Mark Texeira

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 – The #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

May 23, 2017 by krisis

For a character about to be starring in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Black Panther has relatively few long-running series, and even fewer enduring classic stories.

Christopher Priest’s 60-plus issue run beginning in 1998 is both. It’s a fun, funny, challenging read that makes the most of the comic medium and T’Challa’s status as super hero and sovereign.

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 is the #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes. To collect these issues (and more), visit the Guide to Black Panther.

Past Ranking: This volume has slid seven spots from #34 in 2016.

Probable Contents: Black Panther (1998) #1-35 & Deadpool (1997) #44

Creators: Written by Christopher Priest.

Priest launched with Joe Quesada co-writing #1-4 with art from Mark Texeira. After that, Priest was joined by an army of pencilers – with over half of the issues by Sal Velluto and others including Vince Evans (#5), Joe Jusko (#6-8), Amanda Conner (#8), Mike Manley (#9-10), Mark “Doc” Bright (#11-12 & 24), Kyle Hotz (#18), Norm Keith Breyfogle (#30), & Jim Calafiore (#34-35)

Can you read it right now? Yes, in just two books – Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Volume 1 and Volume 2. For more details (and the following volumes), see the Guide to Black Panther. Plus, it’s available in-full on Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

The 80s and 90s diminished Black Panther from a leading man and Avenger to a minor character practically in exile aside from a pair of mini-series and a run of quarter-issue stories in Marvel Comics Presents.

That’s part of why Christopher Priest’s 62-issue run on 1998’s Black Panther is such a revelation – Panther simply hadn’t been seen or used at length in nearly two decades. Also, Priest marked the first time a black author scripted T’Challa (though he had long been associated with black artists, from Billy Graham on his original run to Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner pencilling him in those 1988 and 1991 mini-series, respectively).

It’s also very good comics. [Read more…] about Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol. 1 – The #41 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Ghost Rider (1990), Vol. 1 – The #50 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

May 14, 2017 by krisis

The Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Omnibus, Vol. 1 AKA Ghost Rider by Mackie & Texeira is the #50 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot.

Visit the Guide to Ghost Rider for information on the reading order of every Ghost Rider appearance from 1973 to present. And, visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes.

What Is It? Ghost Rider (1990) resurrected the spirit of vengeance concept but with a new spirit haunting a different host.

This volume would collect a third of that title’s run, from #1 in May 1990 through late in 1992 – before it splintered into an entire supernatural line rife with inter-connected stories and crossovers.

Past Ranking: This year is the book’s debut placement in the ballot results.

Creators: Written by Howard Mackie with pencils by Javier Saltares, Ron Wagner, and Mark Texeira (with Larry Stroman, Mark Texeira, and Andy Kubert), inks by Saltares, Texeira, Jimmy Palmiotti, Mike Witherby, and others, colors by Gregory Wright, and letters by Janice Chiang and Michael Heisler.

Probable Contents: Ghost Rider (1990) #1-27 (or maybe through 30), Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme (1988) #28, X-Men (1991) #8-9.

This could add Ghost Rider / Wolverine / Punisher: Hearts of Darkness OGN, and stories from Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #64-71 & 90-118 and Marvel Collector’s Edition – all written by Mackie save for the stories in MCP #107-116.

All of those MCP stories add up to in the area of 12 whole issues of comics, so they could easily fit into this volume. It could also include Fantastic Four #347-349 – Ghost Rider’s introduction to the wider Marvel Universe – which fit neatly after #6.

Can you read it right now? Not entirely, unless you have the single issues. Ghost Rider (1990) has only been reprinted through issue #20 in a pair of Classic collections, plus #26-27 have been collected variously alongside X-Men issues that crossover with them. Visit the Guide to Ghost Rider for the full details.

Those previously-collected issues are exactly what’s on Marvel Unlimited at the moment – #1-20 & 26-27.

The Details:

In 1990 Marvel took a then-unusual step of debuting an all-new, all-different legacy hero in the first issue of his own ongoing title.

The hero was Ghost Rider. Marvel previously published a Ghost Rider comic from 1973 to 1983, but the human host for that spirit of vengeance was trick motorcyclist Johnny Blaze. Blaze was mothballed after the end of his series, seen jew a few times in the rest of the 80s. This relaunch used an all-new character – Danny Ketch – as the host for Ghost Rider. [Read more…] about Ghost Rider (1990), Vol. 1 – The #50 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Union #1-4 & 0

November 9, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug] In June of 1993, a fourth title joined WildStorm’s fold, and it was the first whose heroes seemingly didn’t have an explicit connection to the shared backstory of Kherubim, Daemonites, IO, and Stormwatch.

union_v1_001 That hero was Union, co-created by Jim Lee and Mike Heisler – a longtime letterer and only occasional writer. (He’d later write a long run of the Gen13 spin-off DV8).

Union has a rich origin that nods to Superman’s, though his Krypton is not an exploding planet but a sister reality to our own that is in a constant state of civil war. When Ohmen, a warrior Relayer of the Protectorate, is shunted through an explosion of energy from his world to ours he crash lands on the Maine coastline.

Union’s mini-series is a pair of parenthesis, two stories opened in the first two issues without the full information we need as readers to understand them, and then two issues that resolve their mysteries in reverse order.

That makes for what is undoubtably the best first issue yet from WildStorm, and even the exposition-heavy final issues is a thrill since they answer so many questions. Union #0 provides a thick spreading of glorious connection-making context to fill in Union’s past and tie him to more closely to another Wildstorm title. It’s a bit leaden told all in one shot, but it makes re-reading the series even more fun.

The real draw here wasn’t the mysterious superhero from another dimension, but the artwork. Mark Texeira was mostly known as a Marvel utility player who launched Ghost Rider and drew Punisher and Sabretooth. His wild, untamed pencil-work and inky blacks were nothing like the high-gloss figure-work of the other Image founders and their proteges, but a near neighbor to Sam Keith and Jae Lee.

Maybe that’s why it seems like the early digital colors are fighting against Texeira’s linework in the first two issues of Union. While some of the gradients help enhance the inherent dimensionality of his characters, too often the colors are garish or overwhelm his rough lines. Despite the struggle, Texiera delivers wild, beautiful work – especially in the domestic scenes that could easily be just talking heads. The colors settle down by #3, and by the end of #4 it’s the best Texiera’s work had looked to date.

Despite the unevenness of the pace and the colors, Union feels like a title that’s truly grounded in a universe that’s already-formed. It’s filled with references to Supreme, Youngblood, and Cyberforce, and it opens by featuring Stormwatch so prominently that the first issue could have easily been Stormwatch #5.5.

That’s a tribute to Mike Heisler, who bucks the WildStorm trend of super-cool action to unfurl an exceedingly human mystery of how much we can trust Union as a reliable narrator. We see him deliberately withhold things from us and from his human companion Jill, and that makes it hard to completely trust him as our protagonist even when he professes to be doing good.

Jill is the most well-rounded character we’ve had yet in a WildStorm book. She’s an actual human being who loves art and sometimes does stupid things in the name of romance. She makes gallows-humor jokes to herself and absent-mindedly explaining why she switched to painting abstracts when she was in a world of beautiful landscapes. Even if her budding romance with Union is rushed, this book is grounded in human emotion more than any of the other Wildstorm material to date. Together, she and Union give off major Lois & Clark vibes from the classic Reeves Superman films.

If Union had pushed forward from this mini-series to continue the story with Heisler and Texiera still at the helm it would have catapulted into must-read territory for me along with Stormwatch! Instead, it was the first WildStorm book to take a brief hiatus and return as an ongoing series (a pattern Gen13 would follow). However, Heisler does stick around for every issue of Union ever published, so maybe I’m in for a treat when I get back to the title’s ongoing relaunch later this month.

Want the full details? Read on to unravel the mystery that begins in Union #1. Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read. Tomorrow we find out what Backlash and Grifter have been up to in Kindred #1-4.

Need the issues? These issues have never before been collected! For single issues – try eBay (#0-4) or Amazon (#0, 1, 2, 3, 4). Since the ongoing Union series hit these same issue numbers, be sure to match your purchase to the cover images in this post.