Marvel Comics

Mark Millar and Adam Kubert’s work on Ultimate X-Men #1-3 really is the blockbuster action take on the X-Men, but there is enough flashes of characterization, pretty layouts (Not so much those ugly leather costumes.), and clever twists like Wolverine being a bona fide villain and Colossus’ old crime boss supplying Magneto with a nuke. It’s not a particularly deep comic and scratches the surface of the idea of “post-humanism”, but Ultimate X-Men #1-3 is adequate popcorn entertainment, which led to it selling like hotcakes. (Ultimate X-Men #1 was the number one book in December 2000 with 117,085 copies, and issues 2 and 3 stayed in the top 3 with numbers around the 90,000 range.)

Ant-Man is a superhero identity that’s actually been used by three different characters of note and, despite the fact that Lang is the character being used in the Marvel Studios feature film, he is, arguably, the least of the three characters. Hank Pym originated the identity and though he quickly discarded it in favor of the more overtly powerful Giant-Man (using his size-changing Pym Particles to get bigger instead of smaller, a switch Pym-creator Stan Lee has said was triggered by artists failing to depict the world around the shrunken Pym in proper perspective), it was as Ant-Man that Pym helped co-found the Avengers (and come up with their name), and though he quickly left the specific Ant-Man identity behind, Pym remains a stalwart member of the Avengers.

Hawkeye #22 manages to be the action movie of the summer (thanks to David Aja’s layouts and Hollingsworth’s punchy colors) while also rounding off the series’ emotional arc. Prepare to cheer, laugh, cry, and fall in love with Clint and Kate all over again as Matt Fraction and (hopefully not) David Aja take their final bows in the Marvel Universe. Hawkeye is truly the gold standard for regular dude superheroes, and Hawkeye #22 brings this simple theme to an exciting, relatable conclusion.

As Kieron Gillen’s swan song (for now) from the Marvel Universe, Siege #1 has an exciting premise as versions of characters from books he’s written ranging from Uncanny X-Men and SWORD to Young Avengers and Journey into Mystery. A rag-tag band of warriors from all over Battleworld, including Abigail Brand (the protagonist), Ms. America, Lady Kate Bishop (from the 1602 universe), Ben Grimm, Leonardo da Vinci, Leah (Loki’s girlfriend in Journey into Mystery), and an army of Scott Summers clones must defend the Shield, which borders all of Battleworld from a variety of threats including Ultron knockoffs, giant ant zombies, and an even worst threat revealed in the comic. Basically, it’s like reading the Jon Snow POV chapters in Game of Thrones, but sassier. And Siege #1 has some of the problems that those early Jon Snow chapters had, such as some interesting bits of lore and characterization, but almost no plot. The comic reads like a prologue to the real action of the miniseries and takes it sweet time establishing the setting, cast, and some of Abigail Brand’s backstory. But it’s definitely not without entertainment value.

Uncanny X-Men #210″Mutant Massacre”, a storyline running through various issues of Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants (as well as Thor, Power Pack and one loosely-connected issue of Daredevil) in the fall of 1986 is superhero comics’ first crossover event storyline, a style of storytelling that, following the success of “Mutant Massacre”, became a recurring device used by Marvel and DC, so much so that nowadays, these events are annual occurrences, with the entire lines of superhero comics from both companies impacted by their narrative gravity. Thus, “Mutant Massacre” represents not only a significant occurrence in the narrative of the X-Men, but for superhero comics as a whole.

In Runaways #1, Noelle Stevenson and Sanford Greene take the bare bones premise of a teen film like The Breakfast Club or even the original Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona Runaways series of highschoolers from different backgrounds stuck together and adds more physical conflict, jokes, and a less white bread cast of characters. It’s nice to hear two teens have an honest conversation about being bisexual that sounds natural (and maybe a tad flirty) and not like an after school special. Filled to the brim with sparkling personalities and dialogue, comedic mayhem, and spot-on character designs, Runaways #1 is a great, non-traditional addition to the teen superhero genre.

For the most part it’s basically just a fight issue with David and Land re-establishing Dystopia and its ruler. Yet with the surprising reveal of Banner, since the first “Future Imperfect”, he set a trend with various writers such as Mark Millar and Jason Aaron playing with the aspect of an insane Banner in respective books. But with someone like David who has a history with the character, it’s going to be interesting to see how he competes against this.

Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps #1 uses the characters and ideas brought up in Kelly Sue DeConnick’s seminal Captain Marvel run to tell a thought provoking and intense war story set in space with a diverse group of female leads. Each dog fight has a point as Carol Danvers progresses from soldier to possible revolutionary.

Witch Hunter Angela #1 is a tasty cake with layers of Elizabethan style wordplay from Bennett, impeccable costume design from Sauvage and Hans, and puns and in-jokes from Gillen. Also, there’s finally a reference to Edmund Spenser of Faerie Queene fame and undergraduate toil in a Marvel comic. It is filled with subtle or not so subtle shots at everything from William Shakespeare (and a certain Marvel hero) being overused in pop culture to the fandom and good looks of a certain, once underrated character, but these shots are playful and not biting. And in its own winding way, it continues the arc of the friendship between Serah and Angela from the now wrapped Angela Asgard’s Assassin series. Come for the clever history, literature, and comics jokes and stay for a well-rendered and realized world courtesy of Marguerite Sauvage and Stephanie Hans.

Civil War was a massive Marvel crossover event running from 2006 to 2007 and tied into virtually every Marvel comic including cosmic ones, like Nova, and quirky teen ones, like Runaways. The comic begins with the New Warriors (a team of perpetually C-Listers) fighting a group of supervillains to garner better ratings for their reality TV show, which leads to the villain Nitro blowing up a school in Stamford, Connecticut leading to many civilian casualties. This leads to Tony Stark, Reed Richards, the Avengers, and SHIELD supporting the Superhuman Registration Act, which bans secret identities, implements mandatory training for young heroes, and makes superheroes agents of SHIELD. This is opposed by Captain America, who doesn’t want to hunt down his fellow heroes, and the conflict begins as all the heroes of the Marvel Universe must either choose the Pro-Reg or Anti-Reg side.

The only misstep on Hickman’s part is the reveal of Doom’s face, something that should never be exposed to readers. The mystery of Doom’s scarred face should remain just that as readers should question whether his face is actually mangled and charred or if his face is only slightly scarred, but because of Doom’s own vanity he hides his imperfection completely. Overall, it’s a minor gripe in what is otherwise another exciting installment in Marvel’s most ambitious event.

Writing a Boba Fett fight scene must be tricky, due to the disconnect between his portrayal in the films and everywhere else. On screen, there’s not much to Boba Fett: in Empire Strikes Back, the audience is told he’s dangerous but he doesn’t really do much but look cool, and then in Return of the Jedi, he has brief fight with Luke before a jet pack malfunction sends him to his seeming death inside the Sarlaac Pit (something an “over-reliance on technology” message George Lucas would repeat with Boba’s dad in Attack of the Clones). From the films alone, Boba Fett is a cool looking character with a great reputation who, at best, doesn’t do much and, at worse, is kind of a chump.

As comic book readership becomes ever more aware of problems within popular media, it’s been harder and harder to find a book that isn’t problematic. Kelly Sue DeConnick’s ongoing independent book,Bitch Planet, is a gem in the slowly improving realm of comic books and geek culture.

2015 has been quite the eclectic year for comics, and this fact is reflected in our top ten list. Image Comics continues to be the true house of ideas with books ranging from a feminist twist on exploitation films to a murder mystery set in 1940s Hollywood and even a LGBTQ-friendly parody of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Even though they are in the middle of big events (Convergence and Secret Wars), DC and Marvel respectively still have room for offbeat takes on their iconic or not so iconic characters and are represented on this list along with Valiant, which has attracted a veritable Murderer’s Row of creator to shape and develop their shared universe.

Old Man Logan #1 is a lot of things. A character study that captures the feral and peaceful parts of Wolverine through Maiolo’s shifting colors (The more violent the panel, the flatter the colors.) and Sorrentino’s layouts and close-ups of his well-worn face. It is also a chance for two of comics’ finest storytellers to place their mark on a classic genre. Even if you hate Wolverine, Old Man Logan #1 is worth picking up for its exploration of one man trying to find a kind of morally grey hope in a world bereft of it wonderfully rendered in a tapestry of blood, gunpowder, and desert sand. Leone, Morricone, and Eastwood would be proud.

Boba Fett is, essentially, the Star Wars’ universe version of Wolverine, two tremendously popular characters who built their following on the basis of a cool image, a mysterious past, and a tough guy mindset, whose popularity grew to the point that they came to dominate their respective franchises while everything that made them intriguing in the first place suffered for their ubiquity.

On the surface, A-Force #1 seems like a gaudy, punch-filled, and occasionally funny tribute to Marvel’s female superheroes. But it has many interesting feminist metaphors hiding beneath the shiny white jump suits and Jean Grey Easter Eggs and has time for its characters too.

On “Californication”, the Red Hot Chili Peppers observe that “destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation”, a theory that Marvel apparently agrees with, as from the destruction of Earth-616 and Earth-1610 comes the genesis of Battleworld. Even though it’s about 30 years too late, Secret Wars is Marvel’s response to Crisis on Infinite Earths, and because of the sheer scope of the calamity at hand, this is the first time since Civil War that the actual crisis justifies a massive crossover event.

Avengers #55 marks the first real appearance of Avengers arch-villain, but the Avengers lineup he faces is quite odd. It’s a truly kooky quartet of the recently introduced Black Panther, Hawkeye, Wasp, and Goliath, which is one of Hank Pym’s dozen or so codenames. They open the issue as prisoners of a new, mostly filled with second stringers Masters of Evil, including “sultan of sound” Klaw, Radioactive Man, Whirlwind, and the “mysterious” Melter. Their strings are being pulled by the Crimson Cowl, a truly mysterious figure, who was revealed to be the Avengers’ butler Edwin Jarvis. However, writer Roy Thomas subverts the overused “the butler did it” cliche and throws in an even crazier plot twist that the robot Ultron-5 is behind the Avengers’ capture and infiltration of their HQ.

For the most part, Hickman and Ribic keep Secret Wars #1 from being too bloated with timely reaction close-ups of characters, and little jokes or insights into them, like Thanos being disgusted with humanity’s fear of death or the aforementioned Rocket joke. Esad Ribic’s storytelling makes this comic work as a pure work of superhero action with cutting panels for his sharp fight scenes. He also uses well-placed montages as the stakes continue to get higher as the comic progresses. Secret Wars #1 is a true superhero epic with wide-screen action, the occasional character insight, and real consequences even if it may be a little too expansive at times.

Tony Stark’s path towards shaping the world in his own image continues in the pages of Superior Iron Man. For those not up to speed, the golden Avenger, Tony Stark, has found his personality inverted. Now with a carefree playboy attitude, sinister cunning, and a shiny new suit fused with a symbiote, the Superior Iron Man is set to wipe out a portion of the Earth’s population to ensure environmental stability. There’s only two people in his way, first is his former right hand woman Pepper Potts and the other is, well, himself. A copy of Tony Stark’s own mind from eight years ago is his secret contingency plan walking around in the Silver Centurion armor. The war between man and machine is waged and only one can come out on top.

Tony Stark aka Iron Man has been around in comic books since 1963, first appearing in Tales of Suspense #39 before getting his own series in 1968. He has also made many appearances as a member of The Avengers and in other titles whilst Robert Downey Jr’s’big screen portrayal has been extremely well received by fans and critics alike. For those new to comics or even anyone looking for a great read, below are five of the best Iron Man stories ever told. Enjoy!

Avengers: Age of Ultron represents the zenith of Marvel Studios’ Phase 2, the culmination of all the films and television shows that represent the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the last two years. Like the first film, this superhero team up pulls out all the stops to astound, taking the audience on a thrill ride of almost unrelenting action.