Essential Marvel Two-In-One volume 3


By Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Tom DeFalco, John Byrne, George Pérez, Jerry Bingham, Ron Wilson, Alan Kupperberg & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3069-7

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing with or battling and frequently doing both – with less well-selling company characters was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the same deal DC had long prospered from with Batman in Brave and the Bold.

After the runaway success of Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas repeated the experiment with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four‘s most iconic and popular member – beginning with a brace of test runs in Marvel Feature #11-12, before graduating him to his own guest-friendly title. This third economical, eclectic monochrome compendium gathers together the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #53-77 plus Marvel T-I-O Annuals #4 and 5, covering May 1979 to July 1981; a period which saw the best and worst the series could offer.

The innate problem with team-up tales was always a lack of continuity – something Marvel always prided itself upon – and which writer/editor Marv Wolfman had sought to address during his tenure through the simple expedient of having stories link-up through evolving, overarching plots which took Ben from place to place and from guest to guest.

Arguably the very best of these opens this volume; a big scale, and supremely convoluted saga known as “The Project Pegasus Saga”…

Although the company’s glory-days were undoubtedly the era of Lee, Kirby & Ditko leading through to the Adams, Buscema(s), Englehart, Gerber, Steranko and Windsor-Smith “Second Wave”, a lot of superb material came out the middle years when Marvel was transforming from inspirational small-business to corporate heavyweight.

This is not said to demean or denigrate the many fine creators who worked on the tide of titles published after that heady opening period, but only to indicate that after that time a certain revolutionary spontaneity was markedly absent from the line.

It should also be remembered that this was not deliberate. Every creator does the best job he/she can: posterity and critical response is the only arbiter of what is classic and what is simply one more comicbook. Certainly high sales don’t necessarily define a masterpiece – unless you’re a publisher…

Nevertheless every so often everybody involved in a particular tale seems to catch fire at the same time and magic occurs. A great case in point is the self-contained mini-saga which partnered the Thing with a succession of Marvel’s quirkiest B-listers and newcomers…

Project Pegasus had debuted in Marvel T-I-O #42 and 43: a federal research station tasked with investigating new and alternative energy sources and a sensible place to dump super-powered baddies when they’ve been trounced. Ten issues later writers Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio flexed their creative muscles with a 6-issue epic that found Ben back at Pegasus just as a sinister scheme by a mysterious mastermind to eradicate the facility went into full effect.

Scripted by Gruenwald & Macchio, it all begins as ‘The Inner War!’ (illustrated by John Byrne & Joe Sinnott) sees Ben visiting his educationally and emotionally challenged ward Wundarr who had been left at the secret base after exposure to a reality-warping Cosmic Cube.

Ben meets light-powered security chief Quasar – who debuted here – only to stumble into a treacherous plot to sabotage the facility which continues in ‘Blood and Bionics’ as a reprogrammed Deathlok cyborg stalks the base until the Thing and Quasar crush it.

Elsewhere, Ben’s old sparring partner Thundra is recruited by a team of super-powered women wrestlers (I know what you’re thinking but trust me, it works) with a secret and nefarious sideline…

One of the resident scientists at Pegasus is Bill Foster – who had a brief costumed career as Black Goliath – and he resumes adventuring with a new/old name just in time to help tackle freshly-liberated atomic monster Nuklo in ‘Giants in the Earth’. Sadly the traitor who let the infantile walking inferno out is still undiscovered and in the darkest part of the Project something strange is whispering to the comatose Wundarr…

George Pérez & Gene Day take over as illustrators from #56 as Thundra and her new friends invade in ‘The Deadlier of the Species!’ but even their blistering assault is merely a feint for the real threat and soon a final countdown to disaster is in effect…

Doomsday begins ‘When Walks Wundarr!’ and, in his mesmerised wake, a horde of energy-projecting villains incarcerated in the research facility break free…

With chaos everywhere the traitor triggers an extra-dimensional catastrophe, intent on destroying Pegasus ‘To the Nth Power!’, but as a living singularity tries to suck the entire institution into infinity, the end of everything is countered by the ascension of a new kind of hero as The Aquarian debuts to save the day…

Released as one of Marvel’s earliest trade paperback collections, the high-tension bombastic action of The Project Pegasus Saga rattles along without the appearance of any major stars – a daring move for a team-up title but one which greatly enhanced the power and depth of The Thing.

Moreover, by concentrating on rebooting moribund characters such as Deathlok and Giant-Man whilst launching fresh faces Quasar and The Aquarian instead of looking for ill-fitting, big-name sales-boosters, the story truly proves the old adage about there being no bad characters…

Another sound decision was the use of Byrne & Sinnott for the first half and Pérez & the late, great Gene Day to finish off the tale. Both pencillers were in their early ascendancy here and the artistic energy just jumps off the pages.

Deadlines wait for no one however and the pulse-pounding epic is immediately followed here by Marvel Two-In-One Annual #4 which offered an old-fashioned, world-busting blockbuster as ‘A Mission of Gravity!’ (plotted by Allyn Brodsky, scripted by David Michelinie and illustrated by Jim Craig, Bob Budiansky & Bruce Patterson) brought the Thing and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt together to stop unstable maniac Graviton turning into a black hole and taking the world with him…

Wolfman, Macchio, Chic Stone & Al Gordon then explored ‘Trial and Error!’ in monthly issue #59 as Ben and the Human Torch played matchmaker for a dopey dreamer, after which Marvel Two-in-One #60 featured Ben and impish ET Impossible Man in hilarious combat with three of Marvel’s earliest bad-guys.

Happiness is a Warm Alien‘ – by Gruenwald, Macchio, Pérez & Day – offers a delightful change-of-pace which applies much-needed perspective and lots of laughs as the madcap invader from beyond gets bored and creates a perfect mate…

A stellar epic started in #61 with ‘The Coming of Her!’ (Gruenwald, Jerry Bingham & Day) as time-travelling space god Starhawk became embroiled in the birth of a female counterpart to artificial superman Adam Warlock.

The distaff genetic paragon awoke fully empowered and instantly began searching for her predecessor, dragging Ben’s girlfriend Alicia and mind goddess Moondragon across the solar system, arriving where issue #62 observed ‘The Taking of Counter-Earth!’

Hot on their heels Thing and Starhawk catch Her just as the women encounter a severely wounded High Evolutionary and discover the world built by that self-made god has been stolen…

United in mystery the strange grouping follow the planet’s trail out of the galaxy and uncover the incredible perpetrators but Her’s desperate quest to secure her predestined, purpose-grown mate ends in tragedy as she learns ‘Suffer Not a Warlock to Live!’

Clearly on a roll and dedicated to exploiting Marvel Two-in-One‘s unofficial role as a clean-up vehicle for settling unresolved plotlines from cancelled series, Gruenwald & Macchio then dived into ‘The Serpent Crown Affair’ in #64.

‘From the Depths’ (illustrated by Pérez & Day) saw sub-sea superhero Stingray approach Reed Richards in search of a cure for humans who had been mutated into water-breathers by Sub-Mariner villain Doctor Hydro – a plotline begun in 1973 and left unresolved since the demise of the Atlantean prince’s own title.

Richards’ enquiries soon found the transformation had been caused by the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mist but when he had Ben ferry the mermen’s leader Dr. Croft and Stingray to a meeting, the trip was cut short by a crisis on an off-shore oil-rig, thanks to an ambush by a coalition of snake-themed villains.

The ‘Serpents from the Sea’ (art by Bingham & Day) were attempting to salvage dread mystic artefact the Serpent Crown, but luckily the Inhumans had sent out their seagoing champion Triton to meet the Thing…

Thundra meanwhile had been seeking the men responsible for tricking her into attacking Pegasus but fell under the spell of sinister superman Hyperion – a pawn of corrupt oil conglomerate Roxxon, whose CEO Hugh Jones possessed or had been possessed by the heinous helm…

With the situation escalating Ben had no choice but to call in an expert and before long The Scarlet Witch joins the battle, her previous experience with the relic enabling the heroes to thwart the multi-dimensional threat of ‘A Congress of Crowns!’ (Pérez & Day) and a devastating incursion by diabolical serpent god Set…

With Armageddon averted Ben diverted to Pegasus to drop off the emasculated crown in #67 and found Bill Foster had been diagnosed with terminal radiation sickness due to his battle with Nuklo. Thundra meanwhile, seduced by promises of being returned to her own reality, wised up in time to abscond from Roxxon in ‘Passport to Oblivion!’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Ron Wilson, Day & friends), but hadn’t calculated on being hunted by Hyperion. Although outmatched her frantic struggle did attract the attentions of the Thing and Quasar…

Marvel T-I-O #68 shifted gears as Ben met former X-Man The Angel as they stumbled into – and smashed out of – a mechanical murder-world in ‘Discos and Dungeons!’ (Wilson & Day) after which ‘Homecoming!’ found Ben contending with the time-lost Guardians of the Galaxy whilst striving to prevent the end of everything as millennial man Vance Astro risked all of reality to stop his younger self ever going into space…

Issue #70 offered a mystery guest team-up for ‘A Moving Experience’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Mike Nasser & Day) as Ben was again pranked by old frenemy’s The Yancy Street Gang and ambushed by real old foes when he helped his girlfriend move into new digs, after which the so-long frustrated Hydromen finally get ‘The Cure!’ (Wilson & Day) when Ben and Reed travel to the Inhuman city of Attilan.

Sadly a cure for the effects of Terrigen is a perfect anti-Inhuman weapon and when the process is stolen by a trio of freaks the trail leads to a brutal clash with a deadly Inhuman renegade wielding ‘The Might of Maelstrom’ (Gruenwald, Macchio, Wilson & Stone). The pariah is intent on eradicating every other member of his hidden race and just won’t stop until he’s done…

Marvel Two-In-One #73 by Macchio, Wilson & Stone then ties up loose ends from the Pegasus epic as Ben and Quasar pursue Roxxon to another Earth where the rapacious plunderers have enslaved a primitive population and begun sending their pillaged oil back here via a ‘Pipeline Through Infinity’ (#74), whilst Gruenwald, Frank Springer & Stone celebrate the festive season with ‘A Christmas Peril!’ as Ben and the Puppet Master are drawn into the Yuletide celebrations of brain-damaged, childlike, immensely powerful Modred the Mystic…

Alan Kupperberg & Pablo Marcos then detail another tumultuous clash between Hulk and Thing from Marvel Two-In-One Annual #5. ‘Skirmish with Death’ sees the titanic duo team with extraterrestrial explorer The Stranger to stop death god Pluto destroying the universe and cosmic epics remain in vogue in anniversary issue #75 where Ben and the Avengers are drawn into the Negative Zone to stop a hyper-powered Super-Adaptoid, only to find themselves inevitably ‘By Blastaar Betrayed!’ (Tom DeFalco, Alan Kupperberg & Stone)…

Thereafter hitting mundane reality with a bump, #76 exposes ‘The Big Top Bandits’ (DeFalco, Michelinie, Bingham & Stone) as Iceman and the Thing make short work of the Circus of Evil before this paladin-packed tome concludes with a double dose of action in #77 as Thing and Man-Thing nearly unite in a rescue mission where ‘Only the Swamp Survives!’ (DeFalco, Wilson & Stone), which also features a poignant, bizarre cameo from Sergeant Nick Fury and the Howling Commandoes…

There’s even one last treat: a revelatory cutaway diagram of Project Pegasus to make sense of all the carnage that you’ve just enjoyed…

Fiercely tied to the minutia of Marvel continuity, these stories from Marvel’s Middle Period are certainly of variable quality, but whereas some might feel rushed and ill-considered they are balanced by some superb adventure romps and a genuine modern comics classic; still as captivating today as it always was.

Even if artistically the work varies from only adequate to truly top-notch, most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s plenty of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts-and-all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 1979, 1980, 1981, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Thor volume 6


By Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Bill Mantlo, Len Wein, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6329-9

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured through its first decade, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

However by the time of this sixth Essential monochrome compendium, the King had been gone – and was in fact readying himself to return to the House of (mostly his) Ideas – for five years and only echoes of his groundbreaking presence remained. John Buscema had visually made the Thunder God his own whilst a succession of scripters struggled to recapture the epic scope of Kirby’s vision and Stan Lee’s off-kilter but comfortingly compelling faux-Shakespearean verbiage…

When these monthly episodes (from Thor #221-247, March 1974 to May 1976) saw print, the Thunder God and his cosmic companions had become a quarrelsome, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen generally roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe, only occasionally touching base with Earth and Asgard, but that editorial policy began to change here as more and more adventures began – and ended – in the troubled lands of Midgard…

With scripter Gerry Conway firmly in the driving seat and legendary illustrator John Buscema (aided by inker Mike Esposito) delivering the art, the mythic mayhem opens with ‘Hercules Enraged!’ as the Thor brutally invades Olympus, in search of the Grecian Prince of Power. Asgardian maiden Krista has been abducted and All-Father Odin has seen a vision of her enchained in Hades with the Thunderer’s trusted ally gloating over her beside vile netherlord Pluto…

By the time lordly Zeus has stopped the shattering clash that follows, half of the celestial city is in ruins, but in that breathing space he proves Hercules is innocent of the atrocious act and the abashed comrades turn their attentions to the true culprit…

Inked by Joe Sinnott, Thor #222 finds the earnest comrades in search of Hercules’ insidious impersonator and taking advice from a scary sorceress even as war-god Ares receives an eldritch summons to meet his co-conspirator ‘Before the Gates of Hell!’

Sadly he is intercepted by the heroes before he gets there and receives the sound thrashing he deserves, prior to the enraged companions storming their way into the netherworld itself.

At the moment of their triumph however Pluto snatches up his hostage and vanishes. His trail leads to Earth where one final confrontation results in ‘Hellfire Across the World!’ (Esposito inks) and leaves kidnapped Krista near death…

Issue #224 finds Thor resuming his alter ego of surgeon Don Blake to operate on the Asgardian even as elsewhere in Manhattan a rash scientist accidentally reactivates Odin’s unstoppable battle construct and discovers ‘No One Can Stop… the Destroyer!’

With Krista saved Thor joins the sorely pressed Hercules and although outmatched by the Asgardian killing machine they devise a way to stop its human power source – only to then face ‘The Coming of Firelord!’ (inked by Sinnott).

The tempestuous, short-tempered herald of planet-consuming Galactus has been sent to fetch Thor and will brook no refusals…

Issue #226 finds the voracious space god on Earth, beseeching the Thunder God’s aid in ‘The Battle Beyond!’ (Esposito) against living planet Ego, who has seemingly gone mad and now poses a threat to the entire universe…

“Homaging” Jack Kirby, penciller Rich Buckler joined Conway and Sinnott in #227 as the Thunder God and Hercules – with Firelord in tow – go ‘In Search of… Ego!’ Penetrating deep within the raving planet and defeating incredible biological horrors, the trio reach his malfunctioning brain and relive the incredible origin of the “bioverse” in ‘Ego: Beginning and End!’ before contriving an earth-shaking solution to the wild world’s rampages…

In a final act of unlikely diplomacy the Thunderer then finds a replacement herald and secures Firelord’s freedom from Galactus…

Safely back on Earth a new kind of terror manifests in Thor #229 as ‘Where Darkness Dwells, Dwell I!’ (Conway, Buckler & Chic Stone) sees Hercules uncover an uncanny string of suicides amongst the mortals of Manhattan. After consulting the Storm Lord and his recently returned lover Sif, the Prince of Power is ambushed by a shadowy figure and himself succumbs to dark despondency…

Plucked from psychological catatonia by Iron Man and the recuperating Krista, severely shaken Hercules recovers enough to lead Thor under the city to jointly confront and conquer a horrific lord of fear in #230’s ‘The Sky Above… the Pits Below!’ (Buckler & Sinnott).

Of greater moment is the revelation in Asgard that almighty Odin has gone missing…

John Buscema returned in #231, inked by Dick Giordano to limn ‘A Spectre from the Past!’ wherein Thor learns that his former love Jane Foster is dying. Whilst doting Sif fruitlessly returns to Asgard seeking a cure, the grieving Thunderer is momentarily distracted when Hercules is attacked by anthropoidal throwback and disembodied spirit Armak the First Man who possesses the body of an unwary séance attendee and runs amok in the streets.

Since gaining his liberty Firelord had been aimlessly travelling the globe. Lured by Asgardian magic he becomes wicked Loki’s vassal in ‘Lo, the Raging Battle!’

Heartsick Thor meanwhile will not leave Jane’s hospital bedside, prompting Sif and Hercules to travel to the end of the universe to retrieve the mystic Runestaff of Kamo Tharnn. No sooner do they depart than the ensorcelled Firelord attacks and whilst incensed, impatient Thor knocks sense back into him, his evil half-brother leads an Asgardian army in a sneak attack on America…

With ‘Midgard Aflame’ (Buscema & Stone) Thor leads the human resistance and learns for the first time that his father is missing. Odin’s faithful vizier reveals that the All-Father has divested himself of his memory and chosen to reside somewhere on Earth as a hapless mortal…

With the humans preparing to unleash their atomic arsenal against the Asgardians, the invasion suddenly ends with a savage duel between Thor and Loki in ‘O, Bitter Victory!’ (Buscema & Sinnott) after which the Thunderer returns to Jane’s side, unaware that he is being stalked by a merciless old enemy. At the same time Sif and Hercules have clashed with he ‘Who Lurks Beyond the Labyrinth!’ and secured a remedy for Thor’s mortal beloved…

Thor #236 opens as the Storm God revels in furious combat with the Absorbing Man. Unknown to the blockbusting battlers, at that very moment Sif is expressing her own love for her wayward prince by using the Runestaff to fix Jane in ‘One Life to Give!’

…And somewhere in California an imposing old man called Orrin ponders his strangely selective amnesia and wonders how he can possibly possess such incredible strength…

With battle concluded Thor hastens back to Jane and finds her completely cured. His joy is short-lived however as he realises that Sif is gone, seemingly forever…

Issue #237 finds reunited lovers Don Blake and Jane Foster cautiously getting reacquainted and pondering Sif’s incredible sacrifice when a horde of Asgardian Trolls led by ‘Ulik Unchained’ calamitously attack New York. Before long they have made off with the recently restored Jane under cover of the blockbusting melee that ensues…

Gerry Conway concludes his run with Thor #238 as the Thunder God capitulates to his hostage-taking foe and is taken below the worlds of Earth and Asgard on the ‘Night of the Troll!’

Ulik wants to overthrow his king Gierrodur and is confident his hold over mighty Thor will accomplish the act for him, but he is utterly unprepared for the new martial spirit which possesses his formerly frail mortal hostage Jane…

…And in California old man Orrin decides to use his power to help the poor, quickly arousing the ire of the local authorities…

Writer/Editor Roy Thomas and artist Sal Buscema join Sinnott in Thor #239 as the Thunder God brutally ends his association with the trolls even as in California Orrin’s rabble-rousing civil unrest is cut short when a colossal pyramid containing Egyptian gods erupts from the ground in ‘Time-Quake!’

Thor knows nothing on the latest upheaval. He has taken off for distant Asgard, uncovering a mysterious force draining his people of their power and vitality. Warned by duplicitous seer Mimir the anguished godling rushes back to Earth and clashes with the puissant Horus ‘When the Gods Make War!’ (Thomas, Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson). The depleted Egyptian pantheon have desperate need of an All-Father and have conditioned Odin/Orrin to believe that he is their long-lost patron Atum-Re…

Jane is already waiting in California when Thor arrives and she is present when the elder deity devastatingly assaults his astounded son. Happily her cool head prevails and soon the warring deities are talking. An uneasy alliance forms and the truth comes out. Horus, Isis and Osiris are in a final battle with vile Death God Seth and need the power of a supreme over-god to assure a victory for the forces of Life…

The cosmic conflict concludes in #241 as ‘The Death-Ship Sails the Stars!’ (Mantlo, John Buscema & Sinnott) with the ghastly Seth and his demonic servants repulsed and Jane again playing a major role: even shaking Odin out of his mind-wiped state…

A semblance of creative stability resumed with #242 as writer Len Wein joined John Buscema & Sinnott, beginning their tenure with epic time travel tale ‘When the Servitor Commands!’ The colossal all-conquering construct had scooped up Thor, Jane and visiting Asgardians Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim at the behest of malevolent chrononaut and old enemy Zarrko…

The Tomorrow Man is claiming to be on the side of the angels this time: looking for heroes to help stop a trio of entropic entities travelling back from the end of time and destroying all life as they go. Although suspicious, the assemble crusaders agree to help stop ‘Turmoil in the Time Stream!’ caused by the diabolical Time-Twisters…

Constant clashes with vagrant monsters and warriors plucked from their own eras barely slows the heroes but neither do they hinder the widdershins progress of the Armageddon entities in ‘This is the Way the World Ends!’ However by the time the voyagers discover ‘The Temple at the End of Time!’ which spawned the Time-Twisters and end the crisis before it began, Zarrko has already reverted to type and tried to betray them… much to his own regret…

This bombastic battle book then concludes with a 2-part rematch between Thunder God and Flaming Fury as #246 reveals ‘The Fury of Firelord!’, following the unworldly alien’s meeting with a lovely witch working for Latin American rebel and would-be tin pot dictator El Lobo.

However, whilst Thor heads south to stop a civil war in Asgard, his boon companion Balder comes to a staggering conclusion: Odin may be back in body but his spirit is still ailing. In fact the All-Father might well be completely insane…

When Thor also succumbs to sinister gypsy enchantments and ‘The Flame and the Hammer!’ unite to crush the feeble democracy of Costa Verde, once again vibrant valiant Jane is there save the day…

To Be Continued…

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of the early years but fans of ferocious Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a definite and decidedly economical must-read for all fans of the character and the genre.

©1974, 1975, 1976, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Werewolf By Night volume 2


By Doug Moench & Don Perlin with Bill Mantlo, Virgil Redondo, Yong Montaño, Frank Robbins & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2725-3

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was an en bloc wave of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible.

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by masked western hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider) although the title, if not the character, was actually cribbed from a classic short thriller from pre-Code horror anthology Marvel Tales #116 (July 1953).

Marvel had a long-time tradition of using old (and presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got notional starts as throwaways before being re-imagined as major characters…

This copious compendium compiles and completes in moody monochrome the remaining adventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, gathering between two soft covers Werewolf By Night volume 1 #22-45, Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2-5, and a strange team tryout from Marvel Premiere #28 collectively spanning October 1974 to March 1977.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a thankfully rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to the kid: and explained a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon… as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell expanded the story, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthopy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached eighteen.

Moreover the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As the lad tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity he met his mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging writer who had became Jack’s best friend when the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s history. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching 18th birthday.

In the course of their researches they had crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in, and fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker who had found a shocking remedy. For one werewolf to lift his curse he/she had to kill another one…

Written entirely by Doug Moench and pencilled for most of the run by the criminally underrated Don Perlin, the midnight mysteries resume here with the Vince Colletta inked Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2 where ‘The Frankenstein Monster meets Werewolf by Night’.

Roaming the streets of New York in ‘Prisoners of Flesh!’, the massive mute monster hops a freight train west after overhearing of a mystic named Danton Valya who can transplant souls into new bodies…

He arrives in Los Angeles just as Jack Russell discovers his sister has been abducted by Valya’s Satanist cult ‘To Host the Beast’ and cataclysmically clashes with the monster who has only to let the diabolists sacrifice the werewolf and Lissa to gain his heart’s desire.

Tragically the noble artificial man has more compassion than the cultists and prefers his own sorry existence to benefiting from ‘The Flesh of Satan’s Hate!’…

Werewolf By Night #22 (Moench, Perlin & Colletta) introduced a crazed murderer dubbed Atlas who stalks and slays many of Buck’s movie friends. However when Russell’s hairy Other encounters the ‘Face of the Fiend!’, Atlas beats the beast unconscious and in the morning light Jack is arrested for the latest murder…

Lieutenant Vic Northrup was a good friend of the deceased Hackett and knows Russell is hiding something, but eventually has to release him for lack of evidence. Picking Jack up from the station Buck reveals he has gleaned the inside story of Atlas and his own historical involvement in the story, only to become the next victim…

However, the werewolf is on hand when he strikes and the battle explodes into LA’s streets where disbelieving cops had to admit that ‘The Murderer is a Maniac!’

In #24 Buck introduces Jack to fringe scientist Winston Redditch who claims to have chemically isolated the constituents of the human psyche and thus might be able to suppress Jack’s periodic bestial outbursts. Sadly the boffin accidentally tries the serum himself first and unleashes ‘The Dark Side of Evil!’

The remorseless thug he becomes calls himself DePrayve and fights the werewolf to a standstill, giving Northrup an opportunity to capture the hirsute “urban legend” which has stalked the city and drove Hackett crazy…

From WBN #25 the art took a quantum leap in quality as Perlin – already co-plotting the stories – began inking his own art. When the beast busts out of custody ‘An Eclipse of Evil’ finds Redditch turning his warped attention to the lycanthrope as a potential guinea pig for further experimentation, only for both the feral fury and dastardly DePrayve to be targeted by deranged vigilante and “protector of purity” The Hangman…

The horrific three-way clash resulted in ‘A Crusade of Murder’ with Redditch hospitalised, the vicious vigilante in custody and battered, bloody but unbowed Jack still free and cursed…

Eschewing chronological order for the sake of unbroken continuity-clarity, January’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3 pops up here and reveals a ‘Castle Curse!’ (inked by Sal Trapani) which sees Jack return to Transylvania after receiving a monster-infested vision of former love interest – and psionic powerhouse – Topaz in ‘Spawned in Dream… Slain in Nightmare!’

Jack drags Buck and Lissa ‘Home to Slay!’ in the Balkans, finding the old family home under siege by pitchfork-wielding villagers who have all their worst fears confirmed when he goes hairy and gets hungry, before finally tracking down Topaz in the care – and custody – of a gypsy matriarch with an agenda of her own.

The blood-crazed old witch has a tragic connection to the Russoff line and was exploiting Topaz’s restored powers to enact a grisly ‘Vengeance in Death!’ upon the villagers by raising an army of zombies. The chain of events she set in motion could only end in death…

Werewolf By Night #27 (March 1975) began a chilling and fantastic extended saga with the introduction of ‘The Amazing Doctor Glitternight’. Back in the USA Jack’s feral alter ego runs loose on the isolated Californian coast and is drawn to a cave where a bizarre wizard is making monsters from what appears to be fragments of Topaz’s soul…

The eerie mage is hunting for Topaz’s dead stepfather Taboo and will not be gainsaid, even after Jack’s uncontrollable were-beast slaughters his eldritch masterpiece…

The mage intensifies his campaign in ‘The Darkness from Glitternight’ heaping horrors upon Jack and friends before capturing Lissa on her birthday and using dark magic to turn her from simple werewolf into ‘A Sister of Hell’…

The ghostly reappearance of Taboo proves a turning point as wolf battles hellbeast and everybody clashes with Glitternight before a ‘Red Slash Across Midnight’ seemingly results in a cure for one of the tortured Russell clan…

April’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #4 offers a long-delayed clash with living vampire Morbius beginning with ‘A Meeting of Blood’ (Moench & Virgil Redondo) as the former biologist tracks his old girlfriend Martine and discovers a cure for his own exsanguinary condition.

Unfortunately the chase brings him into savage and inconclusive combat with a certain hairy hellion and the solution is lost…

Also in that double-sized issue was Moench & Yong Montaño’s ‘When the Moon Dripped Blood!’ wherein Jack and Buck stumble across a group of rural loons all too successfully summoning a ghastly elder god. Although great at consuming and converting human offerings and acolytes, the appalling atrocity is seemingly no match for a ravening ball of furious fangs and claws…

Werewolf By Night #31 (July 1975) was a turning point as ‘Death in White’ (Moench & Perlin) has Jack plumb depths of utter despair after a skiing weekend turns into a nightmare when the werewolf stalks a little girl and Buck nearly dies trying to save her.

With the same cover-date and catching up at last, Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #5 shifted into full-on fantasy mode. Illustrated by Montaño, ‘Prologue: I Werewolf’ recaps Jack’s peculiar problems before ‘The Plunder of Paingloss’ discloses how the leaders of dimensional realm Biphasia – permanently polarised between night and day – instigate a ‘Bad Deal with the Devil’s Disciple’ on Earth when demonist Joaquin Zairre kidnaps the werewolf…

Dispatching the beast though a ‘Doorway of the Dark Waters’, Jack is soon a pawn in a sorcerous war where ‘Fragile Magic’ on the world of light and darkness allows him and his allies to raid the ‘The Ark of Onom-Kra’ and expose a secret tyrant in ‘Silver Rain, Sardanus and Shadow’…

Returned to the real world Werewolf By Night #32 (August 1975) introduces mercenary Marc Spector who is hired by criminal capitalists, equipped with a silver-armoured costume and weapons and tasked with capturing Russell or his animal other as ‘…The Stalker Called Moon Knight’ (Moench & Don Perlin with the assistance of Howie Perlin).

The bombastic battle and its ferocious sequel ‘Wolf-Beast vs. Moon Knight’ received an unprecedented response and quickly promoted the lunar avenger to prominence as Marvel’s edgy answer to the Batman: especially after the mercurial merc rejected his employers entreaties and let the wolf, as well as hostages Lissa and Topaz, run free…

Next up is a uniquely odd attempt to create a team of terrors. Marvel Premiere #28 (February 1976) introduced The Legion of Monsters in ‘There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!’ by Bill Mantlo, Frank Robbins & Steve Gan.

When an ancient alien manifested a rocky peak in LA, the werewolf, Man-Thing, Morbius and Ghost Rider were drawn into a bizarre confrontation which might have resulted in the answer to all their wishes and hopes, but instead only lead to death and disappointment…

Werewolf By Night #34 (October 1975, Moench & Perlin) began another eerie suspense thriller as Jack, Lissa, Topaz and Buck’s girlfriend Elaine Marston braved a haunted house in search of cure for Cowan’s werewolf-caused coma.

Elaine had lost her first husband to the doomed domicile and it took a lot to bring her back. That triggering event is the dying Buck muttering the name of deceased spiritualist Belaric Marcosa who apparently still roamed the hell-house where ‘Not All the Shades of Death nor Evil’s Majesty’ could rein in his sadistic games…

Braving the unknown the terrified quartet fetched up to the mansion and were soon enduring ‘Evil in Every Stone, No Longer Hiding’; becoming enmired in a war between ‘Marcosa in Death’ and the spirits of the many victims he had tortured and destroyed.

Their horrific psychological ordeal eventually results in victory for Jack and his companions as ‘The End’ produces a miraculous recovery in the dying Buck and the cessation of Marcosa’s phantom depredations…

WBN #38 took a sharp change of direction as Jack exiled himself to the wilderness only to stumble on a desperate fugitive fighting to save his baby from a murderous gangster who had taken up with his former wife. In the midst of such mundane matters Jack is visited by a trinity of infinite beings who threaten to alter his existence forever and ominously warn that ‘Rebirth Also Kills’…

The celestial visitants are also in touch with former werewolf Raymond Coker as he squats in a hut in distant Haiti and even appear to Lissa and Topaz as they tend the still recuperating Buck.

The “Three Who Are All” are subtly ensuring all the players are in place for a game of cosmic consequences and in #39 when Jack races back to his friend he finds Coker and mystic troubleshooter Brother Voodoo waiting. No sooner are introductions made than an army of zuvembies attack and Russell learns that ‘Some are Born to the Night’…

Portentous proclamations of unfulfilled destinies propel the adventurers and Topaz back to Haiti where obsessed Vic Northrup is still looking for answers to Lou Hackett’s death. Ahead of them all is an infernal pit nurturing a shocking travesty of life with the resurrected Glitternight in charge of all the ‘Souls in Darkness’…

Revealed in WBN #41 as a former member of the gestalt which was once “Five Who Are All”, Glitternight’s fascination with monster-making is at last explained as the arcane abomination’s attempts to dominate reality are spectacularly thwarted through the return of the missing fourth celestial as well as the indomitable resistance of Brother Voodoo and Jack in ‘…And Death Shall be the Change’.

Key to their eventual triumph is the moment when Russell discovers how to become a werewolf in full control of his mental faculties; at will, day or night…

Returning to America, the Werewolf-by-Choice naturally decides to become a superhero and moves to New York in time to stumble onto a plot by the Masked Marauder. Also on scene is a certain Armoured Avenger and, after the usual misunderstandings, Jack is shaggy knees-deep in trouble with ‘The Marauder and the Man of Iron’…

The tale, the series and this essential edition all conclude with Werewolf By Night #43 as ensorcelled fang-&-claw unite with high-tech wizardry to destroy an awesome animalistic automaton and end the ‘Terrible Threat of the Tri-Animan’…

Despite the rather lame and ill-considered attempt to reinvent the series at the last, this moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments and terror tales in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling.

If you must have a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers, aliens, masked mystery men and moody young misses – this is a far more entertaining mix than most modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Hulk volume 5


By Len Wein, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema, Jack Abel, Joe Staton & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-7851-3065-9

By the close of the 1960s the Incredible Hulk had settled into a comfortable niche – and satisfyingly effective formula as radioactively afflicted Bruce Banner sought cures for his gamma-transformative curse, alternately aided or hunted by US General (and father of the scientist’s one true love) Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and a variety of guest-star heroes and villains.

Illustrator Herb Trimpe had made the character his own; the “house” Jack Kirby-based art-style quickly evolving into often startlingly abstract mannerism, augmented by an unmatched facility for drawing technology – especially honking great ordnance and vehicles – all of which looks especially great in the crisp black and white of these magically affordable Essentials volumes.

Most importantly, no one could possibly deny the sheer cathartic reader-release rush of a great big “Hulk Smash!” moment…

This chronologically complete monochrome mammoth contains Incredible Hulk #171-200, plus Hulk King Size Annual #5 (spanning January1974-November 1976) and opens with excessive bombast but no appreciable fanfare as ‘Revenge!’ (by Gerry Conway – from a Steve Englehart plot with art by Trimpe & Jack Abel) finds the Green Goliath a stowaway on a plane back to military Mecca Hulkbuster Base carrying new Project: Greenskin commanding officer Colonel John D. Armbruster who has taken over from the politically sidelined Thunderbolt Ross.

The camp is eerily deserted and the reason soon becomes clear as bludgeoning brutes Abomination and The Rhino attack. Having subdued the entire garrison, they plan on detonating the base’s gamma-bomb self-destruct device but are utterly unprepared for the Hulk’s irascible intervention…

Roy Thomas plotted Tony Isabella’s script for #172 wherein the Hulk – captured by the ungrateful soldiers he saved – is hurled into another dimension, allowing a mystic menace to inadvertently escape. ‘And Canst Thou Slay… The Juggernaut?’ reveals that even that magically augmented menace cannot resist our favourite monster’s might and features a telling cameo by the X-Men, after which Thomas scripts all-Trimpe art-fest ‘Anybody Out There Remember… The Cobalt Man?’, wherein another old X-adversary – Ralph Roberts – picks up the Jade Giant at sea before sailing his research vessel into a nuclear test explosion…

Dying of radiation exposure the deranged technologist then determines to demonstrate atomic bombs are bad to a callous, uncaring world by detonating one over Sydney in Doomsday… Down Under’ (Conway, Thomas, Trimpe & Abel). The second clash with the azure-armoured Cobalt Man results in a blistering battle in the stratosphere, a cataclysmic explosion and Hulk crashing to earth far, far away as a ‘Man-Brute in the Hidden Land!’ (#175, Thomas, Trimpe & Abel)…

Here a typically short-tempered encounter with the Uncanny Inhumans and devastating duel with silent super-monarch Black Bolt, after the usual collateral carnage, ends with the gamma gladiator hurtling to the far side of the sun in a rocket-ship for a date with allegory if not destiny.

During the early 1970s a throwaway Fantastic Four character dubbed Him was turned into a modern interpretation of the Christ myth and placed on a world far more like our own than the Earth of Marvel’s universe.

That troubled globe was codified as Counter-Earth and upon it the messianic Adam Warlock battled a Satan-analogue known as the Man-Beast. Hulk had briefly visited once before and now he crashed there again to complete the allegorical epic beginning with ‘Crisis on Counter-Earth!’ by Conway, Trimpe & Abel.

Since the Hulk’s departure Man-Beast and his animalistic minions (all spawned by godlike genetic meddler The High Evolutionary) had become America’s President and Cabinet. Moving decisively they had finally captured Warlock and led humanity to the brink of extinction, leaving the would-be messiah’s disciples in utter confusion.

Now with the nation in foment the Hulk’s shattering return gives Warlock’s faithful flock an opportunity to save their saviour in ‘Peril of the Plural Planet!’ but the foray badly misfires and Warlock is captured. Publicly crucified at the behest of the people, humanity’s last hope perishes…

Meanwhile on true-Earth Ross and Armbruster discover trusted comrade (and Ross’ son-in-law) Major Glenn Talbot has escaped from a top security Soviet prison and is making his triumphant way back to the USA…

The quasi-religious experience concludes with ‘Triumph on Terra-Two’ (Conway, Isabella, Trimpe & Abel) as the dead prophet resurrects whilst Hulk is waging his last battle against Man-Beast in time to deliver a cosmic coup de grace before ascending from Counter-Earth to the beckoning stars…

Incredible Hulk #179 signalled a much-need thematic reboot as Len Wein signed on as writer/editor with strong ideas on how to put some dramatic impact back into the feature. It begins with ‘Re-enter: The Missing Link’, as the Jade Juggernaut loses patience during his return trip and bursts out of his borrowed spaceship just as America’s military defences shoot it down.

He crashes to earth in the mining district of Appalachia and, reverting to befuddled Bruce Banner, is adopted by the dirt-poor Bradford family. They have a habit of taking in strays and have already welcomed a strange, huge yet gentle being they’ve named Lincoln.

As time passes Banner recognises the creature as a former Hulk foe known as the Missing Link. The colossal brute is neither evil nor violent (unless provoked) but is lethally radioactive, and the fugitive physicist faces the dilemma of having to break up a perfect happy family before they all die.

The Link of course, refuses to cooperate or go quietly…

Next comes the most momentous story in Hulk history which starts with ‘And the Wind Howls… Wendigo!’ (#180, October 1974, Wein, Trimpe & Abel), wherein the blockbusting brute bounces across the Canadian Border and encounters a witch attempting to cure her lover of a curse which has transformed him into a rampaging cannibalistic monster.

Unfortunately that cure meant Hulk had to become a Wendigo in his stead…

It was while the Great Green and Weird White monsters were fighting that mutant megastar Wolverine first appeared – in the very last panel – and that’s what leads into the savage fist, fang and claw fest that follows.

‘And Now… The Wolverine!’ captivatingly concluded the saga as the Maple nation’s top-secret super-agent is unleashed upon both the Emerald Goliath and man-eating Wendigo in an 18-page romp stuffed with triumph, tragedy and lots of slashing and hitting. The rest is history…

Back south of the border, Major Talbot has been reunited with his wife and family and is eagerly expecting a meeting with President Ford as ‘Between Hammer and Anvil!’ (with Trimpe taking sole charge of the art chores) finds the ever-lonely Hulk meeting and losing a true friend in jolly hobo Crackerjack Jackson.

The über-action portion of the tale comes from two escaped convicts who despise each other but are forced to endure togetherness because of an alien chain which shackles them whilst imparting overwhelming power. It’s not, nearly enough, however, enough to stop a fighting-mad, heartbroken Hulk…

Electrical vampire and life-stealer ZZZAX returns in ‘Fury at 50,000 Volts!’, wrecking a new life Banner surreptitiously carves for himself in Chicago, after which ‘Shadow on the Land!’ finds the wandering man-mountain battling alien invader Warlord Kaa who has taken possession of the Hulk’s shadow. This close encounter leads to Banner’s capture by Armbruster just in time for the President’s visit and a shocking ‘Deathknell!’ as the truth about Talbot is revealed when the trustworthy major attempts to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief.

During the attendant death and chaos Hulk busts out and General Ross regains his credibility by recapturing him, but the Soviet infiltration of the base is far from over as a traitor dons super-armour to continue the attacks in ‘The Day of the Devastator!’

This time when the Jade Juggernaut smashes their common foe, the American army are suitably grateful…

Sometime later SHIELD intelligence discovers the real Talbot is still a prisoner in Siberia and that Hulkbuster Base’s current problems have been caused by a Soviet mutant genius they’ve all battled before…

‘There’s a Gremlin in the Works!’ (Incredible Hulk #187, with Joe Staton joining the team as inker) features the return of the son of the Green Goliath’s very first foe The Gargoyle – see Essential Hulk volume 1 – a vicious mastermind with plans far beyond merely serving the Soviet state.

The little maniac is holding Talbot at his Bitterfrost fortress and quite prepared for Ross and SHIELD agent Clay Quartermain to stage a rescue bid, but all the cyborg super-soldiers and giant mutant monster dogs in the world are not enough when mission stowaway Bruce Banner gets scared and goes green…

The fiend’s personality-altering technology is exposed in ‘Mind Over Mayhem!’ but as the heroes escape with Talbot’s comatose body Hulk seemingly dies in Bitterfrost’s explosive death-throes. Nothing could be further from the truth and #189 sees the monster battle the Mole Man to secure a miracle-remedy for a sightless little Russian girl in ‘None Are So Blind…!’

Veteran Hulk illustrator Marie Severin inks Trimpe on ‘The Man Who Came Down on a Rainbow!’ as alien benefactor Glorian whisks the solitary man-monster to a veritable promised land in the stars, only to have the idyll shattered by invading Toad Men hungry for the secret power fuelling paradise…

After murdering Glorian, ‘The Triumph of the Toad!’ (Trimpe & Staton) is short-lived and catastrophically self-destructive after the enraged Hulk and the Shaper of Worlds extract a measure of justice for their fallen friend…

Cast back to Earth, the Green Giant lands in Scotland in time to get between feuding hotheads with violently opposing attitudes to ‘The Lurker beneath Loch Fear!’ after which Banner heads back to America where Ross and Quartermain have recruited a famous psychologist to fix the catatonic Glenn Talbot.

‘The Doctor’s Name is… Samson!’ finds the one time Gamma-powered superhero falling victim to another scientific gaffe and accidentally reborn as the green-haired strongman, yet still unable to cure his patient. For that he needs Banner, but when his wish comes true, Leonard Samson just isn’t tough enough to hold onto him…

After years on the strip Trimpe moved on to other things and Incredible Hulk #194 saw the pencilling debut of Sal Buscema in ‘The Day of the Locust!’ (with Wein & Staton still doing what they did best).

Lost in the American heartland the Hulk stumbles upon young lovers pursued by an overly possessive dad determined to end the affair. This angry parent however is a former X-Men enemy who can enlarge insects to immense size so the kids are more than grateful for the assistance of a Jolly Green Cupid…

With Samson and the army one step behind him, the Hulk befriends a small boy running away from home in ‘Warfare in Wonderland!’ Eager for any advantage Ross tricks the Abomination into attacking the Jade Giant but is unprepared for the gamma gladiators to team up rather than tussle in #196’s ‘The Abomination Proclamation!’

The villain’s innate viciousness soon alienates his temporary ally however and after winning another spectacular fight Hulk blasts off on a runaway rocket and crashes down in the Everglades where the invidious Collector has made his latest lair…

The phenomena fanatic is on a monster kick and, having scooped up Banner and a mute young man who is in actuality The Glob, feels ‘…And Man-Thing Makes Three!’ to be the perfect set. He has grossly underestimated the deeply buried humanity of his living trinkets and soon must face a mass-escape and the loss of all his living exhibits after ‘The Shangri-La Syndrome!’ hits home…

Hulk Annual #5 (November 1976) was the first all new King-Size compendium since 1968 and featured a huge monster mash reviving a half dozen iconic threats and menaces from the company’s pre-superhero phase. Written by Chris Claremont, with art by Sal B & Jack Abel, ‘And Six Shall Crush the Hulk!’ offers little in the way of plot but stacks of sensational action as a procession of resurrected aliens attack one after another, beginning with ‘Where There’s Smoke, There’s Diablo!’, ‘And Taboo Shall Triumph!’ and ‘It Is Groot, the Monster from Planet X!!’, after which ‘For I am Goom!!’ and ‘Beware the Blip!’ pile on the pressure until an evil mastermind is revealed as grudge-bearing Defenders foe Xemnu in ‘A Titan Shall Slay Him!’

Naturally even exhausted the Hulk is too much for the spiteful schemer…

Building up to a spectacular anniversary, Incredible Hulk #199 saw Samson and Ross employ all America’s most advanced assets in ‘…And SHIELD Shall Follow!’ (Wein, Sal B & Staton) to capture the critically necessary Jade Giant, but in the end it is the psychologist’s sheer guts and determination which won the day, allowing the big issue #200 resolution as Hulk is shrunk to infinitesimal size and injected into Talbot’s brain to battle materialised memories and a viciously sentient tumour as ‘An Intruder in the Mind!’

The struggle to restore the mind of Banner’s rival for Betty Ross-Talbot‘s undying affections is not without complications, however, and at the moment of his greatest triumph and sacrifice the Hulk suffers a major setback and begins uncontrollably shrinking beyond the ability of Samson and his team to rescue him…

To Be Continued…

This superbly cathartic tome also includes Hammer and Anvil pages taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook plus an alternative cover to Incredible Hulk #174.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the movies, cartoons, TV shows, games, toys and action figures are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these yarns, so why not Go Green – even if it’s only in monochrome and in your own delirious head?
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential X-Men volume 2


By Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin, Brent Anderson & Joe Rubenstein (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0298-4

In 1963 TheX-Men #1 introduced Scott “Cyclops” Summers, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, Warren “Angel” Worthington, Jean “Marvel Girl” Grey and Hank “The Beast” McCoy: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 during a downturn in costumed hero comics whilst supernatural mysteries once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was refashioned as a monster fit for the global uptick in scary stories until Len Wein & Dave Cockrum revived and reordered the Mutant mystique with a brand new team in Giant Size X-Men #1 in 1975.

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire was added one-shot Hulk hunter Wolverine, and all-original creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who transformed at will into a living steel Colossus and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The revision was an instantaneous and unstoppable hit, with Wein’s editorial assistant Chris Claremont taking over the writing from the second story onwards. The X-Men reclaimed their own comicbook with #94 and it quickly became the company’s most popular – and high quality – title.

Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and as the team roster shifted and changed the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark “Dark Phoenix” storyline which saw the death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character.

In the aftermath team leader Cyclops left but the epic cosmic saga also seemed to fracture the epochal working relationship of Claremont and Byrne. Within months of publication they went their separate ways: Claremont staying with the mutants whilst Byrne moved on to establish his own reputation as a writer on series such as Alpha Flight, Incredible Hulk and especially his revolutionised Fantastic Four…

After Apache warrior Thunderbird became the team’s first fatality, the survivors slowly bonded, becoming an awesome fighting unit under the brusque and draconian supervision of Cyclops and this second superlative monochrome Essential collection re-presents the groundbreaking tales from (Uncanny) X-Men #120-144, covering April 1979 to April 1981.

The action begins here with the introduction of a foreign super-squad in ‘Wanted: Wolverine! Dead or Alive!’, as the enigmatic mutant, accompanied by Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, Banshee and Nightcrawler, return from a bombastic battle in Japan but are covertly herded into Canadian airspace so that the Ottawa government can confiscate their property.

Forced down by a magical tempest the heroes are soon on the run in Calgary, ambushed by the aforementioned Alpha Flight – specifically battle-armoured Vindicator, super-strong Sasquatch, magician Shaman, shapeshifting Snowbird and mutant speedster twins Northstar and Aurora – all ordered to repossess former special operative “The Wolverine”…

After a brutal but inconclusive clash at the airport the X-Men fade into the city but only after Wolverine and Nightcrawler are captured…

The retaliation results in a ‘Shoot-Out at the Stampede!’ with the mutants confronting their pursuers as Shaman’s eldritch blizzard spirals out of control, threatening to destroy the entire province. Even after Storm fixes the problem, the Canadians are adamant and to end hostilities Wolverine surrenders himself in return for his comrades’ safe passage.

Of course he never promised to stay captured…

With Byrne producing light breakdowns, inker Terry Austin stepped up to produce full art finishes for issue #122’s ‘Cry for the Children!’ as the heroes finally return to the Xavier School to find their home boarded up and deserted.

Months previously, following a catastrophic battle against Magneto of which Beast and Phoenix believed themselves the only survivors, heartbroken Professor X had grieved for his fallen pupils and left Earth to be with his fiancée Empress Lilandra of the Shi’ar.

As the prodigals slowly settle in at the Professor’s mansion again, they try to resume their previous routines but psychological stress testing shows Russian Colossus is having second thoughts about deserting his family and country…

Reborn as the cosmic-powered Phoenix, Jean Grey went globetrotting to bury her woes and is currently in Scotland, unaware that she has been targeted by one of the team’s oldest enemies for a cruel assault. In New York, Storm has at last taken the time to trace her roots, visiting the old home of her American dad, only to find it now a junkie squat filled with doped and feral kids who viciously attack her…

Stabbed and bleeding she lashes out and only the sudden arrival of hero for hire Luke Cage and his friend Misty Knight (coincidentally Jean’s Manhattan room-mate) prevents a tragedy. None of them are remotely aware that they have been targeted by the world’s most outrageous hit-man…

With Byrne back in full pencil mode X-Men #123 includes a cameo from Spider-Man as jolly psycho-killer Arcade proceeds to pick off the oblivious mutants and run them through his fatal funfair Murder World in ‘Listen… Stop Me if You’ve Heard It… But This One Will Kill You!’, subjecting the abductees to perils mechanical and psychological.

The former prove understandably ineffectual but family guilt and cunning conditioning soon transform the homesick Russian into a vengeful mind-slave dubbed The Proletarian, determined to smash his former comrades in the concluding ‘He Only Laughs When I Hurt!’ Happily his inner child and the assorted heroes’ gifts and training prove too much for the maniacal killer clown…

Jean re-enters the picture when her stay with biologist Moira MacTaggert leads to the release of a long secret family shame in ‘There’s Something Awful on Muir Island!’ Throughout her long holiday Phoenix has been gradually turned and psychically seduced by a psionic predator. Groomed for a life of refined cruelty and debauchery by a man calling himself Jason Wyngarde, the intention is to create a callous “Black Queen” for the mysterious organisation known as the Hellfire Club…

At the other end of the galaxy Charles Xavier reviews records of how Phoenix once reconstructed the fragmenting universe and is gripped with terror at the thought of all that power in the hands of one frail human personality, whilst in his former home The Beast checks a tripped alarm and discovers his long-mourned friends are all alive.

The first thought is to tell Jean the incredible news, but no sooner is a transatlantic call connected than a scream echoes out and the line goes dead…

Issue #126 resumes frantic hours later as the X-Men approach Muir Island in their supersonic jet. With all contact lost and no telepath aboard, Cyclops assumes the worst and the team infiltrate in battle formation only to find a withered corpse and badly shaken comrades Lorna Dane, Havok, Madrox, Moira and Jean slowly recovering from a psionic assault.

In ‘How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth…!’ Dr. MacTaggert bitterly reveals the attacker is a psychic bodysnatcher imprisoned on Muir for years. He’s also her son…

Rapidly burning out one of Madrox’s duplicate bodies, the monster has already reached the mainland, but as the mutants disperse to hunt him down Jean is hampered by a torrent of seductive mirages projected by the smugly confidant Wyngarde, allowing the predatory Proteus to ambush the X-Men and try to possess Wolverine.

It is his first mistake. Metal has an inimical effect on the formless horror and the feral fury’s Adamantium skeleton forces him to flee his victim in screaming agony. It is then the creature unleashes his most terrifying power: warping reality to drive Wolverine and Nightcrawler to the brink of madness. Only the late-arriving Storm prevents their immediate demise but soon she too is at the edge of destruction…

‘The Quality of Hatred!’ finds the badly shaken team undergoing desperate “tough-love” remedies from Cyclops to regain their combat readiness whilst Moira tries to make up for her dangerous sentimentality by putting a bullet into her deadly offspring.

Frustrated by the idealistic Cyclops but having divined the path Proteus is taking, she then heads for Edinburgh and an unpleasant reunion with her former husband: brute, bully, Member of Parliament and father of most merciless monster the world has yet produced…

As Jean finally shrugs off her distractions and telepathically homes in on Proteus, the team swing into action a little too late: the sinister son has possessed his scurrilous sire and created an unstoppable synthesis of world-warping abomination…

With Edinburgh and perhaps the entire world roiling and rebelling as science goes mad, X-Men #128 sees the valiant champions strike back and spectacularly triumph in ‘The Action of the Tiger!’ after which ‘God Spare the Child…’ sees another happy reunion as the heroes (all but the now retired Banshee) find Charles Xavier awaiting them when they reach Westchester.

Jean is increasingly slipping into visions of a former life as a spoiled, cruel child of privilege, contrasting sharply with her renewed love for Scott, but the home atmosphere is troubled by another discordant factor. Xavier is intent on resuming the training of the team, haughtily oblivious that this group are grizzled, seasoned veterans of combat, rather than the callow teenagers he first tutored.

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

When two new mutants manifest Xavier splits the team to contact both, taking Storm, Wolverine and Colossus to Chicago to meet the parents of naive thirteen year old Kitty Pryde who has just realised that along with all the other problems of puberty she can now fall through floors and walk through walls…

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

The other mutant neophyte debuts in X-Men #130 as Cyclops, Phoenix and Nightcrawler head to Manhattan’s club district to track down a disco singer dubbed ‘Dazzler’ unaware that they too have been targeted for capture. However little Kitty’s attempts to free the captives at the Hellfire base forces the villains to tip their hand early and with the assistance of Dazzler Alison Blair – a musical mutant who converts sound to devastating light effects – the second mercenary capture team is defeated…

In #131 Kitty is frantically fleeing but her ‘Run for Your Life!’ leads straight into the arms of the remaining X-Men. Soon the plucky lass – after an understandable period of terror, confusion and kvetching – is leading an incursion into the lair of the White Queen and freeing Wolverine, Colossus and Xavier whilst Frost faces off for a psionic showdown with a Phoenix far less kind and caring than ever before…

The saga expands in #132 as ‘And Hellfire is their Name!’ brings the Angel back into the fold. The Hellfire Club is in actuality a centuries-old association of the world’s most powerful and wealthy individuals and Warren Worthington’s family have been members in good standing for generations. What better way of infiltrating the organisation than with someone on the inside?

As Wolverine and Nightcrawler scurry through sewers beneath the society’s palatial New York headquarters, Warren inveigles the rest through the grand front doors into the year’s swankiest soiree whilst he and the Professor await events.

It’s a bold move but a pointless one. Although the rank and file are simply spoiled rich folk, there is an Inner Circle led by Shaw which comprises some of Earth’s most dangerous men and women… and they have been waiting and watching for the mutants-in-mufti’s countermove…

As soon as the heroes are inside, Wyngarde strikes, pushing Jean until she succumbs to the fictitious persona he has woven to awaken her darkest desires. With her overwhelming power added to the Inner Circle’s might, former friends quickly fall before the attack of super-strong Shaw and cyborg human Donald Pierce. Even Wolverine is beaten, smashed through the floors to his doom by mass-manipulating mutant Harry Leland…

As the Inner Circle gloat, Cyclops – connected to Jean by their psionic rapport – sees the world through his lover’s corrupted, beguiled eyes and despairs. However, when Wyngarde, revealed as mutant illusion caster Mastermind, apparently stabs Cyclops the effect on “his” Black Queen is far from anticipated…

Far below their feet, a body stirs. Battered but unbowed ‘Wolverine: Alone!’ begins to work his ruthless, relentless way through the Club’s murderous minions. His explosive entrance in #134’s ‘Too Late, the Heroes!’ gives the heroes a chance to break free and strike back, soundly thrashing the Hellfire blackguards. Sadly for Mastermind, not all his tampering has been expunged and when Jean catches him Jason Wyngarde’s fate is ghastly beyond imagining…

As the mutants make their escape the situation escalates to crisis level as the mind-manipulation unleashes all Jean’s most selfish, self-serving desires and she shatteringly transforms into ‘Dark Phoenix’…

Manifested as a god without qualm or conscience, Jean attacks her comrades before vanishing into space. Soon she reaches a distant system and, cognizant that she is feeling depleted, consumes the star, indifferent to the entire civilisation that dies upon the planet circling it…

Passing the D’Bari system is a massive ship of the Shi’ar star fleet. Rushing to aid the already extinct world they are merely a postprandial palate cleanser for the voracious Phoenix…

X-Men #136 opens with the horrified Empress Lilandra mobilising her entire military machine and heading for Earth, determined to end the threat of the ‘Child of Light and Darkness!’ On that beleaguered world Cyclops has called in the Beast to build a psychic scrambler to disrupt Jean’s immeasurable psionic might but when she cataclysmically reappears to trounce the team, the device burns out in seconds.

Sporadically Jean’s gentler persona appears, begging her friends to kill her before she loses control, but Dark Phoenix is close to destroying the world before, in a cataclysmic mental duel, Xavier shuts down her powers and establishes psychic circuit breakers to prevent her ever going rogue again…

With Jean left as little more than human, the heroes shudder in the aftermath of Earth’s latest close call when suddenly in a flash of light they all vanish…

The epic tale concludes in X-Men #137 as the outraged and terrified Shi’ar arrive in orbit to settle ‘The Fate of the Phoenix!’ With observers from the Kree and Skrull empires in attendance, Lilandra has come to exact justice and prevent the Phoenix from ever rising again. She is not prepared to accept her fiancé’s word that the threat is already ended…

Summary execution is only avoided when Xavier invokes an ancient rite compelling Lilandra to accept a form of trial-by-combat. Relocating to the Blue Area of the Moon (with its pocket of breathable atmosphere) the mutants engage in all-out war with brigade of cosmic champions The Shi’ar Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of DC’s Legion of Super Heroes), but despite their greatest efforts are pushed to the brink of defeat.

With collapse imminent and her friends doomed, Jean’s psychic shackles slip and the Phoenix breaks free again. Horrified at what will inevitably happen, Jean commits suicide to save the universe…

Days later on Earth the X-Men mourn her passing in #138’s ‘Elegy’ as Cyclops recalls his life with the valiant woman he loved so deeply – and we get a comprehensive recap of the mutant team’s career to date. Heartbroken, the quintessential X-Man resigns just as Kitty Pryde moves in…

A new day dawns in issue #139 ‘…Something Wicked This Way Comes!’ as the Angel rejoins the squad in time to see Nightcrawler join Wolverine in heading north for a reconciliation with the Canadian’s previous team, Alpha Flight. The visit turns into a hunt for the carnivorous magical monster Wendigo, culminating in a brutal battle and a rare clean win in #140’s ‘Rage!’

X-Men #141 saw the start of an evocative and extended subplot which would dictate years of tales to come. ‘Days of Future Past’ depicted an imminently approaching dystopian apocalypse wherein almost all mutants, paranormals and superheroes have been eradicated by Federally-controlled Sentinel robots.

The mechanoids rule over a shattered world on the edge of utter annihilation. New York is a charnel pit with most surviving superhumans kept in concentration camps and only a precious few free to fight a losing war of resistance.

Middle-aged Kitty Pryde is the lynchpin of a desperate plan to unmake history. With the aid of telepath named Rachel (eventually to escape that time-line and become the new Phoenix) Pryde swaps consciousness with her younger self in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the pivotal event which created the bleak, black tomorrow where all her remaining friends and comrades are being pitilessly exterminated one by resolute one…

‘Mind Out of Time’ sees the mature Pryde in our era, inhabiting her juvenile body and leading her disbelieving team-mates on a frantic mission to foil the assassination of US senator David Kelly on prime-time TV by a sinister new iteration of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – super-powered terrorists determined to make a very public example of the human politician attacking the cause of Mutant Rights…

Fast-paced, action-packed, spectacularly multi-layered, bitterly tragic and tensely inconclusive – as all such time-travel tales should be – this cunning, compact yarn is indubitably one of the best individual tales of the Claremont/Byrne era and set the mood, tone and agenda for the next two decades of mutant mayhem…

With history restored and tragedy averted things slowed down at the X-Mansion as John Byrne left for pastures new. His swan song in #143 was a bombastic romp which found lonely, homesick Kitty home alone at Christmas… except for a lone N’garai ‘Demon’ determined to eat her…

Her solo trial decimated the X-Men citadel and proved once and for all that she had what it takes…

The story portion of this classic compendium concludes with ‘Even in Death…’ from X-Men #144, scripted by Claremont and illustrated by Brent Anderson & Joseph Rubenstein wherein heartbroken Scott fetches up in coastal village Shark Bay and joins the crew of Aleytys Forester‘s fishing boat.

Trouble is never far from the man called Cyclops however and when she introduces him to her dad the hero must draw upon all his inner reserves – and uncomprehending help of the macabre Man-Thing – to repel the crushing soul-consuming assaults of pernicious petty devil D’spayre…

Accompanied by fact-filled entries on Professor X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Beast and Angel, all taken from the Marvel Universe Handbook, this comprehensive monochrome includes some of the greatest stories Marvel ever published; entertaining, groundbreaking and painfully intoxicating. These adventures are an invaluable grounding in contemporary fights ‘n’ tights fiction no fan or casual reader can afford to ignore.
© 1979, 1980, 1981, 1997, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Avengers volume 8


By Jim Shooter, George Pérez, David Michelinie, Tom DeFalco, Jim Starlin, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6322-0

The Avengers always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even if the team’s Big Three – Iron Man, Captain America and Thor – are absent, it simply allows the lesser lights and continuity players to shine more brightly.

Although the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, constantly churning, open door policy, human-scale narrative drivers featured the regulars without titles of their own whose eventful lives played out only within these stories and no others.

This electric eighth black and white compilation collects Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ extraordinary exploits from issues #164-184 of the monthly comicbook (spanning October 1977-June 1979), the contents of Avengers Annuals #7 and 8 plus the concluding half of an acclaimed crossover epic from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2.

During this period Jim Shooter, having galvanised and steadied the company’s notional flagship, moved on, leaving David Michelinie to impress his own ideas and personality upon the team, even as Cosmic Doomsmith Jim Starlin recruited the team to inscribe an epic ending to his seminal interpretation of tragic antihero Adam Warlock…

Opening this titanic tome is a stunning 3-part saga by Shooter, John Byrne & Pablo Marcos which reinvented one of the team’s oldest adversaries.

It began in #164 wherein, after months of speculation and experimentation, the resurrected Wonder Man was finally discovered to have evolved into a creature of pure ionic energy. Elsewhere, aging Maggia Don Count Nefaria had recruited Whirlwind, Power Man (the original mercenary who had undergone the same transformative experiment as Wonder Man) and Living Laser to amass plunder for him, but the tactic was mere subterfuge.

After the thieves trashed a squad of Avengers, Nefaria used his flunkies’ bodies as template and power source to turn himself into a literal Superman and attack the already battered heroes in ‘To Fall by Treachery!’

The tension built in #165 as ‘Hammer of Vengeance’ saw the lethally out-powered team fall, only to be saved by elderly speedster The Whizzer who pointed out that, for all his incredible strength, Nefaria too was an old man with death inevitably dogging his heels.

Panicked and galvanised, the Overman went berserk, carving a swathe of destruction through the city whilst seeking a confrontation with Thunder God Thor and the secret of his immortality.

Before too long he had reason to regret his demands…

The surprise arrival of the Thunderer in ‘Day of the Godslayer!’ ended the madman’s dreams but also highlighted growing tensions within the victorious team…

This superb thriller is followed by‘The Final Threat’ (Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, which saw Captain Marvel and Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of an impending cosmic catastrophe.

Their premonitions were confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrived with news that death-obsessed Thanos had amassed an alien armada and built a soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candles…

Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestalled the stellar invasion and prevented the Dark Titan from destroying the Sun – but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2) saw Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares, which disclosed how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now held the Avengers captive whilst he again prepared to extinguish Sol.

With nowhere else to turn, the anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man headed for the Baxter Building, hoping to borrow a spacecraft, unaware that The Thing also had a history with the terrifying Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans enough so that the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution were able to end the Titan’s threat forever… or at least until next time…

Back in the monthly an epic of equal import was about to unfold. Shooter’s connection to the series, although episodic, was long-lived and produced some of that period’s greatest tales, none more so than the stellar – if deadline-plagued – saga which unravelled over the succeeding months: a sprawling tale of time-travel and universal conquest which began in Avengers #167-168 and, after a brief pause, resumed for #170 through 177.

In previous issues a difference of opinion between Captain America and Iron Man over leadership styles had begun to polarise the team and tensions started to show in #167 with ‘Tomorrow Dies Today!’ by Shooter, George Pérez & Marcos.

In the Gods-&-Monsters filled Marvel Universe there are entrenched and jealous Hierarchies of Power, so when a new player mysteriously materialises in the 20th Century the very Fabric of Reality is threatened…

It all kicked off when star-spanning 31st century superheroes Guardians of the Galaxy materialised in Earth orbit, hotly pursuing a cyborg despot named Korvac.

Inadvertently setting off planetary incursion alarms, their minor-moon sized ship was swiftly penetrated by an Avengers squad, where, after the customary introductory squabble, the future men – Charlie-27, Yondu, Martinex, Nikki, Vance Astro and enigmatic space God Starhawk – explained the purpose of their mission…

Captain America had fought beside them to liberate their home era from Badoon rule and Thor had faced the fugitive Korvac before so peace soon broke out, but even with the resources of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes the time travellers were unable to find their quarry…

Meanwhile on Earth a new and mysterious being named Michael is lurking in the background. At a fashion show staged by the Wasp he achieves a psychic communion with model Carina Walters and they both vanish…

Avengers #168 reveals ‘First Blood’ and stirs up more trouble as Federal liaison and hidebound martinet Henry Peter Gyrich begins making like bureaucratically hot for the maverick team. In Colorado meanwhile Hawkeye gets a shock as his travelling partner Two-Gun Kid vanishes before his eyes whilst in suburban Forest Hills Starhawk – in his female iteration of Aleta – approaches a quiet residence…

Michael/Korvac’s plan consists of subtly altering events as he gathers strength in secret preparation for a sneak attack on those aforementioned Cosmic Hierarchies. His entire plan revolves around not being noticed. When Starhawk confronts him the villain kills the intruder and instantly resurrects him without the ability to perceive Michael or any of his works…

The drama screeches to a halt in #169, which declared ‘If We Should Fail… The World Dies Tonight!’ The out of context potboiler – by Marv Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Dave Hunt – saw Cap, Iron Man and Black Panther travel the planet in search of doomsday bombs wired to the failing heart of a dying man before the major mayhem resumed in #170 with ‘…Though Hell Should Bar the Way!’ by Shooter, Pérez & Marcos.

As Sentinel of Liberty and Golden Avenger finally settle their differences, in Inhuman city Attilan ex-Avenger Quicksilver suddenly disappears even as dormant mechanoid Jocasta (designed by maniac AI Ultron to be his bride) goes on a rampage and escapes into New York City.

In stealthy pursuit and hoping her trail will lead to Ultron himself, the team stride into a trap ‘…Where Angels Fear to Tread’ but nevertheless triumph thanks to the hex powers of the Scarlet Witch, the assistance of pushy, no-nonsense new hero Ms. Marvel and Jocasta’s own rebellion against the metal monster who made her.

However at their moment of triumph the Avengers are stunned to see Cap and Jocasta wink out of existence…

The problems pile up in #172 as Watchdog-come-Gadfly Gyrich is roughly manhandled and captured by out-of-the-loop returnee Hawkeye and responds by rescinding the team’s Federal clearances.

Thus handicapped the heroes are unable to warn other inactive members of the increasing disappearances as a squad of heavy hitters rushes off to tackle marauding Atlantean maverick Tyrak the Treacherous who is bloodily enacting a ‘Holocaust in New York Harbor!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson)…

Answers to the growing mystery are finally forthcoming in ‘Threshold of Oblivion!’, plotted by Shooter, with David Michelinie scripting for Sal Buscema & D(iverse) Hands to illustrate.

As the vanishings escalate the remaining Avengers (Thor, Wasp, Hawkeye and Iron Man), with the assistance of Vance Astro, finally track down their hidden foe and beam into a cloaked starship to liberate the ‘Captives of the Collector!’ (Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Dave Wenzel & Marcos)…

After a staggering struggle the heroes triumph and their old foe reveals the shocking truth: he is in fact an Elder of the Universe who foresaw cosmic doom millennia ago and sought to preserve special artefacts and creatures – such as the Avengers – from the slowly approaching apocalypse.

As he reveals that predicted end-time is here and that he has sent his own daughter Carina to infiltrate the Enemy’s stronghold, the cosmic Noah is obliterated in a devastating blast of energy. The damage however is done and the entrenched hierarchies of creation may well be alerted…

Issue #175 began the final countdown as ‘The End… and Beginning!’ (Shooter, Michelinie, Wenzel & Marcos) saw the amassed and liberated ranks of Avengers and Guardians follow the clues to Michael as the new god shared the incredible secret of his apotheosis with Carina, before ‘The Destiny Hunt!’ and ‘The Hope… and the Slaughter!’ (Shooter, Wenzel, Marcos & Ricardo Villamonte) saw the entire army of champions destroyed and resurrected as Michael easily overpowered all opposition but faltered for lack of one fundamental failing…

Spread through a series of lesser adventures the overarching epic ponderously and ominously unfolds before finally exploding into a devastating and tragic Battle Royale that is the epitome of superhero comics. This is pure escapist fantasy at its finest.

Despite being somewhat let down by the artwork when the magnificent George Perez gave way to less enthusiastic hands such as Sal Buscema, David Wenzel and Tom Morgan, and cursed by the inability to keep a regular inker (Pablo Marcos, Klaus Janson Ricardo Villamonte and Tom Morgan all pitched in), the sheer scope of the epic plot nevertheless carries this story through to its cataclysmic and fulfilling conclusion.

Even Shooter’s reluctant replacement by scripters Dave Michelinie and Bill Mantlo (as his editorial career advanced) couldn’t derail this juggernaut of adventure.

If you want to see what makes Superhero fiction work, and can keep track of nearly two dozen flamboyant characters, this is a fine example of how to make such an unwieldy proposition easily accessible to the new and returning reader.

After the death and triumphant resurrection of the heroes Avengers Annual #8 gets back to business with a spectacular Fights ‘n’ Tights clash in ‘Spectrums of Deceit!’ by Roger Slifer, Pérez, Marcos & Villamonte, wherein the sentient power-prism of arch villain Doctor Spectrum begins possessing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, leading the team into another blockbusting battle against the Squadron Sinister and ethically ambivalent Femazon Thundra…

A complete change of pace came in Avengers #178. ‘The Martyr Perplex!’ by Steve Gerber, Carmine Infantino &Rudy Nebres saw Beast targeted by master brainwasher The Manipulator in a tense psycho-thriller teeming with shady crooks and government spooks, after which Tom DeFalco, Jim Mooney, Al Gordon & Mike Esposito concocted a 2-part yarn introducing tragic mutant Bloodhawk and an ambitious hitman in ‘Slowly Slays the Stinger!’

Whilst the Stinger cautiously executed his plan another squad of heroes return with Bloodhawk to his desolate island home of Maura for a ‘Berserkers’ Holiday’, just in time to battle an animated and agitated stone idol.

When they returned victorious Stinger was waiting and the assemblage lost its newest ally forever…

Avengers #181 introduced new regular team Michelinie & Byrne – augmented by inker Gene Day – as ‘On the Matter of Heroes!’ had Agent Gyrich lay down the law and winnow the army of heroes down to a federally acceptable seven.

As the Guardians of the Galaxy headed back to the future, Iron Man, Vision, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Beast and Wasp had to placate Hawkeye after he was rejected in favour of new member The Falcon – parachuted in to conform to government quotas on affirmative action…

Almost immediately Gyrich’s plans were in ruins as a strange gipsy sorcerer attacked, claiming Wanda and Pietro were his long lost children. He stole their souls, trapping them in little wooden dolls, and the resultant clash in #182’s ‘Honor Thy Father’ (inked by Klaus Janson) only created more questions, as overwhelming evidence seemed to confirm Django Maximoff‘s story; compelling the Witch and Quicksilver to leave with him on a quest for answers…

This breathtaking collection concludes with a 2-part confrontation by Michelinie, Byrne, Janson & D. Hands from Avengers #183-184.

‘The Redoubtable Return of Crusher Creel!’ began as Ms. Marvel was cleared by Gyrich to replace Wanda whilst elsewhere in the Big Apple the formidable Absorbing Man decided to quit being thrashed by heroes and leave the country. Unfortunately his departure plans included kidnapping a young woman “for company” and led to a cataclysmic showdown with the heroes and Hawkeye (who was determined to win back his place on the team) leading to carnage, chaos and a ‘Death on the Hudson!’…

These truly epic yarns set the tone for the compulsive, calamitous Costumed Dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the so slick and cool 21st century…

No lovers of superhero sagas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book, and fans who think themselves above Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will also be pleasantly surprised…
© 1977, 1978, 1979, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Punisher volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Len Wein, Mike W. Barr, Marv Wolfman, Dennis O’Neil, Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Bill Mantlo, Stephen Grant, Jo Duffy, Ross Andru, Tony DeZuniga, Frank Springer, Keith Pollard, Al Milgrom, Greg LaRocque, Mike Zeck, Mike Vosburg& various  (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-8571-2375-0

Although one of the industry’s biggest hits from the late 1980s onwards, the compulsive vengeance-taker known as The Punisher was always an unlikely and uncomfortable star for comicbooks.

His methods are always excessively violent and usually permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Black Widow or Wolverine come to mind) the Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public simply shifted its communal perspective; The Punisher never toned down or cleaned up his act…

He was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru; a necessarily toned down, muted response to such increasingly popular prose anti-heroes as Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and a bloody tide of fictive returning Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime in the early 1970s.

The story goes that Marvel’s bosses were reluctant to give The Punisher a starring vehicle in their standard colour comic-book line, feeling the character’s very nature made him a bad guy and not a good one. Other than the two magazine stories and the miniseries which closes the volume, Frank Castle was not supposed to be the star or even particularly admirable to the impressionable readership.

Therefore these early appearances might disappoint die-hard fans even though they are the formative tales of his success. Perhaps it’s best to remember and accept that when not actually the villain in the tales he was at best a worrisome guest…

Boy, how times do change…

He was first seen as a villain and patsy in Amazing Spider-Man #129, repeatedly returning thereafter before getting his shot at the big time – and then not in newsstand publications but in the company’s black and white, mature magazine line…

This initial Essential compilation gathers all those tentative stabs and guest-shots from February 1974 through to the breakthrough 1986 miniseries which really got the ball rolling: specifically Amazing Spider-Man #129, 134-135, 162-163, 174-175, 201-202; Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15; Giant-Size Spider-Man #4; Marvel Preview #2; Marvel Super-Action #1; Captain America #241; Daredevil #182-184; Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #81-83 and The Punisher #1-5, and many die-hard fans might be a little disappointed in the relative lack of brutality, carnage and even face time contained herein.

Just keep in mind that for the greater part of these early appearances the Skull-shirted slayer was at best a visiting partner and usually the villain du jour…

The first case in this mammoth monochrome war journal comes from Amazing Spider-Man #129, introducing not only the renegade gunslinger but also nefarious manic mastermind The Jackal in ‘The Punisher Strikes Twice!’ by Conway, Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt wherein the Man with the Guns was duped by manipulative Professor Miles Warren into hunting Spider-Man. The unhappy Wallcrawler was currently a suspect in the death of Norman Osborn and subsequently set up by the Jackal for the murder of the Punisher’s gunmaker…

The much-misunderstood champions of the oppressed crossed paths again in Amazing Spider-Man #134-135 when a South American bandit intended to be his oppressive regime’s Captain America attempted to pillage a Manhattan tour boat in ‘Danger is a Man Named… Tarantula!’ Once again unwilling allies, the duo dutifully dismantled the villains schemes after a ‘Shoot-Out in Central Park!’

The Punisher played a more pivotal role in Giant-Size Spider-Man #4 (April 1975) when the Webslinger forced himself into one of the Lone Gunman’s cases in ‘To Sow the Seeds of Death’s Day!’ Ruthless arms dealer Moses Magnum had perfected a lethal chemical weapon and begun testing it on randomly kidnapped victims. Tracking down the vile monster in ‘Attack of the War Machine!’, the pair found themselves infiltrating his ‘Death-Camp at the Edge of the World!’ before summary justice was dispensed as much by fate as the heroes…

John Romita senior’s original concept pencil sketch of The Punisher from 1973 is followed by the vigilante’s first solo role – in black-&-white magazine Marvel Preview #2 (August 1975) – where Conway & Tony DeZuniga pronounced a ‘Death Sentence’ on some of Castle’s old army buddies who had been tricked into becoming assassins by a millionaire madman who wanted to take over America. The gritty yarn also at last revealed the tragic reasons for the Punisher’s unending mission of vengeance.

Highly decorated Marine Castle saw his wife and children gunned down in Central Park after the carefree picnickers stumbled into a mob hit. When the killers turned the guns on the witnesses, only Castle survived. Recovering in hospital the bereft warrior dedicated his life to eradicating criminals everywhere…

Following a stunning Punisher and Dominic Fortune pin-up by Howard Chaykin, ‘Accounts Settled… Accounts Due!’ by Archie Goodwin, DeZuniga & Rico Rival from Marvel Super Action #1 (January 1976) follows the matured-themed plot to a close as Castle at last tracks down the gunsels who carried out the shooting and the Dons who ordered it, only to find that his bloody vengeance hasn’t eased his heart or dulled his thirst for personal justice…

Castle was reduced to a bit-player in Amazing Spider-Man #162-163 (October and November 1976, by Len Wein Andru & Esposito, as the newly reconstituted X-Men were sales-boosted by a guest-clash with the Wallcrawler in ‘…And the Nightcrawler Came Prowling, Prowling’, wherein the Arachnid jumps to wrong conclusion after a sniper shoots a reveller at Coney Island.

By the time Nightcrawler has explained himself – in the tried-and-true Marvel manner of fighting the webspinner to a standstill – old skull-shirt has turned up to take them both on before mutual foe Jigsaw is exposed as the real assassin in the concluding episode ‘Let the Punisher Fit the Crime!’

Amazing Spider-Man #174 from November 1977 declared ‘The Hitman’s Back in Town!’ (inks by DeZuniga & Jim Mooney) and saw Castle hunting a costumed assassin hired to remove J. Jonah Jameson but experiencing an unusual reticence since the killer was a old army pal who had saved his life in Vietnam. Nevertheless the tale ended with a fatality in the ‘Big Apple Battleground!’ in #175.

Captain America #241 (January 1980, by Mike W. Barr, Frank Springer & Pablo Marcos) was very much a fill in which benefited from the Frank Miller effect – he drew the cover – as ‘Fear Grows in Brooklyn’ as the Sentinel of Liberty got in the way of a mission and refused to allow the Punisher to go free.

He couldn’t however, stop him from escaping police custody and Amazing Spider-Man #201-202 –‘Man-Hunt!’ and ‘One For Those Long Gone!’ (February and March 1980, by Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard & Mooney) – reveal how The Punisher almost uncovers Peter Parker‘s big secret whilst relentlessly stalking a mob boss responsible for the death of a kid who had saved Castle’s life…

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #15 (1981 by Dennis O’Neil, Frank Miller & Klaus Janson) is putatively the genesis of the antihero in his true form. ‘Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?’ sees maniac fugitive Frank Castle back in the Big Apple and embroiled in a deadly scheme by Doctor Octopus to poison five million New Yorkers.

It’s not long before both Peter Parker and his colourful alter-ego are caught in the middle of a terrifying battle of ruthless wills in a tense and clever suspense thriller, which perfectly recaptures the moody mastery of Steve Ditko’s heydays.

The Miller connection continued in three unforgettable issues of Daredevil (#182-184 from May-July 1982) which perfectly encapsulated everything that made the Punisher run such a momentous, unmissable, “must-read” character…

Beginning with only a pertinent untitled excerpt by Miller & Janson from ‘She’s Alive’ wherein a reeling Matt Murdock is trying to cope with the murder of his first love Elektra whilst elsewhere Castle is clandestinely removed from prison by a government spook to stop a shipment of drugs the authorities can’t touch. Once he’s killed the gangsters, however, The Punisher refuses to go back to jail…

The story proper begins in ‘Child’s Play’ – with Roger McKenzie lending a scripting hand – and deals with school kids using drugs. It was originally begun by McKenzie & Miller but shelved for a year, before being reworked into a stunningly powerful and unsettling tale once Miller & Janson assumed the full creative chores on the title.

When Matt visits a High School he is a helpless witness when a little girl goes berserk, attacking staff and pupils before throwing herself out of a third floor window.

She was high on “Angel Dust” and as the appalled hero vows to track down the dealers he first encounters her bereaved and distraught younger brother Billy, determined to exact his own vengeance and later the coldly calculating Castle who has the same idea and far more experience…

The hunt leads inexorably to a certain street pusher and DD, Billy and the Punisher all find their target at the same time. After a spectacular battle the thoroughly beaten Daredevil has only a bullet-ridden corpse and Billy with a smoking gun…

The kid is innocent – and so, this time at least, is Castle – and after Murdock proves it in court, the investigation resumes with the focus falling on the pusher’s boss Hogman. When DD’s super-hearing confirms the gangster’s claims of innocence his alter-ego Murdock then successfully defends the vile dealer, only to have the exonerated slime-ball gloatingly admit to having committed the murder after all…

Horrified, shocked, betrayed and determined to enforce justice, DD finds a connection to a highly-placed member of the school faculty deeply involved with Hogman in the concluding ‘Good Guys Wear Red’ but it’s far too late: Castle and Billy have both decided the end the matter Hogman’s way…

Scripted by Bill , Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #81-83 (August to October 1983) opens with ‘Stalkers in the Shadows’, illustrated by Al Milgrom & Mooney, and sees an increasingly crazy Punisher going after misdemeanour malefactors with the same murderous zeal he previously reserved for killers and worse. Spider-Man meanwhile has his hands full with teen vigilantes Cloak and Dagger who have graduated from tackling street drug pushers to go after Wilson Fisk, Kingpin of crime.

‘Crime & Punishment!’ sees Castle applying lethal force indiscriminately all over town, culminating in his own crazed attack on Fisk… who beats him to a pulp.

The saga ends with ‘Delusions’ by Mantlo, Greg LaRoque & Mooney wherein the Punisher goes on trial and is found to have been dosed with psychosis-inducing drugs…

At last Marvel gave way to the inevitable and commissioned a Punisher miniseries, although writer Steven Grant and penciller Mike Zeck apparently had an uphill struggle convincing editors to let the grim, gun-crazed maniac loose in that shiny world where little kids might fixate on a dangerous role model – and their parents might get all over-protective, litigious and (skull) shirty…

In 1985 they finally got the green-light and the 5-issue miniseries – running from January to May – turned the industry on its head. There was indeed plenty of controversy to go around, especially as the tale featured a “hero” who had lots of illicit sex and killed his enemies in cold blood. Also causing problems for censorious eyes were the suicide of one of the major characters and the murder of innocent children. Doesn’t it make you proud to realise how far we’ve since come…?

The company mitigated the potential fall-out with the most lacklustre PR campaign in history, but not telling anybody about The Punisher didn’t stop the series from becoming a runaway, barnstorming success. The rest is history…

Two years later as the graphic novel market was finally getting established and with Frank Castle one of the biggest draws in comics (sorry, I’m such a child sometimes), that contentious series was released as a complete book and it remains one of the very best of all his many exploits.

Here, rendered even more stark and uncompromising in gritty moody monochrome, the action begins in ‘Circle of Blood’ as Castle is locked in Ryker’s Island prison where every inmate is queuing up to kill him. Within hours though he has turned the tables and terrified the General Population, but knows that both old foe Jigsaw and the last of the great mob “Godfathers” have special plans for him…

When a mass breakout frees all the cons, Castle brutally steps in. For this he is allowed to escape by the warden, who casually offers him membership in The Trust, an organisation of “Right-minded, law-abiding citizens” who approve of his crusade against crime. Castle also discovers he’s being stalked by Tony Massera, a good man who thought he had escaped the influences of his bad family…

Tony wants to kill Castle to avenge his father, one of Punisher’s many gory successes – but only after the streets have been swept clean of scum like his own family…

‘Back to the War’ finds the Punisher on the streets again, hunting scum, armed and supplied by the Trust but still not a part of their organisation.

After an abortive attempt to blow up The Kingpin, Castle is saved by the mysterious Angel, and begins a loveless liaison with her. With everybody mistakenly believing the master of New York’s underworld dead, a bloody gang-war erupts with greedy sub-bosses all trying to claim the top spot, but by the events of ‘Slaughterday’ Castle realises that too many innocents are getting caught in the crossfires.

He also discovers in ‘Final Solution’ that the Trust have their own national agenda as hit men and brainwashed criminals dressed in his costume surreptitiously hit the streets, executing mobsters and fanning the flames…

All the Trust’s plans for this “Punishment Squad” and the country are uncovered in the blockbusting conclusion ‘Final Solution Part 2’ as all the pieces fall into place and the surviving players reveal their true allegiances. In a classy final chapter mysteriously completed by the highly underrated Jo Duffy and Mike Vosburg, from Grant’s original plot, The Punisher takes charge in his inimitable manner, leaving God and the cops to sort out the paperwork….

We can only speculate as to why the originators fell away at the last hurdle, but I’m pretty sure those same reluctant editors played some part in it all…

This economical Essential edition comes with a plethora of pin-ups and concludes with a comprehensive information dossier culled from the ever-informative Marvel Universe Handbook, and these superbly gritty, morally ambiguous if not actually ethically challenging dramas never cease to thrill and amaze, and have been reprinted a number of times.

Whichever version suits your inclinations and wallet, if you love action, cherish costumed comics adventure and crave the occasional dose of gratuitous personal justice this one should be at the top of your “Most Wanted” list.

© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Iron Man volume 5


By Mike Friedrich, Bill Mantlo, Len Wein, Roger Slifer, Steve Gerber, P. Craig Russell, George Tuska, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Chic Stone, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6733-4

Arch-technocrat and supreme survivor Tony Stark has changed his profile many times since his debut in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) when, whilst a VIP visitor in Vietnam observing the efficacy of the munitions he had designed, he was critically wounded and captured by sinister, savage Communists.

Put to work building weapons with the dubious promise of medical assistance on completion, Stark instead created the first Iron Man suit to keep himself alive and deliver him from his oppressors. From there it was a simple jump to full time superheroics as a modern Knight in Shining Armour…

Conceived in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when the economy was booming and “Commie-bashing” was America’s favourite national pastime, the emergence of a suave, gleaming new Edison, using Yankee ingenuity, wealth and invention to safeguard the Land of the Free and better the World, seemed an obvious development.

Combining the then-sacrosanct tenet that technology and business in unison could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble paladins battling evil, the Invincible Iron Man seemed an infallibly successful proposition.

Whilst Stark was the acceptable face of 1960s Capitalism – a celebrity millionaire industrialist/scientist and alternatively a benevolent all-conquering hero when clad in the super-scientific armour of his secret alter-ego – the turbulent tone of the 1970s quickly relegated Iron Man’s rather unctuous, “can-do” image to the dustbin of history and, with ecological disaster and social catastrophe from the myriad abuses of big business forming the new zeitgeists of the young, the Golden Avenger and Stark International were soon confronting some tricky questions from the increasingly politically savvy readership.

With glamour, money and fancy gadgetry not quite so cool anymore the questing voices of a new generation of writers began posing uncomfortable questions in the pages of a series that was once the bastion of militarised America …

This sixth mammoth monochrome compilation covers another new start and change of direction for the Steely Centurion out of that transitional period, reprinting Iron Man #62-75, 77-87 and Annual #3 (September 1973 to June 1976): a period when the title experienced an unprecedented and often uncomfortable number of creative personnel changes even as the nation suffered radical and divisive schisms of ideology, an energy crisis and disco…

With Mike Friedrich scripting, the action opens in Detroit where Stark is inspecting one of his factories until former Maggia assassin ‘Whiplash Returns!’ (art by P. Craig Russell, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia & John Romita Sr.), raging for revenge and especially ticked off that his girlfriend has been made his boss, after which an extended epic began in #63 with ‘Enter: Dr. Spectrum’, illustrated by George Tuska & Esposito.

Here, as Tony Stark relentlessly – and fruitlessly – romantically pursues pacifist dissident Roxie Gilbert in Detroit, obnoxious Ugandan financier and diplomat Dr. Kinji Obatu visited the Long Island plant and was attacked by a gang of masked thugs.

The assault was repelled thanks to the timely assistance of stand-in Iron Man Eddie March, who was promptly offered a bodyguard job by the creepy ambassador and invited to accompany him to a meeting with Stark in “Motor City”.

No sooner did they arrive however than photonic fiend Dr. Spectrum ambushed the inventor, only to be driven off by the Armoured Avenger after a titanic and costly struggle. A far more serious problem emerged later when old friend Happy Hogan accused Tony of having an affair with his wife Pepper…

Spectrum struck again in the next issue, with a similar lack of success, before Happy blew his top and took a swing at Stark, but that confrontation was curtailed when a gigantic monster kidnapped the just-arrived Obatu in ‘Rokk Cometh!’

When the beast targeted Roxie, the exhausted Iron Man intervened but was too drained to resist the relentless Spectrum…

Issue #65 revealed ‘The Cutting Edge of Death!’ when the Golden Avenger learned the true parasitical nature of Spectrum’s Power Prism as it transferred itself from the wilfully disobedient villain Obatu to the worn-out hero. Its glee was short lived though as the possessed Iron Man was challenged by recently arrived comrade the Mighty Thor, resulting in a blockbusting ‘Battle Royal!’ which only ended after the Thunderer crushed the crystal conqueror to discovered the dying man inside the armour was neither Tony Stark nor Obatu…

As a consequence of that climactic clash of myth and mechanism, IM #67 saw the impostor Iron Man temporarily mutated by Stark’s medical miracle machine the Cobalt Enervator into a rampaging monster in ‘Return of the Freak!’ but no sooner had the real Armoured Avenger and surgeon Don Blake (who we all know was Thor back then) stopped and saved the berserk victim than Stark was drawn into another conflict in South East Asia…

Iron Man #68-71 (June to November 1974) was the opening sortie in a multi-part epic which saw mystic menace The Black Lama foment a war amongst the world’s greatest villains with ultimate power, inner peace and a magical Golden Globe as the promised prizes.

Written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by Tuska & Mike Esposito, it began in Vietnam on the ‘Night of the Rising Sun!’ where the Mandarin struggled to free his consciousness, currently trapped within the dying body of Russian super-villain the Unicorn.

Roxie had dragged Stark to the recently “liberated” People’s Republic in search of Eddie March’s lost brother Marty, a POW missing since the last days of the war. Before long however the Americans were separated when Japanese ultra-nationalist, ambulatory atomic inferno and sometime X-Man Sunfire was tricked into attacking the intrusive Yankee Imperialists.

The attack abruptly ended after Mandarin shanghaied the Solar Samurai and used his mutant energies to power a mind-transfer back into his own body and, reinstated in his original form, the Chinese Conqueror began his own campaign of combat in earnest, eager to regain his castle from rival oriental overlord The Yellow Claw.

Firstly, though, he had to crush Iron Man who had tracked him down and freed Sunfire in ‘Confrontation!’ That bombastic battle ended when the Golden Avenger was rendered unconscious and thrown into space…

‘Who Shall Stop… Ultimo?’ then found the reactivated giant robot-monster attacking the Mandarin’s castle as the sinister Celestial duelled the Claw to the death, with both Iron Man and Sunfire arriving too late and forced to mop up the sole survivor of the contest in ‘Battle: Tooth and Yellow Claw! (Confrontation Part 3)‘…

After all the Eastern Armageddon a change of pace was called for, so Stark took in the San Diego Comicon in #72’s ‘Convention of Fear!’ (by Friedrich, Tuska & Colletta from a plot by Barry Alfonso) only to find himself ambushed by fellow incognito attendees Whiplash, Man-Bull and The Melter who were made an offer they should have refused by the ubiquitous Black Lama…

Next issue the Super-Villain War kicked into high gear with ‘Turnabout: a Most Foul Play!’ (art by Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard & Jim Mooney and a premise by letterer Tom Orzechowski).

After Pepper, Happy and Tony buried the hatchet at Stark International’s Manila plant, Iron Man returned to Vietnam and a deadly clash with the Crimson Dynamo in a hidden high-tech jungle city which was subsequently razed to the ground by their explosive combat.

Iron Man #74’s ‘The MODOK Machine!’ (Jones, Pollard & Dick Ayers) brought the Black Lama’s contest to the fore as the Mad Thinker electronically overrode the Avenger’s armour and set helpless passenger Stark upon the malevolent master of AIM…

Without autonomy, the Golden Gladiator was easily overwhelmed and ‘Slave to the Power Imperious!’ (inked by Chic Stone) saw him dragged back to the Thinker’s lair and laid low by a strange psychic episode even as MODOK finished his foe and apparently turned the still-enslaved steel-shod hero on his next opponent… the Yellow Claw.

Whilst this was happening, elsewhere radical terrorist Firebrand was somehow sharing Stark’s Black Lama-inspired “psycho-feedback” episodes…

The tale ended on a twisty cliffhanger as the Claw destroyed MODOK and his clockwork puppet Avenger, only to discover that the Thinker was not only still alive but still held the real Iron Man captive.

That was quite unfortunate as the following issue – #76 – blew its deadline and had to reprint Iron Man #9 (represented here by just the cover) before Friedrich, Jones & Stone’s ‘I Cry: Revenge!’ saw the fighting mad hero break free of the Thinker’s control, just as Black Lama teleported the Claw in to finish his final felonious opponent.

Still extremely ticked off, the Armoured Avenger took on all comers but was ambushed by the late arriving Firebrand who had been psionically drawn into the melee.

As Iron Man went down, the Lama declared non-contestant Firebrand the ultimate victor, explaining he had come from an alternate universe before duping the unstable and uncaring rabble-rouser into re-crossing the dimensional void with him…

Although a certifiable maniac and cold-blooded killer, Firebrand was also Roxie Gilbert’s brother and the groggily awakening Iron Man felt honour-bound to follow him through the rapidly closing portal to elsewhere…

The deadline problems persisted, however, and the next two issues were both hasty fill-in tales, beginning with #78’s ‘Long Time Gone’ by Bill Mantlo, Tuska & Vince Colletta which harked back to the Avenger’s early days and a mission during the Vietnam war which first brought home the cost in blood and misery that Stark’s munitions building had caused, whilst ‘Midnite on Murder Mountain!’ (scripted by Friedrich) saw the hero emphatically end the scientific abominations wrought by deranged geneticist and determined mind-swapper Professor Kurakill…

At last Iron Man #80 returned to the ongoing inter-dimensional saga as ‘Mission into Madness!’ by Friedrich, Chic Stone & Colletta, saw the multiversal voyagers arrive in a very different America where warring kingdoms and principalities jostled for prestige, position and power.

Here the Lama was revealed as King Jerald of Grand Rapids, a ruler under threat from outside invaders and insidious usurpers within. He’d come to Earth looking for powerful allies but had not realised that travel to other realms slowly drove non-indigenous residents completely crazy…

With the mind-warp effect already destabilising Iron Man and Firebrand, it was fortunate that treacherous Baroness Rockler made her move to kill the returned Jerald immediately, and the Earthlings were quickly embroiled in a cataclysmic ‘War of the Mind-Dragons!’ before turning on each other and fleeing the devastated kingdom for the less psychologically hazardous environs of their homeworld…

With the extended epic finally completed Mike Friedrich moved on, and Iron Man #82 welcomed a new era and tone as Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, Marie Severin & Jack Abel revamped the armour just in time for the Red Ghost and his super simians to kidnap super genius Tony Stark in ‘Plunder of the Apes!’

Debuting in that issue was NYPD detective Michael O’Brien, who held Tony responsible and accountable for the tragic death of his brother Kevin. The researcher had been Stark’s confidante until his mind snapped and he died wearing a prototype suit of Guardsman armour, but Mike smelled a cover-up…

IM #83 revealed ‘The Rage of the Red Ghost!’ (inked by Marie Severin) as the deranged Russian forced Stark to cure his gradual dispersal into his component atoms only to realise, following a bombastic battle, that the inventor had outwitted him yet again, after which Wein, Roger Slifer, Trimpe & John Tartaglione detailed how the Enervator again turned the grievously injured Happy into a mindless monster, but this time flooded him with so much Cobalt radiation that he became a ticking inhuman nuke on the ‘Night of the Walking Bomb!’

The tense tick-tock to doom was narrowly and spectacularly stopped in ‘…And the Freak Shall Inherit the Earth!’ (Slifer w/Wein, Trimpe, Severin) after which Mantlo, Tuska & Colletta revived and revamped one of the Golden Avenger’s oldest and least remembered rogues when disgraced thermal technologist Gregor Shapanka dumped his loser status as Jack Frost and attacked Stark International in a deadly new guise in # 86’s ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Blizzard!’

Despite his improved image the sub-zero zealot couldn’t quite close ‘The Icy Hand of Death!’, leaving this cracking chronicle to conclude with Iron Man Annual #3 (June 1976) and ‘More or Less… the Return of the Molecule Man!’ by Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema & Abel.

Whilst Tony Stark looked into developing some soggy Florida real estate,  a little girl found a strange wand and was possessed and transformed by the consciousness of one of the most powerful creatures in existence…

Although Iron Man was helpless to combat the reality-warping attacks of the combination petulant girl/narcissistic maniac, luckily for the universe, the shambling elemental shocker dubbed Man-Thing had no mind to mess with or conscience to trouble…

Finally closing the cover on this stellar compilation is a short cover gallery from the all-reprint Iron Man Annual #1 and 2 and Giant-Size Iron Man #1.

With this volume Marvel completely entrenched itself in the camp of the young and the restless who experienced at first hand and every day the social upheaval America was undergoing.

Their rebellious teen sensibility and increased political conscience permeated the company’s publications as their core audience moved beyond Flower Power protests towards a generation of acutely aware activists. Future tales would increasingly bring reformed capitalist Stark into many unexpected and outrageous situations…

But that’s the meat of another review, as this engrossing graphic novel is done. From our distant vantage point the polemical energy and impact might be dissipated, but the sheer quality of the comics and the cool thrill of the eternal aspiration of man in perfect partnership with magic metal remains.

These Fights ‘n’ Tights classics are amongst the most underrated but impressive tales of the period and are well worth your time, consideration and cold hard cash…
© 1973, 1974, 1974, 1976, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Silver Surfer volume 1


By Stan Lee, John Buscema, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2008-7

Although pretty much a last minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s scintillating creation the Silver Surfer quickly became a watchword for depth, allegory and subtext in the Marvel Universe and a character Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years.

Tasked with finding planets for space god Galactus to consume, and despite the best efforts of intergalactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, one day the Silver Surfer discovered Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakened his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his master and help the FF save the world.

In retaliation, Galactus imprisoned his one-time herald on Earth, making him the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice.

The Galactus Saga was a creative highlight from a period where the Lee/Kirby partnership was utterly on fire. The tale has all the power and grandeur of a true epic and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment. It’s not included here: for that treat you’ll need to see Essential Fantastic Four volume 3 or many other Marvel collections…

In 1968, after increasingly frequent guest-shots and even a solo adventure in the back of Fantastic Four Annual #5 (thankfully included at the back of this tome), the Surfer finally got his own (initially double-sized) title. This occurred at the time when Marvel had finally escaped from a draconian distribution deal which limited the company to 16 titles per month.

That change resulted in a huge expansion in output which also saw Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury and Captain Marvel all explode into their own titles.

This stunning and economical monochrome chronicle collects the entire 18 issue run of the Soaring Skyrider’s controversial first solo series as well as the aforementioned vignette from FF Annual #5 spanning November 1967 1968 to September 1970 and naturally enough begins with begins with ‘The Origin of the Silver Surfer!’ by Lee, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott who, after a prolonged flashback sequence and repeated examples of crass humanity’s brutal callousness and unthinking hostility, detailed how Norrin Radd, discontented soul from an alien paradise named Zenn-La, became the gleaming herald of a terrifying planetary scourge.

Radd had constantly chafed against a civilisation in comfortable, sybaritic stagnation, but when Galactus shattered their vaunted million years of progress in a fleeting moment, the dissident offered himself without hesitation as a sacrifice to save his world from the Devourer’s hunger.

Converted into an indestructible gleaming humanoid meteor Radd agreed to scour the galaxies looking for (preferably uninhabited) worlds rich in the energies Galactus needed to survive, thus saving planets with life on them from destruction. Sadly, he didn’t always find them in time…

The stories in this series were highly acclaimed – if not commercially successful – both for Buscema’s agonised, emphatic and stunningly beautiful artwork as much as Lee’s deeply spiritual and philosophical scripts; with the isolated alien’s travails and social observations creating a metaphoric status akin to a Christ-figure for an audience that was maturing and rebelling against America’s creaking and unsavoury status quo.

The second 40 page adventure detailed a secret invasion by extraterrestrial lizard men ‘When Lands the Saucer!’, forcing the Surfer to battle the sinister Brotherhood of Badoon without human aid or even awareness in ‘Let Earth be the Prize!’…

A little side-note for sad nit-picking enthusiasts like me: I suspect that the original intention was to drop the page count to regular 20-page episodes from #2, since in terms of pacing both the second and third issues divide perfectly into regular 2-parters, with cliffhanger endings and splash page/chapter titles that were dropped from #4 onwards.

Silver Surfer #3 was pivotal in the ongoing saga as Lee & Buscema introduced Marvel’s Satan-analogue in ‘The Power and the Prize!’

Mephisto back then was the one-and-only Lord of Hell and saw the Surfer’s untarnished soul as a threat to his evil influence on Earth. To crush the anguished hero’s spirit the demon abducted Radd’s true love Shalla Bal from still-recovering Zenn-La and tormented the Sentinel of the Spaceways with her dire distress in his sulphurous nether-realm…

The concluding chapter saw the alien but mortal angel of light and undying devil of depravity conduct a spectacular ‘Duel in the Depths’ wherein neither base temptations nor overwhelming force were enough to stay the noble Surfer’s inevitable triumph.

Just as wicked a foe then attempted to exploit the Earth-bound Surfer’s heroic impulses in #4’s ‘The Good, The Bad and the Uncanny!’ (inked by new art collaborator Sal Buscema) wherein Asgardian God of Evil Loki offered lies, deceit and even escape from Galactus’ terrestrial cage to induce the Silver Stalwart to attack and destroy the Mighty Thor.

The scheme resulted in a shattering, bombastic clash that built and built as the creative team finally let loose and fully utilised their expanded story-proportions and page count to create a smooth flowing all-action epic.

The tragedy of strictly human prejudice and bigotry was then highlighted in a powerful parable about race, ignorance and shared humanity when the Surfer was befriended by ostracised and sidelined black physicist Al Harper in ‘…And Who Shall Mourn Him?’

As the two outcasts bonded the scientist realised he might have a way to free the Surfer from his Galactine incarceration, but as they put their plan into operation remorseless alien entity The Stranger turned up, determined to erase the potential threat mankind offered to the rest of the universe.

To stop him both Harper and Radd had to sacrifice everything they cherished most for a world that didn’t care if they lived or died…

‘World Without End!’ in issue #6 embraced dystopian fantasy as the Surfer reasoned that by breaking the time barrier he might escape the energy shield binding him to Earth. Tragically, although the plan worked, the lonely wanderer discovered that the far future held little life, and what there was owed fealty and its own precarious continuation to a monstrous mutant who lived simply to conquer and kill.

Appalled, overwhelmed and utterly unable to beat the horrific Overlord, all Norrin could do to preserve life in Creation was escape back into time and try to prevent the murderous freak from ever being born…

Times and tastes were slowly changing and by the August 1969 release of Silver Surfer #7 the Comics Code injunctions against horror stories were being eroded away. Thus ‘The Heir of Frankenstein!’ and his misshapen but noble assistant Borgo debuted to terrorise their small Balkan community and tap into the growing monster movie zeitgeist of the era. The last maniac of a sullied line of scientists wanted to outdo his infamous ancestor and achieved his aim by his tricking the Skyrider into becoming the victim of a deadly duplication experiment.

As a result the Silver Surfer had to battle a cosmic-fuelled facsimile with all his power but none of his noble ideals or merciful intentions…

Despite some truly groundbreaking comics creativity the Silver Surfer remained a disappointing seller and with #8 (September 1969) the title was reduced to a standard 20 page story format and boosted to monthly frequency in an attempt to bolster and build on the regular readership.

With Dan Adkins lavishly inking John Buscema, Lee’s stories also became more action-adventure and less contemporary Passion Play, with ‘Now Strikes the Ghost’ bringing back Mephisto to further plague and imperil the shining sentinel by resurrecting and augmenting the tortured spectre of cruel and callous mariner Captain Joost Van Straaten, promising that phantom eternal peace in return for crushing Norrin Radd.

The Lord of Lies’ sinister scheme ‘…To Steal the Surfer’s Soul!’ concluded in #9 when the hero’s compassion trumped the tormented Flying Dutchman‘s greed and Mephisto’s satanic lust for victory, after which events took another convoluted turn for the solitary starman…

In ‘A World He Never Made!’ Shalla Bal hitched a ride with ambitious and lustful Zenn-Lavian Yarro Gort, who had built a starship to ferry her to Earth and prove he was a more worthy paramour than the long-gone Norrin Radd.

Her silver-metal lover meanwhile had again attempted to integrate with humanity, becoming embroiled in a South American war and saving dedicated rebel Donna Maria Perez from the marauding soldiers of sadistic dictator El Capitan. When the freedom fighter thanked him with a kiss, Gort made sure his ship’s scanners picked up the gesture for Shalla’s benefit…

Issue #11 then saw the sleek star-craft shot down by El Capitan’s forces and Gort join the dictator to build world-conquering weaponry. The combined villains were still no match for the Surfer’s fury, however, but Radd’s joy at being reunited with his true love was quickly crushed when Shalla was gravely injured and he had to despatch her back beyond Galactus’ barrier to be healed in ‘O, Bitter Victory!’

In Silver Surfer #12 Lee, Buscema and Adkins mixed a few genres as ‘Gather Ye Witches!’ found a British coven accidentally summoning gamma-ray mutation the Abomination from exile on a far planet rather than a supernatural slave from Hell and leaving the Skyrider no choice but to battle the brute through the ruins of London, whilst ‘The Dawn of the Doomsday Man!’ in the following issues saw seemingly repentant scientist Dr. Kronton implore the Surfer to destroy an apparently unstoppable killer robot stored in a US military bunker.

The sinister savant only wanted the trusting alien to give him access to a prototype Cobalt bomb, but their unwise invasion triggered the assassin automaton’s awakening anyway…

With sales still falling #14 saw the creative team resort to team-up tactics and ‘The Surfer and the Spider!’ detailed how a typical Marvel misunderstanding led a fighting mad and humiliated Spider-Man to repeatedly attack the gleaming extraterrestrial, accidentally endangering a young boy in the process…

A similar misunderstanding in ‘The Flame and the Fury!’ pitted an angry and distrustful Surfer against former ally the Human Torch, when Norrin Radd misconstrued a military request for aid as a betrayal. The shock and shame left the humbled exile easy prey when a wicked devil hungry for the Surfer’s soul resurfaced in #16’s ‘In the Hands… of Mephisto!’

Inked by Chic Stone, the tale revealed how the tempter abducted the now-healed Shalla Bal from Zenn-La and forced his anguished target to betray his principles to ensure her safety. The saga concluded in ‘The Surfer Must Kill!’ when the vile seducer ordered his victim to destroy peacekeeping espionage force S.H.I.E.L.D., and clandestinely hid the Surfer’s beloved amidst the agents, intending that she die by her oblivious lover’s cosmic-powered hand…

Happily the scheme was foiled, though more by luck than intent, and the poor lass was apparently returned home, but the Surfer’s fate was not so fortunate.

With nothing else working to boost sales, Marvel’s miracle worker returned to his creation but it was too late. Silver Surfer #18 (September 1970) featured ‘To Smash the Inhumans!’ by Lee, Jack Kirby & Herb Trimpe and saw the puzzled, embattled alien philosopher overtaken with rage against all humanity after surviving a misguided attack by Black Bolt and the warriors of hidden city Attilan.

However the “Savagely Sensational New Silver Surfer” promised at the end of that unfinished tale was never seen. Kirby was on his way to DC to create his magnificent Fourth World Trilogy and the bean counters at the House of Ideas had already decreed the Skyrider’s publishing demise.

He vanished into the Limbo of fond memory and occasional guest-shots which afflicted so many costumed characters at the beginning of the 1970s, making way for a wave of supernatural heroes and horrors that capitalised on the periodic revival of interest in magic and mystery fare. It would 1981before Norrin Radd would helm his own title again…

That’s not quite the end of this spectacular monochrome tome, however. As well as information pages starring the Surfer and Mephisto culled from the ever-informative Marvel Universe Handbook, this compulsive comicbook chronicle concludes with the eventful and groundbreaking vignette from Fantastic Four Annual #5 – released in November 1967 – wherein the rapidly rising star-in-the-making got his first solo shot.

‘The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer’ by Lee, Kirby & Frank Giacoia is a pithy fable of cruel ingratitude that reintroduced the Mad Thinker‘s lethal A I assassin Quasimodo…

The Quasi-Motivational Destruct Organ was a malevolent murder machine trapped in a static computer housing which dreamed of being able to move within the real world. Sadly, although its pleas initially found favour with the gullibly innocent stranger from the stars, the killer computer itself had underestimated the power and conscience of its foolish saviour and the gleaming guardian of life was explosively forced to take back the boon he had impetuously bestowed in a bombastic and bravura display of Kirby action and Lee pathos…

The Silver Surfer was always a pristine and iconic character when handled well – and sparingly – and these early forays into a more mature range of adventures, although perhaps a touch heavy-handed, showed that there was far more to comicbooks than cops and robbers or monsters and misfits.

That exploratory experience and mystique of hero as Christ allegory made the series a critically beloved but commercially disastrous cause celebre until eventually financial failure killed the experiment.

After the Lee/Kirby/Ditko sparks had initially fired up the imaginations of readers in the early days, the deeper, subtler overtones and undercurrents offered by stories like these kept a maturing readership enthralled, loyal and abidingly curious as to what else comics could achieve if given half a chance. This fabulously engaging Essential compilation offers the perfect way to discover or recapture the thrill and wonder of those startlingly different days and times.
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essential Fantastic Four volume 7


By Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, Ross Andru, Joe Sinnott & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3063-5

By this seventh collection of tales from “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” the Fantastic Four had settled into a kind of comfortable stylistic nostalgia, although the stories – no longer fuelled by Jack Kirby’s staggeringly inventive imagination and High-Concept conveyor belt of mind-bending ideas – maintained the new taste for urbane melodrama and topically-tinged new characters all wrapped up in soap-opera methodology, science fictive social speculation and super-villain-dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights romps.

It wasn’t Stan and Jack but it stood up on its own terms…

This volume covers Fantastic Four #138-159 (June 1971- August 1973) and includes FF material from Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 and Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2-4 as well as the other half of a rather significant crossover tale from Avengers #127.

In the previous collection the never-ending stress was forcing Sue Richards apart from her husband and Inhuman warrior-princess Medusa had taken her place in the team whilst the Invisible Girl (as she still was) cared for son Franklin, now a toddler with strange, undiagnosed cosmic powers and problems…

Mr. Fantastic was not taking the trial separation well and issue #138 saw him left behind in an increasingly disturbed depressive state when old comrade Wyatt Wingfoot came looking for assistance against impossible, unimaginable disasters.

Madness is… The Miracle Man’ by Gerry Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott began a period when rocky everyman Ben Grimm became the de facto star of the Fantastic Four and here he, the Torch and Medusa travelled to Wingfoot’s tribal lands to battle the former hypnotist they had first seen in their third adventure.

Now, however, thanks to the charlatan’s subsequent studies under ghostly Cheemuzwa medicine men, the maniac actually could alter reality with a thought…

The battle concluded in the next issue wherein ‘Target: Tomorrow!’ saw the villain who could control matter but not himself spiralled frantically out of control with our heroes struggling indomitably on until the Miracle Man made a fatal error…

Reed’s travails took a darkerturn in Fantastic Four # 140 as ‘Annihilus Revealed!’ found the insectoid Negative Zone tyrant kidnapping the ever more powerful Franklin and invading the Baxter Building in search of new worlds to ravage. In triumph the bug horror disclosed his incredible origin to the helpless Wingfoot before dragging all his enemies back to his subspace hell to engineer ‘The End of the Fantastic Four!’

And as the heroes languished in the Negative Zone, on Earth Ben’s girlfriend Alicia was lured to the Balkans by another arch enemy…

However, even though the beaten heroes counterattacked and gained an unlikely victory, Annihilus’ prior tampering with Franklin had triggered a cosmic catastrophe. As the boy’s limitless power began to spiral out of control, his tormented father was compelled to blast the boy, shutting down his mutant brain and everything else.

Appalled at the callous cold calculations needed to put his own son into a coma, Johnny and Ben joined Sue in deserting the grief-stricken Mr. Fantastic and declaring their heroic partnership defunct…

With only ruthlessly pragmatic Medusa remaining, FF #142 saw the shell-shocked Richards with ‘No Friend Beside Him!’ (by Conway & new artist Rich Buckler – whose faithful pastiche of Jack Kirby under Sinnott inking produced a wave of favourable nostalgia in fans then and now) whilst the Thing followed Alicia to Europe.

Here they were attacked by a sinister supernatural horror named Darkoth the Death-Demon even as Johnny and Wyatt headed for Metro College to see their old sports coach Sam Thorne on his way to an Alumni reunion.

Reed was another attendee, despondently dragged there by Medusa, but nobody expected that weird foreign kid who had been expelled so long ago to turn up, leading to ‘The Terrible Triumph of Doctor Doom!’ (Conway, Buckler & Frank Giacoia)…

The Mad Monarch was never one to forgive a slight, real or imagined, and as he gloatingly revealed himself to be the creator of Darkoth and jailer of the Thing he also boasted to his captives of his latest scheme to eradicate human free will.

Typically, though, the Iron Dictator hadn’t considered how his death-demon might react to the news that he was an artificial puppet and the monster’s ‘Attack!’ (#144 with Buckler & Sinnott art) resulted in a cataclysmic clash and Doom’s defeat…

Back together but still disunited, the FF again parted company in #145, as the Torch then accompanied Medusa on a visit to Attilan – the hidden city of the Inhumans – only to be brought down by a lost race of ice people to endure a ‘Nightmare in the Snow!’ (art by Ross Andru & Sinnott).

The snow troglodytes’ plans to turn the world into an ice-ball only they could inhabit went bizarrely awry when the Thing joined the crashed heroes and a dissident faction trained by a Buddhist monk pitched in, leading to a happy ending all round in the concluding ‘Doomsday: 200° Below!’…

This was period of great experimentation and expansion at Marvel and Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 (May 1974) launched as a forerunner in a line of supplementary double-sized titles starring the company’s most popular stars.

In this initial exploratory outing – the title became Giant-Size Fantastic Four with the next quarterly issue – Conway, Buckler & Sinnott crafted ‘The Mind of the Monster!’: a blockbusting battle team-up as Bruce Banner came calling, still seeking a cure for his mean green alter ego and the sympathetic and occasionally self-loathing Thing foolishly let him play with one of Reed’s devices…

Unfortunately their mutual meddling with the Psi-Amplifier only switched their minds leaving the Rampaging Hulk trapped and running amok in the Thing’s body whilst Ben/Hulk struggled to stop him.

The situation worsened when trans-dimensional Femizon Thundra pitched in, mistakenly believing she was helping her main squeeze Ben battle a big green monster, and the violence intensified when Reed, Johnny and Medusa got involved in  ‘Someone’s Been Sleeping in My Head’…

Of course in the end it took everybody and a cunning plan to set the world to rights in the spectacular conclusion ‘…And in This Corner: the Incredible Hulk’…

Fantastic Four #147 continued the action-tinged melodrama with ‘The Sub-Mariner Strikes!’ (Conway, Buckler & Sinnott) as Sue started divorce proceedings whilst taking comfort from long-time stalker Prince Namor.

When Reed, Johnny and Ben tried to “rescue” her, the Atlantean thrashed them and she sent them packing…

To add insult to injury the dejected men returned home to find the Baxter Building invaded by the Frightful Four and were forced to fight a ‘War on the Thirty-Sixth Floor!’ Sadly for The Sandman, Wizard and Trapster they had no idea their newest ally Thundra was smitten with the Thing…

Issue #149 then resolved the Sub-Mariner storyline as the undersea emperor invaded New York in ‘To Love, Honour, and Destroy!’, but his awesome attack was only a cunning plan to trick Sue into reconciling with her husband…

Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 then revealed a time-twisting ‘Cataclysm!’ courtesy of Conway, John Buscema & Chic Stone wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher warned of a hapless innocent who had inadvertently altered history thanks to Dr. Doom’s confiscated time machine. Moreover the imposing extraterrestrial expected the FF to fix the problem…

With more than one temporal hot-spot, Reed and Johnny headed for Colonial America to rescue the Father of the Nation in ‘George Washington Almost Slept Here!’ whilst Ben and Medusa crashed into the “Roaring Twenties” and saved the time-lost wanderer from being rubbed out in ‘The Great Grimmsby’…

Thinking their mission accomplished the heroes were astounded to then find themselves trapped in timeless Limbo battling a monstrous giant dubbed Tempus before escaping to their restored origin point in ‘Time Enough for Death!’

For months Johnny had been fretting that his first true love Crystal had decided to marry super-swift mutant Quicksilver but that plot-thread finally closed with a 2-part crossover tale that began in Avengers #127 as ‘Bride and Doom!’ (by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema & Joe Staton) saw the Assemblers travel to the hidden homeland of the Inhumans for the marriage of the aforementioned Pietro to elemental enchantress and Royal Princess only to stumble into a uprising of the genetic slave-race known as Alpha Primitives.

Once again the sinister robotic colossus Omega had incited revolt but this time it wasn’t insane usurper Maximus behind the skulduggery but an old Avengers enemy who revealed himself in the concluding chapter in Fantastic Four #150.

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

FF #151 then began revealing the truth about the mysterious Femizon as ‘Thundra and Lightning!’ introduced the male-dominated alternate Future Earth dubbed Machus and its brutal despot Mahkizmo, the Nuclear Man, who explosively invaded the Baxter Building in search of a mate to dominate and a new world to conquer…

Inked by Jim Mooney #152 revealed ‘A World of Madness Made!’ as the team were held captive in the testosterone dimension whilst Medusa seemingly fled, but actually sought reinforcements from the diametrically-opposed Femizon future alternity, resulting in two universes crashing together in the concluding ‘Worlds in Collision!’ by Tony Isabella, Buckler & Sinnott.

Reworked by Len Wein, Fantastic Four #154 featured ‘The Man in the Mystery Mask!’ – a partial reprint from Strange Tales#127 in which Stan Lee, Dick Ayers & Paul Reinman pitted Ben and Johnny against ‘The Mystery Villain!’.

Here, however, Bob Brown, Giacoia & Mike Esposito found that Reed’s early lesson in leadership had been hijacked by another old friend with explosive and annoying results…

The next extra-special adventure in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3 revealed ‘Where Lurks Death …Ride the Four Horsemen!’ as Conway, Marv Wolfman, Buckler & Sinnott described the invasion of cosmic aliens intent on scourging the Earth. Forewarned after the team battled the first horror in ‘…There Shall Come Pestilence’, the harried heroes split up with Medusa and Johnny striving against international madness in ‘…And War Shall Take the Land!’ whilst Reed and Ben strove to conquer the personification of Famine in ‘…And the Children Shall Hunger!’, before all reuniting to wrap up the final invader in‘…All in the Valley of Death!’

A minor classic followed in Fantastic Four #155-157 as the long dormant Silver Surfer resurfaced in ‘Battle Royal!’ (by Wein, Buckler & Sinnott), apparently a murderous and willing thrall of Doctor Doom.

The dictator could command the Shining Skyrider because he held the alien’s lover Shalla Bal – had indeed threatened to take her in marriage – but as seen in ‘Middle Game!’ (with Roy Thomas joining as co-writer and Editor) the Surfer could not kill and merely delivered the FF as prisoners to the Devil Doctor’s citadel.

However there were schemes within schemes unfolding and Doom was playing a waiting game whilst he covertly stole the Skyrider’s Power Cosmic to fuel a deadly Doomsman mechanoid…

With Thomas in full authorial control ‘And Now… the Endgame Cometh!’ saw the heroes fight back to conquer the Lethal Latverian, but all were blithely unaware that the entire charade had been a crafty confection of malign and manipulative demon Mephisto…

Meanwhile over in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4 Wein, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Chic Stone & Sinnott united to introduce ‘Madrox the Multiple Man’, a young mutant who had grown up on an isolated farm unaware of the incredible power he possessed.

When his parents passed away the kid was inexplicably drawn to New York but the hi-tech suit he wore to contain his condition began to malfunction and the boy became a mobile fission device that could endlessly, lethally replicate itself…

Thankfully the FF were aided by mutant Moses Charles Xavier who took young Jamie under his wing…

This formidable high tension Fights ‘n’ Tights tome terminates with another nostalgia-tinged 2-part epic which began in FF #158’s ‘Invasion from the 5th (Count it, 5th!) Dimension’ by Thomas, Buckler & Sinnott, wherein one of the Torch’s earliest solo scourges returned to occupy the land of the Inhumans.

Extra-dimensional dictator Xemu began his campaign of vengeance by dispatching Quicksilver to lure Medusa back to Attilan. The intention was to make the defiant Black Bolt utilise his doomsday sonic power on the invader’s behalf, but the conqueror needed the silent king’s beloved as a bargaining chip.

However, when the FF accompanied her into the obvious trap, they brought a hidden ally who unobtrusively turned the tables on Xemu, unleashing ‘Havoc in the Hidden Land!‘ and thereby at last reuniting the First Family of comicbook fiction…

This power-packed package also includes unused cover versions for Fantastic Four #141, 155 and 156 to add to the overall Costumed Drama and delight fans everywhere.

Although Kirby had taken the unmatched imagination and questing sense of wonder with him on his departure, the sheer range of beloved characters and concepts he had created with Stan Lee carried the series for years afterwards. So once writers who shared the originators’ sensibilities were crafting the stories a mini-renaissance began…

Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” didn’t quite return to the stratospheric heights of yore, this period offered fans a tantalising taste of the glory days and these solid, honest and intriguing efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and enthral the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 1973, 1973, 1973, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.