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

Joey Q might've left their marriage intact then.

FANTASTIC FOUR #88 -- "A House There Was!" has the FF check out that mysterious, futuristic house built mostly underground in a deserted area. Although Reed has strong reservations about it-- he suspects something's not "kosher" about the place!!-- Sue somehow manages to talk him into buying it, and before you know it, they move in. He really let his instincts get ignored-- bad choice. After having run-ins with highly-dangrous "security" devices, Reed & Sue both lose their sight-- an unexplained malady which had been occuring to other people in the area-- and that's when they find out the place was built by... The Mole Man.

GREAT art-- Jack's sense of design goes wild again, and Joe Sinnott's in top, top form. But so-so-story. Reed is made to look like an idiot (for not trusting his instincts, for trying to hard "not to alarm Sue"-- when SHE's not only his wife, but a member of the team). I guess it's nice to see The Mole Man return to "his" book, after guesting in others for a few years. But after this story, each further "return bout" just got more tiresome. Like far too many villains in the Marvel Universe.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #74 -- "If This Be Bedlam!" has Spidey on the point of exhaustion as he tries to track down Marko, the stolen tablet, Curt Connors & his family (who've been kidnapped by The Maggia). It seems Silvermane, their aging leader, suspects the tablet's secret involves biology- hence the Doc's snatch. Pete stops into school long enough to be the target for derision for being non-communicative (gee, just like the old days), and Gwen's the only one who stands up for him. Harry is particularly annoying, as he's been wishy-washy in his opinions from day one! Under repeated threats of death, Connors works out the secret, and puts together a formula-- which Silvermane drinks, with Marko the whole time protesting "Don't do it! It's a trick!" Silvermane collapse, Marko attacks the Doc, but then turns to see his boss-- restored to his former youth!

John Romita returns to layouts, and the book is the better for it. Jim Mooney continues doing pencils & inks, and wonderfully. I believe the main reason he never did his own layouts here was because he preferred working with full scripts (GOOD LUCK getting those from Stan or Johnny-- heh). I found it interesting that when Connors made his 2nd appearance on the '67 cartoons, rather than bring back The Lizard, they did a story involving "The Fountain of Youth"-- and now they're doing one here, sort of. The whole time, Marko seems out to prove he's the most brain-dead villain in Spidey history, and somehow, everything about this set of stories reminds me of the quality of writing I used to do BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL. (Maybe these were among my inspirations?)


CAPTAIN AMERICA #115 -- "Now Begins The Nightmare!" has The Red Skull-- armed with The Cosmic Cube, send Cap from one end of the universe to another, trying to "break" him. It's revealed the Cube was found by some villagers following a volcanic eruption, and used to alleviate poverty-- which grabbed the attention of The Exiles' agents, who moved it to steal it. At SHIELD HQ and Avengers Mansion, Rick tries to find out where Cap has disappeared to, and gets no answers. Sharon gives him attitude, saying "Cap and I are both professionals"-- making Rick wonder if Cap hasn't "dumped" him. (I SWEAR, there seems to be a gay undercurrent to this whole Rick Jones thing...) The Skull teleports Sharon to the hotel room Steve's taken, and she's unaware that he's also SWITCHED bodies-- or something-- so that he now looks like Cap, and vice-versa.

And so, another sci-fi cleche is hit... Last issue, when the Avengers all had cameos, it seemed to me it would have made more sense for John Buscema to be drawing CAPTAIN AMERICA, not AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Stan must have realized this after-the-fact, as this month, Romita & Buscema swapped books! Now, Romita's back where he belongs, and Buscema is on Cap. But comparing this issue to any given issue of SILVER SURFER, the art is so drastically different, it's obvious to me (even if the credits give NO CLUE to it) what's going on here. As he did last month with Spidey, and as Romita's been doing for 2 years now (including last issue), Buscema-- despite being credited as "illustrator"-- did LAYOUTS. His brother Sal did the pencils & inks, his 2nd issue in that capacity. Somehow... it doesn't seem to do a real service to either Buscema. And it wouldn't last, either. (5 issues in a row changing pencillers-- and we still have one more to go!! What the heck was going on with Stan at this point???)


THOR #166 -- "A God Berserk!" has Thor, enraged, seeking "VENGEANCE!!!", use his hammer to follow Him & Sif, with Balder in tow. Thor batters Him into submission, until Him forms a new coccoon and heads for deep space, at which point Thor finally comes to hs senses. Sif says Him meant no harm, only acted as a child might do. Elsewhere, Haag tells Karnilla (who kinda looks like Shannen Doherty in this episode, she'd be a good fit if Karnilla ever showed up in a movie) that Balder has indeed fallen for her, but his sense of duty is stronger than his feelings of love. She plans to use magic to change that... Odin, who witnessed the brutal fight, declares Thor "guilty" of allowing "WARRIOR MADNESS!" to overcome him, and he must therefore pay the price. With a huge ship built to search for Galactus, he decides Thor must be its sole pilot.

An average issue at best. Colletta's inks are back to 2nd-rate (3rd-rate?) and the quality of his lines reminds me more of his typical output from the 70's more than what he's been doing lately. A shame. Also, Stan seems to have run out of ideas. The phrase "Warrior Madness" must have been used OVER a dozen times in this episode-- I can't imagine anyone not being bored sick of reading it by the end of the issue. And, as before, I can't get over the feeling that this story wold have made more sense had it been used in FANTASTIC FOUR #68-69, with Ben going berzerk over Him abducting Alicia from the "Beehive" scientific complex. This is only strengthened when I realize that in FF #69, Ben DID go berzerk!!! --in a story that many fans derided as being a "retread". Maybe THAT story would have made more sense, too, if it had featured Him instead of The Mad Thinker? (It's like there's a whole "alternate universe" full of stories that might have been, instead of what we got.)


THE AVENGERS #66 -- "Betrayal!" has Thor & Iron Man back with the group (never mind the schedule conflict with Thor's series), aboard the SHIELD Heli-Carrier, taking part in a test of a new metal alloy called "Adamantium", which is apparently indestructible, and can only be worked with a "moleculer manipulator". The scientist involved is actually worried that the metal is so strong, as he's afraid of what might happen if it falls into the wrong hands. I guess anybody could see what would happen next... The Vision immediately falls under some remote power, defeats each Avenger who crosses his paths, and steals the samples of the metal. Sure enough, "Ultron-6" appears-- reborn, and now built with indestructible metal. Oy!

After 3 issues of Gene Colan, Barry Smith-- now working from his home in England-- steps in, inked by Syd Shores. It's an interesting combo, and Smith's work has certainly improved tremendously in only a few months. Not so thrilled with the story, though. Somehow, Ultron has always been one of my LEAST-favorite Avengers villains, partly because his whole origin and rationale makes so little sense to me, and partly because writers over the years have just been so insistent on bringing him/it back over and over and OVER again.


X-MEN #58 -- "Mission: Murder!" has the group realize they're in for the fight of their lives, as there's a Federal Commission set up to fight "the mutant menace", and other countries seem to be following suit! As one TV newsman says, "Sounds familar, doesn't it?" (an obvious reference to "The Jewish Problem" before WW2). Iceman's captured, is reunited with Lorna, and finds Alex is wearing a suit, designed by his captor, and using a name supplied by same-- "Havok". Meanwhile, Mesmero is captured, and in the process, finds out that for months, he's been serving a "Magneto" who was only a ROBOT! When Banshee gives himself up, only to attack once he's inside the moutain HQ of The Sentinels, it "proves" to Larry Trask that all mutants deserve only one thing-- and orders the robots to KILL all the prisoners! Judge Chalmers tears off Larry's amulet, which his father told him to always wear-- and suddenly, The Sentinels disregard his orders, saying HE is a mutant as well!

This story is just too intense for its own good, and Neal Adams' art, while nice to look at, has some of the most confusing "storytelling" ever seen in a Marvel Comic. The bit with Magneto was obviously a response to readers' complaints about his portrayal in the "City of Mutants" story being somewhat "off", and while it's suggested that the real Magneto was behind the robot duplicate, this is NEVER explained, in fact, much later stories would contradict that idea. It's frightening to think people would ever listen to someone like Larry Trask, let alone give him the kind of backing and support he seems to have here (something repeated in the 2nd X-MEN movie), as with every new scene he becomes more obviously obsessed and unhinged. (He kinda looks like Anthony Perkins a bit in this issue.. as in, "Norman Bates".) With the "Origins" series dropped, the lead series returns to full-length episodes. Even so, the pacing of this feels like this should have been more than a 3-parter, there was just too much involved and the whole thing feels "rushed".

On the letters pages, there seems to be a hate-fest going on for Arnold Drake's writing-- now that he's gone. Quite a turn-around, as when he was on the book, quite a few fans complimented him on giving Scott & Jean more character development than they'd ever gotten before.

FANTASTIC FOUR #89 -- "The Madness Of The Mole Man" is basically one issue-long fight between the FF and The Mole Man, in his specially-built "house", which serves as a "test-run" for his new equipment which can broadcast "blinding" rays that can cause people to lose their sight. He plans to mass-produce these, bring the world to its knees, and then send his army of Subterraneans to the surface to conquer the entire Earth. Nice guy. Reed manages to get The Mole Man's staff away from him, but is seriously injured in the process. Sue goes berzerk, and as the baddie is fighting her off, he claims "It was HIS fault, not mine! It's NEVER my fault!" He also claims "all" he ever wanted was to walk under the sun again... WHO IS HE KIDDING??? They eventually beat the guy, and Ben manages with some effort to revive Reed, who immediately begins talking non-stop to Ben's dismay...

Meanwhile, out in space, a Skrull spaceship is headed for Earth, intent on capturing a "slave" for "the games". Uh huh. WHY does Jack keep inserting these things in the middle of a story? It just breaks up the momentum...

Once again, GREAT art, so-so story. And it doesn't quite end here... and only gets worse next time. OY.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #75 -- "Death Without Warning!" has Marko not believing his eyes, as his boss, Silvermane, is once again a young man-- and even more arrogant than Marko. Spidey coerces info from some "numbers" men and locates Maggia HQ, just in time to take a beating from the newly-restored Silvermane. Caesar Cicero, frustrated that his chance to become the new "Big M" may be passing him by, tries to convince Marko it's all a trick. Meanwhile, Connors turns into The Lizard (AGAIN??) and escapes. Spidey eventually finds Mrs. Connors & Billy and gets them to safety, but Silvermane's hope for "eternal youth" seems to go astray, as he keeps getting younger and younger and younger until... well, it looks like he just disappears, but that would be silly, wouldn't it? I don't understand why Spidey should appear so dismayed by it (in the story AND on the cover) but I guess Stan just wanted to make some use of a dramatic title, even if we're not sure it's the truth or not.

Romita (layouts) & Mooney (pencils & inks) do their usual great job. I do wonder how John Romita might have fared if he'd been teamed with a "writer" who actually was more interested in contributing more substatially to the proceedings?


CAPTAIN AMERICA #116 -- "Far Worse Than Death!" (2 stories with "death" in the title in the same month?) has Sharon believing "Cap" that "The Red Skull" has lost his mind and is no longer a threat... and so they walk out, and he tells her he'll go back to make sure the guy's taken into custody. (SHE's not thinking too clear, obviously-- this behavior should have tipped her to something not being right.) The Skull (in Cap's body) uses The Cosmic Cube to teleport Cap (in The Skull's body) to a research station, where the security guys immediately start shooting at "The Red Skull". This gives NEW REGULAR PENCILLER Gene Colan (!!!) a chance to spend at least a THIRD of the issue on a high-speed car chase on the highway. WOW! Who needs "plot" when you can have "action" like this? Cap reaches Avengers Mansion, but NOBODY there believes him-- both Yellowjacket & Goliath II being particularly combative. (I mean, you'd THINK with ALL the tme Cap spent with Hank Pym & Clint Barton, he'd have been able to think of SOMETHING to say that would convince them he wasn't who he appeared to be! Then again, it might have helped if he TOOK OFF THAT DAMNED SKULL MASK!!!) Meanwhile, the Teen Brigade helps Rick locate "Cap", but when he finds him, "Cap" tells him to get lost-- what help does he need from some useless teenager? Rick takes the hint, saying he'll "never" take that kind of abuse again... (oh yeah?) The Skull decides to teleport Cap again-- this time, to the Isle of Exiles-- who he had just recently "betrayed" (that's not how I remember it, but then Stan's known for his memory lapses), figuring they'll polish off "The Skull" the first chance they get.

Well, after half a year of chaos on the art front, it must have been a real surprise when, of all people, Gene Colan took over the book, stepping in for a nice LONG consistent run! And wonder of wonders-- he's joined by Joe Sinnott on inks, who also decided to stick around. WOW! After the way guys like Syd Shores & Tom Palmer were able to bring Gene's complex, shaded pencils to life in inks, it's almost a shock to see someone with such a "clean" style tackle the job-- but like Jack Abel before him (and Wally Wood later on), Sinnott proves he can ink just about ANYBODY and make it look GREAT! Looking over these pages, especially the ones with the car chase, I wondered why Gene never tackled SHIELD. Seems he would have been a natural on such a "real world" series (especially after Frank Springer's issues).


SILVER SURFER #7 -- "The Heir Of Frankenstein!" has your typical mad scientist and hunchbacked assistant trying to bring life to the dead, failing, confrontations with fearful villagers, and the intrusion of a silver alien on a surfboard. HUH? Where'd HE come from? Oh yeah-- it's his book. In a follow-up to the "Dr. Doom" incident, Frankenstein sees the Surfer as his opportunity to gain power, and tries to get on his good side. But having been stung before, the Surfer's more cautious. Not that it helps him. Before long, the Dr. (who's so skinny he reminds me a bit of John Carridine-- especially with that moustache) convinces the Surfer he's found a cure for war & greed-- but "needs" his help to test the equipment. But what he really does is create an exact DUPLICATE of the Surfer-- in a scene out of the STAR TREK episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (right down to the lump of lifeless clay), except THIS Surfer is EVIL, and Frankenstein's servant. After ordering it to kill the original, the Dr. sends it out to spread terror in the village. But the Surfer's not so easy to kill, he flies after his carbon-copy, and a lengthy fight commences, from the village to outer space to the middle of New York (where the Air Force gets a report that "The Surfer" has staged another "unprovoked attack"). As the villagers once more try to attack the castle, and Frankenstein prepares to commit mass-murder, his sidekick Borgo (who's been called just about every single name in the book that Stan Lee could come up with in one issue) can finally take no more, and to cries of, "I WARNED you you would go too far!" he sends himself and the Doc plunging to their deaths. In NYC, the Surfer manages to drain the very life-energy out of his duplicate, sending him to oblivion... and at that point, the fighter jets attack. ZIP! Back to space, lamenting that he's risked so much "to protect those who hate me the most".

This was actually my very first exposure to John Buscema's art (not to mention Sal buscema's inks). By 1969, spies, superheroes and sci-fi were on their way "out", and "monsters" were on their way "in". My Mom was a huge fan of Boris Karloff, FRANKENSTEIN and monsters in general, and I'm pretty sure she picked this one up for me based solely on the story title. Strange that THIS should be my 1st "Frankenstein" comic, as well as my 1st SILVER SURFER comic. I'd seen the guy on the 1967 FANTASTIC FOUR cartoon, and he turned up in NOT BRANC ECCH #11, but this was the 1st "real" comic-book story I ever read with the guy. I guess the best way to describe this is, excessively melodramatic and "over the top". Every panel, every camera-angle, every pose, so intense, so extreme, so in-your-face, and not the slightest hint of humor anywhere. Also, apart from the Surfer, there doesn't appear to be one character anywhere in this book who's more than one-dimensional. I thought "Stan Lee" liked to created 3-dimensional characters-- and villains who were complex enough to be at least partly sympathetic. NOT this guy!!! This Dr. Frankenstein (we never learn his first name) holds everyone but himself, including his ancestor (who, on film, looks like an aging Boris Karloff from the movie HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) in utter contempt, and plans nothing short of conquering the world-- if he can ever get his experiments to work. Re-reading this now, Frankenstein & Borgo reminded me a bit, personality-wise, of Dr. Mantan & Ygor from the ROCKET ROBIN HOOD cartoons (and the 1969 SPIDER-MAN remake, "Phantom From The Depths Of Time"), only those guys were actually FUNNY. These two are more "pathetic".


"I, The Gargoyle" has The Watcher tell the story of Adam Swan, a talented, successful composer & singer, who's also a philanthropist, who's terribly miserable & lonely, because of his extreme physical ugliness. Turned down by every woman on the planet (I'm sure it must have seemed that way) he volunteers to pilot a one-way drilling mission to reach the center of the Earth, saying it'll be "the best thing that ever happened to me". But once there, he finds an underground civilization, where because of the dim light, people "see" less with their eyes and more with their hearts. His accomplishments as a keyboardist quickly win them over, and when he radios the surface, he says he's "found Heaven".

I forgot all about Howard Purcell coming back to Marvel to do this series. It's funny, the page layouts remind me of Gene Colan's-- who did the 1st installment back in SS #1. The overall themes reminded me of The Mole Man from FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (Nov'61). (Funny HE should be making a return engagement over there this very month-- coincidence? MAYBE NOT.) I see that this story was actually a redo of one by Steve Ditko from AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #12 (May'62). I guess that makes this a retread twice-over!

I consider this arc the best of all the Ultron stories ever told. Steve Englehart had the potential to top it when he introduced the giant Ultron who crashed the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver. Unfortunately, it was crossover with Fantastic Four, and the FF's then-writer Gerry Conway gave us a very unsatisfying resolution where little Franklin Richards acted as a deus ex machina. That really should have been the last Ultron story, IMO. The Ultron story from the late 90s is one of the few Busiek Avengers stories I sort-of like, but Busiek made the mistake of making Ultron so powerful that no ending could possibly feel right -- as it was, Hank Pym beating Ultron to death with some device that looked like an energized plastic dumbbell certainly didn't feel right.

Avengers # 66-67 have my favorite Barry Smith art. Smith, Keith Giffen, and John Romita, Jr. are all artists who I think were best when their infulences were showing, and when they developed their own styles, they were just horrible.

I definately agree, that is indeed the best Ulron story ever told. His earlist appearances from the new Master of Evil, to the Vision to this story have always made me like the villain, though like most arch-nemesis in comics, the sheer amount of bad stories with him in the 70's-90's have dilluted what made the character so special in the beginning.

"Avengers # 66-67 have my favorite Barry Smith art. Smith, Keith Giffen, and John Romita, Jr. are all artists who I think were best when their infulences were showing, and when they developed their own styles, they were just horrible."

Keith Giffen's "problem", to me, has beren that he keeps changing from one style to another to another, each time doing a BAD impersonation of yet another artist's style. If he'd stuck to one style maybe he could have developed it. His 2 issues of SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP (done about a year apart) showed tremendous growth, from awful to very interesting (and with a heavy Kirby influence). The "Scorpio" story in DEFENDERS was when I started to like his work, and judging from the unpublished pages in FOOM he was already beginnning to move away from Kirby to something else... but blew the deadline 2 months in a row and was FIRED off the book. Since then, it seems almost every 12 months his art goes thru another identity change... I really prefer when he's just doing layouts, and they get "real" illustratrors to do the pretty pictures.

CAPTAIN MARVEL #15 -- "That Zo Might Live... ...A Galaxy Must Die!" get my vote for the WEIRDEST comic Marvel put out in all of 1969. Unlike those I've noted as being their "worst" comics of a given month, this is not necessarily a bad thing... just utterly bizarre! Picking up from last time, "ZO!", that mysterious, shapeless, ultimate all-powerful ("HE SAID!") cosmic entity spends half the issue showing Mar-Vell images of the history of Earth, images of Heaven and Hell, images of "Tam-Bor", a strange pagan God worshipped by a cult on Zenn-La, the homeworld of the Kree (named for the first time in this issue), and then explains that the Tam-Bor idol is somehow a monstrous center of magnetic energy, powered by the energy of Zenn-La itself, which may soon pull every planet in the galaxy out of their orbits, unless Zenn-La is destroyed!! Never mind how insanely absurd this sounds... Mar-Vell would prefer to find a way to destroy the idol WITHOUT obliterating his own homeworld. He's teleported there, instantly pursued by "The Accuser Patrol", and just when he takes over their craft, the whole thing gets swallowed up by an even bigger ship, piloted by Tam-Bor cultists! WHOA!

What a wild, wild ride.The first half of this issue is like a replay of "Rebirth"-- itself seemingly a tribute to the "star-gate" trip from 2001: A SPACE ODDYSSEY-- except this time, it's done much, much better. This is one of the reasons I so strongly suspect Gary Friedrich wrote the bulk of "Rebirth", not Arnold Drake. Both issues ramble from one thing to another, lots of interesting ideas never really handled as good as they might be. The art is a trip in itself. The issue was laid out by Friedrich himself-- and I wonder if he didn't do all or parts of the previous ones (at the very least, the last few pages of the previous issue). The art is by Tom Sutton-- his 1st "serious" job following a lot of work on NOT BRAND ECCH-- and Dan Adkins, who does possibly the slickest inks ever seen on the series. Considering both Sutton & Adkins were fans of Wally Wood (Adkins having worked as one of his assistants on a lot of projects), the look of this issue might be described as "Wally Wood on drugs". The "psychedelic" sequences are truly mind-blowing, and our first substantial views of the Kree homeworld, Zenn-La, are nothing short of AMAZING!!! Damn! Why couldn't this book have looked like this from the beginning?? This also gets my vote for the BEST art ever on the series-- so far.

Throughout the entire story, Mar-Vell keeps doubting, wondering if "ZO!" is who and what he really claims to be. One scene has him asking, "If he's so all-powerful, why does he need ME to do this thing for him?" It's just like in STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER 2 decades later when Kirk asks, "What does God want with a Starship?" Considering I was MISSING the next issue when I first read these issues, I was left hanging, because there was NO CLUE, no explanation whatsoever in issue #17. But there would be-- in #16. The big question in my ind is, is what we see next issue what Drake and/or Friedrich planned-- or not? The letters page this time is full of insightful, detailed criticism of almost everything Arnold Drake & Gary Friedrich did up to this point, and readers are promised that "all" will be cleared up by the new regular writer, Archie Goodwin-- and they're asked to have some patience, because they figure it's gonna take more than just one issue to straigthen out the tangled mess that Mar-Vell's career has become by this point. They also mention that Don Heck "couldn't stay away" and will be returning next issue as well. Considering he was the most coherent "storyteller" on the series, I can't understand why he missed 5 issues in a row here...

Almost forgot-- Marie Severin does a terrific cover on this-- under some of the most bizarre coloring! (Wonder if that was her doing, or someone else?)


THE AVENGERS #67 -- "We Stand At... Armageddon!" has the team fighting Ultron-6, who is now rebuilt out of "indestructible" Adamantium alloy. The Vision figures out that when Ultron built him, he included deep in his programming a command to restore the robot at an opportune point if he ever got destroyed. Now, feeling used, The Vision is determined to make up for it by going one-on-one with his creator, and to make sure that only one of them walks away alive. But Dugan & the SHIELD boys are tired of waiting for news on the stolen metal, and not knowing about Ultron, invade the underground complex, and open fire on The Vision! This is the worst possible timing, as Ultron is about to set off some kind of nuclear explosion and wipe out all of New York City.

Barry Smith teamed with George Klein this time, and the results are much slicker than last month. Smith's storytelling is less confusing than, say, Frank Springer's, or Neal Adams', and Klein's inks really remind one of Kirby-Sinnott-- or at least, Kirby-Stone. His people still look a bit generic-- I think it'd be hard to tell some of them apart if not for their costumes. The ongoing plot in NICK FURY is mentioned, though the timing seems a bit off, as they say Nick Fury is a "fugitive" and by the time this came out, apparently, he was already in custody. Oh well. The story continues next issue, and I'm wondering WHY Smith didn't stick around to do all 3 parts. (I hate when they change artists in the middle of a story.)


X-MEN #59 -- "Do Or Die, Baby!" (listed as "The Last X-Men" on the cover) has the team's aircraft blown out of the sky as they approach The Sentinels' mountain HQ. Cyclops, Marvel Girl & Beast survive, make it inside, just in time to see a Sentinel craft arrive with new prisoners-- the long-missing Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch & Toad! Taking out the Sentinel, the 2 trios swap clothes, allowing Scott, Jean & Hank to catch further Sentinels off-balance. Larry Trask discovers his father found out he had the power of clairvoyance, and became obsessed with imprisoning all other mutants for fear they'd tried to "use" his son (as Magneto certainly would have tried to). But his identity as a mutant now revealed, those STUPID Sentinel robots will no longer obey him-- BUT, they are determined to follow his LAST command before his mutant-ness was revealed. (Some computer brains are just TOO STUPID to "live"!!) And so, they're bent on exterminating all mutants, until Scott takes a tip from Judge Chalmers (injured trying to protect them), and pits "logic" against them. In a scene out of a bad STAR TREK episode, Scott argues that the source of all mutation should be the Sentinel's target-- and so, en masse, ALL of them lift off and head for... the Sun. (I SAID those robots were really, really stupid!!!)

At the end, Alex' power gets out of control, he explodes again, but is still alive, and they contact a doctor to look him over. However, "Dr. Lykos" (whoever he is) seems to be almost as sinister as The Sentinels.

Once again, I can't shake the feeling that this story was far too big in scope, far too ambitious, to be handled in a "mere" 3 episodes. and after all he caused, I don't even recall if Larry Trask ever turned up again. You'd think he would have tried to make up for his actions from a feeling a guilt-- unless he wound up spending all his time with a shrink (given the way he switched from intended mass-murderer to saying, "No! I never wanted that!" between panels. "Stable", he apparently wasn't. On the letters page and the Bullpen page, a lot is made of the long-reaching plans of Roy Thomas & Neal Adams, apparently Roy was really hyped up about getting Neal on this book. It's almost a shame, because I can't shake the feeling Neal would have been a much better fit on SHIELD, especially as Don Heck & Werner Roth were really starting to kick ass before they both got kicked off this series. Neal's illos are impressive, but much of his figure-work is awkward and his storytelling is often confusing.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #14 -- "Nick Fury... A Day In The Life" has Nick under observation by SHIELD, as we discover the entire "Super-Patriot" episode was ALL in Nick's mind!! (A "dream" episode-- intentional last month, or did Gary Friedrich change his mind because last issue was just that ridiculous?) They take Nick back to his NYC apartment, where he wakes up to Val bringing him breakfast. It all seems like another tribute to THE PRISONER (which Jack Kirby already did a few months back in FANTASTIC FOUR). Nick survives repeated attempts on his life in his apartment, on the street, in his car (which someone sabotaged!) before finally having to parachute down to the Heli-Carrier. The Gaffer spews out all the Jewish sarcasm his can muster, complaining about how Fury destroyed the car he gave him (again!), then shows off a new flying motorcycle. The psychiatrist in charge of observing Fury continues to maintain that Fury is a traitor, and he'll prove it... until Dugan reveals they found out Rickard (who Fury killed) was working for HYDRA-- and had "several meetings" with the Doctor before dying. We're not sure if this was only a bluff or not, but it does the trick, and the Doc reveals HE's working for HYDRA, too, before trying (and failing) to kill Fury yet again. He actually manages to escape, which somehow doesn't bother anyone (there's way too much of this going on in the Marvel Universe lately-- bad guys getting away and nobody seeming to care all that much) as all are just happy that Fury's rep in in the clear again. Fury himself wonders why The Super-Patriot had his own face-- apparently not yet realizing it was only a dream...

Overall, this was a huge improvement over the previous issue, which wouldn't have been too difficult. I still wish Steve Parkhouse & Barry Smith had managed to do the entire story, as their opening episode was so much better than the 2 that followed. The Herb Trimpe-Sam Grainger team are really trying their best to kick Jack Kirby-style ass here, the photo-background as Nick's Ferrarri flys over NYC the only hint of "Steranko" influence at all. I'm convinced that with a better writer, Trimpe & Grainger could have done some impressive work here. As it is, it's too many drastic changes in too short a time for anyone's good.


DR. STRANGE #182 -- "And Juggernaut Makes Three!" has Clea & Wong watching Doc's seeming defeat by Nightmare in the Dream Dimension. But Doc's not out yet, as he manages to contact someone who's currently trapped in another dimension-- the X-MEN foe, Juggernaut (whose powers somehow derive from Cytorrak). This cross-over seems as out-of-place as when Man-Thing crossed paths with Shang-Chi, but that's Roy Thomas for you. Doc cons Juggernaut into thinking he's the guy's way back to Earth, and while the two baddies are coming to blows, Doc makes his escape, getting his cloak & amulet back under his control. Juggernaut realizes he's been had (he never was the sharpest tack) and the 2 baddies decide to double-team Doc, when ETERNITY steps into the fray. Doc is outright amused by the very thought that the awesome, omnipotent being he risked his life to "save" turns out to have never really been a prisoner in the first place, but merely allowed the arrogant Nightmare to believe so. And now, in payment for his earlier attack (shades of Dormammu), Eternity unleashes his power on the baddies... and, almost as an afterthought, neatly deposits Doc back home on Earth.

Back in his sanctum, Doc sees a telegram delivered while he was fighting for his life, and Wong tells him the name on the envelope has changed since its arrive, from "Dr. Stephen Strange" to "Dr. Stephen Sanders". Doc instantly knows it was the work of Eternity, who knew Doc was looking to find a "new identity" for himself. After endless millennia, for the first time ever, Doc thinks, Eternity actually "cared".

As usual, the artwork of Gene Colan & Tom Palmer is absolutely mind-blowing on every single page. I swear, these 2 guys were WASTING their time in the 70's doing the awful, downbeat, pointless TOMB OF DRACULA series-- they should have been doing DR. STRANGE all along! The letters page reveals that Palmer has been doing the coloring since #175 as well, one more reason these issues look like nothing else on the stands at the time. I still don't "get" this whole fixation Roy Thomas has with "having" to give Doc a "secret identity", as Doc was always a "public figure" people would come to for help, even if most didn't believe what he was into was anything more than mumbo-jumbo. The other bothersome thing this time out is the addition to the cover logo of the words "MASTER OF BLACK MAGIC". Come ON, Roy!!! Doc hasn't had that as part of his description since the first few episodes!! (That's what you get with a writer who is absolutely obsessed with "origins" and the earliest periods of any given series, almost to the exclusion of what's gone on ever since.)


FANTASTIC FOUR #90 -- "The Skrull Takes A Slave!" is either the 3rd part of the Mole Man story, or, part 1 of the new Skrull story (although it really started last month!). It's nicely done, but I keep wishing they would keep one story separate from another. Anyway, the FF are trying to straighten things out in the underground "house", but Mole Man, still unbelievably arrogant, manages to escape! Reed points out the "irony" that he hasn't committed any "crimes", and there's no crime in "trying to conquer the Earth". While this mind-boggling NONSENSE is sinking in, MM destroys the house by remote-control, the FF barely escaping in time. Meanwhile, the Skrull arrives on Earth, disguises his spaceship and himself, and heads for the city to locate The Thing. Disguised as Reed, he cons Ben into following him, claiming evidence of "an alien invasion" (no kidding!). At the spaceship, the alien reveals his identity, overpowers Ben, and the two head into deep space, as "the games" are "about to begin".

As usual, GREAT art, and a story that, like I said, would have come across a lot better if they hadn't overlapped 2 separate storylines this way. (But that's my opinion.) Stan makes another bonehead blunder this time when some of the dialogue is clearly intended to be Johnny & Crystal, even though in the pictures it's obviously Reed & Sue! (HOW do you make a mistake like that??) The thing that bugs me the most about this issue is the way not only The Mole Man made his escape, but the way Reed doesn't seem bothered by it. This is a repeat of what happened with The Wizard-- TWICE!! And let's not forget the Dr. Doom 4-parter. With Reed's sense of "justice", I can't imagine him really not caring this way. It feels too much like Stan Lee's "liberal" attitudes about "sympathetic" villains overwhelming common sense and getting in the way of how a story should have really played itself out.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #76 -- "The Lizard Lives!" has The Lizard on the rampage again, and Spider-Man promising Mrs. Connors & her son Billy that he'll do all he can to help and try not to hurt the guy, who in his reptile form doesn't remember that he's Curt Connors. Joe Robertson & Captain Stacy are still trying to figure out what makes Spidey tick, and Stacy would like to talk with Pete about what he knows, since he's taken so many photos of the guy. Gwen wonders if Pete's seeing another girl, since he keeps being so secretive and disappearing all the time, but he tells he hopes to be able to explain things to her soon. (Oh really?) Spidey catches up with The Lizard, big fight commences, and just as Spidey is getting an idea how he can stop The Lizard... The Human Torch shows up. Oh joy.

John Buscema's back again, and John Romita isn't even listed in the credits this issue! It's possible he did some tounch-ups on faces (seems like he always was) but it's hard to tell. Jim Mooney continues doing the bulk of the work (pencils & inks) but the storytelling is Buscema, who is focusing mostly on 4-panel pages these days. The result is, you get thru 20 pages, and you feel like you've only had 10. Not much story! Come to think of it, a lot of Marvels were getting like that around here.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #117 -- "The Coming Of... The Falcon!" has Cap-- in the Red Skull's body-- fighting for his life against The Exiles, those perverted Nazi types the Skull trained, used, then betrayed & left marooned on this tropical island. Cap gets some help from Sam Wilson and his falcon Redwing. It seems the native New Yorker answered an advert for a bird trainer and hunter, but once he arrived found the ad was a con-- these guys don't hire you, they only make prisoners and slaves of people! (How they posted an ad when they're stuck on the island is never explained-- what, readers should expect Stan Lee to actually think things thru when he's writing a comic?) At this point Cap has finally figured out he should take off the Skull mask, and uses some improvised make-up to alter his appearance (though why he should bother, when nobody on the island has ever seen The Skull's real face is another question never addressed.) Cap trains Sam in unarmed combat, and by the issue's end, Sam fashions a costume for himself, becoming-- The Falcon! (No relation to the 1940's detective character, of course.)

Back in NYC, The Skull (in Cap's body-- and costume) checks into a swank hotel and is mobbed by adoring fans. On the one hand, the hotel staff are surprised, as Cap never seemed a glory-hound before. On the other, he also tends to talk DOWN to people, including his fans, treating them like "mindless rabble". You'd THINK somebody might have figured something was wrong there...

The huge gaping plotholes in this book tend to be glossed over by thbe fact that Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott's artwork is SO good, SO gorgeous, I give this issue my vote for BEST-LOOKING Marvel Comic of the month!! In his "disguise", Cap (in the Skull's body) looks a bit like Hugh O'Brien, but Sam Wilson is a dead ringer for Muhammad Ali! I never got that from any later renditions of him, but as Gene was the 1st artist to ever draw the guy, I put a lot of stock in what I see here.


SUB-MARINER #17 -- "From The Stars, The Stalker!" reminds me of a KULL story, as Namor faces trouble from a scheming high priest who claims to speak directly with "the gods", and somehow "the people" all listen to the guy. Of course, he's planning to steal the throne, and invents a dangerous "quest" for Namor to go on with Neptune's Trident (which, oddly enough, looks nothing like it did when Gene Colan was drawing this series), and so Namor travels back to the site of the original Atlantis and visits his mother's grave. But then he's attacked by an alien from space-- who, it turns out, is in league with that pesky high priest-- and, unknown to the priest, plans to drain all water from the face of the Earth to restore his dying planet. If it's not one thing, it's another...

The art this time is credited to Marie Severin & "Jay Hawk"-- who, unless my eyes are deceiving me, is really Jim Mooney-- doing pencils over Marie's layouts (I wonder if she was really pressed for time this month?). Inks are credited to "Joe Gaudioso"-- another alias for Mike Esposito! It's strange whenever they get 3 artists working in a relay-race like this, as none of their styles really tends to shine like it might otherwise. All the same, Marie's Namor remains one of my favorites, and the depictions of the old Atlantean ruins are quite spectacular (though the bright glaring coloring doesn't help add any mood to it at all). Unfortunately, I don't have the rest of this story... one of these days!


CAPTAIN MARVEL #16 -- "Behind The Mask of Zo!" has CM captured by a group of very short armored guys guarding the "Tam-Bor" idol-- until he breaks free and gets inside. There, he finds it's no ancient or natural artifcat, but man-made Kree technology of recent vintage. Ronan The Accuser appears intent on executing him as a "traitor", and CM notes he seems to be taking too much pleasure in it to be merely a matter of "duty".
Suddenly, a "Super-Sentry" appears-- an advanced model used by the Kree Supreme Intelligence only in time of urgent danger to the entire empire-- and it accuses Ronan of being a traitor! CM manages to disable the "Tam-Bor" magnetic device, Ronan disappears in an explosion, and The Super-Sentry transports CM back to Hala-- the Kree Homeworld-- to face The Supreme Intelligence, who, to Mar-Vell's utter shock, is not out to prosecute him, but claims he was only a "pawn" in a game of deceit. The real "traitor", it seems, is Zarak-- The Imperial Minister-- who hated the Supreme Intelligence's "liiberal" policies and wanted to overthrow him. Zarak, it turns out, deliberately sent the Kree's most honored warrior-- Mar-Vell-- on the mission to Earth, along with his insane rival, Yon-Rogg, KNOWING it would drive Mar-Vell into the position he's in. And it further comes out that the "endless" voyage CM took in "Rebirth" wasn't quite so-- and the world he wound up on was in fact an artificial moon used for mind-warping experiments which have been outlawed for centuries. Not only that, that supposed alien being, "ZO!", was really Zarek all along, who, together with Ronan-- who was looking for an excuse to get revenge on Earth for his earlier defeat there-- planned to make Mar-Vell the scapegoat in an elaborate hoax involving the cult of Tam-Bor. Talk about head-spinning! Zarek tries to destroy the Supreme Intelligence with a negative energy globe, but Mar-Vell intervenes. In the end, The Supreme Intelligence reveals his chamber was much better-protected than any knew, and both Zarek & Ronan have been taken into custody. Only Yon-Rogg remains to be taken care of, but Mar-Vell requests to go after the guy himself, rather than allow Earth to be destroyed from a distance just to kill one traitor. The S.I. realizes Mar-Vell DOES have some loyalties to Earth, but lets it slide, though he says because of it, he'll never advance beyond the rank of "Captain", and gives him a brand-new uniform, to honor him as no longer being a "mere" Kree soldier. All seems well-- AT LAST!!!-- until, en route to Earth, CM is suddenly pulled into the Negative Zone!! (What th'...???)

Back on Earth, a delirious Carol Danvers leaves the hospital just before some FBI guys arrive, is mobbed by reporters outside, and then "rescued" by... Yon-Rogg. Uh oh...

This was the last of these early issues I got my hands on a few years ago, and boy did it blow my mind! In ONE single issue, writer Archie Goodwin managed to tie up or explain EVERY loose end, EVERY mystery, EVERY non-sensical so-called plot thread that was introduced earlier by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake & Gary Friedrich, and he did it SO well, he almost could fool you into thinking it was "always" supposed to turn out this way from the beginning! But I don't believe it... Archie surely proved right here he had a much better inclination for science-fiction than super-heroes, as I'd rate this one issue as better than all of his IRON MAN issues combined. In addition, my favorite storyteller on the series so far, Don Heck, returned and did his best job ever-- combined with Syd Shores, who supplied Don with by far the BEST inks he ever got on this book! This issue gets my vote for the BEST ISSUE of CM to date, by a mile-- and also the best-written Marvel of the month!

Which makes what happened next all the more tragic... and infuriating... Although Archie, Don & Syd were apparently supposed to be the "new regular team"-- the letters page the issue before asked readers' patience for Archie to clear things up-- all 3 guys were KICKED OFF the series, and before this issue even got to the printers! It seems Stan Lee-- who set up this MESS in the first place-- got cold feet, felt the book needed "drastic" changes in a desperate attempt to "save" it-- and this happened to coincide with Gil Kane-- fresh from GREEN LANTERN-- coming over to Marvel, and really wanting to do Marvel's "sci-fi superhero" as he had DC's. And so, it was put into motion that Roy Thomas, Gil Kane & Dan Adkins (who inked CM #15) should take over in #17, and the last few pages of this issue reflect those last-minuite decisions. OY! The "change" in the direction of the book was so drastic, virtually NOTHING that happened in this episode was even hinted at next month, which left me confused when I was missing this one.

All the same, when I read thbis story, I found myself looking at it as the grand finale of what turned out to be an 18-PART "origin" story for Captain Marvel! Whoa.


THE AVENGERS #68 -- "...And We Battle For The Earth!" has Ultron about to wipe out NYC in a nuclear explosion... until The Vision uses the last of his energy to destroy the deadly equipment from the inside. Ultron escapes, and the team contacts the scientist at SHIELD who developed the Adamantium alloy, and discover-- sure enough-- the "molecular arranger" was also stolen when the metal was-- and nobody noticed it until now. Hank Pym contacts The Black Panther (fighting off some invaders to his country back home) to ask for some vibranium, and hatches a plan to trap the murderous robot. The inventor of Adamantium speaks at the U.N. to alert the world of the deadly threat, while Ultron plans to kidnap him and drain his mind for knowledge which will enable him to create an army of indestructible yet mindless, subservient robots with which he can wipe out all of mankind. Ultron attacks the U.N. during the speech, and uses the mind-drain equipment on the scientist, only to be shocked by the thoughts he's accessing. A cone of vibranium encases Ultron just as he self-destructs, and it's revealed that Hank disguised himself as the scientist, then had Jan hypnotize him so he wouldn't know, as well as implant a post-hypnotic suggestion which only Ultron would pick up on-- a thought so shocking, so totaly alien to Ultron's nature and being, it wound up destroying him-- "Thou shalt not kill."

The new art team of Sal Buscema (fresh from 2 issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA, though few seemed to notice) and Sam Grainger (who's really been kicking ass around Marvel lately) debut. It's sort of "John Buscema lite", which I guess isn't a bad thing. While less spectacular than Barry Smith, I'd say the storytelling is a lot clearer. I was surprised re-reading this how close the theme of Ultron, an artificial intelligence who became aware abruptly and instantly went homicidal for no apparently reason, and wanted to wipe out ALL life on Earth, so closely reflected the much-later TERMINATOR movies. It's amazing how many things wind up in movies that were in comics earlier-- but the comics usually aren't credited as source material. I kinda wish this had been Ultron's last appearance. It would have been a fitting "finale".


X-MEN #60 -- "In The Shadow Of... Sauron!" has Scott & Jean drop off Alex with a Dr. Lykos, who seems to be more psychiatrist than physician. And he's got a secret-- ever since his father took him to an expedition near Antarctica where they were attacked by a swarm of Pterodactls (must have been near Ka-Zar's "Savage Land"), he's had this uncanny thing where he drains life energy from other beings. In fact, like a drug addict, he needs to-- more and more as time goes by. Having been an associate of Charles Xavier years earlier, he gets the idea that draining the energy of a mutant would really do it for him, and wouldn't you know, Alex ("Havok") is one of the most powerful around.

Back at the Mansion, the team has a work-out in The Danger Room, while Jean & Lorna (who, after her recent kidnapping by Sentinels, feels she no longer has a "home" and belongs with the team) watch in amusement, as Lorna tells Jean she's "no one's girl" (oh, what will Bobby think?). When reports of a "winged" menace suggest a mutant may be the cause, Warren gets pissed, dig out his OLD costume (only seen in the "Origins" episodes) and spouts another annoying Roy Thomas-ism when he says (for the 2nd time!) "...a guy who USED to be called The Avenging Angel!" Good grief. Over the city, he quickly finds the winged menace-- in reality, Dr. Lykos, transformed into a half-man, half-pterodactyl-- and calling himself the most "evil" name he could come up with (due to his obsession with the book "Lord of the Rings"), "Sauron".

I keep hearing about Neal Adams' "drawing mistakes". I saw one this time! On page 3, when the X-Men take off in some sort of flying craft, the landing gear has the wheels rotated 90 from how they should be. HOW do you MAKE a mistake like that??? Otherwise, the book looks fine, and some of the colors (which Neal was also doing) are really outstanding, though as usual, much of the "storytelling"-- especially in the Danger Room sequence-- is very difficult to follow.


FANTASTIC FOUR #91 -- "The Thing-- Enslaved!" spends most of the issue with Ben, on an outlying planet in The Skrull Empire, where due to their earlier fascination with a captive Earth gangster, has been transformed into a duplicate of prohibition-era Chicago! One of the "gangsters" (a Skrull in disguise) even looks and talks like Edward G. Robinson. It seems these "gangsters" pit "slaves" against each other in deadly combats (in which apparently nobody survives) to determine border disputes and decide who takes over who else's "territory". Ben remains helpless, and finds himself imprisoned with Torgo-- a robot captive-- who is scheduled to fight Ben to the death. Back on Earth, Reed has learned Ben was taken to an open field by a cabbie, with another man who looked exactly like Reed. As Ben seems to have "vanished off the face of the Earth", Reed concludes he was captured by a Skrull!

Great Kirby-Sinnott art as usual. This story manages to pay tribute to at least 2 STAR TREK episodes at the same time-- "A Piece Of The Action" (the one about the gangster planet) and "The Gamesters Of Triskellion" (captives pitted against each other in fights to the death). "Fun" stuff-- I guess- though taken with the earlier "PRISONER" tribute, it does seems someone may have been running out of fresh ideas here. Even so, leave it to Jack Kirby to borrow ideas from someone else, and do it in such a way that it's so well-done you don't mind!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #77 -- "In The Blaze Of Battle!" has Spidey & The Human Torch fighting The Lizard-- and each other-- as Spidey keeps trying to get the Torch to butt out so he can defeat The Lizard on his own, and The Torch just refuses to "run" from a battle. This stupidity goes on until Spidey claims his "spider-sonic hearing" detected trouble at The Baxter Building, and The Torch flies off, not knowing he's been had! In a warehouse, Spidey uses some chemicals to dehydrate The Lizard, and sure enough, it causes him to change back to Curt Connors. Connors & his family hardly know how to thank Spidey, and he leaves, everything having gone his way (for once), though he's not looking forward to seeing The Torch anytime soon.

This issue effectively wraps up a 10-part sequence that began all the way back when The Kingpin decided to steal the mysterious stone tablet from the University. It's been non-stop since then, and it's nice when they finally get back to taking a breather between stories. Once again, layouts are by John Buscema (once again using mostly 4 panels to a page), pencils & inks by Jim Mooney, and presumably John Romita doing touch-ups on faces. The way the credits are written, it's hard to tell who did what exactly, but that goes for Stan Lee as well (who wrote the credits), as he keeps listing himself as "author", even though the chances are Romita & Buscema BOTH had much more to do with the plot than Stan did.

SILVER SURFER #8 -- "Now Strikes The Ghost!" has Mephisto return, still wanting the Surfer's soul, and drawing from limbo the cursed spirit of "The Flying Dutchman". Mephisto offers the guy his only chance at peace if he'll pledge his soul to Mephisto, and bring him the Surfer's soul as well, by force. Soaring over Manhattan in an ancient sailing ship is sure to attract attention, and before long, the Surfer is drawn into a fight...

MAN is this villain one ugly sucker! Beginning this issue, Dan Adkins replaced Sal Buscema on inks, no doubt because Sal got busy doing pencils for THE AVENGERS. Also, without warning, someone decided to make the book a normal-sized monthly (supposedly based on "readers's requests", but I dunno) and this 40-page story was CUT in half just before printing, rather than be paced a bit different to make it a "normal" 2-parter.


SILVER SURFER #9 -- "To Steal The Surfer's Soul" has The Surfer fight The Flying Dutchman above Manhattan while Mephisto watches. At one point, the Dutchman threatens a woman's life if the Surfer won't pledge his soul to Mephisto, but this only makes the Surfer use his cosmic power in a more awesome fashion to attack the guy without hitting the hostage. He also feels genuine compasion and pity for the guy... and surprisingly, because of the curse he'd been under for centuries, this was the ONLY thing that could free his soul to go to its eternal rest! As a result, Mephisto loses TWO souls.

Not much to say about this. They're just not grabbing me at all.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #118 -- "The Falcon Fights On!" has Cap (in the Skull's body, and with his face disguised) and The Falcon (Sam Wilson) take on The Exiles, while The Skull watches via the Cosmic Cube. Meanwhile, Rick Jones continues to feel sorry for himself, which is a pretty sad spectacle. At one point, the Skull considers injuring dozens of Cap's over-zealous fans, but stops himself because he realizes using the Cube in that fashion will make people realize it may not be the real Cap. Finally impatient, he decides to step in personally to deal the final defeat to his enemy...

While not quite as stunning as last issue, the art by Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott continues to dazzle. The letters pages seem split over the Rick Jones thing, with quite a few readers feeling it was a serious mistake to ever have him dress up in Bucky's uniform. Stan Lee must have felt the same way-- making it all the more obvious that Jim Steranko was the one who wrote those 3 issues (#110, 111, 113), NOT Stan, though he refuses to admit it! It's curious that Stan seemed hell-bent on NOT having Sharon Carter become Cap's new partner (after all the work Jack Kirby did to set that up), and NOT having Rick Jones being Cap's new partner (despite Jim Steranko's best efforts), but he liked the idea of Sam Wilson becoming his new partner. I guess it was the times...


CAPTAIN MARVEL #17 -- "And A Child Shall Lead You!" has The Supreme Intelligence apparently communicating with Mar-Vell telepathically while he's trapped in The Negative Zone. Observing out world, he watches Rick Jones, who's feeling immensely sorry for himself, as he leaves Avengers' Mansion, tosses away his Avengers Priority Card (!!!), and hitches a ride to... nowhere in particular. Once there, he sees a ghostly image of Captain America, and although he realizes it can't be the real Cap, follows it over hills and into a cave, where he finds statues of alien creatures, an alien laboratory, and a pair of shiny wrist-bands-- which he puts on, and, following a mental command, slaps them together. In an instant, Mar-Vell is back on Earth-- but Rick Jones is stuck in the Negative Zone! While the two can communicate telepathically, Rick isn't the least bit happy about it. But before either has time to think, who should show up, wanting the "Nega-Bands", but Colonel Yon-Rogg. After a brief fight, he flees in a Kree shuttle, then tosses what looks like Carol Danvers out the hatch into Mar-Vell's arms. He realizes too late it's really a bomb, but the Nega-Bands protect him, even as they've given him the power of flight among others to replace all the powers granted him by Zarek, apparently lost when he was pulled into the Negative Zone. Switching places with Rick again, Rick now feels some sort of "merging" has taken place-- and he now feels overwhelmed with the desire to seek vengeance on Yon-Rogg, even if it takes the rest of his life (which it might-- the narrator suggests-- OH YEAH???).

This issue presents a violent shock to the readers, as after promising Archie Goodwin, Don Heck & Syd Shores as the "new regular team", and asking readers' patience to let Archie have a few issues to clear up earlier plot threads, ALL 3 guys were replaced in this issue! In their place were Roy Thomas (returning because Stan Lee felt things had gotten so bad he felt his right-hand guy might be the "only" one to fix it), Gil Kane (fresh from GREEN LANTERN, apparently really hot to do this series), and Dan Adkins (who inked Tom Sutton 2 issues before-- but try as he might, I think he's out of his league here). The sequence where Rick finds the cave is clearly a tribute to the classic origin sequence where Billy Batson finds the cave with the statues of "7 Deadly Sins" before being granted the power of Captain Marvel (the REAL one, not this new fella). It's only the latest element ripped from some other series tacked onto Mar-Vell, and it may be the most painful one to bear. While I found Roy's earlier work on this series extremely annoying at times, that was nothing compared to this. There's so much narration and self-indulgent and awkward dialogue, I'd have to rate this as one of the worst writing jobs of Roy's I have ever had to suffer through. Gil Kane, inspired by the dynamics of Jack Kirby's art, had spent several years slowly altering his own style, and his "new" style really explodes in this issue. Anatomy is stretched all over the place, the layouts are reminiscent of Neal Adams', the faces are downright ugly, none of them recognizable as the characters readers knew from other artists' work (without the costumes you'd never be able to tell who half these people are). And poor Dan Adkins-- despite having such a slick, sharp, "clean" style, Kane's pencils are just TOO extreme. It would have taken Wally Wood himself to make these pages look really good-- or Joe Sinnott at the very least. The results, at least to my eyes are, HORRIBLE plotting, HORRIBLE layouts, HORRIBLE pencils, and REALLY HORRIBLE dialogue!!! Stan Lee actually thought this would somehow be an improvement?

After getting my hands on CM #16 by Goodwin, Heck & Shores, I realized just how RIPPED OFF readers had actually been by this abrupt change. I wonder how it might have been if those 3 guys had been able to stick around and finally pull the series together into something coherent-- instead of having it PULLED APART into a total mess.


THE AVENGERS #69 -- "Let The Game Begin" has Tony Stark in the hospital on the verge of death, awaiting a heart specialist who may be able to save his life. But meanwhile, The Growing Man (from THOR #140) suddenly turns up, kidnaps Stark, and the team tries to save him, only to have all of them pulled into the far future to face Kang The Conqueror. The Black Panther, already one of his "guests", suggests they listen, as the fate of the entire planet rests with them helping their longtime arch-enemy. Kang has been approached by The Grandmaster, some kind of immortal omnipotent being, who has offered him the power to restore his beloved Ravonna to life-- if he'll just play a "simple" game. But if he loses, all life on Earth is forfeit. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Anyway, with the stakes being so high, The Avengers quickly agree, and suddenly find themselves facing a quartet of villains-- Dr. Spectrum, Hyperion, Nighthawk, and The Whizzer-- collectively, The Squadron Supreme.

This first of 3 parts introduces Marvel's villainous counterparts of DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA! As the JLA had faced the "Earth-2" Justice Society (some of whom were dopplegangers for the "Earth-1" heroes) and the "Earth-3" Injustice League Of Earth (villain dopplegangers of the heroes), here Roy Thomas-- who's always been a bigger DC fan than a Marvel fan (ironic, ain't it?) gets a chance to have fun with further alternate-universe copies (ahem, tributes) to some of his favorite heroes-- Green Lantern, Superman, Batman & The Flash. Only a Golden Age fanboy at the time might have realized that Marvel already had their own character called "The Whizzer", back in the 1940's. These characters-- or further dopplegangers of THEM-- would continue far beyond this initial "tribute". Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger continue a bang-up job, solid, sharp, if not generally spectacular.


X-MEN #57 -- "Monsters Also Weep" has the team spend half the issue fighting Sauron (half-man, half pterodactl-- sort of a fore-runner to DC's MAN-BAT) over, around and under the Pulaski Skyway (that's what it looks like to me). When Sauron suddenly begins to change back to human form, Dr. Lykos, he uses his hypnotic power to make The Angel carry him back to his office. The team later finds Angel at their mansion, with no memory of what happened, possibly hypnotized, and figure Dr. Lykos, who uses hypno-therapy, mighty be the guy to help. (And they NEVER connect that Lykos might be the one who did this to the Angel? GEEZ!) At his office, Lykos finds Tanya, his longtime love, has arrived. She wonders who the "intruders" are when the X-Men arrive to pick up Alex-- who, "drained" of excess power, is feeling great. But then Tanya's controlling father also arrives (gee, it's like Grand Central Terminal), more determined than ever that his daughter will NEVER marry Lykos, despite how much both love each other. Before long, as Sauron again, he attacks her father, but realizing how evil he becomes in that form, decides he must stay away from Tanya at all costs, and flies all the way to Tierra Del Fuego, where he was born, and where he encountered the flying reptiles in the first place. Tanya follows, and, fighting off the urge to drain HER life energy, he plunges off a cliff to his apparent death, as the X-Men, who followed, prevent her from also falling to her doom.

Well THAT was depressing, wasn't it? Reader reviews seem to be 100% positive to Adams' debut on the series, several hailing him as one of the best artists to ever work for Marvel. Roy seems geared up for what he hopes will be a long, productive run on the book. No question, it was impressive... shame it didn't last all that long.


NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #15 -- "The Assassination Of Nick Fury" has Hydra hire the services of "Bulls-Eye" (no relation to the later DAREDEVIL villain) to bump off Fury. They plan to attack en masse as soon as he's dead, determined it'll be one organization or the other who's wiped out. However, they also have Bulls-Eye follow Fury all over town while he's on a date with Laura Brown, despite knowing where Fury will be when he plans to kill him. The reason for this is the planned major assault, and their intention that during the massive attack, their paid hit-man will also get bumped in the cross-fire. Poor egotistical FOOL that he is, he never latches onto this, and wastes his entire afternoon following Fury around from rooftops, as if he was Daredevil or somebody. Must have been awful worn out by the time they reached Central Park, the Country Joe & The Fish concert, and the assassination. Fury's shot in the back-- Laura's horrified-- the Hydra leader suddenly, abruptly decides NOT to stage the assault (what th'...???) and Dugan personally shoots Bulls-Eye, who hung around too long, and was stupid enough to get into a gunfight with a whole squad of SHIELD agents. Dugan wonders if there's any pieces to pick up, as Fury appears to be dead.

Gary Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Sam Grainger were getting some rave reviews on the letters page. All 3 appeared set to do a nice, long, productive run. The inclusion of a full-page cutaway view of HYDRA HQ with all its weaponry & such (in the tradition of Jack Kirby's cutaway views of same, and the Baxter Building in FANTASTIC FOUR) reveal they put a lot of time and thought into this, and clearly had big plans. But it was NOT to be! Several pages before the end of the issue, Trimpe was suddenly replaced by Dick Ayers, whose pages just don't cut it. About the same point in the story was where the HYDRA leader changes his mind-- and after saying several pages earlier, "There's NO turning back now!" (Oh YEAH???) These 2 things taken together strongly suggest a sudden LAST-MINUTE change to the ending of the issue. For, while there is NO hint on the letters page, this turned out to be the LAST issue of the series. I don't know what was originally planned, but I doubt this issue was supposed to end the way it did. The fate of Fury was revealed in THE AVENGERS #72 (Jan'70), 2 months later.


DR. STRANGE #183 -- "They Walk By Night" has Doc answer the telegram from an old colleague, Kenneth Ward. Although Clea asks him not to go, and wishes for a "normal" life (what IS it with "girlfriends" and certain writers who make them get so whiny like that all of a sudden?) he can't turn down a request for help. On arrival, and making sure he uses his new "Dr. Sanders" identity (which Eternity gave him, and which only he, Clea & Wong realize was not "always" his "real name"), Stephen finds his old colleague suffereing from amnesia, with no recollection of sending the telegram, and surrounded by a trio of somewhat-menacing-seeming attendants. Doc eventually finds his friend had discovered some ancient statues sculpted in bizarre, monstrous forms, and a miniature statue, which he brought back home to study. Now, it seems the 3 men watching over him are really disciples of "The Undying Ones", and want the statue back at all costs. Doc manages to defeat them, but finds Ward has died. He vows he'll get to the bottom of this mystery, whatever it takes.

This story, a tribute to H.P.Lovecraft and his "Cthulu" stories, is the first of 3 parts. However, while the last page promises "The Searchers" next time, just as with NICK FURY, this turned out to be DR. STRANGE's last issue, as the book was cancelled abruptly with no warning, no hint on the letters page! I can only figure Marvel's big expansion earlier in 1968 must have stretched its fans' buying powers to the limit, and eventually sales began dropping off. Reports have it that X-MEN was also slated for cancellation, but saved-- at least for awhile-- due to the arrival of Neal Adams. (I wonder if Adams had gotten on NICK FURY instead, if that book might have lasted longer, instead of X-MEN?) Gene Colan & Tom Palmer's art continues to be spectacular, although with the complex story and more panels this time, a bit less pin-up worthy. Even so, several pages, including the splash, would have made great posters. I have 2 printings of this story-- the original, and the reprint in ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS Vol.1 (2005). Both follow-up chapters would appear in that, as well as the DAY OF THE DEFENDERS one-shot (2001). The story continued in SUB-MARINER #22 (Feb'70) and concluded in THE INCREDIBLE HULK #126 (Apr'70). This 3-parter effectively "inspired" the later creation of THE DEFENDERS in 1971.

Well, I can tell this project is winding down. As I close in on the end of 1969, among the annoying changes in the books in general, they messed with the corner box format, shoving the title, etc. above the art (I liked it better before); they eliminated the cool full-page house ads at the back, replacing them with a 1/3rd-page house ad in the middle; then they cut the Bullpen page with checklist to half a page, and shoved that in the middle; now the letters pages have been cut to 1 page, and shoved somewhere in the middle. You know, they're REALLY intrusive there! I like reading letters, but AFTER the story. Now I have to flip back thru the book to find the letters after I'm done. Over the years, Marvel has done this several times, and every time it's been stupid. I'd say the editor of the line was really losing his way around here. Damn shame.


TOWER OF SHADOWS #1 -- "At The Stroke Of Midnight" has a couple arrive at an old dark mansion in the middle of the night in search of its late owner's wealth. Marie married Lou Fowler only for his money, and got him to murder his uncle. But she keeps harping on how spineless he is. Lou, meanwhile, is terrified of the house, and stories that his uncle had somehow found a "doorway into time". On finding the dead man's hidden jewels, Marie proclaims herself a "queen"-- when suddenly, a hidden door opens upon a sight out of the French Revolution, as a blood-thirsty mob awaits the king & queen-- while the executioner standing next to the guillotine is Lou's uncle!

Many Marvel fans don't realize, or don't want to admit, but the real glory days of their 60's super-heroes WERE the 60's. And despite occasional flashes of brilliance here and there, they've NEVER really recaptured those initial bursts of pure inspiration. Maybe most series should only run so long... then go into perpetual reruns (reprints) like "classic" TV shows. US comics didn't have the kind of comprehensive, mass reprint collections like they do now back in the 60's... they just kept going on and on, unless they were cancelled, usually without warning in the middle of a storyline. Anyway, I'd say Marvel's "classic" super-hero line was winding down about here... and the "new" era hadn't really begun yet. But the 1st tentative hint of that new era appeared right here.

TOWER OF SHADOWS was, depending on your POV, either Marvel's attempt to revive the EC horror format, or Stan Lee's first stab at trying to compete directly with Jim Warren's horror anthologies (CREEPY, EERIE, VAMPIRELLA). I only have this one story from the 1st issue, reprinted in CAPTAIN AMERICA SPECIAL EDITION #1 (Feb'84), because it was "written & illustrated by STERANKO". No ambiguity like on the 3 CAPTAIN AMERICA stories-- Stan's listed as "editor" this time, though I understand he stuck his nose in and tampered with some of Jim's narratrion blocks, which painfully annoyed Steranko, as he wrote the words very carefully & specifically to FIT PRECISELY into alloted spaces, considering the words to be part of the entire design, not "just" words added after-the-fact. Nice work in only 7 pages-- though these kind of things can get too formulaic after awhile. That may partly explain why both TOWER OF SHADOWS and CHAMBER OF DARKNESS (2 bi-monthlies, they just couldn't do ONE book, they always HAVE to try flooding the market and over-taxing their fan's budgets) began including reprints of old material before too long. At one point, a few years down the line, at the height of the "horror" boom (after the Comics Code had been re-written and relaxed) Stan proudly proclaimed Marvel had become "#1!!" in the horror comics field. In sales-- maybe. But he NEVER really beat Jim Warren in quality. Stan had just become the new Martin Goodman at that point...

Steranko did a really innovative, eye-catching cover (and logo) for TOS-- but Stan rejected it, feeling it "went too far", and it was replaced with a "standard" cover by John Romita. The art's not bad, but the overall design, especially that logo in the BIG OVAL doesn't stand out to make me wanna buy the thing. Steranko's version is posted at Nick Simon's SILVER AGE MARVEL site. Compare...
http://www.samcci.comics.org/misc/towershad01.jpg
http://www.samcci.comics.org/misc/tower1-orig-cropped.jpg


FANTASTIC FOUR #92 -- "Ben Grimm, Killer!" has Ben forced to take part in "training" to fight in the Skrull's "great games". It's like a scene out of DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS or SPARTACUS, only with sci-fi elements added. Back on Earth, Reed prepares to go into space to find Ben, and gets into an argument with Sue, who he flat-out does not want coming with them, as she's a mother now, and he feels her place is with their son. The games begin, as Skrulls-- all looking like prohibition-era gangsters from Earth's past-- pile into an exact replica of a 1930's movie house. Well, except for the arena of death in the front. It's at this point Ben finds why none of the "slaves" has a choice, as the Skrulls have a device which can send their planets zooming out of orbit, if they decide to get out of line. GEEZ!!! As the episode ends, we see Reed, Johnny & Crystal, aboard their captive flying saucer, heading for space.

GREAT art, and no complaints about the story. Well, except for ONE thing. Reed refers to the flying saucer he uses as having been captured from The Skrulls the first time they battled them (in FF #2). Nooooo!!! That was a totally different design, and there was no evidence-- ever-- that Reed took posession of their ship. The flying saucer is CLEARLY the one from Planet X (see FF #7), something I've remembered ever since I first saw the thing sitting in storage in The Baxter Building in a reprint of FF #11! Stan is just making one bonehead error after another at this point. You know, it's obvious why he skipped town and fled to Hollywood about the time Jim Shooter became Editor-In-Chief. Shooter INSISTED that EVERY writer "must" work with an Editor, and further, that in any disputes, the Editor ALWAYS has the final say. PERIOD. I don't think Stan could have stood for that... and he really could have used the "help".

I wonder if anyone ever bothered to correct the dialogue in any subsequent reprints? (I kinda wish they would...)


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #78 -- "The Night Of The Prowler" has Spidey-- in the dark-- get assaulted by some guy who wants to use the pay phone while he's trying to call Gwen. He lifts the guy up with one hand-- not even straining-- and the guy runs off, never even realizing who he was bothering. But Gwen's "busy"-- talking with Flash Thompson. (!!) Later, Pete wanders the streets heading for her neighborhood, and happens to see Gwen AND Flash in the coffee house-- talking. She wants to know how Pete was in high school. Flash says Pete always used to disappear at the first sign of trouble, so everyone figured he was "chicken". But Gwen can't believe this. Meanwhile, Pete thinks he's LOST Gwen to Flash, and continues wandering... right thru a pair of biker-looking hoods (like that scene in the retold origin!). With a casual swing of his arm, he knocks them both for a loop, saying "Up against the WALL, you creeps!" This truly HILARIOUS scene is only spoiled when Pete gets worried that someone might figure out his "secret", and he runs off.

Meanwhile, Hobie Brown, aspiring inventor, working as a window-washer, is frustrated at not getting any "breaks". He's come up with devices that could make his job much safer, but nobody's interested. When Jameson hassles him for daydreaming, Hobie's boss happens by, and a three-way argument ensues. Hobie QUITS-- and Jameson actually shows some stunning integrity by knocking the other guy for his comment about "your type". Hobie hatches a scheme to get some attention by creating a costumed identity as "The Prowler"-- but figures he could "go into action" much quicker if he were a super-villain, and so he plans to rob a payroll, then return it as himself and become a "hero". Wouldn't you know... Pete picks that moment to turn up at The Bugle and actually try asking JJJ for an advance (CLEARLY not thinking straight!!), just as "The Prowler" is making off with the Bugle's payroll. As Jameson rushes into the room, Pete realizes he CAN'T let the guy see him in action... what to do?

I really appreciated the 2 humorous scenes in this story. I've often thought SPIDER-MAN could have been a much more "fun" and "enjoyable" book than it ever was if it hadn't been for its RELENTLESS emphasis on keeping everyone as miserable as possible, in the worst bad soap-opera tradition. John Buscema returns again on layouts, with illustrations once again by Jim Mooney. I love Mooney's work here-- he does night scenes so well, and his Gwen is a DOLL (yeah, I said it, even though I don't particularly care for her, even here). There seemed to be a growing amount of "civil rights" awareness in this series, between Joe Robertson, his son, the situation at the college earlier, and now Hobie. I have to figure this is John Romita's influence, even though he's not even listed in the credits this time! (Did he contribute to the plot? Heck-- did STAN???) Funny enough, John's SON is listed in the credits this time-- as having suggested "The Prowler" in the first place!

The one thing I must say that feels "off" this time is Flash. I just CANNOT believe for one minute this is the same guy who appeared in the first 40 issues!! I know some people "mature" as they grow older... but some DON'T. Some NEVER do. I can't believe a bonehead neanderthal like Flash would EVER have "grown up" this much. It just doesn't seem true to life to me.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #119 -- "Now Falls The Skull!" concludes this 6-parter by having The Red Skull realize he can't allow others to kill Cap-- he must do it himself! First, he wills himself back into his costume & skull mask-- then teleports Cap (still in disguise, go figure) & The Falcon to his castle in Germany, where he & Hitler once planned to rule the world. (He thinks how Hitler is dead now... I wonder if he ever knew about The Hate-Monger?) On arrival, he puts Redwing in a cage, then restores Cap to his own body-- and costume. It's a great moment when Sam looks, astonished, and says-- "You're Captain America!" But Cap says all that matters is beating the Skull. It's a pretty hopless battle... UNTIL...!

Over the last few issues, we've seen these repeated brief cut-aways to MODOK and his A.I.M. followers-- now wearing blue uniforms instead of yellow ones. He's been obsessed with The Cosmic Cube, determined that if they can't use their greatest creation, no one will! We discover this time how he survived his apparent death in TALES OF SUSPENSE #94 (a mental force field did the trick) and now he uses a "catholite block"-- sort of an alternate version of the CC-- to MELT the Cosmic Cube at long-distance. Just before it's gone, the Skull uses it to teleoprt himself to safety. Walking off into the sunset together (just like in a western), Cap tells The Falcon, "We beat him-- with a little help from fate."

I dunno. I think, even though they built up to it for at least 3 issues, the ending STILL seems contrived and out-of-left field. And I'm getting sick of all these villains just escaping at the end, with the heroes not seeming to be concerned about it. These last few issues have certainly been a shining example of "style" over "substance". The art by Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott is GORGEOUS, and makes it easy to gloss over the lack of any really involved writing. Sort of like watching YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. The only criticism I have is the way Gene draws The Red Skull's mask-- it just isn't scary, and seems more shapeless than usual. Oh well.


SILVER SURFER #10 -- "A World He Never Made!" opens with Shalla Bal en route to Earth in a spaceship built by one her planet's few remaining "ambitious" types. She senses he's "cruel and evil", and he wants to prove to her that The Surfer is dead-- or has forgotten her-- so she will agree to marry him! On Earth, The Surfer saves the lives of a suicidal jumper and a police officer, but is still generally under suspicion (having once attacked the entire planet is kinda hard to be forgiven for). He "disguises" himself in clothes again and at random puts down in some Central American country, immediately becoming the target of aggresive "shoot-first" soldier types, who barged into this once-peaceful country, took it over and turned it into a hellhole. A local girl tries to help him, is arrested for it, and when he goes to rescue her, the real shooting starts.

The usual gloomy, downbeat stuff. Lee, Buscema & Adkins continue. I wish I could say it was magic. 'Fraid not. I have this in ESSENTIAL SILVER SURFER, and either the story only has 19 pages, or they somehow left the last page out of the reprint. OY!


THE INCREDIBLE HULK #121 -- "Within This Swamp, There Stirs... A Glob!" begins with Hulk plummetting toward Florida just as a missile is being launched. When he's spotted on radar, the base personnel "abort"-- blowing up the missile and sending Hulk toward the swampland. Before long, General Ross, his daughter, Major Talbot & a strike force are combing the swamp, hell-bent on destroying the "monster" for all time. Despite Betty's pleas about "the man she loves", her father asserts there is NO trace of humanity left in him. Meanwhile, Hulk, who's become even less intelligent than he used to be (and that's really saying something) moans about how "they never leave me alone" and how he wishes he had a friend (guess he shouldn't have chased Rick Jones off the way he did, eh?), and frustrated, takes it out on some cannisters... which just happen to contain radioactive waste. They mix in the swamp, with the corpse of an escaped convict, creating a monstrous swamp-creature. With the barest trace of its former memories, it mistakes Betty for a long-dead loved one, makes off with her, and soon "The Glob" and Hulk are having it out. As The Glob sinks into the slime (the radioactivity causing it now to disolve!) Hulk SAVES Betty's life, then wanders off. With his daughter safe, Ross suddenly feels she was "all that really mattered", and takes his task-force home. (HUH?)

YAWN. This series hasn't been the same since Jack Kirby stopped doing the plots & layouts. It looked nice under Marie Severin, but now, Herb Trimpe's doing full art, and while he's looked good under certain inkers, he's never been his own best inker, and in either case, he wouldn't really reach his peak until a few more years down the road. Meanwhile, Roy Thomas seems to be making these even less enjoyable to read than Gary Friedrich was. The whole "Why can't they leave Hulk alone?" thing got so tired so fast, and it went on for more than a decade. Hulk hasn't even reached the near-mindless child-like levels he would a bit later, but he's downright pathetic to read, and I can't find anything sympathetic or interestig about the supporting cast either at this point. I have this one reprinted in MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #17 (1978), along with 3 other "monster of the month" stories.

Perhaps the only really notable thing about this one is The Glob-- Roy's tribute to The Heap, a Golden Age swamp-monster character (of sorts), who would before long also inspire the long-running SWAMP THING and the equally long-running MAN-THING. Both are better names than "Glob", at any rate.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #18 -- "Vengeance Is Mine!" has Yon-Rogg, still hiding out in that Kree outpost cave, ranting outloud to himself about how he plans to kill Mar-Vell once and for all. He's somehow been able to keep track of all of Mar-Vell's movements, includig his involvement with Rick Jones. After Mar-Vell saves the life of a driver who fell asleep at the wheel of his car, Rick stops at a coffee shop and winds up sitting in on the music set. After a heckler causes a brief fight, Rick's accosted by "Mordecai P. Boggs", a self-important music promoter who'd like to become Rick's manager-- but he isn't interested. Next thing, Mar-Vell says he's suddenly aware that Yon-Rogg is back at the cave-- and he goes there for what turns out to be their FINAL confrontation!

Yon-Rogg-- who's suddenly sporting eye-shadow & a Snidely Whiplash moustache (what the...?) uses a "Psyche-Magnitron"-- another "forbidden" piece of Kree technology- to create a "Mandroid", a robot normally used for executing Kree traitors. Mar-Vell manages to get it to damage the machine that created it, and so he & Yon-Rogg have it out one-on-one. Carol, still a prisoner, sees that Mar-Vell is trying to save both her planet and his own (as Yon-Rogg, now an outcast himself, apparently has ambitions to overthrow the Kree Supreme Intelligence). She gets injured by a stray shot, and Mar-Vell carries her out of the cave just as the Psyche-Magnitron explodes, destroying everything in the cave, including Yon-Rogg. Mar-Vell trades atoms with Rick, who immediately collapses from exhaustion.

And so, the Yon-Rogg sub-plot FINALLY reaches its conclusion. Rather than any feeling of triumph, it feels more like an afterthought, and in the wake of the sweeping changes in direction, look & tone of the series, it feels less like something they built up to as an embarrassment that needed to be swept under the carpet as quickly as possible, so the book could move on to other, "better" things. The plotting seems to ramble from one thing to another with almost no connection, the anatomy is awkward, the faces ugly, and the dialogue annoying as can be. And on top of that... Gil Kane, due to a personal emergency, was replaced on the 2nd half of this episode by John Buscema. Don Heck was kicked off the series for THIS? I can't help but feel this is a series thrashing around not realizing that's it's already dying.

Perhaps the strangest item of note in this issue is the way Roy's good friend Gerry Conway (perhaps at Roy's suggestion?) took the situation with Carol, the Kree cave, and the Psyche-Magnitron, years later, to create something Marvel was decidedly NOT known for in the 60's-- a female "spin-off" character-- MS. MARVEL. Not even a hint of it here, though...


THOR #170 -- "The Thunder God And The Thermal Man!" has Thor return to Earth to find Manhattan evacuated (say WHAT?) and the army, along with his friends Balder, Fandral, Hogun & Volstagg, fighting off a seemingly-indestructible radioactive robot called "The Thermal Man", who was apparently created by The Red Chinese & shipped here to destroy "Democracy". Uh huh. After a special missile-- reportedly given to the US by the Reds, as they realized they created something too dangerous for even themselves to control-- seems to take out the robot, Thor switched to Don Blake to tend some wounded soldiers. Meanwhile, Karnilla whisks Thor's injured friends to her side, enraging Loki, who swears they are no longer allies, and he shall remember this day! Thor, finding the robot has recovered, creates a tidal wave which not only drives it out of the city, but all the way to the far Arctic, where, like Captain America in times past, it shall be frozen, immobile, "for all time". Uh huh.

It seems Martin Goodman issued an "edict" around this time calling for more "complete-in-one-issue" stories, and this may be one of the results. Jack Kirby was getting fed up with his position, as not only had Stan Lee repeatedly interfered with his plans for certain characters, but Marvel's new mamagement had refused to negotiate his contract, giving him a "sign it or get out" attitude, apparently totally unaware that Kirby was the ONE guy who had essentially CREATED everything they bought when they got the company from Goodman! I point this out because Jack's drawing-- as well as his storytelling-- is beginning to get "rougher" by the month. This issue reminds me of some of the later Kirby-Shores CAPTAIN AMERICAs, only not as stylish. George Klein, who took over briefly from Vince Colletta on inks, had suddenly PASSED AWAY (and so soon after getting married-- what a tragedy!) and it's possible Bill Everett took over on this issue at the VERY last minute. While the backgrounds are certainly more "accurate" than what Colletta used to do, the figure work shows none of the finesse from Everett's earlier works. Time and again I've noticed when really good inkers do lousy jobs, it often has to do with last-minute assignments. I suspect this was another of those.

But it's the storytelling that really bugs me the most. The whole issue seems choppy, it doesn't have the normal "flow" of a typical Kirby book, and the dialogue-- MY GOD!! --what's with the dialogue?? It's so "flat"-- almost every line seems to just exist to explain what's going on, with no style, no personality, no ZING. Between the visuals and the dialogue, this looks and feels like a Saturday Morning cartoon show. And not in a good way.

To make it worse, John Romita & John Verpoorten did the cover. This isn't like one of John's wonderful, classic, illustrative, "realistic" SPIDER-MAN covers. Nope. This looks more like a cartoon as well-- the sort of thing Romita did far too much of in the 70's, when he spent more time as Stan's "go-to" guy than as a "real" artist. Kirby having moved his family to California apparently made it less convenient for Stan to replace a cover he didn't like than when he was able to grab Jack when he'd stop in to drop off pages, and this sort of thing began to happen more often. Criminal!

In another matter, I keep trying to figure out who Karnilla reminds me of. She keeps looking different, and this time, I'm reminded of either Joan Crawford, or Judith Anderson.

It's sad to see a book past it peak and heading downhill. I'd say this was the "worst" THOR since the 3 episodes done by Robert Bernstein & Joe Sinnott (in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #94-96).

THE AVENGERS #70 -- "When Strikes The Squadron Sinister!" begins with Kang trying to have The Grandmaster bumped off-- and failing. On Earth, Thor, Captain America & Goliath II are joined by Iron Man, who they somewhat eye with suspicion, wondering where he was the whole time Tony Stark was on the verge of dying. (Little do they know... I guess he made quick recovery!) They see visions of The Squadron Sinister, and in the tradition of Gardner Fox's JSA & JLA, go off to 4 different points, each to battle a specific opponent (who seems all-too-well matched). We learn each villain's "origin"-- their lives having been retroactively time-altered to create their villainous identities by The Grandmaster. Captain America fights Nighthawk at the Statue of Liberty-- which NH actually tries to STEAL! Iron Man fights Dr. Spectrum at the Taj Mahal, and discovers the baddie's "power prism" is sentient. Thor fights Hyperion at The Sphinx, and learns the baddie's home planet was the 1st atom destroyed by an atom-smasher, and he looks forward to Earth getting the same treatment. Goliath fights The Whizzer at Big Ben-- except their fight is interrupted when The Black Knight shows up, wondering what's going on, and saying how this is "his" turf. OH boy... Because BK interfered, The Grandmaster says he may be responsible for the destruction of Earth. Before they're whisked back to the future, Goliath grabs BK's magic sword, and, humilated, BK swears he'll find a way to follow The Avengers and help.

Nice solid job by Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger. Sal was way better back here when he was still doing full pencils, and getting decent inkers. Roy Thomas' story is an interesting exercise in almost pure plot, with very little getting in the way. So much so, I realized by the episode's end that virtually every character involved seemed to have the same personality or speech pattern... Oh well, you win some...


X-MEN #62 -- "Strangers... In A Savage Land" has Angel recover from his earlier brain-wahsing, and go to Tierra Del Fuego in search of Dr. Lykos, who he realizes is Sauron. Once there, he runs into Lykos' girlfriend, who tells him the X-Men are searching for Sauron's body, which plunged off a cliff at the end of the previous issue. But while searching down a deep, deep hole in the ice, he runs into an entire flock of pteranodons, and winds up near death! Elsewhere, the X-Men run across hordes of dinosaurs, and suddenly discover Ka-Zar-- and the fact that his "Savage Land" jungle, which exists underground beneath the ice of Antarctica, extends far north of the continent itself. He tells them to be silent, and flee while they can, as he's chasing after some strange mutant-type creatures. They get the drop on him, the X-Men save his life, but he seems to show no gratitude. Angel, meanwhile, is rescued by a tall, slender, white-haired scientist in some sort of exo-skeleton outfit, who uses some hi-tech equipment to save Angel's life. He's known by his creates as "The Creator", and claims to be a scientist interested in mutants, and has been locating and "rescuing" mutants who live in the Savage Land. He accuses Ka-Zar of trying to destroy him, and Angel says since the guy saved his life, he'll do whatever he can to straighten things out, even if it means butting heads with the rest of the X-Men! But as soon as Angel flies off, The Creator's entire demeanor changes, and he smiles at the thought that Angel will give him time to complete his plans, which somehow involve conquest of the entire Earth! And he mentions, "I guess clothes do make the man..." as we see him place his hand on a very familiar red helmet... MAGNETO's!!!

The change-over from Don Heck & Werner Roth to Neal Adams was surely as shocking and radical a complete make-over as that of the change from Grantray-Lawrence (with Mike Royer & co.) to Krantz Films (with Ralph Bakshi & Gray Morrow) on the 60's SPIDER-MAN cartoons. But once you get past the "What the hell is THIS??" reaction, before long the "new" team is really making a lot of headway toward turning the book into their own. I'd say this was probably the best "new" episode yet. This may be the best rendition to date, both in art & writing, of Ka-Zar, who I've frankly found very annoying in just about every appearance up to this one. (And I LIKE Tarzan-- I just don't like this wannabe!) The letters pages have been discussing the revelation that the "Magneto" in Arnold Drake's "City of Mutants" storyline was only a robot, and looking forward to seeing the return of the "real" one. They got their wish here. What amazes me is, this was the first time we EVER saw Magneto without his helmet-- it must have really been a surprise when you got to the last page. And without it, especially in certain panels, he looks almost EXACTLY like Ian Mckellan, who played the character in the 3 live-action X-MEN movies! (Somebody on those was doing their research.) So much so, I could "hear" the actor's voice in my head as I read his dialogue. Also on the letters page, Roy mentions he'd "promised" to eliminate continued stories (to whom? the readers? or Martin Goodman?) but says some stories really call for more than one issue. The "ban" on continued stories would not last that long. One unfortunate thing I'm reminded of here is, Roy Thomas & Neal Adams never got around to explaining where the "Magneto" robot came from-- who built it, or why. It would wind up being a plot thread left hanging for over a decade.


FANTASTIC FOUR #93 -- "At The Mercy of Torgo!" has Ben finally face Torgo in the "Arena Of Death" (as it's called on the cover). Meanwhile, Reed, Johnny & Crystal, abord the flying saucer, run across a Skrull saucer, attack, board it, and force its pilot to tell them Ben's location. Before long, and now disguised as "gangsters", the trio show up on Kral, the Skrull "gangster" planet, and make their way to the "Great Games". Without warning, a blast takes out the machine that can send planets out of orbit, and Ben is wonderfully shocked to see his friends came all the way across space to find him. Without the machine-- blasted to atoms by Crystal-- there is NOTHING to keep the slaves in line-- and they quickly revolt against their murderous Skrull "masters". The Four head for home, Ben looking forward to a lot of sleep...

Joe Sinnott, who's been inking 2 books a month lately, apparently asked Stan for a short vacation, and the result was Frank Giacoia stepping in to do the inks. It's kinda raw, and I find myself wishing Joe could have held out one more month, until this entire 4-parter was finished. The odd thing is, near as I can tell, Joe DID ink the figure of Crystal on page 1, and the close-up of her at the bottom of page 2-- probably before giving the pages back. Stan continues the mistake of having Reed talk about the "stolen" flying saucer as being of Skrull origin. I don't care if it looks exactly like another saucer in the same story-- that saucer came from Planet X in FF #7, and the Skrull ships in FF #2 looked nothing like it! Stan REALLY needed an editor...


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #79 -- "To Prowl No More" begins when Peter Parker JUMPS backwards thru a glass window and falls to his apparent death-- because he couldn't figure any other way of getting away from Jameson & switching to Spidey so he could fight the Prowler. Crazy. On the roof, the two battle, and Spidey's only barely beaten when The Prowler uses some gas jets against him. Feeling more beaten by the fact that he lost Gwen-- and to Flash Thompson (little does he know!!), he goes home and collapses, after telling JJJ and Joe that Spidey "saved" him. (Jameson, of course, only wonders if he managed to get any pictures while he was out there. IDIOT!!) Hobie Brown, meanwhile, is distraught, thinking how it made NO sense for that guy to go out the window-- he never touched him-- and he never counted on being accused of murder! But then, like so many before him, he thinks, if he can beat Spider-Man and turn HIM over to the cops, maybe it can square things. (This is in spite of the fact that Stacy cleared Spider-Man of any charges against him several issues ago. At least, I thought he did... Let's call it sloppy writing.) Pete runs into Gwen and tells her he hope she has a lot of fun hanging out with Flash. She just stares, in disbelief! Later, Spidey tracks down The Prowler in the diamond district, appearing to rob a place, but really trying to set a "trap". BIG mistake. This time, Spidey beats him, and how, then unmasks him-- and, surprisingly, listens to his story. As nothing was actually stolen, and nobody hurt, he tells him to go back to his girl Mindy. At least he has the chance to "get off" the treadmill Spidey seems stuck on...

Not bad. Not great, but not bad. John Buscema continues on plot & layouts, Jim Mooney on pencils & inks. John Romita may have contributed some plot and touch-ups, but if he did, he's not even listed in the credits. I have this in the '75 MARVEL TALES reprint, which is missing 2 pages (and I have no idea what may be missing or how it may be hurting the story by being missing), and also has an altered cover. On this one, instead of Pete crashing thru the window, Spidey crashes thru the window. Which makes the "shocked" look on Jameson's face totally non-sensical.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #120 -- "Crack Up On Campus!" has Cap & Falcon, in Harlem, bidding farewell, Cap go to the SHIELD barber shop to find out where Sharon is, Fury use a "sleeper couch" to fill Cap in on a job he'd like him to do, and Steve-- using the made-up-that-second new identity of "Roger Stevens"-- apply for a job as a Phys.Ed. coach at a college that's having trouble with student protests. The ring-leader of these is issueing demands to the faculty that are beyond anything even remotely reasonable, and students and faculty alike are getting angry at his increasing disruptions. What no one realizes is, the guy is under the influence-- not of drugs-- but of an A.I.M. mind-controlling ray, as Modok wants to get his hands on one of the professors, who's a specialist in nuclear formula. When another protest turns into a KIDNAPPING, Cap steps in and chases down the baddies, as the rabble-rouser, his mind cleared at last, gives him a helping hand. After, he & the faculty come to friendly terms, and back at SHIELD HQ, Fury asks Cap why he didn't keep the Phys. Ed. Coach job. Cap replies, "It's too rough for an old war-horse like me!"

This one's a mixed bag. Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott continue to shine on every page, though not as much as the previous issues. On page 2, a Harlem resident hollers out, "Hey, Captain America & The Falcon! What a team they make!" Which is absurd-- because at this point, NOBODY has heard of "The Falcon" yet!! At SHIELD HQ, I'm wondering... WHEN did Nick Fury begin to engage in casual BRAIN-WASHING of his friends?? Is THIS what happens when Jack Kirby AND Jim Steranko are both out of the picture?? This would be a precursor of many, many bad times for SHIELD characters ahead in the 70's. Much of the dialogue of the college students is just annoying-- even being aware of the period-- and it's deplorable how far AIM and Modok have fallen when they're reduced to being involved in plots like this! Even the coloring is in question. Last month, the AIM guys wore blue. This month, their helmets are magenta. Martin Goodman's edict to eliminate continued stories kicked in for Cap right here. There would be about 11 episodes in a row, all single-issue stories, and with expansive art like Gene Colan's, that really hurt the book overall.

I'm also wondering what the HECK happened on the last page. The 2-panel humorous "tag" scene with Cap & Fury is clearly the work of JOHN ROMITA-- not Colan & Sinnott. What th'...??


SUB-MARINER #20 -- "In The Darkness Dwells Doom!" has Namor, his gills "surgically closed" by aliens from space (last time), unable to return to the sea, stuck in NYC, and pursued by the army. Until he stumbles into the Latverian Embassy. His "old friend" (NOT REALLY!!) Dr. Doom saw him and saw an easy mark, and gave him "diplomatic" sanctuary. While he says "We are natural allies", trying to put aside his earlier ruthless murderous betrayal (in FF #6!), he really wants the use of Namor's undersea legions to help him conquer the planet. While Namor thinks it over, Doom has his lackeys remove every drop of water from the embassy, knowing Namor will only get weaker the longer he's deprived of it. But when the inevitable fight breaks out, Namor finds a way to set the place ON FIRE-- and while they can't enter the Embassy itself, the NYC firemen do fire their hoses thru the windows, unknowingly restoring Namor to full strength, which he uses to escape.

I have this as a reprint in-- of all things-- GIANT-SIZE SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP #1 (1975). I suppose it's not bad... it's just generally unpleasant, and not a "fun" read at all. Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Johnny Craig all seem to be just going thru the paces, and this story would begin a long "tradition" of having Namor & Doom cross paths with each other, sort-of team-up, and fight each other, over and over and over. It was already tired when they did it here. I really could have done without the entirety of SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP. What was Roy thinking???

SILVER SURFER #11 -- "O' Bitter Victory" begins with the invading army's HQ being blasted by the Surfer as he rescues the rebel girl. They turn their attack on the spaceship just arriving from Zenn-La. Shalla Bal bails out, saying her life no longer matters since she saw the man she loved in the arms of another woman! (I KNEW there was page missing from the end of the previous story! Blasted ESSENTIAL book!) Yarro Gort (I had to look it up, none of these characters' names are sticking in my mind at all), the evil, ambitious alien scientist, talks his way out of a firing squad by offering the invaders advanced scientific weapons, while the thug in charge says he'll decide what to do about "the girl" later. The "General" in charge claims he invaded the country to bring peace, and all must learn to "love"-- or DIE! (Well there's a psychotic mind at work...) Before it's over, the rebels attack, the Surfer protects them, Shalla Bal is seriously injured, the leaders of the invaders are blown to atoms, the invading army flees the country, and the Surfer repairs the spaceship so his beloved can receive medical help back on their home world.

There hardly seems to be a likeable character in here. At least, NONE of the baddies appear to have even the slightest sympathetic sides to them. Stan Lee, John Buscema & Dan Adkins just seem to be going thru the paces. It's just not an entertaining series at all. What more might have been done had Buscema been allowed to do the kinds of stories Steve Englehart & co. did in the 80's-- OUT IN SPACE??? And as if that wasn't bad enough, Stan reused a title he already had in an issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #19 -- "The Mad Master Of The Murder Maze!" has Rick wake up, switch to Mar-Vell-- who, BETWEEN panels, apparently gets Carol Danvers medical help (if I hadn't read the narration carefully I'd never have known what happened to her!), then fly Rick to a city, where he goes in search of an apartment & a job, and gets turned down repeatedly. Until he answers an ad for "Midas Towers", a futuristic building run by an eccentric guy who welcomes Rick but doesn't tell him outright what the "job" entails. After settling in, strange, frightening incidents begin to occur, and eventually, it comes out the guy running the place is using it and its occupants as part of a monstrous "scientific experiment" to "prove" people can be reduced to paranoid, fearful animals in certain conditions. Rick switches with CM, who does what he can to save lives and evacuate the building, but the paranoia is such that everybody's suspicious of HIM, figuring HE must be the one behind their troubles! It comes to a head when an Auschwitz survivor gives his life while shutting down the systems, which sends the inventor into a mental tailspin, as this somehow "ruined" his experiment.

This was the most unpleasant issue of this series to date-- and considering some of what came before, that's really saying something. According to the letters page, Roy Thomas plotted the bulk of #17, he & Gil Kane each did about 50-50 on #18, and this episode was almost entirely Kane's plot. I shoulda known. Kane seems to have a "thing" for characters on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Although the page layouts are as wild as Neal Adams, the drawing-- especially the faces-- continues to be downright "ugly", in spite of Dan Adkins' attempts to "slick" everything up. It appears the Thomas-Kane-Adkins team did 5 issues (4-1/2 if you count Buscema's fill-in in #18), but without warning (we've seen a lot of this lately!) the series was CANCELLED right here. I'd say, 3 issues TOO LATE.


THE AVENGERS #71 -- "Endgame!" has Yellowjacket, The Black Panther & The Vision fighting the 1940's versions of Sub-Mariner, Captain America & The Human Torch in Nazi-occupied Paris. Meanwhile, The Black Knight summons up the spirit of his ancestor, who somehow manages to transport him by magic to the 41st Century. There, he frees the other Avengers. When Kang's team wins, he's about to choose the power of "life" to restore the comatose Princess Ravonna-- until all the Avengers appear to take him on, at which point he chooses the power of "death" instead. The Black Panther, not being one of them, is curiously unaffected, and The Grandmaster sends all the heroes back to their own time, as Kang has now lost his one brief chance to revive his beloved, because the hate in his heart was stronger than the love. The team finally makes The Black Knight an official member.

Not bad. This still feels more like a DC comic than a Marvel. It's strange that when he got the chance, Roy never did much with the JLA-- and focused almost all of his attentions on the JSA on their WW2 stories. Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger are doing "nice" work here-- VERY nice, for Sal-- but it all seems too "cartoony" to me, somehow, and NOT in the kind of "cartoony" way Kirby or Heck were known for. The 3 "Timely"-era heroes featured here together effectively inspired the later creation of THE INVADERS series, and in fact, INVADERS ANNUAL #1 featured an episode that retold this story from their POV-- and had to go to excessive "fanboy" lengths in order to "explain" such minor insignificant details as Cap using his triangular shield, and Namor wearing the wrong swim trunks. (I'm NOT making this up!!!) Come to think of it, that episode might have "worked" a lot better for me-- if they'd gotten Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger to do the art.


X-MEN #63 -- "War In The World Below!" has the Angel catch up with The X-Men & Ka-Zar, and for once, they actually talk things thru without having a big, stupid hero-vs-hero fight. (Maybe we would have if they had more pages...) It soon becomes clear who's not on the up-and-up when the swamp men and the mutants both attack the heroes with intents of murder, and even Ka-Zar actually admits he's glad the X-Men are on his side. (Hey, maybe there's hope for this half-retarted jungle-dude after all?) Once they reach the base of "The Creator", they learn he's really Magneto-- and the BIG fight is on! It comes out he is not "rescuing and training" mutants from the jungle-- he's been kidnapping natives and using technology to CREATE new mutants to rule the world with. We learn that after seeming to plunge to his death in AVENGERS #53, Magneto really burrowed underground, finding a huge sytem of caves there, and explored it, until he eventually reached the Savage Land. Because the equipment he's using is so delicate, he's been wearing an exo-skeleton that actually limits his magnetic powers. This has the drawback of making it more difficult for him ot fight his old enemies. And, in a replay of a scene from "City Of Mutants" (in which we now know he was never actually involved), a huge amount of machinery crumbles on top of him, seeming to cause his death... (NOT bloody likely!) The "new" mutants all begin to change back to their original forms, and are probably the happier for it, while the X-men lament that they can't simply get rid of their own powers...

Another great job by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams & Tom Palmer. Roy's dialogue is still annoying in spots, but nowhere near as much as some comics he's done. The Angel is now sporting a new costume-- white with light blue trim-- which is the 3rd outfit he's gone thru in only a handful of books. (The one he started with, which Jean supplied him some time back, was by ar the WORST of the lot.) It's interesting that the angle of Magneto using technology to artificially create mutants turned up in the 1st live-action X-MEN movie-- although it had dire side-effects in that story. Stan inserts a footnote about Magneto's seeming death having happned "in issue #53". I thought that sounded wrong... until I realized he meant AVENGERS #53, not X-MEN #53. He's just slipping more and more...

If nothing else, this issue is probably my favorite appearance to date of Ka-Zar, and I find myself wishing Neal Adams had done a series of HIS adventures! He really seemed to have a thing for "jungle".


THOR #172 -- "The Immortal And The Mind-Slave!" has Dr. Jim North seem help from Dr. Don Blake. It seems ruthless millionnaire "Kronin Krask" has kidnapped Jane Foster, and is using her to force North to perform a highly dangerous and illegal "experiment". As Blake seems to be the only one who knows how to contact Thor for help, North sought him out. Thinking on how Odin ("in his wisdom") sent Jane to Dr. North after failing to become an Immortal (the two are very much in love now), Thor speeds to aid the woman he once loved. Attacked on arrival, Thor becomes the "victim" in an experiment which is designed to switch minds between 2 bodies. (Oh, NOT another one of those!!!) Krask is dying-- and he refuses to accept his fate! North is forced to work the equipment or Jane will die. But once he does, the "spirit" forms of Thor & Krask battle for control-- and Krask loses, and promptly bites the big one. Thor, who reveals he was never really helpless, comforts the couple, saying they're both blameless of any wrong-doing, for they acted out of love.

Not bad. Not great, but not bad. A lot is made on the cover and splash page about "the return of Jane Foster!" but there doesn't seem enough emotional content between her & Thor to warrant it. Also, it's hard to recognize her, as Kirby's art has changed so much by here, and Bill Everett's inks are somewhat inconsistent throughout the issue. Some panels are magnificent, with lots of fine-line rendering that are his trademark, while others seem crude, rough & rushed. Was he being truer to Kirby in those instances, or just desperate to beat a deadline? One panel shows a woman walking thru a building lobby who stands out from everything else in the book, because she's SO beautiful, and so UN-Kirby-looking, she appears to have stepped out of a Bill Everett solo comic. Someone on the letters page strongly requests the return of Vince Colletta-- but apparently, he was busy doing "romance" comics for "another company" at this point, though he's "welcome back anytime he wants". What's really astonishing is if you look over the entire run of THOR and see just HOW MANY consecutive issues Colletta did, it's almost some kind of record in 60's Marvel terms, up there with Joe Sinnott on the F.F. More comics should have that kind of long-term consistency.

This was better than the last one I read, but nowhere near as inspired as the single-issue stories around the time of the Ulik & Enchanters epics. Jack Kirby seems to be marking time, as is Stan Lee.


FANTASTIC FOUR #94 -- "The Return Of The Frightful Four!" has Reed & Sue finally announce they've come up with a name for the baby... Franklin (named after Sue & Johnny's late father) Benjamin (named after... you know who). Ben gets all emotional in one of the nicest scenes this book has had in YEARS. But meanwhile... that perrennial homicidal scientific rescidivist-- The Wizard-- has found a way to eavesdrop on the FF, and plans to get his REVENGE!!! on them (what-- AGAIN???) and The Sandman, and The Trapster, who are all too willing (and all too STUPID!) plan to go along with it, especially once Trapster brings Madame Medusa into it. (SAY WHAT???) According to Trapster, once she heard they were going after the FF, she was eager to tag along. Uh HUH.

Reed & Sue, unwilling to give up their dangerous life, have opted to hire a "child-rearing specialist" for their son, and travel by newly-modifed Fantasti-Car (the side pieces removed, a pair of bubble-domes added for travel in bad weather) to the large and downright spooky-looking Victorian house of Agatha Harkness. She's been "in retirement" for some time, but felt she coudln't turn down this job once she learned who the parents were. Due to the bad storm that came up, she offers to let them all stay the night... and during the night, the OTHER F.F. break in, bent on capturing-- then "disposing of" their opposite numbers. At which point, Medusa attacks her "team-mates", revealing she only came along as a way of keeping an eye on them and making sure nothing happened to her REAL friends! However, before long, she, Ben & Johnny are all captured, while Reed & Sue are trapped in their room! But when the Terrible Three (heh) head toward Agatha's room... HELL breaks loose. LITERALLY. And they don't know what hit them. When the Trapster's glue abruptly disolves, the heroes rush in to find Agatha, safe, and insisting they "not disturb the baby". Ben gives her a funny look, and she responds with a strange smile, saying, "You might almost think I was a WITCH!"

A really FUN story. After they've been making solo appearances around the Marvel Universe, I guess it was nice to see the "evil FF" reunited here. The Wizard (who kinda looks like actor Sid Haig in this episode-- I swear, his appearance keeps changing almost every story he's in) continues his insane obsessive behavior. So brilliant, yet so STUPID. He could do anything he wanted, or STEAL anything he wanted, and probably get away with it, yet he keeps attacking the FF, as if he really WANTS to get beaten to a pulp! There's just something seriously wrong with that guy. At least Sandman & Trapster we can excuse-- neither one's too bright in the first place, they're used to tagging along as "lackeys" on someone else's crimes. Medusa's a curious one. She had a run-in with the evil FF (well, the other 3 of them) in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #15 (Jul'68), which I've misplaced (again!), and I'm having trouble remembering how things went in that story. I doubt Stan or Jack ever read it for reference. Suffice to say, she fools these guys so easily, it's obvious none of them are as bright as they'd like to think they are. I like it when they all get free of the glue traps-- the way she hollers out Johnny's name, it reminds me that for one fleeting moment, back in FF #44, there was a hint there could be some major attraction between her & Johnny. Before he met her SISTER, of course. Here, she's worried about Crystal, but finds she stayed behind in NYC on this trip. (Odd, but what the hey.) I figure, she probably has come to care about Johnny now as a brother, since he & her sister are so much in love.

Hmm... well, no doubt about it, I guess. This gets my vote for BEST comic of the month!

THE AVENGERS #72 -- "Did You Hear The One About Scorpio?" predicts Roger Stern's use of THE INCREDIBLE HULK as a place to finish stories from cancelled books when it featured threads from 2 recently-cancelled books in the same issue: NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD, and CAPTAIN MARVEL! Rick Jones, thinking he might find a job with SHIELD, goes to Nick Fury's apartment (HOW did he know where it was?), and sees Scorpio there. He changes places with Captain Marvel, who gives chase, but the baddie gets away, though he finds a list of 3 names the guy dropped. Racing to Avengers Mansion, he runs into Cap, who's surprised to see him, and who tries to explain it WASN'T him who told Rick to get lost, but The Red Skull disguised as him. Inside, Rick joins the team, who are meeting because 3 top city officials have disappeared in the same evening. Waiting for a video-call from Fury, they get one from Dugan instead, who tells them Fury is DEAD! --and relates the events of NICK FURY #15. The call is suddenly cut into by Scorpio, and next thing, the entire group is knocked out, and wake up as prisoners. (Gee, just like a JLA story!) Scorpio is revealed to be not a solo operative, but one member of a 12-person crime cartel, named-- what else?-- ZODIAC. The 11 other members-- most in really silly-looking costumes (seriously) come forward, announcing their plans to kill the Avengers, then make their "power plays" in various capitals around the country. But the team is suddenly freed, big fight breaks out, and "Scorpio" is revealed to be... Nick Fury. Despite an impressive free-for-all, "Aries" grabs "the key to the Zodiac" and uses it so the ENTIRE GANG makes a clean getaway. Fury reveals that back in NICK FURY #5, he learned that Scorpio was really his brother Jake-- and after he disapeared, Fury went to Jake's apartment, went thru his things, and began POSING as Scorpio, in order to get the goods on ZODIAC. Further, whenever he was missing, a SHIELD L.M.D. would take his place-- and one of those times was when-- "by luck"-- he happened to ditch Laura Brown in the middle of the rock concert, so the L.M.D. got "killed", not Fury. (Kinda of fitting that the entire NICK FURY series should both begin AND end with an L.M.D. getting killed by an assassin.) Everything that happened this night was Fury's fault, getting The Avengers to "help" him nail ZODIAC. Which they bungled, but whatever. Cap tells Rick he's "handier to have around than I imagined, partner!" But Rick begs off, figuring he's got other things to care care of-- which may take "forever" (there goes Roy again...).

I actually got this issue on its own, quite a few years back, because I wanted to next chapter of the "Scorpio" story. Later, when I was collecting CAPTAIN MARVEL, it was lucky I already had this one-- though CM only appears in a couple of pages. (His appearance on the cover is misleading, as he never meets the group until much later.) Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger do another solid job here, though once again, on the "cartoony" side, but some of the faces definitely look "off-model", The Wasp and Rick Jones in particular. This is at least the 2nd time lately that Nick Fury has over-stepped the boundaries of friendship, heroic fellowship, whatever you wanna call it, by MANIPULATING people into doing things he wants. I just DON'T see this as something either Jack Kirby OR Jim Steranko would ever have done. The CIA may be sneaky, but SHIELD isn't-- and Nick Fury, if anything, is the most straight-ahead guy imagineable. This "off" characterization, unfortunately, would plague the character for the rest of his existence. Rick Jones' involvement in the story seems forced & awkward, and it's clear the only reason he's here right now is because "his" book just got cancelled abruptly! The entire situation regarding Rick, Captain America and Captain Marvel just seems awkward bad writing to me, what some these days might call "editorial fiat". I doubt any of it would have happened if Stan Lee hadn't so completely interfered with Jim Steranko's plans for CAPTAIN AMERICA.

I still wonder about Scorpio. What DID Steranko really have in mind? To read it here, it seems Jake Fury was Scorpio-- in both NICK FURY #1 & 5-- and it would appear he was killed at the end of #5. But there is NO explanation for WHY he wanted Nick dead, how he got involved with a crime cartel, or what the heck "The Parable of Doom" was that was mentioned in NF #1. Steranko apparently planned to follow-up on it in CAPTAIN AMERICA-- but those plans fell through when he left the book after only 3 issues. This story seems like mostly a quick-and-easy (and complicated & contrived) way of sweeping the whole mess under the carpet, while introducing a whole new group of villains, most of whom NEVER got anything even remotely resembling fleshed-out personalities. As it happens, David Kraft & Keith Giffen brought back Jack Fury as Scorpio in THE DEFENDERS #48-50, and revealed that Count Julio Scarlotti was in fact the "real" Scorpio in NICK FURY #1, and he did in fact DIE. Jake took over in #5, lied about being the same guy and having "escaped" the explosion in #1 (no doubt to throw off suspicion about who he really was), and also survived the gunfire at the end of #5. While this seems to have contradicted the work of 2 previous writers, it was also one of the BEST-WRITTEN stories of that period, and certainly better worked-out than the issues it took its inspiration from. The full, detailed truth about Jake Fury, and the formation of SHIELD, would not be revealed until FURY #1 in 1992-- again, one of the very few genuinely good books to come out from Marvel at that time.

And finally... after all the trouble Fury went thru-- and put The Avengers thru-- ZODIAC escaped. The entire gang! This was a well-thought-out plan? OY.


X-MEN #64 -- "The Coming Of Sunfire!" has the team detect a new, very powerful mutant in the area, and find "Sunfire", who first destroys a Japanese monument for peace between countries, then tries to destoy the US Capitol building. We learn his origin, how his mother died from radiation from the Hiroshima a-bomb blast, and how his uncle has spent his entire life fanning his hatred for all Americans, while his father became a diplomat dedicated to peace. While trying to stop the destruction of the Capitol, Sunfire's uncle winds up shooting his father, and he kills his uncle in return. Realizing his life has been wasted up to this point, his father begs him to put his hatred aside, before he dies. The X-Men, seeing the danger is over, leave, thinking maybe they'll be able to recruit the NEXT mutant they find...

Powerful drama, if a bit over-the-top. The real highlight of this issue, for me, was the return of Don Heck. YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, Don Heck! Neal Adams was having trouble keeping up with the monthly deadline, so they got the guy they KICKED OFF the book to come back for a fill-in. The layouts continue to be pretty wild, but Don's layouts were getting that way long before Adams arrived. Man, what a storyteller! Don seems more inspired than usual this time out. But the best thing here is, Don gets some of the BEST inks of his career from Tom Palmer. DAMN! This guy can make anybody look better than they usually do! I seriously believe that if Tom Palmer had gotten on the book, with Heck & Werner Roth, that it might not have been cancelled when it was. Repeatedly switching artists is always a bad thing.

This is one of the few single-issue stories around this time that really "works" for me. Maybe it's because Don's better at that sort of thing than some of the "flashier" artists? (I wonder why Roy-- yeah, Roy-- never got Heck & Palmer together on an issue of THE AVENGERS?)


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #80 -- "On The Trail Of... The Chameleon!" begins when Harry-- and Flash-- stop by to explain things to Pete about Gwen. After nearly decking the source of his high-school torment, Pete calms down and realizes he mis-read the whole situation, then calls Gwen to apologize. He meets her at the Midtown Museum, which is promptly robbed, when the special exhibit there had security being handed by Captain Stacy! Jameson, who was apparently sponsoring the exhibit, tries to tear Stacy a new one, while Stacy says he was at home-- asleep-- the whole time! Pete figures out it's the work of one of his oldest foes-- The Chameleon, and hatches a plan to nab the guy, which Joe Robertson is only too happy to help with. After highly publicizing a huge bond transaction, Spidey barges into the meeting room, hoping to bluff the baddie into revealing himself. All he gets is a raving Jameson, who keeps getting n the way of security guards. Outside the building, Spidey waits, then attacks, when he sees the one person he knows HAD to be The Chameleon-- Peter Parker! After unmasking the baddie, Spidey tells the cops EXACTLY what happened, including at the museum (thereby clearing Stacy of any suspicions), then runs off as Jameson is wondering HOW he knew the guy couldn't be Parker?

John Buscema continues on plot & layouts, Jim Mooney on pencils & inks, while John Romita's back in the credits, this time listed as "art consolidator" (what the HELL does that mean??). I suppose he also contribued plot & touch-ups. I have to admit, for the first time, I can actually believe that bonehead Flash is actually growing up. Maybe Buscema & Mooney are just better at portraying it than Romita was earlier. It's good that Pete & "Gwendy" (what a sickening nickname!) are making sense again, though I miss MJ. It's also nice to see Jameson becoming the target of some very called-for put-downs. The guy is a NUTCASE! This story, overall, actually reminded me of one of the SPIDER-MAN cartoons from Grantray-Lawrence (even if it's so dark it LOOKS more like one of the Krantz Films episodes), what with a plot so tightly told and wrapped up, and The Chameleon disguising himself as Pete (something the cartoon doppleganger, "Charles Cameo" did in the episode "DOUBLE IDENTITY"). Are they watching the cartoons for story ideas now?

The one thing about this issue that bugs me is the villain himself. All these years, I'm still left wondering. Who-- or WHAT-- is this guy? That CAN'T be his real "face" under the disguises-- can it? How would his "disguises" work over a "face" that has NO FEATURES? Is this guy even human-- or some kinda space alien-- or what? Was he EVER given a real name? Sheesh.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #121 -- "The Coming Of... The Man-Brute!" begins with ex-convict scientist Silas X. Cragg, who's obsessed with Captain America, who was responsible for his spending time in jail. The one thing in the whole world he wants is revenge, and he decides to recreate the much-publicised experiment that created Cap to create a "superman" of his own. He searches the Bowery-- intent on finding someone who's already a powerful specimen, and also filled with lots of anger, and doesn't take long before finding a suitable subject. Before you know it, back at his lab, the experiment works. Cragg then contacts The Avengers, saying he's looking to get Cap to appear at an orphanage to put on an exhibition. Cap, never turning down an invite like that, shows up-- and abruptly, BIG FIGHT erupts-- but this guy means it! As the Sister in charge tries to get the kids to safety, one breaks in and actually tries to tackle "The Man-Brute". Whereupon, the guy suddenly runs off, returning to Cragg's lab, saying he wants nothing more to do with him. There he was, fighting the most decent guy he ever met, and this one boy risked his life to help-- and as it turns out, the boy was his SON! Cragg winds up getting fried by the electrical aparatus in his lab-- EXACTLY what happened to the Nazi assassin who killed Cap's creator! Talk about poetic justice. Later, after checking SHIELD files, Cap's able to track down the dead Cragg, but The Man-Brute-- who promises himself to "never again" use his power that way, disappears back where he came from, passing by Cap on the street without a word.

Nice little story. It was interesting how the baddie getting fried so closely mirrored the scene in C.A. #1 way back when. I question the time-frame-- twice it's mentioned Cap put this guy away "15 years ago"-- what, when he was in suspended animation? (Hmm-- maybe it was that OTHER guy who did it! Wouldn't that be funny?) It occurs to me that having Cragg pick that particular orphanage-- which just happened to have The Man-Brute's son at it-- is almost too big of a coincidence. But where would stories be without those? While thumbing thru Fury's files, Cap runs across photos of Rick & Sharon. As nothing is indicated in the dialogue at all, one can only imagine Cap may be lamenting the fact that, lately, his life has returned to the "nothing but action" sort it was back when his solo series first resumed in TALES OF SUSPENSE. (Well, sure, considering Stan Lee's interference seems to have chased both Rick AND Sharon out of the book for the most part...) Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott continue to do DAZZLING work.

I wonder if "The Man-Brute" (we never learn his real name) ever turned up again? It seems to me a guy in his position could have forged a nice career as a professional wrestler...


SILVER SURFER #12 -- "Gather, Ye Witches!" has a witch coven in Stonehenge performing a ritual. Its leader, "Sir Nigel", is obsessed with power, and determined to "prove" to the world that his dabbling in the mystic arts is not only real, but should make him worthy or ruling the planet. Considering how just about every mystic who ever appeared in DR. STRANGE (now cancelled) was bent on hiding their powers from the world, I think this guy is misguided right from the get-go. When the Surfer fails in his latest attempt to crash "the barrier" and falls to Earth nearby, Sir Nigel sees him as his chance. He takes the Surfer home with him, then, after pretending friendship (not again) drugs him, then uses him as the focus for another "summoning". And this time-- somehow-- they somehow manage to magically teleport-- of all things-- The Abomination-- who's been a prisoner on a far alien world by The Stranger, ever since he fought The Hulk back in TALES TO ASTONISH. Of course, the guy wants nothing to do with Sir Nigel, no way's he's gonna "serve" the guy, he's got his OWN world-conquering agenda, and promptly sets off to destroy part of a large city, so people will know not to mess with him. (Again, I suspect his thinking is dodgy on that point.) Not wanting anything to do with humans and their devious ways, the Surfer is nontheless drawn into battle, manages to defeat the Abomination, then deposits him back with Sir Nigel's coven-- telling them to send the guy BACK where they summoned him from! He flies off... I wonder if they actually managed it? Talk about a loose end.

One more story with merely "acceptable" art and one-dimensional characters. How long can this thing go on? (I KNOW... it was just a rhetorical question!)

Re: AVENGERS# 72

I became a big fan of Zodiac when they next appeared in AVENGERS # 120-122. Unfortunately, their first appearance does nothing to set them up as formidable villains. In fact, they are just sort of there and the costumes do look silly. (Bob Brown, the later artist, did an impeccable job of making Zodiac look menacing and weird.)

Of course, Zodiac was just one problem with # 72, which is a mess of an issue. I think it's a sterling example of too many plot threads and not enough space to develop a coherent story.

Bob Brown is often overlooked-- I think, at least partly, because he usually got 2nd-rate or inappropriate inks. I've seen him inked by Paul Gulacy (DAREDEVIL #108) and Dave Cockrum (AVENGERS #126) and in both instances... WOW! He may be one of the earliest instances I can think of where some pencillers got much betters inks at DC than Marvel.

Unfortunately, Martin Goodman's edict about single-issue stories (which Stan says were his idea on the Bullpen pages) hit right then. For a few months, everything had not enough pages to be developed.

I'm pretty sure my 1st exposure to ZODIAC was in those Englehart-Brown issues as well! There's a whole set of issues I'm hitting right now where Roy's stories feel more like "DC" comics than "Marvel". (If not for Uncle Mortie, Roy probably would have spent his entire career at DC!)

THE AVENGERS #73 -- "The Sting Of The Serpent" has The Black Panther return to the States, just as the racist militant group, The Sons Of The Serpent (from AVENGERS #32-33 / Sep-Oct'66), are on the move again. Outspoken black talk show host Montague Hale is attacked, his show is pulled off the air, and he then appears as a guest on the Dan Dunn show, who's as aggressively pro-white as Hale is pro-black. Also on the show is singer Monica Lynne, who prefers focusing on her career to worrying about politics. Because race is such an issue, The Panther requests to tackle this problem alone, and the team gives him 24 hours. After saving Monica from an attack, he tracks down some Serpent members at the docks, takes one of their places, and finds himself aboard their snake-like submarine. Until he fails to recite their oath as "identification"-- and is unmasked!

Race relations was a hot topic when this came out, and Roy does a better-than-average job on the story. The big surprise this time out is the art, which was pencilled by Frank Giacoia! It's a really refreshing change after several issues of Sal Buscema, as Giacoia's storytelling is a lot more varied and interesting, including one panel that has 10 small panels of the Panther stalking with no dialogue! (A couple panels of this are blatent Kirby swipes.) Teamed with Sam Grainger, this is some of the nicest art from this period. Frank's notorious slowness must have kept him from doing this too often, for while he did come back for a 2nd issue, it wouldn't be until 14 months later. He must have really dsug the Black Panther-- that later issue spotlighted him as well! Monica Lynne, introduced here, became a long-running part of THE BLACK PANTHER series under writer Don McGregor.


X-MEN #65 -- "Before I'd Be Slave..." begins with some of the worst ego-posturing imagineable when the team returns home exhausted and finds Alex & Lorna (both in costume) barking orders and acting as if they run the place. An alien race, the Z'Nox, who live only to conquer, and who control the movements of their entire planet like a giant spaceship, are heading for Earth, bent on dragging all of humanity with them as slaves. This outrageous "sci-fi" concept (an obvious tribute to the planet Mongo from FLASH GORDON) is given weight when they learn Professor X is alive-- having FAKED his own death, with the help of Changeling (he only had months to live and took the Prof's place to make up for his past crimes) and Jean (who had to LIE to her friends about it the whole time!!) in order to "prepare" for the Z'Nox's onslaught. He spends hours training the team like neve before, until a confrontation between Z'Nox & SHIELD causes him to move up his timetable. Sending the X-Men into space on a completely hopeless mission-- they're really no more than a delaying action-- the Professor sends out his mind across the entire planet, linking up with countless people of good will, who believe in life and freedom, not evil and slavery, and channels the mind-power of all these people AT ONCE at the aliens, who, completely overwhelmed, are forced to flee to another part of the galaxy! The Z'Nox advance scouts who the team fought destroy their own craft, as Scott suggests they "couldn't continue to live with what they were."

I think in modern terms, this issue is when the X-MEN "jumped the shark". After consistently maintaining that Professor X was DEAD and NOT coming back, we find he's still alive. All those issues of "character growth" get jetissoned as everybody starts just taking orders again. More, he sends the team against a menace which threatens the ENTIRE PLANET, something the combined might of every nation on Earth and all the super-heroes on Earth would have a hard time tackling. And, thanks to the current "single-issue story" edict, all this happens in a mere 20 PAGES, when it feels like it should have taken at least 2-- or 3-- issues to handle properly! On top of that, Roy Thomas had a one-week vacation, causing him to miss this issue, which is why Denny O'Neil filled in. Did O'Neil-- or Thomas-- have a hand in plotting this, or was it-- as Neal Adams has suggested about his entire run-- all Neal's idea? The dialogue-- especially on the first 5 pages (before we find out Prof. X is alive) is truly worse than anything Roy ever did on this book, and the rest is just so cold-blooded, I'd swear I was reading a DC Comic, not a Marvel. Having to CRAM so much plot into one issue doesn't help Adams' style, either, and I believe he used more panels on some pages than I have ever seen him use anywhere else. Oh yeah-- and that story title just SUCKS.

On top of that, Stan Lee apparently decided it would be a good idea to have Marie Severin start to draw or do layouts for most of Marvel's covers around this time. Marie did a lot of nice covers-- this ISN'T one of them. It's awful, it's awkward, it's got a word balloon, a long caption and the story title (too many words on a cover became THE trend of 70's covers), and perhaps worst of all, the monster on the cover isn't what Neal Adams apparently drew in the story. But rather than fix the cover, someone redrew the monster on the inside to match the cover. Neal Adams, reportedly, was so PISSED by all of this (including O'Neil's dialogue AND being replaced by Don Heck the month before), he QUIT the book right here. I guess that was the final straw, considering I've heard X-MEN was on the verge of cancellation, but given a reprieve, when Adams got on it. The next issue would be its LAST.

Man, the 60's are coming to a crashing end-- arent' they??


FANTASTIC FOUR #95 -- "Tomorrow, World War Three!" has a new villain, "The Monocle", on the payroll of some unnamed foreign power, determined to assassinate some speakers at the U.N. Building, hoping to set off WW3, and a nuclear holocaust, which those behind him will ride out in underground bunkers, before coming out to rule the helpless planet that's left. (Is this a HYDRA scheme? It sure sounds like it! But we never find out.) Because the FF has been asked to provide security (really outside their line, isn't it??) The Monocle sets out to get them out of the way, which he does by knocking the Fantasti-Car out of the sky (Reed & Sue wind up in the river), causing a tenement building to collapse (Ben does his best to save lives) and shooting a variety of billboards and water towers (Johnny's spends time trying to keep people from getting hurt). In the midst of this, we find that the reason Medusa turned up last ish was because Black Bolt has requested Crystal return to her family-- and she isn't taking "no" for an answer. SAY WHAT? Medusa tells Johnny this will be a test of his love for her sister-- and if he can't handle it, it's best he finds out now. Crystal tells him, "WAIT for me, Johnny-- I'll come BACK to you!", but it's small consolation to him. Examining the damage to the F-Car, Reed determines the type of weapon used, creates a counter-weapon, and turns up at the U.N. just in time to stop the murder scheme. QUICK wrap-up.

Not bad overall, though this insistence on single-issue stories across-the-board is really beginning to bite. The Monocle reminds me in appearance of "The Sinister Prime Minister" from the '67 SPIDER-MAN cartoon, though he was only in it for money. The only part of this issue that really bugs me is the whole Crystal sub-plot. It comes totally out of left field, and considering what went on with Sharon Carter over in CAPTAIN AMERICA, I'd say it's very probably all the work of Stan Lee, who in a bad soap-opera way just LOVES to keep his characters as miserable as possible. HOW much trouble would it have been for Medusa to have explained WHY BB asked for Crystal to come home? Considering how long these people have known each other by here, this is just a BAD characterization, BAD, contrived writing! It's a really sore thumb on what otherwise could have been a pretty decent issue, especially when I consider some of the STUNNING visuals Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott provided (AS USUAL!!!). The shot of the waterfront, especially, caught my eye-- Jack had to have used reference on that one.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #81 -- "The Coming Of The Kangaroo!" has this book hit a new low in villains when a Aussie whose specialty is high leaps turns up, on the run from an attempted murder charge and escaping from authorities trying to deport him back to stand trial. Meanwhile, Pete races so hard to meet Aunt May at Penn Station, he's sweating & flustered when he arrives, causing her to determine he's "sick" and MUST come home with her RIGHT NOW! At her apartment, she insists he stay in bed, and he wonders how he'd ever explain this situation to Gwen? (By simply telling the truth, maybe?) When "The Kangaroo" (we never learn his real name) tries to steal some money from a courier and winds up with a vial that, unknown to him, contains a deadly bacteria, it gets on the news, and Spidey races to find him, leaving a "web-dummy" behind to fool May. While an overlong fight progresses, May walks in, finds the dummy and prompty faints. Spidey manages to get the vial, the Kangaroo hops away (there sure are a LOT of villains getting away scot free lately!!), and the authorities wonder if Spider-Man didn't try to steal the vial for HIMSELF (man, this NEVER happens to the other heroes). On returning home, Pete's scared out of his wits until May revives, then feels horrible about himself, as his actions have now caused her to think she's losing her faculties.

I have 2 copies of this-- the original comic (missing the cover!) and the '75 MARVEL TALES issue (which is missing 2 pages; they combined panels from 4 of the pages into 2). On the letters page, someone suggests Spidey could use a friend to confide in, possibly an older woman who could "mother" him-- as opposed to May, who is "smothering" him! It sure seems to me Pete could handle situations like this a lot better by just proving to May he's "grown up" now-- but I'm afraid I can relate to his situation all too well (and my own problem with a parent was somebody who wasn't NEARLY as nice as May is). Another reader suggests Gwen should get bitten the way Pete was, and become a "Spider-Woman". Gee, 7 years before we actually wound up with one... John Buscema apparently HATED doing this series, and hated every character in it, and in particular, threatened to QUIT if May turned up in any of the stories. This may explain that long vacation in Florida. It may also explain why John Romita came back NEXT issue, considering what went on here. JJJ actually has a FUNNY scene in this episode (for once), when Spidey swings by his window, he rants and raves about how he's doing it "in broad daylight" and how nobody "respects the law"-- then accidentally drops his cigar which he had "specially smuggled in from Cuba"-- saying "It's all Spider-Man's fault!"

The credits don't even try to describe who did what this time; they just list Stan Lee, John Buscema, Jim Mooney, John Romita and Artie Simek. I'm guessing, as usual, it's Romita on plot, Buscema on layouts (from what in hear, Romita spent so much time on plotting & doing "thumbnails", Buscema may not have been contributing anything at all!), Mooney on pencils AND inks, and Romita again on touch-ups. It amazes me that I never realized Mooney was ALMOST doing full art all this time before. Looking at these pages, it's so obvious to me now. I bet it would have been a lot simpler if somebody had just given him a typed script...


IRON MAN #22 -- "From This Conflict... Death!" has IM racing to aid Eddie March, an ex-fighter he had take his place as Iron Man, before learning the guy had a blood clot in his brain which could prove fatal if he ever fought again. It seems Tony survived a heart operation involving synthetic tissues, but became so afraid his body might reject it, he put out the word that the "real" IM had become injured and needed a replacement. Now, March is taking a savage beating from the NEW Crimson Dynamo, neither willing to say uncle. Tony gets Eddie to a hospital, where it's touch-and-go. Meanwhile, the TITANIUM MAN-- still alive after that fracas in Viet Nam-- arrives, once more taking orders from the Commies, and his mission is to drag Alex Nevsky back to Mother Russia so he can once again serve "his" country. Considering Alex fled Russia specifically because of the disgrace (and persecution) the original CD's defeat brought down on his family and all his associates (Alex had been Professor Vanko's assistant in the old days), he's not in a hurry to comply. Alex has been working at Janice Cord's factory, building the new CD suit, and wants revenge against Stark AND Iron Man, and had been using Janice as part of his schemes-- until-- HE claims-- he fell in love with her for real. When Titanium Man shows up, he tries to get Janice to safety. Iron Man, misreading the situation (with good reason, to be fair), butts in, and before you know it, Titanium Man unleashes his high-voltage electric beam-- the VERY weapon that almost killed Pepper back in SUSPENSE #82-83-- but Janice isn't so lucky. As Tony cradles her in his arms, she dies... IM manages to polish off Titanium Man (at least, for now) by leaving him in the river with his circuits burned out, while Alex escapes, vowing vengeance on Iron Man for being responsible for the death of the woman he loved.

What a complex mess! Man, Archie Goodwin should could CRAM a lot into 20 pages!! This is some of the most powerful, exciting stuff I've seen from George Tuska, who I see is back to using rectangular panels again. Joe Gaudioso-- alias Mike Esposito (heh) does one of his better jobs on this as well. The splash panel was so dynamic, I'm reminded I actually swiped it for one of my own comics, back in the late 70's! I'm also reminded that George "blunt instrument" Tuska could also draw very pretty girls when he put his mind to it-- in between some of the more hard-hitting and raw-looking panels. The one I can't figure is page 19, where most of the detail on Titanium Man's costume DISAPPEARS for all 7 panels-- then comes back on page 20. Wha' hoppen? Did someone else pencil that page-- or ink it? Anybody? Oddly enough, a couple of those small panels look like the poses were SWIPED from Gene Colan panels (in the 2nd Titanium Man storyline), which I can believe, as several of the flashback panels relating the original Crimson Dynamo appear to be have been swiped direct from Don Heck poses.

So much tends to get made of the death of Gwen Stacy, but a lot of readers usually forget she was FAR from the first regular to go in such a sudden, pointless manner. (Wouldn't you know, for more than 20 years, this episode was my ONLY exposure to Janice Cord?)

One of these days, I suppose, I gotta get ahold of ALL the issues from this period I'm missing... I don't have another issue of IRON MAN until #47. And, between the very popular later runs by Michelinie & Layton, and Busiek & Chen, and the fact that until quite recently NONE of these issues had EVER been reprinted, the cost of back issues from this period shot up WAY more than concurrent issues of FANTASTIC FOUR. When Tuska is going for 4 TIMES more than Kirby, you know something ain't right.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #122 -- "The Sting Of the Scorpion!" follows up that panel from last issue where Steve looked at pics of Rick & Sharon, and has him wandering the streets, lost in thought, pondering the meaning and direction (or lack thereof) of his life. Is there a place in modern America for a guy who still believes in "the establishment"? Further, is fighting crime and/or evil all there is for him? Following a nightmare in which Sharon was in danger, Steve sets out to visit SHIELD again, to see if he can contact her. Speaking of which... Sharon's on an assignment to nail a local spy ring. They, in turn, have found out about her, and have hired The Scorpion-- freshly paroled from jail-- to bump her off. By DUMB LUCK, he runs across Steve on the street, and soon, Cap is on his trail. BIG FIGHT commences. The spies nab Sharon, figure the Scorpion must have bungled things at his end, and next thing, Cap clues SHIELD in on the spies HQ-- all the while unaware that Sharon is their prisoner! He leaves before she can get his attention, and as a cabbie drives him away, Cap thinks that "his girl" seems to have forgotten he even exists.

Once again, Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott's art go a long way toward smoothing over the fact that this series hasn't been big on "plot" lately. Stan must have really loved Gene's work, because by all accounts, all they ever had were brief "story conferences", after which Stan let Gene do almost whatever he wanted without any hassles or changes. (Makes you wish he'd treated Jim Steranko the same way...)

It's only a minor point, and not really related to this comic much, but it does seem to me Stan "farming out" villains from one book to another, while giving the idea of a "cohesive" comics "universe", in some ways has been hurting some books. So many of Spider-Man's best villains have been turning up elsewhere (like The Scorpion, here), he's been having to deal with 3rd-stringers in his own title too much lately!

Oh yeah-- "STING OF THE SCORPION" was the title of the 2nd-season opener on the 60's SPIDER-MAN cartoons. I'm beginning to suspect more and more that Stan was running out of ideas, and watching the cartoon show to find some! (Among other things, there's too many titles being reused lately. Also, there's 2 titles with the word "Sting" in it the same month. That ain't right!)


SILVER SURFER #13 -- "The Dawn of The Doomsday Man!" has the U.N., the news media, and the Surfer, all worked up because of a robot known as "The Doomsday Man". It seems a group of scientists involved in the space program decided man would need "help" when he reached other planets, and designed & built this virtually INDESTRUCTIBLE, heavily-armed robot. But it was SO dangerous, they became fearful of what might happen if it should turn against them. (Heck of a time for it to occur to them.) So they buried it in an inescapable bunker on a desert island, "for all time"-- but now, due to some Earth tremors, they've detected it's moving on its own, and might break free at any time. While various U.N. delegates argue endlessly (the one from Russia doing no more than referring to every single thing any American says as "an imperialist trick"), the Surfer, who'd been following the news, and for no accountable reason decides to get involves, goes to the U.N., interrupts the meeting, and takes the lead scientist with him TO the island, so the guy can find a way to shut the robot down. Once there, he suspects the guy has NOT been telling the whole truth (HEY! You mean for once, the Russian delegate was RIGHT??). It seems there is also a COBALT bomb on the island, and the scientist really wanted to get his hands on that-- so that he could BLACKMAIL the entire world into submitting to his will! Geez. The Surfer winds up sinking the robot down a bottemless pit, then sending the bomb into space to explode harmlessly. Having saved THE ENTIRE PLANET, he immediately becomes, once again, the target of incessant suspicion, as a crowd of New Yorkers all think maybe HE had tried to use the bomb for his own purposes.

Man. It's like SPIDER-MAN, squared. This guy can't get any respect from anyone. And this story is so overrun with cleches, and one-dimensional characters, it's almost unreadable. And having to CRAM so much into 20 pages isn't helping either. John Buscema's style is such that, for him, "expansive" is a good thing. When he's forced to CRAM 6-- or 9 (!!!) panels onto a page, everything that makes his style "work" is taken away, and the results are just awful.


SUB-MARINER #22 -- "The Monarch And The Mystic!" has Namor, in a glass helmet, return to Atlantis so his scientists can operate and restore his gills to operative status so he can breath underwater again. (I learn via flashback it was "The Stalker"'s people who did this to him.) As he's recovering, he's contacted-- in a dream-- by DR. STRANGE, who needs his help to battle a menace to the entire world-- "The Undying Ones". Quickly travelling to Boston, he dons surface clothes and goes to the home of Kenneth Ward, introducing himself as "MacKenzie". (Nobody-- NOBODY but Roy Thomas would have him do such a thing!) Meeting the late man's daughter Joella, he fends off the attack of a monstrous beast, then goes to a nearby graveyard, where he finds an idol that Ward took from the Himalayas, then hid when he realized it was a "gateway" to another dimension thru which The Undying Ones hope to return to take back Earth, which they ruled eons ago. It's at that point Doc appears, revealing "Joella" is one of the Undying Ones in disguise, and soon both Doc & Namor are sucked thru the dimensional opening into a full-scale battle with The Undying Ones. Namor realizes the danger facing all of Earth, and decides to stay and ensure its safety, but Strange tosses him back thru the opening, which seals, with Doc trapped on the other side. As he leaves to return home, Namor realizes that the entire world owes a debt to Dr. Strange.

Roy, Marie Severin & Johnny Craig did a real bang-up job on this one. I love Marie's Subby, I feel she's one of the artists most-suited for him and his series (up there with Everett & Kirby). It's good to see a sub-plot like Namor not being able to breath underwater get taken care of before too many issues have gone by. This issue shares with AVENGERS #72 the way that Roy used it to follow up on a storyline from a recently-cancelled mag. In this case, it's the 2nd part of his H.P. Lovecraft tribute from DR. STRANGE #183. While things got straightened out for Namor, it looks like Strange got royally screwed this time around... but that wouldn't last long! Fortunately, Roy continued the story only 2 months later, in INCREDIBLE HULK #126. Both this issue and that one were reprinted in DAY OF THE DEFENDERS (2001), while all 3 parts were reprinted in ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS Vol.1 (2005), as this was the first time Doc teamed up with either Subby or Hulk. Good thing, the only one I have the original comic of was part 1. I do wish the 2001 reprint had included the covers, as it's one of my all-time favorites from Marie Severin, featuring Namor, kneeling down in a graveyard, as the "ghostly" form of Doc Strange rises behind him, the copy reading, "Dr. Strange lives-- but will the Sub-Mariner??"

I missed one somehow... oops!

SUB-MARINER #21 -- "Invasion From The Ocean Floor!" has Namor, weakened & unable to breathe underwater, stuck in Manhattan, pursued by the Army, who mistakenly believe he was in league with the aliens who tried to steal Earth's water supply. (They're not thinking that idea thru very well, are they?) Although Namor has specifically given orders for his people NOT to attack the surface world, Lady Dorma decides to do just that, and take an armed force to NYC to demand the release of their Prince. Namor takes refuge in the apartment of Diane Arliss (sister of Tiger Shark), and on her suggestion tries to contact the F.F.-- but Ben hangs up figuring it's one more "crank call". The cops, tapping her phone (isn't that illegal?) figure out he's there, and soon a free-for-all is in progress. Lord Seth, who had earlier gone into self-exile thinking he'd failed Namor and caused his death, had just returned, and finding his Prince is still alive, eagerly joins the raiding party. When things look like they're going wrong, Seth uses the Horn Of Proteus (from F.F. #4) to call several giant reptiles from the ocean depths to attack. Namor, still wanting peace, strikes back at the monsters, causing some Navy men to wonder "Whose side is he on, anyway?" Realizing his mistake, and that it almost cost Dorma's life (who he secretly loves), Seth uses the Horn again to lure the beasts back to the depths-- at the cost of his own life. As Namor prepares to go home at last, he views the Battery Park area, which is in flames!

Roy Thomas, Marie Severin & Johnny Craig strike again! I'm reminded of the confusion with the Atlanteans, the US Navy, and The Plunderer (HOW did that guy ever get off on any kind of "parole" after starting a war between 2 countries??), but somewhat less confusing. I wish I had more issues from this period, as I find Diane Arliss intriguing (and considering the high death toll in the history of this book, I'm wondering if she's still around). This recurring trouble between Namor & the Army, Police, etc. gets tiring after DECADES of it. You'd THINK the ruler of an entire kingdom would have developed better "diplomatic" skills by now. (I think that's why Namor worked better in the old days, as a "loose cannon" rather than as an undersea "King Kull".) All this is under one of Marie Severin's FINEST covers, an image of Namor zipping over the heads of his baffled armada, while Manhattan crumbles & burns in the background. The cover was briefly featured in the History Channel documentary COMIC BOOK SUPER-HEROES UNMASKED, as an example of comics "predicting" things like "9-11".
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=23242&zoom=4


THOR #174 -- "The Carnage Of The Crypto-Man!" has Thor, lured by "Illusion Beams" while flying over NY, and hit by a "Hypno-Stun Ray", by a scientist named Jasper Whyte, who uses a device to drain off half of Thor's natural power, and use it to power a robot he's built which he calls "The Crypto-Man" (for NO apparent reason). He's another one of those embittered, frustrated types who's bent on "showing them all!", and he sees the robot as the first of an army that will "dominate the world". (Haven't we heard THIS too many times before?) Thor finds out what's going on when the guy's mother turns up at Dr. Blake's office telling him her son's disappeared, and right after, the cops call asking if he can contact Thor about this robot that's started destroying the city... Soon, we get a pretty spectacular fight scene going. When the robot heads for the the city's new Atomic Power plant, Thor reminds Jasper that his own mother will be one of the victims if the thing isn't stopped! (Oops!) Turning his control beam on the robot, Jasper succeeds, at the cost of his own life. Thor, his full power restored, later gives what comfort to Mrs. Whyte as he can as Dr. Blake.

No epic classic, but not bad either. I'd say this is a LOT better than many of these single-issue stories I've read around this time lately, and the art by Kirby & Everett has come up a few notches, especially in the scene of Thor flying over the city (Everett does every bit of detail in Kirby's complex cityscapes that Vince Colletta tended to simplify & gloss over, and he makes that hammer really look rugged), and the 2 pages where the robot comes to life. I have NO idea after reading this WHY the robot's called "The Crypto-Man". Is the fact that it's a mystery supposed to be a joke? (cryptology-- get it?) Or was this supposed to be a SUPERMAN villain that Jack came up with a half-year too early? the one thing I DON'T like about the issue is the cover. It's signed "Kirby & Everett". But, I'd SWEAR Marie Severin designed it. No knock at Marie-- but this is JACK KIRBY's book! Stan started getting Marie to do a LOT of other people's covers, a very bad trend that continued all thru the 70's with periods of John Romita, Gil Kane, etc. doing countless covers that should have been done by the interior artists, and it took her away from SUB-MARINER, which she was so GOOD at (just as it took Romita away from SPIDER-MAN). Sometimes Stan Lee's editorial decisions just drive me UP A WALL!!!


THE AVENGERS #74 -- "Pursue The Panther!" has The Black Panther a prisoner of The Sons Of The Serpent, a FAKE Panther committing crimes, the two racist talk-show hosts continuing to argue on the air, apparently trying to incite a race war, and The Avengers being challenged to "arrest" the Panther or be considered in cahoots with him! What a mess. The team tracks down the fake, but has a much harder time of it than one might think, and he gets away. Later, as The Serpents are about to "unmask" The Panther on TV, the team sneaks into the building quietly, locates the REAL Panther, and frees him, just as the fake is "proving" on national TV how hateful and racist he is. It then turns out there's 2 "Supreme Serpents"-- as under the masks, we find BOTH "rival" talk show hosts, whose hate-filled banter has been nothing but part of their mutual scheme to gain ultimate power. When the dust clears, both Monica Lynne & The Panther feel the need to be more socially conscious.

NICE issue, all round. The highlight here is the return of JOHN BUSCEMA!! Apparently, after hating every issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN he was 'forced' to do layouts on, and threatening to quit if Aunt May showed up (which she did in ASM #81), John followed thru on his word, and so, after 11 months of Colan, Smith, brother Sal & Giacoia, he's back, now teamed with TOM PALMER. Whoa!!! Apparently, when Neal Adams quit X-MEN, Roy decided that Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger were too good a team to break up, so he switched BOTH guys onto X-MEN, and in turn put Palmer on here. The results are STUNNING. As it happens, over the years, Tom Palmer may well have inked more issues of AVENGERS than any other inker, and it all started right here. The 1st issue of AVENGERS I ever bought had Buscema & Palmer on it, and for many years, I was under the impression they had done many more issues together than they had... In fact, they wound up doing more issues (and more consecutively) when they reunited in the 80's. But for now, this begins John's 2nd run on the book, and the new "era" is off to a stunning start!

Roy did an okay job here. My one complaint might be the scene when The Vision is searching the city, for as he begins to descend right thru the sidewalk, the people around him come across as some of the STUPIDEST I've ever seen in a comic, as when one of them yells, "STOP 'im, man!" (WHY???) and "Why didn't he say anything? Why??" (Why SHOULD he??). Come to think of it, this feels a LOT like what's been going on in SILVER SURFER, making me wonder how much of this is Roy's work and how much is John's. On the other hand, I loved the bit where Jan, flying over some buildings, refers to herself as "the poor man's Tinker Bell". (She's so CUTE!!! John & Tom draw her SO much better than Sal & Sam!)

I believe John Buscema cut back to layouts, leaving Tom Palmer to do "finishes" before too long-- but this issue, at least, looks like full Buscema pencils to me. Either way... WOW!!!


DAREDEVIL #62 -- "Quoth The Nighthawk, "Nevermore!"" has DD interrupted while stopping a crime by Nighthawk-- the guy from The Squadron Sinister (in AVENGERS #69-70). DD feels woozy, Nighthawk stops the criminals, and suggests in a rather loutish way that maybe it's time DD retired. As it turns out, bored millionaire playboy Kyle Richmond (Marvel's answer to... YOU know) called up Matt Murdock with an anoymous tip, figuring he'd contact his friend Daredevil; then drugged DD as they passed so DD would look bad and Nighthawk would look good. His scheme is to become popular-- then maybe run for political office. He didn't even care about the crooks-- he let 'em go as soon as DD was out of the way! Not exactly your ideal picture of crime-fighting heroism, is he? At the office, Karen (who found out Matt & DD are one and the same some time ago) laments that Matt doesn't give up his life of crime-fighting to be "the man I fell in love with" (OH BROTHER). Later, DD tracks down Nighthawk, in the middle of stopping another crime (having figured out what drug was used on him, and giving himself the antidote!), then tricks the guy into confessing over a radio loud-speaker that everything he's been doing is to con "the sheep" who now look up to him. (It's like that scene in the movie UHF when Kevin McCarthy insulted every single person who lived in his town-- over the air-- without realizing it!) Nighthawk flees, already threatening revenge, and almost gets run down by a subway train, but gets away scot free... something that has just been happening far too often of late in Marvel books. (That kind of thing can erode people's faith in the criminal justice system!)

I see Roy Thomas has taken over from Stan by this point, which no doubt explains his bringing in one of his baddies from AVENGERS. In addition, Gene Colan's hero & mentor Syd Shores is on the inks, and it's spectacular! They really made a great match, as Shores' intricate fine-line rendering (so much more refined than those of, say, Vince Colletta) are a perfect match for Colan's equally-intricate shaded pencils. I know they did about a year-and-a-half together on this book, I just wish I had ANY of them in the original printing. I'm missing so many issues of DD right now, and only have this story because it was reprinted in GIANT-SIZE DEFENDERS #5 (Nighthawk, reformed, being a regular in that book in the 70's).


X-MEN #66 -- "The Mutants And The Monster" has Professor X in a coma after using his brain-power to save the entire planet (last time). In his weak delirium the only thought they can get out of his is "The Hulk", and the deduce it may be scientist Bruce Banner that Xavier feels can help. And so they go to Las Vegas, and have a run-in with Greenskin. Jean knocks him unconscious, causing him to turn back to Banner, but as they try to question him, the Army shows up, warning the "stinkin' muties" to get out of their way if they don't want trouble. Banner remembers discussing a project with Xavier, the results of which are at one of his "secret labs", but the tension of the situation makes him turn back into the Hulk and storm off. When the Army finds the X-Men have also run off, they immediately conclude "They were in cahoots-- just like we figured!" (Man, how STUPID can some people be?) The trail leads to a nearby mountain, and an underground lab, from which Angel grabs a piece of equipment he hopes is what they need. The Hulk, who only wanted to be left alone, just stands there as they fly off, while they figure that, if only unconsciously, Banner must have led them to exactly where they needed to go. Back home, the device works, the Prof. is out of the coma, and feeling optimistic about their future, and all the work that needs doing.

On the letters page, it's revealed that this is the LAST issue of X-MEN, as sales didn't warrant it continuing. At least, unlike NICK FURY and DR. STRANGE, they must have seen it coming. The story's not bad, overall-- except for the parts involving the Hulk-- and the Army-- where it's a toss-up as to who's more stupid. The surprise is the art. I knew Neal Adams was gone after last issue, but it seems to me the "obvious" guy to have filled in here-- again-- would have been Don Heck, who did such a GREAT job on #64. Nope. Instead, we got Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger, the 2 guys who did 5 issues of AVENGERS in a row. Grainger looked all set to become the regular inker on this book before Neal Adams & Tom Palmer arrived. Now, with Adams gone, and with Buscema off SPIDER-MAN and back on AVENGERS, I'm guessing Roy must have figured Sal & Sam made too good a team to break up, and moved them over to the "back-up team". I can't shake the feeling that for most of its 60's run, X-MEN was sort of like what THE DEFENDERS was in the 70's-- the "2nd-level" team. The book that's somehow never really great, but you don't expect it to be-- just "fun" to read. And, as it happens, THE artist I most associate with THE DEFENDERS was Sal Buscema, who drew the book with writers Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart AND Steve Gerber. Never really great, but somehow, never really bad either. And Sal & Sam Grainger REALLY made a terrific team. I'd say this issue actually looked BETTER than their issues of AVENGERS, as they seemed to do just about every character "right", certainly (to my eyes), "better" (or more "on-model") than Adams & palmer were. With ONE major exception.

There's one thing I always remember about Sal's long run on DEFENDERS. In all those issues, he had the opportunity to draw just about every single character in the entire Marvel Universe, and he did most of them pretty well. With ONE major exception. The Hulk. Sal's Hulk is TERRIBLE. I think he just CAN'T draw the guy right! (It happens-- Don Heck could NEVER draw Sub-Mariner "right", either!) So, it was with sickening irony that, when Herb Trimpe got replaced on THE INCREDIBLE HULK, of all people to take his place, they got Sal-- who wound up doing more issues on the book than anybody has ever done before or since! Sheesh. That said, it's no surprise that every panel The Hulk appears in this issue drags it down quite a few notches. I wonder how Sal & Sam might have made out in the long run if X-MEN hadn't been cancelled right here?

Other than that, the only other annoying thing is this Iceman-Lorna Dane-Havok "triangle". Iceman & Lorna were a really cute, happy couple when Arnold Drake was on the book. No sooner does Roy turn up, Lorna starts having a "women's lib attitude" complex, which seemed (even with the short time she'd been around) totally out of character, and left field. Then she starts mooning over Havok... Okay, I guess it happens. But this has been dragging on for MONTHS on end!! If she doesn't wanna be considered Bobby's girlfriend anymore (which she definitely HAD been!) WHY doesn't she just TELL him straight to his face and get it over with? I have 3 words for this: "bad soap opera". OY.

All this is under a (not that bad) Marie Severin cover. WHY didn't Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger do the cover?? STOP Stan Lee before he edits again!!!

FANTASTIC FOUR #96 -- "The Mad Thinker And His Androids of Death!" has a baddie who by rights NEVER should have come back again (after FF #68-71) use human-looking androids to capture & replace the members of the FF, one at a time. He then sneaks into the Baxter Building thru a secret elevator he somehow had built while the team were over in Latveria (!!!), and as he settles in, he plans to dispose of the team, then make use of their equipment & secrets... UNTIL one of the androids turns out to be the real Reed, who beat his doppleganger, and is set on freeing his friends. Once Reed locates Ben, it turns into a real free-for-all, and they finally locate the unconscious Johnny & Sue in the basement. Reed, more romantic than usual, decides to wake Sue with a kiss.

I wish I could say this was something special. Nope. I feel The Mad Thinker outlived his expiration date when he brainwashed Ben & tried to have him MURDER his own friends 2 years earlier, yet, so short on ideas, Stan Lee KEEPS bringing the guy back, first in that 3-way debacle between SUB-MARINER, CAPTAIN MARVEL & AVENGERS (okay, that was probably Roy Thomas' idea, but still), then here. To make matters worse, Frank Giacoia fills in for the 2nd time in 4 months, and his inks AREN'T up to snuff. I mean, once you've had Joe Sinnott on this book, no one else will do! I do think Giacoia might have been a good fit on one of Kirby's books once he moved to DC... maybe MISTER MIRACLE. But the FF? NO WAY!

I forgot to mention on the previous issue-- FF #95 marked the debut of the "FAT" F.F. logo. I have never understood why such a CLASSIC logo was altered in such an UGLY fashion. It makes no sense, it ruins the look of every cover it appears on, and I believe during 3 different periods of the book's history it's been used for long stretches. Why? WHY? It's one more BAD editorial decision on Stan Lee's part, along with going back to having a lot of words on covers (baloons and captions), AND, getting Marie Severin to pencil or design almost every cover of every comic. Jack Kirby had been designing & pencilling covers for ages. In the early 60's, he often did EVERY cover Marvel put out. It makes NO SENSE to have anybody else designing his covers FOR him! One more sign that Stan was losing it.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #82 -- "And Then Came Electro!" begins with Pete a mass of worries about all his problems. Anna Watson & MJ return from Florida to look after May, and Pete goes out in search of crime to photograph. But it's such a slow day, he hits on the idea of appearing on a network TV talk show, which the producers go for, but which Jameson begins a non-stop series of editorials lambasting as soon as he learns of it. Working at the station is Max Dillon-- the recently-paroled Electro-- who hits on the idea of making a bundle by striking a deal with Jameson to defeat Spidey on-the-air. JJJ goes for it, and has the most diabolically INSANE gleam in his eye as he invites Joe & Stacy to accompany him to the TV show. Pete & Gwen help give Flash a going-away party, which is interrupted when Pete gets jealous over Flash's brainless remarks. Gwen's more concerned about Peter than ever, and he give strong thoughts to telling her the truth about himself. About one minute into his live TV interview, Spidey is attacked by Electro, and as the audience flees the building, Jameson rants, egging the villain on, while Stacy says Jameson must have been "out of his mind" to endanger so many innocent people! Spidey manages to short-circuit Electro's power, but the villain limps away, already plotting revenge. Spidey limps back home as well, fearing he can "never" return to the studio (there goes any hope of easy money).

According to the Bullpen page, this issue marks a deliberate "return" to the earlier style of focusing more on Peter Parker's life. Fed up with the book, John Buscema quit to return to THE AVENGERS (which was all the better for it, his work there was MUCH more inspired than it ever was here), and John Romita went back to doing layouts. Yep, layouts-- I can tell, Jim Mooney is still doing pencils AND inks (with Romita probably doing touch-ups on faces as usual). Whereas for the last year the book had been reduced to an average of 4 panels to a page, and less and less story, this issue averages about 7 panels per page-- sometimes 9! It's a shocking jolt after the last couple years, but with Stan's insistence on complete-in-one-issue stories, it was virtually a NECESSITY in order to get enough story into a mere 20 pages! Once again, for me, one of the highlights was seeing MJ again-- NOBODY draw her like John Romita (even if Jim Mooney is doing the bulk of the work), and every time I see her I wonder what the HECK Parker is doing with that blonde. (And I LIKE blondes! I just don't care for Gwen.) I wonder how Harry puts up with MJ, the way she keeps throwing herself at Pete.

One thing I feel sure of, if Stan & Johnny really wanted this book to in any way reflect "real life", there would have been a major investigation into what went on at that TV studio, and Jameson would have been the target of several DOZEN lawsuits, and probably forced to undergo prolonged psychiatric examination. The man is a dangerous MENACE!!! (A MENACE, I tell you!!!)


CAPTAIN AMERICA #123 -- "Suprema, The Deadliest Of The Species!" has a female karate expert calling herself "Suprema", who claims to have "magic" powers, make a play to take over the rackets. She just waltzes in, gives orders-- and they're obeyed! Before long, she sets her sights on taking over SHIELD! Meanwhile, Cap helps Nick Fury show his men some fighting moves, then discusses the situation with Sharon, who refuses to give up being an agent. Fury suggests if he were in Cap's shoes, he'd MARRY the girl! But being the old-fashioned guy he is, Cap has problems with the idea of marrying someone whose "sense of duty equals his own". All that's brushed aside when Suprema shows up, and Cap suddenly finds himself the target of Fury & his men, as he somehow is the only person there who hasn't abruptly fallen under her commands! Checking newspaper records & Tony Starks computers fills Cap in on what's really going on, as he finds Suprema was once half of a hypnotist act, who's been using electronic means to amplify her very real "power". Freeing Fury & his men, Cap puts a stop to her schemes, and as he walks away, she begs him to join her in her bid for "power!!!"

"Okay"-- but that's as far as I'll go. The wrap-up, in particular, seemed rushed and poorly-explained, as if this really should have been a 2-parter. When Gene Colan has to start using 6 panels to a page, you know this "one-issue story" thing is more restrictive than it's worth, as the writing seems to be taking several major steps backwards, toward the stories Marvel used to do in the early 60's-- only less "fun". One rather silly (and surprising) art mistake crops up when Gene draw the house where some gangster is operating-- and Suprema & her men climbing over the garden wall-- all of the figures being drawn about TWICE the size they should be! I'm guessing Gene used photo-reference for the building... and somehow got confused as to how big it was supposed to be. It's almost like looking at one of M.C.Escher's drawings... you have this feeling of, "WAIT a minute...!"


SILVER SURFER #14 -- "The Surfer And The Spider!" has The Surfer stop a pair of meteorites from colliding and endangering countless lives, but falling to Earth unconscious as a result. A young comic-book fan, browbeaten by his Dad, sees The Surfer on his rooftop. As he flies off, totally by accident, Spider-Man happens to be swinging by and finds his web latched onto the surfboard. Believing it's just "one more trick" of humanity, The Surfer takes off, with Spidey almost getting seriously injured in the process. Naturally peeved at this, and, as always, far more thick-headed when he's appearing in someone else's book, Spidey challenges The Surfer to a fight, and before long the Army gets involved, hoping to "get him this time!" and surprised to see that Spidey is "on their side". The boy, while standing on the temporarily-abandoned surfboard, suddenly finds himself flying thru the air, and when The Surfer sees what's happened, takes very careful control of the board to lower it and its unwitting passenger safely to the ground. Both Spidey & the Army see this, and depart, feeling lower than dirt, one soldier saying "Nobody in this outfit will EVER go after The Surfer again!"

What can I say? The WORST issue yet. Was Stan determined to make John Buscema suffer? The very month after he quit AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, which he hated, John finds himself drawing the guy again, in The Surfer's mag. The art must be the least-inspired of any issue to date, and I can't even recognize any trace of Dan Adkins here. Truly, a waste of 2 top talents. On top of that, I'm really fed up with Spider-Man coming across as such a hair-trigger IDIOT when he's wearing that costume. This must be the STUPIDEST hero-vs-hero fight to date (and that's REALLY saying something).


THE AVENGERS #75 -- "The Warlord And The Witch!" has Quicksilver FINALLY return to his own book, and in his hot-headed way, gets on the wrong side of just about everybody from Jarvis to Goliath II to EVEN Captain America-- before explaining that his sister, The Scarlet Witch, is in peril. THAT gets Clint's attention (he used to have a thing for her, briefly, when he first joined the team). It seems, while searching for some means to restore Wanda's mutant power (which disappeared mysteriously), with the help of The Toad, they run across an ancient volume hidden in a "cloister", which somehow opens a dimensional gateway, thru which steps "Arkon The Magnificent", the most powerful warrior of an entire planet of warriors, whose world is in danger of slowly dying as the "energy ring" that surrounds it disintegrates. Finding that nuclear explosions from Earth have been revitalizing his planet, but only temporarily, Arkon decides that one collosal blast will ensure his planet's survival for centuries to come-- even if it means the total destruction of all life on Earth! And it looks like he's determined to see that it happens...

It occurs to me around this time that Roy Thomas' run on THE AVENGERS must have been the only book somehow excempt from the "one-issue story" edict. And with good reason-- HOW would you do single-issue stories with a cast this large and make them worth reading at all? John Buscema & Tom Palmer are working WONDERS on the art, and it's clear that John is having a blast. Somehow Roy & John mesh far better on this series than Stan & John ever did on SILVER SURFER, and no matter how wild the plot, how grandiose the set of events, somehow John makes you just believe in it. I think the long absence of Wanda & Pietro has been hurting both the series and the characters, and it's nice to FINALLY see them back where they belong. Arkon, meanwhile, appears to be almost a science-fictional warm-up for CONAN THE BARBARIAN, between the muscles, the long hair, the loin cloth-- not to mention it's Roy & John doing the guy. Arkon turned up in quite a few stories over the years, but I never read these early stories until the ESSENTIAL volume came out. What surprised me on reading this was how much he seemed to resemble "Boltan"-- the #1 warrior on a planet of warriors-- who happens to carry a big shield and a whole set of LIGHTNING-BOLT weapons that he hurls-- from the 1968 SPIDER-MAN cartoon, "THUNDER RUMBLE". The main difference in appearance is Boltan had a beard and a helmet with horns on it (looking like an alternate-universe bad-guy version of Thor), but Arkon's helmet, with its sort-of "bird-wings" shape, does kind of evoke that. With all the "original" material that turned up on cartoons based on Marvel characters, it always cracks me up when it appears some of Marvel's writers began to borrow ideas from the cartoons, instead of the other way round!

FANTASTIC FOUR #97 -- "The Monster Of The Lost Lagoon!" has Reed & co., while on vacation, investigating "Lost Lagoon" where ships have been sinking. As they cruise thru the water in a special mini-craft loaned from the Navy, a scaly green figure swims in the background. On the beach, girls flock to Johnny, but he feels, after Crystal, what other girl could he ever feel that way about? The mysterious creature uses a chemical to change its form to a human, as it poses as a "dolphin trainer" at the local aquarium. Reed asks the oddly silent guy if he'll act as a guide, but once underwater, the creature wrecks their craft, and Ben barely manages to get Reed & Johnny into an underground cave. Back in his natural form, the creature tanlges with the threesome, until they see he's been repairing a shell-shaped spacecraft-- which then lifts off, taking him (and his mate) back to the stars.

A cute twist on THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (mixed with THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US), as well as IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (for the "temporarily stranded on Earth" plot). We get to see the more human side of the group as Johnny plays with Franklin, and Reed gets romantic with Sue. On the downside... I'm trying to figure out WHY the "monster" could speak while in human form-- but only while he was alone-- and never spoke one word while he was around anyone Earth (maybe he couldn't speak English and what we read was "translated" for the readers? --a simple footnote would have clarified that!). But WHY would Reed "hire" a guide who never spoke a word-- and how could they communicate? Also, it's never mentioned, but Reed must have been using 2 completely different undersea craft in this story-- the one at the beginning is MUCH smaller than the one wrecked later in the story.

Joe Sinnott's absent for the 3rd issue in less than a year, with Frank Giacoia filling in again. I once again see evidence of Joe Giella's helping out, notably on pages 5, 6, 15 & 19 (and possibly faces on a few others). The difference between the 2 guys' styles is quite noticeable, and it's kinda silly that Giella NEVER got credited on the multitude of Marvel Comics he worked on in the late 60's-early 70's. (Meanwhile, John Verpoorten inked the cover, which was laid out by Marie Severin.)


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #83 -- "The Schemer!" has a new racketeer planning to take over The Kingpin's territory, since the big man's been "in hiding" ever since his last tangle with Spidey. Spidey gets in the middle of a battle, but once he realizes it's two rival gangs out to hurt each other, he leaves in the middle happy to have some photos to sell. We meet Vanessa-- the classy wife of The Kingpin (who reminds me of some European royalty), as she's upset over the news that their son Richard appears to have died in a skiing accident in the Alps. Jameson chisels Pete's price down again. At the airport, the gang sends Flash on his way back to the Army, with both MJ and Gwen going all-out to make their own boyfriends jealous. Later, Pete & Gwen are almost killed when a car runs a truck off the road and it topples over on top of both of them. Only his super-strength saves them both, and she winds up in the hospital. PISSED OFF, Spidey follows the tracer he tossed at the offending car to The Schemer's lair, where a big fight pretty well wrecks the whole place. The villain gets away, but at least he feels he "paid them back". Racing to the hospital, he gets there just in time for Gwen to get on her high horse again about how he "cared so much he wasn't around". Her Dad tries to console him by saying "Most females tend to think with their emotions", and Pete once again wonders if it isn't time he told Gwen the truth.

Another solid issue. John Romita definitely is the only guy who should be doing this book-- even if it's just the layouts. The art this time, however, suffers because Jim Mooney turned up missing-- replaced by MIKE ESPOSITO! This isn't the same Romita-Esposito team that worked such visual wonders 30 issues back. Romita's continuing to do layouts-- which means, Esposito is doing both pencils AND inks, just as he did briefly on THE INCREDIBLE HULK series when Jack Kirby was doing the layouts. Romita's around to pick up the slack touching up faces, but overall, this entire issue has a "rough", "crude" look about it compared to the last several YEARS. Without Romita doing full pencils, I'm afraid this isn't quite cutting it. Still, it's way, WAY better than when Esposito was inking Ross Andru several years later. That art got so bad I eventually stopped buying the book...

The overall ban on single-issue stories seems to have been lifted, as this is the first of a 3-parter. Stories should always be as long or as short as they need to be, and not have lengths dictated arbitrarily by editorial decisions.


CAPTAIN AMERICA #124 -- "Mission: Stop The Cyborg!" begins with Cap tackling more AIM thugs (remember when these guys were all scientists under those hoods?). 2 of them get away, and MODOK has one of them killed, the other chooses instead to participate in the "cyborg" experiment. Several years before DEATHLOK THE DEMOLISHER, we see a guy turned into a half-man, half-machine. Cap visits Fury again, and asks him to take Sharon off the active field agent roster, and give her a desk job. Overjoyed to see him again, Sharon agrees to his wishes. MODOK sends The Cyborg out to rob a bank, then when he returns, tells him "Throw the money away! It means nothing!" (What a waste-- plus, destroying cash is a Federal offense!) Sharon gives Cap a message from Fury-- then finds out it didn't come from Fury, meaning she sent her man into a trap! Racing to the scene to warn him, she's captured by The Cyborg JUST as Cap arrives, and stumbles into a series of death-traps. When he manages to escape and destroy The Cyborg, he winds up pissed at Fury and Sharon for "lying" to him-- not realizing the only reason she was there was to try and save his life!

This whole single-issue story thing is beginning to get wearing. Rather than an epic slowly building to a climax, all these short little incidents with MODOK and AIM are beginning to feel like watching THE FUGITIVE, where the "main plot" never seems to get anywhere. The current portrayal of Sharon is really beginning to bug me, as Jack Kirby spent a lot of time & effort creating and building a strong female character, and the second he stopped contributing to the plots, the whole thing spun around into a lame soap-opera, with Sharon slowly becoming another over-emotional weak-willed "girl" incapable of expressing what's really on her mind. The scene where she finds out Fury wasn't the one who radioed for Cap also made no sense-- since she had the perfect opportunity RIGHT THEN to tell Fury something was wrong, and HE could have warned Cap. This is what I call "bad soap opera" writing.

I'm also wondering what's going on with the colorist(s). It seems every episode, those AIM clowns are wearing different helmets. This issue, they went from purple to magenta beween scenes!

Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott are continuing to do BEAUTIFUL work here... but now, Marie Severin is doing GENE's covers for him! Plus, the cover has 2 word baloons and 2 wordy captions. WHAT was Stan THINKING???


SILVER SURFER #15 -- "The Flame And The Fury" has The Surfer go to a clothing store and get fitted for a suit, for which he transmutes a fancy ashtray into pure gold as payment. Wondering why he didn't thing of them before (a good question-- bad writing?) he goes to see The Fantastic Four, hoping maybe THEY can help him escape from Earth. When he arrives, they're talking with an Army General, who's asking them to "get the Surfer". Feeling that even his "friends" are betraying him now, The Surfer races off, with The Human Torch in pursuit, and we get one long, tedious, boring extended chase & fight sequence... which ends when some soldiers corner him, he almost causes Johnny to get run over by a subway train, and THEN, finds out NASA was hoping he might be of some help to their space program. Feeling like dirt, he flies off, realizing that this time, he was the one who misjudged others.

I take it back about the last issue. THIS one's much worse. Everyone seems to be just going thru the motions, nobody seems to talk like "real" humans... and from the dialogue, it seems to me Stan simply CANNOT figure out whether The Surfer is some "alien" with no notion of humanity, or a guy who was human once who just wants to go back home. I mean it, the dialogue is AWFUL, and it's like the writer is getting 2 completely different views of the character mixed up between panels. The Bullpen page reveals Stan has instituted a new "guest-star policy", which means a lot of characters are making uncalled-for appearances in each other's books. This strikes me as an editor desperately grasping for something, anything, to improve sagging sales. The cover-- by Marie Severin (NOT Buscema) has 2 blurbs-- "Battling The Human Torch!" and "See The Surfer attacked by The Torch!". How redundant can you get?? You'd think simply putting "The Flame And The Fury" on there would have been better-- and classier. OY.


SUB-MARINER #24 -- "The Lady And The Tiger Shark!" has Namor prisoner of his longtime enemy, Warlord Krang, who's teamed up with Dr. Dorcas (from SUB-MARINER #5-6) to create a new super-powed menace, Orca, The Human Killer Whale. Orca commands a heard of killer whales to attack a group of escaping Atlanteans and kill them all, except for Lady Dorma, who they want as a prisoner. But who should just happen along but Tiger Shark, the earlier "creation" of Dorcas, who agrees to help Dorma & Lord Vashti (who's in a bad way), IF she'll agree to be his bride! (Oh-- the CAD!!) She does, he does, and soon he's put in charge of Atlantis' defenses, just as Krang attacks, with Namor chained to the body of a killer whale, to prevent their being fired on. But Tiger Shark only sees it as an opportunity to eliminate a rival, and orders the attack, which winds up freeing Namor from the chains! Namor, recovered, tells Dorma she did the honorable thing (mighty level-headed of him-- FOR A CHANGE!). Back at the battle, Tiger Shark sees another chance to polish off Namor, and "make a deal" with Krang-- but while Namor's temporarily out of it, Orca only sees his "master" about to be attacked-- and so Dorcas' 2 "creations" go head-to-head-- until an undersea tremor buries them BOTH! With Tiger Shark apparently dead, Dorma is freed of her promise, and Namor takes her in his arms, vowing to face whatever challenges to come together.

What a GREAT issue!!! With Marie Severin yanked off the series to do covers for everybody else's books, John Severin returns to fill-in, and does the most MAGNIFICENT job I believe he ever did on this series. This time, inks are supplied by Jim Mooney, and the results are STUNNING. I can really see the difference between the art here and their collaboration on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, where Buscema only did layouts. I swear, Roy Thomas & John Buscema really do make a terrific team. This issue better than most really captures the grandeur of an "undersea Kull" series, something all too rare in a book that often got derailed by focusing on annoying trivia or uncalled-for tragedy.

Funny thing about the art this time... Warlord Krang & Dr. Dorcas wound up reminding me a LOT of Ming The Merciless and an evil version of Dr. Zarkov-- which makes me think John Buscema really should have tackled FLASH GORDON as some point (or at least, STAR WARS). Also, in one panel Namor reminds me of Robert Taylor (who starred in IVANHOE).

I'm surprised. This comic gets my vote for BEST Marvel of the month!


THE INCREDIBLE HULK #126 -- "Where Stalks The Night-Crawler" has an unconscious Bruce Banner taken to "Cliff-House", a spooky hangout for a man named Van Nyborg, who is one of the followers of The Undying Ones. With the aid of Jack & Barbara Norris (who joined his cult for kicks but are now having second thoughts), they intend to send The Hulk to another dimension to battle "The Night-Crawler", who guards the gateway between Earth and the realm where his masters are, trapped, and bent on returning to conquer the Earth. Banner manages to restrain himself from changing, until Barbara defies Van Nyborg, and is hurled into the other dimension as well. With someone else's life now in danger, The Hulk quickly emerges, and a collasal battle begins, which winds up destroying The Night-Crawler's entire realm. All 3 find themselves in The Undying Ones' dimension, which The Night-Crawler intends to take for his own. There, we find Dr. Strange, who's been trapped for months, intent on keeping The Undying Ones from reclaiming Earth. Barbara decides to replace him between the "mystic poles", and because of her sacrifice, Strange and The Hulk are able to return to Earth, The Undying Ones now trapped for another millennium in their dimension. Strange welcomes Banner as a friend, then says maybe the world no longer needs him, and it's time for him to just be Stephen Strange again, medical consultant.

Though there is not a CLUE on the cover, this is the 3rd part of a story that began in DR. STRANGE #183 and continued in SUB-MARINER #22. Suffice to say, each part, due to changes in artists, was less impressive than the one before. It's a heck of a come-down from Gene Colan & Tom Palmer to Marie Severin & Johnny Craig, to finally, Herb Trimpe. According to the Bullpen page, they had actually been getting hate mail begging for them to replace Trimpe on THE HULK with someone, just about anyone else! Kinda sad. I must admit, his work back here is even more cartoony and "rough" than I was used to seeing, and I can only conclude he got a lot better as the 70's went on-- especially when they got some appropriate inkers to team up with him, especially Jack Abel who brought a real gleam & polish that just wasn't there before.

As for the story, I actually had a hard time following it. Dr. Strange barely turns up at all until the last few pages, and his sudden decision to quit being mankind's protector and become a "medical consultant" (something he had brushed off since long before becoming a magician in the first place) seems totally out of left field, and seems more related to his book having been cancelled than any natural character development. Oh well. THE HULK was never one of Marvel's best-written books to begin with.

This loose 3-parter did later insapire the creation of THE DEFENDERS, which featured Dr. Strange & The Hulk (and, in some periods, Sub-Mariner), and this issue in particular featured the debut of Jack & Barbara Norris, 2 characters who wound up being very long-running supporting characters in that book. This was reprinted in both DAY OF THE DEFENDERS (2001) and ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS Vol.1 (2005).


THE AVENGERS #76 -- "The Blaze of Battle... The Flames of Love!" has the team desperately trying to use technology to break the dimensional barrier to stop Arkon The Magnificent from forcing a team of kidnapped physicists from creating an atomic weapon capable of destroying the entire Earth. While this is going on, The Black Widown shows up and, totally out of the blue (and with no explanation whatsoever) tells Clint she can never see him again. (SAY WHAT???) Meanwhile, Arkon feels he may be able to learn much from The Scarlet Witch, and lies to her, saying he's found a way to save his planet without destroying Earth-- but he still intends on making her his queen. (Nice guy.) When science fails, Thor's hammer succeeds in bringing the battle to Arkon's world, but soon, he flees to Earth with half the team in pursuit, as he prepares to detonate the bomb atop the Empire State Building. Things look very bad... until he's contacted by his grand vizier, who tells him 2 of the Earthmen-- Iron Man & Thor-- have actually managed to restore the ring that encircles their planet, saving countless lives on both worlds in the process! Arkon decides he no longer wishes to force Wanda to marry him against her will, but hopes he will see her again someday. She seems to return the sentiment.

Another EPIC issue. Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Tom Palmer seem to be working very hard to CRAM as much story as they can into 40 pages (last issue and this one), and Buscema's storytelling is much more inspired here than on some other books he's been doing lately. The page layouts have thankfully varied between smaller and larger panels, and I believe it was at this point John cut back on this book to just layouts-- as Tom Palmer appears to be doing MUCH more than he did on the previous 2 issues. For once, the "big 2" (Iron Man & Thor) had an essential reason for being involved in the plot (while the fight was going on, they really saved the day thru a combination of science AND mystical power). This issue actually marked the first meeting beteen The Scarlet Witch and The Vision, and being aware of their later history, it was almst jarring when she said "Whoever you are..." The very real and dangerous troubles the team struggled with trying to get to another dimension act an an interesting counterpoint to the way DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA seemed to go dimension-hopping so often & easily. The only thing about this entire issue that annoyed me no end was the Clint-Natasha scene. WHAT IS IT with them? WHY can't they ever seem to just "get along"? And, you just don't turn up and tell a guy you can never see each other again without giving some explanation! Other than that, this was really one of the best books Marvel put out this month. I'd say, at this point in Marvel history, Roy Thomas seems to be leaving Stan Lee completely in the dust! (Now if they could just have cleaned up that cover-- 2 blurbs and a word balloon? OY!)

FANTASTIC FOUR #98 -- "Mystery On The Moon!" has Reed intercept a message, which he figures out is from The Kree, and figures out it has something to do with the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Out in the Pacific, a Kree Sentry causes a long-sunken island to rise from the water, and goes down into an underground vault to find something called "The Stimulator". In a rocket, Reed, Ben & Johnny locate the source of the transmission, and are soon in a fight for their lives against the Sentry, who is trying to get, by remote control, a "nameless mass" beneath the surface of the moon to destroy the Apollo mission and prevent man from reaching into space. Ben destroys the Stimulator, the mass disipates, our trio escape with their lives, and Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon.

It looks nice. Joe Sinnott's back, and the visuals, especially scenes with The Sentry on pages 5, 6, 12, 14 are stunning as ever. But somehow, this isssue is an almost TOTAL botch-job!!! Where do I start? Right on page 1, when Reed barks, "QUIET, honey! Can't TALK to you now!" Fine way for a loving husband and new father to talk to the girl he loves. Second, the story supposedly takes place about a year before the issue comes out-- so it can coincide with the Apollo 11 mission. On page 3, Sue says Johnny's trying to "forget Crystal"-- who only left an issue or so back. WHAT th'...? Now, The Sentry is CLEARLY not the same Sentry from FF #64 (who returned in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #13 and CAPTAIN MARVEL #1), because the costume is way too different-- much less detail, different color scheme, and he's only about Ben's height, while the earlier Sentry was a giant. Plus, Reed asks on page 1, "What if they also left another?" I doubt there'd be 2 of them on Earth all this time, so it stands to reason this 2nd Sentry was brought here by The Hellion (or its supply ship) seen in the CAPTAIN MARVEL series. But that series is never once mentioned here! WHAT th'...? A PERFECT opportunity for a tie-in, and NOTHING? (The fact that the CM book had only just been cancelled may have something to do with that massive oversight.) Reed notes the island is "almost a mini-replica of the moon! But WHY?" Yeah-- WHY?? We NEVER find out!! It gets WORSE. "At that same split-second", Stan tells us in his narration, that the FF are on the island, Apollo 11 lifts off for the moon. When the FF are fighting in the underground chamber to destroy the Stimulator, Apollo 11 is about to LAND on the moon. The whole sequence looks like it took maybe 5-10 minutes, AT THE OUTSIDE-- not 2-3 WHOLE DAYS!! WHAT th'...??? Further, Reed says NASA "loaned" him a rocket. How do you "loan" somebody a throwaway missile booster? And WHY? The FF have their own. In fact, THIS one has a big "4" on the side-- and doesn't look ANYTHING like anything NASA ever built. Still further, Reed says they're about to run out of fuel as they approach the island. So, HOW were they able to lift off at the end and return to New York? Did Stan think this thru AT ALL when he was writing the dialogue?????

And then there's this relatively "minor" point of historical contention. On the last page, in the last 2 panels, Neal Armstrong says, "That's one small step for a man--- one giant leap for mankind!" Here's the thing. I'm sure that's what he meant to say. It makes sense. But that's NOT what was heard. For DECADES, the quote, as heard, was "That's one small step for man---" No "a". In recent years, it has become popular to "correct" the quote, to quote it as it was supposed to be-- not as it was. It makes more sense as it was supposed to be-- and, as Stan had it here. But that's NOT how it came out. Just as Jamie Lee Curtis FLUBBED her last line in HALLOWEEN (and John Carpenter was in too much of a hurry to do a 2nd take), when she said "Was the boogyman?" instead of "Was IT the boogyman?", so Neal Armstrong-- as Arnold Drake said it to me-- flubbed the "script" they gave him. It's dumb, It's incompetent. But it's real. And I hate it when people rewrite history to suit their current thoughts.

Oh yeah, and let's talk about that cover. Another Marie Severin design, no doubt, done very nicely by Kirby & Sinnott. Except... "Doomsday on The Moon"-- the title, the visual AND the coloring all suggest the action takes place ON the moon, instead of an island in the Pacific. When the cover was reprinted on MGC, it was "flopped" so the mysterious shadow would be approaching from the right. I believe that's how it was supposed to be-- but Stan had the production dept. flop it at the last minute, for no good purpose. The title doesn't match the actual story title-- and there's 3-- 3!!!-- word balloons. Plus a wordy caption, which includes the increasingly annoying phrase "Mighty Marvel". And get this one... "Why does he stop? Why does he keep coming?" Well-- is he stopping, or coming??? Was somebody ON DRUGS when they did this??? (It's like one of those Ralph Bakshi-Gray Morrow SPIDER-MAN cartoons. Maybe the comic would have made more sense if it came with a KPM Library soundtrack album...)

I can't help but wonder if the entire story was supposed to take place on the moon-- but someone changed their minds in mid-production. One interesting-- and inescapable item-- the scene where The Sentry raises that moon-looking hunk of island out of the sea was DUPLICATED in the movie SUPERMAN RETURNS. This comic HAD to be the inspiration for that. I have NO doubt of it!!!


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #84 -- "The Kingpin Strikes Back!" has someone put out a five thousand dollar reward for the capture of The Schemer, and Spidey sure could use the cash. Plus, it's easier freezing himself half to death in the cold & snow than trying to answer-- or avoid-- Gwen's questions about how they survived that accident with the truck last issue. From one of The Kingpin's thugs, Spidey finds out about The Schemer's special weapons-laden car, and tangles with him and it, before winding up in the river (and surprisingly, the icy waters don't even bother him at this point-- you'd think they would have!). Trailing the car to The Kingpin's mansion, a 3-way free-for-all breaks out, until Vanessa sees something in The Schemer's eyes-- and then disappears WITH him. This is the only thing that stops The Kingpin from finishing off Spider-Man, who he "hates like no one he has ever hated" in his life. He runs off to find his wife, while Spidey is left behind, with no results, no pics, and no reward money.

Not bad. Here's the part I don't understand. 2 months after he QUIT, John Buscema is back on layouts, in between John Romita & Jim Mooney. Was he a glutton for punishment, or was Stan just a really, really pushy boss who always got his way no matter what, even when his decisions made NO SENSE at all?? (Put another way-- it LOOKS NICE-- but it doesn't have the "life" in it that the 2 issues Romita laid out himself did. Oh well... it sure is nice to have Mooney back after he missed a month.)


CAPTAIN AMERICA #125 -- "Captured-- In Viet Nam!" has the soap-opera continue as Cap ponders how empty his life is without a regular job or home or loved ones or Sharon (who "LIED!" to him last issue-- NOT). When a Dr. Hoskins turns up missing in Viet Nam, a healer who helped bnoth sides and whose disappearance is now causing both sides to blame the other, he sees a mission he can sink his teeth into, and heads by B-52 to Viet Nam! No sooner does he arrive than one side or the other starts shooting at him (and there's no clue here as to WHICH side is trying to kill him!). This goes on until he runs across soldiers from a 3rd, unknown party-- and decides to let himself be captured. Sure enough, the men are working for The Mandarin-- who openly admits he kidnapped Hoskins, because he wants NO peace in the area until BOTH sides have wiped each other out, and then he can just move on in. But, as these things go, a few pages later, Cap's rescued Hoskins from a dungeon, and escaped with him. No sooner does Hoskins' rescue become known, the hostilities ease... if only a bit. Cap heads home, looking forward to nothing but "loneliness and strife". SHEESH.

Frank Giacoia fills in for Joe Sinnott here (I'm guessing doing 2 books a months was beginning to take its toll on poor Joe-- either that or he had some outside committments I don't know about here that were getting in the way). I think for once Frank fit very nicely, as Joe's super-slick ultra-clean lines might have been out-of-place in a brutal batlefield environment as Gene Colan got to draw here. I know Gene did a lot of war comics in the 50's, this must have been like reliving old times here. After 2 Iron Man stories with the guy, Gene seems to have become "the" Mandarin artist, but it's kinda sad to see such a high-level baddie get reduced to almost a cameo appearance due to this one-issue-story deal. Marie Severin, who's now doing Gene's covers for him, actually did one on this issue that one might MISTAKE for a Colan cover... until you look real close. I did! Nice & moody.


SILVER SURFER #16 -- "In The Hands of... Mephisto!" has the lord of the lower depths, claiming "friendship" (yeah right) and actually allow The Surfer to break thru Galactus' barrier, and return home to Zenn-La! But once there, he learns Shalla Bal was "taken" by... Mephisto. And so he zips BACK to Earth (all this seems to take seconds, you'd think even for him it would have taken days-- or weeks), where Mephisto claims he has "hidden" her somewhere on Earth, where she could be helpless, freezing, starving, in danger... and he'll NEVER know, NEVER find her... UNLESS he swears to do Mephisto's bidding. And so... he does, at which point he gets hit with the zinger-- Mephisto orders him to "destroy SHIELD".

Another miserable issue. If it seems like I skipped over a lot of plot points, let's just say I'm trying to make this as painless as possible. The Bullpen page announces "two more little lambs who have gone astray have just returned to the fold" (I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP!!!), among them Chic Stone, who Stan promptly had doing inks for... John Buscema. Over the years, I've seen a lot of Buscema-Stone comics. NONE of them look "right". Stone was a PERFECT inker for someone like Jack Kirby, because both had a "clean", "cartoony" look. Buscema's style is more on the "illustrative" side, and as a result, the two are simply NOT a good match. And yet, they did book after book after book together... Sometimes you just gotta wonder if some of these editors even bothered LOOKING at the printed books.

The cover this time has "The Mightiest Superhero Of All!" added to the top (I guess Stan realized after all these issues that "Sky-Rider Of The Spaceways!" just didn't fit, seeing as the guy was STUCK on Earth!). There's also 3-- 3!!!-- blurbs, all beginning with "SEE!" --when just having the story's title would have been so much better.

Of minor note: the splash page, a shot of The Surfer flying straight at the reader, was later used on the inside of the CD art for the Kasel, Germany surf-rock-folk-metal band, Silver Surfer's 2nd album, RIDE THE WILD DESERT SURF. That album features a song titled "Silver Surfer", a slow lament which describes the tragic life of "Norrin Radd".


SUB-MARINER #25 -- "A World My Enemy!" has Namor & Dorma on a tour to survey the realm & its outposts, and finding all the men at one of them killed by toxic waste that had been dumped there, and shot at (and released) when the guards thought they were depth-charges. Namor decides to "seal off" Atlantis' borders, by stopping and detouring any ships that sail over its boundaries. This naturally brings a Russian submarine, which he single-handedly raises out of the water and leaves stranded on a beach! His next move surprises everyone-- he goes to New York, to address the United Nations! They give him 5 minutes, since he is head of a country-- and he expresses his wish for Atlantis to be recognized as a sovereign state, and be admitted as a U.N. member. When someone accuses his entire country of being a "menace to the entire planet", he counters with examples of how surface countries have been polluting the oceans which give life to the entire planet. It's not so much an ultimatum as a warning, and he leaves, though not without trouble, as the cops and the army aren't sure whether to stop him, attack him, or get the hell out of his way. On the docks, he runs into Diane Arliss, who he tells of her brother's (apparent) death last issue. As soldiers fill the docks, preparing to open fire on his submarine, he fires first-- but on seeing Diane among the men, he flies out and detours the missile. En route back to Atlantis, unease fills the air as it's obvious Namor's "loyaties" are more divided than even he realized.

NOT bad. An interesting step in a new direction, done at a time when environmental consciousness was really becoming a big thing. Unfortunately, I'd have to say this was also the exact point where the series began to take a downward turn. The reason is the debut of Sal Buscema. Now it's funny... Sal actually draws Namor (especically, his head) more like Bill Everett than either John Buscema, Marie Severin or Gene Colan... but his storytelling just isn't up there in any of their class. Also, Jim Mooney must have been getting over-worked, because after the first 15 pages, "Joe Gaudioso" (alias Mike Esposito) takes over on inks, and "smooth" turns to "rough". I'm afraid that as the 70's wore on, both Sal & Mike let the quality of their art slide badly-- and when they'd be teamed up-- which happened A LOT-- well, it really hurt to plow thru those comics.


THOR #177 -- "To End In Flames!" comes in on the last part of a 3-parter, which feels like a retread of the "Mangog" story. While Odin slept, Loki took over, and this time, he had Odin banised to "The Dimension Of Death", from which there is no return. Of course, right then, Surtur, The Fire Demon, attacked, and Loki, far from worrying about his "subjects", fled like a rat on a sinking ship! So the story is split between Thor & the forces of Asgard fighting a desperate, hopeless, LOSING battle against Surtur, and Sif & Balder trying to find Odin. Loki's ally Igron only too happily sends Balder after Odin, feeling he'll DIE before he can accomplish anything, but while he comes very close to death, his very presence is enough to awaken Odin, who returns with Balder (whose life-force he saves & restores), then single-handedly imprisons Surtur "in the bowels of the earth", as a worn, weary, beaten army hails him.

I wish I could say I enoyed this. Somehow, this has just about the crudest, UGLIEST art I have ever seen from Jack Kirby on THOR -- and that includes the episodes George Roussos worked on. Vince Colletta returned to Marvel at this point, and sure enough, Stan immediately stuck him back on THOR. But whatever was going on with Kirby's pencils at this point, it was too much for Colletta to "clean up". The cover, at least, is nice, as John Verpoorten (whose inks on Kirby closely resemble Joe Sinnott's) does his best to disguse the "roughness" going on in the pencils.

This almost seems like it should have been Jack Kirby's FINAL issue on the book. He did ONE more... but not until Stan had John Buscema take over for one month, apparently to see if Buscema could handle the series or not.


THE AVENGERS #77 -- "Heroes For Hire" has ruthless business tycoon Cornelius Van Lunt (who reminds me a LOT of actor Roger C. Carmel) trying to drive Tony Stark out of business. Stark needs all his assets-- including the supposed "back rent" on the Mansion (HOW can the team owe rent if he owns it and he's letting them use it for free???), and to help raise the cash, the team offers their services for hire. And it seems the most lucrative offer that matches their needs comes from... Van Lunt, who has them tearing down properties he's bought that he intends to resell to the city for a profit. Meanwhile, a team of crooks somewhat reminiscent of "The Enforcers" (from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN) are pulling jobs for a masked leader calling himself "Kronos". Each recent job is foiled by one of The Avengers, and Kronos plans to get the team out of their way. The "last" job the team is supposed to do for Van Lunt involves repairing a dangerous tunnel under the East River... and as soon as they're in the middle, Kronos has it blown up! But the team did some checking, and escaped before the explosion-- then round up the gang. To their surprise, it's NOT Van Lunt under the mask, but his right-hand man Wilkins, who he ruined years earlier, and wanted revenge by framing the man he now works for.

An offbeat issue, with a nice twist ending. Van Lunt would return in future issues. Meanwhile, The Black Panther has taken a job as a public school teacher, as he has apparently decided to "give up" his throne to better help the world in general. John Buscema & Tom Palmer contnue working wonders on every single page, every panel, it's stunning to look at this stuff! Roy's story is complex, and I'm not quite sure all the details quite fit together to make sense, but overall, he's doing some terrific work here. Only 2 things really annoyed me here-- the appearances of as pair of phrases that became over-used and ubiquitous over the years, and it seems Roy was the one who made them both popular-- "code names" and "so-called". GRR!!! (Maybe it's just me...)

FANTASTIC FOUR #99 -- "The Torch Goes Wild!" has Reed interrupt Ben's plans for a ski trip because Johnny, heartsick from missing Crystal, has gone on his own to confront her family and "force" her to come back. When he reaches The Great Refuge, he goes berzerk and has a running battle with almost every Inhuman he crosses paths with, including the Royal Family. On arrival, Reed breaks it up, then we finally hear the explanation, that Black Bolt had been stricken with radiation sickness following an experiment, and Crystal's power was needed to help him until his health could be restored. Crystal reminds Johnny that if he loves her, it must come with compassion & understanding. He asks forgiveness, and Ben thinks he may make that ski trip after all.

Not especially bad... just one of the DUMBEST stories in the book's history. Johnny is made to look like a complete idiot, but I have little more sympathy for The Inhumans, who could have saved everyone a LOT of trouble if they's just told Johnny what was going on in the first place. Talk about a "contrived" situation! My favorite part of the book is when a meteor shower forces the team down in Tibet, and Sue makes friends with some of the natives. But it's marred by an inexplicable bit where Ben has to help "launch" the saucer... HUH??? Oh well, at least for once we had an Inhumans story that DIDN'T involve Maximus...

The Jack Kirby-Joe Sinnott art is STUNNING-- as usual. One thing I'm wondering (not really related to this issue), if Reed has this flying saucer (the one from Planet X in FF #7), why did he use that rocket in the previous issue? Oh well, that story was a lost hope no matter how you look at it...


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #85 -- "The Secret Of The Schemer!" has The Kingpin discover his wife Vanessa hiding in the secret hallway, saying she just wanted to get away from the fighting. Racing thru the snowy streets, The Schemer cracks up his car. The Stacys visit, Gwen's Dad asking how is it Pete gets all those shots of Spider-Man. When Spidey comes in thru the window talking about how he & Parker split the take on his crime photos, Pete hopes it's thrown them off the scent. The Kingpin is shocked when photos of the fight turn up in the Bugle, as he was "sure" there was no photographer in the area. One of the pics reveals Vanessa helping the Schemer to escape, and he demands to know what's going on! Spidey tracks down The Schemer & captures him, then brings him to the address where the reward was offered, before realizing it's NOT a police station-- but one of The Kingpin's hideouts! The Schemer reveals he's really The Kingpin's son, Richard, in disguise. He faked his own death when he found out his father was a criminal, and everything he's done was to bring about the "end" of his father's career in crime. Feeling he's lost his son even more now than when he believed he was dead, The Kingpin goes into a catatonic shock... and Spidey leaves, feeling there's no more punishment the guy deserves than what he's already gotten.

Not bad. The whole bit with the "reward" doesn't seem well-thought-out, and Spidey seems really dumb going there without wondering about it until it's too late. I'm still wondering what John Buscema is doing back on this book, although this was his LAST (of 10) issues. Somehow, everyone in the book seems dumber and more one-dimensional lately...


CAPTAIN AMERICA #126 -- "The Fate Of... The Falcon!" finds Cap in Harlem, helping the Falcon who's been framed by a gang he's been trying to bring down. He describes The Diamondheads as a "black KKK" who "hate whitey" and don't care who gets hurt. Cap discovers the masked gang-leader is really "Rocky The Lynx", a Maggia hood, who wanted to disrupt the area bad enough that his outfit could move in and take over. Cleared, The Falcon tells Cap "Your skin may be a different color... but there's no man alive I'm prouder to call... brother!"

Looking over this issue makes me thing Gene Colan would have been right at home on an issue of HERO FOR HIRE, as he does "down-to-Earth" and "gritty" neighborhood scenes with the best of 'em, and his black characters all look like "real people", not cartoony charicatures. Frank Giacoia's on hand again, giving everything a "rough" look that goes along well with the tone of the story. The Falcon was also mentioned in the latest AVENGERS, and it seems they were trying to decide what to do with him, and when. This wouldn't be his last appearance here-- TO SAY THE LEAST! Cap's ongoing "soap-opera" completely took a back seat here... it'd be back next time (sadly).

Jack Kirby returns for the cover, inked by Bill Everett (touch-ups by Romita), which somehow looks far more "cartoony" than usual for Jack (I'm guessing Marie did the layout again) and totally at odds with the interior contents. Stranger & stranger...


SILVER SURFER #17 -- "The Surfer Must Kill!" has The Surfer searching Earth for Shalla Bal, but unable to find her, resigned that he must obey Mephisto's demand to "destroy SHIELD". The dark lord admits they mean nothing to him, they're just a tool to get what he wants-- The Surfer's soul. SHIELD is already bothered by The Surfer and sends out jets to track him down, just as he thinks of a ploy to outwit Mephisto-- destroy only their HQ, but not the people. He discovers Mephisto has cheated on the "bargain", when he discovers a mesmerized Shalla Bal inside SHIELD HQ. Swearing the deal is off, he attacks Mephisto, but the SHIELD personnel, who can only see him attacking empty air, let him have it, and he flees back to space.

The misery continues. Chic Stone's inks are doing no service to John Buscema's pencils, and the storytelling, and dialogue, are just unbearable. Even the cover by Herb Trimpe & Dan Adkins is average at best, and marred by 2 blurbs AND 2 word balloons. Nick Fury continues to be portrayed very badly, an increasing occurance since his series was cancelled. Sales on this book must have been plunging, as drastic steps were planned to change its direction next issue.


CAPTAIN MARVEL #20 -- "The Hunter And The Holocaust" begins with Rick Jones playing music to a star-struck crowd of nubile young females... hey, who needs the super-biz anyway? He once again turns down would-be manager Boggs, saying he needs to get his life together first. 3 whole pages are wasted on flashbacks as Mar-Vell-- trapped in the Negative Zone (which is beginning to remind me more of DC's Phantom Zone at this point) reviews Rick's "career" up to this point. When a resident of his building is mugged, Rick tries to help, but gets knocked about for his trouble. Switching places with Mar-Vell, CM returns the favor. Suddenly thinking of scientist Bruce Banner for the first time in months, the paiur realize he might be able to help them with their "joinced existence" problem. But en route, CM is dtoured by helping tornado victims, fighting a group of scavengers called "The Rat Pack", and helping wounded people-- all the while, Mar-Vell thinking this is what he plans to spend the rest of his life doing, once he's freed from the Negative Zone. On reaching Banner's underground lab, Banner sees Rick on a video-monitor, and he wonders if Rick might be in league again with The Avengers, who he just spent time running from in his own book. before you know it, he's turned into The Hulk again, and leaps toward Rick (unconscious after Mar-Vell over-exerted himself), with MURDER in mind!

Man, this books just rambles from one thing to another to another, in a real stream-of-consciousness way. No way to know if this was done after a break, of if Gil Kane's art had been sitting around since the prevous cancellation, but Dan Adkins seems to have put far more effort, detail & "polish" into this issue than the 3 previous ones combined. All the same, he's STILL no Wally Wood, and I'm afraid it would take somebody like Wood to have really "smoothed over" Kane's art, which keeps getting more "extreme" with every issue! I'm compelled to say this book feels like it could have used an editor-- the story is so disjointed, it just seems directionless, and once again, unpleasant.

On the letters page, we're told "the concept of the original Mar-Vell was worked out primarily by Stan, and later, Roy-- and it actually was never consciously changed. It was intended to go the way it did from the very start; in this case, the road chosen merely turned out to be a dead end." As science-fiction books have "never" sold, it was decided to focus on the "down-to-Earth" super-hero elements instead. I really think these guys are missing the point. I doubt it was the "sci-fi" stuff that sank the book-- it was just HOW BADLY the whole thing was done. To my eyes, it's FAR WORSE at this point than it had been before.


THE AVENGERS #78 -- "The Man-Ape Always Strikes Twice!" has Cap attacked by M'Baku, "The Man-Ape", a foe of The Black Panther who was thought to be dead. After T'Challa visits Monica Lynne, who's given up her singing career to become a social worker (and who briefly lambasts him for his seeming lack of social cares), she's kidnapped by The Man-Ape. The Panther goes to rescue her, but becomes a prisoner, and finds The Man-Ape is only one part of a team of AVENGERS villains out for revenge-- along with The Living Lazer, Power Man, The Swordsman and The Grim Reaper, calling themselves The Lethal Legion!

I'm guessing John Buscema got so hung up with SPIDER-MAN that he wound up missing this issue, because brother Sal filled in, this time inked by regular Tom Palmer. By a mile, one of Sal's better-looking issues (MAYBE EVER!!!) but still nowhere near as good as John & Tom. Didn't editor Stan Lee realize (or care) that he was causing so much havoc on books with his "musical artists" bad habits?? Having put together a new version of "The Masters Of Evil", I suspect Roy Thomas wanted to try coming up with his own entirely new team of AVENGERS baddies, all out for vengeance. Not bad-- biut it gets MUCH better in the 2nd half!


FANTASTIC FOUR #100 -- "The Long Journey Home!" has the FF, en route home from The Great Refuge (like FF #84 all over again) attacked by android replicas of almost every villain they ever fought before. Behind it are The Mad Thinker & The Puppet Master, and the chaos continues until they make the mistake of creating a Hulk android-- which promptly refuses to follow orders, and their lab is destroyed when The Puppet Master shoots at it, accidentally hitting a control panel. The team, whose saucer had been destroyed earlier, make it back thanks to a passing NATO jet.

If the idea here was to emulate FF ANNUAL #3-- every villain imagineable coming out of the woodwork-- it failed miserably compared to the earlier story. There's a rumor FF #100 was intended as a double-size issue-- like an Annual, except in the regular run of the book. That would take until #200 to actually happen (at which point some distributors detoured the issue for 2 months, allowing convention dealers to charge more than double for fans to get it!). As a result of this apparently cut-down, many of the pages have 9 panels to a page-- NOT something you buy a Jack Kirby comic to see!!

Things go south right from the first page, when Stan opens with "In a flying craft borrowed from Black Bolt..." WRONG!!! He must have been thinking of FF #84 again. The flying saucer is the same one they arrived in from New York the previous issue-- which Stan had also erroneously said was taken from The Skrulls in FF #2, when, in fact, it came from Planet X in FF #7. Sadly, this treasure is totalled on page 2, in a small way, marking the "end" of an era. On page 2, Ben asks Crystal, "You some kinda witch or somethin'?" --as if he'd never seen her powers before. On pages 3-4, they're attacked by "Kang The Conqueror"-- who they recognize-- even though, they NEVER fought the guy-- they only knew him in his earlier incarnation as Rama-Tut. When "Dr. Doom" shows up, he says, "while you ponder the problem of whether Kang and myself are two separate beings..." HUH? W--T--F??? This comes from an exchange in FF ANNUAL #2 between Doom & Rama-Tut. It was a BAD, BAD idea then, seemingly inspired (to my eyes) by too many late hours and too many cups of coffee, but it's something that Stan (and his sidekick Roy) have just REFUSED to let go of!! If Doom is an android replica, HOW would anyone involved even know about this?? We discover that The Mad Thinker & The Puppet Master-- TWO villains who've each outlived their expiration dates-- are working together again, and somehow, between them, have apparently found a way to combine their specialties into a new breed of android. But on pages 7-8, Sue says "Only one man can create such deadly monstrosities", which Reed continues with "Yes! This has to be the work of... The Puppet Master!" WHAT? HUH? Is Stan KIDDING? WHY would they think that? HOW could they think that? If androids are involved, it would have to be The Mad Thinker-- that's his SCHTICK! The Puppet Master has always been using his sci-fi "voodoo" thing to take control of normal people. It just goes on like this for the whole issue. What a waste of talent-- and paper & ink. It's sad to see a once-GREAT series completely fall apart like this.


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #86 -- "Beware... The Black Widow!" finds The Black Widow deciding to "begin her career anew". Seeing Spidey swing past, she gets the idea that if she could find out how his powers work, and combine them with hers, no one would be able to stop her. Thinking on her tragic past, she feels nothing but action can help her forget. Designing a new, sleeker costume, "more in keeping with the swingy seventies", she goes out in search of Spidey. Pete, meanwhile, feeling totally out of it and not knowing why, returns home to find Gwen & her father waiting for him. Seeing his face bruised up, Gwen worries that Spider-Man might have done it, and tries to get Pete to promise that he'll have nothing more to do with Spider-Man ever again, and as she leaves, says, "You can CALL me... when you PROMISE!" Trying to clear his head, Spidey is attacked by The Widow, who is "disappointed" when he doesn't seem to even fight back. That is, until he does, which shocks her into realizing his powers seem like something he was "born with". Back home, Pete wonders if he's losing his powers, and begins a blood test, afraid of the results one way or the other.

John Romita returned to layouts again, with Jim Mooney continuing on pencils & inks. Much nicer than the previous 2 issues-- especially their rendition of The Black Widow, who is not only very beautiful, but really HOT in that new costume of hers (which she would keep until the early 80's when someone else had to come along and ruin things). I have this in the 1976 MARVEL TALES reprint, and unfortunately, that issue the quality of the reproduction PLUNGED terribly compared to previous ones. The whole book is fuzzy, and I have a hard time appreciating it. I'd sure love to see what the original comic looked like-- it HAD to be much better than this.

The main problem is, the writing seems to be just "phoned in". Everyone is reduced to one-dimensional characterization, and none of them seem to be thinking too clearly. It's obvious to me-- having read the previous issue-- that Spidey caught THE FLU after that dip in the FREEZING river. Gwen is more the "typical" girlfriend than ever before, and her behavior is NOT something I believe the Peter Parker near the end of Steve Ditko's run would EVER have tolerated! He was growing up then, becoming more confident, more self-assured, less willing to take garbage from ANYBODY. It's been a big step backward ever since John Romita arrived, and unfortunately, lately he's taking even more steps backward. On top of all that, there's The Black Widow. WHAT the HECK is going on in her head? The other month, we saw her suddenly appear to Clint and tell him they can "never" see each other again-- and she gave NO explanation for this whatsoever! That incident isn't even mentioned here! You'd think it would be. Even the flashback is so badly scripted, it's clear Stan has NO memory at all of the stories he refering to, as when he has Natasha say they gave her powers-- and then came "the day I met Hawkeye", which actually happened the other way 'round. The next scene suggests she & Hawkeye had a tender parting before she ever worked for SHIELD or with The Avengers-- it's just totally messed up.

The whole point of this episode was to entice readers to check out The Black Widow's new series in AMAZING ADVENTURES, which would begin the following month. The '75 reprint, the notation was changed to promote her appearances in THE CHAMPIONS! In any event, writing like the one in this issue really hurts my admiration for characters like this. No matter HOW hot they look.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #127 -- "Who Calls me Traitor?" begins with Cap helping Fury test a new protection suit for SHIELD. After, he tells Fury Sharon is an "off-limits" topic. Out in the field, AIM finds a way thru the new suit's protective field, and the possibility of an inside traitor quickly arises. INCREDIBLY, Cap comes under suspicion, as Fury says, "How can we even be sure-- he's the REAL Captain America? ANYONE can make 'imself a mask 'n costume!" Sharon adds, "Even the way he's been avoiding me! What if he's not the REAL Cap?" Cap finds his SHIELD security clearance has been voided, and Joe Robertson of The Bugle is asking Fury about rumors that Cap is under suspicion. Fury goes to Tony Stark for his newest, most sophisticated Android, Stark not believing he actually plans to use is against Cap-- even as a "test". But that's exactly what Fury does-- until the android goes completely out of control, and Sharon finds SHIELD's newest technical wiz, Dr. Ryder, was the real traitor all along. Cap departs, asking, "How does a man protect himself from-- his FRIENDS?"

This Cap-Sharon soap is already tiring. But having her-- AND Fury-- both suspect Cap so fast, so easily, makes them look STUPID-- and I don't like it when a writer makes some of my favorite characters look stupid. On top of that, having Joe turn up seems out of left field, even more so when Fury says they've been "friends for years". SINCE WHEN? The ongoing AIM thing is a travesty compared to the old days, when they were a big, dangerous threat-- instead of all this endlessly lurking in the shadows for issue after issue. And it's mind-boggling that Fury should get an "android" from Stark-- and never ONCE refer to it as an "L.M.D."!!!

The big SURPRISE this issue was the inks by WALLY WOOD. Wood is possibly the BEST in the business-- maybe the BEST the business has EVER seen. Some have said he overpowered anyone he worked over, including Kirby & Heck. In the case of those 2, I'd say no-- their collaborations really were an amazing 50-50, each artists' style fighting for attention, and creating a greater whole. But over Gene Colan... MAN, Gene's one of the most outstanding, unique, unmistakeble stylists the biz has ever seen-- and yet here, I'm having trouble seeing his work! It's like, almost ALL I can see, screaming at me from the pages, is Wood's style. WHOA. It's just a hint, I suppose, of what I've often wished had happened on an ongoing basis-- Wood on SHIELD. Except, when Kirby was doing SHIELD, the writing was 10 TIMES BETTER.

NOT-- A -- CLUE to this under the Marie Severin-Joe Sinnott cover. I love her stuff-- but Stan having her do so many covers that should have been done by various books' interior artists was just a BAD idea.


SUB-MARINER #27 -- "When Wakes The Kraken!" finds Namor frustrated that the UN has not yet "recognized" Atlantis. Making matters worse, ships are being sunk by a giant "kraken" (monster-size octopus), and HE's getting blamed for it. To straighten things out, he gets Diane Arliss to set him up with a passport and the pair book passage on a ship he knows from studying reports is likely to be the monster's next victim. IT IS! Namor discovers the monster is really a submarine DISGUISED as a giant octopus, commanded by "Commander Kraken", a long-haired dandy with "Captain Hook" delusions. He wants Namor to join him in taking on the world (seeing as Namor's already considered an "outcast") but he won't have it. Meanwhile, Dorma, jealous, has followed, and good thing, she was able to rescue Diane from drowning, then set about to "prove" SHE's Namor's woman, NOT Diane. But her sub gets grabbed by the "monster", and Namor has to save them both. And then, he draws Kraken down, down, down into a deep crevasse... where a GENUINE Kraken, MUCH larger than the sub, waits and grabs the villains... unfortunately, taking the "evidence" of Namor's innocence with them.

Nice episode. I bought all the issues from this period completely out of sequence over the last 10 years, so it's nice to re-read them in the right order. It makes it a lot easier to follow events as they unfold & evolve. Commander Kraken reminds me a lot of Captain Barracuda-- another villain with old-fashioned "pirate" tendencies, except this guy's less crude & more dandified. One letter comments it's very unlike Lady Dorma to be getting jealous, as with her regal status she should be "above" such things, at least outwardly. (I guess EVERYBODY in a Roy Thomas comic lives with their heart-- and overblown vocabulary-- on their sleeve!) The giant kraken in the climax is actualy the same one from TALES TO ASTONISH #93, a nice bit of continuity. Better than having it come out of left field...

Sal Buscema & "Joe Gaudioso" (Mike Esposito) are okay, but that's it. I would swear Jack Abel inked page 10... that one looks TOO GOOD (and a lot smoother).


THE AVENGERS #79 -- "Lo! The Lethal Legion!" has the group concerned over the capture of The Black Panther, and the suspicion that The Man-Ape is not working alone. They're right-- 4 other previous foes have all joined forces as The Lethal Legion, and plan to take down the entire group. The Grim Reaper in particular planning to kill them all at once, and in his case, in revenge for the "murder" of his brother Simon Williams (Wonder Man, WAY back in AVENGERS #9). He allows The Panther to "escape" in order to contact the group-- and thus set up a pair of traps. One amusing scene has The Vision, in disguise, make excuses for the absence of teacher "Luke Charles" (The Panther). Power Man & Swordsman take out Scarlet Witch & Goliath, while Man-Ape & Living Laser takes out Captain America & Quicksilver. Power Man, who then went to ransack Avengers Mansion, returns with an unconscious Vision, along with some "personnel" records of the group. The latter shocks The Grim Reaper, as he learns the memory patterns of his brother were preserved, and used to form the basis of The Vision's personality! Exciteable & unstable as ever, and fearing HE will now be responsible for his brother's "death", The Reaper shatters the hourglass-shaped death-trap before the poison gas can kill the heroes. We then find The Vision somehow exchanged places with Power Man-- no doubt bringing the records with him just to shake up The Reaper. The team clobbers the baddies, saying they were "never" really helpless, but only faking to capture the whole group at once. They congratulate The Vision as the hero of the hour, but he says the Reaper was wrong-- he is NOT his "brother"-- nor is is human at all-- and has concluded he must leave the group-- which seems to really upset Wanda. As he flies off, he ponders, "Can an android truly be-- alive?"

GREAT, magnificent issue all-round!!! John Buscema made it back in time to polish off this 2-parter, and did one of his best jobs yet, teamed with Tom Palmer, who appears to have done the bulk of the polishing. Even Roy Thomas seems more inspired than usual-- I can't recall any outstanding bad dialogue for once (heehee). This was actually the very 1st issue of THE AVENGERS I ever bought new, and while I admit "nostalgia" may play some part in it, re-reading the entire run of stories in sequence doesn't change my feeling that this was one of the BEST of this part of the run. Looking back, it's interesting that, earlier, Roy had followed the introduction of The Reaper with the formation of the "new" Masters Of Evil. In this 2-parter, he somewhat repeats himself, combining both in one. For a long time, I was under the impression that Buscema had done a lot more issues than he had (that would come later, in the 80's). Suffice to say, he SHOULD have. I might have been very happy had Don Heck stayed on this book "forever", especially with better inkers (like George Klein, Sam Grainger, Tom Palmer, all of who worked with Buscema), but once Buscema was firm in place, he should have been allowed to STAY here. Most of the "side" projects Stan Lee kept yanking him away for (AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, SILVER SURFER), by comparison, weren't worth his time. here, he was a PERFECT fit.

One minor question: It was SO COOL when the Vision "traded bodies" with Power Man. But now I'm wondering-- did he EVER do this kind of thing before-- or since?? It almost makes him seem like Dr. Strange-- or Deadman!

Hmmm... I think this gets my vote for BEST Marvel of the month!


FANTASTIC FOUR #101 -- "Beldam In The Baxter Building!" has The FF learn their building has been bought by The Maggia-- who've torn up their lease and ordered them to get out! Reed says he'll let their lawyers handle it, but he suspects real danger. While on an outing to Central Park, a Maggia copter lands and a group of thugs invade the building, bent on taking Reed's inventions, secrets, weapons, and figuring anything they do against the FF can be considered "protecting their property" and "legal". Yeah, right. After telling Sue to take Franklin and stay out of it, "no matter what", Reed, Ben & Crystal head back to the HQ, where Johnny has already gone and gotten himself promptly captured. Overcoming the rest, the thugs put them in concrete coffins and dump them in the river! (The BASTARDS!) Getting free, they head back-- where Sue-- apparently on Reed's request (??) is already taking on Maggia thugs, and doing a very effective job of it, before her team-mates even show up. The #2 man, surrounded, desperate, is suddenly shot dead by the building's doorman-- "doing his duty". But Reed figures better, and unmasks the guy as "Top Man", who spent weeks familiarizing himself with the building's layout before trying to take down the FF "legally". But, as Reed points out, in the end, he "reverted to type-- like all the others". Sue ponders, WHY must their son grow up in a world filled with crime and fear? Reed reminds her, "That's why we fight, my darling-- to change that world-- as much as we can!"

DAMN! This was the BEST issue of this book in maybe a YEAR!! The basic concept of the story may seem way-out, but far less than almost every episode involving, for example, The Mad Thinker (who also wanted to take over the HQ, since way back in his 1st appearance). You know, with all the appearances of "The Maggia" so far, the scene at the "sleazy" resturant may have been the first time they actually looked-- you know-- Sicilian! (heehee) I wonder how many fans when this came out realized Jack Kirby had spent a LOT of time doing violent crime comics in the late 40's? The usual character flaws turn up again-- Reed, not wanting to worry anyone with his suspicions (rather than getting them better prepared for what in fact was coming), Johnny, running off like the hot-head he is and getting himself captured. On the other hand, Crystal rescues herself AND Reed, who only then is able to save the others, and Sue almost single-handedly takes out ALL the bad guys-- I especially loved it when she put her force-field around "Gimlet" when he opened fire, and the bullet bounced around inside it, almost hitting HIM. Sue showing up after Reed told her not to could have been him changing his mind, or, her defying him on her own (the dialogue should have spelled this out). For once, Reed's speech in the final panels really sounds "right", as it sums up the very character of this book FAR more than anything in the 100th issue did. YES-- they're in this to make the world a better place!!!

The cover's "okay". That's about it. I've seen Marie Severin's actual design for it, which Jack followed closely. I still don't see the point in getting one of the best "designers" the comics industry EVER had to work from someone ELSE's designs. Surprisingly, this one's signed, "Jack & Joe". In future, Joe Sinnott would begin regularly signing his covers, as Dick Ayers had been doing already for at least a decade. That "fat" logo continues to bug me-- plus, the blurb "Shock follows shock as DEATH strikes at night!" and the 2 word balloons seemed uncalled for. (HOW MANY 70's covers had the word "DEATH!" on them??) I wonder if Jack knew by this time he was leaving? The word balloons, reading "The Battle is ended! We've won!" and "The F.F. are BEATEN at last!" almost seem to suggest this is their LAST issue. As it is, it would have been a really good place to end the series. Instead, like too many TV shows that went on too long, the quality would begin to plunge after this...

And what's this "Bedlam..." title? That's ALMOST exactly what was used on FF ANNUAL #3! Stan really was out of ideas by this point, wasn't he?


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #87 -- "Unmasked At Last!" has Pete, so dizzy he can't even use his microscope, seek out Curt Connors for help-- but he's packed up and gone back to Florida. Passing a jewelry store, Spidey remembers he forgot to get something for Gwen's birthday-- and almost runs off with a necklace before he realizes "WHAT AM I DOING???" After most have gone home, Pete finally turns up at Gwen's birthday party, Spider-Man's MASK in his hand, saying Spider-Man's career is over-- and he knows-- because HE's Spider-Man! After he runs off, Gwen is in shock, can't believe what's she heard, and then Harry relates a story he heard (probably from Flash-- heh) about how Pete once impersonated Spider-Man and was unmasked by Doc Ock (way back in ASM #12). But Gwen asks, what if it WASN'T an act that time? MJ gets REALLY, uncharacteristically snotty toward Gwen this time, and I have to put it down to either REALLY bad writing on Stan's part-- OR, that, deep down, she's really hurting because the guy SHE liked so much the moment she met him has been with this stuck-up BITCH all this time. (I'll go with that one. But that's me.)

Spidey makes it to a hospital, where a doctor ignores the duty-nurse's concenrs about his costume and finds him a bed. Not long after, he returns, telling Spidey he has one of the worst cases of the FLU he's ever seen... almost at once, Spidey's up out of the bed, energized again and thrilled to learn that's ALL it was! As he makes his exit, the doctor says, "If you slip off that wall, forget it! A BONE man I'm not!" Suddenly remembering what he did while he was delirious, Pete hatches a scheme (in the best/worst Superman or Batman tradition) to protect his secret identity, and finds Hobie Brown-- The Prowler-- out washing windows. Hobie figures he owes the guy a favor, after Spidey DIDN'T turn him over to the cops, so he agrees to POSE as Spidey, while Pete is at Gwen's house, to convince everyone that Pete CAN'T be Spidey. After bringing up the "deal" about splitting the take on Pete's photos (Stacy seems rather "slow" when he says "Then you and Peter DO have a deal!"), "Spidey" leaves. Deleriously happy again, Gwen somehow completely forgets her earlier demand that Pete "never again" have anything to do with Spidey, but at that moment, he's just happy not to be "low man on the totem pole of life".

A mixed bag. It's almost silly that in a book drawn by Jim Mooney, who spent so many years at DC (especially on SUPERGIRL) that Spidey should wind up pulling the kind of stunt Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent spent years having to do to get people like Lois Lane and Vicki Vale off their backs. My favorite scene was the one with the doctor-- it's so refreshing to see someone so reasonable in a Stan Lee comic (he's almost out of place here), and I wouldn't have minded if HE had his own series, or at least became a regular in one. Gwen making such an unreasonable demand last time, AND, completely forgetting about it this time, doesn't improve her standing in my eye one iota, to say the least. And I'm really trying to cut Stan some slack here as far as MJ is concerned. She was one of my very favorite characters from her first appearance, but over the last couple years of this series Stan & Johnny (mostly Stan, I think) allowed her to fall by the wayside and appear to become even more shallow than she SEEMED. Later writers, in ill-advised attempts to "explain" things, only messed her up, more with each era, from Wein to Wolfman to Stern to DeFalco (I might say ESPECIALLY DeFalco, except he did so MUCH so bad with Spidey, his efforts with MJ pale by comparison).

My 1976 MARVEL TALES reprint is a lot sharper than the previous issue, though it is missing a page. Only one, as Marvels had dropped their page count to 19 pages a few months before this, and in a SNEAKY way-- by cutting a page in the middle of the story in 2 and printing them as 2 "half-pages", each with their own number, so at the end, the last page would still say "20" instead of "19".

One unusual thing I noticed as I flipped thru this again... this time out, I can't detect any noticeable John Romita touch-ups on faces. Apart from plot & layouts, Jim Mooney seemed to finally do this one all on his own! It's very nice... but NOBODY draws MJ like Romita.

I know what's coming next... and I don't think I can stand to plow thru them again. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN now strikes me as one of those series that outlived its shelf-life. You know all those TV series that went on too long-- like ALL IN THE FAMILY, and M*A*S*H, NIGHT COURT, and THAT 70'S SHOW? When I look back at the entire run, I think AMAZING SPIDER-MAN should have ended right here. YES, RIGHT HERE. I spent DECADES, off and on, "putting up with" various incarnations of the characters, in a growing number of books, always waiting, hoping it would get better. I'm sure countless fans will disagree with me, but... IT NEVER DID. It actually took the Fabien Nicieza-Steve Rude mini-series of about 10 years ago before I realized this. The 3 issues they did were SO good... so PERFECTLY captured the Romita era... I realized that, from the time Romita stopped doing the book, it had really gone to hell, by comparison. EVEN the Roger Stern run SUCKED-- by comparison-- and HIS was by a MILE way, way better than anything else since. So, while I may continue with my re-reading, I think I'm gonna save myself a lot of aggravation and frustration (and probably the ire of tons of Spidey fans) by just giving the rest of his comics a pass. I can always go back and re-read Ditko & Romita's runs again. Or, better yet, dig out my 52 episodes of the 60's cartoon. It may seem strange... but after all this time, I've come to love THOSE more than ANY other version-- including Ditko or Romita!


CAPTAIN AMERICA #128 -- "Stamp Out Satan's Angels!" has Cap wanting to ditch it all, and almost toss his costume in the incinerator... but instead, he buys a motorcycle and (following several pages of WW2 flashbacks involving Bucky's death-- AGAIN), he hits the road. In a small town, a cop arrests him for driving without wearing a motorcycle helmet! (Some laws, supposedly meant to "protect", are really stupid... and mostly set up for the sake of insurance companies; they wind up, more than anything, giving cops "excuses" to hassle otherwise law-abiding people.) Turns out a biker gang is hassling the town, and they break Cap out of jail once they hear a fellow biker was arrested. But he stays behind to help an injured cop, inspiring hatred from the bikers. Later, Cap breaks things up when the gang hassles a local rock festival, and the gang leader goes to pieces when his younger brother accidentally gets hit by his out-of-control bike. At that point, watching on a remote monitor, The Red Skull announces "At last I've found my most hated enemy! He'll never escape me again!"

It's funny... I've been watching my GET SMART collection, and in the last week, during the 3rd season, I've seen a "biker" episode and a "youth movement" episode. Gary Friedrich did a "youth" story in NICK FURY #11, now Stan does a "biker" story. I guess it was bound to happen. Really takes you back in time... The whole Cap-Sharon-SHIELD thing that's been dragging on lately has been a real downer, and I can't imagine it ever going on-- or going on this long-- if Kirby were still plotting the book. Following 2 issues inked by Frank Giacoia and one gloriously polished by Wally Wood, this time out it's almost a slap in the face to see Dick Ayers on inks. Every panel of every page is RAW, CRUDE, almost BRUTAL. Considering how outstanding Gene Colan's style is, this is really a 50-50 battle for attention between styles-- and I think, like last month, the inker is "winning". I admit, I've never cared much for Ayers' inks-- heck, HE never cared for inking other people's work! The only exceptions for me are when he was teamed with Jack Kirby and, surprisingly, Werner Roth. Other than that, it tends to be disappointing. Like the time he filled in (presumably at the very last minute) for Giacoia on DAREDEVIL, this issue looks like it might have been a rush job. If so, who was he filling in for-- Giacoia again-- or Wood?

Despite the crudeness of the art, overall, it "works". The ONE thing that really bugs me about the story is the last 3 panels. Suddenly shoving The Red Skull in there as a "teaser" for next issue was TOTALLY uncalled-for! I never liked it on LOST IN SPACE, I don't like it here. It completely ruins & throws off the rythm and mood of the end of the story, and removes any feeling that should have been there of a proper "The End". (What, just slapping a "next issue" blurb at the bottom like usual wouldn't have been enough??)

Once again, Marie Severin & Joe Sinnott supply the cover-- I wonder how many of these Joe was working on, and if that might not be why he suddenly wasn't able to do 2 full comics a month? I must admit, I LIKE this one-- in fact, I like it so much, it's so full of both "excitement" and a sense of "fun", it makes me wish Marie had DONE THE WHOLE BOOK!!!

You know... it just hits me. I can see why somewhere down the line Gary Friedrich took over this book from Stan. Now that Cap's got a cycle, Gary fit right in! (He later co-created one of the few true ICONS of 70's Marvel-- GHOST RIDER!)

TOWER OF SHADOWS #5 (May'70)-- "Flight Into Fear!" involves a young man named Johnny, who's lonely since an accident cost him the use of his legs. One night he falls asleep on top of a stone gargoyle at his college... and wakes to find it's alive, and flies him off into another dimension, where a race of very short people are being terrorized by an evil wizard. With the aid of the king's daughter, he takes on many dangers, kills the wizard and destroys his castle. Returning home, he drifts off to sleep again-- waking up on top of the gargoyle. His friends are dumbfounded, however, when he gets up and WALKS AWAY-- and they fail to notice, it's a different gargoyle from what had been there th night before!

TOS (and its companion book, CHAMBER OF DARKNESS) were a pair of rotating bi-monthly anthologies with horror & fantasy stories, Stan Lee's attempt to compete with Jim Warren's anthologies (or DC's, or maybe to revive EC's). Following Stan's fallout with Jim Steranko, the book contained work from the likes of Johnny Craig, John Buscema, Don Heck, Neal Adams, Gene Colan, George Tuska, Barry Smith (with Roy Thomas adapting an H.P.Lovecraft story), Tom Sutton, Syd Shores... and this one, by WALLY WOOD!!! Wood had skipped after DAREDEVIL #11 to head up Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS series, which mixed "spies" and "superheroes". There are rumors that forces at both Marvel and DC are directly responsible for deliberately driving Tower out of business. I guess some people don't believe in the spirit of "competition". Anyway, Wally did a lot of projects for different publishers afterwards, and this was the first one he did for Marvel. It's the first of 4 fantasy stories he did for TOWER OF SHADOWS, all of which involved the "sword & sorcery" genre-- which would soon become a really big deal. I re-read all 4 stories in one sitting today. I don't have a single copy of TOS, but these were all reprinted in THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD, a 1982 magazine-sized hardcover collection from Thumbtack Books in Brooklyn-- and printed in Italy. NICE stuff, pretty good reproduction, bright paper, "flat" coloring (the way it was intended). Funny thing about this book-- it uses 2 distinctly different paper stocks! The "S&S" stories are on "matte" paper, while the 3 Dr. Doom stories (more on them later) are on GLOSSY paper. This gives a different, and rather "appropriate" look to EACH subject. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone else do that sort of thing in one book.

This first one is the most "innocent" of the quartet in tone, and Wood acts as onscreen narrator, seen sitting at his drawing board on page 1 inside what appears to be a gloomy, dingy castle dungeon.

Although Wood's return was talked about on the Bullpen page, it was virtually hidden under a Marie Severin cover (she did a LOT of these) relating to a Barry Smith interior story.


TOWER OF SHADOWS #6 (Jul'70) -- "The Ghost-Beast!" Beowulf, veteran of a thousand campaigns, and his army of Vandals, arrives on the Northern Islands and approaches the castle of Vanaria, intent on conquest. One of his own men goes insane and he's forced to kill him. Next, he finds a maiden decked out for sacrifice to a "beast-god", which attacks-- and then is killed as well. Welcomed into the castle as "liberators", things take an ugly turn when Beowulf's men begin looting & pillaging, and he decides to take the king's daughter as his handmaiden. When her father objects, he's the next one to die! (What a bastard!) To keep a magical ring of his from the barbarian, the king's daughter grabs it and plunges off the parapet. As days go by, the "ghost" of the beast keeps appearing, and Beowulf's men are whittled down one by one. Alone, he's overpowered by the locals, who now put HIM out for sacrifice! The king's daughter turns up alive, and gives him the ring... He momentarily collapses, then battles the beast-- until it disappears. Turning around, he sees himself laying on the ground-- DEAD! The ring was poisoned, and now, having done the land a "service", HE haunts the area as a ghost...

All this in 7 pages! You see a heroic-looking guy with a sword, you tend to expect he's the "hero" of the story. Wood was clearly a lot more cynical than that. You know, with the amount of detail and the absolute pristine cleanness of it all, I can't help think he would have been perfect for a BLACK KNIGHT revival. But maybe his ever-darkening attitude was better served doing stuff like this instead.

At this point, TOS had already begun to deteriorate. THAT soon! Maybe it wouldn't have happened so quick if Stan had only been doing 1 book instead of 2-- who knows? The cover-- another one from Marie Severin-- highlights "The Man In The Rat-Hole", which is in fact, a REPRINT of "The Worm Man" by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, from STRANGE TALES #78 (Nov'60). With new Wood, Sutton & Colan material inside, THAT's what he decided to put on the cover??? I think it's easy to see why this book's sales were plunging...


CAPTAIN MARVEL #21 (Aug'70) -- "Here Comes The Hulk!" Bent on murder, Hulk stops short when he realizes Rick Jones is helpless. He decides instead to wake him, and make him tell WHO sent him to "spy" on him. But he turns back to Bruce Banner, who welcomes Rick, and begins working feverishly on a project to break the dimensional barrier into The Negative Zone (while complaining that Reed Richards, who considers it "too dangerous" for further research, seems to consider his own "private domain"). Wanting help from a colleage at a local college, Banner finds the man is under siege by students protesting what they believe is military research going on at school grounds. Enraged, Banner turns into the Hulk, unthinkingly destroys days of work-- and the rest of his lab-- and heads off to the college to wipe out the students as well! Captain Marvel, who was unable to stop him in the lab, is again unable to do so at the college... until he switches with Rick, who simply stands there unmoving, until the Hulk turns around and walks away.

Well, this was another completely pointless exercise. Not only can't Banner find a cure for himself, he can't find one for Rick now either. Every panel of every page continues to have Gil Kane's stretched-out figures and ugly faces, and Dan Adkins, for all his efforts, just isn't helping. And when Roy Thomas has the characters begin quoting obscure poetry (whose relation to the story I can't grasp even after repeated readings), you know this book is heading for a crash. Which, it does. Touted as the end of the "2nd trial run" of the "new" CM, reader response is strongly requested. I don't think it was forthcoming. It would take 2 more YEARS before the next issue finally mnaterialized, done by an entirely different creative team (only Roy would be involved, but only as editor). In the meantime, CM turned up in more Roy Thomas comics, beginning with SUB-MARINER #30 just 2 months later, and then a stretch of AVENGERS issues... But for now? GOOD RIDDANCE. Was there ever a character so totally driven into the ground by talented people who should have known better?


AMAZING ADVENTURES #1 (Aug'70) -- "Then Came... The Black Widow" finds Natasha bored, and wanting action. Her cleaning lady mentions her son borrowed money from "bad men" and she fears for him, so Natasha has Ivan, her chauffer, take her uptown to a bad neighborhood, where she has a run-in with the loan sharks who are in the act of kidnapping the young man and giving his mother 12 hours to come up with the money-- or else. She clobbers the loan sharks, the cops wonder what her angle is, a photographer snaps some pics, and she begins to think she should have come up with a mask for her new costume.

Wanting to expand (and at this point, maybe, to replace some books that were getting cancelled from low sales), Stan Lee decided to revive the "split book" format to showcase some characters in their own series. AA had The Inhumans-- a long-awaited feature-- by Jack Kirby, with The Black Widow as the "back-up". I'm missing most of these-- but I do have this story, a follow-up to AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #86, as a reprint in-- of all places-- GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #4.

This is pretty bad. The art is by John Buscema & John Verpoorten, and it feels like Buscema is just going thru the motions. Gary Friedrich, while not wildly incoherent, only seems to be mimicking the same half-baked not-thought-out sort of thing Stan Lee has been doing far too much at this point. Natasha says she wants "action", but there is no explanation or hint as to why she quit The Avengers, or walked out on Hawkeye (now Goliath). She doesn't seem to have any real motivation for taking on crime. Even Captain Mar-Vell seemed more filled with a desire to help people. Here it's more like, "I'm bored; think I'll go fight crime."

People who complain about the Giant-Man & Wasp or Human Torch series a few years earlier should check this out. Those other 2 would look pretty good by comparison!


ASTONISHING TALES #1 (Aug'70) -- "Unto You Is Born The Doomsman" marks the long-awaited (well, by some) debut of Dr. Doom in his own series! Watching the latest moon landing, he teleports a sphere to the Moon's surface, which is found by "Neil" and "Buzz". Back on Earth, it turns out to be a communications device, as Doom wanted to lord it over The President about his technical superiority and how one day, all in his country and the world will bow to Doom's will!! (Nice way to win friends...) In Latveria, an underground rebellion is brewing, fronted by Prince Rudolpho, whose father Doom kicked off the throne. He wants it back, and part of his scheme involves a girl named Ramona who is the exact image of Doom's missing ex-love Valeria. Inside the castle, she manages to damage Doom's robot controls, and the rebels storm the castle. This happens just as Doom is putting the finishing touches on a new robot-- The Doomsman-- which will somehow have his own brain patterns as part of its make-up. Damaging part of the castle as it activates, The Doomsman oddly runs off instead of coming to Doom's aid. But alone, Doom manages to flatten the rebels, and Rudolpho & Ramona wind up his prisoners. Maybe just as well, as Rudolpho seems ALMOST as bad as Doom!

WOW!!! All this in 10 pages flat-- when it's enough story to pack 20! ASTONISHING TALES is the other half of the 2 alternating "split books", this one spotlighting Ka-Zar by Jack Kirby, and for the back-up, Dr. Doom-- by WALLY WOOD! Every page, every panel GLEAMS with crisp perfection, and I suspect Wood probably put more care, thought & detail into this project than the other 3 "split book" features combined! Roy Thomas supplied the dialogue (not sure if he contributed to the plot), and while uncredited in the books, I have read that the pages were actually pencilled by Wood assistant Larry Hama. As with the TOS stories, I have this reprinted in THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD (1982), on the "glossy" paper stock. Between that and the LARGER size, I just bet this looks WAY better than the original printing-- a real rarity when it comes to anything from Marvel.


Oh-- almost forgot. Remember how bad some of the "split" covers of the mid-60's were, before Stan figured ONE big image was better than 2 smaller ones? Well, the split covers returned with the new split books. And they're AWFUL. EVERY one of them that I've seen! Yep, the 60's are crashing to an end...

CAPTAIN AMERICA #129 (Sep'70) -- "The Vengeance Of-- The Red Skull" has Cap's WW2 enemy concoct a 2-prong plan. By changing road signs (OH, REALLY!) he diverts both Cap and a motorcade with a visiting Arab sheik to a small town away from where greater security was waiting. He uses a 2-rotor helicopter with a big electromagnet to haul the sheik's car into the air and kidnap him, then plans to dispose of both him and Cap (who races to save him) by shoving them into a missile and shooting them both into space. The death of the sheik, he figures, will spark a world war, and he gets rid of Cap in the bargain. Suffice to say, Cap has other ideas, and seeing the bravery of this one lone man, the sheik also gets into the act, giving The Skull an elbow in the stomach. In the end, it's the Skull who goes up in the missile, as Cap, whose free-wheeling motorcycle "joyride" was interrupted, thinks he "still got a lot of country to see!"

While the inks are still a bit on the raw side, they're MUCH better than last issue, which tells me Dick Ayers WAS racing someone else's blown deadline last time, and had more time to work on this issue. Cap, who is so "responsible" in THE AVENGERS, seems to be more and more an entirely different person in his own book. The plot, while ambitious, seems really crammed with only 20 pages; it's like a "1940's" story with bigger panels. This may be the "least" of all the modern Red Skull stories (SO FAR!) as the one-issue-story thing is cutting out any chance of development. It's clear The Skull's plan would have succeeded if he hadn't gone out of his way to get Cap involved! There's this mountain path Cap rides his bike up at one point that reminded me a LOT of the mountain we see THE LONE RANGER riding Silver down in the opening credits of his tv show. I remember watching reruns of the show in the late 60's-- maybe Gene was, too? The copter lifting the car with the magnet was one thing, but when I saw the underground shuttle car, and then the missile-launch site, I had to figure Gene must have just sat thru YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and decided to do a tribute. In this case, the missile is outdoors, and it's one of those classic 50's models Wally Wood always drew to perfection.

My only gripe with this issue is the cover. John Romita appears to have done this-- possibly over a Merie Severin layout-- and I believe there's a Jack Kirby Red Skull head pasted on in the rather large blurb that reads "The Vengeance Of The Red Skull!" There's also a word balloon, and another blurb, "Action-lovers! This One's For YOU!" All in all, I'm seeing "bad design". I'd have stuck just the title at the bottom, and had an image of the Skull's head looming HUGE in the sky where that 1st blurb was. Also, the layout has problems, as there's too much blank space in the lower-right. I can't believe Gene Colan would not have done much better doing a cover for this all on his own!


TOWER OF SHADOWS #7 (Sep'70) -- "Of Swords And Sorcery!" has heroic Vandal The Barbarian & his elf sidekick Pit Tippit, fighting a horde of ogres on a stone bridge over a deep chasm. Descending to the forest below, they encounter Princess Lissal, whose people have been getting turned into stone statues by Arak, an evil sorcerer who can fly and shoot magical beams from his eyes. Splitting into 2 teams to tackle Arak's castle, Lissal & Pit are both turned to stone, as is Arak, while his companion, Trolkin (another elf who is under a previous spell that turned him into a lizard-man) makes it up to Arak's castle tower. As the wizard attacks, his magic backfires against himself, turning him to stone, which, being unable to fly, crashes to the ground and shatters. With Arak dead, all his victims are returned to normal, and at a victory banquet, Trolkin reveals that as he was already under one spell, Arak's was doomed not to work on him!

The 3rd of Wally Wood's "fantasy" stories from this period is as visually STUNNING as ever, and probably has the most likeable set of characters, and the most "upbeat" ending. This may be why THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD printed it last, so the "fantasy" part of the book wouldn't end on a downer (as his 4th story did).

TOS continued downward at this point. For the 2nd issue in a row, the lead story was actually a Lee-Kirby-Ayers reprint from 1960-- "I Was Trapped By Titano The Monster That Time Forgot"-- and THAT's what was on the cover!! The middle story was "The Scream Of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Smith & Vince Colletta (Smith & Colletta-- THAT can't be good...) but the cover has NO clue that Smith OR Wood had work inside. What kind of way is that to sell a comic magazine???


AMAZING ADVENTURES #2 (Sep'70) -- "Friend Against Friend!" has The Inhumans, believing The Great Refuge was attacked by a nuclear missile fired at them from The Baxter Building, go to NYC to attack the Fantastic Four! Ben winds up tackling Lockjaw, Black Bolt & Karnak, while Medusa pulls Crystal aside and lets Gorgan tackle Johnny. The whole thing was set up by Maximus, who, in exile since FF #83 (Feb'69), is planning, with his loyal band of renegade Inhumans (the same ones introduced in HULK ANNUAL #1), is planning on taking over The Great Refuge once the people there realize how Black Bolt has miserably failed them. But, suspecting the "clues" might be false ones, Triton manages to track down Maximus, and drags him back to face justice. Learning the truth, the rest of the Inhumans break off their attack, and Black Bolt restores Ben's robe to better shape than before his attack. They depart, Medusa leaving them to ponder how THEIR country might respond to an unprovoked nuclear attack?

Better than I remember. It's almost a shock to see Chic Stone back at Marvel, and once again inking Jack Kirby-- whose art has changed quite a bit in 5 years. These 10-pagers don't seem to allow much room for anything, and it's jarring to see Jack Kirby trying to squeeze so much in, often doing 8 panels to a page! Crystal & Johnny are seen dancing to rock & roll (EXACTLY as they were at the start of FF #101), a nice tie-in, but I'm a bit confused as to what takes place in what order. Similarly, Maximus, who was in exile and tried to attack in secret, is seen captured at this story's end, but is openly at war with The Great Refuge in SILVER SURFER #18, which came out the same month. I SUPPOSE Maximus escaped between stories... it would have been nice if there was some indication of that somewhere. While generally consistent with past characterization, all of the Inhumans come across as flat, one-note ciphers with no personality-- even Medusa, who should have known better by this time. (I mean, NOT EVEN a apology for what happened!) Only Ben really "feels" like himself, which makes me wonder, when Lee & kirby worked together, was Lee using Kirby dialogue, or, as Jack wrote this one himself, is Kirby following Lee's lead? Jack's longtime habit of having LONG narrative intros before the story title (which was a common style at DC for decades, and which also turned up in the "Golden Age style" Red Skull story in TALES OF SUSPENSE #65) is used here, a taste of things to come from Kirby.


"The Young Warriors" has The Black Widow in the middle of an affair with some movie director, then thinking back on Hawkeye & The Red Guardian, who she reminds herself were "the past!" Her cleaning lady's son Carlos asks to meet her, and she winds up showing off some moves in her private gym (the whole time realizing she hasn't done much about having a "secret identity"). Carlos is a member of "The Young Warriors", a gang who actually wish to help their community, but their plan involves taking over a building occupied by a local mob boss and turning it into a community center to give free meals to poor families' children. Naturally, the mobster's thugs object, a fight breaks out, the cops haul the trigger-happy thugs away, but also serve the gang a court order giving them 24 hours to vacate the premises. A newspaper columnist, Paul Hamilton, tells Natasha that stories are already linking her with "militants", and he'd like to help steer things in a more positive direction.

Another so-so episode. John Verpoorten seems to capture John Buscema's style nicely without actually adding or detracting from it; I prefer when inkers do more "embellishing". Natasha seems to be rambling without direction, and I still haven't found a clue as to why she dumped Hawkeye so unceremoniously! For some reason, the splash page consists entirely of poses of The Black Widow taken from the later pages. Was somebody running really late on deadline, or what?

I really wish they'd have had ONE story sptolighted on these covers, instead of trying to cram both in there. Stan should have known better after 1965. Also, John Buscema's rendition of the FF at the bottom is just AWFUL. Hard to believe he wound up on their book-- and for such a long time!


SILVER SURFER #18 (Sep'70) -- "To Smash The Inhumans!" has the Surfer under attack from Maximus' renegade Inhumans. Not knowing there's 2 factions AT WAR with each other, he heads into The Great Refuge suspicious of all of them, which is just what Maximus wanted. Flagged down by Black Bolt, the Surfer lands peacefully-- until Medusa & Karnak ATTACK him! Triton intervenes, asking "WHY did you attack him?", as Black Bolt wished to welcome him as an "honored guest". Too late now. When Maximus' forces attack, The Surfer naturally comes to the wrong conclusion, and, FED UP with being the target of every being he's met on this planet, decides to leave-- while those loyal to Black Bolt CONTINUE to attack him, mistakenly thinking he must be on Maximus' side. As he finally makes it outta there, The Surfer, full of rage & frustration, declares it's "no more mister nice guy", and "Let mankind beware!"

Stan Lee apparently saw the writing on the wall, as after 17 issues of The Surfer playing "Job" to Mephisto's "Lucifer", sales had PLUNGED, and it was time for a drastic change to try and save the book. So, John Buscema was out, Herb Trimpe was scheduled to take over... but FIRST, Stan got Jack Kirby-- who CREATED the Surfer-- to do this one episode, to "set things up" for Trimpe. (This is a throwback to the kind of thing that went on several times on the Ant-Man / Giant-Man series in ASTONISH.) The Inhumans continue to be portrayed as one-note characters who seem incapable of thinking for themselves, which is especially frustrating in Medusa's case. At least Triton is on the ball, having spent so much time on the outside, but with Medusa's sister Crystal dating the Human Torch, she should have KNOWN more about a guy like the Surfer-- or, what her love, Black Bolt, wanted. (Isn't she supposed to be his "voice"? I see trouble coming in THAT marriage!)

When I first read this, in ESSENTIAL S.S., I didn't realize the Maximus thing was also going on in AMAZING ADVENTURES-- the same month! I'm guessing this takes place after that-- but if so, there's no mention of Maximus having escaped from Triton. Herb Trimpe does a nice job on inks, as well as the cover, but that's as far as he ever got. On the last page it says, "Next: The Savagely Sensational NEW Silver Surfer!" Oh boy. Last time I saw hype like that was on CAPTAIN MARVEL-- and we saw how THAT abortion went. We never got to see how THIS one might have gone. This was the LAST issue. THANK GOD!!!


THOR #179 (Aug'70) - "No More The Thunder God!" has the Asgardians, worn, weary & beat, return home from their victory over Surtur... 2 issues ago. Thor is unable to spend time with his beloved Sif, as All-Father Odin sends him to Earth to round up Loki, who LET the whole mess happen in the first place (and tried to dispose of Odin in the process-- kinda hard to let a thing like that slide). Hiding out in a swank hotel, Loki has Igron create a mystic mask-- then, as a "reward", banishes him to the Troll kingdom to become one of their slaves! (NICE guy!) Hoping to get the drop on Dr. Don Blake, Thor fakes him out by waiting in Blake's office in his godly form. But to no avail-- Loki catches him off-balance anyway, and uses the mask to exchange appearances with Thor! From his sick-bed, Balder rises, and, with Sif, races to Earth to aid Thor. But when they arrive, they behold "Loki"-- CLAIMING to be the Thunder God! Naturally, nothing he says can convince them otherwise, and as the real Loki watches from a distance, planning to pillage all of Earth and have it blamed on Thor, Balder is ALMOST killed. But when "Loki" weeps for Balder-- instead of running away-- Balder & Sif realize there must be more to his words than madness. "Loki" declares, "There is still hope!"

In a completely unprecendented move (and a TOTAL SHOCK to Jack Kirby, apparently), Stan swapped books between Jack & John Buscema, so Jack could do one issue of SILVER SURFER, and John could see how he'd fare on THOR. I don't have that issue, but based on this one, it must have had NOTHING to do with the ongoing continuity! This one picks up exactly where the previous Kirby episode ended 2 months earlier. Except for the splash and page 19, the entire book is done in 3 tiers, as Stan's "one-issue story" edict forced his creative people to CRAM more story into the same amount of space. (Seeing as this was the first of a 3-parter, that seems a bit silly in this case. But whatever.) The art is really on the "rough" side this time, like #177, and it's hard to tell if Jack's pencils were just knocked out faster and with less care, or if Vince Colletta wasn't holding up his end either. Which may have been the case, as pages 6, 14. 18 & 20 are CLEARLY done in an entirely different style! I'm guessing page 20 was inked by John Verpoorten, but the other 3 looks REALLY rough, so either they were done on an incredibly tight deadline, or there may be a 3rd hand involved here.

It's a shame "To End In Flames" wasn't the end of it, because this issue, the beginning of a 3-part sequence, was Jack Kirby's LAST issue of THOR. It just doesn't seem right for him to leave in the MIDDLE of a story-- but as I understand it, he worked out a contract with DC Publisher Carmine Infantino, without telling Stan Lee (or giving him a chance to match or beat the offer), and after handing in his last job, called Stan up on the phone on a Sunday night to tell him he quit, and was starting work on his DC books the next day. Stan must have been in a state of SHOCK, to have his #1 guy jump ship like that, without any warning. Considering all the wrong moves Stan had been doing already around this time, maybe he really needed a wake-up call. It didn't help. Things only got worse.

The cover was by Neal Adams & Joe Sinnott, who wound up doing the next 2 issues. Neal did some great covers for DC, and Marvel. This one's AWFUL. There seems to be no proper sense of depth or perspective, as Thor, who's standing in front of an attacking Balder & Sif, seems smaller than them, rather than larger. Also, the lines on the pavement below don't match the buildings in the background-- unless that piece of sidewalk has been lifted up at about a 30-degree angle. To make it worse, Marie Severin & John Verpoorten did touch-ups-- I believe all the background figures on the right side are by them. Maybe the buildings as well. It's like 2 completely different drawings were shoved together, and the result is a mess. Add to that, no less than 4 word balloons, AND a lengthy blurb, which has part of its text continue behind Thor's left leg. What an ABORTION! Sad way for Kirby to leave one of his best series ever.


FANTASTIC FOUR #102 (Sep'70) -- "The Strength Of The Sub-Mariner!" begins with Ben suffering thru a bad headcold-- and when The Thing sneezes, watch out! Meanwhile, investigating the source of a mysterous shock wave "beneath frozen Antarctica", Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, comes up into The Savage Land, and rescues an injured man from a flock of flying dinosaurs... MAGNETO! Back in New York, strange things start to happen as huge chunks of buildings go flying up into the air by themselves. And in Atlantis, a "recovering" Magneto thinks on how their equipment has allowed him to magnify his magnetic powers a "hundredfold". It's obvious to us what's going on, if not to anyne else, as Namor, on his throne, having an audience with his guest, is told that the two of them should join forces. "Who could hope to stand against us?" But Namor's interested only in peace. When the FF's own equipment begins attacking them, Reed traces the source of the disturbance to Atlantis-- and, jumping the gun, Ben sends a sonic wave that strikes the distant underwater city, followed by a "concussion" missile. Unaware of what's been happening on the surface-- or that his "guest" is responsible for all of it-- Namor declares WAR, and sends his Navy to attack New York. (AGAIN? But that trick never works!)

The story here picks up sometime after Magneto disappeared at the end of X-MEN #63 (Dec'69), and in fact he's still wearing the same get-up he had there, EVEN THOUGH it was designed to muffle his powers so he could work with his complex "mutant-creating" equipment. There's really NO logical reason he should still be wearing it here, especially as he's going to such lengths to INCREASE his power, not pare it back. (I'm guessing someone gave Jack that earlier issue for drawing reference, and nobody-- including the (ahem) editor bothered to READ it. The FF having equipment that would enable them to launch an attack on some far-distant city without leaving their skyscraper seems VERY out of character for them-- but may tie in with the attack launched against The Great Refuge in AMAZING ADVENTURES #1 (though nothing's mentioned or explained here).

Though most of the pages have 3 tiers (more dense storytelling), 3 pages have 2 tiers (4 panels apiece) and there's a full-page shot as well, making this the most "spectacular" Kirby comic in a few months. I see something very odd going on in quite a few of the panels. Kirby's pencils were becoming rougher and cruder at this point, perhaps a reflection of his growing frustration with Stan Lee and Marvel's new owners (who refused to allow for ANY contract negotiation). Yet, this issue, the art is SHARPER, CLEANER, FINER and seems to have more detail than anything I've seen from Kirby in some years! I can only guess that Joe Sinnott must have taken a look at the pages, and thought, "I gotta DO something about this." And DID. Man, does this thing look GOOD! Even when some of the figure work is unusually stiff (there's a few panels that genuinely remind me of some of Keith Giffen's early work, when he was doing a bad impersonation of Kirby's style), the panels GLEAM. I'd SWEAR Sinnott went as overboard on this issue as Tom Palmer tends to on just about everything he inks. This was the forerunner of a trend. In many ways, Sinnott's inks became THE "look" of Marvel in the 70's-- especially on the FF-- and the more time went on, Sinnott wound up doing more and more work, not so much "inker" as "finisher".

Again, it's a shame this wound up being Kirby's LAST issue-- seeing as, like in THOR, it's the first of a 3-part story. He did an entirely different issue-- all 20 pages worth of it-- which Stan "rejected", claiming it was "un-dialogeable". That story, initially dealing with a two-faced idol of "Janus" (and a pair of twin brothers, one good, one evil) wound up getting cut up, re-organized, and put back together with several pages of new art by others to replace Kirby panels that were removed, the entire rationale of the story rethought, and published in FF #108-- apparently, deliberately to coincide with Kirby's NEW GODS #1 at DC. Too bad. As magnificent as this issue was, in its original form, the "rejected" story would probably have made a more fitting finale for Kirby's UNBROKEN run of 108 issues of FANTASTIC FOUR (including the 6 Annuals).

The cover, by John Romita & John Verpoorten, is BAD. REAL bad. Compared to the interior art, the whole thing looks like it stepped off a Saturday morning cartoon. Verpoorten's inks are NOT a good match with Romita's pencils. It's got 2 word balloons and 3 blurbs (3!!!). And strangely... the entire FF is facing AWAY FROM THE CAMERA, something Stan Lee once rejected a stunning, glorious Jack Kirby cover for (FF #64 / Jul'67). So, let me get this straight... Kirby does a MAGNIFICENT cover, which Stan rejects for a particular reason, then, later, John Romita does a piece of C***, with the same thing, but when he does it, it's okay. OY!!!


ASTONISHING TALES #2 (Oct'70) -- "Frenzy On The Fortieth Floor" has Ka-Zar back in New York, invading a swank hotel, to rescue his friend Zabu (the sabre-tooth puddy-tat!), from Kraven The Hunter, that overblown egomaniac who usually gives Spider-Man so much trouble. The fight goes from the lobby to the top floors to outside the building until Kraven finally runs for it, but warning that "next time!" victory will belong to him. Meanwhile, a strange-looking character calling himself "The Petrified Man" arrives, makes friends with Zabu, then meets Ka-Zar, claiming they must return to The Savage Land, or dire consequences will result.

It's still strange to see Jack Kirby cramming so many panels onto his pages. Other than the splash, the other 9 pages here all have 3 tiers, EVERY ONE with exactly 7 panels. (I checked!) I was a bit shocked when I first saw the art. The inks are by Sam Grainger, who at this rather "raw" period in Kirby's art, proved a far better match than Chic Stone! I see Ka-Zar's hair has suddenly gotten a LOT longer than it ever was before, and he looks a lot like a couple of other Kirby long-haired blondes, including Kamandi. (For a moment, I almost thought I was looking at John Blackburn's Coley Cochran character!) I don't know where this "Petrified Man" story might have gone, as this is the only issue I have. Also, this was Kirby's last episode. I'm guessing it came out later than the others because Stan wanted to alternate the publishing schedule of AMAZING and ASTONISHING.

One stray thought that crossed my mind while reading this... they missed a real bet by not having a team-up of Zabu & Lockjaw!


"Revolution!" has Dr. Doom order his men to seek out any remaining rebels. "Rudolpho" escapes his cell by bending the bars, and it turns out he's really a robot Doom built many years earlier when he took over Latveria, which was programmed to do his bidding while the real Rudolpho was in a cell. Now, the real one is controlling the robot from afar, and, after taunting Doom, blows it up in front of him. Rudolpho, it turns out, is in league with a mysterous character called "The Faceless One", who seems to be wearing one of Wally Wood's patented space suit designs with a bubble helmet-- except this bubble hides whatever's inside it from view. The two locate The Doomsman robot (which looks like a mummy the way it's wrapped up) and convince it to turn on its master. The remaining rebels storm Doom's castle, and as the fighting is reaching fever pitch, with Doom facing The Faceless One (heh), The Doomsman crashes thru a stone wall, then hesitates, as if trying to decide which "master" it should obey.

Holy cow! What a cliffhanger! Like last time, Roy Thomas & Wally Wood CRAM a lot into only 10 pages. I have both the original of this and the reprint in THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD, which is printed larger than the original, but is missing the first page of this episode. I don't think giving Dr. Doom his own series is an idea that makes the slightest bit of sense-- whoever's doing it. But with Wood on it, you really DON'T MIND.


Well, I hate to end on a cliffhanger... but I've reached the end of my reviews for this thread. There was definitely a lot of "overlap" between what I'd consider "60's Marvel" and "70's Marvel"-- but I figured if I had to pick a point, it would be Jack Kirby's departure. I am planning to continue... but I seriously doubt I'll be able to bring myself to go over EVERY comic I have from this point.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #129 (Sep'70) -- "The Vengeance Of-- The Red Skull" has Cap's WW2 enemy concoct a 2-prong plan. By changing road signs (OH, REALLY!) he diverts both Cap and a motorcade with a visiting Arab sheik to a small town away from where greater security was waiting. He uses a 2-rotor helicopter with a big electromagnet to haul the sheik's car into the air and kidnap him, then plans to dispose of both him and Cap (who races to save him) by shoving them into a missile and shooting them both into space. The death of the sheik, he figures, will spark a world war, and he gets rid of Cap in the bargain. Suffice to say, Cap has other ideas, and seeing the bravery of this one lone man, the sheik also gets into the act, giving The Skull an elbow in the stomach. In the end, it's the Skull who goes up in the missile, as Cap, whose free-wheeling motorcycle "joyride" was interrupted, thinks he "still got a lot of country to see!"

While the inks are still a bit on the raw side, they're MUCH better than last issue, which tells me Dick Ayers WAS racing someone else's blown deadline last time, and had more time to work on this issue. Cap, who is so "responsible" in THE AVENGERS, seems to be more and more an entirely different person in his own book. The plot, while ambitious, seems really crammed with only 20 pages; it's like a "1940's" story with bigger panels. This may be the "least" of all the modern Red Skull stories (SO FAR!) as the one-issue-story thing is cutting out any chance of development. It's clear The Skull's plan would have succeeded if he hadn't gone out of his way to get Cap involved! There's this mountain path Cap rides his bike up at one point that reminded me a LOT of the mountain we see THE LONE RANGER riding Silver down in the opening credits of his tv show. I remember watching reruns of the show in the late 60's-- maybe Gene was, too? The copter lifting the car with the magnet was one thing, but when I saw the underground shuttle car, and then the missile-launch site, I had to figure Gene must have just sat thru YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and decided to do a tribute. In this case, the missile is outdoors, and it's one of those classic 50's models Wally Wood always drew to perfection.

My only gripe with this issue is the cover. John Romita appears to have done this-- possibly over a Merie Severin layout-- and I believe there's a Jack Kirby Red Skull head pasted on in the rather large blurb that reads "The Vengeance Of The Red Skull!" There's also a word balloon, and another blurb, "Action-lovers! This One's For YOU!" All in all, I'm seeing "bad design". I'd have stuck just the title at the bottom, and had an image of the Skull's head looming HUGE in the sky where that 1st blurb was. Also, the layout has problems, as there's too much blank space in the lower-right. I can't believe Gene Colan would not have done much better doing a cover for this all on his own!


TOWER OF SHADOWS #7 (Sep'70) -- "Of Swords And Sorcery!" has heroic Vandal The Barbarian & his elf sidekick Pit Tippit, fighting a horde of ogres on a stone bridge over a deep chasm. Descending to the forest below, they encounter Princess Lissal, whose people have been getting turned into stone statues by Arak, an evil sorcerer who can fly and shoot magical beams from his eyes. Splitting into 2 teams to tackle Arak's castle, Lissal & Pit are both turned to stone, as is Arak, while his companion, Trolkin (another elf who is under a previous spell that turned him into a lizard-man) makes it up to Arak's castle tower. As the wizard attacks, his magic backfires against himself, turning him to stone, which, being unable to fly, crashes to the ground and shatters. With Arak dead, all his victims are returned to normal, and at a victory banquet, Trolkin reveals that as he was already under one spell, Arak's was doomed not to work on him!

The 3rd of Wally Wood's "fantasy" stories from this period is as visually STUNNING as ever, and probably has the most likeable set of characters, and the most "upbeat" ending. This may be why THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD printed it last, so the "fantasy" part of the book wouldn't end on a downer (as his 4th story did).

TOS continued downward at this point. For the 2nd issue in a row, the lead story was actually a Lee-Kirby-Ayers reprint from 1960-- "I Was Trapped By Titano The Monster That Time Forgot"-- and THAT's what was on the cover!! The middle story was "The Scream Of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Smith & Vince Colletta (Smith & Colletta-- THAT can't be good...) but the cover has NO clue that Smith OR Wood had work inside. What kind of way is that to sell a comic magazine???


AMAZING ADVENTURES #2 (Sep'70) -- "Friend Against Friend!" has The Inhumans, believing The Great Refuge was attacked by a nuclear missile fired at them from The Baxter Building, go to NYC to attack the Fantastic Four! Ben winds up tackling Lockjaw, Black Bolt & Karnak, while Medusa pulls Crystal aside and lets Gorgan tackle Johnny. The whole thing was set up by Maximus, who, in exile since FF #83 (Feb'69), is planning, with his loyal band of renegade Inhumans (the same ones introduced in HULK ANNUAL #1), is planning on taking over The Great Refuge once the people there realize how Black Bolt has miserably failed them. But, suspecting the "clues" might be false ones, Triton manages to track down Maximus, and drags him back to face justice. Learning the truth, the rest of the Inhumans break off their attack, and Black Bolt restores Ben's robe to better shape than before his attack. They depart, Medusa leaving them to ponder how THEIR country might respond to an unprovoked nuclear attack?

Better than I remember. It's almost a shock to see Chic Stone back at Marvel, and once again inking Jack Kirby-- whose art has changed quite a bit in 5 years. These 10-pagers don't seem to allow much room for anything, and it's jarring to see Jack Kirby trying to squeeze so much in, often doing 8 panels to a page! Crystal & Johnny are seen dancing to rock & roll (EXACTLY as they were at the start of FF #101), a nice tie-in, but I'm a bit confused as to what takes place in what order. Similarly, Maximus, who was in exile and tried to attack in secret, is seen captured at this story's end, but is openly at war with The Great Refuge in SILVER SURFER #18, which came out the same month. I SUPPOSE Maximus escaped between stories... it would have been nice if there was some indication of that somewhere. While generally consistent with past characterization, all of the Inhumans come across as flat, one-note ciphers with no personality-- even Medusa, who should have known better by this time. (I mean, NOT EVEN a apology for what happened!) Only Ben really "feels" like himself, which makes me wonder, when Lee & kirby worked together, was Lee using Kirby dialogue, or, as Jack wrote this one himself, is Kirby following Lee's lead? Jack's longtime habit of having LONG narrative intros before the story title (which was a common style at DC for decades, and which also turned up in the "Golden Age style" Red Skull story in TALES OF SUSPENSE #65) is used here, a taste of things to come from Kirby.


"The Young Warriors" has The Black Widow in the middle of an affair with some movie director, then thinking back on Hawkeye & The Red Guardian, who she reminds herself were "the past!" Her cleaning lady's son Carlos asks to meet her, and she winds up showing off some moves in her private gym (the whole time realizing she hasn't done much about having a "secret identity"). Carlos is a member of "The Young Warriors", a gang who actually wish to help their community, but their plan involves taking over a building occupied by a local mob boss and turning it into a community center to give free meals to poor families' children. Naturally, the mobster's thugs object, a fight breaks out, the cops haul the trigger-happy thugs away, but also serve the gang a court order giving them 24 hours to vacate the premises. A newspaper columnist, Paul Hamilton, tells Natasha that stories are already linking her with "militants", and he'd like to help steer things in a more positive direction.

Another so-so episode. John Verpoorten seems to capture John Buscema's style nicely without actually adding or detracting from it; I prefer when inkers do more "embellishing". Natasha seems to be rambling without direction, and I still haven't found a clue as to why she dumped Hawkeye so unceremoniously! For some reason, the splash page consists entirely of poses of The Black Widow taken from the later pages. Was somebody running really late on deadline, or what?

I really wish they'd have had ONE story sptolighted on these covers, instead of trying to cram both in there. Stan should have known better after 1965. Also, John Buscema's rendition of the FF at the bottom is just AWFUL. Hard to believe he wound up on their book-- and for such a long time!


SILVER SURFER #18 (Sep'70) -- "To Smash The Inhumans!" has the Surfer under attack from Maximus' renegade Inhumans. Not knowing there's 2 factions AT WAR with each other, he heads into The Great Refuge suspicious of all of them, which is just what Maximus wanted. Flagged down by Black Bolt, the Surfer lands peacefully-- until Medusa & Karnak ATTACK him! Triton intervenes, asking "WHY did you attack him?", as Black Bolt wished to welcome him as an "honored guest". Too late now. When Maximus' forces attack, The Surfer naturally comes to the wrong conclusion, and, FED UP with being the target of every being he's met on this planet, decides to leave-- while those loyal to Black Bolt CONTINUE to attack him, mistakenly thinking he must be on Maximus' side. As he finally makes it outta there, The Surfer, full of rage & frustration, declares it's "no more mister nice guy", and "Let mankind beware!"

Stan Lee apparently saw the writing on the wall, as after 17 issues of The Surfer playing "Job" to Mephisto's "Lucifer", sales had PLUNGED, and it was time for a drastic change to try and save the book. So, John Buscema was out, Herb Trimpe was scheduled to take over... but FIRST, Stan got Jack Kirby-- who CREATED the Surfer-- to do this one episode, to "set things up" for Trimpe. (This is a throwback to the kind of thing that went on several times on the Ant-Man / Giant-Man series in ASTONISH.) The Inhumans continue to be portrayed as one-note characters who seem incapable of thinking for themselves, which is especially frustrating in Medusa's case. At least Triton is on the ball, having spent so much time on the outside, but with Medusa's sister Crystal dating the Human Torch, she should have KNOWN more about a guy like the Surfer-- or, what her love, Black Bolt, wanted. (Isn't she supposed to be his "voice"? I see trouble coming in THAT marriage!)

When I first read this, in ESSENTIAL S.S., I didn't realize the Maximus thing was also going on in AMAZING ADVENTURES-- the same month! I'm guessing this takes place after that-- but if so, there's no mention of Maximus having escaped from Triton. Herb Trimpe does a nice job on inks, as well as the cover, but that's as far as he ever got. On the last page it says, "Next: The Savagely Sensational NEW Silver Surfer!" Oh boy. Last time I saw hype like that was on CAPTAIN MARVEL-- and we saw how THAT abortion went. We never got to see how THIS one might have gone. This was the LAST issue. THANK GOD!!!


THOR #179 (Aug'70) - "No More The Thunder God!" has the Asgardians, worn, weary & beat, return home from their victory over Surtur... 2 issues ago. Thor is unable to spend time with his beloved Sif, as All-Father Odin sends him to Earth to round up Loki, who LET the whole mess happen in the first place (and tried to dispose of Odin in the process-- kinda hard to let a thing like that slide). Hiding out in a swank hotel, Loki has Igron create a mystic mask-- then, as a "reward", banishes him to the Troll kingdom to become one of their slaves! (NICE guy!) Hoping to get the drop on Dr. Don Blake, Thor fakes him out by waiting in Blake's office in his godly form. But to no avail-- Loki catches him off-balance anyway, and uses the mask to exchange appearances with Thor! From his sick-bed, Balder rises, and, with Sif, races to Earth to aid Thor. But when they arrive, they behold "Loki"-- CLAIMING to be the Thunder God! Naturally, nothing he says can convince them otherwise, and as the real Loki watches from a distance, planning to pillage all of Earth and have it blamed on Thor, Balder is ALMOST killed. But when "Loki" weeps for Balder-- instead of running away-- Balder & Sif realize there must be more to his words than madness. "Loki" declares, "There is still hope!"

In a completely unprecendented move (and a TOTAL SHOCK to Jack Kirby, apparently), Stan swapped books between Jack & John Buscema, so Jack could do one issue of SILVER SURFER, and John could see how he'd fare on THOR. I don't have that issue, but based on this one, it must have had NOTHING to do with the ongoing continuity! This one picks up exactly where the previous Kirby episode ended 2 months earlier. Except for the splash and page 19, the entire book is done in 3 tiers, as Stan's "one-issue story" edict forced his creative people to CRAM more story into the same amount of space. (Seeing as this was the first of a 3-parter, that seems a bit silly in this case. But whatever.) The art is really on the "rough" side this time, like #177, and it's hard to tell if Jack's pencils were just knocked out faster and with less care, or if Vince Colletta wasn't holding up his end either. Which may have been the case, as pages 6, 14. 18 & 20 are CLEARLY done in an entirely different style! I'm guessing page 20 was inked by John Verpoorten, but the other 3 looks REALLY rough, so either they were done on an incredibly tight deadline, or there may be a 3rd hand involved here.

It's a shame "To End In Flames" wasn't the end of it, because this issue, the beginning of a 3-part sequence, was Jack Kirby's LAST issue of THOR. It just doesn't seem right for him to leave in the MIDDLE of a story-- but as I understand it, he worked out a contract with DC Publisher Carmine Infantino, without telling Stan Lee (or giving him a chance to match or beat the offer), and after handing in his last job, called Stan up on the phone on a Sunday night to tell him he quit, and was starting work on his DC books the next day. Stan must have been in a state of SHOCK, to have his #1 guy jump ship like that, without any warning. Considering all the wrong moves Stan had been doing already around this time, maybe he really needed a wake-up call. It didn't help. Things only got worse.

The cover was by Neal Adams & Joe Sinnott, who wound up doing the next 2 issues. Neal did some great covers for DC, and Marvel. This one's AWFUL. There seems to be no proper sense of depth or perspective, as Thor, who's standing in front of an attacking Balder & Sif, seems smaller than them, rather than larger. Also, the lines on the pavement below don't match the buildings in the background-- unless that piece of sidewalk has been lifted up at about a 30-degree angle. To make it worse, Marie Severin & John Verpoorten did touch-ups-- I believe all the background figures on the right side are by them. Maybe the buildings as well. It's like 2 completely different drawings were shoved together, and the result is a mess. Add to that, no less than 4 word balloons, AND a lengthy blurb, which has part of its text continue behind Thor's left leg. What an ABORTION! Sad way for Kirby to leave one of his best series ever.


FANTASTIC FOUR #102 (Sep'70) -- "The Strength Of The Sub-Mariner!" begins with Ben suffering thru a bad headcold-- and when The Thing sneezes, watch out! Meanwhile, investigating the source of a mysterous shock wave "beneath frozen Antarctica", Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, comes up into The Savage Land, and rescues an injured man from a flock of flying dinosaurs... MAGNETO! Back in New York, strange things start to happen as huge chunks of buildings go flying up into the air by themselves. And in Atlantis, a "recovering" Magneto thinks on how their equipment has allowed him to magnify his magnetic powers a "hundredfold". It's obvious to us what's going on, if not to anyne else, as Namor, on his throne, having an audience with his guest, is told that the two of them should join forces. "Who could hope to stand against us?" But Namor's interested only in peace. When the FF's own equipment begins attacking them, Reed traces the source of the disturbance to Atlantis-- and, jumping the gun, Ben sends a sonic wave that strikes the distant underwater city, followed by a "concussion" missile. Unaware of what's been happening on the surface-- or that his "guest" is responsible for all of it-- Namor declares WAR, and sends his Navy to attack New York. (AGAIN? But that trick never works!)

The story here picks up sometime after Magneto disappeared at the end of X-MEN #63 (Dec'69), and in fact he's still wearing the same get-up he had there, EVEN THOUGH it was designed to muffle his powers so he could work with his complex "mutant-creating" equipment. There's really NO logical reason he should still be wearing it here, especially as he's going to such lengths to INCREASE his power, not pare it back. (I'm guessing someone gave Jack that earlier issue for drawing reference, and nobody-- including the (ahem) editor bothered to READ it. The FF having equipment that would enable them to launch an attack on some far-distant city without leaving their skyscraper seems VERY out of character for them-- but may tie in with the attack launched against The Great Refuge in AMAZING ADVENTURES #1 (though nothing's mentioned or explained here).

Though most of the pages have 3 tiers (more dense storytelling), 3 pages have 2 tiers (4 panels apiece) and there's a full-page shot as well, making this the most "spectacular" Kirby comic in a few months. I see something very odd going on in quite a few of the panels. Kirby's pencils were becoming rougher and cruder at this point, perhaps a reflection of his growing frustration with Stan Lee and Marvel's new owners (who refused to allow for ANY contract negotiation). Yet, this issue, the art is SHARPER, CLEANER, FINER and seems to have more detail than anything I've seen from Kirby in some years! I can only guess that Joe Sinnott must have taken a look at the pages, and thought, "I gotta DO something about this." And DID. Man, does this thing look GOOD! Even when some of the figure work is unusually stiff (there's a few panels that genuinely remind me of some of Keith Giffen's early work, when he was doing a bad impersonation of Kirby's style), the panels GLEAM. I'd SWEAR Sinnott went as overboard on this issue as Tom Palmer tends to on just about everything he inks. This was the forerunner of a trend. In many ways, Sinnott's inks became THE "look" of Marvel in the 70's-- especially on the FF-- and the more time went on, Sinnott wound up doing more and more work, not so much "inker" as "finisher".

Again, it's a shame this wound up being Kirby's LAST issue-- seeing as, like in THOR, it's the first of a 3-part story. He did an entirely different issue-- all 20 pages worth of it-- which Stan "rejected", claiming it was "un-dialogeable". That story, initially dealing with a two-faced idol of "Janus" (and a pair of twin brothers, one good, one evil) wound up getting cut up, re-organized, and put back together with several pages of new art by others to replace Kirby panels that were removed, the entire rationale of the story rethought, and published in FF #108-- apparently, deliberately to coincide with Kirby's NEW GODS #1 at DC. Too bad. As magnificent as this issue was, in its original form, the "rejected" story would probably have made a more fitting finale for Kirby's UNBROKEN run of 108 issues of FANTASTIC FOUR (including the 6 Annuals).

The cover, by John Romita & John Verpoorten, is BAD. REAL bad. Compared to the interior art, the whole thing looks like it stepped off a Saturday morning cartoon. Verpoorten's inks are NOT a good match with Romita's pencils. It's got 2 word balloons and 3 blurbs (3!!!). And strangely... the entire FF is facing AWAY FROM THE CAMERA, something Stan Lee once rejected a stunning, glorious Jack Kirby cover for (FF #64 / Jul'67). So, let me get this straight... Kirby does a MAGNIFICENT cover, which Stan rejects for a particular reason, then, later, John Romita does a piece of C***, with the same thing, but when he does it, it's okay. OY!!!


ASTONISHING TALES #2 (Oct'70) -- "Frenzy On The Fortieth Floor" has Ka-Zar back in New York, invading a swank hotel, to rescue his friend Zabu (the sabre-tooth puddy-tat!), from Kraven The Hunter, that overblown egomaniac who usually gives Spider-Man so much trouble. The fight goes from the lobby to the top floors to outside the building until Kraven finally runs for it, but warning that "next time!" victory will belong to him. Meanwhile, a strange-looking character calling himself "The Petrified Man" arrives, makes friends with Zabu, then meets Ka-Zar, claiming they must return to The Savage Land, or dire consequences will result.

It's still strange to see Jack Kirby cramming so many panels onto his pages. Other than the splash, the other 9 pages here all have 3 tiers, EVERY ONE with exactly 7 panels. (I checked!) I was a bit shocked when I first saw the art. The inks are by Sam Grainger, who at this rather "raw" period in Kirby's art, proved a far better match than Chic Stone! I see Ka-Zar's hair has suddenly gotten a LOT longer than it ever was before, and he looks a lot like a couple of other Kirby long-haired blondes, including Kamandi. (For a moment, I almost thought I was looking at John Blackburn's Coley Cochran character!) I don't know where this "Petrified Man" story might have gone, as this is the only issue I have. Also, this was Kirby's last episode. I'm guessing it came out later than the others because Stan wanted to alternate the publishing schedule of AMAZING and ASTONISHING.

One stray thought that crossed my mind while reading this... they missed a real bet by not having a team-up of Zabu & Lockjaw!


"Revolution!" has Dr. Doom order his men to seek out any remaining rebels. "Rudolpho" escapes his cell by bending the bars, and it turns out he's really a robot Doom built many years earlier when he took over Latveria, which was programmed to do his bidding while the real Rudolpho was in a cell. Now, the real one is controlling the robot from afar, and, after taunting Doom, blows it up in front of him. Rudolpho, it turns out, is in league with a mysterous character called "The Faceless One", who seems to be wearing one of Wally Wood's patented space suit designs with a bubble helmet-- except this bubble hides whatever's inside it from view. The two locate The Doomsman robot (which looks like a mummy the way it's wrapped up) and convince it to turn on its master. The remaining rebels storm Doom's castle, and as the fighting is reaching fever pitch, with Doom facing The Faceless One (heh), The Doomsman crashes thru a stone wall, then hesitates, as if trying to decide which "master" it should obey.

Holy cow! What a cliffhanger! Like last time, Roy Thomas & Wally Wood CRAM a lot into only 10 pages. I have both the original of this and the reprint in THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD, which is printed larger than the original, but is missing the first page of this episode. I don't think giving Dr. Doom his own series is an idea that makes the slightest bit of sense-- whoever's doing it. But with Wood on it, you really DON'T MIND.


Well, I hate to end on a cliffhanger... but I've reached the end of my reviews for this thread. There was definitely a lot of "overlap" between what I'd consider "60's Marvel" and "70's Marvel"-- but I figured if I had to pick a point, it would be Jack Kirby's departure. I am planning to continue... but I seriously doubt I'll be able to bring myself to go over EVERY comic I have from this point.