Category: Marvel Masters & Masterworks

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Marvel Masterworks volume 27 The Avengers 21-30


By Stan Lee, Don Heck & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-993-6

After first launching the Avengers with the venerable concept of putting all your star eggs in one basket, narrative and scheduling problems prompted Stan Lee to downplay Marvel’s most popular stars in favour of lesser lights with les crowded schedules, allowing the title to develop healthy emotionally character-driven sub-plots that were necessarily missing for decades from its thematic precursor and rival Justice League of America.

By the time of this stellar third deluxe collection (re-presenting Avengers #21-30 from October 1965 to July 1966) the policy was paying big dividends as the team became another hotbed of stewing passions and brewing internal conflicts with veteran campaigner Captain America constantly at war with and doubting himself whilst wrangling young, unruly and ambitious newcomers – and ex-criminals – Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch in the tried and true, soapily operatic Marvel Manner.

Avengers #21 (by Stan Lee, Don Heck & Wally Wood) launched another big-name villain in Power Man, created by the evil Enchantress in ‘The Bitter Dregs of Defeat!’ as part of a diabolical plan to discredit and displace the heroic ideals. Her scheme succeeded in splitting up and outlawing the team, but after a clash with the Circus of Evil in #22 the plot was foiled by the indomitable Captain America in ‘The Road Back.’

A two-part Kang tale followed as the team was shanghaied into the far-flung future to battle against and latterly beside the Tyrant of Time. Avengers #23 (incidentally, my vote for the best Marvel cover Jack Kirby ever drew) ‘Once an Avenger…’ was superbly inked by the elder John Romita before the yarn spectacularly concludes with the epic ‘From the Ashes of Defeat!’ by Heck & Dick Ayers.

The underrated team faced their greatest test yet when they were cunningly captured, magnificently survived and easily escaped the deadliest man alive in #25′s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ but, as change was ever the watchword for this series, the following two issues combined a threat to drown the world with the return of an old comrade.

‘The Voice of the Wasp!’ and ‘Four Against the Floodtide!’ (Lee, Heck & Frank Giacoia) made for a superlative action-romp as the undersea barbarian Attuma attempted to raise the world’s sea-level to destroy humanity. Notified by the long-retired Wasp the Avengers dashed to the depths to stop the marine maniac, but that saga was simply a prelude to the main event…

Issue #28 featured the return of Giant-Man in a new guise. ‘Among us Walks a Goliath!’ was an instant classic which introduced the villainous Collector and extended the company’s pet theme of alienation by tragically trapping the size-changing hero at a freakish ten-foot height, seemingly forever.

Avengers #29, ‘This Power Unleashed!’ then brought back Hawkeye’s lost love Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow and a brainwashed Soviet agent in an unlikely attempt to destroy the team using fearsome foes Power Man and Swordsman as cannon-fodder before this delightful diversion annoying ends on a classy cliffhanger with ‘Frenzy in a Far-Off Land!’ as the dispirited colossus desperately sought a cure to his colossal condition.

Seeking expert aid the grim giant became embroiled in a civil war amongst a lost South American civilisation: a two-part yarn that threatened to end in global incineration – but one that concludes in another volume…

Riveting tales of action and adventure, a charismatic blend of established and new characters and some of the best illustrated narrative in Marvel’s history makes this tome both utterly enticing and aggravatingly frustrating, but as the next book is also stuffed with brilliant adventure tales I suppose dedicated fans will be content  to buy that one too.

These stories set the tone for Marvel’s superheroes: the group dynamics, the themes and even the kinds of menaces they faced. Where the Fantastic Four were as much explorers as champions; a family with the same passions, the Avengers were disparate individuals called together to get a job done. How well these adventures still read is testament to how well the creators succeeded in their craft…
© 1965, 1966, 1993 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks: All-Winners 1-4

New Expanded Review

By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Carl Burgos, Bill Everett & others (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-7851-1884-5

Unlike their Distinguished Competition, Marvel Comics took quite a while to get into producing expensive hardbound volumes of their earliest comic adventures. In the cold hard light of day it’s fairly clear to see why. The sad truth is that a lot of Golden Age Marvel material is not only pretty offensive by modern standards but is also of rather poor quality. One welcome exception, however, is this collection of the quarterly super-hero anthology All Winners Comics.

Over the course of the first year’s publication (from Summer 1941 to Spring 1942) the stories and art varied wildly but in terms of sheer variety the tales and characters excelled in exploring every avenue of patriotic thrill that might enthral ten year old boys of all ages. As well as Simon and Kirby, Lee, Bill Everett and Carl Burgos, the early work of Mike Sekowsky, Jack Binder, George Klein, Paul Gustavson, Al Avison, Al Gabriele and many others can be found as the budding superstars dashed out the supplemental adventures of Captain America, Sub-Mariner, The Human Torch, Black Marvel, The Angel, Mighty Destroyer, and The Whizzer.

This spectacular deluxe full-colour hardback compendium opens with a fulsome and informative introduction from Roy Thomas – architect of Marvel’s Golden Age revival – ably abetted by Greg Theakston, after which  All Winners Comics #1 commences with Carl Burgos’ Human Torch adventure ‘Carnival of Fiends’ as Japanese agent Matsu terrorises the peaceful pro-American Orientals of Chinatown whilst the physically perfect specimen dubbed the Black Marvel crushes a sinister secret society known as ‘The Order of the Hood’ in a riotous action romp by Stan Lee, Al Avison & Al Gabriele after which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby contributed a magnificent Captain America thriller-chiller in ‘The Case of the Hollow Men’ as ghastly artificial zombies rampaged through the streets of New York…

Stripling Stan Lee scripted the prose teaser ‘All Winners’ – an affable chat between the four-colour stars – after which an untitled Bill Everett Sub-Mariner yarn saw the errant Prince of Atlantis uncover and promptly scupper a nest of saboteurs on the Virginia coastline whilst the inexplicably ubiquitous Angel travelled to the deep dark jungle to solve ‘The Case of the Mad Gargoyle’ with typical ruthless efficiency in an engaging end-piece by Paul Gustavson.

Issue #2 (Fall 1941) began with the Torch and incendiary sidekick Toro tackling the ‘Carnival of Death!’ – a winter jamboree this time rather than a circus of itinerant killers – in a passable murder-mystery with less than stellar art, after which Simon & Kirby delivered another stunning suspense shocker in the exotic action masterpiece ‘The Strange Case of the Malay Idol’.

Lee graduated to full comic strips in ‘Bombs of Doom!’ as Jack Binder illustrated the All Winners debut of charismatic behind-enemy-lines hero The Destroyer; the text feature ‘Winners All’ saw a Lee puff-piece embellished with a Kirby group shot of the anthology’s cast and second new guy The Whizzer kicked off a long run in an untitled, uncredited tale about spies and society murderers on the home-front. After a page of believe-it-or-not ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ a ghost artist produced ‘The Ghost Fleet’ to end the issue with another Sub-Mariner versus Nazi submariners action romp.

All Winners #3 pitted the Torch against Japanese terrorists in ‘The Case of the Black Dragon Society’, a rather over-the-top slice of cartoon jingoism credited to Burgos but perhaps produced by another anonymous ghost squad. Simon and Kirby had moved to National Comics by this issue and Avison was drawing Captain America now, with scripts by the mysterious S.T. Anley (geddit?) but ‘The Canvas of Doom!’ still rockets along with plenty of dynamite punch in a manic yarn about a painter who predicts murders in his paintings, whilst The Whizzer busted up corruption and slaughter in ‘Terror Prison’ in a rip-roarer from Lee, Mike Sekowsky & George Klein.

‘Jungle Drums’ was standard genre filler-fare after which Everett triumphed with a spectacular maritime mystery as ‘Sub-Mariner visits the Ship of Horrors’ and The Destroyer turned the Fatherland upside down by wrecking ‘The Secret Tunnel of Death!’

The final issue in this compendium was cover-dated Spring 1942 and with enough lead time following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the patriotic frenzy mill was clearly in full swing.

A word of warning: though modern readers might well blanche at the racial and sexual stereotyping of the (presumably) well-intentioned propaganda machines which generated tales such as ‘Death to Nazi Scourge’ and ‘The Terror of the Slimy Japs’, please try to remember the tone of those times and recall that these contents obviously need to be read in an historical rather than purely entertainment context.

The aforementioned ‘Terror of the Slimy Japs’ found the Human Torch and Toro routing Moppino, High Priest of the Rising Sun Temple and saboteur extraordinaire from his lair beneath New York, whilst Cap and Bucky contented themselves with solving ‘The Sorcerer’s Sinister Secret!’ and foiling another Japanese sneak attack before The Whizzer stamped out ‘Crime on the Rampage’ in a breakneck campaign by Howard “Johns” nee James.

‘Miser’s Gold’ was just one more genre text tale followed by Everett’s take on the other war as ‘Sub-Mariner Combats the Sinister Horde!’ …of Nazis, this time, after which the Destroyer brought down the final curtain by hunting down a sadistic Gestapo chief in ‘Death to Nazi Scourge’.

Augmented by covers, house ads and other original ephemera, this is a collection of patriotic populist publishing from the dawn of a new and cut-throat industry, working under war-time conditions in a much less enlightened time. That these nascent efforts grew into the legendary characters and brands of today attests to their intrinsic attraction and fundamental appeal, but this is a book of much more than simple historical interest. Make no mistake, there’s still much here that any modern fan can and will enjoy.
© 1941, 1942, 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks Golden Age Captain America vol. 1


New expanded review
By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby and various (Marvel Comics)

ISBN: 0-7851-1619-2

Over the last twenty years a minor phenomenon developed in the world of comic collecting. The success of DC’s Archive imprint – which produced luxury hardback reprints of rare, expensive and just plain old items out of their mammoth back-catalogue – gradually resulted in a shelf-buckling array of Golden and Silver Age volumes which paid worthy tribute to the company’s grand past and still serves a genuine need amongst fans of old comics who don’t own their own software company or Money Bin.

It should also be noted that many volumes, at least latterly, seemed to coincide with the release of a film or TV show.

From tentative beginnings in the 1990’s DC, Marvel and Dark Horse have pursued this (hopefully) lucrative avenue, perhaps as much a sop to their most faithful fans as an exercise in expansion marketing. DC’s electing to spotlight not simply their World Branded “Big Guns” but also those idiosyncratic yet well-beloved collector nuggets – such as Doom Patrol, Sugar and Spike or Kamandi – was originally at odds with Marvel’s policy of only releasing equally expensive editions of major characters from “the Marvel Age of Comics”, but in recent times their Dawn Age material has been progressively released.

A part of me understands the reluctance: sacrilegious as it may sound to my fellow fan-boys, the simple truth is that no matter how venerable and beloved those early stories are, no matter how their very existence may have lead to classics in a later age, in and of themselves, most early Marvel tales just aren’t that good.

This Marvel Masterworks Captain America volume reprints more or less the complete contents of the first four issues of his original title (from March to June 1941) and I stress this because all the leading man’s adventures have often been reprinted before, most notably in a shoddy, infamous yet expensive 2-volume anniversary boxed set issued in 1991.

However, the groundbreaking and exceptionally high quality material from Joe Simon & Jack Kirby is not really the lure here… the real gold nuggets for us old sods are the rare back-up features from the star duo and their small team of talented youngsters. Reed Crandall, Syd Shores, Alex Schomburg and all the rest worked on main course and filler features such as Hurricane, the God of Speed and Tuk, Caveboy; strips barely remembered yet still brimming with the first enthusiastic efforts of creative legends in waiting.

Captain America was created at the end of 1940 and boldly launched in his own monthly Timely title (the company’s original name) with none of the customary cautious shilly-shallying. Captain America Comics, #1 was cover-dated March 1941 and was an instant monster smash-hit. Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s “Big Three” – the other two being the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner – and one of the very first to fall from popularity at the end of the Golden Age.

Today, the huge 1940s popularity of the other two just doesn’t translate into a good read for modern consumers – excluding, perhaps, those far-too-few Bill Everett crafted Sub-Mariner yarns. In comparison to their contemporaries at Quality, Fawcett, National/All American and Dell, or Will Eisner’s Spirit newspaper strip, the standard of most Timely periodicals was woefully lacklustre in both story and most tellingly, art. That they survived and prospered is a Marvel mystery, but a clue might lie in the sheer exuberant venom of their racial stereotypes and heady fervour of jingoism at a time when America was involved in the greatest war in world history…

However, the first ten Captain America Comics are the most high-quality comics in the fledgling company’s history and I can’t help but wonder what might have been had National (née DC) been wise enough to hire Simon & Kirby before they were famous, instead of after that pivotal first year?

Of course we’ll never know and though they did jump to the majors after a year, their visual dynamic became the aspirational style for super-hero comics at the company they left and their patriotic creation became a flagship icon for them and the industry.

This lavish and exceptional hardback volume opens with ‘Case No. 1: Meet Captain America’ by Simon & Kirby (with additional inks by Al Liederman) wherein we first see how scrawny, enfeebled young patriot Steven Rogers, continually rejected by the US Army, is recruited by the Secret Service. Desperate to counter a wave of Nazi-sympathizing espionage and sabotage, the passionate young man was invited to become part of a clandestine experiment intended to create physically perfect super-soldiers.

When a Nazi agent infiltrated the project and murdered its key scientist, Rogers became the only successful graduate and America’s not-so-secret weapon.

Sent undercover as a simple private he soon encountered James Buchanan Barnes: a headstrong, orphaned Army Brat who became his sidekick and costumed confidante “Bucky”. All of that was perfectly packaged into mere seven-and-a-half pages, and the untitled ‘Case No. 2’ took just as long to spectacularly defeat Nazi showbiz psychics Sando and Omar.

‘Captain America and the Soldier’s Soup’ was a rather mediocre and unattributed prose tale promptly followed by a sinister 16-page epic ‘Captain America and the Chess-board of Death’ and the groundbreaking introduction of the nation’s greatest foe whilst solving ‘The Riddle of the Red Skull’ – a thrill-packed, horror-drenched master-class in comics excitement.

The first of the B-features follows next as Hurricane, son of Thor and the last survivor of the Greek Gods (don’t blame me – that’s what it says) set his super-fast sights on ‘Murder Inc.’ – a rip-roaring but clearly rushed battle against fellow-immortal Pluto (so not quite the last god either; nor exclusively Norse or Greek…) who was once more using mortals to foment pain, terror and death.

Hurricane was a rapid reworking and sequel to Kirby’s ‘Mercury in the 20th Century’ from Red Raven Comics #1 (August 1940) but ‘Tuk, Caveboy: Stories from the Dark Ages’ is all-original excitement as a teenaged boy in 50,000 BC raised by a beast-man determines to regain the throne of his antediluvian kingdom Attilan from the usurpers who stole it: a barbarian spectacular that owes as much to Tarzan as The Land that Time Forgot…

Historians believe that Kirby pencilled this entire issue and although no records remain, inkers as diverse as Liederman, Crandall, Bernie Klein, Al Avison, Al Gabrielle, Syd Shores and others may have been involved in this and subsequent issues…

Captain America Comics #2 screamed onto the newsstands a month later and spectacularly opened with ‘The Ageless Orientals Who Wouldn’t Die’, blending elements of horror and jingoism into a terrifying thriller, with a ruthless American capitalist the true source of a rampage against the nation’s banks…

‘Trapped in the Nazi Stronghold’ saw Cap and youthful sidekick Bucky in drag and in Europe to rescue a pro-British financier kidnapped by the Nazis whilst ‘Captain America and the Wax Statue that Struck Death’ returned to movie-thriller themes in the tale of a macabre murderer with delusions of world domination, after which the Patriotic Pair dealt with saboteurs in the prose piece ‘Short Circuit’. Tuk then tackled monsters and mad priests in ‘The Valley of the Mist’ (by either the King and a very heavy inker or an unnamed artist doing a passable Kirby impression) and Hurricane speedily and spectacularly dealt with ‘The Devil and the Green Plague’ in the depths of the Amazon jungles.

17-page epic ‘The Return of the Red Skull’ led in #3 – knocking Adolf Hitler off the cover-spot he’d hogged in #1 and #2 – as Kirby opened up his layouts to utterly enhance the graphic action and a veritable production line of creators joined the art team (including Ed Herron, Martin A, Burnstein, Howard Ferguson, William Clayton King, and possibly George Roussos, Bob Oksner, Max Elkan and Jerry Robinson) whilst eye-shattering scale and spectacle joined non-stop action and eerie mood as key components of the Sentinel of Liberty’s exploits.

The horror element dominated in ‘The Hunchback of Hollywood and the Movie Murder’ as a patriotic film was plagued by sinister “accidents” after which Stan Lee debuted with the text tale ‘Captain America Foils the Traitor’s Revenge’ before Simon & Kirby – and friends – recounted ‘The Queer Case of the Murdering Butterfly and the Ancient Mummies’; blending eerie Egyptian antiquities with a thoroughly modern costumed psychopath.

Tuk (drawn by either Mark Schneider – or perhaps Marcia Snyder) reached ‘Atlantis and the False King’ after which Kirby contributed a true tale in ‘Amazing Spy Adventures’ and Hurricane confronted ‘Satan and the Subway Disasters’ with devastating and final effect.

The last issue in this fabulous chronicle opens with ‘Captain America and the Unholy Legion’ as the heroes crushed a conspiracy of beggars terrorising the city, before taking on ‘Ivan the Terrible’ in a time-busting vignette and solving ‘The Case of the Fake Money Fiends’, culminating on a magnificent high by exposing the horrendous secret of ‘Horror Hospital’.

After the Lee-scripted prose-piece ‘Captain America and the Bomb Sight Thieves’ young Tuk defeated ‘The Ogre of the Cave-Dwellers’ and Hurricane brought down the final curtain on ‘The Pirate and the Missing Ships’.

An added and very welcome bonus for fans is the inclusion of all the absolutely beguiling house-ads for other titles, contents pages, Sentinels of Liberty club bulletins and assorted pin-ups…

Although lagging far behind DC and despite, in many ways having a much shallower Golden Age well to draw from, it’s great that Marvel has overcome an understandable reluctance about its earliest product continues to re-present these masterworks – even if they’re only potentially of interest to the likes of sad old folk like me – but with this particular tome at least the House of Ideas has a book that will always stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best that the Golden Age of Comics could offer.
© 1941 and 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 10: Amazing-Spider-Man 21-30 & Annual 1


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-596-5

The third magnificent full-colour hardback collection of Spider-Man’s earliest adventures sees the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero begin to challenge the dominance of the Fantastic Four as Marvel’s premier comicbook both in sales and quality. Steve Ditko’s off-beat plots and unconventionally inspirational art had gradually reached an accommodation with the slick and potent superhero house-style Jack Kirby was developing (at least as much as such a unique talent ever could), with less line-feathering, more controlled, moody backgrounds and fewer totemic villains.

Although still very much a Ditko vehicle, Spider-Man had by this time attained a sleek pictorial gloss. Stan Lee’s scripts were comfortably in tune with the times if not his collaborator’s tastes and, although his assessment of the audience was probably the more correct one, all disagreements with the artist over the strip’s editorial direction were still confined to the office and not the pages themselves.

Thematically, there’s still a large percentage of old-fashioned crime and gangsterism here. The dependence on costumed super-foes as antagonists was still finely balanced with ordinary thugs, hoods and mobsters, but those days were rapidly coming to an end too.

When Ditko abruptly left the series and the company, the dreaded loss in quality and sales never happened. The mere “safe pair of hands” that John Romita (senior) considered himself blossomed into a major talent in his own right, and the Wall-Crawler continued his unstoppable rise at an accelerated pace but that’s a bridge crossed in another volume…

This terrific tome (reprinting Amazing Spider-Man #21-30 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1) kicks off with ‘Where Flies The Beetle’ featuring a hilarious love triangle as the Human Torch’s girlfriend used Peter Parker to make the flaming hero jealous. Unfortunately the Beetle, a villain with a high-tech suit of insect-themed armour, was simultaneously planning to use her as bait for a trap. As ever Spider-Man was simply in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest.

‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace’ saw a return engagement for the Circus of Crime with splendidly outré action and a lot of hearty laughs provided by increasingly irreplaceable supporting stars Aunt May, Betty Brant and J. Jonah Jameson whilst #23 presented a superb thriller blending the ordinary criminals that Ditko loved to depict with the arcane threat of a super-villain attempting to take over the Mob. ‘The Goblin and the Gangsters’ was both moody and explosive, a perfect contrast to ‘Spider-Man Goes Mad!’ in #24. This psychological stunner found a clearly delusional hero seeking psychiatric help, but there was more to the matter than simple insanity, as an insidious old foe made an unexpected return…

Issue #25 once again saw the obsessed Daily Bugle publisher take matters into his own hands: ‘Captured by J. Jonah Jameson!’ introduced Professor Smythe – whose robotic Spider-Slayers would bedevil the Web-Spinner for years to come – hired by the bellicose newsman to remove Spider-Man for good.

Issues #27 and 28 comprised a captivating two-part mystery exposing a deadly duel between the Green Goblin and an enigmatic new masked criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect Spider-Man saga, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense thrills and all-out action.

‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ from #28 was a tale of science gone bad and remains remarkable today not only for the spectacular action sequences – and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced – but also as the story in which Peter Parker finally graduated from High School.

‘Never Step on a Scorpion!’ saw the return of that lab-made villain, hungry for vengeance against not just the Web-Spinner but also Jameson for turning a disreputable private eye into a super-powered monster, and the chronological tales here conclude with #30’s off-beat crime-caper which cannily sowed the seeds for future masterpieces. ‘The Claws of the Cat!’ featured the city-wide hunt for an extremely capable burglar (way more exciting than it sounds, trust me!), plus the introduction of an organised mob of thieves working for mysterious new menace the Master Planner.

Out of place but never unwelcome, this volume ends with the timeless landmark and still magnificently thrilling battle against the ‘Sinister Six’ which actually first appeared between Amazing Spider-Man #16 and 17.

When a team of villains comprising Electro, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Vulture and Doctor Octopus abducted Aunt May and Peter Parker’s girlfriend Betty, Spider-Man was forced to confront them without his Spider-powers. A staggeringly enthralling Fights ‘n’ Tights saga, this influential tale also featured cameos (or more likely product placement ads) by every other extant hero of the budding Marvel universe. Also included are special feature pages on ‘The Secrets of Spider-Man!’ and the comedic short ‘How Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Create Spider-Man’ and a gallery of pin-up pages featuring ‘Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes!’

Full of energy, verve, pathos and laughs, gloriously short of post-modern angst and breast-beating, these fun classics are quintessential comic magic and with the Fantastic Four form the very foundation of everything Marvel became. This sturdy compendium is another unmissable opportunity for readers of all ages to celebrate the magic and myths of the modern heroic ideal in delightfully decadent luxury – and would make an ideal gift.
© 1964, 1965, 1989 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks Invincible Iron Man volume 2: Tales of Suspense 51-65


By Stan Lee, Don Heck, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0886-3 or 978-0-7851-1771-1

There are a number of ways to interpret the life and moonlighting career of Tony Stark, glamorous millionaire industrialist/inventor and his armoured alter-ego, Iron Man.

Created in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and at a time when “Red-baiting” and “Commie-bashing” were American national obsessions, the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison, using Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard and better the World, seemed inevitable. Combine the then-common belief that technology could solve any problem with the universal imagery of noble knights battling evil and the proposition almost becomes a certainty. Of course it might simply be us kids thought it both great fun and very, very cool…

This glorious full colour deluxe hardback compendium of the Golden Avenger’s early days reprints his further early adventures, with a smattering of feature pages and pin-ups from Tales of Suspense #51 (cover-dated March 19664) through #65 (May 1965), a period when Marvel built steadily and irresistibly on their creative inspiration and began scoring solid commercial successes: a time that would see them start to topple DC Comics from a position of dominance, but before the flashy underdogs became the darlings of the student counter-culture. In these tales Tony Stark is still very much the patriotic armaments manufacturer, and not the enlightened capitalist dissenter he would become.

Behind the first of fifteen fabulous Jack Kirby covers the wonderment begins with TOS #51 and ‘The Sinister Scarecrow’ (by Stan Lee & Don Heck) wherein the Golden Avenger tackled a tricky contortionist who quickly became a major menace after stealing vital weapons plans, after which Soviet femme fatale The Black Widow debuted with a savage partner who almost destroyed Iron Man in a Russian-made armour-suit when ‘The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!’ scripted, as was the next issue, by the enigmatic “N. Kurok”.

She was back in #53 when ‘The Black Widow Strikes Again!’ a far deadlier threat on her own after stealing an anti-gravity ray but nevertheless still failed to hit her gleaming target and the oriental mastermind who would become Stark’s greatest enemy returned in Tales of Suspense #54 to exact ‘The Mandarin’s Revenge!’; a two-part tale which concluded in ‘No One Escapes the Mandarin!’

Happily Iron Man did, and after bonus factoid-featurettes ‘All About Iron Man’ and ‘More Info About Iron Man’, plus pinups of devoted friends and confidantes Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts, our hero was attacked by Commie super agent ‘The Uncanny Unicorn!’

The Widow resurfaced to beguile budding superhero ‘Hawkeye, the Marksman!’ into attacking the Golden Avenger in #57, before a true landmark event occurred in the next issue. Iron Man had monopolised Tales of Suspense since his creation but ‘In Mortal Combat with Captain America’ (inked by Dick Ayers) an all-out battle between the two heroes – resulting from a clever impersonation by evil impressionist The Chameleon – hinted at a big change in the title.

The clash was a primer for the next issue when Cap would begin his own solo adventures, splitting the monthly comic into a shared anthology featuring Marvel’s top patriotic heroes.

Iron Man’s outing in TOS #59 was against high-tech bandit ‘The Black Knight!’ as a result of which Stark was unable to remove the armour without triggering a heart attack, a situation which hadn’t occurred since the initial heart injury forced Stark to devise his iron-shod alter-ego. Up until this time he had led a relatively normal life by simply wearing the life-sustaining chest-plate under his clothes but now he was a trapped by his own tech…

The introduction of soap-opera sub-plots were a necessitated by the shorter page counts, as were continued stories, but this seeming disadvantage worked to improve both the writing and the sales.

With Stark’s “disappearance,” Iron Man was ‘Suspected of Murder!’ – a tale which featured the return of Hawkeye and the Black Widow – leading directly into ‘The Death of Tony Stark!’ and after another stunning pin-up, ‘The Origin of the Mandarin!’.

After that extended epic, a change of narrative pace occurred as short, complete exploits returned. The first was #63’s industrial sabotage thriller ‘Somewhere Lurks the Phantom!’, followed by the surely self-explanatory ‘Hawkeye and the New Black Widow Strike Again!’ (inked by Chic Stone and disclosing the sultry spy’s conversion into a wall-crawling super-character), before this gold-plated triumph ends with ‘When Titans Clash!’ (inked by Mike Esposito under the pseudonym Mickey Demeo) as a petty thief steals the new armour and Stark must defeat his greatest invention clad only in his clunky old suit.

Iron Man developed amidst the growing political awareness of the Viet Nam Generation who were the comic’s maturing readership. Wedded as it was to the American Military-Industrial Complex, with a hero – originally the government’s wide-eyed golden boy – gradually becoming attuned to his country’s growing divisions, it was, as much as Spider-Man, a bellwether of the times.

That these tales also remain such a thrilling rollercoaster riot of classic super-hero fun is a lasting tribute to the talents of the superb creators who worked on them and this sturdy invincible tome is absolutely the best way to review these masterpieces of Marvel mettle.
© 1964, 1965, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 7: X-Men 11-21


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Werner Roth, Dick Ayers & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-482-9
In 1963 things really took off for the budding Marvel Comics as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby expanded their diminutive line of action titles, putting a bunch of relatively new super-heroes together as the Avengers, launching a decidedly different war comic in Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos and creating a group of alienated but valiant teenagers who were called together to fight a rather specific threat to humanity.

After spectacular starts on all those titles, Kirby’s increasing workload compelled him to cut back to simply laying out these lesser lights as Thor and Fantastic Four evolved into perfect playgrounds and full-time monthly preoccupations for his burgeoning imagination. The last series he surrendered was the still-bimonthly X-Men wherein outcast tribe of mutants Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast and Marvel Girl – very special students of wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier -worked diligently and clandestinely to foster peace and integration between the unwary masses of humanity and the gradually emergent race Homo Superior.

This second lavish deluxe edition covers issues #11-21 (May 1965 to June 1966) and features two key transitional moments as first Kirby and then Stan Lee handed the series over to fresh new talent…

A major turning point signalled The King’s departure in #11 with ‘The Triumph of Magneto!’ as our heroes and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants both searched for a fantastically powered being called The Stranger. None were aware of his true identity, nature or purpose, but when the Master of Magnetism found him first it spelt the end of the war with the X-Men…

With Magneto gone and the Brotherhood broken, Kirby relinquished the pencilling to other hands, providing loose layouts and design only. Alex Toth & Vince Colletta proved an uncomfortable mix for #12′s tense drama ‘The Origin of Professor X!’ – the start of a two-part saga which introduced Xavier’s half brother Cain Marko and revealed that simple lout’s mystic transformation into an unstoppable human engine of destruction.

The story concluded with ‘Where Walks the Juggernaut’, a compelling tension-drenched tale guest-starring the Human Torch, but most notable for the introduction of penciller Werner Roth (using the name Jay Gavin) who would be associated with the mutants for the next half decade. His inker for this first outing was the infallible Joe Sinnott.

Roth was an unsung veteran of the industry, working for the company in the 1950s on such star features as Apache Kid and the inexplicably durable Kid Colt, Outlaw, as well as Mandrake the Magician for King Features Comics and Man from U.N.C.L.E. for Gold Key. As with many pseudonymous creators it was his DC commitments (mostly romance stories) which forced him to disguise his moonlighting until Marvel grew big enough to offer him full-time work.

‘Among us Stalk the Sentinels!’ from issue #14 (inked by Colletta), celebrated the team’s inevitable elevation to monthly publication with the first chapter of a three-chapter epic introducing anthropologist Bolivar Trask, whose solution to the threat of Mutant Domination was super-robots that would protect humanity at all costs. Sadly their definition of “protect” varied wildly from the expected, but what can you expect when a social scientist dabbles in high-energy physics and engineering?

The X-Men took the battle to the Sentinels secret base and became ‘Prisoners of the Mysterious Master Mold!’ before wrapping up their ferrous foes with ‘The Supreme Sacrifice!’ Veteran Dick Ayers joined as inker from #15, his clean line blending perfectly with Roth’s clean, classicist pencils. They remained a team for years, adding vital continuity to this quirky but never top-selling series.

X-Men #17 dealt with the aftermath of the battle – probably the last time the US Army and government openly approved of the team’s efforts – and the sedate but brooding nature of ‘…And None Shall Survive!’ enabled the story to generate a genuine air of apprehension as the Xavier Mansion was taken over by an old foe who picked them off one by one until only the youngest was left to battle alone in the climactic conclusion ‘If Iceman Should Fail..!’

‘Lo! Now Shall Appear… The Mimic!’ in #19 was Lee’s last script, a pithy tale of a troubled teen with the ability to copy the skills, powers and abilities of anyone in close proximity, after which the writing reins were turned over to Roy Thomas in #20, who promptly jumped in guns blazing with ‘I, Lucifer…’ an alien invasion yarn that starred Xavier’s arch-nemesis as well as Unus the Untouchable and the Blob, revealing in passing how Professor X lost the use of his legs.

With the canny concluding part ‘From Whence Comes Dominus?’, Thomas & Roth completely made the series their own, blending juvenile high spirits, classy superhero action and torrid soap opera with beautiful drawing and stirring adventure.

At this time Marvel Comics had a vast and growing following among older teens and college kids, and the youthful Thomas spoke and wrote as they did. Coupled with his easy delight in large casts this would increasingly make X-Men a very welcoming read for we adolescents…

These quirky tales are a million miles removed from the angst-ridden, breast-beating, cripplingly convoluted X-brand of today’s Marvel and, in many ways are all the better for it. Well drawn, highly readable adventures are never unwelcome or out of favour, and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of the mutant monolith. These are stories for the dedicated fan and newest convert, and never better packaged than in this fabulously stylish full-colour tome. Everyone should have this book.
© 1965, 1966, 1988 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 9: The Avengers 11-20


By Stan Lee, Don Heck, Dick Ayers & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-595-7   second edition: 978-0-7851-1178-8

Whenever Jack Kirby left a title he’d co-created it took a little while to settle into a new rhythm, and none more so than the collectivised champions called the Avengers. Although writer Stan Lee and the marvellously utilitarian Don Heck were perfectly capable of producing cracking comics entertainments, they never had The King’s unceasing sense of panoramic scope and vast scale which constantly searched for bigger, bolder blasts of excitement. After Kirby, the tales concentrated on human beings in costume, not wild new gods bestriding the Earth…

The wonderment herein contained (covering issues #11-20, December 1964 – September 1965) begins with ‘The Mighty Avengers Meet Spider-Man!’, a clever cross-over tale inked by Chic Stone and featuring the return of time-bending tyrant Kang the Conqueror who attempted to destroy the team by insinuating a robotic duplicate within their serried ranks, which precedes a cracking end-of-the-world thriller with guest Fantastic Four villains Mole Man and the Red Ghost.

‘This Hostage Earth!‘ (inked by Dick Ayers) was a welcome return to grand adventure with lesser lights Giant-Man and the Wasp taking rare lead roles, followed by a rousing gangster thriller of a sort seldom seen outside the pages of Spider-Man or Daredevil, which introduced Marvel universe Mafia analogue The Maggia and another major bad-guy in #13’s ‘The Castle of Count Nefaria!’

That caper ended on a tragic cliffhanger as the Wasp was left gunshot and dying, leading to a high-point in melodramatic tension in #14 (scripted by Paul Laiken & Larry Lieber over Stan’s plot) as the shattered team of heroes scoured the globe for the only surgeon who could save her.

‘Even Avengers Can Die!’ – although of course she didn’t – resolved into a classy alien invader tale with overtones of This Island Earth as Kirby returned to lay out the epic for Heck & Stone to illustrate, which only whetted the appetite for a classic climactic confrontation as the costumed champions finally dealt with the Masters of Evil and Captain America finally avenged the death of his dead partner Bucky.

‘Now, by My Hand, Shall Die a Villain!’ in #15 (laid-out by Kirby, pencilled by Heck with inks by Mike Esposito) featured Captain America and Baron Zemo in one final, fatal confrontation in the heart of the Amazon jungle, whilst the other Avengers and Zemo’s army of masked menaces clashed once more on the streets of New York…

The battle ended in the concluding episode ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (again visually broken down by Kirby before being finished by Ayers) which presaged a dramatic change in concept for the series; presumably because as Lee increasingly wrote to the company’s unique strengths – tight continuity and strongly individualistic characterisation – he discovered that juggling individual stars in their own titles as well as a combined team episode every month was just incompatible if not impossible.

As Cap and teen sidekick Rick Jones fought their way back to civilisation, the Avengers set-up changed completely with big name stars replaced by three erstwhile villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

Eventually, led by perennial old soldier Captain America, this relatively powerless group with no outside titles to divide the attention (the Sentinel of Liberty did have a regular feature in Tales of Suspense but it was at that time recounting adventures set during the hero’s WWII career), evolved into another squabbling family of neuroses, extended sub-plots and constant action as valiant underdogs; a formula readers of the time could not get enough of.

Acting on advice from the departing Iron Man the neophytes sought to recruit the Hulk to add raw power to the team, only to be sidetracked by the malevolent Mole Man in #17’s ‘Four Against the Minotaur!’ (Lee, Heck & Ayers), after which they then fell foul of a dastardly “commie” plot ‘When the Commissar Commands!’

This brace of rather run-of-the-mill tales was followed by an ever-improving run of mini-masterpieces which began with a two part gem that provides an origin for Hawkeye and introduces a favourite hero/villain to close this sturdy, full-colour hardback compendium.

‘The Coming of the Swordsman!’ featured a dissolute and disreputable swashbuckler – with just a hint of deeply-buried nobility – who attempted to force his way into the highly respectable team, before becoming an unwilling pawn of a far greater menace – the Mandarin – and was closely followed by the superb ‘Vengeance is Ours!’ inked by the one-and-only Wally Wood wherein the constantly-bickering Avengers finally pulled together as a supernaturally efficient, all-conquering super-team.

These immortal epics are available in numerous formats (including softcover editions of the luxurious and enticing item under review here), but for a selection that will survive the continual re-readings of the delirious, incurable fan nothing beats these substantially lavish and colourful Marvellous Masterwork hardbacks.

After all, if you’re going to enjoy the exploits of Earth’s Mightiest Super-Heroes surely you want to do it in appropriate style?
© 1964, 1965, 1989, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 5: The Amazing Spider-Man 11-20


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-480-2

After a shaky start The Amazing Spider-Man quickly became a popular sensation with kids of all ages, rivalling the creative powerhouse that was Lee & Kirby’s Fantastic Four and soon the quirky, charming action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old thirty-something mystery-men of previous publications.

This second supremely lavish deluxe hardback collection gathers issues #11-20 of the pulsating prodigy’s enduring exploits, covering April 1964 to January 1965, a truly stellar period of imaginative innovation and terrific thrills…

The wonderment begins with a magical two-part adventure ‘Turning Point’ and ‘Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!’ which saw the return of the lethally deranged and deformed scientist and the disclosure of a long-hidden secret which had haunted Peter Parker’s girlfriend Betty Brant for years.

The dark, tragedy-filled tale of extortion and excoriating tension stretched from Philadelphia to the Bronx Zoo and cannily tempered the trenchant melodrama with spectacular fight scenes in unusual and exotic locations, before culminating in a truly staggering super-powered duel as only the masterful Steve Ditko could orchestrate it.

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

Even with guest-star opponents such as the Enforcers and the Incredible Hulk ‘The Grotesque Adventure of the Green Goblin’ is most notable for introducing Spider-Man’s most perfidious and flamboyant enemy.

Jungle superman and thrill-junkie ‘Kraven the Hunter!’ made Spider-Man his intended prey at the behest of embittered old Spidey-foe the Chameleon in #15, whilst the Ringmaster and his Circus of Evil prompted #16′s dazzling and delightful ‘Duel with Daredevil’.

An ambitious three-part saga began in Amazing Spider-Man #17 which saw the rapidly-maturing hero touch emotional bottom before rising to triumphant victory over all manner of enemies. ‘The Return of the Green Goblin!’ saw the wall-crawler endure renewed print assaults from the Daily Bugle just as the Goblin began a war of nerves using the Enforcers, Sandman and an army of thugs to publicly humiliate the Amazing Arachnid, just as Aunt May’s health took a drastic downward turn.

Continued in ‘The End of Spider-Man!’ and concluded in ‘Spidey Strikes Back!’ – featuring a turbulent team-up with friendly rival the Human Torch – this extended tale proved that the fans were ready for every kind of narrative experiment (single issue and even two stories per issue were still the norm in 1964) and Stan and Steve were more than happy to try anything.

This magical compendium closes with ‘The Coming of the Scorpion!’ wherein Jameson let his obsessive hatred for the cocky kid crusader get the better of him; hiring scientist Farley Stillwell to endow a private detective with insectoid-based superpowers. Unfortunately the process drove Mac Gargan completely mad before he could capture Spidey, leaving the web-spinner with yet another lethally dangerous meta-nutcase to deal with…

Such was the early life of comic’s most misunderstood hero and this gloriously lavish collection of landmark tales absolutely resonates with mesmerising power and creativity.

This sturdy chronicle is simply the most self-indulgent way to enjoy these Marvel masterpieces.
© 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 11: Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men 94-100


By Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-597-3

The X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 (issue #66 cover-dated March) during a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics as mystery and all things supernatural once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a cheap reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe and the Beast was transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom, until Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot in 1975 as part of the company’s line of Giant-Sized specials.

This magnificent deluxe hardcover compendium recaptures the sun-bright excitement of those exuberant and pivotal early stories from Giant Size X-Men #1 and issues #94-100 of the definitely “All-New, All-Different” X-Men from May 1975, through to August 1976 when the merry mutants were still, young, fresh and delightfully under-exposed and opens with a classic mystery monster mash in ‘Second Genesis!’ as Len Wein & Dave Cockrum (the latter hot from a stint reviving DC’s equally eclectic super-team The Legion of Super-Heroes) detailed how the classic team had been lost in action, leaving Charles Xavier to scour the Earth and the Marvel Universe for a replacement team.

To old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire was added a one-shot Hulk villain dubbed the Wolverine, but most time and attention was paid to new creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm, Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus and bitter, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The second chapter of the epic introductory adventure ‘…And When There Was One!’ reintroduced the wounded team leader Cyclops who swiftly trained the team before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoa… the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of the living mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to the next quarterly issue, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a two part for in the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing today.

X-Men #94 (August 1975) presented ‘The Doomsmith Scenario!’, plotted by Editor Wein, scripted by Chris Claremont and with Bob McLeod inking the man-on-fire Dave Cockrum, in a canny Armageddon-countdown shocker as the newly pared-down strike-squad (minus Sunfire and recovering mutants Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, Havok and Lorna Dane) were dispatched by The Beast – then serving as a full-time Avenger – to stop criminal terrorist Count Nefaria from starting an atomic war.

The insidious mastermind had invaded America’s Norad citadel with a gang of artificial superhumans and accidentally turned a nuclear blackmail scheme into an inescapable holocaust before the new mutants stormed in to save the world in the epic conclusion ‘Warhunt! (inked by Sam Grainger).

However one of the valiant neophytes didn’t make it back…

X-Men #96 saw Claremont take full control of the team’s writing (albeit with some plotting input from Bill Mantlo) in ‘Night of the Demon!’ as a guilt-wracked Cyclops, blaming himself for the loss of a team-mate, accidentally unleashed a demonic antediluvian horror from earth’s dimmest prehistory for the heroes-in-training to thrash. The infernal Nagarai would return over and again to bedevil mankind, but the biggest innovation in this issue was the introduction of gun-toting biologist/housekeeper Moira MacTaggert and the first inklings of the return of implacable old adversaries…

Issue #97 began a long-running, intergalactically-widescreen plotline with ‘My Brother, My Enemy!’ as Xavier, plagued by visions of interstellar wars, tried to take a vacation, just as Havok and Lorna Dane (finally settling on the superhero nom de guerre Polaris) attacked the team, seemingly willing servants of a mysterious madman using Cyclops’ old alter ego Eric the Red.

The devastating conflict segued into a spectacular, three-part saga as the pitiless robotic Sentinels returned under the hate-filled auspices of mutantophobic Steven Lang and his mysterious backers of Project Armageddon. The action began with #98’s ‘Merry Christmas, X-Men…the Sentinels Have Returned!’ with coordinated attacks successfully capturing the semi-retired Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Banshee and Xavier, compelling Cyclops and the remaining heroes to co-opt a space shuttle and storm Lang’s orbital HQ to rescue them in ‘Deathstar Rising!‘ (inks by Frank Chiaremonte) – another phenomenal all-action episode.

After a magical pinup of the extended team by Arthur Adams (the cover of Classic X-Men #1 from 1986 if you were wondering) this first stellar, deluxe hardcover compilation concludes on an agonising cliffhanger with the 100th issue anniversary classic ‘Greater Love Hath no X-Man…’ (with Cockrum inking his own pencils) wherein the new X-Men apparently battled the original team before overturning Lang’s monstrous schemes forever.

However, their catastrophic clash had destroyed their only means of escape and, as a colossal solar flare threatened to eradicate the entire satellite, the only chance to survive meant certain death for another X-Man…

With even greater excitement and innovation to follow in succeeding issues, these superb comics thrillers revolutionised a moribund genre and led directly to today’s ubiquitous popular cultural landscape where superheroes are as common as cops, cowboys, monsters or rom-com romeos.

The immortal epics compiled here are available in numerous formats (including softcover editions of the luxurious and enticing hardback under review here), but for a selection that will survive the continual re-readings of the serious, incurable fan there’s nothing to beat the sturdy and substantial full-colour feel of these Marvellous Masterwork editions.
© 1975, 1976, 1989 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Essential Ghost Rider volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Mike Ploog, Jim Mooney, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1838-1

At the end of the 1960s American comicbooks were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Motorbikes seeking a different way forward.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many others all took the “Easy Rider” option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested the best of the crop was Mike Sekowsky’s tragically unfinished mini-masterpiece of cool Jason’s Quest in Showcase). Over at Marvel, a company still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC/National in 1970, canny Roy Thomas green-lighted a new character who combined the freewheeling, adolescent-friendly biker-theme with the all-pervasive supernatural furore gripping the entertainment fields.

Back in 1967, Marvel published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider: a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero creation of Vince Sullivan, Ray Krank & Dick Ayers (Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1955), who utilised magician’s tricks to fight bandits by pretending to be an avenging phantom of justice.

Scant years later with the Comics Code prohibition against horror hastily rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – scary comics came back in a big way and a new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact the lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an en masse creation of horror titles (new stories and reprints from the first boom of the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to (temporarily, at least) bite the dust.

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

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

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

The all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5, August 1972 (preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf By Night).

This copious compendium collects in moody monochrome the earliest exploits adventures from Marvel Spotlight #5-12, Ghost Rider #1-20 and an horrific crossover with Daredevil #138, beginning with that landmark first appearance which introduced stunt biker Johnny Blaze, his fatally flawed father-figure Crash Simpson and Johnny’s devoted girlfriend: sweet virginal Roxanne Simpson…

‘Ghost Rider’, plotted by Thomas, scripted by Friedrich and stunningly illustrated by Ploog, saw carnival cyclist Blaze sell his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father Crash from cancer. As is the way of such things, Satan followed the letter but not spirit of the contract and Simpson died anyway, but when the Dark Lord later came for Johnny Roxanne intervened, her purity preventing the Devil from claiming his due. Temporarily thwarted Satan afflicted Johnny with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down…

Haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals at first, the traumatised biker soon left the Big City and headed for the solitary deserts where in ‘Angels From Hell’ the flaming skulled fugitive joined a biker gang led by the enigmatic Curly Samuels: a resurrected agent of Satan attempting to destroy the protective Roxanne and claim Blaze.

No prizes for guessing Curly’s true identity then, when the next chapter (inked by Frank Chiaramonte) is entitled ‘Die, Die, My Daughter!’ before the origin epic concluded with a monumental battle against ‘…The Hordes of Hell!’ (with a rather uncomfortable artistic collaboration by Ploog and Jim Mooney) resulting in a torturous Cold War détente between the still nightly-transforming Blaze and Satan, as well as the introduction of a new eldritch enemy in Native American Witch Man Snake-Dance…

Marvel Spotlight #9 saw the tragically undervalued Tom Sutton take over the pencilling – with inks by Chic Stone – for ‘The Snakes Crawl at Night…’ as Medicine Man magic and demonic devil-worship combined to torment Johnny Blaze just as Roxanne went west to look for him. To further confound the cursed cyclist, Satan decreed that although he must feel the pain, no injury would end Johnny’s life until his soul resided in Hell… which came in very handy when Roxanne was sacrificed by Snake-Dance and the Ghost Rider had to battle his entire deviant cult to rescue her…

In #10 ‘The Coming of… Witch-Woman!’ (Friedrich, Sutton & Mooney) opened with Blaze, a fugitive from the police, rushing the dying Roxanne to hospital whilst on the Reservation tensions remained high as Snake-Dance’s daughter Linda Littletrees revealed her own connection to Satan, culminating in a devastating eldritch assault on Blaze in #11’s ‘Season of the Witch-Woman!’ (inked by the incomparable Syd Shores).

That cataclysmic conflict continued into Ghost Rider #1 (September 1973), which further extended the escalating war between Blaze and the devil, whilst introducing a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant spot in Spotlight.

Linda Littletrees wasn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as a ‘A Woman Possessed!’ but when her father and fiancé Sam Silvercloud called Boston-based exorcist Daimon Hellstrom for help, they were completely unprepared for the kind of assistance the demonologist offered.

With Roxanne slowly recovering and Blaze still on the run, issue #2 saw the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (illustrated by Mooney & Shores) before the saga concluded in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’ by Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaremonte, which revealed Daimon Hellstrom’s long-suppressed inner self to be a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his fearsome father.

The released Prince of Hell swiftly rushed to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start, continued to take the pressure of the flaming-skulled hero. From Ghost Rider #3’s ‘Wheels on Fire’ (Friedrich, Mooney & John Tartaglione) a fresh direction was explored with more mundane menaces and contemporary antagonists such as the thuggish gang of Big Daddy Dawson – who had kidnapped the still frail Roxanne…

Blaze also learned to create a spectral motorcycle out of the Hellfire that perpetually burned through his body: a most useful trick considering the way he got through conventional transport…

Eager to establish some kind of normal life, the still wanted-by-the-cops Blaze accepted a pardon by the State Attorney General in #4’s ‘Death Stalks the Demolition Derby’ (inked by Vince Colletta) in return for infiltrating a Las Vegas showman’s shady operation, leading to another supernatural encounter, this time against a demonic gambler dubbed Roulette in ‘And Vegas Writhes in Flame!’ by the transitional creative team of Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Mooney & Sal Trapani.

With #6, ill-considered attempts to convert the tragic biker into a more conventional superhero began with ‘Zodiac II’ (story and concept by Tony Isabella & Friedrich) as Blaze stumbled into a senseless fight with a man who had all the powers of the old Avengers’ arch-foes. However there was a hidden Satanic component to the mystery as Johnny discovered when reformed super-villain turned TV star Stunt-Master turned up to help close the case and watch helplessly as the one-man Zodiac fell-foul of his own diabolical devil’s bargain in ‘…And Lose His Own Soul!’ (Isabella, Mooney & Jack Abel).

A final confrontation – of sorts – began in Ghost-Rider #8 as ‘Satan Himself!’ came looking for Johnny’s soul with a foolproof scheme to force Roxanne to rescind her protection, which she finally did as the Hell-biker battled Inferno, the Fear-demon and most of San Francisco in a game-changing epic called ‘The Hell-Bound Hero!’ wherein Blaze was finally freed from his satanic burden by the intervention of someone who appeared to be Jesus Christ…

The cover of issue #10 (by Ron Wilson and Joe Sinnott, I think) featured Ghost Rider battling the Hulk, but a deadline cock-up delayed that tale until #11 and the already included origin from Marvel Spotlight #5 filled those pages. Gil Kane & Tom Palmer reinterpreted the scene for their cover on next issue which finally detailed ‘The Desolation Run!‘ by Isabella, Sal Buscema, Tartaglione & George Roussos, as Johnny joined a disparate band of dirt-bikers in a desert race which collided with the legendarily solitary and short-tempered Green Goliath, after which artists Frank Robbins, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito recounted the fate of World War I fighter ace Phantom Eagle when Blaze tried to unknowingly attempted to rescue the warrior’s murderer from the ‘Phantom of the Killer Skies’…

Ghost Rider #13 declared ‘You’ve Got a Second Chance, Johnny Blaze!’ (Isabella, George Tuska & Colletta) as the terms of the hero’s on-going curse were changed again, just as the dissolute biker headed to Hollywood and a promised job as Stunt-Master’s body-double. No sooner had he signed up however, than Blaze became involved with starlet Karen Page – Daredevil’s one-time girlfriend – and a bizarre kidnap plot by super-villain The Trapster.

Not included here is a yarn where Ghost Rider and Spider-Man battled the demented biker bad-guy The Orb (you’ll need to track down Marvel Team-Up #15 or at least the first Essential Marvel Team-Up volume for that tale) which is a pity as ‘A Specter Stalks the Soundstage!’ features his revenge-hungry return attempt to destroy Blaze which spectacularly concludes with ‘Vengeance on the Ventura Freeway!’ (illustrated by Bob Brown & Don Heck).

Whilst hanging out on the West Coast Blaze joined new superteam The Champions, but they played no part in Bill Mantlo, Tuska & Colletta’s fill-in issue ‘Blood in the Waters’ as the Ghost Rider oh, so topically tangled with a Great White Shark in the gore-soaked California surf before #17 highlighted a team-up with the Son of Satan in ‘Prelude to a Private Armageddon!’ (by Isabella, Robbins & Colletta) wherein fellow stunt-actor Katy Milner was possessed by a demon and only Hellstrom could help.

The saga continued with ‘The Salvation Run!’ as Blaze was forced to race through the bowels of Hell and relive his own traumatic past before finally saving the day, Katy and his own much-tarnished soul in ‘Resurrection’.

All this time the mystery of Karen’s attempted abduction had been percolating through the subplots here, but explosively boiled over in Daredevil #138 as ‘Where is Karen Page?’ (by Wolfman, John Byrne & Mooney) revealed the machinations of criminal maniac Death’s-Head to be merely part of a greater scheme involving Blaze, Stunt-Master, the Man without Fear and the homicidal Death Stalker. The convoluted conundrum cataclysmically climaxed in Ghost-Rider #20 with ‘Two Against Death!’ by Wolfman, John Byrne & Don Perlin…

This spooky, black and white thriller compendium finishes the chilling action with Marvel Universe Handbook pages imparting all the background you could ever desire regarding Johnny Blaze and Daimon Hellstrom to truly complete your fear-filled fun fest.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, the Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade were what compelled the criticism-averse and commercially astute corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these early tales into generic and presumably more palatable or “acceptable” demonic creatures such as Mephisto, Satanish, Marduk Kurios and other equally naff downgrades, but the original intent and adventures of Johnny Blaze – and indeed series spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana, respectively the  Son and Daughter of Satan, tapped into the period’s global fascination with Satanism, Devil-worship and all things Spooky and Supernatural which had begun with such epochal films as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s 1968 film more than Ira Levin’s novel) and remember aren’t your feeble bowdlerised “Hell-lite” horrors.

These tales are about the real-deal Infernal Realm and a good man struggling to save his soul from the baddest of all bargains – as much as the revised Comics Code would allow – so brace yourself, hols steady and accept no supernatural substitutes…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2005 Marvel Characters, Incorporated. All rights reserved.