TOWER OF SHADOWS 7
cover by Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers
(alteratins by MARIE SEVERIN)
This has heroic Vandal The Barbarian & his elf sidekick Pit Tippit, fighting a horde of ogres on a stone bridge over a deep chasm. Descending to the forest below, they encounter Princess Lissal, whose people have been getting turned into stone statues by Arak, an evil sorcerer who can fly and shoot magical beams from his eyes. Splitting into 2 teams to tackle Arak's castle, Lissal & Pit are both turned to stone, as is Arak, while his companion, Trolkin (another elf who is under a previous spell that turned him into a lizard-man) makes it up to Arak's castle tower. As the wizard attacks, his magic backfires against himself, turning him to stone, which, being unable to fly, crashes to the ground and shatters. With Arak dead, all his victims are returned to normal, and at a victory banquet, Trolkin reveals that as he was already under one spell, Arak's was doomed not to work on him!
The 3rd of Wally Wood's "fantasy" stories from this period is as visually STUNNING as ever, and probably has the most likeable set of characters, and the most "upbeat" ending. This may be why THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD printed it last, so the "fantasy" part of the book wouldn't end on a downer (as his 4th story did).
TOS continued downward at this point. For the 2nd issue in a row, the lead story was actually a Kirby-Ayers reprint from 1960-- "I Was Trapped By Titano The Monster That Time Forgot"-- and THAT's what was on the cover!! The middle story was "The Scream Of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Smith & Vince Colletta (Smith & Colletta-- THAT can't be good...) but the cover has NO clue that Smith OR Wood had work inside. What kind of way is that to sell a comic magazine???
(7-21-2008)
AMAZING ADVENTURES 2
cover by John Buscema & John Verpoorten
The Inhumans, believing The Great Refuge was attacked by a nuclear missile fired at them from The Baxter Building, go to NYC to attack the Fantastic Four! Ben winds up tackling Lockjaw, Black Bolt & Karnak, while Medusa pulls Crystal aside and lets Gorgan tackle Johnny. The whole thing was set up by Maximus, who, in exile since FF #83 (Feb'69), with his loyal band of renegade Inhumans (the same ones introduced in HULK ANNUAL #1), is planning on taking over The Great Refuge once the people there realize how Black Bolt has miserably failed them. But, suspecting the "clues" might be false ones, Triton manages to track down Maximus, and drags him back to face justice. Learning the truth, the rest of the Inhumans break off their attack, and Black Bolt restores Ben's robe to better shape than before his attack. They depart, Medusa leaving them to ponder how THEIR country might respond to an unprovoked nuclear attack?
Better than I remember. It's almost a shock to see Chic Stone back at Marvel, and once again inking Jack Kirby-- whose art has changed quite a bit in 5 years. These 10-pagers don't seem to allow much room for anything, and it's jarring to see Jack Kirby trying to squeeze so much in, often doing 8 panels to a page! Crystal & Johnny are seen dancing to rock & roll (EXACTLY as they were at the start of FF #101), a nice tie-in, but I'm a bit confused as to what takes place in what order. Similarly, Maximus, who was in exile and tried to attack in secret, is seen captured at this story's end, but is openly at war with The Great Refuge in SILVER SURFER #18, which came out the same month. I SUPPOSE Maximus escaped between stories... it would have been nice if there was some indication of that somewhere. While generally consistent with past characterization, all of the Inhumans come across as flat, one-note ciphers with no personality-- even Medusa, who should have known better by this time. (I mean, NOT EVEN a apology for what happened!) Only Ben really "feels" like himself, which makes me wonder, when "ye editor" & Kirby worked together, was "ye editor" using Kirby dialogue, or, as Jack wrote this one himself, is Kirby following "ye editor"s lead? Jack's longtime habit of having LONG narrative intros before the story title (which was a common style at DC for decades, and which also turned up in the "Golden Age style" Red Skull story in TALES OF SUSPENSE #65) is used here, a taste of things to come from Kirby.
(7-21-2008)
"THE YOUNG WARRIORS"
The Black Widow is in the middle of an affair with some movie director, then thinking back on Hawkeye & The Red Guardian, who she reminds herself were "the past!" Her cleaning lady's son Carlos asks to meet her, and she winds up showing off some moves in her private gym (the whole time realizing she hasn't done much about having a "secret identity"). Carlos is a member of "The Young Warriors", a gang who actually wish to help their community, but their plan involves taking over a building occupied by a local mob boss and turning it into a community center to give free meals to poor families' children. Naturally, the mobster's thugs object, a fight breaks out, the cops haul the trigger-happy thugs away, but also serve the gang a court order giving them 24 hours to vacate the premises. A newspaper columnist, Paul Hamilton, tells Natasha that stories are already linking her with "militants", and he'd like to help steer things in a more positive direction.
Another so-so episode. John Verpoorten seems to capture John Buscema's style nicely without actually adding or detracting from it; I prefer when inkers do more "embellishing". Natasha seems to be rambling without direction, and I still haven't found a clue as to why she dumped Hawkeye so unceremoniously! For some reason, the splash page consists entirely of poses of The Black Widow taken from the later pages. Was somebody running really late on deadline, or what?
I really wish they'd have had ONE story spotlighted on these covers, instead of trying to cram both in there. "Ye editor" should have known better after 1965. Also, John Buscema's rendition of the FF at the bottom is just AWFUL. Hard to believe he wound up on their book-- and for such a long time!
(7-21-2008)
(Continued in October 1970)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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