Supplier Of Paraphysical Heroics By Appointment To Her Majesty The Queen
Since I don’t keep up with comics news, I knew nothing about “1602″,
an 8-part Marvel series written by Neil Gaiman. But the cover looked good. It said “Neil Gaiman” on the front. And sometimes that’s enough.
Rather than the “From Hell”-esque histori-comic I might have expected,
it’s an alternative take on Marvel’s super heroes – like The Ultimates
but, rather than being a 21st Century re-imagining, it sees them transposed to Elizabethan England.
Some of character analogs are clear: SHIELD Agent Nick Fury has his mirror in Sir Nicolas Fury, Minister of Intelligence (“the Queen’s shield”), and Doctor Stephen Strange is Court Physician (and while the contemporary Dr Strange has his sanctum in New York’s Greenwich Village, the Strange of 1602 resides in the village of Greenwich). Others are more subtle: Captain America is the native American “Rojhaz” (as in “Steve Rogers“), protector of Virginia Dare.
The mutants of the 17th Century are the “witchbreed”, suffering persecution, branded with crosses (“X” – do you see?), tortured and killed by the Spanish Inquisition (expecting that?). Their refuge is apparently a Carlos Javier’s schoolhouse in England (is it to be located west of Chester, I wonder?).
Gaiman has restricted the characters in play to those that were around in 1969, the tail-end of another era: Marvel’s Silver Age. While this includes most of the high-profile names (Spider-Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, etc) it rules out appearances from the likes of The Punisher and Wolverine, who weren’t around until the 70s.
It seems very similar to DC’s “Elseworlds”, where established characters featured in alternative universes or time-frames. My favourites being
Gotham By Gaslight where The Batman of 1889 takes on Jack the Ripper, and Holy Terror which starts from the premise that Oliver Cromwell recovered from malaria in 1658 and continued to rule for another decade. This change trickles down through history to a puritan 20th Century where a Reverend Wayne wears holy cloth by day, and by night “a darker shade of vestments”.
But, unlike Elseworlds and Marvel’s old “What If…” series, 1602 is part of Marvel’s regular convoluity - which means it’s all probably a Secret Wars scenario where some other-worldly power has altered reality for… some reason. (What was the Beyonder‘s reason again? To sell action figures or something?)
With Europe racked by strange apocalyptic weather (thunderstorms without rain – Thor perhaps?) Sir Fury tasks blind Irish balladeer Matthew Murdoch with ensuring the safe delivery of a treasure of the Knights Templar being transported from Jerusalem. Given the first issue of something like this is usually exposition heavy, it’s an excellent start – I’m already disappointed they’ll only be another seven. And the Templar MacGuffin? My inner-fanboy wants it to be a cosmic cube.
