1602
This was a lot better than I expected it to be. I’ve had a sort of writer/reader falling out with Neil Gaiman these last few years — I respect him as a writer, I just feel that he’s gotten a little more flowery and pretentious than I typically like. So when I heard the premise for 1602 — classic Marvel superheroes reimagined in ye olden times in England — I wasn’t expecting a lot. Thankfully, once again, I was completely wrong.
Gaiman captures the essence of what’s made these characters great for so long — the internal struggles, the witty banter, the sense of fun and adventure — and spins a damn good yarn out of it all. The story focuses on strange disturbances at the sunset of the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots (I think that’s who she is… she’s just “your majesty” in the story; I just googled that name to that time period). The queen’s personal physician, Dr. Stephen Strange and her Head of Intelligence, Sir Nicholas Fury, are called in to investigate. What unfolds is a mystery that brings in Renaissance versions of most of the more prominent residents of the Marvel universe, attempting to halt a disaster of multiversal proportions.
Often bizarre, ocasionally a little more cutesy-ironic than I care for (Peter Parquaugh must marvel over spiders a dozen times through the course of these 8 issues), 1602 is overall a pretty solid read. The ending felt a bit rushed, but I prefer that to being unnecessarily drawn out. All in all, Gaiman delivers everything you want in a Marvel comic. Or, as Sir Richard Reed says to Ye Thingge (okay, I don’t remember what they actually called The Thing), “I posit we are in a universe which favours stories. A universe in which no story can ever truly end; in which there can be only continuances…. a cure [for The Thing’s orange rockiness] is possible. But the laws of story would suggest that no cure can last for very long, Benjamin. For in the end, alas, you are so much more interesting and satisfying as you are.”
There’s a guy who really gets why we read comics. Neil, buddy… I take it all back. Thanks for this.