357. Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel ... Marvel ...

We bought this entire series from Mile High back issues because at that time, it was cheap but honestly, we have no idea what was the purpose of the creation of this new character, the Blue Marvel. It smacks a bit of all the retcon that the Marvel Universe is undergoing especially characters like Sentry and Illuminati ... and now this ...

And Broome's art? Sorry, pal, your work from Image is miles better than this mess of line work

You judge for yourself

Basically the inclusion of the Avengers (and Mr Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) is either to ensure people buy this series or is integral to the storyline but if integral why not put it in one of the many Avengers series out there?

Anyway ...

A new villain called the Anti-Man appears threatening to destroy the world and is met by the Avengers. However, inspite of everything they do, the Avengers are no match for this guy and he whups their asses but good ... and the only reason the bad guy even lost is that the Avengers are many characters and thus manage to drain away his energy until he more or less disincorporate

So begins a search by the Avengers into who this new chap is ... only to find out that he appeared years ago and encountered a hero who actually defeated him, more or less i.e. the Blue Marvel. And with that, our story proper has its opening as Iron Man in his Tony Stark capacity tries to track down who the Blue Marvel is, what happened to him and if he is still around ...

Now the Blue Marvel is a "black dude" and being the most powerful man of his era, at a time, when there is segregation and what-not in America, when politics are swinging every which way with no certainty, his secret is revealed while in the midst of a fight ... yup his face mask and costume got shredded ... and thus SPOILERS he was asked to stand down for the good of the American people (WTF)?!?!?!

And basically that's what this tale is all about

We have Tony playing judgmental freak calling everyone racist etc from his future perspective never thinking about what is going on ... and then we have all these flashback scenes to what actually went down ... and we are given panel after panel of our Blue Marvel in his civilian identity pondering if he has made the right decision. There is no where we are given a glimmer that he is a hero in his human personae ... no where ... we repeat no where ... he looked more like a timid office worker in his facial expression than anyone with a back bone

So in short this is a weak story that uses the Avengers and racism with the hopes of creating a story that has enough "reality" and grittiness to sell itself ... ugh!

Ratings: 2/10