What do you think?
Rate this book
Marvel Mangaverse #1-4
MARVEL MANGAVERSE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Collects Marvel Mangaverse #1-6, New Dawn, Avengers Assemble, Fantastic Four, Ghost Riders, Punisher, Spider-Man, X-Men, Eternity Twilight. East meets West as your favorite heroes are reimagined in hyper-kinetic style by some of the most celebrated artists of the massively popular Japanese art form, manga! It's a new dawn as the Marvel Universe emerges like never before. Brace yourself for a kaiju-esque Hulk and a mecha-style Iron Man! Plus versions of the Avengers, Spider-Man, Punisher, Ghost Rider, the X-Men and more unlike anything you've ever seen before! The excitement only builds with a fresh take on the Galactus saga, manga-fied! Can the Fantastic Four and friends save the day, or are they destined to meet their Doom?! Make yours Marvel manga!
392 pages, Paperback
First published December 27, 2017
9 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Ben Dunn
645 books19 followersBen Dunn is an American comic book artist. Although born in Taiwan, he grew up in Kentucky, Taiwan and San Antonio, Texas. It was in Taiwan that he was first exposed to Japanese manga. In 1984 he founded Antarctic Press, an American comic book company specializing in Manga-style titles. In 2003, he sold Antarctic to start his own development company, Sentai Studios.
Dunn was also one of the primary artists involved in the short-lived Marvel Mangaverse project.
Dunn was also one of the primary artists involved in the short-lived Marvel Mangaverse project.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 1, 2019
Very, very mixed. I read this because I am doing a class about Japan and world cinema which deals with how Japan is depicted abroad, and while this is a bit outside of "cinema", I still thought it would be fun to read as a Western take on Japan and I might be able to reference it in class, especially in connection with the Big Hero 6 comic.
One big frustration: This isn't really the complete collection of Mangaverse titles apparently, as there are more X-Men Mangaverse stories I guess, plus a New Mangaverse continuation.
Many of these stories are done by Ben Dunn, who also did a number of "How to draw manga" books. Sometimes his work is great, sometimes it looks terrible--especially the faces. Still, I admire his spunk and I really like that he is a big fan of tokusatsu--King Ghidorah, Baltan, Gigan, Megalon, Battra, and Biollante all make cameo appearances (I remember a bunch of Gamera monsters also appeared in Dunn's art books). There is also an appearance of Pikachu in a jar and the car from the Castle of Cagliostro, among other references.
Some of the reimagined manga-versions of characters are tons of fun. Some of them are absolutely awful. My favorite was probably the Fantastic Four solo story, which had great art and I loved the giant versions of the four heroes.
But golly-wow some of the adaptations are just trash-fire bad. The worst is by-far Ghost Riders, which has just mind-blowingly bad artwork that tries to combine CGI models and crudely-drawn characters plus no sense of perspective. The pitchfork used by one of the titular Riders looks like it was drawn in MS-Paint. Just astonishingly ugly stuff, and the writing is also very poor. Just these two demon-born characters standing around chatting outside a restaurant, then a huge demon babe (who seems to always be leaning awkwardly forward) and a horde of copy-paste monsters straight out of a bad video game appear, and they are quickly defeated. The Punisher was also quite poor--Frank Castle is reimagined as a geisha girl who tickle-tortures a baddie named Kusugutai ("ticklish" in Japanese) and works as a school principal in her dayjob as she fights against Skang-Kee Ho. Get it? Skanky Ho? The art in this one is also quite poorly rendered, but nowhere near as horrendous as Ghost Riders. Oh my gosh.
Still, despite my complaints, I enjoyed the main story. This isn't exactly fantastic material, but I had fun.
One big frustration: This isn't really the complete collection of Mangaverse titles apparently, as there are more X-Men Mangaverse stories I guess, plus a New Mangaverse continuation.
Many of these stories are done by Ben Dunn, who also did a number of "How to draw manga" books. Sometimes his work is great, sometimes it looks terrible--especially the faces. Still, I admire his spunk and I really like that he is a big fan of tokusatsu--King Ghidorah, Baltan, Gigan, Megalon, Battra, and Biollante all make cameo appearances (I remember a bunch of Gamera monsters also appeared in Dunn's art books). There is also an appearance of Pikachu in a jar and the car from the Castle of Cagliostro, among other references.
Some of the reimagined manga-versions of characters are tons of fun. Some of them are absolutely awful. My favorite was probably the Fantastic Four solo story, which had great art and I loved the giant versions of the four heroes.
But golly-wow some of the adaptations are just trash-fire bad. The worst is by-far Ghost Riders, which has just mind-blowingly bad artwork that tries to combine CGI models and crudely-drawn characters plus no sense of perspective. The pitchfork used by one of the titular Riders looks like it was drawn in MS-Paint. Just astonishingly ugly stuff, and the writing is also very poor. Just these two demon-born characters standing around chatting outside a restaurant, then a huge demon babe (who seems to always be leaning awkwardly forward) and a horde of copy-paste monsters straight out of a bad video game appear, and they are quickly defeated. The Punisher was also quite poor--Frank Castle is reimagined as a geisha girl who tickle-tortures a baddie named Kusugutai ("ticklish" in Japanese) and works as a school principal in her dayjob as she fights against Skang-Kee Ho. Get it? Skanky Ho? The art in this one is also quite poorly rendered, but nowhere near as horrendous as Ghost Riders. Oh my gosh.
Still, despite my complaints, I enjoyed the main story. This isn't exactly fantastic material, but I had fun.
January 2, 2019
I mainly got this collection since it was on sale and I was curious about the story behind the Mangaverse Spider-Man character. But I was sorely disappointed with how this book ended up being like as if felt more like a limited Western view of what manga is like based on anime with some very poor art at times. The art was very mange-esque in appearance but felt more like fan art by well-meaning artists who didn't quite have the full skills to execute things.
Stories were weird and a lot of the arcs gut stuck on the notion of the sentai/mecha side of the manga world so the Avengers and the Fantastic Four both had giant robots for the heck of it. Panels were super full of text and didn't capture those instances in manga where a lot of wordless action was well utilized to advance the story. I think I only really appreciated the Spider-Man story and maybe the big crossover events towards the end of the book but a lot of the individual efforts especially the Ghost Riders book were just horrible.
Stories were weird and a lot of the arcs gut stuck on the notion of the sentai/mecha side of the manga world so the Avengers and the Fantastic Four both had giant robots for the heck of it. Panels were super full of text and didn't capture those instances in manga where a lot of wordless action was well utilized to advance the story. I think I only really appreciated the Spider-Man story and maybe the big crossover events towards the end of the book but a lot of the individual efforts especially the Ghost Riders book were just horrible.
May 3, 2018
This.was.awesome!!!!
What a brilliant idea, a long story arc done in Manga style!! Like what would happen if the Marvel universe originated in Japan?
The Hulk as Godzilla!!!! A female Iron Man (Toni Stark)! The Fantastic Four created not by radiation but with special suits that give them the same powers! The X-men subtly changed ( Cyclops is a true Cyclops)! All in wonderful illustrations, the human form taken to ridiculous proportions, Manga style. Perhaps the only style that can be even further over the top than regular graphic novel illustrations. Muscles ripple, breastfeeding defy gravity, and nary a costume malfunction in the bunch.
The story will keep you going through 300 plus pages, highly recommended.
What a brilliant idea, a long story arc done in Manga style!! Like what would happen if the Marvel universe originated in Japan?
The Hulk as Godzilla!!!! A female Iron Man (Toni Stark)! The Fantastic Four created not by radiation but with special suits that give them the same powers! The X-men subtly changed ( Cyclops is a true Cyclops)! All in wonderful illustrations, the human form taken to ridiculous proportions, Manga style. Perhaps the only style that can be even further over the top than regular graphic novel illustrations. Muscles ripple, breastfeeding defy gravity, and nary a costume malfunction in the bunch.
The story will keep you going through 300 plus pages, highly recommended.
April 3, 2021
Just couldn't get into it
I'm a fan of both Marvel and manga, but I just could not really get into this adaptation. The story wasn't great, but not bad. The art was very good, if a little liberal with the fan service. I wanted to like this more, but it ultimately wasn't for me.
I'm a fan of both Marvel and manga, but I just could not really get into this adaptation. The story wasn't great, but not bad. The art was very good, if a little liberal with the fan service. I wanted to like this more, but it ultimately wasn't for me.
December 28, 2022
probably the weirdest and worst book i’ve read in awhile. as someone who hasn’t read much manga, this felt disrespectful and boring. the spider-man comic was pretty cool tho, but that’s really it.
Read
September 6, 2018Well, this was something.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews