RestrainedMillar doesn’t usually work all that well. Let’s face it, those of us who like Millar tend to like him when he’s doing things like Ultimates, The Authority or Kick-Ass – gloriously tearing apart convention and having a bloody good time in the process. With the odd exception (such as Aztek, although that’s one of those books where it’s hard to tell how much was him and how much Mozza), when he plays it straight it’s usually far less interesting.

But while the idea behind 1985 is far from conventional, the style of storytelling is rather more so – and so it’s a surprise that it’s turned out to be such a good read. It’s even more surprising for me, in fact, when you consider that mid-1980s Marvel is an era in which I have little in the way of interest. Nevertheless, the gentle pace and strong character use has made the book something of a quiet success. Issue #3 gives us a bit more focus on Toby’s father, Jerry, with flashbacks to various parts of his life – and if the “likeable loser wannabe musician who reads comics dad” is a bit of a cliche, the idea of an adult figure who is just as accepting of the idea of comics-intruding-on-reality as the obligatory child is a neat one.

The second half of the issue really plays on the “real world” aspect of the book – and in presenting the arrival of dangerous super-villains into the world almost as a global disaster, there’s a terrifying and tangible reality to it that’s almost reminiscent of a Night Shyamalan film (you know, the good ones). The sequence with Modok forcing the suicide-by-drowning of scores of people (including their children) is genuinely chilling, and it remains to be seen if Millar will explore further examples of applying villainous actions and schemes that seem par-for-the-course when we read them in four colours, but which would be horrifying in reality.

doctor strange dvdrip

Something that aids in this portrayal, certainly, is Tommy Lee Edwards’ artwork. As has been discussed, the book was originally intended to be a fumetti – but you do have to wonder how such an approach would have realised characters such as Modok. Here, Edwards’ pencils certainly have a degree of realism that is important in maintaining the illusion that Toby’s world is “reality” – but they’re sketchy enough that they blur the lines between reality and fiction in a manner representative of the book’s events.  His good sense of character expression and the stylised colouring job also enhance the tone significantly.

It’s still something of a slow series – up until now it’s been all about glimpses of the fantastical, and things are only now really starting to happen – and the character reveal on the closing page is nowhere near as exciting as you’d expect (it just leaves you wondering if and when the big guns are really going to start showing up). But it’s an intriguing concept, well-executed, that’s proven to be far more than an exercise in nostalgia – as it happens, the choice of 1985 as the pool from which to draw characters has so far been little more than incidental, and in focusing on the human participants rather than the comic book characters, the series actually feels all the stronger for it.