In the aftermath of Secret Wars, it’s an All-New, All-Different Marvel Universe, and this is your one-stop entry point to the changes and mysteries that have developed during the eight months that have passed! Featuring new stories of Daredevil, Carnage, CLASSFIED, CLASSIFIED, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Contest of Champions!
All-New, All-Different Marvel Point One #1 is an interesting comic in that it gives us a bit of a preview of some of the series we can expect as part of the All-New, All-Different relaunch, but also does a really good job explaining what their new series Contest of Champions is all about!
Some of the previous Marvel Point ones have been hit and missed, and with Secret Wars being many months from being wrapped up, what the new Marvel universe would be like is a pretty big mystery. This issue though uses some smart storytelling to give us an idea of how at least some of the new Marvel U fits together, and also a good taste as to what these new series will be like.
At the heart of the comic is the new series Contest of Champions which has the Maestro battling a opponents using villains and heroes to see who will control the remnants of Doom’s world he created in Secret Wars. We know that in the new Marvel U a multiverse exists, there’s multiple versions of characters, and that something survives the latest event with some individuals stuck in this world. It’s interesting and the concept takes a series that was low on my radar and immediately boosts it up a bunch of spots. The comic feels like a video game where you select your characters to battle. The ones shown so far are… intriguing.
While Maestro looks for his team to battle, we get a glimpse of the various new series launching over the next few months, in rather short stories that do more than enough to wet our appetites as to the look and feel of the series. That’s the good and the bad of it all. The stories are teases, a first chapter, so nothing is really a full complete story. That’s why I can’t quite recommend this as a buy, but it’s very entertaining, and a solid pick-up for someone interested in seeing what the new Marvel U might be like and get a look at six of the 60+ new series coming out.
I don’t want to spoil all the stories within (the teaser text did say classified, so I’m not ruining it), but of the ones mentioned above, Carnage sounds very intriguing with the character running around America doing his usual serial killer thing and an interesting character charged with stopping him. From the small preview, it feels much more like Silence of the Lambs than a superhero comic. Very interesting.
Daredevil too is interesting, featuring a new character who should get a lot of folks talking. There’s some terminology that made me cringe, but I trust writer Charles Soule’s real world experience to know what folks would actually use (illegal vs undocumented).
And there’s the return of REDACTED!
Overall, the comic got me much more enthused about the series within. There’s a nice mix of look and tone within the comic, and it seems to do the job it’s intended to do, get someone interested in what’s coming. Overall, if you’re interested in getting an idea of what to expect for the six series within, or the Marvel U as a whole, this is one you’ll want to pick up when you’re at the comic shop this week.
Story: Marc Guggenheim, Al Ewing, Skottie Young, Charles Soule
Art: German Peralta, Mike Perkins, Filipe Andrade, Ron Garney, Stefano Caselli, Paco Medina
Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8 Recommendation: Read
Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
