Hey there, true believers!
Thanks for coming back for part 2 of our look at some of the coolest moments from Marvel’s biggest event ever (at least when it was published), Civil War! Be sure to go back and check out part 1 if you haven’t already, and then read on!
Marvel tends to have a lot of ‘event’ stories. It’s true. It’s a thing.
These stories are typically team-up or vs books, and often take place in their own mini-series with tie-ins occurring in the regular monthly books (and often additional mini-series, as well). Often big, status quo changing stories that feature some of the top writers and artists in the industry, some people are sick to death of them, and others can’t get enough of them. Personally, I tend to fall towards the latter, but I think even the most jaded fan would agree that, as far as Marvel event stories go, Civil War is the big daddy of them all (the only other argument I will listen to is 2015’s Secret Wars).
Written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven (huge shout out to Dexter Vines and Morry Hollowell for their inking and coloring) this story is chock full of crazy. There are 7 issues and each one is packed full of big moments and jaw-dropping action. These event books are often marketed as ‘nothing will ever be the same!’, and for a while, at least, that was certainly the case here.
Picking only 5 moments of awesome from Civil War is really, really hard. So, because I’m a total fraud, I decided to split this list into 2 parts and do 5 moments in each part. Here are the first 5 coolest moments from Marvel’s Civil War.
Man, the Infinity Gauntlet was awesome. The story of the mad Titan, Thanos, combining the power of the six infinity stones and obtaining complete power over the universe and the desperate, doomed attempts of the Marvel heroes and cosmic beings to do anything and everything they can to stop him, the only reason I haven’t done one of these for it yet is that, really, it’s quite difficult to narrow the awesome down to 5 moments, so really a ton of great stuff will be lumped together so this isn’t a 25 Coolest Things From…
Without further ado, 5 of the coolest moments from the pure 90’s goodness that is one of the best Marvel comics ever published, the Infinity Gauntlet.
Easily one of the most famous Superman- hell, comic book- stories ever, the Death of Superman was a cultural phenomenon that re-shaped (for better or worse) mainstream comics forever. It’s been adapted into two (well, technically three) DC animated movies: Superman: Doomsday, The Death of Superman, and Reign of the Supermen, and kinda/sorta on the big screen in Zack Snyder’s Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (ugh that title). There was a pretty decent video game adaptation and more merchandise than you could shake a dead Superman at. But somewhat lost in all of the hype around the story is the fact that it’s actually pretty damn good!
So, sit back, put on your nostalgia glasses, and enjoy remembering the story about the world’s greatest hero being beaten to death. Good times. Here are 5 of the coolest moments from the Death and Return of Superman.
Ah, Marvel Comics in the early 90’s. What a time to be alive!
In 1990 Marvel struck gold almost accidentally with the revamp of Ghost Rider into the version most people are familiar with today (at least visually). About two years later when the speculator market was humming along and everyone was going to be filthy rich forever, they decided to go one further: revamp the majority of the horror comics from the 1970’s. So we got updated versions of Morbius, the Living Vampire, Blade, Frank Drake and Hannibal King, and even the original (well, at least original flaming head version) Ghost Rider himself, Johhny Blaze, joined in on the action.
The line was (re)launched starting in the pages of Ghost Rider, and spinning out to launch a number of new titles for the line. Each title had varying degrees of success, lasting from anywhere from 16 to nearly 40 issues.
So, behold, Marvel horror comics that were not mature-rated but still featured plenty of messed up stuff, all with just the right amount of 90’s angst, gritted teeth, and smoking in situations in which it’s not only nearly impossible practically, but not worth the trouble, such as: while riding motorcycles, while arguing with a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle, while fleeing the police, while battling demons, etc, etc! It’s great!
While some of the threads that make it a crossover are pretty thin at times, things come together in the end and Marvel had a new toy box for their creators to get weird in! So, without further ado, here are the 5 coolest moments from RISE OF THE MIDNIGHT SONS.
We’ve covered the awesome X-Men event that is Age of Apocalypse more than a few times, most notably here and here, and on the podcast here. Top to bottom one of the coolest events in Marvel’s history, it’s nearly impossible to select just a few moments from the list. Each of the titles had something going for them, and all had at least a handful of fanboy moments, awesome action, great character moments, or just something you’d never seen before in an X book.
It’s likely we will revisit this one with another 5 coolest moments, because there certainly aren’t any shortages. But, for now, the 5 coolest moments from the Age of Apocalypse are…
Man, did I love this book. As a huge fan of the X-Men, and the original five in particular, this was probably my favorite title growing up and I combed through every long box at every comic store, antique store, yard sale, flea market, convention, etc I could find until I had every issue. The original X-Men reunite when Jean Grey is discovered alive, but they’ve all been apart and changed so much since her ‘death’ that at first they’re like a square peg in a round hole, but over time they start to gel and help each other through some of the hardest times each of them have ever had, bonding more as a family than ever before, and oh yeah, saving all of our collective asses from Apocalypse and the like. The original team stayed together, more or less, in this incarnation for 70 issues. In that time there are a TON of awesome, memorable moments, many of which are cemented as part of X-Men, and Marvel, lore. So narrowing it down to five was pretty hard. I’ll probably do another five down the line, because there are so damn many!
So, without further ado, and in no particular order, my five coolest moments from the first 70 issues of volume 1 of X-Factor:
Comic Zombie 