Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
The maelstrom awaits.
I shall enter it.
It's East vs West, as the Avengers mistakenly tangle with the Titanic Three who turn out, on this occasion, not to be the wrongdoers our heroes had assumed them to be.
It's East vs West, as the Avengers mistakenly tangle with the Titanic Three who turn out, on this occasion, not to be the wrongdoers our heroes had assumed them to be.
Which, of course, poses the obvious question of just who are the bad guys?
That, I fail to remember but I do know this is the month in which we experience the Swordsman's funeral.
Judging by that cover, Conan must overcome the glummest-looking monster he's ever encountered.
It all sounds quite depressing.
The Owl's back and making a nuisance of himself in San Francisco where Matt Murdock has gone in an attempt to reunite with the Black Widow.
However, their meeting is interrupted by muggers who work for the floating fiend!
"We can't stop him from exploding!"
They don't write dialogue like that anymore.
But is it true? Was this, as claimed, "The mightiest FF saga ever!"?
And was Mahkizmo the worst name in history for a villain?
But is it true? Was this, as claimed, "The mightiest FF saga ever!"?
And was Mahkizmo the worst name in history for a villain?
These are questions I ask as I contemplate the nature of reality, from my mountaintop eyrie.
When it comes to plot, the testosterone terror gloats that our heroes can't thwart his plan to merge his world of Machus with that of Thundra's Femizons.
And, to prove it, he forces them to fight big monsters!
Hammer and Anvil make their first appearance when an injured alien mistakes their attempts to kill it for a successful attempt to help it.
Thus it is that it grants them super-strength and a lifelong bond that can't be broken.
Until the Hulk breaks it.
More importantly, this is the issue in which we meet Crackajack Jackson.
And then wave goodbye to him as he, sadly, snuffs it.
I sometimes think I'm the only person alive who appreciates the Grizzly but I've always had a soft spot for him, even if he is, basically, just a cut-price rehashing of the Rhino.
That said, I must admit I struggle to recall the actual plot of this one, beyond him being an ex-wrestler who wants revenge on someone for something or other.
And my memories of this one are also vague.
I suspect Thor's travelled to an underworld, in order to rescue the abducted goddess Krista from a villain not depicted on the cover.
Given that it's an underworld, I shall assume her abductor to be either Pluto or Mephisto.
I could, however, be wrong about that.
There's also a Lee/Ditko reprint in which a criminal kills a night watchman before fleeing into the past, with the aid of a time machine. But, there, he has a violent encounter with the machine's creator.
What's this? Steve Rogers creating a whole new identity for himself?
And calling it Nomad?
Is this a good idea or bad?
Only time - and the fashion police - can tell.
Until then, he's going to be needed because Madame Hydra's killed the original Viper and, having, adopted his name and costume, goes and reforms the Serpent Squad!
That's what Marvel's big hitters are up to.
But what of DC?
Just what will we find if we grab a random smattering of its books which bear the same cover date, from the spinner racks of our youth?
This is bad news because those who refuse to meet the asking price are forced to take a detour through the deadliest of quicksand.
Granted, if that proves to be the case then it won't be unexpected and the book will have failed to live up to its title.
Those are the ones the world knows as Death of an Exorcist, Over My Dead Body, Panic in the Dark and Among Us Dwells a Man-Beast.
The issue's reprints, meanwhile, are blessed with such titles as The Fear Master, Bewitched for a Day, The Riddle of the Glass Bubble, The Wizard of the Diamond World, Doom Was My Inheritance, The Man Who Was Death, The Unlucky Birthstones and The Enchanted Costumes and are all sourced from the 1950s and '60s.
Nestor Redondo gives us an iconic cover, as DC's greatest swamp dweller returns to do whatever it is he does this month.
Can it be? Are DC's two most nocturnal crime fighters about to meet, despite the different eras in which they operate?
Thus it is that we also encounter The Great Batman Swindle!, The Strange Costumes of Batman!, A New Look for Robin, Heroes by Proxy!, Two Batmen Too Many! and The Failure of Bruce Wayne. All of which have been recycled from the distant past.
You may have surmised my knowledge of this one to be limited and you'd be right but I do know the story within is called The Leviathan Conspiracy and introduces someone called John Zero.
Yes it can when Batman sets off in pursuit of a known felon, falsely believing him to have stolen a priceless tiara.
But, of course, that's not all we're getting. This is, after all, a 100-page comic.
Jim Aparo gives us a cover that proves purple and green can go together.
What don't go together are the Spectre and the Third Reich. Thus it is that a self-declared Nazi field marshall meets a tentacular termination when he decides it's a good idea to try and blackmail the city, with threats of terror attacks.
Elsewhere, Aquaman must battle the deadly Bugala, a huge sea monster which is on course to destroy Atlantis itself.
But is that monster all it seems?
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11 comments:
Grizzly might be a Rhino knockoff but he is the inspiration behind my favourite onesie.
The Grizzly looked very formidable in the 1977 Superheroes Card Game. Unfortunately, when I later obtained a back issue issue featuring the Grizzly, he cut a less impressive figure. Never meet your heroes - or villains, for that matter.
Has Anvil got blond hair to look less like Tony Curtis, in 'The Defiant Ones' ? (Clearly Hammer & Anvil's inspiration! )
The Black Widow's hand gesture's reminiscent of Amazing Spidey # 86. On this DD cover, she should be depicted larger.
Phillip
Adventure comics was one of my favourite comics at the time and was a must buy for me. I had all the Aparo's Spectre and Aquaman runs and still have most of them. I thought the journalist Crawford, looked like Clark Kent. This issue also had an Aquaman back up by Steve Skeates and Mike Grell that didn't feature Grell's best art.
Magneto, Steve? And on that Avengers cover, the Titanium Man? With the Crimson Dynamo along for the ride...?
Somewhat surprised you not to find a mention of Sir Paul McCartney in the post, who presumably had at least two of this month's Marvels.
Swamp Thing #13 is the last issue written by Len Wein, and marks a kind of ending of sorts, as Matt Cable finally discovers - wrongly as it would later turn out - that Swampy is Alec Holland, and stops pursuing him.
The military/industrial complex bureaucrat formerly known as John Zero appears only briefly, but would return in #23 as camp 70s super-villain Sabre -
https://stevedoescomics.blogspot.com/2021/08/swamp-thing-23-no-sabre-dont-kill-him.html
I've not read that issue of Adventure, but for some reason the cover pic of Spectre and the purple tentacles looks familiar somehow...
-sean
*Somewhat surprised not to find a mention...
Apologies for that stray 'you' there (poor editing).
Cover of the month here has to be Plop #8, right?
Although it wouldn't be if OMAC #2 - quite possibly the greatest single issue of a mainstream 70s US comic - had been included.
-sean
I dunno, sean — I like the PLOP! cover just fine but I think that spooky WEIRD WESTERN cover (with Jonah Hex riding OUT of a pool of quicksand) is the most striking out of all the ones here.
And yeah, where HAVE we seen that image of The Spectre and purple tentacles before? I’m sure it’ll come to me.
b.t.
Jim Aparo Spectre comics are truly things of beauty. I owned a series of reprints at one time which were printed on fancy paper and recoloured and they were gorgeous. The stories can be a little samey when read all at once, but of course they weren't intended to be.
It is funny to think that Shadow only predates Batman by nine years. That might seem like a lot but 80 - 90 years later it's basically the same era. Did they ever fight each other?
I'm not sure if they fought each other but Batman and the Shadow teamed up in Batman issues 253 and 259 in the 1970s. They've also teamed up in a DC/Dynamite limited series relatively recently.
The Conan cover re-appeared as a cover of Marvel UK's The Avengers & The Savage Sword Of Conan in 1976 (can't recall the actual number). It was one of the rare occasions when Conan was allowed to be on the cover of that merged comic.
The above comment was mine.
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