FANTASTIC FOUR 91
cover by Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott
Most of the issue is spent with Ben, on an outlying planet in The Skrull Empire, where due to their earlier fascination with a captive Earth gangster, has been transformed into a duplicate of prohibition-era Chicago! One of the "gangsters" (a Skrull in disguise) even looks and talks like Edward G. Robinson. It seems these "gangsters" pit "slaves" against each other in deadly combats (in which apparently nobody survives) to determine border disputes and decide who takes over who else's "territory". Ben remains helpless, and finds himself imprisoned with Torgo-- a robot captive-- who is scheduled to fight Ben to the death. Back on Earth, Reed has learned Ben was taken to an open field by a cabbie, with another man who looked exactly like Reed. As Ben seems to have "vanished off the face of the Earth", Reed concludes he was captured by a Skrull!
Great Kirby-Sinnott art as usual. This story manages to pay tribute to at least 2 STAR TREK episodes at the same time-- "A Piece Of The Action" (the one about the gangster planet) and "The Gamesters Of Triskellion" (captives pitted against each other in fights to the death). "Fun" stuff-- I guess- though taken with the earlier "PRISONER" tribute, it does seems someone may have been running out of fresh ideas here. Even so, leave it to Jack Kirby to borrow ideas from someone else, and do it in such a way that it's so well-done you don't mind!
(7-3-2008)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 77
cover by JOHN ROMITA
Spidey & The Human Torch fight The Lizard-- and each other-- as Spidey keeps trying to get the Torch to butt out so he can defeat The Lizard on his own, and The Torch just refuses to "run" from a battle. This stupidity goes on until Spidey claims his "spider-sonic hearing" detected trouble at The Baxter Building, and The Torch flies off, not knowing he's been had! In a warehouse, Spidey uses some chemicals to dehydrate The Lizard, and sure enough, it causes him to change back to Curt Connors. Connors & his family hardly know how to thank Spidey, and he leaves, everything having gone his way (for once), though he's not looking forward to seeing The Torch anytime soon.
This issue effectively wraps up a 10-part sequence that began all the way back when The Kingpin decided to steal the mysterious stone tablet from the University. It's been non-stop since then, and it's nice when they finally get back to taking a breather between stories. Once again, layouts are by John Buscema (once again using mostly 4 panels to a page), pencils & inks by Jim Mooney, and presumably John Romita doing touch-ups on faces. The way the credits are written, it's hard to tell who did what exactly, but that goes for "ye editor" as well (who wrote the credits), as he keeps listing himself as "author", even though the chances are Romita & Buscema BOTH had much more to do with the story than "ye editor" did.
(7-3-2008)
IRON MAN 18
cover by GEORGE TUSKA
CAPTAIN AMERICA 118
cover by Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott
(alterations by JOHN ROMITA)
Cap (in the Skull's body, and with his face disguised) and The Falcon (Sam Wilson) take on The Exiles, while The Skull watches via the Cosmic Cube. Meanwhile, Rick Jones continues to feel sorry for himself, which is a pretty sad spectacle. At one point, the Skull considers injuring dozens of Cap's over-zealous fans, but stops himself because he realizes using the Cube in that fashion will make people realize it may not be the real Cap. Finally impatient, he decides to step in personally to deal the final defeat to his enemy...
While not quite as stunning as last issue, the art by Gene Colan & Joe Sinnott continues to dazzle. The letters pages seem split over the Rick Jones thing, with quite a few readers feeling it was a serious mistake to ever have him dress up in Bucky's uniform. "Ye editor" must have felt the same way-- making it all the more obvious that Jim Steranko was the one who wrote those 3 issues (#110, 111, 113), NOT "ye editor", though he refuses to admit it! It's curious that "ye editor" seemed hell-bent on NOT having Sharon Carter become Cap's new partner (after all the work Jack Kirby did to set that up), and NOT having Rick Jones being Cap's new partner (despite Jim Steranko's best efforts), but he liked the idea of Sam Wilson becoming his new partner. I guess it was the times...
(7-4-2008)
SILVER SURFER 9
cover by John Buscema & Dan Adkins
The Surfer fights The Flying Dutchman above Manhattan while Mephisto watches. At one point, the Dutchman threatens a woman's life if the Surfer won't pledge his soul to Mephisto, but this only makes the Surfer use his cosmic power in a more awesome fashion to attack the guy without hitting the hostage. He also feels genuine compasion and pity for the guy... and surprisingly, because of the curse he'd been under for centuries, this was the ONLY thing that could free his soul to go to its eternal rest! As a result, Mephisto loses TWO souls.
Not much to say about this. They're just not grabbing me at all.
(7-4-2008)
SUB-MARINER 18
cover by Marie Severin & Mike Esposito
(alteratins by JOHN ROMITA)
"SIDE BY SIDE WITH TRITON!"
THE INCREDIBLE HULK 120
cover by HERB TRIMPE
"ON THE SIDE OF THE EVIL INHUMANS"
CAPTAIN MARVEL 17
cover by Gil Kane & Dan Adkins
The Supreme Intelligence apparently communicates with Mar-Vell telepathically while he's trapped in The Negative Zone. Observing out world, he watches Rick Jones, who's feeling immensely sorry for himself, as he leaves Avengers' Mansion, tosses away his Avengers Priority Card (!!!), and hitches a ride to... nowhere in particular. Once there, he sees a ghostly image of Captain America, and although he realizes it can't be the real Cap, follows it over hills and into a cave, where he finds statues of alien creatures, an alien laboratory, and a pair of shiny wrist-bands-- which he puts on, and, following a mental command, slaps them together. In an instant, Mar-Vell is back on Earth-- but Rick Jones is stuck in the Negative Zone! While the two can communicate telepathically, Rick isn't the least bit happy about it. But before either has time to think, who should show up, wanting the "Nega-Bands", but Colonel Yon-Rogg. After a brief fight, he flees in a Kree shuttle, then tosses what looks like Carol Danvers out the hatch into Mar-Vell's arms. He realizes too late it's really a bomb, but the Nega-Bands protect him, even as they've given him the power of flight among others to replace all the powers granted him by Zarek, apparently lost when he was pulled into the Negative Zone. Switching places with Rick again, Rick now feels some sort of "merging" has taken place-- and he now feels overwhelmed with the desire to seek vengeance on Yon-Rogg, even if it takes the rest of his life (which it might-- the narrator suggests-- OH YEAH???).
This issue presents a violent shock to the readers, as after promising Archie Goodwin, Don Heck & Syd Shores as the "new regular team", and asking readers' patience to let Archie have a few issues to clear up earlier plot threads, ALL 3 guys were replaced in this issue! In their place were Roy Thomas (returning because "ye editor" felt things had gotten so bad he felt his right-hand guy might be the "only" one to fix it), Gil Kane (fresh from GREEN LANTERN, apparently really hot to do this series), and Dan Adkins (who inked Tom Sutton 2 issues before-- but try as he might, I think he's out of his league here). The sequence where Rick finds the cave is clearly a tribute to the classic origin sequence where Billy Batson finds the cave with the statues of "7 Deadly Sins" before being granted the power of Captain Marvel (the REAL one, not this new fella). It's only the latest element ripped from some other series tacked onto Mar-Vell, and it may be the most painful one to bear. While I found Roy's earlier work on this series extremely annoying at times, that was nothing compared to this. There's so much narration and self-indulgent and awkward dialogue, I'd have to rate this as one of the worst writing jobs of Roy's I have ever had to suffer through. Gil Kane, inspired by the dynamics of Jack Kirby's art, had spent several years slowly altering his own style, and his "new" style really explodes in this issue. Anatomy is stretched all over the place, the layouts are reminiscent of Neal Adams', the faces are downright ugly, none of them recognizable as the characters readers knew from other artists' work (without the costumes you'd never be able to tell who half these people are). And poor Dan Adkins-- despite having such a slick, sharp, "clean" style, Kane's pencils are just TOO extreme. It would have taken Wally Wood himself to make these pages look really good-- or Joe Sinnott at the very least. The results, at least to my eyes are, HORRIBLE plotting, HORRIBLE layouts, HORRIBLE pencils, and REALLY HORRIBLE dialogue!!! "Ye editor" actually thought this would somehow be an improvement?
After getting my hands on CM #16 by Goodwin, Heck & Shores, I realized just how RIPPED OFF readers had actually been by this abrupt change. I wonder how it might have been if those 3 guys had been able to stick around and finally pull the series together into something coherent-- instead of having it PULLED APART into a total mess.
(7-4-2008)
THOR 169
cover by Jack Kirby & George Klein and JOHN ROMITA
THE AVENGERS 69
cover by Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger
Tony Stark is in the hospital on the verge of death, awaiting a heart specialist who may be able to save his life. But meanwhile, The Growing Man (from THOR #140) suddenly turns up, kidnaps Stark, and the team tries to save him, only to have all of them pulled into the far future to face Kang The Conqueror. The Black Panther, already one of his "guests", suggests they listen, as the fate of the entire planet rests with them helping their longtime arch-enemy. Kang has been approached by The Grandmaster, some kind of immortal omnipotent being, who has offered him the power to restore his beloved Ravonna to life-- if he'll just play a "simple" game. But if he loses, all life on Earth is forfeit. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Anyway, with the stakes being so high, The Avengers quickly agree, and suddenly find themselves facing a quartet of villains-- Dr. Spectrum, Hyperion, Nighthawk, and The Whizzer-- collectively, The Squadron Sinister.
This first of 3 parts introduces Marvel's villainous counterparts of DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA! As the JLA had faced the "Earth-2" Justice Society (some of whom were dopplegangers for the "Earth-1" heroes) and the "Earth-3" Injustice League Of Earth (villain dopplegangers of the heroes), here Roy Thomas-- who's always been a bigger DC fan than a Marvel fan (ironic, ain't it?) gets a chance to have fun with further alternate-universe copies (ahem, tributes) to some of his favorite heroes-- Green Lantern, Superman, Batman & The Flash. Only a Golden Age fanboy at the time might have realized that Marvel already had their own character called "The Whizzer", back in the 1940's. These characters-- or further dopplegangers of THEM-- would continue far beyond this initial "tribute". Sal Buscema & Sam Grainger continue a bang-up job, solid, sharp, if not generally spectacular.
(7-4-2008)
DAREDEVIL 57
cover by Gene Colan & Syd Shores
(alterations by JOHN ROMITA)
X-MEN 61
cover by NEAL ADAMS
The team spends half the issue fighting Sauron (half-man, half pterodactl-- sort of a fore-runner to DC's MAN-BAT) over, around and under the Pulaski Skyway (that's what it looks like to me). When Sauron suddenly begins to change back to human form, Dr. Lykos, he uses his hypnotic power to make The Angel carry him back to his office. The team later finds Angel at their mansion, with no memory of what happened, possibly hypnotized, and figure Dr. Lykos, who uses hypno-therapy, mighty be the guy to help. (And they NEVER connect that Lykos might be the one who did this to the Angel? GEEZ!) At his office, Lykos finds Tanya, his longtime love, has arrived. She wonders who the "intruders" are when the X-Men arrive to pick up Alex-- who, "drained" of excess power, is feeling great. But then Tanya's controlling father also arrives (gee, it's like Grand Central Terminal), more determined than ever that his daughter will NEVER marry Lykos, despite how much both love each other. Before long, as Sauron again, he attacks her father, but realizing how evil he becomes in that form, decides he must stay away from Tanya at all costs, and flies all the way to Tierra Del Fuego, where he was born, and where he encountered the flying reptiles in the first place. Tanya follows, and, fighting off the urge to drain HER life energy, he plunges off a cliff to his apparent death, as the X-Men, who followed, prevent her from also falling to her doom.
Well THAT was depressing, wasn't it? Reader reviews seem to be 100% positive to Adams' debut on the series, several hailing him as one of the best artists to ever work for Marvel. Roy seems geared up for what he hopes will be a long, productive run on the book. No question, it was impressive... shame it didn't last all that long.
(7-4-2008)
(Continued in November 1969)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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