Category: Fantastic Four

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Man-Thing Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Val Mayerik, Gray Morrow, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin, Gil Kane, Dan Adkins, Jim Mooney, Frank Bolle, Chic Stone, Frank McLaughlin, Sal Trapani, Joe Sinnott, Frank Brunner, Mike Ploog & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5547-2 (HB/digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes some Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and literary effect.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless, Remorseless, Evergreen Scary Stuff to Make You Think… 9/10

At the end of the 1960s American comic books were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making, where the kids who had grown up with Marvel now fulfilled the bulk of their young adult entertainment needs.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was the hasty hyper-generation of multiple horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move vastly expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The switch to supernatural stars had many benefits. Crucially it brought a new readership to Marvel comics, one attuned to the global revival in spiritualism, Satanism and all things sinisterly spooky. Almost as important, it gave the reprint-crazy company an opportunity to finally recycle old 1950s horror stories that had been rendered unprintable and useless since the Code’s inception in 1954.

A scant 15 years later the Comics Code prohibition against horror was hastily rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – and scary comics came back in a big way with a new crop of supernatural heroes and monsters popping up on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles. In fact lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an en masse creation of horror titles (both new characters and reprints from the massive boom of the early 1950s) that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to (temporarily, at least) bite the dust.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the contemporary buzz for bizarre themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public. As always in entertainment, the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible.

The first fan-sensation of the modern era, (now officially enshrined as the Bronze Age of US comic books) Swamp Thing had powerful popular fiction antecedents and in 1972 it was seemingly a concept whose time had come again. Prime evidence was the fact that Marvel were also working on a man-into-mucky, muddy mess character at the very same time. Both Swampy and the Macabre Man-Thing were thematic revisions of Theodore Sturgeon’s classic novella It, and bore notable resemblances to a hugely popular Hillman Comics star dubbed The Heap.

He/it sloshed through the back of Airboy Comics (née Air Fighters Comics) from 1943 until the end of the Golden Age, and my fanboy radar suspects Roy Thomas’ marsh-monster The Glob (Incredible Hulk #121-November 1969 & #129-June 1970) either inspired both DC and Marvel’s creative teams, or was part of that same zeitgeist. It must also be remembered that in the autumn of 1971 Skywald – a very minor player with big aspirations – released a monochrome magazine in their Warren knock-off line entitled The Heap.

For whatever reason, by the end of the 1960s superhero comics were in another steep sales decline, again succumbing to a genre boom led by a horror/mystery resurgence. A swift rewriting of the Comics Code Authority augmented the changeover and at National/DC, veteran EC comics star Joe Orlando became editor of House of Mystery and sister title House of Secrets. These were short story anthologies embracing gothic mystery scenarios, taking their lead from TV triumphs like Twilight Zone and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, but a horror themed lead meant a focus on character not plot, tragedy and empathy over twist endings and most precious of all, continuity…

No one was expecting satire and social commentary but that came along for the ride too!

Remarkably soon after the Comics Code prohibition against horror being amended, scary comics returned in force and a fresh crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began appearing on newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving Fights ‘n’ Tights titles.

In fact, the lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles in response to the industry-wide downturn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

When proto-horror Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars. They began with a traditional werewolf and a vampire before chancing something new: a haunted biker who tapped into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist: the all-new Ghost Rider (in Marvel Spotlight #5, August 1972). He had been preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4. From these beginnings spooky floodgates opened to such an extent there was even room for non-white stars like The Living Mummy and ultimately today’s star turn…

This quirky compendium collects the earliest exploits of Marvel’s muck monster, and not at all coincidentally traces the rise of a unique comics voice. Steve Gerber was a sublimely gifted writer with a ferocious social conscience who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed cultural criticism, a barely reigned-in imagination and boundless bizarre surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties as thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity. Via material from Savage Tales #1, Astonishing Tales, #12-13, Adventure into Fear #10-19, The Man-Thing #1 & Marvel Two-In-One #1 (communally spanning May 1971 to January 1974) we’ll see how Marvel increasing became the voice of a lost and dissatisfied liberality…

The revolution begins after an erudite Introduction by authorial everyman Steve Orlando (Scarlet Witch, Wonder Woman, Ben 10, Heavy Metal Magazine), before we trudge back to very different times and the beginning of a new kind of comics experience and Marvel’s continued experiments with the monochrome, mature reader marketplace…

Ranged amidst the grittier-than-usual adult-oriented material (that meant partial nudity and more explicit violence back then) Savage Tales #1 (cover-dated May 1971) was a mixed bag of sword & sorcery, sci fi, crime and horror stories featuring Conan, Ka-Zar and more. That line-up included a powerfully enthralling horror yarn entitled ‘Man Thing!’ Scripted by Gerry Conway & Roy Thomas, it offered a fairly traditional spooky story elevated to sublime heights by Gray Morrow’s artwork. It related how government biochemist Ted Sallis was hiding out in the swamps whilst finishing a new/recreated iteration of the much-prized Super-soldier formula that had created Captain America…

Sadly, his live-in lover Ellen is an agent for the opposition and when she and her minions made a play for the formula, Ted is wounded and flees into the murky mire. To preserve the only sample of his life’s work, the desperate, possibly dying boffin injects himself with it… and the bog mingles with the mix to spawn something tragic and uncanny…

Barely conscious or sentient, a shambling muck-monster emerges, apparently set on justice or vengeance…

Savage Tales was not a success and who knows how many manic Marvelites actually saw the anthology, but creators are stubborn brutes who can’t let things lie, so some months later the muck monster shambled back via a tenuous mainstream comic book connection…

Cover-dated June 1972, Astonishing Tales #12 sees the Savage Land’s self-appointed Sovereign Ka-Zar – and morphologically unsubstantiated primaeval saber-cat Zabu – abruptly relocating to Florida in pursuit of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Barbra “Bobbi” Morse only to find that ‘Terror Stalks the Everglades!’ Here Thomas, John Buscema & Dan Adkins deftly recast the Jungle King as a freelance “consultant” for the superspy network, assisting aging biologist Dr. Wilma Calvin – who just happens to be Morse’s mentor – in tracking down a missing scientist named Ted Sallis.

What Ka-Zar doesn’t know is that the project all of them are working on is the recreation of the super-soldier serum that created Captain America and what nobody (technically) alive knows is that Sallis succeeded before he vanished. However, when Advanced Idea Mechanic agents tried to steal it. Sallis had injected himself and the chemicals reacted with the swamp’s magical energies to create a mindless shambling monster.

Readers are clued in thanks to a lovely unused interlude intended for Savage Tales #2, with Wein & Neal Adams providing a chilling recap sequence detailing the macabre Man-Thing’s previous relationship with Calvin, before back in the now, AIM attacks, trapping Ka-Zar with the bog-beast…

In AT #13 (Thomas, J. Buscema, Rich Buckler & Adkins), the mystery grows as the Jungle Lord escapes the ‘Man-Thing!’ to focus on the real monsters, subsequently routing out a traitor and defeating AIM… for now. With the attention-grabbing overlap with mainstream Marvel done for the moment the path was clear if muddy for a new horror hero to forge ahead, but what was needed was the right tone of voice…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reigned-in imagination and boundless bizarre surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties as thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity. With Man-Thing he held up a peculiarly scummy mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and made history – and enemies – over and over again. However before him, Conway & Morrow returned, aided by Howard Chaykin as the bog beast won its own series, beginning in (Adventure into) Fear #10. Cover-dated October 1972, ‘Man Thing!’ (Say it again! Again!) saw the monster defy all odds to return an abandoned baby to a daddy who just did not want him… and would not take no for an answer…

After that conceptual interlude Gerber, Buckler & Jim Mooney opened an extended mystic parable in Fear #11 on the ‘Night of the Nether-Spawn!’ Gerber’s take was that the beast was empathic and all-but-mindless, reacting and responding to those in its vicinity, but having practically no personal volition. Here that relationship draws in teenagers Jennifer Kale and her little brother Andy who are about to get into all sorts of trouble because they stole something from their grandpa. Sadly, when you play with a magical tome belonging to an ancient cult, handed down over eons to the latest in a long line of guardian wizards, sinister stuff is likely to happen…

The upshot is that a demonic force comes looking for little Miss Kale and its evil emanations make it a painful intrusion the maddened muck monster cannot abide. With diabolical Thog the Nether-Spawn thus preoccupied battling the bonkers bog-brute all through small-town Citrusville, Andy & Jennifer are free to try to fix what they broke. All appearances and happy endings to the contrary, it’s too little, too late…

The nation’s racial tensions boiled over into Fear #12 as Gerber, Jim Starlin & Buckler discovered ‘No Choice of Colors!’ after the moss-heap slurped into a far-too-personal vendetta linking racist white sheriff Wallace Corlee and fugitive black murder suspect Mark Jackson. After initially and instinctively saving the wounded runner, Man-Thing is helpless against the literally paralysing hatred of both men: one condemned for loving the wrong shade of woman and the just other happy to have a legal reason to kill another “coloured man”…

Only after one of the enraged obsessives is no more can the swamp beast freely act against the other…

In #13, Val Mayerik begins his fruitful association with the series as – inked by Frank Bolle – ‘Where Worlds Collide!’ finds Gerber in universe-building mode: introducing Jennifer Kale’s Grandpa Joshua as high priest of a cult that has thrived secretly since Atlantis sank beneath the waves. They have safeguarded the world for eons, handing down the sacred Tome of Zhered-Na, but now Jennifer’s meddling as she innocently answered the call of her heritage has opened a portal to infernal terror that begins by taking Jen’s not-boyfriend Jaxon and opening pathways to devil-infested dimensions. When the Man-Thing follows, he finds a place where Ted Sallis is made manifest again and where Thog offers to make it permanent if the human will betray his world…

Ted’s violent refusal coincides with Joshua and the grandkids showing up and, in the flush of frantic battle and escape to consensus reality, the Kales discover Jennifer’s uncanny link to the mindless (again) monster…

Veteran Chic Stone inks #14’s ‘The Demon Plague!’ as, all over America, hate and insanity blossom. Everywhere, humans attack those nearest, dearest or even largely indifferent to them; and the deluge of violence even affects the wildlife in Florida’s swamps with Man-Thing pitilessly assaulted by everything that walks or hops or crawls or swims…

Joshua Kale soon determines that the not properly sealed dimensional portal is permitting demons to pass and possess mortals, and convenes a cult ceremony to close it from within the swamp – which just happens to be the Nexus of All Realities…

Despite best efforts the ritual goes awry and, curiously spying on them, Jennifer and the bog-beast are abducted from existence by a major mage dubbed Dakimh the Enchanter. Forced into gladiatorial actions to retain the sacred tome that only Jennifer knows no longer exists, everybody underestimates the shambling compost heap with flamethrower hands, and the Earthlings are promptly returned without giving away any more arcane secrets…

With Frank McLaughkin as guest inker this time, Gerber & Mayerik probe ‘From Here to Infinity!’ in Fear #15. With chaos gripping the entire planet, the Man-Thing seemingly killed by invading demons and no sacred tome to consult, Joshua Kale visits ancient Atlantis, seeing how mystic Zhered-Na personally dealt with the last such incursion, learning of an eternal war between divine realms – shining Therea and dark Sominus…

As the current cult leader views how his inspiration met her end, elsewhere Dakimh recruits promising potential sorceress Jennifer, revives the bog-beast and takes them both an a trans-dimensional voyage to save reality and stop the sorcerous shooting war…cat least for now and at the cost of the link to the swamp totem…

Abruptly switching tack and tone, Fear #16 ‘Cry of the Native!’ (inked by Sal Trapani) explores themes of Native American rights, ecological barbarism and callous capitalism run amok, when developer F A Schist attempts to drain the swamp and relocate its Indian occupants to facilitate his new airport complex. Complex issues of new jobs versus already broken treaties and promises lead to sabotage, riots and civil unrest, but what concerns the Kales most is how the disruption might affect the shaky barriers holding back the hungry hordes of Sominus…

This time, however, simply human pride, greed, bigotry and love of violence – all agonising felt by mindless, empathic Man-Thing – is enough to spark riot and butchery, and stall the project. In the aftermath (and with Trapani sticking around as inker) #17’s ‘It Came Out of the Sky!’ offers dark, wry parody as the bog-beast curiously opens a long-submerged space capsule buried in the hidden mire. Within is a super-powered baby sent from a world believed by one scientist/loving father to be on the imminent edge of extinction due to environmental collapse…

The capsule had fed and sustained the godlike being within for 22 years, but when Wundarr emerged to immediately imprint on the Man-Thing, nothing could convince the educationally and emotionally challenged – and fully-grown – waif that the unthinking moss-mass was not his mother. The rejection and indifference proved unbearable and the violent tantrums that resulted almost destroy the airport construction site and Citrusville…

The story notionally carries over into debuting superhero team-up book Marvel Two-In-One #1 (cover-dated January 1974) where, after a desert clash with Thanos, Fantastic Four stalwart Ben Grimm accidentally and improbably ends up in Florida for the premier issue of his own title. Crafted by Gerber, Gil Kane & Joe Sinnott, the ‘Vengeance of the Molecule Man!’ sees The Thing learn some horrifying home truths about what constitutes being a monster when battling with and beside ghastly, grotesque anti-hero Man-Thing after the essence of the reality-warping villain starts possessing bodies in the swamps

Back in Fear #18, Gerber, Mayerik & Trapani resume straight terror tropes and real-world controversy in ‘A Question of Survival!’ as a bus load of ordinary people and a drunk driver catastrophically intersect on a highway through the Everglades. Drawn to the emotional turmoil, the mire monster becomes unwilling witness and unintentional guide as the survivors learn about each other (this at a time when women and minorities were still legally second-class citizens, and pacifists & warhawks violently clashed over Vietnam) whilst trekking back to civilisation and medical treatment. Sadly, one of them really needs to be the only survivor and is not averse to more killing…

The series truly hit its innovative stride with its final appearance in (Adventure into) Fear #19 – cover-dated December 1973 – wherein Thog makes his grand move to conquer all realities and destroy the benign over-gods of Therea. That’s when Jennifer Kale officially becomes ‘The Enchanter’s Apprentice!’ (Gerber, Mayerik & Trapani) and joins another trans-planar trek as the formerly regulated realms of existence begin to collide, clash and combine. First task is to gather the heroes needful to the task and her far-from-united party rapidly expands to include tutor Dakimh, the mindless Man-Thing, a burly barbarian (Korrek, Warrior Prince of Katharta!) and a brusquely cynical talking mallard who calls himself Howard…

Hounded by Thog’s forces, their task is to traverse the twisting paths of existence and save the gods with the chase leading directly into The Man-Thing #1 (January 1974) and a world-shattering ‘Battle for the Palace of the Gods!’ Along the way, Howard is an early casualty, lost in a plunge through cascading universes and the chaos even briefly encompasses baffled heroes Daredevil and Black Widow; and all seems lost when the malign Congress of Realities smashes into seemingly undefended Therea. However, there are forces at play that are beyond even demons and devils, and the mysterious Man-Thing is their unknowing yet willing tool; and ultimately realties are rebalanced and life goes on…

With covers by John Buscema, Buckler, Morrow, Adams, Starlin, Kane, John Romita Snr., Alan Weiss, Frank Brunner, Sinnott, Frank Giacoia, Herb Trimpe & Ernie Chan, the extras in this moody tome of terror and extrospection also include – from November 1970 – Thomas’ original plot for the short story in Savage Tales #1; an original grey-toned art page by Morrow; more by Buscema & Adkins, Buckler, Mooney, Weiss, Brunner, Mayerik & McLaughlin. For your perusal, Gerber’s plot for Fear #16 follows, with lettering notes and Brunner’s cover for #17. More original art includes Romita’s cover for #18 plus interior art by Mayerik & Trapani. The cover art for #19 by Kane & Chan opens another gallery before segueing into house ads, Adams’ cover for Monsters Unleashed #3 and a cover gallery for reprint title Book of the Dead #1-3 (1993-1994) by Tennyson Smith & Morrow, and Ariel Olivetti’s cover to the 2012 Man-Thing Omnibus.

We – me especially – apply the terms milestone, landmark and groundbreaking as guarantors of quality that change the way comics are perceived and even created. It has never been more true or accurate than with these game-changing, socially aware horror yarns. These are stories you must not miss…
© 2024 MARVEL.

Today in 1894 the magnificent Elzie Segar was born. Go read some Popeye or even Thimble Theatre if you can find it.

In 1980 Berke Breathed chose the day to begin his almost-as-magnificent Bloom County strip, as we last saw in Bloom County: Real, Classy, & Compleat 1980-1989. Some of that last factoid is made up by me, but it could have happened…

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The Mighty Thor Epic Collection volume 25: The Dark Gods (1998-1999)


By Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr., Tom DeFalco, Howard Mackie, J.M. DeMatteis, Klaus Janson, John Buscema, Ramon Bernado, Klaus Janson, Mark Pennington, Scott Hanna, Jerry Ordway & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6411-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Punch-Punch! Smite-Smite! Gosh Wow!… 8/10

In the middle of 1962, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby launched their latest offbeat superhero creation in anthology monsters-and-mysteries title Journey into Mystery #83. The edifying epic introduced meek, disabled American doctor Donald Blake who took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing in terror, he was trapped in a cave and found an old, gnarled walking stick. When, in helplessness and frustration, he smashed the cane into a huge boulder obstructing his escape, his insignificant frame was transformed into the hulking and brawny Norse God of Thunder, Thor!

The series grew from formulaic beginnings battling aliens, commies and cheap thugs into a vast, breathtaking cosmic playground for Kirby’s burgeoning imagination with Journey into Mystery inevitably becoming The Mighty Thor. After years of celestial adventuring, the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the Don Blake/Thor relationship were re-examined – as well as his doomed romance with his nurse Jane Foster – and all was finally clarified and explained regarding how an immortal godling could also be frail Dr. Blake.

The saga took the immortal hero back to his long-distant youth, ultimately revealing that the mortal surgeon was no more than an Odinian deception: a living shell designed to teach the Thunder God humility and compassion…

Time passed, Kirby left and the Thunderer’s fortunes waxed and waned. During the troubled mid-1990’s the title vanished, culled with The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Fantastic Four and subcontracted out to Image creators Jim Lee & Rob Liefeld during 1996-1997 in a desperate attempt to improve sales after Marvel’s apocalyptic Onslaught event.

In 1998 Heroes Return and Heroes Reborn saw those properties rejoin the greater Marvel Universe, relaunched with new first issues. The Thunder God reappeared a few weeks later as in July, Mighty Thor volume 2 launched. This compendium gathers # Mighty Thor #1-13, plus Silver Surfer & Thor Annual 1998; Thor Annual ’99 & Peter Parker, Spider-Man #2 spanning July 1998 to July 1999.

It begins with ‘In Search of the Gods’ by Dan Jurgens, John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson, finding the Thunderer back on Midgard after more than a year away from the home cosmos, and instantly involved in a desperate hostage situation. Acting immediately, he ends the crisis only to discover the perpetrator is a currently-powerless Guardian God Heimdall. Recently in contemporaneously relaunched Avengers #1, Thor had found Asgard devastated and deserted and now that shocking mystery has been further compounded on Earth…

Elsewhere, Death Goddess Hela and Volla the Prophetess conspire in anticipation of cosmic calamity and desires finally reaching fruition, even as a military shipment goes badly awry at New York’s docks where EMT/paramedic Jake Olsen gets the call to assist…

Before leaving Heimdall with (now) Doctor Jane Foster, Thor and the sentinel Asgardian explored shattered Asgard again, inadvertently liberating an unknown horror from ancient captivity, but all that is forgotten as the docks situation worsens and Thor joins the hard-pressed Avengers in battling reawakened Odinian ultimate weapon The Destroyer…

Despite the best efforts of the World’s Mightiest Heroes, the carnage is shattering and people die. People like Olson… and Thor…

Thor’s story nevertheless continues as his journey to Hela’s realm is interrupted by disturbing new cosmic entity Marnot who claims the Thunderer’s soul and returns it to the living world, bound to equally-miraculously resurrected Olsen in a reprise of the spell that created Don Blake… and just in time to stop The Destroyer. However, the new-old arrangement will prove to be a true ‘Deal with the Devil!’

Reborn as ‘God and Man’ in #3, the Storm Lord again walks the Earth – but only as the dormant-until-summoned alter-ego of another frail mortal host with a painfully complex personal life. It makes battling the sea-monsters of beguiling sea-goddess Sedna beside former Avenger Namor the Sub-Mariner a far from friendly reunion in ‘From the Ashes’…

Next comes a notional prequel tale from Silver Surfer & Thor Annual 1998, courtesy of Tom DeFalco, Ramon Bernado & Mark Pennington. ‘Millennius!’ finds the Silver Surfer beset by frost giants that have somehow escaped the confines of Asgard. After thrashing and returning them whence they belong, investigation beside the stormy Prince uncovers a plot by an exiled vengeful if not utterly deranged primal god determined to wreak havoc upon the modern universe and resume reshaping what remains to his dark whims. Thanks to the valour of the heroes he does not succeed…

TMT #5 finds the Thunderer still acclimating to his personal new normal and the decidedly different requirements of mortal crimes and crises. This somehow leads to Mjolnir rebelling after Thor’s take-charge personality overrules Olsen’s legal authority when the still readjusting godling compels his paramedic self to perform illegal surgery to save a life in ‘Heroes’…

The wreckers of Asgard and Marnot have been manoeuvring in the background throughout and following a flashback to Asgardian childhood, ‘What’s a God to Do?’ sees Thor edging closer to the truth after another pointless clash with best pal Hercules. Once the dust has settled, Thor finds his people have been framed for attacking Olympus even as in Asgard, the fate of the vanquished All-Father is revealed. However, this ‘Deception’ has proven effective, and Thor & Hercules are attacked by the entire outraged Hellenic pantheon…

The true architects of most of this mayhem are a pantheon of previously unknown Dark Gods – Perrikus, Adva, D’Chel, Slottoth, Tokkots and Majeston Zelia – so powerful that they have managed to take possession of the fallen Fabled Realm, consistently attacking Thor since his return; now barring him entirely from reaching his sundered home…

We diverge briefly for Mighty Thor Annual ‘99 which at last revealed why Thor arrived back in our universe so much later than his Avenging Allies. Written and pencilled by Jurgens with inks from Janson, ‘The Tears of a God’ found Thor visiting The Fantastic Four and describing the dimensional rip which left him partially amnesiac and filled with ineffable sadness, before – for our eyes only – the story is fully disclosed…

After battling Doctor Doom in the void between worlds, Thor and the Iron Dictator were cast onto an alien planet where the wounded Thunderer was nursed to health by a mysterious outcast named Ceranda. Somehow unable to leave the desolate world, the lost scion of Asgard grew slowly closer to the beautiful hermit, whilst elsewhere Doom was taking control of a subterranean society: co-opting their technology and resources to his selfish needs…

The last thing the Lord of Latveria needed for escape was Thor’s dimension-spanning hammer and he knew the true reason why it wasn’t working. This tale of dark desire and selfish love ended badly all round so perhaps its best that after the battle and return to Earth Thor had no memory of weeks spent with bewitching Ceranda…

Back at now, a stellar crossover between hammer-hurler and webspinner opens in Thor #8 as the Thunder God encounters the astounding arachnid as Tokkots goes on an Earthly rampage in ‘…and the Home of the Brave!’ prior to being spectacularly defeated and despatched to enslaved Asgard in ‘Plaything of the Gods’ (as seen in Peter Parker, Spider-Man #2, by Howard Mackie, Romita Jr. & Scott Hanna).

The end of the reinvigorated Storm Lord’s first extended story-arc comes with ‘Answers’ by regular writer Jurgens and guest illustrators John Buscema & Jerry Ordway when a vintage robotic menace returns. Here a couple of young punks luck into the operating system for android bandit Replicus and whilst the earthbound Thunder God is taking care of business in Asgard, dark usurpers are crowing over the ravaged, tortured bodies of his best friend Balder, eternally betrothed Lady Sif and mighty sire Odin, all the while scheming how to destroy the last remaining free Asgardian…

Thor is just as keen on facing his elusive tormentors and finally gains insight from enigmatic Marnot, who teasingly reveals a long-ago day when the early Asgardians encountered a rival pantheon: happily cruel gods dominating and enslaving the realm of Narcisson and just begging to begin a brutal all-out war with new foes. Against all logic the Narcissons won and were on the verge of eradicating the Asgardians until a juvenile Thor turned the tide, enabling Odin and his surviving warriors to carry the day. With these Dark Gods routed and captive, the All-Father wiped the memories of his own triumphant warriors to spare them the trauma and loss of so many comrades and loved ones. Now, however, the Narcisson gods were somehow free and had at last conquered the Eternal Realm. Armed with knowledge, Thor began to prepare for the invasion and liberation of Asgard…

The final campaign began in the three chapter saga ‘The Dark Wars: part I’, by Jurgens, Romita Jr. & Janson as human Jake Olsen frantically starts setting his complex human affairs in order. The conjoined hero is utterly unaware that colleague Dr. Foster has deduced his godly secret and that an unknown mortal enemy is setting him up to take the fall for selling stolen hospital drugs…

Before the exiled prince is ready to act, Perrikus attacks New York City, demanding a duel with the Odin-son and threatening to kill Lady Sif if the Thunderer doesn’t show. With the gateway to Asgard clear, Thor’s rapid response finds the city as bad as ever and his loved ones broken toys of the Dark Gods. Enraged, he attacks but the blockbusting battle sees his magic mallet cloven in half and he feels himself impossibly transforming back into mortal Jake…

Taking cover in a sewer, Olsen discovers an horrific underworld beneath the shattered city and is taken by trolls to the very bowels of Asgard. Soon, the frail human is being worked to death whilst far above the black pantheon are unable to detect any trace of vanished Thor. However, the broken hero feels untrammelled hope and joy when he discovers many of his missing Asgardian comrades are also enslaved in the noisome pits…

Sadly, before Olsen can even attempt to rescue them, vile Tokkots appears and whisks him back to the throne-room and the waiting Narcissons. Perrikus is furious that he cannot battle his true enemy, only a mortal shell, but everything changes when the broken, battered Midgardian falls on the remnant of Mjolnir and is mystically metamorphosed into a fighting mad Storm Lord…

Unexpectedly, Thor flees into inter-dimensional space, realising that pride and fury are not enough and that what he really needs are potent allies…

The fearsome finale comes in ‘The Dark Wars: part III’ as the conflicted champion convinces the deadly Destroyer and Hercules to raid his once-Golden Realm in a blistering last charge against the Dark Ones and their massed minions whilst he raids the depths to free Asgardian survivors and activates a cleverly concealed ally. Soon Odin, Sif and Balder are free and the fall of the Narcissons is seemingly assured – but the malignant invaders still have one last nasty card to play…

It proves not enough and eventually the brutalised Asgardians are triumphant, after which epilogue ‘The Work of Odin’ answers many questions; such as the identity of manipulative schemer Marnot, the ultimate fate of the human trapped within the deadly Destroyer’s shell and the future of both light and dark gods…

Backed up by a wealth of covers and variants by Romita Jr., Janson, Hanna, Bernado, Jurgens Joe Jusko & Mark Farmer; developmental sketches; house and trade press ads (from Marvel Vision, Marvel Catalog, Marvel Monthly, Wizard #80) supplemented with interviews & previews – ‘Juggling with Jurgens’, ‘Dan Jurgens’ and ‘Working the Second Shift with John Romita Jr.’ – the extras also include the cover to rushed-out reprint Thor: Resurrection by Romita Jr., Janson & Gregory Wright and editor Tom Brevoort’s Afterword from it, before closing on Thor #7’s stunning original art cover.

This almost excessively action-packed if plot light chronicle is an all-out, rocket-paced return to comic book basics, and, whilst perhaps not to everyone’s taste (it’s woefully short of anything even approaching a funny moment), is a blistering epic to delight the Fight’s ‘n’ Tights faithful, with the artwork undeniably some of the best of the modern Marvel Age. If you want your pulses to pound and your graphic senses to swim, this is the ideal item for you.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1921 Len Dworkins was born. He took over drawing the Buck Rogers newspaper strip in 1949 and also handled aviation standard Skyroads from 1939 using nom de plume Leon Gordon. More significantly, today is the anniversary of The Dandy’s debut in 1937, which I’ve gone on about incessantly for the last few months. Feel free to scroll back and check…

In 1961 cartoonist Don “Megaton Man” Simpson was born and in 1984 the UK saw the last War Picture Library comic digest released into newsagents, sweetshops and railway kiosks. It was #2103 if you’re counting…

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Incredible Hulk Epic Collection volume 1: Man or Monster? (1962-1964)


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Paul Reinman, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Chic Stone & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9600-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Monster Madness Masterpieces… 10/10

We all still like superheroes right? Here’s a bunch of yarns thou shouldst not miss…

Chronologically collecting the Jade Juggernaut’s earliest appearances, this titanic tome (available as a hefty paperback and relatively weightless digital edition) gathers Incredible Hulk #1-6; Fantastic Four #2 & 25-26; Avengers #1-3 & 5, Amazing Spider-Man #14; Tales to Astonish #59 and an unforgettable clash with Thor from Journey into Mystery #112: cumulatively spanning early 1962 to the end of 1964.

The Incredible Hulk was new-born Marvel’s second new superhero title, despite Henry Pym technically debuting earlier in a one-off yarn from Tales to Astonish #27 (January 1962). However, Hank didn’t become a costumed hero until the autumn, by which time Ol’ Greenskin was not-so-firmly established.

The Hulk smashed right into his own bi-monthly comic and, after some classic romps by Young Marvel’s finest creators, crashed right out again. After six issues the series was cancelled and Lee retrenched, making the Gruff Green Giant a perennial guest-star in other titles until such time as they could restart the drama in their new “Split-Book” format in TtA where Ant/Giant-Man was rapidly proving to be a character who had outlived his time.

Cover-dated May 1962, Incredible Hulk #1 finds puny atomic scientist Bruce Banner sequestered on a secret military base in the desert, perpetually bullied by bombastic boss General “Thunderbolt” Ross, even as the clock counts down to the World’s first Gamma Bomb test.

Besotted with Ross’s daughter Betty, Banner endures the General’s constant jibes as the timer ticks on and tension increases, but at the final moment the boffin sees a teenager lollygagging at Ground Zero. As he frantically rushes to the site to drag the boy away, unknown to all, the assistant he’s entrusted to delay the countdown has an agenda of his own…

Rick Jones is a wayward but good-hearted kid. After initial resistance he lets himself be pushed into a safety trench, but just as Banner prepares to join him The Bomb detonates…

Somehow surviving the blast, Banner and the boy are secured by soldiers, but that evening as the sun sets the scientist undergoes a monstrous transformation. He grows larger; his skin turns a stony grey…

In six simple pages that’s how it all starts, and no matter what any number of TV or movie reworkings or comicbook retcons and psycho-babble re-evaluations would have you believe that’s still the best and most primal take on the origin. A good man, an unobtainable girl, a foolish kid, an unknown enemy and the horrible power of destructive science unchecked…

Written by Stan Lee, drawn by Jack Kirby with inking by Paul Reinman, ‘The Coming of the Hulk’ barrels along as the man-monster & Jones are kidnapped by Banner’s Soviet counterpart The Gargoyle for a rousing round of espionage and Commie-busting. He soon sees the (green) light, though…

In the second issue the plot concerns invading aliens, and the Banner/Jones relationship settles into a traumatic nightly ordeal where the good doctor transforms and is locked into an escape-proof cell whilst the boy stands watch helplessly. Neither ever considers telling the government of their predicament…

‘The Terror of the Toad Men’ is formulaic but viscerally, visually captivating as Steve Ditko inks Kirby; imparting a genuinely eerie sense of unease to the artwork. Incidentally, this is the story where the Hulk inexplicably changed to his more accustomed Green persona…

Although back-written years later as a continuing mutation, the plain truth is that grey tones caused all manner of problems for production colourists so it was arbitrarily changed to the simple and more traditional colour of monsters.

The third issue presented a departure in format as chaptered epics gave way to complete short stories. Dick Ayers inked Kirby in the transitional ‘Banished to Outer Space’ which radically altered the relationship of Jones and the rage-beast, with the story thus far reprised in 3-page vignette ‘The Origin of the Hulk’. Marvel mainstay of villainy the Circus of Crime debuts at the end in ‘The Ringmaster’ whilst in #4 The Hulk goes on an urban rampage for first tale ‘The Monster and the Machine’ prior to aliens and Commies combining in second escapade ‘The Gladiator from Outer Space!’

The Incredible Hulk #5 is a joyous classic of Kirby action, introducing immortal despot Tyrannus and his underworld empire in ‘The Beauty and the Beast!’, after which those pesky Commies came in for another pasting when the Jolly Green freedom-fighter crushes the invasion of Lhasa in ‘The Hordes of General Fang!’

Lee grasped early on the commercial impact of cross-pollination and – presumably aware of disappointing sales – inserted the Green Gargantuan into his top selling title next. Fantastic Four #12 (March 1963) featured an early crossover as the team were asked to help the US army capture ‘The Incredible Hulk’: a tale from Lee, Kirby & Ayers packed with intrigue, action and bitter irony. It begins with a series of spectacularly destructive sabotage incidents putting the heroes on the trail of a monster when they should have been looking at spies… Despite the sheer verve and bravura of these simplistic classics – some of the greatest, most rewarding comics nonsense ever produced – the Hulk series was not doing well. Kirby moved on to more appreciated arenas and Steve Ditko stepped up to handle art chores for #6: another full-length epic and an extremely engaging one.

‘The Incredible Hulk Vs the Metal Master’ has astounding action, slyly subtle sub-plots and a thinking man’s resolution, but nonetheless the title died with the issue, also dated March. Another comic debuted that month and offered a lifeline to the floundering Emerald Outcast. ‘The Coming of the Avengers’ offers one of the cannier origin tales in comics. Instead of starting at a zero point and acting as if the reader knew nothing, creators Lee, Kirby & Ayers assumed interested parties had at least a passing familiarity with Marvel’s other titles, and wasted little time or energy on introductions in the premiere issue.

In Asgard Loki, god of evil, is imprisoned on a dank islet but still craves vengeance on his step-brother Thor. Observing Earth, the villain sees the monstrous Hulk and engineers a situation wherein the man-brute goes on a rampage, hoping to trick the Thunder God into battling the bludgeoning brute. When sidekick Rick Jones radios the Fantastic Four for assistance, Loki diverts the transmission so they cannot hear it and expects his mischief to quickly blossom. However, other heroes pick up the SOS – namely Iron Man, Ant-Man & the Wasp – and as the costumed champions converge on the desert in search of the Hulk, they realize something’s amiss…

This terse and compelling yarn is Lee & Kirby at their absolute best, and one of the greatest stories of the Silver Age, here promptly followed by ‘The Space Phantom’ (Lee, Kirby & Reinman): another unforgettable epic, in which an alien shape-stealer almost destroys the group from within. The tale ends with the volatile Hulk quitting the team only to return in #3 as a villain in partnership with ‘Sub-Mariner!’: a globetrotting romp delivering high energy thrills and one of the best battle scenes in comics history.

Three months later, Fantastic Four #25 featured a cataclysmic clash that had young heads spinning in 1964… and pretty much ever since. Inked by George Roussos, ‘The Hulk Vs The Thing’ and concluding saga ‘The Avengers Take Over!’ in FF #26 offered a fast-paced, all-out Battle Royale as the disgruntled man-monster comes to New York in search of sidekick Rick, with only an injury-wracked FF in the way of his destructive rampage.

A definitive moment in the character development of The Thing, the action accelerates and amplifies when a rather stiff-necked, officious Avengers team horns in claiming jurisdictional rights on “Bob” Banner and his Jaded Alter Ego. This tale is plagued with pesky continuity errors which would haunt Lee for decades, but notwithstanding the bloopers, this is one of Marvel’s key moments and still a vivid, vital read.

Over in Avengers #5, ‘The Invasion of the Lava Men!’ (Lee, Kirby & Reinman) resulted in another incredible romp as Earth’s Mightiest battled superheated, superhuman subterraneans and a lethally radioactive mutating mountain with the unwilling assistance of the Hulk. It would be his last appearance there for many months…

However, the next cameo came in Amazing Spider-Man #14 (July 1964): an absolute milestone as a hidden criminal mastermind debuted; manipulating a Hollywood studio into making a movie about the wall-crawler. Even with guest-star opponents such as the Enforcers the Incredible Hulk steals all the limelight in ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ (Lee & Ditko) which is only otherwise notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy (sarcasm alert!).

The second stage of the man-brute’s career was about to take off and Tales to Astonish #59 (September) offered a pulse-pounding prologue as ‘Enter: The Hulk!’ (Lee, Ayers & Reinman) sees the Avengers inadvertently provoking Giant-Man to hunt down the Green Goliath. Although The Human Top devilishly engineered that blockbusting battle, Lee was the real mastermind, as with the next issue The Hulk debuted in his own series – and on the covers – whilst Giant-Man’s adventures shrank back to a dozen or so pages.

This wonderfully economical compendium of classic wonders closes with the lead story from Journey into Mystery #112 (January 1965). ‘The Mighty Thor Battles the Incredible Hulk!’ is a glorious gift to all those fans who can’t help but ask “Who’s stronger?”

Arguably Kirby & Chic Stone’s finest artistic moment together, it details the private duel between these two super-humans that occurred during the free-for-all between Earth’s Mightiest, Sub-Mariner and Ol’ Greenskin back in Avengers #3. The sheer raw power of that tale is a perfect exemplar of what makes the Hulk work (and one that inspired that fight in the Thor: Ragnarok movie) and would be an ideal place to close proceedings.

Happily, however, fans and art lovers can enjoy further treats in the form of assorted House Ads; original artwork by Kirby & Ditko; a gallery of classic Kirby covers modified by painter Dean White (originally seen on assorted Marvel Masterworks editions) plus reproduced Essentials collection and Omnibus covers by Bruce Timm and Alex Ross…

Hulk Smash! He always was and with material like this he always will be.
© 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1923 the magnificently quirky Mike Sekowsky was born. We all know about his Justice League, Adam Strange, Metal Men and Inhumans stuff but have you seen Diana Prince, Wonder Woman volume 1?

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Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 12: The Possession of Franklin Richards


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Ed Hannigan, George Pérez, Peter B. Gillis, Roger Stern, Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Ditko, Tom Sutton, Keith Pollard, Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott, Pablo Marcos, Bruce Patterson, Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino, Mike Esposito, Jerome Moore, Frank Giacoia & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6056-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fantastic Fun for Comics Addicts… 8/10

It’s a been a big year for the fabulous FF. Here’s another titanic tome to add to your seasonal swag list…

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, 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 and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by its ailing publisher’s steadily plunging standards. However, it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement and thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling. The series caught a wave of change beginning to build in America, and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. Revealed in that premier, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, 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 permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four – you can add your own fanfare and timpani here if you wish…

Throughout the 1960s it was the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Jack 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’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts lost out to traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-heavy Fights ‘n’ Tights forays abounding. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour compendium represents Fantastic Four #215-231 and Annuals #14-16, spanning Fall 1979 to June 1981.

What You Should Know: After being rejuvenated and repowered in an extended space-spanning saga, the Family FF are getting used to being back on Earth even with supervillains all over the place. Now Read On…

The revived, excessively rejuvenated team are in full fine fettle for Fantastic Four Annual #14 wherin Marv Wolfman, George Pérez & Pablo Marcos put firstborn Franklin Richards and his sorcerous nanny Agatha Harkness in the spotlight for ‘Cats-Paw!’ When magical cult Salem’s Seven abduct and brainwash the adult FF in hopes of resurrecting their macabre master Nicholas Scratch, even the Avengers are helpless to stop the carnage unleashed. Thankfully, the extra-dimensional voyage of the kid and the crone is enough to set everything right…

The arcane account is augmented by ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’ by Keith Pollard & Marcos, giving the lowdown on late-debuting villains and ne’er-do-wells including Invincible Man, Attuma, Gideon, Dragon Man, The Frightful Four and Quasimodo. Monthly FF #215 then finds Wolfman, John Byrne & Joe Sinnott reintroducing Negative Zone terror tyrant ‘Blastaar!’ who somehow escapes the antimatter universe to take over the Baxter Building just as a reinvigorated Reed Richards is distracted by former colleague Professor Randolph James who has hyper-evolved himself to offset an otherwise fatal beating by street thugs. Sadly, his accelerator device has not advanced James’ ethical outlook, and after taking vengeance on his attackers, the future man proves that ‘Where There Be Gods!’ there be trouble too, as the mental marvel aligns with Blastaar only to fall before a far greater power… angry cosmic child Franklin…

Bill Mantlo scripts #217 for Byrne & Sinnott, as ‘Masquerade!’ at last exposes the viper in the team’s midst: an inimical force responsible for most of the recent setbacks and accidents, and almost the deaths of the heroes and Johnny’s new intended girlfriend Dazzler…

No spoilers here this time, but back then we all just knew who the hidden villain actually was… that acursed robot!

Infernal gadget H.E.R.B.I.E. was imposed on the series due to concerns by producers of the current Fantasic Four cartoon show. Rejecting fire hazard Johnny for a cutely telegenic robot, Wolfman cheekily made that commercial compromise in-world canon, dividing fans forever after. The bleeping bot – a Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics (latterly, Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration; don’cha just love nominative deterministic acronymics?) – is pure Marmite in most readers eyes…

Next is the last half of an old-school saga that, for completeness, means you need to read Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 before enjoying the contents of FF #218. What’s not here is how ESU student Peter Parker goes on a class jaunt and is lured into a trap by the Frightful Four (in ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ by Mantlo, Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney if you were wondering). The villains broadsided the wallcrawler after new recruit Electro impersonated the Human Torch there…

Now for ‘When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!’ (cover-dated May 1980 by Mantlo, Byrne & Sinnott), Trapster repeats the tactic to ambush the comfortably at home quartet, allowing his comrades The Wizard and Sandman to take over the heroes’ Baxter Building citadel… at least until a fighting-mad webspinner breaks free for an unstoppable counterattack…

Penciller John Byrne, having served out his first term on the series he was to soon make his alone, was officially only temporarily replaced for FF #219. Ably augmented by Sinnott, stalwart “Guest-Team” Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz were parachuted in for monster mash-up ‘Leviathans’ due to the huge success and acclaim generated by their vigilante thriller Moon Knight. They brought with them a whole new look and sensibility, as well as far faster pace to the stories. Here, modern day pirate Cap’n Barracuda steals the fabled Horn of Proteus from Atlantis to unleash a wave of giant monsters on New York City. Thankfully, this is a subject the mighty Sub-Mariner and Mr. Fantastic can agree on, and their combined forces soon stomp the beasties to stop a piratical plunder ploy without peer…

Byrne bounced back writing & pencilling in #220 as ‘…And the Lights Went Out All Over the World!’ sees the Avengers call Reed and Co. when all Earth suffers a catastrophic power-outage. Science! sends the explorers to the arctic to encounter an astounding and unbelievable obelisk being constructed by beings of utterly alien appearance…

The story includes an updated origin for the quartet and guest shot for Canada’s finest (that’s Vindicator of Alpha Flight in case you were wondering) as the tale halts for a pinup by inker Sinnott (the Torch battling a flaming Skrull) prior to #221’s concluding chapter ‘Tower of Glass… Dreams of Glass!’ Following the usual misconceptions and rash clashes it is revealed that three aliens shipwrecked for half a million years just need their myriad mobile mechanisms to reverse the planet’s magnetic poles so they can return home at last. Happily, Reed has a less end-of-human-civilisation-y solution leaving everyone involved happy and safe; and back where they belong…

Now officially the regular creative team, Moench & Sienkiewicz prep for Halloween in FF #222’s ‘The Possession of Franklin Richards!’ as the cosmic ray kid is again targeted from beyond the unknown by exiled soul Nicholas Scratch. The son of Agatha Harkness is the kind of warlock who gives witchcraft a bad name. and, having made the boy his conduit back to reality, Scratch goes on to terrorise and torture his hated enemies. With Doctor Strange unavailable, they enlist the dubious gifts of self-doubting failed horror hero Gabriel the Devil Hunter and his morally ambiguous familiar Desadia (from Marvel’s monochrome magazine line titles Haunt of Horror and Monsters Unleashed)…

Apparently acquiescing, the team agree to liberate the dead diabolist’s minions of magical mayhem and Salem’s Seven toil ‘That a Child May Live…’ Of course, their instant assaults on humanity are an acceptable risk and consequence in Reed’s plan: setting the worlds to rights for all but the defeated devil…

Fantastic Four Annual #15 swiftly follows, wherein Moench & Pérez, abetted by Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino & Mike Esposito, renew hostilities between the FF and Skrull empire as the shapeshifters target the supergenius’ latest energy-casting breakthrough in ‘Time for the Prime Ten!’ Infiltrating the Baxter Building, negating his valiant teammates and almost banishing Mr. Fantastic to the tender mercies of Annihilus in the Negative Zone, the sneaky killers are actually seeking to end their millennial war against stellar rivals The Kree, but have underestimated Reed’s brilliance, his family’s tenacity and the cosmic awareness of Earth-loving Kree Exile Captain Mar-Vell…

A back-up tale by Moench & Tom Sutton takes us to recently liberated Latveria for the opening of proposed series ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Only episode ‘The Power of the People!’ shows how restored monarch King Zorba fails to live up to his democratic promises and discover how excessive taxation really upsets voters, at around the same moment crazed, catatonic Victor von Doom goes missing from the most secure dungeon in Doomstadt…

Sadly, the impending crisis never materialised and was only addressed by Byrne in Fantastic Four #247…

Over in FF #224 & 225, fresh calamity unfolds in ‘The Darkfield Illumination’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Pablo Marcos) as radioactive red mist blankets Manhattan and plays hob with the team’s powers. Tracing the cloud’s origin point to an icy dome in the Arctic, the FF find a lost colony of technologically advanced Vikings utterly dependent upon a mutated immortal giant. ‘The Blind God’s Tears’ supply heat, light, food materials from the outside world and immortality, but now Korgon is dying and demands the explorers save him and the people who worship him. Always eager to help, the FF strive and succeed in saving the God, only to see him betrayed by his most trusted ally. As Korgon rages madly in response, the crisis escalates as Mighty Thor arrives to investigate worshippers who have abandoned their true god for a false one…

Bruce Patterson joins Marcos inking Sienkiewicz when Moench next brings closure to fans of his Shogun Warriors series. In their own title the former pilots of monster-fighting mega-mecha Dangard Ace, Raydeen and Combatra had been recruited by an ancient order to defend humanity, but retired when their machines were destroyed. That epic sacrifice had come when evil enemy Maur-Kon targeted the Fantastic Four and attempted to kill Reed. Now a new giant mecha rampages and robs, so the teams reunite with Ilongo Savage, Richard Carson and Genji Odashu aiding the fight against ‘The Samurai Destroyer’ and the unworthy soul exploiting its power for profit….

Movie-toned terror in the heartland follows as a meteor crashes in rural Pennsylvania resort Lost Lake just as the FF head out to the Boonies for a break. Their encounter with ‘The Brain Parasites’ reverting hosts to earlier evolutionary forms is by-the-books horror fun from Moench, Sienkiewicz & Patterson, and readily fixed by little Franklin’s increasingly unreliable powers. This sets the scene for the next – Sinnott inked – issue where further tests by professional head shrinkers and brain benders unleash uncontrollable chaos, possessed bystanders and an adult super-powered version of the lad. Thankfully, loving parents and uncles allow Franklin to exorcise his deadly ‘Ego-Spawn’.

The experiment in alternative tale-telling ends with a 3-part saga opening on #229’s ‘The Thing From the Black Hole’. When it homes in on Reed’s latest invention, Earth totters on the edge of destruction as a sentient singularity made of antimatter disrupts physical laws. Desperate Richards makes contact with its cosmic equivalent and uncovers a tale of love lost in service to scientific exploration. The wandering extinction event was once a living being whose love for a fellow astronaut turned them both into creatures of uncanny forces. Thankfully, ‘Firefrost and the Ebon Seeker’ now reach an understanding that saves Earth, but as a consequence a section of Manhattan – including the Baxter Building – is left inside the Negative Zone.

With panic amongst the abducted New Yorkers barely suppressed, the FF seek a solution ‘In All the Gathered Gloom!’ (Moench & Roger Stern, Sienkienwisz, Jerome Moore, Sinnott, & Frank Giacoia) even as new antimatter menace Stygorr zeroes in on the intruding enclave. The last thing the FF need is bullying big business plutocrat Lew Shiner telling everyone his money puts him in charge. After his posturing triggers a riot, tragedy is guaranteed, and the heroes barely beat the alien invader in time to return everyone surviving back home…

This foray into the fantastic finishes on a “soft pilot episode” as Fantastic Four Annual #16 embraces the contemporary fantasy market with ‘The Coming of… Dragon Lord!’ by Ed Hannigan & Steve Ditko. When trainee Ral Dorn is framed for killing a sacred beast and hunted by former fellows in the puissant extradimensional Dragon Rider organisation, the chase ends up with him wounded. His flight, employing a multi-powered Dragon Staff, leads to a collision with an off-duty quirky quartet, celebrating a reunion on the college campus where they first encountered astouding android Dragon Man,. but the coincidence escapes everybody and the heroes leave the mystery man to the medics.

Days later the fugitive breaks into their skyscraper home and with the Staff holding the FF at bay explains his predicament. A novice lawkeeper, his dream of bonding with a dragon has been shattered by the death of his destined beast-partner, and accusations that he’s responsible. The wild story is inadvertantly backed up by a posse of Dragon Riders seeking to stop him and the intervention of Ral’s bizarre former ally Lalique. When they are driven away, it is clear to the human heroes that something is not kosher and they determine to help him. It’s obvious to Ral that his boss Dragon Lord Skagerackäkor is behind the plot but without a bonded beast what can he do? That’s why he was on campus. He had learned of former FF foe Dragon Man and decided that needs must when the devil drives…

The classic plot left all the goodies rewarded amd baddies punished and was claearly an attempt to launch a series, but…

With covers by Sinnott, Ron Wilson, Josef Rubinstein, Rich Buckler, Al Milgrom, Byrne, Pollard, Sienkienwicz, Bob McLeod & Ditko the extras here include Sinnott pinups of the whole team and Thing pinup from FF #218 & 219: Sienkievich’s rejected cover-turned-pinup as printed in #224; the entries for January in the Marvel Comics 20th Anniversary Calandar 1981 (Sienkienwicz & Sinnott) plus original art pages/covers from Byrne, Sinnott, Sienkienwicz, Marcos and Patterson, as well as original colour-guides painted by George Roussos.

Although never quite returning to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this truly different collection represents a closing of the First Act for the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”, and palate-cleansing preparation for the second groundbreaking run by John Byrne. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight casual browsers looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1858, French cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré was born. He annoyed all the right people as Caran d’Ache… and plenty of the wrong ones too. Far less controversial were Fred Harmon and screenwriter/ scripter Stephen Slesinger who launched epic cowboy strip Red Ryder this day in 1938.

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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume


By Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, John Byrne, Roger Stern, Joe Sinnott, Al Milgrom, George Pérez, Tom Sutton, Jerome Moore, Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino, Mike Esposito, Pablo Marcos, Frank Giacoia, George Roussos, Jim Novak, Irving Watanabe & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1027-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, 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 and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing publisher’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 revealed in that premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teen brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All were permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Throughout the 1960s The Fantastic Four 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’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts lost out to traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-heavy Fights ‘n’ Tights forays abounding. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour luxury compendium collects Fantastic Four #219-231 and Annual #15, spanning June 1980-June 1981, wherein editor Jim Salicrup sanctioned a bold new look and direction for the Hallowed team. The call for and upshot of all that is discussed by incoming writer Doug Moench who recalls fan-fright paralysis and jumping in full throttle in his Introduction ‘The Big-Kid Stuff Cold Turkey Fail’ prior to a distinctly spookily toned and frequently supernaturally themed change of pace commencing.

What You Should Know: After being rejuvenated and repowered in an extended space-spanning saga, the Family FF are getting used to being back on earth even with supervillains all over the place. Now Read On…

Penciller John Byrne, having served out his first term of duty on the series he was to soon make his alone was officially and ostensibly only temporarily replaced for FF #219. Ably augmented by Joe Sinnott, stalwart “Guest-Team” Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz were parachuted in for monster mash-up ‘Leviathans’, on the back of huge success and acclaim for their vigilante thriller Moon Knight, bringing with them a whole new look and sensibility, as well as far faster pace to the stories.

Here, modern day pirate Cap’n Barracuda steal the fabled Horn of Proteus from Atlantis and unleashes a wave of giant monsters on New York City. Thankfully, this is a subject the mighty Sub-Mariner and Mr. Fantastic can agree on and their combined forces are soon stomping beasties and taking names (like Giganto!) to restore order and stop a piratical plunder ploy without peer…

Byrne was back writing & pencilling in #220 as ‘…And the Lights Went Out All Over the World!’ sees the Avengers call in Reed and his team when all of Earth suffers a catastrophic power-outage. Science! soon sends the explorers to the arctic where they encounter an astounding and unbelievable obelisk being constructed by beings of utterly alien appearance…

The story includes an updated origin for the quartet and guest shot for Canada’s finest (that’s Vindicator of Alpha Flight in case you were wondering) and the issue halts with a pinup/possible rejected cover by inker Sinnott (the Torch battling a flaming Skrull) before #221’s concluding chapter ‘Tower of Glass… Dreams of Glass!’ – after the usual misconceptions and rash clashes reveal three aliens shipwrecked for half a million years who just need their myriad mobile mechanisms to reverse the planet’s magnetic poles so that they can return home at last. Thankfully, Reed has a less end of human civilisation-y solution that leaves everyone involved happy and safe…

Now officially the latest regular creative team, Moench & Sienkiewicz return to prep for Halloween in FF #222’s ‘The Possession of Franklin Richards!’ as the kid is targeted from beyond the unknown by the exiled soul of Nicholas Scratch, son of Agatha Harkness and the kind of warlock who gives witchcraft a bad name. Having made the boy his conduit back to reality, Scratch terrorises and tortures his hated enemies, who with Doctor Strange unavailable, must call on the dubious gifts of self-doubting failed horror hero Gabriel the Devil Hunter and his sexy morally ambiguous familiar Desadia (as mostly seen in the Marvel monochrome magazine line such as Haunt of Horror and Monsters Unleashed).

Apparently acquiescing, the team agree to liberate the dead diabolist’s minions of magical cult Salem’s Seven in ‘That a Child May Live…’ but their instant assaults on humanity are an acceptable risk and consequence in a long plan that sets the worlds to rights for all but the defeated devil…

Fantastic Four Annual #15 swiftly follows, wherein Moench & George Pérez, abetted by Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino & Mike Esposito, renew hostilities between the FF and the Skrull empire when the shapeshifters target Reed’s latest energy-casting breakthrough in ‘Time for the Prime Ten!’ Infiltrating the Baxter Building, negating his teammates and almost banishing Mr. Fantastic to the tender mercies of Annihilus in the Negative Zone, the sneaky killers are actually seeking to end their millennial war against stellar rivals The Kree, but have underestimated Reed’s brilliance, his team’s tenacity and the sheer power and cosmic awareness of Earth-loving Kree Exile Captain Mar-Vell…

A back-up tale by Moench & Tom Sutton takes us to recently liberated Latveria for the opening of proposed series ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ with only episode ‘The Power of the People!’ showing how restored monarch King Zorba failing to live up to his democratic promise and discovering how excessive taxation really upsets subjects, at around the same moment crazed and catatonic Victor von Doom goes missing from the most secure dungeon in Doomstadt…

Sadly, the impending crisis never materialised and was only addressed by John Byrne in Fantastic Four #247…

Over in FF #224 & 225, fresh calamity unfolds in Moench, Sienkiewicz & Pablo Marcos’ ‘The Darkfield Illumination’ as an eerie radioactive red mist blankets Manhattan and plays hob with the team’s powers. Tracing the cloud’s origin point to an icy dome in the Arctic, the FF discover a lost colony of technologically advanced Vikings utterly dependent upon a mutated immortal giant. ‘The Blind God’s Tears’ supply heat, light, food materials from the outside world and immortality, but now Korgon is dying and demands the explorers save him and the people who worship him…

Always eager to help, the team strive hard and succeed in saving the God, only to see him betrayed by his most trusted ally. As Korgon rages madly in response, the situation escalates as Thor arrives to investigate Viking worshippers who have abandoned their true god for a false one…

Bruce Patterson joins Marcos inking Sienkiewicz as Moench takes the opportunity to bring closure to fans of his old Shogun Warriors series next. In their own title the former pilots of monster-fighting mega-mecha Dangard Ace, Raydeen and Combatra had been recruited by an ancient order to defend humanity, but had ultimately retired when their machines were destroyed. That epic sacrifice had come when evil enemy Maur-Kon had targeted the Fantastic Four and attempted to kill Reed.

Now a new giant mecha rampages and robs and the teams reunite with Ilongo Savage, Richard Carson and Genji Odashu aiding the battle against ‘The Samurai Destroyer’ and the unworthy soul exploiting its power for profit….

Movie-toned terror in the heartland follows as a meteor crashes in rural Pennsylvania resort Lost Lake just as the FF head out to the Boonies for a break. Their encounter with ‘The Brain Parasites’ infesting hosts and reverting them to earlier evolutionary forms is by-the-books horror fun from Moench, Sienkiewicz & Patterson, and readily fixed by little Franklin’s unreliable mental powers. This sets the scene for the next issue where further tests by professional head shrinkers and brain benders only unleash uncontrollable chaos, possessing bystanders and an adult super-powered version of the lad. Thankfully loving parents and uncles allow Franklin to exorcise his deadly ‘Ego-Spawn’ (Sinnott inks)…

The experiment in alternative tale-telling ends on a 3-part saga that opens with #229’s ‘The Thing From the Black Hole’. After it homes in on Reed’s latest invention, Earth soon totters on the edge of destruction as a living, sentient singularity made of antimatter disrupts physical laws. Desperate Richards makes contact with its cosmic equivalent and uncovers a tale of love lost in service to scientific exploration. The mobile extinction event was once a sentient being whose love for a fellow astronaut turned them both into creatures of uncanny forces. Thankfully ‘Firefrost and the Ebon Seeker’ reach an understanding that saves the world, but as a consequence a section of Manhattan – including the Baxter Building – is marooned inside the Negative Zone.

With panic amongst the hordes of abducted New Yorkers barely suppressed, the FF search for a solution ‘In All the Gathered Gloom!’ (by Moench & Roger Stern with art from Sienkienwisz, Jerome Moore, Sinnott, & Frank Giacoia) even as new antimatter menace Stygorr zeroes in on the intruding enclave. The last thing the FF need is bullying big business plutocrat Lew Shiner telling everyone his money puts him in charge. After his posturing triggers a riot, tragedy is guaranteed, and the heroes barely beat the alien invader in time to return everyone surviving back home…

With covers by Sienkienwicz, Byrne Sinnott & Bob McLeod, the extras here include a Sinnott Thing pinup from FF #219, Sienkievich’s rejected cover-turned-pinup as printed in #224 original art pages/covers inked by Marcos, Bruce Patterson, Sinnott, and original colour-guides painted by George Roussos.

Although never quite returning to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this truly different collection represents a closing of the First Act for the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”, and palate cleansing preparation for the second groundbreaking run by an inspired John Byrne. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight casual browsers looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement – especially if this time the movie continues to deliver on its promise…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

To Be Continued…

Today in 1918 artist John Forte was born. He’s most fondly remembered for costumed charm, as best seen in Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age volume 1 . We don’t have nearly enough collected material for UK visionary comics stalwart Ron Embleton who was born today in 1930. If you think you’re old enough, you could look at Oh, Wicked Wanda!.

Indomitable weekly anthology Valiant began its stellar 712 issue run today in 1962. Inside was the magnificent Steel Claw whom we comprehensively covered in The Steel Claw: Invisible Man. Yes. Well done, the modern invisible man could be seen from the start…

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Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks volume 8


By Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Jan Strnad, John Byrne, Doug Moench, Ron Wilson, Alan Kupperberg, Chic Stone, Jim Mooney, Jon D’Agostino, “A. Sorted” & various (MARVEL)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of an established star pairing, or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters was not new when Marvel awarded their most popular hero the same deal DC had with Batman in The Brave and the Bold since the early 1960s. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in The Human Torch. In those distant days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and as superheroes were actually in a sales decline, they might well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas ran with the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most popular character. They began with a brace of test runs in Marvel Feature #11-12 before awarding him his own team-up title, with this 8th rousing & rowdy round-up gathering the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #83-93 covering January 1980 through November 1982.

Preceded by another comprehensive, informative contextual reverie via editor Jim Salicrup’s Introduction ‘It’s Introducin’ Time or Two Marvel Introductions in One!’, a late-running annual event anachronistically opens the fun. Although released in summer 1980, steadfast stalwarts Tom DeFalco, Ron Wilson & Chic Stone counter the perennial problem of team-up tales – a lack of continuity (something Marvel always prided itself upon) – by returning to an extended subplot.

Previously Bill (Giant-Man) Foster had entered the final stages of his lingering death from radiation exposure, before a combination of heroes and villains had found a potential solution. Their success leads here to supergenius Reed Richards taking over Foster’s treatment, resulting in the Thing heading north in #83 to ‘Where Stalks the Sasquatch!’

The most monstrous member of Alpha Flight is actually radiation researcher Dr. Walter Langkowski, but his impromptu medical consultation obliquely leads to the release of malign Native American spirit Ranark the Ravager and a Battle Royale which quickly escalates to include the entire team in ‘Cry for Beloved Canada!’

‘The Final Fate of Giant-Man!’ came in Marvel Two-In-One #85 wherein Spider-Woman joined the Thing to tackle Foster’s arch-nemesis Atom-Smasher, after which ‘Time Runs Like Sand!’ offered an astoundingly low key landmark as Ben and the sinister Sandman had a few bevvies in a bar and turned the felon’s life around. Also included was a short, sharp comedy vignette wherein Ben and godson Franklin Richards deal with a bored Impossible Man and his equally obnoxious kids in ‘Farewell, My Lummox!’…

When Ben is kidnapped in #87, the FF call in Ant-Man Scott Lang who helps our rocky rogue defeat a duplicitous queen in the ‘Menace of the Microworld!’ after which David Anthony Kraft & Alan Kupperberg join inker Chic Stone in detailing a ‘Disaster at Diablo Reactor!’, with Ben and the Savage She-Hulk countering the nefarious Negator’s plans to turn Los Angeles into a cloud of radioactive vapour…

They then pit Ben and gadfly buddy the Human Torch against deranged demagogues seeking to stamp out extremes of beauty, ugliness, weakness and strength in ‘The Last Word!’ before Jan Strnad, Kupperberg & Jim Mooney pit Spider-Man and big Ben against time-bending chaos in ‘Eyes of the Sorcerer’. A new extended epic opened as DeFalco, Wilson & Jon D’Agostino reveal what lurks in ‘In the Shadow of the Sphinx!’ When mystic master Doctor Strange asks the thing to investigate a vision of Egypt, the bold battler falls into the clutches of immortal wizard The Sphinx who obsessively seeks to recover his power-providing Ka-stone. On the voyage back home after beating the bad guy, Ben encounters robotic Avenger Jocasta, but not in time to stop her helplessly reviving Ultron who has foresightedly pre-programmed the benighted mechanoid in DeFalco, Wilson & “A. Sorted” inkers’ ‘This Evil Returning…!’

When handmade hero Machine Man and his human assistants insert themselves into the crisis, they unexpectedly score a narrow win, but not before ‘And One Shall Die…!’

Closing with an original art gallery featuring pages and covers by Wilson, Stone, Al Milgrom, Kupperberg, Mooney, & “A. Sorted”, this penultimate character cohort compendium is packed with simple, straightforward Fights ‘n’ Tights meet, greet & defeat episodes: entertaining and exciting with no hint of pretension and no need to swot up on superfluous backstory.

Even if artistically the work varies from only adequate to truly top-notch, most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s plenty of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts-and-all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1938 Jean-Claude Mézières was born. Have you seen his Valerian: The Complete Collection volume 1?

In 1956, the much-missed Peter David arrived. If you check out Star Trek Classics volume 5: Who Killed Captain Kirk? you’ll see that he left us far too soon.

Today in 1967 IPC (International Publishing Company) launched upscale UK girls comic Princess Tina.

Crucially, today is my 30-somethingth wedding anniversary. Hah! Can’t call me forgetful anymore! Rather surprised “Hi!” to anybody at the ceremony who is still alive after the last 36 years!

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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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Nova Classic volume 3


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Carmine Infantino, John Buscema, Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, John Byrne, Gene Colan, Mike Vosburg, Dave Hunt, Steve Leialoha, Mike Esposito, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod, Josef Rubinstein, Tom Palmer, Frank Springer, Al Milgrom, Frank Giacoia & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6028-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

By 1975 the first wave of fans-turned-writers were well ensconced at all surviving US comic book companies. Two former fanzine graduates – Len Wein & Marv Wolfman – had achieved stellar success early on, risen through the ranks of writer/editors at Marvel: a company at that moment in trouble both creatively and in terms of sales.

After a meteoric rise and a virtual root-&-branch overhaul of the industry in the 1960s, the House of Ideas and every other comics publisher except Archie Comics were suffering a mass desertion of fans who had simply found other uses for their mad-money. Whereas Charlton and Gold Key dwindled and eventually died, and DC vigorously explored new genres to bolster their flagging sales, Marvel chose to exploit their record with superheroes: fostering new titles within a shared universe it was increasingly impossible to buy only a portion of…

As seen in previous compilations (Nova Classic volumes 1 & 2), The Man Called Nova was in fact a boy named Richard Rider: a working-class teen 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 was a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Other superficial differences to the Spider-Man canon included girlfriend Ginger and best friends Bernie and Caps, but Rich of course did have his own school bully, Mike Burley…

This culminatory compilation gathers Nova #20-25, Fantastic Four #204-206 & 208-214 concluding the first run of the earthborn star cop’s exploits. An earlier version – “Black Nova” – apparently appeared in Wolfman &Wein fan mag Super Adventures in 1966, but with a few revisions and an artistic makeover by John Romita the Elder, a “Human Rocket” launched into the Marvel Universe in his own title, cover-dated September 1976. Borrowing as heavily from Green Lantern as the wallcrawler, ‘Nova’ rapidly introduced its large cast before quickly zipping to the life-changing moment in Rider’s life when a colossal starship with a dying alien aboard transferred to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeping warrior.

Centurion Rhomann Dey had been tracking deadly marauder Zorr to Earth after the brute destroyed idyllic planet Xandar, but the severely wounded, vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide. Trusting to fate, Dey beamed his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rich was struck by an energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening, the boy realises he has gained awesome powers… and the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion.

Thus started a frantic but frequently embarrassing heroic learning curve packed with guest star meetings here and now culminating in a voyage to the stars after a long campaign against a hidden group victimising Rider’s dad final get what’s coming to them…

Here and now it’s Nova #20, and a steadily improving junior hero at last deals with the cabal who nearly destroyed dad. ‘At Last… The Inner Circle!’ (by Wolfman, Carmine Infantino & Dave Hunt) then leads to a minor breakthrough in comics conventions as the Human Rocket reveals his alter ego to the family in ‘Is the World Ready for the Shocking Secret of Nova?’ – illustrated by John Buscema, Bob McLeod & Joe Rubinstein – before a long-forgotten crusader and some very familiar villains resurface in ‘The Coming of the Comet!’ (#22, by Infantino & Steve Leialoha)…

Next, long-hidden but always lurking cyborg mastermind Dr. Sun (an old Dracula foe, of all things) reveals himself in ‘From the Dregs of Defeat!’, executing a complex scheme to seize control of the Nova Prime starship and its so-tantalising super-computers. A vast epic was impressively unfolding, but sadly, the Human Rocket’s days were numbered. Penultimate issue #24 (Infantino inked by Esposito) introduced ‘The New Champions!’ with Dr. Sun battling ancient nemesis the Sphinx for control of the starship, with Crime-Buster, the Comet, Powerhouse and Diamondhead all dragged along on a voyage to the lost ruins of Xandar, the apparently destroyed home of the Nova Centurions.

The series abruptly ended with #25, a hastily restructured yarn as the cancellation axe hit before matters could properly conclude. Wolfman, Infantino & Klaus Janson delivered ‘Invasion of the Body Changers!’ with the unhappy crew lost in space and attacked by Skrulls, and all somehow implicated in the destruction of Xandar. However, answers to the multitude of questions raised would be resolved in the pages of the Fantastic Four and licensed property Rom: Spaceknight: the latter of which is not included here.

Happily the FF are here and hot to go, so…

After surviving another clash with Doctor Doom and their own in-house computing crisis, the family of Imaginauts encounter scurrilous shapeshifting Skrulls after intercepting an errant teleport beam. In FF #204, Wolfman, Keith Pollard & Joe Sinnott address ‘The Andromeda Attack!’ as Johnny goes out gallivanting and governess/guardian/witch queen Agatha Harkness picks up little Franklin Richards. With only grown-ups in residence, Reed’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 team’s counterattack. Interrogating the wounded woman, they learn she’s come seeking help for her shattered world: a near extinct civilisation called Xandar…

Already illicitly supported by the local Watcher breaking his hallowed non-intervention oath, the last survivors of Andromeda’s most benign culture have been reduced to four self-contained domed globes linked together and careening through space, defended only by the last of their peacekeeper Nova Corps. Now the fugitives are 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 assist the Xandarians, but the Human Torch has just got a new girlfriend and opts to stay behind for now to woo mysterious Frankie Ray. The flaming kid’s also set on finally following up on his long postponed higher education commitments and has enrolled in specialist academic institution Security College. 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…

‘When Worlds Die!’ in #205, Reed, Sue & Ben arrive with Adora at New Xandar. The planetary remnants under attack by a Skrull war fleet, and 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 vast 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!

Despite ever-diminishing forces Chief administrator Prime Thoran and severely wounded Nova Centurion Tanak have been holding back the storm but now need the FF to turn the tide. Meanwhile back at Security College, Johnny has stumbled into mystery and peril too, as a strange force seizes control of the students. Sadly, that mystery won’t be solved here as FF #207 – an all-Torch, all-Earth yarn – is omitted from this collection…

In Andromeda, his family’s first foray against the Skrulls leads to their defeat and capture. Humiliated, tortured and put on display in a 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 ambitious, terrifying and extremely capable wife Empress R’kylll, increased resistance from the Xandarians and, inevitably, the escape of the fast-aging earth heroes…

Ordering all-out assaults on the battered prey, Dorrek is further frustrated when Prime Thoran gains astounding power after merging with the Living Computers as well as the arrival of that colossal ship from Earth. Here the saga dovetails with that recently ended run and cliffhanger from Nova…

The newcomers’ arrival piles on the pressure and concatenates the chaos as both the magical ancient immortal The Sphinx and futuristic Sino-cyborg Dr. Sun abandon ship, each resolved to possess the limitless power of Xandar’s Living Computer network…

It’s not here but just so you know, missing FF #207 saw Johnny and Spider-Man expose the scandals of Security College, deprogram its students and fight B-list villain The Monocle before the Torch decides to check on his team in Andromeda. His arrival coincides with their escape from Dorrek and Sphinx’s absconding…

Aghast at the death sentence they’re enduring, Johnny is just as helpless before ‘The Power of The Sphinx!’ (Sal Buscema pencils & inking by gestalt pinch-hitters “D Hands” AKA Al Milgrom & Franks Giacoia & Springer), after the Egyptian upgrades his energy even further by stealing all the wisdom of the Living Computer system. With hyper-energised Prime Thoran busy battling Skrulls, the Sphinx solves the various secrets of the universe and heads back to Earth, intent on turning back time and preventing his agonising eons of existence from even happening. With all reality endangered, increasingly elderly Reed has only one gambit to try…

John Byrne begins his first tenure on the Fantastic Four with #209 (August 1979) as the reunited team 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 aid to bolster his fading faculties. The result is the Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics (latterly, a 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 and leaves them ‘Trapped in the Sargasso of Space!’, facing murderous aliens determined to use the new vessel to escape their static hell. Meanwhile, New Champions and Xandar’s last forces prepare for final battle, just as impatient R’kylll divorces her husband, changing the course of history with a single gun blast…

Despite odd, inexplicable increasingly hazardous incidences, the FF continue ‘In Search of Galactus!’, at last locating him and causing chaos in his colossal world-ship. They even convince the Devourer to stop the Sphinx, but only by rescinding the vow preventing him from consuming Earth, and only 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, where the pitiless killer is painfully subdued by the humans and converted by Galactus into a cosmic-powered being who will rejoice in finding worlds to consume irrespective of whether civilisations are condemned to be consumed with them…

Earth trembles as the Devourer unleashes his herald to cow humanity in #212, whilst his master faces The Sphinx, but ‘The Battle of the Titans!’ is subject to mission creep when the immortal wizard sees his new knowledge as a way to restore his own past glories. With Galactus 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 as Reed – seconds from death – joins Sue & Ben in cryo-suspension, barely aware that Galactus has triumphed at immense cost…

FF #214 (January 1980) reveals ‘…And Then There Was… One!’ as Johnny frantically seeks a cure for his family. When S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers and others all prove helpless, a fortuitous attack by vengeful cyborg Skrull-X offers a germ of hope, but one necessitating a huge gamble: defrosting Reed and hoping he can use what the defeated alien revealed before decrepitude ends the Smartest Man on Earth. Of course, it all works out, and a revived and even excessively rejuvenated team are in fine fettle.

With covers by Milgrom, Sinnott, Pollard, Dave Cockrum, Frank Giacoia, Walter Simonson, Byrne, Ron Wilson & Joe Rubinstein, and Rich Buckler, also on show is a framing sequence from What If? #36 (December 1982) by Bill Mantlo & Mike Vosburg revealing how the Xandar war ended, the fate of the Champions and how Rich Rider returned home with his superpowers apparently stripped from him forever. Yeah, right…

Boosted by pages from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Nova, Champions of Xandar, The Corruptor & Sphinx); the covers for Official Marvel Index to the Fantastic Four #2 by Rich Howell & Jack Abel, and original art pages and covers by Infantino, Austin & Janson and Pollard, Byrne & Sinnott before closing with a gallery of previous collection covers by Infantino, Milgrom, Byrne and more.

Of course, Rich Rider did return in a range of impressive Nova and New Warriors reboots but here there’s plenty of solid entertainment and beautiful superhero art to enjoy. Nova has proved his intrinsic worth, returning again and again: a fine fights ‘n’ tights star to while away time with. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight a generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement – especially if there’s always the potential of later movie momentum…
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Epic Collection volume 2: Quest for the Shield (1978 – 1990)


By Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, Chris Claremont, Mark Gruenwald, Jim Valentino, Roger Stern, George Pérez, Bill Mantlo, Allyn Brodsky, Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Dave Wenzel, John Byrne, Mike Vosburg, Bob McLeod, Jerry Bingham, Ron Wilson, Pablo Marcos, Klaus Janson, Gene Day, Bruce Patterson, Steve Montano, Win Mortimer, Josef Rubinstein, Dan Green, Rick Bryant, Ricardo Villamonte & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5641-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are two distinct and separate iterations of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The films concentrated on the second, but with inescapable connections between them and the stellar stalwarts here so pay close attention. The original comic book team were freedom fighters united to defeat a reptilian invasion by aggressive aliens The Badoon a thousand years from the present. The other were a later conception: springing out of contemporary crises seen in The Annihilation publishing event.

This treasury of torrid tales gathers landmark moments of the 31st century centurions, as seen in Avengers #167-168,170-177 & 181; Ms. Marvel #23; Marvel Team-Up #86; Marvel Two-In-One #61-63 & 69 plus an almost modern half dozen issues of 1990s sensation Guardians of the Galaxy, collaboratively and episodically spanning January 1978 through November 1990.

It features a radically different set-up than that of the silver screen stars, but is grand comic book sci fi fare all the same. One thing to recall at all times, though, is that there are two teams. Never the twain shall meet…until they one day did but not here…

The resistance unit comprised Charlie-27 – a heavy-gravity miner/militia-man from Jupiter and crystalline scientist Martinex from Pluto. Both are examples of radical human genetic engineering: subspecies designed to populate and colonise Sol system’s outer planets but now possibly the last of their kinds. They were joined in the struggle by 1000-year-old Earthman Major Vance Astro and Alpha Centauri aborigine Yondu. Astro had been humanity’s first intersolar astronaut; flying alone in cold sleep to Centauri at a plodding fraction of the speed of light. When he got there 10 centuries later, humanity was waiting for him, having cracked transluminal speeds only two centuries after he blasted off…

A legion of contemporary heroes eventually helped banish the Badoon and save 31st century humanity, but peace was unsettling for the Guardians, so they flew off in search of adventure. Along the way they picked up last Mercurian Nikki and a weird space-god calling him/herself Starhawk. The radically different roster are astoundingly out of their depth as we open with an extended tour of duty beside their 20th century inspirations, courtesy of Jim Shooter, George Pérez & Pablo Marcos: embroiling the World’s Mightiest Heroes of two eras in a sprawling tale of universal conquest opening in Avengers #167-168 (April & May 1978) before – after a brief pause – resuming for #170 through 177…

Previously, a difference of opinion between Captain America and Iron Man over leadership styles had begun polarising the team. Tensions started to show in ‘Tomorrow Dies Today!’ with a reminder that in the Gods-&-Monsters-filled Marvel Universe there are entrenched and jealous Hierarchies of Power. Thus, when a new player mysteriously and clandestinely materialises in the 20th century the very Fabric of Reality is threatened. The plot begins to unravel when the Guardians of the Galaxy materialise in Earth orbit, having hotly pursued cyborg despot Korvac through time. Inadvertently setting off planetary incursion alarms, their moon-sized vessel Drydock is swiftly boarded by Avengers, where, after the customary introductory squabble, the future heroes wearily explain the purpose of their mission. Captain America had fought beside the chronal champions to liberate their home era and Thor had faced fugitive Korvac before, so peace rapidly breaks out, but even with the home team’s full resources the time travellers are unable to locate their quarry. Meanwhile on Earth, mysterious being Michael is lurking in the background. At a fashion show staged by The Wasp he compels a psychic communion with model Carina Walters and they both vanish…

Avengers #168 sees ‘First Blood’ drawn, stirring up more trouble as Federal liaison/hidebound martinet Henry Peter Gyrich starts making life bureaucratically hot for the USA’s uncooperative heroes. In Colorado, Hawkeye gets a shock as his travelling partner Two-Gun Kid vanishes before his eyes and in suburban Forest Hills, Starhawk – as Aleta (the female iteration of their shared form Aleta) – approaches a sedate residence. Michael/Korvac’s scheme consists of subtly altering events whilst secretly gathering strength in preparation for a sneak attack on the 20th century’s Cosmic Hierarchies and all revolves around not being noticed until he is too powerful to stop. However, when Starhawk confronts the future fugitive, Michael kills the intruder and instantly resurrects him/them, but without the ability to perceive the assailant or any of his works…

After a 2-issue break forced by deadline problems, Shooter, Pérez & Marcos pick up the drama in #170 with ‘…Though Hell Should Bar the Way!’ As Sentinel of Liberty & Golden Avenger finally settle their differences, in Inhuman city Attilan, former Avenger Quicksilver suddenly disappears even as dormant mechanoid Jocasta (created by malign AI Ultron to be his bride) goes on a rampage and escapes into New York City. In stealthy pursuit and hoping her trail will lead to Ultron, the Avengers stride into a fiendish trap ‘…Where Angels Fear to Tread’, but triumph anyway thanks to the hex powers of the Scarlet Witch, the assistance of pushy, no-nonsense new hero Ms. Marvel and Jocasta’s own rebellion against the metal monster who made her. However, at their moment of triumph the team are stunned to witness Cap & Jocasta wink out of existence…

Problems pile on in #172 as watchdog-come-gadfly Gyrich is roughly manhandled and captured by out-of-the-loop returnee Hawkeye and responds by rescinding the team’s Federal clearances. Thus handicapped, the Avengers are unable to warn other inactive members of the rapidly increasing disappearances as a squad of heavy-hitters rush off to tackle marauding Atlantean maverick Tyrak the Treacherous, bloodily instigating a ‘Holocaust in New York Harbor!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson)…

Answers to the growing mystery are finally forthcoming in ‘Threshold of Oblivion!’ – plotted by Shooter, with David Michelinie scripting for Sal Buscema & D(iverse) Hands to illustrate. As vanishings escalate, the remaining Avengers (Thor, The Wasp, Hawkeye & Iron Man), with the assistance of Vance Astro, track their hidden foe and beam into a cloaked starship to liberate the ‘Captives of the Collector!’ (Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Dave Wenzel & Marcos).

After a staggering struggle, the heroes triumph and their old arch-nemesis reveals a shocking truth: he is in fact an Elder of the Universe who foresaw cosmic doom eons previously and sought to preserve special artefacts and creatures – such as the Avengers – from the inexorable but slowly approaching apocalypse. As he reveals that long-anticipated Armageddon is imminent and that he has sent his own daughter Carina to infiltrate The Enemy’s stronghold, the cosmic Noah is obliterated in a devastating blast of energy. The damage, however, is done, and the entrenched Hierarchies of Creation may have been alerted to the threat of an interloper…

Avengers #175 triggers the final countdown as ‘The End… and Beginning!’ (Shooter, Michelinie, Wenzel & Marcos) has the amassed ranks of Avengers & Guardians following clues to Michael even as the new god shares the incredible secret of his apotheosis with Carina. ‘The Destiny Hunt!’ and ‘The Hope… and the Slaughter!’ (Shooter, Wenzel, Marcos & Ricardo Villamonte) depicts the legion of champions destroyed and resurrected as Michael casually overpowers all opposition before faltering at the crucial moment for lack of one fundamental failing…

Despite being somewhat let down by the illustration after the magnificent Pérez gave way to less inspired hands like Buscema, Wenzel & Tom Morgan, and cursed by the inability to keep a regular inker (Marcos, Janson, Villamonte & Morgan all pitched in), the sheer scope of the epic nevertheless carries this tale through to its cataclysmic and fulfilling conclusion. Even Shooter’s reluctant replacement by scripters Michelinie & Mantlo as his editorial career advanced couldn’t derail this juggernaut of adventure. If you want to see what makes Superhero fiction work, and can keep track of nearly two dozen flamboyant characters, this is a fine example of how to make such an unwieldy proposition easily accessible to the new and returning reader.

Some months later Avengers #181 introduced new creative team Michelinie & John Byrne, augmented by inker Gene Day, as ‘On the Matter of Heroes!’ sees Agent Gyrich lay down the law and winnow the costumed army down to a manageable, federally-acceptable seven heroes. With the Guardians of the Galaxy soon headed back to the future, Iron Man, Vision, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Beast & The Wasp must placate Hawkeye after he is rejected in favour of new member The Falcon – parachuted in to satisfy government affirmative action quotas…

However, before the Guardians finally depart they interact with a few more 20th century stars beginning with Ms. Marvel in ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ (#23, April 1979 by Chris Claremont, Mike Vosburg & Bruce D. Patterson). When alien conqueror The Faceless One seizes control of Drydock, crusader-in-crisis Carol Danvers teams up with Vance Astro to expel the invader, after which Marvel Team-Up #86 (October 1979), shows undercover Guardians Starhawk, Nikki & Martinex stumbling over Spider-Man whilst attempting to eradicate evidence of their existence. The main threat as delineated by Claremont & Bob McLeod comes from a nefarious armaments company Deterrence Research Corporation who want to steal Drydock but the hardest part of the mission is preventing an ambitious reporter exposing the mission of the future heroes and publishing the ‘Story of the Year!’

Slightly out of chronology – but that’s time travel all over, right? – the remainder of this collection is given over to team-ups with old Guardians ally Ben Grimm, the Fantastic Four’s titanic Thing. An extended interstellar epic opens in Marvel Two-In-One #61 with ‘The Coming of Her!’ (Mark Gruenwald, Jerry Bingham & Day) as time-travelling space god Starhawk becomes involved in the birth of a female counterpart to man-made man-god Adam Warlock. The distaff genetic paragon awakes fully empowered and instantly starts searching for her predecessor, dragging Ben’s girlfriend Alicia Masters & mind goddess Moondragon (a future member of the 21st century Guardians of the Galaxy) across the solar system, arriving where issue #62 observes ‘The Taking of Counter-Earth!’ Hot on their heels, Thing & Starhawk catch Her just as the runaway women encounter a severely wounded High Evolutionary and discover the facsimile Earth built by that self-made god has been stolen…

United in mystery, the odd grouping trail the planet out of the galaxy and expose the incredible perpetrators, but Her’s desperate quest to secure her predestined, purpose-grown mate ultimately ends in tragedy as she learns ‘Suffer Not a Warlock to Live!’…

Marvel Two-In-One #69 (November 1980, by Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Ron Wilson & Day), then finds Ben clashing with the still time-displaced Guardians of the Galaxy whilst striving to prevent the end of everything. ‘Homecoming!’ finds millennial man Vance Astro ready to endanger all of existence by trying to stop his younger self ever going into space, and making his/their life the epitome of pointless misery. With nature running wild and all New York’s heroes battling the chaos, and with Ben adding his hard-earned experience to the debate, Vance does and does not succeed…

The journey home clearly took a little while. This much reprinted saga here concludes with the first mission of the returned time-travellers in their origin era. It comes from Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1, #1-6 by rising star Jim Valentino and inker Steve Montano which were originally released almost a decade later with cover-dates/June-November 1990. Heartily embracing the notion of a full and fully-connected Marvel Universe continuity one thousand years later, the restored warriors Starhawk/Aleta, Major Vance, Charlie-27, Nikki and new leader Martinex, emerge in full fight mode in 3017 AD, battling to save the defenceless superstitious and xenophobic citizens of Courg from resource plunderers. The war is going well until the cyborg invaders unleash a super-warrior who seems familiar to the chrononauts…

‘… But Are They Ready for… Taserface!’ sees extended clashes lead to defeat and separation, at the hands of The Stark: a race who lucked into Iron Man technology in their distant past and developed it into an interstellar cult of conquest. As the Guardians resist the Stark, Yondu – long believing himself the last of his species – succumbs to despondency on learning that there is another: a female, but one who has abandoned the Spirtuality of Anthos as described in the Book of Antag…

That holy tome had inspired the team’s latest quest, and propelled them into the vast trackless void in search of a legendary artefact promising invincibility for its holder which Vance had reasoned could only be the lost shield of Captain America. Sadly, the myths around the disk had also inspired other, less nostalgic or altruistic searchers…

The saga takes a violent downturn in second chapter ‘The Stark Truth!’ as Taserface is reinforced by a cadre of super-cyborgs resulting in increased warfare and the catastrophic sundering of Aleta and Starhawk (AKA Stakar) into separates bodies. The worsening situation is soon exacerbated far, far away by the momentous meeting of Firelord – current Protector of the Universe (and extremely mellow former herald of Galactus) with another shield-seeking crew…

Force are also a disparate squad of super-powered beings from various worlds, but are ruthless bloody mercenaries, led by scheming elemental transmuter Interface who intends to use the shield to become an even bloodier, more unstoppable marauder. His team are a match for any martial power in space, consisting of old Guardians’ foe Brahl the Intangible; enigmatic Tachyon; “pink Kree” Eighty Five; mutant Zn’rx/Snark tracker Scanner; gravity-warping Broadside and outcast mutant Centauran Photon, who had rejected all of her expired race’s ideals just as they had rejected her…

On Courg, ‘Split Decision’ left both halves of Starhawk relatively unharmed, but as Aleta pitched in against the Stark, the cosmic “One Who Knows” suddenly flees the planet and as abruptly returns with a crucial ally (and future teammate) in ‘…And Then Came the Firelord!’ Soon, with Taserface maimed and the Stark reprimanded and ignominiously repelled, the reunited Guardians are following in new spaceship The Captain America II, solving ancient clues to their final destination. That is Mainframe, a sentient world inextricably linked to Earth in the long-ended Age of Heroes. Sadly Interface and Photon have deduced the same location and ‘A Force to Reckon With!’ finds the heroes and villains competing in bizarre gladiatorial combats with unguessable rules and scoring systems for the mystic prize…

The contest ends with plenty of revelations but as no one could have predicted even though ‘… And to the Victor… The Shield!’ ultimately sees Vance Astro in possession of the only other known relic of the 20th century.

The Beginning…

Supplementing these much-reprinted yarns is Valentino’s serialised text partwork The History of the Guardians of the Galaxy from #1-4, preceded by a variety of collection covers that graced earlier collections: Perez’s 1991 Avengers: The Korvac Saga accompanied by that book’s new framing sequence from Mark Gruenwald & Tom Morgan. Also here is the GotG’s only other 80’s appearance – one panel on one page of John Byrne & Al Gordon’s Sensational She-Hulk #6 (1989).

Enhancing the info levels are a burst of pages from Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1983) briefing us on Charlie-27, Martinex, Nikki, Starhawk, Vance & Yondu; their ship Freedom’s Lady; The Collector and Korvac, followed by their entries from OHMU (Deluxe Edition) illustrated by Al Milgrom, Elliot R. Brown, Dennis Jensen & Josef Rubinstein. Behind the scenes data comes via interviews culled from Marvel Age #86 & 88 before Valentino & Montano’s cover for Guardians of the Galaxy: Quest for the Shield original TPB and Overstreet’s Price Update by Valentino & Jeff Albrecht prior to a gallery of original art by Byrne, Day, Valentino & Montano’s and more Korvac collected covers by Pérez, John Romita, Jr., Joe Rosas, Terry Austin, Thomas Mason, John Kalisz, Tom Chu, Dave Kemp, Valentino & Matt Milla.

A bombastic, drama-drenched, star-roving romp, this is a non-stop feast of tense suspense and blockbuster action: a well-tailored, on-target tool to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice newcomers and charm even the most jaded interstellar Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic…
© 2025 MARVEL.

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Fantastic Four: The Life Fantastic


By J. Michael Straczynski, Karl Kesel, Dwayne McDuffie, Mike McKone, Drew Johnson, Casey Jones, Lee Weeks & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1896-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Today sees the UK general release of the latest cinematic interpretation of the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”. Here’s a quirky book you could and should buy online and read in your Imax seat while all those other, lesser trailers waste your time prior to the big event. Thus we prove once again that it’s never too late to catch up to the really good stuff…

The Fantastic Four has long been rightly regarded as the most pivotal series in modern comic book history, responsible for introducing both a new style of storytelling and a radically different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions. More family than team, the line-up has changed frequently over the years before always eventually and inevitably returning to Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing, who jointly comprised the vanguard of modern four-colour heroic history.

The quartet are maverick supergenius Reed Richards, his wife Susan, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious, impetuous younger brother Johnny Storm; survivors of an independent space-shot which went horribly wrong once ferociously mutative Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding. When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found all been hideously changed into outlandish freaks. Richards’ body became elastic, and Sue gained the power to turn herself and other objects invisible – and latterly form forcefields. Johnny could more-or-less at will turn into self-perpetuating living flame, whilst poor, tormented Ben transformed into a horrifying brute. However, unlike his comrades, Grimm could not return to a semblance of normality on command… or at all…

The sheer simplicity of four B-movie archetypes – mercurial boffin, self-effacing distaff, solid everyman and hot-headed youth – uniting to triumph over accident and adversity shone under Lee’s irreverent humanity, coupled to Kirby’s rampant imagination and tirelessly emphatic sense of adventure.

Decades of erratic quality and floundering plotlines followed the original creators’ departures, but from the beginning of the 21st century Marvel’s First Family experienced a steady and sustained escalation in quality which culminated in repeated film attempts and a string of top-flight, radical reboots in their comic incarnations.

The return to peak quality was the result of sheer hard work by a number of “Big Ideas” writers and this slim compilation – re-presenting Fantastic Four #533-535, and spanning January to April 2006, is one of the best, especially as its content is supplemented and bolstered by a selection of celebratory one-shots -specifically Fantastic Four Wedding Special (January 2006), Fantastic Four Special 2005 and Fantastic Four: A Death in the Family (July 2006). These tales wrapped up a brief but splendidly entertaining tenure in the typist’s chair by comics and screen writer J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Sense8, Amazing Spider-Man, Superman, Wonder Woman, Before Watchmen, Captain America).

Illustrated by Mike (Amazing Spider-Man, Punisher War Zone, Exiles, assorted X-Men, Justice League International/Justice League of America) McKone – with inkers Andy Lanning, Simon Coleby & Cam Smith – the never-ending excitement and frenetic fun opens with a bombastic 3-part tale offering arguably the ultimate clash between the Thing and The Incredible Hulk… and possibly the funniest yet most heart-rending FF story ever written.

‘What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas’ opens as the Hulk – currently green, governed by Bruce Banner’s intellect and working for S.H.I.E.L.D. – dramatically fails to defuse a gamma bomb and is subsequently caught in the resulting detonation…

Meanwhile in Manhattan, Reed & Sue are facing their greatest battle; attempting to stop civil servant Simone Debouvier of New York’s Division of Child Welfare from placing their children Franklin and Valeria into State custody to protect them from the FF’s life-threatening influence and circumstances. It’s almost a relief for the embattled parents to despatch their boisterous and understandably furious team-mates to Nevada so they can concentrate on navigating the tricky legal maze of the Social Services system…

By the time the Torch & Thing arrive, it’s to their worst nightmare: the gamma blast has seemingly devolved the Hulk’s mind back to his primitive, enraged and devastatingly destructive state and supercharged his body. The heroes are all that stand between the unstable grey juggernaut and the utter destruction of the city…

Utterly overmatched, Ben is pushed to his limits in ‘Shadow Boxing’ the rampaging beast, but even amidst the hurricane of shattering violence, he realises it’s not rage but guilt that’s pushing the uber-Hulk to such brutal excesses, even as back East Reed & Sue take a desperate gamble to keep their family together…

The transcontinental confrontations crash into a pair of stunning victories for heart and brains over brawn in the climactic finale ‘To Be This Monster’…

The rest of this sleek celebratory volume concentrates on special editions and follows up with Fantastic Four Wedding Special wherein Karl Kesel, Drew Johnson, Drew Geraci & Drew Hennessy combine to venerate the past and offer tantalising glimpses of things to come as Sue & Reed go for a quiet meal and – thanks to the technological miracle of time travel – discover that every guest is the happy couple themselves, plucked from key moments of their fantastic past and incredible future…

That gloriously heart-warming spectacle is followed by a far more tense but no less intriguing yarn from Fantastic Four Special #1 with Dwayne McDuffie, Casey Jones & Vince Russell depicting ‘My Dinner with Doom’ as Reed opts for fine dining and frank conversation as a way of finally ending the long-standing feud between him and the relentless, duplicitous Iron Dictator. If only Doom was as open-minded about the eventual outcome…

Focus shifts to Johnny for the last epic as Fantastic Four: A Death in the Family (Kesel, Lee Weeks, Rob Campenella & Tom Palmer) sees the frat-boy goof suddenly forced to wise up, man up and make a horrific choice to save his beloved, fractious family from certain doom in another time-travel-tinged tale.

In this story, however, there is no happy ending…

A stellar combination of apocalyptic action, heartbreak, suspense and hilarious low comedy, this exhilarating compilation also includes stunning covers by McKone, Gene Ha, Leinil Yu, Morry Hollowell & Weeks for a warm, fast-paced, tension-soaked Fights ‘n’ Tights chronicle which will provide all the thrills and chills a devoted Costumed Drama lover or freshly-turned film freak could ever want.
© 2005, 2006, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.