Sunday, December 1, 2013

Zombies aren't the only things that want your brains

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Well our resident Rom curator Gary Martin Jr. does it again. What you see here is the first of three pages featuring the Dire Wraiths in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Handbook A-Z update issue 1 of 5 (2010). I'm only featuring the first page for a reason which I'll get back to. As a whole the entire entry is pretty thorough in regards to the long history of the dire wraith in the Marvel Universe I have to say I was impressed. It's all stuff long running Rom fans pretty much know about but it does act as a reminder of interesting tidbits (page 2) that even they may have forgotten such as the tension between dire wraiths born on Wraith World in The Dark Nebula and those born on Earth. We also are reminded of how dire wraiths forged documents like birth certificates for their new cover identities when they first arrived on Earth which apparently started prior to but increased during World War II. Page 3 concludes with a series of head shot images of notable dire wraiths among then such as Dr. Dredd, Agent Kraller of SHIELD, Rachel Sweet of Project Safeguard, Most High One, Jacob Marks (Hybrid's father), Woodcrow Cather (Avengers #244), Kattan-Tu (Hulk #262 back story) etc.
But what I really like about the first page is that it appears to feature some new clip art quite possibly developed just for this updated Marvel Universe Hand Book entry. I'm speaking of course of the very well done dire wraith female there by Gus Vasquez which I don't at all recognize from any already existing clip art in the Marvel Universe. We also learn on the first page how a sect of dire wraiths came to find themselves as part of the Universal Inhumans.
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There also seems to be some varied interpretation as to what male dire wraiths really like but I just leave that to individual speculation. I say that because in the 2006 over sized hard bound Marvel encyclopedia the dire wraith entry clearly describes the natural state of the males and females as looking different where as on the 2010 Marvel Universe hand book page seen above you it implies males and females all look like the red skinned non-humanoid version. The 2006 encyclopedia also includes entries for The Torpedo, Turbo and makes a ROM and Dire Wraith mention in the Skrulls entry. No entries for Galadorians or spaceknights unfortunately. I wanna thank our resident custom figure guy Chris for the Marvel encyclopedia loner.

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6 comments:

  1. Excellent posting Shlomo! Thats some great Wraith info and and some decent Wraith art too. No worries about the loner man! If theres one thing that this blog has taught me its that we ROM fans who aren't dicks really are a community. I appreciate being a part of that.

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  2. I did forget about the tension between the earth born and dark nebula born wraiths. This is very cool and love that they added headshots of the most high one,agent Kraller and the good miss sweet. Very nice touch to the post being brought to us by Delmar Insurance. Awesome!

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    1. yeah isn't that great I finally got some corporate sponsorship for this blog.

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  3. It amazes me that Marvel still sticks in an occasional Wraith storyline and that they seem to get much better treatment than the Spaceknights ever have since the end of ROM. You would think that the very potential of what a solid Spaceknights storyline could bring in with merchandising and even movies would compel them into doing it right.

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    1. even on the dire wraith front marvel hasn't done much of anything worthwhile in recent years. the appearances they've made like in Fear It's Self and X-Men Legacy didn't make any sense at all.

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  4. This is great. Still on the fence about what the males look like. It seems marvel is too.

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