Greetings from Battleworld HALFTIME REPORT

Today marks the release of issue 4 of Secret Wars, which means we’re halfway through Marvel’s multiverse-reshaping epic. Seems like a good time to take stock of what’s come so far. And so far, most of what Matt and I have read has been thoroughly enjoyable. With that in mind, here’s a power-ranking of the Secret Wars titles to date.

X-Men ’92 (Dan): An amazingly faithful extension of the old Saturday morning cartoon show, and the best of the books by my accounting, though admittedly it’s among the least involved in the larger Secret Wars story. I would love love LOVE if this series carried on into All-New, All-Different Marvel.

Thors (Dan): This book about Battleworld’s hammer-wielding enforcers of the will of Doom is a spot-on police procedural, right down to the angry captain, the forensics nerd and the drunk racist cop. Who killed all those Jane Fosters? I can’t wait to find out.

Secret Wars (Dan): The first issue of the main book felt more like what should have been the last issue of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run, but it redeemed itself quite nicely with issues 2 and 3, exploring and explaining the mysteries of Battleworld. One of my favorite Secret Wars moments comes in issue 3, when 616 Reed Richards learns the universe was saved by Dr. Doom, who is Battleworld’s god. Imagine what happens when he finds out what became of the rest of his family.

Future Imperfect (Matt): It's not like most of these regions of Battleworld are cheery, but Dystopia, home of the Maestro, might be the darkest. In a world populated by Peter David characters, always a good sign, we see a cunning evil Hulk getting ready to wipe out the resistance to his reign, but even evil Hulks can't smash everything easily, especially when the ever-lovin' blue eyed Thing standing against him. Peter David at his best.

Giant Size Little Marvels: A Vs. X (Matt): I love all ages comics. I love Skottie Young's art. So a story where kids versions of the X-Men and Avengers duke it out in cute and wacky hi jinks is a perfect fit. It's charming, funny, and yet still finds a way to reference the overall Secret Wars more than some of the more traditional tie-ins.

MODOK: Assassin (Dan): What’s yellow and pink and red all over? This fun, violent series from Chris Yost and Amilcar Pinna featuring America’s favorite big-headed Metal Organism Designed Only for Killing and his new crush, Angela.

A-Force (Dan): #INeedFeminism because watching She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Dazzler and a bunch of Marvel’s other greatest female heroes – in their best outfits, no less – punching megalodons is awesome. Glad to hear G. Willow Wilson and Jorge Molina will be continuing this series into the fall.

Secret Wars 2099 (Matt): Peter David once again goes back to his previous work, only this time with a twist. Sure, Spider-Man 2099 is here, but he doesn't have powers and is an evil corporate douchebag in this realm. What he does get to do is introduce a whole new team of Avengers 2099, all of whom are tools of evil corporation Alchemax. And the Defenders 2099, who it looks like are about to throw down with the Avengers. Oh, and Hercules is there, who I miss after the end of his Van Lente/Pak series. 

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows (Dan): Dan Slott continues his run on Spider-Man by giving longtime readers what they’ve long been denied – the reunion of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson – but then having Peter quit being Spider-Man after his family is threatened. Watching Peter give zero f---s about a supervillain defeating the Avengers and taking over New York City was among the great end-of-first-issue shockers of the early Secret Wars issues.

Infinity Gauntlet (Matt): The original Infinity Gauntlet was a broad, huge, cosmic epic. This new series is instead an intimate story about a family lost in a Battleworld kingdom overrun by Annihilation Wave bugs. It's a well characterized story about survival, with hints so far of greater cosmic implications. And Thanos, which is always a plus.

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars (Dan): Marvel rewrites history by letting Wade Wilson come out and play during the original 1984 Secret Wars. Now if I only I could find his Mattel action figure mint-in-packaging with the lenticular shield.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos (Dan): Deadpool may be dead, but his demon-succubus wife, Shiklah, is alive and well and doing her darnedest to thwart armored-poseur Dracula and his legion of monsters, including a diabetic symbiote-covered minotaur.

Inferno (Dan): You want an old-school X-Men story, you got an old-school X-Men story! Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Illyana, Madelyn Pryor, Boom-Boom: The gang’s all here.

Runaways (Matt): When Dr. Doom likes an idea he likes, he takes it, so Runaways is set at the Von Doom School for gifted youngsters, and features a ragtag group of teen characters from throughout Marvel histotu, including Molly Hayes of the original Runaways Team, a bunch of mutants like Jubilee and Pixie, and Amadeus Cho as The Breakfast Club of Battleworld. 

Where Monsters Dwell (Matt): A solid Garth Ennis joint with dinosaurs, World War I pilots, and plenty of moral ambiguity. However, as we're ranking Secret Wars tie-ins, and this book has gone half its run without mentioning anything to do with the crossover, I can't rank it higher.

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 8

X-Men ’92 #1

Story: Chris Sims and Chad Bowers

Art: Scott Koblish and Matt Milla

I’ve liked a lot of the titles connected to Secret Wars so far: the main book, Thors, MODOK: Assassin, Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, to name a few.

I LOVE this series.

Granted, as someone who came of age in the 1990s, I’m the target market for this book, which is based on the Fox Saturday morning cartoon that ran from 1992-97.

Everything about X-Men ’92 captures the show’s essence perfectly: The lack of color gradients, Cyclops’ abject refusal to have fun, Wolverine’s action-hero one-liners, Gambit’s creepy Cajun come-ons, Rogue’s Southern charm, Storm’s need to enter into histrionics every time she uses her powers, Beast’s insistence on quoting Shakespeare, the way telepaths use their powers and then scream and pass out, Jubilee’s front-and-center status, the use of lesser X-characters as background decoration, the never-evolving Sentinels, the meddling of Basic Standards and Practices, etc. There’s also laser tag.

It helps that the book is written by a guy who spent months cataloging the show’s every eccentricity for an online audience. It helps even more that the book is drawn by an artist known for illustrating flashback issues of Deadpool in Marvel’s past house styles.

Fitting, given all that, that the book’s antagonist is perhaps the most decidedly un-’90s X-villain: Cassandra Nova, created by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely at the dawn of the following decade. Nova’s cartoon-verse origin is not the same as Morrison’s, but equally as convoluted: She’s a clone of Charles Xavier created by Apocalypse that ends up serving as a vessel for the Shadow King. And she wants to force peace through mind-control. “The era of the extreme is over,” she says, in dialogue that could not be veiled more thinly. “The world that’s coming deserves a better class of mutant, one that isn’t burdened by all those pouches filled with aggression and inner turmoil.”

How does all this tie in to Secret Wars? Westchester is its own domain of Battleworld, ruled by Baron Kelly, aka Sen. Robert Kelly (aaka President Kelly in the cartoon), who wears a cloak over his suit and flies around on a chariot pulled by Warwolves from the early issues of Excalibur. That’s about it, really.

Easter egg: Look for cameos by Rachel Edidin and Miles Stokes, the hosts of the excellent and authoritative Rachel & Miles X-plain the X-Men podcast. Sims is a friend of and past guest on the show, and I could hear his pleased-with-himself fanboy giggle in my head as I read this book.

In fact, for more ’90s X-Men fun, check out the second most recent episode of X-plain the X-Men, in which the hosts play a tabletop game based on the cartoon, voices and all.

 MODOK: Assassin #2

Story: Christopher Yost

Art: Amilcar Pinna, Terry Pallott, Ed Tadeo and Rachelle Rosenberg

MODOK is the best at what he does, until he finds a woman who can give his swelled head a [redacted for poor joke quality].

The second issue of the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing’s adventures in Killville is a protracted misunderstanding/fight scene, as the Angela-Thor that fell into his domain at the end of the first issue comes to and the first thing she sees is one of Jack Kirby’s most famous grotesqueries.

And that grotesquery is in love. So much so that he can barely focus to counter Angela’s thrusts and parries with his arsenal of guns, bombs and chainsaws. It’s adorable really, especially when the creative team plays up the fact that his little T-Rex hands can’t reach his nose to wipe the blood off it or help him get up under his own power, like a homicidal turtle stuck on its back.

Meantime, the three leaders of the Assassins Guild – Wilson Fisk, Viper and the Shroud – are investigating Bullseye’s murder, and all the evidence points to ol’ bighead.

As the book closes, there are new mysteries to be solved. What has made Angela-Thor unworthy of wielding her hammer? And how will she and MODOK fare against the murderer’s row of, well, murderers the Assassins Guild is about to send their way? Stay tuned.

Infinity Gauntlet #2
Story: Dustin Weaver & Gerry Duggan
Art: Dustin Weaver

Even on a world overrun by giant bugs, family is important. After last issue's harrowing escape from Annihilation bugs, series narrator Anwen has been reunited with her mother, Eve, and they have found the rest of their family. Not having time to mourn her grandfather, who gave his life to save her, Anwen is immediately given a Nova uniform and pressed into service by her mother, along with the rest of her family. I like that, despite being overjoyed that they're together again, Menzin, Anwen's dad, doesn't immediately think this is a good idea, giving his daughters suits of alien armor and preparing to fight the bugs. Of course, with how dangerous the world is, it winds up having to be that way, and Fayne, Anwen's little sister, and their dog Zigzag, also get Nova uniforms and are ready as the bugs attack. Things seem to be going badly until Eve finds out her daughter has found the Mind Stone (something I still have a hard time typing. They're the Infinity Gems to me and always will be), which she uses to wipe out the bugs that are attacking. It's clear that the war has had an impact on Eve, and that the stones are what she came back to Earth for. She's glad to have the one stone, but isn't as happy to find the Nova base has been destroyed and the Stone they already had is gone from the Nova Gauntlet. Here's one of those things that has become sort of canon in recent years and I want to address. There's a good explanation as to why a Nova Gauntlet needed to be created to harness the gems for a normal mortal, but I find it odd that many recent writers make the Infinity Gauntlet an artifact of its own, when it was originally just the glove Thanos was wearing as he gathered the gems. Back to the actual issue, with the main story of the family over for the issue, we get to see the other players in this cosmic drama. We see who stole the Stone, and it's not Thanos. It's Star-Lord and Gamora, both of whom are considerably more mercenary than we are used to seeing them. And after a jump into the future where we see Thanos fighting Anwen, we return to the present with the future Thanos to see him meet his present self, and Thanos learns the last person you should trust is Thanos, even if that's you. Infinity Gauntlet continues to be a well rendered character piece, sort of a cosmic Walking Dead, with gorgeous art from Dustin Weaver. This issue starts moving the plot out of just a family drama into something more cosmic, and I hope that the character driven aspect doesn't get lost as the cosmic amps up.

Where Monsters Dwell #2
Story: Garth Ennis
Art: Russel Braun

You know that story where two very different people come together in hardship and find some common ground to succeed? The modern version of which comes from the novel/movie The African Queen and is a plot device done a million times in mainstream comics? Yeah, this doesn't seem to be shaping up to be that. Stuck together in a land that time forgot, Where Monsters Dwell protagonists airman Karl Kaufmann (The Phantom Eagle) and lady who I'm pretty sure is a spy or secret agent of some kind Clementine Franklin-Cox hate each other. HATE. And for good reason. Kaufmann is a sleaze. Not a Han Solo charming rogue, but an honest to God crappy person. He flat out says he came back from war expecting people to worship him, but women who didn't drop to their knees to do that him make sick. And when he propositions Clementine and she spurns him, he says that if things got complicated, she could always get an abortion. Garth Ennis tends to write characters in moral shades of grey to pitch black, with little to no white, and boy howdy if he wants us to hope the dinosaurs eat Kaufmann, he's succeeding. I can't say Ennis is failing at characterization, because we see Kaufmann as exactly what he is. I do want to know more Clementine, as I'm still not exactly sure what her game is. Last issue, I thought she planned to go to this dinosaur land, but it's now clear she didn't, so I'm not sure what her deal is. I do have to say, though, that Russel Braun is the star of this show. Between his drawings of natives, of the jungles, of crocodiles, and of dinosaurs (particularly a gorgeous T-Rex devouring said natives), you are completely drawn into this world. And as with the previous issue, there is no indication whatsoever that this takes place on Battleworld or has anything to do with Secret Wars, so if you're feeling a little Battleworld fatigue, this might be a place to stop by and rest before re-entering a world of Doom.

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 4

Hello all, Matt here, and welcome to our first official Greetings from Battleworld, weekly Secret Wars reviews. Dan wanted to focus on Secret Wars reviews for a while, and so we figured, instead of cramming them in with Monday's reviews, we'd give you two days of reviews a week for a while. Each week, Dan and I will hit the highlights from Battleworld. This week, we start with two from Dan, MODOK: Assassin and Inferno, and then two from me, Infinity Gauntlet and Where Monsters Dwell. This isn't going to be comprehensive, since Marvel is releasing six to ten Secret Wars titles a week, and will probably range from two to five a week of the best books Marvel will be doing. Enjoy!

MODOK: Assassin #1

Story: Christopher Yost

Art: Amilcar Pinna, Terry Pallot and Rachelle Rosenberg

The gleeful assassin is by no means a new character type – see the Joker, Bullseye, Deadpool, et al – but the gleeful assassin who’s part robot and can transform the chair that supports his giant noggin into a sweet purple roadster, well, that’s certainly one way to turn a convention on its, um, giant noggin.

MODOK: Assassin is part-noir, part spiritual fill-in for the dearly departed Deadpool. Our hero, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, cruises the streets of the Battleworld domain of Killville, taking out targets on the orders of the Assassins Guild and largely anyone else he feels like, occasionally running afoul of the domain’s ruler, the Dr. Strange villain Baron Mordo.

As is a running theme of many of the Secret Wars books, characters concern themselves with cross-border breaches that could earn the wrath of God Emporer Doom (GED for short), and the issue ends with the appearance of a thing that’s familiar to the reader but not to the protagonist, specifically a Thor that appears to be Angela.

Writer Chris Yost starts the body count ticking early in this series, killing off three major Marvel characters – one on orders, one out of spite, and one just for funsies. Yost also does a great job drawing a map for the reader, as MODOK narrates his way across Killville and describes the surrounding territories, including the Monarchy of M, 2099 (“a city drowning in temporal stupidity”), and a territory lousy with Sentinels. Oh, MODOK kills some of those, too.

Amilcar Pinna gets MODOK’s proportions perfectly, from the enormity of his head to the dangliness of his arms and legs to the cartoonlike assortment of bladed and missile-launching weapons protruding from his body. It’s a violent book, but it’s a fun book. And while it doesn’t feel like required reading for Secret Wars, it’s a great palate-cleanser for the weight of Hickman and Ribic’s main book.

Inferno #1

Story: Dennis Hopeless

Art: Javier Garron

Inferno feels less like a Secret Wars book and more like a What If or one of DC’s Convergence titles. It’s one of a few books that visit classic X-Men storylines (See also X-Tinction Agenda, Old Man Logan, Years of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse, House of M) and show geezers like me the X-Men as we remember them, with a little twisting of the timeline for good measure.

In this story, Manhattan fell to the demons of Limbo, despite the X-Men’s best efforts. Once a year, Cyclops – the domain’s baron – permits Colossus to lead a raid on the Empire State Building in an attempt to retrieve his sister, Illyana, who has been fully consumed by her demon Darkchild persona. Once a year, he fails, and any X-Men who go with him die or are crippled.

It’s a pretty grimdark premise, but what makes this book work is watching the X-Men interact like the world isn’t burning all around them. Colossus finds love and support in Domino and friendship in characters like Nightcrawler and Boom-Boom. They quip (Kurt, to a demon: “My name is Kurt Wagner. You remind me of my father. Prepare to die”). They take out lesser X-villains like Pyro and Omega Red. We even get to see a variation on the old X-Club science team, with Beast, Forge and Dr. Nemesis.

And yeah, then there’s some more injuries and deaths and stuff, but it’s an alternate-reality X-story, so is that really a surprise?

Where Monsters Dwell #1
Story: Garth Ennis
Art: Russel Braun

I didn't expect to see a comic from the team that brought us most of the back half of The Boys doing a crossover comic for Marvel at any point, well, ever. Garth Ennis has in the past shown little but contempt for the tropes of mainstream superheroes in general, and his crossover issues of titles he's written have shown their share of irreverence. That's why it should surprise no one that this comic has absolutely nothing to do with Secret Wars. Other than being set on Battleworld, which isn't mentioned or referenced in anything but the text page at the beginning of the issue, this could be a post World War I monster/weird war comic that takes place in the regular Marvel Universe or be creator owned if Ennis wanted to change some names. That's not a dig; it's a statement of fact. As a matter of fact, the comic is a lot of fun.

The opening scene is there not for plot but for pure character, to establish just what kind of a sleaze our lead, Karl Kaufmann (The Phantom Eagle, a pre-existing, if obscure, Marvel character), is; he has gotten the princess of a tribe pregnant and, after swearing he'll talk to her father, flies off. When he arrives back at his airfield, it's even more clear as he is not only broke and clearly running out of credit with people who he's friendly with, but he has a guy called, "No-Balls" (A Garth Ennis character if I've ever heard one), after him because he's responsible for his nominative condition. And when he's seemingly able to con the seemingly naive Clementine Franklin-Cox into paying him to fly her to meet the ship she needs to make, well, it's a way to escape No-Balls and his men. Only Clementine is nowhere near as naive as she seems, and pretty soon there are pterosaurs flying by, machine guns being fired, planes crashing, and more dinosaurs.

Russell Braun draws the heck out of both the WWI era planes and the dinosaurs, and my only complaint is that there weren't more dinosaurs, something I think will be remedied in upcoming issues.

Garth Ennis writes in a couple of different modes, and while this starts out of the gate as pure fun Ennis, like his Marvel Knights Punisher and some of the more off-the-wall issues of Hitman or The Boys, never get too complacent in that; Ennis can turn on a dime and bring the emotional resonance. And that would be great, but I just want more dinosaurs.

Infinity Gauntlet #1
Story: Dustin Weaver and Gerry Duggan
Art: Dustin Weaver

If you're going into the first issue of The Infinity Gauntlet expecting god-like characters and the main cosmic heroes of the original epic, which I have written about a time or two, I'd suggest you reset your expectations before you read this issue. While Thanos has a couple cameos in here, this is not a comic that follows up the original series. As a matter of fact, it seems to follow up Annihilation more than Infinity Gauntlet, as this region of Battleworld is overrun by the bugs of the Annihilation Wave. We don't have a lot of details about what happened, but it's clear the Nova Corps called Earth for backup against the Wave and lost. Now, our lead are a family trying to survive in a world where man is no longer the alpha predator. The issue, narrated by a young woman named Anwen, follows her, her father, her sister, and her grandfather, as well as their dog, as they make their way through this world. We find out her mother was a Nova recruit who never made it back from the battle with the bugs. It's great character work, as we get to know each of these characters in a few short pages, and care about them when the bugs find them. Weaver's art is astounding; I liked his work on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but he's grown in leaps and bound between then and now. The issue ends with a reunion and a tease of exactly what the Infinity Gauntlet and gens have to do with the story. While this is clearly a first issue with a good amount of set-up, it's handled well, and any comic that can introduce that many new characters and get you invested is one worth checking out.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events Part 3- Cosmic Crossovers from The Infinity Gauntlet to The Annihilation Wave and Beyond

While it can be argued that the original Secret Wars was Marvel's first cosmic crossover, after all the Beyonder is a pretty cosmic threat, the threat still was mostly directed just at Earth. Something like the "Dark Phoenix Saga" had a loftier scale, with the Phoenix a threat so great it called down cosmic empires. So for me, the era of the cosmic crossover didn't start until 1991, when Jim Starlin made his grand entrance to the crossover stage with The Infinity Gauntlet.

I've written about The Inifinity Gauntlet multiple times in multiple ways, but long story short: Thanos gets the six Infinity Gems (yes, gems. It might be stones in Super Hero Squad and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's still gems in the comics). Thanos becomes a god. Thanos kills half the universe. Heroes fight Thanos. He kills heroes. Cosmic beings fight Thanos. Thanos captures or destroys them. Nebula steals the Gauntlet. Thanos joins with heroes to stop Nebula. Adam Warlock winds up with Gauntlet. Thus endeth the lesson.

It's a well regarded, well remembered crossover from first of the cosmic masterminds, Jim Starlin, with art by George Perez (who you might remember from another crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths) and Ron Lim.. While Thanos had been appearing in Silver Surfer for over a year, this is what brought him to the main stage of the Marvel Universe, and took a villain whose appearances could be counted on both hand and both feet of two people suddenly became a villain who was central to the Marvel Universe. It also resurrected Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll, and Gamora, three other Starlin characters (Warlock is technically a Lee/Kirby character, but Starlin's Warlock is about as similar to Lee/Kirby's as he is to Reed Richards) who would be part of the center of the cosmic Marvel Universe for the next few years, and the other two parts of Starlin's Infinity trilogy.

Starlin and Lim return in 1992, which saw the debut of The Infinity War. Following up on plot threads from The Infinity Gauntlet, when Warlock was briefly the lord of creation, he cast all good and evil from himself, thinking this would make him an impartial deity. What it really did was help give birth to the Magus, the embodiment of Warlock's evil, who took the name and skin color of the dark future version of Warlock from the classic Starlin tales. The Magus's plan is one of those incredibly windy, Machiavellian ones that has about four levels of wheels within wheels, but it involves creating evil doppelgangers of pretty much every superhero and sending them out against their opposites to replace them. There are four different factions all investigating the Magus's plot: the Infinity Watch (Warlock's team who each got an Infinity Gem when he divided up the gauntlet); Galactus and his merry band of the Silver Surfer, Nova (his herald at the time, an Earth girl made into a fiery cosmic being, not the cosmic hero of New Warriors and later cosmic events fame); the heroes of Earth; and Dr. Doom and Kang.

Starlin does a lot of writing here about duality, about how we all have multiple versions of ourselves, some more divergent than others. For instance, Thanos's evil doppelganger is pretty much just Thanos. While the story is fun, it's much busier than Infinity Gauntlet, much more involved, and you almost wipe your brow in relief when all the threads come together. This was a big crossover with lots of issues where heroes fought their doppelgangers. Notable ones included Spider-Man #24, where Spider-Man's six armed doppelganger would survive and become part of "Maximum Carnage" and issues of Fantastic Four, where Sue Storm fought, defeated, and accepted her dark doppelganger, leading to the infamous Invisible Woman costume that had so many cut outs it might as well be an Emma Frost costume.

And if the Magus was Warlock's evil side, what happened to the good side? Well, that was the Goddess, who was the central antagonist of the final third of the Infinity trilogy, 1993's The Infinity Crusade. Powered by a couple dozen cosmic containment units (Cosmic Cubes of many shapes), the Goddess goes about recreating Counter Earth, the Earthlike planet that used to orbit the sun at the exact opposite point of Earth, turns it into a garden of Eden, and then populates it with superpeople from Earth she considers worthy. The Goddess's goal, she claims, is to rid the universe of evil. Sounds good, right? Well, pure good not balanced with anything is as destructive as poor evil, and again we get various factions fighting each other, including Goddess's heroes, the remaining heroes now forced to fight their friends, and Thanos and Warlock teamed up with Mephisto.

If you've read pretty much anything Starlin has ever written, you know he has a thing about organized religion, and the Goddess, with that name plus a giant cathedral and seeking people of faith, is clearly part of the evil religious figures that Starlin has created. This does have a really great last scene, one of those perfectly plotted little twists that makes you smile when you realize it was all there from the beginning.

After Infinity Crusade, the cosmic aspects of the Marvel Universe cooled off. Warlock and the Infinity Watch ended about a year and a half later, with Starlin having jumped ship about a year before. Warlock was sent over the the Ultraverse for a while, and needed a few years away to lose the stench of the epic failure. Thanos became a much more rote cosmic baddy, losing mos if Starlin's nuance. Starlin eventually came back, wrote the  self contained mini-series Infinity Abyss and Marvel Universe: The End, and the first six issues of a Thanos ongoing. When Starlin left that series, Keith Giffen took it over, and also wrote a four issue mini-series for another Starlin character, Drax the Destroyer. These two stories led into the renaissance for Marvel's cosmic corner.

Annihilation was released in 2006, so it was well over a decade after the Infinity trilogy. A war fleet led by Annihilus, the insect-like ruler of the Negative Zone (an antimatter universe) from Fantastic Four, comes into the normal Marvel Universe and starts systematically destroying everything. Since theer were no cosmic ongoings at the time, the crossover was instead handled as a prologue one shot followed by four mini-series, Nova, Ronan the Accuser, Silver Surfer, and Super-Skrull, that funneled into a single mini-series, Annihilation, where a ragtag group of rebels, led by Nova (which will be Richard Rider for the remainder of this article), must fight back the Annihilation Wave. The scale is huge, but the series itself is small, just six issues, and Giffen and artist Andrea Devito use every page to the best effect. It's action packed, it's heart wrenching, and it's exciting. Annihilation gave birth to a new Nova series, which was used to springboard another three events that made up the new era of cosmic Marvel.

The year after Annihilation began, it's sequel launched. Annihilation: Conquest saw the Kree Empire invaded by the techno-organic alien race, the Phalanx, who had fallen under the sway of this summer's Spaderyest villain, Ultron. Once again, a ragtag group of heroes have to face down the big bad. This event followed the same format as Annihilation, with a one shot and then four four issue arcs, but this time one of those stories took place in the recently launched Nova ongoing. The other three were Wraith (a new character, created by Middleman creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach), Quasar (starring Captain Mar-Vell's daughter, Phyla, and returning Adam Warlock to life), and Star-Lord by previous Annihilation mastermind, Keith Giffen. Conquest was another exciting, world spanning cosmic piece, and Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (DnA for short), who wrote it as well as the Annihilation: Nova mini-series and the Nova ongoing, get a lot of credit for their strong characters and wild sci-fi ideas, which is deserved. However, I want to call out Keith Giffen, whose contributions tend to be forgotten. He did write Annihilation, and while I have a feeling DnA might have picked the characters, it was in Giffen's Star-Lord mini-series that Marvel fandom was reintroduced to Mantis, Bug, and two other then little known characters, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, who appeared in a little movie that came out last summer.

With all the key players in place, this book launched a second cosmic series by DnA, this one the launchpad for that movie I just mentioned, Guardians of the Galaxy, which not only featured the moive team of five, but Adam Warlock, Quasar, Bug, Mantis, Jack Flag, Major Victory. and Cosmo, the Russian cosmonaut dog who appeared in the Collector's menagerie in the movie. The next cosmic event broke the pattern established by the Annihilation event, both in naming and format.

War of Kings was the Game of Thrones of cosmic events. Two of the great outer space empires, the Kree and the Shi'ar, went to war, with the Shi'ar currently under the control of Vulcan, the incredibly powerful and totally insane third Summer brother of long lost X-Men storyline, the Kree had recently been conquered by the Inhumans; so in a very meta way, it's a forerunner of Marvel's current publishing issues with mutants versus Inhumans. The lead in to this story took place in Guardians and Nova, along with a mini-series called X-Men: Kingbreaker, featuring the Starjammers and a group of X-Men who were fighting Vulcan, and War of Kings: Darkhawk, a mini-series that established a tin between the 90s hero Darkhawk's alien armor and the Shi'ar.

The core mini-series dealt mostly with the war, and featured a lot of the Inhuman royal family, Vulcan and the Shi'ar Impreial Guard, and Lilandra, the deposed Shi'ar ruler, and the Strajammers. Nova and his newly reformed Nova Corps took up the battle in his title, while the over in their title, the Guardians tried to stop the War in their title, as they had been warned the war would have dire consequences. As the series moved to its cataclysmic end, the Guardians failed, and Vulcan and Black Bolt were seemingly killed as a massive bomb, meant to obliterate the Shi'ar, exploded, tearing a hole in space dubbed The Fault. Only by sacrificing himself does Adam Warlock stop The Fault from eating all of the universe, but in so doing he finally gives in to the future and becomes Adam Magus.

War of Kings led into a branding called Realm of Kings. It was like the Dark Reign banners that ran through much of Marvel for some time; not really a crossover, but more telling readers that these stories had something to tie them together. The Fault becomes the principle problem, and investigating it shows that it ties the Marvel Universe to a malignant other universe filled with undying monster versions of this reality. The Universe is dubbed the Cancerverse, and is a place wheer Death has been killed, meaning nothing can die and it has used up all its space and needs to expand. While Nova and the Shi'ar investigate, the Guardians are forced to deal with the Universal Church of Truth, the body created by, and once more under the control of, Adam Magus. It turns out the Magus is trying to throw open The Fault and let the Many-Angled Ones (Cthulhu like monsters) and their converted servants in. And he succeeds, but not before the Guardians find a cocoon like the one Warlock hibernates in, and from it emerges Thanos, long thought dead after the end of Annihilation.

The final act of this period of Marvel's cosmic dramas was The Thanos Imperative. While Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy had cult followings, their sales were middling, and so they both ended with Realm of Kings, and everything was wrapped up in a six issue mini-series with two bookend one shots. The Cancerverse Revengers, led by a corrupted Captain Mar-Vell, begin invading the Marvel Universe, and kill Adam Magus immediately for failing to kill Thanos. The various cosmic forces fight a holding action, trying to keep the Cancerverse forces, and the universe itself, from advancing far from The Fault, while the Guardians, Nova, and Thanos enter the Cancerverse, as Thanos's close relationship with Death will allow him to reawaken it/her in that universe and stop the spread. It's a tense battle, full of epic cosmic figures, and DnA threw everything they could into this last cosmic tale. In the end, the heroes succeed, but not without a cost: Drax is killed by Thanos, and as the Cancerverse collapses, Thanos, Star-Lord, and Nova are seemingly trapped forever in the what remains of it.

And that's it. There were a couple of follow-up mini-series for a new cosmic team called the Annihilators, set up to be the opposite of the scruffy Guardians who fought by wits, instead being made up of incredibly powerful characters, but they didn't really take off, despite being good stories and having great Rocket and Groot back-ups. A couple years after that, with Thanos revealed as the big bad at the end of Avengers that Thanos and the Guardians returned in Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagely's Avengers Assemble, which set up all that's come since.

Later this week, come back for Part four, where Dan returns to take you through the next batch of X-Men events.

The Matt Signal Advent Calendar 2014 Day 4: The Infinity Gauntlet #1

The Infinity Gauntlet #1, July 1991

Up until Infinity Gauntlet #1, I was a Batman reader pretty much exclusively. I would pick up comics guest starring Batman, and even an occasional something else, things like Real Ghostbusters or Trannsformers. And my little brother wanted to read comics like his big brother (probably the last time he tried to be like me), so I had read a couple issues of The Incredible Hulk he had bought and quickly discarded, written by some guy named Peter David.

But there was something about this cover, about the menacing head of Thanos looming, the Gauntlet itself, and all those strange characters who I was unfamiliar with, as well as that cover copy, "The End Begins Here!" that drew me in. And by the end of the opening scene, where this clearly bad guy named Thanos was talking with some guy who looked like the Devil about being God that I was hooked. By issue's end, Thanos had wished half the universe into non-existence, and the heroes were already playing catch up. Plus there were pages I didn't get about new souls taking over dead bodies and a cocoon that I knew meant something else big was coming.

Besides being my first real exposure to Marvel Comics, Infinity Gauntlet showed me another facet of comic collecting I was unfamiliar with: collecting for a creator. I had never put too much thought into the people who produced the comics I was reading, but there was something about the writing here that captured my attention. I looked at the name of the writer, Jim Starlin, and was looking at my trade of A Death in the Family, where Jason Todd died, and I saw it was the same writer. Well, from there I started looking for other stuff he'd written, other issues of Batman, the reprints of his Warlock run, and the stuff he'd written that led into Infinity Gauntlet. Pretty soon I was following Peter David too, and Denny O'Neil thanks to his work on Legends of the Dark Knight, which I talked about yesterday, and we were entering that wonderful six year period where all three core Batman titles had the same writers (Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant), so another nail was in my coffin, and I was hooked into another vein of comic book fandom.

If you're interested in learning more about The Infinity Gauntlet, check out the recommended reading I wrote for it.

Recommended Reading for 4/5: The Infinity Gauntlet

The power of a god is something that many comic book villains have attempted to attain, but usually the heroes stop them just in time to keep them from attaining this goal. But what happens when the villain does become a god? That's the basic premise for The Infinity Gauntlet, a six issue event mini-series written by Jim Starlin and with art from George Perez and Ron Lim from the early 90s. It is definitely my favorite Marvel Comics event story, and is still possibly my favorite Marvel story of all time.

When Jim Starlin, legendary already for his runs on Captain Marvel and Warlock in the 70s, returned to Marvel, he started writing Silver Surfer and immediately returned his greatest creation, Thanos of Titan, to life. Thanos was a mutant alien from Saturn's moon, Titan, and was obsessed with Death. Not death, the end of an existence, but Death, specifically Mistress Death, the Marvel Universe personification of death, and wanted to win her heart. To do so, during those Silver Surfer issues and in a mini-series called Thanos Quest, Thanos obtained the six Infinity Gems, which when combined grant the bearer supreme power over the galaxy. So by the time The Infinity Gauntlet begins, the heroes of the Marvel Universe are already painted into a corner and they don't know it.

The opening pages of The Infinity Gauntlet should be comic book event opening 101. Even if you don't know the players, you know exactly what is going on. Purple guy (Thanos) is clearly some sort of major cosmic badass, as a guy who looks like the Devil (Mephisto) is sucking up to him, having created one word out of stone in 50 foot tall letters to impress him: GOD. Thanos brushes this off and smashes all of Mephisto's hard work, already establishing the dynamic between the two characters. Coupled with a quick recap of the events from Silver Surfer as recounted by the title's main character as he crashes into Doctor Strange's sanctum right after those initial Thanos pages, you're off to the metaphorical races.

One of the great things about The Infinity Gauntlet, especially in relation to so many event comics today, is how much happens in a single issue. This was long before the idea of decompression became the central tenet of major comic book storytelling, so every issue was chock full of stuff. By the end of the first issue the Earth has been alerted to Thanos's coming, mysterious souls have taken over the bodies of some dead humans, various heroes have been seen unawares, and Thanos has talked to Mephisto and Mistress Death. Oh, and Thanos has wiped out half the universe's population with nothing more than a snap of his fingers.

The Infinity Gauntlet had a very precise structure: The first issue established the premise and gave us the inciting incident. Issues two and three dealt with the ramifications and gathered the heroes. Issues four and five were the battle with Thanos. And issue six was the denouement, the resolution of the story. Starlin paced the story perfectly so it didn't feel like there was a wasted page.

Starlin used this series to also bring another of his major characters back from the dead: Adam Warlock. Starlin evolved Warlock from his previous incarnation as the cosmic answer to Hamlet, and made him both a leader and a manipulator. Warlock plans the entire battle against Thanos with a cold reasoning and has no problem sacrificing his allies to triumph. It's an interesting change to the character, and continues his evolution from everything Starlin did before and sets him on the road to where Starlin planned to go with him.

Starlin uses a ragtag selection of heroes who survived Thanos's wiping out of the galactic population as the squad that Warlock, Silver Surfer, and Doctor Strange gather to confront Thanos. I think Starlin had a lot of fun in selecting whatever heroes he really wanted to write. There's an excellent scene where the Hulk and Wolverine, old enemies, sit on a roof and have a conversation. Doctor Doom, the only villain who joins in, is perfectly played as the character with an agenda of his own, hoping to claim the power of the Gauntlet for himself.

The central character of the piece is clearly Thanos. Thanos could easily be presented (and has often been by lesser writers) as a two dimensional maniac, loving death and blood and pain. But Starlin has a fuller view of the character, one that does not paint him in a light that is heroic, but gives him dimension. Thanos so desperately seeks the approval of Mistress Death that he does any- and everything to garner that favor. Throughout the series, while he has the power of a god, he doesn't use it for anything other than trying to get Death to look upon him. There is the clear analogy of a man with a deathwish, someone who seeks the end to his suffering, courting death, and Thanos takes that to the extreme. He also only exacts perverse suffering upon Eros, his brother, and Nebula, the woman who purports to be his granddaughter. He hates life and his own family is the greatest reminder of that.

By the end of the series, Starlin breaks down Thanos. Having lost the Gauntlet, he is confronted by Warlock, and the two have an intense discussion about Thanos's tragic flaw: subconsciously, he doesn't feel like he really deserves all this power. This is the third time in his history Thanos has gained nigh-omnipotence, and each time it has slipped out of his hands. Thanos denies Warlock initially, but he comes around. Looking back on the whole series, the point is perfectly illustrated. Starlin sets up numerous instances where Thanos could have simply squashed his enemies, but instead plays with them in a way that could easily allow him to be defeated. Not banishing Mephisto from his presence, a being who is surely planning against him, is another perfect example.

While the early issues are brilliant set-up, with great character pieces, issues four and five are truly some of the greatest action comics ever written. It's basically a two issue battle between Thanos and first Earth's heroes, and second the avatars of the cosmic forces. The initial battle is not something you got in comics as much at the time: a complete defeat of the heroes, where Thanos takes them apart. Thanos must have become the god of ironic punishments, as he quickly defeats the heroes in ways that fit their powers or demeanor: Wolverine's skeleton is turned to rubber; Quasar has his hands blown off right after recovering from a similar injury, the Hulk is shrunk down to a few inches tall, Thor is transformed to clash and smashed. But Thanos's arrogance is countered in what might be one of the great Captain America scenes of all time. Compared to the heavy hitters, Cap doesn't stand a chance against Thanos. But when confronted, Cap stands his ground, telling Thanos he can't win. Of course, Thanos kills him, but in the end Cap is proven right.

The issues that were crossovers to the main series, while not integral to the story, integrated well with the changed universe. Getting a better idea of all that was going on with Silver Surfer, who had been dealing with Thanos for some time, in his own title, for instance. Or the issue of The Incredible Hulk, where the shrunken Hulk rests on the shoulder of his nemesis, the Abomination, talking in his ear and using his diminutive stature to be the "voice of God" and get the Abomination to do the right thing and wrap up threads in that title's ongoing stories.

In the end, nothing really changes in the Marvel Universe because of The Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos and Warlock are back, along with supporting characters Gamora and Pip the Troll, and the Infinity Gems were now central to the Marvel cosmos, but aside from that, all the deaths are undone, and the universe returns to the status quo. I don't think that this was a story meant to change the Marvel Universe. I feel like most event books today promise to change the Universe forever, but wind up being decompressed or muddled stories that wind up having minimal effect as it is.  The Infinty Gauntlet is simply a great story, one of immense scope, that wouldn't fit in any one comic.

Now, with Thanos's profile increased by his cameo at the end of The Avengers, he is popping up regularly. After being the main villain of the initial arc of Avengers Assemble, he is now featuring in his own origin mini-series, Thanos Rising. The Infinity Gems were also featured prominently in the first arc of the new volume of New Avengers. Thanos one Marvel's great villains, and this is a story that really presents him in all his glory.

The first three issues, and the first few pages of issue four, are drawn by legendary artist George Perez, who brings his usual hyper-detailed style to the art. He craws the crowd scenes brilliantly, and his Thanos is perfectly creepy. The remainder of the series is drawn by Ron Lim, the artist now most associated with the Marvel cosmic line in the 90s. Lim's style is clean, with a dynamism that makes the massive fight scenes easy to follow. I have a great fondness for Lim, especially when he's working on these characters.

The Infinity Gauntlet is available in trade, as well as its two sequels, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade. Many of the Silver Surfer issues that led into the series are available as the trade: Silver Surfer: the Rebirth of Thanos, and many classic Thanos appearances were recently collected as Avengers Vs. Thanos.