It might well be that awful no-man's land between Christmas and New Year during the most depressing year since the invention of the internet, but for our purposes it is November 1973, a time when being locked in your house with nothing to do but read comics would have been pretty cool actually.
Mighty World of Marvel #59
With the contents of the comic working through a king-size Hulk issue, Ron Wilson and Mike Esposito are going to be busy over the next few weeks knocking up new covers for MWOM. It is a nice effort, but would it have killed anyone to give the Fantastic Four a cover? What was Marvel UK's problem with Marvel's first family anyway?
The Incredible Hulk: The Evil Maximus Does! Reprinting The Incredible Hulk Special #1
I have probably missed others, but I think we see our first specially commissioned splash page in this story, even if it is just a paste up of other panels and a freshly drawn Hulk. It probably didn't seem important at the time, but some credit for these would be nice. Hulk continues to tussle with the renegade Inhumans, until Maximus wins him over with the promise of friendship, if he will just, oh, smash a few things and defeat all his enemies. Hulk, as always, is a sucker for this approach.
The Fantastic Four: It Started On Yancy Street! Reprinting Fantastic Four #29
The set up to any story is probably the hardest part, Marvel now have a well populated world of heroes and villains, how best to throw them together in conflict? Stan circumnavigates this problem by just coming up with a crazy plot about the Mad (Red) Ghost using the FF's rivalry with the Yancy Street Gang to lure the team into an ambush with his superpowered apes. Subtle plot development is frankly overrated, a scant replacement for the Thing ranting about Yancy Streeters. Art by Kirby and Stone is thin on backgrounds but lush with character and physical humour, we also get one of Kirby's photo-montages, even if it loses something in poorly printed black and white.
Spider-Man Comics Weekly #40
After several weeks of US covers that have arguably been improved with UK colouring, this week's offering from John Romita has had some of the shine taken off of it in translation. Still an action-packed eye-catcher though, which would easily have separated young me from his five pence.
The Amazing Spider-Man: The Sinister Shocker! Reprinting The Amazing Spider-Man #46
Following on from Ditko's fantastic rogues gallery cannot have been easy, Romita makes a fair job of it with the Shocker, however, a guy in a puffa-jacket onesie was never going the be the next Green Goblin or Kraven The Hunter. There is simultaneously not much and quite a lot going on in this story, the Shocker provides the headline threat while Peter's private life drama does a lot of heavy lifting. Fitting in his move to a new flat with Harry Osborn, an emerging Gwen/Mary-Jane love triangle and even finding time to throw Fredrick Foswell off the scent of his secret identity. It might lack any wow-factor but lots of little story elements are moved forward.
The Mighty Thor: To Kill A Thunder God! Reprinting Journey Into Mystery #118
The meandering story that started with 'Trial of The Gods' continues. Still in Vietnam after a hard day of smashing communism, Thor has to contend with yet more Machiavellian machinations from his brother Loki. Taking advantage of a safari-suited lowlife hunter, the god of mischief unleashes the Asgardian super weapon that is the Destroyer. I have always felt this was one of Kirby's best designs, it has enough of his trademark idiosyncrasies that is clearly recognisable as one of his creations, but lacks the excessive detail and fussiness that could sometimes bog them down. Just a clean, spikey, engine of destruction. Also worthy of note; Vince Colletta appears to have been having a good day and turns in some nice work on the inks.
The Avengers #9
It is hard to know what is going on in this cover, are the Avengers running away from the Mole Man? Is it their biannual spelunking/croquet tournament? Who knows, but Jack Kirby and Chic Stone make it look good.
The Avengers: This Hostage Earth! Reprinting The Avengers #12
If only Don Heck and Dick Ayers could take a page out of Jack and Chic's book. I really want to like these early Avengers tales, but the art and Stan phoning in the script, really is not making it easy for me. I can only assume that the need to create stories that did not spill over into individual heroes' titles was limiting the creativity at this point. Certainly, none of the recent stories feel like they are at risk of wider implications than a one-and-done filler. The weird team-up of the Mole Man and Mad (Red) Ghost does little to dispel my suspicion that Stan was just making it up on the day.
Dr. Strange: The House of Shadows! Reprinting Strange Tales #120
Another Dr Strange story that feels that it is not quite part of the wider Marvel superhero universe, none the worse for it though. The good doctor once more shakes his Twilight Zone/Outer Limits thing, this week dealing with a supposedly haunted house. These short pseudo-horror stories are hard not to like despite (or maybe because of) their simplicity. Ditko continues to evolve Stephen Strange's look, his appearance now considerably less Vincent Price-y.
Tim, another precise review of the weekly offerings and everything around them. My thanks to you for returning to this favourite period.
ReplyDeleteLet’s talk about the UK’s love of the Hulk. You just feel that the MWOM name is about to be entirely squeezed off the cover with the current logo design - a favourite of mine. Sorry FF but not a chance of you gracing the cover during this time (which sadly became habitual to the point of indifference over the following few years - Tiger Shark times two being the low point).
As usual my reading was restricted to The Avengers. The Mole Man didn’t stir me and I hadn’t taken to Dr Strange. Instead my fixation was on the glimpses offered on the letter pages of future offerings plus, in particular, the offer of a send away T Shirt with Hulk plastered over it. Years later I read that this was Dave Stephens’ interpretation of the classic US Kirby shirt. I wish I could have had one but the Avengers 6p cover price was the limit at home so no chance of that.
One last comment before I sign off - the banner mentions the X-Men. Was that a reprint of the first half of No.1? (Which would happen again in The Super-heroes No.1 two years later).
Hi Christopher, I actually hadn't noticed the X-Men mentioned in the banner on the MWOM cover. They don't appear in the issue, I imagine this might be an oversight from a few weeks ago when they guest-starred in the FF strip. We had already seen the reprint of X-Men #1 prior to that, something I was completely unaware of, I always assumed that The Super-Heroes issue 1 was the first Marvel UK outing of the story, reading through these comics has been an enjoyable education.
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