FANTASTIC FOUR 103
cover by John Romita & John Verpoorten
Namor, egged on by Magneto, is about to attack New York, while Reed gets on the video hook-up with President Nixon, asking for a chance to try to reason with Namor first. Reed sends Sue to take Franklin to Agatha Harkness where he'll be out of danger, Johnny tells Crystal she has to stay behind to watch the communications room (she says "This is the LAST time I will stay behind!"), and Reed, Ben & Johnny head out in the Fantasti-Car to confront Namor. Magneto causes a missile to be fired at them, then takes full command of Namor's flagship while Namor is underwater tackling The Thing. When Sue returns from Agatha's, she gets captured by Magneto. Just as Reed, Ben & Johnny are struggling with Namor, Magneto announces he has BOTH Sue AND Dorma as hostages, threatening them is anyone makes a move to stop his using Namor's army to attack New York. Reed & Namor both find themselves in the same boat (so to speak), as they try to decide what their next move should be.
Plot-wise, not that bad, really. The characterization comes across as pretty flat, though, especially the scene with Crystal, who Johnny seems to be treating as if she's just some normal girl, not possibly the most powerful member of their team! The BAD part-- the art. There's no getting around it. John Romita tells how "ye editor" came to him and told him that Kirby had gone to DC, and now, HE was gonna do the FF. Romita reportedly said, "You mean, you're NOT gonna CANCEL it?" Cancelling the book would have been a lot more merciful than what happened. John Romita is no Jack Kirby. In fact, after doing NOTHING BUT LAYOUTS for the last 3 straight years, John Romita wasn't really John Romita anymore, either!
To make it worse, Joe Sinnott-- the book's other mainstay since FF #44-- is nowhere to be found, and John Verpoorten is filling in on inks! "Ye editor" spends the entire Bullpen page this month raving about how Marvel has never made so many sweeping changes, so many changes in creative line-ups, taken so many wild chances before. It sounds like he's bragging, but all I can see are multiple disasters all going on at once. Kirby was gone-- so Romita & Verpoorten were on the FF. Meanwhile, Romita hand-picked Gil Kane to do AMAZING SPIDER-MAN-- and I hate almost every issue Kane did on the book! Meanwhile, Neal Adams took on THOR for 2 issues-- and, inexplicably, "ye editor" had Joe Sinnott doing the inks! So all these books wound up getting messed up at the same time, instead of only the ones Kirby had been doing.
Romita & Verpoorten were NOT a good team. The whole book reminds me of a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon-- and one of their CHEAPER ones, at that. I can see in certain panels where Romita did touch-ups on faces (his trademark at this point, even on books he wasn't otherwise involved in), but it's not helping-- especially with The Thing, who almost looks like some kind of toy action figure. Scale-- an all-too-common problem with even some of the best artists I've seen-- is BLATENTLY off in spots, as when Romita shows the team on the roof of the Baxter Building-- the building far too small for the size of the Fantastic-Car, the car far too small for the size of the figures!
Let me put it this way... given a choice between this, and ANY previous Kirby issue-- even the ones inked by "George Bell"-- or VINCE COLLETTA-- I'll take "Bell" or Colletta by a MILE. I don't know who could have taken over this book and done it properly at the time. Maybe NOBODY. Maybe it SHOULD have been cancelled-- or at least, taken off the schedule until some "appropriate" creator could have been found. I've seen some Barry Smith art from around this period (including a stunning pin-up he did of MEDUSA) which suggested to me, of all Marvel's artists from this time, HE might have been the one who might have made a real go of it. But he turned out to be very busy on something else... that started this very month.
I used to think the FF went to hell when "ye editor" stopped writing it. Until I started getting the issues I was missing between Kirby & Thomas. That's when I realized, "ye editor"s issues-- without Kirby-- were just horrible. HORRIBLE!
(7-23-2008)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 89
cover by JOHN ROMITA
Well-- JACK KIRBY called "ye editor" on the weekend to say he was starting to work for DC on Monday. "Ye editor" must have flipped out or something. He grabbed John Romita and told him HE was gonna draw FANTASTIC FOUR. "You mean-- you're not gonna cancel it?", John reportedly asked. Would that he had. Romita was TERRIBLE on the FF-- the characters didn't look right, the storytelling was awful (and if he was doing the plots, or a big part of them, he was COMPLETELY out of his league). It was even worse because John Verpoorten did the inks. Good inker-- TERRIBLE match. The whole thing looked like a cheap Saturday morning cartoon. Where was Joe Sinnott? Inking Neal Adams on THOR. Boy. THAT made a lot of sense. He said. Sarcastically. What's this got to do with Spidey? Lots. Romita moved over to the FF-- and apparently, his "personal choice" to take over was... Gil Kane. (AAAAAUGH!!!!)
Okay, I'll admit, Gil Kane's DEBUT on ASM actually wasn't bad. All that wild, totally out-of-control all-over-the-place layouts he was doing on CAPTAIN MARVEL are nowhere to be seen. Instead, the book looks... "normal". Considering John Romita had apparently been doing 90% (or more) of the plotting for some time-- with Jim Mooney, with John "I hate super-heroes" Buscema, with himself-- I have to figure he was supplying Gil Kane with VERY detailed plots-- if not actual thumbnails. The drawing is PURE Kane-- but the way the pages are laid out-- well, this is a lot more "DC"-looking than anything Kane had done for Marvel at this point. Having John Romita on inks must have been a HUGE help. Romita's a very over-powering inker anyway (look how damn good he made Don Heck's work on AVENGERS #23). Romita had been consistently doing "touch-ups" on faces to keep characters on-model. Now, he didn't have to. He was the inker! And inking was what he always wanted to do when he came to Marvel-- it was "ye editor" who pushed him into doing pencils-- then layouts. He apparently enjoyed working with Kane. With such HEAVY involvement on his end (plot & inks), the book might have actually held together.
Randy Robertson gives Pete hell for not wanting to be involved in the latest protest march. But he's seen news reports-- Dr. Octopus' body was NOT found in the wreckage of the plane. He knows what THAT means. The 2nd half of the issue is ONE LONG fight, ending with Ock tossing Spidey off a rooftop. (Like that's gonna work.)
Another lame-o cover, broken down into 3 vertical panels. At least there weren't any word balloons this time...
(7-28-2008)
IRON MAN 30
cover by Marie Severin & Bill Everett
CAPTAIN AMERICA 130
cover by Marie Severin & Joe Sinnott
This starts out with "ye editor" saying "This one has to be seen to be believed!" He says Gene tossed in "the kitchen sink" and "It may not make much sense-- but we guarantee you won't be bored!" Cap watches a CAPTAIN AMERICA movie which features The Hulk (detailing an adventure that apparently never happened), then continues on his "EASY RIDER" bike tour, running across a small town beset with yet ANOTHER college student protest-turned-riot. He rescues a dean from his office, then is acosted by a TV producer who wants him to appear on a talk-show. Instead of reading the pre-written script (which was specifically designed to incite more hatred between "youth" and "establishment"), Cap speaks out about how this country was formed by "rebels". At that point, the person who set the whole tv appearance up-- a mystery man calling himself "The Hood"-- orders the producer to stop Cap, anyway way he can. The guy gets on the phone with Batroc, who, together with his new "brigade", consisting of The Porcupine & Whirlwind (strangely wearing his old Human Top costume), arrive at the studio "sixty seconds later" (I mean fast is fast, but this is ridiculous!), get into a fight with Cap live on the air, then escape (all in 4 pages flat). The Hood swears the next time, his "intended victim" will not be so lucky. The last panel is a shot of Cap on his cycle, as huge lettering says "DONT DARE MISS NEXT ISSUE'S SPELLBINDING SURPRISE!"
Not exceptionally bad... just okay, at best. And this book deserves to be better than "okay". These one-issue-story things are preventing the book from having stories that build, and is force-fitting old villains into virtual cameo appearances, robbing their returns of any impact or significance. As it happens, this is-- loosely-- the beginning of a 3-parter, but it's hardly connected to the next issue at all, despite "ye editor"s claim (ON THE 1ST PAGE!) that "what follows is like a wild and wacky build-up to the startling surprise that awaits you next ish!" So let me get this straight... They told us THIS story so they could tell us THAT one? (Gee, that reminds me of HALLOWEEN 5...)
Gene Colan's work is alright, Dick Ayers' inks show he had more time than before (though his style still seems far too rough for Colan's). The cover is outrageous. Marie Severin & Joe Sinnott have Cap fighting Whirlwind, Porcupine & Batroc (with Whirlwind wearing his current costume rather than his old one as in the story-- wha' hoppen there?) and has no less than 6 blurbs (6!!!).
(7-23-2008)
SUB-MARINER 30
cover by Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito
Rick finds himself in Miami, and runs into a raging Sub-Mariner on the beach, whose suffering from some temporary amnesia and an irrational fear of the ocean! After a pointless battle with CM, Subby collapses, and on awakening is befriended by Rick, who tries to help him figure out what’s wrong. Along the way, he invited him to the little club he’s playing music. Subby flips out again, and after another brief (and pointless) fight, it eventually comes out that Subby earlier had a run-in with a Mr. Markham, a eco-terrorist who’s blackmailing countries so he won’t pollute their oceans. Having recently gotten very ecology-minded, naturally this bugs Subby, but good. CM & Subby team up to stop Markham, eventually hurling his machine of mass destruction to an explosive end in outer space. But a few cross words from the persistently bad-tempered Rick causes the unusually friendly Subby to leave him alone on the beach. One more Roy Thomas comic ending in a downbeat mood.
It’s funny that this book has 2/3rds of the team that did CM’s last guest-appearance, with only inker Joe Gaudioso being a newbie for CM. I’m missing most of the 70’s run of SUB-MARINER, but went after this one specifically to plug this gap in my CM chronology! I’ve seen a lot of artists do Subby, and while Sal’s okay, he doesn’t really “do it” for me on the character like Marie Severin, Dan Adkins, Jack Kirby, Wally Wood-- or Bill Everett. (ESPECIALLY Bill Everett.) I’m not sure Sal might have had more success with CM, either. But we’ll never know…
Fred had this for $5.95.
(7-2-2004)
"CALLING CAPTAIN MARVEL!"
Rick Jones is feeling sorry for himself despite snagging a music job in Florida. He runs into the Sub-Mariner, who's not acting himself (and given his regular mood-swings, that's really saying something). Following a fight on the beach with Mar-Vell, Namor flips out, then collapses. Waking up in the beach-house Rick's employer is letting him use, Namor flips out again, heads for the ocean, then can't bring himself to go in the water. Following another 2-page sequence looking back on Namor's earlier career (it's like Roy Thomas just CAN'T HELP HIMSELF with these things!), Rick invites Namor to the nightclub where he's performing to relax and sort things out. When song-lyrics about an a-bomb blast flip Namor out a 3rd time, Mar-Vell heads after him, and soon, he remembers what led him to this point. (Man, TOOK long enough! 3/4ths of the book's gone by and we haven't gotten to the "main" story yet!) Namor ran across a Mr. Markham, who had been setting up equipment designed to "pollute" the oceans of the world, causing worldwide devastation-- for blackmail purposes! An explosion during a fight had screwed with his memory (and somehow caused him to fear the water). Now, Namor & CM tackle Markham together, and wind up hurling his evil machine into space where it explodes harlmessly. Namor sees CM switch places with Rick as he falls back to Earth, but when Rick brushes Namor off about an explanation, he heads back to sea, leaving Rick to sulk by himself again.
NOT a very pleasant read. Namor has become a minor celebrity at this point among the "ecology"-minded crowd, a good idea that doesn't seem to be followed up on that well. In a repeat of AVENGERS #72, Mar-Vell makes another guest-appearance in someone else's mag 2 months after his own was cancelled (for the 2nd time), and in both cases, Roy Thomas & Sal Buscema were involved. I don't know if Sal could have made a CAPTAIN MARVEL book work; his style seems too cartoony, his figures too stiff to be that impressive. At this point, he's really one of my LEAST-favorite SUB-MARINER artists, and "Joe Gaudioso" (Mike Esposito) isn't helping much. (It still looks WAY better than their team-ups of some years later.) This was one of the first issues from this part of the run I got ahold of a few years back, when I was trying to track down all of Mar-Vell's appearances.
Though there's not a clue in this issue, apparently, this episode takes place shortly before Sub-Mariner's appearance in FANTASTIC FOUR #102-104.
(7-23-2008)
THE INCREDIBLE HULK 132
cover by Herb Trimpe & John Severin
THOR 181
cover by Marie Severin (layout), John Buscema & John Verpoorten
THE AVENGERS 81
cover by John Buscema & Tom Palmer
Cap, Pietro, Thor & Iron Man are preparing to seek out Zodiac, while The Panther goes to help with a separate problem in Harlem. The Vision, Scarlet Witch & Goliath travel with Red Wolf to his people's land, and have their Quinjet shot out of the sky by another craft piloted by robots. Cornelius Van Lunt holds Wanda hostage to force The Vision to keep his team-mates at bay. But eventually her powers, which had faded, return, and together they destroy a dam Van Lunt had built which was diverting water from the tribe's land, and Van Lunt appears to die in the destruction. Red Wolf rejoins his people as Will Talltreees, but it's obvious to Goliath that Will's uncle realizes his nephew's secret identity and has decided to say nothing of it.
Iron Man's pondering that "We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of The Avengers!" is just too much over-the-top melodramatic nonsense. Similarly, Goliath fighting with Vision is more of the usual uncalled-for hero-vs-hero stuff, always with at least one side completely over-reacting. Marvel's heroes often seem too much like "normal people" and not enough like "professionals" to be doing the sort of high-end important work that they do. It didn't occur to me until I read the following issue (and looked back over this one) that NOWHERE in this episode is it ever explained what the heck Van Lunt is doing, or why! At least that would be taken care of next time... At least John Buscema & Tom Palmer's art is top-notch, though a bit cramped, averaging 6 or more panels per page. It's a bit odd that Roy Thomas had 3 different titles for this story-- last issue it announced "Divided-- We Fall!", this issue's cover says "When A Legend Dies!" and the actual title was "When Dies A Legend!" The cover has 2 word balloons and a blurb... I guess it could be worse (and generally, it would be in the months to come...)
(7-25-2008)
DAREDEVIL 69
cover by SAL BUSCEMA
DD stops a pair of thugs from hijacking goods from a warehouse, then taking their driver (injured in an attempted getaway) to a hospital. He runs into The Black Panther, who says his Avengers membership may be in jeopardy for his working solo on this case. A black "hate group" called The Thunderbolts tried to recruit an army vet who wanted nothing more to do with violence. But when he later appeared to join the gang, his kid brother decided to as well-- and it's the kid brother who's life is hanging by a thread, distraught over his older brother turning bad. DD & The Panther-- who, they discover, has each figured out the other's secret identity (!!), team up to tackle The Thunderbolts at a warehouse. In the confusion, Billy, the older brother, reveals the reason he joined the gang was because he's been working with the Prosecuting Attouney to get the goods on them-- which is how Matt Murdock knew about it. At the hospital, Lonnie learns the truth, and finds his will to live returns. DD asks the Panther out for a drink, and the Panther replies, "Don't keep me out too late, hear?"
This one kinda fits in with the whole "blaxploitation" fad of the early 70's, with its focus on urban settings and black characters (bad AND good ones). While I noticed the "Virgil Tibbs" IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT tribute when Roy had The Panther join The Avengers (he was accused of their murder), it was only here I noticed having him become a school teacher under his American identity of "Luke Charles" was a TO SIR WITH LOVE tribute. This just confirms my feeling that the Panther was originally based on Sidney Poitier, who specialized in playing upper-class, well-educated characters. This was the 2nd time DD and the Panther teamed up, though I'm missing the earlier story. Gene Colan does his usual wonderful, dark, shadowy, moody thing with night scenes, vertigo-inducing high-angle shots, and wonderfully "real", expressive character faces. I have to guess Syd Shores is helping this along quite well-- I say guess because I have this as a "Deadline Doom" reprint in JUNGLE ACTION #23 (Sep'76), and the line reproduction is HORRIBLE!!! Whoever once described Marvel's stat machine as a "blunt instrument" wasn't kidding!
(7-23-2008)
(Continued in October 1970, Pt. 2)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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