Week Ending Nov. 3, 1973

 

Early Marvel UK could be a bit of a weekly mixed bag, and if I'm honest, this is one of their weaker showings. Still, with three titles on the shelves, there must have been some highlights. Let's find out what they were...

Mighty World of Marvel #57

A Herb Trimpe and possibly Frank Giacoia cover standing in for the US original, this might have been because of the prominence of Nick Fury on the American version. We young Brits were obviously easily given to confusion, and a mono-ocular super spy would probably be too much for our easily befuddled minds.

The Incredible Hulk: Monster Triumphant! Reprinting The Incredible Hulk #108

Hulk continues his battle with the Mandarin, which feels like it has been going on for a while now. More than enough time to shake up the creative team again anyway. Stan returns to take over writing duties, which seems to change any direction the story was heading in, and John Severin is now inking over Herb Trimpe's pencils. The result of which appears to be some well drawn and expressive faces at the expense of almost everything else. Nick Fury and Russian Nick Fury return, almost inexplicably as teammates and the story abandons any ambitions it may have had pretty quickly.  The only real highlight for me is a weird cameo Gene Colan Tony Stark swipe.

Fantastic Four: We Have To Fight The X-Men! Reprinting Fantastic Four #28

I know that if you are after logic and consistent characterisation, 1960s comic book stories are probably not the best place to get your fix, but this one is a particularly bad example. The Mad Thinker teams up with the yet again back from the dead Puppet Master. Cue needlessly complex plot to use the X-Men to defeat the Fantastic Four, the Puppet Master manipulates Professor X into ordering his X-Men to eliminate the FF, despite all common sense, his team go along with this. Much is made of the X-Men as an allegory, if you only read this story, you might reasonably assume it was an unsubtle message about blindly following orders. Still, nice to see the Kirby/Stone artwork on Marvel's two uniformed super teams.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #38

I don't know who they had doing the colouring on the Marvel UK covers around this time, but here is another example of the UK version being elevated above the US original. John Romita's art benefits from the new moody lighting and a cleaned up Spider-Man.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Where Crawls The Lizard! Reprinting The Amazing Spider-Man #44

This is a story that feels slightly out of place from recent issues, the elements of continuing soap opera are still present but there is an almost tangible effort to switch gears a bit. Not that this is a bad thing, John Romita has now made the strip his own, feeling confident enough to revert to his ersatz Ditko style in flashback panels. Spidey is in pursuit of the recently returned Lizard and Peter Parker is revelling in his new role of ladies man about town. It is a pretty dynamic romp and a definite step up in quality over recent stories. The natural order is resumed by the end of this week's episode when Peter is injured, forced to miss a date with Mary Jane and back to his whiney self.

The Mighty Thor: Into The Blaze of Battle! Reprinting Journey Into Mystery #117

I am just going to say it; Stan appears to be rambling with this story. It feels like this story has been going on for ages with Stan just saying "and then this happens, and then this happens, and then Thor fights Chinese Communists". Still we get to see Balder The Brave fight the Executioner while dressed as Don Draper from Mad Men, and that has to be worth the five pence admission on its own.

The Avengers #7

Jack Kirby and Chic Stone supply an intriguing, if not great, cover featuring our heroes and the new villain Immortus, who appears to be modeled on a mid 90s Brian Cox.

The Avengers: The Avengers Break Up! Reprinting The Avengers #10

We have grown used to Captain America as the cool-headed tactician and noble leader of men over the years. If you only ever read his early Avengers appearances, you would be forgiven for dismissing him as a gullible idiot with an unhealthy obsession with teenage sidekicks. In this story, Cap is turned against his teammates with embarrassing ease by the Masters of Evil and the newly introduced Immortus. I don't recall when Immortus was ret-conned as the future self of Kang the Conqueror, but it is clear for this story that Stan was having a bash at creating another character in the same vein as Kang. Looking back this looks like clever writing, however the state of the rest of the story makes this feel unlikely. Cap fights the Avengers and then the Avengers fight some laughable characters plucked from history by Immortus. The whole sorry mess is resolved when the Enchantress uses her heretofore unknown power of being able to turn back time, a skill that should have seen her wipeout her enemies at any point she had pleased if she had remembered it was in her bag of tricks.

Dr. Strange: The Possessed! Reprinting Strange Tales #118

This is another one of those Dr Strange stories that feels like a mystic forerunner to The X-Files. Our Fox Mulder in a cape is solving supernatural mysteries in a Bavarian village as the locals become possessed by inter-dimensional beings. While this never quite hits the level of intellectual storytelling that Stan and Steve were clearly aiming for, it is good to see a hero using brains and skill to win the day rather than several pages of battering the bad guys senseless. If the 1970s Dr Strange TV pilot had not been so abysmal, I would have definitely watched a TV show with this sort of weekly low-key adventure.