Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Thor: The Deviants Saga


By Robert Rodi, Stephen Segovia, M. Jason Paz & Jeffrey Huet & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2295-5 (TPB), 978-1-3020-1399-8 (Digital edition), 978-1-84653-511-6 (Panini UK edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Time for another Anniversary shout out…

Jack Kirby’s The Eternals first emerged on 13th April 1976 in a title cover-dated July of that year, in a series slightly at odds with and removed from Marvel’s regular company continuity. The new mythology revealed that giant Celestial aliens had visited Earth in epochs past, gene-gineering proto-hominids into three distinct species: Human Beings; godly superbeings who called themselves Eternals and genetically unstable, ferociously aggressive but highly intelligent creatures dubbed Deviants. These subspecies had battled for ownership of Earth in wars spanning the length of human existence, but moreover the Space Gods had periodically returned to check up on their experiment…

Never a comfortable contemporary fit with the wider Marvel Universe – only S.H.I.E.L.D. ever really got involved the first time around – the series explored Kirby’s fascinations with Deities, Space and Supernature through the lens of very human observers. Once it ended and Kirby left, in the tried and trusted manner of such things other creators subsequently co-opted the concept into the regular continuity.

Over 19 issues and one Annual, the series avoided contact with Marvel continuity as modern humanity’s military, secret agencies and moneyed movers-&-shakers dealt with the politics and panic of a world-shattering event seen through the eyes of heroic rebel Ikaris, human Margo Damian, and a potent cast of Earth aliens Ajak, Sersi, Makkari, Zuras, Thena, Sprite and Druig who fought and foiled – or occasionally befriended – Deviants including Kro, Brother Tode, Ransak & Karkas, with Homo sapiens skulking running or cowering in terror in the background and under the microscope as a Celestial Fourth Host hovered above the world in a city-sized ship, pondering final judgement: a process that would take 50 years…

One of the heroes the Eternals did eventually meet with most often was the bellicose but benevolent Asgardian Storm Lord…

Lovingly remastered and skilfully refitted here by Robert Rodi and artists Stephen Segovia, M. Jason, Paz & Jeffrey Huet, the story here originated at the end of 2011 as a 5-issue miniseries and part of wave of publishing projects to support the burgeoning film franchise. It picks up on fresh elements introduced in 2007’s collection Neil Gaiman’s Eternals and opens in the ruins of Asgard as Thor discovers ancient deposed, Deviant monarch Ereshkigal has crept in and is searching through the rubble with a horde of brutal monsters…

The Deviants have also fallen on hard times and face extinction from a deadly plague, inspiring the dire, demi-demonic ex-empress to seek Asgardian tools and weapons to facilitate her return to personal power. After an inconclusive battle, Ereshkigal escapes with the Unbinding Stone of Oshemar, an apparently innocuous globe which can literally unmake reality. Utterly unaware of the power of her purloined prize, the Deviant tries and fails to usurp control from the current rulers of the Lemurian undercity which is their last refuge and home, whilst Thor – galvanised by the imminent destruction of the universe – seeks allies and the location of her hidden homeland amongst his old comrades and erstwhile allies in Olympia, cloaked Earthly citadel of his old Eternal comrades.

The city is all but deserted, with only resurrected hero Virako, master technician Phastos and “reformed” Deviants Karkas & Ransak the Reject occupying the immense mountaintop metropolis. Before the valiant band can formulate a plan, however, the city is invaded by a Deviant army led by apparently ageless and undying Warlord Kro and a cadre of elite monster warriors. After a spectacular battle the heroes are temporarily overwhelmed and Phastos captured. Critically, his incredible devices are stolen: taken in the misguided belief that they can reverse the effects of the disease devastating the Deviant population.

With the Unbinding Stone still in Ereshkigal’s meddling hands and their friend in peril, Thor and his comrades must storm the very heart of Lemuria before personal tragedy becomes universal Armageddon, but at least they have a hidden ally in the heart of the enemy – the outcast Eternal known alternatively as Gilgamesh and The Forgotten One…

Also re-entering the mix as the cataclysmic climax builds are the space-scattered, long missing other Eternals, but even if they return in time, what can anybody do against a doom-obsessed potentate possessing a device which destroys atomic bonds and has no off-switch? The only answer to is try and pray and hope to make a miracle…

A grandiose,  old-fashioned blockbuster spectacle, this rousing yarn is cannily constructed so that even first-time readers can get right into the swing of things, whilst veteran devotees will find plenty of old favourite characters and themes revisited and clarified, with the adventure rattling along to a perfect climax with the portentous promise of more to come.

Fast, furious, frantic fantasy fun for older kids of all ages and one no Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic could possibly resist.
© 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1902 “Father of Turkish Comics” Cemal Nadir Güler was born, followed in 1919 by hyperprolific comic book scribe Joe Gill (The Phantom, Zaza the Mystic, Fightin’ Five, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Vengeance Squad, Hot Wheels, The Secret Six, every Charlton genre anthology ever) and, in 1931 Puerto Rican superstar writer/artist/editor Ernesto Colón Sierra AKA Ernie Colon (Harvey Comics, Star Comics, Manimal, Ax, The Medusa Chain, Arak, Son of Thunder, Dr Solar Man of the Atom, Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, Damage Control, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, Vlad the Impaler). In 1937 Belgian humour cartoonist Hugo De Reymaeker AKA Hurey, Hugo and/or Fonske (De Fratsen van Jan Heibel, Anakronis), with Mike Ploog (Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, The Monster of Frankenstein, Werewolf By Night, The Spirit) arriving in 1940; master inker Tom Palmer (Doctor Strange, Avengers, Tomb of Dracula) joining in 1942 and military comics specialist Wayne Vansant (The ‘Nam, Days of Darkness, Katusha) in 1949.

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Captain America Man Out of Time


By Mark Waid, Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel, Scott Hanna, Frank D’Armata, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, George Roussos & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5128-9 (Premiere HC), 978-1-84653-487-4 (TPB) 978-1-3023-7033-6 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

One of the pivotal moments in Marvel Comics history occurred when the Mighty Avengers recovered a tattered body floating in a block of ice (issue #4, March 1964) and resurrected the World War II hero Captain America. With this act bridging the presumed-forgotten years back to predecessors Timely and Atlas Comics – begun with the return of the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four #4 – Young Marvel confirmed and consolidated a solid, concrete, potential-packed history to create an enticing sense of mythic continuance for the fledgling company. This instantly gave it the same cachet and enduring grandeur of market leader National/DC…

In 2010, after years of increasingly conflicting continuity (and with a movie in the offing) mature Marvel tasked fan-favourite writer Mark Waid with updating those pivotal events and early future-shocked days for their contemporary world. Of course that modern milieu was now the year 2000, not the lifetime ago of 1964…

This captivating re-interpretation and updating (collecting 5 issue miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time as cover-dated November 2010 – April 2011) opens in the dying days of the war as Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes are sent from the European frontline to England and an appointment with doom-laden destiny, before seamlessly segueing into the Sentinel of Liberty’s stunned awakening in tomorrow’s world and a meeting with the initial incarnation of The World’s Mightiest Heroes.

Waid, perfectly complimented by artists Jorge Molina, Karl Kesel & Scott Hanna and colourist Frank D’Armata , wisely leaves the classic adventures largely unchanged, to concentrate on those unseen and missing contemplative moments and the unfolding personal crises confronting the uncomprehending Rogers, which means readers completely unaware of the character’s history and exploits might experience a little confusion in places. However, the narrative, although superficially disjointed, is clear-cut enough to counter this and interested newcomers and casual fans can easily fill in gaps by perusing one of the many available reprint collections, covering the entire period featured here which equates to Avengers #4-8.

In chapter 2 the reeling hero meets former Incredible Hulk sidekick Rick Jones (an absurdly identical double for the at this time Officially Departed Bucky), gets a rapid reality check on his new home – from his new allies and even the President of the United States – and finally accepts that there’s no way home for this Old Soldier.

…Although that’s not strictly true…

Among the many technological miracles his new allies introduce him to is the embryonic science of time-travel, and, even while battling such threats as the Lava Men and Masters of Evil, the unhappy warrior can only think of returning to his proper place and saving his best friend from death…

The old adage “be careful what you wish for” never proves more true than when time-ravaging Kang the Conqueror attacks. After utterly overwhelming the 21st century heroes he casually and disdainfully dispatches the Star Spangled Sentinel back to 1945 where he belongs but apparently no longer fits.

His sense of duty, threat to his new allies and all the unpalatable things he had comfortably forgotten blighting his “Good Old Days” prompt Cap into brilliantly escaping his honeyed time-trap with the aid of other friends made in the World of Tomorrow and the hero returns to the place where he is most needed to once more save the day…

Resolved and ready to tackle his Brave New World Captain America is now ready to carve out a whole new legend…

I’m generally less than sanguine about updates and reboots of classic comics material but I will admit that such things are a necessary evil as years go by, so when the deed is done with sensitivity, respect and imagination (not to mention dynamic, bravura flamboyance) I can only applaud and commend the effort.

Thrilling, superbly entertaining, compelling and genuinely moving, Captain America: Man Out of Time is a wonderful – dare I say “Timeless?” – comics confection that will delight old aficionados, impress new readers and should serve to make many fresh fans for the immortal Star-Spangled Avenger. Moreover, if you are one of those dyed-in-the-wool Old Guard curmudgeons who think there’s nothing better than the real thing, this compilation also offers a full reprint of The Avengers #4 (cover-dated March 1964 and on sale from January 3rd as crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & George Roussos), re-presenting Cap’s original landmark wake-up call that so lastingly informed this modern look back…
© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

This propitious day in 1916 Disney animator turned comics writer Don R. Christensen (Magnus, Robot Fighter, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge) was born, joined in 1924 by artist/inker Frank Giacoia (every Marvel or DC comic you’ve ever heard of and newspaper strips Flash Gordon, The Incredible Hulk, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, Sherlock Holmes, Thorne McBride). In 1947 Neil the Horse creator Katherine Collins (formerly Arnold Alexander Saba, Jr.) arrived. In 1950, comics legend John Byrne (Doomsday + 1, Rog-2000, some other stuff) was born, followed by writer Christie Marx (Sisterhood of Steel, Red Sonja, Conan) in 1952 and multitasker Joe Zabel (American Splendor, The Trespassers, Real Stuff) in 1953.

The date signifies the deaths of strip giant Warren Tufts (Casey Ruggles, Lance) in 1982; scripter Nicholas P. Dallis (Apartment 3-G, Rex Morgan, M.D.) in 1991 and in 2017 both Turkish comics creator Galip Tekin (Tuhaf Öyküler, P?’ya Mektuplar) and Argentinean cartoonist, caricaturist and humourist Juan Carlos Colombres AKA Landrú.

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The Black Panther Epic Collection volume 1 (1966-1976): Panther’s Rage


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, Billy Graham, Keith Pollard, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, P. Craig Russell, Pablo Marcos, Dan Green, Bob McLeod,  Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0190-5 (TPB) 978-1-3024-9321-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content utilised for dramatic effect.

With democracy under fire and American Civil Rights enduring active and constant attack in the Land of the Free, let’s look back on more progressive times and comics as we all stagger towards the 250th Fourth of July, shall we?

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in US comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in Fantastic Four. In fact, the cat king actually attacked Marvel’s First Family as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

T’Challa was also the first black superhero in US comics, debuting in summer 1966. As created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose deliberately hidden kingdom is the only known source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien ore – supposedly derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of the country’s immense wealth, enabling it to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. These riches also allow the young king to radically remake his country, creating a high tech paradise even after he left Africa to fight as one of America’s Avengers.

Since time immemorial Wakanda has been an isolated, utopian wonderland with tribal resources and people safeguarded and led by a human warrior-king deriving cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb. This has ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and sacrosanct hereditary Royal Family…

The “Vibranium mound” had guaranteed the nation’s status as a clandestine superpower for centuries, but in modern times increasingly made Wakanda a target for subversion, incursion and even invasion as the world grew ever smaller. This colossal compendium gathers the dynamic debut from Fantastic Four #52-53 (cover-dated July and August 1966) in advance of groundbreaking solo stories from Jungle Action (vol. 2) #6-24, collectively covering September 1973 through November 1976.

Before all that though, the innovative and unforgettable character debuted in ‘The Black Panther!’: an enigmatic African monarch whose secretive kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal. These mineral riches had enabled him to turn his country into a technological marvel before he lured the FF into his savage super-scientific kingdom as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father. After battling the team to a standstill, King T’Challa revealed his tragic origin in ‘The Way it Began..!’, detailing how his father was murdered by marauding sonic science researcher Ulysses Klaw. As the monarch details how he took vengeance and liberated his people, word comes of incredible solidified-sound monsters attacking the region. Klaw has returned at last…

The cataclysmic clash that follows set the scene for the Warrior-Chieftain to guest star with numerous Marvel superstars before breaking out into the wider world, but it would years before he finally won his own solo series…

After roaming around the Marvel Universe, enjoying team-ups and saving Earth on a semi-regular basis as one “Earth’s Mightiest Superheroes”, the summer of 1973 saw the Black Panther finally become a solo star in his own series. Scripter Don McGregor opted to return the King to his people for an ambitious epic of love, death, vengeance and civil war: inventing from whole cloth and Kirby’s throwaway notion of a futuristic jungle the most unique African nation ever seen in comics or anywhere else…

Jungle Action had launched with an October 1972 cover-date: a cheap reprint vehicle for old Atlas-era Tarzan and Sheena knock-offs like Tharn, Jann and Lorna (all equally “…of the Jungle”). The fifth issue (not included here) abruptly changed tack, reprinting a Black Panther-starring saga from Avengers #62 as prelude to the start of T’Challa’s own all new adventures. These open here with # 6 and the eponymous ‘Panther’s Rage’, illustrated by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson. The story opens with the Panther back in his contradictory homeland, stumbling upon the torture of an elderly farmer. Despite T’Challa’s best efforts, the victim dies in his arms, swearing he never lost faith in king or country…

Learning the attack is the work of brutal rebel leader Erik Killmonger, T’Challa sets all the resources of his inner court circle to finding the monster. With reports of further atrocities mounting, he all but abandons his American lover Monica Lynne to hunt the perpetrators and soon confronts his potential usurper at the potently symbolic Warrior Falls roaring above the life-sustaining River of Grace and Wisdom. The barbarous-seeming giant is not cowed by the Panther’s power or prowess and easily wins the no-holds barred battle that follows…

The initial episode is supplemented by detailed maps of Wakanda (the first fans had ever seen) before JA #7 mobilises ‘Death Regiments Beneath Wakanda’. Barely surviving his clash with Killmonger, T’Challa is nursed back to health by Monica at the Palace, even as hideously disfigured American Horatio displays his skill with snakes and poisons to his friend N’Jadaka. Known to their recruits as Venomm and Erik Killmonger, these rebel leaders plot their next attack resulting in the reptilian insurgent ambushing T’Challa when the king investigates an unsanctioned, illegal mine. This shocking atrocity is being used to siphon off raw Vibranium to pay for Killmonger’s increasingly violent and widespread attacks on the outlying population centres…

Although triumphant this time, T’Challa realises this is a many-layered war: one he might not win…

Whilst the Panther renews his powers through ancient ritual, Jungle Action #8 introduces another super-powered rebel with ‘Malice by Crimson Moonlight’ revealing a spear-wielding wonder woman invading the Royal Palace. Advisor Taku is interrogating Venomm (and gradually making inroads into turning the bitter outcast) when she attacks. Only the power of the Panther saves the servitor and prevents the brutal jailbreak from succeeding…

After maps of the hidden country and detailed plans of ‘Central Wakanda’s Palace Royale’ the saga resumes in #9 with ‘But Now the Spears Are Broken’ (spectacularly illustrated by Gil Kane & Janson) as T’Challa goes in-country to learn the effects of the power struggle on ordinary Wakandans. After saving little boy Kantu from a rhino, the king is made painfully aware that the common people view his foreign woman Monica with as much suspicion as the constantly-raiding insurgents. That feeling even penetrates to the heart of the palace. When advisor Zatama is murdered, Monica is arrested for the crime…

T’Challa is not there to protest or defend her. He has returned to Kantu’s village to investigate strange disappearances, discovering a seeming mass-rising of zombies led by skeletal maniac Baron Macabre. Once more the Great Cat is forced to ignominiously retreat…

Supreme stylist Billy Graham takes over pencilling with #10 as the Black Panther returns to the zombie nest, exposing a cunning charade beneath the deserted village as well as a super-scientific base run by a malignant, mind-warping mutant in ‘King Cadaver is Dead and Living in Wakanda!’

Accompanying the dark drama here are examples of ‘Black Panther Artistry’ – specifically, Kirby’s first designs for the hero back when he was going by provisional title ‘The Coal Tiger’ and Buckler & Janson’s initial depiction of ‘Erik Killmonger’. Due to an extremely unfavourable publishing schedule, Panther’s Rage unfolded with agonising slowness, but the lengthy wait between episodes allowed McGregor the latitude to pick and choose key events, with readers accepting that some stuff was actually occurring between issues.

By JA #11 (September 1974), the civil war had proceeded unchecked and ‘Once You Slay the Dragon!’ sees the Panther and his forces launching the long-awaited counterattack on Killmonger’s base in N’Jadaka Village. The battle is vicious and brief, introducing yet another powered lieutenant in the shape of pitiless high-tech armourer Lord Karnaj. And on the home front, T’Challa finally clears Monica and captures actual Zatama’s killer…

With Killmonger temporarily in retreat, the Panther goes on the offensive, using the rebel’s most inconsequential converts – Tayete and Kazibe – as reluctant guides to follow his ultimate nemesis to his most secret strongholds. Heading into the mountains and fabled Land of Chilling Mists, the Panther discovers a mutagenic temple… the Resurrection Altar. Employed by Killmonger to create his grotesque super-warriors, it is presided over by scientifically-spawned vampire Sombre. When T’Challa confronts them both, he is again overpowered by Erik and left for wolves to devour in ‘Blood Stains on Virgin Snow!’

  1. Craig Russell inked the next chapter as, enduring incomprehensible hardships in sub-arctic conditions, T’Challa perseveres and survives to follow Killmonger into the temperate swamps of Serpent Valley in #13. However, this is only after facing a pack of Wakanda’s white apes. To survive, the Panther must blasphemously ignore the sacred (to many of his subjects) religious aspect of the mighty carnivores and become ‘The God Killer’…

Following a Venomm pin-up, #14 then reveals ‘There Are Serpents Lurking in Paradise’ (inked by Pablo Marcos) as T’Challa clashes once more with Sombre before encountering an affable forest sprite guarding Serpent Valley. Pixie-like Mokadi asks difficult moral questions as T’Challa rushes towards his next battle with Killmonger, making him too late to stop the rebel capturing a legion of the valley’s awesome dinosaurs. The usurper even has time to leave one behind as a lethal parting gift for the embattled, exhausted Wakandan chieftain…

The endgame rapidly approaches in #15 as ‘Thorns in the Flesh, Thorns in the Mind’ (Dan Green inks) finds T’Challa still tracking his foe only to be overcome by Killmonger’s archer assassin Salamander K’Ruel. Beaten and left to be dismembered by a ravenous Pterosaur, T’Challa incredibly overcomes every challenge before – against all odds – staggering back to Monica for another bout of recuperation…

Graham inked his own pencils for the beginning of the end in #16 as T’Challa & Monica’s time of idyllic passion culminates in catastrophe when ‘And All Our Past Decades Have Seen Revolutions!’ reveals Killmonger’s origins as the vast cast converges for one final battle. That comes in #17 as an army of war-trained dinosaurs invades Central Wakanda only to be finally crushed by the Panther’s forces and Wakandan technology. The affair concludes as it began at Warrior Falls, but ‘Of Shadows and Rages’ also holds a shocking twist as the great game of kings is ultimately decided by a player no one considered of any relevance…

With its nuanced emotional interplay, extended scope and fiercely independent supporting cast, Panther’s Rage was a milestone in dramatic comics storytelling but it harboured one last punch in a gripping ‘Epilogue!’(Jungle Action#18, November 1975). Bob McLeod inked McGregor & Graham’s forceful look at the repercussions of conflict, which finds T’Challa and maimed security chief Wakabi targeted by feral woman Madame Slay: Killmonger’s ardent and unsuspected lover who believes her loss can only be assuaged by having her pack of loyal leopards eviscerate the victorious Wakandans…

Cover-dated January 1976, Jungle Action #19 premiered McGregor’s most audacious and ultimately frustrating project, with T’Challa accompanying Monica back to America. The Panther versus the Klan shifted focus from war stories to crime fiction, substituting exotic Africa for America’s poverty-wracked, troubled, still segregated-in-all-but-name Deep South for a head-on collision with centuries of entrenched and endemic racism. Illustrated by Graham & McLeod, ‘Blood and Sacrifices!’ sees Monica back with her family after her sister is murdered. All too soon T’Challa is ferociously battling a gang of purple-hooded killers who appear to have set up in opposition to the ancient but apparently not supremacist enough white-hooded Ku Klux Klan.

Moreover, both sects are determined to conceal the truth of Angela Lynne’s death, but a break comes when bumbling, well-meaning reporter Kevin Trublood stumbles into an attack on the newcomers by the strangely multi-racial Klan sect calling itself The Dragon Circle…

With neither townsfolk nor lawmen offering any welcome, T’Challa faces unbridled hostility and suspicion at every turn. He is even attacked by cops and a mob of citizens when he thwarts a knife attack on Monica. Although Sheriff Roderick Tate makes all the right noises and seems helpful, in ‘They Told Me a Myth I Wanted to Believe’, the Panther opts to pursue his own investigation before being overwhelmed by an army of white-robed Klansmen who tie him to a burning cross and leave him to die…

As Monica and Kevin puzzle out the convoluted web of mysteries, the Panther exerts all his uncanny gifts to escape becoming ‘A Cross Burning Darkly Blackening the Night!’ Later, as he recovers in hospital, Monica’s family, Kevin and Tate review the few verifiable facts of Angela’s demise before patriarch Lloyd Lynne urges T’Challa to stop looking. He only has one daughter left after all…

Nevertheless, when the Panther and Trublood invade and disrupt a Klan rally, Lloyd is right there with them…

With Buckler joining Graham on pencils and Jim Mooney alternating with McCleod on inks, Jungle Action #22 takes a bizarre turn as ‘Death Riders on the Horizon’ explores a Lynne family legend dating back to the formative days of the Klan in 1867 when old Caleb was targeted by the vile “southern knights” and their seemingly supernatural sponsor the Soul Strangler. As Monica listens to the ghastly, appallingly unjust tale, her mind fills in how T’Challa would have acted in such a hopeless situation…

JA #23 (September 1976) was a deadline missed and rapidly-sourced reprint from Daredevil #69 – represented here only by its cover and a Buckler pin-up – before this tantalising tale is unhappily cut short in final published instalment ‘Wind Eagle in Flight’ (McGregor, Buckler & Keith Pollard).The multi-layered, many-stranded plot suddenly expands as the Panther is almost killed by a mysterious new player who flies into the ever more bewildering clash between cops, Klan, Dragon Circle and Lynne family but, before the mystery could move any further, Jungle Action was cancelled…

A wholly different kind of Black Panther and utterly unrelated adventures would reappear two months later, under the auspices of returning creative colossus Jack Kirby and it would be years before the enigma of Angela’s death and the hero’s war against the Klan was resolved…

Bonus extras here include Kirby & Sinnott’s unused original art cover for FF #52, John Romita’s cover for Jungle Action #5; McGregor’s correspondence with then-fan Ralph Macchio and the author’s original working notes, plot synopses and candid contemporary photos of the close-knit creative team. Also on show: original cover art, pages and sketches by Buckler & Janson & Kane; pencils & layouts by Graham & Buckler, plus Steve Gerber’s ‘Jungle Re-Actions’ editorial feature from Jungle Action #7. Capping off the freebie joys are un-inked Buckler story pages that would have been #25…

A truly groundbreaking classic of comics narrative, Don McGregor’s Black Panther is stark, vibrant proof that the superhero genre works best when ambitious and passionate creators are given their head and let loose to get on with it.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2016 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 US artist/production wizard Jack Adler was born, followed in 1935 by pioneering African American artist Billy Graham (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Sabre) and writer Mike Baron (Nexus, Badger, Flash, The Punisher) in 1949.

In 1952 today, Australia’s beloved Ginger Meggs strip creator Jimmy Bancks died, and the date also saw the debut of Judd Winick’s Frumpy the Clown strip in 1996 and launch of manga collective CLAMP’s Angelic Layer series in 1999.

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The Sub-Mariner Marvel Masterworks volume 8


By Steve Gerber, Bill Everett, Howard Chaykin, Marv Wolfman, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, Sam Kweskin, Jim Mooney, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0962-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In his most primal incarnation (other origins are available but may differ due to timeslips, circumstance and screen dimensions) Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the proud, noble and generally upset offspring of the union of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer. That doomed romance resulted in a hybrid being of immense strength and extreme resistance to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Over decades, a wealth of creators have added to the fishy tale and today’s Namor is hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”.

He was created by young, talented Bill Everett, for non-starter cinema premium Motion Picture Weekly Funnies: #1 (October 1939) so – technically – Namor predates Marvel, Atlas and Timely Comics. The Marine Miracleman first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, having debuted (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in the aforementioned promotional booklet designed to be handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Our late-starter antihero rapidly emerged as one of the industry’s biggest draws, winning his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941). His appeal was baffling but solid and he was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of superbly dark, mordantly moody, creepily contemporary fantasy fables. Even so, his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again.

In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with their Fantastic Four, they revived and reimagined the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, angry semi-amnesiac. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered and broken by the loss of his subsea kingdom… which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His urge for rightful revenge was infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish. From there he graduated in 1968 to his own solo title again.

Cumulatively spanning cover-dates June 1972 – April 1973, this eighth and final deluxe subsea compilation of the Swinging Sixties Subby trawls Sub-Mariner #61-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also trawled up and tipped in is a tentative attempt to revive his solo star status as seen in Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) just as horror-hero dominance was giving way to superhero resurgences and all of us were unwittingly biding their time for the advent of Star Wars and a wave of Science Fiction space opera titles.

It opens with one last revelatory reminiscence from Roy Thomas’ in his Introduction before

the dry land dramas and thrill soaked yarns recommence…

Previously: Namor had endured escalating horror as old enemies like Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and others attacked. They were soundly defeated, but constant battles cost Namor his lifelong companion in bride-to-be Lady Dorma as well as his long-absent human father Leonard McKenzie, murdered by Tiger Shark and sinister shapeshifter Llyra as they constantly assaulted his sunken kingdom. The prince had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, had abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. These wanderings were also wracked with conflict, as, amnesiac again, he faced The Human Torch, A.I.M,. M.OD.O.K., Doctor Doom, Japanese war criminals and more, prior to meeting and adopting his unsuspected cousin Namorita (daughter of WWII ally Namora). Namor battled the Badoon, and reluctantly inevitably returned to Atlantis. Back, but not officially in charge, he became increasingly burdened again. He befriended Hellenic goddess Venus and fought war god Ares; took responsibility for an Atlantean massacre of alien ambassadors; granted asylum to alien survivor Tamara of the Sisterhood; narrowly avoided a global conflagration with the UN and clashed with Thor before at last taking up the mantle of ruler again…

It was an open secret that Bill Everett was dying at this time but his Marvel friends and employers allowed him to work on until he couldn’t. Thus Sub-Mariner #61’s ‘The Prince and the Pirate!’ – credited to Steve Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Jim Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts with page 4 as Namorita and her human guardian Betty Prentiss are abducted along with an entire passenger plane. The voyagers are victims of deranged geneticist Dr. Hydro who mutates them all – bar already amphibian Nita – into human/merman hybrids to populate his armies of environmental conquest. All too soon Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, but is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the attack inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his stronghold from which to convert the rest of humanity…

The drama plays out in #62 as Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Frank Giacoia explore ‘A Realm Besieged!’ before Tamara in Atlantis and Nita on Hydrobase thwarts Hydro’s schemes leaving the Sub-Mariner to ponder what to do with the hundreds of innocent, unwilling scaly amphibian freaks that neither Atlanteans or surface-dwellers want anything to do with…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reigned-in imagination and boundless bizarrely wilful surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties in thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

With critical success Man-Thing he was holding up a mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and weaving history from scattered snippets of Marvel’s continuity. With his final stint on Sub-Mariner, Gerber expanded that universe exponentially, building by exploring the pre-cataclysm days of Atlantis, aided by Howard Chaykin in anew back-up series dubbed ‘Tales of Atlantis!’ here the first chapter – inked by Joe Sinnott – sees antediluvian, human-built Atlantis losing its war with rival superpower Lemuria and Emperor Kamuu and his bride Zartra prepare for the bloody end…

Over Everett’s posthumous plot, Gerber, Kweskin & Syd Shores produce #63 as ‘…And the Seas Shall Explode!’ sees seemingly dead Dr Hydro return to destroy the Atlanteans by triggering a volcano under their city and compelling Namor to take no chances and offer no mercy to save his subjects once and for all…

Tales of Atlantis resumes as Gerber, Chaykin & Sinnott reveal how the fate of the first Atlantis is sealed by ‘Cataclysm!’ As hand-to-hand combat peaks, the city sinks beneath the seas, but its heritage is saved, carried away by missionary sorceress Zered-Na and her devout disciples (for which you need to scope out Gerber’s other contemporaneous assignments: Son of Satan in Marvel Spotlight and the aforementioned Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. we’ve covered them I previous post so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, however, and taking off on a strange tangent Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture during #64’s ‘Voyage into Chaos!’ When intolerant Atlanteans intern the aimless, despondent amphibian victims of Dr. Hydro, furious, ashamed Namor responds with a fit of fury, just as cool heads are needed to assess another astounding incursion.

Soon, a quartet of strange visitors from magical dimension Zephyrland – Ariel the Musician, Ibbar the Scolar, Kabal the Wizard & Zargus the Warrior – are petitioning the Sub-Mariner to hop in their Golden Submarine and help them liberate their enslaved homeland from bestial, tone-deaf horror Virago the She-Beast. Willing and even eager to go for many reasons Namor joins them but is ambushed and defeated as soon as arrives in the land of golden meanies…

Third instalment of Tales of Atlantis ‘In the Wake of the Warriors!’ reveals how, five millennia later, nomadic clans of water-breathing Homo Mermanus settle in the ruins of the sunken city-continent and clash constantly, thanks to the enmity of sworn enemies Widow-Queen Elanna and King Stegor. They cannot see waves of destiny pushing their battle-hardened children towards an incredible coalition. Successive chapters ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding episode ‘The Sword in the Throne!’ inked by Sinnott in #66) ended the series abruptly as those children – destiny- touched Kamuu and Elanna’s daughter Zartra – after meeting ghosts and battling demons, unite the tribes to create the dynasty of sunken Atlantis that will lead to the coming millennia later of Namor…

Back in the now however, the series was struggling and a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner with #65 leads with ‘The Cry of the She-Beast!’ as Gerber, Heck & Perlin detail how Virago crushes resistance at home, physically humiliates Namor and launches an attack across dimensions upon Atlantis. Her departure sparks a successful but so-costly revolution in Zephyrland and (with valiant Namor clinging to her Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ by Gerber, Heck & Perlin sees Virago driven away from Atlantis at great cost, only to stumble upon the tomb of defeated – but apparently only dormant – Orka the (humanoid) Killer Whale – who unites with a clearly kindred spirit to devastate the sunken city with an armada of crazed cetaceans…

The catastrophic clash leads to the Sub-Mariner again falling, but this time it is amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons fatally alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it overs Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into a stasis-like coma in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ by Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle.

Thankfully, although dying Namor heads for the surface where he is found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who in turns brings Namor to old enemies the FF. Smartest Man Alive Reed Richards swiftly diagnoses and rapidly constructs a bodysuit to provide constant artificial respiration – over Namor’s churlish and violent protests – and he heads home to finish his fight. Sadly, what he finds in #68 (January 1974, Mooney inks), leaves him ‘On the Brink of Madness!’

Only Tamara, Nita and Hydro’s amphibians have escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft and crushed monarch. Convinced to stabilise the crisis, they relocate to the vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose research into forcefields might provide a means to protect the dormant Atlanteans from predators and further harm. After seeking spiritual guidance from patron god Father Neptune, Namor sets off, but when the king without a kingdom seeks out Dr Damon Walthers, he discovers the genius’ works stolen by his assistant. Shot from the sky by a neophyte supervillain calling himself Force, their initial clash is inconclusive but does draw the attention of passing student Peter Parker…

Meanwhile in Zephyrland, the war goes badly and the survivors consider calling in Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange…

George Tuska & Vince Colletta illustrate Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner #69 as Gerber rapidly wraps up his hanging plot threads in anticipation of a sudden cancellation. ‘Two Worlds …and Dark Destiny!’ sees Dr Strange offer aid, a pointless battle between spider hero and fishman and a second and final encounter with Force that leaves Namor victorious, in control of Walthers forcefield tech and Atlantis safely stored “under glass” until a cure can be found… an inauspicious but satisfactory stopping point. Confoundingly the series still had three issues to run with Marv Wolfman, Tuska & Colletta using #70 to depict ‘Namor Unchained!’ whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by the now-independent mutated fishmen of Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity…

The brutal duel culminated in more deaths and butchery as #71 clamours ‘Comes the Pirahna!’ and the series finally sank with #72 (dated September 1974 and on sale from 18th June) as Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins & Colletta catered an alien encounter as Namor faced obnoxious humans and a lost interstellar shapeshifter in ‘From the Void It Came…’

The antihero resurfaced in Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975), revived as one half of a tag-team with fellow misunderstood autocrat Doctor Doom whilst seeking a cure for his people and his own condition. That sustained momentum led to the last tale here, a solo exploit taken from Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) as Bill Mantlo & Mooney revealed ‘Death is the Symbionic Man!’ Incorporating Prime Earth’s military industrial villain Captain Simon Stryker (of alternate Earth series Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for possible spare parts and powers by the maniac and battling his most deadly killer-cyborg to date…

The bonus section in this final collection includes the covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Larry Lieber, Sinnott, Gil Kane, Giacoia, Mike Esposito & Al Milgrom; House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change; Romita’s original designs for the new outfit and a selection of original art by Heck, Perlin & Mooney.

In comics, the best thing about “the Mighty falling” is that so often another time throws up fresh ideas and creators who will regenerate faded concepts. It a cycle as timeless and relentless as the tides. The venerable Sub-Mariner always comes back stronger and more appetising, and you owe it to yourself to be ready for the next wave by getting to know these classics. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an story-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: historical treasures with narrative bite and indescribable style and panache that fans will delight in forever.
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved. (or possibly © 2026 MARVEL.)

Today in 1924 cartoonist Frank Bolle (The Heart of Juliet Jones, Winnie Winkle, Black Phantom, Tim Holt, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom) was born, sharing the date with writer Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men, Buffy, Fray) in 1964; artist ChrisCross AKA Christopher Williams (Xero, Blood Syndicate, Justice League) in 1968, and author Becky Cloonan (Demo, American Virgin, Gotham Academy, Conan) in 1980.

Today in 2005, artist Sam Kweskin (Atlas anthologies such as Battlefront & Journey Into Mystery; Kid Colt, Outlaw, Sub-Mariner) died.

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Black Widow Epic Collection volume 1: Beware the Black Widow (1964-1971)


By Stan Lee, Don Rico & Don Heck, Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Mimi Gold, Gerry Conway, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, John Romita, Gene Colan, Bill Everett, Chic Stone, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Vince Colletta, Jim Mooney, John Verpoorten, Sal Buscema, Jack Abel & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2126-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Natasha Romanoff (sometimes Natalia Romanova) is a Soviet Russian spy who came in from the cold and stuck around to become one of Marvel’s earliest female stars. The Black Widow started life as a svelte, sultry honeytrap during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days, targeting Tony Stark and battling Iron Man in her debut (Tales of Suspense #52, cover-dated April, 1964 and on sale from January 10th). She was subsequently redesigned as a torrid, tights-&-tech supervillain before defecting to the USA, and romantically entwining with an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – before finally enlisting as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., setting up as a freelance do-gooder and joining and ultimately leading The Avengers.

Throughout her career she has always been considered ultra-efficient, coldly competent, deadly dangerous and somehow cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours. As her backstory evolved, it was revealed that Natasha had undergone experimental processes which enhanced her physical capabilities and lengthened her lifespan, as well as enduring assorted psychological procedures which had messed up her mind and memories.

Traditionally a minor fan favourite, the Widow only really hit the big time after Marvel’s Movie franchise was established, but for us unregenerate comics-addicts her print escapades have always offered a cool, sinister frisson of delight. This expansive l compilation gathers the contents of Tales of Suspense #52-53, 57, 60, 64; Avengers #29-30, 36-37, 43-44; Amazing Spider-Man #86; Amazing Adventures 1-8 and Daredevil #81, plus pertinent excerpts from Avengers #16, 32-33, 38-39, 41-42, 45-47, 57, 63-63 & 76, cumulatively spanning April 1964 through November 1971.

The action opens as a sexy Soviet operative Natasha and her hulking sidekick Boris (yes, I know: simpler times) are despatched to destroy recent defector and top-ranking electronics boffin Anton Vanko and his new Yankee protectors Tony Stark and Iron Man. ‘The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!’ (drawn by Don Heck and scripted, like the next issue, by “N. Kurok” – actually veteran creator Don Rico) sees the hero quickly dispose of the armoured Russian heavy while underestimating the far greater threat of the insidious Femme Fatale.

With Tales of Suspense #53, she became a headliner. In ‘The Black Widow Strikes Again!’ Natasha steals Stark’s anti-gravity ray yet ultimately fails in her sabotage mission, fleeing Russian retribution until resurfacing in ToS #57.

Black Widow returned to beguile disgruntled budding superhero ‘Hawkeye, The Marksman!’ (Stan Lee & Heck) into attacking the Golden Avenger in #57, with no appreciable effect. Tales of Suspense #60 featured an extended plotline with Stark’s “disappearance” leading to Iron Man being ‘Suspected of Murder!’. Capitalizing on the chaos, lovestruck Hawkeye and the Widow strike again, but another failure leads to her being recaptured by Russian agents and sentenced to re-education…

Abruptly transformed from fur-draped seductress into a gadget-laden costumed villain, she returned in #64’s ‘Hawkeye and the New Black Widow Strike Again!’ (Lee, Heck & Chic Stone). Her failure led to big changes, as pages from Avengers #16 here depict her punishment and Hawkeye’s reformation and induction into the superteam. Jump forward more than a year and Avengers #29 as Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch prepare to retire: returning to Europe to reinvigorate their fading powers even as ‘This Power Unleashed!’ brings back Hawkeye’s lost love as a brainwashed nemesis resolved to destroy the team.

Recruiting old foes Power Man and The Swordsman as cannon-fodder, The Widow is foiled by her own incompletely-submerged feelings for Hawkeye, after which ‘Frenzy in a Far-Off Land!’ observes dispirited colossus Henry Pym embroiled in a futuristic civil war amongst a lost South American civilisation while a temporary détente between archer and inamorata seems set to fail…

Extracts from Avengers #32-33 (with Heck providing raw, gritty inks over his own pencils in ‘The Sign of the Serpent!’ and concluding chapter ‘To Smash a Serpent!’) sees her own recovery begin as Natasha independently infiltrates a racist secret society before joining the Avengers to destroy the hatemongering snakes.

Her international credentials are exploited when long-missing Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver return, heralding an alien invasion of the Balkans in (Avengers #36-37’s) ‘The Ultroids Attack!’ and ‘To Conquer a Colossus!’. Newly cured, programming-free and reformed, Natasha is the crucial factor in repelling an extraterrestrial invasion: a sinister, merciless Black Widow whose willingness to apply lethal force ultimately saves the day and the Earth…

Extracts from Avengers #38, 39, 41 & 42 detail how she then forsakes her newfound heroic reputation to go undercover for S.H.I.E.L.D.: infiltrating a Communist Chinese super-weapon facility as a supposed Soviet agent. In #43’s complete tale ‘Color him…the Red Guardian!’ (Roy Thomas, John Buscema & George Roussos) her origins and reason for the title “widow” are exposed before – reacting to a world-threatening superweapon – the Avengers storm in for the fight of their lives as the saga climaxes in ‘The Valiant Also Die!’ (Vince Colletta inks): a blistering all-out clash to save humanity from mental conquest…

The fracturing relationship between Hawkeye and the Widow plays out in snippets from Avengers #45-47, #63 and 64 as her growing ties to Nick Fury lead to an heartbreaking split with the Amazing Archer in #76 and the prospect of a new beginning for the Russian renegade. It comes in Amazing Spider-Man #86 as ‘Beware… the Black Widow!’ affords John Romita & Jim Mooney a chance to redesign, redefine and relaunch the super-spy in an enjoyable if formulaic Lee-scripted misunderstanding/clash-of-heroes yarn with an ailing webspinner never really endangered. The entire episode was actually a promotion for the Widow’s own soon-to-debut solo series.

Black Widow’s first solo series appeared in “split-book” Amazing Adventures #1-8: mini-epics paying dues the superspy’s contemporary influences: Modesty Blaise and Emma Peel (that lass from the other Avengers). It all begins with ‘Then Came… The Black Widow’ (AA #1, August 1970, by Gary Friedrich, John Buscema & John Verpoorten) as Natasha emerges from self-imposed retirement to be a socially-aware crusader defending low-income citizens from thugs and loan sharks. One charitable act leads her to help activists ‘The Young Warriors!’ as their attempts to build a centre for underprivileged kids in Spanish Harlem are countered by crooked, drug-dealing property speculators…

Gene Colan & Bill Everett assume art duties from #3’s ‘The Widow and the Militants!’ with her actions and communist past drawing hostile media attention, more criminal attacks and ultimately precipitate an inner-city siege, before the ‘Deadlock’ (scripted by Mimi Gold) comes to a shocking end…

Roy Thomas steps in for a bleakly potent Christmas yarn as ‘…And to All a Good Night’ sees Natasha and faithful retainer/father figure Ivan meet and fail a desperate young man, only to be dragged into a horrific scheme by deranged cult leader The Astrologer who plans to hold the city’s hospitals to ransom in ‘Blood Will Tell!’ (art by Heck & Sal Buscema). Convinced she is cursed to do more harm than good, the tragic adventurer nevertheless inflicts ‘The Sting of the Widow!’ (Gerry Conway, Heck & Everett) on her ruthless prey and his child soldiers, after which the series wraps up in rushed manner with a haphazard duel against Russian-hating super-patriot Watchlord in the Thomas-scripted ‘How Shall I Kill Thee? Let Me Count the Ways!’

The formative tales conclude here with ‘And Death is a Woman Called Widow’ (Daredevil #81, by Conway, Colan & Jack Abel), which sees infamous defector Natasha Romanoff burst onto the scene to save the Man Without Fear from ubiquitous manipulator Mr. Kline and deadly predator The Owl, consequently exposing the manipulative mastermind behind most of DD and the Widow’s recent woes and tribulations…

Rounding out the comics experience here are bonus pages including a stunning Black Widow pinup by Bill Everett; house ads and a huge gallery of original art pages by John Buscema, Verpoorten, Heck, Colan & Everett – including restored artworks edited for overly-salacious content that apparently revealed a little too much of the sexy spy, before being toned down for eventual publication.

These beautifully limned yarns might still occasionally jar with their earnest stridency and dated attitudes, but the narrative energy and sheer exuberant excitement of the adventures are compelling delights no action fan will care to miss…
© 2020 MARVEL.

Today in 1928 Archie and Little Archie writer/artist Bob Bolling was born. Others birthday boys include French auteur André Juillard (Les Sept Vies de l’Épervier, Arno, Chasseurs d’or, Blake and Mortimer) in 1948 and Puerto Rican American George Pérez (everything, but especially Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman, New Teen Titans, Avengers, Justice League of America, Fantastic Four, Superman, Black Widow and more) came along in 1954.

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Golden Age Captain America Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Charles Nicholas, Syd Shores, Al Avison, Al Gabriele, Harry Fisk, Ken Bald, Bill Ward and various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2228-9 (HB), 978-1-3025-0560-8 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Captain America was devised at the end of 1940 and boldly launched in his own monthly title from Timely – the company’s unofficial trading designation – with none of the customary cautious shilly-shallying. Owner Pulp publisher turned comic book empresario Martin Goodman always knew the value of striking while irons were hot…

The first issue was cover-dated March 1941 and became an instant monster, blockbuster smash-hit. Overnight Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s “Big Three” – the other two being The Human Torch & Sub-Mariner. He was also one of the very first to plummet from popularity at the end of the Golden Age. These days – excluding, perhaps, some far-too-few Bill Everett-crafted Sub-Mariner yarns – the huge war-years popularity of the other two just doesn’t translate into a good read for modern consumers.

In comparison to their contemporary rivals and industry leaders at Quality, Fawcett, National/All American and Dell, or Will Eisner’s The Spirit newspaper insert, 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 the USA was becoming involved in the greatest war in global history. Nevertheless, the first ten Captain America Comics are indisputably the most high-quality comics in the fledgling company’s history and I can’t help but wonder what might have been had National (neé 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 although the team supreme did jump to the majors after a year, their visual dynamic became the mandated aspirational style for super-hero comics at the company they left. Moreover, their patriotic creation became a flagship icon for them and the industry. Truth be told. 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 and comics veterans are the rare back-up features overseen by the star duo and crafted by their small pool of talented up-&-comers.

Although unattributed assistants included at various times Reed Crandall, Syd Shores, Alex Schomburg, Mort Meskin, Chu Hing, Charles Nicholas, Gustav Schrotter, George Klein, C.A. Winter, Fred Bell and many more, working on main course and filler features such as Hurricane, the God of Speed and Tuk, Caveboy: strips barely remembered today yet still brimming with the first enthusiastic efforts of creative legends in waiting.

This lavish hardback volume (available in a digital edition) reprints original Star-Spangled blockbusters Captain America Comics #5-8 (spanning August to November 1941) and also provides a fascinating insight into the fly-by-night nature of publishing during those get-rich-quick days in an Introduction from Gerard Jones, after which the astounding action resumes…

After scrawny, enfeebled young patriot Steve Rogers is continually rejected by the US Army, he is recruited by the Secret Service. In an effort to counter a wave of Nazi-sympathizing espionage and sabotage, the passionate young man was tapped to join a clandestine experimental project to create physically perfect super-soldiers. However, when a Nazi agent infiltrated the labs and murdered its key scientist, Rogers became its only successful graduate and transitioned into America’s not-so-secret weapon and very public patriotic symbol.

Despatched undercover as a simple army private, he soon encountered headstrong, orphaned Army Brat James Buchanan Barnes who became his sidekick and costumed confidante “Bucky”. In the period when America was still officially non-combatant, Rogers and his sidekick were stationed at East Coast army base Camp Lehigh, but still manage to find plenty of crime to crush and evil to eradicate.

In Simon & Kirby’s ‘Captain America and the Ringmaster of Death’ the arrival of a circus leads to the deaths of General Blaine and Defense Commissioner Newsome in suspicious circumstances. Before long, both the masked heroes and government agent Betty Ross reach the same conclusion: all the acts and freaks are Nazi operatives sabotaging the nation’s security through murder… but not for much longer…

Japan was still neutral too, so although visually their forces – especially spies – were also unmistakeably ever-present, the eastern arm of the Axis alliance (the other two being Germany and Italy, history fans) were still being referred to as “sinister Orientals” and “Asiatic aggressor nations”. Even so, when Steve & Bucky accompany new commander General Haywood to the US Pacific base of Kunoa, readers knew who was really behind ‘The Gruesome Secret of the Dragon of Death!’ and revelled in seeing the heroes scupper the most spectacular secret weapon yet aimed at the forces of freedom…

Back in the USA, the hard-hitting Star-Spangled Stalwarts then rescue decent, law-abiding German-Americans terrorised by the ‘Killers of the Bund’ who were determined to create a deadly Fifth Column inside America’s heartland. Following a rousing ad for a newly minted Captain America’s Sentinels of Liberty society, a glorified infomercial for the club comes in the form of prose adventure ‘Captain America and the Ruby Robbers’ scripted by Stan Lee with spot art by S&K, after which our Patriotic Pair save a downed volunteer American flyer held prisoner on a former French Island now administered by the collaborating Vichy government.

‘Captain America and… The Terror That Was Devil’s Island’ offers action-drenched melodrama plucked from the contemporaneous Hollywood movie mill and referencing films like 1937’s The Life of Emile Zola, 1939’s Devil’s Island and perhaps even 1941’s I Was a Prisoner on Devil’s Island and served to show that infamy and cruelty could not long subdue any valiant American heart…

Joining the list of supporting features, the equally relevant if improbable adventures of ‘Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent’ began with this issue. Credited to Stan Lee (Goodman’s nephew and major domo Stanley Lieber) & Harry Fisk, these shorts find US journalist Jerry Hunter sent to Blitz-blighted London to report on the European war, only to become the story after uncovering a traitor in the corridors of power…

Sporting only a title page by Simon & Kirby, primeval wonder ‘Tuk, Cave Boy’ bows out in a final example of “Weird Stories from the Dark Ages” as he saves his mentor Tanir from marauding beast-men and ends forever the depredations of brutal tyrant Bongo, before seasoned pro Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkowski) assumes art chores on ‘Hurricane, Master of Speed’. Hurricane was the earthbound son of thunder god Thor (no relation to the 1960s version): a brisk reworking and sequel to Kirby’s ‘Mercury in the 20th Century’ from Red Raven Comics #1 (cover-dated August 1940), and here intercedes in a diabolical plot to destabilise the economy by flooding US banks with counterfeit currency.

CAC #6 carried a September 1941 cover-date and opens with a classic murder spree thriller as ‘Captain America Battles the Camera Fiend and his Darts of Doom’ in a frantic bid to prevent the theft of Britain’s Crown Jewels. Timely were never subtle in terms of jingoistic (we’d say appallingly racist) depictions, and even the normally reserved Simon & Kirby let themselves go in ‘Meet the Fang, the Arch Fiend of the Orient’ as Cap & Bucky challenge the full insidious might of the Tongs of San Francisco’s China Town to save kidnapped Chinese dignitaries from a master torturer…

Another new feature followed: scripted by Lee and illustrated by Al Avison & Al Gabriele, ‘Father Time: The Grim Reaper Deals with Crime’ details how Larry Scott learned his father had been framed for murder and through heroic efforts exposed the true culprits… but was seconds too late to save his sire from the noose. Resolved that time should no longer be on the side of criminals and killers, Larry devised a ghastly outfit and – wielding a scythe – brought his dad’s persecutors to justice. They would be only the first in Father Time’s crusade…

Simon & Kirby’s art and stories were becoming increasingly bold and innovative. ‘The Strange Case of Captain America and the Hangman Who Killed Doctor Vardoff’ reveals a diabolical game of “Ten Little Indians” as suspects perish one by one whilst the superheroes attempt to catch a ruthless killer and retrieve a stolen experimental super-silk invention. Lee and an unknown artist then offer another thinly-veiled prose plug for the Sentinels of Liberty club as Cap and Bucky lay a ‘Trap for a Traitor’, after which Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent ‘Battles the Engine of Destruction’ (Lee & Fisk) and exposes an aristocratic English fascist building Nazi terror weapons in his British factories.

Following further Sentinels of Liberty club news and puzzle pages ‘Hurricane, Master of Speed’ closes the issue, crushing a murder plot in his own boarding house with art courtesy of Charles Nicholas.

CAC #7 is a stunning comic milestone that leads with iconic clash ‘Captain America in the Case of the Red Skull and the Whistling Death’. With Steve & Bucky ordered to participate in a Vaudeville-themed troop show at Camp Lehigh, the Nazi super-assassin stalks the city, slaughtering his old cronies and US military experts with a mysterious sound weapon. The fiend’s big mistake is leaving the shadows and arrogantly turning his attention to Cap…

‘The Case of the Baseball Murders: Death Loads the Bases’ seemingly offers a change of pace but Steve’s sporting relaxation turns into more work when a masked maniac starts knocking off his team’s star players before Lee’s prose novelette provides ‘A Message from Captain America’ which introduces his fellow heroes Jerry Hunter, Hurricane and Father Time before S&K strip feature ‘Horror Plays the Scales’ pits the Red, White & Blue Bravos against a murdering musician knocking off anti-Nazi politicians.

Ken Bald & Bill Ward introduce a comedy foil for Hurricane as ‘Justice Laughs Last’ sees the speedster adopt portly shopkeeper Speedy Scriggles after protection racketeers target the feisty fool. Headline Hunter (Lee & Fisk) then clears an Englishman accused of murdering an American film star and reveals a Nazi plot to disrupt Anglo-US relations, as Father Time’s ‘Race Against Doom’ (Lee, Al Avison & Al Gabriele) saves another innocent patsy from taking the fall for a crooked DA and his mob-boss paymaster. The issue closes with more puzzles and patriotic pronouncements from Cap & Bucky to all their fee-paying Sentinels…

Cover-dated November 1941, Captain America Comics #8 was released months before the Pearl Harbor atrocity catapulted the USA into official war so contents might have compiled as early as June or July. Thus it opens with another gripping crime conundrum – ‘The Strange Mystery of the Ruby of the Nile and Its Heritage of Horror’ – which sees the heroes assisting Betty Ross in safeguarding a fabulous antique jewel, but seemingly helpless to prevents its archaeologist excavators being butchered by a marauding phantasm.

The impending conflagration does inform ‘Murder Stalks the Maneuvers’ when a Nazi infiltrator attends war games and uses the opportunity to trick the soldiers into destroying each other with live ammo, whilst Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent remains in the thick of it facing ‘The Strange Riddle of the Plague of Death’ (Lee & Fisk). This time he saves London (and the Home Counties) from a strange sickness spread by bread…

After more Sentinel propaganda and absorbing puzzles, Simon & Kirby’s ‘Case of the Black Witch’ has Cap & Bucky shielding a young woman’s inheritance before clashing with a sinister sorceress and the worst horrors hell could conceive of.

Nicholas returns to Hurricane as the Master of Speed and his new pal shut down a crooked ‘Carnival of Crime’, after which Lee & an unsung illustrator promote in prose a new Timely title as ‘The Young Allies Strike a Blow for Justice’. Please be warned: the treatment here of “Negro” character Whitewash – a full partner in the heroic team – is every bit as dated, contentious and potentially offensive as that era’s representations of other races, so kudos to the editors for bravely leaving the story untouched and unedited. Closing on a bombastic high, Father Time then deals harshly with robbers who use bank strongrooms to asphyxiate witnesses in ‘Vault of Doom!’

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

Although lagging far behind DC and despite, in many ways having a much shallower Golden Age well to draw from, it’s commendable that Marvel has overcome understandable initial reluctance about its earliest output in these masterworks – even if they’re only potentially of interest to the likes of sad old folk like me. However, 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.
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Pioneering Italian comics creator Sandro Angiolini (Isabella) was born today in 1920, sharing the date with Belgian Maurice Maréchal (Prudence Petipas) in 1922 and American cartoonist Tom K. Ryan (Tumbleweeds) in 1926, and – one year later – Le Journal de Spirou stalwart creator Peter Spier (Sophie).

We lost Katzenjammer Kids artist Joe Musial in 1977; Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman in 1992; Golden and Silver Age comic book everyman Manny Stallman (Young Robin Hood, Big Town, Raven) in 1997, with this century this day marking the passings of Kate Worley (Omaha the Cat Dancer) in 2004 and French creator and co-founder of Pilote Jean-René Le Moing – AKA “Bulbul” – (Le Chevalier Emerik, Peter Pat) in 2012.

In 1932 Clifford McBride’s Napoleon and Uncle Elby premiered; and in 1959 The Beano debuted Leo Baxendale’s The Three Bears, UK whilst weekly Cor!! launched today in 1970 and Steve Gerber & Gene Colan’s newspaper strip version of Howard the Duck took flight in 1977.

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Dazzler Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Danny Fingeroth, Steven Grant, Frank Springer, Mark D. Bright, Mike Vosburg, Vince Colletta, Danny Bulanadi, Jon D’Agostino & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2867-4 (HB), 978-1-3029-3678-5 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Until relatively recently US comics had very little in the way of positive female role models and almost no viable solo stars. That seriously started changing in the 1980s and look at us now. As part of its late-but-dedicated effort to involve women readers with women characters Marvel began a program of female versions of top stars but also devised original titles to expand audiences – and none more so than Alison Blaire AKA Dazzler.

Attempts in the early 1970s had added to the canon and character roster but not publishing charts for any length of time. Nevertheless, the company kept on plugging and eventually found the right mix when Ms. Marvel launched in her own title (cover-dated January 1977). She was followed by equally copyright-shielding Spider-Woman (Marvel Spotlight #32, February 1977), who secured her own title 15 months later) and Savage She-Hulk (#1 February 1980). That last one was supplemented by music-biz inspired (and hopefully trend-exploiting) Dazzler, who sagely premiered in issue #130 of top-selling title Uncanny X-Men the same month. She followed up with a few guest shots in other big star books and inevitably graduated to her own book, but it was a little more convoluted than that…

Dazzler the character was born of another of those 1980-1990s doomed-from-the-start cross-media deals wherein comics companies attempted to break out of their “ghetto” into the real money world – like toys, movies and TV shows. In 1979 Disco specialists Casablanca Records began a development project with Marvel to create a television character who would release records like The Archies or The Monkees, but be set in an animated Marvel Universe. A giant-sized comics special was begun but when the deal was cancelled, the House of Ideas was left with a lot of talented people going “now what?”

In the interim Dazzler had already launched: guesting in the company’s other top titles (Fantastic Four #217 and Amazing-Spider-Man #203, both cover-dated April 1980). Failing to find other record companies willing to commit, big boss Jim Shooter decreed the comics special would be expanded and recycled as #1 & 2 of her own title. The singer went dark for a year before landing her own starring vehicle and her rocky road to stardom has risen and fallen ever since.

Having crushed and disappointed her austere father Judge Carter Blair by quitting law school to pursue a frivolous, worthless life on stage, Alison’s life continued to spiral crazily after meeting the X-Men. After subsequently facing petty, spiteful Asgardian Amora the Enchantress with the entire Marvel Universe in attendance, Alison steadfastly pursued her career dreams. That meant clashing in rapid order with Doctor Doom; dream demon Nightmare; evil mastermind Techmaster; The Enforcers (Ox, Montanna & Fancy Dan); Federal nemesis Mr. Meeker of energy thinktank Project Pegasus; supervillain Klaw; Galactus, his herald Terrax and – after being remanded to Riker’s Island for “murdering” Klaw – Titania and the Grapplers (Screaming Mimi, Letha & Poundcakes).

She did make some friends on the way, ranging from mob-fixated street-level masked vigilante Blue Sheild to major players like Bruce Banner and The Hulk as well as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent/occasional Avenger Quasar (Wendell Vaughn), but the real gamechangers were her fraught associations with W.C. Fields-channelling agent/promoter Harry S. Osgood who began shaping her music career; obnoxious Lancelot Steele (sexist macho jerk/stage manager/field rep for Harry) and increasingly controlling boyfriend Dr Paul Jansen. At least Alison’s Grandma Bella still supports her, confident that one day Dazzler will be a star…

A mix of mainstream level superheroics, soap opera romances, telenovela melodrama and the hoary plot of A Star is Born, the complicated life of Alison Blaire now included an increasingly unstable father who despised her for daring to disobey him; a long-missing mother: a succession of creepily uptight and frankly dubious boyfriends; the countless moral and physical perils besetting lonely, pretty girls who would do (almost) anything to achieve their dreams of fame and assorted gods, monster, terrors and supervillains who couldn’t believe Dazzler didn’t care about them and Did Not Want To Fight.

The idea was still to address and remedy the lack of a significant female readership (after all, what normal girl would read X-Men, Spider-Man or the Hulk?) that had presumably dropped to insignificance once the company’s romance, nursing and humorous fashion titles were cancelled.

In an effort to be daring and different but still keep attracting readers the only way they knew, the editors and writers and artists did what they always did but honestly sought a different path. However, for Marvel at the time the medium was the message and somehow that meant a super fight every issue and lots of underwear, shower, and getting dressed/undressed moments in the quiet times…

Somehow Blaire never truly escaped traditional Marvel tropes and superhero schtick while forging her own path, as seen in this second collection of comic sagas taken from Dazzler #14-25, plus a bonus yarn from What If? #33, collectively covering April 1982 – March 1983. Following scripter Danny Fingeroth’s context-packed Introduction ‘This Was a Long Time Ago’, the drama resumes with #14 ‘…Without Getting Killed or Caught…!’ as Fingeroth Frank Springer & Vince Colletta reveal how after making waves as an opener for aging stadium-filler Bruce Harris, Alison and her band are caught in the crossfire when a top hitman targets Blue Shield. As the would-be killer ludicrously believes Lance is the crime-crusher, the snafu then leads Dazzler into an ambush where she must battle a deranged, mesmerised She-Hulk temporarily mind-controlled by the Mob…

It’s still team-up time in #15 as ‘Private Eyes’ sees Harris’ tour hit San Francisco and Alison hiring investigator Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) to track down her long-missing mom after her own amateur snooping provokes a misguided clash that brings the wrath of S.H.I.E.L.D. down on both of them…

Dazzler arrives in Seattle with #16, despondent that Harris wants her fired for making him look old and tired. Things get even worse in when The Enchantress returns and even the sudden appearance of current beau – straitlaced lawyer Ken Barnett – cannot deflect the terror of a singing contest in Asgard, judged by the gods and with the odds heavily stacked in favour of the cheating scheming ‘Black Magic Woman!’

Victorius and returned to the Big Apple, Alison’s head is turned in #17 as ‘The Angel and the Octopus!’ finds her the object of unwanted affection of multi-millionaire mutant Warren Worthington III just as Ken is becoming overly clingy. She really doesn’t need this grief right now as her producer Harry is auditioning younger, prettier potential rival songstress Vanessa Tooks and her father is on the edge of a mental breakdown…

It’s almost a relief when The Angel sweeps her off her feet for wining, dining and a furious fight against mech-augmented multi-armed madman Doctor Octopus…

Her plans to be as normal as possible are further threatened when super-criminal Crusher Creel hunts her down to be his hostage in a planned ambush of the Avengers in ‘The Absorbing Man Wants You!’ Sadly, after the simple-minded thug overconsumes her energies and grows out of control, Dazzler endures ‘Creel… and Inhuman Treatment!’ until Inhuman king Black Bolt intervenes to avoid a escalating catastrophe. Meanwhile, as Judge Blaire deteriorates, Warren, Vanessa and Grandma Bella all take circuitous but convergent steps that will soon uncover the hiding place of Alison’s mother…

The roads meet in #20 as ‘Out of the Past!’ details the hows and whys of Barbara (Blaire) London’s absence and even fills in some hidden passages in the life of Alison…

The full story arrives behind a photo-cover by Eliot Brown, Bob Larkin and model June McDonald as double-sized Dazzler #21 declares ‘Alison Blaire, This is Your Life!’ with the singer headlining a major benefit gig that draws ALL of her family together for a major reconciliation and reset, with every superhero in town along for the show…

A new tone infects #22 as evil mutants ‘The Sisterhood’ maliciously target Angel. The larger goal of Mystique, Destiny and wild child Rogue is to destroy the entire X-Men team but after Alison humiliatingly defeats Rogue and her parents, the unbalanced teenager becomes obsessed with punishing Dazzler. However, before that ‘Fire in the Night!’ changes tack to find Alison and her newly-found half sister Lois London endangered by manic arsonist Flame and her own vile property speculating landlord. Meantime, believing the Sisterhood behind the attack Alison has contacted a certain Heroes for Hire team and soon Luke Cage and Iron Fist prove worth every discounted cent…

They continue earning their keep in ‘A Rogue in the House!’ (#24 and Fingeroth, Springer & Colletta’s last collaboration in this collection) as the uncontrollable young mutant mind & powers leech assaults Alison and Lois. Brave and bold the bodyguards are ultimately defeated by their own stolen abilities and, desperate and furious, Dazzler decides to settle the grudge her own way…

The main comics biography pauses here with Dazzler #25, wherein the living transducer experiences every performer’s greatest nightmare. Crafted by Steven Grant, Mark Bright & Danny Bulanadi, ‘The Jagged Edge’ exposes her response to an appreciative fan who slowly crosses the line from heartfelt appreciation to lethally psychotic stalker. Sweet, shyly attentive admirer Karl Fredericks rapidly devolves to possessive maniac after finally meeting his idol, thereafter attempting to own Alison by killing all her friends and relatives. This prompts an extreme reaction from the horrified mutant musician…

To Be Continued..

With covers by Springer, Bill Sienviewicz, John Romita Jr., Bob Wiacek, John Romita Sr., and Dave Simons fronting each enthralling episode, the brief posterior Bonus Section opens with a tale from What If? #33 (June 1982), crafted by Fingeroth, Mike Vosburg & Jon D’Agostino asking and answering the burning question ‘What If The Dazzler Had Become the Herald of Galactus?’, supplemented by Dazzler’s entry from 1983’s Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe as supplied by Mark Gruenwald, Springer & Josef Rubinstein and the original character design for ‘Vanessa’ as crafted by then-current Marvel intern Lance Tooks.

Although very much of its troubled times, this collection sees the transformative shift in attitudes that resulted in women becoming less decorative and unshakably ornamental, and increasingly authors of their own fates. Even if not to everyone’s taste there is enough of significance here to make Dazzler worthy of any modern readers attention.
© 20201 MARVEL.

Today in 1934 comics loving speculative fiction iconoclast Harlan Ellison was born, followed in 1951 by Canadian superstar George Freeman (Captain Canuck, Green Lantern, Wasteland) and Mark Wheatley (Mars, Blood of the Innocent, Breathtaker, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall) in 1954)

On this date in 1949 we lost Robert Ripley (Ripley’s Believe It or Not!); Mark Trail creator Ed Dodd in 1991, ceiling shattering Japanese cartoonist Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san) in 1992 and Al Hartley (Archie Comics, Patsy Walker, Thor/Journey into Mystery) in 2003.

In 2006 Alex Toth died.

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Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane


By Gil Kane, with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Jim Shooter, Tony Isabella, Dan Slott, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Dan Adkins, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Klaus Janson, Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0888-7 (TPB), 978-1-3029-3737-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

This year marks the centenary of Eli Katz, who, as Gil Kane, worked from the Golden Age until his death (on January 31st 2000) to make comics the art form it is today. Diligent, resolute and always challenging himself, Kane was a trendsetting pioneer in style, in form and in comics philosophy. He was also a visual architect of the superhero revival in the Silver Age and a key component in the evolution of the Graphic Novel.

Kane started young and toiled as an artist all his life. An ever-more effective and influential one, he drew and wrote for many companies since his debut (thus far verified as inking Carl Hubbell on The Scarlet Avenger in Zip Comics #14 and cover-dated May 1941): illustrating superheroes, action/adventure, war, mystery, romance, horror, movie adaptations and, perhaps most importantly, Westerns and Science Fiction tales. In the 1950s he was one of DC editor Julius Schwartz’s go-to artists for regenerating the superhero. Yet by 1968, at the top of his (admittedly much denigrated) profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on new ventures, jettisoning job security, and the editorial format bounds of comic books for new visions and media. However, the time was not right and after brief forays at other companies (like Dell and Tower) and attempting to create graphic narratives outside the comic book industry – such as His Name Is Savage and Blackmark – Kane began selling his services to Marvel Comics…

Kane’s earliest comic book output included Boy Commandos, Young Allies & Newsboy Legion, Doll Man, Zip Comics, Airboy Comics and many more, but by the Fifties he was settled at National/DC and working on Johnny Thunder, Jimmy Wakely, Matt Savage, Hopalong Cassidy, Rex the Wonder Dog and hundreds of genre yarns – romance, war, sci fi, western and horror. When Superheroes returned, he co-created Green Lantern and The Atom, and generated countless pages and captivating covers for Plastic Man, Batman, Superman, Flash, Teen Titans, Robin, Batgirl, Hawk and Dove, Captain Action and everything in between. Then, in 1966, with ever-increasing bureaucracy and panic over a new upstart rival gripping DC, Kane tentatively – and initially using the pseudonym Scott Edwards – began looking at other publishers, leading to breakthrough art for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent, Dell Four Color, The Lost World, Brain Boy, The Frogmen, dozens of TV westerns and other licensed properties, and began his long association with modern Marvel Comics.

Initially a poor fit (he was asked to draw The Hulk over Jack Kirby’s layouts!), Kane persisted, going on to spectacularly redefine if not pictorially reinvent Amazing Spider-Man, Conan, Captain America and Captain Marvel; co-create Adam Warlock, Morbius, and Iron Fist and put his indelible stamp on Thor, Hulk, Ka-Zar, Daredevil, Marvel Team-Up and all the rest. Kane adapted John Carter, Warlord of Mars and other literary adventure-fantasy properties and reinvigorated dozens of horror-hero and superhero stalwarts, all while filling in on seemingly every character and cover going. Restless and craving what the medium could still achieve, he worked on newspaper strips too. Even before co-creating Star Hawks in 1977 with Ron Goulart, he had limned the daily Flash Gordon for King Features in the 1960s, and Tarzan Sunday pages.

Kane’s latter career included animation/design, and choice comics book outings as well as numerous special projects like Jason Drum for Le Journal de Tintin and The Ring of the Nibelung.

Although Marvel Visionaries: Gil Kane was originally released in 2002, it’s still readily available as it was digitally rereleased in 2021, so if you can read this you can find that…

Offering a brief selection of the many tales crafted by Kane, this tome re-presents gems first seen in Tales to Astonish #76; Tales of Suspense #88-#91; Captain Marvel #17; Amazing Spider-Man #99; Marvel Premiere #1 & 15 and Daredevil #146 plus material from What If #3 & #24 and Marvel Comics Presents #116, as well as offering a host of appealing production and art extras at the far end.

The trek through Marvel History begins with a fulsome appraisal of the artist’s career and achievements from frequent collaborator Roy Thomas in his foreword ‘The Mark of Kane’ after which it’s “on with the motley” and that first foray from Tales to Astonish #76. Cover-dated February 1966, this was on sale from November 4th 1965 and saw Kane draw – over Kirby layouts and under Mike Esposito finishes – an episode of a time-bending sequence with the Green Goliath helplessly trapped in a compounded by a doom-drenched duel with time-lost Asgardian immortal The Executioner…

Assume and accept that you will need to find other collections to experience the full force of these extracted snippets and then move on to those portions of Tales of Suspense #88-#91 (cover-dates April -July 1967) that featured Captain America. Here Lee scripts all four chapters of a classic clash as Kane takes his first run on the character. The extended saga comprises ‘If Bucky Lives…!’ and ‘Back from the Dead!’, as inked by Kane before Joe Sinnott joins as embellisher for ‘…And Men Shall Call Him Traitor!’ and ‘The Last Defeat!’ for a superb thriller of blackmail and betrayal starring the Red Skull. The fascist felon had baited a trap with a robotic facsimile of Cap’s dead partner, triggered it with malign super-hirelings Power Man and The Swordsman whilst blackmailing the Star-Spangled Sentinel into betraying his country and stealing a new atomic submarine. It all turned out okay in the end though…

Next up is Captain Marvel #17 (cover-date October 1969), sole example from a stunning and influential run on the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. Captain Marvel as we know him really begins with this reinvention wherein Thomas, Kane & Dan Adkins totally retooled and upgraded the character.

‘And a Child Shall Lead You!’ sees the imperilled star warrior inextricably bonded to voice-of-a-generation/professional sidekick Rick Jones who – just like Billy Batson (the boy who turned into the original Fawcett hero by shouting “Shazam!”) – switched places with a mighty adult hero when danger loomed by striking together a pair of ancient, wrist-worn “Nega-bands”. This allowed them to temporarily trade atoms: one active in our universe whilst the other floated, a ghostly untouchable, ineffectual voyeur to events glimpsed from the ghastly Negative Zone. As thrilling and as revolutionary as the idea of a comic written from the viewpoint of a teenager was, the real magic comes from Kane’s experimental page layouts and phenomenally kinetic artwork, and whose mesmeric staging of proportionally warped yet somehow still perfect human-form-in-motion rewrote the playbook on superhero illustration with this series.

Kane’s ascendancy was confirmed as he became the regular illustrator on Marvel’s greatest hit. A monumental first run on the wallcrawler is marked here by Amazing Spider-Man #99 (August 1971) portraying ‘A Day in the Life of…’: an all-action, social drama-tinged palate-cleanser with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy finally getting their love-life back on track, only marginally diverted by a prison breakout easily quelled by the Arachnid Avenger, whilst highlighting the growing scandal of prison conditions…

Jump forward to tumultuous turbulent November 1971 where the April cover-dated Marvel Premiere #1 boldly proclaimed on its cover The Power of… Warlock. Inside, the stunning fable by Thomas, Kane & Adkins declared ‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock’ neatly recapitulated artificial man Him’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest. Also on view is the manufactured man’s face off with the Fantastic Four, and clash with Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to an all-encompassing cosmic cocoon to evolve a little more.

Now that shell is plucked from the void thanks to the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary. Having artificially ascended to godhood, he is wrapped up in a bold new experiment…

Establishing contact with Him as he basks in his cocoon, the Evolutionary explains that he is constructing from space rubble a duplicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. Here he will replay the development of life, intending that humanity on Counter-Earth will evolve without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill. It’s a magnificent scheme that might well have worked, but as the Evolutionary wearies, his greatest mistake intervenes…

Man-Beast was over-evolved from a wolf and gained mighty powers, but also ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. Now he invades the satellite, despoiling humanity’s rise and ensuring the new world’s development exactly mirrors True-Earth’s. The only exception is the meticulous exclusion of enhanced individuals. The beleaguered orb has all Earth’s woes but no superheroes to save or inspire its people. A helpless witness to the desecration, the golden being furiously crashes free of his cocoon to save the High Evolutionary and rout Man-Beast and his bestial cronies (all similarly evolved animal-humanoids called “New-Men”). When the despondent, enraged science god recovers, he decides to erase his failed experiment but is stopped by his rescuer. As a helpless observer, Him saw the potential and value of embattled humanity. Despite all their flaws, he believes he can save them from imminent doom caused by their own unthinking actions, wars and intolerance. When his pleas convince the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance, the wanderer is hurled down to Counter-Earth, gifted and graced with a strange “Soul Gem” to focus his powers, on a divine mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own…

Enjoying and thriving in an era and atmosphere of experimentation, Kane returned to Marvel Premiere with #15 (May 1974) for the debut of masked martial artist Iron Fist. His saga began on a spectacular high with Thomas, Kane & Dick Giordano’s ‘The Fury of Iron Fist!’, as a teenaged masked warrior defeats 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 his father and mother die at the hands of Harold Meachum whilst the party of millionaire adventurers risked Himalayan snows to find the legendary city of K’un Lun. Little Danny had travelled with his parents and business partner Meachum in search of the fabled city – which only appeared on Earth for one day every decade. Wendell Rand had some unsuspected connection to the fabled Shangri La but was killed before they found it, whilst Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save the child from wolves and her murderous pursuer.

As he wandered alone in the wilderness, the city found Danny. The boy spent ten years training: mastering all forms of martial arts in a militaristic, oriental, feudal paradise while enduring countless arcane ordeals, living only for the day he would return to Earth and avenge his parents. After conquering all comers and rejecting immortality, the Iron Fist returned to Earth, a Living Weapon able to channel his force of will into a devastating super-punch…

Alternate worlds vehicle What If? #3 (June 1977) provided one of the most memorable stories of the era and one of Kane’s greatest triumphs. Scripted by Jim Shooter and inked by Klaus Janson ‘What If the Avengers Had Never Been?’ diverted from established Marvel Continuity at the end of Avengers #2 when Hulk quit the still-forming team. In this instance, the act sunders the entire squad who go their own ways with shocking, spectacular and ultimately tragic consequences. If you buy this book for only one tale it will be this one…

That same month in Daredevil #146 the artist again demonstrated his brilliance in staging dramatic fight scenes. Scripted by Shooter and inked by Jim Mooney, ‘Duel!’ saw the sightless swashbuckler searching Manhattan for maniac marksman Bullseye even as his quarry was setting up a lethal showdown. The brutally bruising climax came when the crazed killer took an entire TV studio hostage but ended with his being soundly defeated yet again…

With Tony Isabella writing and Frank Giacoia inking, Kane revisited one of his greatest comics triumphs in What If? #24 (December 1980), as ‘What If Gwen Stacy had Lived?’ explored an Alternity where Spider-Man saved his fiancée from Green Goblin Norman Osborn and went on to marry her before losing everything he loved to the obsessive hatred of J. Jonah Jameson…

This compelling compilation notionally concludes with a late treat from Marvel Comics Presents #116 (cover-dated November 1992) with future superstar scripter Dan Slott taking Kane back to his cowboy roots for a short rip-roaring romp featuring the Two-Gun Kid. Here the occasional Avenger and prototype Marvel Mystery-man hero serves up ‘Just Deserts’ to vicious scheming owlhoots John Baker and the Unlucky Thirteen Gang before marching the sole survivor back across the searing Devil’s Cauldron back to Tombstone city jail…

Providing pertinent covers by Kane, this tome offers additional pictorial treats including Kane’s favourite cover (Mighty Marvel Western #44) plus a gallery of others such as Western Gunfighters #31, Kid Colt, Outlaw #161, Sub-Mariner #44 & Captain Marvel #23), the extras also deliver a vast selection of page layouts, design roughs, fully-pencilled pages and covers as well as inked and completed pages of marvels.

Also working as Gil Stack, Scott Edward, Stack Til, Stacktil, Pen Star and Phil Martell, Gil Kane became a foundation stone of comics and remains a vivid, vital inspiration to future generations of creators and readers. With all that in mind why not have a far too brief look at some of the man’s early Marvel superhero triumphs and gently remind the Powers-that-Be that this is only the tip of a graphic iceberg that includes plenty of room for barbarian, sci fi and horror collection one day…
© 2021 MARVEL.

Born today in 1924, cartoonist Brad Anderson (Marmaduke), Belgian illustrator Willy Lambillotte AKA Lambil (Sandy, The Bluecoats, Pauvre Lampil) in 1936 and cartoonist/illustrator Norm Fueti (Retail, Gil, The King of Kazoo) in 1970.

Today we lost someone you’ve probably never heard of: letterer, designer and production artist/manager Gerda Gattel (October 28th 1908 – May 14th 1993). She was filling the ballons and fixing pages for Timely-Atlas from 1947 to the company’s implosion and then moved across town to National DC where she did the same thing from 1958 to her retirement as Production Coordinator in 1973.

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Marvel Two-In-One Epic Collection volume 3 (1977-1979): Remembrance of Things Past


By Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, Roger Slifer, Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Ralph Macchio, Peter B. Gillis, Alan Kupperberg, Bill Mantlo, Jo Duffy, John Byrne, Steven Grant, Allyn Brodsky, David Michelinie, Ron Wilson, Sal Buscema, Bob Hall, Chic Stone, Frank Miller, Jim Craig, Pablo Marcos, Josef Rubinstein, Jim Mooney, Alfredo Alcala, Sam Granger, Frank Giacoia, Dave Hunt, Tex Blaisdell, Gene Day, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod, Bruce Patterson, Mike Esposito & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5564-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Above all else, Marvel has always been about team-ups. The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing, or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel awarded their most popular hero the same deal DC had with Batman in The Brave and the Bold. Although confident in their new title, they wisely left options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead: the Human Torch. In those long-ago 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 guest vehicle 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. They began with a test run in Marvel Feature #11-12, before awarding him his own team-up title, with this third power-packed compendium gathering in the contents of Marvel Two-in-One #37-52; MTIO Annuals #2-4 and Avengers Annual #7, covering November 1977 to June 1979.

The action begins with ‘The Final Threat’ (by Jim Starlin & Joe Rubinstein) from Avengers Annual #7, wherein Kree warrior Captain Marvel and Titanian mind-goddess Moondragon return to Earth with vague anticipations of impending cosmic catastrophe. Their premonitions are confirmed when galactic wanderer Adam Warlock arrives with news that death-obsessed Thanos has amassed an alien armada and built a Soul-gem powered weapon to snuff out the stars like candles. Broaching interstellar space to stop the scheme, the united heroes forestall interstellar incursion and prevent the Mad Titan destroying the Sun, but only at the cost of Warlock’s life…

Then Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 undertakes a ‘Death Watch!’ (Starlin & Rubinstein): finding Peter Parker plagued by prophetic nightmares disclosing how Thanos had snatched victory from defeat and now holds the Avengers captive whilst again preparing to extinguish Sol. With nowhere else to turn, anguished, disbelieving Spider-Man heads for the Baxter Building to borrow a spacecraft, unaware The Thing also has history with the terrifying Titan. Although utterly outpowered, the mismatched champions of Life subsequently upset Thanos’ plans, allowing the Avengers and the Universe’s true agent of retribution to end the Titan’s threat forever… or at least until next time…

Marvel Two-In-One’s apparent function as a clearing-house for old, unresolved series and plot-lines was then briefly put on hold as issue #37 teamed Ben with Matt Murdock (not alter ego Daredevil) for Marv Wolfman, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos’ legal drama ‘Game Point!’

Ben had been framed for monstrous acts of wanton destruction, and when the case went badly, he faced decades in jail. However, the Man Without Fear and eccentric street punk Eugene the Kid determined the Mad Thinker was behind the plot to place the ‘Thing Behind Prison Bars’ (Roger Slifer, Wilson & Jim Mooney): tackling the maniac whose ultimate game plan is to corner the future, mass-producing his own squadron of the synthezoid Avenger in #39’s conclusion ‘The Vision Gambit’ (inked by Marcos).

Slifer, Tom DeFalco, Wilson & Marcos then detail a spooky international yarn as the Black Panther is involved in a monstrous reign of terror with a zombie-vampire stalking the streets and abducting prominent African Americans. Concluding chapter ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ – by David Anthony Kraft, Wilson & Marcos – sees Jericho Drumm/Brother Voodoo volunteer his extremely specialised services to Ben and T’Challa in hopes of ending the crisis. The trail takes our heroes to Uganda for a confrontation with Doctor Spectrum and the far more dangerous real-world crazed killer Idi Amin…

Crafted by Ralph Macchio, Sal Buscema, Alfredo Alcala & Sam Grainger, Marvel Two-In-One #42 then debuts a future mainstay of Marvel Universe continuity as Project Pegasus premiers in ‘Entropy, Entropy…’

The Federal research facility designated Potential Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States is dedicated to investigating new and exotic power sources and naturally became the most sensible place to dump energy-wielding super-baddies once they were subdued. Ben finds and begins trashing the place whilst tracking down his educationally – and emotionally -challenged ward Wundarr after the kid was renditioned by the Government. The furious Thing is soon confronted and contained by Captain America in his role as security advisor and together they stumble over a sabotage scheme by martial maniac Victorius who unleashes a deadly new threat in the ghostly form of Jude, the Entropic Man. This phantasmic force easily trounces Cap and Ben but finds the macabre Man-Thing far harder to handle in concluding chapter ‘The Day the World Winds Down’ from Macchio, John Byrne & Friends & Bruce Patterson)…

The third Marvel Two-In-One Annual then hosts a great big, old-fashioned world-busting blockbuster wherein Nova the Human Rocket battles beside Ben to free captive alien princesses and save Earth from colossal cosmos-marauding space invaders: a simple yet entertaining tussle entitled ‘When Strike the Monitors!’ all crafted by Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt… after which, back in the monthly comic book, issue #44 strays away from standard fare with ‘The Wonderful World of Brother Benjamin J. Grimm’ (Wolfman, Bob Hall & Frank Giacoia) with the Thing telling rowdy kids a fanciful bedtime story concerning his recent partnership with Hercules to free Olympus from evil giants…

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

The Thing’s self-appointed gadflies The Yancy Street Gang headlined in MT-I-O #47 as ‘Happy Deathday, Mister Grimm!’ (Bill Mantlo & Stone) sees a cybernetic tyrant long believed dead take over Ben’s old neighbourhood… until the hero pays a visit. The invasion exposed, it is quickly concluded once awesome alien energy powerhouse Jack of Hearts joins the fight against ‘My Master, Machinesmith!’ (in #48 by Mantlo, Stone & Tex Blaisdel).

Mary Jo Duffy, Alan Kupperberg & Gene Day piled on spooky laughs in #49 as the ‘Curse of Crawl-Inswood’ highlights how Doctor Strange manipulates Ben into helping crush a paranormal incursion in a quaint and quiet seaside resort…

Anniversary issue #50 was everything a special issue should be. ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ by Byrne & Joe Sinnott takes a powerful and poignant look at the Thing’s history as a monster outcast and posits a few what-might-have-beens…

Following another failure by Reed Richards to cure Ben’s rocky state, The Thing steals the chemical and travels into his own past, determined to use the remedy on his younger, less mutated self. However, his bitter, brooding, brittle earlier incarnation is hardly prepared to listen to another monster and, inevitably, catastrophic combat ensues…

Issue #51 was even better. ‘Full House… Dragons High!’ by Peter Gillis, up-&-coming artist Frank Miller & Bob McLeod, details how a weekly poker session at Avengers Mansion is interrupted by rogue US General Pollock, who again tries to conquer America with stolen technology. Happily, Ben and Nick Fury find Ms. Marvel (not today’s teenager Kamala Khan but current Captain Marvel Carol Danvers), Wonder Man and The Beast better combat comrades than poker opponents…

A note of sinister paranoia creeps in with Marvel Two-In-One #52’s ‘A Little Knight Music!’ (Steven Grant, Jim Craig & Marcos), as the mysterious Moon Knight joins Ben in stopping CIA Psy-Ops master Crossfire brainwashing the city’s superheroes into killing each other, prior to MTIO Annual #4 providing an old-fashioned, world-busting fantasy finale – for now – as ‘A Mission of Gravity!’(plotted by Allyn Brodsky, scripted by David Michelinie, limned by Craig, Bob Budiansky & Patterson) unites Ben and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt (and Good Boi Lockjaw!) to stop unstable maniac Graviton turning into a black hole and taking the world with him…

Backed up by the covers of Starlin, Rubinstein, Wilson, Sinnott, Marcos, Terry Austin, George Pérez, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Hall, Giacoia, Keith Pollard, Layton, Stone, Budiansky, and Al Milgrom, there is also a big bold bonus section including contemporary house ads, covers from reprint title The Adventures of the Thing (by Sam Keith, Mike Mignola & Joe Quesada) and original art pages by Starlin, Rubinstein, Perez & Sinnott.

This tome of tales from Marvel’s Middle Period are admittedly of variable quality. They are, however, offset by truly timeless classics, still as captivating today as they ever were. Most fans of Costumed Dramas will have 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 ‘n’ all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2025 MARVEL.

This date in 1754 – and attributed to Benjamin Franklin – the first American newspaper cartoon “Join, or Die” was published in The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Somewhat less momentously – perhaps – today in 1893 Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marton was born as was Short Ribs cartoonist Frank O’Neal in 1921; Half Hitch and Henry illustrator Dick Hodgins, Jr. in1931 and multi-directional art scribe Barbara Slate (Yuppies From Hell, Angel Love, Sweet XVI, Ms. Liz) in 1947. They were joined in 1953 by writer Pat McGreal (Chiaroscuro; The Private Lives of Leonardo DaVinci, Veils, I, Paparazzi and more Disney comics than seems humanly possible); in 1955 by American Splendor illustrator Brian Bram; inveterate comics publisher David Campiti in 1958, and the astoundingly funny Ty Templeton (Stig’s Inferno, Batman Adventures, The Simpsons) in 1962.

Today in 1991 The Simpsons episode “Three Men and a Comic Book” aired, giving Comic Book Guy to the world…

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Doctor Doom Epic Collection volume 1 (962-1969): Enter Doctor Doom


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Chic Stone, Vince Colletta, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6612-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the world’s greatest supervillain (Sorry, Donny Littlehands!) prepares for his next big screen debut, expect to see a bunch of books featuring the dark side of the eternal war between Good and Evil. And if that isn’t the perfect metaphor for the Master of Latveria I don’t know what is…

Doctor Doom is one of the most monumental villains in comics: definitely Top 3 and to many the absolute number 1 nemesis. Once upon a time, you hadn’t really made it as a Marvel superhero (or villain) until you’d clashed with him. Victor Von Doom is a troubled genius who escaped the oppression heaped on his Romani people in a backwards looking Balkan autocracy via an ultimately catastrophic scholarship to America. Whilst there proud, arrogant Victor succumbed to an intense rivalry with young Reed Richards, even then perhaps the most brilliant man alive.

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

This carefully curated compendium traces his public progress and greatest battles via landmark moments of triumph and tragedy, collecting wholly or in part material from Fantastic Four (1961) 5-6, 10, 16-17, 23, 39-40, 57-60, 73; Fantastic Four Annual (1963) 2-3; Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #5; Avengers (1963) #25; Daredevil (1964) #36-38 and Marvel Super-Heroes (1967) #20 and opens without preamble as it must, with that debut in Fantastic Four #5 cover-dated July 1962 and on sale from April 10th.

At that time, aliens and especially monsters played a major part in young Marvel’s output. However, after a tentative start, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s recreation of superheroes embraced the unique basics of the idiom, and took a full bite out of the Fights ‘n’ Tights apple by introducing the first full-blown, unrepentant supervillain to their budding Marvel Universe. Mole Man debuted in FF #1, but that tragic little gargoyle, for all his world-dominating schemes, wouldn’t truly acquire the persona of a costumed foe until his more refined second appearance in FF #22.

Inked by the sublimely slick and perfectly polished Joe Sinnott, ‘Prisoners of Doctor Doom!’ had it all. A brazen attack by a mysterious enemy from Reed ‘Mr. Fantastic’ Richards’ past; bizarre fringe-science, magic, lost treasure, time-travel, and even pirates. Ha-Haar, me ‘earties!

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

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

Inked by Dick Ayers, FF #6 reintroduced the concept of antiheroes as Namor was promptly betrayed by Doom, and ended up saving the quirky quartet from death in space. This created a truly complex dynamic with his fellow rogue monarch and the FF. The Devil Doctor’s inevitable betrayal has coloured the relationship of both sinister sovereigns ever since.

1963 was a pivotal year in the development of Marvel. Lee & Kirby had proved their new high concept – human heroes with flaws and tempers – had a willing audience. Now they would extend that concept to a new pantheon of heroes and even the bad guys. Here is where that second innovation came to the fore. Previously, superheroes were sufficient unto themselves and shared adventures were rare. Now, however there was a shared universe where characters often tripped over each other, sometimes fighting each other’s enemies! The creators themselves might turn even up in a Marvel Comic!

Cover-date January 1963, Fantastic Four #10 was released in October of 1962 and saw ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Here, the archvillain used Stan & Jack themselves to lure Richards into a trap where his mind is switched with the bad Doctor’s. Unfortunately the scheme does not survive his own impatience as alien body-swap techniques come undone because Doom cannot keep up the sham long enough to spring his shrinking-ray ambush on the rest of the team…

Thematic follow-up Fantastic Four #16 explores ‘The Micro-World of Doctor Doom!’ in a spectacular romp guest-starring emergent superhero Ant-Man. Despite his resounding rout, the steel-shod villain promptly returned to the larger universe with more infallible, deadly traps a month later in ‘Defeated by Doctor Doom!’ (#17, August 1963, and on sale from May 9th). Of course, they actually weren’t and soon sent the sinister tyrant packing in what seemed a fall to his death…

Doom was the most frequent threat to the FF, and the first foe to break another unspoken rule by going after other heroes in the cohesive shared universe Lee & Kirby were building. Cover-dated October 1963 and with Ditko on pencils & inks, Amazing Spider-Man #5 saw the webspinner ‘Marked for Destruction by Dr. Doom!’ and not so much winning as surviving his unwanted duel against the deadliest man on Earth. In a titanic comedy of errors Doom seeks another super-powered pawn in his war on humanity, but utterly underestimates his obviously juvenile opponent. Moreover, in this tale, Peter Parker’s nemesis, jock bully Flash Thompson, first displayed depths beyond the usual in contemporary comic books, beginning one of the best love/hate buddy relationships in popular literature…

Fantastic Four #23 (February 1964) heralded ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’, and introduced his frankly mediocre minions the Terrible Trio – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor. Even after they were augmented by Doom’s science these goons were sub-par opponents for the FF, but the Iron Dictator’s uncannily menacing “Solar Wave” was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck… and still does! (Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five but only my precious neck had developed hackles worth boasting of back then?)

The one-dimensional evil genius was recast as a tragic figure forever shackled by his flaws thanks to the primary contents of Fantastic Four Annual #2 (September 1964) wherein Chic Stone inked ‘The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom!’ A short (12 page) scene-setter, this momentously detailed how a brilliant “gypsy” youth remade himself into the most dangerous man in creation, ruthlessly overcoming obstacles such as ethnic oppression, crushing poverty and the shocking stigma of being the son of a sorceress. That past informed the present as the ultimate villain again attacked old college classmate Reed Richards and is left falsely believing he has achieved ‘The Final Victory of Dr. Doom!’ However, he has actually suffered his most ignominious defeat after Richards turned the despot’s guile, subterfuge and mind-control tools against him. This clash also introduced a long-running and bewildering plot thread connecting the Monstrous Monarch to time-travelling tyrant Rama Tut/Kang the Conqueror…

Jumping forward to the summer of 1965, FF #39 (cover-dated June, and on sale from March 11th, with Frank Giacoia AKA “Frank Ray” inking) saw the team deprived of their powers. Having remembered he had not beaten his enemies at last, an enraged Doom targets the helpless heroes in ‘A Blind Man Shall Lead Them!’ with sightless swashbuckling vigilante Daredevil stepping up to provide their only hope of staying alive. The tale concluded in #40’s ‘The Battle of the Baxter Building’ with Vince Colletta inking a bombastic battle revealing the undeniable power, overwhelming pathos and indomitable heroism of the brutish Thing as – deprived of his greatest wish and cruelly restored to his monstrous mutated form – Ben Grimm hands Doom the most humiliating defeat of his life…

After a brief but significant tenure, Colletta signed off by inking one of the most crowded Marvel stories ever. Fantastic Four Annual #3 famously featured every hero, most of the villains and lots of ancillary characters in the company pantheon… such as teen-romance stars Patsy Walker & Hedy Wolf and even Stan and Jack themselves. ‘Bedlam at the Baxter Building!’ spectacularly celebrates the Richards-Storm nuptials, despite a massed attack by an army of baddies mesmerised by the diabolical Doctor into crashing the wedding party. In its classical simplicity it signalled the end of one era and the start of another…

With inker Ayers backing up Lee & Don Heck, Avengers #25 (cover-dated February 1966 but released before Christmas 1965. The still-learning but ever-improving new squad of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch face their greatest test yet after being lured to Latveria and captured by the deadliest man alive in ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’ With the entire nation imprisoned under an energy the trainees are forced to fight their way out of the tyrant’s utterly cowed, hyper-militarised kingdom…

Quiet for almost a year, the Iron Dictator exploded back into the forefront of comics with an absolute epic spanning Fantastic Four #57-60 released in the last four months of 1966. After a sequence of yarns introducing The Inhumans, Black Panther, Silver Surfer and Galactus, Lee & Kirby were at their sublime best and concocted what for many was the ultimate Doom saga.

Packed with unbearable tension, breathtaking drama and shattering action on all fronts it sees the most dangerous man on Earth steal and empower himself with the Silver Surfer’s cosmic forces, even as in a parallel story arc, those long-imprisoned Inhumans at last win their freedom even as we learn the tragic secret of mute Black Bolt in all his awesome fury. It begins with a jailbreak by Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’, escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power and crushes all earthly resistance; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday’ with the FF’s total defeat and humiliation before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner in ‘The Peril and the Power!’

Read it, not about it!

Daredevil 37-38 (February & March 1968 and available December 12th 1967 and January 9th 1968 respectively) saw an early crossover event. In the interests of completeness they are preceded by the cliffhanging final page from DD #36 (Lee Gene Colan & Giacoia) wherein the injured Man Without Fear is captured by Doom.

With John Tartaglione on brushes, DD is penned in the Latverian Embassy and the full story unfolds in #37. ‘Don’t Look Now, But It’s… Doctor Doom!’ reveals how the Iron Tyrant uses his old body swap gimmick to trade meatsuits with Matt Murdock, while sharing the secret of how he escaped the judgement of Galactus after depowering the Silver Surfer.

Initially helpless before the Iron Dictator, DD is trapped in ‘The Living Prison!’ (Giacoia inks) as Doom anticipates a perfect sneak attack on his despised foes. However, after warning the FF, DD outwits Doom anyway… but forgets to notify them. Thus Doom’s devilish ploy culminates in a stupendous Lee, Kirby & Sinnott crafted clash in Fantastic Four #73. Outmatched and unable to convince the Human Torch, Thing and Mr. Fantastic any other way, DD enlists currently de-powered Thor and the ever-eager Spider-Man to solve the problem Marvel style – with a spectacular, pointless and utterly riveting punch-up: ‘The Flames of Battle…’

Closing this first annal of atrocity, is a yarn from experimental try-out title Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (May 1969) which awarded the villain his first full-length solo shot. Written by Larry Lieber & Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Lieber, Giacoia & Colletta, ‘This Man… This Demon!’ restated Doom’s origins and revealed a youthful dalliance with an innocent Romani maid named Valeria. In the now, that failed relationship is exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claims to need an ally and partner but truly seeks a mighty slave. Doom deals with the charlatan in typically effective style…

This villain vehicle led to the Master of Menace winning his own solo series in Astonishing Tales #1-8, but that’s a topic for another time…

With covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Ayers, Stone, Ditko, Colan, Wood, Giacoia, Lieber, Colletta, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Sal Buscema, John Buscema, John Verpoorten and more, the bonus treat selection begins with landmark house ads for Doom’s earliest appearances by Kirby, Bob Powell and Marie Severin; a selection of Doom pinups from Fantastic Four Annual #1 (1963, by Kirby) and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1(1964, by Ditko) and Kirby original art pages.

These are backed up by a series of reprint and premium covers from Marvel Triple Action; Marvel Treasury Edition #11 (1976); Spider-Man Classics #6 (Ron Frenz & Terry Austin, September 1993); Spider-Man Collectible Series #11 (Frenz & Milgrom, October 2006); Essential Fantastic Four vol. 2 (1999 by Alan Davis & Marie Javins): Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four vol. 3 (2023 by Leonardo Romero): Doctor Doom: The Book of Doom Omnibus (2023 by Greg Land & Frank D’Armata) and Fantastic Four Facsimile Editions #5, 6 & 10 (all 2025 by Ryan Brown, Ema Lupacchino, Rachelle Rosenberg, Mark Buckingham & Alex Sinclair).

This graphic grimoire contains sheer comic enchantment, and is a book no lover of fantastic fiction and appreciator of arcane evil can afford to ignore – just as long as they remember which side they’re on…
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1909, Golden Age All Star Everett E. Hibbard (Flash, Justice Society of America) was born, as was erotic comics artist Tom of Finland/AKA Touko Valio Laaksonen in 1920 and master mangaka Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman) in 1936.

Today in 1938 Filipino artist Adrian Gonzales (All-Star Squadron, Arak, Son of Thunder, Super Powers) and French master Jean Giraud/Moebius (Blueberry, Arzach, The Incal) showed up for the first time, like Full Metal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa in 1973, Planetes mangaka Makoto Yukimura in 1976 and Jamie McKelvie (The Wicked + the Profane, Phonogram, Young Avengers) in 1980.

In 1961, Nicholas P. Dallis & Alex Kotzky’s strip Apartment 3-G began on this date but we lost UK humour stalwart Thomas Watson Williams (Creature Teacher, Peter Pest, Stevie Star for Shiver and Shake, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun and Cor!!) in 2002, and the irreplaceable Maurice Sendak in 2012.