Last month we took a look at Avengers #131, which ended with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes being transported against their wills to the realm of Limbo, where they were set to face off against a Legion of the Unliving assembled by their long-time foe, Kang the Conqueror.  This month, we’ll be discussing the “two-part triple-length triumph” which that comic’s final page promised as a follow-up… a story which, following a pattern that had been set the last time that an issue of the quarterly Giant-Size Avengers rolled around, doesn’t actually begin in the book whose Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover graces the top of this post; but, rather, in the one whose cover by Ron Wilson and Giacoia is shown at right: the latest (as of fifty years ago) issue of our assembled heroes’ regular monthly title, Avengers #132 (Feb., 1975). 

And speaking of Giant-Size Avengers #2, I’m sure you’ll recall how that issue’s cover promised the “Death of an Avenger!” — and how the story within delivered on that promise, via the heroic self-sacrifice of the Swordsman.  Now, just three months later, we have the cover of Avengers #132 claiming, “One of the Avengers depicted on this cover will perish in this very issue!  But — which one?“

I don’t know about you, but even in 1974, my younger self was pretty sure that Marvel wasn’t going to permanently off a star character like Iron Man or Thor in a random issue of Avengers.  Mantis, on the other hand… While it seemed unlikely that writer Steve Englehart would wrap up his ongoing “Celestial Madonna” saga with such finality this quickly, it was at least possible.  After all, “this one” had joined the cast of the series at the very same time as the Swordsman, and now, with him gone…

Of course, none of us readers were going to learn the truth of the matter staring at the book’s cover — and neither will any of you out there reading this who might be encountering this story for the first time (or who have simply forgotten the details over the last five decades).  So let’s dig in, shall we?

Turning first to #132’s opening splash, we immediately find ourselves in familiar territory, visually speaking, as the same art team who’d been handling Avengers since issue #127 — penciller Sal Buscema and inker Joe Staton — are still on the job.  But once we check out the credits box, we may yet find ourselves in for a bit of a surprise…

With the exception of Giant-Size Avengers #1, which had been written by Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart had authored every single adventure of the super-team since Avengers #105, published back in August, 1972… that is, until this one, which finds Englehart credited only for “plot & title”, with “script and editing” attributed to his predecessor on the feature, Roy Thomas.

As anyone who’d read Marvel publisher Stan Lee’s “Soapbox” column in the company’s books then on sale already knew (and as we discussed in some detail in our Captain America #182 post, a few weeks back), Thomas was stepping down from his editor-in-chief position at Marvel, which meant (among other things) that he’d be doing considerably more writing than he had been for the last several years.  Was Thomas looking to take back Avengers — the title he’d written for seventy consecutive issues (plus two Annuals) prior to passing the assignment to Englehart, and which still stood as arguably his most significant contribution to the comics field to date, with the possible exception of Conan the Barbarian and its ilk?

Well, not quite.  As an editorial note at the top of #132’a “Avengers Assemble!” letters column explained:

In other words, it was actually more of a last hurrah for Roy Thomas on Avengers (at least for the present), as the two-fer represented by Avengers #132 and Giant-Size Avengers #3 wouldn’t only be the last comics starring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that he’d be writing for quite some time — but the last that he’d be editing, as well.

And now that we have that cleared up…

The reference to Don Blake’s “Christian heritage” is interesting, given that Don Blake isn’t actually “real” — rather, he’s a construct of Thor’s daddy, All-Father Odin, who created the persona of a mobility-challenged medical student to teach his son humility, as first revealed by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1968’s Thor #159.  I doubt that either Roy Thomas or Steve Englehart would have forgotten that fact, so I think it’s best to think of this reference to Blake’s religious “heritage” as a kind of simplified shorthand for the more complicated reality — which is that Odin must have instilled the Blake persona with false memories of what was, at least in a broad, cultural sense, a “Christian” upbringing.  Presumably, Blake would have had false memories of parents, childhood friends, early loves, etc., as well… which is all pretty creepy if you think about it for any length of time.

You know, I’m not really sure I buy the idea of Thor opting to transform into the powerless Blake in the midst of an unknown and obviously dangerous situation, just on the off chance that it might, somehow, break him out of Limbo.  But, obviously, having Blake threatened by the Frankenstein Monster does help extend this “Thor vs. Frankenstein” action sequence a little longer than might otherwise have seemed credible to the average reader…

At this point, Englehart’s plot takes temporary leave of the Labyrinth of Limbo to pick up a loose thread or two remaining on Earth — more specifically, in Saigon, Vietnam, the location from which the Avengers had been so rudely plucked by Kang.  As regular readers of this blog will hopefully recall, a mysterious hooded figure had been introduced in issue #130, where he’d assisted Iron Man against the Crimson Dynamo (though without the Golden Avenger’s ever becoming aware of it); then, in #131, we’d briefly glimpsed him him observing Mantis from a rooftop (again, without her ever seeing him).  Now, he turns up at the very spot from which the Avengers vanished, evidently looking for clues; when he’s accosted by two officers of the local police, he swiftly downs them with some choice martial arts moves, then flees into a nearby alley…

As for the “glowing green Swordsman“, he’d first turned up in #131, where he materialized in front of Mantis, then disappeared almost as quickly, never saying a word.  Now, if nothing else, we know that he wasn’t a figment of the grieving woman’s imagination… and that he and Hooded Guy are in cahoots, some way or other…

Before Kang can continue, he’s interrupted by Baron Zemo, who’s just noticed the Vision wandering down an adjoining corridor (of course, Zemo doesn’t actually recognize Vizh, having bought the farm some forty-two issues prior to the android Avenger’s debut, but nevertheless perceives that “he has the look of the accursed Avengers about him!”).  Kang immediately orders the Human Torch and Wonder Man to attack and destroy the Vision…

Vision finds that although his solar eye-beam blasts can stun Zemo, the unliving villain can somehow absorb the energy from them — so, rather than deplete his reserves, he turns intangible and slips away through a wall.  The similarly-powered Ghost promptly heads off in pursuit, while Kang, Zemo, and company go searching for the other Avengers…

Mantis’ blow staggers Midnight, but doesn’t take him out.  Not feeling particularly enthusiastic about continuing a fight against someone her enhanced senses tell her is essentially “a dead man“, she opts to beat feet, instead; though, naturally, the former frenemy of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu immediately follows in pursuit.

Elsewhere, Iron Man and Hawkeye’s separate tunnel-wanderings have brought them face-to-face…

So now we know who dies in this issue — and it is one of the big guns, Iron Man, after all!  Yeah, like that’s going to stick.

In another tunnel, the Ghost phases through a wall in front of Mantis — but after making a statement about how he’s not allowed to harm “the Celestial Madonna” (which naturally freaks Mantis out just a little), he passe through on the other side, still looking for the Vision…

Back in 1974, there was a whole week’s interval between the release dates of Avengers #132 and Giant-Size Avengers #3 — but since we have no need to worry about that here, “forthcoming” means the same as “immediately following”… like so:

Once again, the writing credit is split between Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas (and, while I’m thinking about it, can anyone think of any other time when someone has specifically been credited for coming up with a story’s title?  One gets the impression that Englehart wasn’t all that happy about his needing to have help from Thomas this month, and wanted to be sure he got the credit for everything he contributed to these two comics, no matter how minor).

Returning as penciller from the previous issue of Giant-Size Avengers is Dave Cockrum.  In that issue, he’d inked his own pencils (with some last-minute uncredited assistance from Neal Adams); here, however, he appears to have only contributed layouts, which have in turn been finished by Joe Giella, a veteran artist best known for his work inking such DC Comics features as Batman and Flash.  Unfortunately, Cockrum’s work for this story calls for a slicker, cleaner approach to rendering than the relatively rough-edged embellishment afforded here by Giella; the result, at least for this reader, is less attractive than either the art Cockrum delivered solo (more or less) for G-SA #2, or the visuals provided by the Buscema-Staton team for the storyline’s immediately preceding chapter.

Continuing with our narrative, the Vision explains to Mantis how the Ghost overcame him by plunging his own not-quite-solid arm into the android’s body…

Yes, Midnight has finally caught up with Mantis, and he’s determined to continue their battle; plus, having gained some distance from Kang, he’s less compelled to follow the Conqueror’s directive not to harm her..  Mantis is unfazed by this, and she proceeds to impress her foe by seizing one of his nunchaku sticks while he’s whirling it through the air, and then by using it to pull him off-balance and send him flying…

“And to death shall you return, as you well know — if you do not do my full bidding.”  Having put Zemo back in his place (or so he at least hopes), Kang dispatches Wonder Man and the Torch to search for the Vision.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Labyrinth, Thor has lost track of the Frankenstein Monster, and is once again wandering aimlessly — until he stumbles upon a most unwelcome sight:

Yeah, you and I may both know that ol’ Shellhead can’t really be dead (at least not permanently) — but Thor doesn’t know that, and his godly wrath thus seems entirely apt.

The scene now shifts back to Earth — though to New York City rather than Saigon, this time… and specifically to Avengers Mansion, where the team’s butler, Jarvis, receives word that Libra — the member of the super-criminal cartel called Zodiac who’d recently claimed to have fathered Mantis — has broken out of prison.  Jarvis attempts to take this important message to the only Avenger currently on the premises: the Scarlet Witch, who’s been ensconced in her rooms with her new mentor, Agatha Harkness, since the beginning of Avengers #130.  But when Jarvis tentatively knocks on her door, and politely asks to speak with her…

Meanwhile, Zemo is continuing to annoy Kang with his irrelevant rantings about Captain America (“that star-spangled schweinhund!“) and the like, so the Conqueror sends the Baron back to Immortus’ throne room to make sure that both the erstwhile Lord of Limbo and Rama-Tut haven’t escaped.  But then, only moments after gaining his solitude, Kang finds himself confronted by…

Thor seems to have Kang on the ropes, but then aid arrives for the latter in the form of Wonder Man, who wallops the Thunder God from behind.  “So, Kang,” says Thor.  “Thou hast called forth Wonder Man from beyond the grave… and made of him a pawn, as well!”  “I’m nobody’s pawn, Goldilocks,” Simon Williams angrily retorts…

In obedience to Kang, Wonder Man pulls down a supporting column, resulting in the corridor’s roof collapsing in between the immortal Avenger and his fleeing foes; in response, Thor immediately sets to knocking the fallen rubble out of his way with Mjolnir.

Zemo’s Adhesive X superglues Hawkeye to the floor, but it doesn’t silence him; and so, when the Baron starts ranting about how much he suffered for two decades after Captain America stuck his cowl to his face, the bowman breaks in: “Why dontcha just zap me and get it over with, Man from Glad!  Anything’s better than listenin’ to you warmed-over Nazis sounding off!”

And there it is, folks.  The payoff to a plot thread first introduced over three years earlier in Avengers #93, where Ant-Man, in the midst of a fantastic voyage through the body of the Vision, saw… something which gave him pause; something about which Roy Thomas’ script tantalizingly stated “our readers may learn one day… but not today!”

As most readers of this blog are doubtlessly already aware, while Avengers #93’s artist and co-plotter Neal Adams was drawing that issue, he’d conceived the notion of the Vision’s body having originally belonged to Marvel’s original android superhero, the Golden Age Human Torch, and had drawn in a panel where Ant-Man discovered a mysterious anomaly which somehow pointed to the Vision’s true origins.  In the remaining eleven issues of Avengers that Thomas scripted before turning the job over to Steve Englehart, the writer made but one further allusion to the mystery; this came in Avengers #102 (Aug., 1972), when one of the mutant-hunting robots known as the Sentinels analyzed the Vision and reported him to be of “three decades vintage” (see right; art by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott).   Obviously, that was way too old to fit with the Vision’s supposed beginnings in 1968 at the hands of another robot, Ultron-5 — but it was just right for the origins of the original Torch, who’d debuted in Marvel Comics #1 (Oct., 1939).

Ultimately, however, Thomas would leave it to Englehart to handle the big reveal — and while the latter was clearly quite willing, he was clearly also just as interested in taking his own sweet time about it.*  So it’s somewhat ironic, and perhaps also rather fitting, that, now that the actual moment has arrived, both writers end up sharing it.  And I figure it had to have been icing on the cake for Thomas — a former English teacher who frequently quotes from or otherwise alludes to literary sources in his work — that the “in-story” version of the moment features not only Vizh and the Torch, but the original “artificial man” himself — i.e., the Frankenstein Monster.

Meanwhile, even as Hawkeye gets ready to take his one, desperate shot, Thor finally catches up with Kang and Wonder Man — but before battle can recommence, two more members of our rather large cast show up…

Ultimately, the question of whether knowing about the relationship between himself and the Vision would spur Wonder Man to overcome the will of Kang becomes moot, as Vizh discovers that he’s still able to become diamond-hard…

For the second time in three months, Kang the Conqueror makes his exit.  I’m sure that, this time, it’ll be years before any writer brings him back.  Right?

In the first panel above, the caption’s reference to “Warrior Madness” is almost certainly a callback on Thomas’ part to Thor #166 (Jul., 1969) — although the God of Thunder’s wrath in that particular Lee-Kirby classic seemed a good deal more savage and uncontrollable than what he’s demonstrated in these pages.  But, whatever…

And now we see how, without ever explicitly referencing the previous “hints” from Avengers #93 and #102, Englehart has been setting up the revelation regarding the Vision’s true nature via what seemed to be an unrelated ongoing subplot of his own:  Vizh’s mysterious temporary spells of “weakness”, which had first surfaced in Avengers #118, then made return appearances in issues #122 and Giant-Size Avengers #2…

For the most part, one can read through both Avengers #132 and Giant-Size Avengers #3 without being constantly reminded that these stories have been scripted by Roy Thomas, rather than Steve Englehart; generally speaking, the voices of the individual characters, as well as the style of the narrative captions, are in line with what we’ve grown used to over the past couple of years’ worth of Avengers stories.  But the exchange between the Vision and Mantis is something of an exception, at least for this reader; as written by Englehart, Mantis may regularly come off as somewhat aloof and occasionally even above-it-all, but I don’t thin we’ve ever seen her portrayed as quite this cold before now.

Rama-Tut is of course quoting from William Shakespeare, here; the specific passage comes from Hamlet, Act I, scene 3, where it’s spoken by Polonius —  a character whom, it’s generally agreed, Shakespeare means to come across as a pompous windbag, rather than as a genuinely wise man.  (In Rama’s defense, a lot of people in the 21st century get this wrong, too.)

Wait, what now?  Immortus is Kang too?  It’s a pretty cool idea, actually — but one may quite justifiably feel that our storytellers — Steve Englehart, in particular — haven’t played fair with readers in setting up this development.  After all, everything that Immortus said, did, and even thought in previous episodes gave every indication that his objectives were exactly what he told Kang they were, and gave nary a hint that he was playing some sort of long game by keeping his true identity a secret from his younger selves.

Englehart appears to have realized this; months later, in a special note included on the letters page of Avengers #136, he acknowledged “several rough edges in AVENGERS #132 AND GIANT-SIZE AVENGERS #3” he felt needed explanation, and the biggest one was that “a whole history of Immortus, which would have bolstered his seemingly-out-of-left-field claim of being another identity of Kang/Rama Tut was somehow omitted…”  OK, good to know.  (What were the other “rough edges”, you ask?  Ah, well, I’m afraid we’ll have to save discussion of those for a later post.)

The Torch’s crack about betting a “Roosevelt nickel” sounds like the kind of 1940’s-specific reference that Roy Thomas loved to come up with — but if it is, I haven’t been able to find any record of it.

Anyway, this is where we’ll have to leave our storyline for the present.  But the quest will indeed go on in Avengers #133; and, just to be clearer than Thomas’ script actually was on this point, we’ll actually be dealing with two quests — one to find out how the Torch became the Vision, and another to get to the bottom of this whole “Celestial Madonna” business — when next we check in with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, a couple of months from now.

Before we wrap up this post, however, here’s the opening splash page of the vintage reprint that filled out the remainder of Giant-Size Avengers #3’s non-ad, non-text pages:

Like the caption says, this early adventure first had appeared in Avengers #2 (Nov., 1963), and was the work of the classic combo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with Paul Reinman on inks.  At this time, it had only been reprinted once, in Marvel Super-Heroes Annual #1 (Oct., 1966). — and, given that that book had been published a whole year before ever I purchased my first Marvel comic, my younger self was happy to finally have a chance to read it, even in an edited form.  (Panels had been excised so that the original  22-pager would come in at 20 tops — and, no, I didn’t notice at the time.)  The reprinted tale even managed to complement G-SA #3’s lead story, as it featured the first appearance of Marvel’s version of Limbo — albeit the portion of that timeless realm that was lorded over by the Space Phantom, with the as-yet-uninvented “ruler” of Limbo, Immortus, understandably nowhere to be seen.

 

*Oddly enough, during this period, the letters page in Avengers #115 (Sep., 1973) — likely put together by Englehart, though Thomas was of course the editor of record — inadvertently spilled the beans, well in advance of G-SA #3’s in-story reveal.  There, a letter written by Duffy Vohland — a future Marvel staffer — ended with the following postscript:

A full two years later, an editorial comment in the letters column of Avengers #139 (Sep., 1975) explained that “a printer’s error in the letters page of #115” had resulted in the accidental publication of “a PS not to be printed”; in that postscript, Vohland had been “referring to an interview with Neal [Adams]”  Based on Vohland’s original missive, that interview evidently ran in a publication called Gallery.

Gentlemen of a certain age will likely remember seeing issues of Gallery on magazine racks (specifically, those partially-obscured racks they kept behind the sales counter) through most of the decade of the Seventies and beyond; perhaps they even bought an issue or two, back in the days of their youth.  Beginning publication in late 1972, Gallery was an upscale skin magazine on the order of Playboy, meaning that it had lots and lots of words in addition to all the nekkid pitchers.

While I haven’t been able to find any record of Gallery carrying a proper, full-length interview with Neal Adams circa 1972-73, the February, 1973 issue did include an article by Terry Fox entitled “Comics Collectors Arise!”  Given the timing of this piece’s appearance relative to Avengers #115’s publication, I’m inclined to believe this is where Adams broke the big story that the Human Torch and the Vision were the same android — even if nobody seems to have noticed at the time but the late Mr. Vohland.  (Though in the magazine’s readers’ defense, there was an interview with Jack Lemmon in that issue, as well as new fiction by Robert “Psycho” Bloch.  And oh, yeah, a pictorial of Brigitte Bardot…)