Marvel Mangaverse
Marvel Mangaverse was a Fifth Week Event from the early 2000s that attempted to blend the Marvel Universe and its superheroes with a healthy dose of the usual tropes one would find in Manga and Anime.
The results were... less then stellar; as many reviews pointed out, while it had the style of Manga, it was essentially only a cosmetic choice and the stories didn't seem to benefit from the genre shift. Not to mention being a cluttered mess that tried a bit too hard to include every superhero and villain that it could. However, it was still a worthy experiment in trying something different with the Marvel Universe, and the original event was popular enough to spin off into a (short-lived) monthly series, as well as a New Mangaverse revival in 2006.
Story Arcs
- Vol 1 (The Fifth Week Event): Focuses on the Avengers and Dr. Strange with some cameos by Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the X-Men battling a Godzilla-size Hulk. Two issues which served as bookends for most of the stand alone titles below (which were also collected in the trade paperback release). Art and writing on the bookends by Ninja High School creator Ben Dunn.
- Vol 2 (The monthly series): Two story arcs, the first dealing with Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four (who play a more central role here), Galactus, and The Inhumans. The second half deal with a battle against Doctor Doom. Ben Dunn handled art and writing here, too.
- New Mangaverse: New Rings of Fate: The finale of the Mangaverse, dealing with a Kill'Em All crisis of Superheroes. Seriously if you don't like to see your favorite Marvel killed, don't read this one.
Stand Alones
- Spider-Man: Which Re Visions him as a ninja trying to avenge the death of his Sensei Ben, who was killed by Venom.
- X-Men: Save for a few custom designs, not much has changed in this version. Mutants are being persecuted, the X-Men try to save the day. There are a few surprising twists here and there.
- The Punisher: Rarely seen stand-alone comic that showcases the Punisher as a samurai/geisha being out to stop a demon-summoning crimelord. In this version though, the Punisher is a woman who "punishes" though spankings, bondage, and other Cool and Unusual Punishment instead of a large body count. She still bears the marking of the original anti-hero. Written by Peter David; drawn by Lea Hernandez. Warning: Incredibly Lame Puns.
- Fantastic Four: Adam Warren writes what's essentially a Fusion Fic with Neon Genesis Evangelion. After a disastrous experiment Gone Horribly Wrong, Fiery Redhead Jerkass Johnatha Storm, her incredibly withdrawn and emotionless half-sister Sioux, and the Hidden Badass milquetoast Benjamin (prounounced "Ben-ya-meen") Grimm use the strange powers they gained to fight a succession of enormous alien beings attacking the Baxter Building, under the direction of their arrogant, womanizing genius commander, Reed Richards.
- The Avengers: The disembodied head of Anthony Stark has the Avengers gather the parts of a Combining Mecha to battle the Hulk, battling Apocalypse and his Horsemen along the way.
- Ghost Riders: A Walking Shirtless Scene Daimon Hellstrom walks up to Johnny Blaze one evening and tells him that they're both SONS OF SATAN, and that Johnny's got to help deal with both the Hulk and their giant demoness sister wandering through town. Daimon sets Johnny's head on fire to help prove his point; Johnny's disturbed. Written by Chuck Austen.
Tropes used in Marvel Mangaverse include:
- Absolute Cleavage: Black Cat in New Mangaverse. Carol Danvers aka Captain America II also counts in many panels she features in.
- Affirmative Action Legacy: (New Mangaverse spoiler) Carol Danvers takes up Captain America's shield and costume after gaining superpowers.
- Animesque: Natch.
- Anyone Can Die: You have no idea...
- New Mangaverse takes this all the way to Dropped a Bridge on Him with Mangaverse Doctor Strange getting killed by ninjas. Several generic, faceless ninjas.
- What they did to Tigra afterwards is even worse.
- What's sad about it is that up till that point they were among the very few heroes seen in the previous books to survive the various stories, only to get SLAUGHTERED in the first few pages of t he first issue of New Mangaverse.
- In all fairness they were Ninjas with the rings of the Mandarin
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Hulk in the version and Galactus to a lesser extent.
- Big Dumb Object: Mangaverse Galactus.
- Brainwashed and Crazy
- But Thou Must!: Captain Marvel's origin, poor guy is practically thrust into becoming a superhero.
- This fact is made worse by the fact he get killed in New Mangaverse, you can see his mother holding him on one of the screens the villains are looking over.
- Cliff Hanger: The New Mangaverse ends with most of the heroes dead and, while the remaining ones manage to win the day. They are unaware that Nick Fury was the one behind it all.
- Expy: Quite a few.
- As mentioned above, the Fantastic Four were inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ben=Shinji, Sioux=Rei, Johnatha=Asuka, Reed=(Gendo+Kaji), Agatha Harkness=(Misato+Ritsuko), Alicia Masters=Maya Ibuki. (Ben Dunn tries to bring them closer to their 616 counterparts in volume 2.)
- Johnatha is a double expy, her character design (and Princess Curls) are lifted from Izumi Himuro of Princess Nine.
- Jonatha ends up looking like Asuka from Evangelion in New Mangaverse, which makes her fit more as an expy of her in part. She and Spider-Woman (Mary Jane in New Mangaverse, Peter's student in the ways of the Spider-Clan by this time) are both essentially expies of her in this regard, while Black Cat replaces Sioux as the new physical expy of Rei Ayanami, looking almost identical to her in terms of facial construction save for a set of stripes under each eye. Peter Parker goes this route as well, becoming a relatively close expy of Shinji in New Mangaverse.
- Mangaverse Tigra, in personality at least, is an expy of Brittany Diggers[1] from Gold Digger. She, Brittany, and Earth-616 Tigra are all Cat Girls, so YMMV.
- New Mangaverse Wolverine looks a lot like Vegeta. Dresses a lot like him, too.
- As mentioned above, the Fantastic Four were inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ben=Shinji, Sioux=Rei, Johnatha=Asuka, Reed=(Gendo+Kaji), Agatha Harkness=(Misato+Ritsuko), Alicia Masters=Maya Ibuki. (Ben Dunn tries to bring them closer to their 616 counterparts in volume 2.)
- Face Heel Turn: Nick Fury and Black Cat in the New Mangaverse.
- Gender Flip: Multiple cases (Johnatha Storm, the Punisher, Doctor Doom). Zig-zagged with Iron Man; we first meet Antoinette Stark in the first volume, but we later find out that her brother Anthony is still alive -- if bodiless.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Compare New Mangaverse to Ultimatum, really.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Hand (the main big bad in the New Mangaverse) attack a military base leaving many dead. Carol Danvers is among such though she is left for dead. The attack on her changes her body giving her superpowers. It thanks to her that the remaining superheroes were saved before The Hand could kill them and managed to turn the fight around. All due to The Hand not checking their handiwork.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Captain Marvel, having to learn very fast in his situation.
- Kill'Em All: Which ended up leading to plot problems later in the story because everyone of interest got killed off so quickly.
- Left Hanging: See Cliff Hanger
- Man Behind the Man: Once again see Cliff Hanger.
- Name's the Same / My Nayme Is: Iron Man, aka Antoinette "Toni" Stark. Don't worry, folks. Anthony "Tony" Stark is still around (at least his head.)
- President Action: President Steve Rogers.
- Princess Curls: Johnatha Storm. New Mangaverse switches her over to Girlish Pigtails.
- Rule 63: Along with Gender Flip above, many of the Marvel regulars are either turned into or replaced by nubile females solely for the purpose of giving the readers something to fap to.
- Samus Is a Girl: Doctor Doom, whom we don't find out about till halfway though the story, is actually T'Channa, the sister of the Black Panther. Interestingly, she murdered the original and took his place, so she wasn't always Doom here.
- Secret Legacy: Captain Marvel's
- Together in Death: Bruce Banner and Antoinette Stark at the end of the first volume.
- The Cameo: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby show up in the first story arc of the monthly series.
- Gold Digger creator, Fred Perry himself, shows up in one panel during the first part of Vol 1.
- Flash and Gwen appear in the first issue of Mangaverse Spider-Man.
- Took a Level in Badass: Mary Jane became the Mangaverse Spider-Woman as New Mangaverse began.
- ↑ good-naturedly materialistic and skeptically ignorant of her partner's work