But one thing never alters.
Whatever the decade, we can still thrill to the adventures of those with powers beyond the norm.
I have little to no memory of this tale but it appears the Collector's abducting Avengers, presumably for his usual purposes.
This issue seems to feature a guest appearance by virtually every Outer Space related character Marvel possessed at that time.
A far smaller cast greets us within the pages of Conan. Apparently, the battling barbarian and his mates enter a city, restore some woman to the throne and then she betrays them. Will Conan never learn not to trust a beautiful woman?
Mr Hyde and the Cobra are back - and, no doubt, failing once more to defeat a hero they should be able to annihilate with no effort at all. Like the Circus of Crime, they should probably settle for taking on Howard the Duck.
I'm willing to bet that's not the original Invincible Man but some kind of impostor.
Then again, perhaps it's a skrull pretending to be the Super-Skrull pretending to be Sue and Johnny's father.
Then again, the internet tells me that, in this issue, the FF are reunited, thanks to Dr Doom. Whether it was his intention to reunite them, I couldn't say. So, perhaps he's the one in the Invincible Man costume.
Then again, perhaps he's not.
I remember nothing of this tale, other than that it features the Leader and Omnivac who I remember being the Leader's not always reliable computer.
Iron Man's still having problems with Galactus' Punisher.
Despite seemingly being set in Detroit, this story would appear to feature any Outer Space character who hasn't already shown up in this month's Avengers tale.
Hooray! It's the news we were all praying for! The Rocket Racer is back!
I believe this is the story which goes on to introduce the world to the power and majesty of the Big Wheel.
Two villains of that quality in one story? How could we ever hope to cope with such excitement?
The Lightmaster is back and kidnaps the White Tiger, in the belief that his secret identity of Hector Ayala is actually the true identity of Spider-Man, which means he'll now have two super-heroes to fight, instead of one.
Apparently, reporter Harris Hobbs gets to go to Asgard again, thanks to Loki hiding him in an adamantium computer. You would've thought Hobbs would have learnt his lesson, after his previous visit.
But how this relates to the Midgard Serpent, I have no idea.
Cap finds himself up against Animus who, I believe, is a beautiful woman with impressive cleavage who, for some reason, can transform herself into a weird caveman with a big club and a huge head. I don't have a clue how any of that is achieved.
More importantly for all Captain America lovers, I notice the Falcon's disappeared from the masthead. Does this mean he no longer features in the comic? What catastrophe is this that's befallen both us and he?
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10 comments:
Hi Steve.
My sources tell me the Invincible Man is Reed Richards under mind control.
And, lest we forget, the collective belief that England will win the World Cup having reached he last 4 in 2018 is nothing compared to the belief in Scotland that they were going to be 1978 world champions when there were still 15 other countries left in the tournament.
Thanks for the Invincible Man info, Dangermash. The capacity for Fantastic Four members to pose a threat to the rest of the team never fails to amaze me.
Steve-
Was also bewildered about Animus. Apparently well-endowed female who was already kinda mean & powerful that transforms into a over-sized cranium neo-Neanderthal male. Metaphors? Social statement? Boggled my teen-age head at the time.
Think around the same time or a little after Starlord from the original Guardians of the Galaxay became a woman, and I think it was the same character.
Man, that was decades before all the gender self identity stuff that's going on now. Back then I thought they were just trying to shock us, but it looks like Marvel was ahead of the curve on that topic.
Did some quick research. She was the "Vamp" (who I remember), that changes into "Animus". Oh yeah, that clears up EVERYTHING....
Congratulations to my friends across the pond for the U.K. rolling into the semis! I will be rooting for you guys.
On the subject of Mr. Hyde and the Cobra, they were WAY outta their league mixing it up with Thor, and quickly realized they should be in somebody else's rogues gallery, if anybody would have them.
Unless you're Galactus or Surter, or Mangog or one of those guys, it's probably best to avoid Thor altogether.
Captain America actually once knocked Hyde out with one punch, but that was presumably when Calvin was running low on his Hyde serum. Spider-man made short work of him by webbing him up, swinging him around, and letting him fly out a penthouse window, letting the sidewalk twenty stories below do the work.
Then Hyde started hassling the Hulk for some reason, which strikes me as a bad idea.
M.P.
Killdumpster and MP, thanks for the Animus and Mr Hyde info. I've just been looking into the history of the Vamp and Animus and I can safely say the whole situation seems somewhat baffling. Not only did the Vamp change when she became the Animus but so did her clothes. Then, when she changed back to the Vamp, her clothes changed back with her, seemingly with no word of explanation as to how they were doing that.
I found the whole character of Vamp/Animus more annoying than intriguing. The constant arrogance of her/him/it left me so numb that I didn't care what the whole deal was about.
In retrospect, she/him/it was the supervillian version of that awful Crocodile Dundee movie were he's in the bar hitting on a transvestite.
The Hyde-Cobra duo was my favorite during the silver & bronze age. Their bickering between each other was like a bad guys version of Abott & Costello.
I quite like the Peter Parker cover. It's Ernie Chan but has a bit of Frank Miller about it.
DW
I love the Spectacular Spider-Man cover, and the one with the constipated-looking Hulk.
The Fantastic Four one has a kind of Bronze Age DC feel to it, but the pick of the bunch for me is the Conan cover. Stunning work by Big John Buscema, and whoever coloured it (I'm guessing George Roussos or Marie Severin..? ) deserves a lot of credit too.
Dave, I agree. The Conan cover is my favourite of that selection too.
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