Friday, November 02, 2018

I think Ozymandias has appeared on this blog more than Black Bolt...


Maybe it should have its own tag. From 1994, Marvel Comics Presents #168, featuring "History Lesson" Written by Reggie Jones, art by Jeff Moore; "Sweet Revenge" Written by Nel Yomtov, pencils by John Czop, inks by Tim Dzon; "Ghost vs. the Machine" Written by Chris Cooper, breakdowns by Reggie Jones, finishes by Fred Harper; and "Freedom" Written by Mariano Nicieza, art by Pino Rinaldi.

After Percy Shelley's poem, the rest of Black Bolt's story is pretty straightforward: after catching a TV interview with an archeologist that may have discovered the former site of Attilan in the Himalayas, Black Bolt has to speak up and destroy the site before anything is discovered that shouldn't be. I'm not sure why they care...the archeologist mentions maybe being able to find out where these mysterious people came from, or went; and both those questions seem unlikely to be answered by digging. Next was the conclusion of a three-parter featuring Spider-Woman, who wraps up a gunman-stalker.

War Machine guest-stars with Vengeance, who was pretty much the lead for the series since around MCP #144 or so until the end. (And we'll see the end sometime.) This ties into continuity that is just on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite place: previously, Rhodey had imitators in the form of a gang calling themselves the War Machines. Here, Vengeance seems to have his own fans, the Revengers; and while they're supposed to be causing havoc and killing other gangs, they look like really earnest cosplayers with cardboard masks and lots of spikes. There may be more to their masks than first glanced, though. I know very little about Vengeance, and looking it up it appears the mantle has been passed, kind of the same way Venom changed hands a few times. I like the idea of him as Player-2 Ghost Rider, not unlike War Machine, come to think of it.

Lastly, even though the cover promises a Stingray story, this issue has Valkyrie instead. (Stingray may have been bumped to #173 and no cover billing there!) She wrecks up what I thought was going to be a deeply obscure Fantastic Four villain, but instead it's a "big-eared, petty little tyrant" who found Diablo's old talismans from Fantastic Four #232, John Byrne's first issue. Although Val looks like her old self, the captioning and footnote mention, "In her latest earthly incarnation, she shares the body of a black English woman, Genevieve Cross," since Doctor Strange #4. (Or a Dr. Strange #4; he's had more than a few...) I don't know how long that was the case; Valkyrie's continuity got pretty messy for a while. I think there were several fixes that didn't take into account the previous fixes...

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