Rating: *** 1/2*

I forget where I first read the preview for the mini-seriesThe Marvels Project.  I heard about this series prior to reading the preview and I didn’t really have an interest in picking it up.  It sounded cool, but with limited funds, I decided I was going to pass on this one.  However, after reading the preview, I was hooked and committed to picking up the series. 

Our story begins in 1938 at the dawn of the Marvel Universe.  An old man is dying in a hospital bed and tells a doctor about the coming age of the super heroes.  The doctor doesn’t believe him of course and the old man dies shortly after telling his story.  He does however leave the doctor a gift.  The gift is a wooden box that contains a pair of six shooters and it is then the doctor realizes that the man who died - Matthew Hawk - was the famed Two-Gun Kid.  Now for those of you who don’t know, the Two-Gun kid is hero within the Marvel Universe who existed in the Old West within the Marvel Universe.  He did however join the Avengers for a period after traveling through time. 

The story then flashes forward a year later to FDR and the coming US involvement in World War II.  We also see Namor the Submariner battling Nazis who are “fishing” for Atlanteans in order to use them for experiments.  Namor is of course not too pleased about this and takes these guys on.  During World War II, the super heroes that battled the Nazis consisted of Captain America, Bucky, Namor, and the Human Torch.  The Torch is also introduced here as we see his origin in how he was invented and then encased in concrete as his creator Professor Phineas Horton could not control him from bursting into flames.  The original Human Torch was an android and the people of the time were angry that scientists created this artificial being.  To some it was a sin and against the laws of nature which was another reason why he was encased in concrete.

The story also shows Dr. Abraham Erskine the German scientist who developed the Super Soldier Serum.  He is in Germany and is thinking of defecting.  Which is where a young Nick Fury comes in.  Fury is in England and is recruited by the military to aid in the defection.

The story comes back to the doctor from the beginning of the story.  We see him enter a theater and he’s watching a newsreel and seated next to him appears to be a young Steve Rogers prior to his recruitment to the Super Soldier experiment.  We’ve seen this in countless histories of the Captain America character of him looking at Hitler during this newsreel and vowing to help aid in the fight against the Nazis.  Very cool.

The doctor is caught in the commotion after the Human Torch escapes his concrete tomb and wrecks havoc in the streets. He can’t control his flames and he sets the city a blaze.  As a result of all of the fires that happen through out the city, people begin to take advantage of the situation and begin looting.  Inspired by his friend Matt Hawk the Two-Gun Kid, the doctor whose name is Thomas Halloway begins to help the poor people who are victims of the looting.  By the end of the story it seems that this moment has changed Halloway as he looks at the guns he was given by Hawk.  It seems he’s going to go and become a hero himself.  Well, I’m sure he will at some point in this series because Thomas Halloway is the name of the Golden Age super-hero The Angel. 

I didn’t know this at first.  I’m not an expert on Golden Age super-heroes and decided to Google the name and came up with an entry in Wikipedia.  He appeared in some recent comic book stories in the 90s, but I missed out on them so this character is completely new to me.  I enjoyed this comic.  I love history so having a retelling of the history of the Marvel Universe is very cool and I’m looking forward to seeing this story play out.  Steve Epting, who has worked with Brubaker before on Captain America, provides some great artwork here.  I loved the various scenes he drew with the Torch.

So I recommend people pick this one up.  If you like Brubaker’s Captain America, you’ll love this.  Why I didn’t automatically put this on my pull list I don’t know.  I’m just happy I read the preview or would have missed out on this one.  I’m happy I didn’t.