Hey, folks! Welcome back to Comic Deep Dive! During these COVID-related dark times, I’ve taken the opportunity to do some strange and exciting comic book reading to fill the void caused by constant cancellation. Today, I’m talking all about Marvel’s MC2 imprint! Here’s the run-down:
The Story
- Tom DeFalco wanted to go back to the classic Marvel days
- Under this “more fun, less dark” initiative, he created an alternate reality
- Started as a simple “What If…?” issue, it became an imprint
- Ran (off and on) from 1998 to 2011
The Titles
- American Dream
- A-Next
- The Buzz
- Dark Devil
- Fantastic Five
- J2
- Spider-Girl, Amazing Spider-Girl, Spectacular Spider-Girl
- Wild Thing
The Events
- Last Hero Standing
- Last Planet Standing
The Crossovers
- None, which seems like a total missed opportunity
The Good Stuff
- Tom DeFalco wrote almost all of it
- Super fun one-and-done style with a return to “The End… For Now!” endings
- Great characterization
- Fun older versions of original Marvel Universe
- Quite a few new legacy characters
The Bad Parts
- Sold quite poorly
- The first “internet cry” against cancellation of titles that no one buys
- Mostly out of print and forgotten
- A few clunkers of original characters
- No big crossovers
The Creators of Note
- Tom DeFalco
Characters Off the Page
- Trading cards
- Action figures
- Statues
The Returns
- Spider-Geddon
- Spider-Verse
- Secret Wars
Overall Thoughts
- This deep dive is something I have always wanted to do, because Tom DeFalco is one of my favorite Spider-Man (and comics in general) writers of all time
- Quite a few of these were tough to find, but fairly inexpensive as a whole
- I’ll keep the whole thing
- My final grade: B
See you next month for another comic deep dive! In the meantime, share your thoughts on Marvel’s MC2 imprint with us on social media. We’d love to hear from you.
