Marville, a short-lived tongue-in-cheek feature from Marvel Comics, set out with a plan to spoof the comics industry. Unfortunately, the book by Bill Jemas is so busy trying to be clever and patting itself on the back for its obvious references to DC, Marvel and real-life icons that it forgets to come up with a plot and eliminates any pretense of character growth.

This one-note story begins in the far future, when Ted Turner and Jane Fonda (still alive for no apparent reason) owned all of the world and its contents until Turner sold it all for stock options. Realizing that a meteor shower is about to destroy the Earth, they use a handy time machine to send their son, an 18-year-old KalAOL, back in time -- to the United States, circa 2002. (Of course, the Earth isn't destroyed after all, but Ted doesn't know how to bring his progeny back to the future; he does, however, send an old dog and a pack of clean underwear after him.)

Once there, KalAOL believes himself to have super powers, a la Superman, even though he shows no signs of extraordinary abilities. From there, he and his growing circle of wacky friends run afoul of numerous unfunny satirizations of Spider-Man, Batman, the Punisher and so on, in what is apparently meant to be a knee-slappingly witty yarn. It's not. Much of the "wit" is mean-spirited. There's a great deal of repetition, as if we might find a clever use of the "AOL" name funny the second, third or eighth time Jemas tries it.

Trust me, if you find one chuckle here, make it last -- 'cause you'll need it for the rest of the book.

When it's not trying to be funny, the book drags readers through a lengthy discourse through Jemas's theories on evolution and faith, relying in part on intelligent talking dinosaurs, cavemen who speak perfect English, and "proof" that the Marvel hero Wolverine is cousin to us all. Perhaps worse than a book that tries to be funny and fails, this section is merely dull.

In its favor, Marville has appealing cheesecake covers by Greg Horn that have little if anything to do with the book, but at least give you something curvy to look at. Mark Bright's pencils on the inside are good, but they need a story to support them.

Marville was born of a bet among comic-book creators. I guess they had the time and resources to spare; unless you have a burning need to spend your hard-earned cash, don't bet a dime on this one.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
8 April 2006