Following July’s swimsuit issue, Marvel Comics is back with an all-new follow-up featuring pinups, a massive amount of heroes, and Roxxon up to no good once again in Marvel Winter Break Special #1. Packed with heroes in skimpy clothes, Tony Fleecs and Tim Seeley offer up an entertaining, comedic, and self-deprecating adventure that’s an easy add to your pull list.
As someone who admittedly didn’t love the last one-shot, I was won over and then some with this winter special. The comic opens with a television announcement from Roxxon, who admit they messed up with the last special by using AI, but now they’re going to fix the climate crisis, one charge at a time. Their first location to show the “climifier” works is the Savage Land, which sets the scene for the heroes to stop Roxxon before things go from bad to worse.
With Rogue in charge, the horniness is at a healthy level to start, with Gambit ogling Rogue’s Savage Land look right from the jump. This time, to make the pinups make sense for the story, Gwenpool is on hand to snap pictures. It’s a smart choice, especially since she can mess with the fourth wall and force the pinups on the reader. To ensure there’s a good reason characters are scantily clad, the writers also weave in a somewhat silly idea that a dinosaur eats all their costumes. It’s appreciated that there’s at least some effort in making a special like this make sense.
No changing room, I guess.
Credit: Marvel Comics
As stories go, this is mostly a fight comic, with some fun jokes thrown in by the writers who are winking right at the readers. That gives it a vibe only Marvel seems to pull off. Outside of fighting the likes of Sauron and Stegron, there’s a clever surprise near the end of the issue involving clothes that is worth a chuckle at the very least. Since they’re directly following the last special, there’s a nice through-line to this issue, and likely a strong chance we’ll get another if this one-shot sells well. It’s the kind of dumb fun many will gladly read to escape the more serious stuff on the shelf.
Art by Nick Bradshaw is great, with tons of detail even when there are a lot of characters crammed into a panel. Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors give the book a bright comic-book vibe that’s unmistakable. The happy-go-lucky charm of the comic is largely thanks to the great art.
As far as pinups, they are much racier this time compared to earlier this year, which I think fans will appreciate. It’s much closer to the swimsuit specials of the ’90s, though still PG-13. Artists involved with the pinups are credited on the pinups themselves, making it easy to track down your favorite artists after reading this one.
Marvel Winter Break Special #1 succeeds by knowing exactly what it is and committing to it harder than its predecessor. With sharper jokes, better framing, and genuinely strong art, this one-shot delivers silly, sexy, PG-13 fun without apology. It’s not trying to be important. It’s trying to be entertaining, and it pulls that off with confidence.
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