Comic Related - If It's Comic Related, You'll Find It Here!

You see the figure in the above picture engulfed in flames. I bet you think that's the Human Torch and given the fact that he's fighting Namor over what appears a 1940's New York City skyline I'm also betting you think it's the Golden Age Human Torch, Jim Hammond.

The android guy. That Human Torch. And on any other given day that would be a pretty good guess. But I don't think that's the Torch...Jim Hammond...the android guy. I think that's comic writer Ed Brubaker because Brubaker has been on fire ever since this series first launched.

Brubaker has already given us some of the best Captain America stories ever written during his run on Cap's title over the last few years (not to mention incredible runs on the Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil and the Books of Doom limited series) but The Marvels Project may well be Brubaker at his very best.

The Marvels Project is a very detailed and imaginative telling of how the very first Marvel heroes first came together in the early forties and how their stories are all interconnected. We learn for the very first time why Namor hates the human race so much, and later the Nazi's specifically. We learn exactly where the components of the Super Soldier Serum were derived from. And we see the development and creation of the first Human Torch. Bringing the three "flagship" characters of the Timely Comics era (Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Captain America) together in a tale that is so realistic at points you can not help but feel you are walking the down town streets of New York City during the summer of 1941.

And while doing this Brubaker gives new life to another almost forgotten Golden Age hero, the first character to call himself the Avenging Angel, who actually has ties to a hero from yet another age, The Two Gun Kid.

Issue #6 of this series was the very best of an already impressive series that will one day become on of the most sought after trade paperbacks ever produced. We see the second confrontation between Namor and the Human Torch. We see the introduction of Meranno, the very first renegade warrior from Atlantis. As die hard fans of Marvel's Bronze Age Invaders series (myself included) already know, Meranno becomes a super-powered agent of the Axis that ends up calling himself U-Man.

Speaking of the Invaders not only do we get the very first meeting between Captain America and the Human Torch in this issue, as well as their first encounter with Namor (that last page with all three of them was simply iconic) we also get the first appearance of Toro in Marvel history. And a very chilling Red Skull in his true prime.

All this told masterfully by Brubaker and drawn almost in life like fashion by the incredible Steve Epting.

In the day of cross over events that run rampant and cosmic threats that threaten entire galaxies, at the opposing end of the "spectrum" is a hard hitting, gritty, well paced story that brings the original heroes of the Marvel Universe together to face the greatest threat they could possibly imagine, the horrors of the coming second world war.

And that story is called The Marvels Project.

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Art: Steve Epting
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: VC's Chris Eliopoulos
Covers: Steve McNiven & Justin Ponsor; Steve Epting; & Gerald Parel
Publisher: Marvel Comics

d Brubaker and Steve Epting's acclaimed tale of the origin of Marvel continues, as the mysteries of Nazi spies on American shores begin to unravel, and The Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner battle once again in the skies of New York, with devastating results. Rated T

PRICE: 3.99
IN STORES: February 24, 2010