Seventy years ago this morning, Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World War.

Swisstone writes better than I could on this one: http://swisstone.livejournal.com/502767.html?view=4675567#t4675567

and the Wikipedia home page acts with commendable appropriateness.

I tripped o'er the following and suspect that it might interest many of my readers.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt.fan.doc-savage/browse_frm/thread/cecfc5109aea3c98?hl=en#

In the bashful Bronze Age of American comics, an oft-observed phenomenon from Marvel Comics was the mystery comic reprinting old horror stories from the Atlas era. One example of this phenomenon was The Crypt of Shadows, which debuted with a cover date of January, 1973. Here's a review of this item:

‘Midnight on Black Mountain’ is the five-page story of one Paula Harper, an unemotional, scheming woman who disposes of men and collects their money. Into this life come two men: her doctor, who gives her a year to live, and Walter Mead, with whom she has fallen in love. Walter, however, wants nothing to do with her, for she is a witch - the only way she can disprove this assertion of his is to go to Black Mountain at midnight, where and when the witches gather and cavort - if she is not a witch the witches shall reject her. This is an interesting set-up and the twist is not one I saw coming. Nicely-plotted, with rather fine, if over-detailed, art by Mort Lawrence. It is sometimes known to the aficionados as E-538.

This is followed by ‘Where Monsters Dwell,’ or B773 on its payslip, with art by Basil Wolverton, in which Dr Leon Korber invites the editor of the Benton Dispatch, Reese by name, to his lab after Reese has scoffed in print at the Professor’s claims of wild inventions. If I say that the Professor’s latest invention is a lamp which projects an entryway to a weird dimension, you can guess what happens next, if not the semi-ending. About Basil Wolverton I can only say that he is one of those creators one likes or not. This story is six pages long.

The third story is drawn by Jay Scott Pike and entitled ‘Don’t Look!’ and numbered A 537. A mad old man bursts into the office of Patent Lawyer Harold Whitney with a strange mirror, which can show the viewer what anyone will look like in the future. The twist is only obvious just before the ending, and I’d say this is a rather good example of its genre.

Finally, A 300, or, if you want to be less formal, ‘The Scarecrow’ - like the previous story, also reprinted from the first issue of Journey into Mystery - is a five-page twist on the Charles Atlas sand-kicked-in-face ad. Russ Heath’s art probably suffers most by the reproduction methods employed by Marvel in the early 1970s,with Pike a close second of the artists in this reprint collection.

The cover is a new one by Gil Kane, illustrating the first story and, in my opinion, promising more than it delivers. However, if you can pick this up at a reasonable price, it offers half an hour or so of tolerable entertainment for those who like 1950s horror comics.

I refer to Barack Obama's Inaugural Address and would remark as follows:

Firstly, it's good to see this: ' it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.'

Not all of them have been obscured by Stan Lee, I'd guess.

Secondly:

'For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.'

This has been referred to directly by two of my LJ friends, viz and to wit percyprune (here: http://percyprune.livejournal.com/506096.html) and swisstone (here): http://swisstone.livejournal.com/483201.html).

I believe the question is: who are the 'us' fought for at Khe Sahn?

You know that captoon in The New Gods No. 7 about Kirby interrupting the tapestry upon occasion? I have decided to pay homage to the King by following suit and interrupting my reading and reviewing of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula with a review of

Frankenstein No. 1, January, 1973

‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’ by Gary Friedrich and Ploog (20 pp)

A mere nine months after Dracula first sank his fangs into Marveldom Assembled, that comics company (now an international intellectual property and entertainment corporation) launched the world’s other most famous literary monster onto the world. Where Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway start by reviving Dracula in the present day, Friedrich commences his tale between the events of the novel and the present day, in 1898. Robert Walton IV follows in the footsteps of his great-grandfather by leading a collection of hired rogues across the arctic tundra in search of Frankenstein’s creature. They manage to find same, hidden in a block of ice, and place it on board their ship, at which point Walton decides to assent to the cabn boy’s request to sate his curiosity and begins an edited telling of the events of Mary Shelley’s novel. This encompases pages 6 to 18, after which we return to the present day and the ship getting into trouble because of the weather, and a hint of worse trouble to come as the block of ice begins to melt.

The twelve pages of flashback to the events of the novel obviously cannot cover all the material, even by spreading it across two issues, as I am informed is the case. However, Friedrich does actually retain the actual events of the original rather than simply utilise them as a springboard as is the case with many alleged adaptations of the work in question. This has the effect of producing one of Marvel’s most downbeat comics of the era - yes, even this era. And, yes, even with Mike Ploog’s cartoony art, which always manages to be moody when the material calls for it - 'Werewolf by Nigh't and 'Man-Thing' spring to mind. The art combines with the story well, and I am impressed that Friedrich manages to hold the story together well despite the majority of it being a massive lump of flashback in the middle - a device of which Marvel seem to be very keen indeed at the time.

While preparing to read and review this issue, it occurred to me that this came out the very same month as the last installment of another prose fiction character, Gulliver Jones, over in Creatures on the Loose No. 21- he was replaced by Thongor, warrior of lost Lemuria, adapted from the works of Lin Carter. Following last month’s Supernatural Thrillers No. 1 adapting ‘It’ by Theodore Sturgeon, one might almost believe that Marvel had run out of ides for new series once Jack Kirby had left.

Mike Ploog provides the cover as well as the interior art, and injects some Marvel influence into the scene, ramping up the sensational aspects of the material. Obviously someone felt that there needed to be more of this aspect and added a blurb or two to ram the point home. The logo is one of the most curious of the Bronze Age - and was to be completely revamped twice during the title’s brief, eighteen-issue, run.

Tomb of Dracula No. 4 (Sept ‘72)

‘Through a Mirror Darkly!’

Goodwin/Colan /Palmer (20 pp.)

The second of the two issues of this title to be written by Archie Goodwin continues directly on from the previous one, with Ilsa Strangway inviting Dracula into her abode and subsequently striking a bargain with him. The readers of this review shall have as good an idea as I did that somehow the bargain will grow a snake-like head and bite her in the foot, and indeed this has come to pass by the end of this issue. However, Dracula does end up with his magic mirror.

Frank Drake, Rachel Van Helsing and Taj continue to hunt Dracula, enlisting via Inspector Chelm of Scotland Yard a local Police Officer who, like Chelm before him, has to be convinced that vampires exist by personal experience. Dracula continues to be aided by the vampirised Clifton Graves. In the closing sequence, Dracula tries to escape from the vampire hunters via his magic mirror and ends up dragging Taj through this portal to another time or dimension with him, just in time for this incident to be witnessed by Van Helsing and Drake.

Sadly, as we shall see next time, this is the last Goodwin wrote of Dracula. Reading this series for the first time, I find myself disappointed by this: after Gerry Conway made a good start in the first two issues, Goodwin seems to be developing the series very well here, introducing new characters but not flooding us with them, structuring the episodes well with neither too little nor too much plot material in each issue and writing better dialogue than Conway did.

The art this issue is by Gene Colan on pencils and Tom Palmer on inks, thus making this the first issue to have the same creative team as the previous one (it is even still lettered by John Costanza). However, we do have a first this time around: this is the first issue wherein the pages are not numbered. One suspects that the page count is about to fall…

The blurb at the bottom of the cover - which I suspect is in theory the title of the story - is ‘the Bride of Dracula!’ which puzzled me a while after reading the story; then I worked out that it refers to Ilsa, with ‘Bride’ being used as a figure of speech to mean ‘dupe’, ‘pawn’ or the like. The cover background is purple, with the logo being white on red. As with last issue’s debut of the classic Dracula logo picture in a circle, the colourist has bothered to colour in Dracula’s sash. The cover itself appears to be by Neal Adams - with John Romita finding it necessary to redraw the figure of the title character.

15 Sept 08

Tomb of Dracula No. 3

July, 1972

‘Who Stalks the Vampire?’ (20 pp.) by Archie Goodwin, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer

With this third issue in this series, original writer Gerry Conway is replaced by Archie Goodwin in a move perhaps reminiscent of that scribe’s replacing Stan Lee on The Fantastic Four. Goodwin follows Conway’s precedent of following the end of the last issue almost immediately with the beginning of this one as Frank Drake, descendent of Dracula, is about to jump off a bridge and commit suicide as a result of having staked Jean, his girlfriend and a vampire, in last issue’s climax. However, Goodwin departs from Conway precedents as he then introduces two new characters who save Drake from himself by pointing out that rather than live a life of misery or commit suicide he could live a life dedicated to fighting vampires, as they do. This pair are a blonde by the name of Rachel Van Helsing and a giant, mute Indian called Taj. Drake having recognised Rachel’s surname, she admits that she is indeed the great-grand-daughter of the Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s book; Taj has been mute ever since a plague of vampires killed all the inhabitants of his village except himself.

The main part of this episode deals with the coffin of Dracula as featured heavily in the previous issue, which I suppose is natural enough: it does justify the comic’s very title, after all. Dracula turns Drake’s ex-friend Clifton Graves into a vampire servant to do the hands-on work relating to the coffin. The cast assemble in the hotel in London as seen in the previous issue and do their best to film a Carry On until Dracula escapes in bat form and Scotland Yard turn up and arrest the wrong people. For me the highlight is Rachel Van Helsing in Inspector Chelm’s offices being completely unruffled by her arrest; it is a minor, temporary inconvenience in the vast scheme of things with particular reference to the fight against the undead. Chelm only becomes convinced when the hotel’s night porter rises from the coffin and attempts mayhem in his offices - to the extent that he takes the inevitable staking of a minor vampire in his stride rather than accusing anyone of murder before his very eyes.

The other matter dealt with herein is that of the ownership of Dracula’s castle, the deeds to which are now in the possession of one Ilsa Strangways, former beauty now obsessed with the occult and its perceived ability to restore her former appearance. This obsession goes as far as firing her Solicitor for attempting to advise her and inviting Dracula into her home. This piece of vampire lore, made famous by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is one of several expounded upon by one M. M. Watson of Illinois University in the first letter column in this title, named, in fine Marvel Comics tradition, ‘Tomes to the Tomb.’

This debut joins the several other debuts in this issue: the first issue ending on a cliffhanger; the first issue not written by Gerry Conway; the first issue inked by Tom Palmer; and the first issue with the classic logo pic of Dracula in the top left hand corner, complete with circle. While I do not like Palmer’s inks as much as Colan’s own in the first issue of this title, they are obviously an improvement over last issue’s Colletta work, and fully as good as they are reputed to be. For instance, he retains the individual characteristics of Rachel Van Helsing’s face in a way I am not convinced that anyone else would have.

This is a busy issue without being ill-paced, and Archie Goodwin does a good job, except for the odd piece of clunky dialogue in places. He clearly intends to take the series in a different direction from Conway: the debut writer introduced three named characters other than Dracula in his first issue, then turned one into a vampire in the first and staked’n’dusted her in the second. Goodwin introduces Rachel Van Helsing, Taj, Inspector Chelm, Ilsa Strangways and her butler Whitby and solicitor Godfrey Langston (those last two I suspect we shall not see again). He also ends the story on at least a semi- cliffhanger as Ilsa invites Dracula into her home.

I mentioned above the debut of the classic early logo picture. I would also note about this issue’s cover that it features the under-picture blurb ‘To Stalk a Vampire!’ and a further, unnecessary blurb on the art area, undermining Gil Kane’s alleged intent for this cover design. Even more than the two word balloons.

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Tomb of Dracula No. 2

May, 1972

‘The Fear Within!’ by Gerry Conway, Gene Colan and Vince Colletta (21 pp.)

Despite the premiere issue’s self-contained nature, this second outing for Marvel Comics’ version of the most famous vampire of them all continues directly on from that first story, with Dracula's descendent Frank Drake returning to Dracula’s castle with a local. He finds his friend Clifton Graves in Dracula’s larder and rescues him. Dracula reports to his medic, who patches him up and is killed for his pains, having betrayed Dracula as a boy. No, by the way: I don’t know how a boy can betray Dracula and thereby bring about his ‘death’ for some seventy-five years, then as an old man meet Dracula in the position of his doctor; more importantly, Gerry Conway appears not to know either.

‘--Let us turn to balmy London, and a day yet a fortnight away, when--’ Drake and Graves arrive with Dracula’s coffin. In his hotel room, Drake finds Jean in his shower, remembering in the nick of time that she is a vampire and spurning her. This scene has to be repeated when Graves arrives, drunk and tautologously addressing Jean as ‘girl-chick.’ Meanwhile, Dracula ‘drifts lazily upward through the moist London sky’ to the hotel room directly above Drake’s. He rants to himself thusly: ‘the coffin will be mine--’ new caption, leading into the next panel, back with Drake and company ‘--because mine is the plan which cannot fail!’ In brief, this plan is that Vampire Jean acts as a mere pawn of Dracula and defeats the two men who love her and then in Phase Two, Dracula saunters in and procures his coffin. Everything goes according to plan and Jean has hypnotised Graves, who in turn has drugged Drake’s coffee. Dracula joins the ranks of mice and men when it transpires that Drake has not really drunk the coffee and dawn arrives conveniently for our hero, forcing Dracula to flee and concede that he has lost the battle. However, Drake still has to thrust a stake through Jean and watch her disintegrate in the sunlight, while telling him that this is the best result.

Conway again delivers a well-structured story (I have simplified the plot somewhat above) but again goes overboard in the script trying to prove to Roy and Stan that he is a Writer. The worst is the twenty-word caption in 19/4 describing Dracula lifting Drake above his, Dracula’s, head preparatory to throwing him. There are two reasons that this is the worst caption in this story, neither of which is actual poor writing in terms of words on the page. Longtime aficionados of Bronze Age Marvel Comics may have guessed that Conway’s caption describing Dracula lifting Drake above his, Dracula’s, head is in a panel in which Colan has actually drawn Dracula lifting Drake above his, Dracula’s, head; however, not even these connoisseurs might have guessed that the caption is not at the top of the panel, nor even at the bottom, but slap-bang in the middle, directly over Colan’s art. Words fail me. One wishes that Conway had experienced this phenomenon more frequently.

As far as the art goes, it must be said that Colan and Colletta is better than I had expected - but, on the other hand, I had expected Colletta to completely ruin Colan’s delicate work. His style does actually work over Colan’s, much as admitting this feels like having a tooth extracted. It only fails in the odd panel, which in at least one instance looks like Colletta got an inexperienced inker to do a hand.

The cover is by John Severin and the bottom blurb announces ‘Who Stole My Coffin?’ as though it is the title of the story inside. Indeed, it would be a more appropriate one, but a less Conwayesque one. Severin, incidentally, is the only artist to draw Dracula’s goatee on the cover of an issue of this title - Colan drops it from the third issue onwards and Neal Adams forgets it on the cover of the first issue. One final note on cover trivia: the picture next to the logo is a simple head shot of Dracula and his cape’s collar, but smaller than and a different one from that on the first issue.

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While the Avengers reading project is still De Jure ongoing and current, a new one has entered the lists.

Take it away, Vlad!

Tomb of Dracula No. 1

April, 1972

‘Dracula’ (25pp.) by Gerry Conway and Gene Colan

Originally proposed as a black-and-white magazine to accompany Savage Tales and rival Warren’s line of the time, this series ended up as more-or-less a standard comic after Savage Tales was (possibly temporarily) cancelled and the Comics Code amended to permit the portrayal of vampires and similar beings provided that it was in the ‘traditional’ manner. This led to the re-sizing of the artwork for this issue, which I must confess I saw no signs of unless the gutters were a tad larger than usual, and presumably the 25-page story length - not only is there no letters page or equivalent in this issue, it also lacks house ads and even a Bullpen Bulletins page.

Now, I am one of those people very much in favour of what one might call ‘pure comics’ - comics where the artwork and writing are in harmony to the extent that they are almost not separable, where the pictures tell the story and the words are organised to become part of the pictures telling the story. Even so, I am inclined, looking at this story, to believe that twenty-five pages of Gene Colan inking himself is an item of such beauty, grace, elegance and style that the writing is almost an irrelevance. This is lucky in a way, that way being that Gerry Conway here is extending himself to the point where you just want him to shut up instead of seemingly seeing exactly how many words he can shoehorn into each panel. The dialogue is not too bad - I came to differentiate the two male leads after the first half-a-dozen pages - but the captions insist on piling on mood to the point where they teeter on the precipice of self-parody and also on occasion commit the sin of irrelevance. There is also one point where Frank Drake delivers a soliloquy, a big no-no in my view.

Despite the over-the-top narration and other flaws in the script, the story is basically sound. If you’re interested in plot synopsis and, more importantly, the premise of the series, here goes: Frank Drake, his girlfriend Jean and his friend and her ex- Clifton go to Dracula’s castle in Transylvania on the basis that Drake has inherited it, being a great-grandson or so of The Dracula (at some point after migrating to America the family somewhat wisely changed their name); Drake is broke, and Clifton has devised a scheme whereby he can open the castle as a tourist attraction. Clifton has also devised another scheme whereby Drake meets an ‘accident’ and he, Clifton, gets the castle and the girl. This performance target is not met because when the trio are poking around the castle, Drake trips over Dracula’s tomb and playfully removes the stake, with somewhat predictable results. By the end of the story Clifton is in a pit in the castle awaiting Dracula’s requirement for a midnight snack, Jean is a vampire and Drake is miserable. I suppose if I wanted a happy ending I should have stopped after I read the words ‘Gerry’ and ‘Conway’ on the first page. The twenty-five pages are well-paced, and overall this is a very promising beginning to what turned out to be the longest-running of the continuing-character supernatural series of the Bronze Age of comics.

7 September, 2008

Occasionally, I shall take a break from my reading of The Avengers in its entirety. The below is one such occasion.

Supernatural Thrillers No. 1

December, 1972

‘It!’ (21 pp.)

As Roy ‘the Boy’ Thomas explains on the text page of this very issue, Marvel’s mystery line debuting in 1972 had the USP, as they say nowadays, of featuring adaptations of the best in fantasy fiction. The revived Journey into Mystery and Chamber of Chills were standard-issue anthology titles; Supernatural Thrillers’s distinguishing characteristic is that it featured a full-length story each and every issue.

The series commences with an adaptation of Theodore Sturgeon’s noted classic ‘It,’ originally published in the pulp magazine Unknown in 1940. The adaptation is presented by Stan Lee and adapted by Roy Thomas (scripter) and Marie Severin and Frank Giacoia (artists). I am impressed that Thomas did not attempt to seize the credit ’writer’ here, and would suggest that Roy gave Marie a copy of the short story and requested that she adapt same, adding dialogue and captions later. If this is indeed the case, he may only have made one mistake, describing the character ‘Babe’ as wearing a denim shirt where Sev and Giacoia clearly depict a t-shirt.

Without rehearsing the plot in its entirety, I will say that I was impressed with the way that this is not entirely a ‘mood’ piece and is rather well put together. It is, however, with its tracts of incident reported from the title character’s point of view, not a suitable subject for adaptation in the comics form. Despite this, it spawned, I suspect, two Marvel monster series of the Bronze Age: the Man-Thing, presumably derived from The Heap, a character which debuted a series in Fear No. 10, even before this adaptation appeared, and the short-lived ‘It, the Living Colossus’ in Astonishing Tales, which took the name and title logo from this issue’s story and attached it to a completely different character, for reasons which I believe are explained in a text page in that series.

The Severin-Giacoia team produce something which looks more-or-less as though it is trying to be Wally Wood, perhaps unsurprisingly - Severin worked on Wood’s strips in the ‘50s for EC and Giacoia worked as one of his assistants on the THUNDER Agents series in the ‘sixties. Frankly, it’s serviceable and attractive, but without magic. The writing is acceptable except for many of the passages depicting the monster’s point of view, perhaps inevitably to an extent in this story. However, the number of words on the opening page - a hundred and fifty-two - is simply unacceptable. Comics are not simply illustrated stories.

Overall, I did quite enjoy this, but with some reservations.

The Avengers No. 13

February, 1965

‘The Castle of Count Nefaria!’ (20 pp.)

Stan Lee, Don Heck and Dick Ayers

This issue represents a vast improvement over the last three, thankfully, after a very ropey start in the opening scene where the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes, foil a robbery at a fur warehouse. Obviously there was a shortage of aliens and mad scientists attempting to take over the world at the time. At any rate, it transpires that the robbers were members of the worldwide criminal network the Maggia - ‘the Avengers are puttin’ us out of business!’ moans a criminal overlord in an orange check jacket. On being advised of this, a senior criminal overlord in Europe who rejoices in the name Count Nefaria shoots the messenger and determines ‘I must deal with the meddlesome Avengers!’ A plan is already beginning to form in his mind, which he believes that no-one will suspect because the world knows him only as Europe’s wealthiest nobleman. Accordingly, he enacts stage one of his master plan: disassembling his castle, transporting it to the United States of America (via a shipping line which he owns) and re-erecting it in ‘a matter of weeks.’ My congratulations to the building contractor involved. More. My congratulations to Stan Lee pulling off a story in which Europe’s wealthiest nobleman and owner of a castle and shipping and haulage companies earns some pocket money on the side as a criminal genius.

At any rate, Nefaria eschews the traditional tactic of luring the Avengers to South America and instead lures them to his castle, where he places them in a trance, creates hologram duplicates of them and sends these duplicates to the Pentagon to announce that the Avengers are taking over America. Accordingly, the government declares war on the Avengers, with uncomfortable results for the Avengers after they leave Nefaria’s castle, i. e. the opportunity for a fight scene of the U. S. Army and Air Force vs. the Avengers.

Meanwhile, Rick Jones and his Essex Soul Boy squad take the opportunity of searching Nefaria’s castle, presumably in the belief that it is actually a night club in Romford with the women and lager teasingly hidden from their eyes. The truth reveals itself to them when a band of Maggia hired hands pounce on them and place them in a dungeon.

The Avengers work out that the Teen Brigade must have been captured by Nefaria and go back to his castle on a rescue mission, the initial phase of which ends up with Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man and the Wasp trapped by Nefaria’s super-glue, essentially. Oh, alright, that’s merely what it looks like; they are actually paralysed - as Rick Jones and his friends will be if they touch the walls of their cell. Cap deduces what has happened and enters the castle without touching any of its external surface or grounds, thusly evading the paralysis, and finds the Teen Brigade, at which point Rick points out that the antidote to Nefaria’s paralysis is in a spray can just out of his reach, which Nefaria had been taunting the Brigadiers with but which Stan and Don have not mentioned to us before, possibly because they are making this stuff up as they go along and are up to page 18 already. Thus, after Rick runs off with the spray can to free the four trapped Avengers, flashing his white socks at us in the last panel of page 18, we are given the following in rapid-fire succession over a mere two pages: Cap signalling to a destroyer cruising up the nearby Hudson river, then being captured by Nefaria, then being rescued by the freed Avengers; the Avengers rounding up Nefaria and his underlings; Nefaria saying that he only sent some holograms of the Avengers to the pentagon as a harmless prank; a General overhearing this confession to conveniently clear the Avengers’ names of treason (‘I should have known the Avengers could never be guilty of treason!’ - yes, you should); Nefaria being told that he is to be deported and responding ‘I’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those pesky kids!’ I may have made that last bit up.

Then, in the last two panels, a cliffhanger - the first in Avengers’ history. Giant-Man wonders where the Wasp is. In the final panel, Rick Jones is carrying the Wasp in his arms and explains that she was hit by a stray bullet trying to protect the Teen Brigade. Stan gives us a final caption telling us that as one adventure ends, another begins, and that ends the Avengers story for this month. It also ends the synopsis portion of my Avengers reviews for another installment, except for one last remark: Rick Jones may not have found any lager, but he did get to pick up a chick.

Unlike the previous issue, where some material seemed to have been shoved in to force the page count up to 20, this issue appears to suffer from the opposite problem: the story seems camped at 20 pages and could have done with about five more, airing a scene or two towards the beginning, where there are more panels on some pages than is conventional for a Marvel of the Silver Age, and expanding that rushed two pages at the end. In fact, these two issues - 12 and 13 - read much like a writer learning to write, which is rather preposterous when one considers that Stan Lee had been at it for two decades at this point. One is almost forced to conclude that he was having to learn to write the Avengers after Jack Kirby had left after issue No. 8...

9 August, 2008

The Avengers No. 12

January, 1965

“This Hostage Earth!” - Lee/Heck/Ayers, 20 pp.

‘No one ever knows how an incredible adventure will begin!’ Stan informs us in a caption atop the page one splash. In this case, it is with a rather clumsily-drawn story title and a scene of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in Pym’s laboratory taking a day off from their Avengers duties to do some lab work. I would criticise them for doing this in their superhero costumes, but I have seen Ralph Dibney on honeymoon in his, so reason that this is a minor eccentricity on the Marvel characters’ part.

The splash is the beginning of a two-and-a-bit page sequence showing the Avengers and setting up the plot, in this case that some ants are warning (Gi-) Ant Man of impending danger; Hank takes the issue to the Avengers, who, led by Thor, pour scorn on the problems of a mere ant hill. Hank resolves to look into the matter on his own.

We then cut to the villain of the issue, viz and to wit the Mole Man, whose latest plot is to construct a machine to increase the rotation speed of the Earth and thusly wipe out all life on the surface unless humanity surrenders to him: Hank’s ants are the first creatures to suffer the effects of the atomic gyroscope. However, by page seven, humans are beginning to be affected… plus, Giant-Man is captured by the Mole Man and the Avengers conclude that their tallest member was right all along.

As this leaves thirteen pages for the Avengers to track down the Mole Man in his lair, Stan has to throw in a couple of complications. Firstly, the Mole Man’s minions attack the Avengers on the surface, which takes us to page 12 by the time they are seen off by the superheroes with some extremely helpful aid by an Essex Soul Boy. Captain America and the said Essex Soul Boy then have to fetch a Macguffin from Stark’s factory to enable the Avengers to get to the villain’s pad or drum - with a gang of hoods in the process of burgling the factory when they arrive, this bulks out the story to page 15.

With five pages to go, you would think that Stan would start to worry that he has no room for a Climactic Battle Royale followed by ‘Alas, lackaday, the Villain hath escaped down a hole to fight another day.’ No, you forget that Jack Kirby left four issues earlier and no one else can construct a five page fight scene. Stan has to have the Red Ghost turn up and offer the Mole Man the chance of an alliance: ‘I feel that a combination of our rather unusual “talents” would make us the most unbeatable team the world has ever known.’ Now hold on a minute, Ivan; the known teams in the Marvel Universe at this point consist of the FF, the Avengers, the X-Men for the good guys, and on the evil side the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. And if you thought that that last-named pack’s tail starts immediately after its leader has batted, what of the winning combination of the Red Ghost and the Mole Man, one of whom can make himself or anything else intangable - admittedly an excellent start - and the other of whom cannot see in broad daylight and has an inordinately large nose. Methinks that the Red Ghost is stretching the very definition of the term ‘optimism’ on this issue.

And, yes, predictably, the Avengers do thrash the two villains in the next five pages. Almost as predictably, the last panel has the two Criminal Masterminds blaming each other.

The Heck/Ayers art may be beginning to improve, or I may merely be getting used to it, but they do manage to make Thor look like an Asgardian god here. I cannot say the same for Stan Lee. It is beginning to look like every issue has acouple of pages of the Avengers to introduce the characters whose name is the very title of the series, followed by the villain or villains appearing at the bottomk of page three to run through their plot for the reader’s benefit. From then on, this issue resorts to padding, unlike even the Immortus issue, to virtually double the length of the story. Even Kirby at his most throwaway in No. 5 at least manages to keep a storyline hanging together without me thinking ‘why is this happening? Oh, so this issue has twenty pages rather than twelve.’ I am beginning to long for The Old Order Changeth, as I seem to remember from thirty-five years ago that things are somewhat better than this from that point on, as “This Hostage Earth!” simply reads like a waste of time and paper.

Finally, because I find harping on about Jack Kirby irresistible: there are two pages of house ads in this issue, each featuring four cover reproductions of contemporaneous Marvel comics. One is Spider-Man, with a Steve Ditko cover; the other seven have Kirby covers… including at least four titles with Kirby interior content. Oh, and the cover of this issue of the Avengers is also by Kirby...

The Avengers No. 11

“The Mighty Avengers Meet Spider-Man!”

Lee, Heck and Stone (20 pp.)

To cut a long story short: the Avengers meet to discuss the disappearance of Iron Man, and grant him a leave of absence. We cut to Kang the Conqueror, lurking in the future and thirsting for revenge (yes, I know; but this is the first time). Having kept an eye on the twentieth century, Kang knows that an ally or flunky can turn against one (I. E. Wonder Man) but cracks this problem by constructing a robot of Spider-Man to fight the team. The robot is sent back in time, applies to join the Avengers and leaves in a snit because Thor upsets him - I might note here that on this occasion Kang manages to write a Marvel comics character in character, which is something that Stan Lee does not always manage. Before disappearing, the Spider-Man robot tells the Avengers where Zemo, the Executioner and the Enchantress are holed up, viz and to wit in an old temple in South America, presumably a different one than that from two issues ago in the Wonder Man story.

Off the Avengers go, travelling separately by their own unique methods as is their standard procedure because they are a team. And also because it allows them to arrive at different times and fight the Spider-Man robot unsuccessfully so it can defeat Giant-Man and the Wasp and get Thor into a position where he is separated from his Uru hammer for the requisite minute he needs to turn back into the less powerful lame Dr. Donald Blake. The robot is on the verge of defeating Johnny-come-lately Captain America when the real Spider-Man turns up, his nose having been put out of joint by an imposter, whom he tracked down and proceeds to defeat because, of course, he invented all the fighting techniques that the genius Kang has programmed into the robot. Spidey sneaks off immediately, natch, and the Avengers mop up, leaving Kang to rant at his view screen.

I suppose one could view the Avengers fighting a mere robot replica of Spider-Man as a cheat, but I’m inclined to think that it’s actually a refreshing change from Marvel heroes fighting each other. I’m also inclined to give into the urge to state that this story was not a hoax or an imaginary story…

Overall, it’s well done, building its set-up efficiently and featuring some nice action sequences. On a technical or creative level I did not notice any blatant Lee-isms and cannot see any noticeable difference in quality between Chic Stone’s inking on Heck here as distinct from Dick Ayers’ on the previous two issues.

Finally, you know that leave of absence Stan set up on a page and a half at the start of the story? No one told Jack Kirby about it, because the Golden Avenger is there on the cover of this issue.

The Avengers No. 10

‘The Avengers Break Up!’ (Lee/Heck/Ayers, 20 pp.)

Unlike Ronseal, Marvel fail to deliver on this one. The Avengers merely have one of their members transported to the past by this issue’s cover-featured villain, Immortus, after a villain has persuaded him that one of the other Avengers has betrayed Captain America by delivering Essex soul boy Rick Jones to the aforementioned villain.

However, I get ahead of myself with this carping criticism.

The Avengers start this issue by putting Cap through his paces; he survives fighting against the other four for forty-seven seconds, beating previous attempts but failing to achieve his performance target of a full minute. The group then hold a committee meeting to decide whether Rick Jones should be made a full member, with Captain America being a bit blatant about his feelings of guilt about his previous teenage partner dying. We then switch scene to Zemo, the Enchantress and the Executioner so that the plot of this issue can be set up: the Enchantress receives a mind probe which turns out to be one Immortus communicating with the villains from his home in Limbo. Immortus wants to join their squad; they decide that the admission ticket is the defeat of an Avenger, a challenge which Immortus takes on. He seemingly picks Captain America as his target on the grounds that he is the weakest Avenger, a mistake which he is neither the first nor the last to make.

This is the point at which Immortus lures Rick Jones to his temporary headquarters where Attila the Hun leaps on him. Rick evades capture for three panels, doubtless utilising a combination of moves taught to him by Cap and picked up in the Wigan Casino. Attila opines ‘The boy fights with the fury of a true Hun!’ to which Immortus in the commentary booth responds ‘Don’t stop to admire him, you fool! He must be captured!’ This inevitably comes to pass, and Rick finds himself imprisoned him in the Tower of London in the year 1360. This lures Cap and the other Avengers to him. Sending Cap back to Jones, Immortus then pulls characters from all of Earth’s history (utilising the term loosely) from their native timeframe to fight each of the remaining Avengers in turn: .Goliath is defeated by Giant-Man, Merlin by Iron Man and Hercules by Thor. In the British reprint, Hercules is renamed (i. e. re-lettered) to Atlas. In two of the three panels in which he is referred to by name. In their weakened states, the four Avengers are proving less of a match than they otherwise might to Zemo and his two Asgardian oppos when Cap returns from 1360 and gives them enough help to commence thrashing the bad guys, at which point the Enchantress decides that it is time that they cut and run and casts a spell taking time back. The Avengers hold a committee meeting, the Enchabtress receives a mind probe - and cuts it off. The end.

It may just be that I’m getting used to it quickly, but the art by Heck and Ayers seems an improvement on the previous issue. The writing is another matter. While I give respect to Stan Lee for introducing a new villain in the shape of Immortus, it could be argued that he is merely a variation on Kang, the Conqueror from Kirby’s last issue, No. 8 (as we shall see later, if I have the stamina, I am not the first one to spot this similarity). More. He is still using the hatred of the Enchantress, the Executioner and Zemo for the Avengers as the main plot igniter. He also falls into a flaw I noticed reading The Essential Iron Man the other year; here’s an example:

Cap: (2/7): I fear no foe that lives or breathes!

And: ‘We will speak of it… another time!

Cap (7/6): You’re biting off more than you can chew, Mister!

Why have this character’s speech patterns changed in five pages?

This is the most irksome thing about Marvel Comics in the swingin’ ‘sixties. However, as we all know, their many virtues outweigh flaws such as this by a considerable margin. I will give this issue a seven out of ten.

I have recently embarked upon a re-reading of Marvel's Avengers run, and decided that I might review each issue as I come to it (these decisions happened some time apart, hence begining here with No. 9). Depending upon reaction (mostly my own), this project might well continue. After about No. 35 or so, this will move from re-reading to reading for the first time for some issues... hmmm... thinking about it, I seem to have bailed just after rascally Roy 'the Boy' Thomas, worldofagwu's china plate, came on board as scripter. Surely there can be no cause-and-effect phenomenon there?

“The Coming of the Wonder Man!”

21pp

The Avengers No. 6, dated October 27, 1973, reprints the story from The Avengers No. 9,with some re-lettering and zip-a-tone. I have no idea why the re-lettering is there, and sadly cannot find my copy of The Avengers No. 9 to investigate this issue and report on same.

I can, however, report on the story, which is the first issue without the feature’s co-creator, Jack Kirby, for with this issue Don Heck takes over the pencilling chores, inked by Dick Ayers, a combination which is not as bad as I would have thought, though at times it’s hard to judge through the appalling printing - I mean, they have a nerve to actually go so far as to charge money for this.

We start this adventure with Cap lusting for revenge on Baron Zemo while that villain and his two Asgardian semi-allies, the Enchantress and the Executioner, are stuck in one-dimensional space in an obviously Kirby-designed craft. I had forgotten about all this over the past thirty-four and a half years - there does seem to be an inordinate amount of stalling by Stan till we get to Simon Williams, business rival of Tony Stark, after his court appearance being approached by the Enchantress and the Executioner in civilian garb. After that it does rattle along at a fair old clip, taking far less time than I remember to reach its conclusion, which I suppose some might find a tad sentimental; personally, I think it just about works. I’m not going to give a more detailed plot summary, because it has just occurred to me that while I know this story, or at least its basics, virtually off by heart, there are those in the world who are not as well-versed in Marvel Lore as I, for some reason unfathomable to my good self.

So, what’s the verdict? I rather hate to admit that this hasn’t gone completely down the drain since Jack Kirby left, but it hasn’t. Perhaps this is due to Kirby having left Lee and Heck the three big villains featured here plus Captain America and his grudge against Zemo as some sort of ongoing plotline, but this is far less all over the place than the Lee/Heck Iron Man, which I have recently read. An entertaining twenty-minute read.

Copied and pasted from another forum, a la running a 'zine in multiple apas:

I was going to post a mini-review of this but seem to remember that there are rules against the sort of language I was planning to use.

Suffice to say...

1. The announcer at the begining said something like 'Torchwood is back: faster, funnier, sexier.' Unsurprisingly, this turned out to mean 'dumbed down.'

2. I thought that there was some sort of rule that 'hour'-long programmes were action/adventure or drama and the comedies were half an hour.

I am attempting to give this puppy

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/?s=Groth+Ellison

the maximum possible exposure on the interweb whilst also refining a comparison with the point in European history where everyone thought that it was all over and the Congress of Vienna was sorting out the board and setting up the pieces for the next game but some guy in a funny chapeau Entered the Scene and tried to upset everything.

I hear that the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to one Doris Lessing.

So did she: http://books.guardian.co.uk/video/2007/oct/12/doris.lessing

I, rather more excitedly, went to the Library after work and took out a volume of her short stories (if you think I'm going to tackle one of her stonking great novels you've got another think coming).

With acknowledgement for pointing me to that clip to arielstarshadow on james_nicol's LJ. .

ITV are showing [i]Agatha Christie's Marple: Ordeal By Innocence[/i] tomorrow evening. Last week, [i]At Bertram's Hotel[/i] had drug smugglers omitted but added art smugglers, Nazis, jolly Cockney maids, jazz singers and lesbians.

Having read the novel but not yet seen the TV production of [i]Ordeal by Innocence[/i], I've no idea what's going to be left out, but I can tell you one thing they'll add: Miss Marple.

Upon mine return to work from my sojourn at the Summer Palace, I discovered
that I had a mere or humble forty-se'en e-mails with which to deal. Of
these, fourteen were spam. Of these, two were utter classics in a way.

The Runner-up was from the sale manegar, as he called himself, of a company
'looking for a trustworthy bookkeeper, representative in Canada/USA.' Some
might think that perhaps he should not ask people if they are interested in
this position if the person in question has an e-mail such as mine, viz and
to wit ending in the three characters '.uk.'

The Winner is Lloyds TSB requesting me to give them my account information
for updating purposes. Not only have I never had an account with Lloyds TSB,
but the sender of the e-mail is 'Lloyds TSB Bank Plc
[security@halifax.co.uk].'