Week Ending Nov. 18,1972
Mighty World of Marvel #7
I'm going to go out on a potentially unpopular limb here and say that this is the first truly 'good' issue of MWOM. From the Jim Starlin cover art, to the general improvement of the art and stories inside, as well as someone bringing reasonable effort to the use of the green shading and Zip-A-Tone. This issue feels like a cohesive, quality product in a way the previous six may have lacked a little.
All that said, our opening Hulk story is and odd little tale. Without a antagonist to face, everyone just seems to be wondering how to deal with the Hulk, from Betty and General Ross, to Rick Jones and Bruce Banner, even Stan Lee and Jack Kirby appear to be thrashing out their plans for the character on the page. This week we have Rick flexing his little-known science muscles by using a gamma-ray machine to transform the Hulk back into his puny human alter ego. Bruce then refines the process to allow him to retain his personality and intelligence as the Hulk. Yet again, the Hulk is clearly shown to have the power of flight in this issue on more than one occasion, Stan obviously was not happy about this and contradicts the evidence of our eyes within his text to explain that ol' purple-pants is really just jumping.
Your move Jack...
Spider-Man spends his time bemoaning the lack of a real challenge to his powers, in another story where you can't help feeling that just maybe Peter Parker is a bit of a dick, whose unpopularity at school has nothing to do with being a studious bookworm.
Spider-Man's prayers (and possibly ours) are soon answered with the debut of Dr Octopus, who promptly gives self-pity Parker the kicking he thoroughly deserves. More nice artwork from Ditko this week, with a minimum of his trademark oddly angled limbs.
Now here is a story close to my heart, this was up until recently, the earliest Fantastic Four adventure I had read. As a kid I picked up Marvel Treasury Edition #2 which included this story, genuinely have no idea where I got it from, as it seems unlikely that my local newsagents would have stocked such a cool item. Anyway, the FF are really starting to look and act like themselves now, rather than the 1950s cast of an American cigarette advert of previous issues. What we have here is the first chapter of the tale that will lead to the reintroduction of the Sub-Mariner to the new Marvel universe. The plot is still a little happy to lean into insanely unlikely coincidence, but it is the Fantastic Four being fantastic and I'm totally here for it.
I'm going to go out on a potentially unpopular limb here and say that this is the first truly 'good' issue of MWOM. From the Jim Starlin cover art, to the general improvement of the art and stories inside, as well as someone bringing reasonable effort to the use of the green shading and Zip-A-Tone. This issue feels like a cohesive, quality product in a way the previous six may have lacked a little.
All that said, our opening Hulk story is and odd little tale. Without a antagonist to face, everyone just seems to be wondering how to deal with the Hulk, from Betty and General Ross, to Rick Jones and Bruce Banner, even Stan Lee and Jack Kirby appear to be thrashing out their plans for the character on the page. This week we have Rick flexing his little-known science muscles by using a gamma-ray machine to transform the Hulk back into his puny human alter ego. Bruce then refines the process to allow him to retain his personality and intelligence as the Hulk. Yet again, the Hulk is clearly shown to have the power of flight in this issue on more than one occasion, Stan obviously was not happy about this and contradicts the evidence of our eyes within his text to explain that ol' purple-pants is really just jumping.
Your move Jack...
Spider-Man spends his time bemoaning the lack of a real challenge to his powers, in another story where you can't help feeling that just maybe Peter Parker is a bit of a dick, whose unpopularity at school has nothing to do with being a studious bookworm.
Spider-Man's prayers (and possibly ours) are soon answered with the debut of Dr Octopus, who promptly gives self-pity Parker the kicking he thoroughly deserves. More nice artwork from Ditko this week, with a minimum of his trademark oddly angled limbs.
Now here is a story close to my heart, this was up until recently, the earliest Fantastic Four adventure I had read. As a kid I picked up Marvel Treasury Edition #2 which included this story, genuinely have no idea where I got it from, as it seems unlikely that my local newsagents would have stocked such a cool item. Anyway, the FF are really starting to look and act like themselves now, rather than the 1950s cast of an American cigarette advert of previous issues. What we have here is the first chapter of the tale that will lead to the reintroduction of the Sub-Mariner to the new Marvel universe. The plot is still a little happy to lean into insanely unlikely coincidence, but it is the Fantastic Four being fantastic and I'm totally here for it.
Nice to see the colour pages actually used for the story rather than wasted on the letters page! It really would have blown my 8 year old mind if the whole comic was like that.
ReplyDeleteReally does look great in colour. I don't recall the later full colour Captain Britain looking so vibrant.
DeleteColour all the way through with a glossy cover would have been heaven. Probably would have tripled the price mind you!
ReplyDeleteThe later glossy covers made Marvel UK comics a bit special in the newsagents. Colour would have been awesome.
Delete