Alternate Cover: More Marvel Christmases

When comics were true periodicals, you could guarantee you'd get a Christmas issue popping up every once in a while. These days, though, it's hard to drop a Christmas issue as part 3 of a 6-part story, and similarly, beginning your Christmas-themed story in August isn't going to make it feel particularly timely or relevant. So, while I'm not a fan of recurring gimmicks, we should perhaps learn to cherish those Christmas stories that we do get as a dying breed.

Now, I'm not saying that Christmas stories are universally good. Indeed, far from it. Most are overly-sentimental, schmaltzy, generic affairs. Indeed, that's best evidenced by the way Christmas stories are tackled these days. Marvel and DC generally restrict their Christmas stories to rather dutiful ‘Holiday Special' anthologies. There's nothing there that suggests we'd be better off if the Christmas specials made a roaring return. But still, there were some good Christmas stories in the past. Last year, I wrote about the top five X-Men Christmas issues, So this year, I'm picking a few from the wider Marvel Universe to give the review treatment!

Avengers #157 (1976)
Scripted by Gerry Conway with pencils by classic Avengers artist Don Heck, A Ghost of Stone! tells the story of the stone statue of the Black Knight coming to life and attacking the Avengers. Being from the 70s, it's got all the flaws of that period, but it also manages to tell a sufficiently Christmassy story of remembering old friends without reverting to stereotypical Christmas tropes.

X-Factor #27 (1987)
Although it's very similar to an X-Men Christmas issue, this is very different in one major way: it happened in the pages of X-Factor. Walt and Louise Simonson tell a Christmas story about the five original X-Men (and the mutant kids they were looking after) that has everything you could possibly want : festive cheer, a Christmas tree made of ice on the cover and, er, an appearance by Apocalypse.

Spectacular Spider-Man #173 (1990)
It's another Conway Christmas as the writer teams up with David Michelinie and artist Sal Buscema for a seasonal Spidey treat. The issue is a fairly traditional take on the problems of Peter's responsibilities as Spider-Man, with the Christmas theme acting as background material. Still, an appearance by Doctor Octopus as the villain gives it a fairly classic feel. Not particularly original, but a decent enough example of its story type.

Ant Man's Big Christmas (1999)
This comic was a bit of an oddity, being a traditional one-shot using decidedly un-gritty Marvel characters, but released by Marvel Knights, which was then a newly-created, edgy and gritty imprint. Written by Bob Gale (Writer of Back To The Future) and drawn by Phil Winslade, Ant Man's Big Christmas features Hank Pym as Ant-Man, and co-stars the Wasp as the pair pays a visit to a fan's house for Christmas. The holiday itself plays a major part in the story, and if you're in the mood for a Christmas story, it's worth tracking down this curio.

Blade #4 (2006)
Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin do Christmas, Blade-style, as the Daywalker fights a department store Santa (amongst others) who has been possessed by a demon. The spirit of Christmas, indeed. To be honest, it's a pretty depressing read for a ‘Christmas' issue as Blade eventually discovers that the only way to kill the demon is to kill the current host - and duly does so. The Blade series (like every Blade series) wasn't very long lived, but if nothing else, this issue's worth it just for Chaykin's artwork!

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.