Back in August, 1974, after laying the necessary narrative groundwork for many months, Avengers writer Steve Englehart had inaugurated his “Celestial Madonna” story arc with a pair of issues that came out within a couple of weeks of each other: Avengers #129 and Giant-Size Avengers #2. Half a year later, in February, 1975, the saga would reach its conclusion in a parallel fashion, with the final chapters appearing in that month’s issues of both the regular monthly Avengers title and its giant-sized quarterly companion.
But there was a marked difference between these last two installments and those that had preceded them. Until now, every regular Avengers issue that was part of the arc, from #129 on through #134, had been illustrated by the art team of Sal Buscema and Joe Staton. Concurrently, both of the Giant-Size installments had been pencilled by a single artist, Dave Cockrum. With these concluding episodes, however, readers were confronted by a 100% turnover on the artistic end of both books’ production, with Buscema and Staton replaced by George Tuska and Frank Chiaramonte for Avengers #135, and Don Heck stepping in for Cockrum to pencil Giant-Size Avengers #4, with John Tartaglione handling inks.
Both Tuska and Heck were of course longtime Marvel Comics veterans, and each was experienced in drawing the adventures of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes; indeed, Heck had been the series’ second regular artist following Jack Kirby, and had over forty individual Avengers stories to his name at this point. But their styles were markedly different from those of their immediate predecessors; what was more, they were coming in at the tail-end of an extremely complex storyline, and, it seems, at rather short notice to boot.
In his 2014 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — The Avengers, Vol. 14, Steve Englehart recalled the circumstances surrounding the production of the two-issue conclusion to the Celestial Madonna saga:
…we suddenly needed George Tuska for the first part and Don Heck for the second. Now as a reader, I’d been a big fan of both of these guys, and those opinions have never changed. But to take the extremely dense story and give it to anybody unfamiliar with it was a hair-raising thing to do. George used fewer panels than the norm (leaving fewer occasions for me to convey info) and Don used more; everything had to be adjusted on the fly. Fortunately… those guys were pros, so they did what the synopsis said needed to be done, but they didn’t possess the nuances of knowledge that the regular artists would have had. Would I have preferred to end the arc with the same folks I came in with? Yes. Was there anything to be done about it? No. This is the periodicals biz…
We’ll be giving further consideration to several of the points made here by Englehart as we go along; but, for now, let’s leap right in to Avengers #135 (May, 1975), and Englehart, Tuska, and Chiaramonte’s “The Torch Is Passed!” — though not before taking note of the comic’s cover, which, as published, was an after-the fact collaboration between Jim Starlin and John Romita. (As may be seen by comparison with the all-Starlin original reproduced at right, Marvel’s art director redrew the “floating heads” of Thor, Mantis, and Iron Man, while also excising the figure of the Human Torch Starlin had drawn into the background at far left. For what it’s worth, your humble blogger prefers Starlin’s version; your mileage may vary.)
As regular readers of this blog will recall, the last couple of issues of Avengers had bounced back and forth between two extended flashback sequences — “The Origin of Mantis” and “The Origin of the Vision”. As of the concluding pages of #134, the time-traveling portion of the former of those narratives had reached its end, with Mantis and her Avenging companions having been returned to the present day for the revelations still to come. The Vision, on the other hand, remained in the year 1967 — and that’s where this issue begins, as the android hero bears witness to the sight of Ultron-5 crashing into the abandoned subterranean lair of the Mad Thinker, where lies the inert, and supposedly lifeless, body of the original Human Torch…
Yes, it’s a flashback within a flashback, as Ultron spends the next couple of pages relating his origin story to Quasimodo, the Living Computer. But since we covered the comic where that yarn initially appeared, Avengers #58, in a blog post back in 2018, we’re going to take the liberty of skipping to the end. (Although if you’d like to refresh your memory in regards to that Roy Thomas/John Buscema/George Klein classic, please feel free to click the provided link. Don’t worry, we’ll still be here when you get back.)
As we rejoin our story, Ultron has just finished explaining how, after wiping the knowledge of his existence from the mid of his “da-da”, Hank Pym, he’d spent the next few weeks evolving himself up a few generations, then had set forth into the world…
Ultron’s assertion that he is “living out a full, normal lifespan” implies that he expects to kick off in ninety years or so. Not only can I not figure out how or why that should be the case (unless he plans to self-destruct at the appropriate time), I don’t believe it’s part of Roy Thomas’ original conception of the character; nor, for that matter, do I think it’s ever been referenced since. (I could well be wrong about both of those things, however; if so, I welcome your corrections.)
Moving on… Quasimodo offers himself as Ultron’s prospective son, but is flatly rejected. Ultron then leaves with the Torch’s body, though not before wiping Quasi’s memory of his ever having been there — which explains why the matter won’t come up when the Silver Surfer arrives on the scene mere moments later, just in time for an adventure originally published in Fantastic Four Annual #5 (Nov., 1967). As for the Vision, the next temporal stop on his journey will be 1968 — a year that his guide/mode of transport, the Synchro-Staff, assures him “will be no less outré” than the one they’re about to depart. But first…
Moondragon explains that she’s come in response to the summons for Captain Marvel the Avengers had sent out a few issues ago… even though she’s not entirely sure why. The glowing green guy who looks like the dead Swordsman welcomes her, then invites her to tell the assembled group her origin story — which she proceeds to do for the next couple of pages. (One of those pages, incidentally, is a full-page splash that offers little more than a pin-up-style portrait of Thanos; given the Mad Titan’s general irrelevance to the present narrative, this seems an ill-advised use of space, and makes one wonder whether this is one of those instances where George Tuska’s using “fewer panels than the norm” may have caused Steve Englehart some consternation.)
As with Ultron’s origin, we’ve covered this ground in earlier blog posts, and so we’re once again going to skip to the end; though, also as before, if you’d like to refresh your memory regarding the details of how little Heather Douglas of Earth was cruelly orphaned by Thanos, then taken to Titan and raised in a monastery to ultimately became the priestess now known as Moondragon, you’re more than welcome to check out the original telling in Daredevil #105, as well as the slightly revised version offered in Captain Marvel #32.
Our story returns now to the Vision, who, in 1968, observes Ultron as the robot obsessively tries — and fails — to bring the Human Torch back to life. The main problem seems to be that the Torch “burned himself out in dying”, and though Ultron is a whiz at components and wires, he lacks “the understanding to remold plastoid flesh!” Only the Torch’s inventor would have the expertise to work with such systems, Ultron eventually decides — and then, in a eureka moment marked by the snapping of his metallic fingers (“SNANG!”), he arrives at the solution to his woes…
Naturally, astrology enthusiast Steve Englehart just has to make a point of the Vision’s birth sign… which, incidentally, he seems to have arrived at somewhat arbitrarily, given that the character’s first appearance was in Avengers #57 — which bore a cover date of October, 1968, but was actually released on August 8th. Oh, well, whatever…
Identifying the evilly laughing voice as a male one — and thus one with no business being in the room where the Scarlet Witch is currently holed up with Agatha Harkness — Jarvis promptly drops his tray and hurls himself shoulder-first at the door — only to find that not only is it unlocked, but the room is completely empty.
Meanwhile, back in ’68…
Um, it sure didn’t take Ultron long to acquire that “proper weaponry” he was talking about on the last page, did it? I guess he got lucky, and there was an all-night supervillain supply store just around the corner. Again, whatever. Let’s just get back to the fight…
“Now you know all.” So speaks the Synchro-Staff — and though it’s addressing the Vision here, we readers back in 1975 could easily imagine that the voluble doohickey was talking to us as well. After all, we, too, had surely now learned all there was to know about how the Human Torch had become the Vision, right?
In fact, that assumption remained a pretty accurate one for fourteen years, at which point John Byrne came along to tell us that everything we thought we knew was wrong. Of course, ten years after that, Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern would come along to let us know that we’d been right in the first place… more or less. (Yes, it was complicated.*)
Notice that “This month” blurb promoting Giant-Size Avengers #4? See how it promises “Nine surprise super-villains“? That’s quite a lot of bad guys. Let’s try and count them as we go through the book, shall we? Might be fun.
Actually, we can probably start with the comic’s Gil Kane-penciled cover (which, for the record, was probably finished by either Mike Esposito or Al Milgrom [with possible further touch-ups by John Romita]). So, let’s see: I spy with my little eye… Dormammu? Well, that is a surprise… or, at least it would be, if we hadn’t discussed Doctor Strange #7 in this space back in January, at which time we noted the promotion of this very crossover. OK, so that’s one. What about Immortus? Or the Green Swordsman? While both of those guys have been counted among Marvel’s roster of supervillains in the past (please note I’m conflating the original and Green versions of the Swordsman here, for simplicity’s sake), they’ve been portrayed as being on the side of the angels in more recent stories. So let’s put them in the “maybe” column, as we head on into the issue proper…
This may be the concluding chapter of a 10-issue story arc, but there are always folks who’ve come in late (or simply missed an issue), and so the first order of business for our storytellers is to offer a brief recap of Avengers #135 (the parts involving the Vision, anyway). Once again, we’ll jump forward to the end, rejoining Vizh as he comes out of his 1 1/3 page reverie…
Alright, so in addition to Dormammu, we have his better-looking sister, Umar. That makes at least two for-sure supervillains.
Dormammu says that the Scarlet Witch has been “drawn here” — but surely his power must have been doing some “reaching out” as well, whether or not he was aware of it.. Otherwise, it’s hard to account for that evil male laughter Jarvis heard behind Wanda’s door in Avengers #135, to say nothing of her and Agatha Harkness’ weird, aggressive behavior towards Moondragon in the issue before that. And speaking of Miss Harkness, where the heck is she, anyway?
And here’s another supervillain: Mantis’ presumed father, the Zodiac member known as Libra. Although given his behavior of late, perhaps he, too, belongs in the “maybe” column. Hmm.
And did you notice how Green Swordsman has picked up Mantis’ habit of referring to herself as “this one”? Gee, you think that means anything?
Call me a quibbler, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any “constellations” between Earth and Titan, a celestial body in our very own Solar System. I get that Steve Englehart’s into astrology, rather than astronomy, but still.
We should also note, in spite of what that asterisked reference to Avengers #134 might seem to imply, this is the first indication we’ve been given that the residents of the Shao-Lom monastery who reared Moondragon on Titan have any connection to the ancient, pacifistic priesthood of the Kree whose descendants on Earth became known as the Priests of Pama.
The parallels between Mantis and Moondragon’s backstories are undoubtedly interesting; it’s not hard to see why Steve Englehart was inspired to link them directly together. But, in the end, Moondragon’s hitherto unknown “candidacy” for Celestial Madonnahood matters not a whit to the storyline’s resolution, and really serves no narrative purpose except to bring Moondragon back into the Avengers’ orbit as a potential new member — something which could have been handled rather more efficiently, to my mind, and without taking up multiple pages of a crowded story that’s about to become even more so…
The Titanic Three are assuredly meant to be counted among this issue’s promised nine supervillains (though they themselves might argue with being designated as such)… as should also be the guy whose name the Crimson Dynamo is about to drop:
Dormammu’s demons begin spewing liquid flame at the Vision, who turns intangible to avoid injury — but he knows he won’t be able to keep this up for very long, as he hasn’t had a chance to recharge his solar power cells since beginning his trip through time. However, his computer mind is able to quickly analyze the available data to arrive at a possible solution; since the Human Torch was able to absorb any kind of flame into his body, Vizh reasons that he should be able to do the same thing in regards to the demons’ magical variety. Allowing himself to become partially solid, then opening his solar jewel, he proceeds to test his theory — and the results are positive. “Yes!” the Vision exults. “I can absorb some energy from the demon’s [sic] supernatural flame! I can absorb enough –”
Nowhere in the original run of Avengers stories featuring Mantis did Steve Englehart come right out and say that she’d worked as a prostitute in Saigon. (He probably couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to, given the strictures of the Comics Code at that time.) Still, it’s pretty clear that that’s what was going on, and even as a teenage reader in the ’70s, I think I probably got it… and it’s never really bothered me all that much, then or now. That said, the revelation in this scene that the Priests of Pama had basically wiped Mantis’ memory on her eighteenth birthday, and then abandoned her to an environment where she was more than likely to be exploited sexually, is a decidedly different matter. It’s problematic, to say the very least.
“…I imagine he’s just as determined as ever to kidnap the Celestial Madonna!” Iron Man concludes. After determining that the Titanic Three are basically OK, the trio of Avengers resolves to go after Kang — and, at Hawkeye’s suggestion, they split up, with the archer scouting the temple grounds on foot, and his two flying comrades doing the same for the perimeter…
An “Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books” no-prize shall be awarded to the first reader who can identify the actual issue of Avengers where Cap turned the gavel of the team’s chairmanship over to Thor — or even an issue where such an event was mentioned, prior to this moment. (Offer void where prohibited by law.)
Thor literally brings the hammer down on Kang with what’s implied would be fatal impact, if not for the Conqueror’s force-field…
Vizh evades harm from the molten lava by turning himself diamond-hard; and when Wanda counters by magically hurling a huge boulder at him, he becomes intangible. But then she commands his solar gem to empty itself of all its energy, which leaves him helpless…
By this point, you may be thinking that Englehart has gone somewhat overboard in his chronicling of the rising and advancing of Mantis’ spirit. Do we really need this level of detail, in regards either to her time with the Avengers, or to Libra’s role in this whole business? But when we recall Englehart’s comments in his Masterworks intro about how Don Heck used more panels to break down the story visually than the writer would have preferred, it seems at least possible that the artist misjudged how many panels actually needed to be devoted to Green Swordsman and Libra’s relating of the backstory, giving Englehart little choice but to fill them with something; clearly, in panels such as the next to last above, Heck has very intentionally left a lot of room for Libra’s word balloons.
Meanwhile, back at the center of the Earth…
OK, so we can assume that Agatha’s been held captive somewhere nearby this whole time; it still seems odd that we haven’t seen her on-panel until this very moment. But maybe that’s just me…
So just because Dormammu didn’t already owe the Scarlet Witch one before she got the drop on him, he doesn’t have to keep his word to her? Sounds dicey to me; but as we discussed in our Doctor Strange #7 post last month, it’s completely in character for the Dread One to look for (and find) loopholes in that whole “code of honor” thing.
Anyway, that’s the last we’ll see of Dormammu, Umar, and Mother Earth in this story (though of course Englehart has two more issues of Doctor Strange lined up to resolve the situation he leaves hanging here). So now it’s back to Vietnam, and to a seemingly way-outmatched Hawkeye…
So Iron Man fought and defeated a third Kang, and we only get to hear about it second-hand? Granted, Englehart’s plot is overstuffed; but the action certainly seems to have gotten the short end of the stick, here, as even the dust-ups we have seen, featuring Thor and Hawkeye, have felt truncated and cramped. Maybe the issue wasn’t so much that Don Heck was using too many panels throughout the issue as that he was using too many for some scenes (like the Green Swordsman/Libra exposition festival discussed earlier), and not enough for others… though, having said that, I’m not sure how much better the action scenes would read — or look — even if it Heck had allowed himself more room for illustrating them. In this reader’s opinion, Heck’s style (which was probably never especially well-suited to superhero comics in the first place) had become more stiff and awkward in the last few years; and, naturally, the tight deadline on which this issue was evidently completed couldn’t have helped matters.
Miss Harkness happily withdraws — though not before assuring Wanda that she should consider her instruction in magic to be complete, at least as far as the older witch is concerned: “From now on, you learn for yourself!”
In an interview for Alter Ego #103 (Jul., 2011), Steve Englehart discussed his approach to handling Kang the Conqueror, the supervillain who (at least in the latter portion of the writer’s Avengers run) won’t let us miss him, because he never goes away. Englehart began by acknowledging that even the most popular villains customarily take some time off between appearances…
Usually, there was a time frame where Doctor Doom didn’t show up. He was off licking his wounds or making up a new battle plan. But the thing that really struck me about Kang was that the guy traveled through time, so time didn’t mean anything to him. He didn’t need time to recover or work out a new plan. He could fight The Avengers tooth and nail until they were all on their last leg, then run away, take six months to rest up, make up a new plan, then return thirty seconds after he left and start over while they’re still lying on the ground gasping. I never went quite that far, but I thought it was very cool that if that’s what Kang was, a time traveler, and he could do that, then doing it that way would be second nature to him… He was a Master of Time, so he would beat you with time. If he couldn’t beat you any other way, then he’d beat you with time.
Apparently this got old for some fans; all I can say is, it always worked for me.
Yeah, remember that box that Immortus was carrying when he turned up unexpectedly in Avengers #135? Sure, it looked completely different then, but at this point, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the little matter of making sure that George Tuska and Don Heck had identical design notes from to work from slipped through the cracks.
The Space Phantom? Well, sure, why not? It may have never occurred to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby that the Limbo-residing villain they introduced in Avengers #2 (Nov., 1963) and the identically-located one they brought in a year later in Avengers #10 (Nov., 1964) — i.e., Immortus — might logically be assumed by readers to be connected in one way or another… but if Steve Englehart hadn’t made the link explicit, surely someone else would have before long.
Anyway, that’s one more supervillain to add to our count. Do we have nine yet?
From a contemporary perspective, it’s difficult to read how the Priests of Pama manipulated the events of Mantis’ life (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Moondragon’s as well), all for the purpose of shaping the perfect mate/mother, and not have the word “grooming” come to mind. About the only thing that can save the whole business from being completely skeevy, in my opinion, is the reader’s willingness to accept Mantis’ sudden “enlightenment” after touching her forehead to the Cotati’s bark as authentic, and her subsequent expression of love for Green Swordsman as genuine. I’m personally willing to go that far to meet Englehart on both points; but I can understand if others aren’t.
It also strikes me on my re-reading of these issues how much emphasis Englehart puts on the physical body as the seat of personal identity. Clearly, the Cotati’s resurrection of the Swordsman’s body is supposed to represent some sort of happy ending for the reformed villain who’d met his tragic end in Giant-Size Avengers #2; and, just as clearly, the Vision embraces the history of the original Human Torch as his own… despite the fact that (as is also the case with the two Swordsmen), he has a completely different personality from his predecessor. It’s an interesting deviation from the standard convention of superheroic and other fantasy fiction, which posits the mind, rather than the body, as the “true” self.
I’m sure that when I first read Avengers #135 and Giant-Size Avengers #4 back in February,1975, I found the two-part conclusion of the Celestial Madonna Saga almost completely satisfying, at least in regards to the story (I’m just about as sure that I was disappointed by the art, especially in the final chapter). Fifty years later, I’m more aware not only of the flaws in these issues’ technical execution, but the underlying conceptual problems as well — problems which in fact extend to the whole storyline. This is especially true as regards the overall character arc of Mantis, whom Englehart had, over the past two years, taken from an earthy, highly sexualized “bar girl” to the transfigured, heavens-bound mom-to-be of a cosmic messiah. (In the words of critic Eliot Borenstein, it’s “The Madonna-Whore Complex… in Sp-a-a-a-ace!”). But even with all the baggage, I’m still an admirer of this storyline in general, and of its ultimate resolution. That’s due in large part to the considerable contributions to the cosmic lore of the Marvel Universe made by Englehart over the course of the saga, as well as to such indelible individual moments as the tragic death of the Swordsman (an event whose effectiveness ultimately isn’t undermined by the character’s partial “resurrection”, regardless of Englehart’s actual intentions). But it’s also attributable to the appeal of Mantis herself, who — at least up until these last few installments — has been presented as one of the most competent and confident super-women of her era.
And, of course, it also has a lot to do with the other, “Origin of the Vision” half of the narrative, in which Englehart and company pay off that odd little whim of Neal Adams from Avengers #93 about as elegantly and meaningfully as one could ask for (regardless of what John Byrne thinks).
But, in any event, we’ve now reached the end of this particular phase of Steve Englehart’s classic Avengers run, though of course we still have much to look forward to, such as… what’s that? Oh, right, the supervillain count! I almost forgot. OK, let’s see… starting from the end and going backwards, we’ve got Space Phantom and Kang… Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and Radioactive Man… Dormammu and Umar… hmm, that’s just seven. So I guess we’d better toss in Immortus and Libra to make it nine (though I still think those last two are a little dodgy). Or, alternatively, we could count Kang three times. I’ll leave that choice to your individual discretion…. but, anyway, thanks for playing, everybody!
Now, where was I? Oh, right, the next — and last — phase of Englehart’s Avengers run… which, despite that “Next Month” blurb at the end of #135, won’t actually kick off until issue #137, two months from now. And even then, it won’t kick into overdrive until four months after that, when Englehart will be joined for his last lengthy storyline by a new, young artist who, it must be said, was born to draw superhero team books: George Pérez. I can only hope that you’re looking forward to our discussion of Avengers #141 as much as I am.
Like all previous issues of Giant-Size Avengers (and virtually every other Giant-Size comic Marvel released during this era), GSA #4’s extra-length lead story was backed up by reprinted material. In the last two issues, the reprints had complemented the main feature in one way or another; issue #2 had given us the Fantastic Four yarn that introduced Rama-Tut (aka Kang), while #3 reprinted Avengers #2, the first appearance of both the Marvel version of Limbo and of the Space Phantom. But the two reprinted short tales that brought up the rear of issue #4 (both of which had to be edited from their original 10-page length to make them fit within the 9 pages available for each, incidentally) don’t have anything to do with “…Let All Men Bring Together”, except in the sense that their lead characters are Avengers… or, at least, Avengers-adjacent.
Text by Larry Lieber (working from a plot by Stan Lee); art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.
The first of the two stories, an Ant-Man adventure originally published in Tales to Astonish #38 (Dec., 1962), might actually have been a better fit for a different Giant-Size book — namely, Giant-Size Defenders #4, which we briefly discussed in this space a couple of weeks ago. Yes, Dr. Henry Pym is a founding member of the Avengers, but at the time GSA #4 came out, he’d been spending more time of late with the Defenders, in his alternative superhero persona of Yellowjacket. More to the point, “Betrayed by the Ants!!” features Hank’s very first encounter with the criminal scientist Egghead, an arch-foe who’d most recently returned to plague the hero in the aforementioned Giant-Size Defenders #4. (It even ends with a destitute Egghead reduced to residing in a Bowery flophouse — the same situation we find him in in GSD #4.)
Text by Gary Friedrich; art by John Buscema and John Verpoorten.
Anyway, while it was hardly one of the greatest achievements of Marvel’s early years, “Betrayed by the Ants!!” was at least a story of some historical significance that I’d never read before. Not all of that could be said of the second reprint, a story featuring the Black Widow (a character who’d yet to formally join the Avengers, though she’d hung out with them for a while in the mid-to-late ’60s). Sue, as the superheroine’s first solo outing ever, “Then Came… the Black Widow” was historically significant. But not only had I read this one before, in its original presentation in Amazing Adventures #1 (Aug., 1970), I still owned my copy! So as far as I was concerned, these nine pages were a waste of space — and another example of why I generally preferred (and still prefer) to have my new stories and my vintage reprints published under separate covers.
Pencilled art attributed to either John Buscema or Don Heck; inks by George Roussos; possible alterations by John Romita;. Originally featured on the cover of Avengers Annual #1.
Of course, any grousing about the “part-new/part-old” format of Marvel’s Giant-Size books in which I or any other comics buyer might have been indulging circa February, 1975 was about to become moot, as when the fifth (and, as it turned out, last) “quarterly” issue of Giant-Size Avengers arrived in September, its contents were all-old, as virtually the whole book was given over to reprinting the extra-length lead story from Avengers Annual #1 (Sep., 1967). It appeared that, having given the quarterly Giant-Size format about a year to show its commercial viability as a vehicle for new material, Marvel was ready to pull the plug.
That said, the format still had a little life left in it as the winter of 1975 yielded to spring… though I think we’ll wait until April to say more about that particular development (as X-tremely interesting as it may be)…
Cover to West Coast Avengers #45 (Jun., 1989). Art by John Byrne.
*In the waning months of 1988, John Byrne took over West Coast Avengers as both writer and artist, and immediately launched a multi-part storyline that would see a complete — and literal — deconstruction of the Vision. By the time Byrne was done, the android Avenger had been thoroughly disassembled, then put together again — though he now possessed not only a stark-white body, but also a rebuilt mind that no longer felt any kind of emotional connection with his wife, the Scarlet Witch, or to the two small children they had by that time. (In fact, those children themselves were ultimately revealed to be not real people at all, but merely bits of the essence of the demonic hell-lord, Mephisto, that Wanda had unknowingly transmuted into her and Vision’s infant offspring.)
Readers were also informed that the Vision wasn’t the original Human Torch — and never had been.
Cover to Avengers West Coast #50 (Nov., 1989). Art by John Byrne.
As Byrne explained it (in drips and drabs, over multiple issues), pretty much everything that the Vision had been shown by Immortus’ Synchro-Stick in Avengers #135 was false. The original Human Torch had in fact been buried following his death in Fantastic Four Annual #4, not left lying around in the Mad Thinker’s lab to be found by Ultron. As for the Vision, it turned out that he was an entirely different construct — although Ultron had used old molds previously discarded by Prof. Horton as part of his own android-building process, which was supposed to account for the otherwise inexplicable anomalies spotted first by Ant-Man in Avengers #93 and then by a Sentinel in Avengers #102. Everything else that seemed to link the two androids was simply part of a ruse perpetuated by Immortus for his own mysterious ends. It all culminated in Avengers West Coast #50, in which the original Torch was disinterred, revived — and invited to join the West Coast division of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which he promptly proceeded to do.
Along the way, in AWC #48, Professor Horton — who wasn’t really dead! — explained why the Torch and the Vision simply couldn’t be the same android:
Text by John Byrne; art by Byrne and Mike Machlan.
Or, as Byrne would rather more bluntly put it on his own online forum some years later: The Vision is a toaster; the Torch isn’t.
Whatever the other merits of these stories, they seem to be based on a conception of the Vision that flatly contradicts that of the character’s primary creator, Roy Thomas; it was Thomas, after all, who had Hank Pym tell Vizh way back in Avengers #58: “You’re basically human in every way — except that your body is made of synthetic parts.” Byrne’s approach comes off as disrespectful not only of Thomas’ original intentions, but also of the subsequent work that Thomas and his successors (including Steve Englehart, of course, but certainly not limited to him) did over two decades in developing the Vision as a character.
Cover to Avengers Forever #8 (Jul, 1999). Art by Carlos Pacheco and Jesús Merino.
For these and other reasons, Byrne’s retcon didn’t set well with a number of fans — your humble blogger among them. And while I can’t speak for anyone else, I, at least, was more than happy with how writers Kurt Busiek (co-plotter and scripter) and Roger Stern (co-plotter) dealt with the matter in the 8th issue of the 1998-99 miniseries Avengers Forever.
In this chapter of a complex, 12-part storyline that finds an assemblage of Avengers from the past, present, and future contending against our old friend Immortus, our heroes learn what really happened all those years ago in the Mad Thinker’s lab (art by Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino):
(If you’re wondering, that’s Captain Marvel III, aka Genis-Vell, whom we see speaking in this scene.)
Got that? The Human Torch was buried, and the Human Torch was rebuilt as the Vision. As for the Torch’s creator, the “real Horton” (as Genis-Vell refers to him above) did indeed die as was shown in Avengers #135; the guy who delivered the lecture in Avengers West Coast #48 was only a Space Phantom (another of Avengers Forever’s revelations was that there’s more than one of those weird-looking little guys), who’d been sent by Immortus to help muddy the waters… so I think we can take his analysis of the differences between androids and synthezoids with more than a grain of salt.
For my money, Busiek and Stern managed this “retcon of a retcon” perfectly — restoring the Vision’s previously established history (and humanity), while also still allowing the original Human Torch to be available for stories set in the present day. Everybody won. How often does that happen with continuity muddles as messy as this one?
There’s a stark contrast between one of Don Heck’s best late 70s work in GS Defenders #4 and one of his most rushed.
Loved seeing that original Jim Starlin cover! No one could make Iron Man with that nose look good, not Romita, nor Starlin.
Also, thanks for the Eliot Borenstein link!
I’ve never been a fan of Heck’s superhero work and I can frequently spot where the Marvel Method has gone wrong (Heck’s on the record as hating it — he preferred full script approach. Not that I blame him) leading to a writer/artist miscommunication.
I thought the flashback material worked fine when I first read it and haven’t changed my view. Part of that may be knowing nothing about Moondragon beyond this story.
John “I always respect the creators’ intentions except when I don’t which is most of the time” Byrne really did a number on Vizh and Wanda. One of his worst retcons.
I believe a later retcon by Geoff Johns had the Vision as a second Golden Age creation of Horton’s so not the Human Torch at all, more like his brother. No idea if that’s still canon.
If you’re referring to Johns’ “Avengers Icons: The Vision” mini, fraser, I just did a quick flip-through and I don’t think it retconned anything; the plot does play on the idea that Vizh is Phineas Horton’s “son” and that Horton’s human granddaughter is his “family”, but I didn’t see anything about Vizh being a later creation, separate from the original Torch. (On the other hand, it was a *quick* flip-through, so maybe I missed something.)
I don’t know if this is what you two are referring to, but I thought that there was a story in which it was posited that the Vision was actually a modified version of the Adam II android created by Phineas Horton in What If? # 4.
Well, that’s a new one on me! I’ll have to see what I can dig up.
New to me too — definitely not anything I’ve read.
I found this on the Vision’s Wikipedia page: “…in a story written for the “What If….” anthology but intended to be in continuity, Thomas suggested that the Vision was actually built by Ultron from a different android that, like the Human Torch, had been designed and built by Phineas Horton, known as Adam II.” What If #4 is identified as the specific issue in a footnote.
However, I’ve just paged through that issue, and I don’t see any such implication made in Thomas’ script, beyond the fact that Adam-II has a red face.
Adam-II was destroyed in a car crash at the end of that story (which takes place in 1946) but was brought back in the present day in a 2012 storyline in “Captain America and Bucky”, which I haven’t read. However, the articles on Adam-II on the Marvel Database Project wiki and the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe web site both recap the storyline, and neither mentions a connection with the Vision.
And that’s all I know about that. 🙂
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_(Marvel_Comics)#Publication_history
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Adam_II_(Earth-616)
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/adamiiaws.htm
The title here follows from GSA 3’s “What Time Hath Put Asunder,” leading to “Let All Men Put Together.” I think intentionally as a riff on the wedding vow.
It’s a paraphrase of Matthew 19:6 from the New Testament of the Bible.
I love the fact that the inebriated Phineas Horton is watching “The Avengers” when Ultron-5 finds him.
Top professionals and talented amateurs everywhere, rejoice!*
(Say, if President Trump and Elon Musk are going to Fort Knox, do you think they’ll find Mrs. Catherine Gale there? She sent Steed a postcard from there.**)
After Cap left the team in #47, I can’t recall them having a leader, and certainly not Thor. But I did enjoy the fact that Hawkeye found the concept of leadership intriguing, especially as he would go on to be a fine one when Steve Englehart wrote *West Coast Avengers* a decade later.
*
The original Steed & Emma episodes began with a description describing them, respectively, as a top professional and a talented amateur.
**
An in-joke, as Honor Blackman, who played Mrs. Gale on television, would be at Fort Knox for Operation Grand Slam in the third James Bond movie “Goldfinger.”
(In *X-Men* #22, Hank, Bobby, Vera and Zelda were either going to see that or “Thunderball.”)
In an episode of The Avengers Steed is looking at some Christmas cards he has received. He telle Mrs. Peel he has one from Cathy Gale. He looks at it and then remarks “Whatever is she doing at Fort Knox?”
I never appreciated Heck’s artwork back in the day but in later years when I reread stories he drew I grew to greatly appreciate his skill and talent. Not this one though. It reads like he had an impossible deadline, little reference to how characters new to him looked, and no stake in its quality. The Tuska installment was much better. I liked Tuska more than Heck back then though. It’s kind of funny to me the very human body language Tuska gave Ultron-5 in one panel used in the post.
Have I mentioned my Mantis theory (who I hate being green and having antennae, BTW) here before? Since Slott used Mantis’ son as the Big Bad in a crossover, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she won’t have a child that grows to be a messiah. It just means that her first child is not the one to fill that role. I always found the plant based zombie mating with Mantis to be very, very gross so it being maddened and destroyed was a good thing to happen along the way.
Despite its problematic elements as we look back on it today, the Celestial Madonna saga was one of my favorites, and most influential on me as an pre-teen (they weren’t called tweens yet back then). Mantis was, and remains a favorite character of mine, and it was nice to see her get so much spotlight. I was also a big fan of Moondragon, so it was nice to see her brought into the fray, no matter how irrelevant her part was. And I also loved Vizh and Wanda, and was very invested in the Dormammu/Umar/Mother Earth storying running through Doctor Strange, so i really appreciated the tie-in between the two stories, and the connection to the Avengers/Defenders clash that drove Dormammu’s desire for revenge.
The one thing that drove me crazy fifty years ago was that i subscribed to the Avengers, and that subscription did not include the Giant-Sized issues. I didn’t have access to a comics store back then, and wasn’t able to get my hands on a copy of Giant-Sized Avengers #4 until years later. I was incredibly frustrated to not be able to read the conclusion of this epic storyline for years. Sure, you pick up bits and pieces the way you do because comics are so good at synopses, but I was particularly annoyed at not know the Dormammu/Scarlet Witch conflict resolution.
Thanks for the great write-up, pointing out both the high points and the flaws. The change of artwork you mentioned was clearly the most disappointing. I can only imagine what GSA#4 would have been like had it been pencilled by Dave Cockrum.
Thanks for another excellent review Alan. I remember this story very well from 50 years ago. A few immediate thoughts… Yes I agree with you. Roy Thomas never made any mention of Ultron considering the Vision a “son”, certainly not in the Vision’s first appearance In Avengers 57 and not in Avengers 67-68 when Ultron returned. As written by Roy, Ultron appeared to consider Vision a pawn to be used and discarded when no longer needed (in fact, in AV 67 even though the Vision revived Ultron, Ultron appears completely contemptuous of the Vision). We did see Ultron suddenly want a “mate” (Jocasta) in Avengers 162 but that was Jim Shooter who wrote that issue but there may have been others who continued those ideas but I don’t remember.
Regarding the disappearance and reappearance of Agatha Harkness against Dormammu and Umar, I suspect that Heck just simply forgot to draw her at various moments in that part of the story. Similarly Moon Dragon completely disappeared at the end of the story when all the Avengers are together. I would guess that Heck forgot about her as well. Given the very rushed nature of the art for this story, it sounds like it was a miracle that it came out at all. I’ve given this some thought….in February 1975 Marvel simply did not have a very deep bench of artists to draw on, or that could handle so many titles (and on a monthly basis…Sal Buscema was pulled off of Avengers to help with Marvel Team-Up and Son of Satan, for example). George Perez was not yet ready (but in the summer of 1975 he would be all over the place). So of course Marvel looked to the old pros and went to Tuska and Heck. Actually I was ok with Tuska’s work on AV 135, although a little more disappointed with his work on 137-140, possibly because of the inking. But as to Heck’s work on GSA 4….it was disappointing. Mantis did not look like Mantis, and a lot just seemed off and now looks very rushed to me. The problems with Mantis are surprising since if I remember correctly Heck drew Mantis’s first appearance and had other opportunities to draw her. I have actually always liked Heck’s work, and I also thought he did an excellent job on GS Defenders 4 which is a favorite story to me, so it is unfortunate that the art for GSA 4 was so disappointing. As to the story, yes it was very entertaining, but certainly strange. Many articles and blogs have noted that probably the most unusual statement uttered in a comic in the 70s had to be…..”Woman have you not seen that you are to marry this tree?”
I have also been thinking about your comment about the “nine supervillains” preview at the end of AV 135. I remember that caused me no end of confusion 50 years ago and thought about it again now. It really was just Dormammu, Umar and Kang who were the main villains in GSA 4. But it appears the others were intended to be Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, Radioactive Man, Space Phantom, Libra and Immortus. But that is not really true, since the appearances of the Titanic Three and Space Phantom were really a cameo and Immortus and Libra were not enemies of the Avengers in this story.
I remember being extremely disappointed when I picked up AV 136 in March 1975 and it was a reprint of a story that was not that old at the time (1972) and that I actually had, Amazing Adventures 12 (Beast v Iron Man). Since this was pre-internet and I had no access to any kind of fan magazines, I had no idea that this may have been done to familiarize readers with the Beast who would join in AV 137. I also don’t know if it was ever explained why AV 136 was reprint, although it’s possible everyone involved with putting together the final chapters of the Celestial Madonna saga was so exhausted that they couldn’t get it together in time for 136 (the dreaded deadline doom).
I agree with your comments regarding the later work of Byrne that unraveled the Vision. I did not care for that. I did not like that Byrne in numerous interviews basically referred to the Vision as a “toaster”. It does seem that Byrne was brought on to the West Coast Avengers at the end of 1988 to “shake things up” on that book. But that was not for me. I am glad that Busiek and Stern retconned the retcon in Avengers Forever.
It occurs to me that you did not discuss Mantis’s return in the 80s, but I think that is just as well. I would rather not think about those appearances… And I am aware of the appearance of “Willow” in an issue of Justice League written by Englehart, although I only learned about that long after it came out.
One other point from letter columns after this story came out 50 years ago…when did Immortus have the opportunity to switch Mantis with the Space Phantom? It had to be after Mantis touched the tree and said that she was ready to marry the Cotati…but there’s no indication of how or when that could have happened, I remember that people were asking….was she switched before? That wouldn’t really make sense but it was pretty confusing. I’ve decided not to think it about further…but just thought I would mention it. Anyway, I look forward to your discussion of the next big Avengers saga. Thanks Alan!
I’ve heard it said that a lot of Bronze Age Avengers comic book fans regarded the wedding of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch as a metaphor for interracial marriage. So, I can certainly understand why a lot of long-time readers were upset with Byrne’s denigrating description of the Vision as a “toaster” and saying that the children he had with Wanda were not real.
And I never understood how Byrne could rationalize saying that the original Human Torch was all-but-human but the Vision was only a machine if they were supposed to have been built from the same parts. It’s also been pointed out that Byrne was seemingly saying the Torch is human because he *looks* human, specifically being designed to look like a blonde-haired white guy, but the Vision is *not* human because he’s got weird red skin, which has all sorts of unfortunate racial implications.
Anyway, I’m very glad that Busiek & Stern retconned the retcon.
If The Vision “is a toaster” what then is John Byrne; annd Nic Cuti)’s Rog 2000? https://comicvine.gamespot.com/rog-2000/4005-36080/
With regard to Ben Herman’s comment about people thinking of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision getting married as a metaphor for interracial marriage, I can definitely see that. Back then, that did not occur to me because the Vision was (I thought) a machine (although I was aware and understood that the whole idea of the discrimination faced by mutants starting with the beginning of the X-Men was a clever comparison to the discrimination against other races).
If Byrne meant what Ben says regarding the Vision’s skin color, that would be very bad on Byrne indeed, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt absent a specific quote from him.
Perhaps. It’s also possible I misremembered—it’s not like I was mesmerized by the brilliant storytelling enough to follow every detail.
I always assume Dread Deadline Doom. It was so common back then. You’re probably right about why they’d pick that story in particular.
The rule of thumb I’ve heard is that a comics artist should be talented, easy to work with and meet their deadlines — two out of three will be enough to secure your career. I’m guessing Heck was fast, and easy to work with.
It *was* the rule of thumb in decades past. Now the rule of thumb is that precious few artists work full-time in 21st century comics. The rest of them work elsewhere to make ends meet, be it other artistic avenues like storyboarding, or teaching college art classes and the like.
I’ll strongly disagree about his Flash work.
Read the essay. Very thought-provoking.
With regard to when Immortus was able to switch Mantis with the Space Phantom, see the panel scanned by Alan to the left of the panel in which the Space Phantom reveals his identity. Immortus claims to have made the switch when everyone’s attention was distracted by Kang’s ship. Very convenient. This does not explain however, why Mantis appears in the box so happily when Immortus opens it, looking like a magician’s assistant after being “sawed in half”. TA-DA! One would think that Mantis would have had no clue what had happened and why she was suddenly in a dark box.
When Avengers #136 came out, I too thought that Englehart was totally exhausted and needed a break, therefore the reprint. Personally, while I liked the idea of Giant Size quarterly editions of popular books (I guess they were in response to D.C.’s 100 pagers), from the beginning I wondered if the whole idea wasn’t stretching the Bullpen too thin. Clearly it was regarding artwork, certainly regarding regular artists.
Like many , never been a fan of Heck and there are some very weak panels there, eg Vison has scrawny legs and arms in one and in the wedding scene Thor looks particularly non descript and rushed, looking like a slightly weary cosplayer turning up late to a convention.
The disembodied voice from Kang’s Time Sphere feels like an awkward insert though I had a chuckle at dialogue like:
” Nonsense, I have need of all my androids in my current scheme to to destroy the fantastic four, and dont try to hypnotize me ..!”
I mean, if you can’t get a spare Android from a Mad Thinker in a hurry, where can you?
The strength of this story can be found in that it’s a tale of the Avengers, extremely powerful gods and heroes, who do almost nothing here except listen to a story told by the Jolly Green Swordsman and (presumably) eat wedding cake, and when we’re told to shut up and like it, we do. That’s why it’s such a shame that a powerful story like this has to be accompanied by inferior artwork.
Look, I have nothing against Don Heck. Heck, we share the same first name (you see what I did there?)! But while Tuska’s work on Avengers #135 was OK (not really a fan of him, either), Heck’s work on Avengers GS4 was atrocious. I’m told Heck didn’t do too badly on Western or Romance comics, but he must’ve kept coming back to the flights and tights crowd for the money, cause it can’t be for the artistic satisfaction. Look at that opening splash page when Vision is standing there in the dark. The pencils are undramatic and flat and my god, Tartaglione’s inks are even worse. Heck might have been in it for the money, but why did Marvel keep giving him the assignments? Did he always get the work turned in on time? I can understand the attractiveness of that from a business standpoint, but if I were Englehart, I’d have been sorely disappointed at the way the culmination of the Celestial Madonna arc turned out on the page. Especially in later years as it came to be more and more revered.
I was not a huge Marvel fan in the seventies and certainly not an Avengers fan, but I remember when this book came out and my disappointment at the artwork. If money was the issue as to why Heck kept coming back to super-hero books, Marvel should have just paid him a decent wage for doing what he was good at and spared him the reaction of the fans to his work.
I don’t mean to disrespect Heck and normally, I wouldn’t, but this was an important story and deserved better than it got, artistically. It’s not Heck’s fault; I’m sure he did his best, but whatever editor made the assignment in the first place should have his head examined. Thanks, Alan!
Heck was often good (his work on The Flash in the late 1970s and JLA in the early 1980s0 and he was ^^always** fast. That kept the publishers coming back.
A strong, inker who was a good draftsman helped a lot . . . . (joe Giella, somewhat surprisingly) . . . .
I feel that Frank McLaughlin was a good inker for Don Heck, as well.
Frank McLaughlin was also an under-rated inker . . . .
Mantis marries a telepathic alien tree that has adopted the shape of her dead boyfriend so that the two of them can conceive the Celestial Messiah… still a more believable romance than either Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey! 🙂
“Woman, have you not seen that you are to marry that tree?” is one of the maddest lines of dialogue ever written.
*Ahem!* All joking aside, I feel that Alan’s analysis of this incredibly complex storyline by Steve Englehart is right on point. In certain respects, it’s brilliant, in others it is problematic and has not aged especially well. “The Celestial Madonna” is one of my all-time favorite comic book storylines, but I’m cognizant of its flaws.
So, as much as Mantis is one of my favorite characters, and I love how imaginative & crazy her whole story is, I plan on reading “The Madonna-Whore Complex…in Sp-a-a-a-ace!” by Eliot Borenstein with interest.
Anyway, I’ve read “The Celestial Madonna” on a number of occasions over the years, and I also have to say that the artwork of the conclusion always ends up being a really big letdown.
I am not especially critical of Avengers #135. While I would definitely have preferred the team of Sal Buscema & Joe Staton, I feel that George Tuska does a solid job penciling this story. I don’t even mind the inking of Frank Chiaramonte. I feel that Chiaramonte would later ruin way too many Curt Swan pencil jobs on Superman, but here his inking gives the origin of the Vision a genuine atmosphere.
No, the real problem is Don Heck on Giant-Size Avengers #4. Having to draw a very complex story under what was apparently a tight deadline results in some of the absolute worst work of Heck’s entire career. And I say this as someone who regards Heck as a good, solid, underrated artist who was often unfairly derided by readers. Plus, the inking by John Tartaglione does absolutely no favors to Heck’s work. I really, REALLY wish Dave Cockrum could have returned for GSA #4.
Maybe with more time, and a different inker, Heck could have done a better job on this issue. One of his specialties was drawing romance stories. So, I think Heck really could have done nice work drawing the dual weddings of the Vision & the Scarlet Witch and Mantis & the Swordsman, if given the chance.
By the way, if I had the money, I would commission Sal Buscema or Joe Staton to re-draw the wedding, just for my own personal collection!
I have always thought both Roy Thomas and Jim Shooter saw Dave Cockrum as more of an inker who did character design well. That Cockrum would have had the speed to make a living in 1970s comics as an inker.
I wonder if Cockrum could have been profitably employed inking this over Heck’s pencils and letting GS_X-Men 31 wit a bit?
Thinking it over, GS Avengers #4 is one comic I wouldn’t mind seeing re-drawn by someone who can do more justice to the story, not that I can think of any current comics artists who might best do it. Maybe more pages would be necessary to flesh some of the story aspects that were referred to but not shown, such as Kang taking down the Titanic Three and getting beaten by Iron Man. Not something I really expect to ever happen, at least not within the remainder of however much longer I have left of my lifetime!
This issue would prove to be another major turning point in the Avengers line-up as it stood issue #114, with the Big Three and T’Challa, Wanda, Vizh, Swordsman & Mantis, losing half of them by this point with Cap & T’Challa departing, Swordsy slain and now Mantis gone off to become a cosmic momma. Hawkeye had come back and so would Cap a few months later, but more new blood was needed and Englehart would make some interesting choices during the remainder of his run, fortunately with George Perez making his debut on the mag coincidental with Cap’s return and the beginning of Englehart’s last major intertwined storylines, mainly one set of the Assemblers in the Old West fighting Kang for one last go round in the ’70s, and the rest tangling with the Serpent Crown controlled head of Roxxon and the Squadron Supreme. Alas hat Perez hadn’t been able to come on board sooner to have applied his artistic magic to GS #4.
Okay, I admit it, the idea has occurred to me in the past… if I was filthy rich (yeah, I know, *very* big “if” there) I would pay somebody to re-drew GSA #4 for me. Who would I get to do it? Good question. I can think of a few current artists who I like who don’t have regular monthly gigs who would probably do the story justice.
Odd thought, a popular artist then who is still around, Mike Grell, who never did The Avengers (but had group comics chops). in light of Cockrum’s significant earlier involvement, it would be ironic to involve Grell.
Alternatively (and even less likely) ask Steve Englehart to draw it (he started out as a penciller).
Geeez don’t get me started on John Byrne who’s re-imagining of the Superman story basically messed up the Legion of Super Heroes for decades afterwards! Grrrrr. Anyway, I have a couple of minor points about this current issue. For one thing what was Romita thinking going over Starlin’s cover like that? I mean it certainly wasn’t an improvement! I’d hate to blame it on sheer ego but well if the shoe fits…Also Alan, I used the link to go back to Avengers #57. I re-read the entire post and well, I don’t wanna be cruel but comparing Buscema and Klein’s work there to what Heck and company turn in here.. Well it’s like comparing the Mona Lisa to Banksy. The overall plot isn’t one of Englehart’s best, a bit too cramped and full as you yourself said. But hey Englehart on his worst day still surpasses 80% of the writers operating back then.
I can see getting rid of the Human Torch figure, both since he does not really appear in that form in the story (and gives away that the “Vision” in the story is basically Jim Hammond) and because the figure is not “on model” for Jim Hammond in 1975 (as opposed to Johnny Storm),
I think the Thor head could have been modified to bring it more :on model” while leaving Mantis & IM alone.
GSA#4 brings back a multitude of memories. I distinctly recall reading it in the backseat of my Grandmother’s Buick while she and my sister were shopping, hoping that they took long enough for me to finish it. I also have a very clear recollection of my dismay when greeted by Don Heck’s art once I opened the cover. Bad enough that my favorite artist at that time – Dave Cockrum – wasn’t penciling this complex story, but they’d enlisted my second least favorite. (Only seeing Frank Robbins’ name in the credits would have been worse – although ironically, GS Invaders #1 was also in my new stack and it was there that I finally appreciated his work). As much as I disliked the art, I found the story a good payoff to what had been brewing over the past few years. However, as is pointed out in the review, looking back, what was done with both Mantis and Moondragon is definitely unsettling. Amazing how our mindsets have shifted over the years – and I mean that in a positive way.
My compliments for an outstanding review!
Phineas Horton’s final words stuck with me a long time after I read Avengers #135 in 1975: “I built you flawed, just as I am flawed, but I gave you life. Tell me, was I wrong?” It was great to revisit that entire sequence again, 50 years later!
Englehart was a skilled scripter back then, and Avengers was some of his best work.
I read an interview with Englehart saying that he brought Mantis into the DC universe under the name Willow, who was green skinned, in an issue or two of the Justice League.
Yes, that definitely happened!
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Willow_(Earth-One)
That’s absolutely correct, qquartermain, and if you hang around you’ll be able to read about it on this blog in a couple of years. 😉
As I’ve mentioned previously, I didn’t get any of the Giant-Size mags when they were new on the racks (or at least most racks, but not those of the Navy Exchange where I purchased my comics in 1975). When I finally did read it, I was seriously put off by the mostly deplorable art While I find most of the Celestial Madonna storyline fascinating, my adult self finds many aspects of it don’t hold up all that well, particularly the very idea of grooming women to become a potential “celestial madonna” as a means to give birth to some sort of fantastic child. On one level, it seems to be striving to be all groovy and cosmic and in sync with the Jesus Christ Superstar ethos. On the other hand, what exactly was that child supposed to do? And what if Mantis thought it over and said, “thanks, but no thanks.” It also makes me think of the possibility of the child being something like Starlin’s Magus, a god-king and homicidal tyrant, ruling a huge sector of a galaxy. I wonder if Englehart really put much deep thought in how he expected that payoff of this story to play out decades down the line when Mantis would have had the child and that child had become an adult in the full bloom of whatever powers he or she (why not a she?) may have had. I had read Englehart’s Silver Surfer stories of the late ’80s/early 90s in which Mantis appeared, nearly 15 years after this story, but I don’t recall any reference to her having actually birthed the would-be messiah by that point. On the other hand, by that period, I’d stopped getting both Avengers and West Coast Avengers, and so entirely missed Byrne’s run on WCA, about which I’m not the least bit sorry. I’d liked some of Byrne’s early run on the FF, but at some point, I grew to dislike aspects of his writing. But then, I’d gradually stopped collecting a lot of Marvel comics, the Silver Surfer being among the few I kept up with regularly, at least a bit past its 50th issue.
I suspect it might have been more like George R.R. Martin’s later idea of Azor Ahai, in the Song of Ice & Fire, a broadly worded legend that would let people rise to the occasion against a real recurring threat . . . .
In the Marvel Universe in 1975, that could be Galactus (who existed since this universe was born) ot perhaps Thanos or even The Magus.
Since Martin had been a Marvel fan since the 1960s, I wonder if this influenced Azor Ahai,?
Mantis did have her baby, and named him Sequoia (Quoi for short). Alas, things didn’t work out so great where he was concerned… you can read more details here: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Sequoia_(Earth-616)
Of course, as Steve McSheffrey has theorized (see his comment elsewhere on the thread), maybe Mantis will still fulfill the prophecy — just with a different kid. 🙂
When I read the Celestial Madonna series years ago, I was captivated and amazed how Englehard fit everything together, but was disappointed in the final issue because of the art.
Coming back after many years to GS Avengers #4, I prepared myself for that disappointment again, only to be surprised at not overly disliking the art, but feeling that the storyline was a bit of a mess; Englehart just tried to fit too much in! I hate to criticise anyone for being courageous, and Englehart was courageous with the storyline, but there were too many gapping holes in both Avengers#135 and GS#2. some of which have already been highlighted in the commentary and in the replies. It may have been lack of understanding from the ‘new’ pencillers, but it may have been lack of clarity in the synopsis, or a synopsis received late. Some holes so far not mentioned: how a newly awakened Human Torch/Vision in #135 knew it was Ultron that had altered him and knew his (Ultron’s) name, and how the Vision and Wanda suddenly turned up in Vietnam at the end of GS#4; in the previous pages they were in the Avengers’ mansion. I felt the whole Dormammu sequence a nice idea but bizarre ( especially the choice of not showing Wanda’s capture by Dormammu in Avengers #135) and was not handled at all well by Heck, who obviously did not have a feel for such things. Heck was much more at home with the Mantis sequence and although it looked rushed in some places ( especially Mantis’ face in certain panels) he drew the Swordman particularly well. Heck had a long history with the Avengers, and book-ended the silver-age versions of both Mantis and the Swordsman. His best page was Vision’s proposal of marriage to Wanda. Heck seldom received sympathetic inkers at Marvel, and Tartaglione does him no favours here. I assume that Tartaglione, in the production staff, was asked to ink the piece because no one else was available. I don’t think that Tartaglione was doing any regular inking at the time. Otherwise I though that Tuska did a good job with Avengers #135, and provided a lot of dynamism. Chaiarmonte’s inks were good, and reminded me of Everett in places.
Alan, I am in awe of the research you do for these posts. It was nice to know that the Vision/ Torch retcon by Byrne was retconned, or at least partially retconned. Englehart tried to work with what had gone before with logic, ingenuity and respect, Byrne just burned whatever he didn’t like up.
“…how the Vision and Wanda suddenly turned up in Vietnam at the end of GS#4; in the previous pages they were in the Avengers’ mansion.”
It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but Immortus teleports in with Vizh, Wanda, and Agatha right in the middle of Kang’s kidnapping of “Mantis”, explaining that he found them at the Mansion (he’d gone hunting for the missing Vision earlier in the story).
Thanks Alan, I did blink and miss the panel in question. Which goes to show that there was just too much going on!
silver age book-ends……of course not quite cortect as 1975 was no part of the silver age!
Hey Alan and all,
Today’s Cal Newport email touched on something I feel whenever a fresh fifty year old comics entry appears.
Thanks.
“Forcing millions of people into the same shared conversation is unnatural, requiring aggressive curation that in turn leads to the type of supercharged engagement that seems to leave everyone upset and exhausted,” I wrote. “Aggregation as a goal in this context survives…for the simple reason that it’s lucrative.”
Boutique sites like Talk Nats, by contrast, offer something closer to the original vision for the internet, which was more focused on connection and discovery; a place where a baseball fan from Canada could spend an afternoon delighting with a few dozen of his likeminded brethren about a lazy afternoon baseball game in Florida.
This is the internet as a source of joy. And it’s the opposite of the giddy paranoia or coldly-optimized numbness delivered on massive platforms like X or TikTok.”
“I really enjoyed my time today on Talk Nats. I didn’t come away angry or depressed, and was more uplifted than brought down. Maybe it’s time to declare independence once again.”
https://calnewport.com/back-to-the-internet-future/
One late comment: it looks to me like JR Sr did more than redraw the floating heads on the cover of Avengers #135. I think he redrew most if not all of the Vison’s faces throughout the issue.
This pair of issues are my least favorite of the Celestial Madonna storyline, but it’s more because of the storytelling choices than the art styles. The fight between Not-Yet Vision and Ultron feels low-stakes, because we know Ultron wins, and we don’t even get NY Vision demonstrating his new or even old powers. In GSA 4, the interlude with Dormammu seems superfluous. I love Englehart’s Avengers, but there were definitely rocky bits. Now, how much of this may have been smoothed over by a different artist laying out the same plot is a good question. Still, this a story that I have loved so much I have bought it multiple times, getting just about every reprint edition.
The less said about Byrne’s treatment of Wanda and Vision, the better. I much preferred Englehart’s evolution of their relationship, which seems much more life-affirming, in a way that I miss in many latter-day superhero stories.
Well, I finally had a chance to read this and re-read the source books. I knew that I had a lot to say about this one.
First off, while a number of people have pointed out John Byrne’s unpopular retcon of the Vision and what wound up happening to Mantis in the 1990s (which I find even more heinous–I just read those issues last year for the first time and had no idea), I have a future event that no one has mentioned yet.
I confess that until Alan mentioned it, I never thought about the whole plan (plant?) by Immortus and the Cotati to set up Mantis’ and Moondragon’s lives for one of them to be the Celestial Madonna as grooming. I can certainly see that as an interpretation now that Alan mentions it, but where Immortus is concerned, it clearly shows that if you don’t stop a sexual predator, he is bound to do it again. See Avengers #200, perhaps the most odious and offensive comic book in history when we find out that Immortus seduced Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), impregnated her with a fast-gestating child, takes away her memory of this and the Avengers are all thrilled for her because she is pregnant. :O
I really enjoyed the entire Mantis saga when I first read it as it unfolded in 1973-75 and still have most of the issues, including the two covered here. However, for some reason, two years later, I thought so highly of it that I tried to entice my younger brother to get interested in comics by having him read the entire thing. He enjoyed it (or so he said) but it was not surprising when it did not instill in him an interest in comic books as might have happened had I decided to share any of several other multi-issue sagas which were shorter, more focused and which did not drag near the end (no pun intended Space Phantom). He was very amused with “Woman, have you not seen that you are to marry that tree?” which I still consider to be THE most famous line in any comic book I ever read. Then again, perhaps that line was the deal breaker for him.
It probably did not help that I also used the opportunity to engage my brother in philosophical discussions based on the story. At the end, I posited the question of “Which would you rather be, the perfect human or a human that’s perfect?” Too late, I realized that I should have pounced on this blog post when it first came out just to post this question for possible discussion. Over the next 48 years (OK, maybe not so much in this century), I have asked this question to friends who had never even read comic books, because I thought that it was an interesting question except now I think that the correct answer is neither.
I am ashamed to admit this (although I already did it two years ago) but when the Scarlet Witch and the Vision first got together in 1973, when I was 12, I thought that it was ridiculous that Wanda could be romantically interested in a “machine” and vice-a-versa and that belief lasted throughout the rest of my continuous comic book reading days (and certainly through the wedding). I do remember thinking and maybe even saying back in 1973 and afterwards that it was like being romantically interested in a toaster. Apparently, Byrne felt the same way back then and, unfortunately, he got the keys to the car to smash it into a, um, tree. However, I am absolutely certain that the notion of loving the Vision being akin to loving a toaster was not a metaphor that I personally came up with back then–I saw at least one letter in a lettercol that said it. I don’t have time right now to go back to my originals that I still have to see if I can find it, but if I do, I will post a citation (maybe someone out there has an interest and easier access to the issues).
In any event, it is kind of funny that more people made a big deal about a woman marrying a synthezoid than a woman marrying a tree.
As for the artwork, as I’ve said before, being totally inept at art but being good enough at writing to have eventually gone to a state-wide art school the summer before my senior year, my views on comic book art have been more of the simplistic “wow!”, “great!”, “OK”, “boring” or “Yuck!” reactions, although I did know which artists I loved (like Steranko, Adams, Starlin and Smith). My viewpoint on GSA#4 was definitely and undeniably “Yuck!” (although not so much that I paid attention to what the Heck was going on there) and I was actually very annoyed (a rarity for me) at the art because the issue was so important.
In 1977, when Steve Engelhart did his JLA issues with Willow, I was very excited–probably more excited than I had been about any DC book since 1972. Coincidentally, they came out right after I shared the Mantis story with my brother and, no, I had no idea that it was coming out.
I’m pretty sure that I have even more to say about the conclusion of the Mantis saga, but if I do, I’ll post it later. I do believe that I have some responses to some of the comments above which, if I do I will make.
As usual Alan, a stellar job.
I suspect the grooming aspect doesn’t hit people because it’s close to the Destiny Made This Happen which crops up a lot in comics.
As I grow older I do notice how often underage/adult romance is treated as no big — the X-Men being completely cool with Colossus dating a 14-year-old Kitty, for instance.
Absolutely. When I first read those X-Men issues several years ago I was also appalled about the benign acceptance of Collossus and 14 year old Kitty. Speaking of X-Men, while not as young as Kitty, I was also appalled at Rogue, who was supposed to be late teens, and Gambit, to say nothing of her interest in Magneto before he became younger.
Oh yes! I know what I forgot to say! In your counting up of all of the possibilities of super villains to total up to nine, perhaps Steve Englehart was counting Moondragon as the one-time “Madam MacEvil”. 😀
Hmm, hadn’t considered that one!
The nine villains, how about Dormammu, Umar, the Titanic Three ( I’m sure they weren’t just looking for the Avengers, they had ordered them to leave earlier) and four different Kangs?
That would work!
I really liked the cover by Kane and Milgrom. It was a nice piece of work . . . .
It wasn’t until recently that people started seeing groo,img in relationships with more than a year or two between the partners. In the 1970s and (to be honest) in real life to this day, it was taken for granted that the man in a relationship would be a bit older than the female… ten years difference was commin enough. (Internet culture recently decided that that was horribly wrong and bordered on abuse by the older party. As is true so often, messageboard/TikTik/YouTube follows a different code of ethics than the real world doe.
I’ve seen a little of that online. The assumption that age automatically means an inappropriate power imbalance or that it’s child-porn skeevy.
It’s been getting more severe lately, to where a 20 year old woman in college should not be seeing a 26 year old man. Back when these comics were written, no one would have taken that “grooming” accusation seriously. The adage back then was that the wife should be half the age (plus seven years) of the husband.
Of course, it wasn’t until the late Silver Age that smoking began getting cut back on. In the 1960s we saw pipes being smoked by Reed Richard. Will Magnus. Steve Rogers and (I think) Bruce Wayne. Ben Grimm and Nick Fury lit up cigars. And Tony Stark (with his bad heart!) was shown puffing on cigarettes in the early years. So, things change.
I’ve always heard that adage as the minimum for dating/sex, not for wives. And it certainly wasn’t a universal rule back then — heck, I never heard it until the 1990s (which isn’t to say it wasn’t out there).
You can add Hank Pym and Don Blake to the list of pipe smokers. I can’t think of Bruce smoking in the Silver Age except for one story that retold the Golden Age origin of Robin. Doc Magnus, despite being shown in the Cast of Characters headshots with a pipe, rarely smoked one in the stories.
Smoking is one of the major changes in society since then. All those old stories that show smoking just as common centuries in the future … though the stories I see today that show nobody smoking in the past are equally unrealistic, of course.
And yes, I’ve seen arguments that “I think a twentysomething man dating a woman in college is really sick”
It’s odd that an 18 year old woman can join the Marines, drive a car, work a full time job, get married…. yet she’s so naive and vulnerable that she can’t date a man more than a few years older. Kind of bizarre,
Back to smoking in comics: Both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby smoked cigars beginning in the 1940s and Kirby gave the vice to two characters he closely identified with: Ben Grimm and Nick Fury. (Pipes were visual props for more distinguished and intellectual types, like Reed Richards. Cigars were street tough, rough mannered types. Cigarettes were for henchmen and minor characters, which is why I was surprised to see Tony Stark puffing on a cig in AVENGERS# 7).
It doesn’t get mentioned much but I’ve read that Jack Kirby did get and recover from throat cancer. It was a heart attack that finished him. And, being a fan with a certain selfish way of looking at creators, I wonder if his later years would have seen him with more creative energy and manual control if he had left cigars alone.
Gene Colan routinely drew his mobsters with cigars, which fits your theory — until Kingpin came along, most would be top bosses came off very blue collar.
John Romita, by contrast, designed Kingpin’s look to show a higher level of money, power and sophistication.
I don’t see cigarettes as such a lower-level marker as you do — in those days they were pretty much everywhere (soooo glad that’s no longer the case). Stephen Strange smoked, Doc Ock smoked (neither one very often) and they were both brains. They were also drawn by Steve Ditko for whatever that’s worth.
Regarding your comment on grooming, it should be remembered that the concept of grooming didn’t really surface until the last decade or so. I don’t recall any discussion/reference to it back in the 70s. Thus I think it is a little unfair to suggest the writer should have considered it when writing his script.
cjkerry, you have a point. “Grooming” may not have been the most appropriate term to use in this instance — but less because that’s a new concept, in my opinion, than because of the fact that the Priests of Pama themselves are never implied to have had any sexual interest in either Mantis or Moondragon. That said, I don’t think it’s going too far to wish that Steve Englehart had given more thought to the whole “raising the perfect mate” business, which remains kind of skeevy, in my view.
The concept definitely goes back a ways. In Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll (Boris Karloff) tells his ward he’s been raising her all these years with an eye to becoming his wife. This is, thank god, presented as both creepy and delusional.