Issue(s): Infinity Crusade #1
Cover Date: Jun 93
Title: "Epiphany"
Credits:
Jim Starlin - Writer
Ron Lim - Penciler
Al Milgrom - Inker
Craig Anderson - Editor

Review/plot:
This is the third and final (unless you count 2002's Infinity Abyss) of Jim Starlin's Infinity crossovers. This seems to be the least regarded of the three. It does provide the service of creating a delineation regarding which Marvel heroes are receptive to religion (although more on that below). And the actual premise of the series is an interesting one on multiple fronts. First, as the "bad guy" it features the "good" half of Warlock (when Warlock briefly held the Infinity Gauntlet, he expelled his good and bad sides in an attempt to take on the responsibility of holding the gauntlet in a neutral manner; the previous Infinity War was about what happened to his bad side). This allows Starlin - creator of the In-Betweener - to return to themes about the dangers of extreme philosophies regardless of their (perceived) benignity. As someone raised on D&D's alignment system, this has always had an appeal for me. But the truth is that it doesn't get much more than lip service during this story. Beyond that, one of the first things the Goddess does is eliminate all crime and war on Earth, and that should have set up some interesting moral conflicts around the benefits of that vs. the question of free will similar to what Mark Gruenwald did during his Squadron Supreme series (with a different flavor since the heroes themselves wouldn't be responsible for brainwashing anyone). In fact, with hindsight i really think it's a shame that this aspect wasn't explored in a lot more detail. It really should have been the focal point of the series, or at least the main thing that the tie-ins dealt with. Instead, like with the previous two Infinity series, the majority of Marvel's heroes basically stand around waiting for things to happen and/or acting as (explicit) cannon fodder while Starlin's favorite characters do the heavy lifting. And as with the previous stories, i wouldn't mind that if Marvel were just a little more honest about it. The problem is that the story is presented as being something that all of Marvel's heroes are participating in, whereas it's really a Warlock story that happens to have a lot of other characters in the background. The tie-ins were potentially a way to solve that, if something constructive had been done with them, but that's not the case.

And in any event, the actions of the Goddess are pretty clearly presented as an obvious bad thing, with the characters that side with her clearly being brainwashed, so any potential this series had is wasted, even just in the context of the core issues.

On top of that, there was just bound to be Infinity Fatigue at this point. Not only is it the third line wide Infinity crossover in three years, but this one comes only six months after the last one. So it felt like Marvel was just continually doing Infinity crossovers (not to mention running a ton of other crossovers at basically the same time). Books with multiple tie-in issues just seemed to be permanently dealing with unrelated Infinity stuff instead of their own storylines. This crossover does have slightly fewer tie-in issues than Infinity War, and also fewer books participating (the exact count depends on how you count the unlabeled titles; e.g. there are two issues of Iron Man featuring the Goddess that don't have the Nabisco corners). But the tie-ins feel even more worthless than the previous ones. There are two tiers of crossovers, with Warlock and the Infinity Watch and the newly created Warlock Chronicles being placed in a different category than the rest of the tie-ins:

And the Warlock books do flesh out events from the main series, whereas the other books are seriously peripheral. But the truth is that if you weren't an insane completest like me, the best way to enjoy this story is to focus exclusively on the actual Infinity Crusade issues. You'll miss nothing skipping the non-Warlock books, and what little you will miss from the Warlock issues is outweighed by the benefits of a more streamlined, less diluted, read.

The story begins with Adam Warlock, having a vague sense of danger, using the Eternal Orb to contact Eternity. However, Eternity tells him that what Warlock senses is of no interest to him.

Eternity cited "the terrible good that is within you" as one of the reasons why he woke Warlock from his coma, so the fact that Eternity is now saying it's of no consequence to him seems like a contradiction. Maybe Eternity knows that Warlock being active is enough to deal with the threat, and doesn't want to interfere further than that.

After returning to the material plane, Warlock is visited by the Goddess.

She attacks Warlock, and he disappears.

We then see the Goddess calling out to various Marvel heroes inclined towards religion. So this is where we start to see which characters might be religious. In some cases, especially when you get to myth-based characters, it's not really a surprise. Like of course Hercules believes in his dad Zeus, and Namorita worships Triton. It's the characters that have real world religious beliefs that are more interesting, and there are also some that are just weird.

I guess Living Lightning being Christian (presumably Catholic) isn't a surprise, but it wasn't necessarily a forgone conclusion (unlike, say, Firebird). Sasquatch being Jewish is new information in and of itself; the fact that he's religious is definitely a surprise, both because he's a scientist and because he's had so much contact with elements of the Inuit pantheon that i would think he'd be inclined to see all religions more as supernatural creatures (again, though, not a forgone conclusion; there are plenty of real world scientists that are religious, etc.). I don't know what the significance of the grail is for the Black Knight; shouldn't it just be a cross again? (Sister Zoot, have you been lighting the grail-shaped beacon again?) And i don't know what Sersi is supposed to be seeing, but i wouldn't think the Eternals were religious (they honor their ancestors, but understand themselves to be the products of Celestial "science"). I don't know why Storm sees an ankh. She is definitely religious (By the Goddess!" / "By the Bright Lady!") and she grew up in Cairo, but she's not a worshiper of the Egyptian pantheon.

At this point she just flashes those symbols in front of some of her targets, but she later approaches characters directly (she's invisible to anyone else in the room).

This comes at a bad time for the Invisible Woman, since she's currently possessed/influenced by Malice, which is either a psychic entity (it was sort-of presented as a doppelganger during Infinity War, actually, but it existed before that) or just a repressed side of her personality. Either way, it seems like something that should be addressed when revealing Sue's "little-spoken-faith". Thor is actually in a similar situation at the moment, and for him that will be addressed head on. The situation with the Invisible Woman is a lot more vague, which is i guess why it's not addressed here. Daredevil being actively Catholic wasn't something we really saw in his own book yet, but his mom's a nun so it's not a surprise. I'm agnostic (ha ha) on Spider-Man being religious.

And now the clincher. The Goddess' ability to recruit someone does not definitively prove that they are religious. We see here that Dr. Strange is susceptible simply because he is in touch with the spiritual side of nature, and Wonder Man because he's been "dead", and Cap because of his moral character.

We'll likewise learn that not being selected doesn't mean that you aren't religious. The Beast will say in this story that he believes in God, but he's not recruited by the Goddess seemingly because his faith isn't as deeply felt.

So in terms of determining who is or isn't religious, this story is only of limited value.

I didn't go through every character that is recruited, but here's a splash.

The non-affected characters see the recruits stepping through portals, and eventually get together at Avengers Mansion to stand around for five issues figure out what's going on. In a little bit of confusion, Mr. Fantastic is also teleported away, but that will turn out be the work of Pip (with Maxam and Drax), who is trying to get help since Warlock, Gamora, and Moondragon have all gone to the Goddess.

The Hulk is one of the heroes that arrives at the FF's place, even though as far as i know he wouldn't have seen anyone get pulled away. Quasar is said to be "off planet" for this whole storyline. It's also said that no one has been able to contact Excalibur or X-Force.

We also see the Goddess approaching the still-unknown bearer of the Reality Gem. She doesn't seem to take the Gem, but she whisks the owner away similar to what she did to Warlock.

We later see a purple hand locating Adam Warlock on another plane of reality.

As we saw at the end of Infinity War, the Goddess has a collection of Cosmic Containment Units (e.g. the Cosmic Cube), which is i guess why she doesn't want the Infinity Gems.

All of this attracts the attention of Mephisto, who decides that he needs allies.

At the end of this issue, the Goddess creates a planet which she calls Paradise Omega. She brings her recruits to a temple there. We'll later learn that the planet is in the same location that Counter Earth used to be, on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.

For the first issue of the previous two Infinity crossovers, i felt like they started off well and then noted some problems as the series went on. With this one, there's less of a hook to get things started. We see some heroes recruited by the Goddess, and we learn that the Goddess is Warlock's "good" side, but the implications of it all are unclear. We learn nothing of the Goddess or her plans. It feels like it's being taken for granted that we're going to be interested in this, when in truth thanks to Infinity Fatigue the opposite is true and we really need a hook more than ever. The implications of who is recruited are somewhat interesting, but mostly we get proselytizing from the Goddess as opposed to character studies that give us any depth on the why of it. In some cases (e.g. Sasquatch) we'll get a little more of that in the tie-in books. But the point is that in this issue, the main opportunity for character work is squandered, and those scenes come at the expense of other character moments. For example there's very little interaction when all the heroes get together. They mainly just rattle off who is and isn't available and get right to the work of explaining the plot. So we're not off to a promising start. To be fair, that's in part just because this is more of a slow build; we'll get some of what i'm asking for in later issues. But i don't think the series could afford a slow build when you're asking fandom to engage in yet another gigantic crossover like this.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Obviously for books with Infinity Crusade tie-ins we know where this event fits. For the others:

The MCP has this crossover taking place during Fatal Attractions. I think that might be due to the way X-Force leads into the Deadpool miniseries and the subsequent dependencies between Juggernaut's appearances in Deadpool and Thunderstrike (see the considerations for Deadpool #1-2 regarding that). But the way i've put breaks in both the X-Force and Deadpool series, i don't think it's necessary for Fatal Attractions to begin prior to Infinity Crusade. And barring any other considerations, i'd rather not have Infinity Crusade in the middle, due to the costume change in part 2 of Fatal Attractions in X-Factor #93 (they're wearing their old costumes here). The MCP lists Colossus as appearing in this issue. I don't see him, although i may just not be squinting hard enough. He definitely appears on panel during this crossover, in Thor #464, so this should take place before part 3 of Fatal Attractions in Uncanny X-Men #304 when Colossus is recruited away by Magneto. The conclusion of Fatal Attractions definitely has to take place after this story, since Wolverine loses his adamantium there.

For what it's worth, Four Freedoms Plaza looks undamaged in this story. There are really no good breaks for any FF appearances outside their own series around this time, but this definitely takes place before Mr. Fantastic seemingly dies in Fantastic Four #381.

The Black Knight has Valinor in this story, placing it before Avengers annual #22 (and therefore the back-up in Avengers #366).

The MCP has the Hulk appearing in this crossover during Hulk #407.

You can see the scan at the top for the official tie-ins for this issue, but it's a little more complicated than that (e.g. the Doctor Strange story actually takes place prior to this, the Avengers West Coast and Iron Man issues are the beginning of two-part stories) and i'll deal with each in their own entries.

References:

• Eternity woke Adam Warlock from his coma and gave him the Eternal Orb in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #15.
  
• We saw the Goddess take the Cosmic Containment Units in Infinity War #6.
  
• The Invisible Woman had a stillborn baby in Fantastic Four #267.
  
• Wonder Man "died" in Avengers #9, and that's presumably what Starlin intended for the Goddess to be referring to. It's worth noting that in the recent Wonder Man #22 he came to the conclusion that he never really died. But heck, in that same arc he visited Hell, so maybe that's what the Goddess means.
  
• Hulk compares the disappearances to the ones in Infinity Gauntlet #1 and suggests that the heroes should check on Thanos, but quickly agrees that "purple puss" doesn't seem to be involved this time.

Crossover: Infinity Crusade

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I was definitely suffering from Infinity Fatigue, or maybe more Warlock Fatigue at this point...I think when I read there would be a new Warlock Chronicles title it actually inspired me to dump Infinity Watch and get out of Warlock-related comics entirely. But I still bought Infinity Crusade, of course, because how can you not...and it had a gold foil cover, so valuable collectors item.

What really vexed me was, what does religion even mean in the Marvel Universe? A lot of these people have fought alongside or against a variety of gods, none of whom really merit worship. Most of them were involved in Infinity Gauntlet and must be aware that, in their universe, anyone can aspire to be a god above all others with the right accessories. Dr. Strange, who apparently is religious enough to be recruited here, has personally had direct communication with the living embodiment of the universe, a lot of times. Spider-Man once taught the Beyonder how to poop in a toilet. Do these superheroes pray, and if so, to whom, and why? Does Captain America go to church, and then does he feel really uncomfortable palling around with Thor in Asgard, which basically breaks the first two commandments just by existing? ...none of which gets explored in this book of course.

Ugh, I hate this story so much. Seeing characters like Spider-Man and Sue Storm portrayed as meaningfully religious is like finding out a beloved uncle is super-racist. There are good stories about religion to be done in comics (that one about Magma meeting Hercules comes to mind) but it really needs more thought than this in a world in which characters have met literal Norse or Greek gods, fought and defeated cosmic space gods, and are aware that there are multiple hells controlled by different deities.

So is the Goddess supposed to look like Joan of Arc, or is that just a coincidence?

Sersi seems to seeing a Mobius strip - as good a representation of eternity as any, I suppose.

I don't think the Goddess' criteria can be interpreted in a coherent way here, unless she is lying shamelessly at least half the time and she is in fact choosing those who are more susceptible to her control (as hinted later on with Silver Surfer).

She is not choosing the characters for their moral qualities, or else Moondragon, USAGent, Namorita, Wonder Man, Archangel, Sasquatch, Susan Richards and Storm would not make it while Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, Scott Summers and Hank McCoy did not.

Nor is she choosing them for their beliefs proper, as evidenced by Beast's speech and by the sheer variety of beliefs among those she chose.

I am just now realizing how underdeveloped Jean's character has been despite all the time under the spotlight. I have no idea how moral she is, although she tends to follow moral leaders such as Scott and Charles. Maybe the idea is that Goddess is recruiting mostly followers, people with a Strong sense of duty? That would make more sense, but still fail to address the situations of many characters - Scott, Charles, Heather, Sersi and Reed come to mind.

There are also some glaring omissions. Quasar chief among them. He is an extremely moral character _and_ his role makes him a natural, almost a requisite, for this series. That is probably why he was glossed over - it would be difficult to write him in without making him shadow Warlock.

@Luis- Jean has been portrayed as the "good girl" since Inferno- Inferno had Jean as the good girl and Maddie as the "bad girl", which was a disappointment since previously they'd both had their flaws and virtues.
I guess the idea is that US Agent was susceptible because he'd recently become religious again after the US Agent limited series.
I didn't like the idea that everyone religious (or whatever you call it) was on the "wrong side" in this story. Unfortunate Implications.
"For what it's worth, Four Freedoms Plaza looks undamaged in this story."- Which is impossible, since it's not fixed until FF 385 and Reed is dead by then.

Jean is supposedly carrying Maddie's essence at this point in time. An essence that literally sold her soul, IIRC. And her behavior has not been noticeably moral one way or the other since, IMO.

USAgent... I should probably avoid talking about him altogether, I suppose. I have certainly had enough of him back in 1990 or so.

There are certainly unfortunate implications, but this is all so aimless that I suspect it is a waste to feel bothered by it (although I certainly did).

We're back on comics I've read! For some reason this issue is littered with nearly identical close-ups of the Goddess's mouth. What is that about? I see that in the panel where the heroes are gathered at Four Freedoms Plaza Iceman is up to mischief, looking innocent while tripping Speedball so that he lands face first in She-Hulk's boobs. That scamp.

The Vision's definition of 'religious' is very broad and somewhat inconsistant. Spider-man gets through by 'deeply held moral stand' and having had a near-death experience (in that weird issue when his heart stopped and he met Death and Thanos). So it doesn't make him Christian or anything else.

I think the ankh symbolises Storm worshipping life. The Black Knight should talk to Tony Stark. When you start hallucinating giant booze floating in the sky it's time to admit you have a problem!

I like how the recruitment speech is tailored to suit each character. She tells Spider-man that they can make everyone happy, stokes an us against them paranoia in USAgent and tells Moondragon that she's really cosmically special and can be in charge of everyone else.

@Luis- I think we're supposed to assume that Jean lost Maddie's essence in the Judgement War mess. I'd argue that she's been the "good girl" since then- for example, in Fatal Attractions, she argued against Xavier tampering with Magneto's mind.

Bendis will later contradict this story by having Beast say he's an atheist. Although it's easily explained away as Beast losing faith in between stories, really it's another example of a modern Marvel writer (and their editors) not doing the research.

I'm going wirh Sersi seeing a representation of the Uni-Mind.

I wish that Mike DeCarlo inked this, instead of Al Milgrom. Mike did a great job on FF #336, the last issue of Acts Of Vengeance.

As just about everyone says, I was pretty well done with the Infinity crossovers at this point.

Fnord, i think you hit it on the head with your analysis...let's see how the next issues pan out.

WTF is this? I'd heard of this series, but I'd given up on Marvel by this point. How the hell did Starlin get the license to do all three of these idiotic crossovers? You can make a valid character point about the importance of religion [Nightcrawler praying during the "Brood Saga," or defeating Dracula by forming a cross, Dani "Valkyrie" Moonstar being helped by the Frog of Thunder] or you can make an interesting superhero story/"What If" about, say, Kal-El landing on Earth in smalltown Kansas and being raised to believe that God sent His only son to Earth and coming to the natural conclusion.

Dragging in real-world religions, and doing it so badly, just makes me throw up my hands and be grateful that I stopped reading these books. Kenya is mostly Muslim and Catholic. Storm as a weather goddess doesn't make much sense even in context, but it's light-years away from thinking she'd care about an ankh.

I get a really horrible smug "atheism wins" undercurrent throughout the whole series. Absolutely hate it.

And Quasar's absence, as noted, is terrible. Not that he'd do anything were he there.

I retrospect of Beast's reveal as atheist, it's possible that people converted by Goddess are simple believers and the rest are just (open or in denial) atheists.

But the Goddess only kidnapped a minority of the heroes- it's highly unlikely that the majority of heroes are atheist.

Why would it be unlikely? As Fnord points out in the review, most Marvel superheroes have met or at least are aware of various cosmic and supernatural powers that are equivalent to the gods of most religions, yet they are not gods. If the heroes know Infinity, Beyonder, Galactus, etc exist, it makes sense that far fewer of them would still believe in the gods of the major religions than in our world.

Even Nightcrawler had a huge crisis of faith after meeting the Beyonder, and he was more religious than most other heroes to begin with. So after the two Secret Wars and all the Infinity business, it makes sense that many of the heroes would become atheist/agnostic if they weren't so already.

Several years ago there was a story in a Marvel Holiday Special that showed the various Jewish heroes celebrating Hanukkah together. Sasquatch was in that splash, and I distinctly remember thinking "When was it revealed that Walter Langkowski was Jewish?" I had completely forgotten that it was revealed in Infinity Crusade #1.

In fact, I have completely forgotten pretty much *everything* that took place in this miniseries. All I can recall offhand is that for six issues half of Marvel's heroes fight the other half, then Thanos & Warlock do something terribly clever while everyone else stands around looking like morons, and the Goddess ends up as a disembodied spirit in the Soul Gem, just like the Magus before her.

I get that Jim Starlin has a major axe to grind against organized religion. A lot of people do, myself included. But this was already well-tread territory for Starlin, who previously gave us the Universal Church of Truth in his original Warlock stories and the Church of the Instrumentality in Dreadstar. This miniseries adds nothing to the discussion. It's basically saying that organized religion is sooooo awful that the Goddess has to literally use mind control to get anyone to follow her. So much for subtlety!

I think I still have my copies of Infinity Gauntlet buried somewhere, but I sold off both Infinity War and Infinity Crusade on Ebay in the late 1990s. I haven't ever had any cause to regret getting rid of them.

Out of curiosity, which Marvel superheroes are Jewish? The Thing, Kitty Pryde, Sasquatch, Sabra (presumably)... anyone else?

Justice is the only major character I can think of off hand. Though Peter Parker does say "Oy" a lot lately.

(Note that in the next issue, Ben Grimm will be seen in flashback in a Christian graveyard when his aunt dies, and there was a reference to Sunday School back in Marvel Two-in-One 55, so I figure the Thing was still presumed to be Christian when this was written.)

Moon Knight's father was a Czech rabbi.

From what I recall, Andrew, that was something that Bendis threw in when he started writing the Spider-man books because he (Bendis) is Jewish and started invoking certain "mannerism" in Peter to him more "Author Avatar-ish"

And wow, did everyone forget about Magneto, whose Jewish heritage is a BIG part of his backstory?

Also you'd think in a story about heroes grappling with faith and religion, Firebird would be in this book somewhere. Or Wolfsbane (the go-to girl for stories about religious repression.)

@Jon Dubya: Yes, several years ago it was finally established that is definitely Jewish, but I hesitate to refer to him as a hero.

In addition to those already mentioned, Songbird, Wiccan, Doc Samson, and Dominic Fortune are Jewish. Iceman is Jewish on his mother's side but was raised Catholic. Any incarnations of the Golem are very likely to be Jewish.

Piotr definitely asked about superheroes. Magneto does not fall into that category, IMO.

Some of the heroes seem to be chosen because of death/near-death experiences and having had a glimpse of an afterlife. Others maybe, for their belief in a "greater good" expressed in a spiritual way rather than a rational way. Others for their "divine" connection or having been perceived as divinity (as in the case of Thor.)

Hey depending on which week of the year it is, ol Mags can be a "hero." (Noawadays he's more heroic than Cyclops.)

The biggest problem is that half of the characters involved would be too cynical for the type of "religiousity" that would have to be invoked. (Archangel? Quiksilver? Not people strongly religious OR with good moral charach

Well the second biggest problem is the we have too many "Infinity Whatever" series. I know I have a hard time dustiguishing between them (If Fnord didn't menntion it, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recall if this was the third series or not.)

The Young God Bright Sword was Israeli when he was mortal. (I think he may have broken with his faith when he chose to become empowered and called a "Young God".)

Storm's religion was never explored all that much. I figured all the "Goddess" and "Bright Lady" stuff was meant to indicate she worshiped some fictional nature religion. Perhaps the Ankh was chosen because she grew up in Caïro, or because of her Egyptian ancestor Ashake?

Even though this is a really underwhelming story, I have to say that Ron Lim did a great job penciling it. I've always though Lim was an underrated artist.

Re: Magneto, X-Men Unlimited #2 had recently retconned him to being Romani, not Jewish. (Well, I'm not an expert on the cultures but I think there's no reason he couldn't have been a Romani Jew, either in terms of ancestry or religion, but I don't think that was the intention at the time.)

Also depending on where you put Fatal Attractions with regard to Infinity Crusade, he's either thought dead (pre FA) or in a vegetative coma (post FA), and in either case isn't really in a position to take part in Infinity Crusade.

If Starlin is just targeting church based religion as a form of brainwashing and control then I would be disappointed with his lack of originality. But I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he is warning about the perils of other "Religions" such as environmentalism, faith in science,determinism, faith in government and collectivism. Goddess could very well represent a world government.

Ironically in the Marvel universe the "rational scientific" good guys here would be proponents of determinism and the spiritual bad heroes are ones that through faith believe that they can exercise free will. They have the capacity to choose either to believe or not to believe. Captain is the main hero here in that he opts out of the faulty belief. The "good guys" who lack faith are like machines.

Tuamos: "most Marvel superheroes have met or at least are aware of various cosmic and supernatural powers that are equivalent to the gods of most religions, yet they are not gods. If the heroes know Infinity, Beyonder, Galactus, etc exist, it makes sense that far fewer of them would still believe in the gods of the major religions than in our world."

I disagree, but not entirely. First of all, they have first-hand experience with the supernatural, existence of beings far beyond the realm of human experience, to say nothing of first-hand proof of reincarnation and the existence of a soul. Is Mephisto not proof that that Devil exists, a living incarnation of all that is evil? If Mephisto isn't actually the Devil, doesn't that beggar the mind of how much worse Hell might be? You may not believe in Hell, but you didn't believe in Mephisto until ten minutes ago when he kidnapped your girlfriend for his latest evil scheme.

Second of all, I think in a superhero world, basically every superhuman would believe in higher powers. If nothing else, they have first-hand experience. Unless I'm misremembering, even the Punisher was sent to Heaven and then reincarnated on Earth. That would send any sane human being towards looking up previous examples. [Insane people with superpowers would leap to "I'm God" and commit the appropriate atrocities.]

Continued: Where I don't disagree is that there's no way to know how this would affect real-world religions. I used the example of Clark Kent growing up in small-town Kansas, as well as Storm proclaiming herself a weather goddess in Muslim/Catholic Kenya, where they'd like help with crops sure, but that doesn't mean goddess worship. Most likely Len Wein and Chris Claremont didn't know anything about Kenya and couldn't be bothered to check Wikipedia, but it is what it is.

I think it would lead to more religious belief among the heroes, to be honest. To make up an example, meeting the Watcher, then Dormammu, then Galactus, then the Beyonder, then Eternity, it would make them wonder how much higher-up the scale goes. Or drive them insane. I admit, I like Chris Evans self-strapping a parachute for his first HALO jump in decades and telling Scarlett Johansen "There's only one God, Ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." This doesn't mean that real-world religions wouldn't be radically-altered though.

And sorry about misspelling your name. I thought I had it, but then checked and saw I was totally wrong.

Ben Herman, totally agree about Ron Lim. The characters look right, the action scenes are good, the downtime scenes look good, the cosmic scenes look good, the pacing and layouts are of high quality. And I believe he was doing a ton of work around this point, regular series, mini-series, fill-ins. High praise for Ron Lim.

Ron Lim was the anchor for Marvel throughout the early 90s for me. Love his art.

I guess the high powered cosmic beings could be explained as highly advanced aliens rather than a God. Their existence may not destroy one's faith but would certainly challenge the uniqueness we currently experience.

Given that we're well into the 90s at this point, I'd add that Ron Lim could do great sexy females that weren't remotely on the same level as the Image artists. Nova was basically a nude female and I never found Mantis sexy no matter who drew her, but they both looked like real women [superwomen] with normal facial expressions and body language. His fill-in issue of "Excalibur," Megan, Rachel and Kitty were hot (along with Jean Grey and the X-Babies and various other characters like the female cop who pats down Brian) but what they were saying and doing was far more important than 'large-breasted babe in tights.' The look on Jean's face when baby Nathan soils himself is priceless, as is Rachel's while watching outside. Kitty lecturing the New Mutants like she's so much better, then sees Li'l Illyana and has a brief hug with Dani about what they've been through.

Most comics artists are men, and I always cite Terry Moore's example of 'if I'm going to sit at a drawing board for ten hours to make someone's butt look good, it has to be a butt I want to look at.' Ok, they're mostly overdeveloped sex bombs, but they look and act like believable overdeveloped sex bombs, as in real people who behave like individuals. And Lim could do action scenes, people sitting and talking, pacing, layouts, backgrounds, the characters were immediately recognizable... He was awesome.

@ChrisW- Grek Pak retconned it that the locals were just humoring Storm because they needed help with the crops:
https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/4875921.html

Ok, I'm torn. That's actually a good retcon, it's just the story shown in those scans is uninteresting, and Storm and Forge are so far away from the characters I used to know that I'd be willing to throw the retcon out the window if there was a better retcon coming along. And what does an ankh have to do with Ororo's religious beliefs?

I guess Starlin chose it because it's the only religious symbol from Africa he knew of, and/or it's the only one he thought the readers would recognise? As Fnord points out, even though Ororo did grow up in Cairo, it still makes little sense to use the ankh, as the ancient Egyptian religion doesn't really have any followers in modern times, and Storm certainly has never been portrayed as one.

It could make an interesting story about what the experience of being treated as a goddess did to her once she learned she was only a mutant. If the Goddess is tracking people by religious belief, wouldn't Nightcrawler and Wolfsbane be much more obvious targets? The Thing and Kitty Pryde? [I don't know when Ben was retconned into being Jewish, and Kitty has - in my experience only - never been shown as particularly devout, but at the very least Dracula was wounded by her Star of David.] The Black Panther? Daredevil? All the Eternals, Norse Gods and Greek Gods?

@ChrisW- she DID go after Daredevil, Wolfsbane, Sersi, Hercules and Thor- I get why they didn't want to have more than one Eternal, etc. Nobody could find Excalibur for whatever reason.

The reason why X-Force didn't appear in any of the Infinity miniseries was that it would have been too expensive since Josh Brolin wanted to be paid double his salary to play both Thanos and Cable at the same time :)

@ChrisW: "Most likely Len Wein and Chris Claremont didn't know anything about Kenya and couldn't be bothered to check Wikipedia, but it is what it is."
Lol. Since the character was conceived in the 70's looking stuff up on wikipedia would have been kind of hard without a time machine....
There was a time when it wasn't as easy as today to get information about nearly everything instantly.

You know how many public libraries there are in New York City?

Actually, no I don't. ;)
What I meant was there's a difference between getting infos at the whim of your fingertips or having to go to a library, no matter how near it is. And yes, I'm also of the opinion that a good writer should do some research but Claremont's writing is considered good bc of other things and not bc he got all "real life facts" right.

I mean if wanted everything to be 100% like real life I wouldn't be reading comics, right?

It doesn't have to be "real life". But, IMO, if you're referencing "real" places, you should do the research. He could have called it any fake name and it would have been ok.

You have this placed after Wonder Man #25 but Simon is still wearing his old costume in this. Probably easier to just go with saying he's put the wrong vest on for the duration of the crossover, right?

Thanks for pointing it out, AF, but yeah, basically. For what it's worth, it looks like the MCP place just the last page of Wonder Man #25 - which debuts the new costume - after Infinity Crusade, meaning that IC takes place during Wonder Man #25. So for my site since i don't break up the issues, you could assume the last page is a flashforward or you can assume that he grabbed his old suit for IC.