Category: Marvel Superheroes

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Here Comes… Daredevil


By Stan Lee, Bill Everett, John Romita, Gene Colan & various (Lancer)
ISBN: 72170 ASIN: B000EQWXLE

This is one solely for chronic nostalgics, consumed collectors and historical nit-pickers… As Marvel grew in popularity in the early 1960s it gradually replaced its broad variety of genre titles with more and more super-heroes. The rapidly recovering publishing powerhouse was still hampered by a crippling distribution deal limiting the company to 16 titles (which would curtail their output until 1968), so each new comicbook would have to fill the revenue-generating slot (however small) of an existing title.

Moreover since the costumed characters were selling, each new title would limit the breadth of genres (horror, western, war, etc). It was putting a lot of eggs in one basket, and superheroes had failed twice before for Marvel.

In the 1960s on the back of the “Batmania” craze, many comics publishers repackaged their old comics stories in cheap and cheerful digest-sized monochrome paperbacks, and it’s easy to assume that those rapidly resized, repackaged book collections of the early exploits and extravaganzas were just another Company cash-cow in their perennial “flood the marketplace” sales strategy. Maybe they were, but many funnybook publishers – including National/DC, Tower and Archie – were also desperate to add some credibility and even literary legitimacy to their efforts, and as well as increased profits these forays onto the world’s bookshelves offered the prospect of fresh new markets and a wider acceptance. Considering how many different prose publishing houses chanced their arm on such projects, their editors also believed there was money to be made from comics too…

Also it’s hard to deny that the book editions were just, plain cool…

As someone who bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years – including constantly recycled reprints in British weeklies from the mid-sixties to the 1980s – I have to admit that the sleek classic paperback editions have a charm and attraction all their own…

Most of the US Marvel collections from Lancer generated smaller (and inferior) British editions from Four Square Books but as far as I know Daredevil never crossed the pond except as a remaindered import…

Heavily abridged and edited and disturbingly printed in both portrait and landscape format, Here Comes… Daredevil was the sixth and last Lancer publication (the others being two Fantastic Four compilations and one apiece for Thor, Spider-Man and The Hulk) and touted a guest-appearance by Spidey, reprinting most of the two-part battle against the mysterious Masked Marauder from issues #16 and 17. Originally entitled ‘Enter… Spider-Man!’ and ‘None are so Blind…’ by Stan Lee, John Romita Sr. & Frank Ray Née Giacoia) the tale recounted how the cunning criminal manipulated the Wall-Crawler into attacking DD whilst his gang of futuristic cut-throats attempted to steal a new super-engine…

This is followed by ‘The Origin of Daredevil’ from issue #1, recounting how young Matt Murdock grew up in the New York slums, raised by his father Battlin’ Jack Murdock, a second-rate prize-fighter. Determined that the boy will be something, Jack extracts a solemn promise from him never to fight. Mocked by other kids and called “Daredevil”, Matt abides by his vow, but secretly trains his body to physical perfection.

One day he saves a blind man from being hit by a speeding truck, only to be struck in the face by its radioactive cargo. His sight is burned away but his other senses are super-humanly enhanced and he gains a sixth: “radar-sense”. He tells no-one, not even his dad.

Battlin’ Jack is in dire straits. As his career declined he signed with The Fixer, knowing full well what the corrupt promoter expected from his fighters. Yet his career blossomed. Unaware that he was being set up, Murdock got a shot at the Big Time, but when ordered to take a dive he refused. Winning was the proudest moment of his life. When his bullet riddled corpse was found, the cops had suspicions but no proof…

Heartbroken, Matt graduated college with a law degree and set up in business with his room-mate Franklin “Foggy” Nelson. They hired a lovely young secretary named Karen Page. With his life on track young Matt now had time to solve his father’s murder. His promise stopped him from fighting but what if he became “somebody else”…?

Scripted by Stan Lee and magically illustrated by the legendary Bill Everett (with assistance from Steve Ditko) this is a rather nonsensical yet visually engaging yarn that just goes through the motions and completely omits the dramatic denouement wherein Matt finally deals with his father’s killers…

Originally tipped for a fill-in issue, Gene Colan came aboard as penciller with Daredevil #20’s ‘The Verdict is: Death!’, inked by Mike Esposito moonlighting as Mickey Demeo. Colan’s superbly humanistic drawing and facility with expressions was a little jarring at first since he drew Daredevil in a passable Romita imitation and everything else in his own manner, but he soon settled in and this cunning two-part revenge thriller – featuring The Owl who had trapped the sightless adventurer on a hidden island overrun with robot raptors and brutal thugs – is a stunning action rollercoaster which perfectly illustrates the hero’s swashbuckling acrobatic combat style.

The spectacular battle concluded with ‘The Trap is Sprung!’ (from #21, inked by Giacoia, Dick Ayers & Bill Everett) and began the artist’s long and brilliant run on the series.

If you’ve not read these tales before then there are certainly better places to do so (such as the Essential Daredevil volume 1) but even with all the archaic and just plain dumb bits in this book these are still fine super-hero tales with beautiful art that will never stale or wither, and for us backward looking Baby-boomers these nostalgic pocket tomes have an incomprehensible allure that logic just can’t fight or spoil…
© 1967 Marvel Comics Group. All Rights Reserved.

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Daredevil: Marked for Death


By Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller & Klaus Janson (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-087135-351-1

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 captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters, a variety of super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion. He quipped and wise-cracked his way through life and life-threatening combat, but under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller himself, the character transformed into a dark, moody avenger and grim, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution…

Here’s another slim, sleek and sublimely enticing lost treasure from the early days of graphic novel compilations that will undoubtedly enthral fans of hard-bitten, high-calibre Masked Manhunter melees.

Released in 1990, this full-colour 96-page compendium first collected the landmark stories which so quickly confirmed the Man Without Fear as the new face of comics action.

Daredevil #159-161 and 163-164 from July 1979 – May 1980 completed the gradual transformation of DD – begun by Marv Wolfman and Jim Shooter – from bold, apparently carefree Scarlet Swashbuckler to driven, terrifying urban avenger: a Demon dipped in blood. What Roger McKenzie began here Miller would finish in an audacious groundbreaking run of shocking, compelling dark masterpieces… a momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series.

The groundbreaking adventure begins with ‘Marked for Murder!’ (McKenzie, Miller & Klaus Janson) as infallible assassin Mr. Slaughter is brought out of retirement for a very special hit on the Sightless Superhero. Meanwhile veteran Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich starts to slowly piece together snippets which indicate that blind attorney Matt Murdock might be far more than he seems…

The spectacular showdown between the Crimson Crimebuster and Slaughter’s army of killers compels the mysterious client to do his own dirty work and, after brutally abducting DD’s old girlfriend the Black Widow, the hero has no choice but to put himself ‘In the Hands of Bullseye!’, culminating in a devastating duel and ultimate defeat for the psychopathic villain in ‘To Dare the Devil!’

Issue #162 featured a fill-in tale by Michael Fleisher & Steve Ditko and is not included here – although Miller’s rejected cover for that issue is part of the gallery section – so after a one-page info-feature on ‘Daredevil’s Billy Club!’ the stunning David and Goliath action resumes as the merely mortal Man Without Fear battled the Incredible Hulk in ‘Blind Alley’ (inked by Josef Rubenstein & Janson) in a desperate and ultimately hopeless attempt to save his beloved city…

This superb compilation concludes with an evocative retelling of his origin in ‘Exposé’ as the meticulous and dogged Urich confronts the hospitalised hero with the inescapable conclusions of his research…

Tense, tough, dramatic, disturbing, clever, beautiful and astoundingly visceral, these stories turned a popular costumed hero into an icon of the modern comics industry and are still amongst the best tales in the character’s long history.

Available in a number of collections these epics should be compulsory reading for any action fan or comics aficionado.
© 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Inhumans – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Anne Nocenti, Brett Blevins & Al Williamson (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-435-7

Conceived as another fantastic lost civilisation and debuting in 1965 (Fantastic Four #44-48) during Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s most fertile and productive creative period, The Inhumans are a race of incredibly disparate (generally) humanoid beings genetically altered by aliens in Earth’s pre-history, consequently becoming technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens.

Subsequently they isolated themselves from the world and the barbarous dawn-age humans, first on an island and latterly in a hidden valley in the Himalayas in a fabulous city named Attilan. After untold centuries in hiding, increasing global pollution levels began to attack their elevated biological systems and the Inhumans relocated their entire city-civilisation to the Moon. This bold act exposed them to military scrutiny and they became known at last to the ordinary citizens of Earth.

The Attilan mark of citizenship is immersion in the mutative Terrigen Mists which further enhance and transform individuals into radically unique and generally super-powered beings. The Inhumans are necessarily obsessed with genetic structure and heritage, worshipping the ruling Royal Family as the rationalist equivalent of mortal gods.

In this controversial tale from 1988, scripter Anne Nocenti and artists Brett Blevins & Al Williamson (with letters from Jim Novak & Gaspar Saladino and colours by Mike Higgins) took a hard look at the underbelly of the concept in a stark examination of personal rights vs. civic responsibility…

With such an unstable potential breeding pool, the right to have children has been taken away from individuals and delegated to a Genetic Council. If, on occasion their mandates break hearts or even lead the desperate and lovelorn to commit suicide, that’s sad but just a price the race must pay…

After witnessing one such tragic demise on the day of the annual pronouncement of who may and may not sire offspring, bellicose, passionate and deeply conservative Gorgon has much to ponder upon. Even his own cousin Karnak sympathises with the growing public movement to abolish the Council and let citizens choose their own breeding partners, and the princes have, as usual, come to blows over their always opposing views…

It all becomes agonisingly personal when their cousin Medusa, wife and voice of the mighty but voluntarily mute King Blackbolt (whose softest syllable could shatter a mountain) announces she is already pregnant and the Council summarily decree the unsanctioned and potentially ultra-destructive fetus must be destroyed…

Horrified when her shocked but resigned family agrees to the horrifying Eugenics dictat, Medusa flees Attilan with the unsuspected aid of deranged psychopathic genius (and brother-in-law) Maximus. She hides on Earth, preferring to risk death by pollution rather than the arbitrary murder of unborn child.

Amongst the Inhumans the rebellious act divides both royal and commoner families and looks certain to foment civil war. Blithely unaware, on Earth Medusa and faithful companion Minxi are sequestered in a deserted garbage dump on the outskirts of Las Vegas where her soon-to-be-born baby begins to increasingly make its presence – and power – felt…

In Attilan, Blackbolt is crushed and paralysed by the weight of duty and his own indecision whilst Maximus schemes to win Medusa for himself. At last united but still bickering, the Royal Family, Gorgon, Karnak, Triton and Medusa’s sister Crystal travel to Earth to stand by the defiant mother-to-be. The elemental Crystal uses her ability to collect and banish all the toxins in the air to produce a thirty-mile wide “clean-zone” for Medusa, but as her time nears, strange, unnatural phenomena begin to occur throughout the region…

At last Blackbolt comes to a shattering decision and Maximus makes his final sinister move, Medusa goes into labour and the tortured, twisted environment comes to ghastly unnatural life just as and the full extent of the newborn’s abilities are revealed…

Even after all the horror, death and disaster, there is one last shock and betrayal when the Inhumans return to the Moon under a dubious amnesty…

Evocative, challenging and powerfully unsettling, this dark and impressive yarn goes far beyond the normal parameters of cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights shenanigans; forcing readers to think as well as feel.

Marvel don’t generally publish original material graphic novel anymore but once they were market leader in the field with a range of “big stories” told on larger pages emulating the long-established European Album (285 x 220mm rather than the standard 258 x 168mm of today’s books) featuring not only proprietary characters in out-of-the-ordinary adventures but also licensed assets like Conan, creator-owned properties like Alien Legion and new character debuts.

This extended experiment with big-ticket storytelling in the 1980s and 1990s produced many exciting results that the company has never come close to repeating since. Most of the stories still stand out today – or would if they were still in print. The Inhumans is a beautiful, extremely uncompromising and occasionally explicit tale delivering action, tension and soul-searching drama and is something no unabashed older fan of superhero sagas should miss….
© 1988 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Stan Lee Presents Captain America


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel/Pocket Books)
ISBN: 0-671-82581-X-225

Perhaps I have a tendency to overthink things regarding the world of graphic narrative, but it seems to me that the medium, as much as the message, radically affects the way we interpret our loves and fascinations. Take this pint-sized full-colour treat from 1979.

It’s easy to assume that a quickly resized, repackaged paperback book collection of the early comics extravaganzas was just another Marvel cash-cow in their perennial “flood the marketplace” sales strategy – and maybe it was – but as someone who bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years I have to admit that this version has a charm and attraction all its own…

During the Marvel Renaissance of the early 1960’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby followed the same path which had worked so tellingly for DC Comics, but with less obviously successful results.

Julie Schwartz had changed the entire comics scene with his revised versions of the company’s Golden Age greats, so it seemed natural to revive those characters who had dominated Timely/Atlas in days past.

A new Human Torch had premiered as part of the revolutionary Fantastic Four, and in the fourth issue of that title the Sub-Mariner resurfaced after a twenty year amnesiac hiatus (everyone concerned had apparently forgotten the first abortive attempt to revive their superhero line in the mid 1950s). All that was left was to complete the triangle by bringing back the Star Spangled Sentinel of Liberty…

However although the teen Torch had won a solo-spot in Strange Tales he hadn’t set the World on fire there (sorry, utterly irresistible and I’m truly ashamed – just not enough to hit “delete”) so it was decided to revive the Company’s biggest Golden Age gun within the fledgling company’s star-packed team-book.

This carefully reformatted digest delight opens with the fabled contents of Avengers #4 (March 1964, inked by George Roussos) an epic landmark wherein ‘Captain America joins the Avengers!’ in a blockbusting tale which had everything which made the company’s early tales so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior returned in our time of greatest need: stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky, time-lost aliens, gangsters, Sub-Mariner and even wry social commentary all couched in vast amounts of staggering Kirby Action.

Six months later the Old Soldier won his own solo-series in Tales of Suspense #59 (cover-dated November 1964), initially in a series of short, self-contained action romps such as ‘Captain America’, (scripted by Lee and illustrated by the staggeringly perfect team of Jack Kirby & Chic Stone): an unapologetic rocket-paced fight-fest wherein an army of thugs invaded Avengers Mansion since only the one without superpowers was at home…

The next issue held more of the same, when ‘The Army of Assassins Strikes!’, this time attempting to overwhelm the inexhaustible human fighting machine at the behest of arch foe Baron Zemo, whilst ‘The Strength of the Sumo!’ was insufficient when Cap invaded Viet Nam to rescue a captured US airman, after which he took on an entire prison’s population to stop the ‘Break-out in Cell Block 10!’

After these gloriously visceral and bombastic escapades the series took an abrupt turn and began telling tales set in World War II. From ToS #63, March 1965, ‘The Origin of Captain America’, by Lee, Kirby & Frank Ray (AKA veteran artist Frank Giacoia) recounted, recapitulated and expanded the manner in which physical wreck Steve Rogers was selected as the guinea pig for a new super-soldier serum, only to have the genius responsible die in his arms, cut down by a Nazi bullet.

Now forever unique, Rogers became the living, breathing, fighting symbol and guardian of America, but spent his quieter moments as a husky but easygoing ordinary G.I. in boot camp at Fort Lehigh.

It was there he was accidentally unmasked by Camp Mascot Bucky Barnes, who blackmailed the hero into making the boy his sidekick. The next issue kicked off a string of spectacular thrillers as the Red, White and Blue Boys defeated enemy saboteurs Sando and Omar in ‘Among Us, Wreckers Dwell!’ before Chic Stone returned for the next tale ‘The Red Skull Strikes!’ in which the daring duo met and first foiled the Nazi mastermind’s schemes of terror and sabotage in America.

‘The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull!’ saw the series swing into high gear and switch settings to Europe as sub-plots and characterisation were added to the all-out action and spectacle. With Cap captured by his bragging fascist foe and brainwashed into attacking his own commanders, the Master of Menace felt smug enough to reveal his own rise to power after which ‘Lest Tyranny Triumph!’ and ‘The Sentinel and the Spy!’ (both inked by Giacoia) combined espionage with stunning combat and sinister subversion with mad science as the plot to murder the head of Allied Command segued into a battle with a German infiltrator who had stolen Britain’s latest secret super-weapon.

The heroic duo stayed in England for ‘Midnight in Greymoor Castle!’ (with art by Dick Ayers over Kirby’s) as English and Nazi collaborator scientist Cedric Rawlings captured Bucky whist Ranger Steve Rogers participated on an Army raid in France. The second part ‘If This be Treason!’ had Golden Age veteran and Buck Rogers newspaper strip artist George Tuska perform the same function as the hero deserts his comrades to rush back to Young Ally’s rescue before the final part (and last wartime adventure) ‘When You Lie Down with Dogs…!’ neatly wrapped up the saga, with Joe Sinnott inking a rousing conclusion involving repentant traitors, military madmen and handy terror weapons…

These mini-masterpieces of tension, action and suspense perfectly demonstrated the indomitable nature of this perfect American hero and I suppose in the final reckoning how you come to the material is largely irrelevant as long as you do, but I’m certain that different people are receptive to different modes of transmission and we should endeavour to keep all those avenues open…
© 1979 Marvel Comics Group, a division of Cadence Industries Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men: From the Ashes


By Chris Claremont, Paul Smith, Walt Simonson, John Romita Jr. & Bob Wiacek (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-6155

In 1963 X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 during a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics as supernatural mystery once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

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

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

The revision was an unstoppable hit and soon grew to become the company’s most popular and high quality title. In time Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and, as the team roster shifted and changed, the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark “Dark Phoenix” storyline which saw the death of (arguably) the series’ most beloved and groundbreaking character.

In the aftermath, team leader Cyclops left and a naive teenaged girl named Kitty Pryde signed up just as Cockrum returned for another spectacular sequence of outrageous adventures.

The franchise inexorably expanded and in 1982 a fresh generation of students enrolled in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters…

Released in 1990, as Marvel was tentatively coming to grips with the growing trend for “trade paperback” collections, this sturdy 228 page full-colour compendium collects a supremely impressive run of issues of the Uncanny X-Men (#168-172, from April-December 1983) which perfectly encapsulated everything that made the outrageous outcasts such an unalloyed triumph and touchstone of youthful alienation.

The action opens as Kitty Pryde reacts badly to the news that she is being transferred to the student team of New Mutants… or as she calls them, “X-Babies”…

‘Professor Xavier is a Jerk!’, by Chris Claremont, new star art-find Paul Smith and inker Bob Wiacek, related the battled-hardened Pryde’s reaction to the arbitrary declaration as the team enjoyed a little downtime following a stupendous battle in space against the ghastly alien body-stealers The Brood. The sulking quickly escalated into a cataclysmic life-or-death struggle as Pryde and her little space-dragon Lockheed accidentally uncovered an infestation of alien predators which had remained undiscovered in the depths of the X-Mansion for months…

Meanwhile, original X-Man Cyclops had left the team again to catch up with rebound girlfriend Lee Forrester but discovered a new woman who was the exact duplicate of his dead one-and-only Jean Grey…

‘Catacombs’ plunged head-on into a new crisis as the team are called in when the Angel is abducted by a hitherto undiscovered enclave of outcast mutants dwelling beneath the streets of New York. With Kitty as part of the rescue team the X-Men descended into the tunnels and battled the horrific Morlocks and their charismatic leader Callisto.

Easily outmatched and overpowered the heroes were helpless until Storm took a radical, irreversible step: defeating Callisto in a death-duel and becoming the new ruler and protector of the subterranean deviants in ‘Dancin’ in the Dark’. Above their heads in the halls of the wealthy and powerful, the Hellfire Club was under sustained attack by a telepath of incredible power and spiteful intensity whilst in Alaska Scott Summers had fallen deeply in love with disturbing doppelganger Madelyne Pryor despite fearing she might be some new aspect of the immortal cosmic Phoenix…

Pencilled by Walt Simonson, issue 171 saw a major new player join the misunderstood mutants when ‘Rogue’ – a powers and memory leeching teen who had nearly murdered Carol Danvers – knocked on the mansion door begging for sanctuary and medical help.

It seemed her uncontrollable ability was afflicting her with stolen personalities and slowly driving her crazy. When the former Ms. Marvel, now a cosmic powered entity dubbed Binary, saw the girl who had stolen her life become a guest of the X-Men, sparks and fists inevitably flew…

Wolverine had been absent for weeks on a personal quest to Japan (see Marvel Platinum – the Definitive Wolverine or any number of collected editions of the first Wolvie miniseries by Claremont & Frank Miller), which culminated with the announcement of his impending marriage to Japanese aristocrat Mariko Yashida.

‘Scarlet in Glory’ found the rest of the team in Japan for the impending nuptials and poisoned by vengeful villains leaving Logan and Rogue – whom he deeply distrusted – to seek out an antidote. At the same time the transformation of Storm from nature goddess to grim-and-gritty bad-ass was completed by the mercenary maniac Yukio as the last X-Men raced their fast-approaching toxic deadline…

The result was sheer carnage as the feral Wolverine went wild. With desperate-to-please Rogue in tow Wolverine carved a bloody trail to Yakuza mercenary (and Mariko’s rival for the rule of Clan Yashida) Silver Samurai and psychopathic mastermind Viper in ‘To Have and Have Not’…

Although the bold champions were eventually triumphant, the victory came at great cost. Wolverine returned to America alone and unwed… and all the while, the long-hidden presence manipulating events had jockeyed for position, pushing the globally scattered heroes to one inescapable conclusion…

‘Romances’ opened with Binary choosing to leave Earth with the swashbuckling Starjammers and ended with Scott returning to the X-Men to announce his own imminent marriage to Madelyne. This calm before the storm led into the spectacular issue #175 with the revelation that one of the X-Men’s oldest enemies had returned to unleash the ultimate destructive force, culminating in the end of the world and the seeming ultimate revenge of ‘Phoenix!’ (with additional art from John Romita Jr.).

The issue also saw Scott and Madelyne tie the knot before slipping away for a honeymoon from hell in the concluding episode ‘Decisions’.

Setting the scene for upcoming epics, there was a final meeting between Logan and Mariko, the US Government sought new and permanent ways to curb mutant power and Callisto returned to the Morlocks but the main focus was the newlyweds’ crash-landing in monster-plagued seas…

These character driven tales proved conclusively that the X-Men phenomenon was bigger than any single creator and that the series was capable of infinitely renewing itself. The stories here opened up a whole sub-universe of action and adventure that fuelled more than a decade of expansion and are still some of the best comics of that distant decade.

Compelling, effective, moving and oh, so pretty, From the Ashes is a book no Fights ‘n’ Tights fan can do without.
© 1983, 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Marvel Two-In-One volume 1


By Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, Ron Wilson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1729-2

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

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

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing, or battling – often both – with less well-selling company characters was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those long-lost days editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline they may well have been right.

After the runaway success of Spider-Man’s Marvel Team-Up the House of Ideas carried on the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four’s most iconic member – beginning with two test runs in Marvel Feature before graduating to its own somewhat over-elaborate title.

This economical, eclectic monochrome compendium gathers together the contents of Marvel Feature #11-12, Marvel Two-In-One #1-20, 22-25 and Annual #1, as well as Marvel Team-Up #47 and Fantastic Four Annual #11, covering the period September 1973 – March 1977.

It all kicked off with a perennial favourite pairing as the Thing once more clashed with the Hulk in ‘Cry: Monster! (by Len Wein, Jim Starlin and Joe Sinnott from Marvel Feature #11,  September 1973) wherein Kurrgo, Master of Planet X and the lethal Leader manipulated the blockbusting brutes into duking it out – ostensibly to settle a wager – but with both misshapen masterminds concealing hidden agendas…

That ever-inconclusive yet cataclysmic clash left Ben stranded in the Nevada desert where Mike Friedrich, Starlin & Sinnott promptly dropped him in the middle of the ongoing war against mad Titan Thanos as Iron Man helped the Thing crush monstrous alien invaders in ‘The Bite of the Blood Brothers!’ (#12, November 1973); another spectacular and painfully pretty all-action punch-up.

Still stuck in the desert when the dust settled Ben eventually trekked to an outpost of civilisation just in time to be diverted to Florida in Marvel Two-In-One #1 (January 1974) where Steve Gerber, Gil Kane & Sinnott magnificently revealed the ‘Vengeance of the Molecule Man!’ as Ben learned some horrifying home truths about what constituted being a monster battling with and beside the ghastly and grotesque anti-hero Man-Thing.

With the second issue Gerber cannily traded a superfluous supporting character from the Man-Thing series to add some much needed depth to the team-up title. ‘Manhunters from the Stars!’ pitted Ben, old enemy Sub-Mariner and the Aquatic Avenger’s powerful cousin Namorita against each other and aliens hunting the emotionally and intellectually retarded superboy Wundarr in another dynamically intoxicating tale illustrated by Kane & Sinnott. That case also left the Thing de facto guardian of the titanic teenaged tot…

Sal Buscema signed on as penciller with #3 as the Rocky Ranger joined the Man Without Fear ‘Inside Black Spectre!’, a crossover instalment of the extended epic then playing out in Daredevil #108-112 (this action-packed fight-fest occurring between the second and third chapters) after which ‘Doomsday 3014!’ (Gerber, Buscema & Frank Giacoia) found Ben and Captain America catapulted into the 31st century to save Earth from enslavement by the reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon, leaving Wundarr with Namorita for the foreseeable future…

The furious future-shocker concluded in MTIO #5 as the Guardians of the Galaxy climbed aboard the Freedom Rocket to help the time-lost heroes liberate New York before returning home. The overthrow of the aliens was completed by another set of ancient heroes in Defenders #26-29 (since collected in the superbly economical Essential Defenders volume 2).

Marvel Two-In-One #6 (November 1974) began a complex crossover tale with the aforementioned Defenders as Dr. Strange and the Thing encountered a cosmic event which began with a subway busker’s harmonica and led inexorably to a ‘Death-Song of Destiny!’ (Gerber, George Tuska & Mike Esposito) before Asgardian outcasts Enchantress and the Executioner attempted to seize control of unfolding events in #7’s ‘Name That Doom!’ (pencilled by Sal Buscema) only to be thwarted by Grimm and the valiant Valkyrie. There’s enough of an ending here for casual readers but fans and completists will want to hunt down Defenders #20 or the previously plugged Essential Defenders volume 2 for the full story…

Back here though issue #8 teamed the Thing and supernatural sensation Ghost Rider in a quirky and compelling Yuletide yarn for a ‘Silent Night… Deadly Night!’ (Gerber, Buscema & Esposito) as the audacious Miracle Man tried to usurp a very special birth in a stable…

Gerber moved on after plotting the Thor team-up ‘When a God goes Mad!’ for Chris Claremont to script and Herb Trimpe & Joe Giella to finish: a rather meagre effort with the Puppet Master and Radion the Atomic Man making a foredoomed power play, but issue #10 was a slice of inspired espionage action with Ben and the Black Widow battling suicidal terrorist Agamemnon who planned to detonate the planet’s biggest nuke in the blistering thriller ‘Is This the Way the World Ends?’ by Claremont, Bob Brown & Klaus Janson.

Marvel Two-In-One had quickly become a kind of clearing house for cancelled series and uncompleted storylines. Supernatural series The Golem had featured in Strange Tales #174, 176 and 177 (June-December 1974) before being summarily replaced mid-story by Adam Warlock and MTIO #11 provided plotter Roy Thomas, scripter Bill Mantlo and artists Brown & Jack Abel to offer some spectacular closure when ‘The Thing goes South’ resulted in stony bloke and animated statue finally crushing the insidious plot of demonic wizard Kaballa.

Young Ron Wilson began his lengthy association with the series and the Thing in #12 as Iron Man and Ben tackled out of control, mystically-empowered ancient Crusader Prester John in ‘The Stalker in the Sands!’; a blistering desert storm written by Mantlo and inked by Vince Colletta, after which Luke Cage, Power Man popped in to help stop a giant monster in ‘I Created Braggadoom!, the Mountain that Walked like a Man!’ – an old fashioned homage scripted by Roger Slifer & Len Wein, whilst Mantlo, Trimpe & John Tartaglione offered a spooky encounter with spectres and demons in #14’s ‘Ghost Town!’ a moody mission shared with The Son of Satan.

Mantlo, Arvell Jones & Dick Giordano brought on ‘The Return of the Living Eraser!’ a dimension-hopping invasion yarn which introduced Ben to Morbius, the Living Vampire after which a canny crossover epic began with the Thing and Ka-Zar plunging ‘Into the Savage Land!’ to dally with dinosaurs and defeat resource plunderers, after which the action switched to New York as Spider-Man joined the party in MTIO #17 to combat ‘This City… Afire!’ (Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito) when mutated madman Basilisk transported an active volcano from Antarctica to the Hudson River with the cataclysmic conclusion following (from Marvel Team-Up #47) where Mantlo, Wilson & Dan Adkins finished off the epic and saved the day in fine style with ‘I Have to Fight the Basilisk!’

Another short-changed supernatural serial was finally sorted out in MTIO #18. ‘Dark, Dark Demon-Night!’ by Mantlo, Scott Edelman, Wilson, Jim Mooney & Adkins, found mystical watchdog The Scarecrow escape from its painted prison to foil a demonic invasion with the reluctant assistance of the Thing, after which Tigra the Were-Woman slinked into Ben’s life to vamp a favour and crush a sinister scheme by a rogue cat creature in ‘Claws of the Cougar!’ by Mantlo, Sal Buscema, & Don Heck.

That yarn segued directly into Fantastic Four Annual #11 which began a time-travelling sage with ‘And Now Then… the Invaders!’ by Roy Thomas, Big John Buscema & Sam Grainger, wherein Marvel’s First Family travelled back to 1942 to retrieve a cylinder of miracle-metal Vibranium which had begun to unwrite history after falling into Nazi hands.

En route they became embroiled in conflict with WWII super-team the Invaders which comprised early incarnations of Captain America, Sub-Mariner and the android Human Torch.

The time-busting task went well once the heroes finally united to assault the Nazi castle where the Vibranium was held, but after the quartet returned to their own repaired era, only Ben realised that the mission wasn’t completed yet…

The action continues in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1 as, with the present unravelling around him, Ben returned to 1942 in ‘Their Name is Legion!’ by Thomas, Sal Buscema, Grainger, Tartaglione & George Roussos, to link up with Home Front Heroes The Liberty Legion (The Patriot, Thin Man, Red Raven, Jack Frost, Blue Diamond, Miss America and the Whizzer) and thwart Nazi raiders Skyshark and Master Man, Japanese agent Slicer and Atlantean traitor U-Man‘s invasion of America: a battle so big it spilled over and concluded in Marvel Two-In-One #20 (October 1976) in a shattering ‘Showdown at Sea!’ against diabolical Nazi scientist Brain Drain, courtesy of Thomas, Sal Buscema & Grainger.

MTIO #21 featured a team-up with Doc Savage but as Marvel no longer holds a license for that character, the story is excluded from this collection and the action resumes with #22’s two-part Thor pairing against the Egyptian God of Death in ‘Touch Not the Hand of Seth!’ (Mantlo, Wilson & Pablo Marcos); a fantastic cosmic extravaganza concluded with the assistance of Jim Shooter & Marie Severin in ‘Death on the Bridge to Heaven!’, after which Ben had a far more prosaic time with neophyte hero Black Goliath as a devastated downtown Los Angeles asked ‘Does Anyone Remember… the Hijacker?’ (by Mantlo, Shooter, Sal Buscema & Marcos).

This initial economical compendium ends on the cusp of a new era as the much delayed and postponed team-up with Iron Fist, the Living Weapon heralded the start of writer/editor Marv Wolfman’s impressive run on the title. ‘A Tale of Two Countries!’ illustrated by Wilson & Grainger, saw the Thing and the master martial artist shanghaied to the Far East as part of a Machiavellian plan to conquer the island kingdom of Kaiwann. Naturally they both strenuously objected…

These stories from Marvel’s Middle Period are of variable quality but nonetheless all are an honest attempt to entertain and exhibit a dedicated drive to please. Whilst artistically the work varies from adequate to quite superb, most fans of frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights genre would find little to complain about.

Although not really a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your straining superhero bookshelves…
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Aladdin Effect – Marvel Graphic Novel #16


By James Shooter, David Michelinie, Greg LaRoque & Vince Colletta (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-081-7

Marvel don’t generally publish original material graphic novel anymore but once they were market leader in the field with a range of “big stories” told on larger pages emulating the long-established European Album (285 x 220mm rather than the standard 258 x 168mm of today’s books) featuring not only proprietary characters in out-of-the-ordinary adventures but also licensed assets like Conan, creator-owned properties like Alien Legion and new character debuts.

This extended experiment with big-ticket storytelling in the 1980s and 1990s produced many exciting results that the company has never come close to repeating since. Most of the stories still stand out today – or would if they were still in print.

Released in 1985, The Aladdin Effect was an attempt to capitalise on the company’s growing stable of female characters and – I’m guessing – target the notoriously scarce and fickle maturing female readership with something more exclusively to their tastes and aspirations. This conventional but highly enjoyable Fights ‘n’ Tights thriller was conceived and concocted by Editor Jim Shooter, scripted by David Michelinie and illustrated by Greg LaRoque & Vince Colletta.

Joe Ember is a good man, loving husband and father: sheriff of the isolated community of Venture Ridge, Wyoming but someone looking the end of the world in the face…

Two months ago the little town lost all hope and has been sliding into decadence, anarchy and ruin. Sixty days ago, without explanation the rural community was surrounded by an invisible, impenetrable forcefield and trapped like bugs under glass.

Cut off from the world, with food and power dwindling, the people have begun to go mad…

Little Holly-Ann isn’t worried: the little girl knows her daddy will keep everyone safe even if so many old friends and neighbours are acting strange and scary. The little girl is a dreamer and fan of New York’s superheroes. She especially adores the women like Storm, She-Hulk, Tigra and the Wasp and wishes that she could be like them…

When Joe, crumbling under pressure, destroys her scrapbook Holly-Ann goes to sleep extremely upset and really, really wishes…

Next morning an amnesiac stranger is seen on the streets: a striking black woman with white hair and blue eyes. When the mob attacks her the stranger easily cows them all and Holly-Ann knows it is the mutant X-Man Storm.

At last an answer begins to form when a mysterious being called Timekeeper reveals himself and demands that the incomprehensible power-source hiding in the city reveals itself – or the city will be destroyed within 24 hours…

When Storm tries and fails to shatter the forcefield, the She-Hulk appears, also with muddled memories but just as determined to help little Holly-Ann. Soon after both the Wasp and Tigra are discovered and the sinister secret technologists of AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) are discovered as the true cause of all the town’s problems.

When She-Hulk tackles them she is almost beaten to death by the army of super scientific soldiers…

With only hours remaining before the deadline, the battered community and diminished super-women prepare for the overwhelming onslaught to come…

Terrified and outmatched Joe Ember is ready to surrender all hope but his valiant daughter shows him another way and, regaining his sense of purpose, he galvanises the ordinary folk and leads them in a last ditch battle for their town, their lives and their souls…

A stirring mix of childhood fantasy and mature B-movie thriller, all wrapped up in Marvel madness and with loving overtones of the Magnificent Seven, this extremely uncompromising and occasionally explicit tale delivers action, tension and soul-searching drama for both the faithful readership and even the newest kid on the block looking for a different kind of story….
© 1985 Marvel Comics Group/Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island


By Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, Rick Remender, Humberto Ramos, Stefano Caselli  & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-501-7

When the Spider-Man continuity was drastically and controversially altered for the ‘Brand New Day’ publishing event a refreshed, now single-and-never-been-married Peter Parker was parachuted into a new life, so if this is your first Web-spinning yarn in a while – or if you’re drawing your cues from the movies – prepare yourself for a little confusion. That being said, this classy collection of Web-spun wonderment is more accessible than most: a spectacular summer blockbuster yarn with New York overwhelmed by monsters, a hideous all-consuming threat and packed to the spiracles (look it up: I’m being clever again) with returning villains from Spidey’s less complicated glory-days…

Gathering Spider-Island: Deadly Foes, Amazing Spider-Man #666-672, Venom #6-8, and background material, original art, text-features and interviews from Marvel Spotlight Spider-Island, the manic Marvel mayhem commences when clone-builder Miles Warren AKA The Jackal resurrects the warped Peter Parker doppelganger Kaine and upgrades him for malicious purposes and a hidden new boss; turning the recent cadaver into a monstrous multi-limbed humanoid Tarantula…

Meanwhile in ‘Prologue: the One and Only’ the webslinger is riding a wave of popularity in New York City despite every effort of new Mayor J. Jonah Jameson and even in his civilian identity is having a pretty good life. The original hard-luck kid has a great, well-paid job designing high-tech gadgets, is fast friends with the city’s greatest scientists Tony Stark and Reed Richards and even has a devoted, hot, new girlfriend; forensic cop Carlie Cooper.

But now, something very strange is happening: all over Manhattan people are starting to manifest spider-powers and government asset Flash Thompson is put on alert in his role as new black-ops agent Venom, keeping the supposedly retired and disabled war-hero from the bedside of his estranged and terminal father…

When Peter recently lost his Spider-sense, clairvoyant arachnid hero Madame Web convinced him to study martial arts with Shang-Chi, fabled Master of Kung Fu, to prepare for a dire future crisis, but his hectic schedule – constantly moving from Horizon Labs to Fantastic Four HQ and Avengers Mansion – means he is one of the last to know that a manufactured plague is turning New York into a city of Spider People, just as Jackal, Tarantula and their sultry secret leader are unleashing yet another arachnoid atrocity…

‘The Amazing Spider-Manhattan’ sees the infestation grow as Carlie reveals she has Spider-powers and the Jackal assembles an army of arachnid-enhanced thugs to plunder and run riot, further spreading the contagion. A city-wide epidemic forces Jameson to close all exits from the New York and quarantine the populace as the superheroes begin a desperate holding action against a wave of wall-crawling criminals.

When the original-and-genuine tries to join them in ‘Peter Parker, the Unspectacular Spider-Man’ he is sent away since he’s indistinguishable from many of the thugs, but the indomitable lad soon finds a way to strike back and even recruit reinforcements for the hard-pressed defenders.

Across town Venom is stalking the cause of the plague and Eddie Brock, originally possessed by the selfsame alien Symbiote, discovers that he has become a natural cure for the Spider-infection: a living ‘Anti-Venom’…

The covert paramilitary predator had overcome and captured the Jackal’s new Spider-King, but the whole operation was a trick; allowing the beast to sneak thousands of spider-babies out of the quarantined city, ready to infect the entire country. Moreover when Flash discovers that the original identity of the horrific Spider-King was in fact America’s greatest hero he is caught between honour and duty…

In ‘Arachnotopia’ Peter Parker is leading the fightback but helpless to combat the next stage of the disease as victims begin to mutate from spider-powered humans into carnivorous, monstrous eight-legged freaks. His life is made even more difficult when he sees Carlie so clearly using his powers better than he ever did…

Meanwhile Reed Richards, frantically seeking a cure, sees that complete infestation of Manhattan is only a matter of hours away…

With the mystery mastermind revealed there are ‘Spiders, Spiders Everywhere’ but a glimmer of hope remains as Flash/Venom infiltrates the Queen’s arachnoid inner circle, just as Peter’s old flame Mary Jane Watson discovers her own inner arthropod and joins the struggle armed with an advantage no other infectee can – or would want to – boast…

The next Venom instalment sees Flash clash with Anti-Venom before dragging the all-too-willing Brock back to Reed Richards…

Meanwhile the Queen has established mental contact with every victim and uses them as a battery: a web of life feeding her transformative energy and, when the cure is synthesised, she compels all her thralls to resist it and the people administering it…

In the final Venom episode Flash valiantly tackles the Queen head-on but is easily defeated. Luckily one of the first infectees to be cured was that legendary hero trapped inside the Spider-King…

Unfortunately the disease has already reached peak infection and the triumphant Queen transforms into a skyscraper-sized arachnoid colossus ready and able to turn the world into a planet of spiders. With everything to fight for and no hope, Mary Jane and a most unexpected ally lead one final assault by the remaining assembled heroes on the monumental monstrosity, giving the one true Amazing Spider-Man a valiant last chance to spectacularly save everyone…

In ‘Epilogue: the Naked City’ a city wide “Morning After” focuses on the staggering aftermath of the climactic clash and cannily resets the scene for a fresh start in the Spidey universe with departures, arrivals and a whole new outlook for Marvel’s most iconic hero…

Although not necessary, readers might also benefit from a quick re-reading of Spectacular Spider-Man: Disassembled, but this gloriously bombastic rollercoaster action-romp from writers Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente and Rick Remender, illustrated by Humberto Ramos, Stefano Caselli, Tom Fowler, Minck Oosterveer, Carlos Cuevas, Victor Olazaba & Karl Kesel forms not only a terrific Fights ‘n’ Tights tale but also serves as a stand-alone saga and perfect jumping-on point for readers new or returning. With the aforementioned added features pages and a stunning gallery of variant covers by

Ramos, Greg Land, Gabriele Dell’Otto, Stephanie Hans & Stuart Immonen Spider-Island is possibly one of the best Spider-Man books in years.

This British edition of Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island is set for release on January 19th 2012.
™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.

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X-Men: Schism


By Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, Tim Seeley, Billy Tan & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-502-4

Radical change – or at least the appearance of such – is a cornerstone of modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth.

A case in point is this rather impressive restating of the Mutant paradigm from Marvel wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the old days…

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-Men franchise and newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory so let’s plunge in as the hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

This utterly engrossing tome (collecting X-Men Schism #1-5, Generation Hope #10-11 and X-Men ReGenesis) finds the world’s mutant population reduced to a couple of hundred desperate souls living in self-imposed exile on an island dubbed “Utopia” located in San Francisco Bay.

Although generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions are high and with X-Men team-leader Cyclops running the colony in an increasingly draconian manner, his relationship with war-weary second-in-command Wolverine is slowly, inexorably deteriorating…

Matters come to head when Logan refuses to train the latest batch of kids in combat techniques, concerned that these newest mutants are being cheated of their childhoods, after which Quentin Quire, a 16-year old anarchist telepath provokes an frantic armed response from human world leaders at an arms limitation conference intended to convince humanity to abandon their “defensive” anti-mutant weapons; which generally equates to giant robotic Sentinels of various vintages…

With the world once again on alert against “Homo Superior” attacks, every nation is frantically rearming, but the robots have all degenerated into rampaging menaces attacking their owners – if they work at all – and the assembled mutants and assorted superheroes are kept busy saving humans from their own bellicose paranoid folly…

Meanwhile a bunch of very human rich kids make a move of their own. The greedy, remorseless and ambitious scions of munitions millionaires, human traffickers and deranged scientists have waited long enough for what’s theirs and, after murdering their parents and guardians, take over the Hellfire Club to initiate their scheme of ruling the Earth before they hit puberty…

As their cynical, vicious plan unfolds, the embattled Utopians become the unwitting target of increasingly bloody attacks and Cyclops and Wolverine catastrophically clash over the role of the super-powered children in their care, almost oblivious of the launch of the new super-Sentinel devised by the impatient new Hellfire kids…

Although Utopia is saved in the nick of time, the policy-split leads to a sundering of the Mutants as Wolverine leads many of the youngest kids and some of Cyclops’ oldest, but most disappointed and disaffected, friends to a place where they can attempt a different way of living, leaving the island as a highly visible fortress against and target of human aggression; populated by warriors and militaristic genocide-survivors ready to take the Race – or perhaps more correctly, Species – War to their oppressors…

The core miniseries was scripted by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuña, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, Cam Smith, Mark Farmer & Mark Roslan with Kieron Gillen writing the intersecting chapters from Generation Hope and the epilogue X-Men ReGenesis drawn by Tim Seeley and Billy Tan, respectively.

If you crave fast, furious and fulfilling Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction this is a nearly perfect one-shop stop for your edification and delectation.

X-Men Schism is scheduled for release on January 19th 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd. ™ and © 2012 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 22: Amazing-Spider-Man 41-50 & Annual 3


By Stan Lee, John Romita Sr. & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-914-6

The rise and rise of the wondrous web-spinner continued and even increased pace as the decade progressed, and by the time of the tales in this fourth sumptuous hardcover (collecting Amazing Spider-Man #41-50 and Annual 3, spanning October 1966 to July 1967) Peter Parker and friends were on the way to being household names as well as the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia.

By 1966 Stan Lee and Steve Ditko could no longer work together on their greatest creation. After increasingly fraught months the artist simply resigned, leaving Spider-Man without an illustrator. Meanwhile John Romita had been lured away from DC’s romance line and given odd assignments before assuming the artistic reins of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear.

Now he was co-piloting the company’s biggest property and expected to run with it.

With issue #41 and ‘The Horns of the Rhino!’ Romita took complete artistic control, inking his own pencils in a blockbusting rip-roarer as a super-strong spy tasked with abducting J. Jonah Jameson‘s astronaut son was stopped by the Astounding Arachnid, who found the victim a far harder proposition in the next issue. Amazing Spider-Man #42 ‘The Birth of a Super-Hero!’ saw John Jameson mutated by space-spores and go on a terrifying rampage in a explosive, entertaining yarn only really remembered for the last panel of the final page…

Mary Jane Watson had been a running gag for years; a prospective blind-date arranged by Aunt May whom Peter had narrowly avoided – and the creators had skilfully not depicted – for the duration of time that our hero had been involved with Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and latterly Gwen Stacy. In that last frame the gob-smacked young man finally realised that he been ducking the hottest chick in New York for two years!

‘Rhino on the Rampage!’ in #43 gave the horn-headed villain one more crack at Jameson and Spidey, but the emphasis was solidly on foreshadowing future foes and building Pete and MJ’s relationship.

The Marvel mayhem continued with the return of a tragedy-drenched old foe as Stan & John reintroduced biologist Curt Conners in #44′s ‘Where Crawls the Lizard!’. The deadly reptilian marauder threatened Humanity itself and it took all of the wall-crawler’s resourcefulness to stop him in the cataclysmic concluding chapter ‘Spidey Smashes Out!’

Issue #46 introduced another all-new menace in the form of seismic super-thief ‘The Sinister Shocker!’ who proved little match for the Web-spinner whilst ‘In the Hands of the Hunter!’ brought back a fighting-mad and extremely vengeful Kraven to menace the family of Peter Parker’s new best friend Harry Osborn.

Apparently the obsessive big-game hunter had entered into a contract with Harry’s father (the super-villainous Green Goblin until a psychotic break turned him into a traumatised amnesiac) and now the Russian rogue wanted paying off or payback…

Luckily Spider-Man was on hand to dissuade him, but it’s interesting to note that at this time the student life and soap-opera sub-plots became increasingly important to the mix, with glamour girls Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy (superbly delineated by the masterful Romita) as well as former bully Flash Thompson and the Osborns getting as much or more “page-time” as Aunt May or the Daily Bugle staff, who had previously monopolised the non-costumed portions of the ongoing saga.

Amazing Spider-Man #48 introduced Blackie Drago: a ruthless thug who shared a prison cell with one of the wall-crawler’s oldest foes. At death’s door the ailing super-villain revealed his technological secrets, enabling Drago to escape and master ‘The Wings of the Vulture!’

Younger, faster, tougher, the new Vulture defeated Spider-Man and in #49′s ‘From the Depths of Defeat!’ battled Kraven the Hunter until a restored and reinvigorated Wall-crawler stepped in to thrash them both.

Issue #50 introduced one of Marvel’s greatest villains in the first of a three part yarn that saw the beginnings of romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy and the death of a cast member, re-established Spidey’s war on cheap thugs and common criminals (a key component of the hero’s appeal was that no criminal was too small for him to bother with) and saw a crisis of conscience force him to quit in ‘Spider-Man No More!’ only to return and become entangled ‘In the Clutches of… the Kingpin!’ (inked by Mike Esposito, moonlighting from DC as Mickey Demeo).

The remaining two chapters of that groundbreaking, gang-busting triptych are reproduced in the next volume but there’s still one last treat in store…

This chronicle concludes with ‘…To Become an Avenger!’ (Amazing Spider-Man Annual # 3 and out of sequence – so if you’re that way inclined read this tale first) as the World’s Mightiest Heroes offered the Web-Spinner membership in the team and an end to most of his pecuniary and P.R. woes if he could capture the Hulk.

As usual all was not as it seemed but the action-drenched epic, courtesy of Lee, Romita (on layouts), Don Heck & Demeo/Esposito is the kind of guest-heavy package that made those summer specials a kid’s ultimate delight.

Topped off with a cover gallery and glorious pin-ups of the entire cast of Peter Parker’s life, one last Ditko action-page and a group shot of Spidey with all the heroes stronger than him, this classic compendium is the ideal way to introduce or reacquaint readers with the formative Spider-Man. The brilliant adventures are superb value and this series of books should be the first choice of any adult with a present to buy for an impressionable child.

…Or for their greedy, needy selves…
© 1966, 1967, 1997 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.