Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Tragically, of those three, I've only ever seen The Stepford Wives and that was so long ago that I can't recall if it was any good or not. I can, however, confirm that Jacques Brel is no longer alive and well and living in Paris.
It's the first issue of Savage Sword of Conan I ever read - and the first time I became aware of Marvel/Curtis' black and white range.
And here's another big event because Adam Warlock is back and in the mega-capable hands of Jim Starlin.
It looks like the Fantastic Four are faced with manifold mayhem when they must meet the maddening menace of Madrox the Multiple Man.
Everyone who reads this site knows I must buy any comic that has a skeleton on the front of it. So much for DC's theory that it's gorillas that get books flying off the shelves.
Bashful Benjy makes a guest appearance in the mag dedicated to heroes who are all, sort of, making a guest appearance.
And does so with a favourite tale from my childhood, as we're treated to Moench, Thomas and Niño's Man-Gods From Beyond the Stars.
And, if you don't believe that's who it's aimed at, we also get articles which bear such titles as Erich von Daniken: The Man Behind a Phenomenon, The Chariots of Erich von Daniken and Facts On "Danikenitis" -- The von Daniken Phenomenon.
And does so with tales called The Gravesend Gorgon, The Monster of Hedgewood Moor!, The Lagoon Creature of Rising Sun, The Fountain, The Girl Who Couldn't Die!, The Borrowed Face!, From Out of the Past!, Gilt-Edged Gnomes and Next Stop Eternity!
Not only do we get that classic cover by Boris Vallejo, we also discover a John Buscema/Alfredo Alcala adaptation of Robert E Howard's Shadows in the Moonlight in which our hero must, yet again, battle a giant man-ape. Not to mention pirates, and statues that come to life when the light of our only natural satellite settles upon them. Quite frankly, anyone who doesn't love this tale must be stark-raving mad.
And we don't only get that. We can also thrill to the latest adventure from Gil Kane's Blackmark and to three pages of Richard Corben's take on everyone's favourite barbarian.
I can only assume this is the issue in which we're first introduced to the threat of the Magus and his galaxy-wide religion.
But what does that have to do with Warlock?
And what can he do to stop it?
Apparently, this is his first appearance. Which is a surprise, as I'd always assumed he was originally an X-Men character.
I don't have the slightest clue what he's up to but it seems Professor X puts in an appearance. So, things are at least a little mutanty.
Speaking of which, that story's followed by a reprint of the gang's first encounter with the X-Men, as originally presented in 1964's Fantastic Four #28.
That's the one in which the Puppet Master and Mad Thinker use their abilities to pit the two teams against each other before totally messing the whole thing up.
Then again, if they had the sense to put gorilla skeletons on the covers, who knows how stratospheric their sales would become?
Contained within are four tales of terror and mystery.
In the first, following one practical joke too many, a man cuts off his brother's head. To me, this response seems an overreaction.
In the second, a diver kills an old man for his map of a sunken freighter filled with gold but gets his air hose disastrously snagged on his victim's corpse.
Next, a spinster ends up in Seventh Heaven after receiving a prank Valentine sent by a co-worker.
And, finally, a mobster drinks a serum of eternal life, and then falls into a pit of quicksand.
As you might suspect, all of these are reprinted from various 1950s comics.
I know little of this one, other than the obvious. Which is that he and the Defenders must combat the Nameless Ones and the man they call Van Nyborg.
Gasp, as space aliens arrive on Earth and interact with the local cave-people in an adventure targeted on the dedicated fan of Erich von Däniken.
There's also a text feature called The Books of the Gods.
And there's a short comic strip destined to appear in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes. I refer to Good Lord! in which astronauts exploring a world of monsters manage to accidentally shoot and kill God.
This time, a female student receives a strange tarot card. And that means it can only be a matter of time before Lucifer's offspring gets involved.
But it does.
Even more surprisingly, the vast majority of these tales appear to be new.
Even more surprisingly, one of them is credited to Dave Gibbons.
A more predictable candidate for Giant-Sizing greets us when the Avengers get their third stab at the format.
This appears to be Part Six of the Celestial Madonna Saga and features yet more of our heroes' tussle with the Legion of the Unliving in Immortus' Limbo Dimension.
Sadly, despite its name, there is not one instance of limbo dancing in sight. Personally, I want my money back.
And, because that's not enough for us, we also find the team's first encounter with the Space Phantom, as reprinted from 1963's Avengers #2.
23 comments:
Where o where are the Atlas ones? Issue #1 of Scorpion by Chaykin, iirc! Certainly the pinnacle of ATLAS is this month?
WULF #1 by the inimitable team of Hama and Janson!
There are no less than 8 Richie Richs dated this month! Not even an honorable mention Steve??? You are not showing HARVEY the love???
Honorable Mention to BABY SNOOTS!!!
Charlie (?), I'm afraid the Atlas comics are going to have to wait for their own thread, later this month.
As for Richie Rich, he may have to wait a fair bit longer...
Well, Chris Claremont did write GIANT-SIZE FF 4, so maybe that’s why you thought Madrox debuted in X-MEN first?
SAVAGE SWORD 4 would surely have rocked my world if I’d happened upon it back then, but I didn’t. So for 13-year-old Me, STRANGE TALES 178 was the undisputed highlight of the month. I was excited to see more far-out space-nuttiness from Judo Jim Starlin and thought at the time that his artwork had reached new heights. I still think his Warlock stuff was sweet, but truth be told I have a slight preference for his art on CAPTAIN MARVEL.
GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS 3 : back in the day, I thought Joe Giella’s inks did Cockrum’s pencils no favors. If I’d known what was coming in G-S AVENGERS 4, I might have thought the art in 3 wasn’t so bad after all.
Weird— in my head, GIANT-SIZE CHILLERS was an all-reprint book from the start. Maybe I didn’t see the first few issues on sale at the time (I distinctly remember buying #3) so the individual stories and art from the first issue aren’t seared into my memory. Gonna have to go dig that one up to give it another look-see….
b.t.
I feel a complaint from sean that you neglected to mention GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING 3 coming any minute now…
b.t.
Some really choice picks here, Steve. I agree with b.t. - Warlock #178 is an absolute cracker! This is one of the first two Warlocks I read in Star Wars Weekly. Apart from fantastic art, the Moorcock influence is crystal clear. Warlock bringing a girl back from the dead to interrogate her, is similar to the scene at the start of 'Stormbringer', when Elric brings a demon back from the dead, to discover where Zarozinia has been taken!
Defenders # 20's also significant for me, it being in the first Rampage Weekly I read ( being late to the game! ) Steve Gerber's weird scene, with the Thing playing those pipes, really sticks in the mind! Also, the Enchantress & the Executioner never fail to deliver. Nevertheless, re-reading this story in adulthood, the tale's more disturbing than I remembered ( Val's the love- child of a demon, and her mother's no Martha Stewart, either! ) Maybe I didn't understand that part when I read the comic, aged 8, as I certainly don't recall it.
Phillip
Was DEFENDERS 20 Gerber’s first issue as scripter? And the Valkyrie storyline a direct continuation of one of his MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE stories (hence The Thing showing up in this one)?
b.t.
b.t. - Yes, I think so!
Phillip
My god, I actually have one of these.
That issue of Warlock.
A friend of my older cousin at Uni was dumping his whole collection of comics back in 1986, and said I could grab whatever I wanted. He had some really nice stuff. This was one of the ones I grabbed.
It's still one of my favourite single issues.
Though the lycra-fetish Good Girl Art makes me a bit uncomfortable now. Just in a different way to the way it did when I was 15.
I had \have a few of these comics but Savage Sword of Conan #4 is a belter with one of John Biscema's (with Alcalla's inks) best ever art jobs . This issue also contains a nice Richard Corben pin up section and part 2 of Gil Kanes Blackmark story all wrapped up in a great cover that so think was used for the UK Conan monthly. Strange Tales \Warlock is a close second.
RIP Brian Murphy. GEORGE!!!
Iron Shadows In The Moon from SSOC #4 was reprinted IN COLOUR in the 1978 Conan Treasury Edition which is where I first read it but the story was also featured in the UK SSOC #1 dated November 1977. Many years later I read the original REH tale (Shadows In The Moonlight from Weird Tales April 1934) and it remains my favourite REH Conan story which I like to re-read every couple of years (I've got an e-book REH Conan collection).
Phillip, that Defenders cover reminded me of the Rampage weekly too but unlike you I started at #1 (which came out on my father's 50th birthday). The cover featured here was Rampage #19 which I associate with my 12th birthday in February 1978 when it snowed heavily during the night and the school bus didn't show up so I got a day off school on my birthday - and it was a Friday too so it was an early start to the weekend!
Obviously the Boris Vallejo cover from SSOC #4 wasn't used when Iron Shadows In The Moon was reprinted in the 1978 Conan Treasury Edition - the TE featured a new cover by John Buscema but still had Conan fighting the man-ape while a scantily-clad Olivia cowers in the background.
Some more “February 1975” comics I bought off various spinner racks back in the Long Ago:
DOCTOR STRANGE 6: Frank Brunner draws the lovely cover but the interiors are by Gene Colan and Klaus Janson.
FEAR 26 (starring Morbius) : Doug Moench and Frank Robbins do their best to wrap up a convoluted storyline with lots of moving parts in just 14 pages. No surprise — it’s pretty much incoherent.
MASTER OF KUNG FU 25: the Good News: Paul Gulacy’s back! The Bad News: Sal Trapani’s inks are barely adequate!
PLANET OF THE APES 5: the first issue of POTA without an installment of “Terror on the Planet of the Apes”. In its place we get a heavy-handed 26-page adventure-parable about racism by Doug Moench, Ed Hannigan and Jim Mooney. Bob Larkin’s cover painting is quite nice, at least.
TOMB OF DRACULA 29: finishing up the multi-issue Chimera storyline. Dracula’s human servant Sheila Whittier throws herself through a plate glass window and falls to her death at the story’s memorably shocking climax.
GHOSTLY TALES 113: featuring Tom Sutton’s outstanding 7-page tale of Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror, “Through A Glass Darkly”.
THE SPIRIT 6: my first Will Eisner comic. Eight short stories, every one an absolute gem.
I didn’t buy RIMA THE JUNGLE GIRL 6 back in the day, and I won’t be discussing it here anyhow because you-know-who would get all over my case (it’s one of those pesky DC bi-monthlies). I will, however, note that it’s the last issue to feature Nestor Redondo’s gorgeous pencils and inks over Joe Kubert’s layouts.
b.t.
bt, that POTA adventure-parable about racism was called "Evolution's Nightmare" and was reprinted in the UK POTA weekly #20-22 with three UK-exclusive covers which will be featured on SDC in only a few weeks from now.
I can announce that, this month, I had two Charlton comics:
Yang #6
Haunted #20
Two DC's:
Adventure Comics #437
Weird War Tales #34
And just one Marvel:
Savage Sword of Conan #4.
Ooh, HAUNTED 20 is another good one. Tom Sutton’s “Mountain of Fear” takes up the whole issue, 23 pages of Lovecraftian Horror. It’s kinda obvious he wrote and drew it at Top Speed, so it’s not an example of his absolute best work, but it’s creepy and fun.
b.t.
STEVE - i dare say your tastes are atypical? No men in tights?
Joe
I have a feeling my tights action, this month, was restricted to the output of Atlas.
Yeah, where is Giant-Size Man-Thing #3...?
Only kidding, Steve. As with not including SSOC regularly in the A-list posts (as its a second Conan title) - or for that matter comics cover dated the following month, like Rima #6 - its your blog, so your rules.
Having said that G-S Man-Thing #3 - one of my fave single issues of the 70s (if you ignore the old Atlas-era back up reprints) - is a very strong contender for colour comic of the month, even in one that includes the start of possibly my fave Marvel 'run' of the 70s, Strange Tales #178.
I use the word 'possibly' there as the major rival to Judo Jim's Warlock in my affections is the Englehart-era Dr Strange, and #6 marked an improvement on the Silver Dagger storyline - which was a little disappointing after the Sise-Neg arc - and the return of Gene Colan to the character.
So add Steve Gerber just starting on The Defenders - as b.t. correctly pointed out above - and its a pretty good month for the Marvel b-list! Bearing in mind that Craig Russell hit his stride on the Killraven series in January, and Dauntless Don McGregor is in mid flow on 'Panthers Revenge' in Jungle Action, I reckon there's a strong case for 1975 being peak 70s Marvel.
-sean
Steve, I checked out Giant-Size Chillers, as I was curious about the Dave Gibbons credit, which didn't make a lot of sense given what I knew of his career. Not least because in interviews the man himself has discussed getting his break in American comics at DC.
Anyway, while 'The Borrowed Face' doesn't look great it obviously was indeed drawn by a young Dave Gibbons. Who knew, eh?
Interestingly, another story in the comic, 'The Fountain', is credited to Spanish artist Adolfo Buylla, who worked for IPC and Marvel UK, and is probably best known round these parts - if at all - for inking Mike McMahon's 'Junkyard Demon'. I believe he also contributed to a few Gold Key comics, so my theory is that like them, Marvel used an agency for the artwork in G-S Chillers and didn't deal directly with the artists.
-sean
Having pulled GIANT-SIZE CHILLERS 1 out of my “Marvel Monsters” long box and giving it a quick flip-through, it comes back to me why I don’t remember it very well: it’s terrible. Except for one story with decent art by Alfredo Alcala, most of them are drawn by artists who never again drew anything else for Marvel. And the stories themselves are silly, nonsensical and/or just plain not scary.
For me, the most intriguing thing in this comic is the Kung Fu and Karate Ad on the inside front cover. No, really! There’s a tiny little illustration of a Rick Jones lookalike fighting off some leather-jacketed thugs that I would swear is the work of Judo Jim Starlin.
b.t.
Just realized we haven’t really discussed MARVEL PREVIEW 1 with its “SO lSeventies” Von Danniken-ish “Man Gods From Beyond The Stars” (despite it being one of the items Steve has chosen for this week’s Lucky Bag). 37 pages of Alex Nino art! How could it be bad? I’m embarrassed to say that although I’ve owned a copy of it for years, I’ve never actually tried to read it. Maybe sean can weigh in on it….
b.t.
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