Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue at random, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

With Captain Marvel now out as a Skrull, I thought I’d give the back-issues another going over to see just how planned Secret Invasion is. This week, I’m going as recent as “Dusting Off” has ever been, with a comic barely a year old – Civil War: The Return.

I think it’s fair to say that fandom’s reaction to this comic was “not favourable”.

Here’s what I said about it back in February ‘07:

There’s a lot to complain about. The totally uninteresting way in which the character is brought back – he fell into a hole in space, and here he is – the way it takes great pains to sidestep rather than properly deal with the classic “Death of” story, and worst of all, the complete misuse of the character as the Jailer of the Negative Zone prison. As much as I look forward to a new Captain Marvel series, I can’t help feel that this isn’t the best start for it.

Still, the question: Was Skrull-Vell planned? There are some arguments in favour - the fact that he’s a 70s hero, for instance. You’ll remember in Secret Invasion #1, a whole bunch of 70s heroes crash-land on earth. Some, if not all of those are bound to be Skrulls, and from their reaction to seeing the 00’s heroes, they’re likely to be brainwashed sleeper-Skrulls, as in the case of Captain Marvel. Admittedly, they could’ve come up with this idea post-Marv’s return, but it fits a little too well, especially given that Secret Invasion is ostensibly spinning out of events of the Kree-Skrull War – a 70s crossover itself, which Marv was present for.

There are other things that support the claim – Marv’s appearance and role in Civil War served very little purpose in an already crowded storyline, and was then widely ignored until his appearance in his own miniseries which turned out to be a Secret Invasion prologue. Marvel don’t always make the best decisions, but one thing they’re good at is making sure that when someone comes back from the dead, they’ve got a good story behind it. Marv’s return was an uncharacteristically pointless resurrection.

Things against the claim – well, there’s the actual content of Civil War: The Return, for instance. I’ve been over the entire story with a fine-tooth comb and there’s not even the slightest suggestion that the people behind the story knew he was a Skrull. Nothing in the text remotely hints at it. A valid choice, yes, but not one that supports the idea that it was planned in advance. There is one example of discontinuity – the Marv of The Return doesn’t appear to have the amnesia that the Marv of the Captain Marvel mini does.

There’s also a definite possibility that the negative reaction to Civil War: The Return could’ve caused Marvel to shift gears on bringing the character back (though it’s fair to say, people weren’t so upset with the idea of the return so much as the execution.)

On the “could go either way” front, we can look to a Paul Jenkins Newsarama interview, conducted at the time:

NRAMA: So – this “Return” is a return of an older character?
PJ: All I’ll say is that scenarios had to be discussed and a solution found. The character that’s coming back has a big connection not only to the Marvel Universe, but to the Marvel Universe that we’ve yet to discover, which is in large part, trapped in the Sentry’s memories.

Notice how Jenkins side-steps the question of whether an older character is returning – after all, this Captain Marvel is a “new” Skrull character. The connection to the Sentry is more interesting. It’s either an aborted story for the “real” Captain Marvel, or it’s a hint that something in Secret Invasion is going to involve the Sentry’s backstory somehow. The cryptic reference to the “Marvel Universe we’ve yet to discover” could easily be a reference to the Skrull invasion, which could easily be tied in with the Sentry’s past somehow – we only know the “Sentryless” version of the Kree-Skrull War, for instance. Did Reynolds play some role in it?

Unfortunately, the evidence is ultimately still vague, and the jury’s still out. If you think you’ve got anything to add on the subject, please do so now.

Late last year I had the great pleasure of meeting Jim Mahfood when he did a signing at Forbidden Planet, London. Fantastic chap, very friendly, and genuinely grateful of the enthusiasm people had in his artwork even if we were all greasy-looking nerd types. I’ll buy anything with his name on, because he’s just that good.

Which, to be honest, makes this review a little hard to write.

The thing is, when Stupid Comics started, however many years ago, it was occasionally political, occasionally comedic, occasionally autobiographical. Mahfood played with the boundaries of what he was given. Sometimes you’d get one picture and a veritable essay’s worth of text. other times, you’d got 30 wordless thumbnails crammed onto a page. Stupid Comics was so good that even when they released a collection that was about 25% new material available nowhere else, I was willing (if not happy) to pay £10 just to get what was around one comic’s worth of new material.

Mahfood’s latest release in the Stupid Comics line is this: Stupid Comics: Phoenix Edition – 96 pages of newly-reprinted Stupid Comics taken from the local paper, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that currently housing Stupid Comics: the Phoenix New Times. I was looking forward to it.

And here’s the “but”.

Even though, as the blurb says, you don’t have to be from Phoenix to get the universal politics discussed within it… it would damn sure help. The problem, whether it’s just because that’s what Mahfood’s currently interested in, or because that’s what the publication wants, is that the book contains absolutely nothing but (usually Phoenix-based) political commentary. Strip after strip of it – and if I’m being honest, the politics and satire are often a tad shallow and usually involve two stereotypes screaming opinions at one another – it stops well short of mocking Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, but it’s got still got some really easy shots in it. Set against the considered, deep and nuanced politics of DMZ, it verges on embarrasing. I can identify with his left-wing liberal slant, but it feels less like he’s got his own insight and more like he’s just giving the lefties what they want to read.

Mahfood’s diversity is one of his strengths – with this, I feel I’ve paid to see Mozart perform and he spent 2 hours repeatedly hitting a single note on a piano. It’s still a genius at work, but you couldn’t help be a little disappointed at the results. Admittedly, if you were reading one of these a week, they’d probably be a welcome distraction, but as a collection it’s a little wearing. There are a few times when glimpses of the Mahfood style I love come to the forefront, but they’re few and far between.

I’m almost sorry to say that I was disappointed. I won’t let it sour me to Mahfood’s talent, nor will it even make me think twice next time he’s got a comic or artbook out. I will, however, lower my expectations of what a Stupid Comics collection is going to look like, and hope that his next release is more along the lines of his fantastic 40oz Collected minicomics compilation. There’s a Mahfood book that’s genuinely worth its weight in gold.

It’s been a while since I looked at DMZ, and there’s a lot to say about this issue, the second in the latest arc, “Blood in the Game” which, after a series of done-in-one character spotlights, returns the focus to Matty and his new friend – the Che Guevara-meets-Hugo Chavez figure, Parco Delgado.

There’s an uneasy ceasefire in the DMZ – something the series has never seen, which creates an immediate sense of tension. Matty can’t believe his story about Delgado has been rejected, but Zee explains why, calling it a “press release” – seems like Matty has lost his journalistic objectivity, and we later see that Delgado is willing to exploit that. However well-meaning he might be, you just know this isn’t going to end well.

After all Matty has been through, his simplistic view of the situation in the DMZ has been shattered and put back together so many times that he’s lost the plot a little. Delgado seizes upon this, encouraging Matty to actually choose a side once and for all, and Matty literally embraces the certainty he craves. It’s to his credit that despite all this, Wood remains detached from the situation - the reader is never lead to believe one way or the other whether Matty’s doing the right thing or not.

With Matty having chosen Delgado’s side, the still-unaware Liberty News once again tries to get his father to talk to him – you might remember that, at the start of the series, Matty was a spoilt rich kid who had to struggle out from under his father’s shadow. I saw the big cliffhanger twist coming only seconds before it arrived – the issue ends with Matty’s MOTHER getting in touch. Once again, the sense of family and what that means proves to be a strong theme in Wood’s work.

Seeing Wood take on a specific kind of political figure in Delgado may well prove the high point of the series. DMZ’s complicated politics have set it well apart from the herd. The dissection of characters and situation is as incisive as any broadsheet, if not more so. It’s almost hard to believe this kind of story is coming from someone who, as far as I know, has never been in the military at all. Still, Wood is always serious about his research, and between this and Northlanders, he’s displaying a range that would make some writers gnash their teeth in envy. At this rate, DMZ is going to make a lasting impact in the comics landscape, and deserves some serious recognition from the wider media as well.

We can’t hope to compete with the amount of news coming out of NYCC, so instead, we’re focusing on the one thing we can deliver. Our opinion! Comics-inspired computer games (Iron Man, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC) and movies (30 Days of Night, The Spirit) are the focus of this column, though there’s always time to wonder what Grant Morrison is up to in the pages of Batman as well… (continue reading…)

“Do you want to review Divided We Stand?” asked James. “Because it’s composed of several stand-alone X-Men stories, it should be quite easy to dip into.”

“Yeah, alright,” says I, little realising how hard it is to adequately cover a 40-page anthology issue within our customary review length. But what the hey. After all, as a casual X-reader (the sort who pays attention to little beyond the frontline team – Astonishing, Morrison’s run, the movies, the Fox cartoon, etc.), a selection of vignettes following various disparate former X-members across the world in the wake of Messiah Complex’s team-disbanding finale could be just the thing to give me a handle on the current status quo. Unfortunately… well, that’s not really what this is. Instead the focus is, for the most part, on the youngsters – New/Young X-Men cast members, so I’m told – left out to dry by Cyclops’ decision to close the mansion.

If you’re not already familiar with a character, it’s a bit difficult to really get a handle on them in an eight-page vignette, particularly when it’s thematic and contemplative (as these mostly are). As such, while there’s some lovely painted art from Sana Takeda (despite Storm looking far too young), I’ve no idea who the withdrawn young man in Home’s pages is – nor do I particularly care. Similarly, while I’ve a vague idea of who Cannonball is, I can’t bring myself to be hugely interested about him having a fight in a bar, in what might be the most “eh” story I’ve seen from the usually-dependable Mike Carey in quite some time. And when a youngster called Hellion attempts to “turn” to Magneto in his anger at the rejection of the X-Men, I can’t help but think of the movie version of Pyro – and it’s a segment that also features the only truly poor art of the issue, with Mags looking like a kindly and effete Oxford lecturer, and Emma Frost given the strangest-shaped face I’ve ever seen.

There are good points, though. Skottie Young manages to draw some poignancy from another character I was previously unaware of, in the closing panels of his story; and his scratchy, muted art, somewhat reminiscent of Chris Bachalo, suits the tone well. But it’s the closing story that – much as expected going into the book – delivers the real highlight. Everyone’s favourite hotshot rising writer Matt Fraction teams up with everyone’s favourite hotshot rising artist Jamie McKelvie to tell a story from a villain’s perspective. While Scalphunter is another character I don’t really know (aside from sharing a name with an old DC hero featured in Starman), enough about his situation is conveyed – murderous villain, involved in Messiah Complex somehow, Nightcrawler has a beef with him – that it’s possible to appreciate the meditation on shades-of-grey morality, even if the religious overtones are laid on a little thickly. It’s disconcerting, meanwhile, to see McKelvie’s art coloured and shaded in the “house” Marvel style – it comes off looking a bit like an issue of Mighty Avengers, if anything. But while this does strip away a little of his usual individuality, some of his biggest strengths – clarity of storytelling and range of character expression – are still allowed to shine, and his take on Kurt is excellent. It may only be a brief story with just one superhero in it, but he’s clearly comfortable in this environment – more, please.

It’s an “accessible” book to the extent that there’s a brief summary of Messiah Complex’s conclusion on the opening page, and none of the stories rely on any prior knowledge to really understand what’s happening on the page. But they’re character pieces, and in order to fully appreciate them, it feels like you’d have to know these people a bit better beforehand. There’s definitely stuff to enjoy – the Fraction/McKelvie vignette is almost worth the cover price alone – but it’s hardly an essential read, and even with my limited knowledge of the X-canon I can’t see it being hugely significant in the great scheme of things.

After last months’ reveal of Sharon discovering a Steve Rogers-looking dude floating in a tank in the Red Skull’s hideout, it was impossible not to put the new issue right to the top of my reading pile. Luckily, Brubaker knows not to string this kind of thing out, and almost immediately gives us some advancement of that plot. Someone get this man a writer’s position on Lost.

Of course, before we find out anything about the floating Steve, we get to see a little more of what the Skull’s actually up to. Brubaker is keeping the readers and characters largely in the dark about what exactly the Skull and his group of Nazi-associated villains are up to, but by meting out small piece of information here and there, a bigger picture is starting to emerge – and from the look of it, he’s aiming to put himself in charge of both the US presidency and economy. This time, he might just have the patience to go through with it, too.

With Bucky’s career as Captain America now public, we see some fairly high-profile reactions to it. The man on the street doesn’t seem to be taking much notice, but in the hero community, there are understandably some ruffled feathers. Falcon has a bash at Stark, and then Hawkeye turns up at Bucky’s apartment to talk things out Superhero style – with a fight. Having Clint show up wearing a purple T-Shirt was a cute touch, and helped me immediately recognise the character when, let’s face it, with the blond hair and blue eyes, he could easily have looked like Steve Rogers.

Elsewhere Sharon has apparently snapped out of Faustus’ control, though she isn’t letting on just yet. While her captors prepare to unleash their version of Steve Rogers, she sneaks in for a look… and it gets a little confusing. Steve wakes up, and he seems to remember who he is, claiming “yes, Steve Rogers was my name.” but on the other hand… he appears to be a robot. Once again, Brubaker has ended on a good mystery cliffhanger, and I can’t wait to see where it’s going – which, if we’re lucky, will be revealed next issue.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it – Epting is back on art, and inking himself it seems. Anyone know what the situation is here? Are Epting and Guice sharing duties issue-to-issue? On the writing side, Brubaker has, over the last year, crafted Cap into a brilliant monthly read, and each issue brings both new answers and fresh mysteries to pursue. The emphasis on espionage over superheroics might not entertain everyone, but personally, I can’t get enough.