I followed Ed Brubaker’s Captain America until Steve Rogers returned during Captain America: Reborn. Rogers’ return was not great to put it mildly. It was equal parts story and shipping schedule that hurt it, but I’m over it and I’m ready to enjoy Secret Avengers. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter are running the show here and this is really Brubaker’s continuation of their story as Bucky Barnes has taken over the pages of Captain America. I did fall behind in reading as this book was shipping, but diving back into them made for some fun reading. Intrigue, an interesting cast and a mandate to protect the world from unknown threats combine to form something special here.

Spoilers may follow.

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All week Marvel has been releasing teaser images focusing on the concept of fear that feature some of their flagship characters. No one seems to know what these are actually teasing, but it seems the publisher may be gearing up for another crossover event.

Earlier in the month, Marvel announced a list of creators that they’ve referred to as “The Architects” (see below). All of the names were listed with the titles they’re currently working on along with a “secret project.” We should be getting another teaser image tomorrow, maybe we’ll learn what they’re all about as well.

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Well, it’s the week before Christmas and all through the house… I don’t actually have a rhyme to go with that… Bottom line, I’m spending the weekend in sunny (or cloudy and rainy but still distinctly warmer and nicer) Florida. Heck, there’s a winter storm warning in effect at home for tomorrow night. Suckers.

Why do they even pretend to celebrate Christmas down here?

At home, they’re predicting a white Christmas. Down here they’re putting lights on palm trees.

Anyway, I took a break from the Operations Management final that I’ve been working on unsuccessfully for the last six days to join my wife for a trip to Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure today. Since Pete is such a huge Marvel fan, I spent the day harassing him with photos from the park’s Marvel Island. Pete suggested that I should be posting the photos here as well to share them with the world. So since I’ve been too buried with school work the last few months to post much, I figured that sounded like as good of a way to jump back into it as any.

So we’ll start with the scene when we arrived at Islands of Adventure this morning.

The lack of people suggested to us that we had slept through the Apocalypse overnight and luckily survived.

While uncertain about the fate of the rest of the world, we headed over to the Spider-man 3D ride where the line was unbearably long.

Actually, it was just us and Doctor Octopus.

We rode the Spider-man ride that seats 12 or 18 people alone. Just the two of us. It was so romantic until the fires and spinning started.

That was the highlight of the Marvel section of the park until I reached the gift shop and saw this.

Psycho is right.

I have no interest in the Punisher. None. But that bobble head might be the greatest piece of Marvel merchandising I’ve ever seen. It’s better than all three of his movies combined… (and I’ve only seen two of them.)

I soon realized that there was a whole line of Marvel products in this awesomely cute style. Here are some highlights.

Amazing.

Spirited.

Unpredicatable.

All American.

Seeing the Hulk pin made me sad as they didn’t have a larger Hulk bobble head to go with the line, but they at least did design work on him. As it is, I may end up picking up a Captain America for me and Spider-man for Pete but I wish I was coming home with a Hulk as well.

The final couple of photos I’ll share with you tonight are below. While I’m not a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies, I know some people freak out for them. Well, you may have seen ads lately for Universal’s upcoming Harry Potter attraction as they have been airing incessantly on television. Here’s a sneak peak at the still under construction Hogwarts school. I believe it’s set to open in the Spring.

That’s it for today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll share photos of manatees and gators.

Three great special issues were released by Marvel in the past two weeks, unfortunately they shipped (and I subsequently read) in perhaps the exact reverse order they were intended.  All three books are written by Brian Bendis, the architect of the upcoming Siege event and writer of the Avengers titles for several years.  The books in questions are New Avengers Annual #3, Dark Avengers Annual #1 and Siege: The Cabal.  Read them in that order, but don’t read on unless you want to know why (consider that a SPOILER warning).

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Just read the first issue of The Marvels Project, the crown jewel of Marvel’s 70th Anniversary celebration.

Before reading it, I took the time (and it did take time) to read a reprint of Timely’s Marvel Comics #1 from 1939.  This was released on the same day as TMP #1 and tells tales of “Marvel’s” Golden Age characters including: The Original Human Torch, The Angel,  The Sub-Mariner, and Ka-Zar the Great.  It’s a little crazy to think about how old these stories are, and the changes that have occurred in the comics medium are astounding.  This thing was densely packed with material and every story had an incredible amount of substance to it.  It was almost a little too much for my modern mind.

The book served as a great primer for TMP #1 as the story is set in 1939 and told from the perspective to Dr. Thomas Halloway, the masked detective known as The Angel (not to be confused with the X-Men’s winged Angel who wouldn’t appear until years later) and focuses on The Original Human Torch and Namor The Sub-Mariner.  The premise is that in the early days of World War II, the United States and Germany were racing to create the first super-human (the series’ title is a reference to The Manhattan Project), and all of the pulp adventures published during that era are a part of this world and very connected to the modern Marvel Universe.

In the opening issue, we also see the Western hero The Two Gun Kid, Nick Fury, Dr. Emil Erskine (who developed the Super Soldier Serum that powers Captain America), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I’ve been reading Marvel Comics for most of my life, and this is like a hidden history that I never knew about.  I don’t think I would have ever given it any attention if it weren’t for the amazing work that writer Ed Brubaker and artist Steve Epting (whom I have great memories of from his X-Factor run) have done with Captain America over the last five years.  The Marvels Project has the potential to be one of the great tales of the Marvel Universe and is well on it’s way with issue one.  I wish I hadn’t held off reading it for the past few weeks, but I’m not kidding about how long it took me to get through Marvel Comics #1.