Sunday 8 September 2024

Forty years ago today - September 1984.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon
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I feel this is a feature that needs no introduction.

But that won't prevent me from trying to think of one.

Thor #347

Now things get magicky and enchanty because, as far as I can remember, Thor and his new friend Roger travel all the way to England to rescue Lorelei from Malekith, with the thunder god still blissfully unaware that she's not what she claims to be.

Meanwhile, still in search of a reason to live, Balder bumps into a Norn.

Meanwhiler, ever the optimist and never short of a reason to live, Surtur eagerly makes preparations for his latest attempt to lay waste the planet Earth!

Fantastic Four #270

Can it be? Does that cover mean what it threatens to? Has Tomazooma returned from his robo-grave to torment Wyatt Wingfoot's tribe?

No, he hasn't. Instead, it's an alien called Terminus who's out to strip the Earth of its natural goodies.

Needless to say, the two members of the FF who've turned out to stop him aren't going to put up with those sorts of shenanigans.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Johnny Storm's hormones are starting to notice that Alicia isn't just a friend of the Fantastic Four.

She's also a woman.

A luscious and gorgeous woman.

Which is a bit concerning to some of us, bearing in mind it's already been established that she looks exactly like his sister.

The Uncanny X-Men #185, Rogue vs Storm

Following her raid on SHIELD's Helicarrier, the US government's determined to stop Rogue, by whatever means necessary.

And, seemingly, those necessary means include shooting Storm with a gun that removes its victim's super-powers!

The Spectacular Spider-Man #94, Cloak and Dagger

As the cover makes plain, Cloak and Dagger are back on the scene. Despite that, I don't recall just what it is they're up to.

I'm going to guess they're still waging a remorseless war on drugs and that Spider-Man still doesn't approve of it.

In other news, I do recall the Kingpin's decided to turn Silvermane's corpse into a cyborg assassin and let it loose on the streets of New York.

The Incredible Hulk #299, Dr Strange

Spurred on by Nightmare's psychic proddings, the Hulk finally finds Dr Strange, in an attempt to get aid with whatever it is he needs aid with. But it seems that, in his near-mindless state, the beast is beyond the help of even the Sorcerer Supreme.

Captain America #297, Bucky

Captain America breaks the habit of a lifetime by going on and on and on about the death of Bucky.

But it's all down to a plot by the Red Skull, Baron Zemo and Mother Superior.

However, not all is well in Camp Evil, as Mother Superior and Zemo are increasingly at each other's throats and the Skull displays his epic parenting skills by favouring the Baron over his own daughter.

The Avengers #247, the Uni-Mind

The Eternals, and the odd Avenger, gather together for the latest revival of the Uni-Mind.

But all is not as it seems and, somewhere in Olympia, lurks a villain who's out to use the situation to his own advantage.

Meanwhile, in Europe, a talking cow has died and this causes Quicksilver much anguish.

We also get confirmation that the inhabitants of Titan, including Thanos, are Eternals and originated on the planet Earth.

Daredevil #210

Daredevil's creative team launch their latest brave attempt to make Micah Synn be a thing.

I predict that, at the end of it all, he will still not manage to be a thing.

This time, the reprehensible rain-forest rotter takes out a restraining order against Daredevil and teams up with Crossbow before realising the man without fear is none other than blind lawyer Matt Murdock. 

But it's not all good news for tinpot Tarzan - because, in another part of New York, the Kingpin catches Synn's men trying to steal his stock.

And I suspect that can bring nothing but trouble to his front door.

Conan the Barbarian #162

From my hazy recollections, the demon Jergl Zadh lures Conan and Fafnir to his temple, looking to gain revenge for previous setbacks at the Cimmerian's hands.

Needless to say, luring a barbarian into your lair always proves to be a fatal mistake.

The Amazing Spider-Man #256, the Puma

Fed up of our hero ruining his plans, gangland boss the Rose hires wealthy assassin the Puma to kill the web-slinger.

Surely, this no-mark can't bring down everybody's favourite arachnid flavoured do-gooder.

Or can he?

Of, I suspect, longer-term importance, Spidey's alien-built costume is exhibiting increasing signs of having a mind of its own.

A fact that its wearer seems to be all-but oblivious to...

Iron Man #186, Vibro

Our gang of hi-tech buddies set about the business of setting up business in California.

But, first, an increasingly paranoid Rhodey is going to have to stop a man called Vibro who was the mildest of men until his jerk of an employer nearly got him killed with inexcusable health and safety lapses.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor month for Marvel though Thor and FF and possibly Amazing were above average.Still amazes me that Conan was still going!Lot of big titles,Cap,Ironman,Daredevil and especially Avengers.But things would improve just rather slowly.Just my opinion of course.

Anonymous said...

Meant that the big titles were poor.

Anonymous said...

Meant that the big titles were poor.

Colin Jones said...

Charlie, the final issue of Conan The Barbarian was #275 dated December 1993.

Anonymous said...

I have to say I think the Byrne FF cover is the strongest one here, and the HULK one (Frank Cirocco?) is by far the weakest. I appreciate that Marvel was embracing a certain amount of “Thinking Outside The Box” experimentation with their covers around this time, but if the artist is gonna leave that much empty negative space, I think the attitudes and posing of the figures needs to be extra-dynamic. I guess Hulk is trying to punch his way through one of Dr. Strange’s mystic shields? That shield is so poorly designed, it looks like a mangled sheet of cellophane. And check out Doc’s hands — I think those are the weakest spell-casting finger positions I’ve ever seen. The tiny little bits of pixie dust floating around his digits aren’t helping AT ALL.

Now, Big John Buscema’s CAPTAIN AMERICA cover also has a completely empty background but the figures are at least posed dramatically and the composition is strong. Even if (as Steve hilariously alludes to ) every Marvel fan was surely sick to death of Cap’s endless moaning about poor little Bucky getting himself all blowed up at that point.

b.t.

Redartz said...

Gents, I must agree that this seems a rather weak week on the comic scene. Cover-wise, too- b.t. quite aptly describes the iffiness of that Hulk cover. Ah, where's Ditko when you need him?
Courtesy of Mike's Amazing newsstand, my purchases that month are revealed as primarily indies: Journey, Normalman, Neil the Horse, E-Man and American Flagg. About the only mainline books I was still buying were Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the Legion of Super Heroes. Were most of you all still buying heavily, or were you also ' on the way out'? Perhaps it was a function of life staging. By then out of college and entering the Working World, and pursuing feminine companionship; the mind gets occupied on such matters to the exclusion of comics (never entirely, but to a large degree)...

Anonymous said...

Looking at Mike’s I had Swamp Thing #28, Warrior #20, MWOM Monthly #13 and Teen Titans #46. So, only the one title not written by Alan Moore.

DW

Matthew McKinnon said...

I think at this point I was growing out of my ‘American comics OMG more please’ phase, as I know I only bought DD and Thor out of all these, and I just can’t remember that Thor cover.

DD had Mazzuccelli onboard for the long haul now, but still wasn’t great.

Thor was in a long slow decline that meant I tuned out when Sal Buscema started doing the art. It was still good at this stage but the freshness was wearing off. I’m surprised when people talk about the whole run as being brilliant when it very much felt - both then and now - that it got off to a really great start then just played the same note for four years, Compare with Moore’s ‘Swamp Thing’ which was incredibly varied and unpredictable.

dangermash said...

Grumpy pants alert. Just took a look at that ASM and I have to say I don't like this era. The artwork's just too washed out.

Now that I'm painting I can see that this is because it's all light values everywhere with no contrast. And in scenes with Spider-Man in black, he's too silhouetted, leaving light and dark values and no middle values.

I also think everyone looks too thin and stick manny and how so many panels have no background,

The artwork's so bad that the story generally barely registers if I read these issues. The Juggernaut, Firelord and Mr Hyde arcs are exceptions to this.

Colin Jones said...

Red, I'd stopped buying Marvel comics around late '83 so I don't recognise any of these covers ( I did eventually start buying Marvel comics again in 2007 but in a much more limited and sporadic way than first time around).

Anonymous said...

Matthew:
Yes, Mazzuchelli is on DD at least, but his pencils are being buried under Danny “Poor Man’s Rudy Nebres” Bulanadi’s inks.

Whatever fun things were happening in Comics 40 years ago, they were mostly happening at the other publishers, NOT at Marvel. Checking out the thumbnails at Mike’s, it looks like I bought just one Marvel book that month, ALPHA FLIGHT 14, which I got purely for the beautifully designed and executed cover. As for the story, I have no memory of it whatsoever. Zero. But that cover is pretty sharp!

There are some other eye-grabbing covers for that month:

Garcia-Lopez’ ATARI FORCE 19 cover is marred only by Dart looking a bit cross-eyed.

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS ANNUAL 1 — Frank Miller inked by Jim Aparo! It’s … interesting… but I can’t decide if it’s really successful or not. I think their styles might be cancelling each other out.

BLACKHAWK 272 — full-figure of Hitler trapped like a rat in a dirty alley! Top marks for boldness of concept, even if the execution (Dan Spiegle) isn’t wonderful.

DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL 3 — Gil Kane was on fire during this period.

The two Eagle JUDGE DREDD titles gives us a great opportunity to compare and contrast Bolland and McMahon’s respective styles. I dig ‘em both.

LOVE AND ROCKETS 8 — Jaime Hernandez puts a beautiful, minimalist spin on the old Romance Comic cover formula.

NEMESIS THE WARLOCK 1 — Holy crap!

SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING 28 — iconic, gorgeously grotesque Bissette/ Totleben masterpiece.

UK SPIDER-MAN 599 — DD and Spidey are milliseconds away from colliding in mid-air. DD is even drawn in such a way that seems to emphasize his blindness, like he’s literally not watching where he’s going!

b.t.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Gil Kane is kind of the forgotten Superman artist, b.t. He did some fantastic work on the Man of Steel for DC in the first half of the 80s.

And Dan Spiegle did a pretty good job with Blackhawk imo. Sure he wasn't Alex Toth or Howard Chaykin, but then who was? Well, Alex Toth and Howard Chaykin were (obviously) but as they weren't working on the series, Spiegle was good enough.
The surprise in #272 is that the back-up story was drawn by Ken Steacy, who was better known for doing stylized full colour science fiction in mags like Epic Illustrated. He did a reasonably good job too.

The problem with those 2000AD reprints was the re-sized artwork - too much dead space! - but if you weren't familiar with Kevin O'Neill I can see how his stuff would still make an impression. Be Pure, Be Vigilant, BEHAVE!

Also of note from DC this month: Green Lantern #180, drawn by Dave Gibbons. And from First, American Flagg #12.

-sean

Colin Jones said...

James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, has died aged 93.

Anonymous said...

I had Love & Rockets #8 (the one with the purple cover) albeit a while after it was first published. It was still lingering on the magazine shelf of the local comic shop, months later, and so I didn’t think of it as a ‘back issue’. L&R distribution must have been patchy, at best, in Essex as the only early issues I remember were seeing for sale were 8, 14, 18 and 19. It’s not on Mike’s September 1984 page and so I didnt think to include it.

DW

Anonymous said...

DW, yes, I recall never knowing when a new issue of Love & Rockets was likely to turn up. Being a fairly 'niche' title - especially early on - I expect imports weren't as much of a priority as, say, the latest X-Men.

Btw, it is included in Mike's Newstand feature now. As with Marvel UK titles, thats quite a recent addition I think? (I remember checking before, and even though it included Fantagraphics as a publisher, it didn't list L&R).

-sean