Category: Spider-Man

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Marvel Team-Up Marvel Masterworks volume 7


By Chris Claremont, Bill Kunkel, Bill Mantlo, Gary Friedrich, Ralph Macchio, John Byrne, Dave Wenzel, Jim Mooney, Kerry Gammill, Bob Hall, Marie Severin, Howard Chaykin, Jeff Aclin, Dave Hunt, Bob Wiacek, Ricardo Villamonte, Tony DeZuñiga, Dan Green & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3324-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These tales are generally superb examples of Marvel’s Second Wave, Bronze Age yarns fans will find little to complain about. Although not perhaps a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers – or Marvel Cinematic supporters – will have a blast, so why not consider this tome for your “Must-Have” library?
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents volume 3 1963-1964: It Started on Yancy Street


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with George Roussos, Chic Stone, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4907-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I’m partial to a bit of controversy so I’m going start off by saying that Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Showcase #4 – reintroducing The Flash in 1956 – and 1960’s The Brave and the Bold #28, which brought superhero teams back via the creation of The Justice League of America. Feel free to disagree…

After a troubled period at DC Comics (National Periodicals as it then was) and a creatively productive but disheartening time on the poisoned chalice of the Sky Masters newspaper strip, Jack Kirby settled into his job at the small outfit that used to be publishing powerhouse Timely/Atlas. There he generated mystery, monster, romance, war and western material for a market he suspected to be ultimately doomed. However, as always, he did the best job possible and that genre fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen.

Nevertheless Kirby’s explosive imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the JLA caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change the industry forever. According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to publisher Martin Goodman ordering nephew Stan to do a series about a group of super-characters like the JLA. The resulting team quickly took the fans by storm. It wasn’t the powers: they’d all been seen since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the costumes: they didn’t have any until the third issue.

It was Kirby’s compelling art and the fact that these characters weren’t anodyne cardboard cut-outs. In a real and recognizable location – New York City – imperfect, raw-nerved, touchy people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In so many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby’s prototype partners in peril for National/DC) laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, hidebound editorial strictures there would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

Another milestone in the kid-friendly paperback/eBooks line of Mighty Marvel Masterworks, this full-colour pocket-sized compendium collects Fantastic Four #21-29 (spanning cover-dates December 1961 to August 1964) and shows how Stan & Jack cannily built on that early energy to consolidate the FF as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

As ever the team are maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their closest friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all. Richards’ body became elastic, Susan gained the power to turn invisible and her sibling could turn into living flame. Poor tragic Ben was reduced to a shambling, rocky super-strong freak of nature… Soon the FF was recognised as being like no other comic on the market and buyers responded to it avidly if not fanatically…

In late 1963, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was another solid newsstand hit for the young “House of Ideas.” Eventually its brusque and brutish star metamorphosed into Marvel’s answer to James Bond. Here, however, he’s a cunning world-weary CIA agent seeking the FF’s aid against a sinister, immigrant-hating racist supremacist demagogue called ‘The Hate-Monger’: a cracking yarn with a strong message, inked by comics veteran George Roussos, under the protective nom-de-plume George Bell.

By this juncture the FF were firmly established and Lee & Kirby well on the way to toppling DC/National Comics from a decades-held top spot through an engaging blend of brash, folksy and consciously contemporaneous sagas: mixing high concept, low comedy, trenchant melodrama and breathtaking action.

Unseen since the premiere issue, #22 heralded ‘The Return of the Mole Man!’ in another full-on monster-mashing fight-fest, chiefly notable for debuting Sue Storm’s new increased power-set. Her ability to project force fields of “invisible energy” also involved a power to reveal hidden things and make others invisible too: advances that would eventually make her one of the mightiest characters in Marvel’s pantheon – and not before time either…

FF #23 enacted ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’ by introducing his mediocre mercenary minions “the Terrible Trio” – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor – and the uncanny menace of “the Solar Wave” (which was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck. Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five, but only my neck had properly developed hackles back then?)…

‘The Infant Terrible!’ in #24’s is a classic case of sci fi paranoia and misunderstanding and a sterling yarn of inadvertent extragalactic menace and misplaced innocence, with a reality-warping space baby endangering Earth, and is followed by a 2-part tale truly emphasising the inherent difference between Lee & Kirby’s work and everybody else’s at that time.

Fantastic Four #25-26 offered a cataclysmic clash that had young heads spinning in 1964 and led directly to the Emerald Behemoth finally regaining a strip of his own. In ‘The Hulk vs The Thing’ and conclusion ‘The Avengers Take Over!’ a relentless, lightning-paced, all-out Battle Royale results when the disgruntled emerald man-monster returns to New York in search of side-kick Rick Jones, with only an injury-wracked FF in the way of his destructive rampage.

A definitive moment in The Thing’s character development, action ramps up to the max when a rather stiff-necked and officious Avengers team (Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, The Wasp and recently-defrosted Captain America) horn in, claiming jurisdictional rights on “Bob” Banner and his Jaded alter ego. The tale is plagued with pesky continuity errors which would haunt Lee for decades, but – bloopers notwithstanding – is one of Marvel’s key moments and still a visceral, vital read today.

Stan & Jack had hit on a winning formula by including other stars in guest-shots – especially since readers could never anticipate if they would fight with or beside the home team. FF #27’s ‘The Search for Sub-Mariner!’ again saw the undersea antihero in amorous mood, and when he abducts Sue again, the boys call in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts to locate them. Issue #28 delivered another terrific promotional infomercial team-up, but remains most notable (for me and many other fans) because of the man who replaced George Roussos as inker…

‘We Have to Fight the X-Men!’ sees the disparate super-squads in conflict due to the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master’s malign machinations, but the inclusion of Chic Stone – Kirby’s most simpatico and expressive inker – elevates the illustration to indescribable levels of beauty as the sinister savants briefly mind-control professor Charles Xavier and order him to set his students on the extremely surprised first family…

Closing this foray into the fantastic comes ‘It Started on Yancy Street!’ (FF #29) opening low-key and a little bit silly in the slum where Ben grew up, before the reappearance of the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes sees everything go wild and cosmic. The result is another meeting with the almighty Watcher, a blockbusting battle on the Moon, and the promise of bigger and even better to come…

To Be Continued…

Bolstered by all Kirby’s covers, this is a truly magnificent treat sharing pioneering tales that built a comics empire. The verve, imagination and sheer enthusiasm shines through and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is your best and most economical key to another world and time.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Dazzler Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Chris Claremont & John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Tom DeFalco, Danny Fingeroth, John Romita Jr, Frank Springer, Keith Pollard, Alan Kupperberg, Terry Austin, Mike Esposito, Alfredo Alcala, Danny Bulanadi, Armando Gil, Ricardo Villamonte, Frank McLaughlin, Vince Colletta & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2212-2 HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are quite a few comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. Here’s one you should have no trouble finding physically or in digital formats…

Until relatively recently US comics and especially Marvel had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. Although a woman starred in the very first comic of the Marvel Age, The Invisible Girl took decades to become a potent and independent character in her own right – or even just be called “woman”. The company’s very first starring heroine was leather-clad, whip-wielding crimebuster Black Fury: imported from a newspaper strip created by Tarpe Mills in April 1941.

The seductive sentinel was resized and repackaged as a reprint for Timely’s funnybooks and renamed Miss Fury, enjoying a 4-year (1942-1946) run – although her tabloid incarnation carried on until 1952. Fury was actually predated by Silver Scorpion, who debuted in Daring Mystery Comics #7 (April 1941), but the homegrown hero was rapidly relegated to a minor position in the book’s line-up and she had a very short shelf-life.

Miss America premiered in anthological Marvel Mystery Comics (#49, November 1943), created by Otto Binder & artist Al Gabriele. After a few appearances, she won her own title in early 1944. Miss America Comics lasted, but the costumed crusader did not as – with the second issue (November1944) – the format changed, becoming an amalgam of teen comedy, fashion feature and domestic tips magazine. Feisty take-charge superheroics were steadily squeezed out and the title is most renowned now for introducing virginal evergreen teen ideal Patsy Walker. Other woman warriors appeared immediately after the War, the majority as spin-offs/sidekicks of established male stars such as distaff Sub-Mariner Namora (debuting in Marvel Mystery Comics #82, May 1947 before graduating to her own 3-issue series in 1948).

She was soon joined by the Human Torch’s secretary Mary Mitchell who, as Sun Girl, helmed her own 3-issue 1948 series before becoming a wandering sidekick and guest star in Sub-Mariner and Captain America Comics. Draped in a ballgown and wearing high heels, masked detective Blonde Phantom was created by Stan Lee & Syd Shores for All Select Comics #11 (Fall 1946) whilst cover-dated August 1948, kind-of, sort-of goddess Venus debuted in her own title, becoming the gender’s biggest Timely-Atlas-Marvel success… until the advent of the “Jungle Girl” fad in the mid-1950s.

Her triumph came mostly by dint of the superb stories and art by the great Bill Everett and by ruthlessly changing genres from crime to romance to horror as any popular trend inched forward in other media…

Don Rico & Jay Scott Pike’s Jann of the Jungle was just part of an anthology line-up in Jungle Tales #1 (September 1954), yet she took over the title with the 8th issue (November 1955). Jann of the Jungle ran until June 1957 (#17), spawning a host of in-company imitators like Leopard Girl, Lorna the Jungle Queen and so on…

During the costumed hero boom of the 1960s, Marvel experimented with a title shot for Inhuman émigré Madame Medusa in Marvel Super-Heroes (#15, July 1968) and a solo series for the Black Widow in Amazing Adventures #1-8 (August 1970 to September 1971). Both were sexy, reformed villainesses, not wholesome girl-next-door heroes – and neither lasted solo long on their own. With a costumed crazies craze subsiding as the 1970s, began, Stan Lee & Roy Thomas looked into creating a girl-friendly boutique of “heroines” written by and for women. Opening shots in this mini-liberation war were Linda Fite, Marie Severin & Wally Wood’s Claws of the Cat and Night Nurse by Jean Thomas & Win Mortimer (both #1’s cover-dated November 1972). Modern day jungle queen Shanna the She-Devil #1 – by Carole Seuling & George Tuska – came out in December 1972, but despite impressive creative teams none of these fascinating experiments lasted beyond a fifth issue.

Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, caught every one’s attention in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973) and eventually won her own series, whilst in Giant-Size Creatures #1 (July 1974), The Cat mutated into Tigra, the Were-Woman. However, the general editorial position was still “books starring chicks don’t sell”…

The company kept on plugging though, and eventually found the right mix at the right time when Ms. Marvel launched in her own title (cover-dated January 1977). She was followed by equally copyright-protecting Spider-Woman (Marvel Spotlight #32: February 1977), who secured her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1 February 1980). The last was supplemented by the music-biz inspired Dazzler who sagely premiered in top-selling title Uncanny X-Men #130 the same month, before inevitably graduating to her own book.

Thus, please find gathered here that mutant-motivated launch tale from #130-131, a crafty crossover from Amazing Spider-Man #203 and then #1-13 of Dazzler, all cumulatively covering cover-dates February 1980 to March 1982. Before it all kicks off there’s even an informative Introduction ‘Dazzler and Me’ by sometime scribe Danny Fingeroth…

Previously and elsewhere: Having saved Edinburgh and perhaps the world from reality-warping Proteus, The X-Men return to Charles Xavier at their Westchester home where – thanks to sinister psionic predator Jason Wyngarde, Jean Grey/Phoenix is increasingly experiencing visions of a former life as a spoiled, cruel slave-owning child of privilege, contrasting sharply with her renewed love for Scott Summers/Cyclops, but the home atmosphere is troubled by another discordant factor. Xavier is insensitively intent on training the team, haughtily oblivious that this group are grizzled, seasoned veterans of combat, rather than the callow teenagers he first tutored.

Elsewhere, a cabal of mutants and millionaires plot murder and conquest. Black King Sebastian Shaw, White Queen Emma Frost and the rest of The Hellfire Club hierarchy know Wyngarde is an ambitious, presumptuous upstart, but the possibility of subverting the almighty Phoenix to their world-dominating agenda is irresistible…

Beginning here, the action opens as two new mutants manifest, and Xavier must split the team to initiate a “first contact” with both. He goes with Storm, Wolverine and Colossus to Chicago and meets the nervous parents of naive 13-year-old Kitty Pryde. She has just realised that, along with all the other problems of puberty, she now uncontrollably falls through floors and walks through walls…

However, no sooner does the Professor offer to admit enrol her in his select and prestigious private school than they are all attacked by war-suited mercenaries and shipped by Emma Frost to the Hellfire Club. Only Kitty escapes, but instead of running, she stows away on the transport; terrified but intent on saving the day…

The other Homo Superior neophyte to debut sees Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler head into Manhattan’s club district, tracking a disco singer dubbed ‘Dazzler’. They are unaware that they too have been targeted for capture. However, Kitty’s attempts to free the Hellfire base captives forces the villains to tip their hand early and with the assistance of “disco diva” Dazzler – AKA Alison Blaire and a wannabee musician who converts sound to devastating light effects – the second mercenary capture team is defeated…

The drama concludes in #131 as Kitty is forced to frantically ‘Run for Your Life!’ – happily, straight into the arms of the remaining X-Men. Soon the plucky lass, after an understandable period of terror, confusion and kvetching, leads a strike on the lair of the White Queen: freeing Wolverine, Colossus and Xavier as Frost faces off in a deadly psionic showdown with a Phoenix far less kind and caring than ever before…

Suitably introduced into the Marvel milieu, Dazzler promptly encored in Amazing Spider-Man #203 (April 1980) ‘Bewitched. Bothered and Be-Dazzled!’ wherein Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard & Mike Esposito (and inking friends) jammed a short tale of opportunism as old arachnid adversary Lightmaster tapped into Blaire’s inherent abilities to liberate himself from an all-enveloping “light dimension”. Having returned to Earth the malign menace kept Dazzler as living battery to amp up his powers until Spider-Man stepped in and put him down…

Dazzler the character had been born of another of those 1980-1990s doomed-from-the-start cross-media deals wherein comics companies attempted to break out of their “ghetto” into the real money world. In 1979 Disco specialists Casablanca Records began an development project with Marvel to create a TV based character who would release records like the Archies or The Monkees, but set in an animated Marvel Universe. A giant-sized comics special was set into motion but when the deal was cancelled, the company was left with a lot of talented people going “now what?” since Dazzler had already been launched and guested in the company’s top titles (her shot in Fantastic Four #217 the same month as the Spider-Man tale and nipped-in-the-bud flirtation with Johnny Storm is not included here). Failing to find other record companies willing to commit, big boss Jim Shooter decreed that the comics special would be expanded/recycled as #1 & 2 of her own title…

After the singer went dark until for a year she debuted again in ‘So Bright This Star’ (cover-march 1981) and credited conceptually to Alice Donenfeld, John Romita Jr., Shooter, Stan Lee, Al Milgrom, Roger Stern and Tom DeFalco with DeFalco, Romita Jr., Alfredo Alcala, and Walt Simonson actually delivering the pages of an epic premier.

Unknown to everyone but heroes and villains, Blaire is a sound-transducing mutant able to convert noise of any kind (rhythmic is best!) into light that she can manipulate and direct. She’s also a performer still trying to make it big in music. A promising law student, she dropped college studies and forever disappointed her austere father – Judge Carter Blair – to pursue a frivolous, worthless life on stage. At least Grandma Bella still supports her, confident that one day Dazzler will be a star…

Now down to the dregs of her savings and still stumbling into crimes and emergencies at every turn, Alison checks in regularly with her superhero pals but cannot drop the hope that fame, not fighting is her destiny. That seems less likely than ever as, in Asgard, evil sorceress Amora the Enchantress awaits a shift in the cosmic axis.

For the person standing in one location on Midgard at the correct moment, awesome unspeakable energies are ready for the taking. Sadly, that’s the stage of the Numero Uno club. When the advertised star performer falls ill with a mystery ailment. Amara successfully auditions for the spot but only until Dazzler gets a last-minute call to try-out. With the goddess out and the secret mutant in, Enchantress is most displeased and makes plans to take that stage no matter what…

Alison only got the gig thanks to hedonist pal/fan Hank The Beast McCoy, and he brings all the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four and other super-doers to her big night in #2. Before long Enchantress strikes, using magic and an army of mythical beasts and monsters to disrupts Alison’s act and secure the coveted axis spot until an army of superheroes come to Dazzler’s aid in all-out battle bonanza ‘Where Demons Fear to Dwell!’ with the roller-skating woman warrior (no really!) personally dealing with the sorceress New York street-style…

After a promising start, however, the series quickly reverted to hoary company traditions regarding books read by girls. These again tapped into and blended older male-assumed tropes of females seeking independence and careers whilst also seeking love and a settled home life.

And lots of shots of women in underwear, dressing and undressing or getting into and out of baths and showers.

However, gradually the faithful standbys faded and Dazzler began facing and dealing with ever-tougher challenges. It would some while before later scribes like Archie Goodwin added some modern innovations and true confirmation that girls just didn’t want the same kind of stories as pubescent males – at that time still much of Marvel’s fan base and possibly a fair proportion of the writing staff and illustrators…

Alison’s life changes as she lucks into an (W.C. Fields-channelling) agent/promoter – Harry S. Osgood – who begins shaping her music career immediately after a full-page Bonus Pinup, as DeFalco, Romita Jr., Alan Kupperberg, Danny Bulanadi & Armondo Gil detail how a show for UNICEF leaves Alison at the UN just as Doctor Doom tries to reclaim part of his magical arsenal in ‘The Jewels of Doom!’ Despite her most valiant efforts, Dazzler is defeated and dragged to the Iron Despot’s lair, intended as a weapon in his battles with dream demon Nightmare. Despite battling her own darkest nature in ‘Here Nightmares Abide!’ (DeFalco, Frank Springer, Bulanadi & Gil), Blair blasts her way back to Earth and destroys the purloined jewels; earning a brutal punishment from Doom…

Ricardo Villamonte inks a change of pace yarn in #5 as ‘Tell Joey I love Him!’ sees Alison recuperate in hospital and overhear an old lady’s pleas. Mrs Anita Cartelli is married to the mob and worries about her son growing up in the life, and do-gooder Dazzler promises to look into it. It’s a bold but bad move, as Joey is also streel level vigilante the Blue Sheild, violently dismantling the Bo Barrigan gang from the inside… although he does need some laser assistance once the mobster unleashes his killer robots…

The ups-&-downs of building her career are constantly exacerbated by obnoxious Lancelot Steele; a sexist macho jerk/stage manager/field rep for Harry on road gigs, and Alison’s growing fondness for her doctor Paul Janson is giving her pause , but all that is put in proper perspective when DeFalco, Fingeroth, Springer, Quickdraw Studios & Gil advise ‘The Hulk May Be Hazardous to Your Health!’ after a last-minute cancellation drops Allie and her band at Gordon University just as desperate Bruce Banner seeks to burgle their science labs for a possible cure for his “condition”…

Sadly although Banner and Blaire hit it off, when his alter ego inevitably arrives student riots and National Guard assaults literally bring the house down in ‘Fort Apache, the Hulk!’

Fabled Good Girl artist/romance comics inker Vince Colletta joins Fingeroth, DeFalco & Springer, as intrigue overtakes action in ‘Hell… Hell is for Harry!’ The music magnate is being ruthlessly targeted and tormented for undescribed past transgressions and sinister mastermind Techmaster has begun including Alison in his sly assaults, but she has more than enough problems of her own. The situation with Paul is worsening and she feels constantly diminished and belittled. Worst of all, somebody is following her everywhere…

When the Enforcers (Ox, Montanna & Fancy Dan) wreck Harry’s office, it compels Osgood to reveal his shared pas with Techmaster, but even Dazzler is not ready when they come back for her, employing the tactics that once defeated Spider-Man. She is far better prepared for the rematch…

Her own enigmatic stalker strikes next. Mr. Meeker works for Federal energy thinktank Project Pegasus but greatly oversteps his remit, using shady contracts to rendition Blaire and ultimately hold her at the upstate facility. Despite the strident protests of in-house superhero Wendell Quasar Vaughn Dazzler is held and cruelly experimented upon like any other energy-based villain and monster, until pushed too far she tries to escape and triggers a mass breakout in #9’s ‘The Sound and the Fury!’

Some Pegasus internees deserve to be there, and when living sound monster Klaw goes on a murderous rampage, almost killing Quasar, Dazzler reluctantly absorbs him. However, the monumental energy increase brings her to the attention of planet devouring Galactus and ‘In the Darkness… A Light’ reveals why the space god needs the over-juiced mutant to extract his fugitive herald Terrax from a black hole. Sadly, the victim doesn’t want to be saved and ‘…Lest Ye Be Judged!’ displays just how annoyed she can get when pushed too far…

Returned to Earth and her normal power levels, Alison has a hard time explaining why she’s been off the grid for so long – even her draconian dad was starting to worry – before ‘Endless Hate!’ drops her right into the most unconventional conclusion of the Techmaster saga.

Closing this initial collection with gentle probing of Alison’s past and discussion of her long missing mother. Dazzler #13 had Fingeroth, Springer & Colletta depict ‘Trial …and Terror!’ as still furious Mr. Meeker abuses the federal power of Pegasus to regain control of Blaire by charging her with Klaw’s murder. Remanded to Riker’s Island and dumped amidst he savage superhumans in the women’s wing, Alison overcomes the mighty Titania and the Grapplers (Screaming Mimi, Letha & Poundcakes) before getting her day in court and proving that she was paying attention in law school…

To Be Continued..

The rather meagre bonus offerings here include the house ad from all May 1981 Marvel titles plus the original art for #1 page 1 by Romita Jr. & Alcala, prior to much modification and editorial adjustment, and a simply huge Biographies section on the many folk involved in getting Dazzler into the spotlight.

Although very much of its troubled times, this collection also sees the beginnings of the transformative shift in attitudes that resulted in women becoming less ornamental, no longer decorative and always the authors of their own fates. Even if not to everyone’s taste there is enough of significance here to make the Dazzler worthy of any modern readers attention.
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Spider-Man volume 5: To Become an Avenger


By Stan Lee & John Romita, with Don Heck, Mike Esposito, Art Simek, Sam Rosen & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5434-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before but here we’re enjoying another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

As well as finally introducing the romantic option who would drive much of hero’s later life, this compelling compilation categorically confirms the superstar status of the wallcrawler. Originally seen in The Amazing Spider-Man #39-46 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, spanning cover-dates August 1966 to December 1968, these stories herald the start of a brand new era for the Astonishing Arachnid, with Peter and an ever-expanding cast of cohorts well on their way to being household names… as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

Outcast, geeky high school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after attempting to cash in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s arrogant neglect, his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered and the traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need. For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…

Although co-authors of the wonderment, by 1966 Stan Lee & Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. In the coincidental meantime John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Before long, Romita was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

After a period where traditional – albeit fantasy-tinged – crime and gangsterism predominated, science fiction themes and costumed crazies increasingly began to predominate. As the world went gaga for superheroes, the creators experimented with longer storylines and protracted subplots. When Ditko abruptly left, the company feared a drastic loss in quality – and sales – but it didn’t happen. For the first time since the Marvel miracle began, Lee was largely left to his own narrative devices on a major feature, without the experimental visual inspiration or plotting acumen of twin comics geniuses Kirby and Ditko. What occurred heralded a new kind of superhero storytelling…

John Romita (senior) considered himself a mere “safe pair of hands” keeping the momentum going until a better artist could be found, but instead blossomed into a major talent in his own right as the wallcrawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace. With the scene set the new era dawns when Amazing Spider-Man #39 appeared, first of a 2-part adventure declaiming the ultimate victory of the hero’s greatest foe.

Ditko was gone and no reader knew what had happened – and no one told them. ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and concluding episode ‘Spidey Saves the Day! Featuring: the End of the Green Goblin!’ calamitously changed everything: describing how the archfoes learn each other’s true identities before the Goblin “perishes” in a climactic flame-fuelled showdown. It would have been memorable even if the saga didn’t feature the debut of a new artist and a whole new manner of storytelling. These issues were a turning point in many ways, and – inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito (under the pseudonym Mickey DeMeo) – they still stand as one of the greatest Spider-Man yarns of all time.

They were also precursors to a run of classic tales from the Lee/Romita team that saw sales rise and rise. In ASM #41 and on ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’, Romita began inking his pencils. The debuting super-strong criminal spy proved a mere diversion, but his intended target J. Jonah Jameson’s astronaut son was a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 heralded ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, with John Jameson mutated by space-spores and going on a Manhattan rampage: a solid, entertaining yarn that is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag in the series for years: a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May whom Peter had avoided – and Ditko teasingly not depicted – for the duration of time our hero had been romantically involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly, Gwen Stacy. Now, in that last frame the gobsmacked young man finally realises that for two years he’s been ducking the hottest date in New York!

Enthralling encore ‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ gave the leathery villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship, as seen in Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3 and ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ Here the World’s Mightiest Heroes offer the webspinner membership… but only if he can capture The Hulk. As usual, all is not as it seems, but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (layouts), pencilled by Don Heck and inked by Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy, power-punching package that made the summer specials a child’s delight.

The monthly Marvel merriment marched on with the return of a tragedy-drenched former foe when Lee & Romita reintroduced biologist Curt Conners in ASM #44’s ‘Where Crawls the Lizard!’ The deadly B-movie inspired reptilian marauder again threatens Humanity itself and requires all of the wallcrawler’s resourcefulness and resolve to stop the savage saurian in all-action conclusion ‘Spidey Smashes Out!’

Closing this outing, ASM #46 introduced an all-new, second tier menace in the blue collar form of ambitious, seismic super-thief ‘The Sinister Shocker!’ who just wants to rob some banks and crack a few safes, but comes closer than many macabre masterminds in ending the antics of the wary webspinner. Moreover, as sinister stalker Patch (no relation to the later Wolverine alter ego) trails Peter Parker in the opening moves of a major subplot beginning to unfold, the baffled college boy can only watch in bewilderment as his attention is pulled between classmate Gwen Watson and bizarrely attentive and attention-drawing Mary Jane.

It’s only the start of years of complex romantic interactions To Be Continued in succeeding collections…

Augmented by a brief gallery of Romita original art pages – including unused ones – this transitional tome is the just the beginning of an era when Spider-Man became a permanent and unmissable part of countless teenagers’ lives: doing so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow. Blending cultural authenticity with glorious narrative art, and making a dramatic virtue of awkwardness, confusion and a sense of powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera slices, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining.

This book is Marvel and Spider-Man at their peak. Come and see why.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents the Black Panther volume 2: Look Homeward


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Larry Lieber, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, George Tuska, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Tom Palmer, Syd Shores, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Dave Cockrum & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4905-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been published many times before but here we’re boosting another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

This tome gathers in whole or in part more early Black Panther adventures prior to his winning his own solo series. Included are The Avengers #77-79, 87, 112, 126, Daredevil #69, Astonishing Tales #6-7, Fantastic Four #119 and Marvel Team-Up #20, spanning June 1970-August 1974 and almost all showing The Great Cat as a collaborator. peripatetic guest star and team player…

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in the summer of 1966. As created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and inker Joe Sinnott, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose secretive, hidden kingdom is the only source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien metal – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of Wakanda’s immense wealth, making it one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. These riches allowed the young king to radically remake his country, creating a technological wonderland even after he left Africa to fight as one of America’s mighty Avengers, beginning with #52 (cover-dated May 1968). At that time, the team had been reduced to Hawkeye, The Wasp and a recently re-powered Goliath. This changed when they welcomed new recruit Black Panther on the recommendation of Captain America…

This impactful assemblage of tales opens as the tone of the times shifted and comics titles entered a period of human-scaled storytelling dubbed “Relevancy”. Here Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Tom Palmer pit the heroes against a far more mundane and insidious menace – billionaire financier Cornelius Van Lunt who manoeuvres Tony Stark to bankruptcy to gain the team’s services. The Avengers (currently Cap, Goliath, The Vision, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) were compelled to become the mystery magnate’s ‘Heroes for Hire!’ to save their sponsor…

Sal Buscema then popped in to pencil ‘The Man-Ape Always Strikes Twice!’ as the embattled champions are targeted by a coterie of vengeful villains competing to join a new league of evil, spectacularly culminating in a grand clash with the aforementioned anthropoid, The Swordsman, Power Man, Living Laser and The Grim Reaper in ‘Lo! The Lethal Legion!’, which heralded the artistic return of big brother John and the apparent destruction of the malevolent miscreants.

It was the dawning era of crossover tales and gently simmering subplots in all-Thomas scripted titles, and the experimentation led T’Challa to Daredevil #69 (October 1970) where the author, Gene Colan & Syd Shores paired the heroes in a tale of kid gangs and the rise of the “Black Power” movement. The African king had been seeking to understand America by working undercover as high school teacher Luke Charles, where his need to save a good student from bad influences leads to tragedy, disaster and ‘A Life on the Line’…

Jumping to Avengers #87 (April 1971) T’Challa’s conflicted duties prompt the Black Panther to reviews his bombastic origin before opting to take leave of his comrades and reassume the throne of his hidden kingdom in ‘Look Homeward, Avenger’ (Giacoia & Sal B), segueing into Astonishing Tales #6 (June 1971, by Larry Lieber, George Tuska & Mike Esposito) as the Lord of Latveria invades Wakanda. ‘The Tentacles of the Tyrant!’ depicts Doctor Doom resolved to seize its Vibranium, only to be outwitted and fall to the furious tenacity of its king and prime defender in ‘…And If I Be Called Traitor!’ (by Gerry Conway, Colan & Giacoia).

Roy Thomas and his artistic collaborators were always at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of creators: brilliantly building on and consolidating Lee, Kirby and Ditko’s initial burst of comics creativity whilst spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder-machine of places and events that so many others could add to. He was also acutely aware of the youthful perspective of older readers which might explain a bizarre face-saving shuffle seen in Fantastic Four #119 (February 1972) as the African avenger cautiously adopts the designation “Black Leopard” – presumably for contemporary political reasons… In Illustrated by John B & Joe Sinnott, ‘Three Stood Together!’ offers Thomas’ damning, if shaded, indictment of South Africa’s apartheid regime as Wakanda’s king is interned in white-ruled state Rudyarda, leading to The Thing and Human Torch busting him out whilst clashing with mutual old enemy Klaw, who is attempting to steal a deadly new superweapon…

Escalating cosmic themes and colossal clashes recall the King to America in Avengers #112 (June 1973 by Steve Englehart, Don Heck & Frank Bolle) wherein a rival African deity manifests to destroy the Panther God’s human avatar in ‘The Lion God Lives!’ and T’Challa and his valiant comrades must tackle a threat that is not what it appears to be. It’s followed by the concluding chapter of a battle between Stegron the Dinosaur Man and the unlikely alliance of Spider-Man and Ka-Zar. When the clash expands from the Savage Land to Manhattan in Marvel Team-Up #20 (April 1974), the scaly rapscallion’s plans to flatten New York by releasing ‘Dinosaurs on Broadway!’ (Len Wein, Sal B, Giacoia & Esposito) is only foiled by the Black Panther’s help.

However it’s T’Challa’s deductive abilities that save the day and a group of hostages in Avengers #126 when ‘All the Sights and Sounds of Death!’ (Englehart, Bob Brown & Cockrum) finds villains Klaw and Solarr invading Avengers Mansion in a devious attempt to achieve vengeance for past indignities. The manner in which King T’Challa solves the case convinces The Black Panther that is once more time to take up the reins of rule in Wakanda…

But that’s a tale for the next volume..

With covers by John & Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Don Heck, Gil Kane, John Romita and Ron Wilson, this tidy tome is a wonderful, star-studded precursor to the Black Panther’s solo exploits and a perfect accessory for film-fans looking for more context. It also offers art lovers a chance to enjoy the covers to reprint title Marvel’s Greatest Comics #39 & 40, by Jim Starlin & Sinnott and Sal Buscema respectively, as seen in November 1972 and January 1973 as well as unused Kirby/Sinnott cover art, and Jack’s origins designs for precursor the Coal Tiger.

These terrific tales are ideal examples of superheroes done exactly right and also act as pivotal points as the underdog company evolved into a corporate entertainment colossus. There are also some of the best superhero stories you’ll ever read…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection volumes 10: Big Apple Battleground (1977-1978)


By Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Archie Goodwin, Scott Edelman, Ross Andru, Don Perlin, John Romita Jr., Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, Tony DeZuñiga, Al Milgrom, Bob McLeod, Gil Kane, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5526-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The Amazing Spider-Man was a comic book that matured with – or perhaps just slightly ahead of – its fan-base. This epic compendium of chronological webspinning wonderment sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero facing even greater and ever-more complex challenges as he slowly recovers from the trauma of losing his true love and greatest enemy in the same horrific debacle. Here you will see all that slow recovery comes unstuck

Once original co-creator Stan Lee replaced himself with young Gerry Conway, scripts acquired a more contemporary tone (which naturally often feels quite outdated from here in the 21st century): purportedly more in tune with the times whilst the emphatic use of soap opera subplots kept older readers glued to the series even when bombastic battle sequences didn’t. Moreover, as a sign of the times, a hint of cynical surrealism also began creeping in…

For newcomers – or those just visiting thanks to Spider-Man movies: super-smart-yet-ultra-alienated orphan Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school outing. Discovering strange superhuman abilities which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius, the kid did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money. Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally vainglorious one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night he didn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returned home that his guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed and vengeful, Peter hunted the assailant who’d made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. He discovered to his horror that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others.

Since that night, the wondrous wallcrawler tirelessly battled malefactors, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them. The high school nerd grew up and went to college. Because of his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggles there too but found abiding love with cop’s daughter Gwen Stacy… until she was murdered by Green Goblin Norman Osborn. Now Parker must pick up the pieces of his life and perhaps even find new love…

This compelling compilation reprints Amazing Spider-Man #165-185, Annual #11, snippets of #12 and a crossover from Nova #12: collectively spanning cover-dates February 1977 – October 1978, and confirming an era of astounding introspective drama and captivating creativity wedded to growing science fictional thinking. Stan Lee’s hand-picked successor Gerry Conway had moved on after reaching his creative plateau, giving way (via Archie Goodwin) to fresh authorial steersman Len Wein. Even so, scripts continued to blend contemporary issues – which of course feel quite outdated from here in the 21st century – with soap opera subplots to keep older readers glued to the series as the outrageous adventure and bombastic battle sequences beguiled the youngsters. Thematically, tales moved away from sordid street crime as outlandish villains and monsters took centre stage, but the most sensational advance was an insidious scheme which would reshape the nature of the web-spinner’s adventures to this day.

For all that, the wallcrawler was still indisputably mainstream comics’ voice of youth, defining being a teen for young readers of the 1970s, tackling incredible hardships, fantastic foes and the most pedestrian and debilitating of frustrations. In ASM #165 by Wein, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, ‘Stegron Stalks the City!’ – attempting to revivify fossilised saurian skeletons in the city’s museums. To expedite his plans, the Dinosaur Man blackmails his old boss Dr Curt Connors, but in #166 accidentally unleashes the biologist’s savage alter ego The Lizard, prompting a ‘War of the Reptile-Men!’ Ghastly gadfly J Jonah Jameson then tries again to destroy his personal Bête Noir by hiring unsurprisingly glamourous technologist Dr. Marla Manning to construct an upgraded mechanoid hunter, leaving our hero ‘…Stalked by the Spider-Slayer!’. The arachnid avenger barely notices however, as a new menace distracts him. Eerie ephemeral bandit Will o’ the Wisp is clearly stealing for a monstrous master with a hidden agenda and no mercy, and inevitably hero, Spider-Slayer and deadly twinkly pawn clash in the middle of Manhattan where tragedy is presaged by ‘Murder on the Wind!’

Suspense replaces action in ‘Confrontation’, as obsessive bully Jameson accosts Peter Parker with photographic proof confirming the lad is the hated wallcrawler. The evidence was supplied by a mystery villain but even as our hero seemingly talks his way out of trouble, a new enemy emerges as evil psychologist Doctor Faustus targets Spider-Man with drugs and illusions to prove ‘Madness is All in the Mind!’ (co-inked by Frank Giacoia) before we slip into that aforementioned crossover..

The Man Called Nova was in fact a boy named Richard Rider. The new kid was a working-class teen nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker – except he was good at sports and bad at learning – who attended Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Rider’s life changed forever when a colossal star-ship with a dying alien aboard bequeathed to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeper and warrior. Centurion Rhomann Dey had been tracking a deadly marauder to Earth. Zorr had already destroyed the warrior’s idyllic homeworld Xandar, but the severely wounded, vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide.

Trusting to fate, Dey beamed his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rich is struck by an energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening, the boy realises he has gained awesome powers – and all the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion…

Here, Nova #12 (August 1977, by Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Giacoia) asks ‘Who is the Man Called Photon?’ by teaming the neophyte hero with the far more experienced webslinger in a fair-play murder mystery, brimming with unsavoury characters and likely killers after Rich’s uncle Dr. Ralph Rider is killed by a costumed thief. However, there are ploys within ploys occurring and, after the mandatory hero head-butting session, the kids join forces and the mystery is dramatically resolved in Amazing Spider-Man #171’s ‘Photon is Another Name For…?’ courtesy of Wein, Andru & Esposito. Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11 follows as ‘Spawn of the Spider’ (by Archie Goodwin, Bill Mantlo, Don Perlin & Jim Mooney) pits the webslinger against a disgruntled, deranged movie special effects man who creates a trio of bio-augmented arachnoid monsters to destroy the wallcrawler…

Brief back up ‘Chaos at the Coffee Bean!’ – by Scott Edelman and inker Al Milgrom – details how Peter and Mary Jane Watson are caught in a hostage situation at their college bistro: most noteworthy as the pencilling debut of future superstar creator John Romita Jr.

ASM #172 features ‘The Fiends from the Fire!’ (Wein, Andru & Giacoia) as Spidey trashes idiotic skateboarding super-thief Rocket Racer only to stumble into true opposition when old foe Molten Man attacks, desperately seeking a way to stop himself becoming a blazing post-human funeral pyre. Mooney inked concluding chapter ‘If You Can’t Stand the Heat…!’ as a cure for the blazing villain proves ultimately ineffectual and personally tragic for Parker’s oldest friends, after which #174 declares ‘The Hitman’s Back in Town!’ (with inks by Tony DeZuñiga & Mooney).

This sees still relatively unknown vigilante Frank – The Punisher – Castle hunting a costumed assassin hired to remove Jameson, but experiencing an unusual reticence since the killer is an old army pal who had saved his life in Vietnam. Despite Spider-Man being outfought and outthought in every clash, the tale resolves with the hero somehow triumphant, even though everything ends with a fatality in #175’s Mooney-embellished conclusion ‘Big Apple Battleground!’. An extended epic then sees the return of Spider-Man’s most manic opponent. Illustrated by Andru & DeZuñiga, ‘He Who Laughs Last…!’ features the return of the Green Goblin targeting Parker’s friends and family. When the original villain died, his son Harry Osborn lost his grip on sanity and became a new version, equally determined to destroy Spider-Man. On his defeat, Harry began therapy under the care of psychiatrist Bart Hamilton and seemed to be making a full recovery. Now both patient and doctor are missing…

The assaults on Parker’s inner circle increase in ‘Goblin in the Middle’ (Esposito inks) with the emerald psychopath expanding operations to challenge crime-boss Silvermane for control of New York’s rackets whilst ‘Green Grows the Goblin!’ (Mooney inks) and ‘The Goblin’s Always Greener!’ (Esposito) see devious plots and shocking twists lead to near-death for Aunt May before an astonishing three-way Battle Royale ends the crisis in ‘Who Was That Goblin I Saw You With?’

At this time becoming a star of live action television, Spider-Man’s adventures were downplaying traditional fantasy elements as a transitional moment comes, preceded by #181’s sentiment-soaked recapitulation of all Parker has endured to become who he now is. Crafted by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito ‘Flashback!’ not only acts a jumping on point but also sets up a major change unfolding over the upcoming months, before soap opera shenanigans and the era’s tacky TV-informed silliness converge as Marv Wolfman takes up the typewriting, and artisans Ross Andru & Mike Esposito reunite as Spidey learns motorised mugger ‘The Rocket Racer’s Back in Town!’ The techno-augmented thief is currently embroiled in a nasty extortion scheme too, which somehow impacts the fast-fading, hospitalised May Parker before bursting into full bloom in #183…

After finally proposing to Mary Jane, Peter is suddenly distracted by more mechanised maniacs (courtesy of a subplot building the role of underworld armourer The Tinkerer) as Bob McLeod inks ‘…And Where the Big Wheel Stops,  Nobody Knows!’ This sees Rocket Racer getting his just deserts and MJ giving Peter an answer he wasn’t expecting…

Old girlfriend and current stranger Betty Brant-Leeds returns with a dying marriage and nostalgic notions next, making Parker’s social life deeply troubling as he prepares to graduate college. Meanwhile, JJ Jameson has another fringe science secret to conceal whilst Peter’s student colleague Phillip Chang reveals a hidden side of his own when Chinese street gangs target him for their flamboyant new lord in ‘White Dragon! Red Death!’, leading to a martial arts showdown with the wallcrawler playing backup in ASM #185’s ‘Spider, Spider, Burning Bright!’ Happily, the ferocious fiery furore is fully finished by the time second feature ‘The Graduation of Peter Parker’ highlights the Parker clan’s big day and reveals why and how it all goes so terribly wrong…

To Be Continued…

Also included in this hefty trade paperback tome are contemporary house ads, John Byrne’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #12 as well as the framing sequence to the reprint it contained, drawn by star in waiting John Romita Jr. & veteran Frank Giacoia. Those are followed by Kane & Giacoia’s front-&-back covers for Marvel Treasury Edition #14 (The Sensational Spider-Man), plus its frontispiece by Andru; Arnold Sawyer’s painted cover, assorted articles and a Stan Lee interview from F.O.O.M. #17 (March 1977).

That’s backed up with material from Spider-Man special F.O.O.M. #18 (June), including Romita senior’s cover and interview, plus promo features on the then-forthcoming all-Spiderman ‘Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978’,  accompanied by the finished product illustrated by Romita Sr., Al Milgrom, Jack Kirby, John Verpoorten, Paul Gulacy, Pablo Marcos, Larry Lieber, Giacoia, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Pérez, Andru & Esposito and Byrne. There’s even more F.O.O.M. fun to follow, taken from #22 (Autumn 1978), highlighting the wallcrawler’s impact in Japan, a meeting with Osamu Tezuka, and Larry Lieber storyboards for a Spider-Man film, before the wonderment pauses with a Kane/Joe Rubinstein pin-up from Marvel Tales #100 and original art.

With covers throughout by Romita Sr., Ed Hannigan, Andru, Esposito, Giacoia, Kane, Joe Sinnott, Ernie Chan, Dave Cockrum, Terry Austin, Byrne, & Milgrom, these yarns confirmed Spider-Man’s growth into a global multi-media brand. Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readers experienced daily, resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so utterly entertaining. This action-packed collection relives many momentous and crucial periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one all Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics must see…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Daredevil Epic Collection volume 7: The Concrete Jungle (1976-1978)


By Marv Wolfman, Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie, Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, Don McGregor, Bob Brown, Carmine Infantino, John Buscema, Frank Robbins, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, George Tuska, Lee Elias, Gene Colan, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Klaus Janson, Vince Colletta, Don Perlin, Keith Pollard, Frank Chiaramonte, Al Milgrom, Dan Green, Tony DeZuñiga, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1634-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. A second-string hero for much of his early career, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due mostly to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. DD fought gangsters, super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wisecracking his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor he became.

After a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page, Murdock took up with Russian émigré Natasha Romanoff, infamous and notorious ex-spy Black Widow. She was framed for murder and prosecuted by Matt’s best friend and law partner Foggy Nelson before the blind lawman cleared her. Leaving New York with her for the West Coast, Matt joined a prestigious San Francisco law firm but adventure, disaster and intrigue sought out the Sightless Sentinel and ultimately drew him back to the festering Big Apple…

Spanning May 1976 to May 1977, this Epic Collection re-presents Daredevil #133-154, Annual #4, a crossover from Ghost Rider #19-20, plus spin-offs from Marvel Premiere #39-40 & 43, spanning cover-dates May 1976 and September 1978.

Writer/editor Marv Wolfman always designed long term plans for his characters which oddly start buried in the publicity stunt yarn opening this collection. Daredevil #133 begins laying groundwork for an unfolding epic about fake news and disinformation in public office (and remember this is set just after Watergate and decades before Trumpism) before digressing to a fanciful fluff piece co-starring real-world stage trickster and headline-seeker Uri Geller. Concocted by Wolfman, Bob Brown & Jim Mooney, ‘Introducing: Mind-Wave and his Fearsome Think Tank!’ is a happily forgettable tale about a maniac in a supertank attacking Manhattan. Thankfully, Mind-Wave‘s arch enemy (Geller, claiming to have psychic powers granted him by aliens) is there to aid the Scarlet Swashbuckler…

More sinister secrets of the perception-shaping masterplan of The Jester are revealed in #134’s ‘There’s Trouble In New York City…’ as disgruntled former football star/insurance salesman Brock Jones returns. Previously, he had stumbled into a plot to control Earth and taken possession of a rocket-powered super-suit coveted by enemy agents. DD had almost been killed by the suit’s original owner, leading to the usual superhero misunderstanding and a savage clash. Now, as TV news shows Daredevil killing cops and with the shapeshifting Chameleon robbing at will, Brock again dons the suit to help the common man as The Torpedo, innocently adding to the chaos and confusion before the Chameleon is caught…

Jester’s grand scheme is revealed in ‘What Is Happening?’ The Manic Mountebank has exploited a computer pioneer to create a wave of stories making the public mistrust the authorities by manipulating the media. (I’m not commenting, I’m not commenting…)

Seeing newspaper reports, photos and even news tapes of John and Robert Kennedy alive, superheroes killing cops and “proof” that the Viet Nam war never happened, but secret conflicts in Chile and Saudi Arabia did, much of the public readily accepts the villain was framed, resulting in Daredevil being arrested and subsequently handed over to an army of thugs and gangsters.

John Buscema assumed pencilling with #136, as the Jester’s endgame is exposed. When President Gerald Ford announces that New York City’ s police and all its superheroes have gone insane, citizens are urged to take up arms and defend themselves at all costs. The entire scheme has been devised to leave the city open to plunder by the Jester’s hastily-assembled army of thugs. Unable to keep away, DD strikes back but is captured and subjected to ‘A Hanging for a Hero!’

As a lynch mob of panicked citizens and enraged criminals almost execute the Man Without Fear, he flamboyantly escapes but is forced back into action for concluding episode ‘The Murder Maze Strikes Twice!’ as “President Ford’s” broadcasts demand citizens “take back Wall Street” from the gangsters that now control it. Deducing Jester’s location, DD storms in, dismantles all the villain’s traps and minions, restoring order and justice, only to discover personal crises boiling over…

Throughout the media reality war, Daredevil had been seeking to prove the innocence of Heather Glenn‘s father. Matt Murdock’s current girlfriend knows her dad isn’t a ruthless, murdering slumlord but that someone must have framed him. All evidence says otherwise. Now, as Matt and Foggy return to that case, word comes (for readers, as two excerpted pages from Ghost Rider #19 – August 1976 by Tony Isabella, Frank Robbins & Vince Colletta) depicting former girlfriend turned soap star Karen Page being kidnapped by friend and ally Stuntman…

It leads directly into Daredevil #138 where Wolfman, John Byrne & Mooney ask ‘Where is Karen Page?’ as the Man Without Fear drops everything for his one true love: heading for Los Angeles where Page is a Hollywood star with a complex convoluted life. However her relationship with hell-tainted Johnny Blaze is not why she was targeted, but rather from her father’s inventions and career as super-maniac Death’s Head – and the impostor now using the name to further his own insane plans. The saga concludes in Ghost Rider #20 (Wolfman, Byrne & Don Perlin) as ‘Two Against Death!’ reveals who is actually pulling all the strings with Satan-spawn and Scarlet Swashbuckler pairing to save page. Meanwhile in Manhattan, Foggy continues investigating Glenn Industries… and is shot.

The plot threads expands in Daredevil Annual #4’s ‘The Name of the Game is Death!’ Plotted by Wolfman, scripted by Chris Claremont, drawn by George Tuska and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, it sees The Black Panther aiding an industrialist whose son is abducted. Thanks to friendship with King T’Challa and judicious use of Vibranium, Robert Mallory has built the world’s first Tidal Power Station. Someone thinks holding his son will win them the plans but hasn’t counted on T’Challa paying his friend a visit at this inopportune moment…

Daredevil, meanwhile, fights for his life, having stumbled into a furiously rampaging Sub-Mariner. Prince Namor has returned to the vile surface world because of a man named Mallory and a power station that while providing cheap clean energy for mankind will overheat the seas and divert the tides…

Concluding chapter ‘And Who Shall Save the Panther?’ begins with the Great Cat prowling Manhattan, having tracked the crime to ambitious mobster Ruffio Costa. Sadly, he’s unable to defeat the thugs alone and eventually DD steps in to deliver a ransom, accidentally bringing Sub-Mariner along for the ride. When the superbeings converge and clash, Costa is caught in the carnage and a lab explosion transforms him into something far worse than gradual climate crisis and the factions must all temporarily unite to defeat the threat of Mind-Master.

The editorial story behind Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Mooney’s ‘A Night in the Life’ (DD #139) is a true insight to comics at their best, but for readers it’s simply a chance to enjoy enhanced drama, suspense and action as the search for a missing haemophiliac boy overlaps a police manhunt for a mad bomber demanding the return of his drug-addicted wife. Wolfman was unsurpassed at interleaving soap opera melodrama with costumed cavorting, and the fraught tone carried over into #140 as Bill Mantlo, Sal B & Klaus Janson detailed ‘Death Times Two!’ when a runaway bus dumped Daredevil into a hunt for accidentally united old enemies The Gladiator and The Beetle who then aimed a runaway train at Grand Central Station and attempted to settle old scores with the hero amidst the dead and dying…

An even bigger change in tone began in #141. ‘Target: Death!’ was plotted by Wolfman, and scripted by Jim Shooter, with pencils divided between Gil Kane and Bob Brown, and Jim Mooney inking. It is very much a forerunner of what Roger McKenzie and Frank Miller would conceive of in months to come, opening with another murder attempt on Foggy and fresh insights into the abduction of his fiancée Debbie Harris. More secrets of Glenn Industries are teased out, a killer dies and DD’s ultimate arch-nemesis returns for another killing spree before abruptly changing his mind and tying defeated Daredevil to a giant arrow and firing him at the New Jersey Palisades…

Pulling out all the stops for his final forays, Wolfman – with Brown & Mooney – resurrected more classic villains for #142. Escaping one doom, DD meets new hero Nova, even as Mr. Hyde and The Cobra reunite, targeting the Scarlet Swashbuckler as he passes the rooftop rainforest garden of a young millionaire living in a personal paradise: ‘The Concrete Jungle’

The clash concludes with ‘“Hyde and Go Seek”. Sayeth the Cobra!’ (Wolfman, Brown & Keith Pollard) wherein the villains leave our hero to the carnivores populating the skyscraper Eden while they plunder the penthouse below. The goal is not wealth but ancient books and formulas to enhances their powers, but as ever, they grievously underestimate the boldness and ingenuity of the Man Without Fear…

Times were changing for the Scarlet Swashbuckler, and stories by incoming scripters including Jim Shooter and Roger McKenzie contributed to a gradual darkening of the atmosphere. In DD #144 Shooter, penciller Lee Elias & inker Dan Green amp up the edginess and intensify foreboding shadows by proving ‘Man-Bull Means Mayhem’ as the petty thug-turned-mutated-menace Bill Taurens again clashes with the Crimson Crusader. The battle begins when he breaks jail to join DD’s oldest archenemy The Owl and it emerges the avian ganglord is critically enfeebled, under attack by rivals and needs the Man-Bull to kidnap the one scientist who can fix him. Sadly, the boffin might also be able to cure Taurens, and the brute’s selfish betrayal leads to disaster when Daredevil intervenes again…

The Owl’s fate is sealed in ‘Danger Rides the Bitter Wind!’ (by Shooter from a Gerry Conway plot, illustrated by George Tuska & Jim Mooney) as the desperate human raptor goes after Dr. Petrovic personally, raiding a hospital and triggering his own doom in a rooftop clash with Daredevil. Shooter then amps up tension as #146 welcomes Gil Kane as penciller for Mooney and maniac marksman Bullseye returning to force a showdown ‘Duel!’ with the hero, achieved by taking an entire TV studio hostage before being soundly defeated yet again…

Throughout The Jester’s media reality war, DD had dated flighty socialite Heather Glenn. When, as both masked hero and lawyer he discovered her father was a corrupt slumlord and white collar criminal, the hero began looking for proof to exonerate his potential father-in-law. Instead he found further damning proof everywhere he looked. Matt’s girlfriend knows her dad isn’t a ruthless, murdering monster and that someone must have framed him. All evidence says otherwise…

Now another long running plot thread – with Foggy’s kidnapped girlfriend now held for months – converges as DD confronts Maxwell Glenn and the true culprit reveals himself to readers if not the hero. As Glenn confesses to everything and is arrested, the hero hits his ‘Breaking Point!’ (Shooter, Kane & Janson) after dramatically liberating the broken captive but failing to catch the true villain – mindbending archfoe Killgrave, the Purple Man…

With Kane co-plotting, and Glenn believing himself guilty, #148’s ‘Manhunt!’ sees the increasingly overwhelmed adventurer lash out at the entire underworld in search of the malign mauve manipulator, only to stumble into a wholly separate evil plot instigated by the another enemy – the diabolical Death-Stalker. Murdock’s relationship with Foggy also takes a hit as the usually genial partner deals with a PTSD ravaged Debbie and can’t understand why his best friend is defending self-confessed perpetrator Glenn…

Carmine Infantino joins Shooter & Janson for DD #149 as ‘Catspaw!’ sees Heather dump Matt and super-thug The Smasher target Daredevil in a blistering battle bout that is mere prelude to #150’s ‘Catastrophe!’, finding the valiant crusader stretched beyond his capacity in the courtroom and on the streets, just as charming, debonair mercenary Paladin premieres in a clash of vigilante jurisdictions. The debuting mercenary hero for hire is also hunting the Purple Man and has advantages DD can’t match, and no scruples at all…

Kane returns as plotter and penciller as Shooter gives way to McKenzie, who joins the creative crew to script ‘Crisis!’ with another tragic death blighting Murdock’s soul. As a result, Heather accidentally uncovers Matt’s heroic secret and DD simply quits. However, the horrors of the world and his own overzealous Catholic conscience soon force him back to work again…

Paladin and Infantino return for ‘Prisoner!’ (DD #152) joining McKenzie & Janson in reintroducing Death-Stalker just as our masked hero makes an intervention to reunite Foggy with traumatised fiancé Debbie. Although the ploy is successful, another clash with the mercenary leaves DD beaten and open to a surprise attack by The Cobra & Mr Hyde in #153. Crafted by McKenzie, Gene Colan & Tony DeZuñiga, ‘Betrayal!’ debuts aging Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich – who will play a huge part in Daredevil’s future – with the weary hero ambushed, defeated and dragged to the ‘Arena!’ (Steve Leialoha inks) wherein Killgrave seeks ultimate victory by mind-piloting a squad of DD’s foes, including The Gladiator, Jester, Cobra & Hyde, to slaughter the swashbuckler in front of a captive audience. It proves to be the fiend’s final mistake once Paladin shows up and shifts the balance of power…

To Be Continued…

At this period the series was generating plenty of noteworthy characters, and included here are some solo spin-off stories that resulted. First is a two-issue try-out tale starring hero/ villain The Torpedo. He first (accidentally) battled DD in Daredevil #126-127. After the brief reprise recounted above he was given his shot at fame in Marvel Premiere #39 & 40 (December 1977 – January 1978) before ultimately dying in Rom: Spaceknight and being replaced by a teenaged girl.

‘Ride a Wild Rocket!’ and ‘…Battle With the Big Man!’ was a rushed-looking collaboration of Wolfman, Mantlo, Brown, Al Milgrom, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek & Alan Weiss showing Brock Jones pursuing the Rocketeer gang who originally owned his turbo-suit, but all his efforts to reclaim the acclaim of his quarterbacking days seem pointless. Harassed at home and bored at work, his American Dream is dying. After almost triggering a nuclear meltdown he was considered a menace, even though he saved the state from atomic catastrophe, and now a critical change comes after the hidden mastermind behind all his woes and superhero aspirations decides enough is enough…

As seen in Captain America, Machine Man, and The Incredible Hulk, long-time villain Senator Eugene “Kligger” Stivak is a high-ranking official of criminal capitalists The Corporation who decides he will deal with Brock personally, but the villain has seriously underestimated the over-the-hill hero’s stubbornness and desperation to regain his self-esteem…

Also included here is a Paladin pilot from Marvel Premiere #43; cover-dated August 1978 and devised by Don McGregor & Tom Sutton as a super hero/bodyguard/private eye mash-up, with Paladin Paul Denning learning ‘In Manhattan, They Play for Keeps’. Here the suave merc faces a new iteration of Mr Fear calling himself Phantasm. Mutated in a radiation accident, the maniac soon graduates from abusive boyfriend to enemy of capitalism, fixated on old girlfriend Marsha Connors until she hires Paladin to save her…

Supplementing the resurgent rise in comics form is a cover gallery by Ed Hannigan, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Al Milgrom, Dave Cockrum, Kane, Tom Palmer, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson, Frank Giacoia, Janson, Terry Austin, Colan, Steve Leialoha, Infantino & Frank Springer. The extras sections include Wolfman’s editorial from #133 detailing circumstances of Geller/Marvel’s publicity stunt, pages The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976 from Marvel Comics Memory Album 1977 (by Sal Buscema and Gil Kane), house ads and original art pages by John Buscema, Mooney, Byrne, Brown, Kane & Janson.

As the 1970s closed, these gritty tales laid the foundation for groundbreaking mature dramas to come, promising the true potential of Daredevil was finally 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 many boundaries…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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The Defenders Epic Collection volume 1: The Day of the Defenders (1969-1973)


By Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Gene Colan, Marie Severin, Herb Trimpe, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, Don Heck, Tom Palmer, Johnny Craig, Bill Everett, Frank McLaughlin, Jim Mooney, Frank Bolle, Frank Giacoia, John Verpoorten, Mike Esposito & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3356-2 (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 brute strength and feeling dangerous, which 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 and chills becomes simply irresistible…

Last of the big star conglomerate super-groups, The Defenders would eventually number amongst its membership almost every hero – and a few villains – in the Marvel Universe. No real surprise there then, as initially they were composed of the company’s bad-boy antiheroes: misunderstood, outcast and often actually dangerous to know.

For Marvel, the outsider super-group must have seemed a conceptual inevitability – once they’d finally published it. Back then, apart from Spider-Man and Daredevil, all their superstars regularly teamed up in various mob-handed assemblages and, in the wake of the Defenders’ success, even more super-teams comprising pre-existing characters were rapidly mustered. These included the Champions, Invaders, New Warriors  and so forth – but none of them had any Truly Very Big Guns…

They never won the fame or acceptance of other teams, but that simply seemed to leave creators open to taking more chances and playing the occasional narrative wild card. The genesis of the team derived from their status as publicly distrusted villains, threats or menaces, but before all that later inventive approbation. The scintillating collection compiles early days as first seen in whole or in part in Dr. Strange #183, Sub-Mariner #22, 33 & 35, Incredible Hulk #126, Marvel Feature #1-3, Defenders #1-11, and Avengers #115-118 covering November 1969 to December 1973, re-presenting a wealth of extended and linked sagas that would reshape comics.

The first tale in this volume comes from Dr. Strange #183 in ‘They Walk by Night!’ where Roy Thomas, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer introduced a deadly threat to humanity. Elder demon race The Undying Ones were returning, hungry to reconquer the Earth they once ruled, but as the sorcerer’s series unexpectedly ended with that issue, the story went nowhere until the Sub-Mariner #22 (February 1970) and ‘The Monarch and the Mystic!’ brought the Prince of Atlantis into the mix. Here Thomas, Marie Severin & Johnny Craig told a sterling tale of sacrifice in which the Master of the Mystic Arts seemingly dies holding the gates of Hell shut with the Undying Ones sealed behind them.

The extended saga concluded on an upbeat note in The Incredible Hulk #126 (April 1970) as Thomas & Herb Trimpe revealed in ‘…Where Stalks the Night-Crawler!’ how a New England cult dispatches helpless Bruce Banner to the nether realms in an attempt to undo Strange’s sacrifice. Luckily, cultist Barbara Norris has last-minute second thoughts and her own dire sacrifice frees the mystic, and seemingly ends the threat of the Undying Ones forever. At the end of the issue Strange retired. Although forsaking magic, he was soon back as the fates and changing reading tastes called him to duty as magic and the supernatural themes rose in popularity. As Namor became an early advocate of the ecology movement, in issues #34-35 of his own title (February & March 1971) the next step in the antihero  revolution came when he recruited Hulk and Silver Surfer for  a critical cause.

Antihero super-nonteam The Defenders officially begins with Sub-Mariner #34-35 (cover-dated February & March 1971). As previously cited, the Prince of Atlantis was an ardent activist and advocate of the ecology movement, and here takes radical steps to save Earth in ‘Titans Three!’ by fractiously recruiting other outcasts to help him destroy a US Nuclear Weather-Control station. In concluding chapter ‘Confrontation!’ (Thomas, Sal Buscema & Jim Mooney) the always-misunderstood outcasts unite to battle a despotic dictator’s legions, the US Army, UN defence forces and Avengers to prevent the malfunctioning station vaporising half the planet…

With that debacle smoothed over life resumed its usual frenetic pace for the Hulk and Namor until giant sized try-out comic Marvel Feature #1. Cover-dated December 1971, it presented ‘The Day of the Defenders!’ as a mysteriously re-empowered Stephen Strange summons the Avenging Son and the Jade Juggernaut to help him stop the deathbed doom of crazed super-mind Yandroth. Determined to not go gently into the dark, the Scientist Supreme had built an “Omegatron” programmed to obliterate the Earth as soon as Yandroth’s heart stopped beating. With magic ineffective, only the brute strength of the misunderstood misanthropes could possibly stop it…

Naturally the fiend hadn’t told the whole truth, but the day was saved – actually only postponed – in a canny classic from Thomas, Ross Andru & Bill Everett. The issue also shares how Strange regained his mojo in ‘The Return’ by Thomas, Don Heck & Frank Giacoia: a heady 10-page thriller proving that not all good things come in large packages.

Clearly destined for great things, the astounding antiheroes reassembled in Marvel Feature #2 (March 1972) with Sal Buscema replacing Everett as inker for late Halloween treat ‘Nightmare on Bald Mountain!’ By capturing archfoe Dr. Strange, extradimensional dark lord Dormammu sought to invade Earth’s realm through a portal in Vermont, only to be savagely beaten back by the mage’s surly sometime comrades, before reuniting in #3 (June 1972, by Thomas, Andru & Everett ) to face a revive old Lee/Kirby “furry underpants” monster in ‘A Titan Walks Among Us!’

Until thrashed by the Defenders, Xemnu the Titan was an alien super-telepath seeking to repopulate his desolate homeworld by stealing America’s children. Of course, older fans recognised him as the cover-hogging star of Journey into Mystery #62 (November 1960) where he acted as a road-test for a later Marvel star in a short tale entitled ‘I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!’…

An undoubted hit, The Defenders exploded swiftly into their own title (cover-dated August 1972), to begin a bold, offbeat run of reluctant adventures scripted by superteam wunderkind Steve Englehart. As a group of eclectic associates occasionally called together to save the world (albeit on a miraculously monotonous monthly basis) they were billed as a “non-team” – whatever that is – but it didn’t affect the quality of their super-heroic shenanigans. With Sal B as regular penciller, an epic adventure ensued with ‘I Slay by the Stars!’ (Giacoia inks) as sorcerer Necrodamus seeks to sacrifice Namor and free those pesky Undying Ones: a mission that promptly leads to conflict with an old ally in ‘The Secret of the Silver Surfer!’ (inked by John Verpoorten) before concluding in the Mooney-inked ‘Four Against the Gods!’ Here the Defenders take their war to the dimensional dungeon of the Undying Ones and rescued the long-imprisoned and now utterly insane Barbara Norris.

Clearly a fan of large casts and extended epics, Englehart added a fighting femme fatale to the mix with ‘The New Defender!’ (inked by new regular Frank McLaughlin) as Asgardian exiles Enchantress and Executioner embroil the antiheroes in their long-running and lethal love-spat. The fallout includes bringing The Black Knight briefly into the group and turning Barbara into the latest incarnation of Feminist Fury (these were far less enlightened days) The Valkyrie.

Defenders #5 began a long-running plot thread with major repercussions for the Marvel Universe. The denouement left Black Knight an ensorcelled, immobile stone statue, and, as Strange and Co. searched for a cure, the long defused Omegatron suddenly resumed its countdown to global annihilation in ‘World Without End?’, after which the increasingly isolationist Silver Surfer momentarily “joins” in #6 to share ‘The Dreams of Death!’ as lightweight magic menace Cyrus Black attacks, and is rapidly repulsed.

After a spiffy team pin-up by Sal Buscema, Defenders #7 jumps right in as Len Wein co-scripts with Englehart and Frank Bolle inks Sal Buscema in ‘War Below the Waves!’ Here tempestuous ex-Avenger Hawkeye briefly climbs aboard the non-team bandwagon to help defeat undersea tyrant Attuma and soviet renegade The Red Ghost: a bombastic battle to usurp Sub-Mariner of his titles and kingdom concluding a month later in ‘…If Atlantis Should Fall!’, with Englehart providing all the words and McLaughlin inking. Since Defenders #4 the forward-thinking scripter had been putting players in place for a hugely ambitious crossover experiment: one that turned the industry on its head. Next here comes a prologue taken from the end of Avengers #115 which finally set the ball rolling.

Drawn by Bob Brown & Mike Esposito, ‘Alliance Most Foul!’ sees interdimensional despot the Dread Dormammu and Asgardian god of Evil Loki unite in search of an ultimate weapon to give them final victory against their foes. They resolve to trick the Defenders into securing its six component parts by “revealing” that the reconstructed Evil Eye can restore the petrified Black Knight. That plan is initiated at the end of Defenders #8: a brief opening chapter in ‘The Avengers/Defenders Clash’ entitled ‘Deception!’ wherein a message from the Black Knight’s spirit is intercepted by the twin entities of evil, leading directly to ‘Betrayal!’ in Avengers #116 (Englehart, Brown & Esposito) with the World’s Mightiest Heroes hunting for their missing comrade and “discovering” old enemies Hulk and Sub-Mariner may have turned him to stone.

This and third chapter ‘Silver Surfer Vs. the Vision and the Scarlet Witch’ see the rival teams split up: one to gather the scattered sections of the Eye and the other to stop them at all costs. Defenders #9 (Sal B & McLaughlin art) begins with tense recap ‘Divide …and Conquer’ before ‘The Invincible Iron Man Vs. Hawkeye the Archer’ and ‘Dr. Strange Vs. the Black Panther and Mantis’ sheds more suspicion and doubt on the vile villains’ subtle master-plan. Avengers #117 ‘Holocaust’, ‘Swordsman Vs. the Valkyrie’ and crucial turning point ‘Captain America Vs. Sub-Mariner’ (Brown & Esposito) lead to the penultimate clash in Defenders #10 (Sal B & Bolle) in ‘Breakthrough! The Incredible Hulk Vs. Thor’ before an inevitable joining together of the warring camps in ‘United We Stand!’ Tragically it is too late as Dormammu seizes the reconstructed Evil Eye and uses its power to merge his monstrous realm with Earth.

Avengers #118 delivers the cathartic climactic conclusion in ‘To the Death’ (Brown, Esposito & Giacoia) wherein all the Marvel Universe’s heroes resist the demonic invasion as Avengers and Defenders plunge deep into the Dark Dimension itself to end forever the threat of the evil gods…

With the overwhelming cosmic crisis concluded, the victorious Defenders attempt to use the Eye to cure their calcified comrade, only to discover his spirit has found a new home in the 12th century. In #11’s Bolle inked ‘A Dark and Stormy Knight’ the band battle black magic during the Crusades, fail to retrieve the Knight and acrimoniously go their separate ways – as did overworked departing scripter Englehart…

With issue #12 Len Wein would assume the writer’s role, starting a run of slightly more traditional costumed capers…

With covers by Colan, Everett, Severin, Frank Giacoia, John Buscema, John Romita, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, Ralph Reese, Jim Starlin, Verpoorten, Esposito, Bolle & Ron Wilson this titanic tome also offers contemporary house ads, a revelatory Afterword by Steve Englehart segues into a brief bonus feature including unpublished cover art, the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the launch of The Defenders, original art pages, and previous collection covers by Carlos Pacheco, John Romita and Richard Isanove.

For the longest time, The Defenders was the best and weirdest superhero comic book in the business, and if you love Fights ‘n’ Tights frolics but crave something just a little different, these yarns are for you… and the best is still to come.
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks volume 18


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Jim Starlin, Ross Andru, Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, Scott Edelman, John Byrne, Mike Esposito, Bob McLeod, Frank Giacoia, Jim Mooney, John Romita Jr., & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0028-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Peter Parker was a smart yet alienated kid when he was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school science trip. Developing astonishing arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own natural chemistry, physics and engineering genius – the boy did what any lonely, geeky nerd would do with such newfound prowess: he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Making a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor media celebrity – and a criminally self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him one night, the cocky teen didn’t lift a finger to stop him. When Parker returned home he learned that his beloved guardian uncle Ben Parker had been murdered.

Crazed with a need for vengeance, Peter hunted the assailant who had made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, finding, to his horror, that it was the self-same felon he had neglected to stop. His irresponsibility had resulted in the death of the man who raised him, and the traumatised boy swore to forevermore use his powers to help others…

Since that night he has tirelessly battled miscreants, monsters and madmen, with a fickle, ungrateful public usually baying for his blood even as he perpetually saves them.

By the time of the tales in this 18th fabulous full-colour hardcover compendium/eBook of web-spinning adventures the wondrous wallcrawler was a global figure and prime contender for the title of the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero. Spanning June 1978 to May 1979 whilst chronologically re-presenting Amazing Spider-Man # 181-192 and excerpts from Annual #12, the transformative tales are preceded by appreciative appraisal and reminiscence from writer/editor Marv Wolfman in his Introduction ‘Amazing Not Quite Adult Spider-Man’ before the action kicks off with #181’s sentiment-soaked recapitulation of all Parker has endured to become who he now is. Crafted by Bill Mantlo and artists Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito, ‘Flashback!’ not only acts a jumping on point but also sets up a major change unfolding over the upcoming months, before soap opera shenanigans and the era’s tacky silliness converge as Marv Wolfman takes up the typewriting, artisans Ross Andru & Esposito reunite and Spidey learns motorised mugger ‘The Rocket Racer’s Back in Town!’

The techno-augmented thief is embroiled in a nasty extortion scheme too, which impacts fast fading, hospitalised May Parker and burst into full bloom in #183…

After finally proposing to Mary Jane Watson, Peter is swifty distracted by more mechanised maniacs (courtesy of a subplot building the role of underworld armourer The Tinkerer) as Bob McLeod inks ‘…And Where the Big Wheel Stops,  Nobody Knows!’ with Rocket Racer getting his just deserts and MJ giving Peter an answer he wasn’t expecting…

Old girlfriend and current stranger Betty Brant-Leeds returns with a dying marriage and nostalgic notions next, making Parker’s social life deeply troubling as he prepares to graduate college. Meanwhile, JJ Jameson has another fringe science secret to hide and Peter’s student colleague Phillip Chang reveals a hidden side of his own when Chinese street gangs target him for their flamboyant new lord in ‘White Dragon! Red Death!’, leading to a martial arts showdown with the wallcrawler playing backup in ASM #185’s ‘Spider, Spider, Burning Bright!’ Happily, the ferocious fiery furore is fully finished by the time second feature ‘The Graduation of Peter Parker’ highlights the Parker clan’s big day and reveals why and how it all goes so terribly wrong…

At this time a star of (1970s) live action television, Spider-Man’s adventures were downplaying traditional fantasy elements as Keith Pollard became penciller for #186. ‘Chaos is… the Chameleon!’ sees the devious disguise artist seeking to discredit the webslinger even as DA Blake Tower works to dismiss all charges against him, and is followed by a moody tale of lockdowns and plague as Spider-Man and Captain America unite to stop the voltaic villain inadvertently using ‘The Power of Electro!’ (Wolfman, Jim Starlin & McLeod) to trigger a biological time bomb…

Ruthlessly violent thugs are on the rampage next as ASM #188 depicts ‘The Jigsaw is Up!’ (Pollard & Esposito) after the river party cruise Peter, his pals and increasingly insistent Betty are enjoying is hijacked. Jameson’s secret then gets out to inflict ‘Mayhem by Moonlight!’ in a sharp two-part shocker limned by John Byrne & Jim Mooney. Exploited by malign and dying science rogue Spencer Smythe, Jonah is abducted by his own monster-marked son John leaving the wallcrawler ‘In Search of the Man-Wolf!’ Forced to witness the supposed death of his child at his worst enemy’s hands leads to a savage confrontation with Smythe’s Spider-Slayer robots in ‘Wanted for Murder: Spider-Man!’ (#191 by Pollard & Esposito) before all Jonah’s debts are paid and another death results after Spidey and Jonah are inescapably bound to the same bomb and granted ‘24 hours Till Doomsday!’ ….

Also included in this hefty tome are Byrne’s cover to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #12 as well as the framing sequence to the reprint it contained as drawn by star in waiting John Romita Jr. and veteran Frank Giacoia and the contents of the all-Spiderman ‘Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978’, with art from Romita Sr., Al Milgrom, Jack Kirby, John Verpoorten, Paul Gulacy, Pablo Marcos, Larry Lieber, Giacoia, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Pérez, Andru & Esposito and Byrne, plus original art, promo material from F.O.O.M. #18 (June 1978), house ads, and a Kane/Joe Rubinstein pin-up from Marvel Tales #100.

With covers throughout by Kane, Andru & Esposito, Ernie Chan, Pollard, Giacoia, Starlin, Dave Cockrum, Terry Austin, Byrne, McLeod, Milgrom, these yarns confirmed Spider-Man’s growth into a global multi-media brand. Blending cultural veracity with superb art, and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and imputed powerlessness most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, especially when delivered in addictive soap-styled instalments, but none of that would be relevant if Spider-Man’s stories weren’t so utterly entertaining. This action-packed collection relives many momentous and crucial periods in the wallcrawler’s astounding life and is one all Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics must see…
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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


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

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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