House of M

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciller: Olivier Coipel
Inker: Tim Townsend
Colourist: Frank D'Armata
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Publisher: Marvel Comics

What's it about?

Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, is a mutant with magical, reality-altering powers.  After a traumatic event wherein she kills some of her fellow Avengers, the X-Men decide that she needs to be reined in.  Her brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver (he's a speedster), and her father Magneto (the X-Men's main enemy), want to save her and so spirit her away.  The Avengers and the X-Men go in search of the missing family but before they find anyone the world turns white and changes.  Suddenly, mutants are in charge.  They are running things and aren't victimised.  Magneto is a sort of benevolent leader and homo sapiens (us normal humans) are the oppressed.

Only Wolverine can remember how things used to be, so he sets out to put things right.

Marvel: Civil War

Writer: Mark Millar
Penciller: Steve McNiven
Inker: Dexter Vines
Colourist: Morry Hollowell
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Publisher: Marvel

What's it about?
A group of young heroes accidentally kill themselves and 600 civilians. This alarms the government who introduce the Superhuman Registration Act - everyone with powers must register with the government and become paid operatives of S.H.I.E.L.D.  If you don't comply, you'll be arrested and charged with treason.

This Act splits the heroes. Iron Man, Spider-Man, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk and others are in support of the Act.  Most of the X-Men, Captain America, Nick Fury and others oppose it.  As the supporters are hired to bring in those that don't comply, the opposing faction go underground.

The book builds on and references other key events in the Marvel universe but you don't need to know about these to read it.  The other events are used to build the case for the Act and explore the moral quandary that the Marvel universe finds itself in.   The supporters believe registration is necessary to ensure new heroes are adequately trained and to ensure a measure of accountability.  The opposers believe that heroes shouldn't be beholden to government (what if government fucks up?) and that registration puts their loved ones at risk. 

Seen the movie? Read the comic: Captain America

I was recently re-watching the film Captain America: The First Avenger.  This led to me thinking about what comics would make a good read following the film.  So without further ado, here are some suggestions.

Free Comic Book Day and cheap Iron Man comics

We have two exciting things to share with you today.

The first is Free Comic Book Day, a day when you get free comics!  Happening tomorrow, Saturday May 4th!! Sounds great doesn't it?  And there is no catch!  The first Saturday of May is Free Comic Book Day.  Go to any participating comic shop and get your pick of free comics, from a wide range of genres and publishers.  There are loads and loads available, but not all shops stock everything.

From this year's selection I recommend Top Shelf Kids Club,  Princeless/Molly Danger and Mouse Guard.  The rest I either don't know or do not care for.  Having said that I tend to pick up whatever is going just to try it out.

Now, the thing to remember about Free Comic Book Day is that the shops do not get the comics for free.  They have to pay for them, then they pass them on to the customer for free.  So please consider buying other comics while you are there, or, if you get a free book that you like, going back to pick up other issues.

The second thing to share with you is Comixology's 3 day Iron Man sale, in honour of the latest film.  Each comic is 99 cents (American currency) which is about 60 pence in English money.  The sale ends on Sunday.
As I am not too familiar with Iron Man myself I asked twitter friends to provide some recommendations, so thank you @problem_chimp, @lizbatty, and @ZomDa.  They came up with two suggestions:

Iron Man 1 - 6 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Adi Granov (pencils).  Here's a link to the first issue.  Issues 1 to 6 form an arc called Extremis, which ZomDa says is ideal for new readers - it's a standalone story, updates Tony Stark's origin (this happens regularly with characters which have been around for a few decades) and the plot has been adapted into the Iron Man 3 film.  That sounds pretty ideal to me.

Invincible Iron Man issues 1 - 6 by Matt Fraction (writer) and Salvador Larocca (pencils).  Here's a link to the first issue.
Both lizbatty and ZomDa agree this series is good, but Liz commented that it quickly descends into crossover hell, which could either put off new readers or excite you. It depends on how keen you are on continuity, guest stars and series being forced into big events within the shared universe.  Issues 1 to 6 are a self contained arc, The Five Nightmares, so a good place to start.

Also in the sale are Iron Man/Thor 1-4, Marvel's The Avengers The Black Widow Strikes, a three issue movie tie in that is set between Iron Man 2 and another comic, Marvel's The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative #1, which is a prequel to the Avengers film.  Most comics aren't set in movie continuity, so expect what you read in here to be movie correct not regular Marvel comic correct.

So there you go. I know that Matt Fraction is a very good writer and we've reviewed other Warren Ellis titles before, so I reckon that those recommendations are good ones.  I find movie tie-ins good fun too. 

Enjoy your comics!

Seen the movie? Read the book – Avengers

So you may have heard of a certain high-profile superhero movie, out earlier this year. It was called The Avengers. I intended to do a list of book suggestions shortly after I saw it, but what with one thing and another, I never did.

Better late than never, I give you our ideas...

Characters of Colour in superhero comics - the men (part three)

Continuing our series, here is another post on the men, also looking at Marvel characters.
You can read previous entries on women (part one), women (part two), men (part one),  men (part two), the X (wo)men, non superhero comics, men (part four), men part five and finally women (part three) and a Spider-man.

Nick Fury is the General of S.H.I.E.L.D., a governmental agency specialising in espionage and law enforcement.  Marvel's Ultimate universe is a re-imagining of their 616 (main) universe.  It was created to entice new readers into Marvel comics and was intended to operate as a good jumping on point, as it started the world from scratch, as it were.  In the 616 universe Nick Fury is white, in the Ultimate universe, he is black and is drawn to look like Samuel L Jackson, who portrays Fury in the recent Iron Man, Hulk and Thor films.  You can start reading about this Nick Fury in The Ultimates: Super-Human and The Ultimates: Homeland Security.

Characters of Colour in superhero comics - the men (part two)

Continuing our series , we will now look at some of Marvel comics' male characters of colour.
You can read previous entries on women (part one), women (part two), men (part one), men (part three), the X (wo)men, non superhero comics, men (part four), men part five and finally women (part three) and a Spider-man.

The Black Panther -There are two characters with the Black Panther title.  T'Challa, created in the 1960s and his sister, Shuri, created more recently. T'Challa is the king of a fictional African nation called Wakanda. The local god is the Panther Spirit, the king as the champion of the people is considered the living avatar of the Panther God on Earth hence the ceremonial Black Panther identity. He is married to Storm of the X-Men (of whom, you can read here) and recently renounced the Panther identity, passing the monarchy and identity to his sister Shuri.