Comic Review: The Evolutionary War

Published: 1988
Written by: Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Louise Simonson, Chris Claremont, Steve Gerber, Mark Gruenwald
Art by: various

Marvel Comics, 704 Pages

Review:

It has been years since I’ve read this giant crossover event that happened in the Marvel annuals over the summer of 1988. I really dug the hell out of it when I was a kid and I’ve always liked the High Evolutionary as a big villain, even though this was really his only major story.

Being that I still own the physical copies of all these issues, I figured that taking them out of their protective bags and boards and thumbing through them once again would be a fun experience.

Overall, this is one of the best large crossover events that Marvel did in the ’80s, where these things started to become the norm. I think I liked Atlantis Attacks slightly more but I’m going to revisit that one in the very near future, as well.

This is spread over eleven issues and there are two others that tie into this but aren’t a part of the main arc. However, the main arc is sort of a loose one, as the scheme of the High Evolutionary weaves in and out of these issues without most of the heroes coming into contact with one another. In fact, it isn’t until the final issue where a group of former Avengers come together and realize what’s happening and with that, they foil the High Evolutionary’s plans.

Sometimes the main arc is just very minimally wedged into a story like with The Punisher annual, which sees Frank Castle fighting drug lords in Latin America. Knowing what we know already, we see Castle fight a robot that we know is associated with the High Evolutionary and we know that the drugs being pushed by this specific cartel is tied to the High Evolutionary’s experiments.

Being that these are annuals, there are always main stories and then shorter backup stories tacked on to the end of the issues. The backup stories in these tell the origin of the High Evolutionary and recap everything he’s been involved with up to this point. These were all rather good and interesting and it shows the character as a sort of high-tech Dr. Moreau from the famous 1896 H. G. Wells sci-fi/horror novel The Island of Doctor Moreau.

In the end, this was a hell of a lot of fun to revisit. The writing and art were handled by a team of Marvel’s best creatives from the era. I dug the art a lot and it was damn consistent throughout.

Rating: 7.5/10

Comic Review: The Son of Satan – Classic

Published: October 19th, 2016
Written by: Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Gary Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Bill Mantlo, John Warner
Art by: Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, Ed Hannigan, Russ Heath, Jim Mooney, P. Craig Russell, Tom Sutton, Herb Trimpe, Sonny Trinidad, John Romita Sr. (cover)

Marvel Comics, 475 Pages

Review:

I always thought that Daimon Hellstrom was a cool character. When I was a kid, I saw back issues of The Son of Satan, his first miniseries, and thought that the art and style was really cool. My overly biblical mother, however, thought differently.

I didn’t get to read some of the character’s earlier stories until I was a teenager but I’ve never had the complete run of his earliest stuff, so this is the first time I’ve read it as a larger, more complete body of work.

This was a cool read and it ties nicely to the larger Marvel universe with the inclusion of Ghost Rider and the Fantastic Four. It would’ve been cool to see Hellstrom cross paths with Doctor Strange, this early on, but maybe due to the two characters having a lot of similarities, they didn’t want them to sort of cancel each other out.

This collection covers Hellstrom’s debut in Ghost Rider, his stories from Marvel Spotlight, as well as his first miniseries and team-ups with The Thing and the Human Torch.

That being said, this collection has different creative teams, throughout. Marvel editorial was really good back then, though, and everything reads and looks pretty seamless. This feels like one body of work with multiple arcs, as opposed to an anthology with bits pulled from varying sources.

If you like classic Marvel, especially ’70s horror and occult stuff, this is definitely worth a read.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: Marvel’s horror and sword and sorcery comics of the ’70s, as well as Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange and early Moon Knight stuff.