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Marvel comic books are on an upswing and despite already seeing a thousand remakes of characters with the Ultimate, the M2 and various Mutant timelines, Marvel has decided to once again 
exploit-err-explore their famous hero characters in a different light, this time with a Japanese twist.
Marvel has gone Manga! The popular comic book company recently released eight comic books featuring their most popular comic book characters drawn Manga style with huge robots, mysticism, karate, honor and plenty of off-beat humor. I read each issue and despite wanting this new concept to be an ultimate success, I was left stuck in the middle, not knowing what to think and slightly confused.
It all starts with Marvel Mangaverse: New Dawn and ends with Marvel Mangaverse: Eternal Twilight. Everything starts off pretty good. Bruce Banner walks into Wasp and suddenly hearts go aflutter over Banner’s head, leading to Wasp, smacking the pervert in the face. It had that classic Manga feel. However, afterwards, things got too cluttered and confusing. There were too many characters with everyone doing battle with the tricked-out Namor and some mystical nut that controls the beast Hulk.
The character and team issues had nothing to do with the bookend stories. The X-Men was cool. The characters looked nice, Cyclops with one eye and Wolverine with laser claws-but it wasn’t good enough to make me believe the hype. I felt the Fantastic Four issue sucked the most. It was a work of art sequentially, however, the issue was extremely boring and too damn technical. It made Gundam Wing seem exciting. Also, why have curse words throughout the story if you are going to black them out?
Ghost Riders sucked. Wonderful art was diluted, as Ghost Rider and Hellstorm were taken out of their dark realm and put into a world where they just joked too damn much. Yes, some Manga is funny, but Ghost Rider was not.
But not all was bad in the Mangaverse, The Avengers kicked ass! This book reminded me so much of Voltron. Captain America and his gang do battle against the baddies, but in the Mangaverse, they do it with the help of mecha (giant robots) that can merge into one super beast. It was a great read and truly reminded me of the old mecha series that I enjoyed for so many years. The Punisher was another great read with the vigilante transformed into a Geisha. With her younger sister is her sidekick with the power of an ancient sword. The artwork was wonderful and it had great story that would make any fan of Sailor Moon, Saint Tail or some of the other popular Shojo, very happy.
Now, I would like to speak about the man of the hour-the web spinner. This book rocked and was probably the best of the Marvel Manga. Spider-Man looked really cool. He was like a rag-tag ninja, featured as a super-deformed character. Spidey looked somewhat grungy as he fights for the Spider clan against Kingpin and the man that killed his uncle, Venom. Venom looked rather stylish as a ninja, a perfect bad guy who fights with honor and learns to respect his enemy, Spider-Man. This was a great read, filled with emotion and a dark undertone with the continued message that with great power comes great responsibility.
Marvel gets an A for effort, but a D for posing as a legitimate manga serial. Manga is not just art, it is story, it is style, and most of all characters. I just hope that with future projects things will be a little less complex, more streamlined and less rushed and more in tune with the Marvel characters they represent. I will continue to examine the series and hope for the best. I just wish they could really go Manga and stop using color. Manga was meant to be in black-and-white. If you are going to imitate something, do it right.
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