This May, fans of the entire Marvel Universe are in for a treat as writer Kurt Busiek and artist Yildiray Cinar have teamed up to bring ‘The Marvels.’ According to Busiek, fans can look forward to “a smorgasbord of Marvel heroes and history” as this series allows for the ultimate team-up capabilities with every hero and villain at their disposal. The stories will span the entire Marvel era from start to end and can take place in the past or present continuity.
Talk about a writer’s playground.
Busiek’s initial pitch for the book was “Anyone. Anywhere. Any time.” which is a very evident idea as we learn what is to come. The very first issue will exemplify this concept as Busiek shares it will include “an invasion from orbit, a picnic in Prospect Park, Super Hero sightseeing in Manhattan, the All-Winners Squad in 1947, Reed Richards during his time in military intelligence, cosmic beings beyond space and time,” and more! Not only will it deliver us tales from some of Marvel’s and Earth’s mightiest heroes, but the first issue will also introduce us to two new characters as well.
In bringing this concept to life, Busiek shares:
“The whole idea of THE MARVELS is to be able to use the whole Marvel Universe—not just all the characters in it, but all the history of it. The sweeping scope of the whole thing. I think I described it to Tom Brevoort as something like a Tom Clancy thriller, in that there would be multiple threads of story going on, and those threads could come together and split apart again, or maybe never even meet—there could be characters involved in a story that do something important but never meet the other characters in the story, which will very much be the case in the opening storyline, at least.
Marvels was about an ordinary guy’s view of the marvels, THE MARVELS is about the marvels themselves. We’re focusing on the super-characters here, and big, sweeping adventure.”
This is an idea which Busiek had wanted to bring to life since writing ‘Avengers’ back in 1998:
“I’d hear people suggesting that Wolverine or Spider-Man or the Punisher or whoever was big at the time should be an Avenger, because they were big, important characters. And I thought they probably shouldn’t, not in AVENGERS, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be a book like that anyway…”
Of course, by now, all of these characters have been Avengers in one form or another.
As to what we can look forward to?
“The first issue starts out in Southeast Asia in 1947, shortly after World War II, when trouble was brewing there, and we also get to see Reed Richards before the FF’s flight, Flash Thompson in the Army, classic 1970s Thor and Iron Man fighting monsters, and more. We see the near future, we see an unusual tour of Manhattan, we see the Punisher, we see the return of possibly the least-expected Peter David character ever”
I’m almost worried that this is all set to fit into just 30 pages, but if they can pull the concept off, this could be a big win for comic fans. These stories wouldn’t have to be tied to current events. They could give us legendary team-up tales and stand-alone stories that will resonate with readers, especially those who are getting a bit tired of the constant major events that dominate most of the larger series these days.
Are you looking forward to reading ‘The Marvels’ #1? Do you feel that we’re going to have some great characters brought to the page in this book? Share your thoughts in the comments below, True Believers!
Source: Marvel
