Somebody’s First Comic Book: Magnus Robot Fighter (1991 Series) #1

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: Protector (Steel Nation Part One)

CREDITS:

Writer: Jim Shooter
Pencils: Art Nichols
Inks: Bob Layton & Kathryn Bolinger
Colors: Janet Jackson
Letters: Jade
Editor: Don Perlin
Publisher: Valiant Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: I’ve never heard of the character, but based on the cover, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest this is a comic book about someone named “Magnus” who “fights” “robots.” Let’s open up the book and… hey, whaddaya know? I was right.

IMPRESSIONS: Snark aside, this story is actually very good. We open up with the introduction of Magnus and his mentor, a 410-year-old robot called 1-A. 1-A was evidently one of the first robots in this sci-fi universe to gain free will. He also realized quickly that other freewill robots were inevitable, and many of them wouldn’t be as nice as he was, so he found a kid named Magnus and trained him in some sort of sci-fi kung-fu that lets him beat the crap out of robots.

That part is a little funky, I admit, but once you get past that you get into a really interesting, thoughtful science fiction story. Early on, Magnus ponders the question of whether the robots he’s making it his mission to destroy are actually alive, something 1-A vehemently denies (an odd position, since he’s technically one of them). Despite what Robo-Yoda says, though, Magnus unconvinced. As he goes through the rest of the book attempting to thwart a robot army with the help of his semi-telepathic girlfriend Leeja, the story cycles between an old-fashioned sci-fi action movie and a different sort of philosophical conversation on the nature of awareness and life. It’s surprisingly deep.

The book doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but there are definitely questions left unresolved. I’d be interested in reading more to see what those resolutions are.

GRADE: A

Avengers (1963 Series) #221

February 4, 2012

Title: New Blood

Plot: Jim Shooter
Writer: David Michelinie
Pencils: Bob Hall
Inks: Brett Breeding
Letters: Janice Chiang
Colors: Christie Scheele
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Publisher: Marvel Comics

If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s an old-fashioned “Who’s going to join the Avengers?” issues, and this is a really fun one. Following some dastardly doings by Moondragon, the Avengers are down to four members. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the Wasp each set out to look for recruits to join the ranks of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Shooter and Michelinie really used the personalities of the Avengers they had well here, picking the new members based largely on how the others would go about finding them. Cap and Iron Man attempting to bring back Hawkeye makes sense, as does the Wasp throwing a garden party of sorts to invite some super-powered femmes who may be ripe for membership. The only thing that feels a little off is Thor’s attempt to recruit Spider-Man, but even that is easily justified with a quick conversation with Jarvis, who inadvertently points Thor in that direction.

Bob Hall and Brett Breeding do distinctive 80s art – the textures on the floors of Avengers mansion, the decorations at the Wasp’s house, the clothing and hairstyles of the characters involved… it’s all the sort of thing that you only saw in comic books of this particular time period. The book is quite a nostalgia trip for me as a reader.

The resulting team isn’t necessarily one of the legendary line-ups, but all six of the Avengers we’ve got at the end of the issue are characters who really define the team. Each of them feels like a classic Avenger, and four of them are actually going to be in the upcoming movie. What’s really amusing to me, though, is the list of “potential” Avengers we see on the cover (many of whom don’t appear in the issue at all). Of these 15 characters, only two of whom had previously been members of the team, eleven of them have been Avengers at some point in the 30 years since this issue was published. Funny how the Marvel Universe works, isn’t it?

Rating: 8/10

Super Mario Bros. (1990 Series) #2

June 11, 2011

Magic Carpet Madness: John Walker, John Costanza, P. Zorito, Jade, The Gradiations
Museum of Plumbing: John Walker, Gina Going, Jacqueline Roettcher, Jade, Karen Merbaum
The Kingdom Enquirer: Bill Vallely, Mark McClellan, John Costanza, P. Zorito, Pat Brosseau, Andrea Brooks, The Gradiations
Koopa’s High School Yearbook: Bill Vallely, Mark McClellan, Kelly Jarvis, Rich Maurizio, Ken Lopez, Karen Merbaum
Publisher: Valiant Comics

Here’s a blast from the past for you. I recently stumbled across this classic in the cheap box at a comic convention. It’s easy to forget that there was a time these old Super Mario Bros. comics were hot collectibles, because they were in fact the first comics published by the once-hot Valiant Comics. Now you can get ‘em in a quarter bin, along with most other Valiant books, except those other Valiant titles would usually be much more worth your reading time.

At the beginning we see the first thing I hate about early Valiant – the way they lump all the credits together off to the side without actually telling us who did what. But past that, “Magic Carpet Madness” is a weak story. The king tracks mud through the palace, which leads to scrubbing the carpets, which leads to unearthing a flying carpet, which somehow turns Princess Toadstool into a punk rocker. I am not making this up.

“Museum of Plumbing” is a bit better. It’s a one-page gag featuring Luigi showing off… well, the Museum of Plumbing, which leads to a cheesy last-panel punchline, but at least it’s a joke that makes sense.

“The Kingdom Enquirer” is the best story in the book, which isn’t necessarily to say that it’s good, just better than the others. Toad decides he’s going to start up a palace newspaper, but his attempts at journalism quickly devolve into putting together a trashy gossip rag. The conclusion here is actually clever, and it’s that which raises this story up above the rest of them.

The comic ends with another one-pager “Koopa’s High School Yearbook,” which is just four panels in a yearbook format and a few gags thrown in. I’ll say this for the comic – the artwork is quite good. It’s very cartoonish and lively, and suits the Mario cartoons of the era. But it’s a good thing Valiant EIC Jim Shooter had the foresight to license the Gold Key heroes to start his own superhero universe, or else Valiant today would be even more of a footnote than it is.

Rating: 5/10

Magnus: Robot Fighter (2010 Series) #2

December 7, 2010

Title: Metal Mob Part 2: Deliverance

Writer: Jim Shooter
Art: Bill Reinhold & Mike Manley
Colorist: Wes Dzioba
Letterer: Blambot!
Cover: Raymond Swanland
Editor: Chris Warner
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

As Magnus faces off with the enormous cyborg Big Guns, Leeja has been captured by a group that has severely misinterpreted her relationship with the Robot Fighter. As she’s thrown into an auction for virile female-types, Magnus suits up for a rescue mission.

There’s good and bad here. I’ll start with the good stuff – Jim Shooter has been very successful at capturing an old-school science fiction feel with this title. He’s got the basic framework of Magnus’s Silver Age origins, but at the same time he’s throwing in a little of the grit and sex appeal that comics mostly lacked at the time, but that you could find aplenty in the sci-fi novels of the time. He’s also done a nice job reimagining the Magnus/Leeja relationship. She’s less Lois Lane lite than she used to be, a bit stronger, and much less dependent on Magnus to come to her rescue. The relationship is different from what we’re used to, and that makes for a more interesting read.

That is, however, the most interesting thing about the book. The villains are pretty much cookie-cutter sci-fi baddies, and Magnus himself comes off as somewhat bland. The sad thing is that the original Gold Key Magnus was kind of a bland character, and it was Shooter himself who infused him with a little depth in his Valiant Comics years. When he tried to re-reinvent the wheel, he lost some of what made that Magnus Version 2.0 entertaining.

The artwork is pretty good, fortunately. Reinhold and Manley do a very good sci-fi world, cool robots, and great tech. The cover, by Raymond Swanland, is just fantastic. This could be held right up there against the all-time great science fiction novel covers.

We’ve got a case here were a floundering story is being buoyed up by really good art. Magnus deserves better.

Rating: 7/10

X-O Manowar: Birth HC

May 21, 2008

Quick Rating: Great
Collects: X-O Manowar #0-6

A warrior from a different time comes into possession of a weapon beyond imagining.

Writers: Jim Shooter, Steve Englehart, Bob Layton & Jorge Gonzalez
Pencils: Barry Windsor Smith, Sal Velluto, Mike Manley, Mike Leeke, Steve Ditko, Mark Moretti & Joe Quesada
Inks: Bob Layton, John Holdredge, Tom Ryder, Kathryn Bolinger, Ted Halsted, Ralph Reese & Jimmy Palmiotti
Original Colors: Jorge Gonzalez, Paul Autio & John Cebollero
Digital Colors: Rob Ruffolo
Letters: Jade, Ken Lopez & Sorah Suhng
Editor: Dinesh Shamdasani
Cover Art: Sean Chen, Bob Layton, Anthony Castillo, Chrysoula Artemis & Rob Ruffolo
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment

Back in the 90s, Valiant Comics were the hottest thing going. The company burned bright, put out some brilliantly innovative comics, then died a painful death when Acclaim bought them out and proved conclusively that making video games in no way qualifies you to run a comic book publisher. But the Valiant fans never died, and now Valiant Entertainment has bought the rights to these classic comics, and is beginning to bring them back to us – first with the Harbinger: The Beginning hardcover, and now with X-O Manowar: Birth.

Collecting the first six issues of the book, as well as the zero issue, this handsome volume introduces us to Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth who was kidnapped by an alien invasion force in the year 408 AD. Aric was one of many humans brought on a faster-than-light journey, delaying their aging as the Spider Aliens studied them in the hopes of using them to impersonate humans and infiltrate Earth society, until in 1991 the superhero called Solar, Man of the Atom, thwarted their invasion. During the battle, Aric escapes their clutches and manages to steal their most powerful weapon – the sentient X-O Manowar class armor that none of their people has been able to use without going insane.

Returning to Earth, Aric and the armor bond with one another – which will be necessary as the Goth tries to integrate himself into a society that passed him by over 1500 years ago. This was the second original Valiant title (following Harbinger), and was a fan favorite for obvious reasons. The elevator pitch for this book would be “Conan the Barbarian meets Iron Man,” but it’s so much more than that. Aric makes no effort to emulate the morals of a different time, clearly not understanding why his way of doing things is no longer acceptable, and his relationship with the “Wizard” named Ken helps to flesh out and enrich the character, while still giving the reader someone more contemporary to help view the story. Likewise, his armor is much more than anything Tony Stark ever creating – it’s living, it’s sentient, and in many ways it’s much more of a guide to Aric than Ken is. Everything in this book is rich, layered and as entertaining today as it was 15 years ago when most of these issues were first printed.

Valiant Entertainment has done something interesting with the artwork. Unable to work from the originals, they instead scanned the printed pages, removed the color and re-colored them digitally, using the original colors as a guide. The result is a book that has much more vibrant, exciting colors than any of the originals did, but also occasionally includes a page where the scan wasn’t quite sharp enough, resulting in slightly fuzzy linework. It’s not a big problem, and most of the time it isn’t even noticeable, but there are occasionally pages that make it clear just how they were done.

The book also includes the zero issue, which showed Aric’s pre-abduction life for the first time, and greatly expanded the story of his escape. This chapter, penciled by a young up-and-comer called Joe Quesada, particularly benefits from the new colors.

The book is topped off with “The Rise of Lydia,” a new 8-page story by original series creators Bob Layton and Mike Leeke. This short story, like the new story in the Harbinger hardcover, feels sort of like a “Secret Files” story to me. It’s not essential to understand the story, but it adds another dimension to one of the primary villains of the tale and fills in a lot of the blanks of her past.

If you’ve never read these stories before, if you were too young for Valiant in the first go-around, this is your chance to get on board. If you were a fan the first time, you owe it to yourself to revisit these classic stories. We can only hope that these hardcover books are merely harbingers of big things to come.

Pun intended.

Rating: 9/10

(2010 Note: Sadly, two years later only this and two other hardcover collections of Harbinger and Archer and Armstrong have come from the people at Valiant Entertainment.)