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Marvel Knights: Black Panther - The Client

by Christopher Priest & Joe Quesada

(Art by Mark Texeira and Vince Evans)

T'challa and the Dora Milaje travel to America on a special mission, where they are met and assisted by Special Attache Everett K. Ross.  Meanwhile, back in Wakanda, the threat of civil war allows a usurper to seize T'challa's throne in his absence.

For most of its length, the Black Panther part of this Black Panther story feels like very familiar territory; with T'challa and the Dora Milaje proving themselves badasses whilst Wakanda is threatened in the king's absence.  Although I supposed credit should be given that this book does a lot of these elements long before they became something of a cliche for the character (and decades before they turned up in the movie).  However, for all the over-familiarity of the story, I was kept engaged by the running commentary provided by the cynical and often hilarious Everett Ross, who it witness to all sorts of bizarre goings-on and has some really great banter with the devil himself (Mephisto).

The latter quarter of the book actually jumped up a notch for me when Mephisto's role in the narrative actually came to the fore.  Rather than just the Black Panther fighting insurgents or usurpers, he has to go on a much more metaphysical journey wherein he has to tap into the spirits of his ancestors and the power of Bast the panther god to prevail.  I wasn't expecting it and really rather enjoyed it.

Despite the definite upswing towards the end of the book, the rest was pretty much just 'okay'.

3 out of 5

Marvel Versus DC/DC Versus Marvel

by Ron Marz & Peter David

(Art by Dan Jurgens, Josef Rubinstein, Claudio Castellini, Paul Neary, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan)

A crossover event which sees the characters of the Marvel and DC comics universes going to war.  The inhabitants of two universes are bewildered when they begin to bleed into each other, with unfamiliar heroes and villains appearing at random, but the stakes prove even more dramatic when it is revealed that two cosmic entities intend a head-to-head contest with the losing universe being wiped from existence.

This was far from the first time that Marvel and DC crossed their characters over with each other (and I loved the fact that the Joker seems to be the only one who remembers a previous crossover - 'Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds' by J. M. DeMatteis) but this was the first time the two titans of the comic industry decided to make a full-scale event of it.  Unfortunately, as with most major event storylines, the commercial impetus behind it is a bit too transparent; with the public voting aspect being particularly egregious.  I was a teenage comics collector when this was originally published and, at the time, I missed that the writers themselves manage to sneak some meta criticism of this whole thing into the book itself.  The most obvious time this happens is when Jubilee writes in her diary 'It's weird - creepy weird, I mean - how people are reacting, treating this like it's the Super Bowl or something.  Maybe it's easier to do that than really think about the consequences.'  I can't help but feel that the authors wanted to tell a much more introspective story about these two mighty universes clashing but were tied-down by the format they'd been given.

The biggest letdown of the book is how the headline match-ups play out.  Not so much because of who wins and who loses (although, does anyone really believe that Storm would beat Wonder Woman?) but more because of the abbreviated and perfunctory way these things happen, in some cases in just a couple of pages.  There is no depth or complexity to most of the battles because the writers have to wrap it up quickly and move on to the next one.

However, there is some really good stuff here, which explores what it would be like if these two universes overlapped in a major way.  Pretty much everything outside of the actual 1vs1 fights is interesting, we just sadly don't get to spend as much time with those bits as we should.  Among the highlights are seeing Bane try his back-breaking technique on Captain America, Robin and Jubilee's budding teen romance, Superman fighting Juggernaut and J. Jonah Jameson becoming the new editor of the Daily Planet.  Really, it would have been so much better if this story had been a much longer event which had had time to develop some of these interesting 'what ifs?' rather than a short miniseries altogether too focused on fan voting.

My final note would be that I loved the resolution, in which Captain America and Batman become the exemplars of their respective universes.  I've always loved both of those characters and it was great to see their unwavering dedication to justice being what the universes hinge on.

3 out of 5

Marvel Visionaries: Mike Deodato Jr. - The Mighty Thor

by Warren Ellis & William Messener-Loebs

(Art by Mike Deodato Jr., Pino Rinaldi, Brad Vancata and Andy Lanning)

Showcasing the artwork of Mike Deodato Jr.'s time on Thor in the 90s, this book sees Thor banished from Asgard and dying a mortal death on Earth.

The stories presented here represent something of a relaunch of Thor as a character and, to my surprise, it's actually a pretty good one.  His awful 90s costume (lots of belts and bare midriff) features on the cover here but not in the book itself, in which Thor's redesign simply has him going around shirtless, which honestly feels on-brand.  Also gone, along with his shirt, is Thor's terrible psuedo-Shakespearean speech patterns, which I was very glad of.  I'm not sure why this ancient Norse god has always spoken like he's something out of Tudor England, but I've always thought it was one of Stan Lee's worst creative decisions (well, of the ones that weren't overruled by the artists doing the work).  So, with normal speech, mortality and cast adrift on Earth, here we see the normally overpowered Thor as something of an underdog.

For me the most interesting aspect of this book was seeing Thor's relationship with Amora the Enchantress.  A long-standing villain, here Thor and the Enchantress find a mutual connection through their shared exile from Asgard.  You genuinely believe her need to connect with someone who understands her and her background, but her willingness to change who she is for Thor only goes so far and her darker side still peeks through from time to time.  It's a surprisingly nuanced take on the character for the time.

Unfortunately the book has a bit of a break in the middle (missing three issues which, presumably, weren't illustrated by Deodato) and after that it loses a great deal of cohesion.  There's a quest to recover and secure a mysterious magical sword, but its magical properties throw the characters to different worlds with little or no explanation.  At one point they're facing Loki on Earth, then they're in Wagner's version of Norse mythology and then Thor's in the Marvel Asgard with Doctor Strange.  Perhaps most inexplicable (beyond pandering to the male gaze, of course) is that when they're thrown into Wagner-world, all of the female characters find themselves in metal bikinis all of a sudden.  And none of them even comment on it.  There are also a few artwork mistakes, where Deodato clearly didn't read the script properly and, several times, depicts a character in the background of a scene where all of the other characters are discussing the fact that she's just been kidnapped.

So, good relaunch of the God of Thunder to begin with, but falls apart as the book goes on.

3 out of 5

Miles Morales: Bring On The Bad Guys

by Saladin Ahmed & Tom Taylor

(Art by Ron Ackins, Dexter Vines, Alitha E. Martinez, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Javier Garron, Annie Wu, Cory Smith and Jay Leisten)

Book 2.  Miles is captured by a mysterious organisation who put him through torturous trials and experiments, driving him to withdraw from being Spider-Man.  However, when he's plagued by dreams of another world and another life, Miles dons his costume once more to confront a monstrous incarnation of the Green Goblin.  Also included are two short tales which reveal the backstory of Starling and show Miles and Peter Parker bonding over pizza and a confrontation with the Shocker.

I was genuinely surprised by how dark this book gets, showing the horror and trauma of Miles' experiences at the hands of the Assessor.  And it's quite appropriate that his experiences, not to mention an existential threat to his family and friends, cause him to back away from being Spider-Man.  I enjoyed seeing him confront two villains who seem to be from the Ultimate universe, showing hidden damage to Miles' psyche as a result of having been folded into this universe from a different one.

The problem is that these stories don't go anywhere.  They're clearly just setting up things to be confronted and resolved later but what that means for this book is that we get two separate storylines, neither of which gets a conclusion of any kind.  The shorter tales added at the end are nice enough, but I definitely would've preferred one main story told to at least some kind of resolution.

3 out of 5

Mistress Of The Empire

by Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts

The final book of the Empire trilogy.  After the ending of 'Servant of the Empire', you'd be forgiven for thinking, 'well that's it isn't it?' but the two authors prove that there is quite a bit more worth telling about Mara of the Acoma.  The book begins with a devastating event that eventually unbalances the Acoma's apparently unassailable position.  However, Mara must face more than simply her enemy Jiro of the Anasati as the Assembly of Magicians begins to consider her a threat to their power. 

The book includes all the plotting, espionage and politics you might expect from the trilogy, but included here are questions about the Tsurani culture as well as Mara's quest to find answers in distant lands.  The book is of higher quality than its predecessors and really makes you feel like you've gone on a journey, a feeling that other authors who write books of similar length sometimes omit (ahem, *Robert Jordan*). 

You could conceivably skip the other two books of the series and simply read this one, although I wouldn't necesarily recommend it.

5 out of 5

Murder In LaMut

by Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg

Part of the Legends of the Riftwar series, this book is very different from Feist's other Riftwar books and, as such, has taken quite alot of abuse.  I, however, am willing to go out on a limb and say that just because it lacks the epic scale or huge cast of characters or glorious battles of those other works, doesn't mean it's not a good book. 

I actually quite enjoyed it and found Durine, Kethol and Pirojil to be wonderfully cynical and pragmatic characters.  Their constant bending (and occasionally breaking) of the rules to get results is a nice change from the clean cut heroes of many other fantasy books.  The prose is of a high quality and the freezing weather of LaMut will soon seep into you mind, leaving you shivering. 

Generally speaking, this is not an epic fantasy tale and fans of that particular brand of the genre should steer clear.  However, if you want an intrigue-filled murder mystery with a fantasy background then I would definitely recommend this book; it's not outstanding, but it is an entertaining read.  Keep your eyes peeled for the bit where Kethol 'invents' snowshoes and fakes a Tsurani invasion!

4 out of 5