Monday, February 19, 2018

Sometimes the quarter bins come through for you, sometimes you get Soviet Super-Soldiers #1.


That's a little harsh...just a little. From 1992, Soviet Super-Soldiers #1, "The Red Triangle Agenda" Written by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Angel Medina and Javier Saltares, inks by Jeff Albrecht.

I may be harshing on this a bit because it builds off of at least two comics I liked: Captain America #352, wherein the state-backed Supreme Soviets nearly murder the Soviet Super-Soldiers Vanguard, Darkstar, and Ursa Major; and Thor #358, in which the Titanium Man's scheme of using armored American flunkies runs afoul of Beta Ray Bill. In fact, there's one more issue involved: X-Factor Annual #1, which introduced several Russian mutants, many of whom are subsequently killed off here.

The mutants (including Vanguard, Darkstar, and Ursa Major) are mostly on the run this issue, while the Supreme Soviets have to deal with...a name change. And an attempt to discredit the Crimson Dynamo, that leads to the Titanium Man's return, a new character in an old armor, and an old character in a new suit and name that are probably never brought up again. The Dynamo's teammates really don't help him out much. Still, there's a lot of potential plotlines laid out, but none of them are that great since there's not really any reason to care about any of these characters; unless maybe you really liked them from some other comic. Unlikely, but possible.

The art starts to fall apart towards the end of this 64-pager; and as with some of these oddball one-offs, I wonder if this was intended to be a one-shot, or if it wasn't meant to be a serial in Marvel Comics Presents. Well, maybe better to get this over with all at once, instead of over twelve weeks.

2 comments:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I could see this one appearing in MCP back in the day. Why Marvel felt this particular ream deserved their very own 80-page one shot is beyond me. Well, they did give Alpha Flight one, but that was mostly a flashback issue, back when Wolverine was on the team.
Outside of Darkstar, aren't any of these guys dead?

googum said...

I know Vanguard was dead for a bit; he got killed in Starblast, one of Marvel's (or anyone's) worst crossovers. I kinda thought he had come back...