I don't believe I've read this issue but the Grand Comics Database informs me that it features the Avengers battling the marmalising menace of Michael.
Maybe it's just me but I can't help feeling that, "Michael," is not a great name for a super-villain. What will they be up against next? The awesome power of Dave?
It's Conan and Bêlit up against some giant rats in a swamp.
Beyond that, I can say little but it would appear the tale also involves a wrongdoer called Ptor-Nubis who is another villain with a terrible name.
It's not good news for the star-spangled Avenger as he loses his powers.
I have no doubt that, even without his physical abilities, Cap will still triumph, thanks to his fighting spirit and mental resourcefulness, proving that it may be a serum that made him super but it's always been Steve Rogers' basic character that's made him a hero.
I'm trying to remember; is Doom's son a clone of him and does this tale finish with the good doctor residing in a psychiatric institution, as everyone else celebrates the end of his reign and Latveria's transition into a democracy?
I do believe this is Moonstone's first ever appearance.
Moonstone is one of those characters I can recognise on sight but whose actual nature I have no recall of.
Is she Russian?
Is she heroine or villain?
Did she turn up later, in The Defenders?
Hooray! It's the return of the Ani-Men!
I've always had a soft spot for the Ani-Men, even though they're just a bunch of clueless lackeys, barely one step up from the Enforcers.
I do believe that Count Nefaria, Titanium Man, Spymaster and the Unicorn also put in an appearance this issue. Clearly, Shellhead has his work cut out for him this time round.
Peter Parker graduates from university and, instantly, my interest in his strip vanishes.
Seriously, I've looked at the covers for the next few issues and not one of them rings any kind of bell for me at all. It's amazing how the simple act of leaving an educational establishment could make my favourite super-hero become so completely forgettable to me.
Speaking of people who are forgettable, the Cyclone makes his wind-swept way back into the Marvel universe in a tale in which Spidey teams up with Moon Knight to tackle the Maggia.
The new Thor shows up and, I do believe, makes off with the lovely Sif.
Back in New York, half the X-Men think the other half of the X-Men are dead, while, in the Savage Land, the missing X-Men are still alive - but won't be for long if Sauron has his way.
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34 comments:
Something about that Conan cover reminds me of Monty Python's "Search for the Holy Grail" when King Arthur is being attacked by that killer white rabbit?
Why does that Cap cover seem to give me a whiff of Fr*nk R*bbins art?
Steve - I love how you post the covers in alpha order! You rock, dude!
Strictly speaking, Steve, the Grand Comics Database is wrong, and the Avengers don't actually fight Michael until the next issue.
Avengers #176 is more the set up, and with Korvac living in suburbia disguised as a geezer called Michael theres an enjoyable everyday quality to the proceedings, like when the Avengers have to get the bus to go and find him.
Thats right about the FF, which has to be the worst Doom storyline ever.
Charlie - how is Conan coming before Captain America alphabetical order?
-sean
As always, Charlie, any resemblance to alphabetical order is pure coincidence.
Sean, thanks for the Michael info.
Sean - one word comes before two words - sheesh!
Conan the Barbarian is three words though.
The original Moonstone was a guy, a goon with some super-strength from a, er, moon stone. Because, well, moon rocks can do that, I guess. That's how Buzz Aldrin got his powers.
The original Moonstone was an agent of a clandestine group of hooded weirdos called the Secret Empire, which in turn was apparently run by Richard Nixon. I don't know if Haldeman or Erhlichman were involved.
After being defeated by Captain America, Moonstone did a stint in prison. His prison psychiatrist was one Karla Sofen, who discovered from sessions with him the location of the moon rock and used it to get super powers for herself.
She apparently had a lot more on the ball than the original Moonstone, and promptly began selling her services to the highest bidder. She's probably still running around this very day, causing trouble.
The lesson here? Be careful what you tell your psychiatrist. I assume and hope that all the regular commentators on this site have one.
If you're currently incarcerated, and I have to also assume some of you might very well be, particularly Sean, don't tell your jail-house shrink where you hid the money or the magic moon rock, or tesseract, or whatever you got buried in your mom's back yard.
Doctor-patient privilege only goes so far.
M.P.
Thanks for the Moonstone info, MP. It sounds like she should have teamed up with Bart Hamilton and Dr Faustus to form the League of Evil Psychiatrists.
The "new original" Thor with his red hair and beard does indeed resemble the proper Norse Thor rather than Marvel's tepid version with his girly blond hair and poncey, pretentious Shakespearean dialogue :D
Steve - you need to add the Prison Psychiatrist who decided in Daredevil 63 that Melvin Potter a.k.a. The Gladiator should put on his blades, while Matt Murdoch and Foggy Nelson are present, to help snap out of his "insanity" to your club. Something tells me there is in fact a bit of genius lurking behind the world's dumbest idea.
B.t.w. all you guys in the"big house" check out the prison library and learn how to alphabetize! Obviously "the Barbarian" does not count in alphabetizing because it is in tiny, itsy-bitsy letters unlike the words Conan or Captain America which are in large print!
Steve - Maybe it is better to NOT display covers in alpha sort to stop all the needless controversy! I can no longer carry the weight of the world on my back like this and am going to see my Psych for a tweak up. (Don't worry, I stashed the magic beans and forgot where so she won't pull that secret out of me!)
Funny you should mention a league of evil shrinks Steve, because MP mentioning Moonstone's real name reminded me that she previously appeared in Captain America as Dr. Faustus' assistant. I forget which issue, but it was one of the last before Kirby's return, drawn by Fr*nk R*bb*ns.
(Hmmm... that was interesting, wasn't it?)
-sean
PS Is there an official SteveDoesComics line on the new Dr Who yet?
Whats your take on the controversy, Steve - should Dr Who be a northerner or not?
-sean
Colin, I do agree that Marvel's Thor never really felt like he was a genuine Norse god.
Charlie, I shall do what I can to de-Alphabet things in future.
Sean, I think I remember Dr Faustus having an assistant called Carla in a Frank Robbins drawn Cap tale that was set on a jumbo jet. Was that her? She didn't come across like she might be a trained psychiatric professional. In fact, she came across like she might be his equivalent of Harley Quinn.
And, of course, the Doctor should always be a northerner.
UK Gents - I am not very "Dr. Who" but I thought the controversy was that there is now a female Dr. Who, the lady from "The Church on Broad Street" which every good Netflix-loving American, who likes British dramas, has watched?
Also, b/c I just dig cultural things, what would be the different to you UK Gents between a northener and southerner being a Dr. Who? I don't want to "stir things up" but am genuinely curious.
Charlie, Sean was just joking. The controversy has indeed been about the new Doctor's gender. Whether the Doctor's northern or southern doesn't matter - except to a small section of the London media who are currently claiming that overseas viewers can't understand the actors' northern accents. Personally, I have seen no overseas viewers on Twitter complaining that they can't understand them.
Well, I qualify as "overseas" and indeed some would say Chicago is in its own world!
But I wonder about how popular Dr. Who is here in the states? I have indeed try to watch, most recently this weekend (I think BBC America is running non-stop Who) but it just doesn't grab me.
Should I feel abnormal about my inability to get Who? Or, is there a substantial UK percent who also are not Who fans? Admittedly, not since the Brady Bunch / Partridge Family hour on Friday nights has like 90% of America tuned in, to the same thing. But I am just curious if Who, in the UK, is a niche market albeit apparently profound given all the press about a female Doctor, or is the Who market really big?
Thanks for answering my naive questions!
A jumbo jet - yes, thats the one, Steve, and its the same character.
To be fair, Dr Faustus didn't really come across much like a trained psychiatric professional in that story either (threatening to level New York if you don't get a ransom isn't the kind of thing that does much for a shrink's reputation).
Had a look at the BBC website, Charlie, and you're right; strange as it may seem in this day and age, some of the permanently offended are worked up about Dr Who being a woman, and even complaining there were black people in the show.
Loonies and their identity politics, eh?
-sean
Hi Sean, I don't get it either.
But how popular is Who in the UK? What kind of market share does it get, on TV?
I have tried several times to watch the show but it doesn't grab my interest... But they say no matter how popular something is, there is always like 10 - 25 % who just aren't into the song, show, movie, whatever. And I do enjoy sci fi stuff in general so, go figure.
Thanks for the Dr Faustus confirmation, Sean.
Charlie, last night's Doctor Who episode got a 40.1% audience share in Britain, which is extremely healthy. Its ratings rise and fall with the passage of time but it's been around since 1963 and, because most people saw it at some point during their childhoods, it's something of a cultural phenomenon in Britain. There are plenty of people who aren't into it but that's true of anything.
It can be difficult to get into, with it mixing humour, drama and melodrama, in a fairly random manner. Newcomers are usually recommended to watch an episode called Blink which requires virtually no knowledge of the show. So, if an opportunity to see that arises, it might be a good idea to watch it.
I'm not qualified to say how popular it is in America. I know it's BBC America's most watched show and there are an awful lot of Americans making Doctor Who videos on YouTube.
Blink? Dunno Steve - if you look at something like Dr Who from the perspective of familiarity, its hard to know what works best as a point of entry; its not like the back story is fantastically complicated or particularly hard to grasp, so I tend to think any of the better episodes would work well enough.
Like, reading your first Marvel comics as a kid could be a bit confusing when you were clueless about the continuity. But I liked them well enough anyway and picked it all up as I went along.
-sean
Personally, I'd go for Flatline but Blink does seem to be the gateway episode of choice for reactors on YouTube.
If I remember correctly, the guy that became "the new, original Thor" was named Red and was some sort of cameraman? Something about an expose on Asgard?
Pardon me now.... As I start to...twitch...into convulsions...do to...the needless mentioning..of...AAAARGGGGH!!!!!
PLOP!! Splash!!! (Body landing unconscious into a foaming puddle of it's own saliva.)
I think Dr. Who probably has a fairly large fandom here in the states. They show it a lot on BBC America. I've seen a bit of it, and it's not without it's charm. I saw one episode that was kinda cool where a thousand-foot-tall Satan was chained up under an alien planet outside a black hole. And there was one with Van Gogh.
I notice the female assistants are not hard on the eyes at all.
M.P.
There was also that idiot pshrink in Marvel Team-Up #106 who thought it would be therapeutic for Mac Gargan to wear his Scorpion costume. Of course, Gargan promptly knocked a hole in a wall and escaped from the psychiatric ward.
My impression is that Doctor Who has a cult following in the US. Americans who are not into science fiction may be vaguely aware of it from references on "The Big Bang Theory."
In DC's Inferior Five #4 (1967), they visited Asgard and Valhalla, and it was actually portrayed more in line with Norse mythology than Marvel's version. Thor was a bearded redhead, Sif was a blonde, Odin wore an eye patch, and the only one who talked in pompous Shakespearean dialog was Hamlet. Siegfried sang every line of dialog (Odin: "I vish Wagner never writ that stupid opera"), and most of the other gods and heroes spoke English with stereotypical "yumpin' yiminy" accents.
I utterly refuse to watch "The Big Bang Theory."
That, sir, is a bridge too far.
M.P.
KD, I believe you are correct about the identity of the new Thor.
Following up TC's comment - there was also a bearded red haired DC Thor in the Season of Mists arc from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
And, as it happens, another one in the original Kirby/Simon Sandman, from Adventure Comics #75 (1942), although he's an imposter (which does make me wonder if Thor #276 was a reference, "homage" or whatever - Roy Thomas was writing Thor in '78 right?)
Theres a pic - and pages from another DC Thor story Magic Hammer from Tales of the Unexpected #16, written and drawn by Kirby in 1957 - at
www.atocom.blogspot.com/2013/11/reading-room-tales-of-unexpected-magic.html
-sean (I will get out more in future!)
DC's fake Thor (from the 1942 Sandman story) returned in All-Star Squadron #18 (1981), written by Roy Thomas.
I'm pretty sure Thomas was writing Marvel's Thor in the late 1970s. Didn't he write that long arc with the Eternals meeting the "real" Asgardian and Olympian gods, and flashbacks involving the Ring of the Nibelungen saga?
I quit watching The Big Bang Theory when it turned into a remake of Friends. And I quit watching Friends, Mad About You, and The Drew Carey Show when they stopped being comedies and turned into pretentious soap operas.
I also quit watching Xena-Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer when they became pretentious, depressing soap operas. Specifically, I quit watching Xena when they killed off Ephiny, I quit watching Charmed when they killed off Prue, I quit watching Buffy when they killed off Tara, and, if I had ever watched Beauty & the Beast, I would have quit watching when they killed off Catherine.
Xena Warrior Princess was brilliant right up to the last episode!
-sean
I loved Xena up until the end of the third season. After that, my interest started to dwindle.
The debut of Karla Sofen was indeed in a Frank Robbins Cap story. It was reprinted in one of the late-70s Marvel annuals. Kurt Busiek made her a key player in the Thunderbolts in her "Meteorite" guise. I saw her most recently make a cameo appearance in Bendis's Defenders series.
That issue of X-Men was the very last American comic I saw in Prestwick Airport, in the school holidays of October 1978. We occasionally went plane-spotting with my dad. I bought it in Strathaven when the new term began.
The Thor impersonator was Red Norvell, a tv cameraman in Asgard who accompanied Harris Hobbs ( who, in turn, first appeared in the early Absorbing Man stories. Everything I know about the Norse Thor came from the "Space Vikings" episode of Lost In Space
I should clarify that I meant late -70s UK Marvel annuals. I can't think which one but I do think the script was by Marv Wolfman, whose writing I don't much enjoy. I also think that Karla is meant to be nude under her bandoliers. 70s Marvel, eh?
Hi, Dougie, that Lost in Space vikings episode is hilarious. Either that or I'm just hopelessly childish. Thanks for the Red Norvell/Karla Sofen info. The Frank Robbins Cap tale was in the 1977 Titans annual.
Ah, yes. I couldn't find the requisite annual- my "man cave" is still a bit of a state, seven weeks after moving.
The Space Vikings was on the Horror Channel yesterday afternoon!
I checked my 1978 diary earlier today; for some reason, I passed over X-Men for Avengers 176 at Prestwick Airport. I then bought the former on November 9th.
It's forty years on Friday to the day since I saw Warlords of Atlantis at the cinema.
Tragically, I never saw Warlords of Atlantis at the cinema, although I did see At The Earth's Core.
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