The Deaths of Mys-Tech Wars

Back in my comics-buying youth, one could buy comics in more places than just your local comic shop. Department stores, drug stores and dollar stores used to have discounted packs of assorted comics, organized in no way I could discern, in packs of three, four, and sometimes even 5 or ten! On one such occasion I found issue number three of a limited series called Mys-Tech Wars ( written by Dan Abnett with art by Bryan Hitch, with Caroline Steeden on Letters and Helen Nally and Helen Stone on colors), a Marvel Comics 'UK' series in one of these assorted packs, and what I saw inside immediately appalled me, and appealed to me ALL AT ONCE! (Huzzah!)

The opening double page spread (Bryan Hitch is pretty damn great at drawing a double page orgy of death) features a grouping of X-Men, Avengers and other Marvel characters battling it out with an army of Psycho-Warriors, who were unleashed by the evil Mys-Tech board to destroy earth or something. The Psycho-Warriors look like a cross between the borg and the gimp from Pulp fiction, and have the power to kill a whole boatload of Marvel super-heroes. OH, also in this two page spread: Cyclops getting a giant hole blasted through his chest and dying. No one is safe in Mys-Tech wars. This was back in 1993, the X-men cartoon was still going strong on TV, and the younger me was just getting into super hero comics full steam. To see one of my favorite characters die right there on the page was...kinda effed up.


The other thing about Mys-Tech wars are the reactions to the character's deaths. They are fairly realistic, or at the least how I imagine a reaction to a loved one's death would be. Upon seeing Cyclops gunned down in front of her, Jean becomes irrational and becomes hysterical, begging Jubilee to help her drag Cyclops' laser-hole ridden corpse to safety, further risking her own life and that of a fellow X-Man. This is the first instance of my repulsion/attraction to this series. I do not think that Jean would react in that fashion to Cyclops being killed, she has plenty of training in battle, and was the wielder of the Phoenix force for goodness sake, one of the mightiest powers in the entire universe, capable of destroying suns and flying clear across the galaxy. Here, she is reduced to nothing, a blubbering inconsolable wreck, who ends up killing herself when the world, and her mentor and friend Professor X need her the most...it just does not ring true to the character for me, which basically encapsulates my general feeling on Mys-Tech Wars as a whole. At the same time however, it is kind of cool to see a book where no character is safe..but there aren't enough hero moments, the good guys can never seem to catch a break.


The whole thing begins with Nick Fury, who invades the secret lair of the Mys-Tech board, some group of evil old people including an enemy of Nick's during his Howling Commando days. Here's what happens to Nick :




Mys-Tech then unleashes a hoard of Monster Lizard things which swarm the earth, killing many notable heroes. Spider Man and super-team Excalibur die on the same page, followed by a whole bunch more...


As it turns out, the baddies are altering reality, and the heroes that are dying were never meant to die in this fashion, and one of the main characters in the series, I think an original Marvel 'UK' character, Dark Angel, leads the fight to set things right. I think it seems like an excuse to shock and kill off a bunch of popular super hero characters...but there isn't anything really wrong with it...although sometimes things get a little too dark for my tastes in this type of super hero book, for example:


Pretty brutal, right?

The series also features a bunch of Marvel UK characters, like Dark Angel and Death's Head II. Outside of Death's Head II, I have never seen any of these characters used anywhere else, and in additon, none of them die in this series, only the established Marvel characters bite the dust.

At the end of the day, a select few living heroes alter reality and erase the damage done, and sabotage Mys-Tech's operation. Captain America and Logan stop Nick Fury from infiltrating the enemy base to get a beer instead, which is my favorite moment of the whole comic.


All in all Mys-Tech Wars was an interesting journey, that filled me with conflicting nerd feelings about the nature of superhero comics as a young fan. I had to seek out the back issues at local Philly comic shop Fat Jacks, and all of the intense battle sequences by Bryan Hitch are impressive to behold. An intense oddity if nothing else.

-Eamon