Week Ending September 15, 1973

 

It is 1973, the long school summer holidays are over but Marvel UK are still making the weeks worthwhile. I wonder what the school holidays did for comic sales, did they soar as we snapped up all the entertainment we could find, or were we too busy doing all that outdoorsy stuff old folks are so prone to banging on about?

Mighty World of Marvel #50

Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia give their take on the Cover of Fantastic Four #26. This probably felt more modern at the time, and it is perfectly serviceable, but the original would just edge it for me.

The FF are again standing in as a Hulk story, though this week it does feel more like theirs, despite actually losing top billing to the Avengers. Hulk and the Thing continue to slug it out while Reed is ill and Johnny is injured in hospital. A big shout-out is due to the American healthcare system, the NHS might well be one of the noble endeavours of the modern age, but do they have asbestos pajamas and bandages on hand at all times? Truly, free-market forces are an incredible thing. Hulk continues to be his Kirby-era self, at one point hijacking and driving a subway train to get to Avengers Mansion, a scene I think we can all agree was sorely missed from the MCU movies. The Avengers and the Fantastic Four eventually team-up to face the rampaging threat, only to suffer the ignominy of Rick Jones taking the Hulk down with a gamma paracetamol deux ex macguffin.

 The X-Men are on their first mission against Magneto, who has taken over a missile base. It is not much of an adventure to be honest, but it is a great example of economical storytelling. Seven classic characters sketched, introduced  plus the concept of Marvel mutants laid out. Not a bad bit of work, and anytime I get to see Kirby draw the original team uniforms is a good day.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #31

You might recall, not few scant moments ago, me whining about not getting the original US artwork for the UK covers. Well here we get exactly that, and I'm still not happy. As much as I have come to love Ditko's interior art, I don't think anyone will ever sell me on his covers.

On the surface this story is about our hero facing-off with a disposable villainous professor and his mechanical creations. The important stuff going on in the background is the setting up of the recently introduced Norman Osborn as a more sinister and lasting threat. Much has been made of the friction between Stan and Steve about the Green Goblin's secret identity, and reading this tale I have to wonder if Ditko didn't have another direction in mind for Osborn Sr? 

More Tales of Asgard as Jack Kirby goes big with Norse creation myths. A few pages of what would pass for comic book culture when it was originally published, and we were none the worse for it in 1973 or today in 2020.

Odin is still annoyed with Thor for being a several thousand year old hormonal teenager and decides to teach him a lesson by stripping of his power and allowing him to be killed by the Grey Gargoyle. However, the gods are famously fickle, none more so than Odin, who gives his son a thirty second reprieve. Thor makes the most of this, easily subduing the Gargoyle and leading this reader to wonder why he is obviously dragging his heels the rest of the time. I guess even gods work better with a deadline.