Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #1

History

Kevin Grevioux — actor, screenwriter, and co-creator of the Underworld film franchise — had conceived the Blue Marvel as a teenager, driven by his frustration that the most powerful mainstream Marvel heroes of his youth had not been created by Black writers and that existing Black heroes were often derivative of white characters. After breaking into Marvel with a New Warriors reboot following Civil War, Grevioux brought this long-held concept to the publisher. The five-issue limited series was drawn by Mat Broome, with Blue Marvel's costume designed separately by Kaare Andrews. The series was announced publicly at San Diego Comic-Con 2008 and launched in November of that year with a January 2009 cover date. Grevioux has noted that the structural challenge of the series was distinguishing it from earlier 'forgotten hero' premises (specifically the Sentry), which led him to frame the story as Adam being pulled out of retirement to face Anti-Man, a villain no one else could stop.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Blue Marvel (Adam Bernard Brashear), a Korean War veteran and physicist who becomes a living antimatter reactor after a Negative Zone experiment goes wrong.
• First appearance of Anti-Man (Conner Sims), Brashear's former best friend and fellow Marine whose body became unstable in the same accident, turning him into a radical villain bent on destroying racism — and possibly humanity.
• Written by Kevin Grevioux (co-creator of the Underworld franchise) and drawn by Mat Broome; Blue Marvel's costume was designed by Kaare Andrews.
• The issue is cover-dated January 2009 but was released on November 5, 2008; it was the opening chapter of a five-issue limited series.
• The story's central dramatic hook — that President John F. Kennedy personally asks the nation's greatest hero to stand down the moment his race is revealed — places racial politics at the core of the character's origin in a way unusual for a debut issue.
• In the issue's flashback sequences, Brashear has already received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the very day Kennedy asks him to retire, grounding the character's history in a specific and painful irony.
• Blue Marvel went on to join Luke Cage's Mighty Avengers during the 2013 'Infinity' crossover, and later became a member of the Ultimates in Marvel's 2015 All-New, All-Different initiative.
• The character has appeared in multiple video games (Lego Marvel's Avengers, Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, Marvel: Future Fight, Marvel Snap, Marvel: Avengers Alliance) and made an animated cameo in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

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