Marvel:1985 (Marvel – Millar / Edwards)
“The most powerful super-villains in the Marvel Universe gather their might to wreak havoc on the one place they’ve never before set foot—YOUR WORLD! As mankind’s enemies cut a swath of destruction with unprecedented ferocity and ruthlessness, the fate of the planet rests in the hands of one person: Toby, a 13-year-old boy who holds the key to uniting his comic-book idols, the Marvel Heroes!”
Well the series is over, but the trade is coming out, is it worth picking up?
With the above pairing you can’t go wrong you’d think. Mark Millar’s stories in Ultimate Fantastic Four and Wanted have pretty much catapulted him into well deserved super stardom. He is an awesome writer.
Tommy Lee Edwards’ art is some of my favorite. I’ve followed his stuff since Helix’s Gemini. Very strong, very brushy something very classic about it. His color work is stunning. The simplicity & proficency of his work is boggling.
The story starts out very well, and then seems to sort of wrap up aimlessly and without much drama. There’s never any doubt of a positive, tidy outcome. There’s no mind-blowing cross dimensional ideas that I was hoping for from Millar.
What you do get is some memorable characters, which I wasn’t expecting, and some funny bits about comic book culture. I don’t know if Millar had too many other projects on his plate, or pressure from Marvel for MORE, MORE, MORE! NOW! (at the expense of quality), or whether the story suffered from being limited to 6 issues I don’t know, but it seemed to unravel a bit at the end. I don’t mind undramatic, low key endings (in alot of cases I prefer them), but there just seemed to be too much unnecessary stuff, elements, fluff going on to make that kind of ending work. Why’d the heroes need to be there at all, and what good did they do, when the problem was all wrapped up our normal main characters?
Overall B-. The story petered out toward the end, the art was good though…
Do a Pullbox search to find the reviews of the individual issues!
