Category: Marvel Superheroes

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The Incredible Hulk Marvel Masterworks volume 14


By Roger Stern, Peter B. Gillis, Elliot S! Maggin, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Roger McKenzie, Sal Buscema, Jim Mooney, Josef Rubinstein, Joe Sinnott, Klaus Janson, Bob McLeod, Mike Esposito, Bob Layton, Bruce Patterson, Chic Stone, Don Perlin & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2230-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Bruce Banner was a military scientist accidentally caught in a gamma bomb blast of his own devising. As a result, stress and other factors cause him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury. He was one of Marvel’s earliest innovations and first failure, but after an initially troubled few years finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of the company’s premiere antiheroes and most popular features.

The Gamma Goliath was always graced with artists who understood the allure of shattering action, the sheer cathartic reader-release rush of mighty “Hulk Smash!” moments, and here – following in the debris-strewn wake of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe – Sal Buscema was increasingly showing the world what he could do when inspired and unleashed…

Jointly spanning May 1978 to March 1979, this chronologically complete monster monolith re-presents Incredible Hulk #223-233, plus Hulk Annual #7 and a key crossover from Captain America #230. As ever the comics wonderment is preceded by an Introduction, this time offering curated reminiscences from featured writer Roger Stern.

As important as savage action was dramatic character interplay and, now firmly established and gaining confidence, Stern began an ambitious storyline in #223 (illustrated by Sal & Josef Rubinstein) as ‘The Curing of Dr. Banner!’ sees the monster’s embattled and despondent human half spontaneously purged of the gamma radiation that triggers his changes. However, Banner’s troubles are far from over. Heading to premium anti-Hulk citadel Gamma Base to verify his findings, Bruce discovers the entire facility has been taken over: mind-controlled by his ultimate archenemy…

As the villain makes everyone ‘Follow the Leader!’, psychologist superhero Doc Samson and aged career soldier General Thaddeus Ross escape mind control and physical confinement and beg Banner to again sacrifice his humanity for the sake of mankind. Only the Hulk has ever defeated The Leader and their only hope is to recall and harness his unstoppable fury against the murderous genocidal thought tyrant. Tragically, their halfway measures fail at the final moment and the villain triumphs and has cause to ask ‘Is There Hulk After Death?’

With Bruce seemingly deceased, his compatriots jumpstart his ravaged system with another overwhelming dose of gamma rays and soon everybody involved has cause to regret the resurrection of the original Gamma Goliath, after another ordnance-obliterating clash with the military in #226’s ‘Big Monster on Campus!’ (Stern, Buscema & Joe Sinnott) leads to the man-monster invading his old college and suffering a psychological trauma that might end his rampages forever…

The emotional breakthrough renders the Jade Juggernaut pliable and reasonable and – under extraordinary conditions – Samson becomes ‘The Monster’s Analyst’ (#227, by Stern, Peter B. Gillis Sal B & Klaus Janson). Aided by the Hulk’s recently arrived former sidekick Jim Wilson, the medic probes the psyche of Banner and the beast within, gaining insight into the troubled physicist’s childhood, college days, nuclear accident and turbulent time with the original Avengers line-up. He also triggers a clash of personalities that seems to eliminate Banner utterly…

On that cliffhanger note attention switches to The Incredible Hulk Annual #7 wherein Stern, John Byrne & Bob Layton revisit two semi-retired X-Men as they are targeted by a madly-mutated, mutant-hunting Sentinel Master Mold. This horror then merges with another manic former X-foe in ‘The Evil That is Cast…’ which happily finds our peripatetic pistachio powerhouse on hand to balance the odds when the amalgamated monster attacks Angel and Iceman and drags them into space to die…

Returning to Samson at Gamma Base, the Hulk is targeted by a new menace in #228’s ‘Bad Moon on the Rise!’ (Stern, Gillis, Buscema & Bob McLeod) as psychologist Dr. Karla Sofen offers her therapeutic services, with the intention of subverting the Gamma Goliath to her current employers’ needs…

Within hours of her arrival, Sofen (and her evil alter ego Moonstone) have undone weeks of progress and triggered another deadly rampage. She goes further in #229’s ‘The Moonstone is a Harsh Mistress!’ (inked by Mike Esposito) whilst revealing how she gained her first taste of true power whilst treating an empowered patient: depriving its original inept owner of a power-bestowing lunar rock that made the first Moonstone a match for Captain America. Now she seeks to isolate the Hulk from all human help and contact… and succeeds…

On the run again, the Hulk encounters ‘The Harvester From Beyond!’ (#230 by Elliot S! Maggin, Jim Mooney, Layton & Bruce Patterson), and unwillingly surrenders biological samples to an extremely determined extraterrestrial before returning to Earth in #231, where Stern, Buscema & Esposito introduce a new human outcast to befriend the monster.

In ‘Prelude!’ hippie student Fred Sloan escapes a redneck beating thanks to the Hulk’s intervention, even as, at Gamma Base, Soen makes contact with her employers and learns that evil plutocrat organisation The Corporation counts US Senator Eugene Stivak amongst its ruling elite…

As leaders of a group that has been manipulating heroes including Machine Man, Torpedo, The Falcon, Marvel Man/Quasar, Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. for months, the group is now actively pursuing its endgame which means capturing Jim Wilson and subverting the Hulk…

Stivak AKA “Kligger”, makes his move when the Jade Juggernaut and Fred spark a riot in California, neatly dovetailing into a congruent storyline that had been unfolding in the Sentinel of Liberty’s own title. There, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agent program was infiltrated, Cap was ambushed by The Constrictor and other employees of The Corporation. When Sam Wilson/The Falcon was abducted by Kligger for reasons unknown, the hunt for his partner culminated in Cap exposing the rotten apples in Washington and across the USA, leading to an ‘Assault on Alcatraz!’ (Roger McKenzie, Stern, Sal B & Don Perlin).

With the Star-Spangled Avenger leading former Super Agents Marvel Man and The Vamp to rescue hostage friends and end the Corporation’s depredations, their arrival in the abandoned prison coincides with the capture of the Hulk and Fred, exposure of Corporation West Coast CEO Curtiss Jackson and a trans-continental power-grab by Kligger/Stivak and his merciless agent Moonstone in Captain America #230.

… And that’s when a traitor in the group is revealed and the Hulk completely loses his cool…

The clash continues and concludes in Incredible Hulk #232 as ‘The Battle Below’ (Stern, David Michelinie, Buscema & Esposito) sees the assorted villains thrashed and routed, with Curtiss making a desperate attempt to flee with an absolutely incensed gamma gladiator in hot pursuit. The frantic chase leads to another battle ‘At the Bottom of the Bay!’ (Stern, Buscema & Chic Stone) before the calms down enough to flee with Fred, leading to a reunion with an old and valued friend at a California commune.

To Be Hulk-inued…

With a gallery of covers by Rich Buckler, Ernie Chan, Byrne, Ron Wilson, Rubinstein, Trimpe, McLeod, Dave Cockrum, Layton, Dan Adkins and Al Milgrom, the majority of the bonus section is devoted to a full re-presentation of the 1979 Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar. An all-Hulk affair as the monster enjoyed TV stardom, the item offered tableaux by John Romita Sr., Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Dave Hunt, Walter Simonson, Sal Buscema & Dan Adkins, Cockrum & Layton, George Pérez, John Buscema & Rubinstein, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos Keith Pollard & Tom Palmer, Trimpe, Byrne & Terry Austin, Ed Hannigan, Janson and more.

Also on view are a contemporary house ad, Jeff Aclin & Tony DeZuñiga’s covers to Hulk reprint tabloid Marvel Treasury Edition #17 (1978) and feature pages on the calendar taken from company fan mag F.O.O.M. #22 (Autumn 1978). We close with a wealth of original art pages and sketches (by Chan, Sal Buscema, Sinnott, Byrne, Layton, Janson, Cockrum & Esposito) and creator biographies.

The Incredible Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the cartoons, TV shows, games, toys, action figures and movies are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, earnestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t do better than these exciting episodes, so why not Go Green and embrace your inner not-so-mean?
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Sub-Mariner Marvel Masterworks volume 7


By Bill Everett, Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Dan Adkins, Alan Weiss, Sam Kweskin, John Tartaglione, Jim Mooney & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9915-1 (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 the years, a wealth of creators have played with the fishy tale and today’s Namor is frequently hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”. What remains unchallenged is that 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 seventh subsea selection trawls Sub-Mariner #50-60, and sees the triumphant return of originator Everett in salty sagas preceded by a heartfelt appreciation and more creative secret-sharing from Roy Thomas in his Introduction before the dry land dramas and thrill-soaked yarns recommence…

Previously, Namor had endured months of escalating horror as old enemies such as Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and sinister shapeshifter Llyra constantly assaulted his sunken kingdom. They were soundly defeated, but the constant battles led to the murder of Namor’s lifelong companion and bride-to-be Lady Dorma. The prince had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, he abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller…

The decision was fraught with more potential grief, leading to perpetual battles with surface world authorities, deranged psionic hermit Stephan Tuval, mind-tyrant Turalla, monster-maker Aunt Serr, M.O.D.O.K. and AIM. Namor seldom fought alone and initial clashes with old friends such as Diane Arliss and Walt Newell (part-time undersea Avenger Stingray), Spider-Man, Daredevil and Human Torch Johnny Storm, led to refreshed alliances, before culminating in a poignant but so-brief reunion with his long-lost father Leonard McKenzie, a man Namor had for his entire life believed killed by Atlanteans in 1920.

When that tragic hostage to fortune was murdered by post-human horror Tiger Shark and Llyra, doubly orphaned, traumatised Namor lost his memory again, and was used as cannon fodder by Doctor Doom before eventually breaking free and retrenching in confusion to ponder his obscured future…

A fresh start begins in #50 as Bill Everett resurfaces to ask ‘Who Am I?’, with the bewildered amphibian reeling in confusion at the beach until his heroic instincts kick in and he saves a drowning teenager from seaweed and pollution. His actions are completely misunderstood and she savagely attacks him, before swimming off… right out to sea…

Lesson learned, Namor concentrates on his own woes and sets off for Antarctica, eventually fetching up in the Ross Sea to explore the crumbling remains of Atlantis. His reveries are shattered when he is attacked by mutant crab creatures guarding the tomb of his beloved long-lost cousin and WWII partner in crimefighting Namora…

Confronting sinister leader Salamar the Sustainer, Namor is apprised of a bizarre plot to exploit the vast oil reserves under the ocean floor, but soon uncovers old foes shaping events: treacherous cousin Byrrah and Llyra. He also meets again that abrasive teenager and discovers she is Namora’s wayward daughter…

As all hell breaks loose, former prince and newfound cousin Namorita make a break for it in a hail of weapons fire as ‘Armageddon… at Fifty Fathoms Full!’ (scripted by Mike Friedrich) exposes a scaly hidden hand behind the carnage. Byrrah is in league with the alien Brotherhood of Baddoon, who want the – radioactive – oil reserves, albeit not for the reasons they share with the usurper. Ultimately, the aliens, Byrrah, and Salamar’s savage crab people can’t agree and the seagoing cousins are participants in a Battle Royale that ends in environmental catastrophe…

Seeking to confirm Namorita’s account of how Namora died and fob her off on his old girlfriend Betty Dean Prentiss, Sub-Mariner cruises into a clash with ultra-nationalist Japanese mutant and future X-Man Sunfire as ‘The Atomic Samurai!’ – ever receptive to deranged patriotic ranting – falls under the sway of war criminal Dragon-Lord, last of the samurai who plans to unleash his new Nipponese army and deadly defoliants upon America; a tactic that could destroy the oceans…

After a spectacular new incidence of the classic Golden Age fire vs water duel, Everett takes full creative command for the follow-up ‘…And the Rising Sun Shall Fall!’ as Sunfire sees sense and switches sides to save the seas, resulting in all-out war in concluding half-chapter ‘Now Comes… the Decision!’, a brief battle that leaves room in #54 for a “Mighty Marvel Mini Classic!” as Friedrich & Alan Weiss detail how ‘Namor the First, Prince of Atlantis battles The Mer-Mutants’: a light but lovely puff piece involving a mermaid acting as a subsea honey trap for her hungry kin…

Issue #55 sees Namor at last wave goodbye to “Nita” and Betty, before heading back to Antarctica and an unexpected and brutal encounter with a scavenging wrecker dubbed ‘The Abominable Snow-King!’ The literally monstrous Torg’s ambition is to hurl enslaved sea life against humanity but soon sinks once the Sub-Mariner gets involved, after which Friedrich & veteran illustrator Dan Adkins steer the abdicated Prince back to his forsaken kingdom in ‘Atlantis, Mon Amour!’ Sadly, he’s too late to stop his former subjects making a fear fuelled mistake that results in atrocity and genocide when refugee aliens come begging for aid…

When Everett returned he deftly opened the doors to Marvel’s Atlas era-past with a tempestuous yarn that would eventually affect the entire continuity. ‘…In the Lap of the Gods’ reintroduces pliable 1950s sensation Venus whose impact would ripple out across the MU and ultimately reveal a hidden history as part of the Agents of Atlas sub-franchise. It begins in a shattering storm as Namor rescues a lovely mystery woman stranded on a rock and stumbles into a long-running grudge match between the Hellenic gods of Love and War. A contemporary tale of dissent and unrest, the story reunites him with Namorita, who, in his absence, has become a college student and activist. Moreover, her favourite lecturer – Humanities Professor Victoria N. Starr – also has a concealed alter ego and lethal stalker: malign divinity and former pantheon mate Ares…

Having held at bay one angry god, Namor returns to Atlantis, resolved to restore the undersea nation to forefront of civilisation but his program of changes is stalled when ‘Hands Across the Waters, Hands Across the Skies…’ (Everett supervising, steering – and inking – dialoguer Steve Gerber & layout artist Sam Kweskin) uncover a survivor and witness to the recent massacre of alien ambassadors by Atlanteans. Tamara of the Sisterhood claims to offer forgiveness and seek understanding, but many of the original perpetrators would rather there were no witnesses or recriminations to deal with. Most tellingly, the superstrong survivor and her pet monster have their own plans and soon the prince is sucked into more pointless battle…

With John Tartaglione now inking Everett’s plot, Gerber & Kweskin forecast ‘Thunder Over the Seas!’: a tale of tragic miscomprehension as Namor again clashes with the surface world. Now the Sub-Mariner’s new advisor, Tamara is targeted by Atlantean scout Lorvex who is driven wild by her exotic beauty and rarity. Obsessively stalking and assaulting her, Lorvex drives her into Russian trawler nets and the refugee soon becomes a prized possession after the vessel and its contents are impounded by the US Coast Guard. Soon she is a cause célèbre and topic of heated debate at the United Nations…

Having dealt with Lorvex, Namor goes looking for his new friend, crashing into chaos as the war of words over the alien mermaid triggers the usual bellicose response amongst humans. By the time surface-dwelling Namorita summons her cousin to rescue Tamara, Avenger Thor has stepped in to keep the peace. Sadly it’s far too late to prevent ‘The Invasion of New York!’ (Everett, Gerber, Kweskin & Jim Mooney), with Lorvex exploiting the campaign to regain position and secretly abduct Tamara from UN custody. Enraged and resigned, Sub-Mariner acts decisively and violently to end the crisis, and accepts at last the fate he has been really fighting, finally accepting again the throne and responsibilities of ruling Atlantis.

To Be Continued and Concluded…

During these later issue Everett’s steadily declining health increasingly limited his output. As part of the Bonus features the cover and first 4 pages of Sub-Mariner #61 are included here, as drawn by the old master with Win Mortimer & Mooney. He plotted two further issues and died on February 27th 1973. Those will be seen in the final collection of this sequence. Here, however, follows a visual memorial from editor and friend Thomas, limned by Marie Severin & Frank Giacoia that appeared in Sub-Mariner #65 (cover-dated September 1973).

With covers throughout by Gil Kane, Everett, Vince Colletta, Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Sal Buscema, Weiss, John Romita, Jim Starlin & Rich Buckler, other sunken treasures salvaged here include a watercolour and pen & ink pinup by Bill, a Venus pinup from Marvel Spotlight #2 (February 1972) and 7 original art pages and covers by Everett and assorted collaborators.

Many Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an art-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.
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Defenders Epic Collection volume 2 – Enter: the Headmen (1974-1975)


By Len Wein, Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Chris Claremont, Jim Starlin, Stan Lee, Bill Everett, Steve Ditko, Dennis O’Neil, Larry Lieber, Paul S. Newman, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Angelo Torres, Doug Wildey, Klaus Janson, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Dan Green, Sal Trapani, Dan Adkins, Jim Mooney, Don Newton, Bob McLeod, Dick Ayers & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5531-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For kids – of any and all ages – there is a simple response to and primal fascination with increased stature, brute strength and feeling dangerous. It surely goes some way towards explaining the perennial interest in angry tough guys who break stuff… as best exemplified by Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner and The Incredible Hulk. When you add the mystery and magic of Doctor Strange, the recipe for thrills, spills & chills becomes utterly irresistible…

Last of the big star conglomerate super-groups, The Defenders would eventually number amongst its membership almost every hero – and quite a few villains – of Marvel’s Universe. No real surprise there then, as initially they were the company’s bad-boy antiheroes: misunderstood, outcast, often mad and actually dangerous to know. For Marvel, the outsider supergroup must have seemed a conceptual inevitability… once they’d finally published it. Back then, apart from Spider-Man and Daredevil, their superstars regularly teamed up in various mob-handed assemblages and, in the wake of the Defenders, even more superteams comprising pre-existing characters were rapidly mustered. These included the Champions, Invaders, New Warriors and more – but none of them had any Really Big Guns…

They never won the fame or acceptance of other teams, but that simply left creators open to taking more chances and playing the occasional narrative wild cards. The genesis of the team derived from their status as publicly distrusted villains, threats or menaces. This scintillating selection offers in whole or in part Defenders #12-25, Giant-Size Defenders #1-4, Marvel Two-in-One #6-7, and material originally from Mystery Tales #21, World of Fantasy #11 and Tales of Suspense #9 as itself reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales #7 (December 1975): stories spanning February 1974 to July 1975…

Coming off a groundbreaking team up saga now known as the Avengers/Defenders War, the first tale here signals a major change in direction as new writer Len Wein joined resident illustrator Sal Buscema & inker Jack Abel for a return clash with an insidious alien enemy. Beginning a run of more traditional costumed capers, mindbending Xemnu sought again to repopulate his barren homeworld with abducted earthlings in ‘The Titan Strikes Back!’, but flopped even against the pared-back cast of Stephen Strange, Valkyrie and Hulk.

A bona fide hit, the “non-team” were part of a grand expansionist experiment in extra-value comics that began with Giant Sized Defenders #1 (July1974): a stunning combination of highly readable reprints wrapped in a classy framing sequence by Tony Isabella, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom and co-starring Strange, disciple Clea and major domo Wong. The vintage thrills commence with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers’ ‘Banished to Outer Space’ from Incredible Hulk #3, followed by amagnificent 1950s Bill Everett Sub-Mariner horror-tinged fantasy-feast entutled‘Bird of Prey!’ From there focus switches to Dr. Strange and Denny O’Neil/Steve Ditko’s mini-masterpiece ‘To Catch a Magician!’ (Strange Tales #145) before the concoction concludes with a blockbusting battle as the star trio, sorcerer’s apprentice and valiant Valkyrie dispatch a self-inflicted mystic menace. The treat is topped with Roy Thomas’ editorial extract ‘Good Evening! This is the Eleventh-Hour Bullpen’ and contemporary ads prior to a splendid double-page pin-up by Sal B, before the regular epics resume in a spectacular Saves-the-World struggle.

Defenders #13 found the obscure assiciates battling against the villainous Squadron Sinister (The Whizzer, Doctor Spectrum & Hyperion) in ‘For Sale: One Planet… Slightly Used!’ (featuring an early inking job for Klaus Janson) before concluding in the Dan Green-embellished ‘And Who Shall Inherit the Earth?’ as Marvel’s Batman-analogue Nighthawk turns traitor and unites with the Defenders to defeat his murderous former teammates and their aquatic overlord/alien marauder Nebulon, the Celestial Man.

Courtesy of Wein, Buscema & Janson, #15 initiated a 2-part duel with manic mutant messiah Magneto,who first institutes a ‘Panic Beneath the Earth!’ prompting the X-Men’s mentor Charles Xavier to enlist the unsung heroes’ aid. The concluding clash envelopes the insidious Brotherhood of Evil and ‘Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant’ (inked by Mike Esposito) as well as the apparent end of a true master of evil…

Giant Sized Defenders #2 (October 1974) delivers a superb supernatural thriller from Wein, fabulously limned by master craftsman Gil Kane and rising star inker Janson. ‘H… as in Hulk… Hell… and Holocaust!’ pits the eternally-embattled Jade Giant against sinister cult the Sons of Satanish and their currently-dead leader Asmodeus, before the Defenders (core-group Doctor Stephen Strange, Valkyrie and reformed Nighthawk) call on Daimon Hellstrom AKA the Son of Satan for some highly specialised assistance…

In Defenders #17 the heroes set up housekeeping in a converted Long Island Riding Stables, courtesy of billionaire Nighthawk’s civilian alter ego Kyle Richmond, just as displaced Asgardian soul Valkyrie leaves in search of the truth about the human body she is trapped in. The main plot of ‘Power Play!’ (Wein, Sal B & Dan Green) sees the remaining heroes engage with and then enlist the aid of Hero for Hire/Power Man Luke Cage, as superstrong Asgardian enhanced thugs The Wrecking Crew topple a number of Richmond’s New York buildings. whilst hunting for a hidden superweapon. The spectacular ‘Rampage!’ reveals their object to be a pocket gamma bomb, with the search finishing in a furious finale from Chris Claremont, Wein, Buscema & Janson, as everybody frantically ferrets out the location of a deadly ‘Doomball!’ that has already been whisked away by some foolish bystander…

Immediately afterwards Strange, Clea and Fantastic Four lynchpin The Thing chance upon a disharmonious cosmic challenge in Marvel Two-In-One #6’s ‘Death-Song of Destiny!’ (by Steve Gerber, George Tuska & Esposito) which concludes in MTIO #7 with ‘Name That Doom!’ (Sal Buscema pencils) wherein Valkyrie joins the melee just in time to cross swords with egregious Asgardian exiles Enchantress and The Executioner, who are behind a cosmic scheme to reorder the universe…

The aftermath of that eldritch encounter spills over into Defenders #20 as Gerber took on the non team as regular scripter, beginning a landmark run of stories. ‘The Woman She Was…!’ (art by Sal B & Vince Colletta) begins unravelling the torturous backstory of Valkyrie’s human host Barbara Norris during a breathtakingly bombastic battle that also reanimates the diabolical threat of the Undying Ones. Late arriving, Strange & Nighthawk almost perish at the hands of the demons’ human worshippers…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with irrepressible wit, dark introspection and immeasurable imagination, all leavened with enticing surreality. His stories always occurred at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction. With Defenders #21, he commenced a long, intricate and epically peculiar saga as ‘Enter: The Headman!’ (illustrated by Buscema & Sal Trapani) exposed a trio of thematically linked scientists/savants, all originating in Marvel’s pre-superhero fantasy anthologies, and opened an insidious campaign of conquest and vengeance by driving New York city briefly insane (… arguably and more correctly, more insane…).

Before the next chapter, however, a brace of extended sagas play chronological catch-up: firstly, for Giant-Size Defenders #3 Gerber, Jim Starlin & Wein (with art from Starlin, Dan Adkins, Don Newton & Jim Mooney) detail ‘Games Godlings Play!’ as Daredevil joins Strange, Valkyrie, and Prince Namor in saving the world from Elder of the Universe The Grandmaster: a cosmic games-player whose obsession with gladiatorial combats pitches the heroes into deadly contests with intergalactic menaces from infinity… and beyond. Next follows a more down-to-Earth tale as occasional Avenger Yellowjacket (AKA Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath et al) pops by to help crush insane criminal genius Egghead and Nighthawk’s old gang the Squadron Sinister on ‘Too Cold a Night for Dying!’ (Giant Sized Defenders #4, by Gerber, Don Heck & Colletta).

The return to monthly action resumes with Gerber, Sal Buscema & Esposito in Defenders #22’s ‘Fangs of Fire and Blood!’, with sinister white supremacist secret society the Sons of the Serpent launching another hate-fuelled, racist terror-pogrom, and forcing the outcast champions into an uncomfortably public response. Stakes are raised in ‘The Snakes Shall Inherit the Earth!’ with Hank Pym – still in his Yellowjacket persona – rejoining the Defenders to confront his most reviled old enemies. Even with his aid, the Defenders are defeated in combat and left ‘…In the Jaws of the Serpent!’ (inked by Bob McLeod inks), necessitating a nick-of-time rescue by Daredevil, Luke Cage, Clea and the Son of Satan before the epic ends with a stunning and still sickeningly realistic twist as Jack Abel inks ‘The Serpent Sheds its Skin!’…

For the longest time The Defenders was the best and weirdest superhero comic book in the business, and this bitty, unwieldy collection was where that all started. The next volume will see that inspirational unconventionality reach even greater heights of drama and lunacy, but before that this compendium concludes with the Atlas Era short tales that originally introduced Gorilla Man Arthur Nagan, human horror Dr. Jerold Morgan and Chondu the Mystic who comprise the heinous Headmen tantalisingly introduced in Defenders #21. The vignettes had all been recently reprinted in horror anthology Weird Wonder Tales #7 (December 1974) and the cover of that issue opens a selection of added extras…

Nagan debuted in ‘It Walks Erect!’ by Paul S. Newman & Bob Powell from Mystery Tales #21, September 1954: a obsessive surgeon driven by ambition to perform appalling transplant research on gorillas who ultimately took unholy revenge upon him, whilst biologist Jerry Morgan’s matter compression experiments terrified – but saved – a city in ‘Prisoner of the Fantastic Fog’ (by an unknown writer & Angelo Torres from World of Fantasy #11, April 19580). Tales of Suspense #9 (May 1960) then revealed how stage magician Chondu – AKA Harvey Schlemerman – was far more than he seemed in mini-thriller by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber, wonderfully rendered by the miraculous Doug Wildey.

Other extras include a full cover gallery by by John Romita, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Jim Starlin, Frank Giacoia, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson, Al Milgrom, Dave Cockrum & Janson, more house ads, relevant sections of the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 by Roy Thomas amd artists Frank Brunner, Romita, Sal B & Janson and original art pages/covers by Kane, Giacoia, Romita, Sals Buscema & Trapani.

If you love superheroes but crave something just a little different these yarns are for you… and the best is still to come.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Fantastic Four: Extended Family


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Walter Simonson, Dwayne McDuffie, Tom DeFalco, Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeph Loeb, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, Arthur Adams, Paul Ryan, Stuart Immonen, Paul Pelletier, George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule, Joe Sinnott, Art Thibert, Danny Bulanadi, Wade von Grawbadger, Rick Mounts & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5303-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

With only 67 days (but who’s counting?) to the premiere of Fantastic Four: First Steps, let’s activate our public service to newcomers option and start looking at the immense and critically important history and legacy of the fourth most important moment in US comic books – the creation of “The World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”…

Of course, whatever is up on screen won’t be what has gone before but try to remember it’s NOT REAL. It’s not even the comics you purport to love. It’s just another movie designed to appeal to the largest number of movie fans possessing only rudimentary knowledge of what involved. If you genuinely want to uphold the purity of the comics incarnations, buy a book like this one. Heck, buy a bunch and hand them out to people you’d like to impress and convert. This one would be a good place to start…

The Fantastic Four is considered by many the most pivotal series in modern comic book history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ passionate attention. Regarded more as a family than a team, the line-up changed constantly over the years and this examination from 2011 gathered a selection of those comings and goings in a fascinating primer for new fans looking for a quick catch-up class.

I strongly suspect that it also performed a similar function for doddering old devotees such as me, always looking for a salutary refresher session…

If you’re absolutely new to the first family of superhero fantasy, or returning after a sustained hiatus, you might have a few problems with this otherwise superb selection of clannish classics featuring not only Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and The Human Torch, but also many of the other Marvel stalwarts who have stuck a big “4” on their chests (or thereabouts) and forged ahead into the annals of four-colour heroic history. However, if you’re prepared to ignore a lot of unexplained references to stuff you’ve missed (but will enjoy subsequently tracking down), there’s a still a magically enthralling treat on offer in this terrific tome.

The Fantastic Four are – usually – maverick genius Reed Richards, his fiancée – and later wife – Susan Storm, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: moral, brave, decent, philanthropic and driven survivors of a privately-funded space-shot which went horribly wrong after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

After crashing back to Earth, the quartet found they had all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks.

This compilation gathers Fantastic Four #1, 81, 132, 168, 265, 307, 384 & 544, plus #42 of the third volume which began in 1998. Confusingly, the title resumed original numbering with this tale, so it’s also #471 of the overall canon.

Everything began with the premier release (cover-dated November 1961 and on sale from August 8th of that year) which introduced Lee & Kirby’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ (with inkers George Klein, Sol Brodsky, Chris Rule and others, plus Artie Simek lettering and Stan Goldberg colouring) depicting mysterious mad scientist Dr. Richards summoning helpful helpmeet Sue, burly buddy Ben and Sue’s brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. Via flashback we discover their incredible origins and how the uncanny cosmos made them all into outlandish freaks…

Richards’ body had become impossibly pliable and elastic, Sue could fade away as a living phantom, Johnny would briefly blaze like a star and fly like a rocket whilst poor, tormented Ben devolved into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command. Shaken but unbowed, the valiant quartet vowed to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting all mankind. In second chapter ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ they foil a sinister scheme by another hideous outcast who controls a legion of monsters and army of subhuman slaves from far beneath the Earth by uncovering ‘The Moleman’s Secret!’

This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue; we really have no grasp today of just how different in tone, how utterly shocking it all was.

“Different” doesn’t always mean “better”, but the FF was like no other comic on the market at the time and buyers responded to it hungrily. Throughout the turbulent 1960s, Lee & Kirby’s astonishing ongoing collaboration rewrote all the rules on what comics could be and introduced fresh characters and astounding concepts on a monthly basis. One such was The Inhumans. Conceived as a lost civilisation and debuting in 1965 (Fantastic Four #44-48) during Stan & Jack’s most fertile and productive creative period, they were a race of disparate (generally) humanoid beings, genetically altered by aliens in Earth’s distant pre-history, who consequently became technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens.

Few in numbers, they isolated themselves from barbarous dawn-age humans, firstly on an island and latterly in a hidden Himalayan valley, voluntarily confined to their fabulous city Attilan – until a civil war and a deranged usurper brought them into humanity’s gaze. Old foe and charter member of the villainous Frightful Four, Madame Medusa was revealed as a fugitive member Attilan’s Royal Family, on the run ever since a coup deposed her lover: the true king Black Bolt.

With her cousins Triton, Karnak and Gorgon, the rest would quickly become mainstays of the Marvel Universe, but Medusa’s bewitching teenaged sister Crystal and her giant teleporting dog Lockjaw were the real stars of the show. For young Johnny, it was love at first sight, and Crystal’s eventual fate would greatly change his character, giving him a hint of angst-ridden tragedy that resonated greatly with the generation of young readers who were growing up with the comic…

Crystal stuck around for many adventures and eventually when the now-married Sue had a baby and began “taking things easy”, the Inhuman Princess became the team’s first official replacement. FF #81 (December 1968 by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott) announced ‘Enter – the Exquisite Elemental’ as the devastatingly powerful slip of a girl joined Reed, Ben & Johnny just as incorrigible technological terror The Wizard attacked the team. In blisteringly short order Crystal promptly pulverized the murderous maniac and began a long combat career with the heroes.

After untold centuries in seclusion, increasing global pollution levels began to attack the Inhumans’ elevated biological systems and eventually Crystal had to abandon Johnny and return to Attilan. By the time of Fantastic Four #132 (March 1973) Lee & Kirby had also split up and Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Sinnott were in charge of the show. The concluding chapter of a 2-part tale, ‘Omega! The Ultimate Enemy!’ described how Crystal, her brand new fiancé Quicksilver and the rest of the Inhumans were attacked by their own genetically-programmed slave-race (!!) the Alpha Primitives, seemingly at the behest of Black Bolt’s diabolical brother Maximus the Mad. The truth was far stranger but the strife and struggle resulted in Medusa returning to America with the team…

The more things changed the more they stayed the same, however, and by FF #168 (March 1976) Sue was back but the Thing was forcibly retired. In ‘Where Have All the Powers Gone?’, Thomas, Rich Buckler & Sinnott revealed how Ben had been cured of his condition. Reverted to normal, pedestrian humanity thanks to radiation exposure and a blockbusting battle with The Hulk, Ben was apparently forever deprived of the Thing’s sheer power, and Reed had enlisted Hero for Hire Luke Cage as his replacement. However, the embittered Grimm simply couldn’t adjust to a life on the sidelines and when brutal bludgeoning super-thug Wrecker went on a rampage, merely mortal Ben risked life and limb to prove he could still play with the big boys…

After years in creative doldrums the FF were dynamically revitalised when John Byrne took over scripting and illustrating the feature. Following a sequence of bold innovations, he used companywide crossover Secret Wars to radically overhaul the team. In #265 (April 1984) he revealed the big change in a brace of short tales re-presented here. Firstly, ‘The House That Reed Built’ sees the group’s Baxter Building HQ as the star when the automated marvel diligently deals with a sinister home-invasion by Frightful Four alumnus The Trapster, after which Sue Richards is introduced to the Thing’s replacement (Ben having remained on the distant planet of The Beyonder for personal reasons) as the green-&-glam She-Hulk joins up in ‘Home Are the Heroes’.

Jumping to October 1987, Fantastic Four #307 offered the most radical change yet as Reed & Sue retired to the suburbs to raise their terrifyingly powered omega-mutant son Franklin, leaving the long-returned Thing leading a team consisting of the Human Torch, old flame Crystal and super-strong but emotionally damaged Amazon Sharon Ventura initially employing the sobriquet Ms Marvel. However, before they even have a chance to shake hands, the new team is battling arcane alchemist Diablo in the Steve Englehart, John Buscema & Sinnott gripping thriller ‘Good Bye!’

An even bigger shake-up occurred during Walter Simonson’s run in the gimmick-crazed 1990s. In an era of dwindling sales, high-profile stunts were the norm in comics as companies – realizing that a large sector of the buying public thought of themselves as canny “Investors” – began exploiting the readership’s greed and credulity. A plot twist, a costume change, a different format or shiny cover (or better yet covers: plural): anything, just so long as The Press got hold of it, translated directly into extra units moved. There are many stories and concepts from that era which (mercifully) may never make it into collections, but there are some that deserved to, did, and really still should be.

Simonson was writing (and usually drawing) the venerable flagship title with the original cast happily back in harness and abruptly interrupted his high-tech, high-tension saga with a gloriously tongue-in-cheek graphic digression. Over three issues – #347-349 – he poked gentle fun at trendmeisters and speculators, consequently crafting some of the “hottest” comics of that year. Reprinted from FF #347 (December 1990) is splendid first chapter ‘Big Trouble on Little Earth’ (illustrated by Arthur Adams & Art Thibert, assisted by Gracine Tanaka) revealing how a Skrull outlaw invades Earth, with her own people hot on her viridian high heels. Evading heavy pursuit she attacks the FF and seemingly kills them. Disguised as a mourning Sue Richards she then recruits the four bestselling heroes in the Marvel Universe – Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wolverine & Ghost Rider – to hunt down their “murderers” as The NEW Fantastic Four! The hunt takes them to the bowels of the Earth and battle with the Mole Man, revealing fascinating background into the origins of monsters and supernormal life on Earth…

What could so easily have died as a cheap stunt is elevated not only by the phenomenal art but also a lovingly reverential script, referencing all those goofy old “Furry-Underpants Monsters” of immediate pre-FF vintage, and is packed with traditional action and fun besides. Sadly, only the first pulse-pounding chapter is here so you should track down the entire tale as seen in Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed.

Roster change was a constant during that desperate decade. When Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan & Danny Bulandi took over the series, they tried every trick to drive up sales but the title was in a spiral of commercial decline. Reed was dead – although Sue refused to believe it – and Franklin had been abducted. Her traumatised fellow survivors had their own problems. Johnny discovered his wife Alicia was in fact Skrull infiltrator Lyja, Sharon Ventura was missing and Ben had been mutilated in battle and was obsessively wearing a full-face helmet at all times.

In #384’s (January 1994) ‘My Enemy, My Son!’, Sue hired Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man as the team’s science officer whilst she led an increasingly compulsive search for her lost love. No sooner has the new guy arrived than Franklin reappears, grown to manhood and determined to save the world from his mother, whom he believes to be possessed by malign spirit Malice.

Following crossover event Onslaught the FF were excised from Marvel’s continuity for a year. When they returned rebooted and revitalised in 1998, it was as Stan & Jack first envisioned them, and in a brand-spanking new volume. Always more explorer than traditional crimebuster team, the FF were constantly voyaging to other worlds and dimensions. In Volume 3, #42 (June 2001 and double-numbered as #471) Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Jeff Loeb, Stuart Immonen & Wade von Grawbadger offered a blistering battle between the Torch and old frenemy Namor the Sub-Mariner which rages through New York City whilst Reed, Sue & Ben are lost in the Negative Zone. Strapped for allies, the torrid two form an alliance against mutual foe Gideon, with Johnny re-recruiting Ant-Man and She-Hulk prior to accepting the Atlantean’s cousin Namorita as the latest Fantastic Four part-timer.

This meander down memory lane concludes with another major overhaul, this one stemming from 2007’s publishing event The Initiative. Crafted by Dwayne McDuffie, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, Fantastic Four #544 (March of that year) featured ‘Reconstruction: Chapter One – From the Ridiculous to the Sublime’, with Marvel’s first family bitterly divided after the events of the superhero Civil War. After years of stunning adventures, the closeknit clan split up over the Federal Superhuman Registration Act. Insolubly divided, Reed sides with the Government and his wife and brother-in-law join the rebels. Ben, appalled at the entire situation, dodges the whole issue by moving to France…

A story-arc from FF #544-550 (originally running as ‘Reconstruction’) began in the aftermath in the group’s inevitable reconciliation. However, temperaments are still frayed and emotional wounds have barely scabbed over. When Reed & Sue attempt to repair their dented marriage by way of a second honeymoon (because the first was just so memorable!) they head to the moon of Titan; courtesy of the Eternal demi-gods who inhabited that artificial paradise. On Earth, Ben & Johnny are joined by temporary houseguests Black Panther and his new wife Ororo, the former/part-time X-Man called Storm. The royal couple of Wakanda are forced to leave their palatial New York embassy after it is bombed, but no sooner have they settled in than old ally Michael Collins – formerly cyborg hero Deathlok – comes asking for a favour.

A new hero named Gravity had sacrificed his life to save Collins and a host of other heroes, and his body was laid to rest with full honours. Now, that grave has been desecrated and the remains stolen. When the appalled New FF investigate, the trail leads directly to intergalactic space. After visiting the Moon and eliciting information from pan-galactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, the new questing quartet travel to the ends of the universe where cosmic entity Epoch is covertly resurrecting Gravity to become her latest “Protector of the Universe”. Unfortunately, she isn’t likely to finish her magic as the Silver Surfer and Galactus’ new herald Stardust are attacking the sidereal monolith, preparatory to her becoming the World-Eater’s next meal…

For the rest of that epic you’ll need to seek out Fantastic Four: the New Fantastic Four.

With a full gallery of covers by Kirby, Sinnott, Steranko, Marie Severin, Buckler, Byrne, Ron Frenz, Arthur Adams & Thibert, Ryan, Pacheco, Michael Turner & more plus pin-ups by Steve Epting & Paul Mounts, this power-packed primer and all-action snapshot album is a great way to reacquaint yourself with or better yet discover for the first time the comicbook magic of a truly ideal invention: the Family that Fights Together…
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Silver Surfer Epic Collection volume 1: When Calls Galactus (1966-1968)


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Marie Severin, Joe Sinnott, Frank Giacoia & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9002-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I gather there’s a degree of pre-condemnation in the usual quarters regarding the upcoming Fantastic Four film regarding the gender of one of the imaginary alien characters in it. Guys – and it is of course guys – it’s NOT REAL. It’s not even the comics you purport to love. It’s just another movie designed to appeal to the largest number of movie fans possessing only rudimentary knowledge of what involved. If you genuinely want to uphold the purity of the comics incarnations, buy a book like this one. Heck, buy a bunch and hand them out to people you’d like to impress and convert.

Or you could lurk in your mancave whining and trying to be relevant to people who just don’t care…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, George Klein & Christopher Rule) was crude: rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry readers pounced on it and the raw storytelling caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comicbooks forever.

In eight short years FF became the indisputable core and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: bombarding readers with a ceaseless salvo of new concepts and characters. Kirby was in his conceptual prime, unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot. Clearly inspired, Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas that Marvel – or any publisher – had or has ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their creative powers, and full of the confidence only success brings. The King was particularly eager to see how far the genre and medium could be pushed. A forge of stunning creativity and endless excitement, Fantastic Four was the forge and proving ground for dozens of future stars and mesmerising concepts, none more timely or apt than freewheeling cosmic wanderer and moral barometer The Silver Surfer.

Collecting every scrap of pertinent material from Fantastic Four #48-50, 55-61, 72, 74-77 FF Annual #5 and Tales to Astonish #92-93, this compendium reprints all appearances of the Starry-eyed Sentinel spanning March 1966 to August 1968 (admittedly some only in excerpt): a chronological countdown to the outcast winning his own landmark title.

Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s Galactus Trilogy, Jack’s scintillating creation quickly became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe, one Stan Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years to come. The debut was a creative highlight from a period where the Lee/Kirby partnership was utterly on fire. The tale is all power and epic grandeur and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment, so you should really read it in all its glory.

Here, however, and without preamble the wonderment commences with a mere portion of ‘The Coming of Galactus!’ (by Lee, Kirby & Joe Sinnott from FF #48) as halfway through a storyline, the origins of The Inhumans saga is swiftly wrapped up (by page 6!) with the entire clandestine race sealed behind an impenetrable dome called the Negative Zone (later retitled Negative Barrier to avoid confusion with the gateway to subspace Reed Richards worked on for years).

Meanwhile, a cosmic entity approaches Earth, preceded by a gleaming herald on a surfboard of pure, shining cosmic energy…

I suspect this experimental – and uncomfortable – approach to narrative mechanics was calculated and deliberate, mirroring the way TV soap operas were increasingly delivering interwoven storylines, and used as a means to keep readers glued to the series. They needn’t have bothered. The stories and concepts were enough…

Issue #49 declares ‘If this be Doomsday!’ and sees planet-eating Galactus setting up shop over the Baxter Building despite the team’s best efforts, whilst his coldly gleaming herald has his humanity accidentally rekindled by simply conversing with The Thing’s blind girlfriend Alicia Masters. The first 13 pages of FF #50 concludes ‘The Startling Saga of the Silver Surfer!’ as the reawakened ethical core of the Surfer and gallantry of the human heroes buys enough time for Richards and the Human Torch to literally save the world with a boldly-borrowed Deus ex Machina gadget…
Once again, the tale ends mid-issue, with the remainder concentrating on the team getting back to “normal”, but that’s the work of a different review. Here, we resume with FF #55 as ‘When Strikes the Silver Surfer!’ sees the naive alien exiled on Earth by his former master and uncomprehendingly locked in brutal battle with the Thing, whose insecurities over his relationship with Alicia explode into searing jealousy when the soaring skyrider pays a purely platonic visit…

A portentous excerpt from #56 then tantalisingly teases another forthcoming epic. Fantastic Four #57-60 is Lee & Kirby at their utmost best; with unbearable tension, incredible drama and breathtaking action on all fronts as the most dangerous man on Earth steals the Surfer’s Power Cosmic, even as the Inhumans finally win their freedom and we discover the tragic secret of mighty mute Black Bolt in all its awesome fury.

It begins with a jailbreak by The Sandman in #57’s ‘Enter… Dr. Doom!’; escalates in ‘The Dismal Dregs of Defeat!’ as Doom tests his limitless stolen power in acts of random cruelty and destruction; builds to a crescendo in ‘Doomsday!’ with the heroes’ utter defeat and abject humiliation, before culminating in brains and valour saving the day – and all humanity – in truly magnificent manner with ‘The Peril and the Power!’

A 2-page postscript from #61 then shows the return to the Silver Surfer of his purloined life-energies, but there was never really a dull moment: no sooner had the exile returned to solitary wandering than he encounters another of Earth’s incredible denizens. It coincided with a new narrative tone for The Hulk in his solo feature in split-book Tales to Astonish. After months on the run, fugitive Bruce Banner reached a ‘Turning Point!’ (TtA #92, June 1967, by Lee and superb, criminally underrated Marie Severin & Frank Giacoia), wherein the Jade Giant – hunted through a terrified New York City – has a close encounter with a gleaming light in the sky…

Back then, the Hulk didn’t really team-up with visiting stars, he just got mad and smashed them. Such was certainly the case when he became ‘He Who Strikes the Silver Surfer!’, ironically battling with and driving off a fellow outcast who held the power to cure him of his atomic affliction…

The skyrider was only driven as far as November’s Fantastic Four Annual #5, where – after a Kirby & Giacoia pin-up depicting a colossal group shot of Galactus, The Watcher, Silver Surfer and others – the rapidly rising star-in-the-making enjoyed his first solo appearance. ‘The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer’ (Lee, Kirby & Giacoia) is a pithily potent fable of ambition and ingratitude, reintroducing and upgrading the threat-level of The Mad Thinker’s lethal AI murder-machine Quasimodo…

Things went quiet until FF #72 (March 1968) and ‘Where Soars the Silver Surfer!’, as the cruelly imprisoned wanderer goes cage-crazy and attacks humanity, forcing the quarrelsome quartet to make a valiant but violent intervention. Slightly calmer, the skyrider returns in #74 ‘When Calls Galactus!’ as the world-eater revisits Terra, demanding his former herald once more become a food-finding slave. However, despite his increasingly aggressive world-shaking probes and the FF’s holding action against the ravenous invader’s robotic Punisher, mighty Galactus cannot locate his target.

That’s because the Surfer has already – and utterly obliviously – departed for ‘World Within Worlds!’, forcing Reed, Ben & Johnny’s pursuit to save humanity from consumption. When the pioneering micronauts are subsequently attacked by sadistic alien empath Psycho Man, our heroes are subsequently ‘Stranded in Sub-Atomica!’

As they struggle to survive, Galactus applies ever-more pressure in ‘Shall Earth Endure?’, until a now-fully-apprised Surfer turns himself in to save humanity by finding the great Devourer an alternative snack. His reward is to be summarily slapped back into captivity here as soon as ungrateful Galactus finishes feeding, just in time to begin his own landmark series – but that’s also the subject of another review, another time…

Art lovers and history buffs can also enjoy a bountiful bonanza at the back of this volume: fascinating freebies including pages of original Kirby art, cover reproduction of earlier collection Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus! (by Ron Lim, Dan Panosian & Paul Mounts), composite cover art for Wizard Ace Edition: Fantastic Four (2002) #48 by Mike Wieringo, Karl Kesel & Mounts, José Ladrönn’s cover for The Fantastic Four Omnibus volume 2 and Dean White’s painted cover based on FF #49 (for Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four volume 5). Also on show is a gallery of new covers crafted for 1970s reprint series Marvel’s Greatest Comics (#35-7 by John Buscema & Sinnott, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane & Giacoia) and Marvel Triple Action #1-4 (John B & Giacoia, Kane & John Romita, Vince Colletta and Sal B & Sinnott) which previously reprinted the material contained herein.

Epic, revolutionary and unutterably unmissable, these stories made Marvel the unassailable leaders in fantasy entertainment and remain some of the most important superhero comics ever crafted. The verve, conceptual scope and sheer enthusiasm shines through on every page and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is the perfect key to another – far brighter – world and time.
© 2019 MARVEL. All rights reserved.

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Thunderbolts Epic Collection volume 1: Justice, Like Lightning (1997-1998)


By Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Peter David, John Ostrander, Mark Bagley, Mark Deodato Jr., Sal Buscema, Steve Epting, Jeff Johnson, Pasqual Ferry, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ron Randall, Gene Colan, Darick Robertson, George Pérez, Chris Marrinan, Ron Frenz & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5205-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s going to be a busy year for comics-based movies, so let’s properly start the ball rolling with some context and a look at a Thunderbolts team definitely not coming anywhere close to a cinema near you soon…

At the end of 1996, Marvel’s Onslaught publishing event removed the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man and the Avengers from the Marvel Universe and its long-established shared continuity. The House of Ideas ceded creative control to Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee for a year and at first the iconoclastic Image style comics got all the attention. However, a new title created to fill the gap in the “old” universe proved to be the true star sensation of the period. Thunderbolts was initially promoted as a replacement team book: brand new, untried heroes pitching in because the beloved big guns were dead and gone. Chronologically, they debuted in Incredible Hulk # 449 (cover-dated January 1997), a standard exhibition of “heroes-stomp-monster”, but the seemingly mediocre tale is perhaps excusable in retrospect…

With judicious teaser guest-shots abounding, Thunderbolts #1 premiered with an April cover-date and was an instant mega-hit, with a second print and rapid-reprint collection of the first two issues also selling out in days. This classy compendium gathers all those early appearances of the neophyte team between from January 1997 to March 1998: introductory teaser tale in Incredible Hulk #449 and parts of 450; Thunderbolts #1-12, Thunderbolts: Distant Rumblings #-1 special, Annual ‘97, plus their portion of Tales of the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7 and Heroes for Hire #7. Sadly although the stories are still immensely enjoyable this book simply won’t be able to recapture the furore the series caused in its early periodical days, because Thunderbolts was a sneakily high-concept series with a big twist: one which – almost unprecedentedly for comics – didn’t get spilled before the carefully calculated “big reveal”.

Here the action starts with issue #1 (cover-dated April 1997) and ‘Justice… Like Lightning’ as Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley & Vince Russell introduce a new superhero team to a world which has lost its champions. The mysterious Thunderbolts begin to clear New York’s devastated, post-Onslaught streets of resurgent supervillains and thugs making the most of the hero-free environment. Amongst their triumphs is the resounding defeat of scavenger gang The Rat Pack, but although the looters are routed and rounded up, their leader escapes with his real prize: homeless children…

Golden Age Captain America tribute/knock off Citizen V leads these valiant newcomers – size-shifting Atlas, super-armoured Mach-1, beam-throwing amazon Meteorite, sonic siren Songbird and human toybox Techno – and the terrified, traumatised citizenry instantly take them to their hearts. But these heroes share a huge secret: they’re all supervillains from the sinister Masters of Evil in disguise, and Citizen V – or Baron Helmut Zemo as he truly prefers – has major Machiavellian long-term plans…

When unsuspecting readers got to the end of that first story the reaction was instantaneous shock and jubilation.

Anachronistically, the aforementioned Hulk teaser tale (cover-dated January 1997, but on sale at the end of 1996) appears next, as Peter David, Mike Deodato Jr. & Tom Wegrzyn pit a neophyte super-team against the Jade Juggernaut in ‘Introducing the Thunderbolts!’: the opening step of their campaign to win the hearts and minds of the World. That clash spilled over into the next issue and the pertinent section is also included here, promptly followed by Tales of the Marvel Universe tale ‘The Dawn of a New Age of Heroes!’ as the team continue doing good deeds for bad reasons, readily winning the approval of cynical New Yorkers.

Thunderbolts #2 (May 1997 by Busiek, Bagley & Russell) offers ‘Deceiving Appearances’ as they garner official recognition and their first tangible reward. After defeating The Mad Thinker at an FF/Avengers memorial service and rescuing “orphan” Franklin Richards, the Mayor hands over the FF’s Baxter Building HQ for the T-Bolts’ new base of operations…

Busiek, Sal Buscema & Dick Giordano’s Spider-Man Team-Up Featuring… #7 yarn ‘Old Scores’ sees them even fool the spider-senses of everybody’s favourite wallcrawler whilst clearing him of a fiendish frame-up and taking down the super-scientific Enclave. However the first cracks in the plan begin to appear as Mach-1 and Songbird (AKA The Beetle and Screaming Mimi) begin falling for each other and dare to dream of a better life, even as Atlas/ Goliath starts to enjoy the delights and rewards of actually doing good deeds.

… And whilst Techno (The Fixer) is content to follow orders for the moment, Meteorite – or Moonstone – is laying plans to further her own personal agenda…

Thunderbolts #3 finds the team facing ‘Too Many Masters’ (Bagley & Russell art) as dissension creeps into the ranks. The action comes from rounding up old allies and potential rivals Klaw, Flying Tiger, Cyclone, Man-Killer and Tiger-Shark, who were arrogant enough to trade on the un-earned reputation as new Masters of Evil.

One of the abducted kids in Thunderbolts #1 resurfaces in #4’s ‘A Shock to the System’. Hallie Takahama was taken by the Rat Pack, and her new owner has since subjected her to assorted procedures which resulted in her gaining superpowers. Her subsequent escape leads to her joining the Thunderbolts as they invade Dr. Doom’s apparently vacant castle to save the other captives from the monstrous creations and scientific depredations of rogue geneticist Arnim Zola. However, the highly publicised victory forces Citizen V to grudgingly accept the utterly oblivious and innocent Hallie onto the team as trainee recruit Jolt…

Thunderbolts Annual 1997 follows: a massive revelatory jam session written by Busiek with art from Bagley, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ron Randall, Gene Colan, Darick Robertson, George Pérez, Chris Marrinan, Al Milgrom, Will Blyberg, Scott Koblish, Jim Sanders, Tom Palmer, Bruce Patterson, Karl Kesel & Andrew Pepoy, which could only be called ‘The Origin of the Thunderbolts!’ In brief instalments Jolt asks ‘Awkward Questions’ of V and Zemo offers a tissue of lies regarding the member’s individual origins…

Beginning with V’s ostensible intentions in ‘The Search Begins’, gaining ‘Technical Support’ from Fixer, examining Songbird’s past in  ‘Screams of Anguish’, obscuring the Beetle’s ‘Shell-Shocked!’ transformation and revealing how ‘Onslaught’ brought them all together, the fabrications continue as ‘To Defy a Kosmos’ discloses to everyone but Jolt how ionic colossus Goliath was snatched from incarceration in another dimension before ‘Showdown at the Vault’ brought Moonstone into the mix with untrustworthy and dangerous men she had previously betrayed…

The revelatory events also includes the Annual’s Thunderbolts Fact File text feature.

Thunderbolts: Distant Rumblings #-1 (July 1997) was part of a company-wide event detailing the lives of heroes and villains before they started their costumed careers. Illustrated by Steve Epting & Bob Wiacek, ‘Distant Rumblings!’, examines key events in the lives of two Baron Zemos, mercenary Erik (Atlas) Josten, corrupt psychiatrist Karla (Moonstone) Sofen, trailer-trash kid and future Songbird Melissa Gold, frustrated engineer Abner Jenkins AKA Beetle and gadgeteering psychopath P. Norbert Ebersol, who parleyed a clash with an amnesiac Sub-Mariner into a thrilling life as Hydra’s prime technician and Fixer…

Back in the now, Thunderbolts #5 delivers more ‘Growing Pains’ as the team take a personal day as civvies in Manhattan, only to be targeted and attacked by Baron Strucker of Hydra, employing one of Kang the Conqueror’s Growing Man AI automatons…

By this stage the grand plan was truly unravelling and in #6 ‘Unstable Elements’ sees Citizen V/Zemo incensed that his team still don’t have the security clearances the Avengers and FF used to enjoy. Unable to further his plans without them, he tidies up details, seeking to quash a budding romance between Atlas and their Mayor’s Liaison/former cop Dallas Riordan whilst “suggesting” Meteorite might arrange an accident for increasing prying, questioning and just plain annoying Jolt…

Opportunity arises and tensions escalate when a sentient and malign periodic table of elemental beings attack New York. Requesting help, the Mayor’s office is refused and rebuffed by Citizen V before his own minions reject him and rush off to save lives beside the city’s remaining superheroes such as Daredevil, Power Man & Iron Fist, Darkhawk and the New Warriors. ‘The Revolt Within’ (Busiek & Roger Stern, limned by Jeff Johnson, Will Blyberg, Eric Cannon, Larry Mahlstadt, Greg Adams & Keith Williams) signals the beginning of the end as the rebel Thunderbolts are quickly captured by the “Elements of Doom” and Zemo refuses to save them, leaving ‘Songbird: Alone!’ to save the day in #8 (Busiek, Stern, Bagley & Russell). Although Zemo manages to finagle his way back into the ’Bolts’ good books, he has what he wants: access to all the world’s secrets after SHIELD chief G.W. Bridge grants him top security clearance…

A brief diversion follows in Heroes for Hire #7 (January 1998 by John Ostrander, Pasqual Ferry & Jaime Mendoza) as the troubled team stumble into an ongoing clash between Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Black Knight and Ant-Man, The Eternals and assorted monstrous Deviants, before ‘The Thunderbolts Take Over!’, uniting with the HFH squad to save the shrinking man’s daughter Cassie Lang from a Super-Adaptoid. In Thunderbolts #9 (Busiek, Bagley & Russell) the Black Widow comes calling with advice and ‘Life Lessons’ for Songbird and Mach-1, delivered as an untold tale of “Cap’s Kookie Quartet” – Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch – and related via a flashback crafted by Stern, Ron Frenz, Blyberg & Milgrom, before the main event commences…

After more than a year away, company publishing event Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return restored the martyrs believed killed by Onslaught to the Marvel Universe. That happy miracle sparked a new beginning for The FF and Avengers’ stars and titles and began in an extended epic covering Thunderbolts #10-12: scripted as ever by Busiek and illustrated by Bagley, Russell, Scott Hanna, Larry Mahlstadt & Greg Adams.

It opens with ‘Heroes Reward’ as whilst the Thunderbolts are being officially honoured, their greatest enemies – real superheroes – start reappearing. When G.W. Bridge raids the press briefing, having divined that Citizen V is wanted criminal Helmut Zemo, suddenly the aspiring (semi) reformed squad are fugitives all over again, hunted by every real hero in town…

Fleeing into space and occupying an abandoned AIM space station, the Thunderbolts finally learn what Zemo’s been after all along in ‘The High Ground’ and face a shattering decision to go along or pursue new redeemed lives. However, as the former allies deliberate, prevaricate, and inevitably clash, the choice becomes even harder as the base is invaded by an army of extremely angry Superheroes, including Avengers, Fantastic Four and every recent ally they so callously fooled…

It all concludes in ‘Endgame’, but not the way anyone anticipates, especially once Zemo mind controls and enslaves all the incoming champions before turning them on his outraged dupes. The conclusion is spectacular and rewarding but only promises more and better to come…

Bonus features here include a full gallery of covers and variants – including second printings and the many collected editions the series spawned in its first year – by Bagley & Russell, Deodato Jr., Carlos Pacheco & Scott Koblish, Steve Lightle, Sott Hanna, original art, a golden Age ad for the original Citizen V, promotional pieces, retailer solicitation art, text essays and introductions from earlier editions as well as 12 pages of Bagley’s character designs tracing the metamorphosis from second-string villains into first rung heroes, and even faux ads. Also included are articles from in-house promotional magazine Marvel Vision #13, 14, 18, 19 & 27 providing context and behind the scenes insights for fans who just couldn’t get enough.

This is a solid superhero romp that managed to briefly revitalise a lot of jaded old fan-boys, but more importantly this remains a strong set of tales that still pushes all the buttons it’s meant to nearly 3 decades after all the hoopla has faded. Well worth a moment of your time and a bit of your hard-earned cash. Be warned though, if you’re reading this because of the new movie, these ARE NOT Your Thunderbolts…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks volume 18


By Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Roger Slifer, Keith Pollard, Bill Mantlo, George Pérez, John Buscema, Bob Hall, Sal Buscema, Joe Sinnott, Dave Hunt, Pablo Marcos, Bob Wiacek, Marie Severin & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-0009-0 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel’s cinematic arm tries once again to get it right with their founding concept, expect to see a selection of fabulous FF material here culled from their prodigious paginated days…

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with the eccentric monsyer ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. Everything the company and brand is now stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein & Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing outfit’s standards; but it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change beginning to build in America. It and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. As seen in the premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All four permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four.

Throughout the 1960s it was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist more creative freedom that led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts gave way to more traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour luxury compendium collects Fantastic Four #192-203 and Annuals #12-13, spanning March 1978 to February 1979.

What You Should Know: After facing his own Counter Earth counterpart Reed Richards lost his stretching powers. With menaces like Salem’s Seven, Klaw and Molecule Man still coming for him and his family, weary and devoid of solutions, Richards made the only logical decision and called it a day for the team…

Following Introduction ‘The Fantastics’ by then-incoming scribe Marv Wolfman, a new direction closely referencig the good ol’ days begins with #192 and ‘He Who Soweth the Wind…!’ by Wolfman, George Pérez & Joe Sinnott, as Johnny heads west to revisit his childhood dream of being a race car driver and unexpectedly meets old pal Wyatt Wingfoot.

Back East, Ben and girlfriend Alicia Masters ponder their options as Reed gets a pretty spectacular job offer from a mystery backer, even as Johnny’s race career is upended when superpowered mercenary Texas Twister attacks at the behest of a sinister but unspecified employer with a grudge to settle…

The admittedly half-hearted assault fails but when Ben offers his services to NASA a pattern begins to emerge when he and Alicia are ambushed by old foe Darkoth in ‘Day of the Death-Demon!’ (plotted by Len Wein & Keith Pollard, scripted by Bill Mantlo, and illustrated by Pollard & Sinnott). The cyborg terror is determined to destroy an experimental solar shuttle, but doesn’t really know why, and as Ben ponders the inexplicable incident, in Hollywood, Susan Storm-Richards’ return to acting is inadvetantly paused when shapeshifting loon Impossible Man pays a visit. The delay gives Sue a little time to consider just how she got such a prestigious dream-fulfilling offer completely out of the blue…

Back at NASA, when Darkoth strikes again his silent patrner is exposed as scheming alchemist Diablo, whilst in upstae New York, Reed slowly discovers his dreams of umlimited research time and facilities is nothing like he imagined…

Finally, launch day comes and The Ting pilots the Solar Shuttle into space, only to have it catastrophically crash in the desert…

Joined by additional inker Dave Hunt, the creative pinch-hitters conclude the saga in ‘Vengeance is Mine!’ as Ben survives impact and searing sandstorms, tracks down his foes and delivers a crushing defeat to Diablo and Darkoth. In FF #195 Sue learns who sponsored her revived Hollywood ambitions when Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner renews his amorous pursuit of her. Embittered and lonely, he has fully forsaken Atlantis and the overwhelming demands of his people and the state, but they have not done with him and despatch robotic warriors to drag him back to his eternal duties in ‘Beware the Ravaging Retrievers!’ (Wolfman, Pollard & Pablo Marcos). Like everybody else, the metal myrmidons have utterly underestimated the Invisible Girl and pay the price, allowing the once-&-future prince to reassess his position and make a momentous decision…

As Johnny links up with Ben and Alicia, the strands of a complex scheme begin to appear and in #196 gel for self-decieving Reed Richards as ‘Who in the World is the Invincible Man?’ (Wolfman, Pollard & Marcos) depicts the enigmatic Man with the Plan secretly subjecting Reed to the mindbensding powers of the Pyscho-Man, just as Sue rejoins Ben and Johnny in New York City before being impossibly ambushed by former FF foe The Invincible Man.

This time the man under the hood is not her father, but someone she loves even more…

Reunited with Reed, the horrified heroes are confronted by their greatest, most implacable enemy (it’s not a spoiler as he’s right there on the cover of this book…) and the complicated plot to restore Reed’s powers finally unfolds. Victor Von Doom wants revenge but refuses to triumph over a diminished foe, but his efforts to re-expose Richards to cosmic rays is secretly hijacked by a rival madman in ‘The Riotous Return of the Red Ghost!’ (Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott). Of course there’s more at stake, as Doom seeks to legitimise his rule through a proxy son: planning to abodicate in his favour and have junior take Latveria into the UN and inevitably to the forefront of nations…

Fully restored and invigorated, Mister Fantastic defeats the equally resurgent Red Ghost before linking up with Nick Fury (senior) and S.H.I.E.L.D., and leading an ‘Invasion!’ of Doom’s kingdom. Beside Latverian freedom fighter and legal heir to the throne Prince Zorba Fortunov, Richards storms into Doomstadt, defeating all in his path, foiling the secondary scheme of imbuing the ‘The Son of Doctor Doom!’ with the powers of the (now) entire Fantastic Four and exposing the incredible secret of Victor von Doom II…

Months of deft planning (from Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott) culminate in an epic confrontation ‘When Titans Clash!’, Doom and Richards indulge in their ultimate battle (thus far), with the result that the villain is destroyed and the kingdom liberated. For now…

The post-Doom era opens in FF #201 (December 1978) as the celebrated and honored foursome return to America and take possession of empty former HQ the Baxter Building. Unfortunately so does something else, attacking the family through their own electronic installations and turning the towering “des res” into ‘Home Sweet Deadly Home!’: a mystery solved in the next isue when it subsequently seizes control of Tony Stark’s armour to attack the FF again in ‘There’s One Iron Man Too Many!’ with John Buscema filling in for penciller Pollard.

The monthly mayhem pauses after #203’s ‘…And a Child Shall Slay Them!’ wherein Wolfman, Pollard & Sinnott reveal the incredible powers possessed by dying cosmic ray-mutated child Willie Evans Jr. When the foremost authority on the phenomenon is called in to consult, Dr. Reed Richards and his associates – and all of Manhattan – face savage duplicates of themselves manifested from FF fan Willie’s fevered imagination…

Although the regular fun stops here, two chronologically adrift King Size specials finish up the thrill-fest, beginning with Fantastic Four Annual #12’s ‘The End of the Inhumans… and the Fantastic Four’ by Wolfman, Bob Hall, Pollard, Bob Wiacek & Marie Severin. When Johnny’s former flame Crystal – and gigantic Good Boi Lockjaw – teleport in seeking aid in finding the abducted Inhuman Royal Family, the team battle ruthless Inhuman supremacist Thraxon the Schemer before exposing that megalomaniac’s secret master: the immortal unconquerable Sphinx. Despite his god-like, the united force of the FF plus Blackbolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Triton, Crystal and ex-Avenger Quicksilver proves sufficient to temporarily defeat their foe… or does it?

A year later, Annual #13 offered a more intimate and human tale from Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Sinnott as ‘Nightlife’ revealed how New York’s lost underclass was systematically being disappeared from the hovels and streets they frequented. With guest appearances from Daredevil and witch queen Agatha Harkness, the tale reveals a softer side to the FF’s oldest enemy and a return to addressing social issues for the team.

To Be Continued…

With covers by Pérez, Sinnott, Frank Giacoia, Pollard, Marcos John Buscema, Steve Leiloha and Kirby, this power-packed package also includes a wealth of original art pages and sketches from Dave Cockrum, Kirby & Sinnott, Pollard, Marcos, Hunt, and enthralling house ads of the period.

Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” never quite returned to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this collection offers an appreciative and tantalising taste-echo of those heady heights. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement – especially if this time theupcoming movie delivers on its promise…
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Gorilla-Man


By Jeff Parker, Jason Aaron, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Jack Kirby, Bob Powell, Bob Q. Sale, Dick Ayers & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4911-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Apes have long fascinated comics audiences, and although Marvel never reached the giddy heights of DC’s slavish and nigh ubiquitous exploitation of the Anthropoid X-factor, the House of Ideas also dabbled in monkey business over its many years of existence.

This slim mixed-bag of a tome gathers newer adventures of happily hirsute occasional hero Ken Hale – gregarious Gorilla-Man of resurrected 1950s super-group pioneers Agents of Atlas – culled from an eponymous 2010 3-issue miniseries and supplemented with pertinent material from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, X-Men First Class #8, plus a splendid grab bag of assorted earlier interpretations culled from the company’s back catalogue of anthology horror and mystery titles: specifically Men’s Adventures #26, Tales to Astonish #28 & 30 and Weird Wonder Tales #7.

What you need to know: the Agents of Atlas comprise rejuvenated 1950s super-spy Jimmy Woo and similarly vintaged superhuman crusaders Namora (Sub-Mariner’s cousin), spurious love-goddess Venus, a deeply disturbing, extremely unhuman Marvel Boy from Uranus, primitive wonder-robot M11 and the aforementioned anthropoid avenger. As the Atlas Foundation, these veterans surreptitiously fight for justice and a free world as the nominal leaders of a clandestine crime-cult which still thinks it’s being patiently guided towards the overthrow of all governments. The real power behind the organisation however is a terrible mystical dragon named Lao…

The modern mainstream saga concentrates on ‘Ken Hale, the Gorilla-Man: The Serpent and the Hawk’ by Jeff Parker & Giancarlo Caracuzzo: exploring the anthropoid adventurer’s origins following a particularly bizarre battle against spidery cyborg Borgia Omega. In search of another action-packed mission, Hale spots a familiar face on an Atlas “wanted poster” and heads for Africa, flashbacking his past for us along the way.

It all began in Missouri in 1930 as a visiting big-shot spots something in a poor orphan kid holding his own against seven bigger boys who picked the wrong dirt-grubber to bully…

  1. Avery Wolward was a millionaire man-of-intrigue with interests all over the globe and for the next decade little Kenny became his companion and partner in a series of non-stop escapades that would make Indiana Jones green with envy. Ken learned a lot about life and loyalty, eventually discovering that Wolward owed much of his success to a mystical snake walking stick. Now that cane is in the hands of an African crime-lord calling himself Mustafa Kazun who’s well on the way to stealing an entire country and building an empire of blood…

Each miniseries issue was augmented by comedic faux email conversations between Hale and his social networking fans, and here delightfully act to buffer transitions between modern menace and reprinted monkey mystery vignettes. The first of these is ‘It Walks Erect!’, taken from 1974’s Weird Wonder Tales #7 which itself rescued the yarn from pre-Comics Code Mystery Tales #21 (cover-dated September 1954).

The story – by an unknown author but illustrated by the magnificent Bob Powell – concerns compulsive rogue surgeon Arthur Nagan whose obsession with brain transplants took a decidedly outré turn when his gorilla test subjects rebelled and wreaked a darkly ironic revenge upon him…

Slavish fanboys like me might remember Nagan as the eventual leader of arcane villain alliance The Headmen… but probably not…

Hale’s origin resumes as he and local agent Ji Banda are attacked by Kazun’s enslaved army, but that doesn’t stop the suave simian superman describing how a clash with Wolward’s arch rival Bastoc to recover an ancient bird talisman in Polynesia led the then-full-grown soldier-of-fortune to split with his mentor and enlist in the US military just before Pearl Harbor…

By the time the war ended Wolward was gone and the magnate’s daughter Lily had inherited both the family business and the walking stick…

After another message-board break, the classic ‘I Am the Gorilla Man’ (Tales to Astonish #28, February 1962, by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers) reveals how criminal genius Franz Radzik developed a mind-swapping process so that he could use a mighty ape body to commit robberies. Sadly the big brain forgot that, with its personality in a human body, the anthropoid might have its own agenda and unbridled opportunity…

The conclusion of ‘The Serpent and the Hawk’ sees Hale unite with a gorilla clan to overturn Kazun’s schemes and unlock the secret of the stick, even as his mind is firmly replaying his bad marriage to Lily, subsequent decline into drunken dissolution, recruitment by the arcane Mr. Lao, and eventual confrontation with a previous Immortal Gorilla-Man.

The role is an inherited one and a curse. To kill the undying Gorilla is to become him, and the previous victim had by this time had more than enough. Even after Hale refused to end the creature’s torment, it relentlessly followed him until it could trick the drunken mercenary into taking on the curse. However, after linking up with 1950s heroes such as Jimmy Woo and Venus, Hale found it truly liberating and grew to accept his new status…

Thus when Kazun’s true identity is revealed and the weary adventurer is offered a permanent if Faustian cure, Gorilla-Man makes the only choice a true champion can…

A final text presentation precedes Lee, Lieber, Kirby & Ayers’ ‘The Return of the Gorilla Man’ (Tales to Astonish #30, April 1962) wherein Radzik – still locked in a gorilla’s body – escapes captivity and frantically attempts to prove to scientists how smart he is.

Big mistake…

Fresh insight into Hale is provided by Jason Aaron & Caracuzzo’s ‘My Dinner with Gorilla-Man’ from Avengers vs. Atlas #4, wherein a desperate man with nothing to lose hunts down the ageless anthropoid, intent on fulfilling the ageless equation: “Kill the Gorilla and live forever”…

This is followed by a gleefully glorious romp from X-Men: First Class #8. ‘Treasure Hunters’ by Jeff Parker & Roger Cruz, finds the debut generation of Xavier’s mutants – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman & Marvel Girl – in the Congo and hunting for their missing teacher. Along the way they encounter a talking gorilla who becomes their guide, which inadvertently pulls reclusive hermit Hale out of a decades-long funk…

The collection concludes with the seminal supernatural suspense thriller that first introduced ‘Gorilla Man’ to the world. Again by an anonymous writer (possibly Hank Chapman) and limned by unique stylist Robert “Bob Q.” Sale, this evocative chiller from Men’s Adventures #26 (March 1954) offers a much grittier take on the origin, as a man terrified of dying and plagued by nightmares of fighting apes hears a crazy legend and heads for Kenya and an inescapable, horrific destiny…

Also included is a selection of 21st century covers by Dave Johnson, Leonard Kirk, Dave McCaig, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado & Marko Djurdjevic, with the vintage frontages represented by Kirby, Lieber & Ayers.

Outrageous, over the top and never taking itself seriously, this is a riot of hairy scary fun-filled frolics and a perfect antidote to all those po-faced Costumed Dramas. I wonder if there’s a movie in this stuff?
© 1954, 2007, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Godzilla: The Original Marvel Years


By Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Tony DeZuñiga, Klaus Janson, Fred Kida, Dan Green, Jack Abel, Frank Giacoia, George Tuska & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5875-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

What’s big and green and leaves your front room a complete mess? No, not any first world government’s policy on climate change, but (arguably) Earth’s most famous monster…

Back in 1976, although some television cartoons had introduced Japanese style and certain stars – like Astro Boy and Marine Boy – to western eyes, manga and anime were only starting to creep into global consciousness. However, the most well-known pop culture Japanese export was a colossal radioactive dinosaur who regularly rampaged through the East, crushing cities and fighting monsters even more bizarre and scary than he was.

At this time Marvel was well on the way to becoming the multimedia corporate colossus of today and was looking to increase its international profile. Comics companies have always sought licensed properties to bolster their market-share and in 1977 Marvel truly landed the big one, leading to a 2-year run of one of the world’s most recognisable characters. They also boldly broke with tradition by dropping him solidly into real-time, contemporary company continuity. The series ran for 24 guest-star-stuffed issues between August 1977 and July 1979.

Gojira first appeared in the eponymous 1954 anti-war, anti-nuke parable written and directed by Ishiro Honda for Toho Films: a symbol of ancient forces roused to violent reaction by mankind’s incessant meddling. The film was savagely re-cut and dubbed into English with young Raymond Burr inserted for US audience appeal and comprehension, with the Brobdingnagian beast inexplicably renamed Godzilla. The movie was released in the US on April 27th and – despite being a brutally bowdlerised hash of Ishiro Honda’s message and intent – became a monster hit anyway.

The King of Monsters smashed his way through 33 Japanese movies (and six & counting US iterations); and tons of records, books, games, associated merch and many, many comics. He is the originator of the manga sub-genre Daikaij? (giant strange beasts). After years away thanks to convoluted copyright issues, Marvel is regaining contact with many of its 1970/1980s licensing classics and this volume is a no-frills, simple sensation recovered from a time when the other Big Green Gargantuan rampaged across the Marvel firmament heavily (how else?) interacting with stalwarts of the shared universe as just one of the guys…

The saga is preceded by Introduction ‘“It Had to Happen” Godzilla in the Mighty Marvel Universe!’ by uberfan Karl Kesel before the compilation commences with ‘The Coming!’, courtesy of Doug Moench, Herb Trimpe & Jim Mooney, wherein the monstrous aquatic lizard with radioactive halitosis erupts out of the Pacific Ocean and rampages through Alaska.

Superspy security organisation S.H.I.E.L.D. is quickly dispatched to stop the onslaught, and Nick Fury (the original white one) summarily calls in Japanese looming-lizard experts Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi, his grandson Robert and their eye-candy assistant Tamara Hashioka. After an inconclusive battle of ancient strength against modern tech, Godzilla returns to the sea, but the seeds have been sown and everybody knows he will return…

In Japan, many people now believe that Godzilla is a benevolent force destined to oppose true evil. Young Robert is one of them and gets the chance to expound his devout views in #2’s ‘Thunder in the Darkness!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia & George Tuska) when the skyscraping saurian resurfaces in Seattle and nearly razes the place before being lured away by daring and ingenuity, S.H.I.E.L.D. style. Veteran agents Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones and Jimmy Woo are seconded to a permanent anti-lizard task force until the beast is finally vanquished, but sadly, there are also dozens of freelance do-gooders in the Marvel universe always ready to step up and when the Emerald antihero takes offence at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, he attracts the attention of the local superhero team. The Champions – a short-lived, California-based team consisting of Black Widow, Angel, Iceman, Ghost Rider and Hercules – rapidly respond in ‘A Tale of Two Saviours’ (with the lushly solid inks of Tony DeZuñiga adding welcome depth to the art). Typically, the humans spend more time fighting each other than the monster, before the beast bolts for quieter shores…

There’re only so many cities even the angriest dinosaur can trash before formula tedium sets in, so writer Moench begins his first continued story in #4 with ‘Godzilla Versus Batragon!’ (guest-pencilled by the superb Tom Sutton and again inked by DeZuñiga), wherein deranged scientist/monster mutator Dr. Demonicus enslaves Aleutian Islanders to help him grow his own world-wrecking giant horrors… until the real deal shows up. The epic encounter concludes catastrophically with plenty of collateral damage on ‘The Isle of Lost Monsters’ (inked by Klaus Janson) before ‘A Monster Enslaved!’ in #6 opens another extended epic as Trimpe returns and Godzilla – as well as the American general public – are introduced to another now commonplace Japanese innovation.

Giant, piloted battle-suits or Mecha first appeared in Go Nagai’s 1972 manga classic Mazinger Z, and Marvel did much to popularise the subgenre in their follow-up/spin-off licensed title Shogun Warriors, (based on an import toy rather than movie or comic characters, but by the same creative team as Godzilla). Here young Rob Takiguchi steals S.H.I.E.L.D.’s latest weapon – a colossal robot codenamed Red Ronin – to aid the Immense Intense Iguana when Godzilla is finally captured. Fred Kida stirringly inked the first of a long line of saurian sagas with #7’s ‘Birth of a Warrior!’ with more carnage culminating in the uneasy alliance ending in another huge fight in concluding chapter ‘Titan Time Two!’

Trimpe & Kida depicted ‘The Fate of Las Vegas!’ in Godzilla #9: a lighter-toned morality play with the monster destroying Boulder Dam and flooding the modern Sodom and Gomorrah, before returning to big beastie bashing in ‘Godzilla vs Yetrigar’: another multi-part mash-up that ends in ‘Arena for Three!’ as Red Ronin & Rob reappear to tackle both large looming lizard and stupendous, smashing Sasquatch, after which the first year ends with #12’s ‘The Beta-Beast!’ – first chapter in a classic alien invasion epic.

Shanghaied to the Moon, Godzilla is co-opted as a soldier in a war between alien races who breed giant monsters as weapons, and when the battle transfers to Earth in ‘The Mega-Monsters from Beyond!’, Red Ronin joins the fray for blockbusting conclusion ‘The Super-Beasts’ (this last inked by Dan Green). Afterwards, let loose in cowboy country, Godzilla stomps into a rustling mystery and modern showdown in ‘Roam on the Range’ and ‘The Great Godzilla Roundup!’ before the final story arc begins.

In #17 ‘Of Lizards, Great and Small’ starts with a logical but humane solution to the beast’s rampages after superhero Ant-Man’s shrinking gas is used to reduce Godzilla to a more manageable size. However, when the diminished devastator escapes from his lab cage and becomes a ‘Fugitive in Manhattan!’, it’s all hands on deck as the city waits for the shrinking vapour’s effects to wear off. ‘With Dugan on the Docks!’ then sees the aging secret agent battle the immortal saurian on more or less equal terms before the Fantastic Four step in for ‘A Night at the Museum.’

The FF have another non-lethal solution and dispatch Godzilla to a primeval age of dinosaurs in #21’s ‘The Doom Trip!’, allowing every big beast fan’s dream to come true as the King of the Monsters teams up with Jack Kirby’s uniquely splendid Devil Dinosaur – and Moon Boy – in the Jack Abel inked ‘The Devil and the Dinosaur!’, before returning to the 20th century and full size for a spectacular battle against the Mighty Avengers in ‘The King Once More’.

The story and series concluded in #24 (July 1979) with the remarkably satisfying ‘And Lo, a Child Shall Lead Them’, as all New York’s superheroes prove less effective than a single impassioned plea, and Godzilla wearily departs for new conquests and other licensed outlets.

By no means award-winners or critical masterpieces, these stories are nonetheless a perfect example of what comics should be: enticing, exciting, accessible and brimming with “bang for your buck”. Moench’s oft-times florid prose and dialogue meld perfectly here with Trimpe’s stylised interpretation, which often surpasses the artist’s excellent work on that other big, green galoot. Other than Kirby, Happy Herb was probably the most adept at capturing the astoundingly cathartic attraction of giant creatures running amok, and here he went hog wild at every opportunity…

With covers by Trimpe, Ernie Chan, Joe Rubinstein, Bobs Layton, Wiacek & McLeod and Dave Cockrum, plus bonus features including Archie Goodwin’s ‘Godzilla-Grams’ editorial page from the first issue, as well as covers to earlier compilations, letter page art by Sutton from and a text free version of this volume by painter Junggeun Yoon.

These are great tales to bring younger and/or disaffected readers back to comics and are well worth their space on any fan’s bookshelf. This is what monster comics are all about and demand your full attention.
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents Daredevil volume 3: Unmasked


By Stan Lee & Gene Colan with Frank Giacoia, Dick Ayers, John Tartaglione & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5428-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero for most of his early years, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due in large part to the roster of brilliant artists who had illustrated the strip. He battled thugs, gangsters, a plethora of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping his way through life and life-threatening combat. His civilian life consisted of assorted legal conundra and manfully standing back and suppressing his own feelings as his portly best friend and law partner Franklin “Foggy” Nelson vainly romanced their secretary Karen Page.

DD only really came into his own once illustrator Gene Colan signed up for the long haul, which properly begins with the tales in this collection: part of a series of Mighty Marvel Masterworks available as kid-friendly digest paperbacks and eBooks. Gathering Daredevil #22-32 (November 1966 to September 1967) it traces a move from morose masked avenger to wisecracking Scarlet Swashbuckler, offering a marked improvement in overall quality as scripter Lee utilises extended soap operatic plot-threads to string together Colan’s unique fight scenes as he shook off the remnants of predecessor John Romita’s art style.

In a very short time Romita had made the Sightless Swashbuckler his own before graduating to Spider-Man, so when Colan took over on DD, he initially kept the clipped, solid, nigh-chunky lines for rendering the Man Without Fear, but increasingly drew everything else in his loose, fluid, tonal manner. With these tales, his warring styles coalesced and the result was literally poetry in non-stop motion…

Without preamble the action opens with ‘The Tri-Man Lives’ (inked by Frank Giacoia & Dick Ayers), containing Gangland themes and malignant machinations whilst sharing focus with super-menaces The Gladiator and Masked Marauder, whose eponymous killer android proves less of a threat than expected. The villains had sought control of international organised crime syndicate The Maggia but their master plan to prove their worthiness by murdering the Man Without Fear goes badly awry after the kidnapped hero refuses to simply lie down and die…

Concluding in #23 with ‘DD Goes Wild!’, the ending sees our hero trapped in Europe, but soon making his way to England and a violent reunion with Tarzan analogue Ka-Zar who has become prime suspect in #24’s chilling puzzle ‘The Mystery of the Midnight Stalker!’

This tale contains my vote for the Most Obnoxious Misrepresentation of Britain in Comic Books Award as a policeman – sorry, “bobby” – warns, “STAY BACK, PLEASE! THE MILITIA WILL BE ARRIVING IN JIG TIME!”…

After clearing the jungle hero’s name, Matt Murdock heads back to America in time to enjoy the less-than-stellar debut of a certified second-rate super-villain as ‘Enter: The Leap-Frog!’ introduces a thief dressed like Kermit on steroids with springs on his flippered feet. Yes, really…

However, the big event of the issue is meeting Matt’s hip and groovy twin brother Mike…

By the time ‘Stilt-Man Strikes Again’ (DD #26, March 1967) Colan is totally in command of his vision and a leaner, moodier hero is emerging. The major push of the next few issues was to turn the hopeless romantic triangle of Matt, Foggy and Karen Page into a whacky quadrangle by dint of fictitious twin Mike, who Matt would be “expose” as Daredevil to divert suspicion from the blind attorney who actually battled all those weird villains…

Confused, much?

Still skulking in the background, arch-villain Masked Marauder slowly closes in on DD’s alter ego. He gets a lot closer in ‘Mike Murdock Must Die!’ (Giacoia inks) after Stilt-Man teams with the Marauder and the ever-fractious Spider-Man once again clashes with old frenemy Daredevil before the villains meet their apparent ends.

The Sightless Swashbuckler has his first encounter with extraterrestrials in #28’s moody one-trick-pony ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Planet!’ – an Ayers-inked thriller wherein invading aliens’ blindness-inducing rays prove inexplicably ineffective against the Crimson Crime-crusher. John Tartaglione inked the next tale, a solid, action-packed gangster-thriller entitled ‘Unmasked!’ whilst issue #30 opened a protracted and impressive clash with former Thor foes the Cobra and Mister Hyde. The bombastic first bout comes complete with an Asgardian cameo in ‘…If There Should Be a Thunder God!’

Attempting to catch the rampant super-criminals, DD masquerades as the Asgardian Avenger only to encounter the real McCoy. Sadly, the villains ambush the mortal hero once the Thunderer departs and, as a result of the resultant battle, DD loses his compensating hyper-senses. Thus, he must perpetrate a ‘Blind Man’s Bluff!’… which almost fools Cobra & Hyde…

Naturally, it all goes wrong before it all comes right and against all odds Murdock regains his abilities just in time ‘…To Fight the Impossible Fight!’…

Supplemented by a Colan cover gallery and original art pages, this tome reveals how The Man Without Fear blossomed into a truly magnificent example of Marvel’s compelling formula for success: smart stories, human characters and magnificent illustration. This is pure Fights ‘n’ Tights magic no fan of stunning super-heroics can afford to ignore.
© 2024 MARVEL.