Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
A new month is with us and the nights are drawing in.
But Marvel's artists are also drawing in.
They're drawing in comics.
And these are those.
Now the Avengers are in trouble - because it's the mind-melting debut of Chicken Man, or whatever it is he's called!
And, thanks to him, we encounter a tale of Voodoo that restores Wonder Man to both life and the pages of the Avengers and leads to all manner of internal and external conflict for the Vision.
Still, I suppose the Grim Reaper will be happy.
This is exciting for me. Not only did I have this one, I also had the next three issues!
This is exciting for me. Not only did I have this one, I also had the next three issues!
And I do believe Conan takes a break from trying to beat Red Sonja to a page from the Book of Skelos, in order to free Yusef from prison, at the request of the returning but pregnant Tara.
I'm not totally sure what happens in this story but I do know it features Brother Inquisitor, Brother Wonderful and Texas Jack Muldoon. And, from that cover, it looks like it might all spell curtains for Cap and the Falcon.
Is my memory betraying me or was Death's Head's horse just a normal horse painted to look like a skeleton? If so, exactly how could that fool anyone standing within a hundred feet of it?
More importantly, it seems our hero's in San Francisco and looking for a kidnapped Karen Page.
Of course, that leads him into conflict with both Death's Head and the Smasher.
But why do I have no memory at all of DD ever fighting the latter of those two villains?
Also, what's the Smasher even doing there?
Not only did I have a run of Conans in this period, I also had a run of Fantastic Fours.
And thus did I have this one. One in which Galactus threatens to eat Counter-Earth, and the High Evolutionary must hold him off until the quartet can find a planet willing to become a meal.
And, as luck would have it, that proves a perfect moment for the return of the Impossible Man!
I possess no memory of this one but the internet informs me that Kronus sends Hulkie back in time to relive the events that transformed Bruce Banner into the monster, so that he can correct Banner's mistakes and make sure the Hulk never came into existence.
Of course, if that happened, the Hulk wouldn't be able to go back in time and prevent his own creation, meaning he'd continue to exist.
I remember Kang coming up with a remarkably similar plan, several years earlier.
I thought that one was stupid too.
More importantly, this issue sees the short-lived return of Herb Trimpe to the strip.
I'm certain I've never encountered this tale and, thus, know only that the Controller's involved and that the Blood Brothers also put in an appearance.
You can never get enough of the New X-Men.
And that means you can never get enough of Nightcrawler.
At least, that's how I felt upon reading this tale for the first time.
And it's high stakes at the funfair when Spider-Man and Kurt Wagner both witness a shooting and each thinks the other's to blame.
I don't know. Will Marvel heroes never see sense?
And could it all set up a clash with the Punisher?
Not only was my youthful self always happy to see New X-Men, it was also always pleased to see Ulik, even if he always let me down by being too easily bested by Thor.
This was disappointing to me, given how dangerous the troll was portrayed as being in their first encounter.
But that's not all. Also in this issue, we find a seven-page Tale of Asgard called The Weapon and the Warrior!, as created by David Anthony Kraft and
Pablo Marcos.
It's a classic cover to an epoch-making issue, as the X-Men return to Earth, with a splash and the Phoenix makes her universe-shaking debut!
And, of course, that's a cue for a holiday in an Irish castle!
Steve - Charlie may have earned his second NO PRIZE? All comics are presented alphabetically by main character except for Conan and Cap! Now if you present live coverage of the Conkers Championship this coming Sunday…. I will gladly re-gift it to you!
ReplyDeleteA letters page background used that Spidey & Nightcrawler pic, in either Super Spider-man, or MWOM, circa1977/78. Seeing it, Nightcrawler seemed a bad hombre, with his fangs, etc, giving Spidey a hard time. Later, reading Nightcrawler's New X-Men characterization, he was anything but a 'bad hombre'. Unrealized potential there, perhaps...
ReplyDeleteTo me, Death's Head is to Daredevil, what Night Phantom is to Iron Man. It's their fashion sense perhaps, both sporting Invisible Man style wrappings!
The Avengers being a serious-minded superhero strip (usually), bird men never sat well with me. Blood Hawk looked equally inappropriate in # 180.
I read that FF story in MWOM. Okay, but not outstanding.
A time-travel story in the Hulk. Wow!
Phillip
I do enjoy that Kirby Avengers cover. Characters may seem a little stiff but still has that Kirby magic!
ReplyDeleteA holiday in an Irish castle, Steve...? Sounds like the cue for an encounter with some leprechauns. Or the IRA. It's always one or the other in a Marvel comic about the Irish, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteClaremont had already started to include Danny Rand's sometime Provo mate as a semi-regular character in I Ron Fist, so I suppose it was inevitable the X-Men ended up with leprechauns.
-sean
Charlie, I'm afraid that any alphabetical ordering to the covers is pure coincidence and just down to the order they uploaded in.
ReplyDeleteSean, I could never get over the cobble-streeted, fog-shrouded, gas-lighted , half-timbered London of the Marvel universe.
Phillip, those letters-page images were so often an exciting glimpse into the the future. Seeing John Buscema drawn images of the FF at a time when Jack Kirby reprints were filling the book, or Gil Kane Spider-Man images when the strip were still being drawn by John Romita was always compelling. I remember them once using images from the Hulk's battle with the Rhino and Abomination and me eagerly anticipating the arrival of that tale.
Sean, I think Marvel (and DC) had a strange idea of Ireland and the countries of the UK . Scotland was the same with any tales taking part here being full of fog laden streets, we all wear kilts and live in castles etc. As Steve says England, which almost always meant London, suffered the same fate with added stereotyped "bobbies" (police) .
ReplyDeleteSteve /Phillip, I remember feeling the same over those panels by the likes of Biscema, Adams, Steranko et c Thaddeus pepper the letters pages and being excited to read tnem.
I only had the X-Men and Conan of the above comics but I did pick up a copy of the Hulk a few years ago. I thought it was a fun read and it was nice to see Herb on the character one last time (although I think he drew a few pages in a special a few years later).I thought Joe Statons inks worked well with Herbs pencils.
ReplyDeleteI think I had all of these but the HULK, but the only one I remember fairly well is the AVENGERS. The art by Big John and Joltin’ Joe was very nice and it was the first issue written by Gerry Conway after he kicked Steve Englehart off the book he’d been writing for the past four years. I distinctly remember thinking all the Avengers were acting way out of character, and all them (except the Beast) seemed very grouchy and unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteAt one point they’re tracking Rooster Guy through the swamp and Cap thinks to himself, “This place stinks of the charnel house.” Which, I suppose, it very well could have, but it seemed like a somewhat out-of-nowhere observation to be making at that point. A bit “glass half empty” for Cap. Later in the same sequence, Iron Man is talking with new-to-the-team Hank McCoy and goes out of his way to make a snide remark about his looks and hurts his feelings. The whole thing was so odd and so pronounced that i actually suspected it was going to be revealed that Rooster Guy was using his Voodoo powers to make them all irritable and turn them against each other.
sean and Paul:
Any issue written by Chris Claremont featuring an Irishman, you can bet a pot of gold that at that some point in the story the Irish guy will call someone “boyo”.
b.t.
b.t. - At least Claremont's Irishmen weren't tinkers and drunks, as was usually the case, on UK television!
ReplyDeletePhillip
Star Trek's actually a bad one for negative Irish stereotypes. And not just the original series, either ( Finnegan, that means you! ) There's that one with Chief O'Brien being recognized by some stereotypical Irish space travellers, who don't watch well ( even when first broadcast in the 90s, I think? )
ReplyDeletePhillip
Chicken man's one of the few issues, around that time, I've never read.
ReplyDeleteOne of Gerry Conway's later Avengers ( issue # 156 ), I thought was absolutely outstanding, except for one thing. Namely, Dr.Doom very easily defeated the Avengers (minus Thor, admittedly.) As a kid, I thought this totally wrong, the FF always defeating Dr.Doom, despite being no where near as powerful as the Avengers! I couldn't reconcile such a fantastic tale, with great art, and Wonder-man knocking Namor unconscious, spectacularly, ending (at least temporarily), with Dr.Doom easily defeating the Avengers. Cognitive dissonance! Too many cooks spoiling the ending's broth, perhaps (?) I should check, perhaps, that I've got the sequence of events correct, as the mind plays tricks.
Phillip
Phillip:
ReplyDeleteRe: re-checking , mind playing tricks etc — if I dug out this month’s AVENGERS from wherever it is at this current time, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find the Avengers’ personalities not especially “out of character” and cranky anymore. I was probably just so used to the way Englehart wrote them that the changes in their speech patterns and personalities seemed way more sudden and jarring than they actually were. Also, I think I was probably more sensitive back then and reacted accordingly : ‘Gosh, why is Iron Man being so MEAN?!! If I were Hank McCoy I’d yell “YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE A FREAK? FINE! I DIDN’T WANT TO BE ON YOUR STUPID TEAM ANYWAY!!!”
And then run away, sobbing.
And thanks for bringing up Finnegan! I just realized that every time one of Claremont’s Irish characters calls someone “boyo”, it’s ABSOLUTELY Finnegan’s voice I hear in my head.
b.t.
b.t. - Yes, the older we get, memories either fragment, or get jumbled together! Strangely, under Englehart, the stoic Cap, being oddly cranky, in Avengers # 126, jarred, and seemed strange, to me, as a kid ( I read it in UK Spidey weekly ):
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/ironman/comments/1ex9kbv/if_this_does_not_prove_to_some_people_that_tony/
Phillip
Any of you Stalwart Forward Facers able to recommend a compilation of “WONDER MAN?”
ReplyDeleteI’ve mentioned before I never understood the whole Wonder Man - Ultron - Vision- We all love Scarlet Witch thingy. Never.
Nor was I capable of developing any sort of emotional connection since Wonder Man was one and done and laid to rest for a decade and then resuscitated when I had reached the age of not being a Marvel Hound any longer.
Thanks in Advance!
Charlie.
PS - The Uranus Fudge shop on Rt 66 in Missouri was a bit of a let down. It was way short on actual fudge and very long on Uranus/ Anal gags. I asked the missus if I could buy a wife-beater t-shirt proclaiming I was a member of the fudge packers union but that was a categorical “No!” I thought it might serve as a good foundation for my Halloween costume.
Joe - I don't know a Wonder-man comp.
ReplyDeleteThe Vision was created from Simon Williams/Wonder-man's brain patterns.
The Vision was also created from the original Human Torch (somehow).
Go figure...
Re: Route not 66 adventure....This was a well-known 1980s UK sketch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHp9Cakv2Fg
Phillip
I was at Mike’s Newsstand earlier, making myself a “Cover Date October 1976” cheat sheet for after Steve’s “Lucky Bag” later this week (?) when I can list and blab about books not already mentioned in that post or this. I noticed the first two issues of CAPTAIN BRITAIN were published that month and it triggered another thought about Mr. Claremont ….
ReplyDeleteLong LONG time ago, I read a Claremont interview in some fanzine. He began one of his responses with, “Well, being British , I always think blah blah blah etc.”However that sentence ended, my takeaway was, “Wow, I never knew he was British” and for years my sub-conscious always thought of him as “Chris Claremont, that British Guy Who Writes X-MEN”. This was still a bit before UK writers and artists began working for the US companies, so it was somewhat unusual and noteworthy.
Anyway, when I read those first couple issues of CAPTAIN BRITAIN, i actually thought to myself, “Makes total sense to have HIM writing this book, and since he’s British himself, this must really be the way Brits talk.”
I know, I know…
Years later, I saw him at some convention, chatting with a fellow pro (Walt Simonson maybe?) and as I eavesdropped on their conversation I thought to myself “Huh. Guess he lost his accent…”
Years after THAT, I found out that he was indeed born in England , but his family moved to North America when he was a small child (just like John Byrne, strangely enough)
b.t.
Boy howdy!
ReplyDeleteNot a bad crop of comics here. I liked the Avengers issue. Big John Buscema. Sort of had that gloomy, spooky feel of Marvel mags in the early-mid 70's.
Phil-
I seem to remember that the Vision was retconned in West Coast Avengers. Apparently he was not the original Human Torch.
It was Byrne. Mr. Complicated Explanation himself.
Lotta explanations, that guy....
But I think he did it so they could bring the original Torch back.
On another note....
Charlie, I had a hard time believing there was a Uranus Fudge shop. But there is a Uranus Fudge Factory in Missouri.
I looked it up.
Dunno what to make of that, but I used to live down there and they are a weird folk. That place seemed almost Lovecraftian in it's spookiness.
M.P.
M.P. - Yeah - not the Original Human Torch, per se. Maybe the Original Human Torch as a basis for the Vision. Ultron's certainly got Torchy on the slab, ready for expermientation!
ReplyDeletehttps://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/i-hope-we-didnt-damage-this-crude-robot-ive-been-working-on/
I read this in a UK version, but - at that age - the exposition's fine detail was probably lost on me! Englehart, rather than using continuous exposition, like Claremont, Shooter, etc, devoted almost that entire issue, to a massive 'exposition dump' - too much for little kids' short attention spans. And that massive 'exposition dump' about all Marvel's different races - the Kree, the Skrulls, the Badoon, etc, etc - sheesh! It was really an exposition overload!
Phillip
M.P. - If you only associate each American state with one thing, for me Missouri is Mark Twain/Huckleberry Finn! I suppose there's all that 'gateway to the West' stuff, too - Prairie schooners, and all that!
ReplyDeletePhillip
Damn typos! - experimentation!
ReplyDeletePhillip