Comics : Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine) #7

Background...

This magazine features 36 glossy pages. As the title indicates, the content is 100% Marvel related, and most of the major Marvel Heroes get a look-in from time to time. The audience is clearly early/mid-teens, with plenty of DVD, movie and video-game link-in.

As per the regular formula, two original and separate 7-page comic book stories headline the issue. Spider-Man isn't in either (

In Detail...

	Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine) #7  Summary: 22-Apr-09
		Staff Edit Issue Images Review
	Apr 2009 : SM Title : Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine)

Let's have a look at the two stories in this issue. First up, "I was the Man on the Ant Planet" by writer Al Ewing. This is a rather silly, giggle as we go piece. Ant-Man (aka Henry Pym) calls the white house and asks to talk to the President. He doesn't get through, so I'm guessing this is set in some universe/time where Pym isn't an Avenger. That means he has to deal with this himself.

Ooops, I didn't mention the crisis. Seems ants are disappearing all over the world. Pym slips into micro-man mode and wanders off to his nearest ant hill. But before he can get into the Queen's chamber, he needs to fight his way through the over-enthusiastic bouncers on the door, using "ant-judo" no less. Once the they've learned not to tangle with Henry Pym, they explain that dimensional portals have been popping out of nowhere and sucking ants off to an unknown fate. What do you reckon the odds are that this will happen to Henr... oh. There he goes. Slurp!

On the other side he finds himself in a far-off micro-civilization where ants are being oppressed. By oppressors... using nasty oppressive techniques! How mean! Pym leaps to the attack, but his ant-judo fails him and he is humbled by the scaly green-skinned humanoid natives. Worse, they sic their controlled ants onto ant-man, forcing him to meet his fate at the hands of his former insectoid allies! Is this the end for...?

...oh, no. It's not. Despite his hands being manacled, our hero manages to bang his helmet against the wall, releasing his growing gas. At giant size, his transmitting control helmet is powerful enough to overcome the enslaving whips used by the villains against his ant friends. With the ants freed, they make short work of their former captors. The hero's work is done!

The second story is "A Future Darkly" by Mitchel Scanlon. It's an X-Men tale which imitates the "Days of Future Past" story from Uncanny X-Men #141. The X-Men are battling Sentinel robots, and fight their way to the Sentinel's control center in an effort to destroy the entire Sentinel network. There they meet the Sentinel's leader... Professor X! He claims he has seen the light, and the Sentinels were right after all.

But Emma Frost (one of the X-Men it seems) is not fooled. She realizes this must be a trick, a fake reality created by the evil mutant Mastermind. Indeed it is a plot created by Magneto to cause the X-Men to lose faith in Professor X and to join him in his battle against humanity. Naturally, it has failed. Magneto angrily departs. The X-Men hope to build a better shared future with mankind. Yay for mankind and mutants.

In General...

By contrast, the X-Men story goes large, but collapses under its own weight. It would take a true master to do justice to so many characters and such a massive story in only seven pages. Sadly, this tale doesn't carry it off. I can see what the writer is trying to do here, but the tale needs to rattle along so fast just to cover the ground, that really all sense of depth or pacing is lost.

Overall Rating...

By The Editor (E-Mail)

Footnote...

Two one-page posters (Ant-Man, Thor), a two-page centerfold poster of the X-Men. Two pages of "guide to the X-Men", a one-page "spot the differences of the FF", a one-page Iron Man/Hulk coloring page, a Captain America cutout and glue to card mask, a page of fan art and letters, a one-page competition form, and an Iron Man fact file card to go in your heroes info card index.