Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine) #1 (Story 2)

Background

We're half way through our review of this issue. Coming up is the second of the two seven-page stories in the magazine.

Story 'Forewarned is Four-Armed!'

The centerfold is a double-sided poster, and then we have our Iron Man story. Iron Man investigates a break-in at Stark Industries and discovers Doctor Octopus stealing a new prototype "Gamma Flux Detector". And as if that's not enough to deal with, mid-battle Stark has to deal with angry girlfriend "Tiffany" complaining about being stood up at their last three dates.

OK, that's not so bad. But wait until a call from the board of Stark Industries comes in on line 2. Stark is supposed to be signing a business deal in person, and his customer is also angry at Stark's non-appearance. All this is while Iron Man and Ock are exchanging force beams, personal defense shields, an army of flying octo-drones, magneto repeller fields, and finally the coup-de-gracie, a dump-load of sub-zero freon coolant which finally takes the fight out of Ock.

So how do our three sub-plots combine? Well... the idea for defeating Ock came from an innocent remark from the angry Tiffany, and Stark realizes he can copy Ock's arms and use them to close his business deal for a cheaper price. Ah... he's a busy boy, that Iron Man.

It's a busy little story too, but if you want to get something into seven pages of plot, you have to move fast. There's a nice threading of characters, plot and action. It won't win the Man-Booker, but writer Scott Gray does not too badly, all things considered.

General Comments

To wrap things up, there's a two-page spread of Fantastic Four themed puzzles, then a two-page deluxe Spider-Man "find the path" puzzle. Then 1 coloring page, and a cut-out reader's survey/competition entry form for you to have your say and also win prizes all for the cost of a single stamp. Woohoo!

Inside cover is a cut-and-keep Wolverine profile, back cover is promo and ads for toys. That's 36 pages counting all the cover pages. We're done.

Overall Rating

Four webs for this story too.

Good start out of the blocks, guys. Let's see if you can keep it up!