marvel 1602: new world, SPIC 4

marvel 1602: new world greg pak/greg tocchini

while the whole 1602 series is just SLIGHTY ahead of what we would call steampunk, by a few hundred years and in colonial america, this particual book is spectacularly steampunk and it all thanks to to lord iron, this world's iron man.

col. america dragged nick furry's body into the singularity that pulled him from his time to this timeperiod and creating the age of wonders, early. that is where we left off in marvel 1602. now we have bruce banner trying to deal the fallout of being affected by the singularity, namely, what we would call the grey hulk. he tries to help some native dinosaurs; shame it takes the hulk to defend these brontosaurs from a pack of meat eaters. back in roanoke we have the budding romance of virgina dare, the first englighperson born in the new world (fact!) who is also a shapeshifter (as per legend!) with peter parquagh, former aid to bruce banner in his mission to find nick furry from king james I, but now printer's aprentice to master jameson. he is only now starting to demonstrate the powers he obtained from the spider who bit him that was affected fromt he aformentioned singularity. whew. it gets better. norman osborne is trying to buy the rest of island from the native (expect they were taught english by col. america and were told to never trust the whitemen. they will lie and break every promise they ever speak) with glass beads and james I sends lord iron, on load form spain, to bring in bruce banner who failed to bring nick furry's head.

who is lord iron exactly? well first of all he is a renassiance man. he makes da vinci look like he rides the short bus to inventor school. while experimenting on turning lead and iron into gold inside glass vials he invented high current capacitors. these "lightling bottles", as he calls them, have power enough to to run an exosuit. pretty snazy with the conquistador style helmet and sword on his hip. he looks like a robot knight. fucking awesome. and to keep it old school, the suit keeps his heart beating. seems in a war between england and spain, lord iron was captured as a P.O.W. tourtured and vivisected alive by bruce banner himself. right to his very heart.. tic tock indeed. so yea, he has a serious hard on for killing bruce banner. what is a superhero without a plucky sidekick? so lord iron has rhodes, a moor he picked up in spain and the only person who understands this severly anachronistic technology. if a capacitor powered, clockwork battlesuit is not steampunk enough for you, i will give you steampunk. at one point lord iron has to get somewhere REAL quick like. so he straps a flying mahcine with a lighting bottle engine to the back of the power suit. with rhodes piloting the contraption. and yes, rhodes is wearing goggles.

blah, blah, blah, back to plot. we have norman osborne manipulating the town to ban all withcbreed and indians, so he can get to the singularity. he does not tell anyone his plan, obviously, just convinces everyone witchbreed and indians are the samething. turns out, xenophobia wins again. /sigh. bruce banner does his whole internal struggle of the beast within. who is really the monster, bruce banner or the hulk? blah, blah, blah (40 years of this shit gets on my nerves, sorry). peter takes his great responsibility with his great power and does good. everyone fights at the end and things are resolved. bruce banner makes peace with himself. lord iron and bruce banners are buddies (after bashing the living daylights out of each other). virgina dare turns into a giant gryphon and ends the fighting by declaring peace or she starts eating everyone. you have to love teenagers and their myoptic views. so basically the english pack and go the fuck home whiel the witchbreed and the indians stay and make a new world. orderly.

despite being set in 1602 it gets 8, lightling bottle charged, brass cogs.