Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 11

Welcome back to another exciting week on Batteworld. Two number ones this week. First from Dan Grote...

Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders #1

 Story: Al Ewing

Art: Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Wil Quintana

Finally, someone outside the main Secret Wars book remembers life before the incursions. Not just someone, a whole domain of someones!

Welcome to Yinsen City, the most peaceful domain in all of Battleworld, born from a reality in which Tony Stark sacrificed himself all those years ago in the cave to save the life of fellow captive Ho Yinsen, who it turns out did a better job of being Iron Man – or Rescue, rather – than Stark ever could.

Like any other domain, everyone is obsessed with Doom’s laws about heresy and not crossing borders, but everyone in Yinsen City gets along so well that when the local Thor – She-Hulk – gets wind of it, she all but brushes it off.

Perhaps that’s because she, Yinsen, and others are starting to remember: Remember the incursions, remember the time before Doom was god, remember their true origins before becoming barons and Thors and Spider Heros.

And then they get a sword-wielding visitor from beyond the city limits who remembers even more: Dr. Faiza Hussain, who goes by Captain Britain even though on Battleworld there is no such place as Britain. The defenders of Yinsen City take her in, because they’re good people, which immediately triggers the wrath of Doom. Rather than throw them all over the Shield to the zombies and Ultrons, Doom knocks down the wall between Yinsen City and neighboring Mondo City, a fascist domain where everyone dresses like Avalanche from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and their tanks have many, many guns. Yinsen is killed, Faiza is kidnapped and what becomes of the others is unclear.

What I like about this book is that it pulls elements from lesser-known but no-less loved series: Paul Cornell’s Captain Britain & MI:13, Ewing’s own Mighty Avengers, and creates a diverse team (all people of color with the exception of She-Hulk). It also has a great “What If?” element in the Yinsen baronage. Most importantly though, it addresses, head-on, many of the questions I asked around the time I started reading A-Force, about how many people remember what came before and how certain characters can still have codenames that hinge on the existence of lands that do not appear on Battleworld. Many of the other books are fun, great reads, but they do little to address the greater mechanics of Secret Wars, which is probably to their credit. This book, like the reader, isn’t afraid to ask “What the hell is actually going on here?”

Also, it should be noted that She-Hulk-Thor’s hammer is a tiny courtroom gavel. Why? “Because I’ve got my hammers right here” (puts up fists). Jen Walters, I love you. Never change.

And then from me...

Guardians of Knowhere #1

Story: Brian Michael Bendis

Art: Mike Deodata & Laura Martin

Dan talks above about how people in Yinsen City are starting to remember incursions and the past. Well, it seems like that isn't the only place where Doom's little fiction is fraying. Guardians of Knowhere opens with an explaination of how Doom killed the Celestial to leave the head that serves as Knowhere floating around Earth like Unicron's head circling Cybertron in late Transformers stories. Well, Angela comes up to Knowhere to find Gamora and exact the will of Doom, to instead find a drunken Drax the Destroyer. We don't get an answer as to why Drax seems so at ends and lacking in his usual drive at first, but the issue gives us some hints towards the end. Drax starts a fight with Angela and Gamora arrives, still cosmically powered as she was at the end of "The Black Vortex" storyline. Rocket shows up, helps get the Guardians away from Angela, and then our team talks. Angela is looking for Gamora because she's breaking the cardinal rule of Battleworld: Gamora is moving between domains. And when Gamora brings up Thanos, neither Rocket or Drax know who he is (and since Drax was created to kill and counter Thanos, I figure that's why he's drinking himself to death). I don't know if it's the cosmic awareness Gamora has now, or just the beginning of the end of Doom's reign, but it's clear Gamora is getting suspicious. It's an interesting first issue that is one of the more direct follow ups to an existing Marvel title into Secret Wars. As Bendis was writing Guardians of the Galaxy before the event began, he's carrying those characterizations over, and I wonder if, because of the Guardians alien nature, if they might be the actual 616 Guardians, not alternate versions. Mike Deodata is an artist who draws a mean fight scene, and the battle between the Guardians and Angela through Knowhere is top notch. More tied in with Secret Wars than many of the crossovers I've been reading, if you enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy in recent years, this book will nicely scratch that itch until All New All Different Marvel starts up.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events- Part 7: All-New Crossovers NOW!

Avengers Vs. X-Men brought about a mass renumbering and creator roulette known as Marvel NOW, heralding a new era in which the original five X-Men from the ’60s were pulled to the present, the Avengers expanded to deal with the just-simmering end of the universe, Dr. Octopus went gallivanting around in Peter Parker’s body, and Daredevil and Hawkeye became two of the Best Books Ever.

The first big event of the NOW era was Age of Ultron, a 10-part series by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco, Butch Guice, Alex Maleev, David Marquez and Joe Quesada.

Ultron opens in media res, with the killer robot already having won and platoons of Ultron Sentinels prowling the streets looking for the remaining heroes. Time-travel hijinks ensue. A common theme of the Marvel NOW era is how Earth’s heroes keep screwing up the timestream with their shenanigans, vis a vis their actions in Ultron (Wolverine and the Invisible Woman travel back in time to kill Hank Pym before he creates Ultron, creating an alternate reality in which Earth is a casualty of the Kree-Skrull War, necessitating even more time travel), Beast pulling the ’60s X-Men to Earth, Kang being himself, etc.

Among its effects, Age of Ultron brought Angela – a character Neil Gaiman created for Image – into the Marvel Universe (and made her Odin’s secret daughter from a heretofore unseen 10^th realm), Galactus was shipped to the Ultimate Universe and the company launched Avengers A.I., a book about Hank Pym and a bunch of android characters, which lasted 12 issues.

Marvel has been scheduling two events a year for most of the NOW era, so later in 2013 we got Infinity, written by Jonathan Hickman (also the architect of the upcoming Secret Wars) and drawn by Jim Cheung, Jerome Opena and Dustin Weaver.

“Infinity” at Marvel has always implied a universe-spanning cosmic adventure, and so we get the mad titan Thanos attacking Earth while the Avengers are away in space trying to fight the Builders, a race of aliens introduced in Hickman’s first Avengers arc. Part of the storyline involves Hickman’s ongoing series of incursions – the collisions of Earths across the multiverse, which is how the upcoming Secret Wars will start.

Thanos and the Inhuman king Black Bolt wail on each other pretty hard, as BB tries to prevent Thanos from finding his Inhuman-descended son, Thane. In the process, Thanos sets off a Terrigen Bomb, creating more Inhumans, including the new Ms. Marvel. Among the event’s other effects, a new volume of Mighty Avengers launched, starring Luke Cage and a group of other street-level heroes (Monica Rambeau, Blade, Spider-Man, etc.), who were left behind on Earth during Infinity.

The next event is a murder-mystery. Original Sin, by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato, centers on the death of Uatu the Watcher and the theft of his eyes, which have dirt on everyone. Teams of investigators scour here, there and everywhere to determine who may have killed him. One of the eyes is in the possession of the Orb, an old Ghost Rider villain with a giant eyeball for a head. So that’s appropriate.

Along the way, the heroes also find the real Nick Fury, an old man with a seemingly limitless supply of Life Model Decoys of himself. Original-recipe Fury reveals that, in addition to running SHIELD for decades, he had a secret job protecting Earth from extradimensional threats, which jibes with his underground work during Secret Invasion. He’s also revealed to be the man who murdered Uatu, but ends up becoming his replacement. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, in turn, replaces Fury as Earth’s guardian against extra-dimensional forces, so who’s gonna have an army of LMDs now?

Sin revealed secrets about a number of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Spider-Man learned someone else had been bitten by the same radioactive spider that bit him, the character Silk, who now has her own series. Tony Stark apparently had tinkered with the gamma bomb that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk. Angela is revealed as Thor’s half-sister from the Tenth Realm. Dum Dum Dugan, the Howling Commando, learns he died in the 1960s and is, in fact, an LMD.

Oh, and at some point, Fury whispers something in Thor’s ear that makes him unworthy of wielding Mjolnir and being Thor. Hence, new lady Thor.

Finally, we come to Axis, an Avengers/X-Men crossover that wraps up a storyline – the Red Skull stealing Charles Xavier’s brain – that Rick Remender launched in his Uncanny Avengers title. Remender wrote Axis with art by Adam Kubert, Leinil Francis Yu, Terry Dodson and Jim Cheung.

The Red Skull has taken over Genosha – Magneto’s former mutant haven – and turned it into a concentration camp and base for broadcasting a global message of hate. Magneto is predictably pissed and confronts the Skull, who turns into a being called Red Onslaught.

Doctor Doom and the Scarlet Witch cast an “inversion spell,” intended to bring out the Xavier aspect of the Red Onslaught’s mind. The spell casts a wider net, however, and suddenly guys like Carnage, the Hobgoblin and Sabretooth are acting like heroes, Tony Stark is being a huge jerk (and is drinking again), Deadpool is a pacifist and the X-Men have pledged their loyalty to Apocalypse. Eventually, a reinversion spell is cast, returning most of the heroes and villains to their normal selves, with Stark among the few exceptions.

Oh, and at some point, it’s revealed that Magneto is not the biological father of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Because movie rights stuff, I assume.

Among the new series spun out of Axis were Superior Iron Man, about the new, jerkier Stark; a new volume of Uncanny Avengers starring Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, and Wolverines, which features an inverted Sabretooth among other characters directly affected by the death of Wolverine.

That brings us to the present, mere days from the start of Secret Wars. But wait, there’s more! Check back later this week for a bonus installment, featuring a few of the crossovers we overlooked.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 4/22

Beyond Belief #1
Story: Ben Acker & Ben Blacker
Art: Phil Hester

Who cares what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Me for one, if that evil is spooooky and being investigated by Frank and Sadie Doyle in the pages of Image Comics second series based off the wonderful Thrilling Adventure Hour, Beyond Belief. Beyond Belief is my favorite segment of TAH, starring Paul F Tompkins and Paget Brewster as everyone's favorite married mediums, the Doyles, and as with the other TAH comic, Sparks Nevada, this takes place before the events of the podcast, so no prior knowledge is needed. You get to meet the Doyles, bon vivants and alcohol aficionados, who love nothing more than booze and each other. But their bliss is interrupted when Sadie's best friend, Donna, calls to ask for the Doyles' help, as the house she just bought is haunted. For those who know their TAH, Donna will one day be Donna Henderson, vampire and wife of werewolf Dave Henderson, and mother to the beast of the Apocalypse. But right now, she's just Donna Donner, new homeowner. The Doyles enter the haunted house to find a room full of creepy dolls, ancient spectres, and the ghosts of Mary Ellen Capp and her dead husband, Ted. With the story written by TAH creators Ben Acker and Ben Blacker it's not surprising that the dialogue is spot on; I can hear the actors reading the dialogue in my head. It's funny and with just a hint of creepy, especially the flying evil dolls. Phil Hester does a great job, not just capturing the horror, but also the essence of the Doyles. Frank and Sadie look dapper, dashing, and just a tad drunk, which is the ideal for the Doyles. And as a bonus, this issue also contains the digital first Beyond Belief #0 from the same creative team that tells the story of how Frank and Sadie met! If you've never tried Thrilling Adventure Hour, and like horror and comedy, this is the book to try, and if you're already a fan, well, you know what's in here, so get out and pick it up.

Empire: Uprising #1
Story: Mark Waid
Art: Barry Kitson

I love that no project is ever completely dead in comics is the creators have the passion and the rights (yeah, that last one is a little more problematic, but still...). It's how John Ostrander can return to Grimjack after a decade plus away, how I still hold out hope for Mage: The Hero Denied from Matt Wagner, and how we can get a new Empire story a decade after the last. I've been reading Empire through all of its incarnations, the two issues through Image and then the six from DC, so its new life at IDW is exciting. Empire is the story of a world conquered by Golgoth, a supervillain, and the workings of his inner court; it's like Game of Thrones with supervillains. This issue picks up a year after the end of the last issue, and the reader gets a primer on what has gone before from a schoolteacher talking to her class about world history; we hear her sanitized version of history along with panels showing exactly what Golgoth did to bring about his utopia, which is a nice touch. It's the anniversary of the death of Golgoth's daughter, Princess Delfi, and the world will have a moment of silence. And we quickly see that moment of silence is enforced with lethal force for anyone who breaks it. It's chilling to see that there's no real heart in Golgoth. This isn't the villain who has some kernel of good in him; he's a monster. He is also ridiculously powerful, which is evident as he slaughters a group of resistance fighters who attack during the moment of silence. Attacking in masks of Delfi is creepy enough, but as they cry out "Daddy!" in combat, well. brrrrrr. With the soldiers put down, we see various members of Golgoth's inner circle, and get a feeling for those who surround him. And we see Golgoth change his mind, something that does not go unnoticed by the various villains who serve him. Predators always sense weakness after all. It's a strong set-up for the return to this dystopia, and I'm looking forward to heading back in and seeing exactly who is trying to overthrow Golgoth and what their plans are.

Velvet #10
Story: Ed Brubaker
Art: Steve Epting

One of the numerous impressive things about Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's spy thriller, Velvet, is the way they balance action and plot.Over the course of this arc, Velvet Templeton, on the run from her own agency, ARC-7, has been attempting to find a traitor, and done some things along the way that would indicate to an outside observer she is the traitor, including freeing imprisoned traitor Damian Lake. Well, Damian escaped at the end of last issue, and now Velvet, on a train, is confronted by French authorities. This sets off an issue that is full of intense action, with a fight and flight on the train, through the woods, and to a farmhouse. Epting is at his best in this issue, drawing Velvet making her way through and on top of the train, diving off it, and fighting gendarmes and dogs hunting her through the woods. Brubaker gets to do some nice character work during the chase, especially as Velvet has to fight a dog and does so with reluctance. But as we get to the end of the chase, we see that Damian sold her out to the local ARC-7 office, and we meet the next of our potential traitors, local chief Jean Bellanger. But Damian is up to tricks, and a captured Velvet doesn't remain so as Damian's plan unfolds. The final pages, both Velvet's final scene and the epilogue, set all the gears that have been moving slowly into full speed. There is blood and bodies, and a power vacuum left at issue's end that will need to be filled, and whoever does it is going to want Velvet. It's a nail biter of an ending, one I absolutely didn't see coming and left my jaw on the floor. Velvet is the best spy comic I think I've ever read, adding a modern tilt to the classic James Bond formula. This issue marks the end of the second arc, so it's a perfect time to catch up before the third act begins.



And Dan Grote looks at this week's most talked about comic...

All-New X-Men #40

Story: Brian Michael Bendis

Art: Mahmud Asrar and Rain Beredo

X-Men post-crossover issues are often some of the franchise’s best moments, a chance for creative teams to mold memorable character beats, like Jean Grey proposing to Scott Summers or Jubilee teaching Professor X how to rollerblade. Frankly, I’d be weirded out if Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote many a breakfast scene during his run on the Avengers, couldn’t hack that.

Cards on the table: As someone who has been reading X-comics for more than 20 years, I have no problem whatsoever with Iceman being gay. Let’s be honest, the original five X-Men – five white kids, one of whom was “the girl” – were the Blandest Teens of All. Stan and Jack couldn’t even bother to write origin stories for them; they were just born with powers. Having one of them turn out to be gay at least adds a little spice to the mix. And it’s not like Chuck Austen didn’t toy with the idea during his run on Uncanny, much maligned as it is. And how many stories have there been in which somebody accused Bobby Drake of holding back? Perhaps that wasn’t just about his powers. I guess my only REAL question is: Whatever happened to Opal Tanaka?

I know some have raised issues about the WAY the reveal occurred, with Jean being telepathically invasive and the sort of heteronormative idea that gay people need to “out” themselves whereas straights can just be. I won’t pretend to be an expert in those things, nor should I, but as to the fact of a longtime character being retconned this way, I’m on board. I also really like Jean’s facial expressions and hand gestures in those panels.

All-New X-Men #40 wasn’t just about Bobby and Jean’s heart-to-heart, though. We also get a midair chat between young Angel and X-23. Warren is sporting new wings after the Black Vortex story, a move he says he made deliberately after learning how his adult self was corrupted by Apocalypse and then essentially erased by a Celestial life seed.

The framing scenes set up one last storyline (because Secret Wars) involving a band of mutants protecting Utopia, the X-Men’s old island base. I won’t spoil who they are, because I could only make out two of the six, one of which is an Obscure ’90s Relic.

Also, heh heh, Tyke-lops.

Looking Forward: Comics, Books, and TV To Be Excited For In 2015

Welcome back to The Matt Signal! As I did in previous years, instead of looking back and doing a "Best of the Last Year," I'm going to do a, "Things that I Really Want to See for This Year." It looks like there's a lot of great comics coming out next year, so, without further ado, here we go!


Glen Weldon's The Caped Crusade: The Rise of Batman and the Triumph of Nerd Culture

If you've never read Glen Weldon, he writes for NPR on books and comic books, and a couple years ago wrote Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, a great book about Superman's history. For this year, he's moving on to Batman. Now, you know anything Batman has me excited, and this past year for the 75th Anniversary we got the beautiful Batman: A Visual History from DK Publishing, but that book is a comic book history of Batman. Weldon is going to be looking at Batman's history in pop culture, from the comics, to the Batmania of the 60s, to Burton in 89, to present. Weldon is a witty guy, and someone who loves comics and Batman, so if I'm not going to be writing this book, I'm glad to see that Weldon will be.

Convergence Tie-Ins

Now, I'm not sure about Convergence proper; I don't know if I know enough about it to pass any judgement. But some of these tie-ins? Yes, please! Greg Rucka and Cully Hamner returning to the Rene Montoya Question is a no-brainer, made even better by Rucka writing Two-Face again. Gail Simone writing Oracle is exciting, and the fact that Nightwing co-stars is even better. I think Doc Shaner might have been born to draw Shazam's retro-world, if his work on the recent Flash Gordon series is any indication. Len Wein returning to Swamp Thing is very cool, and bringing Kelly Jones, who drew an amazing Swamp Thing during his run on Batman makes it all the better. And Booster Gold is back. These are total fangasm books for me, and you know what? I'm ok with that.

Fables #150

I've been reading Fables since issue #1. It's not the first longform Vertigo series I read, and it won't be the last, but for it's sheer scope and length, I would be impressed. The quality has been consistent since issue one. And ending the run with a one hundred fifty page issue? That's impressive in a whole new way. I am excited to say goodbye to all these old friends, and see where they're going.

Thrilling Adventure Hour comes to Image Comics

Because a weekly podcast isn't enough for it's rabid fans, creators Ben Acker and Ben Blacker are doing to series based on characters from their fan favorite, "new time podcast in the style of old time radio." It's a mix of comedy and action, bending genres together in new and exceedingly bizarre ways that never fails to surprise and delight. In February, we get Sparks Nevada, Marshall on Mars, a sci-fi Western with a touch of soap opera, about a lawman on the rights the outlaw wrongs on Mars with his Martian companion in a classic odd couple partner situation, and March sees the release of Beyond Belief, about those married mediums Frank and Sadie Doyle, who will drink you under the table, all while correcting your grammar and stopping demons, vampires, werewolves, and anything that goes bump. I reviewed the digital zero issues of the series earlier this year, and I will keep talking about it until everyone is listening to the podcast and reading the comics.

Princeless: The Pirate Princess

Readers got their first taste of this series in the Free Comic Book Day Princeless story in 2013, so it's been a year and a half since the last Princeless story featuring the main cast. Still, good things come to those who wait, and the story of Princess Adrienne, who decides to stop waiting for a prince and saver herself and her sisters, and her companions Bedelia, who is a dwarf but not the short kind, and Sparky, her dragon, is still one of the best all ages comics of the past five years, twisting genre stereotypes. This volume adds a new character to the cast, the titular Pirate Princess, who is going to bring her own problems on top of the knights pursuing Adrienne on her quest. It's a series to share with everyone, and I'm glad to see it back.

A.K.A. Jessica Jones

There's been an increase in quality comic book based TV this season, and there's more on the way. And while I'm a long time and confirmed Daredevil fan, the Marvel series from Netflix I'm really looking forward to is A.K.A. Jessica Jones, the adaptation of Alias, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos's MAX series, the story of a former superhero turned private investigator. If it approaches the original, it will have a grotty noir vibe that will mix nicely with the superhero aspects of the show, and I'm a sucker for mystery and p.i. stories. The series is starring Krysten Ritter, who I've liked since her turn on Veronica Mars, and between that and her performance on Breaking Bad, I think she can capture the brittleness of Jessica, a character who starts the series just on the right side of complete collapse, and can also show the toughness underlying that. And since the show is on Netflix, I hope they can at least keep a bit of Jessica's trademark swearing. I miss Jessica cursing every third word like she did when she was introduced, something that had to be sacrificed when she moved into the Marvel Universe proper. I know Marvel is going to keep it a little cleaner, since it is an MCU property, but if there's any project that can have an edge, I think this is the one.

Gamora

Every character from Guardians of the Galaxy got a big spotlight shone on them this summer, and while Star Lord, Rocket, and Groot were the breakout characters, Gamora is the character I have the longest history with, and the most affection for, and so knowing we're getting a Gamora ongoing this year has piqued my interest. This has a lot going for it in the current Marvel landscape, with the success of so many other female lead books and the heightened focus on the cosmic corner of the universe. The series is going to be written by Nicole Perlman, who co-wrote the screenplay for a certain Marvel movie this summer, so she has some history with Gamora. Perlman says that the series will reveal more about Gamora's history, about why she decided to leave the service of Thanos, and seems to be deeply entrenched in the cosmic Marvel Universe I grew up with. The series looks to dig into the psyche of Gamora, a character who was given plenty of layers by Jim Starlin, her creator, so I'm curious to see which layers Perlman is going to unwrap.

Our Expanding Universe, a new graphic novel from Alex Robinson

OK, first thing I have to admit is I know next to nothing about this project except for that name and the creator. But that's really enough. Alex Robinson doesn't release a ton of work, but when he does, it's always outstanding. Box Office Poison, his first major work, a comic series about growing up in your twenties, was the first truly independent comic I ever read; it was black and white! It was also full of characters I recognized, characters I wanted to be, and characters I wanted to flee from, but they were all real people. It's an underrated classic, something that belongs in the same breath as books like Blankets. Since completing that book, Robinson has released two graphic novels, Tricked and Too Cool to be Forgotten, both smart and affecting stories. New work from a cartoonist of Robinson's caliber is something to be excited about. Now, Robinson's publisher is Top Shelf, which it was announced today was purchased by IDW, but the announcement doesn't indicate any changes to their publishing schedules, so I hope that means we'll still get this book in our hands this year.

May All Your Wars Be Secret

Marvel loves Secrets. It also loves Wars. Put the two words together, and, as Carl Weathers told Tobias Funke, you’ve got a stew going.

Yes, one of Marvel’s biggest New York ComicCon announcements was a new Secret Wars event by Avengers writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic, due to start in May 2015. A teaser poster shows various versions of Cap, Thor, Iron Man and other characters whose movie rights are still in-house battling it out.

And, of course, because it’s called Secret Wars, a tidal wave of B-holes took to the comment threads to post in all caps about how Marvel has no original ideas but still clearly takes all their money.

But this isn’t the first time Marvel has published a Secret Wars title since the original Secret Wars in 1984. And it’s certainly not the first time Marvel’s published a title or event with either Secret or War in it. In fact, over the past decade, those two words have joined Amazing, Astonishing, Infinity, X-, Spider-Man, Ultimate, etc. in the pantheon of words that show up far too often in Marvel titles.

Herewith, a sampling of Marvel’s Secret Wars, Secret other things and other-thing Wars:

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: The original 12-issue maxiseries by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck and Bob Layton that ran from 1984 to 1985, in which Earth’s mightiest heroes and villains were pitted against each other on Battleworld by a guy who hadn’t been told disco was dead. Oh, and it was a crass attempt to sell toys. Besides the Mattel line, however, the series also gave us Spider-Man’s black costume, the second Spider-Woman, Julia Carpenter, and She-Hulk as the fourth member of the Fantastic Four, taking the place of the Thing (for more on alternate versions of the FF, click here).

Secret Wars II: In the 9-issue sequel by Shooter and Al Milgrom that ran from 1985 to 1986, the Beyonder comes to Earth in an attempt to understand the humans, pisses off Mephisto and hits on Dazzler and Boom-Boom, the latter of which is supposed to be a teenager, so gross.

Secret War: Leave off the last S for savings! Brian Michael Bendis wrote and Gabrielle Del’Otto drew this five-issue mini that started in April 2004 but didn’t wrap till December 2005 in which Nick Fury gathers Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Daredevil, Black Widow and Luke Cage for a top-secret mission in Latveria that goes pear-shaped. The story’s plot was incorporated into the second Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video game. And Lucia Von Bardas, the Latverian head of state created for the story, was referenced in a low-budget Fantastic Four musical that was part of the fourth season of Arrested Development on Netflix.

Spider-Man and the Secret Wars: A three-issue mini by Paul Tobin and Patrick Scherberger from 2009 retelling the 1984 Secret Wars from Spidey’s perspective. CBR said the all-ages series poked fun at its namesake as a ridiculous, contrived excuse to sell toys.

Secret Invasion: The Skrulls’ long-simmering plot to colonize Earth carried our heroes from being divided by Civil War to being united in their hatred of Norman Osborn, the Spider-Man villain and Gwen Stacy killer who became head of the replacement agency for S.H.I.E.L.D. after he killed the Skrull queen at the end of the event and formed his own Illuminati of A-holes, including Dr. Doom, Namor, the Hood and the Noid, er, Void.

Secret Warriors: Nick Fury spent most of the first decade of the new millennium underground as a result of the Secret War, popping up only for certain people, including Spider-Woman, the Winter Soldier and his own personal strike team made up of the offspring of supervillains. These Thunderbolt Muppet Babies had their own series from 2009 to 2011, co-written by Bendis and Jonathan Hickman with art by Stefano Caselli.

Secret Avengers: Starting in post-Siege 2010, the Avengers formed their own X-Force in Secret Avengers, a black-ops team run by Commander Steve Rogers, who had just recently come back from the dead but hadn’t taken back the mantle of Captain America yet. Writers included Ed Brubaker (Captain America), Nick Spencer (Superior Foes of Spider-Man), Warren Ellis (Excalibur), Rick Remender (Captain America) and Ales Kot.

Secret Six: Just kidding. Secret Six is a critically and fan-beloved DC book by Gail Simone, whose work gets praised here on the reggy-reg.

Civil War: I feel like writing a synopsis of one of Marvel’s most popular crossovers ever, even snarkily and pumped full of gag hyperlinks, is like writing about the real Civil War as if people didn’t know what it was. Hey, have they brought back Bill Foster yet?

Revolutionary War: Unlike in U.S. history, Marvel’s Revolutionary War came after the Civil War. But it’s not a sequel, nor is it even a prequel, nor is there a Marvel’s War of 1812, which technically should have come between the two. Also the name is misleading, as it stars Marvel’s U.K. heroes as the good guys. But, hey, it’s got Pete Wisdom!

U.S. War Machine: A post-9/11 MAX maxiseries by Chuck Austen. One of the covers features an Iron Man suit wearing a Dum Dum Dugan-style bowler hat, because comics love uniforms that don’t make sense.

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

The X-Men’s Wacky Neighbor: Told Tales of Spider-Man Team-Ups

Marvel last week announced a replacement title for Wolverine & the X-Men – on account of Wolverine’s dead – called Spider-Man & the X-Men, to be written by Elliott Kalan and drawn by Marco Failla. As usual, there was the normal Internet contingent of “This is unnecessary and/or different and must be destroyed so my butt stops hurting!”

But it’s not like Spider-Man hasn’t been teaming up with the X-Men for years. He may not be a mutant, but his powers are born of the same Nuclear Age, with-great-radioactivity-comes-great-powers-comes-great-responsibility schtick as anything else Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created in the early 1960s.

With that in mind, here are some of the other times Spidey teamed up with the X-Men, in varying media and to varying degrees of success.

Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and Captain Britain (1978): This one’s a bit of a slant rhyme as X-characters go, but it counts as a Spidey-X-Men team-up for a few reasons: 1) Captain Britain spent a decade with Excalibur during the book’s original run, hanging with X-Men such as Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde and Rachel Grey; 2) The story was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by John Byrne during their golden-age period on X-Men; 3) The main villain in this two-parter is Arcade, a Claremont/Byrne creation who tormented the X-Men on the regular (see further down this list).

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends: From 1981 to 1983 on Saturday mornings, Peter Parker and his Aunt May took in a trio of strays: Bobby Drake, the X-Men’s Iceman, who spent 1975 to 1985 bouncing around lower-tier teams like the Champions and the Defenders; Angelica Jones, a fire-powered character created for the series but who was later written into the comics as a member of Emma Frost’s Hellions; and a dog.

Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (1987): In this one-shot by Jim Owsley and Mark Bright, Peter Parker and Logan end up in a still-divided Germany on different assignments and end up exchanging blows. The one-shot is notable for spelling the death of Ned Leeds, who may or may not have been the Hobgoblin depending on who was writing the title. It also features Spider-Man wearing a knock-off Halloween costume with the words “Die Spinne” on the back.

Spider-Man and X-Force in “Sabotage”: It’s 1991. “Beverly Hills 90210” is on the air. Vanilla Ice’s film “Cool as Ice” exists. Kelly Kapowski has left Zack Morris for her boss at The Max, Jeff. On Friday nights we hang out with our friends Urkel, Balki and Uncle Joey. These were cheesy times. Then Black Tom Cassidy blew up the World Trade Center, which hadn’t happened in real life yet so it probably didn’t make readers uncomfortable. With Todd MacFarlane and Rob Liefeld handling the art (incidentally, it was MacFarlane’s last issue on Spider-Man), the result is a big, dumb early ’90s action movie. The books were even laid out horizontally (though the ads were not) for an allegedly more cinematic experience. All that was missing was Cable yelling “Yipeekiyay, Mr. Falcon.” On a side note, these issues go a long way to showing how much comics culture has changed in the past two decades, considering how many times the Juggernaut calls Warpath some variety of “Injun” and accuses Shatterstar of being a “pretty boy” and a “pansy.”

Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge: This LJN game was released in 1992 for Nintendo’s Super NES and Game Boy and Sega’s Genesis and Game Gear. Playable characters included Spider-Man, Wolverine (in his yellow-and-burgundy ’80s outfit), Cyclops (in his blue-and-white ’80s X-Factor togs), Storm (in her then-modern ’90s uniform) and Gambit (in his classic trenchcoat and headsock). Arcade – not exactly a marquis Marvel villain, but OK – kidnaps the X-Men and runs them through his trademark murder mazes, with Spidey in hot pursuit. I remember never beating this game, rage-quitting it a few times and failing to sell it at a garage sale. Bosses included typical villains such as Rhino, Shocker, Carnage, Apocalypse and Juggernaut, and head-scratchers such as the demon N’Astirh (from the "Inferno" storyline) and Obnoxio the Clown.

“The Mutant Agenda”/”Mutants’ Revenge” (1995): Fox had a good thing going on Saturday mornings in the mid-90s between the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons. So it made sense the two would cross paths at some point, which they did in Spider-Man’s show. In the second season in 1995, old Peter Parker’s spider-borne mutations were out of control, so he sought help from the gang on Graymalkin Lane. In the process, the Beast gets kidnapped, the Hobgoblin (who sounded suspiciously like the Joker) makes trouble, and good guys fight each other over the kinds of manufactured misunderstandings that only happen in comics.

Uncanny X-Men 346 (1997): The issue is tagged as being part of "Operation: Zero Tolerance," the big X-crossover of 1997, but only one actual X-Man – Gambit – shows up for all of one page. At this point, half the X-Men had been lost in space for six months, helping the Shi’ar fight the Phalanx, while the other half had been kidnapped by Bastion and his Prime Sentinels. So 346 turns into a Spider-Man issue, complete with America’s favorite micromanaging, sensationalist newspaper publisher, J. Jonah Jameson. Spidey teams up with Morlocks Callisto and Marrow against a pair of Prime Sentinels tasked with running security for Henry Peter Gyrich, Marvel’s longtime government d-bag. In the process, Spidey lectures Marrow that with great power yada yada yada. Marrow later joins the X-men for all of about 8 seconds.

Bendis’ pet Avengers (2004-2012): Spidey and Wolverine have been teammates for about a decade now, courtesy of the Brian Michael Bendis age of Avengerdom that ran roughly from 2004 (Avengers: Disassembled) to 2012 (Avengers vs. X-Men). And since Bendis shifted after that from writing Avengers to writing X-Men, overseeing two of the franchise’s main books, it makes sense that that relationship is still in place. Also, a book called Spider-Man & the X-Men is going to sell far more copies than, say, Beast & the X-Men or Kitty Pryde & the X-Men or the New Broo Review.

X-Men and Spider-Man (2009): In this four-issue retcon-tastic miniseries by Christos Gage and Mario Alberti, Spider-Man is shown teaming up with the X-Men across their respective 50-year histories in an overarching plot that involves Mr. Sinister, Kraven the Hunter and Carnage. Issue one is set in the ’60s, with the original five X-Men. Issue two takes place just after the Mutant Massacre in the ’80s. Issue three takes place amid the Clone Saga in the ’90s. And issue four takes place in the wake of M-Day in the 2000s.

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 4/9

All New X-Men #25
Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: David Marquez & many others

Issue 25 has often felt like an artificial anniversary issue to me. "hey, look, we're a quarter of the way to issue one hundred! Good for us!" Then again, in a day where there are next to no books on the rack from the big two anywhere near issue one hundred, maybe it means more now. But All-New X-Men takes that anniversary issue and does something very cool with it. A mysterious figure confronts Hank McCoy, the Beast, in his bedroom, and spends the entire issue giving him glimpses of possible futures he has either created or destroyed by bringing the original X-Men to the present. Each of these possible futures is illustrated by a different artist, and holy cow are there some great artists! Bruce Timm does two pages of Jean Grey, one a montage of her past and one a dark future. David Mack draws the fall of Cyclops, Skottie Young a Monster Iceman, and Art Adams a feral Beast. JG Jones draws a beautiful two page spread of a much more optimistic future, and Jill Thompson gives us some X-Women in space. Two of the indy creators involved did two of my favorite pieces: Maris Wicks provides a two page history of the Colossus/Kitty Pryde relationship from its beginning to its inevitable end, and Jason Shiga draws "Scott + Logan: BFFs Forever," which is as funny as it sounds. There are far more creators involved for me to list them all, but each provide something different. Plus, despite me thinking that there's more to the end of the issue than meets the eye, it seems the cosmos is showing up at Hank McCoy's bedside to just call him a jackass, so the Marvel Universe itself agrees with my current assessment of the character, so I feel pretty good about that.

Batman: Eternal #1
Story: Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV
Art: Jason Fabok

It's been a few years since DC did one of its weekly comics (Trinity would technically be the last one, but the biweekly schedules for Brightest Day and Justice League: Generation Lost made them an ad hoc weekly following up Blackest Night), and within the next couple months we'll be getting two. The first is the one I've been excited for, Batman: Eternal, a series that looks to change the face of Gotham as we know it. If the first page is to be believed, it will. After page one, which shows a broken Batman in a ravaged Gotham, we flashback to the present, where we see Jason Bard arrive in Gotham. If you know Jason Bard,well, good for you, for the rest of you, well, he's an old school Batman supporting cast member, former boyfriend of Barbara Gordon and Batman's day man from the "One Year Later" era (this was set up but rarely used after that, which was a shame). We see that corruption in the GCPD is not exactly a thing of the past in Gordon's regime, and then we get a fun action scene with Jim Gordon and Batman fighting Professor Pyg. But things go horribly wrong pretty quickly, and by issue's end, Gordon has seemingly caused a major tragedy and has been arrested. But clearly there is far more to this than meets the eye. This issue does a great job to set up the series, and gives the reader a view of Gotham from the eyes of a newcomer.  I know a weekly series is a major investment, of time, of money, of space. But if the rest of the series keeps up the quality of the first issue, this is going to be an action packed Batman ride, and well worth fifty two weeks of my time, and yours.

Now I have a question to you, my loyal readers, one I probably should have asked last week: Who would like to see weekly, in depth analysis of Batman: Eternal? Page by page analysis with references to appearing characters and plot as the series builds? If you want that, let me know in the comments section.

Lumberjanes #1
Story: Noelle Stevenson & Grace Ellis
Art: Brooke Allen

Lumberjanes is one of those books that you want to describe with a cutesy little comparison to two other things, in this case Buffy the Vampire Slayer goes to summer camp. But the good thing about this book is its clearly more than just someone who took two ideas and squeezed them together. A group of girls are away at Lumberjane Camp for the summer, and by the end of the first issue have fought kitsune (three eyed Japanese fox creatures), seen a bear woman, and been yelled at by the girl in charge of their bunk. Mal, Molly, April, Ripley, and Jo each get a moment or two that helps us understand who they are, from Ripley's charging into battle hellbound for leather, or April's taking notes on the surroundings and the creatures. After Jen, their councilor, catches them coming in after hours, they get brought to the head of the camp, Rosie, who resembles a famous historical character of the same name. Clearly she knows something about the surrounding woods that the councilors don't, and she warms the girls that there's more out there than what they'd expect. It's a story about friendship, and while we don't get a lot of plot momentum, other than what seems to be set up, the set up and the characters are charming. It's another great all ages book, something I'm always looking for, and one that has  a strong female cast, which as the uncle of nine and six year old nieces is a big plus. While the mystery of what's going on in the woods and the cryptic words of the kitsune and interesting, I have a feeling it's the characters that are going to keep readers coming back for more.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/30

Five Ghosts #6
Story: Frank J Barbiere
Art: Garry Brown

After a few months off after the initial arc, Five Ghosts is back with a tidy and fun little one off. Fabian Gray travels to Japan to answer a summons from an old flame of his, to aid her in stopping a clan that is moving in on her family's lands, and to retrieve a mythic sword, the sword of Masamune, which she tells him is made from the same Dreamstone material that gave Fabian his own unique powers. It's a story of samurai action, with beautifully choreographed fight scenes, betrayal, and Fabian using his powers in some cool ways. It's cool to see more about Fabian's backstory; at one point he gets out of a trap that was crafted to stop him from summoning the ghosts that grant him his abilities, and he points out that he was the world's greatest thief before any of that happened. Little bits like that add to Fabian as a character and make him more well rounded than just being a vehicle for the stuff that happens when he calls one fo the ghosts. Artists garry Brown fills in for regular artist Chris Mooneyham, and does an admirable job of it. His style is different than Mooneyham's, but still creates a great pulp atmosphere. If you haven't tried Five Ghosts yet, this is a perfect issue to try out, and if you're a fan of the pulp atmosphere, you'd be doing yourself a favor.

 

 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy #8
Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: Francesco Francavilla

Guardians of the Galaxy has been a pleasant surprise since its reboot. I was a very big fan of the last incarnation of the book, the one written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, and featuring a sprawling cast that included most of the current members, plus a bunch of others, including Adam Warlock, my favorite Marvel character of all time, and Cosmo, a telepathic Russian dog. So the streamlined team was a worry, since I felt one of the things that I enjoyed about the last series was all the different relationships; although the new series did still include Peter Quill, Starlord, a character Abnett and Lanning spent a lot of time fleshing out, cosmic mainstays Drax and Gamora, and fan favorites Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The stories so far have been fun, and the characters read like themselves, if slightly Bendis-ized versions. This issue begins Guardians' crossover with Marvel's big Summer/Fall event, Infinity. The main Infinity series has been ok, if a bit lacking in focus in my opinionso it's nice to see a crossover that has a nice tight focus. The Guardians have been contacted by Abagail Brand, the head of SWORD, the Earth organization in charge of dealing with extraterrestrial incursion, asking for them to free her from Thanos's forces on The Peak, the Sword space station headquarters. There's some great action scenes, as Starlord and Rocket infiltrate the Peak, free Brand, and go to try to retake the station. But the highlight of the issue is some great character work at the beginning. With Thanos making trouble again, Gamora, who was raised by Thanos, confronts Starlord and Drax about exactly how Thanos and Starlord escaped being trapped in a collapsed dimensions together, and how Drax is alive again. She gets little answer, and Gamora's anger at Starlord, and her own decision to go storming off to confront the father figure who has haunted her for her entire adult life, not to mention killed her on at least once occasion, does a lot to further develop her character and the reactions of the others helps flesh them out. Add the usual incredible art by the busiest man in comics, Francesco Francavilla, who draws a particularly great Rocket Raccoon, and you have a book that is living up to it's concept and its pedigree.

Itty Bitty Hellboy #3
Story & Art: Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani

If only every comic could get Itty Bitty, I think we'd have much happier fans. After Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures, I didn't expect Art and Franco would next move to the macabre world of Mike Mignola's Hellboy, but not terribly surprising, it's still a joyful and amusing romp. Every issue is packed with humor and fun little character beats. This month's issue of Itty Bitty Hellboy opens with Hellboy preparing his favorite dish, pancakes (or "pamcakes" as he calls them, which readers of regular Hellboy comics know saved him from becoming evil), with the help of Liz Sherman's fire powers. Hellboy gets Baba Yaga to make one of his pancakes gigantic using her magic, and before you know it, everyone is asking Baba to make something huge. She banishes Hellboy and his friends to Hades, and the demons rally around Hellboy, only to have him use his pamcake making skills to keep them from destroying Earth. Lobster Johnson and Lobster Smith, his pet Lobster, dig their way out to try to help the world. And Roger the Homunculus finds a little love with Baba Yaga and Hecate. I can't really do the issue justice, since so much of it is about the punchline to the wonderful set-ups Art and Franco come up with, and the adorable visuals. I've said something like this with eveything I've ever reviewed by Art and Franco, but if you're looking for a change of pace from the usually grim and grity comics of today, you couldn't do better than trying out Itty Bitty Hellboy.

The Sandman: Overture #1
Story: Neil Gaiman
Art: JH Williams III

I wish I could type an approximation of a squeal of delight, because that would be the only thing that could do this wonderful comic justice. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman is one of the touchstone comics of the modern age and possibly of all time, and it is my favorite piece of longform graphic storytelling.  New work from Neil Gaiman is something I always look forward to, and this past year has been an embarrassment of riches, between The Ocean at the End of the Lane, his first novel for adults in years, two new childrens' books, Chu's Day and Fortunately the Milk, and now a return to the world of the Endless, with a story set before the first issue of The Sandman. Dream, or Morpheus if you'd rather, the protagonist of The Sandman, appears in this issue as he did in the many flashbacks that took place before his imprisonment in the first issue of the series; he is imperious, cold, and callous, something made clear in his tone when addressing Lucien, the librarian of dreams, a character who is a loyal retainer who Dream dismisses with barely an acknowledgment. The tone of Dream is chilling, as he prepares for war, something we saw a couple times over the course of The Sandman, and any reader familiar with it knows this can only mean trouble. Gaiman has lost none of his feeling for the characters that we know and love from The Sandman. It's interesting to see the Corinthian, the nightmare serial killer with mouths for eyes, again, and to see exactly what made him slip out of the Dreaming and into the waking world in the time of Dream's imprisonment. We also meet some new characters, including George Portcullis, a dreamer who manages Dream's London office, and Gaiman uses him to demonstrate the malleability of identity in dreams; identity was one of the themes often played with in Sandman. The final pages reveal something about the Endless and Dream that will hopefully be as surprising to the reader as it is to Dream himself.

Gaiman has often said he writes for his artists when he is working on a comics projects, playing to their strengths, and this issue is a perfect example of that. I've loved JH Williams III's work since Chase in the 90s, and his work has grown exponentially over the years, and this issue is a masterpiece. His use of nearly entirely two page spreads, his frightful Corinthian, the alien world at the beginning of he issue and it's population of sentient flowers, are all drawn in exquisite detail. Williams draws a Death who is especially beautiful, and the soft look he gives her stands in sharp contrast to the harsher lines he uses to draw her darker brother, Dream. The issue is a feast for the eyes, and I hope that the eventual collection is in landscape format to allow the art to be appreciated in its entirety by those who want to read the story in that format. When a creator returns to a legendary work there's always the concern they will have lost whatever it was that made that work something special. I am glad to say none of the magic that made Sandman has been lost over the intervening years; go, read it, and plesant dreams.

Reviews of Comics From Wednesday 8/7

All-New X-Men #15
Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: David Lafuente

I admit freely, I was a major skeptic when Brian Michael Bendis's young original X-Men time travel All-New X-Men was announced. What didn't occur to me was that the best thing Bendis has ever written that wasn't crime comics was Ultimate Spider-Man, a book that wonderfully portrayed teenage heroes and teenage life in general. So now that the young original X-Men have settled in, its time for an issue that is really just about the kids being teenagers. While Scott and Bobby go out for an afternoon at the local street fair, Jean spends some time with the Beasts, both young and old. The scenes with Scott and Bobby are cute, with the two of them having a little time travel anxiety and then young Scott dealing with the fame of his older self, as well as meeting girls who don't think mutants are a bad thing. Bobby is light and glib, Scott is awkward and brooding. Bendis has the voices of these characters down pat. But more interesting and even better written are the scenes with Jean. Jean has been discovering her expanded powers, and her lack of control of her telepathy reveals something about Hank McCoy the elder, remembering the crush he had on Jean when he was her age. So Jean goes to young Hank, and the two of them share a moment. But that moment isn't exactly what it seems, as Jean returns to her room to look at an element of her future. Jean's time with Hank seems to be as much about denying the darkness of the future they see as anything else, a future made all too clear by her running into Rachel Grey. David Lafuente does a great job with all of this issue, but the scenes with Rachel and Jean are pure gold, drawn with a bit of wit and some sadness as they both deal with something they never thought they would. With the "Battle of the Atom" crossover set to begin next month, this is a calm before the storm for the young X-Men, let's hope they all survive the experience.

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #9
Story: Brian Clevinger
Art: Ryan Cody & Leela Wagner

The second Real Science Adventures arc continues, introducing more of the legendary heroes of the late 19th century into the war with the Black Coats. This issue we meet the amusingly Mulder-esque Charles Fort, father of paranormal investigation, Secret Service Agent Winfield-Scott Lovecraft (yes, father of THAT Lovecraft), and master escapologist Ehrie Weiss, better known as Harry Houdini. The three of them are investigating Swamp Men, something Fort believes in entirely, but instead stumble across the Black Coats, the soldiers of the cabal Tesla and his allies have been fighting the past couple issues. Houdini and Lovecraft are men of action, and artists Cody and Wagner do a great job of drawing them ducking, avoiding, and fighting the Black Coats. Meanwhile, the bookish Fort stands opposed to them, hoping to find some non-action way out of their predicament, to no avail. In the end, with the information they have gleaned, Fort comes up with an... interesting theory as to what the Black Coats are up to, as Tesla enters the scene. While Atomic Robo himself doesn't appear in this arc, Brian Clevinger has kept all the action and fun that makes Robo one of the best books on the rack, while adding the additional fun of this alternate history.