Category: Hulk

Posted on

Marvel Visionaries: John Romita, Sr.


By John Romita Sr., with Stan Lee, Roger Stern & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1806-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

We lost one of last giants of the industry this week when John Romita died on Monday. He was 93 and his work is inextricably woven into the Marvel canon: permeating and supporting the entire company’s output from top to tail and from the Sixties to right now… and even before the beginning of the House of Ideas actually began. 

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

John Victor Romita was born and bred in Brooklyn, entering the world on January 24th 1930. From Brooklyn Junior High School he moved to the famed Manhattan School of Industrial Art, graduating in 1947. After spending six months creating a medical exhibit for Manhattan General Hospital he moved into comics, in 1949, with work for Famous Funnies. A “day job” working with Forbes Lithograph was abandoned when a friend found him inking and ghosting assignments, until he was drafted in 1951. Showing his portfolio to a US army art director, after boot camp at Fort Dix New Jersey, Romita was promoted to corporal, stationed on Governors Island in New York Bay doing recruitment posters and allowed to live off-base… in Brooklyn. During that period he started doing the rounds and struck up a freelancing acquaintance with Stan Lee at Atlas Comics…

He illustrated horror, science fiction, war stories, westerns, Waku, Prince of the Bantu (in Jungle Tales), a fine run of cowboy adventures starring The Western Kid and 1954’s abortive revival of Captain America, and more, before an industry implosion derailed his – and many other – budding careers. Romita eventually found himself trapped in DC’s romance comics division – a job he hated – before making the reluctant jump again to the resurgent House of Ideas in 1965. As well as steering the career of the wallcrawler and so many other Marvel stars, his greatest influence was felt when he became Art Director in 197. He had a definitive hand in creating or shaping many key characters, such as Mary Jane Watson, Peggy Carter, The Kingpin, The Punisher, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Satana ad infinitum.

This celebratory volume from 2019 re-presents Amazing Spider-Man #39, 40, 42, 50, 108, 109, 365; Captain America & The Falcon #138; Daredevil #16-17; Fantastic Four #105-106; Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #-1; Vampire Tales #2; and material from Strange Tales #4; Menace #6, #11; Young Men #24, 26; Western Kid 12; Tales To Astonish #77; Tales Of Suspense #77 spanning cover-dates December 1951 to July 1997. It opens with a loving Introduction from John Romita Jr., sharing the golden days and anecdotal insights on the “family business”. Not only the second son but also his mother Virginia Romita were key Marvel employees: she was the highly efficient and utterly adored company Traffic Manager for decades.

A chronological cavalcade of wonders begins with official first Marvel masterwork ‘It!’. Possibly scripted by Lee and taken from Strange Tales #4 (December 1951), we share a moment of sheer terror as an alien presence tales over the newest member of a typical suburban family…

Next is verifiable Lee & Romita shocker ‘Flying Saucer!’ (Menace #6, August 1953) and a sneaky invasion attack preceding the first Romita superhero saga as seen in Young Men #24, December 1953.

In the mid-1950s Atlas tried to revive their Timely-era “Big Three” (and super-hero comics in general) on the back of a putative Sub-Mariner television series intended to cash in on the success of The Adventures of Superman show. This led to some impressively creative comics, but no appreciable results or rival in costumed dramas.

Eschewing here the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner segments – and with additional art from Mort Lawrence – ‘Captain America: Back From the Dead’ features a communist Red Skull attacking the UN, with school teacher Steve Rogers and top student Bucky coming out of retirement to tackle the crisis. The Star-Spangled Avenger gets another bite of the cherry in ‘Captain America Turns Traitor’ (Young Men Comics #26, March 1954) with guest shots for Subby and the Torch as the Sentinel of Liberty apparently goes from True Blue to a deadly shade of Red…

Latterly reimagined as one of the modern Agents of Atlas, ‘I, the Robot!’ began as a deadly threat to humanity in Menace #11, and is followed here by a yarn from Romita’s first residency as the wandering hero Tex Dawson and his dauntless dog Lightning and super steed Whirlwind survive sudden stampedes and tackle vile horse butchering killers in a tale from his own eponymous title (Western Kid #12, October 1956)…

Atlas collapsed soon after, due to market conditions when a disastrous distribution decision resulted in their output being reduced to 16 titles per month, distributed by arch rival National Comics/DC. Under those harsh conditions the Marvel revolution started small but soon snowballed, drawing Romita back from ad work and drawing romances for DC.

Romita’s return began with inking and a few short pencilling jobs for the little powerhouse publisher’s split books. Tales To Astonish #77 revealed ‘Bruce Banner is the Hulk!’ (March 1966, written by Lee, laid out by Jack Kirby and finished by the returning prodigal) with the gamma goliath trapped in the future and battling the Asgardian Executioner, whilst in his home era, Rick Jones is pressured into revealing his awful secret…

The Captain America story for May 1966’s Tales of Suspense # 77 added inker Frank Giacoia/Frank Ray to the creative mix for ‘If a Hostage Should Die!’: recounting a moment from the hero’s wartime exploits with a woman he loved and lost. These days we know her as Captain Peggy Carter…

After a brief stint in his preferred role as inker, Romita took over illustrating Daredevil with #12, following a stunning run by Wally Wood & Bob Powell. Initially Kirby provided page layouts to help Romita assimilate the style and pacing of Marvel tales, but soon “Jazzy Johnny” was in full control of his pages. He drew DD until #19, by which time he had been handed the assignment of a lifetime… The Amazing Spider-Man!

A backdoor pilot for that jump came in Daredevil #16-17 (May and June 1996) with ‘Enter… Spider-Man’ wherein criminal mastermind Masked Marauder manipulates the amazing arachnid into attacking the Man Without Fear. The schemer had big plans, the first of which was having DD and the wallcrawler kill each other, but after Spidey almost exposes Matt Murdock’s secret in ‘None are so Blind!’ they mend fences and go after the real foe…

By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months Ditko resigned, leaving Marvel’s second best-selling title without an illustrator. Nervous new guy Romita was handed the ball and told to run. ‘How Green Was My Goblin!’ and ‘Spidey Saves the Day!’ – “Featuring the End of the Green Goblin!” – as it so dubiously proclaimed) was the climactic battle fans had been clamouring for since the viridian villain’s debut. It didn’t disappoint – and still doesn’t today.

Reprinted from issues #39 and 40 (August & September 1966 and inked by old DC colleague Mike Esposito as “Mickey Demeo”), this remains one of the best Spider-Man yarns ever, and heralded a run of classic sagas from the Lee/Romita team that actually saw sales rise, even after the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Ditko. If you need further convincing, it sees the villain learn Peter Parker’s identity, capture and torture our hero and share his own origins before falling in the first of many final clashes…

Amazing Spider-Man #42 heralded ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’, with John Jameson (Jonah’s astronaut son) mutated by space-spores and going on a Manhattan rampage. It’s a solid, entertaining yarn that is only really remembered for the last panel of the final page.

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag in the series for years: a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May who Peter had avoided – and Ditko skilfully never depicted – for the duration of time that our hero had been involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly Gwen Stacy.

Now, in that last frame the gobsmacked young man finally realises that for years he’s been ducking the “hottest chick in New York”! I’m sure we all know how MJ has built her place in the Marvel Universe…

Issue #50 (July 1967) featured the debut of one of Marvel’s greatest villains in the first chapter of a 3-part yarn that saw the first stirrings of romance between Parker and Gwen, the death of a cast regular, and re-established the webslinger’s war on cheap thugs and common criminals. Here it all begins with a crisis of conscience that compels him to quit in ‘Spider-Man No More!’

Romita was clearly considered a safe pair of hands and “go-to-guy” by Stan Lee. When Jack Kirby left to create his incredible Fourth World for DC, Romita was handed the company’s other flagship title – in the middle of an on-going storyline. Here we focus on Fantastic Four #105-106 (December 1970 and January 1971 and both inked with angular, brittle brilliance by John Verpoorten). and ‘The Monster’s Secret’.

Scripted by Lee, they comprise a low-key yet extremely effective suspense thriller played against a resuming subplot of Johnny Storm’s failing romance. When his Inhuman girlfriend Crystal is taken ill – preparatory to writing her out of the series – Reed Richards’ diligent examination reveals a potential method of curing the misshapen Thing of his rocky curse.

Tragically, as Ben Grimm is prepped for the radical process in ‘The Monster in the Streets!’ a mysterious energy-beast begins tearing up Manhattan. By the time ‘The Monster’s Secret!’ is exposed, the team strongman is almost dead and Crystal is gone… seemingly forever.

Romita briefly and regularly returned to the Star-Spangled Avenger in the 1970s and June 1971’s Captain America & The Falcon #138 reveals how ‘It Happens in Harlem!’ sporting a full art job by Romita, Lee’s tale sees new hero The Falcon foolishly try to prove himself by capturing the outlaw Spider-Man, only to be himself kidnapped by gang lord Stoneface. Cue a spectacular three-way team up and just desserts all round…

The Amazing Spider-Man was never far from Romita’s drawing board and in #108 the secret of high school bully Flash Thompson – freshly returned from the ongoing war in Indochina – finally unfolds ‘Vengeance from Vietnam!’ With Romita inking his own pencils, it details how our troubled war hero was connected to an American war atrocity that left a peaceful village devastated and a benign wise man comatose and near-dead. The events consequently set a vengeful cult upon the saddened soldier’s guilt-ridden heels, which all the Arachnid’s best efforts could not deflect or deter.

The campaign of terror is only concluded in #109 as ‘Enter: Dr. Strange!’ sees the Master of the Mystic Arts divine the truth and set things right… but only after an extraordinary amount of unnecessary violence…

Marvel was expanding and experimenting as always and a horror boom saw them move into mature reader monochrome magazines. In Vampire Tales #2 (October 1973), Roy Thomas scripted a short vignette of a woman apparently imperilled who turned out to be anything but. Delivered in moody line and wash, Devil’s Daughter Satana began her predations via Romita before joining the Macabre Marvel Universe. Her debut is supplanted by a house ad…

Commemorating the hero’s 30th anniversary, Amazing Spider-Man 365 (August 1992) carried a bunch of extras including sentimental reverie ‘I Remember Gwen’ (Tom DeFalco, Lee & Romita) before we close with a wild ride from Roger Stern, inked by Al Milgrom.

‘There’s a Man Who Leads a Life of Danger’ comes from July 1997’s Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #minus 1: an adventure of Peter Parker’s parents and part of the Flashback publishing event. It pits the married secret agents against deadly Baroness Adelicia von Krupp and guest-stars a pre-Weapon-X Logan/Wolverine in a delightful spy-romp.

Added extras here include Romita’s unused splash page from Young Men Comics #24, character designs for Robbie Robertson, Mary Jane, Captain Stacy and his daughter Gwen, John Jameson, The Prowler, Wolverine and The Punisher; Fan sketches and doodles; an Amazing Spider-Man poster (painted); the covers of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1 & 2 (ditto) plus original proposal art for the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip. There are also covers for F.O.O.M. #18, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987), New Avengers #8 and Mighty Marvel Heroes & Villains (with Alex Ross) and a vintage self-portrait.

This is absolutely one of the most cohesive and satisfactory career compilations available and one no fan should miss.
© 2019 MARVEL.

For a slightly different selection, I’d advise also tracking down Marvel Masters: The art of John Romita Sr (ISBN: 978-1-84653-403-4), although that’s not available in digital formats.

Posted on

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Ultimate Collection


By Joe Casey, Scott Kolins, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5937-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Time for another 60th Anniversary shout out…

One of the most momentous events in Marvel Comics history occurred in 1963 when a disparate array of individual heroes banded together to stop apparently marauding monster The Incredible Hulk.

The Avengers combined most of the company’s fledgling superhero line in one bright, shiny and highly commercial package. Over decades the roster has continually changed until now almost every character in their universe has at some time numbered amongst the team’s colourful ranks…

For Marvel’s transformational rebirth in the early 1960’s, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took their lead from a small but growing band of costumed characters debuting or reimagined and revived at the Distinguished Competition. Julie Schwartz’ retooling of DC’s Golden Age stars had paid big dividends for the industry leader, and as the decade turned Managing Editor Lee’s boss (uncle/publisher Martin Goodman) insisted his company should go where the money was.

Although National/DC achieved incredible success with revised and updated versions of the company’s old stable, the natural gambit of trying the same revivification process on characters who had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days didn’t go quite so well.

The Justice League of America-inspired Fantastic Four indeed featured a new Human Torch, but his subsequent solo series began to founder almost as soon as Kirby stopped drawing it. Sub-Mariner was soon returned too, but as a deadly vengeful villain, as yet incapable of carrying his own title…

So a procession of new costumed heroes was created, with Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko focussing on all-original inventive and inspired “super-characters”…

Not all caught on: The Hulk folded after six issues and even Spider-Man would have failed if writer/editor Lee hadn’t really, really pushed Uncle Martin…

After nearly 18 months, during which the fledgling House of Ideas churned out a small stable of leading men (but only two sidekick women), Lee & Kirby finally had enough players to stock an all-star ensemble – the precise format which had made the JLA a commercial winner – and thus swiftly assembled a handful of them into a force for justice and higher sales…

Cover-dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men, and, despite a few rocky patches, the series grew into one of the company’s perennial best sellers.

The early Avengers yarns became a cornerstone of the company’s crucially interlinked continuity. As decades passed they were frequently revisited and re-examined, and in 2005 Joe Casey and artist Scott Kolins (with colourists Morry Hollowell & Will Quintana) took the occasional exercises in creativity a little further: offering an 8-issue modernising miniseries adding devious – some would say cynically calculating – back-writing to the original stories. The epic was packed with post-modern in-filling for a more mature readership, exposing secrets and revealing how the team actually came to hold its prominent and predominant position in the Marvel Universe…

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1-8 ran fortnightly from January to April 2005 and was successful enough to warrant a second season. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes II #1-8 repeated the gambit from January to May 2007, and with both epics gathered in this splendid, no-nonsense compilation.

Chronologically set between Avengers #1 and 2, the drama begins as industrialist Tony Stark reviews media coverage of the coalition of mystery men currently residing in his family’s townhouse. He ponders how best to keep such diverse and headstrong personalities as Ant Man, The Wasp, Thor and the Hulk together. Across town in a seedy bar, young troublemaker and pool-hustler Clint Barton can’t understand why folks are so nervous about the “masked freaks”…

Two weeks later, the team has fallen apart and the Avengers are actually hunting their gamma-fuelled former colleague. In the course of calamitous events they unexpectedly recover a legendary form from a coffin of ice floating in sea…

The gradually assimilation of partially amnesiac WWII legend Captain America into a terrifying and seemingly mad new era is not without problems, and the iconic, grimly experienced warrior is soon keenly aware of seething tensions besetting the team he has joined.

Iron Man still fervently pursues an exalted Federal status for the Avengers, but the Army are baulking: clearly set on putting the wilfully independent powerhouses under military jurisdiction. After a ferocious clash with Lava Men from Earth’s deep interior, word finally comes. The powers that be have created an all-encompassing “Avengers Priority Security Status” – but only for as long as the fickle public’s new darling and National Treasure Captain America stays with them…

Self-made scientific genius Hank Pym created the roles of Ant Man and the Wasp (AKA debutante girlfriend Janet Van Dyne) but his inherent and growing mental instability has caused him to push further and harder ever since he joined the ranks of a group that includes a patriotic living legend, an infallible metal juggernaut and an apparent god.

Now operating as Giant Man he is letting feelings of inadequacy drive a wedge between him and his lover, even as the Army ups the pressure to take over the team. Meanwhile, modern-day Rip Van Winkle Steve Rogers increasingly sinks into survivor’s guilt over the comrades he failed to save in the war. That internalised torment kicks into overdrive when Nazi war criminal and archfoe Baron Zemo comes out of hiding to attack the Avenger through his Masters of Evil…

When an invader out of time strikes, the Avengers finally and very publicly prove their worth to the nation and its government, and with Kang the Conqueror sent packing, the team at last secures favoured-but-fully-independent security clearance.

…And in the streets, a wanted vigilante dubbed Hawkeye saves Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis from muggers and they strike up a most irregular friendship…

Missions come thick and fast but the internal tensions never seem to dissipate. In far distant Balkan Transia fugitive mutants Wanda and Pietro desperately search for a place where they can feel safe, whilst in America Cap is increasingly fixated on tracking down Zemo.

After a battle with crime syndicate leader Count Nefaria leaves the Wasp near death, Giant Man also edges closer to a complete breakdown. With a surgeon battling to save her, Pym swears he’s going to quit and take her away from all the madness. Before that can happen, Zemo returns, abducting the Sentinel of Liberty’s teenaged friend Rick Jones…

In response, the team acrimoniously divides, with Cap trailing the monomaniac to Bolivia whilst the majority of Avengers remain for a final battle against the Masters of Evil. Meanwhile below stairs, Jarvis and Clint are concocting a sneaky scheme of their own…

As the death-duel in Bolivia concludes, in Germany two restless young mutants orchestrate their return to America and – with some collusion from Jarvis – Hawkeye “auditions” for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

As Cap and Rick wearily and so slowly make their way back to civilisation, Iron Man deals with Government fallout after learning that their Red, White and Blue poster boy is missing. Soon news leaks out that the rest of the team are quitting and that Stark has lined up a wanted vigilante and two outlaw mutants to replace them…

The initial secret history lesson concludes with astounded Captain America’s re-emergence and reluctant accession to leadership: riding herd on a team of obnoxious, arrogant young felons he is expected to mould into true champions…

The rest is history…

The second bite of the cherry (by Casey, Will Rosado, Tom Palmer & Quintana) focuses on a later time when the Avengers are in resurgent form. The Founders have all returned at a time when Pym (now calling himself Goliath), The Wasp and Hawkeye are joined by enigmatic African monarch The Black Panther. The action commences immediately following the expanded team’s being attacked by an android called The Vision – whom they promptly signed up (in Avengers #58, if you’re keeping count). Apparently the density-shifting “synthezoid” was created by robotic nemesis Ultron – a murderous AI created by Pym whilst suffering one of his frequent psychotic breaks – before switching allegiances…

We open as the highly-suspect new Avenger is impounded by S.H.I.E.L.D. for investigation and clearance. Their ostensible reason is that another autonomous murder mechanism – Super-Adaptoid – has escaped from custody and humanity can’t be too careful…

In the Philippines, the real cause of all the anti-technology tension and overweening suspicion are busy. Science terrorists Advanced Idea Mechanics have secretly stolen the Adaptoid and are seeing how they can improve an already ultimate killing machine…

At a clandestine S.H.I.E.L.D. base, interrogator Jasper Sitwell has met his match in The Vision, but perseveres in trying to dig out dirt on the android and its “master” Ultron. The Panther meanwhile has foregone his status as a VIP dignitary to teach at an inner city school under the alias Luke Charles. What he finds there is a true education…

Hawkeye too is under pressure as his lover The Black Widow reveals she’s going back into the spy-game. With Pym close to apoplexy at the government’s quasi-legal rendition of the Vision, nobody is in a particularly good mood when S.H.I.E.L.D.  supremo Nick Fury (the white one who fought in WWII) demands the team head to the Philippines to investigate A.I.M.’s latest enterprise.

With Fury’s carrot-&-stick pep talk ringing in their ears the heroes – rejoined by the just released Vision – jet away, unaware that in Manhattan an assassination plot against King T’Challa/Mr. Charles has brought one of Panther’s greatest enemies to America…

The heroes are challenged over the Pacific skies by a mass-produced army of Super-Adaptoids and are soon engaged in the fight of their lives…

Overwhelmed, they are in danger of being swamped before Goliath valiantly turns himself into as colossal human rampart to stem the tide and save the endangered island population whilst his comrades rush to destroy A.I.M.’s superbase…

Left all alone, Pym fights in maddened frenzy and becomes increasingly obsessed with how human the things he is incessantly slaughtering seem to be. By the time the triumphant team get Goliath home, he is a deeply traumatised shell of a man…

Luke Charles returns to school in time to be deeply embroiled in a bullying case that will inevitably end in gunplay and tragedy. And then the apparently recuperating Hank Pym goes missing…

Soon after, a new, excessively brutal hero named Yellowjacket is making news even as Agent Sitwell again targets the Vision for further debriefing: specifically, Pym’s “massacre” of mechanical lifeforms on A.I.M. Island. This time he’s brought in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top psychologist Agent Carver to try and get under the subject’s artificial skin…

The spies are in heated argument with Hawkeye when Yellowjacket breaks in, claiming to have murdered the Man of Many Sizes and demanding to take Goliath’s place on the team…

Nobody is fooled. Everyone recognises the abrasive stranger as Pym gone far off the deep end, but Carver prevents them from saying anything. She advises that he is clearly inches from being utterly incurable and devises a treatment to cure him which basically comprises “play along and don’t do anything to upset the crazy man”…

That even includes allowing Yellowjacket to kidnap the Wasp and agreeing to let him marry his hostage…

The wedding is held at Avengers Mansion and includes a Who’s Who of heroes along for the ride (The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Black Knight and Doctor Strange) but the scheme spirals out of control when The Circus of Crime – not privy to the details of the service – use the gathering as an opportunity to kill all America’s costumed champions in one go…

With Hawkeye and the blushing bride hostages and the first to be despatched, the deadly dilemma shocks Pym back to his rightest senses, but in the aftermath many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are butchered as Wakandan assassin Death Tiger gets ever closer to fulfilling his own mission of murder…

To cap off all the chaos, the still-at-large Super-Adaptoid also attacks, determined to expunge “race-traitor” The Vision who has perpetrated the ultimate betrayal by siding with inferior humanity and denying the innate superiority and inevitable ascension of mechanical and artificial lifeforms…

Politically savvy, wryly trenchant and compellingly action-packed, this extremely impressive Fights ‘n’ Tights chronicle is a superb addition/codicil to the annals of The Avengers and would serve as perfect comics vehicle for movie fans in search of a print-fix for their costumed crusader cravings…
© 2021 MARVEL.

Posted on

Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis volume 1


By Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer& various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4500-4 (HB/Digital Edition) 978-0-7851-4501-1 (TPB/ Digital Edition)

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchising success, The Avengers celebrate their 60th anniversary in September 2023, so let’s again acknowledge and anticipate that landmark event with another glorious past triumph…

Once upon a time Norman Osborn was America’s Security Czar: an untouchable “top-cop” in sole charge of a beleaguered nation’s defence and freedom, especially in regard to the USA’s costumed and metahuman community.

When the former-but-still-deranged Green Goblin at last but inevitably overplayed his hand, a coalition of outlawed champions united to defeat him, and his fall from grace was staggering and total.

The chaos and carnage led to a new Age of Heroes, and as part of that resurgence, original Captain America Steve Rogers was appointed Supreme Commander of US metahuman resources. He promptly set about redefining the what, who and how of the World’s Mightiest Heroes which launched a flotilla of new teams and titles, with Avengers volume 4 being the official spine of the comic book franchise.

Available in a number of formats, this initial collection gathers issues #1-6 as written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by John Romita Jr. with inkers Klaus Janson & Tom Palmer colourist Dean White and letterer (VC’s) Cory Petit adding to the spectacle and wonderment. The book spans cover-dates July to December 2010) and opens with a peek at a terrifying future before skipping back to Now where a triumphant, reunited army of heroes is trying to democratically decide just who goes where and does what…

Those deliberations are rudely interrupted in ‘Next Avengers Part One’ when time-tyrant Kang the Conqueror beams in with a frantic warning. He barely opens his mouth before he’s blasted across the city by the wary, twice-shy heroes, but as they converge to press their attack the Conqueror stops all hostilities by brandishing an ultimate weapon.

Iron Man Tony Stark prevents his comrades from finishing off Kang as he recognises the Dark Matter Accelerator. It’s something he thought up and swore never to build. The only way the future Fuhrer can have it is if Stark made it and gave it to him…

In the cautious ceasefire that follows, Kang explains he’s come to beg the aid of the Avengers. In his current future he is one of a team that includes the children of the Avengers, united to stop life-loathing Artificial Intelligence Ultron from exterminating humanity.

They have at last succeeded in destroying the mechanoid marauder but the children are now an even greater menace. Moreover, Kang’s attempts to stop them have resulted in time itself shredding… and all of reality is now collapsing…

The arrogant time-terrorist expects the Avengers to stop their errant offspring, but as Rogers heads off all debate to arbitrarily assemble teams, back in the future Kang and his hidden allies make preparations to carry out their true scheme…

Not every past Avenger is keen to answer the call to reassemble. Simon Williams has come to believe the team has done more harm than good and threatens to stop them if they start up again. ‘Wonder Man Attacks?!!’ sees him make good on his warning whilst a small squad locate Kree outcast Noh-Varr The Protector to request his expertise in time travel.

As the alien and Stark’s efforts finally bear fruit, Wonder Man brutally engages the entire team. In the resultant blockbusting battle, something goes terribly wrong, and an alternate Apocalypse and his horrendous Horsemen materialise, intent on ending mankind.

As the embattled titans swiftly mobilise to tackle the next crisis, a ‘Menace from Beyond Time’ manifests as various time-streams and realities begin to coalesce and overlap in New York City. With All of Everything endangered, a unit of heroes heads into the unhappy future leaving their harried comrades to hold back a tidal wave of time-tossed menaces – and the occasional misplaced hero such as Killraven and Devil Dinosaur…

Far away from now, Iron Man, Wolverine, replacement Captain America James “Bucky” Barnes and Noh-Varr witness first-hand the cataclysmic war against Ultron before being ambushed by the next generation in ‘Only the Good Die Young’.

Back in their home era, a multitude of past menaces – from cavemen to cowboys to cosmic devourer Galactus – are keeping the majority of Avengers busy, whilst in the foredoomed tomorrow the questing quartet are painfully discovering they’ve been played by Kang yet again…

Full explanations are promised by an incredibly aged Tony Stark and the architect of the chronal rescue plan: Bruce Banner in his gamma-charged arch-villain persona of ‘The Maestro’…

With two Starks, an incredibly sagacious and experienced Banner and new element Noh-Varr all intent on fixing the problem, the sorry story soon comes out. All of creation’s future is stuck in a temporal loop: a cosmic “Groundhog Day” with Kang interminably trapped battling Ultron. Now, with the odds altered by the historical Avengers, there’s a real chance to make things right in one final ‘Battle for the Future’…

Tragically, as Thor’s clash with Galactus escalates and the assembled Avengers resolutely resist Apocalypse and his minions in the now, there may not be a past to return to…

Layers of murderous duplicity are peeled back in ‘Next Avengers Part 6: Conclusion’ as a cunning solution to the Ultron-Kang impasse is conceived. However, even as reality reasserts itself and four weary heroes return home, old man Stark takes the risky chance of giving his younger self a deadly device and a portentous warning from the future…

Epic in scale, vast in scope and overflowing with action, this a magnificently rendered tale that might bewilder new readers looking for a post-movie fix, but will delight dyed-in-the-wool Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatics. It comes with a gallery of covers-&-variants by Romita Jr., Janson & Dean White, John Romita Sr., Greg Land & Morry Hollowell, Jim Cheung & Justin Ponsor, Alan Aldridge, Phil Jimenez & D’Armata, plus a massive combined variant cover by Marko Djurdjevic.
© 2018 MARVEL.

Posted on

Annihilation Classic


By Todd Dezago, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Bill Mantlo, Doug Moench, Scott Edelman, Roy Thomas, Pat Broderick, Fred Hembeck, Derec Aucoin, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Paul Ryan, Mike Mignola, Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3410-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

With the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to open on May 5th, here’s a brief reminder of what comics did to inspire the phenomenon: still a grand example of cosmic hero wonderment…

Annihilation was another of those company-wide publishing events that “Changed the Marvel Universe Forever” (and don’t they all?). which ran for most of 2006, involving most of the House of Ideas’ outer space outposts and cosmic characters. Among the stalwarts in play were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord, Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super-Skrull, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, The Watchers and a host of alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar, et al, all falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by the insectoid horror Annihilus.

If you’re new to the Marvel universe and that bewildering list of daunting data didn’t leave you screaming in frustration, then please read on…

As is usual in these public herd-thinnings, a number of good guys and bad died and had their trademark assumed by newer, glitzier models whilst some moribund careers got a successful and overdue shot in the arm…

The event spawned a number of specials, miniseries and new titles (subsequently collected as three volumes plus this Annihilation Classic compilation reprinting key and origin appearances of some major players) and led to follow-up event Annihilation: Conquest. Of particular interest to fun-loving screen-watchers might be early appearances of Galaxy Guardians Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Starlord and Adam Warlock…

This sharp selection comprises of and contains pertinent material from Bug #1, (March 1997), Tales to Astonish #13, (December 1960), Nova #1, (September 1976), Quasar #1 (October 1989), Rocket Raccoon #1-4 (May-August 1995) ,Marvel Spotlight #6 (May 1980), Logan’s Run #6 (June 1977) and Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972) and opens with the frenetic and light-hearted solo outing for Galactic Warrior Bug (originally a cheeky stalwart from the 1970’s toy-license phenomenon Micronauts)…

In ‘Apples and Oranges’ by Tod Dezago, Derec Aucoin, Rich Farber & Ralph Cabrera, the insectivorid from the Microverse accidentally clashes with all-consuming cosmic menace Annihilus and gets stuck in a time/space warp.

Bounced around the history of the Marvel Universe, the warring weirdoes reveal their unheralded contributions to the origin stories of a number of the company’s greatest stars before Bug finally triumphs…

With accompanying pinup by Pat Broderick and hilarious game pages by Fred Hembeck including ‘Bug’s Brain-Tik-lers’, ‘The Help Bug Right the Time/Space Continuum Board Game’, ‘What’s Wrong with This Picture?’ and ‘Bug’s Catch-All Activity Page’, this is a splendidly engaging and irreverent treat, followed by an absolute classic of the gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” genre as a humble biologist saved earth from a rapacious walking tree in ‘I Challenged Groot! The Monster from Planet X!’ (Tales to Astonish #13 by Stan Lee/Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers).

Next to grab the spotlight is The Man Called Nova who was in fact a boy named Richard Rider. A working-class nebbish in the tradition of Peter Parker – except he was good at sports and bad at learning – Rich attended Harry S. Truman High School, where his strict dad was the principal. His mom worked as a police dispatcher and he had a younger brother, Robert, who was a bit of a genius. Other superficial differences to the Spider-Man canon included girlfriend Ginger and best friends Bernie and Caps, but Rich did have his own school bully, Mike Burley…

An earlier version, “Black Nova” had apparently appeared in the author Marv Wolfman’s fan-mag Super Adventures in 1966 (produced with fellow writer Len Wein), but following a few revisions and artistic make-over by the legendary John Romita (Senior) the Human Rocket launched into the Marvel Universe in his own title, beginning in September 1976, ably supported by the illustration A-Team of John Buscema & Joe Sinnott.

‘Nova’ – borrowing heavily from DC’s Silver Age Green Lantern franchise as well as Spider-Man’s origin – is structured like a classic 4-chapter Lee/Kirby early Fantastic Four fable, and rapidly introduced its large cast before quickly zipping to the life-changing moment in Rider’s life when a star-ship with a dying alien aboard transferred to the lad all the mighty powers of an extraterrestrial peacekeeper and warrior.

Rhomann Dey tracked a deadly marauder to Earth. Zorr had already destroyed the idyllic world of Xandar, but the severely wounded vengeance-seeking Nova Prime was too near death and could not avenge the genocide. Trusting to fate, Dey beams his powers and abilities towards the planet below where Rider is struck by the energy bolt and plunged into a coma. On awakening the teen realises he has gained awesome powers …and the responsibilities of the last Nova Centurion…

Wendell Vaughn debuted in 1977 as S.H.I.E.L.D. super-agent Marvel Boy (Captain America #217), graduating and rebranding as Quasar during a stint as security chief of Project Pegasus during the early 1980s. He finally got an origin with his own title Quasar #1 (cover-dated October 1989).

He learned ‘The Price of Power!’ courtesy of Mark Gruenwald, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulanadi in a rousing romp wherein he washes out of agent training for lack of a killer instinct. Whilst acting in a security detail, Wendell dons alien quantum wrist-bands to stop them being stolen by AIM, even though they had vaporised every S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who had test-piloted them.

As well as not dying, he gained incredible quantum light powers and began a brief but glorious career as an Avenger and Protector of the Universe…

Rocket Raccoon was a minor character who appeared in brief backup sci fi serial ‘The Sword in the Star’ (specifically in Marvel Preview #7 in 1976). He won a larger role in Incredible Hulk #271 (May 1982), and like Wolverine years before, refused to go away quietly.

Reprinted here in its entirety is the 4-issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries (May to August 1985, as crafted by Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, Al Gordon & Al Milgrom): a bizarre, baroque sci-fi fantasy blending the edgy charm of Pogo with the biting social satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all whilst ostensibly describing a battle between Good and Evil in a sector of space completely crazy even by comicbook standards.

Rocket was one of many talking animals populating the impenetrable, inescapable Keystone Quadrant; a Ranger in charge of keeping the peace as robots and anamorphic beasties went about their holy, ordained task of caring for the distinctly odd and carefree humans known as The Loonies on their idyllic, sybaritic planet Halfworld.

However when a brutal shooting war between voracious apex toymakers Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne led to Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla Otter being kidnapped, the planet went wild, or more accurately… ‘Animal Crackers’

In rescuing her, Rocket and his faithful deputy Wal Rus had to contend with a murderous army of mechanised Killer Clowns, face an horrific, all-consuming bio-weapon at ‘The Masque of the Red Breath’ and even team up with arch-foe and disreputable mercenary bunny Blackjack O’Hare before uncovering the horrendous truth behind the mad society he so tirelessly defended in ‘The Book of Revelations!’

The final chapter then shook everything up as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’ saw the end of The Loonies, allowing Rocket and his surviving companions to escape the confines of the eternally segregated Keystone Quadrant into the greater universe beyond…

Starlord (without the hyphen) premiered in 1976, headlining monochrome mature-reader magazine Marvel Preview # 4. He appeared thrice more – in #11, 14 and 15 – during the height of a Star Wars inspired Science Fiction boom.

Years previously, the warrior prince of an interstellar empire was shot down over Colorado and had a fling with solitary Earther Meredith Quill. Despite a desire to remain in idyllic isolation, duty called her starman back to battle and he left, leaving behind an unborn son and a unique weapon. A decade later, the troubled boy saw his mother assassinated by alien lizard men.

Peter Jason Quill vengefully slew the creatures with Meredith’s shotgun, before his home was explosively destroyed by a flying saucer.

The newly-minted orphan awoke in hospital, his only possession a “toy” ray-gun his mother had hidden from him his entire life. Years later his destiny found him, as the half-breed scion was elevated by the divinity dubbed the “Master of the Sun”, becoming StarLord. Rejecting both Earth and his missing father, Peter chose freedom, the pursuit of justice and the expanse of the cosmos…

Here, from Marvel Spotlight volume 2 #6, Doug Moench & Tom Sutton revisit and clarify that origin as the pacifistic Quill and his sentient starship return to Sol and discover the truth about his nativity and ascension as well as the true nature of The Master of the Sun…

Logan’s Run was a short-lived licensed property tie-in, and #6 incongruously featured a 5-page short starring mad Titan Thanos in battle against his precision-crafted nemesis Drax the Destroyer: a typically inconclusive, explosively violent out-world clash over ‘The Final Flower’ crafted by Scott Edelman & Mike Zeck.

This star-studded compilation then concludes with an allegorical masterpiece by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane & Dan Adkins from Marvel Premiere #1. During a time of tremendous social upheaval Thomas transubstantiated an old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor. Debuting as a dreaded mystery menace, the character dubbed Him was re-imagined as a contemporary interpretation of the Christ myth and placed on a world far more like our own than the Earth of Marvel’s superhero-stuffed universe.

‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock!’ adroitly recapitulates the artificial man’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. After facing the FF, Him subsequently escaped to the stars and later initiated a naive clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to his all-encompassing cocoon to evolve a little bit more.

Now that stellar shell is picked up by the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary who is obsessed with a bold new experiment. Our hand-made hero observes as the savant creates a duplicate Earth on the far side of the sun, fast-forwarding through billions of years of evolution in mere hours. The man-god’s intent is to create a civilisation without aggression or rancour, but the Evolutionary collapses from exhaustion just as proto-hominid becomes Homo Sapien and his greatest mistake takes instant advantage of his exhaustion to meddle with fate…

Years previously Man-Beast had been hyper-evolved from a wolf and instantly became his creator’s nemesis. Now he and his equally-debased minions invade the ship and interfere with the experiment: reintroducing evil to the perfect creatures below and, in fact, making them just like us. At incredible speed Earth’s history re-ran with the creature in the cocoon afforded a ring-side seat to humanity’s fall from grace…

When the High Evolutionary awakes to fight Man-Beast’s army, Him explodes from his shell to help rout the demons, who flee to despoiled Counter-Earth. With calm restored, the science-god prepares to sterilise his ruined experiment: a world now indistinguishable from our own. No superheroes; disease and poverty rampant; injustice in ascendance and moments away from nuclear Armageddon… but the cosmic newborn begs him not to.

He claims the evil tide can be turned and pleads for the Evolutionary to stay his hand. The grieving, despondent creator agreed… but only until the rechristened Adam Warlock should admit that humanity is beyond redemption…

This ends a magnificent compendium of genuine magical Marvel moments: an eclectic but hugely entertaining procession of thrills, spectacle and laughs no comic fan or interested neophyte could possibly resist. And when you’ve read all this, you’ll be properly primed for some wide screen wonders too…
© 2020 MARVEL.

Posted on

Mighty Marvel Masterworks The Avengers volume 2: The Old Order Changeth


By Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Larry Ivie, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Chic Stone, Mike Esposito, Wallace Wood & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4613-5 (PB/Digital edition)

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchise success, The Avengers celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2023, so let’s again acknowledge that landmark event and offer a promise of more of the same…

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

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics. The notion of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket had made the Justice League of America a winner and subsequently inspired the moribund Atlas outfit – primarily Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko – into conceiving “super-characters” of their own. The result – way back in 1961 – was the Fantastic Four…

After 18 months, the fledgling House of Ideas had generated a small successful stable of costumed leading men (but still only 2 sidekick women!), allowing Lee & Kirby to at last assemble a select handful of them into an all-star squad, moulded into a force for justice and soaring sales…

Cover dated September 1963, and on sale from Early July, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men. This sequel edition collects The Avengers #11-20 (cover-dates December 1964 to September 1965): a stellar sequence of groundbreaking tales no lover of superhero stories can do without…

The tense action resumes with the team supreme of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Ant-Man & the Wasp still together after numerous attempts to destroy them or shatter their unity. An eagerly anticipated meeting delighted fans when #11 declared ‘The Mighty Avengers Meet Spider-Man!’: a clever and classy cross-fertilising tale from Lee and Don Heck, inked by Chic Stone. It features the return of the time-bending tyrant Kang the Conqueror, who attempts to destroy the team by insinuating a robotic duplicate of the outcast arachnid within their serried ranks. It’s accompanied by Heck’s Marvel Master Work Pin-up of ‘Kang!’ and preceded a cracking end-of-the-world thriller with guest-villains Mole Man and the Red Ghost, doing their very best to avoid another clash with the Fantastic Four.

This was another potent Marvel innovation, as – according to established funnybook rules – bad guys stuck to their own nemeses and didn’t clash outside their own backyards…

Inked by Dick Ayers, ‘This Hostage Earth!’ is a welcome return to grand adventure with lesser lights Giant-Man and the Wasp taking rare lead roles, but is trumped by a rousing gangster thriller of a sort seldom seen outside the pages of Spider-Man or Daredevil. The saga premiered Marvel universe Mafia analogue The Maggia and another major menace in #13’s ‘The Castle of Count Nefaria!’

After crushingly failing in his scheme to frame the Avengers, Nefaria’s caper ends on a tragic cliffhanger as Janet Van Dyne is left gunshot and dying, leading to a peak in melodramatic tension in #14 – scripted by Larry Ivie (as Paul Laiken) & Larry Lieber over Stan’s plot – as the traumatised team scour the globe for the only surgeon who can save her.

‘Even Avengers Can Die!’ – although of course she doesn’t – resolves into an epic alien invasion tale with overtones of This Island Earth, with Kirby stepping in to lay out the saga for Heck & Stone to illustrate. This only whets the appetite for the classic climactic confrontation that follows one month later as the costumed champions finally deal with the Masters of Evil and Captain America at last avenges the death of his dead partner Bucky.

‘Now, by My Hand, Shall Die a Villain!’ in #15 (laid-out by Kirby, pencilled by Heck and inked by Mike Esposito) features the final, fatal confrontation between Cap and Baron Zemo in the heart of the Amazon, whilst the other Avengers and the war-criminal’s cohort of masked menaces (Enchantress, Executioner, Black Knight and The Melter) battle once more on the streets of New York City…

It all ends as ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (broken down by Kirby before being finished by Ayers) presages a dramatic change in concept for the series; presumably because, as Lee increasingly wrote to the company’s unique strengths – tight continuity and strongly individualistic characterisation – he found juggling individual stars in their own titles as well as a combined team episode every month was just incompatible if not impossible…

As Cap and substitute sidekick Rick Jones fight their way back to civilisation, the Avengers institute changes. The big-name stars retire and are replaced by three erstwhile villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.

Eventually, led by perennial old soldier Captain America, this relatively powerless group with no outside titles to divide the attention (the Sentinel of Liberty did have a regular feature in Tales of Suspense but at that time it featured adventures set during WWII) evolved into another squabbling family of flawed, self-examining neurotics, enduring extended sub-plots and constant action as valiant underdogs; a formula readers of the time could not get enough of and which still works today…

Acting on advice from the departing Iron Man, the neophytes seek to recruit The Hulk to add raw power to the team, only to be ambushed by Mole Man in #17’s ‘Four Against the Minotaur!’ (Lee, Heck & Ayers), after which they fall foul of a dastardly “commie” plot ‘When the Commissar Commands!’ – necessitating a quick trip to thinly-disguised Viet Nam analogue Sin-Cong to unwittingly battle a bombastic android…

These relatively low-key tales are followed by an ever-improving run of mini-masterpieces, the first of which wraps up this compilation with a 2-part gem providing Hawkeye’s origin and introducing a roguish hero/villain.

‘The Coming of the Swordsman!’ introduces a dissolute, disreputable swashbuckler – with just a hint of deeply-buried flawed nobility – who attempts to force his way onto the highly respectable team to avoid outstanding international arrest warrants. His immediate and total rejection leads to him becoming an unwilling pawn of a far greater menace after being kidnapped by A-list would-be world despot The Mandarin.

The conclusion comes in the superb ‘Vengeance is Ours!’ – sublimely inked by the one-&-only Wally Wood – wherein the constantly-bickering Avengers finally pull together as a supernaturally efficient, all-conquering team…

These are immortal tales that defined the early Marvel experience and are still a joy no fan should deny themselves or their kids. How can you survive without them?
© 2022 MARVEL.

Posted on

Mighty Marvel Masterworks The Avengers volume 1: The Coming of The Avengers


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Paul Reinman, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302929787 (TPB/Digital edition)

Probably Marvel’s biggest global franchise success, The Avengers celebrate their 60th anniversary in September 2023, so let’s start the New Year with acknowledgement of that landmark event and a promise of more of the same over the next 12 months…

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

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics. The notion of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket had made the Justice League of America a winner and subsequently inspired the moribund Atlas outfit – primarily Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko – into conceiving “super-characters” of their own. The result – way back in 1961 – was the Fantastic Four…

Nearly 18 months later, the fledgling House of Ideas had generated a small and (mostly) successful stable of costumed leading men (but still only 2 sidekick women!), allowing Lee & Kirby to at last assemble a select handful of them into an all-star squad, moulded into a force for justice and soaring sales…

Seldom has it been done with such style and sheer exuberance. Cover dated September 1963, and on sale from Early July, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men…

This premier volume gathers The Avengers #1-10 (running to cover-date September 1965): a stellar sequence of groundbreaking tales no lover of superhero stories can do without…

The tense action kicks off with ‘The Coming of the Avengers!’ where – rather than starting at a neutral beginning – Stan & Jack (plus inker Dick Ayers) assumed buyers had a passing familiarity with Marvel’s other heroes and wasted very little time or space on introductions.

In Asgard, immortal trickster Loki is imprisoned on a dank isle, hungry for vengeance on his noble half-brother Thor. Whilst malevolently observing Earth, the god of evil espies the monstrous, misunderstood Hulk and mystically engineers a situation wherein the man-brute seemingly goes on a rampage, simply to trick the Thunder God into battling the monster.

When the Hulk’s teen sidekick Rick Jones radios the FF for assistance, Loki scrambles and diverts the transmission, smugly awaiting the blossoming of his mischief. Sadly for the schemer, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp also pick up the redirected SOS…

Only after the alerted heroes all converge on the American Southwest to search for the Jade Giant, do they realise that something is oddly amiss…

This terse, epic, compelling and wide-ranging yarn (New York, New Mexico, Detroit and Asgard in 22 pages) is Lee & Kirby at their bombastic best, and remains one of the greatest stories of the Silver Age (it’s certainly high in my own top ten Marvel Tales) and is followed by ‘The Space Phantom’ (Lee, Kirby & Paul Reinman), wherein an alien shape-stealer infiltrates and almost destroys the team from within.

With latent animosities exposed by the malignant masquerader, the epic ends with the volatile Hulk quitting the team in disgust, only to return in #3 as an outright villain in partnership with ‘Sub-Mariner!’ This globe-trotting romp delivers high-energy thrills and one of the blistering best battle scenes in comics history as the assorted titans clash in abandoned World War II tunnels beneath the Rock of Gibraltar. The tale was preceded hereby the galvanic house ad announcing the clash as seen in Avengers #2…

Inked by George Roussos, Avengers #4 was an indisputable, game-changing landmark as Marvel’s greatest Golden Age sensation returns for another increasingly war-torn era. ‘Captain America joins the Avengers!’ has everything that made the company’s early output so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior returned in our time of greatest need; stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky; aliens, gangsters, tragedy-drenched antagonist The Sub-Mariner and even subtle social commentary, all naturally wrapped up in vast amounts of staggering Kirby Action. It even begins with a cunning infomercial as Iron Man unsuccessfully requests the assistance of the company’s other fresh young stars, giving readers a taste of the other mighty Marvels on offer to them…

Reinman returned to ink ‘The Invasion of the Lava Men!’: another staggering adventure romp wherein the team – with the unwilling assistance of the ever-incredible Hulk – battle incendiary subterraneans and a world-threatening mutating mountain…

However, even all that pales before the supreme shift in artistic quality that is Avengers #6.

Chic Stone – arguably Kirby’s most effective inker of the period – joined the creative team just as a classic arch-foe was born. ‘The Masters of Evil!’ reveals how Nazi super-scientist Baron Zemo (who debuted that same month as a Nazi scientist in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #8) returns from self-exile in South America.

The petty tyrant is forced by his own arrogance and paranoia to emerge from the anonymity of the jungle he’s been skulking in since the Third Reich fell, after learning his despised nemesis Captain America has returned from the dead…

To this end, the war-criminal recruits a gang comprising previously established supervillains to attack New York City and destroy the Avengers. The unforgettable clash between valiant heroes and vile murdering mercenaries Radioactive Man, Black Knight (Nathan Garrett) and The Melter is to this day an unsurpassed example of prime Marvel magic.

Issue #7 followed up with two more malevolent recruits for the Masters of Evil, as Asgardian outcasts Enchantress and The Executioner are exiled to Midgard by Odin and waste no time allying with Zemo. This coincides with Iron Man being suspended from the team, due to “misconduct” occurring in his own series at that time. This was the start of the era of close-continuity where events in one series were regularly referenced and built upon in others. The practise quickly became a rod for the creators’ own backs and led to a radical rethink…

It might have been ‘Their Darkest Hour!’, but follow-up Avengers #8 delivered the team’s greatest triumph and tragedy as Kirby (inked with fitting circularity by Ayers) relinquished his full drawing role with a superbly entrancing invasion-from-time thriller. Riffing on The Day the Earth Stood Still, the B-movie-toned classic introduced ‘Kang the Conqueror!’: depicting an impossible powerful foe defeated by the cunning of ordinary teenagers and the indomitable spirit of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Whenever Kirby left a title he’d co-created, it took a little while to settle into a new rhythm, and none more so than with these collectivised costumed crusaders. Although Lee and the fabulously utilitarian Don Heck were perfectly capable of producing cracking comics entertainments, they never had The King’s uncanny sense of panoramic scope and scale which constantly sought bigger, bolder blasts of excitement.

The Avengers evolved into an entirely different series when the subtle approachability of Heck’s human-scaled vision replaced Kirby’s larger-than-life bombastic bravura. The series had advanced to monthly circulation and even King Kirby could not draw the massive number of pages his expanding workload demanded.

Heck was a gifted and trusted artist with a formidable record for meeting deadlines and, progressing under his pencil, sub-plots and character interplay finally got as much space as action and spectacle. After Kirby, stories increasingly focused on scene-stealing newcomer Captain America: concentrating on frail human beings in costumes, rather than wild modern gods and technological titans bestriding and shaking the Earth…

Inked by Ayers, Heck’s first outing was memorable tragedy ‘The Coming of the Wonder Man!’ wherein the Masters of Evil plant superhuman Trojan Horse Simon Williams within the heroes’ ranks, only to have the conflicted infiltrator find deathbed redemption by saving them from the deadly deathtrap he creates…

Another Marvel mainstay debuted with the introduction of (seemingly) malignant master of time Immortus, who briefly combines with Zemo’s devilish cohort to engineer a fatal division in the ranks by removing Cap from the field in ‘The Avengers Break Up!’ A sign of the Star-Spangled Sentinel’s increasing popularity, the issue is augmented by a Marvel Masterwork Pin-Up of ‘The One and Only Cap’, courtesy of Kirby & Ayers, and is followed by a 1963 house ad for Avengers #1 to close this pocket-sized bombshell of wonders.

These are immortal tales that defined the early Marvel experience and are still a joy no fan should deny themselves or their kids. How can you survive without them?
© 2021 MARVEL.

Posted on

Mighty Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man volume 2: The Sinister Six


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, with Sam Rosen & Art Simek (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3195-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

As any fule kno, The Amazing Spider-Man celebrated his 60th anniversary in 2022. However, I’m one of those radicals who feel that 1963 was when he was really born, so let’s start the New Year with acknowledgement of that opinion and warning of many more of the same over the next 12 months…

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

Marvel is often termed “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comic book storytelling. However, there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was, one whose creativity and philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, gleaming futurism that resulted from Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, diffident to the point of invisibility, but his work was both subtle and striking: innovative and meticulously polished. Always questing for affirming detail, he ever explored the man within. He saw heroism and humour and ultimate evil all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, decidedly creepy.

Crafting extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for and with Stan Lee, Ditko had been rewarded with his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters: an ilk which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with The Fantastic Four and so-ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk, but there was no indication of the renaissance ahead when officially just-cancelled Amazing Fantasy featured a brand new and rather eerie adventure character…

This compelling compilation re-presents the rise of the wallcrawler as first seen in Amazing Spider-Man #11-19 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (spanning cover-dates April – December 1964) and is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Sam Rosen & Art Simek, allowing newcomers and veteran readers to comprehensively relive some of the greatest moments in sequential narrative.

The parable of Peter Parker began when a smart but alienated high schooler was bitten by a radioactive spider on a science trip. Discovering he’d developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own ingenuity and engineering genius – Peter did what any lonely, geeky nerd would when given such a gift… he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Creating a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a vain, self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him, he didn’t lift a finger to stop the thug, and days later returns discovered that his Uncle Ben has been murdered by the same criminal…

Crazy for vengeance, Parker stalked and captured the assailant who made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. Since his social irresponsibility led to the death of the man who raised him, the boy swore to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. no gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, mammoth monsters and flying cars here… this stuff could happen to anyone…

Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 – the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costume, but it was the last issue of Ditko’s Amazing playground. However, the tragic last-ditch tale struck a chord with the public and by year’s end a new comic book superstar launched in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Charlton’s Captain Atom…

Holding on to the “Amazing” prefix to jog reader’ memories, the Amazing Spider-Man #1 hit newsstands in December sporting a March 1963 cover-date and two complete stories.

Sans frills and extras, the ongoing saga resumes here with Amazing Spider-Man #11. Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism drove the stories and his plot for ‘Turning Point’ involves the reappearance of a major supervillain and a growing dependence on soap opera drama, but his solitary, driven hero was always a loner, never far from the streets and small-scale-crime…

In the aftermath of the webspinner crushing a prison riot single handed and defeating the Big Man and The Enforcers, longer plot-strands were introduced as Peter’s potential girlfriend Betty Brant mysteriously vanishes.

Resolved to find her, Parker discovers she’s somehow involved with the multi-armed menace and the Philadelphia mob and goes after her, clashing again with the lethally deranged scientist whilst seeking to expose a long-hidden secret which had haunted Brant for years. It all ended in a spectacularly climactic fight scene on a ship that has still never been beaten for action-choreography…

The wonderment actually intensifies with ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’, detailing a dark, tragedy-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension that stretches from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo: cannily tempering trenchant melodrama with spectacular clashes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only the masterful Ditko could orchestrate it.

A new super-foe premiered in Amazing Spider-Man #13 with ‘The Menace of Mysterio!’ as a seemingly eldritch bounty-hunter hired by Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson to capture Spider-Man eventually lets slip his own dark criminal agenda, whilst ASM #14 delivers an absolute milestone in Marvel History when a hidden criminal mastermind manipulates a Hollywood studio into making a movie about the wall-crawler.

Even with guest-star opponents The Enforcers and The Incredible Hulk (his last true guest shot before moving into his new residency in Tales to Astonish), ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ is most notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy.

Jungle superman and thrill-junkie ‘Kraven the Hunter!’ makes Spider-Man his intended prey at the behest of embittered Spidey-foe The Chameleon in #15, and – after ignominiously failing to trap his target in the wilds of Central Park – promptly reappears in the first Amazing Spider-Man Annual…

A timeless landmark and still magnificently thrilling Fights ‘n’ Tights tussle, the ‘Sinister Six!’ begins after a team of villains comprising Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, The Sandman, Vulture and Doctor Octopus abduct Aunt May and Betty. Briefly deprived of his powers – lost to a guilt-fuelled panic attack – Peter is forced to confront them without nothing but courage & determination.

A staggeringly enthralling combat clash, with Spider-Man systematically taking down each enemy in a death-defying duels, this influential tale featured cameos (or, more honestly, product placement segments) by every other extant hero of the budding Marvel universe: everyone from The Avengers to The X-Men…

Also included from that colossal comic book are special feature pages on ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’; comedic short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man’ and a gallery of pin-up pages starring ‘Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes!’ (namely the Burglar, Chameleon, Vulture, Terrible Tinkerer, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Doctor Doom, The Lizard, Living Brain, Electro, The Enforcers, Mysterio, Green Goblin and Kraven the Hunter).

There are also pin-ups of Betty and Jonah, Peer Parker’s House and classmates plus a heroic guest stars page…

Amazing Spider-Man #16 extended that circle of friends and foes as the webslinger battles the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime: consequently meeting – and inevitably battling – a fellow loner hero in a dazzling and delightful ‘Duel with Daredevil’.

We conclude this outing with an ambitious 3-part saga that began in Amazing Spider-Man #17, wherein the rapidly-maturing hero touches emotional bottom before rising to triumphal victory over all manner of enemies. It begins with ‘The Return of the Green Goblin!’ as the wallcrawler endures renewed print assaults from the Daily Bugle and its obsessed publisher J. Jonah Jameson, just as the enigmatic Green Goblin commences a war of nerves and attrition, using the Enforcers, Sandman and an army of bargain basement thugs to publicly humiliate the Amazing Arachnid and make him look like a fool in front of rival frenemy Johnny Storm – The Human Torch.

To exacerbate matters, Peter’s beloved Aunt May’s health takes a drastic downward turn…

In ‘The End of Spider-Man!’ pressure continues to mount and the troubled champion quits, concentrating exclusively on finding money to pay for his aunt’s treatment and leaving the Torch to handle the Goblin’s crime rampage…

It all explosively concludes in ‘Spidey Strikes Back!’ – featuring a turbulent team-up with the Torch – as a powerful pep talk from May galvanises the disgruntled teen terror and sets him back on his fated path: to the everlasting regret of the Goblin, his gangsters, the Enforcers and Sandman… and Jameson…

This extended tale proved fans were ready for every kind of narrative experiment (single issue or even two stories per issue were still the norm in 1964) and Stan & Steve were more than happy to try anything…

I claimed no extras here, but I lied. Closing the book are some lovely art treats: an unedited view of Ditko’s original cover for ASM #11, the original splash page art for #12 plus page 12and the closing page of #18; every one reason enough to buy this book…

These immortal epics are something no serous fan can be without, and will make an ideal gift for any curious newcomer or nostalgic aficionado.

Happy Unbirthday Spidey and many, many more please…
© 2021 MARVEL.

Posted on

Mighty Marvel Masterworks Captain America volume 1: The Sentinel of Liberty


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, George Tuska, John Romita & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1302946159 (PB/Digital edition)

During the natal years of Marvel Comics in the early 1960s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby opted to mimic the game-plan which had paid off so successfully for National/DC Comics, albeit with mixed results. Beginning cautiously in 1956, Julie Schwartz had scored incredible, industry-altering hits by re-inventing the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed sensible to try and revive the characters that had dominated Timely/Atlas in those halcyon days two decades previously.

A new Human Torch had premiered as part of the revolutionary Fantastic Four, and in the fourth issue of that title the amnesiac Sub-Mariner resurfaced after a 20-year hiatus (everyone concerned had apparently forgotten the first abortive attempt to revive an “Atlas” superhero line in the mid-1950s).

The Torch was promptly given his own solo lead-feature in Strange Tales (from issue #101 on) where, eventually (in Strange Tales #114), the flaming kid fought a larcenous villain impersonating the nation’s greatest lost hero…

Here’s a quote from the last panel…

“You guessed it! This story was really a test! To see if you too would like Captain America to Return! As usual, your letters will give us the answer!” I guess we all know how that turned out…

With reader-reaction strong, the real McCoy was promptly decanted in Avengers #4 and, after a captivating, centre-stage hogging run in that title, won his own series as half of a “split-book” with fellow Avenger and patriotic barnstormer Iron Man, beginning with #59.

This premiere Mighty Marvel Masterworks Cap collection assembles those early appearances from Tales of Suspense #59-77, spanning November 1964 to May 1966) in a cheap, kid-friendly edition that will charm and delight fans of all vintages…

Scripted throughout by Lee, it begins with eponymous opening outing ‘Captain America’ – illustrated by the staggeringly perfect team of Kirby & Chic Stone. The plot is non-existent, but what you do get is a phenomenal fight as an army of thugs invades Avengers Mansion because “only the one without superpowers” is at home. They soon learn the folly of that misapprehension…

The next issue offered more of the same as ‘The Army of Assassins Strikes!’ on behalf of evil arch enemy Baron Zemo, before ‘The Strength of the Sumo!’ proves insufficient when Cap invades Viet Nam to rescue a lost US airman. Incidentally, that flyer was a black serviceman, signalling early on Kirby’s resolve to break comic books’ colour bar…

The Star-Spangled Swashbuckler then took on an entire prison to thwart a ‘Break-out in Cell Block 10!’: a glorious action riot simply dripping with irony…

After these simplistic romps, the series took an abrupt turn and began telling tales set in World War II. Crafted by Lee, Kirby & Frank Ray (AKA Frank Giacoia), ‘The Origin of Captain America!’ recounts how patriotic, frail physical wreck Steve Rogers is selected to be guinea pig for an experimental super-soldier serum, only to have the scientist responsible cut down by a Nazi bullet and die in his arms…

Now regarded as forever unique, he is given the task of becoming the fighting symbol and guardian of America, all while based as a regular soldier in a US boot camp. There he is accidentally unmasked by Camp Mascot Bucky Barnes, who then blackmails the hero into making the kid his sidekick.

The next issue (Tales of Suspense #64, cover-dated April) kicked off a string of spectacular episodic thrillers adapted from Kirby & Joe Simon’s Golden Age run, with the flag-bedecked heroes defeating Nazi spies Sando and Omar in ‘Among Us, Wreckers Dwell!’ before Chic Stone returned heralding Cap’s greatest foe in landmark saga ‘The Red Skull Strikes!’

‘The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull!’ sends the series shooting into high gear – and original material – as sub-plots and characterisation are added to the ardent action and spectacle. At last we learn the backstory of the most evil man on Earth: revealed to a captive Sentinel of Liberty… Then ‘Lest Tyranny Triumph!’ and ‘The Sentinel and the Spy!’ (both inked by Giacoia) combine espionage and mad science in a late-exposed plot to murder the head of Allied Command…

The All-American heroes stay in England for moody gothic suspense shocker ‘Midnight in Greymoor Castle!’ (illustrated by Dick Ayers over Kirby’s layouts) before second chapter ‘If This be Treason!’ finds Golden Age veteran and contemporary Buck Rogers newspaper strip artist George Tuska perform the same function.

The final part – and last wartime operation – then reveals what happens ‘When You Lie Down with Dogs…!’ with Joe Sinnott inking Tuska over Kirby’s layouts to deliver a rousing conclusion to this frantic tale of traitors, madmen and terror-weapons.

We return to the present – that’s 1964 to you – ToS #72 where Lee, Kirby & Tuska reveal that Cap has been telling war stories to his fellow Avengers for our last nine months. The reverie triggers a long dormant memory when ‘The Sleeper Shall Awake!’, kicking off a classic catastrophe countdown as a dormant Nazi super-robot activates 20 years after Germany’s defeat, programmed to exact world-shattering vengeance.

Continuing in ‘Where Walks the Sleeper!’ and concluding in ‘The Final Sleep!’, this masterpiece of tense suspense deftly demonstrates the indomitable nature of the perfect American hero.

With John Tartaglione inking, Ayers returns to pencil Kirby’s breakdown designs in ‘30 Minutes to Live!’: introducing both Gallic mercenary Batroc the Leaper and a mysterious girl who would eventually become Cap’s long-term girl-friend. In deference to the era’s fascination with superspies, S.H.I.E.L.D. was rapidly gaining dominance throughout Marvel continuity and one of their best was Agent 13 – Sharon Carter.

The taut 2-part countdown to disaster ends with ‘The Gladiator, The Girl and the Glory!’, limned by John Romita: the first tale with no official artistic input from Kirby, although he did lay out the next issue (TOS #77) for Romita & Giacoia. ‘If a Hostage Should Die!’ again focuses on WWII, hinting at both a lost romance and tragedy to come, and a possible connection between Agent 13 and the girl Steve Rogers lost in the dying days of war…

Rounding out this patriotic bonanza is a brief gallery of original art pages by Kirby, Stone & Ayers, taken from these tales of dauntless courage and unmatchable adventure.

Fast-paced and superbly illustrated, these adventures introduced a new generation to Captain America, restoring the Sentinel of Liberty to the heights his Golden Age compatriots the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner never truly regained. These yarns are pure escapist magic: unmissable reading for the eternally young at heart and constantly thrill-seeking.
© 2022 MARVEL.

Posted on

Mighty Marvel Masterworks The Incredible Hulk volume 2


By Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Mike Esposito, Bob Powell & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4623-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Their stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before, but today I’m once more focusing on format before Fights ‘n’ Tights – or is that Rags ‘n’ Shatters?

The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line was expressly designed with economy in mind. Classic tales of Marvel’s key characters as realised by the founding creators and re-presented in chronological order have been a company staple since the 1990s, but always in lavish, expensive collectors editions. These nifty nuggets are far cheaper, albeit with some deletions – such as the occasional pin-up – and with far fewer bonus features. They’re printed on lower quality paper and – crucially – are physically smaller (152 x 227mm or about the dimensions of a B-format paperback book). Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but they’re perfect for kids and if you opt for the digital editions, that’s no issue at all…

Bruce Banner was a military scientist caught in the world’s first gamma bomb detonation. As a result of ongoing mutation, stress and other factors cause him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury.

After an initially troubled debut run, the Gruff Green Giant finally found his size 700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of young Marvel’s most popular features. After his first solo-title folded, The Incredible Hulk shambled around a swiftly-coalescing Marvel Universe as guest star and/or villain du jour until a new home was found for him.

1962 was a big year for burgeoning Marvel, with plenty of star debuts who all celebrate six decades of glory this year. Most oldsters will cite the Amazing Spider-Man as the most significant premier, but this guy can probably claim equal star status…

This tome gathers the Hulky bits from Tales To Astonish #59-74: spanning September 1964 to December 1965, and seeing the nomadic antihero settle down in a new home to restart his march to global fame and misfortune…

Way back then, the trigger for the Hulk’s second chance was a reprinting of his origin in the giant anthology comic book Marvel Tales Annual #1. It was the beginning of the company’s inspired policy of keeping early tales in circulation, which did so much to make fervent fans out of casual latecomers. Thanks to reader response, “Ol’ Greenskin” was awarded a back-up strip in a failing title…

Giant-Man Hank Pym was the star turn in Tales to Astonish, but by mid-1964 the strip was visibly floundering. In issue #59 the Master of Many Sizes was used to introduce his forthcoming co-star in a colossal punch-up, setting the scene for the next issue wherein the Green Goliath’s co-feature began.

The second chapter of the man-monster’s career was about to take off and power-packed prologue ‘Enter: The Hulk!’ (Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman) sees the Avengers inadvertently inspire woefully insecure Giant-Man to hunt down the Jade Giant Goliath.

Although Pym’s archfoe The Human Top devilishly engineered that blockbusting battle, Lee was the real mastermind as – with the next issue – The Hulk began starring in his own series (and on the covers) whilst Giant-Man’s adventures shrank down to a dozen or so pages.

The event was heralded by a raucous house ad which supplements the story here.

In TTA #60, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ opens with Banner still working for General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, despite the military martinet’s deep disgust and distrust of the puny milksop who had won his daughter’s heart.

Aloof and standoffish, Banner keeps secret his astounding condition: an affliction which subjects him to uncontrollable transformations, becoming a rampaging, if well-intentioned, engine of destruction.

The 10-page instalments were uncharacteristically set in the Arizona/New Mexico deserts, not New York, and espionage and military themes were the narrative backdrop of these adventures. Lee scripted, Ditko drew and comics veteran George Roussos – “George Bell” – provided the ink art. The first episode details how an anonymous spy steals an unstoppable suit of robotic armour built by radiation-obsessed Banner, and concludes with a shattering battle in the next instalment wherein the Hulk is ‘Captured at Last!’

Cliffhanger endings such as the exhausted Man-Monster’s imprisonment by Ross’ military units at the end of the yarn would prove instrumental in keeping readers onboard and enthralled. Next chapter ‘Enter… the Chameleon!’ has plenty of action and suspense with the mercenary spy infiltrating Ross’ command, but the real punch is the final panel, hinting at the mastermind behind all the spying and skulduggery. The enigmatic Leader would become the Hulk’s ultimate and antithetical nemesis…

The minor Spider-Man villain worked well as a returning foe: his disguise abilities an obvious threat in a series based on a weapons scientist working for the military during the Cold War. Even the Leader himself has dubious connections to the sinister Soviets – when he isn’t trying to conquer the world for himself.

Preceded by a titanic Jack Kirby Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of the Green Goliath, ‘A Titan Rides the Train!’ (TTA #63, cover-dated January 1965) provides an origin for the super-intellectual menace whilst setting up a fresh subplot wherein new cast addition Major Glen Talbot begins to suspect Banner is a traitor. The action component comes when the Leader tries to steal Banner’s new anti-H-bomb device from a moving freight locomotive…

‘The Horde of Humanoids!’ features the return of guilt-stricken former sidekick Rick Jones who uses his Avengers connections to obtain a pardon for the incarcerated Banner by the simple expedient of letting the American President in on the secret of the Hulk! Ah… kinder times…!

Free again, Banner joins Talbot on an isolated island to test his hotly sought-after atomic device, only to be attacked by the Leader’s artificial warriors – providing a fine example of Ditko’s unique manner of staging a super-tussle.

The chaotic clash continues into the next issue as Ayers assumes the inking. Banner is taken prisoner by those darn Commies, and sees the Hulk go ballistic behind the Iron Curtain ‘On the Rampage against the Reds!’. This gratuitously satisfyingly onslaught spans three issues, with #66 – ‘The Power of Doctor Banner!’ inked by Vince Colletta and ‘Where Strides the Behemoth’ in #67 (inked by Frank Giacoia AKA “Frank Ray”), cumulatively demonstrating the brute’s shattering might.

His Commie-Busting fury finally expended, the Hulk reverts to human form and is captured by Mongolian bandits who see a chance to make lots of ransom money…

Jack Kirby returned as illustrator – supplemented by Mike (“Mickey Demeo”) Esposito – in #68. ‘Back from the Dead!’ sees dauntless Glen Talbot extricate and exfiltrate the tragic scientist, only to lose him again on the way back to America. Even so, Banner falls again into military custody and is ordered to activate his Atomic Absorbatron for one last test…

Yet again the process is interrupted by the Leader’s attacking Humanoids, but this time the Veridian Villain succeeds and the Hulk is ‘Trapped in the Lair of the Leader!’ …but only until the US Army bursts in…

Issue #70 saw Giant-Man benched and replaced by The Sub-Mariner, making Tales to Astonish a title dedicated to aggressive, savage anti-heroes. Increasingly, Hulk stories reflected this shift, and ‘To Live Again!’ sees the furious Leader launch a 500-foot tall Humanoid against a local US missile base, with the Jade Giant caught in the middle.

Kirby reduced his input to layouts and Esposito handles the lion’s share of the art in #71’s ‘Like a Beast at Bay!’: as the despondent Hulk actually joins forces with the Leader before ‘Within the Monster Dwells a Man!’ finds Talbot getting ever closer to uncovering Banner’s dark, green secret.

With legendary illustrator Bob Powell pencilling and inking over Kirby’s layouts, ‘Another World, Another Foe!’ details how the Leader dispatches Hulk to The Watcher’s homeworld to steal an ultimate weapon, just as an “unbeatable” alien rival arrives. ‘The Wisdom of the Watcher!’ ends the quest – and apparently The Leader – in an all-out, brutal action with a shocking climax…

The book closes with a glorious lost page of Ditko’s pencils: a superb unused pin-up of the antihero and his supporting cast, that is quite frankly worth the price of admission all on its own…

To Be Hulk-inued…

Hulk Smash! He always was, and because of stories like this, he always will be…
© 2022 MARVEL.

Posted on

Doctor Doom: The Book of Doom Omnibus


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Denny O’Neil, Chris Claremont, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Jim Shooter, Roger Stern, Walter Simonson, Mark Waid, Dwayne McDuffie& Ed Brubaker, Bob Layton, Tom DeFalco, Christopher Priest, Wally Wood, Gene Colan, Mike Sekowsky, Keith Giffen, Bob Hall, Frank Miller, Dave Cockrum, John Romita Jr., Mike Zeck, Mike Mignola, Mike Wieringo, Casey Jones & Pablo Raimondi, Frank Giacoia, George Tuska, John Buscema, Arthur Adams & Paolo Rivera, & many & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3420-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: One of Marvel’s Mightiest… 10/10

As a rule I’ve traditionally steered clear of reviewing the assorted Omnibus editions out there. For the longest time we felt that they were a bit elitist: phenomenally expensive and frequently only available in physical formats. The print version of this hardback book is 1336 pages and weighs 3.5 kilos – over 7½ pounds! – so if you’re old, infirm or have simply never developed any muscles because you’ve frittered away your life READING COMICS, that’s a big downside…

That’s all starting to change now, so here’s a review of the digital version – which is only as unwieldy as your preferred electronic reader of choice and cost me far less because of a discount sale…

Once upon a time, you hadn’t really made it as a Marvel superhero – or villain – until you’d clashed with Doctor Doom. Victor Von Doom is a troubled genius who escaped the oppression heaped on his Romani people via an ultimately catastrophic scholarship to America. Whilst there he succumbed to an intense rivalry with young Reed Richards, even then perhaps the most brilliant man alive.

The arrogant student performed unsanctioned experiments which went wrong and marred his perfect features, leading him down a path of super-science and sinister sorcery and fuelled his overwhelming hunger for ultimate power and total control. From the ashes of his failure, Von Doom rebuilt his life, returned to seize control of his Balkan homeland and become a danger to the world and the multiverse.

This truly king-sized and epically imperious compendium was released to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Lord of Latveria, who debuted in Fantastic Four #5 April 1962. It gathers many of his greatest battles and other landmark moments of triumph and tragedy, and opens with a contextualising Introduction from Ralph Macchio before reprising the contents of Fantastic Four #5, 6, 39-40, 246-247, 258-260, 350, 352, 500; Amazing Spider-Man #5 & Annual #20; Marvel Super-Heroes #20; Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #1-2 & Super-Villain Team-Up #13-14: Champions #16; Uncanny X-Men #145-147; Iron Man #149-150; Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars #10-12; Marvel Graphic Novel Emperor Doom; Marvel Graphic Novel Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment; Fantastic Four (volume 2) #67-70; Fantastic Four Special (2005) #1 and Books of Doom #1-6, as well as material from Fantastic Four #236, 358 & Annual 2; Astonishing Tales #1-3, 6-8 and Marvel Double-Shot #2 collectively spanning July 1962-June 2006.

The drama begins as it must with that debut in Fantastic Four #5. At that time, aliens and especially monsters played a major part in earlier Marvel’s output. However, after a tentative start, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s recreation of super-heroes embraced the unique basics of the idiom: taking a full bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown, unrepentant super-villain to their budding Marvel Universe.

Admittedly the Mole Man had appeared in #1, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his plans of world conquest, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in FF #22.

‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom’ (inked by the sublimely slick and perfectly polished Joe Sinnott) had it all. An attack by a mysterious enemy from Mr. Fantastic’s past; super-science, magic, lost treasure, time-travel, even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ‘earties!

The tale is sheer comics magic and the creators knew they were on to a winner, as the deadly Doctor returned in the very next issue, teaming with the recently revived and recalcitrantly reluctant Sub-Mariner to attack our heroes as ‘The Deadly Duo!’ in the first Super-Villain Team-Up of the Marvel Age…

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was the second super-star of the Timely Age of Comics – but only because he followed the cover-featured Human Torch in the running order of Marvel Mystery Comics #1 in 1939. He has had, however, the most impressive longevity of the company’s original “Big Three” – Torch, Subby and Captain America. The Marine Marvel was revived in 1962 in Fantastic Four #4; once again a conflicted noble villain, prominent in the company’s pantheon ever since.

Inked by Dick Ayers, FF #6 also introduced the concept of antiheroes as Namor was promptly betrayed by Doom and ended up saving the heroes from death in space: creating a truly complex dynamic with his fellow rogue monarch and the FF. The Master of Latveria’s inevitably betrayal colours the relationship of both kingly characters to this day…

Doom was frequent threat to the Fantastic Four, and was the first foe to break another unspoken rule by going after other heroes in the cohesive shared universe Lee & Kirby were building.

Cover dated October 1963, Amazing Spider-Man #5 found the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ – not so much winning as surviving his battle against the deadliest man on Earth. In this titanic comedy of errors the villain again sought super-powered pawns for his war against humanity, but seriously underestimated his juvenile opponent…

The one-dimensional evil genius was recast as a tragic figure forever shackled by his flaws thanks to the primary contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) where Chic Stone inked ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’

A short (12 page) scene-setter, it momentously detailed how brilliant “gypsy” youth Victor Von Doom remade himself into the most dangerous man in creation: ruthlessly overcoming obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of being the son of a sorceress. That past informed the present as the ultimate villain again attacks old friend Reed Richards and is left falsely believing he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ through guile, subterfuge and mind-control, but he has in fact suffered his most ignominious defeat. This clash also introduced a long-running plot thread connecting the Monstrous Monarch to time-travelling tyrant Rama Tut/Kang the Conqueror…

Jumping forward to the summer of 1965 FF #39 (cover-dated June, with Frank Giacoia – as Frank Ray – inking) saw the team stripped of their powers and targeted by an enraged Doctor Doom in ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ wherein sightless vigilante Daredevil stepped up and provided their only hope of staying alive.

The tale concluded in #40’s ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ with Vince Colletta inking a bombastic battle revealing the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing as – cruelly restored to his monstrous mutated form – he hands Doom the most humiliating defeat of his life…

Experimental try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (May 1969) awarded the villain his first full-length solo shot in ‘This Man… This Demon!’ Written by Larry Lieber & Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Lieber, Giacoia & Colletta, it restated Doom’s origins and revealed a youthful dalliance with an innocent Romani maid named Valeria. In the now, that failed relationship was exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claimed to need an ally and partner but truly sought a slave. Doom dealt with the charlatan in typically effective style…

The metal-shod maniac profited from Marvel’s first big expansion and won his own solo-series (Astonishing Tales #1-8). It began with ‘Unto You is Born… the Doomsman!’ (July-August 1970) wherein Thomas & Wally Wood depicted the master manipulator’s daily struggle to maintain iron control over the Ruritanian kingdom of Latveria: building a super-robot to crush an incipient rebellion led by ousted Crown Prince Rudolfo and his mysterious sponsor.

However, the use of Victor von Doom’s lost love had the desired effect and the rebels almost succeeded in driving the tyrant from Doom Castle. In the attendant chaos the Doomsman device wandered away…

AT #2 declared ‘Revolution!’, proving Doom was not the only master of mechanoids as Rudolfo and the enigmatic Faceless One used the lost Doomsman to wreak havoc throughout Latveria, before the final assault in ‘Doom Must Die!’ (scripted by Lieber) saw all the tyrant’s enemies vanquished and the Monarch of Menace once more firmly in control…

Astonishing Tales #6 (June 1971, by Lieber, George Tuska & Mike Esposito) saw the Lord of Latveria invade African nation Wakanda in ‘The Tentacles of the Tyrant!’, resolved to seize its Vibranium, only to fall to the furious tenacity of its king and defender T’Challa the Black Panther in ‘…And If I be Called Traitor!’ (Gerry Conway, Gene Colan & Frank Giacoia).

A major plot and character strand was added for his final solo story in AT #8 (October 1971). ‘…Though Some Call it Magic!’ is a minor landmark entitled wherein Conway, Colan & Tom Palmer revealed the Devil Doctor’s darkest secret. On one night every year the ultimate villain duelled the rulers of Hell in the vain hope of liberating his mother’s soul. She had been a sorceress, and now burned in the inferno for the unholy powers she used in life, powers which her son also possesses.

Victor battled to free her from eternal torment and always failed: a tragic trial which punished both the living and the dead…

With this tormented tale even more depth and drama were added to the greatest villain in the Marvel universe. His residency ended without warning; Doom resumed his status as the MU’s premier antagonist until Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975): again bathing the Iron Dictator in a starring spotlight beside aggrieved acquaintance The Sub-Mariner. The special and its sequel led to significant series Super-Villain Team-Up and major crossovers in The Avengers and The Champions.

Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 detailed how Doom and Namor grudgingly reunited, in a framing sequence by Thomas, John Buscema & Sinnott interlaced with reprints of previous meetings.

In the intervening years since FF #6, Sub-Mariner had won and lost his own series, despite some very radical and attention-grabbing stunts. At the close, surface dwellers dumped nerve-gas into the sea, accidently but catastrophically altering Namor’s hybrid body, forcing him to wear a hydrating-suit to breathe. The same toxin had plunged the entire nation of Atlantis into a perpetual coma…

Here, in ‘Encounter at Land’s End!’, Prince Namor – alone and pushed to the brink of desperation – rescues Doom from a deadly plunge to Earth after the Iron Dictator’s latest defeat (at the hands of the FF and Silver Surfer) in an impressive and effective framing sequence bracketing two classic reprint tales (the aforementioned ‘This Man… This Demon!’ and ‘In the Darkness Dwells Doom!’ from Sub-Mariner #20 – and not included in this already too-heavy tome).

Sub-Mariner is in dire need of scientific wizardry to cure his sleeping kin and prepared to offer an alliance against mankind to get it. Initially refused and rebuked by Doom, Namor refuses to back down…

Following Thomas’ editorial ‘The Road to Land’s End’, Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #2 sees Doom reconsider the partnership deal in ‘To Bestride the World!’ (June 1975, by Thomas, Mike Sekowsky & Sam Grainger) after his own vast robot army rebels. The crisis is caused by the tyrant’s long-lost Doomsman droid – in its new guise of Andro – who returns and co-opts the mechanoids for a war against all organic life. As a result of the blistering battle and extensive carnage-wreaking, Namor and Doom triumph together and part as uneasy allies, only to regroup in the pages of Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (beginning August 1975) in a chaotic ongoing series…

SVTU #13 (August 1977) ended the sleeping Atlantis storyline as Doom finally fulfilled his oath, and resurrected the comatose mer-people, but only after a blistering sub-sea battle between Namor, amphibian arch-nemesis Krang and a Brobdingnagian sea beast in ‘When Walks the Warlord!’ courtesy of Bill Mantlo, Keith Giffen & Don Perlin).

With Atlantis and Namor restored, a new era began in Super-Villain Team-Up #14 (October 1977). ‘A World for the Winning!’, by Mantlo, Bob Hall, Perlin & Duffy Vohland found mutant villain Magneto tricked into a duel with Doom who was at that moment de facto master of the world after since seeding the planet’s atmosphere with mind-control gas. Ever the sportsman, the Lord of Latveria released Magneto from mental control, allowing him to liberate one other thrall and challenging them both to save the world from his ultimate dominance…

It was SVTU’s last issue and the story concluded in The Champions #16 (November 1977) as the Master of Magnetism and The Beast overcame all odds to save the day in ‘A World Lost!’ (Mantlo, Hall & Mike Esposito).

Despite appearing seemingly everywhere we pick up Doom three years later as Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14 (1980) sees Frank Miller & Tom Palmer perfectly recapture the moody mastery of Steve Ditko’s peak periods. That year’s summer offering was a frantic magical mystery masterpiece scripted by Denny O’Neil wherein Doctor Doom and extra-dimensional dark god Dread Dormammu attempt to unmake Reality by invoking the Arcane Armageddon of “The Bend Sinister”.

‘The Book of the Vishanti’ reveals how an unsuspecting dupe captures Doctor Strange for the malevolent allies, almost unleashing cosmic hell with only the wondrous wallcrawler left to literally save the world: a thrilling confection of magic and mayhem that deeply references and reverences the glory days of Ditko, by channelling the legendary first team-up of webspinner and wizard from Spidey’s second annual.

Gathering Uncanny X-Men #145-147 – spanning May to July 1981 – Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & Joe Rubinstein oversaw an extended clash of cultures with ‘Kidnapped!’ finding the mutant outcasts targeted by Doom. The assault was triggered through the machinations of deranged assassin Arcade, with half of the team – Storm, Colossus, Angel, Wolverine and Nightcrawler – invading the Diabolical Dictator’s castle whilst a substitute-squad consisting of Iceman, Polaris, Banshee and Havoc despatched to the latter maniac’s mechanised ‘Murderworld!’ to rescue innocent family and friends kidnapped as a preliminary to the plot…

Sadly, in the interim Doom triumphs over the invaders to his castle, but his act of entrapping claustrophobe Ororo backfires, triggering a ‘Rogue Storm!’ that threatens to erase the USA from the globe…

August and September 1981 heralded Iron Man #149-150, wherein David Michelinie, John Romita Jr. & Bob Layton crafted a time-travelling clash with Marvel’s deadliest villain. In ‘Doomquest!’ and ‘Knightmare’ the Armoured Avenger and Demon Doctor are trapped in the days of King Arthur and must unite to rebuild themselves and their tech as well as defeat evil Morgana Le Fey before they can return to their home time!

After achieving superstar status on The X-Men, writer/artist John Byrne moved on to carve out a one-man renaissance of the Fantastic Four, beginning with #232. He achieved his dream of relatively complete autonomy when assigned all the creative chores on Marvel’s flagship book and hit an early peak in #236’s ‘Terror in a Tiny Town’ (cover-dated November 1981).

His fifth issue was a 40-page epic crafted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the team: reprising the classic origin and crafting a classic confrontation with both Doctor Doom and Puppet Master. It remains one of the very best non-Kirby tales of the entire canon.

The Lord of Latveria returned in a thematic sequel in Fantastic Four #246 & 247 (cover-dated September & October 1982) as ‘Too Many Dooms’ saw the Iron Tyrant escape incarceration to launch a retaliatory strike against all his enemies and reclaim his shattered but free kingdom in concluding chapter ‘This Land is Mine!’

Another extended Doom saga appeared in FF #258-260 (September – November 1983) beginning with ‘Interlude’ as the newly reinstalled ruler schools and programs his appointed heir Kristoff in statecraft and dominance whilst preparing his next strike against his American enemies. Recruiting cosmic marauder Terrax the Tamer, he launches that attack in ‘Choices’, only to apparently perish when the Silver Surfer joins the escalating battle ‘When Titans Clash!’

Regarded as dead and replaced by Kristoff as a legacy tyrant, Victor Von Doom became the star of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars: kickstarting the seemingly insatiable modern passion for vast, braided mega-crossover publishing events, which came about because of an impending action figures licensing deal with toy monolith Mattel.

Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, a great advocate of tales accessible to new, younger readers as well as the dedicated fan-base, apparently concocted the rather simplistic but engaging saga starring the House of Ideas’ top characters: building his tale around a torrent of unsolicited, inspirational mail from readers, all begging for one huge dust-up between all the heroes and villains…

The 12-issue Limited Series launched with a May 1984 cover-date and closed (April 1985) with a double-sized blockbusting battle that left many characters changed forever – or at least as “Forever” as comics get…

The premise was that all-powerful force The Beyonder abducted many Earth heroes and villains – and Galactus – in a quest to understand the emotion of desire. The enigmatic, almighty entity dumped the abducted on a purpose-built Battleworld created from and populated with fragments of other planets as a vast arena in which to prove which was better: “self-gratification or sacrifice”…

As crafted by Shooter, Mike Zeck & John Beatty, it saw Avengers, X-Men, FF, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Doom, Molecule Man, Ultron, Dr. Octopus, the Lizard, Enchantress, Absorbing Man, Kang the Conqueror, Wrecking Crew and Galactus teleported into the deep unknown…

After Doom fails to convince his fellow villains of the underlying threat, he tries to join the heroes before in exasperation, taking charge for himself…

Represented here by Secret Wars #10-12 (February-April 1985), ‘Death to the Beyonder!’ sees Doom makes his move, using a hastily constructed device to absorb all the omnipotent instigator’s power, using the stolen energies to rebuild himself and declare the Secret War over with Doom the sole victor…

In ‘…And Dust to Dust!’, he exults in the joys of becoming omnipotent, but the troubled new god finds it hard to hang on to lust for conquest, or even personal ambition after achieving all-consuming divinity, and his benign acts and vapid indolence betray a certain lack of drive and ambition…

With heroes and villains nervously awaiting the new supreme one’s next move, events take a subtly disturbing turn as a strange energy wisp begins to possess a succession of heroes, making its way ever closer to the Doom Deity…

The other heroes remain deep in conference, debating their response to the self-proclaimed but apparently benevolent saviour of the universe. At the moment they finally decide to oppose him they are all vaporised by a bolt of energy…

Of course it doesn’t end there as the resurgent Beyonder battles through heroic and villainous proxies to reclaim his purloined power and put everything to rights – sort of – in blockbusting finale ‘…Nothing to Fear!…’

Returned to mortal life, he appears here next as Emperor Doom (1987): an all-original graphic novel conceived by Mark Gruenwald, Michelinie and Shooter, scripted by Michelinie and illustrated by Bob Hall with additional inking by Keith Williams.

The plot itself is delightfully sly and simple: for once eschewing rash attacks against assembled superheroes, deadly dictator Doom has devised a scheme to dominate humanity through subtler means. Inviting Sub-Mariner to act as his agent, the master villain uses the sub-sea anti-hero to neutralise mechanical heroes and rivals prior to using a pheromone-based bio-weapon to make all organic beings utterly compliant to his will. Naturally, Doom then betrays his aquatic ally…

Meanwhile, energy being Wonder Man is undergoing a month-long isolation experiment to determine the nature of his abilities. When he exits the chamber, he discovers the entire planet has willingly, joyously accepted Doom as their natural and beloved ruler. Alone and desperate, the last Avenger must devise a method of saving the world from its contented subjugation…

Of course there’s another side to this story. Doom, ultimately utterly successful, has turned the planet into an orderly, antiseptic paradise: no war, no want, no sickness and no conflict, just happy productive citizens doing what they’re told. In this totalitarian triumph, all trains run on time and nobody is discontented. All Doom has to do is accept heartfelt cheers and do the daily paperwork.

Sadly, with the entire world an idealised clone of Switzerland, the Iron Despot is bored out of his mind…

So it’s with mixed emotion that Doom realises Wonder Man and a select band of newly liberated Avengers are coming for him, determined to free the world or die…

Tense and compelling this intriguingly low-key tale abandoned traditional all-out action for a far more reasoned and sinisterly realistic solution – disappointing and baffling a large number of fans at the time – but the clever premise and solution, understated illustration and wickedly tongue-in-cheek attitude remove this yarn from the ordinary Fights ‘n’ Tights milieu and elevate it to one of the most chillingly mature Avengers epics ever produced.

It’s followed by another OGN: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern, Michael Mignola & Mark Badger.

This occult odd couple concoction is one of the very best Marvel Universe yarns; a powerful tale contrasting the origins of the two doctors to produce effective motivations for and deeper insights into both characters.

Stephen Strange was America’s greatest surgeon, a vain and arrogant man who cared nothing for the sick, except as a means to wealth and glory. When a drunken car-crash ended his career, Strange hit the skids until an overheard barroom tall tale led him to Tibet, an ancient magician, and eventual enlightenment through daily redemption. He battles otherworldly evil as Sorcerer Supreme and Master of the Mystic arts.

When a magical call goes out to all the World’s adepts, offering a granted wish to the victor in a contest of sorcery, both Doom and Strange are among those gathered. After mystic combat reduces the assemblage to the two doctors, Doom’s granted wish is to rescue his mother’s soul from Hell…

A classic quest saga, Triumph & Torment saw the twinned mages storming the Underworld in a mission of vain hope and warped mercy, battling the hordes of Mephisto and their own natures in a mesmerizing epic of power and pathos.

Stern was at his absolute writing peak here and the unlikely art team of Mignola and Badger defy any superlatives I could use. The art is simply magical, especially the mesmerising colouring, also courtesy of Mr Badger. It’s augmented here by Macchio’s Afterword to the original release.

Writer/artist Walt Simonson and inker Allen Milgrom then end years of confusion in ‘The More Things Change…! (Or… It’s the Real Thing…’ (Fantastic Four #350, cover-dated March 1991) as Doom, Kristoff and countless rogue Doombots all battle to decide who’s the real deal: a conflict mirrored by two overlapping iterations of the FF also deciding – far less lethally – who will stay in the official line up. With treachery and betrayal everywhere, the tale concludes in Fantastic Four #352 (May 1991) as ‘No Time Like the Present! (Or… It Ain’t Funny How Time Slips Away!’ sees both clashes coincide as time itself is sundered and the bureaucratic myrmidons of the Time Variance Authority step in…

Some crucial clarity into all that chaos comes in Fantastic Four #358 (November 1991) as Tom DeFalco & Arthur Adams provide ‘The Official Story’ (A Tale of Doom!)’ to reset reality and usher in a less confused cosmos…

A beautifully painted vignette from Marvel Double Shot #2 (February 2003 by Christopher Priest & Paolo Rivera), ‘Masks’ is a character piece revealing how a psychological assassin almost ends the tyranny of Doom before Fantastic Four (volume 3) #67-70 & (volume 1) #500 – cumulatively spanning May-September 2003 – sees the villain reinvent himself and almost win his eternal war against Reed Richards. This saga concluded the FF’s third volume before the series reverted to its original numbering with #500: capping a spectacular run by writer Mark Waid and illustrator Mike Wieringo, gloriously celebrating their “back-to-basics” approach which utterly rejuvenated the venerable property in 2003.

Key to that revival was a reassessment and reappraisal of their greatest foe as seen in ‘Under her Skin’ (#67, inked by Karl Kesel) wherein Doom abandons his technological gifts and inclinations, rejecting them for overwhelming sorcerous might to humiliate and destroy his greatest rival. All he must do is sacrifice his greatest love and only hope of redemption…

This terrifying glimpse into Doom’s past and shocking character study in obsession was but prologue to 4-part epic ‘Unthinkable’ which opened one month later. Waid’s greatest gift is his ability to embed hilarious moments of comedy into tales of shattering terror and poignant drama, and it’s never better displayed than here when Marvel’s First Family suddenly find their daily antics and explorations ripped from them.

The method is straightforward enough: Doom attacks them through their children, using baby Valeria as a medium for eldritch exploitation and sending firstborn Franklin Richards to Hell as part payment to the demons to whom the debased doctor has sold the last dregs of his soul…

A supreme technologist, Richards had never truly accepted the concept of magic, but with Mystic Master Stephen Strange oddly unwilling to help, the reeling and powerless Mr. Fantastic nonetheless leads his team to Latveria for a showdown, still unable to grasp just how much his arch-foe has changed.

Invading the sovereign – if rogue – nation, the team fight the greatest battle of their lives and lose anyway. The normally quicksilver mind of Richards seems unable to deal with his new reality and the FF are locked away in prisons specifically and sadistically designed to torment them. As a sign of his utter disdain, Doom locks his broken rival in a colossal library of grimoires and mystic manuscripts, knowing the defeated, dogmatic scientist can never make use of what is there. Big mistake…

Before attacking the FF, Doom had ensorcelled Dr. Strange, but greatly underestimated the Sorcerer Supreme. Struggling to free himself, the mage established contact with Richards and began teaching the unbelieving ultra-rationalist the basics of magic…

By the time Doom discovers his danger, Reed has freed his comrades and daughter. In the catastrophic battle which ensues, the Iron Dictator replaces Franklin as the hostage of Hell, but not before, in one final act of malice, maiming Reed with searing mystic retaliation: melting half his face by means neither magic nor medicine can mend…

Although victorious, the Fantastic Four are far from winners. Doom’s assault upon the family has scarred them all, but none more so than Franklin, whose time in Hell left him deeply traumatised and near-catatonic.

Dwayne McDuffie, Casey Jones & Vince Russell then deliver a restrained psycho-drama in ‘My Dinner with Doom’ (Fantastic Four Special, February 2006). Here the rivals intellectually sparr: testing each other’s defences as the Latverian simultaneously seeks to wipe out all his lesser enemies.

The story portion of this book concludes as Ed Brubaker, Pablo Raimondi, Mark Farmer, Drew Hennessy & Robin Riggs revisit, in-fill, expand and apply mature modern nuance to Doom’s origins and life in Books of Doom #1-6 (January-June 2006) detailing again how a hounded boy became a wounded exile who overcame all obstacles – physical, emotional and ethical – to become supreme ruler of Latveria and menace to all mankind…

The comic classics are supplemented by a gallery of covers by Kirby – with Sinnott, Ayers, Wood & Giacoia; Ditko, Lieber, Colletta; Marie Severin, Bill Everett. John Buscema, John Verpoorten, Esposito, John Romita Sr., Herb Trimpe; Ron Wilson, Gil Kane, Giffen, Byrne, Terry Austin, Miller, Cockrum, John Romita Jr., Simonson, Zeck, Hall, Williams, Mignola, Paul Ryan, Joe Jusko, Wieringo, Kesel, Rivera and Leinil Francis Yu with even more to adore.

The graphic grimoire continues with a section of Doom pinups from Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963, by Kirby), Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1(1964, by Ditko), Marvelmania Poster (1970, by Kirby) and Quotations from Chairman Doom 1984 (F.O.O.M. #4 Winter 1973, by Robert Cosgrove Kirby); Doom’s entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition (1985, by Gruenwald, Peter Sanderson, Byrne & Kirby), spoof ads from Marvel 1989: The Year in Review (by Mignola, Gregory Wright) plus a Marvel Masterwork Pin-up by Ron Frenz & Sinnott from Fantastic Four #358.

Dedicated art lovers can luxuriate in layouts, design sketches and unused art from Wieringo and the covers to The Villainy of Doctor Doom TPB (1999 by Kirby, Klaus Janson & Marie Javins) – plus Tom Brevoort’s Introduction to that tome – and earlier Doom depictions revisited in this big book.

These include covers to Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four vol. 4 (Kirby & Dean White) and Fantastic Four Annual #7 (1969, Kirby & Sinnott); Spider-Man Classics #6 (Frenz & Austin, September 1993); Spider-Man Collectible Series #11 (Frenz & Milgrom, October 2006); X-Men Classic #49 & 51 (Steve Lightle, July & September 1990); Iron Man vs. Doctor Doom (Julie Bell, 1994); Greatest Villains of the Fantastic Four TPB (Vince Evans 1995), variant covers to Emperor Doom and Triumph and Torment, Fantastic Four #500 Directors Cut (2003 by Wieringo, Kesel & Richard Isanove.

Sheer comic enchantment, this a book no lover of the fantastic fiction can afford to ignore -just as long as they eat plenty of Spinach…
© 2022 MARVEL