The Marvel Universe has a very long history of costumed heroes and villains. Its heroic history can be traced all the way back to Lifebringer One, a living embodiment of heroism. From there (and over several cosmos), generations of heroes would rise to help protect the world from evil. One of those generations would focus on a superhero team called the First Line. This group of heroes would become known...as the Lost Generation.
Marvel: The Lost Generation came about because of a bit of a conundrum when it came to the Marvel Universe's history. You see, since the events of Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961), the Marvel Universe was considered to operate on a literary device called the "floating timeline", or as it's more well-known as, the "sliding timescale". Fantastic Four #1 was considered the start of the "Modern Age" of superheroes, about fifteen years before the present. For example, now that it's 2026, the FF debuted in 2011. And next year, the year they debuted will be 2012. Now, the exceptions are stories that are deliberately meant to be set in a certain point in time. For example, the miniseries Origin (a miniseries that told the, well, origins of Logan/Wolverine I) was set in Canada in the 19th century. Many of Marvel's predecessors, Timely Comics's stories were set during WWII, because that's when they were originally published.
Because of that, by the year 2000, there was now a 4-to-5-decade long gap in time between the era of the Golden Age heroes like the Invaders, and the debut of the Fantastic Four. Remember, at this point, the FF would have debuted around the late 80s/early 90s thanks to the sliding timescale. Enter Roger Stern and John Byrne. By this time, the two were veterans to Marvel fans. Stern and Byrne's talents had graced many of Marvel's books: Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. They knew a lot of the MU's history, so it was only appropriate they be the ones to tell the tale of these lost and forgotten heroes.
You may have noticed we are starting at issue #12 instead of #1. "Why is that?" you may ask? Well, that's because unlike the other maxiseries I've looked at in the past, this one is numbered backwards, issue #12 is the first issue, etc. So, with that out of the way, let's look at Marvel: The Lost Generation #12!
The cover is a John Byrne and Al Milgrom piece. It depicts a horrified woman surrounded by bodies. It's a pretty big attention-grabber and makes you wonder what happens here, who these people are, and what just happened here. The blurb on the cover is pretty accurate, too. You'll see what I mean.
"This is Where it Ends"
Writers: Roger Stern, John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Al Milgrom
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras
The story begins with...the end. As we are going backwards in the First Line's history, we start with their final adventure: fighting an invasion of the Skrull Empire in the 1980s. This is being shown to time-traveling far future scientist Cassandra Locke by the Watcher. On the many screens, she sees many of the Earth's active heroes and even supervillains at this time fighting and dying to stop the Skrulls. They had been aware of Earth for centuries, but humanity really piqued their interests thanks to the creation of the atom bomb. A group of First Liners have managed to make it to the Skrull Fleet's flagship, but there's still a lot of soldiers, and the group is outgunned.
Locke begs the Watcher to do something to stop this madness. However, he refuses, saying that it is forbidden. You may find this odd, considering Uatu has been known to bend if not outright violate his oath, but it does make sense. Remember, this story is set long before the events of Fantastic Four #13 (April 1963), when he revealed himself to the FF.
Locke realizes this, being a time-traveler and all. She decides to use her power belt to try and help, finding herself on the Skrull ship.
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| "Oh God, the Skrulls discovered cocaine!" |
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| "AND THE YE-TAY!" |
The Yeti was rather...obsessed with Korya. He grabs her body and hops away, ranting that he's here and she'll be okay now.
The Yeti hit Cassie hard, possibly breaking her ribs. Thankfully, the Line's resident healer, Nightingale, is there to, well...heal her up.
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| "Did you get that thing I sent you?" |
This turns out to be the healing heroine's last act as she collapses and seemingly fades away, leaving only her costume. One of the last things Nightingale says is that she thought that Cassandra's warning was heeded. This confuses Cassie, naturally. She doesn't realize that this is a future event for her. Yeah, it's time-travel stuff. Elsewhere in the ship, the Atlantean criminal known as Mako is having the time of her life, tearing into Skrulls like they were made of tissue paper. She then encounters an injured Templar and his son Squire.
Templar tries to urge Mako to not give in to her savage nature. Mako points out she was created to kill and destroy. Also, they're on a Skrull ship full of soldiers that are all too willing to kill them, so maybe now is not the time, Tempy.
As if to prove Mako's point, an injured Skrull manages to get to a blaster and shoot Templar in the head, his armor offering little protection against the alien weapon. Squire angrily impales the Skrull with a lance, only to get a blast in the back himself. Mako is infuriated and starts really tearing into the Skrulls. After all, even if she wasn't too fond of humans, they still were fellow natives of Earth. Desperate to stop the madwoman, some Skrulls blow an airlock hatch, seemingly blasting Mako and them into space itself.
The hatch blowing out is heard by two other First Liners: the Eternal Pixie and archer Oxbow. Pixie fears the First Line are losing this battle, but Oxbow isn't too worried. After all, they still have each other. Pixie dispatches some Skrulls with her pixie dust, turning them into stone. Oxbow uses an explosive arrow to blow open a door. The two find a badly injured Black Fox.
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| "You should have seen the other guy." |
The Fox is wounded, but he insists it's mostly just his pride.
He bought some time for another First Liner named Effigy. He'll need their help, so they should just leave him alone. Alone with his wounds. Thankfully, he has a little company.
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| "🎵Here I come to save the dayyyyyy!🎵" |
Meet Gadfly. She's been a pain in the neck of the Black Fox, mainly because she's after his attention. She unmasks him, revealing the now-elderly face of Robert Paine. Fox dies in her arms, Gadfly lamenting that the two could have had so many years together. She kisses him and then joins Fox in death tanks to the Skrulls blasting her. Those Skrulls get ambushed by the seemingly-robotic Walkabout, who proclaims that the concept of an empire is a dying one.
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| "FOR DEMOCRACY!" |
The robot manages to take down the Skrulls, but suffers some damage, revealing said robot is actually a form of power armor for what looks like a telepathic fetus in a jar. The vampiric villain known as Nocturne then attacks Walkabout, revealing the fetus was a "Dr. Carmody".
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| "I HAD ONE PAYMENT LEFT ON THIS MECH, YA JERK!" |
Unfortunately, as the dialogue explains, Nocturne just doomed himself as Carmody can't stop the nearby Skrull blaster from overloading...and exploding. As Cassandra watches the battle, she notices that there was seemingly no record of this invasion before. As far as she's aware, the first major Skrull incursion into Earth occurred in Fantastic Four #2 (January 1962) ...and it was not at this scale. Not to mention she was unaware of these superheroes before.
However, that's tabled when she is recognized by Mr. Justice. He notes her time-travel belt looks like the one the Yankee Clipper used. She had found it in some ruins on a dig in her far future time. Justice realizes that she's the future woman the Clipper told him about...but nothing more is revealed as he gets shot in the back by a Skrull. Man, getting shot in the back is happening a lot here. I mean, I get why, but it's just a noticeable pattern.
She runs through the battles on the Skrull ship, seeing First Line members fighting valiantly and dying left and right. She tries to find a quiet spot to adjust her time belt, but finds herself in the company of Oxbow, Pixie...and a blond man. He's the "Effigy" Black Fox mentioned earlier. Effigy implores Oxbow and Pixie to get to an escape craft, as he has his own way out. They're going to blow the ship up. And Effigy is the latest First Liner to get a shot to the back. The dying Effigy transforms back into his true form...into a Skrull.
Thing is, Effigy may have been a Skrull, but he was hit by the "Alien invader becomes fond of Earth and decides to stand with it" trope. He has lived on Earth for decades, and he's come to consider it his home. Before he got blasted, he was able to somehow rig the cruiser's engines to all explode together. Cassandra tries to talk to Pixie, but the Eternal just tells her if you got a way out, take it now. Cassie agrees, using her time belt to travel further back in time. Maybe she can stop this madness before it starts. Good luck with that, Cass.
Pixie flips the switch, and the Skrull ships go kablooie.
The invasion is stopped, but the First Line has seemingly been exterminated in the process. And the governments of the world work to cover it up to not only panic people about the existence of aliens. The Watcher notes that the government will also keep an eye on scientists like Reed Richards, Henry Pym, and Bruce Banner to help create a defense, and also may play a role in the birth of the next generation of heroes: The Marvel Age. He and another guest converse.
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| "By the way, you know when that pizza I ordered will come?" |
Strange asks if Cassandra's quest is doomed to fail, if this is the end result. But the Watcher points out that just because she failed to save the First Line, doesn't mean that she hasn't succeeded at their beginning. And that is her true tale...
I did enjoy this comic. Starting it with the death of the First Line is quite an interesting choice. I do have a bit of an issue of the explanation of how they ended up being forgotten. A bit of a minor spoiler here, the First Line debuted in 1958 (in-universe, not the real world). They've been a superhero team for about thirty years by this point. You'd think someone would notice that a whole bunch of superheroes and supervillains had suddenly vanished. Maybe a sorcerer with a grudge against the Line took advantage of this and cast a spell to make people forget? It would not be that implausible in the Marvel Universe, and I can imagine the Line has faced their share of magical foes.
Another thing I liked is the bits of character stuff and foreshadowing we saw here. For example, Templar and Mako's interactions could imply that there was some form of mutual respect between them. Oxbow and Pixie also seemed close. And the revelation of Effigy being a Skrull is a nice twist. It helps show that not all Skrulls are warmongering conquerors. Also, in a way, he can be seen as in-universe foreshadowing of Skrulls that end up being allies and friends of Earth's heroes like Lyja the Lazerfist and Jazinda.
About my only criticism is the bit with Gadfly and Black Fox. It's a bit squicky, although to be fair, the Fox didn't seem to be too fond of her.
John Byrne's art here looks a bit, well, rougher for lack of a better term. I can't help but wonder if it just looks that way from Al Milgrom's inks, though. I mean, look at his art on Uncanny X-Men with Terry Austin inking. It looked cleaner. But still, Byrne is a veteran, and his style then was still preferable to the likes of the 90s imitators.
All in all, this was a good story about a team of heroes facing their final battle, sacrificing their lives to save the world. Sadly, the miniseries has never been collected in a standalone trade. It has been collected as part of an Omnibus: The Marvel Universe by John Byrne Vol. 2. If you don't want the Omnibus (they're big, heavy, and expensive), you'll have to hope a comic shop's back issue bins have it. I got the maxiseries on eBay. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time!
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