Category: Falcon

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Predator vs Black Panther


By Benjamin Percy, Chris Allen, Sean Damien Hill, Lee Ferguson, Craig Yeung, Jonas Trindade, Erick Arciniega, VC’s Travis Lanham & various (20th Century Studios/ MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6034-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Purely Perfect Irresistible Primal Pandering… 8/10

Although I’ve striven long and hard(ish) to validate and popularise comics as a true art form here and elsewhere, it’s quite hard to escape one’s roots, and every so often the urge to revel in well-made, all-out mindless violence and crass commercialism confidently assuming it is what the reader wants just takes me over. If there’s a similar little kid inside you, this unchallenging, no-brainer team-up property might just clear the palate for the next worthy treat I’ll be boosting…

Predator was first seen in the eponymous 1987 movie and started appearing in comic book extensions and continuations published by Dark Horse with the 4-issue miniseries Predator: Concrete Jungle spanning June 1989 to March 1990. It was followed by 39 further self-contained outings and (by my count thus far) 14 crossover clashes ranging from Batman and Superman to Judge Dredd, Archie Andrews and Tarzan, keeping the film franchise alive and kicking whilst actual movie iterations waxed and waned. We’ll no doubt be adjusting those figures soon enough, but two of the most recent involve stalwart comic stars with their own movie machismo: Wolverine and Black Panther…

The core premise started simply enough. For countless millennia a race of beings that prize hunting, trophy-taking and bragging rights/“honour” over all else have been using Earth – and by extension other worlds and civilisations – as private sports preserves. These “Yautja” – who prefer to stalk hotter climes – come to our world expressly to test themselves and to thrill to the heady rush of killing animals…

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

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

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

For much of its history Wakanda was a phantom, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led since time immemorial by a warrior-king deriving cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This has ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and Royal Family. The obsessively secured “Vibranium mound” guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but recent times increasingly saw Wakanda a target of incursion, subversion and invasion as the world grew ever smaller. Here however, in a tale notionally removed from mainstream continuity T’Challa and his sister Princess Shuri discover the nation’s borders are not, nor ever have been totally secure…

Scripted by Bejamin Percy, this trans-galactic saga of families at war sees sibling rivalry lead to civil conflict in one of the dominant clans of the Yautja. One prince, physically far weaker than his brother and even missing a limb, survives only because his superior brother heaps further shame upon him, constantly proving to their sire how unworthy the weakling truly is.

A life of woe and degradation seems likely to end in inconceivable agony and shame, but the pariah pursues an ancient prize trophy: a sample of a wonder element dubbed “godmetal” that has utterly reshaped his prospects. The treasured token of a long-ago hunt, it comes from favoured preserve Earth where some of the indigenous prey have fabulously prospered and gained advantage from it. There, they call it Vibranium and he will have it…

Although they’re indisputably barbaric and revel in getting their clawed hands dirty, Yautja are an ancient galaxy-spanning species and the outcast instantly finds new ways to use the miracle metal. Escaping to Earth with his surviving faithful retainers he goes about securing the only known source of his salvation…

On Earth, Black Panther T’Challa bickers with smugly-superior Shuri during a live fire training exercise pitting his bodyguard Dora Milaje against male warrior elite the Hatut Zeraze and everybody against the King. Although good natured, the competition is fierce but everything changes when the renegade arrives and infiltrates. Deftly penetrating the country’s electronic and advanced energy defence shields screening Wakanda from the rest of humanity, the Yautja takes command of human mechanical systems and begins collecting trophies: not just skulls and spines of the greatest warriors in the region, but most crucially all the Vibranium and ordnance the prey have developed from it…

With Wakanda locked down and T’Challa hard-pressed just to survive. it’s a good thing Shuri never lost trust in the ancient mystical ways (or contact with extremely gifted spirit medium Maji Kina), and is, moreover, open to a surprise offer of assistance from visiting American superhero Sam Wilson, the high-flying high-tech Falcon…

As the alien renegade musters its newfound resources and Wakandans bloodily strive on, stubborn T’Challa consults his dead ancestors to learn how his grandfather Azzuri the Wise dealt with the last visitation before all the scattered human resistors convene to end the threat… if only for now…

Savage and bloody but with room for character moments and even gallows humour, the tale is visually detailed by Chris Allen, Sean Damien Hill, Lee Ferguson, Craig Yeung, Jonas Trindade and coloured by Erick Arciniega with letters by VC’s Travis Lanham. Ultimately, plot-wise there’s not much to this – and a good thing too as it would get in the way of the action…

Like the films, what’s on offer is a thinly disguised excuse for mindless, cathartic violence and rollercoaster thrills and chills, and it’s all accomplished with compelling style and dedication. Wild, grim, edgy and utterly entertaining, the original  4-part miniseries came with a variety of cover choices and capping the furious fun is an extended gallery with gory stories enshrined in single visual vistas of line, colour, paint & pixels, courtesy of Ken Lashley & Juan Fernandez – AKA Ledkilla, Edwin Galmon & Federico Blee, Chris Allen, Leinil Francis Yu & Romulo Fajardo Jr., Pete Woods, Philip Tan, Mark Morales & Frank Martin, Skottie Young, Doaly, Rahzzah, Rose Besch, Andrei Bressan & Ceci De La Cruz, Junggeun Yoon and Mateus Manhanini.

Hunt this down for simple fun and pure escapist shocks and shudders.
© 2025 20th Century Studios. Marvel, its characters and its logos are ™ Marvel Characters, Inc.

On this day in 1987 master raconteur screenwriter and occasional comics author Alfred Bester died. His visual feasts included lots of DC comics stars such as the first Green Lantern, and newspaper strips The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. You should consider yourself an incomplete human if you haven’t read The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination (aka Tiger, Tiger) and Who He?

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Silver Surfer: Parable


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Captain America Epic Collection volume 7: The Swine (1976-1978)


By Jack Kirby, Don Glut, Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Scott Edelman, David Anthony Kraft, Sal Buscema, John Buscema, George Tuska, Steve Leialoha, Dave Cockrum, Frank Giacoia, Mike Royer, John Tartaglione, John Verpoorten, Pablo Marcos, Mike Esposito, Dan Green, Joe Sinnott, Al Gordon & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6052-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These days, Captain America is more a global symbol of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave than Uncle Sam or Apple Pie ever were. Thus, I’m again exploiting a lazy obvious way to celebrate the prelude to Independence Day (for them and whichever of so many prospects TangoTacoPotUS is shopping as the next candidate for the nation’s 51st State) by recommending this blockbuster book highlighting material first seen in 1976 and beyond as said States commenced a third century of existence and still felt relatively United and travelling in generally the same direction…

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of frantic patriotic fervour, Captain America was a dynamic, highly visible response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat of Liberty’s loss. However, he quickly lost focus and popularity after hostilities ceased: fading away during post-war reconstruction. He briefly reappeared after the Korean War: a harder, darker sentinel ferreting out monsters, subversives and the “commies” who lurked under every American bed. Then he vanished once more until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience the Land of the Free’s most turbulent and culturally divisive era.

“Cap” quickly became a mainstay of the Marvel Revolution across the Swinging Sixties, but lost his own way somewhat after that, except for a glittering period under scripter Steve Englehart. Eventually, however, he too moved on and out in the middle of the 1970s.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, after nearly a decade drafting almost all of Marvel’s successes, Jack Kirby had jumped ship to arch-rival DC in 1970, creating a whole new mythology and dynamically inspiring pantheon for the opposition. Eventually, The King accepted that even he could never win against any publishing company’s excessive pressure to produce whilst enduring micro-managing editorial interference.

Seeing which way the winds were blowing, Kirby exploded back into the Marvel Universe in 1976 with a signed promise of free rein, concocting another stunning wave of iconic creations – 2001: a Space Odyssey, Machine Man, The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur (plus – so nearly – seminal TV paranoia-fest The Prisoner) – as well as drafting a wealth of bombastic covers for almost every title in the company. He was also granted control of two of his previous co-creations – firmly established characters Black Panther and Captain America – to do with as he wished. The return was much hyped at the time but swiftly became controversial since Jack’s intensely personal visions paid little lip service to company continuity. Jack always went his own bombastic way and whilst those new works quickly found many friends, his tenure on those earlier inventions drastically divided the fan base.

Kirby was never slavishly wedded to tight continuity and preferred, in many ways, to treat his stints on Cap and the Panther as creative “Day Ones”. This was never more apparent than in the pages of the Star-Spangled Sentinel of Liberty…

This sterling collection reprints Captain America and the Falcon #201-221 and Captain America Annuals #3 & 4 cumulatively spanning September 1976 – May 1978, as the King eventually moved on and a horde of lesser lights sought to shepherd the hero back to Marvel mainstream continuity…

At the end of the previous volume Kirby’s original Fighting American had saved the nation from a conclave of aristocratic oligarchs attempting to undo two hundred years of freedom and progress with their “Madbomb” (and don’t forget to check out Washington DC for the effects still extant today…). After saving the nation, the Star-Spangled Avenger reunited with his partner Sam Wilson for CA&TF #201, set in the aftermath of their struggle…

Inked by Frank Giacoia, the tone shifts to malevolent moodiness and uncanny mystery with the introduction of ‘The Night People!’: a street-full of maladjusted maniacs who periodically phase into and out of “normal” New York City, creating terror and chaos with every sunset. When Falcon and girlfriend Leila are abducted by the eerie encroachers, they are quickly converted to their crazed cause by exposure to the ‘Mad, Mad Dimension!’ the vile visitors inhabit during daylight hours. This leaves Cap and folksy new not-evil millionaire colleague Texas Jack Muldoon hopelessly outgunned when their last-ditch rescue attempt results in them all battling an invasion of brutally berserk other-dimensional beasts in ‘Alamo II!’

On bludgeoning, battle-hardened top-form, the Star-Spangled Avenger saves the day once more, but no sooner are the erstwhile inhabitants of Zero Street safely re-integrated on Earth than ‘The Unburied One!’ finds our indefatigable champions clashing with a corpse who won’t play dead. The concluding chapter reveals the cadaver has become home to an energy-being from the far future as (inked by John Verpoorten) ‘Agron Walks the Earth!’ Thankfully, not even his/its pulsating power and rage can long baulk the indomitable spirit and ability of America’s Ultimate Fighting Man…

Non-stop nightmares resume in #206 as ‘Face to Face with the Swine!’ (Giacoia inks) sees the Star-Spangled Sensation illegally renditioned by secret police to deepest Central America. Here he subsequently topples the private kingdom and personal torture ground of psychotic sadist Comandante Hector Santiago, unchallenged monarch of the prison of Rio del Muerte. Never one to go anywhere meekly, Cap escapes and begins engineering the brute’s downfall in ‘The Tiger and the Swine!!’ but soon finds the jungles conceal actual monsters. When they exact primal justice on the tormentors, Cap’s escape with the Swine’s cousin Donna Maria down ‘The River of Death!’ is interrupted by the advent of another astounding “Kirby Kreation”:‘Arnim Zola… the Bio-Fanatic!!’

Abducting Cap and Donna Maria to his living castle, the former Nazi geneticist and absolute master of radical biology inflicts upon them a horde of diabolical homunculi at the behest of a mysterious sponsor, even as elsewhere, Falcon closes in on his long-missing pal. Indomitable against every kind of shapeshifting horror, Cap strives on, enduring a terrible ‘Showdown Day!’ (with Mike W. Royer taking over inking), whilst back home Steve Rogers’ girlfriend Sharon Carter uses her resources as SHIELD’s Agent 13 to investigate wealthy Cyrus Fenton and exposes ‘Nazi “X”!’ as Zola’s sponsor and the Sentinel of Liberty’s greatest nemesis.

With his time on the title counting down, Kirby ramped up the tension in #212 as ‘The Face of a Hero! Yours!!’ sees Zola preparing to surgically insert the Red Skull into Cap’s form, triggering a cataclysmic clash which leaves America’s hero bloodied, blind, but ultimately victorious…

With the hero recuperating in a US hospital, Dan Green inked #213 as ultimate assassin ‘The Night Flyer!’ targets the recuperating Cap at the behest of unfettered capitalist villain Kligger – of the insidious Corporation – inadvertently restoring his victim’s vision in time for spectacular if abrupt, Royer-inked conclusion ‘The Power’…

Narratively and chronologically adrift – and thus reading slightly out of sequence here – Captain America Annual #3 and 4 follow: wrapping up Kirby’s contributions to the career of the Star-Spangled Avenger beginning with his abruptly diverting back to business basics in a feature-length science fiction shocker which eschewed convoluted backstory and cultural soul-searching to simply pit the valiant hero against a cosmic vampire.

‘The Thing From the Black Hole Star!’ is a complication-free riot of rampaging action and end-of-the-world wonderment featuring a fallible but fiercely determined fighting man free of doubt and determined to defend humanity at all costs. It begins when farmer Jim Hendricks finds a UFO on his land and calls in a specialist he knows he can trust…

A year passes like magic in comics and one year later but immediately following here, Kirby recruits one of his earliest villain creations for ‘The Great Mutant Massacre!’: a feature- length super-shocker which again rejects accumulated history and the career confusion which typified Cap before and after Jack’s tenure for instant gratification. Here America’s Super Soldier strives against humanity’s nemesis Magneto and his latest mutant recruits Burner, Smasher, Lifter, Shocker, Slither and Peeper. This riot of rampaging action and end-of-the-world bombastic bravado pits the Sentinel of Liberty against a Homo Superior hit-squad aiming to take possession of a superpowered being whose origins are far stranger than anybody could conceive…

When Kirby moved on it left a desperate gap in the schedules. Captain America #215 saw Roy Thomas, George Tuska & Pablo Marcos respond by revisiting the hallowed origin story for the current generation with ‘The Way it Really Was!’: reiterating simultaneously the history of the heroes who had inherited the red, white & blue uniform whilst Steve Rogers was entombed in ice, and ending with our hero desperately wondering who the man beneath his mask might truly be.

For all that, #216 was a deadline-filling reprint of November 1963’s Strange Tales #114, represented here by Gil Kane’s cover and a single page framing sequence by Thomas, Dave Cockrum & Frank Giacoia. Thomas, Don Glut, John Buscema & Marcos actually began ‘The Search for Steve Rogers!’ in #217 with S.H.I.EL.D.’s record division, where the Falcon is distracted by a surprising job offer. Nick Fury (I), busy with the hunt for capitalist cabal The Corporation, asks Cap’s partner to supervise the agency’s newest project: the S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agents. These wonders-in-training consist of Texas Twister, Blue Streak, The Vamp and a rather mature-seeming Marvel Boy, but the squad are already deeply flawed and fatally compromised…

Issue #218 finds Cap targeted by a Corporation agent and fed data which bends his legendarily-fragmented memory back to his first thawing from the ice. Heading north to retrace his original journey, Cap spends ‘One Day in Newfoundland!’ (Glut, Sal Buscema & John Tartaglione), uncovering a secret army, an unremembered old foe and a colossal robotic facsimile of himself. One month later, ‘The Adventures of Captain America’ (Glut, Sal B & Joe Sinnott) reveals how, during WWII, Cap and junior partner Bucky were ordered to investigate skulduggery on the set of a movie serial about them, thereby exposing special effects wizard Lyle Dekker as a highly-placed Nazi spy. Now in modern-day Newfoundland, that warped and unforgiving genius has built a clandestine organisation with one incredible purpose: revealed in ‘The Ameridroid Lives!’ (inked by Tartaglione & Mike Esposito) as the captive crusader is mind-probed and dredges up shocking submerged memories.

In 1945, when he and Bucky chased a swiftly-launched secret weapon, the boy (apparently) died and Rogers fell into the North Atlantic: frozen in a block of ice until found and thawed by The Avengers. At least, he always thought that’s how it happened…

Now as the probe does its devilish work, Captain America finds that he was in fact picked up by Dekker after the spy was punished by the Red Skull and exiled for his failures. Deciding to work only for his own interests, Dekker then attempted to transfer Cap’s power to himself and it was only in escaping the Newfoundland base that Rogers crashed into the sea and fully froze…

In the Now, the vile scheme is finally accomplished: Cap’s energies are replicated in a 15-foot-tall super-android, with aging Dekker’s consciousness permanently embedded in its metal and plastic brain. However only at the peak of triumph does the fanatic realise he’s made himself into a monster at once unique, solitary and utterly apart from humanity…

The deadline problems still hadn’t eased and this episode was chopped in half, with the remainder of the issue affording Falcon a short solo outing as Scott Edelman, Bob Budiansky & Al Gordon’s ‘…On a Wing and a Prayer!’ portrays the Pinioned Paladin hunting a mad archer who has kidnapped his avian ally Redwing. The remainder of the Ameridroid saga came in #221 where Steve Gerber &David Kraft co-scripted ‘Cul-De-Sac!’, wherein the marauding mechanoid is finally foiled – by reason, not force of arms – whilst ‘The Coming of Captain Avenger!’ (Edelman, Steve Leialoha & Gordon) provides one last space-filling vignette with former sidekick Rick Jones given a tantalising glimpse of his most cherished dreams…

To Be Continued…

This tome then concludes with contemporary media moments, including John Romita’s July image from the Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976 and Kirby & Giacoia’s contribution to Marvel Comics Memory Album Calendar 1977 plus a sublime covers and interior pages original art gallery by Kirby, Giacoia, Romita & Verpoorten for fans to drool over.

The King’s commitment to wholesome adventure, breakneck action and breathless wonder, combined with his absolute mastery of the comic page and unceasing quest for the Next Big Thrill, always make for a captivating read and this stuff is as good as anything Jack crafted over his decades of creative brilliance.

Fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing Fights ‘n’ Tights masterpieces no fan should ignore and, above all else, fabulously fun tales of a truly American Dream…
© 2025 MARVEL.

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Marvel Masters: The Art of John Romita Sr.


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Marvel Team-Up Marvel Masterworks volume 7


By Chris Claremont, Bill Kunkel, Bill Mantlo, Gary Friedrich, Ralph Macchio, John Byrne, Dave Wenzel, Jim Mooney, Kerry Gammill, Bob Hall, Marie Severin, Howard Chaykin, Jeff Aclin, Dave Hunt, Bob Wiacek, Ricardo Villamonte, Tony DeZuñiga, Dan Green & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3324-1 (HB/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 the brief encounter/temporary alliance a key selling point really took hold with DC’s The Brave and the Bold before being taken up by their biggest competitor.

Marvel Team-Up was the second regular Spider-Man title, launched as 1971 ended. A big hit, it proved the time had finally come for expansion and offering a venue for uncomplicated action romps to supplement the company’s complex subplot fare in regular books. However, even in an infinite Marvel Multiverse, certain stars shine more brightly than others and some characters turn up in team-ups more often than others. In recent years, carefully curated themed collections from the back-catalogue have served to initiate new readers intrigued by Marvel’s Movie and TV endeavours, but there’s no real substitute for seeing Marvel’s continuity unfolding in chronological order. This compelling compilation gathers the contents of Marvel Team-Up #65-77, collectively covering January 1977 to January 1979 and – following Chris Claremont’s Introduction offering fond remembrances of the times and key writer Bill Mantlo – opens onto a period of superior sagas.

After a short and sweet flurry of original adventures in his own UK title, Captain Britain eventually succumbed to the English version of funnybook limbo: his title subsumed by a more successful one with CB reduced to reprints. Soon after, he pyrrhically debuted across the water in Marvel Team-Up #65 ‘Introducing Captain Britain’ by originating scripter Claremont and British-born, Canada-bred illustrator John Byrne. The story depicts exchange student Brian Braddock on transfer to Manhattan and the unsuspecting houseguest of Peter Parker. Before long the heroes formally meet, fight and unite to defeat flamboyant games-obsessed hit-man Arcade, with the transatlantic tussle concluding in #66 as the abducted antagonists systematically dismantled the mercenary maniac’s ‘Murderworld’.

The mystery of a long-vanished feline were-woman warrior is then resolved in ‘Tigra, Tigra, Burning Bright!’ as the webslinger is targeted by Kraven the Hunter, using the Feline Fury as his enslaved attack beast until Spider-Man breaks her conditioning, after which Claremont, Byrne & Bob Wiacek explore ‘The Measure of a Man!’ in #68. Here, the Amazing Arachnid philanthropically returns the captive Man-Thing to his Florida swamp habitat. Of course, no good deed ever goes unpunished and soon he encounters horrific demon D’Spayre torturing benevolent enchanters Dakimh and Jennifer Kale. It takes every ounce of courage both man and monster possess to defeat the sadistic feeder on torment…

A clash with Egyptian-themed thieves next draws Spidey into the years-long duel between cosmic powered X-Man Havoc and his nemesis the Living Monolith in ‘Night of the Living God!’ (inked by Ricardo Villamonte), but when the battle turns against them, it requires the thunderous might of Thor to stop the ravening mutant menace in ‘Whom Gods Destroy!’ (Claremont, Byrne & Tony DeZuñiga).

This epic clash signalled an end to the creative team’s good times as MTU downshifted to short filler tales. Courtesy of Bill Kunkel, Dave Wenzel & Dan Green, Spidey and The Falcon save Captain America from death by poison by a minor villain with big plans in #71’s ‘Deathgarden’ after which beloved Police officer Jean DeWolff features heavily in the psionic rogue The Wraith’s demented revenge plot ‘Crack of the Whip!’ (#72 by Bill Mantlo & Jim Mooney) which sees the wallcrawler linking up with Iron Man to mangle Maggia stooges and assassin-for-hire Whiplash.

MTU #73 paired the webslinger with old frenemy Daredevil in a workmanlike thriller by Gary Friedrich, Kerry Gammill & Don Perlin as vicious gang leader The Owl returned in ‘A Fluttering of Wings Most Foul!’ and a flurry of frenzied felonious forays, setting the scene for a minor mirth-quake. Long embargoed and seemingly lost due to intellectual rights issues, lost gem ‘Live From New York, Its Saturday Night!’ depicts a comedy of errors set on an ongoing TV sensation. Starring Spider-Man and the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players (Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner & Lorne Michaels), the sinister Silver Samurai searches for his missing teleportation ring takes place live to a totally oblivious TV audience and temporary host Stan Lee. The manic episode is written by Claremont and a triumph of caricaturing brilliance for Bob Hall & majestic Marie Severin.

Assisted by Ralph Macchio, Claremont then reunited with Byrne and inker Al Gordon to team up in tribute to the New York Fire Department with #75’s ‘The Smoke of That Great Burning!’ wherein Spider-Man and Hero for Hire Luke Cage are caught up in a robbery and hostage crisis which soon turns into a major conflagration…

The collection closes with a continued tale co-starring mystic master Dr. Strange and Clea,  Ms. Marvel (AKA Carol Danvers the present-day Captain Marvel), in what I’m guessing was intended as an annual before being chopped in two. Limned by Howard Chaykin, Jeff Aclin & Jose Ortiz, ‘If Not For Love…’ and second chapter ‘Death Waits at Bayou Diable!’ sees the mundane mortal metahumans stumble into an attempt to murder the Sorcerer Supreme and his disciple, leading Spidey, Ms. M and a much reduced Stephen Strange south to Bourbon Street and a risky rendezvous with voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau, Witch Queen of New Orleans. Sadly, she is far more than she seems and the trio are trapped in a scheme perpetrated by magic-loathing sorcerer Silver Dagger leading to astounding arcane action in #77’s ‘If I’m to Live… My Love Must Die!’

This epic edition is packed with rarely-seen extras, beginning with ‘Aunt May’s Photo Album’: a selection of stills from the 1977-1979 Spider-Man television show as originally published in Marvel Treasury Edition #18 (1978). It’s followed by that album’s covers, illustrated by Bob Budiansky & Ernie Chan, and a large selection of original art pages and covers by Byrne, Hunt, Dave Cockrum, Tom Palmer & Mooney. A gallery of covers from Marvel Tales (#193-207, 235-236) by Ron Frenz, Josef Rubinstein, John Romita Sr., Mark Bright, Vince Colletta, Mark McKenna George Perrez, Joe Sinnott, Joe Albeo, Byrne, Frank Giacoia, Hall, Todd McFarlane & Sam Keith, spanning November 1986 to November 1991 follows a rare treat: a selection of Byrne’s un-inked pencil pages.

A series of short stories from Marvel Tales (#255, 262 & 263) based on earlier MTU stories ends this tome. ‘Shock Therapy’ by Scott Lobdell, Vince Evans & Phil Sheehy reveals a clash between the Trapster and Ghost Rider, whilst Barry Dutter & Vince Evans’ ‘A Case of Sunstroke’ shows what happened to the X-Men after MTU Annual #2, whilst Woodgod runs wild again in ‘The Scream’ by Lobdell, Robert Walker & Jim Sanders.

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 Cinematic supporters – will have a blast, so why not consider this tome for your “Must-Have” library?
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Captain America Epic Collection volume 6: The Man Who Sold the United States (1974-1976)


By Steve Englehart, Jack Kirby, John Warner, Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Frank Robbins, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, D. Bruce Berry, Joe Giella, Mike Esposito, Frank Chiaramonte Barry Windsor-Smith John Romita, John Verpoorten, Dan Adkins, John Byrne, Joe Sinnott, Marie Severin, Charley Parker, Bob Budiansky, Paty Cockrum, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4873-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s customary – right here at least – to end our year with bit of timey-wimey extrapolation and conjecture, or celebrate an anniversary. However, due to the parlous state of global existence, I’ve instead opted for political pontificating. I decided that with the horror of the next four years barely begun, it’s time to stand tallish and make a sly whiny statement and see who even notices…

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of ferocious patriotic fervour and carefully-manipulated idealism, Captain America was a dynamic and exceedingly bombastic response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat of Liberty’s loss.

He quickly lost focus and popularity once hostilities ceased: fading away as post-war reconstruction began. He briefly reappeared after the Korean War: a harder, darker sentinel ferreting out monsters, subversives and the “commies” who lurked under every American bed. Then he vanished once more until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience the Land of the Free’s most turbulent and culturally divisive era. Here the Star-Spangled Avenger was in danger of becoming an uncomfortable symbol of a troubled, divided society, split along age lines and with many of the hero’s fans apparently rooting for the wrong side. Now into that turbulent mix crept issues of racial and gender inequality…

Cap had quickly evolved into a mainstay of the Marvel Revolution during the Swinging Sixties but lost his way somewhat after that, except for a glittering period under writer Steve Englehart. Eventually however, in the middle of the decades, that enlightened voice-of-a-generation scribe also moved on and out. Meanwhile, after nearly ten years drafting almost all of Marvel’s successes, Jack Kirby had jumped ship to arch-rival DC in 1971, creating a whole new mythology, dynamically inspiring pantheon and new way to tell comics stories. Short term though, cowardly editorial practices and lack of support had convinced him that DC was no better than Marvel for men of vision. Eventually, he accepted that even he could never win against any publishing company’s excessive pressure to produce whilst enduring micro-managing editorial interference.

Seeing which way the winds were blowing, Kirby exploded back into the Marvel Universe in 1976 with a signed promise of free rein to concoct another stunning wave of iconic creations – licensed movie sensations such as 2001: a Space Odyssey (and – so very nearly – seminal TV paranoia-fest The Prisoner); Machine Man; Devil Dinosaur and The Eternals. He was also granted control of two of his previous co-creations – firmly established characters Black Panther and Captain America to do with as he wished…

His return was much hyped at the time but swiftly became controversial since his intensely personal visions paid little lip service to company continuity: Jack always went his own bombastic way. Whilst those new works quickly found many friends, his tenure on those earlier inventions drastically divided the fan base. Kirby was never slavishly wedded to tight continuity and preferred, in many ways, to treat his stints on Cap and the Panther as creative “Day Ones”. That was never more apparent than for the Star-Spangled Sentinel of Liberty…

This resoundingly resolute rabble rousingly rambunctious sixth full-colour Epic Collection re-presents Captain America and the Falcon #180-200 and 1976’s colossal Marvel Treasury Special: Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, cover-dated December 1974 to August 1976: spanning and neatly wrapping up the post-Englehart period and revealing how, when Kirby came aboard as writer, artist and editor, he had big plans for the nation’s premiere comicbook patriotic symbol in the year of its 200th anniversary…

At this time the US was a nation reeling from loss of idealism caused by Vietnam, Watergate and the (then partial) exposure of President Richard Nixon’s crimes. The general loss of idealism and painful public revelation that politicians are generally unpleasant – and even potentially ruthless, wicked exploiters – kicked the props out of most Americans who had an incomprehensibly rosy view of their leaders. Thus, Cap’s exposing a conspiracy reaching into the halls and backrooms of government to undemocratically seize control of the country by deceit and criminal conspiracy (sounds like sheer fantasy these days, doesn’t it?) was extremely controversial but compellingly attractive in those distant, simpler days. Now after doing what was necessary, the idealistic hero could no longer be associated with a tarnished ideal…

Previously: the Sentinel of Liberty had become a lost symbol in and of a divided nation. Uncomfortable in his red, white and blue skin but looking to carve himself a new place in the Land of the Free he is also unable to  abandon the role of do-gooder. When Steve Rogers is convinced by Avenging comrade Hawkeye that he could still serve his country and people even if he can’t be a star-spangled representative of America, it sparks a life-changing decision in opening tale ‘The Coming of the Nomad!’ Sadly, survivors of the sinister Serpent Squad (Cobra and The Eel) return with psychotic Princess Python in tow and maniac nihilist Madame Hydra murderously assuming the suddenly vacant leader’s role as a new Viper. When Rogers – as Nomad, “the Man Without a Country” – tackles the ophidian villains, he battles ineptly and fares badly but still stumbles across a sinister scheme by the Squad and Sub-Mariner’s arch-nemesis Warlord Krang. That subsea tyrant – in the thrall of ancient evil force the Helmet of Set – seeks to raise a sunken continent and restore an ancient civilisation in ‘The Mark of Madness!’ Elsewhere at the same time, former partner Sam Wilson/The Falcon is ignoring his better judgement and training determined young Roscoe Simons to become the next Captain America…

A glittering era ended with #182 as artist Sal Buscema moved on and newspaper-strip star Frank Robbins came aboard for a controversial run, beginning with ‘Inferno!’ (inked by Joe Giella). Whilst Nomad successfully mops up the Serpent Squad – despite well-meaning police interference – Sam and Cap’s substitute Roscoe encounter the Sentinel of Liberty’s greatest enemy with fatal consequences. The saga shifts into top gear as ‘Nomad: No More!’ (Frank Giacoia inks) sees shamed, grief-stricken Rogers once more take up his star-spangled burden after the murderous Red Skull simultaneously attacks the hero’s loved ones and dismantles America’s economy by defiling the banks and slaughtering the financial wizards who run them.

Beginning in the chillingly evocative ‘Cap’s Back!’ (art by Herb Trimpe, Giacoia & Mike Esposito), rampaging through the utterly shocking ‘Scream of the Scarlet Skull!’ (Sal Buscema, Robbins & Giacoia), it all climaxes in ‘Mindcage!’ (with additional scripting by John Warner and art by Robbins & Esposito) wherein our titular hero’s greatest ally is apparently revealed as his enemy’s stooge and slave. As the Red Skull, in all his gory glory, gloatingly reveals that his staggeringly effective campaign of terror was as nothing to his ultimate triumph, we learn that the high-flying Falcon has been his unwitting secret weapon for years. The staunch ally was originally cheap gangster “Snap” Wilson, radically recreated and reprogrammed by the Cosmic Cube to be Captain America’s perfect partner; and a tantalising, ticking time bomb waiting to explode…

Captain America and the Falcon #187 opens on ‘The Madness Maze!’ (Warner, Robbins & Frank Chiaramonte) with the Skull recently-fled and a now-comatose Falcon in custody of superspy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Abruptly, the Star-Spangled Avenger is abducted, snatched by by a mysterious flying saucer and latterly attacked by alchemical androids employed by a rival espionage outfit, culminating in a ‘Druid-War’ (Warner, Sal B & Colletta), before Tony Isabella, Robbins & Chiaramonte put Cap into an ‘Arena For a Fallen Hero!’ where deception, psychological warfare and unarmed combat combine into a risky shock therapy to kill or cure the mind-locked Sam Wilson. However, just as the radical cure kicks in, an old foe takes over S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying HQ in ‘Nightshade is Deadlier the Second Time Around!’ (Isabella, Robbins & Colletta). Once she’s defeated, the past crimes of forcibly-reformed Snap Wilson are reviewed and judged in an LA courtroom in climactic wrap-up ‘The Trial of the Falcon!’ (Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Robbins & D. Bruce Berry): proffering a predictable court ruling, a clutch of heroic cameos and a bombastic battle against the sinister Stilt-Man – hired by mob bosses to ensure Snap’s silence on his gangland activities…

Narrative decks cleared, CAatF #192 delivered an ingenious, entertaining filler written by outgoing editor Marv Wolfman, illustrated by Robbins & Berry, wherein Cap hops on a commercial flight back to the East Coast and finds himself battling deranged psychiatrist Dr. Faustus and a contingent of mobsters on a ‘Mad-Flight!’ thousands of feet above New York. With all plots safely settled, the stage was set for the return of Cap’s co-creator: returning with a bombastic fresh take that would take the Sentinel of Liberty into regions never before explored…

It begins with Captain America and the Falcon #193, offering the opening salvo in an epic storyline leading up the immortal super-soldier’s own Bicentennial issue (sort of). Gone now was all the soul-searching and breast-beating about what the country was or symbolised: The USA is in peril and its sentinel was ready to roar into action…

Inked by fellow veteran Frank Giacoia ‘The Madbomb’ exposes a ‘Screamer in the Brain!’ as a miniscule new weapon is triggered by unknown terrorists, reducing an entire city block to rubble by driving the populace into a mass psychotic frenzy. Experiencing the madness at close hand, Cap and the Falcon are swiftly seconded by the US government to ferret out the culprits and find a full-scale device hidden somewhere in the vast melting pot of America…

‘The Trojan Horde’ introduces plutocratic mastermind William Taurey who intends to correct history, unmaking the American Revolution and restoring a privilege-ridden aristocracy upon the massed millions of free citizens. Using inestimable wealth, a cabal of similarly disgruntled billionaire elitists (what a ree-dicalus ideah!), an army of mercenaries, slaves cruelly transformed into genetic freaks and other cutting-edge super-science atrocities, the maniac intends to forever eradicate the Republic and plunder the resources of the planet. Thank every god you know that it couldn’t happen today…

Moreover, when he is finally elevated to what he considers his rightful place, the first thing Taurey intends to do is hunt down the last descendent of Colonial-era hero Steven Rogers: a rebel who had killed Taurey’s Monarchist ancestor and allowed Washington to win the War of Independence. Little does he suspect the subject of his wrath has already infiltrated his secret army…

Inked by D. Bruce Berry, in ‘It’s 1984!’ Cap & Falcon get a firsthand look at the kind of fascistic world Taurey advocates, battling their way through monsters, mercenaries and a mob fuelled by modern mind-control and pacified by Bread & Circuses, before ultra-spoiled elitist Cheer Chadwick takes the undercover heroes under her bored, effete and patronising wing. Sadly, even she can’t keep her new pets from being sucked into the bloody, brutal Circus section of the New Society, where American loyalists are forced to fight for their lives in ultra-modern gladiatorial mode in the ‘Kill-Derby’, even as the US army raids the secret base in Giacoia inked ‘The Rocks are Burning!’ Soon, the Patriotic Pair realise it has all been for nought since the colossal full-sized Madbomb is still active: carefully hidden somewhere else in their vast Home of the Brave…

The offbeat ‘Captain America’s Love Story’ then takes a decidedly different and desperate track as the Bastion of Freedom must romance a sick woman to get to her father – the inventor of the deadly mind-shattering device – after which ‘The Man Who Sold the United States’ accelerates to top speed for all-out action as the hard-pressed heroes race a countdown to disaster with the Madbomb finally triggering by ‘Dawn’s Early Light!’ for a spectacular showdown climax that truly  surpasses all expectation.

This compilation compellingly concludes with a once in a lifetime special event. Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles was originally released (on June 15th 1976) as part of the nationwide celebration of the USA’s two hundredth year. One of Marvel’s tabloid-sized “Treasury Format” (80+ pages of 338 x 258mm dimensions) titles, it took the Star-Spangled Avenger on an incredible excursion through key eras and areas of American history. An expansive, panoramic and wildly iconic celebration of the memory and myth of the nation, this almost abstracted, deeply symbolic 84-page extravaganza perfectly survives reduction to standard comic dimensions, following Captain America as cosmic savant – and retrofitted Elder of the Universe The Contemplator – Mister Buda propels the querulous hero into successively significant slices of history. Enduring a blistering pace of constant change, Cap encounters lost partner Bucky during WWII, meets Benjamin Franklin in Revolutionary Philadelphia and revisits the mobster-ridden depression era of Steve Roger’s own childhood as ‘The Lost Super-Hero!’.

In ‘My Fellow Americans’, Cap confronts Geronimo during the Indian Wars and suffers the horrors of a mine cave-in, before ‘Stop Here for Glory!’ finds him surviving a dogfight with a German WWI fighter ace, battling bare-knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan, resisting slavers with abolitionist John Brown, and observing both the detonation of the first Atom Bomb and the Great Chicago Fire. ‘The Face of the Future!’ even sees him slipping into the space colonies of America’s inevitable tomorrows, and segueing into pure emotional fantasy by experiencing the glory days of Hollywood, the simple joys of rural homesteading and the harshest modern ghetto, before drawing strength from the nation’s hopeful children…

Inked by such luminaries as Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Sr., Herb Trimpe and Dan Adkins, the book length bonanza comes peppered with a glorious selection of pulsating pin-ups.

With covers throughout by Gil Kane, Kirby, Giacoia, Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson, John Romita (Sr.), Sal Buscema &John Verpoorten, this supremely thrilling collection also has room for a selection of bonus treats beginning with the Kane & Esposito cover for reprint title Giant-size Captain America #1 (1975); relevant Cap & Falcon pages from Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 ((July, by John Romita); the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the King’s return in all October issues, and assorted house ads. Also on view are extracts and articles from company fanzine F.O.O.M. #11, September 1975; an all-Kirby issue declaring – behind a Byrne/Joe Sinnott cover – that “Jack’s back!”. Material includes ‘The King is Here! Long Live the King!’, ‘Kirby Speaks!’, stunning artwork from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alex Boyd’s appreciation ‘The Once and Future King!’, Charley Parker’s ‘The Origin of King Kirby’, ‘Kirby’s Kosmik Konsciousness’ and a caricature from the wonderful Marie Severin.

Also on show are cover roughs and un-inked pencils to delight art fans and aficionados, as well as original page art by Kirby inked by Giacoia & Windsor Smith.

King Kirby’s commitment to wholesome adventure, breakneck action and breathless wonderment, combined with his absolute mastery of the medium and unceasing quest for the Next Big Thrill, always make for a captivating read and this stuff is amongst the most bombastic and captivating material he ever produced. Fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing Fights ‘n’ Tights masterpieces no fan should ignore and, above all else, fabulously fun tales of a true American Dream and a perfect counterpoint and exemplar to the moodily insecurity of the Englehart episodes that precede them here. Despite the odd cringeworthy story moment (I specifically omitted the part where Cap battles three chicken-themed villains for example, and still wince at some of the dialogue from this forthright and earnest era of “blaxsploitation” and emergent ethnic awareness), these tales of matchless courage and indomitable heroism are fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing fights ‘n’ tights no comics fan should miss, and joking aside, their cultural significance is crucial in informing the political consciences of the youngest members of post-Watergate generation, and so much more so today…
© 2024 MARVEL.