 By Iann Robinson | A look at Mark Millar's new retro Marvel book, 1985. |
Mark Millar is really kind of hit or miss for me with his comic book writing. I loved his work with Ultimates, The Authority and I really dug Wanted however I felt Civil War was one of the worst story arcs in the history of Marvel and I wasn’t a huge fan of his Marvel Knights work. Currently though Millar is putting out some really high quality runs with his new titles Kick Ass and Marvel 1985. I picked up 1985 this week and so far have read it three times and suggested it to everybody I know who picks up books. If the rest of the issues are of the same quality that issue #1 is, this could become another classic in the vein of Secret Wars or Crisis On Infinite Earths.
Marvel 1985 tells the story of Toby, a 13-year-old boy who is obsessed with comic books, which he uses to escape his normal life of divorced parents and school pressures. 1985 opens with Toby receiving a lecture about the sheer awesomeness of the Secret Wars mini-series from his local comic book shop owner and soaking all of it up. Toby’s love of comics troubles his pragmatic mother and delights his more creative if slightly lost father. When Toby and his Dad stumble upon to a strange house Toby’s life is forever altered. He begins to see the villains of his comics in this house from The Red Skull to Dr. Doom and finally ends up face to face with The Hulk. This is a wonderful story that harkens back to a time when comic books were much less complicated. There’s no Civil War here, no Secret Invasion, Spider-Man is just Spider-Man and hasn’t had his history wiped out, in short before Joe Quesada decided to rape the ass of every marvel fan out there. Millar has a real gift for setting up characters through dialogue and the arc really builds tension even in this one issue.
Aesthetically the book is beautiful with amazing pencils by Tommy Lee Edwards that are actually really lush with soft shadows that gives the book an incredibly surreal look. I’m 37 and I’ve been reading comics for 30 years through good and bad, thick and thin I have always made it a point to keep reading. Since the involvement of the term “edgy” a lot of the magic of comics has been lost to sheer brutality and bloodshed. I enjoy that stuff but sometimes I wish for a book to come out with a more innocent vibe to it and 1985 answers that request wonderfully. Mark Millar does his best work when he just writes comics in his soft-spoken style. My issues with Millar always come when he tries too hard to be “edgy”, he’s not Ed Brubaker or Robert Kirkman and he shouldn’t want to be. 1985 is what he does best, great stories and awesome team comic books.
This may not appeal to the Goth kids or those who need excessive violence in their books to see them as quality but for those of us who grew up in a time where prose, story and character mixed with superb artistry was more important than swearing, blood, event series and movie tie-ins this is a definite addition to our collections. In short, for a few minutes during the 22 pages of 1985 I was 14 again and I can’t thank Mark Millar enough for that.
