#Elsa Bloodestone

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Marvel Comics #1000 Thoughts

This is going to be short. To review or even just give my thoughts on this comic is kind of insane as it’s less a story unto itself as it is the most ambitious anthology project in Marvel history.

On that front I give Marvel, really Al Ewing, credit.

As I was reading the book Ewing’s story was the one drawing me in and wanting me to learn more. As is common with Ewing it’s a bold, ambitious idea that embraces Marvel history for the most part. I’m not certain but it almost seems to me Ewing was kind of implying that a lot of Marvel characters across history to have worn a generic black mask might’ve been wearing in fact the exact same one. The part about the story that did tick me off though was that Cebulski and others implied Ewing’s story would be threading through every story in the comic, but it really doesn’t, it stops and starts so other creators can do their totally unconnected pages.

As for the other stories themselves, as is the case with anthologies, they vacillate in quality vastly.

What makes the project befuddling is that some of them are clearly intended to be canonical, others ambiguously so and others obviously not as they break the fourth wall (no it’s not just Deadpool who does it either). Hell there is a STAR WARS story in this, which is definitely not part of the Marvel Universe.

I’m not going to cover them individually sans the Spider-Man specific ones in another post(s?).

What did annoy or confuse me was that the gimmick for this comic is that every page represents a year between 1939-now and the subject of every page connects to something related to Marvel that happened that year.

Whilst this comic does hold true to that idea a lot of the pages are very tangential in their connection.

Perhaps the most poignant example is the first page set in the modern day, which features America Chavez. The page is supposed to touch upon the original Miss America, whom America Chavez is basically a legacy character to. Featuring America Chavez makes sense, but the original Miss America is never mentioned, alluded to, or anything. Other examples include 1994 being notable for the Clone Saga so the page is about Spider-Man, but it hasn’t got anything to do with the Clone Saga. The most obnoxious example is from Chip Zdarsky (what a shock). It’s the 2008 page and represents how Iron Man the movie was released. It’s literally just panels of face shots of Iron Man’s suit as he changes from one to another. That isn’t even a story!

More frustratingly is the fact that for something celebrating 80 years of Marvel you’d think every year would zero in on something really notable, really iconic, something really famous about each of those years right? And the comic makes it clear that we aren’t just talking comics either as Iron Man and Deadpool’s movies get pages dedicated to them.

But the choices are just really weird a lot of the times.

Case in point the 2000 page is used to commemorate Chris Claremont returning to the X-Men. Like...really? Surely the start of the ULTIMATE universe was a bigger deal that year? Same thing for 2002. You’d think Spider-Man the movie would get a page marking it? Nope...Elsa Bloodstone. Proportionally how many people reading this comic even knew who the fuck Elsa Bloodstone was? 2012 sees Slott and Martin return to mark the fact that ASM #700 came out that year. Surely the Avengers movie was a bigger deal that year?

Over all, much like Action and Detective Comics #1000 (though they EARNED their high numbers) this comic is worth a pick up just as a piece of history, there will never be an 80th anniversary of Marvel ever again...well I mean technically there could be because Marvel go back and forth over whether they begin counting in 1939 or in 1961 but you know what I mean!