There's only thing for it. I'm going to have to take refuge by leaping into the Time Vortex and fleeing to the safety of 1976.
But, even there, it's not that safe - because it's the senses-shattering debut of Chicken Man or whatever he's called, as we get a tale of Voodoo that I believe restores Wonder Man to the pages of the Avengers and leads to all manner of internal and external conflict for the Vision.
Hooray! I had this one - and the next three issues!
It's the tale that sets up the Conan/Red Sonja/Bêlit punch-up/team-up/mash-up that sets up the first epic meeting of Conan and King Kull.
I'm not totally sure what happens in this story but it looks like it might be curtains for Cap.
Is my memory betraying me or was Death's Head's horse just a normal horse painted to look like a skeleton? If so, exactly how could that fool anyone who was standing within a hundred feet of it?
I had this one too - and the next three issues. Galactus threatens Counter-Earth and we get the battle we all wanted to see, between him and the High Evolutionary.
In retrospect, it's clear that it's basically a retread of the original Galactus Trilogy, with the High Evolutionary standing in for the Surfer, and the Planet Poppup substituted for the Ultimate Nullifier.
I have no memory of this tale at all but is that a Herb Trimpe cover? And does this mean he also drew the interior?
As I may have mentioned before, I always had a soft spot for the Controller because he seemed a suitably nasty piece of work.
Didn't he gain the strength of everyone he took control of? Does that mean that, if he took control of a billion billion beings, he'd be able to fight Mangog? Then again, what if he took control of Mangog and another billion billion beings? He'd be able to beat anybody.
I remember loving this story when I was a youth, mostly because it was the first chance I had to get a substantial exposure to Nightcrawler who I'd previously only known from his appearance in X-Men #100.
Hooray! I've always liked Ulik. I do wish he'd been allowed to win from time to time. It would have made him seem far more effective as a villain and therefore more of an actual threat. Apart from their first meeting, Thor always seemed to dispose of him with little difficulty.
It's an epoch-making issue, as the Phoenix makes her debut, and things will never be the same again. It's a tale that reminds me of why I loved the Dave Cockrum era so much.
Voodoo once again raises it's diabolical head in the Marvel Universe!
ReplyDeleteM.P.
Absolutely none of these came to my local shop. I would have bought all of them. Still would.
ReplyDeleteAlthough now the removal van's taken away all my graphic novels and comics today, clearly I must never, never buy any more. Unless I want to be on some hoarder show on Channel 5.
That Spider-Man tale has all the hallmarks of being a Marvel TeamUp story reallocated to ASM. Any time there's a Teamup story more than one issue long, a new character appears at the end of each part so that they can have a different headliner on the cover. Spider-Man and Nightcrawler one month, Spider-Man and Punisher the next. See? I spot these things!
ReplyDeleteAssuming "not totally sure" means you don't know anything about whats happening in Captain America, Steve - Cap teamed up with a Texan oil millionaire to rescue the Falcon who some escaped loonies had lured to another dimension to fight monsters made out of rocks. Classic.
ReplyDeleteContinues into the next issue, so now you know for November's post. Happy to help.
-sean
Sean, thanks for the Cap and Falcon info. I must confess I knew nothing about the tale.
ReplyDeleteDangermash, that's an interesting theory. You may well be right.
Dougie, what struck me when writing the post was that not only were the FF and Conan issues available in newsagents local to me but that the newsagents in question also had the next three issues of each mag at the same time as these, allowing me to get them all at once. I have no explanation for the sudden ease in finding American comics in my area.
MP, I wonder if they referred to it as, "Voodoo," in the comic. I seem to remember that, at one point, Marvel always used to call it by another name.
Steve, you might be right about that, the use of the term "voodoo" may have been prohibited at this point by the Comics Code Authority, a nightmarish secret organization whose members were sworn to secrecy even in the face of torture, and if any comic book writer saw their black hoods outside his window and heard "the knock in the night" on his door, he may never see the dawn or his loved ones again.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the Mafia was referred to in comics as the Maggia and zombies were called "zuvembies". Things changed a lot, though, in the '70's, vampires and werewolves in comics became acceptable and we all were given the license to get weird.
M.P.
MP, The softening of the comics code was earlier than this though, wasn't it? The days when Marv Wolfman couldn't get his name in the credits were well over by 76.
ReplyDeleteBrother Voodoo had been around for a few years at least by then.
Steve, maybe you were thinking of zuvembies/zombies ?
-sean
Sean, I think I might have been thinking of that Avengers story in which Psyklop first appears, where Cap and the Falcon break up a Voodoo meeting. I have a suspicion they never refer to it as Voodoo in the story but keep using all kinds of euphemisms for it but I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteHaven't read that, Steve, but either way I'm sure you know a lot more about what you think you were thinking about than I do.
ReplyDelete-sean
I recall having the Iron Man, Daredevil and X-Men issues but at this point in time American Marvel comics weren't that easy to get hold of in sunny Wombwell. The only time i could get hold of them was when i want to Scarborough for my holidays and then they seemed to be a few years older.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. The seaside was always the best place to get American comics. Places like Blackpool, Morecambe and Lytham were gold mines when it came to comics.
ReplyDelete