Category: Fantastic Four

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Captain America Man Out of Time


By Mark Waid, Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel, Scott Hanna, Frank D’Armata, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, George Roussos & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5128-9 (Premiere HC), 978-1-84653-487-4 (TPB) 978-1-3023-7033-6 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

One of the pivotal moments in Marvel Comics history occurred when the Mighty Avengers recovered a tattered body floating in a block of ice (issue #4, March 1964) and resurrected the World War II hero Captain America. With this act bridging the presumed-forgotten years back to predecessors Timely and Atlas Comics – begun with the return of the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four #4 – Young Marvel confirmed and consolidated a solid, concrete, potential-packed history to create an enticing sense of mythic continuance for the fledgling company. This instantly gave it the same cachet and enduring grandeur of market leader National/DC…

In 2010, after years of increasingly conflicting continuity (and with a movie in the offing) mature Marvel tasked fan-favourite writer Mark Waid with updating those pivotal events and early future-shocked days for their contemporary world. Of course that modern milieu was now the year 2000, not the lifetime ago of 1964…

This captivating re-interpretation and updating (collecting 5 issue miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time as cover-dated November 2010 – April 2011) opens in the dying days of the war as Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes are sent from the European frontline to England and an appointment with doom-laden destiny, before seamlessly segueing into the Sentinel of Liberty’s stunned awakening in tomorrow’s world and a meeting with the initial incarnation of The World’s Mightiest Heroes.

Waid, perfectly complimented by artists Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel & Scott Hanna and colourist Frank D’Armata , wisely leaves the classic adventures largely unchanged, to concentrate on those unseen and missing contemplative moments and the unfolding personal crises confronting the uncomprehending Rogers, which means readers completely unaware of the character’s history and exploits might experience a little confusion in places. However, the narrative, although superficially disjointed, is clear-cut enough to counter this and interested newcomers and casual fans can easily fill in gaps by perusing one of the many available reprint collections, covering the entire period featured here which equates to Avengers #4-8.

In chapter 2 the reeling hero meets former Incredible Hulk sidekick Rick Jones (an absurdly identical double for the at this time Officially Departed Bucky), gets a rapid reality check on his new home – from his new allies and even the President of the United States – and finally accepts that there’s no way home for this Old Soldier.

…Although that’s not strictly true…

Among the many technological miracles his new allies introduce him to is the embryonic science of time-travel, and, even while battling such threats as the Lava Men and Masters of Evil, the unhappy warrior can only think of returning to his proper place and saving his best friend from death…

The old adage “be careful what you wish for” never proves more true than when time-ravaging Kang the Conqueror attacks. After utterly overwhelming the 21st century heroes he casually and disdainfully dispatches the Star Spangled Sentinel back to 1945 where he belongs but apparently no longer fits.

His sense of duty, threat to his new allies and all the unpalatable things he had comfortably forgotten blighting his “Good Old Days” prompt Cap into brilliantly escaping his honeyed time-trap with the aid of other friends made in the World of Tomorrow and the hero returns to the place where he is most needed to once more save the day…

Resolved and ready to tackle his Brave New World Captain America is now ready to carve out a whole new legend…

I’m generally less than sanguine about updates and reboots of classic comics material but I will admit that such things are a necessary evil as years go by, so when the deed is done with sensitivity, respect and imagination (not to mention dynamic, bravura flamboyance) I can only applaud and commend the effort.

Thrilling, superbly entertaining, compelling and genuinely moving, Captain America: Man Out of Time is a wonderful – dare I say “Timeless?” – comics confection that will delight old aficionados, impress new readers and should serve to make many fresh fans for the immortal Star-Spangled Avenger. Moreover, if you are one of those dyed-in-the-wool Old Guard curmudgeons who think there’s nothing better than the real thing, this compilation also offers a full reprint of The Avengers #4 (cover-dated March 1964 and on sale from January 3rd as crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & George Roussos), re-presenting Cap’s original landmark wake-up call that so lastingly informed this modern look back…
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

This propitious day in 1916 Disney animator turned comics writer Don R. Christensen (Magnus, Robot Fighter, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge) was born, joined in 1924 by artist/inker Frank Giacoia (every Marvel or DC comic you’ve ever heard of and newspaper strips Flash Gordon, The Incredible Hulk, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, Sherlock Holmes, Thorne McBride). In 1947 Neil the Horse creator Katherine Collins (formerly Arnold Alexander Saba, Jr.) arrived. In 1950, comics legend John Byrne (Doomsday + 1, Rog-2000, some other stuff) was born, followed by writer Christie Marx (Sisterhood of Steel, Red Sonja, Conan) in 1952 and multitasker Joe Zabel (American Splendor, The Trespassers, Real Stuff) in 1953.

The date signifies the deaths of strip giant Warren Tufts (Casey Ruggles, Lance) in 1982; scripter Nicholas P. Dallis (Apartment 3-G, Rex Morgan, M.D.) in 1991 and in 2017 both Turkish comics creator Galip Tekin (Tuhaf Öyküler, P?’ya Mektuplar) and Argentinean cartoonist, caricaturist and humourist Juan Carlos Colombres AKA Landrú.

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The Black Panther Epic Collection volume 1 (1966-1976): Panther’s Rage


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, Billy Graham, Keith Pollard, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, Pablo Marcos, Dan Green, Bob McLeod,  Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0190-5 (TPB) 978-1-3024-9321-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content utilised for dramatic effect.

With democracy under fire and American Civil Rights enduring active and constant attack in the Land of the Free, let’s look back on more progressive times and comics as we all stagger towards the 250th Fourth of July, shall we?

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in US comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in Fantastic Four. In fact, the cat king actually attacked Marvel’s First Family as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

T’Challa was also the first black superhero in US comics, debuting in summer 1966. As created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose deliberately hidden kingdom is the only known source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien ore – supposedly derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of the country’s immense wealth, enabling it to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. These riches also allow the young king to radically remake his country, creating a high tech paradise even after he left Africa to fight as one of America’s Avengers.

Since time immemorial Wakanda has been an isolated, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led by a human warrior-king deriving cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This has ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and sacrosanct hereditary Royal Family…

The “Vibranium mound” had guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but in modern times increasingly made Wakanda a target for subversion, incursion and even invasion as the world grew ever smaller. This colossal compendium gathers the dynamic debut from Fantastic Four #52-53 (cover-dated July and August 1966) in advance of groundbreaking solo stories from Jungle Action (vol. 2) #6-24, collectively covering September 1973 through November 1976.

Before all that though, the innovative and unforgettable character debuted in ‘The Black Panther!’: an enigmatic African monarch whose secretive kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal. These mineral riches had enabled him to turn his country into a technological marvel before he lured the FF into his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father. After battling the team to a standstill, King T’Challa revealed his tragic origin in ‘The Way it Began..!’, detailing how his father was murdered by marauding sonic science researcher Ulysses Klaw. As the monarch details how he took vengeance and liberated his people, word comes of incredible solidified-sound monsters attacking the region. Klaw has returned at last…

The cataclysmic clash that follows set the scene for the Warrior-Chieftain to guest star with numerous Marvel superstars before breaking out into the wider world, but it would years before he finally won his own solo series…

After roaming around the Marvel Universe, enjoying team-ups and saving Earth on a semi-regular basis as one “Earth’s Mightiest Superheroes”, the summer of 1973 saw the Black Panther finally become a solo star in his own series. Scripter Don McGregor opted to return the King to his people for an ambitious epic of love, death, vengeance and civil war: inventing from whole cloth and Kirby’s throwaway notion of a futuristic jungle the most unique African nation ever seen in comics or anywhere else…

Jungle Action had launched with an October 1972 cover-date: a cheap reprint vehicle for old Atlas-era Tarzan and Sheena knock-offs like Tharn, Jann and Lorna (all equally “…of the Jungle”). The fifth issue (not included here) abruptly changed tack, reprinting a Black Panther-starring saga from Avengers #62 as prelude to the start of T’Challa’s own all new adventures. These open here with # 6 and the eponymous ‘Panther’s Rage’, illustrated by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson. The story opens with the Panther back in his contradictory homeland, stumbling upon the torture of an elderly farmer. Despite T’Challa’s best efforts, the victim dies in his arms, swearing he never lost faith in king or country…

Learning the attack is the work of brutal rebel leader Erik Killmonger, T’Challa sets all the resources of his inner court circle to finding the monster. With reports of further atrocities mounting, he all but abandons his American lover Monica Lynne to hunt the perpetrators and soon confronts his potential usurper at the potently symbolic Warrior Falls roaring above the life-sustaining River of Grace and Wisdom. The barbarous-seeming giant is not cowed by the Panther’s power or prowess and easily wins the no-holds barred battle that follows…

The initial episode is supplemented by detailed maps of Wakanda (the first fans had ever seen) before JA #7 mobilises ‘Death Regiments Beneath Wakanda’. Barely surviving his clash with Killmonger, T’Challa is nursed back to health by Monica at the Palace, even as hideously disfigured American Horatio displays his skill with snakes and poisons to his friend N’Jadaka. Known to their recruits as Venomm and Erik Killmonger, these rebel leaders plot their next attack resulting in the reptilian insurgent ambushing T’Challa when the king investigates an unsanctioned, illegal mine. This shocking atrocity is being used to siphon off raw Vibranium to pay for Killmonger’s increasingly violent and widespread attacks on the outlying population centres…

Although triumphant this time, T’Challa realises this is a many-layered war: one he might not win…

Whilst the Panther renews his powers through ancient ritual, Jungle Action #8 introduces another super-powered rebel with ‘Malice by Crimson Moonlight’ revealing a spear-wielding wonder woman invading the Royal Palace. Advisor Taku is interrogating Venomm (and gradually making inroads into turning the bitter outcast) when she attacks. Only the power of the Panther saves the servitor and prevents the brutal jailbreak from succeeding…

After maps of the hidden country and detailed plans of ‘Central Wakanda’s Palace Royale’ the saga resumes in #9 with ‘But Now the Spears Are Broken’ (spectacularly illustrated by Gil Kane & Janson) as T’Challa goes in-country to learn the effects of the power struggle on ordinary Wakandans. After saving little boy Kantu from a rhino, the king is made painfully aware that the common people view his foreign woman Monica with as much suspicion as the constantly-raiding insurgents. That feeling even penetrates to the heart of the palace. When advisor Zatama is murdered, Monica is arrested for the crime…

T’Challa is not there to protest or defend her. He has returned to Kantu’s village to investigate strange disappearances, discovering a seeming mass-rising of zombies led by skeletal maniac Baron Macabre. Once more the Great Cat is forced to ignominiously retreat…

Supreme stylist Billy Graham takes over pencilling with #10 as the Black Panther returns to the zombie nest, exposing a cunning charade beneath the deserted village as well as a super-scientific base run by a malignant, mind-warping mutant in ‘King Cadaver is Dead and Living in Wakanda!’

Accompanying the dark drama here are examples of ‘Black Panther Artistry’ – specifically, Kirby’s first designs for the hero back when he was going by provisional title ‘The Coal Tiger’ and Buckler & Janson’s initial depiction of ‘Erik Killmonger’. Due to an extremely unfavourable publishing schedule, Panther’s Rage unfolded with agonising slowness, but the lengthy wait between episodes allowed McGregor the latitude to pick and choose key events, with readers accepting that some stuff was actually occurring between issues.

By JA #11 (September 1974), the civil war had proceeded unchecked and ‘Once You Slay the Dragon!’ sees the Panther and his forces launching the long-awaited counterattack on Killmonger’s base in N’Jadaka Village. The battle is vicious and brief, introducing yet another powered lieutenant in the shape of pitiless high-tech armourer Lord Karnaj. And on the home front, T’Challa finally clears Monica and captures actual Zatama’s killer…

With Killmonger temporarily in retreat, the Panther goes on the offensive, using the rebel’s most inconsequential converts – Tayete and Kazibe – as reluctant guides to follow his ultimate nemesis to his most secret strongholds. Heading into the mountains and fabled Land of Chilling Mists, the Panther discovers a mutagenic temple… the Resurrection Altar. Employed by Killmonger to create his grotesque super-warriors, it is presided over by scientifically-spawned vampire Sombre. When T’Challa confronts them both, he is again overpowered by Erik and left for wolves to devour in ‘Blood Stains on Virgin Snow!’

  1. Craig Russell inked the next chapter as, enduring incomprehensible hardships in sub-arctic conditions, T’Challa perseveres and survives to follow Killmonger into the temperate swamps of Serpent Valley in #13. However, this is only after facing a pack of Wakanda’s white apes. To survive, the Panther must blasphemously ignore the sacred (to many of his subjects) religious aspect of the mighty carnivores and become ‘The God Killer’…

Following a Venomm pin-up, #14 then reveals ‘There Are Serpents Lurking in Paradise’ (inked by Pablo Marcos) as T’Challa clashes once more with Sombre before encountering an affable forest sprite guarding Serpent Valley. Pixie-like Mokadi asks difficult moral questions as T’Challa rushes towards his next battle with Killmonger, making him too late to stop the rebel capturing a legion of the valley’s awesome dinosaurs. The usurper even has time to leave one behind as a lethal parting gift for the embattled, exhausted Wakandan chieftain…

The endgame rapidly approaches in #15 as ‘Thorns in the Flesh, Thorns in the Mind’ (Dan Green inks) finds T’Challa still tracking his foe only to be overcome by Killmonger’s archer assassin Salamander K’Ruel. Beaten and left to be dismembered by a ravenous Pterosaur, T’Challa incredibly overcomes every challenge before – against all odds – staggering back to Monica for another bout of recuperation…

Graham inked his own pencils for the beginning of the end in #16 as T’Challa & Monica’s time of idyllic passion culminates in catastrophe when ‘And All Our Past Decades Have Seen Revolutions!’ reveals Killmonger’s origins as the vast cast converges for one final battle. That comes in #17 as an army of war-trained dinosaurs invades Central Wakanda only to be finally crushed by the Panther’s forces and Wakandan technology. The affair concludes as it began at Warrior Falls, but ‘Of Shadows and Rages’ also holds a shocking twist as the great game of kings is ultimately decided by a player no one considered of any relevance…

With its nuanced emotional interplay, extended scope and fiercely independent supporting cast, Panther’s Rage was a milestone in dramatic comics storytelling but it harboured one last punch in a gripping ‘Epilogue!’(Jungle Action#18, November 1975). Bob McLeod inked McGregor & Graham’s forceful look at the repercussions of conflict, which finds T’Challa and maimed security chief Wakabi targeted by feral woman Madame Slay: Killmonger’s ardent and unsuspected lover who believes her loss can only be assuaged by having her pack of loyal leopards eviscerate the victorious Wakandans…

Cover-dated January 1976, Jungle Action #19 premiered McGregor’s most audacious and ultimately frustrating project, with T’Challa accompanying Monica back to America. The Panther versus the Klan shifted focus from war stories to crime fiction, substituting exotic Africa for America’s poverty-wracked, troubled, still segregated-in-all-but-name Deep South for a head-on collision with centuries of entrenched and endemic racism. Illustrated by Graham & McLeod, ‘Blood and Sacrifices!’ sees Monica back with her family after her sister is murdered. All too soon T’Challa is ferociously battling a gang of purple-hooded killers who appear to have set up in opposition to the ancient but apparently not supremacist enough white-hooded Ku Klux Klan.

Moreover, both sects are determined to conceal the truth of Angela Lynne’s death, but a break comes when bumbling, well-meaning reporter Kevin Trublood stumbles into an attack on the newcomers by the strangely multi-racial Klan sect calling itself The Dragon Circle…

With neither townsfolk nor lawmen offering any welcome, T’Challa faces unbridled hostility and suspicion at every turn. He is even attacked by cops and a mob of citizens when he thwarts a knife attack on Monica. Although Sheriff Roderick Tate makes all the right noises and seems helpful, in ‘They Told Me a Myth I Wanted to Believe’, the Panther opts to pursue his own investigation before being overwhelmed by an army of white-robed Klansmen who tie him to a burning cross and leave him to die…

As Monica and Kevin puzzle out the convoluted web of mysteries, the Panther exerts all his uncanny gifts to escape becoming ‘A Cross Burning Darkly Blackening the Night!’ Later, as he recovers in hospital, Monica’s family, Kevin and Tate review the few verifiable facts of Angela’s demise before patriarch Lloyd Lynne urges T’Challa to stop looking. He only has one daughter left after all…

Nevertheless, when the Panther and Trublood invade and disrupt a Klan rally, Lloyd is right there with them…

With Buckler joining Graham on pencils and Jim Mooney alternating with McCleod on inks, Jungle Action #22 takes a bizarre turn as ‘Death Riders on the Horizon’ explores a Lynne family legend dating back to the formative days of the Klan in 1867 when old Caleb was targeted by the vile “southern knights” and their seemingly supernatural sponsor the Soul Strangler. As Monica listens to the ghastly, appallingly unjust tale, her mind fills in how T’Challa would have acted in such a hopeless situation…

JA #23 (September 1976) was a deadline missed and rapidly-sourced reprint from Daredevil #69 – represented here only by its cover and a Buckler pin-up – before this tantalising tale is unhappily cut short in final published instalment ‘Wind Eagle in Flight’ (McGregor, Buckler & Keith Pollard).The multi-layered, many-stranded plot suddenly expands as the Panther is almost killed by a mysterious new player who flies into the ever more bewildering clash between cops, Klan, Dragon Circle and Lynne family but, before the mystery could move any further, Jungle Action was cancelled…

A wholly different kind of Black Panther and utterly unrelated adventures would reappear two months later, under the auspices of returning creative colossus Jack Kirby and it would be years before the enigma of Angela’s death and the hero’s war against the Klan was resolved…

Bonus extras here include Kirby & Sinnott’s unused original art cover for FF #52, John Romita’s cover for Jungle Action #5; McGregor’s correspondence with then-fan Ralph Macchio and the author’s original working notes, plot synopses and candid contemporary photos of the close-knit creative team. Also on show: original cover art, pages and sketches by Buckler & Janson & Kane; pencils & layouts by Graham & Buckler, plus Steve Gerber’s ‘Jungle Re-Actions’ editorial feature from Jungle Action #7. Capping off the freebie joys are un-inked Buckler story pages that would have been #25…

A truly groundbreaking classic of comics narrative, Don McGregor’s Black Panther is stark, vibrant proof that the superhero genre works best when ambitious and passionate creators are given their head and let loose to get on with it.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2016 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 US artist/production wizard Jack Adler was born, followed in 1935 by pioneering African American artist Billy Graham (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Sabre) and writer Mike Baron (Nexus, Badger, Flash, The Punisher) in 1949.

In 1952 today, Australia’s beloved Ginger Meggs strip creator Jimmy Bancks died, and the date also saw the debut of Judd Winick’s Frumpy the Clown strip in 1996 and launch of manga collective CLAMP’s Angelic Layer series in 1999.

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The Sub-Mariner Marvel Masterworks volume 8


By Steve Gerber, Bill Everett, Howard Chaykin, Marv Wolfman, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, Sam Kweskin, Jim Mooney, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0962-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In his most primal incarnation (other origins are available but may differ due to timeslips, circumstance and screen dimensions) Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the proud, noble and generally upset offspring of the union of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer. That doomed romance resulted in a hybrid being of immense strength and extreme resistance to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Over decades, a wealth of creators have added to the fishy tale and today’s Namor is hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”.

He was created by young, talented Bill Everett, for non-starter cinema premium Motion Picture Weekly Funnies: #1 (October 1939) so – technically – Namor predates Marvel, Atlas and Timely Comics. The Marine Miracleman first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, having debuted (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in the aforementioned promotional booklet designed to be handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Our late-starter antihero rapidly emerged as one of the industry’s biggest draws, winning his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941). His appeal was baffling but solid and he was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of superbly dark, mordantly moody, creepily contemporary fantasy fables. Even so, his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again.

In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with their Fantastic Four, they revived and reimagined the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, angry semi-amnesiac. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered and broken by the loss of his subsea kingdom… which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His urge for rightful revenge was infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish. From there he graduated in 1968 to his own solo title again.

Cumulatively spanning cover-dates June 1972 – April 1973, this eighth and final deluxe subsea compilation of the Swinging Sixties Subby trawls Sub-Mariner #61-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also trawled up and tipped in is a tentative attempt to revive his solo star status as seen in Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) just as horror-hero dominance was giving way to superhero resurgences and all of us were unwittingly biding their time for the advent of Star Wars and a wave of Science Fiction space opera titles.

It opens with one last revelatory reminiscence from Roy Thomas’ in his Introduction before

the dry land dramas and thrill soaked yarns recommence…

Previously: Namor had endured escalating horror as old enemies like Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and others attacked. They were soundly defeated, but constant battles cost Namor his lifelong companion in bride-to-be Lady Dorma as well as his long-absent human father Leonard McKenzie, murdered by Tiger Shark and sinister shapeshifter Llyra as they constantly assaulted his sunken kingdom. The prince had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, had abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. These wanderings were also wracked with conflict, as, amnesiac again, he faced The Human Torch, A.I.M,. M.OD.O.K., Doctor Doom, Japanese war criminals and more, prior to meeting and adopting his unsuspected cousin Namorita (daughter of WWII ally Namora). Namor battled the Badoon, and reluctantly inevitably returned to Atlantis. Back, but not officially in charge, he became increasingly burdened again. He befriended Hellenic goddess Venus and fought war god Ares; took responsibility for an Atlantean massacre of alien ambassadors; granted asylum to alien survivor Tamara of the Sisterhood; narrowly avoided a global conflagration with the UN and clashed with Thor before at last taking up the mantle of ruler again…

It was an open secret that Bill Everett was dying at this time but his Marvel friends and employers allowed him to work on until he couldn’t. Thus Sub-Mariner #61’s ‘The Prince and the Pirate!’ – credited to Steve Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Jim Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts with page 4 as Namorita and her human guardian Betty Prentiss are abducted along with an entire passenger plane. The voyagers are victims of deranged geneticist Dr. Hydro who mutates them all – bar already amphibian Nita – into human/merman hybrids to populate his armies of environmental conquest. All too soon Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, but is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the attack inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his stronghold from which to convert the rest of humanity…

The drama plays out in #62 as Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Frank Giacoia explore ‘A Realm Besieged!’ before Tamara in Atlantis and Nita on Hydrobase thwarts Hydro’s schemes leaving the Sub-Mariner to ponder what to do with the hundreds of innocent, unwilling scaly amphibian freaks that neither Atlanteans or surface-dwellers want anything to do with…

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 bizarrely wilful 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 in thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

With critical success Man-Thing he was holding up a mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and weaving history from scattered snippets of Marvel’s continuity. With his final stint on Sub-Mariner, Gerber expanded that universe exponentially, building by exploring the pre-cataclysm days of Atlantis, aided by Howard Chaykin in anew back-up series dubbed ‘Tales of Atlantis!’ here the first chapter – inked by Joe Sinnott – sees antediluvian, human-built Atlantis losing its war with rival superpower Lemuria and Emperor Kamuu and his bride Zartra prepare for the bloody end…

Over Everett’s posthumous plot, Gerber, Kweskin & Syd Shores produce #63 as ‘…And the Seas Shall Explode!’ sees seemingly dead Dr Hydro return to destroy the Atlanteans by triggering a volcano under their city and compelling Namor to take no chances and offer no mercy to save his subjects once and for all…

Tales of Atlantis resumes as Gerber, Chaykin & Sinnott reveal how the fate of the first Atlantis is sealed by ‘Cataclysm!’ As hand-to-hand combat peaks, the city sinks beneath the seas, but its heritage is saved, carried away by missionary sorceress Zered-Na and her devout disciples (for which you need to scope out Gerber’s other contemporaneous assignments: Son of Satan in Marvel Spotlight and the aforementioned Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. we’ve covered them I previous post so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, however, and taking off on a strange tangent Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture during #64’s ‘Voyage into Chaos!’ When intolerant Atlanteans intern the aimless, despondent amphibian victims of Dr. Hydro, furious, ashamed Namor responds with a fit of fury, just as cool heads are needed to assess another astounding incursion.

Soon, a quartet of strange visitors from magical dimension Zephyrland – Ariel the Musician, Ibbar the Scolar, Kabal the Wizard & Zargus the Warrior – are petitioning the Sub-Mariner to hop in their Golden Submarine and help them liberate their enslaved homeland from bestial, tone-deaf horror Virago the She-Beast. Willing and even eager to go for many reasons Namor joins them but is ambushed and defeated as soon as arrives in the land of golden meanies…

Third instalment of Tales of Atlantis ‘In the Wake of the Warriors!’ reveals how, five millennia later, nomadic clans of water-breathing Homo Mermanus settle in the ruins of the sunken city-continent and clash constantly, thanks to the enmity of sworn enemies Widow-Queen Elanna and King Stegor. They cannot see waves of destiny pushing their battle-hardened children towards an incredible coalition. Successive chapters ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding episode ‘The Sword in the Throne!’ inked by Sinnott in #66) ended the series abruptly as those children – destiny- touched Kamuu and Elanna’s daughter Zartra – after meeting ghosts and battling demons, unite the tribes to create the dynasty of sunken Atlantis that will lead to the coming millennia later of Namor…

Back in the now however, the series was struggling and a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner with #65 leads with ‘The Cry of the She-Beast!’ as Gerber, Heck & Perlin detail how Virago crushes resistance at home, physically humiliates Namor and launches an attack across dimensions upon Atlantis. Her departure sparks a successful but so-costly revolution in Zephyrland and (with valiant Namor clinging to her Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ by Gerber, Heck & Perlin sees Virago driven away from Atlantis at great cost, only to stumble upon the tomb of defeated – but apparently only dormant – Orka the (humanoid) Killer Whale – who unites with a clearly kindred spirit to devastate the sunken city with an armada of crazed cetaceans…

The catastrophic clash leads to the Sub-Mariner again falling, but this time it is amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons fatally alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it overs Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into a stasis-like coma in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ by Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle.

Thankfully, although dying Namor heads for the surface where he is found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who in turns brings Namor to old enemies the FF. Smartest Man Alive Reed Richards swiftly diagnoses and rapidly constructs a bodysuit to provide constant artificial respiration – over Namor’s churlish and violent protests – and he heads home to finish his fight. Sadly, what he finds in #68 (January 1974, Mooney inks), leaves him ‘On the Brink of Madness!’

Only Tamara, Nita and Hydro’s amphibians have escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft and crushed monarch. Convinced to stabilise the crisis, they relocate to the vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose research into forcefields might provide a means to protect the dormant Atlanteans from predators and further harm. After seeking spiritual guidance from patron god Father Neptune, Namor sets off, but when the king without a kingdom seeks out Dr Damon Walthers, he discovers the genius’ works stolen by his assistant. Shot from the sky by a neophyte supervillain calling himself Force, their initial clash is inconclusive but does draw the attention of passing student Peter Parker…

Meanwhile in Zephyrland, the war goes badly and the survivors consider calling in Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange…

George Tuska & Vince Colletta illustrate Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner #69 as Gerber rapidly wraps up his hanging plot threads in anticipation of a sudden cancellation. ‘Two Worlds …and Dark Destiny!’ sees Dr Strange offer aid, a pointless battle between spider hero and fishman and a second and final encounter with Force that leaves Namor victorious, in control of Walthers forcefield tech and Atlantis safely stored “under glass” until a cure can be found… an inauspicious but satisfactory stopping point. Confoundingly the series still had three issues to run with Marv Wolfman, Tuska & Colletta using #70 to depict ‘Namor Unchained!’ whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by the now-independent mutated fishmen of Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity…

The brutal duel culminated in more deaths and butchery as #71 clamours ‘Comes the Pirahna!’ and the series finally sank with #72 (dated September 1974 and on sale from 18th June) as Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins & Colletta catered an alien encounter as Namor faced obnoxious humans and a lost interstellar shapeshifter in ‘From the Void It Came…’

The antihero resurfaced in Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975), revived as one half of a tag-team with fellow misunderstood autocrat Doctor Doom whilst seeking a cure for his people and his own condition. That sustained momentum led to the last tale here, a solo exploit taken from Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) as Bill Mantlo & Mooney revealed ‘Death is the Symbionic Man!’ Incorporating Prime Earth’s military industrial villain Captain Simon Stryker (of alternate Earth series Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for possible spare parts and powers by the maniac and battling his most deadly killer-cyborg to date…

The bonus section in this final collection includes the covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Larry Lieber, Sinnott, Gil Kane, Giacoia, Mike Esposito & Al Milgrom; House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change; Romita’s original designs for the new outfit and a selection of original art by Heck, Perlin & Mooney.

In comics, the best thing about “the Mighty falling” is that so often another time throws up fresh ideas and creators who will regenerate faded concepts. It a cycle as timeless and relentless as the tides. The venerable Sub-Mariner always comes back stronger and more appetising, and you owe it to yourself to be ready for the next wave by getting to know these classics. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an story-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: historical treasures with narrative bite and indescribable style and panache that fans will delight in forever.
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. (or possibly © 2026 MARVEL.)

Today in 1924 cartoonist Frank Bolle (The Heart of Juliet Jones, Winnie Winkle, Black Phantom, Tim Holt, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom) was born, sharing the date with writer Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Buffy, Fray) in 1964; artist ChrisCross AKA Christopher Williams (Xero, Blood Syndicate, Justice League) in 1968, and author Becky Cloonan (Demo, American Virgin, Gotham Academy, Conan) in 1980.

Today in 2005, artist Sam Kweskin (Atlas anthologies such as Battlefront & Journey Into Mystery; Kid Colt, Outlaw, Sub-Mariner) died.

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Dazzler Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Danny Fingeroth, Steven Grant, Frank Springer, Mark D. Bright, Mike Vosburg, Vince Colletta, Danny Bulanadi, Jon D’Agostino & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2867-4 (HB), 978-1-3029-3678-5 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Until relatively recently US comics had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. That seriously started changing in the 1980s and look at us now. As part of its late-but-dedicated effort to involve women readers with women characters Marvel began a program of female versions of top stars but also devised original titles to expand audiences – and none more so than Alison Blaire AKA Dazzler.

Attempts in the early 1970s had added to the canon and character roster but not publishing charts for any length of time. Nevertheless, the company kept on plugging and eventually found the right mix when Ms. Marvel launched in her own title (cover-dated January 1977). She was followed by equally copyright-shielding Spider-Woman (Marvel Spotlight #32, February 1977), who secured her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1 February 1980). That last one was supplemented by music-biz inspired (and hopefully trend-exploiting) Dazzler, who sagely premiered in issue #130 of top-selling title Uncanny X-Men the same month. She followed up with a few guest shots in other big star books and inevitably graduated to her own book, but it was a little more convoluted than that…

Dazzler the character was born of another of those 1980-1990s doomed-from-the-start cross-media deals wherein comics companies attempted to break out of their “ghetto” into the real money world – like toys, movies and TV shows. In 1979 Disco specialists Casablanca Records began a development project with Marvel to create a television character who would release records like The Archies or The Monkees, but be set in an animated Marvel Universe. A giant-sized comics special was begun but when the deal was cancelled, the House of Ideas was left with a lot of talented people going “now what?”

In the interim Dazzler had already launched: guesting in the company’s other top titles (Fantastic Four #217 and Amazing-Spider-Man #203, both cover-dated April 1980). Failing to find other record companies willing to commit, big boss Jim Shooter decreed the comics special would be expanded and recycled as #1 & 2 of her own title. The singer went dark for a year before landing her own starring vehicle and her rocky road to stardom has risen and fallen ever since.

Having crushed and disappointed her austere father Judge Carter Blair by quitting law school to pursue a frivolous, worthless life on stage, Alison’s life continued to spiral crazily after meeting the X-Men. After subsequently facing petty, spiteful Asgardian Amora the Enchantress with the entire Marvel Universe in attendance, Alison steadfastly pursued her career dreams. That meant clashing in rapid order with Doctor Doom; dream demon Nightmare; evil mastermind Techmaster; The Enforcers (Ox, Montanna & Fancy Dan); Federal nemesis Mr. Meeker of energy thinktank Project Pegasus; supervillain Klaw; Galactus, his herald Terrax and – after being remanded to Riker’s Island for “murdering” Klaw – Titania and the Grapplers (Screaming Mimi, Letha & Poundcakes).

She did make some friends on the way, ranging from mob-fixated street-level masked vigilante Blue Sheild to major players like Bruce Banner and The Hulk as well as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent/occasional Avenger Quasar (Wendell Vaughn), but the real gamechangers were her fraught associations with W.C. Fields-channelling agent/promoter Harry S. Osgood who began shaping her music career; obnoxious Lancelot Steele (sexist macho jerk/stage manager/field rep for Harry) and increasingly controlling boyfriend Dr Paul Jansen. At least Alison’s Grandma Bella still supports her, confident that one day Dazzler will be a star…

A mix of mainstream level superheroics, soap opera romances, telenovela melodrama and the hoary plot of A Star is Born, the complicated life of Alison Blaire now included an increasingly unstable father who despised her for daring to disobey him; a long-missing mother: a succession of creepily uptight and frankly dubious boyfriends; the countless moral and physical perils besetting lonely, pretty girls who would do (almost) anything to achieve their dreams of fame and assorted gods, monster, terrors and supervillains who couldn’t believe Dazzler didn’t care about them and Did Not Want To Fight.

The idea was still to address and remedy the lack of a significant female readership (after all, what normal girl would read X-Men, Spider-Man or the Hulk?) that had presumably dropped to insignificance once the company’s romance, nursing and humorous fashion titles were cancelled.

In an effort to be daring and different but still keep attracting readers the only way they knew, the editors and writers and artists did what they always did but honestly sought a different path. However, for Marvel at the time the medium was the message and somehow that meant a super fight every issue and lots of underwear, shower, and getting dressed/undressed moments in the quiet times…

Somehow Blaire never truly escaped traditional Marvel tropes and superhero schtick while forging her own path, as seen in this second collection of comic sagas taken from Dazzler #14-25, plus a bonus yarn from What If? #33, collectively covering April 1982 – March 1983. Following scripter Danny Fingeroth’s context-packed Introduction ‘This Was a Long Time Ago’, the drama resumes with #14 ‘…Without Getting Killed or Caught…!’ as Fingeroth Frank Springer & Vince Colletta reveal how after making waves as an opener for aging stadium-filler Bruce Harris, Alison and her band are caught in the crossfire when a top hitman targets Blue Shield. As the would-be killer ludicrously believes Lance is the crime-crusher, the snafu then leads Dazzler into an ambush where she must battle a deranged, mesmerised She-Hulk temporarily mind-controlled by the Mob…

It’s still team-up time in #15 as ‘Private Eyes’ sees Harris’ tour hit San Francisco and Alison hiring investigator Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) to track down her long-missing mom after her own amateur snooping provokes a misguided clash that brings the wrath of S.H.I.E.L.D. down on both of them…

Dazzler arrives in Seattle with #16, despondent that Harris wants her fired for making him look old and tired. Things get even worse in when The Enchantress returns and even the sudden appearance of current beau – straitlaced lawyer Ken Barnett – cannot deflect the terror of a singing contest in Asgard, judged by the gods and with the odds heavily stacked in favour of the cheating scheming ‘Black Magic Woman!’

Victorius and returned to the Big Apple, Alison’s head is turned in #17 as ‘The Angel and the Octopus!’ finds her the object of unwanted affection of multi-millionaire mutant Warren Worthington III just as Ken is becoming overly clingy. She really doesn’t need this grief right now as her producer Harry is auditioning younger, prettier potential rival songstress Vanessa Tooks and her father is on the edge of a mental breakdown…

It’s almost a relief when The Angel sweeps her off her feet for wining, dining and a furious fight against mech-augmented multi-armed madman Doctor Octopus…

Her plans to be as normal as possible are further threatened when super-criminal Crusher Creel hunts her down to be his hostage in a planned ambush of the Avengers in ‘The Absorbing Man Wants You!’ Sadly, after the simple-minded thug overconsumes her energies and grows out of control, Dazzler endures ‘Creel… and Inhuman Treatment!’ until Inhuman king Black Bolt intervenes to avoid a escalating catastrophe. Meanwhile, as Judge Blaire deteriorates, Warren, Vanessa and Grandma Bella all take circuitous but convergent steps that will soon uncover the hiding place of Alison’s mother…

The roads meet in #20 as ‘Out of the Past!’ details the hows and whys of Barbara (Blaire) London’s absence and even fills in some hidden passages in the life of Alison…

The full story arrives behind a photo-cover by Eliot Brown, Bob Larkin and model June McDonald as double-sized Dazzler #21 declares ‘Alison Blaire, This is Your Life!’ with the singer headlining a major benefit gig that draws ALL of her family together for a major reconciliation and reset, with every superhero in town along for the show…

A new tone infects #22 as evil mutants ‘The Sisterhood’ maliciously target Angel. The larger goal of Mystique, Destiny and wild child Rogue is to destroy the entire X-Men team but after Alison humiliatingly defeats Rogue and her parents, the unbalanced teenager becomes obsessed with punishing Dazzler. However, before that ‘Fire in the Night!’ changes tack to find Alison and her newly-found half sister Lois London endangered by manic arsonist Flame and her own vile property speculating landlord. Meantime, believing the Sisterhood behind the attack Alison has contacted a certain Heroes for Hire team and soon Luke Cage and Iron Fist prove worth every discounted cent…

They continue earning their keep in ‘A Rogue in the House!’ (#24 and Fingeroth, Springer & Colletta’s last collaboration in this collection) as the uncontrollable young mutant mind & powers leech assaults Alison and Lois. Brave and bold the bodyguards are ultimately defeated by their own stolen abilities and, desperate and furious, Dazzler decides to settle the grudge her own way…

The main comics biography pauses here with Dazzler #25, wherein the living transducer experiences every performer’s greatest nightmare. Crafted by Steven Grant, Mark Bright & Danny Bulanadi, ‘The Jagged Edge’ exposes her response to an appreciative fan who slowly crosses the line from heartfelt appreciation to lethally psychotic stalker. Sweet, shyly attentive admirer Karl Fredericks rapidly devolves to possessive maniac after finally meeting his idol, thereafter attempting to own Alison by killing all her friends and relatives. This prompts an extreme reaction from the horrified mutant musician…

To Be Continued..

With covers by Springer, Bill Sienviewicz, John Romita Jr., Bob Wiacek, John Romita Sr., and Dave Simons fronting each enthralling episode, the brief posterior Bonus Section opens with a tale from What If? #33 (June 1982), crafted by Fingeroth, Mike Vosburg & Jon D’Agostino asking and answering the burning question ‘What If The Dazzler Had Become the Herald of Galactus?’, supplemented by Dazzler’s entry from 1983’s Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe as supplied by Mark Gruenwald, Springer & Josef Rubinstein and the original character design for ‘Vanessa’ as crafted by then-current Marvel intern Lance Tooks.

Although very much of its troubled times, this collection sees the transformative shift in attitudes that resulted in women becoming less decorative and unshakably ornamental, and increasingly authors of their own fates. Even if not to everyone’s taste there is enough of significance here to make Dazzler worthy of any modern readers attention.
© 20201 MARVEL.

Today in 1934 comics loving speculative fiction iconoclast Harlan Ellison was born, followed in 1951 by Canadian superstar George Freeman (Captain Canuck, Green Lantern, Wasteland) and Mark Wheatley (Mars, Blood of the Innocent, Breathtaker, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall) in 1954)

On this date in 1949 we lost Robert Ripley (Ripley’s Believe It or Not!); Mark Trail creator Ed Dodd in 1991, ceiling shattering Japanese cartoonist Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san) in 1992 and Al Hartley (Archie Comics, Patsy Walker, Thor/Journey into Mystery) in 2003.

In 2006 Alex Toth died.

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Marvel Two-In-One Epic Collection volume 3 (1977-1979): Remembrance of Things Past


By Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Roger Slifer, Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Ralph Macchio, Peter B. Gillis, Alan Kupperberg, Bill Mantlo, Jo Duffy, John Byrne, Steven Grant, Allyn Brodsky, David Michelinie, Ron Wilson, Sal Buscema, Bob Hall, Chic Stone, Frank Miller, Jim Craig, Pablo Marcos, Josef Rubinstein, Jim Mooney, Alfredo Alcala, Sam Granger, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt, Tex Blaisdell, Gene Day, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod, Bruce Patterson, Mike Esposito & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5564-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of team-up books – 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. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead: the Human Torch. In those long-ago days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas carried on the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most iconic and popular member. They began with a test run in Marvel Feature #11-12, before awarding him his own team-up title, with this third power-packed compendium gathering in the contents of Marvel Two-in-One #37-52; MTIO Annuals #2-4 and Avengers Annual #7, covering November 1977 to June 1979.

The action begins with ‘The Final Threat’ (by Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, wherein Kree warrior Captain Marvel and Titanian mind-goddess Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending cosmic catastrophe. Their premonitions are confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a Soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candles. Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall interstellar incursion and prevent the Mad Titan destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 undertakes a ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein): finding Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares disclosing how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds the Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol. With nowhere else to turn, anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man heads for the Baxter Building to borrow a spacecraft, unaware The Thing also has history with the terrifying Titan. Although utterly outpowered, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans, allowing the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution to end the Titan’s threat forever… or at least until next time…

Marvel Two-In-One’s apparent function as a clearing-house for old, unresolved series and plot-lines was then briefly put on hold as issue #37 teamed Ben with Matt Murdock (not alter ego Daredevil) for Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos’ legal drama ‘Game Point!’

Ben had been framed for monstrous acts of wanton destruction, and when the case went badly, he faced decades in jail. However, the Man Without Fear and eccentric street punk Eugene the Kid determined the Mad Thinker was behind the plot to place the ‘Thing Behind Prison Bars’ (Roger Slifer, Wilson & Jim Mooney): tackling the maniac whose ultimate game plan is to corner the future, mass-producing his own squadron of the synthezoid Avenger in #39’s conclusion ‘The Vision Gambit’ (inked by Marcos).

Slifer, Tom DeFalco, Wilson & Marcos then detail a spooky international yarn as the Black Panther is involved in a monstrous reign of terror with a zombie-vampire stalking the streets and abducting prominent African Americans. Concluding chapter ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ – by David Anthony Kraft, Wilson & Marcos – sees Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo volunteer his extremely specialised services to Ben and T’Challa in hopes of ending the crisis. The trail takes our heroes to Uganda for a confrontation with Doctor Spectrum and the far more dangerous real-world crazed killer Idi Amin…

Crafted by Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Alfredo Alcala & Sam Grainger, Marvel Two-In-One #42 then debuts a future mainstay of Marvel Universe continuity as Project Pegasus premiers in ‘Entropy, Entropy…’

The Federal research facility designated Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States is dedicated to investigating new and exotic power sources and naturally became the most sensible place to dump energy-wielding super-baddies once they were subdued. Ben finds and begins trashing the place whilst tracking down his educationally – and emotionally -challenged ward Wundarr after the kid was renditioned by the Government. The furious Thing is soon confronted and contained by Captain America in his role as security advisor and together they stumble over a sabotage scheme by martial maniac Victorius who unleashes a deadly new threat in the ghostly form of Jude, the Entropic Man. This phantasmic force easily trounces Cap and Ben but finds the macabre Man-Thing far harder to handle in concluding chapter ‘The Day the World Winds Down’ from Macchio, John Byrne & Friends & Bruce Patterson)…

The third Marvel Two-In-One Annual then hosts a great big, old-fashioned world-busting blockbuster wherein Nova the Human Rocket battles beside Ben to free captive alien princesses and save Earth from colossal cosmos-marauding space invaders: a simple yet entertaining tussle entitled ‘When Strike the Monitors!’ all crafted by Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt… after which, back in the monthly comic book, issue #44 strays away from standard fare with ‘The Wonderful World of Brother Benjamin J. Grimm’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall & Frank Giacoia) with the Thing telling rowdy kids a fanciful bedtime story concerning his recent partnership with Hercules to free Olympus from evil giants…

Marvel Two-In-One #45’s sees Kree Captain Marvel warned by his Cosmic Awareness that the Thing had been targeted by vengeful Skrulls in ‘The Andromeda Rub-Out!’ (Peter Gillis, Alan Kupperberg & Mike Esposito), after which the Incredible Hulk’s new TV show compels an outraged Ben to head for Hollywood, only to become accidentally embroiled in a ‘Battle in Burbank!’ (Kupperberg & Chic Stone)…

The Thing’s self-appointed gadflies The Yancy Street Gang headlined in MT-I-O #47 as ‘Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!’ (Bill Mantlo & Stone) sees a cybernetic tyrant long believed dead take over Ben’s old neighbourhood… until the hero pays a visit. The invasion exposed, it is quickly concluded once awesome alien energy powerhouse Jack of Hearts joins the fight against ‘My Master, Machinesmith!’ (in #48 by Mantlo, Stone & Tex Blaisdel).

Mary Jo Duffy, Alan Kupperberg & Gene Day piled on spooky laughs in #49 as the ‘Curse of Crawl-Inswood’ highlights how Doctor Strange manipulates Ben into helping crush a paranormal incursion in a quaint and quiet seaside resort…

Anniversary issue #50 was everything a special issue should be. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ by Byrne & Joe Sinnott takes a powerful and poignant look at the Thing’s history as a monster outcast and posits a few what-might-have-beens…

Following another failure by Reed Richards to cure Ben’s rocky state, The Thing steals the chemical and travels into his own past, determined to use the remedy on his younger, less mutated self. However, his bitter, brooding, brittle earlier incarnation is hardly prepared to listen to another monster and, inevitably, catastrophic combat ensues…

Issue #51 was even better. ‘Full House… Dragons High!’ by Peter Gillis, up-&-coming artist Frank Miller & Bob McLeod, details how a weekly poker session at Avengers Mansion is interrupted by rogue US General Pollock, who again tries to conquer America with stolen technology. Happily, Ben and Nick Fury find Ms. Marvel (not today’s teenager Kamala Khan but current Captain Marvel Carol Danvers), Wonder Man and The Beast better combat comrades than poker opponents…

A note of sinister paranoia creeps in with Marvel Two-In-One #52’s ‘A Little Knight Music!’ (Steven Grant, Jim Craig & Marcos), as the mysterious Moon Knight joins Ben in stopping CIA Psy-Ops master Crossfire brainwashing the city’s superheroes into killing each other, prior to MTIO Annual #4 providing an old-fashioned, world-busting fantasy finale – for now – as ‘A Mission of Gravity!’(plotted by Allyn Brodsky, scripted by David Michelinie, limned by Craig, Bob Budiansky & Patterson) unites Ben and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt (and Good Boi Lockjaw!) to stop unstable maniac Graviton turning into a black hole and taking the world with him…

Backed up by the covers of Starlin, Rubinstein, Wilson, Sinnott, Marcos, Terry Austin, George Pérez, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Hall, Giacoia, Keith Pollard, Layton, Stone, Budiansky, and Al Milgrom, there is also a big bold bonus section including contemporary house ads, covers from reprint title The Adventures of the Thing (by Sam Keith, Mike Mignola & Joe Quesada) and original art pages by Starlin, Rubinstein, Perez & Sinnott.

This tome of tales from Marvel’s Middle Period are admittedly of variable quality. They are, however, offset by truly timeless classics, still as captivating today as they ever were. Most fans of Costumed Dramas will have little to complain about and there’s lots 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 ‘n’ all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

This date in 1754 – and attributed to Benjamin Franklin – the first American newspaper cartoon “Join, or Die” was published in The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Somewhat less momentously – perhaps – today in 1893 Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marton was born as was Short Ribs cartoonist Frank O’Neal in 1921; Half Hitch and Henry illustrator Dick Hodgins, Jr. in1931 and multi-directional art scribe Barbara Slate (Yuppies From Hell, Angel Love, Sweet XVI, Ms. Liz) in 1947. They were joined in 1953 by writer Pat McGreal (Chiaroscuro; The Private Lives of Leonardo DaVinci, Veils, I, Paparazzi and more Disney comics than seems humanly possible); in 1955 by American Splendor illustrator Brian Bram; inveterate comics publisher David Campiti in 1958, and the astoundingly funny Ty Templeton (Stig’s Inferno, Batman Adventures, The Simpsons) in 1962.

Today in 1991 The Simpsons episode “Three Men and a Comic Book” aired, giving Comic Book Guy to the world…

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Doctor Doom Epic Collection volume 1 (962-1969): Enter Doctor Doom


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6612-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the world’s greatest supervillain (Sorry, Donny Littlehands!) prepares for his next big screen debut, expect to see a bunch of books featuring the dark side of the eternal war between Good and Evil. And if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for the Master of Latveria I don’t know what is…

Doctor Doom is one of the most monumental villains in comics: definitely Top 3 and to many the absolute number 1 nemesis. Once upon a time, you hadn’t really made it as a Marvel superhero (or villain) until you’d clashed with him. Victor Von Doom is a troubled genius who escaped the oppression heaped on his Romani people in a backwards looking Balkan autocracy via an ultimately catastrophic scholarship to America. Whilst there proud, arrogant Victor succumbed to an intense rivalry with young Reed Richards, even then perhaps the most brilliant man alive.

The smug, openly hostile student performed unsanctioned experiments which went wrong and marred his formerly-perfect features, leading him down a path mastering and merging super-science and sinister sorcery, and fuelled his overwhelming hunger for ultimate power and total control. From the ashes of his failure, Von Doom rebuilt his life, returned to seize control of his homeland and become a danger to the world and the multiverse.

This carefully curated compendium traces his public progress and greatest battles via landmark moments of triumph and tragedy, collecting wholly or in part material from Fantastic Four (1961) 5-6, 10, 16-17, 23, 39-40, 57-60, 73; Fantastic Four Annual (1963) 2-3; Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #5; Avengers (1963) #25; Daredevil (1964) #36-38 and Marvel Super-Heroes (1967) #20 and opens without preamble as it must, with that debut in Fantastic Four #5 cover-dated July 1962 and on sale from April 10th.

At that time, aliens and especially monsters played a major part in young Marvel’s output. However, after a tentative start, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s recreation of superheroes embraced the unique basics of the idiom, and took a full bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown, unrepentant supervillain to their budding Marvel Universe. Mole Man debuted in FF #1, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his world-dominating schemes, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in FF #22.

Inked by the sublimely slick and perfectly polished Joe Sinnott, ‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom!’ had it all. A brazen attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed ‘Mr. Fantastic’ Richards’ past; bizarre fringe-science, magic, lost treasure, time-travel, and even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ‘earties!

The tale is sheer comics magic and the creators knew they were on to a winner as the deadly Doctor returned in the very next issue, teaming with the recently revived and recalcitrantly reluctant Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes as ‘The Deadly Duo!’ in the first Super-Villain Team-Up of the Marvel Age…

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second superstar of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of Marvel Mystery Comics #1 in 1939. He has had, however, the most impressive longevity of the company’s original “Big Three” – Torch, Subby & Captain America. The Marine Marvel was revived in Fantastic Four #4; once again a conflicted but noble villain, and remains prominent in the company’s pantheon to this day.

Inked by Dick Ayers, FF #6 reintroduced the concept of antiheroes as Namor was promptly betrayed by Doom, and ended up saving the quirky quartet from death in space. This created a truly complex dynamic with his fellow rogue monarch and the FF. The Devil Doctor’s inevitable betrayal has coloured the relationship of both sinister sovereigns ever since.

1963 was a pivotal year in the development of Marvel. Lee & Kirby had proved their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that concept to a new pantheon of heroes and even the bad guys. Here is where that second innovation came to the fore. Previously, superheroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Now, however there was a shared universe where characters often tripped over each other, sometimes fighting each other’s enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic!

Cover-date January 1963, Fantastic Four #10 was released in October of 1962 and saw ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Here, the archvillain used Stan & Jack themselves to lure Richards into a trap where his mind is switched with the bad Doctor’s. Unfortunately the scheme does not survive his own impatience as alien body-swap techniques come undone because Doom cannot keep up the sham long enough to spring his shrinking-ray ambush on the rest of the team…

Thematic follow-up Fantastic Four #16 explores ‘The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!’ in a spectacular romp guest-starring emergent superhero Ant-Man. Despite his resounding rout, the steel-shod villain promptly returned to the larger universe with more infallible, deadly traps a month later in ‘Defeated by Doctor Doom!’ (#17, August 1963, and on sale from May 9th). Of course, they actually weren’t and soon sent the sinister tyrant packing in what seemed a fall to his death…

Doom was the most frequent threat to the FF, and the first foe to break another unspoken rule by going after other heroes in the cohesive shared universe Lee & Kirby were building. Cover-dated October 1963 and with Ditko on pencils & inks, Amazing Spider-Man #5 saw the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ and not so much winning as surviving his unwanted duel against the deadliest man on Earth. In a titanic comedy of errors Doom seeks another super-powered pawn in his war on humanity, but utterly underestimates his obviously juvenile opponent. Moreover, in this tale, Peter Parker’s nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displayed depths beyond the usual in contemporary comic books, beginning one of the best love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Fantastic Four #23 (February 1964) heralded ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’, and introduced his frankly mediocre minions the Terrible Trio – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor. Even after they were augmented by Doom’s science these goons were sub-par opponents for the FF, but the Iron Dictator’s uncannily menacing “Solar Wave” was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck… and still does! (Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five but only my precious neck had developed hackles worth boasting of back then?)

The one-dimensional evil genius was recast as a tragic figure forever shackled by his flaws thanks to the primary contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) wherein Chic Stone inked ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, this momentously detailed how a brilliant “gypsy” youth remade himself into the most dangerous man in creation, ruthlessly overcoming obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of being the son of a sorceress. That past informed the present as the ultimate villain again attacked old college classmate Reed Richards and is left falsely believing he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ However, he has actually suffered his most ignominious defeat after Richards turned the despot’s guile, subterfuge and mind-control tools against him. This clash also introduced a long-running and bewildering plot thread connecting the Monstrous Monarch to time-travelling tyrant Rama Tut/Kang the Conqueror…

Jumping forward to the summer of 1965, FF #39 (cover-dated June, and on sale from March 11th, with Frank Giacoia AKA “Frank Ray” inking) saw the team deprived of their powers. Having remembered he had not beaten his enemies at last, an enraged Doom targets the helpless heroes in ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ with sightless swashbuckling vigilante Daredevil stepping up to provide their only hope of staying alive. The tale concluded in #40’s ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ with Vince Colletta inking a bombastic battle revealing the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing as – deprived of his greatest wish and cruelly restored to his monstrous mutated form – Ben Grimm hands Doom the most humiliating defeat of his life…

After a brief but significant tenure, Colletta signed off by inking one of the most crowded Marvel stories ever. Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously featured every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters in the company pantheon… such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan and Jack themselves. ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by the diabolical Doctor into crashing the wedding party. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

With inker Ayers backing up Lee & Don Heck, Avengers #25 (cover-dated February 1966 but released before Christmas 1965. The still-learning but ever-improving new squad of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch face their greatest test yet after being lured to Latveria and captured by the deadliest man alive in ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ With the entire nation imprisoned under an energy the trainees are forced to fight their way out of the tyrant’s utterly cowed, hyper-militarised kingdom…

Quiet for almost a year, the Iron Dictator exploded back into the forefront of comics with an absolute epic spanning Fantastic Four #57-60 released in the last four months of 1966. After a sequence of yarns introducing The Inhumans, Black Panther, Silver Surfer and Galactus, Lee & Kirby were at their sublime best and concocted what for many was the ultimate Doom saga.

Packed with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts it sees the most dangerous man on Earth steal and empower himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as in a parallel story arc, those long-imprisoned Inhumans at last win their freedom even as we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all his awesome fury. It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the FF’s total defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

Read it, not about it!

Daredevil 37-38 (February & March 1968 and available December 12th 1967 and January 9th 1968 respectively) saw an early crossover event. In the interests of completeness they are preceded by the cliffhanging final page from DD #36 (Lee Gene Colan & Giacoia) wherein the injured Man Without Fear is captured by Doom.

With John Tartaglione on brushes, DD is penned in the Latverian Embassy and the full story unfolds in #37. ‘Don’t Look Now, But It’s… Doctor Doom!’ reveals how the Iron Tyrant uses his old body swap gimmick to trade meatsuits with Matt Murdock, while sharing the secret of how he escaped the judgement of Galactus after depowering the Silver Surfer.

Initially helpless before the Iron Dictator, DD is trapped in ‘The Living Prison!’ (Giacoia inks) as Doom anticipates a perfect sneak attack on his despised foes. However, after warning the FF, DD outwits Doom anyway… but forgets to notify them. Thus Doom’s devilish ploy culminates in a stupendous Lee, Kirby & Sinnott crafted clash in Fantastic Four #73. Outmatched and unable to convince the Human Torch, Thing and Mr. Fantastic any other way, DD enlists currently de-powered Thor and the ever-eager Spider-Man to solve the problem Marvel style – with a spectacular, pointless and utterly riveting punch-up: ‘The Flames of Battle…’

Closing this first annal of atrocity, is a yarn from experimental try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (May 1969) which awarded the villain his first full-length solo shot. Written by Larry Lieber & Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Lieber, Giacoia & Colletta, ‘This Man… This Demon!’ restated Doom’s origins and revealed a youthful dalliance with an innocent Romani maid named Valeria. In the now, that failed relationship is exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claims to need an ally and partner but truly seeks a mighty slave. Doom deals with the charlatan in typically effective style…

This villain vehicle led to the Master of Menace winning his own solo series in Astonishing Tales #1-8, but that’s a topic for another time…

With covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Ayers, Stone, Ditko, Colan, Wood, Giacoia, Lieber, Colletta, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Verpoorten and more, the bonus treat selection begins with landmark house ads for Doom’s earliest appearances by Kirby, Bob Powell and Marie Severin; a selection of Doom pinups from Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963, by Kirby) and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1(1964, by Ditko) and Kirby original art pages.

These are backed up by a series of reprint and premium covers from Marvel Triple Action; Marvel Treasury Edition #11 (1976); Spider-Man Classics #6 (Ron Frenz & Terry Austin, September 1993); Spider-Man Collectible Series #11 (Frenz & Milgrom, October 2006); Essential Fantastic Four vol. 2 (1999 by Alan Davis & Marie Javins): Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four vol. 3 (2023 by Leonardo Romero): Doctor Doom: The Book of Doom Omnibus (2023 by Greg Land & Frank D’Armata) and Fantastic Four Facsimile Editions #5, 6 & 10 (all 2025 by Ryan Brown, Ema Lupacchino, Rachelle Rosenberg, Mark Buckingham & Alex Sinclair).

This graphic grimoire contains sheer comic enchantment, and is a book no lover of fantastic fiction and appreciator of arcane evil can afford to ignore – just as long as they remember which side they’re on…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1909, Golden Age All Star Everett E. Hibbard (Flash, Justice Society of America) was born, as was erotic comics artist Tom of Finland/AKA Touko Valio Laaksonen in 1920 and master mangaka Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman) in 1936.

Today in 1938 Filipino artist Adrian Gonzales (All-Star Squadron, Arak, Son of Thunder, Super Powers) and French master Jean Giraud/Moebius (Blueberry, Arzach, The Incal) showed up for the first time, like Full Metal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa in 1973, Planetes mangaka Makoto Yukimura in 1976 and Jamie McKelvie (The Wicked + the Profane, Phonogram, Young Avengers) in 1980.

In 1961, Nicholas P. Dallis & Alex Kotzky’s strip Apartment 3-G began on this date but we lost UK humour stalwart Thomas Watson Williams (Creature Teacher, Peter Pest, Stevie Star for Shiver and Shake, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun and Cor!!) in 2002, and the irreplaceable Maurice Sendak in 2012.

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The Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 15


By Roger Stern, John Byrne, Steven Grant, Doug Moench, Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino, Steve Ditko, Jack Abel, Mike Esposito, Alfredo Alcala, Joe Sinnott, Al Milgrom & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3805-5 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress and other factors cause him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. He was one of Marvel’s earliest innovations and first failure, but after an initially troubled few years finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of the company’s premiere antiheroes and most popular features.

The Gamma Goliath was always graced with artists who understood the allure of shattering action, the sheer cathartic reader-release rush of mighty “Hulk Smash!” moments, and here – following in the debris-strewn wake of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe – Sal Buscema had been showing the world what he could do when inspired and unleashed…

This chronologically complete monster monolithic monster mash-up re-presents Incredible Hulk #234-244 plus Annuals #8 & 9, collectively spanning April 1979 through February 1980, featuring tales and ancillary material generated while the Growling Green Giant utterly dominated global TV screens. Prior to that torrent of tumult, however, we open with another behind-the-scenes reminiscence from writer/editor Roger Stern in his engaging Introduction.

Previously, having failed to end the curse of the Hulk through psychoanalysis, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clay Quartermain and gamma-charged psychologist Doc Samson had witnessed the man-monster defeat insidious villains Moonstone and the Leader before Banner and the Hulk were ensnared in the schemes of criminal cabal The Corporation – specifically an internecine power struggle between West Coast Chief Curtiss Jackson and (ultimately ousted) East Coast head/corrupt US Senator Eugene Stivak, operating under the nom-du-crime Kligger.

Now, with Jackson in hiding and Kligger dethroned thanks to the Hulk, S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America, The Falcon, Marvel Man/Quasar, and – in related operations – Torpedo and Machine Man, the aftermath saw the Emerald Titan flee. Linking up with drop-out pal Fred Sloan, their quixotic road trip ended on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles where the man-monster was reunited with another old friend…

Trish Starr championed an alternative, magic-adjacent lifestyle when The Defenders battled her mad scientist uncle Egghead  and had since moved her peace-&-love message into a student house in Berkeley where laid-back student dudes get a taste of another world when the Hulk moves in with them. However, fear and suspicion are impossible to suppress and when one “drops a dime and calls the fuzz” (or notifies the authorities if you prefer) it results in chaos.

Of course, the authorities informed are not cops but The Corporation, where frantically–rebuilding Jackson sees opportunity to re-ingratiate himself with the fearsome Board of Directors and remove two thorns in his side. Crafted by Stern, Sal Buscema & Jack Abel, Incredible Hulk #234 sees the Gamma Goliath angry and unleashed in ‘Battleground: Berkeley!’ after Jackson frames Machine Man for kidnapping Trish. This lures the Jade Juggernaut (and Fred) to Jackson’s Central City base – The Mid-State Tower – where his forces are ready to end the blockbusting brute…

Meanwhile the real robot hero has been cleared of crimes covertly orchestrated by Kligger and is a free “man” when #235’s ‘The Monster and the Machine’ (inked by Mike Esposito) finds the furious Hulk attacking Machine Man’s human friend and advisor Dr Peter Spaulding. The clash rapidly escalates in ‘Kill or Be Killed!’ with the Hulk now nigh-mindless with rage. His mechanical foe is far more controlled and detects Jackson’s radio communications. Sadly so does the viridian berserker who heads for the Corporation’s secret skyscraper HQ to save Trish and punish Jackson…

The Hulk is beyond all reason and turns his wrath on Jackson with everyone else in sight caught in the carnage. As Machine Man (who went on from this clash into his own revived solo title) valiantly strives but fails to stop the man-brute, the earthshaking battle culminates in the fall of the tower in #237’s ‘When a City Dies!’ (Abel inks). With Jackson done and dusted, emerging from the rubble of the 80-storey shambles, Hulk’s appetite for destruction is still not sated. Thankfully, before collapsing in the robot version of utter exhaustion, Machine Man mesmerises the monster into a coma and employs an anti-gravity push to send the sleeping beast, far, far away…

Incredible Hulk Annual #8 follows as ‘Sasquatch!’ – written by Roger Stern & John Byrne, with art from Sal B & Alfredo Alcala – sees still-surly Hulk waking up in the mostly unoccupied region of British Columbia. Befriended by understandably nervous, self-imposed hermit Maureen Mores Friesen, he gradually calms enough to revert to Banner, but only until the Canadians deploy their own gamma monster – Dr Walter Langowski of government super-squad Alpha Flight – to end the incursion whatever the cost…

The Canadian catastrophe that results sees the Hulk still at large as US President Jimmy Carter, Quartermain and S.H.I.E.L.D. researchers survey what remains of Central City in Incredible Hulk #238’s ‘Post Hulk …Post Holocaust!’ (Stern, Buscema & Abel). Meanwhile, the monster’s peregrinations bring him to the attention of a clandestine cabal who bedevilled heroes for years. Cautiously, “They-Who-Wield-Power” plan their next atrocity…

As seen primarily in Marvel Team-Up, a shadowy trio of observers with an undisclosed agenda had monitored superbeing episodes and provided advanced technologies for monsters and villains like Lava Men, Stegron and The Orb to battle Spider-Man, Hercules, Nova, Ghost Rider, Black Panther, Thor and more. Now they subtly pull strings drawing the Gamma Juggernaut southwards, using bullion bandit Goldbug as their latest instrument…

It comes together in #239’s Esposito-inked ‘All That Glitters…’ as a brief pause on Hulk’s travels sparks a military incident. Taking a nap atop national monument Mount Rushmore, the monster is confronted by a joint military and S.H.I.E.L.D. response. However, instead of more shattering violence, the stand-off ends peacefully when Goldbug slips in, offering escape in his new ship. Sadly, it’s designed to siphon Hulk’s energies to power the vessel all the way to South America where the thief can plunder a literal city of gold in the Andes. Hulk is not happy and escapes, but not before they reach their destination where The Brotherhood of They are waiting.

In #240’s ‘…And Now El Dorado’ (inked by Joe Sinnott) years of scheming come to fruition as a hidden civilisation (last seen as the Forbidden Land in Avengers #31, August 1966) welcomes the outcast and the criminal mastermind to an idyllic paradise covertly controlled by a back-stabbing triumvirate seeking dominion of Earth. Autocrat Prince Rey and cleric Lann, Keeper of the Sacred Flame have warred for decades, but the balance is maintained by aged enigmatic Des who perpetrated They’s campaign to create global tectonic anomalies that fed the Flame. Des also exerts a shocking hold on the Hulk, dangling the prospect of resurrecting his lost love Jarella if the monster behaves and follows orders…

A bitter truth is revealed in the Buscema-inked ‘Partners in Deception!’ when Banner too becomes fuel for the Sacred Flame, with Des stealing that power to eradicate his allies and regenerate himself. Revealed as one of the Hulk’s earliest enemies and with Goldbug forced into playing hero to save his own skin, ‘Sic Temper Tyrannus!’ sees the unlikely outworlder allies saving Earth as their enemy ascends to godhood before inevitably overextending himself… and again underestimating the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Jade Juggernaut…

The end comes courtesy of plotter Stern, scripter Steven Grant & Sal B, in #243’s ‘Death… and Destiny!’ With the world restored, the Hulk resuming his wandering and Goldbug getting just what he deserves, in the wings, the mental collapse of General Thaddeus Ross has left a vacuum the US government fills with his protégé Glenn Talbot, newly promoted to lead America’s anti-Hulk task force…

Written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Steve Ditko & Al Milgrom, Incredible Hulk Annual #9 offers a short diversion as the monster is targeted by chess-obsessed millionaire Charles Reigel, leading fellow members of the Gotham Game Club in a high-tech campaign against the epitome of unreasoning brute force. Sadly, ‘A Game of Monsters and Kings’ is not what the Green Goliath wants and the Hulk does not play well with others…

This titanic tome wraps up its storytelling component with a brief continuity palate cleanser as #244 reintroduces Hollywood special effects wizard Bob O’Bryan who, thanks to alien invaders, can possess and animate a gigantic stone statue. His efforts to keep the mighty It, the Living Colossus from evil Dr. Vault was once the stuff of L A legend, but means nothing to Bruce Banner when he awakes from another Hulk-out in Tinseltown.

Incredible Hulk #244’s ‘It Lives!’ (by Grant, Carmine Infantino  & Esposito) sees coincidence and concatenation conspire to bring all player together for Vault’s last pursuit of the prize, only to learn that gamma beats granite every time…

To Be Hulk-inued…

With covers by Milgrom, Bob Layton, and Ditko the bonus portion of this blockbusting bonanza includes the covers (front & back) of Hulk-starring reprint tabloids  Marvel Treasury Edition #20 and 24 – by Bob Budiansky & Abel and Budiansky & Bob Wiacek respectively. There are also house ads and a gallery of Hulk pinups by Ron Wilson, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt & Pablo Marcos created for Marvel UK titles plus a large section of designs by Mark Gruenwald revamping Goldbug, his ship and Tyrannus.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the movies, cartoons, TV shows, games, toys and action figures are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these exciting episodes, so why not Go Green – even if it’s only in your own delirious head?
© 2021 MARVEL.

Today in 1964 Brazilian artist Sergio (Lone Ranger) Cariello was born, with Stephanie (Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman, Spider-Gwen, Grim) Phillips arriving in 1991. On the debit side this date in 1957 saw the end of Italian comics legend Guido Fantoni (Capitan Walter, Nutor, Flash Gordon, Brick Bradford, The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician); mature content Spanish wizard Alfredo Pons in 2002; Disney mainstay Romano Scarpa in 2005 and our own national treasure Leo Baxendale (Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, Wham!, Pow!) in 2017.

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Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dennis O’Neil, Roy Thomas, John Severin, Joe Sinnott, Don Heck, Howard Purcell, Ogden Whitney, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Jim Steranko & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2686-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Veteran war-hero and superspy Nick Fury debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (cover-dated December 1963): a grizzled, world-weary and cunning (but innately Good) CIA Colonel at the periphery of the really big adventures in a fast-changing world.

What was odd about that? Well, the gruff, crudely capable combat everyman was already the star of the reemergent publisher’s only war comic, set twenty years earlier in – depending on whether you were American or European – the beginning or middle of World War II. Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous combat comics series, similar in tone to later movies such as The Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen and had launched in May of that year.

Nevertheless, Fury’s latterday self became a big-name star as espionage yarns continued guiding a global zeitgeist in the wake of popular TV sensations like Danger Man and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Bond movies (and many imitators) so the contemporary iteration was granted a second series. It began in Strange Tales #135 (cover-dated August 1965).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by a subversive, all-encompassing, hidden enemy organisation. The ever-unfolding saga came with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry and – eventually – iconic, game-changing imagineering from Jim Steranko, whose visually groundbreaking graphic narratives took the comics art form to a whole new level…

For those few brief years with Steranko in charge, the S.H.I.E.L.D. series was one of the best strips in America (if not the world) but when the writer/artist left just as the global spy-fad was giving way to supernatural mystery and horror stories, the whole concept faded into the fundamental background architecture of the Marvel Universe…

This astounding full-colour compendium (available in hardcover and digital editions) deals with the outrageous, groundbreaking, but still notionally wedded-to-mundane-reality iteration which set the scene.

Here Jack Kirby’s genius for graphic wizardry and gift for dramatic staging mixed with Stan Lee’s manic melodrama to create a tough and tense series which the new writers and veteran artists that followed turned into a non-stop riot of action and suspense, with Steranko’s late arrival only hinting at the magic to come…

These epic early days of spycraft encompass Strange Tales #135-153 and Tales of Suspense #78, collectively covering August 1965 – February 1967 and guaranteeing timeless thrills for lovers of adventure and intrigue. Following a history lesson from Kirby scholar John Morrow in his Introduction, the main event starts in at full pelt in ST #135 as the Human Torch solo feature was summarily replaced by Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which back then stood for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division). In the rocket-paced first episode, Fury is asked to volunteer for the most dangerous job in the world: leading a new counter-intelligence agency dedicated to stopping secretive subversive super-science organisation Hydra. With assassins dogging his every move, the Take-Charge Guy with the Can-Do Attitude quickly proves he is ‘The Man for the Job!’ in a potent 12-page thriller from Lee, Kirby and inker Dick Ayers.

Even an artist and plotter of Kirby’s calibre couldn’t handle another strip at that busiest of times, so from the next issue “The King” cut back to laying out episodes, allowing a variety of superb draughtsmen to flesh out the adventures. Happily, however, there’s probably a stunning invention or cool concept on almost every page that follows so the Kirby Touch was fully upon the unfolding suspense and intrigue. ‘Find Fury or Die!’ brought veteran draughtsman John Severin back to the company that used to be Atlas. He pencilled and inked Jack’s blueprints as – aided and abetted by full-on patriotic weaponsmith Tony Stark – the new Director of the latest spy-agency becomes the target of incessant assassination attempts as we meet mysterious masked maniac the Supreme Hydra…

The tension ramps up for the next instalment as a number of contenders are introduced – any of whom might be the obscured overlord of evil – even as S.H.I.E.L.D. strives mightily but fails to stop Hydra launching its deadly Betatron Bomb in ‘The Prize is… Earth!’ Despite the restrictions of the Comics Code, these early S.H.I.E.L.D. stories were bleakly grim and frequently carried a heavy body count. Four valiant agents died in quick succession in #137 and the next issue underscored the point in ‘Sometimes the Good Guys Lose!’, with further revelations of Hydra’s inner workings.

Fury and fellow WWII era Howling Commando stalwarts Dum-Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones meanwhile played catch-up after Hydra assassins invade S.H.I.E.L.D., almost eliminating Fury and Stark – the only man capable of destroying an atomic sword of Damocles hanging over the world. Although Fury saves the munitions genius, he is captured in the process…

Tortured by Hydra in #139’s ‘The Brave Die Hard!’ (with Joe Sinnott replacing Severin as finisher), Fury latches on to an unlikely ally in Laura Brown, the Supreme Hydra’s daughter and a young woman bitterly opposed to her father’s megalomaniacal madness. Even with only half a comic book per month to tell a tale, creators didn’t hang around in those halcyon days, and #140 promised ‘The End of Hydra!’ (Don Heck & Sinnott over Kirby) as a S.H.I.E.L.D. squad invades the enemy’s inner sanctum to rescue the already-free-&-making-mayhem Fury. In the meantime, Stark travels into space to remove the orbiting Betatron Bomb with his robotic Braino-Saur system. The end result leaves Hydra temporarily headless…

Strange Tales #141 sees Kirby return to full pencils (inked by pseudonymous Frank Giacoia, moonlighting as Frank Ray) for the mop-up, prior to ‘Operation: Brain Blast!’ introducing Mentallo – a mutant and career criminal renegade from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ESP division. He joins technological savant The Fixer to assail the organisation as their first step in an ambitious scheme to rule Earth. The momentous raid begins in ‘Who Strikes at… S.H.I.E.L.D.?’ (illustrated by Kirby & Mike Demeo – AKA Mike Esposito) with the ruthless rogues hitting hard and fast: seizing and mind-controlling Fury before strapping him to a mini H-bomb. With Howard Purcell & Esposito embellishing Kirby’s layouts, Dum-Dum and the boys come blasting in ‘To Free a Brain Slave’ in #143. A new and deadly threat emerges in #144’s ‘The Day of the Druid!’ as a mystic-seeming charlatan targets Fury and his agents with murderous flying techno-ovoids. Happily, new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit Jasper Sitwell is on hand to augment the triumphant fightback in ‘Lo! The Eggs Shall Hatch!’ (finished by Heck & Esposito).

As Marvel continuity grew evermore interlinked, ‘Them!’ details a Captain America team-up for Fury in the first of the Star-Spangled Avenger’s many adventures as a (more-or-less) Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Taken from Tales of Suspense #78 (June 1966): scripted by Lee with Kirby on full pencils and Giacoia inking, the story depicts the WWII wonders battling an artificial assassin with incredible chemical capabilities, after which Nick seeks the creature’s mysterious makers in ST #146, ‘When the Unliving Strike!’(Kirby, Heck & Esposito).

Proclaiming themselves a technological Special Interests group, Advanced Idea Mechanics courts S.H.I.E.L.D.’s governmental and military masters (and contracts), promising potent and incredible new weapons if only they would sack that barbaric slob Fury. However, the surly supremo is getting close to exposing A.I.M.’s connection to “Them” …and an old enemy thought long gone.

A concerted whispering campaign and briefing-against seemingly sees Fury ousted in ‘The Enemy Within!’, before being put on trial in ‘Death Before Dishonor!’ (scripted by Kirby with Heck & Esposito finishing his layouts), but it’s all part of a cunning counterplan which delivers a shattering conclusion and ‘The End of A.I.M.!’ (ST #149, dialogued by Denny O’Neil with art by Kirby & Ogden Whitney). Then, revealed by Lee, Kirby, John Buscema & Giacoia, a malign, devilishly subtle plan is finally exposed in Strange Tales #150 as Fury’s team compares clues from all the year’s past clashes to come to one terrifying conclusion… ‘Hydra Lives!’

The shocking secret also hints at great events to come as newcomer Steranko assumes the finisher’s role over Lee & Kirby for ‘Overkill!’ with Fury targeted by the new – true – Supreme Hydra who devises a cunning scheme to infiltrate America’s top security agency and use his enemy as the means of triggering global Armageddon…

Although the Good Guys seemingly thwart that scheme, ‘The Power of S.H.I.E.L.D.!’ is actually helpless to discern the villain’s real intent as this initial dossier of doom pauses on a cliffhanger after ‘The Hiding Place!’ (ST #153, scripted by Roy Thomas) closes with the archvillain comfortably ensconced in Fury’s inner circle and ready to destroy the organisation from within.

To Be Continued…

Although the S.H.I.E.L.D. saga stops here, there’s an added bonus still to enjoy: the aforementioned FF #21. This depicted Fury as a wily CIA agent seeking the team’s aid against a sinister demagogue ‘The Hate-Monger’ (Lee & Kirby, inked by George Roussos, under protective nom-de-plume George Bell) just as the 1960s espionage vogue was taking off. Here Fury craftily manipulates Marvel’s First Family into invading a sovereign nation reeling in the throes of revolution in a yarn crackling with tension and action…

Fast, furious and fantastically entertaining, these high-octane vintage yarns from a time when the US were global Good Guys and “World Police” are a superb snapshot of early Marvel Comics at their creative peak and should be part of every fanboy’s shelf of beloved favourites.

Don’t Yield! Back S.H.I.E.L.D.!

© 1965, 1966, 1967, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1907, Belgian artist Jacques Laudy (Le Journal de Tintin) was born, as was occasional Green Lantern scripter Henry Kuttner in 1915 and Canadian cartoonist Jacques Boivin (Melody) in 1952. In 2007, B,C. creator Johnny Hart died.

Today in 1935 Dr. Seuss launched his short lived but influential strip Hejji and, in 1992, Art Spiegelman received a Special Pulitzer Prize for Maus.

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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…