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STUDIO REMARKABLE

Marvel '1985' by Mark Millar

Hulk

Introduction

Mark Millar’s Marvel 1985 is a comic that trades heavily in nostalgia, emotion, and the blurred line between imagination and reality. Framed through the eyes of a young boy in the mid-1980s, the story explores what might happen if the villains of the Marvel Universe suddenly crossed into our world. For fans who grew up reading comics in that era, this setup has undeniable appeal. Giant-size villains wreaking havoc in suburban neighborhoods? For many of us, that’s not just fantasy—it’s a memory.

But as Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof notes in his introduction, the premise owes a not-so-subtle debt to The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life,” written by Jerome Bixby and aired in 1961. In that episode, a boy with godlike powers isolates a town in a surreal nightmare. The twist in 1985 is less supernatural and more metafictional—what if the Marvel Universe wasn’t fiction, but a neighboring reality capable of bleeding into ours?

Nostalgia with Weight

Stories often live or die by execution, and Millar’s is mostly solid. The main character, Toby, is a fairly standard kid protagonist: sensitive, caught between divorcing parents, and using comics as a form of escape. Millar doesn’t reinvent that dynamic, but he does ground it well. The real world of 1985 feels emotionally textured, with believable family tension and subtle period detail—VHS tapes, baseball cards, and long afternoons wandering the neighborhood.

Tonally, the comic evokes the spirit of mid-1980s coming-of-age films like Explorers and The Goonies. Like those films, 1985 is strongest when it leans into discovery. Toby’s journey from comic fan to reluctant participant in a real-life Marvel incursion is driven by childlike wonder and fear in equal measure.

Where the Story Stumbles

That said, the series never quite sticks the landing. Marvel 1985 runs only six issues, and, in an era of too much comic book story ‘decompression’ this is a case where the story is actually too compressed. Major character beats—especially involving Toby’s father—are squeezed into brief moments. The emotional setup isn’t given time to fully pay off, and the transition from quiet scenes to city-smashing violence feels abrupt.

Even more jarring is the amount of destruction left unaddressed. Entire neighborhoods are devastated, people die, and yet the aftermath is glossed over. It’s an odd tonal clash for a book framed as a nostalgic tribute to a notable era f comics. The result is a story that feels unbalanced: grounded realism on one page, and superhero mayhem with no real consequences on the next.

Visuals and Mood

Artist Tommy Lee Edwards brings a gritty, textured style that perfectly suits the narrative. His painted look evokes the feel of faded back issues—nostalgic and grounded. Villains like the Red Skull and Juggernaut appear threatening, and the arrival of each feels heavy and real. Edwards’ approach elevates the material, especially during the quieter moments when Toby is alone or reflecting.

A Secret Wars Reflection

There’s an interesting resonance with Marvel’s Secret Wars in this book. In Secret Wars, the action takes place on a battleworld, isolated from Earth. 1985 inverts that premise: the danger spills into our world, uncontained. If Secret Wars was about the fantasy of superhuman struggle, 1985 is about the terror of that fantasy becoming real. It asks what might happen if the heroes and villains of your youth walked into your living room—and it doesn’t flinch from the answer.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, Marvel 1985 is full of great ideas, strong emotional hooks, and a frustrating flaw—it doesn’t quite earn the emotional consequences it sets up. The ending is neat, maybe too neat, given the chaos and trauma that unfolds. With just a few more issues or pages to let the story breathe, it might have reached its full potential.

That said, it’s still a rewarding read for anyone who grew up in the shadow of spinner racks and wanted—just once—for the comics to be real. Even if it doesn’t completely land, Marvel 1985 is an earnest love letter to childhood fandom and the idea that imagination might be powerful enough to break into the real world.

Works Cited

  • Lindelof, Damon, and Carlton Cuse. Lost. 2004.
  • Dante, Joe. Explorers. 1985.
  • Donner, Richard. The Goonies. 1985.
  • Millar, Mark. Marvel 1985. Marvel, 2009.
  • “It’s a Good Life.” The Twilight Zone, written by Jerome Bixby, directed by James Sheldon, CBS, 1961.
  • Shooter, Jim. Secret Wars. Marvel, 2011.