Blast from the Past

I was up in the loft a few days ago, trying to sort through my comics. After about 3 hours I'd got all my issues of Avengers into one box, not in order but its a start.

Gods I have a lot of Comics. I may repeat my sorting if opportunity presents itself.

Anyway, from this I found two small Limited series from a while back that I hadn't read in ages and decided to re-visit them (OK truth be told there was loads I wanted to bring down but the objective was to reduce the number of comics lying around) the 2 series, by happy coincidence, both contained ideas that I wish more had been done with.

First was a 3 issue USAgent Limited series. This was just after the Maximum Security event in 2001 and had John Walker, aka USAgent acting as a member of the Superhuman Tactical Activities Response Squad, or STARS, an agency tasked by the commission to capture escaped Superhuman criminals. With this he also got a Judge Dread inspired costume and a supporting cast. The story is pretty good, in the process of apprehending Machete from a hydra base Agent, his STARS team and a team mate forceably added to the team by a corrupt senator, get caught up in a scheme by the power broker to use an alien to mind control people. Now I first grew to like Agent in Force Works, where he seemed to mellow a little from his normally abrasive self. His character went somewhat backwards, although considering all the guff Marvel threw at him in the intraveneing period its not surprising he was bitter. This showed real potential but sadly the idea was ignored for years and eventually dropped, his next appearance would be calling himself Captain America in the short lived Invaders series. I would have liked to see this continue, it offered some interesting progression for a character forever relegated to second stringer or "Spare Cap" indeed Agent seems the least popular of Marvels spree of second characters such as Thunderstrike and War Machine. Still, with Agent last seen in Omega Flight this is a plot strand that may never be revisited. Shame.

The other was a series called Avataars: Covenant of the Shield, which was a 3 issue prologue to what was hoped would be a 12 issue mini series featuring Medieval knight type versions of Marvel characters. I think the initial thought for this came from the "Heroes Return" Avengers story where all the avengers were converted into medieval versions and made into an honour guard for Morgan Le Fay. Its again an interesting concept, but, being more of an intro it does sacrifice story for attempting to show its versions of as many Marvel characters as possible. Seriously some of them are literally a brief exposition type origin followed by an appearance then off again. Still it was left open and I wonder if there will ever be enough of an interest by a writer to re-visit that setting. Only problem may be that, post Neil Gaiman's 1602 any "Marvel but in the Past" ideas have a hell of a lot to live up to. Still unlike USAgent and STARS I can but hope it appears at some point.

Must go through more comics, judging by the shotgun approach I had to buying comics I wonder how many will be like 1602 and how many will be Megamorphs.