Return to Delta Vega!

 

With the PPC having done a write-up over seven years ago of the early voyages of the starship Enterprise and her crew as adapted by Marvel Comics, it's high time we followed up with Marvel's treatment of that ship's second captain and crew, in a crossover tale which featured some very unexpected guest-stars--the uncanny X-Men!

Scripted by Scott Lobdell with art by Marc Silvestri (et al., which is putting it mildly), 1996's Star Trek/X-Men throws together the many characters of both mediums in order to solve their mutual problem: how to seal a psionic rift in space, while also dealing with the threat of Gary Mitchell whose form and power have been usurped by the mutant known as Proteus. Throw in the Shi'ar, and you've got yourself a party.

"Day Of The Godslayer!"

 

The Avengers are in crisis mode! As was the case with Graviton, the Avengers again face a single individual who possesses enough power to swing a virtual scythe through their ranks and easily thwart their best efforts to take him down. Today, that individual turns out to be Count Nefaria, who in the past has employed the use of super-powered underlings to further his criminal agenda, but has now used technology to siphon the powers of the Living Laser, Whirlwind, and Power Man for himself while also increasing the strength of those powers a hundredfold. That translates, respectively, to being able to deploy massively powerful laser beams, speed which would make Quicksilver seem to be moving like molasses, and strength which allows him to topple skyscrapers with little more than a shrug. In short, the Avengers face the fight of their lives against Nefaria.

Already, in several engagements, Nefaria has defeated the Avengers decisively while emerging none the worse for wear; yet during a skirmish with the Whizzer, Nefaria was made aware of his own mortality, which has motivated him to seek out and face the thunder god, Thor, in order to force him to surrender his mystic hammer which Nefaria believes is the source of Thor's immortality. And as far as Nefaria is concerned, whether that surrender comes willingly or as a result of Thor's death is of little consequence.

For their part, the Avengers made it clear that they would not cooperate with their foe in summoning Thor to the scene, and battled on to yet another defeat. But in the midst of the carnage suddenly comes a sweeping, deadly barrage of lightning bolts which blanket Nefaria and visibly unnerve him--heralding the arrival, and the cry of vengeance, of the one Avenger who yet stands in defiance of him.

It's The Return Of The Lethal Legion! (it says here)

 
October of 1977 saw the Avengers sandwiched between two high points in writer Jim Shooter's handling of the team: the return of Ultron, who schemed (with the unwitting assistance of, of all people, Ant-Man) to use the life force of Janet Van Dyne to animate a robot bride for himself... and a life-or-death battle with Korvac, an alien from the future who sought to remake our reality, a struggle which nearly wiped out the entire team (along with Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and the Guardians of the Galaxy). Compared to those challenges, seeing the Avengers go up against losers like the refurbished Lethal Legion may not seem like much of a page-turner at first glance--but you may be surprised.

Get a good look at Whirlwind's exclamation on that cover--in this entire story, this trio will only be referred to as "the Lethal Legion" through narrative, and sparingly at that.  (And what's Whirlwind going on about, anyway? Your old group was the Masters of Evil, bub!)

As long as we're stretching the concept of another Lethal Legion being back in business, there's the matter of a new ringleader to take the Grim Reaper's place--a classic villain who has hit the skids since taking part in an abortive scheme that cost the life of an X-Man, but now seeks to remedy his standing by once again employing underlings to do his bidding.  Only this time, he'll be making use of them far more extensively than they can know.

A Town Besieged--An Aunt Revealed!

 

Eight issues into writer/artist John Byrne's distinguished run on Fantastic Four, early 1982's off-the-radar "Wendy's Friends" could be described as a middle-of-the-road tale, one of a number of such stories that Byrne would craft for the team which moved events forward for them but otherwise had nothing sensational to offer beyond what you'd ordinarily find the FF dealing with on an ordinary day when no current or imminent threat was preoccupying their time. (Though "ordinary" is certainly subjective when it involves the Fantastic Four.) That description is by no means a disparagement, as Byrne's writing generally reflects patience combined with an effort to establish characterization--and here you'll find the threat du jour folded into that, rather than the other way around, which can often be an interesting change of pace.

And so the FF not only encounter in this issue a mysterious danger that neither they nor its victims can comprehend, but also elements of their past and present--particularly in relation to Ben Grimm, the Thing, who has recently been dealt a setback in regard to an attempt by Reed Richards to return him to his human form. But Ben is also closely linked to the "unexpected guest-star" who is heralded on the issue's dramatic cover--though from the look of things, the FF will soon have other pressing matters on their plate.

 

The Perplexing Pivoting of Thunderbolts and Black Panther

 

In early 2003, when my interest in comics collecting was beginning to wane, there were two series which were also coincidentally drawing to a close, yet titles that I'd enjoyed investing time in--Thunderbolts (which a friend had recommended to me--thanks, Jai!), and Black Panther, helmed by writer Christopher Priest (as simply "Priest" in the credits) who took the series all the way to the finish line in an impressive five-year run. Thunderbolts, running a year longer, was begun by Kurt Busiek, though Fabian Nicieza would pick it up with issue #34 and bring it to with arm's reach of the point of its hiatus*--that is, in terms of the Thunderbolts characters that Nicieza had scripted.

*For our purposes, we need only focus on the title's issues numbering 1-81. Like other books at this time, Thunderbolts had to navigate its own "disassembling" and consequently ended up with a fragmented run in terms of its issue numbering. Following issue #81 in September of 2003, the series picks up again with #82 in January of 2005 for an 18-issue stretch, though renumbered as issues 1-18 and "ending" in April of 2006--at which point the numbering shifts again with the next month's issue (#100, May 2006) and continuing on.

And it's at that point that Thunderbolts took a detour into the bizarre.

Each of these series would for all intents and purposes come to a screeching halt in terms of the book and character(s) which the reader might have been expecting to find after tendering $2.25-$2.50. The latter price applied to the Black Panther mag, though you'd think T'Challa could do without a 25¢ markup; think of that quarter going toward an extra page that provided a heads-up as to what you'd find in the book's next issue, if woefully short on details.

What we can at least infer from these endorsements is that Priest would continue as the book's writer, albeit with a different art team--and that whatever material that would be coming our way will be part of a story arc, which Priest admittedly handles quite well. As for whether Priest will be writing the character you know as the Black Panther--well, after a glance at the issue's cover and title page, you tell me.

Not enough here for you to make up your mind? Fair enough--how about a couple of more covers? Most of them will look the same, with variations, but essentially bringing you the BLAM BLAM BLAM Black Panther.

As for Thunderbolts, which didn't give an inkling of its next issue's content or direction, we find that its story format has been radically altered, its masthead virtually hijacked, and, wait for it... NO THUNDERBOLTS.

To make things even more perplexing, Marvel's digital copy of this first issue substitutes the previous issue's page one--though both print and digital issues feature a lone caption on the cover that presumably seeks to soften the blow for the Thunderbolts reader who might have been expecting (say it with me) a Thunderbolts story.

As to the new format, your first assumption here going in might be that some or all of the characters in this six-issue story would eventually become "the new Thunderbolts" that Page One is announcing--some of whom, like their predecessors, are super-villains looking to put their criminal past behind them. (In this case, the reason mainly due to having had too many run-ins with Spider-Man--Man-Killer, for instance, who receives more focus here than in most of her previous appearances.) But other than that loose association with the original concept for the Thunderbolts, you won't find the word itself mentioned in a single panel of the entire story, though we come tantalizingly close when Man-Killer, the Scorpion, and his companion Delilah meet with the story's principal character, Daniel Axum (the Battler), to join them in getting revenge on Spider-Man.

Given separate developments that take place involving Axum and Man-Killer, however, nothing really comes of this conversation, while Gargan and Delilah soon wind up captured by Spider-Man. Through it all, the book appears to depend on its cheesecake covers and tabloid format to tempt more readers, some of whom no doubt are wondering what the heck any of this has to do with the Thunderbolts.

(A clever play on words as far as the captions for issue #81's cover, which collectively appear to wonder if anyone was still reading Thunderbolts by the time this final issue of the story hit the stands.)

All of that said, the main story with Axum is a decent read, courtesy of writer John Arcudi, with the character's affirmation arriving in the final issue at the point where he's tempted to throw in with Gargan, Man-Killer, and Delilah, until a conversation he has with the Armadillo--now derelict after Axum defeated him and took his place in an underground fight league--reminds him indirectly of why he wanted to stick to the straight and narrow after Spider-Man put him in prison for three years.

As for Black Panther, while there are allusions to and sparse appearances by T'Challa whose role here is cloaked in mystery, the story arc's protagonist is Kasper Cole, who lives with his mother and his pregnant girlfriend in Harlem where we find him at loose ends while suspended for five days from the police force--but, after finding the Panther costume in an alley, decides to don it for its bulletproof protection and go out at night anonymously to do police business. The "hook" that Priest provides which is likely meant to pique the reader's interest in this new Panther, and in the story in general, takes place when Cole encounters the White Wolf (or, rather, the other way around), and an explanation of sorts is forthcoming.

Whether or not the "don't miss it" collective vibe of Messrs. Almond, Raicht, Marts, and Ms. Suma or the stamp of approval from Mr. Busiek was enough to sway you toward sitting down with these stories is something which you'll hopefully share, as well as whether or not those efforts panned out for you. For myself, I must admit to originally picking up just the first two issues of the Thunderbolts story before removing it from my pull list, though I was obliged to finish it at long last for the purpose of this review. The Black Panther story, however, I stuck with from start to finish, and was generally satisfied at the time with how Priest handled it--though I would say that it may be suited to more of a Masterworks or TPB presentation which allows the reader to binge through it rather than experience a lag between issues where one doesn't necessarily recall the pieces of the puzzle which Priest has supplied throughout. For those of us who read these issues when they were published in 2003, the decision to release the last six issues on a biweekly schedule turned out to be a big help in that regard.

The X-Men Review Heard 'Round The Newsgroup!

 

Comics readers who were just getting their feet wet with the Internet as early as the late 1980s and early 1990s may well recall its popular discussion forum, Usenet, which actually had its beginning several years prior but hit its stride when its "newsgroups" were embraced and expanded upon as more and more of the general public found their way onto "the World Wide Web." In time, those groups would migrate to various websites which continue to host them; but until then, they managed to thrive in all their no-frills Unix glory--screens and screens of unformatted text on your monitor, vibrant and active with the wit and thoughts of countless contributors who took an interest in any of the wide variety of categories and topics one could choose from.

Depending on how prolific you were in your writing and how engaged you were in this medium, a benefit of browsing through Usenet newsgroups was encountering those who stood out in this unique crowd and became anchors of a sort in whatever sub-categories you frequented in Usenet's many-branched tree. One of those individuals whose entries I often enjoyed during that time was David R. Henry, a man then in his late 20s (about ten years younger than myself) who originated the "xbooks" group embedded in alt.rec.arts.comics (an example of the tree-like nomenclature of newsgroups) and whose comics reviews were frank, sarcastic, incisive, and delightfully riveting, while at times unsparing in his blunt observations when warranted. In the case of Marvel Comics, the stories that were churned out in the mid-'90s were arguably deserving of that bluntness, the company's financially floundering ship seemingly rudderless in terms of the questionable quality of its stories produced during this time.

Yet rather than damning, Henry included a combination of sarcasm and humor to make his points--good ones, at that--and more often than not you would find that those points were often right on target. Below, you'll get a chance to determine that for yourself concerning one particular X-Men issue: Henry's review of X-Men Unlimited #4 from March 1994, an article in my memories now for over 25 years and of course by this time reproduced in a number of outlets on the web. Only this time, you'll find included selected images from the issue, which were not allowed in the original postings of Usenet but which will serve here to highlight Henry's descriptions of the story's content. (Though I believe you'll agree that Henry's adeptness in that regard is far from lacking!)

Going in, you might also bear in mind that, until companies such as AOL, CompuServe, et al. came along and offered their own forums (to say nothing of third-party message boards), Usenet's newsgroups were the go-to destination for online discourse by not only those who sought a niche in which to air their opinions, but also those who were the very talent behind the books, shows, and films that were being bandied back and forth in postings. As such, there was good reason for these newsgroups to establish a character or line limit to individual posts, since many users hadn't yet found the value of brevity in their writings. Such will prove to be the case with Henry's mixture of diatribe and humor here, which, as many of us can attest to from our own writings from our 20s, had yet to evolve to a more concise approach.

Yet Henry's article is quite a read as is*--and overall, hopefully an enjoyable one which provides a glimpse of what it may have been like to be a Marvel reader in 1994, come hell or high water.

*A few minor misspellings have been corrected.

---

X-Men Unlimited #4

"Theories of Relativity"

Writer: Scott Lobdell, blowing his good will to pieces
Pencils: Richard Bennett
Inks: Steve Moncuse
Colors: Glynis Oliver, a ray of hope in the darkness
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Kelly Coverse, under BOB/Tom

I am really getting tired of stupid villains.

That may seem like a strange thing to say in a X-Man newsgroup. Because, yeah, I know -- this isn't Cerebus. This isn't Grendel. This isn't some high-falutin' alternative rant on the power structure of the dispossessed. It's a superhero comic, dealing with bad guys with silly names parading around in capes and being beat senseless by strong-jawed good guys. Okay, fine, I accept that. When I read a X-Man comic, even though I know it could be more, I know the current target ideal for Marvel isn't the high standards of Sandman, or From Hell, or what have you. It's to provide a little bit of social commentary disguised as a rousing conflict between Evil and Good. Fine. Accepted.

With all of that, nothing of the above automatically disqualifies any of these minor, inconvenient plot points:

--Believable characterization

--Lucid plots

--Intelligent villains played intelligently (dumb ones should be dumb, of course, but just perhaps we should be able to tell the difference, right?)

--Good storytelling.

There. All I ask for from any story, be it a campfire ghostly-ghoulie, a comic book, a movie, or what have you. Those four things. Actually, just the last thing. The others are the candy that shapes the cake, if you will. The force behind the hammer. The columns under the roof. And so on.

Now we come to X-Men Unlimited #4.

[pause while there is a deep, weeping intake of breath]

The Travesty Of Vengeance

 

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

Cry Dentist!

 

A few weeks ago, alert PPC reader M.P. made an interesting observation of how artists will at times exaggerate a villain's facial features, specifically their mouths and teeth (as seen in a related post).

Well, you didn't expect me to leave a carrot like that dangling in front of me, did you?

Or, as Captain Axis might put it:

The New Fantastic Four!

 

OR: "Enter... Wonder Wizard!"


If you were one of those readers who knew of the inventive genius of the Wizard mostly from his attempts to defeat the Human Torch, you were likely taken aback by the makeover he received in both costume and a greater emphasis on his anti-grav technology when he assumed a new role as the leader of the Frightful Four. But once the original lineup of "the evil F.F." had run its course, you probably found yourself equally surprised when the Wizard, courtesy of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, finally made it into the big leagues as a super-villain in his own right--and all because of a pair of "wondrous" gloves which made him a match for the entire Fantastic Four.

At least that's what we're left to assume at first glance, given that the Wizard doesn't exactly put his gloves through a gamut of testing here in his lab before taking off for the Baxter Building (though now being able to down the Thing with one punch goes a long way towards instilling confidence). But when the Wizard reaches his foes, he indeed makes an impressive showing of his gloves' offensive and defensive capabilities, while having the good fortune of catching the team while two of its members are indisposed--nor does Reed Richards help the situation by overlooking an entry point in their roof that it seems anyone can just slip through without triggering a single alarm.

Describing the Wizard as a powerhouse is a fair assessment at this point, having successfully carried out his attack against the FF and poised to deliver the coup de grâce. But the Torch, rejoining the fight, goes on to maneuver his foe into dropping into a giant centrifuge tank which renders him unconscious, long enough to nullify his threat by removing his multi-powered gloves. Unfortunately, the Torch stops short of securing the Wizard for captivity--and he leaves as unhindered as he arrived.

Having taken the FF's measure, the Wizard remains free to fight another day--but by the time he returns, the FF will have restored their ranks in a historic issue that sees the team induct their first replacement!

The Voice Of Freedom!

Any Fantastic Four reader who's familiar with the Great Refuge of the Inhumans more than likely knows of the Great Barrier, the impenetrable dome which covered the Refuge shortly after their discovery by the FF and essentially imprisoned their entire population thanks to a last-ditch power play by Maximus, the mad (and power-mad) brother of their ruler, Black Bolt. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four were able to destroy the barrier, and...

...what's that, you say? What do you mean the FF had nothing to do with the barrier's destruction? Would you believe it if you heard it straight from Mr. Fantastic himself, while on a later mission to the Refuge?

Now what do you say, scoffers?

All kidding aside, yes, regrettably we all must beg to differ with Reed and tell the man that he may have developed a touch of senility he's dead wrong on this point. (Keep in mind that this is also the same man who claimed it was newspaper reporters who gave him the name of "Mr. Fantastic.") We also should THWAP both the Thing and the Torch for keeping mum on the subject and not calling the mistake to his attention, though they were in a hurry to rescue Johnny's girlfriend, Crystal, and probably didn't want to see Reed go into one of his long-winded explanations. As we've seen, the FF were far from the Himalayas at the time of the barrier's destruction, fighting for their lives in the vicinity of Latveria.

But for what it's worth, there were several people who were working on the problem of bringing down the barrier, Reed included--and in a brief recap of the year's worth of scenes between 1966 and 1967 which detailed those efforts, we'll see who tried, who failed, and who finally succeeded in freeing the Inhumans so they could take their first steps toward rejoining the human race.

Though that story's climactic cover gives us a good idea of who finally did the deed.
(And it wasn't your group, Reed!)