The Marvels Project!

I am very very late to this party, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it when I finally arrived. The Marvels Project by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting is a really good story and I'm glad I finally got hold of a copy of it to enjoy. Brubaker is a writer who has a strong reputation, though I confess I've read very little of his work since I abandoned most of Marvel before he became a fixture there, but Steve Epting is an artist I've admired since his very first stint on The Avengers way back in the 90's. Epting's artwork then was a powerful antidote to the clumsy nonsense which dominated the field at the time and he's only ever gotten better over the years. Now since this is a limited series from 2009 I have no idea what if anything is left of these continuity details, but I've always rather enjoyed WWII stories and this one is well above average.

We have here the story of one of Marvel's most overlooked champions, The Angel. Not the X-Man, but the original Angel, a crime fighter from Marvel's earliest days who charged into battle against crime sans any discernible superpowers. What have here is a look behind the scenes of the beginnings of the Timely heroes from a point of view which has some insights but also a very potent everyman perspective which adds a fresh aspect to tales we've seen many many times.

We get to experience, as if for the first time in many ways. the stories of how the Human Torch is created and how he finds a role in society, how the Sub-Mariner wages his war against humanity before finding the true enemy, how Captain America is born and begins his fight against the Nazis. We also meet many of Timely's lesser heroes such as Phantom Bullet, Ferret, and one I was totally unaware of named John Steele. The latter was apparently made into a big deal in the modern Marvel Universe by Brubaker, though I've never read any of those stories.

All in all a great little story and when I found this trade for a mere five bucks, I figured the gamble was worth the chance. I was right and now at long last I've caught up a bit.

Below are some of the covers for this series, which for the most part I have to say are pretty unremarkable. The final one, a wraparound by Alan Davis is easily the best of the lot.

Rip Off