Marvel Universe

[arnaky]

You shouldn't read Silver Sable. When he kills Donatello, you're going to be so pissed at how badly it's handled.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

You shouldn't read Silver Sable. When he kills Donatello, you're going to be so pissed at how badly it's handled.

Green Rollo lent me some of his back issues. That wasn't the real Donatello. It was the son of the clone who was raised by the Mafia guy called Don Atello. The real Donatello is (presumably) still wandering around Europe with amnesia after the Punisher crossover. But since they kinda abandoned that whole storyline, who can say?


Anyhoo! Back to the Silver books. Specifically Silver Sable and lots of Silver Surfer oneshots, minis, annuals, and such.

Silver Sable. The 35 issue ongoing from 1993. I reacquainted myself with the first few issues to get the premise of the book again, but mostly I just finished off the last of the series 23-35. I was missing the last three issues from my original run. I had forgotten she was married to the Foreigner at one point. That guy was really a major player back in the 80s/90s and then just kinda disappeared. The book was fairly good for what it was. Lots of guest stars. Sandman really got fleshed out as hero trying to turn over a new leaf. Too bad that all got retconned. I was surprised at how racist Powell was towards the black guys on the team. I mean, I realize writer Greg Wright put him there specifically to push buttons and create conflict in the Wild Pack, but Sable should've seriously shown that guy the door after the first 'darkie' comment came out of his mouth.

Silver Surfer 107. The last issue is was missing from SSs ongoing. A Doombot steals the Power Cosmic from Surfer.

Annual '97. Set immediately after Surfer found out the truth about Zenn-La. He returns to earth and his humanity is gone, so he visits Alicia Masters (this is post Onslaught so the FF isn't around and the Four Freedoms tower is empty). Eventually he flies to the Tibetan mountains and meets a guy who could be mistaken for Darkseid. I mean a dead ringer design wise. They fight or something.

Surfer/Thor Annual '98. Surfer and Thor fight a demigod named Millenius (yeah, I groaned too). Atrocious art by Ramon Bernado. It looks like something Tom Grindberg would attempt with his non-drawing hand.

SS:Loftier than Mortals. A 2 issue "ReMix" series from 1998. The ReMix imprint was Marvel taking classic stories and having current writers/artists update them. I think only this series and one FF mini ever got made. Anyway, this is Jan Michael Friedman and Sal Velluto's take on the classic FF story from FF 57-60 where Dr. Doom steals the Power Cosmic from the Surfer and fights the FF. Meanwhile a human Norrin joins the Latverian resistance. I don't how or why Marvel felt they needed to improve on classic Lee/Kirby but whatevs. Velluto's art is really great at least.

Inner Demons. This was a floppy "TBP" that reprinted issues 123,125, and 126 of the ongoing series. JM DeMatteis wrote and Ron Garney drew it. Good stuff. Surfer returns to earth and visits Alicia, fights Hulk, and meets Dr. Strange.

Surfer vs Dracula. One of a series of "vs Dracula" oneshots from 1994 (others include X-Men, Spider-Man, and Dr. Strange) that just reprint old Tomb of Dracula issues from the 70s.

Dangerous Artifacts. A oneshot by Marz and Claudio Castellini from 1996. Galactus sends his ex-herald to find an ancient meteor with an ancient macguffin inside. Thanos sends his own agent, named White Raven. After scuffles with Kree and Skrull armadas, and each other, Surfer and Raven release a Demon Guy from his prison and they end up blowing him up and creating a new star. Galactus and Thanos are pissed because nobody got the energy macguffin.

Surfer/Superman. Marvel/DC crossover. Myxlpytlk and Impossible Man fuck with Surfer and Superman in some kind of contest. George Perez wrote and Ron Lim drew. It's cools to see Lim's take on Superman.

Silver Surfer. The most recent SS mini from 2010. High Evolutionary steals Norrin's Powers(damn that shit happens a lot...) and gives it to his new "herald" Suzie Endo (Suzie is a supporting Marvel cast member like Rick Jones. She started out as a Stark employee in the 90s, was in the ForceWorks series for awhile, and more recently becomes Rhodey's tech support person in War Machine and Iron Man 2.0 etc). Then HE tries to terraform the moon, but the FF and the Surfer stop him.


HMMM....that's the end of this box. Time to switch things up with another random letter.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Started in on the next box. It was the 'Moon Knight to Power Pack' box. First up is a bunch of Moon Knight books, including the issues I was missing from his 1980 series, the 1985 Fist of Konshu series, and the 1998 and 1999 minis. And also a few issues of the short lived Bendis/Maleev series from 2011.
But I'll focus on the 1980 issues for this post.

Moon Knight had had a dozen or so appearances before getting his own series in 1980. The book was written by Doug Moench and truly fantastic art by Bill Sink-o-vitch. Before he got into that weird art style he developed on New Mutants.

Issue 2. A serial killer is killing bums in NYC, looking for the father who abandoned him and his mother years ago. The part that cracked me up was MK, as cab driver Jake Lockley, frequents a coffee shop in the city owned by a single mother of two teenage boys. The mom sends the kids to find Jake with info about the killer. They catch up to him just as he's pulling up to Steven Grant's mansion (Grant being MKs other false identity). So Moon Knight does the only logical thing, he calls a meeting at the mansion for the boys, their mother, a local bum, and his staff. He says "Well, you'll have guessed eventually! Jake Lockley is Steven Grant! And I'm also Moon Knight!!!" and opens up his secret lair as proof! I tell ya, Batman this guy ain't, ha ha. Seriously, the connection between Jake and Grant was tenuous at best (rich guy called a cab, maybe?) And nobody would've had the first idea he was Moon Knight and he just gave up his secret ID to everybody. Hilarious.

Issue 4. The Commitee hires five assassins to kill Moon Knight. He defeats them, but it was cool to see he wasn't infallible and almost got taken out a couple times.

Issue 5. A couple thugs hide out in a "haunted" house. Moon Knight beats em up.

Issue 6. Moon Knight visits an old friend in the Caribbean who is now a police captain. Somebody is using voodoo to hide a heroin field hidden in the sugar cane fields. MK decides to bring all his friends with him, the mother, her two boys, and the bum. He also has the two boys put themselves in danger to find the bad guys. And when the mother finds out, she grounds them...for a whole week!

Issue 9. Moon Knight fights the Midnight Man (if you'll recall, his son eventually shows up as MKs sidekick later on. And then even later later on he becomes a rage filled psychotic cyborg killer. Fun!)

Issue 16. Some bad guys are trying to blow up the NYC subway system.

Issue 20. The end of a 4-parter where an arms dealer named Nimrod Strange is holding Manhattan hostage with 4 supertankers filled with explosives. Pretty good. And it was cool to see MKs girlfriend as something other than a damsel in distress.

Issues 22-23. A villain called Morpheus is using the part of the brain that regulates dreams to make MK and his team hallucinate. Ends with a fight in the woods of upper New York and Marlene's brother getting killed.

Issue 24. Stain Glass Scarlet returns to kill a bunch of mobsters. Moon Knight has to wrestle with the morality of stopping her or not. Scarlet is one of the most underrated excellent villains ever.

Issue 26. A man who's father beat him finds out his father is dead and goes on a rampage. Ironically, to stop him, MK has to beat the guy unconscious.

Issue 28. MK and Marlene return to the temple in the Sudan where Spector was reborn as Moon Knight to fight grave robbers looking for hidden treasure.

I loved how Moench turned the Batman pastiche on its head. As the series progresses, the "personalities" of MK(Spector/Grant/Lockley/MK) become more prominent. What started out as simple "roles" he was playing started blurring fairly early on where he would refer to them as different people even as he was switching roles. Much to the chagrine Marlene and Frenchie (although they also seemed to be enabling him just as much). I may have to dig the other issues out of the basement and reread them.


As a final note, reading the old Bullpen Bulletins was a hoot. And seeing the ads from Mile High and Moonstone Comics made me wince. $10 for Hulk 181 y'all. And only $3.50 for Amazing 129. *cries*

[anarky]

I've heard the 80s Moon Knight series is one of those "best of all time" dealios everyone should read. Would you agree, even if I have to find the B&W paperbacks?

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I was thoroughly delighted, yes.

It makes me want a Moon Knight movie, stat.

[anarky]

Looks like Vol. 1 is OOP, but subsequent volumes are available new. Odd. I might see if I can find a copy at a Con. (Not Comic-Con, but there are other cons, you know. Like Shockwave. Rimshot!!)

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Lots of Retailers have complained that Marvel is completely stingy with their catalog of TPBs. Something to do with Ron Perelman not wanting a lot of stock on hand so much of their back stock is OOP. Whereas DC has tons of older stuff available.

I looked on ebay(via the link on cbdb) and there are tons of copies on there for cheap. I vaguely remember reading the first Essential Moon Knight while I was babysitting a friend's kid and he had a HUGE pile of Essential series. That's where the whole "Moon Knight has powers because of the full moon" thing started. Because he got bit by Jack Russel or something.

[anarky]

I know the Omnibus editions for X-Statix, Walt Simonson's Thor, and a few others were out of print and hard to get within a couple of months. Extra nice because they made sure to first cancel the previous paperbacks months in advance to drum up demand for those omnibuseseses.

Of course, DC's not much better. The Kamandi Vol. 1 hardcover was impossible to get new and tough to find used long before the second volume came out.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

More Moon Knight-iness!!

I read the Fist of Konshu series from 1985. Well, I read 3 thru 6. The first two are in the basement. I'm not sure if this was planned as a mini, or if it was an ongoing that got canned after six issues(which seems strange in 1985). I think perhaps it was a bunch of inventory issues they burned off or something, like they were leftover issues from the previous run that didn't make it to print before it got cancelled the year previous. None of the stories are connected, other than the new premise that a bunch of mystical old Egyptian dudes have given Marc "Moon Powers" again so that his strength waxes and wanes with the moon. And apparently he rolls without gloves now. I think the colorist made a mistake in one issue and every issue after followed suit. So Moon Knight was leaving fingerprints everywhere. But anyway, the first few issues were by one writer, but the last isses were by Jo Duffy and Jim Owlsey, respectively. And with different artists. Just seems an odd way to go with a limited series. Thankfully the "Fist of Konshu" premise didn't last very long.

MK next popped up in the West Coast Avengers for awhile. Then he got his own ongoing again in 1989 which is where I first started reading him. Chuck Dixon and Sal Velluto dropped all the multiple personalities and just went with ex-mercenary Marc Spector dressing up and fighting crime. That series lasted 60 issues and ended with Spector dying in an explosion of his HQ.

Moon Knight wasn't seen again until the 1998 series Ressurection War by Doug Moench and Tommy Edwards. Moench did an about face with the character and pretty much ignored the entire 60 issue run of the previous series. Moon Knight comes back to life and falls into the old Jake/Grant/Marc pattern that Moench was clearly comfortable with (it's unclear how or why. The characters all speculate if it was Konshu or a dream or other things, but it's never stated implicitly how hes still alive. Kinda weak.) Anyway, a bunch of MKs old adversaries are back and working as agents of the Egyptian god Set. Morpheus, Bushmaster, and Black Spectre are all involved.

This was followed by the 1999 High Strangers mini by Moench and excellent art by Mark Texiera. Apparently some secret CIA cabal opened a rift and ALLL conspiracies ever (Lochness, Big Foot, Aliens, UFOs, JFKs assassination, Crop Circles etc etc etc) are the result of this breach by a cult leader called Red Dragon with mind control technology. The story was pretty lame, but the art was killer.

MK went away for another seven years until Charlie Huston and artist Davis Finch made him a killer nutterbutter for 35 issues in 2006.

After that Gregg Hurwitz tried bringing him back in a more classic hero series in 2010, but that only lasted 10 issues. Then Bendis moved him out to LA but that only lasted 12 issues.

[Diabolical]

I found a couple of Spider-Man three-issue minis the other day.
They are both so very 90s.

Spider-Man: The Mutant Agenda - Spidey and Beast battle Hobgoblin and stop the Rand Corporation from using Hank McCoy's old work to create a chemical that depowers mutants. And the guy behind it all blames Beast for killing Hank McCoy, even when Beast tries to explain the douche doesn't listen.
But of course you all remember all this because it was (as the cover of issue two said) "The Greatest Multi-Media Event Ever!!"
The multi-media aspect was a side story in the daily Spider-Man comic strip, IIRC.

Spider-Man and X-Factor: Shadowgames - Convicted felons are given superpowers (because nothing could possibly go wrong there, right?). They attack and capture Spidey. Flash Thompson witnesses the whole thing and calls X-Factor...because he can't get a hold of anyone else. I don't remember what else happened because it sucked.

[anarky]

They are both so very 90s.

You know what's really sad?

We all know exactly what you mean by this statement.

When someone says a comic is "so very 90s," they don't mean it's like Sandman, or the Grant/Breyfogle Batman run, or early Valiant, or any of the other many, many things about the 90s that were awesome.

I blame Rob Liefeld.

Fuck you, Liefeld.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Didn't one of those Spidey minis do the incredibly 90s cliche of being a 4 issue series, but numbering it 0, 1, 2, 3. That's so lame.

[anarky]

Trying to think of all the weird numbering bullshit that originated in the 90s. There were zero issues, both preludes to first issues and random DC comics in the middle of extended runs. There were one million issues. There were half issues. I think someone tried to be funny and released a quarter or third issue.

And let's not forget the "fuck you" of the Image #25's, where they jumped way the fuck forward and released what was supposed to be the actual #25 from all these series that were at #10 or lower, never mind that they made absolutely no sense because, uh, we were missing 15+ issues in between. And most of the series never got that far by any stretch. Did any of the ones that did (assuming there were any) actually make that the proper #25?

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Don't forget the "-1" issues from Marvel.

As for the Image 25 issues, no on any Liefeld issues, yes on Jim Lee's stuff. Hmm. Maybe Supreme got there.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Couple more 'M' series.

One was a Morlocks 4 issue mini from 2002 written by Geoff Johns. I don't even know if this is in continuity because none of these mutants ever showed up anywhere else. But the premise is Sentinels are everywhere and if a mutant shows it's head above ground for more than seven minutes it's killed. So these kids group together in the sewers of Chicago to survive and try to get out of the city. Forgettable.

And the 2006 Ms. Marvel series. Starting with a Giant Size Ms. Marvel oneshot that happens post House of M and sets up the ongoing. It also included reprints of Capt. Marvel 18 and Ms. Marvel 1 and 2 from the 70s. These are the several issues I was missing between 34 and 50 where Carol "died" and Moonstone took over during Dark Reign and then Carol came back and they fought over the title. Also Spider-Man and Carol went on a date. So now i have a complete run. Good stuff by Brian Reed. Much better than the current series by Kelly DeConnick.

Next up is Mutant X, the series where Alex Summers was trapped in an alternate universe.