Mystery Men - Super Powered Fiction

Super Powered Comics: Mystery Men

By Nick Ahlhelm | January 5, 2012 - 7:59 am | Comics

This article originally appeared at New Pulp.

It is nearly the end of 2011, so this reviewer thinks it is time he looks back at the best pulp work he read in the year. I have certainly read more pulp this year than any other in my life, but there is one clear work that stands out to me as the story that I enjoyed the most.

And that title is Marvel’s Mystery Men. (This is not to be confused with Airship 27’s Mystery Men (& Women), the second volume of which I just reviewed last week.)

Over the course of five issues, writer David Liss not only introduces five new pulp heroes to populate early 1930s Marvel, he also scripts a compelling adventure featuring all of them. The story starts with the mysterious Operative, easily the most normal of the bunch. He’s just a man in a trench coat, fedora and mask, but over the course of the series the reader gets a good idea of what motivates him. The Aviatrix may be the most derivative character, basically a female Rocketeer. The Revenant is a vigilante in the Shadow mold that uses tricks and gadgets to appear as an unearthly phantom. Achilles is a young man rejected by his love and left for dead who takes up mystic artifacts to become the most powerful of the loose band of heroes. Finally, the Surgeon is a character in the Spider mold; a man with a brutal history, a terrible disfigurement and an urge to kill as many villains as possible.

The five heroes all enter the series from different angles over the course of the first three chapters, but they all face the same opponent: a madman named the General and his unearthly love interest, who just happens to be an obscure Marvel villain.

David Liss is no stranger to the period, having written several prose novels set in the era. He handles character development surprisingly well for a series jam-packed with characters. The artist, Patrick Zircher, is no stranger to pulp comic fans. Zircher broke in to comics with work on Now’s Green Hornet (alongside Airship 27’s Ron Fortier) and more recently with covers on Marvel’s Noir line of titles. He seems to have a good feel for blending pulp traditions with the superhero art styling of modern comics.

Together the two men have created a really great limited series, a rare breed in today’s comic field. The five issues are now sold out, but fortunately a hardcover edition is now available at comic shops (with bookstore distribution in the next few weeks). Do yourself a favor and don’t pass this one up a second time.

Mystery Men comes Highly Recommended. Pick up your copy from Amazon!

Pulp Fiction Review: Mystery Men (& Women)

By Nick Ahlhelm | September 15, 2011 - 3:24 pm | Prose

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Four New Heroes of Pulp

Over the last several years, Ron Fortier and his Airship 27 have really made their presence known in the world of New Pulp. Ron and company revived dozens of old pulp characters from Jim Anthony to the Green Lama to even the Moon Man.

Until recently though, they hadn’t produced a lot of original pulp heroes. Mystery Men (& Women) sets out to fix that mistake. The book features four new stories by four new pulp authors, all set in the classics 30s milieu and all featuring original characters.

Gridiron – First Down is the real highlight of the collection. This was my first experience with writer David Boop, but he’s definitely got the knack for a good pulp tale. His character, a man covered in a strange metal alloy, feels like the kind of man-who-lost-everything just right for a good pulp hero.

The Sacred & The Profane by well known new pulp author Barry Reese introduces his character Dusk. Dusk is a dark and slightly mystical character in the vein of the Shadow or the Spider, but unlike those two classic pulp heroes, Dusk happens to be a woman. Her adventure takes her in to battle with local crime figures all over the Fourth Nail of biblical legend.

In Hell Hath No Fury, Aaron Smith introduces another new pulp heroine in the form of the Red Veil. Her story reads like a pretty typical pulp origin as the woman that would be the Veil sets out to avenge her murdered husband. The tale is a run of the mill origin, but Smith handles the character with the skills of a talented pulp writer.

The weakest story in the anthology is the opening tale: The Badge of the Butcher by B.C. Bell. The story dragged far too often and never quite served to make this reader interested in the character of the Bagman. This is actually the second tale of the Bagman (after his own Tales of the Bagman collection) and that may be from where the problem stems. The story never really gives a reason to care for the Bagman, or even solid reasons for his quest. Perhaps a reading of his own collection would remedy that, something your able minded reviewer has yet to do.

Despite the flaws of the first story, as a package Mystery Men (& Women) is one of the finer new pulp anthologies I’ve read in the last year. The writers seem to really love the characters and that may be the most important trait of a quality new pulp writer. This one comes Recommended.

Remember to check out my regular weekly review column and all kinds of great columns over at New Pulp!