Politcal Debate, 1950s Style

Fom Captain America #77 (1954), as reprinted in Captain America: Theater of War: America First!! Scripter unknown, art by John Romita.

Please, Frank Miller, Don't Hurt 'Em

Well, we've all heard the quote from Frank Miller, about when he was offered The Spirit movie, and he realized that "Nobody else can touch this."

And why, exactly, did MC Miller declare to all other filmmakers "U Can't Touch This?" Break it down:

• No one else would have ever thought to give the Spirit super powers.
  
• No one else would have seen the brilliance of making the Octopus an insane genius scientist who discovered the secret to immortality, and who has the exact same super powers as the Spirit
  
• No other writer would have thought to change the Spirit's background from a criminologist and private detective to a rookie cop --because only MC Miller had the depth of understanding to realize rookie cops make much better detectives and crime fighters than those with actual experience and learning. MC Miller gets bonus points for giving the Spirit a new origin (rookie cop mysteriously gunned down) and then not devoting a single syllable afterward to wonder who gunned him down, or why.
  
• Only MC Miller grokked that the Golden Fleece (yes, that Golden Fleece) was actually an impenetrable shield protecting the wearer from all harm, a fact that even escaped the notice of the ancient Greeks.
• Only MC Miller could see that Sand Saref would be a much better character if you ignored her international espionage background and reduced her to a thief with "a thing for bling."
• Giving Denny Colt an intimate physical relationship with Death? Nobody else could touch that (OK, maybe Jim Starlin...)

So thank you, MC Miller, for saving us from those other writers and directors, who never would have thought of introducing any of these "innovations" to the Spirit movie. Hell, such pedestrian filmmakers might have actually made a movie that was tangentially connected to what the Spirit comics were about, and we certainly couldn't have that!!

And on that note...STOP!! Miller time!!

Manic Monday Bonus--25 Years Later

Presented for your consideration:

House ad appeared in Action Comics #568 (1985)

Manic Monday--You CAN Judge The Quality Of A Hero By His Villains

I take back everything I ever said about Superman having the lamest rogues' gallery:




Okay, I admit, it was unfair not to show the Black Manta and Ocean Master boxes. Then again, would they really have helped much? And those were the only other two shown in the feature...

Still, they're better than GAARD!!!!!!

Aquaman's (chortle) rogues' gallery is depicted in "Diabolical Demons of the Depths" in DC Super-Stars #7 (1976)

Stupidity Is Contagious At Marvel This Month

Today it's Jeph Loeb's turn.

Yesterday, we saw how Bendis deftly ignored stories that he had written just 5 minutes ago just to get the the story points he needed to get to.

But that's nothing. Jeph Loeb just ignored 35 years of Marvel history to get to one (supposedly) cool moment that last about 2 pages.

Let's review that history, shall we? First, Incredible Hulk #162 (1973), by Englehart and Trimpe:


And Incredible Hulk #180 (1974) by Wein & Trimpe:

And Uncanny X-Men #139 (1980) by Claremont and Byrne (and narrated by Wolverine):

And Incredible Hulk #272 (1982) by Mantlo and Sal Buscema:

I could go on. In Marvel Fanfare #2-3, Michael Fleet became Wendigo after turning to cannibalism. In Wolverine #129, Andre became a Wendigo after eating his own fingers. And on and on. (I'm thinking there's an awful lot of canniablism up north of the border, eh? Maybe Canada needed a few more Mickey D's...)

The is one universal constant: You become a Wendigo by a curse, when you consume human flesh in the forests of Canada. The curse can be cured, or transferred to another, by magics. But you don't get the curse except by eating human flesh in the north woods.

So what does Loeb (and Art Adams) give us in the green Hulk section of Red Hulk #9?


Yup...apparently, Jeph Loeb thinks that you become a Wendigo just by being bitten by a Wendigo. In Las Vegas. Without having eaten any Flesh McMuffins. Unless, of course, the Hulk has been munching on people fritters without telling us...

Jeph, you galoot, Wendigo ≠ werewolf. You'd think the guy would have actually read at least one Wendigo story being bringing in a hole herd of them. But maybe he did, and just decided that doing it right would have just gotten in the way of the "cool" Wendihulk bit he wanted to do (and then throw away 2 pages later). 35 years of Marvel history, flushed away for one ridiculously stupid moment.

Of course, such attention to detail from Loeb probably explains an awful lot about what's happened to Heroes the past couple of years...

Check out the best appearance of Wendigo EVER here:

The Absent-Minded Reed Richards

Damn.

I mean, damn.

Every time I think Bendis can't get...OK, how do I want to phrase this? I don't want to say "stupider," because he's not a stupid man. He's written comic books I love (Powers) and comics a lot of other people speak very highly of that I've never read (Ultimate Spider-Man).

But when it comes to the Avengers mags and the Skrullapalooza stuff, he does some very stupid things.

OK, so Marvel won't give him Alias to write again, or a Luke Cage title, and therefore he's converted New Avengers into the All Cage/Jessica Jones Soap Opera Hour. Fine. He needed some justification to keep the mag going now that Purple Reign has reordered things, fine.

But Bendis is the worst goddamn plotter in the universe, because as long as he gets from point A to point B he's satisfied, regardless of whether or not that completely contradicts something he himself wrote 5 minutes ago.

What am I going on about? How about Reed Richards "Skrull detector?" As we saw in Skrullapalooza #5, Mr. Fantastic (in about 30 seconds) whooped together a device that would force Skrulls--even the new undetectable Skrulls--back into their green ugly form. In the Savage Land, it takes the fake "returned heroes"--who didn't even know they were Skrulls--and turns 'em back:




The very next issue, Reeds device works on a whole, vast battlefield, apparently covering all of Central Park and hundreds (thousand?) of Skrulls, "reverting them to their natural forms."

Well, that's a handy thing to have, and in the aftermath of the invasion, you'd think that Richards would whip up bunches of those to Homeland Security and the military...you'd think that for months you couldn't go anywhere without being subjected to a Skrull detector. If you accept the premises of Skrullapalooza and Purple Reign, there's no way that couldn't happen, right?!?

Ah, but you see, that's where Bendis had written himself into a corner. Because if you have a powerful and easy to use method of detecting Skrulls, than you don't need to spend gosh knows how many issues hunting down Skrull Jarvis, you don't have to have Cage sell out to Norman Osborn, you don't have any reason for this grouping of heroes.

So how does Bendis get around this?? We see in New Avengers #48. By cheating

Again, in close-up:

Well, that's a load of balderdash. We saw in the Bendis-written Skrullapalooza that Reed's device could detect and revert Skrulls who weren't shape-shifting. His device overcame their "undetectable by our standards and measurements" abilities!!!! That was the whole point!!! It worked on the Antarctica Skrulls, who WEREN'T shape shifting and were brainwashed to not know that they were even aliens! Has this wondrous device vanished?!? Does it no longer function the way it did? If it could bathe all of Central Park in its ultra-effectiveness, how long would it take to run it all over New York City?

So is Bendis unable to remember what he wrote a couple of months ago? (It wouldn't be the first time he's had Reed forgetting exactly what he already knew about the new Skrulls...) Does he not care that he's contradicting his own basic premise? Does he hold the audience in that much contempt that he thinks that we won't notice

Or is he just a lazy writer who doesn't care what he puts down on the page, as long as it gets him from point A to his desired point B?

Bendis, please please please--less Avengers, more Powers. OK??

A Christmas Tradition

Someone's Been Tapping Into My Christmas Dreams

I guess now he'll really know who's naughty and nice:

Santa Claus vs. The Illuminati by Brian Reed and Val Semeiks is free until December 31st and Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.

Questions For A Week When Nobody's Reading

A) Now that Geoff Johns has announced that he's leaving JSA--and DC has yet to announce the new team--what do you think the over/under is on the number of months until cancellation??

I'm certainly not rooting for that. But given the inability of almost anyone else to ever make the title sell, and the inability of DC to provide stable creative teams for almost any book not helmed by Johns, I'm not optimistic. So I'm guessing 7 post-Johns issues...and then another re-launch at some point.

B) Why can't I have a hedge maze for Christmas? Seriously, give me one good reason...

C) Is it just me, or is "Doctor Hurt" just Hush with a more respected creative pedigree??

D) Given the tremendous complications that it could produce for the ongoing Purple Reign story line, what is the likelihood that we ever get any answer to the question of exactly what Spider-Man's and the Green Goblin's history is post-Brand New Day?

Seriously, given the fact that Bendis has spent literally years building up to the moment where Norman Osborn takes over the world, did Quesada ever bother to let him now that they were going to frell up Osborn's memories and/or timeline?!? (Of course, Bendis could pull a little bit of plot jiu jitsu and say that Norman's so nuts because of Mephisto's machinations...)

Manic Monday--The Birth Of Computo

And to think I ever made fun of the time the TRS-80 whooped Superman's butt:

Hmmm, I like the idea of training it to do my bidding...

Oh, so that's how Batman outsmarted the Riddler every time--with a $4.99 "electronic brain."

Yes, I'm sure Dad would love to give you access to his bank account, kids...and I'm doubly sure he'd love to have you correcting his math...

Yes, amaze your friends, as they turn you in to the NSA for having classified information!! Satellite re-entry?? Missile countdown?? Man, we'd better keep this thing out of al-Qaeda's hands!!

Technology that I will soon use to RULE THE WORLD is from an ad in Silver Surfer #3 (1968).

Jingle Bells

My friend Robert has been upset because he gave me a present about a month ago, and I haven't blogged about it yet.

Well, for obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until closer to Christmas:

You know, as Grant Morrison continues in his quest top make every Batman story "count," I sincerely hope he doesn't forget this:

Our story?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Hitman?!? Yeah, that sounds like a good children's Christmas tale--"Hey, kids, all of your Xmas icons are really murderous gangsters!!"

And exactly how does one send a singing telegram to Batman? Does Western Union have the Batcave's address? (Well, everyone else in Gotham seems to, so...) Do you send it to Commissioner Gordon's office, and have the singer just wait around until Batman shows up?

Meanwhile, there's the Wonder Woman story:

A Nazi submarine kidnaps Santa?!?!?!? I've got to find someone with a turntable now...

Special bonus picture: Another Neal Adams-drawn Peter Pan album cover:

The Chipmunk Song, as performed by The Grasshoppers?!? Would that even be audible to the human ear?!?

Bold Fashion Choices--Lois (Again!)

Lois, Lois, Lois...what is it about you and your wardrobe? Especially in the early 70s??

I mean...it's bad enough that Superman is trying to kill you (SPOILER ALERT: he really isn't).

But what the hell are you wearing?!?!?!?! What is that?

Compare and contrast with one of Lois' other bold fashion choices, a mere 15 issues earlier:

Hmmm...somebody at DC really seemed to have a fetish for to see Lois splayed out while wearing some ridiculous hot pants get-up. For the record, these issues had different cover artists, different editors...yet still, Lois was similarly trussed up to show off her odd, odd outfits.

For the record, here's what Lois really wore in that scene:

Channelling the non-powered Diana Prince from the same era, are we, Lois?!?

Lois's red mod outfit is from Lois Lane #135 (1973)...cover art by Bob Oksner..her blue monstrosity was from #120 (1972)...cover art by Dick Giordano. What future horrors can be awaiting from Lois' closet?!?!

Friday Night Fights--America's Pasttime Style!!

How to cheer ourselves up in the middle of a pre-winter blizzard? Baseball!!

Steve Rogers has taken his best gal Diamondback to a ballgame for a day of much needed bonding and relaxation. When, of course, some scumbags decide to hold the crowd hostage for dough. Captain America leaps into action and easily routs the crooks, only to find out that their leader is...

Ah, Batroc...

You've had your shots, Leaper...now Cap can bring the heat...

Strike One!!

Strike Two!!

Uh-oh, runner's going...

That's strike 3!!

Lesson--don't interrupt a man's baseball game.

The other lesson--Spacebooger don't want no sissy games!!

Fight far more entertaining than any Mets game presented by Robert Kirkman and Scot Eaton in Captain America #30 (2004).

On The One Hand...

A pretty fair description of how my day has gone:

Hmmm...demon hand, red glove...you've got to wonder when we're going to get the Claw/Hellboy team-up that America has been clamoring for...

snell's bad day captured by Michelinie and Giffen in Claw The Unconquered #10 (1978)

Re-Asking The Answer Man--1/9/1978

Back in the funky Seventies, DC had a promo page called The Daily Planet Extra which appeared each week in their titles, promoting the books that were out that week without being as relentlessly self-congratulatory as Dan DiDio's DC Nation columns.

A regular feature on these pages was Ask The Answer Man, in which DC editor and writer Bob Rozakis answered fans questions about DC. In an amazingly tiny amount of space, Rozakis banged off 3 or 4 answers per week, about who was from which Earth, what's up with this character, where's X going to appear next. It may not seem like much, but back in the pre-internet days, and with no authoritative reference books available, for a lot of people this was the only source for such official pronouncements.

(I'm obliged to note that, as memory serves me, in the latter days the questions became dominated by kids who were too lazy to go find a Comic Book Price Guide and wrote into the Answer Man such stunning questions as "How much is Flash #172 worth?" Man, I always found that annoying...it's like going to the Oracle at Delphi and asking a question like "How much should I spend on a muffler?" Drove me crazy, I tell you...)

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to occasionally look back at one of the Answer Man columns, to see how well the answers hold up 30 odd years later. This is not to pick on Rozakis, let me assure you; as far as I know, he was always accurate at the time. But I think "re-asking" the questions can shed a little light about the state of the DC Universe three decades later.

So, presenting, the column from Daily Planet Extra for the week of January 9, 1978:

First up, we have this:

Oy. Could we have started with one more complex, more convoluted, more frakked up than this one? Let's just say that Donna's history has undergone more revisions and patches than Microsoft Vista. First they made her one of the Titans of Myth, than they made her a magical clone of Diana who actually created from a portion of Wonder Woman's soul. Then they decided that it was all true, and Donna was "the real sum of every Donna Troy that existed on every Earth, a living key to the lost Multiverse." I think that's where it stands now.

Remember how the first Crisis was supposed to clean up continuity? In Donna's case, not so much--it just opened the floodgates so every writer decided he could inflict his own clever origin on her. Wikinuity...

Next:

Hmmm...Isis is clearly on New Earth, or Earth-1, these days. But in the new multiverse, Earth-5 is essentially Earth-S, so maybe she's there, too.

Next:

Well, the Titans have reformed, and broken up and reformed and broken up ad infinitum since then. Hell, now we even have 3 Titans teams running around, so there's room for more members.

Power Girl is still a member of the Justice Society, but the Star Spangled Kid is dead. There's been a couple more since then, of course.

If Jimmy isn't a teen anymore, does that mean Elastic Lad was kicked out of the Legion of Super-Heroes?!?

NEXT:

Oooh, not quite, Bob. It was another full decade before we got to see the Secret Six again, as a regular feature in Action Comics Weekly in 1988!! (Sadly, this was after Bridwell had passed away...) Marty Pasko and Dan Spiegle revealed that Mockingbird was indeed one of the Six, Durant. But all of the original Six, including Durant, were killed in the second issue!! Don't fret...they were replaced by another Secret Six, and a new Mockingbird...who died...

It only took 17 more years for the new Secret Six, a ragtag bunch of villains, to be formed during Infinite Crisis. And Luthor was the new Mockingbird...oh, my head...

So what's our lesson? Bob Rozakis, be glad you gave up the Answer man gig, because despite the best intentions, everything became much, much, much more complicated after the various Crises.

Bold Fashion Choices--Supergirl Yet Again!!

Apparently, kids in the 1970s didn't have enough homework...because all they did was think up clothing designs for superheroes and mail them in. Which brings us to Superman Family #174 (Dec/Jan 75-76)...because as long as people would keep sending them in, DC would keep printing them:

Let's take a closer look. The first three sets are by the team of Jean Leiser (Age 19 3/4) and Elizabeth "Liz" Harllee (age 18 1/2). Ladies, a note: once you reach adulthood, you should probably stop listing fractional years in your ages, because, well, adults don't do that.

First up have...oh, dear, isn't a skirt supposed to go all the way around? Or is that just a red butt towel for her, like NFL centers have?

Next up, we have to note that Supergirl is either playing coy, or is just too embarrassed to face us in this outfit.

You know, if Supergirl ever showed up during the Mike Grell days in the Legion, I can see her in these:

Our final entry is by Scott Cassman, apparently envisioning Kara in the Mod Squad:

In case you can't read it, the "captions" behind her say, "This costume isn't actually practical, but it sure looks nice." You have to love a designer who critiques his own work...

Manic Monday--Creepy, Creepy Butler

Uhhhhh......

Alfred's totally hitting on Dick here, isn't he?

While the Bat's away...

Frederic Wertham would have a field day with Detective Comics #851, by and Denny O'Neil and Guillem March.

...To Write me Down An Ass

There's a pretty good scene for Black Canary as team chairperson in JLA #27 this week (or is it last week already? I was kinda lost in 1978...).

Stars and Garters shows you the page, and I won't reprint it here, so I don't crib his act. But I do want to show you the page before, which COMPLETELY undermines the scene:

Really.

Black Canary is about to have a big leadership moment, we're supposed to take her seriously as JLA chairperson, and Ed Benes introduces the scene with a page specifically designed to make you ignore everything else, designed to draw your eye right to her buttcheeks.

The JLA is essentially a broken book, a damaged concept right now, and I'm not sure what it would take to fix it. But of all the things wrong with it, nothing is more dire than having an artist who directly undermines the story points the writer is trying to establish, who undercuts Dwayne McDuffie's attempts to build up Black Canary with his immaturity and his fetish for close-ups of female body parts at inappropriate times.

So maybe instead of worrying about the Big Three undermining her, Dinah should worry more about the idiot they have drawing her, which does far more damage.

(Although I praised McDuffie's scene above, I have a couple of quibbles about his script.. One, Dinah never lays out any specific grievances about the Big Three, except that they're meeting in private. And since she establishes that no one else knows about the private meetings, it's not clear how they're actually "undermining her authority." No example of orders countermanded, or secret plots, or anything. A good manager always has specific examples when laying down the law. Given that just a meeting is ticking her off, I shudder how Dinah is going to respond to Trinity.

Secondly, they get a distress call from Dr. Light (the good one) on a JLI communicator...and they take a Quinjet (or whatever they call it) to Metropolis? They have a freakin' teleporter. Zatanna could just magic them there. Superman or Flash could certainly get there more quickly. It's a distress call, she might be dead or dying...and they don't take the fastest way there. Good show, League.

So it's not just the art of JLA that's broken.)

Marvel 1978 Week--Captain America #228

Sometimes when you go back in time, you find a comics franchise that's just a little bit lost.

Case in point: Captain America.

After the end of the 1970's Kirby run, it quickly became evident that the Marvel Powers-That-Be had no real idea of what the hell to do with Cap. It was the late 70s, still post-Watergate and beginning to invest heavily in the "malaise" of the Carter years. What to do with a patriotic hero, the symbol of America?

The first couple of post-Kirby issues were fill-ins or reprints, re-capping Cap's origin and history. Then, under a seemingly endless rotation of writers and artists, we proceeded on "The Search For Steve Rogers." Cap, it seems, suddenly realized he had no memories of his life before he took the super-soldier serum. So he begins a long...and long...and long quest to find out the truth about his roots. 9 issues (plus another fill-in) were spent canoodling around doing nothing (except for a couple of truly bizarre issues by Steve Gerber, which still accomplished nothing but were so nutty you didn't notice).

At the same time, Falcon had left Cap to train the "S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agents," and then had gone missing. And a mysterious evil organization known only as "The Corporation" was trying to destroy Cap and S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Corporation?!? Really, that's the best you could come up with? I guess to some in those days, a faceless corporation was the epitome of evil. Whatever floats your boat. Me, I would have at least given it a flippin' name...

But the bottom line is that, by December of 1978, Captain America was essentially floating aimlessly, and had become a big whiny dope. Which brings us to:

This issue has been brought to us by:

Roger McKenzie had just come on board--this was only his third issue--and he'd hang around for 8 more, leave for a while, then come back for about 4 more, establishing a pretty sad post-Kirby record. Sal Buscema we all know, and "Espo & Tartag" are Mike Esposito and John Tartag, the inker with a Klingon name.

And since this is 1978 Captain America, we start with him brooding like a teenager with his first Cure album:

It's pretty sad days when Tony Stark has to be the one to give Cap a pep talk about how to have a happy private life...

But Steve is so mopey, he even invents the first Geico commercial:

Oh, Steve...Iron Man takes Cap outside in the rain, and basically kicks him in the seat of the pants, telling him to grow up. Does it take?

Heavens, no. Cap has gone from staring out the window brooding to standing out in rain brooding. Yup, this is why I read Captain America--for maximum emo!!

Well, perhaps because McKenzie realizes that this is a super-hero comic and absolutely nothing has happened yet, we then get a three page sequence--THREE PAGES!!--that consist entirely of Cap saving one child from being hit by a truck. Yes, 3 pages for the "save the kid from getting hit" shtick. Lord, talk about padded...

I won't reprint those panels here, because they bore even my computer to death. But at the end we get an interesting bit:

That's right, Rogers--Falcon is missing!! And you're standing around feeling sorry for yourself!! Great Googly Moogly!! "Busy with your own problems?!?" You were standing around brooding in a storm like Slash in the November Rain music video!!

By the way, I can pretty much guarantee that' this is the only blog post you'll ever see comparing Captain America to Slash. You're welcome.

So Cap takes off for the secret entrance to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s NY HQ, which owes more than a little to Get Smart and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.:


Surprisingly, the base is deserted--except for the obligatory robot guard...


...whom Cap destroys with the wussiest sound effect in comics history:

Really? He goes "Squee" when you destroy him???

So why is the HQ deserted??

Apparently, unannounced, massive demolition activity in the middle of the night is OK in New York City? I guess if you're S.H.I.E.L.D. it is.

Because of this stupidity, Cap is trapped:

And he's not alone!!

Who could it be? Well, if you happened to miss looking at the cover:


We get a couple of shots to establish how tough (chortle) the Constrictor is...


...before Cap turns the tables on him with simple acrobatics:


But it was too late...

SPOILER ALERT: They survive.

I shouldn't be too harsh on this issue...it's just the latest in what was over a year of time-killing and belly-scratching because nobody at Marvel seemed to know what to do with the Star Spangled Avenger. (Here's a hint of what you do with Cap...who says I never have anything nice to say about Geoff Johns?).

Everything was so meandering and navel-gazing and broody that even I wasn't buying Cap, and I was a Marvel Zombie by this point. Which is rather a shame, because Cap was actually getting better treatment in the pages of the Avengers, so we know it could be done. Happier days would come, but not for awhile.

It's too bad I didn't do Marvel 1978 week a few months earlier, or I could have done this issue:

Yes, that cover scene really happens, 30 years before Umbrella Academy. Also in that issue, Cap is chased through his apartment by a remote controlled Volkswagon Beetle. And no, his apartment wasn't on the ground floor. Oh, Steve Gerber, you mad genius, you.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #25 was, well, nuts. There wasn't a terribly strong continuity between the 2 Spidey titles back then, and Bill Mantlo just ran wild, in a fun way. As you can see from the cover this issue featured the Masked Marauder and the Tri-Man (don't ask). Unseen on the cover are the fact that it guest stars the White Tiger, and more significantly, it was the debut appearance of Carrion.

Sure, Carrion was a decrepit clone of Professor Miles Warren, who had been the Jackyl and made clones of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, so Carrion is a step towards the madness of the Clone Saga. Forget about that. What's most significant is that Carrion got me a post card from Mantlo, which was a pretty big thrill. They had a letters page contest to guess Carrion's identity, and even though my guess was wrong, I got a postcard in the mail. All it said was "Nope," with Mantlo's signature...and for all I know he had some intern do them...but it was still a pretty exciting moment in my young life.

So that's Marvel 1978 week. Hope you had as much fun as I did...

Friday Night Fights--Spider-Man 1978 Style!!

As we here at Slay Monstrobot Central are spending the week wallowing in the decadence of Marvel 1978, we have to ask ourselves: when is a surprise villain not a surprise villain??

Given that pretty distinctive silhouette, and the fact that his name is on the cover in Electric font, you wouldn't think that Electro's presence in the story would be a big surprise...and look on the splash page:

His name is the freakin' title to the story, in HUGE letters. So there's no way they'd try to hide the villain's identity, right? We'll see.

30 years ago irony department:

Thank "goodness," Webhead?? I think not-- bwa hahahahaha....oh, never mind.

Anyway, Spidey is investigating why S.H.I.E.L.D. has quarantined an entire small town in upstate New York. And who turns up to drive him away?

Spider-Man is a little ticked off at getting the runaround, so he unwisely lashes out at Cap:

And you know how that's going to end, don't you?

Ouch. Spidey pretends to learn his lesson and leave, while Cap storms the local power plant. It turns out a millionaire's sick child is being held for ransom there. By whom? Well, just pretend you didn't see the cover or the title page, because the creators are going to pretend it's a surprise:

Oh, come on, Marv--you already told us twice that it was--

Shocking. Positively shocking.

But of course, Peter Parker didn't really leave, so...




But that's not the end. Why all the urgency, why the quarantine?

You're not serious. Oh, you are? Oh dear...

Anyhoo, Electro freaks:

...and you just know that's not gonna end well:

So remember, kids, when your town is threatened by the plague, just blow up the power station, and everything will be well.

One final question: How come we've never had a story featuring both Electro AND Elektra?!? Talk about a natural...perhaps Spacebooger knows the answer!!

The story that probably should have been in Marvel Team-Up comes to you from Amazing Spider-Man #187 (1978), courtesy of Marv Wolfman, Jim Starlin, and Bob McLeod.

Marvel 1978 Week--Uncanny X-Men #116

You can tell the youngsters all about rotary telephones, 8-track tapes, full service gas stations, and having only 3 or 4 channels available on television, and they'll believe you. It may take some explanation, and they look at you with incredulity, but eventually they'll buy it.

But just try to explain to them that the X-Men once weren't popular. That, they won't believe.

It's one of the more incredible transitions in comic book history. As we discussed back during Marvel 1968 week, the X-Men early on not only weren't popular...there was actually a 5 year period when they were downgraded to a bi-monthly reprint book!!

Now, of course, the X-Empire is so large that if Marvel were to spin it off into its own company, it would outsell Dark Horse, Image and Wildstorm combined (note--I didn't do any math, just roll with me here). Wolverine alone has more titles being published than Batman. Scrolling the the X portion of Marvel's solicits every month takes hours.

What happened? How, exactly, did the X-Men transition from being the sad sack franchise that even Lee & Kirby and Thomas & Adams couldn't make successful, to the unstoppable juggernaut it is today? Was it just that the comic public was more receptive to the idea in the late 70's than it was in the late 60's? Was Chris Claremont just that much better at tapping into the zeitgeist of a mutant book than Stan and Roy? Were the X costumes of the 1960's so godawful that they physically drove readers away (hint: YES)? Were Cockrum and Byrne & Austin that amazing? Was it just "right place, right time," or was there something more?

Which brings us to:

The time was December, 1978. The Uncanny X-Men had only leapt from bi-monthly to monthly a few months earlier. Phoenix wasn't yet Dark, and was still Jean Grey; there was only one team, and no Factor, Young, or New; Scott Summers didn't have 8 or 10 real and/or hypothetical future children running around, and the X-Men didn't yet have 6 or 7 members from various alternate futures or various sundered What If? universes hanging around; Magneto was still a bad guy, as opposed to a good guy turned bad guy reformed into good guy than turned bad guy again and then...; there was no Brood or Mojoverse; no four-issue miniseries or spin-offs or sprawling and interminable crossovers. In short, it was a simpler time.

How simple?

Hee hee. Tying the X-Men (and Ka-Zar!!) to a stake. How quaint.

There's no need to introduce them, but here are our creators:

This team, usually together with letterer Orzechowski and colorist Wein, strode the Earth like a behemoth for what seemed like eons, simultaneously creating and riding the growing tsunami of X-popularity. It was a strong, confident, ridiculously ambitious run, meticulously planned, rarely mis-stepping. So what's going on this issue?

To set the scene: our mutant heroes escaped from a deadly battle in Magneto's Antarctic fortress and ended up in the Savage Land, where they found that Garokk (which is also spelled Garrok on occasion this issue!!) , the Petrified Man, was setting himself up as the Sun God who will unify the Savage Land (and destroy it, in the process, of course). Which leads immediately to a patented Byrne/Austin two-page spread:

Whereupon our heroes are set upon by primitives riding pterodactyls...



...and several homo so-called superior get captured by cavemen. Brilliant.

A lot of this issue's little focus moments are for Wolverine. Again, this is going to be hard for you kiddies to understand, but in the early days of the All-New, All-Different X-Men, fans HATED Wolverine. Really--Wolverine was unpopular. He was a rude little jerk who didn't play well with their clean, squeaky heroes. Byrne has said that one of his goals when he came on board was to make the fans like Logan, without softening his character. Here we can see some of the work to that effect.




Rapport with savage beasts, check. Vicious killer (as vicious as you could be as a hero in a Code book, at least), check. Tough badass? Check! And all of that was in the space of 3 pages, so Project: Make Wolverine Ridiculously Popular was well under way.

So our heroes reach the arena where the others are to be sacrificed. Question: how do you execute a man made of living metal?

Fortunately, Nightcrawler frees Cyclops before things go too far.



This last panel encapsulates, in part, why Byrne/Austin worked so well--they know how to draw team action. Yeah, there's not much background in this panel, but everybody is doing something: Nightcrawler is wrestling with a goon, Cyclops is using a precision shot to free Banshee, Colossus is burst free with Kirby-like power. They always had a lot of things happening in their panels, even if it was just showing various people's various reactions. Without making the art overly busy or cluttered, they managed to give a "three-dimensional" feeling to their art. This was fairly unique to team books of the day, which all too often just focused on one character acting, while everyone else stood flat-footed and watched.

Anyway, Garrok takes off:
Why? To "re energize himself" from the city's power grid, of course!

But Scott can't let that happen:

Which of course results in:



Sean rescues Scott...

But Ororo is less successful rescuing Garrok:


And there you have the best and worst of Claremont in a nutshell. There was definitely a deeper level of characterization at work in the X-Men than was being seen in most contemporary comics books, even at Marvel. But there was also a...shall we say, lack of subtlety in applying it...a hammerhead approach, as if he didn't trust his audience to follow what he was doing, or the artist to explain it. You could never have Storm feeling claustrophobic without Claremont having to explain, in detail, her childhood trauma, again and again. You could never have an emotional scene without one of his characters serving as a narrator, pontificating to the audience on what emotion we were seeing and what it meant. At times it could feel very condescending to the reader, particularly the older ones whom the good characterization was attracting.

Well, the X-Men pack up and leave the Savage Land...in a wooden boat. Not smart.

So Storm's ability to sense weather works like Deanna Troi's ability to sense emotions: state the freakin' obvious. And isn't the point of having a "weather goddess" around her ability to control things like that??!?

That's the end of our issue. It's not the greatest story by any means. Garrok is really a crap villain, who doesn't do much...Ka-Zar is not really used at all. Claremont and Byrne were not quite at their peak yet. But they were getting there.

The X-Men globe trot a bit next, to Japan and Canada, make it home, deal with Arcade, go to Scotland to fight Proteus, face off with the Hellfire Club, deal with the Dark Phoenix saga....

Did you notice anything about that list of stories? There's not a ton of "human vs. mutant" angst stories, are there? Yes, earlier they had had a Sentinel story, and of course Byrne would leave the X-Men with Day of Future Past. But there wasn't the over-arching obsession with "us versus them" stories, of "our persecuted species" tales. It was still there, in the background of many stories...but it didn't dominate. The X-Men were mutants, but that wasn't their exclusive concern. We weren't constantly deluged with "humans are going to wipe us out" stories, with an increasingly bleak world view. We weren't getting visitors from 17 alternate futures telling us how much life was going to suck for mutants, or the constant dread of genocide. I mean, I got the metaphor, you're preaching to the choir, bro. Can't we just fight a super-villain once in awhile??

Unless, of course, that super-villain is the evil clone of the son you had with a demonically transformed clone of your dead lover. Oh, too late.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

You know, I never got into Ghost Rider...just not my cup of tea, I guess. But when I see this cover...check out this synopsis (from GCD):

Johnny is trapped in a ghost town when he is confronted by a prospector with amazing powers and the two are captured by a giant ship spouting motorcycle riding robots.

Wait a minute--a cover shout-out to Close Encounters, with a giant space ship spewing out motorcycle riding robots? AND prospectors with amazing powers??

Hmmm, I'd better find this book...

Marvel 1978 Week--Iron Man #117

Well, well, well.

Iron Man.

OK, let's see if I can do this. I pledge to make it through this entire post without referring to the Civil War or Skrullapalooza or Purple Reign. No references to Tony Stark being a fascist, or a dumb@$$, or anything like that.

It's gonna be tough.

So what do we have?

Ha ha ha it's a clever topical movie reference...and by topical I mean it was only a year and a half old at that point.

Anyway, that's no mere spy--that's SPYMASTER!!!
This tale is brought to us by:

Dave Michelinie had just begun what was to be the first of two prodigiously long runs on Iron Man, 42 and 36 issues, respectively. He took over from Bill Mantlo in the middle of a two-parter (Bill must have had to free up time for the soon-to-be-launched Rom and Micronauts). As we'll see, even this early Michelinie was starting to introduce elements that would continue throughout his runs.

As for John Romita Jr, this is where it all began--two issues earlier was his first penciling job ever!! And this was also Bob Layton's 2nd issue of Iron Man, the work that he was best known for, and for the entire run with Michelinie he shared a "plot" credit. So we were really getting in on the ground floor here.

So how's the story start?!?

Well, that was quick. See ya tomorrow, folks--drive carefully!!

OK, I knew it couldn't be that easy.

It turns out that someone bombed Tony Stark's penthouse last issue, so he was expecting the attack. So it wasn't really Stark who was shot, meaning the proper story title should have been The Spy Who Shot My LMD.

And our mystery assassin?

Spymaster!!! The very name strikes terror into--oh, who am I kidding? Do you see why some folks are worried about who the villains might be in future Iron Man films? Because, Mandarin aside, Tony has a pretty lame rogues' gallery. I mean, Spymaster, master of industrial espionage?!? I can't get enough of that in my movies...Amongst the other Iron Man villains during this period: The Unholy Three (seriously), the Unicorn (no, really), Melter, Whiplash, Blizzard...Hey, they were all good stories, but let's face it--they were mostly C-listers, and it's hard to see any of them heating up the silver screen.

(For the record, this was the first Spymaster. Just so you know.)

Much of the rest of this issue is taken up with scenes of Iron Man being bumfuzzled by the C-lister until he sucks it up and remembers that he's a freakin' Avenger. So there's a lot of scenes like this:


All very well drawn, as only JR JR and Layton can do--seriously, they were genetically bred to draw Iron Man. But do we really want a hero who goes "huh?" as often as Tony Stark? Iron Man has got the Superman problem: he's one of the most powerful cats in his universe, but his villain roster is filled with lightweights. So we have to keep having Kryptonite/having his armor run low on power stories...or people who make him look silly through unlikely trickery and technological absurdity, like Toyman and Prankster. (I should note that the problem is even worse these days, with Tony being ultra-powerful and having Extremis and such. They keep having to find more and more things that are magically immune to his powers in order to have a credible story) It's no wonder Michelinie leapt off in other directions fairly early, emphasizing Tony outside the armor, and the politics of Stark Industries.

So we leap to a flashback, and see that Tony has been evicted after Spymaster blew up his crib. A bit depressed over how awful the life of a billionaire is, he heads to a party.

Wait a minute?? Senator Mountebank?? Why not just call him Senator Bad Guy to really emphasize the foreshadowing, David? Sheesh. (Note: I'll bet he's the Senator from Illinois...zing!!)

And speaking of foreshadowing:

Can you guess which story is less than a year away?

Also at this party, we meet for the very first time...

Bethany Cabe, who would go on to be Tony's love interest for most of Michelinie & Layton's tenure. Wow...we're really getting everything introduced this issue, arent we? And of course, Tony is, as always, the ladies man:

But back to our fight, wherein Spymaster continues to beat the crap out of the "Invincible" Iron Man:

Saving grace...the skates!!

But Stark continues to under perform against a man with the proportional strength of...well, a man:


Tony finally realizes he's been a total puss:

But before he can get tough, Spymaster unleashes his secret weapon:

Too late, though, as Iron Man has finally realized, "Hey, I'm Iron Man!!" And he's not amused at the ludicrous thought of an industrial spy trying to take down the Golden Avenger with a pair of nunchucks:



Uh-oh, this is going to hurt.

Yup, I was right.

Searching Spymaster, Shellhead discovers his true goal:


A good question, bro...especially since records of stock holders are, you know, a matter of public record, so instead of stealing them you could, you know, just look them up. (Unless, of course, Tony is hiding something from the SEC...)

And who, exactly, are the dudes who hired Spymaster?

Meeting?

D'oh!!

It turns out that this group of rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, working in cahoots with Senator Mountebank, wants to kill Stark, because they think Tony's a wuss for not making weapons anymore...they want him out of the way so Stark International can go back to making things that blow people up. But after Iron Man sorts their hash, he finds out that while their methods were unapproved, their goals were Nick Fury approved. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been buying up Stark stock, and will soon have a majority interest, and thus force SI to manufacture the munitions that are "vital to national security!" No wonder Tony was driven to drink.

Ironically, only 28 years later, Tony Stark would take over S.H.I.E.L.D., and end up getting blamed for all of Nick Fury's screw-ups that led to Skrullapalooza...oh, right, I can't talk about any of that.

Elsewhere of interest, you've no doubt noted that all of the Marvels this month are emblazoned with:

And from the Bullpen Bulletins page:

It was an interesting time, as DC was going crazy quilt with their formats--some mags stayed at regular length for 40¢, others went to 44 pages for 50¢, and still others became bi-monthly giant-size dollar comics. So Marvel was taking the high road and vowing to "hold the line" at 35¢.

5 months later Marvel went to 40¢.

Something to ponder as comic companies promise to hold the line at $2.99.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Marvel Premiere #45 saw David Kraft and George Perez go nuts and try to completely re-purpose John Jameson, Man-Wolf, as a sword and sorcery hero!! It turns out the wolf form was just a corrupted version of his true form of Stargod (snicker...really) which only fully manifested when he entered this mystic realm via a portal on the moon and...

OK, it's ridiculous, I know. But as someone who admires Master of Kung Fu's success at marrying James Bond films and Kung Fu movies, I have respect for this ambitious attempt to mash genres and rescue John Jameson from the obscurity of "not really a villain but he'll crop up every couple of years and have to be put down." It didn't really work, but it was fun--I mean, c'mon, werewolves and sword & sorcery!!--and the art was gorgeous (George--you bailed on the Avengers for this?!?).

This was a great time for Marvel Premiere, the little bi-monthly try-out mag that could. In the past year, or coming soon, were the introduction of the 3-D Man; the Torpedo; a Jack of Hearts solo story (before Bendis destroyed the character and then arbitrarily killed him); Michelinie and Byrne's introduction of the Scott Lang Ant Man (before Bendis destroyed the character and arbitrarily killed him); Tigra (before Bendis destroyed the character and made her the beat-down dummy for misogynistic villains); Dominic Fortune; Black Panther, the Falcon...it was a heady time, as Marvel seemed seriously committed to letting creators float out new concepts for 2 or three issues, just to see what happened.

Could the market place support something like that today? Maybe not at $2.99. Why not make it a loss-leader book--a dollar fifty, all-new stories, and let creators just go ape-shit and see what happens?

Marvel 1978 Week--Fantastic Four #201

You youngsters out there may not remember this, but there was a time when the Fantastic Four was actually published on a monthly basis!! That's right, my incredulous friends, "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine" didn't appear only 7 or 8 times in a calender year back then--how quaint!!

And, in a twist for Marvel of December 1978, the FF had creative teams who didn't need fill-in issues!!

So let's see what we have to work with today:

Well, it's not the most beautiful cover out there, but it does get the job done--and every scene depicted on the cover actually happens on the inside!!

And our creators:

Marv Wolfman was in the midst of a long run of the FF. We just missed issue #200 (dammit), a multi-part epic that ended in a classic Reed vs. Doctor Doom fight to the finish (another history note: back in the day, Doom wasn't a lackey who sat around tiny tables waiting for marching orders from a failed Spider-Man villain--I know, who woulda thought?!). And Wolfman was about to embark on an 11 issue arc that would take the FF gallivanting around the galaxy, show us the empowerment of Terrax as Galactus' new Herald, bring us an epic Galactus vs. Sphinx showdown for the fate of the Earth, resolve plotlines from Wolfman's sadly-canceled Nova series AND bring in a Tomb of Dracula villain (really!!). Wolfman was nothing if not ambitious.

And nothing against Keith Pollard, but the art star here is Joltin' Joe Sinnott, who for seemingly a million years managed to give a consistent look to the FF universe, no matter who the artist was. This just looks Fantastic Four, down to its very fibers.

So anyway, given that we're between epics, Wolfman & Co are going to give us a nice little cool down story:

Yup, Doctor Doom is defeated, and Latveria is a democracy!!

Yeah, that'll take. (PRO-TIP: Zorba, democratic leaders usually don't wear crowns...just a thought...)

I won't oversell this story to you...as you can no doubt tell from the title, it's going to be the old "our HQ's defense systems turn against us" chestnut. But the main focus of the issue is reuniting our heroes as one big happy family:

So Reed is still Reed:

Johnny and Sue are still Johnny and Sue:


And Ben...well, of course he's Ben!!

It's comfort food for the soul to see the FF like this. But wait: does something sinister lurk in our newly happy home?

But before we get to the menace, here's something you don't see much of these days: a schematic of the Baxter Building!!!

As is wont in this type of story, each member of the team must be attacked by a manifestation of technology gone wild. Reed must deal with an out of control science experiment...



Benjy has to deal with wayward exercise equipment...



Sue is having more wardrobe troubles...


And Johnny is getting hosed.


Fortunately, through team work and good luck, our heroes manage to escape:


(although they never do tell us how Reed escaped from Microbe 201-B...there's a great ret-con idea...for the past 30 years it hasn't been Reed Richards, as he was replaced by the dastardly microbe...) (except they later acknowledged their flub and explained Reed's escape in the letters page in #204...sigh, there goes my No-Prize)

Anyway, Reed gives everybody their Die Hard tasks...

...which inevitably means running a gantlet of techno-based terror, including gas...

...lasers AND sonics...

...and of course, robots.

Sue saves the day!!

And Reed and company decide to remain a team!! (Oh, by the way, remember how it was apparently forbidden to show Clark and Pa Kent quaffing a brew on a recent Action Comics cover?!? Well, to hell with that--the FF is swilling champagne, baby!! That's how we roll, Marvel Style!!)

Man, I love the jumbo-size glass Ben has.

Anyway, we don't figure out why the Baxter Building was malfunctioning, until:

...a question we're still asking in 2008. But seriously, it turns out that Quasimodo the Living Computer tapping into the FF's computers for his own nefarious purposes....

Well, there we are. Not a brilliant issue, but a fun time-wasting romp, reuniting and repurposing our heroes for the next buncha issues. It's like comfort food (unlike the Millar and Hitch FF, which is like bland take-out food, and the delivery man never gets there, and when he does the food is cold and tasteless...)

On the letters page:

That's right, Bart Watts, that fall would see the debut of the Torchless FF, with...Herbie the Robot!!


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHLesson: appreciate the cartoons you have today...they're soooo much better than what I had growing up...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Thor #278 was the final issue in the first part of Roy Thomas' awesomely ambitious run on the God of Thunder. In this first part of the arc, Odin went about creating a "false"Ragnorak to trick the forces of evil into attacking before the proper time, thus whooping them and moving the "real" Ragnorak further back. He went so far as to create another Thor, Red Norvell, to die at the hands of the Midgard Serpent. But that was only the beginning, as, after a handful of fill-in issues, Thomas unleashed an 18-issue epic, one insanely long story that worked the Eternals and Celestials into Asgardian continuity, explained the part Thor and Odin played in Wagner's Ring Cycle (seriously), and finally told us who Thor's mother was (Odin schtupped the Planet Earth!!). Oh, and Thor saved the Earth from the Celestials' judgment.

It was crazy long, it involved a lot of characters who were never really popular, it tied Thor's continuity into a bunch of operas--no wonder nobody remembers it. But it was one of the great, unheralded runs on Thor...

Marvel 1978 Week--Incredible Hulk #230

Another title, another fill-in issue...sadly, this one not nearly so entertaining. What do we have today??

Ah, a Hulk-on-the-farm story!! Not really, though.

Issue #230 appears in the middle of a fun run by Roger Stern and Sal Buscema. Nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking, to be sure...but good, competent stupid Hulk stories, usually peppered with lots of unusual but well-used Marvel guest-stars (and for my money, Sal always drew the best Hulk...)

But as I noted yesterday, a lot of Marvel creators must have had December of 1978 off. Last week we finished off with Thunderbolt Ross collapsing from a Moonstone-triggered nervous breakdown (great Hulk quote: "You hurt Ross with words!!"), with Doc Sampson blaming the Hulk and vowing to follow him to the ends of the Earth for revenge. But instead of following up on that, this month we get a surprise story that doesn't follow-up on any of that (well, hardly). Our one-issue guest creative team??

Wait--Elliot S. Maggin?!? Jim Mooney?? Holy Moly, what is this, DC guys come over and do a fill-in issue month?!? Could we hope for something as radical as a look at how DC would handle the Hulk? Nahhh.

Yeah, those are Bob Layton inks, all right. Don't worry, they're not as overpowering the rest of the issue...but they don't do Jim Mooney's artwork any real favors, either.

The splash page pretty well explains what is going on, but we get some elaboration in the next couple of pages--it's going to be Hee-Haw vs. the Hulk:


Or is it? Unbeknownst to the farmers or the Hulk, they're being observed by the galaxy's stupidest alien:

Yes, because the Hulk is green, he must have the secret of how to grow plants. And these guys invented space flight?

Well, even after that thought balloon, Maggin still tries to be coy about the unnamed alien's mission, but forgive me if I spill the beans early: the alien is from a "war ravaged" and "starving" planet, seeking the secret of nurturing plant life so he can save his species. Uhhh....OK??

Well, Hulk vs. yokels goes pretty much as expected:


But at least the cover gave us an actual scene from the issue, right?

And we get the first EVER caption comparing Hulk to Shakespeare:

But it is 1978, so after Hulk rousts the farmers back to their dells, E.T. beams him aboard.


And Bug-Man continues to show a...curious...grasp of logic: the farmers were attacking, so therefore Hulk must have had something they needed, and obviously that something had to be the secret of agriculture!! Q.E.D!!!

Bug-Man manages to quell the Hulk with a "sedation beam:"

But, as anyone who's read 1970's Hulk would know, that actually leads to Hulk's escape:


We'll give Bug-Man a pass on this one, as he wasn't aware of the Hulk's dual nature.

Meanwhile, we get a token page dropped in, reminding us of the status quo at Gamma Base, without actually advancing the story one iota, because this is a fill-in issue, dammit!!

Back in the actual story, Bug-Man has discovered Banner, but hasn't discovered the Hulk's magic farming secrets, so he decides:

We all know how that turns out:


Well, Bug-Man manages to stun the Hulk again, and proceeds to give him....a manicure?!?



Oh, dear. The Hulk manage to escape, and leaps to Earth safely. And our Bug-Man??

You're serious?!? I know you've told up his mind is addled--but Bug-Man, while searching for the "secret of food production," never once thought to check Earth's soil?!? How is that possible?!? And, if I'd known it was possible to build a space-faring species without ANY knowledge of agriculture, my games of Civilization would have gone a lot more quickly...

Postscript: Bug-Man, of course, returns, as his entire species decide they want Earth's food production capabilities for themselves...so they launch a Secret Invasion, covertly scraping under the fingernails of every human being...

But that's our story. Nothing too horrible, despite an impossibly stupid alien. But nothing nearly as interesting or offbeat as Avengers #178. No new or interesting revelations or observations on the Hulk (except for the Shakespeare bit, of course). No real look at Hulk from a DC perspective--oh, it's overwritten, as were many DC books of the day, but nothing that couldn't have come from the usual suspects at the House of Ideas.

Then again, they didn't take 3 months off between issues, either, so we shouldn't complain...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

This double page ad ran in all Marvel titles this month:

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, Marvel Team-Up #76 featured Spider-Man and Doctor Strange:

Not to mention Clea, and Ms. Marvel, and the villain Silver Dagger. And breakdowns by Howie Chaykin!?!

This was in the midst of Chris Claremont's fantastic, underrated and terrific 3 year run on the title. Writing that title could have been a thankless task, a "fill-in issue of the month" type of thing. But Claremont managed to give us offbeat heroes to team Spidey with, unusual villains for them to fight, and a surprising number of twisty multi-issue stories that never unfolded the way you thought they would. I mean, a 4-parter that eventually grew to include Spidey teamed with Nick Fury, the Black Widow, Shang-Chi AND the Silver Samurai versus the Viper?!? Good stuff.

Marvel 1978 Week--Avengers #178

Well, it's been a while since we've had a special week around here, and as the clock is ticking down on 2008, we should take another peek back into Marvel's past. But this time, instead of hopping back forty years, let's settle on 30 years--to the halcyon days of 1978!!

This is especially exciting for me, as I got into comics big-time in 1976, so (most) of these I'm presenting this week were comics that I read "live" at the time--so I can see how they've aged for me.

December 1978 was a weird month for Marvel...it almost could have been called "Fill-In Month," as 2 (or 3, depending on how you count) of the 7 comics we'll be looking at were fill-in stories.

In the past few years, Marvel had been forced to run reprints in a number of their magazines when writers and artists ran afoul of the "Dreaded Deadline Doom" (leave it to Stan to make "not getting your job done" sound awesome and portentous). Jim Shooter had just become editor-in-chief, and instituted a "no reprints" policy. If a writer and artist weren't going to be done on time, he'd replace one of them for the month...or he'd just run a "fill-in issue," a story by another team entirely, usually not connected to the current run. Shooter preferred to call them "inventory" stories, commissioning stories for virtually every title to have on hand in case of deadline problems, or to fill the gaps between creative teams. And he was always ready to use them to keep Marvel comics shipping on time. Quite the contrast to 2008, eh?

Which leads us to Avengers #178:

An obvious rush-job by of a cover by John Buscema, basically a collage of stuff Shooter had told him was going to be in the story, with marginal coherence and no background. And the insides?

Yup, a fill-in all right. The Avengers had just wrapped up the epic "Korvac/Michael" storyline, and the title had some time to kill until David Michelinie and John Byrne were ready to start their run. So Shooter put the surprise team of Steve Gerber and Carmine Infantino in the driver's seat for one of the oddest one-offs in Avengers history. Gerber and Infantino?? Strap yourselves in, kids...

We start with one of the Marvel Universe's most self-evident premises: the ladies love Hank McCoy:

One of the more human patrons doesn't take kindly to striking out with those same ladies, though, so...


Well, it ends predictably enough, with Hank whooping him after a series of anti-mitant, anti-monkey and anti-Avenger slurs. His evening ruined, Hank skulks off into the stormy night, moping about his life, when he's confronted by an odd apparition:




OK, you don't see that everyday...Hank, quite naturally, freaks the hell out...and skedaddles back to Avengers Mansion, where he finds that his "friends" are none-too-helpful:

So Simon calls him a drunk, and Jan can't even be bothered to stop reclining in her comfy chair. Gee, it's really too bad she "died," isn't it?

His experience has McCoy growing increasingly cranky with his fellow Avengers...

...and even is wrecking his love life...


Well, all this philosophizing with a women we've never met before (and as far as i know, will never meet again) leads her to ask him an unusual favor...but it's all a set-up!!

Hmmm...who the hell is this costumed buffoon selling "mind-control" to a bunch of crime lords?

Why, he's the two-faced (literally!) Manipulator. Don't ask too many questions, because I don't have any answers...as far as I know, he never appeared anywhere again!! [CORRECTION: As commentator Menshevik noted, the Manipulator DID appear again, in Captain America #242 (1980), yet another fill-in issue where it was revealed that he was a robot (although he didn't know it!) Cap #249 it was revealed that that he was a creation of Machinesmith.]

Anyhoo, they entrap the Beast, and trick him into looking inside the MacGuffin box, and...


Which leads, of course, to the famous panel I teased last month:

Well, the dons are impressed by the ability to brainwash crime fighters, so they promptly hand over $10 million (in a check!!)...but it won't turn out well!!

Why would he betray them??

Of course, the CIA...you've got to remember, kids, in 1978 we thought the CIA was responsible for every bad thing ever...and it's all a 28-year-old set-up for the Civil War:

Surprisingly enough, it turns out that this has all been a very beneficial experience for Hank McCoy, as he recovers from the dancing and stream-of-consciousness poetry...

...and feels better than 10 years of psychotherapy!!

So it's all's well that ends well?? What about our CIA operatives? Well, they're about to experience a little bit of CHEAP IRONY THEATER:

O......K.....And so endeth a fill-in issue. No real ties to current continuity, which also means that it would never be followed up on in the future, so we'll just have to wonder to ourselves about the Manipulator's two-faces and odd-ass costume.

But it also shows that, in the right hands, a fill-in issue could be so much more...weird and funky and fun, focusing on heroes who might not be getting enough spotlight, and ideas that are just...weird.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

It was all-dinosaurs, all the time. First we lead off with the end of an era: the final issue of Devil Dinosaur!!

Don't worry, though, as Devil (and Moon Boy!!) would get a guest-starring role in this fella's comic in a few months:

Ah, Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe, what a delightfully silly series. In this issue, Dum Dum Dugan uses Pym particles to shrink Godzilla down to manageable size...so they can take him back to New York City for study!!! SPOILER ALERT: That wasn't a good idea...

And finally, we have (also by Moench and Trimpe!!) Shogun Warriors #11--featuring giant Japanese toy-based robots beating up multi-headed giant lizard-thingies.

Man, when I was 14, the Marvel Universe was the coolest place EVER!!!

Full of Sound And Fury...

Some thoughts upon the "ending" of Skrullapalooza:

• Fair is fair, so I should acknowledge that, whatever else its flaws, Skrullapalooza was largely on time. There's certainly some utility, some virtue in actually bringing out a "spine" event for your entire universe in a timely manner. For comparison, we got 8 issues of Secret Invasion in the same time that we've seen 4 issues of Final Crisis. That's not to compare the artistic quality of the two--but in terms of keeping reader interest and maintaining momentum to establish a "shiny new continuity" (not to mention not keeping gosh knows how many other pending projects on hold), Skrullapalooza whooped Final Crisis.
• Perhaps as a consequence of prior delays, have you noticed that these spine events are trickling over less and less into the mainstream continuity? Ever since Civil War and Countdown, Marvel and DC have been less and less willing to have their ongoing series hijacked by inevitably late events. World War Hulk was pretty much ignored in every other Marvel mag--not a mention of NYC being devastated, Avengers Tower and the Baxter Building being flattened, etc--while instead we were given assorted mini-series so we could pretend this really was a universe-wide event. Skrullapalooza did cross over a little more...but the Fantastic Four, Thor, X-Men, Spider-Man, etc, couldn't be bothered to interrupt their own story lines to tie into the "new age" (Quesada's words) of the Marvel Universe--instead we got mini-series by different creative teams. If the patterns of WWH are followed (and if the solicits that have been released so far are an indication) we will never get even a mention in those mags of the universe changing events we've witnessed. Is this a preferable approach? Is it a sign that Marvel editorial has broken down into exclusive fiefdoms, where "I ain't tying into your crossover" is the rule rather than the exception? Discuss.
• One final bit of praise: however oddly and illogically it's been set up, it does sound as if there could be an awful lot of interesting story lines coming out of Dark Reign. Of course, I reserve judgment until some of those things actually happen, but there is some potential here.

There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Ah, but there's' the flip side, isn't there? Why, on the whole, was Skrullapalooza such a disappointment?

• How, precisely, do the heroes win? In theory, the Skrulls have millions of soldiers at their disposal, now with Magic Super-Skrull Combo Powers. Not to mention an obvious advantage in space-age weaponry. I mean, when all of the heroes gather in one spot for the final confrontation, why not just freaking overwhelm them, outnumbering them 1,000-1, and with more powers? Or better, why not just launch a nuke or 12 from orbit?!? While the heroes are making their "last stand," why not just ignore them, leave NYC alone and take over the rest of the damn world? Bendis never seemed to grasp that we were facing a full-out planetary invasion by an entire star-spanning empire, as the heroes seem to win with less effort than they expended against the Red Hood's gang. The outcome is illogical, and rushed--a total anti-climax.
  
• Speaking of rushed outcomes, what happens to all the Skrulls? I know we'll surely get some details in the future, but wouldn't an invasion on this scale by shapeshifters cause a massive upswing in global paranoia, an inability to have the trust to create a new world order with a new S.H.I.E.L.D. and whatever else Norman Osborn is setting up? And we know there are more Skrulls out there--at the very least, Skrull Jarvis escaped with the baby. Shouldn't we have a planet where nobody trusts anybody anymore, were the merest interaction requires biological proof that you're not Skrull, where any and every problem is blamed on those damned shapeshifters? Apparently not--everyone is "phew, that was close" and is going back to trusting one man with unchecked power...this time just Osborn instead of Stark.
• Speaking of Stark--"World's Most Wanted?" "Will Stark be indicted?!?" For what, precisely? I shouldn't have to point this out, but according to Bendis' own timeline, S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated before the Civil War (before Stark took over), The Avengers were infiltrated before the Civil War. It's not as if he forced the world to buy Stark technology. Sure, he's a colossal doofus and a f#$%-up, but it seems obvious that the invasion would have happened even had we not had a Super Human Registration Act, even if Stark had never become director of S.H.I.E.L.D., even if everyone were one big happy Marvel family. Despite his crimes during the Civil War, Stark is mostly blameless here...and the populace of the Marvel Universe looks fickle and stupid (they now no longer care about Stamford??).
• Speaking of blame--Nick Fury trusted Spider-Woman, who was the freaking Skrull Queen, and dismissed Ms. Marvel as a Skrull. So much for all that time he spent in hiding sussing things out with bulletin boards and red circles. Where the heck is the public outrage at Fury for abandoning his post in time of invasion and running a triple agent who was actually behind said invasion?!?
• Who was a Skrull? As most people predicted, nobody important. Just as with DC's Millennium maxi-series 20 years ago, where we were promised earth-shattering revelations about what long-time characters we actually Manhunters and got bupkis, Skrullapalooza had no courage to do anything truly shocking. Jarvis? Please. She-Thing?? Stop the presses!! And making the cop-out even worse than it was, apparently everyone who had been replaced turned up alive and well. Cowardly, Marvel, cowardly.
• Speaking of cop-out city, not only do the good guys win ridiculously easily, with no casualties (even if you believe the Wasp is dead--she's not--than somehow miraculously returning Mockingbird from the grace counterbalances that), but we can't even remain true to the premises established. Stark tech is all compromised--oh, except for Maria Hill's LMD and ray gun and jetpack, conveniently. And except for Stark just happening to have "another suit of armor, not tied to the Starktech mainframe"--yet it still seems to have all of the capabilities of his old armor. And except for Nick Fury's big ass guns and magic teleporter. And the Scarlet Spider suits. And...well, you get the idea: total Plot-Convenience Theater. Pretend that you've completely disabled things, but actually not when you find you've plotted yourself into a corner.

Overall, though, the biggest flaw of Secret Invasion was the pathetic loss of so much potential. Bendis and Yu seemed content to shower us with splash pages and epic crowd scenes, rather than actually telling the story. The entire planet was under attack by an alien species bent on conquest, and we beat it with a Sharks vs. Jets rumble in the park? DC's Invasion! and Our Worlds At War we far better, more convincing depictions of that premise. They're Skrulls--anybody could be one of them!! No, we got Kirby the Pup. We're going to show what happens when we deprive our heroes of their most important technology...no, we're not, really. Look, all the Skrulls are Super-Skrulls now, they can do crazy things with their powers!! Not so much--aside from growing big, did we actually see a Skrull using anything more than a generic power beam within the series? Nope...just lots of static crowd shots of crazy quilt Skrulls not actually doing much.

The actual series itself was padded beyond belief, giving us, at most, 3 issues of content over 8 issues. Yet despite that, almost all of the big revelations took place elsewhere, in New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: Initiative. It's almost funny--Bendis was apparently dead set on showing off how clever he'd been by showing us every clue he'd planted over the last 4+ years, every single moment of a couple of people being taken over and clandestine meetings and filling in background, all over the last who-knows-how-many issues of the Avengers mags. But if he had spent 1/10th of that effort on the actual invasion itself, and actually had something happen during it, it probably could have been a decent story. But instead we got huge build-up; deeeeeeeeeeeppppp background presented elsewhere; little of interest during the invasion aside from stilted, poorly drawn crowd fight scenes; and a rushed transition to the new status quo. For $3.99 per issue.

That was an awful lot of time and effort just to get to "Norman Osborn runs the planet now."

Friday Night Fights--Big Top Style!!

If you want a noisy battle, go to the circus.

That's the simple prescription followed by the creative team behind Luke Cage, Power Man #25 (1975). In a story way too convoluted to recap here, Luke and Bill Foster (Black Goliath!!) have become ensnared by Ringmaster's Circus of Crime--because, you know, every single Marvel hero had to become ensnared by Ringmaster's Circus of Crime in the 1970's.

In the ensuing battle royale, Cage spends most of his time going up against the Circus's strong man, named...uhhh...Strong Man. Dudes, couldn't you even try a little bit??

Luke strikes the first blow:

But the sucka keeps coming back for more:


Luke even gives him the backhand and the good old KRUMP!!


But this Strong Man is a glutton for punishment...he tries to sneak up on our Hero For Hire...

...but that doesn't cut it, sister:


That, my friends, is one mega-KRUMPed Strong Man!!

Bonus coverage--Power Man knocking the crap out of a clown:

Of course, Spacebooger never would have been captured by these goofballs in the first place...

Luke's Carnvial of Clobber was brought to you by Tony Isabella (plot), Bill Mantlo (script), Ron Wilson (art), Fred Kida (inks) and Charlotte J (letterer).

What *Really* Happened in Secret Invasion #8--Quasi-Spoilerish

I'll try to be discreet, but this is quasi-spoilerish...so wait and read Skrullapalooza #8 (a.k.a. Really? That Was It?), before reading this.

Apparently, a hero dies early on in the issue. But I beg to differ.

Carefully read what happens in those pages (as much as you can decipher from the frankly indecipherable storytelling by Lenil Yu), and compare it to these panels from waaaay back in Avengers #16 (1965):





Seems really similar, doesn't it? In Skrullapalooza, you don't actually see this character die; they just kinda vanish in a similar way to what Thor did to the Masters of Evil 43 years ago. And given Bendis' propensity to wuss out on any deaths on his big events (e.g., only Ant-Man and Jack of Hearts actually stayed dead after Avengers Disassembled, and I imagine they'll be back any day now), you can bet he did it this way to bring this person back in the not too distant future.

Much more on the inevitable creative flop of Skrullapalooza to come soon...

Celebrate With Siskoid

My main man Siskoid has just finished his unbelievably epic quest of reviewing ALL--that's right, every single one--of the Star Trek TV episodes and motion pictures. Once a day, every day, no matter what.

Post #726 went up Wednesday--726!!--and we should all congratulate him on his completely insane accomplishment.

He's not quitting...he's now taking up Star Trek comics and novels. Dude, I pity you..some of those Gold Key stories are....brrr....I get queasy just thinking about it.

He's not just a one-trick pony, though--it is called Siskoid's Blog of Geekery for a reason. Whether it's Spaceknight Saturdays, writing about his RPG experiences, creating his own unauthorized Doctor Who collectible card game--and lots and lots of comics stuff, too--there's always something worth reading, and vast archives to rummage through.

So drop by, read, congratulate him.

Oh, and this is my 500th post. Wheee.

Is There A Vogon In The House?!?

The splash page of Batman Family #17 (1978):

There's no story attached, no particular reason for this piece--just Batman in a goofy pose, and that...ahem...nice bit of doggerel. An odd way to open an issue, but what the heck, right?

There are no credits given, aside from Jim Starlin's signature in the lower right hand corner. GCD doesn't have any writing credits for this 1 page...it just lists Starlin as pencils and ink. So I suppose we should assume that Starlin wrote the poem, until we get some evidence otherwise.

Which means Jim Starlin rhymed "awesome" with "cross him." Which is too amazing to describe.

But let's take a closer look:

Oh, dear, that's so....special.

Now, this is ten years before the justly famous Batman #425, and before Chris Sims was even born, or else I might have suspected that this somehow his ode to Jim Starlin and "The Single Greatest Comic Book Of All Time." (Although I suppose if a time machine were to be involved, it would still be possible...)

But then I realized that I the answer was staring me right in the face all the time. Take a look at the bottom...when it says "The Batman," that's not a description of the poem's subject...that's the signature!!

Yup, The Batman was writing bad poetry about himself, describing how awesome he was.

Which, I suppose, explains an awful lot about "Zur-En-Arrh."

Manic Monday--Superman Vs. Kimbo Slice?!?

Time: late 1978. Spider-Man has just been cleared of all of the pending charges against him, so the marketeers and agents are coming out of the woodwork to sign deals with him. First up, there's a proposed TV deal:

ZING!! This is especially ironic, as the Spider-Man books of the era all have this on the cover:

Next up, a proposed comic book deal:


Oh, Spidey, how could you dis Jenette Kahn like that?

Of course, he's right...Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali didn't hit shelves until after Ali lost the title to Spinks...and Ali pretty quickly took it back, so Spidey was right to mock the concept of fighting Spinks.

Sadly, boxing is in such a state of disrepair and disrepute these days, I don't even know who is heavyweight champ right now (answer: 4 different people hold the title. I told you boxing was screwed up).

So if the project were to happen today, Superman would what--fight a wrestler? Someone from MMA?

Me, I'm old school. I'd only accept Superman vs. Clubber Lang.



Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard and Mike Esposito stick it to the man (and woman) 30 years ago in Amazing Spider-Man #186 ( November 1978).