Customer Reviews

Marvel 1985

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Small Town America, 1985: Toby Goodman is a thirteen year old boy who weathers the storm of his parent's seperation, his mother's choice of new boyfriend and his father's indolence by immersing himself in the minituae of the Marvel comics universe. Fast becoming kind of kid who can tell you in which issue 'The Hulk' first encountered 'The Leader', Toby's humdrum existence takes a turn for the bizarre when he spots a creature that resembles 'Captain America's' arch-nemesis, 'The Red Skull', gazing out from an upper storey window of the local nexus of suburban folklore, the abandoned Wyncham house. Before long, more characters from the pages of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's fictional universe begin showing up in the flesh. Who or what is responsible? What is the connection with the Wyncham house's notorious past? and what can an isolated teenage boy really do when confronted with the likes of 'Modok', 'The Lizard' and 'Fin Fang Foom'?

Mark Millar and Tommy Lee Edward's "Marvel 1985" was a comic book that I wanted to like a lot because of the intriguing premise - but after reading it, I found myself strangely underwhelmed.

Drawing heavily from the concept of films like The Last Action Hero and playing fast and loose with the concept of fictional versus real violence should have been a lot more effective in the hands of a writer like Mark Millar. Sadly, in the case of this book, it wasn't. I couldn't engage with the characters as anything other than cyphers and cliches and whilst TLE's artwork was suitably lurid and vaguely reminiscent of the artwork of comics like Creepy Archives, it didn't really convince me that I was witnessing a period setting; Sure there were references to Commodore 64 games, 'Masters Of The Universe' and Secret Wars (Marvel Super Heroes), but these felt affectational rather than intrinsic to the time and place. The use of the Wyncham house also felt like a direct lift of the Marsten house from Stephen King's Salem's Lot and, as Damon Lindelof rather cheekily points out in his introduction, the central conceit at the heart of the plot is really nothing more than an outright rip-off of the concept at the heart of Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" episode, "It's A Good Life".

Whilst this is a decent enough and fairly enjoyable six issue series in it's own right, sadly, I personally didn't experience "the widescreen summer blockbuster in comic book form" that Jonathan Ross promised me on the cover.

Its a book that could've run a lot further and reached a lot higher with it's intriguing premise.

Like Wanted or The Ultimates, Mark Millar's 1985 takes place at the meta-intersection of comic books and reality. However, whereas the previous two take place in the Marvel, comic book universe, 1985 takes place in our own.

Happily, Millar never gives in to the temptation to explain anything. There's a big portally thing (a glowing plothole, essentially) and a bunch of Marvel villains dive through it. Ostensibly there to 'take over', the villains immediately devote themselves to acts of senseless and horrifying destruction.

Our hero is a kid who, alongside his deadbeat dad, realize that there's something very wrong going on (First hint: Ultron blowing up the mall). Thanks to their geeky knowledge of the Marvel universe (plus some courage + purity of heart stuff), they save the day.

1985 probably isn't the best juxtaposition of comics and reality - but there aren't many better. By setting aside his need for 'big sweeping plot arcs' and world-building and focusing on the minutiae of life, Millar has written a solid piece of horror fiction. Not only does he use many of the genre tropes (little kid, estranged family, nobody who believes, creepy house in the woods), but he also successfully channels the fanboy wantonness of Wanted to create some fairly terrifying bad guys.

As Millar says in an interview with Comics Bulletin:

"In the Marvel Universe a guy like Stilt Man is a joke, but here in the real world he would be terrifying. He could take on an entire police precinct. Somebody like Sandman could take on the US Army. We all kind of forget how scary these guys could be in the real world. That's the origin of the series: the real world vs. the Marvel Universe."

In other words, in real life, the Lizard would be pretty scary and, to his credit, Millar gets that point across in a hurry.

Millar also compares his work to Stephen King, and the comparison is probably more apt than he intended. The young protagonist goes through a test - a travel into his own mind and that of his childhood fantasy - a conflict that's familiar through Stephen King's work. Similarly, Millar ends the series with a King-like reliance on cosmic goodity. However realistic the world - and overwhelming the evil - there's always some sort of supernatural rabbit-in-a-hat in the closing pages.

Tommy Lee Edwards does a very good job with the art - giving it an eerie and nostalgic feel. The covers, by the phenomenal Olivier Coipel, are worthy of framing.

Overall, a nice, surprisingly experimental miniseries from one of the biggest horses in the Marvel stable.

A young boy and his divorced father bond over their mutual love of Marvel comics only for - gasp! Marvel villains to show up in their sleepy, backwater town and begin to wreak havoc! Suddenly it's up to the boy to save the town somehow while we discover the dark past of his father - is he the loser his mother told him about or is he something more?

I've read enough Mark Millar to know this guy knows how to write a damn fine superhero comic so ordering this was a no-brainer - weird year to pick but then I trust this writer to tell an entertaining story.

Eep - seems I was wrong! While he is generally awesome, "1985" is by no means a flawless, or even half good, book.

The story is too slight to be stretched over 6 issues. We see the same thing repeated over and over - boy struggles with reconciling his divorced father's situation of no money compared to his mother and step father who do have cash, he retreats into comics, then witnesses a Marvel character appear in real life. After a while it becomes predictable, and frankly the boy and his father's story just wasn't strong enough to sustain a full 6 issues.

Also, the build-up about his father's "dark past" and "that one day" is such a cop out in the end, revealed in a couple of pages in an offhand way as to seem like nothing in the overall story.

Then the superheroes - the villains seep over to the real world until the final issue and then the heroes show up and save the day. All the characters are bland and do the usual superhero things, minus any dialogue, and the whole book is tied up neatly with an admittedly kind of cool ending.

Overall it's quite a bland and unexciting read with some, at times fantastic art, other times too inky and scratchy as to be annoying. The superhero storyline is never really pulled off and the real world story not nearly interesting enough to hold up the book - "1985" is far from Millar's best and by no means an essential read for comics fans.

This book tells the story of a young boy who loves comics, especially Marvel comics, someday he findout that all the villians from the Marvel Universe is in this world, our world, and that is totally scary, cause like Mark Millar once said, sandman is regular villian in Spiderman universe, but in our world he can defeat an entire army, or Modok can kill hundreds of people in a minute, just force them to kill themselves. Mark Millar writing is awesome and always has this greats plots twits that leaves you in the edge of your seat, Tommy Lee Edwards' art is not my favorite cause he is not constant, but he traslate the terror in evey pain. This book is must have for Marvel and comics fans.

This is a great idea that could have been great if the end hadn't felt so rushed. While I usually like my artwork a little more clear, the artists interpretation serves nicely in the alternate universe that the story takes place in. I felt that while the first 2/3 of this collection are very strong, the last half felt clumsy and like I mentioned previously, rushed. Overall a good read but not something necessary to complete any collections.

Not as epic as some hype may have led me to believe, but I loved it anyway. Fun read with some classic throwback plot ideas and tons of classic Marvel characters!

"1985"
Written by Mark Millar
Illustrated by Tommy Lee Edwards
(Marvel Comics, 2009)
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NOTE: spoiler-y review below
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This was a very enjoyable, self-contained six-issue series that focusses on the life of a 13-year old kid in "the real world" -- that is, in a world that doesn't have superheros or supervillains running around blowing stuff up or constantly threatening and/or saving the planet. Of course, these comicbook characters *do* exist -- not only in the dogeared back-issues that our hero pores over in all his spare time, but also in an alternate reality ("the Marvel Universe") which opens up to our own world via a mysterious trans-dimensional portal, which lets all the bad guys in to wreck havoc on the unsuspecting un-super world beyond. It is up to our teenaged protagonist ('natch!) to save the world, which he is able to do because of his specialized, super-geeky knowledge of what makes these super-dudes tick.

Although this is set in a time period when I, personally, was checked out of comic-book culture (and an era that I consider pretty boring, in terms of what was happening in the mainstream, Marvel books) I still enjoyed the nostalgic flavor of the plot... My preteen pop culture touchstones were about a decade earlier, but the nerdiness remains the same. Mark Millar's script evokes the sharp fervor and cozy claustrophobia of comicbook fandom... the joyful embrace of exile from mainstream culture and the escape into a world of fantasy and quick, violent, deus-ex-machina endings. I agree with other reviewers that this series ends abruptly and could have dug much deeper into the creative concepts it conjures up, but it is still a lot of fun, and an enjoyable romp into the heart of fandom and fantasy. (Plus the too-easy ending may itself be an homage to the simplistic storytelling of the era it's set in, a tribute to the dorky, poorly explained trash culture we all know and love so well. Yea verily, true believers, the ancient words still ring true: Make Mine Marvel!) (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

I bypassed this mini-series initially. Wish I hadn't--"1985" is Mark Millar's best Marvel work, surpassing "Civil War". Marvel lumped it in with Millar's somewhat lackluster "Wolverine" and "Fantastic Four" runs, although it stands on its own.

"1985" is a magical coming-of-age story that's also a love story to comic book readers. When Marvel villains begin invading "the real world", it's up to one boy to stop them. How cool is that?! Very cool.

Tommy Lee Edwards's artwork is perfectly suited to the script. I've never seen a fight between the Hulk and the Juggernaut look so REAL; when Galactus appears, you get a real sense of what it would be like to experience. This is an amazing, awe-inspiring work that will stand the test of time as one of the great graphic novels.

Leave it to Mark Millar to take some offbeat or fun ideas and turn them on their head. Marvel 1985 is such a mini-series that finds young teen and Marvel comic lover Toby Goodman witnessing things in his real-world of 1985 that he should not be witnessing. Just why are supervillains such as Dr. Doom, the Red Skull, Electro, and more besides appearing out of the pages of comics and in the real world? Is it all just figments of Toby's imagination fueled by his and his father's love of comics? Or is there something more sinister afoot due to some old, buried secrets? Loaded with intelligent storytelling and a thoughtful, smile-inducing conclusion, Marvel 1985 is a pure treat. Millar's storytelling is made all the better thanks to the lovely artwork of Tommy Lee Edwards, whose style may take some time getting used to, but once you do, you'll love what he has to offer here. All in all, Marvel 1985 is a wonderful blast to behold, and if you're a Marvel buff in the least, this hardcover collection is definitely worth picking up.