Hyperion & The Imperial Guard #1
Written by Ryan Cady
Art by Michele Bandini, Stephen Byrne
Peter Parker, The Amazing Shutterbug #1
Written by Marc Bernardin
Art by Rafael de Latorre
Published by Marvel Comics
In case you forgot, Heroes Reborn is the latest Marvel crossover where Blade wakes up in an altered reality where the Avengers never formed and Captain America remains trapped in ice from World War Two.
Two issues into the main series, Marvel now is putting out tie-in books to delve deeper into these new versions of established characters.
Hyperion & The Imperial Guard #1 and Peter Parker: The Amazing Shutterbug #1 give us some of folks we saw in Heroes Reborn #2.
In the main series, we see Hyperion battle Gladiator and his old friends, who have been infected by the Brood along with the entire Shi’Ar Empire. And Peter Parker is no Spider-Man, but instead a Jimmy Olsen type.
So now let’s travel back in time to when Marvel’s Superman got a Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes kind of backstory. Here you see the final mission of the team after defeating their arch-nemesis Deathbird once and for all.
They decide to visit one of her old strongholds, squirrelled away in the Negative Zone, to look for any stolen treasures. But – yes, you guessed it – they encounter the Brood instead, and thus teen Hyperion’s friends have met their horrible fate.
Perhaps the best part of this issue, however, isn’t until after the story ends, when we get a mailbag page that lets out the conceit that this is meant to be Hyperion & The Imperial #121 – published way back in 1993.
It’s tongue-in-cheek fake letters to the editor mention the collector’s bubble, fanboy cries for gritty, realistic comics, and the impending shakeup of Marvel’s most famous talent bolting to create Image Comics.
Fun stuff, even though it underlines the fact that modern superhero comics largely have left behind enticing new young readers, and instead will continue to chase the ever-dwindling numbers of readers my age and older who won’t let go of these silly characters written primarily for children.
Wow, that’s depressing.
Let’s check out Peter Parker’s little tie-in book to cheer up.
Peter Parker: The Amazing Shutterbug #1 starts off with a cover copying the original Marvels image but with Parker replacing Phil Seldon and the Squadron Supreme replacing the Avengers.
But if you’re expecting that whiz-bang, awe-and-terror feeling of Marvels, you’ve got another thing coming. This is a world where Flash Thompson knocks Peter Parker to the ground, out of the path of that radioactive, genetically modified spider.
A world where Peter gets beaten up on graduation day, and years later suffers a family tragedy that causes him to drop out of school and pick up the photographer gig. No spoilers, but it sure does reframe his encounters as “Hyperion’s Pal” in Heroes Reborn #2.
We get a glimpse of the quick-thinking heroics that Parker would have shown had he become Spider-Man. But this is a reality where things don’t go right, spelled out in a way the main series doesn’t have time to discuss in depth.
So these tie-in books were pretty good and added to the Heroes Reborn crossover in helpful ways.
Do you need them?
Nope. But they’re a solid read.
