Tuesday 10 September 2019

The Marvel Lucky Bag - September 1979.

If there's one thing this site knows how to do, it's time travel. Why, barely two days go by without it flinging itself into some horrific cranny of the past and getting stuck there.

But it seems I'm not the only one who's temporally unstable and, therefore, this month of 1979 saw the release of the movie Time After Time, the celebrated tale of how H.G. Wells sets off in pursuit of Jack the Ripper, following him, via technology, to present-day America.

A fact I didn't previously know is it was this film which inspired the title of the Cyndi Lauper hit of the same name.

I shall now forever associate that song with Jack the Ripper.

It's kind of ruined it for me now.

Marvel Two-In-One #55, Black Goliath and the Thing

The Thing and Black Goliath team up to tackle Nuklo.

Except they don't because, at the Thing's suggestion, Black Goliath decides to change his name to Giant-Man.

I'm not sure I'd listen to naming suggestions from a man who thinks, "The Thing," is a good super-hero name.

Marvel Two-In-One Annual #4, Black Bolt and the Thing

Graviton's back - and he's turning into a walking black hole.

Are they sure that's how a human black hole would look?

Tarzan #28, It's all gone King Kong

Tarzan has just one more issue of his comic left before cancellation but at least he decides to make a splash along the way, running amok in New York and scaling the Empire State Building in order to be reunited with Jane and Korak.

Marvel Fun and Games Magazine #1

Apparently, all I need is a pencil.

I have one!

Now all I need is the magazine to go with it.

Defenders #75, the end!

The Defenders make such a Horlicks of tackling the Foolkiller that Nighthawk decides to disband the team, despite it not being a team and him having no authority to do so.

Admittedly, in his absence, they have managed to get his house burnt to the ground, so you can understand he may not be feeling overly reasonable right now.

Brother Billy, the Pain From the Plains

I don't even know what this is but it's such an oddity, whatever it is, that I feel I have to include it.

22 comments:

Killdumpster said...

Bet that Billy Carter book is a marginal collectors item. For anyone who remembers him, that is. He was partially responsible for folks here collecting beer cans. Was that any kind of thing in the UK, Steve?

The Defenders was the only book I had on this post, and I don't recall the story.

Somehow I missed the Tarzan comic. The Johnny Weismuller "Tarzan In New York" movie is one of my favorites in that series. I would've grabbed that comic on sight.

Killdumpster said...

I started bypassing Marvel Two-in-One, after getting sick of Sal's art. Not trying to drum-up anything, guys. Just my personal opinion.

I would've been all-up on those, with Black Bolt & Nuklo. Nuklo had so much potential as an anti-hero. I think they actually made him into some kind of office-boy now.

Steve W. said...

I have no memory of anyone in Britain ever collecting beer cans but it was a long time ago, so I may just have forgotten it.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

I recall getting an Avengers Annual in the early 70s off the spinner. Nuklo was like a tragic figure as a I recall... the villain but not really a villain?

I too tired of Sal's art though I was initially fine when he was drawing Cap because it was due to the story line. But once the 1950s Cap ended I bolted.

I never saw the "Billy" Marvel comic. Billy is clearly Billy Carter, President Jimmy's brother. He was a major distraction for his brother... heavy drinker and made $ as an agent of Libya. I won't go into it all; it is googleable.

As I age, I do feel sick to my stomach realizing how all my adult family members, their friends, et al. heaped shit on the Carters and I followed accordingly.

As an act of penance I will read some Cap/ DD by Fr*nk R*bbins.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Little history lesson inspired b/c of the Billy comic. Please ignore if not interested!

Democrats dominated the Presidency and politics from 1932 (Great Depression) until 1968. B/c Kennedy/Johnson (the Democrats) ended lawful segregation, dismantled Jim Crow laws, etc. the Republicans had started running essentially racist campaigns starting with Goldwater to get the "white vote" in 1964.

Finally enough of the white vote bolted from the Democrats to the Republicans with Nixon in 68 to give Republicans the Presidency off/on to this day. However these now-old white men are finally dying off and basically the only way Republicans have won the Presidency since 2000 is via the Electoral College which the majority of Americans want to eliminate.

In the past few years, I've met many old white men, including my dad and relatives, who when I confront them about voting for Trump, become quite defensive saying "Well, I voted Democratic until Nixon." Funny how real life mirrors the history books.

Also, you can google "Fox News viewership demographics" and it too is mercifully dying off since it's the home for old white men. OK enough of that.

Anonymous said...

I never understood why Marvel had a go at doing Tarzan Steve, as the character was seriously out of fashion by the late 70s - it seemed odd they picked up the licence when it hadn't done well for DC earlier in the decade. Especially as they basically handled it the same way, even down to the look, as John Buscema had a high opinion of Joe Kubert's version.

Marvel's Tarzan was good early on - if you like that kind of thing - but from around half way through the run they obviously gave up on putting much effort in, and the later issues were poor.
Same goes for the John Carter comic they did at the same time. Which had nothing to do with Billy or Jimmy, neither of whom were warlords of Mars (although the first US mission to Mars - Viking - was during the latter's presidency, so... who knows?)

-sean
-sean

Anonymous said...

Er... didn't mean to sign off twice there. Duh.

-sean

Anonymous said...

Sorry Charlie, I think I missed something there - how is admitting to switching to Nixon a defence?

-sean

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Sean - LOL. Their point, to their dying day, will be "I was formerly a Democrat thus it's perfectly OK if I now vote Republican." Admittedly there is absolutely nothing logical about such a statement, and I wish you could vote here.

I recall a independent Tarzan done in the 1990s that put Tarzan in London? But then that just seemed out of context.

ANd, I still value my big, lovely Tarzan hardback done by Burne Hogarth in the 1970s. It was republished by Dark Horse a few years ago, I see, per link below. (A relative sent it to me from the UK around 1974.)

https://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Rice-Burroughs-Tarzan-Hogarths/dp/1616555378/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=HOgarth+Tarzan&qid=1568162447&s=gateway&sr=8-1


Redartz said...

Kind of a thin week on the spinners, it seems (seemed?). Like KD, the only one of these I had was Defenders, and I can't remember anything about it.

Regarding Billy Carter- I remember a big hubbub about "Billy Beer" at the time. Some of my friends were collecting those beer cans. Me, I stuck with comics. Thank goodness ( after all, how many Billy Beer cans would you have to trade today for, say, Avengers Annual 7?)...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I got the first Hogarth Tarzan book for my birthday as a kid Charlie - eye popping stuff that made me wonder why the comics I usually read looked nowhere near as good.
His second one is posted at
www.bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2019/04/burne-hogarths-tarzan.html
The big white jungle man taking taking on a whole tribe is unfortunate, but check out the linework on that foliage! Cool elephant too.

The most recent Tarzan comic I've read is Claws Of The Catwoman, a crossover with Batman.
I realize that sounds stupid, but surprisingly it was the best superhero-type book I'd read for ages (it probably helped that it was published by Dark Horse and wasn't a regular DC Batman).
Well worth a read if you see it anywhere.

-sean

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Sean - I am eternally in your debt! I was not aware Hogarth did a 2nd Tarzan book in the 70s. (Folks - these are not reprints of his comic strips from the 40s.) And I do dig that Bronze Age of Blogs site. Most enjoyable.

I mean, not only is Hogarth's art legendary but the story is well told and well paced.

OK - I too, like KD, collected beer cans in the 70s. But I really do not recall Billy Carter as the catalyst. I thought it had to do with the collapse of the hundreds of smaller breweries, playing sports becoming more prevalent, and folks just holding on to something nostalgic.

I was a HUGE fan of the Schmidts beer cans with their native fish on them. I also had a ton of beer signs, statues, even a rotating Heineken windmill. But times were quickly changing...

It was the end of the corner bars, alcohol being a form of exercise and socializing, and every home having a bar in the basement. We were suddenly becoming health conscious, Nike had introduced shoes specifically for running, hell, even women started playing tennis, running track, and playing basketball in droves! ANd then POOF about 3 - 4 years later the fad had died.

Killdumpster said...

Charlie-
I never collected beer cans, but I knew a couple guys that did. In their defense, they only collected odd imports and limited edition Pittsburgh Pirates & Steelers cans.

When they got married their wives tossed them out.

Jimmy Carter got spanked by the Arab nations. The Iranian hostage crisis & the oil embargo were probably the main reasons for him not getting a second term.

Gasoline doubling in price and the odd/even license plate policy at the filling station was certainly a pain in the butt for this then-teen driver.

Anonymous said...

Huh. Charlie using the first person singular again.
Whats going on? Seems the dangermash-bot might have been on to something last time...

-sean

TC said...

"I'm Hillary Clinton, and I'm running for president of New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles County. And the rest of the country can go foxtrot uniform charlie kilo itself."

What's scary is, without the Electoral College, a candidate using that campaign strategy could win.

But, for Democrats, the idea of a few over-crowded metropolitan areas dominating a national election is a feature, not a bug.

Billy Carter was about as close to a Don Martin cartoon as a real person could be.

I remember Time After Time, with Malcolm McDowall and Mary Steenburgen. I've heard more than one person praise "Roddy McDowall" for his performance as H.G. Wells. Roddy McDowall got some of his highest praise for a movie that he was not in.

But then, I sometimes get that movie mixed up with that chick flick starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

"Time after time" is such a common phrase that it never occurred to me that the Cyndi Lauper song title might be based on one specific source. The same with Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day," which, according to the legend, was based on John Wayne's catchphrase in The Searchers.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Sean, et al.

I was talking to Charlie and he said, "Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblin of the mind."

I.e., it's a pain in the keester to write in the 3rd person, though fun, b/c in many foreign languages like French and German one speaks in the 3rd person.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

In a race... Batmobile, Black beauty, the Mach 5, or Munster Dragster?

Any other cool rides out there to be added to this list?

Killdumpster said...

Charlie, as a big fan of American muscle cars (and owning one), it breaks my heart to say the Mach 5.

How about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?! Lol!

I'd toss Mad Max's Interceptor on the list, but if cartoon cars are also included, we might as well throw in Wacky Racers, Speed Buggy, and some Transformers.

I always dug the cars in Roger Corman's
original "Deathrace 2000", and the Coyote from "Hardcastle & McCormick".

Kit from "Knight Rider" was just too goofy for me.

"Mannix" drove some cool cars.

Let's not bring up the General Lee...

TC, "Time After Time" is fragging excellent. Malcolm McDowell is one of my favorite living actors. I will watch anything he is in, even cheesy direct-to-video garbage.

Anonymous said...

Even Star Trek: Generations Kd?

-sean

Killdumpster said...

Oh man. I was thinking Chitty beats the Mach 5 because it can fly...but then...

The DeLorean from "Back To The Future" can time-travel. It can finish a race just as it starts.

I think there has to be some kind of rules set up for this hypothetical race, Charlie.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Charlie doesn't quite know how to quantify this supposed car race...

Comic book heroes (Bats and Black Beauty) and cartoons (Mach 5) and comic-esque TV shows (Munsters).

But if we have to include realistic TV / Movies then whatever the hell Steve McQueen was driving in Bullit in that car chase!!!

Killdumpster said...

McQueen drove a Mustang in Bullitt.