CBR: McCool Reimagines "The Korvac Saga"

[CBR News]

The 1970s cosmic epic gets brought back to earth with a time displacement twist in "Captain America & The Korvac Saga" and writer Ben McCool tells CBR how he made the tale work now.


Full article here.

[ayof]

Might actually be worth checking out. McCool?..hmm..fits!

[chastmastr]

I'm interested, but ... er... what continuity is this thing in?

[nojarama]

This is the storyline that introduced me to the Vision (and the rest of the Avengers) as a child. Can't wait to see his take on one of my personal favorite Avengers arcs.

[carabas]

Sounds a whole lot like he's just keeping the name and ditching the rest.

Captain America was barely in the original, and he's rewriting it as a story about Cap and Korvac's relationship?

[littlenomad]

Is this going to be part of the Marvel Adventures all-ages line or what? Is it a separate, out-of-continuity story? Sounds interesting.

[Hawk I 21]

Will this be just a re-telling the Korvac saga with a modern twist making it a more "legit" continuity peace?

[Sighphi]

Can i "re-imgaine" Secret Invasion?
I want to mke it about Hill.

[carabas]

Can i "re-imgaine" Secret Invasion?
I want to mke it about Hill.

I want to make it about the Skrulls actually secretly invading earth.

[lead sharp]

why do we need this?

[Babylon23]

I think I'll give this a miss. I'm happy to just reread the actual Korvac Saga. I'm bored with all of Marvel's "reimaginings" and would rather they just stick to telling new stories rather than revisiting and updating old ones.

[Black Manta]

I really hated that Secret Wars remake, so I'll pass on this.

When the Kovac storyline took place Cap had been a member of the Avengers for around fifteen years. How can they write it as if he just got out of the ice?

I wonder what else they are going to reimagine? Secret Wars II, The Dark Pheonix Saga, The Crossing?

What ever happened to the House of Ideas?

[Brother Justin Crowe]

When the Kovac storyline took place Cap had been a member of the Avengers for around fifteen years. How can they write it as if he just got out of the ice?

Because it's an alternate reality, and if Spider-Man can be a member of the team side-by-side with Wanda and the Vision, then why not?

I wonder what else they are going to reimagine? Secret Wars II, The Dark Pheonix Saga, The Crossing?

I'd highly recommend checking out the debut issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger. For my money, that one issue is the best alternate rendition of established characters since Millar's Ultimates.

What ever happened to the House of Ideas?

You mean the guys who launched the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Daredevil, the Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and more? They're still here, and honestly, if you look hard enough, you'll find something that fits your tastes.

That's why there are so many X-books, so many Avengers books, etc. Something different for everyone.

[ShaunN]

I don't have any strong feelings about this one way or the other, but the idea of these "reimaginings" do seem to confirm a recent CBR column which argued that Mark Waid was largely to blame for a tendency of current comics to look into the past. The author of that piece argued that writers today are reliving the stories that they liked when they were first introduced to comics, and many of the older fans are lapping it up. As a result, mainstream comics are constantly looking back, rather than forward.

I think that this analysis was bang on, and this "Korvac Saga" typifies the trend. The original Korvac Saga was very good. My recollection is that it was part of the first wave of really "adult" superhero stories that were being told by Marvel at that time. Jim Shooter's Avengers was a very good title - not quite on par with the Claremont/Byrne X-Men, but part of that larger stable of really good Marvel Comics. I remember that Shooter had a really good run, with classic stories pitting the Avengers against enormously powerful foes like Ultron and the supercharged Count Nefaria. The Korvac Saga was the cullmination of all that.

Just a few points: I don't recall the Korvac Saga being anything like a Marvel maxi-series or "event" as these terms are understood in the present day. The entire 12-issue storyline was told in the regular Avengers title and had no impact on the rest of the Marvel Universe -i.e., there were no crossover titles or the like.

An important part of the plotline was that the Avengers did not know who they were fighting against or even that there was an enemy they needed to face until the Collector was disintegrated in front of their eyes. When they finally did find "Michael/Korvac", they did not know who he was - it was only the fact that Starhawk could not see him that gave him away.

Korvac was planning to do much more than just take over Earth - he was actually planning to take over the entire universe - he was spying on the Watcher, Mephisto, Odin, Zeus - all of the powerful Marvel characters of the day. He was even spying on Eternity, with the long-term goal of vanquishing Eternity. I remember this storyline particularly fondly because it introduced me, in a way, to "Cosmic Marvel" -the idea that there were great powers in the universe, who were nearly omnipotent. At the time, the Celestials were not part of the regular MU and, I believe, Galactus was still dead after his encounter with the High Evolutionary. (This is relevant because Korvac got his godlike power from Galactus's space station). Contrary to what the article says, I don't think that the Eternals were or could have been involved (unless "Eternals" is a reference to Eternity and the other great powers of the MU).

Anyway, great stuff and worth a reprint. But I'm not sure it merits a "reimagining".

[Sijo]

I don't see the need to reinvent this story. In both writing and art it stands pretty well on its own even today. It isn't like, say, Spider-Man Silver Age stories whose logic and look seems dated today. The Korvac Saga was in fact my first Marvel comics experience (I knew the characters only from cartoons before that) and it blew away my mind, making me realize that superhero stories could be about more than just heroes fighting villains (although that was what the Avengers assumed, Korvac had actually reformed and meant to free the universe from the whims of inhuman cosmic beings, but his plans were ruined by the heroes.) I know however that for some reason, Marvel has tried to ruin this story twice now (first by saying that Korvac was evil all along, then by saying that had Korvac put his plan to work it would've ended in the destruction of the universe.) It's almost as if some people in the company were out to destroy any legacy left by Jim Shooter (see also: the retconning of the Beyonder and the ruining of Star Brand.)

At least this time it sounds like the idea is to show new readers how good their stories used to be so they will buy trades or never comics. That I'm not opposed to. But won't reinterpretations like this confuse new readers when they find out that Secret Wars, the Clone Saga etc. didn't go at all like that?