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

The "Behold...The Vision!" cover to Avengers # 57 is a masterpiece. It's so beautiful yet so moody and sinister. Buscema and Klein really outdid themselves. That cover, which I first saw in the Marvel 50th Anniversary hardcover from the early 90s, is what led me to read The Avengers in the first place.

DAREDEVIL #45 -- "The Dismal Dregs Of Defeat" has D.D. spending the entire 20 pages on the run from the cops, trying to get back home to switch back to Matt Murdock, and running into police dragnets everywhere he goes. At one point, he knocks out some poor schlep and takes his overcoat (leaving money in the guy's pants to pay for it), then hops a subway. But what are the odds-- The Jester turns up on the SAME subway, and the hunt is on again. He finally gets caught and tossed in jail, where some con decides it'd be a good idea to find out what's under the mask. (Gee, didn't this just happen the month before in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #65?)

Gene Colan continues to have a blast, and Vince Colletta's not doing bad either.


X-MEN #49 -- "Who Dares Defy... The Demi-Men" begins when The Angel visits The Mansion, closed down now that Professor X is dead and the team has split up, and find that Cerebro has automatically activated on finding a massive reading of mutant activity. A group of mutants are pooling together to form an army, apparently under the command of someone called Mesmero. While this is going on, Bobby befriends a girl named Lorna Dane, who it turns out has green hair. A group of Mesmero's thugs attack, but strangely, bow down to worship at Lorna's feet. WHAT the heck is going on here? (More, what does the title refer to, as the phrase "Demi-Men" appears NOWHERE in the 15 pages of the story?)

"A Beast Is Born" continues the X-MEN ORIGINS series by giving us the background on Hank McCoy's parents; his father worked at a nuclear research facility, and helped shut it down during a dangrous accident.

Art on the lead series is Don Heck (co-plot & layouts), Werner Roth (pencils) and John Tartaglione (inks); the back-up features Roth & John Verpoorten. Both nice, but nothing really special. Of special note is the cover-- by Jim Steranko!! I'm still trying to figure out what the heck that big "mask" is supposed to be. It looks a bit like Mesmero, but it's colored red instead of green...

Arnold Drake is clearly setting up the reformation of the team, having walked in on what may have been the series all-time low point. But nothing here is really that impressive.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #6 -- "Doom Must Fall" has an asteroid pulled out of its orbit and heading for a collission that will destroy all life on Earth. Fury and an ace SHIELD pilot race to the Andes to track the source of whatever is pulling the giant rock our way, and find the hidden base of "The Others" a group of exiles from another dimension who escaped tyranny, and now wish to return home-- but the only way they can do it is by recreating the cataclysm that allowed them to escape. That it means the death of an entire planet doesn't faze them, so Fury has no choice but to stop them. Turns out his pilot is actually one of them, brainwashed into forgetting his own identity so as to spy on the "humans" all these years. Nothing seems to be able to stop the baddies, and things look utterly hopeless... until their gigantic spacecraft veers off-course and hits the asteroid. Fury figures he must have gotten thru to the "humanity" of his pilot after all.

Not counting NICK FURY #4 (the origin flashback issue), the post-Steranko era really begins here. Roy Thomas plots, Archie Goodwin dialogues, and full art in by Frank Springer, whose aircraft continues to be very impressive, much more so than his people. If I have any problem, it's that too many stories from this point try too hard to imitate the kind of writing Steranko did in issues #1-3, with dazzling art trying to make up for disjointed plotting, and cramming way too much story into only 20 pages. It's like a Will Eisner SPIRIT story on steroids-- or something. Steranko supplies the very Wally Wood-like cover of Fury in space in front of an exploding Earth-- an image that has been paid tribute to on an issue of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, and possibly, the cover of Yes's album FRAGILE.


DOCTOR STRANGE #174 -- "The Power And The Pendulum" has Doc receive a call for help from a fellow mystic in England, and he decides to hop a plane there to conserve his power. As Wong helps Clea acclimate to Earth (she has trouble understanding that's it's not a good idea to use magic openly!), Doc and Victoria Bentley pay a visit to a mysterious castle, and soon find themselves in the grip of yet another ambitious madman. This one's made a pact with a demon called "Satannish", who's agreed to give him power & fame for one year, which he may keep permanently ONLY if he can find someone to take his place. A desperate battle ends when the baddie finds Doc used a spell to accelerate time-- and Satannish calls in the debt earlier than the guys expected! Moral: NEVER make a deal with the devil-- or any reasonable faccimile.

The Thomas-Colan-Palmer team continues to dazzle. This is good stuff!!


FANTASTIC FOUR #80 -- "Where Treads The Living Totem" has Wyatt Wingfoot ask for help with a problem he found visiting his tribe while on vacation from college. Despite waiting for Sue to give birth, Reed quickly agrees to go, and the three speed off in their pogo-plane. Wyatt finds something he can't bring himself to believe-- "Tomazooma, The Totem Who Walks", or, as it calls itself, "The Death Who Walks". A giant in the form of his tribe's ancient legends is determined to destroy everyone and everything in its path, but Wyatt's uncle discovers that the oil company who's been trying to buy their land is in fact an agent of the Soviet Union. He passes on help from the military, feeling it's his tribe's responsibility to take care of what is really a big disguised ROBOT. With Wyatt's help, Reed manages to dispatch the machine, and feels sorry that the tribe's belief in their legend has been destroyed. But the Chief says not a bit of it, as in the distance they see, in a haze, a gigantic form wandering away. The Chief says Tomazooma WAS there, ready to help, until he saw it wasn't needed, and he now returns to where he came from, until his help is summoned again.

The Kirby-Sinnott art is stellar, as usual, though I wish I had the original of this instead of this very fuzzy MGC reprint. Funny thing, in some panels, the design of Tomazaooma makes me think this would have made a great Saturday morning cartoon.


FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #6 -- "Let There Be... Life!" finds Sue & her baby endangered because of the cosmic radiation in their blood, and Reed decides he must deliberately enter The Negative Zone to find something that may act as an "antidote". Naturally, Ben & Johnny insist on going along, and this time, they take backpacks which serve as propulsion thru the alien space. It's clear Reed has continued to work on the "safety locks" leading to the other universe portal, and I found myself wondering, how much of what he built actually exists in "our" universe, and how much in the "other" one?

Before long, the trio run afoul of a big, bat-winged man-sized insect named "Annihilus", who calls himself "The Death Who Walks" (wait a minute, I thought that was Tomazooma??). This viscious creature takes pleasure in destroying all life it runs across, as it somehow feels it's the only way to insure its own "immortality". Captured and thrust into an arena, Reed recognizes the "cosmic control rod" the alien wears may be the very thing he's searching for that could save Sue (talk about a wild coincidence!!). After a fierce battle, Annihiulus is knocked out, Reed swipes the rod, and the three make a run for it, as Reed finds the rod can be used to channel mental energy to power a vehicle, as well as individual flight. Annihilus sets after them in a "gunship", blowing them out of the sky. Reed sokmehow manages to return the favor, then is horrified to find they're all trapped in the "debris belt" where he almost got killed TWICE before! (Stan's editorial notes only mention one previous episode, but my memory's probably better than his.) Once Reed realizes he can siphon off some of the rod's power (into a capsule he conveniently brought with him on his quest), he works a trade-- the jet-backpacks for the rod. The four go their separate ways, the three heroes all hoping they never run into Annihiulus again. (In the Marvel Universe? FAT CHANCE!) Back home, following more than the usual tension, Sue gives birth, and the media goes wild.

In some ways, this was a majhor turning point for the FF. On the one hand, Reed & Sue are now parents. On the other, Annihiulus was one of the last "major" characters created by Jack Kirby for the series (or Marvel in general). After this, it was mostly a series of "rematches", which probably made Stan Lee happy. After all, he probably figured fans love to see bad guys come back, and it's probably a lot easier to "write" when you don't have to come up with any "new" ideas.

The Kirby-Sinnott art is spectacular-- as always, puncutated by several full-page shots, and a 2-page spread featuring one of Kirby's photo-collages. Some fans in recent years have expressed a wish that Marvel could find a way to re-photograph these things, and reprint them IN COLOR, as opposed to B&W, which was the only way they could be back when the stories were originally done.

Inexplicably, Kirby's magnificent cover was replaced on the 70's "GIANT-SIZE" reprint by a Buckler-Sinnott cover, which just didn't cut it somehow, and was made worse by word balloons (probably by Roy Thomas) which said "Annihilus! He's BACK!", suggesting the story was a sequel, not a reprint of his original appearance.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #66 -- "The Madness of Mysterio" has Spidey's old foe escaped from prison and ready for revenge! This is a pure "grudge match" with nothing else to get in the way. Well, almost. Pete recovers his clothes & camera from the rubble on the roof of The Daily Bugle, finds JJJ turns him away (though Jameson almost immediately finds his staff photo screwed the job over), is low on cash and has to sell his motorcycle... but then he runs into Gwen, who tells him her Dad explained everything, and suddenly, despite all his troubles, all seems right with the world. Her Dad, meanwhile, has lunch with Joe Robertson, trading notes about Spidey, who's saved both their lives, and who they both suspect knows them personally. Joe also says he'd love to convince JJJ he's wrong, but his hatred is "almost psychotic". (What does he mean, "ALMOST"?? The guy needs psychiatric help-- BAD!!!) Harry's Dad is still missing, and we find he has become The Green Goblin again-- though his memory has not entirely returned yet. As Pete goes to visit Aunt May, he hears a cry of terror, crashes in thru the front door, and finds she's watching the TV-- on which, Mysterio is threatening to DESTROY the entire city, if his arch enemy doesn't come to face him, "At a place only we know". Determined to make his Aunt feel safer, Spidey races to "the place we had our first battle"-- the now-abandoned tv studio. (NOT true. That would be The Brooklyn Bridge! The TV studio was where he first DEFEATED Mysterio. I guess Stan's memory really IS that bad!!)

I love this... Spidey crashes in, and his foe says, "So soon, Spider-Man? Why in such a hurry to face your final waterloo? Or do you HAVE to rush because you RENT that corny costume by the HOUR?" A fight ensues, Mysterio shows Spidey a table-top model of an amusement park, aims a strange "weapon" at him, Spidey gets dizzy... and on regaining his sense, looks up, and sees, to his disbelief-- that he's now 6 inches tall, on the table, with a gigantic Mysterio looming over him, bragging how "In the last remaining minutes left you, you will never know what has really happened to you, or how, or why!"

Definitely one of my favorites. My earier mistake-- Don Heck & Mike Esposito returned here for ONE more episode, and it's one of their best. I guess If John Romita somehow wasn't able to handle full art or even full pencils, at least they had some decent guys around to pick up the slack. Not long after I first read this (in the 70's MARVEL TALES reprint), I found out it had been adapted for one of the 3rd-season episodes of the cartoon show. While most of the sub-plots were removed, the main action was left pretty much intact, right down to using some of Stan's dialogue VERBATIM! So when I re-read this, I can really "hear" the characters speaking in my head. The strange thing about that cartoon... I suspect the dialogue was recorded at Grantray-Lawrence just before they went belly-up, as it was one of the FEW 10-minute cartoons done by Krantz Films in NYC. Also, it was unusual for Krantz to feature actual super-villains from the comics. Further, there's a line where Spidey refers to Mysterio as "bowl-head", which makes sense in the comic, but NOT the cartoon. For, in some utterly bizarre, inexplicable reason, Gray Morrow COMPLETELY redesigned Mysterio for the cartoon! Instead of the Steve Ditko outfit that would have looked at home in a DR. STRANGE story, Morrow came up with a guy in a business suit, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, with shell-rimmed glasses, green skin and orange hair! I think someone once suggested he looked a bit like Roman Polansky on psychedelics. In any case, both the comic and cartoon remain among my faves.

"The "Behold...The Vision!" cover to Avengers # 57 is a masterpiece. It's so beautiful yet so moody and sinister. Buscema and Klein really outdid themselves. That cover, which I first saw in the Marvel 50th Anniversary hardcover from the early 90s, is what led me to read The Avengers in the first place."

Yep, that is a great one! It's funny that many years after I first saw it (in a TREASURY edition reprint, I believe), I found out the clouds were there because Roy wanted it to be the Golden Age Vision. But if it had been, I'm not sure how the story might have gone.

IRON MAN #7 -- "The Maggia Strikes" turns out to be one complex story from Archie Goodwin & George Tuska. "Big M"'s goons insist she mount the raid on Stark's plant, even as she's feeling regret for ever having started a criminal career, and how it will hurt Jasper. The Gladiator, fresh from multiple defeats at the hands of Daredevil, pushes his way into things, figuring he can re-establish his rep, and maybe push "Big M" (Whitney Frost) out before long. Meanwhile, Tony Stark can't believe it when Jasper is so lovesick he actually blurts out some classified security info to his girlfriend Whitney-- who Tony's beginning to get suspicious of. Later, he has a meeting with Janice Cord-- daughter of a late rival of his who hated him bitterly and was killed recently. Tony's offering to buy out her father's company for a very reasonable sum. However, it's at this point The Maggia makes their move, and grabs Tony, Janice and her business advisor hostage. Tony learns his supicions about Whitney were justified, as she leads the raid personally, without even a hint of disguise. The Gladiator wants to fight Iron Man, but for this to happen, Tony has to put his life and the others at risk-- to ESCAPE! He does, the fight's on, but before you know it, his repulsor rays get damaged, leaving us with a tense cliffhanger.

When I got my hands on this (and a few other issues from this part of the run), these stories had not yet been reprinted-- which after several decades, really started to seem absurd, considering the multitude of later stories involving Whitney Frost, The Maggia, etc. It's crazy that many fans have grown up reading "sequels" without ever being able to read the "originals". Which, combined with the popularity of a few later runs (notably those by David Michelinie & Bob Layton, and Kurt Busiek & Sean Chen), helped jack up the prices of these back-issues much higher than it seemed reasonable to me. I managed to get these fairly cheap, but I've seen them going for as much as $80 apiece!! --which is really nuts, when you consider Lee-Kirby-Sinnott F.F. issues from the same period were going from $10-20. (I wonder if the prices have come down not that these have finally made it to both ESSENTIALS and MASTERWORKS?)


CAPTAIN AMERICA #107 -- "If The Past Be Not Dead---" has Cap apparently having nightmares & hallucinations about WW2 and Bucky, who keeps saying, "How could you save so many but let ME die??" Steve's now seeing a shrink, a tall, very large Central-European looking guy with a handlebar moustache and a bad haircut named "Dr. Faustus" (you'd think with a name like that anybody would get suspicious). Faustus-- OF COURSE-- is an enemy spy, out to break Cap as none before him have-- psychologically. (His henchmen ask, why don't we just shoot him while we have the chance? NO! He does not WORK that way! BWA-HAHA!) Things reach a critical point when, after taking the Doctor's presciption pills, Steve wakes up having aged decades overnight. But it's a con-- he had SHIELD examine the pills, and had them work up a mask and gloves so he'd look old-- before clobbering the ones responsible. Faustus boldly tries to tackle him single-handedly. That turns out to be a waste of time...

Between the title and the "Bucky's dead!" theme, this story feels like the work of Stan Lee. I wonder who was mostly responsible for Dr. Faustus, Lee or Kirby? In either event, he's one of the last new villains Kirby would do in a Cap mag until the mid-70's. Syd Shores returns to inks, somehow a lot slicker than before-- perhaps he's gotten the hang of the smaller art board size? There's a rumor that Stan was grooming Shores to take over from Kirby, but somehow it never happened, as apparently Lee decided at some point he just wasn't happy with the "look".


CAPTAIN MARVEL #7 -- "Die, Town, Die!" has Mar-Vell ONCE AGAIN undergoing intense scrutiny by Yon-Rogg and Ronan The Accuser, back on their homeworld, having been transported there by some faster-than-light teleportation beam (shades of DC's Adam Strange!). Still unable to prove he's a traitor, Ronan orders a "test"-- Mar-Vell must use a toxic poison to kill everyone in a small town of his choosing. Returning to Earth orbit, then to Earth, Mar-Vell is just in time to save Carol Danvers from a murderous attack by Yon-Rogg, who wants her snooping stopped at all costs. Yon-Rogg then has Una view her lover and the Earth-woman together, trying to destroy her faith in him. Thru all this, Yon-Rogg's megalomania keeps growing, and he doesn't even seem to consider Una an important part of his ambitions anymore!

Things get real strange when Arnold Drake brings in Quasimodo (no explanation for how this "living computer" is alive and kicking after FF ANNUAL #5) who had developed the inexplicable power to control all mechanical devices-- even rifles, which fly out their wielder's hands. (Never mind how Superman can fly-- somebody try explaining THIS phenomona!!) CM winds up battling him, and it spills over into-- of all things-- an amusement park inhabited by animatronic "people". Una sabotaged the viewer just long enough for Yon-Rogg to miss part of the action, and by the time he gets it going again, he witnesses CM destroy Quasimodo-- and apparently, EVERYONE in this "small town". Frustrated that his arch-rival is still in the clear, Yon-Rogg is simultaneously stunned that Mar-Vell actually managed to slaughter that many "people". (Little does he know...)

As with so many episodes before, it takes almost halfway into the issue before this month's main story finally kicks in. I find myself wishing they'd have either focused on the "big" story, or else done these "smaller" stories better. At any rate, it's interesting to compare Don Heck's work in here to that in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Over there, he was working under John Romita's layouts, Mike Esposito's inks, and Romita's touch-ups. So it looked nice, but it was hard to see any "Heck" at all. Here, Heck's storytelling is obvious, making me wonder how it might have been if HE had been doing the plotting over on ASM. The problem, as with the 2 previous issues, is John Tartaglione seems to be adding nothing. Judging by those AVENGERS issues Don inked himself, it looks as though Tartaglione could be just TRACING Don's pencils. I look at some of these pages, and I find myself thinking, I could have done a better job on the inks!!


THOR #158 -- "The Way it Was" starts out with what many consider one really UGLY cover (Marie Severin and some incredibly rushed-looking Colletta inks), followed by some rather static Kirby pages and average-at-best Colletta inks. On the letters pages, for months, a controversy had been building, concerning Thor's history. It seems when the series started, the concept was, Don Blake was a surgeon with a lame leg, who found the hammer of Thor, and became the Thunder God. But then they started introducing Loki, Odin, etc. etc... and at some point, the concept seemed to change, and it became that we were reading about the "real" Thor. Which made many question, WHO was Don Blake? Was he real or not? If he was real, did he somehow replace the "real" Thor, and if so, what happened to him? Well, this issue tackles that question HEAD-ON! Actually, the bulk of the issue is a reprint of the very 1st episode from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83, right down to the Joe Sinnott inks (his inks are on most of the pages, and he's not even mentioned in the credits! Nor is Larry Lieber, who wrote the dialogue for that episode.)

By the issue's end, Thor himself is wondering, WHO is he really? Interestingly enough, one of the readers on the letters page pretty much spells out EXACTLY what the truth is... as would be revealed in the following issue.

While it's possible this issue was put together to give Jack Kirby extra time to do the FF ANNUAL, it's also been speculated that he had been planning on actually destroying Asgard and killing off all (or most) of the cast, and taking the book and its "GODS" in an entirely "NEW" direction. But then, he changed his mind at the last second, and insisted Stan Lee start doing more of the plotting himself. I think at this point, THOR was one of the only books left that hadn't had a retelling of the "origin" story-- so, in this case, we got a REPRINT-- and in the next issue, a major reinterpretation of same.


DAREDEVIL #46 -- "The Final Jest" has DD sneak out of his cell, disguise himself as a doctor, and get out jail just before anyone wises up. He buys a bum's clothes in a trade, and makes it back to the office, claiming he got "mugged". Back home, in his private gym, he finally feels the weight of the world lift... and realizes he recognizes the after-shave of the guy he ran into on that subway (and the voice that went with it) belongs to the guy he was supposed to have "KILLED" on the George Washington Bridge! Putting 2 and 2 together, he figures out what's been going on, and hatches an outrageous scheme to clear his name. Next thing, The Jester turns on THE TONIGHT SHOW, and sees-- HIMSELF-- telling Johnny "And that's how I beat Daredevil." Incensed that anyone would try stealing his glory, he races to the TV studio to confront his imposter-- who, of course, is DD. A fierce fight ends when The Jester is unmasked-- on LIVE TV-- and everyone watching (including the NYC Police) recognize him as the who whose "murder" DD was accused of. They cart The Jester off, telling DD, "Great job. Sorry about the mix-up." Hilarious!!

Now if only they didn't have this incredibly stupid and annoying sub-plot about Karen Page having left Matt because he refused to get serious and get married, and how Debbie Harris knows where she is but promised not to tell, and how Foggy thinks Matt is nuts (clearly he is!!!), and how Matt is thinking how lucky Foggy is to have someone like Debbie, and he hopes he never loses her... Well, at that point, the first thing that crossed my mind was, HE DID-- eventually-- in an incredibly painful, humiliating, degrading fashion-- THANK YOU, DENNY O'NEIL. But that was a lot of years down the line.

George Klein steps in on inks, and does one of the SLICKEST jobs this book has seen since Wally Wood!! Whatta guy.


X-MEN #50 -- "City Of Mutants" opens with a recap of last issue's finale, as a group of "latent mutants" (again the term "Demi-Men" is never once used) captures The X-Men and Lorna Dane, and ship them off to a futuristic town in the southwestern desert run by an army of mutants under the command of Mesmero, a desciple of the "late" Magneto. Jean, via her newfound telepathy (a "gift" from the "late" Professor X?) realizes their best bet to recue Bobby is to allow themselves to be captured. Using a "genetic accelerator", Mesmero activates Lorna's latent mutant ability-- magnetism-- and reveals she's actually the DAUGHTER of Magneto! Ordering her to attack, she does-- but it's Mesmero's goons she takes out. Just as it looks like the tables are turning, to everyone's shock-- Magneto turns up apparently very much alive.

So, the team's back together, it looks like they may have a potential new member, we have a great new menace, and it also looks like their arch-enemy is back for more. (Well, Fu Manchu never stayed dead either...) The big visual shock this issue begins on the cover-- a spectacular illo by Jim Steranko, who also did the pencils for the lead story, and, designed a BRAND-NEW LOGO, which is still being used to this day!!! (The fact that DAREDEVIL's logo also changed 2 months earlier makes me wonder if Steranko might have designed that one as well.)

Steranko has gone on record saying he doesn't consider this issue (and the next one) part of his "resume", probably because HE didn't write it-- or ink it-- or, I'm guessing-- COLOR it, either. The figure work's nice, but John Tartaglione doesn't do HALF the job he did on NICK FURY #5 two months before. There's a couple spots that look like they would have contained "special effects", but didn't, which is one of the reasons I suspect someone else colored this. Arnold Drake mentioned in an interview he had a lot of respect for Steranko as an artist, but I do find myself wondering how he wrote this-- "Marvel style", or full script?

The funny thing about this story (well, one of many, but I'll get to the rest later), considering the much-later revelations about Magneto and his supposed history as a "Holocaust" survivor, is how the mutants in this "City" of theirs all give each other NAZI salutes!


"This Boy-- This Bombshell" covers Hank McCoy's early life from toddler to high school football hero. He winds up single-handedly stopping a gang trying to steal stadium receipts, and comes to the attention of some other criminals with much bigger ambitions. Ohhh boy... Werner Roth & John Verpoorten supply some "nice" art here, though I admit, in spots, I almost thought I was reading a "DC".

NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #7 -- "Hours Of Madness, Day of Death" is Archie Goodwin's sole solo outing on this series. Investigating agents who have been drugged & killed, Fury winds up the latest victim, and spents most of the issue stumbling around trying to hook up with SHIELD so they can give him an antidote to save his life, and so he can finger the culprits responsible. He has a mid-town run-in with Dugan, Gabe & Jimmy Woo (nice to see they're remembered again), but hallucinates and thinks they're old enemies attacking. He eventually gets help from a "sister of mercy"-- who almost winds up becoming a victim along with Nick when the bad guys catch up with them. Rescued at the last minute by the Heli-Carrier's vortex beam, Nick still almost buys it when the SHIELD medic giving him the "antidote" turns out to be the ring-leader of the spies.

Frank Springer does a nice job with wild layouts, but his Fury still doesn't seem like the "real" one (either Jack's OR Jim's).


DOCTOR STRANGE #175 -- "Unto Us... The Sons Of Satannish" reveals an entire cult beneath the streets of NYC following the same demon the guy in the last issue made that deal with, and their leader, Azmodeus, is watching Doc & Clea's every move. The happy couple wander the city, Doc still trying to explain to her that she can't go displaying her magic like she used to back home. Fighting off an attack during a cab-ride to her apartment, Doc races home afterwards, only realizing that the cabbie knows Clea's whereabouts-- and soon finds the poor guy in a trance. Clea, meanwhile, is pulled into an alley by Azmodeus, who claims to be a "friend". YEAH-- RIGHT.

The Thomas-Colan-Palmer teams continues to dazzle. On the letters page, some readers express missing Dan Adkins greatly, though Colan is definitely picking up admirers. And someone actually says they think Roy Thomas "finally learned how to write" on this series. Between this and The Vision's debut on AVENGERS, it would seem that Thomas has finally managed a jump in quality!


FANTASTIC FOUR #81 -- "Enter-- The Exquisite Elemental" has Crystal donning an "FF" uniform and suggesting she take Sue's place now that the new Mom has a baby to watch after. Reed says he'll have to think about it... Meanwhile, The Wizard, as he promised, has created a new set of power gloves, and immediately attacks the group, drawing them away from their HQ this time. Johnny flies out on his own, followed by Reed, Ben & Crys in the Fantasti-Car (which we haven't seen in ages!). The fight takes half the issue, during which time Crystal takes every opportunity to show just what an asset to the team she can be, both in power and strategy. (Strong, pretty, AND smart!) The Wizard can't believe this "mere girl" is beating him so thoroughly, and only barely escapes at the end after falling into the river and swimming away. For the 2nd time in a row, Reed seems less than concerned, but now happily welcome's Johnny's girl to the team.

As always-- the Kirby-Sinnott art is a wonder to behold. One of these days, I just gotta get my hands on an original comic. This MGC reprint is just too fuzzy.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #67 -- "To Squash A Spider" concludes the Mysterio 2-parter as Spidey spends most of his time running and fighting for his life in what appears to be a incredibly-detailed (and extremely DEADLY) table-top amusement park. The sub-plots continue: Norman Osborn now remembers he's the Green Goblin, and wants revenge, but doesn't remember on who; JJJ is pissed that nobody has word or pics of Spider-Man OR Mysterio; Joe calls up Stacy again for another chat; and Joe's son Randy turns up (making his debut) with some problem his Dad tells him to share with him. Back at the tv studio, Spidey gets tired of running and wondering why Mysterio keeps vanishing whenever he gets close, and bets everything that it's ALL an illusion. This proves correct-- Spidey HASN'T been shrunk to 6 inches, it's a full-sized deadly amusement park (presumably built inside the tv studio as a "film set"), and he finds the regular-sized Mysterio running the show inside the parachute jump tower. After clobbering the bum, Spidey can't help but gloat, and his foe asks him, "Just call the cops, OKAY?"

Jim Mooney returns for his 3rd episode, and begins what turned out to be quite a run on the series, doing pencils & inks over Romita layouts. NICE, dark, "moody" stuff.


THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #2 -- "The Goblin Lives!" has "the gang" watching a lecture on crime by Captain Stacy, which focuses on Spidey & The Green Goblin. BAD idea-- as it's the final straw that sends Norman Osborn over the edge, and causes his memories of BEING The Green Goblin to finally return. He returns home, and invites Pete, Harry, Gwen & MJ to a "party"-- at which he can barely restrain himself from revealing to everyone the TRUTH about himself and Peter Parker. Pete manages to set a fire in the next room and sneak away, followed by Osborn as now all facade is brushed aside. The entire 2nd half of the book is dedicated to one LONG battle between Spider-Man and The Green Goblin, who's determined not only to kill his foe, but also reveal his identity to his Aunt May! (The BASTARD!!!) It's a "hallucinogenic" pumpkin that finally turns the tables, as once Spidey overcomes its effects, he realizes it may be hs only way out of this mess. Sure enough, he uses it on The Goblin-- who's mind is so tormented by visions he tears the Goblin costume off, and within minutes, can't seem to remember anything about Spider-Man. Pete helps him back to the hospital, where Harry soon arrives. At the end, Pete walks off with both Gwen AND Mary Jane on his arms, and though MJ thinks it's a hoot, inwardly Pete isn't in the mood for celebrating.

As if the continuity between SPECTACULAR and AMAZING wasn't confusing enough last time, the first half of this issue aparently winds its way in and out of SEVERAL consecutive issues of ASM, as Norman slowly regains his memory. Once he gets it all back, the rest of the story can only fit right after the Mysterio 2-parter. The 2nd issue was printed in color, but it must have been a late decision, as the early pages have MUCH more line-rendering detail, suggesting it was gonna be B&W before someone changed their mind. Tragically, I only have this as the 1973 ANNUAL reprint, which has, apparently, a LOT of pages missing, and some narration at the start and end morbidly talking about the death of Gwen Stacy and The Green Goblin in ASM #121-122 (thank you, Roy Thomas!!!). I'd love to see what this looked like originally when it was magazine-sized.

Some other fan not long ago (I think) suggested that, in a better world, this would have been the LAST Green Goblin story, ever. Spidey worried for almost 2 years that he might get his memory back, and here he did-- then, lost it again. It was a well-told story. There was NO NEED to tell it again-- but they brought him back TWICE more, before killing him off. One of countless reasons I'm beginning to wish the Marvel Universe had just come to a stop when Jack Kirby left the company.


IRON MAN #8 -- "A Duel Must End" reveals the "origin" of "Big M", as we see how Whitney Frost grew up living a charmed life, a girl who had everything-- until the man she thought was her father died, and she met her REAL father-- Count Nefaria. Once word of her family's crime connections reached her fiancee, he left her, causing her in despair to go along with her father's ambitions to train her to take over his criminal empire. Because this was never reprinted for decades, I spent many many years reading stories about her without ever having read this important story.

Anyway, The Maggia's raid on Stark Enterprises continues, Iron Man manages to get Janice Cord & her lawyer to safety, then head for the factory, where a free-for-all erupts between him, The Maggia goons, The Gladiator-- and Jasper Sitwell & a squad of security men (the ones who were gassed turning out to have been a squad of L.M.D.s!). It seems ever since Whitney started getting so inquisitive about Stark's security, Jasper got suspicious of her, and decided to let it play out so he could nab the whole mob. (Stark sure is surprised to learn this!!) But Whitney escapes at the end, because Jasper can't bring himself to shoot her in the back... something Stark understands, only too well.

The Goodwin-Tuska-Craig team continues, and on the letters page several fans rave about what a big improvement Tuska-Craig are over solo Craig, or even Craig inking Colan.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #108 -- "The Snares Of The Trapster" sees Cap in a really dangerous workout session, before being interrupted by another SHIELD man, who tells him Sharon Carter's disappeared while on assignment. Knowing Cap would be interested, he hands him a homer, which indicates she's still alive. Racing to find her in a slum building scheduled for demolition, he finds she's a prisoner of The Trapster, who's trying to get his hands on some secrets Sharon was transporting. A fight takes up half the issue, during which The Trapster is repeatedly confounded that his super-powered glue keeps disolving too soon. After revealing The Red Skull was paying him to get ahold of the secrets, the baddie is thoroughly beaten-- and Cap discovers the "prisoner" was really an L.M.D. (another one???) whose programming has shut down now that the real objective (learning the Skull was involved) has been accomplished. While a fake Sharon was imprisoned all this time, the real Sharon was using chemicals to water down the baddie's glue. She tells Cap she really wanted his help anyway, as she knew he had the best chance of beating the guy.

After 2 issues in a row of Steve stupidly deciding he wanted Sharon out of his life, last issue he seemed desperate to find her again, and this time, he has. Is this nearly-schizo behavior the fault of Stan Lee, or Jack Kirby? We may never know, though as Steve's "I must get her out of my life" only really manifested itself in the DIALOGUE, I think we can make a good guess. (Bad Stan! BAD!!!)

Syd Shores continues to kick A** on the inks, in some panels giving the art a quality almost similar to Gene Colan's art (wild as that sounds, considering it's Kirby).

Something else else I forgot to mention... isn't it funny that in 2 Lee-Kirby comics in the SAME month, we see returns of The Wizard AND the Trapster? Medusa is up for next month's FF (along with the rest of The Inhumans), but I wonder what the Sandman was doing about this time?

This is the only post-Annihilus issue of the Lee/Kirby FF that I like. Considering how super-heroines were generally portrayed at the time (by TWO generations of writers), it's a pleasant surprise how kick-ass Crystal is here, and it's especially pleasant because it reminds me of the Crystal from the early 90s Avengers; it's just a shame that it took more than 20 years before Crystal was written right again.

I'm at a point in my re-reading project where the art is still about the best Marvel ever had-- but the writing is slipping overall. As Kirby got more frustrated and insisted Lee do more of the plotting, I think it just got worse. Like, Kirby spent so much time putting Steve Rogers & Sharon Carter together. Right about this time, Lee (presuambly) starts putting in the dialogue that Steve feels he should get Sharon out of his life. WTF?? (As it's been said in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, there's more and more instances where if you only look at the pictures, and ignore the dialogue, you're getting 2 completely different comics!)

The slow evolution of Johnny Storm, from young hothead (heh) to ladies' man, to his unfortunate detour down the road of Doris Evans (why, WHY did he ever go out with that one???) and then, right after Reed & Sue's wedding, when he found Crystal... wow. One article I read pointed out how in the early FF, the book had Reed-- "the older brainy type"-- as the traditional hero. But after he got married, Johnny became the hero of the book-- the "new, younger generation" who lived more by his heart than his brain. The Johnny-Crystal relationship is by far one of the high points of the later Kirby run. BREAKING THEM UP was the stupidest thing anyone may have ever done on that book (and that's saying something), and screams "bad soap opera"-- in other words, "Stan Lee" to me. His protoge, Roy Thomas, had the bad habit of following Stan's lead in all the WORST things. Having Crystal marry Pietro... WHAT THE F*** were they thinking?????

It's no surprise that, for me, the early 70's was a very bad time for Marvel's "60's" books. It was the new, fresh series that were really fun to read-- like GHOST RIDER, HERO FOR HIRE, MASTER OF KUNG FU, etc.

Who knows how different Marvel history might have been if Kirby had been happier by the end of the 60's, and stuck around in the 70's?

We might have seen the Asgardian gods killed off and replaced by the New Gods. That would have been cool, because post-Kirby, the only good Thor was Simonson's IMO; otherwise, it's been one of the most self-cannibalizing books at Marvel.

I was just picturing the other day, if Thor-- and Sif!!-- had been the only ones left alive after the Mangog pulled the Odinsword. It might have been Johnny Storm, The Fantasti-Car and Rick Jones' Teen Brigade we saw racing down that "Zoomway". And picture Thor, in his blue outfit and big red cape, being the "last survivor" of a destroyed world (sound familiar?) wanting to touch base with those in "Supertown" as they'd be the closest to the home he once knew and lost. And of course, let's not forget Kirby already had a hero who regularly carried a shield who'd be sure to get involved...


See... John Byrne and his B***S*** notwithstanding, I ALWAYS had the impression that the "NEW GODS" were just that-- NEW. Not having existed for thousands of years already, and certainly, Scott Free NOT having been on Earth for 200 years before we met him in MISTER MIRACLE #1. (What a load...) So I discount about 90% of what every writer since Kirby has ever done on those characters.


To this day, I've never read more than the tiniest handful of post-Kirby THORs from the early 70's. I came in around 1973, right when Conway & Buscema (and Buckler) brought back Hercules, Pluto, The Destroyer, intro'd The Firelord, brought back Galactus, Ego, then got into that whle thing with Loki leading an army to conquer Earth. Before long, Odin decided HE needed to "learn humility" (NO S***!!!) and deliberately blanked out his memory to walk among men as a human, got involved with the Egyptian Gods, and (behind the scenes) got kidnapped by some aliens from the furthest reaches of space while Mangog-- somehow-- returned to takle his place in disguise. (HUH???) Then followed Len Wein's overlong "Odinquest", etc...

Some of that was nice, but after THOR #300, it plummetted to new lows even I could not believe... until, finally, Simonson was given a chance to do something with it. I guess it was like CAPTAIN MARVEL, just before Friedrich & Starlin took over. Things got so bad, they figured, do what you want-- how can it hurt???

SILVER SURFER #3 -- "The Power And The Prize!" / "Duel In The Depths" begins with the Surfer using his power to heal the woman who was victimized by The Badoon in the previous issue. But the whole time, the cops are trying to kill him, thinking he's trying to kill HER! It gets to him so much, he goes on a mild rampage, "Day The Earth Stood Still" style, bringing technology everywhere to a halt, before calming down. All this comes to the attention of this "demon of the lower depths"-- Mephisto, who decides he cannot abide someone so "pure" and "good" and "noble" getting in the way of the world where so many of those who people his nether-realm come from. Wanting to find a weak spot, he travels to Zenn-La, and urges Shall-Bal to make the trip to Earth to be reunited with her beloved. She does, but soon becomes a pawn in Mephisto's game to turn The Surfer into his slave. It goes on and on and on, until finally, Mephisto whisks Shalla-Bal back to her home planet. On the one hand, The Surfer is glad that now she's safe, but on the other, he may never see her again.

I wonder what was going on that 2 different manifestations of Satan turned up in Marvel books within a month or two of each other-- Mephisto here, and Satannish in DR. STRANGE. Sattanish is the lesser-known of the two, but he sure seemed more "traditional" and scary to me. The John Buscema-Joe Sinnott art is, if anything, even more spectacular than before. I may not be crazy about the stories, but the art's sure nice to look at. Between certain quotes in some of his scripts, comments on the Bullpen page, and this entire issue, Stan Lee seems to be on some kind of a "Jesus" kick, in this case with the Surfer filling in for Jesus and Mephisto filling in for Satan-- especially in the scene where he "tempts" him with riches, and power, and women. Some fans in various mags wrote in to complain, accusing him of pushing a Christian agenda (and here, I thought Lee was JEWISH!). I kinda wonder what kind of reaction this sort of thing might generate nowadays?


SUB-MARINER #8 -- "In The Rage Of Battle" has Namor's foe Destiny-- or, Paul Destine, dead from his own power, and the helmet he wore, which drove him insane in the first place, in the hands of the authorities, who want it taken to a place of safety where it can be studied safely. On hearing this, Namor is outraged-- he feels if the thing isn't destroyed, or hidden back where it was in the first place, it could prove dangerous enough to start it up all over again. The Thing is called in to transport the helmet, so, naturally, HALF the issue is dedicated to a Thing-Sub-Mariner fight. It gets more and more destructive on both sides (Ben really gets irresponsible without the rest of the FF backing him up), until a very old friend of Namor's-- "Mrs. Prentiss"-- shows up and pleads for him to just stop destroying buildings and leave! He wants to talk, but she disappears, and he takes the helmet and goes. As it turns out, it was Betty Dean-- much older, and sad to see the man she once loved so deeply again for only such a brief moment, especially as he hasn't aged a day while she has.

It seems that despite his perpetual hot-headedness, Namor continues to be some kind of babe-magnet, as we have 3 women in this one issue who he means a lot to-- Dorma, injured in a previous issue, Diane, a new surface-woman friend, and Betty Dean, who was a regular in his series in the 40's AND 50's. The Buscema-Adkins art is nice, but I could really have done without another pointless hero-vs.-hero fight.


THE AVENGERS #58 -- "Even An Android Can Cry" has Iron Man, Captain America & Thor turn up to help weigh the decision of whether The Vision should be made a member of the team. The problem is, he has no memory of his origin... or, he doesn't until he makes a concerted effort to dig back thru his memory banks. And what a twisted, convoluted, far-fetched story it is. It seems Hank Pym, after baby-sitting Diablo's Dragon Man, became interested in artificial life, and began doing some crude experiments on his own. He build a small robot, but was shocked when it suddenly turned itself on, and in a matter of minutes went from speaking like a baby to a full-grown intellectual adult. But this "adult" was of a definitely HOMICIDAL variety, and wanted to KILL its "father". FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Not satisfed with its then-current state, it deliberately induced partial amnesia in Pym, ordered him to board up his house inthe suburbs, then split-- returning later to "complete its own creation". Having done so, it became ULTRON-5, attacked the team several times, and then, in some mysterious fashion, created some artificial life of its own, in the form of The Vision-- as seen in the previous issue. And it seems the guy has the "brain patterns" of Simon Williams-- alias "Wonder Man"-- which were recorded for future reference just before he died. (HUH???) NONE of this makes any sense-- AT ALL-- but the team accepts it, and The Vision, who walks off, is overwhelmed with emotion.

It sure seems to me there ought to be some as-yet-unexplained story behind HOW in the hell a scientist who specialized in one field could tinker around building a robot which would come to SENTIENT LIFE, and go on a murderous rampage. Allusions to "Frankenstein" aside, it just seems to me there almost has to be more to it than that... yet, after DECADES, I don't believe anyone ever delved into it, and each time Ultron returns for another bout makes me shake my head more than the last time. (Even The Red Tornado got a better-thought-out origin than this... EVENTUALLY.)

If nothing else, the John Buscema-George Klein art may be some of the best ever seen in the series yet. I'm definitely seeing better art than writing in general from Marvel at this point.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #8 -- "And Fear Shall Follow" has Arnold Drake kick things into high gear! We meet the Aakon, a yellow-skinned alien race who are deadly enemies of The Kree-- who have engine trouble and land on the Moon's dark side for repairs. But Yon-Rogg, seeking GLORY (BWA-HA-HA!) orders an attack, almost getting his sorry self killed in the process! Though he's tried repeatedly to kill Mar-Vell and spent this entire manouever knocking every move the guy makes, Mar-Vell-- in what can only be considered a feat of pure STUPIDITY-- saves the guy's life, then leaves another officer in charge of the ship until he or Yon-Rogg takes command again.

As if that weren't enough... trying to fulfill a promise to Carol Danvers to look into the mysterious background of Dr. Walt Lawson (a bizarre assignment as you can get, considering the guy's DEAD and Mar-Vell has been impersonating him for quite some time now), Mar-Vell finds Lawson has a fancy, expensive mountain-side house and laboratory, a secret lab, and evidence of something HUGE he must have been building. "What were you UP to, Lawson?" he asks rhetorically. The answer comes soon. Of all the people Mar-Vell could have impersonated, it seems Walt Lawson was a renegade scientist, backed by a criminal gang called "The Organization", whose "Number One" (no relation to "Number One" of Hydra or The Secret Empire) had him build a giant robot assassin who could take out any potential enemies. But it gets stranger! The robot, which has not turned up in all this time, suddenly does-- and it seems it was programmed, for some inexplicable kind of "test run"-- to KILL Lawson (not realizing he was its creator). This is so wild, so out-of-left-field, yet so creative, it positively blows my mind.

So of course-- what happens? We wind up with a free-for-all between Mar-Vell, Organization hoods (out to find Lawson who they suspect has skipped with their money), the killer robot, and the Aakon. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed...

On top of all this, Vince Colletta returns, and for the 2nd time on this series, his taking over on inks proves a MAJOR IMPROVEMENT! (Who'da thunk it?) Colletta often overpowers whatever artist he's inking over, but in this case, as it was with Gene Colan, it's in a "good" way. As he was on THOR for some issues where some fan accused him of trying to be "Joe Sinnott", his inks here are much slicker and bolder than his usual, allowing Don Heck (YEAH-- Don Heck!) to shine. It's almost too bad these 2 guys weren't on this book from the very 1st episode.


THOR #159 -- "The Answer At Last!" has Don Blake letting his mind drift, and it appears Thor enters Asgard-- but is it reality, or just a dream? Odin knows what he wants to know-- and at long last lays out the facts. In long days past, following a peace treaty, a young a headstrong Thor wandered into Niffelheim to bring down a dangerous bird-creature, not caring that he was violating their land and Odin's treaty. Fighting breaks out, Odin has Balder drag Thor back home, and before long, Odin tells his son that the one thing he's really lacking in, which he cannot possibly learn AS a God, is humility. And so, in an instant, Thor finds himself transformed into a frail mortal, "Don Blake", as he enters medical school, with NO memory of being Thor, and under a spell whose nature makes him never question why he has no memory of his own past as Blake! Years went by, and he became a healer, helping others for the sake of helping, until eventually he came across the hammer, hidden in a cave by Odin who knew he'd find it there. At last, he realizes, he always was Thor, and his heart is glad.

The Kirby-Colletta art is the usual brilliance, though less slick than some recent issues. Someone pointed out that having Mangog turn out to be a creation of an Odin-spell, and Don Blake also turning out to be the creation of an Odin-spell, was a good example of thematic consistency-- but that, if it was, it seems to have gone right over Stan Lee's head. Oh well!


DAREDEVIL #47 -- "Brother, Take My Hand" has DD goes to Viet Nam to entertain the troops, and his biggest fan is a wounded soldier who's on the verge of losing his sight. Back home, we find the guy was an ex-cop, framed of taking a bribe by some gangsters. Taking the advice of social worker Karen Page (so THAT's where she's been hiding) he hires Matt Murdock to clear his name. The gangsters don't like the idea, and try to make sure it never gets to trial-- until DD-- in the dark-- convinces them that his client can more than take care of himself! After, Matt reveals that he, too, is blind, which gives the guy renewed hope that his life isn't over after all.

The Colan-Klein art continues to be gorgeous and slick, while the cover sports a new variation of the previous DARE- DEVIL logo. Stan Lee was apparently proud of this story, as he picked it for inclusion in SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, which is where I have it reprinted.


X-MEN #51 -- "The Devil Had a Daughter" has one huge fight between The X-Men and Magneto and his mutant army in the southwest desert "City of Mutants". As some have pointed out, without Professor X, the team, and in particular, Cyclops and Marvel Girl, have really come into their own! I've never seen Scott so aggressive, and angry, being really fed up with Magneto and all his murderous evil C***. With overwhelming odds, the team is lucky to escape, though Magneto's legs get paralyzed when a pile of scrap metal falls on him (can you say "IRONY"???). Iceman is pissed that Cyclops feels he's "too involved" emotionally with Lorna Dane, who appears to have sided with her father Magneto, and he storms out. (Gee, it's the early Johnny Storm Human Torch thing all over again!) Scott reveals he has a "plan", but doesn't give details... and a couple days later, a mysterious, powerful new entity, "Eric The Red", turns up at the City of Mutants, shouting out a challenge to Magneto.

I'm wondering where Mesmero was while all this was going on. But the main point of interest is the art. The credit actually reads, "Do we really have to tell you?", but it's obvious it's Jim Steranko. Well, barely. John Tartaglione, who did such a wonderful job on NICK FURY #5 (almost shockingly good) does an equally MISERABLE job here, and the closest thing it reminds me of was that issue of MASTER OF KUNG FU when Paul Gulacy's pencils were murdered by the inks of Sal Trapani. (That's just what it looks like!!) I strongly suspect Arnold Drake supplied Steranko with a very detailed, written plot, if not a finished script, as the designs of the pages are almost "normal" given who the guy was drawing them, and the pacing and storytelling is almost completely different from anything Steranko did before this, or after. For whatever reason, this would be his last X-MEN issue (#2 of 2, collect 'em all) and on the Bullpen page Stan has already announced Steranko's already working on something "even better!"


"The Lure Of The Beast-Nappers" has this criminal gang trying to blackmail Hank McCoy into working for them, by kidnapping his parents and threatening their lives. (That's not cricket, old chap!) Meanwhile, Cylcops, Iceman and Angel (whose origin we haven't seen yet) have become aware of the situation, and are preparing to step in.

This here's an example of how some artists' styles mesh better-- or worse-- than others. Once again, John Tartaglione is on the inks, but over Werner Roth, it looks GREAT! Go figure.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #8 -- "This Speaks Supremus" has another would-be world-conqueror assassinating spy agency leaders worldwide, causing riots, and planning to use a dangerous drug to bend people's minds to his will. Even further, he plans to use genetic experimentation on the people of the world, to turn them into slaves to do his bidding. Business as usual for SHIELD, but this guy's pretty demented about it. After botching a murder attempt on Fury (and not realizing it), Fury follows clues to the Rock Of Gibraltar where he confronts the villain in "The Caves Of Hercules", where he's surrounded by tons of machinery and a small army of mutated zombies. With a little help, Fury wins out. Another "quickie" epic in only 20 pages.

This feels more like a "fill-in" than NICK FURY #4 was. Stan's "old friend" from Florida, Ernie Hart, supplied the script (it almost sounds like he may have done it full-script style), and although Frank Springer's on the art, 4 pages in the middle were pencilled by Herb Trimpe (who would return later) and all of it's inked by John Tartaglione. Funny enough, JT murders Springer's work, but Trimpe's art he makes look better than usual at this point of the game. Go figure. The cover, solo by Springer, is GREAT, the best part of the book by far, and features a one-time-only altered logo. I wonder what was going on that they were playing around with their logo designs so much during these few months here? Overall, one of my least-favorite issues of the run.


DR. STRANGE #176 -- "O Grave Where Is Thy Victory?" has Doc trying to find Clea, who's been abducted by Azmodeus, leader of The Sons Of Satannish. (Sure are a lot of "Devil"-themed baddies running around right here!) He eventually finds her, and becomes their prisoner as well. Along the way, he finds a gravestone in a cemetary with HIS name on it. Gee, you think somebody's trying to tell him something?

Although one reader complained that Gene Colan had no place on this book, the majority opinion seems to be that he's the best thing to happen since... well, Dan Adkins, and Tom Palmer's inks are positively MIND-BLOWING!! Gene's gotten some really decent inks around this time, but the Colan-Palmer teaming just puts everything else to shame!! The letters pages has a promo for the next issue, featuring 2 different character designs, and the question, "Will the REAL Dr. Strange please stand up?" (It seems to me Roy Thomas is on a kick to try and change the books he's working on to more make them "his own".)


FANTASTIC FOUR #82 -- "The Mark Of The Madman" has Crystal wanting to ask her family's permission to officially join the team, but when Lockjaw arrives, he's brought some Alpha-Primitives with him, who make off with her! Johnny's PISSED, and next thing, he, Reed & Ben are racing by ICBM to The Inhumans' "Great Refuge". It's return bout time again, as Maximus The Mad has somehow used mind-bending gas to overthrow his brother and once more take over as ruler. Maybe this guy should get another hobby...? The FF arrive, but before long, wind up prisoners, as Maximus prepares to use another of his patented giant gun thingies against all of mankind (haven't we seen this BEFORE??), this one designed to affect will-power and turn everyone on the planet into his willing slaves. (Hey, wait a minute, that's the 2nd time this month someone pulled that stunt!)

Kirby & Sinnott are MAGNIFICENT as always (it almost gets boring to say it, but it's true!). Stan Lee may well have plotted this, as there's virtually nothing new or original about it at all. His infamous poor memory also slips up BIG-TIME, when the FF arrive at the hidden land, and comment on the remains of "The Great Barrier", which they destroyed, and Stan's narration mentions this was when the FF helped to "free" the Inhumans. WRONG!!! Black Bolt destroyed the barrier-- the FF weren't even around when it happened! Geez, for a guy who claims to have "written" these books, you'd THINK at least Stan could keep a MAJOR PLOT POINT like that straight!! The funny thing is, the first time I read this story, I never noticed this error, and there's a good reason for that. See, I have this in both the original printing, and the 70's MGC reprint. The MGC version is missing 2 pages, for some reason they had to get Joe Sinnott to re-pencil and ink the cover FROM SCRATCH (you can tell, Ben looks totally different), and all the art, INCLUDING the brand-new cover, the lineweork was fuzzy! (How the HELL do you wind up with fuzzy linework on an original printing of art?? MAN, is their stat machine lousy!!) Well, in the reprint, that one panel had one of the word balloons and Stan's narration changed, to "correct" Stan's blatent mistake. I wonder how many instances there are where things could make a LOT more sense if somebody just changed or deleted a few of Stan's words? I bet they left it with the mistake intact in all subsequent reprints, though... too bad.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #68 -- "Crisis On The Campus" begins a new long-running storyline. For no reason that makes sense to me this time out, The Kingpin wants to get his hands on a mysterious stone tablet which scientists worldwide have been trying to decipher. Does he see it as a way to power? Or does he just plan on ransoming it for a huge sum? We never find out, and it seems kind of outside the jurisdiction of a gang boss. Oh well. Despite the recent Green Goblin story not possibly fitting anywhere except between this story and the previous issue, twice in the episode mention is made of Mysterio (well, to be fair, NOBODY outside Spidey even knew The Goblin had returned-- how ignominious for him!). At school, there's a demonstration going on concerning the Dean's plans to turn an exhibition hall into lodging for alumni, while low-rent housing for students is much more needed. Joe's son Randy gets involved, as does a friend of his named Josh, who at one point is throwing so much "ATTITUDE!!" around, he even winds up calling Pete "Whitey". (OH yeah. This guy's been reading "How to Win Friends And Influence People", no doubt about it.) Just as things turn heated, Kingpin turns up, so of couse Spidey turns up, big fight, which ends with the demonstrators hauled away by the cops as if THEY had something to do with the theft, while Kingpin gets away, driving off as Spidey follows. (Gee, kinda like a scene from one of those 2 Kingpin cartoons appearances.)

There's a funny thing, in one scene, Kingpin pushes Pete aside, saying "Stand aside, I've no time to waste on juveniles." This is almost identical to a scene 2 issues earlier, when Mysterio shoved Pete aside saying "Stand aside, I've no time to waste on nobodies." Except this time, Kingpin senses something-- "power"-- but doesn't know what to make of it. It makes Pete nervous for a monent, that's for sure. The layout of the panel appears closer to that used in the Mysterio cartoon when they did that scene than the one in the Mysterio comic-book episode. (Does it seem Stan is repeating himself more and more lately?)

I really dig Jim Mooney's art here. He's listed as "illustrator"-- John Romita is credited with "storyboards". They really make a good team.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #109 -- "The Hero That Was" has Nick Fury visiting Steve Rogers, who's reminiscing about his days in WW2. Before you know it, we're witness to ANOTHER origin story being retold, this one from way back in 1941-- or 1965, take yer pick. Jack Kirby wound up drawing 3 different versions of the same story, in any event! A few minor details are changed-- it's "Professor Reinstein" again as it was in '41 (it was "Erskine" in '65), and we have injections and "vita-rays", where the '41 version had Steve drink the chemical. A later retelling would include all 3, which I guess makes sense.

Syd Shores does another bang-up job, giving the book what many fans describe as a real "retro" look. Although Jack Kirby had been wanting to do other things for quite some time, again and again he kept coming back to this series. Well, this would prove, at last, to be the FINAL issue of his 2nd run (not counting a "fill-in" a few months down the line). It's interesting that, many years later, John Byrne's final issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA would also be a retelling of his origin (although, in his case, it wasn't PLANNED that way-- I think.) The letters page promo reads, "In The Shadow of Bucky", which hints at yet more dwelling on this whole "Bucky's dead!" thing which by now was really getting old.

NOT BRAND ECCH #11 -- This was the only issue of this I got back when (without a cover), the fact that it had a parody of a "famous monster" movie as the lead story probably had a lot to do with it.

"KING KONK '68" deals with Hollywood's thing for doing updated remakes of old classic films. Of course, this was 8 years before Dino DeLaurentiis actually did HIS version! In this one, the cast includes Liz & Dick, and Hugh Hefner, not to mention half the superheroes of the Marvel Universe (or parodies of them, in any case). I've often said Roy Thomas has no sense of humor, and judging by 99-9/10th of his output, that would seem true, yet he proves me wrong with this single story, illustrated by Tom Sutton & Marie Severin. The scene where Konk walks past The Baxter Building and then Avengers Mansion seems to have "inspired" an almost identical visual in the monstrously-stupid American "GODZILLA" movie decades later.

"Look...out the window! I, the Visage, see a giant ape's foot!" "What be-eth so unusual about that?" "We're on the 17th floor!" And of course, my favorite line involves Goliath... "...and some nut TOLD me that Konk was climbin' the CHRYSLER Building! Ever since I lost my own series, I get nothin' but BUM STEERS!" A lot of the jokes in here make a lot more sense to me now than they did back then, strangely enough, considering how much they related to the time it came out.

"Super-Hero Daydreams" features a scene that has always stuck with me, a little kid in the local store harrassed by the owner, who bellows, "HEY! You gonna READ 'em or BUY 'em?" Marie Severin supplied both the art AND script, with nice inks by John Tartaglione, who, like several inkers whose work I haven't liked over the years, seems MUCH better suited for "humor" art than "superhero" stuff.

"Dark Moon Rise, Heck Hound Hurt!" is another major highlight for me, as Arnold Drake and then-current SHIELD artist Frank Springer (with inks by Tom Sutton) parody Jim Steranko's NICK FURY #3, and as I read this some 8 years before reading the original, I've always preferred the parody to the "straight" version! The infamous 2-page title spread features a huge image of Snoopy chewing his way thru some bagpipes as their Scottish owner cringes nearby. My favorite bit is when "Knock Furious" rushes to crash thru a door, only to have the butler open it one second before he hits. As he dashes thru the room out-of-control (like a hard-boiled Inspector Clouseau), he yells, "What pea-brained, sieve-headed, vacuum-skulled idiot opened that D-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-R?" The villain of the piece turns out to be "Colonel Von Twothreefour", and as Arnold puts it, his plan is "simplicity itself, but we must complicate it because jaunty JIM STERANKO loves long, wordy captions." The story ends when Furious attacks Arnold Drake & Frank Springer in their office for dumping too many cruel, brutal torturous dangers on him. As he walks off thru a graveyard, he says, "ANOTHER job well done-- another BLOW struck for freedom and decency and western democracy and baseball and drive-in movies and American womanhood and the return of the FIVE-CENT chocolate bar!" To date, this is the ONLY feature from NBE to be reprinted, and on a trip to NYC, I had Arnold sign it for me.

Other highlights include "How To be A Comic-Book Artist" (by Marie Severin, uncredited), "Prince No More, The Sunk-Mariner" (Drake & Sutton parody politics with a race between Subby and Aqualung-Man, with "Floyd Britches" as a write-in candidate), and "The Amazing Spidey-Man" (Drake, Severin & Tartaglione look at fame & fortune in the super-hero biz).


Somebody needs to collect & reprint this stuff... if they can do a decent job reproducing the art! (The 1984 "Dark Moon Rise" reprint in CAPTAIN AMERICA SPECIAL EDITION #2 kinda sucked on that score.)

THE AVENGERS #59 -- "The Name Is... Yellowjacket!" has a new hero debut, catching crooks for the cops who aren't sure whether to thank him or clock him one for his "attitude". He then shows up at The Mansion, wanting to become a member. This would be "nerve" enough, but then the guy CLAIMS he "polished off" Goliath. SAY WHAT?? It's flashback time as we see a big fight between Goliath & Yellowjacket, the latter using shrinking gas on the former, leaving him helpless without his ant-communication headgear, at the non-existent mercy of the insects. Before long, he kidnaps The Wasp, and in a truly bizarre moment, plants one on her. When the team finally tracks them down, they're casually walking out of City Hall... and Jan tells everyone to back off, because she's planning to MARRY the guy.

I suppose if ever an AVENGERS comic felt like one had walked into an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, this is it. Or maybe it's like a super-hero version of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, come to think of it, because "Yellowjacket" comes across one HELL of a lot like "Buddy Love". I guess that should have been the tip-off to anyone reading this when it came out. I had the "surprise" ruined for me by reading later stories first. Oh well. The Buscema-Klein team continues to do some of the best art yet.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #9 -- "Between Hammer And Anvil" continues the craziness from last time with the Aakon attacking CM, Carol Danvers personally investigating Walt Lawson's motel room, the self-repairing giant killer robot kidnapping her, "King Kong" style, the cops asking Lawson if he knows what's going on, and Yon-Rogg continuing to needle Una about Mar-Vell's "attachment" to the Earth woman. Carol can't understand why the robot wants to kill Lawson if he built it, but then "Cyberex" (as it's now suddenly calling itself) doesn't know who its creator is. CM scribbles a Kree code onto Lawson's address book, and when the Aakon get their hands on it (thinking its a secret Kree code book) for the 2nd episode in a row a free-for-all erupts between them and the giant robot, who senses Lawson's DNA on the book. The Aakon are chased off, and this time, CM makes sure he destroys the robot. Carol wants to thank him, and Una is now in tears at the apparent attraction going on between the two.

This period of the series is often put down by some fans, but I find Arnold Drake's plotting much more involved and creative, his dialogue isn't annoying like the previous 2 writers, and the Heck-Colletta art has been consistently good, making me wish these 3 guys had been in on the series' creation. (Of course, Heck-Shores was EVEN BETTER, but that hadn't happened yet...)


MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #18 -- GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: "Earth Shall Overcome" introduces a new series by Arnold Drake & Gene Colan. A thousand years in the future, the Solar System has been colonized by Earthmen genetically evolved to suit each planet. A Jovian, "Charlie-27", is returning from a lone outpost, when he discovers his entire planet has been overrun by The Brotherhood Of The Badoon (introduced in SILVER SURFER #2). Using a matter-transmitter to get to another planet, he meets up with Martinex, a crytalline Plutonian, and together they travel to Earth, where they meet Captain Vance Astro-- a spaceman from the 20th Century who survived a thousand-year journey in suspended animation, and Yondo, a "primitive" alien who uses "yaka" arrows that obey his command whistles. Driven by rumors of a "free colony", they escape and band together, determined to create an uprising to free the entire system from Badoon tyranny.

When I first read Arnold's CAPTAIN MARVEL issues, I found myself wishing he'd been in on the creation of that series, as it might not have been so wrong-headed from the start if he had. I forgot he actually created his own sci-fi series for Marvel. Clearly, GotG is Marvel's "answer" to DC's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES-- science-fiction crossed with a team of super-heroes. And with a typical "Marvel" slant, it's a "negative"-based, or "problem"-based series. There were a LOT of those in the 60's, from THE FUGITIVE to THE INVADERS and so on. Set up a premise, an overall "problem", and you have a big ongoing "epic". The problem with too many of these kind of series is, they often don't ever reach a conclusion to their big "epic". The problem with THIS one was, after this initial episode, it took another 5 YEARS before anyone touched it again! This probably had more to do with Drake's abrupt departure from Marvel a few months down the line. At any rate, Steve Gerber was the writer who finally picked up the ball, and eventually wrote some 13 comics with the GUARDIANS, from MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE to THE DEFENDERS to their own series in MARVEL PRESENTS. The "Earth under control of aliens" plot would get reused in Marvel's KILLRAVEN / WAR OF THE WORLDS in AMAZING ADVENTURES-- and that series is still left hanging, unfinished!

Mike Esposito does a fairly nice job on the inks... but compared to some of the inking Gene Colan had been getting around this time (Jack Abel, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Vince Colletta, George Klein, Bill Everett, TOM PALMER) it seems 2nd-rate.


THOR #160 -- "And Now... Galactus!" begins a new storyline of truly "epic proportions" (as Mr. Han said in ENTER THE DRAGON). Tana Nile returns to Earth, seeking Thor's help, and while he's a mite suspicious, he goes along. Meanwhile, The Recorder give Odin the rundown on himself, then leaves as he senses he's needed. Sif, sensing great trouble, wishes to be with her love, but Odin says NO! (Tsk.) Out in space, we find a "debris area", all that's left of a destroyed planetary system, and a fleet of refugees fleeing the area, searching for a new home. Man. It's like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, 9 years early! These pages are spectacular. I mean, I think Jack Kirby should have been doing SPACE GHOST for Hanna-Barbera, if Alex Toth "hated" it as much as he claimed. Anyway, before you know it, a battle breaks out between the cause of the destruction-- GALACTUS-- and Ego, The Living Planet. A collossal explosion erupts, and Tana Nile's spaceship is caught in the brunt of it, sending Thor adrift in space.

Kirby may have been cruising on auto-pilot on FANTASTIC FOUR, with Stan Lee supplying plots that consisted of rematches with old villains, but here on THOR, he seems to still be hitting on all cylinders. It's true, most of the characters involved here are making returning appearances, but there's such an epic scope to this, I don't mind a bit. Some characters and concepts are WORTH bringing back, WORTH exploring and expanding on, and that's what looks like is going on here. Anyone who's ever put down Vince Colletta's inks (and usually for very good cause) should take a look at this issue. WOW. Assuming that's him and not an assistant, the man could do DAMN GOOD WORK when he felt like it.


THE AVENGERS #60 -- "...Till Death Do Us Part" has almost every hero in the Marvel Universe (including Spidey, though he's wanted by the cops right now) turn up for the wedding of Yellowjacket & The Wasp. There's resentment and suspicion all-round, until another problem rears its ugly head, when the catering service turns out to be... oh no... it can't be... don't say it... OH MY GOD! The Ringmaster and his Circus Of Crime! These idiots have the nerve to show up, intent on rebuilding their rep by knocking off every hero in the city, and they figure they'd start with THOR, who ruined their last plan. These guys couldn't take out Thor on his own-- and they expect to tackle The Avengers-- AND The Fantastic Four-- AND Spider-Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, etc... I'm sorry, that's not ambitious, that's just stupid. AND suicidal. And yet, they seem to be making headway... UNTIL Princess Python's snake wraps itself around The Wasp, at which point her brand-new hubby seems to go into a convulsive fit. SURPRISE! Under that costume and bad attitude, it was Goliath all along, suffering from a case of temporary schizophrenia. (Oh, yeah, like amnesia before this wasn't bad enough. Great going, Roy!) Those circus clowns (and the rest of the circus types, heh) don't stand a chance. After it's all over, Jan tells Hank that despite the circumstances, they are STILL definitely legally married-- she looked it up. From the moment he kissed her last issue, she knew all along. After wanting to get hitched to Hank for so very long, she saw her chance and wasn't gonna turn it down, no matter what!

Oh, I almost forgot-- the guy they wanted to get back at, Thor, didn't even make it to the wedding. I guess he was on his way to the other side of the galaxy at the time... (tsk!)

George Klein must have been getting over-worked, because he missed this issue, and Mike Esposito filled in. That's 2 Esposito-inked books I've seen this month. I guess after being replaced on ASM by Jim Mooney, he needed the work. Nice. Not as good as Klein, but not bad.


X-MEN #52 -- "Twilight Of The Mutants" concludes the 4-parter with "Erik The Red" fighting Mesmero and his goons, only to inform Lorna Dane he wishes to join forces with Magneto-- provided, the guy makes HIM his 2nd-in-command! This pisses Mesmero, to say the least. But before long, we discover that it's all a con-- as "Erik" is really Cyclops in disguise. As his fellow team-mates sneak into the city and prepare a trap for the evil mutants, unexpectedly Iceman arrives and stumbles into it. It turns out when Bobby stormed out, he went to Lorna's home town and did some checking, and he reveals to Lorna that she's been lied to-- Magneto is NOT her real father, he only wanted to use her! (I guess after the Whitney Frost story in IRON MAN, having 2 nice girls get corrupted by evil fathers they never knew would be redundant.) Marvel Girl faces down Mesmero one-on-one (she's really come into her own lately), and Magneto beats a hasty retreat, blowing up the entire "City" as he leaves. The X-Men escape, but we don't know if Mesmero-- or anyone else-- did, or not. Back home, everyone's amused at how Bobby's "recovery" may take a long, long time, now that he's got Lorna looking after his health.

It all ends a bit too fast, too pat, but that's what they get with only 15 pages for the lead story. Don Heck & Werner Roth return to do nice, solid work, each one's strengths used to best advantage (Heck's storytelling & layouts, Roth's pretty drawings). Even John Tartaglione does 10 times better over Roth than he did on Steranko-- who I bet a LOT of people wished had done this. I dunno. When I think of X-MEN in the 60's, to me, Werner Roth is "the" X-MEN artist. I kinda wish all 4 parts of this 4-parter had been done by the same guys-- either would have been more consistent than having Heck & Royer on parts 1 & 4 and Steranko on parts 2 & 3.

"Deception" seems to be the key operating word on this story. Mesmero cons Lorna Dane into thinking she's Magneto's daughter, and when Magneto arrives halfway in, he goes along with it. Cyclops cons both into thinking he's an evil mutant out for power. I suppose, in retrospect, what happened later makes some sort of sense. Apparently, some people were bothered that Arnold Drake never showed how Magneto escaped death back in AVENGERS #53 (4 months before he returned). There may have also been a feeling that he wasn't acting quite like himself in these 3 issues. And so, 5 months after he escaped this time, when we saw him again, in hiding with Mesmero (I guess he DID make it out, never mind that his lord and master tried to kill him with everyone else), we found out Magneto had somehow been replaced by a ROBOT. 5 months later, we learned the reason the Sentinels couldn't find him was because the guy who teamed with Mesmero was a robot in the first place! WHAT th'...?? You think that's bad? 10 YEARS later, we found out who built the robot-- but never found out WHY! This is why writers should not work at contradicting other writers' stories... it just makes everything too complicated & confusing!! In this case, it's as if several people worked in unison to give Arnold Drake the finger.

The Crimes Of the Conquistador" reprises the last couple scenes from Hank's story, in which he finds his parents prisoners of a villain out to use him to help steal vital atomic components. After he does so, the guy informs him he plans to PERMANENTLY hold his parents hostage, to ensure his continued obediance. (The BASTARD!) But the story, by Drake, Roth & Verpoorten (NICE inks!!) isn't over yet.

NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #9 -- "The Name Of The Game Is... Hate!" brings back a villain I bet nobody ever expected to see again-- The Hate Monger! Marvel always said back then, "Dead is DEAD!" and this guy was shot very dead, no question. But he's back again anyway, and with NO explanation (only a hint). Fury pays a visit to his Doctor, in such a hurry he's still wearing his "scuba suit". An assassin aiming for him kills the Doc instead, and the guy escapes in an aircraft maked with a big "H". Somehow Fury figures this stands for "Hate Monger" rather than "Hydra", and the hunt is on. An arial dogfight (MAN, does Frank Springer draw COOL aircraft!!!) winds up in a South American jungle-- apparently inhabited by dinosaurs. (What is this, NICK FURY #2 all over again??) Fury lands in yet ANOTHER underground complex (there seem to be so many of those lately) and confronts the Hate-Monger, who reveals he has a huge "brain bank" containing the actual brains of "all" his top men from WW2 (this does suggest something about his own survival), and an arsenal of nuclear missiles with which he plans to wipe out the population of the entire Earth so HIS people can then take over. (Shades of Hydra, and Centurius, and...) The dinosaurs, it turns out, are merely illusion, created by the Psyche-Magnitron, the same device seen earlier in one of Roy Thomas' AVENGERS issues. H-M's top man feels his ethics have been betrayed, and shoots his boss-- who turns out to be Adolph Hitler under the hood (again???). We also learn the long-missing Laura Brown did indeed join SHIELD-- and was here undercover on assignment. The group barely escapes before the entire place is blown to pieces (don't you hate it when that happens?), leaving all wondering if the original Hate-Monger was really Hitler-- or was this one-- or...

I gotta say, as much grief as I give him (and rightly so), Gary Friedrich made the BEST debut of any writer on this series since Jaunty Jim. In a single issue, he brought back the bulk of the supporting cast, and re-established SHIELD's main goal as an anti-terrorist organization, whose focus, more often than not, involves neo-Nazis. If there's any gripe, it's that like the previous several issues, he felt the need to wrap this story up in only 20 pages. The up side is, the Hate Monger storyline did at least continue for another 2 issues, but each one stands on its own as a totally separate chapter. Not that that's a bad thing, but given the "epic" level of the menace involved, the way it was done destroyed any sense of momentum or "continuity". I suppose one could look at these 3 issues as a "trilogy"-- if you were the sort who does that thing. Sadly, it was DOWNHILL all the way after this. Who'd a thunk it?


DR. STRANGE #177 -- "The Cult And The Curse" has Doc & Clea thrust helpelssly into some nether-dimension while Azmodeus plans to make use of The Book Of The Vishanti. (You know, I can really see where CHARMED was influenced big-time by this series!) But Doc has something up his sleeve (so to speak). It seems when he was in that graveyard, he had a premonition things might not go his way, so prepared a couple of spells in advance. He HID his cloak of levitation in the cemetary, and made the Amulet-- the eye of Agamotto-- invisible. He also cast a spell so the Book would transport itself to The Ancient One's retreat in Tibet. So for all his efforts, Azmodeus still has nothing to show for it. He bumps off his own men (see what happens when you join Devil-worship cults?), and magicaly changes his appearance to disguise himself as Dr. Strange, then heads off to Tibet. Doc uses the eye to escape, but finds his way back to Earth blocked because of the peculiar nature of Azmodeus' disguise spell. Simple answer-- Doc CHANGES HIS OWN appearance, and returns to Earth with Clea looking like a masked superhero version of himself! (Another "make-over" courtesy of Roy Thomas!) The outfit is somewhat reminiscent of Howard Keltner's fanzine character, Dr. Weird-- who dates back to 1944 (when he started out as a tribute to Mr. Justice, himself a swipe of The Spectre), though Dr. Weird made his public "debut" in STAR-STUDDED COMICS #1-- a few months before Dr. Strange debuted in STRANGE TALES #111. Leave it to the "fanboy" at heart...! Sometime after this, Jim Starlin, before turning pro, would do some DR. WEIRD comics, and change his costume so it looked more like the one Gene Colan came up with here! (Full-circle!)

Strange confronts "himself", and Azmodeus all too quikcly gives away the game (which The Ancient One suspected anyway). His mentor tells him he can't help, as Doc has to protect the Earth on his own now, and Strange fully understands. Before things go on too long, Azmodeus suffers a HEART ATTACK (there's something you don't see everyday with bad guys), but before he croaks, utters an incantation he found in the Book. Under the hood, Strange is surprised to find... wait for it... Dr. Benton! Yes! His old colleague-- the guy who was such a pain-in-the-ass nagging him to give up his life as a "charlatan" and get back to "helping mankind" was really a Satanist all along. I laughed out loud when I read this. It was such a clever twist, and I somehow DIDN'T see it coming! Anyway, things aren't over yet, as that spell the guy read has unleashed Ymir & Surtur, the twin giants of Frost & Fire banished by Odin in TALES OF ASGARD. "To be continued".

Gene Colan & Tom Palmer continue to blow my mind with the visuals, but Roy Thomas is also doing some of his best work ever on this run as well. I actually wrote him a fan letter the other day (for a comic that came out 39 YEARS ago) because I enjoyed it so much. It's a shame the series didn't last too long-- or that, when it did come back, nobody here came back with it. By today's standards, its sales would probably make it a huge hit.


FANTASTIC FOUR #83 -- "Shall Man Survive?" has the FF seemingly imprisoned in an escape-proof room which no amount of effort of Ben or Johnny's part is able to damage. But then, Reed figures it's all an illusion, since Maxiumus used a mind-bending effect to overpower his own people. In a scene possibly inspired by the 3rd-year STAR TREK episode "Specte Of The Gun", Reed has the three of them concentrate on it not being real-- and the room disappears! Now free, they set out to rout Maximus. Black Bolt uses his own destructive speech power to free his family, and Gorgan smashes the Hypno-Gun to rubble. Maximus and his band of followers (most introduced in HULK ANNUAL #1 a few months back) all flee in a rocket-ship. I found this ending rather disappointing, but at least there was some "progression", as this was the first time BB's brother actually fled, rather than be merely imprisoned-- AGAIN.

As usual, the Kirby-Sinnott art is spectacular, more so than usual. Maybe Kirby was trying to make up for the less-than-inspired stories by cranking out art that would go a long way toward making you not notice?

I read part 1 of this in the 70's MGC reprint. I never read part 2 until my friend Kevin got me a copy of the original comic at a comics convention, about 2 years ago! That's a HECK of a long time to wait between chapters!! Thanks, man.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #69 -- "Mission: Crush The Kingpin!" has Spidey pursue The Kingpin to his hideout, where the baddies wait in the dark for him to enter. But spider-sense comes to the rescue! Spidey makes up a web-dummy and puts his "shirt" on it, then tosses it thru the window into a hail of gunfire. (Those bullet-holes are gonna be tough to get out...) Big fight erupts, and in the end, the cops close in and nab The Kingpin-- who, just for spite, tells them Spider-Man is his "partner" and will get away with the Tablet. Sure enough, as Spidey is trying to return the Tablet to the cops, they open fire, causing him to say maybe he should BE a "menace" from now on.

Meanwhile, the cops think the demonstrators were in on the robbery, and a 2nd demonstration starts to free those arrested in the 1st one. Gwen Stacy tells them getting themselves arrested isn't gonna help anyone, and when someone calls the missing Pete a coward, she slaps his face! When her Dad asks what's upset her, he also asks "Are you angry because you think it might be true?"

The scene with the "web-dummy" later turned up in the 3rd-season SPIDER-MAN cartoon, "The Big Brainwasher", making 3 different ASM stories they used as parts of that thing! Jim Mooney is really kicking ass on the art (over Romita's "storyboards"), and his rendition of Gwen in this issue, with such a temper (like we haven't seen in some time) is beginning to remind me of a young Ellen Foley! Stan was so proud of this particular episode (despite it being just one part of a much-bigger storyline), he decided to include it in the 1978 reprint collection, MARVEL'S GREATEST SUPER-HERO BATTLES.


IRON MAN #10 -- "Once More... The Mandarin!" follows the previous issue (of which, the reprint I have has gotten mis-placed-- GRRR!) by having The Mandarin correctly guess Iron Man and Tony Stark are one and the same. He concocts some FAKED photographs of Stark consorting with Soviet spies, and distributes copies to the news media. Stark, on a date with Janice Cord (she's surprised by how much she's getting to like him) is shocked when news-hounds confront him about the pics. He flees the scene, which only makes them more suspicious, so he can have SHIELD check out the pics. As it happens, all of them are of actual meetings which took place when Iron Man was known to be in action, so, in theory, his only "alibi" would be to reveal his secret I.D. to the world. And he AIN'T gonna do that, so... next thing, because of his persistent "no comment", the Feds pull his contracts, his factory's shut down, and SHIELD, which can't operate without his backing, tracks him down demanding answers. (It's tough when the guy who's set up a "SPY" organization is better at keeping secrets than they are.) What a complicated mess!

Archie Goodwin is piling on the plots twists at such rapid-fire speed it's surprising anyone can follow this story. George Tuska's art contains more "realistic" panels in a few spots this time (it's almost as if he's trying to "do" Gene Colan a bit), while Johnny Craig's inks are among the BEST to ever grace Tuska's pages. Even so, someone on the letters page complained the book was starting to look "too cartoony".


CAPTAIN AMERICA #110 -- "No Longer Alone!" begins a "new era" in Cap's life when he runs into the Hulk-- being chased by the Army-- and Rick Jones-- who tries to calm his green buddy down, but to no avail. Knocked out in the action, Rick recovers back at Avengers Mansion, as Cap thinks he must "never" be around The Hulk again until or unless the monster is brought under control. On waking, Rick finds one of Bucky Barnes' suits in the closet and tries it on-- perfect fit. Then CAP has a fit, saying, "You must NEVER wear that costume!" Rick's fed up with the soap-opera, and always being brushed aside, and his words must get to Cap, because after YEARS of putting it off, he FINALLY agrees to let Rick become his new partner. Just then, an alarm goes off, and the pair trail it to an underground water-supply pumping station, where they find... HYDRA!!!

Yep, for the first time since Nick Fury sunk Hydra Island, the would-be world-conquering neo-Nazi outfit is back, this time bent on contaminating NYC's water supply. Led by "Madame Hydra", who sports a slinky, skin-tight leather outfit, they almost succeed, but Cap & Rick just barely drive them off. Though Rick feels he screwed things up, Cap assures him he came through his "baptism of fire" like a man.

At last, Stan Lee found somebody to take over this series from Jack Kirby-- and it was JIM STERANKO! No doubt smarting from the X-MEN debacle, I'm guessing JS may have insisted on Joe Sinnott as inker, 'cause that's who he got here. Even more than NICK FURY #5, this story is a real return to form, and the BEST writing Steranko did since the Hydra epic-- and with Sinnott, it's possibly his BEST artwork, EVER!

Although the Bullpen pages claimed "Written by Stan Lee!" anyone should be able to easily tell it's Steranko ALL THE WAY here-- even if the credits give NO CLUE as to who did what. (That's what happens when the Editor gets himself listed FIRST.) Among other things, Stan had a pathological dislike for "kid sidekicks", hence his resistence all this tme to actually letting Cap & Rick team up. But Steranko's a big Kirby fan-- in particular of his 1940's work. His anatomy is more similar to Kirby's 40's comics than his 60's stuff, and part of this story-- the 2-page center-spread in particular-- was apparently inspired by the story "Spy Ambush" from CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #10 (Jan'42), the SAME issue which featured "The Phantom Hound Of Cardiff Moor" which he paid tribute to in NICK FURY #3. So Steranko had no problem letting Rick finally live up to the promise from AVENGERS #4 several years earlier. This story proved so popular it was reprinted in MARVEL SUPER ACTION #12 in 1979, the CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY tpb in 1979, and the CAPTAIN AMERICA COLLECTOR'S EDITION hardback from England in 1981. It looked like things were off to a GLORIOUS start!!! (Too bad it didn't last that long...)


SILVER SURFER #4 -- "The Good, The Bad And The Uncanny" has Loki, frustrated that Thor is still alive, eager to find someone he can use to kill his foster brother. He uses a spell to scan the Earth for its most powerful denizens, and runs across The Surfer. Seeing how Mephisto tried and failed to "tempt" him, Loki decides HE'LL succeed, through deviousness (his specialty). First he challenges the Surfer to a fight, then claims he's of no value since he won't fight, and Loki "needs" someone to save all of mankind from the terrible "menace" of Thor, who's preparing for combat. (He sure is, after Loki openly let it be known he plans to KILL Thor!) Using his sorcery to let the Surfer slip thru the barrier and arrive at Asgard, the Surfer is invited to dine with Thor and his comrades. He thinks at first this guy CAN'T be the menace Loki claims, until Loki-- repeatedly-- influences his mind and the actions of others until he becomes convinced it must be true. You saw this coming-- big fight! All through it Thor tries to figure out WHAT's going on, WHY is this guy doing all this, until it finally slips out that Loki is the reason he's there. Having his scheme revealed, Loki shunts the Surfer back to Earth before any "evidence" against him can come forth. And so, we're back to square one. Again.

I can tell this must take place right between the Mangog and Galactus stories, as Loki is really pissed at the way things worked out in the first, and Thor headed for deep space in the second. Also, Joe Sinnott inking Steranko on CAPTAIN AMERICA meant this book needed a new inker, and sees the Marvel debut of one of its longest-standing regular artists-- SAL BUSCEMA! John's younger brother joins him here, and while for the longest time I thought Sal was just starting out here, he'd actually been in the biz for well over a decade by this point, working for other companies. Many consider Sal to be John's "best" inker, and while I may not agree with that, he certainly does a terrific job here, actually being truer to John's pencils than most, while giving them a "sharper" edge than John himself.

The art is among the most spectacular John Buscema ever did, and surely was a prelude to John's long, LONG run of the THOR series once Jack Kirby left Marvel for DC. But story-wise, it's rather frustrating, and flat. I'm afraid, like too many comics from this point, it looks great, but there just isn't that much there. This was reprinted in MARVEL'S GREATEST SUPERHERO BATTLES (1978), which I dug out so I could re-read it in color. Strangely enough, while the rendering on the Surfer in every panel screams for it, nobody added any blues to his "silver" coloring-- he was left just solid black & white! (And this, from Simon & Schuster?)


CAPTAIN MARVEL #10 -- "Die, Traitor!" as you might guess by the title, brings things to a head. Mar-Vell is ordered to investigate "Number One" of "The Organization", the guy for whom the late Walt Lawson built the killer robot for, as they might prove helpful if the Kree decides to attack mankind. Carol invites Lawson to dinner, so she can grill him for info in a nicer way, but en route, they're attacked by The Organization, bent on killing Lawson for apparently betraying them. Carol is captured, but "Lawson" escapes, only to turn up as Captain Marvel, who tries to ingratiate himself into "Number One"s confindence. But once Carol escapes (due to his help) the guy realizes Marvel's not on the level, and before long, Number One and his entire "Organization" is taken out. Of course, THIS, at last, gives Yon-Rogg all the excuse he needs to have Mar-Vell EXECUTED as a traitor. Una, though heartbroken that her man is "involved" with the Earth woman, goes to warn him, but is sidetracked by the hit squad. By the time she recovers, the have him lined up in front of a firing squad. MAN, that was FAST!!!

After 5 issues in a row of trying to build things up here, I get the sneaky feeling Arnold Drake was either told to "wrap this up quickly", or decided to on his own. No way to be sure. The whole sub-plot with The Organization, which added so many extra levels of mystery & deviousness to the long-dead Walt Lawson, is brought to a fast end, and I don't believe they EVER turned up again, so we never got to learn anything more about them (like, were they in any way connected with Hydra, whose M.O. theirs resembled). Apart from Carol, none of the other Earth-bound supporting cast turns up here, though with the issue as crammed as it was, I guess that's understandable. I suppose a lot of readers were getting fed up with all the wheels-spinning regarding the missile base, Carol, Lawson, and the whole Organization sub-plot, when the Yon-Rogg bent on murdering his own officer sub-plot was still sitting there waiting to go somewhere. I just wonder where Arnold might have gone with it, had he been given a chance, because although he was credited for the next 2 issues, I have good reason to believe THIS was his last episode on the book!

Sadly, even Vince Colletta turned in a less-than-stellar job this time. It was still better than the average stuff he did in the 70's, but none of the "slick" line he used on the last 2 issues (or on many recent issues of THOR) were visible here. After this, things took a utterly inexplicable, bizarre turn-- and not for the better.

THOR #161 -- "Shall A God Prevail?" has Thor & The recorder rescued by The Wanderers, homeless aliens who seek vengeance against Galactus for destroying their worlds. Thor winds up aiding Ego, The Living Planet, and together they successfully chase off the world-eater! After, Ego alters the face of his surface and invites The Wanderers to live there in peace. Only the fact that Galactus is "still on the loose" darkens anyone's mood.

Magnificent, spectacular, mind-blowing... though I wonder if this might have been "wrapped up" a bit too quickly. As I'm reading these for the 2nd time now, I really should dig out the JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR issue that focused on this period, as it seems a LOT of what Jack Kirby was doing was altered, edited, re-arranged, etc. etc. before the published issues saw the light of day.


X-MEN #53 -- "The Rage Of Blastaar" has Marvel Girl using one of Professor X's machines to try an experiment to boost her mental powers... and inadvertently, it opens a hole into The Negative Zone, where an angry, revenge-driven Blastaar (from FF #62-63) slips thru. The rest of the issue is one long pointless fight scene, until Marvel Girl again uses the machine, this time, apparently, killing the other-dimensional alien.

As "Cyclops: Wanted Dead Or Alive" was advertised last month, clearly this is a last-minute fill-in, though if somebody blew a deadline or if they just wanted to show off this particular story is anyone's guess. This marks the US debut of Barry Smith, who'd been doing a lot of pin-ups and stuff for the UK reprint books. The art is obviously very Kirby-inspired, but crude, simple, RAW, almost amateurish, on a fanzine-level in quality. Wait. That's not the worst part. The worst part is, the writing on this issue is REALLY bad. Did Arnold Drake REALLY write this? The dialogue is worse than usual, though I can still-- barely-- make out his trademark...

...hesitations between word balloons (he has the strangest, most unnatural way of break up sentences between balloons, it's very distinct). Maybe it's just supposed to be "character development", but Arnold's Cyclops is alot more smart-alecky than he'd ever been before (is this what happens when Professor X is out of the way?). And Blastaar just doesn't seem himself, either. The plot is virtually non-existent, and for a "sequel" to such a classic FF story, this really bites. If you're gonna bring a villain back, at least they should have a story that makes doing so worth it. (Maybe the plot was 100% Smith's and Arnold just added the words?)

"Welcome To The Club, Beast!" finishes the Conquistador story, with Hank's parents rescued, the baddie caught, the entire town's memories of Hank having special abilities ERASED (is that going just too far??) and The Beast joining the X-Men. As low-key as the Roth-Verpoorten art may be, it's still far more "professional" than the lead story was.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #10 -- "Twas the Night before Christmas" has Fury mugged on his way home, then finding Laura Brown waiting for him to celebrate the holidays. But a call from SHIELD puts that on hold, and up in the Heli-Carrier, he finds Jasper Sitwell spending his 2 days off from Stark Enterprises hanging around trying to be helpful. (I suppose after the Whitney Frost thing, he wanted to stay busy.) It seems The Hate-Monger has threatened to kill everyone in NYC with a poison gas bomb, launched from an orbitting laboratory (that looks like a poor cousin to the Space Station in 2001). WHY Nick Fury goes on a mission to stop the guy SINGLE-HANDEDLY is never addressed. Was everyone else at home with their families and no time to call them in? Is he just suicidal? Anyway, he's caught and stuck in a "pilot's seat" of the missile containing the gas-bomb, then launched downward, while a pair of The Hate-Monger's aircraft follow it down to make sure it hits its target. But on the way, a mysterious object buzzes by at unbelieveable speed, causing one of the aircraft to go off-course, hit the missile, and make the bomb go off so high in the atmosphere it dissipates harmlessly before it ever reaches the city. Fury finds a parachute, and before you know it, he's back home to finish celebrating with Laura-- all the while wondering if maybe there IS a Santa Claus?

Though we saw The Hate-Monger killed DEAD for the 2nd time last issue, he (or someone in his costume) is back this time. I suspect this is a different guy, because this one doesn't seem to have a moustache. After nearly killing every person in New York, you'd think they would have knocked that space station out of the sky-- but there's not even a hint! Is SHIELD really that badly under-budgeted at this point?? Johnny Craig inked this issue, and as with the episodes of Iron Man where he inked Gene Colan, he does a fine, professional job, but his incredibly precise, razor-sharp lines are just totally clashing with Frank Springer's art, and considering Frank's own inks, teaming up these 2 guys is just a waste of BOTH their talents! The Hate-Monger's poison-gas-from-space plot was reused almost verbatim as the climax of the 1979 movie MOONRAKER.

This is one of the few SHIELD episodes from this period to ever be reprinted, in MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #8 (1975), a "Christmas" special.


DR. STRANGE #178 -- "...With One Beside Him" has Doc travel to England to enlist the aid of Victoria Bentley. It seems (if this point was mentioned last time, I missed it), the only ones who know how to reverse the spell that freed Ymir & Surtur are the other members of The Sons Of Satannish-- and Azmodeus didn't so much KILL them as banish them to the dimension of Tiborro (last seen in a Steve Ditko episode!). And the only safe way to go there and return is with the help of another mystic, or one with mystic powers, of sorts. Victoria's having a party, and who happens to turn up but The Black Knight-- in costume-- and his magical sword makes him a better candidate for this mission than Doc's English lady-friend, so BK gets recruited fast. One dimension-hop and one fierce battle later, The "Sons" are rescued, though it takes some more fighting to "convince" them to help!

Thomas-Colan-Palmer are really in a groove here. This isn't really one of their best issues, but it's still better than 90% of the comics Marvel put out this month. WOW!


THE AVENGERS #61 -- "Some Say The World Will End In Fire... ...Some Say In Ice!" opens with a pair of full-page title spreads showcasing Ymir & Surtur. Dr. Strange shows up at Avengers Mansion seeking additional help and soon The Vision, Hawkeye & The Black Panther join him. It seems between episodes, The Black Knight was seriously injured, and the only one who can save him is Doc-- who's nervous, because he hasn't used his hands for a surgical procedure since his car accident many years before! But BK pulls thru, and soon (in the tradition of Gardner Fox), the quartet breaks into teams, one to face Surtur in Antarctica, the other to face Ymir in Africa, each giant demon causing weather patterns to reverse what they normally are. The heroes are merely a stall, while Doc can put the reversal spell into action. At the climactic moment, Surtur (and his foes) are transported to Africa, and the 2 giant demons' power cancel each other out, sending both of them back to where Odin originally banished them!

Roy Thomas, John Buscema & George Klein are really on a roll here. The usual annoying traits of Roy's dialogue have nearly disappeared at this point, and Buscema-Klein are just KICKING ASS, Buscema's figure-work and storytelling vastly improved from when he started on the book, and Klein giving it a sharp, precise polish that captures Buscema's own style better than most, but "cleaner". This is a team that really should have stayed together a LOT longer than they did!

I originally bought DR. STRANGE #178 along with the rest of that run, in the late 70's. I got the 2nd half here about 15 years later. This is the first time I managed to read both parts of the story together in one sitting!


FANTASTIC FOUR #84 -- "The Name Is Doom!" has the FF "returning home" in a bizarre "gyro-ship" given them by Black Bolt, and passing thru Tibet, when they're intercepted by a squad of fighter-planes from SHIELD. Nick Fury tells them they've run across a "secret army"-- of robots-- and suspect Dr. Doom to be behind it. Though in a hurry to see his wife & new baby again, Reed agrees to help. Next thing, driving a car into Latveria, they're attacked, captured, knocked unconscious... and wake up in a luxury apartment. (Say what?) All around them, the citizens of Latveria bid them welcome, and have a "Fantastic Four" celebration day. But when, to prove a point, Reed makes a dash for the border, he's knocked back by its hi-tech defenses, and a TV image of Doom tells him, NOBODY ever leaves Latveria. You either be happy... or you DIE!

It's funny, in another comic, a reader this very month suggested Marvel do a take-off of the tv show, THE PRISONER, and the reply said "Marvel prefers to come up with its own plots". Then how do you explain this one, which is OBVIOUSLY a "tribute" to THE PRISONER ? The idea of Doom being such a "robot" specialist, I don't remember ever coming up in the FF before, though Jim Steranko did introduce the idea in STRANGE TALES #167. Is it safe to assume that Nick Fury & co. may have figured out by this point who built the robot Yellow Claw? (If so, it's never made clear.)

Something else else early in this issue really bugged me. There's no need to have tied this issue into the last one, and it's a bad habit of Stan's. As they pass thru Tibet, the natives refer to the "mysterious city" of the Inhumans, "to the north". NOWHERE in the previous 2 issues-- or in ANY previous comics, period-- was it ever once hinted that The Great Refuge of the Inhumans was in The Himalayas! It had always been in The Andes!! (Well, except for HULK ANNUAL #1 a few months earlier, when Gary Friedrich had it in Central Europe. You SEE why I think he took too many drugs??) I think Reed was just taking that gyro-ship out on a round-the-world test-drive, and Stan NEEDLESSLY tied it in, and FORGOT where The Great Refuge was supposed to be!! After all, just 2 issues before, Stan also FORGOT that it was Black Bolt who freed his people from "The Great Barrier", not Reed & co. It seems to me Stan could have really used an editor...!

What to say about Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott's art? IT'S THE BEST-- PERIOD!!!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #70 -- "Spider-Man Wanted!" has Pete hide the stolen tablet-- which the cops now think HE stole-- in his apartment, while he tries to figure out what to do next. Gwen is clearly pissed when he meets her, but to his shock, says she'll wait until he's ready to tell her what's going on. He can hardly believe it-- she actually TRUSTS him! (It seems so unlike her... heehee) Meanwhile Kingpin ESCAPES from jail, sets a trap for Spidey which he naturally falls into, big fight starts, but then Jameson shows up, gets in the way, a mysterious WOMAN in a limo shows up, and tells Kingpin to get in, which he does, and as THEY get away, Spidey can just take no more from his psychotic tormenter, and closes in on Jameson-- who, in a panic, faints dead away, leaving Ned Leeds to ask, "What did you DO to him?" (How annoying and stupid can one reporter be?) Spidey flees, worried that he may have actually become the menace JJJ always said he was. Oy.

Not too crazy about this one... but at least JIM MOONEY's art (over Romita's layouts) continue to dazzle.


IRON MAN #11 -- "Unmasked!" concludes the latest (and leastest) Mandarin story, as Tony Stark uses a SHIELD L.M.D.-- of himself-- to meet with reporters, while he confronts The Mandarin. Infuriated that his entire scheme to bring down Stark is in jeopardy, The Mandarin goes to the mountain shack where "Stark" is meeting with reporters, with IM following close behind. As the LMD collapses (its job done) IM has to beat his foe before the guy realizes he's been had. He does, the entire place blows up, and IM and Janice (who showed up just in time to temporarily become a hostage-- AGAIN) escape, not sure the baddie is dead this time, either. But there's still a major problem, as medics haul away the "dead" Tony Stark to a hospital, unable to detect a heartbeat, and now IM has to figure a way to get out of this before EVERYBODY figures out he's really Tony Stark.

Goodwin-Tuska-Craig, if anything, were a pretty consistent team, knocking out issue after issue with hardly a fill-in to be seen. I appreciate that. I just wish they'd been a little more "inspired". I'm afraid I'll never see Tuska as anything more than 2nd-rate, and of all the comics I've read by Goodwin, this one series-- the one he stayed on the longest-- seems the least-inspired.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #111 -- "Tomorrow You Live Tonight I Die" has Cap ambushed by Hydra goons in an arcade. Later, he tries to teach Rick some fighting manoevers, but Rick's so overwhelmed by the "shadow" of Bucky Barnes, he wonders if he'll ever measure up. Later, a drugged card arrives for Cap, Rick gets it, and he gets kidnapped by Hydra goons... BUT NOT FOR LONG! Cap tracks them down to the waterfront, does battle with a "Mankiller" robot, realizes he never should have given up his "secret identity" (it's too easy for his enemies to track him down, knowing he's Steve Rogers)... and the last thing we see, is the figure of Cap, diving off a rooftop into the river, STRAIGHT THRU a hail of Hydra gunfire!!! (It's "Scorpio" all over again!) The cops scour the water, and find his bullet-hole-ridden uniform-- as well as, strangely, a face-mask in the image of Steve Rogers, which suggests that "Steve Rogers" may have been a FAKE identity! What th'...?

I'll put it simply. This is Jim Steranko's MASTERPIECE. Of his entire comics output, this single issue may be the single greatest episode he ever produced. The Steranko-Sinnott team was the best his art ever looked, he did some terrific multi-panel "effects" in here, an incredibly dynamic 2-page spread, and one of his best covers yet-- which included a new logo, basically reusing the design for the one from SILVER SURFER. The new logo would be used, off and on, for decades after.

Oh yeah, and right in the middle of the story, there was a panel where we see silhouettes of Cap & Rick superimposed over a big movie screen as they watch films. I KNEW I'd seen that in some Steranko comic! I just swiped the idea a couple weeks ago for one of my own pages without even looking it up. Thanks, Jim!

SUB-MARINER #11 -- "The Choice And The Challenge" had me walking into the middle of a 2-parter involving "Cap'n Barracuda", a modern-day pirate with a beard, an eyepatch, and a terrible habit of speaking as if he stepped out of some 18th-Century pirate movie. As this episode starts, Namor, trying to get his hands on ANOTHER "helmet" (I had to check elsewhere to find out it was the Serpent Crown of Lemuria, not Destiny's helmet) is suddenly faced with the "choice" of capturing Barracuda, OR, stopping an atomic torpedo from wiping out a US Destroyer. Though he has no great feelings for surface-men of any stripe, he goes to stop the torpedo, which explodes near the Destroyer anyway, with a decidedly "normal" (NON-atomic) warhead. (Tricked again!) Unfortunately-- for everyone involved (especially the readers), the next 3/4ths of the comic is one long fight between Namor and the US Navy, who believe HE set off the explosion, trying to destroy them. And, as usual with his "Imperius Rex" attitude, we get over and over "The fools will not listen!"-- as he keeps clobbering people one after another. (sigh) What a WASTE of a good character.

Meanwhile, Barracuda breaks into a naval base and steals a device which can redirect the course of torpedos by remote control. As he's making off with it, he accidentally turns it on, causing a torpedo meant for Subby to instead take out HIS OWN submarine! The Navy, SUDDENLY realizing, hey, maybe Namor was on the level, try to get his attention that things are okay, but by this point, he's just pissed, and heading out to sea to get to Lemuria (for next issue).

According to the Bullpen page, John Buscema decided to focus all his energy on THE AVENGERS and SILVER SURFER, and so Marie Severin stepped in to take over SUB-MARINER, starting with #9. So how come Gene Colan drew issues #10-11? This issue is terribly uninspired, and somehow screams "rush job" to me. Also, George Klein, who made such a good team with Gene on DAREDEVIL #46 (the only one of those I've seen), here makes all the figures look like they're made out of rubber-- except for pages where there's almost no detail at all. I was extremely disappointed with this issue. Something else else wasn't right here.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #11 -- "Rebirth!" has Mar-Vell saved from the Kree firing squad by-- incredibly-- the last few remaining Aakon warriors, still seeking revenge for the death of the C.O. caused by Yon-Rogg. Everything's out in the open now, with Mar-Vell & Yon-Rogg no longer putting on any pretenses, it's just a matter of who can kill the other one first now. But then Una is hit by a stray shot, and Mar-Vell abandons the fight to get her help. But... that doesn't happen. Instead, he STEALS a moon-rocket from the Cape. But before long, Una dies... and he lands on an asteroid to create a monument for her. As he departs, his stolen spaceship is grabbed by The Hellion's tractor-beam, and hurled at faster-than-light-speeds into the furthest reaches of space. After about 100 days alone, he's pulled into the orbit of a tiny planetoid, and encounters a bizarre alien that calls itself "ZO", who claims to have somehow engineered everything that has happened to him. He screams this is madness (NO KIDDING!) but "ZO" offers him REVENGE-- if he'll serve him. Mar-Vell agrees, and "ZO" then imbues him with all manners of super-powers, whic allow him to destroy the unbreakable wrist-monitor Yon-Rogg has always kept track of him with, as well as the power to fly faster than light-speeds (SAY WHAT????). Mar-Vell gladly says he'll serve "ZO", once Yon-Rogg has paid for his crimes.

This is a tough one. I suppose I should point out this was advertised as "a new storyline", and in fact, is the first of a 6-part "story arc" involving this "ZO"-- thing. The first time I read this, I couldn't believe what I was seeing-- and in retrospect, that was the right reaction. This issue, strangely enough, is rather similar to Jim Starlin's "Metamorphosis" episode 4-1/2 years later-- except Starlin did it at least 10 TIMES BETTER. Mar-Vell meets ultra-power alien entity who grants him great power. Beyond that, the issues could hardly be less alike.

After 6 issues of Arnold Drake introducing all kinds of interesting elements to the proceedings, this issue goes COMPLETELY NUTS. I gotta be honest. I DON'T BELIEVE Arnold wrote this. It feels nothing like his previous 6 issues, but it feels EXACTLY like the 3 issues credited to Gary Friedrich. As they changed writer & artist when Arnold & Don Heck came on, I think it's perfectly believeable that they did it again here. Arnold does have this noticeable quirk of breaking sentences up in the oddest place between word balloons, and I did find that here in the first 5 pages... but once he steals the moon-rocket, not again. This suggests to me that Arnold may have written the first 5 pages... and then gotten KICKED OFF the book. Hey, Arnold once wrote an episode of DEADMAN for which he was neither paid nor credited-- this could be the reverse of that, him getting credit ("BLAME"??) for work that wasn't his.

The Bullpen page says Dick Ayers was getting tired of doing both SGT. FURY and CAPT. SAVAGE, and wanted a break, so Stan "switched books" between him and Don Heck. What the hell is Don, a ping-pong ball that he can be bounced around like this? Can there be any more indignities they could toss at him? A couple issues down the line, some readers said they couldn't believe Ayers did such a BAD job as he did here-- there's no detail, no feeling, the storytelling is just BAD. And Vince Colletta doesn't help one bit. His brief foray into "slicker" rendering is GONE now, he's back to just thin, scratchy lines. So this issue LOOKS bad, FEELS bad, READS bad, and makes NO F****** SENSE at all!!!

5 issues down the line, Archie Goodwin wound up somehow writing the concluding episode of this storyline... and MADE it make sense. If you read this one in light of what Archie wrote, just about everything in this episode takes on a completely different meaning than what Friedrich apparently intended. Archie did such a good job, he ALMOST convinces you it was "always meant to be this way". But I don't buy it. I think Stan didn't get along with Drake (politics were involved), he kicked him off the book, brought in Friedrich, told him to do something "different" in the hopes that a radical shake-up might save the thing, except Friedrich didn't know what he was doing, and concocted this rambling, incoherent MESS. No question. THIS gets my vote for the WORST comic Marvel put out that month-- if not that WHOLE YEAR. (The Barry Smith cover is nice, buit doesn't help much. Too bad HE didn't draw this issue. As crude & raw as his art was at the time, it would have been a big improvement.)


THOR #162 -- "Galactus Is Born" has Thor & The Recorder returned at high-speed by Ego to Rigel, where Thor pleads that The Recorder has "life" and should not be "shut off" now that his mission's over. In a flash, Thor then returns to Asgard, where Odin & co. are still concerned about the looming menace of Galactus. Using his mystic power, Odin peels back the curtain of time and they witness the "first" planet Galactus ever attacked, which was being invaded by aliens. The locals activate a "birthing chamber" and unleash whatever unknown being was inside it-- which turns out to be Galactus, who takes out the invaders, then the entire planet that "awoke" him, as living energy is what he needs in great supply. Although this new info still leaves countless questions unanswered, Thor is called to other matters, as Sif has gone to Earth-- and disappeared. Meanwhile, Balder is tormented, as it seems he HAS, against all his better judgment and wishes, fallen in love with Karnilla, his sworn enemy.

This is a "nice" issue, but somehow comes across as "filler". I understand Stan Lee tampered with it-- A LOT-- before it saw print-- and the story readers got to see may have had almost nothing to do with anything Jack Kirby intended when he drew it. For one thing, there's a full-page shot of a destroyed city in here that, to my eyes, appears to be HALF of a 2-page shot of a destroyed city-- the other half appearing in the following issue! WHAT th'...? Strange things were going on behind-the-scenes...


THE AVENGERS #62 -- "The Monarch And The Man-Ape" has The Black Panther "rescue" himself & his comrades from the freezing wastes caused by Ymir, and zip them by aircraft to his "hidden" land of Wakanda, where they're met by gunfire. It seems T'Challa's "old friend", M'Baku, who he left in charge while he went to America, has gotten power-hungry, and during a feast, drugs his "visitors". On awakening, The Panther sees his "friend" garbed in the "forbidden garb" of the White Gorilla, and calling himself The Man-Ape! A fight is on to see which will rule the kingdom, as M'baku is determined to kill his king, take control, wipe out all the advances of technology and return the land to its original, primitive state. Things don't work out that way, and as M'baku winds up buried under the rubble of the Panther statue, T'Challa laments that M'baku was an "anacrhonism" who couldn't deal with change.

Like the last few, this issue is GLORIOUS. Roy Thomas, John Buscema and George Klein, all at their PEAKS!!! Nearly every panel is worthy of being a pin-up, and Roy's keeping his usual bad writing habits under control. I have this as a reprint in JUNGLE ACTION #5 (1973), where it was touted as the "beginning" of the new Black Panther solo series. HAH! That actual series began in the following issue, kind of absurd to "start" a series with a reprint. Anyway, the art reproduction in that was MUCH better than in the MARVEL SUPER ACTION reprints of AVENGERS from 7 years later. Go figure. I actually read this years before either half of the "Fire And Ice" 2-parter, and the opening pages left me wondering about that for quite a long time. I didn't read the stories in sequence until I got ahold of the ESSENTIAL AVENGERS volume. But it's way better in color!


X-MEN #54 -- "Wanted: Dead Or Alive-- Cyclops!" introduces Scott's never-before-mentioned younger brother Alex, who's graduating from high school, and apparently has no knowledge that both he and Scott are mutants. That changes quickly when a gang of thugs decked out in "Egyptian" outfits tries to kidnap him, led by a baddie called "The Pharaoh"-- who claims to posess "magical" powers, but is obviously a mutant like the X-Men. Alex is proud to learn his brother is leader of the group, but before long a 2nd kidnap attempt proves more successful. Cyclops faces off against The Pharaoh in a museum's "Egyptian" wing, but is knocked unconscious. On awakening, he finds Alex gone, and the cops are accusing HIM of KILLING the Pharaoh! Figuring Alex might have done it and run off, Scott escapes the cops, and now a city-wide manhunt is on for him. Abruptly, we cut to an underground cavern Cyclops is searching, where he runs into-- the Pharaoh, still alive, and arrogant as hell!

Now THIS was a return to form. I was beginning to think Arnold Drake had lost it, as none of his X-MEN issues up to here really "felt" like his work. This does, and also reminds me a lot of the earlier Thomas-Roth issues, except Drake actually did have the team fighting a mutant menace. Apart from introducing Alex' brother, Arnold also gives us a new baddie who seems to be Marvel's "answer" to the BATMAN tv-show villain, King Tut-- only with super-powers.

I kinda wonder why this issue appeared a month late. Did they just really wanna show off the Barry Smith fill-in? Or was this episode somehow running late? I think that's a legit question, as Werner Roth is missing from the credits. George Olshevsky's index lists him as "uncredited", but looking over the art, it looks to ME as if it's just Heck & Colletta, and after Don did layouts for 7 previous issues, I'd almost have to guess he did the same here, with Vince Colletta doing pencils AND inks ("finishes"), as he's much more overpowering than usual here. Some might think that a bad thing, but this issue "feels" more on-track than the last several, and that includes the ones done by Jim Steranko AND Barry Smith.

"The Million Dollar Angel" begins the origin of Warren Worthington, the perfect little rich kid who had no fear of heights and kept giving his parents worries every time he'd climb trees and such. He became a star athlete at the private school they sent him to, but at one point suddenly discovered he was growing WINGS out of his back, and found a way to get himself a private room so no one would find out. During a fire, he put on a disguise and saved several lives by pretending to be "an angel"-- I guess the name stuck. Some fellow students are determined to find out who the guy with the wings is.

As usual, Drake, Roth & Colletta (him again?) do a solid job all-round. Unfortunately, without warning, this would be Arnold Drake's last X-MEN issue, as sales were apparently in a bad state, and Stan Lee got Roy Thomas to come back in a desperate effort to "save" it.

NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #11 -- "The 1st Million Megaton Explosion" is Marvel's answer to STAR TREK's "The Way To Eden"-- in other words, a hippie-youth culture episode. Laura Brown drags Nick to a rock concert, which is interrupted when The Hate-Monger, still aboard his orbitting space station, targets his hate-ray on the crowd, who try to lynch "the old guy" (Fury). Soon after, the band ("The 1st Million Megaton Explosion") appears on Sullivan, but instead of singing, give a speech, sparking a young "revolution". Next thing, New York City is turned over the the young people, and a nuclear missile base in New Jersey (NEW JERSEY?) is taken over. "LBJ" is given an ultimatum-- turn over control of the country, or they launch the missiles. Fury convinces the Pres to let him use one of NASA's moon rockets to reach the space station, and for the 2nd month in a row, he single-handedly takes on The Hate-Monger on his home ground. This time, there seem to be very few thugs around, and before long, Fury gets into a fight with the guy, one-on-one, ending when the neo-Nazi is hit square in the face, can't see where he's going, runs thru the wrong door... and finds himself accidentally stepping out an airlock. OOPS!!!!!

The hate-ray shut off, things back to normal, LBJ gives amnesty to all the young people since it weren't their fault. Back at his pad, Nick tells Laura, it's Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman for him for now on!

Frank Springer's back on full art this time, a big improvement over Springer-Craig. But in the space of a mere 3 episodes, Gary Freidrich has gone from inspired to average to nearly-incoherent. WHAT the heck happened with this guy? I didn't mind the "hippie youth culture" plot, or the rock & roll disco stuff. It was other things. Like wasting 4 whole pages at the beginning to show off a fictional gatefold record LP jacket (the back cover of which contains a tribute to the finale of PLANET OF THE APES). Like, HOW COME The Hate-Monger's space station was still up there, and hadn't been blown out of the sky when he tried to kill everyone in NYC the issue before? Like, HOW COME Nick has to ask LBJ for a NASA rocket to reach the space station, when he used a SHIELD "self-orbitting" craft last issue? (Sure, he left that one behind, but are you gonna tell me SHIELD only has one?) And like, with an organization as big as SHIELD is, and in as important a position of leadership as Nick is, WHY does Nick keep going on these one-man suicide missions??? I MEAN COME ON!!!

Last time I noted the "death gas from space" plot had been reused in the 1979 movie MOONRAKER. Well, the same goes for this month's climax when the guy running the space station steps out the airlock. I think it's pretty safe to say MOONRAKER screenwriter Christopher Wood was a SHIELD fan. Wouldn't you?


DR. STRANGE #179 -- "The Wondrous World Of Dr. Strange" may be Marvel's 1st-ever "Dreaded Deadline Doom" reprint, taken from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #2. It was Steve Ditko's only Spidey-Dr. Strange team-up (his 2 big strips colliding, what a great match!), and apparently appeared here because Gene Colan got the flu. (AGAIN? but that trick never works!) Me, I would have thought he missed the deadline because he was "filling in" on SUB-MARINER for 2 issues. But what do I know? Barry Smith supplied a new cover. I guess it makes sense. Ditko didn't even draw Doc on the original cover! (I wonder why that was?) Now see, if I were in charge of reprint collections, anytime this story would see print, I'd include both the Ditko cover AND the Smith cover. I think there's been a lot of cool "new" covers slapped on reprinted stories over the years, but some fans (like me) may have skipped some of those books, because they already had the stories. And where else are those covers gonna get reprinted?


FANTASTIC FOUR #85 -- "Within This Tortured Land" reveals that the FF have been drugged, then brainswashed, so their minds won't allow them to rebel and use their powers. Meanwhile, Doom tests his latest indestructible robots, and the next test is to destroy an "entire village"-- the one he's got the FF imprisoned in (as well as ALL of its regular population!!). So much for wanting to gloat over his victory for years to come. Also, so much for any sense of loyalty to "his" own people. Not only has this "robot" fixation come out of nowhere (and Jim Steranko), but Doom is just becoming a cold-blooded mass-murderer.

Meanwhile, a brief sub-plot shows Sue house-hunting, realizing crowded neighborhoods wouldn't be safe (for the neighbors!), and finding a strange, abandoned, out-of-the-way, futuristic house built into the ground in some woods. You know, this thing of introducing sub-plots sometimes MONTHS before the next story starts, which became industry standard by the 70's, may be one of the most annoying traits anybody ever picked up from Jack Kirby. Or daytime soaps. I really hate when they do this.

It's starting to hit the fan as several different readers on the letters page all point out that Stan blew it with the bit about WHO rescued The Inhumans from the barrier, and WHERE the Great Refuge is located. I swear, these last several months, I'm seeing more and more of these kind of blatent, obvious, AMATEURISH mistakes-- all coming from "The Man", Marvel's "fearless leader", the "writer" and "author" and "creator" of all their characters and series.... HE says, repeatedly. Is it safe to say he got really FULL of himself here, started to believe his own hype, and didn't even notice how he was screwing up more and more as time went by, especially now that his #1 guy-- Jack Kirby-- was insisting that Stan actually start doing more of the work he'd been claiming to do all along? (MMMMM-- could be!)


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #71 -- "The Speedster And The Spider" finds Pete feeling at the end of his wits. He gives the tablet to Stacy, then splits (doesn't want to guy to recognize his voice, even under the mask). Then, Joe Robertson-- who's been forced to fill in for JJJ while the nut is in the hospital-- raves about Pete's pics of The Kingpin, which PROVE Spidey AND the students are innocent, and pays Pete more for the pics than Jameson EVER did! Now Spidey's off the hook, Pete can send Aunt May to Florida again, and start paying his share of the rent. (WHAT rent? His roomie Harry gets the place for FREE from his Dad! Doesn't Stan even read HIS OWN comics anymore?)

In this month's X-MEN, readers complained that Magneto's return from the dead wasn't properly explained-- and no mention was made of the missing Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad. WELL, whatta ya know, all 3 turn up here, and all 3 feel they've gotten a bum rap, being "forced" to do Magneto's bidding. Pietro races to the city, intent on contacting the Avengers to explain things. But they're in AFRICA (man, this issue makes so much more sense re-reading it within the context of all these other books!). So, instead of hanging around to wait (I guess a "speedster" isn't known for patience) he runs across a newspaper calling Spidey a crook-- and decides to clear his own name by bringing Spidey to "justice". AUGH! Another STUPID, pointless hero vs. hero fight. This one goes on almost half the issue, until Spidey gets the drop on Pietro, and in the process saves his life, making the guy think, hey, maybe he's NOT bad. Jameson, meanwhile, goes into a hysterical FIT when he sees the latest Bugle. "I don't care WHAT the photos show-- he's GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!" This SOB doesn't need a physician-- he needs a strait-jacket. Seriously.

This was one of 4 issues of ASM I got at my very 1st NYC convention, which I bought because I didn't have them in reprint form. For some reason, this issue and the next one WEREN'T reprinted in MARVEL TALES in the early 70's when they should have been. The next issue appeared in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS-- still a stupid reason not to have included it neatly in the regular reprint run. This issue, I dunno if it was ever reprinted back then. But at least I got it. But it's taken me 30 YEARS to finally re-read the damned thing IN SEQUENCE! Having re-read the related X-MEN and AVENGERS issues also in sequence made it make even more sense. Considering it wasn't really that hot...

Jim Mooney does a nice Scarlet Witch... for all of a few pages. (NO Gwen or MJ this time! Aww...)


CAPTAIN AMERICA #112 -- "Lest We Forget" has Tony Stark at Avengers Mansion, filling for Cap (has ANYBODY told this to Roy Thomas??), getting the news that Cap's dead, and it's his job to plan the memorial service, and "close his file". The rest of the issue has Stark (apparently) reminiscing about Cap's history in WW2 and in the 60's, giving us what for TV would be known as an "all-flashback" episode. Except, this one's got all-new art. Legend has it, Jack Kirby was called back to do this at the last minute, and knocked it out OVER A WEEKEND. That's 10 PAGES a DAY!!! Holy cow! Somehow, George Tuska got the inking job (though I think John Romita inked the cover), and this issue has a really rough, raw look to it. Like a cross between Dan Adkins and Syd Shores inks over Kirby, only without the finesse of either.

WHY was this done? Stan says it seemed a good idea, to give readers a break from the shocking events of the previous issue, and let them catch their breath before the big conclusion next month. Some have said Steranko was playing things so close to the deadline, Stan thought it would be a good idea to give him more time. After all, he'd already proven he couldn't seem to do an entire book on a monthly basis (see NICK FURY and X-MEN). SOME have said that Steranko did not blow any deadline-- but that Stan didn't like the ending Jim wrote for the 3rd episode. Stan, apparently, felt such a connection to Cap's book, he just couldn't bring himself to step back and "only" act as editor-- he had to stick his hand in more than that. Hence the "vague" credits which do not say Stan was either editor OR writer-- and left readers guessing for decades. Anyway, the rumor was, Steranko was forced to change the ending, and re-do some of the pages in the process, which is what blew the deadline (if such a thing happened at all). And this led to Steranko quitting the book after only 3 issues, when he'd planned to stay around a LOT longer. NICE GOIN', STAN!


CAPTAIN MARVEL #12 -- "The Moment Of-- The Man-Slayer!" replays the final scene from the previous issue, as "ZO" grants CM vast powers, including teleportation, and illusion-casting, then sets him on his path to revenge against Yon-Rogg, who destroyed his career, wrecked the mission, and murdered his love. Cap stops back at the asteroid, where Una's EXPOSED body is preserved in the vaccum of space, then briefly haunts Yon-Rogg, but doesn't kill him or destroy The Hellion-- he wants to come up with something really fitting that will make the guy suffer. So instead, he returns to his hotel room, then heads for the base. The C.O. is convinced with that "Lawson" is a bad egg since his latest disappearance, and now both CM and "Lawson" are to be arrested-- or shot on sight-- whichever. Just as base guards are about to arrest "Lawson", a 10-foot red plastic robot-- "The Man-Killer"-- shows up to attack the base. (AGAIN? but that trick never works!) Despite being now a wanted man, CM fights the robot to defend the base, then, after it mysteriously collapses, he changes back to "Lawson"-- and teleports away before the guards can nab him.

Meanwhile... The Black Widow, on assignment for SHIELD, finds another spy ring, led by some mysterious guy in a chair whose face we never see. This mysterious baddie is the Man-Killer's creator. The Widow interfered with the remote controls, which allowed CM to defeat the robot. But this sub-plot comes out of nowhere, and goes nowhere fast.

For the 2nd issue in a row, Dick Ayers does some of the WORST layouts and "storytelling" I've ever seen in all of 60's Marvel. This guy did such a wonderful job on GIANT-MAN and HUMAN TORCH-- why are his layouts so TERRIBLE here? Syd Shores stepped in to replace Vince Colletta, and his inks are a HUGE improvement. But it seems such a WASTE, incredible inks over CRAP pencils. Also, I've been convinced that Gary Friedrich (who wrote the 3 issues after this) wrote this issue, NOT Arnold Drake, as credited... but now I'm not so sure. It's really hard to tell. I see Arnold's trademark break-up of sentences between balloons, but I KNOW Arnold is a better writer than this. His first 5 (or so) episodes of CM were better than the ones Stan Lee & Roy Thomas did. So WHY is this book so TERRIBLY written? Is it just the effect of "The Marvel Method", where a "writer" is at the mercy of the "penciller" (who's really doing a big bulk of the plotting)? Is it that Dick Ayers was just a complete mis-fit on this book, and had NO IDEA what he was doing? Is it that Stan stuck his nose in and made things even more confusing, possibly de-railing whatever Arnold originally had in mind and forcing this insane, confusing, directionless MESS on everyone? All I know is, I paid $3.50 for my copy of this book some years ago... and STILL feel it was way too much! For the 2nd month in a row, this get my vote for WORST MARVEL of the month.

Something else else I forgot to mention before... C.A. #112 featured the first mention in the 60's of "the original Ringmaster"-- that description strongly suggesting the 2 villains weren't the same guy. But they look so much alike, they could have been father and son!

Also, after spending years playing around with their cover designs and finally coming up with one I consider the best they ever had, the Dec'68 covers started SCREWING with perfection when they shoved the book's title (along with price, number & date) ABOVE the little corner pic. It looked so much better before...and it would only get worse as time went on.


SILVER SURFER #5 -- "--And Who Shall Mourn For Him?" is the most rambling plot Stan has come up with yet. SS steals a new device Reed Richards has been experimenting with (he couldn't have ASKED?) hoping it'll free him from Galactus' invisible barrier. Nope. After crashing, he wakes up in a cabin of Al Harper, a black scientist who knows what it's like to be judged "different" because of appearance. He offers to help the Surfer find a way thru the barrier, but money's a problem. The Surfer tries to "disguise" himself as a human and find a job at an employment agency, but with no job history, no Social Security number, no references, and his pale white skin that would "frighten" people, it's no go. He considers robbing a bank, but puts the money back. Then he finds an illegal casino, and by careful manipulation of molecules while throwing dice, wins a bundle-- which the crooks running the place immediately try to STEAL back. Harper comes up with a device which may "fool" the barrier by disguising the Surfer's atomic structure, but the experiment attracts the attention of The Stranger-- that all-powerful, omnipotent, genocidal alien who, ONCE AGAIN, has decided that Earthmen are potentially too dangerous to the rest of the universe, and must be wiped out. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GUY'S PROBLEM??? Rather than flee Earth, the Surfer warns Harper, who goes to the various authorities (police, FBI, Army, etc) and is laughed at by all. He then comes up with a device to find the bomb The Stranger planted-- but is first harrassed, then pursued by some unbelieveably STUPID average citizens who first "wanna know what's that thing, man?", then think he's some kind of danger himself. Harper manages to defuse the bomb, but at the cost of his own life. The bomb was designed that way-- and his self-sacrifice convinces The Stranger that mankind deserves another chance. Why doesn't somebody just KILL this bastard and be done with it? (Some all-powerful beings are just TOO STUPID to live.)

The John Buscema-Sal Buscema art is top-notch, but Stan Lee's story just annoyed me in too many ways to list. Also, with all the tight continuity going on, I'd like to know where the heck Reed Richards and Ben Grimm's appearance here fits into their own continuity-- OR, why Reed, who's married, is sharing a bathroom with Ben! (There's GOTTA be more than one bathroom in the entire Baxter Building!!!


SUB-MARINER #12 -- "A World Against Me" has Subby pursueing Karthoon thru the Panama Canal on their way to sunken Lemuria (somewhere in the Pacific), to stop evil ruler Naga from getting his hands on the Serpent Crown of Lemuria-- which, it turns out, is what "Destiny" had all along. (You couldn't tell under its outer casing-- sort of like The Maltese Falcon, I suppose!) Subby gets over-powered, then drugged, but in Naga's palace it wears off, and soon he faces off against the evil ruler, who uses the Crown's power to create an illusion of a giant foe with crab-like hands for him to battle. After, Namor wrecks the throneroom, but in the rubble sees Lady Dorma-- DEAD because of his handiwork! Is her lifeless body another illusion-- or the real thing?

This issue was a complete turn-around for me from the previous one. Many feel John Buscema did great work on this series, and while I tend to see some of it almost as a "warm-up" for the much-later CONAN, I don't think he really "fit" on Subby. And Gene Colan's an even worse fit! But Marie Severin-- AHH, now SHE really does fit the character, and the series. I'd rank her just under Bill Everett as one of the best SUB-MARINER artists, ever! Between the way she draws, and the way she lays out the pages (storytelling), and who knows how much of the actual "plot" she contributes, everything about this issue just "feels" so right! It's a shame I have so few issues from this point-- especially as I'm still missing the conclusion of this over-long "crown" storyline.


THOR #163 -- "Where Dwell The Demons" has Thor return to Earth, in search of the missing Sif, run across an army convoy, and a strange "Time Funnel" in the center of NYC, into which the army says Sif disappeared. Thor follows, and quickly finds his lady, in the hands of huge-eared "Mutates"-- demons in the service of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld! (Long time no see!) And entire city block with a scientific research complex has been transported to another time, where Thor & Sif find a city in ruins, and somewhere in one of the buildings, a strange "coffin"-like object opens, containing a familiar-looking man-sized "cocoon".

This issue's okay, and definitely looks way better in color (I have the original as well as the ESSENTIAL volume). But there's some odd things about it. When I read this the 2nd time (in the B&W volume), I couldn't shake the feeling this was somehow intended for one of Jack's "Fourth World" stories-- had he wound up doing them for Marvel, instead of holding them back for DC. The circular "Time Funnel" reminds me of a "Boom Tube". The "Mutates", also referred to as demons, remind me of "Para-Demons". And in this equation, Pluto seems to fill "Darkseid"s slot! (Picture Superman instead of Thor and you see what I mean.) Also, there's this full-page shot of Thor & Sif wandering thru a destroyed city... which looks to me like the 2nd HALF of a 2-page spread, the first half of which appeared in the previous issue! Was that sequence intended as part of Galactus' origin, but then the story was changed? MAYBE. There doesn't seem to be much sense to having Thor & co. transported to the future... the remains of ANOTHER PLANET destroyed in a war might have been the original intention (Apokalips???).

As usual, Kirby & Colletta do a bang-up job.


THE AVENGERS #63 -- "And In This Corner... Goliath!" begins with a missile-shaped aircraft (which seems to have a "smilie-face" built into its design) on its way to crashing into Avengers Mansion. Turns out it's another one of The Black Panther's aircraft-- but has gone out of control FOR NO APPARENT REASON (and none was ever given in this entire issue). Barely landing safely, Hawkeye feels useless (his bow-string broke-- also for no apparent reason). Hank & Jan are back from their honeymoon, but on doctor's orders, Hank is giving up his Goliath identity, and sticking with Yellowjacket, as it seems his growing may have partially caused his temporary schizophrenia, while shrinking seems to be okay. The group gets a call from Nick Fury, saying The Black Widow's disappeared in the Caribbean, and they rush to find her, but make Hawkeye stay behind because he's "too emotionally involved". (WHAT IS their problem???)

Hawkeye then gets a personal (if brief) message from Natasha, telling him the earlier call was a fake-- and he figures out she's really in Coney Island! He decides to rescue her solo-- and in a bizarre fit of inspiration, takes Hank's "more powerful" shrinking potion-- and dons his "new" Goliath costume (the one Jan made for Hank for their honeymoon-- NO WONDER it looks kinda "kinky"), and before long, he's fighting some 15-foot-tall android. The villains of the piece turn out to be Egghead (Ant-Man's old foe), The Puppet Master (OH NOT HIM again!) and The Thinker ("who some call MAD!!!"). They're working on some grand scheme that threatens the entire world, which, I guess, is a decent reason for bringing The Mad Thinker back. I suppose it also serves to "explain" the scene in CAPTAIN MARVEL #12 involving The Black Widow and WHOEVER it was who built "The Man-Slayer" (The Mad Thinker seems a good guess...), though that episode is NEVER mentioned here. (You'd think it woulda been!)

I forgot to mention, AVENGERS also got a new logo last time. The "classic" logo, which had been on the book since #1, was suddenly replaced with a curving one (that reminds me of the "Supermarionation" logo from some of Gerry Anderson's tv shows) with the word "MIGHTY" added. Was this a slap at MIGHTY CRUSADERS (from Archie) or MIGHTY HEROES (the cartoon show)? Seems to me this book stood out better without those kind of confusing comparisons.

After doing such a magnificent job over the last batch of issues, John Buscema is GONE, replaced by Gene Colan, who once again seems to have a "thing" for drawing "giants" (Ultimo, The Sentry, The Leviathan, etc...). Now he gets to draw a giant hero, and one who'd look at home in a "leather club". And I wonder if this also didn't help cause Gene to miss DR. STRANGE #179. (Having a reprint issue couldn't have helped that book's overall sales, either...) After saying in the Bullpen page that Buscema dropped off SUB-MARINER to focus on SILVER SURFER and AVENGERS, now he's gone from AVENGERS, because Stan got him to take over doing layouts on... AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Huh??? WTF was John Romita doing that he was too busy EVEN to do "just" layouts???

It sure seems to me something crazy was going on at Marvel around here, because this "musical artists" thing was getting out of hand, with Don Heck moving to CAPTAIN SAVAGE, Dick Ayers on CAPTAIN MARVEL, Marie Severin on SUB-MARINER, Gene Colan on AVENGERS, John Buscema on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, Jim Steranko on CAPTAIN AMERICA... and it wasn't over yet!!!

MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #19 -- KA-ZAR, THE JUNGLE MASTER: "My Father, My Enemy" is the 1st-ever solo outing for Marvel's half-witted Tarzan rip-off character. Well, that's how he seems to me, anyway. Back in England, we find Ka-Zar's brother "Edgar" (I thought it was "Parnival"-- but what kind of name is that anyway?) is OUT OF JAIL ON PAROLE. Now wait a minute... this guy was damn near singlehandedly responsible for destroying Prince Namor's Atlantis and starting a war between the US and the Atlanteans, and was last seen in a sub that got blown up... (if memory serves). How did he get in jail, let alone, after all that, how did he get out ON PAROLE? The parole board system in the Marvel Universe must have some SEVERE problems to be having all these super-villains running around scot free.

"Ka-Zar" (Kevin Plunder) has apparently "given up" the title to his estate (so WHY is he still hanging around there?) and brother Edgar ("The Plunderer") is plotting every way he knows to have him run off, or killed, or both. A neighbor lady and her father interests Ka-Zar briefly (after he intrerfered with the local "sport" of fox-hunting), but before long a race is on back to The Savage Land. Edgar wants to get control of the strange destructive mineral element discovered by their father, but needs the other half of an amulet to unlock the chamber it's kept in-- and Ka-Zar left his half back in Antarctica. It's chaos once everybody (including the lady and her father) show up, especially once the older gent gets killed trying to defend his daughter. Before he died, the guy tried to write a message in the dirt, indicating that Ka-Zar's father was NOT the villain he's been led to believe-- only EDGAR is really a villain-- but Edgar wipes the message out before it can be read (shades of Dr. Zaius in PLANET OF THE APES).

Under a nice cover by Barry Smith & Herb Trimpe (2 guys who are "doing" Jack Kirby's style), the interior art is by George Tuska and, surprisingly, Sid Greene, who gives it a nice, "polished" look. (The lady Ka-Zar takes a liking to looks really pretty, something I don't see that often in Tuska art.) Unfortunately, the "storytelling" is very choppy and at times nearly incoherent. Arnold Drake & Steve Parkhouse are both listed as writers. I might guess Arnold came up with the plot and Steve did the dialogue, except the first few pages do bear Arnold's "trademark" style of dialogue, so maybe Arnold plotted the whole thing, but got replaced on dialogue some pages in. Poor guy, he never could seem to get a foothold at Marvel, and for the most part, kept getting saddled with the "2nd rate" artists. I wish I could say I enjoyed this, but it just seems a waste of paper.

The biggest problem I have with most of these early Ka-Zar appearances, frankly, is his entire background, origin, and family relations. "The Plunderer" is a villain who gets old-- fast, and the way he goes around the first half of this story, as if he somehow weren't a full-blown maniacal career criminal, is exasperating. Why is this guy on the loose, let alone even still alive???


X-MEN #55 -- "The Living Pharaoh!" picks up right where the previous episode left off, with "The Pharaoh" having faked his own death (even the police finally noticed the body is missing!) and intent on having Cyclops either join his power-mad schemes, or die. Both Scott & Alex are shipped to Egypt as prisoners, but thanks to Jean's mental connection, the X-Men are in pursuit, and catch up with the baddies shortly after they reach the Pyramids. Big fight breaks out, but suddenly, "The Living Pharaoh" (as his men have now started calling him-- who knows why) feels weak, and Scott realizes he's been defeated by Alex-- who has abruptly exhibited a MUTANT power of his own!

Damn shame Arnold Drake got kicked off this book, here he introduces Scott's brother Alex, and a whole "Egyptian" villain and setting-- he LOVED anything to do with Ancient Egypt-- and he doesn't get to finish the story. Roy Thomas comes back without missing a beat. In recent months on DR. STRANGE and AVENGERS, Roy's often-annoying dialogue finally got under control, and he continues doing a better job here on X-MEN as well. There is a noticeable difference to my eyes in the art between this issue and the previous one-- the drawing and the rendering of the characters is much "cleaner" (except for the last 3 pages, where I'm guessing Vince Colletta was running out of time and had to rush to beat the deadline), which suggests to me that Werner Roth did NOT pencil last issue's story, as he did here. (The credits WERE right.) Depending on your own personal taste, it's either a good or bad thing, but this would turn out to be Roth's LAST outing on the lead strip. I think it's a shame that Roth kept getting replaced when, by rights, they should have just left him on the book. It would have been a lot more "consistent", and who knows, maybe sold better that way.

"Where Angels Dare To Tread" continues the origin of The Angel, who's gotten himself one really spiffy costume (I like it BETTER than any other costume he's ever worn in the series up to this point!) and started calling himself "The Avenging Angel". No deep soul-searching here-- this guy's got a super-power, he decides to use it to help society by fighting crime. Were that more "gifted" people felt so socially-committed. Anyway, Professor X detects a new mutant in the area, he sends his team to recruit the guy, but Angel says he's strictly solo-- and nobody tells him what to do!

Thomas picks up where Drake left off, Roth continues the usual solid job, and this month sees the Marvel debut of Sam Grainger, who'd done a lot of work in fanzines before this (including STAR-STUDDED COMICS) and would, years later, also wind up doing inks on the revived X-MEN series, working over Dave Cockrum!


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #12 -- "Hell Hath No Fury" has Nick on the run from SHIELD after being accused of consorting with enemy agents while out of the country for 2 days. A "security" man, Agent Rickard, says he doesn't like what he sees and suggests Fury oughta be replaced. Next thing, Fury's a wanted man. Rickard turns out to be an "agent" alright-- of HYDRA! With Fury out of the way, they figure SHIELD will be in chaos. They send a couple of killers in a helicopter with SHIELD markings on it to take Fury out, but only wind up splattered all over the landscape themselves, which tells Fury somebody else is involved and playing very dirty. Val won't say why she supposedly didn't back up Fury's story, and he accuses her of running "as soon as things got too serious" between them. Gabe catches up with Fury, but after some friendly info exchange, Fury gets the drop on him. He finally catches up with Rickard, who decides to kill Fury outright, but gets it instead. It's clearly self-defense-- but Dugan shows up arresting Fury for Rickard's MURDER!

The first time I read this, this became my FAVORITE post-Steranko SHIELD issue. Barry Smith, who did such an awful job on X-MEN #53, is still very raw here. The layouts are dodgy (but creative), the drawing is rough, and the inks (by both Smith himself and Sid Greene-- but I can't tell who did what) don't help. But the writing is what grabs me. Steve Parkhouse-- who contributed to that KA-ZAR story, and years later teamed with Dave Gibbons on some incredible DOCTOR WHO stories-- brings back the "human" feeling for Fury, Val, Gabe, etc. that Steranko occasionally hinted at in between his hi-tech antics, and which almost every writer since seemed to have completely forgotten in their mad dash to imitate Steranko's WORST stylistic excesses! That something that looks THIS bad, this AMATEURISH-- we're talking FANZINE-level quality here, folks!-- should read THIS GOOD is really saying something about the potential of the people involved, and the possible future of this book-- had they stayed.

Tragically... Barry Smith's green card ran out right after this, and he had to skip the country back to England! He did wind up doing a LOT of work for Marvel before too long... but the deadline on this book apparently couldn't wait, and the next issue, NOBODY involved with this one came back to continue what started out as such a really GREAT story. (Strangely enough, the basic plot of this would be redone as the 1st issue of NICK FURY VS. SHIELD in the late 80's by Bob Harras & Paul Neary-- but Harras would use about 10 times as many words and not do one-TENTH as good of a job. Man, I HATED that mini-series with a passion!!! It was an INSULT to the memory of everything Kirby, Lee, Steranko and others had done back here in the 60's.)

You know, it just hit me that Smith, Parkhouse & Greene-- all 3-- worked in some capaticy on MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #19 and NICK FURY #12. I wonder if Parkhouse-- as a writer-- may have been responsible for that? Ever since I learned about the "de facto editor" thing, where writers put together their own art teams-- I begin to notice more stuff like this.


DR. STRANGE #180 -- "Eternity Eternity" opens with Doc, not knowing where he is or how he got there-- confronted by an image of "Eternity", who says of course he wasn't destroyed by that clash with Dormammu back when. (In an editorial footnote, Stan gets the issue # WRONG. Man, he was REALLY SLIPPING around this time!!) In the vision, Eternity changes into Nightmare (him again-- and so soon?), who threatens to eliminate the gap between reality and his dream plane of existence. Doc is abruptly woken up by Wong, who reminds him he has a date with Clea. The two meets, and she gets her first experience with "snow". The pair heads to Times' Square to celebrate the new year, running into a "journalist" friend of Doc's, Tom Wolfe, when they arrive. As the clock strikes midnight, a pterodactyl appears and crashes, followed by several other dinosaurs, each much larger than any real dinos ever were. Doing his best to save the crowd, Doc finds it's the work of Nightmare-- who has, somehow, actually imprisoned Etrernity, the "embodiment of time itself". Nightmare challenges Strange to a "final" battle, to the death-- and Doc accepts! To be continued.

Another extremely well-done, mind-blowing issue, about a third of which is made up of full-page panels. Man, are Gene Colan & Tom Palmer on a roll!! Page 2 of this story was turned into a day-glo black-light poster, which I've had on my wall for a lot of years now. The only "excess" of Roy's this time is Wolfe's cameo (it's almost as annoying as when celebrities appear as themselves on sitcoms) but for the most part, a terrific, solid issue. I've seen the cover Gene drew for this issue that went unused-- it was a bit too confusing, I think. Stan replaced it with a collage, made up of a STEVE DITKO Eternity (from STRANGE TALES #146), a Gene Colan Doc (a panel from a recent issue), and a photo of Manhattan. COOL cover!!! Something else else odd that struck me was, I've read Stan preferred not having 2 covers with the same basic color scheme in the same month, or 2 months in a row. Both DR. STRANGE and NICK FURY this month had white backgrounds. Though, I doubt anyone ever confused the two.


FANTASTIC FOUR #86 -- "The Victims" has Doom, as his killer robots are about to wipe out the entire helpless village, announce that they have gone "temporarily out of control", and any villages who might accidentally get killed will be considered "heroes of the country" afterwards. WHAT A BASTARD!!! Meanwhile, he thinks on how when he designed the robots (which actually are out-of-control) he built into them a weakness, which only he knows-- but he wants the FF to die before Reed can figure out what that weakness is. The brain-washing slowly wears off, and their powers return, but hardly soon enough. Infuriated when Reed uses one of his own hidden devices to throw the robots into deep water (that's their weakness-- they're too heavy to swim) Doom detonates a huge pile of explosives he hid under the village, just as his ex-Nazi underling Hauptmann reminds him of "his people". For an instant, Doom thinks twice-- SAY WHAT? After all his mass-murdering intentions??-- but too late, and the village is toast. Except... for one area where all the people have gathered, which was protected by an invisible force field. Hey, whatta ya know, Sue got Fury to tell her where her hubby was, and she showed up to single-handedly save the day! GO, SUE! Ben's happy she showed, too-- as he says, she's the only one who can keep Reed from talking everyone to death.

GREAT art (though a full-page shot of Doom seems uncalled for), but I'm wondering about Doom's inconsistent behavior. I guess that's to be expected when you're a power-mad despot like him-- or, when 2 guys are writing a book, not 1.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #72 -- "Rocked By The Shocker" brings back another Romita villain, who breaks into Stacy's home to steal the stone tablet-- because he read about Stacy having it in the papers. SAY WHAT? Pete learns The Shocker's on the loose again, and goes after him as Spidey. Shocker gets away, but not before Pete plants a "spider-tracer" on him (gee, long time since he used one o' those), and he rushes to the train station to see Aunt May & Anna Watson off to Florida. While there, he sees a Bugle headline saying how Spidey risked his life to fight the Shocker... and I'm left wondering, HOW did that paper get out in such a short time? (Somebody is not thinking things thru here!!!) Flash returns for a visit, once again insults Pete (he says it's a "joke"), Pete gets pissed, then Gwen gets pissed at Pete! (WHY does he bother with this girl??) The simplest thing is to tackle The Shocker again, who's pulling an armored car heist when he arrives. Spidey clobbers the Shocker, but then gets SHOT at by one of the guards! When the guy finds both the Shocker and all the money safe and sound around the corner, he openly wonders "Gee, how come nobody trusts that guy?" (Yeah-- he says this, AFTER SHOOTING at him himself. How stupid are some people?)

Talk about a shock-- Stan Lee YANKED John Buscema off AVENGERS, which was in the middle of one of its BEST RUNS EVER, so he could take over layouts ("storytelling") on ASM. John Romita is now back on pencils, but without having to do the "hard" work he always says gave him such headaches, while Jim Mooney, who'd been doing such a WONDERFUL job on pencils & inks, drops back to just inks. THIS is an improvement?? With Romita drawing, Mooney inking, and Romita, presumably, doing touch-ups inks, it may not LOOK that different, but the storytelling IS different (you can really tell if you squint, heh) and the book just FEELS different. I dunno. Sometimes I wish Romita had just worked AT HOME like most Marvel artists, and done FULL ART (or at least layouts AND pencils) and done it for a long, long time instead of all this "musical artists" CRAP.

This issue was NOT reprinted as part of the early-70's MARVEL TALES run, as it appeared instead in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS. Somebody screwed something up in there, because Stan's near-incoherent intro describes an entirely different episode, one with Electro. Also, ONE page of this appeared in the 1st MARVEL TREASURY EDITION, just to have a "sample" of Buscema layouts.


IRON MAN #13 -- "Captives Of The Controller" is the 2nd half of a story (I'm missing the 1st half) involving a villain who used to work for Cord Industries ("exploited" is the word he uses) who became crippled, and then found a way, by using special "discs" attached to people's foreheads, to turn them into mindless zombies, channel their bodily energies into him, and make him super-strong and unbeatable. As "The Controller", he's already got dozens of victims under his sway, including Janice Cord, and only his armor saved Iron Man from becoming another one. Loading up a railroad car with his transmitting equipment, and a stock of "slaves", he heads for NYC, where he intends to turn the entire city into his human power supply, which will make him completely unbeatable. Nick Fury informs IM he intends to take out the railroad car before it reaches the city, but IM says if the victims are "disconnected" forcibly it'll kill them. Fury gives him a deadline and wishes him luck. With Jasper's help, the car with the equipment is disconnected-- and left behind-- as IM and the Controller slug it out on the still-moving train, until they get far enough away that he runs out of power-- freeing his victims. Lucky break.

Not one of my favorite issues in a run that isn't a fave of mine in the first place. I first ran across the Controller several years later when, I think, Gerry Conway brought him back. I didn't like him as a villain there, or here. I guess Archie Goodwin's doing an "okay" job on the writing, but that's as far as I'll go. George Tuska & Johnny Craig are doing "okay" on the art, though at this point I'm wondering what's with all these odd-shaped panels. Apart from the splash page, there isn't a single straight rectancular panel in this entire issue!!!

I paid "only" $10.00 for this some years ago, and still felt ripped off.

The suspense is over...


CAPTAIN AMERICA #113 -- "The Strange Death Of Captain America" begins with a news report on Cap's murder by Hydra agents, and the strange fact of a "Steve Rogers" face mask being found, suggesting that it was a fake identity. We see the "origin" of Madame Hydra-- a refugee in war-torn Europe, who hides a "disfigured" right side of her face under all that hair. (Rumors of Dr. Doom only having one tiny scratch may have been misplaced; judging by the reflection in one panel, I'd say Madame Hyrda was the one with "only" one tiny scratch!) The Avengers gather for the wake, and Nick Fury gives the eulogy. Rick Jones is too shattered to speak. Suddenly, gas knocks everyone out, and the undertakers are revealed to be Hydra agents, bent on wiping out all their enemies at once-- by BURYING them in a cemetary! (Holy Edgar Allan Poe!!) Rick folows, but they get the drop on him...

SUDDENLY!!!!!-- out of the darkness the roar of a motorcycle cuts the night, and CAPTAIN AMERICA-- still alive-- tears into the scene! Cap & Rick fight the Hydra goons, the highly-explosive gasolene in his bike taking out most of them. A pair of heat-seeking hunter missiles miss the heroes when they dive into an open grave, and Madame Hydra winds up being their target instead. Cap & Rick are back in business-- and as Cap says, he now has a "secret identity" again.

This is probably Steranko's 2ND all-time best issue ever. For whatever reason (schedule? artistic preference?) Tom Palmer replaced Joe Sinnott on this issue as inker. As I noticed before he even debuted, some of the panels remind me a bit of Syd Shores' work (was Palmer inspired by Shores?). But something else I NEVER noticed before-- and I've read this one maybe a DOZEN times over the years-- is how Steranko & Palmer in quite a few panels strongly emulate the line-rendering style of WILL EISNER, whose page layouts and storytelling Steranko had already been using since his debut on SHIELD. What's funny is the way Steve is in "disguise" for half the issue, in an overcoat and hat-- very much like Denny Colt as THE SPIRIT-- and the 2nd half of the issue takes place in a cemetary-- it could have been "Wildwood" for all I know! Amazing that I never picked up on this before!

I'm STILL not clear on the details as to exactly why this episode was a month late... or what changes, if any, Stan Lee may have forced on Jim Steranko's story... or WHY, for that matter, Jim's intended long run ENDED right here. DAMN! 3 whole issues??? It just doesn't seem right. This was the LAST full comic Steranko ever did for Marvel. What a WASTE of so much talent.

Incidentally, the cover, showing Rick grieving at the base of a statue of Cap, was paid tribute to by Tom Sutton 2 years later, in EERIE #32 (Mar'71), when he swiped the pose of "Cap" for the splash page of "Crime Crusher".

Finally, does this new "secret identity" thing even make any sense at all? What's anyone gonna think the next time the by-now well-known face of Steve Rogers appears? That he's the "real" Steve Rogers and Cap was someone else? I dunno... if I was Hydra, I'd shoot the guy anyway, JUST to cover my bases.

The creative line-up chaos of the last few issues would contnue a bit longer...


CAPTAIN MARVEL #13 -- "Traitors Of Heroes?" has both CM and "Walt Lawson" wanted men (good luck, considering one's dead and other is impersonating him!). Mar-Vell adopts a new disguise (white beard) but it doesn't last long. At the base, The Man-Slayer repairs itself (gee, JUST like that robot the real Lawson built) and goes on another rampage. Despite being a wanted man, Mar-Vell goes into action AGAIN to stop the robot-- which has developed its own personality, not to mention a heavy dose of confusion. "Though I do not understand my mission-- nothing will prevent me from accomplishing it!" Man-- sounds like the writers on the book in general! The base guards start shooting at CM, he teleports away... to The Hellion. He finds the Kree ship has docked with a gigantic Kree supply support ship, stocking The Hellion up for a long, extended stay in Earth's orbit. What th'...? CM used the supply ship to help him get back aboard his old "home", then confronts Yon-Rogg. But despite wanting revenge so badly, he hesitates, and Yon-Rogg gets the drop on him, bemoaning as he does how much he HATES Mar-Vell, how JEALOUS he is of him, how much it "HURT" him to see his "beloved" Una with his hated rival all this time. And then he lets slip that he has the technology onboard to bring her back to life. SAY WHAT?? Before this can go on any further, Yon-Rogg points out that Carol Danvers is in danger again, so CM races to rescue her, beating that pesky robot for good this time. She now knows he does care for her-- but as the guards close in, she wonders, how can she turn him over to them now?

Gary Friedrich & Frank Springer suddenly took over this issue (whether Freidrich actually may have written part of all of the last 2 issues I'm still trying to figure out). WHY they suddenly jumped ship from NICK FURY is beyond me-- the last couple months Stan Lee has been playing an insanely chaotic game of "musical artists". On my 3rd reading of this issue, I must say this one seems more COHERENT than the last 2 (by a mile!!) but then Friedrich started off better than others on SHIELD and that fell apart pretty quick. Frank Springer is a HUGE improvement over Dick Ayers (I'm still flabbergasted at how BAD a job he did on the 2 previous issues). And, Vince Colletta, back again, does a REALLY damn good job on the inks. The only thing is, Springer is by far his own best inker-- so WHY was Stan getting other people to ink his art? As good as Johnny Craig and Vince Colletta were, solo Springer, I'M SURE, would have been far better. Tragically, starting right here, Frank Springer was one more artist who became just a "cog" in Marvel's assembly-line, NEVER really doing the kind of work he was capable of again, despite being with them for many, many years to come. DAMN SHAME.

No mention of the Black Widow this time-- or who built The Man-Slayer. Exasperating! I can only infer, by BW's appearance in THE AVENGERS, that The Man-Slayer must have been built by Egghead... or maybe The Mad Thinker (robots & androids are his stock in trade). You'd just THINK it would have been mentioned here-- somewhere!!! (Wouldn't you?)

The chaos isn't over yet...


THOR #164 -- "Lest Mankind Fall!" has Balder go to Earth just in time for Thor, Sif, Pluto, his "Mutates", and the atomic research building to all be returned to Earth from the far future. When they emerge from The Time Funnel, BIG FIGHT with the army commences!! Other than Odin still pondering about Galactus, and pushing Balder into battle to help ease his soul (in torment over Karnilla), there's not much to say about this one... except, ZEUS, brother of Pluto, turns up, reminding his evil sibling of "THE COVENANT"!!! Zeus rules the heavens, Pluto rules the underworld-- PERIOD!! And so, all these world-conquering ambitions of his are blown away to nothing, and all is back to normal. Another rushed, unsatisfying ending.

You can SEE why this entire 2-parter feels like it was intended for a "NEW GODS" story, before Kirby decided not to give his new characters to Marvel (and to Stan, who he no doubt felt would SCREW THEM OVER the way he did "Him", Silver Surfer, etc...).


X-MEN #56 -- "What Is... The Power?" sees the Marvel debut of NEAL ADAMS. The guy can draw, but his "storytelling" is, if anything, more confusing than Steranko's at times. The Pharaoh's men lay in wait in a "tomb" (it looks like the Temple of Abu Simbel to me) and get ahold of Alex again. Encased in a chamber which cuts off all cosmic rays, The Pharaoh-- who tells him their mutant powers are somehow "linked"-- now soaks up more power than ever, and grows to gigantic size (gee, seems like Gene Colan should have been drawing this story... heh). He fights the heroes single-handedly, until Alex, on the verge of suffocating (no air in that chamber), by force of will, manages to blast his way free. "The Living Collossus" becomes weak again, shrinks back to normal size, and the temple collapses to rubble. But Alex emerges from the ashes-- glowing with energy, which he says he can't control!

And so, ONCE AGAIN, Don Heck, after doing a bang-up job on a series, gets KICKED OFF in favor of a "flashier" artist, who isn't necessarily as good a "storyteller". (He was replaced by Gene Colan on IRON MAN; John Buscema on AVENGERS; Jim Steranko on X-MEN; Dick Ayers on CAPTAIN MARVEL; oh wait, that last one doesn't make sense...) And this time, Werner Roth, the one really "dependable" artist on this book (he'd been around since Jack Kirby was still doing the layouts) was kicked off WITH him. Tragic-- that kind of lack of respect for so much good work. While many in later years (including longtime X-MEN writer Chris Claremont) seem to worship the ground Neal Adams walked on and feel the book "didn't get good" until he arrived with THIS issue, fans at the time were divided. Quite a few letters were already saying Roth was the "only" guy for the book, that Steranko's style "didn't fit" the book. Before long, some would be complaining that Adams was drawing "complete strangers" who looked nothing like the characters they'd grown to know and love!

"The Flying A-Bomb" concludes the Angel's origin. Thomas, Roth & Sam Grainger do another fine job. Grainger's inks are almost over-powering, but his style seems to be such a PERFECT fit for Roth, I can't help but wish he'd gotten on the book a lot earlier. Looking at these panels today, I'm suddenly realizing just how over-powering Grainger's inks were-- when he was working with Dave Cockrum many years later! Either Grainger OR Tom Palmer (who inked Neal Adams on the lead feature) could easily have raised the level of the Heck-Roth art to something grander than it had been. Instead, they were brushed aside by "flash"-- and "arrogance".


FANTASTIC FOUR #87 -- "The Power And The Pride" have the FF (Reed, Ben, Johnny, Crystal and Sue-- wait, that's FIVE!) assault Doom's castle. But en route, the girls fall into a trap door and are whisked inside the castle, where, after a few confrontations with the guards, enter a posh room and find Doom standing at the far end of a dining room table loaded up with food. (It's a scene that would be paid tribute to 11 years later in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK-- right down to the exact same camera-angle!) The artist hired to do Doom's portrait suggests he & Hauptmann escape, but Hauptmann, "loyal" to his master, instead goes to REPORT this outburst! (What a suck-up!) The FF confront Hauptmann in an art gallery, and as he attempt to use a flame-thrower on them (to prove how "loyal" he is), Doom, who was preparing to strike the heroes down with a sonic burst from his keyboard organ, instead kills Hauptmann, feeling the "irreplacable" art treasures mean more to him than any victory. And so, "bored" with "the game", he tells Sue they're all free to leave-- there will be another time.

THIS IS AN ENDING??? I kinda wonder whose idea this was... Oh well. Last month Joe Sinnott's inks seemed a bit "off" in spots, but this issue he's back in form, with some of the sharpest, slickest, cleanest inks ever (and that's really saying something for him!). Gorgeous issue-- but somewhat disappointing story. Strangely enough, via the dumb luck of back-issue buying, THIS was the 1st part of this 4-parter I actually read. Then, I got parts 2 & 3--though I forget in what order. A friend who went to Chicago got me part 1, just about the time the ESSENTIAL book came out. I may have re-read the entire story in B&W-- but this is the first time I managed to read all 4 parts, in order, in color!

CAPTAIN MARVEL #14 -- "When A Galaxy Beckons" has Carol Danvers pleading with Mar-Vell to turn himself over to the base authority, so he can "stand trial" and clear himself of the charge of treason (for his ill-advised THEFT of a moon rocket!). The base guards are itching to shoot first, ask questions later. Meanwhile... (as if this book didn't have enough confusing side-plots already) Tony Stark, aboard a commercial jet-liner, becomes the latest victim of The Puppet Master (OH GOD, NO, not him again!!!), who orders him to go to the Cape and destroy Captain Marvel. It's part of a 3-way plot between Puppet Master, The Mad Thinker and Egghead (all 3 seen together in last month's AVENGERS) to take over the world. I can only figure CM is known because of that magazine article "Heroes Or Traitors" last time, but if he's a wanted man, WHY would the villain think the guy is hanging around the Cape as its unofficial protector? Well... HE IS, so when a mind-controlled Iron Man arrives, BIG HERO FIGHT commences. (Did we really need another one of those?) It goes on for quite some time, until... Tony has a HEART ATTACK. The villain, frustrated "for the last time!" at having his plans go wrong, hurls one of his puppets in anger at a control panel, which explodes... apparently killing him in the process. (But I know he returns sooner or later, so-- no such luck.)

Despite Carol being seriously wounded during the fight, Mar-Vell teleports himself outta there-- to deep space, where "ZO!" berates him for "wasting time" (no kidding) and not getting his revenge on Yon-Rogg (no kidding) and now feels it's Mar-Vell's time to do his bidding, so he orders him to teleport himself all the way back to the Kree homeworld, while he prepares to fill CM in on what's called for. Good idea, as CM at one point was yelling loudly for someone, anyone to "tell me what I should do!" I think this "ZO!" being really affected his mind.

"Rambling" is a good way to describe the direction this book has taken. So many of Gary Friedrich's comics seem like they start out with good intentions but then he gets lost along the way... Strangely enough, the last 2 issues actually do read better than the last 2 credited to Arnold Drake (I'm STILL not sure if Drake actually wrote those or if Friedrich did). The art by Springer & Colletta is much better than Ayers & Colletta, but it seems to be a waste of Springer's talent to have anybody else inking him, especially as Colletta's faces are turning very "cartoony" here. I was missing this episode the first time I read the series, so the jump from the previous issue to the following one made NO SENSE whatsoever to me. When I did get ahold of it, it only made SLIGHTLY more sense. I think.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention it before, but while CM was apparently in space for "100 days" during his out-of-control flight, since his return to Earth every reference to his disappearance has suggested he was only gone a couple days. Which suggests SOMETHING other than what we saw was really going on in "Rebirth!" Was this planned from the start, or are these guys just makin' it up as they go? (I lean toward the latter... How could anyone PLAN to do stories written this badly?) The last several pages, the layouts change drastically, from normal rectangles to odd-shaped expansive panels. Was this done just to reflect the change of locales, or did they switch artists in mid-issue? Gary Friedrich was credited with doing the layouts for the following issue himself-- and I wonder if maybe he didn't start doing so near the end of this one?

This was-- among other things-- the middle of a 3-parter that started in SUB-MARINER #14 (which I don't have) and AVENGERS #64 (which I only got when the ESSENTIAL volume came out). Over the years, I've really come to hate this kind of "intrusive" cross-over that just interrupts the whole flow of whatever's going in in every book it takes place in. This may be one of the earliest examples of that. I don't like it back here, either.


THE AVENGERS #64 -- "Like A Death Ray From The Sky!" has an entire small midwestern town OBLITERATED by a death-ray fired from an orbitting space station. (ANOTHER one? First The Red Skull, then The Hate-Monger, now this!) Of all people, the one issueing ultimatums is Egghead-- the former Ant-Man villain. (ANT-MAN, for cryin' out loud!!) At the mansion, the group returns from their wild-goose chase to find Hawkeye has now become "Goliath II". Racketeer Barney Barton arrives with a story of how his mob was invited to join with Egghead, The Mad Thinker & The Puppet Master, but turned them down... and all but he were killed for it. He wants to be a "hero" for once-- and the group left wondering what connection he seems to have with Hawkeye's past. Big fight breaks out onboard the space station, and in the chaos, Barton winds up getting killed... and it's then we find out he was Hawkeye's brother.

Several things bug me about this story. For one, Roy's "annoying" dialogue problem is returning. For another, after all this trouble, Egghead apparently escapes at the end. I mean COME ON! For another, how did such a small-time villain as Egghead manage to built his own SPACE STATION? I could understand it better if this turned out to be The Hate-Monger's station that he "simply" took over-- the designs were similar-- but that shouldn't be up there (unless the US government decided to take it over for their own use-- considering how extrememly difficult it is to get one of those things up there in the first place). Then there's the art. Gene Colan & George Klein do a nice job, but Gene just seems totally wrong for this book. And there's NO WAY I believe that arrow-shaped spacecraft is any kind of design of The Black Panther's. NO WAY! Gene's ideas about spacecraft design are more old-fashioned than Wally Wood's-- but they don't have Wood's finesse. They should have gotten Jack Kirby in and asked him to come up with a design Gene could use.

I wonder how this issue would have looked if John Buscema had done it?


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #73 -- "The Web Closes" has Spidey sneak into Stacy's house (something even Stacy objects to) so he can ask him about the stolen tablet. (Man, is this sub-plot dragging on!) Stacy tells Spidey that The Shocker had a girlfriend-- an "exotic dancer"-- who may know where The Shocker stashed the thing. Without bothering to get her name (for a crime-fighter, he's got a lot to learn) he races off to the area she lives, and luckily his spider-sense clues him in to trouble, because he finds the girl being menaced by "Man-Moutain Marko", a hulking enforcer for The Maggia. (That's MAFIA in Marvel Universe terms.) Spidey spends most of the issue fighting the guy, and though he looks like an Elvis wannabe on steroids, he seems as unstoppable as The Rhino or The Kingpin. Meanwhile... JJJ's out of the hospital, and wants to tear Joe Robertson a new one for making Spidey a hero in the Bugle's headlines. Joe says Jameson can write all the editorials he wants, it's his paper, but if he wants him to DISTORT the news, he better finds himself another managing editor! JJJ does a quick turn-around and says he "accepts" Joe's "apology". Joe's son Randy accuses Jameson of being a racist, but Joe tells him racism has NOTHING to do with it, and the sooner people of all colors realize what and who the "real" enemies are, the better. Marko escapes after forcing Spidey to save the dancer's life, and later, Pete is worried when he tries to contact Dr. Connors in Florida about a summer job (which would be so convenient as Aunt May's down there on vacation), only to find 2 unknown goons made off with the Doc. And, in New York, Connors is brought before Silvermane, one of the Maggia's most senior leaders, who's taken over the top spot (since Whitney Frost blew it in IRON MAN, I guess), and he wants Connors' help-- along with the Kingpin's man Wilson (who he had spring from prison) to decipher the secret of the tablet. Connors is worried, of course, that he might turn back into the Lizard. (AGAIN? but that trick never works!)

The way the credits are written this time, I'm wondering if John Romita did ANYTHING on the art (other than touch-ups on faces) at all? Jim Mooney's listed as "illustrator", which sounds like more than just "pencils", and the layouts are again by John Buscema, who's okay, but there's just something "missing". The fact that 75% of the issue consists of 4-panel pages only makes this episode fly by feeling as though there was hardly any "story" in it at all! If I hadda guess, I'd say Romita came up with the basic plot, Buscema supplied the rest while doing layouts, Mooney did pencils & inks, Romita did touch-ups, and Lee wrote the dialogue. There's no way to be sure, but I think that's a pretty good estimation of what probably went on here. Most of the issue comes across as so "average" it's almost painful. Surprisingly, the JJJ-Joe-Randy scene-- the only one done in 6-panel pages-- is BY FAR the best writing in the book. Via personal experience, I've seen people throw the "racism" word around when it doesn't even enter into a picture-- usually as a cheap easy dodge to avoid facing whatever the "real" problems at hand are. Was this Stan's work, or was it basically Romita's? Whoever was responsible, I give them credit for it-- it can be a DANGEROUS thing to throw around, especially if innocent people wind up getting hurt over it.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #114 -- "The Man Behind The Mask" starts off with the LAMEST spash page I've seen in any 60's Marvel to date. Coming right after Jim Steranko's 3 issues, it's a shock-- and a slap-in-the-face. With his "secred identity" restored-- or at least, with the world believing "Steve Rogers" is "dead" (I'm not sure I understand this either way), Cap feels he must change his life, and remove himself from anything that could connect him with "Steve Rogers". He even avoids Avengers mansion, though The Black Panther, seeing him walking by, recognizes him by his body language alone. In costume, Cap goes to the SHIELD barber shop, where Fury tells him Sharon Carter violated orders on her latest mission and is now in deep trouble. Taking on a building full of gangsters, Sharon goes thru the motions, the whole time looking like she's gonna fall apart emotionally because-- after all-- Steve's "dead"! (THIS is one of Fury's "best" agents??) Cap-- followed by Fury and his men-- show up in time, and Sharon gets more gushy & emotional than Gwen Stacy. (Like we really needed this!) But then-- so like a guy from the 40's-- he asks her to quit her job, she refuses, and he walks off, in search of a new life. WTF??? Turned down by every hotel except the lowest & sleaziest (no baggage, no i.d., no references... he's not thinking this "new identity" thing through, IS he?), he finally settles in for some depressing soul-searching... when, out of nowhere, THE RED SKULL shows up-- armed once again with (GASP!) The COSMIC CUBE!!! (uh oh...!!!)

I know it's tough to follow in some people's footsteps. Replacing Kirby's a tough one. Replacing Steranko's a really tough one. But THIS... this issue is just BAD. The first time I read it, 30 years ago, I plowed thru it so fast on my way to the next issue (I bought about 50 issues in one shot at a convention in NYC), I probably didn't have time to notice how bad it was. Visual details sparse-- characterization way off-- plot developments totally non-sensical... WHAT the hell is this? I mean, apart from anything else... there's NO WAY Jack Kirby would have had the Steve-Sharon relationship go this way. NO WAY!! Kirby had Sharon as a tough, capable agent, and a devoted girlfriend. But Stan Lee keeps pushing things into "bad soap-opera" territory. OY!

Stan asked John Romita if he could take over C.A. But Romita was already loaded up with SPIDER-MAN. Their solution? To get someone else to do the layouts, from Stan & John's plots. Thus, John Buscema was YANKED off THE AVENGERS (in the middle of oe of the best runs the book ever had) to do layouts for SPIDER-MAN. It looked nice-- but it didn't "feel" right. Well, something I didn't notice before... I don't believe Romita actually DREW this issue! I see his storytelling-- but NO HINT of his drawing. After about 16 or 17 issues of doing layouts (with Heck & Esposito, with Mooney, with Buscema & Mooney), I think that's exactly what Romita did here-- despite how BIG his name and Stan's are in the credits-- LAYOUTS. What didn't hit me before-- probably because it was in such little tiny type-- this issue was longtime Cap artist SAL BUSCEMA's debut on the series! Sal clearly did pencils AND inks (over Romita's layouts). It looks "nice"-- for Sal-- but if it was supposed to be "Romita" art, it falls terribly short of being so.

It seems so strange... Considering The Avengers turn up in this issue, I'd say it would have been better to get JOHN Buscema to draw this, and just left John Romita on SPIDER-MAN. (Someone stop Stan Lee before he "edits" again!!!!)


SILVER SURFER #6 -- "Worlds Without End" has The Surfer hit on the idea that Galactus' barrier may not exist in the future. So, he zips around Earth faster and faster until he exceeeds light-speed and time-warps to the future. But there, he finds Earth destroyed and lifeless. He travels back to Zenn-La, only to find the same thing. Planet after planet, lifeless wastes... until he runs across some really miserable aliens who try to kill him, for their master, "The Overlord". Before long, he's a prisoner, and finds The Overlord is a 10-foot-tall alien whose made it his mission in life to "rule, conquer and destroy" all life ("rule" and "destroy" seem at odds with each other... but never mind). Because he's run out of plot ideas, Stan's "origin" for The Overlord is he's a mutant, who's parents were affected in an accident at an atomic research plant (how many times have we heard this one before?) whose son grew to monstrous size and power, and proved indestructible and unstoppable. One thing led to another, he took over his own planet, created a fleet to do the same with other planets, along the way wiping out most life wherever he went. The Surfer realizes the "only" way to stop this abomination against life is to go BACK in time and prevent the accident from happening. Which, incredibly, he does. There was no hint as to what planet or time the accident took place, but he's there in a flash. At the end, he's once more in Earth orbit, wondering if if it was all a dream or not. GREAT. A "dream" story and we're not even SURE if it was one or not??

With every episode of this I read, it's more and more obvious why this book wasn't that popular. Talk about relentlessly downbeat... Seems this would have gone over better in the 90's. But then, considering the state of the comics industry, it probably had more sales back then than it would have now!

Kinda like the Dodge Ram line of pick-up trucks... Well which is it, "dodge" or "ram"?

Neat synopses, prof... makes me glad my interest in CM's series didn't kick in until around #18 or so, definitely with Starlin and #25-33. Now I'm in no rush to buy up earlier back-issues...

And Surfer... He always worked better as a guest-star/supporting character than a solo lead, IMHO, at least in his earliest incarnations. And this is coming from someone who LOVED his 90's solo series, up through issue #100 or so...

THOR #165 -- "Him!" has Thor, Sif & Balder enter the scientific research building and discover "Him" (from FF #66-67). A flashback alerts the readers that The Watcher, doing research in space, accidentally caught the guy in his "space trap", and as the guy protected himself by forming a new "cocoon", The Watcher felt the best way to make up for his mistake was to "return" Him to Earth... (Somehow this entire thing seems utterly contrived... but whatever.) Him still has no interest in interacting with Earth creatures, and will leave for space once more... but decides he's "lonely", wants a mate, and Sif will do. SAY WHAT?? Him flees to space with Sif, Thor & Balder pursue... Meanwhile, Odin still searches for info about Galactus (there's just something "not right" about the way this sub-plot if being handled, I can feel it). And, Karnilla enlists the aid of "Hagg", a cronish underling. Just as Thor & Balder have caught up with Him & Sif, Haag and some demons appear to drag Balder back to Karnilla, who just doesn't wanna take "no" for an answer. Thor & Balder manage to fight off the sorcerous types... but when they're done, notice that Him & Sif have vanished-- AGAIN! Thor swears he shall wreak a vengeance on Him like none he has ever wreaked before!!!

I do wonder about this story. The whole thing of Him being back on Earth, and making off with Sif, AND Thor going into a murderous rage (more next issue) just seems contrived. The 1st time I read this, I couldn't shake the feeling that part of this plot may have been leftover from the 2nd HALF of the intended 4-parter in the FF. It would have made a lot more sense to me to have Ben go berzerk about Him making off with Alicia-- from a scientific complex. (You see what I mean?)

Kirby's art's fine as usual, but Colletta's inks are back to just "average". Oh well.


THE AVENGERS #65 -- "Mightier Than The Sword?" has Egghead hire The Swordsman to defeat and bring him Hawkeye (for reasons I've already forgotten!) and "Giant-Man" (who was his old foe). Using an electronic pass-key he's had since AVENGERS #20 (and you mean to tell me they NEVER CHANGED the security codes???), he breaks in, challenges Hawkeye (now Goliath II), but the stupidest thing happens. ALL of the Avengers wind up in a fight with each other, as they try to tackle The Swordsman as a team, but "Goliath" keeps knocking them aside, as HE wants to do it on his own. (How STUPID can some characters be?) Clint really screwed up by doing this, because once the dust cleared, Swordsman somehow managed to cause him to shrink back to normal size, unconscious, at which point the baddie made off with him easy. Back at the hideout, Egghead & Swordsman then get into a fight (was there something in the air that day?), partly because Egghead isn't sure "Hawkeye" and "Goliath" are really the same person or not (neither one of them having figured out that "Giant-Man" is now "Yellowjacket"-- still back at Avengers Mansion). In the end, "Goliath II" manages to beat both baddies, which was really overdue, if you ask me.

We find in this issue that both Clint & his brother Barney joind the carnival at the same time. When Clint found The Swordsman was embezzling, he wanted nothing of the scheme, and nearly got killed for it. His brother, frustrasted at Clint's attitude, saying "We could have been on easy street!", ran off, became a racketeer, and the two never saw each other until the day Barney came back, tried to be a hero for once, and got killed for his efforts. So Clint finally beating The Swordsman not only proved he had become better than his "teacher", he also brought to justice the guy responsible for steering his brother toward crime.

Gene Colan's joined by Sam Grainger this time-- Grainger really seems to be getting around fast at this point. It's "nice"-- maybe not as nice as Colan-Klein-- but Gene just doesn't "fit" on this book. Oh well, this would be his last issue for many, many years, in any case.


X-MEN #57 -- "The Sentinels Live!" kicks things into even higher gear than last time. Lorna Dane, wallowing around her apartment (in costume for no apparent reason) laments her slowly fading powers... until she's attacked & kidnapped by a pair of SENTINELS, those mind-numbingly STUPID robots from X-MEN #14-16. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Iceman brings the cops, but on seeing "The Pharaoh" / "The Living Monolith" is really "Professor Abdulah"-- Egypt's foremost archeologist-- the chief cop suddenly has trouble believing their story, especially once the Prof accuses Alex of being the "real" menace. When he decides to arrest EVERYBODY and sort it out back at the station, Alex loses control, a fight breaks out, Alex runs off into the darkness, at which point Cyclops gets PISSED and lets loose! (The team really doesn't seem to have a good track record with the authorities, do they?) On seeing Lorna is missing and her apartment's been ransacked, Iceman & Beast head back to the States to try and find her, only to run into a police ambush! They escape-- barely-- and back at Scott's apartment are wondering WHY the cops are after them, when they turn on the TV and discover a Federal Judge has gone a rampage against "the mutant menace", in cahoots with Larry Trask-- the SON of the horribly misguided scientist who built those STUPID Sentinels in the first place-- who announces to the world, "The Sentinels Live!"

You'd think the world would realize this Trask guy was unstable himself, but I guess when somebody wants to stack the deck in favor of the "witch-hunters", they won't worry too hard about logic in a story like this. I first read this in X-MEN ANNUAL #2, and also have it in a UK hardbound reprint book. I suppose the art is "nice" in its way, but somehow, everything about Neal Adams' work just seems "too intense" for me. It reminds me of SPACE:1999 and the way Commander Koenig seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown every single episode. This, of course, is EXACTLY what Chris Claremont seemed to be going for during his ENTIRE long, long, long run on X-MEN and its endless spin-offs in the late 70's, 80's, and beyond. As with the 1st Sentinels story, all the actions of Trask and co. run totally in defiance of existing laws, civil rights, etc. etc. I've often thought this is the kind of story you could get away with doing maybe ONCE-- twice, at the MOST! But Claremont & co. kept bringing these DAMNED robots back again and again and AGAIN so many times, it went way past ridiculous.

"The Female Of The Species", though billed as part of the "Origins of the X-Men" series, is really more of a "spotlight feature". Jean Grey / Marvel Girl spends 5 delightful pages talking directly to the readers, showing off her powers. After the lead story, one might think this 5-pager was in the wrong book! Ex-staffer Linda Fite wrote it (to give it a "woman's" perspective-- as Stan described it in the most nauseating, condescending fashion imagineable), while Werner Roth may have never looked better, under the inks of Sam Grainger. On the last page, especially, I was reminded that, to me, Roth's Jean Grey is THE DEFINITIVE version-- and I can't get over how much his Jean resembles actress Famke Jansen, who played her in the movies DECADES later!! (Good casting!) Sadly (or not, depending on your POV), we would never get Jean's "origin" in this run. This was the last installment of the "Origins", and the last episode Werner Roth ever did on the series. Damn shame. But nice way to go out! I wish all his episodes had looked this good.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #13 -- "The Super-Patriot!" has a guy in a red-white-and-blue costume (NO, not him!) holding a rally in which he claims there are "traitors" in the government, and "traitors" in SHIELD. Fury-- a fugitive-- watches, as SHIELD attacks, trying to arrest "The Super-Patriot", who has refused to appear before a Senate investigating committee. In flashback, we see how Dugan arrested Fury for the "murder" of Rickard (who framed Fury and then tried to kill HIM), and is helped to escape by Laura Brown. Later, Fury's mugged, but saved by Gabe Jones, who clues him into another Super-Patriot rally-- at the UN. The mugger turns out to be a Super-Patriot agent, who's told to keep an eye on Fury. But then we find the agent is really Jasper Sitwell in disguise, who tries to arrest Fury. Fury gets the drop on him, and steals Jasper's disguise. At the UN, a barge attacks, intent on destroying the "haven for traitors", when SHIELD shows up. BIG FIGHT commences. Despite being a wanted man, Fury tackles The Super-Patriot himself, who trips and falls to his death (awful careless of him eh?). Before they can arrest him, Fury unmasks the guy, and sees... HIS OWN FACE!

Apart from a few details, there seemed to be an almost total "disconnect" between this episode and the previous one. Both Smith & Parkhouse went back to England, and Gary Friedrich came back, even less coherent than before. Herb Trimpe, who'd helped out on NICK FURY #8 (for 2 pages) returns to become the book's new regular penciller, and is joined by newcomer Sam Grainger. While everybody else seemed to be trying to "do" Steranko, the art this time is more in line with Kirby-- though far more "cartoony" than anything Kirby ever did on the series. I loved the story in the previous issue so much, it was a tragedy-- or should that be travesty-- at the way it was "continued" here. More surprises to come next time. (Oh, joy!)


DR. STRANGE #181 -- "If A World Should Die Before I Wake..." has Doc accept Nightmare's challenge, but he does it in front of a crowd. Instead of using one of his usual spells to wipe their memories, Doc wanders off, thinking he'll "worry about my secret identity later." WHAT is WRONG with this guy?? (Is that what being in love does to a hero??) Doc spends the hour Nightmare has allotted him with Clea, until he's whisked-- physically (for the 1st time)-- into the Nightmare World. Doc battles Nightmare's army of demons, until his foe somehow manages to take control of his amulet-- and uses it against Doc! As Clea & Wong watch via a mystic scanner, it looks bad for our side!

Once again Roy Thomas proves he's much better with "other-worldly" characters than "real" people, as every time he focuses on "normal" New Yorkers, the scenes are annoying as hell. Like that crowd when he faces Nightmare. A man says, "He must have something to do with those monsters! Are we just gonna let him walk outta here?" A woman says, "Why should we stop him? He hasn't done anything?" And another guy says, "He said his name was DR. STRANGE! We'll REMEMBER that name!" (You just DIDN'T have stuff like this in the DC Universe!) Or later, when a pair of IDIOTS decide to pelt him with a snowball-- JUST FOR THE FUN of it. Oy. Dr. Strange did NOT used ot have any worries about his "identity". He was actually WELL-KNOWN as a practitioner of magic in his earliest stories. So why all this worry about people knowing who he is lately??

Gene Colan blew my mind once again with this episode. There are several pages in here worthy of being turned into pin-ups. Tom Palmer also did his usual astonishingly-good inks, though I have the strongest feeling that he had help this time. Pages 1 and 9 look to me like they were done by Wally Wood!! (The woman's fur coat on page 1, Doc's face in the top panels and the hat in the last panels of page 9 were the tip-offs for me.)

Prof, just to let you know I’ve been trying to read along while I can. As I’ve mentioned to you before, I grew up on the Silver Age Marvels as my father was a Marvel Zombie as a kid and bought them all off the stands. I basically read only Silver Age Marvels from ages 9-12 before reading other eras and other companies. So, as I’ve said, its by far my favorite era of all, and I can go on and on about why it’s the best era ever in comics. Mainly, I’ve just been too tired and busy with work and real life (damn wedding planning) to get the enthusiasm to comment. I’m of the opinion that the lifeblood of message boards are (A) speculation and (B) reviews both critical and full of praise, but I need to be in the right frame of mind to read critiques on my favorite stories (though your obvious love for this age shines through and its refreshing to read reviews from someone with such a vast knowledge of all the various titles).

But, getting to my point, your above post here is just so cool and interesting that I can’t help but want to see it expanded on! I’ve read a bunch of graet articles in the Jack Kirby Collector detailing what Kirby may have been hoping to do with Asgard in terms of the New Gods, and the idea of Thor & Sif surviving (with Thor almost like Superman in that sense) and how Marvel could have had their own Forever People based on previous characters is fascinating.

Also, I’ve read the entire Thor run extensively, and I don’t think it was quite that bad until the period post #300 – pre-Walt (which was its lowest point in its history). The 70’s were an odd time for comics but generally Thor was pretty enjoyable. Some stories dragged on, while some showed real flashes of brilliance. I don’t think it’s the same quality as Kirby’s run, but its certainly not that bad. I actually planned on rereading all the Thor’s sometime soon.

I always found the Shocker’s girlfriend kind of interesting, mainly because she was so funny and because this might be the first exotic dancer my 9 year old eyes ever saw. I have a list of characters I’d try to slip into stories if I could ever be the writer of Amazing Spider-Man (basically my one true writing dream), and she’s at the top of the list

"your obvious love for this age shines through and its refreshing to read reviews from someone with such a vast knowledge of all the various titles"

Thanks! Someone at the Masterworks board a few weeks ago accused me of tearing every comic to pieces, but I try to be fair. Some comics really are damn good. Some... the flaws get worse with time, and I'm seeing more now than I ever did. It's almost scary to be able to see what's wrong, but also to KNOW WHY. (And frustrating that guys who don't seem to know what they're doing are getting paid to be that bad, but nobody will hire me.)

I've read a lot about NEW GODS in TJKC, but not lately... The above speculation was mostly my own, based on re-reading these books as I go. I believe NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE and MISTER MIRACLE would still have been all new characters. But JIMMY OLSEN... that's where I had fun speculating. That was like the "crossover" book, introducing Kirby's new ideas to the "regular" DCU. What cracks me up is when I realize how much of it actually manages to capture the "standard" JO format-- "Jimmy joins a biker gang", "Jimmy turns green", etc. But when Kirby does it, instead of "YAWN!" it's "WOW!!!" I figured Rick Jones would be the "obvious" equivalent, especially with The Guardian / Captain America involved. I think it was that "Pluto" story that really got me thinking. It just "feels" like it was supposed to Darkseid, a Boom Tube, and an army of Para-Demons, and Apokalips, not Earth's far future. (WHY was Pluto in the far future anyway?? I don't get it!) And when Zeus mentioned "The Covenant!" --well...


"I always found the Shocker’s girlfriend kind of interesting, mainly because she was so funny and because this might be the first exotic dancer my 9 year old eyes ever saw."

Just think, if the Gloom Room A Go-Go hadn't closed down so soon, MJ might have gone on to become an "exotic dancer".