The good folks at Zen Studios are out with their newest four-pack for Zen Pinball/Pinball FX 2, Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles. Here’s my take on the good, the bad, and the gamma ray-irradiated.

I don’t know if there is a term within the pinball lexicon for this type of game, but I’m going to coin one. World War Hulk is a “speller” table. It seems that every loop and target has a word associated with it, and in order to trigger an event, you have to hit the target or loop one time for each letter. The table deals with the World War Hulk crossover series in which Hulk is blasted off into space, spends some time with aliens, and comes back looking for some revenge. The story comes across as you play the table. If you start hitting the center “Arena” ramp, you’ll overhear various characters in the World War Hulk storyline talking about Hulk building an arena. Wolverine, Thing, Iron Man, and other superheroes make appearances. Overall, I’m not a big fan of speller tables, and I thought this one was a tad too yellow for my tastes, considering it’s a Hulk game. Also, Hulk is more erudite than I’ve ever heard him.

Fear Itself is another crossover table that emphasizes Thor, Captain America and Iron Man dealing with a new threat from Asgard, Serpent. I’m no comics scholar, so I’m not terribly familiar with the storyline. From what I’ve gathered from the table, Serpent apparently wants to scare people. There are some interesting things going on in the table. The ball drains on the extreme right and left of the table form a loop. Every now and then, magnets along that loop will activate, allowing the ball to travel along it just as if it were a regular loop. Magnets also come into play when you start a mode and you choose which of Serpent’s lieutenants to battle. In some modes, the ball will turn to stone and break apart if you hit the wrong targets.

The Avengers table is genius. At the very start of the game, you’ll have your choice of six balls to play, each one designed for a member of the Avengers squad. Cosmetics aside, your choice will also have an impact on gameplay. Black Widow gets score bonuses on missions, Captain America has a limited ball save, and so on. Every member of the team has their own ramp as well. Loki stands in the middle of it all. I haven’t gotten as far into the Avengers table as I’d like so far, but it’s definitely a blast to play. Also, I wound up playing this table just two days before I saw the Avengers movie (I don’t like noisy crowds, okay?), and I was surprised how the table took exact lines from the film.

The Infinity Gauntlet is by far and away my favorite table, perhaps of the entire Zen Pinball series. The first treat is for the eye. The ramps leading up to the large Infinity Gauntlet looming over the left side of the table glow with an ethereal light. Miniature suns hover over the bumpers, and each has a collection of planets in orbit around them. In the space behind the table, there’s a much larger glowing sun, as if the table were floating in space. Despite those graphical features, the table also has retro flourishes. The interior walls of the table look like they could have come from the side of an old school Asteroids cabinet, and the characters featured on the far wall look like they were drawn in the early 80s. Even the game’s sound effects and futuristic LED font hearken back to classic early arcade games like Sinistar.

The Infinity Gauntlet is a sniper table. The middle ground is open, and ramps and targets fringe the perimeter. There is a touch of Medieval Madness at work here, with players repeatedly knocking on the door of one of Thanos’ monuments to Mistress Death in order to gain another route to the Infinity Gauntlet.

The idea of the table is to collect the gems of the Infinity Gauntlet to defeat Thanos. If you hit the Gauntlet enough times, you’ll start a mode based on the theme of a particular gem: Time, Space, Reality, Mind, Soul, or Power. I don’t want to tell you exactly what happens in each of the modes, because most of them are truly joyous surprises that left me laughing and stretched my expectations of what is possible in a video pinball game.

I’ve played a lot of Zen Studio’s pinball tables. For me, Avengers and The Infinity Gauntlet are among the best tables they’ve produced. Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles is on sale for $10 on PSN or 800 points on XBLA.

Rating: BUY IT!

Marvel Zombies 3 written by Fred Van Lente, art by Kev Walker, colors by Jean-Francois Beaulieu, letters by Rus Wooten.

The original concept for Marvel Zombies was simple enough: an alternate version of the Marvel universe that underwent a zombie apocalypse, where the world is infected by a Hunger Virus that creates flesh hungry undead. Tell the story of those still capable of reason and what not. Questions as to how invulnerability and healing powers affect the virus were pretty much hand-waved away. Marvel put out three series all written by Walking Dead and Invincible creator Robert Kirkman. There was also a Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness mini-series. I hated all of them. I mean one of them ends with super-zombies eating Galactus and becoming Cosmic Super-Zombies. Ugh…

But then Marvel handed the concept over to Fred Van Lente, who has written some of the better comics out there, both for Marvel and on his own. He went with an attempted invasion of regular Marvel Earth by Zombie Marvel Earth, and brought in Aaron “Machine Man” Stack as the major protaganist, recruited by A.R.M.O.R. (Alternate Reality Monitoring and Operational Response), and then just made it all work. It still has its moments of “Oh Come On!” for me. Why is Ghost Rider a zombie? Seriously, how do you infect a flaming skeleton with a virus? But despite that, Van Lente keeps up the pace so that the story just moves past it. And Kev Walker can draw some hella icky looking super-zombies…

Story and art by Bob Layton, colors by Christie Scheele and Bob Sharen and letters by Rick Parker

See yon noble godling Hercules. Verily, doth he climb up unto the heights of Olympus, home of his brethren. And lo, there he be mightly shushed for his father Zeus has proclaimed that it be a day of quiet reflection for it is truly the anniversary of the day upon which the mightiest of the Olympians was born. And lo all droopy pants is the mighty Hercules for truly he had hoped to return home and have a truly righteous party. But weep not for mopey Hercules for are these not some of the handmaidens of Olympus come to offer him refreshment?

But alas! For it is not in the nature of the Lion of Olympus to quietly partake of either refreshment or haindmaiden. But the groovin’ and the shakin’ of the Prince of Power has disturbed the solemn contemplations of all-mighty Zeus and truly he is most wroth! And so the scion of Zeus is banished! Let him go forth unto Bel Airedeepest space until he has learned humility…

And so Hercules sets forth upon the borrowed sun chariot of his brother into the vastness of space. There to encounter recording robots, aliens, sexy space ladies and even Galactus the World Devourer…

Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius: Ultimate Collection Book 2 Story & script – Chris Eliopolous & Marc Sumerac, art & letters by Eliopolous and colors by Brad Anderson

Isn’t calling Book 2 an “Ultimate Collection” unfair to the ultimateness of Book 1? Anyway, this volume collects the “Spring Break”, “Not So Secret Invasion”, “Summer Smackdown”, “Sons of Geniuses”, “Its Dark Reigning Cats & Dogs”, “April Fools!” and “School’s Out” one-shots…

One thing Marvel manages to do well are their all-ages books. Whenever their mainline is swimming in angst or cynicism or disappointing Big Event cross-overs, I can count on books like Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius to bring back the fun. Eliopolous and Sumerac always do that with their stories about Franklin and his robot baby-sitter H.E.R.B.I.E. Franklin is a well-meaning, but impulsive little kid. One who, no surprise, would rather treat a lab full of super-science as the World’s Greatest Toy Chest then do his chores or homework….

Thor The Mighty Avenger written by Roger Langridge, art by Chris Samnee, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Rus Wooten

Here, Langridge and Marvel present a fun, main-line continuity-free re-telling of Thor. It captures the basic elements of what makes Thor appealing, pseudo-Norse mysticism mixed with superhero punchery. Plus, there’s the basic Thor/Jane Foster dynamic. Here Thor is partially amnesiac, unsure of why he is on Earth but still drawn to acts of heroism. Of course, he’s still plagued by the trickery of his brother, Loki. Langridge grasps what makes Thor work and his art partners back him perfectly, making for an enjoyable all-ages, easy entry comic. Of course, it’s already been canceled because apparently too few people actually want that…

Still, that means it will be an easy series to complete. As a bonus, this first volume includes reprints of the original Thor stories from Journey Into Mystery #83 & 84.

What is it that makes a great pinball table? All pinball tables have common features. Ramps, targets, spinners, bumpers and ball locks are standard. The layout of those features varies wildly from game to game, but as long as they’re placed in a somewhat intelligent matter, one pinball game will play pretty much the same as any other. It’s all a matter of hitting whatever targets you need to hit when you need to hit them in order to get a high score.

So what is it that makes a precious few tables go straight to the pleasure centers of a player’s brain, urging them to pump quarter after quarter into them, while others aren’t deemed worth the time? It’s because all modern pinball tables have a theme. It’s that little extra something that makes a table more than just a collection of obstacles arranged in a downward angle. Marvel Pinball provides four tables inspired by Marvel superheroes. I’ve fallen in love with these tables, not only as a dedicated acolyte of pinball, but as a fan of comic books.

Marvel Pinball has been released on Xbox Live Arcade as part of the free Pinball FX 2 game for 800 Microsoft points. It will soon be available as its own Zen Pinball game on the Playstation Network for $10. As I mentioned in my previous review, the four tables are based on Spider-Man, Wolverine, Blade and Iron Man. All are unique, and all are excellent; there’s not a stinker in the bunch.

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Wolfpack written by Larry Hama, pencils by Ron Wilson, inks by Whilce Portacio & Kyle Baker, letters by Joe Rosen

Oh man. This one. So let me lay out what your ’87 eight bucks got yhou. A story involving a group of teenagers from the South Bronx. Slippery Sam (Jew), Slag (Black), Sharon (Black/Vietnamese), Rafael (Puerto Rican) and Wheels (White boy in a wheelchair). What do these five inner-city youths have in common? They’re all ninja’s in training by Mr. Mack. Who is a Black man who learned ninjitsu from a Chinese woman while in the Navy. To fight an ancient ninja cabal called the Nine. Who were a countering force for the Ten Righteous Men of Hebrew myth. Yeah. I know…

I mean man. Larry Hama and ninjas. And though I can’t recall seeing anything with them recently the Wolfpack is part of regular Marvel continuity. But still. So crazy. Though seeing that the editor for the book was Ann Nocenti some of that crazy begins to make a little more sense…

Also I’m not that into the pencils but Portacio and Baker on inks? And I’ll be honest. I would pay good money for a Wolfpack book set in current Marvel by Nocenti and Baker…