Week Ending January 12, 1974

After spending a solid quarter of an hour trying to work out how to type a drumroll or trumpet fanfare, I have given up in abject failure. So instead, here we are, glossy covers all round for Marvel UK this week. It is pretty hard to communicate the importance of this event (possibly harder than arranging letters that would signify a musical flourish) but those of us who grew up on gloriously shiney Marvel weeklies are probably experiencing a stirring in the old nostalgia gland right now. 

Mighty World of Marvel #67

Making the absolute most out of the new coated-paper cover format, Ron Wilson and Mike Esposito/John Tartaglione sear our eyeballs and blow our tiny 1974 minds with a cover that must have been at risk of setting fire to its shelf-mates in the newsagents all those years ago.

The Incredible Hulk: Lo, The Leader Lives! Reprinting The Incredible Hulk #115

Hulk finds himself captured on Gamma Base (are we calling it that yet?) with General Ross in search of a permanent solution to our big green anti-hero. One of the options considered involves a call to Avengers mansion, resulting in a bit of fortuitous continuity overlap that lasts about as long as it will take me to read the first few pages of this week's Avengers comic.

However, Ross' dilemma is solved by the sudden reappearance of the Leader, back from the dead and claiming some sort of flakey legal immunity because of his resurrection, ahh Stan, you never disappoint. The Leader offers to encase the Hulk in a blob like prison made of the same material as his rubbery humanoids, a scheme that will allow him to continue his plans for world domination, free from the threat of his green nemesis. 

The Fantastic Four: The Mad Menace of The Macabre Mole Man! Reprinting Fantastic Four #31

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created an incredible array of memorable villains over the years, making it the more baffling that they would resort to using the Mole Man so often in the early days. I probably don't have to go into detail here, Sue gets kidnapped by the Mole Man (despite having a force-field power that she could use to suffocate him or explode his pudgy little head with) and the FF head out to rescue her. The only event worth mentioning is the editing out of a couple of pages, not as bad as the recent Hulk mutilation, but the cracks are there to see.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #48

A lot of these early Marvel UK covers didn't make use of the space around the title, tending to be squeezed or chopped down. Here the John Romita original gets to stretch its legs, and is all the better for it. 

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Tentacles and The Trap! Reprinting The Amazing Spider-Man #54

You may recall that last week I hinted that Dr Octopus had evil plans afoot, well here it is: renting Aunt May's spare room. This might not sound that diabolical, but if you have ever had lodgers it may well send a chill down your spine. Incredibly, the actual story isn't as bad as it sounds, sure, nobody is eyeing it up as the next entry in the MCU, but it is fun enough entertainment. 

The Mighty Thor: Where Mortals Fear To Tread! Reprinting Journey into Mystery #122

Thor continues his punch-up with the Absorbing Man with the usual impressive Kirby fight scenes, Vince Colletta's inks on this aren't bad, but the lack of background detail is made very noticeable with the addition of some heavy-handed Zipatone work. The battle ends prematurely when Loki transports Creel away for some Asgard based mischief. We also see the reveal of the mystery figure holding Jane Foster, this turns out to be reporter Harris Hobbs, who snaps Thor in mid change to Dr Don Blake. A surprising amount going on for a Thor tale, we have to wait a week to see how it all pans out though. 

The Avengers #17

A 1974 reprint of a 1965 comic book cover probably has no right to look as good as this does, but with art royalty like Jack Kirby on pencils inked by Wally Wood, brilliance is an almost inevitable result. 

The Avengers: Vengeance is Ours! Reprinting The Avengers #20

Following directly on from last week's almost literal cliffhanger ending, the new Avengers teammates stop squabbling for just long enough to save Captain America from plummeting to his death. The freshly united squad then go on to make short work of the Swordsman, at least until he is mysteriously beamed away by the Mandarin (a lot of that going around this week). The Avengers retire to their mansion to continue their slightly tedious infighting, only to be interrupted by a hologram of Iron Man that doesn't sound like Iron Man, tell them that making the Swordsman an Avenger would be a tippity-top idea and they should do this forthwith. Stretching credulity well beyond breaking point, they do exactly that. The Swordsman, now in the employ of the Mandarin, plots the downfall of the Avengers from within. Our undercover bad guy/good guy/bad guy vacillates even further, turning against the Mandarin when instructed to blow up the team. The Avengers once again display their ability to totally misjudge any situation, and attack the Swordsman even as he tries to save them, no gratitude some people. 

This could have actually been a decent story if given the space to breathe over a few issues, instead is a logic-free episode that does little to sell the Avengers as anything else but gullible. 

Dr. Strange: Beware... Tiboro! Tyrant of The Sixth Dimension! Reprinting Strange Tales #129

Steve Ditko is really on form for this Twilight Zone style outing, as a late night TV science show tries to debunk mysticism and magic, only to have its hosts mysteriously vanish. It it pretty much the standard Dr Strange fare after that as he enters another dimension to free the would be cynics and face the threat of Tiboro, tyrant of the sixth dimension. Ditko brings his A-game for the art, while Don Rico steps in on writing duties. Rico is clearly trying to ape Stan's writing style, by choice or dictat, but the end result just feels a little 'off', it can be easy to mock Stan's prose at times, but it is not so easy to duplicate it.