Week Ending Jan. 6, 1973
Mighty World of Marvel #14
It is January 1973, somewhere in a probably grey, wet Britain a child called Waids is embarking on the next phase of his 47 year plot to make my life miserable. Despite his uncanny knack for long-term planning, he did not foresee the advent of ebay and a fellow youngster called Hamilton who would understand the importance of NOT CUTTING UP COMICS, YOU AWFUL LITTLE PHILISTINE.
This week we get the second part of Hulk's battle with Bruce Banner's low-rent Iron Man knock off. We are also treated to what I think is Marvel UK's first creator credits with wacky nicknames or hyperbolic introductions. The story itself is not particularly noteworthy, we do have the first appearance of Major Glenn Talbot and a namecheck for Tony Stark though. This is yet another tale that experiments with the Hulk, his strength seemingly reduced to that of the early issues and his transformation from the Hulk back to Dr Banner also triggered by increased stress, oddly remaining the Hulk when unconscious. The modern reader is left wondering when the characters powers and limitations will be clearly defined.
The mystery as to why Marvel UK chose to reprint Amazing Spider-Man #5 and #6 out of sequence is finally revealed. As I previously suspected, it was related to the appearance of Dr Doom as this story's antagonist, not just because the previous issue featured the Latverian armour-fetishism up against the Fantastic Four, but to disguise the gap in time between the original US FF and Spider-Man stories. Marvel UK cleverly edit this story to look like it takes place after last week's reprint of Fantastic Four #6, while the original US version occurred following the defeat of Dr Doom in FF #17. Admittedly, the few additional panels required to pull this off are poorly drawn, but would have slipped past the average kid at the time unnoticed. This is possibly the most fascinating element of the strip this week, we do get some nice Ditko art that feels like he may have been less rushed on this issue, and another glimpse of Peter Parker being a bit of a dick when he gives some consideration to letting Flash Thompson die at the hands of Dr Doom in order to improve his own dating opportunities.
The Fantastic Four are confronted with the peril of Kurrgo; Master of Planet X, a world threatened with destruction despite being technologically advanced and having a leader who dresses like a space-pimp. Kurrgo sends his robot servant (who for legal reasons is clearly not called Gort) on a mission to kidnap the Fantastic Four in order to have them save Planet X from imminent meteor-based annihilation. Not-Gort is to achieve this by means of the 'Hostility Ray'...
Oh Stan and Jack, don't ever change.
It is January 1973, somewhere in a probably grey, wet Britain a child called Waids is embarking on the next phase of his 47 year plot to make my life miserable. Despite his uncanny knack for long-term planning, he did not foresee the advent of ebay and a fellow youngster called Hamilton who would understand the importance of NOT CUTTING UP COMICS, YOU AWFUL LITTLE PHILISTINE.
This week we get the second part of Hulk's battle with Bruce Banner's low-rent Iron Man knock off. We are also treated to what I think is Marvel UK's first creator credits with wacky nicknames or hyperbolic introductions. The story itself is not particularly noteworthy, we do have the first appearance of Major Glenn Talbot and a namecheck for Tony Stark though. This is yet another tale that experiments with the Hulk, his strength seemingly reduced to that of the early issues and his transformation from the Hulk back to Dr Banner also triggered by increased stress, oddly remaining the Hulk when unconscious. The modern reader is left wondering when the characters powers and limitations will be clearly defined.
The mystery as to why Marvel UK chose to reprint Amazing Spider-Man #5 and #6 out of sequence is finally revealed. As I previously suspected, it was related to the appearance of Dr Doom as this story's antagonist, not just because the previous issue featured the Latverian armour-fetishism up against the Fantastic Four, but to disguise the gap in time between the original US FF and Spider-Man stories. Marvel UK cleverly edit this story to look like it takes place after last week's reprint of Fantastic Four #6, while the original US version occurred following the defeat of Dr Doom in FF #17. Admittedly, the few additional panels required to pull this off are poorly drawn, but would have slipped past the average kid at the time unnoticed. This is possibly the most fascinating element of the strip this week, we do get some nice Ditko art that feels like he may have been less rushed on this issue, and another glimpse of Peter Parker being a bit of a dick when he gives some consideration to letting Flash Thompson die at the hands of Dr Doom in order to improve his own dating opportunities.
The Fantastic Four are confronted with the peril of Kurrgo; Master of Planet X, a world threatened with destruction despite being technologically advanced and having a leader who dresses like a space-pimp. Kurrgo sends his robot servant (who for legal reasons is clearly not called Gort) on a mission to kidnap the Fantastic Four in order to have them save Planet X from imminent meteor-based annihilation. Not-Gort is to achieve this by means of the 'Hostility Ray'...
Oh Stan and Jack, don't ever change.
Comments
Post a Comment