For some reason, many songwriters have ignored my advice over the years.
But it's a case of, "Yesterday once more," as I look at what our favourite Marvel heroes were up to exactly fifty years ago this month.
Hooray! The first issue of Marvel UK's Avengers mag that I ever read featured this tale, in which the Avengers treat Giant-Man like a total dolt just because he talks to ants, forcing him to go off and tackle the Mole Man and Red Ghost on his own. Why he put up with them for so long is beyond me.
Gideon makes his senses-shattering debut as he tries to prove you can do anything if you have enough money - even beat the FF.
I've never read this one. I gather it involves Thor telling some kids about a fight he once had in either Malta or Gibraltar, with the Hulk, while no one was looking.
It's one of my Spidey faves, as the Scorpion makes his debut.
It's that rare beast, a Human Torch/Thing adventure that actually looks like it might be interesting. I have no doubt there'll be plenty of agonising from the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver about being misunderstood and distrusted by humanity.
The, "Yellow Peril," was clearly playing on Marvel's mind when they put this issue together. I remember the Cap Am story which, I believe, involves him going to Vietnam to rescue a captured soldier and having to fight a geographically inappropriate sumo wrestler along the way.
I'm not sure which Mandarin tale it is.
This one includes the Hulk story that changed my life, as I recall it featuring either the word, "Humanoid," or, "Android," and me having to ask my dad what it meant. Lo, was my vocabulary increased with one mighty bound.
I've never read the X-Men vs Avengers tale but I do have to say that if I were ever to need a wheelchair, that'd be the one I'd demand from the NHS. I'd tell them, "If it doesn't have caterpillar tracks, so I can cross battlefields in it, it's no use to me."
Amazingly, I have none of the comics shown here, except in the form of reprints. How can such a thing be? 50 years ago, eh? Where does the time go?
ReplyDeleteI remember asking my father what "gelded" meant and then being a bit shocked by the answer !!
ReplyDeleteThose covers certainly are copy-heavy...they'd never get signed off these days.
ReplyDeleteAs for defeating the FF with money, Gideon's work is now being carried on by Marvel itself.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess you know that the working title of Yesterday was "Scrambled Eggs."
'Yesterday' must be the most over-rated song ever written - it's a pleasant though completely unremarkable pop song that's considered a masterpiece just because the Beatles wrote it.
ReplyDeleteI think I knew what "gelded" meant because there were horses in a field near our house. I quailed a bit at work the other day in school explaining what "castrato" meant.
ReplyDeleteI have that Thor vs Hulk. As a Thor fan, I am annoyed that lately Marvel has shown the Hulk beating Thor. They seem to have forgotten that Thor has thousands of years of experience fighting muscleheads like the Hulk. And of course the Hulk is a notoriously show starter. Of course it's only a comic so in effect the writer is God and will determine the actual winner.
ReplyDeletePlus, Thor has a billion-and-one super-powers besides brute force at his disposal.
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