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