Marvel Mangaverse

File:MarvelManga2 TVTropes.jpg

Western characters done in an Eastern style as viewed by Western creators.

Marvel meets Manga.

Marvel Mangaverse was a Fifth Week Event from the early 2000s that attempted to blend the Marvel Universe and its superheroes with a healthy dose of the usual tropes one would find in Manga and Anime.

The results were... less than stellar; as many reviews pointed out, while it had the style of Manga, it was essentially only a cosmetic choice and the stories didn't seem to benefit from the genre shift. Not to mention being a cluttered mess that tried a bit too hard to include every superhero and villain that it could. However, it was still a worthy experiment in trying something different with the Marvel Universe, and the original event was popular enough to spin off into a (short-lived) monthly series, as well as a New Mangaverse revival in 2006.

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Story Arcs

• Vol. 1 (the Fifth Week Event): Focuses on the Avengers and Dr. Strange with some cameos by Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the X-Men battling a Godzilla-size Hulk. Two issues which served as bookends for most of the standalone titles below (which were also collected in the trade paperback release). Art and writing on the bookends by Ninja High School creator Ben Dunn.
• Vol. 2 (the monthly series): Two story arcs, the first dealing with Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four (who play a more central role here), Galactus and the Inhumans. The second half deal with a battle against Doctor Doom. Ben Dunn handled art and writing here, too.
• New Mangaverse: The Rings of Fate: The finale of the Mangaverse, dealing with a Kill'Em All crisis of superheroes. Seriously, if you don't like to see your favorite Marvel characters getting killed, don't read this one.

Standalones

• Spider-Man: Re-envisions him as a ninja trying to avenge the death of his Sensei Ben, who was killed by Venom.
• X-Men: Save for a few custom designs, not much has changed in this version. Mutants are being persecuted; the X-Men try to save the day. There are a few surprising twists here and there.
• The Punisher: Rarely seen stand-alone comic that showcases the Punisher as a samurai/geisha being out to stop a demon-summoning crimelord. In this version, though, the Punisher is a woman who "punishes" though spankings, bondage and other Cool and Unusual Punishment instead of a large body count. She still bears the marking of the original anti-hero. Written by Peter David; drawn by Lea Hernandez. Warning: Incredibly Lame Puns.
• Fantastic Four: Adam Warren writes what's essentially a Fusion Fic with Neon Genesis Evangelion. After a disastrous experiment Gone Horribly Wrong, Fiery Redhead Jerkass Joantha Storm, her incredibly withdrawn and emotionless half-sister Sioux, and the Hidden Badass milquetoast Benjamin (prounounced "Ben-ya-meen") Grimm use the strange powers they gained to fight a succession of enormous alien beings attacking the Baxter Building, under the direction of their arrogant, womanizing genius commander, Reed Richards.
• The Avengers: The disembodied head of Anthony Stark has the Avengers gather the parts of a Combining Mecha to battle the Hulk, battling Apocalypse and his Horsemen along the way.
• Ghost Riders: A Walking Shirtless Scene Daimon Hellstrom walks up to Johnny Blaze one evening and tells him that they're both SONS OF SATAN, and that Johnny's got to help deal with both the Hulk and their giant demoness sister wandering through town. Daimon sets Johnny's head on fire to help prove his point; Johnny's disturbed. Written by Chuck Austen.

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Tropes used in Marvel Mangaverse include:

• Absolute Cleavage: Black Cat in New Mangaverse. Carol Danvers (AKA Captain America II) also counts in many panels she features in.
• Adaptational Villainy: Nick Fury of all people is the Greater-Scope Villain of The Rings of Fate, with Black Cat as his Dragon.
• Affirmative Action Legacy: Carol Danvers takes up Captain America's shield and costume in New Mangaverse after gaining superpowers.
• Animesque: Natch.
• Anyone Can Die: You have no idea...
  • New Mangaverse takes this all the way to Dropped a Bridge on Him with Mangaverse Doctor Strange getting killed by ninjas. Several generic, faceless ninjas.
  • What they did to Tigra afterwards is even worse.
  • What's sad about it is that, up until that point they were among the very few heroes seen in the previous books to survive the various stories, only to get SLAUGHTERED in the first few pages of the first issue of New Mangaverse.
    • In all fairness, they were ninjas with the rings of the Mandarin.
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: The Hulk, and Galactus to a lesser extent.
• Big Dumb Object: Mangaverse Galactus.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: One of the Mandarin's rings can inflict this on people. It's the one Nick Fury wields.
• But Thou Must!: Captain Marvel's origin. The poor guy is practically thrust into becoming a superhero.
  • This fact is made worse by the fact he gets killed in New Mangaverse. You can see his mother holding him on one of the screens the villains are looking over.
• Cliff Hanger: The Rings of Fate ends with most of the heroes dead and, while the remaining ones manage to win the day, they are unaware Nick Fury was behind everything and that Black Cat is actually The Mole.
• Evil All Along: Nick Fury and Black Cat are revealed to be this in the final issue of New Mangaverse.
• Expy: Quite a few.
  • As mentioned above, the Fantastic Four were inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ben = Shinji, Sioux = Rei, Joantha = Asuka, Reed = Gendo + Kaji, Agatha Harkness = Misato + Ritsuko, Alicia Masters = Maya Ibuki (Ben Dunn tries to bring them closer to their 616 counterparts in volume 2).
  • Mangaverse Tigra, in personality at least, is an expy of Brittany Diggers from Gold Digger. She, Brittany and Earth-616 Tigra are all Cat Girls, so YMMV.
  • New Mangaverse Wolverine looks a lot like Vegeta, and dresses a lot like him too.
  • Joantha is a double expy, her character design (and Princess Curls) are lifted from Izumi Himuro of Princess Nine.
  • Joantha ends up looking like Asuka from Evangelion in New Mangaverse, which makes her fit more as an expy of her in part. She and Spider-Woman (Mary Jane in New Mangaverse, Peter's student in the ways of the Spider-Clan by this time) are both essentially expies of her in this regard, while Black Cat replaces Sioux as the new physical expy of Rei Ayanami, looking almost identical to her in terms of facial construction save for a set of stripes under each eye. Peter Parker goes this route as well, becoming a relatively close expy of Shinji in New Mangaverse.
• Gender Flip: Multiple cases (Joantha Storm, the Punisher, Doctor Doom). Zig-zagged with Iron Man; we first meet Antoinette Stark in the first volume, but we later find out that her brother Anthony is still alive - if bodiless.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Hand (the Big Bad of The Rings of Fate) attack a military base, leaving many dead. Carol Danvers is left for dead. The attack on her changes her body, giving her superpowers. It's thanks to her that the remaining superheroes were saved before the Hand could kill them and managed to turn the fight around. All because the Hand didn't bother checking their handiwork.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Captain Marvel, having to learn very fast in his situation.
• Kill'Em All: Which ended up leading to plot problems later in the story because everyone of interest got killed off so quickly.
• Left Hanging: See Cliff Hanger.
• Man Behind the Man: Nick Fury is behind the events of The Rings of Fate.
• Name's the Same/My Nayme Is: Iron Man, aka Antoinette "Toni" Stark. Don't worry, folks. Anthony "Tony" Stark is still around (at least, his head is).
• President Action: President Steve Rogers.
• Princess Curls: Joantha Storm. New Mangaverse switches her over to Girlish Pigtails.
• Rule 63: Along with Gender Flip above, many of the Marvel regulars are either turned into, or replaced by, nubile females solely for the purpose of giving the readers something to fap to.
• Samus Is a Girl: Doctor Doom, whom we don't find out about until halfway though the story, is actually T'Channa, the sister of the Black Panther. Interestingly, she murdered the original and took his place, so she wasn't always Doom here.
• Secret Legacy: Captain Marvel's.
• Together in Death: Bruce Banner and Antoinette Stark at the end of the first volume.
• The Cameo: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby show up in the first story arc of the monthly series.
  • Gold Digger's creator, Fred Perry, shows up in one panel during the first part of Vol 1.
  • Flash and Gwen appear in the first issue of Mangaverse Spider-Man.
• Took a Level In Badass: Mary-Jane became the Mangaverse Spider-Woman in New Mangaverse.