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.

In The Interest Of Balance

In case anyone feels I was unfair in claiming that my favourite book of the past 12 years was also the most important debut of 1997, here's a quick rundown of the other continuing books which had their debut in that year...


Steve Seagle was tapped to bring back Alpha Flight, a book that had limped along for a decade before being put to sleep in 1994. Mostly a conspiracy book, with Alpha working for the sinister forces of Department H, the book lasted 20 issues before dying off again.


A bit player in the X-Books since the early 90s, Maverick was given his own book, so that those who wanted to read the adventures of a mutant spy with a terminal disease, could do so. Since it lasted all of a dozen issues, I'm guessing Marvel overestimated the popularity of the character.


If T-Bolts was my favourite book of 1997, Heroes For Hire came a close second at times. Obstensibly a reunion for Power Man and Iron Fist, this book, devised by Roger Stern and delivered by John Ostrander, felt at times more like a reboot of the Defenders. The heroes didn't do a lot of work for hire, and there was that rotating team that Defenders fans were so familiar with. Unfortunately, although it was a good concept, it didn't catch on, and was canned after 19 issues.


Never one to let an old idea die, Marvel have resurrected MTU a few times now, but this was the first attempt, itself spinning out of a quarterly Spider-Man Team-Up book. Written by Tom Peyer, who's mostly worked for DC over the years, this was another one which barely made a dozen issues.


Another book from Peyer, Quicksilver featured the mutant speedster in one of his more heroic moments, working for the High Evolutionary and fighting against such foes as Maximus the Mad and Exodus, and was axed after 13 issues, after a team-up with the equally doomed Heroes For Hire.


Having been turfed off Captain America in the Heroes Reborn event, Mark Waid could have had his pick of characters to write. Bizarrely, he chose Ka-Zar, a second-stringer since 1965, and who, despite Waid's best efforts, would remain a second-stringer well after the 20 issues of this title.


Yeah, ok, you got me. They can't all be losers, and by any definition, Deadpool's been a big success, to the extent that, as of 2009, he stars in two ongoing titles, and he's probably the second most overexposed mutant out there. But in 1997, no-one really expected Joe Kelly's stab at an ongoing book for the Merc-With-A-Mouth to make it big. And, to be honest, I'm still astonished at the longevity of what is basically a one-dimensional character. Go figure.

So there you go. Seven books launched in the same year as Thunderbolts, of which one can be classed as a success. T-Bolts doesn't seem so lame now, does it?

70 Years of Marvel - 1997

C'mon now, did you really think I was going to spotlight any other book?

The 90s were not a golden decade for Marvel, but there was the occasional highlight, and none more than the introduction of the Thunderbolts. With apologies for spoilering 12 year old book, Kurt Busiek's concept of having Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil pose as superheroes in order to take over the world was pretty damn cool. But the idea that, having pulled off the initial deception, some of these long-standing bad guys (Goliath, Screaming Mimi and the Beetle) might decide that they actually quite like the respect that they're receiving, and might decide not to go through with the whole going bad and inevitably getting their heads handed to them element of the scheme, now that was genius.

In a time when there was a noticable decline in the quality of most of Marvel's product, Thunderbolts stood head and shoulders above the rest. For years, the original team trod the line between heroism, opportunism, and villainy, being at times, outlaws, acknowledged heroes and saviours of the world. Then Warren Ellis took over, and the whole concept of wannabe heroes was ditched, in favour of outright villains and psychopaths working for the government in return for a pardon. All well and good, but nothing we hadn't seen twenty years ago in Suicide Squad over at DC.

July '97 was notable for being Marvel's Flashback Month, in which Stan Lee (or a reasonable facsimile) showed up in pretty much every book, in order to introduce a tale from the past of the protagonists of the book: Daredevil's college days, Baron Zemo's childhood, Cable's first time-journey. A novel idea, but pretty much inconsequential in the long term,

1997 also saw Roger Stern and Ron Frenz return to Spider-Man, to give the definitive answer to the question: who is the Hobgoblin? The question had already been answered, a decade previously, but it had been an unsatisfactory conclusion, and Stern took advantage of the new, post-Clone Saga regime to write "his" ending to the mystery he'd started 15 years ago.

New blood was introduced to the X-Men, in the shape of Maggot, Cecelia Reyes and Marrow, all of whom were introduced during the latest X-Crossover, Operation Zero Tolerance. The first new members of the team introduced in nearly a decade, all three proved less than popular, and all three were gone from the team by the end of the millennium.

Outside of comics, New Labour swept to power on the UK in this year. A decade of national mourning was declared, following the ascension of Saint Diana, the People's Princess. And the world gasped at the majestic wonder that was Jim Cameron's Titanic. If any of this seems familiar, then I can only assume you are suffering from deja vu, and not that, for some reason, I looked up 1997 when writing the entry for 1996. Move along, move along.

My First Comics

I may never know which Borders comics fan's mum decided to turf out his November and December-dated Marvel comics, but it was my good fortune that, rather than binning them, she instead donated them to one of the stalls at the Liberal Party's pre-Christmas Bazaar. At the event, where I was dragged by my mum and dad, not only did I get to meet the impressively-statured Cyril Smith, I was confronted with a selection of comics of which, until then, I was sadly unaware.


Alpha Flight #4 & #5 (both by John Byrne)
Alpha Flight #4 featured the tail end of a multi-parter in which the so-called Master of the World attempted to conquer the world, using Marrina the Fish-Girl. It also featured the Invisible Girl and Sub-Mariner, and introduced the idea of Aurora's multiple personality disorder. Issue #5 featured the dwarf, Puck, investigating a drug-smuggling ring based out of a hospital. For a comic featuring only one character I'd even heard of, Alpha Flight had me hooked from the start.


Fantastic Four #260 & #261 (both also by John Byrne)
FF #260 introduced me to the FF's nemesis, Doctor Doom (I may have been aware of him from things like the Spider-Man cartoons, but it would be a very vague awareness), and, before the end of the issue, had killed him off, in a battle between the Silver Surfer and Tyros. This was also the end of a multi-parter, but was also reasonably straightforward to fathom. Alpha Flight #4 was set immediately between #260 and #261, introducing me to the idea of crossovers between titles. #261 had the FF off in space, bumping into the Watcher, and had the team trying to justify not having let Galactus die in an earlier issue. This was a bit of a mystery, but by the end of the book, I pretty much understood what it was all about. The issue also featured a recap of the FF's origin, which was handy for newbies like me.


Amazing Spider-Man #246 & #247 (by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr)
ASM #246 was, essentially, an imaginary story, in which J. Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson, the Black Cat, and Spidey himself daydreamed about their perfect day. Oddly, whilst Jameson and the Cat's dreams ended well, neither Mary Jane or Peter Parker were able to sustain their delusion, suggesting that both have some psychological issues to deal with. #247 featured Spidey teaming up with the fabulous Frog Man, a hunt for the Hobgoblin, and a mystery villain, Thunderball (of the Wrecking Crew). It would be years before I would find out who Thunderball is, and I have no idea to this day about Frog Man. The Hobgoblin was another story, of course.


Spectacular Spider-Man #84 (by Bill Manto and Dave Simons) and #85 (by Mantlo and Al Milgrom)
PPTSSM #84 featured Spidey hunting down a gang of child abductors, and was a purely self-contained story. #85, on the other hand, had the Hobgoblin show up to take on Spidey and the Black Cat. It also, handily, showed the story so far of the Hobgoblin, and featured Peter Parker having a get together with his old college friends, including Harry Osborn, which in turn introduced me to the history of the Green Goblin, which made Spider-Man's obsession with the Hobgoblin a lot more explicable.


Avengers #237 & #238 (both by Roger Stern and Al Milgrom)
Avengers #237 featured Spider-Man trying out for the team, an event alluded to in Spidey's own book, and had the Avengers fighting a whole load of supervillains in Project Pegasus. Looking back, I'm not sure why I accepted supervillains being imprisoned with their costumes on, but it's not something that gave me cause for concern at the time. Issue #238 had the Vision, in a coma due to an earlier battle, recover unexpectedly, showed the She-Hulk househunting, and featured a last-page appearance by Tigra and the ghost of Spider-Woman, the last of which confused the heck out of me.


Captain America #288 (by JM DeMatteis and Mike Zeck)
Set in the future world of 1993, this featured Cap teaming up with the cyborg, Deathlok, to take on the ruler of a destroyed New York. This was pretty much double-dutch to me at the time, and since I didn't have the next issue, it would be a long time before I'd find out how Cap stopped the imminent destruction of the world.

Daredevil #202 (by Dennis O'Neil and William Johnson)
This book had Matt Murdock's firm hired by an African tribe do do PR for their boss, Micah Synn. Micah turns out to be a nutjob, prone to dangling policemen out of windows. As a one-shot, it does a fine job of introducing DD and his significant others, and as an introduction to Micah Synn, it made me want to read more about him, which handily was what Denny O'Neil intended.


Defenders #125 (by JM DeMatteis and Don Perlin)
My first issue of Defenders featured the departure of the original team, the wedding of Patsy Walker and Daimon Hellstrom, and a new team being formed. it also featured an Elf. Much of this made little sense, but thankfully, there was a handy letters page which clarified some of what was going on.

The Thing #5 (by John Byrne and Ron Wilson)
This book had Ben Grimm getting beaten up, for no readily apparent reason, by Wonder Man, She-Hulk, and Spider-Man, before being possessed by his old foe, the Puppet Master. I didn't know at the time who the Puppet Master was, nor why he was out to get the Thing, so this was a less successful introduction to the book, but since the book was essentially an FF spin-off, it wasn't too much of a problem.


Incredible Hulk #289 (by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema)
The Hulk was intelligent at this point in his history, which seemed odd at the time, less so now. It had MODOK setting the Abomination to attack Bruce Banner, who was working for the government on gamma ray research - which with hindsight seems less logical than the Hulk's intelligence. Mostly the issue involved Hulk beating up the Abomination, which for a Hulk book is pretty much what you'd expect.

Marvel Team-Up #135 (by Bill Mantlo, again, and Ron Frenz)
This issue featured Kitty Pryde (note the lack of codename) rescuing some kidnapped children from the Morlock tunnels, with the help of Spider-Man. I didn't know who the Morlocks were at the time, and I'm not sure why they were kidnapping people, but it was a decent enough tale, at the time.


The Mighty Thor #337 (by Walt Simonson)
This was a flummoxer. Thor lost his powers, whilst an alien invader gets them. Nick Fury turns up, with little explanation of who he is and why he has a flying car and a helicarrier. And out in space, someone is forging something big. Now, having read the succeeding two years worth of issues, I know this is a classic, but at the time, it was not a good first issue. Not at all.

Uncanny X-Men #175 (by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith and John Romita Jr)
Speaking of confusing first issues, this issue features the wedding of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, the return of Dark Phoenix, and Mastermind looking for revenge against the team for what Phoenix had done to him. Confusing stuff, but with enough exposition (this was a Claremont book) to make it explicable.

So there you have it. My first 18 Marvel books. Some classics, and some, less than classic, but enough to get an 11 year-old me hooked on the things, if not for life, then at least for the forseeable future. To my bank manager's horror.