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Post by scottharris on Aug 5, 2008 1:13:54 GMT -5
Um, yeah... Kamandi #32 For reasons beyond even my understanding, I own like 15 issues of Kamandi. They are all in quite nice condition, so in theory they are worth some decent money, but I'm here to tell you that's not really the case. When I was selling my excess comics to the local store, I told them I had several boxes of 70's comics and they said, "Bring them in. Unless they're Kamandi." No joke. This is the August, 1975 issue, so it's a bit later than most of the ones I've been doing here. They still have the double circles, but in this case they're used for the GIANT line, which were 50 cents. SOme people love these DC Giants, me, not so much. They're usually padded with a bunch of dirty reprints. This one at least has a full length regular story in it, and it's a two man production: Jack Kirby is writing, penciling and editing, while D. Bruce Berry is inking and lettering. Curious that Kirby had someone else do the inking, but maybe it was for time reasons since he was doing so many other things. Kamandi, as you know, is a blatant Planet of the Apes ripoff, and it's been getting some play recently thanks to the fact that it introduced the Great Disaster into the DC universe, which is the basis for the current Final Crisis event. This disaster basically turned people into unthinking animals and gave animals intelligence. The main difference between Apes and Kamandi is that it's not just apes who are intelligent, in Kamandi all animals have become intelligent and formed warring tribes. The issue starts with Kamandi and his allies, the tiger people, zipping along in a boat. They land on an island and find another talking human named Ben Boxer, who apparently in the last issue had grown to giant size. Now he's normal. They quickly bring in Dr. Canus, a dog scientist dude, who explains that he's found a sentient ball of energy who calls himself "Me" and that can do things like make people giant sized. In your face, Pym. While they're standing around talking, they are ambushed by a troop of "Gorilla Commandos!" That would require an exclamation point from me as well. They capture the tigers but let Kamandi go since he's just an animal. Kamandi runs right to Canus and they devise a trap. When the gorillas come to the flying saucer that Me crashed in, Me uses sand to form an impervious body and slaps the gorillas around. One of them eventually uses a grenade to blow up the sand, but then Me just uses his energy to zap the dude. All the gorillas surrender and Kamandi and Canus turn their attention to how to get Me back to his home planet. And... that's the end. Yeah, that was actually 23 pages of story. I managed to tell it in three paragraphs, so either I'm a better storyteller than Kirby or he was really drawing just a lot of animals punching and shooting each other. Next up is a feature called "Jack Kirby -- A Man With a Pencil". Maybe they could have come up with a better title than that. Anyway, this is a text biography of Kirby that manages to give a nice overview of his early years while completely glossing over everything he ever did with Marvel. It skips everything he did with Timely and Atlas, and even his early stuff with DC in the 40's and jumps right from his childhood influences to his DC work in the late 1950s. Then it says this: "It wasn't until a few years later that I, among countless other fans, caught up with Jack's work -- began to dig it -- and stay with it. His creative endeavors had swiftly captured the enthusiasm of a new generation of fans." Yep, countless enthusiastic fans who even now were buying and reading the Marvel books he created and totally ignoring this goofy fourth world nonsense. This section was written by a guy named Steve Sherman, who doesn't have a wiki page, so that's all you need to know about his DC career. It also features a bunch of really poorly reproduced black and white photos of Kirby working. All in all it's not terrible, but writing Jack Kirby's bio without mentioning Marvel is... kind of hard. After this is a reprint of Kamandi #1, which, okay, fine. At least it's #1. Otherwise I can't think of any excuse for reprints in a book that's only on #32, considering a lot of the readers will have read the entire series. There's also a really bizarre two-page spread showing a map of Kamandi's world after the Great Disaster. It looks like the kind of thing I would have doodled in social studies in 6th grade, but that's not a bad thing. Had I been a Kamandi fan -- god save me -- I would have loved this, because maps = awesome. Sadly, there's no lettercolumn. There is an interesting in house ad touting the new line of fantasy comics. "First DC gave you the world greatest superheroes. Then DC introduced top quality mystery tales." Here they have pictures of the narrators for their horror books, along with Swamp Thing, SPectre and Phantom Stranger. All of these titles would be canceled within a pretty short period. "NOW DC presents fantasy at its best in our all-new adventure line" The new line: Justice Inc., Claw, Tor, Warlord, Stalker, Beowulf and Kong. None of these lasted more than like 6 issues except Warlord, which went on to reportedly become DC's highest selling book at one point during its long run. It's interesting just how many of the books being hyped on this page got canned shortly after this ad. Also, among the "worlds greatest superheroes" that "DC gave you" is Captain Marvel. Which, of course, DC had nothing at all to do with bringing us. My Grade: D for the main story (and the entire series) being a blatant and lame ripoff of Planet of the Apes; B+ for the Jack Kirby feature; A- for the map; C- for a dirty reprint filling out the rest of the book.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 5, 2008 23:28:21 GMT -5
The FIRST and still the greatest BLACK superhero of all: Power Man #17 So, is Luke Cage really the first black superhero? The cover says so. I guess Black Panther is kind of like Barack Obama; he's African, and he's in America, but does that make him African-American? I know it sounds weird, but I have read that some African-Americans don't consider Obama to really be black, because his father was from Africa and his mother was white. In other words, he's not really from the African-American culture, just like Black Panther might be black, but he's not really "black". Hell if I know, I'm whiter than new fallen snow. I find it hard to believe, though, that the first black superhero was introduced in 1972. Surely in the 35+ years of publishing before then, someone had come up with a black superhero. African-Americans frequently took matters into their own hands, hence the existence of black magazines, books and cinema during the segregated 1940's and 1950's. Didn't anybody think to cater to the black comic reading community? Indeed, a little research has turned up some interesting antecedents, such as the 1947 comic book "All-Negro Comics", which featured a Spirit-esque detective named Ace Harlem and a superpowered Zulu tribesman named Lion Man. Atlas Comics itself had a heroic African prince named "Waku: Prince of the Bantu", who was a lot like Ka-Zar. There also was a western hero named Lobo who received his own series from Dell in 1965. Here's a link to an interesting discussion of African-American characters in comic book history: poisonousparagraphs.blogspot.com/2008/02/dart-adams-presents-black-like-me.htmlAnyway... my point is, in your face, Luke Cage! Beyond that, this is a late 20 cent Marvel, after they did away with the frame design. This is actually a striking cover, no pun intended, except the logo is pretty awful in my opinion. Logos are quite important, and this one just seems kind of half-assed. Of course, they had to put Luke Cage above the title because, as we will see, he didn't choose the name Power Man until the end of this issue, so people buying this off the newsstand would have had no idea who "Power Man" was otherwise. This issue, then, is the first Power Man issue, with the first 16 being under the title of Hero for Hire. It's from February of 1974 and the story is written by Len Wein with art from George Tuska and Billy Graham, but presumably not that Billy Graham. Though that would be awesome. It starts with Cage reading a newspaper and shouting "Of all the freakin', mother-lovin' CRUD!" Man, don't you wish this were a MAX series or something so the writers could actually drop some F-bombs? So why is Cage upset? Well, it's because he solved a big case and didn't get any press for it. He decides that this is because he doesn't have a catchy superhero name like Spider-man and Captain America do. While he's thinking about this, a client comes in who says that he is from Stark Industries and that Tony Stark wants Cage to try to steal a suit of armor so they can test their security measures. In order to make it realistic, though, nobody except the three of them would know about the deal, not even Iron Man. Cage, of course, agrees. Now, at this point I was screaming at the comic. "No, Luke, it's a setup!" C'mon, this guy is supposed to be the streetsmart hero, and yet he falls for this obvious setup? Arrgh. Almost as annoying is a subplot where Cage is worried about how a female friend will react to the news that he is an escaped convict. He frets over this for the first several pages until a mutual acquaintance finds him and says "C'mon, let's go over to the clinic. I'm sure Claire will want to see you." Then... uh... well, maybe Luke walks off? I'm not really sure because this scene happens on page 7 and this plot thread isn't mentioned again for the rest of the issue. This is like Checkov's gun, people: if you introduce a lame subplot in the first 7 pages, it has to be fired by the end of the issue. Only, it isn't. Instead, Cage heads to Stark's factory, where he sneaks around. He decides he'll just hide in "the shadows. With my complexion, don't think anyone'll notice me there." They might notice the giant neon yellow shirt and reflective metal headband, though. Anyway, he breaks in, gets to the suit and Iron Man shows up. Of course, he has no idea what this is about, because it was a setup. The two of them start pounding on each other, then realize that... IT'S A SETUP!!!! No kidding. Good work, Sherlock. Anyway, the client is there and he's stolen the suit while they've been fighting. He jumps in some ridiculous shuttle plane and flies off. Unfortunately, Iron Man's jets were damaged during the fight so he can't pursue. So, Cage grabs the plane and jumps aboard. The two of them go at it, with the guy shouting stuff like "Common black fool!" Hey pal, go easy on that stuff, okay? Anyway, they're fighting, and Cage gives the guy a kick -- and he sails out the window and apparently plummets to his death. Cage calls down to Iron Man and says "Er -- he sort of dropped out of the picture". In reply, Iron Man calls him an idiot. Geez, what's everyone's problem? Here's what Iron Man says: "You mean he jumped from the skate? Idiot, the star suit is equipped with jets for short distance flying. Once he flies out of our tracking range, we'll never find him." Oh, so he didn't fall to his death after all. Or... Cage: "Oh, you'll find him. Somehow I don't think he flew very far -- without these circuits in the front'a his suit". So... wait, let me see... he had jet boots, but they wouldn't work because Cage ripped out all the wiring from the suit, so... he actually did fall to his death? I'm telling you, in the panel of him falling, he's not doing any flying, he's just dropping like a stone screaming his lungs out. And then... the issue ends with Cage deciding to call himself Power Man. No mention whatsoever of the fact that Cage apparently just killed a guy and covered it up by letting people believe he jumped. Oh, and how did he come up with the name Power Man? During the fight with the client he says this: "Just chalk it up to Black Power, man", then thinks in a thought balloon "Black Power, man? Power Man? Yeah -- that's it!" Oh, god. The lettercolum in this issue is totally boring, so I won't get into it. The only thing of note, really, is that this issue's Bullpen Bulletin teases the unveiling of the Marvel Value Stamp in the next issue. The most cursed and hated invention in the history of comic books. I'm guessing we all have our sad tales about back issues ruined by someone cutting out the Marvel Value Stamp; mine is a chopped up copy of Incredible Hulk #181 that I found in a store for $12. That one still hurts to think about. And the owner didn't even know about the stamp being missing; when I showed it to him he sold me the issue for $6 instead. But oh, what might have been. Curse you, Value Stamp!!! My Grade: Surprisingly, I'm giving this issue a B. Yeah, the blaxploitation dialogue was over the top, and the plot was pretty simple, but I enjoyed it anyway. Wein knows what he's doing.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 0:09:37 GMT -5
Before I get to today's review, here's a little mini-update. I've been saving up some dough to splurge with at the next comic show in the area, but I discovered that it had been canceled or something, because the next big show in the area isn't until November. So I decided to blow it all on my new Sgt. Fury obsession. I managed to find a great deal on eBay on a big lot of back issues, and then I went back to my store and pretty much bought up everything they had that was relatively cheap and still missing from my checklist. The final tally was a cost of slightly under $300. Now, there are 104 issues of Sgt. Fury that aren't reprints; of those I already owned two (#13 and 24). My 300 bucks bought me another 82 issues of Sgt. Fury plus six doubles. Even ignoring those doubles, that's an average of only $3.65 per issue, or roughly the same as new comics.
Yeah, I'm pretty stoked. Sure, it's still 300 bucks, but on the other hand, when that eBay shipment arrives tomorrow I'm going to have 66 (!) vintage Marvel books waiting to be read for the first time. This includes quite a few early issues like 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 18, many of which are honest to god Lee + Kirby stories. Wah-hoo!
Perhaps of more interest to you guys, today, as part of my spree, I also picked up a couple other comics of interest. Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders #6 and 7 were among these. #6 is a crossover from Sgt. Fury, where Savage's team rescues the Howler Izzy Cohen from a Japanese P.O.W. camp. Then, the very next issue, they do the exact same thing, only it's Ben Grimm they are rescuing, back when Marvel continuity still had Grimm in WWII. To be honest, these comics are pretty awful. Even though they have essentially the same creative team as Sgt. Fury issues at the time, with Gary Friedrich writing, they just seem... bad. The team is a blatant knock off of the Howlers, with each character being defined solely through a specific character quirk they could refer to occasionally (such as Frenchie always talking about or thinking about women). They also have a Native American member named Jay Little Bear who uses a bow and arrow and a tomahawk instead of a rifle. It's as bad as it sounds.
If the decision to have Sgt. Fury and FF crossovers in back to back issues seems like an early version of the "Wolverine and Punisher in every issue" marketing ploy, it is. Indeed, in the lettercolumn for #6, a fan writes in to complain about this exact thing. Turns out pretty much every single issue of the series up through #7 had some sort of tie-in to established books as a hook to get people to read it; the first few issues had an origin for Hydra.
If you're a big Ben Grimm fan, then #7 might be worth reading; or if you are putting together an entire set of Fury like I am, you might need #6. Otherwise, wow, this series seems like crap.
I also heard through the grapevine that our friend John Kowalski from War is Hell actually did make some appearances between the end of that series and his guest spot in Solo Avengers. I should have realized this; Claremont might not be as bad as Englehart with Mantis, but he does tend to carry his pet characters with him from one project to another (see: Carol Danvers as Binary in X-Men). In this case, the story is in Man-Thing vol. 2 #11, the last issue of the second Man-Thing series, and man, this is a weird comic. It's also kind of a giant ego trip for Claremont, but I'll forgive him because it is a fun read.
Essentially, we discover that Man-Thing is being canceled because Claremont has been receiving all these scripts in a dream sent by Dahkim the Enchanter. Claremont gets a vision of a flying pirate ship and chases it to Dr. Strange's house, where Strange and Clea are dead. Claremont is then also killed by their murderer, a pirate wielding a magic sword. This guy is the servant of a demon. His girlfriend, however, has found help in the form of John Kowalski, who kills her and transforms her into a grim reaper, like himself. Then, along with Man-Thing, the three travel to the demon's world and fight. After turning Man-Thing back into his human form, it looks like the demon is going to win, right up until Claremont himself becomes the Man-Thing and defeats the demon. Kowalski then frees the woman from the curse of being a grim reaper and they return to Earth, where Claremont reverts to human form and explains everything to Jim Shooter. Shooter decides that for the good of humanity they have to cancel the book, and that's the end of the series.
Yeah, wtf, right? A fun story, while still proving why Man-Thing is a giant, useless non-character. This issue is certainly worth the time though.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 1:07:23 GMT -5
Anyone else feel a draft or something? I'm kind of getting cold. Maybe it's because we're all in a... Chamber of CHILLS!!!! So, here was have one of Marvel's forays into horror, Chamber of Chills #1. Marvel had a few horror comics back in the day; this first issue is from November of 1972, which is right when they started putting out a lot of horror titles. Most of them didn't last too long and many were converted to super-hero books featuring mystical anti-heroes, auch as Adventures Into Fear becoming a Morbius series. At the start, though, they tried to be horror, so let's see if they are any better than that Unexpected issue I reviewed awhile ago. Online sources credit the cover to Gil Kane, which is probably true, since he was doing most Marvel covers during the awesome 20 cent frame era. This cover is kind of cool, even though it doesn't strike even a single atom of fear into me. It's also one of the rare instances where the frame doesn't entirely work, due to the fact that they also put the logo inside its own little frame. Since the logo is already separated from the picture by the frame design, having it inside another little frame just looks... weird. They should have gotten rid of that dripping green box until after the frame design was retired. The first story is credited to a writer named George Alec Effinger, which seems like a pen name to me. Effinger? I hardly know her! Of more interest is the art, which is by "Craig Russell and Dan Adkins". This must be pretty early in P. Craig Russell's career if he hadn't adopted the P. yet; it also bears little resemblance to his later distinct style. "Moon of Madness, Moon of Fear" begins with a shirtless guy being chased by wolves. Then we cut to a group of young tourists, heading off into the Bavarian wilderness for a camping trip. They are suddenly interrupted by a withered crone who... OMG, you have to be kidding. Yes, a withered crone shows up out of nowhere are says "Perhaps the fraulein can sense it, eh? It is the frachtdorf EVIL!" She then warns them that werewolves are around and that it's a full moon and that they best heed her warning and you really, really have to be kidding me with this. But no. Anyway, they go into the woods, and suddenly the shirtless man shows up, being attacked by wolves. The youths, being red blooded American men, jump in and save him by smacking the wolves with tree branches, then bring him back to the fire. The wolves circle the camp and the guys fend them off all night long with torches. Finally the sun comes up... ... and the guy turns into a werewolf. See, he's actually a werehuman -- the full moon turns him into a human, but the rest of the time he's a wolf. That's why the wolves were attacking him, because he turned into a person. Then, to punctuate his story, he eats them all. There's an epilogue later where the same thing happens again, only to some old people in an RV. THE END! Up next is... a dirty reprint!!! ARRRGH! But, wait. This is actually interesting -- it's a reprint of a pre-code horror story by Stan Lee with art from Russ Heath. Called "They Wait in Their Dungeon", it originally appeared in the first issue of an Atlas comic called Menace in 1953. So, I'm going to read it even though it's a dirty reprint. And it's a doozy. It's written from the perspective of a warden in a maximum security prison like Alcatraz. This warden is a sadistic monster, whipping inmates with his bullwhip and reveling in their execution. In one seen he puts a guy in the gas chamber and we get this bit from Lee: "Your heart beats faster as the doomed prisoner is led into the little gas chamber! You would prefer to watch the guillotine, but execution by gas is better than nothing! As the jets are turned on, you rush to your specially built window to watch the doomed man squirm in terror... His movements become slower as the gas begins to enter his lungs... Finally he starts to slip to his knees... the life ebbing from him... until at last he lays still... dead! You feel cheated! The last one remained alive for 4 minutes, struggling and... screaming! It was wonderful to watch!" Anyway, at dinner, he eats some soup that he doesn't like, so he forces the cook to drink dishwater then has his guards drag the guy off to the torture chamber. However, he makes a critical mistake here: the rest of the guards have been overwhelmed, so this leaves him alone. The inmates close in and chase him through the building until his only choice is whether to hide in the gas chamber or face them outside it. "The choice is yours, Warden Drury! Do you go thru the door and die... or do you wait and die? Think fast, Warden Drury... your time has run out!!" This final panel has a closeup of the red and sweaty face of the warden with a look of terror on his face as the convicts aproack "hands outstretched... fingers reaching, clawing, each fighting to be the first to choke you..." THE END! The third story is called "Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" and it is credited to Gerry Conway "adapted from an original story by Harlan Ellison". Oh, Christ, great. Seeing that byline makes me want to burn my whole comic collection. But, anyway, I went ahead and read the story: A dude is walking along when a wrecking ball flattens him. He wakes up to find himself on a sailing ship, in the body of... Ka.-Zar by the looks... holding a magic sword that spouts expositional dialogue at him. The sword says he's in heaven, but he has to earn it. He can do this by sailing through some rough seas and saving a maiden from a demon. The thing is, he has to do this in a manner which is in keeping with his ethics. Well, he sails the ship through the straits, but manages to wreck it, killing the entire crew: "And his men -- who trusted him not to gamble them away so cheaply -- wail till their screams become water-logged -- and, choking -- ARE GONE!" This accompanied by an eerie drawing by Syd Shores of the drowned men floating under the surface of the ocean. The main character's reaction to this: "Well, I certainly messed that up." You think?! Anyway, he comes to a clearing and sees the maiden and the deamon, which looks like Sasquatch, and is horrified when they start totally making out. So, he runs up and stabs the demon in the back and pitches him into a river. Then he grabs the maiden and basically is about to rape her when a giant dragon appears and eats the hell out of him. Then we get the moral: he killed the men with his vanity, he murdered the demon through cowardice, he revealed himself filled with lust, therefore he didn't earn heaven. Instead, he is sent back to the present, where he is crushed to death by the wrecking ball. THE END! Um. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. Better than Unexpected, anyway. The dirty reprint was actually the best, and even Conway couldn't totally ruin Ellison (or... vice versa... I'm not sure). And that first story about the werehuman was.... actually, that one was stupid. There is a neat full page ad for other horror books -- Tomb of Dracula #5 and Werewolf By Night #2 -- and the Bullpen Bulletins is filled with other interesting tidbits. It looks like Marvel underwent a huge expansion at this time, because there are blurbs and ads for other new series besides Chamber of Chills, Dracula and Werewolf, including: The Cat, Journey Into Mystery, Jungle Action, Gunhawks, Night Nurse, Doc Savage and Shanna the She-Devil. Kull, MTU and Red Wolf are all also on #5 or earlier, and Stan mentions some other titles -- Wyatt Earp, Gothic Thrillers and Spoof -- that I've never even heard of. Interesting to note that almost all of these totally tanked; only MTU and Dracula went on to any kind of long-term success, though Werewolf also lasted awhile. Bullpen Bulletins also explains that they were trying to come up with a viable female superhero for awhile and ended up coming up with The Cat, Shanna and Night Nurse as the concepts, so they decided to do all three. Moreover, all three titles were written by women, which is really unusual for the time period. Or, actually, for now. The Cat was also drawn by Marie Severin, so it had an all-female creative team, which surely is a first for superhero comics. Too bad later writers turned her into Tigra, the most useless Avenger in the history of Marvel. My grade: Not too bad, I'll give it a B overall. That's a C- for the opener, an A- for the glimpse at sadistic Stan, and a C for the Ellison adaptation. Bonus points are obviously being awarded for the cool in-house ad and bullpen bulletins.
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Post by freedomfighter on Aug 7, 2008 12:53:49 GMT -5
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 14:47:52 GMT -5
Hmm. I've heard of some of his works, but I didn't recognize the name.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 19:28:21 GMT -5
Prez #4 This is the final issue of Prez, from Feb. 1974...The story is by legendary Captain America creator Joe Simon, with art by Jerry Grandenetti. Yes, it's Unexpected #134... The first story is "The Restless Dead" by Carl Wessler with art by Jerry Grandenetti... Some time ago I was taking a look at the Namor stories in Tales to Astonish, and noticed that in between the Adam Austin (Gene Colan) issues and the Bill Everett issues, there was a single story illustrated by...Jerry Grandenetti. I was totally unfamiliar with the name, so I looked him up and learned he had quite a long career, both before and after that 1966 Namor story; he'd worked with Eisner, and was well-known for his DC war comics work. He had a very distinctive style.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 19:43:32 GMT -5
Incredible Hulk #108 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. At the time the Hulk's regular scripter had been Gary Friedrich...so this issue marked Stan's return to the scripting duties. The Trimpe-Phantom Eagle reference is a nod to the Phantom Eagle feature HT had penciled (one of his first penciling efforts for Marvel)...this was the lead feature in Marvel Super-Heroes #16 (1968). I remember the Bullpen Bulletins at that time would play up whatever the lead feature was in MSH--Mar-Vell, Medusa, the Dane Whitman Black Knight, etc.--and this new Phantom Eagle was no exception. (There had been a Golden Age character of the same name, apparently unrelated to the new one).
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 20:01:39 GMT -5
Um, yeah... Kamandi #32 Next up is a feature called "Jack Kirby -- A Man With a Pencil". Maybe they could have come up with a better title than that. Anyway, this is a text biography of Kirby that manages to give a nice overview of his early years while completely glossing over everything he ever did with Marvel. It skips everything he did with Timely and Atlas, and even his early stuff with DC in the 40's and jumps right from his childhood influences to his DC work in the late 1950s... It also features a bunch of really poorly reproduced black and white photos of Kirby working. All in all it's not terrible, but writing Jack Kirby's bio without mentioning Marvel is... kind of hard. Unbelievable...this sounds like a real tale to astonish! I have got to get a hold of this feature, it sounds fascinating. This section was written by a guy named Steve Sherman, who doesn't have a wiki page, so that's all you need to know about his DC career. Sherman was one of Kirby's assistants at the time (like the more well-known Mark Evanier). When Kirby went to DC in 1970, Sherman and Evanier (they'd both been involved with the recently-defunct Marvelmania) went along as his assistants. Boy, back then DC made sure everyone knew about their Kirby coup. A few weeks ago I re-read Green Lantern #78 (issue in which Black Canary joins GA and GL on their trek across America), and this 1970 issue contains a house ad proclaiming "The Great One is Coming!"
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 20:14:49 GMT -5
The FIRST and still the greatest BLACK superhero of all: Power Man #17 So, is Luke Cage really the first black superhero? What, no love for Sam Wilson--the Falcon??? Didn't he appear before Luke Cage? Or is Sam disqualified because his powers are somehow not considered "super?" I guess Black Panther is kind of like Barack Obama; he's African, and he's in America, but does that make him African-American? I wouldn't think so...T'Challa is African. Sam and Luke Cage are African-American. Scott, thanks for providing the link to a well-researched and truly fascinating resource!
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 20:50:30 GMT -5
Bullpen Bulletins also explains that they were trying to come up with a viable female superhero for awhile and ended up coming up with The Cat, Shanna and Night Nurse as the concepts, so they decided to do all three. Moreover, all three titles were written by women... Night Nurse was written by Jean Thomas, Roy's wife at the time (who can forget the Thomases' appearance in Avengers #83?). Linda Fite was credited as the writer for the Cat series. I remember Fite wrote the Marvel Girl feature that appeared in X-Men #57 (an exploration of MG's powers--note to dlw66: I think you and I had discussed that story at one point). Fite ended up marrying Herb Trimpe; they had a fairly long marriage, but it ended in divorce a few years ago. The Cat was also drawn by Marie Severin... Marie only drew a couple of issues before it was handed off to other artists (admittedly the series only lasted four issues!). One of the subsequent pencilers was Paty Greer, a fan turned comics pro. And yes, her surname was the inspiration for the character's first name. Paty had been writing letters to various Marvel comics for a few years; her published letters were attributed to just "Paty" (no surname). I remember thinking that was an odd name. Lo and behold, a few years later she was on staff! (A couple of years ago I read she had struck up a friendly correspondence with Marie S, and this led to a job offer as Marie's assistant.) At Marvel, Paty met Dave Cockrum and they married. By all published accounts it was a successful marriage...and she cared for him during his illness until his untimely death.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 7, 2008 20:53:44 GMT -5
What, no love for Sam Wilson--the Falcon??? Didn't he appear before Luke Cage? Or is Sam disqualified because his powers are somehow not considered "super?" Actually, I'm pretty sure Sam was the Falcon a few YEARS before Luke Cage was even around, which adds to the odd confusion! sharkar: Didn't Marie also draw Namor's solo series for a short while, or am I imagining things?
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Post by sharkar on Aug 7, 2008 21:20:59 GMT -5
What, no love for Sam Wilson--the Falcon??? Didn't he appear before Luke Cage? Or is Sam disqualified because his powers are somehow not considered "super?" Actually, I'm pretty sure Sam was the Falcon a few YEARS before Luke Cage was even around, which adds to the odd confusion! Yes. my point exactly! sharkar: Didn't Marie also draw Namor's solo series for a short while, or am I imagining things? No, you're not imagining things at all, my good doctor. She didn't draw Namor's feature when he was in Astonish (which is the timeframe I was referring to in my earlier post). She did do the Namor-Hulk one shot in TTA #100 but that's probably more due to the fact that had just started to pencil the Hulk's TTA feature, with #99. But when Namor received his own book (in mid-1968), at some point during that run she became his regular penciler for a while. She did a great job, too; I especially admired how she depicted the underwater scenes. I wish they'd left her on his series longer. By the way, I love your (slightly condensed) quote from Avengers #60. Speaking of Rascally Roy's way with dialogue, I thought it was amusing that in #59-#60 he used the same line in each of these issues, spoken by two different characters. The line in question? "Need I add that I looked it up?"
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 22:01:26 GMT -5
What, no love for Sam Wilson--the Falcon??? Didn't he appear before Luke Cage? Or is Sam disqualified because his powers are somehow not considered "super?" Actually, I'm pretty sure Sam was the Falcon a few YEARS before Luke Cage was even around, which adds to the odd confusion! Yes, this is correct. Falcon's first appearance in Cap #117 came out in Sept. of 1969, while Cage didn't appear until June of 1972. As the Falcon's wiki page says, "The Falcon is mainstream comics' first African-American superhero". The more I think about this, the more that blurb seems... slightly offensive in a way. Maybe I'm reading to much into it here, but while Black Panther can be (I guess) ignored because he's African and not African-American, what reason would there be to ignore Falcon, who at the time this issue came out was co-starring in Cap's book and had his name in the logo? The only explanation I can come to is that they mean that Cage is the first character who acts black. Falcon is sort of a more generic superhero guy, as opposed to Cage, who is "street", what with his jive lingo and criminal background. Again, maybe I'm inferring to much here, but I don't think so. I think this is implied by the blurb and the nature of the Luke Cage series and character at the time. Kind of not cool.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 22:31:32 GMT -5
Before we get to today's review, here's a little bonus section about a comic in my slush pile that I won't be reviewing: Johnny Thunder #2 The reason I'm not reviewing it is because this entire series is reprinted from an earlier DC series back in the 1950's. Why they thought it was a good idea to re-release a bunch of 50's westerns in the early 1970's is beyond me, especially since they had just introduced their much more modern and successful western hero, Jonah Hex, a few months earlier. The reason I'm including it here is because I love this cover. It has bold coloring and layout and more to the point, it features the early 20 cent DC era design that I've mentioned before. As opposed to the late 20 cent design (see: Wonder Woman #213) or the mid 20 cent design (see: Lois Lane #137), this early example shows what the design is supposed to look like, with the "20" filling the entire circle to match the "DC" on the other side. This is a prime example of this design era and it shows all the strengths of this design, which were later weakened and ruined by shrinking the price and stuffing the date and issue number in the circle as well. There's one other sub-section of the 20 cent DC era which we will eventually get to; this is the early 20 cent era, when the circle had the words "NOW ONLY" in there as well. But this one here is the way it's supposed to look. Similarly, here's another comic in my collection featuring this design that I also won't be reviewing: Shazam #3 When I got rid of the rest of these 70's books, I kept these two specifically because the covers were so great. But I can't bring myself to read this comic. As you may be able to see, this cover is by legendary Captain Marvel co-creator C. C. beck. After DC forced Fawcett out of business with their lawyers, they then bought up Fawcett's characters and had the balls to hire Beck to draw some of the comics. Sorry, but that doesn't fly with me. This issue features art by Beck with stories from Denny O'Neil and Elliott Maggin (curiously, sans S! in the credits), but the whole sordid backstory behind them publishing this just irritates me too much to read this thing. But wow, what a nice cover. If only the logo wasn't so crappy.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 7, 2008 23:26:27 GMT -5
Here's today's comic: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #7 I got this issue for a quarter several years ago. The splash page has been torn out, but it still with the book, so while it doesn't have much monetary value, it's still readable. That's good enough for me. The cover is obviously by Steranko, who really did some awesome covers for this series. This isn't one of my favorites (see #4, 5 and 6 for some serious sweetness) but it's still pretty cool. Unfortunately, he didn't do the art inside the book; this issue is written by Archie Goodwin of all people, with art from Frank Springer. The date is December of 1968. The story starts with Fury being attacked by a bunch of Bond villains inside a hotel room or something. He's kind of thrashing them, but they manage to inject him with some sort of massively powerful version of LSD just before he flings himself out of the window. We learn from some exposition that he will become paranoid and hallucinate things and then die in 6 hours. And then... the art goes berserk as Springer tries to show the effects of the drug on Fury. Yes, folks, it's 1968 in case you had been curious. Say, what time do you have on your watch there, fella? 1968? Must be time for some whacked out drug influenced comic books. It also feels like they are consciously trying to hew to the artistic style that Steranko brought to the title. Some of this experimentation (the art, not the drugs) is kind of cool; there's a nice full page Nick running, surrounded by panels in black and white of other SHIELD agents talking. Some of it, though, just looks goofy. Anyway, Dum-Dum, Gabe and Jimmy Woo show up in a mackin' SHIELD van and try to help Nick, but he thinks they are enemies and he creams all three of them between panels, Wolverine style. Now, this issue is from 1968, in case you've forgotten, which reminds me of one of my primary complaints about Sgt. Fury (digression begins... NOW!). In 1965, for the first Sgt. Fury annual, Marvel descided to do something bold and set the story in the Korean War. Bold, yes, but it also pretty much removed all the dramatic tension from Sgt. Fury for the rest of the entire series, because it revealed that the whole team survived WWII. That's a pretty big mistake, about as big a mistake as you can possibly make, especially in a war comic. It turned the series from potentially groundbreaking into a solid, fun but ultimately static read. Showing Gabe and Dum-Dum in the present as agents of SHIELD would be just as bad, except since we already knew they survived the war, why not. Anyway, apparently this drug has showed up before, in previous issues, causing other SHIELD agents to go crazy and die, so Dum-Dum and the gang know what they're up against. They rush off to try and find Nick before it's too late. Nick, however, finds someone even better: an unusually attractive nun wearing some sort of Salvation Army uniform complete with a little skirt and hat. She takes pity on his delirious form and he's able to tell her where the SHIELD rendezvous point is, where a SHIELD vortex beam is going to show up to tractor him up to the helicarrier. She gets a car from... like, 1935 for some reason... and drives him up into the hills, where the guys who drugged him are waiting at the rendezvous. Not sure why or how. They use some sort of hypno beam that works in concert with the drugs to convince Nick that they are the Howlers Eric and Dino, and that the nun is a shrieking harpy. However, Nick is made of sterner stuff, and fights against the hallucination, refusing to kill the girl. So they pretty much club him and stuff them both into the jalopy, then send it winging down the hill... directly into the path of Dum-Dum's van! Just as the two are about to collide, the vortex beam shoots down and freezes both vehicles, then pulls them up into the sky to the helicarrier. Dum-Dum rushes Nick to the ICU, where the head doctor in charge of investigating the drug waits with an antidote. However, he's the guy who has been killing the SHIELD agents all along, and the "antidote" is, in fact, some sort of super poison. Just as he's about to poke Nick with it, Nick recognizes the voice and kicks him in the face. The sound effect here is WOK! which is a really solid sound for a foot hitting a skull; that had to hurt. The doctor falls onto his own needle and dies instantly, ending the threat to SHIELD (except for whoever hired him, which maybe is addressed next issue, or probably not). THE END! Now, the lettercolumn. First off, it has the really terrible title of "Don't YIELD, write SHIELD". That's possibly even worse that "Sock it to Shellhead", "Rap With Cap" and "Let's Level With Daredevil". Epic level awful. This is during the brief era when Marvel began just printing letters without any editorial response to them, which isn't nearly as fun. Sure, the letters are still just as weird, but without Stan or Roy trying to make sense of them, it's just not the same. They also take up some space with their chart of the Hallowed Ranks of Marveldom. Let's see... hmm... I'm not sure if I am a R.F.O. any more, but I think I might be (at least, when I buy Iron Fist I am). I'm also a T. T. B., Q. N. S., K. O. F. and a P. M. M. In fact, the only one I am missing is F. F. F., which they says is bestowed for devotion to Marvel above and beyond the call of duty. I wonder what someone had to do to receive that title? The next issue blurb says "Next: INFERNO!" I'd rather shoot myself than even think about Madeline Pryor, so thanks, SHIELD, for that unwelcome memory. This issue came out at the same time as Thor #158, Cap #108, Avengers #58 and Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Sub-Mariner and Captain Savage #8. So why is it only on #7? Hmm. Form the lettercolumn I gathered that #4 was a surprise fill-in issue, so maybe there was a production delay. Stan's Soapbox is also interesting in this issue, especially if you read the Soapbox from the previous month, which is one of my favorites. In it, they explain that they recently had adopted a policy not to editorialize, because they had been getting complaints about Stan's political views. However they got one letter saying to go ahead, so they have reversed their decision. After this explanation it ends with a postscript that says "Next ish -- what is a bigot?" I dunno, I found that to be extremely funny. After deciding to stop all editorializing, Stan's going to ease slowly back into it by explaining racism. Well, nobody ever said subtlety was Stan's strong suit. Anyway, this issue is the one where he explains what a bigot is. Thanks, Stan! My grade: B. A solid, entertaining issue that would have been better if Steranko had drawn it. But then, so would just about everything.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 8, 2008 15:31:19 GMT -5
I'm finally beginning to figure out this multi-quote system! ;D No, you're not imagining things at all, my good doctor. She didn't draw Namor's feature when he was in Astonish (which is the timeframe I was referring to in my earlier post). She did do the Namor-Hulk one shot in TTA #100 but that's probably more due to the fact that had just started to pencil the Hulk's TTA feature, with #99. But when Namor received his own book (in mid-1968), at some point during that run she became his regular penciler for a while. She did a great job, too; I especially admired how she depicted the underwater scenes. I wish they'd left her on his series longer. Ahh, now THAT (The TTA tidbit) I totally had no idea about at all! Then again, I'm not a big fan of The Hulk (Though I can tolerate his solo series,) or Namor, so I made/make sure to stay away from the TTA with Hulk and Subbie, unless some cool crossover is involved. I always liked Marie's art, she was a great artist! Ahhh yes, two of my favorite Avenger books/stories! Spidey said the quote in a random cameo in 59, and Jan said it to Hank at the end of 60. I don't know if it was an accident, or a joke! scottharris: I agree that it might be because Luke Cage fit the black stereotype of the 70's, which would make Marvel proclaim Luke as the first black superhero. A look at any blaxploitation film of the 70's shows that Luke Cage acts and talks just like any character from those movies. Pam Grier must be his female counterpart! However, it might have just been lazy research, who knows? I have to say, The covers for Fury's limited solo series, were absolutely gorgeous, and were 20 years ahead of its time. Jimmy Steranko's Fury covers NEVER looked like they were drawn or colored in 1968. Actually scottharris, I think that it's only fitting that Marvel would give Fury an issue dedicated to someone testing drugs on him. Considering that a lot of late 60's government experiments focused on the mental effects of different drugs to different kinds of human beings, it's only fitting that Marvel would make Nick Fury the guinea pig for some evil spy supervillains! I agree that the whole idea of spoiling the end of the Sgt. Fury book killed the point of reading the series (And I am pretty sure that even the COVER displayed the fact that the Howlers were battling Korean forces!) I guess this also sort of explains why the book later on went into reprint mode for a long while. That reminds me of a Stan's Soapbox from that era, where Stan finally announces the end of the letters page with no responses, and Stan shows a letter to him that said "Hey Stan, here's a coincidence -- You're not responding to your letters, and I'm not buying your comics." OUCH! Talk about being as snarky as you can be! It's funny when you mention Stan going into editorial mode in his Soapbox starting with that issue, because I remember him only doing it for 2 or 3 Bullpen Bulletins before going back to his normal commentary! I'm guessing enough people complained, which is unfortunate because I love reading about the opinionated viewpoints of a person living in the 60's! Keep up the great work, scottharris!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 9, 2008 0:36:29 GMT -5
Best in comics? Korak #47 Oh my, it's the 20 cent DC era and a frame cover! I think I am going to swoon. As promised, here's an example of the early 20 cent DC design era, meaning we've now explored all 4 sub-designs from this era. The previous issue to this one, #46, was during the "52 pages, 25 cents" era, which you can deduce from the fact that this says "Now only 20 cents" in the price circle. This makes it seem like you're getting a deal since they lowered the price, but in reality they're just trying to make up for the terrible mistake they made bumping it to 25 cents in the first place. Back when DC decided they had to raise the price from 15 cents, they decided to skip 20 altogether and go right to 25 instead. To compensate, they made their books either 48 or 52 pages, meaning they were essentially twice as big as Marvels of the era. Marvel, meanwhile, bumped their pric3e only up to 20 cents. The results were pretty much as you might expect: DC took a beating. Firstly, most of the extra pages, as we've seen, were dirty reprints and not new material anyway. But mostly it was the simple fact that a kid in a drug store with a dollar is going to want to buy 5 comics instead of 4 if he can. That's it. DC got creamed, Marvel made hay hand over fist, and DC eventually had to drop their price back to 20 cents. You'll note DC is forced to trumpet the fact that these are "all new stories"; I'm guessing they got some big complaints about having reprints in all of their series. Anyway, this is the July 1972 issue of Korak. You can also see from the cover that this says "2nd DC issue". The first 45 issues were published by Gold Key before the rights to Burroughs' material was purchased by DC. It's also got a strip across the top that says "ALL NEW STORIES, BEST IN COMICS". This banner only lasted a couple issues at DC before it was dropped along wioth the "Now Only" text in the price circle. It's not a bad design, but it just takes up a lot of space, especially on this title where it's already really jammed with logos and text with the really bulky title of "Edgar Rice Burroughs KORAK son of TARZAN". Balancing this is some sweet Joe Kubert art and the great black frame. Kubert did most of the covers for Korak, and the frames were used for many of the issues, so a lot of these comics are visually quite strong. They eventually, however, decided to give the Tarzan section of the logo equal billing as the Korak section, which is just a mess; logos with two equal sized different logos never work, they just look cluttered and unfocused. Here's a site where you can see all the Korak covers and take a look not just at the great Kubert art and sweet looking frame designs, but compare them to how crappy the covers looked without frames and with the awful double logo: www.erbzine.com/comics/korakdc1.htmlAnd check out the truly lame 25 cent, single circle design era that followed. A real nadir in DC design. Anyway, there's a story or two in here somewhere, so I guess we should get to that as well. It's been by the apparently really busy Len Wein, who seems to have written half of these comics I'm reviewing, with art from Frank Thorne. So, the story starts with some little paddle boat or something chugging up a river. It looks just like the African Queen, and the scrubby guy piloting it looks kind of like Bogart. Unlike Bogey, though, he's got a hot daughter, who decides to go swimming. Suddenly, Korak jumps out of a tree above her and into the water, and comes up wrestling a crocodile. A couple jungle moves later and he's saved the girl. She and the dad are grateful, but her German sounding boyfriend wants Korak gone, as he senses competition. Korak hits the trees, and immediately finds another woman about to be eaten by a jungle predator. Before I can even type a joke about it, Korak says "Saving young women in distress is simply becoming a habit with me!" so at least Wein is aware of both how unlikely this is as well as how it's kind of sexist. I think he is, anyway. Anyhoo. This chick is searching for her fiance, who was captured by people raiding her village. Korak tells her to go home and that he will rescue the finace. Korak and a passel of monkey friends (hey... we all have friends who are monkeys, at least metaphorically) track these raiders and discover that they are... NAZIS!!! NOOOOOO!!! Yep. Nazis. Hey, if you need a bad guy, Nazis are always around to oblige. Anyway, Korak defeats the three Nazis and interrogates them and learns that they were supposed to be delivering the captured men to a secret location on the river. When he gets there, he finds the African Queen waiting. The captain gets sick of waiting and sails off, so Korak follows, and discovers a secret Nazi mining operation. Then, sadly, he's killed. The end. No, actually, he's captured by Commandant Exposition, who explains that they are mining a super light metal called Harbenite that they are going to make special zeppelins with. Having explained this, he sends Korak off to work in the mines. There, Korak meets the guy he was coming to rescue, and they come up with an ingenious escape plan: Korak will pretend to be hurt and when the guard comes to investigate, they will throw a rock at him. It works! Korak and his new friend free the slaves and they are about to escape when Korak decides he has to fre the girl and her boat captain. However, it turns out that she's a Nazi too, and she screams for help, causing a general melee to break out. Good one, dude. Anyway, Korak decides he has to sabotage the airship, but the Commandant expects this and launches it. Using his jungle quickness, though, Korak shimmies up a tethering rope and the two fight. During the fight, the Commandant falls out of the airship to his death, so Korak crashes the zeppelin into the ground and destroys it, but not before he jumps safely into the river. The story ends with the girl screaming at Korak for killing her fiance, while her Dad soothes her by saying "That's what you get for lovin' the wrong man". Nice one, Dad, way to go. THE END! Oh, this is cool. The backup story is a Carson of Venus story, again by Len Wein, but this one has art from Michael Kaluta. Now, this guy can draw. Since this is a backup feature, the plot is pretty simple. Carson is on Venus and has landed among a tribe of people. They can't understand each other. After some weeks, Carson learns their language, but other than that, not much. ONe day he sees some dudes skulking about in the bushes, so he follows them, and sees them attack a beautiful woman in her house. He jumps out and clocks one, stealing the guy's sword, and all the others turn to attack him. And... that's the end of this issue. Other notes: Direct Currents has a little explanation of the price change, where they basically say "we didn't want to raise prices or give you reprints, but we had to. Now we're able to eliminate both! We're the best and we love you." Sure. Also, the lettercolumn in this issue has no letters, since they are only on the second issue, so it's just an essay about how much they are looking forward to publishing Korak. The best thing is that the title of the lettercolumn is "The Ape Vine". There's an advertisement in this issue for "Roger's Super Skittle Bowl", which features Roger Staubach trying to sell kids on the idea of a combination tetherball/bowling game for your yard. That's one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of. "Olympic size skittle bowl. It's like having a bowling alley in your backyard... or playroom." ...or inside your otherwise vacant head. My grade: B for the main feature on its merits, C- because I find jungle stuff like this to be extremely boring. B+ for the backup feature, which was much more interesting than the main feature, and bore quite a resemblance in some ways to DC's later fantasy series Warlord, one of my favorite series.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 9, 2008 17:07:41 GMT -5
Well, I received my Sgt. Fury lot and have started working my way through the 66 issues. So far I've read #7, 11, 12, 14 and 15 and I've enjoyed them quite a bit. These are very early Marvel, especially #7, and you can get a good sense of the company still developing. #7 has an in-house ad for Daredevil #1, for instance, and many other major Marvel titles are still in their infancy, as there are ads for stuff like X-Men #6 and Spider-Man #18. #7 doesn't even have a lettercolumn, while in #11 they explain that because of demand, all Marvel titles will now have lettercolumns. One issue also has a blurb explaining that next issue would introduce a top secret project called the M.M.M.S.
I was surprised to discover that Kirby left the title after #8. I'm assuming it was due to his huge workload, but I know from interviews with him that he really liked doing war books, as they allowed him to explore some of his own WWII war experiences. I have doubts that it was his decision to drop Fury in favor of yet another superhero title, but who can say.
I also am reminded in these issues how great Stan Lee was. I know there has been a lot of flak towards Stan over the past couple decades because of the Marvel Method of writing and the feeling that the artists didn't get enough credit for these comics. But in my opinion, too many people are now not giving Stan enough credit. The fact is that on most of these titles, Stan eventually left the book while the artist remained, and in almost every case there is an immediate and distinct drop in quality. Not that I am slamming Roy Thomas or the others who took over for him, but you can tell when Stan is writing a book and when someone else is writing it, and if the contributions of the artist to the writing were that vital, this change wouldn't be so glaringly obvious to the readers. Stan is, indeed, the Man.
Finally, here's a letter and editorial response from Sgt. Fury #14:
Dear Stan and Dick, How come Sgt. Fury always gets his shirt ripped or torn off? Also, I think it is bad taste to have the Howlers make wisecracks while killing people. Bob Fisher
Tell you what, Bobby boy -- we also publish a real nice mag where nobody's clothes get ripped and nobody makes any funnies during a battle. It's called PATSY WALKER!
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 9, 2008 19:33:55 GMT -5
Finally, here's a letter and editorial response from Sgt. Fury #14: Dear Stan and Dick, How come Sgt. Fury always gets his shirt ripped or torn off? Also, I think it is bad taste to have the Howlers make wisecracks while killing people. Bob Fisher Tell you what, Bobby boy -- we also publish a real nice mag where nobody's clothes get ripped and nobody makes any funnies during a battle. It's called PATSY WALKER!THAT was priceless!!! Keep 'em coming, Scott -- really enjoying your thoughts on these lost gems!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 10, 2008 0:51:09 GMT -5
Today's feature: Action Comics #313 This issue of Action is from June of 1964, but it could pretty much have been published any time after 1950 and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Design is the same (well, with a giant CCA stamp added), art is the same, stories are the same, everything... the same. It's really startling to read a comic like this when you realize that by this time Marvel was really getting going with most of its major characters and titles having been already introduced. It's no wonder Marvel was such a phenomenon when you compare its juiced up, dramatic action to this... bland nothingness. First up is a story called "The End of Clark Kent's Secret Identity!" Technically, shouldn't that be "The End of Superman's Secret Identity"? Anyway, there's no credits, so I have no idea who wrote or drew this story. Or lettered it, because even the lettering is very DC -- sort of a semi-italic, very even, consistent and conservative. Which is fitting for the story and art. You can see what the art is going to look like just by checking out the cover -- people standing around. The panels are even, regular, square, with 5 or 6 on almost every page and very little variation of layout or perspective within those panels. It's the antithesis of "action" and manages to make even Superman's fantastic feats seem ordinary and run of the mill. I've got to say that if the DC of this era were my introduction to comics, I doubt I would have become a collector. The first page is one of those symbolic pages that encapsulates the story within, which begins thusly: Supergirl shows up at the Daily Planet and tells Perry White that Clark is Superman. He's aghast and she apologizes, saying she doesn't know what came over her, but Perry agrees to cover for him anyway. Next, Superman sees Batman (hey, Batman is in this issue, that's cool) sitting inside an armored car protecting some stuff. He flies over and clocks a bunch of thugs waiting to ambush the car, then shows Batman that the car was actually made of balsa wood, making him a sitting duck. Somehow the World's Greatest Detective didn't pick up on the fact that his car was made of wood. Uh, okay. Anyway, next thing you know, Batman has told Lois Lane that Superman is Clark. Again, Batman can't believe what he's done, but Lois is pretty much unfazed and also says she'll keep the secret. Next up is Jimmy Olsen, who flies with Clark to the Arctic to investigate pirate attacks. Superman finds the pirates' secret lair and defeats them, but suddenly the mermaid Lori Lemaris shows up and reveals his identity to Jimmy. Superman is shocked at these betrayals, and wonders if his friends are brainwashed. He decides that if they aren't, they should be, so he corrals Jimmy, Lois and Perry and says that he's going to hypnotize them and make them forget about his secret identity. Hey Supes, just ask Dr. Strange to cast a spell over the Earth, that always works for me. Turns out he should have done that, because not only does the hypnosis not work, but now his friends decide to blackmail him. Instead of giving in, however, he grabs them and heaves them all into the ocean! Wow, we've all wanted to do that to Superman's supporting cast, but I never expected Supes to actually do it himself. At this point, a flying saucer shows up and retrieves Superman's friends and we discover that they are all androids, created by The Android Master, who is working with The Superman Revenge Squad. That's a cool name for a bunch of really lame villains. Superman, of course, had already deduced that all of his friends, including the traitorous ones who had revealed his identity, were androids. He quickly mops up the Revenge Squad and revives Batman from the suspended animation he was in, then makes it look like Clark was among those captured. Once again, his identity is saved! THE END! My only comment here is this: if the Superman Revenge Squad knows Superman's secret identity, surely they can find a simpler way to use it to gain revenge? I can think of several, and I'm not even a lame supervillain. Next up is a Supergirl story called "Lena Thorul, Jungle Princess!" It's pretty illogical and convoluted, so I'm going to just boil it down to brass tacks. Lena Thorul is a psychic friend of Supergirl's who is trying to get into the FBI. As a test assignment they send her to interview Lex Luthor. Unbeknownst to Lena, Lex Luthor is actually... HER BROTHER! Not only that, he's been hiding their connection for years because he loves her and doesn't want her to be shamed by their connection. However, being psychic, she discovers this fact by reading his mind during their interview. She goes into shock and develops amnesia. All she knows is something horrible has happened and she has to flee. So she buys a plane ticket to Africa. Upon arrival, she grabs the wrong suitcase, which happens to be filled with props for an African jungle movie; the only thing she has to wear is a white zebra skin one-piece bathing suit. Donning this outfit, she discovers that she can control animals with her psychic powers, so she becomes the Jungle Princess and starts driving off poachers and stuff. During one fight, she is grazed by a bullet and her memory returns. She decides to return to Metropolis but remain in the identity of Jungle Princess so that people won't find out she's Lex Luthor's sister. Back in the big city, she becomes a circus sensation, drawing huge crowds with her animal tricks. But she freaks out because of the Lex thing, so Supergirl takes her place in the show. Suddenly, Lex breaks out of jail (having earlier been supplied gardening equipment by Supergirl) by genetically engineering a plant to grow into a huge vine for him to climb down. He rushes to the show and presents Lena with a genetically modified plant which emits a gas that causes amnesia. No explanation as to how Luthor could have developed this without developing amnesia himself. Once again, then, Lena has no idea of her connection to Luthor, so Supergirl returns him to jail and Lena joins the FBI. THE END! There are also two self contained, single page gag stories with cartoony art that seem really out of place in this comic. In addition, there's a lettercolumn filled with, imo, obnoxious answers to letters, where they basically make up ridiculous answers to cover holes in their lame stories. At least on the Marvel side, they basically say stuff like "We blew it! We have no idea what we're doing and we didn't think you'd notice. Oops!" DC, though, gives answers like this: Dear Editor, In your January issue, No. 308, you stated that, before it was reduced in size by BRAINIAC, the city of Kandor was the capital of Krypton. However, in another story, you designated Kryptonopolis as the capital. Pease inform me of which of the two cities is the capital. B. Andrew (Unlike Earth, Krypton has "twin" capitals. Therefore both are correct. --Ed.)Most of the answers are in this tone. I dunno, I find it a little condescending. Besides this, there are a couple small in-house ads and a neat advertisement for Palisades Park featuring Superman giving out a free admission ticket that is "Worth 80 cents!" My grade: B for being an interesting look at DC superheroes during the early Marvel Age, C- for the actual stories.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 10, 2008 12:02:14 GMT -5
Now see what you made me do: That's what 82 issues of Sgt. Fury looks like. One interesting thing I've found is in the lettercolumn from #23. People are signing their letters with all sorts of things like "Long live Marvel!" and stuff, and one guy ends his letter by saying "Make Mine Marvel!" to which Stan says "Hey, now that's pretty catchy! Mind if we use it some time?" I'm not sure if this was just Stan's humor, or if this is the origin of the phrase Make Mine Marvel! However, none of the letters before this issue or in the issues immediately following it are signed with this catchphrase, nor does it appear in any advertisements or anything. This issue is from late 1965. Anyone know if this is the origin of the slogan? One other funny thing is that the lettercolumn for Sgt. Fury seems to be a catchall for letters to Marvel. Some of them only mention Sgt. Fury as one of several titles, or in passing, then talk about other stuff. Particularly funny are a couple letters that don't have anything to do with Sgt. Fury at all, but are about some picture book that Stan had published with photos of monsters and Stan providing funny captions. One of these mentions Sgt. Fury in passing, but the other doesn't say a single word about Sgt. Fury and it's obvious that Stan is just sticking it in there as a blatant plug for his book. Stan's response to the letter: "Next time, try to remember to say something about Sgt. Fury when you write in!" Good one, Stan. Good one.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 10, 2008 21:48:39 GMT -5
Today's gem: Amazing Adventures #10 For reasons that escape me entirely, a long time ago I bought Amazing Adventures #5-10 from my local store. I'm glad I did, as the Black Widow stories have some Avengers stuff in them, including a full splash page of the Avengers by Neal Adams. But otherwise, I have no clue why I bought these, especially #9-10 which feature just Black Bolt and the Inhumans without any Black Widow or Avengers to justify the continuation of the series. Of course, readers agreed, and with #11 this became the Beast feature, which we've discussed in other threads. So this is the last issue of the Inhumans feature, which is fine by me, as I've never really gotten into them. #10 is an early frame era cover (January of 1972) with very strong Gil Kane work that is typical of his covers. Magneto does look kind of dumb, which is also typical of Kane; some characters he makes look absolutely gorgeous and then others he doesn't quite seem to get. But Black Bolt looks cool and the image is really well put together. Add in the sweet price and issue number fonts and the red frame and we have a very nice looking comic. Plus, I like this logo. It's a little crude looking, but it works for me. The story (which is again by Gerry Conway. ARRRGH! Art provided by Mike Sekowsky and Frank Giacoia) starts with Magneto having defeated the Inhumans and captured the royal family. Execute them, Magneto!!! But, I guess not. No, Magneto has other plans: he uses some sort of machine to turn one of his minions into a giant ape monster with a huge brain, and then the monster uses its newly developed psychic powers to mentally control Black Bolt. With Black Bolt now enslaved, Magneto scoops him up and flies to... San Francisco. Must be a Big Brother and the Holding Company show they need to get to fast. The rest of the royal family (minus the only cool character in the entire group, Triton) remain behind and mope around in their cage, lamenting their lack of personalities. Medusa, though, has a cunning plan. Or so she says. We cut away from this engrossing scene to a subplot where a supporting character from previous issues, a human, gets sucked into space by something called the Trikon. This seems to be setting up a future storyline, but since this is the last issue... hmm (more on this later). Meanwhile, Magneto has apparently decided to skip San Fran and has instead gone to an underground base in Washington state, where he and his minions (who, by the way, are all twisted little monster people -- mutates, apparently, that he altered with his weird machine) attack in order to get "a new source of cosmic energy". Black Bolt uses his shouts to knock out the defenses, then twists a dial and voila, Magneto has "the power of the UNIVERSE". Back with the others, Medusa has sprung her cunning plan, though what exactly it entailed I don't know, because by the time they go back to her, she's basically gotten the guard wrapped up in her hair. I guess she used her feminine wiles to distract the guard while her hair went to town. Sound like a crappy plan, but, okay. It works, of course, and they free themselves, then start fighting the guards. They defeat them just in time to see Magneto's plane returning, so they hide in ambush. Magneto, though, sees them in wait and he orders Black Bolt to strike. Bolt does so -- by punching Magneto in the head. Wait, what? Doesn't Magneto have a personal magnetic force field? In fact, isn't he wearing a metal helmet? Yet for some reason the plane crashes and we get the explanation that Black Bolt was faking all along because he didn't want to risk the safety of his family, but since they are free, he can attack. "You pretended you were what you weren't -- just as you pretended to destroy those government men" and just as Gerry Conway pretended to be a writer. Black Bolt didn't pretend to destroy those government men at the mountain base -- he did. He smashed the whole place and trashed all the guards and allowed Magneto to get the power source. None of that was pretense. Anyway, Magneto's apeman attacks, and Black Bolt zaps him with a word. Magento tries to run off with his power supply, but Karnak clocks him with a couple karate moves and knocks him out. Not once does Magneto even attempt to use any of his magnetic powers. In fact, in this entire issue, the only thing he's done with them is levitate his plane, and I'm not entirely sure he was doing that either, it might just have been a plane. Um. Yeah, so Black Bolt is still fighting the ape monster for some reason, and again he says something and blows up the room. Karnak goes to town on Magento's machine, wrecking it, but Magneto still can escape by... running out the door. Again, no powers. But his energy source suddenly blows up for no apparent reason, obliterating the room. And then... that's it. Magneto is gone and the royal family gathers themselves up to head back to Inhumanland so Black Bolt can regain the throne from Maximus. And that story... is in Avengers #95. Oh yeah, that's why I bought these issues. I had blissfully forgotten. I had also forgotten just how absolutely terrible these stories are. Holy cow. The rest of this issue is a reprint of the origin of the Inhumans. I'm not sure where it's from, but any material from Stan and Jack should be ashamed to appear in the same magazine as this crap from Conway. That dangling plotline about the Trikon, by the way, was left dangling for almost 20 years before a min-series and a Quasar story in 1991 finally revealed what happened. I'm guessing that Gru was about the only person on Earth who cared, based on how awful this issue was. It's interesting to note how successful/unsuccessful this series was. Black Widow was dumped after #8, however that same month she began co-starring in Daredevil, getting her name in the logo and everything, where she lasted for... I dunno, like 25 issues. The Inhumans, meanwhile, got their own series which lasted all of two issues before they were put on ice for the duration. Bullpen Bulletins, in fact, announces this issue that they are turning the book over to the Inhumans, which is a little odd considering the lettercolumn and the story itself both tell the reader that the series is canceled, continued in Avengers and being replaced next issue. Another interesting note in BB is that Iron Man has "returned to a bi-monthly schedule" and that "rumors of its cancellation were greatly exaggerated". I hadn't heard that Iron Man was in danger of being canceled at this time, but it doesn't surprise me; the storyline in those issues (#45 came out at the same time as this) are some of the crappiest things I've ever read. I'm not sure they're worse that this issue of mazing Adventures, but they're pretty awful. And I think they, too, were by Conway. The BB also mentions that they had planned (and announced) a price increase from 15 cents to 25 cents, with the issues being double sized, but changed their minds due to unexpected changes in the financial situation. Yeah, they realized that DC was doing the same thing and that they could crush them by dropping the price to 20 cents. Hence there was only one month when all the Marvel books were double sized 25 cent issues -- the November, 1971 issue, which also featured the first frame cover design, all of which was in celebration of Marvel's 10th anniversary. Lastly, the lettercolumn contains a really weird letter from someone complaining about a conversation between Natasha and Ivan in the Widow story from #7. Ivan says "Care for a workout, sister?" to which Natasha replies "Not now, Ivan." The reader is complaining that this is too sexually suggestive for the comics code. Uh... if you say so, dude. My grade: B+ for the cover, D- for being one of the worst Marvels of the era and the lamest Magneto appearance ever.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 11, 2008 10:00:26 GMT -5
The Inhumans, meanwhile, got their own series which lasted all of two issues before they were put on ice for the duration. For those who aren't aware, there was another short-lived Inhumans series in 1975-76. Art chores in the first 4 issues were by George Perez. Gil Kane pencilled #'s 5-7. Perez returned for #8, while issue #9 was a Kirby reprint from Amazing Adventures #1. Keith Pollard finished the series, providing pencils for #'s 10-12 with Doug Moench's scripts. Overall it was OK -- lots of Kree stuff. It meandered a bit, with no real ties to the Marvel Universe, other than a nice Hulk cover on #12. I really think the series suffered from its bi-monthly schedule, as many of Marvel's books were shipped in those days.
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Post by sharkar on Aug 11, 2008 12:43:23 GMT -5
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #7 Steranko was incredible. Among other things, I have always liked the Dali-esque look here...(on the right is Dali's 1931 Persistence of Memory)
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Post by sharkar on Aug 11, 2008 20:25:26 GMT -5
Today's gem: Amazing Adventures #10 ...the Black Widow stories have some Avengers stuff in them, including a full splash page of the Avengers by Neal Adams. I think the Adams splash you're referring to is actually from the Inhumans series; he didn't illustrate the BW feature. The panel is probably the first time Adams drew the Avengers (though of course he'd drawn Thor's comic for a few issues, and he had previously drawn Wanda and Pietro in a couple of issues of X-Men). At any rate, his depiction of the Avengers here was a sort of preview of his forthcoming (and much too brief) tenure on the Avengers comic itself. EDIT: Okay, I just checked my comics and the Adams splash I'm referring to appears in the Inhumans story in Amazing Adventures #8. Wanda has her hand on Cap's chest and there's a great shot of a stoic Vision. Is this the Avengers splash you were thinking of, Scott? I'm not sure where it's from, but any material from Stan and Jack should be ashamed to appear in the same magazine as this crap from Conway. If it's a Lee-Kirby reprint, then it's probably from the Inhumans back-up feature that ran for about half a dozen issues in Thor, starting about #146 (it replaced Tales of Asgard).
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Post by sharkar on Aug 11, 2008 21:06:22 GMT -5
One interesting thing I've found is in the lettercolumn from #23. People are signing their letters with all sorts of things like "Long live Marvel!" and stuff, and one guy ends his letter by saying "Make Mine Marvel!" to which Stan says "Hey, now that's pretty catchy! Mind if we use it some time?" I'm not sure if this was just Stan's humor, or if this is the origin of the phrase Make Mine Marvel! However, none of the letters before this issue or in the issues immediately following it are signed with this catchphrase, nor does it appear in any advertisements or anything. This issue is from late 1965. Anyone know if this is the origin of the slogan? That's a good question...knowing Stan's penchant for alliteration one would assume he made up that slogan, and he claims he did (as I've read in various places over the years, including an Entertainment Weekly article a few years back)...but reading this I'm not so sure. Like you said, Scott, the slogan didn't appear (as far As I'm aware) prior to this pronouncement. Also, Marvel had unveiled its MMMS club around this time (1965) and yet the slogan "Make Mine Marvel" was not used as part of its material at first (not until 1967, when the revamped MMMS kit contained a "Make Mine Marvel" button). Hmmm...so maybe Stan didn't come up with this fun stuff all by his lonesome--but we still love ya, Stan! Did you know that the idea of the Marvel fan "ranks"--and at least a few of them specifically, such as RFO and QNS--were suggested by a fan? Stan loved the idea; and printed the fan's suggestion in the Bullpen Bulletin (check out the BB in Avengers #41, cover dated June 1967...incidentally, Big John's Avengers debut). The fan's name? Mark Evanier.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 11, 2008 22:24:28 GMT -5
Today's gem: Amazing Adventures #10 ...the Black Widow stories have some Avengers stuff in them, including a full splash page of the Avengers by Neal Adams. EDIT: Okay, I just checked my comics and the Adams splash I'm referring to appears in the Inhumans story in Amazing Adventures #8. Wanda has her hand on Cap's chest and there's a great shot of a stoic Vision. Is this the Avengers splash you were thinking of, Scott? Yeah, that's the one. I don't know why I lumped that in with the Widow stuff, as Adams was drawing the Inhumans feature, As you note, it's from #8, which also has the Thor vs. Black Bolt cover. There is some Avengers stuff in some of the Widow stories; there's a scene with Clint in his Goliath persona moping around. But that sweet Adams splash is form the Inhumans section. All in all these issues -- particularly #8 -- are worth getting for Avengers fans, but not if you have to pay much for them. #8 is the only one I'd want to spend any amount of money on. I had forgotten about this. Back when I first read #41 I noticed this, as I was a big fan of Groo at the time, which Evanier wrote. But I had totally forgotten it until you mentioned it.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 11, 2008 23:00:49 GMT -5
One interesting thing I've found is in the lettercolumn from #23. People are signing their letters with all sorts of things like "Long live Marvel!" and stuff, and one guy ends his letter by saying "Make Mine Marvel!" to which Stan says "Hey, now that's pretty catchy! Mind if we use it some time?" I'm not sure if this was just Stan's humor, or if this is the origin of the phrase Make Mine Marvel! However, none of the letters before this issue or in the issues immediately following it are signed with this catchphrase, nor does it appear in any advertisements or anything. This issue is from late 1965. Anyone know if this is the origin of the slogan? That's a good question...knowing Stan's penchant for alliteration one would assume he made up that slogan, and he claims he did (as I've read in various places over the years, including an Entertainment Weekly article a few years back)...but reading this I'm not so sure. Like you said, Scott, the slogan didn't appear (as far As I'm aware) prior to this pronouncement. Also, Marvel had unveiled its MMMS club around this time (1965) and yet the slogan "Make Mine Marvel" was not used as part of its material at first (not until 1967, when the revamped MMMS kit contained a "Make Mine Marvel" button). Hmmm...so maybe Stan didn't come up with this fun stuff all by his lonesome--but we still love ya, Stan! I'm now up to #35 in my Sgt. Fury reading and the next time anyone uses the phrase "Make Mine Marvel" in the lettercolumn was in a letter about issue #24. The letter I mentioned previously was in #23, so the time frame is correct for that letter to be the origin of the phrase. It's pretty flimsy circumstantial evidence, but interesting. #35 is an interesting issue. The lettercolumns leading up to this issue had a couple general themese. One was comments about Annual #1 which, like myself, were critical of the decision to show the team in Korea, as it seemed to drain the book of drama since we knew everyone survived. Another, with a surprising number of letters, was people writing in to complain about how the Germans were being portrayed. It's odd to me, but there were a lot of people writing in to complain that all Germans weren't Nazis, and that they should show good Germans, and even a couple letters that were blatant apologists, also insisting that the German military was vastly superior to the Allies. Really, really weird to read today. #35, which is written by Roy Thomas, is part of a multi-issue plotline and serves to answer both of these criticisms. During the story, the Howler Dino Minelli is gravely injured during a battle. Atthe end of the issue it is stated that he will survive, but will be out of action for the rest of the war due to his serious injuries. In his place, Eric Koenig, a German officer who had gone over to the Allies in #27, replaced him as a new member of the Howlers. It seems pretty clear that Roy planned this as a way of addressing both concerns. However, Dino was only out of the book for a few issues before he returned "Because you demanded it!" which for once I think is actually true. Also interesting in light of this issue is one of the letters in #35. Once again it's someone complaining about how the Germans and Nazis are portrayed. This time though, the letter is actually written by a former SS officer! It's extremely interesting. He says that he willingly served in the SS and the Nazi party but that due to the control of the media that Hitler had, he and his fellow officers didn't know about the atrocities being performed and basically were influenced by false propaganda to believe they were in the right. He also says that during the war he met Allied commandos like the Howlers and that the portrayal in the comic is extremely accurate! For once, Stan has no pithy comeback, and says that they decided they should print the letter with no editorial comment at all, which has to be some sort of milestone for Stan. A very, very interesting lettercolumn.
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Post by dlw66 on Aug 11, 2008 23:16:35 GMT -5
#35 is an interesting issue. The lettercolumns leading up to this issue had a couple general themese. One was comments about Annual #1 which, like myself, were critical of the decision to show the team in Korea, as it seemed to drain the book of drama since we knew everyone survived. Another, with a surprising number of letters, was people writing in to complain about how the Germans were being portrayed. It's odd to me, but there were a lot of people writing in to complain that all Germans weren't Nazis, and that they should show good Germans, and even a couple letters that were blatant apologists, also insisting that the German military was vastly superior to the Allies. Really, really weird to read today. ... Also interesting in light of this issue is one of the letters in #35. Once again it's someone complaining about how the Germans and Nazis are portrayed. This time though, the letter is actually written by a former SS officer! It's extremely interesting. He says that he willingly served in the SS and the Nazi party but that due to the control of the media that Hitler had, he and his fellow officers didn't know about the atrocities being performed and basically were influenced by false propaganda to believe they were in the right. He also says that during the war he met Allied commandos like the Howlers and that the portrayal in the comic is extremely accurate! For once, Stan has no pithy comeback, and says that they decided they should print the letter with no editorial comment at all, which has to be some sort of milestone for Stan. A very, very interesting lettercolumn. To the latter comment, I would only add that early on in Marvel's history, and perhaps later (as I don't know for certain when the "policy" started or stopped), letters were written by Marvel staffers and printed as if they were written by the fan on the street. Given the debate you've brought to light, maybe this was a case where Stan and Roy sought to somehow justify what they were doing in the pages of Sgt. Fury. Who knows?? In regard to the first paragraph I've quoted above, we need to remember (in regard to a marked difference between "Germans" and "Nazis") that Hitler never achieved a majority in a free election. In the election prior to him being named Chancellor, the Nazis were actually losing seats in the Reichstag. In the election following his appointment (and many assume Hitler came to power through a coup; in fact he was handed power by those seeking to control, or even "hire" him), the Nazis only managed about 40% of the vote and had to form a coalition with moderate Catholics and a few smaller right-leaning parties to begin to push their agenda across. Had the Communists not set fire to the Reichstag early in 1933, it's conceivable that Hitler might never have found the "in" he needed to declare emergency powers (provided to the Chancellor by the Weimar Constitution) and set himself up as a dictator over all German people. Concerning the atrocities, I'll say this (and this speaks again to the difference between Germans and Nazis) -- fewer than 50% of German doctors were members of the Nazi party, yet many, many collaborated with the party policy of sterilization and "euthanization" of the German handicapped. These doctors later were sent into the camps. As to the SS and Wehrmacht -- if they were in the East, they knew about the atrocities. No question. Stationed in the West -- maybe not.
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