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Mephisto Vs. #1-4
Mephisto: Speak of the Devil
Mephisto, lord of the underworld, is the most diabolical entity in the Marvel Universe - and he's put its greatest heroes through hell! Join Mephisto as he claims the Silver Surfer's soul, trades tricks with Loki and Thor, wagers with the Beyonder over Spider-Man and bedevils Daredevil! But what is Mephisto's plan when he targets the Fantastic Four, X-Factor, X-Men and Avengers? Plus, a cosmic clash with Thanos! A tale of torment uniting Doctors Strange and Doom! An unforgettable encounter with Black Panther! And...a date?! COLLECTING: THOR (1966) 180-181, FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 276, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1963) 274, MEPHISTO VS. ... (1987) 1-4, MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL: DOCTOR STRANGE AND DOCTOR DOOM - TRIUMPH AND TORMENT (1989) GN, DAREDEVIL (1964) 266, SILVER SURFER (1987) 45, BLACK PANTHER (1998) 4-5, NEW MUTANTS (2009) 37, MATERIAL FROM SILVER SURFER (1968) 3, FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) 277
- GenresComics
456 pages, Paperback
Published April 14, 2020
3 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
John Byrne
2,959 books360 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 4, 2021
There's a whole lot to unpack here.There's Mephisto stories running from his first appearance in Silver Surfer in 1968 to a date with Magma of the New Mutants in the late aughts.
Silver Surfer #3 by Stan Lee & John Buscema - ★★★★
Mephisto's first appearance. I was surprised how much I liked this. Usually Stan Lee's dialogue and exposition grates on me, but I really liked this. Mephisto tempts the Silver Surfer with the return of his lost love Shalla Bal. John Buscema's art is classic. Some of his best work I've seen.
The Mighty Thor #180-181 by Stan Lee & Neal Adams - ★★
This is more what I expected out of Stan Lee. It's terrible. Thor and Loki switch bodies. Somehow Loki in Thor's body can still lift Mjolnir even though there's no way he'd still be worthy. Odin sends Thor in Loki's body to Hades, not Hel. At least Neal Adams draws some cool looking Asgardians.
Fantastic Four #276-277 by John Byrne - ★★★
An exorcist sends the Richards family to Hell because their neighbor thinks they are witches. It doesn't make the most sense. I'd forgotten Byrne gave Sue Richards that awful mullet haircut. I do like what Byrne did once the Richards face off against Mephisto.
Amazing Spider-Man #274 by Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz - ★★
Mephisto and the Beyonder make a bet that Peter Parker will give up and not save the Kingpin in this Secret Wars II crossover. It's not great.
Mephisto Vs. #1-4 by Al Milgrom & John Buscema - ★★★
Mephisto takes a tour of Marvel's biggest teams of the 80's (Fantastic Four, X-Factor, X-Men, Avengers) trading up in souls each time. Even though there is some goofy stuff in here like mystic mylar, this is actually a solid book. I did like that they brought in Mephisto creator, John Buscema, on the art, giving him a classic look.
Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern & Mike Mignola - ★★★★
Back in the 80's, Marvel used to create the occasional stand alone graphic novel. This one is from 1988 and still holds up pretty well today. Doctors Strange and Doom are summoned to a mystic temple to battle it out for the title of Sorcerer Supreme along with a bunch of other magicians. The battle is a bit cheesy but out of it Dr. Strange owes Doom a boon. Each year Doom battles Mephisto for his mother's soul on Midsummer's Eve. So after a training montage complete with an 80's soundtrack, Strange and Doom descend into Hell to rescue the soul of Doom's mommy. This is where the book gets really good. Mignola was made to draw hellish creatures. (Four years later, he'd create Hellboy and start his own cottage industry of comics.) Mephisto looks menacing and evil. You can feel the heat of Hell come off the pages. All in all it's just great stuff as Strange and Doom battle and attempt to outwit Mephisto.
Daredevil #266 by Ann Nocenti & John Romita Jr. - ★
Daredevil gets drunk in costume in a bar where no one makes a single comment. Then Mephisto shows up and everyone in the bar goes a bit crazy. It's not good. The only saving grace in JR Jr.'s art. He does redesign Mephisto's look though and I can't say I like it.
Silver Surfer #45 by Jim Starlin & Ron Lim - ★★★★
Mephisto tries to con Thanos out of the Infinity Gauntlet. Ron Lim is a very underrated artist in my book. This looks great.
Black Panther #4-5 by Christopher Priest, Mark Texeira, and Vince Evans - ★★★
Mephisto messes with Black Panther and Everett Ross. These early Priest and Texeira issues are really great. Snappy dialog and good action. Everett Ross is hilarious.
New Mutants #37 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & David Lopez - ★★★★
Magma agrees to go on a date with Mephisto to get the team out of Hell. This was pretty cleverly written and just plain fun.
Silver Surfer #3 by Stan Lee & John Buscema - ★★★★
Mephisto's first appearance. I was surprised how much I liked this. Usually Stan Lee's dialogue and exposition grates on me, but I really liked this. Mephisto tempts the Silver Surfer with the return of his lost love Shalla Bal. John Buscema's art is classic. Some of his best work I've seen.
The Mighty Thor #180-181 by Stan Lee & Neal Adams - ★★
This is more what I expected out of Stan Lee. It's terrible. Thor and Loki switch bodies. Somehow Loki in Thor's body can still lift Mjolnir even though there's no way he'd still be worthy. Odin sends Thor in Loki's body to Hades, not Hel. At least Neal Adams draws some cool looking Asgardians.
Fantastic Four #276-277 by John Byrne - ★★★
An exorcist sends the Richards family to Hell because their neighbor thinks they are witches. It doesn't make the most sense. I'd forgotten Byrne gave Sue Richards that awful mullet haircut. I do like what Byrne did once the Richards face off against Mephisto.
Amazing Spider-Man #274 by Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz - ★★
Mephisto and the Beyonder make a bet that Peter Parker will give up and not save the Kingpin in this Secret Wars II crossover. It's not great.
Mephisto Vs. #1-4 by Al Milgrom & John Buscema - ★★★
Mephisto takes a tour of Marvel's biggest teams of the 80's (Fantastic Four, X-Factor, X-Men, Avengers) trading up in souls each time. Even though there is some goofy stuff in here like mystic mylar, this is actually a solid book. I did like that they brought in Mephisto creator, John Buscema, on the art, giving him a classic look.
Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern & Mike Mignola - ★★★★
Back in the 80's, Marvel used to create the occasional stand alone graphic novel. This one is from 1988 and still holds up pretty well today. Doctors Strange and Doom are summoned to a mystic temple to battle it out for the title of Sorcerer Supreme along with a bunch of other magicians. The battle is a bit cheesy but out of it Dr. Strange owes Doom a boon. Each year Doom battles Mephisto for his mother's soul on Midsummer's Eve. So after a training montage complete with an 80's soundtrack, Strange and Doom descend into Hell to rescue the soul of Doom's mommy. This is where the book gets really good. Mignola was made to draw hellish creatures. (Four years later, he'd create Hellboy and start his own cottage industry of comics.) Mephisto looks menacing and evil. You can feel the heat of Hell come off the pages. All in all it's just great stuff as Strange and Doom battle and attempt to outwit Mephisto.
Daredevil #266 by Ann Nocenti & John Romita Jr. - ★
Daredevil gets drunk in costume in a bar where no one makes a single comment. Then Mephisto shows up and everyone in the bar goes a bit crazy. It's not good. The only saving grace in JR Jr.'s art. He does redesign Mephisto's look though and I can't say I like it.
Silver Surfer #45 by Jim Starlin & Ron Lim - ★★★★
Mephisto tries to con Thanos out of the Infinity Gauntlet. Ron Lim is a very underrated artist in my book. This looks great.
Black Panther #4-5 by Christopher Priest, Mark Texeira, and Vince Evans - ★★★
Mephisto messes with Black Panther and Everett Ross. These early Priest and Texeira issues are really great. Snappy dialog and good action. Everett Ross is hilarious.
New Mutants #37 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & David Lopez - ★★★★
Magma agrees to go on a date with Mephisto to get the team out of Hell. This was pretty cleverly written and just plain fun.
April 30, 2020
Well, that was rather unfortunate. This was a collection of Marvel stories with Mephisto as a guest. Had they chosen well, this would have been a diamond but it ends up being cubic zirconia.
This collection has:
Silver Surfer (1968) Issue 3- where Mephisto is introduced I assume. It's rather cheesy (why is Mephisto zooming around in a spaceship?) but at least it's the original story so I accepted it for what it was.
Then we had Thor (1966) Issues 180-181. Loki switches bodies with Thor and Mephisto tries to steal his soul. Cheesy and typical for the time a great deal of needless exposition.
Fanstastic Four (1961) Issue 276-277
Actually I am not going to waste more time listing these mediocre and cheesy comics. It's a bunch of crap from the '60s and late 70s. Not good art, poor storytelling, etc. You know the drill.
Things began to look up with the inclusion of the truly excellent GN Triumph and Torment where Dr. Doom and Dr. Strange go to reclaim Doom's mother's soul from Mephisto. Outstanding! This is one of my favorite Dr. Strange GNs and is the saving grace of this collection.
From there we had some other "ok" stories like the Secret Wars II issue and the Daredevil issue, where Mephisto runs into DD in a bar during Christmas and the Silver Surfer run of the 80's where Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet and Mephisto tries to steal it.
But then the final few additions were terrible. Some dumbass Black Panther issues written by J. Quesada which were simply putrid, an awful New Mutants issue where Mephisto goes on a date, and some self-congratulatory drivel written by the fools who made this obvious cash grab. The only thing of interest in the final 200 pages is the cover art and the interesting little info on the creation of the Triump and Torment GN.
Mephisto is a great character, but outside of a few exceptions the vast majority of this collection will fail to show any value to the the character. Pass on this.
This collection has:
Silver Surfer (1968) Issue 3- where Mephisto is introduced I assume. It's rather cheesy (why is Mephisto zooming around in a spaceship?) but at least it's the original story so I accepted it for what it was.
Then we had Thor (1966) Issues 180-181. Loki switches bodies with Thor and Mephisto tries to steal his soul. Cheesy and typical for the time a great deal of needless exposition.
Fanstastic Four (1961) Issue 276-277
Actually I am not going to waste more time listing these mediocre and cheesy comics. It's a bunch of crap from the '60s and late 70s. Not good art, poor storytelling, etc. You know the drill.
Things began to look up with the inclusion of the truly excellent GN Triumph and Torment where Dr. Doom and Dr. Strange go to reclaim Doom's mother's soul from Mephisto. Outstanding! This is one of my favorite Dr. Strange GNs and is the saving grace of this collection.
From there we had some other "ok" stories like the Secret Wars II issue and the Daredevil issue, where Mephisto runs into DD in a bar during Christmas and the Silver Surfer run of the 80's where Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet and Mephisto tries to steal it.
But then the final few additions were terrible. Some dumbass Black Panther issues written by J. Quesada which were simply putrid, an awful New Mutants issue where Mephisto goes on a date, and some self-congratulatory drivel written by the fools who made this obvious cash grab. The only thing of interest in the final 200 pages is the cover art and the interesting little info on the creation of the Triump and Torment GN.
Mephisto is a great character, but outside of a few exceptions the vast majority of this collection will fail to show any value to the the character. Pass on this.
October 23, 2024
Quite an appealing compendium of some of Mephisto’s greatest hits showcasing many of his early appearances throughout the Marvelverse, starting with his debut in the Silver Surfer back in '68, then focusing on much of his work throughout the ‘80s reflecting our silly Satanic panic here in the U.S. during that stupid decade (the FF; his own limited series; a Job-like contest between him and the Beyonder for the soul of Peter Parker that sadly hasn’t aged all that well for me; a team-up between Doctors Doom and Strange that I was pleased to encounter here, and “A Beer with the Devil,” a poignant little Christmas tale I’d never seen before from DD #266, both of which in contrast to the Secret Wars goofiness still read quite well, I thought). After that, it’s Mephisto tagteaming with Thanos in the lead-up to the Infinity Gauntlet, followed by some uneven work by the fascinating Christopher Priest in Black Panther and his even more unfortunate, dare I say “icky,” appearance in 2009’s New Mutants where he goes on a date with Magma. ("Unfortunate," I say, because it's absolutely idiotic for a writer to dress up the ruler of Hell and embodiment of evil in his Sunday's best and get dating advice from a sexy superhero when he tries too hard on that first date. Duh.)
And that takes us up to the present point in time, when all True Believers have been on tippy toes for the last decade awaiting with bated breath the impending arrival of the Lord of Darkness to the MCU. He had nothing to do with Infinity War or End Game, which is fine because the focus was on Thanos and the Avengers, and movies need to trim things down and keep narrative focus. Then it was much theorized he was waiting in the wings of WandaVision, to make a grand reveal and explain much of the chaos at work there, but to no avail. Then it was Loki, followed by Multiverse of Madness, which would have been fun and made some good sense, but no and no, again. And now here we all are with crossed fingers awaiting him to pop into Agatha All Along. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t, but I will not get my own hopes up because there is something quite Mephistophelian about it all, the false hope and the deception, the lies spun by the publicity machine and the sad feelings of betrayal resulting in the hearts of the Faithful when those dreams and aspirations are dashed yet again.
Frankly, though, I can wait and I won’t be all that surprised when he finally makes his debut in the MCU and it is a great disappointment to the True Believers after all the anticipation. I just don’t think Disney has it in its collective heart to do justice to the Father of Lies and the absolute darkness and despair that must accompany his figure. After all, rumor is Sacha Baron Cohen will be cast in the role, and I’m afraid that means Disney is planning something closer to laff-riot musical theatre in Hades than the grim temptation, deception, and terror so essential to Mephisto’s character. Let’s pray I’m wrong.
And that takes us up to the present point in time, when all True Believers have been on tippy toes for the last decade awaiting with bated breath the impending arrival of the Lord of Darkness to the MCU. He had nothing to do with Infinity War or End Game, which is fine because the focus was on Thanos and the Avengers, and movies need to trim things down and keep narrative focus. Then it was much theorized he was waiting in the wings of WandaVision, to make a grand reveal and explain much of the chaos at work there, but to no avail. Then it was Loki, followed by Multiverse of Madness, which would have been fun and made some good sense, but no and no, again. And now here we all are with crossed fingers awaiting him to pop into Agatha All Along. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t, but I will not get my own hopes up because there is something quite Mephistophelian about it all, the false hope and the deception, the lies spun by the publicity machine and the sad feelings of betrayal resulting in the hearts of the Faithful when those dreams and aspirations are dashed yet again.
Frankly, though, I can wait and I won’t be all that surprised when he finally makes his debut in the MCU and it is a great disappointment to the True Believers after all the anticipation. I just don’t think Disney has it in its collective heart to do justice to the Father of Lies and the absolute darkness and despair that must accompany his figure. After all, rumor is Sacha Baron Cohen will be cast in the role, and I’m afraid that means Disney is planning something closer to laff-riot musical theatre in Hades than the grim temptation, deception, and terror so essential to Mephisto’s character. Let’s pray I’m wrong.
April 12, 2022
A neat anthology of various Mephisto stories, this collection is most rewarding for readers who want to know more about the character’s various appearances rather than a larger overarching story. The quality of these stories vary, but for a conceptual history of Mephisto in the Marvel comics universe, there are some high points, such as “Mephisto vs. the X-Men.”
December 19, 2021
This is not gonna be for everyone. People tend to hate these rando collections of "one offs" but thats why I dig it. I like bad guys and he is one of my favs. This book is like a buffet of his appearances, some better than others. Side note, I own the actual book and the paper quality seems very thin... like too thin.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews