Dwayne McDuffie (1962–2011)

Remarkably good. Reminds me of Alan Moore, but lends itself well to an ongoing episodic format.

The basic premise is "What if Superman was raised by black slaves instead of the Kents?" The result is the superhero Icon, but he doesn't become a superhero until a young woman suggests it to him. She becomes his sidekick, Rocket. The characters are interesting and different, nodding toward the Superman origin but creating their own mythos with their own themes and topics. It does a great job of show more being politically relevant without being propaganda--I don't usually like gang stories or political stories, but the characters and writing make up for it.

The art is also great. I really enjoyed the whole experience of reading this and I wish more people had heard of it. show less

Reading this, I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but I really was aware of the loss of Deathlok's creator, Rich Buckler, and the bizarre world he'd created to surround the Demolisher.

Overall, this did was Marvel does: the original simply doesn't work for us anymore, so let's retcon the whole damn thing to bring it closer in line with the rest of the 616 universe...even if it waters down most of what made it so damn good in the first place.

For all of that, it was entertaining. Unfortunately, it show more felt more like a meal from McD's than being served something from that weird funky restaurant down on the corner with all the interesting clientele and strange atmosphere. show less

My nostalgia for this era of Marvel Comics probably earned this book an extra star. It's hurt by it's lack of commitment to its premise: Sue and Reed are present more or less throughout, so T'Challa and Ororo never get a chance to properly establish themselves, and we don't get a proper examination of how the team works without its senior members.

The individual stories are also not great, consisting of a series of low-stakes rematches with returning villains. Includes the most underwhelming show more use of Galactus I can remember reading, while Gravity – a popular character of the time who's barely been heard of in over a decade now – soaks up much of the book's attention. The whole thing's got the feel of a particularly underwhelming WWE match.

From what I recall, the Black Panther tie-in volume (Four The Hard Way) does much better – and includes a Marvel Zombies crossover. show less

This was fun. I've always liked big groups of heroes fighting big groups of villains and this definitely fit the bill. I like the build up - some shit is definitely about to hit the fan, unfortunately this was just the setup for the big deal. This really does pack in a lot of "big-hitter" villains in one graphic novel. I'm assuming they're all going to show up at the same time in the next book.

Great art, especially since on the first page your greeted by partially exposed superboobs (hmm show more wonder why young boys (and old boys) love comics so much). Superman looked kinda evil a couple times and I think maybe one issue was drawn by someone different because it looked more "cartoony" but other than that, great stuff. show less