Everything Old Is New Again

Of course, 2004 wasn't just about Brian Bendis. It was also the year of optimistic relaunches:


3rd time out for Alpha Flight, and a return to Marvel for 90s X-writer, Scott Lobdell. A humorous spin on the Canadian superteam, this lasted all of a dozen issues, and most of the team were subsequently exterminated, in order to establish the badass credentials of the latest Avengers foe. As for Cable and Deadpool, this was was a buddy book, written by Lobdell's former partner in X-crime, Fabian Nicieza, and, for the first few issues, even featured covers by Rob Liefeld, who'd brought Cable and Deadpool to comics in the first place.


Keith Giffen, J.M DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire had made comedy names for themselves with a relaunch of the Justice League at DC Comics, in 1987. 17 years on, they decided to have a crack at the Defenders, applying similar comedic principles to the title. Meanwhile, J. Michael Straczynski decided to have a crack at making Dr Strange popular again, mostly by retelling his origin. Neither limited series did much for the ongoing popularity of their cast, but neither did a great deal of harm either.


On the other hand, these two books did no good at all for anyone. Chris Claremont launched a new Excalibur book, not related to the previous team book, but instead starring Professor X and Magneto, mostly so that Claremont could retcon the evil Magneto who had been showing up in Grant Morrison's New X-Men. There followed a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing between Morrison fans and critics, none of which made Excalibur a good book. Still, compared to James Mullaney's brief revival of Iron Fist, a book so bad that, despite being the biggest fan in the world of Danny Rand, I have been unable to reread, Excalibur was a classic.


Dan Slott made his first venture into the Marvel Universe with a new She-Hulk book, in which Shulkie joins a law firm and engages in all sorts of superhero litigation. Imagine Boston Legal with super-types. In one form or another, this book was still going until quite recently. Meanwhile, having killed off the original Thunderbolts concept, and replaced it with a supervillain wrestling book, Marvel persuaded series originator Kurt Busiek to come back one more time. The relaunch lasted until Warren Ellis came along and kicked out the existing team, in the midst of 2006's Civil War, to my somewhat dissatisfaction.

Yeah, on the whole, actual ideas were pretty much on the way out over at the House of Ideas that year.

70 Years of Marvel - 2001

Fans of parallel universes got a boost in 2001, with the introduction of the Exiles. Dimension-hopping mutants from various different worlds, the Exiles were led, mostly, by Blink, who was a throwaway character from a mid-90s X-Crossover, who, after being killed off, had proved unexpectedly popular with the readers. The Exiles, although a standalone book, had enough ties to the Marvel Universe proper, to keep the fanboys happy, at least until the book was killed off earlier this year.

2001 also saw the Powers-What-Be at Marvel decide to tell the origin of Wolverine, apparently in order to prevent the X-Movies from beating the books to the punch. Although, some might argue, that since Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada and Publisher Bill Jemas each got a writing credit on the book, it might just have been in order to make them some ready cash, helping to tell a story that some fans had been waiting 30 years for.

Finally, it was all change at the X-Books this year, with Grant Morrison taking over the reigns of the Adjectiveless X-Men, henceforth renamed New X-Men, and Peter Milligan relaunching X-Force with an entirely new, entirely bonkers, set-up. Chris Claremont found himself turfed off Uncanny X-Men, again, but got a new book out of it: X-Treme X-Men. Most other titles found themselves facing the axe, as part of a plan to reduce the number of X-Books to a manageable level.

Incidentally, for those of you who care, in January 2001 there were 12 ongoing X-Books (Bishop, Deadpool, Gambit, Generation X, Mutant X, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, X-Man, X-Men, X-Men: Hidden Years, and the quarterly X-Men Unlimited), whilst December had 8 (Deadpool, Exiles, Uncanny, Wolverine, X-Force, New X-Men, X-Treme, and Unlimited). The solicitations for January 2010 show the following regular X-Books: Dark Wolverine, Uncanny, X-Force, X-Men Legacy, Cable, New Mutants, Deadpool, Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth, Deadpool Team-Up, Wolverine: Weapon X, Wolverine: Origins, X-Factor, Uncanny X-Men: First Class, X-Men Forever. 14 in total. So much for progress.

In the real world, of course, 2001 was the year the World Trade Centre came down.

70 Years of Marvel - 2000

One of DC Comics' biggest names took his first step into Marvel waters this year, with Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy, a Kree soldier who fell to Earth and fell out with pretty much everyone he met. Morrison would make a bit more of a name for himself in the years to come, whilst Noh-Varr would vanish without trace for the next few years, until he was recruited to work for Norman Osborn, adopting the Captain Marvel identity. But, you may ask, what happened to the previous Captain Marvel, the one who was Mar-Vell's son? Well, in 2000, he was just being launched in his own title, bonded with Rick Jones, and being written as a comedy drama by Peter David. His book would last a few years, and on its cancellation, he'd join the Thunderbolts, change his name to Photon, and be killed by Baron Zemo. Oh, the indignity.

The British were coming in 2000. In addition to Morrison's debut, 2000 also saw Warren Ellis take control of several of the X-Books, and Garth Ennis start writing the adventures of the Punisher. Additionally, fellow Brit Paul Jenkins' introduced the Sentry, his amnesiac hero from the dawn of the Silver Age.

It also saw the release of Marvel: The Lost Generation, an interesting, misdirected, and fairly futile attempt to bridge the ever-growing gap between the end of World War II and the start of the modern age of superheroes. Presented by Roger Stern and John Byrne, the characters introduced in the book vanished without trace as soon as the last issue of the series hit the stands.

Somewhat more long-lasting was Ultimate Marvel, another new brand, this one existing solely to relaunch the adventures of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and others in a new universe, unbound by all that annoying continuity. In time, these books would become as convoluted as the mainsteam Marvel Universe, but for a while there, new comic fans could dive into comics without needing an encyclopedia.

In other news, 2000 was the year we lost Charles Schultz and gained George Bush Jr. I'm sure there was some good news, but buggered if I can find any.

10 Toy Tie-Ins

Having looked yesterday at Rom, a toy robot licenced to Marvel in 1979, why not join me as we take a glance at some of Marvel's other licenced publications over the years? Whilst Rom, the comic, as introduced by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, outlived the toy which spawned it, other books, as we'll see, were not quite so successful...



Micronauts (1979) was, like Rom, written by Bill Mantlo, and illustrated, at first, by Michael Golden. Introduced into America in 1976, and vanished from toy shops by the 1980s, the Micronauts comic, telling the tales of a team of outlaws living in the Microverse, lasted until 1986, with the Marvel-owned members of the team appearing in other books ever since.



Shogun Warriors (also 1979) was based on a line of toys from Mattel, for fans of giant robots armed with spring-loaded missiles. Cool. The comics, by Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe, lasted 2 years, by which time most people had lost their plastic battleaxes under the sofa.



G.I Joe (1982), by Larry Hama, was by far the most long-lasting of Marvel's licensed books. Hasbro had brought out G.I Joe in the early 60s, but it took until the 80s for them to really start capitalising on the popularity of the Real American Hero. They've got the hang of it now, with one or other comics firm producing tie-in books pretty much constantly since 1982. But it was Marvel's book which showed the potential appeal of Joe and his pals to the comics reading fraternity.



Transformers (1984) was another Bill Mantlo creation, at least for its first issue, before it was taken over by Bud Budiansky. Another Hasbro toy, Transformers, like G.I Joe, had a good run, lasting well into the 90s, under the stewardship of Marvel UK's Simon Furman. And like G.I Joe, Transformers has had a new lease of life, via the world of cinema. Not bad for giant robots who, for no very good reason, can disguise themselves as cars and trucks.


Sectaurs (1985) was, you guessed it, another book from Bill Mantlo. Based on a toy line from Coleco, the people who had brought us Cabbage Patch Dolls, Sectaurs told tales of a planet of super-evolved insects. Like the toys, the comic book vanished off the face of the Earth about a year after it was launched.



Care Bears (1985) was a title based on a range of sickeningly cute stuffed teddy bears from Kenner. Sadly, I've never had the pleasure of reading the book, produced by old-timer writer / artist, Howard Post, so I can only imagine how sickly sweet it must have been.



Zoids (1985) was a back-up strip featured in a couple of Marvel UK titles, the first one reprinting Secret Wars, and the later one printing issues of Amazing Spider-Man. The Zoids were giant robots dinosaurs waging an eternal war, with the Marvel tales featuring a group of humans stuck in the middle. Later featuring the work of a very young Grant Morrison, even his presence wasn't enough to save the Zoids from cancelation.



Masters of the Universe (1986) had been around since 1981, when Marvel began publishing stories based on the adventures of He-Man and his pals, under their Star Comics brand, and featured some of the first comics work from Mike Carlin, who would later make more of a name for himself at DC Comics. The book only lasted 13 issues, but for my generation, the scars remain fresh: "By the power of Grayyyyyyskulllll!"



Mega Morphs (2005) were produced by Marvel's own Toy Biz, and were robots who were patterned after superheroes like Wolverine and the Hulk. The books, featuring the robots as being the work of Tony Stark, were written by Sean McKeever, who's a talented writer and who really should have known better.


And, to get right up to date, Marvel Super Hero Squad is a comic based on a line of Hasbro toys, featuring cute little action figures, which are themselves based on Marvel's own characters. That sound you can hear is that of a snake eating its own tail...

So there you have it. 10 of the best toy based comics out there. Well, ok, maybe 8 of the best. Seven? Surely five, at least....