Category: Hulk

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Invincible Iron Man Omnibus volume 2


By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, George Tuska, Johnny Craig, Don Heck, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Mike Esposito, Sam Grainger & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5899-2 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid Gold, Sterling Silver so-Shiny Wonders … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Super-rich supergenius inventor Tony Stark moonlights as a superhero: wearing a formidable, ever-evolving suit of armour stuffed with his own ingenious creations. An arch-technologist who hates to lose and constantly upgrades his gear, Stark continually re-makes Iron Man one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. There are a number of ways to interpret his creation and early years: glamorous playboy, super-rich industrialist, inventor, philanthropist – even when not operating in his armoured alter-ego.

Created in the immediate aftermath of the 1960s Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison employing Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World seemed inevitable. Combining that era’s all-pervasive belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling tangible and easily recognisable Evil, the proposition almost becomes a certainty. Of course, it might simply be that we kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This fabulous full-colour compendium revisits the dawn days of Marvel’s rise to ascendancy via the Steel Shod Sentinel’s early days: chronologically re-presenting all his solo exploits, feature, letters & editorial pages, pin-ups and pertinent sections from Tales of Suspense #84-99; interim attraction Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1 and thereafter Iron Man #1-25, spanning December 1966 to May 1970, as well as essays and Introductions from previous, less lengthy collections that were so important in establishing rapport and building a unified comics fandom…

This period under review saw the much-diminished and almost-bankrupt former comics colossus finally surpass DC Comics’ preeminent pole position and become darling of the student counter-culture. In these tales, Stark is still very much a gung-ho, patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist liberal dissenter he would become…

Marvel’s dominance of the US comic book was confirmed in 1968 when most of their characters finally got their own titles. Prior to that – due to a highly restrictive distribution deal – the company had been limited to 16 publications per month. To circumvent this drawback, Marvel developed “split-books” with two features per title, such as Tales of Suspense where Iron Man originally solo-starred before being joined by patriotic cohort Captain America in issue #59 (cover-dated November 1964). Marvel’s fortunes prospered; thanks in large part to Stan Lee’s gift for promotion, but primarily because of superbly engaging stories such as the ones collected in this enticing hardback/eBook edition.

With the new distributor came demand for more product, and the split book stars all won their own titles. When the division came, the Armoured Avenger started afresh with a “Collector’s Item First Issue” – but only after a shared one-shot with The Sub-Mariner that squared divergent schedules. Of course, Cap retained the numbering of the original title; thereby premiering in number #100.

Following a critique by critic and historian Arlen Schumer in his Introduction (from Marvel Masterworks Iron Man volume 5) the sterling adventures – all-Gene Colan illustrated – resume with the shiny portion of ToS #84 picking up soap opera style with Stark submitting to months of governmental pressure and testifying to a Congressional Committee hungry for the secrets of his greatest creation. However. at the critical moment, the inventor keels over…

Stark’s controversial reputation is finally restored as the public at last learns that his life is only preserved by a metallic chest-plate keeping his maimed heart beating in ‘The Other Iron Man!’ (scripted by Lee and inked by Frank Giacoia). Somehow, nobody at all connects that hunk of steel to the identical one his Avenging “bodyguard” wears…

With the hero stuck in a hospital bed, best friend Happy Hogan foolishly dons the suit to preserve that precious secret, only to be abducted by the insidious Mandarin in another extended assault that begins with ‘Into the Jaws of Death’. Prior to that, readers are whisked back to so-different days by the first letters page offering Mails of Suspense…

Propelled by guilt and fuelled by fear, still-ailing Stark breaks into his own Congressionally-closed factory to create new, more powerful armour and flies to the rescue in ‘Death Duel for the Life of Happy Hogan!’ The cataclysmic clash rattles the “bamboo curtain” but is soon successfully concluded, and the Americans return home just in time for #87 and #88 to host the merciless Mole Man who attacks from below, prompting a ‘Crisis… at the Earth’s Core!’ Sadly, the villain has no idea who hostage Stark really is, believing hottie assistant Pepper Potts and her boss ‘Beyond all Rescue!’, but is soon proved very wrong, after which another old B-List bad-guy takes his shot in ‘The Monstrous Menace of the Mysterious Melter!’ and tense, terse sequel ‘The Golden Ghost!’ which fabulously feature a glorious reprise of Iron Man’s original bulky battle suit and a wonderfully twisty conclusion, before ‘The Uncanny Challenge of the Crusher!’ offers an all-action tale – possibly marred for modern audiences by a painful Commie-bustin’ sub-plot featuring a thinly disguised Fidel Castro…

Also somewhat dated but still gripping are references to then then-ongoing “Police Action” in Indo-China which look a little gung-ho (if completely understandable) as Iron Man goes hunting for Red Menace Half-Face ‘Within the Vastness of Viet Nam!’ The urgent insertion results in another clash with incorrigible old foe Titanium Man in ‘The Golden Gladiator and… the Giant!’ before our hero at last snatches victory from the mechanical jaws of defeat in ‘The Tragedy and the Triumph!’ (this last inked by Dan Adkins). Giacoia returns and a new cast member then debuts in #95 as eager-beaver adult boy scout S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell is assigned as security advisor to America’s most prominent weapons maker. It coincides with Thor villain Grey Gargoyle attacking in ‘If a Man be Stone!’, but he utterly mismatched and overpowered maniac is summarily defeated in ‘The Deadly Victory!’ in anticipation of Tales of Suspense #97 launching an extended story-arc to carry the series into the solo series and beyond, as criminal cartel the Maggia seeks to move in on Stark’s company.

The campaign opens with the hero’s capture as ‘The Coming of… Whiplash!’ reveals the Golden Avenger cut to steely ribbons, drawn out in ‘The Warrior and the Whip!’ and – as the magnificent Archie Goodwin assumed scripting duties and EC legend Johnny Craig came aboard as inker – trapped on a sinking submarine ‘At the Mercy of the Maggia’, just as the venerable Tales of Suspense ends with the 99th issue…

Of course, it was just changing title to Captain America as Tales to Astonish seamlessly morphed into The Incredible Hulk, but – due to a scheduling snafu – neither of the split-book co-stars had a home that month (April 1968). This situation led to the one-&-only Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner #1 to carry concluding episode ‘The Torrent Without… The Tumult Within!’, wherein sinister super-scientists of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics, acronym-fans) snatch the Armoured Avenger from the Maggia’s swiftly sinking submarine, intent on stealing the hero’s technical secrets. Invincible Iron Man #1 finally appeared with a May 1968 cover-date, triumphantly ending the extended subsea-saga as our hero stands ‘Alone against A.I.M.!’: a thrilling roller-coaster ride supplemented by ‘The Origin of Iron Man’ offering a revitalised re-telling to conclude Colan’s impressive tenure on the character.

Breaking briefly for an educational Introduction from comics historian Dewey Cassell, running down the stellar career and achievements of debuting artist George Tuska, the action accelerates into a bold new era with Invincible Iron Man #2. Entrenched illustrator Colan moved on and ‘The Day of the Demolisher!’ found EC megastar Johnny Craig tackling the art-chores. His first job was a cracker, as scripter Goodwin lays down years of useful groundwork by introducing Janice Cord as a romantic interest for the playboy inventor. The real problem is a monolithic killer robot built by her deranged father and the start of a running plot-thread examining the effects of the munitions business and the kind of inventors who work for it. Also from this point on the letters page became ‘Sock it to Shell-Head’. No comment.

Goodwin & Craig brought back Stark’s bodyguard Happy Hogan in time to help rebuild the now-obsolete Iron Man armour and consequently devolve into a marauding monstrous menace in ‘My Friend, My Foe… the Freak!’ for #3, and retooled a long-forgotten Soviet super-villain into a major threat in ‘Unconquered is the Unicorn!’ in #4. This particular tech-enhanced maniac is dying from his own powers and thinks Tony will be able – if not exactly willing – to fix him…

With Iron Man #5, another Golden Age veteran joined the creative team. George Tuska – who had worked on huge hits such as the original (Fawcett) Captain Marvel and Crime Does Not Pay, plus newspaper strips like The Spirit and Buck Rogers – would illustrate the majority of Iron Man’s adventures for the next decade, becoming synonymous with the Armoured Avenger…

Inked by Craig, ‘Frenzy in a Far-Flung Future!’ is an intriguing time-paradox tale wherein Stark is kidnapped by the last survivors of humanity, determined to kill him before he can build the super-computer that eradicated mankind. Did somebody say “Terminator”?

A super-dense (by which I mean strong and heavy) Cuban Commie threat returned – but not for long – in ‘Vengeance… Cries the Crusher!’ Next, the sinister scheme begun way back in ToS #97 finally bears brutal – and for preppie S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell – painful fruit in 2-part thriller ‘The Maggia Strikes!’ and ‘A Duel Must End!’ Here former Daredevil foe the Gladiator leads a savage attack on Stark’s factory, friends and would-be new love. The saga also reveals the tragic history of mystery woman Whitney Frost and lays the seeds of her evolution into one of Iron Man’s most implacable foes…

A 3-part saga follows as The Mandarin resurfaces with a cunning plan and the certain conviction that Stark and Iron Man are the same person. Beginning with a seeming Hulk guest-shot in #9’s ‘There Lives a Green Goliath!’, proceeding through the revelatory and explosive Nick Fury team-up ‘Once More… The Mandarin!’ before climaxing in spectacular “saves-the-day” fashion as our hero is ‘Unmasked!’ This epic by Goodwin, Tuska & Craig offers astounding thrills and potent drama with dozens of devious twists, just as the first inklings of the social upheaval America was experiencing began to seep into Marvel’s publications. As the core audience started to grow into the Flower Power generation, future tales would take arch-capitalist weapon-smith Stark in many unexpected and often peculiar directions. All of a sudden maybe that money and fancy gadgetry weren’t quite so fun or cool anymore?

Goodwin, Tuska & Craig build on a sterling run of solid science-flavoured action epics with the introduction of a new sinister super-foe in #12 as ‘The Coming of the Controller’ sees a twisted genius using life-energy stolen from mind-slaved citizens to power a cybernetic exo-skeleton. Along the way he and his brother embezzle the fortune of Stark’s girlfriend Janice Cord to pay for it all. Of course, Iron Man is ready and able to overcome the scheming maniac, culminating in a cataclysmic climax ‘Captives of the Controller!’ as the mind-bending terror attempts to extend his mesmeric, parasitic sway over the entire populace of New York City…

Another educational and fascinating Introduction – The Tony Stark/Iron Man Dilemma – by dynamic draughtsman George Tuska, detailing his stellar career and achievements, leads us into an era of constant change. Originally, combining then-sacrosanct belief that technology and business could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil made the concept behind the Invincible Iron Man an infallibly successful proposition.

Of course where once Tony Stark was the acceptable face of Capitalism, the tumultuous tone of the closing decade soon resigned his suave image to the dustbin of history. With ecological disasters and social catastrophe from the abuse of industry and technology the new mantras of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting some tricky questions from the increasingly socially conscious readership. All of a sudden maybe that money and fancy gadgetry weren’t quite so fun or cool anymore?

With an Iron Clad promise of stunning action and compelling intrigue this iconic hardback (and digital) chronological compendium covers Iron Man #14-25, spanning June 1969 – May 1970, and opens with an educational and fascinating Introduction from dynamic draughtsman George Tuska, detailing the stellar career and achievements of the veteran artist.

Writer Archie Goodwin and illustrious illustrators Tuska & Johnny Craig continued a sterling run of genre-flavoured action epics as IM #14 depicts ‘The Night Phantom Walks!’ with the scripter craftily paying tribute to Craig’s past history drawing EC’s landmark horror comics. Here the artist pencilled & inked the tale of a zombie-like monster prowling a Caribbean island, destroying Stark Industry installations. As well as being a terse, moody thriller, the story marks the first indications of a different attitude as the menace’s ecologically inspired reign of terror includes some pretty fair arguments about the downsides of “Progress” and rapacious globalisation…

With Craig back inking, Tuska returned with #15 and ‘Said the Unicorn to the Ghost…!’ as the demented former superspy allies himself with Fantastic Four foe The Red Ghost in a desperate bid to find a cure for his drastically shortened lifespan. Attempting to kidnap Stark, the Ghost betrays the Unicorn and retrenches to an African Cosmic Ray research facility in concluding instalment ‘Of Beasts and Men!’, where it takes a fraught alliance of hero and villain to thwart the ethereal mastermind’s ill-conceived plans…

A suspenseful extended epic opened in IM #17 after an advanced android designed to protect Stark’s secret identity achieves sinister sentience and sneakily replaces him. ‘The Beginning of the End!’ also introduces enigmatic Madame Masque and her malevolent master Midas, who plans to take over America’s greatest technology company… as hostilely as possible…

Dispossessed and on the run, Stark is abducted and aligns with Masque and Midas to reclaim his identity, only to suffer a fatal heart-attack in ‘Even Heroes Die!’ (guest-starring The Avengers) before a ground-breaking transplant – still practically science fiction in those distant days – offers renewed hope in ‘What Price Life?’ When the ruthlessly opportunistic Midas instantly strikes again, Madame Masque switches sides and all hell breaks loose…

The X-Men’s dimensionally displaced alien nemesis attacks the restored and recuperating hero in ‘Who Serves Lucifer?’ (inked by Joe Gaudioso – AKA Mike Esposito) before being rudely returned to his personal dungeon dimension, after which African-American boxer Eddie March becomes the new Iron Man in #21’s ‘The Replacement!’ as Stark – free from the heart-stimulating chest-plate which had preserved his life for years – is briefly tempted by a life without strife. Unfortunately, and unknown to all, Eddie has a little health problem of his own…

When Soviet-sponsored armoured archenemy Titanium Man resurfaces, it’s in conjunction – if not union – with another old Cold War warrior in the form of a newly-upgraded Crimson Dynamo in #22’s chilling classic confrontation ‘From this Conflict… Death!’ With a loved one murdered, a vengeance-crazed Iron Man then goes ballistic in innovative action-thriller ‘The Man Who Killed Tony Stark!!’ before ultimately finding solace in the open arms of Madame Masque as Craig returns to fully illustrate superb mythological monster-mash ‘My Son… The Minotaur!’ and stays on as imminently departing scripter Goodwin pins Iron Man’s new Green colours to the comic’s mast in #25’s stunning eco-parable ‘This Doomed Land… This Dying Sea!’ Ably aided and abetted by Craig – whose slick understated mastery adds a sheen of terrifying authenticity to proceedings – the Armoured Avenger clashes and ultimately teams with veteran antihero Namor the Sub-Mariner. Ultimately the turbulent rivals must destroy Stark’s own hyper-polluting facility, consequently overruling and abandoning his company’s previous position and business model. Tragically, his attempts to convince other industry leaders to do likewise meets with the kind of reaction that tragically then (and again now) typified America’s response to the real-world situation…

Although the action ends here, there are many fantastic extras to enjoy, beginning with a comedy short gleaned from Marvel’s contemporaneous comedy pastiche magazine Not Brand Echh #2 (September 1967). Here Roy Thomas, Don Heck & Dan Adkins pit clunky 20th century crusader The Unrinseable Ironed Man against a parody-prone 40th century stalwart old fans will surely – if not surlily – recognise, even if here he’s called ‘Magnut, Robot Biter!’…

With covers throughout by Kirby, Colan, Gil Kane, Bill Everett, Craig, Tuska, Marie Severin, Giacoia, John Romita, Esposito, Larry Lieber, & John Verpoorten, other art treats include a character-packed Colan self-portrait from 1970; 15 pages of interior page and cover art, and the covers of Marvel Double Feature Classics #1-19 and Marvel Super-Heroes #31; plus the text-free art for this collection by Salvador Larocca & Frank D’Amata.

On show here is a fantastic period in the Golden Gladiator’s career, one that perfectly encapsulates the changes Marvel and America went through and some of the best and most memorable efforts of a simply stellar band of creators. These are epic exploits, still charged with all the urgency and potency of a time of crisis and a nation in tumult, so what better time than now to finally tune in, switch on or return to the Power of Iron Man?
© 2024 MARVEL.

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The A-Z of Marvel Monsters


By Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0863-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fan Smash! … 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

To dyed-in-the-wool comic book fanboys there’s a much beloved period in history when a frankly daft and woefully formulaic trend produced utter, joyous magic. We look back on it now and see only the magnificent art, or talk with loving derision of the crazy (and frequently onomatopoeic) names, but deep down we can’t shake the exuberant thrill inside or the frisson of emotion that occurs when we see or even think of them.

Before Jack Kirby & Stan Lee brought superheroes back to Marvel Comics, the company was on its last legs. Locked into a woefully disadvantageous distribution deal, the company’s output was limited to some sixteen genre titles. But there was hope…

The outside, mainstream, world was currently gripped in an atomic B-movie monster craze, so Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko dutifully capitalised on it in their anthology mystery titles Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. In an unending procession of brief inspirational novelettes, dauntless or canny or just plain outsider humans outsmarted a succession of bizarre aliens, mad scientists, an occasional ghost or sorcerer (this was, after all, the heyday of the Comics Code Authority when any depiction of the supernatural was BAD) and a horde of outrageous beasties in a torrent of wonders best described by the catchphrase “monsters-in-underpants.”

Simplistic, moralistic, visually experimental yet reassuringly predictable in narrative, these Outer Limits-style yarns were – and still are – the epitome of sheer unrelenting fun with no redeeming social context required. Marvel have increasingly celebrated that fact in recent years (even folding most of the yarns into their modern multiversal continuity) and – over the course of one month – commissioned a line of 26 “Kirby Monster” variant covers for their periodical releases, all lovingly crafted by a number of top names to highlight the treasured contribution of beasties, things and what-nots…

This volume gathers those images in a handy hardcover primer (and eBook edition) whilst gloriously gilding the lily with a splendid selection of a few of the original mini-epics as created from those pre-Marvel Age masterpieces. The short sharp surprise is suitably augmented by ‘Jack Kirby, Atlas Comics & Monsters!’: a 1994 Introduction from the King himself.

The next bit’s another shopping-list moment, so if you want to skip ahead a little, I shouldn’t be at all surprised…

Augmented by the original cover of each diabolical debut, the worshipful A to Z art-section opens with Erica Henderson’s reinterpretation of ‘The Awesome Android!’ (as first seen in Fantastic Four #15) and rapidly follows up ‘The Blip!’ by Simon Bisley, and ‘The Crawling Creature!’, delineated by Maguerite Sauvage. An extreme late entry in the Kirby-Kritter Circus, ‘Devil Dinosaur!’ launched in his own title in 1978 and his moody reprise from Matthew Wilson is followed by Jeff Lemire’s take on ‘Elektro!’ and ‘Fin Fang Foom!’ – first seen in Strange Tales #89, and rendered here by Walter Simonson & Laura Martin.

Michael & Laura Allred depict latter-day cellulose celluloid star ‘Groot!’ (originating in Tales to Astonish #13), before Francesco Francavilla highlights ‘The Hypno-Creature!’, Paolo Rivera revisits Fantastic Four #24’s weird menace ‘The Infant Terrible!’ and Glenn Fabry regales us with an Asgardian god battling ‘The Jinni Devil!’ in a scene that didn’t make it into 1967’s Thor #137…

Dave Johnson details a key point in the life of ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ before John Cassaday & Matthew Wilson illuminate the depredations of ‘Lo-Karr, Bringer of Doom!’, after which Geof Darrow whisks us back to Thor #154 to meet again amalgamated atrocity ‘Mangog!’

Kirby’s astounding 1976 Eternals series produced many incredible images, with Paul Pope & Shay Plummer selecting 2,000 feet tall Space God ‘Nezarr the Calculator!’ to set the pulses racing, whilst Mike del Mundo plumps for Strange Tales #90’s ‘Orrgo!’ and James Stokoe recalls Strange Tales of the Unusual #1 (December 1956)’s forgotten fiend ‘Poker Face!’

Recurring FF foe ‘The Quonian!’ first appeared in Fantastic Four #97 and wows again here thanks to Christian Ward, after which Eric Powell previews ‘Rommbu!’ and Tradd Moore pits Ant-Man against Tales to Astonish #39 terror ‘The Scarlet Beetle!’ before Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend show us the power of ‘Thorr!’ Chris Samnee & Wilson expose the fervent ferocity of Journey into Mystery #63’s undersea goliath ‘Ulvar!’ and Arthur Adams & Chris Sotomayor hark back to Tales to Astonish #17 to focus on ‘Vandoom’s Monster’ after which one last FF antagonist features as Cliff Chiang reveals ‘The Wrecker’s Robot!’ as seen in Fantastic Four #12.

Wrapping up this astounding alphabet are Dan Brereton’s rendition of ‘Xemnu!’ and Phil Noto’s depiction of ‘The Yeti!’ who battled Kirby’s Black Panther in #5 before Tony Moore & John Rauch hilariously conclude the countdown with alien outlaw ‘Zetora’.

Okay. Maybe a few of those spooky stalwarts might have been from a later era and star in superhero sagas, but the influence and intent was clearly seen throughout and just sets the tone for the Kirby-crafted fearsome fantasy-fest that follow…

The family-friendly monster mash – featuring scripts by Lee and Larry Lieber with Dick Ayers inking – opens with ‘I Learned the Dread Secret of The Blip!’ (Tales to Astonish #15, January 1961) wherein an openminded radar operator attempts to assist a stranded alien energy being. ‘I Dared to Battle the Crawling Creature!’ comes from TtA #22 (August 1961) as a scrawny High School nerd travels into the bowels of the Earth to face a primitive predator, whilst an aging electronicist creates and eventually counters would-be computerised conqueror ‘Elektro! He Held the World in his Iron Grip!’ (Tales of Suspense #19, January 1961).

The hideous Hypno-Creature harried a very human hero in extra-dimensional invasion epic ‘I Entered the Dimension of Doom!’ (ToS #23, November 1961) whilst facing hulking atomic victim ‘Kraa the Unhuman!’ (ToS #18, June 1961) proves the making of a timid American teacher…

A sunken stone head on a Pacific Island proved to be big trouble when explorers awakened ancient alien invaders in ‘Here Comes… Thorr the Unbelievable’ (Tales to Astonish #16, February 1961) and the origins of Defenders villain Xemnu the Titan are exposed in ‘I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!’ (Journey into Mystery #62, November 1960) whilst one hapless human proves to be the perfect hideout for extraterrestrial fugitive Zetora in ‘The Martian Who Stole My Body!’, as seen in JiM #57 (March 1960).

Foolish, fabulous, thrill-packed, utterly intoxicating and unforgettable, these are fun-filled tales no puny human could possibly resist.
© 1956-1961, 2017 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fantastic Four Omnibus volume 2


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Chic Stone, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: ?978-0-7851-8567-3 (HB/Digital edition)

It’s not an international public holiday yet but August 28th is the birthday of Comics’ Greatest Imagineer…

Jacob Kurtzberg AKA Jack Curtiss, Curt Davis, Lance Kirby, Ted Grey, Charles Nicholas, Fred Sande, Teddy The King and others was born on this day in 1917 in New York City, U.S.A. Before dying on February 6th 1994 he did lots of stuff and inspired millions of people. This is some of the most inspirational stuff he did…

In my opinion Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Action Comics #1 – introducing Superman – and All Star Comics  #3, which invented superhero teams with the debut of The Justice Society 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 (see Complete Sky Masters of the Space Force), Jack Kirby settled into his job at a small outfit that used to be publishing powerhouse Timely/Marvel/Atlas Comics. He churned out high quality mystery, monster, romance and western material in a market he feared to be ultimately doomed, as always doing the best job possible. That generic fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen. However, his fertile imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the Justice League of America caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change our industry forever.

According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to ever-opportunistic publisher Martin Goodman ordering his nephew Stan to do a title about a group of super-characters like the DC crowd then dominating the marketplace.

The resultant team took those same 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 outsider people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Jack’s prototype partners-in-peril for National/DC) had already laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, nigh-hidebound editorial strictures of the market leader would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

Concocted by “Lee & Kirby”, with inks by George Klein & Christopher Rule, Fantastic Four #1 (bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961) saw maverick scientist Dr. Reed Richards summon his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother before heading off on their first mission. They are all survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong when Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. It was crude, rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement unlike anything young fans had ever seen before. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on it and the raw storytelling caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comic books forever.

This second omnibus compendium collects Fantastic Four #31-60, double-sized Annuals #2-4 and and a tale from parody vehicle Not Brand Echh #1 (spanning September 1964 to August1967): issues of progressive landmarks cannily building on that early energy to consolidate the Fantastic Four as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

Following typically effusive “found footage”, Foreword: A Universal Favorite from Stan – with two more to follow as these many pages turn – precedes the contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) with Chic Stone inking ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, it momentously details how brilliant Roma (called “gypsy” back then) boy Victor Von Doom remakes himself into the most deadly villain in creation. Ruthlessly surmounting obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of a sorceress mother, he rises to national dominance and global status…

Following a batch of villains in ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’ (Super-Skrull, Rama-Tut, Molecule Man, Hate-Monger, The Infant Terrible and Diablo) plus pin-ups of Johnny, Sue, Ben, Alicia Masters and Reed, Past informs Present as the ultimate villain believes he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ through guile, subterfuge and mind-control whereas he has in fact suffered his most ignominious defeat…

Monthly wonderment resumes with #31’s ‘The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man!’ which precariously balances a loopy plan by the subterranean satrap to steal entire streets of New York City with a portentous subplot featuring a mysterious man from Sue’s past, as well as renewing the quartet’s somewhat fractious relationship with The Mighty Avengers…

After the first of every Fantastic 4 Fan Page letter column included for your delectation, the mystery man’s secret is revealed in ‘Death of a Hero!’: a powerful tale of tragedy and regret spanning two galaxies starring the uniquely villainous Invincible Man – who is not at all what he seems…

Supplemented by a glorious Kirby & Stone ‘Prince Namor Pin-up’ and adorned with an experimental photo montage cover from Kirby, FF #33’s ‘Side-by-Side with Sub-Mariner!’ follows, bringing the aquatic antihero one step closer to his own series as the quarrelsome quartet lend surreptitious aid to the embattled undersea monarch against deadly debuting barbarian Attuma after which ‘A House Divided!’ sees the team almost destroyed by power-hungry Mr. Gregory Hungerford Gideon, a Richest Man in the World who still can’t get all he wants…

Following a wry ‘Yancy Street Pin-Up’, #35’s ‘Calamity on the Campus!’ sees the fighting family visit Reed’s old Alma Mater in a tale designed to pander to a burgeoning college fan-base Marvel was then cultivating. Incorporating a cameo role for then-prospective college student Peter Parker, the rousing yarn brings back demon alchemist Diablo and introduces monstrous misunderstood homunculus Dragon Man.

Fantastic Four #36 premiered the team’s theoretical nemeses ‘The Frightful Four’: a group of villains comprising The Wizard, Sandman, Trapster (he was still Paste Pot-Pete here, but not for much longer) plus enigmatic new character Madame Medusa, whose origins were to have a huge impact on the heroes in months to come…

Most notable in this auspicious, action-packed, guest-star-stuffed (all the Avengers and X-Men) but inconclusive duel is the official announcement after so many months of Reed & Sue’s engagement – in itself a rare event in the realm of comic books at that time.

The team spectacularly travel to the homeworld of the shapeshifting Skrulls in #37, seeking justice or vengeance for Sue & Johnny’s recently-murdered father in ‘Behold! A Distant Star!’ They return only to be ‘Defeated by the Frightful Four!’ in #38: a sinister sneak attack and catastrophic clash of opposing forces with a startling cliffhanger that marked Chic Stone’s departure in suitably epic manner.

Frank Giacoia – under the pseudonym Frank Ray – stepped in to ink #39’s ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ wherein a suddenly-powerless FF are targeted by an enraged and humiliated Doctor Doom, with only sightless vigilante Daredevil offering a chance to keep them alive.

The saga concludes in ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ as Vince Colletta assumes inking duties for a bombastic conclusion dramatically displaying the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing.

Pausing for another Lee Introduction – ‘When Inspiration Struck’ – a new era of fantastic suspense begins with the first chapter of a tensely traumatic trilogy in which the other (EVIL) FF brainwash the despondent and increasingly isolated Thing: turning him against his former team-mates. It starts with ‘The Brutal Betrayal of Ben Grimm!’, continues in rip-roaring fashion as ‘To Save You, Why Must I Kill You?’ pits the monster’s baffled former comrades against their best friend and the world’s most insidious villains, before concluding in bombastic glory with #44’s ‘Lo! There Shall be an Ending!’

After that Colletta signed off by inking the most crowded Marvel story yet conceived. Cover-dated November 1965, Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously features every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters from the company pantheon (such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan & Jack themselves). ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by diabolical Doctor Doom. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

FF #44 was also a landmark in so many ways. Firstly, it saw the arrival of Joe Sinnott as regular inker: a skilled brush-man with a deft line and a superb grasp of anatomy and facial expression, and an artist prepared to match Kirby’s greatest efforts with his own. Some inkers had problems with just how much detail the King would pencil in; Sinnott relished it and the effort showed. What was wonderful now became incomparable…

‘The Gentleman’s Name is Gorgon!’ premieres a mysterious powerhouse with ponderous metal hooves instead of feet: a hunter implacably stalking Medusa. She then entangles the Human Torch – and thus the whole team – in her frantic bid to escape, and that’s before tmonstrous android Dragon Man shows up to complicate matters. All this is mere prelude, however: with the next issue we meet a hidden race of super-beings secretly sharing Earth for millennia. ‘Among Us Hide… The Inhumans’ reveals Medusa to be part of the Royal Family of Attilan, paranormal aristocrats on the run ever since a coup deposed the true king.

Black Bolt, Triton, Karnak and the rest would quickly become mainstays of the ever-expanding Marvel Universe, but their bewitching young cousin Crystal with her faithful giant teleporting dog Lockjaw (“who’s a Guh-hood chunky Boh-oy?”) were the real stars here. For young Johnny it is love at first sight, and Crystal’s eventual fate would finally season and mature his character, giving him a hint of angst-ridden tragedy to resonate greatly with the generation of young readers who were growing up with the comic…

‘Those Who Would Destroy Us!’ and ‘Beware the Hidden Land!’ (#46 – 47) see the team join the Inhumans as Black Bolt struggles to take back the throne from his bonkers brother Maximus the Mad, only to stumble into the usurper’s plan to wipe “inferior” humanity from the Earth.

Ideas just seem to explode from Kirby at this time. Despite being only halfway through one storyline, FF #48 trumpeted ‘The Coming of Galactus!’ so the Inhumans saga was swiftly but satisfyingly wrapped up (by page 6!) with the entire clandestine race sealed behind an impenetrable dome called the Negative Zone (later retitled Negative Barrier to avoid confusion with the sub-space gateway Reed worked on for years). Meanwhile, a cosmic entity approaches Earth, preceded by a gleaming herald on a board of pure cosmic energy…

I suspect this experimental – and vaguely uncomfortable – approach to narrative mechanics was calculated and deliberate, mirroring the way TV soap operas increasingly delivered their interwoven overlapped storylines, and used here as a means to keep readers glued to the series.

They needn’t have bothered. The stories and concepts were more than enough…

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

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

That would be a great place to stop but its only a final pause and third Lee Introduction ‘A Combo That’s Hard to Beat’ before moving on to a tale many fans consider the greatest single FF story ever. Illustrated by Kirby and inked by Sinnott, ‘This Man… This Monster!’ finds Ben’s grotesque body usurped and stolen by a vengeful, petty-minded scientist harbouring a grudge against Reed. The anonymous boffin subsequently discovers the true measure of his unsuspecting intellectual rival and willingly pays a fateful price for his envy…

By now the FF had become the most consistently groundbreaking and indisputable core title and series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters at a time when Kirby was in his conceptual prime and continually unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot as Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas that Marvel – or any publisher for that matter – has ever seen.

Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their creative powers, and full of the confidence that only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium and even society could be pushed…

Without preamble the wonderment recommenced with an actual cultural revolution as a new unforgettable character debuted. ‘The Black Panther!’ (#52, cover-dated July 1966) was an enigmatic African monarch whose secretive kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal. Mineral riches had enabled him to turn his country into a technological wonderland and – bold and confident – he lured the quartet into his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father. He was the first black superhero in American comics.

After battling the team to a standstill, King T’Challa reveals his tragic origin in ‘The Way it Began..!’, therby also introducing sonic supervillain Klaw. In the aftermath Johnny and tag-along college roommate Wyatt embark on a quest to rescue Crystal (still imprisoned with her people behind an impenetrable energy barrier in the Himalayas). The journey is paused when they discover the lost tomb of Prester John in #54’s‘Whosoever Finds the Evil Eye…!’ and almost perish in devastating, misguided combat…

For aiding the FF against Galactus, the Silver Surfer was imprisoned on Earth by the vengeful space-god. The brooding, perpetually moralising former herald had quickly become a fan-favourite and his regular appearances were always a guarantee of something special. ‘When Strikes the Silver Surfer!’ sees him in uncomprehending, brutal battle with Ben Grimm, whose insecurities over his sightless girlfriend explode into searing jealousy when the gleaming skyglider comes calling, before business as unusual resumes when ‘Klaw, the Murderous Master of Sound!’ ambushes the team in their own home in #56.

Throughout all the stories since their imprisonment, a running sub-plot with The Inhumans had been slowly building, with Johnny & Wyatt stuck on the other side of the Great Barrier: wandering the Himalayan wilds whilst seeking a way to liberate the Hidden City.

Their quest led directly into spectacular battle yarn ‘The Torch that Was!’: lead feature in the fourth FF Annual (November 1966) wherein The Mad Thinker recovers and resurrects the original Human Torch (in actuality world’s first android and a major star of Timely/Marvel’s Golden Age). The reawakened revanant is soon reprogrammed to destroy the flaming teenager who succeeded him and the blistering battle briefly reunites the entire team, leading into an epic clash with their greatest foe…

Fantastic Four #57-60 is Lee & Kirby at their sublime best, with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts as the most dangerous man on Earth steals and empowers himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as The Inhumans at last win their freedom and we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all its awesome fury.

It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the heroes’ utter defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

After all the heartstopping action and suspense the affair ends for the present on a comedic note, with a pertinent parody from spoof title Not Brand Echh, opening with #1 (August 1967) and Lee, Kirby & Giacoia’s reassessment of Doom’s theft of the Power Cosmic in ‘The Silver Burper!’…

Art lovers and history buffs can also enjoy a boundless hidden bounty at the end of this volume as we close with fascinating freebies in the form of essays ‘Fantastic Four’s Golden Year’ by Roy Thomas, ‘From This Day Forward: How Marriage Changes Everything (Even for the FF)’ by Jon B. Cooke, ‘Wonderment Aplenty’ by Mark Evanier, ‘What’s in a Name’ by John Morrow and ‘The Start of a Revolution’ by Reginald Hudlin, all supported by visual treats including numerous house ads, initial designs for Coal Tiger (who evolved into the Black Panther), Kirby & Sinnott’s unused first cover for FF #52, an unmodified version of the cover for #38, bolstered by the covers for FF reprint titles Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics/Marvel’s Greatest Comics #1-43 and Marvel Triple Action #1-4 by Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Jim Starlin and Kirby augmented by original art pages and Ladrönn’s cover for the 2007 FF Omnibus #2 edition.

Epic, revolutionary and unutterably unmissable, these are the stories which made Marvel the unassailable leaders in comics fantasy entertainment and they remain some of the most important superhero stories ever crafted. The verve, conceptual scope and sheer enthusiasm shines through on every page and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is the perfect key to another – far brighter – world and time.
© 2022 MARVEL.

And since So Many Others are already talking of Yule fuel…
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Total Entertainment Perfection… 10/10

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Deadpool Epic Collection volume 2: Mission Improbable (1994-1997)


By Joe Kelly, Ed McGuiness, Larry Hama, Christopher Golden, Jeph Loeb, Adam Pollina, Aaron Lopresti, Bernard Chang, Ben Herrera, Adam Kubert, Fabio Laguna, Kevin Lau, Pete Woods, Shannon Denton & John Fang & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-427-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

With a long, LONG awaited cinematic combo clash finally headed our way this summer and in the year a certain Canadian Canucklehead’s turns 50, expect a few cashing-in style commendations and reviews. Here’s a handy starter package to set the ball rolling…

Bloodthirsty and stylish killers and mercenaries have long made for popular protagonists: so much so they even have their own movie subgenre. Deadpool is Wade Wilson (a barely disguised knockoff of Slade Wilson/Deathstroke the Terminator: get over it – DC did): a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that has left him a scarred, grotesque bundle of scabs and physical unpleasantries but practically invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

The wisecracking high-tech “merc with a mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, and apparently another product of the US/Canadian Weapon X project that had created Wolverine and so many other mutant and/or cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (see previous volume) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title.

This collection spans cover-dates December 1994 – October 1997, compiling the increasingly funny, furiously fight-filled Deadpool #1-9 (plus issue minus 1) as well as Wolverine #88, X-Force #47 & 56 and combination release Daredevil & Deadpool Annual 1997, with excerpted material from Wolverine Annual ‘95: all-in-all a frenetic blend of light-hearted, surreal, frays, frolics and incisive, poignant relationship drama that is absolutely compulsive reading for dyed-in-the-wool superhero fans who might be feeling just a little jaded with four-colour overload. For the sake of completeness, also included are pertinent snippets from X-Force #46, 71, 73 & 76…

Preceded by an Introduction from Joe Kelly, the cartoon violence kicks off with the First Official MU Meeting of its most stabby stalwarts. ‘It’s D-D-Deadpool, Folks!’ (by Larry Hama, Adam Kubert, Fabio Laguna & Mark Farmer) was December 1994’s Wolverine #88 wherein Wade is hunting his former girlfriend Vanessa AKA Copycat. Sadly, he’s looking in the same apartment severely-wounded X-Man Logan is searching for traces of equally missing cyborg (and Alpha Flight ally) Garrison Kane who was at that time calling himself “Weapon X”. In minted Marvel Manner, the misunderstanding leads to major violence and mass healing factor deployment…

The fractious relationship was renewed in a short from Wolverine Annual ’95 wherein Chris Golden, Ben Herrera &Vince Russell reveal ‘What the Cat Dragged In’ when Wolverine -seeking a cure for dying comrade Maverick (infected with the Legacy Virus) – accidentally liberates Wilson from a bio-lab where evil Dr. Westergaard and Slayback hold him captive. The villains wants to duplicate healing factors and soon pay heavily for their lack of ethics…

A slice of X-Force #46 and full load from #47#s ‘Breakout’ (September & October 1995 by Jeph Loeb, Adam Pollina & Mark Pennington) focuses on Deadpool’s ill-advised relationship with X-teen Siryn (Theresa Maeve Rourke Cassidy) who against her better judgement calls on the smitten merc to free her from an extremely unsafe asylum: The Weissman Institute. That bloody rescue only confirms that it’s not only the lunatics in charge of this nuthatch and in the melee mutant forces clash and Wade takes up involuntary residence…

He’s stuck there for a very long time and only let loose in ‘Crazy for You’ (X-Force #56, July 1996, by Loeb, Pollina, Bud LaRosa & Mark Morales) when mind-wiped Theresa regains lost memories and goes back to get him with teammate Shatterstar in tow. Once the true mastermind is exposed everyone makes for the exits in advance of the next big change…

Preceded by a mini-gallery of Ed McGuinness covers, at last, inevitably Deadpool claimed his own title. A new era began with extra-sized spectacular ‘Hey, It’s Deadpool!’ as Joe Kelly, McGuiness, Nathan Massengill & Norman Lee re-introduced the mouthy maniac, his “office” and “co-workers” at the Hellhouse where he picked up his contracts and also afforded us a glimpse at his private life in San Francisco. Here he has a house and keeps an old, blind lady a permanent hostage. This was never going to be your average superhero title but the creators fully leaned into the outrageous…

The insane action part of the tale comes from the South Pole where the Canadian government has a super-secret gamma weapon project going: guarded by Alpha Flight strongman Sasquatch. Now somebody is paying good money to have it destroyed, but nothing goes quite to plan…

In #2 ‘Operation: Rescue Weasel or That Wacky Doctor’s Game!’ finds the slightly gamma-irradiated hitman still mooning over lost love Siryn (I cannot emphasise this enough: the barely legal mutant hottie from X-Force) when his only friend/tech support guy Weasel goes missing, snatched by ninjas working for super-villain Taskmaster – and just when Deadpool’s healing ability is on the fritz. Deadpool #3’s ‘Stumped! Or This Little Piggie Went… Hey! Where’s the Piggy?!’ ramps up the screwball comedy quotient as Siryn convinces the merciless merc to turn his life around, which he’ll try just as soon as he tortures and slowly kills the doctor who first experimented on him all those years ago…

The turnabout storyline continues in ‘Why Is It, to Save Me, I Must Kill You?’ featuring a hysterically harrowing segment where Wilson must get a blood sample from The Incredible Hulk, before concluding in #5’s ‘The Doctor is Skinned!’ …or The End of Our First Story Arc’, wherein T-Ray – his biggest rival at Hellhouse – moves to become the company “top gun”…

Another extended story arc opens with Deadpool #6 and ‘Man, Check Out the Head on that Chick!’ as the gun (sword, grenade, knife, garrotte, spoon…) for hire accepts a contract to spring a woman from a mental asylum. Of course it’s never cut-and-dried in Wade’s World, and said patient is guarded by distressingly peculiar villainess The Vamp (who old-timers will recall changes into a giant, hairy naked telepathic cave-MAN when provoked …cue poor taste jokes by the dozen…).

The saga is briefly paused for a looming publishing event. Flashback was a company-wide publishing event wherein Marvel Stars shared an untold tale from their past, with each issue that month being numbered # -1. Deadpool’s contribution was a darker than usual tale from Kelly, Aaron Lopresti & Rachel Dodson, focusing on para-dimensional expediter Zoe Culloden. She’s a behind the scenes manipulator who has been tweaking Wilson’s life for years. ‘Paradigm Lost’ looks at formative moments from the hitman’s history and possibly reveals the moment when – if ever – the manic murderer started to become a better man…

Back at the plot (and with extra inking support from Chris Lichtner), it just gets worse in ‘Typhoid… It Ain’t Just Fer Cattle Any More or Head Trips’ as that captive chick turns out to be murderous multiple personality psycho-killer Typhoid Mary. Her seductive mind-tricks ensnare Deadpool, dragging him into conflict against the Man Without Fear in a closing episode mad-housed in Daredevil & Deadpool Annual 1997’s ‘Whomsoever Fights Monsters…’

Sadly, Typhoid isn’t easy to get rid of and Deadpool #8 (Kelly, Pete Woods, McGuiness, Shannon Denton, John Fang, Massengill & Lee) sees her still making things difficult for Wade in ‘We Don’t Need another Hero…’ with the merc forced to confront true madness… or is that True Evil?

It’s a return to lighter, but certainly no less traumatic, fare for final complete entry ‘Ssshhhhhhhhhh! or Heroes Reburned’ (with ancillary pencils by Denton) as Deadpool reclaims his pre-eminent position at Hellhouse just in time to be suckered into a psychological ambush by utterly koo-koo villain Deathtrap – clearly another huge fan of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones’ greatest hits…

Wrapping up the storytelling portion are pertinent moments from X-Force #71, 73 & 76, as crafted by John Francis Moore, Pollina, Andy Smith, Mike S. Miller, Morales, Mark Prudeaux, Rich Perrota, Walden Wong, Scott Hanna & Sean Parsons. Here dangling plot threads are addressed as Wade makes his peace with Siryn (or thinks he does) and fellow merc Domino hires out to insane assassin Arcade… with big trouble brewing for a later date…

Slowing the pace and closing this particular red ledger is a flurry of bonus features beginning with ‘Deadpool Behind the Scenes’ by Matt Idelson & Chris Carroll: outlining the creative process via ‘The Story’, ‘The Cover’, ‘If at First You Don’t Succeed…’

Next are ‘Character Design’, excerpted letters pages ‘Deadlines’; ‘Behind the Scenes: Daredevil/Deadpool ‘97’ and Behind the Scenes: Deadpool #6, 7 & 9’ from concept to finished art, and closing with articles and poster art from promo magazine Marvel Visions #12, plus house ads, trading card art (18 images by 21 different artists), even more posters and covers to earlier collected graphic novels.

Although staying close to the X-franchise that spawned him, Deadpool was always a welcome counterpoint to the constant sturm und drang of his Marvel contemporaries: weird, wise-cracking, and profoundly absurd on a satisfyingly satirical level. Now he’s bigger than God – Graeco-Roman ones at least – this titanic tome could serve as a great reintroduction to comics for fans who thought they had outgrown the fights ‘n’ tights crowd and a must have bible for film fans looking to get their funnybook freak on.
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Sub-Mariner & The Original Human Torch


By Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Rich Buckler with Bob McLeod, Richardson & Company, Mike Gustovich, Danny Bulanadi, Alfredo Alcala, Romeo Tanghal & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9048-6 (TPB)

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the hybrid offspring of a sub-sea Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer; a being of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics.

He first caught the public’s attention as part of an elementally electrifying “Fire vs. Water” headlining team-up clash in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and soon to become Marvel Mystery Comics) alongside The Human Torch, but had originally been seen in truncated form via monochrome Motion Picture Funnies: a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Rapidly becoming one of the new company’s biggest draws, Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-date Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” (the Torch and Captain America being the other two), Sub-Mariner resurfaced with Everett returning for an extended run of superb fantasy tales. Even so, the time wasn’t right and the title sank again.

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby began reinventing comic-books in 1961 with Fantastic Four, they revived and rebooted the near-forgotten amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, yet decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero. He was understandably embittered at the loss of his undersea kingdom, which had seemingly been destroyed by American atomic testing.

He also became a dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with the FF’s golden-haired Sue Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel Universe for a few years, squabbling with assorted heroes like Daredevil, The Avengers and X-Men – and villains like The Incredible Hulk and Doctor Doom – before securing his own series as part of “split-book” Tales to Astonish with the aforementioned fellow antisocial antihero…

In 1988, as part of Marvel’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, that phenomenal half-century of comic book history was abridged, amended, updated and generally précised by avowed fan and self-appointed keeper of chronology Roy Thomas and writing partner Dann Thomas who collaboratively commemorated the Avenging Son’s contribution in 12-part Limited Series miniseries The Saga of the Sub-Mariner: rapturously drawn by Golden Age groupie Rich Buckler.

Roy & Rich did the same with The Saga of the Original Human Torch – a 4-part series running April to July 1990 – and both sides of the tempestuous coin are triumphantly tossed together in this splendidly all-encompassing, no-nonsense textbook of historic Fights ‘n’ Tights mythology ideal for celebrating and commemorating the elemental odd couple’s 85th Anniversary…

It all begins thousands of years ago with ‘A Legend a-Borning’ from The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1 (November 1988) with Buckler inked by Bob McLeod. A short history of the sinking of antediluvian Atlantis and its eventual reoccupation by nomadic tribes of Homo Mermanus follows. The water-breathing wanderers flourish deep in the icy waters, and their story leads to a certain US research vessel sailing into icy waters in 1920…

Its depth-charging and icebreaking has horrendous consequences for the citizens of the deep and in response Emperor Thakorr organises a possibly punitive expedition. Instead, his daughter Princess Fen uses experimental air-breathing serums to infiltrate the ship and forms a brief liaison with Captain Leonard McKenzie. They even marry, but neither is aware the voyage has been arranged by unscrupulous telepath Paul Destine who is drawn to the area by an uncanny device of ancient power and origins…

Whilst Destine is being buried under a catastrophic avalanche trying to excavate the artefact, a raiding party from Atlantis boards the ship and drags Fen back home. She believes her husband has been killed in the attack. Months later a strange, pink-skinned baby is born beneath the deep blue sea…

The story resumes years later with teenaged Namor experiencing prejudice firsthand whilst playing with his blue-skinned chums and royal cousin Prince Byrrah. The passing of his callow years are interspersed with his grandfather’s disdain, his mother’s tales of the fabled “Americans” and the annoying girl Dorma who is always hanging around…

Every day seems to point out another way in which he differs from his people, such as his ever-increasing strength, ability to live unaided on the surface and the wings on his ankles which grant him the power of flight through the air.

Life changes forever when the youngster scavenges a sunken ship and shockingly encounters a brace of clunky mechanical men from the surface world doing the same. Panicked, he attacks, severing control cables connected to a ship far above before proudly hauling them to Atlantis as his prize. For once grandfather is delighted, especially when the face plates are pried open and he sees dead surface-men within.

The Emperor is ever more gleeful when Byrrah suggests Namor should go beard the Surfacers in their own realm to pay them back for the past destruction of Atlantis. Young, feisty and gullible, Namor sets off, ready to live up to his name which means ‘Avenging Son’…

‘A Prince in New York’ spectacularly depicts the fantastic reign of terror and destruction Sub-Mariner wrought upon the city, until distracted and becalmed by plucky blonde policewoman Betty Dean. It then reveals how he learns to despise Nazi Germany’s maritime depredations before ‘A Fire on the Water’ details how New York Special Policeman The (Original) Human Torch is deputised to stop the fish-man at all costs…

He never quite succeeds, but their ongoing clash resulted in some of the most astonishing scraps in comics history. With the city almost wrecked by their battles Betty Dean again steps in to calm the boiling waters and the next chapter – inked by Richardson & Company – introduced the ‘Invaders!’ as Hitler incomprehensibly decides to eradicate Atlantis with depth charges and U-boats. This rash act of wanton hatred merely secures Sub-Mariner’s fanatical aid for the Allied Powers.

With Thakorr wounded, the people elect Namor Emperor by popular acclaim before watching him swim off to crush the Axis and their super-powered servants. The young regent fights with and beside the Torch, Captain America, Bucky, Spitfire and Union Jack. By the time the war is won and Namor returns to his realm, Byrrah and his crony Commander Krang have turned recuperating Thakorr against his interim substitute and Sub-Mariner finds himself banished. Only Lady Dorma’s impassioned intervention prevents the homecoming becoming a bloodbath…

With nowhere else to go Namor rejoins his surface superhero friends to create the post-war All-Winners Squad, before eventually being summoned home by his cousin Namora. Atlantis has been ravaged by air-breathing gangsters…

Seeking vengeance, they team up with Betty for a short-lived crusade against criminals, madmen and monsters until again recalled to the rebuilt underwater kingdom. Namor’s years away had gradually diminished his mighty hybrid abilities, but now-recovered Thakorr orders Atlantis’ greatest scientists to restore them so the Sub-Mariner can renew the Realm’s war against all surface-men…

Instead, Namor attempts diplomacy, but his State Visit to the United Nations results in violent protests and the death of a bystander. He returns to his grandfather a bitter man, but still argues against war, no matter how hard General Krang and Byrrah urge it…

When Atlantis is wracked by seaquakes, Namor leads a patrol to the polar cap above and discovers freshly-exhumed Paul Destine is responsible. The psychic had found a fantastic Helmet of Power which magnified his gifts exponentially, and decided to test his expanded abilities on the closest population centre…

Enraged, Namor’s physical might is useless against the tele-potent madman and Destine wipes his fishy foe’s memories, sending him to live as an amnesiac amongst the dregs of New York, blindly awaiting his future ‘Dark Destiny’ (McLeod inks).

The epic history lesson reaches the dawn of the Marvel Age decades later as ‘Rage and Remembrance’ recaps the epochal events after new Human Torch Johnny Storm restores the memory of a weary derelict and unleashes the rage of the Sub-Mariner once again. With his mind and most of his memories back, Namor instantly heads home to find Atlantis razed and his people gone. Blaming humans, he launches a series of blistering attacks on the Fantastic Four whilst attempting to win the heart of the clearly conflicted Invisible Girl…

As months pass he discovers his people had relocated to rebuild Atlantis. Namor is re-elected Emperor over the protests of Byrrah and betrothed to Lady Dorma, unknowingly earning the eternal enmity of Warlord Krang who has always wanted her…

His war against the surface continues, escalating into a brief invasion of New York, a turbulent alliance with The Hulk and clash with ‘Avengers!’ (Mike Gustovich inks) resulting in the revival of his now-forgotten Invaders comrade Captain America…

Sub-Mariner’s pointless sorties against mankind continue as he forcefully adds The X-Men and Magneto onto his roster of enemies whilst still trying to take Sue Storm away from Reed Richards.

After repelling an invasion by sub-sea barbarian Attuma he softens and again seeks official human recognition for Atlantis. Whilst making this embassage, Krang seizes control of Atlantis and after battling Daredevil, Namor returns to his kingdom, deals with the usurper and more-or-less dials back his campaign against the surface. Sadly, this peace is interrupted as Destine again strikes, inviting the new ruler to a ‘Rendezvous with Destiny!’ (McLeod inks).

Time and events telescope from now on as ‘Losses in Battle’ traces Namor’s showdown with the mental maniac, alliance with the Inhuman Triton and battles Plantman, Dr. Dorcas, Tiger Shark, The Thing and a host of others, as well as enjoying a reunion with Betty Prentiss (nee Dean) and facing the rise of the sinister antediluvian Serpent Cult of Lemuria, which first devised the formidable Helmet of Power in eons past. Also revealed is how Namor’s marriage to Dorma is thwarted by murderous Lemurian Llyra and his subsequent agonising first and last meetings with his long-lost father…

‘Blood Ties’ then details his meeting with and adoption of Namora’s teenaged daughter Namorita, clashes with Doctor Doom and M.O.D.O.K., an alliance of Byrrah and Llyra and origins of The Defenders before ‘Triumphs… and Tragedy!’ (inked by McLeod & Co) brings us to a cameo-packed conclusion, relating Namor’s enforced alliance with Doom, admission into the Mighty Avengers and loss of two of his greatest loves…

Although appearing a tad rushed, the writing is strong and compelling: offering fresh insights for those familiar with the original material whilst presenting these chronicles in an engaging and appetising manner for those coming to the stories for the first time. Moreover, Buckler’s solidly dependable illustration capably handles a wide, wild and capacious cast with great style and verve.

Balancing the watery wonderment is the later and far shorter comics chronology of Sub-Mariner’s arch ally and favourite frenemy, as first seen in The Saga of the Original Human Torch. It starts with ‘The Lighted Torch’ by Thomas, Buckler & Danny Bulanadi, showing how the Flaming Fury first burst into life as a malfunctioning humanoid devised by troubled and acquisitive Professor Phineas Horton. Instantly igniting into an uncontrollable fireball whenever exposed to air, the artificial innocent was consigned to entombment in concrete but escaped to accidentally imperil the metropolis until it/he fell into the hands of a malign mobster named Sardo.

When the crook’s attempts to use the android as a terror weapon dramatically backfired, the hapless newborn was left a misunderstood fugitive – like a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster. Even his creator only saw the fiery Prometheus as a means of making money.

Gradually gaining control of his flammability, the angry, perpetually rejected android decides to make his own way in the world. Instinctively honest, the creature saw crime and wickedness everywhere and resolved to do something about it. Indistinguishable from human when not afire, he joined the police as Jim Hammond: tackling ordinary thugs even as his volcanic alter ego battled such outlandish bandits as Asbestos Lady. The Torch met Betty Dean when New York City Chief of Police John C. Wilson asked him to stop the savage Sub-Mariner destroying everything. The battles are spectacular but inconclusive, only ending when Betty intervenes and brokers a tenuous ceasefire.

Later, a brusque reunion with Horton sets the Torch on the trail of his creator’s former assistant Fred Raymond. Hammond is too late to stop Asbestos Lady murdering the Raymonds in a train wreck, but adopts their little boy Toro, who gains the power to become a human torch as soon as he meets the artificial avenger. The partners in peril become a team who set ‘The World on Fire!’: battling beside Namor in The Invaders for WWII’s duration.

They even play a major role in ending the conflict in 1945, storming a Berlin bunker and incinerating Hitler, before rising ‘Out of the Ashes…’ (Alfredo Alcala inks) to battle Homefront hostiles, exposing Machiavellian android mastermind Adam-II who, with knowledge of the future, attempts to assassinate a group of strangers who would all eventually be Presidents of the USA. The Fiery Furies formed the backbone of the All-Winners Squad, battling maniacs and conquerors from tomorrow, continuing their campaign against crime long after their comrades retired…

When a family crisis benches Toro, the Torch soldiers on with new sidekick Sun Girl until he returns. The reunion is destined to be short and far from sweet…

The hot history lesson concludes in ‘The Flaming Fifties!’ (inked by Romeo Tanghal) as Jim Hammond bursts from a desert grave following a nuclear test explosion: revived from a chemically-induced coma mimicking death. His last memory was of being ambushed by gangsters and sprayed with a chemical inhibiting his flame and knocking him out. Blazing back to the ambush site he attacks his assailants only to discover four years have passed…

When they employ the same solution as before, the compound no longer works on his atomically-charged form and when G-Men burst in the awful truth comes out. The Torch & Toro vanished in 1949 and when pressed, the crooks admit to having got their chemical cosh from the Russians. More chillingly, they paid for it by handing Toro over to the Reds…

After spectacularly rescuing and deprogramming the Soviets’ incendiary secret weapon, the Torch brings Toro home and they continue their anti-crime campaign against weird villains, Commie menaces and an assortment of crooks and gangsters. However, before long tragedy again strikes as the atomic infusion finally reaches critical mass in Jim’s android body.

Realising he is about to flame out in a colossal nova, The Human Torch soars into the desert skies and detonates like a supernova…

The pre-Marvel Age exploits of the Torch end here, but devotees already know how Hammond was resurrected a number of times in the convoluted continuity that underpins the modern House of Ideas…

This substantial primer into the prehistory of the groundbreaking Marvel Universe also includes a quartet of original art covers plus a brace of full-colour, textless cover reproductions. Fast, furious and fabulously action-packed, this is a lovely slice of authentic Marvel mastery to delight all lovers of Costumed dramas.
© 1988, 1989, 1990, 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks volume 7


By Tom DeFalco, Alan Kupperberg, David Michelinie, Doug Moench, Ron Wilson, Jerry Bingham, Pablo Marcos, Chic Stone, Gene Day & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5509-0 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

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

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man’s guest vehicle Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas ran with the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most popular star. They began with a brace of test runs in Marvel Feature #11-12 before awarding him his own team-up title, with this 7th stirring selection gathering the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #75-82 and MTIO Annuals #5 & 6, collectively covering September 1980 – December 1981.

Preceded by a comprehensive and informative contextual reverie in editor Jim Salicrup’s Introduction ‘Hoo-Ha!’, a late-running annual event anachronistically opens the fun. Although released in summer 1980, Alan Kupperberg & Pablo Marcos’ addition to the ongoing feud between The Thing and The Hulk (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #5, cover-dated September 1980) was omitted from the last volume due to the epic continued tales therein, but sits comfortably enough here. ‘Skirmish with Death’ sees the titanic duo join ruthless extraterrestrial explorer/researcher The Stranger to stop death god Pluto destroying the universe…

Pausing only for a contemporary house ad plugging the big birthday bash, cosmic extravaganzas remain in vogue for anniversary issue Marvel Two-In-One #75 (May 1981, by Tom DeFalco, Kupperberg & Chic Stone, with Marie Severin) as Ben and The Avengers are drawn into the Negative Zone to stop a hyper-powered Super-Adaptoid, and find themselves inevitably ‘By Blastaar Betrayed!’…

Hitting mundane reality with a bump, MTIO #76 exposes ‘The Big Top Bandits’ (DeFalco, David Michelinie, Jerry Bingham & Stone) as Iceman and Ben make short work of the Circus of Evil before a double dose of action in #77 as Thing and Man-Thing nearly join in a rescue mission where ‘Only the Swamp Survives!’ (DeFalco, Ron Wilson & Stone). This tale also features a poignant, bizarre cameo from The Human Torch and Sergeant Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos…

The innate problem with team-up tales is always a lack of continuity – something Marvel always rightly prided itself upon – and which writer/editor Marv Wolfman had sought to address during his tenure through the simple expedient of having stories link-up via evolving, overarching plots which took Ben from place to place and from guest to guest. That policy remained in play until the end, and here sees the lovably lumpy lummox head to Hollywood to head-off a little copyright infringement in DeFalco, Michelinie, Wilson & Stone’s ‘Monster Man!’ The sleazy producer to blame is actually alien serial abductor Xemnu the Titan and Big Ben needs the help of budding actor Wonder Man to foil its latest subliminal mind-control scheme…

Delivered by Doug Moench, Wilson & Gene Day Marvel Two-In-One Annual #6 then introduces ‘An Eagle from America!’ as old chum Wyatt Wingfoot calls The Thing in to help in a battle between brothers involving Indian Tribal Land rights but which had grown into open warfare and attempted murder. The clash results in one sibling becoming new hardline superhero ‘The American Eagle’: hunting his erring brother and a pack of greedy white killers to the Savage Land, consequently recruiting jungle lord Ka-Zar before ‘Never Break the Chain’ sees Ben catch up to them amidst a cataclysmic final clash against old enemy Klaw, Master of Sound in ‘…The Dinosaur Graveyard!’

Monthly Marvel Two-In-One #79 and DeFalco, Wilson & Stone reveal how cosmic entity ‘Shanga, the Star-Dancer!’ visits Earth and makes a lifelong commitment to decrepit WWII superhero Blue Diamond (formerly of The Liberty Legion) whilst in #80,‘Call Him… Monster!’ sees Ben Grimm risk doom and damnation to prevent Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze from crossing the infernal line over a pair of cheap punks…

Extended subplots return in ‘No Home for Heroes!’ as Bill (Giant-Man) Foster enters the final stages of his lingering death from radiation exposure. Ben, meanwhile, has been captured by deranged science experiment M.O.D.O.K. and subjected to a new bio-weapon, only to be rescued by old sparring partner Sub-Mariner. Before long ‘The Fatal Effects of Virus X!’ lay him low and he begins to mutate into an even more hideous gargoyle…

Helping him hunt for M.O.D.O.K. and a cure are Captain America and Giant-Man, and their success leads brings us to the end of this vintage voyage.

Well, not quite as the bonus features offer Ron Wilson’s ‘Special Foom Sneak Preview: The American Eagle!’ as first seen in F.O.O.M. #21 (Spring 1978), with Ed Hannigan & Walt Simonson’s original cover art for MTIO Annual #6 and its painted colour guide. Wrapping up the extras are the covers for reprint series The Adventures of The Thing # 2 & 4 (May & July 1992 by Joe Quesada & Dan Panosian and Gary Barker & Mark Farmer respectively).

Most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s loads of fun to be found for young and old readers alike. Fiercely tied to the minutia of Marvel continuity, these stories from Marvel’s Middle Period are certainly of variable quality, but whereas a few might feel rushed and ill-considered they are balanced by other, superb adventure romps as captivating today as they ever were.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Captain America Epic Collection volume 5: The Secret Empire 1973-1974


By Steve Englehart, Mike Friedrich, Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Sal Buscema, Alan Weiss, John Byrne, Vince Colletta, Frank McLaughlin, John Verpoorten, Frank Giacoia, John Tartaglione, George Roussos & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4873-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Please be aware this review concerns material with Discriminatory Content.

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: one where 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…

This resoundingly resolute full-colour Epic Collection re-presents Captain America and the Falcon #160-179 (spanning cover-dates April 1973 to December 1974) with the former patriotic symbol and full-time crimefighting partner The Falcon (Harlem-based social worker and combat acrobat Sam Wilson) confronting truly troubled times head on. The once convinced and confirmed Sentinel of Liberty was becoming a lost symbol of a divided nation, uncomfortable in his red, white & blue skin and looking to carve himself a new place in the Land of the Free. Sadly, calamitous events were about to put paid to that particular American dream…

Into an already turbulent mix of racial and gender inequality played out against standard Fights ‘n’ Tights villainy came creeping overtones of corruption and betrayal of ideals that were fuelled by shocking real-world events.

Following an informative behind-the-scenes reminiscence the drama begins courtesy of scripter Steve and artists Sal Buscema & Frank McLaughlin as ‘Enter: Solarr!’ offers an old-fashioned clash with a super-powered maniac as the main attraction. However, the real meat is the start of twin sub-plots that would shape the next half-dozen adventures, as the Star-Spangled Avenger’s newfound super-strength increasingly makes his proud partner-in-crimefighting feel like a junior and inferior hindrance, even as Steve Rogers’ long-time romantic interest Sharon Carter leaves him without a word of explanation…

Inked by John Verpoorten, CA&F #161 ramps up the tension between Steve and Sam as they search for Sharon in ‘…If he Loseth His Soul!’, and finds a connection to the girl Cap loved and lost in WWII as part of a deadly psycho-drama overseen by criminal shrink Dr. Faustus. It culminates one month later in a singular lesson in extreme therapy proving ‘This Way Lies Madness!’

CA&F #162’s ‘Beware of Serpents!’ heralded the return of super snakes Viper and Eel, who combine with The Cobra to form a vicious but ultimately unsuccessful Serpent Squad to attack the heroes. Humiliatingly defeated, former ad-exec Jordan Dixon/Viper vengefully begins a media manipulation campaign to destroy the Sentinel of Liberty with the “Big Lie”, weaponised fake news and the worst tactics of Madison Avenue. Although the instigator quickly falls, his scheme rumbles on with slow, inexorable and dire consequences…

Issue #164 offers a stunningly scary episode illustrated by Alan Lee Weiss, introducing faux-coquette mad scientist Deadly Nightshade: a ‘Queen of the Werewolves!’ who infects Sam with her chemical lycanthropy as an audition to enlist in the fearsome forces of one of the planet’s greatest menaces…

The full horror of the situation is only revealed when ‘The Yellow Claw Strikes’ (Englehart, Buscema & McLaughlin); renewing a campaign of terror begun in the 1950s, but this time attacking his former Chinese Communist sponsors and the USA indiscriminately. Giant bugs, deadly slave assassins and reanimated mummies are bad enough, but when the Arcane Immortal’s formidable mind-control dupes Cap into almost beating S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo Nick Fury to death on the ‘Night of the Lurking Dead!’, the blistering final battle results in further tragedy when an old ally perishes in the Frank Giacoia inked ‘Ashes to Ashes’…

A pause for thought: these days we comics apologists keep saying “it was a different era”, but to ignore history is to inevitably repeat it. Even before Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward/Sax Rohmer’s ultimate embodiment of mistrust and suspicion was created, fiction has used racism as a tool for sales. However, it really took off with 1913’s The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu delivering a prime archetype for mad scientists and the remorseless “Yellow Peril” which threatened (white colonial) civilization.

The character spread to stage, screen, airwaves and comics (even appropriating the cover of Detective Comics #1, heralding an interior series that ran until #28), but most importantly, the concept became a visual affirmation and conceptual basis for countless evil “Asiatics”, “Orientals” and “Celestials” who dominated popular fiction for most of the 20th century.

Like most mass entertainment forms comics companies like Marvel employed many “Yellow Peril” knock-offs and personifications (especially after China became communist after WWII) including Wong Chu; Plan Tzu AKA the Yellow – latterly Golden – Claw; Huang Zhu; Silver Samurai; Doctor Sun, the second Viper, ad infinitum: all birds of another colour that are nastily pejorative shades of saffron. These stories, crafted by Marvel’s employees were – and remain – some of the best action comics you’ll ever encounter, but never forget what they’re actually about: distrust of the obviously other; and that needs to be foremost in young minds when reading these old stories.

Comics – Marvel foremost – has sought to sensitively address issues of race and honestly attempt to share non-Christian philosophies and thought in later years. Moreover and most importantly, they were among the first to offer potently powerful role models to kids of Asian origins, and acknowledged these past iniquities.

One of the Star-Spangled Avenger’s most durable foes sort-of resurfaces in tense, action-heavy romp ‘…And a Phoenix Shall Arise!’. Scripted by Roy Thomas & Tony Isabella with inks by John Tartaglione & George Roussos, the simple throwaway yarn has taken on major significance as the soft return of one of Marvel’s most significant villains.

With additional scripting from Mike Friedrich, Englehart’s major storyline resumes as the Viper’s long-laid plans start finally bearing bitter fruit in #169’s ‘When a Legend Dies!’. With anti-Captain America TV spots making people doubt the honesty and sanity of the nation’s greatest hero, Sam and his “Black Power” activist girlfriend Leila Taylor depart for African nation Wakanda to technologically boost The Falcon’s abilities, leaving Cap to battle third-rate villain The Tumbler. In the heat of combat the Avenger seemingly goes too far and the thug dies…

‘J’Accuse!’ (Englehart, Friedrich, Buscema & Vince Colletta) reveals Cap beaten and arrested by too-good-to-be-true neophyte crusader Moonstone, whilst in Africa Leila is kidnapped by exiled Harlem hood Stone-Face, far from home and hungry for some familiar foxy ghetto-style “companionship”…

CA&F #171’s ‘Bust-Out!’ finds Cap forcibly sprung from jail by a mysterious pack of “supporters” as The Black Panther and the newly high-flying Falcon crush Stone-Face prior to a quick dash back to the USA and a reunion with its beleaguered and tarnished American icon. ‘Believe it or Not: The Banshee!’ opens with Captain America and the Falcon beaten by – but narrowly escaping – Moonstone and his obscurely occluded masters, after which the hard-luck heroes trace a lead to Nashville, only to encounter the fugitive mutant Master of Sound and stumble into a clandestine pogrom on American soil.

For many months mutants have been disappearing unnoticed, but now the last remaining X-Men – (Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Charles Xavier – have tracked them down, only to discover Captain America’s problems also stem from ‘The Sins of the Secret Empire!’ whose ultimate goal is the conquest of the nation. Eluding capture by S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve and Sam infiltrate the evil Empire, only to be exposed and confined in ‘It’s Always Darkest!’ before abruptly turning the tables and saving the day in #175’s ‘…Before the Dawn!’, wherein a vile grand plan is revealed, the mutants liberated and the culprits captured.

In a (still) shocking final scene, the ultimate instigator is unmasked and horrifically dispatched within the White House itself…

At this time America was a nation reeling from loss of unity, solidarity and perspective as a result of a torrent of shattering blows such as losing the Vietnam war, political scandals like Watergate and the (partial) exposure of President Nixon’s lies and crimes.

The general decline of idealism and painful public revelations that politicians are generally unpleasant – even possibly ruthless, wicked exploiters – kicked the props out of most citizens who had an incomprehensibly rosy view of their leaders. Thus, a conspiracy that reached into the halls and backrooms of government was extremely controversial yet oddly attractive in those distant, simpler days…

Unable to process the betrayal of all he has held dear, the Star-Spangled Avenger cannot accept this battle has any winner: a feeling that will change his life forever.

Following an attempt by sections of the elected government to undemocratically seize control by deceit and criminal conspiracy (sounds like sheer fantasy these days, doesn’t it?) Captain America can no longer be associated with a tarnished ideal and #176 sees shocked, stunned Steve Rogers search his soul and realise he also cannot be the symbol of such a country. Despite anxious arguments and advice of his Avenging allies Steve decides ‘Captain America Must Die!’ (Englehart, Buscema & Colletta).

Unable to convince him otherwise, staunch ally Sam carries on alone, tackling in the following issue a body-snatching old X-Men foe in ‘Lucifer Be Thy Name’ before wrapping up the threat in ‘If the Falcon Should Fall…!’

Steve meanwhile settles into uncomfortable retirement, as a number of painfully unqualified amateurs try to fill the crimson boots of Captain America – with dire results. Captain America and the Falcon #179 sees unsettled civilian Rogers hunted by a mysterious Golden Archer whose ‘Slings and Arrows!’ convince the ex-hero that even if he can’t be a Star-spangled sentinel of liberty, neither can he abandon the role of do-gooder: leading to a life-changing decision… as you will see in the next volume…

Bonus material in this tome includes John Romita’s cover art for F.O.O.M. #8 (December 1974 and an all Cap special). It precedes the finished 2-tone piece and articles by Roger Stern – ‘Well Come On, All You Big Strong Men…’, ‘Manchild in a Troubled Land’, ‘He Was Only Waiting For This Moment to Rise…’, photo feature ‘Star of the Silver Screen’ and tribute ‘Joe Simon and Jack Kirby – By Their Works Shall Ye Know Them’. The package ends with a back cover from young John Byrne, who also provided the majority of illustrations accompanying the features. One last treat is a preliminary page of pencils by Weiss from CA&F #164.

Any retrospective or historical re-reading is going to turn up some cringe-worthy moments, but these tales of matchless courage and indomitable heroism are fast-paced, action-packed and still carry a knockout conceptual punch. Here Captain America was finally discovering his proper place in a new era and would once more become unmissable, controversial comicbook reading, as we shall see when I get around to reviewing the next volume…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Marvel Masterworks Daredevil volume 15


By Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Michael Fleischer, David Micheline, Ralph Macchio, Josef Rubinstein, Steve Ditko, Paul Gulacy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2927-5 (HB/Digital edition)

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 emigre Natasha Romanoff, infamous and notorious ex-spy Black Widow but their similarities and incompatibilities led to her leaving as Matt took up with flighty trouble-magnet heiress Heather Glenn…

Spanning July 1979 to July 1981 this monumental Masterworks tome compiles Daredevil #159-172 and material from Bizarre Adventures #25 (March 1981), consolidating and completing a Hero’s Transformation begun by Jim Shooter with a bold, apparently carefree Scarlet Swashbuckler devolving into a driven, terrifying figure. Daredevil became here an urban defender and compulsive avenger: a tortured demon dipped in blood. The character makeover was carried on initially by Roger McKenzie in the previous volume and continues with Frank Miller collaborating until he fully takes control: crafting audaciously shocking, groundbreakingly compelling dark delights, and making Daredevil one of comics’ most momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series.

Preceded by an appreciative commentary and Introduction from latterday scripter Charles Soule, the revitalisation resumes with ‘Marked for Murder!’ (McKenzie, Miller & Klaus Janson) wherein infallible assassin-master Eric Slaughter comes out of retirement for a very special hit on the hero of Hell’s Kitchen. Meanwhile elsewhere, veteran Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich works a nagging hunch: slowly piecing together dusty news snippets that indicate a certain sight-impaired attorney might be far more than he seems…

The spectacular showdown between the Crimson Crimebuster and Slaughter’s hit-man army inevitably compels his covert client to eventually do his own dirty work: brutally ambushing and abducts DD’s former flame Natasha Romanoff, The Black Widow…

After a single-page info-feature on ‘Daredevil’s Billy Club!’ the saga continues in DD #160 with our hero having no choice but to place himself ‘In the Hands of Bullseye!’ – a stratagem culminating in a devastating duel and shocking defeat for the villain in #161’s ‘To Dare the Devil!’

The next issue offered a fill-in tale from Michael Fleisher & Steve Ditko wherein another radiation accident impairs the hero’s abilities and induces amnesia just as a figure from his father’s pugilistic past resurfaces. Becoming a boxer for crooked promoter Mr. Hyle, Murdock unknowingly relives his murdered dad’s last days in ‘Requiem for a Pug!’ … until his memories return and justice is served…

Stunning David v Goliath action belatedly comes in #163 as the merely mortal Man Without Fear battles The Incredible Hulk in ‘Blind Alley’ (McKenzie & Miller, inked by Josef Rubenstein & Janson) wherein Murdock’s innate compassion for hounded Bruce Banner accidentally endangers Manhattan and triggers a desperate, bone breaking, ultimately doomed attempt to save his beloved city…

In #164 McKenzie, Miller & Janson deliver an evocative ‘Exposé’, retelling the origin saga as meticulous, dogged Urich confronts the hospitalised hero with inescapable conclusions from his diligent research and a turning point is reached…

The landmark tale is followed by accompanied by Miller’s unused cover for Ditko’s fill-in, preceding a mean-&-moody modern makeover for a moribund and over-exposed Spider-Man villain. DD #165 finds the Scarlet Swashbuckler in the ‘Arms of the Octopus’ after Murdock’s millionaire girlfriend Heather is kidnapped by Dr. Otto Octavius. Her company can – and do – rebuild his mechanical tentacles with Adamantium, but “Doc Ock” stupidly underestimates both his hostage and the Man Without Fear…

The long-running plot thread of Foggy Nelson’s oft-delayed wedding finally culminates with some much-needed comedy in #166’s ‘Till Death Do Us Part!’, with true tragedy coming as old enemy The Gladiator has a breakdown and kidnaps his parole officer. With visions of Roman arenas driving him, tormented killer Melvin Potter only needs to see Daredevil to go completely over the top…

David Michelinie wrote #167 for Miller & Janson, as a cruelly wronged employee of tech company the Cord Conglomerate steals super-armour to become ‘…The Mauler!’ and exact personal justice. Constantly drawn into the conflict, DD finds his sense of justice and respect for the law at odds when another unavoidable tragedy results…

The tale is backed up by an info feature revealing the ‘Dark Secrets’ of DD’s everyday life and segues neatly into the story that changed everything.

In Daredevil #168 Miller took over the writing and with Janson’s art contributions increasing in each issue rewired the history of Matt Murdock to open an era of noir-tinged, pulp-fuelled Eisner-inspired innovation. It begins when Daredevil encounters a new bounty hunter in town and reveals a lost college-days first love. Back then diplomat’s daughter Elektra Natchios shared his secret until her father was kidnapped and murdered before her eyes, partly due to Matt’s hasty actions. She left him and vanished, apparently becoming a ninja assassin, but is now tearing up the town hunting for Eric Slaughter. Matt cannot help but get involved…

When Daredevil last defeated Bullseye, the killer was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and in #169, escapes from hospital to enact another murder spree. He is deep in a delusional state where everyone he sees are horn-headed scarlet-clad ‘Devils’. A frenetic chase and brutal battle results in countless civilian casualties and great anxiety as Daredevil has a chance to let the manic die… but doesn’t.

Yet another landmark resurrection of a tired villain begins in DD #170 as Miller & Janson decree ‘The Kingpin Must Die’. The former crimelord of New York faded into serene retirement in Japan by impassioned request of his wife Vanessa, until this triptych of terror sees him return more powerful than ever. It begins when the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen hears rumours the syndicate that replaced Wilson Fisk are trying to kill him. Apparently he has offered all his old records to the Feds…

When Vanessa hires Nelson & Murdock to broker the deal, all hell breaks loose, assassins attack and Mrs Fisk goes missing. Further complicating matters, having survived brain surgery Bullseye offers his services to the syndicate, mercenary killer Elektra senses a business opportunity and a murderously resolute Kingpin sneaks back into the country resolved to save Vanessa at any cost…

The title at last returned to monthly schedule with #171 as the city erupted into sporadic violence with civilians caught in the crossfire. DD dons a disguise and goes undercover but is soon ‘In the Kingpin’s Clutches’ and sent to a watery grave prior to Fisk gambling and losing everything…

The sags ends in all-out ‘Gangwar!’ as, with Vanessa lost and presumed dead, Wilson Fisk destroys the Syndicate and takes back control of New York’s underworld with Daredevil scoring a small toxic victory by apprehending the Kingpin’s assassin, all the while aware that every death since Bullseye’s operation has been because Murdock was not strong enough to let the monster die…

And deep in the bowels of the city, an amnesiac woman wanders, a future trigger for much death and destruction to come…

To Be Continued…

With the Marvel Universe about to change in incomprehensible ways, this tome pauses here but still finds room to focus on a solo outing for a cast regular. In Bizarre Adventures #25 (with cover and ‘Lethal Ladies’ frontispiece included), Ralph Macchio scripted an espionage tale for an older reader-base. The devious spy yarn of double and triple cross saw agents betraying each other while trying to ascertain who might be working for “the other side”.

‘I Got the Yo-Yo… You Got the String’ sets Black Widow in her proper milieu, despatched by S.H.I.E.L.D. to assassinate her former tutor Irma Klausvichnova as she hides in an African political hot spot. Of course, as the mission proceeds, Natasha learns she can’t trust anybody and everything she knows is either a lie or a test with fatal consequences…

The chilling, twist-ridden tale is elevated to excellence by the powerful monochrome tonal art of Paul Gulacy who packs the piece with sly tributes to numerous movie spies and the actors – such as Michael Caine and Humphry Bogart – who first made the genre so compelling.

The bonus gallery section opens with pertinent pages from Marvel Comics 20th Anniversary Calendar (1981) – June’s entry by Miller & Janson and their Spider-Man vs DD plate from Marvel Team-Up Portfolio One. Next come original art pages and covers, a House ad for Elektra’s debut plus the original art, cover artwork  and finished product for Marvel Super-Heroes Megazine #2 plus covers of #3, 4 & 6 (by Michael Golden, Lee Weeks, Scott McDaniel and others), and Miller’s cover and frontispiece for Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller volume 1 as well as his introduction from that collection.

As the decade closed, these gritty tales set the scene for truly mature forthcoming dramas, 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 more boundaries…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Incredible Hulk Epic Edition volume 8 (1976-1978): The Curing of Dr. Banner


By Len Wein, Roger Stern, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Jim Starlin, David Anthony Kraft, George Tuska, Keith Pollard, Joe Staton, Ernie Chan, Tom Palmer, Alfredo Alcala, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Josef Rubinstein & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4879-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress and other factors trigger transformations into a big green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. One of Marvel’s earliest innovations and first failure, after initially troubled early years he finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of the company’s premiere antiheroes and most popular features.

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

This chronologically complete compendium re-presents Incredible Hulk King Size Annual #6 and issues #201- 226 of his monthly magazine, spanning July 1976 – August 1978.

Crafted by writer Len Wein and illustrated by Buscema & Joe Staton, Hulk #201 features ‘The Sword and the Sorcerer!’ wherein the monster is marooned on a perilously primitive sub-atomic world just long enough to liberate its people from brutal despot (and demon-possessed pawn) Kronak the Barbarian before starting to shrink uncontrollably. He soon arrives in the promised land of his beloved long-lost alien love Queen Jarella…

 ‘Havoc at the Heart of the Atom’ reveals how his last visit had rendered the barbarous world tectonically unstable and wrecked the ancient civilisation which once had the power to blend Banner’s mind with the Hulk’s body. Moreover, the once-gentle population then turned on the queen they held responsible…

Reunited with his beloved, the simplistic brute swears to fix the problem confronting the antediluvian horror who first hijacked him to the Microverse… and who still craves bloody revenge. Once again evil fails at great personal cost. The ‘Assault on Psyklop!’ delivers crushing defeat to the vile insectoid and a guardedly happy ending for the man-brute – until a rescue attempt from Earth brings Hulk home, carrying an astounded Jarella with him…

Herb Trimpe briefly returned in #204 to plot and pencil a tale of time-bending might-have-beens, as brilliant theoretician Kerwin Kronus offers to eradicate Banner’s problems by turning back time and undoing the accident which created the Hulk. Sadly, the experiment succeeds all too well: briefly forming an alternate timeline wherein original sidekick Rick Jones died and the time-master became an even greater menace to reality. Banner/Hulk must make a heartbreaking sacrifice to close that unacceptably ‘Vicious Circle’…

‘Do Not Forsake Me!’ in #205 depicts the most tragic moment in the Green Goliath’s tortured life when Jarella sacrifices herself to save a child from rampaging robbery robot Crypto-Man, leaving the bereft Hulk ‘A Man-Brute Berserk!’ His trail of destruction leads from Gamma Base, New Mexico all the way to New York City where even his friends and allies cannot calm the grieving green goliath, leading to a brutal battle ‘Alone Against the Defenders!’ who finally realise compassion is the only method that will work against their traumatised ally-turned-foe…

The bereft beast is still beside Defender-in-Chief Doctor Strange for David Anthony Kraft, Trimpe and inkers Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito for Incredible Hulk King Size Annual #6’s ‘Beware the Beehive!’ wherein a band of mad scientists attempt to recreate their greatest success and failure. Morlak, Hamilton, Shinsky and Zota were a rogue science collective known as The Enclave, who – from their hidden “Beehive” lair – had originally spawned puissant artificial man Him (latterly AKA Adam Warlock).

Here, three of them reunite for another go at building a compliant god they can control, but when they abduct Stephen Strange to replace their missing fourth, the magician has the Jade Juggernaut save him from the experiment’s inevitable consequences: a compassionless super-slave dubbed Paragon whose first task is to eradicate Strange and subdue mankind. Happily, after a border-shattering, army-crunching global rampage, that’s when the Hulk kicks the wall in and goes to work…

In Incredible Hulk #208 Wein, Buscema & Staton reveal ‘A Monster in Our Midst!’ as Bruce Banner finally rejects ending his pain-wracked existence and begins a new and – hopefully – stress-reduced life where his alter ego will never be seen again. That resolve only lasts as long as it takes maniacal Crusher Creel – freed as a consequence of the Jade Juggernaut’s most recent rampage – to accept a commission from a triumvirate of hooded schemers who want the Hulk dead. Of course, even though ‘The Absorbing Man is Out for Blood!’, the super-thug proves no match for Hulk’s unfettered fury, but his well-deserved drubbing results in Banner collapsing unconscious in alley where he is eventually found by a mystic do-gooder in search of an ally…

With #210, Ernie Chan became Buscema’s regular inker as Wein’s ‘And Call the Doctor… Druid!’ finds both Banner and his brutish alter ego crucial to a plan to defeat ancient mutant Maha Yogi, his vast mercenary army and alien bodyguard Mongu before they complete their preparations for world domination. Although the battles of ‘The Monster and the Mystic!’ are a close-run thing, virtue is eventually victorious, but makes little difference to the Hulk’s former teen companion Jim Wilson as he hitchhikes across America, utterly unaware he is the target of a vicious criminal conspiracy. The plots hatch once Jim reaches New York City where his hidden tormentors decide that he must be ‘Crushed by… the Constrictor!’ Neither they nor their ruthless high-tech hitman expected the Hulk to intervene…

With a friend and confidante who shares his secrets, you’d expect Banner’s life to get a little easier, but the authorities never stop hunting the Hulk, who initially realises ‘You Just Don’t Quarrel with the Quintronic Man!’ (inked by Tom Palmer) before bouncing back to trash a formidable five-man mecha suit. As Chan returns, this bout leads to a frenzied clash with a new hyper-powered hero resolved to make his name by defeating America’s most terrifying monster in ‘The Jack of Hearts is Wild!’ …

Macabre old enemy Bi-Beast is resurrected in #215; still eager to eradicate humanity in ‘Home is Where the Hurt Is’ and nearly succeeding after seizing control of SHIELD’s Helicarrier. Only desperate action by General Thaddeus Ross saves the day, as the old soldier uses the carrier’s tech to shanghai Banner: letting nature take its savage course and hoping the right monster wins the inevitable blockbuster battle before a ‘Countdown to Catastrophe!’ leaves the planet a smoking ruin…

A moodily poignant change of pace comes in #217 as ‘The Circus of Lost Souls!’ sees the shell-shocked Hulk lost somewhere in Europe, defending a band of carnival freaks from the dastardly depredations of The Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime: a solid demarcation signalling Wein’s move  away from scripting in favour of co-plotting, allowing Roger Stern to find his own big green feet to guide the Green Goliath’s future…

That begins with ‘The Rhino Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore’ (#218 by Wein & Stern, with George Tuska, Keith Pollard & Chan handling visuals) as super-strong, gamma-tainted psychologist “Doc” Leonard Samson takes centre stage battling the ruthless Rhino, whilst in #219 Banner learns ‘No Man is an Island!’ (Wein, Stern, Sal Buscema & Chan) after hiring on as a freighter deckhand, only to have it sunk from under him by submarine-based pirate Cap’n Barracuda. Washed ashore on a desert atoll, Hulk is befriended by a deluded soul who believes himself to be Robinson Crusoe. As events unfold an even stranger truth is revealed when Barracuda captures the madman to pluck the secret of making monsters from his broken mind. The cruel corsair has utterly underestimated the ferocious loyalty and compassion of the Hulk, who unleashes devastating destructive ‘Fury at 5000 Fathoms!’

With Stern in authorial control, Sal Buscema is joined by Alfredo Alcala for #221’s ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, with still all-at-sea Banner rescued from drowning by marine explorer Walt Newell. He ferries his exhausted passenger back to Manhattan where he is recognised as Banner. Realising he has unwittingly unleashed The Hulk on a major population centre, Newell exposes his own secret identity as subsea superhero Stingray and pursues his former guest. The battle is painfully one-sided and Stingray near death when Jim Wilson intervenes, saving the marine crusader’s life, but only at the cost of Hulk’s trust…

Wein returned for one last hurrah in #222, scripting a plot by artist Jim Starlin (abetted by Alcala). A potently creepy horror yarn begins as the Jade Juggernaut tears through another unfortunate army unit before being gassed into unconsciousness. Banner awakens in the care of two children living in a cave, but they’re not surprised by the fugitive’s transformations: not since the radioactive stuff changed their little brother…

Now people have been disappearing and although they haven’t grasped the truth of it yet, Bruce instantly grasps what is involved in ‘Feeding Billy’… and what his intended role is…

Now firmly established, Stern began an ambitious storyline in #223 (illustrated by Sal & Josef Rubinstein) as ‘The Curing of Dr. Banner!’ sees the monster’s human half spontaneously purged of the gamma radiation that triggers his changes. Heading for Gamma Base to verify his findings, Bruce discovers the entire facility has been taken over: mind-controlled by his ultimate archenemy…

As the villain makes everyone ‘Follow the Leader!’, Doc Samson and General Ross escape and beg Banner to again sacrifice his humanity for the sake of mankind. Only the Hulk has ever defeated The Leader and their only hope is to recall and harness his unstoppable fury. Tragically, the halfway measures fail at the final moment and the villain has cause to ask ‘Is There Hulk After Death?’ With Bruce seemingly deceased, his compatriots jumpstart his system with another overwhelming dose of gamma rays and soon everybody involved has cause to regret the resurrection of the original Gamma Goliath as another ordnance-obliterating clash with the military in #226’s ‘Big Monster on Campus!’ (Stern, Buscema & Joe Sinnott) leads to the man-monster invading his old college and suffering a psychological trauma that could end his rampages forever…

To Be Hulk-inued…

Graced throughout with covers by Rich Buckler, John Romita, Trimpe, Dan Adkins, Dave Cockrum, Marie Severin, Giacoia, Ed Hannigan, Chan, Starlin, Rubinstein and Ron Wilson, this cataclysmically cathartic tome is rounded out with a blitz of bonus features. Front & back covers for The Incredible Hulk Marvel Treasury Edition #17 (1978) by Jeff Aclin & Tony DeZuñiga precede a panoramic landscape pin-up poster by Trimpe of Hulk smashing the Hulkbusters from a UK Marvel mag (by way of F.O.O.M. #19). These are followed by an airbrush treat by Ken Steacy, starring old Jade Jaws, Ant-Man & The Wasp as first seen on Marvel Comics Index #7A (1978) plus its star-studded frontispiece by Franc Reyes. Contemporary house ads lead into an unused Cockrum cover and a selection of original art by Buckler, Chan, Starlin, Alcala, Buscema & Rubinstein, said pictorial treasure treats climaxing with 5 stunningly beautiful pencilled pages of a never-completed story by Wein and Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the cartoons, TV shows, games, toys, action figures and movies are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these exciting episodes, so why not Go Green now?
© MARVEL 2023

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Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 9: The Crusader Syndrome – 1974-1976


By Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Tony Isabella, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, George Pérez, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, Joe Sinnott, Jim Mooney, Joe Staton, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta with Stan Lee, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman & various (MARVEL)
ISBN 978-1-3029-4875-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with the adventures of a small super-team who were as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. Everything the company is now stems from the quirky quartet and the groundbreaking, inspired efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein & Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing company’s standards: but it seethed with rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comics forever. As seen in the premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother Johnny survived an ill-starred private space-shot after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All four permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four.

Throughout the 1960s it was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Kirby was approaching his creative peak: continually unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist creative freedom which led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mind-bending High Concepts gave way to more traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap-opera leanings and super-villain-dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas. This stripped-down, compelling compilation gathers Fantastic Four #147-167, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2-4 and Avengers #127: collectively covering June 1974 to February 1976 and heralding a change of pace and partial return of The King – even if only on covers…

Fantastic Four #147 offers action-tinged melodrama with Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott in how ‘The Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ as long-sidelined and neglected Susan Richards starts divorce proceedings against Reed whilst seemingly taking comfort in the arms of long-time admirer/stalker Prince Namor of Atlantis. When Reed, Johnny, Ben and Inhuman substitute teammate Medusa try to “rescue” her, the Atlantean ruler thrashes them before Sue sends them packing…

To add insult to injury, the dejected men return home to find the Baxter Building once more invaded by the Frightful Four and are forced to fight a ‘War on the Thirty-Sixth Floor!’ Sadly The Sandman, Wizard and Trapster have no idea their newest ally Thundra is secretly smitten with the Thing. FF #149 resolves the scandalous Sub-Mariner storyline as the undersea emperor invades New York in ‘To Love, Honour, and Destroy!’ Happily, his awesome attack is merely a cunning plan to trick Sue into reconciling with her husband. It almost works…

Courtesy of Conway, John Buscema & Chic Stone, Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 reveals a time-twisting ‘Cataclysm!’, wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher warns of a hapless innocent who has inadvertently altered history, thanks to Dr. Doom’s confiscated time platform. Once again the supposedly non-interventionist extraterrestrial expects the FF to fix a universal dilemma…

With more than one temporal hot-spot, Reed and Johnny head for Colonial America to rescue the Father of the Nation in ‘George Washington Almost Slept Here!’, whilst Ben and Medusa crash into the “Roaring Twenties” and save the time-lost wanderer from being rubbed out by racketeers in ‘The Great Grimmsby’. Thinking their mission accomplished, the heroes are astounded to then find themselves trapped in timeless Limbo, battling monstrous giant Tempus before escaping to their restored origin point in ‘Time Enough for Death!’

For months lovelorn Johnny had fretted and fumed that his first true love Crystal was to marry super-swift mutant Quicksilver. That plot-thread finally closed in a 2-part crossover tale opening in Avengers #127 (September 1974). Crafted by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema & Joe Staton, ‘Bride and Doom!’ sees the Assemblers travel to Attilan (hidden homeland of the Inhumans) for the wedding of aforementioned speedster Pietro to elemental enchantress/Royal Princess, only to meet an uprising of the genetic slave-race designated Alpha Primitives. Once again, sinister robotic colossus Omega has incited revolt, but this time it isn’t insane usurper Maximus behind the seditious skulduggery but an old Avengers enemy who reveals himself in the concluding chapter from in Fantastic Four #150.

‘Ultron-7: He’ll Rule the World!’ (Conway, Buckler & Sinnott) finds both teams joining Black Bolt’s Inhumans against the malign A.I., but only saved by a veritable Deus ex Machina after which, at long last, ‘The Wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver’ finally closes events on a happy note – for everybody but the Torch, that is…

The dramatic tensions resume with Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 as plotter Gerry Conway, scripter Marv Wolfman and illustrators Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott deliver an epic tale of global import. The extra-special quarterly Giant-Size range was devoted to offering blockbuster thrills, and herein reveal ‘Where Lurks Death… Ride the Four Horsemen!’ as cosmic aliens arrive, intent on scourging the Earth.

Forewarned after the team stumble across the first horror in ‘…There Shall Come Pestilence’, our harried heroes split up with Inhuman stand-in Medusa and Johnny striving against international madness in ‘…And War Shall Take the Land!’ whilst Reed and Ben fight to foil the personification of Famine in ‘…And the Children Shall Hunger!’, before all reunite to wrap up the final foe in ‘…All in the Valley of Death!’

In FF #151 Conway, Buckler & Sinnott begin revealing the truth about the mysterious “Femizon” stalking the Thing. ‘Thundra and Lightning!’ introduces male-dominated alternate Future Earth Machus and its brutal despot Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man, who explosively invades the Baxter Building in search of a mate to dominate and another world to conquer…

Inked by Jim Mooney, #152 exposes ‘A World of Madness Made!’ with the team captive in the testosterone-saturated side-dimension whilst Medusa seemingly flees, whilst actually seeking reinforcements from the diametrically-opposed Femizon future/alternity, resulting in two universes crashing together in the concluding ‘Worlds in Collision!’ by Tony Isabella, Buckler & Sinnott.

Rapidly reworked by Len Wein, Fantastic Four #154 featured ‘The Man in the Mystery Mask!’: a partial reprint from Strange Tales #127 in which Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman pitted Ben and Johnny against ‘The Mystery Villain!’. Here, however, Bob Brown, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito’s revisions depict how Reed’s early lesson in leadership has been hijacked by another old friend with explosive and annoying results…

Meanwhile over in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4, Wein, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Chic Stone & Sinnott unite to introduce ‘Madrox the Multiple Man’: a young mutant who grew up on an isolated farm unaware of the incredible power he possessed. When his parents pass away, the kid is inexplicably drawn to New York City, where the hi-tech suit he wears to contain his condition malfunctions. Soon the boy devolves into a mobile fission device that can endlessly, lethally replicate himself. Thankfully the FF are aided by mutant Moses Charles Xavier who dutifully takes young Jamie under his wing…

A minor classic from Wein, Buckler & Sinnott follows s seen in Fantastic Four #155-157 when the long dormant Silver Surfer resurfaces in ‘Battle Royal!’ – apparently a murderous thrall of Doctor Doom. The Iron Dictator commands the Stellar Skyrider because he holds the alien’s lover Shalla Bal –-even cruelly threatening to take her in marriage. However, as seen in ‘Middle Game!’ (with Roy Thomas joining as co-writer and Editor) the Surfer cannot kill and merely delivers the defeated FF as prisoners to the Devil Doctor’s citadel. Naturally, there are schemes within schemes unfolding and Doom is playing a waiting game whilst covertly siphoning the Surfer’s “Power Cosmic” to fuel a deadly Doomsman mechanoid…

With Thomas in full authorial control ‘And Now… the Endgame Cometh!’ sees the heroes fight back to conquer the Lethal Latverian, blithely unaware the entire charade has been a crafty confection of malignly manipulative demon-lord Mephisto…

The furore is followed by another nostalgia-tinged 2-part epic beginning with FF #158’s ‘Invasion from the 5th (Count it, 5th!) Dimension’ by Thomas, Buckler & Sinnott. When one of the Torch’s earliest solo scourges returns to occupy the homeland of the Inhumans, extra-dimensional dictator Xemu opens his campaign of vengeance by dispatching Quicksilver to lure his sister-in-law Medusa back to Attilan. The intention is to force defiant King Black Bolt to utilise his doomsday sonic power on the invaders’ behalf, for which the conqueror needs the silent king’s true love as a bargaining chip. However, when the FF accompany her into the blatant trap, they bring a hidden ally who turns the tables on Xemu, unleashing ‘Havoc in the Hidden Land!’, coincidentally and at last reuniting the First Family of comic book fiction…

More pan-dimensional panic ensues when a multiversal conflict is cunningly concocted by a hidden mastermind orchestrating Armageddon for a trio of dimensionally-adjacent planets for ‘In One World… and Out the Other!’ Devised by Thomas, John Buscema & Stone, the initial chapter sees shapeshifting Reed Richards sell his patents to a vast corporation, even as in the streets his counterpart from another universe is kidnapped by barbarian warlord Arkon the Magnificent. That abduction is investigated by a very Grimm Thing who has uncomfortable suspicions about what’s occurring…

With Buckler & Sinnott doing the depicting ‘All the World Wars at Once!’ expands the saga as Johnny Storm visits the recently liberated 5th Dimensional Earth to discover it under assault by androids from yet another slightly different one. As the Thing teams up with his other-earth counterpart to quell a dinosaur invasion, “our” world is assaulted by an army from the 5th dimension led by the Torch. With each realm believing itself provoked by trans-terrestrial aggressors, the divided team only knows one thing: each invading force is using weaponry invented by Richards…

The crises peaks in ‘The Shape of Things to Come!’ as the mastermind is exposed and the scheme to annihilate three worlds come close to fruition, necessitating a voyage to a cosmic nexus point and a devastating battle with yet another twisted alternate-reality hero to save existence in a spectacular and poignant ‘Finale  #163.

A new direction began with #164 (part 1 of a reconditioned yarn originally intended for Giant-Size Fantastic Four), courtesy of Thomas and then-neophyte illustrator George Pérez, backed up by Sinnott. ‘The Crusader Syndrome!’ sees the team battling a veteran superhero gone bad since his last outing as Atlas-Era champion Marvel Boy. Now as The Crusader he wages savage war on financial institutions whose self-serving inaction doomed his adopted Uranian race in the 1950s. However, his madness and savagery are no match for the FF and #165’s ‘The Light of Other Worlds!’ details his apparent demise. It also sparks many successful additions to Marvel Continuity, such as new hero Quasar, the 1950s Avengers and Agents of Atlas whilst introducing Galactus’ herald-in-waiting Frankie Raye as Johnny’s new girlfriend…

This formidable high-tension Fights ‘n’ Tights tome terminates in a titanic tussle as Vince Colletta inks #166 as ‘If It’s Tuesday, This Must be the Hulk!’ as the team hunts the Gamma Goliath with a potential cure for Bruce Banner. Sadly, aggressive and insulting military treatment of their target enrages fellow-monster Ben Grimm who unites with The Hulk to menace St. Louis, Missouri as ‘Titans Two!’ (with Sinnott back on inks). Following a mighty struggle with his old friends and constantly bathed in Hulk’s Gamma radiation, Ben is permanently reduced to human form and contemplates a whole new life…

To Be Continued…

With covers by Buckler, Gil Kane, John Romita, Ron Wilson, Kirby, Sinnott and more this power-packed package also includes the covers to all-reprint Giant-Sized Fantastic Four #5 & 6 and the original unused cover for GSFF #5 (which contents became FF #158-159); house ads and the new material from The Fabulous Fantastic Four Marvel Treasury Edition #2 (December 1975). This bombastic oversized tabloid edition featured a bevy of classic yarns and is represented here by front-&-back cover art from John Romita, a Marie Severin frontispiece and Stan Lee Introduction, contents page and double-page pin-up of the team and supporting cast by John Buscema & Giacoia.

Also on view are extracts from F.O.O.M. #8-10 (comedic exploits of Doctor Foom by Charley Parker), pertinent pages by Buckler & Sinnott from The Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975, cover plus splash page by Dave Cockrum & Sinnott from November 1977’s Marvel Super Action #4 which reprinted Marvel Boy stories from the early 1950s and a gallery of original art pages and a colour guide.

Although Kirby had taken the unmatched imagination and questing sense of wonder with him on his departure, the sheer range of beloved characters and concepts he had created with Lee carried the series for years afterwards. So once writers who shared their sensibilities were crafting the stories a mini-renaissance began. Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” didn’t quite return to the stratospheric heights of yore, this period offers fans a tantalising taste of the glory days. These honest and extremely capable efforts will still thrill and enthral the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 2023 MARVEL.