Marvel Ruins
May 19th, 2008
Up until two days ago I have never even heard of Marvel Ruins until Rol made reference to it the other day. I really love the What If type stories that have our favourite heroes facing their darkest hours and then everything actually going wrong for them.
This is exactly what Marvel Ruins explores, what if everything in the Marvel universe went wrong? The Hulk instead of turning into the green behemoth turns into a mix of tumours and is hidden away in an underground bunker.
What if the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker didn’t give him super powers but poisoned him?
These are wonderful ideas but I don’t know if they are executed that well in Ruins, the artwork is moody and looks great but I don’t feel it is clear enough to convey the story, I probably would have liked a style that was more in line with the normal comics though I understand the desire to reflect that of the series Marvels.
During the comic series we touch only lightly on the characters that inhabit the Marvel universe, in fact the Punisher is killed in the street at one stage and is seen in one panel bullet ridden. Of course the story doesn’t focus on this character but I would at least have liked to focus on some of the bigger characters such as Captain America, Iron Man or Spider-Man. The character we do focus on, just like in Marvels is Phil Sheldon who lightly touches on what has happened in this dystopia and has little more than brushes with the Marvel characters.
As I mentioned at the start I love a good dystopia story set in either DC or Marvel universes. My favourite being the What If version of Galactic Storm, where the Earth is destroyed and Avengers are executed and the last of the humans draw together to defeat the Kree. There is an awesome scene where Tony Stark realises that he only has the armour keeping him alive and without the Earth he is going to die. He then sacrifices himself to give Captain America enough time to change the course of the war.
I think in Ruins Stark dies when the last Quinjet is shot down, there is a cool image of him though.
Ruins is an interesting enough diversion, I enjoyed it.
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Categories: Comics | Tags: Comics, dystopia, galactic storm, marvel characters, Marvel Ruins, marvel universe, phil sheldon
sounds awesome. You are steadily pushing me into our local comicshop. We’ve even got a ‘comicmuseum’ overhere (my town).
Arjans last blog post..Meeting a Ms. psycho bitch
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awesome, i’ll check it out
sir jorges last blog post..A Compilation of Gas Price News Stories
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Arjan - comics are like drugs, you get one or two and then you get hooked and then you have no money in the bank…
I want to visit your comic museum - that sounds awesome.
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Sir Jorge - as i said it’s not a bad diversion if you like seeing characters miserable
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The artwork looks similar to the Secret War, which was good, but didn’t always do a great job helping to tell the story.
You read Marvel Zombies?
swollenpickless last blog post..WidgetBucks report to be back on the up
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I’ve not read this since it came out, but I seem to remember having a similar feeling of almost-disappointment… like they could have done so much more with the idea. Still a worthwhile read, but Ellis could have done more with it.
Rols last blog post..Elephant Gun
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Swollenpickles - I love Marvel Zombies!!! I must admit I was sceptical at first thinking it very much a gimmick but there is some actual story telling going underneath all that rotten flesh!
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Rol - yeah I don’t know what it was, because the style was supposed to be very anti Alex Ross I couldn’t quite make out all the details and the in-jokes.
But like you say it is worth having a look (after one reads Marvels)
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