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5 Marvel Characters that Need a MAX Makeover

NO FLY ZONE: 5 Marvel Characters that Need a MAX Makover
© Mania

Greetings, Maniacs, and welcome to The No-Fly Zone, Mania.com’s weekly alternative comics column! We cover a fairly wide range of non-superhero fare in this space, including some titles from Marvel and DC. But, that brings up an interesting conundrum. In Ghost Rider #23 (from Jason Aaron’s run, which concluded the series), Ol’ Flamehead drags off a redneck cannibal in front of one of the town’s deputies. Blaze plans to chain the miscreant to his bike and drag him across a highway full of murderous ghosts. The deputy says “I don’t care if you’re in the Avengers or whatever, you can’t just take him away like [that.]” Ghost Rider looks at him and replies, “Do I look like damn super hero to you, pal?” And he’s right—different writers have made Blaze a hero in the regular crime-fighting sense, but he’s always worked better as a guy caught between Heaven and Hell with a nasty curse on him. He fights evil, but so does every hero in an action story—in comics or any other medium.

A few years ago, Marvel relaunched The Punisher under its adults-only MAX imprint. The book took place out of continuity and let writer Garth Ennis take Marvel’s crazed vigilante into some incredibly dark places. There were no other heroes and it took place in a more realistic setting. The violence had brutal consequences. Marvel has given the same MAX treatment to a few other B-list characters, like Daimon Hellstorm, Jack Russell (of Werewolf by Night), the Foolkiller, and Shang-Chi—all of whom barely fit the definition of a superhero. Let’s clarify what a superhero is, though. Batman is a superhero. Spider-Man is a superhero. When we use that term, we mean costumed crime-fighters with extraordinary skills and abilities—sometimes working on the right side of the law, other times not. To expand that definition further means to encompass almost any character that rights wrongs, fights evil, and saves the day—which would include the protagonist of almost any action story ever written. Cowboys, soldiers, and space Marines aren’t superheroes, even if they act heroically in-story. Frankly, Marvel has a lot of characters that barely qualify. They might fight crime, but they’re only superheroes because Marvel slapped a costume on them and said so. In some cases, they might technically qualify, but they’d work even better in a different setting. Marvel had the right idea with its MAX Punisher. The character needed a mature-readers title without any invincible super-villains. Criminals needed to die, and horribly. Frank Castle’s not very effective in a world where no one important stays dead.

As such, the NFZ thinks Marvel needs to give the following characters a MAX makeover—out-of-continuity, self-contained, and with the fucking gloves off.

Wolverine by David Finch

1. Wolverine

Calm down and breathe slowly, Maniacs. Yes, there are about 15 Wolverine titles on the shelf at any given time. He’s a costumed superhero. And, he practically has his own mature-readers series with X-Force, but consider the basics. We have a guy with a tragic childhood who’s practically immortal and blessed—or cursed—with claws and a healing factor. He spends the first half of the 20^th Century soldiering in every major war and dabbling in espionage. Sometime during the Vietnam War, the CIA recruits him for a super-secret black ops project. They give him an indestructible metal coating on his claws and skeleton, but then they manipulate his memories to control him. As bits of his memories resurface—if they’re even real—and he continues working in espionage and special forces and even has a stint as a samurai warrior. Of course, the X-Men ultimately recruit him and the costumed hero stuff happens. But the real story is that of a fundamentally good man with a flawed memory, who must come to grips with his violent past. It almost sounds like The Bourne Identity with immortality and claws added to complicate things. A mature-readers series could start from the beginning of Logan’s life and lead through the many wars and conflicts he’s participated in. There’s an opportunity there to reflect on 20^th Century military history from the perspective of a man who’s seen it all. Moreover, there’s a good story about a man running from violence who happens to be the best there is at it. That sounds like a pretty great comic.

Ghost Rider by Clayton Crain

2. Ghost Rider

We already touched on this one, and Jason Aaron really set the character on the right path, though it’s still in continuity. But, think about Johnny Blaze. He’s a none-too-bright stunt cyclist who sells his soul to the Devil to save the life of his adopted father from cancer. But, two things happen: his adopted father dies in an accident anyway and his pure-hearted girlfriend Roxanne keeps the Devil from actually dragging Blaze to Hell. But, Blaze gets stuck with a curse that makes him turn into a flaming skeleton whenever evil is present. And it’s really even more complicated, because it’s never been completely clear who owns him. Most recently, we learned that while the Devil owns Blaze’s soul, Roxanne saved it by cutting a deal with the rebel angel Zadkiel. He needs the Ghost Riders—for there are more—to help in his own war with Heaven. Under Jason Aason, Ghost Rider became as far from a superhero as a book could get. Aaron took the Cliff’s Notes versions of Dante and Milton and dragged them into a grindhouse freakshow where a series of intricate rules and otherworldly conflicts govern the fates of mortals amidst outlaw gunfights, biker brawls, nurses with shotguns, and nuns with nunchaku. It’s like your English professor got in bed with Russ Meyer and woke up with a nasty hangover and an unwanted pregnancy. But, Ghost Rider has always been marred in really messy continuity—was it the Devil, or Mephisto, and who actually owns Blaze’s soul?—and its place in the Marvel Universe hasn’t helped. A guy caught between the Christian version of Heaven and Hell doesn’t really belong in a world filled with a pantheon characters from other mythologies, like Thor and Hercules. But, relaunching the series under the MAX banner would give the writer a chance to establish the schlock grindhouse tone that has finally, after so many years, made the character work well. And, it would put Blaze out on the road, by himself, on the highway to Hell, where he belongs. Ghost Rider sure as shit doesn’t need to fight the Hulk to work as a character. It would even give the writer the chance to explore some of the logical ramifications of extreme Christianity—to make violently real the angelic and demonic forces some people think live on either side of our world. Speaking of the Hulk…

Cover art to Hulk: Gray #3 by Tim Sale

3. The Hulk

Here’s another character that probably never needed to become a superhero. The Hulk is an atomic age Jekyll-and-Hyde story about a man who, through a terrible accident, turns into a green monster that breaks stuff and often fights other monsters like him. Frequently, he’s on the run from the government. The military wants to turn him into a weapon and he just wants a normal life. To complicate things, he’s dating the daughter of the general in charge of bringing him in. In a lot of ways, that barebones premise—minus any membership in the Avengers, the Defenders, or any other Marvel Universe ties—has worked in the television series and the two movies (though the last one brought in S.H.I.E.L.D. to good effect). A few years ago, Bruce Jones had a run on The Incredible Hulk that was initially very well received, before endlessly complicated conspiracies and subplots tied the book in a knot. But, while the run used the Abomination and some of the other Hulk mainstays, there wasn’t much in the way of superhero action. On its face, the Hulk takes a classic premise of man’s dark side coming to the forefront, using it as a cautionary tale of science run amok. That’s been done before, but the Hulk is a classic character that could easily use a back-to-basics makeover. In a MAX series, a writer could—much like Mark Millar did in The Ultimates—explore the real consequences of the Hulk’s rage, including the lives lost and ruined because Bruce Banner’s monster came out, even when he would see it—and himself—dead, if he could.

Blade by Marko Djurdjevic

4. Blade

Jesus Christ, he’s Blade. He’s the baddest motherfucker you’ve ever met, and he hunts vampires. He’s a British black guy that’s half-goddamn-vampire, with all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. That’s like a special blend of top shelf badassery. Blade has had three in-continuity Marvel solo titles and one MAX book already. All of them were cancelled quickly. No one has written the character’s solo adventures particularly well since the 1970s, when he first appeared in Tomb of Dracula. Fans seemed to like his recent team book, Captain Britain and MI:13, but Marvel will axe that at #15. This really, seriously can’t be that difficult. Everyone likes Blade—it’s impossible not to, really. But, he’s not a superhero. He’s a vampire hunter. He fights Dracula. In fact, in the first couple of issues of the last Blade solo title, vampires had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., which seems to have gone unnoticed in the rest of the Marvel Universe. When he first appeared, he actually didn’t have any vampire powers, but their bites didn’t turn him. When his mother was giving birth to him, a doctor named Deacon Frost (much older than his film counterpart) answered the call and bit her. Blade survived and the vampires couldn’t touch him. Later, Michael Morbius bit him and left him in the half-vampire state we know and love. His childhood and later experiences fighting Dracula are the stuff great novels are made of. He was born in the late 19^th Century in a brothel in the Soho District of London, with a weird kind of Oliver Twist vibe to the whole story. He joined street gangs, learned how to play the trumpet, and killed vampires. He spent much of his adult life hunting Dracula and other vampires across the world. Take out the Marvel Universe stuff, and you have the story of another nearly immortal character who has fought a worldwide conspiracy of vampires since his childhood. Imagine, again, recasting major events from the last century with vampiric influence—like an alternative history where the vampires are responsible for most of the wars or something. And again, make it MAX. Bring the blood.

Cover art to Dr. Strange: The Oath #1 by Marcos Martin

5. Dr. Strange

In Dr. Strange’s earliest adventures, he stuck mostly to fighting supernatural scariness like Dormammu and Baron Mordo, but he’s been involved in the Marvel pantheon from the beginning. Again, he’s not really a superhero, but he’s involved in their affairs constantly. We know the story, though—Stephen Strange was an arrogant surgeon who lost the use of his hands in an accident. In a last-ditch effort, he consulted the Ancient One—a mystic living in the Himalayas. After saving his future mentor’s life, Strange learns all manner of magick and becomes the Sorcerer Supreme. Different writers have portrayed Strange as everything from an outright mystic, to a superhero, to something like the Marvel version of John Constantine. But, in the past few years he’s been wrapped up in the Illuminati, Civil War, and the larger Marvel Universe. But, if Marvel were ever looking for a solid Hellblazer knockoff, Strange would be a good place to start. Brian K. Vaughan wrote a good miniseries a few years ago, in which Strange gives up the cure for cancer to save his manservant, Wong. Since then, he’s popped up as a supporting character in New Avengers and elsewhere. But, he’s ripe for a comeback in a solid mature readers horror title.

It’s not the character, it’s how you use it. Marvel’s pantheon has a bunch of characters that don’t need to be pigeonholed into the mold of costumed crime-fighters. Even when they’re not forced to go out on patrol looking for muggers, the rules and continuity of that world hampers characters that could flourish in their own worlds. As such, these are five characters in serious need of a MAX makeover.

You are now exiting The No-Fly Zone.

Kurt Amacker is the writer of The No-Fly Zone, Mania’s weekly alternative comics column. He is also the author of the comic miniseries Dead Souls, published by Seraphemera Books. Dead Souls is available from the Seraphemera Books website, Amazon.com, and at comic shops everywhere. He can be reached at kurt_amacker@seraphemera.org.