FIVE books reviewed so far this month!
STRANGE TALES 160
cover by DAN ADKINS
Synopsis:
Cap introduces Fury to an "old friend" of his, FBI man Jimmy Woo. Fury relates the events of November 10, 1965. The ESP Division picked up a warning of a menace on Bedloe Island originating from Tibet, but a bolt of energy destroyed the machine and killed the agents. Cap answered Fury's call for assistance, and the two met deep under the Statue of Liberty, where they found an army of zombie-like invaders, planning to use an "Id-Paralyzer" to turn everyone on the East Coast into mindless slaves. Cap races toward the Baxter Building for more help, but the anti-grav belt he "borrowed" from the invaders cuts out in mid-air! Meanwhile, Fury, overcome by numbers, is tossed off the Statue's torch...
Indexer notes:
Part 2 of 9. 1st appearance of Fury's office with circular desk. Destruction of the ESP Division occurs between STRANGE TALES #143 (April 1966) and cameo in STRANGE TALES #157 (June 1967); this flashback "explains" their disappearance from the series, the latter appearance must be new recruits seen as the place was being re-constructed. Story apparently takes place between STRANGE TALES #145-146 and TALES OF SUSPENSE #78-79 (both June-July 1966). Fury is shown wearing his black jump-suit, even though he was never seen wearing it before STRANGE TALES #156 (May 1967). Fury also describes his outfit as "insulated" against electric shocks, despite his being nearly killed by one in STRANGE TALES #158 (July 1967). 1st appearance of Jimmy Woo since YELLOW CLAW #4 (April 1957).
(8-15-2007)
"IF THIS PLANET YOU WOULD SAVE!"
Synopsis:
In a remote mountain cavern, Strange is surrounded by a horde of evil mystics under the command of his most hated enemy, Baron Mordo! Mordo refuses to listen to reason, and orders his minions to kill Strange, who grabs the ring-leader and drives out the evil magic from him, returning the man to being merely an Oriental wine merchant. He then forces Mordo to see a vision of the danger menacing Earth, and Mordo's first instinct is to flee for his life! But Strange shows him how, with his help, he can drain all the evil from the assembled mystics, as long as he has a living form to contain it-- Mordo himself. Strange succeeds-- but Mordo, now coursing with the power of the entire coven, strikes down Strange, and plans to crush all of infinity in his grasp...
Indexer notes:
Part 14 of 22; part 3 of Living Tribunal sequence. Victoria Bentley last seen in STRANGE TALES #114 (November 1963).
(8-15-07)
FANTASTIC FOUR 66
cover by Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott
TALES TO ASTONISH 95
cover by MARIE SEVERIN
(no review yet)
"A WORLD HE NEVER MADE!"
This is the middle chapter of a 3-parter (#94-96) where Marie Severin involves The Hulk with The High Evolutionary (previous seen in THOR #134-135 / Nov-Dec'66). When last seen, he was headed out into space. Now, things have gone wrong AGAIN, as his "New Men" (artificially-evolved animals in the tradition of H.G. Wells' "THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU") have turned savage.
Hulk and Banner both prove to be no help, and, dying, the mad scientist uses his evolution ray on HIMSELF-- and in the style of THE OUTER LIMITS episode, "The Sixth Finger", turns himself into a being of the far-far future-- one of pure energy and intellect. He devolves all the New Men back to their animal forms, and leaves for space... leaving Hulk behind, marooned on an alien world.
The crazy thing, when #97 rolled around, Hulk was back on Earth... with NO explanation.
NOW... if I figure that Marie Severin WROTE this herself (and in at least one interview she CLAIMED the stories she did with "ye editor" were ("HIS") ideas-- but that may have been purely out of "company loyalty", as it was all those years with Roy Thomas & John Romita), then, MAYBE she had an explanation. And if so, then the "editor" failed to take note of it, or just ignored it. Either way, the guy who wrote the dialogue DEFINITELY F***ed up. I mean... a "REAL" editor would have CAUGHT such a blatent bonehead error as that.
It's pretty clear that Marie, like Gene Colan and John Buscema, did FAR better when working with Roy Thomas. Roy was never a really "great" writer. Hell, he had as many OR MORE annoying "tics" and bad habits as "ye editor". But at least Thomas WANTED to write.
(12-11-2013)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 52
cover by JOHN ROMITA
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 4
cover by Larry Lieber & Mike Esposito
Man, this really sucked. It was like MARVEL TEAM-UP before the fact-- of a HUMAN TORCH team-up, but nowhere near as good as when Dick Ayers was doing them. A foretaste of what was to come in the 70's. Sad.
(5-15-2008)
Okay, 7 years later... 2 interesting things have come up since then. First, I forget who said it, but someone once suggested this felt like it could have been part of the 1967 Grantray-Lawrence TV cartoon continuity. I can see that.
Second... a couple of things fell into place just the other day. One, it was obvious to me that the story Ross Andru wrote & illustrated-- that wound up as a sudden fill-in for the 3rd Captain Mar-Vell episode when that was yanked out of MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #14 at the very last minute, to be put in its own book (despite being the 2nd half of a 2-parter-- BAD FORM), had been sitting around "shelved" (rejected) for just about 6 months. How do I know this? Simple. If you look at the art, Pete is dating MJ. It's only in the dialogue (written by somebody else) that we are TOLD that Pete is dating Gwen. Well, guess what? ASM ANNUAL #4 is the LAST issue before Pete & Gwen start to get serious.
And, as it happens, Larry Lieber-- who wrote & illustrated this annual-- went UNCREDITED. The credits challenge the readers to guess the "mystery artist". There's a precedence for this! It's TALES TO ASTONISH #61 (Nov'64), the infamous issue where writer-artist Joe Orlando got SO PISSED OFF at "ye editor" for ordering him to re-write and re-draw so many pages, that Orlando WALKED of the book and right out the door, NEVER to return. Steve Ditko filled in and finished the story & art, at the last minute, UNCREDITED. Gee-- I wonder if he got PAID for his work??? It's a legitimate question, since the credits became the way they kept track of who officially did what and got paid for it-- OR NOT.
And whatta ya know? ASM ANNUAL #4 came out exactly 6 MONTHS before MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #14. Andru's story was done for ASM ANNUAL #4-- rejected-- and replaced by Lieber's story at the last minute. It all fits!
(11-21-2015)
Oh, by the way. I'm listing this book HERE because it HAS to take place in between ASM #52-53. There is NO break for the next 6 months at least after this spot. So there!
Maybe it came out with a November cover date, instead of a September cover date, because, as I explained above, it was VERY probably, a VERY late last-minute fill-in!!
But if you're re-reading these books yourself... READ THIS ONE HERE! Not 2 months later.
(8-24-2018)
TALES OF SUSPENSE 93
cover by Gene Colan & Frank Giacoia
THOR 144
cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer (rejected / inked & colored decades later)
cover by Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta
"THIS BATTLEGROUND EARTH!"
MAGNIFICENT. That says it. Vince Colletta must have been taking on too much work, because while he started "And Soon Shall Come The Enchanters", a few pages in, Bill Everett took over (and got sole credit). While I had the feeling in earlier episodes that Sif might have been based on Diana Rigg, in these, it really seems that Balder & Sif were based on Richard Burton & Liz Taylor!! The Enchanters were indeed an awesome menace-- but I'll TELL you where those idiots went wrong-- when their leader went to face Odin alone, while the other 2 decided to go to Earth to track down Thor & his friends. What fools! If the 3 of them had tackled Odin, Asgard might well have been under new management. As it was, when the battle with Odin went on, the power of the others was cut off-- and 3 against 2, it was just no contest. Meanwhile, TALES OF ASGARD is just better than ever-- and WAY better in color than in the ESSENTIAL book I also have. It was a kick to see Volstagg come to the rescue. Maybe he's NOT just all talk after all? (Though I loved the scene where he says to the devious woman, "Flee? Art though mad? SHOW ME THE WAY!" --or words to that effect.)
(05-15-08)
The Enchanters turn out to be IDIOTS!!! They split their power so their leader could take on Odin single-handedly. As a direct result, the other 2 guys' power was cut off while their leader fought Odin-- AND LOST. Had all 3 tackled Odin as one, it might have gone differently. Sheesh.
Meanwhile, ye editor apparently rejected a STUNNINGLY GLORIOUS cover in favor of what we got. Oy. That guy was really screwing things over this month (more than usual).
(4-19-2015)
THE AVENGERS 44
cover by John Buscema & George Roussos
THE AVENGERS ANNUAL #1
cover by John Buscema & George Roussos
(insets by Don Heck & George Roussos)
Lifelong "DC" fanboy Roy Thomas gets to do another whopping big tribute to Gardner Fox & the Justice Society Of America by splitting the team up to fight several separate battles around the world, then come together for the big climax. Don Heck does a SUPERB job on this issue. There's only one major problem in the long run... and it's that, while Heck was doing the ANNUAL, Thomas got John Buscema to "fill in" in several issues of the regular book. As a direct result, Heck got KICKED OFF his own series for the 2nd time, because Thomas liked Buscema's work better. Buscema should have been given his own book instead... like, say, X-MEN, which Heck was moved onto, to far lesser effect.
In an interview many years later, Thomas admitted he had come to regret his part in Heck's career taking a downward spiral. This was after he'd come to know what it was like, when he had trouble finding work as a writer himself, and when he watched characters HE created degraded and abused terribly by other writers (just as he'd done so often himself in earlier years).
(4-21-2015)
SGT. FURY & HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS 46
cover by DICK AYERS
DAREDEVIL 32
cover by Gene Colan & John Tartaglione
X-MEN 36
cover by Ross Andru & George Roussos
One of 2 issues with Ross Andru on the art. I wish I knew what the hell was going on with this book back in those days. My understanding is, somebody didn't want to hire Werner Roth, and had to be talked into it. Roth's art is "nice", but not the most dynamic. And yet, I've seen his work elsewhere-- DC, and notably, King-- and what he did elsewhere totally blows away everything he did for Marvel. An all-too-common phenomena, actually. When I think of the "definitive" X-MEN, somehow, I think of Werner Roth. But over and over and over, he kept being replaced, and seemed to become a fill-in artist on what by this point should have been considered his book.
I've never been too thrilled with Ross Andru's work. He and his longtime good buddy Mike Esposito are the reasons I STOPPED buying AMAZING SPIDER-MAN early in Len Wein's run on that book. Of all the work he did for Marvel in the 70s, (and there was quite a lot of it), I felt he was best on SUB-MARINER-- but he only did 3 issues of that (each one inked by a completely different inker). As it happens, I have this issue of X-MEN. It's ABOMINABLE. The writing is awful beyond belief, and the art, I think it's safe to say, is the 2nd-worst I've ever seen from Andru. George Roussos tended to murder most pencillers he was paired with. He sure did here.
It's not hard to figure why this was Andru's last issue on this book. Sadly, Don Heck next time wasn't much better. Heck had been KICKED OFF off THE AVENGERS for the most assinine of reasons, and probably was feeling very down and rejected when he got on X-MEN-- a book nobody seemed to want to do.
(4-22-2015)
GHOST RIDER 5
cover by DICK AYERS
"THE TARANTULA STRIKES BACK"
DICK AYERS supplies story & art, Gary Friedrich (apparently) does dialogue, and Vince "sidewinder" Colletta does inks.
(3-17-2014)
(Continued in October 1967)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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