Needless to say, that album went down in the annals of history and, buoyed by controversy, subsequently smashed onto the UK album chart at Number One. Truly, the brave new era of British music had hit its apogee.
And just to prove it, at the very moment of that album's release, ABBA were at Number One on the UK singles chart with Name of the Game.
Granted, there's a slight disconnect between those two facts but I suppose that at least it proves the charts were a varied place back then.
But what of Marvel UK? Just how much variety were they giving us in that very week of forty years ago?
It's that one where Peter Parker shows mind-boggling photo-manipulation skills to convince J Jonah Jameson that his genuine snaps of our hero incinerating his own clone aren't real. Super-hero, super-scientist, super-costume-designer, super-photo-manipulator, is there anything that youth can't do?
Elsewhere, Captain Britain is still up against Slaymaster, the Avengers are still up against Zodiac, and Thor is still up against Ulik. I do feel a certain inertia has set in when it comes to the back-up strips in this comic.
Maybe it's just me but I don't remember ever noticing at the time just how many weeks it took for any back-up story to unfold in the world of Marvel UK.
It's great news for all David Tennant fans because Kilgrave is back.
It might be great news for them but I can't say it is for me because I have no recollection at all of just what this story involves.
Anyway, the violet villain is looking a lot more active on that cover than I'd expect. I just recall him being a man who stood around ordering everyone else to do the fighting for him.
Speaking of which, it looks like Dr Druid is all set up and ready for a punch-up too, which doesn't seem quite his style either.
Are we to take it, from that image, that he and Hulkie are on the moon?
Does this mean the Watcher is involved?
I don't have a clue what happens in this tale but, thinking about it, it does strike me that, with the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Dr Strange and Silver Surfer on board, the early Defenders were a ridiculously powerful group who should have been able to flatten virtually any menace in the Marvel Universe, with barely any effort at all.
Forget the Purple Man. A foe who always impressed me far more is back, as the Miracle Man makes his return after, lo, these many years.
I don't care how little respect he gets, I was always a fan of the malevolent mesmerist. And, this time, he has actual powers!
This is the second consecutive cover that features Medusa being gripped by a giant hand. She must be getting seriously fed up of it by now.
Then again, didn't Sue Storm find herself being gripped by a giant hand on the front of Fantastic Four #1? Clearly, it's an occupational hazard if you're the distaff member of the world's greatest super-family.
By a strange coincidence, the back-up strip reprints the team's first encounter with the self-same villain. The original cover of that tale, almost incredibly, didn't feature a giant hand - but it did feature a flying bath tub and the first ever sighting of their costumes.
As reported earlier on this site, this month saw the launch of Conan's second UK mag. I don't have a clue on what actual date it came out, so I'll assume it hit the shelves at some time around now. I have no historically defendable reason for doing this. It just makes it easier for me to keep track.
The early Defenders were massively powerful, which would have probably been a bigger problem if at least one member wasn't always getting hypnotised and most of them weren't dramatically exiting the team at the end of each story while proclaiming that it wasn't a team anyway.
ReplyDeleteThey were definitely not people who were temperamentally suited to being in a team.
ReplyDeleteHaving just reread Defenders first appearance (with painful Ross Andru art whom I always remembered as a better artist from his Spider Man days), I am convinced that, due to their ill-suited temperament, they should have just been a summer annual.
ReplyDeleteGranted they had a long run but I never really enjoyed the monthly, and bought only a few issues. But once a year... I would have looked forward to that and would have accepted whatever silly reason was required to put Hulk, Subby, and Strange together on a team!
I really loved The Defenders once Valkyrie and Nighthawk came on board. It was probably the American comic I had the most issues of.
ReplyDeleteRoss Andru's art on the first Defenders tale is indeed very strange. From what I've read, he was in the habit of producing a lot of sketchy, scribbly extraneous lines when he drew and then left it to the inker to decide which ones to ink and which ones to ignore. Unfortunately, Bill Everett, in a bad mood, decided to ink every line that Andru had drawn, creating a bit of a mess and nearly getting himself fired for it.
Got to agree with Charlie that the Defenders definitely seem to have come out of the need for content of a publisher expanding its line, rather than any intrinsic merit as an idea.
ReplyDeleteBut thats how the comic biz works, with the better work rising above the limitations set by publishers. So I enjoyed the issues I had of the US Defenders mag - from Steve Gerber's run - but found the earlier stories in Rampage disappointing in comparison.
-sean
Thanks for the insight on that first issue artwork. Strange of Everett to do that. I really enjoyed Bills art on those late Subby issues immensely. I have to wonder what Marvel had in place for quality control given that crazy ink job got published.
ReplyDeleteBill Everett was a descendant of William Blake, so its anyone's guess what went on in his head.
ReplyDeleteMarvel's quality control was probably slack when they first really started expanding because generally the artists who worked for them in the 60s - from Kirby and Ditko and then onto Buscema and Colan - were very reliable and didn't need much supervision.
-sean
Sean - what you say makes sense. I was reading Marvel Firsts 1970, a compilation of the horror, werewolf, and lesser hero first issues from the 1970s (Luke Cage, Sheena, Killraven, Warlock, the Cat, etc.) Much of the art was somewhat "rough" for sure.
ReplyDeleteThe most bizarre (to me) was Killraven which had art by Neal Adams and Howard Chaykin. THe Adams portion was more/less OK but then suddenly it shifted into, I suppose, Chaykin's portion though I did not recognize it as Chaykin (almost Ditko-esqe sort of). But what I've seen of Chaykin (American Flagg mostly) putting him on Killraven was not a best use of his talents?
Kane's work on Warlock, battling Thor was quite rough too.
Well anyhow, quality control seemed non-existent. It would make sense when you had Kirby, Colan, Buscema, etc. cranking out your books.