EP0071: Marvel 1602: New World

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The Hulk battles dinosaurs in Colonial America. Need we say more?

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Transcript:

Graham: Join us as we travel back in time to 1602 when Dinosaurs ruled North America. Well, at least in the Marvel 1602 universe. It’s time for Marvel 1602: New World, straight ahead.

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: Marvel 1602: New World is a sequel to the original Marvel 1602 graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. The plot of that story took Marvel heroes and had their beginnings set in the 17th century with characters like Matt Murdock, Nick Fury, Stephen Strange, Peter Parquagh, spelt in a very old English way, as well as the X-men, though in a different form. One of the plot threads of that book is that the first child born in North America Virginia Dare came to England along with a very white Native American known as Rojhaz in order to get aid for their colony from Queen Elizabeth but unfortunately by the time they arrived, Queen Elizabeth has died in King James is in charge.
It turns out Rojhaz was actually Steve Rogers, i.e, Captain America from another universe who had been sent back in time and the Age of Heroes had started early. Nick Fury returns Rojhaz to the modern times and goes himself at the end of Marvel 1602. However, that left a lot of people in this new world at the colony of Roanoke, which unlike in our universe, was not lost and Virginia Dare’s life not a mystery. She lived in 1602 and got powers of her own. David Banner is hiding out having failed to capture Fury, which is what King James wanted as the book starts and J. Jonah Jameson has started a broad sheet, the Daily Trumpet and he’s using Banner’s young servant, Parquagh, to help with the broad sheet and to employ him since Banner has disappeared.

However, early on in the story, Banner actually makes a reappearance. He is lost and confused but the Hulk takes over when dinosaurs attacked the settlement and the Hulk is able to repel the invasion. However, this proves as an opportunity for Norman Osborne. Osborne wants to get rid of the local Indians because they’re not willing to deal with him and he wants their lands for reasons that are revealed later on in the book but Rojhaz had actually preparing them for what white settlers might do and so they are very wise to his ways and really not interested in trading. However, the colonist, when they see that the Hulk, are really freaked out and so they decide to pass a law banning witchbreed. Now, witchbreed is a term in Marvel 1602 for those who have superpowers. It was applied to the X-Men in the previous book but, unlike in our universe, they are not as advanced as to make a distinction, like they do in the main Marvel 616 universe, between those who have superpowers through scientific means and can be totally cool and those who are mutants and are therefore dangerous and evil and must be destroyed. So, pretty much Banner, just like the X-men, falls into the category of witchbreed and is imprisoned.

However, back in England, King James begins to wonder what happened to Banner. So, he sends someone to check into what’s going on and the person he sends…he sends his man, Ross, who is commanding his military forces along with a Spaniard in a suit of iron armor known as Iron Lord. So, this is a 17th century electricity powered version of Iron Man with Tony Stark inside and they eventually, when the English arrive, they arrest the governor because they had set up their own form of government and slate him to be executed. The governor is Virginia Dare’s dad and this actually leads to Peter Parquagh taking on the role of The Spider after making a homemade mask and Virginia Dare lends a hand too as in this world, she has a shape shifting abilities to turn herself into any animal.

Now I’m not going to go through the whole detail of the book because the plot is not particularly significant in terms of like having some really major theme in it. It plays a lot of the ideas of 1602, which I think took itself pretty seriously in terms of what it was proposing. It plays it probably a lot more lighter and colorfully. It’s a fun story and it was just enjoyable to read. You get to see all this fun stuff. The Hulk fighting dinosaurs and in an electric powered Iron Lord and J. Jonah Jameson selling newspapers in the 17th century. I know some people who were fans of Marvel 1602 were not fans of this book but I kind of didn’t like the heaviness of the original book, even though I thought it was pretty well written. This one I think is still well written but it’s a lot more fun and it doesn’t take itself quite as seriously but there is a pretty good plot. It’s an enjoyable book and I will gladly give it a rating of classy. It doesn’t try to be profound. It just tells a really neat adventure story that will make fans of classic Marvel characters just have a lot of fun. So, if you would like a good alternate history story set in the Marvel Universe, this is a good read.

All right, that’ll do it for today. If you do have a comment email to me classycomicsguy@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter at classycomicsguy and check out the website, classycomicsguy.com. From Boise Idaho, this is your host Adam Graham signing off.

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