Another anthology. Three installment stories that cross all six issues, and then one short story per issue. Regular readers of this site know I’m not a fan of anthologies. Telling a story in under 10 pages is nearly impossible. Telling one story in four 10-page installments is slightly better, but the reading experience is just too choppy to really connect with the characters.
My expectations are low, but you’ll see by the end of this post that I was pleasantly surprised. Let’s run through them quick. First, the 6-part stories:
“Madripoor Mix-Up” starring Wolverine and Punisher by CB Cebluski and Kenneth Rocafort. They fight each other, then Hydra and a Predator X. As well as some old Madripoor favorites, like Kimura.
KIMURA PIC AND USE FOR CHARACTER
I thought Emma Frost brain-drained her last time we saw her? Well, it’s a digital book. I supposed continuity doesn’t matter as much.
Will there ever be a better Punisher/Wolverine story than this one…
No. There won’t. But this one is good enough. Grade: C+
“Endless Stolen Sky” starring Iron Man 2020 by two creators I’ve never heard of and who as far as I can tell did no other Marvel work. As an alternate future story, this is both out of scope for my blog and also of no interest to me. Grade: C (I’m assuming it’s about average–I honestly didn’t even read it).
“Mojoworld” starring Cannonball and Sunspot by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. It’s Mojoworld. If you like that, you’ll like this. If you don’t (like me), you probably still will like this because it’s got an early Hickman script and the art is…Phenomenal.
I mean, look at that.
For the story: The two former New Mutants are hired to write content for Mojo TV, and it ends up all being satires of various comics (like Civil War), TV shows (Magnum PI–a favorite of Chris Claremont), game shows ($25K Pyramid), etc. There’s even a cute tribute to the obscure-from-view breasts of Ann Margaret from The Graduate.
Very fun. Grade: B.
The short stories are really not worth going into a lot of detail. Iron Man (Tony Stark) fights a virtual chick. M.O.D.O.K. gets a truly wonderful story by Ted McKeever that seems to take place during the greatest Iron Man versus Hulk story ever, Iron Man #132-133.
He gets defeated by a kid with a safety dart, who shoots him in the eye. The suction cup sticks to MODOK’s eye and his arms are too short to pull it off.
Classic. This is absolutely an A+ gem.
Other solo stories are just ok. Spider-Woman gets to stick her ass out for a bit. Daredevil foils a satanic ritual without saying a single word for his whole story.
The obscure Wolverine foil called Shiver Man gets a little Western tale that reminds us that sometimes obscure characters should…Stay obscure. And the whole thing closes with a Sabra story.
This actually ended up being way, way, WAY better than expected. Overall grade: B-.
I should add: These were originally digital releases that were bound later. I have made digital books out of my scope (most are crap and/or filler), but not if they end up being put on paper.
Note to close readers of this site: Many of the creators on this book did no additional Marvel work, and I not tagged them. Several of them are established indie creators–I am not intending to slight them here. The purpose of my tagging is to be able to find other Marvel work by the same creators, so there is no real purpose in tagging them here.