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"Marvel 1602"
Apr. 3rd, 2006 03:06 pmNeil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 is a tour de force. Gaiman set himself the task of setting a Marvel-style comic in the seventeenth century, not via time travel, but by reshaping Marvel's classic characters as people appropriate to that time. And he succeeds; oh, my, does he succeed. From the first scene, in which Queen Elizabeth I introduces her Intelligencer, Sir Nicholas Fury, to her physician, Dr. Stephen Strange, Gaiman presents "the same in the different" with virtuoso skill.
It's been a long time since I followed comics regularly. (It was long enough ago that, when I gave them up, the Summers clan had only four members - Christopher, Scott, Alex, and Rachel.) I'm tempted to say that Marvel 1602 brings back memories, but that's not entirely accurate. The characters Gaiman presents are drawn from the early days of Lee and Kirby: the man who, in Marvel's timeline, is called Magneto is accompanied by doubles of the original Brotherhood - the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Toad; the mysterious woman called Natasha resembles the Black Widow who entangled Clint Barton more than the one who later joined the Avengers; and Peter Parquagh (sic) is the inquisitive and rather naive nebbish who had not yet met his destiny in the form of a radioactive spider. All this long predates the time when I read those comics; yet there are evocations of that later period as well. The Magneto analogue suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, much as his original did in the death camp; he has (and knows he has, though they remain ignorant of the fact) two children; and he and "Carlos Javier" were once friends. There is one scene which beautifully harks back to the early days of the New X-Men - was it #100, or #101? (You'll know it when you see it.)
Gaiman has made the material his own, but it is, after all, a pastiche, and unlikely to be appreciated by someone not familiar with the source material. To someone who knows the original, though, it is a delight. There's a glorious bit featuring "the most dangerous woman in Europe", and I literally1 shouted with joy at the revelation of the stick... Enough. If you have ever been a fan of Marvel Comics, this is well worth the price.
1. I use the word "literally"... literally. Murphy gave me a Look.
It's been a long time since I followed comics regularly. (It was long enough ago that, when I gave them up, the Summers clan had only four members - Christopher, Scott, Alex, and Rachel.) I'm tempted to say that Marvel 1602 brings back memories, but that's not entirely accurate. The characters Gaiman presents are drawn from the early days of Lee and Kirby: the man who, in Marvel's timeline, is called Magneto is accompanied by doubles of the original Brotherhood - the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Toad; the mysterious woman called Natasha resembles the Black Widow who entangled Clint Barton more than the one who later joined the Avengers; and Peter Parquagh (sic) is the inquisitive and rather naive nebbish who had not yet met his destiny in the form of a radioactive spider. All this long predates the time when I read those comics; yet there are evocations of that later period as well. The Magneto analogue suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, much as his original did in the death camp; he has (and knows he has, though they remain ignorant of the fact) two children; and he and "Carlos Javier" were once friends. There is one scene which beautifully harks back to the early days of the New X-Men - was it #100, or #101? (You'll know it when you see it.)
Gaiman has made the material his own, but it is, after all, a pastiche, and unlikely to be appreciated by someone not familiar with the source material. To someone who knows the original, though, it is a delight. There's a glorious bit featuring "the most dangerous woman in Europe", and I literally1 shouted with joy at the revelation of the stick... Enough. If you have ever been a fan of Marvel Comics, this is well worth the price.
1. I use the word "literally"... literally. Murphy gave me a Look.
