| Essential Captain Marvel Volume 1 TPB (Essential) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Gary Friedrich, Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake, Archie Goodwin
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Category: Book
List Price: £10.99
Buy New: £6.22
You Save: £4.77 (43%)
New (19) Used (3) from £6.22
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 130060
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0785130594
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9780785130598
ASIN: 0785130594
Publication Date: July 2, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Never quite scaled the heights it was expected to August 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
At some stage this probably seemed like a good idea, an alien (Kree) soldier is sent to Earth after the Fantastic Four had defeated one of their robots and Ronan the Accuser. He assumes the identity of a scientist who is killed early on in the second issue who just happens to work at the nearby military base. The idea he has to drink an alien fluid every hour to breathe our atmosphere is occasionally forgotten.
The start is not so bad with the robot Sentry re-appearing then old Marvel favourites the Super-Skrull, Sub-Mariner, Quasimodo and the Puppet Master (featuring Iron Man). Also in the mix are some new villains like the Metazoid, the excellent looking Man-Slayer and Cyberex.....(all robots though), The Organization with the very odd-looking Number 1 and an energy being Solam.
Early on Carol Danvers is introduced as the base's head of security, Carol would go on to better things.
It's not all good news, however, apart from there being too many robots one of the Kree's alien foes (The Aakon) suffers the indignity of being drawn as members of the Organization (humans), this is not the only continuity error that occured largely due to the constant changing of staff on this title.
The major theme of the first batch of stories was the events that led to the death of Mar-Vell's love Una after the Kree commander Yon-Rogg attacked an Aakon freighter. The hatred between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg is at the centre of most of this book.
After Una's death Mar-Vell is launched into space where he picks up extra powers from Zo and ends up back in the Kree universe fighting Ronan the Accuser and being granted a new costume and powers by the Kree Supreme intelligence. The Supreme Intelligences within Marvel had figured out that all was not well with the title so despatched Mar-Vell to the Negative Zone and introduced Marvel stalwart Rick Jones in a symbiotic relationship.
With Rick's assistance Mar-Vell gets his revenge on Yon-Rogg after which came a sizeable gap before a 2 part tale guest-starring the Hulk which closes this issue. There was an even sizeable gap of 2 years before he made his next appearance in his own title.
That's not to say he was rested as a character, There was a multi-issue Avengers epic with the Kree-Skrull war where Mar-Vell, and Rick especially, played an important part.
As an old Marvelite I admit I preferred the old green and white costume seen in Gene Colan's early issues. There are a few good stories here but no real classics, well maybe the bonus Captain Mar-Vinn tale from Not Brand Echh #9.
 Far from Marvel's best June 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although the last several years have seen Marvel compile almost all of their 1960s material into various "Essential" volumes Captain Marvel was one they'd missed until now. It's easy to see why. 1968 was the year Marvel expanded their line of comics, and Captain Marvel comes across as one that was rushed out to fill a quota. The series starts out ok, with artwork by Gene Colan (albeit not his best) but then descends into a confused and directionless mess written by Arnold Drake and drawn by seemingly whoever was to hand. (Even Marvel admitted at the time that the comic had reached a dead end and needed salvaging.)
This book is redeemed towards the end when Captain Marvel undergoes a dramatic revamp by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane trying their best to turn the fortunes of this title around. Overall though, this isn't one of Marvel's best efforts.
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