Month: March 2021

Detective Comics #411 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As of March, 1971, my thirteen-year-old self was picking up Detective Comics on a fairly consistent basis — but it was a habit I’d acquired only recently (or perhaps I should say reacquired, as I’d been a regular reader of the title before, back in 1965-67).  For that reason, I’d missed writer Denny O’Neil’s first two “League of Assassins” stories, which had run in issues #405 and #406, respectively.  On the other hand, I had bought and read Detective #408, whose lead Batman story, though not scripted by O’Neil, had featured an attempt by the villainous Dr. Tzin-Tzin to eliminate the Darknight Detective at the League’s behest.  So it wasn’t like I was completely unfamiliar with the sinister organization prior to my purchasing issue #411.  Rather, I was intrigued by the little I knew — and though I realized I was coming in late, I was eager to catch up. Luckily, this third installment of O’Neil’s League saga didn’t depend very much on knowledge of the previous two at all — and what little I did need to know, I’d manage to pick up easily through the script’s unobtrusive exposition.    Read More

Conan the Barbarian #6 (June, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In January I posed about Conan the Barbarian #4, the first issue I’d ever picked up of Marvel Comics’ series featuring Robert E. Howard’s pulp hero.  As I wrote at the time, my thirteen-year-old self was quite favorably impressed by the efforts of writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith in that comic — impressed enough that I feel fairly certain that I meant to buy the next issue when it came out.  Somehow, though, I didn’t manage to do so.  I suppose it’s possible that I never actually saw Conan #5 on the stands; but if that’s true, that was the last time that kind of thing ever happened.  Because with #6, I was back on board, and would thenceforth faithfully acquire every issue through #118 (Jan., 1981), some 9 1/2 years later.  (The occasion for my dropping the book then was Roy Thomas’ exit a few issues earlier; as far as I was concerned, Thomas was Conan’s official biographer, and without him at the series’ helm, it just wasn’t the same.)  Read More

Teen Titans #33 (May-Jun., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As discussed on this blog back in January, Teen Titans #32 ended with two of our young heroes, Kid Flash and Mal, trapped in a bizarre alternate reality following their inadvertently causing the death of a young caveman during a time-trip to the Stone Age.  Having been coerced by this quasi-medieval world’s version of their adult mentor Mr. Jupiter — here a wizard called Jupiterius — into being tested to prove themselves worthy of his assistance, the final page of the story found Kid Flash attempting to match or best “Trueshot” — this world’s Speedy — in an archery contest:  Read More

Mister Miracle #2 (May-Jun., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The cover of Mister Miracle #2, with its plethora of blurbs, follows in the tradition of the second issues of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World titles which preceded it.  Even more than the covers of Forever People #2 and New Gods #2, however, this one’s not just wordy, it’s shouty.  To my contemporary, 63-year-old sensibilities, it’s too much, at least by half.

But back in March, 1971, my thirteen-year-old self seems to have seen things differently.  That’s my prevailing theory, anyway, when I consider the fact that, unlike virtually any other comics purchases I made in the general timeframe of fifty years ago, I can remember the particular circumstances of my acquiring Mister Miracle #2.  While I don’t recall actually picking the book up out of the spinner rack at the Forest Ave. Tote-Sum in Jackson, MS, or paying for it at the counter, I do have a specific recollection of gazing upon that gloriously over-the-top cover as I held the comic in the front seat of my mom’s car, our having stopped at the aforementioned convenience store (at my request, I’m certain) on the way home from school.  Read More

Hulk #140 (June, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

“Harlan Ellison Month” (well, “Harlan Ellison Week +1”, anyway) continues here today at “Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books”, as we take a look at the second half of a two-issue crossover between Avengers and Hulk, originally published in March, 1971, which the writer of those two Marvel series, Roy Thomas, adapted from a plot synopsis by Mr. Ellison.

I’m not going to provide a summary of the tale’s opening chapter here, mostly because the recap provided on the first three pages of Hulk #140 (which’ll be coming up shortly) will tell you pretty much everything you need to know to be able to follow the rest of the story — and also because you can, at any time, click on this link for the Avengers #88 post if you missed reading it a few days ago, and you really do want all the details.  Even so, before we plunge head-first into the comic’s narrative, we need to take a moment to note what Thomas, as scripter, is going to be getting up to in these pages.  And to facilitate our doing that, we’re going to quickly flip to the back of the book, to have a look at the letters column. Read More

Avengers #88 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In our last post, we took a look at Justice League of America #89 — a very special issue of DC Comic’s premiere super-team book, in which writer Mike Friedrich paid homage to one of his literary heroes by basing his story’s central character of “Harlequin Ellis” on the noted science fiction author and screenwriter, Harlan Ellison.

By a remarkable (but apparently entirely random) coincidence, the same month that saw the publication pf JLA #89 (March, 1971) also saw the release of a very special issue of the Marvel Comics series featuring that publisher’s nearest analogue to the Justice League, Avengers, which writer Roy Thomas had scripted from a plot outline by the real Harlan Ellison.  You really can’t make this stuff up, y’know?  Read More

Justice League of America #89 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As noted in my recent post regarding Gold Key’s Star Trek, I didn’t get to see the TV series on which that comic was based until it hit my local market in syndicated re-runs, around 1970-71.  And since I started consuming licensed Trek tie-in media (what there was of it) almost immediately upon discovering the show, concurrent with my viewing the television episodes for the very first time, my initial encounters with some classic Trek stories ended up being by way of the printed page, rather than the cathode-ray tube.  That’s because the earliest licensed prose fiction based on the property, a series of paperback books written by James Blish and published by Bantam Books, were collections of short stories adapted from the TV episodes themselves.  Read More

Star Trek #10 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As I’ve mentioned in passing a time or two before on this blog, I didn’t get to see Star Trek when it originally aired on the NBC television network from 1966 to 1969.  Until 1970, we only had two TV stations in the Jackson, MS metro area; and although one of them was an NBC affiliate, it sometimes pre-empted that network’s programming to carry something else (usually a program from ABC, the odd-network-out in our market).  My maiden voyage upon the starship Enterprise would thus have to wait until reruns of the by-then-cancelled show started airing locally in syndication, probably sometime in 1970.

Once first contact was finally made, however, I immediately (and unsurprisingly, considering the other stuff I was into) became a big Trek fan.  And I was keen to extend my enjoyment of the show through what we would now call ancillary media.  The thing was, in 1970 and 1971, there wasn’t a whole lot of licensed Trek story-product available.  Read More

Thor #188 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in November of last year, we took a look at Thor #184 — the premiere installment in the first multi-issue, large scale epic that editor-scripter Stan Lee had attempted in the title since losing his longtime collaborator Jack Kirby to DC Comics.  Hyping the comic in the Nov., 1970 Bullpen Bulletins, Marvel went so far as to compare it to the debut of the Inhumans in Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four, some five years previously.  And upon my thirteen-year-old self’s actually reading it, it really did feel like Lee and his collaborators, penciller John Buscema and inker Joe Sinnott, had pulled out all the stops for this one.

This opening chapter of what would prove to be a five-issue story arc introduced us readers — as well as the mighty Thor, himself — to the menace of the World Beyond: a mysterious realm somewhere out past the farthest reaches of space, which was, somehow, devouring our universe from the edges in.  Associated with this menace was a word — perhaps a name — of unknown significance: “Infinity”.  We and Thor also met an intriguing new character, appropriately dubbed the Silent One, who had recently shown up in Asgard unannounced; All-Father Odin had since decided to let him hang around, sensing that he was in some way the key to the mystery.   Read More