Monday, January 22, 2024

“Vanguard” in Marvel Comics Presents 1-12, November 2007- October 2008

 

Story by Marc Guggenheim and Art by Dave Wilkins

This is an usual one.  I’m not a big fan of the story which involves the investigation of the murder of a man nobody can identify but witnesses saw the Watcher, Mr Fantastic turns up, and someone tries to kill, Stacy Dolan, the cop investigating and she is rescued by Vanguard, a covert group consisting of Blade, Micromax, Yelena Belova, Dominic Fortune and Retcon.  Dom appears at the end of part 4 and the team is introduced in part 5. I’m guessing the Sable and Fortune agency didn’t work out.

The murdered man was codenamed Colonel America and was an attempt to create a telepathic supersoldier after Captain America. Turns out the Colonel is so powerful he has controlled his aging and the whole thing was done to prevent the fact that there was a clandestine team of super powered individuals. 

That idea might fly in a story set in the real world but in the Marvel Universe, where the Avengers and the Fantastic Four are running around, this simply doesn't work.  It’s like saying that the US has a covert team of special forces soldiers, I’d be more shocked if they didn’t.

And given the eight pages given to the story in each issue, not much happens. And aside from Dom rescuing the detective in parts 4 and 5 (shown from different perspectives) he doesn’t do much.

There is a nice bit were people keep calling Blade Wesley, but I can’t recommend this story.

It just feels like nobody knew what to do with Dom 3 and he was on a list of characters Guggenheim could use.

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