Artist: Alex Ross
Story: Kurt Busiek

The story of one man, Phil Sheldon, and his life in relation to the super-heroes of the Marvel universe, most notably during the first 30 or 40 years, beginning with the introduction of the original Human Torch in 1939, and ending with the death of Gwen Stacy in the pages of Spider-Man in the 70s.

Phil Sheldon isn't a spectacular man, he's just a photographer, trying to do what he can to get by. When he attended a public display by Dr. Phineas T. Horton, creator of the original android Human Torch, Sheldon didn't expect much except maybe a few shots for the paper. What he got was the beginning of a new phase in history. As he says, there had been costumed figures before, all the way back to the old west with the Rawhide Kid, but never to such a popular degree as they were becoming. Never before had Manhattan witnessed a spectacle like the Human Torch battling the Sub-Mariner in the skies over the city. And to those simple people who saw it, it was an awesome sight.

And it's this early encounter where we begin to see the real relevance of MARVELS for today's world, when Sheldon asks, "How was I supposed to be a husband--maybe a father--in a world where any moment a monster could come crashing through your wall? . . . Before they came, we were so big, so grand. We were Americans--young, strong, vital! We were the ones who got things done. But we'd gotten smaller. I could see it in those small faces--faces that had once been so confident, so brash. We weren't the players anymore. We were spectators. We were waiting for something--without knowing what it was--"

So Sheldon does what he can, loves his wife and children, and continues taking his pictures of the heroes. Some of us are lucky enough to familiar with the exploits he recounts in the narrative, but even if you're not, you don't have to be, because Sheldon isn't relating the events as if we know them, he's telling us what the world in general knows, what anyone in those days who read a paper or watched a newsreel would have known, no more no less because in MARVELS, we're not a part of the action like we are in every other comic book. This time, we're just another spectator, and that's one of the marks of brilliance in this story.

Through the brilliant writing of Kurt Busiek, we witness the prejudice of the mutant outbreak when the X-Men first appeared. Sheldon thanks his lucky stars he lives in the suburbs and things like that--mutants--don't show up there. Then we see him realize his own failings when he finds out his daughters have befriended a mutant, and then he sees for himself that no matter what she looks like, she's just a little girl. We see the horror and uselessness of everything when the world is almost destroyed by Galactus. It's one of the few times Sheldon walks away from a shot, deciding if the world's going to end, he'd just as soon be with his family.

And when it's all over, we see Sheldon's outrage at the world that prays for the heroes to save them, then damns them once the danger has passed.

Cover Price US$19.95 Lotsofcomics Price TT$150.00