Some years back, someone at Marvel
Comics said, "Golly, maybe there's somethin' to this Manga craze
all the kids are all hepped up about." They tried a number of
experiments about this time to combine Japanese comic style with
mighty Marvel characters, including translating the licensed Japanese
version of Spider-Man, but perhaps the strangest, most interesting of
all was called MARVEL MANGAVERSE. They gave cartoonist Ben Dunn the
keys to the Marvel Universe and let him re-make it, manga-style, for
a fifth-week event.
Ben Dunn, founder of Antarctic Press and
creator of NINJA HIGH SCHOOL, has been drawing manga-style comics
since before manga-style was cool. Like the best of the "American
manga" artists, he does not ape the look of Japanese comics as
much as he takes visual techniques from manga and incorporates them
into his own distinctive style. Oddly enough, the American artist
Dunn most resembles is George Perez. Like Perez, he has a love of
detail; and when presented with a fight scene of CRISIS-level
proportions, says "Gimme a couple dozen more Para-demons! I can
take it!" Which is just what is required for a story like MARVEL
MANGAVERSE.
The title is appropriate. Ben Dunn was not just
re-imagining a few popular characters; MANGAVERSE presented a
densely-textured world with an elaborate history to it, just like the
real Marvel Universe. Reading it is a lot like jumping into, say, an
AVENGERS ANNUAL with no familiarity of the continuity. This is not
necessarily a bad thing. It's a bit confusing, but Ben gives us
enough points of similarity to keep us oriented and provides the
backstory on the fly; and the complexity also gives a sense that this
isn't just a miniseries to fill a hole in the monthly schedule, but
that it truly is a universe with it's own history and rich population
of characters.
The bookend issues of the series, NEW DAWN and
ETERNAL TWILIGHT, were written and illustrated by Ben Dunn and
provide the set-up and the resolution of the main story, how Hydra
instigates a war between Atlantis and the surface world in order to
seize a source of unlimited power. It also introduces the main
characters: U.S. President Steve Rogers, who also leads the Avengers
as Captain America; Doctor Strange and his familiar Tigra;
billionairess Antionette Stark, a Godzilla-sized behemoth called the
Hulk, and others.
Between the bookends were six issues
focusing on individual characters and teams within the Universe. They
are largely independent of the overall plot and of each other and
vary in quality. AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (written by Ken Sui-Chong, with
art by Alvin Lee, Arnold Tsang, Omar Dogan and Shane Law) takes the
Avengers' battle cry literally as the team pilots battle craft which
combine to form a giant robot: ULTIMATE IRON MAN!!! The story and art
are fairly good; it lacks some of the goofy fun of Ben's work, but
it's a serviceable manga pastiche.
MEGA-SCALE META-TALENT
RESPONSE TEAM FANTASTIC FOUR has the most Japanese title of the six
interior issues. It was written by Adam Warren, one of the best of
the American manga artists, who did a number of first rate DIRTY
PAIR miniseries for Dark Horse back in the late '80s. He did not
draw this comic, but Keron Grant and Rob Stull did a fine job with
the artwork. In this version, the Fantastic Four wear exo-skeletons
which give them the team's familiar powers. (Reed's power is not
exactly the one we're familiar with, but is brilliantly imagined).
The team has been organized to combat other-dimensional threats to
the Earth. The story isn't perfect; I did not find the characters
terribly likable and Adam's liberal sprinkling of foul language,
(represented by black censor bars), comes off as grating rather than
naturalistic and clashes stylistically with the dialogue in the other
books. Nevertheless, I like Adam's stuff and the story does a decent
job of fusing manga themes with the Marvel Universe.
GHOST RIDERS is
the weakest of the lot. Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, and
Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, two supernatural characters from the
'70s, hang out in a bar while outside the kaiju-sized Hulk lumbers
about. Daimon tries to convince Johnny that they're related; Johnny
wants nothing to do with him. Their sister, Satana, shows up and is
embarrassing. The story, by Chuck Austin, is not bad, but feels
stretched and thin compared with the other stories in the set. The
artwork, also by Austin, features simply-drawn characters with flat,
animation cel coloring over 3-D computer-rendered backgrounds. It's
an interesting technique, but comes off as garish and ugly.
Of course, it
just wouldn't be manga if we didn't have some sexy schoolgirls. But
PUNISHER, written by Peter David and drawn by Lea Hernandez goes
against expectations. By day, Sosumi Brown is the strict
disciplinarian principal of a boarding school. By night, she adopts
the guise of the PUNISHER to give crime a sound spanking. One might
expect the character to be drawn as a scantily-clad dominatrix, as in
some of the manga of Japanese artist Go Nagai; but Hernandez draws
her fully-clothed in kimono and Geisha make-up. (The obi of her
kimono tied in an elaborate knot that looks like a skull, referencing
the skull on Frank Castle's outfit, is a nice touch)
Perhaps the most
successful story in the series is SPIDER SCROLL, written and drawn by
Kaare Andrews. In this re-imagining of Spider-Man, Peter Parker's
Uncle Ben was the last of the Spider Ninja Clan, and Peter his
student. When Sensei Ben is killed on the orders of the villainous
Kingpin, Peter vows vengeance; but since he has promised his Aunt May
that he will turn his back on the Way of the Ninja, he must do it in
secret, wearing a mask. The story skillfully blends all the
essential Peter Parker elements with those of a martial arts story.
SPIDER SCROLL was spun off into a limited series; and more recently,
the character has resurfaced in the “Spider-verse” storyline, in
which Peter encounters alternate versions of Spider-Man from other
universes.
X-MEN, written by C.B. Cebulski, penciled by Jeff Atsuda and A.J
Jothikumar with inks by Andy Owens, was another disappointment. It
came off as just another X-Men story with slightly different
costumes. Theoretically, these X-Men's powers are based on magic
rather than genetic mutation, but I didn't really see much to make
this group special and different than the regular Marvel Universe
version.
Ben Dunn returns for the final chapter, ETERNITY
TWILIGHT, which brings everything back together. We get the defeat of
Ultimate Iron Man, the betrayal of Baron Strucker, the return of
Black Panther, the arising of the Dread Dormammu and the coming of
the one hero on earth who can stop him!
MARVEL MANGAVERSE was followed by a
monthly series, once again written and drawn by Ben Dunn, that lasted
eight issues. The second series was more focused, benefiting from a
single writer. The first story arc introduced a re-imagined version
of Captain Mar-Vell and a weird and fantastic version of Galactus.
The second arc introduced this world's Doctor Doom, who has a tragic
connection to the Black Panther.
Truthfully, not
everything in the series works; (I thought the appearance of
Spider-Man in the conclusion of the initial story, for example, a little forced); but
there are just so many fantastic ideas in MARVEL MANGAVERSE, so many
appealing and intriguing characters and such promise that I was more
than willing to overlook it's weak spots and just revel in the sheer
Marveltude of it all.
I've long been a
fan of Ben's work, and MARVEL MANGAVERSE was a fun look at the Marvel
Universe through a different lens.