Deathlok: The Living Nightmare of Michael Collins


By Dwayne McDuffie, Gregory Wright, Jackson Guice, Denys Cowan, Scott Williams, Rick Magyar, Kyle Baker, Mike DeCarlo & Friends, Paul Mounts, Brad Vancata, Richard Starkings, Joe Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5988-9 (HB/Digital edition)

As created by Rich Buckler and originally scripted by Doug Moench in 1974, Deathlok the Demolisher was an honourable soldier condemned to an horrific fate in a dystopian alternate future. It’s his 50th anniversary this year and we’ll get around to the time-tossed travails of Manning another day. This book is not about him.

As you’d expect of a character who was designed as a bio-mechanised weapon, Deathlok is a complex concept with a lot of backstory and many later models. Most of that and those also belong in different reviews. Here we’re concentrating on the most successful iteration of the cyborg: a black man enduring living hell, subjugation and slavery to merciless masters who fights for his dignity and liberty with everything he has left to him…

Bookshelf format limited series Deathlok #1-4 was first released July through October 1990, and its success prompted a cheaper newsprint reprint run – as Deathlok Special #1-4 – less than a year later. Tragic champion Michael Collins sprang from this epic tale of deception and malfeasance into his own monthly series: 34 issues and 2 Annuals spanning July 1991 to April 1994, plus guest shots (across Marvel’s US and UK branches) in the nineties.

It begins in an 8-page prequel story from Marvel Comics Presents #62 (cover dated November 1990 but on sale in late summer) wherein Dwayne McDuffie, Gregory Wright & Jackson “Butch” Guice took Deathlok on a ‘Test Run’. The vignette saw soldier Colonel John Kelly – or at least his brain and assorted organic leftovers attached to a biomechanical body of intriguingly unknown origins – ruthlessly despatch a dozen mercenaries who had no idea what they were really facing; until a computer glitch ends the exercise and almost project leader Harlan Ryker.

Kelly would later be eventually resurrected as cyborg antihero Siege but the failed test left the Cybertek Systems Inc. team (cybernetics division of Marvel’s corporate villain organization Roxxon) in need of a new brain donor…

The story of this Deathlok really begins with the first solo issue as Dwayne McDuffie, (co-writer and colourist) Gregory Wright, Jackson Guice, Scott Williams & hard-pressed, overworked letterer Richard Starkings introduce readers to ‘The Brains of the Outfit’. Cybertek is dirty. It uses subterfuge to achieve its ends. When programmer, engineer, pacifist and devoted family man Michael Collins discovers his innovations are going into advanced weapons systems and not medical equipment he rebels and quits, inadvertently making himself the next candidate for the organic wetware of Deathlok. The enigmatic war frame requires a human brain to operate, but it doesn’t have to be alive…

Mere days after a tragic “accident”, good friend Harlan Ryker tries to comfort widow Tracy Collins and Michael’s son Nick, even as a new Deathlok is unleashed in Amazon rainforest republic Estrella. Here, future Roxxon profits require a change of environment, a new dam and an end to eco-guerilla resistance. However, once again the onboard systems malfunction mid fire-fight and the presumed expired personality of Michael Collins takes control of the body whilst striking a détente with the murderously efficient semi-sentient programmed systems.

In charge and very angry, Collins wants Ryker, Cybertek and Roxxon to pay, but cannot abandoned his principles. His first action is to institute a “no-kill” command in the super-soldier body he shares with a computer he must negotiate every action with. This does not hamper his combat efficiency in the slightest…

It proves a perfectly workable arrangement as Deathlok when he returns to the New Jersey Cybertek facility and violently confronts the “friends” who betrayed him. Ryker and his team desperately launch their other project – a cybernetically-controlled all-terrain super-tank piloted by ruthless paraplegic co-worker and barely suppressed psychopath Ben Jacobs. After wrecking the project, Deathlok flees but finds no solace. Now the embodiment of everything he loathes, he doesn’t even know if he’s truly still alive.

An attempt to reach out to Tracy and Nick results in disaster and only anonymous contact with his boy via a computer game stays him from self-termination. Lost and alone, he decides to use his situation to help others…

Second issue ‘Jesus Saves’ sees Deathlok operating as vigilante in New York’s Coney Island, defending the dregs of society – generally from themselves. After stopping a mugging he is befriended by the elderly victim Jesus who offers “Mike” shelter. Elsewhere, the event at Cybertek has reached the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (the white one), but Ryker is more concerned by pressure his Roxxon superiors are exerting on him. In response to a deadly deadline, he commissions a mercenary “fixer” called Wajler – AKA Mainframe – to eradicate Deathlok whilst Ryker unctuously probes Tracy and Nick for possible intel and warns them that a rogue robot might be stalking them. Nick is not fooled…

Wracked by human memories and doubts, Deathlok uses the ability to access computer files and enter a communal cyber-scape to look for ways to stop Ryker, but his reaching out endangers his few remaining friends. It also makes him a target and Mainframe’s mech-enhanced team zero in on Coney Island and explosively attack, uncaring of the innocent crowds enjoying themselves there. The resultant chaos makes headlines everywhere and as S.H.I.E.L.D. steps in Deathlok decides it’s time to go back to Estrella and fix what he inadvertently started as a slave of Cybertek…

Artists Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar joined McDuffie & Wright, in #3 as ‘Dam if He Don’t’ sees the cyborg hero subject to intense S.H.I.E.L.D. scrutiny even as Collins joins the remaining eco-guerillas in wrecking Roxxon’s scheme to build a super dam and make the entire region easier to mine. Even after convincing the resistors he’s on their side – this time – there’s still an army of soldiers and regiment of giant robot ants controlled by revenge hungry Ben Jacobs to deal with.

The unstoppable Deathlok’s crusade is greatly assisted by a late-in-the-day alliance with Nick Fury, setting up a final face-off with Ryker, but the malign master manipulator has one last card to play and offers to reinsert Collins’ brain in the body he removed it from and has been judiciously keeping alive “just in case”…

The clash of wills and Collins brief ethical “wobble” culminates in catastrophic combat that draws in naive Japanese ultra-nationalist/part-time X-Man Sunfire, his cunningly controlling sensei Yoritomo and a secret army of ninjas on ‘Ryker’s Island’ (McDuffie & Wright, Cowan, Kyle Baker, Mike DeCarlo & Friends). Despite at first being pacified by Harlan’s promises of restoring him alive to his family, Deathlok recovers his moral compass in time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to assist him in averting a nuclear armageddon Ryker thought he could profit from, but in the confusion everyone loses sight of Michal Collins’ bottled body…

The least Fury can do is lie to Tracy and Nick for him: telling them the pacifist is on a secret mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. as Deathlok hides, facing an uncertain future as a hero in waiting…

With covers by Joe Jusko, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kent Williams, Cowan & Tom Smith, plus frontispiece/inside cover art by Guice, an historical essay on ‘Deathlok’ by Peter Sanderson and covers for reprint series Deathlok Special #1-4 (Guice & Cowan), the origin of Marvel’s most conflicted champion is a challenging but rewarding romp for older readers.
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Black Panther: The Saga of Shuri and T’Challa


By Reginald Hudlin, Jonathan Mayberry, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Aaron Covington, John Romita Jr., Ken Lashley, Gianlucca Gugliotti, Pepe Larraz, Brian Stelfreeze, Chris Sprouse, Mario Del Pennino, Klaus Janson, Paul Neary, Karl Story, Walden Wong, Goran Sudžuka, Roberto Poggi & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302946005 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Black Panther rules over a fantastic African paradise which isolated itself from the rest of the world millennia ago. Blessed with unimaginable resources – both natural and not so much – the nation of Wakanda developed unhindered by European imperialism into the most technologically advanced human nation on Earth. It has never been conquered, with the main reason being an unbroken line of divinely-sponsored warrior kings who safeguard the nation. The other is a certain miraculous super-mineral found nowhere else on Earth…

In contemporary times that chieftain is (usually) T’Challa: an unbeatable, feline-empowered, strategic genius dividing his time between ruling at home and serving abroad in superhero teams such as The Avengers and The Ultimates beside costumed champions like Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Thor, Captain Marvel and Captain America

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in the summer of 1966. As originally created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, was an African monarch whose secretive kingdom is the only source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien metal – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of Wakanda’s immense wealth, allowing that isolationist nation to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive on Earth. These riches enabled young king T’Challa to radically remake his country, even after he left Africa to fight as an Avenger.

For much of its history Wakanda was a phantom, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led since time immemorial by a warrior-king deriving cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This has ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and Royal Family. The obsessively secured “Vibranium mound” guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but recent times increasingly saw Wakanda a target of incursion, subversion and invasion as the world grew ever smaller. However, as crises arose, T’Challa was confident his system of Regents and his own kin could handle the load of governance.

This selective trawl highlights his interactions with his half-sister Shuri re-presenting Black Panther (volume 4/2005) #2, Black Panther (volume 5/2009) #1-6, Klaws of The Panther #1-4 (2010), Black Panther (volume 6/2016) #1 & 9, #8 & 10, 11, and Black Panther: Long Live the King (2018) #3-4: spanning cover-dates May 2005 to March 2018.

The reprise begins with ‘Who is The Black Panther: Part Two’ by Reginald Hudlin, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson & Dean White as seen in Black Panther #2 (volume 4, May 2005) which reworked the classic origin and set-up for a new century. What began with Fantastic Four #52-53 (July & August 1966), as T’Challa launched himself on the world stage by ambushing the FF in his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father, was acknowledged but refined. Now lone mad scientist Ulysses Klaw was remodelled as a murderous agent of an international cabal, America’s NSA was acting against Wakanda, and the ritual of clan members duelling for the right to be Black Panther was reimagined to introduce an unsuspected younger sister for the King. In the war that inevitably erupted (and for which you’ll need to read a different collection – I suggest Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther?) headstrong Princess Shuri endured a hellish trail by combat all her own…

Increasingly, over decades of publishing, Vibranium made Wakanda a target for subversion and incursion. Volume 5 #1-6 (cover-dated April – September 2009) Black Panther: The Deadliest of the Species – by Hudlin, Ken Lashley & Paul Neary – confirmed changing global Realpolitik as T’Challa and his new bride Ororo embark on a goodwill tour. As a mutant – and far worse, an American – married to the king, the X-Men leader is keenly aware of her tenuous position and potential for disrupting an ancient social order. All thoughts of winning over the people are forgotten when her husband’s jet – gone for only hours on a diplomatic mission – catastrophically crashes in the heart of the city despite all the weather goddess’ efforts to slow it down…

Five hours previously the Black Panther had secretly met with regal rival Namor the Sub-Mariner to hear an invitational offer from a Cabal of world-conquerors led by former Green Goblin-turned government operative Norman Osborn. Now the adored sovereign is near death. His formidable Dora Milaje bodyguards are gone and, after being dragged from the wreckage burned and broken, T’Challa agonisingly reveals how he was ambushed before lapsing into a coma. As Queen Mother Ramonda and Shuri rush to the hospital, the ruling council are frantic: terrified the assassination attempt is prelude to invasion. Wakanda is always ready for such assaults, but that was with a healthy Black Panther. Right now, they are spiritually defenceless. Even though the king is not quite dead, his Ministers advocate activating protocols to create a new Panther warrior – but the question is who will succeed?

Hours ago, after Namor departed, a far less friendly potentate accosted T’Challa as he left the conference. Dr. Doom is also a member of the Cabal and took the Panther’s refusal to join the club very, very badly. Back in the now-desperate meetings and Ororo’s refusal to undertake the mystic rituals result in Shuri being reluctantly assigned – over her own mother’s strenuous protests – the role of Black Panther Apparent. As T’Challa’s sister it’s a role she was destined for, but one her brother seized decades ago. At that time, she was being schooled in the West when Ulysses Klaw claimed her father’s life. With cruel circumstance demanding nothing less, the boy took the initiative, the role and responsibility of defending the nation.

Thus, after years as an irrelevant spare, the flighty jet-setter is asked to take up a destiny she now neither wants nor feels capable of fulfilling. She is especially afraid of the part of the ceremony where she faces the Panther God and is judged…

T’Challa cannot reveal how the battle with Doom ended in brutal defeat and imminent death, or how his valiant Dora Milaje gave their lives to get his maimed body in the jet and home via auto-pilot. He is unable to even stay alive and, when the world’s greatest doctors abandon hope, Ramonda convinces Queen Ororo to try something terrible and very ancient instead…

Despite pervasive secrecy bad news travels fast. Across the continent adherents of the Panther Cult’s theological antitheses revel in Wakanda’s misfortune. Smug, gleeful worshippers of rival cults prepare arcane rituals to finally destroy their enemies and – in a place far removed from the world -T’Challa awakes to meet his dead bodyguards once more…

In an isolated hut Queen and Queen Mother bicker with sinister shaman Zawavari. The wizard claims to be able to bring T’Challa back but gleefully warns the price will be high. Thanks to years of constant training, Shuri has no problem with the physical rigours of the Panther Protocols and foolishly grows in confidence. Far away, Wakanda’s enemies succeed in summoning terrible Morlun, Devourer of Totems – wholly unprepared for the voracious horror to consume them before turning his attention to more distant theological fodder. In Limbo, a succession of dead friends and family subtly, seductively seek to convince T’Challa his time is past and that he must lay down his regal burdens…

As Morlun ponderously makes his way to Wakanda – stopping only to destroy other petty pantheons such as the master of the Man-Ape sect – Death continues her campaign to con T’Challa into surrendering to the inevitable and Shuri faces her final test.

It does not end well. The Panther God looks through her, declaring Shuri pitifully unworthy to wear the mantle or defend Wakandan worshippers. Despondent, she is ignominiously despatched back to the physical world just as her sister-in-law lands in Limbo, sent by Zawavari to retrieve her husband from Death’s clutches. Ororo doesn’t want to tell T’Challa it is their last meeting. The price of his safe passage back is her becoming his replacement…

In the world of the living, Morlun is at Wakanda’s borders, drawn inexorably to T’Challa’s (currently vacant) physical form. The beast is utterly invulnerable to everything in the nation’s arsenal and leaves a mountain of corpses behind him. With armageddon manifesting all about them, the Royal Family and Ruling Council are out of options until Zawavari points out an odd inconsistency. The price for failing to become Wakanda’s living totem has always been instant death, but Shuri, although rejected, still breathes…

Realising both she and her country have one last chance, the latest Black Panther goes out to battle the totem-eater whilst in the Country of the Dead T’Challa and Ororo resolve to ignore the devil’s bargain and fight their way back to life. And as both hopeless battles proceed, Ramonda and Zawavari engage in a last-ditch ploy which will win each war by bringing all combatants together…

After one all-out attack culminating in Doctor Doom seizing control, recuperating T’Challa was forced to render all Vibranium on Earth inert, defeating the invader but leaving Wakanda broken and economically shattered. During the cataclysmic clash, once-flighty, Shuri fully took on the role of Black Panther: clan and country’s champion whilst her predecessor recovered from post-fatal injuries and struggled with the disaster he had deliberately caused.

Packed with guest-stars, Klaws of the Panther was a 2010-2011 4-part fortnightly miniseries that traced her progress through the Marvel Universe: striving to outlive a wastrel reputation, serve her country and the world whilst – crucially – defeating a growing homicidal rage increasingly burning inside her. Written by Jonathan Mayberry, with art by Shawn Moll & Walden Wong, the story starts with ‘Honor’ as the Panther Champion brutally repels an invasion by soldiers of Advanced Idea Mechanics: simply the latest opportunist agency attempting to take over diminished Wakanda.

With her brother and Queen Storm absent, Shuri is also de facto ruler of the nation, but faces dissent from her own people as embarrassing reports and photos of her days as a billionaire good-time girl continually surface to stir popular antipathy to her and the Panther clan. When opportunist G’Tuga of the outlawed White Gorilla sect challenges for the role of national champion, Shuri treats the ritual combat as a welcome relief from insurmountable, intangible problems but has badly misjudged her opponent and the sentiment of the people…

That last bit was a prelude from Age of Heroes #4 and the Klaws of the Panther graphic novel. I’ve included it for context as it inexplicably is omitted here. This book opens with the main event by Mayberry, Gianluca Gugliotta & Pepe Larraz already underway with ‘Savage Tales’ as Shuri is lured to fantastic dinosaur preserve the Savage Land, in hope of purchasing a supply of anti-metal (a Vibranium isotope) but instead uncovering a deadly plot by AIM and sentient sound-wave Klaw. The incredible fauna of the lost world has been enslaved by the Master of Sound – who murdered Shuri and T’Challa’s father in an earlier attempt to seize ultimate power – and the villain has captured the region’s protector Ka-Zar whilst seeking to secure all Savage Land Vibranium for his nefarious schemes. Klaw, however, only thought he had fully compensated for the interference of Shuri and Ka-Zar’s formidable spouse Shanna the She-Devil

Driven by lust for vengeance, Shuri almost allows Klaw to destroy the Savage Land with only the timely intervention of sister-in-law Storm preventing nuclear armageddon in ‘Sound and Fury’, after which the Panther seeks out Wolverine in outlaw haven Madripoor, looking for help with her anger management issues. Once again, AIM attacks, attempting to steal the rogue state’s stockpile of Savage Land Vibranium, but instead walks into a buzzsaw of angry retribution…

Shuri is extracting information from a surviving AIM agent in time-honoured Wakandan manner when Klaw appears, hinting at a world-shattering plan called “The Scream” which will use mystery device M.U.S.I.C. to utterly remake Earth…

Following another furious fight, the Panther gains the upper hand by using SLV dust, but squanders her hard-won advantage to save Wolverine from certain death. Knowing the planet is at stake, Shuri accepts the necessity for major-league assistance in ‘Music of the Spheres’ but sadly the only hero in Avengers Tower is relatively low-calibre Spider-Man. Reluctantly she takes the wisecracking half-wit on another raid on AIM, at last catching a break when one of Klaw’s AIM minions reveals the tragic secret of the horrific M.U.S.I.C. device…

All this time, Black Panther has had a hidden ally in the form of tech specialist Flea: providing intel from an orbiting spaceship. Now the full truth is revealed as the heroes find Klaw’s plans centre on an attack from space. The maniac intends to destroy humanity from an invulnerable station thousands of miles above the planet and nothing can broach the base’s incredible defences. Happily, Spider-Man and Captain America Steve Rogers know the world’s greatest infiltration expert and ‘Enter the Black Widow’ sees Earth’s fate turning on an all-or-nothing assault by the icily calm Panther and the world’s deadliest spy.

Cue tragic sacrifice, deadly combat, spectacular denouement, reaffirmed dedication and a new start for the ferociously inspired and determined Black Panther…

Despite initially being rejected by the Panther Spirit, Shuri proved a dedicated and ingenious protector, updating, innovating and serving with honour until she perished defending Wakanda from Thanos in crossover events Infinity and Time Runs Out. When T’Challa inevitably resumed his position as warrior-king, one of his earliest and most urgent tasks was resurrecting his sister: task made a little easier as he had gained the power to talk to his deceased predecessors as Wakanda’s King of the Dead.

He learned Shuri had passed into the Djalia (the people’s communal Spiritual Plane of Memories) and absorbed the entire history of the nation from ascended Elders. On her return to physicality, she gained mighty new powers as the Ascended Future

Since then – thanks to the equally formidable magic of a bravura role in a blockbuster movie – a slightly reimagined Shuri starred in her own series, blending established comics mythology with the fresh characterisation of a spunky, savvy, youthful super-scientist. The start of that transition came with Black Panther volume 6. Here Wakanda’s status and its vibranium tech were fully restored in time for further immense changes instigated by correspondent turned author Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) and designer/illustrator Brian Stelfreeze (Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Day Men).Again reading complete collections for the full story will pay off best, but salient moments first seen in Black Panther (volume 6) #1 & 8-11 here reveal the next stage in the evolving sibling relationship. As ever, Vibranium has ensured the nation’s secret superpower status but makes Wakanda target for subversion and incursion. Addressing real world political unrest in Africa’s oldest surviving kingdom and Earth’s most advanced (human) nation, Coates & Stelfreeze see T’Challa reclaim the throne ceded to his sister before global catastrophe, economic collapse and consecutive invasions wrought havoc amongst the Wakandans.

As he strives to reassure his aggrieved subjects at the Great Mound, a moment of indiscipline from his guards sparks disaster. As T’Challa faces striking miners, a gesture is misinterpreted and his security team fires into the crowd. Only the Black Panther’s senses detect the presence of another influence shaping emotions and triggering an escalating clash that explosively erupts. Meanwhile, in Burnin Zana: The Golden City of Wakanda another crisis brews. A member of his elite Dora Milaje acts beyond her station; punishing a local chieftain’s abusive treatment of wives and daughters with uncompromising finality. Now, for taking the law into her own hands, Aneka must die…

Near the Nigandan Border, super-powered rebels take stock. “The People” are fomenting violent change in Wakanda using ancient sorcery, unsuspected connections to the palace and the fervent dream of a new nation. Aneka’s resolve to face her fate bravely is challenged and swiftly withers when comrade-in-arms and lover Ayo explosively breaks her out of jail. Wearing stolen Wakandan cybernetic war-armour, the women head into the wilds, seeking nothing but freedom but all too soon are diverted by the plight of abused women they continually encounter.

As the furious fugitives punish the awful ravages of malevolent bandits, rogue chiefs and typical husbands, emancipated women flock to their bloody banner. Wakanda’s growing civil war finds itself faced with a third passionate, deadly faction ready to die for their cause…

And in a place supposedly far removed from the cares of the world, recently deceased Queen Shuri is challenged by a mysterious stranger in The Djalia. Shuri is not destined for peace or rest but has a task to finish if the spirits of her ancestors are to be believed…

Tragically, as the opposing forces and ideologies converge in a very earthly hiding hole, the extremely rich white man funding much of the chaos gloats and further refines his grand scheme and T’Challa acts at last to resurrect his sister…

Jumping to #8 and following the defeat of the plotters – thanks to aid from Luke Cage, Misty Knight,  teleporting mutant Manifold and estranged wife/former queen Storm – the King completes his interrupted task, recalling Shuri back from ancestral heaven in time to jointly end the rebellions, crush the threat of The People and usher in a new era of democracy and constitutional monarchy. Of course, as deliciously delineated by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Walden Wong, Goran Sudžuka, Roberto Poggi & Laura Martin, that struggle for the heart soul and consensual governance of the reunited tribes of Wakanda is spectacular and costly…

Ending the mystery history tour is the last half of 2018 miniseries Black Panther: Long Live the King (2018), with #3-4  – ‘Keep Your Friend Close parts 1 & 2’ – spanning cover-dates May 2005 to March 2018. A revised peek at T’Challa’s formative years by Aaron Covington, illustrator Mario Del Pennino, and colourist Chris O’Halloran, it sees the siblings united and the nation endangered by old friends, rogue robots and the White Gorilla cult…

With covers by Esad Ribi?, J. Scott Campbell & Edgar Delgado, Mike Del Mundo, Brian Stelfreeze & Laura Martin, Khary Randolf & Emilio Lopez, plus variants by Ken Lashley, Paul Neary & Paul Mounts, Mitch Breitweiser, Stephanie Hans, Alex Ross, Olivier Coipel and Ryan Sook, this is a large but slight, immensely readable introduction to a rich, vast and complex world: a full-on rollercoaster ride no fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy can afford to be without.
© 2016 MARVEL. All rights reserved.

Essential Punisher volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Mike W. Barr, Marv Wolfman, Dennis O’Neil, Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Bill Mantlo, Stephen Grant, Jo Duffy, Ross Andru, Tony DeZuniga, Frank Springer, Keith Pollard, Al Milgrom, Greg LaRocque, Mike Zeck, Mike Vosburg & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-8571-2375-0 (TPB)

Debuting in 1974 and despite being one of the industry’s biggest hits from the mid-1980s onwards, the obsessed vengeance-taker known as The Punisher was always an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comic books. His methods were excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow or Wolverine come to mind) the Punisher actually became more ruthless, immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less. The Punisher never toned down or cleaned up his act – the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective.

He was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru: a (necessarily) toned down, muted response to increasingly popular prose anti-heroes like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and a bloody tide of fictive Viet Nam vets returned from South East Asia who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s. The story goes that Marvel’s bosses were reluctant to give The Punisher a starring vehicle in the mainstream colour comic-book line, feeling the character’s very nature made him a bad guy, not a good one. Other than the two magazine stories and the miniseries which closes this volume, Frank Castle was not supposed to be the star or even particularly admirable to the impressionable readership.

Therefore these early appearances could disappoint die-hard fans even though they are the formative tales of his success. Perhaps it’s best to remember and accept that when not actually the villain in the tales he was at best a controversial guest and worrisome co-star…

Boy, how times do change.

He was first seen as a villain/patsy in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (cover-dated February 1974 but actually on sale from 30th October 1973 – so even in terms of his anniversary, Castle apparently “jumped the gun” (I’m so weak!). He repeatedly returned thereafter until getting his shot at the big time – just not in newsstand publications but in Marvel’s monochrome, mature magazine line. This initial Essential compilation gathers all those tentative stabs and guest-shots from February 1974 through to the breakthrough 1986 miniseries which really got the ball rolling. These include Amazing Spider-Man #129, 134-135, 162-163, 174-175, 201-202; Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15; Giant-Size Spider-Man #4; Marvel Preview #2; Marvel Super-Action #1; Captain America #241; Daredevil #182-184; Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #81-83 and The Punisher #1-5, but many die-hard modern fans may be disappointed in the relative lack of brutality, carnage and even face time contained herein. Just keep in mind that for the greater part of these early appearances the skull-shirted slayer was at best a visitor and usually the villain du jour…

The first case in this mammoth monochrome war journal comes from ASM #129, introducing not only the renegade gunslinger but also nefarious manic mastermind The Jackal in ‘The Punisher Strikes Twice!’ Scripted by Conway, and illustrated by Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt, it reveals how a mystery lone gunman is duped by manipulative Professor Miles Warren into hunting the wallcrawler who was wrongly implicated in the deaths of police captain George Stacy and his daughter Gwen and currently a suspect in the death of Norman Osborn. Here he is subsequently set up by The Jackal for the murder of the Punisher’s gunmaker before clearing the air and going their own ways…

The much-misunderstood champions of the oppressed crossed paths again in Amazing Spider-Man #134-135 when a South American bandit – intended to be his oppressive regime’s Captain America – attempts to pillage a Manhattan tour boat in ‘Danger is a Man Named… Tarantula!’ Once again unwilling allies, Spidey and the Punisher’s trails cross when the duo dutifully dismantle the villain’s schemes during a ‘Shoot-Out in Central Park!’

The Punisher played a more central role in Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 (April 1975) when the webslinger forces himself into one of the sinister shootist’s cases in ‘To Sow the Seeds of Death’s Day!’ when ruthless arms dealer Moses Magnum began testing a deadly chemical weapon on randomly kidnapped victims. Tracking down the vile monster in ‘Attack of the War Machine!’, the reluctant allies found themselves infiltrating his ‘Death-Camp at the Edge of the World!’ before seeing summary justice dispensed more by fate than intent…

John Romita Senior’s original concept pencil sketch of The Punisher from 1973 is followed by the vigilante’s first solo role – in black-&-white magazine Marvel Preview #2 (August 1975) – wherein Conway & Tony DeZuñiga pronounced a ‘Death Sentence’ on some of Castle’s old army buddies. They had been tricked into becoming assassins by a millionaire madman who wanted to take over America, as the gritty yarn at last revealed the tragic reasons for The Punisher’s unending mission of vengeance.

Highly decorated Marine Castle saw his wife and children gunned down in Central Park after the carefree picnickers stumbled into a mob hit. When the killers turned on the helpless witnesses, only Castle survived. Recovering in hospital, the bereft warrior dedicated his life to eradicating criminals everywhere. Following a stunning Punisher and Dominic Fortune pin-up by Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin, DeZuñiga & Rico Rival’s ‘Accounts Settled… Accounts Due!’ – from Marvel Super Action #1 (January 1976) – draws another matured-themed plot to a close as Castle finally tracks down the gunsels who carried out the shooting and the Dons who ordered it, only to find his bloody vengeance hasn’t eased his heart or dulled his thirst for personal justice…

Castle was reduced to a bit-player in Amazing Spider-Man #162-163 (October & November 1976 by Len Wein Andru & Mike Esposito), as the newly relaunched X-Men were sales-boosted via a guest-clash with the webspinner in ‘…And the Nightcrawler Came Prowling, Prowling’. Here Spider-Man jumps to wrong conclusion when a sniper shoots a reveller at Coney Island and by the time Nightcrawler has explained himself (in the tried-&-true Marvel manner of fighting the star to a standstill) old skull-shirt has turned up to take them both on. Soon however, mutual foe Jigsaw is exposed as the true assassin in concluding episode ‘Let the Punisher Fit the Crime!’

Inked by DeZuñiga & Jim Mooney, November 1977’s ASM #174 declared ‘The Hitman’s Back in Town!’ with Castle hunting a costumed assassin hired to rub out J. Jonah Jameson, but experiencing unusual reticence since the killer is an old army pal who had saved his life in Vietnam. Nevertheless the tale ends in fatality at the ‘Big Apple Battleground!’ in #175.

Captain America #241 (January 1980, by Mike W. Barr, Frank Springer & Pablo Marcos) was a fill in benefitting from the Frank Miller effect – he drew the cover – as ‘Fear Grows in Brooklyn’ depicted the Sentinel of Liberty getting in the way of Castle’s latest mission and refusing to allow The Punisher to go free. Cap wasn’t on hand stop him escaping police custody and Amazing Spider-Man #201-202 (February & March 1980) by Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard & Mooney. ‘Man-Hunt!’ and ‘One For Those Long Gone!’ reveal how Castle almost uncovers Peter Parker‘s big secret whilst relentlessly stalking a mob boss responsible for the death of a kid who had saved Castle’s life…

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 (1981 by Dennis O’Neil, Miller & Klaus Janson) is putatively the genesis of the antihero in his proper form. ‘Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?’ sees maniac fugitive Castle back in the Big Apple and lethally embroiled in a deadly scheme by Doctor Octopus to poison five million New Yorkers. Soon both Parker and his colourful alter-ego are trapped dead-centre of a terrifying battle of ruthless wills in a tense and clever suspense thriller, highlighting and recapturing the moody mastery of Steve Ditko’s heyday.

The Miller connection continued in three landmark issues of Daredevil (#182-184, May-July 1982) which ideally embody everything that made The Punisher a momentous, unmissable, “must-read” character…

It is presaged by an untitled excerpt by Miller & Janson from ‘She’s Alive’ – wherein Castle is extracted from prison by a government spook to stop a shipment of drugs the authorities can’t touch. Meanwhile a shattered Matt Murdock is failing to cope with the murder of his first love Elektra. Of course, once Castle has stopped the drugs and killed the gangsters, The Punisher refuses to go back to jail…

The story proper begins in ‘Child’s Play’ – with Roger McKenzie lending a scripting hand – and deals with school kids using drugs. It was originally begun by McKenzie & Miller but shelved for a year, before being reworked into a stunningly powerful, unsettling tale once Miller & Janson assumed full creative chores on Daredevil. When Murdock visits a high school he is a helpless witness to a little girl high on “Angel Dust” going berserk, attacking staff and pupils before throwing herself out of a third floor window The appalled hero vows to find the dealers and encounters her bereaved and distraught younger brother Billy, determined to exact his own vengeance, and later coldly calculating Castle who has the same idea and far more experience…

The hunt leads inexorably to a certain street pusher and DD, Billy and The Punisher all find their target at the same time. After a spectacular battle a thoroughly beaten Daredevil has Billy, a bullet-ridden corpse and a smoking gun…

The kid is innocent – and so, this time at least, is Castle – and after Murdock proves it in court, the investigation resumes with the focus falling on drug boss Hogman. When DD’s super-hearing confirms the gangster’s claims of innocence, Murdock successfully defends the vile dealer, only to have the exonerated slimeball gloatingly admit to having committed the murder after all! Horrified, shocked, betrayed and resolved to enforce justice, DD finds a connection to a highly-placed member of the school faculty deeply involved with the drug lord in concluding chapter ‘Good Guys Wear Red’, but it’s far too late: Castle and Billy have both decided to end the matter Hogman’s way…

Scripted by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by Al Milgrom & Mooney, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #81-83 (August-October 1983) opens with ‘Stalkers in the Shadows’ as an increasingly crazed Punisher goes after misdemeanour malefactors with the same murderous zeal previously reserved for killers and worse. Spider-Man meanwhile, has his hands full with teen vigilantes Cloak and Dagger who have graduated from tackling street drug pushers to go after Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin of crime.

‘Crime & Punishment!’ sees Castle applying lethal force indiscriminately all over town, culminating in his own crazed attack on Fisk… who beats him to a pulp. Illustrated by Greg LaRoque & Mooney the saga ends with ‘Delusions’ as The Punisher goes on trial and is found to have been dosed with psychosis-inducing drugs…

In 1984 Marvel gave way to the inevitable and commissioned a Punisher miniseries, although writer Steven Grant and penciller Mike Zeck apparently had an uphill struggle convincing editors to let the grim, gun-crazed maniac loose in the shiny world where little kids might fixate on a dangerous role model – and their parents might get all over-protective, litigious and (skull) shirty. A year later the creators finally got the green-light and a 5-issue miniseries – running from January to May – turned the industry on its head. There was indeed plenty of controversy to go around, especially as the tale featured a “hero” who had lots of illicit sex and killed his enemies in cold blood. Also causing problems for censorious eyes were the suicide of one of the major characters and the murder of innocent children. Doesn’t it make you proud to realise how far we’ve since come?

The company mitigated the potential fall-out with the most lacklustre PR campaign in history, but not telling anybody about The Punisher (AKA Circle of Blood) didn’t stop the series becoming a runaway, barnstorming success. The rest is history. Two years later as the graphic novel market was becoming established and with Frank Castle one of the biggest draws in comics (sorry, I’m such a child sometimes), that contentious series was released as a complete book and it remains one of the very best of all his many exploits.

Here, rendered even more stark and uncompromising in gritty moody monochrome, the action begins in ‘Circle of Blood’ as Castle is locked in Ryker’s Island prison where every inmate is queuing up to kill him. Within hours he has turned the tables and terrified the General Population, but knows both old foe Jigsaw and the last of the great mob “Godfathers” have special plans for him…

When a mass breakout frees all the cons, Castle brutally steps in. For this the warden allows his escape and offers him membership in The Trust: an organisation of “right-minded, law-abiding citizens” who approve of his crusade. Castle also learns he’s being stalked by Tony Massera, a good man who thought he had escaped the influences of his crime-family…

Tony must kill Castle to avenge his father – one of Punisher’s many gory successes – but only after the streets have been swept clean of scum like his own relations. ‘Back to the War’ finds Punisher on the streets again, hunting scum, armed and supplied by the Trust… but still not a part of their organisation. After an abortive attempt to blow up The Kingpin, Castle is saved by the enigmatic Angel, and begins a loveless liaison with her. With everybody mistakenly believing the master of New York’s underworld dead, bloody gang-war erupts with greedy sub-bosses all trying to claim the top spot, but by the events of ‘Slaughterday’, Castle realises too many innocents are getting caught in the crossfires.

He also discovers in ‘Final Solution’ that the Trust have their own national agenda as hit men and brainwashed criminals dressed in his costume swarm the streets, executing mobsters and fanning the flames. All the Trust’s plans for this “Punishment Squad” and the country are uncovered in blockbusting conclusion ‘Final Solution Part 2’, when all the pieces fall into place and the surviving players reveal their true allegiances. In a classy final chapter mysteriously completed by the highly underrated Jo Duffy& Mike Vosburg, from Grant’s original plot, The Punisher takes charge in his inimitable manner, leaving God and the cops to sort out the paperwork. We can only speculate as to why the originators fell away at the last hurdle, but I’m pretty sure those same reluctant editors played some part in it all…

This economical Essential edition comes with a plethora of pin-ups, concluding with comprehensive information pages culled from the Marvel Universe Handbook.

These superb, morally ambiguous if not actually ethically challenging dramas never cease to thrill and amaze, and have been reprinted a number of times. Whichever version suits your inclinations and wallet, if you love action, cherish costumed comics adventure and crave the occasional dose of gratuitous personal justice, this one should be at the top of your “Most Wanted” list.
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 9: The Crusader Syndrome – 1974-1976


By Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Tony Isabella, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, George Pérez, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, Joe Sinnott, Jim Mooney, Joe Staton, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta with Stan Lee, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman & various (MARVEL)
ISBN 978-1-3029-4875-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with the adventures of a small super-team who were as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. Everything the company is now stems from the quirky quartet and the groundbreaking, inspired efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein & Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing company’s standards: but it seethed with rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comics forever. As seen in the premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother Johnny survived an ill-starred private space-shot after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All four permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four.

Throughout the 1960s it was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Kirby was approaching his creative peak: continually unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist creative freedom which led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mind-bending High Concepts gave way to more traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap-opera leanings and super-villain-dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas. This stripped-down, compelling compilation gathers Fantastic Four #147-167, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2-4 and Avengers #127: collectively covering June 1974 to February 1976 and heralding a change of pace and partial return of The King – even if only on covers…

Fantastic Four #147 offers action-tinged melodrama with Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott in how ‘The Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ as long-sidelined and neglected Susan Richards starts divorce proceedings against Reed whilst seemingly taking comfort in the arms of long-time admirer/stalker Prince Namor of Atlantis. When Reed, Johnny, Ben and Inhuman substitute teammate Medusa try to “rescue” her, the Atlantean ruler thrashes them before Sue sends them packing…

To add insult to injury, the dejected men return home to find the Baxter Building once more invaded by the Frightful Four and are forced to fight a ‘War on the Thirty-Sixth Floor!’ Sadly The Sandman, Wizard and Trapster have no idea their newest ally Thundra is secretly smitten with the Thing. FF #149 resolves the scandalous Sub-Mariner storyline as the undersea emperor invades New York in ‘To Love, Honour, and Destroy!’ Happily, his awesome attack is merely a cunning plan to trick Sue into reconciling with her husband. It almost works…

Courtesy of Conway, John Buscema & Chic Stone, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 reveals a time-twisting ‘Cataclysm!’, wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher warns of a hapless innocent who has inadvertently altered history, thanks to Dr. Doom’s confiscated time platform. Once again the supposedly non-interventionist extraterrestrial expects the FF to fix a universal dilemma…

With more than one temporal hot-spot, Reed and Johnny head for Colonial America to rescue the Father of the Nation in ‘George Washington Almost Slept Here!’, whilst Ben and Medusa crash into the “Roaring Twenties” and save the time-lost wanderer from being rubbed out by racketeers in ‘The Great Grimmsby’. Thinking their mission accomplished, the heroes are astounded to then find themselves trapped in timeless Limbo, battling monstrous giant Tempus before escaping to their restored origin point in ‘Time Enough for Death!’

For months lovelorn Johnny had fretted and fumed that his first true love Crystal was to marry super-swift mutant Quicksilver. That plot-thread finally closed in a 2-part crossover tale opening in Avengers #127 (September 1974). Crafted by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema & Joe Staton, ‘Bride and Doom!’ sees the Assemblers travel to Attilan (hidden homeland of the Inhumans) for the wedding of aforementioned speedster Pietro to elemental enchantress/Royal Princess, only to meet an uprising of the genetic slave-race designated Alpha Primitives. Once again, sinister robotic colossus Omega has incited revolt, but this time it isn’t insane usurper Maximus behind the seditious skulduggery but an old Avengers enemy who reveals himself in the concluding chapter from in Fantastic Four #150.

‘Ultron-7: He’ll Rule the World!’ (Conway, Buckler & Sinnott) finds both teams joining Black Bolt’s Inhumans against the malign A.I., but only saved by a veritable Deus ex Machina after which, at long last, ‘The Wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver’ finally closes events on a happy note – for everybody but the Torch, that is…

The dramatic tensions resume with Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 as plotter Gerry Conway, scripter Marv Wolfman and illustrators Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott deliver an epic tale of global import. The extra-special quarterly Giant-Size range was devoted to offering blockbuster thrills, and herein reveal ‘Where Lurks Death… Ride the Four Horsemen!’ as cosmic aliens arrive, intent on scourging the Earth.

Forewarned after the team stumble across the first horror in ‘…There Shall Come Pestilence’, our harried heroes split up with Inhuman stand-in Medusa and Johnny striving against international madness in ‘…And War Shall Take the Land!’ whilst Reed and Ben fight to foil the personification of Famine in ‘…And the Children Shall Hunger!’, before all reunite to wrap up the final foe in ‘…All in the Valley of Death!’

In FF #151 Conway, Buckler & Sinnott begin revealing the truth about the mysterious “Femizon” stalking the Thing. ‘Thundra and Lightning!’ introduces male-dominated alternate Future Earth Machus and its brutal despot Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man, who explosively invades the Baxter Building in search of a mate to dominate and another world to conquer…

Inked by Jim Mooney, #152 exposes ‘A World of Madness Made!’ with the team captive in the testosterone-saturated side-dimension whilst Medusa seemingly flees, whilst actually seeking reinforcements from the diametrically-opposed Femizon future/alternity, resulting in two universes crashing together in the concluding ‘Worlds in Collision!’ by Tony Isabella, Buckler & Sinnott.

Rapidly reworked by Len Wein, Fantastic Four #154 featured ‘The Man in the Mystery Mask!’: a partial reprint from Strange Tales #127 in which Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman pitted Ben and Johnny against ‘The Mystery Villain!’. Here, however, Bob Brown, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito’s revisions depict how Reed’s early lesson in leadership has been hijacked by another old friend with explosive and annoying results…

Meanwhile over in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4, Wein, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Chic Stone & Sinnott unite to introduce ‘Madrox the Multiple Man’: a young mutant who grew up on an isolated farm unaware of the incredible power he possessed. When his parents pass away, the kid is inexplicably drawn to New York City, where the hi-tech suit he wears to contain his condition malfunctions. Soon the boy devolves into a mobile fission device that can endlessly, lethally replicate himself. Thankfully the FF are aided by mutant Moses Charles Xavier who dutifully takes young Jamie under his wing…

A minor classic from Wein, Buckler & Sinnott follows s seen in Fantastic Four #155-157 when the long dormant Silver Surfer resurfaces in ‘Battle Royal!’ – apparently a murderous thrall of Doctor Doom. The Iron Dictator commands the Stellar Skyrider because he holds the alien’s lover Shalla Bal –-even cruelly threatening to take her in marriage. However, as seen in ‘Middle Game!’ (with Roy Thomas joining as co-writer and Editor) the Surfer cannot kill and merely delivers the defeated FF as prisoners to the Devil Doctor’s citadel. Naturally, there are schemes within schemes unfolding and Doom is playing a waiting game whilst covertly siphoning the Surfer’s “Power Cosmic” to fuel a deadly Doomsman mechanoid…

With Thomas in full authorial control ‘And Now… the Endgame Cometh!’ sees the heroes fight back to conquer the Lethal Latverian, blithely unaware the entire charade has been a crafty confection of malignly manipulative demon-lord Mephisto

The furore is followed by another nostalgia-tinged 2-part epic beginning with FF #158’s ‘Invasion from the 5th (Count it, 5th!) Dimension’ by Thomas, Buckler & Sinnott. When one of the Torch’s earliest solo scourges returns to occupy the homeland of the Inhumans, extra-dimensional dictator Xemu opens his campaign of vengeance by dispatching Quicksilver to lure his sister-in-law Medusa back to Attilan. The intention is to force defiant King Black Bolt to utilise his doomsday sonic power on the invaders’ behalf, for which the conqueror needs the silent king’s true love as a bargaining chip. However, when the FF accompany her into the blatant trap, they bring a hidden ally who turns the tables on Xemu, unleashing ‘Havoc in the Hidden Land!’, coincidentally and at last reuniting the First Family of comic book fiction…

More pan-dimensional panic ensues when a multiversal conflict is cunningly concocted by a hidden mastermind orchestrating Armageddon for a trio of dimensionally-adjacent planets for ‘In One World… and Out the Other!’ Devised by Thomas, John Buscema & Stone, the initial chapter sees shapeshifting Reed Richards sell his patents to a vast corporation, even as in the streets his counterpart from another universe is kidnapped by barbarian warlord Arkon the Magnificent. That abduction is investigated by a very Grimm Thing who has uncomfortable suspicions about what’s occurring…

With Buckler & Sinnott doing the depicting ‘All the World Wars at Once!’ expands the saga as Johnny Storm visits the recently liberated 5th Dimensional Earth to discover it under assault by androids from yet another slightly different one. As the Thing teams up with his other-earth counterpart to quell a dinosaur invasion, “our” world is assaulted by an army from the 5th dimension led by the Torch. With each realm believing itself provoked by trans-terrestrial aggressors, the divided team only knows one thing: each invading force is using weaponry invented by Richards…

The crises peaks in ‘The Shape of Things to Come!’ as the mastermind is exposed and the scheme to annihilate three worlds come close to fruition, necessitating a voyage to a cosmic nexus point and a devastating battle with yet another twisted alternate-reality hero to save existence in a spectacular and poignant ‘Finale  #163.

A new direction began with #164 (part 1 of a reconditioned yarn originally intended for Giant-Size Fantastic Four), courtesy of Thomas and then-neophyte illustrator George Pérez, backed up by Sinnott. ‘The Crusader Syndrome!’ sees the team battling a veteran superhero gone bad since his last outing as Atlas-Era champion Marvel Boy. Now as The Crusader he wages savage war on financial institutions whose self-serving inaction doomed his adopted Uranian race in the 1950s. However, his madness and savagery are no match for the FF and #165’s ‘The Light of Other Worlds!’ details his apparent demise. It also sparks many successful additions to Marvel Continuity, such as new hero Quasar, the 1950s Avengers and Agents of Atlas whilst introducing Galactus’ herald-in-waiting Frankie Raye as Johnny’s new girlfriend…

This formidable high-tension Fights ‘n’ Tights tome terminates in a titanic tussle as Vince Colletta inks #166 as ‘If It’s Tuesday, This Must be the Hulk!’ as the team hunts the Gamma Goliath with a potential cure for Bruce Banner. Sadly, aggressive and insulting military treatment of their target enrages fellow-monster Ben Grimm who unites with The Hulk to menace St. Louis, Missouri as ‘Titans Two!’ (with Sinnott back on inks). Following a mighty struggle with his old friends and constantly bathed in Hulk’s Gamma radiation, Ben is permanently reduced to human form and contemplates a whole new life…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Buckler, Gil Kane, John Romita, Ron Wilson, Kirby, Sinnott and more this power-packed package also includes the covers to all-reprint Giant-Sized Fantastic Four #5 & 6 and the original unused cover for GSFF #5 (which contents became FF #158-159); house ads and the new material from The Fabulous Fantastic Four Marvel Treasury Edition #2 (December 1975). This bombastic oversized tabloid edition featured a bevy of classic yarns and is represented here by front-&-back cover art from John Romita, a Marie Severin frontispiece and Stan Lee Introduction, contents page and double-page pin-up of the team and supporting cast by John Buscema & Giacoia.

Also on view are extracts from F.O.O.M. #8-10 (comedic exploits of Doctor Foom by Charley Parker), pertinent pages by Buckler & Sinnott from The Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975, cover plus splash page by Dave Cockrum & Sinnott from November 1977’s Marvel Super Action #4 which reprinted Marvel Boy stories from the early 1950s and a gallery of original art pages and a colour guide.

Although Kirby had taken the unmatched imagination and questing sense of wonder with him on his departure, the sheer range of beloved characters and concepts he had created with Lee carried the series for years afterwards. So once writers who shared their sensibilities were crafting the stories a mini-renaissance began. Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” didn’t quite return to the stratospheric heights of yore, this period offers fans a tantalising taste of the glory days. These honest and extremely capable efforts will still thrill and enthral the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 2023 MARVEL.

Marvels (25th Anniversary Edition)


By Kurt Busiek & Alex Ross, with Steve Darnall, Mark Braun, Richard Starkings, John Roshell & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4286-7 (TPB) 978-0-7851-1388-1(HC/Digital edition)

Every so often in mainstream comics something comes along that irrevocably alters the landscape of our art-form, if not the business itself. After each such event the medium is never quite the same again. One such work was 4-issue Prestige Format Limited Series Marvels by jobbing scripter Kurt Busiek and just-breaking illustrator Alex Ross. This year that landmark game-changing graphic collection turns 30…

I’m usually quite reticent in suggesting people read stuff I know damn well they’ve almost certainly already seen, but apparently every day is somebody’s first, and as years pile up and more stuff gets made, even certified bona fide “unmissables” get shuffled into touch and forgotten…

This tale is all about history and human perspective, following the working life of photo-journalist Phil Sheldon, whose career paralleled the double dawning of the heroic era; when science, magic, courage and overwhelming super-nature give birth to an Age of Marvels…

The saga opens with Alex Ross’ brief, preliminary retelling of the origin of the Golden Age Human Torch as first seen in Marvels #0 (co-written by Steve Darnall and produced in classicist pic-&-text block format) before the story proper opens in ‘A Time of Marvels’. In 1939 a gaggle of ambitious young newspapermen discuss the “War in Europe”. Brash up-and-comer J. Jonah Jameson is trying to dissuade his shutterbug pal Phil from heading overseas, claiming there’s plenty of news to snap in New York…

Unconvinced, Sheldon heads to his next assignment: a press conference with scientific crackpot Professor Phineas T. Horton. The photographer’s head is filled with thoughts of journalistic fame and glory on distant battlefields and he almost misses the moment Horton unveils his artificial man: a creature that bursts into flame like a Human Torch

From that moment on Sheldon’s life is transformed forever. His love-hate fascination with the fantastic miracles which rapidly, unceasingly follow in the inflammatory inhumanoid’s fiery wake is used to trace the rise of superhumanity and monstrous menace which comprises the entire canon of what we know as the Marvel Universe….

Soon the android is accepted as a true hero, frequently battling aquatic invader Sub-Mariner like elemental gods in the skies above the city whilst seemingly-human vigilante supermen like The Angel constantly ignore the law and daily diminish Phil’s confidence and self-worth. It’s as if by their well-meaning actions these creatures are showing that mere men are obsolete and insignificant…

Feelings of ineffectuality and inadequacy having crushed the camera jockey’s spirit, Phil turns down a War Correspondent assignment and descends into a funk. He even splits up with fiancée Doris Jaquet. After all, what kind of man brings children into a world with such inhuman horrors in it? Nevertheless, Sheldon cannot stop following the exploits of the singular human phenomena he’s collectively dubbed “Marvels”…

Everything changes with the arrival of patriotic icon Captain America. With the Land of Liberty in World War II at long last, many once-terrifying titans have become the nation’s allies and secret weapons, turning their awesome power against the Axis foe and winning the fickle approval of a grateful public. However, some were always less dutiful than others. When tempestuous Sub-Mariner again battles the Torch, Prince Namor of Atlantis petulantly unleashes a tidal wave against Manhattan. Phil is critically injured snapping the event…

Even after losing an eye, Phil’s newfound belief in Marvels never wavers and he rededicates himself to his job and Doris; going to Europe where his pictures of America’s superhuman Invaders crushing the Nazi threat become part of the fabric of history…

The second chapter jumps to the 1960s where Sheldon, wife Doris and daughters Jenny and Beth are – like most New Yorkers – at the epicentre of another outbreak of metahumanity… a second Age of Marvels…

Two new bands of costumed champions operate openly: A Fantastic Four-some comprising famous scientist Reed Richards and test pilot Ben Grimm plus Sue and Johnny Storm. Another anonymous team who hide their identities call themselves The Avengers. There are also numerous independent mystery men streaking across the skies and hogging headlines, which Jonah Jameson – now owner/publisher of the newspaper he once wrote for – is none too happy about. After all, he has never trusted masks and is violently opposed to this new crop of masked mystery-men. Phil is still an in-demand freelancer, but has a novel idea, signing a deal for a book of his photos just as the first flush of popular fancy wanes and increasing anxiety about humanoid mutants begins to choke and terrify the man in the street…

When the mysterious X-Men are spotted, Sheldon is caught up in a spontaneous anti-mutant race riot: appalled to find himself throwing bricks with the rest of a deranged mob. He’s even close enough to hear their leader dismissively claim “They’re not worth it”…

Shocked and dazed, Sheldon goes home to his nice, normal family, but the incident won’t leave him, even as he throws himself into work and his book. He worries that his daughters seem to idolise Marvels. “Normal” people seem bizarrely conflicted, dazzled and besotted by the celebrity status of the likes of Reed Richards and Sue Storm as they prepare for their upcoming wedding, yet prowl the streets in vigilante packs lest some ghastly “Homo Superior” abomination show its disgusting face…

Events come to a head when Phil finds his own children harbouring a mutant in the cellar. During WWII, Phil photographed the liberation of Auschwitz, and looking into the huge deformed orbs of “Maggie” he sees what he saw in the faces of those pitiful survivors. His innate humanity wins out and Phil lets her stay, but can’t help dreading what friends and neighbours might do if they find such a creature mere yards from their own precious families…

Hysteria keeps growing and the showbiz glitz of the Richards/Storm wedding is almost immediately overshadowed by the catastrophic launch of anthropologist Bolivar Trask’s Sentinels. At first the mutant-hunting robots behave like humanity’s boon but when they override their programming and attempt to take over Earth, it is despised and dreaded mutants who save mankind.

Naturally, the man in the street knows nothing of this and all Phil sees is more panicked mobs rioting and destroying their own homes. In fear for his family, he rushes back to Doris and the girls, only to find Maggie has vanished: the unlovely little child had realised how much her presence had endangered her benefactors. They never see her again…

The third chapter focuses on the global trauma of ‘Judgement Day’ as the shine truly starts coming off the apple. Even though crises come thick and fast and are as quickly dealt with, vapid, venal humanity becomes jaded with the ever-expanding metahuman community and once-revered heroes are plagued by scandal after scandal. Exhausted, disappointed and dejected, Phil shelves his book project, but fate takes a hand when the skies catch fire and an incredible shiny alien on a skyborne surfboard announces the end of life on Earth…

Planet-devouring Galactus seems unstoppable and the valiant, rapidly-responding Fantastic Four are humiliatingly defeated. Phil, along with the rest of Earth, embraces the end and wearily walks home to be with his loved ones, repeatedly encountering humanity at its best and nauseating, petty, defeated worst. However, with the last-minute assistance of the Silver Surfer – who betrays his puissant master and suffers an horrific fate – Richards saves the world, but within days is accused of faking the entire episode. Disgusted with his fellow men, Sheldon explodes in moral revulsion…

Phil’s photobook is finally released in concluding instalment ‘The Day She Died’. Now an avowed and passionate proponent of masked heroes, humanity’s hair-trigger ambivalence and institutionalised rushes to judgement constantly aggravate Phil even as he meets the public and signs countless copies of “Marvels”.

The average American’s ungrateful, ungracious attitudes rankle particularly since the mighty Avengers are currently lost in another galaxy defending Earth from collateral destruction in a war between rival galactic empires – the Kree and the Skrulls – but the most constant bugbear is old associate Jameson’s obsessive pillorying of Spider-Man. Phil particularly despises a grovelling, ethically-deprived young freelance photographer named Peter Parker who constantly curries favour with the Daily Bugle’s boss by selling pictures deliberately making the wallcrawler look bad…

Phil’s book brings a measure of success, and when the aging photographer hires young Marcia Hardesty as a PA/assistant whilst he works on a follow-up, he finds a passionate kindred spirit. Still, everywhere Sheldon looks costumed champions are being harried, harassed and hunted by hypocritical citizens and corrupt demagogues, although even he has to admit some of the newer heroes are hard to like…

Ex-Russian spy Black Widow is being tried for murder, protesting students are wounded by a Stark Industries super-armoured thug and in Times Square a guy with a shady past is touting himself as a Hero for Hire. When respected Police Captain George Stacy is killed during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, Jameson is frantic to pin the death on the webspinner, but hero-worshipping Phil digs deeper. Interviewing many witnesses – including the murderously malign, multi-limed loon himself – Phil consequently strikes up a friendship with Stacy’s daughter Gwen, a truly sublime young lady who is inexplicably dating that unscrupulous weasel Parker…

One evening, hoping for another innocuous chat with the vivacious lass, Phil sees her abduction by the Green Goblin and, desperately giving chase, watches as his vaunted hero Spider-Man utterly fails to save her from death. Her murder doesn’t even rate a headline; that’s saved for industrialist Norman Osborn who is found mysteriously slain that same night…

Gutted, worn out and somehow betrayed, Sheldon chucks it all in, but seeing Marcia still has the fire in her belly and wonder in her eyes, leaves her his camera and his mission…

Although this titanic tale traces the arc of Marvel continuity, the sensitive and evocative journey of Phil Sheldon is crafted in such a way that no knowledge of the mythology is necessary to follow the plot; and would indeed be a hindrance to sharing the feelings of an ordinary man in extraordinary times.

One of Marvel’s – and indeed the genre’s – greatest tales (but you probably already know that and if you don’t what are you waiting for?), I count at least four separate versions available currently and suggest if you have any money left you opt for the 25th Anniversary edition that comes heavily annotated with numerous articles and extras. These include aforementioned prequel ‘Marvels Book Zero’, and the ‘Marvels Epilogue’ short story. The bonus section comprises a 39-page, panel-by-panel comparison of original 1960s Marvel material with the reinterpretations of #0-4 compiled by Jess Harrold: followed by ‘Marvels: The Proposals’ as Ross & Busiek pitched their big idea: four shots to get it just right, aided by an abundance of glorious ‘character studies’ incorporating a vast cast, and supplemented by text articles on the finished product from November 1993’s Marvel Age #130.

Busiek’s full scripts for #1-4 and a wealth of ‘layouts, pencils & Original Art’ (11 pages) follow, before diving deeper in with a 6-page peek ‘Inside Alex Ross’ Marvels Epilogue Sketchbook’. More commentary follows with recovered Introductions, Busiek’s in-story prose pieces ‘Marvels: The Articles’; 8 pages of Ross’ contribution via ‘Marvels: The Artistic Process’, and Harrold’s popular press features courtesy of ‘The Story of Marvels’, ‘Modern-Day Marvels’, ‘Understanding Marvels by Scott McCloud’, ‘McLaurin’s Mark on Marvels’.

Next comes a ‘Mahvels Parody’ by Darnall, Busiek, Ross & artist Mark Braun, accompanied by ‘Posters, Art & Homage Covers’, Ross’ ‘Marvels Collected-Edition Cover Gallery’, and material seen in previous collections, including an ‘Annotated Cover Gallery’; a selection of ‘Marvels 25th Anniversary Variants’, ‘Marvels 25th Anniversary Tributes Variants’ and ‘Marvels Epilogue Variants’: with 5- full page contributions from Paolo Rivera, Michael Cho, Gabriele Dell’Otto, Stephanie Hans, Daniel Acuña, Mark Brooks, David Mack, Julian Totino Tedesco, Mico Suayan & Brian Reber, Inhyuk Lee, Carlos Pacheco, Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Cho, Adi Granov, Alan Davis, Mark farmer & Matt Hollingsworth, Nick Bradshaw, Gerlad Parel, Greg Smallwood, Marcos Martin, Tomm Coker, Yasmine Putri, Clayton Crain, Phil Noto, Simone Bianchi, Dave Johnson, Ron Lim & Dean White, Remsy Atassi, Dave Cockrum & Edgar Delgado, Fred Hembeck & Felipe Sobreiro, Skottie Young and more.

The epic history lesson ends with a list of ‘Marvels Sources’, citing where each re-envisioned scene first appeared in comics continuity before closing with Stan Lee’s Marvels TPB (1994) Introduction, full Acknowledgements and a final Afterword from Kurt Busiek & Alex Ross.

A truly groundbreaking achievement, Marvels – in whatever form you see it – is a comics tale you must not miss.
© 2020 MARVEL.

Avengers versus X-Men Compendium


By Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, John Romita Jr., Olivier Coipel, Adam Kubert, Frank Cho & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-518-5 (B/Digital edition)

Despite all of us being sick as dogs, can we let this anniversary year end without revisiting Marvel’s one big idea in perfect execution? Enjoy this prime example of what made Marvel great – heroes pummelling other heroes…

The mainstream comics industry is now irretrievably wedded to blockbuster continuity-sharing mega-crossover events: rashly doling them out like epi-pens to Snickers addicts with peanut allergies, but at least these days, however, if we have to endure a constant cosmic Sturm and extra-dimensional Drang, the publishers take great pains to ensure that the resulting comics chaos is suitably engrossing and always superbly illustrated…

Marvel’s big thing was always extended clashes between mega-franchises such as The Avengers and X-Men, and this one began in Avengers: X Sanction when time-lost mutant Cable attempted to pre-emptively murder a select roster of the World’s Greatest Heroes to prevent an even greater cosmic tragedy.

Hope Spalding-Summers was the first mutant born on Earth after the temporarily insane Avenger Scarlet Witch used her reality-warping powers to eradicate almost all mutants in existence. Considered a mutant messiah, Hope was raised in the future before inevitably finding her way back to the present where she was adopted by X-Men supremo Scott Summers AKA Cyclops. Innumerable signs and portents had indicated that Hope was a reincarnated receptacle for the devastating cosmic entity dubbed The Phoenix

This mammoth collection gathers the core 12-issue fortnightly miniseries (April – October 2012) which saw humanity and Homo Superior go to war to possess this celestial chosen one, and also includes prequel Avengers vs. X-Men #0 which laid the plot groundwork for the whole blockbusting Brouhaha.

Necessarily preceded by a double-page scorecard of the 78(!) major players, the story begins with a pair of Prologues (by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron & Frank Cho) as now-sane and desperately repentant Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff tries to make amends and restore her links with the Avengers she betrayed and attacked. However, even after defeating an attack by manic mutate MODOK, and a personal invitation from Ms. Marvel to come back, the penitent mutant is sent packing by her ex-husband The Vision and other male heroes she manipulated.

Meanwhile in Utopia – the West Coast island fortress housing the last 200 mutants on Earth – an increasingly driven Cyclops is administering brutally tough love to adopted daughter Hope. She is determined to defy her apparently inescapable destiny as eventual host for the omnipotent Phoenix force on some far future day by regularly moonlighting as a superhero. Sadly, she’s well out of her depth when she tackles the sinister Serpent Society and daddy humiliatingly comes to her rescue.

… And in the depths of space a ghastly firebird of life and death comes ever closer to Earth…

In the first chapter (by Bendis, John Romita Jr. & Scott Hanna) the catastrophically powerful force of destruction and rebirth nears our world and the perfect mortal host it hungers for and needs to guide it, frantically preceded by desperate harbinger of doom Nova, who almost dies delivering a warning of its proximity and intent. Soon, The Avengers and the US government are laying plans, whilst in Utopia Scott Summers pushes Hope harder than ever. If The Phoenix cannot be avoided, perhaps he can make his daughter strong enough to resist being overwhelmed by its promise of infinite power…

At The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, ex X-Man and current Avenger Wolverine is approached by Captain America and regretfully leaves his position as teacher to once again battle a force that cannot be imagined…

With even his fellow mutants questioning his tactics and brutal pushing of Hope, Cyclops meets Captain America for a parley. On behalf of the world, the Sentinel of Liberty wants to take Hope into protective custody but the mutants’ leader – distrustful of human bigotry and past duplicity – reacts violently to the far-from-diplomatic overtures…

Jason Aaron scripts the second instalment as frayed tempers lead to all-out battle on the shores of Utopia, with past personal grudges fuelling a brutal conflict. As the metahuman war rages, Wolverine and Spider-Man surreptitiously go after hidden Hope, but – even far off in deep space – The Phoenix force has infected her and she blasts them…

Meanwhile in the extra-solar void Thor, Vision, War Machine and a select team of Secret Avengers confront the mindlessly onrushing energy construct…

Scripted by Ed Brubaker, Chapter 3 begins with the recovering Wolverine and Wallcrawler considering how to catch missing hyper-powerful Hope with both Avengers and recently departed X-Men chasing her. When the feral mutant clashes over tactics with Captain America, the resulting fight further divides Avenger forces. In episode 4 (authored by Jonathan Hickman) as the easily defeated space defenders limp back to Earth, Hope and Wolverine meet at the bottom of the world and devise their own plans for her future…

All over Earth heroes are hunting the reluctant chosen one, and clashes between mutants and superhumans are steadily intensifying in ferocity, but the fugitive pair evade all pursuit by stealing a rocket and heading to the ancient “Blue Area of the Moon” where revered mutant Jean Grey first died to save the universe from The Phoenix.

When the former Marvel Girl was originally possessed by the fiery force she became a hero of infinite puissance and a cataclysmic champion of Life, before the power corrupted her and she devolved into Dark Phoenix: a rapacious wanton god of planet-killing appetites…

In a valiant act of contrition, Jean permitted the X-Men to kill her before her rapacious need completely consumed her in the oxygen-rich ancient city on the lunar surface (of course that’s just the tip of an outrageously long and overly-complicated iceberg not germane or necessary to us here: just search-engine the tale afterwards, OK?… or just buy one of many collections of The Dark Pheonix Saga).

When Hope finally reaches the spot of her predecessor’s sacrifice she finds that she’s been betrayed and that the Avengers are waiting – and so are mutants Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Magik and Namor the Sub-Mariner. With battle set to begin again, the battered body of Thor crashes into the lunar dust and the sky is lit by the blazing arrival of the Phoenix avatar…

Matt Fraction scripts the 5th chapter as the appalling firebird attempts to possess Hope, who realises she has completely overestimated her ability to handle the ultimate force, even as Avengers and X-Men again come to blistering blows.

Some distance away super-scientists Tony Stark and Henry Pym deploy a last-ditch anti-Phoenix invention but it doesn’t work as planned, and when the furious light finally dies down, infernal energy has possessed not Hope but the five elder mutants who turn their blazing eyes towards Earth and begin to plan how best to remake it…

Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales begin a stint as illustrators with the 6th – Hickman scripted – instalment as, 10 days after, old comrades Magneto and Charles Xavier meet to discuss the paradise Earth has become – especially for mutants. Violence, disease, hunger and want are gone but Cyclops, Emma, Sub-Mariner, Magic and Colossus are distant, aloof saviours at best and the power they share incessantly demands to be used more and more and more…

Myriad dimensions away in the mystical city of K’un Lun, kung fu overlord Lei Kung is warned an ancient disaster is repeating itself on Earth and dispatches the city’s greatest hero Iron Fist to avert overwhelming disaster, even as fearful humanity is advised their old bad ways will no longer be allowed to despoil the world. Naturally the decree of a draconian “Pax Utopia” does not sit well with humanity, and soon the Avengers are again at war with the last few hundreds of mutantkind. This time, however, the advantage is overwhelmingly with the underdogs and their five godlike leaders…

A desperate raid to snatch Hope from Utopia goes catastrophically wrong until the long-reviled Scarlet Witch intervenes and rescues the Avengers and Hope. Astounded to realise Wanda’s probability-altering gifts can harm them, the “Phoenix Five” declare all-out, total war on the human heroes…

In the 7th, Fraction-scripted, chapter Avengers are hunted all over the planet and the individual personalities of the possessed X-Men start clashing with each other. As Iron Fist, Lei Kung and Stark seek a marriage of spiritual and technological disciplines, Sub-Mariner defies the Phoenix consensus to attack the African nation of Wakanda…

Adam Kubert & John Dell handle the art from issue #8 with Bendis’ script revealing how an army of Avengers and the power of Wanda and Xavier turn the tide of battle… but not before a nation dies. Moreover, with Namor beaten, his portion of Phoenix-power passes on to the remaining four, inspiring greedy notions of sole control amongst the possessed…

In #9 (by Aaron, Kubert & Dell) as the hunt for heroes continues on Earth, in K’un Lun Hope is being trained in martial arts discipline by the city’s immortal master, and schooled in sheer guts and humanity by Spider-Man. When Thor is captured, the Avengers stage an all-out assault and by a miracle defeat both Magik and Colossus. Tragically, that only makes Scott Summers stronger still and he comes looking for his wayward daughter…

Brubaker writes the 10th chapter as Cyclops invades K’un Lun with horrific consequences whilst on Earth Emma Frost succumbs to the worst aspects of her nature: enslaving friends and foes with her half of the infinite Phoenix force. Simultaneously, Captain America and Xavier lay plans for one last “Hail Mary” assault…

And in the mystic city, Hope finally comes into her power – blasting Cyclops out of that other reality and back to the moon where the tragedy began…

Bendis, Coipel & Morales craft the penultimate instalment as Phoenix’s rapacious destructive hunger causes Cyclops to battle Frost, even as the unifying figure of Xavier unites X-Men and Avengers against the true threat, as with issue #12 (Aaron, Kubert & Dell) Cyclops finally descends into the same hell as his beloved, long-lost Jean by becoming a seemingly unstoppable, insatiable Dark Phoenix with only the assembled heroes and the poor, resigned Hope prepared to stop him from consuming the Earth…

The series generated a host of variant covers (I lost count at 87) by Cho, Jason Keith, Jim Cheung, Laura Martin, Stephanie Hans, Romita Jr., Ryan Stegman, Carlo Barberi, Olivier Coipel, Morales, Skott Young, Arthur Adams, Nick Bradshaw, Carlo Pagulayan, Sara Pichelli, J. Scott Campbell, Jerome Opeña, Mark Bagley, Dale Keown, Esad Ribic, Adam Kubert, Alan Davis, Humberto Ramos, Leinil Francis Yu, Adi Granov and Billy Tan which will undoubtedly delight and astound the artistically adroit amongst you…

Fast, furious and utterly absorbing – if short on plot – this ideal summer blockbuster (don’t you wish movie lawyers moved as fast as comics folk and this was screen ready by now?) remains an extreme Fights ‘n’ Tights funnybook extravaganza that delivers a mighty punch without any real necessity to study beforehand: a comics-continuity both veterans and film-fed fanboys alike can relish.
© 2012 Marvel.

Avengers Omnibus volume 1


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Paul Laiken, Larry Ivie, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Mike Esposito, Wally Wood, John Romita, Frank Giacoia, Sam Rosen, Art Simek, Morrie Kuramoto & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5846-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ironclad Guarantee of Total Wonder… 10/10

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchise success, The Avengers celebrated their 60th anniversary in September 2023, so let’s close that Birthday Year with acknowledgement of that landmark event and one more grand adventure…

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics. The concept of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket which had made the Justice League of America such a winner also inspired the moribund Atlas outfit – primarily Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko – into inventing “super-characters” of their own. The result – in 1961 – was The Fantastic Four.

Over 18 months later, the fledgling House of Ideas generated a small but viable stable of costumed leading men (but only sidekick women) so Lee & Kirby assembled a handful of them and moulded them into a force for justice and soaring sales. Seldom has it ever been done with such style and sheer exuberance. Cover dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men

Faithfully compiling the groundbreaking tales from #1-30 of The Avengers (spanning March 1963 to September 196???) and including contemporary pin-ups, letters pages and other hidden delights as well as trio of Stan Lee Introductions from earlier Marvel masterworks collections, the suspenseful action kicks off with ‘The Coming of the Avengers!’ Instead of starting at a neutral beginning Stan & Jack (and inker Dick Ayers) assumed buyers had at least a passing familiarity with Marvel’s other heroes and so wasted no time or space on introductions.

In Asgard, immortal trickster Loki is imprisoned on a dank isle, hungry for vengeance on his noble half-brother Thor. Whilst malevolently observing Earth, the malign god espies the monstrous, misunderstood Hulk and mystically engineers a situation wherein the man-brute seemingly goes on a rampage, simply to trick the Thunder God into battling the monster.

When the Hulk’s teen sidekick Rick Jones radios the FF for assistance, devious Loki scrambles and diverts the transmission and smugly awaits the blossoming of his mischief. Sadly for the schemer, Iron Man, Ant-Man and The Wasp also pick up the redirected SOS. As the heroes all converge in the American Southwest to search for the Jade Giant, they realise that something is oddly amiss…

This terse, epic, compelling and wide-ranging yarn (New York, New Mexico, Detroit and Asgard in 22 pages) is Lee & Kirby at their bombastic best, and remains one of the greatest stories of the Silver Age (it’s certainly high in my own top ten Marvel Tales) and is followed by ‘The Space Phantom’ (Lee, Kirby & Paul Reinman), wherein an alien shape-stealer almost destroys the team from within.

With latent animosities exposed by the malignant masquerader, the tale ends with the volatile Hulk quitting the team in disgust, only to return in #3 as an outright villain in partnership with ‘Sub-Mariner!’ This globe-trotting romp delivers high-energy thrills and one of the best battle scenes in comics history as the assorted titans clash in abandoned World War II tunnels beneath the Rock of Gibraltar.

Inked by George Roussos, Avengers #4 was a groundbreaking landmark as Marvel’s greatest Golden Age sensation returns for another increasingly war-torn era. ‘Captain America joins the Avengers!’ has everything that made the company’s early tales so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior returned in our time of greatest need: stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky, aliens, gangsters, Sub-Mariner and even subtle social commentary and – naturally – vast amounts of staggering Kirby Action. It even begins with a cunning infomercial as Iron Man unsuccessfully requests the assistance of the company’s other fresh young stars, giving readers a taste of the other mighty Marvels on offer to them.

Reinman returned to ink ‘The Invasion of the Lava Men!’: another staggering adventure romp as the team battle incendiary subterraneans and a world-threatening mutating mountain… with the unwilling assistance of the ever-incredible Hulk. That issue also started a conversion with fans as letters column ‘All About The… Avengers’ began…

However, even that pales before the supreme shift in artistic quality that is Avengers #6.

Chic Stone – arguably Kirby’s best Marvel inker of the period – joined the creative team just as a classic arch-foe debuts. ‘The Masters of Evil!’ reveals how Nazi super-scientist Baron Zemo is forced by his own arrogance and paranoia to emerge from the South American jungles he’s been skulking in since the Third Reich fell, after learning his despised nemesis Captain America has returned from the dead.

To this end, the ruthless war-criminal recruits a gang of previously established super-villains to attack New York City and destroy the Avengers. The unforgettable clash between valiant heroes and vile murdering mercenaries Radioactive Man, Black Knight and The Melter is an unsurpassed example of prime Marvel magic to this day.

Issue #7 found two more malevolent recruits for the Masters of Evil as Asgardian outcasts Enchantress and The Executioner ally with Zemo, just as Iron Man is suspended due to misconduct occurring in his own series. This was the dawning of the close-continuity era where events in one series were regularly referenced and even built upon in others. The practise quickly became a rod for the creators’ own backs and lead to a radical rethink…

It may have been ‘Their Darkest Hour!’, but #8 delivered the team’s greatest triumph and tragedy as Jack Kirby (inked with fitting circularity by Dick Ayers) relinquished his drawing role with the superbly entrancing invasion-from-time thriller which introduced ‘Kang the Conqueror!’ Riffing on the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, the tale sees an impossibly powerful foe defeated by the cunning of ordinary teenagers and indomitable spirit of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Whenever Kirby left a title he’d co-created, it took a little while to settle into a new rhythm, and none more so than with these collectivised costumed crusaders. Although Lee and the fabulously utilitarian Don Heck were perfectly capable of producing cracking comics entertainments, they never had The King’s unceasing sense of panoramic scope and scale which constantly sought bigger, bolder blasts of excitement.

The Avengers evolved into an entirely different series when the subtle humanity of Heck’s vision replaced Kirby’s larger-than-life bombastic bravura. The series had rapidly advanced to monthly circulation and even The King could not draw the massive number of pages his expanding workload demanded. Heck was a gifted and trusted artist with a formidable record for meeting deadlines and, progressing under his pencil, sub-plots and character interplay finally got as much space as action and spectacle. After Kirby, stories increasingly focused on scene-stealing newcomer Captain America: concentrating on frail human beings in costumes, rather than wild modern gods and technological titans bestriding and shaking the Earth…

Inked by Ayers, Heck’s first outing was memorable tragedy ‘The Coming of the Wonder Man!’, wherein the Masters of Evil plant superhuman Trojan Horse Simon Williams within the heroes’ ranks, only to have the conflicted infiltrator find deathbed redemption by saving them from the deadly deathtrap he creates…

Another Marvel mainstay debuted with the introduction of (seemingly) malignant master of time Immortus, who briefly combined with Zemo’s devilish cohort to engineer a fatal division in the ranks by removing Cap from the field in ‘The Avengers Break Up!’ A sign of the Star-Spangled Sentinel’s increasing popularity, the issue is augmented by a Marvel Masterwork Pin-Up of ‘The One and Only Cap’ courtesy of Kirby & Ayers…

An eagerly-anticipated meeting delighted fans in #11 as ‘The Mighty Avengers Meet Spider-Man!’ A clever cross-fertilising tale inked by Stone, it features the return of time-bending tyrant conqueror Kang who attempts to destroy the team by insinuating a robotic duplicate of the outcast arachnid within their serried ranks. Accompanied by Heck’s Marvel Master Work Pin-up of ‘Kang!’ it’s followed by a cracking end-of-the-world thriller with guest-villains Mole Man and The Red Ghost doing their best avoid another clash with the Fantastic Four.

This was another Marvel innovation, as – according to established funnybook rules – bad guys stuck to their own nemeses and didn’t clash outside their own backyards. ‘This Hostage Earth!’ (inked by Ayers) is a welcome return to grand adventure with lesser lights Giant-Man and The Wasp taking rare lead roles, but is trumped by a rousing gangster thriller of a sort seldom seen outside the pages of Spider-Man or Daredevil, premiering Marvel Universe Mafia analogue The Maggia and another major menace in #13’s ‘The Castle of Count Nefaria!’

After crushingly failing in his scheme to frame the Avengers, Nefaria’s caper ends on a tragic cliffhanger as Janet Van Dyne is left gunshot and dying, leading to a peak in melodramatic tension in #14 – scripted by Paul Laiken/Larry Ivie & Larry Lieber over Stan’s plot – where the traumatised team scour the globe for the only surgeon who can save her.

‘Even Avengers Can Die!’ – although of course she doesn’t – resolves into an epic alien invader tale with overtones of This Island Earth with Kirby stepping in to lay out the saga for Heck & Stone to illustrate. This only whets the appetite for the classic climactic confrontation that follows as the costumed champions finally deal with the Masters of Evil and Captain America finally avenges the death of his dead partner.

‘Now, By My Hand, Shall Die a Villain!’ in #15 – laid-out by Kirby, pencilled by Heck and inked by Mike Esposito – features the final, fatal confrontation between Cap and Zemo in the heart of the Amazon, whilst the other Avengers and the war-criminal’s cohort of masked menaces clash once more on the streets of New York City…

The battle ends with ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (broken down by Kirby before being finished by Ayers) presaging a dramatic change in concept for the series; presumably because, as Lee increasingly wrote to the company’s unique strengths – tight continuity and strongly individualistic characterisation – he found juggling individual stars in their own titles as well as a combined team episode every month was just incompatible if not impossible…

As Cap and substitute-sidekick Rick Jones fight their way back to civilisation, The Avengers institute changes. The big-name stars retire and are replaced by three erstwhile villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.

Eventually, led by perennial old soldier Captain America, this relatively powerless group with no outside titles to divide the attention (the Sentinel of Liberty did have a regular feature in Tales of Suspense but at that time it featured adventures set during WWII), evolved into another squabbling family of flawed, self-examining neurotics, enduring extended sub-plots and constant action as valiant underdogs; a formula readers of the time could not get enough of and which still works today…

Acting on advice from the departing Iron Man, the neophytes seek to recruit the Hulk to add raw power to the team, only to be sidetracked by the Mole Man in #17’s ‘Four Against the Minotaur!’ (Lee, Heck & Ayers), after which they then fall foul of a dastardly “commie” plot ‘When the Commissar Commands!’ – necessitating a quick trip to thinly-disguised Vietnam analogue Sin-Cong to unwittingly battle a bombastic android…

This brace of relatively run-of-the-mill tales is followed by an ever-improving run of mini-masterpieces: the first of which wraps up this initial Epic endeavour with a 2-part gem providing an origin for Hawkeye and introducing a roguish hero/villain.

‘The Coming of the Swordsman!’ sees a dissolute and disreputable swashbuckler – with just a hint of deeply-buried flawed nobility – seeking to force his way onto the highly respectable team. His immediate rejection leads to him becoming an unwilling pawn of a far greater menace after being kidnapped by A-list would-be world despot The Mandarin.

The conclusion comes in the superb ‘Vengeance is Ours!’ – sublimely inked by Wally Wood – wherein the constantly-bickering Avengers finally pull together as a supernaturally efficient, all-conquering super-team…

By this time the squad – Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch – was a firm fan-favourite. with close attention to character interplay and melodrama subplots, leavening action through compelling soap-opera elements that kept readers riveted.

In Avengers #21 Lee, Heck & Wally Wood – without pausing for creative breath – launched another soon-to-be big name villain in the form of Power Man. ‘The Bitter Taste of Defeat!’ depicted his creation and a diabolical plan hatched with evil Asgardian witch Enchantress to discredit and replace the quarrelsome quartet. The scheme was only narrowly foiled by sharp wits and dauntless determination in the concluding ‘The Road Back.’

An epic 2-part tale follows as the team are abducted into the far-future to battle against and eventually beside Kang the Conqueror. ‘Once an Avenger…’ (Avengers #23, December 1965 and, incidentally, my vote for the best cover Kirby ever drew) is inked by John Romita (senior), pitting the heroes against an army of fearsome future men, with the yarn explosively and tragically ending in From the Ashes of Defeat!’ by Lee, Heck & inker Ayers. The still-learning team then face their greatest test yet after being captured by the deadliest man alive and forced to fight their way out of the tyrant’s kingdom of Latveria in #25’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’

Since change is ever the watchword for this series, the next two issues combined a threat to drown the world from subsea barbarian Attuma with the return of old comrades. ‘The Voice of The Wasp!’ and ‘Four Against the Floodtide!’ (pseudonymously inked by Frank Giacoia as “Frank Ray”) is a superlative action-romp but is merely a prelude to #28’s return of founding Avenger Giant-Man in a new guise as ‘Among us Walks a Goliath!’ This instant classic introduced the villainous Collector whilst extending Marvel’s pet theme of alienation by tragically trapping the size-changing hero at a freakish 10-foot height… seemingly forever…

Avengers #29 features ‘This Power Unleashed!’ and brings back Hawkeye’s lost love Black Widow as a brainwashed Soviet agent attempting to destroy the team. She recruits Power Man and Swordsman as cannon-fodder but is foiled by incompletely submerged feelings for Hawkeye, after which ‘Frenzy in a Far-Off Land!’ sees dispirited colossus Henry Pym embroiled in a futuristic civil war amongst a lost south American civilisation. The conclusion threatened to end in global incineration but that’s a denouement you’ll have to wait for…

To Be Continued…

Augmenting the narrative joys is an abundance of behind-the-scenes treasures such as contemporary house ads, a dozen original art pages and covers by Kirby, Ayers, Heck & Wood, production-stage pencilled page photostats and a fascinating sequence of “tweaked” cover-corrections. Covers for reprint comics Marvel Tales #2, Marvel Super-Heroes #1 & 21 and Marvel Triple Action #5-24, plus 16 previous collections front-&-back covers by Stuart Immonen and Arthur Adams. Still more extras include earlier Kirby Avengers collection covers modified by painters Dean White and another by Alex Ross taken from the 1999 Overstreet Guide to Comics.

Unceasingly enticing and always evergreen, these immortal epics are tales that defined the Marvel experience and a joy no fan should deny themselves or their kids.
© 2019 MARVEL.

Invincible Iron Man Omnibus volume 1


By Stan Lee & Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Don Rico, Al Hartley, Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5358-4 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Cast Iron Comics Cheer… 10/10

One of Marvel’s biggest global successes thanks to the film franchise, Iron Man officially celebrated his 60th anniversary in 2023, so let’s again acknowledge that landmark one last time…

Tony Stark is a super-rich supergenius inventor who moonlights as a superhero: wearing a formidable, ever-evolving suit of armour stuffed with his own ingenious creations. The supreme technologist hates to lose and constantly upgrades his gear, making Iron Man one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. There are a number of ways to interpret Stark’s creation and early years: glamorous playboy, super-rich industrialist, philanthropist, inventor – even when not operating in his armoured alter-ego.

Created in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison employing Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World seemed inevitable. Combining that era’s all-pervasive belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling tangible and easily recognisable Evil, the proposition almost becomes a certainty.

Of course, it might simply be that we kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This fabulous full-colour compendium of the Steel Shod Sentinel’s early days reprints all his adventures, feature pages and pin-ups from Tales of Suspense #39 (cover-dated March 1963 on newsstand from December 10th 1962) through #83 (November 1966), revisiting the dawn of Marvel’s rise to ascendancy.

The collection also offers Introductions by Lee and Tom Field from earlier collections (Marvel Masterworks volumes 1-3 & Son of Marvel Origins) and essays by Bob Layton (‘How Communism Changed My Life for the Better!’) and Nick Caputo (‘Just a Guy Named Don: An Appreciation of Don Heck’s Super Hero Art’) plus assorted other extras.

This period saw the much-diminished and almost-bankrupt former comics colossus begin challenging DC Comics’ position of dominance, but not quite yet become the darlings of the student counter-culture. In these tales, Stark is still very much a gung-ho patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist liberal dissenter he would become…

Scripted by Larry Lieber (over brother Stan Lee’s plot) and illustrated by the criminally unappreciated Don Heck, Tales of Suspense #39 reveals how and why ‘Iron Man is Born!’, with engineering and electronics genius Stark field-testing his latest inventions in Viet Nam before being wounded by a landmine.

Captured by Viet Cong commander Wong-Chu, Stark is told that if he creates weapons for the Reds he will be operated on to remove the metal shrapnel in his chest that will kill him within seven days. Knowing Commies can’t be trusted, Stark and aged Professor Yinsen – another captive scientist – build a mobile iron lung to keep his heart beating. They also equip this suit of armour with all the weapons their ingenuity can covertly construct whilst being observed by their captors. Naturally, they succeed and defeat the local tyrant, but not without a tragic sacrifice.

From the next issue, Iron Man’s superhero career is taken as a given, and he has already achieved fame for largely off-camera exploits. Lee continues to plot but Robert Bernstein replaces Lieber as scripter for issues #40-46 and Jack Kirby pencils for Heck. ‘Iron Man versus Gargantus!’ follows young Marvel’s pattern by pitting the hero against aliens – albeit via a robotic giant caveman intermediary – in an action-heavy, delightfully rollicking romp.

‘The Stronghold of Doctor Strange!’ (Lee, Bernstein, Kirby & Dick Ayers) features a gloriously spectacular confrontation with a wizard of Science (not Lee & Steve Ditko’s later Mystic Master), after which Heck returns to full art for the espionage and impostors’ thriller ‘Trapped by the Red Barbarian’ before Kirby & Heck team again for science-fantasy invasion romp ‘Kala, Queen of the Netherworld!’

Heck goes it alone when Iron Man travels to ancient Egypt to rescue fabled and fabulous Queen Cleopatra from ‘The Mad Pharaoh!’ before new regular cast members – bodyguard “Happy” Hogan and secretary Virginia “Pepper” Potts – and the first true supervillain arrive as the Steel Sentinel must withstand ‘The Icy Fingers of Jack Frost!’ Stark then faces (and converts to Democracy) his Soviet counterpart ‘The Crimson Dynamo!’ after which Tales of Suspense #47 presaged big changes. Lee wrote ‘Iron Man Battles the Melter!’, and Heck inked the unique pencils of Steve Ditko in a grudge match between Stark and a disgraced corporate rival, with the big event coming in the next issue’s ‘The Mysterious Mr. Doll!’

Here Lee, Ditko & Ayers scrapped the old, cool-but-clunky golden boiler-plate suit for a sleek, gleaming, form-fitting red-and-gold upgrade to aid the defeat of a sadistic mystic blackmailer using witchcraft to get ahead. The new suit would – with minor variations – become the symbol and trademark of the character for decades to come.

Paul Reinman inked Ditko on Lee’s crossover/sales pitch for the new X-Men comic book when ‘Iron Man Meets the Angel!’, before the series finally found its feet with Tales of Suspense #50.

Heck became regular penciller and occasional inker as Lee delivered the Armoured Avenger’s first major menace and perpetual nemesis in ‘The Hands of the Mandarin!’: a modern-day Fu Manchu derivative who terrifies the Red Chinese so much that they manipulate him into attacking America, with the hope that one threat will fatally wound the other. The Mandarin would become Iron Man’s greatest foe and remains so even in a more evolved era far removed from the now abhorrent attitudes that were part and parcel of patriotic Americanism back then.

Our ferrous hero made short work of criminal contortionist ‘The Sinister Scarecrow’, and also the Red spy who appropriated a leftover Russian armour-suit to declare ‘The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!’ scripted – as was the next issue – by the enigmatic “N. Kurok” who was in truth Golden Age veteran Don Rico. That issue also premiered a far more dangerous threat in the slinky shape of Soviet Femme Fatale The Black Widow.

With ToS #53 she became a headliner when ‘The Black Widow Strikes Again!’: stealing Stark’s new anti-gravity ray but ultimately thwarted in her sabotage mission, after which ‘The Mandarin’s Revenge!’ began a 2-part tale of kidnap and coercion, concluding by disproving in #55 that ‘No One Escapes the Mandarin!’ It’s followed by a “Special Bonus Featurette” by Lee & Heck, revealing ‘All About Iron Man’: detailing how the suit works and even ‘More Info about Iron Man!’ including a ‘Pepper Potts Pin-Up Page’…

‘The Uncanny Unicorn!’ promptly attacked in ToS #56, faring no better as his power-horn proved pointless in the end, but segueing neatly into another Soviet sortie as Black Widow resurfaced to beguile a budding superhero. ‘Hawkeye, The Marksman!’ was gulled into attacking the Golden Avenger in #57 during his debut moment: briefly making him the company’s latest and most dashing misunderstood malefactor.

Another landmark occurred next issue. Formerly, Iron Man had monopolised Tales of Suspense but ‘In Mortal Combat with Captain America!’ (inked by Ayers) depicted an all-out battle between the Avengers allies resulting from a diabolical substitution by evil impersonator The Chameleon. It was a tasty primer for the next issue when Cap would begin his own solo adventures, splitting the monthly comic into an anthology featuring Marvel’s top two patriotic paladins.

Iron Man’s initial half-length outing in #59 was against technological terror ‘The Black Knight!’, and as a result of the blistering clash, Stark was rendered unable to remove his own armour without triggering a heart attack: a situation that hadn’t occurred since the initial injury. Up until this time he had led a relatively normal life by simply wearing the heartbeat regulating breast-plate under his clothes. The introduction of such soap-opera subplots were a necessity of the shorter page counts, as were continued stories, but this seeming disadvantage worked to improve both the writing and the sales. The issue was also notable for the debut of letter column Mails of Suspense which is included here with subsequent features appearing hereafter following each new instalment of IM’s shortened exploits.

With Stark’s “disappearance”, Iron Man was ‘Suspected of Murder!’, a tale boasting the return of Hawkeye & Black Widow, leading directly into an attack from China and ‘The Death of Tony Stark!’ (complete with a bonus pin-up of ‘The Golden Avenger Iron Man’). The sinister ambusher then provided ‘The Origin of the Mandarin!’ before being beaten by Stark’s ingenuity once again.

After that extended epic, a change of pace came as short complete yarns returned. The first was #63’s industrial sabotage thriller ‘Somewhere Lurks the Phantom!’ (by Lee Heck & Ayers), followed by the somewhat self-explanatory ‘Hawkeye and the New Black Widow Strike Again!’ (inked by Chic Stone and with the Soviet agent abruptly transformed from slinky fur-clad seductress into gadget-laden costumed villain), after which ‘When Titans Clash!’ (inked by Mike Esposito as “Mickey DeMeo”) sees a burglar steal the red & gold armour, forcing Stark to defeat his greatest invention with his old suit.

Mike stuck around to see subsea tyrant Attuma as the threat du jour in ‘If I Fail, a World is Lost!’ and crime-lord Count Nefaria use dreams as a weapon in ‘Where Walk the Villains!’ The Maggia’s master resurfaced in the next issue to attack Stark with hallucinations in ‘If a Man be Mad!’: a rather weak tale introducing Stark’s ne’er-do-well cousin Morgan. It was written by Al Hartley with Heck & Esposito in top form as always.

Issues #69-71 form another continued saga: a one of the best of this early period. Inked by Vince Colletta, ‘If I Must Die, Let It Be with Honor!’ sees Iron Man forced to duel a new Russian opponent called Titanium Man in a globally-televised contest national super-powers see as a vital propaganda coup. Both governments are naturally quite oblivious of the cost to the participants and their friends…

DeMeo inks ‘Fight On! For a World is Watching!’ amplifying intrigue and tension as the Soviets, caught cheating, pile on pressure to kill America’s champion if they can’t score a publicity win, and final chapter ‘What Price Victory?’ affords a rousing, emotional triumph and tragedy made magnificent by the inking of troubled artistic genius Wally Wood.

Tales of Suspense #72’s ‘Hoorah for the Conquering Hero!’– by Lee, Heck & Demeo – deals with the aftermath of victory. Whilst the fickle public fête Iron Man, his best friend lies dying, and a spiteful ex-lover hires diabolical super-genius the Mad Thinker to destroy Stark and his company forever before #73 picks up, soap opera fashion, on Iron Man, rushing to the bedside of his best friend Happy Hogan, who was gravely wounded in the battle against the Titanium Man, and is now missing from his hospital bed.

‘My Life for Yours!’ – by a veritable phalanx of creators including Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & Jack Abel (in Marvel modes as “Adam Austin & Gary Michaels”), Sol Brodsky, Flo Steinberg and Marie Severin – pits the Armoured Avenger in final combat against the Black Knight to rescue Hogan. After this, the creative team stabilised as Lee, Colan & Abel, for ‘If this Guilt be Mine..!’, wherein Stark’s inventive intervention saves his friend’s life but transforms the patient into a terrifying monster.

Whilst in pitched battle against ‘The Fury ofThe Freak!’ (who scared the stuffings out of me as a comic-crazed 7-year-old), Iron Man is helpless when The Mandarin attacks again in #76’s ‘Here Lies Hidden,,,…Unspeakable Ultimo!’

The epic expands in ‘Ultimo Lives!’ and closes as the gigantic android goes bombastically berserk in ‘Crescendo!’: dooming itself and allowing our ferrous hero to escape home, only to face a Congressional Inquiry and a battle crazed Sub-Mariner in ‘Disaster!’

The Prince of Atlantis had been hunting his enemy Warlord Krang in his own series, and the path led straight to Stark’s factory, so when confronted with another old foe, the amphibian over-reacts in his customary manner. ‘When Fall the Mighty!’ in #80 is one colossal punch-up, which carries over into Tales to Astonish #82, where Thomas & Colan begin the final chapter before the penciller contracted flu after only two pages. The inimitable Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, stepped in to produce some of the finest action-art of their entire Marvel career, fully displaying ‘The Power of Iron Man!’ as the battles rages on to a brutal if inconclusive conclusion.

Tales of Suspense #81 trumpeted ‘The Return of the Titanium Man!’ – and Colan – as the Communist Colossus attacks the Golden Avenger on his way to testify before Congress, threatening all of Washington DC in the Frank Giacoia inked ‘By Force of Arms!’ until ultimately succumbing to superior (Yankee) fire power in ‘Victory!’

With the comics wonderment completed, those aforementioned essays lead to bonus features including a house ad promoting two new titles out the same month – Tales of Suspense #39 and Amazing Spider-Man #1 – and another plugging all the heroes extant as of May 1963. That one also announced the company rebrand as “Marvel Comics Group”.

With covers throughout by Kirby, Heck, Ayers, Wood, Colletta & Colan, Abel, we close with a selection of pre-correction original art covers and pages: 17 wondrous treats by Kirby, Heck, Wood, Colletta & Ayers, and a 1965 T-Shirt design by Kirby and Chic Stone. Also on show are the covers of Marvel Collectors’ Items Classics #1, 3-28,and Marvel Super-Heroes #28, 29 (and its unused Marie Severin alternate Cover art), 30 & 37: reprint titles that kept Iron Man’s history alive and accessible to new readers, concluding with a gallery of previous collection covers from Bruce Timm, and classic Kirby covers modified by painters Dean White and Richard Isanove, plus variants by Adi Granov, Ryan Meinerding and Gerald Parel.

Iron Man developed amidst the growing political awareness and consequent social unrest of the Vietnam Generation who were the comic’s maturing readership. Wedded as it was to the American Industrial-Military Complex, with a hero – originally the government’s wide-eyed golden boy – gradually becoming attuned to his country’s growing divisions, it was, as much as Spider-Man, a bellwether of the times. That it remains such a thrilling romp of classic superhero fun is a lasting tribute to the talents of all those superb creators that worked it. The sheer quality of this compendium is undeniable. From broad comedy and simple action to dark cynicism and relentless battle, Marvel Comics grew up with this deeply contemporary series and so could you.
© 2023 MARVEL.

Mighty Thor Omnibus volume 1


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Joe Sinnott, Al Hartley, Don Heck, Chic Stone, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-8835-3 (B/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Yule Jewel of Great Import… 9/10

Even more than The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor was the arena in which Jack Kirby’s restless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through dazzling graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s string of power-packed signature pantheons began in a modest little fantasy/monster title called Journey into Mystery where – in the summer of 1962 – a tried-and-tested comic book concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by the fledgling Marvel Comics to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers.

This monumental tome re-presents the pioneering Asgardian exploits from JiM #83-120 and Journey into Mystery Annual #1, spanning cover-dates August 1962 to September 1965 in a blazing blur of innovation and seat-of-the-pants myth-revising and universe-building.

It is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Art Simek, Sam Rosen, Ray Holloway, Terry Szenics and Martin Epp and sadly an anonymous band of colourists. As well as a monolithic assortment of nostalgic treats at the back, this mammoth tome is dotted throughout with recycled Introductions by Stan Lee, taken from the earlier Marvel Masterworks editions and includes editorial announcements and ‘The Hammer Strikes!’ newsletter pages for each original issue to enhance overall historical experience…

The eternal Edda unfolds with the lead feature of Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962) which saw a brawny bold warrior jostle aside the regular roster of monsters, aliens and sinister scientists in a brash, vivid explosion of verve and vigour. The initial exploit follows disabled American doctor Donald Blake who takes a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing, he is trapped in a cave and finds an old, gnarled walking stick. When in his frustration he smashes the stick into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his puny frame is transformed into the Norse God of Thunder, Mighty Thor!

Officially plotted by Stan Lee, scripted by his brother Larry Lieber and illustrated by Kirby and inker Joe Sinnott (at this juncture a full illustrator, Sinnott would become Kirby’s primary inker for most of his Marvel career), ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ is pure early Marvel: bombastic, fast-paced, gloriously illogical and captivatingly action-packed. The hugely under-appreciated Art Simek was the letterer and logo designer.

It was clear that they whey were making it up as they went along – not in itself a bad thing – and that infectious enthusiasm shows in the next adventure. ‘The Mighty Thor Vs. the Executioner’ is a “commie-busting” tale of its time with a thinly disguised Fidel Castro wasting his formidable armies in battle against our hero.

The tale introduced Blake’s nurse Jane Foster: at this point a bland cipher adored from afar by the Norse superman’s timid alter-ego. The creative team settled as Dick Ayers replaced Sinnott, and with #85’s ‘Trapped by Loki, God of Mischief!’, the final element fell into place with the “return” of a suitably awesome arch-foe – the hero’s half-brother. This evil magician and compulsive trickster escaped divine incarceration and his first thought was to bedevil Thor by causing terror and chaos on the world of mortals he was so devoted to.

Here, a new and greater universe was revealed with the first tantalising hints and glimpses of the celestial otherworld and more Nordic gods…

JiM #86 introduced another recurring villain. Zarrko, bristling at the sedentary ease of 23rd century life, travels to 1962 to steal an experimental “C-Bomb”, forcing the Thunderer into a stirring sortie through time and inevitable clash with super-technology ‘On the Trail of the Tomorrow Man!’ With his return, Blake became a target of Soviet abductors: the sneaky spies even managed to make Thor a ‘Prisoner of the Reds!’ before he eventually emerged unscathed and triumphant…

JiM #88 saw ‘The Vengeance of Loki’ as the malevolent miscreant uncovered Thor’s secret identity and naturally menaced Jane whilst ‘The Thunder God and the Thug’ offered drama on a human scale as a gang boss runs riot over the city and roughshod over a good woman’s heart, giving the Stormbringer a chance to demonstrate his sympathetic side by crushing Thug Thatcher and freeing poor abused Ruby from his influence.

Issue #90 was an unsettling surprise as the grandeur of Kirby & Ayers was replaced by the charming yet dynamism-free art of Al Hartley, who illustrated Lee & Lieber’s stock alien-invasion yarn ‘Trapped by the Carbon-Copy Man!’ A month later the Storm Lord took on ‘Sandu, Master of the Supernatural!’, with Sinnott pencilling and inking a thriller starring a carnival mentalist who – augmented by Loki’s magic – came catastrophically close to killing our hero. Sinnott limned JiM #92’s ‘The Day Loki Stole Thor’s Magic Hammer’ – scripted by Robert Bernstein over Lee’s plot – which moved the action fully to Asgard for the first time as Thor sought to recover his stolen weapon after Loki ensorcelled the magnificent mallet. Kirby & Ayers momentarily returned for Cold War/Atom Age thriller ‘The Mysterious Radio-Active Man!’ Again scripted by Bernstein it sees “Mao Tse Tung” unleash an atomic assassin in retaliation for Thor thwarting China’s invasion of India. Such “Red-baiting” fare was common for early Marvel, but their jingoistic silliness can’t mar the eerie beauty of the artwork. With this tale, rangy, raw-boned Thor completed his slow metamorphosis into the husky, burly blonde bruiser who dominated any panel he was in.

Sinnott returned for the next three (somewhat pedestrian) adventures. ‘Thor and Loki Attack the Human Race!’, ‘The Demon Duplicator’ and ‘The Magic of Mad Merlin!’, but these mediocre tales of magic-induced amnesia, science-generated evil doppelgangers and an awakened ancient mutant menace were the last of an old style of comics. Stan Lee took over scripting with Journey into Mystery #97 and a torrent of action wedded to soap opera melodrama began a fresh style for a developing readership.

‘The Lava Man’ in #97 was drawn by Kirby, with subtly textured inking by Don Heck adding depth to the tale of an invader summoned from subterranean realms to menace humanity at the behest of Loki. More significantly, a long running rift between Thor and his stern father Odin was established after the Lord of Asgard refused to allow his son to love mortal Jane.

This acrimonious triangle was a perennial subplot attempting to humanise Thor, because already he was a hero too powerful for most villains to cope with.

Most importantly, this issue launched a spectacular back-up series. ‘Tales of Asgard – Home of the Mighty Norse Gods’ gave Kirby a vehicle to indulge his fascination with legends. Initially adapting classic tales but eventually with all-new material particular to the Marvel pantheon, he built his own cosmos and mythology, which underpinned the company’s entire continuity. This first saga, scripted by Lee and inked by George Bell (AKA Jack’s Golden Age collaborator George Roussos), outlined the origin of the world and the creation of the World Tree Yggdrasil.

‘Challenged by the Human Cobra’ introduced the serpentine villain (bitten by a radioactive cobra, would you believe?) in a tale by Lee & Heck, whilst Kirby – with them in attendance – offered ‘Odin Battles Ymir, King of the Ice Giants!’: a short, potent fantasy romp which laid the groundwork for decades of cosmic wonderment of years to come.

The format held for issues #99 & 100 with the lead story (first 2-parter in the run) introducing the ‘Mysterious Mister Hyde’ – and concluding a month later with ‘The Master Plan of Mr. Hyde!’ The modern yarn featured a contemporary chemist who could transform into a super-strong villain at will who framed Thor for his crimes whilst in primordial prehistory Kirby detailed Odin’s war with ‘Surtur the Fire Demon’, and latterly (with Vince Colletta inking) crafted an exploit of the All-Father’s so different sons in ‘The Storm Giants – a Tale of the Boyhood of Thor’ (Paul Reinman inks). As always, Lee scripted these increasingly influential histories…

Breaking for another recycled Lee Introduction, the modern myth-making resumes with JiM #101 (entirely inked by Roussos) which saw Kirby finally assume pencilling on both strips. In ‘The Return of Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man’ Odin halves Thor’s powers for disobedience just as the futuristic felon abducts the Thunderer to conquer the 23rd century. Another 2-parter, it’s balanced by another exuberant tale of boy Thor. ‘The Invasion of Asgard’ sees the valiant lad fight a heroic rearguard action introducing a host of future villainous mainstays such as Rime Giants and Geirrodur the Troll.

Epic conclusion ‘Slave of Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man’ is a tour de force notable for Chic Stone’s debut as inker. To many of us dotards, his clean, full brush lines make him The King’s best embellisher ever. The triumphant futuristic thriller is balanced by brooding Reinman-inked short ‘Death Comes to Thor!’ as the teen tyro faces his greatest challenge yet. Two women who would play huge roles in his life premiered in this 5-pager: young goddess Sif and Hela, Queen of the Dead.

Lee, Kirby & Stone introduced more memorable misanthropes in ‘Menaced by The Enchantress and The Executioner!’: ruthless renegade Asgardians resolved to respectively seduce and destroy the warrior prince in the front of JiM #103 whilst the rear revealed ‘Thor’s Mission to Mirmir!’ and how the gods created humanity. That led one month later to a revolutionary saga when ‘Giants Walk the Earth!’.

At last Kirby’s imagination was given full play as Loki tricks Odin into visiting Earth, and subsequently liberates ancient elemental enemies Surtur and Skagg, the Storm Giant from Asgardian bondage to ambush the absent All-Father…

This cosmic clash saw noble gods battling demonic devils in a new Heroic Age, with the greater role of the Norse supporting cast – especially noble comrade-in-arms Balder. This was reinforced by a new Tales of Asgard backup feature focussing on individual Gods and Heroes. ‘Heimdall: Guardian of the Mystic Rainbow Bridge!’ was first, with Heck inking.

Issues #105-106 teamed two old foes in ‘The Cobra and Mr, Hyde!’ and ‘The Thunder God Strikes Back!’: another continued story stuffed with tension and spectacular action, proving Thor was swiftly growing beyond the constraints of traditional single issue adventures. Respective back-ups ‘When Heimdall Failed!’ (Lee, Kirby & Roussos) and ‘Balder the Brave’ (Lee, Kirby & Colletta) further fleshed out the Asgardian pantheon deviating by more and more from the classical Eddas and Sagas.

JiM #107 premiered a petrifying villain ‘When the Grey Gargoyle Strikes!’: a rare yarn highlighting the fortitude of Dr. Blake rather than the Thunder God who was increasingly reducing his own alter-ego to an inconsequentiality. Closing the issue, the Norn Queen debuted in ‘Balder Must Die!’: a quirky reinterpretation of myth by Kirby & Colletta.

After months of manipulation, the God of Evil once again took direct action in ‘At the Mercy of Loki, Prince of Evil!’, With Jane Foster a victim of Asgardian magic, the willing assistance of new Marvel star Doctor Strange made this a captivating team-up must-read, whilst ‘Trapped by the Trolls!’ (Colletta inks) showed the power and promise of tales set solely on the far side of the Rainbow Bridge as Thor liberates Asgardians from subterranean bondage.

Journey into Mystery #109 was another superb infomercial adventure and a plug for a recent addition to the Marvel roster. ‘When Magneto Strikes!’ pits Thor against the X-Men’s greatest foe and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in a cataclysmic clash of fundamental powers, but you couldn’t really call it a team-up since the heroic mutants are never actually seen. Tantalising hints and cropped glimpses are fascinating teasers now, but the kid I then was felt annoyed not to have seen these new heroes – Oh! wait… maybe that was the point?

Young Thor feature ‘Banished from Asgard!’ is an uncharacteristically lacklustre effort as Odin and Thor enact a devious plan to trap a traitor in Asgard’s ranks. This issue also saw the launch of the letters page The Hammer Strikes and a Special Announcements Section, all included from here on for your delectation…

By #110 the ever-expanding world of Asgard was fully established: a mesmerising milieu for Thor’s earlier adventures and exotic setting for fresh wonders all hinting at a forthcoming era of cosmic fantasy to run beside the company’s signature Manhattan-based superhero sagas. ‘Every Hand Against Him!’ (Lee, Kirby & Stone) combines both, as Loki has earthly miscreants Cobra and Mr. Hyde kidnap and wound nigh unto death Thor’s mortal beloved Jane, even as Odin again overreacts to Thor’s affections for the human.

Following a stunning Kirby & Stone Thor Pin-up, and balancing that tension-drenched clash of Good and Evil, is a crafty vignette of Young Thor describing ‘The Defeat of Odin!’ in an old and silly plot sweetened by breathtaking battle scenes. It’s followed by another Lee Introduction before the concluding clash with Cobra & Hyde redefining ‘The Power of the Thunder God!’ With a major role for Balder the Brave and further integrating “historical” and contemporary Asgard in a spellbinding epic of triumph and near-tragedy, it’s complimented by a Loki Pin-up and precedes a fable co-opting a Greek myth (Antaeus if you’re asking) as ‘The Secret of Sigurd!’ (inked by Colletta).

Journey into Mystery #112 gave readers what they had been clamouring for with ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’: a glorious gift to all those fans who perpetually ask “who’s stronger…”? Arguably Kirby & Stone’s finest collaborative moment, it details a private duel that apparently appeared off-camera during a free-for-all between in The Avengers #3 when the heroes battled Sub-Mariner and the eponymous Green Goliath. The raw aggressive power of that clash is balanced by an eagerly anticipated origin in ‘The Coming of Loki!’ (Colletta inks): a retelling of how Odin adopts the baby son of Laufey, the Giant King.

In #113’s A World Gone Mad!’ the Thunderer – after saving the Shining Realm from invasion – again defies Odin to court Jane:  a task made hazardous by the return of the Grey Gargoyle. A long-running plot strand – almost interminably so – was the soap-opera tangle caused by Don Blake’s love for his nurse – a passion his alter ego shared. Sadly, the Overlord of Asgard could not countenance his son with a mortal, in another heavy-handed example of that acrimonious triangle.

The mythic moment at the back then exposed ‘The Boyhood of Loki!’ (inked by Colletta), a pensive, brooding foretaste of the villain to be, before JiM #114 opened a 2-part tale starring a new villain of the kind Kirby excelled at: a vicious thug who suddenly lucked into overwhelming power.

‘The Stronger I Am, The Sooner I Die!’ finds Loki imbuing hardened felon Crusher Creel with the ability to duplicate the strength and attributes of anything he touches, but before Creel endures ‘The Vengeance of the Thunder God’ (inked by Frank Giacoia as “Frankie Ray”) we’re graced with another Asgardian parable – ‘The Golden Apples!’

Issue #115’s back-up mini-myth ‘A Viper in our Midst!’ sees young Loki clandestinely cementing relations with the sinister Storm Giants, before a longer Thor saga began in #116, with Colletta becoming regular inker for both lead and support features. ‘The Trial of the Gods’ disclosed more aspects of Asgard as Thor and Loki undertake a brutal ritualised Trial by Combat, with the latter cheating at every step, after which ‘Into the Blaze of Battle!’ finds Balder protecting Jane even as her godly paramour travels to war-torn Vietnam seeking proof of his step-brother’s infamy.

These yarns are supplemented by stellar novellas ‘The Challenge!’ and ‘The Sword in the Scabbard!’, wherein Asgardian cabin-fever informs an official Quest instituted to expose a threat to the mystic Odinsword, the unsheathing of which will destroy the universe…

Journey into Mystery #118’s ‘To Kill a Thunder God!’ ramps up the otherworldly drama as Loki, to cover his tracks, unleashes an ancient Asgardian WMD – The Destroyer. When it damages the mystic hammer of Thor and nearly kills The Thunderer in ‘The Day of the Destroyer!’, the God of Mischief is forced to save his step-brother or bear the brunt of Odin’s anger.

Meanwhile in Tales of Asgard The Quest further unfolds with verity-testing talisman ‘The Crimson Hand!’ and ‘Gather, Warriors! as a band of literally hand-picked “Argonauts” join Thor’s flying longship in a bold but misguided attempt to forestall Ragnarok…

With The Destroyer defeated and Loki temporarily thwarted, Thor returns to America and then Asgard ‘With My Hammer in Hand…!’ only to clash once more with the awesome Absorbing Man in the start of another multi-part saga that will continue in the next volume…

However, before that bombastic battle there’s not only the next instalment of the Asgardian Argonauts who boldly ‘Set Sail!’ but also the superb lead story from Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein in undisclosed ages past the God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods for a landmark heroic hullabaloo When Titans Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’

This incredible all-action episode is augmented here by a stunning and beautiful double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a true example of Kirby magic – plus one last Lee Intro essay.

There’s a relative paucity of bonus material here but it’s all first rate: including unretouched original artwork, house ads and a full run of covers from Marvel Tales #1, 3-27 and Special Marvel Edition #1-2 from the 1960s where his early exploits were first reprinted. Closing the section is the cover art for this collection by Olivier Coipel, Mark Morale & Laura Martin.

These early tales of the God of Thunder show the development not only of one of Marvel’s core narrative concepts but, more importantly, the creative evolution of perhaps the greatest imagination in comics. Set your common sense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures and revel in what makes comic book superheroes such a unique experience.
© 2022 MARVEL.

Fantastic Four Omnibus volume 1


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Chrisopher Rule, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnot, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-8566-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Reliving How it All Began… 10/10

I’ve gone on record as saying that you actually can have too much of a good thing, by which I mean this collection of utter marvels is really, really heavy (and pricey) if you get the paper version. However, if you opt for electric formats, only the second quibble counts and the stories contained herein truly need to be in every home and library, so…

I’m partial to a bit of controversy so I’m going start off by saying that Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Showcase #4 – which introduced The Flash – and The Brave and the Bold #28, which brought superhero teams back via the creation of The Justice League of America. Feel free to disagree…

After a troubled period at DC Comics (National Periodicals as it then was) and a creatively productive but disheartening time on the poisoned chalice of the Sky Masters newspaper strip (see Complete Sky Masters of the Space Force), Jack Kirby settled into his job at the small outfit that used to be the publishing powerhouse Timely/Atlas. He churned out mystery, monster, romance and western material in a market he suspected to be ultimately doomed, but as always he did the best job possible and that genre fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen.

But his fertile imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the JLA caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change the industry forever.

According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to publisher Martin Goodman ordering nephew Stan to do a series about a group of super-characters like the JLA. The resulting team quickly took the fans by storm. It wasn’t the powers: they’d all been seen since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the costumes: they didn’t have any until the third issue.

It was Kirby’s compelling art and the fact that these characters weren’t anodyne cardboard cut-outs. In a real and recognizable location – New York City – imperfect, raw-nerved, touchy people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby’s prototype partners in peril for National /DC) laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, nigh-hidebound editorial strictures there would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

This full-colour compendium collects Fantastic Four #1-30 plus the first giant-sized Annual issues of progressive landmarks (spanning cover-dates November 1961 to September 1964) and tellingly reveals how Stan & Jack cannily built on that early energy to consolidate the FF as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

Following a typically effusive “found footage” Foreword from Stan – with two more to follow as the many pages turn – we start with Fantastic Four #1 (tentatively bi-monthly by Lee, Kirby, George Klein & Christopher Rule) which is crude, rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on it.

‘The Fantastic Four’ saw maverick scientist Reed Richards summon his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother before heading off on their first mission. They are all survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben turned into a shambling, rocky freak. In ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ they quickly foil a plan by another outcast who controls monsters and slave humanoids from far beneath the Earth. This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue – we really have no awareness today of how different in tone, how shocking it all was.

“Different” doesn’t mean “better” even here, but the FF was like no other comic on the market at the time and buyers responded to it hungrily. The brash experiment continued with another old plot in #2. ‘The Skrulls from Outer Space’ were shape-changing aliens who framed the FF in the eyes of shocked humanity before the genius of Mister Fantastic bluffed them into abandoning their plans for conquering Earth. The issue concluded with a monstrous pin-up of the Thing, proudly touted as “the first of a series…”

Sure enough, there was a pin-up of the Human Torch in #3, which headlined ‘the Menace of the Miracle Man’ (inked by Sol Brodsky), whose omnipotent powers had a simple secret, but is more notable for the first appearance of their uniforms, and a shocking line-up change, leading directly into the next issue (continued stories were an innovation in themselves) which revived a golden-age great.

‘The Coming of the Sub-Mariner’ reintroduced an all-powerful amphibian Prince of Atlantis and star of Timely’s Golden Age but one who had been lost for years. A victim of amnesia, the relic recovered his memory thanks to some rather brusque treatment by the delinquent Human Torch. Namor then returned to his sub-sea home only to find it destroyed by atomic testing. A monarch without subjects, he swore vengeance on humanity and attacked New York City with a gigantic monster. This saga is when the series truly kicked into high-gear with Mister Fantastic as the pin-up star.

Until now the creative team – who had both been in the business since it began – had been hedging their bets. Despite the innovations of a contemporary superhero experiment, their antagonists had relied heavily on the trappings of popular trends in other media – and as reflected in their other titles. Aliens and especially monsters played a major part in earlier tales but Fantastic Four #5 took a full-bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown super-villain to the budding Marvel Universe.

No, I haven’t forgotten Mole Man: but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his plans of world conquest, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in #22.

‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom’ (July 1962, and inked by subtly sleek Joe Sinnott) has it all. An attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed’s past; magic and super-science, lost treasure, time-travel, even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ’earties!

Sheer magic! And the creators knew they were on to a winner since the deadly Doctor was back in the very next issue, teamed with a reluctant Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes as ‘The Deadly Duo!’ – and inked by new regular embellisher Dick Ayers.

Alien kidnappers were behind another FF frame-up resulting in the team briefly being ‘Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X’: a dark and grandiose off-world thriller in #7 (the first monthly issue), whilst a new returning villain and the introduction of a love-interest for monstrous Ben Grimm were the breakthrough high-points in #8’s ‘Prisoners of the Puppet Master!’ The saga was topped off with a Fantastic Four Feature Page explaining how the Torch’s powers work. The next issue offered another detailing with endearing mock-science ‘How the Human Torch Flies!’

That issue, #9, trumpeted ‘The End of the Fantastic Four’ as Sub-Mariner returned to exploit another brilliant innovation in comic storytelling. When had a supergenius superhero ever messed up so much that the team had to declare bankruptcy? When had costumed crime busters ever had money troubles at all? The eerily prescient solution was to “sell out” and make a blockbuster movie – giving Kirby a rare chance to demonstrate his talent for caricature… and prescience…

1963 was a pivotal year in Marvel’s development. Lee & Kirby had proved their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that ideation to a new pantheon of heroes. Here is where the second innovation would come to the fore.

Previously, superheroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Now and here, however, was a universe where characters often and literally stumbled over each other, sometimes even fighting other heroes’ enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic! Fantastic Four #10 featured ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ wherein the arch villain used Stan and Jack to lure the Richards into a trap where his mind is switched with the bad Doctor’s. The tale is supplemented by a pin-up of ‘Sue Storm, the Glamorous Invisible Girl’ and another Lee Foreword…

Innovations continued in #11, with two short stories instead of the usual book-length yarn, opening with behind-the-scenes travelogue/origin tale ‘A Visit with the Fantastic Four’ with a stunning pin-up of Sub-Mariner segueing into baddie-free, compellingly comedic vignette. ‘The Impossible Man’ was like superhero strip ever seen before.

Cover-dated March 1963, FF #12 featured an early landmark: arguably the first Marvel crossover as the team are asked to help the US army capture ‘The Incredible Hulk’: a tale of intrigue, action and bitter irony. The argument comes as Amazing Spider-Man #1 (not included here) – wherein the arachnid tries to join the team – has the same release date…  Fantastic Four #13’s ‘Versus the Red Ghost and his Incredible Super Apes!’ is a Cold War thriller pitting the quartet against a Soviet scientist in the race to reach the Moon: and notable both for its moody Steve Ditko inking (replacing Ayers for one glorious month) and the introduction of cosmic voyeurs The Watchers.

‘The Sub-Mariner and the Merciless Puppet Master!’ unwillingly co-star in #14, with one vengeful fiend the unwitting mind-slave of the other, followed by ‘The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android!’, embarking upon a chilling war of intellects between driven super-scientists but with plenty of room for all-out action. After a notable absence, pin-ups resume with a candid group-shot of the team.

Fantastic Four #16 reveals ‘The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!’ in a spectacular romp guest-starring new hero Ant-Man plus a Fantastic Four Feature Page outlining the powers and capabilities of elastic Mister Fantastic. Despite a resounding defeat, the steel-shod villain returns with more infallible, deadly traps a month later in ‘Defeated by Doctor Doom!’, before FF #18 heralds a shape-changing alien who battles the heroes with their own powers when ‘A Skrull Walks Among Us!’: a prelude to greater, cosmos-spanning sagas to come…

The wonderment intensifies with the first Fantastic Four Annual: a spectacular 37-page epic by Lee, Kirby & Ayers as – finally reunited with their wandering prince – warriors of Atlantis invade New York City (and the world) in ‘The Sub-Mariner versus the Human Race!’.

A monumental tale by the standards of the time, it saw the FF repel the undersea invasion through valiant struggle and brilliant strategy whilst providing a secret history of the secretive race Homo Mermanus. Nothing was really settled except a return to a former status quo, but the thrills were intense and unforgettable…

Also included are rousing pin-ups and fact file features. The Mole Man, Skrulls, Miracle Man, Sub-Mariner, Doctor Doom, Kurrgo, Puppet Master, Impossible Man, The Hulk, Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, and Mad Thinker comprise ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’, whilst ‘Questions and Answers about the Fantastic Four’, and a diagrammatic trip ‘Inside the Baxter Building’ evoke awe wonder and understanding. Short story ‘The Fabulous Fantastic Four Meet Spider-Man!’ then reexamines in an extended re-interpretation that first meeting from the premiere issue of the wallcrawler’s own comic. Pencilled this time by Kirby, the dramatic duel benefitted from Ditko’s inking which created a truly novel look.

Cover-dated October 1963, Fantastic Four #19 premiered another of the company’s major villains as the quarrelsome quartet travelled back to ancient Egypt and ‘Prisoners of the Pharaoh!’ This time travel tale has been revisited by so many writers that it is considered one of the key stories in Marvel history introducing a future-Earth tyrant who would evolve into overarching menace Kang the Conqueror.

Another universe-threatening foe was introduced and defeated by brains not brawn in FF#20 when ‘The Mysterious Molecule Man!’ menaced New York before being soundly outsmarted, after which one last Lee Foreword precedes another cross-pollination: this time guest-starring Nick Fury, lead character in Marvel’s only war comic.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was another solid hit, but eventually its brusque and brutish star metamorphosed into Marvel’s answer to James Bond. Here, however, he’s a cunning CIA agent seeking the team’s aid against a sinister demagogue called ‘The Hate-Monger’: a cracking yarn with a strong message, inked by comics veteran George Roussos, under the protective nom-de-plume George Bell.

By this juncture the FF were firmly established and Lee & Kirby well on the way to toppling DC/National Comics from a decades-held top spot through an engaging blend of brash, folksy and consciously contemporaneous sagas: mixing high concept, low comedy, trenchant melodrama and breathtaking action.

Unseen since the premiere issue, #22 saw ‘The Return of the Mole Man!’ in another full-on monster-mashing fight-fest, chiefly notable for debuting Sue Storm’s new powers of projecting force fields of “invisible energy.” This advance would eventually make her one of the mightiest characters in Marvel’s pantheon.

Fantastic Four #23 enacted ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’, by introducing mediocre minions “the Terrible Trio” – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor – and the uncanny menace of “the Solar Wave” (which was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck. Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five, but only my neck had properly developed hackles back then?)…

In #24’s ‘The Infant Terrible!’ is a sterling yarn of inadvertent extragalactic menace and misplaced innocence, followed by a 2-part tale truly emphasising the inherent difference between Lee & Kirby’s work and everybody else’s at that time.

Fantastic Four #25-26 featured a cataclysmic clash that had young heads spinning in 1964 and led directly to the Emerald Behemoth finally regaining a strip of his own. In ‘The Hulk vs The Thing’ and ‘The Avengers Take Over!’, a relentless, lightning-paced, all-out Battle Royale results when the disgruntled man-monster returns to New York in search of side-kick Rick Jones, with only an injury-wracked FF in the way of his destructive rampage.

A definitive moment in The Thing’s character development, action ramps up to the max when a rather stiff-necked and officious Avengers team horn in, claiming jurisdictional rights on “Bob Banner (this tale is plagued with pesky continuity errors which would haunt Stan Lee for decades) and his Jaded alter ego. Notwithstanding bloopers, this is one of Marvel’s key moments and still a visceral, vital read.

Stan & Jack had hit on a winning formula by including other stars in guest-shots – especially since readers could never anticipate if they would fight with or beside the home team. FF #27’s ‘The Search for Sub-Mariner!’ again saw the undersea antihero in amorous mood, and when he abducts Sue the boys call in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts to locate them. Issue #28 was another terrific team-up, but most notable (for me and many other fans) for the man who replaced George Roussos…

‘We Have to Fight the X-Men!’ sees the disparate super-squads in conflict due to the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master’s malign machinations, but the inclusion of Chic Stone – Kirby’s most simpatico and expressive inker – elevates the illustration to indescribable levels of beauty.

‘It Started on Yancy Street!’ (FF #29) starts low-key and a little bit silly in the slum where Ben Grimm grew up, but with the reappearance of the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, it all goes Cosmic, resulting in a blockbusting battle on the Moon, with the following issue – and last saga here – introducing evil alchemist ‘The Dreaded Diablo!’ – who briefly breaks up the team while casually conquering the world from his spooky Transylvanian castle….

To Be Continued…

Bolstered by all Kirby’s covers, every ‘Fantastic 4 Fan Page’ (with letters from adoring fans many here will recognise), Lee’s concluding essay ‘Reflections on the Fantastic Four’ and appreciations from Paul Gambaccini, Tom DeFalco and Roy Thomas, the joy concludes with added attractions including Lee’s original synopsis for FF #1, a selection of house ads, unused pages and cover art for #3, #20 and Annual #1.

This is a truly magnificent book highlighting pioneering tales that built a comics empire. The verve, imagination and sheer enthusiasm shines through and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is your best and most economical key to another world and time.
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