Week Ending Oct. 21, 1972

Mighty World of Marvel #3


Let us transport ourselves back to October 1972 by means of TV show flashback, cue slightly vacant gaze and wibbly-wobbly fade-out...

So, the third issue of MWOM has arrived in British newsagents, with a cover that, other than characters, has no relation to content, but what content it was. Origin stories dispensed with, we are now into reprints of our heroes' respective second issues, and we get to find out how Stan Lee handles the challenge of the tricky sophomore story. The answer would seem to be "Spaceships!" "Aliens!" "Alien spaceships!".


The Hulk is facing the Terror of The Toad Men and looking a little more traditionally Hulky, courtesy of Steve Ditko inks on Jack Kirby's pencils. As protagonists go, the Toad Men are as rubbish as you would expect and a little too pleased with/obsessed by their magnetic technology. While The Hulk is looking more like his modern self (and now officially green) he is still not the creature most would recognise, with some ray-gun totting, spaceship flying antics up his torn sleeves.
I guess at least this might silence those upset at Scientist-Hulk in Endgame.



This weeks issue also gives us the opportunity to see Peter Parker thrashed in the most one-sided game of Keeping Up With The Joneses in history, with cutaway pin-ups of Aunt May's house and the Baxter Building.


The Fantastic Four have alien trouble of their own, with the shape-shifting Skrulls causing public relations chaos by imitating Marvel's first family on a crime spree.
Will the day be saved by the FF's cunning plan to out-cunning their alien adversaries by impersonating  the Skrulls impersonating them committing an act of sabotage. I cannot see how this could possibly fail and await next week's installment with baited breath.


Spider-Man gets his own spaceship adventure this week too, if somewhat more Earth-based but certainly no more plausible. J. Jonah Jameson makes his bid to be Spider-Man's official arch-enemy in this tale, despite Spidey saving the ungrateful media-mogul's son from what turns out to be a surprisingly drawn out imminent death situation.

These early stories are definitely weirder than I was anticipating, but no less enjoyable for it. I'll be interested to see how this trend progresses over the coming weeks.

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