Category: Daredevil

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Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 11: Four No More (1978-1980)


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Len Wein, Keith Pollard, Roger Slifer, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, George Pérez, Bob Hall, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Pablo Marcos, Bob Wiacek, Dave Hunt, Diverse Hands (Al Milgrom, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Marie Severin), Bob Budiansky, Jack Kirby & various (MARVEL
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6055-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content from less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Adventure… 8/10

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with the eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. Everything the company and brand is now stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking 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 outfit’s standards; but it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change beginning to build in America. It and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and 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 survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All four were permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into sentient living flame and poor tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After 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: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters 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 more creative freedom that led to Kirby moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts gave way to more traditional tales of characters in conflict, as soap opera schtick and supervillain-tirades dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour compendium reruns Fantastic Four #192-214 and Annuals #12-13, spanning March 1978-January 1980.

What You Should Know: After facing his own Counter Earth counterpart Reed Richards lost his stretching powers. With menaces like Salem’s Seven, Klaw and Molecule Man still coming for him and his family, weary and devoid of solutions, Richards made the only logical decision and called it a day for the team…

Incoming writer/editor Marv Wolfman, brought a new direction which closely referenced the good old days with #192 proclaiming ‘He Who Soweth the Wind…!’ (illustrated by George Pérez & Joe Sinnott), as newly independent, fancy-free Johnny heads west to revisit his childhood dream of being a race car driver and unexpectedly meets old pal Wyatt Wingfoot.

Back East, Ben and girlfriend Alicia Masters ponder options as Reed gets a pretty spectacular job offer from a mystery backer. Suddenly, though, Johnny’s race career is upended when superpowered mercenary Texas Twister attacks at the behest of a sinister but unspecified stalker with a grudge to settle…

The admittedly half-hearted assault fails, but when Ben offers his services to NASA a pattern begins to emerge after he and Alicia are ambushed by old foe Darkoth in ‘Day of the Death-Demon!’ (plotted by Len Wein & Keith Pollard, scripted by Bill Mantlo, and illustrated by Pollard & Sinnott). The near-forgotten cyborg terror is determined to destroy an experimental solar shuttle, but doesn’t really know why, and as Ben ponders the inexplicable incident, in Hollywood, Susan Storm-Richards’ return to acting is inadvertently paused because alien shapeshifting loon the Impossible Man pays a visit. The delay gives Sue a little time to consider just how she got such a prestigious, dream-fulfilling offer so completely out of the blue at just the right moment…

At NASA, when Darkoth strikes again his silent partner is exposed as scheming alchemist Diablo, whilst in upstate New York, Reed slowly discovers his dreams of unlimited research time and facilities is nothing like he imagined. Finally, launch day comes and The Thing pilots the Solar Shuttle into space, only to have it catastrophically crash in the desert…

Joined by additional inker Dave Hunt, the creative pinch-hitters conclude the saga with ‘Vengeance is Mine!’ as Ben survives impact and searing sandstorms, tracks down his foes and delivers a crushing defeat to Diablo and Darkoth, whilst in FF #195 Sue learns who sponsored her revived Tinseltown ambitions when Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner renews his amorous pursuit of her. Embittered and lonely, he has fully forsaken Atlantis and the overwhelming demands of his people and state. Sadly, they have not done with him and despatch robotic warriors to drag him back to his duties in ‘Beware the Ravaging Retrievers!’ (Wolfman, Pollard & Pablo Marcos). Like everybody else, the metal myrmidons have utterly underestimated The Invisible Girl and pay the price, allowing the once-&-future prince to reassess his position and make a momentous decision…

As Johnny links up with Ben & Alicia, strands of a complex scheme begin to appear. In #196 they gel for self-deceiving Reed Richards as ‘Who in the World is the Invincible Man?’ depicts the enigmatic Man with the Plan secretly subjecting Reed to the mind-bending powers of the Pyscho-Man, just as Sue rejoins Ben & Johnny in New York City before being impossibly ambushed by a former FF foe. This time the man under the hood is not her father, but someone she loves even more…

Reunited with Reed, the horrified heroes are confronted by their greatest, most implacable enemy and the complicated plot to restore Reed’s powers finally unfolds. Victor Von Doom craves revenge but refuses to triumph over a diminished foe, but his efforts to re-expose Richards to cosmic rays is secretly hijacked by a rival madman in ‘The Riotous Return of the Red Ghost!’ (Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott). Of course there’s more at stake, as Doom also seeks to legitimise his rule through a proxy son: planning to abdicate in his scion’s favour and have Junior take Latveria into the UN and inevitably to the forefront of nations…

Fully restored and invigorated, Mister Fantastic defeats an equally resurgent Red Ghost before linking up with Nick Fury (senior) and S.H.I.E.L.D. to lead an ‘Invasion!’ of Doom’s captive kingdom. Beside Latverian freedom fighter/legal heir to the throne Prince Zorba Fortunov, Richards storms into Doomstadt, defeating all in his path and foiling the secondary scheme of imbuing the ‘The Son of Doctor Doom!’ with the powers of the (now) entire FF and exposing the incredible secret of Victor von Doom II…

Months of deft planning (from Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott) culminate in epic confrontation ‘When Titans Clash!’, as Doom and Richards indulge in their ultimate battle (thus far), with the result that the villain is destroyed and the kingdom liberated. For now…

A post-Doom era opens in FF #201 (December 1978) as the celebrated and honoured foursome return to America and take possession of empty former HQ the Baxter Building. Unfortunately, so does something else, attacking the family through their own electronic installations and turning the towering “des res” into ‘Home Sweet Deadly Home!’: a mystery solved in the next issue when it subsequently seizes control of Tony Stark’s armour to attack the FF again in ‘There’s One Iron Man Too Many!’, with John Buscema filling in for penciller Pollard. The monthly mayhem pauses after #203’s ‘…And a Child Shall Slay Them!’ wherein Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott reveal the incredible powers possessed by dying cosmic ray-mutated child Willie Evans Jr.

When the foremost authority on the phenomenon is called in to consult, Dr. Reed Richards and his associates – and all of Manhattan – face savage duplicates of themselves manifested from FF devotee Willie’s fevered imagination…

Although the regular fun pauses here, two chronologically adrift King-Size specials follow, beginning with Fantastic Four Annual #12’s ‘The End of the Inhumans… and the Fantastic Four’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall, Pollard, Bob Wiacek & Marie Severin. When Johnny’s former flame Crystal – and gigantic Good Boi Lockjaw – teleport in seeking aid in finding the abducted Inhuman Royal Family, the team confronts ruthless Inhuman supremacist Thraxon the Schemer before exposing that megalomaniac’s secret master: the immortal unconquerable Sphinx. Despite his god-like powers, the united force of the FF plus Blackbolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Triton, Crystal and former Avenger Quicksilver proves sufficient to temporarily defeat their foe… or does it?

A year later, Annual #13 offered a more intimate and human tale from Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Sinnott as ‘Nightlife’ revealed how New York’s lost underclass was systematically being disappeared from the hovels and streets they frequented. With cameos from Daredevil and witch queen Agatha Harkness, the tale reveals a softer side to the FF’s oldest enemy and a return to addressing social issues for the team.

In monthly FF #204, Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott detail ‘The Andromeda Attack!’ as Johnny goes out gallivanting and governess/guardian Agatha Harkness picks up little Franklin Richards, just as – with only grown-ups in residence – the building’s supercomputers pick up an astral anomaly, and materialise an alien princess in the lab. She’s instantly followed by a Super-Skrull who blasts her before falling to the FF’s counterattack. Interrogating the wounded woman, they learn she has come seeking help for her shattered world and near-extinct civilisation of Xandar…

Already illicitly supported by a Watcher breaking his oath of non-intervention, the last survivors of Andromeda’s most benign culture have been reduced to a quartet of domed stations linked together and careening through space, defended only by the last of their peacekeeper Nova Corps. Now the fugitives are being targeted for extinction by rapacious Skrulls and desperately need someone’s… anyone’s… assistance…

The FF are keen to help Suzerain Queen Adora return and happy to help the Xandarians, but the Human Torch has a new girlfriend and opts to stay behind for now to woo enigmatic Frankie Raye. He’s also set on finally following up on his long-postponed higher education commitments and has enrolled in specialist academic institution Security College. Naturally, Johnny promises to catch up later, but no sooner do his partners beam out to the stars than he’s attacked on campus by an old foe…

For #205, ‘When Worlds Die!’, Reed, Sue & Ben’s arrive with Adora at New Xandar finds the planetary remnants under attack by a Skrull war fleet, they join the Nova Corps to repel the assault, consequently driving closely-monitoring Skrull Emperor Dorrek insane with fury. Although Xandar’s physical resources are almost gone, he actually wants their greatest asset and treasure – a repository of their knowledge and power stored in an awesome array of superprocessors linking countless generations of expired citizens together: the Living Computers of Xandar! Chief administrator Prime Thoran and severely wounded Nova Centurion Tanak have been holding back the storm with ever-diminishing forces, but now need the FF to turn the tide, while back at Security College, Johnny has stumbled into mystery and peril too, as a strange force seizes control of the students…

In Andromeda, his family’s first foray against the Skrulls leads to their defeat and capture. Humiliated, tortured and put on display in a cruel show trial, they are ultimately blasted with a ray that will inescapably result in ‘The Death of… The Fantastic Four!’, rapidly aging them to the end of their natural lifespans in a matter of days. Dorrek’s gleeful gloating is spoiled, however, by the arrival of his terrifying, ambitious wife Empress R’kylll, the increased resistance of the Xandarians and, inevitably, the escape of the fast-aging Fantastic Four…

Ordering all-out assaults on the battered prey, Dorrek is further frustrated by Prime Thoran who gains astounding power by merging with the Living Computers of Xandar and the arrival of a colossal ship from Earth…

Here the saga dovetails with another Wolfman series that had recently ended its run on a cliffhanger. The Man Called Nova was in fact a boy named Richard Rider, a working-class nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker, except he was good at sports and bad at learning, attending Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. There were many more superficial similarities and cosmetic differences to Spider-Man. For more, you can either check out our numerous reviews or better yet, the actual comics tales, best seen in Nova Classic volumes #1-3. The 2-year saga culminated with Nova joining despised enemies The Sphinx (last seen battling the FF and Inhumans in Annual #12), Chinese superbrain-in-a-robot-body Doctor Sun, dastardly thug Diamondhead and hero-team The New Champions (The Comet, Crime-Buster and Xandarian refugee Powerhouse) aboard a pre-programmed, out-of-control spaceship hurtling towards Andromeda. Nova volume 1 ended with #25, with the unhappy crew lost in space and attacked by very angry Skrulls…

Meanwhile back at this review, those newcomers’ arrival piled on the pressure and concatenated the chaos as both the magical ancient immortal and futuristic Sino-cyborg abandoned ship, each determined to take the limitless power of Xandar’s Living Computer network for their own. Back on Earth for #207, Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Sinnott tune in on the Torch and favourite frenemy Spider-Man as they unite to expose the scandals of Security College, deprogram its students and almost fall foul of the sheer destructive ‘Might of the Monocle!’, after which the Torch joins his team in Andromeda. Aghast at the ongoing death sentence they’re enduring, Johnny is just as helpless before ‘The Power of The Sphinx!’ (Sal B & inking cavalry “D Hands” AKA Al Milgrom and Franks Giacoia & Springer) is boosted even further by stealing all the wisdom of the Living Computer system. With hyper-energised Prime Thoran busy battling Skrulls, the Sphinx soon solves the eternal secrets of the universe and heads back to Earth, resolved to turn back time and prevent his agonising eons of existence even happening, whilst seeing all reality endangered, increasingly elderly Reed has only one gambit to try…

John Byrne began his first tenure on the Fantastic Four with #209 (August 1979) as the reunited quartet seek to enlist the aid of cosmic devourer Galactus, pausing only long enough for Reed to construct – with Xandarian aid and resources – an all-purpose assistant. The result is the Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics (latterly, Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration; don’cha just love nominative deterministic acronymics?).

At this time, an FF cartoon show had rejected fire hazard Johnny for a cutely telegenic robot, and Wolfman cheekily made that commercial rejection in-world canon here, dividing fans forever after, as the bleeping bot is pure Marmite in most readers eyes…

Riding the mile-long starship Nova & Co arrived in, the FF’s search takes them across the universe before leaving them ‘Trapped in the Sargasso of Space!’ to face murderous aliens determined to use the new vessel to escape their stasis hell. Meanwhile, the New Champions and Xandar’s forces prepare to face their final battle, just as impatient R’kylll divorces her husband with a single ray gun blast and changes the course of history…

Despite odd, inexplicable increasingly hazardous incidences, the FF continue ‘In Search of Galactus!’ and at last locate him, causing chaos in his colossal world-ship. Ultimately, they convince the Devourer to stop the Sphinx, but only by rescinding the vow that prevents Galactus from consuming Earth, and if the humans first bring him a new herald…

That occurs in ‘If This Be Terrax’, on a distant world enslaved by brutal despot Tyros, when the pitiless killer is painfully subdued by the heroes and converted by Galactus into a being who will rejoice in finding worlds to consume irrespective of whether civilisations will be consumed with them…

In #212, Earth trembles as the Devourer unleashes his herald to cow humanity whilst his master faces The Sphinx, but ‘The Battle of the Titans!’ is subject to mission creep when the immortal Egyptian wizard sees his new knowledge as a way to restore his own past glories. With his master fully occupied in cosmic combat, Terrax the Tamer seeks to settle scores with the humans who toppled Tyros’ kingdom, only to fall ‘In Final Battle!’ for a ploy devised by Reed and executed by H.E.R.B.I.E. It’s the last hurrah and a massive “Hail Mary” ploy as Reed joins Sue and Ben in cryo-suspension, seconds from death, and barely aware that Galactus has triumphed, but at immense cost…

Tragedy becomes triumph in closing episode ‘…And Then There Was… One!’ (FF #214, January 1980) as Johnny frantically seeks a cure for his family. When S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers and any others all prove helpless, a fortuitous attack by vengeful cyborg Skrull-X offers a grain of hope, but one necessitating a huge gamble: defrosting Reed and hoping he can use what the defeated alien revealed before rampant decrepitude ends the Smartest Man on Earth…

Of course, it all works out, but for what comes next you’ll need the next volume…

Here the compilation concludes with bonus material supplementing all those fabulous covers by Pérez, Sinnott, Giacoia, Pollard, Marcos, John Buscema, Steve Leialoha, Kirby, Milgrom, Dave Cockrum, Walter Simonson, Byrne, Ron Wilson, Joe Rubinstein and Rich Buckler. It includes House ads for comics and the TV cartoon; editorial corrections; Cockrum’s cover rough for #197; Kirby & Sinnott’s original cover art for #200 and the covers for Marvel Treasury Edition #21 by Bobs Budiansky & McLeod.

Also on view are Budiansky’s pencils for the cover of F.O.O.M. #22 and the printed final result from Autumn 1978 as inked by Sinnott, plus interior features ‘HERBIE the Robot Blueprints!’ and ‘Stan Lee Presents: The Fantastic Four Cartoon Show’…

Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” never quite returned to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this collection offers an appreciative and tantalising taste-echo of those heady heights and a potent promise of fresher thrills to come. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 2025 MARVEL.

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The Marvel Comics Covers of Jack Kirby volume 1: 1961-1964


By Jack Kirby, with Steve Ditko, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman, Bill Everett, George Roussos, Joe Sinnott, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Al Hartley, Stan Goldberg, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various, Introduction by Patrick McDonnell (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-50673-246-6 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-50673-247-3

Today in 1917 on New York’s Lower East Side, Jacob Kurtzberg was born to Jewish-Austrian parents. He grew up to be one of the most influential and recognised artists in world history. The reason why can be read here.

The Marvel Comics Covers of Jack Kirby chronologically collects The King’s superhero cover art in a spectacular hardcover coffee table book which simultaneously preserves the wonderment in a digital edition, thus allowing instant enlargements of any and all bits you might have glossed over or missed before…

Preceding the massive and momentous art attack comes heartfelt appreciation from Patrick McDonnell (Mutts) in his Introduction and via collector memory ‘Echoes of the King’ by Vincent Iadevaia. At the far end of the collection there’s a succinct biography and appreciation of Jack for those of you who don’t know him as well as we declining comics stalwarts do.

In between those points reside a torrent of those visual highpoints that served to introduce new and revolutionary ways of seeing and enjoying comic books. These collectively span cover-dates November 1961 to December 1964 as seen on The Avengers #1-11; Fantastic Four #1-33; Incredible Hulk #1-5; Journey into Mystery #83-111; Strange Tales #90, 101-127; Tales to Astonish #25, 27, 35-62; Tales of Suspense #39-56, 58-60; X-Men #1-8; Amazing Fantasy #15; Amazing Spider-Man #1; Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1-13; Daredevil # 1-4 plus Strange Tales Annual #2, Marvel Tales Annual #1, Fantastic Four Annuals #1-2, a few (far too few!) pre-Marvel genre covers including combat classic Battle #65, and a selection of monster book covers…

Inkers, colourists and letterers are not credited here, but that oversight is hopefully covered by us in the great big shopping list under the title…

Despite the too-tight brief – where are all the war, romance and particularly western and sci fi covers!? – this is a magnificent meander around the things that literally drew most of us into comics… that eye-grabbing first image. Jack Kirby was a master of electric storytelling, but he was also the god of the perfect moment and single pictures worth a thousand words. Look here and learn how and why…

© 2025 MARVEL.

Win’s First Christmas Gift Recommendation of the year!: Utter Acme of Visual Iconography… 9/10

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Mighty Thor Epic Collection volume 9: Even an Immortal Can Die (1977-1979)


By Len Wein, Roy Thomas, Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, Don Glut, Don Thompson, Maggie Thompson, Walter Simonson, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Alan Kupperberg, Wayne Boring, Val Mayerik, Jim Starlin, Virgilio Redondo, Rudy Nebres, Tony DeZuñiga, Tom Palmer, Ernie Chan, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, Chic Stone, Pablo Marcos & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4868-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Once upon a time, disabled physician Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway, only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an ancient walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments, he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. Months swiftly passed, with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds of incredible, mythic menaces, tackled by an ever-changing cast of stalwart immortal warriors at his side…

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured through its first decade, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

However, by the time of this power-packed compendium, the King was long gone – or more accurately enacting his Second Coming – technically Third, and definitely Second Return to the House of (mostly his) Ideas – and only echoes of his groundbreaking presence remained. John Buscema had visually made the Thunder God his own over interceding years, whilst a succession of scripters had struggled with varying success to recapture the epic scope of Kirby’s vision and Stan Lee’s off-kilter but comfortingly compelling faux-Shakespearean verbiage…

Spanning June 1977 to February 1979, this power-packed compilation re-presents The Mighty Thor #260-280, Annuals #6 & 7 and Marvel Preview #10 in a panoply of unceasing stellar adventure spanning time and space and well-explored regions.

Previously, embattled Asgardians had survived another invasion only to learn their divine Liege Lord Odin had gone missing. Having exhausted every avenue of location available, son-&-heir Thor – prompted by vague hints from all-knowing but hostile spirit Mimir – departed to search distant galaxies for a “Doomsday Star” …

Aboard starfaring dragonship Starjammer, the Thunderer, Lady Sif and Warriors Three Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg (solar) sail off, leaving the beleaguered Eternal Realm under Balder the Brave’s stewardship, albeit ably assisted by his dark inamorata Karnilla the Norn Queen. Now in the wake of travail, torment and cruel misunderstanding, and accompanied by the Recorder (a Rigellian AI robot guide), ‘The Vicious and the Valiant’ sees the interstellar questors finally locate the Doomsday Star.

Scripted by writer/editor Len Wein with Walter Simonson (inked by Tony DeZuñiga) making his first major artistic contributions to the mythology, the interstellar quest’s end coincides with an attack on far-distant Asgard where Balder and Karnilla resist an invasion helmed by arch-traitors Enchantress and Executioner. As the voyagers strive to reach a hostile planet with a strict and extreme no-visitors policy, #261 expands the scope and intensifies the action as the questers falter before ‘The Wall Around the World!’ (inked by Ernie Chan): a terrifying global-scaled construct comprised of the power-drained husks of dead gods.

Resolute and determined the seekers push on, learning Odin has been captured and gradually diminished and consumed by energy-leeching “Soul-Survivors” whose civilisation subsists on stolen divine lifeforce. As they valiantly strive to save their sovereign, the roving Asgardians learn to their cost that ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (#262, limned by Simonson & DeZuñiga).

Thankfully, ‘Holocaust and Homecoming!’ proves Odin both wily and still potent as the heroes’ ferocious clash and hard-won victory results in a weary, wounded pantheon returning to Asgard, only to find it taken over by Loki and his cohort of treacherous allies. With Odin in a coma – and ultimately abducted again – covert civil war erupts between the newly restored champions and the city citizens Loki has subverted. ‘Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me!’ sees the sinister scheme exposed, but not before Loki unleashes ultimate weapon The Destroyer against his adoptive brother…

Inked by Joe Sinnott, #265’s ‘When Falls the God of Thunder…!’ sees Loki losing control of his ultimate sanction, and once again, everyone survival hinges on the determination of Thor and his valiant resistance to chaos, until #266’s ‘…So Falls the Realm Eternal!’, where Wein, Simonson & DeZuñiga show the Thunderer at his indomitable best, holding Loki at bay and off balance until the Warriors Three rescue and revive an extremely unhappy All-Father…

This saga presaged a change of narrative focus but before that Roger Stern, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson craft ‘Thunder in the 31st Century!’ (as first seen in Thor Annual #6 December 1977). A riot of time-busting mayhem commences with Thor plucked from contemporary Manhattan: accidentally summoned to the time period of the original/future (time travel tenses suck!) Guardians of the Galaxy by a cyborg maniac named Korvac. The immortal god-warrior briefly joins Vance Astro, Charlie 27, Yondu, Nikki, Martinex and Starhawk in bombastic battle against super-powered aliens to thwart the sinister cyborg’s scheme to become master of the universe. At the conclusion, Thor returns to his own place and time, unaware how Korvac would reshape the destiny of reality itself in coming months…

The collaborations of Wein and Simonson had already shaken the title out of its conceptual doldrums; as the big change approached they went into overdrive and an seemingly backward direction. After All-Father Odin was kidnapped, drained like a battery and died, he was rescued, resurrected and restored to an Asgard riven with conspiracies. Conquered by old enemies, Thor faced ultimate weapon The Destroyer before triumphantly saving everything. In #267 (January 1978, Wein, Simonson & DeZuñiga) we see the hero bound ‘Once More, To Midgard!’, following a rare moment of filial fondness rather than the usual arguments with Dad. Thor has been missing for quite some time and his absence has left Don Blake’s life in tatters until old colleague Dr. Jacob Wallaby arranges a job with Stark International’s Free Clinic. That good deed leads to more chaos as deranged super-criminal Damocles ruthlessly raids the hospital’s radiation lab in search of synthetic cobalt to power his new super-gun. Before Blake can react, the smash-&-grab attack is done, leaving furious Thor to pursue the murderous madman, aided by Damocles’ guilt-fuelled sibling Bennett Barlow. He pays a heavy price for his civic service in concluding clash ‘Death, Thy Name is Brother!’

The concentration on Earthly scale and situations continues in #269 as ‘A Walk on the Wild Side!’ sees a mysterious mastermind contract mechanistic mercenary Stilt-Man to secure a certain high-tech package. A raft of deadly upgrades prove pointless after the Thunderer stumbles upon the heist in the skies over Manhattan, but Thor has far more trouble facing the plotter’s power-packed partner Blastaar in middle chapter ‘Minute of Madness… Dark Day of Doom!’

The triptych of terror terminates in Thor #271 as, with the aid of Tony Stark, Nick Fury (I), S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers, the Storm Lord meets the true architect of destruction and imminent global domination in orbit ‘…Like a Diamond in the Sky!’ This epic includes cameos from Shang-Chi, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Human Torch, Nova, Daredevil and many more Marvel stalwarts; serving as a big celebratory send-off for Wein & Simonson, whilst signalling a major change of direction.

Mighty Thor #272 saw the return of Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Tom Palmer depicting ‘The Day the Thunder Failed!’ as the hero shares moments of humiliating childhood defeat with a crowd of fannish kids. The incidents were all adapted from classical mythology and served as an appetiser to a mega-saga in the making, with TV reporter Harris Hobbs (who visited Asgard way back in Journey into Mystery #123) making Thor an offer he cannot help but refuse…

Still channelling tales from the Eddas – specifically about how Ragnarok would end the reign of the Aesir/Asgardians – #273 is set ‘Somewhere… Over the Rainbow Bridge!’ Although the journalist’s pleas to film a TV special in the Home of the Gods is sternly rebuked and rejected, wicked Loki has his own plans and smuggles in Harris and his film crew, triggering the beginning of the long-prophesied end…

If you haven’t actually read the original myths, go do that. It will make you appreciate these clever riffs on the theme so much more as the secret history of Asgard and Odin’s plots are exposed in #274. With Loki on the loose, the story of how the All-Father sacrificed his eye to fiery seer Mimir for knowledge of the future is revealed, as are the dirty bargains Odin made to forestall inevitable, inescapable doom. As Sif leads home the long-missing goddesses of Asgard, mortal cameraman Roger “Red” Norvell beholds the Thunder God’s raven-haired beloved and is gripped by uncontrollable desire. Another prerequisite of The End then occurs as Loki orchestrates Balder’s death in ‘The Eye… and the Arrow!’…

In #275 ‘A Balance is Struck!’ when Odin uses all his power to suspend the dying God of Light in a timeless state, pausing the Ragnarok countdown. Loki, meanwhile, uses ancient spells and his adoptive brother’s Belt of Strength and Iron Gloves (created when the Prince was a child to help control and wield mighty Mjolnir) to become a new, very different Thor. The newcomer even seizes the mystic hammer from its enraged rightful owner as he beats the thunder god and abducts Sif, declaring in #276 ‘Mine… This Hammer!’

Red is barely aware he has killed his best friend for power. Loki and Death Goddess Hela rouse all Asgard’s enemies to march on their hated foes as ‘Time of the Trolls!’ seems to indicate doomsday has finally fallen. However, the forces of evil are not the only devious schemers with an endgame in view, and a monstrous plan is exposed whereby the All-Father seems to cheat the powers of prophecy and trick Ragnarok by creating a false Thor to die in place of Asgard’s true saviour. All it required was timing, boldness and a few necessary sacrifices…

With veteran Thor inker Chic Stone applying his stylish lines, #278 heralds ‘At Long Last… Ragnarok?!’ as all plots and perils converge with reality – the Nine Realms portion of it at least – battling fate to a draw as the apocalypse is deferred a while longer… but only after another tragic, valiant and ultimately futile demise. In the aftermath, the trueborn Odinson cannot abide what has been done in his name and sunders all contact with his scheming sire.

The split is genesis to an even more momentous and spectacular saga postponed here for a crucial sidebar seen in Thor Annual #7 (1978) wherein Thomas, Simonson & Ernie Chan here detail a forgotten “first contact” moment triggered by the reactions to Balder’s “death” due to Loki’s machinations to trigger Ragnarok. When Thor reluctantly consults hostile prophet Mimir, the flaming seer of the Well of Wisdom instead emphasises how untrustworthy Odin is and illustrates his point by sharing of an event the Thunderer cannot remember even though it was one of his most significant exploits…

Tale within a tale ‘And Ever… The Eternals!’ reviews the creation of and war between Asgardian and Greek pantheons – which Thor readily recalled – before going on to disclose how the proud prince had continued seeking new mortal worshippers. Roaming Midgard doing heroic deeds, he had encountered and barely defeated a monstrous mind-controlling horror dubbed Dromedan. Moving on, in what would be later called Central America, he meets another – unsuspected – god-like race: Polar Eternals Ajak, Druig, Valkin and Virako.

Thor then reexperiences how he was informed that Midgard was a laboratory preserve of incredible super-gods from space: “Celestials” who had genetically modified proto-hominids to create humanity, Eternals and horrific predatory Deviants. These subspecies had battled for ownership of Earth in wars spanning the length of human existence…

Confronted by such sheer heresy and baffled by obvious nonsense, Thor learns now that his new friends were as treacherous as any god or mortal, with all knowledge of Celestials excised after he and the Eternals defeated a resurgent Dromedan and horde of Deviants and Mutates. Mindwiped, he returned to Asgard, oblivious to the fact that Space Gods would periodically return to judge the progress of their three-pronged project… as indeed they were doing at that very moment under a colossal gleaming dome in Earth’s Andes mountains…

When Kirby’s series debuted in 1976, we met anthropologist Professor Daniel Damien and daughter Margo, whose explorations revealed giant aliens had visited Earth in ages past: sculpting hominid beasts into distinct sentient species: Human Beings; genetically unstable Deviants and god-like superbeings who called themselves Eternals. Moreover, those Space Gods had occasionally returned to check up on their experiment.

Over 19 issues and an Annual, the series avoided true contact with Marvel continuity as modern mankind’s military and moneyed movers-&-shakers dealt with the politics and panic of a world-shattering event. Ikaris (son of Valkin and Virako), Margo, Ajak, Sersi, Makkari, Zuras, Thena, Sprite and Druig fought and foiled Deviants Kro, Brother Tode, Dromedan, Ransak & Karkas, with humanity terrified in the background and under the microscope as The Fourth Host of Celestials hovered above the world in a city-sized ship, pondering final judgement: a process that would take 50 years.

Never a comfortable fit with the rest of the Marvel Universe – only S.H.I.E.L.D. ever really got involved – The Eternals further embodied Kirby’s fascination with Deities, the immensity of Space and potential of Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once the series ended, Kirby moved on and other creators eagerly co-opted his concepts (with mixed success) into the company’s mainstream continuity…

In Mighty Thor #279 (cover-dated January 1978) the new quest is briefly diverted as Don Glut, Alan Kupperberg & Pablo Marcos detail how the Thunderer’s latest exile to Earth prompts more reminiscing and “untold tale” ‘A Hammer in Hades!’ Long ago, a chance encounter with pre-goddess first love Jane Foster led to her imprisonment in the underworld and Thor flew right into an ambush organised by Loki, Grecian death god Pluto and super-troll Ulik, but still proved more than even that trio of terror could handle…

Still preparing to confront the relatively undiscovered Fourth Host, Thor is again forestalled in #280 where Thomas, Wayne Boring & Tom Palmer pastiche DC’s Annual JLA/JSA summer team-ups with ‘Crisis on Twin Earths!’ after Superman-analogue Mark Milton/ Hyperion of the Squadron Supreme requests Thor’s assistance on his own alternate Earth. Sadly, the evil Hyperion of the Squadron Sinister manages to replace his goody-goody doppelganger and a shattering battle erupts before order and dimensional stability is restored…

This titanic tome ends on a rare treat stemming from the period’s growing love-affair with fighting fantasy. Cover-dated Winter 1977, Marvel Preview #10 was a monochrome magazine in Marvel’s mature-oriented line: free of Comics Code scrutiny and (ostensibly) the strictures of shared continuity. Although MP was an anthology/showcase title, other periodicals in the Marvel Magazine Group included off-kilter features like Howard the Duck, Rampaging Hulk and Tomb of Dracula.

Thor the Mighty almost joined that elite roster in 1975, and nearly three full issues were prepared for a barbarian Thunder God vehicle before the plug was pulled. As a result, much material was sitting in drawers when the decision came to use one lead tale and a thematic back-up in the try-out title. Another story had already been modified and published as Thor Annual #5 (for which see Marvel Masterworks Thor #15)…

Behind a painted Ken Barr cover, frontispiece by Jim Starlin and illustration plates from Virgilio Redondo and Rudy Nebres, ‘Thor the Mighty!’ was scripted by Wein, and rendered by Starlin & DeZuñiga, telling of a time long past when Odin sent his rowdy sons Thor and Loki on a quest to secure a mystic Crystal of Blood threatening to erase all existence. The mission pitted his sons against seductive sorceresses, trolls ogres, giants, dragons and – as ever – each other…

The lusty yarn was backed up by an exploit of Hercules The Prince of Power when he was still half-human and sailing with Jason as an Argonaut. Here, courtesy of Bill Mantlo & Val Mayerik, the shipmates faced constant, mythologically-tinged peril on ‘The Isle of Fear!’ – but nothing like the political intrigue engineered by corrupt sponsor King Kreon of Pylos…

Following a Nebres pinup and never attained next issue ad, a bonus section offers the letters page editorial from Thor #272, Thomas’ editorial from Thor Annual #7, the cover to Marvel Index #5 by Tom Conrad, the Franc Reyes Contents page and contemporary house ads.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of the early years but certainly prove that after too long calcified, the Thunder God was again moving to the forefront of Big Idea Comics Storytelling. Fans of ferocious Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists dedicated to making new legends. This a definite must-read for all fans of the character and the genre.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Ka-Zar Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Carol Seuling, Ross Andru, Don Heck, Dan Adkins, Jim Starlin, Marie Severin, Werner Roth, George Tuska, Paul Reinman, Mike Royer, Bob Brown, Sal Buscema, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0966-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are quite a few comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges and advising an encounter with something old, nigh forgotten but definitely worth a soupçon of your time and energies…

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE! …and apparently everywhere else, too…

Retconned from a pulp hero and latterly comics B-Lister from the early days of Timely comics, primal white jungle god Ka-Zar most accurately stems from 1965 where he stole the show in a dinosaurs & mutants yarn in X-Men #10.

Beginning as a cheeky Tarzan tribute act relocated to a lost world in a realm of swamp-men and dinosaurs, Ka-Zar eventually evolved into one of Marvel’s more complex – if variable – characters. Fabulously wealthy heir to one of Britain’s oldest noble families, his bestest friend is “sabretooth tiger” Zabu and his wife is feisty environmental-crusader Shanna the She-Devil. His dad was apparently a mad scientist, his brother a homicidal super-scientific modern day pirate. Kevin Reginald, Lord Plunder is perpetually torn between the clean life-or-death simplicity of the wilds and bewildering constant compromises of modern civilisation.

The primordial paragon is arguably Marvel’s oldest star, having begun life as a prose star, boasting three issues of his own pulp magazine between October 1936 and June 1937. They were authored by Bob Byrd – a pseudonym for publisher Martin Goodman or one of his retinue of staff writers. Goodman latterly shoehorned him into his speculative venture: new-fangled comic book Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), where he lurked alongside fellow pulp line graduate The Angel, Masked Raider, Human Torch and Sub-Mariner…

In the sixties, when Ka-Zar reappeared he was all rowdy, reimagined and renovated by Jack Kirby for X-Men #10 (cover-dated March but actually on sale from January 5th), and it was clear the uncrowned Sovereign of the Savage Land was destined for bigger and better things. However, for years all we got was guest shots as a misunderstood foe du jour for Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Spider-Man, and The Hulk.

In 1969 he got his shot as a lone wolf starring in Marvel Super-Heroes. Later that year – after Roy Thomas & Neal Adams used him so effectively in their X-Men run (issues #62-63) – Ka-Zar was awarded his own giant-sized title, reprinting most of his previous appearances. However, the reruns oddly bracketed all-new stories of Hercules and The Angel (the new one from X-Men not the costumed detective of the 1940s). That same month, his first solo series began in a split book entitled Astonishing Tales…

Gathering material from Astonishing Tales #17-20, Shanna the She-Devil #1-5, Ka-Zar (volume 2) #1-5 and Daredevil #110-112, spanning cover-dates December 1972 through August 1974, this sequel compilation volume begins with reminiscences from Mike Friedrich and Carole Petersen-Sueling in two separate (but equal) Introductions.

Previously, Ka-Zar & Zabu’s idyllically brutal lives hunting dinosaurs and battling aliens, gods, wizards and lost civilisations in the Savage Land had been turned on its head with the arrival of apparently irresistible S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Barbra “Bobbi” Morse (who becomes costumed spy/Avenger Mockingbird many years from now) and aging biologist Dr. Wilma Calvin. Their quest for a Super-soldier formula dragged the wild man across continents to Florida and into conflict with Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), the Man-Thing, super-mercenary Gemini and, on reaching New York City, drug lord dope peddler The Pusher…

Increasingly enamoured of Morse, Ka-Zar opts to give the modern world another go, but increasingly comes to despise the greed, the dirt, the greed, the callous brutality and the sheer greed of civilisation, especially after encountering the drug crisis first hand…

Culture clash conflict resumes with ‘Target: Ka-Zar!’ as crafted by Friedrich, Dan Adkins & Frank Chiaramonte for April 1973’s Astonishing Tales #17. Here, the Jungle Lord’s impatience and discontent are magnified when AIM again tries to snatch Calvin’s prototype serum, employing gunmen on the ground and ultimately super-mercenary Gemini to humiliatingly grab the formula from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s helicarrier and making Ka-Zar and Zabu look like idiots in the process…

Pride stung and mad as hell, the wild man follows Gemini to earth and falls into an ambush laid by his brother Parnival and backed up by his pet alien monster. Hired by AIM to secure the serum the Plunderer has the upper hand when ‘Gog Cometh!’ since the childlike colossus is lethally loyal and can teleport on command. He/it is also growing larger every minute…

The saga spirals out of control as Ka-Zar wins a rematch with Gemini but loses the serum sample to The Plunderer who heads for Manhattan whilst in Land’s End, England, another strand of the search for super-soldiers culminates with AIM scientist Professor Victor Conrad surviving a gun battle with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents by taking his own medicine…

Back in the USA, late-arriving Bobbi Morse and Zabu give the blonde barbarian a lift to Manhattan in time to channel the end of King Kong, as the ever-enlarging Gog runs amok with the local landmarks before confronting its destiny on top of the city’s tallest building, even as, far below, the strictly human clashes result in triumph for the forces of right and wonders of chemistry…

With the serum recovered and his honour upheld, the Noble Savage realises that – other than Bobbi – there is nothing about civilisation that please him, but as he ponders that and pines for the Savage Land, one last loose thread needs tying off as a new threat seizes control of AIM and seeks redress for past sins. Inked by Jack Abel, and with Jim Starlin stepping in to complete the episode begun by Adkins, AT #19 reveals ‘…And Men Shall Name Him… Victorius!’ as Conrad abducts agent Morse to obtain S.H.I.E.L.D.’s version of the formula that made him an unstoppable warrior. When Ka-Zar & Zabu track him down he rejects taking the serum himself and attacks the scientist, Gemini and brother Parnival in all his purely human might and main…

Marie Severin, Werner Roth & Frank Giacoia wrap up the run as Astonishing Tales # 20 (October 1973) depicts ‘The Final Battle!’ before Ka-Zar returns to his (un)natural environment and a new solo title, pausing only to crush his assembled foes turn down a job with Nick Fury and briefly regret losing Bobbi to the Big City….

Before that new beginning though, there’s a slight chronological sidestep to introduce a soon-to-be-crucial character who came and went with little fanfare a few months previously. As the costumed cohort craze subsided with the close of the Sixties, Stan Lee & Roy Thomas looked into creating a girl-friendly boutique of female stars written by women.

Opening shots in this act of liberation were Claws of the Cat by Linda Fite, Marie Severin & Wally Wood (who at least knew how to draw them) and Night Nurse by Jean Thomas & Win Mortimer. Both #1’s were cover-dated November 1972 and despite impressive creative teams none of these fascinating experiments lasted beyond a fifth issue, although a third shot was kept from limbo by some judicious teamwork. The caregiver vanished for decades and the feline fury mutated into Tigra, the Were-Woman in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974), and even though their experimental comrade stuck around, the general editorial position was upheld… “books starring chicks don’t sell…”

Contemporary jungle queen – possibly the last hurrah of an extremely popular genre subset in Fifties comic books – Shanna the She-Devil #1 was created by Carole Seuling, Steve Gerber & George Tuska, and on sale from 29th August with a December 1972 cover date.

Inked by Vince Colletta, Shanna the She-Devil #1 debuted in a touching and troubled tale, detailing how the gun-hating daughter of Africa-based American game warden Gerald O’Hara became a vet in Manhattan. Wrapped in a contemporary framing sequence, ‘Shanna the She-Devil!’ recalls her origin whilst stalking ruthless poachers ravaging a game preserve in modern-day Africa.

The clash and her capture prompt memories of how, decades previously, she had fled that verdant world of casual slaughter to save lives… and how a moment of casual atrocity by “fun-loving” American gun nuts in the zoo where she worked led to the death of all its big cats bar two panther cubs she saved and fled to Africa with…

Recreating herself as guardian of nature, rearing the kittens Ina & Biri and training her body to the peak of physical readiness and unarmed combat prowess, Shanna O’Hara became a legend to the local peoples, a trusted and valuable ally to game warden Patrick McShane and a nemesis to all interlopers endangering the balance of nature or disrupting its uncompromising harmony…

Two months later Sueling, Ross Andru & Colletta exposed ‘The Sahara Connection!’ as Shanna acquiesces to the desperate requests of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jakuna Singh and uses her gifts and cats to crush drug-peddling human traffickers El Montano and Abdullah after which ‘The Moon of the Fear-Bulls!’ finds her fighting the murderous thralls of a lost Minoan colony sacrificing entire African villages to their lost gods and current chief Phobotauros: a maniac with an unsavoury secret…

Gerber scripted Seuling’s plot for #4 as ‘Cry… Mandrill!’ introduced one of Marvel’s wildest mutants. Searching for her vanished father, Shanna inadvertently unravels a conquest plot to subjugate three emerging African nations by the ape-visaged maniac with the power to control women – except apparently Shanna… usurped and captured, Mandrill scores one minor victory by admitting Gerald O’Hara is his hostage…

The series abruptly folded with #5 cover-dated August 1973, but as we’ll see here later, the She-Devil carried on via judicious team-ups and eventually scored a continuance of solo sagas in matured-themed monochrome magazine Savage Tales.

Here and now, Gerber, Andru & Colletta reveal ‘Where Nekra Walks – Death Must Follow!’ as Jakuna Singh, S.H.I.E.L.D. and FBI agent Amos Duncan request Shanna’s participation in dismantling the still-active organisation of Mandrill’s enthralled women: a task necessitating a quick consult with mutant advisor Professor Charles Xavier…

The trail then leads to barbarous ceremonies held by the villain’s top subordinate, a brutal superstrong mutant who stokes hatred to feed on the emotion and augment her powers. Directing all her loathing at Shanna makes Nekra physically unbeatable, but being angry all the time is no help if your opponent can stay calm and clear-headed…

Cover dated January 1974, Ka-Zar #1, (volume 2, and on sale from September 25th 1973) boasted the adventurer’s ‘Return to the Savage Land!’, courtesy of Friedrich, Paul Reinman & Mike Royer, and teasingly saw Shanna in a cameo as the victim du jour.

Being parachuted in by S.H.I.E.L.D. was the last modern convenience Kevin Plunder would stomach. Within minutes he was back battling behemoths in his furry underwear and announcing his return to all the primitive tribes, but Ka-Zar was blithely unaware that a new menace lurked. Evil necromancer Malgato, the Red Wizard sought power and control and used the Jungle Lord’s most despised enemy Maa-Gor the Man-Ape to carry out his schemes. These almost come together after a brief history of Ka-Zar’s kingdom, when a pteranosaur ambush leads to our stalwart hero being held for sacrifice beside a strikingly beautiful red-headed woman in a leopard-skin bikini…

Don Heck & Jack Abel limned the catastrophic conclusion and ‘The Fall of the Red Wizard!’ as faithful Zabu comes to the rescue, unleashing utter chaos, routing the wizard and latterly proving the mage and his mission were never what they seemed…

Issue #3 played out on the ‘Night of the Man-God!’ as Maa-Gor, humiliated again by the puny human, undertakes a trek to the mutagenic Region of Mists and gets boosted far up the evolutionary ladder. Transformed into a telepathic wonder, he still clings to his hatred of Ka-Zar and psychically connects to old X-Men villain El Tigre, drawing him to the Savage Land to trap his foe. The ambush succeeds, but only until Bobbi Morse shows up intent on settling unresolved issues. Battling the villains and stopping Man-God’s plans to despoil the wild sanctuary is a welcome break for both unhappy lovers but the battle carries over into #4, albeit broken here by a fabulous maps section entitled ‘Ka-Zar Presents The Savage Land’…

Plotted by “Bullpen West”, written by Friedrich and illustrated by Heck & Royer, ‘Into the Shadows of Chaos!’ sees Ka-Zar and all his allies crushed as the Man-God broadcasts global threats of extinction, before distracting himself by resurrecting his dead Man-Ape kin to destroy his most despised foe. The issue concludes with a Royer pin-up of ‘Ka-Zar’s Lair!’ before Mike Esposito inks the epic downfall of the monster in #5’s ‘A Man-God Unleashed!’ wherein a desperate Jungle monarch – and Bobbi – trash the anthropoidal zombies and Maa-Gor falls victim to his own doubts…

Ka-Zar would soon experience a complete change of outlook and genre, but the saga of Shanna and Mandrill carried on in series scripted by Gerber. Here, an excerpt from Daredevil #109 and longer extract from Marvel Two-in-One #3, bring DD, Black Widow, The Thing and, briefly, Captain America into the ongoing war with a sinister terrorist group…

In DD #109 (by Gerber, Bob Brown & Heck), Foggy Nelson’s radical student sister Candace tells Matt Murdock of a plot by criminal gang Black Spectre to steal government printing plates. En route to stop the raid the Scarlet Swashbuckler is intercepted by The Beetle and this brutal interference allows the sinister plotters to abscond with the prize. Even as the exoskeleton-clad thugs break away in Manhattan, in San Francisco Natasha Romanova is attacked by Nekra, Priestess of Darkness, who tries to forcibly recruit her into Black Spectre.

After defeating the Beetle, DD meets Africa-based champion Shanna O’Hara, unaware the fiery American ex-pat is seeking bloody vengeance against enemies who have attacked Foggy, Natasha and the US economy… and murdered her father…

Marvel Two-in-One #3 (Gerber, Sal Buscema & Joe Sinnott) peeped ‘Inside Black Spectre!’ as destabilising attacks on prosperity and culture foment riot in the streets of the beleaguered nation. Following separate clue trails, Ben Grimm joins the Man Without Fear to invade the cabal’s aerial HQ, before they are improbably overcome soon after discovering the Black Widow has defected to the rebels…

Reprinted in full, DD #110 (Gerber, Gene Colan & Frank Chiaramonte) sees perfidious plot ‘Birthright!’ expose Black Spectre as an exclusively female-staffed group, personally led by pheromone-emitting male mutant Jerome Beechman AKA Mandrill. One of the earliest “Children of the Atom”, he endured years of appalling abuse and rejection until he met equally ostracised Nekra. Once they realised their combined power, they swore to make America pay…

Brown & Jim Mooney drew ‘Sword of the Samurai!’ in #111, with DD & Shanna attacked by a formidable Japanese warrior, even as the She-Devil discloses her tragic reasons for hunting Nekra and Mandrill. When she too is taken by Black Spectre – who want to dissect her to discover how she can resist Mandrill’s influence – DD is attacked again by an outrageously powerful sword-wielding Silver Samurai…

Triumphing over impossible odds, the Man Without Fear infiltrates the cabal’s flying fortress in #112 to spectacularly conclude the insurrection in ‘Death of a Nation?’ (Colan & Frank Giacoia), which finds the mutant duo seemingly achieving their ultimate goal by desecrating the White House and temporarily taking (symbolic) control of America… But only until Shanna, freshly-liberated Natasha and the fighting mad Man Without Fear marshal their utmost resources…

With covers throughout by Adkins, John Romita, John Buscema, Gil Kane, Frank Brunner, Frank Giacoia, Jim Steranko, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson and Colan, this remarkably collegiate collection concludes with tantalising treats including house ads, cover sketches by Romita, original art by Brunner, Heck, Abel and Royer plus a truly copious creator biographies section…

Boldly bombastic if sometimes madly muddled, brilliantly escapist and crafted by some of the biggest and best in comics, these wild rides and riotous romps are timeless fun from the borderlands of Marvel’s endless universe: a fabulous excursion to forgotten worlds you’ll want to treasure forever…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fantastic Four: Behold… Galactus! (Marvel Select Edition)


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott; Lee, John Buscema & Sinnott; and John Byrne & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1887-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

With today’s World Premier of the latest cinematic interpretation of the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” (Phew!!), here’s a cool collected assemblage of the stuff we comics geeks tuned into seven decades ago – and with sequels! – to prove that it’s never too late to catch up to the really good stuff…

Cautiously bi-monthly, cover-dated November 1961, and hiding timidly amidst the company’s standard monster ‘n’ aliens fare, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, George Klein & Christopher Rule – was crude and rough-hewn, but concealed on its pages a revolution of raw passion and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry readers pounced on it and the raw storytelling caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and the succeeding issues changed comic books forever.

In eight short years FF became the indisputable core and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding ridiculously enthralling web of creation, bombarding readers with ceaseless salvos of fresh concepts and new characters. Kirby was in his conceptual prime, unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot. Clearly inspired, Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas that Marvel – or any publisher – had or has ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their creative powers, and full of the confidence only success brings. The King was particularly eager to see how far the genre and medium could be pushed. A forge of stunning creativity and endless excitement, Fantastic Four was the proving ground for dozens of future stars and mesmerising concepts, none more timely or apt than freewheeling cosmic wanderer and moral barometer The Silver Surfer.

Collecting every cosmic crumb of pertinent material from Fantastic Four #48-50, 120-123, and #242-244, this compendium reprints a trilogy of landmark sagas of a morally ambiguous Stellar Sentinel, his globe-gobbling master and the greatest Explorers in Humanity’s history, spanning March 1966 to July 1982. The epic opens with elucidation as Ralph Macchio offers background and appreciation in his Introduction to one the greatest comics sagas ever made prior to the tale again being told…

Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s Galactus Trilogy, Kirby’s scintillating creation quickly became a watchword for depth and subtext in Marvel’s Universe, one Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years to come. The debut was a creative highlight from a period where the Lee/Kirby partnership was utterly on fire. The tale is all power and epic grandeur and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment, so you should really read it in all its glory.

Here, without further preamble, the wonderment commences with ideas just exploding from The King. Despite being only halfway through one storyline, FF #48 trumpeted ‘The Coming of Galactus!’ with the Inhumans’ saga swiftly but satisfyingly wrapped up (by page 6!) as the entire clandestine race were sealed behind an impenetrable dome called the Negative Zone (later retitled Negative Barrier to avoid confusion with the subspace gateway Reed worked on for years). Meanwhile, a cosmic entity approaches Earth, preceded by a gleaming herald on a board of pure cosmic energy…

I suspect this experimental – and vaguely uncomfortable – approach to narrative mechanics was calculated and deliberate, mirroring how TV soap operas increasingly delivered their interwoven, overlapped storylines, and used here as a means to keep readers glued to the series. They needn’t have bothered. The stories and concepts were more than enough…

‘If this be Doomsday!’ sees planet-eating Galactus setting up shop on top of the Baxter Building despite the FF’s best efforts, whilst his coldly gleaming herald has his humanity accidentally rekindled by simply conversing with The Thing’s blind girlfriend Alicia Masters. Issue #50’s ‘The Startling Saga of the Silver Surfer!’ climaxes the epic in grand manner as the Surfer’s reawakened ethical core and FF’s sheer heroism buy enough time for supergenius leader Reed Richards – Mister Fantastic – to literally save the world with a boldly-borrowed Deus ex Machina gadget…

Once again, the tale ends in the middle of the issue, with the remaining half concentrating on the team getting back to “normal”. To that extent, Human Torch Johnny Storm finally enrols at Metro College, desperate to forget Inhuman lost love Crystal and his unnerving jaunts to the ends of the universe. On his first day, the lad meets imposing and enigmatic Native American Wyatt Wingfoot, who is destined to become his greatest friend…

Jumping to 1972 long after Kirby had moved to DC to create his New Gods saga, revamp Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen and create new wonders such as Kamandi and The Demon, the Fantastic Four had carried on under Lee and a succession of more traditional illustrators. The Surfer had briefly enjoyed his own critically acclaimed but financially unhealthy title and been relegated to guest star status, especially if allegorical metaphors were required…

Joined by inker Joe Sinnott, Fantastic Four #120-123 (cover-dated March-June of that year) rather overplayed the biblical allusions for a blockbuster 4-parter. The ‘The Horror that Walks on Air!’ heralded the bellicose arrival of a seemingly omnipotent invader claiming to be an angel sent to scour and scourge Earth. Utterly unstoppable, this he does before revealing himself as the new herald of Galactus and declaring humanity doomed.

The tale vividly yet laboriously continues in ‘The Mysterious Mind-Blowing Secret of Gabriel!’ with the recently divided but now reunited quartet utterly overmatched in their resistance and only saved by the late-arriving Silver Surfer, before facing off against world-devouring ‘Galactus Unleashed’, who rampages like Godzilla through the city’s streets before an unexpected end comes and humanity survives another day thanks to Reed Richards who again outsmarts the cosmic god and prevents the consumption of ‘This World Enslaved!’

A lot can happen – and did – in ten years, and the last story here (from #242-244, May-July 1982) is another spectacular and rather revolutionary epic, as crafted by John Byrne soon after he took total creative control of the Quirky Quartet.

‘Terrax Untamed’ sees the team and Johnny’s new girlfriend Frankie Raye (who has fire powers mimicking his own) attacked by Galactus’ most recent herald – someone who quite justifiably bears them a grudge as the FF formerly dethroned him from the world he had conquered before handing him over to the Planet Devourer to use as his cosmic food-finder. Now, still possessing the “Power Cosmic” all heralds share, Terrax hits Earth like an extinction event and, after causing immense destruction across the city, uproots and maroons Manhattan Island 100 miles above the rest of the planet…

Terrax’s demand is simple and clear cut. Galactus is currently starving and depleted, so unless the FF kill him, the fugitive tyrant will drop the most populated rock on Earth with catastrophic effect…

The crisis takes a crazy turn next as the reluctant assault leads to the defeat and downfall of Terrax instead of Galactus and a surprise restoration of New York. Events evolve and go bad quickly however as the cosmic consumer runs out of power and seeks to refuel by eating the world to save himself. The question ‘Shall Earth Endure?’ is shockingly answered when an army of superheroes topple Galactus and watch aghast as the space god begins to expire…

They are even more astounded when Richards and Captain America successfully argue that they must all save his life and allow him to continue predating planets – if not necessarily civilisations – leading to triumph and, for Johnny, more tragedy in ‘Beginnings and Endings’ and a raft of star-borne consequences to come…

A perfect primer for beginners and welcome reminder for the faithful, this bombastic breviary comes equipped with plenty of art extras including cover reproductions for 1972 reprint title Marvel’s Greatest Comics #33-37 by John & Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia & Sinnott; back over art from Essential Fantastic Four vol. 3 (2007 by Kirby & Ian Hannin) and Essential Fantastic Four vol. 6 (2007 by John B & Hannin); composite cover art for 2002’s Wizard Ace Edition: Fantastic Four #48 (Mike Wieringo, Karl Kesel, Paul Mounts); the wraparound cover for 1992’s Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus! (Ron Lim, Dan Panosian & Mounts); Kirby & Dean White’s painted cover based on FF #49 (from Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four vol. 5) and José Ladrönn’s cover for The Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 2 HC (2007).

Completing the iconic art odyssey are the covers from Marvel Treasury Editions #21 by Bobs Budiansky & McLeod and Byrne’s cover for 1989’s Fantastic Four: The Trial of Galactus TPB.

Epic, revolutionary and unutterably unmissable, these stories made Marvel the unassailable leaders in fantasy entertainment and remain some of the most important superhero comics ever crafted. The verve, conceptual scope and sheer enthusiasm shines through on every page and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is the perfect key to another – far brighter – world and time.
© 2019 MARVEL. All rights reserved.

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Silver Surfer: Parable


By Stan Lee & Möebius; with Keith Pollard & Tom DeFalco, Josef Rubinstein, José Marzan, Chris Ivy, Paul Mounts, Michael Heisler & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6209-4 (HB) 978-0-7851-0656-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel’s cinematic arm tries once again to get it right with their founding concept and by extension ultimate allegory of God and Jesus, you can safely anticipate revisiting a selection of fabulous FF and associated material as well as new collections all culled from their prodigious paginated days…

The most eclectic and enigmatic of comic book cult figures, the Silver Surfer’s saga began with the deservedly lauded and legendary introductory story. Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Lee’s plot for Fantastic Four #48-50’s Galactus Trilogy, Jack Kirby’s gleaming god-adjacent creation became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe, and one Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Sent to find planets for star god Galactus to consume, the Silver Surfer discovers Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakens his own suppressed morality. He then rebels against his master, helping the FF save the world. As punishment, Galactus exiles the star-soaring Surfer to Earth, the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice.

The Galactus Saga was a creative highlight in a period where the Kirby/Lee partnership was utterly on fire: an adventure with all the power and grandeur of a true epic and one which has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment.

That one’s not here, but it can be found in many, many other compilations. Sorry.

In 1988-1989, ‘Parable’ was released as an Epic Comics micro-series. It featured an all-new interpretation of Galactus’ initial assault on our backwards world, illustrated by legendary French artist Jean Giraud/Möebius. As with the 1978 Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster Silver Surfer by Lee & Kirby, the story was removed from general Marvel continuity, allowing a focus on the unique philosophical nature of the Surfer and his ravenous master without the added distraction of hundreds of superheroes disrupting the flow.

It’s a beautiful piece of work and another one you really should read.

Basically, when Galactus reaches Earth in search of his absconded servant and herald – a spectacular exercise in scale and visual wonder – the Silver Surfer is hiding amongst us: a vagrant living on the streets and well aware of humanity’s many failings. However, when the star-god arrives and demands (like a huge cosmic TACO-PotUS) that everyone bows down and worships him, the solitary nomad is forced to confront his creator for the sake of beings who despise him.

Driven to extreme actions by his intimate knowledge of earthlings good and bad, the Surfer instigates a conceptual and spiritual fightback which soon devolves into blistering battle against his maker. With the sky literally falling, soon the tempted and terrified world rallies as Norrin Radd exposes the cosmic blowhard as a petty opportunist and inspires humanity to reject what seems like another deal too good to be true…

Isn’t it odd how fiction so often anticipates fact?

Tacked onto the ethereal, unmissable episode – one far more in tune with Möebius’ beliefs and interests than Stan’s – is an early Marvel Graphic Novel of the regulation Marvel Universe. The Enslavers is a rather self-indulgent but oddly entertaining slice of intergalactic eye-candy featuring the legendary icon of the counter-culture generation, and once again it depicts the ex-herald of planet-devourer Galactus as a tragic saviour and Christ metaphor. Now, though, it’s not our troubled humanity but the overwhelming power of slavers from space that threatens, and there’s a lot less breast-beating and soul-searching and far more cosmic action.

The story by Stan Lee (and Keith Pollard) has a rather odd genesis. Commissioned in the early 1980s by Jim Shooter, Lee’s original plot was apparently much transformed in the eight years it took to draw. By the time it was dialogued, it was a far different beast and Lee almost jokingly disowns it in his Afterword. Nevertheless, there’s lots to enjoy for fans who don’t expect too much in this tale of love and death in the great beyond. It’s inked by Josef Rubinstein, José Marzan & Chris Ivy, coloured by Paul Mounts and lettered by Michael Heisler.

Here, after a frantic rush through cosmic gulfs, Silver Surfer Norrin Radd crashes into the home of Reed & Sue Richards, just ahead of the colossal invasion craft of monstrous Mrrungo-Mu, who has been drawn to our world by the well-intentioned but naive Nasa probe Voyager III. Norrin’s homeworld Zenn-La has already been depopulated by the pitiless space slaver and Earth is next…

Moving swiftly, and exploiting the good intentions of an Earth scientist, the Enslavers incapacitate all our world’s superbeings and prepare to enjoy their latest conquest, but they have not accounted for the vengeful resistance of the Surfer or the debilitating power of the love Mrrungo-Mu is himself slave to: for the unconquerable alien warlord is weak and helpless before the haughty aloofness and emotional distance of his supposed chattel Tnneya…

Despite being – in far too many places – dafter than a bag of photonic space-weasels jonesing for disco lights, there’s still an obvious love of old, classic Marvel tales delivered at an enthusiastic pace informing these beautifully drawn pages, and the action sequences are a joy to behold. If you love cosmic adventure and can swallow a lot of silliness, this might just be worth a little of your time and money.

Altogether a very strange marriage, this is a compelling tome spanning the vast divide of comics from the ethereal and worthy to the exuberant and fun: a proper twofer you can get your teeth into…
© 1988, 1989, 1990, 2012 Marvel Entertainment Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Moon Knight Epic Collection volume 2: Shadows of the Moon


By Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, with Jack C. Harris, Alan Zelenetz, Denys Cowan, Vicente Alcazar, Jimmy Janes, Greg LaRoque, Klaus Janson, Frank Giacoia, Steve Mitchell, Josef Rubinstein, Armando Gil, John Tartaglione, Bob Camp, Dave Simons, Joe Albelo & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3368-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Moon Knight is probably the most complex and convoluted hero(es) in comics. There’s also a lot of eminently readable strip evidence to support the contention that he’s a certifiable loon. The mercurial champion first appeared during the mid-1970s horror boom: a mercenary Batman knockoff hired by corporate villains to capture a monster. Sparking reader attention, the mercenary spun off into a brace of solo trial issues in Marvel Spotlight and welter of guest shots before securing an exceedingly sophisticated back-up slot in the TV-show-inspired Hulk Magazine and inevitably graduating to the first of many solo series. His origin eventually revealed how multiple-personality-suffering CIA spook-turned-mercenary Marc Spector was murdered by his employer and apparently resurrected by an entombed Egyptian god…

This second colossal compilation re-presents Moon Knight #5-23, transecting March 1981 through September 1982: a period of vast change and experimentation in comics that saw the Lunar Avenger notionally hived off from the greater Marvel Universe to experience far more mature storytelling, via the suddenly blooming Direct Sales comics marketplace…

The saga had begun in Werewolf by Night #32 (August 1975): a fresh strand in an extended plot thread wherein lycanthrope Jack Russell and his sister Lyssa were targets of criminal capitalists the Corporation. The plutocratic cabal believed that by terrorising the public, they could induce them to spend more and sought for months to add werewolves to their army of monsters. Thus Doug Moench & Don Perlin (with assistance from little Howie Perlin) introduced Spector: a rough-&-ready modern warrior hired by plutocratic plunderers and equipped with a silver-armoured costume and weapons to capture Russell or his animal other as ‘…The Stalker Called Moon Knight’. The bombastic battle and its ferocious sequel received an unprecedented response, rapidly rocketing the lunar avenger to prominence as Marvel’s edgy answer to Batman. Within a year the spectral sentinel had returned for a two-part solo mission that fleshed out his characters (yes, plural!) and hinted at a hidden history behind the simple hireling façade (Marvel Spotlight #28-29.

The back-written yarn proved the mercenary to be a well-established clandestine crimebuster with vast financial resources, a dedicated team of assistants including old comrade/pilot “Frenchie” and liaison/lover Marlene Alraune, in-the-know Grant Mansion domestics Nedda & Samuels, plus a wide-ranging network of street informants, a mansion/secret HQ, a ton of cool gadgets… and at least four separate identities. This latter aspect would inform Moon Knight’s entire career as various creators explored where playacting ended and Multiple Personality Disorder – if not outright supernatural possession – began. Thanks to his brush with the werewolf, the vigilante had also gained a partial superpower. As the moon waxed and waned, his physical strength, speed, stamina and resilience also doubled and diminished.

Firstly, however, billionaire Steven Grant, New York cabbie/information gatherer Jake Lockley, repentant gun-for-hire Marc Spector and the mysterious Moon Knight adapted to the lives of an urban vigilante even if occasionally his pasts – especially Spector’s former CIA career and exploits in espionage and terrorism-for-hire – often encroached on his chosen path of redemption. Groundswell took hold and the Moon Knight guested in Defenders #47-#51, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #22-23 & Marvel Two-In-One #52 before landing a back-up slot in adult-adjacent Hulk Magazine #11 (October 1978). The residency and more mature tales led to the advent of artistic debutante Bill Sienkiewicz from #13 (February 1979) and a certain syzygy gelled. The run ended in Hulk Magazine #20 (April 1980) and was followed by monochrome magazine Marvel Preview (#21, Spring 1980), before that chapter in the character’s life apparently closed, leading to the far more complex and conflicted career of a man seeking atonement as the November cover-dated premier solo title exposed the secrets of The Macabre Moon Knight…

Moench & Sienkiewicz were allowed leeway to experiment with the format of lone avengers and revealed how world-weary, burned-out mercenary Spector was working for murderous marauder Raul Bushman but reclaimed his moral compass after his ruthless boss murdered archaeologist Peter Alraune for the contents of a recently excavated Sudanese tomb. His daughter Marlene escaped, as did equally disgusted comrade Frenchie, but when Spector attempted to stop Bushman executing witnesses he was beaten and left to die in the desert.

Dying by degrees, Spector crawled for miles and died just as he entered the tomb of Pharoah Seti, where Marlene and her workers were hiding. Dumped at the feet of a statue of Khonshu – ancient god of the Moon, Guardian of Night’s Travellers and Taker of Vengeance – he inexplicably revived. Clearly deranged, he draped the statue’s white mantle around himself, before going out into the night. By dawn, Bushman’s band are dead and the monster fled…

Skipping forward and hinting at an eventful road to his life as a multi-identity superhero, the origin ended with a fateful showdown with the returned Bushman in his New York lair…

In short order, gritty, edgy but (barely) mainstream stories focused on MK’s pitiful homeless informant Crawley targeted by a bloody butcher hunting bums and indigents, introduced first returning villain/nemesis Anton Mogart/The Midnight Man, and saw the Lunar Avenger stalked by a quintet of specialist assassins.

Without pausing for breath Moench, Sienkiewicz & Klaus Janson open proceedings in this second collection by exploring and spoofing teen horror movies, adopting changing cultural cues of the new era. Here the team barely survive a ‘Ghost Story’ (MK #5 March 1981) after tracking trigger-happy bandits to a notorious murder house in upstate New York. The Reddich place boasts horrific historical murders and attracts attention from bravado-drenched kids and ghost chasers but also masks a hidden history of family madness and ongoing mayhem. Add a hunt for long-lost buried loot and a determined guy draped in a white sheet and terrifying revelations – and an increased body count – are the end result…

One month later, Steven Grant gifts Moon Knight’s intelligence gathering unit – Crawley, diner owner Gena Landers, her teen sons Ricky & Ray and cabbie Jake Lockley – with a Caribbean vacation just in case Marc Spector needs help investigating a voodoo-themed crime wave on the isle of St. Lucien. Spector had been requested to crush the Zuvembie ‘White Angels’ by an old war buddy, but soon exposes a drugs and human trafficking scheme by a local plantation owner…

America’s “War on Drugs” also informed MK #7, as Moench, Sienkiewicz & Janson detail how ruthless miscreants poison Chicago’s water supply with hallucinogens and turn the conurbation into a howling homicidal madhouse. Moon Knight & Co are in town and are just as drenched and deranged by the time ‘The Moon Kings’ ends on a cliffhanger, and following a brief gallery of original art from the preceding stories, spectacularly concludes with Frank Giacoia inking ‘Night of the Wolves’ with the still impaired heroes foiling a cruel blackmail plot and last-ditch chemical revenge strike

Moon Knight #9 sees Sienkiewicz inking himself for ‘Vengeance in Reprise’ as Bushman breaks out of jail just as Anton Mogart steals the statue of Khonshu from Steven Grant’s mansion. Sadly, the artefact is all that stabilises Moon Knight’s splintered personalities and as he tracks down and defeats both his despised foes, ‘Too Many Midnights’ (#10) sees the statue lost and the hero fractured. Happily, Marlene has a solution and the lunar guardian is back in #11 ‘To Catch a Killer’ rampaging through the New Orleans Mardi Gras. The team are there in pursuit of coke dealer Cajun Creed, but Frenchie is dangerously distracted by the unexpected return and sudden murder of his old flame Isabelle Kristel…

A ghastly new foe debuts in #12 as Marlene’s brother Dr. Peter Alraune Jr. endures ‘The Nightmare of Morpheus’. Administered experimental drugs that hideously mutated him and gave him energy-warping powers by the sleep disorder specialist, patient Robert Markam tirelessly tracks Alraune seeking revenge but thankfully Moon Knight is able to put him out, after which a notionally similar ally appeared…

Despite his early career being packed with guest shots, the solo spooky star Moon Knight was a difficult fixture for many Marvel heroes but a somewhat sympatico headset could be seen in Frank Miller’s Daredevil. Thus MK #13 offered ‘The Cream of the Jest’ as the fresh out on parole master of media manipulation unites with former Moon Knight foe Ace Taggert to achieve mutual revenge on their most hated enemies. Sadly, as both heroes monitor the malefactors, differences in style and approach lead to a clash of policy and methods… and then just a clash…

Moench & Sienkiewicz were continually experimenting and reaching a creative peak, and #14’s ‘Stained Glass Scarlet’ (cover-dated December 1981) was a milestone that polarised fans. A classic tragedy, delving deep into dysfunctional families, it saw a mysterious woman in red occupying an abandoned church until her solitude is shattered by Moon Knight’s pursuit of psychotic prison fugitive Joe “Mad Dog” Fasinera. The killer was looking for loot hidden by his equally murderous father, but found his cloaked foe, his mother Scarlett and his just deserts…

Released on October 6th 1981 but cover-dated January 1982, Moon Knight #15 heralded longer even more mature stories as Marvel dropped the ad content and hived off the title from standard newsstand distribution, making it available only through subscription or specialist comic book stores. To prove this was a far harder hero now Moench & Sienkiewicz’s ‘Ruling the World from His Basement’ featured an assassination campaign against foreign dignitaries perpetrated by a crazed white supremacist spouting Nazi ideology. He was also a trusted member of the community and associate of Moon Knight.

And Rats.

Racist killer Xenos employed rodents in a most disquieting manner, so be warned…

The big evolution was marked and celebrated in an illustrated essay by Moench with ‘Shades of Moon Knight’ precising the character(s) of the lone hero and recapitulating on his techniques, methodology and associates.

‘Shadows of the Moon’ by Jack C. Harris & Denys Cowan, inked by Steve Mitchell, Josef Rubinstein & Janson led in MK #16 as a cop who despises vigilantes like Moon Knight is murdered, and his son begs the masked hero to help. with a guest cameo by Ben The Thing Grimm, Spector’s efforts to expose corrupt industrialist Alexander Latimer, lead to brutal battle with philosopher/assassin Blacksmith and barely thwarted nuclear annihilation before justice is served.

The main event was supplemented by ‘Seekers of Stone’, first tale of new feature Spector: Mercenary – The Man Who Will Be Moon Knight with Harris, Jimmy Janes & Armando Gil revealing how the mercenary dealt with a double-crossing Nazi war criminal who hired him to “recover” a mystic trinket…

With Steve Mitchell inking, Moench & Sienkiewicz return with ‘Master Sniper’s Legacy!’ as an extended epic opened to find Spector contacted by old friend Benjamin Abramov. The Israeli agent needs his help to destroy terrorist Nimrod Strange and his fanatical Third World Slayers cult but is gunned down by Strange’s emissary the Master Sniper whilst talking to Spector and Marlene. Once the killer has been dealt with, Spector vows to destroy the Third World Army at any cost…

Moench, Cowan & Rubinstein’s far lighter ancillary tale sees the young(er) Spector south of the border, raiding tombs and learning the folly of indulging in ‘The Worship of False Idols’ before MK #18 resumes the war as Spector deals with ‘The Slayers Elite’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell) sent to make an example of Abramov’s widow, before “Allen” Zelenetz reminds us of earlier team-ups in ‘The Many Phases of Moon Knight’ text feature which neatly segues into #19’s ‘Assault on Island Strange’ by Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell. As Moon Knight punishes operations by the Third World Slayers, Marlene goes undercover as the top terrorist’s bodyguard. Much too close to Nimrod Strange for comfort, her compromises to survive outrage Moon Knight who takes out his aggression on the maniac’s home base. However, his righteous fury is not enough to stop Strange giving himself a lethal munitions upgrade, renaming himself Arsenal and setting off to attack New York with Marlene still beside him…

The saga explosively concludes in #20’s ‘Cut Adrift off the Coast of America’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Mitchell) as Arsenal discovers the viper in his deranged bosom and attempts to turn Manhattan Island into a super-colossal bonfire with stolen oil tankers only to finally fail thanks to Moon Knight and a really, really angry Marlene…

Sudden change of pace ‘The Master of Night Earth!’ (Moench, Vicente Alcazar, John Tartaglione & Bob Camp in MK #21 sees the world-weary warrior of shadow encounter genuine supernatural forces after joining Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo to foil insurrection and revolution in Haiti, backed up by new bonus feature Tales of Khonshu, wherein Zelenetz, Greg LaRoque & Dave Simons expose ‘Murder by Moonlight’ as a fleeing murderer encounters a museum statue of the lunar god of vengeance and experiences something… uncanny…

Now possessing mind control and illusion-casting powers, maddened angry sleep-deprived Morpheus returns to wreak final vengeance on his tormentor in Moench & Sienkiewicz’s ‘The Dream Demon’ – and so very nearly succeeds before concluding episode ‘Perchance to Scream’ sees further escalating carnage lead to an ultimate sacrifice that seemingly ends Morpheus’ depredations forever…

Dividing those momentous events, Zelenetz, LaRoque & Joe Albelo lighten the mood with WWII titbit ‘Moon Over Alamein’ as British Eighth Army troops take shelter in a certain tomb, and resist every temptation to rob or defile it. Is that perhaps why a spectral apparition later escorts them safely through deadly mine fields? Only Khonshu knows for sure…

With covers by Sienkiewicz, Earl Norem, Frank Miller, Al Milgrom, Ron Wilson & Dave Simons, Steve Mitchell and Joe Jusko, this collection of groundbreaking and innovative tales and on-fire creators finding new envelopes to push wraps up with a House ad for Scarlet in Moonlight, 1981’s Moon Knight portfolio by Sienkiewicz, offering 4 pencil plates and letter page art from #6, 9, 21, 23. There are also  unused covers for #9, 12 &13 and 11 pages of original art/covers (including a painting) all by LaRoque, Sienkiewicz, Cowan & Rubinstein.

Moody, dark, thematically off-kilter and savagely entertaining this second volume sees the “Batman knock-off” fully evolve into a unique example of the line between hero and villain and sinner and saint, all wrapped up in pure electric entertainment for testosterone junkies and suspense lovers.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Daredevil Marvel Masterworks volume 16


By Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, Mike W. Barr, Roger McKenzie, Terry Austin, Paul Smith, Denys Cowan, Fred Hembeck, Paul Gulacy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3316-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Matt Murdock is a lawyer obsessed with saving the innocent. Thanks to a childhood nuclear accident he lost his sight but later discovered his remaining senses were hyper-stimulated to a miraculous degree, allowing him to become an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. He also developed a kind of biological radar giving him complete awareness of his local environment.

A second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Spanning cover-dates August 1981- October 1982, this crucial compilation comprises relevant material from Daredevil #173-181, plus spin-off material generated for a readership that simply could not get enough of the newly darkened avenging devil as seen in Bizarre Adventures #28 and What If? #28, 34 & 35 and material from Marvel Fanfare #1. The visual tumult and tension are preceded by an Introduction from Klaus Janson, detailing his increasing contribution to the character’s arc, and foreshadowing the time when the title would, visually at least, be all his…

When Miller took on authorship in #168 he immediately began remodelling Matt’s past, testing his established relationships and the memory of his murdered father Battling Jack Murdock and created a deadly new former lover in Elektra Natchios, all while putting the damned hero through his paces against archnemesis Bullseye and severely denting the untouchable empire and reputation of evil untouchable Wilson Fisk.

The end result was The Kingpin once more implicitly ruling New York, but enthroned in misery after losing his greatest treasure when his beloved wife Vanessa was blown up and presumed killed during the gang war that followed…

With the city increasingly awash in mobsters, monsters, assassins and deviants, Daredevil 173 returns to the difficult, painful redemption of mentally troubled former foe The Gladiator. Having suffered an emotional crisis Melvin Potter prays his violent old life is over but when a woman is brutalised in the streets, she identifies the supervillain as her attacker. Murdock begins a stout defence of the ‘Lady Killer’, but despite his truth-sensing abilities, even his confidence takes a battering when his own assistant Becky Blake reveals Potter is the man who put her in a wheelchair years ago. Shocked and betrayed on all sides Matt lets DD take charge and discovers a world of horror and abuse as he tracks down a cunning, opportunistic human beast torturing women for kicks…

Elektra co-stars in #174 as her former master The Jonin orders ‘The Assassination of Matt Murdock’, introducing resurrecting zombie ninja cult The Hand, just when the Potter trial is going badly and faithful partner Foggy Nelson has abandoned him. The cult’s official expansion into America is lethally and effectively countered by Elektra, but when Daredevil joins the fight he is wounded, losing his greatest supersense, leaving him to depend on her and Melvin reluctantly returning to his Gladiator persona…

Now targeted by immortal super ninja Kirigi, Elektra goes after the Jonin in ‘Gantlet’ and leaves DD to his own devices. In ‘Hunters’, severely impaired Matt hunts for the old guy who first taught him to use his super senses and rattles his old foes and street sources so badly that even Z-grade thugs Turk and Grotto are prompted to steal a super-armour suit and settle with the Scarlet Swashbuckler for good…

As Elektra finally faces Kirigi, #177 sees Murdock in the brutal care of old hermit Stick; undergoing pitiless trials and torment to regain all that he has lost. The physical and mental abuse triggers hallucinations, flashbacks to his early life and ultimately delirious revelation ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’…

Meanwhile elsewhere, future Mayor Winston Cherryh is being investigated by Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich, who uncovers his links to the Kingpin just as a reinvigorated, reunited Nelson & Murdock find a kid with physical proof of Hizzoner’s malfeasance. They recruit Heroes for Hire Luke Cage & Iron Fist as bodyguards whilst Fisk hires the best assassin in town to clean up the impending mess. However, Elektra is deeply conflicted and the resultant ‘Paper Chase’ leaves no winners…

Things get deep and dirty when Elektra sends Urich a warning he’ll never forget, but does put aside after getting a photo of a sewer-dwelling bag lady Wilson Fisk would do anything to know about. As the war of wills mounts she then has to kill the reporter and defeat Matt in ‘Spiked!’, leading the sightless sentinel of the modern hell beneath his city: a community of ‘The Damned’ governed by a barbaric degenerate thug who loses everything to the crimson invader, especially his queen, Vanessa…

Forced to scuttle Cherryh to regain his beloved, Wilson Fisk craves petty vengeance and orders the assassination of Foggy Nelson. Meanwhile, recovered from brain surgery undertaken after his last defeat by Daredevil, Bullseye escapes jail to reclaim his position and title as the world’s deadliest killer for hire. He desperately wants to kill Elektra, and finds himself able to profit from it when she baulks at ending Foggy. The assassins’ brutally balletic dance across New York City ends with her, and Daredevil seeks revenge with the words Bullseye said when he was last captured. “By saving me, everyone I kill from now on is on you”…

Daredevil #181 ‘Last Hand’ (April 1982) is a cinematically styled masterpiece of graphic design reflecting emotional tumult and is one of the best single stories of the era. It also ends the old Daredevil and heralds a new hero to come, but that’s all for another book.

Here, however, the events sparked a number of ancillary delights beginning with spectacular monochrome prequel ‘Elektra’, as crafted by Miller for Bizarre Adventures #28 (October 1981) with the hired killer going off-book after finding out an unsavoury truth about her client. That’s followed by What If? #28 and ‘Matt Murdock, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ by Mike W. Barr, Miller & Janson, exploring what might have been had Anthony Stark and Nick Fury been nearby when Young Matt was hit by that senses-altering radioactive cannister…

Cover dated August 1982, What If? #34 was an all-comedy issue with Miller outrageously expressing the results of answered question ‘What if Daredevil Were Deaf Instead of Blind?’, before the rather self-explanatory ‘What if Bullseye Had Not Killed Elektra?’ (WI? #35, October 1982) by Miller & Terry Austin…

As a special treat, a short Christmas yarn from Marvel Fanfare #1 (March 1982) concludes the comics treats as DD joins a street Santa to save the season for a bunch of orphans in ‘Snow’ by Roger McKenzie, Paul Smith & Austin.

The Miller limned back cover of that issue begins this book’s bonus section, and is followed by Miller’s full Daredevil character bible, written in 1980 as he prepared to take over the writing. A house ad for the Power Man & Iron Fist team-up precedes Fred Hembeck & Miller’s collaboration from Fantastic Four Roast #1 (May 1982) prior to a gallery of fan publication art. The Miller/Janson cover for Amazing Heroes #4 (September 1981) segues into Comics Feature #14 (December 1981) and their wraparound for The Daredevil Chronicles (February 1982) which also reprints the lengthy ‘Frank Miller/Klaus Janson Interview’ conducted by Peter Sanderson, with illos by Hembeck, George Peréz, John Byrne, and Miller & Janson (including a double page pin-up of DD, Black Widow, Black Panther and Elektra).

Joe Rubinstein inked the covers of Marvel Index 9B (listing DD, Black Widow, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Shanna the She-Devil, Dazzler and the Human Fly) and Rick Hoberg rendered the Frontispiece, before Paul Gulacy’s sublime “Good Girl” art Black Widow Portfolio – 6 stunning monochrome plates plus cover – segues into a 20-strong covers and interior page gallery, topped off by Miller & Steve Buccellato’s 2001 cover for Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller vol. 2, as well as its Elektra frontispiece, and Diana Schutz’ reminiscing Introduction…

Short sharp, shocking, game-changing, revolutionary and still fantastically readable, these tales kicked open the doors for truly mature comics dramas, whilst promising the true potential of Daredevil was in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss.

… And the next volume heads full on into darker shadows, the grimmest of territory and the breaking of even more boundaries…
© MARVEL 2022.

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Marvel Masters: The Art of John Romita Sr.


By John Romita Sr. with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Denny O’Neil, Gary Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Peter David, Roger Stern, J.M. DeMatteis, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, John Verpoorten, Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro, Fred Fredericks, Al Milgrom, Dan Green & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-403-4 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Hard to believe that it’s exactly two years since John Romita died. As I wallow in melancholy over the passing of Brian Wilson, and listen to old Beach Boys classics, I can’t help but recall so many summers spent revelling in Romita’s clean cut graphic mastery, tracing his drawings with Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile playing – and especially grooving in my juvenile way to Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains…

That kind of nostalgia grips like a vice and can only be indulged until something supplants it, so here’s a look at an old British compilation that encapsulates all that whilst reminding us all how much poorer we’ve become in recent time…

One of the industry’s most polished stylists and a true cornerstone of the Marvel Comics phenomenon, the elder John Romita began his comics career in the late 1940s (ghosting for other artists) before striking out under his own colours, eventually illustrating horror and other anthology tales for Stan Lee at Timely/Atlas.

John Victor Romita was Brooklyn born and bred, entering the world on January 24th1930. From Brooklyn Junior High School he moved to the famed Manhattan School of Industrial Art, and graduated in 1947. After spending six months creating a medical exhibit for Manhattan General Hospital in 1949 he moved into comics, working for Famous Funnies. A “day job” working with Forbes Lithograph was abandoned after a friend found him inking and ghosting assignments. Romita was drafted in 1951, and, showing his portfolio to a US army art director, after boot camp at Fort Dix New Jersey, was promoted to corporal, stationed on Governors Island in New York Bay crafting recruitment posters and allowed to live off-base… in Brooklyn. During that period he started doing the rounds and struck up a freelancing acquaintance with Stan Lee at Atlas Comics…

He illustrated horror, science fiction, war stories, westerns, Waku, Prince of the Bantu (in Jungle Tales), a superb run of cowboy adventures starring The Western Kid and 1954’s brief abortive revival of Captain America and more, before an industry implosion derailed his career – and many others. Romita eventually found himself trapped in DC’s romance comics division – a job he hated – before making the reluctant jump again to the resurgent House of Ideas in 1965. As well as steering the career of the wallcrawler and many other Marvel stars, his greatest influence was felt when he official became Art Director in July 1973 – a role he had been doing in all but name since 1968. Romita had a definitive hand in creating or shaping many key characters, such as Mary Jane Watson, Peggy Carter, The Kingpin, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Satana, ad infinitum.

After a brief stint as an inker, Romita took over Daredevil with #12, following on from Wally Wood and Bob Powell. Initially, Jack Kirby provided layouts to help Romita assimilate the style and pacing of Marvel tales but he was soon in full control of his pages. He drew DD until #19, by which time he had been handed the assignment of a lifetime…

We open here with the Captain America story from Tales of Suspense # 77 (May 1966). ‘If a Hostage Should Die!’ was written by Lee, with Kirby layouts and inks from Frank Giacoia (AKA Frank Ray), recounting a moment from the hero’s wartime exploits involving a mysterious woman he had loved and lost, and is followed by a classic Daredevil thriller from #18. ‘There Shall Come a Gladiator!’ introduced an armoured, buzzsaw wielding psychopath in a gripping tale of mistaken identity, by Lee and office junior Denny O’Neil with Giacoia once more handling the pens and brushes.

Up next is that aforementioned Big Break. By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist resigned, leaving the Spider-Man without an illustrator. The new kid was handed the ball and told to run. ‘How Green was my Goblin!’ and ‘Spidey Saves the Day!’ (“Featuring the End of the Green Goblin!” as it so facetiously and unconvincingly proclaimed) was the climactic battle fans had been clamouring for since the viridian villain’s first appearance. It didn’t disappoint and still doesn’t to this day.

Reprinted from issues #39 & 40 (August and September 1966, and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) this is still one of the best Spider-Man yarns ever, and heralded a run of classic sagas by the Lee/Romita team that saw sales actually rise, even after the departure of seemingly irreplaceable Ditko. Another such was the contents of Amazing Spider-Man #47-49.

‘In the Hands of the Hunter!’, ‘The Wings of the Vulture!’ and ‘From the Depths of Defeat!’ saw Romita finally provide pencils and inks (April, May and June 1967), comprising a complex, engrossing thriller featuring Kraven the Hunter and both the old and a new Vultures, as well as detailing a tension building subplot about the gone-but-not-forgotten Green Goblin.

Stan Lee considered Romita a safe pair of hands and “go-to-guy”. When Kirby left to create his incredible Fourth World for DC, Romita was handed the company’s other flagship title – and in the middle of an on-going storyline. Fantastic Four #103 (October 1970) ‘At War With Atlantis!’ is the second chapter in a gripping invasion tale where Magneto blackmails the Sub-Mariner into conquering the surface world with his Atlantean legions (as is so often the case, the first part is not included here, but there are recaps aplenty to bring you up to speed) and with the conclusion ‘Our World.. Enslaved!’ Inked with angular, brittle brilliance by John Verpoorten, they form the first non-Kirby classic of the super-team’s illustrious history. Sadly, the title began a gradual decline soon after…

Romita returned to the Star-Spangled Avenger in the early 1970s and ‘Power to the People’  is the culmination of an extended storyline very much of its time with the Falcon and Nick Fury helping to once again stop the insidious Red Skull. Gary Friedrich scripted Captain America #143 (November 1971) and another new kid was writing the web-spinner when Romita returned. Next comes ‘The Master-Plan of the Molten Man!’ (Amazing Spider-Man #132, May 1974), scripted by Gerry Conway, but the increasingly busy Romita, art directing all Marvel’s titles and projects, was here uncomfortably assisted by Paul Reinman & Tony Mortellaro in the inking of this two-fisted interlude.

Scripted by Peter David with Fred Fredericks inks, ‘Vicious Cycle’ is a quirky, moving short tale from Incredible Hulk Annual #17 (1991), followed by an adventure of Peter Parker’s parents seen in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1 (July 1997, and part of the company’s Flashback publishing event). Written by Roger Stern and inked by Al Milgrom, ‘The Amazing Parkers’ pitted the married secret agents against the deadly Baroness and guest-starred a pre-Weapon-X Wolverine in a delightful pacy spy-romp.

In 1997 the Wallcrawler and Daredevil teamed up in Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death: a one-shot reuniting Lee & Romita (plus inker Dan Green) for an old fashioned countdown caper to delight older fans, before this book’s narrative delights end with ‘The Kiss’: a trip down memory lane with a much younger Peter Parker still in the throes of first love with Gwen Stacy. Triggering those tears is writer J.M. DeMatteis, and the content proves to me, at least, that Romita’s detested romance stories must be something to see, all his protestations notwithstanding. With a superbly informative biography section from Mike Conroy to close out the volume, this is one of the most cohesive and satisfactory compilations in this series of Marvel Masters. If only they could all be as good…
© 2008 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. (A BRITISH EDITION BY PANINI UK LTD)

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The Defenders Epic Collection volume 2 – Enter: the Headmen (1974-1975)


By Len Wein, Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Chris Claremont, Jim Starlin, Stan Lee, Bill Everett, Steve Ditko, Dennis O’Neil, Larry Lieber, Paul S. Newman, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Angelo Torres, Doug Wildey, Klaus Janson, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Dan Green, Sal Trapani, Dan Adkins, Jim Mooney, Don Newton, Bob McLeod, Dick Ayers & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5531-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For kids – of any and all ages – there is a simple response to and primal fascination with increased stature, brute strength and feeling dangerous. It surely goes some way towards explaining the perennial interest in angry tough guys who break stuff… as best exemplified by Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner and The Incredible Hulk. When you add the mystery and magic of Doctor Strange, the recipe for thrills, spills & chills becomes utterly irresistible…

Last of the big star conglomerate super-groups, The Defenders would eventually number amongst its membership almost every hero – and quite a few villains – of Marvel’s Universe. No real surprise there then, as initially they were the company’s bad-boy antiheroes: misunderstood, outcast, often mad and actually dangerous to know. For Marvel, the outsider supergroup must have seemed a conceptual inevitability… once they’d finally published it. Back then, apart from Spider-Man and Daredevil, their superstars regularly teamed up in various mob-handed assemblages and, in the wake of the Defenders, even more superteams comprising pre-existing characters were rapidly mustered. These included the Champions, Invaders, New Warriors and more – but none of them had any Really Big Guns…

They never won the fame or acceptance of other teams, but that simply left creators open to taking more chances and playing the occasional narrative wild cards. The genesis of the team derived from their status as publicly distrusted villains, threats or menaces. This scintillating selection offers in whole or in part Defenders #12-25, Giant-Size Defenders #1-4, Marvel Two-in-One #6-7, and material originally from Mystery Tales #21, World of Fantasy #11 and Tales of Suspense #9 as itself reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales #7 (December 1975): stories spanning February 1974 to July 1975…

Coming off a groundbreaking team up saga now known as the Avengers/Defenders War, the first tale here signals a major change in direction as new writer Len Wein joined resident illustrator Sal Buscema & inker Jack Abel for a return clash with an insidious alien enemy. Beginning a run of more traditional costumed capers, mindbending Xemnu sought again to repopulate his barren homeworld with abducted earthlings in ‘The Titan Strikes Back!’, but flopped even against the pared-back cast of Stephen Strange, Valkyrie and Hulk.

A bona fide hit, the “non-team” were part of a grand expansionist experiment in extra-value comics that began with Giant Sized Defenders #1 (July1974): a stunning combination of highly readable reprints wrapped in a classy framing sequence by Tony Isabella, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom and co-starring Strange, disciple Clea and major domo Wong. The vintage thrills commence with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers’ ‘Banished to Outer Space’ from Incredible Hulk #3, followed by amagnificent 1950s Bill Everett Sub-Mariner horror-tinged fantasy-feast entutled‘Bird of Prey!’ From there focus switches to Dr. Strange and Denny O’Neil/Steve Ditko’s mini-masterpiece ‘To Catch a Magician!’ (Strange Tales #145) before the concoction concludes with a blockbusting battle as the star trio, sorcerer’s apprentice and valiant Valkyrie dispatch a self-inflicted mystic menace. The treat is topped with Roy Thomas’ editorial extract ‘Good Evening! This is the Eleventh-Hour Bullpen’ and contemporary ads prior to a splendid double-page pin-up by Sal B, before the regular epics resume in a spectacular Saves-the-World struggle.

Defenders #13 found the obscure assiciates battling against the villainous Squadron Sinister (The Whizzer, Doctor Spectrum & Hyperion) in ‘For Sale: One Planet… Slightly Used!’ (featuring an early inking job for Klaus Janson) before concluding in the Dan Green-embellished ‘And Who Shall Inherit the Earth?’ as Marvel’s Batman-analogue Nighthawk turns traitor and unites with the Defenders to defeat his murderous former teammates and their aquatic overlord/alien marauder Nebulon, the Celestial Man.

Courtesy of Wein, Buscema & Janson, #15 initiated a 2-part duel with manic mutant messiah Magneto,who first institutes a ‘Panic Beneath the Earth!’ prompting the X-Men’s mentor Charles Xavier to enlist the unsung heroes’ aid. The concluding clash envelopes the insidious Brotherhood of Evil and ‘Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant’ (inked by Mike Esposito) as well as the apparent end of a true master of evil…

Giant Sized Defenders #2 (October 1974) delivers a superb supernatural thriller from Wein, fabulously limned by master craftsman Gil Kane and rising star inker Janson. ‘H… as in Hulk… Hell… and Holocaust!’ pits the eternally-embattled Jade Giant against sinister cult the Sons of Satanish and their currently-dead leader Asmodeus, before the Defenders (core-group Doctor Stephen Strange, Valkyrie and reformed Nighthawk) call on Daimon Hellstrom AKA the Son of Satan for some highly specialised assistance…

In Defenders #17 the heroes set up housekeeping in a converted Long Island Riding Stables, courtesy of billionaire Nighthawk’s civilian alter ego Kyle Richmond, just as displaced Asgardian soul Valkyrie leaves in search of the truth about the human body she is trapped in. The main plot of ‘Power Play!’ (Wein, Sal B & Dan Green) sees the remaining heroes engage with and then enlist the aid of Hero for Hire/Power Man Luke Cage, as superstrong Asgardian enhanced thugs The Wrecking Crew topple a number of Richmond’s New York buildings. whilst hunting for a hidden superweapon. The spectacular ‘Rampage!’ reveals their object to be a pocket gamma bomb, with the search finishing in a furious finale from Chris Claremont, Wein, Buscema & Janson, as everybody frantically ferrets out the location of a deadly ‘Doomball!’ that has already been whisked away by some foolish bystander…

Immediately afterwards Strange, Clea and Fantastic Four lynchpin The Thing chance upon a disharmonious cosmic challenge in Marvel Two-In-One #6’s ‘Death-Song of Destiny!’ (by Steve Gerber, George Tuska & Esposito) which concludes in MTIO #7 with ‘Name That Doom!’ (Sal Buscema pencils) wherein Valkyrie joins the melee just in time to cross swords with egregious Asgardian exiles Enchantress and The Executioner, who are behind a cosmic scheme to reorder the universe…

The aftermath of that eldritch encounter spills over into Defenders #20 as Gerber took on the non team as regular scripter, beginning a landmark run of stories. ‘The Woman She Was…!’ (art by Sal B & Vince Colletta) begins unravelling the torturous backstory of Valkyrie’s human host Barbara Norris during a breathtakingly bombastic battle that also reanimates the diabolical threat of the Undying Ones. Late arriving, Strange & Nighthawk almost perish at the hands of the demons’ human worshippers…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with irrepressible wit, dark introspection and immeasurable imagination, all leavened with enticing surreality. His stories always occurred at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction. With Defenders #21, he commenced a long, intricate and epically peculiar saga as ‘Enter: The Headman!’ (illustrated by Buscema & Sal Trapani) exposed a trio of thematically linked scientists/savants, all originating in Marvel’s pre-superhero fantasy anthologies, and opened an insidious campaign of conquest and vengeance by driving New York city briefly insane (… arguably and more correctly, more insane…).

Before the next chapter, however, a brace of extended sagas play chronological catch-up: firstly, for Giant-Size Defenders #3 Gerber, Jim Starlin & Wein (with art from Starlin, Dan Adkins, Don Newton & Jim Mooney) detail ‘Games Godlings Play!’ as Daredevil joins Strange, Valkyrie, and Prince Namor in saving the world from Elder of the Universe The Grandmaster: a cosmic games-player whose obsession with gladiatorial combats pitches the heroes into deadly contests with intergalactic menaces from infinity… and beyond. Next follows a more down-to-Earth tale as occasional Avenger Yellowjacket (AKA Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath et al) pops by to help crush insane criminal genius Egghead and Nighthawk’s old gang the Squadron Sinister on ‘Too Cold a Night for Dying!’ (Giant Sized Defenders #4, by Gerber, Don Heck & Colletta).

The return to monthly action resumes with Gerber, Sal Buscema & Esposito in Defenders #22’s ‘Fangs of Fire and Blood!’, with sinister white supremacist secret society the Sons of the Serpent launching another hate-fuelled, racist terror-pogrom, and forcing the outcast champions into an uncomfortably public response. Stakes are raised in ‘The Snakes Shall Inherit the Earth!’ with Hank Pym – still in his Yellowjacket persona – rejoining the Defenders to confront his most reviled old enemies. Even with his aid, the Defenders are defeated in combat and left ‘…In the Jaws of the Serpent!’ (inked by Bob McLeod inks), necessitating a nick-of-time rescue by Daredevil, Luke Cage, Clea and the Son of Satan before the epic ends with a stunning and still sickeningly realistic twist as Jack Abel inks ‘The Serpent Sheds its Skin!’…

For the longest time The Defenders was the best and weirdest superhero comic book in the business, and this bitty, unwieldy collection was where that all started. The next volume will see that inspirational unconventionality reach even greater heights of drama and lunacy, but before that this compendium concludes with the Atlas Era short tales that originally introduced Gorilla Man Arthur Nagan, human horror Dr. Jerold Morgan and Chondu the Mystic who comprise the heinous Headmen tantalisingly introduced in Defenders #21. The vignettes had all been recently reprinted in horror anthology Weird Wonder Tales #7 (December 1974) and the cover of that issue opens a selection of added extras…

Nagan debuted in ‘It Walks Erect!’ by Paul S. Newman & Bob Powell from Mystery Tales #21, September 1954: a obsessive surgeon driven by ambition to perform appalling transplant research on gorillas who ultimately took unholy revenge upon him, whilst biologist Jerry Morgan’s matter compression experiments terrified – but saved – a city in ‘Prisoner of the Fantastic Fog’ (by an unknown writer & Angelo Torres from World of Fantasy #11, April 19580). Tales of Suspense #9 (May 1960) then revealed how stage magician Chondu – AKA Harvey Schlemerman – was far more than he seemed in mini-thriller by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber, wonderfully rendered by the miraculous Doug Wildey.

Other extras include a full cover gallery by by John Romita, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Jim Starlin, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson, Al Milgrom, Dave Cockrum & Janson, more house ads, relevant sections of the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 by Roy Thomas amd artists Frank Brunner, Romita, Sal B & Janson and original art pages/covers by Kane, Giacoia, Romita, Sals Buscema & Trapani.

If you love superheroes but crave something just a little different these yarns are for you… and the best is still to come.
© 2024 MARVEL.