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Post by Tana Nile on Aug 19, 2008 16:42:33 GMT -5
Please excuse me for coming into the discussion so late. These posts have touched on a couple of subjects I have some interest in. 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! Yes, they completely overlooked the Falcon with that blurb. Maybe what they should have said was "the first black super-hero with his own mag!" Here's a question: who was Marvel's first African American super-heroine? Some would say Storm, and it's true that her father was American, but I always think of her as very African. I wouldn't really count Misty Knight as a super-hero; maybe she is nowadays, but she sure didn't start that way. Monica Rambeau? The odd thing is, I think they were all pre-dated by Nightshade, who was/is one of the few female African American villains, and premiered in 1973. 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. I only own a few copies of Tales to Astonish. I had always thought that Marie Severin did some cover work for the title, but I may be remembering the Sub-Mariner series. She certainly is one of the most under-rated artists of that era.
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Post by Tana Nile on Aug 19, 2008 16:53:58 GMT -5
Well, I'm here to tell you that finding OMAC back issues in high grade is not all that difficult. The fact is that this series never sold very well, and was canceled pretty quickly (8 issues if memory serves) and this means that a lot of issues of OMAC were never sold to begin with. I have in my possession no fewer than 8 VF/NM copies of OMAC #1, each of which has a book value of around $35. And I'm quite sure that none of them have ever even been opened, much less read; I bought them all at once, in a pile, from a local comic store during a blowout sale and paid like a quarter each for them and it was obvious just from looking at them that they were surplus, unsold copies. It's hard to describe if you haven't seen this, but trust me, when you find a group of comics in quantity like this, you can just tell. Scott, I had a similar experience with finding a ton of apparently-unsold/unread copies of Omac #1 at an antiques fair a couple of years ago. The seller also had a bunch of other early 70s books that he said were all from a warehouse, and had never gone out to stores. He also had a lot of copies of the Demon, Ragman, Kamandi, and Swamp Thing. He was asking $2 for 5 books, so I picked up quite a few (he had other books as well, although they had definitely been read). I was able to sell the Swamp Thing issues on ebay easily, but the others didn't sell nearly as well. Boy, that cover to Omac #1 was disturbing...a woman in a box...sort of...not sure what Kirby was trying for here!
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Post by sharkar on Aug 19, 2008 18:09:12 GMT -5
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. I only own a few copies of Tales to Astonish. I had always thought that Marie Severin did some cover work for the title, but I may be remembering the Sub-Mariner series. She certainly is one of the most under-rated artists of that era. For Tales to Astonish volume #1 (which is the TTA run I was referring to), in terms of Namor: she did do the cover to #100, a story featuring both Namor and the Hulk. As mentioned, it was probably due to the fact that at the time she was the regular artist for the Hulk, starting from (I believe) TTA #92. She didn't start penciling the Namor feature on a regular basis until he received his own book...she started around Subby #12. She did some wonderful work and moody covers; one of my favorites was Subby #22 (the one with Dr. Strange). Tana, in terms of Severin Namor TTA covers, are you (and Dr. Hank in his earlier post) perhaps thinking of Tales to Astonish volume #2 (1979), which reprinted Subby #1-14?
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Post by scottharris on Aug 19, 2008 21:25:38 GMT -5
Boy, that cover to Omac #1 was disturbing...a woman in a box...sort of...not sure what Kirby was trying for here! Yeah, you're not kidding. It's a very effective and memorable cover, though, what with the all-white and the bizarre imagery.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 19, 2008 22:08:00 GMT -5
He also had a lot of copies of the Demon, Ragman, Kamandi, and Swamp Thing. He was asking $2 for 5 books, so I picked up quite a few (he had other books as well, although they had definitely been read). I was able to sell the Swamp Thing issues on ebay easily, but the others didn't sell nearly as well. Speaking of which... I'm going to start off by saying right up front that I don't like Swamp Thing. I don't like the character, I don't understand the appeal, I just am not a fan. I haven't read a lot of stories with Swamp Thing in them, but those I have have been very meh. Either bizarre psychadelic stuff or stories that have nothing to do with Swamp Thing but use him as a catalyst for other stories. I really just don't dig this guy. I kept this issue solely because it is a really nice cover and my copy is in nice shape, so it looks really sharp. The image is weird, dramatic and well drawn, and I like the black semi-frame around the logo. This comic just would not look the same -- or as good imo -- if that logo were floating on the image itself instead of being on the black background. This is during the very late 20 cent era, with the sunburst on the double circles, which I am okay with. I do think it's a little odd that they wedged the logo in between the circles the way it is, so they all overlap like layers on a sandwich. Not sure I like that, but it's a minor point. Okay, enough stalling I guess, let's crack this thing and see what's inside. This is from October of 1974, with a story from Len Wien and art by Nestor Redondo. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this era was marked by a big influx of Filipino and South American artists who really upped the level of art on the horror and fantasy books at DC and Nestor is a good one; he also did the cover. Editor is Joe Orlando, so overall, the credits looks promising anyway. The story starts with the dinosaur already charging and we get a quick recap of #11. Seems Swamp Guy has gotten a hold of some giant gem that teleported him to this ancient jungle. Before Swampy can figure out what's going on, he's fighting a dinosaur, and pretty much getting his butt kicked. Suddenly, though, a prehistoric man shows up with a spear and leaps onto the dinosaur and starts kicking its butt big time. Saved, Swamp Thing decides to return the favor by using his supernatural strength to lift the dinosaur off the ground. Instead, all he manages to do is accidentally break the dinosaurs leg, causing it to collapse and fall on the man, killing them both. Good one, Swamp Thing. That's a great start. Swamp Thing starts yelling at the gem stone and in return it teleports him away. Moments later, the prehistoric man comes back to life... ...and we cut away to some seemingly pointless interlude showing someone being buried or something, who cares. Back in the main story, Swamp Thing suddenly appears in ancient rome inside a gladiator cage. He fights some guards who attack him and then the let out a bunch of lions who jump on him. Desperately trying to get away, Swamp Thing smashes into the arena itself; his arrival distracts one of the gladiators just long enough for him to get stabbed to death. Chalk up another win for Sawmp Thing. Before he dies, though, he seems to recognize Swamp Thing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the story is titled "The Eternity Man". Just a hunch. Then, poof, the gem appears and teleports Swamp Thing away and the gladiator is resurrected and I have an odd feeling we'll see more of this later in the issue. Next: interlude two, with more of the same dudes form the first interlude and WHO CARES. Heck, I barely care about the main story. Poof, Swamp Thing appears in Europe in the middle of the Black Plague and the villagers immediately attack him with torches. Swamp Thing, getting a little sick of this, pummels them, finally finding something he can actually defeat in a fight. Then he slinks off, only to overhear a conversation between a witch and a dude. Seems the witch was immortal due to owning this big gem but the guy stole the immortality from her, along with the gem, and now she's telling him he's just made a really big mistake. Apparently there's a curse where he can't die even if he wants to, and that only a friend can end his immortality, but since everyone thinks he's a jerkface, that's never going to happen. Oh, I think we can all see where this is going. Anyway, just then, the villagers bust into the house looking for Swamp Thing and set the house on fire. Swmap grabs the girl and escapes, but the other dude catches fire and vanishes along with the gem. Interlude 3: One of the guys is black and some white guy tells him that by disliking Swamp Thing he's proving he's a bigot. Oh, the subtlety of early 70's scripting. Aaaand, Swamp Thing appears in the Civil War, the same guy is there again and again, someone trying to kill Swamp Thing accidentally offs the other guy and then the gem beams them out. At least this time it was only a couple pages long. Interlude 4: WHATEVER!!! ARRRGH! ...and Swamp Thing finally reappears in the present. Waiting for him is the guy with the gem. He says that Swamp Thing has to kill him, otherwise this crap will just keep happening for the rest of eternity. Please, dude, kill him already. And while you're at it, kill those knobs in the interlude. But no, Swamp Thing is a hero, he can't kill. Instead, while he's moping around saying he can't kill, the other guy falls into a bog of quicksand and dies. Nice one! When he goes, he leaves his gem behind, so Swamp Thing tucks it away for safekeeping, sure that eventually the guy will show up again looking for it. THE END!! Seriously, that's the end. I did a little (very, very little) research to see if this guy has shown up again, and didn't find anything saying he did. One place said this, though: "Although it's not specifically stated in the issue, the man who slays Mobius in 1861 resembles DC's Jonah Hex prior to his disfigurement." Uh, well, it's a guy with sandy hair wearing a Confederate uniform. So that narrows it down to 2/3 of the Confederate soldiers. I don't see anything in this issue to support this idea. The lettercolumn, boringly called "Swamp Things", features a nicely disjointed letter from a true believer who includes as part of his wisdom the bold assertion that: "Every day brings us closer and closer to the time when we will come in contact with, or be visited by that alien from another world." Hey, how's that prediction working out for you so far? My grade: B. The art is pretty good. The only problem with the work of these guys is that it sometimes is a little hard to follow due to the sketchy nature of the art, but that wasn't a problem. The story was ok, but it dragged on well beyond the point where we already knew what was going on, and the ending was a giant letdown. But, not too bad really. I still think the character is pointless, though. But it's much more interesting than Man-Thing, that's for sure.
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Post by Tana Nile on Aug 20, 2008 10:57:15 GMT -5
I only own a few copies of Tales to Astonish. I had always thought that Marie Severin did some cover work for the title, but I may be remembering the Sub-Mariner series. She certainly is one of the most under-rated artists of that era. For Tales to Astonish volume #1 (which is the TTA run I was referring to), in terms of Namor: she did do the cover to #100, a story featuring both Namor and the Hulk. As mentioned, it was probably due to the fact that at the time she was the regular artist for the Hulk, starting from (I believe) TTA #92. She didn't start penciling the Namor feature on a regular basis until he received his own book...she started around Subby #12. She did some wonderful work and moody covers; one of my favorites was Subby #22 (the one with Dr. Strange). Tana, in terms of Severin Namor TTA covers, are you (and Dr. Hank in his earlier post) perhaps thinking of Tales to Astonish volume #2 (1979), which reprinted Subby #1-14? Nope, Sharkar, I never had any of those TTA volume 2 books. I went on the Grand Comic Book Database last night, and it turns out the issue I was specifically thinking of is credited to Dan Adkins. I had always thought of him as an inker, but apparently that's not the case (if GCBD is correct).
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 21, 2008 13:14:15 GMT -5
scottharris: That "Falling in Love" review was your funniest yet!
sharkar: That might be what I was thinking of, but I have an awful memory!!
Tana: I agree that she is certainly one of the most underrated artists of that era! It's unfortunate that Marvel decided to not let her have a big go at a mainstream book, other than Namor!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 21, 2008 14:39:03 GMT -5
Next up: G. I. Combat #127 I just got this as part of another bargain basement lot on ebay. This is the second lot of war comics I've picked up recently. The total is 31 comics for the whopping price of $1.98. Of course, there's shipping also, but even when you add that in the average price has been 50 cents a comic. I got some other cool stuff to read, but this is by far the oldest and coolest issue of the bunch, and it's in pretty decent shape. Of all the DC war books, G. I. Combat benefited from having the best logo, and like most of their war titles it also benefited from having Joe Kubert working on it. The result is a lot of nice looking covers. While the image on this one isn't anything special, the overall result is still a striking, attractive cover. Not much to say from a design stand point, though; this is DC at its most minimalist. First up is a story featuring the Haunted Tank called "Mission -- Sudden Death!!" Yes, it's about the golden goal system in World Cup soccer. There aren't any story credits, but it looks to be Kubert art, and it's probably written by Robert Kahniger. This issue was published with a date of "Dec.-Jan. 1967" which actually means it was published in late 1967; that Jan. thing is January of 1968. A little late in the game to be without any story credits; I'm not sure when they started adding those at DC, but I don't think it was much longer. The story starts with Jeb Stuart and his tank caught in the middle of a tank battle. Some tanks shoot at each other and one of them blows up; sadly, it's one of ours. Our little shells just can't penetrate the enemy's defenses: "The shell bounced off of the hide of the Nazi tank like it was just a ping pong ball..." Looking to avenge their friend, Jeb swings his tank around and they shoot the enemy and blow them up. Hmm. I guess that's why these guys are the stars of the book; even though they were driving the exact same type of tank, their shot worked while the other guy's bounced off. Anyway, having dispatched the bad guys, Jeb rushes to the ruined tank. It's too late for the Skipper -- not the Gilligan's Island guy, but the tank driver, who is also named Skipper -- but before he dies, Skipper orders them to head somewhere for a rendezvous with the French Resistance. Judging by how many French Resistance units there are in comic books, you'd think the entire population of Europe was hiding under a barn in Normandy with a short wave radio and a beret. Suddenly, the ghost of J.E.B. Stuart shows up and gives his namesake this helpful warning: "...you will gave to fight on a different battlefield than you imagine for your mission to be successful!" However, he refuses to say anything more and vanishes. Wow, that was incredibly unhelpful. A different battlefield than he imagines? That could literally be anything. The moon? Inside a dance hall? On top of old smokey? Jeb is like, "thanks for nothing" and the tank carries on. Suddenly, because everything is sudden, there's... oh, wait. This actually takes place "Three hours later". My bad. It's the next panel in the story, so it seems pretty darn sudden. But, anyhow, a big American plane is flying overhead being shot to pieces by a German fighter. Jeb and gang decide to pitch in by shooting at the fighter with their tank, which... can they do that? Apparently so, because the shoot the fighter down. Nice one. Not as impressive as Dum Dum Dugan knocking down German planes with hand-thrown grenades, but pretty good. Too late to save the Americans, though; the plane crashes. There goes the rendezvous, except, wait. Yep, one person parachuted out and it's none other than ubiquitous French Resistance leader Mme. Marie. I wonder if anyone's ever done a Mme. Marie timeline. She must have appeared in one story or another on every single day of the war. Now, though, her mission is super duper important: rescue her father, who is also a big scientist type. Gathering themselves up, they all head out, randomly blowing up another German tank on their way. Then they hide their own tank and get ready to sneak into town. They aren't allowed to shoot, because that would raise a general alarm. Suddenly, though, a German patrol shows up, led by a hound dog who, upon finding the tank crew, shouts "ARRGH!" Yes, a dog shouts "ARRGH!" Dang it, I need to get my scanner fixed. edit: I got it fixed: Anyway, the crew jumps in with their fists, since they can't shoot, and luckily -- not jst now but for the rest of the whole story -- none of the Germans shoot their guns either. I guess they don't want to risk alerting themselves or something. Anyway, dispatching the patrol, the crew gets into town and quickly finds Mme. Marie's father. A couple right hooks and no shooting later they grab him and run to safety, punching out yet another squad: "We fought in a deadly silence -- knowing that a single shot could arouse the garrison..." Ah, that's it: the Germans don't fire either because they want to let their friends get some serious shuteye. That makes sense. And.. sure enough, a couple panels later, yet another patrol finds them and again no shots are fired, just punches. That's four fistfights. Finally breaking clear, the crew commandeers a truck and races towards where their tank is hidden. Unexpectedly, an enemy tank shows up. Everyone bails out except Jeb and Marie, who wait until the last moment, then jump, leaving behind a pile of grenades. The truck crashes into the tank and blows it sky high. Well, that will alert the guards anyway. Sure enough, the guards have sent out two of their tanks, but by now the crew has gotten in their own tank. They use the ol' rope-a-dope: maneuvering between the other two tanks, they sit there until the two tanks fire and accidentally shoot each other. That was quite helpful of them. And that's that. The tank rolls to safety and J.E.B. Stuart shows up again to congratulate his namesake. Jeb is all, "How could we miss -- with you guarding our tank?" Here's how: HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. The darn ghost only shows up in three panels. All he did was give some totally useless cryptic nonsense. Bah. THE END! The other story in this issue is called "Last Chance for Hobie!" This actually has a signature from Jack Abel, so at least I know who did the art, but there's no writer listed. Anyhow, the story is pretty simple and is telegraphed from a billion light years away, so I'm going to be brief: Hobie washed up in flight school, so he became a bomber. However, when it came time to raid, he couldn't hit any targets with his bombs. One day he crashes and some resistance fighters (there they are again) give him a captured German plane, which he uses to sneak through enemy lines and destroy the base he had failed to bomb. The Air Force decides the proof is in the pudding and transfers him to flight school to become a fighter pilot. Sure, whatever. THE END! So, the Direct Currents in this issue is interesting. The comics here just look old, man. I dunno. The difference between DC and Marvel superhero stuff from the same time period is just weird. This has blurbs for Batman #197, Green Lantern #57 and Hawkman #23. Elsewhere in the book there's also an ad for Flash #175, featuring the rematch of the Flash-Superman race that appeared in Superman #199. That story must have been really popular, because this rematch is taking place just four months later. The in-house blurbs are called "Dig what's Coming" D... C... get it? They feature little cartoons that lead into the ad for the book. Oddly, the Direct Currents page itself says this: "Here's a fantabulous new feature YOU will help create... the first in a scintillating series we call (for now) DIG WHAT'S COMING!" Except... there's no such feature shown there. The rest of the page is just a regular Direct Currents listing of comics. The actual "dig what's coming" stuff in the issue is just those cartoons accompanying in-house ads, which are sprinkled through the book and don't seem to have any connection to this statement on the Direct Currents page. Yeah... I don't have any idea what they're doing here. The lettercolumn is similarly awkward. There are four letters published, and the two longest ones are both about issue #92. You'll note that, thanks to the bi-monthly nature of the title, #92 appeared a full five and a half years before this issue, #127, came out. Nothing like some timely commentary. Another person writes in to complain that the tank crew is driving a tiny Stuart tank which is constantly outclassed by the giant German tanks and he thinks it's goofy. Robert Kanigher, who answers all these letters himself and signs his initials so you know it, rebuts with a couple jokes along with this irrefutable logic: "Besides, our tank is haunted." Yup. Score one for Robert Kahniger. That statement can pretty much end any argument about the believability of the stories in G.I. Combat. It's too bad Sgt. Fury didn't have a haunted tank to shut up all the knobs who wrote in to complain that their comic book was hewing close enough to reality. My grade: C+ for the Haunted Tank story; the art was good as expected and the story was weird and boring and the ghost didn't do a single thing. Even Mme. Marie couldn't bring this up. The backup story gets a B-; execution was fine, but you could see it coming a mile away.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 22, 2008 12:46:38 GMT -5
Yeah, we'll see just how special this really is: Special Marvel Edition #16 This is the second appearance of Shang-Chi, who debuted in the previous issue, and they apparently didn't wait around to see what sales were like, because with the next issue they changed the title to Master of Kung-Fu. Actually, now that I look at the small print, this book was bi-monthly, so they probably did have some sales figures by then. Even if they didn't, though, just about anything would be better than "Special Marvel Edition", especially when you add in the actual title of this comic. Check out the massive amount of text in this huge multi-part logo. Yuck. On the plus side, this is a mid-20 cent era Marvel. It's just after they dropped the frame, but this has a semi-frame which is nicely yellow, and it also features what seems to be an extra-big character circle in place of a corner box. The blurbs on this cover are kind of dumb -- what the heck is a "man-menace" exactly? -- and the image isn't any great shakes either, but Midnight is kind of cool looking and contrasts nicely with both Shang-Chi and the yellow logo frame. Overall I'll give this cover a passing grade, though it's hardly spectacular. This issue is dated February of 1974 and has Steve Englehart as writer and lists Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom as artist and co-artist. Wow, Milgrom was messing up comics as far back as 1973? There's also a little credit box saying "Featuring characters created by Sax Rohmer". This is, of course, Fu Manchu, whose trademark moustache I recently attempted to wear with mixed success. A little wiki tells me that Marvel apparently had bought the rights to Fu Manchu for comic purposes, but lost those rights in the 80's, and thus Shang-Chi's father is only shown in shadows from that point and never referred to by name. Huh. I wonder why they bought the rights in the first place? By the way, the story boasts the terrifically goofy title "Midnight Brings Dark Death!" And... here we go. The issue starts with Shang-Chi standing in Central Park, where he's decided to pitch camp after fleeing from his father in #15. Some New York tough guys decide to kick his butt just because, and instead he wastes them. He apparently has hyper-developed senses, because in one caption it says "The bald one's sweat odor suddenly increases sharply". Real time sweat detection. Hmm. As far as super powers go, that's about the worst I've ever heard of. A group of bystanders is watching, and when Shang-Chi finishes beating the two dudes, the people watching all decide to also attack him for no apparent reason. See, this is why Ed Koch put together that "I Love NY" ad campaign. Shang-Chi again beats them all down. Then, suddenly, Midnight appears, gives a very brief speech, and vanishes. This apparently happens as a means to segue into a Midnight origin story, and here's what we learn: in 1973, Starlin couldn't draw children very well. Midnight was such a badly drawn boy after his parents were killed and his face was maimed in an attack on one of Fu Manchu's villages. Fu took him in so that he could nurse his hate and become a killing weapon, and that's where he met Shang-Chi and they became friends. Now, Midnight has been sent to kill Shang-Chi because Shang-Chi has left Fu's service. Fu chalks this up to the influence of Shang's "American mother". Midnight doesn't want to kill Shang-Chi, but he is loyal, so agrees to. Shang-Chi doesn't know this yet, because h'es too busy being caught in the middle of culture shock. This involves a belligerent cop who mistakes Shang-Chi for a prank playing hippie, and somehow this requires the cop to pull his gun. This part feels just a weeeee bit contrived. In fact, every New Yorker in the issue so far has been a complete tool who has way overreacted and attacked Shang-Chi. In other words, just like actual New Yorkers. Ba-da-bing! Thank you, I'll be here all week. Just then, Midnight heaves a scroll at Shang-Chi, who clocks the cop and reads it. It's a challenge. The two meet up and start a fight to the death, and seriously, Midnight is pretty cool looking. They fight for a couple pages and start to argue about philosophy when suddenly the cops show up again, saying that "we're not as inept as you think!" Seems Shang-Chi is wanted for murder from #15 and him decking that cop kind of gave away his position. Of course, both Shang-Chi and Midnight immediately vanish even though the cop is looking right at them, with a spotlight on them and a gun drawn, so there goes that whole "we're not inept" argument. During this section the cop refers to midnight as "Boston Blackie" I'm not familiar with this reference, but another quick check of wiki informs me that he was a detective in some books in the teens and twenties and some films in the 40's. Huh. Still in the realm of popular culture in the 70's? Anyhow, Midnight and Shang-Chi meet up again and continue their fight and Midnight is pretty much taking it to him. Shang-Chi then realizes that he has been dogging it because he doesn't want to kill his friend, but he realizes it is inevitable, so he chucks him off a crane. Midnight falls and his cape gets caught on the crane's hook and his neak breaks. A lot of that going around in Marvel at that time. THE END! Interesting that they pretty much introduce an arch-enemy for Shang-Chi in this issue, give him an awesome name and costume and compelling back story and then kill him off int he same issue. I'm not sure if that's a terrible idea or a bit of genius. This issue also features those tiny, tiny ads on every page; in little bitty font, each page has a blurb about some other Marvel comic. I think people complained about this enough that they discontinued the practice pretty fast. From Bullpen Bulletins we can see that this issue came out at the same time as one of the issues I've already reviewed on here, Power Man #17, so the rest of the Bulletins is the same as that one, i.e. they introduce the Marvel Value Stamp and all of collectordom goes into a silent rage. These issues also both came out the same month as the slightly better known Amazing Spider-man #129 (and Avengers #120). Unfortunately, there's no lettercolumn, so that's it. My grade: Midnight gets an A+. The story itself gets a B+, only taking a hit because of the cartoonishly violent actions of all New Yorkers. I know they're trying to play up the cultural differences, but really. Final verdict: somewhat special, but not special enough to warrant the word "Special" in the title of the series.
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Post by Tana Nile on Aug 22, 2008 23:16:28 GMT -5
For some reason that I can't figure out, I never had any of the Master of Kung-Fu books. I had everything else...but why no MOKF? In any case, this review made me think of Avengers 131, where one-shot wonder Midnight would re-appear as one of the Legion of the Unliving. Having been rather young and never having seen the character's first appearance, I was confused and at first thought he was the Black Panther! He sort of seems like a cool character, especially with the hat... a different look to be sure.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 23, 2008 10:19:57 GMT -5
Well, I finally got my scanner working, so I'm going to be able to scan in images to go with these reviews, where helpful. This is the panel I was talking about in G. I. Combat #127:
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Post by scottharris on Aug 23, 2008 10:25:38 GMT -5
Here are a few more vintage romance images from the issues I picked up. This has to be the greatest in-house ad of all time: Here's another great melodramatic cover: And hooray for completely freaky nutjobs like this chick in Falling in Love #48 from 1962, who really goes over the edge with her feelings for this guy:
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Post by scottharris on Aug 23, 2008 19:56:57 GMT -5
I was digging through some boxes today and found a copy of Daredevil #104 which I didn't realize I had. I'm not going to review it; suffice it to say it's a Steve Gerber Daredevil and the storyline was unpopular enough that the book was demoted to bi-monthly.
It does, however, have a letter that I thought you guys might find interesting:
The Bullpen, Unless Daredevil first appeared before April, 1940, he was not the "first blind hero." In April, 1940, Dr. Mid-Nite (of your Distinguished Competition) appeared first. Kirk Kimball
You know, Kirk, we get this letter about once every eight or nine months from some concerned Marvelite and we've never really taken the time to answer it fully. Well, we're going to now, once and for all eternity! The hero you mentioned (albeit a very minor hero who never appeared solo in anything more than a six-page story) was indeed published by that Distinguished Competition in 1940. However, this "blind" hero could see, merely by putting on his special "deus ex machina brand" 3D glasses. In other words, he wasn't sightless by a long shot! DD, on the other hand, is sightless. His radar sense is useful, to be sure, but he still can't really see. It's quite possible that some other gone-and-forgotten 40's publishing house had a blind hero in one of their books, but that hero surely was not Dr. Mid-Nite!
Anyone else think this answer is complete bull?
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Post by scottharris on Aug 24, 2008 19:17:19 GMT -5
INFINITY MAN RETURNS! Forever People #11 I just picked this up today. I went to a tiny collectables show, it only had maybe four or five comic book dealers, but I managed to find some cool stuff. I picked up eight issues of Strange Tales for five bucks each. Another dealer had all TPBs and complete limited series for five dollars apiece, so I picked up the Champions TPB (which reprints #1-11), a Justice Society TPB (which reprints All-Star #58-67 from the 1970's), a Marvel Romance TPB (romance stories from 60's Marvel) and the completed 1602 series, whic I am particularly happy about. One other dealer also had all his comics at 2 for a dollar, which included quite a few 70's comics. Besides this issue of Forever People I picked up several issues of Blackhawk, some Astonishing Tales issues with Deathlok and some various Avengers-related stuff like MTiO #66, which is a follow-up to the Serpent Crown story from Avengers #141-147, and the MTU #60 story with Wasp that we've discussed on here a few times. All told, a pretty nice haul. I'm not too enthused with this cover. The design is clean enough, but when compared to some of the funky designs on earlier issues of Forever People it just looks flat. That wonky background color isn't helping this, and the image leaves a lot of empty space. I dunno, it's just kind of boring. I like this logo, but I almost think it doesn't quite work with the double circle design. Not a great effort. This is the November, 1972 issue. Story and art by Kirby, inking by Mike Royer and "research by Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman". Research, huh? What, did Kirby send them down the the library to get info on forever people? Seems like a good way to get them some comic credits for their resumes even though they only brought him donuts. So, the story starts off mid battle. The Forever People are in the middle of being tossed around by Devilance the Pursuer. They seem really unhappy this guy showed up. I guess they read his appearances in 52. Anyway, he chucks them around the room for a couple pages when suddenly the cops show up to break up the brawl. Needless to say, Devilance, with the "power of a god" and the "crushing will of Darkseid", incinerates them. No, actually, he jumps out the window and runs away. Um. He claims that his "instructions are to avoid them", but I can't really think of why that would be. Anyway, the cops turn around and all the Forever People are gone too, whisked away to a big cave by their mother box. These Forver People are apparently Kirby's version of space hippies, by the way, as near as I can tell. One of them is a black dude named "Vykin the Black", so at least they remember the "Black Guy Comic Book Naming Protocol". MEANWHILE! Some guy named Infinity Man is stuck in space by an energy barrier, and has to land on a lush planet to get healed. Okay, who cares. Anyway, back on Earth, Devilance has found the Forever People and attacks. However, the chick, Beautiful Dreamer, has made an illusion covering a pit of lava and Devilance falls in it and gets stuck. The Peeps immediately teleport away, but Devilance pretty much follows them in the next panel, so that was kind of pointless. Again he attacks, but this time Mother Box has whipped up a batch of "MAGNA WAVES!" which steal his lance away, depriving him of much of his power. Oh, so he's like Terminus. Unlike Terminus, though, he's not a complete idiot, and after a couple panels of getting whupped on, his lance activates a homing beacon and flies back to him. He trashes a hairbag named Big Bear and about to kill him when one of the other hippies, a cowboy looking fop called Serifan, "pulls a cosmic cartridge form his headband". Uh, okay, sure. This cosmic cartridge suddenly turns Devilance into stone and increases his weight ten fold so he flops into the ground and sinks. With him at their mercy, the Forever People again leave and start discussing what to do. Apparently they are all pacifists and can't figure out what to do with the guy. Oh, cry me a river you yellow bellies. MEANWHILE! The Infinity Man is lying around and finally feels up to trying to escape this energy barrier again. This time he has a... plan... I guess: "In the magic word "taaru", which links us as one, destiny shall do what the powers of time and space command it!" No, I don't have the slightest idea what this gibberish is supposed to mean. Anyway, Devilance shows up again and this time he's not fooling around. He's just about to kill the Forever People when the mother box starts acting funky. They're getting thought waves from Infinity Man, who commands them to say the word. So they all shout TAARU! and suddenly they switch places, a-la Rick Jones and Captain Marvel. Then Devilance and Infinity Man grapple and fight. They are in a stalemate and somehow manage to overload the lance to the point where the entire island they are standing on explodes in a huge eruption "felt hundreds of miles away". We then pull back to Darkseid, who is watching, and muses about destiny or something. The Forever People, for their part, are now on the planet that Infinity Man had been lounging on, and they take off to explore their new world. And that, apparently, is the end of the entire series. THE END! The lettercolumn is interesting. It's two pages long and the letters are mostly addressed to Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman. Looks like they were doing something more than getting coffee for the King, they were also answering letters. The letters in this issue are regarding #9 which guest starred Deadman. There's a particuarly nice letter where the guy essentially shreds Kirby, Mark, Steve and the entire series. He ends with this: "And when you turn out the letter column this time, why don't you print some of the angry letters on this subject that you will certainly receive by the hundreds, instead of all that 'Oh Jack, you're great!' garbage that you can't seem to get enough of. Your letter columns are the most amateurish, ego-centric and idol-worshipping columns I've ever seen! Don't you fellows have any capacity for criticism at all?" There's also an in-house ad for Swamp Thing #1 and Kamandi #1. My grade: Um, no. Just no. D. Space hippies, no thanks.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 24, 2008 19:49:58 GMT -5
OUCH, talk about a ripjob on Kirby and that mag! I think comic books need that now, spice everything up with a little bit of cruel hatemail! And I must say, that "Veil of Love" ad looks SO ridiculous that I want to read it!! Please tell me you have it, scottharris!
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Post by scottharris on Aug 25, 2008 14:13:28 GMT -5
And I must say, that "Veil of Love" ad looks SO ridiculous that I want to read it!! Please tell me you have it, scottharris! Not yet, but after seeing this ad it immediately went on my checklist, so I'll be looking for it. There are some beat up copies on ebay, but they're a bit expensive. And to be honest, with a cover like this, I think I want to get a nice copy. We'll see what I can find.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 25, 2008 15:04:19 GMT -5
The HELL-DIVER! Doc Savage #4 I've never really been into Doc Savage, but I can't say why really. This is among the comics I picked up yesterday for 50 cents each, so I guess we'll find out together the source of my disinterest. The cover isn't half bad. I'm not really into the colors -- those green scuba suits the bad guys are wearing don't really go very well with Savage's bronze skin. Maybe a minor point, but it really looks kind of yucky; if they were wearing black or blue suits or something I think this cover would pop a lot more. Other than that coloring decision, though, I like the rest of the cover okay. This is mid-20 cent era, just after the end of the frames, when they were doing these half-frames, which I also like. This issue is from April of 1973. The story is"The HELL-DIVER!", credited to an ENglehart script with art from Ross Andru and Tom Palmer. Hey, that's a pretty good line-up. I was expecting Gerber with art by Herb Trimpe. This adapted from a story called "Death in Silver" by Kenneth Robeson and is billed as "Action as you like it -- set in the 1930's". Er, is that how people liked their action in 1973? Really? The story starts mid-action: three of Doc's assistants have been captured by a group called the Silver Death's-Heads, who are guys wearing silver body suits. Andru manages to make these guys actually look kind of cool. These Silver guys are worrying that Savage might find them, so they decide to clear the area, including a beggar on one of those little push carts. Look out, Silver guys, that could be Dracula! But no, it's just Doc Savage, who fights them and clobbers them with help from two more assistants. That seems like an awful lot of helpers, doesn't it? Five assistants? I have an odd feeling that a lot of Doc Savage stories revolve around these guys getting captured. Anyway, Doc and his guys bust into the nearby building and find the other three helpers and free them, so... that was quick. By the way, the helpers are named Rapid Pace, Monk, Ham, Long Tom and... Hugh McCoy. What, no nickname like "Ninja Pajamas" or something? Suddenly, Doc hears people approaching, "Silver Death's-Heads, from the sound of their clinking!" Er... I think I'm missing something here. Are those body suits chainmail or something? Because they totally don't look like it. Savage shoos everyone else off, saying that he's the only one wearing a bullet proof vest which, yes, he's wearing one, and it actually looks like a vest. I mean, from a three-piece suit. That's a stylish bullet proof vest right there, from a bullet proof wedding ensemble. Doc jumps out and surprises the six Silver guys, and a brawl ensues. Thanks to his vest, their bullets do nothing, so one guy heaves a grenade at him, which Doc catches and throws out a window. ...and blows up a passing Messerschmidt-109!!!! No, sorry, my bad. Too much Sgt. Fury. Anyway, having crushed all opposition, Doc and his gang search the hideout where the find a smashed jar of vaseline. Doc quickly calls for his friends, a black light and some goggles. Whoa there, Larry Flynt, calm down. Oh, wait, he's just going to use the blacklight to track vaseline footprints. Do you really need a blacklight and goggles to see vaseline footprints? Finally, they footprints lead them to a safe, which Doc moves aside, revealing a secret door. While Doc jumps down, he warns everyone to back off, his reasons being a giant chunk of Englehartian expository dialogue that explains all of last issue and is tremendously out of place, especially coming on page 12, which is a little late in the game to explain what's going on. Besides, by this point, I pretty much have the gist of it anyway. Down in the hidey-hole they find a map of New York marked with little stars. All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, this happens: "Wafting, then, through the grim dark comes the bronze man's unearthly trilling, his unconscious signal marking some stark discovery, or an unusual course of action." So apparently he starts making high pitched gargling noises or something that actually surprise his assistants, who start looking around, wondering, like the reader, WTF THIS IS. I guess this is some character quirk form the pulps, but man, does it seem stupid here. Doc, it seems, has had a brainstorm. He sends Ham off to research something, then the rest hightail to to Doc's secret base, which is filled with giant machines and whatnot, including the Hell-Diver, a super submarine Doc built. Smart and he can trill; wow. They all hop in and head up river to New York. Doc, you see, has deduced that the bad guys have been committing their crimes using a submarine and is sure that by showing up in their own sub, the bad guys will be flushed out. The bad guys also, by the way, are in a war submarine, so they just swim over and totally trash the Hell-Diver, sinking it. Doc and his gang quickly put on diving gear and escape the wreck, then battle Silver guys underwater for all of one page (but a nice pull splash page). Two of the Silver guys escape, though, so Doc follows them to a warehouse, where it turns out to be the main bad guys. They start arguing over how dumb it was to go on a crime spree with Doc Savage around, when suddenly, Doc attacks. Yup, hindsight is 20/20. But: "You'll never take me, Savage, not while I have my KNIFE PISTOLS!" And then he fires... well, knife pistols: two pig pistols that fire giant knives instead of bullets. I don't know why anyone would invent such a thing, but it's just dumb enough to be kind of cool. I would have loved that when I was 12. So Doc clocks him and unmasks him, and it turns out the mastermind was... Hugh McCoy! Wait, what? McCoy was on the sub with him. I don't think there was a single second when he could have changed into his silver guy costume, especially since, underneath that, he was wearing a fake rubber mask to disguise him as some other dude. Yeah, I just looked back through the issue and this really doesn't make a lick of sense. It's stated that Hugh was already waiting in the warehouse for the other Silver guy to show up, but that's pretty much impossible, since Doc came immediately from the sub fight to the warehouse by being towed behind a motor boat at high speeds. Unless Hugh can teleport, then, he should be back in the water where the sub sank. And then the story ends. THE END! This issue was part of the Marvel explosion of titles from 1972 that I've mentioned previously; in the Bullpen Bulletins there are no fewer than 13 titles on issue 7 or below. Only two of those titles ended up lasting for 100 issues -- MTU and Hero for Hire, though Tomb of Dracula had a respectable 70 issue run. The lettercolumn is interesting. Everyone seems happy enough with the book, but there are some complaints about issue 2's adaptation. Apparently the first 2 issues of the series adapted a 21 chapter novel, which Doc Savage #2 actually compressing 17 chapters of novel into a 20 page comic book. Wow. I can't imagine why that's necessary. Another letter totally bags on Marvel for the frame design, which Marvel had just gotten rid of. Apparently a lot of people wrote to complain about it, and even today I seem to be in the decided minority of people who like it, as I still read comments on blogs and such by people dissing the frame design. Well, they're all wrong and I'm right: the frames rule. Stan's Soapbox in this issues is teasing the unveiling of FOOM in the next issue. And the rest of Bullpen Bulletins has some really interesting stuff: "The big news around mighty Marvel this month is -- a wedding! Nope, Spidey and Gwen haven't taken the big step yet --". Funny, this is from the same month of Amazing Spider-man #118. The wedding announcement was for Herb Trimpe and Linda Fite. Next up, though, is a thing saying that a magazine called "The Monster Times" had just done a feature on John Romita, and that The New Yorker had done a feature on... Gerry Conway? WHY!!! WTF would the New Yorker of all magazines do a feature on Gerry Conway of all people for? I can't think of any reason for this unless Gerry had incriminating photos of someone. This issue also features a blurb for Captain Marvel #25, the start of the Thanos storyline. This came out at the same time as Avengers #109, so my math says that CM must have been bi-monthly at this point. My Grade: B-. That ending was massively weird and rushed. Adapting giant novels into tiny comic book stories is a bad idea. Adapt them at their own pace rather than trying to cram them into a set number of issues like this. And that trilling nonsense has to go.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 26, 2008 16:32:21 GMT -5
I dipped into my collection for something more Avengers related today: Marvel Team-Up #5 I may be mistaken, but I believe this is the first solo appearance of the Vision outside of the Avengers; I think all of his previous appearances outside of Avengers were in the context of the whole team appearing. Indeed, appearance by the Vision without the rest of the team are pretty rare throughout Marvel history, compared to many other popular characters. I assume that, like Cyclops for instance, this is because he was so closely identified with his team. This is obviously from the 20 cent frame era, featuring a really nice white frame and this Vision logo which I believe was created for this issue and was later resurrected for the 12 issue V&SW limited series over a decade later. The art is by Gil Kane, who did most covers at Marvel during this time, and looks pretty sweet. In all, maybe not the best cover ever, but a really nice one. Aaaand, whaddaya know, Kane also did the interior art of this book as well, with inking by Mike Esposito. Well, I prefer it when Kane inks himself, but that's still cool. Sadly, it's yet another Gerry Conway production. I need to screen these things better. The date is November, 1972. Anyways, Spidey is swinging through the city when he spots a guy in a trenchcoat fall through the sidewalk. Of course, this puzzles him, so he goes to have a closer look. And... yes, one page and we've already established that this is an issue of MTU, where everything happens by complete coincidence. Was there ever a single issue of this series where Spidey didn't just randomly spot a menace and randomly team up with some other, random superhero? Anything even remotely character driven, that sprung from prior plots or anything? Even one? Spidey drops down and finds that its the Vision, who says he is under attack and then blacks out. Spider carries him back to his apartment, where Harry Osborn is sleeping, and luckily stays asleep right through a whole conversation between Spidey and Vision in their living room. Vision has been having seizures but can't figure out why. MEANWHILE! Okay, it's the Puppet Master, and he's working on a puppet, and we go into a flashback where he's hanging out when suddenly an alien spaceship crashes behind his house. See, Spidey, two can play at the random coincidence game. Inside the saucer, Puppet Master found a giant robot, which he names "Monstroid". He builds a little puppet to control it with and then goes on a spree, robbing some banks and stuff. Cut back to Spidey and Vision, where Harry has finally woken up. Well, good. Before he can totally freak the hell out, though, Spidey and Vision hightail it out the window and go to a nearby hostpital, where they commandeer some machines to do a diagnostic. Spidey discovers that Vision has "two sets of brain waves" but before they can figure out more, Vision has another seizure. By the way, Vision says here that he can't go to the Avengers for personal reasons, and it says to look in Avengers #105 for the details. Hmm. If memory serves me, that issue features Magneto's team of useless mutates and a chick named Lorelai uses her man-controlling powers to snare Vision even though he's a robot? Uh, let's see... there's some subplot with Wanda, who is angry at the team for not trying to find Pietro, who vanished in #104? I don't remember anything that explains this comment, but I don't feel like going to look it up either. Anyway, Puppet Master has finished his pointless thievery and is now attacking the Baxter Building. He and his robot bust in and smash a few things. They don't, however, count on Vision and Spider-man showing up suddenly. Seems that Spider-man has tracked the interfering brain waves to the Baxter Building. As soon as they arrive, Vision goes plotz and collapses from mental strain, so Puppet Master sics the Monstroid on Spidey. They battle for a bunch of pages, but finally Vision straightens himself out and uses his spectral hand trick to waste Puppet Master. Turns out that the Monstroid acted on the same mental frequency as Vision and whenever Puppet Master activated him, the interference caused feedback in Vision's brain. Now, that's downright odd, and interesting; I've never heard of anything like that happening to the Vision before or since. Even more interesting, especially in light of current Marvel events, is the fact that this robot is an experimental Skrull scout that crashed on Earth during the Kree-Skrull war. Huh. That raises some interesting questions about the Vision in relation to being affected by Skrulls, and also the possibility of other Skrull ships and tech having crashed during the war and possibly still undiscovered, like land mines and stuff from WWI. THE END!!! Actually, not much going on otherwise. The letters in the lettercolumn are mostly discussing whether or not each issue should have Human Torch in it or other heroes, and consensus is other heroes. And the Bullpen Bulletins is one we've already discussed, where they talk about all the new titles written by women. My grade: B-. The Kane art is okay but not as exciting as I would have hoped; his Spidey looks kind of like a balloon. The story has some interesting ramifications, but those have never been mentioned again. And I just am not into the randomness of MTU. I go on patrol all the time and never see anything.
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Post by scottharris on Aug 29, 2008 19:39:28 GMT -5
HERE HE IS! Detective Comics #348 I got this at an auction many years ago. No idea what I paid for it. I picked it up because it's in very nice condition so I figured I would trade it, but obviously that hasn't happened yet. This has the classic DC taxi-cab banner across the top. Anyone know what possessed DC to add that? I've always been puzzled by that design element. Going hand in hand with it is this boxy, boring logo, which isn't nearly as cool as, well, any other Detective logo ever published. The art is by Joe Kubert, so the execution is fine, but otherwise this is a typical goofy DC superhero cover, with Batman in a giant cage and... whatever. Not doing anything for me at all, to be honest. The story is titled "Birdmaster of BEDLAM!" and has a cover date of February, 1966. So, just before the TV show went off. There aren't any credits, but Bob Kane's signature appears on the splash page. Not in a "created by" credit, but just his signature. Was Kane still doing Batman stuff for DC in 1966? Right off the bat, a blurb on the splash page explains the plot of the story. Seems Birdmaster is a guy who collects all manner of rare flying animals, and so he needs Batman and Robin to finish his collection because of their codenames. Well, why not. Makes as much sense as The Collector did. Our story really starts, though, in an airport, where the new Miss USA is kissing Bruce Wayne goodbye with the comment that the best part of winning the title is "a date with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson". Uh, that sounds like a really awkward date. Robin is watching them embrace with the comment "Wish I were old enough to rate a blast-ff like that!" which... okay, I'm not going to rehash all the old Batman and Robin gay jokes, but really, they are totally asking for it with stuff like this. Then she does end up giving Robin a peck on the cheek and he responds with this: "Yeoww! All systems are go! Go! GO!" Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up. Maybe Bob Kane can, but nobody else could. Anyway, the chick, Mona, takes off, but suddenly her plane crashes. Batman and Robin rush to the scene and put out the fire with their capes -- that's pretty good work -- but discover they are too late: Mona is dead. Wow, I have to say I didn't expect that. Batman and Robin investigate, and the pilot says that the plane was attacked by a flock of birds. This is backed up by maydays suddenly coming in from all the planes in the air, which are also being attacked by birds. The FAA immediately grounds all planes, but Batman hops in his jet and he and RObin take off to try and lure the Birdmaster out of hiding. Of course, they get attacked, to which Robin responds by saying "Seems like he's trying to give us the bird!" Er... did the Code people even read this comic? Anyway, the birds attack the batplane, and Batman blasts a bunch of them with rockets, but a flock of "medic birds" swoop in and carry the injured ones to safety. Heck, even birds have universal health care! C'mon, McCain! Batman and Robin just can't shake the birds, though, so they set the batplane to autopilot and bail out. This temporarily throws the birds off the trail, but when the duo lands, they find themselves face to face with a gorup of men wearing bird costumes. Yes, henchmen of... THE BIRDMASTER! A fight ensues, but then, well.... let's let Batman explain: "Look out, Robin! They've got NOSE-GUNS! They're shooting knockout gas at us!" Yes, the bird people all snort toxic gas in unison and take out the dynamic duo. Then a bunch of birds swoop down with a giant net and cart them off to a giant cliffside citadel. Once there, they are deposited in a cage, captives of... BIRDMASTER! Birdmaster turns out to be a bearded goof wearing a turban, and he has his condors and vultures attack Batman and Robin for sport. Cleverly, there's no top to the cage, so the duo just climb over the side and clobber all the henchmen. Fearing for his life, BIRDMASTER! flees. He jumps in a plane and take off, and of course, his birds, trained to wreck any plane they see, smash into it and he dies in a fiery crash. THE END! Next up is the backup story, an Elongated Man tale called "My Wife, the Witch!". Ralph and Sue are tooling around on vacation or something and they come to an inn. The innkeeper doesn't have their reservations, though, so the only room he has available is the haunted Room 13. They take it and have no troubles, but the next morning, while Ralph is getting his car looked at, Sue finds a tome of spells. Most of the spells are missing, but she tries a couple and they work. Of course, she just has to call the garage and tell Ralph to buy a bunch of witchcraft supplies so she can try some more spells. Now, that doesn't seem like a great idea, but they are adventurers I guess. Truns out the town they are in is a town famous for witchcraft; yes, they are in the town of "Malem". I can't think of any reason why they didn't just call it Salem, but whatever. While he's buying the goods, some thieves show up with pistols to rob the place. Ralph fights them, and he's apparently famous enough that they recognize him right away; even the good folks in far off Malem have heard of the Elongated Man. Anyway, during the fight, one of them drops his weapon to surrender, but the gun is rigged to explode with gas when it hits the floor. Obviously. However, E-Man stretched his nose out the window to get fresh air, I kid you not, and defeats them all. Back at the inn, Ralph shows up with the goodies and suddenly smells a mystery. He deduces that the ringleader of the gang purposely left out the book of spells so that Ralph would go to the local witch museum to buy supplies. he then sent his men there to get captured so he could keep all the loot himself. Sure enough, that was the plan. The ringleader is the innkeeper, and he rigged up the room so that Sue would think her spells were working. However, Ralph jumps him before he can make his getaway. Once again, the guy has a special gas gun, this time with a gas that blinds Ralph. Ralph, however, stretches himself so that his arms and legs cover the whole room, so that if the guy moves at all, Ralph will feel it and grab him. And... yep, it works. THE END!! The letter column is interesting. Yep, it turns out that Kane did indeed do work for DC in 1966, as he was apparently the regular penciller for Detective. The backup Elongated Man stories have art by Infantino, which I guessed while reading it. Much tighter than the later, crappy Infantino stuff like his run on Avengers. The letters are filled with people guessing who was writing the stories, which... if every letter is asking, why didn't they just publish credits? Instead they tease the reader by asking them to guess who write this Birdmaster epic, saying that it's not "Fox, Finger, Broome or Herron". I didn't realize Bill Finger was also still doing Batman stuff this late. That's well over 25 years of Batman for those guys. One letter also states that they liked the fact that the bad guy was a criminal boss instead of "a ridiculous super-villain like The Penguin". The in-house ads are very interesting. There's one for a JLA issue where Metamorpho is offered membership but declines, proving that throwing marginal new characters into established books in the hope of getting respectability and a sales bump is not a new tactic. There's also an ad for a giant sized issue of Our Army at War, where Sgt. Rock is joined by The Haunted Tank, Mme. Marie and 3/4 of the eventual Losers team -- Johnny Cloud, Gunner and Sarge. A third in-house ad is for an issue of Wonder Woman that boasts the return of "two of the Golden Age's most glittering villains", the Cheetah and Dr. Psycho. Just about the only WW villains with any profile at all these days. Lastly, there's a one page public service announcement basically explaining to kids that they shouldn't make fun of other kids who have developmental handicaps. It's actually fairly well done, to be honest, but there's one panel that I found quite funny: The doodle, with the arms and legs just randomly coming out of the head or whatever is great. My grade: BIRDMASTER! gets a C- for being awful; a B+ for actually killing that chick at the beginning; and an A+ for slipping subtext past the censors. The Elongated Man story gets a B- for having Elongated Man in it.
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Post by Dr. Hank Pym on Aug 30, 2008 13:57:35 GMT -5
scottharris: These things are too funny! Keep 'em comin'! That Detective Comics one was too funny. Two deaths in one DC issue in the 60's? Must've been a blue moon or something!
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Post by scottharris on Sept 2, 2008 16:23:10 GMT -5
This is very exciting! My first ever Golden Age comic! Boy Comics #36 I'm totally psyched to get my first Golden Age comics. The Golden Age stuff I've been looking at is for the most part way too expensive to buy. Even totally trashed issues of Captain America in Fair or Poor condition are going for $150 on eBay. While I was looking around, though, I stumbled upon a few lots of Boy Comics that nobody was bidding on, so I threw in some minimum bids and much to my surprise they held up. Thus I ended up with 6 issues of Boy Comics for $30, or five bucks each for real deal Holyfield Golden Age comics. Seriously, take a look -- this has a cover from Charles Biro! This is a few years after Biro and Lev Gleason created Crime Does Not Pay, but the wave of crime comics was just really getting going when this issue came out. The "superhero" is a teenager with a pet monkey wearing boxers over long johns and what appears to be a school letter sweater. But, he's called "Crimebuster", and the rest of the cover is classic Biroi: one guy has a gun drawn, the other guy is reaching for a gun in his desk, and a third guy is lying shot to hell, stone dead in the background in a giant pool of bright red blood. Awesome. This is issue #36, with a cover date of October, 1947. Interestingly, to me anyway, the first page is actually an ad. You have to turn to page three before you get to the actual comic. The first story, which isn't given a title but simply published under a giant CRIMEBUSTER logo, appears to be written by Charles Biro, though this isn't specified. However, a long text screen appears on the half-splash, basically equating movies to comic books and essentially saying that a few years ago, people were awed by superheroes just because the medium was new, but now that it's mature, you need to actually tell good stories instead of just having flying people in your comics. Ouch, Biro. Just ouch. The art here is credited to a Norman Maurer. A little research shows that he married the daughter of Moe Howard and later became the manager of the Three Stooges. Huh. Nothing relevant to this comic, of course, but interesting anyway. The splash, by the way, is of a woman in a hospital shouting and some doctors rushing in to tranquilize her. It seems to be symbolic, because the next panels have nothing to do with this. Instead, an old school chum of Crimebuster is writing him to say he's going to be in town and he wants Crimebuster to tell him about a mission so he can write a story about it. Hmm. I've seen variations of this plot a few times; usually the writer goes along on the case and learns some lesson, but this time it seems they'll just be talking about an old case. Yup, sure enough, the old friend shows up and explains the kind of story he wants to write and Crimebuster wracks his brain to hnk of a case that matches the description. Intrestingly, some guy -- maybe Crimebuster's dad, I'm not sure -- invites them to stay and watch the big boxing match on television. The friend responds: "Gosh! I never saw a television show!" Cool. Anyway, Crimebuster relates the tale of Gloria, who apparently is the girl from the splash page. She arrived in New York looking to make it big in acting, and basically proceeds to be a huge jerk. First she freeloads off of a friend, not only for free lodging but also by copying all of her lessons from acting class. When the time comes for the big tryout, she steals her friend's role, forcing her friend to make up something else on the spot. Naturally, Gloria is chosen for the big scholarship. She uses this toi pressure the class teacher into getting her a big job, and in return she ends up dumping the class as it's no longer of use to her career. Meanwhile, she's also a knob to her so-called friends. One of them comes over to annouce her engagement, and this is the conversation: Gloria: "You! Engaged? How did you prong him?" Babs: "It may sound funny to you, but I met him through a marriage broker!" Gloria: "A marriage broker! Good grief! If the time comes when I have to pay someone to find me a man, I'd rather die an old maid!" Wow, nice one. Jeez. And it continues: she dumps the play for a better career opportunity and uses the money to buy herself clothes fit for a starlet, all the while never paying the rent she owes her friend. Instead, she gets her hooks into a rich man and gets him to propose. As son as the deal is done, she moves out, leaving her friend with no roommate and no back rent either. Unfortunately for Gloria, her plans go awry thanks to a coughing fit. The best man happens to be a doctor, and during rehersals for the wedding he sneakily gets a saliva sample from her and tests it. Sure enough, she has a really contagious form of tuberculosis. Yikes, TB. Now there's a plot point you wouldn't run into today. Her fiance Jeff is forced to call off the wedding because she is just too contagious. She gets really angry, convinced this is a scheme by his family to keep her from getting his money, and when told how contagious she is she actually starts spitting on them to try and infect them! Yikes! Anyway, the medics drag her away and she is sent to a sanitarium in the desert to recuperate. She's there for four years, but finally gets out and goes back to the city to hook up with Jeff. However, he's gotten married in the meantime. He does feel bad for her, though, so he hooks her up with a check for $5,000 to get her back on her feet. Unfortunately, her years of being a beyotch have sent all her friends packing, so she has nowhere to go. So she lands in a hotel. Desperate for human contact, she decides to try the marriage broker. This broker sets her up with a good looking guy and they hit it off right off the bat. He proposes that very night and they get hitched. However, the wedding night doesn't go as planned. The new husband is wracked with worry over a business deal: "I'm trying to figure out the impossible! I've got a freight car full of manganese-dioxid that's got to be unloaded by 9:15 tomorrow morning or I'll lose it! But the bank doesn't open till 9:30 and I've got to figure a way to raise $2,250 in cash by my 9:45 deadline!" Gloria says, hey, no problem, I have 5 grand in cash right here. He sends her to bed, saying he has just a little more work to do before they get it on. She falls asleep waiting, and when she wakes, she finds him gone, with all the cash. Yes, the whole thing was a scam and he was a con artist. The trauma of being jilted and conned at the same time causes Gloria to have a sudden relapse of TB and she heads back to the sanitarium. When she gets there, though, she gets another shock: the con artist is already there! Yup, she gave him TB during their little fling, and now both of them are broke and on their death beds. And... that's the end. Crimebuster finishes the story and says he got it from mystery man's files, so I guess that wasn't his dad but must be a cop or something. They then turn on the TV but the fight is over. They don't care, though, because they agree that the story (and of course, this comic book) are way cooler than any dumb TV anyway. THE END!!! The second story I'm not going to review in as much detail, but it's more of the same. A young guy gets tricked into marrying a con artist woman while he's drunk. Once he sobers up, he flees his family in shame and ends up at a flop house, where he is befriended by another guy. That guy, though, then secretly goes back to the young dude's house and murders his father. Now that the young guy has inherited the money, the new wife shows up again to blackmail him. Turns out her actual husband is the guy who befriended him. Luckily, Crimebuster actually shows up in this story; he doesn't do any actual superhero work, but he figures out the scam (apparently he works for the District Attorney -- now we're getting somewhere with mystery man from the first story). The fake wife ends up dead, the con artist guy goes to jail and everyone else lives happily ever after, except the young guy's dad, who, of course, was shot to death. THE END! The third story isn't a Crimebuster tale; instead it features a streetwise kid named Little Dynamite. This kid agrees to help an ex-GI out by taking care of his K-9 dog while the GI goes to Cleveland for a short time. HOwever, things go awry when the dog-catcher shows up. Unfortunately, some thugs broke into Dynamite's clubhouse and took the papers for the dog, so things look bleak. Dynamite, his gang and the dog escape the catcher and track down the thugs. They bust in on the thugs, who have guns drawn, and we get this excellent bit of golden age dialog: Little Dynamite: "Give us our dough an' the papers ya swpied, or I'll bust your jaws in!" Kid: "Look out, Dynamite! He's got a rod!" Thug: "Plug 'em, Shorty!" Hell yeah. Of course, thugs with rods are no match for Little Dynamite and his gang. Things get even better when the catcher shows up and realizes it's a K-9 dog, which changes everything. Best of all, the GI writes back to say that his wife raises cats, so he can't have the dog; instead, he gives it to Dynamite's gang. THE END!! In this issue there are also several short features. There's a one page bit on "famous eccentrics", a one page bit of unbelievable sports stories, and one page with excerpts from letters sent to Crime Does Not Pay from felons saying they wish they had read the comic before they got involved with crime. There's also a two page text story featuring the Golden Age Daredevil called "Rejected Script", which I have to say doesn't inspire a strong desire to read it. It's a pretty straight-forward little murder mystery, with the old trick that one of the suspects accidentally says something that he couldn't possibly have known unless he were the killer. It also contains this line from Daredevil: "Well, I still don't have much time," he said. "I've got a taxi full of kids out there, and I promised to take them home and show them some jiu-jitsu tricks --" Uh... you what now? There's also a lettercolumn. Biro and Gleason have solved the problem of not getting people to write in by offering to pay $2 to anyone who gets a letter published. Biro also shows a Stan Lee-esque ability to equivocate in his answers, though without Lee's humor. Check out this exchange: "I don't know much about this and I may be talking through my hat, but I always thought that saws had the blade on the other side than Charles Biro drew it." Biro's response: That, Francis, is an unknown quantity, open for discussion and most probably will have no solution. One might ask, which is the front of a dollar bill, or has it a front. It depends entirely on how you look at it. If we turned that saw bottom side up, the cutting edge would be reversed. What does that prove? I don't know. You figure it out. What? Lastly, the comic itself -- there are no ads during the stories, only between tales and at the beginning and end of the comic. I like this. Some of the storytelling within the stories is a little odd by today's standards. Specifically, the passage of time often isn't clearly defined. A character will say he's going to go do something and in the next panel will be back, having already done it, with no captions or other devices to suggest the passage of time. This was a little hard to get used to, in a few place it was very jarring as several hours would take place with no pace change whatsoever in the story. But once I figured this quirk out, I got used to it, though I prefer having some sort of visual or textual indicator. My grade: A+ The writing in these comics was, in fact, a great deal better than I was expecting. Really, really interesting. In fact, the whole concept of this comic is interesting, as it seems to be a Crime Does Not Pay for kids -- the same type of stories, only with a teen superhero guy as an introduction to the genre. It's like a gateway drug to harder comics. Some of the later issues I received have sports-themed covers, so it will be interesting to see if they dropped the crime theme to make it more kid friendly, or what.
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Post by sharkar on Sept 2, 2008 19:28:03 GMT -5
This has the classic DC taxi-cab banner across the top. Anyone know what possessed DC to add that? Ah, the infamous, oft-reviled, DC go-go checks! The go-go checks were implemented for a simple reason: to provide brand recognition. Back then, comics were displayed in spinner racks/newsstands so often only top portion of a cover was visible. With Marvel increasing in sales, DC wanted to make sure their (DC) comics stood out and were instantly identifiable. The checks along the very top of a cover made it easy to tell- - at a glance- -a DC comic from a Marvel (or any other) comic. The checks were added to DC comics that went on sale in late 1965 (cover dates early months of 1966; in fact, this very issue of Detective, #348, was the first issue of Detective to bear the checks). Sure enough, in a few months, DC's sales increased. But it's been deduced later on that the spike in sales was more likely due to the Batman TV show, which debuted in February 1966 and which inspired about a year and half's worth of Batmania. The checks also lasted roughly a year and half and were gone by mid-1967. (Later on, Carmine Infantino remarked that, during Marvel's ascension, the DC checks just made it easier for readers to see what not to buy! ) The letter column is interesting. Yep, it turns out that Kane did indeed do work for DC in 1966, as he was apparently the regular penciller for Detective. He didn't do the penciling here. As you mentioned earlier, Kane's name still appeared in the Batman strips as the creator (and he secured a sweet deal on the merchandising that went hand in hand with aforementioned wave of Batmania)...but in the years since 1968, it's come to light that he employed other artists who "ghosted" the work that was officially credited to him. During the timeframe you're referring to in your post, it's been documented that his main artist was Sheldon Moldoff.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 2, 2008 19:32:25 GMT -5
He didn't do the penciling here. As you mentioned earlier, Kane's name still appeared in the Batman strips as the creator (and he secured a sweet deal on the merchandising that went hand in hand with aforementioned wave of Batmania)...but in the years since 1968, it's come to light that he employed other artists who "ghosted" the work that was officially credited to him. During the timeframe you're referring to in your post, it's been documented that his main artist was Sheldon Moldoff. This doesn't surprise me. From what I've read, this was pretty much Kane's modus operandi from day one. In something I read recently -- probably Ten Cent Menace -- Kane was described as being a relentless go-getter with very limited actual talent. He seems to have willed himself to success in comics in part due to his ability to get more talented people to work on his behalf.
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Post by sharkar on Sept 2, 2008 19:45:01 GMT -5
Yes, he ran a well-organized "Kane factory." He also accomplished something neither Kirby nor Ditko could (while at Marvel, at least): recognition and control over his "creation"...and the rewards that went along with it. From what I've read, he was pretty savvy business-wise.
EDIT: corrected typo
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Post by sharkar on Sept 2, 2008 20:12:59 GMT -5
By the way, Vision says here that he can't go to the Avengers for personal reasons, and it says to look in Avengers #105 for the details. Hmm. If memory serves me, that issue features Magneto's team of useless mutates and a chick named Lorelai uses her man-controlling powers to snare Vision even though he's a robot? In Avengers #105, the problem was that the Vision was the only male Avenger who was not swayed by Lorelai's siren call. He then deduced that this was because he was not human and only humans could be "affected by love" (that's how they characterized Lorelai's power). Naturally this discovery caused much distress to him and Wanda. This issue was written by Steve Englehart, his first as Avengers scripter; but it's been documented that (now editor) Roy Thomas had a hand in the script as well. So I'm not sure who came up with the Vision's response to a tearful Wanda: "My difficulty should be be obvious to anyone." Great line...so cold. A few issues later it's revealed that the Vision and Wanda have figured out why he was not affected by Lorelai; it's because he lacked the right equipment . Lorelai's siren call could only be heard by human ears and not by the Vision's audial receptors. At any rate, it turned out he was capable of love after all.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 2, 2008 21:25:01 GMT -5
Ah. I thought it had something to do with that Lorelai thing but I couldn't remember the details.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 5, 2008 1:25:19 GMT -5
I just popped open an issue of Boy Comics from 1950 and who's name should jump out from the art credits but our old friend Jerry Grandenetti. Oddly, this isn't the first Grandenetti sighting of the week for me; his unique style also jumped out at me while I was going through an issue of G. I Combat from the early 1980's.
It's like a bad Starbucks experience. "I'll have a Double Grandenetti please."
These issues of Boy Comics, by the way, are really good. My experience with golden age reprints had me expecting amateurish art and similarly hard to swallow writing, but for the most part the stories in Boy Comics hold up really well. In fact, I am enjoying them more than most new stuff I'm reading. The art is actually very solid and the stories by Biro are really unexpectedly good. The characters are interesting and more finely characterized than I was expecting. Really top notch work all around. If I can get more issues affordably, I certainly plan to do so. Well worth the effort.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 6, 2008 10:39:52 GMT -5
I picked up a few more Sgt. Fury and they were pretty interesting. The issues in question are #6, 8 and 10.
#6, which has a cover date of March, 1964, is a classic Stan Lee treatise on race equality, the earliest such I have seen. During a training mission, Dino is injured, so the Howlers are assigned a temporary replacement. This guy, though, is a bigot, and makes derogatory comments about both Izzy Cohen (for being Jewish) and Gabe Jones (for being black). During the mission, he is teamed with each of them in turn and refuses to cooperate with them due to their ethnicity. Both time this leads to the mission being compromised. The second time, the new guy ends up getting shot because of it; Cohen carries him to safety through a hail of enemy bullets, and when they get to the medical tent, only Gabe's rare blood type matches for a transfusion. At the end, though, there isn't a miraculous new understanding of racial equality; the guy just leaves without a word. He does, however, leave his address in case Izzy or Gabe want to write him.
I liked this touch a lot, especially as it is accompanied by a Lee blurb about how changing people's minds isn't something that happens overnight but that progress can be made slowly over time with these small gestures. For a comic of its time, I thought this was handled very well and pretty subtly, which is not an adjective usually associated with Stan Lee.
#6 also includes full page in house ads for both Avengers #4 and X-Men #4, which had me drooling.
#8 is also interesting. Back in Avengers #4, during the Cap flashback, a nameless bad guy was introduced as the heavy who blew up Bucky. That, of course, was Baron Zemo, but his next appearance was a lot more interesting that that little cameo -- he appeared simultaneously in Avengers #6 and in Sgt. Fury #8, two decades apart! Sgt. Fury #8 actually starts off with a blurb telling readers to check out Avengers as well. The story is about Zemo -- who is called Dr. Zemo at this point rather than Baron Zemo -- building a "death ray", which is basically a laser. Dr. Zemo in this issue doesn't have any other super elements -- instead of a costume he wears a regular German army uniform. This is similar to a later appearance (#25 I think) of the Red Skull, who never uses his skull mask but instead is under cover disguised as a G. I.
Having Zemo debut simultaneously in books set in different decades was a great idea, though the readers pretty much didn't seem to like it based on the letter column; they didn't like the death ray stuff being in a "serious" war comic.
#10 is mainly notable for the letter column, which features a letter from future great artist Dave Cockrum.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 8, 2008 16:03:59 GMT -5
By request: Strange Tales #128 This has a cover date of January, 1965. Credits are Stan Lee writing, art by Dick Ayers and Frank Ray. The cover appears to be by Kirby, based mainly on the figure of Scarlet Witch, who looks really Kirby-esque on this cover. Overall this isn't a particularly impressive composition; four random figures fighting on a blank background, crowded by the Dr. Strange blurb below and the vast wall of text above. I do like the Strange Tales logo, particularly compared to the later era when the words "Strange Tales" got really small and there were logos for both Strange and Nick Fury; the covers just look better with the one big logo. I'm not super familiar with the X-Men issues of this time period, but I gather that Pietro and Wanda have been fairly rebellious right from the get go, based on how this story begins. Quicksilver and Wanda are... somewhere... and Pietro has a suitcase in hand and is pleading with Wanda to hurry up so they can flee Magneto. Interestingly, it is Wanda who is insisting that they can't leave Magneto because they owe him too much. They then get in an argument about this. Wanda is on the fence about leaving because she says they gave their word to Magneto, plus she think s he might be right anyway. Pietro says that they should go to find some American super-heroes for advice, but they don't know where to find any of them. This panel is interesting; as he's saying this he's thinking about the heroes and it's basically the Avengers -- Cap, Giant-Man, Iron Man and Thor -- plus Spider-man and Daredevil, who is still in his original yellow costume. Wanda says that they only heroes they know the address for are the Fantastic Four at the Baxter Building. Apparently Avengers Mansion hasn't become famous yet? Meanwhile, back at the hidden ranch, Torch and Thing are sitting around moping and mouthing off like usual when a special bulletin comes on the TV saying that "The X-Men have just released the first offical photos of the infamous band of Evil Mutants!" I'm curious a) why anyone cares what the X-Men have to say and b) what makes these "official". Did the X-Men have some sort of government sanction or something that I'm not aware of? Anyway, they take a look at these photos of the Brotherhood, then begin ruminating about back issues. We get a flashback to the FF meeting the X-Men in FF #28 -- during that period when FF was basically a staging ground for crossovers to promote new titles, like the Nick Fury appearance in #21, the Hulk in #25 and the Avengers in #26. Then Torch thinks about his meeting with Iceman in Strange Tales #120. By the time they're done talking about meeting the X-Men, they've managed to waste a whole page. Just then, of course, Pietro and Wanda show up at the Baxter Building. Pietro tries to talk his way past the guards, but when they tell him to go away, Wanda loses her temper and hexes some fire hoses to tie them up. Yep, even back then Wanda was a total human hating psychopath. And to think Pietro gets all the bad press. While Wanda waits for the elevator, Pietro rushes upstairs to meet the FF, which is kind of rude. Of course, he doesn't know that Johnny and Ben have just finished talking about how much they want to thrash the Evil Mutants in order to help out their pals on the X-Men. As soon as Pietro shows up, before he can really say anything, Torch and Thing jump him. In the annals of Marvel heroes misunderstanding each other in order to fight senselessly, I have to say that this one may actually make the most sense. Just as Thing is about to clock Pietro, Wanda finally gets there and zaps him with a hex. Instead, he punches a machine, which then hits Wanda and knocks her out. Good one, Wanda. All bark and no bite. The next few pages feature Quicksilver really doing a number on Thing and Torch single handedly. He can't quite keep it up forever, but he does manage one Flash-esque trick where he creates a funnel of air that lifts Torch off the ground and slams him into the ceiling. Torch responds with his own goofy trick of creating a flame cage around Pietro. Things look bad, right until Wanda wakes up and waggles her fingers. And this time, man, she doesn't screw around, because an enormous thunderstorm appears out of nowhere and a tidal wave of rain smashes through the window and puts out the flame! Yikes! With everyone doused, Pietro turns to Wanda and says, screw this, you're right, humans are jerks. Ben and Johnny then randomly decide to stop fighting and let them go. THE END!! The story then has this word balloon after the end of it: "And so, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding on both sides, an alliance which might have been in the making will not now take place! But, the subtle workings of fate are strange and devious, and we never know what surprises the future may bring!" It's interesting to note that this issue takes place at the same time as Avengers #11, just five months before Pietro and Wanda again leave Magneto in order to join the Avengers. In Avengers #16, Wanda and Pietro are in Europe when they see a newspaper article about the Avengers, and they go to New York to join up. Compare this level or worldwide fame and recognition with the fact that just five issues earlier, they can't even find Avengers Mansion when they're in the same town. I'm wondering what might have caused such a change in the Avengers status in such a short time; nothing in Avengers #12-15 would seem to warrant such a level of worldwide fame and acclaim. This story very much reads to me like a tryout for these characters, to see if fans like the idea of them becoming heroes and joining a heroic team. I'd be curious to find out if this is the case, and how much the feedback from this issue affected Stan's decision to have them join the Avengers. The other story is a Dr. Strange one, of course. It mentions that in the previous issue he defeated Dormammu, and as a reward he was "given a more powerful amulet, and new powers of levitation", so I guess that's the origin of his cloak and amulet. In this story, a guy named The Demon decides to defeat Dr. Strange in order to prove how powerful he is. Instead, Strange wrecks him and gives him amnesia. That's essentially the whole story; it's a stand alone tale with a pretty simple plot, unlike most of the Strange stories of this era which go on for issues at a time. There is one cool sequence where Strange's amulet expands to like six feet tall and abrobs all the Demon's magic in a giant suction vortex. Otherwise, not much going on here. THE END! The lettercolumn is interesting, in that it's mainly complaints. One guy writes in the complain that the name "Paste-Pot Pete" is really stupid. Another guy thinks the art is, in general, terrible. He has this exchange with Stan: "All in all, you've got a great mag. It'll be even greater if you make the... characters look like people!" Stan's response: Okay, Roy, we'll try -- honest! But you should see what some of the people around the ol' bullpen look like!The blurbs at the end of the story give some hint to the answer to my earlier question about Stan's plans for Quicksilver and Wanda. It reads: "Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are really something, aren't they? You know, even though they started out as part of a group of villains in X-MEN Magazine, judging by the fan mail they receive, they're every bit as popular as our heroes! Yep, that's one thing about our ol' mixed-up Marvel mags -- you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys without a scorecard!" Interesting. This issue also features what seems to be an early prototype of Bullpen Bulletins. Half of it is like a regular in house ad, with big pictures of Avengers #11 and Daredevil #5. Mixed in, though, is a memo about the forming of the MMMS: "But, we can tell you this much: membership will be one dollar!(Making it possibly the most expensive club of it's type!)". There's also a checklist of this month's Marvel hero books, along with Sgt. Fury, which has a blurb for #12 that actually contains the copy about #13 instead. All in all, this is a historically interesting issue. Compared to the other hero titles listed on the checklist, though, I'd have to say that Strange Tales was the weak link in the company's line (though Daredevil was pretty mediocre as well), something that improved dramatically once the Torch and Thing feature was replaced with SHIELD. My grade: A+ for Avengers historical relevance, B for the actual stories.
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Post by scottharris on Sept 8, 2008 16:21:43 GMT -5
I'm basically out of stuff to review that I haven't read before. If anyone has any requests for issues or series they would like, please let me know. I do have a few things en route from ebay that should be pretty cool (Night Nurse ftw!) and I also have quite a few fairly obscure Avengers related issues that i will be looking at. But otherwise, suggestions are welcome.
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