Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
Christmas may be mere days away but there's no rest for the wicked, as I plunge, once more, into Santa's Great Big Stocking of History and see what Marvel's big-hitters were up to in their books that bore a cover date of December 1980.
Fortunately, that's when Thor shows up and gives the attackers a good slapping, meaning the FF only have to stand around watching while the thunder god clears up the whole sorry mess for them.
My memory is that Thor seems somewhat crowbarred into this story and I'm not sure what his motivation is for even turning up when he does.
With a name like, "The U-Foes," you'd be forgiven for thinking the Hulk's up against a gang of aliens but, instead, it's a quartet determined to recreate the incident which gave the Fantastic Four special abilities, by flying into those deadly Cosmic Rays, themselves.
Still in Canada, Nightcrawler and Wolverine, with the assistance of Alpha Flight, grapple with the Wendigo.
Mr Hyde's plan to blow up New York, with an oil tanker, continues but, now, he's up against not just Captain America but Batroc, as well.
If I recall correctly, some sort of bank worker gains super-powers, by some means I can't remember, declares himself to be called Locus and decides to rob the bank.
I do believe Conan's hired to break into a fortress and do something or other but, when he gets inside, it turns out the damsel-in-distress he's picked up along the way, is actually the evil wizard who owns the place, and Conan has to overcome his power of illusion, in order to kill him.
Ultron's back and still up to no good.
Spider-Man agrees to protect a ship that's sailing into waters liable to attack by Atlanteans.
Justin Hammer's nothing like as dead as everyone thought he was - and he's holding Tony Stark's girlfriend, along with a bunch of other people, hostage.
The wall-crawler finds himself battling a new foe called the Smuggler.
Unfortunately for them, by pure chance, Bruce Banner stumbles into their Mission Control and aborts their voyage, remotely, bringing them back to Earth, before their radiation dosage maxes out.
Needless to say, they're not pleased with him and, newly empowered, decide to teach him a lesson.
Needless to say, he teaches them a lesson, by turning into the Hulk and smashing them in the face until they're killed by their own powers.
Needless to say, we've all learned a valuable lesson today.
By means I can't remember, the beast is transformed back into his human form and the Canadian government shows its gratitude by disbanding Alpha Flight.
I assume this means they won't be wanting Wolverine back anymore.
How can the villain hope to triumph against such a combination?
He can't.
That's why he loses and New York's still standing, even as I type these words.
Unfortunately, for him, Don Blake just happens to be a customer at that establishment - and that means, it's only moments before Locus is up against the virtually all-powerful thunder god.
This time, he's managed to take over Tony Stark's mind and gets Shellhead to abduct the Scarlet Witch for him.
Happily, Hawkeye's around to defeat the rascally robot by inflicting the same fate upon it that befell the antagonist of Terminator II.
And, of course, this leads to a clash with the Sub-Mariner.
I'm assuming it all ends happily but can't really recall just how it's all settled.
Is Attuma mixed up in all this, somehow?
No one'll be surprised to hear Iron Man quickly shows up and rescues her.
But the horrible Hammer escapes to fight another day.
From that name, I'm guessing he and his gang are in the habit of smuggling things.
I've also a feeling this tale contains a strong vibe that the Smuggler is, in reality, the original Power-Man, still licking his wounds, after his defeat at the hands of Luke Cage.
Whether this is ever confirmed as being the case, I'm not sure.
We also get a back-up strip containing the White Tiger but I recall nothing of that one, at all.
Posts
39 comments:
The ASM Sub-Mariner story doesn't have Attuma in it. Just us surface dwellers building under water electricity generators in a place that causes problems for Atlantis, which annoys Namor who's started attacking ships. One ship takes on Spider-Man for protection against Namor and there's a big fight until they actually start talking and Namor reveals why he's attacking ships and suggests building underwater generators somewhere else. And suddenly it's all over and everybody's happy. It doesn't end perfectly, though, as in the very next issue Morrie Bench falls overboard and is turned into Hydro-Man.
And just googling around a bit (aka cheating) if seems that the Smuggler really is Eric Josten aka Power Man/Goliath.
And while I'm here, if anybody has a few minutes to spare, I've created a survey at https://poll.app.do/the-big-2020-poll where I'm looking to find out which of my 2020 artworks people like. These surveys always throw up huge surprises to me, so any responses to the survey are highly appreciated. It doesn't take long. You see 49 artworks, highlight the ones you like and click on send at the bottom.
In some ways it's a shame (and in lot more others iit isn't) that my twin brother Mike, t(e original artistic actuary, isn't around to see this.
In the X-Men Wendigo story, Snowbird defeated the Wendigo by transforming herself into a real Wolverine. This small fury animal - albeit a vicious one - defeated a creature that withstood Wolverine's adamantium claws. Hardly credible!
I seem to remember, the Avengers Ultron re-run had also appeared in this classy item, which is still on my bookshelf:
http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/2017/04/1979-marvel-novel-series-9-marvel.html
All in all, this selection reminds us 1980 saw several titles finished runs in which they'd been near - or at - the top of their game! Maybe, at the end of the year, we could discuss our highlights of 1980!
Phillip
furry animal - not 'fury' animal - I must Fury & the Howling Commandos on the brain!
Phillip
'have' between 'must' & 'Fury' - damn typos!
Phillip
Dangermash - I'm sorry to hear your brother passed away. The link doesn't seem to work, for some reason.
Phillip
Don't be too sorry Phillip. These gobby twin brothers called Mike aren't always what they seem (cough.....Daredevil #41........cough). I feel guilty now for stealing fraudulent sympathies.
As for the link, I tried it just now and it seems to work for me. Although it heads to a Facebook page for the poll and if you don't have a Facebook account I'm not sure what happens. Cheers for having a go though,
Sorry dangermash, I too am resisting the international globalist Zuckerberg conspiracy for world domination so cannot take part in your poll either.
Watch out for all those dead voters from Venezuela!
The best comic here, that I've read anyway, is Cap #252 Steve. You've got to give it to Roger Stern and John Byrne for not only producing decent Cap stories - something no-one else at Marvel seemed to be able to manage since Kirby - but doing it using Batroc/Batrok ze Leapair and Mr Hyde! Impressive.
A shame their run was so short.
Still, if it helped to clear the decks for Byrne to start on the FF then fair enough. Still a few more of those awful Moench/Sienkiewicz issues to go though unfortunately (stick to Moon Knight lads).
-sean
Dangermash, sadly, I'm not a member of Facebook either, so I too am barred from voting. I can share the page-link on Twitter, if you want, to encourage others who do have a Facebook account to vote.
It's nice to know my suspicions about the Smuggler were correct.
Sean, I agree. Captain America was great in this period. Interesting that my favourite two books from this month's selection were drawn by John Byrne.
Phillip, thinking about it, that X-Men resolution rings a bell. Doesn't Wolverine calm down Snowbird by using his natural affinity for animals?
Charlie don't know nothing about any of these. But Charlie is excited b/c he broke out the long boxes and sees he does have Xmen 141 for next month! Charlie will no longer be a know-nothing! (If you want, google the know-nothings, for US history trivia. 200 years later and some things never change. Groan.)
"U" Foes. Every time I see U in the world of Marvel it seems to be associated with Nazis not Cosmic Radiation foes. There are U-Boats, Uber-Man (especially sexy as drawn by Frank R@bb!ns), Uber Mensch...
But I agree Steve. We all learned not to travel in space based on that Hulk issue and I think Elon Musk is nutz for pushing it! Maybe Elon needs to start reading some comic books, lol.
DM - These remarks were not prepared in advance! And please say Hello to your bro!
Steve, its worth pointing out that Byrne co-plotted X-Men with Claremont, and I think he also worked quite closely with Stern on Cap.
Theres not really anything to compare in the case of the latter, but it seemed to me that the X-Men became noticeably less interesting once he left.
Just as it had become more readable after #109, when apparently Claremont was just about to write Wolverine out of the series...
-sean
Sean, once again I have to agree with you (this is as troublesome to me as it is to you; I have more fun arguing with you, frankly) but the Captain America comic is clearly the best of the bunch. It was a nice little arc, and you had Hyde in all his bestial crapulence playing off Batroc's goofy charm. The Cap comic was pretty good in them days.
Phil, I wanna go on record as saying I hate the X-Men, but I have this comic. It was the first X-men comic I ever bought. I went on hate-reading it for a few more issues.
I dunno, maybe I just hate Claremont.
Just reams of endless dialogue of characters talking about what bad-asses they are. "X-Men, hear me!" argh. It's like watching General Hospital.
I was also rather surprised that a small-w wolverine could take out a Hulk-level monster like the Wendigo. There must have been some kinda Canadian magic involved. Who knows.
On the whole, this is indeed a rather lackluster month of Marvel comics, Steve.
A lotta low cards in this hand.
M.P.
"X-Men, hear me!" is ok M.P., but for tough guy talk "No quarter asked, none given" or that old favourite "I'm good at what I do, but what I do isn't very good" would have been better.
Lenin's ghost, I wonder if Chris Claremont actually talks like that in real life...
-sean
"Do your worst, or your best!"
...And he just goes on and on like that.
It's tiresome, I tell you.
M.P.
Dangermash - in Daredevil, it was particularly silly when Matt's "brother", Mike, disguised himself as Thor, and everyone believed it. Thor is about 6ft 6" (according to the pocket book to which my link sends you), and twice Daredevil's size.
Steve - I seem to remember that about Wolverine calming Snowbird down, too. Nightcrawler seemed terrified of her, so it's just as well.
We all seem to be in agreement that the Byrne & Stern Captain America is the pick of the crop (except Charlie, who hasn't read it - yet!)
M.P. - the Byrne Wendigo, in the previous issue, had a plaster cast made of its massive footprint (a clear reference to Bigfoot) - plus, the Byrne Wendigo's bearded face (as drawn inside the comic) bears a resemblance to the $6m Dollar Man/Andre the Giant Bigfoot, which was also bearded. Maybe that's why this particular X-Men issue caught your eye!
Sean - that FF story should be entitled "The Island on Top of the World" FF story. Glad to see no-one else is on Facebook either.
X-Men went downhill fast after Byrne left - albeit Brent Andersen performed "yeoman service" in his fill in issue.
Phillip
No problems on not being able to get into that survey. I don't know why it goes through Facebook now when it didn't before.
I've just downloaded 'Cat People' from BBC iplayer - the b&w horror film from 1942. The last time I saw this film must have been in one of BBC 2's horror/sci-fi double-bills on Saturday nights in the '70s/early '80s.
The only one of those covers I recognize is Iron Man so I must have been buying the Marvel B-list comics at this time, such as Star Trek.
Sean - the title of FF # 225 "The Blind God's Tears" - how many Moorcock chapter titles does that remind you of? Stormbringer has "Dead God's Homecoming", "Sad Giant's Shield" - and there are many others. In fact, that use of the possessive ("genitive?") in chapter titles is one of Moorcock's stock in trade devices. Wasn't there "The Dead God's book", too - or something very similar? It was supposed to contain the answers to life, the universe, and everything, but when Elric touched it, the book crumbled into dust. I think it was in 'The Weird of the White Wolf'
Phillip
MP - make sure you see CJ's remarks about about "Cat People!" Not sure if this is of any value to you, since you do come out at night like those nocturnal, so elusive Florida Pumas! (Or perhaps you fancy yourself a Cougar like in Washington State or Yellowstone, ripping out the throats of unsuspecting tourists? That's fine with me. I mean, we all have our niche to fill.)
Colin, yes, it's a good film. I also like the 1944 sequel Curse of the Cat People which is bizarre in having almost no connection with the original film.
Phillip, the weirdest thing about that DD story is, if I remember right, Matt somehow manages to wear his Mike Murdock glasses under his Thor mask.
Sean and MP, I agree. Claremont did tend to go overboard with the internal monologue. I do wonder if the disappearance of internal monologue from US comics was a reaction against Claremont's writing on the X-Men?
Quite late to this party, but have to echo the consensus. Cap was good, much of the rest not so memorable. Really a lackluster month for Spidey. Oh well, not every month can be an Ock, Goblin or Kingpin.
Dangermash,speaking as one who is still on Facebook (for now, anyway) I tried your survey but also had no luck. Maybe using "2020" in the address was a spanner in the works (to coin a phrase I learned via John Lennon)...
Seems to me very likely that the disappearance of narrative text was a reaction to the way comics were written in the 70s generally Steve, although Claremont was hardly the worst offender.
I doubt it was a completely conscious reaction though - Alan Moore probably did more to change writing styles than anyone, yet early on he was regularly capable of purple prose that could leave Don McGregor speechless with envy (just check the monologue in Swamp Thing: Anatomy Lesson - "Its raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalk with leopard spots..." etc etc).
Moore says in interviews that it was actually David Lloyd who suggested getting rid of the captions and thought balloons in V for Vendetta, so he had to find other, more visual ways of getting information across to the reader that often turned out to be more effective...
-sean
Phillip, now you mention it, that FF story does read very much like the work of a Moorcock fan (and not just because of the title).
Fun fact: in the 60s Michael Moorcock used to write Karl the Viking for Lion comic.
-sean
Sean - I've got a couple of Lion Annuals - somewhere!
Phillip
That's weird Red. Let me have another go. It's at
https://poll.app.do/the-big-2020-poll
That's me copying and pasting. Maybe last time I just copied it out manually and that doesn,t work for some reason.
Charlie, I do walk regularly for exercise out here in South Dakota, lousy weather be damned.
I'm reminded of a line from a song by Iggy Pop:
"The neon forest is my home
And like a cartoon cat I roam..."
M.P.
P.S. Say...Steve. I noticed that to. There doesn't seem to be "thought bubbles" in comics anymore. No "internal monologue."
Y'know, maybe that's for the best. It seems sort of lazy writing if you just type out what a character is thinking, what his motivations are, instead of revealing them more subtly through the story or the art. Reveal it through what he's doing or saying. For example, you don't need to put a big thought bubble with all that exposition above, say, Batman's head, to show he's pissed off.
It's more powerful if you don't. Let the reader employ his own imagination.
M.P.
Dangermash- got it this time! Some cool work, well done..
Cheers for the vote Red. If anybody else wants to have a go, the link three comments above this one seems to be working.
Uh, this is a bit embarrassing, but when I wrote "thought bubble" I was actually referring to what is known as a "thought balloon."
Senility is setting in well ahead of schedule, apparently.
M.P.
Dangermash, I have now voted.
Don't worry, MP. I call them thought bubbles too.
M.P. - the internal monologue has pros & cons (stating the obvious, I know.) In Warlock's encounter with the Matriarch, the art fabulously depicts Adam's facial expressions, conveying his inner emotional state. But imagine if, as a writer, you got saddled with an artist who couldn't depict facial expression/emotion at all?
In Daredevil, internal monologues appear when DD is swinging from building to building, across the city, to find the villain - or whatever. To the reader, these scenes might be boring, without internal monologues to keep the reader's interest engaged, & keep their mind on what's important in the story.
Chris Claremont - I know he's not your favourite - excels at pacing, climaxes & crescendos. If all Cyclops's planning were done by showing, not telling (internal monologues), the Dark Phoenix Saga would have lasted about 50 issues! The emotional angst, however, could have been trimmed in places!
The point of internal monologues (I know you know this already) is to create a sense of intimacy with the reader, as you are hearing the character's inner thoughts. With Cyclops, you sometimes get too much of this, but in Jim Shooter's Avengers, Iron Man's frequent internal monologues (which are quite brief & don't hold up the action) are often extremely effective - e.g. "Thor's on the ropes - that's hard to believe - that means the direct approach is a waste of time..." etc.
Like I say, I know you've probably considered a lot of this stuff already.
Phillip
Phil, I think you made a very good point!
The complicated relationship between Warlock and the Matriarch is a very good example of somebody being both the artist and the writer. Starlin's vision was undiluted.
I think he was trying to deal with a lotta Catholic guilt.
I was raised as a Protestant, and we don't know what guilt is, exactly.
M.P.
Thanks for your vote Steve.
Everyone call them thought bubbles don't they?
Theres even a comic convention called that (well, ok, it is in Yorkshire...)
-sean
*calls them
-sean
I say "thought bubbles" too so we've confirmed you're not going senile, MP - not yet anyway.
By the way, I'm glad to see that Joe Biden has finally, OFFICIALLY become President-Elect (we know it's official because Putin has sent his congratulations). I did worry that Trump might stage a coup and declare himself President-For-Life.
MP - back when you and I had to do the marching thing in Uncle Sam's Army, did you ever sing the "tiny bubbles" song? Thought bubbles... tiny bubbles...
Colin - honestly there is no chance for a traditional coup in the USA. Unlike in Europe our military bases are many hundreds of miles away from Washington DC.
So, unlike the attempted coup in Paris in 1961, wherein soldiers, tanks, etc. were (I am guessing) probably a few dozen miles of Paris, Fort Bragg (82nd Airborne Division) is almost 400 miles from D.C.
If you wanted to throw some tanks into the fray, Ft. Benning GA is 750 miles away.
Besides, everyone would want to be done by dinner to smoke a blunt and maybe drink a beer, lol.
Now, if Trump wanted to like lead a secession movement, and take the contiguous Reddest of the Red states with him like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, I think most of the rest of us would give him our blessings. LOL. (You ain't lived til you are down south and they start calling you a "Yankee" and ask if "Y'all want some grits with your eggs." LOL.)
Post a Comment