by Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch, with Currie & Neary on inks, Paul Mounts on colours
(£19-99, Marvel)
You've just tuned into Page 45, the anti-corporate, pro-fiction, cutting-edge retailer voted best in the country by a band of... beautifully misguided Lovelypeople. And there appears to be a slight problem adjusting your channel. Because this has had me grinning like a monkey and swooning like a sixteen-year-old since the moment it arrived, and it's not as if I hadn't read the material half a dozen times already. DVD extras on this enlarged hardcover include an issue-by-thirteen-issue commentary by Millar and Hitch. 'From what I remember,' says Hitch, 'what became the first five issues was intended as solely issue 1, single sized!'
Mark went to the Barbelith INVISIBLES sight to find someone there outraged that Page 45 had reviewed Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN, and worst still it seems, reviewed it positively. 'I thought Page 45 was an Indie shop!' - or words to that effect. Now, in how many ways is that peculiar, do you think?
My love affair with this title is no secret (though my love affair with Mark Millar is something I'm hoping to keep under wraps): not least because of the pencils, the inks and the colouring, which are the closest to classical excellence ever seen in a comic including, nay far eclipsing, Neal Adams. That wouldn't do it for me alone, but Millar fills the work with media winks, geopolitical nudges, and a cast of fully rounded mentalists. The three finest transformations here are Nick Fury from tiresome, cigar-chomping geriatric to a charismatic Samuel L. Jackson with real military know-how, Thor from 'I-say-thee-nay', socially disinterested transdimensional commuter to anti-establishment European with charm and style and much better lightning, and, perhaps most impressively, Captain America from goody-two-shoes stooge to straight-down-the-line, WWII soldier with an attitude, a temper, and a knack for one-liners. Although sour-faced Jarvis, bespectacled butler and bitchy old queen, is also good for a laugh. I don't know if the following is remotely intelligible, but it was great fun to compile...
'They made trading cards of me?'
'All gone to charity now, I'm afraid. I think I gave them away with the Faberge eggs and the vintage Playboys, if I'm not mistaken.'
'Just a shame you couldn't bear to part with your late mother's evening wear when you were taking part in this execrable new-age nonsense, eh, Master Tony?'
'Oh, God. Here we go again. I thought this was your night off anyway, Jarvis. Aren't you supposed to be going down to the club tonight with Alfred and all those other old degenerates?'
'Oh, but I cancelled the moment I heard who we were entertaining, Master Tony. Even the club can't compete with a Super-Soldier and an Asgardian God.'
'You're wasting your time, you know, Jarvis. Do you seriously think Captain America and Thor have even noticed that preposterous new waistcoat of yours?'
'Give it time, young sir. Give it time. I'm feeling jolly lucky this evening, you know.'
* * *
'Well, in response to your first point; getting people to sign up for the most dangerous job in the world is always going to be a challenge, Larry. That said, we are talking to the Norse God, Thor...'
* * *
'I've known who I was since I was twelve years old, but it wasn't until my nervous breakdown that everything became clear to me. I am God made man... the living incarnation of a Norse thunder deity sent here by my father in Valhalla to purify the Earth again.'
'You think we need to be purified?'
'Take a look around you, Captain... your world is being bled dry while your people grow dull-eyed and hypnotised by reality TV and Playstation 2. I'm here to wake you all up again before mankind sleepwalks their way into oblivion.'
'Don't you think joining The Ultimates could provide a useful platform to get that message out there, Thor?'
'No, joining The Ultimates would be condoning every reprehensible action taken by the wretched military-industrial complex who pay your wages, Tony.'
* * *
'...And Hank Pym is already working on a unique artificial intelligence with a variety of extra-normal abilities.'
'Can you seriously justify a fifty billion dollar headquarters off the coast of Manhattan when there's only been one notable super-villain attack in American History? What if it's another ten years before someone like Magneto comes along? Supposing it never even happens again?'
'With the greatest respect, that's the craziest argument I ever heard, Larry. Isn't that like refusing to take out medical insurance because you can't imagine yourself getting sick?'
* * *
'The budget cuts we're making in the regular army are going to make us a political hot potato as it is. Why do you think I'm not risking any mutants in the initial line-up?'
'Is that why you were so keen the get me on board? Do I bring a little rented respectability to the party, General?'
'Never made a secret of it, Tony. You're a trusted brand name in everything from internet software to aspartame-polluted diet soda. And, of course the new Iron Man armour you devised in the mountains doesn't exactly hurt your case either. Light-negativity, thought-scramblers, a tracking-system that could find a Democrat in Texas -- this is everything we S.H.I.E.L.D. boys ever fantasised about, man.'
* * *
'Hold on, you know who would be brilliant as Bruce Banner? The one who'd really pull of that bug-eyed neuroticism he's turned into an art-form?'
'Wait, let me guess; Woody Allen if he dropped a few pounds?'
* * *
'Betty? Oh thank God your phone wasn't switched off or anything. There's something I've got to tell you, Honey. Something really important...'
'Bruce? Is that you? Listen, I really can't talk right now. I'm in the middle of dinner with Freddie Prinze Jr. -- We started off talking about the idea of him playing Iron Man, but when I told him about the Super-Soldier serum you were trying to crack, he said he wanted in on that too. I'm not kidding, Bruce, this guy wants to be a super hero as much as Nicholas Cage.'
'Betty, will you shut up?! We don't have much time here. I've something stupid again and I think you're in serious danger, sweetheart...'
'Excuse me...? Bruce, I want you to calm down and tell me exactly what you've done wrong, okay?'
'I just felt bad about not being able to crack the formula so I mixed Cap's blood with the Hulk serum and injected the whole thing into the cephalic vein of my anteorbiral forsa, Betty.'
'What? Why would you do that?'
'Well, the way I rationalised it was that turning myself into The Monster and giving everyone something to fight was the only was I could stop my life's dream from going up in smoke... But the honest-to-God truth of the matter is that I just missed being big.'
'Bruce? BRUCE?!'
* * *
'Banner too much of a woman for you, Betty? Maybe it's time you gave Hulk a try, huh?'
* * *
'Oh my God! He's going to kill Hank! Somebody back him up! Somebody back -him up!'
'Take it easy, Jan. I've got him. Nick, I need a big, empty building to slam Banner into. What can you do for me?'
'Evacuation crews are clearing everything within a three mile radius, Tony. Gimme ten seconds and I'll punch up a zip code for you.'
'Ten more seconds and this lunatic will have peeled his way through to my G-string, General.'
* * *
'[Hank] was exactly the same back in college, Tony. All hearts and flowers and love-letters during lectures, and then some days Jan would walk into the cafeteria with chunks missing out of her hair...'
***
'Wasp, you're up next. Cap wants Banner up on forty-Second and Fifth ASAP. You copy?'
'Roger that, General. Hey, Banner! Betty Ross got a rack as nice as these?'
'A double PhD and the only way you can think of to distract The Hulk is with a Mardi Gras special?'
* * *
'...Back when we were sharing a room together he got drunk after failing some physics paper and put her head through the bathroom door. The year after I switched courses I heard he got angry about her dancing with a first-year student at the Christmas party and punched her so hard the roof of her mouth split in two.'
'Good God...'
* * *
'You shouldn't have made me look small, Jan. You shouldn't have made me look small.'
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