Marvel Now! Point One (Marvel)

writer: various
artist: various

I don't always read Marvel, but when I do I read the best.

Okay, shameless parody of TV commercials aside, I really don't read Marvel on a regular basis.  I have on occasion, but nothing recently, although I always keep myself abreast of the company's stories.  As DC did last fall, Marvel is relaunching its line, although it's been careful to try and make fine distinctions of the differences, the main one being that the creator runs that have come to an end have been distinguished for years, whether you're talking about Brubaker's Captain America or Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers (all dozen iterations) or Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four.

Marvel Now! is mostly a chance to begin some new eras (although one can never say if an era on a character or franchise will actually stick).  This one-shot isn't about such eras, but rather some of the smaller properties getting their chance to shine with this initiative.  The framing sequence is written by Nick Spencer, a writer best known for his Image series Morning Glories but had looked to be one of DC's major new writers just before the New 52 began, but instead subsequently surfaced at Marvel.  Spencer gets to handle another Nick, as in Fury, who used to be a white dude in the regular Marvel canon (it's the Ultimates version that was based on and subsequently portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson) as he interrogates a man who claims to be from the future.  I don't know where that's going, but it's probably the least interesting element of the issue.

The most interesting belongs to Jeph Loeb.  Yeah, I'm a fan of Loeb, which these days is sadly not something every comics fan is saying.  He and frequent collaborator Ed McGuinness handle Nova, who is sort of Marvel's Green Lantern, except Marvel has never really defined Nova very distinctively (fans of the cosmic comics may feel free to disagree).  The one depicted here is very similar to Kyle Rayner, the '90s Green Lantern.  As usual, Loeb has a good feel for character, which is why I like him so much.  If anyone can make me care about Nova, it's Jeph Loeb.

Another cosmic franchise featured in the issue is the Guardians of the Galaxy, soon to be featured in a TV series.  It's one of Brian Michael Bendis' latest projects (he'll soon be as ubiquitous with the X-Men as he was with the Avengers), and "decompression" is clearly still in his vocabulary.  Most of the sample of his work here (dealing with the oft-overlooked Star-Lord) is in the artwork, from Steve McNiven (famous from Civil War and Wolverine: Old Man Logan).

Kieron Gillen previews a new Young Avengers book.  I never understood why Marvel took its sweet time developing Young Avengers projects that weren't written by Allan Heinberg.  At one point, this property was one of the hottest things the company had.  Heinberg, better known as a screenwriter, eventually took long breaks from the Young Avengers (far better than the name suggests), and by the time he came back for Avengers: The Children's Crusade, he'd lost the zeitgeist and fans no longer cared.  The few instances where Marvel attempted something with the team by writers other than Heinberg obviously did not receive the necessary creative commitment.  By the preview, Gillen may have figured out how to correct that.  We'll see.

Matt Fraction, who is one of Marvel's Architects (their term for marque creators) and Mike Allred (famed for his creation Madman) preview an Ant-Man project that both looks incredibly promising and also tonally completely wrong.  It's supposed to be Hank Pym (a founding member of the Avengers and soon to be movie star) being angsty.  There's a lot to say about Allred as an artist.  But angsty is not a term typically applied to him.  So that's certainly an interesting choice.  That book will be FF, which is in no way related to Hickman's FF, which was short for Future Foundation, not Fantastic Four, though it was one and the same property.  (Marvel doesn't like to keep things...simple.)

The biggest revelation of the special is Dennis Hopeless's Forge.  Forge is a typically overlooked member of the X-Men who debuted in the '80s, a tech guy who apparently has become something of a mad genius.  He'll apparently be featured in Cable & X-Force (so obviously it features Cable prominently).  If that series is anywhere near as awesome as the preview, it may be a book that I need to check out.

I always enjoy preview books like this.  Well, I have really fond memories of DC preview books like this (such as Brave New World).  I hoped Marvel would have at least something impressive in this one, or a good suggestion at where the Now! thing was headed.  Mostly it's just a massive relaunch with some new books being tossed out.

I'd say, with Loeb's Nova and the potential of Hopeless's X-Force, and even a new shot at ongoing glory for the Young Avengers, that it was worth my time to have a look.