MC2 Cameo in Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #5

 

This will be a super quick post to finish off the lean month, since it’s just been brought to my attention that the MC2 makes a cameo appearance in the latest issue of the Spider-Gwen mini-series  Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #5. Here’s the relevant page which seems to depict at least a version of Cassie Lang aka Stinger and May ‘Mayday’ Parker aka Spider-Girl:

 

 

I should point out the Spider-Girl costume is inaccurate, as is often the case with these sort of cameo glimpses over the past decade. But more importantly, I do not understand why the relatively new Captain America from 2099-related comics is featured in the same slice of the page. Either the artist (Jodi Nishijima) meant this to be Shannon Carter aka American Dream and got the wrong costume reference or this slice is representative of more than one universe.

 

Until I find a new job with better hours and better pay, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

Lady Sif in the MC2

 

With Thor: Love and Thunder now in theatres I’d be foolish not to make a post or two tangentially related to a character or two from the film. So today, let’s take a very brief look at Lady Sif in the MC2.

 

Lady Sif first appeared in the pages of Marvel Comic’s Journey in Mystery #102 in 1964. As for the MC2, Lady Sif makes her first and only appearance on-panel in Last Planet Standing #2. It’s there that we see Sif assisting with the evacuating of Asgard just prior to its destruction at the hands of Galactus.

As I’ve discussed previously Thena, the daughter of Thor states she is the ‘daughter to the most honored Lord and Lady of Asgard’ and that during the events of Last Hero Standing she was on a quest with her mother and thus not present in Asgard when Earth’s heroes ended up there (Avengers Next #2). Furthermore, during the events of Last Planet Standing, Thena attempted to join her father against Galactus but was commanded by her mother to aid those fleeing the destruction of Asgard (Avengers Next #3).

Naturally, one of the major candidates for Thena's mother was Thor's long-time off-and-on love interest Lady Sif. The strongest evidence for this becomes clearer when the relevant pages and panels from both Last Planet Standing #2 and the flashbacks in Avengers Next #3 are viewed in sequence:

 

So, Sif was given the job of overseeing the evacuation of Asgard's most vulnerable subjects, the same task Thena was entrusted with by her mother. This strongly suggests Sif is Thena's mother, but obviously we don't have any definitive answers.

 

Anyway, sadly that’s all we have for Lady Sif in the MC2. I’d love to see her return, especially paired with Thena on an epic quest.

 

Until I stop thinking about the stories still yet untold in the MC2, I remain

 

frogoat

 

MC2 Untold: Valkyrie

 

Today I’m going to try something a little different and talk about something we didn’t see in the MC2. This will be the first in an occasional series looking at some of the Untold Tales of the MC2: costumes, concepts, story ideas and characters that never saw the printed page. For our inaugural instalment, let’s look at Valkyrie.  

 

As per Thunderstrike and A-Next co-creator, artist extraordinaire and all-around nice guy Ron Frenz’s own facebook:

When The Time Is Right!

Below left is an incomplete sketch of a character I intended to introduce in the MC2 title A-NEXT had the book continued.

Obviously, an Asgardian Valkyrie, she would have been charged by Thor, now the ruler of Asgard to train and watch over the MC2 version of Kevin Masterson as Thunderstrike.

As I said, the title was dis-continued and the idea stored away.

Next to that sketch is an early conceptual drawing of Gruenhilda, an Asgardian Valkyrie charged by the Lady Sif to train and watch over the 616 version of Kevin Masterson as Thunderstrike in the 2011 THUNDERSTRIKE mini-series.

Weird.

So there you have it, the MC2’s Kevin Masterson aka Thunderstrike could have had a similar arc with an Asgardian Valkyrie mentor and trainer. Seeing this story concept and character adapted to the Main Marvel Universe does at least mean the idea eventually saw print in some form. For anyone wondering, the name Gruenhilda is a nod to dearly missed writer and protector of Marvel Comics continuity Mark Gruenwald.



An interesting foil to the story regarding the published appearance of Gruenhilda, also directly from Mr Frenz’s facebook:



That Was Weird!

Back in 1994 in an issue of THUNDERSTRIKE I had The Lady Sif wearing a variant of a Kirby design which showed a bit more skin.

(Sue me, it was the '90s!)

Nobody blinked.

In the 2010 THUNDERSTRIKE mini-series we introduced an Asgardian Valkyrie character and I thought it would be consistent (and cool!) to repeat elements of the same design to demonstrate their common origins.

Skin included.

The original colors for the character Gruenhilda were shown in the solicitation for the issue.

But at the eleventh hour Editorial blinked big time and re-colored the cover and eliminated the exposed epidermis.

Anyway,1994 nobody blinked.

2010, blink!

That was weird!

Anyway, there you have it, we nearly had a Gruenhilda -or similarly designed- Asgardian Valkyrie character in the MC2, but she did eventually see the light of day thanks to the 2011 Thunderstrike mini-series set in the Main Marvel Universe.

Until I stop stalking Ron Frenz’s facebook for content, I remain

 

frogoat

Doc Magus: Sorcerer Supreme of the MC2

 

As I recently covered the MC2’s resident Sorcerer Supreme, the youthful Dormagus aka Doc Magus, in his cameo appearance alongside various other Sorcerers Supreme from throughout time and across the multiverse in Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme, I thought now might be a great time to take a proper look at the character. So, today’s post is all about Doc Magus.

 

Dormagus makes his debut in the pages of A-Next #3, when he sends his astral form to former Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum home. A lot of interesting pieces of information come to light in this introduction: for starters Doc Magus’s real name, the fact that he is the current Sorcerer Supreme and that there is evidently a lot of unspoken resentment, familiarity and history between Doctor Strange. More on their dynamic in another post someday soon.

 

Having foreseen a world-threatening tragedy that will unfold in the near future, Doctor Strange takes matters into his own hands and recruits his former Defenders teammates Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Incredible Hulk in an apparent attempt to save the day using extreme measures. Doc Magus attempts to warn off Strange and when this fails, he takes his mentor Deacon’s advice and approaches the newly formed Avengers team for help. Soon enough the two teams clash in Arizona until Dormagus uses the Eye of Agamotto to uncover Doctor Strange’s true motives were three-fold: to make Namor proactive once more, ensure the Hulk is able to fulfill his destiny and provide the new Avengers team a ‘baptism of fire’.

 

Doc Magus also briefly appears in J2 #3 which retells the same events from the titular character’s own perspective, but he makes a far more substantial appearance in the very next issue. We see Dormagus unmasked for the first time here when J2 aka Zane Yama recruits the mystic’s help seeking his father, the original Juggernaut who was lost in a strange dimension on a mission with the X-Men. Following Zane into his recurring nightmare in his astral form, Dormagus finds himself alone in an unknown dimension confronting Darklings until Deacon manages to send J2 to aid the sorcerer. The two heroes discover the Darklings master is the dark lord Nemesus who reveals he plans to use Doc Magus’ point of entry into his dimension as a gateway to their plane of reality. While J2 battles a Darkling posing as his father, Nemesus drops hints about the real Juggernaut’s fate and taunts Dormagus’ about his strained relationship with his own father before retreating when temporarily thwarted. Doc Magus promises Zane they will eventually find his missing father (J2 #4).

 

True to his word, Doc Magus later summons Zane and informs him he has found his father being held in a small, unexplored pocket dimension for years. Ignoring a warning from Doctor Strange to wait for reinforcements, Dormagus and Zane make their way to the pocket dimension to rescue Cain Marko aka Juggernaut. Despite reuniting Zane with his father, Nemesus appears and reveals Doc Magus had fallen into his trap and closed the heroes gateway home, trapping them. Fortunately, Doctor Strange appears alongside his fellow Defenders the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner and aid in escaping from Nemesus’ dimension before they are all swarmed by legions of Darklings (J2 #12).

 

We don’t see the Sorcerer Supreme for quite some time, with only a brief appearance in Spider-Girl #58 before he makes a full-fledged return in Spider-Girl #71, once again teaming up with his buddy J2 alongside Spider-Girl for a trip to the nightmare dimension of Nemesus to close a rift Earth. While the magic of Dormagus and the helmet of J2 permit them to see through Nemesus’ invisibility spell, Spider-Girl was forced to rely entirely on her spider-sense as the trio sabotage the villain’s invisibility machine and ruin his plan with Doc Magus turning Nemesus’ magicks against him and his Darklings and folding the rift in upon itself. Sadly, the trio’s efforts go unappreciated.

 

 

When the demonically empowered vigilante Darkdevil is stabbed through the chest by the Venom Symbiote bonded with Normie Osborn, Doc Magus is called upon to save him. Struggling to save the hero, Dormagus admits he is out of his depth and accepts the help of Doctor Strange just as the demon Zarathos appears and warns the two mystics to leave Darkdevil’s body as he claimed it as his own. Unable to perform a conventional exorcism, the two are forced to journey into Darkdevil’s mindscape and restore the balance between the three vying avatars within the hero: the spirit of vengeance Zarathos, the ghostly spirt of the costumed hero Daredevil and the boy Reilly Tyne (Spider-Girl #83-#84).

 

Now that he’d been firmly reintroduced, Dormagus returns for the events of the Last Hero Standing mini-series. With a string of superheroes going missing, Doc Magus sets out to find them on his own, once again rejecting the aid of Doctor Strange, only to wind up defeated in his astral form by a disguised Loki and fall under the villain’s thrall immediately afterwards when reunited with his mortal form and abducted (Last Hero Standing #2).  

 

Returned to Earth alongside the other abducted heroes, Doc Magus is unable to recall who kidnapped him and compelled by Loki’s spell to become more violent leading to a clash with other heroes.Believing he knows who kidnapped him, Doc Magus falsely leads the other heroes to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum only to be confronted by a Loki-controlled and enraged Hulk who makes short work of the assembled heroes indiscriminately. Upon finding Doctor Strange in a coma, Dormagus is unable to detect Loki’s handiwork thanks to the dark spell’s effect (Last Hero Standing #3-#4)

Thanks to the arrival of Thor and a small team of heroes led by Captain America, as well as the Grand Vizier of Asgard Eternal, Loki’s bewitchment is revealed and the day is saved, albeit at the cost of Captain America’s life. Doc Magus is among those who witness the hero’s passing and his spirit’s transformation into a new star by Thor (Last Hero Standing #5).

 

While not actually appearing on-panel himself, Doc Magus is among those who’s energy matrix duplicate (created by the magic of the Asgardian Sylene) makes an appearance in Avengers Next #4-#5, indicating that Dormagus fell victim to this spell before the Avengers managed to save the day.

 

Doc Magus briefly encounters Spider-Girl while trying to find the source of enormous discharges of psychic energy which are tampering with the astral plane. While he senses a connection to Spider-Girl’s search for a kidnapper, she fails to see how it’s possible. Later, Doc Magus is among the massive assembly of heroes who show up to aid Spider-Girl in her endeavour (Amazing Spider-Girl #15).

Finally, we have the cameo in Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme #12 mentioned at the start of this post, which brings us full circle for appearances of the young Dormagus. Doc Magus is a very fun and often arrogant character who tends to get himself into more trouble as a result of his hubris. As I mentioned above, I will likely delve into other aspects related to Dormagus in future posts.

 

Until I suddenly win the favour of the Vishanti and become the new Sorcerer Supreme, I remain

 

frogoat