sonotadream | Entries tagged with marvel reading list

Ororo: Before the Storm (2005) - written by Marc Sumerak, art by Carlo Barberi

Another limited series origin story, this time about Ororo Munroe, aka Storm.

So, of course, we start the story with some wannabe Indiana Jones ~~stealing~~ retrieving an ancient Aztec artifact in Mexico. He's betrayed by the mysterious guy who hired him and falls to his apparent death. Probably. This book is aimed at younger readers, so it isn’t made explicit.

He then get to meet young Ororo, a leader in a crew of child thieves run by Achmed El-Gibar. He seems to treat his army of orphan thieves fairly, for a man who makes children work for their food. He also has sway over the local police, but we never see why. It’s probably just one of those things inherent to the genre of children books and I shouldn’t be overthinking about it, but I can’t help it.

Anyway, Ororo is sneaky, a loyal friend, a good leader, and fiercely misses his parents.

Nari, hot-headed and not as skilled, is her main rival. Together with Hakim, the three are chosen for a special job. The mystery guy from the beginning hired El-Gibar to retrieve the Opal of Ozymandias from inside one of the Pyramids and he sends his students to deal with the booby traps. He does seem to care for them, for a man sending children in a dangerous, possibly deadly, mission.
Mystery guy also name-drops Apocalipse when he explains why the Opal is so valuable - it grants eternal life, and also eternal servitude to Apocalipse, but the guy seems to be into that.

The kids make their way to the final room. Nari grabs the Opal, inadvertently awakening the statues that act has its guardians. Things look bad, until statue!Ozymandias recognizes Ororo as someone with a significant destiny in relation to Apocalipse, mentioning future events (depicted in past comics, I assume), and lets the kids go.

Unfortunately, mystery guy is waiting for them and traps Ororo and Hakiim in a rock slide, taking the Opal from Nari.

Ororo has a flashback to her parents deaths - trapped in rubble after an explosion. The thought of the same happening to Hakiim awakens her latent powers and they manage to free themselves, only to find the El-Gibar and the rest of the kids have been captured and are about to be sacrificed in a ritual to bring Apocalipse back. They put their training to good use, liberate their friends and Ororo tricks the bad guy into becoming a stone statue himself when he claims the power of the Opal.

In conclusion, a nice story and a nice showing of Ororo’s qualities. However, I’m definitely not the intended audience, because the fact this is framed as a group of street urchins having an amazing adventure and not as a group of orphans being exploited by a man of dubious morals really bothers me.

Doctor Strange Season One (2012) - written by Greg Pak, art by Emma Rios

A bit of Background: the Season One graphic novels were Marvel's way to modernize some origin stories. They end up being placed in a different universe from Earth-616, except for this one. They also seem to be hit or miss in terms of quality.

Doctor Strange is definitely a hit. It starts with a brief, faithful retelling of Strange Tales #115, just smoothing out some rougher edges - does Strange walk in on Mordo casting dark magic? No, Mordo invited him in an attempt to recruit Strange to his side.

Skip to a few months later and Strange's mystical studies aren't going very well. He sort of accidentally invokes Dormammu, which earns him the eternal enmity of Wong, until the end of the first arc.

The main difference between the Wong from the Silver Age and this one is that the latter is actually a character (TBF he only appeared twiceinthecomics I read).

Anyway, Wong has been studying the Mystic Arts his entire life and is a Kung Fu master, but has a chip on his shoulder about Strange. The Ancient One encourages the two to work together because they compliment each other: Wong has the heart, but lacks the discipline or patience necessary to advance, while Strange has the discipline but his heart is lacking - he's here only long enough to heal his hands and go back to his previous life.

We meet our third teammate, Sofia di Cosimo,of il Museo Della Mitologia Antiga Rome. She came looking for Wong and the Ancient One because she discovered three powerful rings went missing and now she's under attack by supernatural forces. The mission is to recover the rings and neutralize them.

The Ancient One forbids his students from going, so of course they slip away in the middle of the night.

The first ring is in Salem in the hands of a corrupt politician. He thinks he's the best thing ever because the ring has been protecting him his whole life, a feeling Strange can relate to. He's able to charm the ring away from the politician, who now has to reevaluate everything he thought he knew about himself.

The politician's ancestors, however, object to this turn of events, but Strange manages to invoke the Vishanti for protection, and then dispel them when they object to an unworthy worm holding the Ring of Compulsion.

The second ring is in Cairo, in the hands of a doctor, Ahmad Amin, who's using it to basically perform miracles. He got it from an old monk in the Himalayas, funny enough.

Strange feels conflicted in taking the Ahmad's ring, but Mordo is also after the rings and sends a horde of monsters to attack the doctor. Our trio manages to save him with some magic and Wong takes the ring.

Ahmad's confidence is shaken, but Strange gives him a pep talk and a helping hand, and maybe remembers why he became a doctor himself.

He's also becoming more in tune with the magical forces around him, which allows Strange to direct the trio to Stonehenge when their magical map stops working.

There is Wong's turn to get a pep talk. He's feeling down because, despite training in Lamar Taj his entire life, Strange is the one with the ability to invoke the Vishanti. Strange reminds him what the Ancient One said, how he has the heart, he just needs to find the words, and the two work together to vanish another horde of Mordo's monsters.

The third ring is in the British Museum, in the hands of an old lady who believes herself to be the last on a long line of guardians against evil magic. Unfortunately, the ring is attracting powerful, evil spirits and Strange resorts to awaken the ancient gods whose energy is still around to defeat them.

It works and they get the ring, but now they have to confront Mordo.Wong calls on the Vishanti, but he's not strong enough to control them, so Mordo, with Dormammu's power behind him, takes control. It's Sofia's turn to give Strange a pep talk, remind him he's not worthless and he manages to call on the Vishanti for help to defeat Mordo, who shows himself not to be so much better than the two novices.

Strange and Sofia help Wong regain control of himself, the rings decide Strange is not an unworthy worm and he returns them to the Vishanti, instead of healing his hands and going back to his old life.

In conclusion, this is a good adventure story. It does a good job of bridging Strange's arc between his origin and being an established sorcerer. And it's nice that the central relationship between the main trio doesn't revolve around a love triangle, it's all about friendship.

The art and colours, especially in the final battle are phenomenal.

Mordo remains a one-note villain, though.

Strange Tales (1951) #110-111, #114-122 - written by Stan Lee, art by Steve Ditko

Finally reading some actual Silver Age comics!

We are introduced to Doctor Strange as an established Master of the Black Arts, his Master, the Ancient One, and his rival, Baron Mordo, who wants to destroy the other two to become the only sorcerer around.

These are short stories and follow a few set beats: Mordo tries to attack either Strange or the Ancient One; Strange meditates to speak to the Master (how many times can you call the old man Master before it starts getting weird?); there's a fistfight in the Astral plane; the amulet of the Eye of Agamotto saves the day.

The origin story comes later, in issue #115. Strange was a selfish, egocentric surgeon, uninterested in helping others. One day, he crashes his car. The damage to his hands makes him unable to operate again and he spirals.

He hears of the Ancient One, a Master of the Mystic Arts with healing powers and goes to the Himalayas searching for him. The Master refuses to help him, because 9he's a selfish, egocentric man, uninterested in helping others.

Strange isn't happy, but he gets conveniently snowed in and has to stick around until he's able to leave. He also conveniently witnesses Mordo attacking the Ancient One with dark magic. He tries to warn the Master, but Mordo puts a spell on him and the only way around it is for Strange to ask to become the Ancient One's student, in hope of learning the way to defeat Mordo.

But TWIST! The Ancient One knew what was going on all along. Strange passed the test, showing he's capable of caring for other people and he's to become the Ancient One's heir and battle Mordo when the time comes.

Things get more interesting with Nightmare taking center stage in issues #116 and #122, with the art takes a more psychedelic turn. He also has much more style than Mordo.

Issue #119 has a lot of panels with Strange in silhouette, looking dark and mysterious with his (non-sentient) cape.

One unfortunate aspect is the Orientalist bent, not just because the Ancient One is Tibetan sage or because Wong is not really a character. Sometimes Strange's depiction leans into the trope too.

A fun note: despite trying to keep mystical goings ons under wraps, Doctor Strange is famous enough to get recognised in the street.

In conclusion, a nice introduction to the mystic side of the Marvel Universe, but I like old comics. The villains are a bit one note, but Doctor Strange's character is well defined already.

Logan: Path of the Warlord (1996) - written by Howard Mackie, art by John Paul Leon

One shot featuring Logan sometime after the war, when he's working as a mercenary in Japan. He gets involved with a scientist that discovered dimensional travel, his daughter who has knives for fingers (I guess she's Lady Deathstrike?) and an immortal warlord from another dimension. He's also studying with a sensei, hoping to better control his animalist instincts. Which he accomplishes in the climax of the story.

Overall, not very interesting.

Magneto: Testament (2008) - written by Greg Pak, art by Carmine di Giandomenico

So, this isn't a superhero comic, not really. There's no heroes or absurd supervillains, just the harsh reality of growing up during the Holocaust.

The authors were striving for realism and I think they accomplished their goal.

The story starts in 1935. Max Eisenhardt is a regular school boy, trying to impress the girl he likes by excelling at a sports competition. He wins a medal, even after a sympathetic teacher warns him not to stand out. In the end, he's accused of cheating and expelled - can't make the arian students look inferior…

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Captain America and Bucky #620-624 (2011) - written by Ed Brubaker and Marc Andreyko, art by Chris Samnee

We go back to Captain America with this not-actually-a-miniseries (it retains the numbering from the ongoing Captain America series) retelling the origin of Captain America's sidekick, Bucky Barnes, written by the guy who brought us the Winter Soldier.

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Marvels #0 and #1 (1994) - written by Kurt Busiek and art by Alex Ross

Marvels is a miniseries showing the big events of the Marvel Universe from the common perspective of the common person. Basically, it's Outsider!POV, which is one of my favorite tropes.

I do find the trope more fun when you know what's going on, but my lack of knowledge about the events of the Golden Age didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story.

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Captain America (1968) #255 - written by Roger Stern, art by John Byrne. First published March 1981

This is a special issue for the 40th Anniversary of Captain America and is meant to be the definitive telling of Captain America's origin story.

Steve Rogers was raised by his widowed mother in the Lower East Side (not Brooklyn! Sorry, that's not the last time I compare the comic with the movie). He grows up a fan of fantasy and art. He watches a news reel about nazis one day and becomes radicalised - love that for him.

He's not fit enough for the army, but General Phillips just happens to be hanging out at a random recruiting center and recruits Steve for Project Rebirth, on the strength of his desire to fight nazis. Not a bad reason, but I think the movie did this part better.

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Origin II (2014), written by Kieron Gillen, art by Adam Kubert, colors by Frank Martin.

We pick up where the last series ended, with Logan living in the Canadian Wildernness with a pack of wolves. He helps them hunt, takes care of the pups, and they took him in as one of their own. Unfortunately, their peace is disrupted by a wandering polar bear.

The bear finds the pack's den and kills the wolves. He and Logan fight, killing eachother. The art in these pages is very striking, red blood contrasting with the white background.

Logan survives, because regenerating factor, but he's all alone again.

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Did you know that the main Marvel universe has never been rebooted and you can read the main continuity from the begginning? Well, I found that out recently and decided it would be fun to try. I love a good checklist.

I'm following this list from Comic Book Reading Orders. It goes in chronological order, not publication, and I'll be skipping anything I don't feel like reading, otherwise this would be unmanageable.

So let's start with Wolverine: Origin (2001), written by Paul Jenkins, art by Andy Kubert, colors by Richard Isanove:

Rose, recently orphaned, arrives at the Howlett Estate to be a companion to the young son, James, a sickly child. There's another boy, the groundskeeper's son (whose name is Logan! And looks exactly like Wolverine!), who everyone calls Dog (poor thing).

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