Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign, Jeff Parker

"The heroes of the 1950s are back with big plans for the 21st Century! When Federal enforcers under the hand of Norman Osborn burst into an armory under control of the Atlas Foundation, Jimmy Woo's Agents go head-to-head with the new powers that be. How it all goes down will make the playing field of the modern Marvel Universe more volatile than ever! This edition comes packed with extras, including a 1950s flashback to the Agents of Atlas' first savage encounter with the man now known as Wolverine! Plus, the Avengers must enlist the help of the Agents to help take down Kang the Conqueror! And discover the key role the Agents of Atlas played in Marvel's blockbuster event of 2009 in Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?!

Collects Agents of Atlas #1-5, Wolverine: Agent of Atlas, Giant-Size Marvel Adventures Avengers, and material from Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? and Dark Reign: New Nation."



Agents of Atlas is another of those books like The Defenders or Heroes for Hire that appears on the periphery of the Marvel Universe every now and again, and contains some great little all-ages stories without ever getting a long running ongoing book. This collects the Dark Reign tie in issues, which is a great fit for what is essentially the heroic Thunderbolts - a team of heroes pretending to be villains so as to create a peaceful world using the resources of a criminal empire.

Like Thunderbolts it allows for the lesser known heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe to get a look in; these books feature Temugin (son of The Mandarin) and everyone's second favourite bear themed character, Grizzly. It also showcases some more prominent characters from the Avengers era, including Bendis' New Avengers, The Sentry and Norman Osborne, and Wolverine. It's a broad cross section of popular and unknown characters that makes the book a joy to read. As someone who loves the one-page cameo and the intricacies of continuity an appearance from Man Mountain that ends with him being eaten by a dragon is a thing of joy.

There's a real light hearted ness to the book. One of the things that it succeeds in so well is telling a range of different stories. The Agents of Atlas as a whole are a collection of broad archetypes; a Spaceman, a Spy, a Gorilla, a Siren, a Robot and an Atlantean in a series of crime super heroics that owe as much to James Bond and Jackie Chan as to anything else. It means that as well as the exploits of the agents in the Dark Reign era you can have missions set in 1958 (yellow peril and red scare spy-jinks) absurd Kung-Fu battles or sic-fi invasions of revolutionary Cuba. Absurd, but wonderful.

It channels the same structured chaos of NEXTWAVE, and whilst it never reaches the heights of that comic, a book that is the single defining extrapolation of all comics ever, it does a good job of bringing in the wider reaches of a super heroic world.

Basically, it's crime and spy stories featuring a super hero team up in which a talking gorilla fires machine guns whilst a robot shoots a death ray from its head. If that doesn't sound like the kind of book you want to read then, Brother, you've got no business reading comics.

Also Read:

Warren Ellis; NEXTWAVE: Agents of H.A.T.E

Jeff Parker, Thunderbolts

Brian Michael Bendis, New Avengers

Matt Fraction and David Aja, Immortal Iron Fist

Exiles: Point of No Return, Jeff Parker

"Heroes are being pulled out of the worlds they know - The Beast. The Witch. Panther. Forge. Polaris. All find themselves in a place out of time with a new mission in life. But something seems to have shifted in the mechanics of the universe, and things may not be quite what we remember. But one thing we know for certain - BLINK is BACK! Collects Exiles #1-5."













Exiles is one of my favourite series, a What-If worlds tour between different realities starring alternate versions of classic X-Men and Avengers righting the course of history in different dimensions. It's a wonderful concept, designed to appeal to those who love the history of the Marvel Universe as much as a casual comics or X-Men fan. The original series, running for 100 issues, is one that I collect to this day, picking up the (many) trade paperbacks whenever I can.

It has an easy appeal to explain: big storylines that were ended by the heroes are taken to their logical extreme. It's a series where writers can do whatever they want - kill all the heroes, let the villains win, destroy all mutants, whatever they want! From realities where Captain America became a vampire (in that reality he hadn't got a collar on when Baron Blood attacked him) to ones where Wolverine killed everyone (he was never rescued from Hydra brainwashing) or Professor X is a supervillain, it served as a replacement for the off-and-on again What If?, or DC's Elseworlds titles.

Whilst it declined in quality when Chris Claremont (and his beloved Psylocke) joined, this first volume of Exiles (2), is a real return to form. So of course, it got cancelled after 6 issues, meaning we never got to see the planned worlds of Magic or Savage Land World storylines.

Split into two basic stories, with the first returning for the final few issues, this see's a new team of Exiles jaunting to realities where all mutants united under Magneto on Genosha, and one where a Cerebro-Ultron programme share retasked all robots to destroy humanity.

The art and story are both excellent, and if you're a fan of reality hopping tales, Marvel history, or just great comics it's really worth picking up.

Also try:
Exiles, Judd Winick
What If?, Various Writers
Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar
Marvel Zombies, Robert Kirkman