Issue(s): Quasar #2, Quasar #3
Cover Date: Nov 89
Title: "Destiny amidst the ruins" / "Angles not found in nature"
Credits:
Mark Gruenwald - Writer
Paul Ryan - Penciler
Dan Bulanadi - Inker
David Wohl - Assistant Editor
Howard Mackie - Editor

Review/plot:
The early issues of Quasar's series continue to look backwards. Issue #2 especially is used to explain where the character had been since his last published appearance in 1982, and also delves further into the origin of his wristbands. It's worth noting that Mark Gruenwald first submitted the plot for issue #2 in 1984, but the Quasar series did not get greenlighted until 1989 for reasons i discussed in the entry for Quasar #1.

But these issues aren't only backwards-looking. Issue #2 sets up a new (albeit recycled) role for the character and issue #3 has starting to set up the status quo on Earth that will be the basis for his series.

But we start with a bearded Quasar in space, where he's apparently been for "several years" while flying to Uranus under his own power.

It seems that after failing Project Pegasus one too many times, he gave up his super-heroics and fell into a depression. Finally, his mother called her ex-husband and Quasar's father, Dr. Gilbert Vaughn, who came up with the idea of sending Quasar on a long journey through space to search for the supposed Uranian civilization where his bracelets came from.

Now, my understanding of the outer gas giant planets is that they are, well, made of gas, at least until you get deep into their centers. So even if you get past the gravity, temperature, and atmosphere problems, they aren't really places where humanoid beings could live. So i would have expected that if we were going to confirm that the aliens that contacted the Graysons in the Golden Age Marvel Boy stories really were Uranians, it would be shown that they actually lived on one of Uranus' moons, similar to the Eternals of Titan. But Mark Gruenwald does include a fact card on Uranus, with info culled from a 1986 issue of Astronomy...

...so i'll take him at his word that it's feasible for Quasar to find the ruins of a civilization on the surface of the planet.

He finds that the colony's protective dome was shattered, and all of the (human looking) people inside have died from exposure.

Inside a museum, he finds evidence that the colonists had fought off a Kree sentry.

By the way, Quasar isn't just monologuing. He's in radio communication with his father back on Earth, but there's a long delay due to the vast distance, and he eventually realizes that communication has been cut off. It's at that point that he finds out that he's not alone in the colony. Deathurge is also there, doing a very poor Popeye impression.

He also explains his purpose in a much more straightforward way than we've ever seen in the past, and he also provides a history of the Uranian colonists. They were Eternals...

...that eventually got bored after discovering an equation that explains the universe. I'll never understand these immortals that get so bored they want to die. Had they already finished cataloging their entire Marvel comics collection?

At that point they contacted Dr. Grayson (aka Horace Grabsheid), father of the original Marvel Boy. And while they provided him technological advances, it turns out they were really studying his body for the secret of removing their own immortality. But in the end it was Deathurge who, (according to him) with their blessing destroyed their dome.

The original Marvel Boy wasn't aware of Deathurge's involvement, and that's why, after finding his father and the Uranians all dead, he came back to Earth and rampaged before his death, blaming Earth for the fact that he wasn't there when everyone died.

Deathurge actually knows nothing about Quasar's bracelets, and the real reason he's there is because he's sensed the same ennui in Quasar, and he's here to help.

While Quasar might have been feeling depressed for the past few years, he doesn't take Deathurge's attempt to kill him sitting down.

He hadn't counted on Deathurge being able to pull skis out of his chest, though.

He eventually gets covered in Deathurge's inky black substance, but instead of dying, he it teleported away.

And he finds himself face to faces with Eon, the character that granted Captain Marvel his Cosmic Awareness.

It turns out that Captain Marvel was just the latest in a long line of Cosmic Protectors.

Interesting to see an Elan among the races of former Cosmic Protectors since (i think?) one of them was also once the Sorcerer Supreme, as mentioned in Doctor Strange #2. It's seems we're halfway to potential all-Elan super-hero team set in the distant past. I also recognize the Shi'ar and the Space Phantom, and is that the Puffball Collective on the far left? Not sure about the others but the fish guy reminds me vaguely of a Green Lantern i might have seen once.

You'll also note that all of the previous Protectors are wearing the bracelet that Quasar has, except Captain Marvel. The reason for that is not just that Mar-vell already had different bands of his own. It's because at the time Mar-vell was being made the Protector, the bands had accidentally wound up with Robert Grayson despite the fact that he wasn't worthy to be a Protector (which is why he burnt out).

Eon tells Quasar that he wants to make him the latest Cosmic Protector, and that there's a specific crisis brewing that Quasar will need to face. All Eon knows about the threat is 1) it will come from space, 2) it will manifest on Earth, and 3) it will try to slay Eon and gain his secret of cosmic awareness.

Eon doesn't seem to actually grant Quasar Cosmic Awareness the way he did for Mar-vell, but he does open his mind to "total mastery" of the quantum-bands, along with a new costume emphasizing his sexy armpits and, more sadly, a shave.

In the rematch fight with Deathurge, Quasar wins seemingly because he's conquered his despair, not because of any additional power from Eon's upgrade.

The emergence of this new "Life-urge" causes Deathurge to retreat.

Deathurge was a character that i first encountered in Roger Stern's Avengers run, and there is was especially cool and mysterious. Or maybe cool because he was mysterious. But that mystery couldn't be sustained forever. I don't really love the idea of Deathurge becoming just another Nightmare/D'yspare type character as an agent of Oblivion (who we'll later learn is another personified entity), but of course Deathurge was Gruenwald's character all along, so this was probably his intention, and i'll just continue to enjoy the period where he was an agent of Maelstrom who was actually working towards his own mysterious purpose.

After the fight, Quasar takes Eon back to Earth so that he can guard him from the comfort of home instead of in Eon's "backwater dimension". Luckily, Eon is able to warp space so that it doesn't take another "several years" to get home.

The technical details of this are explained in another factsheet, this one on issue #3's lettercol page.

That page, in a faux-interview with Quasar, also defines Cosmic Awareness, saying it's not the same as being omniscient and:

I think "cosmically aware" means you have access to all the knowledge in and of the whole universe. Think of it as like having a computer with every single bit of data stored inside it. Just because it's in there, doesn't mean you can instantly sift though and find the particular datum you're looking for. It takes time to wade through the sum total of all the knowledge in the universe even at the speed of thought! And it's not like you can call up an infinite amount of information an concentrate on it all at once.

So basically, it's a lot like having a smartphone.

You'll note that Paul Ryan draws Eon at all different sizes, and that's by design. As a cosmic being, he can be as big or small as necessary to fit his weird looking head into every panel. "I think it depends on his mood or something", according to the Quasar interview.

Quasar and Eon arrive at Quasar's dad's house at the beginning of issue #3, and one thing i kind of like is that Quasar just goes right in and tells his dad the whole story.

No dancing around with secret identities or worrying about blowing his father's mind or anything like that. What i don't like is that we cut away before Dr. Vaughn actually meets Eon. Going back to Gruenwald's intended "cosmic from a human perspective" theme, Quasar has actually taken everything he's seen so far, from the implausible Uranian colony to an avatar of Oblivion to being made a Cosmic Protector by a floating space potato, completely in stride. Really no reaction from him at all. So seeing his father reacting to Eon should have been a pretty cool scene. We will get to see Eon and dad talking at the end of the issue, after their initial meeting, but it's not the same.

What's also a little weird is Quasar's plan to open a Security Consultant firm, for income but also ostensibly as "a cover for my 'cosmic activities'". We'll see how that plays out. SHIELD is defunct and Project Pegasus is back to pure energy research, and i guess those were Quasar's primary contacts at this point, but you might have thought he'd try to get some help from his friend the Thing, especially considering where he winds up this issue.

But Quasar goes out looking for some office space to rent, and he discovers that the Baxter Building has been replaced with Four Freedoms Plaza. Silent cameo from Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman.

Before he can go in to inquire about office space, his bands detect a threat. It turns out to be the Human Torch battling Magma (not the New Mutant) in Brooklyn.

Since that's not really a threat (this will be that Magma's last appearance), Quasar returns to Four Freedoms Plaza, checks out some office space, and offers to make Madonna his secretary.

Another silent cameo, this time by Dr. Strange, above.

Then Quasar notices something weird...

...and follows it back into Four Freedoms Plaza where he finds that it has accessed the Fantastic Four's private elevator. He follows, setting off the FF's alarm.

And the guy he's following is definitely weird.

Meanwhile, Madonna (actually Kayla Ballantine) is already getting confused about whether Wendell is going to be her boss or her boyfriend, realizes that he left her with his lease, and she returns to the building as well.

And so does the Human Torch, and of course we're all set up for a Misunderstanding Fight.

Eventually, Quasar gets the Torch to follow him to where the "Angler" is. The villain has made it into "Reed's" weapons vault, and is going for the Nth Projector.

It's at this point that Kayla (having taken the wrong elevator up) wanders in and gets taken hostage.

But Quasar is able to zap the Angler when he's reaching for the elevator button, and Kayla then stomps on his foot and breaks free. The Human Torch slags the Nth Projector...

...and Quasar puts the Angler in handcuffs that will last "indefinitely", and then leaves.

He gets home to find his dad more interested in Eon than his latest exploits.

Quasar is going to be Mark Gruenwald's book to explore all the weirder corners of the Marvel universe. So far it's just set up, but we've already seen a lot. The Uranian Eternals, Deathurge, Eon, Magma, the Nth Projector. Cool stuff. Unfortunately, Gruenwald has no knack for dialogue or character. He's not a terrible scripter, exactly, it's just that all his characters have no personality. But the issues can still be a lot of fun, and Gruenwald is definitely trying to do stuff on the human side by introducing Kayla and with the way he uses Quasar's father. Paul Ryan's art is solid, with very traditional panel layouts, and he does a nice job with the weird Angler and Eon.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Kayla Ballantine. First Angler.

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place before Quasar's Avengers appearances beginning in Avengers #302. To avoid conflicts with the Human Torch's power problems, i'm therefore placing this before Inferno really starts to heat up (pun acknowledged!). You could argue that it should be pushed back even a little further, before Inferno starts at all, since Quasar doesn't seem to detect any signs of it. But i'm sticking with the MCP's placement for the Human Torch, which puts this after his appearance in Daredevil #261. Since even this placement requires these issues to be placed nearly a year before publication date, i've tagged this entry as a continuity insert, although it's hardly in the same category as Untold Tales of Spider-Man. The MCP count the Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman cameos, but not Dr. Strange (i hope not just because of the lack of eyepatch). I've included all three, but i wouldn't let them affect placement.

References:

• As Quasar flies through space at the beginning of issue #2, there's a recap of his entire career up to that point, including his origin from last issue and:
  • His debut as a member of the SHIELD Super-Agents circa Captain America #217.
    
  • Fighting alongside Captain America and against the Hulk, circa Hulk #233.
    
  • Working as head of security at Project Pegasus beginning in Marvel Two-In-One #53.
    
  • Falling prey to the Serpent Crown in Marvel Team-Up annual #5. It was this final failure the caused him to put away his costume until he agreed to fly to Uranus.
• Quasar recognizes the Kree Sentry as being similar to the one the Fantastic Four fought, first in Fantastic Four #64.
  
• We saw the Uranians contact Dr. Grayson in Marvel Boy #1 and the (seemingly) original Marvel Boy go crazy and die in Fantastic Four #164-165.
  
• Captain Marvel became a Cosmic Protector in Captain Marvel #28.
  
• Quasar tries to remind the Human Torch that he was at the FF's Christmas party in Marvel Two-In-One #74.
  
• The Nth Projector was seen previously in Captain America #289. It's speculated that the Angler is one of the Commandos that was sent by the Brand Corporation to use the projector on the FF in that issue, having somehow gotten stuck halfway between dimensions (through the use of the device?) and that he wanted it to restore himself.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A

You left out Kayla Ballantine as a character appearing.
In Avengers 247, Deathurge mentions serving a master that is more evil than Maelstrom, so yeah, Gruenwald probably was planning this all along, especially since this was around the same time as his original Quasar proposal.
I never did like the retcon of this story in Agents of Atlas. Yeah, it's Deathurge telling the story of how the Uranians died but Eon makes it sound like the real Grayson had the bands and died.
Re:Quasar not detecting signs of Inferno- as we'll see in later issues, one of the limits on his bands is that they while they can detect or absorb "cosmic" energy,they can't detect or absorb magic. (Although Rachel's use of the Phoenix force counted as cosmic not magic.)

Presumably the guy to the right of Mar-Vell in the Cosmic Protectors panel is of the same race as Starbolt, of the Imperial Guard?

Added Kayla, thanks.

Good call, James. That's definitely what he is. And i see that his race has never been named. If another of his species wasn't shown in that panel, i would have assumed that Starbolt was an enhanced Shi'ar, but i guess this confirms that he's from another species.

That's what I thought as well, James. And next to the Shi'Ar is an Enfant Terrible.
Gruenwald was setting up his own Green Lantern Corps here.

Enfant Terrible = Elan.

FNORD - The Green Lantern you're thinking of is Tomar-Re - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomar-Re

Thanks, Clyde. I was thinking of Tomar-Re, but he turns out to be pretty different looking than Eon's former fishman Cosmic Protector.

fnord... I thought that may be the case but I followed the link to the Doctor Strange issue you posted and I didn't see anybody that looked like him, so I assumed you were referring to someone else.

Yeah, Dormammu mentions the Elan as one of several races that had "that power which was given to mankind" but there aren't any actually in that issue. And it's a little unclear what the power is, exactly, and if Peter Gillis really meant the Enfant Terrible Elan or was just making up names like he did for a number of other races and it was just a coincidence.

It is possible that Gruenwald was subtly drawing inspiration from Lensman (which is a clear inspiration for the Green Lantern concept). The Lensmen were of varied species and their Lenses were specifically stated to "fix" their respective weaknesses - for Humans, that meant giving them awesome telepathic powers. Maybe the Bracelets are part of the reason why Quasar is so much more confident after meeting Eon, and they similarly made the Elan more serious, the Space Phantom more ethical, etc.

Danny Bulanadi was a great inker. His work looked amazing on Dwyer's pencils over on Cap and gave them a great finish. Here, he takes Paul Ryan, an artist I was never too nuts about under Tom Palmer, and makes his work look great.

Gruenwald revealed a lot of the stuff about the Uranians (including their encounter with the Kree Sentry) in the "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe" back-up stories from What If? #23-28 (not covered on this site as they are all very very pre-WW II).

In summation:
Back before man had came about in the Marvel Universe, Kronos and Uranos fought over what direction the Eternals should take (Uranos wanting to rule Earth as it's superior race). There was a war between the two factions which Kronos won. Uranos and his army were exiled from Earth as punishment.

They eventually arrived on Uranus where they discovered a Kree outpost. They were attacked by the Kree Sentry stationed there and during the fight Uranos begins to lock horns with a fellow exiled Eternal called Astron. Although Astron urges caution about destroying the Kree Sentry, the bigger debate between the two is to do with seeking revenge on the Eternals on Earth. Honestly, I think Gruenwald is great but Astron is a troublesome idea. He was supposedly exiled from Earth alongside Uranos for siding with him in his desire to rule the planet... but upon arriving on Uranus he is depicted as a peaceful knowledge seeker who seems to abhor violence. I suppose maybe he's meant to have made some realizations or atonement during the journey to Uranus but none of that is said in the comic.

Anyway, at this point, Astron's unnamed lover discovers the Quantum Bands in the Kree outpost. This is either something Gruenwald purposely choose to ignore in Quasar or which posits an interesting connection no one has picked up on since: are the Quantum Bands of KREE design? And therefore do they share a greater connection with the Nega-Bands than we've all thought? Or alternatively what the hell are they doing at the Kree outpost? We're still before the dawn of man, so the idea Eon is bequeathing these to his Protectors either means he didn't have a Protector for some 65 million years or that he returned them to Uranus in time for Robert Grayson and later Thelius to use. (mind you, there is a LOT of awkward things where the story seems to forget it's actually before the dawn of man, particularly stuff with the Kree).

Anyway, eventually Uranos leads almost all of the exiled Eternals off planet in a spaceship headed to Earth to battle the Eternals on Earth. Astron, his lover and a few others stay behind. They are the more peaceful ones and founded what would actually be the Uranian race of peaceful science nerds.

As for Uranos? Well, his early orders to destroy the Kree Sentry result in the Kree launching an attack on Uranus just as they are departing and the result is all their ships are destroyed and the ones left behind on Uranos are spared (the Kree assume the entire race was leaving). The Kree abduct one of the Eternals call Arlok and experiment and study him and this actually leads to the Kree's creation of the Inhumans. It ends showing Uranos and some of his men survive in the rigors of space and end up on Titan. Which I don't actually get coz they already had set up Mentor departing for Titan, so the suggestion seems to be Mentor took in the disgraced Eternals and Uranos? I've not read the Starlin stuff or the Roy Thomas Thor stuff in ages, but that bit was the only thing that didn't really jibe for me.

The Uranian Astron from those stories seems to feature in the flashback depicting them unlocking the secret to life.

The (remains of a) Kree Sentry depicted here is Kree Sentry 213 and does have other appearances (in those What Ifs which are technically flashbacks anyway), if you want to track it.

Ha, I actually forgot to point out the thing that I was originally going to post before deciding to write up exactly what happened in those Gruenwald Untold Tales.

The dome on Uranus (which was actually erected by the Kree) was actually smashed by the Uranians. There is a whole sequence in What If? #27 with the Kree acknowleding that. This issue of Quasar on the other hand says that Deathurge was responsible for shattering the dome and doing so killed all the Uranians within:
https://40.media.tumblr.com/792fdd6b4d526f49ce953f00f15571d7/tumblr_o5oljazw5l1tms107o1_540.jpg

I'm guessing this is just Gruenwald doing some hardcore selective continuity. Which is a shame since he established the original idea anyway. Maybe he just decided not enough people had actually read the Untold Tales so that gave him the opportunity to retool it completely for Quasar.

Thanks for the summary, AF. Interesting that Gruenwald seemed to contradict himself on a few points, and i agree that's an interesting possibility regarding the origin of the Quantum Bands.

I'll add Kree Sentry 213 if i see him appear elsewhere (in the background somewhere in the 2010 Uranian miniseries, maybe?).

Mark Gruenwald wrote five of the six Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe from What If? which explained how Eternals from Earth became the progenitors of the humanoids who had previously been shown to live on Titan and Uranus. It's a safe bet that he had them in mind when he expanded upon the back-story of the Uranians (now the Uranian Eternals) in Quasar #2.

As for the matter of when the Omni-Dome on Uranus was smashed, the obvious answer would be that it was actually smashed twice, once long ago when Uranos launched his crude spaceship through it and a second time, much more recently, when Deathurge destroyed it. I've always assumed that Astron and his three fellow exiles had repaired the dome after the Kree armada had investigated the ruins and left. In fact, until I just reread that issue, I could have sworn that it contained a scene in which Quasar thought to himself that there were signs that the shattered dome had previously been repaired but now I can't find it. Either I imagined it entirely or I'm actually thinking of some other story.

As for how the Quantum-Bands ended up on Uranus, in Quasar #10 Captain Atlas wonders if they are actually the legendary Power-Bands of Rinn which had last been seen in Earth's vicinity when Sentry 213 recovered them and placed them in a weapons depot "somewhere in (Earth's) system." Clearly Mr. Gruenwald was trying to tie into those earlier Untold Tales. However, there's a chronological conflict here, since Sentry 213 supposedly recovered the Power-Bands "several millennia ago" and yet that same Sentry was the one destroyed by Uranos and his followers in the much more distant past, millennia after the Eternals of Earth were created by the Celestials. Of course, the date when the Celestials first visited Earth is now also debatable. Early editions of the Official Handbook state that the First Host visited Earth approximately one million years ago but some more recent Eternals stories have tried to push that date back to between five and seven million years ago. I'm not sure which date is currently considered "canon" but I prefer the one million year theory. Unfortunately, that doesn't help with the fact that Sentry 213 supposedly recovered the Power-Bands of Rinn a very long time after it was destroyed and Astron's Eternals had taken over the former weapons depot.

Which part did Gruenwald not write? I always try to remember to look at the credits but don't recall anything sticking out like that. You're not confusing them with the lousy two-parter Inhumans/Eternals ones by Gillis that start in What If #29? I was using 65 million years as just a guess, I actually had no idea if that was true of the Marvel Universe. Regardless of the time passed, it's still far too long for there to not have been a Protector of the Universe (considering how many they've gotten through since the 70s).

Since the Eternals/Uranians could survive without the dome, I'd question whether they really had a need to rebuild it. Then again, other than tearing it down, they might as well fix it rather than have a garish broken dome.

The alternative is maybe Deathurge was lying to instill a lot more hopelessness into Quasar? In which case it's a bit of a continuity easter egg but also makes Eon again look like he's a tad useless for reliability but also makes it a bit easier to work with the more modern Uranian continuity.

Which brings me onto the Agents of Atlas/Marvel Boy stuff, that's take on the Uranians is pretty hard to fit alongside with Gruenwald's take(s). Parker's version seems to be based on someone who definitely hasn't read those Untold Tales and probably hasn't read Quasar either. We're told Uranus is a penal colony for Eternals and they intended to invade Earth. They had a grand plan to trick Earth into welcoming them with open arms to circumvent a pact made with the Eternals of Earth that forbade them from invading. They were manipulating Grayson into acting as their "emissary". Marvel Boy was proving hard for the Uranians to control. This is basically where Agents of Atlas and the Marvel Boy series manage to screw up their own continuity! In Agents of Atlas, he was summoned back to Uranus due to an emergency. As he arrived it was destroyed by "being bombarded by radiation from the planet's core". They all died, their plan to invade and take over Earth immediately over. Upon their deaths, Grayson had become aware of their true intentions.

In Agents of Atlas, after Uranus is destroyed, fortunately there's some "native Uranians" who are a membrane or something like that. Grayson joins with that and that's more or less where he's been all the time. Crusader was awoken during or after the destruction of Uranus and he was basically faulty. In this case, his Quantum Bands are said to be superior duplicates of Robert Grayson's. So Grayson never even wore the Quantum Bands!

Whereas in the Marvel Boy series, when Grayson started proving hard to rein in, they murdered his father to get him to return to Uranus where they take his Quantum Bands from him and give them to Thelius who they intend to awaken to send to Earth. This is more or less where that series ends. We don't see the destruction of Uranus in it. Of note is the Uranians in this one are depicted very different to in Agents of Atlas. There's absolutely no "native Uranians" or membrane. The Uranians themselves seem a bit more like they work alongside Gruenwald's version, it's mostly the 3 shady cabal council characters in charge who appear to be evil and want to invade Earth.

However, neither of these two versions depict a race of Uranians who were welcoming death (Quasar #2).

Jeff Parker has admitted himself that he screwed up a LOT of continuity with the original Agents of Atlas series and he tried his best to fix what he'd messed up. But like Venus, I reckon the Marvel Boy/Uranians/Quantum Bands seemed to be something that he just couldn't find a way to fix without inadvertently screwing up something else he overlooked. (btw, Jeff Parker is a super swell guy and totally up for a chat about the nitty gritty and behind-the-scenes of his work)

Entirely speculation on my part, but, the "membrane" might never have existed. It may have been another lie the Uranians mentally forced onto Grayson. The Marvel Boy miniseries, as I said, didn't have any mention whatsoever of a membrane collective of Uranians and ended with the evil council basically set to win and replace Grayson with Thelius.

So what I'm saying is, Grayson returned and they placed him in stasis, taking his Quantum Bands and giving them to Thelius (or just giving him the real Quantum Bands depending on which version you prefer). Mentally feeding Grayson the belief that he was in some great membrane union with true Uranians. This could also square some of the contradictory information about Uranus being destroyed by it's radiation as being part of Grayson's fantasies. Being in this membrane stasis is also what saved him from perishing with the rest of Uranus.

I'm the next Nathan Adler.

Mark Gruenwald wrote the Untold Stories that appeared in What If? issues #23 and 25-28 but Ralph Macchio wrote the one in What If? #24.

Eon came into existence 8 billion years ago but it's never been revealed exactly when he first chose a Protector of the Universe. However, the first Protector that Eon chose is known to have been the Stygian Starbender (Glakandra or Glakandar) and he wore the Quantum-Bands.

I agree that Jeff Parker's retcons aren't that great. He has a reputation for knowing continuity facts but apparently he feels free to ignore them. He wrote a story for the Mystic Arcana: Scarlet Witch one-shot that tried to reconcile the family history of the Russoffs with other stories and the result is just a horrible mess. Worse yet, it seems to have been accepted as "official" canon. Ick.

I vaguely recall it making no sense but that was true of most of Mystic Arcana. Sadly, the goal of it was to do for Marvel magic what Annihilation had done for Marvel Cosmic. It's distressing to see the finished product as it really shows just how little belief Marvel had and how little effort was put into even attempting it.

I think I can one up that "Jeff Parker continuity" with there's an issue of Thunderbolts (#156, I believe) where the team mock the idea of Blizzard ever being a Thunderbolt. Blizzard was a member of the Thunderbolts for about 30 issues during Nicieza's New Thunderbolts run. In the same issue he has the characters acknowledge Boomerang had been a Thunderbolt for all of two minutes in the Guardian Protocols story. The story which was also among those 30 issues that featured Blizzard as a member.

But he's just too nice a guy to really fault.

But this is getting off track. Uranians? what's the deal with them?!

Actually, I thought that most of the Mystic Arcana one-shots were okay, story-wise. The Magik one featured Storm's ancestor from ancient Egypt and the Black Knight one added some interesting details about how Sir Percy became the Black Knight. The problem with the Scarlet Witch story was that Jeff Parker tried to make some sense of the interactions involving the Darkhold but he did so by conflating the Baron Russoff from the 1930s with the Baron Russoff who was Jack Russell's father. It ended up a mess with Baroness Russoff as a gypsy who knew about her husband's curse before he died. This is inconsistent with previously-established facts.

Anyway, back to the Uranians. They were first introduced in Marvel Boy's stories from 1950 but no explanation was ever provided for why they looked like Caucasian human beings or how they were living on Uranus - they just were. They were killed off decades later in the Fantastic Four story which introduced the former Marvel Boy as the revenge-crazed Crusader.

Mark Gruenwald's Untold Tales established that they (and Thanos' people from Titan) were descended from the Eternals of Earth. These Untold Tales retconned Jim Starlin's origin of Thanos by changing Mentor's family tree, making him the younger brother of the Eternal Zuras instead of the Olympian god Zeus. Similarly, the godly brothers Chronos and Uranus were changed to brothers who were among the first generation of Earth's Eternals.

Since Uranos and his followers had been banished from Earth for their warlike ways by the Eternal leader Kronos, they were, in a sense, criminals and Uranus was their prison. However, given that they had renounced violence, the idea that the native Uranians (introduced by Parker) were willing to kill them if they didn't stay on Uranus seems a bit out there. While I really like the fact that Parker brought the original Marvel Boy back from the dead and revealed that he had never been the insane Crusader, making the benevolent Uranian Eternals into would-be conquerors of Earth whose execution was therefore justified doesn't really work for me.

Also, Parker's retcon conflicts with Deathurge's story of how the Uranian Eternals wanted him to kill them all because they no longer had anything to live for but were unable to kill themselves. However, while I'd prefer that the explanation from Quasar #2 remain intact, Deathurge's story could easily be dismissed as a lie that he told Quasar since, as far as I know, his version of how they died was never substantiated anywhere. So, Parker's claim that the Uranians killed the Uranian Eternals is workable, if not ideal.

Sorry to interupt, but Marvel is so thorough and lavish with its event back story I'm so grateful for their existance. I was dubious but thanks to these reviews/analyses and humorous commentary, Quazar series may be one of my next reads. Great stuff!

*Quasar, not Quazar

Hmm... Did Quasar ever team up with Ka-Zar?

There's a joke about the name similarities in one issue and there was a whole Fred Hembeck strip in Marvel Age also about the name similarity.

But no, they've not even met. They were in a room together in Contest of Champions but so were 100+ others.

Okay, based on everything else we see in the series, I've identified all those Protectors more or less (from left to right):
1. A member or portion of the Puffball Collective or the Puffball Collective's race (Hulk #301-308),
2. Ree of Archeopia (Thor #160-162, Quasar #26-27),
3. Trantra of the Trill (Quasar #26-27),
4. an unidentified Elan (Fantastic Four #24),
5. an unidentified Shi’ar,
6. Mar-Vell of the Kree a.k.a. Captain Marvel,
7. an unidentified member of Starbolt’s unnamed race,
8. a Space Phantom from the planet Phantus (Avengers #2, Thor #281-282),
9. Tomar-Re from Green Lantern,
10. Glakandar the Stygian Starbender (Quasar #26-27, #41-43),
11. Andwella of Gamora's home-planet Zen Whoberi (Quasar #41-43).

Tomar-Re is the only one I'd be unsure of, due to the colouring and lack of detail, but it's totally in-line with Gruenwald and his past work to work that sort of thing in. Glakandar and Andwella both are very undetailed but it looks like both them. With regards to Busiek's dreadful retcons, there's all sorts of problems with a Space Phantom being there.

@AF: How many people actually remember that there were Protectors before Mar-Vell and Quasar?

"Quasar returns to Four Freedoms Plaza, checks out some office space, and offers to make Madonna his secretary"

That's not Madonna! Cyndi Lauper or Lita Ford or Taylor Dayne maybe.

I feel that Fnord's rep as an expert on 80s pop/rock chicks has taken a serious blow here.