Marvels 1
Remember when they called "Courage" Hemingway's hot stuff - grace under pressure, you know. What's Busiek's hot stuff? Answer : Relativity. That's the secret ingredient Busiek brings that makes Marvels so good. Simply put, put one superhero beside another and you've got two larger-than-life Titans. Put them both against a Cosmic backdrop, maybe Asgard or Attilan or Galactus' ship and you've got an epic tale. But something is lost. One powerhouse layer after another makes the magic of superheroes commonplace. One titan relative to another titan and they both somehow diminish. Relativity.
Knowing this, Busiek and Ross have placed Marvel's heroes firmly in the mundane; right in the middle of us. And with us regular folks as a backdrop, these heroes really shine. A simple concept but with Busiek writing and Ross' art. Well, what can I say. Marvel is one of those comics that will be regarded as being in a class of its own. All four issues and, or, the collected works are absolute keepers.
Issue one tackles heroes from a time when Marvel wasn't Marvel, when the company was called Timely, Kirby and Lee were just starting out, and Marvel only had three major heroes: Bill Everett's Namor the Submariner, Carl Burgos' Human Torch and Simon and Kirby's Captain America. They're here, they're all here! The stories from the forties. The Torch and Namor fighting in New York. The crowds watching newsreels about Cap. Plus two unforgettable double page spreads from Ross. One showing Namor's tsunami attack on New York the other showing the Invader's in action over Nazi Germany!
Posted by Pete Albano - February 6, 2012
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