Ultimate Marvel Handbook #175

This would affect a title like Marvel Team-Up big time if it was still going after Civil War. In essence now a lot more can happen too. Say you have an event like Secret Wars now or something like that manor the sides will be quite different. Cap would likely not fight alongside Iron Man or maybe even a character like Hulk showing up will cause major effect now after what the others did to him.

Hulk going into space is part of this. He’s going to come back and when he does all hell will break loose. Iron Man, Mister Fantastic and a few others have something new to fear. Not just villains. The villains will have ways to get to the heroes more too. Spidey’s foes know they can go after Aunt May or MJ.

I don’t think they will put everything back once this is over. I think it will impact Marvel for the next 3-4 years big time. Wolverine will recall who he is. Spidey will have to find a new identity or stay outed. The scary idea would be seeing Ben Reily come back through this. But it’s possible.

Powers: Blackheart can regenerate from most physical harm; levitate; teleport extradimensionally; change the size and physical form of himself and willing others; generate concussive blasts of black energy; and survive without food, water, or sleep. Though he can assume human form, Blackheart usually appears as a black spine-covered humanoid with a long tail. He smells unpleasantly of burning ink and roses, and has no discernible heartbeat. He likely possesses further unrevealed abilities.

History: Centuries of murder saturated the Christ’s Crown area with evil until the attempted rape of a young girl named Sarah drew Mephisto to create a “son,” Blackheart, from the accumulated wrongs. Slaying both rapist and victim, Blackheart explored the nature of evil under his father’s tutelage, clashing with and failing to corrupt Daredevil and Spider-Man. Mephisto and Blackheart soon drew Daredevil, Brandy Ash, the genetically engineered Number Nine, and Inhumans Gorgon, Karnak, and Ahura into Hell.

Observing these mortals led Blackheart to rebel against his father and seek a newer form of evil; in retaliation, Mephisto diminished Blackheart’s powers. Focusing on those who walked the line between good and evil, Blackheart tried and failed to recruit Wolverine (Logan), the Punisher (Frank Castle) and the Ghost Rider (Dan Ketch) to his rebellion. Blackheart also aided Wonder Man against Mephisto and helped Misha of the mercenary Warheads as her telepathic “Voice,” using Mys-Tech’s Rathcoole to obtain a mystic sword which could harm Mephisto. Returning to Christ’s Crown, Blackheart altered his followers into the Corrupt, and employed Wolverine, Punisher, and Ghost Rider as a feint to allow him to anoint the sword with an innocent’s blood. He apparently slew Mephisto, banishing his “father” from Hell and restoring his own powers to full strength.

As Hell’s ruler, Blackheart focused on corrupting the Ghost Rider, aiding the Furies to possess mortal bodies to torment Ghost Rider and resurrecting the Scarecrow (Ebenezer Laughton) to send after Ketch. From his palace in the Burning Flesh district, Blackheart created his own Spirits of Vengeance: his consort Black Rose (the deceased Roxanne Simpson, ex-wife of Dan Ketch’s brother, Johnny Blaze), Verminus Rex (a spirit who had battled the Ghost Rider during World War I), Wallow (a homicidal mortal suicide whom Ghost Rider had thwarted), Doghead (a downtrodden immigrant), and Pao Fu (who had died in the arms of Ghost Rider as he tried to save her). Blackheart bargained to free Ghost Rider’s relatives from their curse; in return, Ghost Rider agreed to lead Blackheart’s Spirits. However, the pair fell out and Ghost Rider destroyed Blackheart, banishing him from Hell.

However, it also launched the unsuccessful 2099 line of comics set in the future (Spider-Man 2099 etc.) and the creatively daring yet commercially unsuccessful Razorline imprint of superhero comics created by novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker.
Due to the poor sales relating titles mentioned above, which had been hugely unpopular with Marvel fans, and for wrong investiments, Marvel filed for bankruptcy amidst accusations that Perelman had strip-mined the company for his own gain. The casualties included the comic-book distribution industry in 1994, when Marvel announced it was acquiring Heroes World to use as its exclusive distributor. As the industry’s other major publishers made exclusive distribution deals with other companies, the loss of the industry’s largest companies threw the majority of the comic book distributors out of business.

Creatively and commercially, the ’90s were dominated by the use of gimmickry to boost sales, such as variant covers, cover enhancements and regular company-wide crossovers that threw the universe’s continuity into disarray.

Investor Carl Icahn attempted to take control of Marvel, but after protracted legal battles, in 1997 control of the company landed in the hands of Isaac Perlmutter, owner of the Marvel subsidiary Toy Biz. With his business partner Avi Arad and publisher Bill Jemas and editor-in-chief Bob Harras, Perlmutter helped Marvel back on its feet, largely by returning to the fan favourites, X Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four. In addition to Marvel revitalizing its comics line, several of its properties have been licensed to become hit movies, most notably X-Men and Spider-Man.

Avengers: The Crossing: It was revealed soon after that a traitor was among the Avengers, and it turned out to be none other than Iron Man himself. It appeared that Kang the Conqueror had been manipulating Stark for years, using him as a sleeper agent and causing him to push aside his friends and unconsciously serve Kang. Stark, fully in Kang’s thrall,.

Tony killed Marilla, Yellowjacket II (Rita DeMara) and Gilgamesh (Don’t ask me how stupid the writer was not to know he was an Eternal).

To defeat Stark and Kang, the Avengers recruited a younger, teenage Tony Stark from an alternate timeline. The sight of his younger self shocked the older Stark into regaining momentary control of his actions, and he sacrificed his life to stop Kang.

Spider-Man: the Other: Peter has recently been having black outs, dizzy spells, and enigmatic dreams, which includes Morlun rolling a bag into a morgue, Kraven the Hunter, frogs, Uncle Ben, and dice that show snake eyes. Later, Spider-Man confronts a new villain calling himself Tracer who is robbing a bank. In the ensuing fight, Tracer wounds Spider-Man by shooting him with a bullet that follows him and eventually goes into his shoulder. Tracer escapes, while Peter goes to see Dr. Castillo, a doctor recommended to him by Captain America, who treats Peter’s wound and takes a blood test. Later, Dr. Castillo calls Peter and tells him she has bad news. Meanwhile, Morlun is shown to be watching him.

Mary Jane overhears that Spider-Man might be getting killed on television. She rushes to a bar to see the live coverage on TV, and she sees Spider-Man fighting Tracer, who is controlling Iron Man’s armor and forcing him to attack Spider-Man. Later, at home, Mary Jane confronts Peter, telling him she thinks he has a death wish, but Peter interrupts her to tell her the news from the doctor.

Later, May Parker, who wakes up from a strange dream and, after being yelled at by an emotional Peter, goes to the kitchen and finds Tracer. Tracer tells her that he is a reserve Avenger who is there to watch over her. During their conversation, he tells May that he is a machine god; in the same way that humans created gods, machines created him. Meanwhile, Spider-Man is fighting Tracer’s robot followers in the city when his powers start to fail. Morlun confronts him and tells Peter that he would rather watch Peter deteriorate than fight him. Spider-Man returns home and, finding Tracer, attacks him. However, Tracer assesses his health and refuses to fight him in his current state. After his escape, Peter tells May what is wrong with him.

Peter goes to see Mister Fantastic, who tells him that his condition is not cancer or anything traditional, but Yellowjacket tells him that the infection is radiation-based. Therefore, Peter goes to see Bruce Banner, an expert on radiation-based mutation. Banner tells Peter that at the rate the infection is spreading, a cure could not be developed in time to do any good. Peter then sees the Black Panther on Banner’s suggestion, but he also cannot find the source of Peter’s illness. Back in New York, Peter encounters “The Ox” and, thinking him to be Morlun, fights him. In his anger, Peter almost kills him before Daredevil stops him. Later, Peter goes to Doctor Strange, who tells him he cannot use his magic to cure Peter and tells Peter to prepare himself for death.

Peter, Mary Jane and Aunt May go to Latveria to use Dr. Doom’s Time Machine to see past scenes in his life, like the day Richard Parker and Mary Fitzpatrick-Parker left Peter in the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. After returning to Stark Tower, Peter plans a trip to Las Vegas with Mary Jane, namely in Tony Stark’s penthouse suite. As he thinks of what it would be like in Las Vegas, Peter thinks about using his spider-sense to win at blackjack, in the hopes of making enough money for his family after he is gone, but of course, even Vegas would most likely be hit by super villains he would have to fight. In New York, Morlun is looking for Spider-Man, in vain, as Peter and Mary-Jane are in one of Stark’s space pods, looking down upon the Earth.

Later, Peter tries to clear his head with something that is very traditional in situations like these: web slinging. However, Morlun is not only watching, but takes Peter off-guard. A fight ensues that sends Spider-Man flying through J. Jonah Jameson’s office. Spider-Man then moves the fight away from civilians and to the birth place of Spider-Man: Empire State University. The fight gets intense as momentum swings from Morlun’s side to Spider-Man’s side. After an exhausting array of punches and kicks, Spider-Man starts to think that he has the victory. However, an unscathed Morlun tells Spider-Man that he fought the best he could, right before plucking Spider-Man’s left eye out and devouring it. Morlun then begins and ends with a barrage of punches that leaves Spider-Man a bloody, unconscious mess.

Before Morlun can kill Spider-Man, the cops show up and Morlun leaves Spider-Man’s bloody, unconscious body, planning to finally drain his life force when the hero is alone. The paramedics take the near-dead Spider-Man to the hospital, with the Avengers and Mary Jane Watson on the way as well when they hear what happened on television, and they learn that Spider-Man’s injuries are too severe. Morlun goes to the unconscious Spider-Man’s hospital bed to finish him off, but MJ attempts to stop Morlun, who effortlessly throws her across the room and breaks her arm. Peter suddenly wakes up, and using the last of his strength, the savage, animalistic spider-side of himself takes over, and he attacks Morlun, pinning the villain and impaling his arms to the floor. Peter then bites into Morlun’s neck, killing him. Reverting to normal, Peter says goodbye to MJ and dies in her arms. Iron Man takes Spider-Man’s body, so that the public will not know that Spider-Man is dead.

Spider-Man is proven to be dead, and Iron Man transports his body away from the hospital. Mary Jane, Aunt May, and Jarvis, Iron Man’s butler, meet together to grieve over Peter’s death. After inspecting the body, Mary Jane talks to both Captain America and Iron Man over how to divulge the secret identity of Spider-Man. After being unable to sleep, Mary Jane has a conversation with another New Avengers member, Spider-Woman, who states that their powers are from the same base, and she could sense when Peter was going down, this obviously is through the mystical side of their powers. Both Spider-Woman and Spider-Man got their powers via radiation involving some form of spider DNA, and thus their powers are extremely similar. In the middle of the talk, there is an audible crash from the chamber where Peter Parker’s body is kept. Mary Jane and the New Avengers arrive at the scene, to find that Peter’s body has been desecrated. Judging by the amount of glass outside the window, Captain America judges that the killer escaped but not entered through the window. Mary Jane discovers the secret: all that is left is a skin. Peter, like a snake, has left his outer layer behind in transformation. Later, we discover what is happening via a class of kids being taught about spiders. Peter Parker is metamorphosing; he hangs in a cocoon underneath Brooklyn Bridge, the very place where his first love, Gwen Stacy, fell to her death.

Several days have passed since Peter shed his skin and begins with Iron Man flying around searching for him. Under the Brooklyn Bridge, Peter sleeps inside his cocoon and has a strange dream. A voice tells him he never understood what he was, accusing him of being too scared to be truly a “Spider-Man”, only focusing on the human part and neglecting the spider part. Morlun managed to kill the human part of Peter, but the spider in him survived and killed Morlun, saving them both. The voice tells him that he will only be reborn if he accepts both parts, and warns him that Peter could be reborn very differently. Peter agrees and is reborn, outwardly human. He goes to the Avengers Tower and swears to Mary Jane and Aunt May that he will never leave them again. Later in the night, Peter goes to the lab where his husk is and recalls the final warning of the voice: “Are you the man who dreamed of being a spider? Or the spider who dreamed of being a man? Are you the one… or are you the other?” Shaking off the warning, Peter removes the wedding ring from the husk and heads back to bed.

Peter gets a check up from Stark. As it turns out, Peter’s wounds from his old enemies have been healed and even the tonsils he lost in fourth grade have reappeared. Before the test could continue, Aunt May stopped it and told Peter to “go play”. So Peter and Mary Jane go out and swing throughout the city, talking about how they feel about the recent events that have occurred. Meanwhile, in Stark Tower, pirate spiders started to eat Peter’s old and dead body. When Spider-Man returns, he finds the top of Stark tower covered in webbing. Inside the tower, Spider-Man finds the pirate spiders, with Peter’s old body. Using the basis of his skin, they have formed a body of their own. Engaging in battle, Spider-Man finds that the stingers he used to fight Morlun appear once again, but he is confused because “Spiders don’t have stingers!” Before anything else could happen, the pirate Spider punches through the walls of Stark Tower and runs off. Spider-Man chases it down and then it heads into the sewer. It forms a cocoon in a church. Spider-Man tells the New Avengers he has no idea about it and they want to run some more tests on him.

Peter follows the otherworldly being), only for it to inform him that they are both parts of the same whole, and that spider-based cosmic forces are vying for control of his life. Apparently, although a spider-deity known as “The Great Weaver” thought that Spidey’s death was premature and pulled him back from his fate, others disagreed-and Peter feels his life being pulled in different directions as a result, at the centre of a metaphorical Spider’s web of which he is unsure if he is the predator or the prey.
Peter is still in a state of confusion and is having some sort of an identity crisis after his rebirth. With no time to contemplate the events of days past, Spider-Man rushes to the scene of an explosion, where a building was just demolished and people are trapped under the debris. Spider-Man quickly begins to “dig” into the remains of the building, and in his attempt and find survivors, he discovers that he has new powers. His new powers include night vision, the ability to feel vibrations through his webbing, and the ability to carry heavy objects on his back.

I’d say these are under used:

Ghost Rider (again hoping series and movie fix this)
Moon Knight (before his series had started)
Deathlok (should show up in Beyond)
Hawkeye (Hey he is MIA right?)
Namor
Iron Fist

Spartan: Cybernetic body. Superstrength, invisiblity, energy projection (blasts and shields), flight, enhanced senses. Body could repair itself. When merged with Void: increased energy projection, increased superstrength and teleportation

Spartan = Cable

Zealot: Possesses superhuman strength and centuries of combat experience. Limited knowledge of dark sorceries.

Zealot = Psylocke

Voodoo: Telepathy, the Sight (allows her to recognise Daemonite-possessed humans), time-manipulation, regeneration, can shapeshift into a beast-like form, Voodoo magic, and control over magnetic fields

Voodoo = Rachel?

Grifter: incredibly adept fighter, expert in hand-to-hand combat and with most weapons. He is especially good with guns. He also possesses powerful psi powers, though most of the time these are dormant, largely by choice.

Grifter = Bishop

Warblade: Warblade can alter his molecular structure, allowing him to reshape parts of his body at will, simultaneously turning those parts into a kind of organic steel.

Warblade = Wolverine

Void: Teleportation, precognition, energy manipulation, increasing size and mass.

Void = Jean?

Lord Emp: Immortality, superhuman strength and durability. Telepathy. Capable of generating large amounts of energy.

Lord Emp= Xavier

Maul: normally looks like a somewhat skinny but otherwise normal-looking human, but can transform in seconds into an immense purple-skinned humanoid with horns growing out his back, possessed of incredible strength, endurance and durability. He can continue to grow larger and stronger (he has been seen to be able to grow until he dwarfs skyscrapers), but as he grows his intelligence decreases proportionately, until he is nothing more than a mindless brute whose only goal is destruction.

Maul= Colossus

SilverFox, Maverick, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Silver Samurai, Stryker, and if you need any more villains add someone Omega Red.

top ten Avengers

1. Wolverine
2. Spider-Man
3. Captain America
4. Moon Knight
5. Invisible Woman
6. She-Hulk
7. Scarlet Witch
8. Thor
9. Hawkeye
10. Ms. Marvel

1. CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE # 4: “Embedded” – Civil War has ignited across the Marvel Universe! Embedded reporters Sally Floyd and Ben Urich are driven into the heart of battle—a battle in which a hero will fall. Their investigations will take Sally into the heart of Captain America’s resistance, while Urich is about to get reacquainted with a certain green friend…

“The Accussed” – Despised by a nation, the lone survivor of the New Warriors’ team is behind bars. Without family, without a friend in the world and without a reason to go one, will this hero make a deal, or take a stand?

“Correspondence” – Juxtaposing stories of war throughout time with the Marvel Civil War, “Correspondence” adapts tales from World War I and more!

2. WOLVERINE # 44: “VENDETTA”
The smackdown of the century is here: Wolverine vs. Nitro – The Human Bomb! But what dark secret does Nitro hold that threatens to shake up everything? And who are the three mysterious strangers tracking Wolverine? Everything you think you know is wrong.

3. DAREDEVIL # 87: It’s the heightened senses-shattering conclusion of “The Devil in Cell-Block D” and many questions are answered! Who is the man behind the Daredevil mask running around Hell’s Kitchen? How will Matt get out of the corner he’s been painted into? And will he be jumping right out of the frying pan and into a fire of his own making? Mystery and action abounds as fan-favorite creators Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark bring their first Daredevil arc to a close!

4. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 534: Life couldn’t be more complicated — or more dangerous — for Peter Parker. Spider-Man has picked a side in the Civil War that’s tearing apart the super hero community, and the decision has ripped apart some of his strongest bonds. When one of the War’s leaders comes to recruit Spidey for his troops, will Spidey stay true to that decision?
Part of 3 (of 6).

Sorry all but I had to cut the update this week. This puppy has gotten way too long and has pushed us over the edge as far as character count and posting goes. Looks like Jimbo will have to find a way to make this section shorter”¦

There’s another edition of the Marvel Handbook for everyone. So Daron what did you think?

Good stuff as always.

I think this issue was pretty damn good. I had fun with it. I am looking forward to more like this. I like having large articles with a lot of questions and answers. So I’m hoping it keeps going.

Alrighty I’ll let you finish us off this week bud.

Notes:

1. Marvel.com pollWhose reaction to Spider-Man’s unmasking are you most looking forward to?

2. Digital comics Comics you can read online

3. Marvel is in the process of adding new bios and added a ton of new ones. Check them out here

4. As always your opinions on anything in the article or out on the shelves is welcome. After all you never know what type of response you will get.

5. Keep those emails coming and make sure to label them Marvel Handbook. The more emails the better the article is.

Well we didn’t get any comments on the logos so I guess for now we stick with the ones we have”¦if you have any thoughts (see last week’s article), let us know. Have a good one everyone!

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