Category: Dr Strange

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Marvel Team-Up Marvel Masterworks volume 8


By Chris Claremont, Steven Grant, Bill Mantlo, Mark Gruenwald, Bill Kunkel, Allyn Brodsky, Sal Buscema, Mike Vosburg, Herb Trimpe, Don Perlin, Bob McLeod, Gene Colan, Michael Netzer, Rich Buckler, Alan Kupperberg, Frank Giacoia, Gene Day, Steve Leialoha, Frank Springer, Eduardo Barreto, Josef Rubinstein, Jack Abel, Bruce Patterson, Bill Sienkiewicz & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302955571 (HB), 978-1-3025-2987-1 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

The concept of team-ups – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with new or less well-selling company characters – has been with us since the earliest days of comics, but making those brief encounters/temporary alliances a key selling point really took hold with DC’s The Brave and the Bold in the 1960s before being taken up and industrialisedby their biggest competitor.

Marvel Team-Up was the second regular Spider-Man title, launched as 1971 ended. A big hit, it confirmed that the time had finally come for Arachnid expansion, offering a venue for uncomplicated action romps to supplement the character’s – and company’s – complex subplot fare in regular books. However, even in an infinite Marvel Multiverse, certain stars shone more brightly than others and some turned up in team-ups more often than others…

This compelling compilation gathers the contents of Marvel Team-Up #78, 80-90, MTU Annual #2 and material from Marvel Treasury Edition #25, collectively covering February 1979 through February 1980. It opens with an overview Introduction from editorial ace Ralph Macchio before plunging into a peerless parade of peril action/adventure…

In Marvel Team-Up #78, courtesy of Bill Kunkel, Don Perlin & Frank Giacoia, ‘Claws!’ sees the webslinger and Wonder Man unite to fight hyper-evolving, yet increasingly bestial man-made monster The Griffin, a done-in-one palate-cleansing fight fest, after which an embarrassment of chronological proportions occurs…

When the series was originally published, MTU #79 featured a rather tasty pairing of the Amazing Arachnid with barbarian hot property Red Sonja in a brutal, time-bending battle with long-dead Hyborian sorcerer Kulan Gath. Unfortunately, the key word here is “property” and as Marvel did not at this publishing moment have rights to the “She-Devil with a Sword” that epic encounter has been embargoed for this book. Thus we rejoin the fun with #80 in itself a continuation of an earlier tag-team-up (seen in the last volume). Then & there Dr. Strange, Clea, Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers & Spidey fully believed they had foiled a mage-murdering plot by Christian extremist Silver Dagger and Marie Laveau, Witch Queen of New Orleans.

Here & now in MTU #80, however, Chris Claremont, Mike Vosburg & Gene Day depict ‘A Sorcerer Possessed!’ as Strange finally succumbs to Laveau’s subtle, long-festering enchantment and turns into a werewolf in advance of the entire dimension falling prey to her demonic masters. With the wallcrawler, Clea and Wong unable to counter the encroaching cataclysm, salvation comes from a most unlikely source as Satana, Daughter of the Devil invites herself to the party for ‘Last Rites’ (inked by Steve Leialoha), spearheading a counterattack she does not expect or intend to survive…

Back in Marvel Team-Up #57 Claremont & Sal Buscema laid groundwork for a re-definition of superspy The Black Widow. It was the opening shot of an extended thriller embroiling Spider-Man in a devious and deadly espionage plot and resulted in the wallcrawler being saved from a lethal ambush by Natasha Romanoff. In the aftermath, he took reluctant possession of a strange statuette for her. In #82 (cover-dated June 1979) the scheme comes to fruition as Claremont, Sal B & Leialoha craft a 4-part, multi-operative conclusion that begins with Spidey saving Natasha from mere street thugs, but all is not as it seems…

‘No Way to Treat a Lady’ reveals that the lethal superspy has escaped capture and torture by retreating into a timid, ineffectual cover personality, so the hero must keep “schoolteacher Nancy Rushman” alive until he learns how and why. That task gets even harder after S.H.E.I.L.D.’s Strike Force – led by hot-headed wildcard La Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine – come mercilessly gunning for her…

The original (old/white) Nick Fury joins the fray in ‘Slaughter on 10th Avenue!’, “shooting” Spider-Man and capturing Nancy before discovering – after the webspinner steals her back – that his entire peacekeeping espionage organisation has been taken over by hidden death-dealing anarchist mastermind Viper. Now her deadly hench-thugs Silver Samurai and Boomerang are loose and seeking to “clean house”…

In #84 ‘Catch a Falling Hero’ reveals the purpose of that long-forgotten statuette, as Viper consequently targets Washington DC and President Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile Spider-Man and slowly recovering Nancy infiltrate the fatally-compromised flying fortress Helicarrier even as Fury calls in a clean pair of hands – belonging to occasional British asset Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu – for a deliberately distracting frontal assault that culminates in all-out war above the Capitol and the closest of close shave conclusions for all concerned in concluding chapter ‘The Woman Who Never Was!’

At this juncture the 31st century Guardians of the Galaxy were guests of The Avengers and resident in (or rather far above New York). However, before the time-lost titans finally departed for their own era again they injudiciously interacted with a few 20th century stars. MTU #86 (October 1979) reveals how undercover Guardians Starhawk, Nikki & Martinex stumbled over Spider-Man whilst attempting to eradicate history-threatening evidence of their existence. The main threat as delineated by Claremont & Bob McLeod comes from nefarious armaments company Deterrence Research Corporation who want to steal their colossal space station/timeship Drydock. The toughest  part of the mission is saving ambitious reporter “Rap Reynolds” from DRC’s super-flunkies Hammer and Anvil whilst preventing him from exposing the mission of the future heroes and publishing the ‘Story of the Year!’

Steven Grant, Gene Colan & Frank Springer then expose the webspinner and Black Panther to shady business practice in conglomerate Roxxon Oil’s latest scheme to acquire Wakanda’s vibranium. It begins by framing T’Challa for illegally renditioning a shady businessman on US soil and then sending in superpowered mercenary Hellrazor to save the poor entrepreneur and American prestige. Since Spider-Man has been an outraged observer from the start, his immediate intervention blunts ‘The Razor’s Edge!’ but greed never rests and more plans are afoot for another day…

Invisible “Girl” Susan Richards appears next, as MTU #88 – by Claremont, Sal Buscema & Eduardo Barreto – depicts a fighting mad mother on a rampage in ‘A Child is Waiting’. When toddler Franklin Richards is kidnapped, parvenue plunderers “the Hole in the Wall gang” think they can get rich by safely having superheroes steal from established rivals like Boss Morgan of Harlem and The Maggia. Sadly, with Spider-Man and NYPD detective Jean DeWolff secretly aiding Sue, they haven’t got a chance in hell…

Mutant madness erupts in Marvel Team-Up #89 as Claremont, Michael Nasser/Netzer, Rich Buckler & Josef Rubinstein choreograph action extravaganza ‘Shoot-Out over Center Ring!’ as the webspinner and former circus acrobat Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler reunite and combine against anarchic showman-hitman Arcade and obsessed assassin Cutthroat in a vengeance-fuelled Big Top thriller before #90 unites brainy acrobatic heroes Spider-Man and The Beast in frantic battle against merciless mercenary Killer Shrike and disembodied maniac Modular Man. When their raid of a science fair and purloining of a device that might eradicate the entire city with microwaves triggers countdown thriller  ‘Death on the Air’ (Grant, Vosburg & McLeod) our embattled champions are barely able to prevent catastrophe… and only at tragic cost…

The regular monthly pairings pause here but a brace of extra-sized bouts remain to enjoy, beginning with Marvel Team-Up Annual #2, wherein Claremont, Sal Buscema, Alan Kupperburg & Jack Abel pair Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk against Soviet super-agents Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar & Vanguard in Cold Wat chiller ‘Murder in Cathedral Canyon!’ The Russians want US scientist Daniel Ironwood to build an antimatter bomb and think kidnapping his daughter Cissy is the best way to achieve their aims, Sadly, she’s Peter Parker’s current girlfriend…

Elsewhere, fugitive Bruce Banner is seized/recruited by KGB Colonel Vahzin. He needs an exotic ordnance expert to stop rogue element Nikolai Kutzov and his super-powered dupes blowing up the world, and it’s extremely fortuitous that his ally can become the strongest being on Earth. All the elements are in play at a distant beauty spot when the wallcrawler meets the Jade Juggernaut, but although they do a save the world, the cost is far too high…

Less dramatic but just as bombastic, the fun concludes with Marvel Treasury Edition #25 (1980) and opportunistic tie-in ‘Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk at the 1980 Winter Olympics’: an utterly bonkers banding together of Marvel’s then top TV sensations to stop subterranean tyrants The Mole Man and Kala, Queen of the Netherworld, hosts of moloids, a band of fiery Lava Men and mutant troublemakers ‘The Outcasts’ sabotaging the games by kidnapping athletes…

The entire package comes courtesy of scripters Bill Mantlo, Steven Grant & Mark Gruenwald with Herb Trimpe & Bruce Patterson scoring big on interior art and Al Milgrom, Jack Abel, Bill Sienkiewicz & Patterson handling the covers.

The Bonus material this time includes the gallery of covers by Milgrom, Buckler, Leialoha, McLeod, Sienkiewicz, Abel & Patterson, as well plentiful original art pages by Vosburg, Leialoha,, Buscema, Milgrom; the covers for Marvel Treasury Edition # 22 (1979, by Bob Budiansky & Je Sinnott); the covers from Marvel Tales #242 & 244 by Marshall Rogers August and October 1990.

These tales are generally superb examples of Marvel’s Second Wave; Bronze Age yarns fans will find little to complain about. Although not perhaps a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers – or Marvel Cinema-goers – will have a blast, so why not consider this tome for your “Must-Have” library?
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1880, komics genius and Krazy Kat Kreator George Herriman was born, followed by comics pioneer and packager Jerry Iger in 1903; African-American political cartoonist Chester Commodore in 1914; comic book star artist Bob Brown (Tomahawk, Batman, Space Ranger, Daredevil, Superboy, Avengers, Challengers of the Unknown) in 1915 and Silver/Bronze Age letterer Shelly Leferman in 1922. Post-war comics creators born today include Britain’s unique Kevin O’Neill (Ro-Busters, ABC Warriors, Captain Klep, Nemesis the Warlock, Metalzoic, Marshal Law, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) in 1953; writer Daniel G. Chichester (Daredevil, Batman, Dr. Zero, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, Terror Inc.) in 1964; artist animator Duncan Rouleau (Venom, X-Factor, Metal Men, Ben 10, The Nightmarist) in 1965 and Spanish illustrator Alberto Jimenez Albuquerque (Les Fugitifs de l’Ombre, Inca, Skull Kickers, Letter 44, Mystery Girl, Generation X) in 1982.

This day in 2011 German cartoonist Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow (Wum, Odipussi, Pappa Ante Portas) died.

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Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection volume 5: The Invasion of New York 1972-1974


By Bill Everett, Steve Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Marv Wolfman, Howard Chaykin, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Dan Adkins, Alan Weiss, Sam Kweskin, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, John Tartaglione, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane, Marie Severin, Franc Reyes & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: (TPB/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 usually 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 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 sublimely 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 to September 1974, this subsea selection trawls Sub-Mariner #50-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also dredged 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-heroes began to wither away in the light of shiny space operas and resurgent superheroes as we all unwittingly bided our time until the advent of Star Wars unleashed a wave of Science Fiction sagas. Here, however, we see the triumphant glorious last hurrahs of originator Everett in salty sagas and dry land dramas…

Previously, Namor had endured months of escalating horror as old enemies including Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and sinister shapeshifter Llyra perpetually assaulted his sunken kingdom. They were soundly defeated, but these constant clashes led to the murder of Namor’s bride-to-be Lady Dorma. He had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. The decision was fraught with more potential grief, leading to battles with surface world authorities; deranged psionic hermit Stephan Tuval and mind-tyrant Turalla; monster-maker Aunt Serr, M.O.D.O.K. and AIM. Namor seldom fought alone and initial clashes with old friends like Diane Arliss and Walt Newell (part-time undersea Avenger Stingray), Spider-Man, Daredevil and Human Torch Johnny Storm ultimately resulted in refreshed alliances, culminating in a poignant but brief reunion with his long-lost father Leonard McKenzie, a man Namor had for his entire life believed killed by Atlanteans in 1920.

When that tragic hostage to fortune was murdered by post-human horror Tiger Shark & Llyra, twice-orphaned, traumatised Namor lost his memory again, and was exploited as cannon fodder by Doctor Doom before eventually breaking free to retrench in bitter confusion and ponder his future…

Thus , a fresh start begins in #50 as Everett resurfaces to ask ‘Who Am I?’, with the bewildered amphibian reeling in confusion at the beach until his heroic instincts kick in and he saves a drowning teenager from seaweed and pollution. His actions are completely misunderstood and she savagely attacks him, before swimming off right out to sea…

Lesson learned, Namor concentrates on his own woes and sets off for Antarctica, eventually fetching up in the Ross Sea to explore the crumbling remains of the original Atlantis. His reveries are shattered when he is attacked by mutant crab creatures guarding the tomb of his beloved long-lost cousin and WWII partner in crimefighting Namora…

Confronting sinister leader Salamar the Sustainer, Namor discover a bizarre scheme to exploit the vast oil reserves under the ocean floor, and learns old foes are shaping events: treacherous cousin Byrrah and seemingly unkillable Llyra. He also meets again that abrasive teenager and discovers she is Namora’s wayward daughter…

As all hell breaks loose, former prince and newfound cousin Namorita make a break for it in a hail of blaster fire as ‘Armageddon… at Fifty Fathoms Full!’ (scripted by Mike Friedrich) exposes a scaly hidden hand behind the carnage. Byrrah is allied with the alien Brotherhood of Baddoon, who want the (radioactive!) oil reserves, albeit not for the reasons they share with the usurper. Ultimately, the aliens, Byrrah, and Salamar’s savage crab people can’t agree and the seagoing cousins are participants in a shattering showdown that results in environmental catastrophe…

Seeking to confirm Namorita’s account of how Namora died whilst dumping her with his old girlfriend Betty Dean Prentiss, Sub-Mariner cruises into a clash with ultra-nationalist Japanese mutant and future X-Man Sunfire as ‘The Atomic Samurai!’ – ever receptive to deranged patriotic ranting – falls under the sway of war criminal demagogue Dragon-Lord, last of the samurai. He plans to unleash his new Nipponese army and deadly defoliants upon America, a tactic that might destroy the oceans…

After a spectacular new incidence of the classic Golden Age “Fire vs Water” duel, Everett took full creative control for follow-up ‘…And the Rising Sun Shall Fall!’ wherein Sunfire sees sense and switches sides to save the seas, leading to all-out war in concluding half-chapter ‘Now Comes… the Decision!’,: a brief battle that leaves room in #54 for a “Mighty Marvel Mini Classic!” with Friedrich & Alan Weiss detailing how ‘Namor the First, Prince of Atlantis battles The Mer-Mutants’: a light but lovely puff piece involving a mermaid acting as a subsea honey trap for her hungry kin…

NtSM #55 sees Namor at last wave goodbye to “Nita” & Betty before revisiting Antarctica and enduring an unexpected and brutal encounter with scavenging wrecker ‘The Abominable Snow-King!’ The literally monstrous Torg’s ambition is to pit enslaved sea life against humanity but sinks once the Sub-Mariner gets involved, after which Friedrich & veteran illustrator Dan Adkins steer the abdicated Prince back to his forsaken kingdom in ‘Atlantis, Mon Amour!’ Sadly, he’s too late to stop his former subjects making a tragic fear-fuelled mistake that results in atrocity and genocide after aquatic alien refugee beg for aid…

When Everett returned he opened the doors to Marvel’s Atlas era-past with a tempestuous yarn that would eventually affect the entire continuity. ‘…In the Lap of the Gods’ reintroduced 1950s sensation Venus, whose impact would ripple out across the MU and ultimately reveal her hidden history as part of the Agents of Atlas sub-franchise.

It begins in a shattering storm as Namor rescues a lovely mystery woman stranded on a rock and stumbles into a long-running grudge match between the Hellenic gods of Love and War. A contemporary tale of dissent and unrest, the story reunites him with Namorita, who, in his absence, has become a college student and activist. Moreover, her favourite lecturer – Humanities Professor Victoria N. Starr – also has a concealed alter ego and lethal stalker: malign divinity and former pantheon mate Ares…

Having held at bay one angry god, Namor returns to Atlantis, resolved to restore the undersea nation to forefront of civilisation but his program of changes is stalled when ‘Hands Across the Waters, Hands Across the Skies…’ (Everett supervising, steering and inking dialoguer Steve Gerber & layout artist Sam Kweskin) uncovers a survivor and witness to the recent massacre of alien ambassadors by Atlanteans. Tamara of the Sisterhood claims to offer forgiveness and seek understanding, but many of the perpetrators would rather there were no testimony or recriminations to deal with. Most tellingly, the superstrong survivor and her pet monster have their own plans and soon the prince is sucked into more pointless battle…

With John Tartaglione inking Everett’s plot, Gerber & Kweskin forecast ‘Thunder Over the Seas!’, a tale of tragic miscomprehension as Namor again clashes with the surface world. As the Sub-Mariner’s new advisor, Tamara is targeted by Atlantean scout Lorvex – who is driven wild by her exotic beauty and rarity. Obsessively stalking and assaulting her, Lorvex drives her into Russian trawler nets where the rubicund refugee becomes a prized possession after the vessel and its contents are impounded by the US Coast Guard. Now Tamara is a cause célèbre and topic of heated debate at the United Nations…

Having dealt with Lorvex, Namor seeks out his new friend, and crashes into chaos as the war of words over the alien mermaid triggers the usual bellicose response amongst humans. By the time surface-dwelling Namorita summons her cousin to rescue Tamara, founding Avenger Thor has stepped in to keep the peace. Sadly it’s too late to stop ‘The Invasion of New York!’ (Everett, Gerber, Kweskin & Jim Mooney), with Lorvex exploiting the campaign to regain position and secretly abduct Tamara from UN custody. Enraged and resigned, Sub-Mariner acts decisively and violently to end the crisis, and accepts at last the fate he has been really fighting, finally accepting once more the throne and responsibilities of ruling Atlantis.

It was an open secret that 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 Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts on page 4 as Namorita and 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 army of environmental conquest. When Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, he is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the failed assault inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his new 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 thwart 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 reined-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 pre-cataclysm history, aided by Howard Chaykin in back-up series ‘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 Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. We’ve covered them elsewhere so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, though, and wading off at a weird tangent, Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture in #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 Tales of Atlantis episode ‘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 instalments ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding chapter ‘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 millennia later to the coming later of Namor…

Back in the now, the series was struggling, sparking a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner and #65 offering ‘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 hurtling Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ (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 amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it over Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into comas in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ (Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle).

Thankfully, whilst dying Namor heads for the surface to be found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who brings Namor to former foes the Fantastic Four. 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 escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft monarch. To stabilise the crisis, they relocate to vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose forcefield researches might provide a means to protect 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 neophyte supervillain 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 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 depicting ‘Namor Unchained!’ in #70 whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by now-independent mutated fishmen grown by Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity. The brutal duel delivers 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 epic Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for potential spare parts and powers by the messianic maniac and battling Stryker’s most deadly killer-cyborg yet…

Bonus material includes covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, Al Weiss, Jim Starlin, Larry Lieber, Joe Sinnott, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, & Al Milgrom, supplemented with original art pages and personal commissions by “Wild Bill”. Also on view are House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change plus Romita’s original designs for the new outfit. Special treats comprise Everett’s unused cover watercolour rough for Marvel Comics (1939) #2; the Everett cover and Franc Reyes frontispiece of Marvel Index #7b (1978); a stellar Venus pinup from Marvel Spotlight #2 (1972) and – following the announcement of Everett’s death – a visual memorial from editor and friend Thomas, limned by Marie Severin & Giacoia as it appeared in Sub-Mariner #65 (September 1973).

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 relentlessly repeating 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.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1923 French creator Jean Graton (Michel Vaillant) was born, sharing natal celebrations with comics genius Eddie Campbell (Alec, Bacchus, From Hell) in 1955 and colourist Christie Scheele in 1957.

Losses include cartoonist Virgil Partch in 1984; Belgian writer Henri Gillain (Il y a un sorcier à Champignac, Le Trésor d’Alaric, Nègre Blanc) in 1999; Mad mainstay Jerry DeFucchio in 2001 and Filipino artist Mar Amongo (DC anthologies, Noli Me Tangere, The Tiger’s Fang, Talons of Time) in 2005.

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Captain America: Hail Hydra!


By Jonathan Maberry, Sergio Cariello, Tom Scioli, Phil Winslade, Kyle Hotz & Graham Nolan, Chris Sotomayor, Bill Crabtree, Chris Chuckry, Dan Brown, Ian Hannin & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: ?978-0-7851-5127-2 (TPB) ?978-1-30236-799-2 (Digital Edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Everything changed for a little company called Marvel when, in issue #4 of The Avengers, the assembled heroes found the body of US Army Private Steve Rogers floating in a block of ice and consequently resurrected World War II hero Captain America. With this act bridging the years to Timely/Atlas Comics (which had in fact begun with the revival of Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four #4), Marvel instantly acquired a comforting longevity and potential-packed pre-history: lending an enticing sense of mythic continuance to the fledgling company that instantly gave it the same cachet and enduring grandeur of market leader National/DC.

In 2010, after years of conflicting continuity and with a movie in the offing, Marvel updated and sought to rationalise those pivotal events and early future-shocked days in our contemporary world with stunning re-interpretation Captain America: Man Out of Time before repeating the operation with another generational miniseries: this time scripted by Jonathan Maberry tracing the returned Sentinel of Liberty as he fought an extended campaign against a fearsome and undying foe that had begun even before he knew of his enemy’s existence.

Captain America: Hail Hydra! focuses on five crucial skirmishes fought over the Red, White and true Blue hero’s long years of valiant service, wherein he continually – albeit periodically – clashed with an organisation of insidious evil and astounding ambition. Each issue was dutifully depicted by a different artist in a knowing pastiche of the relevant era.

Illustrated by Sergio Cariello and colourist Chris Sotomayor, the action opens in 1944 as Captain America and youthful partner Bucky work behind enemy lines, helping German anti-Nazi freedom fighter Trude Lohn smash a plot by the baroquely bonkers, certifiably mad Doctor Geist, who has discovered how to reanimate the dead. During the apocalyptic struggle against the resurrected corpses of Das Aufertehungs Korps, Cap is injected with Geist’s unholy Lazarus serum and although the triumphant trio succeeded in depriving Hitler of an undead army, they have no idea of the sinister scientist’s greater scheme, the ancient society he actually toils for or what effect his devil drugs will have on America’s greatest warrior…

Tom Scioli pictured the second instalment in vivid tribute to Jack Kirby, wherein more historical flashback hints into the history of the cult that would become Hydra are interspersed with Cap’s first days as an Avenger following his half-century enforced hibernation. After surprisingly reuniting with now geriatric Trude, he and his new comrades clash with Nazi war criminal Baron Strucker and Geist’s unliving army, only to be thoroughly overmatched and outmanoeuvred. The deranged doctor seemed more interested in gathering blood samples from Cap and Thor than winning the battle he had instigated…

A few years later (just after modern day Captain America Sam Wilson got his first flying outfit and was learning to prowl the skies, if you’re counting) the plan becomes clearer when the Sentinel of Liberty, partner in crime-fighting The Falcon, and African Avenger Black Panther face an army of zombies seeking to steal the fabled Elixir of Life from hidden Wakandan repository of knowledge the Grotto of Solomon. Lavishly rendered by Phil Winslade, with colours from Chris Chuckry & Dan Brown, the spectacular clash is also lightly dusted with further glimpses of the order’s historic attempts to gather arcane knowledge and artefacts pertaining to their mysterious goal.

That is ultimately revealed to be the conquest of death and ascension to godhood via their Infinitas Agenda – and the history of Spanish alchemist Dr Garibaldi, who would shepherd the project over hundreds of years…

For a brief period the US government replaced the Star-Spangled Avenger with a less single-minded and independent agent compelling Steve Rogers to create the identity of “The Captain”. Here Kyle Hotz & Dan Brown delineate an adventure from those turbulent times as the unencumbered hero tackled Geist’s latest monstrosity beside Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. to get one step ahead of Hydra. However, after thwarting a terrifying attack on the heart and soul of America, Rogers is forced to consider not only what Geist is truly after but also what his devilish serum might have made of Captain America that fateful night back in 1944…

Graham Nolan and colourist Ian Hannin close the macabre saga in captivating style as Rogers, now Director of the Avengers, and original partner Bucky Barnes (formerly Soviet assassin Winter Soldier and the current Captain America) enlist a garrison of guest-stars as they home in on Strucker and Geist just as their incredible seven-thousand year scheme reaches its shocking culmination. Even the World’s Mightiest Heroes are hard-pressed to overcome the incredible beings Hydra has at long last birthed…

This extended yarn does have some niggling plot flaws but nothing so flagrant that it disrupts the overall flow of action and delicious flavour of nostalgia; so unless you’re a dedicated, nit-picking devotee the striking art and rollicking rollercoaster thrills and chills should carry the day nicely, providing a solid dose of immortal, enticing entertainment

Fast-paced, epic in scope and rocketing from one full-on spectacle to the next, via ingenious but faithful infilling of established canon, makes Captain America: Hail Hydra! a striking saga that will make many fresh fans for Marvel’s eternally evergreen old soldier.
© 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

Today in 1890 pioneering strip cartoonist Carl Ed (Harold Teen) was born, sharing the day with Canadian author & illustrator Russ Jones (founding editor and creator of Creepy magazine) in 1942 and cartoonist, fandom founder Steve Stiles in 1943.

The day also saw the loss of two major talents – Lucky Luke creator Morris (Maurice de Bévère) in 2001 and UK adaptions all-star Angus Allan (Stingray, Thunderbirds, Garth, DangerMouse, The Six Million Dollar Man, Logan’s Run, Charlie’s Angels) in 2007.

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


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing publisher’s standards; but it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change beginning to build in America. It and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. As revealed in that premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teen brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All were permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Throughout the 1960s The Fantastic Four was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters.

Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist more creative freedom that led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

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

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

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Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks volume 8


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Silver Surfer: Parable


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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