Amazing Fantasy (2021) notes
Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:12 am
There is a Prelude Infinity comic (digital only) and five printed issues.
This story is supposed to feature teenage Spidey, WWII Cap and Red Room Black Widow. It also features Uncle Ben, Wolverine and a child Storm.
The fantasy world they find themselves in is one you visit when you die. Wolverine mentions he's been there many times.
In issue 1 we see Cap, Spidey and Natasha dying. But in issue 5 it turns out they did not die.
For Cap, the story starts in 1943 in "German-infested waters." He's part of a "bucket brigades of corvettes, destroyers, wildcats and Avenger fighter jets" and the "cargo" they are protecting is revealed to be Robert Oppenheimer in issue 5. Their ship gets sinked by U-Boats and when Cap washes on the beach of the fantasy world, he's got a full beard.
For Natasha it starts with a teenage Natasha in the Soviet Union. Andropov (1982-1984) is on TV pesting against Reagan's "new direction in the arms race" (a reference to the Strategic Defense Initiative "Star Wars" 1984 program). There is a character called Alexa (looking like Natasha's longtime guardian Ivan) that gets killed in #5.
For Spider-Man, it starts with a battle versus the Green Goblin on his Goblin Glider (first appearance in Oct 1964 in ASM 17). He mentions living with his aunt since the death of his Uncle Ben and having a photographer job. A bystander mentions "we've barricaded Cuba" (reference to Cuban missile crisis of 1962, too early for Green Goblin.) Teenage Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy and Flash Thompson are among the bystanders. While Harry is next to Gwen, Flash is further behind and there is no hard evidence Harry & Gwen already know Flash. (Therefore this can be either during high school or college.)
Thus all three setups obliquely mention nuclear war. Kaare Andrews delivers a very subliminal message that I had missed on my first read-through. I guess we'll ignore these topical references.
The young Storm seems to have her mutant powers in #2 & #4-5 so I'd rather this version be the de-aged version (between Uncanny X-Men 248 & 270) than her child-self. Possibly there is a story in which she could have "died" while de-aged?
PS: She has a close brush with death in issue #2 of the 2022 Gambit mini-series.
There is another Peter Parker in #5 with a web-shooter and red glove (from the Scarlet Spider costume?) unless this is a shapechanger or Mephisto (among the theories I've seen online). I think Scarlet Spider.
The general in #5 seems to be General Groves, in charge of Manhattan Project.
There is an adult Storm in #5 who seems to have lived in the afterlife. She appears alongside characters who died earlier in the series (America, Fey). No explanation provided. Logan says he's visited the place many times but hasn't figured it out yet.
(Me neither. The only common point was the nuclear threat. Among the times Wolverine may have died when there was such a threat I can think of Havok & Wolverine 1-4, which refers to Chernobyl, or the explosion at Hiroshima in Logan 1-3. He would not know about Peter Parker in the second case. For child Storm we have the Suez Crisis, when the Soviet Union threatened to nuke Britain, France and Israel. For adult Storm and Ben Reilly nothing comes to mind. There is anyway some contradiction in trying to come up with rules for something that was not meant to have any.)
This story is supposed to feature teenage Spidey, WWII Cap and Red Room Black Widow. It also features Uncle Ben, Wolverine and a child Storm.
The fantasy world they find themselves in is one you visit when you die. Wolverine mentions he's been there many times.
In issue 1 we see Cap, Spidey and Natasha dying. But in issue 5 it turns out they did not die.
For Cap, the story starts in 1943 in "German-infested waters." He's part of a "bucket brigades of corvettes, destroyers, wildcats and Avenger fighter jets" and the "cargo" they are protecting is revealed to be Robert Oppenheimer in issue 5. Their ship gets sinked by U-Boats and when Cap washes on the beach of the fantasy world, he's got a full beard.
For Natasha it starts with a teenage Natasha in the Soviet Union. Andropov (1982-1984) is on TV pesting against Reagan's "new direction in the arms race" (a reference to the Strategic Defense Initiative "Star Wars" 1984 program). There is a character called Alexa (looking like Natasha's longtime guardian Ivan) that gets killed in #5.
For Spider-Man, it starts with a battle versus the Green Goblin on his Goblin Glider (first appearance in Oct 1964 in ASM 17). He mentions living with his aunt since the death of his Uncle Ben and having a photographer job. A bystander mentions "we've barricaded Cuba" (reference to Cuban missile crisis of 1962, too early for Green Goblin.) Teenage Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy and Flash Thompson are among the bystanders. While Harry is next to Gwen, Flash is further behind and there is no hard evidence Harry & Gwen already know Flash. (Therefore this can be either during high school or college.)
Thus all three setups obliquely mention nuclear war. Kaare Andrews delivers a very subliminal message that I had missed on my first read-through. I guess we'll ignore these topical references.
The young Storm seems to have her mutant powers in #2 & #4-5 so I'd rather this version be the de-aged version (between Uncanny X-Men 248 & 270) than her child-self. Possibly there is a story in which she could have "died" while de-aged?
PS: She has a close brush with death in issue #2 of the 2022 Gambit mini-series.
There is another Peter Parker in #5 with a web-shooter and red glove (from the Scarlet Spider costume?) unless this is a shapechanger or Mephisto (among the theories I've seen online). I think Scarlet Spider.
The general in #5 seems to be General Groves, in charge of Manhattan Project.
There is an adult Storm in #5 who seems to have lived in the afterlife. She appears alongside characters who died earlier in the series (America, Fey). No explanation provided. Logan says he's visited the place many times but hasn't figured it out yet.
(Me neither. The only common point was the nuclear threat. Among the times Wolverine may have died when there was such a threat I can think of Havok & Wolverine 1-4, which refers to Chernobyl, or the explosion at Hiroshima in Logan 1-3. He would not know about Peter Parker in the second case. For child Storm we have the Suez Crisis, when the Soviet Union threatened to nuke Britain, France and Israel. For adult Storm and Ben Reilly nothing comes to mind. There is anyway some contradiction in trying to come up with rules for something that was not meant to have any.)