THE HIGH EVOLUTIONARY

"THE GIFT" | "PET PROJECT" | "THE MEN, THE MINE, THE MOUNTAIN!"
"BLOOD DRAWN, BLOOD SPILT!" | "SILVER AND CRIMSON" | "KINDRED SPIRITS"
"DEMON NIGHT" | "ALL MY CHILDREN" | "THE FINAL FRONTIER"
"THE SON OF EARTH" | "BEYOND LIFE"

Story: Mark Gruenwald
Pencils: Paris Cullens & Ron Lim | Inks: Tony Dezuniga w/Jim Sinclair
Letters: Ken Lopez w/Joe Abelo | Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: Beginning in England in 1928, the origin and history of Doctor Herbert Wyndham's path to becoming the High Evolutionary are told, from his days as a biology student at Oxford up to the point he declared the "Evolutionary War".

Continuity Notes: Well... where to begin? This story is one huge continuity note, as writer Mark Gruenwald codifies all previously known tidbits about the High Evolutionary and his acquaintances into one serialized story. I'll do my best to list everything I came across, but while my Marvel knowledge is pretty good, I'm no Gruenwald, so it's probable I missed a few things.

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS

When I was a youngster, I enjoyed the occasional Marvel comic, mostly Spider-Man stuff. But it was a very casual relationship up until around age 13 or so. I became a regular reader of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN with issue 360, cover dated March of 1992. Only a few months later, I was reintroduced to the larger Marvel Universe when a school friend showed me his copy of THE INFINITY WAR #1, a series somewhat along the lines of SECRET WARS, which I had loved as a child due to the epic scope and the sheer number of superheroes involved. So basically, you could say that I owe my decades of Marvel fandom to Jim Starlin's "Infinity" franchise. I'm sure I would've branched out beyond Spider-Man on my own; I was already familiar with the other Marvel characters -- but INFINITY WAR jump-started that transition.

This book isn't about the THE INFINITY WAR, however -- this Omnibus collects the previous, first series in Starlin's "Infinity" series -- hence, THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS. And while I view WAR as a superior installment, both nostalgically and storywise, THE INFINTY GAUNTLET is nothing to sneeze at -- nor is this book which collects the full epic.