Category: Power Man and Iron Fist

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Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane


By Gil Kane, with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter, Tony Isabella, Dan Slott, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Klaus Janson, Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0888-7 (TPB), 978-1-3029-3737-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This year marks the centenary of Eli Katz, who, as Gil Kane, worked from the Golden Age until his death (on January 31st 2000) to make comics the art form it is today. Diligent, resolute and always challenging himself, Kane was a trendsetting pioneer in style, in form and in comics philosophy. He was also a visual architect of the superhero revival in the Silver Age and a key component in the evolution of the Graphic Novel.

Kane started young and toiled as an artist all his life. An ever-more effective and influential one, he drew and wrote for many companies since his debut (thus far verified as inking Carl Hubbell on The Scarlet Avenger in Zip Comics #14 and cover-dated May 1941): illustrating superheroes, action/adventure, war, mystery, romance, horror, movie adaptations and, perhaps most importantly, Westerns and Science Fiction tales. In the 1950s he was one of DC editor Julius Schwartz’s go-to artists for regenerating the superhero. Yet by 1968, at the top of his (admittedly much denigrated) profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on new ventures, jettisoning job security, and the editorial format bounds of comic books for new visions and media. However, the time was not right and after brief forays at other companies (like Dell and Tower) and attempting to create graphic narratives outside the comic book industry – such as His Name Is Savage and Blackmark – Kane began selling his services to Marvel Comics…

Kane’s earliest comic book output included Boy Commandos, Young Allies & Newsboy Legion, Doll Man, Zip Comics, Airboy Comics and many more, but by the Fifties he was settled at National/DC and working on Johnny Thunder, Jimmy Wakely, Matt Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, Rex the Wonder Dog and hundreds of genre yarns – romance, war, sci fi, western and horror. When Superheroes returned, he co-created Green Lantern and The Atom, and generated countless pages and captivating covers for Plastic Man, Batman, Superman, Flash, Teen Titans, Robin, Batgirl, Hawk and Dove, Captain Action and everything in between. Then, in 1966, with ever-increasing bureaucracy and panic over a new upstart rival gripping DC, Kane tentatively – and initially using the pseudonym Scott Edwards – began looking at other publishers, leading to breakthrough art for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, Dell Four Color, The Lost World, Brain Boy, The Frogmen, dozens of TV westerns and other licensed properties, and began his long association with modern Marvel Comics.

Initially a poor fit (he was asked to draw The Hulk over Jack Kirby’s layouts!), Kane persisted, going on to spectacularly redefine if not pictorially reinvent Amazing Spider-Man, Conan, Captain America and Captain Marvel; co-create Adam Warlock, Morbius, and Iron Fist and put his indelible stamp on Thor, Hulk, Ka-Zar, Daredevil, Marvel Team-Up and all the rest. Kane adapted John Carter, Warlord of Mars and other literary adventure-fantasy properties and reinvigorated dozens of horror-hero and superhero stalwarts, all while filling in on seemingly every character and cover going. Restless and craving what the medium could still achieve, he worked on newspaper strips too. Even before co-creating Star Hawks in 1977 with Ron Goulart, he had limned the daily Flash Gordon for King Features in the 1960s, and Tarzan Sunday pages.

Kane’s latter career included animation/design, and choice comics book outings as well as numerous special projects like Jason Drum for Le Journal de Tintin and The Ring of the Nibelung.

Although Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane was originally released in 2002, it’s still readily available as it was digitally rereleased in 2021, so if you can read this you can find that…

Offering a brief selection of the many tales crafted by Kane, this tome re-presents gems first seen in Tales to Astonish #76; Tales of Suspense #88-#91; Captain Marvel #17; Amazing Spider-Man #99; Marvel Premiere #1 & 15 and Daredevil #146 plus material from What If #3 & #24 and Marvel Comics Presents #116, as well as offering a host of appealing production and art extras at the far end.

The trek through Marvel History begins with a fulsome appraisal of the artist’s career and achievements from frequent collaborator Roy Thomas in his foreword ‘The Mark of Kane’ after which it’s “on with the motley” and that first foray from Tales to Astonish #76. Cover-dated February 1966, this was on sale from November 4th 1965 and saw Kane draw – over Kirby layouts and under Mike Esposito finishes – an episode of a time-bending sequence with the Green Goliath helplessly trapped in a compounded by a doom-drenched duel with time-lost Asgardian immortal The Executioner…

Assume and accept that you will need to find other collections to experience the full force of these extracted snippets and then move on to those portions of Tales of Suspense #88-#91 (cover-dates April -July 1967) that featured Captain America. Here Lee scripts all four chapters of a classic clash as Kane takes his first run on the character. The extended saga comprises ‘If Bucky Lives…!’ and ‘Back from the Dead!’, as inked by Kane before Joe Sinnott joins as embellisher for ‘…And Men Shall Call Him Traitor!’ and ‘The Last Defeat!’ for a superb thriller of blackmail and betrayal starring the Red Skull. The fascist felon had baited a trap with a robotic facsimile of Cap’s dead partner, triggered it with malign super-hirelings Power Man and The Swordsman whilst blackmailing the Star-Spangled Sentinel into betraying his country and stealing a new atomic submarine. It all turned out okay in the end though…

Next up is Captain Marvel #17 (cover-date October 1969), sole example from a stunning and influential run on the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. Captain Marvel as we know him really begins with this reinvention wherein Thomas, Kane & Dan Adkins totally retooled and upgraded the character.

‘And a Child Shall Lead You!’ sees the imperilled star warrior inextricably bonded to voice-of-a-generation/professional sidekick Rick Jones who – just like Billy Batson (the boy who turned into the original Fawcett hero by shouting “Shazam!”) – switched places with a mighty adult hero when danger loomed by striking together a pair of ancient, wrist-worn “Nega-bands”. This allowed them to temporarily trade atoms: one active in our universe whilst the other floated, a ghostly untouchable, ineffectual voyeur to events glimpsed from the ghastly Negative Zone. As thrilling and as revolutionary as the idea of a comic written from the viewpoint of a teenager was, the real magic comes from Kane’s experimental page layouts and phenomenally kinetic artwork, and whose mesmeric staging of proportionally warped yet somehow still perfect human-form-in-motion rewrote the playbook on superhero illustration with this series.

Kane’s ascendancy was confirmed as he became the regular illustrator on Marvel’s greatest hit. A monumental first run on the wallcrawler is marked here by Amazing Spider-Man #99 (August 1971) portraying ‘A Day in the Life of…’: an all-action, social drama-tinged palate-cleanser with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy finally getting their love-life back on track, only marginally diverted by a prison breakout easily quelled by the Arachnid Avenger, whilst highlighting the growing scandal of prison conditions…

Jump forward to tumultuous turbulent November 1971 where the April cover-dated Marvel Premiere #1 boldly proclaimed on its cover The Power of… Warlock. Inside, the stunning fable by Thomas, Kane & Adkins declared ‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock’ neatly recapitulated artificial man Him’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. Also on view is the manufactured man’s face off with the Fantastic Four, and clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to an all-encompassing cosmic cocoon to evolve a little more.

Now that shell is plucked from the void thanks to the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary. Having artificially ascended to godhood, he is wrapped up in a bold new experiment…

Establishing contact with Him as he basks in his cocoon, the Evolutionary explains that he is constructing from space rubble a duplicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. Here he will replay the development of life, intending that humanity on Counter-Earth will evolve without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill. It’s a magnificent scheme that might well have worked, but as the Evolutionary wearies, his greatest mistake intervenes…

Man-Beast was over-evolved from a wolf and gained mighty powers, but also ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. Now he invades the satellite, despoiling humanity’s rise and ensuring the new world’s development exactly mirrors True-Earth’s. The only exception is the meticulous exclusion of enhanced individuals. The beleaguered orb has all Earth’s woes but no superheroes to save or inspire its people. A helpless witness to the desecration, the golden being furiously crashes free of his cocoon to save the High Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies (all similarly evolved animal-humanoids called “New-Men”). When the despondent, enraged science god recovers, he decides to erase his failed experiment but is stopped by his rescuer. As a helpless observer, Him saw the potential and value of embattled humanity. Despite all their flaws, he believes he can save them from imminent doom caused by their own unthinking actions, wars and intolerance. When his pleas convince the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance, the wanderer is hurled down to Counter-Earth, gifted and graced with a strange “Soul Gem” to focus his powers, on a divine mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own…

Enjoying and thriving in an era and atmosphere of experimentation, Kane returned to Marvel Premiere with #15 (May 1974) for the debut of masked martial artist Iron Fist. His saga began on a spectacular high with Thomas, Kane & Dick Giordano’s ‘The Fury of Iron Fist!’, as a teenaged masked warrior defeats the cream of a legendary combat elite in a fabled other-dimensional city before returning to Earth.

Ten years previously little Daniel Rand had watched his father and mother die at the hands of Harold Meachum whilst the party of millionaire adventurers risked Himalayan snows to find the legendary city of K’un Lun. Little Danny had travelled with his parents and business partner Meachum in search of the fabled city – which only appeared on Earth for one day every decade. Wendell Rand had some unsuspected connection to the fabled Shangri La but was killed before they found it, whilst Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save the child from wolves and her murderous pursuer.

As he wandered alone in the wilderness, the city found Danny. The boy spent ten years training: mastering all forms of martial arts in a militaristic, oriental, feudal paradise while enduring countless arcane ordeals, living only for the day he would return to Earth and avenge his parents. After conquering all comers and rejecting immortality, the Iron Fist returned to Earth, a Living Weapon able to channel his force of will into a devastating super-punch…

Alternate worlds vehicle What If? #3 (June 1977) provided one of the most memorable stories of the era and one of Kane’s greatest triumphs. Scripted by Jim Shooter and inked by Klaus Janson ‘What If the Avengers Had Never Been?’ diverted from established Marvel Continuity at the end of Avengers #2 when Hulk quit the still-forming team. In this instance, the act sunders the entire squad who go their own ways with shocking, spectacular and ultimately tragic consequences. If you buy this book for only one tale it will be this one…

That same month in Daredevil #146 the artist again demonstrated his brilliance in staging dramatic fight scenes. Scripted by Shooter and inked by Jim Mooney, ‘Duel!’ saw the sightless swashbuckler searching Manhattan for maniac marksman Bullseye even as his quarry was setting up a lethal showdown. The brutally bruising climax came when the crazed killer took an entire TV studio hostage but ended with his being soundly defeated yet again…

With Tony Isabella writing and Frank Giacoia inking, Kane revisited one of his greatest comics triumphs in What If? #24 (December 1980), as ‘What If Gwen Stacy had Lived?’ explored an Alternity where Spider-Man saved his fiancée from Green Goblin Norman Osborn and went on to marry her before losing everything he loved to the obsessive hatred of J. Jonah Jameson…

This compelling compilation notionally concludes with a late treat from Marvel Comics Presents #116 (cover-dated November 1992) with future superstar scripter Dan Slott taking Kane back to his cowboy roots for a short rip-roaring romp featuring the Two-Gun Kid. Here the occasional Avenger and prototype Marvel Mystery-man hero serves up ‘Just Deserts’ to vicious scheming owlhoots John Baker and the Unlucky Thirteen Gang before marching the sole survivor back across the searing Devil’s Cauldron back to Tombstone city jail…

Providing pertinent covers by Kane, this tome offers additional pictorial treats including Kane’s favourite cover (Mighty Marvel Western #44) plus a gallery of others such as Western Gunfighters #31, Kid Colt, Outlaw #161, Sub-Mariner #44 & Captain Marvel #23), the extras also deliver a vast selection of page layouts, design roughs, fully-pencilled pages and covers as well as inked and completed pages of marvels.

Also working as Gil Stack, Scott Edward, Stack Til, Stacktil, Pen Star and Phil Martell, Gil Kane became a foundation stone of comics and remains a vivid, vital inspiration to future generations of creators and readers. With all that in mind why not have a far too brief look at some of the man’s early Marvel superhero triumphs and gently remind the Powers-that-Be that this is only the tip of a graphic iceberg that includes plenty of room for barbarian, sci fi and horror collection one day…
© 2021 MARVEL.

Born today in 1924, cartoonist Brad Anderson (Marmaduke), Belgian illustrator Willy Lambillotte AKA Lambil (Sandy, The Bluecoats, Pauvre Lampil) in 1936 and cartoonist/illustrator Norm Fueti (Retail, Gil, The King of Kazoo) in 1970.

Today we lost someone you’ve probably never heard of: letterer, designer and production artist/manager Gerda Gattel (October 28th 1908 – May 14th 1993). She was filling the ballons and fixing pages for Timely-Atlas from 1947 to the company’s implosion and then moved across town to National DC where she did the same thing from 1958 to her retirement as Production Coordinator in 1973.

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The Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 15


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Hulk-inued…

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

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

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

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Marvel Team-Up Omnibus volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Steve Gerber, Ross Andru, Gil Kane, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema, Don Heck, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Steve Mitchell, Frank Bolle, Don Perlin, Sal Trapani, Wayne Howard, Dave Hunt, Vince Colletta & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6699-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those long-lost days editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since superheroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Marvel Team-Up was the second regular Spider-Man title (abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man was created for the magazine market in 1968 but died after two issues). MTU launched at the end of 1971 and went from strength to strength, proving the time had finally come for expansion and a concentration on uncomplicated action over sub-plots…

This engaging hardback and/or eBook compilation gathers the first 30 issues of Marvel Team-Up (spanning cover-dates March 1972 to February 1975) and includes crossover fun from Daredevil (and the Black Widow) #103, plus double length larks from Giant-Size Super Heroes #1 and Giant-Size Spider-Man #1-3. As well as a monolithic assortment of nostalgic visual treats at the back, this mammoth tome is dotted throughout with editorial and letters pages (from ‘Team-Up’ to ‘Mail it to Team-Up’) and also includes recycled Introductions from previous Marvel Masterworks editions (namely Gerry Conway’s ‘Behold: An Introduction’ and Roy Thomas’ ‘A Long, Loose Leash’ and ‘Full Credit – or Blame’) plus other contemporary editorial announcements as seen in each original issue, just to enhance overall historical experience…

Marvel Team-Up #1was crafted by Roy Thomas, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito as a mutual old enemy reared his gritty head in charming seasonal saga ‘Have Yourself a Sandman Little Christmas!’. A light-heated romp full of Christmas cheer, rambunctious action and seasonal sentiment, the story set the tone for all epics to follow. Merry Marvelite Maximii can award themselves a point for remembering which martial arts/TV hero debuted in this issue, but folk with lives can simply take my word that it was Iron Fist’s sometimes-squeeze Misty Knight…

Gerry Conway assumed the writer’s role and Jim Mooney the inks for ‘And Spidey Makes Four!’ in the succeeding issue as our hot and sticky heroes then take on and trounce the Frightful Four and Negative Zone bogeyman Annihilus before without pause going after Morbius the Living Vampire in #3’s ‘The Power to Purge!’ (as inked by Frank Giacoia). The new horror-star was still acting the villain in MTU #4 as the Torch was replaced by most of Marvel’s sole mutant team (The Beast having gone all hairy – and solo) in ‘And Then… the X-Men!’

Inked by Steve Mitchell, this boldly enthralling thriller was illustrated by magnificent Gil Kane at the top of his form. Kane became a semi-regular penciller, and his dynamic style and extreme-action anatomy lifted many pedestrian tales such as #5’s ‘A Passion of the Mind!’ (Conway script & Esposito inks), pitting Spidey and The Vision against manipulative mesmeric Puppet Master and robotic assassin the Monstroid. The bad guy again carried over to the next issue and joined by the Mad Thinker in ‘…As Those Who Will Not See!’ pitted the wallcrawler and The Thing against cerebral scoundrels in a cataclysmic battle no Fights ‘n’ Tights fan could be unmoved by…

MTU #7’s ‘A Hitch in Time!’ was produced by Conway, Andru & Mooney: guest-starring Thor with otherworldly Trolls freezing Earth’s time-line as a prerequisite step to conquering Asgard, after which #8 provides a perfect example of the team-up comic’s other function – to promote and popularise new characters. ‘Man-Killer Moves at Midnight!’ was most fans’ first exposure to The Cat (later retooled as Tigra the Were-Woman) in a painfully worthy if ham-fisted attempt to address feminist issues from Conway & Mooney. The hard-pressed heroes joined forces here to stop a male-hunting murderer paying back abusive men. These days we’d probably be rooting for her…

Iron Man collaborated in the opening foray of 3-part tale ‘The Tomorrow War!’ (Conway, Andru & Frank Bolle) as he & Spidey are kidnapped by Zarkko the Tomorrow Man to battle Kang the Conqueror. The Torch returned to help deal with the intermediate threat of a ‘Time Bomb!’ (with art by Mooney & Giacoia) before the entire race of Black Bolt’s Inhumans pile in to help Spidey stop history unravelling in culminatory clash ‘The Doomsday Gambit!’ – this last chapter scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot for Mooney & Esposito to illustrate.

Deftly delineated by Andru & Don Perlin, Wein scripted a Conway plot for ‘Wolf at Bay!’ in MTU #12 wherein wallcrawler meets Werewolf By Night Jack Russell to maul malevolent mage Moondark in foggy San Francisco, after which we divert to the Man Without Fear’s own title. Here they share some left coast limelight as Daredevil and the Black Widow #103 (Steve Gerber, Don Heck & Sal Trapani). This sees them join the still-California-bound wallcrawler as a merciless cyborg attacks the odd couple while they pose for roving photojournalist Peter Parker in ‘…Then Came Ramrod!’…

Kane & Giacoia limned ‘The Granite Sky!’ wherein Wein pits Spidey & Captain America against Hydra and Grey Gargoyle in a simple clash of ideologies, after which ‘Mayhem is… the Men-Fish!’ (inked by Wayne Howard – and, yes bad grammar, but great action-art!) matches the webslinger with the savage Sub-Mariner against vile villains Tiger Shark and Doctor Dorcas as well as an army (navy?) of mutant sea-beasts.

Wein, Andru & Perlin created The Orb to bedevil Spidey and Ghost Rider in ‘If an Eye Offend Thee!’ in #15 before Kane & Mooney limn ‘Beware the Basilisk my Son!’: a gripping romp featuring (the original Kree) Captain Marvel, concluding with ‘Chaos at the Earth’s Core!’ (inked by “everybody”!), as Mister Fantastic joins the fracas to stop Mole Man inadvertently blowing up the world. Human Torch Johnny Storm teams with The Hulk in MTU #18 to stop antimatter malcontent Blastaar in ‘Where Bursts the Bomb!’ (Giacoia & Esposito inks), but Spidey blazes back a month later with Ka-Zar in situ to witness ‘The Coming of… Stegron, the Dinosaur Man!’ (Wein, Kane & Giacoia). His plans to flatten New York by releasing ‘Dinosaurs on Broadway!’ is foiled with Black Panther’s help… as well as the artistic gifts of Sal Buscema, Giacoia & Esposito.

Dave Hunt replaced Esposito inking ‘The Spider and the Sorcerer!’ in #21 as Spidey and Doctor Strange once more battled Xandu, a wily wizard first seen in Spider-Man Annual #2, before we pause for a brief lecture.

Giant-Size titles were quarterly double-length publications added to the schedule of Marvel’s top tier heroes, and the wallcrawler’s were used to highlight outré or potentially controversial pairings such as Dracula and Doc Savage. Here they are represented by try-out Giant-Size Super Heroes #1 which pitted the wallcrawler against Living Vampire Morbius as well as hirsute and manic Man-Wolf. In a classic clash by Conway, Kane & Esposito. Within months a quarterly double-length Spider-Man team vehicle was added to Marvel’s schedule….

Back in MTU #22, Wein, Sal B & Giacoia’s ‘The Messiah Machine!’ brings the monthly story glories to a brief pause after depicting Hawkeye and the Amazing Arachnid frustrating deranged computer Quasimodo‘s ambitious if absurd mechanoid invasion. Then – cover-dated July 1974 and courtesy of Conway, Andru & Heck – Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 saw the webspinner in frantic pursuit of an experimental flu vaccine, improbably carried on an ocean liner in ‘Ship of Fiends!’ The quest brought him into chilling contact with newly-revived vampire lord Dracula and a scheming Maggia Capo at ‘The Masque of the Black Death!’…

Here that bizarre battle is accompanied by its original editorial text feature ‘An Illuminating Introduction to Giant Size Spider-Man’ before we move on to monthly MTU wherein the Torch & Iceman fractiously unite to stop Equinox, the Thermo-Dynamic Man on ‘The Night of the Frozen Inferno!’ (Wein, Kane & Esposito). Still embracing supernatural themes and trends, the webslinger learns ‘Moondog is another Name for Murder!’ in a defiantly quirky yarn illustrated by Mooney & Trapani which brings the decidedly offbeat Brother Voodoo to the Big Apple to quash a Manhattan murder cult…

Wein, Mooney & Frank Giacoia then determine that ‘Three into Two Won’t Go!’ as Daredevil joins Spider-Man in thrashing inept kidnappers Cat-Man, Bird-Man and Ape-Man, after which Giant-Size Spider-Man #2 sees the amazing arachnid drawn into battle with Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu as sinister immortal Fu Manchu frames Spider-Man in ‘Masterstroke!’ The duped heroes clear the air in ‘Cross… and Double-Cross!’ before uniting to foil the cunning Celestial’s scheme to mindwipe America from the ‘Pinnacle of Doom!’

MTU #26 finds the Torch and Thor battling to save the world from Lava Men in The Fire This Time…’ by Wein, Mooney, Giacoia & Hunt. At this time, in a desperate effort to build some internal continuity into the perforce brutally brief encounters, the scripters introduced a shadowy trio of sinister observers with an undisclosed agenda who would monitor superhero episodes and eventually be revealed as providers of outrageous technologies for many of the one-shot villains who came and went so quickly and ignominiously…

They weren’t involved when the Chameleon frames Spider-Man (again) and tricks the Hulk into freeing a man – for the most unexpected reason of all – from the New York Men’s Detention Center in #27’s ‘A Friend in Need!’ (Wein, Mooney & Giacoia). They did, however, have a cloaked hand in ‘The City Stealers!’ (#28 by new regular creative team Conway, Mooney & Vince Colletta) when strange mechanoids swipe the island of Manhattan, necessitating Spidey and Hercules (mostly Hercules) having to drag it back to its original position…

After that implausible minor miracle Spider-Man experiences time-displaced disaster as Giant-Size Spider-Man #3 (Conway, Andru & Esposito) explores ‘The Yesterday Connection!’ Now lovely alien Desinna seeks the aid of Spidey in 1974 and – in ‘The Secret Out of Time’ – the hands-on help of legendary 1930s adventurer Doc Savage. Across a gulf of four decades the heroes individually discover something is not right in ‘Other People in Other Times!’ With the escape of a savage rampaging monster, two eras seem doomed to destruction, at least until wiser, more suspicious heads and powers prevail in ‘Tomorrow is Too Late’ ensuring that ‘The Future is Now!’…

Marvel Team-Up #29 displays a far less constrained – or even amicable – pairing as flaming kid Johnny Storm and patronising know-it-all Iron Man butt heads whilst tracking a seeming super-saboteur in ‘Beware the Coming of Infinitus! or How Can You Stop the Reincarnated Man?’ before in #30 Spider-Man and The Falcon find ‘All That Glitters is not Gold!’ whilst tracking a mind-control drug back to its crazy concoctor Midas, the Golden Man.

However, adding extra lustre are visual treats aplenty in the form of contemporaneous house ads; covers and frontispieces from seasonal tabloid treasury Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag (with art from John Buscema & John Romita Sr.) and original art pages and covers from Andru, Kane, Esposito, Perlin, Mooney, & Giacoia plus Kane pencil layouts. Also on view are covers from Marvel Tales #234, 249, 254, by Todd McFarlane, Marshall Rogers, Brian Stelfreeze, complete with new bridging pages by Jae Lee. Jan Harpes & Renee Witterstatter, and another gallery of Spider-Man Megazine covers (#1-6) by James Fry, Hector Collazo, Stelfreeze, Jung Choi, Ron Frenz, Al Milgrom, Stuart Immonen, Kirk Jarvinen, Jason Moore and Mark Buckingham, plus the unpublished cover of #7 as crafted by John Romita Sr & Jr.. Closing the book is a truly unique unused cover for #8 by Brian Bolland.

These stories are of variable quality but nonetheless all exhibit an honest drive to entertain and please. Artistically the work is superb, and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about so, although not really a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers, there’s bunches of fun on hand and young readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your library…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1892 Korky the Cat creator James Crighton was born as was Golden Age great Creig Flessel in 1912 and Al McWilliams in 1916. Writer/editor/publisher Bob Shreck joined the party in 1955, three years after Crocket Johnson released the final episode of Barnaby.

Back in 1938, the very first Donald Duck newspaper strip was syndicated and in 1987 the astounding Ken Reid drew his last breath – as did Dutch comics maestro Lo Hartog van Banda in 2006. As always, look in the blog for more or just buy anything with these guys’ names on it…

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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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Daredevil Marvel Masterworks volume 16


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fantastic Four: Extended Family


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Walter Simonson, Dwayne McDuffie, Tom DeFalco, Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeph Loeb, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, Arthur Adams, Paul Ryan, Stuart Immonen, Paul Pelletier, George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule, Joe Sinnott, Art Thibert, Danny Bulanadi, Wade von Grawbadger, Rick Mounts & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5303-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

With only 67 days (but who’s counting?) to the premiere of Fantastic Four: First Steps, let’s activate our public service to newcomers option and start looking at the immense and critically important history and legacy of the fourth most important moment in US comic books – the creation of “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”…

Of course, whatever is up on screen won’t be what has gone before but try to remember it’s NOT REAL. It’s not even the comics you purport to love. It’s just another movie designed to appeal to the largest number of movie fans possessing only rudimentary knowledge of what involved. If you genuinely want to uphold the purity of the comics incarnations, buy a book like this one. Heck, buy a bunch and hand them out to people you’d like to impress and convert. This one would be a good place to start…

The Fantastic Four is considered by many the most pivotal series in modern comic book history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ passionate attention. Regarded more as a family than a team, the line-up changed constantly over the years and this examination from 2011 gathered a selection of those comings and goings in a fascinating primer for new fans looking for a quick catch-up class.

I strongly suspect that it also performed a similar function for doddering old devotees such as me, always looking for a salutary refresher session…

If you’re absolutely new to the first family of superhero fantasy, or returning after a sustained hiatus, you might have a few problems with this otherwise superb selection of clannish classics featuring not only Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and The Human Torch, but also many of the other Marvel stalwarts who have stuck a big “4” on their chests (or thereabouts) and forged ahead into the annals of four-colour heroic history. However, if you’re prepared to ignore a lot of unexplained references to stuff you’ve missed (but will enjoy subsequently tracking down), there’s a still a magically enthralling treat on offer in this terrific tome.

The Fantastic Four are – usually – maverick genius Reed Richards, his fiancée – and later wife – Susan Storm, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: moral, brave, decent, philanthropic and driven survivors of a privately-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

After crashing back to Earth, the quartet found they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks.

This compilation gathers Fantastic Four #1, 81, 132, 168, 265, 307, 384 & 544, plus #42 of the third volume which began in 1998. Confusingly, the title resumed original numbering with this tale, so it’s also #471 of the overall canon.

Everything began with the premier release (cover-dated November 1961 and on sale from August 8th of that year) which introduced Lee & Kirby’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ (with inkers George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule and others, plus Artie Simek lettering and Stan Goldberg colouring) depicting mysterious mad scientist Dr. Richards summoning helpful helpmeet Sue, burly buddy Ben and Sue’s brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. Via flashback we discover their incredible origins and how the uncanny cosmos made them all into outlandish freaks…

Richards’ body had become impossibly pliable and elastic, Sue could fade away as a living phantom, Johnny would briefly blaze like a star and fly like a rocket whilst poor, tormented Ben devolved into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command. Shaken but unbowed, the valiant quartet vowed to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting all mankind. In second chapter ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ they foil a sinister scheme by another hideous outcast who controls a legion of monsters and army of subhuman slaves from far beneath the Earth by uncovering ‘The Moleman’s Secret!’

This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue; we really have no grasp today of just how different in tone, how utterly shocking it all was.

“Different” doesn’t always mean “better”, but the FF was like no other comic on the market at the time and buyers responded to it hungrily. Throughout the turbulent 1960s, Lee & Kirby’s astonishing ongoing collaboration rewrote all the rules on what comics could be and introduced fresh characters and astounding concepts on a monthly basis. One such was The Inhumans. Conceived as a lost civilisation and debuting in 1965 (Fantastic Four #44-48) during Stan & Jack’s most fertile and productive creative period, they were a race of disparate (generally) humanoid beings, genetically altered by aliens in Earth’s distant pre-history, who consequently became technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens.

Few in numbers, they isolated themselves from barbarous dawn-age humans, firstly on an island and latterly in a hidden Himalayan valley, voluntarily confined to their fabulous city Attilan – until a civil war and a deranged usurper brought them into humanity’s gaze. Old foe and charter member of the villainous Frightful Four, Madame Medusa was revealed as a fugitive member Attilan’s Royal Family, on the run ever since a coup deposed her lover: the true king Black Bolt.

With her cousins Triton, Karnak and Gorgon, the rest would quickly become mainstays of the Marvel Universe, but Medusa’s bewitching teenaged sister Crystal and her giant teleporting dog Lockjaw were the real stars of the show. For young Johnny, it was love at first sight, and Crystal’s eventual fate would greatly change his character, giving him a hint of angst-ridden tragedy that resonated greatly with the generation of young readers who were growing up with the comic…

Crystal stuck around for many adventures and eventually when the now-married Sue had a baby and began “taking things easy”, the Inhuman Princess became the team’s first official replacement. FF #81 (December 1968 by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott) announced ‘Enter – the Exquisite Elemental’ as the devastatingly powerful slip of a girl joined Reed, Ben & Johnny just as incorrigible technological terror The Wizard attacked the team. In blisteringly short order Crystal promptly pulverized the murderous maniac and began a long combat career with the heroes.

After untold centuries in seclusion, increasing global pollution levels began to attack the Inhumans’ elevated biological systems and eventually Crystal had to abandon Johnny and return to Attilan. By the time of Fantastic Four #132 (March 1973) Lee & Kirby had also split up and Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Sinnott were in charge of the show. The concluding chapter of a 2-part tale, ‘Omega! The Ultimate Enemy!’ described how Crystal, her brand new fiancé Quicksilver and the rest of the Inhumans were attacked by their own genetically-programmed slave-race (!!) the Alpha Primitives, seemingly at the behest of Black Bolt’s diabolical brother Maximus the Mad. The truth was far stranger but the strife and struggle resulted in Medusa returning to America with the team…

The more things changed the more they stayed the same, however, and by FF #168 (March 1976) Sue was back but the Thing was forcibly retired. In ‘Where Have All the Powers Gone?’, Thomas, Rich Buckler & Sinnott revealed how Ben had been cured of his condition. Reverted to normal, pedestrian humanity thanks to radiation exposure and a blockbusting battle with The Hulk, Ben was apparently forever deprived of the Thing’s sheer power, and Reed had enlisted Hero for Hire Luke Cage as his replacement. However, the embittered Grimm simply couldn’t adjust to a life on the sidelines and when brutal bludgeoning super-thug Wrecker went on a rampage, merely mortal Ben risked life and limb to prove he could still play with the big boys…

After years in creative doldrums the FF were dynamically revitalised when John Byrne took over scripting and illustrating the feature. Following a sequence of bold innovations, he used companywide crossover Secret Wars to radically overhaul the team. In #265 (April 1984) he revealed the big change in a brace of short tales re-presented here. Firstly, ‘The House That Reed Built’ sees the group’s Baxter Building HQ as the star when the automated marvel diligently deals with a sinister home-invasion by Frightful Four alumnus The Trapster, after which Sue Richards is introduced to the Thing’s replacement (Ben having remained on the distant planet of The Beyonder for personal reasons) as the green-&-glam She-Hulk joins up in ‘Home Are the Heroes’.

Jumping to October 1987, Fantastic Four #307 offered the most radical change yet as Reed & Sue retired to the suburbs to raise their terrifyingly powered omega-mutant son Franklin, leaving the long-returned Thing leading a team consisting of the Human Torch, old flame Crystal and super-strong but emotionally damaged Amazon Sharon Ventura initially employing the sobriquet Ms Marvel. However, before they even have a chance to shake hands, the new team is battling arcane alchemist Diablo in the Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Sinnott gripping thriller ‘Good Bye!’

An even bigger shake-up occurred during Walter Simonson’s run in the gimmick-crazed 1990s. In an era of dwindling sales, high-profile stunts were the norm in comics as companies – realizing that a large sector of the buying public thought of themselves as canny “Investors” – began exploiting the readership’s greed and credulity. A plot twist, a costume change, a different format or shiny cover (or better yet covers: plural): anything, just so long as The Press got hold of it, translated directly into extra units moved. There are many stories and concepts from that era which (mercifully) may never make it into collections, but there are some that deserved to, did, and really still should be.

Simonson was writing (and usually drawing) the venerable flagship title with the original cast happily back in harness and abruptly interrupted his high-tech, high-tension saga with a gloriously tongue-in-cheek graphic digression. Over three issues – #347-349 – he poked gentle fun at trendmeisters and speculators, consequently crafting some of the “hottest” comics of that year. Reprinted from FF #347 (December 1990) is splendid first chapter ‘Big Trouble on Little Earth’ (illustrated by Arthur Adams & Art Thibert, assisted by Gracine Tanaka) revealing how a Skrull outlaw invades Earth, with her own people hot on her viridian high heels. Evading heavy pursuit she attacks the FF and seemingly kills them. Disguised as a mourning Sue Richards she then recruits the four bestselling heroes in the Marvel Universe – Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wolverine & Ghost Rider – to hunt down their “murderers” as The NEW Fantastic Four! The hunt takes them to the bowels of the Earth and battle with the Mole Man, revealing fascinating background into the origins of monsters and supernormal life on Earth…

What could so easily have died as a cheap stunt is elevated not only by the phenomenal art but also a lovingly reverential script, referencing all those goofy old “Furry-Underpants Monsters” of immediate pre-FF vintage, and is packed with traditional action and fun besides. Sadly, only the first pulse-pounding chapter is here so you should track down the entire tale as seen in Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed.

Roster change was a constant during that desperate decade. When Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulandi took over the series, they tried every trick to drive up sales but the title was in a spiral of commercial decline. Reed was dead – although Sue refused to believe it – and Franklin had been abducted. Her traumatised fellow survivors had their own problems. Johnny discovered his wife Alicia was in fact Skrull infiltrator Lyja, Sharon Ventura was missing and Ben had been mutilated in battle and was obsessively wearing a full-face helmet at all times.

In #384’s (January 1994) ‘My Enemy, My Son!’, Sue hired Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man as the team’s science officer whilst she led an increasingly compulsive search for her lost love. No sooner has the new guy arrived than Franklin reappears, grown to manhood and determined to save the world from his mother, whom he believes to be possessed by malign spirit Malice.

Following crossover event Onslaught the FF were excised from Marvel’s continuity for a year. When they returned rebooted and revitalised in 1998, it was as Stan & Jack first envisioned them, and in a brand-spanking new volume. Always more explorer than traditional crimebuster team, the FF were constantly voyaging to other worlds and dimensions. In Volume 3, #42 (June 2001 and double-numbered as #471) Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeff Loeb, Stuart Immonen & Wade von Grawbadger offered a blistering battle between the Torch and old frenemy Namor the Sub-Mariner which rages through New York City whilst Reed, Sue & Ben are lost in the Negative Zone. Strapped for allies, the torrid two form an alliance against mutual foe Gideon, with Johnny re-recruiting Ant-Man and She-Hulk prior to accepting the Atlantean’s cousin Namorita as the latest Fantastic Four part-timer.

This meander down memory lane concludes with another major overhaul, this one stemming from 2007’s publishing event The Initiative. Crafted by Dwayne McDuffie, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, Fantastic Four #544 (March of that year) featured ‘Reconstruction: Chapter One – From the Ridiculous to the Sublime’, with Marvel’s first family bitterly divided after the events of the superhero Civil War. After years of stunning adventures, the closeknit clan split up over the Federal Superhuman Registration Act. Insolubly divided, Reed sides with the Government and his wife and brother-in-law join the rebels. Ben, appalled at the entire situation, dodges the whole issue by moving to France…

A story-arc from FF #544-550 (originally running as ‘Reconstruction’) began in the aftermath in the group’s inevitable reconciliation. However, temperaments are still frayed and emotional wounds have barely scabbed over. When Reed & Sue attempt to repair their dented marriage by way of a second honeymoon (because the first was just so memorable!) they head to the moon of Titan; courtesy of the Eternal demi-gods who inhabited that artificial paradise. On Earth, Ben & Johnny are joined by temporary houseguests Black Panther and his new wife Ororo, the former/part-time X-Man called Storm. The royal couple of Wakanda are forced to leave their palatial New York embassy after it is bombed, but no sooner have they settled in than old ally Michael Collins – formerly cyborg hero Deathlok – comes asking for a favour.

A new hero named Gravity had sacrificed his life to save Collins and a host of other heroes, and his body was laid to rest with full honours. Now, that grave has been desecrated and the remains stolen. When the appalled New FF investigate, the trail leads directly to intergalactic space. After visiting the Moon and eliciting information from pan-galactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, the new questing quartet travel to the ends of the universe where cosmic entity Epoch is covertly resurrecting Gravity to become her latest “Protector of the Universe”. Unfortunately, she isn’t likely to finish her magic as the Silver Surfer and Galactus’ new herald Stardust are attacking the sidereal monolith, preparatory to her becoming the World-Eater’s next meal…

For the rest of that epic you’ll need to seek out Fantastic Four: the New Fantastic Four.

With a full gallery of covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Steranko, Marie Severin, Buckler, Byrne, Ron Frenz, Arthur Adams & Thibert, Ryan, Pacheco, Michael Turner & more plus pin-ups by Steve Epting & Paul Mounts, this power-packed primer and all-action snapshot album is a great way to reacquaint yourself with or better yet discover for the first time the comicbook magic of a truly ideal invention: the Family that Fights Together…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Thunderbolts Epic Collection volume 1: Justice, Like Lightning (1997-1998)


By Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Peter David, John Ostrander, Mark Bagley, Mark Deodato Jr., Sal Buscema, Steve Epting, Jeff Johnson, Pasqual Ferry, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ron Randall, Gene Colan, Darick Robertson, George Pérez, Chris Marrinan, Ron Frenz & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5205-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s going to be a busy year for comics-based movies, so let’s properly start the ball rolling with some context and a look at a Thunderbolts team definitely not coming anywhere close to a cinema near you soon…

At the end of 1996, Marvel’s Onslaught publishing event removed the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man and the Avengers from the Marvel Universe and its long-established shared continuity. The House of Ideas ceded creative control to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee for a year and at first the iconoclastic Image style comics got all the attention. However, a new title created to fill the gap in the “old” universe proved to be the true star sensation of the period. Thunderbolts was initially promoted as a replacement team book: brand new, untried heroes pitching in because the beloved big guns were dead and gone. Chronologically, they debuted in Incredible Hulk # 449 (cover-dated January 1997), a standard exhibition of “heroes-stomp-monster”, but the seemingly mediocre tale is perhaps excusable in retrospect…

With judicious teaser guest-shots abounding, Thunderbolts #1 premiered with an April cover-date and was an instant mega-hit, with a second print and rapid-reprint collection of the first two issues also selling out in days. This classy compendium gathers all those early appearances of the neophyte team between from January 1997 to March 1998: introductory teaser tale in Incredible Hulk #449 and parts of 450; Thunderbolts #1-12, Thunderbolts: Distant Rumblings #-1 special, Annual ‘97, plus their portion of Tales of the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7 and Heroes for Hire #7. Sadly although the stories are still immensely enjoyable this book simply won’t be able to recapture the furore the series caused in its early periodical days, because Thunderbolts was a sneakily high-concept series with a big twist: one which – almost unprecedentedly for comics – didn’t get spilled before the carefully calculated “big reveal”.

Here the action starts with issue #1 (cover-dated April 1997) and ‘Justice… Like Lightning’ as Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley & Vince Russell introduce a new superhero team to a world which has lost its champions. The mysterious Thunderbolts begin to clear New York’s devastated, post-Onslaught streets of resurgent supervillains and thugs making the most of the hero-free environment. Amongst their triumphs is the resounding defeat of scavenger gang The Rat Pack, but although the looters are routed and rounded up, their leader escapes with his real prize: homeless children…

Golden Age Captain America tribute/knock off Citizen V leads these valiant newcomers – size-shifting Atlas, super-armoured Mach-1, beam-throwing amazon Meteorite, sonic siren Songbird and human toybox Techno – and the terrified, traumatised citizenry instantly take them to their hearts. But these heroes share a huge secret: they’re all supervillains from the sinister Masters of Evil in disguise, and Citizen V – or Baron Helmut Zemo as he truly prefers – has major Machiavellian long-term plans…

When unsuspecting readers got to the end of that first story the reaction was instantaneous shock and jubilation.

Anachronistically, the aforementioned Hulk teaser tale (cover-dated January 1997, but on sale at the end of 1996) appears next, as Peter David, Mike Deodato Jr. & Tom Wegrzyn pit a neophyte super-team against the Jade Juggernaut in ‘Introducing the Thunderbolts!’: the opening step of their campaign to win the hearts and minds of the World. That clash spilled over into the next issue and the pertinent section is also included here, promptly followed by Tales of the Marvel Universe tale ‘The Dawn of a New Age of Heroes!’ as the team continue doing good deeds for bad reasons, readily winning the approval of cynical New Yorkers.

Thunderbolts #2 (May 1997 by Busiek, Bagley & Russell) offers ‘Deceiving Appearances’ as they garner official recognition and their first tangible reward. After defeating The Mad Thinker at an FF/Avengers memorial service and rescuing “orphan” Franklin Richards, the Mayor hands over the FF’s Baxter Building HQ for the T-Bolts’ new base of operations…

Busiek, Sal Buscema & Dick Giordano’s Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7 yarn ‘Old Scores’ sees them even fool the spider-senses of everybody’s favourite wallcrawler whilst clearing him of a fiendish frame-up and taking down the super-scientific Enclave. However the first cracks in the plan begin to appear as Mach-1 and Songbird (AKA The Beetle and Screaming Mimi) begin falling for each other and dare to dream of a better life, even as Atlas/ Goliath starts to enjoy the delights and rewards of actually doing good deeds.

… And whilst Techno (The Fixer) is content to follow orders for the moment, Meteorite – or Moonstone – is laying plans to further her own personal agenda…

Thunderbolts #3 finds the team facing ‘Too Many Masters’ (Bagley & Russell art) as dissension creeps into the ranks. The action comes from rounding up old allies and potential rivals Klaw, Flying Tiger, Cyclone, Man-Killer and Tiger-Shark, who were arrogant enough to trade on the un-earned reputation as new Masters of Evil.

One of the abducted kids in Thunderbolts #1 resurfaces in #4’s ‘A Shock to the System’. Hallie Takahama was taken by the Rat Pack, and her new owner has since subjected her to assorted procedures which resulted in her gaining superpowers. Her subsequent escape leads to her joining the Thunderbolts as they invade Dr. Doom’s apparently vacant castle to save the other captives from the monstrous creations and scientific depredations of rogue geneticist Arnim Zola. However, the highly publicised victory forces Citizen V to grudgingly accept the utterly oblivious and innocent Hallie onto the team as trainee recruit Jolt…

Thunderbolts Annual 1997 follows: a massive revelatory jam session written by Busiek with art from Bagley, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ron Randall, Gene Colan, Darick Robertson, George Pérez, Chris Marrinan, Al Milgrom, Will Blyberg, Scott Koblish, Jim Sanders, Tom Palmer, Bruce Patterson, Karl Kesel & Andrew Pepoy, which could only be called ‘The Origin of the Thunderbolts!’ In brief instalments Jolt asks ‘Awkward Questions’ of V and Zemo offers a tissue of lies regarding the member’s individual origins…

Beginning with V’s ostensible intentions in ‘The Search Begins’, gaining ‘Technical Support’ from Fixer, examining Songbird’s past in  ‘Screams of Anguish’, obscuring the Beetle’s ‘Shell-Shocked!’ transformation and revealing how ‘Onslaught’ brought them all together, the fabrications continue as ‘To Defy a Kosmos’ discloses to everyone but Jolt how ionic colossus Goliath was snatched from incarceration in another dimension before ‘Showdown at the Vault’ brought Moonstone into the mix with untrustworthy and dangerous men she had previously betrayed…

The revelatory events also includes the Annual’s Thunderbolts Fact File text feature.

Thunderbolts: Distant Rumblings #-1 (July 1997) was part of a company-wide event detailing the lives of heroes and villains before they started their costumed careers. Illustrated by Steve Epting & Bob Wiacek, ‘Distant Rumblings!’, examines key events in the lives of two Baron Zemos, mercenary Erik (Atlas) Josten, corrupt psychiatrist Karla (Moonstone) Sofen, trailer-trash kid and future Songbird Melissa Gold, frustrated engineer Abner Jenkins AKA Beetle and gadgeteering psychopath P. Norbert Ebersol, who parleyed a clash with an amnesiac Sub-Mariner into a thrilling life as Hydra’s prime technician and Fixer…

Back in the now, Thunderbolts #5 delivers more ‘Growing Pains’ as the team take a personal day as civvies in Manhattan, only to be targeted and attacked by Baron Strucker of Hydra, employing one of Kang the Conqueror’s Growing Man AI automatons…

By this stage the grand plan was truly unravelling and in #6 ‘Unstable Elements’ sees Citizen V/Zemo incensed that his team still don’t have the security clearances the Avengers and FF used to enjoy. Unable to further his plans without them, he tidies up details, seeking to quash a budding romance between Atlas and their Mayor’s Liaison/former cop Dallas Riordan whilst “suggesting” Meteorite might arrange an accident for increasing prying, questioning and just plain annoying Jolt…

Opportunity arises and tensions escalate when a sentient and malign periodic table of elemental beings attack New York. Requesting help, the Mayor’s office is refused and rebuffed by Citizen V before his own minions reject him and rush off to save lives beside the city’s remaining superheroes such as Daredevil, Power Man & Iron Fist, Darkhawk and the New Warriors. ‘The Revolt Within’ (Busiek & Roger Stern, limned by Jeff Johnson, Will Blyberg, Eric Cannon, Larry Mahlstadt, Greg Adams & Keith Williams) signals the beginning of the end as the rebel Thunderbolts are quickly captured by the “Elements of Doom” and Zemo refuses to save them, leaving ‘Songbird: Alone!’ to save the day in #8 (Busiek, Stern, Bagley & Russell). Although Zemo manages to finagle his way back into the ’Bolts’ good books, he has what he wants: access to all the world’s secrets after SHIELD chief G.W. Bridge grants him top security clearance…

A brief diversion follows in Heroes for Hire #7 (January 1998 by John Ostrander, Pasqual Ferry & Jaime Mendoza) as the troubled team stumble into an ongoing clash between Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Black Knight and Ant-Man, The Eternals and assorted monstrous Deviants, before ‘The Thunderbolts Take Over!’, uniting with the HFH squad to save the shrinking man’s daughter Cassie Lang from a Super-Adaptoid. In Thunderbolts #9 (Busiek, Bagley & Russell) the Black Widow comes calling with advice and ‘Life Lessons’ for Songbird and Mach-1, delivered as an untold tale of “Cap’s Kookie Quartet” – Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch – and related via a flashback crafted by Stern, Ron Frenz, Blyberg & Milgrom, before the main event commences…

After more than a year away, company publishing event Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return restored the martyrs believed killed by Onslaught to the Marvel Universe. That happy miracle sparked a new beginning for The FF and Avengers’ stars and titles and began in an extended epic covering Thunderbolts #10-12: scripted as ever by Busiek and illustrated by Bagley, Russell, Scott Hanna, Larry Mahlstadt & Greg Adams.

It opens with ‘Heroes Reward’ as whilst the Thunderbolts are being officially honoured, their greatest enemies – real superheroes – start reappearing. When G.W. Bridge raids the press briefing, having divined that Citizen V is wanted criminal Helmut Zemo, suddenly the aspiring (semi) reformed squad are fugitives all over again, hunted by every real hero in town…

Fleeing into space and occupying an abandoned AIM space station, the Thunderbolts finally learn what Zemo’s been after all along in ‘The High Ground’ and face a shattering decision to go along or pursue new redeemed lives. However, as the former allies deliberate, prevaricate, and inevitably clash, the choice becomes even harder as the base is invaded by an army of extremely angry Superheroes, including Avengers, Fantastic Four and every recent ally they so callously fooled…

It all concludes in ‘Endgame’, but not the way anyone anticipates, especially once Zemo mind controls and enslaves all the incoming champions before turning them on his outraged dupes. The conclusion is spectacular and rewarding but only promises more and better to come…

Bonus features here include a full gallery of covers and variants – including second printings and the many collected editions the series spawned in its first year – by Bagley & Russell, Deodato Jr., Carlos Pacheco & Scott Koblish, Steve Lightle, Sott Hanna, original art, a golden Age ad for the original Citizen V, promotional pieces, retailer solicitation art, text essays and introductions from earlier editions as well as 12 pages of Bagley’s character designs tracing the metamorphosis from second-string villains into first rung heroes, and even faux ads. Also included are articles from in-house promotional magazine Marvel Vision #13, 14, 18, 19 & 27 providing context and behind the scenes insights for fans who just couldn’t get enough.

This is a solid superhero romp that managed to briefly revitalise a lot of jaded old fan-boys, but more importantly this remains a strong set of tales that still pushes all the buttons it’s meant to nearly 3 decades after all the hoopla has faded. Well worth a moment of your time and a bit of your hard-earned cash. Be warned though, if you’re reading this because of the new movie, these ARE NOT Your Thunderbolts…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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X-Men Epic Collection volume 5: Second Genesis (1975-1978)


By Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Bill Mantlo, Bonnie Wilford, Dave Cockrum, Bob Brown, Tony DeZuñiga, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Bob McLeod, Sam Grainger, Frank Chiaramonte, Bob Layton, Tom Sutton, Dan Green, Terry Austin, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Ricardo Villamonte & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0390-9 TPB/Digital edition

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the autumn of 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced Scott (Cyclops) Summers, Bobby (Iceman) Drake, Warren (Angel) Worthington, Hank (The Beast) McCoy and Jean (Marvel Girl) Grey: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier. The teacher was a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior; considered by many who knew him as a living saint.

After almost eight years of eccentrically spectacular adventures the mutant misfits virtually disappeared at the beginning of 1970 during another periodic downturn in superhero comics sales. Just like in the closing years of the 1940s, mystery men faded away as supernatural mysteries and traditional genre themes once more dominated the world’s entertainment fields. Although their title returned at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit players throughout the ongoing Marvel universe, whilst the bludgeoning Beast was opportunistically transformed into a scary monster to cash in on the horror boom.

Then, with sales of the spooky stuff subsequently waning in 1975, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lit a bold one-shot as part of the company’s line of Giant-Size specials and history was made on April 1st when something very special hits newsstands…

This fabulous mass-market collection is ideal for newcomers and neophytes, celebrating the revival and unstoppable march to market dominance through the exuberant and pivotal early stories: specifically, Giant Size X-Men #1, issues #94-110 of the “All-New, All-Different” X-Men, plus guest appearances in Iron Fist #14-15, Marvel Team Up #53, 69-70 and Marvel Team Up Annual #1, spanning cover-dates May 1975 to June 1978.

Tracing the reinvigorated merry mutants from young, fresh and delightfully under-exposed innovations to the beginnings of their unstoppable ascendancy to ultimate comic book icons, in their own title and via an increasingly broad clutch of guest shots, the epic voyage begins without pause or preamble, in a classic mystery monster mash from Giant Size X-Men #1. Here, Len Wein & Dave Cockrum – the latter a red-hot property following his stint reviving DC’s equally eclectic fan-fave superteam The Legion of Super-Heroes – detailed in ‘Second Genesis!’ how the original squad (all but new Avengers recruit The Beast) had been lost in action. With no other choice Xavier is forced to scour Earth and the entire Marvel Universe for replacements…

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire is added a one-shot Hulk adversary the Wolverine, but the bulk of time and attention is lavished upon original additions Kurt Wagner, a demonic-seeming German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler; African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe – AKA Storm, Russian farm-boy Peter Rasputin who turns into a living steel Colossus, and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar, cajoled and coerced into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The second chapter ‘…And Then There Was One!’ reintroduces battered, depleted but unbowed team-leader Cyclops who swiftly drills the newcomers into a semblance of readiness before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… The Island That Walks Like a Man!’ Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a rampaging rapacious mutant eco-system and rescuing the “real” team was intended to lead into a quarterly Giant-Size sequel for a new, expanded squad, but so great was fan response that the follow-up adventure was swiftly reworked into a 2-part tale for the rapidly reconfigured and revived comic book which became bimonthly home to the neophyte heroes

X-Men #94 (August 1975) began ‘The Doomsmith Scenario!’ – plotted by editor Wein, scripted by Chris Claremont and with Bob McLeod inking man-on-fire Cockrum – in a canny Armageddon-shocker with a pared-down unit deprived of Sunfire and still-recuperating Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, Havok and Lorna Dane. It begins when the new kids are called in by The Beast to stop criminal terrorist Count Nefaria from starting an atomic war. Employing a gang of artificial superhumans, the insidious mastermind has seized control of America’s Norad citadel and accidentally escalated a nuclear blackmail scheme into an inescapable countdown to holocaust, leaving the untrained, unprepared mutants to storm in to save the world in epic conclusion ‘Warhunt!’ (inked by Sam Grainger). One of them doesn’t make it back…

X-Men #96 sees Claremont take charge of the writing (albeit with some plotting input from Bill Mantlo) for ‘Night of the Demon!’ Guilt-wracked Cyclops blames himself for the loss of his teammate, and in his explosive rage he accidentally unleashes an antediluvian demonic horror from Earth’s primordial prehistory for the heroes-in-training to thrash. The infernal Nagarai would return over and again to bedevil mankind, but the biggest innovation in this issue is the debut of gun-toting biologist/housekeeper Moira MacTaggert and the first inklings of the return of implacable old adversaries…

A cosmically-widescreen storyline started in #97 with ‘My Brother, My Enemy!’, as Xavier – tormented by visions of interstellar war – takes a vacation, just as Havok & Lorna (finally settling on superhero nom de guerre Polaris) attack: apparently willing servants of a mysterious madman using Cyclops’ old undercover alter ego Eric the Red. The devastating clash segues into a spectacular 3-part yarn, as pitiless robotic killers return under the hate-filled auspices of mutantophobe Steven Lang and his enigmatic backers Project Armageddon. The action opens with #98’s ‘Merry Christmas, X-Men… the Sentinels Have Returned!’

With coordinated attacks capturing semi-retired Marvel Girl plus Wolverine, Banshee and Xavier, Cyclops and the remaining heroes co-opt a space shuttle, storming Lang’s orbital HQ to rescue them in ‘Deathstar Rising!’ (inked by Frank Chiaramonte): another phenomenal all-action episode.

The saga concludes on an agonising cliffhanger with the 100th issue anniversary tale. ‘Greater Love Hath no X-Man…’ (with Cockrum inking his own pencils) sees the new X-Men apparently battle the original team before overturning Lang’s monstrous schemes forever. However, their catastrophic clash destroys the only means of escape and, as a gigantic solar flare threatens to eradicate the satellite-station, their only chance of survival means certain death for another X-Man. As #101 unfolded, Claremont & Cockrum were on the on the verge of utterly overturning the accepted status quo of women in comics forever…

Led by field-commander Cyclops, the team now comprised old acquaintance/former foe Sean – Banshee – Cassidy, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus with part-timer Jean Grey still labouring under the nom-de guerre Marvel Girl – but not for much longer…

‘Like a Phoenix from the Ashes’ (Chiaramonte inks) sees a space shuttle cataclysmically crash into Jamaica Bay. The X-Men had safely travelled in a specially-shielded chamber but Jean had manually piloted the vehicle, unprotected through a lethal radiation storm. As the mutants escape the sinking craft, a fantastic explosion propels the impossibly still alive Jean into the air, clad in a strange gold & green uniform, screaming that she is “Fire and Life Incarnate… Phoenix!”

Immediately collapsing, the critically injured girl is rushed to hospital and a grim wait begins. Unable to explain her survival and too preoccupied to spare time for teaching, Xavier packs Banshee, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm and Colossus off to the Irish mutant’s home in County Mayo for a vacation, blissfully unaware Cassidy Keep has been compromised and is now a deadly trap for his new students. Within the ancestral pile, Sean’s mutant cousin Black Tom has usurped control of the manor and its incredible secrets before – at Eric the Red’s behest – contriving an inescapable ambush, assisted by an old X-Men enemy.

‘Who Will Stop the Juggernaut?’ (Grainger inks) sees the inexperienced heroes in over their heads and fighting for their lives, but still finds room to reveal the origins of Storm and provide an explanation for her crippling claustrophobia, prior to ‘The Fall of the Tower’ explosively ending the tale with mutant heroes and the Keep’s Leprechaun colony (no, really!) uniting to expel the murderous usurpers.

Although still bi-monthly, the series kicked into confident top gear with ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Magneto’ with the weary warriors diverting to Scotland to check on Moira MacTaggert’s island lab: a secret facility containing myriad mutant menaces the X-Men have previously defeated. It’s a very bad move since ever-active Eric has restored the dormant master of magnetism to full power. The mutant terrorist had been turned into a baby – a strangely commonplace fate for villains in those faraway days – but he was all grown up again now and indulging in one last temper tantrum…

Freshly arrived from America, Moira and Cyclops are only just in time to lead a desperate, humiliating retreat from the triumphant Master of Magnetism. Scott doesn’t care: he realises the entire affair has been a feint to draw the team away from Xavier and Jean…

He needn’t have worried. Although in ‘Phoenix Unleashed’ (inks by Bob Layton) Eric orchestrates an attack by Firelord – a cosmic flamethrower and former herald of Galactus much like the Silver Surfer – Jean is now fully evolved into a being of unimaginable power who readily holds the fiery marauder at bay. In the interim a long-standing mystery is solved as visions which have tormented Xavier are revealed as a psychic connection to a runaway princess from a distant alien empire. Lilandra of the Shi’ar had rebelled against her imperial brother and, whilst fleeing, somehow telepathically locked onto her trans-galactic soulmate Charles Xavier. As she made her circuitous way to Earth, embedded Shi’ar spy Shakari had assumed the guise of Eric the Red, seeking to remove Lilandra’s potential champion before she arrived…

During the blistering battle which follows the X-Men’s dramatic arrival, Shakari snatches up Lilandra and drags her through a stargate to their home galaxy, and with the entire universe imperilled, Xavier urges his team to follow. All Jean has to do is re-open a wormhole to the other side of creation…

A minor digression follows as overstretched artist Cockrum took a breather via a fill-in “untold tale” of the new team featuring an attack by psychic clones of the original X-Men. ‘Dark Shroud of the Past’ is a competent pause by Mantlo, Bob Brown & Tom Sutton, set inside a framing sequence from Cockrum. The regular story resumes in a wry tribute to Star Trek as ‘Where No X-Man Has Gone Before!’ (Claremont, Cockrum & Dan Green) finds the heroes stranded in another galaxy where they meet and are beaten by the Shi’ar Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of DC’s Legion of Super Heroes in the inimitable Cockrum manner), until bold interstellar rebel freebooters The Starjammers bombastically arrive to turn the tables whilst uncovering a mad scheme to unmake the fabric of space-time.

Lilandra’s brother Emperor D’Ken is a deranged maniac who in his quest for ultimate power wants to activate a cosmic artefact known alternatively as the M’Kraan Crystal and “the End of All that Is”. He’s also spent time on Earth in the past and played a major role in the life of one of the X-Men…

This tale (from #107) was Cockrum’s last full X-ploit for years. He would eventually return to replace the man who replaced him. John Byrne not only illustrated but also began co-plotting the X-tales and, as the team roster expanded, the series rose to even greater heights. It would culminate in the landmark Dark Phoenix storyline and first-&-best death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character and departure of the team’s heart and soul. The epic cosmic saga also seemed to fracture the epochal working relationship of Claremont and Byrne. Within months of publication they went their separate ways: Claremont staying with the mutants whilst Byrne moved on to establish his own reputation as a writer on series such as Alpha Flight, Incredible Hulk and his revolutionised Fantastic Four and reboot of Superman for DC.

Here though, X-Men and Starjammers battle the Crystal’s astoundingly deadly automated guardians, as this final chapter depicts the newly puissant Phoenix literally saving Reality in a mind-blowing display of power and skill. Trapped inside a staggering other-realm, appalled and enthralled by the intoxicating, addictive nature of her own might, Phoenix reweaves the fabric of existence and for an encore brings the heroes home again. The conclusion of this ambitious epic was drawn by Byrne and inked by Terry Austin. Their visual virtuosity was to become an industry benchmark as the X-Men grew in popularity and complexity.

However, even though the bravura high-octane thrills of ‘Armageddon Now’ seem an unrepeatable highpoint, Claremont & Byrne had only started. The best was still to come, but it precluded ending their other ongoing collaboration: a mystic martial arts thriller…

Inked by Dan Green in Iron Fist #14, ‘Snowfire’ finds masked marvel Danny Rand and his combat colleague Colleen Wing running for their lives in arctic conditions after a vacation retreat to a palatial Canadian Rockies estate is ruined by a criminal raid. Leading the plunderers is deadly mercenary Sabretooth. Despite being rendered temporarily blind, the K’un Lun Kid ultimately defeats the mutant marauder, but his fiercely feral foe would return again and again to bedevil both Danny and the X-Men. With Claremont & Byrne increasingly absorbed by their stellar collaboration on the revived and resurgent adventures of Marvel’s mutant horde, Iron Fist #15 (September 1977) was their last martial arts mash-up for a while. The series ended in spectacular fashion as, through a comedy of errors, Danny stumbles into a morass of misunderstanding and ends up battling recently returned galaxy rovers Storm Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, and Phoenix in ‘Enter, the X-Men’…

X-Men #109’s ‘Home Are the Heroes!’ (Claremont, Byrne & Austin) sees Wolverine finally developing a back-story and some depth of character whilst technological wonder Weapon Alpha attacks the recuperating team in an attempt to force the enigmatic Logan to rejoin the Canadian Secret Service. Renamed Vindicator, Alpha would later return leading Alpha Flight – a Canadian government sponsored superteam which would eventually graduate to their own eccentric high-profile series.

Eschewing chronological sequence, this is followed by an extra-length exploit from Marvel Team Up Annual #1 (1976 by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito, from a plot by Mantlo, Claremont & Bonnie Wilford). ‘The Lords of Light and Darkness!’ sees Spider-Man and X-Men Storm, Banshee, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Phoenix & Cyclops assisting Xavier in combatting a pantheon of scientists mutated by atomic accident and elevated to the ranks of gods. Like most deities, these puissant ones believe they know what is best for humanity and don’t like being disabused of the notion…

Mantlo then teamed with Byrne & Frank Giacoia to bring closure to a tale begun – and left hanging – in Marvel Premiere #31. Set minutes after the Annual, Marvel Team Up #53 (January 1977) reveals a ‘Nightmare in New Mexico!’ as Spider-Man says goodbye to the X-folk and hello to The Hulk and troubled gene-splicing experiment Woodgod after the tragic bio-construct flees from corrupt Army Colonel Del Tremens. As Tremens sought to suppress the calamitous crisis and his own indiscretions by killing everybody, the final scene sees the webspinner trapped in a rocket and blasted into space. The tale has very little to do with the X-Men, other than a rather gratuitous overlap and ends here without resolution, but still looks pretty damn good after all these years…

Cover-dated April 1978 X-Men #110 (Claremont, Tony DeZuñiga & Cockrum) detail ‘The “X”-Sanction!’: a rather limp and hasty fill-in where cyborg mercenary Warhawk infiltrates Xavier’s mansion in search of “intel” for a mysterious, unspecified master… before getting his shiny silver head handed to him.

This compendium of uncanny X-episodes wraps up with the contents of Marvel Team Up #69 & 70 (May & June 1978) as in ‘Night of the Living God!’ (Claremont, Byrne & Ricardo Villamonte) Spider-Man clashes with Ancient Egyptian-themed thieves and is drawn into the perpetual duel between cosmic-powered X-Man Havoc and his personal nemesis The Living Monolith. When the battle turns against the heroes it requires the might of Thor to stop the ravening monumental menace in conclusion ‘Whom Gods Destroy!’ (DeZuñiga inks).

Following the cover of 1975’s all-reprint Giant-Size X-Men #2, this tome terminates with a glorious and revelatory selection of extras including John Romita’s original design sketches for Wolverine; Byrne’s first X-Man work (a puzzle from Marvel fanzine F.O.O.M. #7) and design material from Cockrum’s DC Comics proposal The Outsiders (a Legion of Super-Heroes spin-off he later retooled to create Nightcrawler, Storm, Phoenix and the other New X-Men). There are also unused Cockrum pencil pages, initial sketches for the Starjammers, costume upgrades for Angel, cover art for X-themed The Comic Reader #145, and model sheets for Nightcrawler, Storm, Phoenix and Colossus.

Further treasures include Gil Kane’s cover sketch and original art for Giant-Size X-Men #1; original Cockrum pages from GSXM #1 and F.O.O.M. #10 (an all-X issue); articles from the fanzine – Mutation of the Species, X-Men! X-Men!. Read All About ‘Em! – a pin-up by Don Maitz, X-Men X-posé and spoof strip ‘EggsMen’; unused pages by Bob Brown and previous collection covers by Kane and Cockrum, given painted makeovers by Dean White.

Entertaining, groundbreaking and incredibly intoxicating, these adventures are an invaluable and crucial grounding in contemporary fights ‘n’ tights fiction no fan or casual reader can be allowed to ignore.
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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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.