Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities 60's Marvel Re-Reading Project

Thought I'd pass on some comments about my 60's Marvel re-reading.
Isn't it funny how some things age well-- and some things DON'T?

THOR #143-144 -- MAGNIFICENT. That says it. Vince Colletta must have
been taking on too much work, because while he started "And Soon Shall
Come The Enchanters", a few pages in, Bill Everett took over (and got
sole credit). While I had the feeling in earlier episodes that Sif
might have been based on Diana Rigg, in these, it really seems that
Balder & Sif were based on Richard Burton & Liz Taylor!! The
Enchanters were indeed an awesome menace-- but I'll TELL you where
those idiots went wrong-- when their leader went to face Odin alone,
while the other 2 decided to go to Earth to track down Thor & his
friends. What fools! If the 3 of them had tackled Odin, Asgard
might well have been under new management. As it was, when the
battle with Odin went on, the power of the others was cut off-- and 3
against 2, it was just no contest. Meanwhile, TALES OF ASGARD is just
better than ever-- and WAY better in color than in the ESSENTIAL book
I also have. It was a kick to see Volstagg come to the rescue. Maybe
he's NOT just all talk after all? (Though I loved the scene where he
says to the devious woman, "Flee? Art though mad? SHOW ME THE WAY!"
--or words to that effect.)

FANTASTIC FOUR #66-67 -- Unfortunately, I only have the MGC reprints
of these, and the one for #67 is REALLY fuzzy (barring the full-page
spread and the last page). I might not have noticed anything "off"
here, if I hadn't read the infamous article about this story in TJKC.
It doesn't seem like anything's wrong with part 1, though I do wonder
what might have gotten lost via Stan's dialogue that got Jack so
incensed he threw up his hands while doing part 2. The guys at the
"Citadel of Science" seem like fairly decent guys in part 1-- but in
part 2, they're flat out EVIL, bent on world domination, and more than
once are referred to in the dialogue as "murderers". HUH? You know, I
wound up wondering if the "HIM" 2-parter some time later in THOR may
not have been part of the plot leftover from the never-done 2nd HALF
of this story (assuming it was originally intended as a 4-parter).
After all the build-up, wouldn't it have seemed a LOT more natural for
"Him" to decide that Alicia should be his mate, and for the THING to
go completely into a berzerker rage (since he was already hafway there
to begin with)??? Oh, Stan... OY.

STRANGE TALES #160-161 -- In retrospect, THIS is right where Jim
Steranko started to "lose it". Oh, sure, the art was great, but you
know, the storytelling somehow wasn't as good as it was for the
entirety of the "Hydra" epic. He began to rely too much on gimmicks
with the camera angles, plot twists, etc., and not enough on just
good, solid, well-constructed plotting. Then there's the "small"
matter of Fury, in flashback, going into action in one of those
form-fitting body-suits, many months before he ever wore one for the
first time-- AND, this one's insulated against electric floors and the
like, which the one he wore in the "Hydra" story wasn't. Are we SURE
when he plotted this story it was SUPPOSED to be a flashback?? Also,
thumbing thru George Olshevsky's STRANGE TALES index book from the
late 70's, I find myself agreeing with his suggestion that the "REAL"
Yellow Claw was the one behind the invasion, AND much of what
followed-- but that he was replaced by a robot while escaping during
the raid on his "Sky Dragon" months later. After all, he mentioned in
the dialogue that he was using robot duplicates! It's only the Dr.
Doom 2-page finale shot that makes NO F****** SENSE at all!!! (Too
many drugs, Jim???)

Meanwhile, Dan Adkins makes his debut on Dr. Strange in mid-story,
taking Doc to an alien planet (or is it a planet in an alien
dimension-- I can't tell!). The art looks a lot like Wally Wood here,
except with bigger panels than Wood tended to use, and not quite as
flashy. Cool stuff-- but BOY was this storyline rambling by now!
Because of the defeat of Dormammu, Umar was unleashed-- to defeat her,
Doc unleashed Zom, causing her to flee. But to defeat Zom, Doc wound
up unleashing "latent evil" into the world-- which drew the attention
of the Living Tribunal, causing Zom to flee back to wherever he came
from, never to be seen again (as far as I know). Doc convinced the
Living Tribunal to give HIM a chance to banish the "latent evil"
before wiping Earth from existence, but it found its way into dozens
of potential magicians, who freed & summoned Baron Mordo, who wound up
exiling Doc to this alien landscape where he (and Victoria Bentley)
confront Nebulos... It's like a DARK SHADOWS storyline the way it
keeps mutating.

TALES TO ASTNISH #95-96 -- Bill Everett's back on Subby, but is now
inked by Vince Colletta. Their styles are similar-- they are-- but
Colletta's NOWHERE near as good on inks as Everett. To make matters
worse, my MSH reprints are not only fuzzy, they're cutting 3 pages of
Subby PER EPISODE! How is it supposed to make sense? Hulk, meanwhile,
looks pretty with Marie Severin on art-- but the High Evolutionary has
clearly lost his marbles since departing Earth. The story ends with
him evolving himself into an ultimate future being-- devolving his
New-Men back to their animal forms-- and sending Hulk home, with no
memory of it every having happened. (Which makes me wonder how the guy
wound up coming back for an endless number of low-end sequels? But
that's Marvel for you...)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #4 -- man, this really sucked. It was like
MARVEL TEAM-UP before the fact-- of a HUMAN TORCH team-up, but nowhere
near as good as when Dick Ayers was doing them. A foretaste of what
was to come in the 70's. Sad.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #93-94 -- Titanium Man returns again, bigger than
ever, with less personality than ever. Sigh. I'm a little bugged by
the "team-up" between Communist Russians and Chinese, since history
has shown how much they HATED each other. Frank Giacoia's (or
whoever-- heh) inks are getting less slick (less sign of Joe Giella),
and then Dan Adkins takes over, and HIS inks, surprisingly, aren't too
sharp, either. I know Gene Colan is often near-impossible to ink for
many, but this feels like a last-minute rush job. I guess Giacoia blew
the deadline AGAIN-- and Adkins (like Ayers before on DD) wound up
looking bad because of it.

Meanwhile, I'm staring at these Jack Kirby C.A. pages and wondering--
are we SURE these inks are by Joe Sinnott??? 'Cause they don't quite
looks the same as what I'm seeing in FANTASTIC FOUR at the same time.
Which prompts me to ask-- did Joe ever use assistants in the 60's? I
found it bizarre that Kirby should do 2 stories at the SAME TIME about
scientists trying to creat a superior being who then goes out of
control and menaces the ones who made him-- how very "Frankenstein".
In one instance, it was the Citadel of Science and "HIM"-- in this
case, it was the revived A.I.M. and... MODOK. (No clue that MODOK is
an acronym at this point.)

AVENGERS ANNUAL #1 -- Don Heck does a bang-up job on this, as Roy pays
tribute to Gardner Fox's JSA and JLA by splitting the group up into
separate chapters to fight menaces around the world. But somehow, each
of these menaces seem less impressive, as instead of taking whole
stories to get beaten, this time out it takes a few pages. That even
goes for Ultimo, who comes out of ANOTHER volcano, only to be buried
BY it. Deja vu? The Mandarin mentions "finding" the android-- but I
can't tell if Roy Thomas meant he recovered him and fixed him, or
something else. Every bit of Ultimo's 1st story made the case that the
Mandarin created Ultimo himself-- but in later years, it was
"revealed" that this was NOT true, and that it was actually an
ancient ALIEN construct that The Mandarin found and used for his own
purposes. I wonder if they didn't get the idea from this one bit of
dialogue here? Sadly, George Roussos, while being MUCH better than Don
Heck on inks (and a much better fit with Heck than he ever was with
Kirby), doesn't make the finished art look as impressive as it should
have been. Oh well.

DAREDEVIL #33 -- Just re-read this a few minutes ago. Man, is this
BAD. The whole "Mike Murdock" thing is just plain stupid. About the
only thing going for this book at this point is Gene Colan's art, and
now, John Tartaglione is dragging it down!! OY.

X-MEN #36-37 -- Ross Andru makes his Marvel debut on these 2 issues.
George Roussos murders the art in the 1st one. But that's nothing. DON
HECK utterly destroys it in the 2nd. Good grief. Roy spends an entire
issue having the X-Men trying to figure out how to get plane fare to
Switzerland so they can go rescue Professor X. Next, the commercial
airliner they're on is almost destroyed by uncaring baddies out to get
just them. The plot of this issue-- the group put on trial for crimes
against evil mutants, while several of their arch-enemies are in
attendance-- seems to have been the basis for the 2nd-rate FANTASTIC
FOUR cartoon, "The Tribunal".

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #53 -- "Enter: Dr. Octopus" shows Stan's running
out of ideas. He's been using "Enter..." in too many titles lately.
This is some of the BEST inks I have EVER seen from Mike Esposito-- he
REALLY makes a damn good team with John Romita. This episode was the
basis for the 2nd Doc Ock cartoon, "The Terrible Triumph Of Dr.
Octopus", from the demonstration of "The Nullifier" and subsequent
fight, to his almost blowing Spidey to atoms with a bomb in a
riverfront shack. But apart from that, they changed everything else.
Gwen goes to the demo with Pete (and his science professor), Ock
DOESN'T get the Nullifier (yet), it's an electronic device, NOT an
anti-missile-missile. When he threatens to drop it, it'll "injure
dozens"-- in the cartoon, it would have BLOWN UP half the city! (Man--
that makes the Doc Ock in the cartoon EVEN MORE DANGEROUS than the one
in the comics!) Harry's back to scowling, though we're not sure why,
and Flash is in uniform, and smiling too much for an ape like him.
MJ's the same-- bless her-- but Gwen... this just ain't right. On Stan's orders, John is drawing Gwen to look like a blonde version of MJ. It's hard to tell them apart. I have a hard time believing this is the same girl at all from only 6 issues before. I finally figured out who Gwen was probably based on, and now, I can't see ANY evidence of it in her face! And you know... I've long considered THIS part of the run the "best-ever" for Spidey. And I'm barely tolerating it. Is it just me? Have I gotten SO sick of Spider-Man that even the "good" stuff isn't doing it for me anymore? Or was this stuff never as good in the first place as I once thought?


Henry

Our stories continue...

TALES TO ASTONISH #97 -- This is probably the exact point where I felt
like both Subby & Hulk started rambling. Roy Thomas switched "his"
artists around. He wanted John Buscema on AVENGERS, so Don Heck took
over X-MEN, and Werner Roth suddenly was on Sub-Mariner! The Plunderer
has a run-in with the Swamp Men, and Skull Island is destroyed, while
Subby saves the leader of the Swamp Men and a feast is held in his
honor. (The feast, unfortunately, was one of the scenes CUT from the
MARVEL SUPER-HEROES reprint. Lucky I got myself a copy of TTA #97 real
cheap a couple years back!) I keep thinking I might be able to take
the Plunderer & his men more seriously if they'd had the more "pirate"
outfits Jack Kirby intended, instead of these generic "super-villain"
suits John Romita designed back in DAREDEVIL. (I mean, what's with the
CAPES???)

And, while Atlantis falls under the mistaken impression that Namor has
allied himself with The Plunderer, that rat Major Talbot stumbles onto
the lair of The Living Lightning, just as the leader of this criminal
gang is convincing The Hulk that they're his "friends". Oy! At this
point, it seems Talbot wants Hulk out of the way more because he's a
romantic rival than a public menace.


TALES OF SUSPENSE #95 -- "If A Man Be Stone" has a THOR villain, The
Grey Gargoyle, attack Stark Industries, so he can steal a weapon that
will allow him to defeat Thor. So, in his eyes, Iron Man's nothing
more than a momentary distraction. Sheesh! Jasper Sitwell shows up, on
direct orders from Nick Fury, and now Tony Stark has to deal with this
skinny underage over-achiever. Gene Colan somehow makes him look a lot
younger than he ever was in SHIELD-- as if he were still in high
school! Stark has no idea who he is when they meet, which seems wrong,
as I'd SWEAR Stark was there in the Heli-Carrier shaking Sitwell's
hand over a year earlier. (Maybe he just repressed the memory?) The
first time I read this, I found the minor "crossover" intriguing, as
it seems the very moment that Iron Man almost got killed by the GG was
when Doc Ock decided to attack the factory over in ASM #55 (and nobody
but Spidey figured out he'd do it). I mean, what are the odds?

"A Time To Die-- A Time To Live" has Steve Rogers out on his first
offical "date" with Agent 13-- and he STILL never finds out her name!
I'm reminded of one of the later episodes of GET SMART, when someone
asks Max, "Why do you call your wife 99?" "Because I don't know her
name!" Steve wants to propose, 13 lets her career get in the way... so
STEVE quits HIS job! Does this make any sense? It seems rather
contrived to me-- especially the abrupt bit where he lets the
newspapers know what his "real" identity is under the mask. You get
the feeling he didn't think this through. Nick Fury & Dugan turn up,
and Nick-- as drawn by Kirby & Sinnott-- is his old self, square jaw
and unshaved. Makes you wonder if the "Burt Lancaster" Fury that Jim
Steranko was drawing over in STRANGE TALES might be an imposter!


DAREDEVIL #34 -- "To Squash A Beetle" has this former Human Torch
baddie (who has a really inflated opinion of himself) decide to unmask
DD on television. It reminds me of the the 1st Joker story on the
BATMAN tv series, which is probably fitting, as the tone of this
series is one that just cannot be taken seriously.

I know I have the reprint of DD ANNUAL #1... but it's misplaced at the
moment. (Grrrrrrrrrrr.)


X-MEN #38 -- "The Sinister Shadow Of... Doomsday!" brings us real
close to the climax of Roy Thomas' "Factor Three" story. And once
again, in the middle of a multi-parter, they've played "musical
artists" as Ross Andru is replaced by new regular Don Heck, along with
his recent AVENGERS inker George Roussos. It's a HUGE improvement
over the Andru issues (especially the previous one which Heck inked so
badly), but still only serviceable. Meanwhile, Werner Roth is back--
in the back-- beginning the brand-new "Origins" series. Inks are by
newcomer John Verpoorten, who does some solid, bang-up work. We
finally get to see how Prof. X got involved with those guys from the
government-- who were a little too quick on the draw for my tastes. It
also suggests that putting together the X-MEN was equal parts altruism
and government conspiracy. If the Feds were involved in even a small
way from the word go, WHY has the group had so much trouble since they
went public?? "Consistent" this book AIN'T.


THOR #146 -- "If The Thunder Be Gone" has Thor working for... oh it's
almost too painful to say it... The Circus of Crime. The Ringmaster
(who reminds me a bit of Hans Conreid-- or maybe David Carridine, heh)
gives him a "Thor" costume to fit the name he's using. Princess
Python asks him what his "real" name is, and he says some things are
best left unsaid. Oh, the ignominity! They put on a show, and NOBODY
in the audience is aware that they're really "The Circus Of Crime".
They must have records by now-- how is this possible? They pull off
their big crime-- but it goes arry, and Thor comes out of the trance
he was in, as the bullet go flying. Sif & Balder are unable to help,
while Odin merely ponders his son must go thru his "pennance". Hmm.

In the back, Kirby's teamed with Joe Sinnott on the new INHUMANS
"Origins" series. As one might expect, the art is spectacular, as we
look back into the dim recesses of history. This advanced race of
scientists create an island refuge away from the savage primitive humans, known as "Atillan"-- makes me wonder if there's any possible
connection with the "Atlantis" seen in TALES OF ATLANTIS (the back-up
in SUB-MARINER). I'm wishing I had all of these. Unfortunately, I'm
missing a few, and they were not included in the ESSENTIAL THOR
reprint book.


Henry

THE AVENGERS #46 -- "The Agony And The Anthill" has Jan hire a
chauffer, carelessly bring him inside the Mansion with her where he
can scout out its security, and not check references enough to realize
he's Hank's old enemy, The Human Top. Except, as part of Roy Thomas'
overall make-over of the book, he's got a new costume & name--
Whirlwind. The Galactus-like head-vanes look to me like they'd get in
the way of his "spinning" power. How does he DO that without getting
dizzy, anyway? It's finally suggested that his power may be from his
being a mutant. Had to be something, I guess. I still think he's one
of the dumbest villains in Marvel history. Strangely, Quicksilver
doesn't remember him, even though he CLOBBERED the guy in F.F. ANNUAL
#3. George Roussos has been replaced by Vince Colletta... par for the
course?

Meanwhile, Pietro's impatience with "humans" is growing, and Hercules
decides to shave off his beard. For good or not, Roy was clearly out
to make THE AVENGERS his!


STRANGE TALES #163 -- "And The Dragon Cried Death!" features one of
Steranko's coolest covers yet, with a jet black bakcground somehow
reminiscent of many 1950's Marvel books. For once, I can see no hint
of Joe Giella in Frank Giacoia's inks (heh). The "plot"-- such as it
is-- is more complex, convoluted, and confusing that anything we've
ever seen in SHIELD before, and frankly, repeated readings, while
making it more understandable, are NOT improving it in my eyes one
bit. And, we get 2 deadly cliffhangers in 2 episodes. Nick must be
slipping.

"Three Faces Of Doom" manages, with some rather spectacular sci-fi
landscape backdrops courtesy of Dan Adkins, to pretty much wrap up the
long and convoluted MESS that started when Umar appeared, was driven
off by Zom, who ran off due to The Living Tribunal, who wanted to
toast the Earth due to the "latent evil" that resulted in, among other
things, Baron Mordo's return. Earth was saved, Nebulos was wiped out,
but the action still hasn't stopped, as now Strange must travel to the
"world of nightmares" where Victoria Bentley was banished. The entire
run of Dr. Strange from Ditko's departure to the very last issue of
STRANGE TALES runs without any breaks, though the upcoming "science
vs. sorcery" arc kind of acts as a bookend to the "Kaluu" sequence
that started it all.


TALES TO ASTONISH #98 -- "To Destroy The Realm Eternal" is the most
convouted, confused Subby episode yet. Confusion and misunderstanding
are the names of the game, as Subby is believed a traitor by his own
people, a US submarine thinks Atlantis is shooting at them, and The
Plunderer, who started the whole mess, loses his sub, but manages to
escape in the mess. By episode's end, Atlantis officially declares war
on the surface world, while Namor is injured & unconscious. Oy.
(Having 3 pages of this MISSING from my reprint isn't helping, either.)

"The Puppet And The Power" has Hulk attack Ross's missile base, and
the Legions of the Living Lightning move in for a take-over. Love-sick
Talbot keeps thinking Hulk is a "traitor" somehow, and for the
cliffhanger, Betty's dumped in a cell with a sleeping Hulk, who's
about to awaken. Doesn't the guy know Betty's the ONE person Hulk
would NEVER hurt?


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #55 -- "Doc Ock Wins!" was the very 1st Spidey
comic I ever owned-- even if it was missing half the cover. The story
is beginning to show its cracks, but overall, it remains one of the
BEST episodes from the entire Romita run. Nearly every panel in this
book seems worthy of being a pin-up, and it was one of those panels I
re-used as part of the cover of my SPIDER-MAN 1968 music comp. We
haven't seen Spidey so PISSED since ASM #32, as he does his all to
track down Ock, who is more arrogant than ever. It ends is a
magnificent showdown at Stark Industries (where, Stan tells us, Iron
Man is laying somewhere, "mortally wounded"). And then Stan pulls the
"amnesia" card. AUGH! It probably didn't bother me so much back then,
but by the mid-70's, I'd seen virtually every single TV series play
that card (CANNON did it twice!) and swore I would NEVER write an
"amnesia" story. (I still haven't!) Of course, at 8 years old, the end
of this issue frustrated me... It was bad enough when TV shows had
2-parters, which were often difficult for me to see both halves of. I
wasn't used to comic-books ending with "TO BE CONTINUED!" What a
rotten thing to do to kids!!!


TALES OF SUSPENSE #96 -- "The Deadly Victory" opens with Stan once
again treating a deadly serious situtation like it's a joke ("I faw
down an' go boom"). Jasper saves IM's life, then gets himself turned
to stone. But while it supposedly takes an hour to wear off, he's up
and running again in what, the way the story reads, can't have been
more than 5 minutes later. WHAT th'...? IM just barely manages to
defeat the Grey Garygoyle, but his power's giving out, and he
collapses. At which point, Jasper, talking outloud to himself as he
always seems to do, says, "Even though it's completely AGAINST
ORDERS..." WHAT th'...? A couple of issues away from the SHIELD
series, and Stan has the guy not only being more annoying than ever,
but acting in violation of SHIELD regulations? (That's Stan for you.)
Will Jasper REMOVE IM's helmet, to "save" his life, and find out his
identity in the process? (Not bloody likely...)

"To Be Reborn" has a slew of imitation Captain Americas trying to take
the place of the newly-retired Cap, and all become the target of an
open contract on Steve Rogers! (Why they didn't try to kill Cap
BEFORE he quit being Cap is anybody's guess.) Fury & Dugan are on
hand again, and by story's end, Steve realizes he can't give up part
of what he is. I dunno... even with Kirby at the helm, this seems just
as DUMB as ASM #50! (WHY did he let the public know his secret
identity again???)


X-MEN #39 -- "The Fateful Finale" at last brings to a conclusion the
overlong "Factor Three" story. Did we ever learn why the group was
called "Factor Three"? Never mind... Russians shoot at half the
X-team, even though seconds before they saved their lives... back
home, the group rejoins just in time to find out the "Mutant Master"
was really an alien from another planet out to turn all of Earth into
a radioactive wasteland where no humans OR mutants could survive, and
momentarily, the evil mutants join forces with the not-so-evil ones.
At the end, Marvel Girl gives everyone new costumes-- this time, each
with its own color scheme, so at last, they're all "individuals". I
wish I could say Don Heck's art or storytelling was inspired, but I
can't. He just doesn't seem to fit on X-MEN the way he did on
AVENGERS. (Maybe Roy should have left Don where he was, and gotten
John Buscema to draw the X-MEN???) Vince Colletta's inks only make it
worse... and I'll be honest, I'm reading this from the 1974 reprint in
X-MEN #87, where the printing and line reproduction is ABOMINABLE!!!
Yes, ABOMINABLE!!! I can't believe the original art looked nearly this
bad. Inexplicably, the 5-page "Origins" episode was replaced in the
reprint with a 5-page Steve Ditko sci-fi story. WHY???


MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #12 -- which brings us to, "THE COMING OF CAPTAIN
MARVEL!" I've already reviewed this atrocity at great length elsewhere
(ask me, I'll run my comments again). I will say that this time, it's
VERY obvious to me which parts Frank Giacoia did not ink-- they look
TOO GOOD. This includes the cover, which I'm SURE was Joe Giella's
work. NICE lines. I've always liked that cover, and always recall
being very disappointed that the scene depicted on it-- alien envoy
arrives on Earth to stunned looks of populace-- NEVER appeared
anywhere in the issue, or anywhere in the ENTIRE SERIES for that
matter. That just ain't right.

I also see that, like THOR, DAREDEVIL, X-MEN and AVENGERS, MSH's
cover-dates are one month behind the rest of the MU. This went on 'til
1969, but still, I keep wondering... WHY?

This is interesting stuff since I've never read much of the old silver age Marvel output. I still have a feeling that even the worst of it would entertain me much more than 95% of their current output. Please go on!

THOR #147 -- "The Wrath Of Odin" reminds me that I'm reaching a point where Marvel had many of their best-ever covers... even if the writing was slipping. In this case, it's deceiving-- it looks like Odin is cheering Loki on as he tries to destroy Thor, but in fact, Odin is just PISSED in general that Thor, then Loki, then Balder & Sif all openly defied his orders! Thor is ARESTED... threatens a cellmate who tried to prove something, then let out on bail, paid by... who else? Loki. This is just not right. After the monumental build-up to the Crusher Creel story where Loki actually tried to overthrow Odin, and was exiled for it, Odin is letting him off the hook just too soon and too easily. And sure enough, within PAGES, he's back at it again, trying his worst to kill his step-brother.

In the back, a flashback into the history of The Inhumans shows the Kree Sentry-- a different color and several feet shorter than we last saw him-- reveal to the scientifically-advanced race that their genetic advancement was a direct result of Kree tampering. I've seen this discussed heavily in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR magazine, and it seems Stan Lee's dialogue completely contradicted Jack Kirby's plot, resulting in most of the last page's dialogue not making any sense!! Oy. (The Kirby-Sinnott are sure looks great, though.)


AVENGERS #47 -- "Magneto Walks The Earth" has the X-Men's main villain escaping his alien captor (The Stranger) and making it back to Earth for the 2nd time, with his annoying lackey, The Toad, in tow. (WHY is this happenning here instead of in this month's X-MEN?) We're introduced to Dane Whitman, scientist who's out to make up for the crimes of his relative (as Roy Thomas reveals the villainous Black Knight actually DID get killed when he fell off his flying horse back in SUSPENSE #73). Cap announces he plans to resign (even though in his own series, he's already changed his mind about his earlier resignation-- the continuity between books was becoming a bit confused by this point). Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch respond to a call to go this castle, which turns out to be from Magneto, wanting them to rejoin his "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants". You'd think they would have let the rest of their team know where there were going, or brought reinforcments... As John Buscema settles in for a steady run (more or less), George Tuska is on inks, and in truth, their 2 styles seem to be fighting for attention!


STRANGE TALES #164 -- With a Dr. Strange story titled "Nightmare!", you'd think his oldest foe was returning. NOPE! Instead, he finds himself transported across space to a "world of nightmares", where he encounters a giant slug (I was reminded of an ASTRO BOY cartoon for some reason), and a cave filled with scientific equipment, run by "Yandroth, Scientist Supreme", who announces he's decided to make Victoria Bentley his "queen" and intendes to rule several planets-- including, eventually-- Earth. This sets up the rest of the 5-parter. Dan Adkins' art is stunning, if a little stiff in places.

"When Comes Black Noon" has Fury rescued from death by "Ultimate Annihilator" by Suwan, who yanked him away via a trans-dimensional warp machine. She quickly transports him again to the SHIELD barber shop, where he collapses (just before they lock up and turn away a customer who looks just like James Bond...!). The medic tells Fury he needs intense rest and recuperation, or it could mean more black-outs, or even death! But Fury goes on the next handy mission anyway, without telling anyone how bad off he's really doing. Before you know it, Fury's tracked a Yellow Claw agent to the Claw & Voltzmann themselves, only to find they're all aboard the mammoth "Sky Dragon", miles above NYC! Fury's overcome, strapped directly below the weapon, and it's only minutes before all of Manhattan (and Fury) will be wiped off the face of the Earth!!! (ALL, just to prove a point!)


FANTASTIC FOUR #70 -- "When Fall The Mighty" (hey, that was an Iron man story title!) has Reed, Johnny, and a band of NYC cops track down The Mad Thinker to his lair, and following a pitched battle, Reed single-handedly clobbers the bum. But it's not over, as the mind-altered Ben is still intent on MURDER, and finds them before long. The trio make it to The Baxter Building, where Reed struggles to get Ben under a "mento-wave" machine that MIGHT put him to rights... while, in jail, The Thinker activates his 12-foot tall Android, and, crushing everything in its path, it makes its way to The Baxter Building where it walks straight up the outside wall toward their HQ. (Makes you wonder why The Thinker didn't just take the easy way out and use this sucker in the first place!) Hearing a noise, Sue rushes into Reed's lab, just in time to see Reed, Johnny & Ben all on the floor unconscious-- as the android enters thru the massive hole it's knocked in the outside wall. "TO BE CONCLUDED"??? Nothing much "new" about the story, but the storytelling and art alone set this head and shoulders above 95% of all other comics being done at the time. And the climax isn't until next time! Whoa.


TALES TO ASTONISH #99 -- "When The Monster Wakes" has Hulk, sure enough, assure Betty he'd never hurt HER... which just pisses off the Lightning Lord. He tries to kill Hulk, but only succeeds in turning him back to Bruce Banner (you'd think a device like that would be a handy thing for the Army to keep their hands on, wouldn't you?). Before he can try to kill Banner, Talbot escapes and turns the tables, while repeatedly accusing Banner of being "responsible" for all that's happened, and deliberately in league with the baddies. An ANGRY Banner deliberately uses the Gamma Machine (which Ross conveniently had re-built from his plans!) to turn back to the Hulk-- and goes all out to destroy the Lightning's mountain base. WHOA. Why the Army mistakenly believed "nobody could have survived that blast" after all this time is beyond me... (Unfortunately, my MSH reprint is missing 2 pages of this story, but it didn't seem to hurt it... to much.)

"When Falls The Holocaust" has Sub-Mariner trying to stop his own people from using an untried, experimental "Hurricane Inducer" on the misguided US submarine. It's just one collossal misunderstanding after another, as the Navy thinks Atlantis attacked first, the Atlanteans think their "liege" has turned traitor, and so on. In the end, the US sub thinks the hostilities were called off and leave, the Atlanteans think Sub-Mariner saved their lives but died in the process. (Gee, that's 2 anti-heroes in the same comic, both believed dead by the end of their episodes.) Dan Adkins is back on full art, and it's stunning as usual. (If only my MSH reprint wasn't missing 2 pages of this story, as well.)


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #56 -- "Disaster!" (gee, that's 2 titles Stan reused from earlier Iron Man stories in the SAME month!) has Spidey, with amnesia, conned into thinking he's Doc Ock's partner-- or lackey-- or something. His instincts keep telling him different, but he's too confused-- or dumb-- to take heed. Meanwhile, Gwen, Harry, May & Anna are all very concerned that nobody's heard from Peter in days, while MJ shows off the latest headline and announces, "Have you seen JJ's latest rumor rag? Looks like Flash will have to find a new idol!" In what should be his moment of ultimate triumph, Jameson is PISSED that he doesn't have a single photo to gloat over. "It's a Communist plot-- to DRIVE ME BATTY!" (That's one of my favorite lines... especially as JJJ doesn't need anyone to "drive" him batty.)

Spidey robs a military base, but leaves behind the map with Ock's hideout on it. The army arrives, and in a genuine instance of being hoisted on his own petard, the stolen Nullifier SHUTS DOWN Ock's mechanical arms!!! YEAH!!! As a last resort, he rants and raves and threatens and pushes his "partner" to take out the Army-- but Spidey just tells Colonel Jameson (the only one who always believed he was innocent) that they were never partners. Sadly, Stan's soap-opera MANIA knows no bounds, and instead of anything resembling a neat wrap-up, Spidey swings away-- a fugitive-- still with NO idea who he is. I HATED this ending when I first read it. (I should have. It took me 6 YEARS to track down the next issue!)

I should really change the heading, since I've now gotten to the Jan'68 issues...

TALES OF SUSPENSE #97 -- "The Coming Of Whiplash" has Jasper trying to use a tiny explosive device to remove Iron Man's helmet, so he can get him medical help. Geez. Meanwhile, Stark's ne'er-do-well cousin, Morgan, last seen in the only episode written by Al Hartley (I always LIKED that one!), turns up on a gambling ship run by The Maggia (Marvel's version of the MAFIA-- 'ey! Dey ain't no such-a t'ing, you gots it?). Losing and claiming he'll pay back as soon as his luck turns (yeahg, right), he's next in line for "meeting" Whiplash-- who's capable of cutting thru solid steel. YIKES!!! he's saved by a news flash about Iron Man's current state-- and convinces them HE can bring IM to them, for which they're happy to cancel his debt. He does so, not realizing IM just needed electricity, and gets some from-- of all places-- the cigarette lighter in the back seat of Morgan's car. As IM begins to revive, he finds himself up against this month's new menace. (One of the few, Marvel was really doing a lot of "grudge matches" right around here.)

It's funny-- if Tony Stark looks like Errol Flynn, cousin Morgan Stark is a dead ringer for Brian Donlvey, who often played baddies (DESTRY RIDES AGAIN) but also played scientist Prof. Bernard Quatermass (THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, etc.).


Meanwhile, the knowledge of Steve Roger's secret identity has continued to plague him as hit men continue to come out of the woodwork trying to score big by knocking him off. The NYC cops suggest he leave town while they wrap up some big syndicate, and by a coincidence, he's contacted by-- get this-- The Black Panther!-- who sends a magneto aero-car to fetch him, and asks for his help in some matter which is somhow connected to Cap-- but he doesn't give any more details. The Kirby-Sinnott art is STUNNING, especially the last page shot of the flying car (with Cap) zooming above NYC.


THOR #148 -- "Let There Be Chaos" has the infuriated Odin strip Loki, Balder and Sif of their Godly powers! Realizing it would now be a fair fight, Loki begs off, threatening he'll return as soon as he has the upper hand again. While the trio of good guys order fast-food delivered to Dr. Blake's office (and marvel at the wonders of "television", so similar to Odin's own mystical viewer), Loki puts out the call to a longtime ally, Karnilla Queen of the Norns, to grant him Asgardian powers so he may destroy his step-brother. Things go astray when an ugly, brutal and arrogant criminal known as The Wrecker, running fro the cops, happens upon the scene, and, figuring Loki must be another crimninal like himself, decides to break in and steal the other guy's loot. Loki gets clobbered by this mere mortal, and while The Wrecker is trying on Loki's horned helmet, Karnilla appears to grant "Loki" the power he asked for. ZAP!! I laughed out loud when I read this scene the first time!! It was so FUNNY, to see this devious, evil, scheming megalomaniac brought down by a lowly mortal, then have his plans thwarted abruptly by a case of mistaken identity! Next thing, the "new improved" Wrecker goes on a city-wide rampage, it gets on the news, and the 3 Asgardian heroes race to the scene. But-- just as he'd done with Loki, the Wrecker uses his newfound magic to send Balder & Sif "back where they came from". Odin merely comments, "SO, thou hast RETURNED!" But while Thor begins to get the beating of his life, Odin will hear no arguments, saying, for the 2nd time in 3 issues, that Thor must endure his "pennance". Geez. Some father.

Unfortunately, I only have this in the ESSENTIAL reprint, which doesn't include the Inhumans back-ups. (Darn!)


THE AVENGERS #48 -- "The Black Knight Lives Again!" has George Tuska, now returned to Marvel "for good", fill in on full art. Not bad! Dane Whitman takes up the mantle as the 3rd "Black Knight" (following Sir Percy and his bad-guy uncle), who goes off to warn The Avengers that Magneto's on the loose. But instead, the moment they see him coming, they assume the worst and attack in force. The battle goes on for page after page until, finally, they realize-- OOPS!-- it's not the same guy Giant-Man fought back when, except by now, he's too PISSED to wanna work with them. (Who wouldn't be?) I'm afraid this sort of behavior-- a contrived hero-vs.-hero fight, epitomizes some of the worst traits of the Marvel Universe, and this wasn't done with anything near the finesse as in earlier such instances. All in all, a rather frustrating debut for a new hero.


STRANGE TALES #165 -- Things reach a climax in "Behold The Savage Sky" as Dugan, who's been following Nick's progress from a distance, decides to ATTACK-- with the full force of the SHIELD Heli-Carrier and their "Suicide Squad", who board The Yellow Claw's Sky Dragon like "buccaneers of old". What a fight! The Claw is forced to use his mental energy to fend off several agents, which weakens him, and then decides to unleash his "Duplikeds" so he can make his escape. Sure enough, SHIELD men grab several different Claws, while Fury goes after the one he believes is the real one, since Voltzmann told him the guy was heading for the aircraft hanger to make his escape. This is an important point to keep in mind... When Fury catches up with the guy, he's "all armor-- even his face". The "all-armor" Claw beats Fury near to a pulp, then speaks, saying he'll return as SHIELD's conqueror, before flying off in the small aircraft.

Now... while the ENDING (and epilogue) of this epic revealed that The Yellow Claw was really a ROBOT (sorry to anyone who hasn't read these before), in George Olshevsky's STRANGE TALES index, he suggests that it was the real Claw all along, until THIS episode, where the real Claw escaped, while Fury followed one of his "Duplikeds". You know-- that makes a LOT more sense to me than what Steranko sugested 2-3 months later!!! A "clue" might be that before he disappeared, the "real" Claw had thought balloons-- after, not. (But then, I believe we saw thought balloons in ST #167, so... who knows for sure?)

"The Mystic And The Machine" continues Dr. Strange's battle against Yandroth, Scientist Supreme. Dan Adkins art continues to be stunning, as Doc escape death-traps, locates Victoria Bentley, but then confronts one of the clunkiest-looking robots of the late 60's-- "Voltorr" (or, as he was renamed in the next issue, "Voltorg").


FANTASTIC FOUR #71 -- "And So it Ends" finally brings the Mad Thinker 4-parter to its climax. After the 2 previous episodes, WHO could have imagined that the best fight scenes weren't until THIS installment? In 2 consecutive full-page spreads, we see Sue enter Reed's lab (in close-up), followed by a reverse shot of Reed, Ben & Johnny unconscious on the floor as The Thinker's 12-FOOT-TALL android stalks straight toward Sue. HOLY COW!!! She uses one of Reed's weapons to drive it back, and it also manages to wake up Ben, who-- good thing!-- is his old self again! "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!" Ben sends the Android right thru the wall, but while Sue collapses, Reed mistakenly thinks Ben is trying to hurt her. Johnny joins in, but Sue manages to convince them Ben's telling the truth about the "robot"-- especially when it comes back for a return match. As Reed gets Sue to safety, Ben AND Johnny are taken out, and it's up to Reed to stop the android! This, he does-- just barely-- by tricking it into the NEGATIVE ZONE-- and for once, Reed DOESN'T get sucked in to a near-death himself. (I guess he must have gotten a better handle on the safety controls by now...) Crystal shows up (they really could have used her help in the fight), and as she, Johnny & Ben race to see how things are, Reed announces he and Sue are "cutting out". The end of the FF-- AGAIN??? (I had to wait 10 years before I found out how this cliffhanger turned out...)


TALES TO ASTONISH #100 -- "Let There Be Battle!" could have easily been titled "Mayhem Over Miami!", as the cover shows Hulk & Sub-Mariner fighting it out with the familiar vacation skyline in the background. Art for this long-awaited crossover (you can't really call it a "team-up") is by Marie Severin AND Dan Adkins, and what a great team them make! Marie strikes me as doing really great versions of BOTH characters, and this is her first time on Subby. Now, in the spirit of "sequels", "retreads", "rematches" and "grudge matches", just as The Mad Thinker came back in FF, here it's... The Puppet Master. OY!!! (Didn't this guy team up with The Thinker to fight the X-MEN and the FF once?) Out for revenge-- which seems to be the ONLY thing he's EVER after in ALL of his stories-- The Puppet Master gets control of The Hulk, makes him dig himself out of the rubble he was buried under last ish, clobber Rick Jones (making everyone, Gen. Ross and Betty included, feel there's "no hope" for him now), and then go after Sub-Mariner, who the villain wants revenge on for wrecking his plans in the past. You know, if these guys focused more on having successful crime careers and less on seeking out heroes for revenge, maybe they wouldn't get clobbered so often. Anyway, Namor, STILL outcast by his people (and for something Vashti & Dorma MISTAKENLY believed-- how ironic, and STUPID can you get?) thinks Hulk might make a good ally-- 2 "outcasts" together. But instead, Hulk attacks, and keeps attacking, and the fight goes on for most of the 22 pages. It finally ends only when The Puppet Master is accidentally flooded by a tidal wave (if ONLY he'd actually gotten killed this time) and Hulk turns back to Banner, leaving Subby wondering what that was all about. Nice art, nicely-told story, but the story itself, not really that much to brag about.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #57 -- "The Coming Of Ka-Zar" has Spidey, still with amnesia, stealing food and sleeping in Grand Central Terminal. Meanwhile, Ka-Zar (last seen in DAREDEVIL) comes to the States to talk with his lawyer (why the lawyer didn't go to England is beyond me). Jameson is PISSED that his son refused to arrest Spider-Man, and goes to see the jungle lord, and with some difficulty (Ka-Zar does not like his manner) convinces him Spidey is a public menace. Here we go again. Spidey asks Col. Jameson (and Capt. Stacy, who's with him) for help, but even telling them he has no memory only seems to confuse everyone, including Gwen, who seems more upset and concerned for the missing Peter (who, thanks to Harry, is now believed to have been KIDNAPPED by Spidey). Before long, Ka-Zar gets into ANOTHER fight with a good-guy (he seems to have a bad habit of that) and before anyone can figure who might have won, Zabu (the sabre-toothed pussycat) leaps in, and it winds up with Ka-Zar hauling an unconscious Spidey out of the park lake.

This is the first of the Don Heck issues (well, really, the 2nd, after ANNUAL #3). It looks nice... "BUT". I'm guessing, by the time-frame, that it was the SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN b&w magazine that over-loaded Romita's schedule (he did both of them, right?). So Romita cut back to layouts on the main book, they got Don Heck to do the finished pencils (like so many of those SHIELD episodes Kirby laid out), and Mike Esposito continued on inks. It looks WAY better than the last Heck-Esposito Iron Man ep. in SUSPENSE #72, but still... NOT having Romita do finished pencils OR inks is dragging it down, maybe not much, but enough to make it less than the all-time "classic" art of the preceding issues. I'm really noticing where Romita did full pencils (faces in close-ups) and which ones were pencilled by Heck.


TALES OF SUSPENSE #98 -- "The Claws Of The Panther" has Cap arrive in Wakanda, team with The Black Panther, discover a giant killer satellite is being tested and is capable of destroying any city it's aimed at (I'm reminded of the aura surrounding The Death Star in STAR WARS!), and, after both heroes get caught in a lion-trap, Cap discovers the one in charge is... Baron Zemo. (What, ANOTHER old and/or dead villain back for a return match??) The Kirby-Sinnott art is stellar! The cover appears to be inked by old-time C.A. artist Syd Shores, who would take over from Sinnott next month while Sinnott took over from Frank Giacoia on S.H.I.E.L.D.

"The Warrior And The Whip" has Iron Man, desperately low on power, trying to fend off Whiplash, while Jasper Sitwell contacts Fury to get the lowdown on Morgan Stark, hoping to find out where IM and/or Tony Stark are. FUNNIEST scene in the comic is when a slew of gorgeous women arrive, and Jasper asks, "Do you know Mr. Stark?" "I'll say-- we're his girlfriends." "ALL of you?" "Of course not! The rest couldn't make it." After this goes on for a bit, Jasper, exasperated, says, "NO man can have that many girlfriends-- it's practically UN-AMERICAN!" I'm guessing Jasper was meant to fill the "humor" gap left by the absence of Happy & Pepper (who seem to have disappeared since getting married). This wound up being Stan Lee's last IM episode, as the next month ex-Warren horror writer-editor Archie Goodwin would step in.


THOR #149 -- "When Falls A Hero!" has Thor, sans his Immortal powers, fighting The Wrecker, who IS imbued with Asgardian magic. What a brutal knock-down drag-out. Loki steals Odin's mystic viewing gem, and flees to the country of the Norns, just as Balder & Sif are desperately trying to convince Odin that Thor is in much more danger than he believes. Finding the gem missing, they immediately figure it's Loki's doing, and set out to the Norn country to find Loki and the gem. But back on Earth, it looks like Thor may be finished...

"Silence Or Death" has a flashback to when Black Bolt had a reunion with his royal family, including an 8-year-old Crystal. His "mad" brother goes all out to force him to speak, knowing how destuctive BB's power is, as he sees it as the only way to prove that HE, rather than BB, should be ruler. (Ask anyone-- "mental illness" doesn't go away just because you want it to!) The Kirby-Sinnott art is great, but fans on the letters pages seem to want "Tales Of Asgard" to return soon.


THE AVENGERS #49 -- "Mine Is The Power" has Magneto cart Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to the UN-- just so he can "prove" to Quicksilver that humans are the enemy, and he should rejoin the evil "Brotherhood". OY. What's left of the Avengers (Goliath, Wasp & Hawkeye) turn up, but before you know it, Magneto causes a guard to graze Wanda's head with a bullet, sending Pietro into a rage at all humans, including his own team members. (Idiot.) It just all seems so badly-done, and contrived. Meanwhile, Hercules confronts one of the Titans, who's responsible for all of the Olympians to be missing from their mountaintop. John Buscema does full art this time, and while it's nice, the figure-work seems as over-blown as Roy Thomas' dialogue. It's like watching a BAD episode of ST:TNG, decades before-the-fact.


STRANGE TALES #166 -- "Nothing Can Halt Voltorg!" has Dr. Strange trying to fend off the clunkiest robot of the late 60's, courtesy of George Tuska & Dan Adkins. (Although it appeared in one panel in the previous issue, I can't shake the feeling that Tuska, not Adkins, designed this thing!) By some weird coincidence, Strange uses a spell that creates multiple images of himself to fool the robot-- exactly as Iron Man had done to fool Whiplash! (I wonder if both writers saw the late-60's SPIDER-MAN cartoon with Electro and the fun house with all the mirrors?) Strange barely takes out the robot, Yandroth escapes via matter teleporter with Victoria Bentley, Strange follows... but somehow winds up back at Stonehenge, where he sees, floating in the air, the face of his (dead?) mentor, The Ancient One!

"If Death Be My Destiny" has Fury pursuing the Yellow Claw's fleeing airship, and clinging to its hull as it get sucked down underwater by an artificially-created waterspout. There he finds The Claw's secret HQ, breaks in and makes his way thru a series of death-trap laden twisting corridors. Meanwhile, Jimmy Woo is captured, and before a protesting Suwan, The Claw plans to use a freezing machine to "polarize" him to death. Just then Fury breaks in, and as he struggles with The Claw, Suwan frees Jimmy-- only to be hit by the freezing ray herself! Overcome with grief, Jimmy vows vengeance on BOTH the Claw AND Nick Fury!!!

If Tuska's DS art seemes a step backwards, Steranko jumps several steps ahead this time, with some VERY wild layouts, including one page set up like a maze (a motif later reused in a Paul Gulacy MASTER OF KUNG FU story), another where half the page seems upside-down, and finally a shot of Fury that takes up the entire vertical 1/3rd of a page next to several smaller panels (the figure was later reused for the cover corner boxes). With JOE SINNOTT on the inks, Steranko's art NEVER looked better!!! (Until next month...)


FANTASTIC FOUR #72 -- As Reed & Sue head out of town by train, Johnny, Ben & Crystal wonder what to do next.... until The Watcher appears. Although he is not permitted to interfere (YEAH-- RIGHT!!!) he has come to warn them that The Silver Surfer intends to attack all of mankind! It seems the longer he's imprisoned on Earth, the more SS has gotten it into his head that while it could be a paradise, man is so full of greed, envy, ambition, evil, etc. that it will never be-- UNLESS, he thinks, they can be united by a common enemy-- and he foolishly decides to take the job. So, a world-wide rampage ensues, with only the Torch & The Thing (and Reed, once The Watcher clues him in as well) to stop him. Meanwhile, Gen. Ross (not named, but who else could it be?) decides to use a "Solar Shark" missile to defeat the Surfer. Almost inexplicably, Reed figures that it is in fact the only thing that can stop the Surfer-- and HE decides to stop the missile, rather than the Surfer! The missile does succeed-- not unlike Dr. Doom-- in draining most of the Surfer's cosmic energy away, before Ben sends it off-course to explode in the upper atmosphere. The Surfer suddenly comes to his senses, realizes not all humans are hopeless, thanks them for helping him to see this, and departs. Ben describes him now as "just a regular guy on a flyin' surfboard". I forget if this severe de-powering-- which seemed to be in answer to some fan letters protesting his excessive power levels-- was permanent or not. The one thing that bothers me is, after all the destruction he caused, you can't tell me every country on Earth won't be gunning for the guy now!!! (THIS is a happy ending???)

Also, while Reed took part in the adventure without hesitation, there's no hint as to if he plans to renege on his "cutting out" plans, or not. This issue featured some of the best Kirby-Sinnott art ever, especially some of the shots of the Surfer, one of which, a full-page shot, I'm SURE was turned into a poster at some point (and if not, it should have been).

On the letters page, one reader ponders whether Marvel has past its zenith and is now on the decline, while Stan feels the best is yet to come. (YEAH-- RIGHT!!!)

TALES TO ASTONISH #101 -- "Where Walk The Immortals!" has Loki turn Banner back into the Hulk and transport him to the Rainbow Bridge, hoping he'll cause such a ruckus that Odin will be too distracted to notice that Thor's life is in deadly peril. WOW! First time I read this, I had NO IDEA it tied in the the same month's THOR, in which Thor get beaten close to death by The Wrecker. This must take place before Loki steals Odin's viewing gem. Hogun, Fandral & Volstagg, who've been missing from the THOR book for awhile, show up here, entertaining as always. They figure out Hulk's not evil, and decide to see an Oracle for help, but on the way there, Loki strikes again, turning Hulk into Banner in mid-leap-- over a bottomless pit! (Yipes!)

"And Evil Shall Beckon" has Namor haunted my half-memories of an old foe, and going in search of the past near the ruins of the original Atlantean city near Antarctica. His own people prepare to wander in search of yet another new home, as their present city was destroyed by The Plunderer (and the US submarine). The big surprise this episode was the return of Gene Colan, this time teamed with Dan Adkins, who does the most stunning job on inks Colan has ever received on this series!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #58 -- "To Kill A Spider-Man" has Spidey's memory return. Ka-Zar offers to help him clear his name, but is then distracted by Zabu's altercation with the police. Meanwhile, STILL pissed, Jameson gets a call from Professor Smythe, who's built a new robot to track Spider-Man. Against even his own instincts, JJJ agrees to put up money for it, but once it gets going, he becomes disturbed by what are clearly MURDEROUS intentions on Smythe's part! Smythe's not out for justice-- he just wants revenge! And when JJJ calls him on it, he just calls Jameson a hypocrite.

It appears John Romita did a lot less this time out, apparently feeling Don Heck could handle the job more on his own. Over Romita's layouts, the Heck-Esposito art is probably the BEST Heck's work has looked in well over a year-- but it still feels like it's dragging the book down compared to when Romita was doing full art or full pencils.


TALES OF SUSPENSE #99 -- "At The Mercy Of The Maggia" has Iron Man knock out Whiplash before falling unconsious himself. The Maggia's "Big M" wants IM's armor studied, and turns on a deadly laser beam aimed at his helmet to get things going. Jasper, meanwhile, breaks every speeding law on the books getting his hands on Morgan Stark, who was about to flee the country, then sneaks aboard the gambling ship to find Iron Man. But that's when things go REALLY crazy, as an A.I.M. sub attacks the ship, intent on rebuilding their organization's rep by first taking out a rival crime gang. Archie Goodwin makes his Marvel debut here, but so far all I can say is it's serviceable.

"The Man Who Lived Twice" has Cap & The Black Panther as prisoners of Baron Zemo, desperate to stop his plans to use his orbitting death ray to blackmail the world into submission with threats of total destruction. Meanwhile, Agent 13 shows up undercover, just in time to receive orders to kill the heroes-- one of which is the man she loves!

The art this issue was a real surprise all-round. Johnny Craig took over inking Gene Colan-- and his very precise, refined, "CLEAN" inks seem rather at odds with Colan's style. Even more jarring, Syd Shores-- who illustrated Captain America in the 1940's-- takes over inking Kirby, and while it has an interesting look, it seems a TOTAL clash of styles! (Oddly enough, Shores would ink about a year of Colan on DAREDEVIL some time later on.)


MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #13 -- "Where Stalks The Sentry" gets MY vote for the WORST Marvel Comic of the year-- maybe more. Between Mar-Vell's long soliloquys, suspicion on the part of the motel manager, army guards, base security chief Danvers, the murderous actions of his own commanding officer, and the utterly pointless destructive behavior of the Kree Sentry (which-- guess what-- is still intact AND alive, thus negating the entire purpose of his mission on Earth!), just about every bit of dialogue in this story is extrememly PAINFUL to read. I hate to say it, but this is really some of the worst stuff I've EVER read from Roy Thomas. (I mean, WHAT is this obsession with the "odd-looking briefcase"? I'd expect stuff like this if I was reading a comedy-- but this ISN'T FUNNY!!) And to make matters worse, in a month where Gene Colan's getting some offbeat inking, this is the rock-bottom, courtesy of Paul Reinman, who does quite possibly the worst inking job I have EVER seen over Colan's pencils. OY!

Between Archie Goodwin (on Iron Man), Don Heck (on Spider-Man) and Syd Shores (on Captain America), I couldn't help but think, what a SHAME it was that these 3 particular guys didn't, somehow, get on THIS series, all together, right here. They did what was in my opinion the single BEST episode of CM (before Jim Starlin came along), and had they been in on the series near the start, it might have actually turned into something good a LOT sooner than it did.

IRON MAN AND SUB-MARINER #1 -- "The Torrent Without---The Tumult Within" is part 4 (of 5) of the IM / Maggia / Whiplash / A.I.M. story. IM's trapped as the gambling ship begins to sink, but manages to get free and give himself a full recharge! It's mostly chaos to the end, when he's captured-- again-- this time by a ray from the A.I.M. sub. Some days...

"Call Him Destiny, Or Call Him Death" has Sub-Mariner confront "Destiny", one of the worst-designed villains of this era. The guy apparently knew Namor's father, Leonard McKenzie, and was in some way involved in the cataclysm that destroyed the Antarctican home of Namor's people (sometime in the late 50's when he had amnesia). Overall, very little about this story sticks in my mind... and I JUST re-read it!!

This one-shot wound up having Gene Colan art cover-to-cover. He got some interesting inks around here, but nothing here really seemed to fit. Johnny Craig's razor-thin lines would be a much better fit over George Tuska a few months later, and Frank Giacoia, on Subby, would have looked better doing Iron Man. (Or Captain America, which was inked this month by Syd Shores-- who later turned out to be a much better inker for Colan on DAREDEVIL. Go figure.)


THE INCREDIBLE HULK #102 -- The "1st" issue of The Hulk's solo book (honest!) has the 2nd half of his Asgard adventure. He's rescued from sure death by The Enchantress & The Executiuoner (of all people!), who are planning ANOTHER revolt against Odin with the Troll army (who, after the recent Troll War, obviously don't know when to quit). Thor's trio of pals, meanwhile, consult Oldar The Oracle, who reveals Hulk's ORIGIN (lotta those going around about this time). When the Trolls attack, Hulk strikes back against them, proving his valor. But after Odin saves Hulk's life, he wakes up and mistakenly thinks the All-Father's about to attack. Fandral pleads in Hulk's favor, and Odin, who gets pissed too fast himself, banishes Hulk back to Earth.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #100 -- "This Monster Unmasked" finishes out the 4-part Zemo story. Doesn't it seem strange for characters to be given their own "solo" books in the MIDDLE of ongoing storylines? Cap finds out Agent 13 is working undercover, and with the Black Panther, they barely hold off Zemo's hordes until he reveals "Zemo" is not the genuine article (his mask was loose rather than glued on tight), but Zemo's pilot instead. His own men kill him for "betraying" their trust! Then, with no one left to pay them (they didn't think that through, did they?) they give up. With the protective force field cut off, SHIELD is able to destroy the orbitting death ray (shades of RETURN OF THE JEDI), and Cap reccomends The Panther replace him in The Avengers. It's never quite explained why he didn't wanna go back, but things are confusing enough over there without Cap being in 2 books at the same time.

Syd Shores' inks are outright bizarre-- I'd call 'em "impressionistic". At times I'm left wondering what the heck I'm looking at? Still, the Kirby-Shores art has its fans.


THOR #151 -- "To Rise Again!" has Sif-- now trapped in the form of The Destroyer-- realize that Karnilla tricked her, as Thor is trying his best to take out the killing machine, not knowing his beloved's life force is encased within it! Meanwhile, Ulik the Troll returns (perhaps spurred on by the attempted 2nd Troll War in HULK #102 ?) and attacks Karnilla. Balder offers to help, but only if she frees him and promises not to attack Asgard again. This, she does, but one's left wondering if part of it isn't that she seems to find Balder attractive. (She, meanwhile, reminds me of either Joan Crawford or Betty Davis-- depending on the panels.)


STRANGE TALES #168 -- "Exile" neatly wraps up not only Dr. Strange's battle against Yandroth, Scientist Supreme, but the entire long-running never-ending sequence that has been going on ever since Bill Everett took over from Steve Ditko! Dan Adkins' art is better than ever, as Strange is forced to send Yandroth plummetting into an endless abyss from which he will never die or recover, defeats the dream-dimension apparaitions, and return to Earth with Victoria bentley in tow before The Ancient One can doze off. With memory of her ordeal fading fast, Strange's mentor tells him he can take a "well-deserved" rest. Nice that at least ONE of the anthology titles brought things to a close with its final issue!

"Today Earth Died" has Fury dictating a letter to Jimmy Woo, inviting him to become a member of SHIELD... when he gets a message about a UFO, which appears benign but turns out to be world-threatening. Or, it would be, except Fury was having a bad dream. According to the dialogue, it seems The Claw, his men AND Suwan were all robots. Fury speculates if they were the same ones Jimmy met in the 50's-- or not. I prefer to think... not. And I also prefer the idea that they weren't robots until halfway into "Behold The Savage Sky", either. Too bad nobody at Marvel in later stories ever seemed to think along those lines. GREAT art by Steranko & Sinnott, but otherwise, this episode was just "filler".


FANTASTIC FOUR #74 -- "When Calls Galactus" no doubt is a story that infuriates many long-time fans, as it goes along with the "returning baddie" theme that seems to have over-run Marvel at this point and brings back the one baddie who by rights NEVER should have come back to Earth... Galactus. Bereft of his herald, The Silver Surfer, big G seems to be having so much trouble finding another planet suitable for eating, he's contemplating GOING BACK ON HIS WORD about never attacking Earth again. Did we really need this? He contacts the Surfer, offering to put all behind them if he'll rejoin him. While he misses soaring the spaceways, the Surfer feels Galactuis will just continue eating inhabitted planets. So instead, he goes into hiding. OY. The bulk of the issue has Ben, Johnny & Reed fighting THE PUNISHER (no, not that one!), G's robot servant, until the end, when Johnny mentions the Surfer said something about there being "worlds within worlds".

The art on this is-- as always-- the best there ever was. The story? EHH. Knowing the behind-the-scenes differences of opinions that went on here (and later), this story strikes me as one COLLOSAL missed opportunity. Just 2 issues earlier, the Surfer was bemoaning mankind's tendencies toward self-destruction, he made himself mankind's #1 enemy, and lost the bulk of his "cosmic power" in the process. Having Galactus come back and offer reconcilliation, it seems to me, would have been a PERFECT chance for the Surfer to rejoin big G, get the HELL off this miserable planet, regain his full power, and determine to spend the future only leading Galactus to NON-inhabited planets! BUT NOOOOOOOOO! The reason this never happened is clear... Stan was planning to give the Surfer his own book, with John Buscema on the art. Reading this FF issue, it seems we still have Kirby's Surfer-- who, it came out years later, was an innocent, naive being created whole by Galactus. But Stan had other ideas in mind-- namely, that the Surfer was once a human who gave up his humanity to save his planet. So, instead of a nearly-immortal being who had "always" been by Galactus' side (and his absence would make some sense of this story), instead, he's an ex-human who's only been serving big G for an undisclosed number of years. Makes a farce out of Galactus' having so much trouble finding suitable sustenance, doesn't it?

These are cool prof! Keep 'em coming!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #60 -- "O, Bitter Victory" has Spidey fighting a losing battle against The Kingpin, getting hurt and winding up with double-vision. He barely escapes, and as a result, Captain Stacy winds up a victim of the brainwashing machine. He discounts MJ's story of a backstage fight, then at home, is cold toward Peter-- then attacks him when Peter says the cops might be interested in what he knows. Gwen walks in just in time to mistake Pete defending himself as "attacking" her helpless father, and says she never wants to see him again. And of course, HE can't bring himself to tell her what's really going on (idiot). Stacy mentions Pete's supicions, causing The Kingpin to order his men to KILL Parker! They miss him, and just bust up Harry's apartment. Later, he snaps pics of Stacy helping some mobsters to loot files at City Hall, and Jameson prints the pics (with Peter's name prominently listed under-- is he trying to get Parker killed??). Naturally, Gwen sees the pics, and Pete's credit, and only blames Pete more while refusing to acknowledge something really bad is going on with her father!

I had the impression Romita did more faces in this issue, at least on the main characters. Nice stuff, but I still would have preferred "pure" Romita.

This is the issue where Pete very over-dramatically realises he loves Gwen. Sigh. I feel sorry for MJ. I liked her so much better...


IRON MAN #1 -- "Alone Against A.I.M." finally brings this 5-part mess to a conclusion. Shellhead's taken to A.I.M.'s island fortress (nowhere near as classy as Hydra's island fortress had been) and by the end of the story, thwarts the plans of the A.I.M. scientist who wanted to become their new leader, AND blows up the entire HQ in the process! Meanwhile, Jasper rescues this classy lady who'd shown up earlier at Stark Industries from drowning when the Maggia gambling ship goes down, and Nick Fury & Dugan can't believe their eyes when she shows interest in Jasper (and he returns it!). But it is too good to be true-- the lady, Whitney Frost, is in reality "Big M" of the Maggia-- and she plans to use Jasper to get her hands on Stark's technology.

Gene Colan wraps up his UNBROKEN run of Iron Man with a 4-page retelling of IM's origin. There's no hint in the comic that this is his last, but I guess having CAPTAIN MARVEL bumped up to monthly was too much for Gene's schedule. Too bad he didn't stick around here instead...


THE AVENGERS #51 -- "In The Clutches Of The Collector" brings back one of the most annoying, obsessive alien villains, as he once more plans to put together a "collection" of Avengers. In the end, his spaceship (and a huge chunk of his "precious" collection!) is blown to atoms, and the team finally hears from the missing Cap, who asks them to accept his new friend, The Black Panther, as his replacement. Not bad, but just average.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #101 -- "When Wakes The Sleeper" continues the "grudge match" kick Kirby's been on lately, as he brings back The Red Skull (we do get to see how he escapes his last "death") and introduces a 4TH "Sleeper". This one's capable of altering its molecular density (sort of like The Vision-- before-the-fact) and acts as a "living volcano". Nobody-- not the Skull or his men-- can seem to control the thing, and he & Cap are nearly killed as it begins its rampage of "revenge". The Skull's island fortress (what, ANOTHER ONE??) in the Florida keys is destroyed in the process, making at least 3 neo-Nazi islands that have been wiped off the face of the Earth in less than a year (2 in the same MONTH!).

Syd Shores' inks are MUCH sharper this time, suggesting he either "adjusted" to the smaller art page size by here, or they were really having problems with their stats & printing in the previous issue. Shores gives the book an almost "Golden Age" feel to is, and rumor has it he was being geared up to replace Kirby-- until Stan decided he just didn't like his style on the book. Meanwhile, Agent 13 shows up just in time for Nick Fury-- looking more his old self than usual (Shores makes him look like he just crawled out of a foxhole!) --to tell her it looks like Cap failed his mission, and may be dead. (to be continued)

Prof, you forgot to do Avengers #50, a favorite of mine.

Didn't Colan take over Dr. Strange around this time, too?

I don't think Colan was particularly well-suited to Iron Man, but the rest for the rest of Goodwin's IM run was terrible, especially the issues that Johnny Craig pencilled (which is a shame, because Craig's art on the 50s EC Comics was excellent; in fairness, he was hardly the only industry veteran who couldn't adapt to the Marvel house style.) It's good that Goodwin's entire IM run is now available cheap in Essential Iron Man Vols. 2 and 3 -- if ever there was a case of good scripts rising above bad art...


I really like Buscema's art in this issue. Tuska is the credited inker, but it's gotta be someone else -- it looks similar, though not quite as good, to Buscema-inks-himself in #49-50.

I think what happened was, I forgot to post a day's worth of reviews here-- including AVENGERS #50. I did 'em... they're just not here (oops).

DR. STRANGE was a few months later. I'm trying to read these in order, which is tricky as several series the cover date was one month out of synch with the rest-- and stayed that way until 1969! Roy's growing cross-over mania in AVENGERS didn't help.

It's SO noticeable that, right after the 2-part "HIM" story, Jack Kirby began doing almost nothing but returning villains / sequels / grudge matches. The "new" villains from that period tended to be lesser creations by other artists.

I have only a handful of Goodwin IRON MAN issues. I wanted to get more, but the popularity of the later runs by Michelinie-Layton and Busiek-Chen, combined with them never having been reprinted (they are now) drove the Goodwin-Tuska issues WAYYYYYYYYY up in price. (When a Lee-Kirby-Sinnott F.F. is going for $20 and a Tuska I.M. is going for $80-- something AIN'T right.) Goodwin's a favorite writer of mine, and I was frankly shocked at HOW DAMN GOOD Johnny Craig's inks over Tuska were-- he may be the best inker for Tuska, ever. For whatever reason, Goodwin never stayed at any series for long... EXCEPT on IRON MAN. So I was baffled at how BAD I thought what I read of his run was. "Everybody" seems to disagree with me on this-- you're the first person who feels the way I do.

Archie's 8 episodes of VAMPIRELLA remain, to this day, my favorites in that entire series. Shame he didn't stay on it a LOT longer. Also, Archie's ONE episode of CAPTAIN MARVEL made everyone else who ever touched the book (except for Jim Starlin) look like rank amateurs by comparison. And to think, he was kicked off the book before his single issue ever went to the printers... (because Stan hoped Roy Thomas could "save" it, and, Gil Kane REALLY WANTED to do it). Archie's HERO FOR HIRE was fabulous-- though, I think, Englehart did even better.

Here they are (I think)...


THOR #150 -- "Even In Death" begins with The Wrecker believing Thor is dead-- or dying. When Hela, The Goddess Of Death actually shows up, it sure looks like the bad guy's right! Thor argues the point (something just not done) and, in spirit form, watches The Wrecker's rampage continue. Meanwhile, Balder & Sif encounter Karnilla, Queen of the Norns, who puts Balder to sleep and then tricks Sif into "saving" Thor-- by inhabiting the shell of The Destroyer, which she has uncovered!! She does so-- beating the CRAP out of the baddie, but just then, Thor's spirit re-enters his body and arises, and all he sees is a murderous engine of destruction heading his way-- and Sif, within, is unable to speak to tell him the truth!

I just found out earlier today that a few months before this was when Marvel switched over to the smaller size bristol board they've used since, and a lot of older artists (pencillers and inkers) had trouble adjusting. This may explain the rougher-than-usual linework I saw across the board for a couple months there!


THE AVENGERS #50 -- "To Tame A Titan!" has the last 3 remaining members go off to find Hercules, never dreaming he's in the Underworld, where his own father Zeus asks if it's HIS fault all the Olympian Gods are trapped there! (Nice guy!) Being he's half-human, Hercules is able to escape the banishment (via Zeus' help) and return to Earth to battle the Titan, Typhon, and soon Hawkeye, Ant-Man & Wasp join in. After, Hercules accepts Zeus' invitation to return to Olympus, and leaves The Avengers, who are now more determined than ever to get to the bottom of what happened to Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. John Buscema again supplies full art, and overall it's not a bad issue, though as usual, some of the dialogue wears badly on me.


DAREDEVIL #38 -- "The Living Prison" picks up in the middle of a "mind-swapping" story-- between D.D. and Dr. Doom (who's done this sort of thing before, with Reed Richards). D.D. tries to warn the F.F. what's happened, then figures the only way he can "force" Doom to reverse the situation is by using his guise as Doom to declare war on all of Latveria's neighbors! Knowing the only way to stop this is to put things right, Doom does, D.D. destroys the machine, then goes on his way... while Doom himself now contacts the F.F. to tell them that "Dr. Doom" is on his way to attack them. Nice guy. I managed to pick this up some years ago, the only issue from this point I currently have.


FANTASTIC FOUR #73 -- "The Flames Of Battle" picks up where DD #38 left off. The F.F. lay in wait for "Dr. Doom", and don't give poor D.D. a second to explain what's really going on. After getting the Torch soaked by a water tower, D.D. is surprised when Spider-Man shows up, offering to help (he knows what it's like to be attacked by heroes-- seeing as he just went a couple rounds with Ka-Zar in his own book!). Spidey runs off and finds Thor-- de-powered, and in the middle of his clash with The Wrecker. It takes some time to convince him, but before you know it, it's a free-for-all between Reed, Johnny, Ben, D.D., Spidey & Thor. I dunno... it LOOKS nice, but frankly, I thought this was one of the DUMBEST hero-vs-hero fights I've EVER seen. Aren't these people supposed to have more intelligence than this??? It finally takes Sue to break it up, as she caught Doom on TV making a public address from Latveria. Sheesh.

I first read this in a reprint in the 70's (the reproduction is pretty fuzzy), but this was the first time I was ever able to read both the DD and FF parts back-to-back. It does make a LITTLE more sense this way. Meanwhile, it say Thor's appearance here is "during" THOR #150, but a quick flip reveals the only break in the action is somewhere in THOR #149. Oh well, that's only one issue off!

Jack Kirby's Spider-Man, on the other hand, reminds me a LOT of the one on the 1967 cartoon show! (Mike Royer worked on a number of those.)


STRANGE TALES #167 -- "Armageddon" begins with Jimmy Woo allowing the audience to catch their breath as he eulogized the dead Suwan, as Fury races to stop The Yellow Claw. A moment later, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE, as, in a 4-page spread (!!!!) SHIELD's Suicide Squad attacks for the 2nd time in 3 issues, invading the Claw's underwater hideout via their brand-new "Dreadnaught"-- named after the Hydra robot no doubt, but inspired by the Hydra "thru-the-ground tank". It's a scene right out of the last half-hour of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (which came out right before Steranko did this), and it truly is one of the wildest actions scenes ever put on paper. The Claw escapes to hyperspace, Fury follows, a mental combat ensues (thanks to SHIELD giving Fury a mental-wave projector of his own), and then-- out of nowhere-- Fury pulls out Baron Strucker's "Satan Claw" (WHERE the hell was he hiding it???) and splits open The Claw's armor, only to find... he's a robot. Aw, nuts.

Now... considering 2 issues earlier, The Yellow Claw unleashed robots to cover his escape, it would be a very clever twist for Fury to have pursued one of the robots for 2 whole issues. But when we turn the page, we find... DR. DOOM and a computer complex chess-master robot called "The Prime Mover" observing everything from afar. I could deal with this. But the dialogue reveals that Doom was supposedly behind EVERYTHING that went on for the entire story-- which is just TOO MUCH!! I mean...NO F***** way!!! I've had decades to think this over, and frankly, considering this was the greatest Yellow Claw story ever, the last 2 pages just undermines it too much. It doesn't make any sense. Why would Doom try to destroy NYC-- anonymously??? He calls it a "diversion". I call it B***S***. His ego is too big to act in a behind-the-scenes manner like this. (Put another way-- just what was Steranko smoking when he did those last 2 pages???) Had it simply been Doom observing from afar, and considering his own future schemes, I could have accepted that. Had it been The Claw watching from afar, and ending the whole shebang with a very "Fu Manchu"-like statement, "The world shall hear from me again!", that would have been even better! As it is... I prefer at this point to IGNORE the dialogue on those pages. I mean, looking at 'em, Doom looks MORE like a robot than the robot Claw did.

George Olshevsky suggested the scenario involving the real Claw being replaced in his STRANGE TALES index. I believe it was also suggested somewhere that after The Claw was replaced, you stopped seeing thought balloons. Well, in this issue, therte were thought balloons for one panel... Had they been merely word balloons, it would have gone on to support the theory. I doubt it's anything Steranko ever had in mind. But like I said, the ending is just SO "off", looking at it now, I prefer to interpret it the way I do. OH well. In any case, this was probably the BEST Steranko-Sinnott artwork EVER. What a team they made!!!

"This Dream--This Doom" reveals The Ancient One is alive-- and faked his own death so Dr. Strange could defeat Zom some issues before. Together, they fly back to the Himalayas, and though exhausted, search for the missing Victoria Bentley. They find her in a dimension of dreams, and after a rescue attempt fails, Strange has to enter the dimension himself-- knowing that if his mentor falls asleep, he's screwed! Strange confronts Yandroth, but is distracted by a giant lizard behomoth and a pair of Viking warriors out of time gone mad. As Doc attempts to save all their lives, Yandroth merely aims a GUN-- and prepares to pull the trigger!

As Steranko's page layouts went completely nuts last month and this, Dan Adkins decided to follow suit, laying out most of this issue in a series of "overlapping photos". He even did a 2-page spread consisting of one huge image overlapped by multiple smaller panels, VERY similar to how Steranko laid out the entire OUTLAND movie adaptation (except Adkins did it here FIRST!!). This is some of my favorite Adkins art ever, and I'm beginning to think in the long run his story makes more sense than the SHIELD episode. How bizarre is that?

This was my first-ever issue of STRANGE TALES, my first SHIELD and DR. STRANGE episodes-- what a place to come in! It was also the 1st Marvel Comic I ever got my hands on that had a full cover. And the screwy thing is, my brother found it-- laying on the ground-- under a park bench! A decade later, it was the last issue I managed to get a back-issue copy of. I wanted a 2nd one so I could lay out the entire 4-page spread. I bet that's why copies were in such short supply!

And here's the other one...!


I'd say I'd just about reached the exact moment in Marvel history when Spider-Man became less of a character and more of a "franchise"...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #59 -- "The Brand Of The Brainwasher" has Spidey dodging cops in order to sneak into the hospital to visit his Aunt May. Doing so works wonders for her, but the Doctor mentions Pete's considered a "missing person". He goes to the Police, who wind up grilling him for info on Spider-Man, who (because of a mistaken belief on Harry Osborn's part) is supposed to have "kidnapped" Pete. He figures, "Okay, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it." Pete blames Spidey's amnesia for "Spidey's" behavior, and says he's not bad like so many seem to think. Pete meets Captain Stacy, who invites him home to talk about Spider-Man, who he's been "studying" for years. But when Gwen sees Pete, she throws herself at him, and that's all the "talking" for that night. The two go to meet the gang, and Harry mentions that MJ is not there because she got a job-- as a go-go-dancer!

Now, because Lee & Romita NEGLECTED to leave a gap ANYWHERE in this entire run of ASM, it's been determined over the years that at least 2 (or more) appearances of Spidey take place RIGHT here, between panels. So that's how I read the stories this time!


THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1 -- "Lo, This Monster!" marks Jim Mooney's debut at Marvel, and on Spidey, apparently doing pencils, inks & graytones over Romita layouts. Some of it's nice, some of it's a bit stiff, some of it seems almost too "cutesy". As with a lot of the Romita issues, some characters seem to be smiling too much of the time. I haven't been able to tell if Romita's "recasting" of Gwen was based on anyone in particular, but Mooney's version is a bit rounder in the face, and reminds me of a young Melissa Joan Hart! I like the art here much better than the story, about a crooked politician (VERY crooked) who's using hired gunmen and a 10-foot-tall "monster" created by a resident mad scientist to attack his own campaign, to make himself look "honest". All are taken in (especially JJJ, who's selling more papers since backing the guy) except for Pete & Captain Stacy. When Jameson lets it slip that Stacy is trying to investigate the candidate, Stacy becomes targetted for murder by monster! But Spidey intervenes, leads the hulking killer to campaign HQ, and before you know it, candidate, mad scientist & creature are all dead, and Jameson plans to blame Spider-Man for it all in his next rag. (sigh)

The fact that Gwen is getting serious about Pete, Harry seems now closer to MJ, and Captain Stacy is involved definitely places this story after Pete's "return"-- but there were no breaks after that, either, so for continuity fanatics, it fits between panels of the "Brainwasher" story-- even though there's no mention of MJ's working on the political campaign in that story, and no mention of the go-go dancing job in this one. (With the kind of tight continuity Stan seemed to be aiming for, HOW the hell did he let this slip by like this??)

The back of the book surprised me. I bought this in late 1979-- about the time I found my 1st comic-book shop. Read it once, not again until yesterday. By comparison, I taped all 52 episodes of the 1967 SPIDER-MAN cartoon in the early 80's and have watched them dozens of times since.

Now, when Ralph Bakshi & Gray Morrow started their run on the show (with episode 21) the first thing they did was "THE ORIGIN OF SPIDERMAN". It was my first exposure to the story, and I always thought for a TV adaptation it was fairly authentic, though there were clearly quite a few changes to "update" it a bit.

Guess what? I was wrong. That cartoon was, in fact, the single MOST AUTHENTIC adaptation EVER done on that show!!! About 75% of the dialogue AND narration was used VERBATIM! It's like almost WORD-FOR-WORD!

They just used the "wrong" version... which had been published right around the time they did the cartoon. In early 1968, Stan Lee apparently wanted to retell the origins of most of his characters, to coincide with giving them their own books. With Spidey, he did it in the B&W magazine.

To tell the truth... I think the art in the cartoon was BETTER. More "mood". This would be the 3rd time Larry Lieber drew a Spider-Man story, and the 2nd time Bill Everett inked one. I can't see ANY evidence of Everett lines-- but if he ALSO did the graytones, that could explain why he might have used a different style.

Still, I think it's a shame they never got Gray Morrow to do a Spider-Man comic.


MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #14 -- "The Reprehensible Riddle Of The Sorcerer!" involves a man with mental powers who spends years studying to develop them, then gets megalomaniacal about it and decides to "prove" his power to the world by-- how else? --destroying Spider-Man. (sigh) First he causes Spidey to be in intense pain, then he directs him to come to New Orleans (during Mardi Gras-- WHEN ELSE??) so he can be defeated by a "Synthetic Man". He makes the mistake of sending a Spidey "voodoo doll" to "general delivery", and when the Post Office tries to return it, somehow the ringing of his doorbell while he's hooked up to a brain-amplifier machine is enough to cause some kind of overload, killing the "Sorcerer" and sending his "Synthetic Man" on a one-way walk off a pier. (SIGH)

This story marks the Marvel (and Spidey) debut of Ross Andru-- who, years later, would do a run of MARVEL TEAM-UP and a much longer run of ASM. It's inked by Bill Everett, and in this case, their 2 styles work well together, while seeming to fight for attention. (Any awkward figure shots, it's clearly Andru's work-- static close-ups, Everett's work stands out.) This was clearly done quite some time before it was published, because Andru was still drawing the "original" Gwen (the one who looked like Lauren Bacall). Looking only at the art, there's NO clue as to who is dating who at the time, but Stan's dialogue (no doubt added-- or altered-- just before publication) has Gwen with Pete, and Harry with MJ. Like SPEC.#1, continuity experts have determined this takes place around the same time as the "Brainwasher" story.

Nothing really outstanding about this. I just find it odd that 3 Spider-Man comics came out within a few months of each other, and John Romita-- who helped MAKE the character Marvel's #1 seller-- did NOT do even full pencils on ANY of them.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #59 (part 2) -- Someone's using a go-go bar to lure politicians so they can be brainwashed into doing whatever a mysterious crime-boss wants them to-- like letting crooks out of jail, etc. There's this unnamed scientist who built the machine who seems to have stepped out of a Jerry Lewis movie (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR), and the unknowing person who stuns people into submission (with a tricked-up camera flash-bulb) is... MJ. The gang shows up, along with Gwen's father and a host of city officials, and when Capt. Stacy disappears into the back room, Spidey goes looking for trouble... and finds it... in the form of-- The KINGPIN! (uh oh!)

I first read this when it was reprinted in the early 70's in MARVEL TALES, and not long after, I happened to catch the 3rd-season SPIDER-MAN cartoon, "The Big Brainwasher", that was based on this. It's really one of the most fun episodes of that very uneven season, though it had a few quirks of its own. Namely, they made MJ a blonde; they gave her a thick Brooklyn accent (it just didn't seem right to me somehow); they made Stacy MJ's UNCLE; and they completely changed his appearance (even though he appeared in 2 other cartoons looking like he was supposed to). Also, they left out about 3/4ths of the 3-part comic-book story, BUT, tacked on the climax of ASM #52-- which had been left out when they adapted THAT story a year earlier! Talk about confusion!

As for the comic, I know Stan was hell-bent on making Pete & Gwen an item, no matter what countless fans (and John Romita) may have felt, but MY favorite scene in the story is when MJ gets grabbed as a shield by a gunman, Spidey rescues her, and as he dashes off, she asks, "Do you have any brothers?" Don Heck & Mike Esposito continue to do very good work here (definitely some of Don's best from this period), but I can't help wonder how much better still the book might have looked if Romita had done pencils instead of just layouts.

SUB-MARINER #1 -- "Years Of Glory--Day of Doom" has "Destiny", one of the worst-designed villains of this period, ranting over the now-helpless Namor (buried under a ton of ice). Most of the book is taken up with a long retelling of Namor's origin-- just the kind of thing Roy Thomas is far too obsessed with. I hate to say it, but the debut of John Buscema doesn't help, but only seems to make matters worse. This gets my vote for the WORST comic of the month. And to make it worse, my 1979 reprint is missing 3 pages of story.


THE INCREDIBLE HULK #103 -- "And Now... The Space Parasite" has Odin unceremoniously dump Hulk smack in Times' Square, and another manhunt is on. Rick Jones actually tries to kill Bruce Banner, feeling he's beyond hope, but can't bring himself to do it. Betty Ross tries to help, but just then, an alien being shows up intent on absorbing Hulk's life-force-- a sort of space vampire without the fangs or blood-letting. Gary Friedrich's dialogue is more coherent than usual, and the Marie Severin-Frank Giacoia art is the nicest thing about the book. Other than that, just average.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 -- "Out Of The Holocaust-- A Hero" has Mar-Vell spending the entire issue fighting the Kree Sentry. Despite his being a Kree officer, the first thing out of its semi-robotic mouth is a challenge to prove if he's friend or foe, even though it KNOWS he's a "Man of The Kree" (a phrase repeated 3 times in one story, to increasing annoyance). By story's end, CM is thought of as a hero by the army base, while Col. Yon-Rogg contacts the Imperial Minister to have him declared officially a traitor! However... Yon-Rogg is informed that they've been watching, they KNOW he deliberately set off the Sentry, and while they supposedly don't care about Mar-Vell, they warn him that any further interference in the mission will not be tolerated. MUCH later developments made this scene more interesting (and sensible) than it was when it was written-- because (if memory serves), Archie Goodwin revealed that the entire mission was set up as part of an elaborate plan by Ronan The Accuser and the Imperial Minister to OVERTHROW the Supreme Intelligence. But there's no hint of that here.

Roy Thomas' dialogue continues to be annoying (especially in the scene with the motel manager and the "strange-looking suitcase"). Gene Colan's art is magnificent, to say the least. The real surprise this issue is the inks. Who would have ever guessed-- Vince Colletta takes over, and he's a HUGE improvement!!! Apparently, around this time, Stan Lee asked Vince to start using bolder lines-- like Joe Sinnott-- and it seems he took the advice. This is some of the BEST-looking Colletta inks from this period (assuming it was Vince, and not one of his assistants...)


THOR #152 -- "The Dilemma Of Dr. Blake" has Balder force Karnilla to free Sif from The Destroyer, saving Sif's life. Karnilla then yanks Thor away from Earth, and he arrives in time to see Balder fighting Ulik. Thor steps in, and before long, Ulik's sent falling down a bottomless chasm (that's gotta hurt... eventually!). Thor & Sif are overjoyed to be reunited, while Karnilla admits regret that Balder does not find her attractive (being she's evil incarnate, he says it wouldn't be proper). And Ulik finds himself in a mysterious crystal cavern, and sees... something. What, we'll find out soon.

Odd glitch with this one: the cover bears the title, "The Wrath of The Warrior"-- which makes much more sense, as Dr. Don Blake DOES NOT APPEAR anywhere in this comic!!! (NEXT time. Somebody slipped up.)


THE AVENGERS #52 -- "Death Calls For The Arch-Heroes" has Roy Thomas's slow reworking of the team continue with the arrival of The Black Panther, who's suddenly sporting a different face-mask-- one that makes him look more like Batman (his mouth and jaw are exposed). In a scene almost right out of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, he turns up at the scene of a murder, and becomes the police's prime suspect! In this case, the victims are Hawkeye, Goliath & The Wasp. But the culprit is really a new baddie called The Grim Reaper, who, it turns out, is the brother of Simon Williams-- the late Wonder Man-- and he blames them for Simon's death (rather than Zemo, whose cohorts had just turned up in SUSPENSE). Not a bad issue, though between Thomas & Buscema, "overblown" seems to be the key word.

Oh, and I almost forgot-- the 3 Avengers WEREN'T dead-- yet-- and recover, before accepting The Panther onto the team.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #1 -- "Who Is Scorpio?" introduces a new villain, and is told in a multi-layered fashion that makes the readers wonder which of several different suspects --if any, or all-- may be the true identity of the guy who seems hell-bent on murdering Fury. He goes on about "vengeance"-- for what, we don't know, and mentions "The Parable Of Doom"-- a phrase used previously by Baron Strucker! If the intention was to tie this in with Strucker and Hydra, we'll never know. The guy is blown to atoms at the end. Not that that seems to stop most villains. The Steranko-Sinnott art continues to be some of the best ever seen on the series, and I can tell you, one MUST see the original comics to fully appreciate the "special effects", as the recent reprint collection did a TERRIBLE job on the reproduction.


DR. STRANGE #169 -- "The Coming Of Dr. Strange" has the Doc sleeping off the weariness of his many long battles recently, while pondering how much longer his mentor will be around before he has to face all the evil in the various dimensions on his own. Continuing the recent trend of retold origins, Roy Thomas (master of retold origins) and Dan Adkins do a FANTASTIC job on this one. I wouldn't say it's better than the Stan Lee-Steve Ditko original version, but Adkins continues to do some of the BEST art Marvel was publishing from this period. And I have to admit, this issue was one of the BEST jobs Thomas did on dialogue. Something else else about DR. STRANGE must bring out the best in him (sort of like CONAN).


FANTASTIC FOUR #75 -- "Worlds Within Worlds" mostly concerns the FF fighting for their lives agaist the power of Galactus, until Reed convinces big G they will find the Silver Surfer for him. SS, meanwhile, has shrunk himself to microscopic size and found an entirely sub-atomic universe in the the slide sample of Reed's microscope. Reed reveals he has the means to follow, and intends to.

Really nice art this time, but unfortunately, I've got the MGC reprint, which is fuzzy-- and missing 2 pages of story!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #61 -- "What A Tangled Web We Weave" has Stacy telling Gwen he "must" obey commands given him, but he doesn't know why. They try to skip town, Spidey finds Kingpin thugs at their house, then returns to the Gloom Room and finds a piece of equipment they left behind-- with Osborn Industries' label on it. Sure enough, that's where Kingpin & his flunky, "Winkler" are hiding out, the slightly mad doctor being an employee of Harry's dad. MJ is seen NOT smiling for the first time since her intro, when she discovers the go-go bar is closed, she's out of a job-- and they didn't PAY her!!! (The FIENDS!) Kingpin's thugs nab Stacy & Gwen at the airport, bring them to the chemical factory, and intend on using the brainwashing machine on Stacy again, when Spidey arrives. Big fight follows, Winkler gets killed, the machine destoryed, Kingpin escapes via helicopter, and Osborn helps out, and clears Stacy of any wrong-doing. But he was hurt in the fight, and his recent obsession with the Green Goblin (who turned up on a news documentary) suggest bad things ahead.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #102 -- "The Sleeper Strikes" has Agent 13 forcing Nick Fury to tell her Cap is really alive (he wanted to keep her out of it), and she winds up pushing her way into Cap's mission to stop the robotic 4th Sleeper. Good thing, too, as it turns out the crystalline "key" of The Red Skull's is activated by emotions-- and it winds up being Agent 13's emotions that seal the doom of the seemingly-indestructible machine. The Skull, meanwhile, has a reunion with a group of Nazis known as "The Exiles", and joins them at their base-- ANOTHER island fortress set up before the end of WW2. (How many is that by now?) Seeing Cap now has a girlfriend, he plans to use her to destroy his enemy.

The Kirby-Shores art continues to be interesting-- if bizarre. The slowly-developing Cap-Agent 13 romance is coming along nicely and quite naturally. I could easily see them going on missions togther as a regular thing from here, and I kinda wonder why that didn't quite happen. (Oh well, I suppose some fans might say, once Jack Kirby leaves a series, nothing that happens afterward really "counts".)

Why are you being so harsh on poor John? I think all eight Sub-Mariner issues that he drew look great. Who inked #1, Frank Giacoia or Dan Adkins?

I'm enjoying your reviews, Prof, though I remember reading only a few of these stories. I'm sure I read more, as I was also reading the Spider-Man and FF reprints in Marvel Tales and Marvel's Greatest Comics during the '70s. I also read some of the X-Men reprints you describe.

But what strikes me is your point about how so many of these old stories don't hold up. You might be interested in reading this article , which takes a very negative view of Silver Age Marvels. How negative? The author describes them as "crap."

(This is not an ignorant fan rant, by the way; it's from a site that bills itself as a scholarly and literacy organization.)

I don't completely agree with him, but I do see his point. Many of the Marvels of that period lacked a certain finesse and the characters often displayed less intelligence than their DC counterparts. Marvel seemed to be going more for the gut-reaction--watching Hulk smash!--without worrying about logic.

As a fan who grew up on the '70s Marvels (Englehart's Avengers, etc.), I was disappointed when I read the earlier stories for the first time. I think somewhat later I appreciated the universal themes of alienation and frustration at doing the right thing and either not being recognized or having it blow up in the hero's face, as often happened in Silver Age Marvels.

As an obvious fan of Silver Age Marvels, what is your reaction to the article?

CAPTAIN MARVEL #2 -- "From The Void of Space Comes... The Super Skrull!" is one of the better issues from this part of the run. Somehow, dragging The Skrulls into it, and giving them a long-time conflict with The Kree added a lot, perhaps by balancing the self-importance the Kree seem to give themselves (despite their obvious psychological deficiencies). The Skrull Emperor see a "MAN OF THE KREE" (a phrase repeated so much I wanna strangle the scripter) on Earth, and wants to know why. So he sends for the previously-exiled Super Skrull, offering him whatever he wants if the mission is a success. (Of course, what he wants is the Emperor's daughter-- as a stepping-stone to the throne.) Roy Thomas' ANNOYING sub-plot about the motel manager continues as the guy tries to deliver Mar-Vell's "funny-looking suitcase" to the base commander, thereby proving he's somg kind of enemy spy. But en route, The Super-Skrull attacks. CM gets into it, but is beaten, and as he's being hauled away as a prisoner, that "suitcase" has begun a countdown to a nuclear detonation. It makes you wonder about the Kree who design their own equipment.

Gene Colan's art continues to be stunning, but the real surprise continues to be Vince Colletta-- or, WHOEVER he may have working as an assistant doing MOST of these pages! I'm reminded of quite a few of the later episodes of TALES OF ASGARD, which just looked too different-- and far too much better-- than the rest of a given issue of THOR. Some pages in here scream "Colletta", they're pretty miserable, but most of them are so CLEAN and SLICK, that even done in a similar style, I can't believe it's just the work of one guy having really good and really bad days.


THOR #153 -- "But Dr. Blake Can Die" has Sif injured by Loki, and Thor must become his human alter-ego to save her life. I get the feeling THIS is the story that should have been called "The Dilemma Of Dr. Blake" (not the previous issue where he didn't appear at all). Sif is saved, Thor is about to thrash Loki, but just then, Odin intervenes, stopping the fight as he claims a far greater danger is threatening all of Asgard. What can it be? It seems Ulik, way down in that pit where he fell, may be the first to find out...


X-MEN #45 -- "When Mutants Clash" has the team captives of Magneto, and trying to both break free and warn The Avengers of the baddie's plans. At this point, Gary Friedrich has taken over from Roy Thomas, and now Don Heck is only supplying layouts-- finished pencils being done by Werner Roth! It's a strange combination. Heck's storytelling is much better (and more dynamic) than Roth's, but I've always considered Roth's version of the team to be the "definitive" one. So maybe it's the best arrangement-- even if the only evidence of Heck's work is when you squint. This leads straight into THE AVENGERS, but as it wasn't included in the ESSENTIAL AVENGERS volume I have, what a heck of a break I just happened to have this as a 1975 reprint in X-MEN #93!


THE AVENGERS #53 -- "In Battle Joined" is one long confusing convoluted mess as Magneto manipulates things so The Avengers won't trust the X-Men, The 2 teams fight it out, and then we learn The Avengers weren't really fooled after all but played things so Magneto would be fooled to think they were. (SAY WHAT?) Throughout the story, Magneto is repeatedly so rude and overbearing and insulting to his faithful lackey The Toad, that the ugly little guy finally can take no more. As the island fortress (ANOTHER one??) gets destroyed, The Toad flees with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch in tow-- but does so in a "non-metallic" airship that Magneto is unable to latch onto, and, in one of the most unconvincing final scenes outside of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, appears to fall to his death! (Yeah, right.)

Between Roy Thomas's often-annoying dialogue and John Buscema's stretched all-over-the-place figure work, I'm beginning to think the main difference between Buscema's art & Gil Kane's art is Buscema's is a bit prettier.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #2 -- "So Shall Ye Reap... Death" begins with Jimmy Woo in a deadly fun house which turns out to be a final test for new SHIELD agents. Fury seems to be the only one who isn't having second thoughts about him joining, but en route to California, their jet is shot out of the sky over a volcanic isle. There they find a long-missing Nobel Prize winning scientist who's got plans to wipe all life out and replace it with new life in 100 years, after the devastation he intends has passed. Meanwhile, a movie crew is shooting a film about a giant ape, and unexpectedly come to Fury's aid. The visuals are cool as usual, but Steranko's storytelling here is more awkward, confusing and stilted than any previous issue. Maybe if he wasn't trying to cram an "epic" into 20 pages... (Unfortunately, THIS is probably the issue that later SHIELD creative teams most tried to emulate. Oy!)


DOCTOR STRANGE #170 -- "To Dream-- Perchance To Die" has Doc, still recuperating in Tibet, find his mentor the victim of his old enemy-- Nightmare-- who has entered the real world and impersonated Hamir the Hermit. It's a cool if "minor" story, the best feature once again being Dan Adkins' spectacular art.


FANTASTIC FOUR #76 -- "Stranded In Sub-Atomica" is really a misleading title, as the FF deliberately go there in search of the Silver Surfer, and do not lose their way even by story's end. Ben & Johnny repeatedly ignore Reed's orders and attack the Surfer to no good end,, and then at one point a robotic servant of Psycho-Man (last seen in FF ANNUAL #5) attacks, and it's only observing how desperate they are to save Earth that makes the Surfer realize he must give up his new-found "freedom" and return to Galactus. Because-- in TOTAL VIOLATION of his own sworn oath in FF #50-- Galactus, somehow unable to find another planet to eat without his herald, is planning to destroy the Earth! This just seems so forced and contrived re-reading it now. Reed's desire to locate and defeat the menace of Psycho-Man (on the loose since his prevous appearance) actually is the most interesting, compelling part of the story.

This is the only section of this 4-parter I have an original issue of. Good thing I have at least this, the reproduction quality's pretty fuzzy on the MGC reprint, and, it's missing 2 pages of the story!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #62 -- "Make Way For... Medusa!" has the lady with the long, long hair come to NYC on a mission to learn if "humans" are ready to accept her people, or not. First thing she does is nearly knock a swinging Spidey out of the sky, then cause a panic on the streets. But things take a bizarre twist when the owner of a hairspray company wants to use her as the model in his new ad campaign. The guy reminds me of that movie director way back in the 1st Green Goblin story-- in other words, a real NUT. Meanwhile, Pete stops by Gwen's but she "never wants to speak to him again"-- and he, incredibly, STILL can't find a way to explain things to her. After he leaves, her Dad, recovering from the earlier brainwashing, says, "I thought you said he was... the one?" A bit later, Medusa, bored, leaves, and the ad guy goes nuts, telling Spidey she's "threatened to destroy the city" (SAY WHAT??). He tries to talk, ANOTHER stupid fight erupts, but when Spidey realizes what's really going on, says HE'LL take care of the ad guy, and does-- telling the press how "completely uncontrollable" Medusa was, which costs the guy his job (why can't this ever happen to JJJ?). As Medusa departs, she declares her people will "never" have anything to do with "humans"!

As the story ends, MJ shows up, saying she heard Pete has finally "come to his senses" about Gwen... but he's too depressed, and she suddenly realizes he actually MISSES Gwen. (Poor MJ...)

The Heck-Esposito art continues over Romita layouts. Nice stuff. I STILL wish Romita had done it all himself.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #103 -- "The Weakest Link" has Steve & Sharon Carter (he finally knows her name!!!) on a date at a fancy resturant, when some neo-Nazis storm the palce and make off with her. Reporting to their ruthless leader, The Red Skull, one of them describes how her "tall blonde escort" was stunned before he could do anything. The Skull is PISSED!!! --and chews the guy out, informing him that the "escort" was CAPTAIN AMERICA-- who he had a chance to KILL, and didn't! This is the problem with blindly-obedient underlings, he thinks-- sometimes they can can't think at all!

With SHIELD's help, Cap single-handedly invades The Skull's latest island fortress (HOW MANY does this guy have???), home of "The Exiles"-- a group of Nazis who escaped the Allies at the end of WW2. Some were children, now grown to adult nastiness. Others are old men-- and what an UGLY, SICK bunch they are!! Cap, captured & imprisoned, finds Sharon, the two escape... but it's exactly what The Skull wanted, as he's secretly placed a strip of "nuclear tape" on the back of Cap's neck, which he can DETONATE any time he wants! Holy cow!

The Kirby-Shores art continues to thrill, strange as it is. I'm just glad to see that Kirby still manages to include humor in his stories. What gets me is how these "Exiles" believe they're the "only ones" who deserve to rule with the entire world as their slaves... as if their fellow neo-Nazis in HYDRA, led by Baron Strucker (the ones who revived The Skull from hibernation in the first place) just didn't matter. Talk about an overblown sense of self-importance!


CAPTAIN MARVEL #3 -- "From The Ashes of Defeat" wastes almost a third of the issue on flashbacks, as The Super-Skrull probes Mar-Vell's mind to learn the details of his mission on Earth. CM escapes-- just barely-- and-- just barely-- makes it back to his orbitting spaceship, "The Helion" (name revealed for 1st time). Yon-Rogg hoped he'd die in space and save him any more worries about their rivalry... then refuses CM's request to return to Earth, until CM contacts the Imperial Minister directly, who's convinced only because the Kree DON'T want the Skrulls establishing themselves on Earth, no matter how "unimportant" it is.

The Skrull impersonaltes CM and gains access to the missile base, hoping to get his hands on the Kree's "ultimate weapon"-- the Sentry-- but CM attacks, and manages to beat him with The Skrull's own power of super-hypnosis! A flick of a switch-- which none but a Kree could have done-- de-activates the bomb, saving all. Overall, one of the better episodes so far.

The inks continue to be AMAZINGLY clean and slick-- except for a few pages in the 2nd half, which only reinforces my belief that there were 2 different guys inking this book, and the "good" pages WEREN'T done by Colletta! (Now if only I knew who it was!)

THOR #154 -- "To Wake The Mangog" -- Last time I re-read this was when I bought the ESSENTIAL book. This time, I dug out the TREASURY edition. WHOA! What visuals! I don't think I realized just how many inter-related plot-threads were going on when this thing "started". In my index, I'd listed the previous storyline as a 9-parter, followed by this 4-parter-- but there really isn't a break in the momentum. I suppose it could be viewed as a 13-parter!! Odin has stopped the Thor-Loki battle. Hela returns, and shows Thor what he's giving up by not coming with her, and he sees a vision of Valhalla, where warriors happily fight endless battles, including his old foe Harokin. But Thor rejects it, feeling battle must be for something, not just the sake of itself. Sif, recovering in the hospital, is greeted by Dr. Blake, and this time she knows exactly who he is. Ulik, in his blind arrogance, has unleashed a monstrous entity known as the Mangog-- who appears to be a menace to "all who live". On reaching Asgard, Loki finds everyone preparing for battle, but doesn't care. He figures, Odin will handle it. Guess again! Odin is SLEEPING! This means... as of now, Loki is on the throne! (And he intends to STAY there. Yeah, right.) Karnilla threatens to make Balder one of the "Legion of the Lost" if he doesn't return her love, while he says love not freely given is a travesty! (How true) Thor encounters some "drop-outs", and tells them philosophically that when things get their worst, THAT's the time to dig in and fight for what's right. Free of the pit, Ulik wishes he were dead-- rather than having unleashed Mangog. Watch out, Asgard!!!

Kirby has been running non-stop here with the action for 10 consecutive issues now, and appears to be building toward a crescendo. But we're not there yet! Wow.


THE AVENGERS #54 -- "And Deliver Us From-- The Masters Of Evil" sees a re-forming of the team's opposite number. Initially, the MoE were all counterparts of the good guys, each one a villain of a particular hero. In this case, we have Klaw, who's the Black Panther's arch-enemy; Whirlwind is Giant-Man's; but what are The Melter (Iron Man's foe) and Radioactive Man (Thor's foe) doing here? What's funny is when The Black Knight shows up-- and they don't seem to realize (at first) that he's NOT their old member with a new costume! In fact, he went undercover to get the goods on them, having received his uncle's invitation, but somehow they figure it out before long. What gets complex is when the Avengers' butler-- Jarvis-- BETRAYS the secrets of their updated security systems to the baddies, then appears to be the one in charge in the first place (rather than this weird-looking robot calling itself "The Crimson Cowl"...)

The part that I don't get (among other things) is how Jan, being an Avenger, could hire a chauffer without doing a proper investigation of the guy. I mean, having a known super-villain posing as your driver just makes her look STUPID-- and nothing in all the Lee-Kirby-Heck-Ayers episodes of her & Hank's old series ever suggested such a thing to me.


DAREDEVIL #42 -- "Nobody Laughs At The Jester" begins a multi-parter which I just happen to have every episode of! It starts out with a would-be actor who's been laughed off the stage and degraded as being a comedian's stooge, who wants the "laughs" to now be at everyone else's expense. Costumed identity created, crime wave started, and you have the Marvel Universe's answer to Cesar Romero's Joker! Meanwhile, it seems Karen & Foggy are upset with Matt (again!), this time because he doesn't seem to be reacting to-- get this-- the DEATH of his brother Mike, alias Daredevil. What they don't know is, Mike doesn't exist-- Matt made him up! I'm STILL shaking my head at the outrageous absurdity of this already long-running sub-plot. Next, to confuse things, we have the crooked politician who appeared in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1 (still on sale several months later), who decides it would be a good idea to hire The Jester to "convince" Foggy to drop out of the race for the D.A.'s office. Which he does, by kidnapping Matt. Matt, with his usual quick-thinking (heh) tells everyone that before he "died", Daredevil secretly trained his own replacement! And whatta ya know, at The Jester's hideout, Matt disappears, and the "new" Daredevil appears. Someone-- please-- tell me how this guy is SO STUPID he didn't figure out Matt & DD are one and the same??? Anyway, DD chases The Jester across town to the politician's home, only to find the guy's dead (which readers of SPEC. SM #1 would have already known). Matt realizes, "there must always be a DD", but The Jester's still on the loose.

Dan Adkins inks Gene Colan this time, and unless my eyes (and the printing) are playing tricks on me, it looks like it took him half the issue to figure out how the hell to ink Gene's pencils! The 2nd half of the book ain't bad at all-- but the 1st is just awful. It really looks like someone else's work, but then everyone always says Colan is a real challenge to ink properly.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #3 -- "Dark Moon Rise, Hell Hound Kill!" starts out with the most outrageous opening sequence yet, as, under a Scottish legend poem, a man is stalked on the moors-- followed by a 2-page spread with the title taking up all of page 2, and the man being attacked INSIDE the letters, which double as panels! After that, we find Fury in Scotland to visit an old army buddy who he finds has been murdered, an old castle, a group of suspects, legends, curses, a group of psychic investigators, a sword-wielding ghost, a glowing "hell-hound"-- and something else, hidden in a secret chamber of a stone tower. All in all, the issue serves as a tribute to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Hound Of The Baskervilles"; THE AVENGERS tv show episode "Castle D'Eath"; and, Simon & Kirby's CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS episode "The Phantom Hound Of Cardiff Moor" (from C.A. #10 / Jan'42). The latter tribute goes right down to the 2-page title spread with the multiple tiny panels, a design motif Steranko repeated to great extent in his adaptation of the movie OUTLAND.

Dan Adkins does some of the best inks ever for Steranko (outside of Joe Sinnott) and the look is, not surprisingly, uncannily similar to the later teaming of Paul Gulacy and Adkins on MASTER OF KUNG FU. The layouts, however, do get rather confusing, and exist more to dazzle the audience than anything else, almost at the complete expense of advancing the plot. This story, I think, would have greatly benefitted from being a 2-parter, with everything after the "revelation" near the end being one long action sequence. (But then, Moench & Gulacy wound up doing almost exactly that in MOKF #30-31.)

I actually read this story some 8 years after reading Arnold Drake & Frank Springer's take-off on it in NOT BRAND ECCH #11-- "Dark Moon Rise, Heck Hound Hurt!" --and I gotta say, perverse as it is, I prefer the "comedy" version! (To date, that's the only story from NBE to be reprinted anywhere.)


DR. STRANGE #171 -- "In The Shadow Of Death" has Doc transport Victoria Bentley from England to NYC, so she can aid him with a certain spell (given him by The Ancient One) to locate the long-missing Clea. Though disappointed he wasn't interested in HER, Victoria quickly agrees to help, and the two find themselves transported to another mysterious, utterly bizarre dimension, facing various perils, and finally confronting-- to Strange's horror-- The Dread Dormammu!

Tom Palmer makes his Marvel debut on this comic, and what might surprise longtime fans, it's as penciller, under Dan Adkins' inks. After quite a run of full Adkins art, I must admit, this issue's a bit of a come-down. It's "nice"-- it's just nowhere as spectacular and impressive as any of the previous Adkins-pencilled episodes have been. My impression from various interviews over the years, is that Adkins finally found it just too difficult to keep doing all those layouts (and, presumably, the plotting that went with them), and decided to "drop back" to just inks-- which no doubt explains how he was able to ink 4 COMICS in the same month! (I'm guessing he made more money doing this.)

Roy Thomas apparently admitted over the years that he had trouble coming up with material for the series as well, which may explain why his run so far has consisted of a retelling of the origin story, and the returns of 2 old villains-- Nightmare and Dormammu.


FANTASTIC FOUR #77 -- "Shall Earth Endure?" has some of the most spectacular Kirby-Sinnott art ever (which makes me wish I had the original comic instead of just the MGC reprint). The story follows 2 threads: the FF battle Psycho-Man in the micro-world, and the Surfer finds Galactus another planet to eat just before he was about to destroy the Earth. Unfortunately... I found I was disappointed with BOTH endings. The FF beat Pyshco-Man, then "force" him to transport them back home. THAT'S IT? All that trouble, and they let the guy go? Meanwhile, the Surfer finds Galactus a planet, then asks for his "freedom"-- but big G refuses, and drops the Surfer back down on Earth, so that he will "always" know where he is, when he needs him. GOOD GRIEF. I figured the original reason for the Surfer's banishment on Earth was because he "broke" with his master. Now, we find, Galactus wants to be able to use hius services anytime he wants-- "even though he may not return for millennia". This just feels-- SO-- WRONG. To me, the whole story felt like it was building up to the Surfer rejoining Galactus, and from now on, only leading him to uninhabited worlds. This situation not only makes Galactus seem petty, but also bordering on HELPLESS. He can't find worlds on his own??? Also, the part about "millenia" would suggest he only has to eat a planet once every how many hundreds or thousands of years. So how do we explain his turning up again at Earth about every 3 years???

It's pretty obvious to me this entire mess serves only one purpose-- the SILVER SURFER solo book, which debuted the SAME month as this episode.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #5 -- "The Parents Of Peter Parker" has a nice John Romita cover which seems to pay tribute to THE TIME TUNNEL. Under that, Larry Lieber follows up the previous year's Annual (and the retold origin in SPECTACULAR #1) with this 40-pager that finally looks into the untold story of who Peter's mom & dad were. He finds an old newspaper clipping that tells how they died in a plane crash-- and were suspected of being traitors to the country! Shocked by this, he gets help from the FF and flies to the Middle East to track down anyone who can remember what happened from 20 years earlier. He uncovers a spy ring, run by The Red Skull (him again-- REALLY?) and the truth that his parents were actually working for the State Department as double-agents, and were framed as "traitors" when the truth about them was found out by the baddies. He breaks up the spy ring, and is overjoyed to find out he's "cleared" his parents' reputation... even if he doesn't actually have any hard evidence and never does anything with the knowledge.

Larry's art, inked by Mike Esposito (touch-ups by Romita) is a major step up from the previous year. All the same, something about this book feels "off". Somehow, it doesn't feel like it's part of the "real" Marvel Universe-- it's almost as if the Grantray-Lawrence SPIDER-MAN wandered into a comic-book by accident. Then there's the details-- like the airship he borrows from Reed Richards, which the dialogue describes as a "SHIELD prototype" Reed is testing for them, which is clearly the magnetic aircar given Reed by The Black Panther! Next we have The Red Skull-- no mention of his current antics in CAPTAIN AMERICA #101-104 with The Sleeper or The Island of the Exiles. And there's this thing about him running the spy ring for 20 years, and having done so "after the war". I'm sure someone else pointed this out before. Near as I can figure, the "Red Skull" in this comic is NOT the real one-- but is actually the one who appeared in the early-50's CAPTAIN AMERICA revival, who fought the "1950's Captain America", who later turned up in Steve Englehart's debut on that series. But there's no hint of that here! That was all figured out long after-the-fact.

I think the dialogue is the kicker here. Too much of this just DOES NOT feel like Stan Lee. I know Larry Lieber preferred doing things on his own-- plotting, pencilling, dialogue. Given "the Marvel Method", many pencillers contributed most of ALL of some plots. I suspect not only did Larry plot this book entirely on his own, he also DIALOGUED it as well. But the credits don't tell you that!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #63 -- "Wings In The Night" reveals The Vulture-- the REAL one-- is still alive! He busts his imposter out of prison, goes on for pages about how his anger & hatred gave him the renewed will to live, how he used Blackie's prison-break to cover his own, and how he's looking forward to his "revenge". Despite all this, "Blackie" is just TOO STUPID to realize what the guy's up to, and is convinced the old guy "needs" him, and therefore, HE's gonna be in charge, not the evil genius who created these anti-gravity wings. WRONG. The original Vulture beats "Blackie" within an inch of his life, and neither cares who gets hurt in the battle (not even a small child onm a balcony who almost falls to his death before Spidey saves him). You know, the part I can't figure is, if the original Vulture SNUCK OUT of the prison infirmary and ESCAPED... how come it wasn't on the news? Do Stan & John expect us to believe NOBODY NOTICED???

But meanwhile... Gwen's still angry at Pete (and still in love with him), and Pete still can't bring himself to tell her the truth, and is now worried because her Dad has asked him to lunch. En route, Pete-- who injured his arm in a fall duriing the rain the night before-- see the fight, and hopes the two baddles might "polish each other off". But a visit to The Bugle has JJJ dragging him to the rooftop to take pictures, which is how he happened to be there to save the endangered child. Unfortunately, it also drew his old enemy's attention-- and with "Blackie" back in the arms of the law, the still-injured Spidey now has to fight one of his oldest, and meanest, foes.

The usual job from Stan, John, Don & Mike. I think both Pete & Gwen are stupid, and the one guy in the book at this point I really admire, Gwen's father, is someone I wish had stuck around a LOT longer.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #104 -- "Slave Of The Skull" starts out with Cap fighting some SHIELD L.M.D.s, then succumbing to a mysterious pain (in the neck). Seems either Stan or Jack didn't tell us everything last issue. Not only did SHIELD not bomb Exile Island, but that "nuclear tape" is not a bomb itself, but electronically connected to an atomic bomb which The Red Skull planted in a major city-- then let the authorities know about it, because he's so confident there's NO WAY they can de-activate it! To prevent mass destruction and murder, The Skull forces Cap to return to Exile Island, where each of his morally-diseased comrades can have their own crack at him. Cap goes, knowing it's the only way to give SHIELD time to deactivate that a-bomb. He takes terrible punishment, and before the episode's over his costume begins to look like Doc Savage's. But The Skull waits too long-- and finds the bomb HAS been shut down! He and his followers FLEE the island just as SHIELD is storming the beaches (as if it were D-Day), leaving behind all their soldiers as if they meant nothing (well, these guys ARE Nazis, so...). Cap's free, the city's safe, Steve & Sharon are reunited-- but that Nazi BASTARD and his ilk are still on the loose! (Grrrrrrr.)

Syd Shores was MIA this time-- apparently inking Gene Colan's debut on "TALES OF THE WATCHER". I wish they hadn't done this-- I much prefer if they switch teams BETWEEN stories, not DURING one. Filling in is Dan Adkins-- who apparently has a LOT more time on his hands now that he's no longer plotting & pencilling DR. STRANGE. I'm not sure which team looks stranger to me-- Kirby-Shores or Kirby-Adkins. But one thing I'm sure of-- anyone who's a fan of Mike Royer's inks over Kirby should take a look at this issue. This may be the 1st time in the late 60's that fans got to see ther "real" Kirby, completely unaltered!!!


SILVER SURFER #1 -- "The Origin Of The Silver Surfer" is a 38-page epic detailing the past life of The Surfer, when he was a human known as "Norrin Radd", who lived on a highly-advanced planet where everyone had lost all ambition, since all life was too easy for them. Only he seems different, and longs for "adventure". He gets it when his planet is endangered by GALACTUS. When their only defense winds up destroying half their civilization but leaves big G's ship untouched, only Norrin Radd steps up to confront the alien menace single-handedly. When Galactus mentions "If I had a herald, someone to find me uninhabited planets..." Norrin takes the bait and volunteers his services. Of course, almost from one page to another, we jump ahead to the scene where he led big G to Earth, even KNOWING it was inhabited... which just seems it total violation of the spirit of that earlier story to me.

Legend has it, Jack Kirby was planning to reveal the Surfer's origin at the end of the Surfer-Galactus-Psycho-Man 4-parter, when to his shock, he found out John Buscema was pencilling the 1st issue of this book. Reportedly, it pissed him off so much, he refused to come up with any new ideas for Stan to "steal" away from him any more. I know that over the years, Stan has always talked about how "proud" he is of this series-- but it always seemed pretty depressing to me. Which may explain why it never generated the kind of sales Stan hoped it would.

I have 2 reprints of this: SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, and ESSENTIAL SILVER SURFER. The 1st is in color, but it's very obvious the linework reproduction is much better in the ESSENTIAL book. Unfortunately, that doesn't have the back-up story, which SOOOMC does. (Still reading that one.... next time!)

SILVER SURFER #1 (part 2) -- "The Wonder Of The Watcher" has a re-telling of The Watcher's origin (previously told in TALES OF SUSPENSE #53-- I think). His people are so advanced they feel they can do anything, and some of them want to help other races also achieve great heights-- partly to help, but partly so their own praises will be sung. They find a planet they offer unlimited atomic energy to, help them develop it, then set off to see more of the universe. On their way home, they stop back at the planet they "helped"... only to find it a ruined shambles, having been destroyed in an atomic war, first among its own people, then with another planet they tried to wipe out before THEY could wipe THEM out first. Sheesh. The few survivors curse the aliens who brought this on them before they were ready for it, and The Watcher's people decided it would NEVER happen again, and they spend the rest of eternity apart from other races, only watching, never interfering (well, most of the time... heh).

Gene Colan did a spectacular job on this, as did inker Syd Shores, who really has a great feel for Colan's pencils. Shores was Colan's "mentor" when he first started in the biz, and it's fitting that they should be teamed here. There's a lot of inkers from the Golden Age with similar styles, very intricate, ornate fine lines (Everett, Shores, Heck, Colletta) and Shores seems to be one of the best matches for Colan yet seen. I do wish the scheduling of this hadn't meant that Shores should jump off of CAPTAIN AMERICA one episode before the end of a 4-parter where he inked the other 3 episodes. I also wish I had the original of this, as the reprint in SON OF ORIGINS lost a lot of the fine detail.

This story-- apparently-- may have served as the inspiration for part of the DOCTOR WHO story "UNDERWORLD" which revealed WHY the Time Lords also have a standard "non-interference" policy, as they, too, once "helped" a less civilized planet and it led to the destruction of an entire planet.

Next issue, we're promised a revival of the Tales Of The Watcher series.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #4 -- "The Alien And The Amphibian" has CM soliloquizing as if he were Hamlet, dealing with the assistant motel manager "Hal" (who bears a suspicious resemblance to DC's Hal Jordan), then watch a missile launch containing some bacterialogical warfare experiments. Yon-Rogg deliberately sets the missile off-course so it crashes near NYC, then orders CM to not let anyone interfere, as he wishes to see how Earthmen can cope with having an entire city of people wiped out (THE BASTARD!!!).

It gets real complicated here... over in his own book, Sub-Mariner has been fighting this villain named Destiny, and now, Namor has had a change of heart about surface-men, wants help from the Fantastic Four, and in the process, hopes to "prove" he wants peace, not war. When he learns of the missile, he figures to save NYC, thus saving the FF (who he needs help from), and prove what a good guy he is. But under orders, CM is forced to attack Namor-- even though he really wants to save NYC as well! (Could anyone but Roy Thomas have concocted such a mess?) In the end, the city's saved, Namor's pissed, and CM may be branded a traitor-- even though, to the "humans", it looks like Namor was the baddie and HE was the "hero". Oy.

The Colan-Colletta team's okay this time, though the "action" pages are much better rendered than the "soap-opera" pages. Maybe Vince was as bored by them as I was? Inexplicably, ALL 3 members of the creative team would depart after this issue. Is that any way to get a still-new series going?


THOR #155 -- "Now Ends The Universe" has everyone Asgardian worried about "Ragnarok"-- the end of all things-- and it seems The Mangog is the gonna be the cause of it. Thor gets Sif out of the hospital, and the pair return home, only to find Loki on the throne. He's already sent Fandral, Hogun & Volstagg to face the menace, now it's Thor's turn, though he urges his beloved to stay behind and guard The Odinsword-- which appears to be Mangog's target. (In the past, legend had it, if The Odinsword were drawn, it would be a sign that the end of the uiniverse was at hand. Somehow, in this story, this has been re-interpreted to mean that if you DRAW it, that will CAUSE the end of the universe. I'm not sure that's what Jack Kirby had in mind when he introduced the thing many issues earlier.)

An entire outpost is wiped out, but not before a fierce battle, during which it seems Asgard's weaponry is a bit more "modern" than one might think. By the time Thor arrives, all is in ruins, and he finds his 3 friends trapped under a rock cage. As he tries to free them, he's suddenly grabbed by the Mangog. HOLY S***!!!

The art, as usual, is MAGNIFICENT. Vince Colletta's on a real "slick" kick here, and someone on the letters page actually accuses him of trying to be "Joe Sinnott". I dunno, whatever's going on, it looks GREAT. I have 3 printings of this-- the ESSENTIAL book, the TREASURY EDITION, and the original comic!


THE AVENGERS #55 -- "Mayhem Over Manhattan" has the new Masters Of Evil discover that Jarvis is only a stooge-- it's really the robot, Ultron-5, who's behind everything. It plans to blackmail NYC with nuclear destruction (man, who'd wanna live in NYC in the Marvel Universe??) and kill the heroes after, which somewhat frustrates the other villains. The Black Knight steps in to the rescue, frees the heroes, big fight erupts, but both Whirlwind & Ultron-5 escape. The heroes still don't realize their rescuer is NOT the villain who was a MoE member way back, but no longer view him as a threat and he goes on his way. In a very contrived scene, Jarvis "explains" his motivations, and The Wasp forgives him. She's really getting WAY too lenient with this kind of thing, isn't she?

Longtime SUPERMAN and LEGION inker George Klein makes his return to Marvel this issue (unseen since FF #1-2), and while George Tuska had been doing a bang-up job on the inks, if anything, Klein over Buscema is even BETTER! This may be the BEST John Buscema's art has ever looked up to this point. That's one thing I really notice about this period-- if the writing at Marvel, overall, was really slipping, the art from this period is some of the BEST, ever.

Tuska took over the pencils on IRON MAN this month (with issue #5), and I don't believe he ever inked for Marvel again. Too bad, he was really good at it!


DAREDEVIL #43 -- "In Combat With Captain America" has Matt heartbroken. It seems now that Foggy has Debbie Harris in his life, Karen is frustrated that Matt refuses to acknowledge that he loves her as much as she loves him-- and has decided to leave the firm, "forever" (oh brother). Working out in his private gym and swinging over the city doesn't seem to help, until he stops a robbery involving medical radioactive isotopes... which, because of the way he got his radar-sense super-power, affects his mind... It seems Captain America is participating in an "exhibition" for charity at Madison Square Garden, and just as the first contender is entering the ring, DD shows up, stomps the guy, then visciously attacks Cap! At first, Cap thinks it's a joke-- then maybe this guy's an imposter-- but once he figures it isn't he's wondering what the heck's going on? The fight goes on and on, getting more brutal, until it moves out into the streets, at which point the effects of the isotope wear off, and DD is suddenly wondering what the HELL he's doing there? He skips, and Cap, trying to be diplomatic, figures "He must have had his reasons", then tells onlookers "They wanted a fight-- they GOT one!" Overall, one more dumb excuse to have 2 heroes bashing each other.

The highlight of this issue, of course, is Gene Colan's art. He's really at home on this book, especially with DD in costume, swinging, jumping, fighting. Vince Colletta begins a run on the book as inker, and so far his work is TERRIFIC! I'm guessing that he switched from CM to DD, though I wonder what all this "musical artists" is about.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #4 -- "And Now It Begins" must have shocked fans. The Bullpen page promised the return of Scorpio. Instead, Roy Thomas & Frank Springer (fresh off of DC's SECRET 6) fill in, re-telling the story of how Fury joined SHIELD from STRANGE TALES #135. Springer's art is something to see-- his inking is somewhat similar to Syd Shores, only moodier, and he does aircraft like nobody's business. (I get the feeling somebody should have tapped him to draw BLACKHAWK-- he's have been a natural.) On the other hand, he never quite seems to get Fury right. Roy Thomas once again gets to induldge his passion for retelling origin stories (I'm guessing Stan was wondering why this story didn't appear in NF #1), though, of course, it's nowhere near as good as the Kirby-Lee original version. It would seem Steranko blew the deadline-- maybe writing, pencilling & coloring 20 pages a month plus a cover was just too much for him? But he did supply an INCREDIBLE cover-- which, over the years, has been-- ahem-- "paid tribute to" by a growing number of other artists.

The cover text, by the way, is a misnomer. It says "SHIELD Origin Issue". NOPE. There never was a SHIELD origin issue-- until FURY #1 (May'94). From that dark, horrible period of Marvel, that was a rare exception-- one DAMN good comic-book!!


DOCTOR STRANGE #172 -- "I, Dormammu" has Doc at the mercy of his arch-enemy! Roy Thomas spends 4 pages on flashbacks, retelling their "final" battle in which Eternity and Dormammu both appeared to be destroyed, and Doc was only saved with the help of The Ancient One. The flashback continues as Dormammu reveals how he survived-- thrust into the unknown dimension, where he quickly siezed power from the creatures living there. By a wild coincidence-- it seems this was the SAME dimension that the "spell of vanishment" sent Clea to-- and so, she's been his prisoner ever since, and has now served as bait to lure Strange there. Planning to conquer Earth, Dormammu summons his sister Umar-- this is the first time we ever get to see the two of them together-- and while she claims to have faithfully watched over "his" domain in his absence, he knows better. Meanwhile, although his power was drained in the previous episode, Doc's cloak of levitation and the Eye of Agamotto are still powered-up-- and he uses it to get his power back from Dormammu's underling who stole his power in the first place. Reunited at last with the girl who won his heart, Doc then sends both Clea and the heartbroken Victoria back to Earth. As Dormammu and his army of demons prepare to invade Earth's dimension, Doc appears to challenge him to a duel.

Not bad. But the real highlight here is the art. One of the GREATEST art teams in the history of the biz made its debut in this issue, as Gene Colan (having departed CAPTAIN MARVEL) joins forces with newcomer Tom Palmer (who proves he's MUCH better suited as an inker than he was as a penciller). I find it interesting that Palmer's ink style is very similar to Frank Springer's (in this month's NICK FURY), and I wonder if maybe Springer might have been one of Palmer's inspirations. In any case, Colan was getting some FANTASTIC inks around this time, from Colletta, from Shores, and now this. I've seen tons of Colan-Palmer art over the years, and in spite of that, I'm STILL stunned looking over this 1st collaboration again. Roy Thomas has said he never quite felt like he knew what he was doing on this book. Maybe with art like this, he didn't have to!


FANTASTIC FOUR #78 -- "The Thing No More" has Ben once more morose about being stuck as The Thing. Reed makes another stab at curing him, but says it's a "one-way street". If he wants to become the Thing again, he'll NEVER be able to be Ben Grimm again. Meanwhile, The Wizard is let out of jail (SOMEONE explain this one to me!!!) and the Daily Bugle has a news story with a headline reading "Vows revenge on FF" (don't parole boards take a DIM VIEW of that kind of attitude???). With a pair of "power gloves", he single-handedly attacks the FF in their HQ, seconds after Ben takes the "cure", so he's no help and is almost killed in the fight. I was a bit delighted when Johnny single-handedly beat the guy-- considering Wiz started out as a Torch baddie. My fave bit in the story is Johnny, kneeling over the defeated Wiz, holding up his weapons and saying, "Who wants to buy some used gloves?" But the Wizard ESCAPES-- vowing to return for more vengeance when they least expect it-- and while he was considered one of their deadliest enemies in the past, Reed doesn't seem too concerned. WHAT th'...??

Jack Kirby spends a lot of this "rematch" issue more or less giving readers a "tour" of the Baxter Building. We get to see the aircraft hangar, complete with Fantasti-Car (when WAS the last time they used that thing?), the Monitor Room (ditto?) and other areas. If there wasn't much "original" about this story, at LEAST it really LOOKED damn good! The FF's HQ may never have looked better than it did in this issue. I just wish I had the original comic instead of this fuzzy MGC reprint (which was missing 2 pages of story).

I've had a hard time trying to nail down The Wizard, as between Kirby, Ayers & Sinnott, his appearance keeps changing. He was one ugly dude in his debut, then in his 2nd appearance, I swore he was a dead ringer for actor Ron Perlman (who wasn't around back then). Since then, some episodes he's reminded me of Basil Rathbone or Vincent Price. In this one, I SWEAR he looks like Gary Oldman!! (who also wasn't around back then.) If they ever feature this guy in a FF movie, maybe they should really consider one of those guys I mentioned (who are still around) to play him.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #64 -- "The Vulture's Prey" is essentially one long FIGHT SCENE!! (Talk about "grudge matches".) The Vulture relentlessly attacks an already-wounded Spider-Man, while nearby JJJ, Robertson and some poor schmuck photog watch helpless, with JJJ naturally hoping Spidey gets clobbered. When Joe's injured because of the fight, Jameson NATURALLY blames Spidey-- what an A**H***!! In the end, Spidey falls to the street, but manages to damage The Vulture's control circuits, forcing him to flee while he still can. But Spidey collapses on the sidewalk, as a crowd circles-- like vultures-- eager to UNMASK him-- "at last". (Huh? Has the populace of NYC been wanting to see one of its heroes unmasked and destroyed all this time?)

Meanwhile, at Anna Watson's house, her niece MJ shows up looking for Peter (hope springs eternal?). Her aunt almost doesn't recognize her, as she's had her hair CUT real short and all curled. I guess she must have figured, if Gwen was gonna steal HER hairdo, she might as well find another one. This was apparently done on Stan's orders. Too many readers kept wanting Pete & MJ together, so he had Romita make her look "less pretty". SHEESH! I dunno. I prefer the straight hair & bangs, but even this way, I STILL prefer MJ to Gwen. As, apparently, a lot of other readers did as well. Gwen's Dad, meanwhile, tells her he remembers everything now, and Pete "never" attacked him-- he was only trying to help. She cries tears of joy, relieved to hear this... but why didn't she just believe it in the FIRST place? (grumble...)

As usual, Romita-Heck-Esposito do a bang-up job. More than most, this issue, taking place entirely in broad daylight, reminds me of one of the Grantray-Lawrence SPIDER-MAN cartoons (which were still in reruns at the time), and this carries over to the story title, which was first used on the show, not the comic! This was the last issue for both Heck & Esposito. I'm really wondering why they had all this jumping-around of artists right then.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #105 -- "In The Name Of Batroc" starts out with Cap watching a documentary about his WW2 days that a producer is hoping he'll narrate... but it serves to remind him (again!) of Bucky's death, and he suddenly feels that he must "never" allow such a thing to happen again-- and so, he decides he must get Sharon Carter out of his life. WTF??? Months of slow, careful, painful building up of this relationship, and from one issue to the next they're gonna DUMP it? I sense the hand of Stan Lee here, as Jack Kirby, clearly pissed about the SILVER SURFER book, apparently told Stan that HE could start supplying plots from here on out. Instead of a new multi-part epic, we have 3 returning baddies (Batroc, Swordsman, The Living Laser), a single-issue story, and, REALLY BAD SOAP-OPERA!! This is the kind of thing that made AMAZING SPIDER-MAN a lot less enjoyable for me than it might have been...

Anyway, a bomb that can destroy NYC with vibrations has been smuggled into town, and Cap has to find it before it goes off, or, falls into the hands of anyone else. As Batroc is getting paid to find it for some foreign power, half the issue is one long fight scene! Nobody in comics draws fight scenes better than Jack Kirby... it's just that, by now, you kinda wish there was "more" than just that.

Art is once again by Kirby & Dan Adkins. It was confirmed on this month's DR. STRANGE letter column that Adkins decided to focus on inks for awhile. I miss his doing full art, but he brings class and style wherever he goes-- although, not every penciller he's teamed with is as appropriate a match as others. It's funny how, with Adkins being a protoge of Wally Wood, you might expect his inks over Kirby to somewhat resemble those on the SKY MASTERS newspaper strip. Instead, I'm reminded, more than anything, of Mike Royer's work with Kirby. In other words, while this came out in 1968, it LOOKS like more like Kirby's work from the 70's.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #5 -- "The Mark Of The Metazoid" makes the Marvel debut of Arnold Drake, creator of THE DOOM PATROL and DEADMAN and writer of many other books including JERRY LEWIS, BOB HOPE, BORIS KARLOFF TALES OF MYSTERY, etc. I wish I could say CM was among his better efforts, but frankly, he had his work cut out for him-- and an uphill battle to turn this mess of a series into something. After running in circles for all of Roy's run, Arnold cuts to the chase and has Yon-Rogg bring Mar-Vell up on charges, specifically of being "un-Kree". Because of Mar-Vell's sterling military record, Ronan The Accuser decides "not to decide", but to let his future actions dictate his guilt or innocence. The annoying sub-plot with the motel manager is handled by Mar-Vell suggesting to use Kree technology to wipe the man's memories of any suspicions he had. Those aren't the only suspicions, as missile base security chief Carol Danvers demands to know why there isn't a single photo of missile expert "Walt Lawson" in his files, and his glib answers only make her more suspicious.

Meanwhile, a convicted Russian "traitor" has submitted to a scientific experiment to turn him into a creature-- a "Metazoid"-- capable of surviving on alien planets. He's been promised he'll be turned back into his human form (or, at least, they'll begin research to see if it can be done-- SHEESH), if he further kidnaps a noted US missile expert and brings him back to Russia. Who else? Walt Lawson. And so, as "Lawson" is sneaking into the hospital to wipe the memories of the injured motel manager, what looks like a creature from another planet attacks. Can this guy's luck get any worse?

I know for a fact that Drake is a sci-fi fan, and the "Metazoid" story seems to me very much to be a tribute to an episode of THE OUTER LIMITS. If only he wasn't weighted down with all these bad sub-plots and bad soap-opera that keep getting in the way.

The art this time really had me shaking my head. I'm becoming more and more attuned to certain artists' styles, and while I hadn't figured it out before, on this, my 3rd time reading this book, I've come to the conclusion there were no less than 3 inkers working over Don Heck's pencils! The splash (and possible page 4) look to me to be the work of Frank Giacoia. Pages 2-3 look totally different-- much smoother, a close-up of Mar-Vell far more "sensitive" than the rest of the book-- I'm figuring it's Frank's buddy, Joe Giella. The rest of the book is a horrid, scratchy, rushed-looking mess. This, I'm sure, is the work of the only guy who actually got listed in the credits-- John Tartaglione. Here's what I THINK happened. As on many other occasions (as has been reported in a number of interviews in recent years), Giacoia got the book, ran late, Giella pitched in to help, but they saw they were running too late, so the rest of it went to Tartaglione, who did most of it-- probably rushing as he went to beat the strict printer's deadline-- and he got the credit, or should I say, the "blame" for the results. Oy...

Ever since I read these a few years ago, I've been complaining about how badly Tartag murdered Heck's art. I do think he wasn't the right inker for Heck by any means. But at least on this issue, I can see WHY it turned out so bad.

Heck, by the way, struck me as doing better "storytelling" than Colan-- and the interior of "The Hellion" (the Kree starship) looks much more interesting than anything Gene did in his 6 episodes on the series.


MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #16 -- "The Phantom Eagle" sees the debut of Herb Trimpe's WW1 flying ace (no relation to the character created by Mark Swayze and published by Fawcett in the 1940's). I wish I could say this was terrific, but I'm afraid the art struck me as being 3rd-rate (Trimpe got much better in the arly 70s) and Gary Friedrich's dialogue is only average. Fearful of reprisals against his family back in Germany, a flyer refuses to join the US military, but when a German derigible carrying an entire squardon of Fokkers decides to attack NYC, he goes into action in disguise. He single-handedly takes out the zeppelin, but his best friend (and romantic rival) winds up falling to his death, which he blames himself for, as the guy only joined the air corps despite an earlier injury because HE refused to.

MSH alternated around this time between introducing new characters and spotlighting existing ones. The Phantom Eagle is probably the least-successful of the features that headlined the book. He later returned in THE INCREDIBLE HULK #135 (Jan'71) thanks to a time-travel story involving Kang The Conqueror (art once more by Trimpe), and then, very strangely, turned up in the modern day in GHOST RIDER #12 (Jun'75) as a GHOST, in a story plotted & pencilled by Frank Robbins.


THE AVENGERS #56 -- "Death be Not Proud" has Captain America call the team to meet him at Dr. Doom's castle, where they use the abandoned time machine (heck of a thing for someone to just leave laying around unguarded, isn't it??) to go back and discover if Bucky REALLY died, or not. By adjusting the machine a certain way, they appear in the past as invisible phantoms, but when The Wasp, who's controlling it, inexplicably dozes off (!!) they materialize, just in time to free a captive Cap & Bucky, but then disappear just before the bomb goes off that killed Cap's young partner.

Once again, Roy Thomas indulges his mania for flashbacks, and this one includes a sequence where John Buscema redoes several Jack Kirby panels from AVENGERS #4. Among his recurring annoying dialogue habits are uses of the phrase "so-called" and "man-mountain". The thing with Bucky would seem to be a natural follow-up to this month's issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, but oddly, that's never mentioned here!


THE AVENGERS ANNUAL #2 -- "And Time, The Rushing River" / "The Avengers Must Die" marks the 2nd time Don Heck returns for an ANNUAL, only this time, he's brought his X-MEN team-mates with him. So Heck supplies only layouts, while the pencils are by Werner Roth & inks by Vince Colletta. Vince has been doing some franky stellar work around this time. Sadly, this issue ISN'T an example of that.

Returning from the past, the team finds their aircraft missing, and on reaching NYC, wonder why everyone's giving them the evil eye. In their HQ they're shocked to confront the ORIGINAL Avengers-- Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Giant-Man and Wasp-- still wearing their old outfits, even thought it soon becomes apparent this is their "present", not "past". It comes out that while time-travelling, Rama-Tut ran into some disturbances in the time-stream, and decided to take the name of "The Scarlet Centurion". He then visited The Avengers right after the events of AVENGERS #2 (just before Hulk quit!), and "convinced" them (with the aid of some brain-washing equipment) that the only way to "save" Earth was to eliminate all other super-powered figures. And so, the heroes become tyrants, and attack & imprison the F.F., X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil and others (and quite a few bad guys while they're at it, almost by default). Although it never quite makes sense, the Centurion was also responsible for making The Wasp doze off, thereby somehow altering the timestream-- and, for planting the "obsession" about Bucky in Cap's mind in the first place. And when the team "returns", the now murder-crazed "heroes" are bent on their destruction. Well, the day is saved... but even though I just re-read this, it was so badly done, I can't remember the details! Suffice to say, the timestream is restored, nobody remembers what happened, and The Scarlet Centurion now "never existed"-- he just went straight to the future to become Kang The Conqueror. I wish I could have enjoyed this more, but this gets my vote for possibly the worst comic of the month. (Oh well, can't win 'em, all.)


DAREDEVIL #44 -- "I, Murderer" (gee, that's the 2nd time in a month somebody paid tribute to "I, Robot") has The Jester, worried his identity might eventually be uncovered, hit on the scheme of having himself MURDERED publicly by Daredevil, who will be blamed for it. Is this guy NUTS, or what? Incredibly, after turning up at a police station in his "civilian" identity and claiming he'll "unmask" DD on top of the George Washington Bridge at midnight, DD shows up, a fight erupts, and with news cameras rolling, the guy dives into the river (where no one knows he has a small one-man submarine waiting for him). To all watching, it appears DD deliberately killed an innnocent man! And Foggy, not trusting this "new" DD, figures it must be true. At the end, Jester appears, clobbers DD, and turns him over to the police, to "prove" what a good guy he is. (What, ALL THOSE robberies he pulled, they're just gonna overlook???)

I can tell somebody had problems with the stat machine this month. Some pages half the lines are missing; the last page, all the lines are twice as fat as they should be; the rest, Vince Colletta does a terrific job. Gene Colan clearly had a BALL on this issue, knocking out some of the most dazzling visuals yet seen on this series. if the writing seems half-baked (if that), the art makes you not wanna care. For no apparent reason, this month they changed the cover logo, to a square-looking "DARE-" on top of "DEVIL". Can't say it was any kind of imporvement, and it didn't last.

THOR #156 -- "The Hammer And The Holocaust" has Thor fighting a desperate, awe-inspiring battle against The Mangog, who plans to destroy all existence by drawing The Odinsword and signalling the coming of Ragnarok. Back in Asgard, the chief minister tries to advise Loki, but the god of evil is too absorbed in his own schemes to listen to advice. He plans to hold back assaulting the Mangog until he's SURE Thor is dead; he also plans to make sure that Odin never wakes from his recuperative Odin-sleep; and when the time is right, he plans to call for aid from Karnilla the Norn Queen so their combined magic will defeat the beast. He also counts on help from his own personal legions... that is, until the few of them still left alive show up on his doorstep, pleading for safety, the bulk of their forces having been destroyed by the Mangog while it was en route to Asgard! Meanwhile, The Recorder arrives, is led to Sif, and together, they stand guard at the Odinsword. She feels if Thor is killed, she won't care if she loses her own life. Fandral, Hogun & Vostagg, freed from their rock prison, fear all is lost, but Thor stirs them to have more courage. Balder continues to fight for his life against Karnilla's legion, as she feels his spurning her love is more important than the destruction of all that is. And finally, despite a noble stalling effort, the Mangog catches up with Thor-- AGAIN. Is this to be THE END???

This reminds me of what some have said about DOCTOR WHO 4-parters-- that part 3 tends to be "filler", just a lot of characters running in circles waiting for the big finale next time. But no matter. The art and storytelling are SPECTACULAR and MAGNIFICENT beyond all belief! Surely this is some of the most exciting Kirby-Colletta art ever witnessed. I do find myself wondering, did anyone involved in this actually consider this might be the "end" of the series?


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #5 -- "Whatever Happened To Scorpio?" begins with Nick & Val having breakfast at his apartment (what is this, an episode of TV's THE AVENGERS ?) as Val reads Nick's horoscope, which says, "Beware, someone from your past will return today." Nick goes off alone and consults with a shady underworld type named "Pickman" (a dead ringer for actor Robert Morley), for help locating someone (he doesn't say who), having to do with something he can't involve SHIELD with. Pickman sneaks into a mysterious building, and discovers that someone has gotten their hands on top-secret SHIELD documents, which would be priceless on the black market to any spy. Fury, meanwhile, gets a message to investigate a warehouse... and drives straight into a deadly, cosmic-powered trap of SCORPIO!! His car demolished, Nick unconscious, the villain (now sporting an entirely different outfit) reveals he survived the explosion in NF #1 via the "solar force" of his "Zodiac Key" (the effect on the previous page would seem to bear this out). Scorpio makes a mask of Nick's face, and takes his place, then arrives at a special SHIELD warehouse outfitted to test the latest model of L.M.D. (a follow-up to last month's issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, it would seem). But what nobody else realizes is, the "L.M.D." is really a drugged Nick, who can't speak, and who must face the deadly obstacle course meant to test a robot. Barely surviving, Fury manages to escape the danger room, tackles his doppleganger, and is about to get shot by an unwitting Val when Pickman finds a secret way into the building-- and gets shot instead! Fury chases after his foe, who tears off his face mask and reveals his identity to a shocked Nick-- seconds before getting mowed down by a hail of SHIELD gunfire. After, standing on the pier, Nick wonders if he's seen the last of his murderous foe...

After a string of questionable stories with increasingly bizarre writing, NF #5 is a return to form. By a mile, this is my favorite issue of Nick's own book. The art is among Steranko's best-ever, between the drawing, the page layouts, various design elements & "special effects". And surprisingly, this book also features the BEST inks I have ever seen from John Tartaglione! Dozens of book with dodgy or downright miserable inks, but somehow he must have been really inspired this time, because I could hardly believe how DAMN GOOD it looked once I realized who'd finished the art.

The contents of the story probably remain a question to many fans & pros alike. The "clues" continue from NF #1 as to Scorpio's identity. Was he Julio Scarlotti, the race-car driver? The letters page says YES-- but questions if that was really him, or only "one of his many identities". Was he Jimmy Woo? I've read this MANY times over the years, and only this week finally noticed the bit of dialogue where Val says "Jimmy called to say he'd be late." As with NF #1, he's not around, and some SHIELD agents were worried about his vow of vengeance in STRANGE TALES #166. Several other clues point to something more personal. Once again, Nick talks about his family. When Scorpio is putting on his disguise, he thinks, "...and I AM Fury-- and who is to say I'm not?" When the disguised Scorpio enters the warehouse, he says "I might have a twin brother nobody knows about." And during the fight, he thinks of Nick, "He always was the LUCKY one..." All of which makes me REALLY wish Steranko had done a 3rd installment of this storyline. Tragically, this was it.

More than a year later, shortly after Fury was apparently killed in the last issue of the book, Roy Thomas stepped in to solve the mystery. In that story, we find that under the mask of Scorpio was... Nick Fury, who faked his own death to infiltrate a crime cartel named "Zodiac" (what else?) and kidnapped the Avengers JUST so he could get their help taking out the gang. (What, he couldn't have asked nicely?) In Roy's story, it appears very much that Scorpio was in fact KILLED at the end of NF #5-- and Nick reveals that it was his brother, Jake, under the mask. But Roy gave NO details, NO explanation. Maybe he hoped Steranko would fill in the details eventually.... he never did.

It wasn't until 7 years later that David Kraft & Keith Giffen FINALLY started filling in the details in DEFENDERS #46-50. According to them, the "real" Scorpio was Count Julio Scarlotti, the race car driver AND a charter member of ZODIAC. And unlike Roy's story (and Steranko's), Scarlotti WAS killed in that massive explosion at the end of NF #1-- and replaced by Jake Fury in NF #5, who only claimed to be the same baddie. I wonder what Steranko might have thought of all this?

The "real" details-- or what passes for them-- would not be finally explained until FURY #1 came out in 1992. One of these days, I gotta re-read that comic...


DOCTOR STRANGE #173 -- "While a World Awaits" has Doc single-handedly (well, almost) trying to stand off The Dread Dormammu-- reportedly more powerful than he ever was before-- and his army of other-dimensional monstrous followers-- from storming the portal to Earth's dimension and invading the helpless planet. Dormammu orders his sister Umar to stay behind in the "Unknown" dimension, as only HE can rule over the Dark Dimension (and Earth). Back on Earth, a former colleage of Doc's storms his house-- demanding to see him, and claiming he will not leave until he has convinced Strange to give up his life as a "charlatan" and take a position as a medical "consultant" (something he refused WAY back in the Lee-Ditko origin story). Following a mental message from Doc, Clea & Victoria join forces to send Dormammu a mental suggestion, which causes him to invade Earth's dimension, just as Strange blocks the portal, leaving him on his own. In some fashion, Dormammu invading Earth-- in direct violation of his OWN "sacred vow" not to do so-- somehow drains him of his own power, and he's forced to flee back to his real home in the Dark Dimension, where, he vows, he'll never rest until he finds a way to avenge himself. Exhausted, Strange returns home to confront his doctor colleague, who, despite his earlier words, easily gives up any hope that Strange will ever come to his senses to "help humanity". Roy's narration suggests (in typical Roy Thomas fashion) that Doc can never excape the eternal loneliness of his existence... WHAT, with not 1 but 2 gorgeous babes waiting for him in the next room??? Is he KIDDING???

The Bullpen page raves about the art team of Gene Colan & Tom Palmer, saying "If ever a pair of artists were BORN to work together". OHHHHH yeah!!! Boy does this book look INCREDIBLE!!! I didn't mention it before, but Colan-Palmer redesigned Clea's outfit a bit, and now she's wearing what appears to be a "fishnet" body-suit. YUM. The only thing I wasn't crazy about was the cover-- by Dan Adkins, oddly enough. He inked Gene's cover last time, but next issue it's Colan-Palmer all the way. These stories took a LONG time to get reprinted. I've had the originals since the late 70's. (Though, I admit, I haven't re-read them SINCE then. Well, I'm making up for it now!)


FANTASTIC FOUR #79 -- "A Monster Forever?" has great art, cover-to-cover... but I'm really wondering about the story. Ben goes on a date with Alicia, terrified that she won't love him as "normal, dull" Ben Grimm. Meanwhile, the police are ransacking the HQ of The Mad Thinker, and find a very human-looking "Android"-- which comes to life, begins talking non-stop (it's as bad as its creator, referring to itself as "his greatest creation") and goes on a rampage to find the source of a strange signal it senses. Inexplicably, Ben has brought The Wizard's "power-gloves" with him to the restuarant, and, just as inexplicably, THOSE are the source of the signal the "Android-Man" is picking up. It's mission-- to DESTROY whoever holds the gloves. HUH? First Ben gets swatted aside, then it goes for Alicia, who of course can't see what's going on. Ben, thinking a sudden surge of energy is what turned him back to Ben, figures another one will turn him back into The Thing. He puts on the gloves, activates them... and BAM! The Thing wipes up the place with that freakin' android. Johnny arrives too late to help, and is concerned that Ben is The Thing again. Ben tells him, don't sweat it, he PLANNED it this way.

Apart from this being another one of those "the guy with the affliction will NEVER be cured" things (which over the decades, got VERY tiresome over in THE INCREDIBLE HULK), something about this issue just doesn't "feel" right to me. I've read in several issues of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR how, around this period, Kirby would plot one thing, and Lee would script SOMETHING ELSE entirely. Like how, in the INHUMANS back-up in THOR, the story with the Kree Sentry had an entirely different meaning from what Kirby intended by the time Lee got done putting words down. I don't believe I've ever read about this issue that way, but I have a strong suspicion something like that may have happened here.

For one thing, WHY is Ben carrying the Wizard's gloves? WHAT possible purpose, subconscious or other, could he have, unless it was, as suggested on the last page, that he "planned" to use them to turn back to The Thing? If I go purely by the pictures, and ignore the dialogue, I might think that Ben, now "helpless", going on a date with his sweetie, might have taken those babies along for PROTECTION! After all, The Wizard almost single-handedly beat 3/4ths of the FF using those gloves. Surely, Ben might have thought he could use 'em the same way?

Second, WHAT's with The Mad Thinker? NEVER before had he created an android with a human face-- nor one that could talk. That 12-foot-tall monstrosity from FF #70-71 sure as hell seemed like his "ultimate creation" to me-- not THIS ugly sucker. And how-- or WHY-- could it POSSIBLY be attracted by a signal from The Wizard's gloves? I mean... WTF??? As The Wizard was on the loose just last issue, it would make much more sense to me if it was The Wizard's hideout the police were raiding, while searching for him, and ran across one of his recent experiments. If the "Android-Man" were a creation of The Wizard, it would make PERFECT SENSE for it to be drawn to whoever had the gloves-- and destroy them.

Following the above hypothesis, I'd say that what Kirby intended was for Ben to try using the gloves-- but somehow, it backfired, turning him into The Thing again. Not expecting this, he'd be PISSED-- and lay out that bastard android the way he did.

Sometimes I think certain Stan Lee comics oughta have their dialogue replaced...


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #65 -- "The Impossible Escape" has an unconscious Spidey saved from a mob wanting to unmask him by Captain Stacy, who has him shipped by ambulance to a prison hospital. Gwen searches for the missing Peter, who disappeared from the rooftop while taking photos. Spidey wakes up, begins to recover, and suddenly finds himself in the middle of a prison-break, with cons using Stacy as a hostage! He bluffs them ito thinking he doesn't care about Stacy, and tells them "Now THIS is what we're gonna do..." He knocks out the lights, and begins picking off the cons one by one in the dark... until an emergency generator kicks in, he tells Stacy to duck, and clobbers the ring-leader. Stacy says he KNEW Spidey wasn't bad, and offers to testify in his behalf when it comes to a hearing. But Spidey declines to stick around, and hi-tails it for home, where he knows a worried Aunt May is wondering why he hasn't called for so long.

A brief sub-plot involves Harry, worried about his Dad, who's been "sick" lately, and getting worse any time Spider-Man or The Green Goblin is mentioned (is that the sort of thing that comes up in common conversation very often?). Harry's so upset, he completely ignores MJ, who calls him a "real drag". You KNOW Harry's upset. MJ's dressed like a HOOKER in this episode, and he doesn't even notice!!!

John Romita continues on layouts, but the new art "team" is JIM MOONEY, "the" SUPERGIRL artist, and fresh off SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #1. With Romita doing touches-ups on faces to maintain consistency, the big difference in the art is that Mooney manages to make everything look so dark, "moody", and even "spooky"! Apart from Romita's earlier solo work (or that with Esposito), this part of the run contains some of my all-time favorite Spidey art. What's interesting is, almost the exact same time Mooney replaced Heck & Esposito in the comics, Grantray-Lawrence went belly-up and were replaced by the new Krantz Films studio on the cartoons-- with Gray Morrow doing the designs & layouts. So on 2 fronts at once, Spidey suddenly got a whole lot "spookier".

And speaking of the SPIDER-MAN cartoon show, this comic wound up being adapted only about a year after it came out as the 2nd season finale, "To Cage A Spider" (ep.38). The intro made a lot less sense (without the lead-in with The Vulture), but overall it followed this fairly closely and I see even contained some of Stan's dialogue verbatim. Not to mention, some terrific "crime drama" style music that sounds like it would have been at home on THE UNTOUCHABLES. That cartoon marked the first (of 3) appearances on the show of Stacy, though oddly enough, he was married, and talked on the phone with his wife-- rather than his daughter.

IRON MAN #6 -- "Vengeance-- Cries The Crusher!" has a villain who by rights should never have come back from the dead come back from the dead. Seems that "Professor" from some un-named Spanish Commmunist country (but let's just call it Cuba, heh) after becoming so heavy he fell straight THRU the Earth's crust, found himself in Tyrannus' underground city, by which point the effect of the ray wore off. Somehow he managed to tunnel his way back to the surface, then forced the spies who brought him to the US in the first place to take him to NYC again-- at which point, he sank their boat, then invaded Stark Industries-- AGAIN. (Can you say... "REMATCH"??) The Crusher wants the weapon Iron Man used on him-- so he can use it on Iron Man, and make HIM know what it feels like to be trapped miles beneath the Earth. While this is going on, Whitney Frost ("Big M" of the Maggia) is wrapping Jasper Sitwell around her finger, trying to get her hands on Stark's secrets. She becomes a prisoner of The Crusher, at which point the only way IM can stop Jasper from getting himself killed trying to save her is to clobber the poor schlep. IM causes the weapon to explode, then manages to fly off with his super-heavy foe in tow, until, due to his own struggling, he falls into the ocean... and sinks like the stone he is. Back at the plant, Jasper wants no apology, he's feeling embarrassed enough as it is. And Whitney, she's getting confused, as she's starting to have feelings for Jasper a crime boss in her position shouldn't be having.

By this point, someone decided Johnny Craig wasn't cutting it as Gene Colan's replacement on pencils. Instead, after he'd been bouncing around for many months, George Tuska finally got himself a STEADY GIG as a penciller, and, as they said on the Bullpen page, "in a fit of inspiration", Craig was teamed up with him as inker. WOW! I thought Craig's precise, razor-sharp lines were all wrong for Colan-- but on Tuska, it's a match made in heaven. Over the decades I've read countless books pencilled by George "blunt instrument" Tuska, and far too many of them had inferior inks (often by Esposito or Colletta). But Tuska-Craig is something else! All the same, I'm not really crazy about the plotting, but I guess you can't have everything. I'm now well into Marvel's period of "expansion", and a number of their top-rank artists have been replaced with 2nd-tier guys. It's not that I haven't enjoyed some of Tuska's work over the years, but even some of the letters around this time were saying his art was "too cartoony" compared to both Heck AND Colan.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #106 -- "Cap Goes Wild!" has Cap fighting some Chinese agents who are out to steal the technical specs on SHIELD's latest L.M.D. (seem to be a lot of those going around the last few months). They get away, and the next thing you know, a shadier-than-usual SHIELD agent is showing Cap a movie about his exploits in WW2-- in which he's shown to be ruthlessly killing an unarmed prisoner! Wanting to get to the bottom of this, he flies to Hollywood to confront the producer of the questionable flick. Unknown to him, the head of the tiny Infinity Studios has struck a deal with the same foreign power. For enough money to make a big-budget sci-fi film, all he has to do is stand aside as Captain America is murdered by a lookalike enemy L.M.D., who'll then take his place and ruin his reputation. Turns out the guy's doing it so he'll have money his brother needs for an operation-- but the other brother wants nothing of the scheme! As Cap winds up fighting for his life against the murderous Steve Rogers robot, the sick brother steps in, allowing Cap a needed break while getting killed in the process. The L.M.D. suddenly self-destructs-- and that shady SHIELD guy turns up to tell Cap it was an "untried" model they deliberately let the Chinese steal the specs for. You know, this may be the first example I can think of of a much "darker" side to SHIELD that other writers would expand on far too much in the 70's & 80's. If so, I'm guessing this was Stan's story, not Jack's. I just CAN'T see Jack Kirby EVER dumping "real world" shades of gray onto any of "HIS" heroes.

Frank Giacoia returns to ink Kirby on this issue, and it continues to be obvious just how much Kirby's art keep changing.


SILVER SURFER #2 -- "When Lands The Saucer" has Norrin Radd seeking a place on Earth he can live in peace with the humans, but everywhere he goes, it's mistrust. In the Balkans, from "villagers" who think he's a demon from hell, in NYC, it's people who remember how he attacked the world only a few months earlier. Next thing, an alien spacecraft approaches, containing lizard-like members of "The Brotherhood Of Badoon". They claim to be here in friendship, but a female prisoner reveals they're really out to conquer the Earth (get in LINE, man!). They decide to "toy" with The Surfer, and attack him in the skies over NYC. Because the Saucer is invisible, nobody believes The Surfer's claims they're being invaded; and once the fight starts, everyone think's HE's attacking the city on his own! Before long, the Air Force gets involved, and he tricks them into firing missiles which wind up chasing the Badoon off the Earth. But as far as mankind is concerned, HE's the menace-- and when he tries to bring the injured female prisoner to safety, he's accused of trying to kill her. Some days you can't win...

The John Buscema-Joe Sinnott art's pretty impressive, but Stan Lee's plot & dialogue really get tiring after awhile. Did anyone REALLY want a book where the hero was so miserable ALL the time back then??

The Badoon would return in Arnold Drake's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY series-- though it would take some years before anyone got that going past its initial episode.


INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #1 -- "A Refuge Divided" has The Hulk stumble upon The Inhumans' city, somewhere in Europe... SAY WHAT?? According to the Inhumans' back-up series in THOR, their original home was on an island; in FANTASTIC FOUR, it was somewhere in the Andes. Did Gary Friedrich bother to read those episodes at all, or was he just makin' it all up as he went?

Anyway, what we have here is a complex story where a group of renegade Inhuamsn are sentenced to imprisonment in another dimension for trying to overthrown Black Bolt's power. His brother, Maximus, decides to take advantage of it to recruit them to his cause, since HE still wants to take over. The Hulk finds himself imprisoned with the renegades, who spend much of the story trying to convince him they're his "friend" as he keeps repeating he has "never" had any friends (shows what he thinks of Rick Jones, don't it?). Between Hulk & Maximus, the group manages to escape, then Hulk gets into a running battle with the city defenses, when all HE's trying to do is get outta town! The renegades finally seem to convince Hulk to join with them, and deep underground he helps Maximus get his hands on something that could, potentially, destroy the entire planet (way to GO!). But it backfires, and the renegades are captured again... only Hulk, feeling betrayed, won't stand for it. HE wants to clobber them FIRST! Gorgon tells the guards to stand back, maybe they'll all just destroy each other. It's only when Black Bolt arrives that he finally realizes The Hulk is an innocent in all this, and offers him friendship. Hulk realizes THIS person could be trusted-- but as everyone else in the city already hates him, he leaves, once more frustrated & lonely.

Marie Severin & Syd Shores do a bang-up job on this. The credits say "and almost the whole blamed bullpen", but frankly, the only other inkers whose work I can make out is Frank Giacoia (and maybe Joe Giella). It's possible there's some Everett or Colletta in here as well, and maybe even some Romita or Severin, but if so, I'd guess it's only on touch-ups, not whole pages.

Overall, this was overlong, and not very memorable. Perhaps the best part of the book was the cover by Jim Steranko, showing a struggling Hulk straining under the heavy weight of his own rock-like logo. For some reason, the face was replaced by Marie Severin, but she swore it was on Stan's orders! I believe Marie did a cover for this herself, but it was only used on a foreign reprint.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #6 -- "In The Path Of Solam" begins with Mar-Vell engaged in a periodic battle simulation as part of a medical exam. Naturally, Yon-Rogg orders it cranked up to the max, far past safety limits, and Una can only comply as he's the C.O. For the 2nd episode in a row, Arnold Drake has added an extra complexity to Yon-Rogg's motivations. He's not just jealous of Mar-Vell because of Una, he's also jealous of him militarily and maybe even politically. This guy isn't just love-sick, he's also power-mad! Somehow, that makes him a better villain in my eyes.

Down on Earth, "Walt Lawson" is asked to consult on a bizarre experiment involving solar power, and as a Kree (in disguise) he recognizes the very deadly danger it presents-- but can't do anything about it for fear of revealing his true identity, and of incurring the wrath of his already-murderous C.O. When a giant monster is unleashed as a result of the experiment, nobody at the base questions it when "Captain Marvel" shows up to help, and seems to know just how to stop the thing. The base commander's grateful, but Yon-Rogg only wants his death all the more.

John Tartaglione did a somewhat better job on the inks this time than last issue, which only strengthens my feeling that the previous issue he was trying to beat someone else's blown deadline. Even so, he could have been TRACING Don Heck's lines, the way this resembles Don's own really bad inks from AVENGERS #32-37. I just feel that for a science-fiction book, they really should have had much slicker inks than this, and the overall look is just dragging everything down. On the upside, Drake's dialogue isn't annoying like Roy Thomas' was, and the "big story" seems to be moving forward a bit more than it had been before.


THOR #157 -- "Behind Him Ragnarok" has The Mangog FINALLY reach Asgard, and draw the Odinsword!!! Horrors!! Along the way, The Legion of the Dead awakens due to Balder's nobility, and Karnilla is forced to allow all of them to leave, though she's heartbroken knowing the only man she ever loved may never be hers. Loki runs for the hills, as Thor tells him that if Asgard falls, there will be NO safety for him anywhere. And, as all seems on the verge of total destruction, Thor unleashes a gigantic storm-- which has the effect of safely WAKING his sleeping father, Odin, who reveals that The Mangog's power was all an illusion-- for his race was not dead, but in fact imprsioned in his living form. As he'd done earlier with Thor himself, Odin declares that Mangog's people's "pennance" is over, and he returns the entire race to life, to live in peace, as the destructive creature fades away to nothingness. The danger is passed, all hail to Odin!

I dunno... it sure seems like an out-of-left-field ending to me. And what about ALL those Asgardians who got killed trying to stop that monster? Was THAT all part of Odin's plan as well?

Oh well, at least the Kirby-Colletta art is stellar. The covers confuse me a bit... between THOR #156 & 157, it seems as if the covers could have been reversed. The cover of #156 has Thor and his friends defending the Odinsword, a scene which takes place in #157. On the other hand, the cover of #157 shows Thor grabbed by The Mangog, which takes place in both issues, but is almost identical to the first page of #156. On the other hand, with all the fire and destruction in the background of #157's cover, I guess it made for a better "finale" cover.

Was this intended at any point to actually END the THOR series? We may never know for sure... but if it was, someone certainly changed their mind at the last minute.


THE AVENGERS #57 -- "Behold... The Vision!" has a mysterious super-powered artificial man try to kill The Wasp-- then the rest of the team-- before revealing he's been programmed to do that by their robotic enemy, Ultron. Taking them to his underground hideout (hidden in a deserted ruins in the middle of the city), they quickly find themselves captured and about to be killed... until The Vision (as Jan called him) escapes to confront his "creator"-- before destroying him! The group still has NO idea why Ultron wants them all dead. And all that's left is pieces, but the head is notably missing.

The first time I read the ESSENTIAL AVENGERS reprints, I got the feeling that THIS issue was the one where, FINALLY, Roy Thomas came into his own. Somehow, all the pieces finally fall into place here, and the book begins to feel like Roy has managed to make it his own. John Buscema & George Klein are superb on every page, and even Roy's dialogue is less annoying than usual.

Roy, with his great love for all things "Golden Age", had originally wanted to bring back the Golden Age Vision (a character created by Jack Kirby who was a lot like DC's Spectre, only less defined). This would explain the "clouds" on the cover, as the original Vision always appeared in our dimension via smoke. Stan Lee preferred he go the Gardner Fox route instead, and create a NEW character with the same name. And, as "androids" were "in" about that time, that's what we got. I find it interesting, re-reading all these stories in chronological sequence now, that several elements that Roy used in this story had already been used in other stories over the previous months-- something that tends to be forgotten if one only looks at THE AVENGERS. The Fourth Sleeper (in CAPTAIN AMERICA #101-102), for example, could alter its density and walk thru solid objects.

Funny thing about this story... a few months down the line, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA featured am android called Red Tornado, named after a Golden Age hero, who was created by a villain to kill the JLA-- but who turned on his evil inventor instead, and then joined the group. That doesn't seem like it could REALLY be a "coincidence"... could it??