Incredible Hulk 363 - Acts of Vengeance

Oh, well that makes tons of sense. You hate this guy, so you attack some other guy. Cripes, what a dopey plan.

Incredible Hulk #363

Writer: Peter David
Penciler: Jeff Purvers
Inker: Marie Severin
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Lord-High-Everything-Else: Tom DeFalco

Some of the regular Marvel series did not participate in "Acts of Vengeance" as much as others. In some cases this was because the timing of the event clashed at least in part with ongoing multi-part storylines. But also the crossover was clearly not popular with every writer, as seen by the way various characters are openly dismissive of the whole scheme. Both these problems come up with Incredible Hulk, which was about to start the four-part "Countdown" storyline and so consequently only contributes a single issue to the wider event. And Peter David clearly did not like the premise, with the Hulk voicing his views in the quotes above. David was now in the third year of what turned out to be an eleven and a half year run on the series and so in a position of strength. He's also had quite a number of run-ins with John Byrne over the years. So it's unsurprising to find him making his views on "Acts of Vengeance" firmly known and, as we'll see, he was not the only writer to do so.

The issue itself comes from the "Joe Fix-It" period where Bruce Banner is now once more changing to the Hulk at night and reverting at daybreak (as dramatically demonstrated at the start when the Hulk goes leaping at night without realising how soon daybreak is coming, with the result he starts transforming back whilst falling from a great height), with the Hulk being a normal intelligence grey skinned being who has been working as an enforcer in the Las Vegas underworld. As ever Bruce is trying to find a way to cure himself of the Hulk, working undercover as a janitor at a nuclear research centre. Yet again Doctor Doom handles the allocation of a villain to attack the title's star, in this case the Grey Gargoyle whose touch can turn objects to stone. It's a fairly straightforward application of the crossover's premise, even if both hero and villain have their doubts about it. The fun comes as the Gargoyle discovers his power may work on Banner but has rather less effect on the Hulk.

There's a good explanation given for why "no one told the Hulk" but the effect is limited by the colouring. When a character is grey, is turned into a grey substance and is operating at night when the lighting and shadows make a lot of things look grey, it can be a little hard to tell exactly what form the Hulk is in at key moments, especially when the Gargoyle tries to destroy what is, apparently, a stone Hulk. There're a few minor points when the colouring fails to show the gloves the Gargoyle's hands when he's in human form and as this is pretty fundamental for the way his powers work it's the sort of error that can add to the confusion in the story. The result weakens the fight scenes in spite of the running commentary and the pretty brutal way the Hulk neutralises the Gargoyle at the end.

This is an issue that is quite open about how a crossover event has turned up to get in the way of things and at times feels like it's on autopilot, just doing the bar minimum to meet its obligations to the line. It's one that can quite easily be missed.

Incredible Hulk #363 has been reprinted in:

• Incredible Hulk Visionaries: Peter David Volume 4 (2007)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossovers Omnibus (2011)

Essential X-Men volume 11

Essential X-Men volume 11 comprises Uncanny X-Men #273 to #280 & Annual #15 and the second "adjectiveless" X-Men #1 to #3 plus X-Factor #69 to #70 and the lead story from Annual #6, the lead story from New Mutants Annual #7 and the lead story from New Warriors Annual #1. Bonus material includes some sketches and prints by Jim Lee. The writing on Uncanny X-Men sees the end of Chris Claremont's lengthy run with Fabian Nicieza taking over at the end and writing some of the annual stories with the rest by Len Kaminski. The "adjectiveless" X-Men issues are co-written by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee. The X-Factor issues are written by Fabian Nicieza and Peter David with the annual by Nicieza who also does the New Mutants and New Warriors annuals. The art on Uncanny X-Men is mainly by Jim Lee with individual issues by Paul Smith, Andy Kubert and Steve Butler and the annual by Tom Raney, Jerry DeCaire, Ernie Stiner and Kirk Jarvinen. One regular issue is drawn by Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, John Byrne, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Michael Golden, Jim Lee and Larry Stroman. The "adjectiveless" X-Men issues are all drawn by Jim Lee. The regular X-Factor issues are drawn by Portacio and Jarvinem and the annual by Terry Shoemaker. The New Mutants annual is drawn by Guang Yap and Kirk Jarvinem and the New Warriors annual by Mark Bagley. And invariably there's a separate labels post.

This volume covers the end of Chris Claremont's original run on the title after no less than sixteen years. And it's something of a damp squib as his last issues show heavy signs of creative conflict, culminating in his departure midway through issue #279. The first big sign in this volume is issue #274, which feels slightly odd, being more heavily scripted than a usual issue in devoting plenty of space to exploring Magneto's inner thoughts. It seems to be almost a struggle for control of the title between scripter and artist - and notably Jim Lee is given full plot credit with Chris Claremont relegated to "Script" whereas the other issues either credit the two of them as jointly producing the title or (more usually with guest pencillers) give Claremont a clear credit as "Writer". As is now well known, Claremont found himself in creative battles with both Lee and also editor Bob Harras over the content and direction of the title, and ultimately Harras had the final say. This issue feels like one of the reported ones where the first Claremont knew of the content was when finished pages of art arrived for scripting and the heavy dialogue and thought captions feel like a natural response to this. Claremont drops out dramatically midway through issue #279 and his name is also completely absent from annual #15 (released on the very same day, according to Mike's Amazing World of Comics).

Much of the conflict feels like a battle between Claremont to continue advancing the storyline in a unique direction and just about all the other creative forces trying to recreate the past, both in revisiting multiple classic storylines and situations but also in trying to bring classic elements back, most notably by bringing all five of the original X-Men back onto the team as well as bringing Professor X back to Earth and crippling him once more. Along the way, there are some new developments and the culmination of the longstanding plots surrounding Muir Island. But there's also a lot of repetition that shows the extent to which the battle is being won by the traditionalist approach. And this fails to grasp that for better or for worse Claremont's Uncanny X-Men was never a title that stood still for long, regularly changing the cast and status quo and not stopping to wallow in nostalgia. As a result we get a move towards a false ideal that tries to preserve the Claremont style at the cost of Claremont himself. It's a very unsatisfactory approach all around.

En route to this we get the trademarks of an introspective issue as the team, now fully reformed, tries to decide on its future direction and the roles of its spin-off; this is also notable for the whole team adopting the standardised uniforms that have been used by the Muir Island X-Men. They may not be the original 1960s look but they have the same colours and represent one of the biggest visual steps back towards a mythical golden age of status quo. Then comes another as the team is whisked off into deep space to help Professor X, who hasn't been seen in the title in a very long time. We get another tale of dynastic struggle within the Shi'Ar empire combined with another alien menace, with the Starjammers and Imperial Guard both adding to the action along with the threat of Professor X seemingly gone bad once more. Meanwhile back on Earth Magneto and Rogue, together with Ka-Zar and S.H.I.E.L.D., confront Zaladane and the Mutates in the Savage Land but the issue is really an exploration of Magneto's character as he steps ever closer back to his traditional role as a villain and the X-Men's archenemy. It's a journey that's been a struggle for both the character himself and the creative forces, with Claremont's dialogue and narration doing what it can to smooth the passage of the artificial pullback. Both the Shi'Ar and Savage Land settings have been done to death by now and there isn't much added beyond manoeuvring both Professor X and Magneto back to their traditional locations and roles.

The annuals contain two crossover stories. "Kings of Pain" brings together the Muir Island X-Men with X-Factor, the New Warriors and a team that starts off in their own annual under the name "New Mutants" but then becomes "X-Force" for the rest of the story. Part of the problem is that the regular New Mutants title had by this stage ceased and a few months later the new X-Force launched to continue the story with this annual published in the interim. Exactly how this mess came about is unclear though it's possible that the regular title was held back due to creative delays, leaving the annual in limbo. Whatever the reasoning, the name of Cable's team is the least of the storyline's problems. "Kings of Pain" is an all too typical example of the messy and overlong storylines that often ran in the annual crossovers of the period, with each chapter trying to satisfy both the title's regular readers who may have only joined the storyline at this stage but also readers of the whole thing. The result is an elongated confusion as one team after another gets drawn into a scheme by A.I.M. via the Alliance of Evil to empower the mutant Piecemeal with the energies of Proteus, resurrecting the latter in the process. The whole thing climaxes on Muir Island and has to tiptoe around developments in the regular series but is ultimate forgettable. A second crossover is "The Killing Stroke" in just the three mutant annuals; this three-part story sees the remains of Freedom Force battling Desert Sword, a team of heroes from across the Middle East, whilst on a mission in occupied Kuwait. It was an attempt to be very much of its time but now feels like a convoluted mess. The X-Men annual also carries two brief back-up stories. One features "The Origin of the X-Men" as Mojo briefly reviews the history of the team as prospective entertainment but balks at all the spin-off teams, in an unsubtle commentary on how the franchise has grown. The other features Wolverine having a nightmare where he battles his adamantium skeleton in an attempt to come to terms with it. As the first full issue released in the post-Claremont era (although here it's placed earlier between issues #277 & #278), annual #15 does not bode well for the future. Instead, it serves as both a demonstration of and a commentary on how chaotic and confusing the whole franchise has become.

The final steps towards restoration and also the end of Claremont's time on the series come with the "Muir Island Saga" in which the Shadow King makes his first full attack in the present day, Professor X is reunited with his original students and Colossus returns to the team, regaining his original memories and personality in the process. Once again we can see the creative struggles manifesting themselves on the pages as characters get rapidly restored or disposed of according to conflicting demands and Claremont departs midway through both the storyline and an individual issue. The Shadow King may be a part of Xavier's history but usually the foes from his pre-teaching days when he travelled the world have been left undisturbed and there isn't as great a sense of an epic showdown as such a storyline demands. This is also the story that dissolves the original X-Factor back into the X-Men, undoing many years of a distinctly different take on the team, and once more it's rather rushed in. As a result the series reaches the twin critical moments of the main guiding force leaving and the expansion into a second title under far from ideal circumstances.

The second "adjectiveless" X-Men series launched in 1991 with a rather silly gimmick of five different covers, four of which fitted together to form a single image that was the gatefold on the fifth. Or in other words if one wanted to see the full picture one could just get the gatefold edition. Coming at a time of rampant speculation not so much by collectors as by comic shops the issue saw over eight million copies sold. This was apparently the record holder for the highest ever sales on a single comic, although the five different covers is a complication as are some of the publication practices in other countries that can split sales over multiple contenders. As is the fact that the bulk of recorded sales were wholesale rather than retail and by many accounts a huge number of copies wound up as unsold overstock in comic shops all over the globe. It was an early sign of the weaknesses in the market but, although no individual issue would again have quite such a high order rate, it didn't encourage restraint amongst publishers.

The new series itself kicks off with a final intersection of the old and the new. Chris Claremont returns for a final three-part story (although he has subsequently returned to the X-Men multiple times in later years) which sets out to establish the new status quo for both the X-Men and Magneto. The mansion is restored and with Professor X having been absent so long he finds there is so much about the team and their powers that is new to him. We're back to an age of the mansion as both a school and a base, with the X-Men developing their powers under the guidance of Xavier and fighting traditional foes such as Magneto. There are concessions to the new age, with the X-Men nominally split into two separate groupings, the "Blue" and "Gold" teams which seems an elegant way to keep so many characters around and have separate writers on the two separate books. There's also another change visually with the uniforms largely disposed of, bar Forge and Banshee, and instead the X-Men now sport a mixture of brand new and older costumes. With the conspicuous exception of Wolverine the visual look is now that which would be adopted by the 1990s cartoon, which also used the "Blue" team as the basis for its main cast albeit with a few alterations.

Claremont's last storyline seeks to return to Magneto to villainy in a way that's respectful to the character development that's come before yet also position the master of magnetism as a recurring credible foe. The latter is achieved with the addition of the Acolytes, a group of mutants who come to him to serve both the man and his vision. However it soon becomes clear that one of them, Fabian Cortez, who has the power to re-energise other mutants, has other plans. The former aim of trying to make the abrupt changes seem natural rather flounders with the revelation that Magneto had been subject to genetic modification when de-aged to a baby and this had affected his behaviour when re-aged to adulthood. It feels as though a decade's worth of character development is being thrown away - and this is probably how it felt to Claremont at the time as he finally lost the battle over the character. The story, the volume and the whole Claremont era all end with a reassertion of the different philosophies of Professor X and Magneto, a fitting point to go out on.

Overall this volume shows the series being dragged in the direction of false nostalgia, first to revisit successful stories ad themes from the past and then to have an as near as achievable recreation of a mythical golden age for the characters, undoing many of the changes made over the years. A lot of comics have gone down the route of reset switches over the years but X-Men has hitherto never fallen into such an easy trap. The result is that this final volume is a rather disappointing end of an era.

What If... Essential Spider-Man 2099 volume 1?

Another in this look at hypothetical Essential volumes...

Essential Spider-Man 2099 volume 1 would contain issues #1 to #14 and annual #1 plus the Spider-Man 2099 stories from 2099 Unlimited #1 to #3. These are otherwise available in Spider-Man 2099 Classic volumes 1 & 2. It would be a slightly slim volume but the alternative would be to stop half-way through the "Fall of the Hammer" crossover between the-then five 2099 titles. The writing on the regular series and annual is by Peter David with one back-up story in the annual by Ian Edginton. The art on the regular series is by Rick Leonardi with individual issues by Kelley Jones and Tom Grindberg, whilst the annual is drawn by Ron Lim, Tom Grindberg and Malcolm Davis. The 2099 Unlimited stories are written by Evan Skolnick and drawn by Chris Wozniak.

Marvel has a long history of creating alternative new universes of titles that try to offer a line of comics that are at least somewhat detached from the regular Marvel universe. Other examples over the years have included the New Universe, the MC2 line set a generation into the future and the Ultimate universe. Each has tried to balance the aims of being attractive to existing Marvel fans whilst also being new reader friendly by detaching the characters from what can seem an overwhelming existing universe. How far they go and just what connection they have to the regular universe has varied over the years. Here the idea was to look ahead approximately a century to a world where the heroes were now legends of history but some might take up their mantle. Marvel were not the first to set heroes in the year 2099; it was the year Judge Dredd's stories began. But around the start of the 1990s there was a burst of future set prediction that tried to anticipate the next century - and so far the results show that usually it didn't predict it very well.

The New York of 2099 is a cyberpunk dystopia of the kind common in 1980s and 1990s science fiction. Corporations are in charge with their own police forces. Social divides are ever starker between those living in the high rise hi tech skyscrapers with no end of technical comforts and those living in "Downtown", the ground level rundown old part of the city which includes the Grand Central railway station. There are flying cars, computer holograms, genetic engineering and specially addictive drugs amidst the standard future technology. Concerns of the 1990s are projected forward, whether it's an obsession with virtual reality technology or showing a world where tobacco has been banned. Notably though there are some omissions, particularly smartphones with cameras everywhere which would make a secret identity even harder to maintain. It's a vision of the future that is at once both optimistic about technological advancements but also cynical about the world they will bring with them. It also contains the well worn science fiction cliché of a religion based upon past interventions though there's more logic to it than most as it's based upon worship of Thor, albeit with other heroes such as the original Spider-Man sharing some of the adoration which becomes a minor running theme here.

The era's links to the original "Heroic Age" are mixed but there's absolutely no need to be familiar with individual stories or characters to follow this series at this stage at least, though a cameo by the Doctor Doom of 2099 suggests this is not the case for every character in the line. As is often the case with new universes created in one go there were attempts to provide a broader coherent structure to the whole 2099 line but it's not particularly intrusive here and thus this currently series stands on its own two feet. But it still draws its influences from the main Marvel universe with a successor to the biggest name hero plus over more subtle elements ranging from unstable molecule clothing now being commercially available, albeit expensively, or a foe using the name "Vulture". The precise details of how the "Heroic Age" ended or why the heroes didn't stop the world going the way it did are left unexplored.

There's no link at all between Miguel O'Hara and Peter Parker. Miguel is neither a descendant of Peter (as far as we know though his mixed Irish and Hispanic heritage would suggest against it), nor is he someone who stumbles across a cache of costumes and equipment. Thus the original Spider-Man is just a figure of history and legend. There's also a seemingly conscious desire to do things differently with the origin and powers but subsequent developments in not only the regular Marvel universe but also the Ultimate line and both sets of movies now mean that far from being a radically different origin, this is instead a forerunner of things to come. Just as radiation was the amazing science of the early 1960s that drove the original Spider-Man's origin, so too was genetic engineering the amazing science of the 1990s which now creates Spider-Man 2099. In both cases it's frankly nonsense but then a lot of science fiction takes contemporary scientific advancements to spin tall tales out of them. Also reflecting contemporary concerns is the role of an amoral corporation whose developments and flaws cause the accidents that lead to the hero's powers. It should come as no surprise that Ultimate Spider-Man and both sets of movies, all of which came in the next couple of decades, have used a similar combination of genetic engineering and corporations to empower their Spider-Men. Equally of note given the controversy when it later happened to Peter is the use of organic webshooters. No more is Spider-Man restrained by web fluid running out at the worst possible moment or the shooters jamming or even foes deliberately crushing them. Together with a stylised costume that has a very different look and focus we get that rare thing, a Spider-Man for a new age whose existence in no way threatens the original one we all know and adore.

Miguel is very different from Peter, often seemingly deliberately so. His story begins in adulthood (and one of the downsides of the name "2099" is that everything has to take place in a single year; a problem that should have been spotted after the experience of the Iron Man of 2020), working as a scientist for a corporation and already engaged. Most of his family are still alive though his father is already dead and his relations with the rest of the family are all tetchy. Miguel is quite a wise-cracker unmasked whereas as Spider-Man he's mostly silent. And there's less of the traditional morality, enhanced by Spider-Man having retractable claws that don't just allow him to climb walls but can also be vicious and even lethal in battle, using his claws without care for wounds and even letting foes fall to their deaths. The 1990s was very much an era of dark anti-heroes and it's unsurprising that this approach manifests itself here. But it comes with a risk. There's more to Spider-Man than the name and powers derived from a spider and reading through these stories it's hard to feel that Miguel is a valid spiritual successor to Peter and worthy of the name. Now that scenario is not an invalid approach in itself when it's tackled head on to establish whether or not the new lead is worthy of the mantle of the old and indeed what is the very essence to qualify. But there's none of that here. Instead the series is drifting towards simply using the name as a hook to bring readers in.

It's not completely there though. There are a number of developments that try to recreate some of the feel and spirit of the original Spider-Man stories for a new age. A strong attempt is made to develop an interesting supporting case, starting with Miguel's fiancée Dana D'Angelo, though curiously the stories in 2099 Unlimited instead show Miguel involved with a lady called Anna Coye. The similarities of the names suggest that Evan Skolnick was probably working off an early set of notes that were subsequently modified but it's also a sign of weak editorial control when the 2099 line was presented as a more joined up and co-ordinated universe than was normally the case. The other main woman in Miguel's life isn't human but a computer called Lyla, who interacts via a holographic projection that is currently in the form of Marilyn Monroe and who appears to be developing feelings for Miguel. Rounding out the initial main cast is Miguel's younger brother Gabriel, who tries to reach out to him despite disagreements over corporate ethics. The two O'Hara men have dated some of the same women over the years such as Gabriel's current girlfriend Kasey Nash, making for some interesting situations. It gets even more complicated when Kasey falls for Spider-Man. Later on we're introduced to Conchata, Miguel and Gabriel's mother, and see their father George in flashbacks. It's a tense family history with each parent having different expectations for each of their sons and how it's left Miguel bitter until now. However these characters so far lack the charm and excitement of a traditionally well done supporting cast.

There are a variety of foes, some with more lasting power than others. At the core of the series is the struggle with the Alchemax corporation and its chief executive Tyler Stone, with Miguel resenting his employer ever more and indeed he gains the Spider-Man powers when seeking to escape the drug addiction control Stone forces upon him. Foes Alchemax they deploy include the bounty hunter Venture in the origin three parter. They also control the Public Eye, the privately run police force of the era. When Sergeant Estevez fails to kill Spider-Man he is summarily dismissed and all his possessions seized in severance, leaving him trying to regain his job by achieving the kill. Rival corporation Stark-Fujikawa deploys the techno samurai the Specialist. A joint project between the two produces Siege, who uses SItuation Emergency GEar, showing that the future still has awkward names devised purely to generate a pronounceable acronym. Siege doesn't last long, becoming cannon fodder to introduce the mysterious Thanatos, an enhanced warrior dressed in something resembling ancient Greek armour and waging war on Alchemax. He also comes with his own pre-existing foe, the equally mysterious dimensional wandering Net Prophet. At the lower level Downtown, the deprived part of the city, contains the Watchdogs gang and the Vulture 2099, a sign of societal degeneration who has turned cannibal. The annual introduces the Fenris Gang, another grouping though it's underdeveloped at this stage, and Chernobyl, a 20th century Soviet agent caught in suspended animation when his submarine sank. The stories from 2099 Unlimited largely stand alone and develop Mutagen, a foe obsessed with preventing the transmission of genetic diseases and seeks to achieve this by killing carriers so they don't do what he did to his daughter. There's also a completely forgettable mad scientist who is killed off in his debut story without leaving any sense of a lost opportunity.

This series and supporting stories certainly make a good effort to develop both the characters and the world around them, and there are some other good developments such as the Spiderite movement, an offshoot of the Thor worship, with many followers dressing as Spider-Man to various degrees of trouble. There's also a lot of hints that Miguel's identity is not as well hidden as the traditional superhero's, injecting a degree of realism into the classic scenario. But overall this is a very lacklustre series primarily riding off the back of the name "Spider-Man". Peter David makes a strong effort to bring the characters to life but too often they fall flat, as though in trying to be original too much of what makes the original Spider-Man work is deliberately ignored. The result is a series that just fails to excite at this critical starting stage. 2099 hasn't dated at all well and on its own merits this series doesn't stand out as one needing collecting. Recent revivals have, however, generated more interest in the character which could make a hypothetical Essential a useful release.

Essential Marvel Saga volume 2

Continuing the proper in-depth look at each volume of The Official History of the Marvel Universe. These posts rewrite and expand a previous brief effort.

Essential Marvel Saga volume 2 contains issues #13 to #25, continuing to retell old stories by copying & pasting panels and adding some additional text and the occasional pieces of new artwork to tell a coherent history. The order and new material is written by Peter Sanderson apart from one issue by Peter David, and drawn by Keith Pollard, Ron Frenz, James Fry, Al Milgrom, Tom Morgan, Steve Buccellato, Bruce Solotoff, Phil Lord, Steve Geiger, José Marzan Jr, Hector Collazo and Keith Williams.

This volume continues the practice of summarising key storylines from Marvel's Silver Age, aided by reproducing many panels and using text captions and the occasional piece of new art to accelerate the retellings. Once again the origins are enhanced by later additions to the mythology such as Daredevil's debut including his history with Elektra and Stick as well as the original story. There's also some good tying together of stories to show their impact, such as the Crime-Master launching his attempt to take over the New York underworld at a time when the Fantastic Four are powerless and in hiding, Thor has departed for Asgard for the Trial of the Gods and Captain America is still making his way home through the South American jungle following his final showdown with Baron Zemo. Such a placing goes well beyond a mere wish to have a reading order and helps to show the Marvel Universe as a more integrated whole than it was realised at the time.

The choice of which characters to devote space to retelling their first adventures is a surprise, such as the many pages given over to the debut of Diablo compared to single panels each for the likes of the Grey Gargoyle, Kraven and the Owl's first outings. The cliffhangers to each issue aim to end on a dramatic point midway through a key story but occasionally the story in question is underwhelming or the foe has rather declined in stature since the 1960s. Issue #20 ends with the Frightful Four invading the Baxter Building and the final panel is the Wizard holding the Human Torch hostage. It's a reminder that the Wizard has rather plummeted off the A-List of foes since the Silver Age, his participation in the Prime Movers of the "Acts of Vengeance" crossover not withstanding, making the ending rather underwhelming.

Issue #22 sees a change of approach to the series (and a new editor - Adam S. Balustein succeeding Danny Fingeroth) and is devoted to Peter Parker and Mary Jane's relationship, as the Spider-Man wedding was close. So we see the whole course of it from Aunt May's first matchmaking through other girlfriends and the failed first proposal up to the wedding day, all in one issue. It's a different pace from before and also notable for being about the first place to suggest Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man right from the outset. But there's also an odd moment at the end as a page from the Spider-Man vs. Wolverine one shot is reproduced to try to support the two being made for each other, yet it shows Peter crossing the lines of friendship before realising his mistake - almost as though it was intended to support the two not being together. Whilst it's nice to see an entire issue devoted to the background to one of the biggest events in Spider-Man's life, it would have been much better off as a stand-alone special rather than slotted into the regular series.

The remaining few issues see the saga focus in on specific events for the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer, rather than the broad approach of showing all the key events across the whole universe. Did the new approach kill the series or was it an unsuccessful attempt to save it? Either way it's a rather unsatisfactory change of course and all the momentum of the first twenty-one issues is lost as we get a narrow focus on the wedding of Reed and Sue, the discovery of the Inhumans and then the coming of Galactus and the Silver Surfer with their origins retold from later issues, showing in particular how the Surfer's past influenced the feelings Alicia reawakened within him. It's unfortunate as the wedding annual was the first significant time almost the entire Marvel universe was caught up in the same story and where it fits into the various series's continuities is something that isn't particularly well explained. We get the origins of Galactus and the Silver Surfer but surprisingly not the Inhumans.

The defeat of Galactus is presented as "a turning point in the history of the cosmos... [the] day humanity's representatives first proved themselves more than equal to the task of mastering the great challenges set them by the cosmos", and thus the point on which to end the series with a three page coda describing some significant events to come, ranging from Spider-Man's famous triumph in the remains of Doctor Octopus's headquarters to the battle between Dormammu and Eternity through to the Dark Phoenix Saga. There's a bit of a "and they triumphed and lived happily ever after" to some of the summaries such as Thor facing off against a witch doctor with the last of the Norn Stones or Namor rescuing Dorma and recovering his throne. Finally the Watcher reveals himself as the narrator of the whole series

Overall this volume shows the misfortune of the change of direction, abandoning the integrated tapestry of the Marvel universe in favour of retelling individual stories with additional backstories added in. That said, the latter approach could be a way to bring new readers up to speed on key characters, without having to subject them to expensive trade paperbacks (in the days before the Essentials but even with them it can take a lot of time and money to build up a complete run and the Epic series's habit of jumping about isn't conducive to chronology) or lengthy and controversial retellings. In the early 1990s this approach was followed with a couple of mini-series including Spider-Man Saga and Wolverine Saga, and there have been some more recent one shots in a similar format.

But that would be individual histories and not really worthy of the title "The Official History of the Marvel Universe" which should have been restricted to a total history across the line rather than segmented sections. The original broad concept of the series is a good one though in an era when so many of the original comics are easily available in reprint form it can now feel a little overlong in its retellings. But even with the issues available the big picture is lacking and this series set out to provide it. It's a pity that got abandoned when it did but the first two thirds of this volume maintain the original aims and good standards.

Venom: Birth of a Monster

Venom: Birth of a Monster is a standalone entry in Panini's Marvel Pocket Book series. It contains Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #107-110 and Amazing Spider-Man #298-300. The Spectacular issues are written by Peter David and drawn by Rich Buckler and the Amazing issues are by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane.

First published in 2007, it is all too clearly a tie-in to the movie Spider-Man 3. But rather than spotlight the film's most heavily featured villains or show the original Alien Costume Saga we instead get the first full appearance of Venom, the two preceding issues which contain cameos at the end, and the classic "The Death of Jean DeWolff" storyline which Venom's origin feeds off. Or not.

By far the most common criticism of Venom (at least before he was so heavily used that charges of overuse could be made) is the rather weak motivation behind his human side. And the problem is compounded not only because his backstory was hooked into an earlier well-known storyline, but also because it changed the details of how that storyline panned out. Collecting both in a single volume just makes the two stand out all the more.

Now I've written about "The Death of Jean DeWolff" before and so I'm not going to rehash my general opinions here other than to say I would have preferred a Venom-focused collection to have instead included more Venom-focused issues. No matter how great "The Death of Jean DeWolff" is, it just doesn't feel like it has to be here. And not including it would have hidden the great continuity error. During this story the Sin-Eater's neighbour overhears some of the killer's plans and succumbs to delusions, believing himself to be the Sin-Eater and he steals a costume and gun then heads off after the planned next target. However he's soon overpowered and arrested, but Daredevil spots the heartbeat is wrong and he and Spider-Man soon discover the Sin-Eater's real identity.

However when Venom appears his backstory is that journalist Eddie Brock of the Daily Globe had been contacted by the impostor Sin-Eater and run interviews with him, concealing the identity until legal advice forced it out. Then soon after the revelation the real Sin-Eater was caught, the Globe humiliated and Brock sacked. Brock had fallen for a liar but blamed Spider-Man for exposing the true killer, reasoning that with an arrest the real killer might have dropped out of sight. Now there's nothing at all in the actual Sin-Eater storyline that supports this chain of events so it's an awkward retcon. And there's no real need to tie Brock's downfall into a pre-existing storyline. There is a huge history of Spider-Man himself being accused of one crime or another, only to prove himself innocent and any case of over-eager journalism could have sufficed. But even then Brock's story feels hollow. In the real world journalistic ethics have had a lot of exposure in recent years thanks to revelations of the means by which some journalists obtained stories and at times interfered with police investigations. Brock's story may have been based on a real world journalist's handling of a purported killer but his attribution of blame on the hero who brought down the real killer rather than himself for being so rash in pursuit of a story feels hollow. Yes numerous other villains have silly origins and motivations, and Brock is shown as angry, depressed and suicidal so probably not in the right frame of mind anyway, but few of the debut stories of other Spider-Man villains went to such depths to try to establish a degree of credibility to the new foe's motivations. With Venom the attempt just comes off badly.

It also doesn't help that Eddie Brock was a completely new character with no established conflict with either Spider-Man or Peter Parker. Starting with the mid 1990s Spider-Man cartoon it became commonplace for retellings of the Venom story in whatever mediums to provide just such a longstanding conflict. The cartoon made Brock a rival photographer at the Bugle who comes to hate both Peter and Spider-Man, but gets sacked when he conceals photographs in order to make Spidey look like a criminal. The film Spider-Man 3 does the same but also makes him a contemporary of Peter and a seeming rival with women - basically Lance Bannon in all but name. Such approaches, and there have been others based around the Ultimate universe approach of making Brock a fellow science student who was once Peter's friend, work much better because the hate feels much more solid and also it reinforces the idea of Venom being a version of Spider-Man gone wrong.

The idea of a villain who shares enough elements with the hero to be a distorted mirror image is fairly standard and often attempts are made to add elements to existing foes to push them in that direction - both the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus have experienced this over the years. It's rarer to introduce a lasting foe who is much more explicitly a distorted reflection, right down to the appearance and powers. And just to add to everything riding on this, Venom was introduced in what was both the 300th issue of the main Spider-Man series and the 25th anniversary celebration. It was an odd choice to use such a landmark issue to introduce a new villain and although he went on to massive glories, on the evidence of just the issues in this collection it seems like a mistake to give him such an accolade.

The build-up in the previous two issues is minimal - just a page or two at the end of each. The rest of issues #298 & #299 are given over to a two-part story involving Chance, a gambling mercenary from Michelinie's earlier run on Web of Spider-Man, and who would be largely forgotten if not for the moments at the end. All three Amazing issues come from the first year after Peter married Mary Jane and featured his continued worries about the fact he makes far less money than her, plus some of the problems of being a married superhero such as having to let his wife know when he'll be late or coming home to find she has visitors and/or cleaners in the flat. Then there's Aunt May worrying that over intrusive relatives can undermine a new marriage and so she's keeping her distance. The final issue also sees Peter move out of the flat he's rented for many years, as he and Mary Jane need a bigger place and after her encounter with Venom there MJ feels she can never be comfortable in the flat again. For similar reasons she makes Peter abandon his black and white costume for good and resume wearing the traditional red and blue version. It's surprising just how much happens in these issues.

Unfortunately this doesn't leave too much space for Venom. We get a flashback as he terrorises Mary Jane, causing Peter to deduce the alien costume has survived, and then a protracted search once Spider-Man has borrowed the Fantastic Four's sonic gun. However the costume is too far bonded to Brock for this to work - but it's a good piece of continuity to establish just why it can't be disposed of as easily as it was before. The encounter between Spider-Man and his dark reflection is quick and establishes the new foe as a force to be reckoned with but nothing too spectacular. Venom's appearance is also restrained here - the pocket book cover by Jon Haward explicitly homages McFarlane by taking some of his famous images of Spider-Man and putting Venom in a similar pose. However it's Venom after Erik Larsen modified the appearance to add features such as the elongated jaw, the large tongue, the spiked teeth, the distorted eyes and so forth. McFarlane's Venom is little more than a bulked up Spider-Man with a visible mouth.

All in all this collection is a little disappointing. "The Death of Jean DeWolff" doesn't need to be here and the Chance issues are forgettable. That leaves Venom's first full appearance but it just shows how underdeveloped and poorly thought through the character was at first. It would have been much better to have included some later appearances to show how he developed as time went on. Still the pocketbook was surprisingly cheap when published - RRP £3.99 - and the real problem is with how weakly conceived Venom was to start with.

Essential X-Factor volume 5

Essential X-Factor volume 5 contains issues #60 to #70 & Annual #6 plus the crossover issues Uncanny X-Men #270 to #272, #280 & material from Annual #15, and New Mutants #95 to #97 & material from annual #7. The regular X-Factor issues see the end of Louise Simonson's run then subsequent issues see Jim Lee & Whilce Portacio plotting and Chris Claremont scripting then Fabian Nicieza and Peter David finish off the run and write the annual stories between them. The Uncanny X-Men issues are written by Chris Claremont and Fabian Nicieza with the latter handling the annual whilst the New Mutants regular issues are written by Louise Simonson and the annual by Fabian Nicieza. The regular X-Factor issues are drawn by Jon Bogdanove and Whilce Portacio with the final by Kirk Jarvinen and the annual by Terry Shoemaker, Steven Butler and Guang Yap. The Uncanny X-Men issues are drawn by Jim Lee and Andy Kubert with the annual by Jerry DeCaire. The New Mutants issues are drawn by Rob Liefeld and Guang Yap with the annual by Kirk Jarvinen. Due to so many creators, most of the labels are in a separate post.

This volume is almost drowning in crossovers, containing material from not one, not two but three of them. It kicks off "X-Tinction Agenda", a nine-part story also told in Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants. Then the annual is part of "Kings of Pain", a crossover between the three mutant titles and also New Warriors though their annual is not represented here, with a second storyline entitled "The Killing Stroke" running across the three mutant annuals only. Finally, the end of the volume encompasses the latter half of "The Muir Island Saga" which also runs in Uncanny X-Men and contains some major developments for both titles. It's lucky that not all of the latter two crossovers have been included here as it probably made the difference between getting up to issue #70 and not, but it reflects on an unfortunate situation whereby it became increasingly hard to follow an individual series without "having" to buy lots of extra issues in order to be able to read a whole story.

And the stories they got were simply not that great. "X-Tinction Agenda" is an overlong, excessively rambling storyline that X-Factor is clearly the least essential element in spite of the villain being Cameron Hodge. It's also poorly paced, most notably when a key character is killed off in a rush at the end of the issue, and it's the first of several signs in the volume that artists rather than writers have secured control of the general plot and direction of the various series but are exercising that control rather poorly, with the result that many issues are confused and dominated by action to the detriment of the overall storytelling. As for the content, it revolves around the African island nation of Genosha that was initially devised as an allegory of apartheid South Africa but in the year that Nelson Mandela was released we get a rather more violent overthrowal of the state and its apparatus than in reality. The plot hinges on the state's practice of enslaving, brainwashing and genetically altering mutants into "mutates" to serve as slaves for the country. A mixed group from the X-Men and the New Mutants are kidnapped by the Genoshan Magistrates and taken to the island where some are converted, with the remaining team members calling in X-Factor for help to rescue them. The story is grim and brutal, though some of the resolutions are rather simplistic in their effects, but it is hard to avoid the feeling that the story would have worked better as a six parter without including X-Factor since none of the current team go through any significant changes and there isn't really anything that comes out of Hodge's involvement in the storyline that hasn't been covered before. More so than any previous crossover, "X-Tinction Agenda" marks the point at which the mutant title crossovers ceased to be either major moments in the lives of all the titles involved or else wider events that individual titles brushed past and instead became regular events telling tightly connected stories in which titles participated simply because they were part of a declared "family" of books. The mutant books weren't alone in pioneering and developing such crossovers but as one of the best-selling set of titles at the best selling comic company they were amongst the most noticeable - and profitable - and so bear a great deal of responsibility for the development of such a mechanical process that interrupted and sucked the life out of so many titles. And when it comes to the collected editions this crossover takes up almost half the entire volume so it's not something that can be simply shrugged off as just a few issues amidst a much bigger whole.

The annuals show an alternative way to do crossovers. The "Kings of Pain" storyline ran in the lead stories of the annuals for X-Factor and also New Mutants, New Warriors and Uncanny X-Men but only the X-Factor chapter is included here, (this isn't the only way to collect it though - both Essential X-Men volume 11 and New Warriors Classic volume 2 contain all four chapters) as this is the point at which the team get involved in the main storyline. X-Factor arrive in Scotland to find that Proteus has returned, fused with an energy absorbing mutant and is now converting Edinburgh into a strange computer mathematics environment of structure and order. Together with the New Mutants, New Warriors and the "Muir Islander" X-Men, X-Factor have to find a way to persuade Proteus to stop, one way or the other, whilst from afar both Aim and the Toad & Gideon - the self-proclaimed "Kings of Pain" - have been manipulating events. It's a so-so annual story but with only the X-Factor portion included here it doesn't take up too much space needlessly. Also included are a few other stories from the New Mutants and Uncanny X-Men annuals. A three-parter, with the concluding chapter in the X-Factor annual, entitled "The Killing Stroke" sees the rump of Freedom Force - the Blob, Pyro, Avalanche, the Crimson Commando and Super Sabre - on a mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation, with orders to either extract a German scientist or prevent the Iraqis finding him. However it goes badly wrong when they encounter "Desert Sword", a group of Middle-Eastern heroes including the Arabian Knight, Black Raazer and new characters Aminedi the Invisible One, Sirocco and the Veil, and Freedom Force is further depleted. Another back up in the X-Factor annual sees Mystique coming to terms with Destiny's death and taking a cruise to scatter her ashes. The oddest inclusion is a short story from the New Mutants annual in which former X-Terminators members Leech, Artie and Taki meet an eccentric old woman who resembles Leech's late adoptive mother, whilst a mob assembles outside. It's a nice character piece but it has no particular reason to be included here. All in all the annual material here is forgettable but there isn't too much space taken up with stories from non-X-Factor issues and so it's not as bad an offender as the "X-Tinction Agenda".

Over in the regular series there's a real sense of a protracted winding down with a variety of elements brought to the fore and wrapped up prior to a crossover covering the final two issues. Louise Simonson's final storyline in issues #63 & #64 was the very first X-Factor story I ever read when I was lent these issues back in 1991. Today it still holds up well as it focuses upon Iceman's girlfriend Opal when she's kidnapped by the Cyburai, cyborg warriors working for her natural grandfather, Lord Tatsu'o, and taken to Japan where she is expected to marry a warrior and provide an heir. Bobby heads off to rescue her with the help of Jean and Mariko. It's a good intense personal story, particularly the scenes involving the warrior Hiro, and it answers various questions about Opal, but it's not the most exciting storyline for the series's longest running writer to go out on. In a way that should have been the next storyline, a four parter that sees the return of Apocalypse as he seeks to reclaim Ship. The early issues also contain extracts from "the Apocalypse Manifesto", single page profiles of each team-member with in character comments by their greatest foe. The story shows its age in the names of Apocalypse's new henchmen, Foxbat, Tusk, Gauntlet, Psynapse, Hard-Drive and Barrage, collectively known as the Dark Riders, but it gives a good exit for Ship and also a team-up with the Inhumans in a showdown on the Moon. However it's let down by introducing a mystery woman called Askani who declares baby Nathan Christopher to be both "the Chosen" and kin, as part of attempts to save her timeline. The story ends with Nathan being infected with a techno virus and taken off to the future. Children have always been problematic in long-running comic series and Nathan has not really aged at all during the run of this series so it's a neat way to remove the problem but it also has the consequence of once more wrenching Scott away from another family member.

The final two issues form the penultimate chapter and epilogue to "The Muir Island Saga" which sees X-Factor and the various groupings of X-Men reunited in battle against the Shadow King, with Professor Xavier returning and reuniting with his original students for the first time since this series began. It's a strong reunion that has clear repercussions but it's also very clearly an X-Men story that X-Factor have wandered into midway through and explanations for those who haven't read the earlier parts are somewhat lacking. The story sees the original X-Men return to the team but the final issue of the volume and indeed of the original incarnation of the team just doesn't feel like an appropriate wrap up issue with too much emphasis on Xavier and Legion or Rogue and Mystique rather than on the actual X-Factor members. As a result X-Factor dissolves itself into the older team in a blink and you'll miss it moment and the final page of this book is more concerned about what to do with so many X-Men. This is a real letdown as X-Factor deserved a much stronger ending on its own merits. Instead it goes out with a whimper, playing second fiddle to another team which is what it's done for much of this volume.

This is frankly the worst of the five Essential X-Factor volumes, largely because the regular series is swamped by all the crossovers and the original is wound up rather suddenly without a proper final issue. There are some good moments when the series is allowed to do its own thing but otherwise this volume shows how crossovers and franchises were starting to take over regular series in the early 1990s and it wasn't for the best. Nor was the increased dominance by the artists, often putting more emphasis on individual images than the overall storytelling and the results here show poor pacing and rushed critical moments. It's a disappointing end to the original incarnation of a series that had managed to rise beyond its roots as an awkwardly forced reunion book and often offer something much more spectacular.

Essential X-Factor volume 4

Essential X-Factor volume 4 contains issues #51 to #59 & Annuals #4 to #5 plus the one-shot X-Factor: Prisoner of Love, Marvel Fanfare #50 which printed an issue prepared as a standby fill-in and the lead stories from Fantastic Four annual #23, New Mutants annual #6 and Uncanny X-Men annual #14 which, together with X-Factor annual #5, make up the "Days of Future Present" crossover. Bonus material includes Cyclops's entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. The regular X-Factor issues are written by Louise Simonson, bar one by Peter David, and drawn by Terry Shoemaker, Steven Carr, Andy Kubert and Jon Bogdanove. The X-Factor annuals both contain multiple stories written variously by Louise Simonson, John Byrne, Ralph Macchio, Mark Gruenwald, Peter Sanderson and Peter David, and drawn by John Byrne, Jim Fern, Mark Bagley, John Bogdanove and Dave Ross. X-Factor: Prisoner of Love is written by Jim Starlin and drawn by Jackson Guice. The Marvel Fanfare issue is written by (Mary) Jo Duffy and drawn by Joe Staton with an "Editori-Al" introduction written and drawn by Al Milgrom. The Fantastic Four annual is written by Walter Simonson and drawn by Jackson Guice, the New Mutants annual is written by Louise Simonson and drawn by Terry Shoemaker & Chris Wozniak, and the Uncanny X-Men annual is written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Arthur Adams. Inevitably, there is a separate labels post.

The list above gives some indication of how this volume doesn't actually advance the main series very much - with just nine issues from the regular title this has almost the shortest stretch of any single Essential volume. The main culprits for this state of affairs are the annuals, with each forming part of a wider crossover but the two take very different approaches. Annual #4 is from the "Atlantis Attacks" crossover which filled up no less than fourteen annuals in 1989 and tells the tale of an incredibly complicated plot involving Serpent Crowns, multiple undersea kingdoms attacking each other, a great serpent deity being resurrected, superpowered women being offered as incubators and turning the human race into serpent men. It's all rather convoluted and the X-Factor annual is rather blessed to be at the periphery of much of this, focusing upon the kidnapping of Marvel Girl whilst the Beast is reunited with his old Defenders comrade Andromeda in conflict with her father Attuma, current ruler of Atlantis but, as he discovers here, not actually the main villain in the storyline despite the title. The forgettable nature of the chapter is such that despite promises we never get to see Jean being dragged away into the sky in the regular series with Hank grabbing onto her leg. The Atlantis Attacks annuals also contained a multi-part back-up story entitled "The Saga of the Serpent Crown" which retold the whole history of the central object. Normally these chapters are excluded from Essential reprints but it's included here, briefly retelling an old Namor the Sub-Mariner adventure as he battled with an emperor of Lemuria possessed by the crown. On its own it just adds to the general confusion that these annuals create when the whole storyline isn't present. Of more interest are two other back-up strips though one seems to have landed in the annual by accident as Magneto and Doctor Doom encounter one another and recount their pasts, seemingly for the purpose of setting out just how different the two are. The other is a somewhat comedic piece entitled "Inferno Aftermath" as two FBI agents drawn to resemble the Blues Brothers and even named Jake and Elwood explore the aftermath of the events and try to find out what happened, with X-Factor winding up supplying the cover story. It's a nice little piece that addresses how the general public seems to shrug off such events but it's also a reminder of how stretched out things have been thanks to annuals, crossovers and off-world storylines all affecting the pacing as the build-up to "Inferno" began back in volume 2.

The following year saw a shift in policy to running multiple shorter crossovers in related annuals, with the three mutant titles and Fantastic Four all tied together for the "Days of Future Present" storyline, a sequel to the well-known X-Men storyline "Days of Future Past". This storyline proved a mess at the time with the X-Factor annual numbered "Part Two" and the New Mutants annual "Part Three", and they were released in that order, but the contents were inverted such that the New Mutants annual comes first. This volume places the annuals in narrative order but the cover numbering continues to confuse. The story itself involves another time traveller from the dark future of the Sentinels, an adult Franklin Richards. Franklin wanders through the locations of his childhood memories from the alternate timeline, at times reshaping them to match his childhood happiness. Meanwhile the present is attacked by new villain Ahab, the master of the mutant hunting "Hounds" from that dark future. Elsewhere Rachel Summers is drawn into the action, encountering Franklin whom she thought had died in her own time and also having her first meeting with Jean Grey, the woman she recognises as her mother. With four different team books involved there are a heck of a lot of characters running around without the greatest of introductions and the story is primarily focused on Franklin and Rachel, with their parents getting only a partial connection. A major point left completely unaddressed is just who Rachel's mother actually is - when she was introduced her mother was unambiguously the Jean Grey with the powers of Phoenix in the alternate timeline but since then Jean and Phoenix in the regular timeline have been retconned into separate entities and it's thus unclear which is actually Rachel's mother. Jean now having both Phoenix and Madelyne's memories inside her does not help with the confusion. Overall this isn't the greatest crossover for X-Factor with such a key first meeting bungled and swamped by everything going on around it. The only back-up feature in the annual is a character piece focusing upon Jean as she visits Phoenix's grave and tries to reconcile her multiple identities, with the help of an elderly survivor of the Holocaust. It's a good little character moment that serves to cut through much of the quagmire on this.

Also focusing on characterisation is the prestige one-shot X-Factor: Prisoner of Love, since there's frankly not much else going on in it. This over-expensive special sees the Beast go to rescue a pretty young woman called Synthia Naip and end up in her apartment where he has weird dreams and finds out she is an alien and needs protecting from the mysterious "Dark One" who has killed the rest of her race. It's slow, dull, over expensive and the art suffers from both an obsession with drawing pretty women and such bizarre renditions of Hank that at times I had to check just who he was meant to be. The whole thing is rather random and dull, feeling like it was just churned out to get Starlin and Guice's name on the cover. It's definitely something that could have been left aside.

More worthy of inclusion is Marvel Fanfare #50 which contains, according to Al Milgrom's special intro, an issue prepared as a fill-in for the regular series but used here instead. It's been structure to be easy to adjust for use at any point with the main section taking place in flashback when the Angel was assumed dead and a former female acquaintance hires Arcade to kill Iceman and the Beast as punishment for X-Factor's anti-mutant campaign. Her motivations are more personal when it turns out she has a son with angel wings - and claims Warren is the father. In the present day Warren tells the truth about the woman and the boy. As a fill-in that could potentially be called up at any point in the title's run it has to be flexible but it turns into Hank and Bobby asking Warren about something that's been on their minds for quite a while since his return. Still it holds its own and deserves to at last have been included with the regular series.

Warren is also the main focus of the regular series issues which see X-Factor return to Earth and deal with a succession of external and internal problems, starting with Warren finding himself getting ever more out of control and lashing out at all around him at random and making for especially vicious fights with first Sabretooth and then Caliban as the former X-Factor member turned Apocalypse's horseman finally comes into conflict with his former teammates. Then Warren and the others face the vampiric Ravens, including Crimson, Coral and Azure, who infect him with a poison that drives him mad and into different personas at night and day, with his night self becoming an especially vicious vigilante, before the Ravens seek to transform him permanently into one of them. It's not all darkness as he steadily befriends police officer Charlotte Jones and by the end of the volume things are steadily growing between them.

Meanwhile Scott and Jean have their dinner interrupted by an attack by giant roaches led by the old X-Men foe the Locust, but it's not enough to prevent Scott going on to propose to Jean, a proposal she declines as she is still struggling with the multiple memories inside her from Phoenix and Madelyne. Bobby also finds a degree of happiness as he befriends a young woman called Opal Tanaka, but first has to deal with the misunderstanding Mole who seeks to protect her. Hank's relationship with Trish Tilby is on the rocks due to her reporting of a number of incidents that show mutants in an unfortunate life and the tensions just keep on growing. Old flame Vera Trantor turns up when she's manipulated by Mesmero on the commission of Infectia as part of a bigger plan.

These nine regular issues cover a curious period in the title's history when the team are publicly known popular heroes but instead of showing the overall effects of this we get instead a concentration on the individual characters and little indication as to how their status is helping the cause of mutants in general. The story of Archangel's steady rehumanisation is the main focus but at times it feels as if that's the only thing of significance going on with the ongoing Scott and Jean plotlines rather fizzling out whilst the other stories all feel a bit inconsequential.

Overall this volume feels a mess because there's relatively little meat to the regular issues and so much additional material that doesn't really add much to the ongoing series. Annuals and crossovers can both slow things down and here we have both at the same time, taking up such a significant chunk of the series. This is a volume very much treading water.

Essential Wolverine volume 2

Essential Wolverine volume 2 consists of issues #24-47. The writing sees the end of Peter David's run plus a later fill-in issue, a brief run by (Mary) Jo Duffy and the start of Larry Hama's long run. The art includes a long stretch by Marc Silvestri, plus individual issues by Gene Colan, John Buscema, Klaus Janson, Barry Kitson, Bill Jaaska, Larry Stroman and Gerald DeCaire.

Coming from the early years of the Essentials, it's unsurprising that this volume restricts itself solely to Wolverine's main series and does not include his strips from Marvel Comics Presents, with the most notable storyline, "Weapon X", running during the same period. Understandably there's too much Marvel Comics Presents material for later editions to even try to correct the omission, but nor has the series been touched by the Essentials and given its own volume, so once again key Wolverine material has to be sought elsewhere, including a major part of his origin. Fortunately there are no overt references to the Marvel Comics Presents strip, and Wolverine's mysterious past often allows for introductions out of the blue so return appearances by characters introduced in the strip don't stick out, so on a raw reading it's possible to not even realise there were other adventures published that are not included here. But once that awareness is there the lost opportunity stands out all too well.

For those reading just the issues collected here, Wolverine's background remains mysterious to the readers and, at times, to the man himself, not helped by different writers seemingly taking separate approaches to just how much he appears to remember about it. In issue #25 we get offered a possible glimpse at part of his origin. Whilst guarding and babysitting the son of a crimelord, he tells a bedtime story about a Canadian boy who was cast out into the wilderness for being small and weak, but grew up with wolverines and learned to fight when trappers came. It's clear from the pictures just who the boy is intended to be, but is the story meant to be imaginary or is it in fact a true account of Wolverine's past? Later in issue #34 Wolverine thinks to himself that he can't remember a lot of his past and doesn't know how he came to be wandering around the Canadian wilderness. However an old Mountie slowly realises that Wolverine is both a ferocious corporal he served under in the parachute divisions during the D-Day landings and also a stranger he long ago shot at in the wilderness, mistaking him for the beast known as the "Hunter in the Darkness". Subsequently we discover Wolverine is familiar to some participants in the Spanish Civil War but he can't quite remember it until he and Puck get thrown back in time to it (with the complication that Wolverine starts partaking in events and photographs that Puck can't recall him being originally there for). Then Sabretooth claims to be Wolverine's father though a blood test soon disproves it, yet according to Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. the claim is based upon a genuine belief, though he won't elaborate on this. Elsewhere issue #26 sees him relive part of his days in Japan and track down the murderer of an old friend. The whole result is a character who remains an enigma but it's not too clear if there's an actual overall plan that the writers are working to, or if they're just tossing out random ideas that will ultimately not all match up.

Peter David's two issues both have the aura of fillers, rather than any substantial conclusion to his run or latter-day revisitation. The first is a piece of macabre humour as an assassin called the "Snow Queen" finds her plans disrupted when a child steals her briefcase, leading to a chase through the back streets of Madripoor and a grim discovery at the end. The second is at the far end of the volume and sees Logan tackling a drug crazed mad man in suburbia who needs to be neutralised, whilst remembering how he and Silver Fox had a dog which caught rabies and had to be put down but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Jo Duffy's work also starts in filler mode, even though it drops in pieces about Wolverine's past in both Japan and the Canadian wilderness, but then switches into another feature common to the era - the multi-part "biweekly" saga when a book's frequency was briefly increased to twice a month (perhaps that's why there's no annual here). "The Lazarus Project" winds up serving as the winding down of the title's "Madripoor era", throwing in a guest appearance by Karma of the New Mutants and the writing out of Jessica Drew and Lindsay McCabe. The story sees Wolverine briefly lose his memory though in the process he experiences the atrocity of a village being wiped out for an utterly insignificant McGuffin.

The arrival of Larry Hama for what would be quite a long run sees a bold shift in the title's focus, with the Madripoor setting and the various supporting characters rapidly abandoned, albeit with a final brief storyline that also takes in a trip to Japan. Taking their place are adventures set mainly back in North America with an increased use of guest stars. Fortunately there aren't any crossovers within this volume, but it feels like the series is being dragged into being a mere offshoot of the main X-Men titles (the last issue in the volume is from about the time when a second X-Men series was launched) rather than continuing to carve out its own distinctive niche. It's a pity, but perhaps Hama didn't have enough confidence in the Madripoor set-up to make it continue to work. Or maybe reader demand wanted Wolverine on more traditional territory. Equally Hama may have been wary of repeating himself. By this time he had about eight years of the G.I. Joe books under his belt and he may have been conscious of having already depicted a man with ninja connections and a mysterious past so there was a risk of turning Wolverine into another Snake-Eyes. Instead Hama's run, or at least the early part reproduced here, takes the series back into the superhero mainstream.

That's not to say there aren't some occasional detours, such as "Blood and Claws" which sees Wolverine, Lady Deathstrike and Puck (from Alpha Flight) temporarily thrown back in time to the Spanish Civil War, with the complications that they are reliving at least Puck's past. Lady Deathstrike remains a constant theme back in the present day, with her Reavers preparing a trap with two robots, one a duplicate of Wolverine dubbed "Albert" and the other a five year old girl called "Elsie Dee" who is largely comprised of explosives. This leads into a lengthy story as the two robots gain increasing intelligence and start to think for themselves, with Elsie Dee coming to admire Wolverine even though she is programmed to get close to him and then automatically detonate the explosives within her. Both Albert and Elsie survive seeming destruction to keep coming back. Just to add to the complications are the return of Sabretooth and the appearance of Cable which is not at all a sales chaser at a time when he was one of the hottest X-Men characters and giving Wolverine a run for his money as the pre-eminent man with a mysterious past. The whole thing is interspersed with encounters with the Morlocks as well as with various one off killers. There's a mad man who enjoys torturing animals until Logan sets a real wolverine on him, and another who murders several pregnant women having discovered one of them will give birth to a baby who will grow up to be something special. On a different level is Molly Doolin, the vengeance seeking daughter of the Canadian Mountie who died pursuing the "Hunter in the Darkness".

Puck, Storm, Forge and Jubilee all make recurring appearances throughout these issues, but there's no real indigenous supporting cast introduced and developed to replace those from the Madripoor days. We're left with just Wolverine himself, a man with a limited past that generates some interest but which can also limit the opportunity for actual development since the past isn't being properly explored here (or the origin of his adamantium being explored elsewhere referenced here). Instead the main focus is on multi-part adventures with lots of action rather than a great deal of development. It was an early sign of the decompression movement that would see comics drawn out without a great deal actually happening in them. This volume also comes from an era when artists were becoming ever more prominent and at times comics slowed stories down just to emphasise the art. It's hard to resist feeling this was the forerunner of the Image style when Marc Silvestri would be one of that company's seven founders.

These issues were originally published in the early 1990s, which was the time when I first discovered Marvel superhero comics - perhaps a slightly later arrival than many but I plead the mitigating circumstances that Marvel UK had largely dropped out of superheroes for four years, focusing instead on licensed toy and TV tie-ins and that Marvel US titles had no distribution that I knew of in my home town (my local newsagent didn't stock any comics at all). I should in theory take to this volume with all the instinctive loyalty that most people have to their personal "Golden Age" in just about anything, with it being the time when they first got drawn in. But instead I find this volume rather washes me over. Perhaps it was because the comics market was simply so large at the time and Wolverine is a distinct niche appeal that didn't draw me in then and so these issues evoke no nostalgia whatsoever now.

It's a pity because whilst there are some good moments and issues within this volume - my favourite is issue #34 with the hunt in the Canadian wilderness - the overall volume sees the series dump its unique setting and tone in favour of a rather generic style. The result is a rather generic and less than spectacular run. Still it does get bonus points for being a series from the era that doesn't get sucked in to endless crossovers.

Essential Wolverine volume 1

Today sees the release of The Wolverine in cinemas. So it's a good time to look at his debut in the Essentials.

Essential Wolverine volume 1 contains the first twenty-three issues of Wolverine's ongoing solo series from 1988. The writing is by first Chris Claremont and then Peter David then Archie Goodwin, whilst the art is mainly by John Buscema and then John Byrne with one issue by Gene Colan. Before anyone asks, there's no reunion of Byrne with Claremont here. Nor for that matter does David work with Byrne.

Back in 1996 when the Essentials were launched the initial strategy was to focus on the big name best selling titles. Three series were picked, one from each of the Silver Age, the Bronze Age and the Modern Age. Wolverine was the most recent of these and over subsequent years his series has consistently remained as the most recent Essential material, always ahead of other series reaching the Modern Age (mainly X-Men, Punisher and X-Factor) with the seventh and latest volume now up to the end of 2000. It's odd to think that this collected edition is now over twice as old as the contents were when it was first published.

Coming out so early in the Essential programme, it seems this volume missed a couple of tricks and there are some obvious absentees. Wolverine had had a couple of earlier mini-series, one solo (on which the movie is based) and one with Kitty Pryde, and 1988 also saw the launch of Marvel Comics Presents, which was a fortnightly anthology that carried a Wolverine story in most issues. Given later practice on the likes of Essential Punisher volume 1 it's likely that had this volume come out later it would have included at least the solo mini-series. Continuous collected editions haven't always worked out the best strategy for handling characters appearing in multiple ongoing titles though, so maybe one day we could see the Marvel Comics Presents material in its own Essential. (The Omnibus edition includes both limited series, early Marvel Comics Presents stories plus the origin saga and various other bits and pieces, with the most interest for this site being the Spider-Man vs. Wolverine one-shot from 1986.)

This series is surprisingly self-contained. It's always difficult to take a character from an existing team and give them a solo title without risking either producing rather light-weight tales that try to shift around developments in the ongoing team title, or else produce stories that are effectively just special focus issues of the main title. With Wolverine there's the additional problem that at this stage very little had been revealed about his background and origin beyond the occasional detail that popped up in specific stories. Much would change in the following thirteen or so years, so the early issues of this series would turn out to have been Chris Claremont's last opportunity to set down the character's full origin before others would start fleshing it out. Instead the mystery is broadly maintained with the occasional flashback and hint. One story is a flashback itself - presumably an emergency fill-in structured this way to minimise the amount of tweaking to fit it into the title when used - in which Wolverine tracks down a mercenary who had raped and killed a Canadian nun when attacking and seizing the American embassy in Iraq. Wolverine had been sent in by the Canadian government to rescue their citizens but was too late for some and now seeks revenge. Other issues hint at Wolverine's longevity, such as a moment in issue #5 when Jessica Drew spots a photograph of Wolverine and Chang, but then realises it's a 19th century tintype. Issue #10 contains a flashback to the Canadian frontier when Wolverine's girlfriend, the First Nations woman Silver Fox, was killed by Sabretooth. These various jigsaw pieces hint at a bigger tapestry yet to be revealed.

Instead the focus of the series is very much in the present. I'm only vaguely familiar with X-Men continuity in this period but this volume comes during the time when they had faked their deaths and relocated to the Australian outback. We very occasionally see glimpses of this setting and the other team members, but Wolverine is spending a lot of time away from there, in the east Asian island nation of Madripoor. With one large city by the same name, Madripoor appears to be based on Singapore. The city is full of contrasts, with the Hightown end a wealthy, sophisticated developed city ready for the twenty-first century, and the Lowtown ridden with poverty, crime and decay. "Gomorrah on the Pacific Rim" as Wolverine describes it in issue #17, the city provides a unique backdrop for the series and allows it to go its own way.

Interaction with the wider Marvel universe is surprisingly limited for a late 1980s title. The series launched a couple of months before the beginning of the Inferno crossover that ran in all the other X-Men books and many others in late 1988, but Wolverine side-steps it even though the character took part in the events over in Uncanny X-Men. It undoubtedly helps a new series to establish its own ground by not diving into such giant crossover events so early on. However the series wouldn't stand completely alone for long as issues #19 & #20 are part of the Acts of Vengeance crossover that ran in nearly all the Marvel titles at the time. But it's not too major an interaction with the overall plot as it merely amounts to the Kingpin having sent Tiger Shark to the Latin American country of Tierra Verde to kill the hero La Bandera. It's almost a classic example of how inconsequential many a crossover tie-in issue can be. Otherwise the issues are the middle parts of an ongoing storyline exclusive to the title. Beyond this there are no other crossovers contained here - for some reason Wolverine didn't get any annuals until 1995. Given the series's popularity that's a surprising omission, but it may have been a blessing given how many annuals in this period weren't by the regular creative teams, often contained some awkward continuity and were frequently part of convoluted crossovers.

Guest stars from other titles are rare, unsurprisingly given the series's location, with even the X-Men confined to the occasional cameo. However issues #7 & #8 guest star the Hulk, an appropriate early visitor as Wolverine first appeared in his series, but the Hulk in this era is one of the most unusual depictions of the character of all time. Instead of a stressed Bruce Banner turning into a rampaging green monster, he now turns into a normal intelligence giant grey-skinned man at night (per the very original stories) with the Hulk and Banner each trying to take action to restrain the other. At night, the Hulk works as "Joe Fixit", an enforcer in the Las Vegas underworld, complete with oversized suits. This incarnation can't really remember Wolverine, who finds the situation strange and funny. Amidst the broader backdrop of the criminal struggle in Madripoor we get more comedy as Wolverine manipulates the Hulk into various actions, including being forced to wear nothing but traditional purple trousers and arranging for Banner instead of the Hulk to receive the rewards from grateful women the Hulk has saved. (I've no idea if the Hulk's own series showed Banner - by this stage a married man - partaking in such actions but I guess if it was a problem then Peter David would have retconned it away.) The New Mutant Karma also shows up briefly, drawn into her uncle's criminal business.

But there are two characters added to the supporting cast who had been little seen for some years since the ending of the original Spider-Woman series, namely Jessica Drew and her friend Lindsay McCabe. Jessica has lost most of her powers, though can still stick to walls, and is now working as a private investigator in tandem with Lindsay. The latter is at times used as slight comic relief, but her acting skills are often pushed to the fore. There's no explicit referencing to Jessica's pheromone problem that attracts men and repulses women, or that the effect is reversed with Lindsay, but the two are shown as close and it's good to see characters who had a lot of potential squandered rescued from limbo. It staggers belief that Jessica doesn't recognise "Patch" as Wolverine and it's not until issue #14 that it's explicitly confirmed she's known all along, explaining in the following issue "When somebody with claws and a temper wants to believe he's fooling people, well... no one wants to be the one to say, 'Hey, Wolvie what's with the stupid eyepatch?'" Although a convincing explanation, it takes a long time and a change of writer to appear, suggesting it may not have been part of the original plan. Until then Jessica's failure to state this, even to herself, has made her look particularly foolish given her profession.

Madripoor attracts a wide variety of types that produce an interesting and diverse supporting cast for the series, such as O'Donnell, the co-owner of the Princess Bar frequented by Wolverine, Tai, the Chief of Police, Archie Corrigan, a freelance pilot with an interesting brother, Tyger Tiger, a woman struggling to be the new crimelord of Madripoor, and Prince Baran, the island's ruler. The island's criminal underworld is in a state of flux with General Coy, an ex-Vietnamese general now one of the rival contenders to Tyger. At a lower level the island also attracts various pirates, mercenaries, thugs and enforcers like Bloodsport and Roughouse. On a higher level a major epic struggle for the pieces of a special power source brings conflict with "Ba'al", another demon who gives the impression of being the Devil, and his followers in the form of vampires. A search for a powerful sword brings conflict with the Cult of the Black Blade whilst there are also a few existing foes such as the Silver Samurai. Going global, the trip to Tierra Verde brings conflict with Geist, a cyborg who has advised and manipulated dictators over many decades, including President Caridad, the military dictator (oh what a surprise) of the Latin American country. This also brings Wolverine's first conflict with Tiger Shark, as part of the general Acts of Vengeance theme of heroes battling other heroes' villains for the first time. The climax sees the revelation that tainted cocaine carries Spore, a living ancient biological weapon that enhances bodies before destroying them - the message about the effects of regular drugs is none too subtle.

Sabretooth appears in a flashback and makes his presence known in the present when he disposes of some thugs who attacked Wolverine and leaves a note making it clear only he will get to kill Wolverine. The idea of an unseen foe lurking about and actually saving the hero's life from rival threats is not original but can make for long term fear and anticipation. But it's best not to drag out such a theme for too long - we see the message in issue #10, Claremont's last, but by issue #23, and two writers later, nothing has been done with it. However we do know that Sabretooth was never fooled by the eyepatch.

The aforementioned eyepatch is Wolverine's attempt at a disguise and he uses the alias of "Patch" throughout his time in Madripoor in order to maintain the illusion that he and the other X-Men are dead. His costume doesn't appear until issue #14 and he genuinely believes he's maintaining a semblance of cover, even worrying about using his claws around Jessica and Lindsay lest they realise who he is. Taking heroes out of costumes rarely works for long and so eventually it's no surprise to find he's willing putting it back on. (Incidentally the costume is his second, the brown and orange affair he wore throughout the 1980s. The two pieces of artwork showing him in the yellow and blue costume on the first two covers to this volume are thus seriously inaccurate; the third cover reuses the art from issue #17.) Wolverine is a savage anti-hero and the series doesn't hold back in this regard. Like his contemporary the Punisher, who also only got an ongoing solo series that year, Wolverine has no qualms about killing foes to permanently end their threat. With his claws, metal skeleton, enhanced senses and healing factor, little can stop him.

This is appropriately quite a gritty series that doesn't hold back. Madripoor, or at least the Lowtown, is a dark, seedy world populated by the desperate and Wolverine does what he has to do. The series does spread its wings a bit with two epics, one that includes a brief visit to San Francisco and the other to Tierra Verde, but always the anchor to these tales is Madripoor and it's clear Wolverine enjoys it. Although it could have given a slightly more detailed explanation of the whole situation with the X-Men faking their deaths, this series doesn't rely on any others in order to advance its own stories and even the crossover issues manage to limit the main event to little more than a page that tells us everything we need to know and nothing superfluous to Wolverine. It's good to see such a strong, self-contained series from this era that really succeeds in doing something different from the norm whilst not straying too far from the general conventions.

And although the movie released today is based upon the earlier limited series, there's plenty in this volume that could be the basis for a sequel...