In summer,1973, my younger self was still pretty isolated as a comic-book reader. Good, lasting face-to-face friendships with fellow enthusiasts were on the horizon, but had not yet arrived, and I wasn’t reading fanzines. Therefore, I generally picked up on hot new titles — or on newly hot streaks on older titles — via the publishers’ own marketing efforts, or by reader buzz in the letters columns… or by sheer happenstance.
So how did I finally catch on to what artist-plotter Jim Starlin was up to in Captain Marvel, some five issues and eight months into his soon-to-be-classic run? As best as I can tell, it was due mostly to the latter of those three options — more specifically, via a very unlikely tie-in with, of all things, Daredevil.
The seeds of the storyline that ultimately led to the Captain Marvel/Daredevil connection had been sown late the previous year, at the end of writer Gerry Conway’s tenure on the latter series. Daredevil #97 and #98 had presented a two-part story — plotted by Conway, but scripted by incoming regular writer Steve Gerber — in which an injured young street acrobatic performer named Mordecai Jones was transformed into a super-powered being called the Dark Messiah by some 
mysterious figure shown only in shadow (see right; art by Gene Colan and Ernie Chan). The Dark Messiah had then instigated a jailbreak; among the escapees were four teenage boys who, earlier in the same issue, had attacked a university’s research lab with sub-machine guns before being subdued by Daredevil and the police. Three of the other jailbirds were briefly turned into similarly powered “Disciples of Doom” by the Dark Messiah, but the whole enterprise came to an end at the climax of issue #98, when the former Mordecai Jones blew himself up. Meanwhile, the law firm that DD’s alter ego Matt Murdock had joined upon his recent move to San Francisco — Broderick, Sloan, and Murdock — was assigned to defend the alleged perpetrators of the research lab attack — only for Matt to be stunned by a directive from the firm’s senior partner, Kevin J. Broderick, to plead the boys guilty, even before Matt had had a chance to meet with his clients. (No, that’s not how the criminal justice system works, now or in the early ’70s, but let it pass.)
The mystery of what all these goings-on were about, and what might happen next, was set aside for a month as Daredevil #99 presented the first half of a crossover ending in Avengers #111, but returned in the milestone issue #100, as the Man Without Fear foiled another odd crime — this time, the attempted robbery of files from the offices of Rolling Stone magazine — conducted by young men who were uniformed identically to those who’d attacked the university research center back in #97… and then went up against Angar the Screamer, a disillusioned hippie with the power to create extremely realistic, very disturbing illusions simply by, well, screaming. DD and his partner, the Black Widow, took the fight against Angar into the next issue, #101, as we readers learned that this new antagonist had received his powers courtesy of the same gentleman who’d been responsible for turning Mordecai Jones into the Dark Messiah; we also learned that this mastermind was a very wealthy man who lived in a cliff-side mansion on the outskirts of the city, though his face and name remained hidden to us for now. The issue concluded somewhat inconclusively, as Angar was foiled in his attempt to take out Daredevil and the Widow, yet managed to successfully escape.
In the following issue, yet another new villain came after those Rolling Stone files, which were now in Daredevil’s safekeeping. Ramrod had been a hard-driving foreman on an offshore oil rig before a work accident that shattered most of his bones and left him paralyzed. He was thereafter 
transformed into a cyborg by our mysterious man-behind-the-scenes… who, as we learned via a flashback, was not working entirely alone, after all (see right; art by Don Heck and Sal Trapani). Though now possessed of the strength of ten men, Ranrod was unable to fulfill his dual mission of stealing the files and killing Daredevil, thanks in part to the timely assistance offered to DD and the Black Widow by their visiting guest star, Spider-Man; the battle ended with Ramrod in police custody, following a head-first fall to the sidewalk from high up one side of the Transamerica Pyramid.
In Daredevil #104, we learned that Matt had finally met with his teenage clients (who evidently had either been recaptured by the police or had turned themselves in voluntarily some time after the Dark Messiah-instigated jailbreak, although Gerber’s script didn’t say so) and was convinced that they had not been acting under their own volition when they attacked the research center; nevertheless, his boss Kerwin Broderick continued to pressure him to enter a guilty plea for the boys, using the law firm’s third partner, Jason Sloan, as his proxy. Meanwhile, the mystery mastermind decided to take a different tack in going after Daredevil, enlisting an already established villain, Kraven the Hunter, to take down the Scarlet Swashbuckler. After an initial, indecisive battle with DD and the Widow on the grounds of the San Francisco Zoo, Kraven stalked his prey to a party they were attending (in their civilian identities of Matt Murdock and Natasha Romanoff) at the opulent home of none other than Kerwin Broderick. This time, Kraven was able to get the drop on DD after first shooting BW with a tranquilizer dart; the issue ended with the villain about to toss an unconscious Daredevil off the side of a cliff outside Broderick’s mansion…
That brings us up to date — and to the first page of Daredevil #105, as Steve Gerber and Don Heck (joined for this issue by inker Don Perlin) continue their story:
Where has Daredevil gone? Gerber and Heck make us wait to find out for a couple of pages, as the story sticks for now with the Black Widow — whom it seems will have to subdue Kraven solo, despite still being weak from the tranq dart. But then ‘Tasha gets a little help, as several officers of the SFPD — including her favorite shoulder to lean on, Lt. Paul Carson — arrive on the scene; and soon thereafter, the Hunter’s part in this storyline is over. After that, it’s back to DD…
In 1973, my sixteen-year-old self didn’t recognize the bald young lady in the high-collared cape from her introduction on these pages any more than I had from her appearance on this issue’s cover by John Romita and Mike Esposito, where she referred to herself as “Madame McEvil”, and her costume had a different color scheme. But Marvelites who’d read Iron Man #54, 
published some nine months earlier, would recall her as the villain of that issue’s story — scripted by Mike Friedrich and drawn by George Tuska and Vince Colletta (with an additional credit to Friedrich’s then-roommate, Bill Everett, for “story idea and helping hand”) — where she’d orchestrated a battle between the titular hero and his aquatic guest star (a creation of the aforementioned Everett, of course). Those readers hadn’t learned much about her at that time, save that she operated from under the sea, had access to impressively advanced technology, and was interested in studying “human hybrids” for unknown (but presumably nefarious) purposes. Pretty standard super-villain stuff — but accompanied by what was unquestionably a distinctive and memorable visual design.
“Look, lady, I’ve never heard of Thanos or Titan or thralls…” Not having been following Captain Marvel — or having even read Iron Man #55, the comic in which Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin had introduced Thanos, Titan, and related characters and concepts (and also which, perhaps not so coincidentally, had been the issue of Iron Man that immediately followed the debut of “Madame MacEvil”) — I was as much in the dark (if you’ll pardon the expression) here as was ol’ Hornhead. Still, I can easily imagine how more widely-read fans’ ears must have metaphorically perked up at this point.
Eh? Jim Starlin? Where’d he come from?
According to the letters column of Captain Marvel #29 (which would come out three weeks after DD #105 — and which, spoiler alert, my younger self would buy and read), this page — as well as the following three-and-two-thirds ones — had been “pencilled almost a year ago by the Jumping One [i.e., Starlin] for an issue of IRON MAN he had planned to do with writer Steve Gerber. But when Steve was moved over to DD’s mag, he determined that this yarn was going to see publication there.”
There was actually a bit more to the story than that. Starlin had first come on board Iron Man with issue #53, for which he pencilled a handful of pages (the rest of the issue had been drawn by George Tuska), then taking on the full pencilling chores as of issue #55 — which he also plotted, taking the opportunity (as we’ve previously noted) to introduce Thanos and company. Though the title’s current writer Mike Friedrich hung around to script that issue, he left after that, with Steve Gerber coming on as the Golden Avenger’s presumed new regular writer, beginning with Iron Man #56.
Starlin didn’t get a plotting, or even a co-plotting credit, for #56’s “Rasputin’s Revenge!”; but, as was often the case in the grand old days of “the Marvel Method”, he seems to have contributed to the story in ways beyond simply visualizing it. Or so at least Marvel publisher Stan Lee seemed to have believed. Speaking in 2001 to Comic Book Artist (see issue #18), the artist stated:
I thought it [Iron Man] was going to be a regular assignment. I did the first one, which introduced Thanos [Iron Man #55], with Mike Friedrich, and then I did the next issue with Steve Gerber. We wrote this really silly Iron Man story, and Stan said, “This is terrible,” and he fired us both, right off the book! [laughter] But Roy immediately gave us something else to do.
Gerber actually managed to hang on to the Iron Man assignment for another issue — or two, depending on how you look at it — collaborating with a returning George Tuska to write issue #57, then plotting #58, for which Friedrich provided the final script. After that, however, Gerber was off to Daredevil, while Friedrich remained on Iron Man (a gig he’d ultimately keep through issue #81). Meanwhile, Starlin was offered the chance to continue his Thanos saga over in Captain Marvel (a better fit for it than Iron Man, frankly), where he’d continue to work with Friedrich (at least at first). That last fact actually makes it a bit of a puzzler as to why the Moondragon sequence Starlin had pencilled (and presumably also plotted) stayed with Gerber, and with Daredevil, rather than being worked into Captain Marvel; after all, Friedrich had more of an obvious proprietary interest in “Madame MacEvil” than did either of the other two creators. At this late date, however, we’ll probably never know all the details of the decision-making that went on in and around the Marvel offices, half a century ago.
Certain aspects of this flashback sequence wouldn’t square up very well with later accounts of Moondragon’s origin, indicating that Starlin’s own thinking about the newly rechristened Moondragon, and her role in the “Thanos War”, were still evolving at the point he crafted this sequence. But rather than get too far ahead of my younger self’s July, 1973 vantage point, we’ll postpone further discussion on this topic until the blog gets to Captain Marvel #32, some seven months from now.
Just in case you weren’t already confused enough, the editorial footnote in the next-to-last panel above incorrectly cites Iron Man #55 (featuring the debut of Thanos) rather than #54 (featuring the debut of “Madame MacEvil”). Oh, well… in any event, we’re done with our Starlin-drawn interlude, as Don Heck returns as penciller for the remainder of the issue.
Last but not least, we check in with out old friend Angar the Screamer, who’s hanging out at a coffee house in Berkeley with his friend Janis when he’s suddenly moved to respond to an inner urge: “It’s like a voice calling to me — now — and I gotta answer!”
Back in Moondragon’s lair, Daredevil is unsurprisingly incensed to learn that Moondragon is responsible for these three villains, and he wastes no time letting her know how he feels:
With the long-awaited revelation that the mystery mastermind behind the last nine issues’ worth of malicious machinations is none other than the bane of Matt Murdock’s day job, Kerwin J. Broderick, a resolution to the long-running plotline instigated by Gerry Conway back in Daredevil #97 must surely be in sight — though in fact, we’ve still got two issues to go, and before the whole thing wraps up in #107 (which I’ll be blogging about here, rest assured), Captain Marvel himself will be taking a hand in the Titan-ic goings-on.
Of course, back in 1973, my younger self had finally gotten on board with Jim Starlin’s Thanos saga, even before Mar-Vell’s guest shot in Daredevil — since, as I mentioned earlier, I started buying Captain Marvel with issue #29, which came out in August. But, even before that, I got yet another taste of what “the Jumping One” had lately been serving up there, courtesy of Marvel Feature #12. You can look for my post about that one in 2 1/2 weeks, followed by Captain Marvel #29 one week after that.
Another great overview, Alan! Just by happenstance, I’d already gotten plugged in to the first Thanos epic a couple of months earlier when I got Captain Marvel #27 and pretty much went gaga over Starlin’s work, of which I’d only seen the bits he’d contributed to an issue of the Avengers, 107, I think. Seeing his Moondragon sequence here struck me as a bit odd when I first read it back in 1973 as it looked a bit off from what I’d already seen of his work in C.M., as well as in Marvel Feature #11, the start of what would become Marvel Two-In-One shortly afterwards. It made more sense when I (much later) realized it had been meant for Iron Man and was drawn about a year earlier, when Starlin’s artistry was still developing, although I’d also surmise that Perlin’s inking was a bit lacking. Anyhow, just as I’d missed the opening chapters in the Thanos epic, I’d also missed the opening chapters in this Broderick/Terrex epic, mainly those featuring the earlier appearances of the Dark Messiah, Angar and Ramrod.
Although Conway started this, Gerber clearly took in directions Conway likely would never have imagined, and certainly wouldn’t have hooked it up with Starlin’s cosmic epic. I suspect that after Gerber & Starlin were dumped from Iron Man but got their respective reassignments to DD & CM, they and Friedrich discussed what to do with Moondragon aka Madame MacEvil. I’ve never read anything on how Starlin would have proceeded with the Thanos storyline if he’d been kept on in Iron Man, but clearly he shifted gears once he was on CM and decided he had no immediate use for Moondragon yet, nor did Friedrich for Iron Man, and Gerber figured out a way to incorporate her into his ongoing Daredevil storyline, as well as for a guest-appearance by Captain Marvel to help wrap things up, which would unite him with Moondragon so they could then get together with the Avengers in CM #31. Ultimately, this first Thanos epic tied in with five different titles, beginning with Thanos’ first appearance in Iron Man, then shifting to Captain Marvel, then the interlude with Thanos’ cronies the Blood Brothers in Marvel Feature #12 and Moondragon’s shenanigans in Daredevil under the mistaken belief that DD was working for Thanos, and finally the crossover with the Avengers just prior to the concluding chapter in CM # 33. And all involving four different writers, Friedrich, Gerber, Wein and Englehart, alongside Starlin himself. Not to mention Moondragon, in her original incarnation, having apparently been conceived by Bill Everett shortly before he died. Clearly, Starlin was intrigued with her, but had strong ideas on how to improve the concept and incorporate her into his cosmic yarn. I’d also guess Friedrich hadn’t put much deep thought in how to further develop her himself after having introduced her in IM #54 as a behind-the-scenes schemer.
Of course, Moonie comes off as not-quite-so bright in this issue, having been taken in by Broderick’s schemes (and how the, ahem, heck did they get connected?). Speaking of Heck, well, while his artistry wasn’t stellar, at least I didn’t find it too disruptive to the overall tale. Not exactly peak Gerber, but entertaining enough for my pre-teen self and I definitely wanted to see what would happen in the next issue and did obtain the concluding chapters, which did include a few Gerberesque bizarro elements before it was all over.
I was fortunate enough to have caught all of Moondragon’s appearances as they came out, and while I was somewhat underwhelmed by the introduction of Madame MacEvil, from her first appearance as Moondragon, i was hooked, and over her long and very tumultuous career, even when she was somewhat shoddily written by lazy writers who took her arrogance to extremes and turned her into a flat-out villain, she has become one of my favorites character. (Not surprisingly, I loved her connection with Mantis — one of my other favorite characters).
Your write up is fascinating in that it reveals how, despite the lack of ownership over characters they create, writers and artists tend to bring the characters they like with them wherever they are assigned, so while it seems rather random that Moondragon should be introduced in Iron Man, show up in Daredevil, then ultimately find a home in Captain Marvel and the Avengers, it ultimately makes sense. Looking foward to your tracking of the upcoming chapters of the first Thanos saga.
At this same time (cover dated October and November, 1973) DC published Joe Simon’s Prez (very strange, but then his prior concepts Bwana Beast and Brother Power the Geek were as well), the oversized House of Mystery limited collectors edition (with great reprints by Adams, Toth, Orlando, and Wrightson, and a new centerpiece by Wrightson), Joe Kubert’s great work on Sgt. Rock and Tarzan, (and covers on additional series like Korak), Weird Worlds with art by Kaluta, Chaykin, etc., Adventure Comics (with Black Orchid drawn by Tony deZuniga and later Nestor Redondo—fortunately Diversions of the Groovy Kind has scans of these in their entirety), Swamp Thing #6 with fabulous art by Wrightson, and so much more.
DC has been neglected here for about a month! As for Marvel, John Romita Sr. did has last regular interior work on the Amazing Spider-Man with #125 (except for two brief returns in 132 and 146).
I guess you weren’t buying these, hence no reminiscence of them.
While I didn’t buy all of the DC comics you mentioned, Chris A, I did buy some of them, as well as several other DCs published in July. (I also bought the Romita Spidey.) But as I’ve noted here before, I only have so many hours in the day to put together these posts, and in the end, I have to make choices based on what I’m personally most interested in writing about.
That said, I hope you’ll be happy to hear that, by the purest happenstance, the next *three* posts will all be about DC books, beginning with Weird Worlds #8 (Howard Chaykin’s “Ironwolf”), coming on Wednesday.
Look forward to it!
I got my first comics friend around 1970, as I entered 7th grade, and it was he who introduced me to Marvel and all the mayhem within. That friendship ended rather suddenly in 9th grade for reasons which are as mysterious to me now, fifty years later, as they were then. I still saw the guy every day at school, but for some unspoken reason, we stopped hanging out. So it was, that by the time Starlin got started with the “Thanos” of it all, I was once a solitary comics fan seeking out new stuff to read usually based on how well I liked the cover or who the artist was inside.
I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite Marvel books from this period was Daredevil, and the Daredevil and Black Widow series was my absolute favorite DD series until Frank Miller and Klaus Janson came along years later, so I know without a doubt I read this issue fifty years ago, but I have very little memory of it. As for Captain Marvel and the whole cosmic storyline Starlin created and made legendary, I was late jumping on that bandwagon. Really late. Soooo late. But we can talk more about that when you break down the next Captain Marvel.
I agree with you, Alan, not a Don Heck fan at all, but his work here is solid and largely unannoying. I was particularly impressed by the full page splash of Moondragon’s Garden of Paradise. Gerber, of course, was still coming into his own, but it was so nice to read a story that wasn’t filled with plot holes and ridiculous leaps of logic, that I’m sure I was an instant fan.
Who the hell was Kerwin J. Broderick? I loved that line when he says “Who else could it have been, but…” because it immediately sent me off making of list of all the better choices Gerber could have used for the title of Master Schemer. I wonder if it ever occurred to anyone that Broderick could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d just not hired that young lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen? The idea that Broderick felt like all his plans rested on being able to take DD and BW out of the equation was ludicrous given the number of much more powerful heroes currently in the MCU at the time. I know they wasn’t in San Fransisco, but surely Thor or the FF or the Avengers as a whole would have been considered a much bigger threat to Thanos’ plans than Daredevil and his hotchick Russian girlfriend/partner.
Anyway, comics, amirite? Gotta love ’em. Thanks for the re-introduction (more or less) to Thanos, Alan. I missed a lot of it back in the day, so I look forward to having you fill in the blanks.
This issue and the next 2 are part of “The Avengers vs Thanos” trade collection which collects the entire Thanos saga from the 70s beginning with Iron Man 55 and ending with the Avengers and Marvel Two in One 1977 annuals and includes issues of “Captain Marvel”and “Warlock”.
I really enjoyed the Madam McEvil story in IM#54 and Jim Starlin’s two issues of IM. I missed the first Starlin issue of CM but followed the book thereafter and all the branches of the Thanos story after that (including this arc in DD).
This did not seem like a good fit for DD, DD had many stories where a conspiracy is advanced by super powered agents of someonw like The Organizer back in the days of Wally Wood. However, the Organizer was trying to fix a New York City election for the “Reform Party” (probably ripped from the headlines about Bill Buckley making his quixotic run for mayor of NYC iunder the Conservative Party Banner in 1965).
That was a street level goal that fit in with a street level hero. Conway’s Mr. Kline and Damon Drain stories might have been too cosmic and elevated and Thanos cerytainly was. The net result is that the book went back to a bimonthly schedule not long after this ended.
I thought, in contrast,, that Tony Isabella’s DD/Shield story worked. Nick Fury’s Shield Operators were handled as down to Earth, hardened paramilitaries and the threat was Silvermane trying to use the operatives and weapons of a Hydra faction to over throw Maggia Families in NYC, A limited, street level adventure story, in line with things like The Executioner or the Richard Stark “Parker” novels and movies like Prime Cut and The Taking of Pelham 123 that were popular in the mid-1970s,
Miller would get into hidden conspiracies on Daredevil with Stick, The Hand, Elecktra and the Kingpin, but it was kept street level and (fantastically) realistic.
Now one character I would have liked to have seen more was Ramrod, who would have made a formidable but limited “punch clock” bad guy for Cap, the Falcon, DD, Luke Cage and Spidey. Someone who signs on as muscle for other bad guys in case someone more formidable than the NYPD shows up.
The Organizer is easily the laziest name for a supervillain ever.
Topped only by “The Wreaker.” (Strange Tales # 101.)
Admittedly, this particular storyline was way out of the level of street-level crime stories that best fit Daredevil, but my younger sefl still enjoyed it, and even moreso the following Black Spectre story and the rest of Gerber’s run. After Isabella’s epic involving S.H.I.E.L.D. & Hydra, Wolfman started out with the crime noir tale involving Copperhead and aside from a couple of offbeat excursions, kept things more at street-level threats, as did Shooter, who also amplified the psychological aspects of Daredevil’s personal life, with particular trauma caused by the Purple Man’s manipulations of Heather Glenn’s father. Initially, I’ll admit I wasn’t too thrilled with Miller’s art as it seemed so different from what I was used to, but gradually I came to appreciate it, along with his overall storytelling skills. It must be noted that Miller didn’t entirely shy away from incorporating supernatural elements into his DD stories, but he was mostly more subtle about it, the biggest example being when he brought Elektra back to life, even if she didn’t really return to DD’s life.
Overall, although back in the ’70s I wouldn’t have rated Daredevil as one of my top 5 favorite comics, I might’ve included it at least in my top 10 and it was one of those I collected regularly from about 1973 through 1987 or so. And I would rate the Born Again story as one of the best comics stories ever for the writing & art.
I remember going to a Comic Con in Albany NY in 1978. The comics professionals in attendence were mostly DC (Jack Harris and Joe Staton) but they talked about how DD did not get the respect that Spider-Man or Thor got, despite being the last of the Stan Lee launched Marvels from the early 1960s. If even pros who worked for another company noticed this, it had to be something people were talking about.
Just after this time, Frank Miller changed that.
I have seen things Marv Wolfman has written that talk about loooking for something (anything!) that would improve sales on DD when he was writting it. That was things like the Torpedo story and the Jester Arc (coming hard on the neels of the Church Commission investigation into the Intelligence Community in 1975). But it was also things like the Uri Geller guest shoot and the one about DD’s interaction with the other dimensional alien.
Stan Lee was probably the greatest entreprenure in comics with his launch of teh Marvel line in the 1960s, He had a fairly well developed sense of what would work, probably developed from about 20 years of chasing trends with Martin Goodman before the FF hit in late 1961,
However, he was a writer who struggled if he did not have a brilliant arist to work with, He had it with Kirby. He had it with Ditko. He developed it after about 3 years of OK stuff with Romita, starting with the Silvermane arc in’69 in Spider-Man.
He never really had it on DD.
He probably would have had it with Bill Everett, but he had real issues at the time. Joe Orlando was brilliant but: 1) not a super hero guy; and 2) not much into the “Marvel Method.” Wally Wood could have made it work but he had issues and thought Lee was ripping him off with the Marvel Method, so he decamped to Tower (with a great deal).
Since Lee did not have a real feel for what DD should be, he let Gerry Conway get away with “Mr. Kline,” losing readers on DD, Iron Man and the Submariner.
There are probably important marketing lessons here. I have always thought that Sean Howe’s Marvel is at least as important a business book as anything else. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/some-business-books-people-who-dont-like-john-minehan/?trackingId=9RJNhRwHQLuXXCJYGKk%2BHA%3D%3D
I think the early Lee/Romita Spidey stuff is definitely better than OK. Hard to evaluate the later material as it’s been so long since I read it.
Conversely Wood’s DD stuff is uneven, ranging from the forgettable Matador to the excellent DD/Subby clash (I also have a fondness for Stilt-Man).
This issue of DD under review was one I saw on the stands but apparently I wasn’t interested enough even to flip through it at the time, which was rare for me. And my brother didn’t care for it so I didn’t get to read it by borrowing (we split up the comics purchasing that way).
My opinion is that it took Romita a while to get out of Ditko’s shadow, especially on the action adventure side of it. Early on, there was a bit of a tendancy to recycle villians arcs.
He was, however, in his element on the “soap opera” side of it, probably more than Ditko.
The Matador is Wood’s first one. The Sub Mariner story (and DD’s new costume) really put the book on the map.
The issue above, even if I didn’t collect the book, would have been a “must buy” due to the art by Starlin,
One thing I’ve noticed rereading Silver Age stuff (https://atomicjunkshop.com/tag/rereading-the-silver-age/)— even Romita’s earliest Spider-Man stories I don’t feel he’s padding so he needs less plot. Don Heck did that quite a bit and I see it sometimes in Gene Colan’s Iron Man. There’s one story where the plot is “Iron Man and Titanium Man fly to Washington” before an admittedly spectacular clash of titans the following issue.
Lee’s problem on Daredevil was that he couldn’t retain a genuinely visionary artist on the title during the 1960s. Kirby & Ditko provided that for the FF, Thor, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. Gene Colan, the primary artist on DD throughout most of its run in the ’60s and early ’70s, was a great artist but not a particularly visionary one, who could bring some really unique ideas to the title to make it shine, as well as appeal to a wide audience of comics readers. Still, Daredevil did well enough for most of the ’60s. The nadir of the run, IMO, was Conway’s early run, particularly with Heck on art. Iron Man & Sub-Mariner, among other titles, also suffered from too many subpar stories & art circa 1970 – ’72 or so. Iron Man & Daredevil hung around long enough to eventually recover. Subby didn’t. On some series, IMO, even the best of artists & writers who can work wonders on some mags can’t quite do so on others, but then someone comes in out of leftfield, mostly new to the industry, who has ideas that just finally bring the magic to the mag, as with Claremont on X-Men and Miller on Daredevil.
I really agree on Conway. He has done a lot of good work (although he can be rough on fans on Twitter/X), but the “Mr. Kline” thing did a LOT of damage.
Was it Cellini, the 15th Century Italian silversmith and soldier, who was critizized by a sculpter for having killed men in duelsand replied that at least his errors in judgement were decently buried unlike the sculpter? Mr. Kline is not quite that bad.
Weird that Steve Gerber didn’t like having Black Widow in this series because he felt Daredevil worked much better as a solo hero… and then Gerber goes and ties in the series with Jim Starlin’s cosmic sci-fi Thanos epic, which is a much more dramatic departure from the established concept of DD as a street-level crimefighter!
With all the behind-the-scenes drama, I wonder who actually created Moondragon. I guess Bill Everett, Mike Friedrich & George Tuska created the character as the villainous Madame MacEvil in Iron Man #54, but who had the idea to very quickly revamp her into the morally ambiguous alien-reared priestess Moondragon? Friedrich, who was closely involved with Starlin in the early stages of setting up the Thanos saga? Starlin, when he (briefly) came onto Iron Man and he happened to see the issue that immediately preceded his? Or maybe it was Gerber working with Starlin? If I ever meet Starlin at a comic con again, I hope I remember to ask him.
If I remember the letter col for that issue of DD after 50 years, I think it said Starlin had created this stequence for a rival comic company a few years before , it had not been used and he had re[urposed the characters for Marvel. (I think that refereed to Thanos et al.)
I now wonder, did that include Moon Dragon? Did he change the design to fit Everett and Tuska’s “Madam MacEvil “design? What company had it been, a fanzine, a prozine like Witzend or maybe Charlton or even Warren? Was that during Starlin’s time in the Navy?
How does that fit into the fact that Kirby’s Darkseid was an influence?
Jim Starlin is one of the great names in comics, up there with Kirby. But he was a smart, well read man and drew on many influences.
John, are you sure you’re not thinking about the Captain Marvel #29 letters page I quoted in the blog post? The one that explained that Starlin’s Moondragon sequence had been drawn months before for Iron Man, before both Starlin and Gerber were taken off that book?
My own research indicates that Thanos and Eros were inspired by a college psych class Starlin took after he got out of the army, but that he hadn’t used them anywhere else before coming to Marvel. (Drax the Destroyer, on the other hand, seems to at least visually owe a debt to an early Starlin fanzine character named Doctor Weird.)
Starlin, like Cockrum a few years later, was one of those rare creators who came into the mainstream comics field with many new ideas and characters they were eager to get into publication. In short order, he introduced Drax, Mentor, Eros, Thanos, and ISAAC, and essentially refashioned Madame MacEvil into a new character — I’ll assume that was primarily his idea. Then he had another big burst of creativity while working on Warlock, adding Magus, Pip & Gamora, amongh others; and later on with Dreadstar. Of course, he’ll be most remembered for Thanos, who, while original in conception as based on Greek mythology and psychology concepts, also owed quite a bit to Kirby’s Darkseid. Still, Thanos and Gamora were both primary characters in some of the most popular films ever made.
I think this post strongly demonstrates how Starlin’s original, sprawling Thanos saga could be a very confusing thing to jump into late—particularly if your jumping-on point is any other comic but Captain Marvel. It’s dumb luck I got started with Captain Marvel #27, which I stumbled onto in a barber shop at the the dawn of my comics-buying life. Looking forward to getting neck deep into Thanos in the coming weeks and months.
I don’t think I ever did figure out how Madame McEvil turned into a good guy until years later.
It is, perhaps, the most unique evolution of a character in comics history.
Seeing references to Creedence Clearwater Revival in a previous comic you reviewed, Alan, I wonder if this villainess had her name derived from the top 40 hit “Lucretia MacEvil” by Blood Sweat & Tears in 1970?
It’s quite possible, as this generation of writers seemed heavily influenced by popular music. I have also speculated that Witch Woman over in Ghost Rider was inspired by the Eagles song, “Witchy Woman.”
For a long time, I thought it was really strange that Jim Starlin introduced Thanos and Drax the Destroyer and various other elements of his sprawling cosmic saga in what was, I believed, a fill-in issue of Iron Man. Then I recently learned that (as Alan recounts) Starlin really planned on being the permanent writer & artist on Iron Man, and he actually intended for Thanos to become an ongoing foe for Iron Man. But then Stan Lee hated the second Iron Man issue that Starlin did, and he got fired from the book. However, Roy Thomas really liked Starlin’s work, so he immediately gave him the Captain Marvel series to do, at which point Starlin just transplanted his plans for a Thanos story over to that series. Which helps explain why the Thanos saga jumped around so much early on.
Makes you wonder how different things might have been if Starlin had been able to stay on Iron Man for a long run, instead of getting fired then getting Captain Marvel. Could Thanos have become a major Iron Man adversary right up there with the Mandarin and Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo?
Here’s a link to Brain Conin’s piece at CBR that goes into more detail about how Starlin’s Iron Man run ended so unceremoniously…
https://www.cbr.com/iron-man-jim-starlin-stan-lee-hated/
Gerber in particular was obviously strongly influenced by the Beatles, as witness his storyline in Sub-Mariner in this period and the titles he gave to several of his stories, such as “Vengeance in the Sky with Diamonds” in an earlier DD issue.
I’m going to see Jim Starlin at Baltimore’s ComiCon tomorrow (and Chris Claremont, Walt Simonson and others) and I hope to ask him why he decided to change Friedrich’s and Tuska’s “Madam MacEvil” to Moondragon. I’ll let you know if I am successful in getting an answer.
Good luck, Stu!
I hope he remembers. I asked Gerry Conway a question online about an odd discontinuity (Firestorm’s foe Hyena is clearly in a costume when she debuts, yet she’s a were-hyena when we get her origin) but he didn’t remember.
Well, as you may know, I have a heckuva lot more respect for Jim Starlin than I do for Gerry Conway, but apart from that, this is a question about the first Thanos plot so I’m hoping that he thinks about it more often.
Yes, I imagine it looms much larger in his memories.
Well that was certainly an interesting if somewhat disappointing day at the Baltimore ComicCon. We stood in line for about 15 minutes in a non-moving huge line for Chris Claremont, for whom I brought comics to sign. He was charging for questions as well, so I guess that’s why the line wasn’t moving fast. I left my friend in line to head out to wait in line to speak with Jim Starlin and to have him sign two comics. My friend gave up too eventually and we never got to see him.
I got to Starlin’s table at the other end of the hall and was puzzled as I could not find where the line was. The woman who was with him (his assistant I guess) said that I was in front of it. My eyes almost popped out of my head. The man who created Thanos, Gamora, Infinity Stones and what Him became (Adam Warlock) had no line at all while there was a line the lengh of the convention center wall for Claremont (I also wanted to see Walt and Louise Simonson, but they had a long line, though not nearly as long as Claremont’s) and I knew that they would leave to do a panel soon so I was unlikely to get to them.
Anyway, I’ve never met Jim Starlin before and I hadn’t read up on his personality or how he handles fans. The answer to the latter appears to be that he tolerates them. He was very polite and signed my original Iron Man 55 and Captain Marvel 27, as well as a really cool poster of Thanos and the Warlock crew. He was also polite when I asked my question about Madam MacEvil/Moondragon. However, all he would say was that he decided to use Friedrich’s character because he loved the way she looked. I couldn’t draw him out on what made him decide to make her a Titan Priestess with a human background etc. I was grateful to get the autographs and poster, but I was unable to get information. Sorry.
Unfortunately, I could only go to the convention for one day because after eating lunch, I went to see a mutant panel with the Simonsons and Mark Waid among others and the Simonsons, particularly Louise of course, was an absolute delight with candid reminiscences about her time on the mutant books (although maybe not proactively candid–she didn’t talk about how they forced Cable into the book and dropped New Mutants for X-Force). Then Walt stayed for the second “panel” which was supposed to be about Jack Kirby, but the real Kirby experts were no-shows and it wound up being just Walt. Still Walt was wonderful talking about how Kirby inspired him (his description of utter joy upon picking up Kirby’s first Jimmy Olsen and all of the concepts therein was especially wonderful) and he also talked about his own views on Thor as compared to Kirby. Unfortunately, he and Louise left for the day after that panel and I was unable to come back on Sunday (my friend had a New Mutant book for Louise to sign and I wanted to get a Walt Simonson autograph on a poster for my brother-in-law). The Simonsons clearly enjoy doing this.
Lots of others at this ComiCon: Ron Marz, Al Milgrom, Geoff Johns and many who I’m sure became notable over the last 30 years.
Thanks for the con report, Stu! And for asking Starlin the question we’ve all been wondering about, even if he didn’t (or couldn’t) provide much of an answer.
I am *very* surprised to hear that Starlin’s line was so short (as in non-existent), compared to Claremont’s or the Simonsons’. Simply based on the response I get whenever I share one of my blog posts in his Facebook group, I would have assumed his current fanbase is at least as huge as any of theirs.
That surprises me too. I’m not a fan of his Infinity-era stuff but it seems like plenty of people are and the crossovers were way high profile.
Sometimes there are no profound deep answers to some of our questions. Sometimes it is a matter of, “well, I liked how she looked and decided to figure out a way to work her into my story and make her a better character.” Moondragon did make a much better name than Madame MacEvil, and she did live on a moon. She wore a rather racy outfit for a priestess, but maybe we can just put that down to her being naughty, like a dragon!
Minor typo:
“So how did t I finally” s/b
“So how did I finally”