Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Snow! Snow! Wherever I look, there's nothing but snow!
Which is kind of worrying, as I'm looking at my living room.
There's only one thing I can do.
And that's to take refuge in the past, that magical land where the sun always shone and there was always something in a brand-new comic to make us feel warm inside.
How can such a thing be possible?
Because one of them's a phony. That's how.
Cupid, put down that bow because someone called Primus has decided to wreck Cap's love life by impersonating him and being a rubbish boyfriend.
Can the foul fiend succeed?
And is he all that fiendish, anyway?
And Machine Man wins, even though he's not even looking for a fight and only showed up at Tony Stark's factory in a bid to make friends with Shellhead.
Both the fight and the defeat are down to the fact our hero's decided to hit the bottle again and is in no fit state to be either fighting or befriending.
But little does he suspect the incident will lead to a discovery beneath the streets of New York.
One that will see an all-new, all-bothersome version of the Green Goblin come into being.
And this one's orange!
Yes! In this very issue, the menace the world knows as the Orange Goblin is born!
However, the giant's been injured and the delirium from his wounds causes him to lash out at his planned saviour.
Fortunately, the medical skills of Don Blake are enough to fix the situation and, as you'd hope, everyone ends up as friends.
Except for Sif who's definitely not feeling like a friend of Midgard and is refusing to change her ways in order to fit in.
Or is she? It seems our hero has got her to hospital just in the nick of time.
So, at least he's not going to have to rely on The Hand to bring her back.
Just when you thought life couldn't get any more complicated for the X-Men, their professor's possessed by a Brood embryo and sets out to kill his students.
Rather inconveniently, this means he suffers what must be his 37th death, so far.
But help is at hand, as Lilandra and her space-friends manage to knock together a cloned body and then transplant his mind into it, meaning he's not only alive again but can walk, as well!
Blimey! Talk about a result!
However, I have no doubts the barbarian will win out in the end.
Does this mean this issue's interior's also presented on its side in the style of Marvel UK's old Titans comic?
I can't remember.
But I do recall that the first family of super-heroing are still in the Negative Zone.
And that Alicia's still back home and still being menaced by Annihilus.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Avengers are hanging around in their luxury mansion, being a proper bunch of sad sacks.
Fortunately, the man without fear is on hand to make him see sense.
Still in his Hulk form, Bruce Banner sets out to rescue Bereet and Rick Jones from the Leader's space-happy lair but, lacking the Hulk's brainlessness proves an insuperable handicap against such a foe and, confronted by massive odds, Bruce can only encounter feeble defeat.
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18 comments:
1.) Captain America's left-handed (like Daredevil!)
2.) Felicia Hardy resembles an old aged pensioner.
Phillip
Huh. It just occurred to Charlie that Marvel thought itself clever enough to murder girlfriends and serve up divorce papers 10 years earlier. Or turn heoes into drunkards and wife beaters (?) by this time.
Yet not so clever as to find another pretense for rock ‘em-sock’em than mistaken intentions or masquerading as the hero?
Chumps.
The thing about a doppelganger taking advantage of the hero's girl was also in Squadron Supreme # 8.
Phillip
Yes, Steve, the interior of FF #252 is printed sideways, so you have to read it horizontally. Er, the comic I mean (although of course theres no reason you couldn't be horizontal too, if thats what you wanted). But its not quite like the old Titans comic in that you don't get two pages per page, just the one long one. And its stapled like a regular comic.
Having the FF investigating the Negative Zone - making them explorers, and doing something new for a change rather than just going with the same old returning villains - seemed like a promising idea, but unfortunately it didn't really work imo. The Negative Zone turned out to be pretty much the same as outer space, which was a bit pointless, and made the sideways format seem like a gimmick rather than some smart way of representing a different reality (just doing it for the one issue didn't help with that either).
Funnily enough, the previous month Cerebus #44 adopted the same sideways format. Maybe it was some Canadian thing?
Dave Sim used it much more effectively, for six issues, giving Cerebus' time as prime minister of Iest a wide screen feel distinct from the rest of the 'High Society' storyline. Theres a great sequence near the end, in #49, where Cerebus has had way too much drink, and the placement of the word balloons and then arrangement of panels means you have to start turning the comic around and upside down to read it... its really well done.
-sean
Correction: Cerebus used the sideways format for seven issues, not six. Duh.
-sean
Best Cover?
The FF is gimmicky but undeniably effective.
The CONAN is completely ‘By-The-Numbers’ but well-executed. Big John sure could draw pretty ladies.
The DAREDEVIL would be much improved if DD’s right leg had been whited-out. So awkward.
ASM has Free Lakeside Skin Tatoos Inside! Did Marvel’s UK Division publish this issue?
b.t.
Imagine Steranko on the Hulk outer space cover a la 1968 given his Nick Fury in space cover.
OK, we’re edging into the period where I was just starting to buy American comics, after mainly being into the UK renaissance stuff.
I definitely had that Iron Man, though I think I picked it up cheap as a back issue. I used to like Luke McDonnell art back then but I subsequently slimmed my whole collection down to the single issue where Tony Stark has a Dark Night Of The Soul and delivers his alcoholic girlfriend’s baby in a blizzard and is prompted to sober up. That’s a good one.
For some crazy reason I definitely had that Conan, but no idea why. It’s surely the only issue I ever picked up.
DD 192! I really like these few issues after Miller left. It’s like Janson was determined to go as dark and near-abstract as possible, and the scripts were just as murky. This one is by itinerant writer Alan Brennert who (I was startled to see in the credits of some US TV show at the end of the 80s, showing there was life outside of comics for writers), but Denny O’Neill takes over afterwards and goes to some very dark moral corners for a while. Looking forward to this short 6-issue run finally making it to a Marvel Masterworks reprint in 2024/5.
I wonder if John ‘jealous of Alan Moore’ Byrne saw the cover of Watchmen #1 a few years later and said ‘I did that first! He copied me!’
Matthew as you were just starting to buy US comics in 1983, I was slowly moving away from Marvel and DC preferring the "indies" like Cerbus, Love and Rockets etc. I still picked up a few titles like Byrnes FF, Moon Knight etc but their appeal to me was dwindling at this time....for now at least!
Alan Brennert mainly worked in tv back then too - I think he started out as a writer on the old Wonder Woman series with Lynda Carter? - which is why his comic book work was fairly occasional. What there was of it had mostly been for DC, like the lead story in Detective Comics #500 and that Earth 2 Batman/Catwoman issue of Brave & the Bold, so an interesting choice to write the first post-Miller issue of Daredevil. And quite a good one
Apparently nobody at Marvel wanted to follow Fearless Frank straight away!
-sean
Paul, even putting independents to one side, early '83 is the point when DC started being a lot more interesting than Marvel again.
-sean
Sean, I did delve into a few DCs at this time like Night Force and Frank Milllers Ronin and of course i picked up the odd issue of my favourite titles like Swamp Thing and the Legion of Super-Heroes....and errr Captain Carrott ( seriously) 😀
Steve, for me it was snow, snow last week but this morning it was wind and rain which was totally horrendous. I was walking back home from Tesco and it was pointless even attempting to put up an umbrella!
McScotty- we were apparently on the same wavelength at the time! I was getting fewer and fewer Marvels (athough I was enthusiastic about the Roger Stern Amazing Spider-Man). More indies; some DC. Legion was solid, and Swamp Thing, and frequently getting Detective and Action.
That Spidey issue introducing Hobgoblin was pretty big; at first I wasn't sure about it but they convinced me in short order. Of course now there are apparently a countless number of "Goblins". Influential fellow, that Norman Osborn.
That may have been the last issue of "Avengers" that i purchased; it had suffered such a decline from the Perez/Byrne/Shooter days. X-Men was off my buy list too, and Daredevil- granted, I must have missed some good issues...
By the way, I also must admit to picking up "Captain Carrott"...
Regretfully, I never picked up Captain Carrot. I am more a Flaming Carrot man.
Paul, Ronin #1 is probably a good marker for the turning point at DC - it gave them Miller, and not too long after that Moore turned up on Swamp Thing - although its still a few months away from this point.
But checking what they put out in March '83, they're already doing quite well compared to Marvel. Like, theres the dollar comic Superman Special #1, written and drawn - inks too - by the mighty Gil Kane! For anyone who ever wanted to see up Superman's nose...
People forget he was a regular Supes artist for a while - he drew the Man of Steel story in this months Action Comics too - and they've got Gene Colan on Wonder Woman and, usually, Batman as well as Night Force. (Btw, on the subject of Batman, it seems that Alan Brennert story with Catwoman came out the month after DD #192, in the April '83 dated Brave and the Bold #197).
Plus, theres Brian Bolland on Camelot 3000 #4, and Dave Gibbons is around, on back ups for Flash #319 and Green Lantern #162, featuring the Creeper and GL Corps respectively.
-sean
Colin, the same here. Going out, this morning, I was struck by how many trees had been brought down by the weather. Some from the weight of snow, and some from the strength of the wind.
Bt, I'd say the X-Men cover is my favourite of the ones above. It's not very original but it has an elegant economy of line.
Steve, so Iron Man loses a fight with Machine Man in that issue?
I might have to check that out. I'll read any comic where Tony Stark gets beaten up, just on general principle.
The weather has been lousy here too! Cripes. Every time the snow starts to melt, we get dumped on again.
What pagan gods have we pissed off, I wonder?
M.P.
Steve - Your remarks on PPSSM are pretty funny!
MP - It sux goose eggs here in Chicago too. If one lives in Chicago one must accept that life is monochrome 6 months of the year best photographed in black and white.
Charles
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