Minifixation - Update 06/03/18

Another round-up of recent reviews! At last I have a Banshee (meaning I have to update all the reviews bemoaning the lack of Banshee), plus there's updated comic-based Black Widow and Tigra figures and I've updated my homemade Shocker. The imminence of Infinity War means some guesses at Steve Rogers, the Black Widow and Iron Man, while also from the Marvel Multiverse comes a suited versions Whiplash and Killmonger plus Peggy Carter as Captain America. DC gets a new updated Flash, Saint Walker, Indigo-1, Black Hand, Parallax, and Golden Age Reverse-Flash. The Arrowverse finally gets a Huntress and an Overgirl, while from the DC animated universe there's the Justice Lord Batman; Bats also gets an Orange Lantern version.

Comic Review - The Ultimates Vol 1: Super-Human

In these days of the internet wanking itself into a frenzy over Vanity Fair photoshoots of Infinity War it's hard to remember how un-hip the Avengers were at the start of the century. The nadir of the book - being farmed out to Rob fucking Liefeld for Heroes Reborn - was behind it but while Kurt Busiek's run had won back the fans it was too nerdy for bringing in new readers. Indeed, the title's stock was so low that when it was chosen for the next property to receive the Ultimate treatment they didn't even use the name. The result was a smash hit however and a genuine first step back to the top for the characters and concept.

Comic Review - Avengers vs X-Men

To shake up the status quo of the Marvel Universe ahead of the Marvel NOW! relaunch strategy the company naturally went for a big mad event and decided to pit its' two premiere teams against each other. Both have evolved considerably since I last properly read the titles. The Avengers have gone from being just another superteam that spent long periods struggling to live up to the Earth's Mightiest title to an all-star Justice League type roster of the company's premiere heroes while the X-Men have become more of a political collective, given their own island Utopia. Off-panel as well there have been some changes to the stats quo as well - to whit that the box office success of the heavily Avengers-centric Marvel Universe has turned what was a single book that for vast chunks of the preceding decades was kept ticking over out of seeming obligation has become the hub around which Marvel's comics arm rotates. Conversely, the X-Men film franchise was (until a recent takeover) owned by dastardly evil empire Fox, who refused to hand over the rights they'd paid for. While mutant sales are strong Marvel have subtly done what they can to try and position their books as of secondary concern and by the time AvX was published the pressure was becoming more overt.

[CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ANYONE ELSE FIVE YEARS BEHIND]

Comic Review: The Avengers - Under Siege

PUBLISHER: MARVEL (1986-1987)
WRITER: ROGER STERN
ARTIST: JOHN BUSCEMA

Marvel in the mid-1980s was not an innovative place, especially in the main titles where the status quo tended to be maintained. The Avengers had a constantly shifting roster but nothing ever really happened to the team exactly; against this backdrop the group of issues that make up the Under Siege TPB are quite innovative, dealing with a concerted attempt to destroy the team.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 12 - The Return

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITER: PETER DAVID
ARTIST: SALVADOR LAROCCA

Produced totally in house, this was a four-part weekly mini coping with the matter of actualy physically returning the Fantatic Four and the Avengers to Earth-616. Written by proper writer Peter David and drawn by the excellenet Salvador Larocca it should have been a triumph but what's happening is a real mess. Most of the pertinent information is dumped in the recap of the first issue with the rest of it being about Franklin Richards (who isn't bad as comic kids go but is also not exactly great either) arguing for the survival of the world he created with the Eternal Ashema. It's something of a foregone conclusion that the snot-nosed little genius will convince her to save everyone and that our heroes will successfully traverse the journey back to their own world but really you'd hope for a better story to get there.

Franklin and Ashema's telegraphed dialogue - him trying to plead for the sanctity of all life, her seeing the big picture but wouldn't you know it gradually coming around - takes up far too much while the actual heroes are given a somewhat perfunctory role in it all. Franklin is able to project himself to Reed and Sue and tell them what's going on; they buy it and rapidly talk around everyone else. It would be a difficult thing to do well to be fair but that doesn't make it any easier to read as Tony Stark abandons Pepper or Cap leaves Bucky behind with no reason on the word of a kid from another universe. Amusingly the gathering of who's from the real world is conducted by Franklin from memory and he (or rather Peter David) gets it wrong by including several characters who weren't absorbed by Onslaught, including She-Hulk and several Inhumans (only Crystal, as a serving member of the Avengers, made the trip).

David throws in Spider-Man (a hapless passenger when the 616 Hulk and the HR Banner, separated in the battle with Onslaught, find themselves reunited) for no readily apparent reason beyond providing clunking exposition, which considering that sort of thing fills every avaliable narration box feels a bit needy. The one flash of innovation comes later on when Dr Doom attempts to betray everyone by taking Franklin back to the Heroes Reborn Earth, hoping to rule it unopposed. While Franklin is saved Doom does end up going back to set up a thread on what would become known as Counter-Earth that was occasionally revisited; this avenue full of potential, with the planet packed with villains created by Franklin and opposed only by a handful of heroes like Bucky and the Swordsman, would get the occasional visit but was sadly never fully explored. And there was a Jeph Loed Rob Liefield revisit to the whole Onslaught thing in 2006; you cannot pay me enough to read that.

It's an underwhelming end to an underwhelming experiment; the general feeling is that Marvel want to get these guys back in order as soon as possible and just get over the whole thing. The four titles would relaunch under the Heroes Return banner with tip-top creators including the magnificent Kurt Busiek, Alan Davis, George Perez, Mark Waid, Scott Lobdell and Sean Chen. 

The universe's more telling legacy might have been in the Ultimate universe which launched two years later. The Ultimate series made a clean break with the rest of Marvel's output and didn't replace the long-established originals, featured decompressed storytelling that gradually introduced both heroes and the updated versions of their supporting cast rather than the breakneck pace of the Heroes Reborn titles. Young, hip writing talent was recruited to match the stature of the artists rather than trying to revisit old glories. The result was hugely successful and while it inevitably began to collapse in on itself after a decade Heroes Reborn managed that in months, so the lessons would seem to have been learnt.

Minifigures - The Avengers, Part 4

Rounding up the rest of my Avengers Minifigures (bar a few peripheral members who belong more with other groups) this is really just an overview of the handful of characters to join between the late seventies and the title's drastic reformatting under Brian Michael Bendis to have really made much of an impression; I've always liked most of the roster but really it's not hard to see why no-one's come up with a Minifigure of Firebird or Jack of Hearts.

MS MARVEL

Carol Danvers has been around since the sixties and has had almost as many superhero personas and character annihilations as Hank Pym. Ms Marvel is probably still her most famous, a role initially ended to give Rogue a big launch, though she's since come back. This figure captures her most famous costume, the second Ms Marvel one which came back in the nineties when Kurt Busiek returned her to the spotlight as Warbird and stuck around until she became Captain Marvel. It gets the look down to a tee, with the lightning flash on the chest and the (thankfully painted considering some of the missteps with fabric) sash tie while the extant Lego hair piece fits her like a glove. Available either officially or as a Chinese bootleg, this is one of the most impressive figures out there.

THE FALCON

Sam was always more Captain America's sidekick but for a while that basically guaranteed your slot anyway. Since then he didn't really do much in the title for years - Geoff Johns' attempts to make the book entirely about the Falcon and how great he is went down so well Marvel drafted in Chuck Austen to stop him - until Marvel decided he could become Captain America himself and lead the team. This figure - officially available in the Hulk Lab Smash set but also bootlegged by the Chinese - has a fair stab at one of the many red-and-white costumes he wore but errs in a couple of ways. Firstly the wings are not only inexplicably transparent but are also permanently spread, which is fine for play but a pain for a display. The other is limited to the bootleg, where whoever makes these things seems to have taken the gold gloves as skin tone and greatly lightened the face accordingly, leading to a Hispanic look.

WONDER MAN

Wonder Man first turned up as a bad guy in the Avengers in 1964, seemingly getting killed straight away; after various cameos he finally made the team some 13 years later - Stan Lee has claimed this was partly due to a gentleman's agreement with DC, who cried foul on the name's similarity to Wonder Woman then later brought out Power Girl in apparent violation despite Marvel already having Power Man, leading them to discard the deal. The character has since been a respectable tier 2 Avenger but has always seemed just that bit too naff for the real mainstream, with his mullet, long stint in the perennially unfashionable West Coast Avengers and dodgy nineties solo series. As such there have been no official or unofficial Minifigures of him; thankfully even an idiot like me can knock one up overlaying a red 'W' on a black muscled chest, finding some red eyes (easily found from Superman, though live action Hawkeye's red shades provide a 'powered down' alternative) and then just picking a relatively unhumiliating hairstyle.

TIGRA

One of the functions of the Avengers as a book was to pick up characters during lean times and that was the story of Tigra, invented in the mid-seventies as an updated Patsy Walker for the girls and rapidly cancelled. She was resurrected in the eighties as an Avenger, only briefly appearing in the main book before being sent off to the West Coast for about half of the team's run and making occasional guest appearances afterwards. As a sexy cat lady she's sort-of tarred by the whole furry thing now and has received little attention. Thankfully Penzora has once again delivered an excellent Minifigure capturing her in her stripy, bikini-wearing eighties glory; she could perhaps do with a tail but the only tiger-patterned one out there is from the much lighter 2015 Monsters Tiger Woman Minifigure.

SHE-HULK

Like Tigra, She-Hulk was another failed launch folded into the Avengers line-up after her own solo title stalled; she would then go on to do a stint in the Fantastic Four before her second, better-remembered feature book in the late eighties, a mad run of self-awareness and weird jokes. Bruce's cousin Jen has since become something of a favourite at the company, who continue to push series despite underwhelming sales. She's finally got an official Minifigure at the start of 2017 as part of a showdown between herself and the Hulk and their red counterparts; a bootleg based on her video game appearance has been doing the rounds for some time however and isn't bad, with the purple/white leotard worn for most of the solo series. Unlike the official version it sadly doesn't feature the green-tinged hair, also featuring an angry face and a different set of physical details.

MOCKINGBIRD

Bobbi Morse started off as a side character in various Ka-Zar strips which saw her become a SHIELD Agent and then a costumed vigilante named Huntress. To avoid yet another clash with DC she was renamed Mockingbird and then romantically linked to Hawkeye, marrying him and becoming a founding member of the West Coast Avengers (having appeared in the main book as a supporting non-team character). She left the team in a messy Johnny Byrne plot but eventually returned in time to die in a late issue at the hands of Mephisto. Although wait, Marvel's ongoing creative bankruptcy meant that after some 17 years of her being dead it was reveals a Skrull duplicate had bought the farm instead. Sadly this recent interest hasn't been enough to get her in a film or into Minifig form but Penzora again has me covered; the costume of their custom is spot-on though the character has the more modified recent mask; personally I'd have prefered the amazing flying-v shaped one she wore in the eighties but that remains unfortunately beyond the reach of Lego.

IRON MAN

Iron Man of course had been in and out of the Avengers since founding them but the eighties saw his natty red/silver (well, white) armour come to the fore, just in time for him to join up with the West Coast Avengers. There's not been a figure of the armour exactly but it did get used in Iron Man 3 as one of Tony's specialist armours and was brought out in one of the Lego Age of Ultron sets, which has been bootlegged (bootleggers love Iron Man variant armours). Not only are the details retouched accordingly but there's an additional shoulder pad arrangement including decorated tiles on the chest and back that really make the result look quite different - if not quite like the eighties comic version - while also de-emphasising how bulbous the opening helmet is.

U.S. AGENT

One of the more unpleasant heroes of the era, John Walker first stood in for Captain America and made an arse of that before taking up the guise of U.S. Agent, where he was more or less on the side of right but tended to be a bit of a narc and never really got on with anyone. He was shoe-horned onto the West Coast Avengers roster by the government and spent most of his stint as an unwelcome presence. At the time the character was garbed in the uniform Steve Rogers had worn as the Captain and it's an easy one to replicate thanks to the Captain Hydra figures out there; a dab of black paint on the shield and the substitution of a plain black torso with a simple sticker makes for a convincing version of his eighties/nineties look as it's highly unlikely a character who was never that popular in or out of the fictional universe will get an official figure.

QUASAR

While Quasar has one way or another been in existence since 1979 (originally as Marvel Boy, using the Timely character's cosmic bracelets) his stint on the Avengers came ten years later; unlike Mockingbird or She-Hulk his presence wasn't to give him a new home but as part of a double-pronged attempt to push the character, Wendell being given his own concurrent solo series at the same time as his membership. Despite a lot of effort he never really took off however and has since been reduced to guest spots; should Marvel go for cosmic Avengers in the films he's likely to be behind the various Captain Marvels if nothing else. However, Penzora have again obliged with a lushly coloured custom based largely on his nineties look that does the job well in the face of official apathy; my only criticism is the trendy hair he's got. Really I need to find him a nice blond mullet.

WAR MACHINE

James Rhodes had already served on both the main and West Coast Avengers teams during his first fill-in stint as Iron Man before later taking on the guise of War Machine and getting a slot on the latter in the end days before the team reunited. That was at about the point the character's brief fame was declining but the interest in anything Iron Man following the films' success and the easy repaint potential has given him a couple of official figures - which have again been bootlegged. The main changes are the presence of Rhodey's face under the helmet and the addition of a neat clear backpack bracket for mounting weaponry; this is ripe for a bit of customising fun. Naturally the painted detail is closer to the live action suits but it does the job for a nineties version of the character too if that's what you're after.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 11 - World War 3

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITER: JAMES ROBINSON 
ARTISTS: MIKE WIERINGO, MICHAEL RYAN, LARRY STROMAN, RON LIM

With the 12-issue contract with Image (or more Wildstorm by this stage) done with and a glorious return to in-house at Marvel ready to go the Heroes Reborn universe seemed to have ran its' course. However, a 13th issue of each title still came out, a crossover with Wildstorm's superhero books. Why I'm not sure - maybe as a thanks to the company for stepping in, maybe as a contractual thing, maybe as a last-minute fill-in. There's a certain oddness to the way it's presented in that each issue has nothing on the cover really announcing the presence of the Wildstorm heroes, depending on readers recognising the likes of Maul and Burnout, so it doesn't seem to be to give the Image studio a big money-spinning golden handshake.

The rub is that via the Negative Zone an alliance of Doctor Doom, the Skrulls and the Daemonites have been able to bind the Wildstorm universe and the Heroes Reborn universe together through a dimensional lock and the resulting alliance is winning the battle for Earth. It's really just an excuse for some smashing mix-up team line-ups - the Fantastic Four consist of Reed, Sue, Maul and Burn-Out; the Avengers of Captain America (actually Hadrian from WildCATs), the Scarlet Witch, Thor, Hellstrike, the Swordsman, Freefall and Brass; Stormwatch are Battalion, Hawksmoor, Fuji, Fairchild, Winter, Jenny Sparks, the Vision and Triton of the Inhumans; Wetworks consist of Dane, Jester, Mother-One, Pilgrim and Hawkeye; WildCATs are made up of Lord Emp, Zealot, Goliath, Gorgon, Grifter, Warblade and Void. Iron Man, the Thing, the Human Torch, Namor, Deathblow and the Hulk among those already MIA, Captain America is off being Nomad and Nick Fury's just died, replaced by Jeremy Stone as head of SHIELD - whose main weapon is Dane Whitman's Black Knights. No, Dane didn't get Onslaughted but there he is.

Now, if that's all got your eyes rolling this isn't for you. But I love this kind of mash-up and the writer is the superlative James Robinson, who turns in an 88-page action thriller full of everything you want from a crossover. There are deaths galore, big action set pieces, minimal plot intrusion, smart lines and a general "deal with it" attitude. There's also lots of detail thrown in that makes this amalgamated universe feel more natural than it should and each issue manages a great "oh shit" moment. Most of the Wildstorm characters get short shrift surprisingly though it's not really a story where characterisation is the aim of the game anyway, more just increasingly violent deaths as the combined heroes realise Doom's game and try to separate the universes as much as possible.

It's arguable that part of the success is that the basis in Heroes Reborn is only really recognisable due to a few design choices (like the Iron Man armour) and a few cast choices (fair play to Robinson for remembering the Swordsman when most of the Avengers writers didn't). It all makes for some good balls-to-the-wall comic book fun, something lacking over the preceding year. Sadly, with the copyright situation of the Wildstorm characters now being owned by DC and World War 3 being so minor league a reprint looks unlikely and it does deserve better than that.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 10 - Heroes Reunited

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI, WALT SIMONSON, JEPH LOEB
ARTISTS: RON LIM, BRETT BOOTH, MICHAEL RYAN, ANTHONY WYNN, ED BENES, TERRY SHOEMAKER, MIKE MILLER, JOE BENNETT

Much of the second half of the Heroes Reborn titles (especially Fantastic Four) were given over to the build-up to the arrival of Galactus and the twelfth issue of the four titles, all 48 pagers, covered this in "Heroes Reunited". As the name suggested this saw the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the various supporting characters from Iron Man and Captain America all muck in against the big purple planet eater. The odd thing is, though, that it's an anti-crossover in a way - each title effectively has its' own crack.

In the first three instances the heroes lose, the sole survivor being a time-jumping Victor von Doom who works out what's needed by trial and error. It's an interesting approach for sure, and in Fantastic Four #12 at least has some shock value as people start dying. After that it gets a bit predictable and the Avengers & Iron Man instalments especially feel like treading water now the format's been blown but the creative teams all take some pleasure in killing off everyone else's characters early doors (the Fantastic Four getting ICBM'd about a quarter of the way through the Avengers #12 is the peak).

The non-central cast only really get a workout in their own books - the Inhumans are only really seen in Fantastic Four (and then briefly, certainly not enough to justify the time wasted introducing them), the full Avengers roster (including a repaired Vision) only gets much to do in their own book, Iron Man #12 is the only one to pretend that the Hulkbusters are in on this and Captain America #12 is the only one to bring Falcon and Bucky into things.

The final issue featured Doom's time travel equipment damaged, making the fourth attempt all or nothing. Convenient, that. After a promising start the finale is weak, the Silver Surfer being persuaded to fight against Galactus entirely by Bucky being stupid and then defeating him fairly easily before some wrap-up stuff for Cap's solo storylines, making for an underwhelming conclusion.

While it's a marked improvement on Industrial Revolution it's another weak crossover, this time due to a botched format experiment that isn't without promise but only works once rather than the three times it's actually used. It ensures that the last real event of the Heroes Reborn universe is as much of a failure as everything else.

Minifigures: The Avengers, Part 3

The Avengers carried on through the sixties and seventies with new members added; similar to the first roster of additions the recruits were a mix of established guest characters from other titles and new creations especially for the book. We're still in cream Avengers territory, however, and the next batch of characters can make a fair claim for actual fame and popularity.

HERCULES

Marvel weren't happy to settle for messing with Norse Gods and decided to have a crack at the Greek ones as well, though went for the Roman name. Despite attempts to do the whole Pantheon ol' Herc was the only one to really stick, starting off as a guest ally of Thor before joining up with the Avengers. He ended up as a bit of a loudmouthed buffoon for most of his run and the characterisation's always stuck; to be fair this has led to some decent stories which have more of an old-fashioned adventure feel to them. Occasional attempts to serious him up (a mid-nineties stint in the Avengers when he was clean-shaven, long haired and wore a t-shirt and trousers and looked not a million miles away from Kevin Sorbo for some odd reason) haven't stuck, meaning a regular reversion to Herc the Berk with his beauty sash and knee-high sandals. He's still well under the radar for films and merchandise however, and you can bet when he does show up he'll have a gritty redesign. So no official Minifigure yet then but Penzora has produced a fine custom capturing the key details of the costume, including the strappy sandals and the lion emblem on the chest. Like several with a partial mask he has to make do with a paint application instead of a physical piece but with the right hair it can work in this case. The only other oddness is the use of white legs with heavy painted details; again, I think this is a reflection of Penzora using only official Lego parts, so no plain flesh legs were available (for the record I think the bootleg Speedo Batman might have been the first Minifigure full-stop to use anything close; I've not actually researched that, though).

BLACK PANTHER

T'challa of course originally debuted in the pages of Fantastic Four but he's ended up here anyway despite never reaching a particularly gigantic amount of fame as an Avenger, though he's naturally a very important guy as the first mainstream black superhero - an a genius, monarch and cunning fighter rather than lumbering bruiser to boot. That's not bad for Stan Lee at all. Since then the character's maintained moderate visibility - his role as King of Wakanda means he can never stay with the Avengers or anyone else particularly long and despite much effort has never quite made it as a big-selling solo star. A well-received appearance in the Civil War film might have finally pushed him onto the A-list however. It also inspired an official Minifigure which naturally has been bootlegged; also out there are a couple of vintage versions - I'm not sure what they're based on, customs most likely. One has a disappointingly flat head but another has a removable helmet piece which is a little bulbous but does add some serious character; added to some useful detail work like the golden chain around the neck and the end result has just the right amount of Silver Age style to it. However, neither vintage version is particularly easy to find as bootleg figures go.

VISION

Though inspired visually by a forties Timely alien hero of the same name the Vision was another one of those things that makes me love the Avengers - created for the book (another o Hank Pym's experiments) and largely staying in place. he's another who was popular on the book but never really made much of a break-out despite some decent character arcs and some interesting powers. He did get to show up in Age of Ultron, however, and got an official Minifigure. This and its' bootleg seem to be the only version out there; it lacks the cleanness of the classic comic look but it's not a million miles off either and the big colours - green body, red head, yellow cloak - are spot-on and it makes it a decent one to settle on.

BLACK KNIGHT

Dane Whitman is another who spent much of his time with the team, taking over the extant Black Knight mantle from a couple of super-villains. He did get a weird Celtic angle that saw him make appearances with Captain Britain and the Knights of Pendragon and at once point flew a winged horse. An update replaced the Ebony Blade with an energy sword but he's dropped from visibility a bit since the nineties, running in second-tier teams like Heroes for Hire and Excalibur. His powers also lack much interest for Disney and he's another character whose representation is left down to the reliable Penzore. The deep blue scheme works nicely and there's some excellent detail that captures the keypoints of a costume that shifted around a lot over forty-odd years anyway. Even the helmet as a painted head comes off nicely, though I keep meaning to experiment with one of the physical pieces from the Rohan troops from the licenced Hobbit sets. the painted shield is a great piece, however.

BLACK WIDOW

Like T'challa, Natasha had been around for a while before she rocked up at Avengers Mansion as one of the goodies. She started out as an antagonist for Iron Man fresh from Soviet Russia before beginning to fall for Hawkeye's charms, giving her a bit of an in to join the team after a gradual coming over which saw dues paid with SHIELD, partnering Daredevil and joining The Champions. She was even briefly team leader. For the films she got to be a generic Joss Whedon action girl, a wisecracking Scarlett Johansson poured into a catsuit to stimulate perverts. The two official figures have leant towards the live action costume with its' silly blue accents but thankfully the bootleggers have done the classic yellow-belted jumpsuit worn for most of her comic adventures - though weirdly they've given her black hair. This is easily resolved, though the figure could do with something to represent the bracelets on her wrists.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 7 - The Avengers #7-11

PUBLISHER: MARVEL
WRITERS: JEPH LOEB, ROB LIEFIELD, WALTER SIMONSON
ARTISTS: IAN CHURCHILL, MICHAEL RYAN

The midpoint of Heroes Reborn saw Rob Liefield effectively booted off the titles due to a combination of a difficulty in keeping deadlines, disappointing sales and vitriolic critical reaction. The Avengers and Captain America were instead transferred across to Wildstorm. There was still some overhang - Avengers #7 featured a Liefield cover and storyline and was pencilled by Ian Churchill; the artistic improvement was immense while the script continued on from the Industrial Revolution, featuring the Avengers moving into a mansion provided by Tony Stark, who has also joined the team as Iron Man (though no-one knows who's inside the armour). It ends with the arrival of the Lethal Legion, joined by the previously-missing Scarlet Witch.

This was only a temporary fill-in through and the remaining issues were penned by good ol' Walt Simonson. Y'know, good old Walt. Like Scott Lobdell, Walt's no visionary but he's a reliable pair of hands, always good for 22 pages of solid superhero capers. Which makes it all the more baffling that the result is a disaster, an absolute mess that's probably the worst segment of Heroes Reborn. Naturally a prominent thread for Thor and Loki is to the expected from Simonson; what actually happens is the Thor we've been reading about for seven issues is revealed to not be 'our' Thor, who appears within the reactor on the ruins of Avengers Island.

The previous Thor is revealed to be the 'real' Thor from this world rather than ours or something and quickly becomes a bad guy, battles our Thor and then finds redemption and neatly dies. Loki meanwhile bombards Avengers Mansion with a succession of bad guys (the Lethal Legion and the Masters of Evil) all orchestrated as some batty plan by Loki, who swallows up the plot threads previously in place with the Enchantress, Ultron and Kang. There's a general neatening as Ant-Man returns; despite the fact Hank had used his shrinking particles for the first time and promptly gone missing inside the Vision his wife Jan immediately takes some and becomes the Wasp just to make things nice and neat, Wanda's rapidly revealed to have been a witless dupe and Hellcat gets tricked by Loki and trapped in a mirror for not being central cast.

While Loeb & Liefield's stint was far, far from good at least it had a coherent central core plot; this second half of the title is just a mess, a disorientating stream of redesigned characters, nonsensical twists and schizophrenic characterisation. Michael Ryan's art is capable enough with some interesting takes on classic characters (though his rapid conversion of Hellcat to a more conventional Tigra-esque look is perhaps a shame) but with this script it's all for nothing. A complete bloody shambles.

Minifigures - The Avengers, Part 2

The next batch of Avengers minifigures covers the first recruits of the sixties, when the team began to firmly establish its' ethos - unlike the JLA being made up of the company's established star properties the Avengers, having started out that way and usually having some of the founding members on the strength, tended to introduce roster members who were either brand new or had been guest stars in another title, with the first real roster refresh consisting of three reformed villains joining Captain America after the founding members - Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man and the Wasp - decided to take a break from the team.

GIANT-MAN

Naturally Giant-Man wasn't actually a new recruit to get the tenuous theme of this overview off to a winning start, being the second of Hank Pym's 427 costumed identities and thus a founding member as much as Ant-Man was. He's had even more costumes than he's had alias though Marvel's brand awareness means they've finally started to settle on a variation of the red/black original. This one, a Chinese copy, is based on the version in the non-Lego Avengers Alliance video game; the only official Giant-Man figure is a wonderful brick-built thing that - understandably if annoying - follows the template of the film version's costume. The paint apps are nicely done though with the character's antennae-things being 3D (instead printed on the head) it's a little featureless. Oh, and it's really small; while I'm not crazy about Big Figs, and certainly not for a human-shaped character, the extended limbs seen on Mr Fantastic would have greatly improved this one; sadly while there's a version of Plastic Man that's a good source for the arms the legs retain that character's distinctive leg pattern. It's tempting to get an extra pair and paint them but then if I'm painting I'd be more tempted to get one of the poseable Technic figures and just do it from scratch. If only I had talent for that sort of thing. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA

It's one of those little comic quirks that Captain America, mainstay of the Avengers, didn't show up until the fourth issue of the series, famously being found floating in a big block of ice after his World War 2 exploits. He's big news, though, and between his own films and his prominent role in the Avengers movies he's racked up 11 variant official Minifigures. And about 1100 unofficial ones. The sticking point seems to be what to do about the head; a printed design works for a mask but it's difficult to mount details on them so while the official figures have gone either that way or unmasked in reference to the way Cap spends half of his movies unmasked because they've paid Chris Evans money. With the added variation of either comic-influenced light blue or the navy seen in the film there's quite a variety out there. For now as my 'comic Avengers' Cap I've settled on this one, which features an additional helmet rather than a painted head. The extra piece isn't overly bulbous and while it doesn't have the wings it does add a little definition; the flesh head underneath actually has a flesh coloured mask printed on it that gives the impression of a chin-strap and I'm intermittently questing for a similar version in the right blue to blend while also having the eyes at the right level to meet up with the mask. 

QUICKSILVER

Pietro and his sister Wanda debuted as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants over in the X-Men before becoming part of the new-look second Avengers roster, both becoming staples of the team. It's left them in a weird place between the Disney-owned Avengers and Fox-borrowed X-Men films, however, though a deal was recently reached to see some character crossover. Quicksilver has since appeared in two X-Men films and Avengers - Age of Ultron. His one official Minifigure follows the look in the latter as a result of Disney/Marvel's unofficial policy of restricting the merchandise for characters who they don't wholly own and thanks to the bland look he had in that movie it's a travesty, a hipster in a jumper. As ever, the bootleggers do provide; there's a good one out closely modelled on the character's very different look for the Days of Future Past but the focus here is one that's based on the character's classic look. Thankfully the awful green original costume has been ignored; this is the later two-tone blue seen around about the time of Kurt Busiek's classic Avengers run; I would possibly have preferred the one-tone blue example from the sixties but I'm nitpicking and this one has more variety to it anyway. There's a nice scowling face and the swept-back hair also suits nicely; the one fault with this bootleg is that the paint on the feet is never (at least not after three purchases from different sellers) applied thickly enough on the dark blue legs.

THE SCARLET WITCH

Pietro's sister and go-to source for causing contrived 'summer events' that ensure the comic book industry's continued shrinkage while superheroes are bigger than ever. While Pietro's done stints in the likes of X-Factor, X-Men and his own poorly-handled solo title Wanda's largely been an Avengers homegirl but her Minifig story is much the same - just a single figure based on the Hot Topic cashier-inspired film look. Bugger that. Thankfully the superb customiser Penzora has done a version modelled on the costume that stuck for the character for some forty years with only minor modifications. The only problem is there's never been any sort of half-decent mask piece from Lego (or any bootleggers) with paint apps having to do the work; the result is the Scarlet Witch's distinctive headpiece is squashed onto her face below the hairline. But that's nitpicking; elsewhere the detail is nice and sharp, an excellent piece for any Avengers display

HAWKEYE

Completing the second line-up of the Avengers, Hawkeye had started off as a villain in Tales of Suspense (at the time basically Iron Man's book) and soon became something of a cult favourite, in that he was always one of the most popular members of the Avengers due to his sardonic attitude and willingness to chuck in against Ultron or whoever armed with a bow and trick arrows but never quite had the appeal for a solo book, instead headlining in West Coast Avengers and later Thunderbolts in between stints. However, his stock went up a notch of late due partly to the Legolas-driven pop culture archery boom, a well-written part in the prominent Ultimates series and then through his core appearances in the team's theatrical adventures. Te latter means most of the Minifigures have a distinct Jeremy Renner feeling to them (including one released as a promotional polybag that can be found for only a couple of quid). As ever there are further unofficial figures out there including a little masterpiece modelled on his classic appearance. The winner here is the mask part, spot-on with even a raised 'H' while painted details include a quiver on the back (and is a bit of a pain as it can't be covered by a quiver part). I could maybe do with having the palette darkened a notch or two but again that's nitpicking. 

THE SWORDSMAN

Tied in to Hawkeye's origin, the Swordsman briefly joined the line-up shortly after his former charge before being revealed to be up to no good - the first run-out for what would be a semi-regular Avengers story template. After being chased off he was an intermittent presence on the team before getting killed by Kang, since appearing as a plant alien (no, really) and inspiring a couple of alternate universe examples - one introduced in the early nineties stuck around for occasional appearances and an odd choice to make part of the Heroes Reborn soft reboot, where he weirdly remembered events in the main Marvel Universe and then trained up the Remnants in a one-shot that was actually quite good. All of it makes for a not particularly well-known character and it's little surprise there's no place for Jacques in the Marvel money-making machine. Enter Penzora with another neat, faithful custom including a crisp, character-packed face. It's nice work, very nice, and it's hard to see how an official figure if it ever came out would get closer.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 5 - Industrial Revolution

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI, JEPH LOEB, SCOTT LOBDELL
ARTISTS: JIM LEE, ROB LIEFIELD, RYAN BENJAMIN

The sixth issue of each of the heroes reborn titles saw a crossover drawing all the characters together - although there had already been some overlap. So it's a bit of a damp squib anyway even before the scant content. The storyline tentatively starts in Fantastic Four #6 but really it concerns tidying up the whole Latveria Doctor Doom/Silver Surfer/Super Skrull storyline - including linking the four's powers to those of the surfer and the first glimpse of this universe's galactus. Then at the end they're alerted to a situation brewing at Avengers Island.  

 

There the gamma reactor used for whatever the avengers need power for that requires a gamma reactor being built under a superhero base is going critical in their tussle with the Hulk. The Four and Iron Man head in to help - requiring Hawkeye and the Swordsman to be invalided out of the plot. Everyone meets up, speaks platitudes to each other and then Bruce Banner sacrifices himself (or likely not) for the second time in seven issues trying to save the ever-imperiled Eastern seaboard from gamma meltdown. Avengers Island still gets wasted but without any other casualties, the reactor being saved even if the team's base in trashed. Apart from maybe Hellcat, who Lobdell loses track of, and the Scarlet Witch, who's involved in some posession subplot that doesn't seem to be going anywhere good. And there's no mention of Hank Pym or the Vision either. There is a fleeting hallucination of Onslaught in the island's reactor, however, the first real glimpse that how the Heroes got where they are might be a plot point.
 

That just about stretches to filling Avengers #6 and Iron Man #6, so there's still Captain America's contribution. Occe again the dynamic team of Loeb and Liefield manage to drop the standard because most of it is a random battle aboard the SHIELD helicarrier between AIM, Modok and Zemo on one side with Cap and Cable on the other. Yeah, Cable, Liefield's creation from the main Marvel Universe turning up somehow thanks to time travel magic to big Cap up for 18 pages of awful splash pages while Bucky inexplicably tells everyone she just had a piss. Cable's snapped away at the end, realising the Heroes are still alive and needs to find out where. Which is a nice plot avenue that doesn't really ring true as it's hard to imagine Cable giving much of a toss about Iron Man or the Human Torch. The dialogue and actual plotting meanwhile are so bad; it's just a random fight scene with Cap spouting catchphrases about stopping Nazis like he's in a first gen licensed tie-in game while Cable creams at how inspiring he is. Oh and in the last couple of pages someone reminds him it's part of the crossover and the Avengers and Iron Man materialise in Nick Fury's office to tell him Tony Stark will be taking over the team. In a splash page.
 

Not only could this huge plot point have taken up page space otherwise used establishing that Bucky needs to read a sign to remind her to wash her hands after a slash but it also reverts much of the setup to pre-Onslaught formatting, making the first arcs of three of the books totally pointless. An apt summary for a poor crossover even on charitable relative terms.

Minifigures - The Avengers, Part 1

As other people owning or part-owning various rights to Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men have denied the Disney-Marvel alliance some of their most high-profile properties they've been largely left to focus on the Avengers for their multimedia attack and this has resulted in a barrage of Minifigures. I've always been a fan of the group so I've been testing and tweaking the various Chinese copies thereof to try and get 'definitive' versions, ending up with a decent chunk of the line-up. I'll be splitting these up for such a large roster; sorting the five founding members for the first seems a logical step. 

ANT-MAN

This was basically the Minifigure that turned this from "hey, those are cool I'll pick up a few" to "OMG I MUST LET THIS TAKE OVER EVERYTHING". Hank Pym is one of Marvel's more interesting characters, if occasionally bizarre and controversial; unlike so many of his contemporaries he's undergone genuine character development over the years rather than periodic stunts; it was very edifying to see a somewhat low-profile character get some serious love in the Ant-Man film, even if it was via the backdoor as a support role. And the original Ant-Man costume is a period classic, with its' big fifties hangover helmet and neat red/black jumpsuit. I have no idea what the origin of this figure is - there's no official match, the Lego version of Hank Pym being the live action version with a black helmet to differentiate him from Scott Lang - but they nailed it. The helmet's slightly oversized but fits in nicely with the Lego ethos while the paint apps are just right; the only weirdness is the eyes being printed slightly too far apart, presumably to line up with the helmet's holes. Originally he came with a pair of brown spiders, the closest thing in the Lego menagerie to look anything like ants at the time I guess; it doesn't really work and part of me wonders if they couldn't have come up with an ant from scratch but then even bootleggers who aren't paying for rights have a budget and I'm happier that the money's gone to the helmet.

THE HULK

Officially the Hulk has been released by Lego in three forms - a Minifig, a Bigfig and one of those short-legged Mighty Micro ones. The Bigfig came in the 'classic' green with purple pants but has been bootlegged both in this scheme and many others, from grey and red skin to various pants colours. I'm not actually crazy for the Hulk so this one and one of the bootleg Minifigures was enough for me. As I've said before I find Bigfigs to be something of a cheat, especially when they're like Groot and just a statue which can be stuck on Lego bases. Hulk isn't as bad as that, with a Minifig-style head with removable hair, and it feels better having him tower over everyone. The moulded crouching pose works, articulation being limited to the arms, wrist and neck - and naturally this makes him to right size to square up to the bootleg Ben Grimm which seems to be largely based on the same cast. 

THOR

Official Thor figures have naturally been very much based on Chris Hemsworth's live action incarnation, though his stubble has been interpreted as a full beard for most of these; the most common one found itself into a promotional polybag and is thus more common than most bootlegs. The bootleggers have got their mileage out of him anyway with several variations on the chest armour pattern and presence or otherwise of the cloak, most sticking with the long blond hair and beard combo. I always preferred the comic look but thankfully the pirates have me covered there, or at least near enough. There's a version that not only features a more complex armour pattern that includes the legs (not entirely comic accurate but better than plain) and a winged helmet that's a fair stab allowing for Lego-style proportions. This originally came with the obligatory bearded head but it's easy enough to switch a shaved face in; naturally the figure comes with Mjolnir, a moulded piece for the Lego version rather than an extant hammer part.

IRON MAN

Thanks to the character always being cool but never given much spotlight and being brought to life so well by Robert Downey Jr even in third gear. As such the character's so far become the posterchild for the film universe as a whole, and the multiple armours used in the movies are manna for anyone up for a recolour. Lego themselves have put out 15 variants while those cunning bootleggers have added probably the same amount again, from early marks to bizarre schemes only occasionally glimpsed; only Batman comes close to matching the number of possible variants available. I do have a live-action version or two which I'll cover at some point but for this grouping I've gone with one of the few comic-influenced versions. I've not yet got one of the early flat metal or gold versions because I'm not crazy about them (though I am highly likely to buy some at one point or another as I am no longer in rational control of this). No, instead I've gone for the one figure to properly do the yellow/red scheme - an official Lego figure from the Mighty Micros subline. Aimed at young buyers, this consists of duelling short-legged characters in fun little vehicles. As such I needed to switch in some full-length red legs but aside from that he's very good fun for capturing the way the character appeared for much of the sixties and seventies, with the large visible mouth on the removable helmet (less crazy than many of the Mighty Micros figures, though the face inside is unhinged), the big round chest deco and the neat, clean colour scheme.

WASP

Jan's the sort of character that usually gets shafted in this sort of thing, being an unflashy stalwart for fifty years without ever threatening to truly break out, despite leading the team several times and naturally being embroiled in much of husband Hank Pym's storylines. The forthcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp film is likely to see daughter Hope getting most of the focus, Jan having only appeared in a brief flashback. As such there's been no official Lego figure and only one bootleg; this, like many of the Minifigures with no official release, is lifted from the Lego Marvel Superheroes game, the tampographs copied from the in-game model and applied to extant parts. As she's a figure in a suit with wings (using the fairy wing 'backpack') the result is rather good, even if it's naturally something of a shame she's in a sensible modern battlesuit rather than some of the insane outfits she's turned out in over the years. The game version had a black bob but the figure has a brown ponytail; this can be switched out easily naturally but I've actually got used to her looking like this.