Marvels

Marvels is a four-issue miniseries comic book written by Kurt Busiek, painted by Alex Ross and edited by Marcus McLaurin. It was published by Marvel Comics in 1994. Set in the 1939 to 1974 time period, the series examines the Marvel Universe, the collective setting of most of Marvel's superhero series, from the perspective of an Everyman character, news photographer Phil Sheldon. The street-level series portrayed ordinary life in a world full of costumed superhumans, with each issue featuring events well known to readers of Marvel comics, as well as a variety of minute details and a retelling of the most famous events in the Marvel universe. Marvels won multiple awards and established the careers of Busiek and Ross, who would both return to the "everyday life in a superhero universe" theme in the (later Homage Comics and currently DC Comics) series, Astro City. Warren Ellis's Ruins returned to this theme in 1995 with a twisted story of an alternate universe in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong, but an actual sequel was not developed until 2008 with the release of Marvels: Eye of the Camera, but only Busiek was involved. A single issue epilogue was released in late 2019 with both Busiek and Ross returning. Marvels was a four-issue miniseries (cover dated January–April 1994) by writer Kurt Busiek, with painted art by Alex Ross and editing by Marcus McLaurin. It was followed by issue #0 (August 1994) containing a 12-page story of the original 1940s Human Torch by Busiek and Ross, two text articles, and 18 pages of Ross superhero pinups. The series was later collected into a trade-paperback edition. In 1939, Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch is created by scientist Phineas T. Horton, and the project is considered a success until the android catches on fire when air is projected into its glass chamber, only to go out when the air is gone. Horton shows his creation to the public, which is met with demands from the terrified civilians to destroy it.