Showing posts with label Marvel Fanfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel Fanfare. Show all posts

Friday, 7 August 2015

Essential X-Factor volume 4

Essential X-Factor volume 4 contains issues #51 to #59 & Annuals #4 to #5 plus the one-shot X-Factor: Prisoner of Love, Marvel Fanfare #50 which printed an issue prepared as a standby fill-in and the lead stories from Fantastic Four annual #23, New Mutants annual #6 and Uncanny X-Men annual #14 which, together with X-Factor annual #5, make up the "Days of Future Present" crossover. Bonus material includes Cyclops's entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. The regular X-Factor issues are written by Louise Simonson, bar one by Peter David, and drawn by Terry Shoemaker, Steven Carr, Andy Kubert and Jon Bogdanove. The X-Factor annuals both contain multiple stories written variously by Louise Simonson, John Byrne, Ralph Macchio, Mark Gruenwald, Peter Sanderson and Peter David, and drawn by John Byrne, Jim Fern, Mark Bagley, John Bogdanove and Dave Ross. X-Factor: Prisoner of Love is written by Jim Starlin and drawn by Jackson Guice. The Marvel Fanfare issue is written by (Mary) Jo Duffy and drawn by Joe Staton with an "Editori-Al" introduction written and drawn by Al Milgrom. The Fantastic Four annual is written by Walter Simonson and drawn by Jackson Guice, the New Mutants annual is written by Louise Simonson and drawn by Terry Shoemaker & Chris Wozniak, and the Uncanny X-Men annual is written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Arthur Adams. Inevitably, there is a separate labels post.

The list above gives some indication of how this volume doesn't actually advance the main series very much - with just nine issues from the regular title this has almost the shortest stretch of any single Essential volume. The main culprits for this state of affairs are the annuals, with each forming part of a wider crossover but the two take very different approaches. Annual #4 is from the "Atlantis Attacks" crossover which filled up no less than fourteen annuals in 1989 and tells the tale of an incredibly complicated plot involving Serpent Crowns, multiple undersea kingdoms attacking each other, a great serpent deity being resurrected, superpowered women being offered as incubators and turning the human race into serpent men. It's all rather convoluted and the X-Factor annual is rather blessed to be at the periphery of much of this, focusing upon the kidnapping of Marvel Girl whilst the Beast is reunited with his old Defenders comrade Andromeda in conflict with her father Attuma, current ruler of Atlantis but, as he discovers here, not actually the main villain in the storyline despite the title. The forgettable nature of the chapter is such that despite promises we never get to see Jean being dragged away into the sky in the regular series with Hank grabbing onto her leg. The Atlantis Attacks annuals also contained a multi-part back-up story entitled "The Saga of the Serpent Crown" which retold the whole history of the central object. Normally these chapters are excluded from Essential reprints but it's included here, briefly retelling an old Namor the Sub-Mariner adventure as he battled with an emperor of Lemuria possessed by the crown. On its own it just adds to the general confusion that these annuals create when the whole storyline isn't present. Of more interest are two other back-up strips though one seems to have landed in the annual by accident as Magneto and Doctor Doom encounter one another and recount their pasts, seemingly for the purpose of setting out just how different the two are. The other is a somewhat comedic piece entitled "Inferno Aftermath" as two FBI agents drawn to resemble the Blues Brothers and even named Jake and Elwood explore the aftermath of the events and try to find out what happened, with X-Factor winding up supplying the cover story. It's a nice little piece that addresses how the general public seems to shrug off such events but it's also a reminder of how stretched out things have been thanks to annuals, crossovers and off-world storylines all affecting the pacing as the build-up to "Inferno" began back in volume 2.

The following year saw a shift in policy to running multiple shorter crossovers in related annuals, with the three mutant titles and Fantastic Four all tied together for the "Days of Future Present" storyline, a sequel to the well-known X-Men storyline "Days of Future Past". This storyline proved a mess at the time with the X-Factor annual numbered "Part Two" and the New Mutants annual "Part Three", and they were released in that order, but the contents were inverted such that the New Mutants annual comes first. This volume places the annuals in narrative order but the cover numbering continues to confuse. The story itself involves another time traveller from the dark future of the Sentinels, an adult Franklin Richards. Franklin wanders through the locations of his childhood memories from the alternate timeline, at times reshaping them to match his childhood happiness. Meanwhile the present is attacked by new villain Ahab, the master of the mutant hunting "Hounds" from that dark future. Elsewhere Rachel Summers is drawn into the action, encountering Franklin whom she thought had died in her own time and also having her first meeting with Jean Grey, the woman she recognises as her mother. With four different team books involved there are a heck of a lot of characters running around without the greatest of introductions and the story is primarily focused on Franklin and Rachel, with their parents getting only a partial connection. A major point left completely unaddressed is just who Rachel's mother actually is - when she was introduced her mother was unambiguously the Jean Grey with the powers of Phoenix in the alternate timeline but since then Jean and Phoenix in the regular timeline have been retconned into separate entities and it's thus unclear which is actually Rachel's mother. Jean now having both Phoenix and Madelyne's memories inside her does not help with the confusion. Overall this isn't the greatest crossover for X-Factor with such a key first meeting bungled and swamped by everything going on around it. The only back-up feature in the annual is a character piece focusing upon Jean as she visits Phoenix's grave and tries to reconcile her multiple identities, with the help of an elderly survivor of the Holocaust. It's a good little character moment that serves to cut through much of the quagmire on this.

Also focusing on characterisation is the prestige one-shot X-Factor: Prisoner of Love, since there's frankly not much else going on in it. This over-expensive special sees the Beast go to rescue a pretty young woman called Synthia Naip and end up in her apartment where he has weird dreams and finds out she is an alien and needs protecting from the mysterious "Dark One" who has killed the rest of her race. It's slow, dull, over expensive and the art suffers from both an obsession with drawing pretty women and such bizarre renditions of Hank that at times I had to check just who he was meant to be. The whole thing is rather random and dull, feeling like it was just churned out to get Starlin and Guice's name on the cover. It's definitely something that could have been left aside.

More worthy of inclusion is Marvel Fanfare #50 which contains, according to Al Milgrom's special intro, an issue prepared as a fill-in for the regular series but used here instead. It's been structure to be easy to adjust for use at any point with the main section taking place in flashback when the Angel was assumed dead and a former female acquaintance hires Arcade to kill Iceman and the Beast as punishment for X-Factor's anti-mutant campaign. Her motivations are more personal when it turns out she has a son with angel wings - and claims Warren is the father. In the present day Warren tells the truth about the woman and the boy. As a fill-in that could potentially be called up at any point in the title's run it has to be flexible but it turns into Hank and Bobby asking Warren about something that's been on their minds for quite a while since his return. Still it holds its own and deserves to at last have been included with the regular series.

Warren is also the main focus of the regular series issues which see X-Factor return to Earth and deal with a succession of external and internal problems, starting with Warren finding himself getting ever more out of control and lashing out at all around him at random and making for especially vicious fights with first Sabretooth and then Caliban as the former X-Factor member turned Apocalypse's horseman finally comes into conflict with his former teammates. Then Warren and the others face the vampiric Ravens, including Crimson, Coral and Azure, who infect him with a poison that drives him mad and into different personas at night and day, with his night self becoming an especially vicious vigilante, before the Ravens seek to transform him permanently into one of them. It's not all darkness as he steadily befriends police officer Charlotte Jones and by the end of the volume things are steadily growing between them.

Meanwhile Scott and Jean have their dinner interrupted by an attack by giant roaches led by the old X-Men foe the Locust, but it's not enough to prevent Scott going on to propose to Jean, a proposal she declines as she is still struggling with the multiple memories inside her from Phoenix and Madelyne. Bobby also finds a degree of happiness as he befriends a young woman called Opal Tanaka, but first has to deal with the misunderstanding Mole who seeks to protect her. Hank's relationship with Trish Tilby is on the rocks due to her reporting of a number of incidents that show mutants in an unfortunate life and the tensions just keep on growing. Old flame Vera Trantor turns up when she's manipulated by Mesmero on the commission of Infectia as part of a bigger plan.

These nine regular issues cover a curious period in the title's history when the team are publicly known popular heroes but instead of showing the overall effects of this we get instead a concentration on the individual characters and little indication as to how their status is helping the cause of mutants in general. The story of Archangel's steady rehumanisation is the main focus but at times it feels as if that's the only thing of significance going on with the ongoing Scott and Jean plotlines rather fizzling out whilst the other stories all feel a bit inconsequential.

Overall this volume feels a mess because there's relatively little meat to the regular issues and so much additional material that doesn't really add much to the ongoing series. Annuals and crossovers can both slow things down and here we have both at the same time, taking up such a significant chunk of the series. This is a volume very much treading water.

Friday, 6 March 2015

Essential Moon Knight volume 3

Essential Moon Knight volume 3 contains issues #31 to #38 of his original series, all six issues of the brief series Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu plus material from Marvel Fanfare #30, #38 & #39, Solo Avengers #3 and Marvel Super-Heroes #1. Most of these series are self-explanatory but Solo Avengers (later retitled Avengers Spotlight) was an anthology highlighting individual team members past and present with Hawkeye holding a regular slot in most issues. The writing on the original series is by Doug Moench, Tony Isabella and Alan Zelenetz with one back-up by Steve Ringgenberg. The art is a mixture of Kevin Nowlan, Bo Hampton, Mike Hernandez, Marc Silvestri, Richard Howell, Bob McLeod and Bill Sienkiewicz. The Fist of Khonshu series is written by Alan Zelenetz, Mary Jo Duffy and Jim Owsley and mainly drawn by Chris Warner with the final issue by Mark Beachum. The Marvel Fanfare stories are written by Ann Nocenti, Mary Jo Duffy and Mike Carlin and drawn by Brent Anderson, Judith Hunt and Bill Reinhold. The Solo Avengers tale is written by Roger Stern and drawn by Bob Hall. The Marvel Super-Heroes tale is written by Robert M. Ingersoll and drawn by Mike Gustovich. The separate labels post is here.

This volume covers seven years of the character's solo stories from the last days of his original series until just before the launch of his third series. Complicating things further it's not clear if the stories from Marvel Fanfare and Marvel Super-Heroes were one-off pieces commissioned for those books or else material prepared earlier and rescued from the inventory pile with perhaps some additional work to complete them. The Solo Avengers story appears to have been an original commission as much of that series was but the Marvel Super-Heroes story may have also been commissioned for Solo Avengers and not used for whatever reason. The Marvel Fanfare issues are the most confusing because they appear to be set during the original series's run, whether as a consequence of being inventory material or a deliberate decision to tell a story set retroactively, but are here placed after the second series and so add to the confusion about the status quo.

Part of the mess seems to stem from publishing decisions rather than creative ones. Unusually the original series including single page editorials by Denny O'Neil (apart from issue #35 where it's by Linda Grant as part of Assistant Editors' Month) and equally unusually these have been included in this volume. Consequently the modern reader is informed that the series was normally only available in the direct market comics shops and that from issue #32 onwards the series and indeed all direct market only books would now be published bimonthly as a result of a decision from somewhere higher up in Marvel (O'Neil humorously identifies the decision maker sending down this decree as "The-Computer-Which-Dares-Not-Speak-Its-Name", and makes clear that he doesn't like this new rule). Issue #35 is double-sized and was made available on the newsstands, presumably as a test to see if there was still an audience on the newsstands that hadn't been able to migrate to comic shops though I don't know if Marvel's other direct market only titles also undertook such experiments. Finally with issue #38 the book was cancelled to be replaced by a new series that would be available both on the newsstands and also in the direct market, with O'Neil promising it would appear "within a couple of months". Around the same time Micronauts, another bimonthly direct market only book was similarly cancelled and replaced with the monthly, available everywhere Micronauts: The New Voyages after just a couple of months, though Ka-Zar the Savage was cancelled outright, as though Marvel was now backtracking on the direct market only option (at least for the time being) and indeed O'Neil's comments in the editorial in issue #37 admit to second thoughts on the matter. But for whatever reason it took rather longer for the new Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu series to appear, eventually showing up eleven months after the old one ended. And then it ended after just six months.

One result of this is a high turnover of creative staff. The only thing approaching an extended run is Alan Zelenetz writing the last three issues of the original series and then the first four of the Fist of Khonshu but the eleven month gap makes it hard to consider the two as a single seven issue run. Chris Warner draws the first five issues of Fist of Khonshu but otherwise no artist draws more than three issues consecutively. So even before the volume reaches the wilderness years at the end the whole thing is exceptionally bitty, with successive creators all pulling in their own different directions and some very different takes on the character being offered.

The end of the original series largely focuses upon the urban crime fighter aspect of the character with a succession of tales that primarily focus upon the characters subject to the environment. There's a tale of a rundown street where a pawnbroker tries to stand up to the gangs demanding protection money and reaches out to one young recruit, only for tragedy to erupt. There's an encounter with insane environmentalists who want to use a new gas to wipe out the human race and allow the planet to begin anew. There's a tale of a man dying of cancer with an uncaring doctor more interested in his coffee and the man's brother resorts to bringing a gun into the hospital. A reporter seeking to explode urban myths shows up a man as just a local thug and he responds by trying to explode the myth in a different way. A gang hangs out at a warehouse storing a nasty chemical substance that unleashes primal violence, causing Moon Knight to flashback to a previous encounter with the substance and Gena of the diner to become a fearful recluse in her own business.

There's a brief backup story in issue #34 narrated by Moon Knight's confidante Crawley that speedily reintroduces all the supporting cast, presumably an attempt by incoming regular writer Tony Isabella to show his grasp of the series but as he only does one more issue this leaves "The Vault of Knight" as a mere curiosity. It might have better to run it in the following issue as this was an attempt to build a wider audience on the newsstands and an introduction/reminder piece would have been a good way to help build readership. The tale is a mini-epic as Moon Knight gets crippled with a fight with the Fly, normally one of the lamer recurring Spider-Man villains, and he has to recover his movement in time to stop Bora, a frustrated over-tall would-be ballet dancer who now uses her mutant psionic powers for revenge. The story includes guest appearances by both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four but they mainly perform crowd control in a showdown at a ballet performance.

Alan Zelenetz's arrival sees a shift in the series's focus away from the urban crime fighter and more into magical territory. His first issue sees a team-up with Doctor Strange when Marlene is possessed by the spirit of Amutef, an Ancient Egyptian sorcerer, with a sceptical Moon Knight slowly coming to accept the forces around him. The final two issues of the original series tell of the death of Moon Knight's estranged Rabbi father amidst a wave of anti-Semitic violence and the body is stolen by the magician Zohar who is seeking to obtain occult powers. It's one of the only stories to really use Moon Knight's history to develop the character rather than just to provide a source of previous encounters.

And then comes the big interruption and the gutting of the character's world.

When the character returns in Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu, massive changes have been made. The character has ditched the Steven Grant and Jake Lockley identities and is now living openly as Marc Spector albeit in the mansion and lifestyle associated with Grant. Supporting characters like Gena and Crawley have vanished, with Frenchie reduced to a cameo. Marc is trying to ditch the Moon Knight identity as well and auctions off the statue of Khonshu. However agents of Khonshu's rival Anubis obtain the statue and so the spirits of priests of Khonshu force Marc to retrieve it. In the process he defeats Anubis and returns to the Moon Knight identity in a modified costume, although as most of the changes involve colour the main change seen here is the replacement of the moon's crescent with an ankh. Marlene is angry with Marc's return to the role and walks out on him. Marc continues in the role and finds his strength is now enhanced at night but now the priests regularly invading his thoughts and forcing him to carry out tasks in spite of his own concerns as he is ever more the "Fist of Khonshu".

The first issue may introduce the character for a new and returning audience but otherwise it's a disastrous opening that ditches much of the best parts of the set-up in favour of Egyptian mysticism and pulp adventure. Subsequent issues slowly try to return to the more successful arrangements but it's too little and too late. In the meantime the more fantastical adventures include a visit to Mexico where a mad scientist is recreating Nazi experiments in a base inside a pyramid, the return of the sleepless man Morpheus, and two brothers who kill children to prolong their lives but now face a trio of Indian assassins. On a smaller scale is the man who has taken on the identity of Bluebeard and kidnapped multiple women using neuron rays to make them obey him, and drug pushing cannibal cult on an island in the south Caribbean. It is little surprise this series bombed so quickly. Moon Knight works best as an urban gritty crime fighter and not as a globe trotting adventurer. The absence of most of his supporting cast with no real replacements also hinders the series and attempts to develop a subplot of Marlene returning to her ex-husband, who is now in a wheelchair, just don't go anywhere.

Nestling at the end of the volume are five further stories from various anthologies but it's unclear just when most of them were originally written or are meant to be set, though Moon Knight is sporting a crescent in all of them. The first is a full length tale as Steven and Marlene (together without comment) visit a small town where nearby a film is being shot and killing deer in the process. This brings forth a vengeful spirit of nature. Next up is a tale that sees Frenchie fully back but the priests still pestering Marc as he investigates the connection between a talentless boy band and the sudden appearance of old people claiming they have suddenly aged. Following that we get a tale of Jake picking up a man disguised in an Arab keffiyeh in his cab who goes on to terrorise the United Nations. At the story's end Jake succumbs to casual racism and refuses to pick up another Arab in a keffiyeh. Each of these stories feels like they were written for one of the ongoing series but never got used, and it might have been better to have placed them here in the originally intended locations.

The Solo Avengers story is clearly original and brings Moon Knight into conflict with the Shroud, Master of Darkness. Both characters have strong elements of Batman about them and it's surprising that it took so long to bring the two together, even if it is for only half an issue. The final story, from Marvel Super-Heroes #1, feels like it was also prepared for Solo Avengers but not used in favour of a new Moon Knight series. It sees Moon Knight battle the Raptor, a forgettable one-off villain like so many in Solo Avengers, and also visit Gena, now managing a restaurant in Houston. It does its best in the pages available to provide a coda to the original supporting cast as well as establishing that Marc and Marlene are back together, thus undoing as much of the Fist of Khonshu damage as possible in the limited space available.

All in all this volume shows a once great character and series crashing into the mess of rapidly changing creative teams and a badly fumbled relaunch that steers in completely the wrong direction. There a few especially memorable stories with the villains mainly one-offs and much of the good and unique elements are needlessly jettisoned. This volume also suffers from presenting the inventory stories when they were published when it might have been better to follow the lead of other volumes and insert them into the original run at approximately the point they would have originally been used. In total this volume is best forgotten.

Friday, 15 August 2014

Essential Silver Surfer volume 2

Essential Silver Surfer volume 2 contains the character's 1982 one-shot (volume 2), the first eighteen issues and first annual of his 1987 series (volume 3) plus Marvel Fanfare #51, a story from Epic Illustrated #1 and a promotional article from the promotional magazine Marvel Age #52. Epic Illustrated was an anthology magazine that allowed creators to retain ownership. The Marvel Fanfare issue contains what would have been the first issue of a limited series set on Earth rather than the ongoing cosmic series we got when plans changed. The only thing I can spot missing is the chapter of the history of the High Evolutionary in the annual.

The one-shot is plotted and drawn by John Byrne and scripted by Stan Lee. All issues of the 1987 series, including the annual, are written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Marshall Rogers, Joe Staton and Ron Lim. Englehart also writes the Marvel Fanfare issue which is drawn by John Buscema, with an introduction editorial written & drawn by Al Milgrom. Lee writes and Buscema draws the Epic Illustrated story.

It's that last story which the volume kicks off with and it just demonstrates all the problems with the character until 1987 as he explores the edge of the universe. It's a vague, philosophical peace set retroactively during the years when the Surfer worked for Galactus. Along with the late 1970s graphic novel it just reinforces the view that it was impossible to find anything solo to do with the Surfer other than retreads of his debut story. As a short one-off piece reuniting the original series's creative team it's a nice touch but there's nothing to suggest that the Surfer needed a new series in the early 1980s.

Nor does the 1982 volume 2 one-shot. Drawn by John Byrne at the height of his powers, it's a visually impressive spectacle but a lot of the storyline is retreading old ground as once again Mephisto uses Shalla Bal to torment the Surfer and once again an attempt to escape the barrier imprisoning the Surfer on Earth ultimately fails. There are some new ideas such as Galactus returning to Zenn-La to take further retribution for the Surfer's betrayal, but this feels somewhat at odds with the portrayal of Galactus that was developing at the time which made him less a being of emotions like revenge and more a cosmic force of nature. In light of these developments it seems strange that Galactus would bother himself with such a petty indirect revenge, or for that matter give the inhabitants of Zenn-La a day to evacuate the planet before he consumed its energy and left a husk of a world behind. Oddly the state of Zenn-La, and the power the Surfer gives to Shalla Ball to heal it, will go on to be significant elements driving the ongoing series but the one-shot itself falls firmly into the category of endless retreads. It's amazing that anyone thought there was any mileage in an ongoing series at all.

Indeed the original plan was for a twelve issue limited series set on Earth, with the completed issue #1 eventually showing up in Marvel Fanfare a few years later. It's a nice bonus to have in this volume as it allows glimpses of the original plans for the series but it also shows that Marvel still didn't quite get it. It's clear that subsequently a great deal of thought was put into working out what had gone wrong with the Surfer's earlier series and avoiding the same mistakes. Steve Englehart wrote a multi-part essay on the character's history that appeared on the letterspages of the first three actual issues and which is reproduced here; in this essay he identified the too expensive format, slow paced stories that devoted more attention to art than plot advancement and the general aura of failure surrounding the lead character. The Marvel Fanfare issue falls into some of these traps - the mid 1980s comics market may have been a little more favourable to higher priced series but double-sized books were still less attractive and seen as overpriced. Keeping the Surfer trapped on Earth restrains his appeal by denying him the chance to soar the spacewaves and instead it leaves him looking an ultimate loser. It also makes a mess of his getting caught up in conflict with the Kree. And lurking in subplots for future issues is Mephisto, who had been vastly overused and needed a rest. There's some new ideas with an alternate start to the latter-day Mantis storyline - here she's living in Connecticut under an assumed name and raising the child she had with the Cotati - but in general the issue feels too much like a 1960s throwback, with John Buscema's artwork unfortunately reinforcing this effect. It shows some signs of ideas but it's still clear the Surfer needed to break free of the barrier and the baggage that had accumulated, and soar the spacewaves again. And that is exactly what we got in the end.

By whatever means the decision was taken to instead launch an ongoing regular sized series in which the Surfer was put back into his natural environment and really allowed to soar. The series opens with the statement "Space is infinite!" and this sums up the approach taken. In the space of just one issue the Surfer escapes Earth - the method itself proves to be ludicrously simple - and gets a pardon from Galactus, permanently ending the exile. The second then addresses life on Zenn-La and shows that life has finally moved on with Shalla Bal now the world's Empress and slowly leading a restoration of the planet's life force - a role that leaves no opportunity to marry the Surfer. Thus the Surfer is released from ties to both worlds, although he still maintains contact with them and seeks their safety as the series progresses. The stage is now set for a truly cosmic adventure.

I must confess a bias as this series was the first Marvel US title that I ever collected, although I didn't come on board until a few years later and had to catch up via the back issue boxes. As a result this is one of the few Essential volumes where everything (bar the Epic Illustrated story) is familiar to me from the original issues, though I lack experience of the original pace. Collected together it's easy to see how the whole thing was planned as an ongoing saga, building up a variety of different concepts and ideas into one overall coherent whole.

Two main themes dominate these issues. One is the second Kree-Skrull war as the two galactic empires conflict once more. This time round there is the complication that the Skrulls have all lost the ability to change shape due to genetic bomb. Though it occurred in a couple of other series' annuals not included here, I've found the mechanism behind this plot device to be rather silly, even if the results are highly effective. At the same time the Skrull homeworld has been destroyed and the Empress killed, with five warlords claiming the throne. The result is a paranoid race desperate to survive that gets sucked into war, in part due to external manipulation. The Kree aren't in the strongest position either, with racial tensions undermining their efficiency and driving the Supreme Intelligence to insanity, leaving the empire in the hands of Nenora, a Skrull spy trapped in the form of a Kree. The Surfer at this stage is trying to keep Zenn-La and Earth out of the conflict yet finds himself drawn into local conflicts with representatives of both sides, not least due to a Skrull impersonating him. As a result the war drags on throughout most of the volume, making for a tense backdrop to the universe and feeling suitably epic by not being over in a mere six issues.

A more direct threat comes in the form of the Elders of the Universe, gathered together for what I think is the very first time. A mixture of pre-existing characters such as the Grandmaster, the Collector, the Gardener, the Contemplator, the Possessor, Champion, the Runner and Ego the Living Planet, and new ones such as the Astronomer, the Obliterator and the Trader, they are seeking to remake the very universe. It's an audacious plan but it seems credible given the way it's laid out in multiple steps to defeat first Death then Galactus and finally Eternity. It's also set out over a long time, building on the Contest of Champions limited series and also a storyline in the 1987 Avengers and West Coast Avengers annuals (neither of which is included here). Their conflict with Galactus comes in two phases, first in an assault using the six Soul Gems (later renamed the Infinity Gems) and then the consequences of Galactus consuming five of the Elders and the others being scattered across the universe and beyond. This leads to a trip into the magic realm of Lord Chaos and Master Order, with a chilling sequence as the guest starring Sue and Reed Richards are mentally pulled in very different directions. The result is a conflict with the In-Betweener, and the final issue is a grand battle with Galactus. Elsewhere the search for another Elder, the Contemplator, leads to the first appearance of the space pirate Reptyl and his sidekick, the walrus-like Clumsy Foul-Up.

The Surfer also develops his relationships, slowly opening up but he soon responds to the more relaxed approach of some of the women he encounters. As discussed above, early on he cuts his ties with Shalla Bal, and subsequently he encounters Mantis, now occupying a living plant body with the ability to replace itself and transfer from planet to planet, and the source of the information that sets him against the Elders. She and the Surfer soon become enamoured with one another as they set out to stop the Elders, but it doesn't last long as the Gardener blows her up just to distract the Surfer when securing the final Soul Gem. However a back-up story in the annual shows Mantis resurrected on Earth albeit with amnesia of all her adventures in space and sending her on the way to following things up in the pages of West Coast Avengers. Meanwhile the Surfer is spending ever more time with Nova as they undertake missions together and getting ever closer to her. The Surfer's relationship with Galactus in their post exile encounters is also much easier than could be expected.

The first annual came in a year when Marvel opted to do a crossover between all of its special issues, and the result was a sprawling 11-part saga. Now I've written a bit about "The Evolutionary War" before so I won't rehash my thoughts about the pricing strategy, but the crossover as a whole is fundamentally flawed by the need to find reasons for each title's hero(es) to get caught up in the High Evolutionary's schemes. This annual is the third part of the story and goes for the approach of the Evolutionary trying to expand his knowledge of genetics by trying to map the DNA of the Silver Surfer. The Surfer at this stage has left Earth - this is in fact his first return to the planet since escaping - and it's not clear if the Evolutionary is trying to direct human evolution towards the form of an alien humanoid transformed by a cosmic entity, or if he's just trying to fill in a gap in his library. Nor does he bother to undertake the task himself but instead asks the Eternals, one of the more confusing races in Marvel continuity (they were originally created to be outside it and provide an alternate explanation for the heroes and deities of ancient history; however they were since added to a universe that already had the Greek Gods running around), and the whole thing occurs because the Surfer just happens to be looking in on Earth again. The entire plot just doesn't work and it's little surprise how easily the Eternals just give up on the Surfer or how (in one of the back-up strips) the Surfer rapidly ditches his resolve to investigate the Evolutionary's scheme in favour of responding to a distress call from Nova and Galactus. However the story does seek to advance one of the series's own plotlines by resurrecting the Super Skrull with the implication that he alone holds the key to restoring the Skrulls' shape-changing abilities and in turn offers hope of ending the war. There are two back-ups in the annual that introduce Ron Lim as the new penciller for the series; one focuses on Nova as it sets up plotlines for the next few issues and the other resurrects Mantis but that storyline is carried over into West Coast Avengers. In general this annual is a sign of the mess that the giant crossovers create and it's to its credit that it does its best to advance its own series's plotlines amidst having to contrive a nonsensical encounter to tie in with a wider storyline.

Overall this volume shows the second ongoing series taking a very positive approach to the Surfer's character, ditching the exile set-up and the aura of negativity that had surrounded him. It also avoids well-worn scenarios, particularly Mephisto using Shalla Bal to torment the Surfer in pursuit of his soul. Instead it puts the Surfer into his natural environment and runs him through a high intense space saga. The additional material included here works as an indication of how easy it would have been to get things wrong, but the main series shows how to get it right.

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

Omitted material: Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales

Marvel Fanfare was one of Marvel's earliest prestigious series. Printed on high quality glossy paper and distributed only in the direct market at a high price (US $1.25 in 1982 when regular Marvels cost US $0.60) it was an anthology that featured stand alone tales by many of Marvel's top talent on characters they didn't normally work on. Naturally it contained Spider-Man stories from time to time, and he appeared on the cover of the first issue, recoloured and reused as the cover of the collected edition Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales. Although this collection has a stand-alone title and no volume number, in all other regards it's in the standard Classic format, containing the first seven issues of the series including three Spider-Man strips.


Marvel Fanfare #1-2 written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Michael Golden

This story sees Peter Parker sent by Jonah as part of an expedition to the Savage Land alongside the Angel and Tanya Anderssen, the childhood sweetheart of Karl Lykos, the man who became Sauron after being infected when saving her from pteranodons. There they discover a plot by a group of neo-mutants to conquer the Savage Land using a device that can devolve beings to their primordial beings. Both the Angel and Spider-Man are devolved, Spidey into a giant spider creature, but they are saved by Ka-Zar and Karl, the latter who absorbs the devolver's energy into himself, restoring them but transforming himself permanently into Sauron. Peter and the Angel head home whilst Tanya stays to find a way to cure or destroy Sauron.

This story feels as though it was conceived as an issue of Marvel Team-Up and left over when Claremont's run there ended. Spider-Man is rather redundant to the overall plot which is focused heavily on Tanya and the Angel. Peter worries at first about his identity being discovered if he uses his powers, yet later on the monster in a tattered Spider-Man costume is un-devolved back into him and nobody seems to even comment on how blatant a give-away this is. The storyline continues into issues #3 & #4 featuring the X-Men, both written by Claremont and drawn by Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith respectively. Sauron now leads the neo-mutants who are ultimately all defeated and devolved back into the swamp savages they originally were. Overall this second half is just an okay X-Men tale but the first half is a very poor Spider-Man story bar the scene where Peter manages to regain some control of the monstrous form and begs Ka-Zar to kill him.


Marvel Fanfare #6, written by Mike W. Barr and drawn/co-plotted by Sandy Plunkett

Once again we get a Marvel Team-Up style story, and this time it's a sequel to issue #21. Spider-Man and the Scarlet Witch are captured and brought to a mystical dimension by the wizard Xandu who has now found the Wand of Watoomb and now uses it to revive his wife Melinda's body but can't bring his spirit back. So he transplants the Scarlet Witch's soul over and plans to make her his wife anew, whilst toying with Spider-Man for revenge. However Melinda's spirit returns and drives Xandu insane, giving Spider-Man the chance to knock him down and take the Wand. Spider-Man, the Scarlet Witch and Melinda all return to Earth via the Wand.

This story again feels like its more natural home would be in another title but it's surprisingly well constructed with Spider-Man in a key role. The art feels rather Ditko-esque at a time when nearly every rendition of Spider-Man followed Romita, whilst the story may take the character out of his comfort zone but no further than many other team-ups.


Other stories contained in this volume include:
  • A Daredevil tale written by Roger McKenzie and drawn by Paul Smith (#1)
  • A Mr Fantastic story written by Roger McKenzie and drawn by Trevor von Eeden (#2)
  • A Hawkeye adventure written by Charlie Boatner and drawn by Trevor von Eeden (#3)
  • A Deathlok tale written by David Anthony Kraft and drawn by Michael Golden (#4)
  • An Iron Man story written by David Winn & David Michelinie and drawn by Michael Golden (#4)
  • A Doctor Strange adventure written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Marshall Rogers (#5)
  • A Captain America tale written by Roger McKenzie and drawn/co-plotted by Luke McDonnell (#5)
  • Another Doctor Strange story, this time written by Roger Stern and drawn by Charles Vess (#6)
  • An Incredible Hulk adventure written by Steven Grant and drawn by Joe Barney (#7)
  • Another Daredevil tale, on this occasion written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by George Freeman (#7)
...and each issue contains a single page "Editori-Al" written & drawn by editor Al Milgrom as he talks to the readers about the series and the creators working on it.

Overall the impact of the series is rather lost in collected editions. At the time this was a very expensive series on high quality paper with work by some of the industry's top talent, but three decades on and most of the creator's stars have passed whilst the paper used here is standard and it costs about the same as similar sized tradepaperbacks. But the stories themselves are generally very good and it's amazing that such a series worked so well despite the factors being against it.