Hello all! So yes, last week was an absolute fail in the “get the column out” department. So today, I’m going to talk about two weeks in Marvel Unlimited! Let’s look at what came out 2019-12-02…
On the new side of things, from the week of May 29th, 2019, we have our obligatory Age of X-Man issue, X-Tremists #4, and five crossover issues with War of the Realms. For the all-ages crowd there’s Marvel Action: Avengers, and media tie-ins get Marvel Rising and Spider-Man: City at War, both at #3. (The Spider-Man one is from the very popular Playstation 4 videogame “universe”.) In the x-universe corner of Marvel, Liefeld’s Major X #4 arrives (of six) and the third series of X-Men: Grand Design (subtitled X-Tinction) has its first issue made available.
I’ve been hearing good things about Grand Design. It’s an unusual book, a retelling of the entire X-Men saga, with all the work (writing, art, lettering) done by one person: Ed Piskor. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s definitely on my “want to read” list.
Naturally, there’s more stuff in there,like the Magnificent Ms. Marvel #3, Superior Spider-Man #6 and more. But I want to keep this moving! So, what’s been added from the back catalogue?
Well, we have two X-Men books: The Survival Guide to the Mansion from 1993 and X-Men Annual #1 from 1991. The Survival Guide isn’t the usual Official Handbook style writeups of characters; instead it talks about the X-Men’s home and gear. The Annual, meanwhile, is part one of a crossover called Shattershot, which focused on Longshot and Shatterstar. With the addition of this annual the crossover is fully available on Marvel Unlimited for those of us nostalgic for X-Men comics from the early 90s.
The other addition to the archives is five issues of Marvel Chillers from 1975-76. Issues 3 through 7, to be precise, and the addition means that the entire series is available (yes, it only lasted seven issues).
The first two issues featured Modred the Mystic, but these five feature Tigra, the Were-Woman! (Yes, they saddled the character with that over-the-top title.) Tigra is interesting, imho, from a historical standpoint.
Tigra started out as another character, Greer Nelson, a.k.a The Cat. The Cat had her own series from 1972 to 1973, created by Marvel legend Roy Thomas. It was very much a feminist take on super-heroics, but only lasted four issues. Tony Isabella (of Black Lightning fame) revamped Greer into Tigra, the Were-Woman in the pages of Giant-Size Creatures #1. That issue isn’t available on Marvel Unlimited unfortunately. After the revamp came the Marvel Chillers issues.
Tigra has only headlined her own book once since then as far as I know: a 2002 four issue LS. Still, the character has had a lot of longevity as part of the ensemble cast of various Avengers books. It’s interesting to be able to look back at her early adventures.
Onwards to part two this week…
Tags: Comic Books, Comics, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Unlimited, This Week in Marvel Unlimited