M, Shadows & Light #1-3 (1998)

This is a relaunch (from 1997’s “Marvel: Shadows and Light”) of an anthology. These 1998 issues are very, very good and well-worth looking for. The art was awesome. The stories were good, but mostly under 10 pages and it’s hard to do a lot with that. Perhaps the coolest thing about it was the all-star list of creators, some of whom hadn’t done work for Marvel in years–or even ever.

Issue #1 features a Black Widow story by Gene Ha/Gerard Jones. We meet Black Widow’s mom, as Natasha visits her before she dies.

Also: Bernie Wrightson does Hulk. Wein and Ditko do Iron Man. Stelfreeze and Marz do Daredevil.

Issue #2 offered a Lee Weeks (writer AND artist) doing Thing.

Beautiful.

Also: Wolfman and Sharp do Man-Thing, Jim Starlin does Doctor Strange, and Andreyko and Jill Thompson tell us how Rhino interrupted Spider-Man while he was on a date as Peter Parker.

The series only lasted three issues. For #3, Stern and Buscema Senior kicked it off with a Hulk and classic Avengers short tale, followed by Werewolf by Night by Starlin (writer only) and Grindberg where Jack Russell reveals that he was molested as a child. Not sure why we needed that information, but ok. Then Spider-Man fights AIM by the great and funny Keith Giffen and Silver Surfer gets a Bob Layton story. Two really great writer/artists doing characters I don’t think they’ve done before.

Now if all that doesn’t make you want to read these, I can’t help you.