Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
This week in 1973 saw no sign of change at the top of the singles chart, with Gary Glitter's I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am) retaining the Number One spot it had already held for some time.
However, there was certainly change at the pinnacle of the corresponding album chart, with Peters and Lee's We Can Make It doing precisely that and making it all the way to Number One.
Not only that but, in doing so, the tuneful twosome were fending off the challenge of not one but two David Bowie albums because Aladdin Sane and Hunky Dory were at Number Two and Three respectively. In fact, Bowie, that week, had five albums in the Top 30.
It's an epoch-shattering day for Marvel UK, as the Avengers make their blockbusting debut in its pages. That devilish fiend Loki has come up with a plan that involves something or other which, thanks to a misdirected radio signal, leads to five of the company's greatest heroes uniting to lock him in a lead chamber.
I can't help feeling that wasn't the best plan he ever had.
Regardless, a brand new super-team is born and it can only lead to an exciting development for British comics fans, in the not-too-distant future.
Meanwhile, in their strip, the Fantastic Four are still battling the malevolent menace of the Hate-Monger.
Perhaps not so legendarily, in Thor's strip, Loki - showing no signs of being locked in a lead chamber - sends the Cobra and Mr Hyde to kidnap Jane Foster!
As a result of it all, we get to discover that Thor has the power to make time stand still. A power I can't remember ever being used again.
Then again, he once defeated the Absorbing Man by using his power to transmute elements. Another power I don't remember him ever using again.
But forget all that. All that really matters is that, once more, we have a chance to win £1 per week for a year!
Posts
26 comments:
Apparently in SMCW, one of the pages near the start of the story while Spider–Man is under all the rubble/machinery and feeling sorry for himself was left out! A criminal act in my opinion, trashing Ditko's greatest sequence. Like cropping the Mona Lisa t9 fit it in a frame that's the wrong size.
Good lord! That is sacrilege! That is the main reason i didnt load up on a lot of Marvel reprints like Marvel Classics, Marvel Tales when you paid $.25 for 64 pages… i always figured they’d chop up a story to make the page count work.
Not sure if DC did the same with their 100 page Giants? I never had the perception they did but who knowz.
Charlez
By the way, I was in my local comic book store today, since I had to get to the other side of the train tracks, and I was waiting for two trains to pass. I just had an Epiphany! They don’t put word balloons on covors anymore, or very, very seldom anyhow.
You know, that's right - they don't put word balloons on covers anymore. Its amazing no-one noticed til now.
Anyhow, Steve, its not surprising you're a bit vague about Loki's plan in Avengers #1, as it is an odd one. Like, why fit up the Hulk for bombing a train and then go through all the hassle of redirecting radio signals from the FF if what you want to do is convince Thor to return to Asgard? Wouldn't it have been easier - and more straight forward - for Loki to just appear as himself to Don Blake?
Not sure why he'd expect Thor to then free him from the Isle of Silence, and take him to Earth... But hey, it worked! So obviously Loki knew what he was doing (and clearly Thor is really stupid).
It was lucky for our heroes that Americans keep nuclear waste in lead lined chambers under secret trap doors in car factories really.
-sean
* Oops, I meant why fit up the Hulk for wrecking a train.
I forgot for a moment that the dynamite was an illusion. Duh.
Btw, as well as the debut of the Avengers, that story also featured the return of Rick Jones' Teen Brigade!
-sean
Sean, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but I for one noticed ages ago that word balloons don't appear on covers anymore!
Or very rarely - in fact a Marvel cover featured a word balloon just a couple of weeks ago (I check the new Marvel releases fairly regularly).
I don’t remember the exact date when word balloons (and cover blurbs too) began to disappear on Marvel covers, but the covers posted on Steve’s “Marvel Lucky Bag — August 1983” last Sunday, there are very few words to be found below the logo. So the trend was in full swing by then, at least.
I’m pretty sure the absence of balloons and blurbs was someone’s brilliant idea to make the covers look less “childish” or something — but more often than not, I think it just makes them look incomplete.
Look at Brent Anderson’s HULK ANNUAL 12 cover — just a big generic image of Ol’ Greenskin with no background — it gives the prospective reader not even a hint of what kind of story they’re expected to spend their hard-earned money on (beyond “Hulk is angry and will smash something” — which is a given).
b.t.
Thor had a lotta crazy powers in the early days. He could time travel, and once, he even "magnetized" Surtur to an asteroid.
Another weird thing was, Surtur was man-sized at this point.
They really needed to reign him in some.
It's been a long time since I've read any new comics, but when I still was, they had seemed to have abandoned "thought balloons" entirely. I don't mean just on covers, I mean everywhere.
Actually, I think that happened at some point in the '90's. Now it's like discreet boxes of mental dialogue, which are sometimes color-coded. That way you know who thunk it!
Probably for the best. Rather more subtle, I guess.
M.P.
M.P. - As regards crazy, one-off powers, Thor's "space warp" against Nefaria also springs to mind. Then again, that may not be a "one-off". Did Thor use it previously against Mangog (or some other super-tough foe?) My memory's a bit hazy!
Phillip
There was a time when Marvel's US covers had no word balloons - then, about 1970, they suddenly became very chatty indeed. I seem to recall in an interview Roy Thomas said "the word came down from on high...", or "market research showed...." anyway, it was "Behold the power of X!" and "If I don't hang on - I've had it!" from then on for the next 40-odd years.
Anyway, didn't I read somewhere that the Avengers only happened because Bill Everett was late with a Daredevil issue, and Jack Kirby virtually drew it over the weekend because time on the presses was booked and they needed something to send....? I could have it all wrong, of course...
Well, when I was at the comic book store yesterday, and had my Epiphany about the absence of ward balloons I started talking with the kid running the shop who is probably in his late teens early 20s about missing word balloons.
He said well, sir, if you are after word balloons here, let me show you something you might be interested in. He ran over to the fantastic foot back issue box and started pulling out fantastic fours from 40 years ago today of which some Steve has recently featured in his 40-years-ago, blog, lol.
I’m tired of getting older and feeling older through interactions with young people! I think I am going to become a Spanish conquistador, a la Ponce de Leon, and start trudging through the swamps of Florida to look for the mythical fountain of youth!
Charlie
COLIN! I also go to the comic book store if for no other reason just to see the new covers on the comics. And I actually think it was the presence of a word balloon on a marvel cover from this month or last month, on display, that kicked me in the head and realized”wait! none of the other Comics have any word balloons!” Ah well… Charlie can be slow on the up beat now and then lol.
Charlie, I check the latest Marvel covers online rather than going to my local comic-book store but if I'm passing I do look in the window as all the new comics are displayed on shelves next to the window. The last time I went in and bought a comic was in December 2021 - the comic was Conan The Barbarian #25 (from Marvel) which was the final issue of the run. Obviously that was during the pandemic and I remember the shop-assistant wasn't wearing a mask but he had a badge saying "I can't wear a mask due to medical issues".
Charlie, going to Florida is never the answer.
To anything.
M.P.
Woke goes to Florida to die according to Governor Ron DeSantis. Old people also go to Florida to die.
FLORIDA is where all the soon-to-be “12 steppers” go as thier last act of denial, imho. Their “low taxes” ensure a steady stream of piss-poor educated youth, very high crime rates, and votes for a bone-spur.
Also my brother just moved to Tampa. He is divorced, roughly 60 years old. He lives in Tampa now. But he was looking into the “the villages “and I was asking him if they truly have a highest STD rate in the United States. He laughed, and said he thought it was just a marketing gimmick meant to attract more over-60s Who want to be naughty LOL.
Btw… there is all this talk about the Gulf of Mexico being hot and damaging the Florida reefs. Charlie did not know this but 98% of Florida’s reefs are already dead at this point! Wow!
My understanding is that half of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia has died just in the last five years, Charlie, and 90% of the coral left is bleached and barren.
But hey - at least Florida still has patriots like Ron DeSanctimonious and that lot in charge to the protect the people from the woke Marxist 'climate change' hoax.
And their kids from dirty books like Art Spiegelman's 'Maus'...
-sean
*to protect the people
Apologies for that stray 'the' there... Duh. Poor editing.
-sean
In the mid-80s, Miami was the epitome of cool (due to Miami Vice). Now, Florida seems to be the polar opposite. How the Mighty have fallen!
Phillip
Nah, Florida has always been like that, Phillip. Hence the expression 'Florida crackers', which goes back to the colonial era.
And to prove I did not just make that up -
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker
-sean
Sean - That's interesting. I'd always assumed "craic" was purely of Irish derivation, not Middle-English! The pride in being a "Florida cracker" seems equivalent to being a Boston Brahmin, or those Aussies proud to trace themselves back to the convicts, originally transported to that colony (sometimes for trivial offences).
Phillip
I haven’t read SEANs link but now and then we discuss the term “cracker” here and always conclude its a white man (color of a cracker here) a more frail white man (crumbling like a cracker), or a whip cracker overseeing slaves.
In the 70s/80s, comedian Frank Carson's catchphrase was: "It's a cracker!" - usually after telling a joke.
Phillip
Even among the English one still 'cracks' a joke, Phillip.
-sean
Post a Comment