Laying Siege to Illustrative Design

"Siege" is a new mini-series from Marvel Comics, which released its first issue in January of this year, and is set to conclude next month. Essentially, it is a classically epic story, pitting nearly all of the world's Marvel superheroes against each other.

In previous comic yarns that lead up to the offshoot "Siege" series, Marvel villain Norman Osborn consolidates his power in the United States, somehow managing to institute himself as head of the nation's security. The last resistance to his control is Asgard, which is both the mythic capital of the Norse gods, and the Marvel realm based on it. After some brief delay, the focus of the series becomes clear: Osborn means to attack Asgard in order to gain full control of the world's superheroes, or at least to subjugate them.

More than comics I've read in this class, this comic is not a subtle one. It contains all the flair of traditional Marvel comics, owing in part to its inclusion of such a plethora of Marvel characters. It has the immediately-established division between good and evil, and the sense that the world's fortunes rest squarely on the shoulders of these demi-gods, (and sometimes actual gods).

Moreover, the illustrations in the comic are similarly overt. They are intensely detailed, both in terms of the background and the main characters in each panel, and coloured extremely vividly. Marvel used a wide pallet in this comic, though they are generally dark in tone, to illustrate the "impending doom" of the situation. Right from the first issue there are several full-page spreads, predictably depicting the tensest of moments, or an action-packed solo flight across the country to reach someone in time, for instance.

Having to wait for each individual issue makes this comic seem like even more of a TV show than it actually is. It could easily make a smooth transition into a superhero cartoon geared at young teenage boys, with dramatic breaks coming at the conclusion of each issue. Though the detailed images are admittedly eye-catching, they take away from a multimodal experience. Little is done in this series to unravel the possibilities of the genre. Both the words and images could function independently, relating the same story with the same amount of significance.