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Post by scottharris on Jul 25, 2008 17:02:27 GMT -5
So, a long time ago, when I was a kid, I sort of inherited a large collection of early to mid 70's comics. Mostly DC, but with some Marvel mixed in, and even some Atlas (actually, almost the entirety of the Atlas Comics publishing history; edit: this refers to the Atlas Comics Group with published for a few months in the early 1970's, not the precursor to Marvel). Over the years, I've sold off or otherwise gotten rid of most of these; some of them made their way into my own collection while the majority I let go for storage reasons and to fund getting comics that I wanted.
However, I still have a small pile of comics that I hung on to as a reminder of that collection. A lot of these are 20 cent DC issues that I kept because I liked the cover design. Over the years a few other random comics have made their way into this pile as well; I literally don't even know where some of them came from.
Here's the kicker: I've never actually read most of these comics, despite owning some of them for over twenty years. There were just so many that I got burnt out trying to plow through them all and never got around to reading those less appealing titles. As I was looking through them today, I decided to take a crack at some of them finally and see what it was that I had, and I thought I'd share what I've found.
If anyone else wants to pitch in with reports on their own weird collection oddballs, I'd like to hear about them as well. Mainstream superheroes are cool, but sometimes it's more fun to try and figure out just what the heck people were thinking with some of the less popular titles out there.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 25, 2008 17:21:37 GMT -5
So, here's the first issue I've had a chance to read: Lois Lane #137 This issue is from September of 1974, a 20 cent DC. As you can see form the cover, it feature Lois stuck on a subway train that is winging through the sky over New York. I mean, Metropolis. The subway car is covered with graffiti, mainly people's names. I wonder if those names mean something, like if they are DC employees or anything. I'm a very big fan of the cover design and logo, though in general I don't like these later 20 cent DC as much as earlier. They looked better when the 20 cents part filled the entire circle it was in instead of sharing space with the issue number and date. But the logo is sweet and I like that it's blocked out in that little colored strip across the top. Even though the art itself on the cover is kind of blah. There are two stories in this issue. The first is "The Stolen Subway!" by Cary Bates with art from John Rosenberger and Vince Colletta. The best thing about the art is Lois herself, who looks very cute in the vintage early 70's fashion. Anyway, Lois and Clark are leaving a diner when a seemingly old man staggers out of the subway with a look of terror on his face and drops dead. His girlfriend rushes up and explains that he's only 21 even though he looks 60. Lois and Clark are like, "weird", then just leave pretty much. Later on, at the Daily Planet, Perry gives them an assignment to go out and find a story. It's a competition and whoever finds the best one gets a bonus. Lois of course rushes out to search for a story while Clark.. turns into Superman so he can use his powers to find a story faster. So, in other words, he's going to use his powers to cheat in order to get ahead of his coworkers. Wow, Supes, that's... kind of an not a very nice person move. Lois decides to investigate the subway thing and finds herself on an empty subway train. Suddenly, it shoots off, out of the station and up into the sky, so fast that Lois blacks out from the G force. Superman see this and flies after it but even though he's supposedly as fast as Flash, he can't catch up to a flying subway train. Inexplicably he decides that it has taken her to an alternate dimension, so he beams himself into an alternate dimension to look for her. I'm not sure how he just goes dimension hopping whenever he feels like it, but I guess that's Superman in the 1970's. Meanwhile, Lois wakes up and discovers that she has, of course, been kidnapped by hyper intelligent dinosaurs. She seems strangely unfazed by this and asks them what they want. They tell her that the whole thing with the dead kid was an accident, he just got scared of telepathic dinosaurs form another dimension, which, yeah. Okay, I can buy that. Then they launch into this weird story about how their dying planet had sent out arks millions of years ago and they are trying to track these survivors down now that the danger has passed. Lois is like, "well, they ate each other and now we show their bones on the Discovery Channel". Their response is fairly benign, as they just warn her that the human race should shape up or else they too will follow the way of the dinosaur. Which apparently means... that they will become intergalactic, pan-dimensional superbeings. You know, that doesn't seem like much of a warning, to be honest. They then beam Lois back to town where she and Clark both tell Perry that they couldn't find anything, The End. The enxt issue blurb at the end of this first story basically says "Hey, there's no next issue", because as it turns out, #137 was the last before it was canceled. Next up is another Lois story that in its own way makes even less sense. The short version: an old couple is being strongarmed by their landlord because he wants them to move out. The reason: he buried the corpse of a competitor in the foundation. The story features Lois using judo on a guy with a pistol, and a truly nonsensical climax where the villain is so busy explaining the plot to his henchment that none of them notice the building they are standing next to stopped exploding mid-explosion and rebuilt itself. Or as Superman explains it, "Yes -- I rebuilt it as Super-Speed without your noticing it!" Like... wut? Interestingly, the letter column at the end make no mention of the series being canceled and in fact tells people to tune in for future issues to see upcoming changes. Which is odd because they already said earlier in the issue that the series was canceled. This leads me to believe that the decision to cancel the series was made after the issue went to press and they only had time to change that one little next issue blurb. All in all, one weird comic book. My grade: B+ for camp value, A+ for pan-dimensional dinosaurs, F- for Superman being an overpowered wanker.
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Post by freedomfighter on Jul 25, 2008 22:13:14 GMT -5
funny stuff! I like old comics in that even in their terribleness, they can still be fun to read. By the by I bet ya meant Cary BATES, not Cary NORD.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 25, 2008 22:37:30 GMT -5
Yeah, you're right. Oddly, I don't even know who Cary Nord is, so I'm not sure why I wrote that. I fixed it in the original post.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 26, 2008 0:26:02 GMT -5
Next up is this gem: Marvel Feature #4 This is the first issue of the Ant-Man series that ran from #4-10. First off, let's start with this cover, which I really don't care for. It does have some things going for it, mainly the frame design, which in this case is black. I like black for the frame design, with only yellow and white being above black on my list of colors for this design feature. However, the rest of the cover... blah. The main problem is the complete lack of focus. The picture is just poorly designed; there's tons of wasted space and the focal point of the drawing is a giant shoe. Gil Kane was doing most of the covers at this time, but this doesn't feature the telltale Kane hallmarks, so I'm not sure who it was by. The interior work is by Herb Trimpe, which, yeah, that would fit with this bad cover. Just as unfocused as the picture itself is the masthead which has not one, not two, not three, but four logos on it. "Mravel COmics Group", which of course was on all the covers of the time, "Marvel Feature", and the Ant-Man logo itself which is broken up into two parts, "The Astonishing" and "Ant-Man". It's just way too much. Contrast it with the Amazing Adventures issues with Beast from the same time period and you can see a much better way to do these anthology type series. Okay, so inside the book is a story by Mike Friedrich with art from Herb Trimpe. The script is... interesting. It starts with a narrator who is directing his narration not to the audience but to Pym himself, and then switches after a couple pages so that Pym himself is narrating the book. I kind of like this, as it gives it a bit of a crime noir feel. This is fitting since the story is about a bunch of mob guys who kidnap Dr. Connors's son (yes, the Lizard) and hold him for ransom. They don't seem at all concerned that the guy they are blackmailing -- Dr. Pym, not the Lizard -- is a world famous Avenger. And as it turns out, they pretty much didn't need to be too worried about it, because he doesn't do a whole lot in the story to be honest. Luckily, his lab assistant for the day is Peter Parker, and as Spider-Man he takes out all the thugs while Ant-Man tracks down the kid who... managed to free himself, steal a car and drive off. Nice rescue, guys. Anyway, as part of the plot, Spidey and Pym are injected with some sort of poison. Of course, it somehow bonds to the Pym particales and at the end of the issue he once again is stuck, unable to change size -- this time at Ant size instead of at Giant size. Holy yawn, I could not possibly care less about this crappy turn of events. Pym getting stuck at a size is right behind gratuitous mentions of domestic violence and mental breakdowns as my least favorite Pym plot devices. Of course, the poison doesn't do any such bonding with Spidey's special augmented blood, which is fine, though I'm quite sure we've seen lotsof other injected things bond with his blood with weird effects. Also, throughout the story, Pym's narration indicates that he seemed to be pretty much onto Parker's secret, except he was too distracted to put two and two together. Considering he's supposed to be one of the smartest people in the universe, I wonder if he ever bothered to think about this long enough to realize Parker was Spider-man. It really wouldn't have taken much base don how this issue played out. My grade: B+ for the quirky scripting, D for the boring plot and terrible twist at the end.
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Post by dlw66 on Jul 26, 2008 12:12:39 GMT -5
Scott, you are a lucky guy! What a treasure trove! Keep these reviews coming -- I love this stuff!
Long ago on these boards, couldn't even tell you where it is now, I told about a coup I scored back in 1989. My new bride and I were at a flea market and I spied a beat up longbox of Batman comics. Being no dummy, and realizing that the movie was coming out in a matter of weeks, I made the guy a really low-ball offer: $30 for the box. He sort of hemmed and hawed, and then, with me acting like a bigshot and waving the scratch right under his nose, he buckled.
When I got it home, it truly was a vault! Lots and lots of Batman, Detective, Batman Family, Brave and the Bold, and some other stuff just mish-mashed in. I now only have a handful of the books that were in that box, having sold most of the rest of it off to help pay for my Avengers full run back in the day. I can tell you that there were two copies of Detective #400 (Neal Adams, 1st Man-Bat) -- one in mint, and B&B #59 (correct me if I'm wrong) -- the first Batman team-up in that magazine.
As I said, this is very fun -- keep it coming!!
Doug
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Jul 26, 2008 15:42:59 GMT -5
I second dlw66, keep these fantastic reviews coming, scottharris! Great stuff! I have to agree that the cover to Marvel Feature #4 looks pretty cheesy and ridiculous, but to me it sort of adds to the fun of Marvel in the 70's (Plus, I once accidentally stepped on a nail that size, and it freakin' hurt!!!) I always go in the odd-ball Marvel book bins and look for 70's and 80's stuff that isn't as noticed as the more popular mags. One series that I love to pick up is Marvel Team-Up. There's a hilarious story involving Spidey teaming up with Howard the Duck that is so bad that it's awesome! Definitely one of the more oddball comic books I've ever seen. Never thought I'd see a comic book where Howard the Duck did more to stop a villain than Spidey!
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Post by scottharris on Jul 26, 2008 23:41:36 GMT -5
Next up for your "enjoyment": Jimmy Olsen #159 This is the August, 1973 issue, and it features three stories. This issue is shortly after the then panned and now celebrated, totally weird Kirby run on Jimmy Olsen, and his influence is pretty much completely gone. Instead, as you can guess by this cover, we're back to pretty typical DC stuff. Which is actually pretty weird itself, to be honest. First up is a story by Leo Dorman called "The Arena of Death", which is the cover story. It's about... hoo boy. Olay, there's a mystic gem, and for some reason when Jimmy Olsen -- and only Jimmy Olsen -- comes near it, it sucks his consciousness out and flings it into the distant past where he begins living the life of a famous person from history. The footnotes indicate this gem has appeared previously, but in this issue, when Jimmy grabs it he discovers that he has become... Sparticus. And, to be honest, he's not a very good Spartacus, but luckily his friend Ursus happens to be a dead ringer for Superman and also seems to have some Superman powers. With this help, and using 20th century battle tactics, Jimmy leads the slave revolt and defeats the armies of Rome. I'm kind of curious about the parts glossed over here -- like Jimmy overseeing large, bloody battles and slaughtering soldiers and other war realities. Probably not germane to the story, but still weird to think about in terms of Jimmy Olsen. Anyway, as it happens, the gem also exists in the past, and just as Jimmy is about to die, Ursus shoots him with a beam from the gem and it returns him to the present. Interestingly, Jimmy is not sure during the story whether Jimmy is his real personality or if he's actually Spartacus just dreaming the whole "Jimmy Olsen" thing. He seems pretty impressionable, because he gets absorbed in his new personality at the drop of a hat. The second story is by David George, and it involves a mob contract put out on Jimmy Olsen. Man, if Olsen is messing up your plans, you have a really crappy mob. Anyway, they try to off him several times, but an old woman he knows manages to save him each time. Being the top notch reporter that he is, Jimmy doesn't ever pick up on the fact that she is saving him, as he attributes each instance to random luck. This story is only a couple pages long and ends pretty abruptly when Superman shows up and says that he knows her secret. It''s implied that she's Jimmy's mother, but for some reason Jimmy doesn't know it and she won't tell him. Not being a Jimmy Olsen expert, I have no idea what this story is talking about. The third story is the real doozy and I wish I had a scanner that I trusted, because man, there are some panels you just need to see to believe. This is another story from David George, and it's like this: Olsen is apparently a master of disguise and is actually training the police department how to go under cover. Seriously. Suddenly, the commissioner puts out an APB on Olsen, so he scrams. At first, he tries to hide with felons, but apparently his reporting helped get them arrested, because they kick his butt. He then decides to disguise himself as a woman in order to sneak by the cops. However, they now know all his tricks, so they catch him and unmask him. Luckily, it turns out to have been a test to see how good their disguise skills were. Not good enough, though, because Jimmy reveals that one of the cops is in fact the city's most wanted criminal in disguise. He then clocks the fake cop and saves the day. The really disturbing thing is that he's still dressed up as a young woman except for his wig and face makeup has been taken off. So he's being drawn with, you know, shapely legs, in a mini skirt and heels, wearing a tight sweater with a firm rack. And on top of this is... Jimmy Olsen's homely face. On second thought, it's just as well you don't have a scanner, because this is just a little too creepy; it's best if you don't see it. The art for all the stories was provided by someone named Scheffenberger. The whole issue felt kind of like the weird superhero Jimmy stuff in Countdown; now we know where they got all that from, from Jimmy's own long ago series.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 27, 2008 14:46:44 GMT -5
Today's offering: Sgt. Fury #24 This is the Nov. 1965 issue, with story by Stan Lee and art by Dick Ayers. Again, I'm not a huge fan of the cover. It's not a bad picture or anything, I just don't feel like it really captures the story inside, nor am I a fan of the muted colors. Marvel seemed really into gray during this time period for some reason. The story inside, though, is great. Compared to today's decompressed comics, reading Stan Lee is like a textual punch to the face. He's got more plot and script in three pages of this comic than some comics now have in the entire issue. If written today, this issue would be a whole 5 part arc in a trade paperback. That's not all bad, of course. It would have been nice to expand on some of the stuff in this issue and explore it a little more fully. I'm specifically referring to the first six pages of this issue, which show the Howlers getting a furlough. They are sent home to America for two weeks, and the story starts with them visiting relatives and tearing up the town. They start with a visit to the Brooklyn home of Izzy Cohen, where Izzy's parents make him dinner, and then they head uptown to visit a jazz club owned by Gabe Jones's uncle. Gabe gets on the horn and plays some fantastic jazz, but is interrupted by a band of zoot suiters, and some fisticuffs result. Man, I love this stuff, it's great. It;s also interesting to note how ethnically diverse the cast of this book really is. Besides Fury, who's the mainstream all-American, you've got a Jewish guy, an Italian-American guy, an Irish-American guy, an African-American guy, a southern guy and an Englishman. I think there's a couple things going on here. It's my understanding the Stan was a pretty liberal guy as far as his politics go, and he may have been influenced by the civil rights movement going on at the time. It's also interesting to note that in the credits, Stan is listed as an Army veteran, while Dick Ayers and inker Frank Ray are listed as being Air Force veterans. It may be that Stan was looking to honor the types of soldiers they met in the service, as the war itself was a primary cause of the civil rights movement. The integration of the armed services that occurred shortly after the war's end and the experiences of the men dealing closely with people of other races and background helped break down the social barriers that propagated racism and prejudice. Whatever the reason, it's obvious that the mixed ethnicity of the cast was no accident, and showing these guys as good loyal friends who seem to be blind to prejudice is itself an interesting statement. I wonder what the readers of the day thought of it. After taking in the jazz club, the gang heads to the Stage-Door canteen, where Dino has arranged a surprise: some of the most famous entertainers of the war period are waiting to hang out with the Howlers. This includes Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Hope, Graucho Marx, Bing Crosby and a couple guys I didn't recognize. Anyway, after this segment, the actual plot starts up. While these guys are living it up in NYC, Reb Ralston has gone home to Kentucky to visit his family. Well, turns out that the family has been captured by Bundites who are trying to steal secrets from the Manhattan Project. This is an interesting history lesson as well, as Stan notes in one of his footers: "The Bund was a militant, uniformed Nazi organization operating right in the U. S. in the 30's and 40's! ... Stan". Between this, the lineup and famous 40's entertainers and his explanation of what a Zoot Suiter was, the issue is like the coolest history book ever. Needless to say, the Howelers end up going to Kentucky and thwarting the Bund plans. During the fight Dum Dum gets shot, but he manages to survive and is sent to the hospital while the rest of the team gets orders to return to Europe for their next mission. Also staying behind is their boy sidekick Hans, whom they leave at the Ralston ranch where Reb's parents take him in to raise him in safety. Finally, a story with a wartime boy sidekick that actually makes sense to reasonable adults. A final note before I end this description. As always with these period Marvels, one of the fun parts is the great in-house ads for other comics coming out that month. Now On Sale: FF #45, Spider-man #31 and Journey Into Mystery with Thor #122. That Spider-man is the beginning of the classic story where Aunt May gets injured and Spidey goes on a berserk rampage, lifting the huge apparatus off himself when he trapped in an explosion. Also on sale: Strange Tales #139, which has a weird cover where Dr. Strange is reading the splash page of the Nick Fury SHIELD story, Tales to Astonish #74 and X-Men #14, the first appearance of the Sentinels. Daredevil #10 and Avengers #22 are listed on the Bullpen Bulletins page, but apparently didn't warrant a picture on the ads. The letter column has some interesting stuff as well. Apparently the multicultural lineup was a topic for conversation, though it appears that conversation mostly took place prior to this issue. One letter mentions it: "I remember when you said that you shouldn't have to be congratulated on your 'no race, color or prejudice' policy, bu here's mine. The ol' Howlers wouldn't be the same without Gabe." Later, a letter shows another interesting bit of Stan's viewpoint: "I've read about your saying that the Allies won the war, not just the United States". The letter goes on to request stories featuring more Allies. Stan replies with: "Keith, ol' buddy, the Allies on the war whether we do the story or not -- it's just plain history!" Stan does have some limits, though. One person wrote in to ask for a story featuring a good German who is opposed to Nazi ideals. Stan responds: "Jerry, ol' buddy, we want to explain, for the umpteenth time, that we are specifically anti-Nazi and ar enot -- and have never been -- anti-German! We thought everybody but a Yancy Streeter knew that! But, as for glorifying the dedicated German soldier, we're too busy concentrating on our own Howlers! We're probably just big cornballs at heart, but we like Westerns where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys have moustaches! We also like war yarns where our boys are the good guys, and the enemy are the bad guys! If they print any war comics in Germany, they're free to tell it their way! Fair 'nuff?" This is actually one of the reasons I tend to enjoy DC war comics more, as they have a bit of a more nuanced view (well, the best of them do). But I must admit I really enjoyed this issue a lot. My grade: furlough section A+, rest of the story B+, lettercolumn A
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Post by sharkar on Jul 27, 2008 18:11:20 GMT -5
Jimmy Olsen #159... ...The really disturbing thing is that he's still dressed up as a young woman except for his wig and face makeup has been taken off. So he's being drawn with, you know, shapely legs, in a mini skirt and heels, wearing a tight sweater with a firm rack. And on top of this is... Jimmy Olsen's homely face. On second thought, it's just as well you don't have a scanner, because this is just a little too creepy; it's best if you don't see it. "Jimmy Olsen, Femme Fatale" was not an uncommon plot device for Jimbo back then; he seemed to have a penchant for donning a wig and nylons. The great website Superdickery is one resource that contains some classic examples, but here's another one: www.tgfa.org/comics/jimmy_olsen/jimmy_olsen.htmThe art for all the stories was provided by someone named Scheffenberger. Kurt Schaffenberger was the premier Lois Lane artist from 1958 (when Lois received her own book) and for much of the 1960s. Up until 1968 or so his Lois was considered the ideal version of the character and he was frequently called upon to draw the Lois and (adult) Lana Lang heads across the Superman family of books, in order to impart consistency. Prior to Lois, he was known (within the industry, anyway) for drawing the (Fawcett) Captain Marvel feature in the 40s-50s (among other assignments). In the 1970s, when DC published Shazam!- -the Big Red Cheese- -Kurt did some of these too.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 27, 2008 18:14:19 GMT -5
Jimmy Olsen #159... ...The really disturbing thing is that he's still dressed up as a young woman except for his wig and face makeup has been taken off. So he's being drawn with, you know, shapely legs, in a mini skirt and heels, wearing a tight sweater with a firm rack. And on top of this is... Jimmy Olsen's homely face. On second thought, it's just as well you don't have a scanner, because this is just a little too creepy; it's best if you don't see it. "Jimmy Olsen, Femme Fatale" was not an uncommon plot device for Jimbo back then; he seemed to have a penchant for donning a wig and nylons. The great website Superdickery is one resource that contains some classic examples, but here's another one: www.tgfa.org/comics/jimmy_olsen/jimmy_olsen.htmYikes, here's an image from the story in #159 I was talking about:
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Post by badgermaniac on Jul 27, 2008 18:42:22 GMT -5
Some weird things my dad picked up for me...
-A bunch of Superman/Batman comics, all in German (my dad taught there for a few years) -Sports Heroes comics, featuring George Brett, Dwight Gooden, some NASCAR guy, Daryl Strawberry, Ted Williams, Nolan Ryan -Some Spidey books that were spin-offs of the "Electric Company" show from PBS
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Post by sharkar on Jul 27, 2008 20:57:25 GMT -5
You guys certainly have interesting collections! I'm envious... Yikes, here's an image from the story in #159 I was talking about: Here's another one, from the same issue of JO: Now, from the ridiculous to the sublime... Today's offering: Sgt. Fury #24 The story inside, though, is great. Compared to today's decompressed comics, reading Stan Lee is like a textual punch to the face. He's got more plot and script in three pages of this comic than some comics now have in the entire issue. Nicely put. I recently re-read Hulk #1 and I thought the very same thing (though I realize this kind of compressed storytelling is not to everyone's liking and is "old fashioned." However, I admit I like this type of storytelling!) It;s also interesting to note how ethnically diverse the cast of this book really is. Besides Fury, who's the mainstream all-American, you've got a Jewish guy, an Italian-American guy, an Irish-American guy, an African-American guy, a southern guy and an Englishman. I think there's a couple things going on here. It's my understanding the Stan was a pretty liberal guy as far as his politics go, and he may have been influenced by the civil rights movement going on at the time. It's also interesting to note that in the credits, Stan is listed as an Army veteran, while Dick Ayers and inker Frank Ray are listed as being Air Force veterans. It may be that Stan was looking to honor the types of soldiers they met in the service, as the war itself was a primary cause of the civil rights movement. The integration of the armed services that occurred shortly after the war's end and the experiences of the men dealing closely with people of other races and background helped break down the social barriers that propagated racism and prejudice...Whatever the reason, it's obvious that the mixed ethnicity of the cast was no accident, and showing these guys as good loyal friends who seem to be blind to prejudice is itself an interesting statement. I wonder what the readers of the day thought of it. Thanks to the excerpts of the letters you've included, we get a glimpse of the tenor of the times (although the sample is very small and presumably controlled). IMO it's great that Stan didn't hesitate to use his position to put forth his humanist views (I'm sure not all readers were as liberal as he is, so he was taking a chance). Also, over at DC, Sgt. Rock had earlier presented an integrated fighting unit, too--they were taking a chance, too. ... the issue is like the coolest history book ever. Great description. A final note before I end this description. As always with these period Marvels, one of the fun parts is the great in-house ads for other comics coming out that month. And also, as you've demonstrated, the inclusion of the letters. Nothing beats reading these old comics in something resembling their original context!
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Post by scottharris on Jul 28, 2008 0:27:55 GMT -5
Also, over at DC, Sgt. Rock had earlier presented an integrated fighting unit, too--they were taking a chance, too. You know, I never got into Sgt. Rock. The collection I inherited had maybe a dozen issues, but they just didn't do it for me. Nor did the Haunted Tank in G. I. Combat; I love the premise, but the stories often left me a bit cold. The Losers in Our Fighting Forces and Unknown Soldier in Star Spangled War Stories were much more to my taste.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 28, 2008 0:52:45 GMT -5
Oh no! There's a... ...VAMPIRE IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!! Prez #4 This is the final issue of Prez, from Feb. 1974. Issue 5 was completed but never published, except in the much later photocopied Canceled Comics Cavalcade. The story is by legendary Captain America creator Joe Simon, with art by Jerry Grandenetti. This comic is an amazing piece of work. To quote the text on the splash page: "The Republic of Moravia bakes on the face of Europe like an aged tortoise." No, I have no idea what that means, but it's pretty much par for the course in what is one of the all-time weirdest comic books I have ever read, in all the best possible ways. The story starts with Prez Rickard, the first teenage President of the United States, visiting Moravia with his recently appointed chief of the FBI, the Native American youth Eagle Free. America has just given Moravia a billion dollars so they can irrigate their country. Flying back, Prez is late for a meeting with the Chinese ambassador. Luckily, his vice president is also his mom, Martha. Also luckily, she is an expert at ping pong, and she is in the middle of an intense game with the Chinese ambassador. See, the state department sent them Nigerian interpreters, so they couldn't actually communicate other than through the international language of table tennis. Luckily, Eagle Free is an expert in "Indian Sign Language" and translates, leading to an understanding. Yes, things seem to be going well, until a helicopter carrying a werewolf lands on top of the White House. The army and the secret service attack him, and a battle rages all night long on the rooftop, until the sun comes up and he turns back into a human. Then he explains that he's actually an ambassador from Transylvania. See, Transylvania borders Moldavia, and the irrigation canals that were built have drained all of Transylvania's water supplies. Prez seems entirely unsympathetic, but is somewhat alarmed when Wolfman says that he is authorized to declare war on America by Count Dracula himself. Not alarmed enough to fix the problem he created, but alarmed enough to call a cabinet meeting, which is pretty much filled with hippies and teenagers. They essentially decide nothing, just like real cabinet meetings. That night, something really unexpected happens. The Wolfman had left behind a large, coffin shaped briefcase. When night falls, out from the briefcase bursts... Count Dracula! This may not seem unexpected, but the reason he's able to fit into a giant briefcase isn't because he's in gas or bat form, it's because he's missing both his legs. See, over the centuries all the assassination attempts by vampire hunters have failed, but they've left him a double amputee. He gets around this by, of course, tying himself to a board with wheels and pulling himself along by his hands, just like Eddie Murphy in Trading Places. You can sort of see this on the cover. So, Dracula wheels himself around the White House like a homeless beggar until he gets to the room where Prez is sleeping. Just as he's about to strike, Eagle Free bursts in and saves him. Dracula, of course, bing the lord of vampires, has his own tricks: he pushes off with his hands and starts leaping around the room, punching people, before ending up dangling from the chandelier. Before he can.. I dunno, fall? ... Eagle Free pulls out one of those old Native American swastika looking symbols and scares Dracula off. With the teens in hot pursuit, he revs his body board up to high speed and skates out and off down Pennsylvania Avenue to safety. Crisis averted, right? WRONG! Prez gets word of Dracula's dastardly secret weapon: a plane filled with rabies infected bats that he's going to unleah on Washington. Prez heads right to Congress to ask for emergency war powers, and congress is like: wut? Now Prez and America are in big trouble, but luckily Eagle Free has a brilliant plan: he will send his cadre of pet birds to make a kamikaze attack by flinging themselves into the plane's engines. The two of them jump in a canoe that Eagle has hidden on the Potomac and paddle themselves to his teepee, where they hold a solemn ceremony for the brave birds about to sacrifice themselves for America's freedom. Which they then do. The plane, piloted by Wolfman and with Dracula aboard, is about to reach land when the birds launch themselves into the intake and get sucked into the engine. At first, Wolfman is unalarmed: "Calm down, Count, we're almost over America! A mess of birds slammed into us!" But that mess of birds has slammed to terrifying effect, for the plane's engines suddenly give out and it plummets into the ocean. THE END! My Grade: A+++++++
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Jul 28, 2008 18:14:35 GMT -5
This thread is like a look back into the lovable insanity that were comic books sometimes. I forgot about how much Superman's Pal liked to play dress-up!!
Sgt. Fury is really in my opinion one of the most underrated Marvel mags ever. It seems like after the 30th issue, Marvel really stopped focusing on giving the book that many ads, anymore. Soon it went with the Western and Comedy books in it not being advertised or spotlighted much anymore! Then again, I guess that more and more readers preferred his time with S.H.I.E.L.D. as compared to his time with the Howlers!
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Post by Bored Yesterday on Jul 28, 2008 20:51:24 GMT -5
That Prez comic is now on my want list. That's just INSANE! Only in comics.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 29, 2008 0:07:38 GMT -5
Well, I wasn't expecting this. Yes, it's Unexpected #134. Firstly, I absolutely love this era of DC cover design. The 25 cent era, while a mistake financially for DC, was wonderful in terms of design. The only DC design that is possibly better in my opinion is the extremely brief late 15 cent design that immediately preceded this. I also like this logo a lot; the letters that form the word "unexpected" just look interesting and it is well done. And the picture is cool. The stories, well... not so much. The first story is "The Restless Dead" by Carl Wessler with art by Jerry Grandenetti, who coincidentally also drew the issue of Prez I just reviewed. This story is a really lame Frankenstein knockoff, where some graverobbers go to work for a mad scientist making Non-People out of body parts. At the end, he kills them and reconstructs them out of body parts too. Whoopdedoo. The second story, also by Carl Wessler but with art by the somewhat better known Ernie Chua, is called "Dressed to Kill" and it's only about four pages long. A guy commissions a suit and is really demanding, forcing the tailor to work all night on it for a hard deadline He delivers the suit only to discover that the guy he was making it for has been killed and was commissioning a suit for his own funeral. Well, sure. The third story is called "The Bravest Man Alive" and seems form the art style and lettering to be a reprint from an earlier comic. Looks like early to mid 1950's to me, but there's no footnote saying what it's from or who created it. This story was actually a little more entertaining than the first two. Two vaudeville guys both have an act claiming that they are the bravest man alive. In order to settle it once and for all, they embark on a campaign of terror on each other, trying to scare the other person into relinquishing the title. Finally they have a duel, only one guy puts blanks in his gun in order to show how brave he is in confronting death. When the survivor finds out, he gets to ticked he has a heart attack and they both die. Man, that ending was... UNEXPECTED!!! The fourth story is called "Time Bomb from 1500 AD". This one is kind of a doozy, but again, there's no credits, leading me to believe it's a reprint from an earlier era. Not 1500 AD though. No, that's reserved for Leonardo Da Vinci, who, during the siege of a castle, made a super doomsday weapon and then hid it in a lake. Some guys dig it out and discover it's a rocket, disguised as a classic statue. However, before they can figure out what it means, a gangster steals it because he wants to use the rocket to blow up a passing train. At the last second, the good guys realize that the statue has a time bomb in it, although... it's not really a time bomb at all. Rather, if the rocket is aimed anywhere but into the sky, the statue blows up, which it does at the end of the story. Luckily, the guys had deciphered another goofy clue and figured out this non-time bomb was there, saving everyone. Well, it makes about as much sense as anything by Dan Brown. The fifth "story" is only two pages, and it's about a guy looking for an authentic medium to open a passage to the spirit world. When one does, the guy jumps through it, because he was a ghost all along, trapped on Earth. You know, I just don't like vignettes like this. I'd rather have a longer story with nuance than a two page throwaway. Finally, the last story is "Everything you ever wanted to know about fear.* * - but were afraid to ask". This is the cover story. Basically, a guy named Mr. Gault hires a new butler. Soon after, a bunch of near fatal accidents occur and the butler starts acting like a real dilweed. Gault is about to throw him out when the butler brings his impossibly hot niece into the house. Gault falls madly for her, but when the rest of the family shows up -- a bunch of inbred mutants -- and starts smashing his mansion, he orders everyone out. The butler says, sure, but I'm taking my niece with me. Gault's all like, NO! I'll do anything if she stays. Fast forward a couple years and now the butler is in charge of the house and the thoroughly whipped Gault is a servant in his own house. You know, I'm not a fan of horror in general, but this post-code stuff is really crappy. The Time Bomb story was just weird enough to be a little entertaining, and the bravest man one was okay, but for the most part, this issue was really pretty lame. My grade: A- for the cover, C- for everything else. By the way, the Direct Currents in this issue has a blurb about Batman #422 which refers to Batgirl as "the Dominoed Daredoll". Now that's really trying too hard.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 29, 2008 16:28:35 GMT -5
Inspired by my reading of Sgt. Fury #24, today I went to the comic shop to see what other Sgt. Fury bargains I could pick up. I know several of you have lamented the current cost of back issues, but in my area at least I haven't really noticed this. I'm lucky to have a local shop that not only has a vast, vast stock of back issues but also prices things very reasonably and conservatively. Yes, if you want to get high grade back issues they will cost you a premium, but for solid reading grade comics -- your typical VG/F back issues -- things are still pretty affordable around here.
I had a pretty good idea what I would find at my shop and I wasn't disappointed. As I expected, those solid mid-grade comics were priced to buy. Thus I ended up buying Sgt. Fury #22, 26, 42, 45, 47, 50, 51, 54, 57, 61 and 62. Besides all being solid mid grade comics they also had two other things in common: they are all 12 cent Marvels, and they all cost me $2.95 or less, in other words less than a new comic. The 11 issues came to a total of $27.50, which again is significantly less than a tank of gas these days.
So, I'm pretty happy. They also have another 15-20 15 and 20 cent issues for under three bucks each, which I will probably pick up eventually. For now, though, I'm looking forward to digging into my new treasure trove.
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Post by Bored Yesterday on Jul 29, 2008 22:00:25 GMT -5
I agree with the assessment of the 1970s DC horror. I had a ton of these when I was a kid, and had fond memories of them. When I recently came into a stash for cheap, I've been very disappointed. Can't bear to read some of them, and they languish in my "to read" pile, some of them for a couple years now. The Charlton horrors from the same time period, on the other hand, are pretty darn good. Much more sinister and interesting.
And as for the low cost of back issues -- don't tell anybody!
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Post by scottharris on Jul 30, 2008 1:43:17 GMT -5
Today's read: Wonder Woman #213 First, of course, the cover. Okay, I don't even know what color that background is, but it's not doing this cover any favors. In this picture it looks pretty blue, but I'm here to tell you that the copy in my hand looks like a melted grape popsicle, the kind made with all artificial coloring. Overall, this cover is a giant "meh" for me. I should note that the image is also symbolic, as nothing like this actually happens in the story. Also of note is that this is still during the 20 cent era, with the double circle design, but this is right at the tail end. Whenever a comic says something like "STILL ONLY" it means they're about to jack prices. In this case, though, it's maybe a good thing, because it forced them to push the date and issue number back out of that circle, which was a big design problem in my opinion. The sunburst, bullet hole look around the price isn't great but overall I still like this late era better than the mid 20 cent era, design-wise. Okay, on to the story. This is from September, 1974 by Cary "Nord" Bates and Irv Novick and as you can see, the Barry Allen Flash is on the cover and in the story. The reason is that this is the second part of the "Trials of Wonder Woman" series. For those who aren't familiar with the book, Wonder Woman had long ago quit the Justice League so she could become a hippie or something. When she decided to rejoin the team, for some reason the JLA turned into the biggest bunch of jerks in the universe and made her go through a Hercules style series of trials before they would readmit her. Hey, morons, it's WONDER WOMAN. You need her a whole lot more than she needs you. (note: she actually sort of requested these trials so she could prove herself or something... I dunno. makes no sense either way) The only plus side to this flat out stupid turn of events is here in Wonder Woman itself. The conceit allowed the writers of Wonder Woman to feature a different JLA member as narrator for every issue, giving them built in guest stars, plus a nice framework for each issue's story. Wonder Woman #213 is the second of Diana's trials, and it's typically dopey, as we shall see. At the start of the issue we discover that everyone on Earth has been overwhelmed by peaceful urges. At first this seems great, but then it turns out people can't fight anything at all, making them vulnerable to animals and the weather and causing hunters to starve and stuff like that. People are so peaceful that they are just giving up the fight to survive. You may recognize this as one of the major plot points from the recent scifi film Serenity, which was written by Joss Whedon, who went on to work on the Wonder Woman movie script for a couple years. Coincidence?! Yeah, probably. Anyway, Diana, in her civilian capacity, is brought in as a consultant and goes to the airport to meet some scientist guy. His plane, however, is hijacked. Unfortunately for the hijacker, the pilots are so docile they basically freeze up at the thought of violence and the plane plummets to the ground. Luckily, of course, Wonder Woman is there and she immediately tries to figure out how to protect her secret identity. See, this is a big problem for me, when a hero puts his or her secret identity ahead of actually saving the day. In this case we get treated to basically a whole page of Wonder Woman trying to figure out how to transform without people seeing her, all while the plane is crashing. Anyway, she eventually flies her invisible jet up, stands on the wing, lassos the jet and yanks it out of its nosedive. I'm not sure how she could get any leverage to do that, but, who cares. With the plane landed, she captures the hijacker, which brings up a question: how was he able to hijack the plane in the first place, when everybody else is too afraid to do anything violent? Obviously, he is immune for some reason, but nobody except Diana makes the logical deduction that Wonder Woman must also be immune in order to have saved the plane and captured him. Diana immediately zips off to Amazon island, where they keep all the mail order books, in order to find out why they are immune. When she arrives, all the amazons are fleeing from a "Rhinotaur" which is basically a bull. She defeats it by flinging it into the ocean because "salt water has a tranquilizing effect on rhinotaurs!" I'd think pretty much any animal would be defeated by flinging it into the ocean. I'm also thinking that being tranquilized by water is a really good way to drown. But, again, whatever. Diana rushes to some temple to consult a giant magic dial, which is actually some sort of oracular time machine. Flash, by the way, is secretly watching everything and narrating it in his capacity as JLA judge. When they get to Amazon island he says " As you know, it is strictly forbidden for a man to set foot on Paradise Island -- so I kept treading air while I was there". Wow, good one, mister letter of the law. Diana consults her dial and discovers this plot: a robot form another world landed in the Grand Canyon and is transmitting peace waves to everyone on Earth. However, Diana, the hijacker and a peace protester were all rendered immune because they suffered a minor injury while being close to a lightning strike. Diana explains that they need to work together to defeat the robot, and both of them tell her to stuff it; the hijacker doesn't care about Earth while the peace protester thinks the development is great. Diana, of course, immediately ropes them with her lasso and uses it to mentally force their co-operation. So... let's pause a minute here. First, it turns out that this entire trial, so important to getting her reinstated to the Justice League, is going to be won because of the complete random chance that Diana stubbed her toe when a lighting bolt hit near her. How the heck does this prove her worthy of anything? Secondly, way to go with the mind control. Looks like that Identity Crisis wasn't so out of character for the JLA after all. Anyway. They fight the robot, who piledrives WW into the ground. Her slavish helpers, though, get her out and she defeats the robot using her lasso. With the robot defeated, Flash was finally able to do something useful and reverse engineered it to broadcast a retraction to the world. And that's that. My grade: B for the basic idea, C- for the execution of said idea.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 31, 2008 3:21:53 GMT -5
Buckle up, kids, it's time for... Adventure Comics #420 As you can see, this is during the 52 Big Pages era, which I've already mentioned is one of my favorite design eras. I am also a sucker for Adventure Comics featuring Supergirl. The weird thing is, I don't even like Supergirl -- I just am compelled to buy them because of the covers. There' something about Supergirl, specifically in Adventure, with the era design, that's just... cool. I've always loved the Adventure Comics logo, so that's definitely part of it. Having said that, take a gander at her ridiculous shorts. They are like baggy adult diapers. For some reason they have a double hem stitched with little puffballs or something and it makes it look like the shorts have elastic bands in them like Depends or something. I don't know what they were thinking with that detail, but it's not good. This issue is from June of 1972 and the first story is written by Raymond Marias and Len Wein, which was relatively early in Wein's career. The art is by one of the classic DC pencillers of the era, Tony De Zuniga. And the story is straight out of a drug induced fervor. We start with Supergirl flying through space when she is suddenly attacked by a "plastoid globe" which is, you know, a big ball of plastic. And it doesn't attack so much as float. Nonetheless, it drives her to land on a nearby planet, where a missle sens strands of hair to grab her; when she melts the strands, it turns to amber. Completely confused, Supergirl is suddenly rescued by a dude named Togran, who has a magic garden and commands his plants to save her. He then explains that a neighboring nation has killed everyone except his dad and his dad's two friends. Those three, however, are wizards who have formed a collective entity called the Mind-Warp, and who use their powers to affect people's emotions. They also look about as stupid as humanly possible, wearing outfits that look sort of like hooded sweatshirts with mini-capes and domino masks. Plus, one guy has his beard collected in what appears to be a napkin holder with an X-Men logo on it. Anyway, after the exposition, Supergirl is like "whatever" and decides to leave. Before she does, though, Togran grabs her and plays tonsil hockey with her while copping a feel. Supergirl flies off "with the taste of Togran's kiss still in her mind" when she sees a passel of missiles fly out of nowhere and blow him up. Shocked, Supergirl becomes vulnerable to the Mind Warp and they infect her with a rage, causing her to fly off to the neighboring kingdom to kill everyone. Of course, the missiles were actually from the Mind Warp themseves; it was all staged. Togran's dad rushes down and revives him with magic, but Togran flies off to stop Supergirl even though in his weakened state he'll die from the exertion. Togran's dad then flies into a rage and, while Togran herocially sacrifices himself to stop Supergirl's rampage, his dad hacks down the other two Mind Warp guys with a huge sword. Since they are all mind linked, all three of them die. Yes, it's tragedy all around. Worst of all, one of the Mind Warp dudes is named "Opra". My God, there goes the Book Club. And, that's the end. Yep, that's a ten page story. So what's the rest of the 42 pages? Well, it's all reprints. There's an Animal Man story from Strange Adventures #195, another Supergirl story from Action #303 and some space monster story that I don't know the origin of. To be honest, I didn't read any of these features, because I just hate it when they fill up comics with reprints. If I had bought this issue new with a shiny, hard earned quarter back in 1972, I would have been royally steamed. My grade: The Supergirl story gets a B for sheer weirdness, the rest of the issue gets an F for being a dirty reprint scam.
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Post by scottharris on Jul 31, 2008 23:31:21 GMT -5
Astonishing Tales #5 This is the April, 1971 issue, meaning it was one of the last few of the 15 cent era. Typical of the time, the covers had a lot of text and word balloons on it: "The tale we had to cal... RAMPAGE!" Why did they have to call it that? Well, my guess is because you demanded it, but they don't say for sure. Astonishing Tales, as you can see, began as a split book featuring Dr. Doom and Ka-Zar. Much like Amazing Adventures, which also began as a split book, this experiment soon ended and both series cut down to one story, which in this case would feature Ka-Zar, with Dr. Doom getting the boot. It seems that the era of the split book ended for good in1968 when Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish and Strange Tales all bifurcated. So, why did Ka-Zar get the title instead of Dr. Doom? Maybe this issue will shed some light, because frankly, I can't hink of a single reason why this lame Tarzan ripoff would be more interesting to readers than Dr. Doom. Especially considering the story was written by Gerry Conway, a writer whom I am less than excited about. Luckily for him, and likely one of the main reasons for Ka-Zar's success, the art was being provided by a young Barry Windsor Smith. Interestingly, this issue came out at the same time as Conan #4, which Smith became famous for. In many ways these two series are pretty similar, because Rampage is pretty much a far out fantasy story. It's easy to forget (or for me to forget, anyway) just how early Conan started for Marvel. So. The story begins in mid-aor, with Ka-Zar fighting a queen named Zaladane while they are both on the back of a pterodactyl. Ka-Zar cleverly causes the pterodactyl to crash into the jungle, all while shouting some really obscure and weird expository dialog that is supposed to explain what happened in the last issue but really is just confusing. Apparently someone called the petrified man was transformed into the sun god Gorokk. Not really sure what... Oh, wait, the next page shows this guy, good. Gorokk is standing around moaning about cruel fate when he sees some fishermen being attacked by a sea serpent. He decides to help out and uses his godly power to... incinerate everything, including the entire lake these saps were on. Whoops. Then he has this really illogical epiphany: "No! NO! -- I went to far! Both hunter and hunted are dead! Hold, though -- for once there is calm! YES! I see it now! If there's to be peace in this world, then ALL -- man and beast alike -- ALL MUST DIE!" Well, that's a bit of a leap if you ask me, but when you only have ten pages to work with I guess you have to get down to it pretty fast. Anyway, Ka-Zar and Zaladane survived the crash, and she decides to stop fighting and instead leads Ka-Zar to a temple filled with liquid fire (or liquid shshine... or something) and says that the petrified man just needs to go for a swim and he'll be fine. Of course, it's actually just a trap for Ka-Zar, as a giant ape guy jumps him while the queen giggles. She then uses the power of prayer to summon Gorokk from the forest, where he was about to blast Zabu. She commands him to protect her and he's all, "how about I destroy the world instead?" She flees, and rightly so, but luckily Ka-Zar defeats the ape guardian and fights Gorokk. During the fight, they smash the floor and fall... right into the pit of fire. Or, you know, Gorokk does, while Ka-Zar does a triple lutz and lands safely on shore. Bathed in the fire, the petrified man returns to human form and promptly dies, whereupon Ka-Zar reveals that all along he was actually... LAZARUS! I guess this was Gerry Conway's big Xorn moment. Ka-Zar is standing around moping when the queen shows up just long enough for the entire temple to collapse on her. Ka-Zar, of course, jumps to safety and runs off into the jungle. The End! Next up is the Dr. Doom story, which was actually written by Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber, with art from George Tuska. The story starts with what is described as "one of incredulity", which is quite appropriate considering it's a picture of Doom finishing his vacation on the French Riviera. Bored, he decides to go home and resume being a dictator. The Red Skull, however, has other plans, as he has conquered Latveria while Doom was playing baccarat. He has with him his Exiles, which isn't the alternate universe X-Men team or whatever, but instead a group of goofy misfits that the Red Skull hung around with at the time for no discernible reason. Let's just say that his current team of bad guys in Brubaker's Captain America would literally kill these chumps in about five seconds. Seeing Doom flying into Latverian airspace, Skull's moron troops blast him with some pistols, which does nothing, and then shout Skull's name so that Doom knows what's happening. Doom then attacks by flinging his cape around him and, as one random civilian shouts, "He's created a vortex of air!" He's done what?! Sadly for Doom, Skull has all of Doom's own weapons at his disposal, including a rocket powered harpoon that emits "Chemi-sleep gas". This knocks Doom out long enough for Skull to entomb him in an adamantine mummy case and put him on public display. Doom, though, has a trick up his sleeve, literally: he connects his armor to the case itself and uses it as a giant solar panel to boost his suit's power enough for him to burst free. Hey, even Dr. Doom understand the importance of going green. Doom then sneaks back inside the castle and cuts off the power. While Skull jury-rigs a backup battery to his flame thrower, Doom takes out a bunch of guards. FInally, SKull is ready and blasts him with the fire ray, but Doom creates a sheathe of ice around his armor to protect him. Which, again, what? Skull's ultra-lame Exiles then attack Doom one at a time so you can see in great detail just how stupid they are. One is a wrestler, one is... a guy with a magic blanket? -- there's a dude with an electric whip.. and someone in a mechanical chair on tiny wheels that is so stupid they don't even bother showing Doom beating him. Skull tries to flee, but Doom opens a trap door and Skull and the Exiles all fall through it, then get hit by the chemi-sleep gas. They wake up outside the castle and discover that Doom has shrunk them down to action figure size. He then stuffs them in a rocket and fires them into space. Except, he doesn't, the rocket actually just sends them back to their base, Exile Island, which they apparently have borrowed from Jeff Probst. As Doom explains, "By the time the Exiles reach their island, they'll have recovered from the hypnotic spell and they'll realize that their shrinkage was merely an illusion, effected under hypno-gas!" That's also the exucse I gave the ladies last time I was at the pool. I can't think of one single reason on the face of the Earth why Doom would just put Skull and his team in a rocket and fly them safely home after all that. That's not the Doom I know. That's pretty much not any supervillain I know. Just a weird ending. As for extras, by this point in Marvel's history, the in-house ads were mostly done away with, but there is a half-page teaser for Fear #3 and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #18, both of which are giant-sized 25 cent issues. The checklist also has gems like Avengers #86, Sgt. Fury #86, Cap #136, Iron Man #36, Sub-Mariner #36 and Thor #186. When I was a kid, I loved the fact that so many of the main titles were exactly 50 or 100 or 150 issues ahead of each other in numbering; it made it so that if when you got a back issue, you could immediately figure out what issues came out for the other series on the same month. My gade: Ka-Zar gets a C; I like weird fantasy, but this is kind of hard to follow. Dr. Doom gets a B- for being campy fun, but not quite campy or fun enough.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 1, 2008 10:43:35 GMT -5
So. The story begins in mid-aor, with Ka-Zar fighting a queen named Zaladane while they are both on the back of a pterodactyl. And some years later, Zaladane claims she is Lorna Dane's sister (as far as I know, never confirmed). Also later on, Magneto kills Zala. Still later, Lorna is revealed to be Magneto's daughter. The checklist also has gems like Avengers #86, Sgt. Fury #86, Cap #136, Iron Man #36, Sub-Mariner #36 and Thor #186. When I was a kid, I loved the fact that so many of the main titles were exactly 50 or 100 or 150 issues ahead of each other in numbering; it made it so that if when you got a back issue, you could immediately figure out what issues came out for the other series on the same month. Yes, this "system" came in very handy! I was never a numbers person but I had my favorite comics' relative numberings down pat back then: the FF were 23 issues ahead of the Avengers, who were 8 issues ahead of the X-Men (before the 1970 cancellation), etc.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 1, 2008 13:51:57 GMT -5
By the way, the Direct Currents in this issue has a blurb about Batman #422 which refers to Batgirl as "the Dominoed Daredoll". Now that's really trying too hard. Yeah, it was kind of silly...but they'd used that moniker for her ever since her debut in Detective #359 (cover date January 1967, released in late 1966). The alliterative appellation fit in well with the campy tone of the Batman TV show--if you're familiar with the narration by (producer) William Dozier, you'll know what I mean. In fact, DC created this new Batgirl at the request of the show's executives (incl. Dozier), because the TV execs wanted to introduce a Batgirl character...so the comic book version was a kind of "preview."
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Post by Tana Nile on Aug 1, 2008 14:19:09 GMT -5
So. The story begins in mid-aor, with Ka-Zar fighting a queen named Zaladane while they are both on the back of a pterodactyl. And some years later, Zaladane claims she is Lorna Dane's sister (as far as I know, never confirmed). Also later on, Magneto kills Zala. Still later, Lorna is revealed to be Magneto's daughter. My first exposure to Zaladane and Garokk was in X-Men during the Claremont/Byrne era. At that time, I had no idea these characters had appeared before and was wondering why the heck they were there. Seems like Claremont must have read even the most obscure Marvel titles!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 2, 2008 3:32:50 GMT -5
And some years later, Zaladane claims she is Lorna Dane's sister (as far as I know, never confirmed). Also later on, Magneto kills Zala. Still later, Lorna is revealed to be Magneto's daughter. My first exposure to Zaladane and Garokk was in X-Men during the Claremont/Byrne era. At that time, I had no idea these characters had appeared before and was wondering why the heck they were there. Seems like Claremont must have read even the most obscure Marvel titles! Half the time, Claremont was the guy writing the obscure titles. I've cheated and dipped into my actual collection for the next entry, rather than my slush pile of unread comics. Here's a forgotten Claremont classic from October of 1974, right when he first began writing for Marvel at the ripe age of 24: War is Hell #9 Now, here's a comic that has become more appreciated since I picked it up. War is Hell is kind of a hard title to find, and for a long time I felt like the only person looking for these things. Despite that, however, I still haven't tracked down #11 or 13, and nowadays they're a little pricey online. The cheapest copy of #9 on ebay is $12 , compared to the whopping 90 cents I paid for mine. Due to this I just can't bring myself to pay ten bucks for the issues I am missing when I got every other one of them for under a dollar. Anyhoo. Back to the comic itself. As you can see this is from the 25 cent era of Marvel, which in my opinion was the beginning of a decade of boring cover design. It is, at the least, fairly clean. This is an interesting transitional issue, though, because it's still during the era when Gil Kane is providing the covers, so it looks like it should be from the 20 cent era even though it isn't. The first eight issues of this series were reprints and other stuff, but #9 was the beginning of a new series which ran until the title was canceled after #15. The art is by Dick Ayers, with the series idea and plotting by Tony Isabella and the scripting, of course, by Claremont, who turns in some pretty nice prose right from the get go: "My name is John Kowalski. I am a dead man. And -- God knows why -- I am in HELL! Which is funny in a way -- 'cause I never believed in God or the devil, Heaven or Hell, when I was alive. "Things have changed since this morning." The story starts with Kowalski standing in the ruins of a town that has been bombed to oblivion. He picks through the rubble and finds the body of his girlfriend, then finds a guy trapped under debris. This dude, named Ostergan, is really upset at Kowalski for some reason and curses him, literally, with his dying breath. Actually, he says it best: "I curse you, Kowalski. With my.. dying breath..." See, I wasn't making that up. Anyway, Kowalski stumbles thorugh the rubble, finding only corpses, until a bum creeps up behind him and brains him with a crutch. The blow knocks him for a loop and he halucinates his backstory: he was a medal of honor winner with the Marines when he was wrongly charged with treason and thrown out of the armed services. As an immigrant from Poland, he was also expelled from America, and went back to his homeland to live in obscurity. Then, this guy Ostergan found him. Ostergan was a member of the German resistance against Hitler and had discovered that Hitler was about to invade Poland, and he needed Kowalski to contact the American consulate for him to deliver the intelligence. Kowalski, though, told him to take a hike. And then... you know, they invaded and killed everyone. Waking up, Kowalski, racked with guilt, notices another survivor: a little girl. The bum, though, also sees her and flies into a rage because she's taking a loaf of bread. Turns out the bum is a known murderer called The Scavenger and he goes to kill the girl, but Kowalski jumps in to defend her. As they fight, they crash into a wall weakened by the bombing and it collapses on them, killing them both. Kowalski, though, is still there, much to his own surprise. Even more surprising: Death is standing in front of him. Yup, that's a surprise. See, turns out that Ostergan's curse had some meat to it. While Kowalski tries to figure out what's going on, he realizes that Death has actually come for the little girl. Refusing to give her up, Kowalski grabs her and carries her to some Red Cross aid workers who have shown up in the town. They, however, cannot see him or hear him, since he's dead. Still really confused, Kowalski can only watch as a German tank rolls up and blasts the Red Cross workers to pieces, including the girl. Death then reveals that the coming war will claim 40 million lives ad that Kowalski will get to see a whole lot of them: "You bear Ostergan's curse, mortal. So know you this: a coward dies a thousand times before his death. You will die them ALL. And a thousand-thousand more.... rest in peace, John Kowalski". Then the issue ends. A little commentary. The main problem for me with this issue is that it kind of doesn't explain fully what the premise is; you need to also read the next issue, #10, before you can figure out what the series is about. Kowalski is doomed to become other people in the moment of their death; when they die, he replaces them for a brief time -- gaining all their memories and such -- and tries to do some bit of good before he dies again. Basically, he intervenes in meaningless deaths and tries to give them some meaning by saving a few other people from the horrors of war. Every issue, some schlub gets killed and he takes their place and tries to help their family or finish some mission or whatever. So the concept really isn't explained very well in this issue itself. I think they could have done with less bum fighting and more plot movement and exposition. Otherwise, though, I've always loved this basic concept. In the lettercolumn, Tony Isabella explains that they are trying to do a new type of War comic, one in which they can fully portray all the horrors of war without glorifying it at all by telling it through the lens of some hero like Sgt. Fury or whomever. Unfortunately it didn't really catch on, as it only lasted seven issues. but they're all pretty cool. One other thing of interest to us Avengers fans is that, while John Kowalski has vanished almost completely from comics, he did show up one other time: in a Scarlet Witch story in Solo Avengers (#6 if memory serves). In the story, Kowalski shows up and informs Wanda that his time as Death's minion is almost over, but when he's done, she will take his place and become the new harbinger and speaker for the dead. Indeed, if Bendis ever took the time to look at anything other than his own navel, this would have been an interesting thing to tie into Disassembled. My grade: I'd like to give it an A-, but fighting with a bum instead of explaining the very concept of the entire series forces me to drop it down to a B.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 2, 2008 20:57:36 GMT -5
Speaking of war comics: Star Spangled War Stories #150 I don't recall where I got this comic. It's part of a group of 3 issues of Star Spangled War Stories, including #151 (first appearance of Unknown Soldier) that I got for like a buck each. This is because, even though they are solid, tight, clean back issues, they all have a hole drilled clean through them. It's a little hole, only about half the size of a three hole punch hole, and it's through the DC comics logo. Honestly, it doesn't affect anything at all except collectors. So, even though I already owned a holeless copy of SSWS #151, I bought them all anyway because they were just so ridiculously cheap that I couldn't help myself. #150, though, is the last issue featuring Enemy Ace. It's a 15 cent DC from April of 1970. It features a cover and interior art by Joe Kubert, who I believe was also the editor at this time. There aren't any story credits, so I'm kind of guessing, but I think the story is by Robert Kanigher. The cover, while still a 15 center, is starting to lean towards more modern design elements, which is true of most of the late 15 cent era from DC. I like this giant, asymmetrical logo and the little circle with Enemy Ace's face in it. Overall the cover is an in-between design stage; it looks more modern than some of the issues just a year before, but not as much as the Unknown Soldier issues that would immediately follow. The first dozen issues with Unknown Soldier would push the design envelope much further. For some reason, Enemy Ace had just recently been cut back to half the issue instead of full issue stories; the lettecolumn (which I will mention again later) has comments about this decision. I'm no fan of ten page stories, as I've mentioned before. This one isn't too bad, it's just... also not really a story per se. Here's what happens: Hans von Hammer, Germany's foremost fighter ace during WWI, is flying a mission when his squadron is ambushed by the French. They shoot down his friends and then him. Unlike his less fortunate comrades, though, von Hammer is able to land his plane, though he suffers some injuries. He drags himself to a nearby house, where a blind woman kindly assist him with his injuries. As they talk, von Hammer learns that the woman's son is a fighter pilot whom he had shot down just a few days earlier. Before he can react, French troops show up to arrest him, but he escapes into the countryside. He then takes refuge in a barn, where in the morning, a young boy finds him. The boy again helps him with his injuries, and also reveals that his brother is a fighter pilot -- again, whom von Hammer has just shot down. Well, the story is called "3 Graves to Home", so you can probably guess what happens next. After he leaves the barn, he passes out amidst a flock of sheep and is found by a kind shepherdess. This time its her finace who is the pilot killed by von Hammer. After she helps him, he continues on his trek and eventually ends up back in Germany at his base, where he gets ready to fly a new mission while contemplating the dead. And... that's it. Like I said, there's not really a standard story with a beginning, middle and end here. It's just a series of vignettes. It's kind of cool, but maybe if the story had more room to develop they could have found a plot of place these scenes in. The backup story is a dirty reprint, this time of a Viking Prince story from.. somewhere. There's no explanation of where it's being reprinted from, but it claims to be from "The Golden Age of Comics!" which isn't technically true, since the character didn't first appear until 1955. The story is probably from his run in Brave and the Bold #1-26. Anyway, in it, he and his dudes are fishing when suddenly a T-Rex attacks. For some reason it's trapped inside a cave, so it doesn't really do much with the attacks until the Prince's jealous rival frees it. The Prince manages to drive it into the ocean using fire, but then realizes that his girlfriend is on a ship in the harbor, along with the previously mentioned rival. The Prince swims out there just in time for the T-Rex to smash the ship to hell; the rival drowns and the Prince and his girl swim to safety. The end! The only part of this story I enjoyed, besides the fact that a T-Rex is attacking vikings, is that the Prince describes the dinosaur as having "the power of TEN SNOW BEARS!" There's a third little story jammed into the back of the comic: four pages about the Battle of the Marne from 1914. This shows how the general on the front lines called for reinforcements on a telephone and was sent those reinforcements via a fleet of taxicabs. The point for the writers is how the battle was won through the use of the telephone. For me, it's ironic, because this sort of armchair generalship, often from hundreds of miles behind the lines, is one of the main reasons the war was so bloody and futile. Plus, a failure to recognize the power of new inventions (particularly machine guns, mines and the rifled barrel) led directly to wholesale slaughter due to outmoded strategies. In other words, this little story has it almost totally backwards. Anyway, the lettercolumn is interesting. Joe Kubert seems to be answering all the letters himself, but based on his answers, it doesn't seem like they knew at publishing time that the next issue would be Unknown Soldier instead of Enemy Ace. By the time of this issue in 1970, the effects of the Vietnam War on the field of war comics is being felt even at DC, generally a much more conservative company than Marvel. Enemy Ace is an atypical war hero, in that his inner monologue is all about how much he hates war, and he's always talking about how depressing everything is. In the letter column, Kubert addresses this, saying "The point of our 'War Magazines' has been to show the futility of war, while stressing the human qualities that are driven to peak-highs under duress of battle." I'm pretty sure that that was not the original point of these war magazines when they first debuted for DC back in the early 1950's, but it is pretty much true across the board by 1970. The letters in this issue are discussing #148, which appears to have been about von Hammer getting a pet puppy named Schatzi, which I assume is no relation to Marge Schott's annoying Reds mascot. Apparently, at the climax of the story, the puppy, who was along for the ride during a dogfight, fell out of the plane to his death. I guess this is about the futility of bringing a puppy on a bi-plane, but the readers seemed affected by the story, with one writing this: "I was so surprised that the story actually forced me to express emotion." Well, if it was good enough for Commander Data, it must have been pretty good. My Grade: B for the Enemy Ace story, thanks to the sheer goodness of Joe Kubert; F for Kubert sticking a filthy reprint into a comic that was bi-monthly. No dreaded deadline involved here -- write something new, geez.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 3, 2008 6:07:47 GMT -5
"I was so surprised that the story actually forced me to express emotion." Well, if it was good enough for Commander Data, it must have been pretty good. Oh, did that make me laugh! These write-ups you're doing are absolutely GREAT reads, scottharris! Keep up the great work!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 3, 2008 19:34:54 GMT -5
Next up is the story we just had to call "Monster Triumphant!" for no apparent reason: Incredible Hulk #108 This is the October, 1968 issue of Hulk, a 12 cent Marvel. During this era of cover design, Marvel pretty much had no dialog on the covers, or other word balloons, it was just the picture and the title of the issue. This is what I consider to be the classic Marvel design, with the signature corner box and the Silver Age art. A simple, elegant -- and kind of boring -- design that would last with only a few tweaks for 30+ years. The credits read "Written by our leader, Smilin' STAN LEE who misses his green-skinned gargoyle! Illustrated by Happy HERB TRIMPE who longs for his phantom eagle!" Now, the issues often had this sort of stuff going on in the credit box, but I'm not sure I can think of another example where it made as little sense as this. I have no idea what they're talking about at all. The story starts right in the middle of some cliffhanger, so apparently the story is continued from #107. Hulk is sinking in a pit of quicksand while The Mandarin of all people is standing over him declaiming. A blurb at the bottom says "It's not that we don't remember what happened last ish, but we hate to waste time explaining at a time like this! So let's hit the quicksand, querulous one... we'll backtrack as we barrel along --" Oddly, however, they never actually do this, so for once Stan doesn't give us last issue's tale in a flashback and the reader has to pretty much infer all of it from dialog. I'm not complaining, really, but it's unusual, and there are a couple things in the issue that I didn't understand. Anyway, Hulk sinks into the quicksand, helpless ("Hulk's strength -- is useless!"), until he feels the pit wall with his hand. Then he smashes his way out of the pit. Mandarin immediately drops a giant glass jar on top of him as though he were a firefly, and fills it with nerve gas, which knocks the Hulk out. As the Hulk says: "Gas! The only thing -- I can't -- fight back against...!" Yeah, the only thing other than the quicksand from six panels ago, sure. Anyway, Mandarin brings out a horde of really badly colored orange looking Chinese soldiers and they grab the Hulk and implant a control device in his neck. Mandarin then unveils his plan: using the control device, he will force Hulk to attack different nations of the Earth, who will all assume that the Hulk is working for their enemies. This will cause them to launch a nuclear strike on each other, destroying all civilization, and Mandarin will rule over the rubble. Man, that is the stupidest plan I have ever heard of. Forget the fact that there's no logical reason any nation would assume an attack from the Hulk is a sign of foreign aggression. Let's focus on the fact that Mandarin is planning to destroy the entire planet in order to become its ruler. This guy has clearly lost sight of why he became a fanatical conqueror in the first place. Also, the whole Yellow Peril background of Mandarin is really blatant in this issue. Besides the garish orange skin, he is sporting long, sharpened fingernails and says stuff like "Ah so!" I am not making this up. It's kind of embarrassing. So is his ridiculous green pajamas with pink pointy mask, pink boots and a giant M logo on the chest. How this guy ever became a grade A villain is beyond me; he's awful in this story. Anyway, Hulk wakes up, Mandarin controls him and sends him off to wreck a train station, which is very 1870 of him. Meanwhile, Nick Fury is meeting with his Soviet counterpart, a guy named Colonel Yuri Brevlov. Apparently Fury and Brevlov fought some missions together during WWII, though I don't know when as I have yet to read any Sgt. Fury stories detailing this. Brevlov also looks exactly like a communist version of Adam Strange. While the two talk, they get word of Hulk's rampage, which we now see for several pages. Hulk smashes stuff and the world leaders do, in fact, start blaming each other, like a bunch of morons. I think I should mention at this point that I can't stand the Hulk and I pretty much despise his entire series. Fury and Adam Strange get a message from Tony Stark: "Code 6!" Fury explains that Code 6 stands for the Mandarin. Uh... okay, why not. The two of them immediately change course in the rocket ship they are tooling around in and fly right to Mandarin's castle. He's so busy gloating about the success of his terrible plan that he doesn't see them coming until their hovercraft smashes right though his viewscreen. Nice security measure there. Adam Strange immediately smashes the control device with a karate kick, and Hulk responds (wherever he is) by realizing he was being controlled by Mandarin. He rushes back to Mandarin's headquarters, where Fury and Strange are fighting. At one point Mandarin uses his rings to create a tiny, tiny thunderstorm over Fury, one that is literally about eleven feet tall. Oh wait, that's supposed to be stun gas, according to Stan's dialog. Looks to me like he had no idea what Trimpe was drawing and was trying to save the story. Anyway, Mandarin is about to defeat Fury when Hulk smashes in, saves Fury by taking a bullet for him (or... it bounces off, of course. And it's not a bullet, it's some goofy ring beam). Hulk then goes ape and starts randomly punching walls. While Fury and Strange flee, Hulk actually lifts the entire castle off its foundation and smashes it in one giant piledriver move. Wow. And then the issue ends in the next panel -- no mention of Fury or Mandarin or what happened to anybody or anything or whether the world leaders backed down from their war footing or anything -- with Hulk turning to walk into a sudden sunset (no joke, he actually walks off into the sunset) while saying "Somewhere there must be a place for Hulk! But until I find it, I'll keep fighting -- until I die!" Or, until you find it. I'd prefer death, hopefully in #109, but that's unlikely since the next issue teaser says "The Coming of Ka-Zar!". The mere thought of that story makes me incredibly tired and bored. A couple of lettercolumn notes of interest. A guy writes in to say that Hulk needs a worthy mate, so he suggests that they irradiate Betty Ross with gamma beams and turn her into a female Hulk. Sounds like an okay idea, right? Maybe they could call her She-Hulk or something. However, Stan pretty much gives the guy a vicious verbal wedgie: "With all the THINKING you must do to come up with a cockamamey idea like this one, who has time for reading? Hoo boy, we can see it now!"Thunderbolt" Ross's own baby girl running amuck in Macy's, pursued by the full forces of the 34th Street branch of the National Guard! Or, Fantastic dialogues on the order or Tarzan meets Jane, like: "Me Hulk; you Shulk?" Jeez, what crawled into Stan's coffee and died? I like how the idea of a female Hulk immediately gets him ranting about women shopping. Meanwhile, another guy writes in to say that too many of Hulk's villains are just bad version of Hulk: big, superstrong fighter guys. Which, yeah, they are, aren't they. Anyway, this reader wants them to try to come up with some more varied villains to fight, and has this suggestion: "For example, one life-form the Hulk may encounter could be just a cloud of intelligence, or have him do battle with an army of midgets." You know what -- have him do both at once, and maybe we'll finally have a Hulk comic worth reading. My Grade: C for boring me; F for having the Hulk in it; A- for sexist and racist stereotypes and for having a full page advertisement for Avengers Special #2.
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