Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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If you love Whispering Bob Harris, you were in luck in September 1971 because you were about to get a whole lot more of him.
You guessed it. It was the month in which BBC Two's legendary music series The Old Grey Whistle Test was first broadcast, helmed by the beardy wonder himself. Featuring actual live performances in the studio, and music videos that seemed to have been concocted by madmen, it was like Top of the Pops for adults, or Jools Holland's Later for people who don't like boogie-woogie piano.
And it wasn't the only thing of historic import that was occurring right then because September was also the month in which Britain's pre-decimal penny and threepenny coins ceased to be legal tender. How were we ever going to cope without a coin that allowed us to pay for things whose price ended in 3?
But, speaking of historical import, you may have noticed something odd is afoot. Instead of the usual look at what Marvel UK was up to on this date forty years ago, we're taking a look at what its parent company was doing a full decade earlier.
That's because Charlie's demanded a rescheduling for this post and, as a one-off ploy, that rescheduling has occurred. The Marvel UK post will appear on Sunday and, from then on, everything'll be back to normal.
The Amazing Spider-Man celebrates his 100th issue by having a nightmare that involves just about every major foe he's ever had - and then caps it all off by waking up with six arms!
Can things possibly get any worse?
Yes, they can. Morbius and the return of the Lizard are just around the corner.
Using the Falcon as a lackey, the Grey Gargoyle tricks SHIELD into taking him to the mountain fortress where Element X is stored.
I don't have a clue what Element X is but it seems it's a planet-destroying compound with only one weakness.
Stone.
I'm not sure how stone can be a compound's weakness but that's why I'm not a super-villain.
Regardless, I've no doubt the Gargoyle's plan will be thwarted.
Jenna's kidnapped by a mysterious winged creature, the last survivor of his race, who takes her up a tower surrounded by flesh-eating flowers.
The internet informs me Conan gets round this tricky problem by using a herd of woolly mammoths to scale the tower and rescue his girlfriend.
Hold on a minute, mammoths can scale towers?
Maybe he gets them to stand on each other's shoulders.
Yes. I am certain that must be what he does.
Are they really sure about that?
At last, the Incredible Hulk finally gets round to battling Dr Doom, as Vic decides Purple Pants is just the monster he needs for his fiendish attack on a neighbouring country.
Oh, Victor, will you never learn?
Iron Man battles a man who can melt his armour. Surely, the tin-clad titan is doomed!
More to the point, what monstrosity of a costume is the bad guy wearing? Why's he called the Slasher if his schtick is melting things? And just what are those things sticking out of his head?
How can Thor stop Durok? How?
He can't. He has to leave it to the Silver Surfer.
Can it be true? The Avengers disassembled?
By their own founders?
It certainly can, as Neal Adams contributes his first Avengers cover and the Kree/Skrull War rumbles ever onward.
It certainly can, as Neal Adams contributes his first Avengers cover and the Kree/Skrull War rumbles ever onward.
That's Marvel's big hitters taken care of.
But what about a random sampling of what the Distinguished Competition was up to at the time?
By all accounts, Ra's Al Ghul forces Batman to track down someone called Striss who's stolen the villain's secret formula.
In our main tale, Batman encounters Wildcat in Mexico and helps him and a friend locate some hidden treasure.
Meanwhile, the back-up tale reprints the origin of Deadman from way back in 1967.
DC gets so relevant it hurts when it's revealed that even the Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy is a junkie, these days.
In fairness, I think there's a pretty big clue in his name.
Inside, we get tales bearing such titles as I Was the Last Man on Earth, The Phantom Enemy, The New Arrival, I Fought the Clocks of Doom, The Witch's Candles, I Was Lost in a Mirage, Horror in the Lake, The Haunters from Beyond, I Was the Last Martian, I Hunted the World's Wildest Animals, The City of Three Dooms, Jungle Boy of Jupiter and The Mysterious Mr. Omen.
Needless to say, those are all separate stories, not just one story with an incredibly long title.
Wrightson doesn't appear to have drawn any of those stories but one of them is a Phantom Stranger adventure. So, that's something.
Although, judging by that cover, the reporter seems more concerned with the Thorn's impact on her love life than her impact on crime.
In the back-up tale, the world believes Lois has been turned into a reptile girl, during a nuclear accident!
However, we can all relax.
She's merely been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor.
To be honest, I'm not sure it's a combination that works all that well.
It's also a cover that gives us a photo of Don Rickles.
This all seems very strange.
Anyway, apparently, this is what happens. Lightray helps Superman escape a UFO, while Jimmy, Goody Rickles, and the Guardian foil Ugly Mannheim's plot to kill them.
I hope that synopsis made more sense to other people than it did to me.
The book that refuses to be predictable presents us with a whole clutch of terrifying tales.
In this case, they have titles such as Follow the Piper to Your Grave, The Cats Who Knew Too Much, The Ferry Was Waiting, The $30,000 Corpse, Queen of the Snows, Frightened to Death and Till Death Do Us Unite.
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32 comments:
I had to go check out Iron Man #41. Turns out that's not the Slasher on the cover. It's Demetrius, He casts psychic illusions, so Iron Man,s armour isn't really melting but he thinks it is. The Slasher is (as you'd imagine) some guy with sharp claws. They both sound pretty forgettable to me.
Full list of enemies in. Spiider-Man's dream, in order, are Vulture, Lizard, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Kingpin. One of the more sensible smorgasbords of villains - having Mindworm pop up as a Mysterio illusion in ASM #142 still rankles.
Louis Balfour, the host of 'Jazz Club', was based partly on Whispering Bob. Strange, as they're quite different. Nevertheless, "Nice!"
Phillip
Dangermash, thanks for ending my confusion about the Slasher.
Phillip, Louis is definitely as loose a parody of Bob as it could be possible to create.
Phil, re: your final comment in the previous post - I'm delighted you're now aware of 'Dinosaurs Of The Earth' but it was me that first mentioned it :)
Wow, there's a lot goin' on here.
For one thing, I always wondered about that issue of Jimmy Olsen.
You know they must've gotten Rickles' permission to do this.
I wonder what THAT conversation sounded like.
Then there's Batman's two-fisted team-up with Wildcat. I've got another issue of BatB where the Bat and the Cat team up. No explanation is given as to why Earth-One's Batman just sorta meets up with Wildcat, who's from Earth-Two.
Welcome to the Haneyverse, I guess.
I've got the issue where Bats teams up with Kamandi, but I'm afraid to go back and re-read it.
M.P.
Steve, Conan drives the mammoths through the field of flesh-eating flowers which crushes them, enabling him to reach the tower safely. "The Garden Of Fear" was written by Robert E. Howard but it wasn't a Conan story originally.
That Amazing Spider-Man cover still shines. Romita gave us another classic for the Wall of Fame.
Steve, I'm glad you mentioned the obvious 'wink, wink' about Speedy's name. Surely that occurred to the editors. And yes, I know, don't call you Shirley.
Oh, may I foist an early sidetrack upon all you fine folks and give a shout for the 2 new ABBA songs out tonight on YouTube? I grabbed every one of their lps 'back in the day' . Sure is nice to hear them again...
There is so much going on in this post of "50 years ago." In Charlie's mind these next two years are the climax of the Bronze Age, though some might say it could still be the Silver Age.
That's why Charlie was hoping that hence forth this could always be a Thursday post so Charlie could selfishly dial up SDC daily and get a fix 4 days in a row!
And then to throw in the DC comics!
Steve - I could give you a kiss you crazy hockey puck! This is too much!
CH47
SO riddle Charlie this...
Jazzy Johnny was famous for the two-character, quite simplistic, yet dramatic Spidey covers. E.g., ASM 64 just Spidey and Vulture. Or consider ASM 100 above which is very straight forward yet dramatic.
So when / how did Alex Schomburg bite John Romita and we start getting covers like Cap 141?
CH47
I reread ASM 100 a few months back. In part b/c I was feeling nostalgic having bought this off the spinner rack on a very warm Sunday morning 50 years ago, whilst walking to the Lake Michigan beach with my father. For some reason he detoured by the drug store that sold comics.
Then, as now, I was struck by how profound Stan intimated the love Peter felt for Gwen. Petey wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. So he was going to take a drug (obviously not the same drug as Speedy) to get rid of his Spidey powers forever... just for her.
To a 10 year old kid, this was pretty profound and thus laid the foundation for this relationship being as serious as anything could be to a 10 year old.
CH47
That Wrightson cover is a classic! I've seen that before. Some would-be sorcerer screws up when he's drawing his magic circle (to protect you from demons once you've summoned them, that's basic Goethe right there) and ends up with a demon sitting on his...er, face.
Actually that's kinda horrific, now that I think about it.
On another note, Charlie, you're an incorrigible romantic!
Ah, for the days of the spinner rack.
You knew your mom or your dad (as the case may be) was only get you one or two, or maybe three comics at most, so you spun that rack around and around and made your choices carefully, like you was an adult walking through a used car lot.
M.P.
Apologies, Colin. Setting the record straight:
"I've also learned about 'Dinosaurs of the Earth' from this one. Thanks Colin & Dangermash."
My full attention was absent - both from other people's SDC comments, and my own. Yesterday afternoon I wasn't 100 % sure we weren't getting 40 years ago, not 50 years ago. Hence, I was collating my notes - made over the past month - on each individual story in 'Savage Action', & 'Blockbuster', and deciding whether or not to proof read them all, or just 'wing it'.
Luckily, it was 50 years ago, so I breathed a sigh of relief. That gives me a couple of more days until Sunday. However, I may still just 'wing it', anyway, because I can't be bothered ; )
Charlie - As regards the drugstore, walking down to the shores of Lake Michigan, etc, you've hit the nail on the head. Many comics are so closely tied to particular childhood scenes/ memories, that if someone's cynical or dismissive about a certain comic, it's almost as if they're denigrating an important memory, too!
As regards Cap, I know the Sal & Steranko Caps; I also know the Gene Colan Cap - but somehow I missed the Romita Cap. Learning there's good stuff still out there, is useful to know.
Phillip
Phil, you're a gentleman and a scholar :D
CH47 does strongly recommend one at least read the ""Gargoyle" series in Cap America. I think 139 - 142.
The story is quite competent and well drawn.
The notion that Gargoyle is made of stone, a material we are all quite familiar with, seems to make his character all the more approachable.
And that the Gargoyle is a French scientist, and sports one of those pencil-line moustaches that seems so French lol, just makes it all the more culturally relevant.
But in all sincerity, do any of you know what would have inspired Romita to develop the quite busy covers we now see on Cap as opposed to the famous Spidey ones which often were just Spidey in confrontation with the villain and little in the way of background or other characters?
I find both quite enjoyable and I think Mr. Romita really shows how multi-talented he was but am just curious as to why the different approach.
CH47 here -
So in Stan's Soapbox this month, he lists all the artists and writers and inkers who touched Spidey since day 1, to get us to issue 100.
But here is my confusion. Stan writes,
"... John Buscema who continued our hero's exploits when we needed him the most."
When did Buscema work on Spidey? And how does one interpret Stan writing "when we needed him the most."
Is "him" referring to Buscema or Spidey?
As always, I am certain this venerable www site will produce the answers that Charlie 47 so dearly needs to continue putting one foot in front of the other!
CH47 here.
B.tw. you UK gents!!!
DId you know that 50 years ago your country was in the middle of a postal strike???
Stan had to send Joanie to the UK (she was British he writes) to pick up artwork from Barry Smith for Conan. (Barry has moved back to the UK for a couple years, it seems, but was now going to return to the USA.)
ALSO - she picked up musical material from a group called ICARUS which was used for a Marvel Album?
What is ICARUS? What is this album?
What was with the Postal Strike? (I hope that was not another Thatcher thing?)
And, where did Barry live? Someone please tell me Sheffield! Please!
Charlie, I have no recollection of the postal strike at all. However, it does seem odd that Barry couldn't have just used a private delivery firm to transport his artwork.
As far as I'm aware, Barry is a Londoner, complete with cockney accent.
Like Colin, I don't have a clue who Icarus were. They don't have a Wikipedia page. So, they clearly didn't make much of an impact.
John Buscema drew most of the issues of Amazing Spider-Man from #72 through to #85, either on his own or in conjunction with John Romita and or Jim Mooney.
Redartz, I've yet to hear the new ABBA tracks. I shall listen to them tonight and then share my thoughts upon them.
Colin, thanks for the Conan mammoth clarification.
Charlie has an ASM question, so dangermash is here, just when he needs me the most. John Buscema was involved in ASM #72, 73, 76-81, 84 and 85. So he ha e in during the tablet saga and finished before Captain Stacy's number came in. It's hard to say exactly how involved he was because this was during the period when the credits would lump Lee/Romita/Buscema or Lee/Romita/Heck or Lee/Romita/Rooney or Lee/Buscema/Rooney or whoever (you get the picture) together as creators rather than crediting them with individual contributions.
As for "just when we needed him the most", my guess would be that John Romita was overworked at that point, maybe with other strips (FF? Cap?) or maybe this was when he was promoted to art director and that was keeping him busy.
FWIW, I really like Big John's artwork in these issues. His depiction of Silvermane in ASM #73 is amazing.
dangermash has it right, i think, about Big John Buscema ‘coming to the rescue’. Romita is on record about struggling with The Marvel Method at times. After working pretty closely together in the beginning, Stan began delegating more and more of the plotting to Romita. Stan’s input could sometimes be as little as ‘Okay, this ish, Doc Ock is back and he’s, i dunno, stealing some stuff… and Aunt May’s still in the hospital, and Peter’s broke and can’t pay the Doctor’s bill, and…. and you can figure out the rest, right, Johnny?’
Immediately prior to ASM 72, Romita was feeling particularly over-whelmed and Buscema was brought in to help plot, lay out, etc. And here’s how amazing Buscema was — he HATED doing Spider-Man, didn’t like the lead character or the supporting cast, hated drawing buildings and cars, and you’d never know it from looking at those issues. They’re terrific.
Philip:
I definitely recommend tracking down the Romita issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA. He only drew like 5 or 6 issues and they all swing. The entire run is in ESSENTIAL CAP Volume 3 — if you can find a cheap copy, that’d probably be the easiest way to get ‘em (and Romita’s stuff looks fab in b/w too).
b.t.
Cover of the Month- Weird Mystery Tales. although I'm tempted to say Jimmy Olsen too...
I love Whispering Bob Harris- apparently the late John Peel used to regularly be asked for autographs from people who had mistaken him for Whispering Bob!
b.t. - I'll bear that in mind. To me, at his best, Romita was Spider-man's top artist. It's true I often mull over which artists look best in colour, and which in black & white! John Buscema (for superheroes only), better in colour - also Herb Trimpe, Tuska & Byrne (with 2 exceptions) - better in colour. However, Sal Buscema, except perhaps with weak inkers, better in black & white. Also, Ron Wilson perhaps the same. Colan - with dark shadows, & Tom Palmer inks - better in b&w ( usually!)
Dave - Bob Harris conveyed a mutual understanding with the viewer, as if he assumed you 'got' whatever little gem he'd found for you. I think that's the only thing Bob shares with Louis Balfour of Jazz Club! Jazz Club's humour arises because Balfour assumes the viewer shares his own appreciation of the music - "Nice!" - as Bob Harris did (thinking there's a consensus) - when, to the viewer, it's actually total garbage!
Phillip
Nowadays Bob Harris has a country-music show on Radio 2 called Bob Harris Country...how did they come up with such an original and ingenious title?
I've been listening to the two new ABBA songs which are typically and unmistakably ABBA - 'I Still Have Faith In You' is a big weepie ballad over six minutes long and 'Don't Shut Me Down' is a very catchy pop song. Both are fine but I prefer the second one.
I've also been watching 'Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves' on BBC iplayer. This was the last film I went to see at the cinema (in August 1991) and it's even worse than I remembered.
You know... I had that Jimmy Olsen issue.
I'm a sucker for Golden Age and there's the Guardian on the cover, I loved watching Don Rickles in various roles notably Kelly's Heroes, and then you have Kirby and Neal Adams. What's not to love? Well... One could say it was more interesting as a piece of nostalgia than as a solid comic.
So... I read it this past year and then had to downsize it. RIP Nostalgia, LOL.
I’m usually not super-keen on the KirbyAdams combo myself, but I quite like this one. The fact that it was one of my very first Kirby comics has something to do with it, I’m sure. Also, it has two of Kirby’s All-Time Best Blockbusting Blurbs : the famous ‘DON’T ASK — JUST BUY IT!’ and ‘RUSHING TOWARDS THE GREATEST CLIMAX IN COMICS’ (spoiler: it’s a DECENT climax, but I doubt it’s in anyone’s Top Ten).
b.t.
b.t., I've read that about Buscema too...he particularly hated drawing buildings.
Who can blame him? I look at city scenes drawn by guys like Perez or Byrne where the reader is looking at NYC from above, and think, "Man, that must have been tedious to draw." Maybe they do it with computers these days. I dunno.
Buscema liked drawing Conan, because there was probably never gonna be a story where Conan was walking around in any place that looked like 20th century Manhattan. Maybe a hut or a temple, or something. Some rocks, some trees, a lovely wench, a monster or two...
I wonder how he felt about drawing horses. That looks complicated to me.
Phil, I completely agree with you about Romita. It's kind of a golden age of Spider-Man, for me, anyway, although I only know of it from reprints.
It's got a nice 60's vibe to it.
M.P.
Apparently Buscema's favourite character to draw was Ka-Zar! I heard Doug Moench say that on a podcast recently. Moench asked Buscema if Conan was his favourite to draw, and he replied that he preferred Ka-Zar because it took place in the jungle, whereas Conan had buildings and towns!
According to 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way', at least when a layman (myself)reads the book, it seems positioning characters correctly, in relation to buildings - in terms of perspective - requires the skill-set of a professional artist, it being quite an involved process. Dangermash & Killdumpster are more qualified to comment than myself - but you certainly couldn't rush off a buildings scene, with figures, in five minutes!
Phillip
Drawing buildings would be way more hassle than jungle mad mountain backgrounds, that's for sure.
Charlie, my understanding is that Barry Smith didn't have much choice about returning to the UK - Forest Gate, east London to be precise - during his Conan run, as he was caught by la Migra without a green card.
It might have inconvenienced Marvel, but on the plus side while he was here we did get Barry's "Wizard of Football" in the 1972 Buster Annual as a result.
Steve, its a bit misleading to write that in the back up tale from Lois Lane #114 our eponymous heroine had "merely been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter" - actually, that was all part of a Superman and Supergirl plan to take down some midget alien space pirates.
The main story in that issue is a follow up to "I Am Curious (Black)" from #106, the one in which Lois becomes a black woman. Thats had a fair bit of coverage in various blogs over the years - generally of the "what were they thinking?" variety - but I reckon both stories are pretty good for what they are.
The one in #114 deals with what we would now call gentrification, which is really forward thinking for 1971.
-sean
A lot of the later issues of Lois Lane are surprisingly good- well-told stories with more depth to them than the tales that the main Superman titles were publishing in the early 70s.
I definitely need to read more Lois Lanes, in the near-future. I've barely read any of them since I was a kid.
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