Monsters Unleashed #1 Review and *SPOILERS* - Marvel Monday

The Things from Outer Space

Written By: Cullen Bunn
Art By: Steve McNiven, Jay Leisten, David Curiel
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: January 18, 2016
Publisher: Marvel

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Well, Civil War II has only just finished and Inhumans vs. X-Men is in full effect but now we have the latest event at Marvel starting. Honestly, I’m looking forward to this event more than the others we’ve gotten from Marvel lately. Civil War II was awful and Inhumans vs. X-Men feels like it’s going to be heavily and have lasting effects for the universe. All I’m expecting from Monsters Unleashed though is some awesome over the top action sequences with a fairly loose story bringing it all together. I’m excited to just see all my favorite Marvel heroes teaming up and fighting giant monsters that are destroying everything. That sounds like a ton of fun to me. So let’s jump right in and see what this book is all about.

Our issue begins with someone making a sort of drawing on a piece of paper and we see a meteor fall from the sky and crash into a building in Boston. After landing we see it was not a meteor but rather a gigantic monster. Luckily for the citizens of Boston, the Avengers are on the job and they immediately engage the monster. Thor and Hercules focus on the monster while the rest of the team saves as many people as they can. After finally getting an upper hand on the creature though, Spider-Man (Peter Parker) sees two more meteors falling onto the city both containing a monster of their own. The monsters seems to be working together and Vision reveals that reports of monsters are coming in from all over the globe.

We then cut to different scene around the globe where different groups are taking on monsters of their own. The X-Men are fighting in London, Black Panther and the Wakandans are fighting in The Golden City, the Guardians of the Galaxy are in Seattle, and the Inhumans are defending Venice. We cut to New York City finally where we catch up with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Moon Girl sees the falling creatures through her telescope and immediately begins working on a solution that the world’s heroes can use against these monsters. We cut once again to a hidden figure who is going through several different documents and gathering some papers before traveling through a portal.

We cut to Springfield, Missouri finally where we see the identity of the figure that was drawing at the beginning of the book. It turns out that it is a young boy named Kei Kawade who was a character that appeared in the Totally Awesome Hulk comic and he has the ability to summon monsters. It’s not a stretch to assume that Kei is the one that is behind all of these monster appearances. We cut to Los Angeles where the Champions are dealing with a giant eye monster. Hulk uses his strength and is able to take down the creature but the Champions get word that this is a global event and they won’t be able to rest for a while. We cut once more to see the identity of the hidden figure from before.

Out of the portal steps Elsa Bloodstone enters Peru where she enters an ancient cave with a prophesy of a monster apocalypse and she has a drawing of a monster in her possession. The drawing has a special symbol on it, a sort of signature from an artist. We cut back to Kei Kawade who finishes his drawings and sneaks out of his home and into the nearby woods. He runs through them only to be stopped suddenly by someone yelling his name. He looks up and there is Fin Fang Foom along with many monsters and Fin Fang Foom tells him that he doesn’t know Kawade’s plan but he is messing with some very dangers things. This is where the issue leaves us.

Honestly this book gave me exactly what I expected and I honestly loved every minute of it. This is how you begin an event! This issue didn’t bother to set stuff up slowly only to give us a big reveal at the end that would set up the rest of the crossover. Instead, the creative team chose to just throw us into the deep end and when it is as beautiful drawn as this comic was, I’m happy to swim around. The comic doesn’t give us a ton of story but I honestly don’t think we needed it. We got enough that hinted at the overall story but we got awesome monster battles with our favorite heroes and I find that hard to complain about. Not to mention the art in this book was epic and beautiful. If the rest of this crossover is able to build properly on this awesome beginning, we could be talking about one of the most loved crossovers that Marvel has had which will inevitably be brought back in a terrible sequel.

Bits and Pieces

This comic is balls to the fucking wall right off the gate and it’s fucking awesome. We jump right into an action-packed event and it doesn’t slow down at all. We get enough story to keep a clear plot for the story but the rest is just amazingly drawn action sequences. Usually that doesn’t usually deserve such high praise, but this was so awesome that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and if we get more of this, this could be the best event Marvel has put out in recent years.

9.5/10