Marvel Essentials – Page 3

March 23, 2014March 22, 2014

Fantastic Four: First Family

By Joe Casey, Chris Weston & Gary Erskine (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1703-2

The Fantastic Four has long been considered the most pivotal series in modern comicbook history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions.

More a family than a team, the roster has changed many times over the years but always eventually returns to theÂ original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, who have together formed the vanguard of modern four-colour heroic history.

The quartet are actually maverick genius Reed Richards, his wife Sue, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious and impetuous younger brother Johnny Storm; survivors of an independent, non-governmental space-shot which went horribly wrong once ferociously mutative Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found that they had all been hideously changed into outlandish freaks.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and form force-fields, Johnny could turn into self-perpetuating living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

The sheer simplicity of four archetypes – mercurial boffin, self-effacing distaff, solid everyman and hot-headed youth, uniting to triumph over accident and adversity – shone under Stan Lee’s irreverent humanity coupled to Jack Kirby’s rampant imagination and sense of adventure.

However, after decades of erratic quality and floundering plotlines following the original creators’ departures, Marvel’s First Family began a steady climb in quality at the beginning of the 21^st century which culminated in their own blockbuster film franchise.

To augment the increased casual interest, in 2006 a canny, edgy retelling of the team’s earliest days was produced as a 6-issue miniseries by scripter Joe Casey and illustrators Chris Weston & Gary Erskine, re-examining the quartet’s coming to terms with their new status in terms far more in keeping with the cynical, jaded 21^st centuryâ€¦

It opens with ‘There’s Was a Crashâ€¦’ as USAF General Walter Montgomery is called to a top secret military installation where four survivors of a fallen space-shot are being held. They were human once but have been hideously mutated by Cosmic radiation.â€¦

The boy keeps bursting into flames, whilst his older sister is totally transparent. The pilot has become a rock-like atrocity and the General’s old friend Dr. Richards has been reduced to a catatonic mound of shapeless flesh.

His coma has nothing to do with the accident however. The scientist is locked into a cerebral mindscape where he is being lectured to by a fifth cosmic ray survivorâ€¦

The entity is explaining some facts of life. The facility they are in is a Air Force base designed to hold a variety of cosmically mutated humans. This is not the Government’s first Rodeoâ€¦

In ‘Late-Night Creeping’ Sue Storm surreptitiously escapes her cell to check on her companions, but boyfriend Reed is still beyond reach inside his own head. Dr. Franz Stahl is currently explaining to him that a fallen meteor supercharged with C-radiation has been transforming humans under USAF supervision for months and his own forced evolution is the most significant result.

Seeing Richards as a kindred spirit, the mind-ghost shares his radical theories of evolutionary dominance with his fellow future man but Richards remains unconvincedâ€¦

‘The Afterburn’ sees Ben Grimm’s fiancÃ©e run screaming from him and prompting a minor riot, allowing Stahl to take matters into his own psychic hands and instigate a further distracting crisis. Provoking one of his fellow monstrous transformees to go on a ‘Cosmic Ray Rampage’, the doctor escapes whilst the super-powered quartet gamely assist the soldiers in stopping the unholy horror.

In return Montgomery agrees to release the four on their own recognizance with assurances of Federal backingâ€¦

‘Remember the Alamo’ occurs just after the events of Fantastic Four #1, beginning when the heroes escape the atomic destruction of Mole Man‘s Monster Island. Reed later briefs Montgomery and they plan to formalise the team. However, Reed is still being regularly mentally shanghaied by Stahl, whose agenda to improve humanity begins with the culling of his own far-too mundane family in ‘Domestic Disturbance’â€¦

Ben then heads for a disastrous drink in his old neighbourhood in ‘The Homecoming Dance’ even as Johnny, Reed and Sue all realise that their old â€œnormalâ€ lives are forever denied them.

A Mole Man monster resurfaces in New York ready for ‘Round Two’ and Franz again tries to convince the elastic hero to aid his plan to forcibly fix mankind, but Sue begins to worry that her man has lost all interest in a normal domestic futureâ€¦

After General Montgomery sets up the four in a fabulous new, government funded HQ – The Baxter Building – the outcasts quickly begin to fall apart in ‘The Ties That Bind’ and no one is available when Stahl invades the Air Force’s secret Cosmic facility in ‘Evolutionary Modern’, intent on taking the life-warping meteor

In ‘Cold, Hardâ€¦’ Sue, Johnny and Ben discuss Reed’s distraction and underhandedness whilst the subject of their grievances has opted to tackle Franz in ‘Alone + Easy Target’â€¦

As they rush to save him, Reed is locked in psychic combat with Stahl, who has used the meteor to mutate the base personnel into a legion of monsters and has begun his ‘Extinction Event’ for humanity. The battered hero is losing however until his erstwhile cosmic comrades fight their way in and are pulled into the mental arena of ‘Signs and Salvation’ to happily tip the balanceâ€¦

The titanic battle ends with a ‘Mind’s Eye Open’ leaving the four closer than ever and set upon together ‘Finding Destiny’â€¦

Dark, grimly post-modern and disregarded by many purists, First Family nevertheless offers a compelling rationalisation of epochal events from simpler times framed in the context of a more cynical century and certainly inviting to fans of a more grounded, less optimistic society. It’s also a pretty good yarn for open-minded fans who love the baroque theatrics of modern superhero stories.
Â© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

January 18, 2014January 17, 2014

Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 2

By Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Tom DeFalco, John Byrne, Peter Gillis, Bill Mantlo, Alan Kupperberg, Mary Jo Duffy, Steven Grant, Ron Wilson, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Frank Miller & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1729-2

Innovation isn’t everything. As Marvel slowly grew to a position of dominance in the wake of losing their two most inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding and exploiting proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was the en masse creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

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

Although confident in their new title, they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those long-lost days editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

Nevertheless, after the runaway success of Spider-Man‘s Marvel Team-Up the House of Ideas carried on the trend 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 team-up title, of which this second economical, eclectic monochrome compendium gathers together the contents of Marvel Two-In-One #26-52 plus Annual‘s #2 and 3, covering April 1977- June 1979.

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

Here the tactic begins with busy bombast in ‘The Fixer and Mentallo are Back and the World will Never be the Same!’ (illustrated by Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos) which unites Ben with Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. battling a brace of conniving bad guys trying to steal killer-cyborg-from-an-alternate-future Deathlok .

The heroes spectacularly failed and the artificial assassin then co-featured in #27 as ‘Day of the Demolisher!’ found the now-reprogrammed killer targeting new US President Jimmy Carter. This time Big Ben had an alien ace up his sleeve and the hit failedâ€¦

The tempestuous Sub-Mariner shared the watery limelight in #28 as the Thing and his blind girlfriend Alicia Masters ferried the deactivated Deathlok to a London-based boffin. When they were shot down in mid-Atlantic by a mutated fish-man, Ben was forced to fight against and beside Namor whilst Alicia languished ‘In the Power of the Piranha!’ (with John Tartaglione inks).

Master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi then stepped in as Ben and Alicia finally landed in London. ‘Two Against Hydra’ (Sam Grainger inks) saw aforementioned expert Professor Kort snatched by the sinister secret society before the Thing could consult him: the savant’s knowledge being crucial to Hydra’s attempts to revive their newest living weaponâ€¦

As part of Marvel’s obsessive ongoing urge to protect their trademarks, a number of their top male characters had been spun off into female iterations. Thus at the end of 1976 Ms. Marvel debuted (with a January 1977 cover-date), She-Hulk arrived at the end of 1979 (Savage She-Hulk #1 February 1980) and Jessica Drew premiered in Marvel Spotlight #32 a mere month after Ms. Marvel as The Spider-Womanâ€¦

Her next appearance in Marvel Two-In-One #29 (July 1977) began an extended six-chapter saga which was designed as a promotional lead-in to her own series and ‘Battle Atop Big Ben!’ in #30 (by Wolfman, John Buscema & Marcos) saw her logo beside the Thing’s as she struggled to be free of her Hydra controllers, even as a couple of thieves embroiled Ben and Alicia in a complex and arcane robbery scheme involving a strange chest buried under Westminster Abbey.

Although the Arachnid Dark Angel was unable to kill Ben she did kidnap Alicia, who became ‘My Sweetheartâ€¦ My Killer!’ (#31 by Wilson & Grainger) once Kort and Hydra transformed the helpless waif into a spidery monster. In #32’s ‘And Only the Invisible Girl Can Save us Now!’ (Marcos inks) Sue Storm joined the repentant Spider-Woman and distraught Thing in battling/curing the out-of-control Alicia whilst those two robbers continued their long-term campaign of acquisition and accidentally awoke a quartet of ancient elemental horrors.

It took the Arthurian sorcerer Modred the Mystic to help Spider-Woman and Ben triumph over the monsters in the concluding ‘From Stonehengeâ€¦ With Death!’ before a semblance of normality was restoredâ€¦

Back to business as usual in Marvel Two-In-One #34, Ben and sky-soaring Defender Nighthawk tackled a revivified and cruelly misunderstood alien freed from an antediluvian cocoon in ‘A Monster Walks Among Us!’ (Wolfman, Wilson & Marcos) before Ernie Chan stepped in to illustrate a 2-part wrap-up to one of Marvel’s recently folded series.

Issue # 35 saw the Thing dispatched by the Air Force through a time-portal in the Bermuda Triangle to a fantastic world of dinosaurs, robots, dinosaurs, E.T.’s and dinosaurs as ‘Enter: Skull the Slayer and Exit: The Thing’ detailed the short history and imminent deaths of a group of modern Americans trapped in a bizarre time-lost land.

Marooned in the past it took the intervention of best buddy Mister Fantastic to retrieve Ben and his new friends in #36’s ‘A Stretch in Timeâ€¦’

Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2 then provided the second half of a landmark story, by Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein, which completed a tale which began in Avengers Annual #7 (not included here).

In that missing episode, the World’s Mightiest Superheroes in combination with Captain Marvel and cosmic wanderer Adam Warlock had forestalled a massed alien assault and prevented the Dark Titan Thanos from destroying the Sun – but only at the cost of Warlock’s life.

Now, in ‘Death Watch!’, Peter Parker was plagued by prophetic nightmares, revealing how the Titan had snatched victory from defeat and now held the Avengers captive whilst he again prepared to extinguish Sol.

With nowhere else to turn, Spider-Man headed for the BaxterBuilding,Â hoping to borrow a spacecraft, unaware that the Thing also had history with the terrifying, death-obsessed Titan.

Although utterly overmatched, the unlikely champions of Life upset Thanos’ plans enough that the Avengers’ and the Universe’s true agent of retribution was able to end the threat forever – or at least until next timeâ€¦

Marvel Two-In-One‘s apparent function as a clearing-house for old, unresolved series and plot-lines was then put on hold for awhile as issue #37 teamed Ben with Matt Murdock (alter ego of Daredevil) for ‘Game Point!’ (Wolfman, Wilson & Marcos).

Ben had been framed for monstrous acts of wanton destruction, and when the case went badly he faced decades in jail. However, DD and a strange street punk dubbed â€œEugene the Kidâ€ determined that the Mad Thinker was behind the plot to place the ‘Thing Behind Prison Bars’ (by Roger Slifer, Wilson & Jim Mooney) and tackled the maniac whose ultimate game plan was to corner the future and mass-produce his own android Avenger in #39’s ‘The Vision Gambit’ (with inks by Marcos).

Slifer, Tom DeFalco, Wilson & Marcos then detailed a spooky international yarn as the Black Panther became involved in a monstrous reign of terror: a zombie-vampire stalking the streets and abducting prominent African Americans. The concluding part – ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ (David Kraft, Wilson & Marcos) – saw Jericho Drumm (AKA Brother Voodoo) volunteer his extremely specialised services to Ben and T’Challa, in hopes of ending the crisisâ€¦

The trail took the heroes to Uganda for a confrontation with Doctor Spectrum and the far more dangerous real-world crazy killer Idi Aminâ€¦

Marvel Two-In-One #42 then introduced a mainstay of the Marvel Universe as Project Pegasus debuted in ‘Entropy, Entropy’ by Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Alfredo Alcala & Sam Grainger

The Federal research station designated the Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States was dedicated to investigating alternative power sources and soon became the most sensible place to dump energy-wielding super-baddies once they were subdued.

Ben found and started trashing the place whilst tracking down his educationally- and emotionally-challenged ward Wundarr who had been renditioned by the Government, only to be contained by Captain America in his role as security advisor. They were only just in time to stumble over a sabotage scheme by martial maniac Victorius who unleashed a deadly new threat in the ghostly form of Jude, the Entropic Manâ€¦

This phantasmic force easily trounced Cap and Ben but found the macabre Man-Thing a little bit harder to handle in the concluding episode ‘The Day the World Winds Down’ (Macchio, John Byrne – & Friends – & Bruce Patterson)â€¦

Marvel Two-In-One Annual #3 then offered an old-fashioned, great big world-breaking blockbuster in which Nova the Human Rocket battled beside the Thing to free captive alien princesses and save the Earth from gigantic cosmos-marauding space invaders – a simple yet entertaining tussle entitled ‘When Strike the Monitors!’ carefully crafted by Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt.

Back in the monthly comicbook issue #44 strayed away from standard fare with ‘The Wonderful World of Brother Benjamin J. Grimm’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall & Giacoia) with the Thing telling rowdy kids a rather fanciful bedtime story concerning his recent partnership with Hercules to free Olympus from invading giantsâ€¦

In issue #45 Captain Marvel’s Cosmic Awareness warned him that the Thing had been targeted by vengeful Skrulls in ‘The Andromeda Rub-Out!’ (Peter Gillis, Kupperberg & Esposito), after which the Incredible Hulk‘s new TV show compelled an outraged Ben to head for Hollywood, only to become embroiled in ‘Battle in Burbank!’ (Alan Kupperberg & Chic Stone)

Perpetual gadflies The Yancy Street Gang headlined in MT-I-O #47 as ‘Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!’ (Bill Mantlo & Stone) saw a cybernetic tyrant take over Ben’s old neighbourhood. The invasion ended – once awesome energy powerhouse Jack of Hearts joined the fight against ‘My Master, Machinesmith!’ in #48 by Mantlo, Stone & Tex Blaisdell.

Mary Jo Duffy, Kupperberg & Gene Day then piled on the spooky laughs in #49 as the ‘Curse of Crawl-Inswood’ saw Doctor Strange manipulate Ben into helping him crush a supernatural incursion in a quaint and quiet seaside resort.

The anniversary issue #50 was everything a special issue should be. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ by Byrne & Joe Sinnott took a powerful and poignant look at the Thing’s history as a monster outcast and posited a few what-might-have-beensâ€¦

Following another failure to cure his rocky condition, Ben steals the chemical and travels into his own past, determined to use the remedy on his younger, less mutated self, but his bitter, brooding, brittle earlier incarnation is hardly prepared to listen to another monster and inevitable catastrophic combat ensuesâ€¦

Issue #51 was even better. ‘Full Houseâ€¦ Dragons High!’ by Gillis, up-&-coming artist Frank Miller & Bob McLeod, detailed how a weekly poker session at Avengers Mansion was interrupted by rogue US General Pollock, who again tried to conquer America with stolen technology. Happily Ben and Nick Fury found Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man and the Beast better combat comrades than Poker opponentsâ€¦

This mammoth tome ends on a sinister paranoic note with Marvel Two-In-One #52 and ‘A Little Knight Music!’ (by Steven Grant, Jim Craig & Marcos), as the mysterious Moon Knight joins the Thing in stopping CIA Psy-Ops master Crossfire from brainwashing the city’s superheroes into killing each otherâ€¦

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 many timeless classics, still as captivating today as they always were.

Even if artistically the work varies from only adequate to quite superb, most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s lots 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 itâ€¦
Â© 1977, 1978, 1979, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

January 5, 2014January 4, 2014

Essential Avengers volume 7

By Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George PÃ©rez, Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4453-3

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

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

This monumental seventh monochrome tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ extraordinary exploits from issues #140-163 of their monthly comicbook (spanning November 1975-September 1975), also includes material from Avengers Annual #6 plus a crossover appearance from Super-Villain Team-Up #9.

This era saw revered and multi-award winning scripter Steve Englehart surrender the writing reins to Gerry Conway during a period of painful recurring deadline problems – before neophyte wunderkind Jim Shooter came aboard to stabilise and reshape the cosmology and history of the Marvel Universe through the adventures of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroesâ€¦

Opening this epochal tome is ‘The Phantom Empire!’ (Avengers #141, by Englehart, George PÃ©rez & Vince Colletta), which began another complex, multi-layered epic combining superheroic Sturm und Drang with searing – for 1975, at least – political commentary.

It all began when new member The Beast was ambushed by mercenaries from corporate behemoth Roxxon Oil.

He was saved by ex-Avenger Captain America who had been investigating the company on a related case and, after comparing notes, realised something very big and very bad was going onâ€¦

Linking up with Thor, Iron Man, other trainee Moondragon and the newly returned newlyweds Vision and Scarlet Witch, the pair learned of another crisis building as Hawkeye had gone missing, probably captured by time tyrant Kang the Conquerorâ€¦

Just as the Assemblage was agreeing to split into teams, former child model Patsy Walker-Baxter (star of a bunch of Marvel’s girl’s market comics such as Patsy Walker and Patsy & Hedy) burst in, threatening to expose Beast’s secret identityâ€¦

When he had first further mutated, Hank McCoy had attempted to mask his anthropoid form and Patsy had helped him in return for his promise to make her a superhero. Now she had resurfaced prepared to use blackmail to make him honour his vow. She got dragged along as one squad (Cap, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Vision) joined Beast’s as he returned to his old lab at Brand/Roxxonâ€¦ where they were ambushed by alternate Earth heroes the Squadron Supremeâ€¦

Moondragon and Thor meanwhile co-opted sometime ally Immortus and followed Hawkeye back to 1873 but were also bushwhacked, finding themselves battling Kang beside a coterie of cowboy legends including Kid Colt, Night Rider, Ringo Kid, Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid in ‘Go West, Young Gods!’ even as the present-day team learned that their perilous plight involved a threat to two different dimensions’ situations because Roxxon had joined with the corporations which had taken over the Squadron Supreme’s America – thanks to the malignly mesmeric Serpent Crown of Setâ€¦

The Wild West showdown culminated in the apparent death of a deity in ‘Right Between the Eons!’ (Avengers #143, inked by Sam Grainger). Elsewhen, the 20^th century heroes were beginning their counterattack in the esoteric weaponry factory at Brand, and during all that running wild the heroes found the technologically advanced, ability-enhancing uniform of short-lived adventurer The Cat in a storeroom.

When Patsy put it on the hero-groupie neophyte dubbed herself Hellcat in ‘Claws!’ (Mike Esposito inks)â€¦

Soon after, the Avengers were cornered by the Squadron and as battle recommenced Roxxon president Hugh Jones played his trump card and transported all the combatants to the other Earthâ€¦

The dreaded deadline doom hit just at this crucial juncture and issues #145-146 were taken up with a 2-part fill-in by Tony Isabella, Don Heck & John Tartaglione with additional pencils by Keith Pollard for the concluding chapter.

‘The Taking of the Avengers!’ revealed how a criminal combine had taken out a colossal contract on the World’s Mightiest Superheroes but even though ‘The Assassin Never Fails!’ the killer was thwarted and Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Beast, Vision and Scarlet Witch – plus Wasp, Yellowjacket and the Falcon all safely returned to their various cases untroubled by the vagaries of continuity or chronology which makes this rather impressive yarn such a annoyance in this specific instanceâ€¦

The trans-dimensional traumas finally resumed in Avengers #147 which described the ‘Crisis on Other-Earth!’ (Englehart, PÃ©rez & Colletta). With the corporate takeover of the other America revealed to have been facilitated by use of the mind-bending mystical serpent crown, the Scarlet Witch took possession of the sinister helm and her team-mates tried desperately to keep the overwhelming Squadron Supreme from regaining it.

On our Earth Hawkeye brought Two-Gun Kid to the modern world but decided to go walkabout rather than rejoin his fellow Avengers even as Thor and Moondragon began searching for their missing colleaguesâ€¦

It was back to business in #148 as ‘20,000 Leagues Under Justice!’ (Grainger) featured the final showdown and the Avengers’ victory over a wiser and repentant Squadron Supreme, and as the heroes returned to their home dimension ‘The Gods and the Gang!’ reunited them with Moondragon and the Thunder God to clean up Brand/Roxxon. The Corporate cabal still had one trick left to play however: a colossal and biologically augmented Atlantean dubbed Orka, the Human Killer Whaleâ€¦

Avengers #150 saw an official changing of the guard as ‘Avengers Assemble’ by Englehart, PÃ©rez, Tartaglione & Duffy Vohland – supplemented part-way through by half of ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (reprinted from #16 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) â€“ settled the membership question and made way for new scripter Gerry Conway in #151 whose ‘At Last: The Decision’ (with additional scripting by Jim Shooter & Englehart and art from PÃ©rez & Tartaglione) set the group off on new, less cosmic adventures.

No sooner had the long-delayed announcement been made (this membership drive had begun in Avengers #137 after all) though, than a mysterious crate disgorged the long-dead body of Wonder Man which shockingly shambled to its feet and accused the stunned android Vision of stealing his mindâ€¦

Long ago Simon Williams had been turned into a human powerhouse by arch-villain Baron Zemo and used as a Trojan horse to infiltrate the team, but eventually gave his life to redeem himself. After he was buried his brain patterns were used to provide an operating system for The Vision, inadvertently creating a unique human personality for the cold thing of plastic wires and metalâ€¦

In #152 ‘Nightmare in New Orleans!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear as the team began a search for the fallen Wonder Man’s grave robber/re-animator, in a tale by Conway, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott which soon found the team facing voodoo lord Black Talon in New Orleansâ€¦

‘Home is the Hero!’ reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank (AKA super fast superhero The Whizzer). In a tragic tale of desperation the aged speedster sought the heroes’ help before he was seemingly possessed and attacked the team.

Avengers Annual #6 answered all the mysteries and wrapped up the storyline with ‘No Final Victory’ (illustrated by PÃ©rez, Esposito, Tartaglione & Vohland), as a conspiracy involving the Serpent-helmed Living Laser, Whizzer’s government-abducted son mutant son Nuklo and rogue US Army General Pollock almost succeeded in conquering California if not America – until the resurgent Avengers laid down the lawâ€¦

Also included in the annual – and here – was ‘Night Vision’ by Scott Edelman & Herb Trimpe: a stirring solo story of the Android Avenger battling super swift psychopath Whirlwind.

In Avengers #154 ‘When Strikes Attuma?’ Conway, PÃ©rez & Pablo Marcos began a blockbuster battle bonanza which was in part a crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up (this series followed the uneasy coalition of Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner). The initial chapter found the Vision captured by subsea barbarian Attuma even as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were ambushed and defeated by the warlord’s augmented Atlantean thrall Tyrak the Treacherous.

The scheme was simple enough: use the enslaved surface champions as cannon fodder in an assault against Namorâ€¦

At this time US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had recently signed a non-aggression pact with the Dictator of Latveria with Doom subsequently blackmailing the Sub-Mariner into serving as his unwilling ally. One American vigilante observed no such legal or diplomatic niceties. The Shroud thought he had freed the Atlantean from his vow by â€œkillingâ€ Doom but the villain had survived the assault: rescued and secretly imprisoned by Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namorita and girlfriend Tamara under the misguided apprehension that they could force the Metal-shod Monarch into helping Atlantis and their lost Prince.

SVT-U #9 carried on the epic encounter with the heroes now ‘Pawns of Attuma’ (scripted by Bill Mantlo, drawn by Jim Shooter & Sal Trapani) as the Avengers were unleashed upon the Atlanteans, only to discover Doom now in charge and easily able to thwart their half-hearted assault.

In Avengers #155 the beaten heroes were helpless, leaving only confused, despondent and battle-crazed Namor ‘To Stand Alone!’ (Conway Perez & Marcos), joined by lone stragglers the Beast, Whizzer and Wonder Man to hunt down the triumphant barbarian sea lord.

The epic conclusion came in ‘The Private War of Doctor Doom!’ (Avengers#156, by Shooter, with art from Sal Buscema & Marcos) wherein the liberated and furious heroes joined forces to crush Attuma whilst simultaneously preventing Doom from turning the situation to his own world-conquering advantageâ€¦

In #157 ‘A Ghost of Stone!’ (Conway, Heck & Marcos) addressed a long-unresolved mystery of the Black Knight – his body had been petrified whilst his soul was trapped in the 12^th century – as a strange force reanimated the statue and set it upon the weary heroes, after which ‘When Avengers Clash!!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) saw the revived and now fully-recovered Wonder Man clash with an impossibly jealous Vision over the Scarlet Witch.

That Wanda loved the android Avenger was seemingly forgotten as his â€œborrowedâ€ brain patterns fixated on the logical assumption that eventually his flesh-and-blood wife would gravitate to a normal man with his personality rather than stay married to a mere mobile mechanismâ€¦

Domestic tantrums were quickly laid aside when the entire team – plus late arrivals Black Panther and Thor) battled research scientist Frank Hall following an accident which gave him complete control over the forces of gravityâ€¦

Apparently unstoppable, Graviton almost destroyed New York in #159 as ‘Siege by Stealth and Storm!’ (Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos) resulted in a savage clash and the unbeatable villain defeating himselfâ€¦

Avengers #160 featured Eric Williams, the deranged Grim Reaper. With portentous hints of a hidden backer and his dead brother seemingly returned, he conducted ‘â€¦The Trial!’ (Shooter, PÃ©rez & Marcos) to see whether Wonder Man or the Vision was the â€œtrueâ€ Simon Williamsâ€¦ but didn’t like the answer he gotâ€¦

The next issue extended the sub-plot as ‘Beware the Ant-Man’ found the team attacked by a frenzied Henry Pym, whose mind had regressed to mere days after the Avengers first formed. The crazed hero had allied with the homicidal robot he no longer remembered creating and was unwittingly helping it build ‘The Bride of Ultron!’ (#162), pitifully oblivious that for the almost completed Jocasta to live his own wife Janet had to dieâ€¦

At the close the Avengers believed they had finally destroyed the murderous mechanoid, but they were wrongâ€¦

This classic collection of costumed clashes closes with Shooter, George Tuska & Marcos’ stand-alone tale ‘The Demi-God Must Die!’ wherein mythological maniac Typhon returns to capture the team. Despite forcing Iron Man to attack Hercules (to save his hostage Avenging comrades), and even after lots of spectacular smashing, the scheme naturally fails and the World’s Mightiest are triumphant againâ€¦

This type of heroic adventure might not be to every reader’s taste but these – and the truly epic yarns that followed – set the tone for fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas for decades to come and can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, even here in the so slick and cool 21^st centuryâ€¦

No lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book and fans who think themselves above superhero stories might also be pleasantly surprisedâ€¦
Â© 1975, 1976, 1977, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

May 30, 2013May 29, 2013

Essential Killraven

By Don McGregor & P. Craig Russell, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Neal Adams, Herb Trimpe, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1777-3

When the first flush of the 1960s superhero revival began to fade at the end of the decade Marvel, who had built their own resurgent renaissance on the phenomenon, began desperately casting around for new concepts to sustain their hard-won impetus. The task was especially difficult as the co-architect of their success (and the greatest and most experienced ideas-man in comics) had jumped ship to arch-rival National/DC, where Jack’s Kirby’s battalion of Fourth World series, The Demon, Kamandi, Last Boy on Earth and other innovations were opening up new worlds of adventure to the ever-changing readership.

Although a global fascination with the supernatural had gripped the public – resulting in a huge outpouring of mystery and horror comics – other tried-and-true genre favourites were also revived and rebooted for modern sensibilities: westerns, war, humour, romance, sword & sorcery and science fictionâ€¦

At this time Stan Lee’s key assistant, star writer, ex-English teacher and lover of literature Roy Thomas was increasingly dictating the direction of Marvel: creating new concepts and securing properties that could given the â€œMarvel Treatmentâ€.

The policy had paid huge dividends with the creation of new titles Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night, whilst the brilliantly compelling Conan the Barbarian had quickly resulted in a whole new comicbook genusâ€¦

This compilation collects the bold and mercurial science-fiction thriller from Amazing Adventures #18-39, the saga’s nominal conclusion in Marvel Graphic Novel #7, a rare crossover appearance from Marvel Team-Up #45 and the 2001 Marvel Knights one-shot Killraven #1: an eclectic and admittedly inconsistent hero-history that has at times been Marvel’s absolute best and strong contender for worst character, in a sporadic career that spanned May 1973 to 1983 with occasional revivals and near-conclusions ever since.

The feature struggled for a long time to carve out a solid identity for itself, but finally found a brilliantly effective and fantastically poetic voice when scripter Don McGregor arrived – and stayed – slowly recreating the potential epic into a perfectly crafted examination of contemporary American society in crisis; proving the old adage that all science fiction is about the Present and not the Futureâ€¦.

He was ideally complimented in his task by fellow artisan P. Craig Russell whose beautifully raw yet idealised art matured page by page over the long, hard months he illustrated the author’s increasingly powerful and evocative scripts.

The dystopian tomorrow first dawned in Amazing Adventures #18, conceived by Thomas & Neal Adams, but scripted by Gerry Conway, wherein a ‘Prologue: 2018 A.D.’ introduced a New York City devastated by invasion and overrun by mutants, monsters and cyborgs all scavenging for survival. The creative process was a very troubled one. Adams left the project in the middle of illustrating the debut episode, leaving Howard Chaykin & Frank Chiaramonte to finish the tale of how a refugee mother lost her life defending her two boys from terrifying alien Tripods and vile human turncoats who had early switched allegiance to their revolting, human-eating new mastersâ€¦

Young warrior and escaped gladiator Killraven then overcame all odds to kill a monstrous genetic manipulator dubbed the Keeper and save his brother Joshua, only to discover his sibling long gone and his despised tormentor grateful for death.

The elderly scientist had been compelled to perform many mutagenic experiments for his alien masters but had secretly enacted a Machiavellian double-cross, creating hidden powers in Jonathan Raven which might eventually overthrow the conquerors.

All the boy had to do was survive their horrific arena games until he was old enough to rebel against the Martians who had occupied Earth since 2001â€¦

With his dying breath, Keeper provided his uneducated murderer with the history of ‘The War of the Worlds!’: of Free Mankind’s furious futile, atomic last stand and how the conquerors had possessed the shattered remnant of Earthâ€¦

He reveals how his gladiatorial training and scientific abuses shaped Killraven into the perfect tool of liberation and retribution, even to the warrior’s recent escape and first attempts at raising a resistance movementâ€¦

However just as the story ends the liberator realises he has tarried too long as mutant monsters close inâ€¦

The adventure resumed in #19 as the rebel narrowly escaped the psionic snares of ‘The Sirens of 7^th Avenue’ (Conway, Chaykin & Frank McLaughlin) and the myriad terrors of the devastated metropolis to link up with second-in-command M’Shulla and strike a heavy blow against the alien butchers by destroying two hulking mechanical Tripods.

Newly elevated to the status of genuine threat to the conquerors, the rebels planned a raid on a New Jersey base but were instead captured by the mesmerising Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens, who handed them over to the Martian in charge of the cityâ€¦

Forced to fight a mutated monstrosity in the alien’s private arena, Killraven unexpectedly turned the tables and drove off the gelatinous horror before boldly declaring that he was the guardian of Mankind’s heritage and would make Earth free againâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #20 was written by Marv Wolfman, with Herb Trimpe & Frank Giacoia illustrating ‘The Warlord Strikes!’, wherein the Freemen raided a museum and acquired weapons and armaments even as Killraven got himself a new look.

Easily defeating the traitorous lackeys of the Martian Masters the rebels were blithely unaware that the carnivorous extraterrestrial devils were deploying their latest tool: a cruelly augmented old enemy who hunted them down and easily overcame their primitive guns, swords and cross bows with his own onboard cyborg arsenalâ€¦

The ambitious series was already floundering and dearly needed a firm direction and steady creative hands, so it’s lucky that the concluding chapter in #21 (November 1973) saw the debut of Don F. McGregor, a young ambitious and lyrically experimental writer who slowly brought depth of character and plot cohesiveness to a strip which had reached uncanny levels of clichÃ© in only three issues.

With Trimpe & â€œYolande Pijckeâ€ illustrating, ‘The Mutant Slayers!’ began the necessary task of re-establishing the oppressive, hopeless, all-pervasive horror and loss of Well’s original novel.

Determined to translate the concept into modern terms for the new generation of intellectual, comics-reading social insurgent, McGregor also took the opportunity to introduce the first of a string of complex, controversial and, above all, powerful female characters into the mixâ€¦

Carmilla Frost was a feisty, sharp-tongued geneticist and molecular biologist ostensibly faithful to her Martian masters, but she took the earliest opportunity to betray their local human lieutenant and help Killraven and the Freemen escape the brutal clutches of the Warlord.

For her own closely-guarded reasons, she and her bizarrely devoted monster anthropoid Grok the Clonal Man then joined the roving revolutionaries in their quest across the shattered continentâ€¦

In issue #22 (illustrated by Trimpe & Chiaramonte), the motley crew arrived in the former capital and encountered a ‘Washington Nightmare!’ After defeating a band of slavers led by charismatic bravo Sabre, Killraven formed an uneasy alliance with local rebel leader Mint Julep and her exclusively female band of freedom-fighters.

The green-skinned warrior woman had also battled Sabre and cautiously welcomed Killraven’s offer of assistance to rescue her captured comrades from the literal meat-market of the Lincoln Memorial, where flesh-peddling mutant horror Abraxas auctioned tasty human morsels to extraterrestrial patrons.

The raid went badly however, and it was Killraven himself who ended up on the conquerors’ menu in ‘The Legend Assassins!’ wherein the newly liberated resistance fighters united in a last-ditch attempt to save their tempestuous leader from the High Overlord.

Killraven, meanwhile, found himself main course in a public propaganda-feeding/execution, about to be devoured by a debased vermin-controlling freak named Rattackâ€¦

The hero’s faithful followers – including gentle, simple strongman Old Skull and embittered Native American Hawk – arrived just in time to join the furious fray in #24’s spectacular ‘For He’s a Jolly Dead Rebel’ (inked by Jack Abel) but their escape was only temporary and they were quickly recaptured.

However their example impressed more than one disaffected collaborator. When former foes led by Sabre united in battle against the Martian Overlord, the result was a shattering defeat for the once-unbeatable oppressorsâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #25 introduced a returning nemesis for the charismatic rebel and his freedom fighters in ‘The Devil’s Marauder’ (art by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson), as Killraven inconclusively clashed with Cyclopian Martian flunky Skar. During the battle the hard-pressed human was unexpectedly gripped by a manifestation of hidden psychic power – granting him visions he could not comprehendâ€¦

Travelling across country the rebels had stumbled onto another forgotten glory of Mankind’s past in the state once dubbed Indiana. The race circuit of the Indianapolis 500 was now a testing-ground for new terror-tripods and thus a perfect target for sabotage. However, when the fury-filled Killraven tackled human-collaborators and the sinister Skar returned, the incensed insurgent stepped too far over ‘The Vengeance Threshold!’â€¦

In issue #26 Gene Colan & Dan Adkins illustrated ‘Something Worth Dying For!’ as the Freemen reached Battle Creek, Michigan where the Rebel Rouser encountered a feral snake/horse hybrid that he simply had to possess before the band was ambushed by human outlaws guarding a fabulous ancient treasure at the behest of petty tyrant Pstun-Rage the Vigilantâ€¦

As the place had once been the site of America’s breakfast cereal empire and this wry yarn is filled with oblique in-jokes – many of the villains’ names are anagrams of Kellogg’s cereals – you can imagine the irony-drenched secret of the hoard the defenders gave their lives to protect and the pragmatic Killraven’s reaction to itâ€¦

The drama kicked into spectacular high gear in Amazing Adventures #27 with the arrival of Craig Russell (inked by Jack Abel) and the start of a dark epic entitled ‘The Death Breeders’.

Whilst crossing frozen Lake Michigan in March 2019, the band was attacked by monstrous lampreys and Grok suffered a wound which would eventually prove fatalâ€¦

McGregor always hated the notion of simplistic, problem-solving, consequence-free violence which most entertainment media thrived on and frequently, slavishly, tried to focus on some of the real-world repercussions such acts should and would result inâ€¦

The heroes were headed to what was once Chicago; now a vast industrialised breeding pen to farm human babies for Martian consumption. En route they met pyrokinetic mutant Volcana Ash who had her own tragic reason for scouting the ghastly palaces of Death-birthâ€¦

Whilst the new allies undertook an explosively expensive sortie against the Death Breeders, at the same time in the far-distant halls of the Martian Kings of Earth, the Warlord was tasking the recovered, repaired Skar with a new mission: hunt down Killraven and destroy not only the man, but most importantly the legend of hope and liberation that had grown up around himâ€¦

In #28 (pencilled, inked and even coloured by Russell in the original) Ash revealed her horrific origins and the purpose of her quest as the Freemen battled monsters which abounded in the chemically compromised lake.

Elsewhere, chief butcher The Sacrificer watched his depraved boss Atalon live up to his decadent reputation as ‘The Death Merchant!’ – emotionally tenderising the frantic â€œAdams and Evesâ€ whose imminent newborns would be the main course for visiting Martian dignitariesâ€¦

Everything changed during Killraven’s fateful raid to liberate the human cattle, however. When the disgusted hero skewered one of the extraterrestrial horrors, he experienced severe psychic feedback and realised at last that his debilitating, disorienting visions had been an unsuspected ability to tap into Martian mindsâ€¦

And in the wastelands, Skar was murderously retracing the Freemen’s route, getting closer and closer to a final showdownâ€¦

With Amazing Adventures #29 the series title was changed to Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds as ‘The Hell Destroyers’ saw the rebel leader score his greatest victory, inspiring thousands of freshly-liberated earthlings by utterly destroying the temple of atrocity before gloriously escaping into the wilderness and modern mythologyâ€¦

The pace of even a bi-monthly series was crippling to perfectionist Russell, and ‘The Rebels of January and Beyond!’ in #30 was a frantic six-page melange from him, Adkins, Trimpe, Chiaramonte & Abel, all graphically treading water as The Warlord â€œreviewedâ€ (admittedly beautiful) fact-file pages on Killraven, M’Shulla and Mint Julep.

The saga continued in #31 on ‘The Day the Monuments Shattered’ wherein McGregor & Russell ended the Death Breeders storyline in stunning style. Pursued by Atalon and The Sacrificer into the icy wilds from Gary, Indiana to St. Louis where broken Earth outcasts hid as the Twilight People, the fugitives took refuge in a cavern. This was to allow an accompanying Eve to give birth in safety, but only led to an attack by a monolithic mutant monster just as their pursuers found them.

The battle changed the landscape and ended three ghastly travesties foreverâ€¦

In #32 ‘Only the Computer Shows Me Any Respect!’ (art by Russell & Dan Green) found the reduced band in devastated Nashville, where Killraven, M’Shulla, Carmilla, Old Skull and Hawk wandered into leftover holographic fantasy programs which conjured both joy and regret, even as Skar’s tripod brought him ever-closer to a longed-for rematch.

Things took a nasty turn when Hawk’s painful memories of his father’s addictions to fantasy detective Hodiah Twist manifested as cruelly real threats and the malfunctioning program materialised a brutally solid savage dragonâ€¦

Issue #33 was another deadline-busting fill-in. ‘Sing Out Loudlyâ€¦ Death!’ was written by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by Trimpe & D. Bruce Berry, wherein the Freemen took refuge from the elements in a vast cave and encountered a hostile tribe of refugee African Americans who had gone native and returned to their roots.

The hidden wild men had only one rule – kill all honkies – but that changed once Killraven saved them from a marauding giant octo-beastieâ€¦

The long-delayed clash with Skar at last occurred in #34 as the cyborg Cyclops ambushed the wanderers when they reached Chattanooga, Tennessee and caused ‘A Death in the Family’ (McGregor & Russell) – two deaths, actually – before the heartbroken, enraged Warrior of the Worlds literally tore his gloating nemesis to piecesâ€¦

Killraven fully entered Marvel Universe continuity – albeit on a branch line – with a crossover appearance by Spider-Man: courtesy of a time-and-space spanning multi-parter in Marvel Team-Up which saw the Amazing Arachnid lost and visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows.

From issue #45 ‘Future: Shock!’ by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito saw the weary Wallcrawler wash up in this particular furious future just as Killraven was cornered by killer tripods, and offer arachnid assistance as the liberators stumbled into an hallucinogenic nightmare. Immediate problem solved, the chronologically adrift Arachnid continued his time-tossed travelsâ€¦

Amazing Adventures #35 resumed the epic tragedy as the last battered survivors stumbled into Atlanta, Georgia and met ‘The 24-Hour Man’ (McGregor & Russell, but finished by Keith Giffin & Abel), encountering an addled new mother and instant widow, even as Carmilla was abducted by a bizarre mutant with an irresistible and inescapably urgent biological imperativeâ€¦

‘Red Dust Legacy’ (illustrated by Russell & Sonny Trinidad in #36) focused on Killraven’s developing psychic powers as the charismatic champion gained unwelcome insights into the Martian psyche, even as The Warlord travelled to Yellowstone and taunted the rebel leader with news that his long-lost brother Joshua lived. The hero had no idea it was as an indoctrinated pawn code-named Death Raven.

The self-appointed defender of humanity then invaded a replica Martian environment in Georgia and destroyed the Martians’ next generation by contaminating their incubatorsâ€¦

Inked by Abel, #37 revealed the origins of affable Old Skull in ‘Arena Kill!’ when the wanderers discovered a clandestine enclave of humans in the Okefenokee Wildlife Preserve.

One final fill-in by Mantlo, Giffin & Al Milgrom appeared in #38. ‘Death’s Dark Dreamer!’ saw Killraven separated and stumble into a wrecked but still functional dream-dome to battle the materialised fantasies of its ancient occupant, whose pre-invasion memories fuelled attacks by strangely familiar defenders patterned after Iron Man, Man-Thing, Dr. Strange and almost every other hero you could think ofâ€¦

The beautiful, troubled and doomed saga stopped – but did not end – with Amazing Adventures #39 (November 1976) as McGregor & Russell introduced the decimated Band of Brothers to an incredible new life-form in ‘Mourning Prey’â€¦

And that’s where the gloriously unique, elegiac, Art Nouveau fantasy vanished with no comfortable resolution until 1983 when Marvel Graphic Novel #7 featured an all-new collaboration by McGregor and Russell starring Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds.

That painted full-colour extravaganza is reproduced here and commences after a catch-up Prologue and six pages of character profiles to bring readers old and new up to speedâ€¦

‘Last Dreams Broken’ opens in February 2020 at Cape Canaveral where Killraven connects again to a distant consciousness and sets off for Yellowstone in search of answers to inexpressible questionsâ€¦

Along the way the rebels meet 59-year old Jenette Miller – probably the last surviving astronaut on Earth – as ‘Cocoa Beach Blues’ finds her teaching the warrior wanderers some history and human perspective in between the constant daily battles, whilst in ‘Blood and Passion’ The Warlord prepares his deadliest trap for his despised antagonist as Killraven is finally reunited with Joshua.

The drama runs its inevitable course in ‘Let it Die Like Fourth of July’ as all the hero’s hopes and fears are cataclysmically realisedâ€¦

McGregor’s long-anticipated conclusion did not disappoint and even set up a new beginning, but in this monochrome edition Russell’s stunning colour artwork suffers egregiously from being reduced to greyscale tones, and if you get the chance to see the original Graphic Novel version, grab it and runâ€¦

Those same artistic mixed results plague the last tale in this tome too.

In 2001 the Marvel Knights imprint offered another revival as Killraven #1, written and painted by Joseph Michael Linsner with Eva Hopkins, saw the Warrior of the Worlds back in New York as ‘Killraven: 2020’, fleeing tripods and stumbling into an untouched alcove where a flower-child from 1976 lay preserved in a hibernation-chamber.

Alice and two dozen happy young liberals thought to sleep their way out of the pollution, violence and corruption of those unhappy times, but as the only survivor she found the future far from what she had expected.

The unhappy Hippy did have some life-changing advice and insights for the crazy war-monger who rescued her, thoughâ€¦

Also included here is the text introduction page from Amazing Adventures #18 for a fascinating insight into Roy Thomas’ expectations of what became a landmark of visual narrative poetry that was far beyond its time and mass audience’s taste.

Confused, convoluted, challenging, controversial (this series contained the first ever non-comedic interracial kiss in American comics – in 1975 if you can believe it!), evocative, inspirational and always entertaining, this is graphic narrative that no serious fan or fantasy addict should miss. Do it now: the future is not your friendâ€¦
Â© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1983, 2001, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

April 16, 2013April 19, 2013

Essential Thor volume 5

By Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Don Perlin, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5093-0

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured, 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.

By the time of this fifth Essential monochrome compendium, an unthinkable Changing of the Guard had seen the King of Comics jump ship from the House of (His) Ideas to arch-rival DC where he crafted the unfinished Magnum Opus of the Fourth World series as well as a number of other game-changing concepts.

The Thunder God suffered a sharp, sudden loss of imaginative impetus, however, which left the series floundering, despite the best efforts of (arguably) the company’s greatest remaining illustrators, Neal Adams and John Buscema. More than any other Marvel feature, The Mighty Thor was the strip where Kirby’s creative brilliance had always found its greatest release in cosmic wandering and questing exploration of an infinite and dangerous universe.

His dreaming, extrapolating and honing of a dazzling new kind of storytelling and graphic symbology, wedded to soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe – and all within the limited confines of a 20-page action adventure – was an impossible act to follow.

Although his successors mimicked the trappings of that incredible conceptual juggling act, the heart, soul and soaring, unfettered wonder just were not there any longer – nor would they be until 1983 when Walt Simonson assumed creative control with #337 (see Mighty Thor: the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill).

By the time these monthly episodes (from issues #196-220, February 1972 to February 1974) saw print, the Thunder God and his Asgardian companions were slowly devolving into a muddled, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe under the earnest but uninspired governance of young science fiction novelist Gerry Conway and a dedicated, talented but still somehow inappropriate string of artists.

The previous volume had seen Asgard again imperilled by mystic monstrosity Mangog with Thor and friends dispatched on another extended odyssey to the ends of the Universe in search of succour and water from The Twilight Well. In his righteous rage Odin had previously banished God of Evil Loki to a fantastic world, momentarily forgetting that once there the Prince of Evil could awaken the most vicious, unbeatable monster in the universeâ€¦

Now the Thunderer, with Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim, found himself lost ‘Within the Realm of Kartag!’ (illustrated by John Buscema & Vince Colletta): facing slug-men and bewitching temptress Satrina even as the All-Father and the hosts of the Shining City struggled to hold Mangog at bay. Meanwhile on the planet Blackworld Lady Sif and her muscular shield-maiden Hildegarde were undertaking another Odinian quest and found themselves caught up in a time-bending nightmareâ€¦

Thor #197 saw the heroes overcome all odds to find ‘The Well at the Edge of the World!’ meeting the conniving, all-powerful Norns and recruiting the colossal Kartag for their desperate return to shattered Asgard.

On Blackworld Sif and Hildegarde encountered monsters and men making uncontrollable evolutionary leaps towards an unguessable future, but found an unlikely ally and guide in aged sailor Silas Grant.

The male heroes returned to find Asgard in flaming ruins and the cataclysmic confrontation with the Mangog nearing an apocalyptic end, whilst on Blackworld Sif, Hildegarde and Silas met alien Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile and the horrendous creature behind the evolutionary jumps. Simultaneously the battle in Asgard reached a horrific climax when Mangog was at last defeated ‘â€¦And Odin Dies!’

Issue #199 saw the ravaged home of the gods adrift in a dimensional void, allowing Thor – clutching to a desperate last hope – to cocoon his deceased father in a timeless forcefield, preventing Dark Goddess Hela from claiming his soul. However she wasn’t the only deity hungry for the All Father’s spirit and ‘If This Be Death…!’ revealed Grecian netherlord Pluto invading the broken realm to take Odin into his own dire domain.

â€¦And, on Blackworld, Tana Nile hinted at the origin of the monstrous Ego-Prime and how it can force such terrifying uncontrollable time-warpsâ€¦

Back in free-floating Asgard, things went from bad to worse as brave Balder‘s beloved Karnilla deserted him just as invincible Pluto defeated Hela and aimed a killing blow at Thorâ€¦

The denouement was aggravatingly delayed as anniversary issue #200 hit the pause button to flashback to an earlier age. ‘Beware! If This Beâ€¦ Ragnarok!’ was crafted by Stan Lee, John Buscema & John Verpoorten and spectacularly depicted the fall of the gods through the mystic visions of Volla the Prophetess, with only a bridging Prologue and Epilogue by Conway & Buscema revealing the Norns saving Thor’s life just in time for the concluding battle against Pluto in #201 (with Jim Mooney providing lush finished art over Buscema’s layouts).

When Hela relinquished her claim to the father of the gods and Odin enjoyed a miraculous ‘Resurrection!’, on Earth absentee Asgardians Heimdall and Kamorr began seeking out mortals for a another Odinian master-plan even before the battle with Pluto was fully concluded. As they scoured Midgard, on Blackworld Ego-Prime advanced the civilisation into atomic Armageddon and Sif barely transported her companions to Earth in time to escape the thermonuclear conflagration.

Luckily Thor, Balder, and the Warriors Three were in New York City to meet the refugees, since the deadly, now self-evolving, Ego-Prime had followed themâ€¦

Thor #202 boasted ‘â€¦And None Dare Stand ‘Gainst Ego-Prime!’ (Buscema & Colletta) although Silas, Tana Nile and the assembled Asgardians tried their best as the now-sentient shard of Ego, the Living Planet rampaged across the city making monsters and shattering entire streets, whilst Odin calmly observed the carnage and destruction and Heimdall and Kamorr gathered their human targets for the concluding ‘They Walk Like Gods!’, wherein all Odin’s machinations were finally revealed as Ego-Prime inadvertently created a new race of 20^th century deities. Sadly the All-Father’s long and single-minded scheme appalled his son and weary, war-torn subjects, whose understandable rebukes led to them all being ‘Exiled on Earth!’ in #204 (Buscema & Mooney) and soon targeted by terrifying satanic tempter Mephistoâ€¦

Soon only the Thunderer was left to oppose the devil invading his private hell and liberating hundreds of demon-possessed humans from ‘A World Gone Mad!’ (Colletta inks), after which the Earth-bound godling clashed brutally but inconclusively with the uncharacteristically amok Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaced in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

Tracking the escaped Creel to Rutland, Vermont during their annual Halloween festival, Thor, Sif and Hildegarde clashed with the malevolent Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of comic creator cameos with the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to Buscema & Colletta’s workmanlike illustration. Another extended sub-ploy opened here as Sif vanished, spirited away by the love-lorn Karnilla to the ends of the universeâ€¦

Sci fi themes took the lead again in Thor #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifested, stealing the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly they were insufficient and the malevolent Mercurio needed to tap his source directly resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gave way to the despair of exile and constant lossâ€¦

Incessantly searching for Sif, Thor stopped in London (not one any Briton would ever recognise though) in #209 long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge. The resultant clash between Thunder God and â€œDemon Druidâ€ devastated much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’ before being ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210 ‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!‘ (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta). They were merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik had decided to conquer both his own people and Earth and moved pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equationâ€¦

With New York invaded by Troll warriors, #211 revealed ‘The End of the Battle!’ (Buscema, Perlin & Colletta) as the fighting mad Asgardians routed the underworld insurgents just as an insane Balder returned to warn that Asgard had been conquered. With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions were soon hot on the trail of their missing race. Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, they undertook a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 and discovered their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction blockâ€¦

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ saw Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a war between slaver races before discovering Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his father. He also obtained a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging his small dedicated party of heroes recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (by Conway, Sal Buscema & Mooney) to rescue the missing maidens from the asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They found their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who were intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events took an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbed the women into its crystalline mass and took off, intent on dominating all life in the universeâ€¦

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strove together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’ to free the women and stop the rapacious gem-god, but even after eventual victory found them tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials were not done.

Returning in triumph to a mysteriously rebuilt Asgard in #217, the wanderers found ‘All Swords Against Them!’ (Sal Buscema inking brother John), as impossible doppelgangers of Odin, Thor and the rest greeted them with murderous hostility. Whilst the Thunder God furiously battled to unravel this latest mystery, in another sector of the universe the all-conquering Colonizers of Rigel were put to flight and abandoned their worlds to an all-consuming force of sheer destructionâ€¦

Thor #218 proved there was no rest for the weary as the victorious Asgardians again took ship for deep space to prevent the Rigellians’ doom from reaching Earth. ‘Where Pass the Black Stars There Also Passesâ€¦ Death!’ (J. Buscema & Mooney) found the hard-travelling heroes discovering a nomadic race of colossal, decadent star-farers who fuelled their unending flight by recycling thriving civilisations into food and power.

In distant Asgard, Hildegarde’s young sister Krista was slowly falling under the sway of sinister seductive evil even as her hereditary protectors were a cosmos away, infiltrating one of the Black Stars’ cosmic scoops and encountering a race of mechanical slaves in

#219’s ‘A Galaxy Consumed!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) before this volume’s story-portion ends with #220, wherein the slaves and their charismatic messiah Avalon are at last freed and untold galaxies subsequently saved from callous consumption in ‘Behold! The Land of Doom!’

This collection also includes fact-filled Marvel Universe Handbook pages on Pluto, Tana Nile, and Mercurio, the 4-D Man.

The Kirby Thor will always be a high-point in graphic fantasy, all the more impressive for the sheer imagination and timeless readability of the tales. With his departure the series foundered for the longest time before finding a new identity, but his successors did their honest best to follow in his Brobdingnagian footsteps.

The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of The King but fans of cosmic 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 mustÂ for all fans of the character and the genre.

January 24, 2013January 23, 2013

Essential Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos

By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Frank Giacoia, Steve Ditko & Chic Stone (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6395-4

Grizzled super-spy Nick Fury debuted in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963): a grizzled and cunning CIA Colonel at the periphery of big adventures, craftily manipulating the First Family of Marvel superheroes just as the 1960s espionage vogue was taking off, inspired by the James Bond films and TV shows like Danger Man.

What was odd about that? Well, the gruffly capable everyman was already the star of the little company’s only war comic, set twenty years earlier in (depending on whether you were American or Europeanâ€¦) the middle or beginning of World War II.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, an improbable, decidedly over-the-top and raucous combat comics series, similar in tone to later movies such as The Magnificent Seven, Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen, had launched in May of that year and although Fury’s later self became a big-name star when espionage stories went global in the wake of TV shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the elder iteration was given a second series beginning in Strange Tales #135 (August 1965).

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by subversive all-encompassing hidden, enemy-organisation Hydra: all with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry and, later, iconic imagineering from Jim Steranko whose visually groundbreaking graphic narratives took the art form to a whole new level.

For all that time, however, the wartime version soldiered on (sorry: puns are my weapon of choice) combining a uniquely flamboyant house-bravado style and often ludicrous, implausible, historically inaccurate, all-action bombast with moments of genuine heartbreak, unbridled passion and seething emotion.

Sgt. Fury seems to be a pure Jack Kirby creation. As with all his various combat comics, The King made everything look harsh and real and appalling: the people and places all grimy, tired, battered but indomitable.

The artist had served in some of the worst battles of the war and never forgot the horrific and heroic things he saw – and more graphically expressed in his efforts during the 1950s genre boom at a number of different companies – but even at kid-friendly, Comics Code-sanitised Marvel, those experiences perpetually leaked through onto his powerfully gripping pages.

This first massive monochrome compendium features the contents of Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1-23 (from May 1963 to 1965) plus the new material from the largely reprint Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 from 1965, opening as you’d expect with the blistering premier issue introducing ‘Sgt. Fury, and his Howling Commandoes’ (that’s how they speled it in the stoary-title – but knot ennyware else) by Lee, Kirby & inker Dick Ayers. Bursting with full page panels the tale was interrupted by ‘Meet the Howling Commandos’ – a double-page starring the seven members of First Attack Squad; Able Company, namely Fury himself, former circus strongman/Corporal â€œDum-Dumâ€ Dugan and Privates Robert â€œRebelâ€ Ralston (a jockey), young student Jonathan â€œJuniorâ€ Juniper, jazz trumpeter Gabriel Jones, mechanic Izzy Cohen and glamorous movie star Dino Manelli.

Controversially – even in the 1960s – this combat Rat Pack was an integrated unit with Jewish and Negro members as well as Catholics, Southern Baptists andNew Yorkwhite guys all merrily serving together. The Howling Commandos pushed envelopes and busted taboos from the very startâ€¦

The first mission was a non-stop action romp putting the squad through their various paces as the ragged band of indomitable warriors put paid to hordes of square-necked Nazis as they saved D-Day by rescuing a French resistance fighter carrying vital plans of the invasion, and they even brought back a high-ranking â€œkrautâ€ prisoner. The epic issue even included a Kirby fact-page comparing six different side-arms of the period in ‘Weapons of War’â€¦

Issue #2 found the‘7 Doomed Men!’ up to their torn shirts in Germans as they firstÂ infiltrated a French coastal town to blow up a U-Boat base and got back to England just in time to be sent on a suicide mission. This time it was to destroy a secret facility at Heinemund in the heart of the Fatherland where Nazi scientists were doing something nefarious with â€œhard waterâ€â€¦

These overblown fustian thrillers always played fast and loose with history and logic, so if you crave veracity above all I’d steer clear, but if you can swallow a heaping helping of creative anachronism there’s always great fun to be had here – especially since nobody drew atomic explosions like The Kingâ€¦

The drama was then topped off with more fact pages as ‘The Enemy That Was!’ explored the capabilities of German Infantryman whilst ‘Weapons of War: â€œChatter Gunsâ€ of World War II’ tells everything you need to know about submachine gunsâ€¦

Rough and ready gallows humour and broad comedy became increasingly important to the series from #3 onwards with home base rivalries and wry comradely sparring leavening the outrageous non-stop action of the missions. ‘Midnight on Massacre Mountain!’ found the squad explosively invading Italy to rescue a US army division caught in a Nazi trap. Along the way they met a brilliant OSS officer training partisan troops, and Fury thought that young Reed Richards would go farâ€¦

This issue was supplemented by a fascinating feature revealing what ordnance and hardware cost in ‘America’s World War II Shopping List!’

‘Lord Ha-Ha’s Last Laugh!’ in #4 began a long stint of embellishment by George Bell (AKA old Kirby studio-mate George â€œInkyâ€ Roussos) and introduced a love interest for the Sarge when he met Red Cross volunteer Lady Pamela Hawley during an air raid in London. How strange and tragic was fate then, that the Howlers’ very next mission took them toBerlin to kidnap a young British nobleman with the same name, acting as a crucial propaganda mouthpiece for the Wehrmacht…

The mission was a double disaster. Not only did Pamela’s ignoble brother perish but the debacle also cost the life of the youngest Howlerâ€¦

‘Weapons of War: Combat Rifles of World War II’ then ended this shocking, surprisingly grim and low-key melodramaâ€¦

Fury’s appearance in FF#21 – not included here – was released between that issue and #5, but no mention was made of it when the dark and cunning yarn introduced one of Marvel’s greatest villains. ‘At the Mercy of Baron Strucker’ saw Fury humiliated and defeated in personal combat against an Aryan nobleman and filmed footage used as a propaganda tool of the Nazis, until Dino pointed out how the nonplussed noncom had fallen for the oldest trick in Hollywood’s playbookâ€¦

The riotous rematch went rather better after which ‘Weapons of War: Light Machine Guns of World War II’ ended things in a graphically educational manner, whilst ‘The Fangs of the Desert Fox!’ in #6 dumped the Squad in the desert to tackle the hordes of General Rommel in a mission foredoomed to failâ€¦

‘The Court-Martial of Sergeant Fury’ provided a glimpse at the hard-bitten hero’s past and offered insights into his tempestuous relationship with his immediate superior Captain Samuel â€œHappy Samâ€ Sawyer. Of course to get that information we had to watch Fury endure a dramatic trial after seemingly sabotaging a mission and striking a commanding officerâ€¦

Although he continued to draw the magnificent eye-catching covers, Kirby left the title with this issue. His astounding abilities were more profitably employed in the superhero titles, even as Lee began consolidating the ever expanding Marvel Universe by utilising more WWII iterations of contemporary characters.

‘The Death Ray of Baron Zemo!’ in #8 pitted the Howlers against a Captain America villain recently debuted in The Avengers as Ayers & Roussos ably depicted the team’s attempts to capture the Nazi scientist and a weapon that could shape the outcome of the entire war. The tale also introduced Junior Juniper’s replacement: a rather fruity caricature of a Brit named Percival Pinkerton, who sported horn-rimmed specs, pencil moustache, Fuschia beret and impossibly utilitarian umbrellaâ€¦

In #9 the impossible ‘Mission: Capture Adolf Hitler!’ went awry when the Howlers’ invasion of Berlin again brought Fury face-to-face with Wolfgang von Strucker; leading to temporary capture and an astounding escape whilst ‘On to Okinawa!’ in #10 saw them achieve greater success when despatched to the Pacific to rescue a captured US colonel from the Japanese.

This tale also saw the debut of a bearded bombastic submarine commander who would become a series regular before eventually winning his own series (Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders) in 1967.

The pace had certainly slowed and melodrama and subplots increased by #11 and ‘The Crackdown of Capt. Flint!’ saw Happy Sam briefly replaced by a spit-and-polish officer who soon learned the limitations of his ways, whilst in #12 a raid on a V1 factory prompted Dino to join the Nazis ‘When a Howler Turns Traitor!’ It was just a trick though, but nobody told the American commander who stuck the star in front of a firing squadâ€¦

This issue also included a Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of Fury by Ayers.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #13 is arguably the best issue of the entire 167 issue run and the title says why. ‘Fighting Side-by-Side withâ€¦ Captain America and Bucky!’ reunited Lee, Kirby & Ayers in a blistering battle yarn as the Howlers crossed paths with the masked Sentinels of Liberty after both teams stumble across a top secret Nazi operation to build an invasion tunnel under the channel to England. To resort to the terms of the times: â€œWah-Hoo!â€â€¦

Ayers & Bell were back in artistic control in #14 as harassed Adolf Hitler ordered the creation of a Nazi answer to Fury’s elite attack force. All ‘The Blitzkrieg Squad of Baron Strucker!’ had to do was lure the Howlers to a V2 rocket base and spring their trapâ€¦ Yeah, that was allâ€¦

Weapons of War: also returned here with all the gen on the ‘B-26 Martin Marauder’ whilst in #15 Steve Ditko stepped in to ink Ayers in ‘Too Small to Fight, Too Young to Die’ wherein a mission in Holland to destroy the dykes and flood the occupation forces went drastically wrong. The Howlers â€œfledâ€ back to Britain with nothing but a broken-hearted boy named Hans Rooten – who had no idea that his quisling father was in fact the Allies’ top spy in the regionâ€¦

The boy became the men’s mascot but couldn’t come with them when they flew to Africain #16 to eradicate yet more Nazi super-weapons in ‘A Fortress in the Desert Stands!’ (illustrated by Ayers & Frank Giacoia using the pseudonym Frankie Ray), after which it was only a short camel-ride south until they encountered natives and Nazis engaged in a battle of Hearts and Minds ‘While the Jungle Sleeps!’ (by Ayers & Colletta).

All this time the chalk-and-cheese relationship between Nick and Pam Hawley had been developing to the point where he was ready to propose. That all ended in #18 when, whilst the unit was busy sinking a German battleship in a Norwegian port, she was ‘Killed in Action!’ (Ayers & Chic Stone).

Crushed and crazy, Fury went AWOL in the next issue, ruthlessly hunting down the leader of the bomber flight which had targeted the hospital she worked in before extracting ‘An Eye for an Eye!’ in a satisfyingly shocking story sensitively rendered by Ayers & Giacoia.

A far grimmer Fury was still in the mood for cathartic carnage in #20, so when ‘The Blitz Squad Strikes!’ found the German Kommandos invading a Scottish castle filled with imprisoned Nazi airmen, he and Howlers were happy to lead the mission to retake it.

In the next issue a long running rivalry with First Attack Squad; Baker Company again resulted in fisticuffs before being interrupted by another rescue mission ‘To Free a Hostage!’ (inked by Golden Age legend Carl Hubbell, as was the next issue).

However, even after scientist and daughter were reunited, the beef with B Company didn’t diminish and when both units were dispatched to sabotage the oil refinery at Ploesti the defending forces captured everybody. When the gloating Nazis tried to get Fury and his opposite number to kill each they quickly learned ‘Don’t Turn Your Back on Bull McGiveney!’ and even Strucker’s Blitz Squad couldn’t stem the devastating destruction that followedâ€¦

The final WWII exploit herein is the Giacoia-inked saga of ‘The Man Who Failed!’ as a trip to Burma to rescue nuns and orphans resulted in the shameful revelation of True Brit Percy Pinkerton’s past, also offering a close insight into why our upper lips are so stiffâ€¦

This combat compendium concludes with the 15 page lead story from Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos King Size Annual #1 (1965) as the Howlers were called up and mustered to the 38^th Parallel to defend democracy from Communist aggression. This particular escapade found them rescuing Colonel Sam Sawyer and resulted in Fury winning a ‘Commission in Korea!’ and at last becoming a Lieutenant in a stirring story by Lee, Ayers & Giacoia before pictorial features ‘A Re-introduction to the Howlers’, ‘A Birds Eye View of HQ, Able Company – Fury’s Base in Britain’, ‘Combat Arm and Hand Signals’ and a 2-page ad feature for the hero’s super-spy iteration as ‘Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ wraps everything up in Marvel’s military fashion.

Whereas close rival DC increasingly abandoned the Death or Glory bombast at this time in favour of humanistic, almost anti-war explorations of war and soldiering, Marvel’s take always favoured action-entertainment and fantasy over soul-searching for ultimate truths. On that level at least, these early epics are stunningly effective and galvanically powerful exhibitions of the genre. Just don’t use them for history homework.
Â© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2011 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

June 27, 2012June 26, 2012

Essential Iron Fist volume 1

By Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, Larry Hama, Chris Claremont, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-7851-1546-5

Comicbooks have always operated within the larger bounds of popular trends and fashions – just look at what got published whenever westerns or science fiction dominated on TV – so when the ancient philosophy and health-&-fitness discipline of Kung Fu made its unstoppable mark on domestic entertainment it wasn’t long before the Chop Sockey kicks and punches found their way en masse onto the four-colour pages of America’s periodicals.

As part of the first Martial Arts bonanza, Marvel converted a forthcoming license to use venerable fictional villain Fu Manchu into a series about his. The series launched in Special Marvel Edition #15, December 1973 as The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu and by April 1974 (#17) it became his exclusively. A month later the House of Ideas launched a second oriental-tinged hero in Iron Fist; a character combining the Eastern combat philosophy with high fantasy, magic powers and a proper superhero mask and costumeâ€¦

The character also owed a hefty debt to Bill Everett’s pioneering golden Age super-hero Amazing Man who graced various Centaur Comics publications between1939 and 1942. The tribute was paid by Roy Thomas & Gil Kane who adopted and translated the fictive John Aman‘s Tibetan origins into something that gibed better with the 1970’s twin zeitgeists of Supernatural Fantasy and Chinese martial arts mayhemâ€¦

This collection gathers the multifarious appearances of the Living Weapon from Marvel Premier #15-25, Iron Fist #1-15, Marvel Team-Up #63-64 and Power Man & Iron Fist #48-50 spanning May 1974 to April 1978 which saw the bombastic human blockbuster uncover his past and rediscover his heritage and humanity before inevitably settling into the inescapable role of costumed superhero.

The saga began on a spectacular high in Marvel Premier #15 with ‘The Fury of Iron Fist!’ by Thomas, Kane and inker Dick Giordano which saw a young masked warrior defeat the cream of a legendary combat elite in a fabled other-dimensional city before returning to Earth. Ten years previously little Daniel Rand had watched as his father and mother died at the hands of Harold Meachum whilst the party risked Himalayan snows to find the legendary city of K’un Lun.

Little Danny Rand had travelled with his wealthy parents and business partner Meachum in search of the lost city which only appeared on Earth for one day every ten years. Wendell Rand had some unsuspected connection to the fabled Shangri La but was killed before they arrived, whilst Danny’s mother had sacrificed herself to save the child from wolves and her murderous pursuer.

As he wandered alone in the wilderness, the city found Danny and the boy spent the next decade training: mastering all forms of martial arts in the militaristic, oriental, feudal paradise and enduring arcane ordeals, living only for the day he would return to Earth and avenge his parentsâ€¦

After conquering all comers and refusing immortality, Iron Fist returned to Earth a Living Weapon able to turn his force of will into a devastating super-punchâ€¦

From the outset the feature was plagued by an inability to keep a stable creative team, although, to be fair, story quality never suffered, only plot and direction. Reaching New York City in #16, ‘Heart of the Dragon!’ by Len Wein, Larry Hama & Giordano found Iron Fist reliving the years of work which had culminated in a trial by combat with mystic dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, winning him the power to concentrate his fist â€œlike unto a thing of Ironâ€ and other unspecified abilities, whilst permanently branding his chest with the seared silhouette of the fearsome wyrm. His recollections were shattered when martial arts bounty hunter Scythe attacked, revealing that Meachum knew the boy was back and had put a price on his headâ€¦

Danny had not only sacrificed immortality for vengeance but also prestige and privilege. As he left K’un Lun, supreme ruler of the city YÃ¼ Ti, the August Personage in Jade had revealed that murdered Wendell Rand had been his brotherâ€¦

Marvel Premier #17 saw Doug Moench take over the scripting as Iron Fist stormed Meachum’s skyscraper headquarters, a ‘Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance’ converted into a colossal 30-storey death trap, which led to a duel with a cybernetically-augmented giant dubbed Triple-Iron and a climactic confrontation with his parents’ killer in #18’s ‘Lair of Shattered Vengeance!’

The years had not been kind to Meachum. He’d lost his legs to frostbite as he returned from the Himalayas, and hearing from Sherpas that a boy had been taken into K’un Lun, the murderer had spent the intervening decade awaiting in dread his victims’ avengerâ€¦

Filled with loathing, frustration and pity, Iron Fist turned away from his intended retribution, but Meachum died anyway, slain by a mysterious Ninja as the deranged multi-millionaire attempted to shoot Danny in the backâ€¦

In #19 Joy Meachum and her ruthless uncle Ward, convinced Iron Fist had killed the crippled Harold, stepped up the hunt for Iron Fist via legal and illegal means whilst the shell-shocked Living Weapon aimlessly wandered the streets. Adopted by the enigmatic Colleen Wing Danny then met her father, an aging professor of Oriental Studies who had fallen foul of a ‘Death Cult!’

In his travels the aged savant had acquired an ancient text The Book of Many Things, which, amongst other things, held the secret of K’un Lun’s destruction. The deadly disciples of Kara-Kai were determined to possess it. After thwarting another attempt Iron Fist tried to make peace with Joy, but instead walked into an ambush where the bloodthirsty ninja again intervened, slaughtering the ambushersâ€¦

A period of pitiful and often painful inconsistency began as Tony Isabella, Arvell Jones & Dan Green took over with #20 wherein the Kara-Kai cultists renewed their attacks on the Wings whilst Ward Meachum hired a veritable army to destroy the Living Weapon in ‘Batroc and other Assassins’ – with the identity of the ninja apparently revealed as the elderly scholarâ€¦

Marvel Premier #21 introduced the ‘Daughters of the Death Goddess’ (inked by Vince Colletta) as the Wing’s were abducted by the cultists and bionic ex-cop Misty Knight debuted first as foe but soon as ally. When Danny tracked down the cult he discovered some shocking truths – as did the ninja, who had been imprisoned within the ancient book by the August Personage in Jade in ages past and had possessed the Professor in search of escape and revengeâ€¦

All was revealed and the hero exonerated in #22’s ‘Death is a Ninja’ (inked by â€œA. Bradfordâ€) when the ninja disclosed how, as disciple to sublime wizard Master Khan, he had attempted to conquer K’un Lun and been imprisoned in the crumbling tome. Over years he had discovered a temporary escape and had manipulated the Professor and Iron Fist to secure his release and the doom of his jailers. Now exposed, he faced the Living Weapon in one last cataclysmic clashâ€¦

A measure of stability began with #23 as Chris Claremont, Pat Broderick & Bob McLeod took the series in a new direction. With his life’s work over and nearly nine years until he could go â€œhomeâ€, Danny was now a man without purpose until whilst strolling with Colleen he stumbled into a spree shooting in ‘The Name isâ€¦ Warhawk.’

When the cyborg-assassin had a Vietnam flashback and began sniping in Central Park, the Pride of K’un Lun instantly responded to the threat and thus began his career as a heroâ€¦

In ‘Summerkill’ (inked by Colletta) the itinerant exile battled an alien robot dubbed the Monstroid and began a long and complicated association with Princess Azir of Halwan as the mysterious Master Khan resurfaced, apparently intent on killing her and seizing her countryâ€¦

Marvel Premier #25 saw the end of the hero’s run and the start of his short but sweet Golden Age as John Byrne became regular penciller for ‘Morning of the Mindstorm!’ (inked by Al McWilliams). When Colleen was abducted and her father driven to the edge of insanity by mind-bending terrorist Angar the Screamer, Danny, made of far sterner stuff, quickly overcame the psychic assaults and tracked the attackers to Stark Industries and into his own seriesâ€¦

Iron Fist #1 (November 1975) featured ‘A Duel of Iron!’ as the Living Weapon was tricked into battling Iron Man, whilst Colleen escaped and ran into Danny’s future nemesis Steel Serpent before being recaptured and renditioned to Halwanâ€¦

After a spectacular, inconclusive and ultimately pointless battle, Danny and Misty Knight also headed for Halwan in ‘Valley of the Damned!’ (#2, inked by Frank Chiaramonte) with the hero recalling a painful episode from his youth wherein his best friends Conal and Miranda chose certain death beyond the walls of regimented K’un Lun rather than remain in the lost city where they could not love each otherâ€¦

As Master Khan began to break Colleen, Danny and Misty stopped-over in England where a nuclear horror named The Ravager slaughtered innocents by blowing up London Airport and the Post Office Tower (we rebuilt it as the BT Tower, so don’t panic), compelling Iron Fist to punch far above his weight in ‘The City’s Not For Burning!’

Inevitably it ended in ‘Holocaust!’ as Ravager was unmasked as master-villain Radion the Atomic Man, who fatally irradiated Danny until the hero discovered the cleansing and curative power of the Iron Fist and stormed to his greatest triumphâ€¦

Whilst Misty recuperated Danny became involved with a guilt-ridden IRA bomber named Alan Cavenaugh before tackling another of Khan’s assassins in ‘When Slays the Scimitar!’ after which Iron Fist and Misty finally infiltrated Halwan in #6, courtesy of crusading lawyer Jeryn Hogarth who also promised to secure Danny’s inheritance and interests from the Rand-Meachum Corporation. The Pride of K’un Lun didn’t much care since the successfully brainwashed Colleen had been unleashed by Khan, determined to kill her rescuers in ‘Death Match!’â€¦

None of the earthly participants were aware that in a hidden dimension, YÃ¼ Ti spied on the proceedings with cold calculationâ€¦

By using the Iron Fist to psychically link with Colleen, Danny had broken Khan’s control and at last the malignant mage personally entered the fray in #7’s ‘Iron Fist Must Die!’, a blistering battle which broached the dimensions and exposed the August Personage in Jade’s involvement in Wendell Rand’s death. Given the choice between abandoning his friends on Earth or returning to K’un Lun for answers and justice the Living Weapon made a hero’s choiceâ€¦

With Iron Fist #8 Danny returned to New York and tried to pick up the pieces of a life postponed for more than a decade. Unaware that Steel Serpent was now working for Joy Meachum, Danny joined the company until merciless mob boss Chaka and his Chinatown gangs attacked the business ‘Like Tigers in the Night!’ (inked by Dan Adkins), and Iron Fist was fatally poisoned. Sportingly offered an antidote if he survived a gauntlet of Chaka’s warriors, Danny triumphed in his own manner when ‘The Dragon Dies at Dawn!’ (Chiaramonte inks) but when a hidden killer bludgeoned Chaka, Danny was once again a fugitive from the cops and dubbed a ‘Kung Fu Killer!’ (Adkins) until he, Colleen and Misty exposed the entire plot as a fabrication of the gangster.

In #11 ‘A Fine Day’s Dawn!’ the Living Weapon squared off against the Asgardian empowered Wrecking Crew and, with Misty a hostage, was compelled to fight Captain America in #12’s ‘Assault on Avengers’ Mansion!’ until the Pride of K’un Lun and the Sentinel of Liberty were able to unite and turn the tables on the grotesque godlingsâ€¦

In the intervening time Cavenaugh had arrived in New York, but not escaped the reach of his former Republican comrades who hired hitman Boomerang to kill the traitor and ‘Target: Iron Fist!’ with little success, but the villain introduced in issue #14 came a lot closer and eventually eclipsed Iron Fist in popularityâ€¦

‘Snowfire’, inked by Dan Green, found Danny and Colleen running for their lives in arctic conditions when a retreat at Hogarth’s Canadian Rockies estate was invaded by deadly mercenary Sabre-tooth. It just wasn’t their week as, only days before, a mystery assailant had ambushed Iron Fist and impossibly drained off a significant portion of the lad’s Shou-Lao fuelled life-forceâ€¦ Despite being rendered temporarily blind, the K’un Lun Kid ultimately defeated Sabre-tooth, but the fiercely feral mutant would return again and againâ€¦

With Claremont and Byrne increasingly absorbed by their stellar collaboration on the revived and resurgent adventures of Marvel’s mutant horde, Iron Fist #15 (September 1977) was their last Martial Arts mash-up for awhile. The series ended in spectacular fashion as through a comedy of errors Danny found himself battling Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Storm and Phoenix in ‘Enter, the X-Men’.

The cancellation was clearly not planned however as two major subplots went unresolved: Misty had disappeared on an undercover assignment to investigate European gang-boss John Bushmaster and Danny again had his chi siphoned off by the mysterious Steel Serpentâ€¦

Fans didn’t have to wait long: Claremont & Byrne had already begun a stint on Marvel Team-Up and turned the Spider-Man vehicle into their own personal clearing house for unresolved plot-lines. MTU #63-64 (November & December 1977 and inked by Dave Hunt) exposed the secret of K’un Lun exile Davos in ‘Night of the Dragon’ as the Steel Serpent sucked the power of the Iron Fist from Danny, leaving him near death. Risking all she had gained, Misty broke cover and rushed to his aid.

With the Wall-crawler and Colleen (the girls using the team name â€œDaughters of the Dragonâ€) to bolster him, Iron Fist defeated Davos and reclaimed his heritage in ‘If Death be my Destinyâ€¦’ before shuffling off into a quiet retirement and anonymity.

â€¦But not for long.

The creative team supreme, augmented by inker Dan Green took over Power Man with the December 1977 issue to finally close their extended saga beginning with#48’s ‘Fist of Ironâ€¦ Heart of Stone!’

Spurned and furious, Bushmaster had tracked down Misty and, by kidnapping his girlfriend Claire Temple and mentor Noah Burstein, coerced Luke Cage into attacking Danny and the Daughters. A man of infinite subtlety, Bushmaster had dangled a carrot too: proof that would clear the fugitive of outstanding drugs charges and enable him to live as a free man under his real name once againâ€¦

When Cage couldn’t kill his targets he believed he had doomed his friends, but #49’s ‘Seagate is a Lonely Place to Die!’ (February 1978) revealed that the criminal mastermind’s real purpose was to force Burstein to repeat the chemical experiment which had given Cage super-strength and impenetrable skin. Now united with Iron Fist, Cage had to defeat a stronger, smarter, utterly ruthless version of himself before finally winning his ‘Freedom!’ in Power Man & Iron Fist #50 (April 1978) and beginning a new and extremely impressive partnership with the Living Weapon who had at last found his place in the world..

Although sadly suffering through some grim patches, the greater bulk of the Iron Fist saga ranks amongst the most exciting and enjoyable Costumed Dramas of Marvel’s second generation. If you want a good, clean fight comic this is probably one of your better betsâ€¦
Â© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 23, 2012May 22, 2012

Essential Avengers volume 6

By Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin, Gerry Conway, Bob Brown,
Don Heck, Dave Cockrum, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, John Buscema, George Tuska & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3058-1

The Avengers have always proved that putting all one’s star eggs in a single basket pays off big-time: even when all Marvel’s classic all-stars such as Thor, Captain America and Iron Man are absent, it merely allows the team’s lesser lights to shine more brightly.

Of course all the founding stars were regularly featured due to the rotating, open door policy which means that most issues includes somebody’s fave-rave – and the boldly grand-scale impressive stories and artwork are no hindrance either.

This monolithic and monumental sixth tome, collecting the ever-amazing Avengers‘ world-saving exploits (presenting in crisp, stylish monochrome the astounding contents of issues #120-140 of their monthly comic book between March 1974 and October 1975, plus Giant-Size Avengers #1-4 and crossover appearances in Captain Marvel #33 and Fantastic Four #150), saw scripter Steve Englehart examine the outer limits of Marvel history and cosmic geography as he took readers to the ends of their universe and the beginning of timeâ€¦

Opening this epochal tome is ‘Death-Stars of the Zodiac!’ from Avengers #120, by Steve Englehart, Bob Brown & Don Heck, wherein terrorist astrological adversaries and super-criminal cartel Zodiac attacked again with a manic plan to eradicate everyone in Manhattan born under the sign of Gemini, with heroes Thor, Iron Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Swordsman and Mantis seemingly helpless to stop them.

In the blistering battle of #121’s ‘Houses Divided Cannot Stand!’, illustrated by John Buscema & Heck, even the added assistance of Captain America and the Black Panther is of little advantage and with Mantis injured the team begin to question her mysterious past, only to be lured to their seeming doom and ‘Trapped in Outer Space!’ (Brown & Mike Esposito) before at last turning the tables on their fearsome foes after the criminal Libra revealed a shocking secretâ€¦

Avengers #123, depicted by Brown & Heck, began a vast and ambitious saga with ‘Vengeance in Viet Nam – or – An Origin For Mantis!’ as Libra’s claim to be Mantis’ father (a story vigorously and violently denied by the Martial Arts Mistress) brought the team to Indo-China.

The criminal ex-mercenary declared that he left the baby Mantis with pacifistic Priests of Pama after running afoul of a local crime-lord, but the bewildered warrior-woman has no memory of such events, nor of being schooled in combat techniques by the Priests. Meanwhile the gravely wounded Swordsman has rushed to Saigon to confront his sadistic ex-boss Monsieur Khruul and save the Priests from being murdered by the gangster’s thugsâ€¦ but was again too late. It is the tragic story of his wasted lifeâ€¦

Issue #124 found the team stumbling upon a scene of slaughter as clerics and criminals lay dead and a monstrous planet-rending alien horror awoke in ‘Beware the Star-Stalker!’ by J. Buscema & Dave Cockrumâ€¦

Mantis was forced to accept that her own memories were not real after Avengers #125, which unleashed ‘The Power of Babel!’ when a vast alien armada attacked and, in combating it, the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were trapped out of phase with their home-world.

This blockbuster battle bonanza was a crossover, and the penultimate episode of the spectacular Thanos War Saga that had featured in Captain Marvel, Marvel Feature and Iron Man, and included in this compendium is ‘The God Himself!’ scripted by Englehart from Captain Marvel #33 (plotted and illustrated by Jim Starlin & Klaus Janson) wherein the mad Titan Thanos finally fell in combat to the valiant Kree warrior: a stunning piece of comics storytelling which stands up remarkably well here despite being seen without benefit of the preceding ten chaptersâ€¦

It was back to business in #126 as in ‘All the Sights and Sounds of Death!’ (Brown & Cockrum) villains Klaw and Solarr attacked Avengers Mansion in a devious attempt to achieve vengeance for past indignities, after which Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler & Dan Adkins returned to the fold to delve into superhero history with ‘Nukloâ€¦ the Invader that Time Forgot!’ for the first quarterly edition of Giant-Size Avengers.

The stirring saga reintroduced 1940 Marvel sensation Bob Frank AKA The Whizzer in a tragic tale of desperation as the aged speedster begged the heroes’ help in rescuing his son: a radioactive mutant locked in stasis since the early 1950s. Unfortunately within the recently unearthed chrono-capsule the lad has grown into a terrifying atomic horrorâ€¦

Moreover while in the throes of a stress-induced heart-attack the Whizzer let slip that he was the also the father of mutant Avengers Scarlet Witch and Quicksilverâ€¦

In Avengers #127 Sal Buscema & Joe Staton signed on as regular art team with ‘Bride and Doom!’ when the team travelled to the hidden homeland of the Inhumans for the marriage of the aforementioned Quicksilver to elemental enchantress Crystal only to stumble into a uprising of the genetic slave-race known as Alpha Primitives.

Once again the robotic giant Omega had incited the revolt but this time it was controlled by an old Avengers enemy who revealed himself in the concluding chapter of the crossoverâ€¦

Fantastic Four #150 featured ‘Ultron-7: He’ll Rule the World!’ by Gerry Conway, Buckler & Joe Sinnott, in which an impossible battle of FF, Inhumans and Avengers was ended by a veritable Deus ex Machina after which, at long last ‘The Wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver’ ended events on a happy note.

But not for long: in Avengers #128’s ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Dead!’ (Englehart, Sal Buscema & Staton) the FF‘s nanny Agatha Harkness began tutoring Wanda Frank in actual sorcery to augment her mutant power, unwittingly allowing dark mage Necrodamus access to the Mansion and their souls, whilst the increasingly troubled Mantis began making a play for the Scarlet Witch’s synthazoid boyfriend The Vision; heedless of the hurt and harm she would bring to her current lover The Swordsmanâ€¦

In #129 ‘Bid Tomorrow Goodbye!’ kicked the simmering saga into high gear when Kang the Conqueror appeared, determined to possess the legendary female figure he called the Celestial Madonna.

Apparently this anonymous creature would birth the saviour of the universe, and since no records survived disclosing which of the three women in Avengers Mansion at that crucial moment she actually was, the time-reaver was determined to abduct all three and forcibly make Kang the inevitable father of the childâ€¦

This time not even the assembled Avengers could stop him and, after crushing and enslaving them, Kang made off with Wanda, Harkness and Mantis, with only the swiftly declining Swordsman free to contest himâ€¦

The tale continued into Giant-Size Avengers #2 with ‘A Blast from the Past!’ (illustrated by Cockrum) as reluctant returnee Hawkeye rushed to the team’s rescue, reuniting with old adversary Swordsman and an enigmatic entity named Rama-Tut who claimed to be Kang’s reformed future selfâ€¦

Against all odds the merely mortal heroes managed to free the enslaved Avengers and rout the unrepentant Kang – but only at the cost of the Swordsman’s lifeâ€¦

Avengers #130’s ‘The Reality Problem!’ (Sal Buscema & Staton) found the heartbroken and much chastened Mantis joining the team in Vietnam to investigate her mysteriously clouded past, only to be drawn into pointless combat with Communist exiles Titanium Man, Radioactive Man and Crimson Dynamo, thanks to the petty manipulations of sneak thiefÂ The Slasherâ€¦

The brief battle concluded and the trail then led to ‘A Quiet Half-hour in Saigon!’ during which the American Adventurers were again attacked by Kang who trapped them in Limbo and unleashed a Legion of the Unliving against themâ€¦

With another time-villain Immortus added to the mix, ‘Kang War II’ saw temporarily resurrected heroes and villains Wonder Man, 1940’s android Human Torch, the Monster of Frankenstein, martial arts assassin Midnight, the ghostly Flying Dutchman and Baron Zemo decimate the Avengers and the trauma and tragedy were further exacerbated as Mantis kept seeing the spectre of her deceased loverâ€¦

This absorbing thriller by Englehart, Thomas Sal Buscema & Staton segued inexorably into Giant-Size Avengers #3’s ‘â€¦What Time Hath put Asunder!’ illustrated by Cockrum & Joe Giella, which saw Earth’s Mightiest Heroes pull victory from the ashes of defeat and receive a unique gift from one of the assembled Masters of Timeâ€¦

Avengers #133 began ‘Yesterday and Beyondâ€¦’ (Englehart, S. Buscema & Staton) as the team followed Mantis to the beginnings of recorded Galactic history and the unravelling of her true past, whilst Vision was dispatched to glimpse his own obscure and complex origins; a double quest which encompassed the Kree and Skrull empires, the defeated Star-Stalker and deceased Priests of Pama and Thanos, and the telepathic Titan dubbed Moondragon, as well as a goodly portion of classic superhero history in ‘The Times That Bind!’ before #135 revealed that ‘The Torch is Passed!’ (illustrated by George Tuska & Frank Chiaramonte) and brought all the disparate elements together in Giant-Size Avengers #4.

‘â€¦Let All Men Bring Together’ (art by Heck & Tartaglione) climaxed the long-standing romance between the Scarlet Witch and Vision and another far more cosmic union with a brace of weddings and the ultimate ascension of the Celestial Madonna – even though demonic extra-dimensional despot Dormammu did try to spoil the showâ€¦

A new era was supposed to begin in Avengers #136 but a deadline was missed and instead ‘Iron Man: DOA’ by Englehart, Tom Sutton & Mike Ploog was reprinted from Amazing Adventures #12, wherein the newly mutated and furry Hank McCoy AKA the Beast had attacked the Armoured Avenger whilst mind-controlled.

Although an excellent story in its own right, it rather gave the game away for the next issue after the painfully depleted team declared ‘We Do Seek Out New Avengers!!’ (art by Tuska & Vince Colletta) and amongst the applicants – which included Moondragon, Yellowjacket and the Wasp – was an athletic, enigmatic guy bundled up in a raincoatâ€¦

No sooner had the introductions begun than a cosmic interloper attacked, hunting for the honeymooning Witch and Vision, but the ‘Stranger in a Strange Man!’ was far from his expected level of puissance and the heroes soon smelled a rat – unfortunately not before the Wasp was gravely injuredâ€¦

After all the intergalactic hyper-cosmic extravaganzas and extended epic-ing, Avengers #139 ‘Prescription: Violence!’ and #140’s ‘A Journey to the Center of the Ant’ end this volume on a comfortingly down-to-Earth scale as the malevolent Whirlwind tried to murder the bed-ridden Wasp and her devoted defender Yellowjacket succumbed to a growing affliction which doomed him to exponentially expand to his death until the refreshed, returned Vision and the bludgeoning Beast saved the dayâ€¦

Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart were at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of story-makers, brilliantly building on and consolidating the compelling creation of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko: spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder-machine of places and events that so many others were inspired by and could add to. In this volume, between them they also showed how much more graphic narratives could become and these terrific tales are perfect examples of superhero sagas done just right.

Although not to every reader’s taste these fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights masterpieces can still boggle the mind and take the breath away, so no lovers of Costumed Dramas can afford to ignore this superbly bombastic book.
Â© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

May 17, 2012May 16, 2012

Essential Spider-Man volume 5

By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1865-7

The Amazing Spider-Man was always a comic-book that matured with or perhaps just slightly ahead of its fan-base.

This fifth exceptionally economical monochrome volume of chronological web-spinning adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero through another rocky period of transformation as the great second era of Amazing Arachnid artists moved inevitably to a close. Although the elder John Romita would remain closely connected to the Wall-Crawler’s adventures for a little time yet, these tales would be his last long run as lead illustrator on the series.

Stan Lee’s scripts were completely in tune with the times – as glimpsed by a lot of kid’s parents at least – and the burgeoning use of pure soap opera plots kept older readers glued to the series even if the bombastic battle sequences didn’t.

Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism and a dependence on mystery plots. The balance of costumed super-antagonists was finely balanced with thugs, hoods and mob-bosses, but these were not the individual gangs of the Ditko days.

Now Organised Crime and Mafia analogue The Maggia were the big criminal-cultural touchstone as comics caught up with modern movies and the headlines. Moreover during this period Lee finally defied Comics Code Authority mandates to tell a powerful tale of drug abuse which would (along with DC’s Green Lantern tales dealing with the same issue) force the industry’s censoring body to expunge the ludicrous dictat that comics could never mention narcotics under any circumstancesâ€¦

This volume, reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #90-113, spans November 1970 to October 1972 and even includes some stunning art-in-progress and unfinished Gil Kane pages from issues #98 and 102 to edify and astound the readers, so be prepared to be utterly amazedâ€¦

Following directly on from ‘Doc Ock Lives!’ – which ended the previous Essential Edition on a cataclysmic cliffhanger – the action here opens with ‘And Death Shall Come!’ by Stan Lee, pencilled by Gil Kane & inked by John Romita Sr., wherein the multi-limbed menace ran riot in the city and Peter Parker’s attempts to stop him led to the death of a beloved cast memberâ€¦

With the tragic demise, Spider-Man became a wanted fugitive and Jonah Jameson began backing â€œLaw and Orderâ€ election hopeful Sam Bullitt in a campaign ‘To Smash the Spider!’, utterly unaware of the politician’s disreputable past, but the secret came out in #92’s ‘When Iceman Attacks’.

The ambitious demagogue convinced the youngest X-Man that Spider-Man had kidnapped Parker’s paramour Gwen Stacy but the Wondrous Wall-Crawler’s explosive battle against the mutant exposed the corrupt and explicitly racist Bullit in an all-out action extravaganza featuring some of the best action art of the decade by two of the industry’s greatest names.

Romita resumed pencilling with issue #93, which saw the return of a forgotten foe in ‘The Lady andâ€¦ The Prowler!’. Hobie Brown was a super-burglar gone straight, but when he saw that the Amazing Arachnid was wanted, he too was all to ready to believe the media hype and not his old benefactorâ€¦

Amazing Spider-Man #94 (Lee, Romita & Sal Buscema) offered a new glimpse of the fabled origin of the hero as part of a dynamic dust-up with the Beetle ‘On Wings of Death!’ after which Peter headed for London to woo his estranged girlfriend Gwen, who had fled the manic violence of America.

Sadly ‘Trap for a Terrorist’ found the city under threat of destruction from radical bombers, which only Spider-Man could handle, so she returned home, never knowing Parker had come after her. Everything was forgotten in the next issue when deeply disturbed and partially amnesiac industrialist Norman Osborn remembered he was the Green Goblin and once more attacked Peter in #96’s ‘â€¦And Now, the Goblin!’ by Lee, Kane & Romita.

Lee had long wanted to address the contemporary drugs situation in his stories but was forbidden by Comics Code strictures. When the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached him to tackle the issue he produced the three-part Goblin tale. When it was declined Code approval he went ahead and published it anywayâ€¦

Although the return of the madman who knew all Spider-Man’s secrets was the big fan-draw the real meat of the tale was how Osborn’s son Harry – a perfectly normal rich white kid – could be drawn into a web of addiction, abuse and toxic overdoseâ€¦

Frank Giacoia began inking Kane with the second instalment ‘In the Grip of the Goblin!’ as the elder Osborn ran riot, almost killing the wall-crawler and preparing for his final deadly assault even as his son lay dying, before the saga spectacularly concluded with ‘The Goblin’s Last Gasp!’ wherein the villain’s deeply buried paternal love proved his undoing and Parker’s salvationâ€¦

Amazing Spider-Man #99 ‘A Day in the Life ofâ€¦’ was an action-packed palate-cleanser with Peter and Gwen finally getting their love-life back on track, only marginally marred by a prison breakout which was easily quelled by the Arachnid Avenger, but the anniversary 100^th issue ‘The Spider or the Man?’ proved to be a game-changing shocker as, determined to retire and marry, Peter attempts to destroy his powers with an untested serum.

The result was a hallucinogenic trip wherein Kane & Giacoia got to draw an all-out battle between Spidey and a host of old enemies and a waking nightmare when Peter regained consciousness and discovered he had grown four extra armsâ€¦

With #101 Roy Thomas stepped in as scripter for ‘A Monster Calledâ€¦ Morbius!’, as the eight-limbed Parker desperately sought a way to reverse his condition and stumbled across a murderous costumed horror who drank human blood. To make matters worse old foe The Lizard turned up, determined to kill them bothâ€¦

Amongst the many things banned by the Comics Code in 1954 were horror staples vampires and werewolves, but the changing comics tastes and rising costs of the early 1970s were seeing Superhero titles dropping like flies in snowstorm. With interest in suspense and the supernatural growing, all companies were pushing to re-establish scary comics again and the covert introduction of a â€œLiving Vampireâ€ here led to another challenge to the CCA, the eventually revision of the horror section of the Code and the resurgent rise of supernatural heroes and titles.

For one month Marvel also experimented with double-sized comicbooks (DC’s switch to 52-page issues lasted almost a year: August 1971-June 1972 cover-dates) and Amazing Spider-Man #102 featured an immense, three-chapter blockbuster beginning with ‘Vampire at Large!’ as octo-webspinner and anthropoid reptile joined forces to hunt the bloodsucker after discovering a factor in the vampire’s saliva which could cure both part-time monsters’ respective conditions.

‘The Way it Began’ diverged from the tale to present the tragic secret origin of Nobel Prize winning biologist Michael Morbius and how be turned himself into a haunted night horror before ‘The Curse and the Cure!’ brought the tale to a blistering conclusion and restored the status quo.

Designed as another extra-long epic, ‘Walk the Savage Land!’ began in the now conventional sized #103 but was sliced in half and finished as #104 ‘The Beauty and the Brute’ in #104. When the Daily Bugle suffered a financial crisis, Jameson took Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy on a monster hunt to the Lost World under the Antarctic, encountering not only dinosaurs and cavemen but also noble savage Ka-Zar, perfidious villain Kraven the Hunter and even terrifying alien baby Gog in a fabulous pastiche and homage to Willis O’Brien’s King Kong from Thomas, Kane & Giacoia.

Capitalising on an era rife with social unrest and political protest, Stan Lee returned in #105 with ‘The Spider Slayer!’ as the New York City police put spy cameras on every rooftop and discredited technologist Spencer Smythe resurfaced with an even more formidable anti-Spider-Man robot for Jamison to set against the Wall-crawler. The story also featured the release of Harry Osborn from drug rehab and old Parker gadfly Flash Thompson came back from Vietnam, but the big shock was discovering the once beneficent Smythe had gone bonkersâ€¦

Responsible for the Police spy-eyes too, Smythe had photographed Spidey without his mask and in ‘Squash! Goes the Spider!’ (triumphantly pencilled by the returning Romita) the Professor sold out old employer Jameson, allied with criminal gangs and attempted to plunder the city. When the Amazing Arachnid tried to stop the banditry he found himself facing the ultimate Spider-Slayer before valiantly battling his way to victory in ‘Spidey Smashes Thru!’

The secret of Flash Thompson began to unravel in issue #108’s ‘Vengeance from Vietnam!’ (with Romita inking his own pencils) as the troubled war hero revealed an American war atrocity which had left a peaceful in-country village devastated, a benign mystic comatose and set a vengeful cult upon the saddened soldier’s guilt-ridden heels, which even all Spider-Man’s best efforts could not deflect or deter.

The campaign of terror was only concluded in #109 when ‘Enter: Dr. Strange!’ saw the Master of the Mystic Arts divine the truth and set things aright, after which #110’s ‘The Birth ofâ€¦ the Gibbon!’ found the world-weary wall-crawler battling shunned and lonely outcast Martin Blank, whose anthropoid frame and lack of friends had made his life a living hellâ€¦

The Gibbon was back a month later when Kraven brainwashed the hapless outcast ‘To Stalk a Spider!’ in a tale which saw the beginning of young Gerry Conway’s tenure on the title, whilst #112 saw another periodic crisis of faith for Peter Parker when ‘Spidey Cops Out!’ found the hero ready to chuck it all in until another nightmarish old adversary resurfaced as part of a burgeoning gang warâ€¦

We end as we began with #113 and ‘They Call the Doctorâ€¦ Octopus!’ (Conway & Romita with art assistance from Tony Mortellaro and Jim Starlin) as the city is plunged into chaos when the multi-limbed madman squares off against the mysterious gang-boss Hammerhead with a rededicated but fearfully overmatched Spider-Man caught in the middleâ€¦

For the cataclysmic outcome you’ll need to see volume 6â€¦

Despite that major qualification this is still a fantastic book about an increasingly relevant teen icon and symbol. Spider-Man at this time became a crucial part of many youngsters’ lives and did so by living a life as close to theirs as social mores and the Comics Code would allow.

Blending cultural veracity with stunning art and making a dramatic virtue of the awkwardness, confusion and sense of powerlessness that most of the readership experienced daily resulted in an irresistibly intoxicating read, delivered in addictive soap-opera instalments, but none of that would be relevant if the stories weren’t so compellingly entertaining. This intoxicating transitional book is Stan Lee’s Spider-Man at his very best and also shows the way in which the hero began to finally outgrow his (co)creator.
Â© 1970, 1971, 1972, 2011 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

April 25, 2012April 24, 2012

Essential Fantastic Four volume 6

By Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Joe Sinnott & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2162-6

With the sixth collection of tales from â€œThe World’s Greatest Comics Magazineâ€ a new kind of FF style was established. With Jack Kirby’s departure the staggeringly inventive imagination and High-Concept rollercoaster of mind-bending ideas gave way to more traditional tales of character, with soap-opera leanings and super-villain dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas.

This volume covers Fantastic Four #111-137 (June 1971- August 1973) and includes a few pertinent Marvel Universe Handbook pages delivering crucial background data on super-foes Diabolo, Air-Walker, Over-Mind and Thundra.

At the end of the previous collection an experiment to allow Ben Grimm to switch between human and monster forms went tragically awry and the action commences here with ‘The Thingâ€¦ Amok’ by Stan Lee, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott) as Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch tried to minimise the damage their deranged friend inflicted on the city whilst the increasingly marginalised Sue Richards was packed off to tend baby Franklin with eldritch governess Agatha Harkness.

With all of New York seemingly against them, the embattled heroes were on the ropes when the Incredible Hulk joined the fracas in #112’s ‘Battle of the Behemoths!’. As Sue finally returned, The Thing appeared to have perished but once more Reed Richards saved – and cured – his best friend just as another menace materialised in ‘The Power ofâ€¦ the Over-Mind!’: another insidious cosmic menace presaged by an ominous warning from alien voyeur The Watcher.

The psionic super-menace further incited civilian antipathy towards the FF in ‘But Who Shall Stop the Over-Mind?’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) before physically trouncing the team.

With #115 Stan Lee surrendered the scripting role to Archie Goodwin, who revealed ‘The Secret of the Eternals’ (not the earthly proto-gods created by Kirby, but an ancient alien race) in a visually stunning sequence limned by Buscema & Sinnott which culminated in Reed being taken over by the Over-Mind and attacking his erstwhile comradesâ€¦

Double-sized Fantastic Four #116 featured ‘The Alien, the Ally, andâ€¦ Armageddon!’ as the desperate heroes, unable to access any superhero assistance, recruited deadly foe Doctor Doom to lead them in the final battle against the unbeatable Over-Mind. They were nonetheless crushed and only saved at the crucial moment by an unexpected saviour in ‘Now Falls the Final Hour!’

With the world saved and order restored, the heartsick Human Torch headed for the Himalayas and a long-delayed rapprochement with his lost girlfriend Crystal of the Uncanny Inhumans in FF #117.

Months previously she had been forced to leave civilisation because modern pollutants had poisoned her system, but when Johnny Storm battled his way into her homeland in ‘The Flame and the Quest!’ he was horrified to discover that she had never arrived back in Attilan’s Great Refugeâ€¦

Blazing his way back to New York, Johnny used Agatha Harkness to track Crystal down and found her the mesmerised slave of arcane alchemist Diabolo who was using her to conquer a South American country in ‘Thunder in the Ruins!’ (inked by Jim Mooney). That issue also included an intriguing short piece starring the Thing in ‘What Mad World?’ wherein the Tragic Titan got a glimpse at an alternative Earth where an even greater mishap occurred after the fateful spaceflight which created the Fantastic Fourâ€¦

The Black Panther – renamed Black Leopard for political reasons – guest-starred in #119’s ‘Three Stood Together!’ as inker Sinnott returned and Roy Thomas scripted a damning indictment of South African apartheid. When the heroic ruler of jungle wonderland Wakanda was interned in the white-ruled state of Rudyarda, Ben and Johnny flew in to bust him out and only incidentally recapture a deadly super-weapon…

Fantastic Four #120 heralded an extended and overlong epic by Stan Lee which began with ‘The Horror that Walks on Air!’ as an invader claiming to be an angel scoured the Earth and declared humanity doomed. The tale laboriously continued in ‘The Mysterious Mind-Blowing Secret of Gabriel!’ with the utterly overmatched FF rescued by the Silver Surfer before facing off against the world-devouring ‘Galactus Unleashed’ whilst Reed again outsmarted the cosmic god to prevent the consumption of ‘This World Enslaved!’

Although beautifully illustrated, the hackneyed saga was a series low-point, but Lee was back on solid dramatic ground with #124’s ‘The Return of the Monster’ and concluding episode ‘The Monster’s Secret!’ wherein the mystery menace Reed had once dubbed ‘the Monster from the Lost Lagoon’ resurfaced to haunt a hospital, steal drugs and kidnap Sueâ€¦ but only for the best and most noble of reasons.

Roy Thomas became writer/editor with #126, revisiting the classic origin and first clash with the Mole Man in ‘The Way it Began!’

This reverie prompted the Thing to invade the sub-surface despot’s realm in search of a cure for the blindness which afflicted his girlfriend Alicia in ‘Where the Sun Dares Not Shine!’ and soon the embattled brute foundÂ himself embroiled in a three-way war between Mole Man, Kala, Empress of the Netherworld and immortal dictator Tyrannus.

When his comrades came after Ben they were duped into attacking him in ‘Death in a Dark and Lonely Place!’â€¦

After four pages of pin-ups by Buscema & Sinnott featuring a host of friends and foes ‘The Frightful Fourâ€¦ Plus One!’ saw the Torch again visit Attilan, whilst in New York the Thing was ambushed by The Sandman, Wizard, Trapster and their newest ally the super-strong Amazon Thundra.

Happily, Crystal’s Inhuman sister Medusa was there to pitch in as the clash escalated and spread to ‘Battleground: the Baxter Building!’ where baby Franklin began to exhibit terrifying abilities. Always left holding the baby and fed up with her husband’s neglect, Sue finally left Reed, whilst in the Himalayas Johnny forced his way to Crystal’s side only to find his worst nightmares realisedâ€¦

Fantastic Four #131 described a ‘Revolt in Paradise!’ (Thomas, Ross Andru & Sinnott) as Crystal, her brand new fiancÃ© Quicksilver, and the rest of the Inhumans were attacked by their genetically-programmed slave-race the Alpha Primitives.

At first it seemed that insane usurper Maximus was again responsible for the strife but there was a deeper secret behind the deadly danger of ‘Omega! The Ultimate Enemy!’ and when the rest of the FF arrived Reed soon ferreted it outâ€¦

Issue #133 celebrated Christmas with ‘Thundra at Dawn!’ as the mysterious Femizon returned to battle Ben again, courtesy of Gerry Conway, Ramona Fradon & Sinnott, whilst ‘A Dragon Stalks the Sky!’ in #134 (Conway, Buscema & Sinnott) found Reed, Johnny, Ben and Medusa fighting forgotten foe Gregory Gideon and his latest acquisition the Dragon Man; a bombastic battle which concluded in a struggle to possess ‘The Eternity Machine’â€¦

The secret of that reality-warping device was revealed in the two-part thriller which ends this edition as the cosmic entity Shaper of Worlds created a horrific and paranoid pastiche of 1950s America; re-running the conflicts between rebellious youth and doctrinaire, paternalistic authority in ‘Rock Around the Cosmos!’ and the surreal conclusion ‘Rumble on Planet 3’â€¦

Although Kirby had taken the explosive 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 served to carry the series for years afterwards and these admittedly erratic and inconsistent stories kept the Fantastic Four ticking over until bolder hands could once again take the World’s Greatest Comics Magazine Heroes back to the stratospheric heights where they belonged.

Solid, honest and creditable efforts, these tales are probably best seen by dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but could still thrill and enthral the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
Â© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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