Roger Stern Reassembles The Avengers!

While I stopped reading new comics from Marvel well before 2019, I couldn't resist the temptation to take a look at a one-shot issue published that year during the company's 80th anniversary celebration--reuniting one of its most popular super-team titles with one of its most distinguished writers, while fulfilling its anniversary obligation by dealing in the very adversary responsible for the team's creation.

By this time, over thirty-two years had passed since writer Roger Stern had left The Avengers due to a dispute with Editor Mark Gruenwald over the book's direction; and so it's perhaps understandable if this scripting assignment for the sake of commemorating a well-publicized anniversary comes across as rather belated. Jude Terror, writing for Bleeding Cool, is less tactful in his own assessment, though he makes a fair point:

"... one might be tempted to wonder how much Marvel really respects creators who helped build their universe, like Stern, or Chris Claremont, for example, when they only trot them out for one-shots like this rather than actually use their talents to create comics on a regular basis. But lofty questions like that are outside of the scope of this press release, we suppose. Besides, it's not like Marvel publishes 118 new comics in a single month or anything, so there just aren't that many slots open for the industry's legends to take up... oh, wait, they did publish exactly 118 comics in May. Hmmm. Well, beats the @#$% out of us then."

At any rate, Stern, now in his late 60s, turns in some nice work in this thirty-page tale--picking things up directly after the siege of Avengers Mansion by the Masters of Evil, as the Avengers literally begin to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. Joining Stern is artist Ron Lim, who has adapted his style to reflect Marvel's across-the-board preference for character appearance that has left the work of greats like John Buscema, Neal Adams, John Romita, et al. far behind in favor of a more inviting "kid-friendly" look (there's no other way to put it)--perhaps not so much a stretch for Lim, whose style in the '80s and '90s wasn't far removed.

As we turn the page, the story opens as it did in the fall of 1963, with the scheming of Loki, the god of mischief and evil--in this case, searching for new sources of power, with his wife, Sigyn, at his side, hoping to be of help. As for the Avengers, they haven't the luxury of such diversions, having suffered a brutal battle that has gutted their mansion headquarters and left casualties in its wake--leaving four of their original members to convene and assess their situation.

The Party With Punch

OR:

Today the PPC takes the rest of the year off to enjoy the holidays--
we'll see you back here in 2020!

Wishing You the Joys of the Holiday Season
from
The Peerless Power of Comics!

Fantastic Wannabes

During the time the Fantastic Four comic was preparing to enter a strange and perplexing cycle of reboots and numbering shifts, we began seeing a few other titles assume the mantle of the FF and borrow the concept of the famous foursome to launch their own spin-off series--a move which probably served to call attention to the pervasive feeling that the regular FF title was losing the unique spark that had made the team resonate with its readership. We'd already seen instances of occasional lineup changes which shook things up a bit--and there was even an informal foursome of replacement FF members who stepped in while the real McCoys were out of action, a grouping that had me wondering what writer Walt Simonson and editor Ralph Macchio had been smoking the night before.

But it was quite another matter to launch a different title and bank on another foursome to earn its own following while the future of the original title seemed so uncertain. The ones that happen to come to mind happen to come to four in all (though feel free to chime in if you recall others), each taking its cue from the original FF in some capacity but naturally making an honest effort to stand on their own merits. The following profiles should give you a good rundown on them.

Fantastic Force (1994)
Members: Psi-Lord, Huntara, Vibraxas, Devlor

Following the conclusion of the Dark Raider story, the Fantastic Four basically splits up to the extent that there's really no team to speak of. Reed Richards is missing and presumed dead; Sue Richards believes otherwise and leaves to search for him; and Johnny Storm, preoccupied with his own mortality, angrily exits the team to chart his own course. Ben Grimm, presumably, will mind the store (though, in his boredom, let's hope he sticks to all-night poker games with his buds and stays clear of that time machine).

Psi-Lord (the result of Franklin Richards being abducted to the future as a child and returning to his own time as a young man), with the assistance of the Black Panther, motivates Huntara (his aunt from the future), Vibraxas (the Panther's charge whom he feels needs training), and the Inhuman named Devlor to take up where the FF left off and continue their legacy.

Fantastic Force had a surprising run of eighteen issues, disbanding after Reed was found alive and Franklin thereafter restored to childhood. The group reformed briefly under the Panther in order to battle constructs of Onslaught.

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Fantastic Five (1999)
Members:

The FF of the MarvelComics2 universe sees the return of Psi-Lord to the group, this time having aged at a natural rate--while Big Brain will probably have you thinking of Reed's disembodied brain from a late 1977 What If tale. Yet in this formation it's the Torch who leads the team, thanks to a mysterious incident from the past where the FF lost both Reed and Sue, and the only link to Reed is a hovering invention that appears to hold his mind.

But the mystery deepens at the conclusion of the first issue, when the metal form of Big Brain is destroyed and it's revealed that it was empty and controlled remotely--by a seemingly alive Mr. Fantastic.

Fantastic Five ran for--you guessed it--only five issues.

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But eight years later...

Fantastic Five (2007)
Members: Ms. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing, Kristoff, Psi-Lord

The mystery of their disappearance solved in the prior series, Reed and Sue are also members of the group and apparently none the worse for wear, while the super-powered children of the Thing and the Torch train to become additional members.

Yet they won't get the chance to debate a new number for their uniforms, if Doctor Doom has anything to say about it. Held prisoner by the Sub-Mariner for over a decade, Doom escapes with a vengeance and regains the cosmic power he once stole from the Silver Surfer, wasting no time in beginning a vicious attack on the entire group in a power play that will see him realize his goal of conquering the world.

It's rather startling artwork by penciler Ron Lim, whose style has become very different and noticeably more dynamic in the fifteen-plus years since his work on the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War series. Writer Tom DeFalco also gives us an impeccable Doom, every bit the FF foe we remember.

Another five-issue run for the book, though this time the company has the good sense to bill it as a limited series.

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Fantastic Force (2009)
Members: The Hooded Man, Lightwave, Banner Jr., Alex Ultron, Natalie X, Psionics

Dusting off the 1994 name, the New Defenders from the future travel back with the refugees of a dying Earth to find haven on the engineered planet of Nu-World, thanks to the current-day Fantastic Four.

Nu-World isn't quite the paradise that was promised--its co-creator, Ted Castle, teaming up with the insane Earth spirit Gaea and no less than Ego the Living Planet to take revenge on the fleeing population.

Only four issues for the Force (though its first issue promises five), another limited series designation that was probably a good idea. (For what it's worth, I really liked their logo update.)

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BONUS!

This rates its own review, don't you think? Come on, you're begging for it!

Omnipotent Chip Off The Old Block

On the heels of the PPC's look at The Infinity Gauntlet, where first a coalition of super-beings of Earth fell to the power of Thanos, followed by his defeat of some of the mightiest entities of the cosmos, it appeared that Thanos considered himself triumphant, having bested no less than the being known as Eternity and adopting that status for himself.

The physical and now vacant form of Thanos that remains seated on the shrine to Death that served as his floating base in the void is flanked by those who have watched his literal ascendance to power: Eros, his brother, rendered mute; Terraxia, totally devoted to Thanos, created from thin air by the power of the gauntlet in response to Death spurning him; and Nebula, his supposed granddaughter, made to serve as another tribute to Death--transformed from a healthy, vigorous woman to a walking corpse, nearly mindless and in constant agony. "Triumphant" is admittedly an assessment that's hard to argue for Thanos at this point.

But if that's so, then how do we explain the series' climactic sixth and final cover?

It seems that Nebula's fortunes have changed.

For Death I Stand!

The Infinity Gauntlet, a six-issue series from mid-1991, was the main event in a crossover of comics titles coordinated to return the evil Thanos of Titan to the land of the living after an absence of over a decade. At first glance, the gauntlet represents another grab at ultimate power by Thanos, who has already failed once in such an attempt and whose follow-up scheme, though less in scope (if you can call committing "stellar genocide" by destroying all the stars in the universe a downgrade), eventually led to his death at the searing hands of Warlock. And by the time this new series reaches its end, it acknowledges and virtually sets in stone the underlying reason for why such power plays fail, in both the past and the future: that Thanos subconsciously supplies the means to his own defeat because he knows that he isn't worthy of such power. While that may be a handy rationale to call on when Thanos's scheme du jour has played itself out and it's time for the hero(es) to triumph, it doesn't really suit this being who has been made to be so ruthless and murderous. One doesn't usually go to such lengths to attain ultimate power, only to toss in the towel after achieving it.

As a result, arguably only two things of significance occur in this series. As far as the primary conflict, Nebula--the granddaughter of Thanos^* who's certainly power-hungry in her own right--turns the tables on Thanos and emerges as the main threat. But in addition, Warlock as well is brought back from the dead (but not quite dead), groomed to make the transition to his own series on the heels of this one, a series based on the Infinity Gems. Dealt in as window dressing are not only a host of Marvel characters gathered to lead the charge against Thanos, but also a number of prominent universal abstract entities and cosmic beings that naturally rate an issue of their own to confront and battle the Titan. Present also is the silent but (appropriately) deadly personification of Death, again a fixture in the motivations of Thanos.

^*Let's not take the time to examine that family tree for now--but we'll take a crack at it one of these days!

It turns out to be Death itself that, strangely enough, is responsible for returning Thanos to life, with the series essentially breaking down thus:

• The Silver Surfer warns Dr. Strange of the return of Thanos, due to Death having done a little arithmetic and determining that a cosmic imbalance exists because a greater ratio of people now alive exists over those who have ever died. Thanos immediately comes to mind for Death as a way to correct the imbalance, given his tendency and proficiency to cause mass destruction and (say it with me) death.
• Death augments Thanos's might and orders him to slaughter half the sentient population of the universe. Thanos agrees to comply, but has no intention of simply being Death's thrall. And so, unknown to Death...
• Thanos learns of the existence of the Infinity Gems and convinces Death that he cannot accomplish his task without them. Seizing them one by one, he attaches them all to a gauntlet, giving him mastery over... well, they're not called "infinity" gems for nothing. Together, they represent overwhelming might for the one who uses them.

• In a conflict with the Surfer and Drax the Destroyer, Thanos uses the soul gem to steal their souls and thus banish them to that gem's "world," where Warlock now resides. Warlock is able to eventually return them to their own reality.
• Mephisto (he does seem to have his hands in everything, doesn't he?) warns the Surfer of Thanos's plans, but also takes a position as Thanos's informal advisor. Meanwhile, the Surfer heads to Earth to alert Dr. Strange to the crisis.
• Thanos, in his acquisition of the gems, finds that he has alienated Death, since the Infinity gauntlet he insisted on creating to harness the gems' might makes him her superior. On the other hand, he's now motivated to carry out the mass deaths tasked to him as a way to win back her favor.
• Warlock and his friends, Gamora and Pip the troll, emerge from the soul world by appropriating and adapting human bodies recently involved in a fatal accident.

Once the ball gets rolling by the call to arms by Warlock and everyone getting briefed on Thanos's plans--and with the first salvo being fired by Thanos that fulfills his pact with Death, eliminating half the galaxy's population--the series reaches the point of presenting two battle-packed issues featuring those who would stop him.  The main event for readers of various Marvel titles, however, is probably the story where the super-powered beings that Warlock has called together arrive at the citadel in space that Thanos has created as a shrine to Death, part of a plan that will most likely see them meet their end.

Cover to Cover to Cover

We've already seen a sampling of the many wrap-around and fold-out covers offered by Marvel and its talented artists--yet there's a wealth of such material that's occasionally been tucked away on the sales rack, gems waiting to be discovered by readers who weren't expecting such a dividend in their comic book purchase. The real treat on these oversize covers, just as with many of their single-page counterparts, lies in the creative way that the artist chooses to convey the representation of characters--symbolic portrayals/collages of the content within, and perhaps one of the last few places to be found where word balloons are, thankfully, verboten.

Today, buyers of music lament the absence of the vinyl jacket with its oversized cover photography and/or artwork; and with the comic book, we've come to realize that when it comes to cover artwork which goes well beyond the cover, in no medium but print can you realize the instant gratification of extending a comics cover in your hands to find much more than first met your eye.

So in that spirit, let's take a look at a few more of these dazzling covers--digitally presented, but still a feast for the eyes.

Art by Kerry Gammill and Bob Layton

Full Coverage

The "wrap-around" cover is probably a tricky thing to pull off. Presumably, a comic wouldn't draw attention to having a wrap-around cover unless the editor felt that it would not only generate sales, but also measure up in terms of outstanding artwork. Since the second factor would normally be dependent on the work of the regular artist on the book, there would understandably be occasions when the cover fell short of the mark--which sort of defeats the purpose of wanting to increase sales. You're not going to sell the amount of books you'd hoped for if your buyers are passing on the book at the rack.

But if it's done well, the wrap-around cover can indeed be a sales tool, particularly in those instances where the company has built anticipation toward an event culminating in the issue in question. And as this trend continued, most of these covers were not only wrap-around, but became fold-out as well, which certainly provided the issue you were about to read with a little extra bounce right up front. If I'm not mistaken, Marvel's first publication with this kind of cover was with issue #1 of the new X-Men series which launched in 1991:

And talk about going overboard--this representation, in four sections, not only made its way to four different issues (each splitting up the full artwork by Jim Lee you see above into four different covers), but a fifth issue was made available which contained all the sections in a fold-out wrap-around. We'd later see this sales tool get out of hand with "variant" covers, which would publish copies of issues with completely different cover art and thus obscure the perception the X-Men launch conveyed that Marvel was coaxing the buyer to purchase an extra copy in order to get the full artwork. A moot difference between apples and oranges, to be sure. As a cowpoke might put it, "hell, it's the same dance--just a different tune."

In a nod to Lee's depiction, have a look at its Marvel Zombies counterpart by artist Arthur Suydam:

Unlike zombies, though, who usually herald the end, we're just getting started.