Week Ending Feb. 24, 1973

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Someone was flexing their layout and design muscles back in 1973 with these pleasingly symmetrical covers. From the poses to the speech balloons and text boxes, we are given a matching brace of comics that make me slightly embarrassed to note that I missed a similar visual trick last week.

Mighty World of Marvel #21


Another week, another art team giving us yet another take on the Hulk. Jack Kirby is back on pencils with Mike Esposito looking after the inks. The result is a rough, almost troll-like Hulk, not the worst version so far, but not a classic. Bruce Banner is doing his regular captured/escaped/released tango as the Leader continues to plot in the background, this week with the aid of powdered Humanoids.

Daredevil gets his second outing, well at least part two of his first. His skills and superpowers are nicely showcased in this story as he tracks down the killers of his boxer father 'Battling Murdock'. I'm surprised that for all its focus on later interpretations of the character, the Netflix version of Daredevil seems much closer to this first appearance in terms of how his powers are presented. On top of the vigilante based action we also see some civilian soap opera from the supporting cast in the form of Foggy Nelson and Karen Page.

Body-swap shenanigans abound in the Fantastic Four pages, as Dr Doom poses as Reed Richards. With the real Reed imprisoned as Doom, Victor Von Reed hatches an over-complicated plan to dispose of the remaining Fantastic Three. Evidently this involves a shrink ray, blah blah blah. Frankly I find it unbelievable that even the non-science genius members of the FF could not see through Doom's plan, as Doom-Reed displays the most obvious 'EVIL EYEBROW' during the entire tale.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #2


What would you get if The Circus of Crime stayed home to watch James Cagney movies instead of running away to become travelling entertainers? You'd get The Enforcers, and you probably wouldn't be happy about it. Yep, Spidey's full-length tale this week sees him face-off with the Nsync of gangsters as well as their boss, the mysterious Big Man. Lots of action and weird Ditko poses ensue. Plus there is more Betty Brant drama and an unusually self-aware monologue from J. Jonah Jameson. Quite an enjoyable little story.

Thor is up against the Executioner (nope, not that one) a Bodavian-backed South American warlord. There are some impressive action set-pieces from Kirby, which are rather spoiled by a disappointing half page wrap-up to the story.
Worth noting that at this point, Thor is very much Dr Donald Blake with Thor's powers, rather than the actual god of thunder. I wonder when Stan and Jack rectify this?

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