ASTONISHING TALES 3
cover by MARIE SEVERIN
(alterations by JOHN ROMITA)
"DOOM MUST DIE"
As the rebels attack Dr. Doom's castle, he faces The Faceless One and The Doomsman-- who, because of the conflicting orders, breaks free and decides to act on its own decisions. At that point, because Doomsman was created with Doom's own brain waves, he's able to assert total control over it, and has it attack The Faceless One. His body held in a steel-grip, The Faceless One suddenly reveals he (it?) is an alien, with a spherical body and spider-like legs! It crawls away, then has its "body" explode" as a diversion. As Doom fights off the rebels single-handedly, The Faceless One takes control of the castle's weapons-systems, and attacks Doom with electronic bolts of energy, causing him to vanish. The rebels' seeming victory is short-lived, as Doom returns, announcing machinery beneath his castle (built on a fault line) has activated, causing an earthquake which levels the castle! The rebels flee for their lives. Doom calls The Doomsman back, and "tests" it against one of his most powerful robots. Realizing his androids are too dangerous, Doom abandons his hopes of creating an army of them. As The Doomsman tries to attack him while he sleeps, Doom gets the better of him, sending Doomsman into another dimension. He then calls all the able-bodied people in his kingdom together, and has them begin work on re-building the castle-- while he departs, until it's finished.
Whoa. MIND-BOGGLING that all this fit into only 10 pages. Wally Wood continues to work wonders, while Larry Lieber supplies the dialogue this time (I doubt he had any more than that to do with it). I notice the robot Doom had Doomsman fight at one point was identical in design to one Wood had painted on a pulp magazine cover sometime earlier (or was it later? hard to tell). Both Doomsman & The Faceless One would eventually return... as would Rudolpho... but that's standard procedure for Marvel. This was the last episode reprinted in THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD (1982), probably just as well, as while Wood did the 4th episode, he left in mid-story. (I hate when that happens.)
(7-27-2008)
CONAN THE BARBARIAN 2
cover by BARRY SMITH
Wandering the snowy wastes, Conan is lured by a lone female into a trap, and captured by some man-like apes dressed in armor. Taken to the underground city of Brutheim, is awakens to learn he's become one of the "beast-men"'s slaves, and will be so until he dies. Naturally, this doesn't sit with him, and he tries to escape at the first opportunity. Condemned to die in an arena as a result, he's given a knife by the "chief thrall" Kiord, to save himself the pain. Instead, he uses it to kill the "snow-lion" they send at him, and as a squad of beast-men rush the arena, the slaves, inspired by his example, finally revolt! With both leaders dead, the beast-men flee into the wasteland, as Conan honors Kiord, who at the last, died as a man.
Roy Thomas describes how this story was inspired by a brief passage Robert E. Howard's article "The Hyborean Age". Apparently, Martin Goodman didn't like the splash page, which had Conan kill a bear and take its pelt for a fur coat; as a result, Barry Smith had to redraw part of the page to show a dead beast-man, effectively blowing the surprise of their appearance 2 pages later, and some dialogue was re-written to accomodate it. (Sheesh.) This issue was nominated for "best story of 1971" by the Academy of Comic-Book Arts. (Are they still around?) After some initial concern abut the "stiff" art in CONAN #1, Barry Smith relieved everyone's worries when the art for #2 arrived, a VAST improvement. While there's still bits of Kirby influence here and there, he was already developing his own style.
I dug out my copies of CONAN CLASSIC for comparison' sake. I must say, while I initially liked the clean, "flat" color in these, I find the coloring job on THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN to be vastly superior. The color choices seem better in every case, they seriously aid the storytelling rather than detract from it. Although, I would have liked to have seen THOSE colors done "flat", instead of everything being overly-rendered with airbrush. Comparing an online scan of the cover with the one reprinted in CONAN CLASSIC, none of the colors match at all. Wouldn't you think somebody doing reprints would at least LOOK at the original to see what it looked like, instead of doing the whole job completely over from scratch?
The only surprising disappointment in the CHRONICLES books (other than the "overdone" coloring) is that they didn't include the covers. I mean, COME ON!! In addition, CONAN CLASSIC actually included rare or unpublished art as extras. #1 included the unused splash, and a page worth of panels cut when a new splash, plus a new page 2 was added. #2 includes the pencils for #1's cover, a half-page house ad for #2, and a piece Barry Smith did when the story in #2 was reprinted in CONAN SAGA #1 in 1987.
(7-27-2008)
WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS 3
cover by DICK AYERS
(alterations by HERB TRIMPE)
"THE MAN CALLED HURRICANE" clocks in at 10 pages. According to the GCD: "The story was originally announced for Ghost Rider (Marvel, 1967 series) #8. When the book was cancelled the story may have been partially completed. Note that the first five pages are inked by Vince Colletta and lettered by Artie Simek, while pages 6-10 are inked and lettered by Ayers; he may have completed the story for this issue. Info per Nick Caputo." DICK AYERS supplies story & art, Gary Friedrich does dialogue, and Vince Colletta & Dick Ayers split the inking duties. Makes me wonder why this wasn't used in WG #1 instead of #3.
The rest of the book is 41 pages' worth of reprints, featuring APACHE KID, WYATT EARP, BUCKSKIN BILLY, WESTERN KID and "BLACK MASK" (originally THE BLACK RIDER, inexplicably re-named for the reprint), plus 3 more miscellaneous stories. I'd actually say this would be a nicer package if it had been ALL-reprint, but that's me.
(3-27-2014)
(Continued in December 1970, Pt. 3)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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