Rick Mason: The Agent (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

The Marvel graphic novel, Rick Mason: The Agent is Marvel espionage to the finest degree. The 1989 work introduces readers to the international freelance super spy with immediate action and adventure, as well as setting the new character right into Marvel canon through his interactions with several established key Marvel figures. 

Mason uncovers a plot in Hong Kong where super powered criminals are planning a coup to overthrow the ruling British government. His work with MI-6 seemingly completed, Mason is contacted via an early Internet message board to meet with a contact in New York. The operative turns out to be Nick Fury as you've never seen him before. Under a heavy disguise and working off the books from SHIELD, Fury hires Mason to investigate the sudden removal of a Soviet backed junta in the fictional South American nation of Costa Brava by super powered mercenaries .

As much as the United States loves to see the Soviet Union removed from South America, something about the entire coup stinks. For Mason, the whole episode feels too much like what he uncovered in Hong Kong. Eager to get to the bottom of this mystery, Mason accepts the mission. But not before a visit to dear old dad.

Rick Mason's father is revealed to be the master weapons maker to the villainous stars, the Tinkerer. The Tinkerer has heard via his clientele that the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, is backing the rebellion in return for exclusive access to Costa Brava's burgeoning drug trade. With Kingpin's nearly unlimited funds, the armored leader known only as Black Armor now rules the tiny nation, slaughtering both Soviet loyalists and supporters of the previous ruling parties indiscriminately.

Trading one brutal regime for another, Mason manages to raise up an army in order to defeat Black Armor's forces while simultaneously uncovering a global plot to replace crumbling Soviet backed governments with superhuman dictatorships. The Agent will definitely get his lumps and might get captured a time or two. But if he's smart enough, in true super spy fashion, Rick might even win the girl in the process of making the world 'safe' from tyranny. 

Rick Mason, The Agent was co-created by James Hudnall and John Ridgway. Hudnall wrote the script with Ridgway on art. Color art was provided by Lovern Kindzierski If you ended up becoming a fan of the new character after you completed this book, you're either in luck or in for some disappointment.  According to the Marvel Wiki, the Agent has only made 9 major appearances in the Marvel comic book universe. Most of those are in the pages of Ms. Marvel Volume 2. Mason does have an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and made a cameo in miniseries Deadline. Despite his limited use, Rick Mason managed to make it to the silver screen when he's portrayed by O-T Fagbenle in 2021's Black Widow. Fagbenle were return in an episode of Disney+'s Secret Invasion helping Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury out of a bind.

Worth Consuming!

Rating 8 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #26 (Set in South America) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Grant Morrison's Doctor Who #1(2023 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Grant Morrison's tenure on Doctor Who Magazine was a brief one spread from 1986-88. Working for Marvel UK, Morrison wrote 3 stories. The two-part 'Changes' and 'The World Shapers', a three-parter illustrated by John Ridgway (2000 AD). These tales featured the much maligned Sixth Doctor portrayed by Colin Baker. Morrison's third and final story, 'Culture Shock', was a single-issue adventure starring the penultimate classic Doctor, Sylvester McCoy's Seventh. Transformers' Bryan Hitch was the artist of that work. 

In 2008, IDW Publishing obtained the rights to produce comic books based on the BBC flagship sci-fi franchise, Doctor Who. Immediately, IDW began releasing reprint series based on Marvel's Doctor Who stories beginning with tales starring the Fourth and Fifth Doctor. That series, titled Doctor Who Classics, introduced stories that hadn't seen print in the United States in almost a quarter of a decade. 

Fans were indeed rabid for these reprints. Soon somebody remembered that Grant Morrison had done a run of Doctor Who stories and the combined fan base of Whovians and Grant Morrison devotees clamored for their release. If IDW went in order of Doctors, it would probably be another couple of years before the tales of the Sixth and Seventh Doctor were reprinted. That just wouldn't do! So IDW Publishing rushed a two-issue miniseries to print to meet the vocal demand. 

'Changes' and 'Culture Shock' comprise the first issue. Issue #2 collects all 3 segments of 'The World Shaper.' 

In 'Changes', the TARDIS detects an intruder aboard. The Doctor isn't very worried as TARDIS security measures will prevent the use of lethal force aboard the vessel. That all changes when the stranger overloads the TARDIS circuitry disabling the safety features. Guest starring human companion Peri Brown and the shape-shifting Whifferdill companion Frobisher, who appears regularly as a penguin.

The Doctor goes solo in 'Culture Shock' when the Timelord intercepts a psychic plea from a primordial collective. One should note that the TARDIS is featured in this story and many Whovians consider the TARDIS to be a character until itself. If one considers such a tale to not be a Doctor Who solo adventure, my apologies.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #34 (Written by Grant Morrison, Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman) of the 2023 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.