period requires a good chunk of his solo adventures to be slotted into gaps in the X-Men run. Multi-part stories can drag things out and a consequence is that his own title's contribution to the saga must take place before a lot of events that led to the scattering of the X-Men that these issues only begin to undo.

Bringing Wolverine to the Far East to go around with an eye-patch, meet up with contacts from Landau, Luckman, & Lake, wear the black suit and fight ninjas suggests that Claremont was still working off ideas from the other series rather than merely marking time to work through an awkwardly timed wider crossover. But the result allows for some exploration of culture clashes, particularly with the young mutant Jubilee who is of Chinese descent but was born and grew up in the states. Such is her level of Americanisation (even sporting a colour scheme clearly based on the Robin costume) that a street gang call her a "Yankee banana" - yellow skinned but white inside. Then she gets kidnapped and is subsequently seen under mind control. Meanwhile Psylocke has now been sent into the field as "Lady Mandarin", an enforcer for the Mandarin's takeover of the Hong Kong underworld, steadily establishing her reputation as she enhances her training. Finally she attacks Wolverine, who has been suffering from both a weakened healing factor and illusions of past comrades, leading to a brief battle in which he discovers her identity and new power, a psychic knife.

This is a fairly straightforward middle part of a storyline, but it continues to suffer from an excessive use of continuity from other series at precisely the moment a load of non-regular readers are expected. The visuals are also a little off, with the splash page of Psylocke introducing herself seemingly giving her only one arm, whilst the colour of her armour varies slightly between its two appearances and is notably rather different on the cover. And other than a reference to the absent Mandarin "gallivanting across the globe, picking gratuitous fights with American super heroes" there's still no real connection to the wider event beyond happening to use one of the villains. Again this is a good X-Men issue but less so a good crossover chapter.

Uncanny X-Men #257 has been reprinted in:

• Uncanny X-Men Acts of Vengeance (Boxtree, 1995)
• X-Men: Mutations (1996)
• X-Men Visionaries: Jim Lee (2002)
• Essential X-Men volume 9 (2009)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossover Omnibus (2011)
• X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume 1 (2011)

Uncanny X-Men 256 - Acts of Vengeance

We come now to the first of the X-Men issues of the crossover, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Jim Lee, the latter doing a second fill-in issue about a year before he became the series's regular artist. These are probably the best-known chapters of the whole event and have certainly had more reprints than anything else, with only Amazing Spider-Man #328 coming close. So it's surprising to see how little direct connection there is to the wider crossover. Instead this issue could easily have stood alone as one of any number where a villain from another series appears in the title without any wider motivations.

Uncanny X-Men #256

Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: Jim Lee
Inker: Scott Williams
Colourist: Glynis Oliver
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Editor: Bob Harras
Tai-Pan: Tom DeFalco

For reasons that I'll discuss when looking at the next issue, the chronology of Wolverine's adventures pretty much forces the X-Men issues to be placed relatively late in the crossover under just about any order. One result is that up to now in the wider storyline the Mandarin has been the least used of the six leading villains, just appearing at their meetings in either his strange bare-chested 1980s costume or the blue battle armour that had recently superseded it. Part of the reason is that he's a rather awkward character for many creators to use, often dismissed as "A poor man's Fu Manchu" and not just by the Red Skull (who thinks this in Captain America #367) and similar comments go right back to some of the character's earliest appearances. By the late 1980s there was a growing backlash against the stereotypes and this presented problems when it came to characters created in earlier days. One solution was to transform them where possible. Ming the Merciless was recoloured green for the Defenders of the Earth cartoon, a practice that would later be applied to the Mandarin on the mid 1990s Iron Man cartoon. But that wasn't an easily available option in an ongoing fictional universe. Another option was to simply not use the characters any more, but the Mandarin's position as Iron Man's traditional archenemy again made it difficult to ignore him. However that probably explains why so few of the "Acts of Vengeance" issues wanted to use the character, especially when there was the option to get to play with some of the big-name villains like Doctor Doom instead. But here in X-Men Chris Claremont had already done a memorable story (only for John Byrne to rapidly it) and so instead picks up an underused character.

For this issue the story has decided to present the Mandarin pretty much as the Hong Kong equivalent of the Kingpin. We first see him in an office in a skyscraper, dressed in a suit and smoking a cigarette, a far cry from a mystic in a darkened underground lair full of opium smoke or indeed from a wizard in armour as he's appeared more recently, including elsewhere in the crossover. His concerns are entirely business ones, focused especially on how to develop his criminal empire and prepare for the-then forthcoming transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. And as part of expanding his power in the area he entertains an offer from the Hand, a guild of assassins who offer him a gift of a particular individual.

This issue came out during one of the oddest periods of X-Men history of all, when the remains of the team had faced defeat at the hands of the cyborg Reavers and had instead opted to run away, with most of them scattered to the winds by entering the Siege Perilous crystal to be recreated in new lives elsewhere, leaving Wolverine to find them. Coming straight off the back of a period when the X-Men were presumed dead and magic spells made them invisible to detectors, the result is that they have been an unknown force for a long time. (This also explains why they haven't been targeted by the alliance of super-villains.) A shocked Psylocke has been found by the Hand who subject her to both physical and mental changes to make her into an assassin.

This is the famous issue where Psylocke is transformed from a British telepath who felt so vulnerable in battle that she always wore armour in the field to an east Asian ninja warrior in a skin-tight costume. It's a bold transformation to say the least and it's difficult to imagine something like this being tried today. There's always controversy whenever a character's race is changed in an adaptation or alternative universe, but performing an in-continuity race change would draw far more. However back in the day Psylocke's new form proved wildly popular and explains why what was intended as only a temporary move has become permanent despite a few attempts to undo it. The in-story justification given is that "We can't have a westerner running the Hong Kong underworld". How the change is performed isn't really explained here - during the switch all we see is a dream sequence including a moment where Betsy is dragged to a make-up chair and given a full makeover, then she's seen in her new body and later we see she has been changed in reality as well. (All the stuff about Kwannon/Revanche is a later retcon and that character doesn't appear here at all.) The sequence itself mainly focuses on Psylocke's mental transformation, symbolised by her steady collection of the Mandarin's ten rings of power, as she journeys through sequences from her life. Even to a regular X-Men reader this sequence can be difficult to follow if one hadn't read the original Captain Britain stories, but to a reader only picking up the issue because of the crossover it must have been especially hard to penetrate the continuity as her past is deconstructed. Still it makes for a dramatic climax.

As a crossover chapter this is unfortunately disappointing because it basically ignores the wider plotline and contains such a continuity heavy extended scene. And the decision to alter a character's race is rather unfortunate, even if it was only meant to be temporary and did radically transform Psylocke's popularity. However the issue does well to make the Mandarin a more modern threat and builds a dark scenario for the future.

Uncanny X-Men #256 has been reprinted in:

• Uncanny X-Men Acts of Vengeance (Boxtree, 1995)
• X-Men: Mutations (1996)
• X-Men Visionaries: Jim Lee (2002)
• Essential X-Men volume 9 (2009)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossover Omnibus (2011)
• X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus Volume 1 (2011)

Essential X-Men volume 11

Essential X-Men volume 11 comprises Uncanny X-Men #273 to #280 & Annual #15 and the second "adjectiveless" X-Men #1 to #3 plus X-Factor #69 to #70 and the lead story from Annual #6, the lead story from New Mutants Annual #7 and the lead story from New Warriors Annual #1. Bonus material includes some sketches and prints by Jim Lee. The writing on Uncanny X-Men sees the end of Chris Claremont's lengthy run with Fabian Nicieza taking over at the end and writing some of the annual stories with the rest by Len Kaminski. The "adjectiveless" X-Men issues are co-written by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. The X-Factor issues are written by Fabian Nicieza and Peter David with the annual by Nicieza who also does the New Mutants and New Warriors annuals. The art on Uncanny X-Men is mainly by Jim Lee with individual issues by Paul Smith, Andy Kubert and Steve Butler and the annual by Tom Raney, Jerry DeCaire, Ernie Stiner and Kirk Jarvinen. One regular issue is drawn by Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, John Byrne, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Michael Golden, Jim Lee and Larry Stroman. The "adjectiveless" X-Men issues are all drawn by Jim Lee. The regular X-Factor issues are drawn by Portacio and Jarvinem and the annual by Terry Shoemaker. The New Mutants annual is drawn by Guang Yap and Kirk Jarvinem and the New Warriors annual by Mark Bagley. And invariably there's a separate labels post.

This volume covers the end of Chris Claremont's original run on the title after no less than sixteen years. And it's something of a damp squib as his last issues show heavy signs of creative conflict, culminating in his departure midway through issue #279. The first big sign in this volume is issue #274, which feels slightly odd, being more heavily scripted than a usual issue in devoting plenty of space to exploring Magneto's inner thoughts. It seems to be almost a struggle for control of the title between scripter and artist - and notably Jim Lee is given full plot credit with Chris Claremont relegated to "Script" whereas the other issues either credit the two of them as jointly producing the title or (more usually with guest pencillers) give Claremont a clear credit as "Writer". As is now well known, Claremont found himself in creative battles with both Lee and also editor Bob Harras over the content and direction of the title, and ultimately Harras had the final say. This issue feels like one of the reported ones where the first Claremont knew of the content was when finished pages of art arrived for scripting and the heavy dialogue and thought captions feel like a natural response to this. Claremont drops out dramatically midway through issue #279 and his name is also completely absent from annual #15 (released on the very same day, according to Mike's Amazing World of Comics).

Much of the conflict feels like a battle between Claremont to continue advancing the storyline in a unique direction and just about all the other creative forces trying to recreate the past, both in revisiting multiple classic storylines and situations but also in trying to bring classic elements back, most notably by bringing all five of the original X-Men back onto the team as well as bringing Professor X back to Earth and crippling him once more. Along the way, there are some new developments and the culmination of the longstanding plots surrounding Muir Island. But there's also a lot of repetition that shows the extent to which the battle is being won by the traditionalist approach. And this fails to grasp that for better or for worse Claremont's Uncanny X-Men was never a title that stood still for long, regularly changing the cast and status quo and not stopping to wallow in nostalgia. As a result we get a move towards a false ideal that tries to preserve the Claremont style at the cost of Claremont himself. It's a very unsatisfactory approach all around.

En route to this we get the trademarks of an introspective issue as the team, now fully reformed, tries to decide on its future direction and the roles of its spin-off; this is also notable for the whole team adopting the standardised uniforms that have been used by the Muir Island X-Men. They may not be the original 1960s look but they have the same colours and represent one of the biggest visual steps back towards a mythical golden age of status quo. Then comes another as the team is whisked off into deep space to help Professor X, who hasn't been seen in the title in a very long time. We get another tale of dynastic struggle within the Shi'Ar empire combined with another alien menace, with the Starjammers and Imperial Guard both adding to the action along with the threat of Professor X seemingly gone bad once more. Meanwhile back on Earth Magneto and Rogue, together with Ka-Zar and S.H.I.E.L.D., confront Zaladane and the Mutates in the Savage Land but the issue is really an exploration of Magneto's character as he steps ever closer back to his traditional role as a villain and the X-Men's archenemy. It's a journey that's been a struggle for both the character himself and the creative forces, with Claremont's dialogue and narration doing what it can to smooth the passage of the artificial pullback. Both the Shi'Ar and Savage Land settings have been done to death by now and there isn't much added beyond manoeuvring both Professor X and Magneto back to their traditional locations and roles.

The annuals contain two crossover stories. "Kings of Pain" brings together the Muir Island X-Men with X-Factor, the New Warriors and a team that starts off in their own annual under the name "New Mutants" but then becomes "X-Force" for the rest of the story. Part of the problem is that the regular New Mutants title had by this stage ceased and a few months later the new X-Force launched to continue the story with this annual published in the interim. Exactly how this mess came about is unclear though it's possible that the regular title was held back due to creative delays, leaving the annual in limbo. Whatever the reasoning, the name of Cable's team is the least of the storyline's problems. "Kings of Pain" is an all too typical example of the messy and overlong storylines that often ran in the annual crossovers of the period, with each chapter trying to satisfy both the title's regular readers who may have only joined the storyline at this stage but also readers of the whole thing. The result is an elongated confusion as one team after another gets drawn into a scheme by A.I.M. via the Alliance of Evil to empower the mutant Piecemeal with the energies of Proteus, resurrecting the latter in the process. The whole thing climaxes on Muir Island and has to tiptoe around developments in the regular series but is ultimate forgettable. A second crossover is "The Killing Stroke" in just the three mutant annuals; this three-part story sees the remains of Freedom Force battling Desert Sword, a team of heroes from across the Middle East, whilst on a mission in occupied Kuwait. It was an attempt to be very much of its time but now feels like a convoluted mess. The X-Men annual also carries two brief back-up stories. One features "The Origin of the X-Men" as Mojo briefly reviews the history of the team as prospective entertainment but balks at all the spin-off teams, in an unsubtle commentary on how the franchise has grown. The other features Wolverine having a nightmare where he battles his adamantium skeleton in an attempt to come to terms with it. As the first full issue released in the post-Claremont era (although here it's placed earlier between issues #277 & #278), annual #15 does not bode well for the future. Instead, it serves as both a demonstration of and a commentary on how chaotic and confusing the whole franchise has become.

The final steps towards restoration and also the end of Claremont's time on the series come with the "Muir Island Saga" in which the Shadow King makes his first full attack in the present day, Professor X is reunited with his original students and Colossus returns to the team, regaining his original memories and personality in the process. Once again we can see the creative struggles manifesting themselves on the pages as characters get rapidly restored or disposed of according to conflicting demands and Claremont departs midway through both the storyline and an individual issue. The Shadow King may be a part of Xavier's history but usually the foes from his pre-teaching days when he travelled the world have been left undisturbed and there isn't as great a sense of an epic showdown as such a storyline demands. This is also the story that dissolves the original X-Factor back into the X-Men, undoing many years of a distinctly different take on the team, and once more it's rather rushed in. As a result the series reaches the twin critical moments of the main guiding force leaving and the expansion into a second title under far from ideal circumstances.

The second "adjectiveless" X-Men series launched in 1991 with a rather silly gimmick of five different covers, four of which fitted together to form a single image that was the gatefold on the fifth. Or in other words if one wanted to see the full picture one could just get the gatefold edition. Coming at a time of rampant speculation not so much by collectors as by comic shops the issue saw over eight million copies sold. This was apparently the record holder for the highest ever sales on a single comic, although the five different covers is a complication as are some of the publication practices in other countries that can split sales over multiple contenders. As is the fact that the bulk of recorded sales were wholesale rather than retail and by many accounts a huge number of copies wound up as unsold overstock in comic shops all over the globe. It was an early sign of the weaknesses in the market but, although no individual issue would again have quite such a high order rate, it didn't encourage restraint amongst publishers.

The new series itself kicks off with a final intersection of the old and the new. Chris Claremont returns for a final three-part story (although he has subsequently returned to the X-Men multiple times in later years) which sets out to establish the new status quo for both the X-Men and Magneto. The mansion is restored and with Professor X having been absent so long he finds there is so much about the team and their powers that is new to him. We're back to an age of the mansion as both a school and a base, with the X-Men developing their powers under the guidance of Xavier and fighting traditional foes such as Magneto. There are concessions to the new age, with the X-Men nominally split into two separate groupings, the "Blue" and "Gold" teams which seems an elegant way to keep so many characters around and have separate writers on the two separate books. There's also another change visually with the uniforms largely disposed of, bar Forge and Banshee, and instead the X-Men now sport a mixture of brand new and older costumes. With the conspicuous exception of Wolverine the visual look is now that which would be adopted by the 1990s cartoon, which also used the "Blue" team as the basis for its main cast albeit with a few alterations.

Claremont's last storyline seeks to return to Magneto to villainy in a way that's respectful to the character development that's come before yet also position the master of magnetism as a recurring credible foe. The latter is achieved with the addition of the Acolytes, a group of mutants who come to him to serve both the man and his vision. However it soon becomes clear that one of them, Fabian Cortez, who has the power to re-energise other mutants, has other plans. The former aim of trying to make the abrupt changes seem natural rather flounders with the revelation that Magneto had been subject to genetic modification when de-aged to a baby and this had affected his behaviour when re-aged to adulthood. It feels as though a decade's worth of character development is being thrown away - and this is probably how it felt to Claremont at the time as he finally lost the battle over the character. The story, the volume and the whole Claremont era all end with a reassertion of the different philosophies of Professor X and Magneto, a fitting point to go out on.

Overall this volume shows the series being dragged in the direction of false nostalgia, first to revisit successful stories ad themes from the past and then to have an as near as achievable recreation of a mythical golden age for the characters, undoing many of the changes made over the years. A lot of comics have gone down the route of reset switches over the years but X-Men has hitherto never fallen into such an easy trap. The result is that this final volume is a rather disappointing end of an era.

Essential X-Men volume 10

Essential X-Men volume 10 consists of Uncanny X-Men #265 to #272 & Annual #14 plus New Mutants #95 to #97 and the lead story from Annual #6, X-Factor #60 to #62 and the lead story from Annual #5, and the lead story from Fantastic Four Annual #23. Bonus material includes Cameron Hodge's entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. All the Uncanny X-Men material is written by Chris Claremont, all the New Mutants and X-Factor material by Louise Simonson and the Fantastic Four annual by Walter Simonson. The Uncanny X-Men issues are mainly drawn by Jim Lee with individual ones by Bill Jaaska and Mike Collins and the annual by Arthur Adams and Mark Heike. The New Mutants issues are drawn by Rob Liefeld and Guang Yap with the annual by Terry Shoemaker & Chris Wozniak, the X-Factor issues and annual by Jon Bogdanove, and the Fantastic Four annual by Jackson Guice. With so many series and creators there's invariably a separate labels post.

Even more than any other Essential volume this one is absolutely dominated by crossovers to the point that there are just five issues plus an annual back up story that haven't been reproduced elsewhere in the Essentials. It's a sign of how the mutant titles were becoming ever more a self-contained franchise with routine crossovers between them that only rarely gave any other series a look in. Otherwise the franchise effect would keep on growing throughout the 1990s, reaching its climax just a few years later when part of the big corporate changes dubbed "Marvelution" saw the line divided into separate groups with their own editorial oversight and limited interaction between them, leaving them as their own introverted world constantly crossing over with one another and not much else. It's here that that road really began.

Of course the crossovers were not totally self-contained at first, with all the 1990 mutant annuals crossing over with the Fantastic Four annual to tell the story of "Days of Future Present", a sequel to the classic X-Men tale. But whereas the earlier tale was the epitome of the mutants' struggle for acceptance and freedom with a horrific fate shown if they failed, this story ignores most of those themes and instead just focuses on individuals as an adult Franklin Richards arrives from the alternate future and journeys through the sites of his happy childhood memories, using his reality altering powers to "correct" things as he goes. From a modern perspective there's something chilling about the way Franklin looks at the New York skyline and decides that X-Factor's ship does not belong so casually makes it vanish, before contemplating a revised scene that includes the World Trade Center twin towers. Franklin's actions attract the involvement of multiple teams and also that of Ahab the mutant hunter from his own timeline who enslaved Rachel. Although Forge and Banshee are soon caught up in the story, the regular X-Men of this period only get involved when the conclusion comes in their own annual and it's here that the story winds up trying to do too much. There's a lot revolving around Rachel Summers, who has been noticeably absent from the title for some years, as she has her first encounter with back from the dead mother Jean Grey, finally confirms to Cyclops that she is his daughter from the future, and meets with Franklin, her partner from her own time. But the story also casually starts the process of reuniting the scattered X-Men as Storm turns up at the ruins of the mansion, revealing to the wider world that she's been alive all this time. One problem this collected edition does at least smooth out is the publication order, with the annual originally coming out a few issues too early for developments relating to Storm but here it has been placed in a more reasonable position and so correcting the narrative flow. This does, however, mean that it's easy to overlook the fact that this was the first actual published appearance of the newest of the X-Men, Gambit, with his debut now a more logical issue #266. The Uncanny X-Men annual also includes a back-up in which Franklin and Rachel briefly encounter Wolverine, Psylocke and Jubilee in Madripoor where Logan of all people turns into the conscience of the X-Men, very briefly summarising their history and core values as he expounds on the teachings of Professor Xavier. Normally such a story would be a simple piece of forgettable annual fluff but here it ties in well to the main events without rushing the rest of the X-Men's reunion. But overall "Days of Future Present" is way too long for the actual amount of action and development that it contains. Too much of the story involves the repetitiveness of the adult Franklin arriving somewhere and altering it with the various heroes then clashing with Ahab. Comparisons with "Days of Future Past" are automatic and this storyline simply can't hold a candle to it.

The annual crossover isn't the only issue when the wider Marvel universe gets a look in. Issue #268, which also supplies the cover to the volume, sees a special adventure in Madripoor as Wolverine, Psylocke and Jubilee team up with the Black Widow to battle Fenris, the children of Baron Strucker, and the Hand ninjas with a flashback to another adventure there nearly fifty years earlier when Logan teamed up with a young Captain America and saved a very young Black Widow from Strucker and the Hand. It's a story that's big on memorable imagery and pays tribute to the pulp heroes of the era, right down to Logan dressing like Indiana Jones, but it's also a rather light weight story that raises more questions than it answers. Captain America's career during the Second World War has been subject to rewritings, retcons and a partial wiping of the slate so it's not too hard a stretch to imagine him on an early mission in the Far East though making him yet another previously unmentioned significant ally from Wolverine's past opens up questions about why this has never come up during more recent team-ups. But the Black Widow is suddenly given needless layers of her past. An early 1970s story had established her as an infant survivor of Stalingrad but that was at a time when the war was recent enough to credibly be part of her childhood. Twenty years later it was less credible for her to have been a wartime child yet not only was this aspect of the character reinforced instead of being ignored but it's even questioned in story as Jubilee thinks that it's impossible for Natasha to be that old. The story feels like it was written both to meet the desires of the artist and to salute Captain America's forthcoming fiftieth anniversary celebrations but it winds up as an inconsequential tale at a point when the series really needs to be moving forward and catching up with all the remaining X-Men and bring them back together.

The other early issues make some progress on this, with a three part epic bringing Storm's story up to date as she flees agents of the Shadow King, encounters Gambit for the first time and has a final showdown with Nanny. The explanation for how Storm survived a seeming death that left a body behind feels a little too convenient a retcon even though this was almost certainly the plan from the outset. However it's a surprise that Ororo isn't restored to her adult form when she regains her memories and full use of her powers and instead spends subsequent issues trying to be a leader to the remnants of the X-Men and various spin-off teams yet frequently being doubted because of her reduced physical age. At the same time we get the addition of Gambit who quickly becomes an archetype for 1990s comic heroes by being a mysterious man in a long coat. His Louisiana French accent remains strong in his dialogue throughout but his motivations for joining the X-Men, in so far as staying with Storm constitutes joining, are more for survival now that the Shadow King will be after him as well than any great attachment to Xavier's dream.

More convoluted is the solitary issue devoted to Rogue as she finally reappears, coming back to the Outback town where she faces the Reavers before fleeing to the Savage Land. But the main focus is on her relationship with the personality of Ms. Marvel. The Siege Perilous has recreated Rogue and Ms. Marvel as separate beings and it's not terribly clear that the latter is a different entity from the actual Ms. Marvel, now Binary. (Just to add to the confusion the Fantastic Four annual is from the period when their membership included the "She-Thing" Sharon Venture - aka another Ms. Marvel!) The two battle it out with an interlude as Rogue escapes to the Savage Land and Ms. Marvel to Muir Island where she's possessed by the Shadow King, before a final showdown that reveals the two cannot exist separately and one must die for the other to survive. It's a somewhat rushed resolution to Rogue's longstanding guilt as the legacy of her worst action is literally removed from her.

The narrative flow of the X-Men being scattered and slowly brought back together is rather disrupted by the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover. Despite being the first mutant crossover with a clear order to the point that each chapter is numbered, this a sprawling mess with key events almost glossed over or taking place off panel and endless repetitive action in which the art is often taking precedence over the narrative. Over the course of the story most of the X-Men are not only brought together but also resume contact with both the New Mutants and X-Factor, thus ending both the long running deception of being dead and the more recent non-team era. However what should be major developments are treated in such a matter of fact that it's easy to miss them. It's also not entirely clear how Wolverine, Psylocke and Jubilee knew to make their way to Genosha. Nor is it explained just why Havok, who finally reappears many issues after going through the Siege Perilous, has been recreated in a supposed paradise of being an officer in a repressive force under a totalitarian regime. The story is driven by the kidnapping of Storm and several New Mutants and their being taken to Genosha with the rest of the New Mutants and X-Factor launching a rescue mission. As a sequel to a prominent X-Men storyline and with the main villain being Cameron Hodge, who has previously battled both X-Factor and the New Mutants, the story tries to feel like a natural intersection of all three titles but suffers from having come too soon for the X-Men. Storm's altered form is dealt with and Havok opts to leave the team to stay in Genosha and help with the new order so there is at least some development beyond the botched reunification but overall it's a demonstration of how messy crossovers would stomp into titles at awkward moments, a trend that would only grow throughout the 1990s.

As a whole this volume shows a series struggling to advance its own narrative and direction amidst a weight of wider crossovers that swamp out the page count. Contemporary readers "had" to spend even more just to get a complete story and here the Uncanny X-Men issues aren't able to do much in the time available to them, leaving some incoherent messes in both the solo and crossover issues. The title has not been served well by the protracted separate non-team approach and this volume is still stuck in the quagmire with the seeming resolution to the era almost muted. This is a series where the narrative is sinking into a mess amidst the stylised artwork.

Essential X-Men volume 9

Essential X-Men volume 9 comprises Uncanny X-Men #244 to #264 & Annual #13 (excluding the Saga of the Serpent Crown chapter that has nothing to do with the X-Men). Bonus material includes Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Jubilee, Master Mold and Zaladane. All the regular issues are written by Chris Claremont though the annual lead story is by Terry Austin and a back-up by Sally Pashkow (or not - see below). The art is mainly by Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee with individual issues by Rob Liefeld, Rick Leonardi, Kieron Dwyer, Bill Jaaska and Mike Collins. The annual is drawn by Mike Vosburg and Jim Fern.

This volume covers one of the bleakest periods in the series so far. The early issues see the continuation of the "Outback era" as the team continued to operate out of an abandoned Australian desert town and teleport around the world. The most notable long term impact of these early adventures comes in the very first issue where the female members of the team go on a trip to a shopping centre where they battle the M-Squad, a rather lame set of mutant hunters who are a blatant parody of the Ghostbusters, before returning home with an unknown follower, the rich girl turned orphaned "mall rat" Jubilee. At first it seems she will be taking on the innocent youngster role that's been absent ever since Kitty Pryde was injured out of the series but initially she instead operates in secret without the other X-Men knowing and subsequent events mean that we don't get to see her in the traditional little sister role just yet. Meanwhile the male members go out on the town only to run into a rather ineffective bunch of alien invaders called the Conquest. It seems as though this will be a period of light-hearted tales but things will soon change.

The annual is unusual as the only X-Men issue during his entire run that doesn't have Chris Claremont's name on it. But is he completely absent? The back-up story is credited to Sally Pashkow, a name that hasn't appeared anywhere else in comics. Opinion on the net says that this is a pseudonym for Chris Claremont though everything seems to be pointing to each other, and its inclusion in the X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Volume 1 Omnibus may be more down to a sequential run than anything else. (As a result I've included a separate label to cover all possibilities.) But regardless of whether this is Claremont or a one-off writer in his style the result is a character piece as Jubilee finds herself in the outback town and hides herself away with the aid of Gateway, then starts observing the X-Men from afar and borrowing some clothes. It mainly serves to build up the new character. The lead story is part of the "Atlantis Attacks" crossover that ran through all the Marvel annuals in 1989 and it resorts very much to formula as a villain, in this case Mr. Jip from Terry Austin's work on Cloak and Dagger, recruits the heroes to find an object of power of unclear importance. The team is split in three and sent to different locations to tackle the problem, here complicated by the Serpent Society. And it's an effective failure as at the end the main villains from the crossover get their hands on the powerful objects. Overall this annual is rather peripheral to the whole "Atlantis Attacks" saga, achieving nothing that couldn't have happened without the X-Men's presence. It's a surprise that Claremont doesn't write the story, perhaps deciding to opt out of taking part in the mess, but the result is the one X-Men story in a very long time by another writer. And it almost seems to be saying that anyone who thinks Claremont has outstayed his welcome should think again as it's very dire in its handling of the characters, with some especial silliness when Dazzler and the Serpent Society's Diamondback temporarily switch bodies. This is easily forgettable.

The tension ups when Nimrod and the remains of Master Mold merge, creating one of the deadliest anti-mutant machines yet. The battle is fierce, with Senator Kelly's wife killed thus increasing the senator's hatred of mutants. Victory only comes when Dazzle deploys the Siege Perilous crystal to send Master Mold to either happiness or recreation, but Rogue is also lost in the process. Rogue has recently been portrayed with a split personality as Carol Danvers comes to the fore more frequently, generating some tensions as each takes control of the body in succession, but the battle terminates any resolution to this dilemma. This starts a steady break-up of the team with Longshot soon dropping aside to go and seek his own identity and history. It's a sign of both his insignificance to the run and the bigger events around him that this departure is almost shoehorned into wider events but he isn't really missed. Then the remains of the team, with Wolverine temporarily away, face the first of two fierce attacks on their doorstep in rapid succession. Nanny, the robotic "egg with a voice", attacks and in battle Havok's energy blast destroys Nanny's vessel with Storm onboard. And unlike most such comic explosions, the body is seen and confirmed afterwards. An interlude comes as the dwindling team respond to a distress call from the Savage Land where they face Zaladane and the Mutates, with the return of Polaris who now seems to have been freed from the control of Malice. Zaladane claims to be Polaris's sister but this plot element isn't really cleared up in time before the last of the X-Men are teleported home to Australia where Donald Pierce and the Reavers are waiting for them.

The series has been building up to this moment with a number of hints and visions that this will be the last stand of the X-Men with no way out. Instead the four - Psylocke, Dazzler, Colossus and Havok - take the one escape route to hand, by going through the Siege Perilous to begin new lives elsewhere. As they admit it is running away from the situation and to add to the indignity this ending is revealed in a flashback shown to the returning Wolverine by Gateway. Wolverine is left as the last of the X-Men and put up for crucifixion by the Reavers but escapes with the help of both Jubilee and Lady Deathstrike's sense of nobility. And so a whole era of the X-Men comes to an end not in glory but in defeat and running away.

But this isn't the end of the series at all. The X-Men have generated many ex-members, allies and influences over the years and the next dozen issues focus on a number of these characters but without assembling a new team. Issue #253 sets up the situation, with its cover reused for the volume as a whole. Initially the main focuses are on Wolverine and Jubilee as they head off into the Far East, the mutants based around Muir Island, with Banshee and Forge really coming to the fore, and a mysterious young girl found in Illinois who resembles a young Storm. Elsewhere various of the X-Men who went through the Siege Perilous come to terms with their new lives, suffering amnesia of their past lives but finding their past can't completely escape them. Unfortunately there is limited unification between the various story strands with the result that the focus jumps around between them and plots can take an age to conclude.

During this phase comes the second big crossover on this volume's watch, "Acts of Vengeance", which, for a change, comes out of the Avengers titles after three years of X-Men derived events. But were it not for the triangles in the top right hand corner of issues #256 through to #258 then one could be forgiven for not realising this is even part of the storyline. It may feature foes the X-Men haven't faced before in the form of the Mandarin and the Hand but there's no co-ordinated attack on our heroes or any reference to the Mandarin's role as one of the Prime Movers supposedly co-ordinating the entire thing - indeed the Mandarin portrayed here is the more sophisticated crime lord that had been developed over the years rather than the traditional ranting supervillain shown in the main portion of the event. This detachment may be of necessity as current events mean the X-Men are presumed dead, impossible to detect with electronic equipment and now lost and scattered by the Siege Perilous, which doesn't really lend itself to enemies launching attacks upon them. Instead we get the basic crossover theme of a villain from another series tied into some very traditional themes for the series of strong women being twisted into ever more powerful agents of enemies and ninjas, plus Wolverine's connections in the Far East from his own solo title.

The most notable event here by far is the transformation of Psylocke from a Caucasian telepath in armour worried about her physical weakness into an east Asian ninja woman. Exactly how her ethnicity is changed is rather brushed over but the whole thing now feels extremely uncomfortable. If an east Asian ninja woman X-Man was needed, it would have been easy to create a new character who could easily be added to the team. But instead an existing character has such a fundamental part of her altered to fulfil the role, as though the genuine article wouldn't do. The story touches upon aspects of culture conflict between the Far East and the West, most notably showcasing the clash with Jubilee, the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the United States, who proves a highly Americanised tourist who dislikes what she sees. Then she is captured and forced into a traditional serving girl role as a small part of the Mandarin's goal of revitalising the traditional Chinese kingdom. Overall his portrayal is a strong step away from the traditional Fu Manchu role he's sometimes given and Psylocke's transformation does fit into some of the themes but that doesn't redeem the effect even if her new look as a replacement Elektra is wildly popular. The sequence in which her mind is steadily twisted by a quest through distorted memories in order to obtain the Mandarin's ten rings is also a good idea in theory but let down by much of her background not having been previously explored outside the Captain Britain comics in the UK and so the whole things can be confusing at times. All in all the transformation was a mistake that chased a trend and it's amazing that it was allowed to stay permanently, no doubt because of the popularity of the new look.

Whilst Wolverine, Psylocke and Jubilee make their way onwards to Madripoor with the complication of Wolverine being haunted by images of Nick Fury and Carol Danvers that he thinks are real, other X-Men are coming to terms with their new lives. Dazzler finds herself a singer in Hollywood and her movie is finally released, but former producer Eric Beale stalks her. Colossus becomes an artist and a maintenance man in an apartment block but soon gets entangled with both the Genoshan Magistrates and then the survivors of the Morlocks. The child Storm is being pursued by the Shadow King who frames her for murder, resulting in her going on the run.

Forge and Banshee are built up in a way that suggests they will be the next members to join or return to the team, but it's unfortunate that Banshee's recovery of his powers goes unexplained at first and it's only after a further injury that we see the Morlock healer restore him. Meanwhile Polaris finds her magnetic powers gone but in place of them her body is growing in size and she now has super strength but this goes unexplained. The three of them become part of an ad hoc grouping based on Muir Island along with Moira MacTaggart, Legion, Amanda Sefton, Sunder and other hangers on not seen in a long while, facing off a brutal attack by the Reavers that sees them bailed out by Freedom Force with casualties all around including Destiny. The ad hoc team also wears a uniform, hinting that it could become a new new X-Men but it doesn't take off as such, not least because of one of Legion's dark personas taking over. Magneto is given the image on the volume's spine, taken from the cover, but only appears briefly as he resigns as headmaster of the school and drifts off to his old ways. It's a slightly awkward scene that appears to be trying to rationalise the increased use of the character as a more traditional villain elsewhere, most notably in the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover.

The only convergence of the various plotlines comes at the end of the volume as Forge and Banshee encounter the amnesiac Colossus under the name of "Peter Nicholas" and battle first the Morlocks and then the Genosha Magistrates with the help of Marvel Girl from X-Factor. Along with some individual comments over the issues it seems as though the various mutant teams are being drawn together to be treated as parts of a single whole once more but there's a central element missing. Wolverine is at least stepping up to a Professor Xavier role when he utilises Harry Malone's Harriers to test Psylocke and Jubilee in the absence of a Danger Room. But overall the series is still in scattered pieces.

The art is often strong and it's easy to see how Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee gained such a following. However the writing on the series is in heavy decline. The series has shifted from a long-term careful build-up of plots to an almost random chucking anything against the wall to see what sticks and letting storylines drag on for much longer than they can sustain. The idea of splitting up the team and exploring individual members and the supporting cast is not a bad idea per se but it's very poorly executed and the resulting issues just don't work well. The worst idea to get through is the race transformation of Psylocke but overall this is an exceptionally poor volume for the series.

Essential X-Factor volume 5 - creator labels

Yet again we have a volume with a lot of creators so here's a separate post for some of the labels.

Essential Punisher volume 3

Essential Punisher volume 3 continues the journey through the Punisher's first ongoing series, containing #21-40 & Annual #2-3, with the exception of one back-up feature from Annual #2. In addition it contains Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for the Shadowmasters and the Reavers. All the regular issues and main features in the annuals are written by Mike Baron, with some back-up features by Roger Salick and Gregory Wright. The regular issues are mostly drawn by Erik Larsen and Bill Reinhold, with others drawn by Mark Texeira, Russ Heath and Jack Slamn, and the annuals see contributions by Reinhold, Texeira, Tod Smith, Jim Lee, Neil Hansen, Eliot R. Brown and Lee Sullivan.

As noted we're already into the period when he had two titles a month, but we've yet to see an Essential Punisher War Journal, though there are occasional references to events there. Fortunately we're not yet faced with rampant crossovers between the two titles. That's not to say the series didn't take part in other crossovers though.

This volume contains the Punisher issues from three crossovers. Annual #2 is part of "Atlantis Attacks", which was a mega-crossover told in fourteen separate annuals in 1989. (The other thirteen annuals were Silver Surfer #2, Iron Man #10, X-Men #13, Amazing Spider-Man #23, Spectacular Spider-Man #9, Daredevil #4, Avengers #18, New Mutants #5, X-Factor #4, Web of Spider-Man #5, Avengers West Coast #4, Thor #14 & Fantastic Four #22, plus interludes in the regular Marvel Comics Presents #26, New Mutants #76 & Avengers West Coast #52. Due to an error the Daredevil annual is actually the second one numbered #4; the following year's annual saw the numbering restored to #6.) As well as the main event the annuals also included "The Saga of the Serpent Crown" which once again sought to reintroduce and tidy up the continuity of a key plot device; the relevant chapter is omitted but the whole crossover can be found in a Marvel Omnibus edition. The following year Marvel changed tact and switched to shorter storylines that ran in only a handful of annuals. Punisher Annual #3 was part of the "Lifeform" crossover (the other three parts were in Daredevil #6, Incredible Hulk #3 and Silver Surfer #3). Meanwhile issues #28 & #29 of the regular comic were part of the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover, a tale so long it encompassed no less than sixty-eight separate comics and takes up two separate Omnibuses (one has the core parts of the crossover, the other the tie-ins).

(Rather than fill up this post with a list of the other "Acts of Vengeance" issues, I'll do a special post to reproduce the best attempt at an order that I've yet seen.)

"Atlantis Attacks" is a convoluted saga involving plans to resurrect the serpent god Set. Punisher Annual #2 involves one phase of the plan, namely to convert the human race into serpent men using a special formula developed by the Viper and tested on drug addicts. The Punisher teams up with Moon Knight to take down a front for the operation, with the Punisher temporarily drugged up in the process. The story tries its best to marry the demands of the crossover with the tone of the Punisher's series but just doesn't really succeed. At US $2.00 an annual, the full set of "Atlantis Attacks" cost $28.00 in 1989, not counting the handful of additional tie-in issues. If a reader was only buying a couple of the regular series then they had to pay over an amount that was almost equal to 100% of their regular yearly comics expenditure on the rest of the storyline. And that was even before "Acts of Vengeance" loomed later that year. In such circumstances it's easy to see the switch to smaller crossovers in the 1990-1992 annuals as an improvement. But better still would have been stand alone annuals that presented a big standalone story that both regular and casual readers could enjoy. "Lifeform" is an attempt to cover both bases by portraying a creature steadily evolving in power levels, with a corresponding increase in the successive heroes' powers. Punisher Annual #3 is the opening portion of the story, concentrating on the son of a radical politician trying to obtain a biological weapon, only to be mutated into a monster who eventually turns on his father, with AIM along for the ride. Once again it's a rather fantastical step away from the more technical, non-powered world the Punisher's adventures normally take place in. The back-up features in both annuals are relatively similar, with both including features on the Punisher's fighting techniques and solo stories for Microchip that show how ruthless he can be when taking out those who hurt the people around him. I guess with no other supporting cast members there wasn't a lot of choice about what to include.

If the 1989 reader had some money to spare after buying Punisher, Punisher War Journal and all of "Atlantis Attacks", then for at least US $64.00 (probably more if some series had a higher price) they could get the entire "Acts of Vengeance" crossover. With sixty-eight issues in total, this was slightly excessive and it's not surprising that the following year's Avengers annual ran a summary of the key parts of the adventure. Both of the Punisher's titles contributed to the story but it seems the stories were kept separate and so only the original book's issues appear here. Issue #29's cover is reused for the volume as a whole but it's highly misleading as most of the superheroes and villains appear in just a single panel. The basic premise of the story involves an alliance of leading villains working together to bring down the superheroes by pitting them against foes they haven't fought before. As part of the rivalries amongst the top villains, Doctor Doom declares he will eliminate the Kingpin's most financially damaging foe, the Punisher. This proves harder than expected and the Punisher in turn opts to travel to Latveria to steal a vital possession of Doom's. This brings him into conflict with the other Doctor Doom (Kristoff, a boy who had Doom's memory and personality implanted into him when the real Doom was presumed dead), who rules Latveria. The overall premise of the crossover makes such an unusual match inevitable, but wisely Doom is kept to his scientific side and so apart from the two separate Dooms (part of a wider convoluted continuity in this era), the story fits in reasonably well with the general tone of the series. And although the basic set-up of the alliance between villains isn't really explained here, the story is sufficiently self-contained that one can get away with not knowing the details of the wider crossover.

Just in case a reader in 1990 had any money left over after all this, issues #35-40 represent yet another attack on their wallets. In the early 1990s several of the most popular titles had their frequency increased for a specific season (usually summer, occasionally autumn) and often used the increased frequency to tell longer stories that wouldn't take so many months to get through. Here we get a six part saga entitled "Jigsaw Puzzle", featuring the return of a couple of old foes. On the one hand it's nice that the additional expenditure required to get the whole story did at least go on some actual Punisher material this time, but on the other the story itself is stretched out more than necessary and the art suffers because of the need to bring in extra pencillers to handle the increased workload. Mark Texeira and Jack Slamn both have their own styles but they're different from each other and from Bill Reinhold, with the result that the visual look of the story can change significantly between chapters. The story is also let down by some elements that are rather at odds with the general scope of the series. For Jigsaw is working for the Rev. Sammy Smith, the evangelical preacher seen back in issues #4-5, who has now turned to the dark side and gained healing powers from a being called "Lucifer". The Punisher is sceptical, assuming Smith is in fact a mutant using conjuring tricks, but during the story Smith heals the faces of Jigsaw (though the Punisher subsequently "corrects" this), the Punisher and Joy Adams, a woman from a local hotel. "Lucifer" himself appears in the final part, and is presented as the genuine article. Otherwise the story is liberally ripped off from the Bond film Moonraker with a fanatic, aided by a deformed henchman, planning to destroy much of the human race through a special poison found only in a plant in a remote part of the South American jungle. The plan is to sterilise most of the human race by releasing the toxin into the water supply but the Punisher takes out the operation. Although some of the plot elements fit the norm for the series, there's a bit too much in the story that makes it too over the top and just not a natural Punisher tale for my liking. Yes the Punisher occupies a universe shared with everything from the Norse gods to a foul talking duck from another dimension, but normally he manages to keep away from all that and even when elements do cross his path they tend to be the more down to earth heroes or are else focused on their technological side. Encounters with the Devil just aren't the norm here.

Another out of the norm encounter comes in a two-parter when the Punisher and Microchip fight the Reavers, cyborgs more normally found in the X-Men titles. It's a fairly simple two parter as Microchip's hacking accidentally reveals the Punisher's warehouse to hostile forces and he and the Punisher have to face them off and escape, then have a showdown at a salvage yard run by Microchip's cousin. This battle allows for quite a focus on the high tech side of the Punisher, with the climax seeing him adopt an experimental exoskeleton armour to fight off the Reavers. Although the foes are on the fanciful side, the story itself feels more like a typical Punisher adventure. In the process Microchip's cousin is killed, a sign of the high mortality rate for those around the Punisher.

The same rate hits one of his allies in the mini-epic that opens the volume. What starts off as an investigation into match fixing in the boxing world soon transforms into the pursuit of a poisoner that leads first to a fake ninja training camp in the States and then to Japan to meet the genuine sensei and aid him and others (including the Shadowmasters, previously seen in Punisher War Journal although not fully until after the issues in Punisher War Journal Classic volume 1) in battling against a criminal political Japanese organisation, during which the sensei is killed. It's an interesting tale given the chain of events that leads the Punisher through successive situations, and also sees him being offered the legitimate American franchise for the ninja school; however he declines it preferring to continue his own war on crime.

The remaining stories continue the trend of pitching the Punisher against a wide variety of criminals, ranging from arms contractors working with corrupt military officials to a devout Catholic serial killer to a biker gang running drugs. Once again, the individual stories are generally well told, but overall there is no real sense of development. Microchip remains the only other recurring character in these stories and there are some tensions between the two over priorities and other pursuits, but these aren't really developed into an ongoing evolving relationship and once again it would be reasonably easy to rearrange the order of the stories without much trouble. There are a few signs of recurring foes but the impression given by the "Acts of Vengeance" story is that the Kingpin isn't really that bothered about the Punisher and there isn't a personal degree of enmity between the two, unlike the crime lord's relationships with both Daredevil and Spider-Man. This really leaves just Jigsaw, the Punisher foe who keeps on surviving and here he's left alive simply because the Punisher realises that to kill his foe will mean the end of the Rev. Smith's healing powers before they can be used on the Punisher's face. Jigsaw's history with the Punisher isn't properly recapped, despite his having not been seen since the Punisher's first (limited) series some four years earlier, and his recurrence making him the nearest the Punisher has to an ongoing archenemy. At times he's written almost for laughs, and more would be needed if he was to become a more credible threat in the future.

This remains the fundamental problem with the series - there is no sense of clear direction. The Punisher has declared war on all crime but moves between the many different types of offence without ever really stopping around long enough to focus on a particular type or source. The supporting cast remains confined to Microchip and one-off characters in individual stories, and so there's no prospect of really exploring why the Punisher does what he does and how his approach to life affects those around him. The move toward longer, multi-part epics suggests does at least offer the prospect of a greater exploration of individual situations, but the problem remains that this series tries to chart a middle course with the character and avoids both intense psychological examination and out and out over the top fun, and the result is that it continues to meander.

Sidesteps: Punisher War Journal Classic volume 1

Spider-Man may have been the first Marvel hero to get two ongoing solo series, but as we've seen it took a while and was a staggered process with Marvel Team-Up occupying a half-way slot (and Giant-Size Spider-Man was both an extension of Marvel Team-Up and part of a line that didn't last very long). Other Marvel spin-offs tended to be related rather than direct - for instance a solo series for the Human Torch and later a Thing team-up series rather than a second Fantastic Four title, or spin-off teams like the New Mutants and West Coast Avengers instead of doubling up the X-Men and Avengers. Or a character might get a second title but in a different format such as the Rampaging Hulk magazine or the various Conan titles. But the late 1980s saw a big change in the approach with more characters than just the flagship getting multiple titles. And the Punisher was the first in.

Punisher War Journal launched in (cover date) November 1988, when Punisher had reached just issue #13, a sign of the older series's instant success. The series hasn't yet been collected in the Essentials, in spite of the first Punisher series being up to issue #59, the contemporary of Punisher War Journal #38. However a single volume has appeared in the Classic line which reprints (mainly Bronze Age and Modern Age) series in colour, albeit with rather fewer issues and a higher price point than the Essentials. Punisher War Journal Classic volume 1 contains the first eight issues of the series. Carl Potts writes every issue, with plot assistance from colourist John Wellington on issue #4, and also does layouts on issues #1-3 & 6-7. The finishes on those and full pencils on the rest are by Jim Lee, at a very early stage in his comics career before he had even started on the X-Men.

The title of the series may imply it offers tales from the Punisher's War Journal but in practice the journal is only mentioned about three times in these first eight issues as part of the Punisher's standard internal thoughts. Otherwise, the series is basically more of the same. The only slight variation of note is that we get a small recurring cast of an Oriental family who run the deli in a New York building where the Punisher has a flat for when his New Jersey warehouse is too far away. As the series progresses, we discover there's more to them than at first seems, but in part this seems to be a trail for the Shadowmasters limited series. Nope, I haven't heard of it either. Unfortunately the volume stops before the series really delves into this so on its own the subplot is just a distraction.

Otherwise the Punisher is put through a variety of situations, though issue #1 ends with a trail of eight different scenes and only one of them is followed up in this volume. The series kicks off with the Punisher commiserating the anniversary of his family's killing, having en route helped a mobster's wife escape from her husband. The main storyline in the first three issues builds upon the family's death when they accidentally wandered into a criminal execution and we get a tale in which the son of the executionee and a drug smuggler each bring a tale of the reasons behind the execution, leaving the Punisher trying to work out who was responsible. As an introduction to the Punisher and his background this generally works a lot better than his first series, showing what makes him tick and his methods and thus gets the series rolling quite well. We also get a brief encounter with Daredevil and a quick reminder of the antagonism between him and the Punisher, filling in the latter's general relationship with other heroes which has at times dominated his appearances, so again a key factor is explained. However Microchip isn't introduced so well, being just presented and there's not much to explain why he aids the Punisher in spite of his own loss (which is briefly referenced). The next couple of issues build on the other key aspect of the Punisher's backstory, namely his time in Vietnam as he discovers that the surviving members of his old squad are being murdered one by one. The Punisher eventually takes down the killer but in the process also brings justice to his former colonel who put the squad in needless jeopardy by deliberately delaying and pick-up and then was responsible for "friendly" fire. The result of all this is an effective introduction to the character that puts the other series to shame.

The remaining issues include another guest appearance and what feels like an early case of gratuitous sales chasing - indeed adverts at the time pointed to the high back issue prices for most appearances of both characters. In this tale Microchip determines that the Punisher needs a vacation so sends him to the Congo (the Republic, or Brazzaville) as part of an expedition chasing rumours that dinosaurs have survived in a remote part of the jungle where the climate hasn't changed. Elements of fantasy akin to The Lost World may feel a little out of place but the dialogue offers a rationale that sounds plausible enough to the non-palaeontologist. During the course of the expedition the Punisher discovers that two of the party are engaged in poaching and smuggling for a Texan oil tycoon, and this brings him into conflict with someone investigating the same from the other end of the trail - Wolverine. We get the standard plot of a misunderstanding, a fight between them and then they discover who the real culprits are and team up to take them down. Fortunately this is only part of the story with much of it devoted to the expedition and the discoveries. Meanwhile back in the States the owner of the deli has visions that draw him to Texas where he infiltrates the mastermind's home and uses a computer to make bad investments and donations that wipe out the businessman's wealth. The final issue involves an urban gang who murder a local resident for organising against drugs, and the Punisher takes out the headquarters whilst half the gang attack his van and run afoul of the self-defence systems.

A number of the issues also contain "equipment pages" that profile various weapons. The first one is badly lettered, using a font resembling handwriting that is virtually impossible to read, but the rest detail some of the more unusual weapons. One that also appears in the stories is the ballistic knife - a sharp blade and a spring launcher in the handle, allowing the blade to be fired at a short distance. I was surprised to see this one in use so early in the Punisher's career.

As second titles go, this one follows the pattern of initially being just more of the same as the first series rather than offering either a particularly distinctive take on the character or a unique environment. With only eight issues available in this volume (and to date no sign of either a second Classic volume or any Essentials) it may be a little unfair to judge it as such and it's quite possible the title developed a niche by the early teens. On its own the adventures are quite good, though drugs feature as the driving force a few too many times for my liking, and the Shadowmasters subplot offers hints of some ongoing development. Add in the fact that the first few issues do take time to establish the character, his background and some of the basics of situation and this is actually quite a good start for the series. Now if only we could get some longer reprints...