Marvel Snapshots

Kurt Busiek on returning to Marvels’ ground-level perspective in new mini-series Marvels Snapshots

AFTER EXPLORING THE MARVEL Universe from the point of view of photographer Phil Sheldon in 1994’s classic Marvels with Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek is now acting as curator on Marvels Snapshots. Composed of eight self-contained one-shots, it provides some different perspectives on some pivotal – and some more minor – events in the House of Ideas’ 80-year history.

“Snapshots isn’t only told through the eyes of ordinary people,” says Busiek, referring to April’s X-Men issue, which centres around future Cyclops Scott Summers’s reaction to the advent of the Fantastic Four. “Scott definitely isn’t ordinary people, but it’s stuff that happens almost entirely before he realised that. We’ll also see things through the eyes of people who are close to the heroes.”

Written by Alan Brennert and drawn by Jerry Ordway, March’s opening double-header first finds Sub-Mariner encountering the All-Winners Squad in New Jersey’s Palisades Park in 1946 before Evan Dorkin, Sara Dyer and Benjamin Dewey focus on Johnny Storm’s 10-year high school reunion. “The Fantastic Four story is largely seen through the experiences of Dorrie Evans, the Human Torch’s first girlfriend, while the Sub-Mariner story is from the viewpoint of reporter Betty Dean, who was his World War Two romantic interest. They’re stories told from people outside the big adventures, stories that show off the Marvel Universe and its history and character in ways we don’t usually see.”

In addition to supplying Marvels Snapshots’ covers, Alex Ross is also helming his own spin-off anthology in the form of the six-part Marvel. “Alex and I worked out a structure for the framing story that Alex is painting throughout the series,” explains Busiek. “The whole idea with Marvel is to let Alex play the game he wants to play, so it’s very much his vision – while Marvels Snapshots is more about the stuff that I obsess about.” SJ