In 1992, Marvel Comics launched the 2099 line with a quartet of books set in the waning days of the 21st century. With the year as the suffix, the titles were “Spider-Man,” “Doom,” “Punisher” and... “Ravage?”
Future Spider-Man with a cool costume? Check. Doctor Doom (maybe) as a hero (maybe)? Sign me up. Prior to Netflix and Jon Bernthal, I've never been much of a Punisher fan. As for the barbarian-looking guy with no present-day Marvel analogue? Pass.
I must not have realized then the most compelling thing Ravage had going for it: the book was written by Stan Lee!
A few years ago, I grabbed the gold foil “Ravage 2099” #1 from a bargain bin, but then it sat in my “to-read” box – OK, one of my many “to-read” boxes.
But when my friends Chris Armstrong and Jesse Starcher had the sheer audacity to leave “Ravage” out of the running in a vote of which 2099 first issue to cover on the “Unspoken Issues” podcast, I figured the time was right to finally give it a shot.
I vaguely remember reading that “Ravage” had something to do with the environment. That was the Captain Planet era, so I figured he was a tough guy out to save the Earth.
Not exactly.
Paul-Phillip Ravage is the head of Eco, a law enforcement agency apparently charged with protecting the environment. He's frustrated to learn one of his patrols killed a “polluter,” not quite buying their claim it was a necessary use of force.
Paul-Phillip is warned by his assistant Tiana that something is rotten at Eco Central and if he's not careful, he could wind up like her father, who worked for Eco until he was sent to the lovely-sounding locale of Hellrock for questioning Alchemax, one of the mega-corporations that run the world in 2099. PPR assures Tiana their corporate overlords are on the up and up and reminds her he's taken an oath to uphold the law and do things by the book.
Lest you think that means he doesn't have the chops to be an action hero in the 1990s, much less a century later, we see Paul-Phillip fend off an attack by a group of youths, one of whom is the son of the man killed in the opening sequence. The boy, Dack, claims Eco offed his dad to keep him from revealing the truth about the real source of the pollution (we're not given a lot of specifics here).
Company man that he is, PPR is rather skeptical, but he's troubled by the man's death, so he brings the boy and his accusation to Anderthorp Henton, one of the higher-ups at Alchemax. Turns out Henton knows plenty about it, as he quickly kills his assistant for overhearing the conversation and orders Paul-Phillip's death. I'm not sure if the guy was written as just a two-dimensional villain or was maybe meant to be someone made careless by power and paranoia.
Either way, a mutroid (a powered denizen of Hellrock) and some trigger-happy Eco agents fail miserably in their attempt to off Paul-Phillip, managing only to scar his face and tick him off royally.
Escaping with Tiana while Henton believes them both dead, Ravage embraces his surname and raids a junkyard for some makeshift armor and a monolithic garbage truck to serve as his Ravage-mobile. (No, he doesn't call it that; at least, not in this issue.)
Although there are some great bits of wordsmithing from Lee, the dialogue is a bit hammy and the main story pretty simple. But Stan came up with the framework for some of the greatest characters in pop culture. Ravage may not be one of them, but he's not a dud either.
A principled guy who plays by the rules until he's thrown away by the system whose garbage he's been cleaning up, then turns that refuse against the conspirators? That's enough to make me want to check out issue 2. Back to the bargain bins...
* Not the former Speaker of the House**
** At least, I don't think so
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