Obscusion B-Side: Looking Back at Dynamite & Marvel Bringing the Golden Age Into the Modern Age, 15 Years Later

On April 13, 1938, National Comics Publications released Action Comics #1, an anthology which introduced a variety of brand new comic superheroes, including Zatara, Master Magician (the eventual father of modern-day magic superhero Zatanna) & Tex Thompson (a.k.a. Mr. America & Americommando), but the one that became the biggest star of all was Superman. This single comic would later be considered the start of "The Golden Age of Comic Books", coming after the Platinum Age, which would run all throughout World War II & wouldn't end until 1956 with Showcase #4, which introduced the second Flash, Barry Allen, & started the Silver Age. The Golden Age was one of superheroes of any & all kinds, created by many writers & artists who didn't make sure to claim ownership over their creations & published by many publishers that would eventually go out of business, resulting in many of these characters going into the public domain. Others, meanwhile, would remain copyrighted by publishers that continue to exist, or at lewere bought by other publishers who have since maintained those copyrights. Over the decades, many characters from the Golden Age would go on to either return in some way in more "modern" times, or they would be represented by legacy characters who take on their names (& sometimes powers), but otherwise are their own characters.

A little OVER 70 years apart, but the sentiment remains.

However, in time for the 70th Anniversary of the Golden Age's start, both Dynamite Entertainment & Marvel published a number of comic series, some of which even being co-published by them, with a specific goal in mind: Bringing Golden Age Heroes Into the Modern Age. Naturally, this was far from the first or only time this kind of concept was done in comics history, but the fact that multiple mini & maxi-series were introduced in 2008, with one receiving a follow-up (or sorts) in 2009, really does give the idea that they were all done to celebrate 70 years since Action Comics #1 started the Golden Age. Now, in 2023, it's both the 85th Anniversary of Superman's debut & the 15th Anniversary of these "Bringing Golden Age Heroes Into the Modern Age" comics, and since I've happened to be reading them recently I figure I can go into each of them & take a look at how each one looked at this shared overall concept.

First up we have Project Superpowers, a 7-issue limited series published by Dynamite, with Alex Ross & Jim Kreuger co-plotting the entire thing (Ross also drew the covers, naturally), Kreuger writing the scripts, & Carlos Paul doing the pencilling. Now, technically, this is actually eight issues & debuted in December of 2007 as there is a 0th issue, with Doug Klauba & Stephen Sadowski doing the pencilling, and luckily that prologue is included in the trade paperback that came out in 2009. The basic idea with this series was to take a bunch of superheroes in the public domain & give them their own shared universe to exist in, though because of various things like later (copyrighted) heroes using the same name (but not in a legacy sense), or some characters likely technically being in the public domain but their hero names are not, there was some name shuffling here & there. Also, one of the heroes used was the Green Lama... whose actual status in the public domain is a bit murky, as creator Kendell Foster Crossen actually copyrighted his work (& his estate generally enforces it via licensing), but that apparently only really applies to the character itself & the original pulp stories, while the later comic books (which Dynamite took direct inspiration from) are in the public domain; considering that Dynamite would continue to use the Green Lama in later works (like 2012's Masks), I imagine it eventually came to an agreement with the Crossen Estate. Anyway, what exactly did Alex Ross & Jim Kreuger have in mind with Project Superpowers?

It's been roughly 60 years since the end of World War II, and with it the end of the "Age of Superpowers", as most of the costumed heroes of that time disappeared shortly after the war ended, having been forgotten with time. In reality, though, those disappearances were due to the actions of one of their own, the Fighting Yank, who got his powers by making a deal with his ghostly ancestor, a Revolutionary War soldier. During the war, Yank was given a top-secret mission to recover "Pandora's Box", the literal urn that unleashed all of the evils upon the world, leaving only hope behind. Under the idea that the "Superpowers" existed in a symbiotic relationship with evil, Yank decided to capture as many of his compatriots inside the urn as he could, thinking that evil would also disappear without them; he initially pleaded with his friends, but when they all declined Yank covertly forced it upon them, one at a time. Unfortunately, in the decades since, the world has simply become more dystopian, and when a being calling itself the American Spirit visits an aged Yank, telling him to free his friends from Pandora's Box (as all he did was recapture hope itself), Yank agrees... knowing that doing this will likely result in his eventual death, possibly at the hands of one of his old friends.

Project Superpowers is an interesting series, and I've seen some decry as being a bit disrespectful of the Golden Age heroes it features. However, those complaints tend to follow the idea that any changes introduced to these characters is inherently wrong in & of itself, which I don't really agree with. While it's fine to tell stories with these characters acting as the (general) paragons of justice that most of them originally were back in the Golden Age, that really would only work if the stories made were still being told in that era. Instead, though, this is a story about heroes from a bygone era finding themselves in a new era, one in which the world looks to have become idealized on the outside, but even just a cursory glance shows how twisted it really is. Corporations themselves seemingly rule over the populace, while a group of the most powerful called the Supremacy essentially act as an Illuminati-esque new world order. Dynamic Man, one of the few not trapped by Fighting Yank, has pretty much long given in to the Supremacy in an effort to join their ranks, with his F-Troop of Frankenstein's monsters, made from the bodies of dead soldiers from the past, effectively removing the need for any & all normal soldiers in combat. In reality, though, this prevents the souls of the dead from moving on, as they're trapped in the bodies of the F-Troop. The Green Lama, also not trapped, has spent all these decades truly mastering his symbiotic powers with nature, allowing him to maintain his youth but mostly closing himself off from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, there's Samson, who Yank thought had died in the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, but instead had simply lost his sight in the blast & went into hiding, only to come back out during a conflict in the Middle East, where he meets the Scarab, a modern-day hero (though based on Nedor Comics' Golden Age hero) who hides his very existence from all.

When Pandora's Box is smashed open in Issue #1, it creates a ripple effect that brings about a true challenge to the Supremacy's rule, though it's not until the final issue that this becomes definitive. Yes, these first issues of Project Superpowers are technically only "Volume 1" & act as an extended prologue to a larger overall plot, one that would get expanded on with individual solo runs for characters like the Black Terror, the Death-Defying 'Devil (a.k.a. the original Daredevil), & Masquerade (f.k.a. Miss Masque), as well as a "Volume 2" run that acts as a direct sequel. In that regard, what we get from this Volume 1 run definitely has its flaws, as numerous characters are introduced all throughout but only a handful actually get any sort of real development (Fighting Yank, Green Lama, Dynamic Man, Black Terror, Masquerade & V-Man, Devil, etc.), but as an introduction to a whole new universe it's honestly really interesting & intriguing. While Dynamic Man is technically an antagonist here, you can still see the logic of how he got to that point; he truly believes that what he's done is for the best of humanity. Fighting Yank's conflict between the ghost of his ancestor & the American Spirit is a very good one that shows that Yank has always had the best intentions in mind with his actions. Black Terror's obsession with finding his old sidekick is pure-hearted (& apparently dealt with in his solo series), while Devil finding a potential love interest in a French police officer who accompanies him everywhere is immediately entertaining due to Devil being mute (which is accurate to his original debut in 1940). Some characters also have updated powers, like Masquerade now being able to outright possess people & getting access to all of their knowledge & memories (though at the risk of losing her own identity to them), which is an interesting direction to go in. Finally, the art in this entire run is just outstanding, giving everything a grand, almost operatic feel at points, while never losing its ability to be easily read at a glance.

In the end, Project Superpowers is a series meant to revitalize & reintroduce old Golden Age superheroes who went into the public domain for modern day comics readers, and that does mean some of them will need to be reinterpreted in some fashion. Each issue (&, in turn, the collected trade) even includes Alex Ross' new interpretations of various Golden Age heroes, totaling well over 70, most of which don't even appear in this initial run. While I can understand to some extent why some people weren't big on it, I really wound up enjoying Volume 1 and while I won't necessarily go into every single follow-up that came about from this, especially since the more recent stuff all look to be alternate universe stories, I am certainly curious about Volume 2 & those initial solo stories.

While Ross, Kreuger, & crew were debuting Project Superpowers for Dynamite, a team at Marvel was doing something very similar, only with Golden Age heroes that Marvel once published during its original days as Timely Comics & Atlas Comics, as the "Marvel Comics" name (as a publisher, at least) didn't appear until 1961. The end result of this was the January 9, 2008 release for Issue #1 of The Twelve, as 12-issue limited series co-created by J. Michael Straczynski (Amazing Spider-Man [2001-2007]) & Chris Weston (2000 AD), with "JMS" handling the writing & Weston doing the pencilling & some inking, alongside the late Garry Leach (Alan Moore's Marvelman). Unfortunately, while the first eight issues came out as originally planned throughout 2008, The Twelve would end up going on hiatus afterwards, due to JMS becoming a highly wanted screenwriter due to the success of the late 2008 film Changeling, while Weston was also being hired for other jobs. Because of this, the last four issues of The Twelve wouldn't actually come out until early 2012, though Weston did write & draw The Twelve: Spearhead, a one-shot prequel, which came out in 2010 & would be included alongside the entire 12-issue series in a 2014 trade paperback; there's also a 0th issue & "#1/2" issue from 2008, but those are simply reprints of Golden Age comics.

April 25, 1945. The assault on Berlin has already begun, and the city is simply overflowing with superheroes taking out any & all Nazis they come across. Twelve of these heroes team up to check out a building for snipers & the like, with these twelve simply being the closest to the building itself. This group is made up of the Phantom Reporter, Dynamic Man (yes, Marvel had its own hero with the same exact name), Captain Wonder, the original Black Widow, the Fiery Mask, the Laughing Mask, the Blue Blade, the original Witness, Rockman, Mister E, Mastermind Excello (no relation to Amadeus Cho), & the remotely operated robot Electro (no relation to the Spider-Man villain). Using Excello's ability to see slightly into "destiny", the group find themselves in a giant room underground, where they are immediately trapped & captured by Nazis, who gas them unconscious & put them into stasis tubes for later experimentation; Electro, meanwhile, lost all communication with his builder that far down, becoming harmless. Unfortunately, the Nazis that captured these heroes would go on to be captured & killed by the Soviet Army, leaving the truth of what happened to these heroes unknown to the world... until construction in 2008 uncovers their tubes. Now these twelve heroes, having not aged at all in the 60+ years since, find themselves in a "new world", and while the US government is ready & willing to let them continue their work as heroes, that doesn't necessarily mean that all of them can just jump right into life in a whole new era that's completely foreign to them... and for some they don't want the truth of their lives to finally come back to haunt them.

Where Project Superpowers was a tale of the heroes of old being unleashed in a modern world & having to try to (at least start to) save it, The Twelve is 100% a character drama, with little actual superheroing to be found here. JMS & Weston's focus here is on showing the various ways people could, at least theoretically, handle finding themselves in a new era of time that, while similar enough in some ways to what they once knew as "normal", might as well be an entirely new world to them. For someone like Dynamic Man, he just goes straight into being the hero he always felt he was, though it's quickly established that his ego & underlying bigotry will eventually put him at odds with modern society, like not wanting to help a married couple with a robber after realizing that they're a biracial couple. Similarly, Blue Blade wants to parlay his fame into stardom (which was always his goal back in the day), only for him to feel more "outdated" than "retro". For the likes of Mister E & Captain Wonder, they find roadblocks for reconnecting with their pasts, either because his family now resents him for his actions (Mister E) or he's actually since outlived all of them (Captain Wonder). For others, they seemingly can't escape who they once were, whether it's Black Widow still serving Satan after all these decades (to her own dismay), the Witness continuing his mission to see horrible deeds & determine whether they happen or not (to which he seems unemotionally content with), Rockman wishing that his underground empire of Abyssia would finally find & welcome him back (at least, that's what he believes), or Electro being unable to do anything due to his creator having since passed away... or maybe not. Meanwhile, Laughing Mask finds himself unable to escape the repercussions of his violent past, Mastermind Excello's highly sensitive powers are initially nigh-unusable in today's "noisy" world (radio waves, TV, & the like constantly interfere with him) without being in a lead-lined room, & Fiery Mask winds up being the most mysterious of all, with his true origin being one that he's actually ashamed of.

Finally, there's the Phantom Reporter, who acts as the comic's narrator/protagonist. Having literally only made a single prior appearance in 1940, JMS decided to have the Phantom Reporter be the everyman of the group. He has no powers of his own, often finds himself incapable of making himself attractive to Black Widow (who he's smitten with), and tends to feel out of place in every way, yet almost because of that he's the most grounded member of "The Twelve". The longer length of The Twelve, when compared to Project Superpowers, also allows for each character to be given not just general character development, but also have their various origin stories explained throughout the story, though JMS does offer his own twists to some of these origins; Dynamic Man's origin, in particular, plays a major part for the climax. The end of the first issue shows a quick flash forward of the Blue Blade being found dead by the Phantom Reporter, but the actual circumstances of that event (or at least the first initial hints of it) don't really become a factor until Issue #8, right before the series went on its four-year hiatus. Because of that, the first 3/4 of The Twelve does a great job in showing all of these Golden Age heroes as the people they all are deep down, whether that's in showing how they're inherently good, flawed but understandable, tragic because of circumstances beyond their control... or even truly terrible, deep down. As for the last 1/4 that came about after the four-year hiatus, it's a very brisk read, detailing the Blue Blade's murder, the reveal of who was behind it, a climactic battle against the murderer, & a final issue that acts as an epilogue. What's most surprising about The Twelve, though, is just how isolated it all feels, despite taking place in the main "616" Marvel universe; the first Civil War is referenced in Issue #1, but that's it. However, that's likely for the best, as the four-year hiatus it experienced would have made things awkward if it was more directly tied into any other then-running series; just look at how Doomsday Clock's protracted release messed with DC's other events, like Heroes in Crisis. As for The Twelve: Spearhead, it puts the focus on Phantom Reporter as he meets (or at least sees) his future fellow twelve a couple of weeks prior to their fateful day, as well as his minor (but important) part in a mission to retrieve the Spear of Destiny from the Nazis. This is also pretty much the only time we see any of "The Twelve" interact with other Marvel superheroes in this story, like Captain America, the original Human Torch, Miss America, the Whizzer, & even a young Nick Fury (who does later make an appearance in Issue 12, as well).

Overall, The Twelve is an excellent series & definitely worth reading 15 years later. It tackles the idea of Golden Age heroes finding themselves in a modern day world very well, the personal stories behind each of the characters are interesting & varied, and while not all of these heroes come out of the final issue alive (or at least still active as heroes), it still opened the door for others to tell stories involving those who did survive... though no one in Marvel has seemingly decided to do so, sadly, outside of an inactive Electro making a cameo appearance in All-New Invaders in 2014; Black Widow also gets a short story in the 2020 anthology comic Marvel, but it's obviously non-canon. Come on, I'd love to see a story where the Black Widow meets the Black Widow & the Black Widow!

Up next is an interesting case, as while both Project Superpowers & The Twelve were being made, Marvel & Dynamite wound up teaming together for yet another "Golden Age Meets Modern Age" comic, though in this case it was more... traditional. On May 7, 2008, the first issue of Avengers/Invaders would come out, with the title making it clear that this was a crossover between the WWII superheroe team the Invaders & the modern superhero team the Avengers, so time travel would obviously play a factor here. The reason why Dynamite was involved in this otherwise Marvel-only crossover looks to come down to one factor: Alex Ross & Jim Kreuger (once again) were the co-plotters of this 12-issue limited series, and both looked to have exclusive deals with Dynamite at the time. Yes, Avengers/Invaders actually started coming out while Ross & Kreuger were already working on Project Superpowers, though in this case the actual pencilling & inking came from Stephen Sadowski (who had only done Issue #0 of PS) & inLight Studios, respectively; as usual, Ross & Kreuger plotted everything out, while Kreuger wrote the actual script & Ross made the covers.

The Civil War is over, and now Spider-Man is being hunted after by his fellow superheroes, due to him going against the pro-Superhuman Registration Act side during the War itself. While Spidey tries to escape the Thunderbolts, a mysterious green smoke comes from out of nowhere... and from that smoke appears five members of the Invaders, the legendary World War II team of superheroes who fought the Nazis. This includes the original Human Torch, Toro, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Bucky... and "Captain America" Steve Rogers, who in modern times was recently assassinated after the Civil War & whose mantle has since been taken by James "Bucky" Barnes, the former Winter Soldier; not just that, but American soldier Paul Anselm also found himself in the smoke, teleporting alongside the Invaders. However, with the Invaders having somehow time traveled ~60 years into the future, that has resulted in the past being altered, the effects of which will eventually catch up to modern times. Why have the Invaders been brought to "the future", who did this in the first place, how has this affected the past... and is it really that easy to keep the timeline from altering beyond belief?

Compared to the previous two series, Avengers/Invaders is a much more "traditional" superhero story, in many ways. Still, even in just the first three issues we get some cool bits of character & underlying plot to think about. All issues include snippets of Bucky's "War Journal", where he gives his thoughts about the current situation & how he is likely though of by the "enemies" around him (usually under the assumption that he's nothing more than a kid amongst superpowered allies). There's the first real attempt to explain how Toro has powers similar to his buddy the Torch by stating that he's actually a mutant. Speaking of the Torch, Jim Hammond finds himself relating to & feeling for S.H.E.I.L.D.'s cadre of Life Model Decoys (i.e. android duplicates), due to him also being a "synthetic" human. Meanwhile, after seeing his Invaders allies captured by Iron Man's Avengers, Namor heads back to Atlantis... only to see his home destroyed, and when he does come across his modern-day self ruling over what's left inside of the Titantic he actually tries fighting his future self & claim what he feels is rightfully his, only to lose. Probably most amusing, though, is honestly Paul Anselm, who simply finds where his modern-day self lives, meets up with him, and finds out about what his future holds for him, because "Old Man Paul" doesn't even bat an eye when he meets his past self. This kind of meta acknowledgement that the Marvel universe is regularly filled with this kind of nonsense also applies to the modern-day heroes, who all instantly realize that the Invaders' appearance in 2008 means that time travel of some sort has occurred, and they all know that means trouble if the WWII heroes don't go back to their time fast enough; it's nice to see a story where all of the heroes instantly realize the basic idea of what just happened.

Beyond that initial set-up, though, is a very strong & solid story with some multiple threads going on. The Torch tries to liberate the LMDs from S.H.E.I.L.D., only to wind up being used for their own purposes when it's eventually revealed that Ultron is amongst them, leaving Iron Man & his Mighty Avengers trying to keep the LMD revolt at bay on the helicarrier. Dr. Strange tries to hold back the alterations in time resulting from the Invaders being transported to the future while he & the New Avengers team with Bucky, Toro, & Paul in order to find the Cosmic Cube, which is deduced to be the cause of all of this; Toro also finds out about his own death at the hands of The (Mad) Thinker, to his dismay. After all of that is dealt with by the end of Issue #8, though, there still is one last little twist to the plot, resulting in some of the modern-day heroes finding themselves being teleported back to WWII alongside the Invaders, because some last-second interference results in the Red Skull of the past getting his hands on the Cosmic Cube... which obviously creates all manner of changes to the timeline that now need changing. This does result in the modern heroes dressing up like other Golden Age heroes, though, including two of "The Twelve" (Black Widow & Electro), which is amusing since The Twelve had entered its hiatus by this point in this comic's run. It's also worth mentioning that one of the modern heroes sent back in time is Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), who may or may not actually be the Skrull Queen Veranke, as the event comic Secret Invasion was literally going on the exact same time as Avengers/Invaders was, & it's tough to tell which series technically happens first, chronologically; yes, American comics are just arbitrarily complicated, sometimes.

It's also worth bringing up that while the Invaders themselves are technically a Bronze Age creation, as the actual Golden Age WWII superhero team was the All-Winners Squad (which was later retconned as being the post-WWII team), the only members that actually were brought into the future were the Golden Age heroes. Spitfire & the second Union Jack (Brian Falsworth), who were both introduced during the comic run of The Invaders itself, are NOT included in the time travel shenanigans, making it very blatant that Ross & Kreuger wanted this comic to be about Golden Age heroes finding themselves in the modern day, not just WWII-era heroes; Spitfire & Union Jack do play a small role in the last few issues that take place in the altered past, though. Overall, Avengers/Invaders is a very enjoyable series that, while a little lopsided in terms of plot (I would have preferred the split between modern day & altered WWII to be a bit more even than it was), showcases Marvel's most iconic Golden Age heroes in a very remarkable light. While it's overall importance in the main Marvel timeline isn't on the level of something like Secret Invasion or Civil War, though, it still made more of a direct impact than The Twelve...

While 2008 was where this shared concept of "Bringing Golden Age Heroes Into the Modern Age" had the most seeming push, it certainly wasn't quite done come mid-2009. By this point, The Twelve was in the middle of its four-year hiatus, Project Superpowers was just starting its "Volume 2" run (& had numerous spin-off solo runs for its various heroes, most notably Black Terror), & Avengers/Invaders had just finished by reviving Tom "Toro" Raymond into modern times after having been killed off almost exactly 40 years ago, in real time; Issue #12 came out in June 2009, while Sub-Mariner #14 (in which Toro died) came out in June 1969. With Toro now revived, it only made sense to also bring back Jim Hammond, who had been deactivated (i.e. killed off) four years prior in the final issue of The New Invaders in 2005; his "corpse" had also been a plot point for a few issues of Volume 5 of Captain America in early 2009. Yeah, despite his status as Marvel's first superhero (Namor has always been more of an anti-hero, at best), the original Human Torch has had a long post-Golden Age history of either dying (usually in self-sacrificing fashion), being used for evil schemes by villains, or simply having his very history just get complicated (see: Torch's obtuse relation to the cyborg Vision). Regardless, Alex Ross (yet again) would team with Mike Carey (with some small assistance by Jim Kreuger) for the 8-issue limited series The Torch, the second Marvel/Dynamite co-production, with the first issue coming out on September 2, 2009, two months after Avengers/Invaders ended; Patrick Berkenkotter handled both pencilling & inking for this series. So, to finish things up, let's take a look at how Jim Hammond was brought back to life for the third time, a life that he's (luckily) still living to this day.

Tom "Toro" Raymond has been revived into modern times by way of a wish his fellow sidekick pal Bucky made on the Cosmic Cube, though this second chance at life has left him a man out of time, with his own widowed wife having since found another person to share her life with. With nothing else left to aim for, he asks his friend Aarkus, the Golden Age Vision (who also became part of the modern timeline after Avengers/Invaders), to take him to The Thinker, the villainous mad genius who originally killed him, so that he can get his revenge. However, The Thinker manages to not only capture Toro but decides to use his unique physiology (as he's a mutant who also has synthetic "Horton Cells" in him) to revive the original Human Torch & turn him into something he can control for his own purposes. Even if Toro can save Jim Hammond from the new life of servitude thrust upon him, though, the Horton Cells that comprise Jim's synthetic body continue to play a factor, like when a brainwashing pandemic brought about by The Thinker's research coming to the surface world via Namor & the Atlanteans, or the discovery of an underground society in Europe that believes that the Nazis won WWII... and an "Inhuman Torch"  being developed within that only Jim Hammond himself can deal with.

In an neat little twist from the usual way mini-series like these are normally done today, The Torch isn't simply a single story told over the course of its eight issues. Instead, it's actually best split up across three story arcs: Issues 1-3 deal with Toro going after The Thinker, the revival of Jim Hammond, & the introduction of "Compound D", an altered form of the Horton Cells which can turn people into mindless slaves; Issues 4 & 5 deal with Toro & Hammond teaming with the Fantastic Four to put a stop to a Compound D pandemic, after Namor & his subjects wind up being infected; & Issues 6-8 deal with Toro & Hammond discovering the underground city of "New Berlin", where The Thinker has helped complete the Inhuman Torch, which is based on early research done by Dr. Phineas Horton, the man who created Jim Hammond in the 30s. While there are three distinct arcs across The Torch, though, there is still a through line going across all eight issues, one that's made up of multiple plot points: Toro trying to find to the truth behind his mother, Jim Hammond wanting to recover his sense of humanity after Compound D initially revived him as a semi-mindless drone, The Thinker wanting to finally create something that can give him his own scientific legacy (though, as usual for the villain, his work is built off of what others did before him), & finally giving a proper explanation behind why exactly Toro has similar powers as Jim Hammond, which had only been vaguely explained back in the Golden & Silver Ages; that being said, Marvel would eventually alter things slightly later on, namely by making Toro an inhuman, instead of a mutant. Admittedly, the plot with New Berlin does initially feel less directly connected to what came before, though some plot points for it are hinted as far back as the first two issues, but it's still a cool story to end off the mini-series with, implementing Jim & Toro's WWII history in a way that actually is a bit more unique than you'd think. Admittedly, though, it can be a tad awkward that the Inhuman Torch looks very "black" in comparison to Jim Hammond being a a blond haired white guy, which even Ross himself makes note of as "ironic" in the production drawings at the end of the trade paperback; that being said, the Inhuman Torch is meant to look like charred earth, so take that as you will.

The Torch is also an interesting mini-series in regard to the concept of "Bringing Golden Age Heroes Into the Modern Age", because it's the only one of the four covered here that actually investigates this concept in a mainstream comic world (the main Marvel universe) with characters that modern-day readers would be familiar with. Project Superpowers created its own isolated universe to tell its own story, & while both The Twelve & Avengers/Invaders took place in the main Marvel universe, the former was almost exclusively isolated from everything else happening at the time, while the latter was more of a traditional crossover in execution. Unlike The Twelve, which may as well have been a non-canon story (especially since no one's really bothered to build off of it), The Torch has an actual, tangible relation to the main Marvel universe, and has lasting effects, namely in allowing Jim Hammond to continue to be used in stories to this day. That being said, though, his stories in the past decade+ have tended to either revolve around him being a part of an Invaders reunion, or eventually result in him being used for evil purposes; at least he hasn't been killed off again. We also see a stronger implementation of having our Golden Age heroes actually interact with modern day heroes, as seen with the inclusion of the Fantastic Four in Issues 4 & 5, which makes sense as it was The Thinker (traditionally a FF villain) who first revived Hammond back in the 60s to fight Johnny Storm, the "modern" Human Torch; naturally, Issue #5 sees all three "Torches" (Hammond, Toro, & Storm) properly team up.

Overall, The Torch is just an outstanding mini-series that puts a great spotlight on Marvel's first superhero & his sidekick, giving them some new bits of character development & backstory while also treating them with a sense of veneration & respect that you'd think Marvel would be doing more often; not saying Jim Hammond should be Marvel's Superman (I mean, they do have Hyperion), but he definitely deserves better.

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With 85 years of history behind it, superhero comics have an utterly incalculable number of characters to consider, and as time goes on more & more of them will continue to be created. Combined with things like copyrights & trademarks restricting old "catalog" characters to the publishers they were originally handled by, that leaves only so many characters from the Golden Age the opportunity to shine all these decades later. In the end, you have to take what you can get when it comes to seeing these OGs appear in any modern story, but at least in 2008 we had Alex Ross (among many others, though it was most definitely him leading the pack) giving it his all to make sure they weren't forgotten.

Project Superpowers © Super Power Heroes, LLC

The Twelve © Marvel

Avengers/Invaders & The Torch © Marvel Characters, Inc.