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Greg Pak picks up where Neil Gaiman left off, with Marvel superheroes in an earlier age. Where the first Marvel 1602 seemed to include almost too many Marvel characters (including X-men, the fantastic four, and many others), this one limits it almost too much. From the former book, we only carry over the characters of Peter Parquagh, David Bruce Banner, and the fascinating Virginia Dare. Of course, there are new characters, too, including Sir Iron (Iron Man), and a insidious Norman Osborne, trying to instigate trouble between the Indians and the settlers of Roanoke, and looking for the "treasure" of the rift in time that gave Banner his powers (and which was resolved in the last book).

Generally the art and the writing were fine. At times, I found the written dialects a bit annoying. I didn't enjoy the cover art (by Sergio Toppi) quite as well as the previous set, although I have to admit that the style is appropriate to the new world in contrast to the earlier, more Elizabethen covers. I have to say, I did enjoy the "period costumes" for Spiderman and the Hulk.

This installment was a little bit disappointing. It is pretty short, collecting only issues 1-5; but the first one was only 8 issues, and seemed much more substantial than three issues would account for. And there are so many characters in the first one, it might be disappointing no matter who the focus was on. Maybe the real reason this one doesn't live up to the first is that there is no major catastrophe or problem that requires all of the heroes to come together and resolve. G. commented that, after this, we might be "marvel sixteen-oh-done".

Title:	Marvel 1602: New World
Author:	Greg Pak, artwork by Greg Tocchini
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Series:	Marvel 1602
Number of pages:	120

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I've been enjoying Joss Whedon's X-Men so much, I thought I'd like to read some more comic books. When I was looking for something to read, this book caught my eye because of Neil Gaiman's name, and the concept of the book was intriguing enough to keep me looking at it. This book is a what-if, or alternate history: what if all the great Marvel heroes appeared in the 1600s instead of in our day and age? It's delightful to see these familiar characters drawn wearing period costume that is often uncannily similar to their modern outfits. It's also a fascinating idea-- these heroes have a difficult enough time in an age like our own; how would they fare in the world of the Inquisition, when those who were different were executed? It is a telling fact that the X-Men of this time are called "witchbreed."

Gaiman eventually does provide a reason for the appearance of these "marvels and heroes" before their time-- something or someone has punched through time and disrupted its flow, causing the heroes to show up now instead of centuries later. This both gives the story depth and provides a crisis that the heroes must deal with, lest this time singularity rip a hole in the cosmos and destroy the galaxy.

It is very entertaining to meet the different heroes and hear the variations of their origin stories-- for instance, the Fantastic Four were sailing on a ship to the new world and struck by some phenomenon in the Bermuda Triangle area. Gaiman also adds another interesting character, Virginia Dare-- the first person of European descent born in the Americas, at the colony of Roanoke. In some cases, to those like me who are not intimately familiar with all the many Marvel characters, it may not immediately be obvious who the different players are-- and it is entertaining to discover them later.

I found the story very engaging, and I liked the bigger revelations about certain characters. I was slightly disappointed with the ending, but that is in part because of what it may do to future stories (and I think there is a sequel coming, although it may not be written by Gaiman)-- it seems that the ending might make any further stories about these characters feel more trivial, less real; although, perhaps that is a silly concern on my part, since it is all an alternate history of fantastic, unreal characters to begin with.

Title:	Marvel 1602
Author:	Neil Gaiman, artwork by Andy Kubert
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Number of pages:	248

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