Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Just what treasures greeted us as we entered out local fleapit in June 1974?
Intriguingly, there was also a thriller which bore the enigmatic title of W and starred Twiggy. I must confess I've no idea what that one's about.
Of all those films, I think I've only ever seen Herbie Rides Again. Therefore, fate has left me no option but to declare that to be the Steve Does Comics official Film of the Month, although I suspect others may argue with me on that score.
Neal Adams gives us another stylish cover, although I do have to say his Shang-Chi has a strong Gil Kane vibe about him.
Inside, we get such tales as The Shaolin Priest of Laurel Canyon, The Dragon's Vengeance, The Dragon Has Entered! and, most importantly of all, The Origin of Shang-Chi as brought to us by Samurai Steve Englehart and Judo Jim Starlin themselves.
There's also a look at What Makes the Martial Arts Work? and Lee's Life. The latter being written by Denny O'Neil under the not at all unlikely pen name of Wan Chang O'Shaugnessy. Genuinely. That's the name he uses. I'm saying nothing.
Dr Strange gets yet another chance to prove he can carry a series of his own, with the launch of his brand new book.
A brand new title hits our afterlives, although it's destined to have only one issue.
Inside, we encounter Night of the She-Demon!, Keeping Track of Drac!, Have You Ever Seen a Huge, Black Vampire? and The Village Graveyard. The final two tales being 1950s reprints and the first being a yarn which features Lilith daughter of Dracula!
Because you can never have enough giant-size comics, we're also treated to another new title destined to last for just one outing.
Yes, it's that one. The concluding part of the yarn in which deceased clown Darrel re-enacts his life story, via the medium of our main cast, and Manny has to fight a trio of weirdos to save the ennui-stricken entertainer's soul.
Judging by that cover, everyone's favourite hero for hire has to tackle a villain called Cottonmouth.
It's time for all Ray Harryhausen fans to celebrate, as Marvel brings us its deathless adaptation of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, as related by Len Wein and George Tuska.
Just how much terror can a company pack into just 36 pages?
And another new mag hits our spinner racks!
And it starts in a memorable vein, thanks to the first-ever appearance of Silver Dagger who invades the Sanctum Sanctorum, stabs our hero in the back, helps himself to the Eye of Agamotto and imprisons Clea.
Things are looking grim - but, then, Strange is pulled into the Orb of Agamotto where he meets a talking caterpillar.
But who cares about longevity when we can have 52 pages of Dracula-related frolics?
And this one also has a vampire in it!
And a werewolf!
It would seem, from that cover, that the fiendishly fanged pair are destined to team up against everyone's favourite wall-crawler. How can even he hope to survive such an attack?
Successfully, I suspect.
And there's also a string of single-page pin-ups of Spider-Man's deadliest foes, as first presented in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 and drawn by no lesser man than Sturdy Steve Ditko.
I must admit that, if I didn't know a cottonmouth was a type of deadly snake, I wouldn't find the name a very menacing one for a villain. It'd have as much impact as Wool Fingers or Nylon Toes.
Who can forget the thrills as the sea-loving adventurer tackles six-armed goddesses, bat-things, centaurs and Tom Baker?
Not me. That's for sure.
We're about to find out!
In our first tale, a vampire sleeps for years after gorging on the victims of a nuclear war. When he awakens, however, he must confront the reality that there are no humans left and only robots remain.
In our second, a wealthy miser pretends to be dead - only to then discover that he really is dead!
In our third, a thief steals a ruby dedicated to the god of rain. With grim inevitability, he's then followed around by heavy rainfall until he returns the gem.
And, in our fourth, a genie is released when a man opens his bottle but because the man doesn't stake his claim to the creature, the genie has no master and responds by enslaving the whole world!
I possess little information about the contents of this one but I do know it includes a Roy Thomas and Barry Smith chiller in which a man becomes a movie star after striking a deal with a makeup artist. However, that man doesn't realise he's traded his soul for fame.
It is, of course, reprinted from 1970's Tower of Shadows #5.
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16 comments:
Steve, I guess Dr. Strange DID prove he could carry his own title, as this iteration lasted for 81 issues (his longest run, I believe). I enjoyed this issue very much back in the day, although in retrospect I suppose it’s a bit of a letdown after the previous mind-bending Sise-Neg Saga. I sure liked that Brunner / Giordano art.
I have much fondness for GIANT-SIZE CHILLERS 1, which is tied so closely to Dracula’s monthly continuity, it’s practically a bonus extra-long issue of TOMB OF DRACULA. Really, the only thing missing is Tom Palmer on the inks (and I think Frank Chiaramonte is a perfectly fine substitute).I liked Lilith a lot, and thought she had a lot of potential, but unfortunately her solo series in VAMPIRE TALES was kind of a dud. Bob Brown was not the ideal artist for a series starring a sexy female vampire.
MAN-THING 6 is another Gerber/ Ploog winner. Those guys were firing on all cylinders on their relatively short run.
Briefly, a few other noteworthy comics published that month:
TARZAN 231 has the first of four 8-page Korak back-up strips by Alex Nino. They’re perhaps a bit ‘conventional by his s darts — not as avant-garde or experimental as his Space Voyagers series in RIMA, for instance — but buggy competent and very pretty. Oh, and the lead Tarzan strip by Joe Kubert is predictably gorgeous as well.
MASTER OF KUNG FU 18 is Paul Gulacy’s debut on that title (and only his second published ‘Pro’ pencilling job). I was knocked out by it back in the day, and love it still. There is a part of me that prefers his earlier ‘exaggerated’ style over his technically more polished later work.
MIDNIGHT TALES 7 is a particularly solid issue of that title, with good work by Cuti, Staton, Sutton and Howard. Kinda surprised you didn’t mention this one, Steve…
I’m not a big fan of Gold Key’s THE OCCULT FILES OF DOCTOR SPEKTOR series, but George Wilson’s cover for issue 8 (featuring a very Marvel-ish Dracula) is wicked cool.
Marvel is scraping the bottom of the Monster barrel this month, debuting two more series: The Golem in STRANGE TALES and The Living Mummy in SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS. They’re both pretty lame.
Howls of Fan Outrage are heard across the land as Frank Robbins replaces Mike Kaluta on THE SHADOW. I didn’t see this issue on the spinner racks back in the day — don’t know what I would have thought of it if I had.
b.t.
OMG, forgive my terrible copy-editing! Regarding Nino’s Korak stories, it should read:
‘They’re perhaps a bit ‘conventional’ by his standards — etc etc — but highly competent and very pretty.’
Sorry about the incoherence!
b.t.
I didn't know a cottonmouth is a snake!
Readers of Marvel UK's Planet Of The Apes will remember that #35-38 featured the adaptation of The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad - I hadn't seen the film at the cinema so the Marvel version was my first experience of it.
Charlie has seen a few Cottonmouth snakes swimming in local rivers. Makes one think twice about swimming in a "woodlands" river.
Charlie has a fondness for Shadow #5: The cover invokes a wonderful WW2 nostalgia with the Nazis, that sketchy style a la Milton Caniff, and a dame. What's not to like about a cover of a dame dressed in red, no less?
Odd that Shadow #6 bounces right back to a fine Kaluta cover.
Charlie supposes in some ways he'd have liked to have been a fly on the wall when DC (and Marvel) was choosing artists e.g., for the Shadow. Were the merry editors thinking: "Wow! Our fans our going to love this! Ping-ponging between Kaluta and Robbins! We should charge twice as much and go to a monthly schedule!"
Seriously... were they just short of artists or what? Unfortunately there isn't sales data to see if the Robbins covers were causing massive increases in sales... or not?
Whose turn is it this month to be the SDC historian?
Shout out to Detective #441 as well! One of those super sized giant issues. There's a bunch of characters from Quality Comics featured: Plastic Man, Ibis, the Spider...
Why the heck wasn't Marvel reprinting more of it's Timely WW 2 stuff? Charlie scratches his head. Granted most of Timely's stuff looked very immature compared to Quality and Fawcett which DC now owned. But still... those crazy Alex Schaumburg Captain America's are cool in their own way! Or even Kirby's works. Why did Marvel leave them in the oldy moldy bin?
(Where's the SDC Historian?!)
Well, I'll be a Steve Does Comics historian for this thread, and point out that Tarzan #231 and The Shadow #5 were both cover dated July. You've really got to check for bi-monthlies when using Mike's Newsstand feature, lads!
I can't say for certain why Marvel didn't reprint Schomburg covers - and old Timely material generally - but I would assume it was because that stuff was seriously dated by the 70s, and just wouldn't have cut it with the general readership (I remember being distinctly unimpressed by an old 40s Sub-Mariner reprint I read in the back of an issue of the Invaders as a kid).
After all, they did reprint a fair amount of 50s Atlas stuff which they could get away with. For instance, the two oldie back-ups in Giant-Size Chillers #1 - '...Black Vampire' and 'Village Graveyard' - were drawn by John Romita and Russ Heath respectively.
-sean
Charlie, Kaluta has said that it was always a major struggle to meet his deadlines on THE SHADOW. Robbins was hired to draw #5 partly to allow Kaluta more time on issue #6, but after delivering the art for that issue, Carmine Infantino told him they were taking him off the book permanently.
Also, as for why Marvel didn’t reprint more of their Golden Age material : they didn’t have access to high-quality masters to print from , until relatively recently. The few GA Captain America stories reprinted in several issues of FANTASY MASTERWORKS back in the 1960s looked absolutely awful.
b.t.
*To be clear, that should have read 'check fir DC bi-monthlies' above. Duh. (But at least I'm not going on about comics from July '74)
b.t, Englehart's Dr Strange - both with Brunner and then Gene Colan - is one of my fave Marvel runs of the 70s.
But there's something about the first few issues of the solo title that doesn't quite work. I think it's Silver Dagger. Coming after Sise-Neg, and before Dormammu, Eternity, and all that New Atlantis stuff, Dr Strange - who's on the verge of becoming the Sorceror Supreme - has difficulties dealing with, er...some dodgy ex-cardinal who's got a knife? Eh.
-sean
Bt, Midnight Tales #7 was indeed a worthy addition to anyone's collection but I don't tend to cover anything except Marvel and DC in this feature.
Speaking of which, I can announce that I didn't have any of Marvel's comics, this month.
I did have two Charltons which were:
Midnight Tales #7.
Haunted #16.
I had four DCs. Which were:
Superman #276.
Witching Hour #43.
Flash #227.
Batman #256.
1974 continues it's memorable march! More of my favorite comics...
I must confess I found Dr. Strange #1 to be a gem; both story and art (and cover, as well). Perhaps my fondness is partly sentimental, as I got that book on a family road trip and it blew my youthful mind away in the back seat. Anyway, that caterpillar was a hoot, and the good Doctor seemed in dire straits indeed.
Of course Giant Size Super Heroes got me excited, with Spider-Man, monsters, Ditko pinups and a cool cover- it couldn't miss.
As b.t. noted, Man-Thing was a winner. Second part of one of the creepiest stories in comicdom. It cemented my admiration for the renderings of Mike Ploog.
Steve- I did also pick up that "Monsters of the Movies" mag. Even so, I can't recall a thing about it. Must not have been as memorable as the months' other offerings.
Once again, a talking caterpillar has shown us the way.
..Steve, I didn't know you guys got Charlton Comics in the U.K.
M.P.
MP, Charlton comics were very easy to find in the UK. So were Dell and Gold Key but I generally avoided Dell and Gold Key.
Red, I remember seeing house ads for Monsters of the Movies. I've always assumed it was a rip-off of Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Steve, those comics were easy for YOU to find because YOU lived in a city. I never saw ANY of them!
I don't know anything about these comics except reprints of the Dr Strange and the Swamp Thing.
But I do know 'The Parallax View' is one of my favourite films of all time.
'Chinatown' is not bad either!
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