Marvel Comics #1000
The House Of Ideas turns 80
released OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics
Editor Tom Brevoort Artist Various
There’s bandwagon jumping, and then there’s what Marvel have done with their latest celebratory special. Technically, Marvel Comics #1000 is a chance for the company to toast its 80th anniversary, but it’s also an opportunity to cash in on the success DC obtained with their 1000th issue specials for Action Comics and Detective Comics.
The fact that the original Marvel Comics periodical (which started in 1939, when the company was known as Timely Comics) only lasted 157 issues is apparently not important. Instead, they’re pretending it just hit issue 1000. This strange set-up results in an interesting but rather unwieldy 80-page anthology.
The structure here is more ambitious than DC’s charactercentric celebratory specials, with 80 different heavyweight writer/ artist teams – including wellknown names like Alex Ross, Walter Simonson, Kelly Sue Deconnick and Mike Allred – each delivering a single-page comic themed around a particular Marvel-related anniversary.
Some of these are linked together to form a background narrative about a new all-powerful plot MacGuffin called the Eternity Mask, but many are just characterrelated snapshots, mood pieces or opportunities for goofy humour.
It’s the humour that lands best, with the one-page comic being an ideal format for jokes, but while the rapid-fire structure means no single tale outstays its welcome, not everyone can pull off a satisfying comic story in one page, making this anthology an extremely mixed bag.
When it’s good, it’s fantastic – especially in the Spider-Man related escapades, like Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s “Professor Cold Call”, and the Brad Meltzerpenned “We’re Calling Him Ben”. There are other breezy highlights, like Dr Strange’s visit to a launderette in Joe Hill’s “Spin Cycle”, and Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’s verbal sparring in David F Walker’s “Parental Guidance Suggested”, while the massive variety of artists means this anthology is always fantastic to look at.
However, a worrying proportion of stories either fall a little flat or are proper misfires, and a fair number feel more like art showcases than genuine narratives. The Eternity Mask subplot also turns out to be an open-ended teaser for a Marvel event coming our way in 2020, leaving this anthology as a frustrating mix of birthday party and long-term scene-setter.
There’s still lots to enjoy in Marvel Comics #1000, but despite starting off with confidence and swagger, it tries to be too many things at once, and only succeeds at a few of them. Saxon Bullock
The Captain America page by Mark Waid was controversially changed at the last minute to reduce criticisms of the USA.
Many of the stories either fall flat or are proper misfires