When last the regular readers of this blog saw Captain Marvel, he’d just been defeated and taken prisoner by the Watcher — a formerly benign, self-declared non-interventionist, whose sudden heel turn after over a decade of Marvel Comics appearances seemed to come out of nowhere — who had then proceeded to hand him over to the mysterious, heretofore unseen enemies who’d been giving our hero trouble ever since the end of auteur Jim Starlin’s run on the series — the Lunatic Legion.
Our first glimpse of those baddies (see right) made them look pretty loony, indeed. But, considering that storytellers Steve Englehart (co-plotter/scripter), Al Milgrom (co-plotter/penciller) and Klaus Janson (inker) were giving us a Captain Marvel’s-eye view of the LL, here — and also considering that Mar-Vell was, at the time, tripping balls on LSD (euphemistically referred to in the story as “Vitamin C”, so as not to draw the unwelcome attention of the Comics Code Authority) — one might reasonably doubt whether the image we saw here was entirely representative of objective reality.
And upon the arrival of Captain Marvel #38 in spinner racks in February, 1975, such a doubter would indeed be proven correct. Confirmation may be said to begin with the Milgron-Janson cover for the issue, where Mar-Vell is throwing down with a handful of figures who appear much more conventionally humanoid than the funhouse-mirror types seen in issue #37’s final panel — and then is thoroughly fulfilled as we turn to the story’s opening splash page:
Beginning with the page above, Englehart, Milgrom, and Janson offer us a recap of scenes from Kree history that had very recently been chronicled for the first time by Englehart, Sal Buscema, and Joe Staton in the pages of Avengers #133 and #134, as part of the writer’s time-and-space-spanning “Celestial Madonna” saga…
As we previously discussed in some detail in our post on those Avengers issues, “the first Kree” were incorrectly colored in Caucasian skin-tones in both of them, despite the fact that Captain Marvel #16 had firmly established that in their earliest days, all the Kree were blue-skinned. A few months later, a note in an Avengers letters column acknowledged the error, while pointing out that Captain Marvel #38, at least, had gotten the matter right. And so the matter stood for over four decades — until the first issue of Marvel’s 2019 History of the Marvel Universe miniseries, which stated that a super-advanced race called the Progenitors had experimented on the Kree to produce both “blue-skinned Kree and a larger tribe of pale-skinned savages”, and indicated that it was the latter group who’d competed against the Cotati at the behest of the Skrulls… which of course meant that the coloring in Avengers #133-134 hadn’t been in error all these years after all, but also meant that the coloring in Captain Marvel #38 now was.
What your humble blogger didn’t share in that earlier post — for the simple reason that he didn’t know about it yet — was that only a year after HotMU #1 presented its retcon of Kree origins, Marvel released another comic that referred to the same ancient events; and in Road to Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War #1 (May, 2020), the band of primitive Kree encountered by the Skrulls were clearly depicted as having both blue and “pink” individuals among their number. (See panel detail shown at left; art by Javier Rodríguez.) So, at least as of this writing, neither the colorist of Avengers #133-134 (Phil Rachelson) or of CM #38 (Klaus Janson) can be said to have gotten things either completely wrong, or completely right, back in 1974-75. And now you know.
From Captain Marvel #16 (Sep., 1969). Text by Archie Goodwin; art by Don Heck and Syd Shores.
The gentleman doing all the talking on the pages above is Zarek, former Imperial Minister of the Kree Empire. First seen on panel in the very same comic that had introduced Captain Marvel himself (Marvel Super-Heroes #12 [Dec., 1967]), he’d made sporadic appearances after that (some in the guise of a faux cosmic entity named Zo) before finally getting a name in CM #16 — the same issue which also revealed his racist hatred of all “impure” Kree to be his primary motivation. Englehart has here not only picked up on an existing theme (first introduced by writer Archie Goodwin in his one and only Captain Marvel story), but has made its parallels with real-world bigotry even more pointed by the use of the word “mulatto“; intriguingly, Marvel’s retcons of the last few years have made these correspondences even more relevant, by demonstrating that the racist claims of Zarek and his ilk for the superiority of all those members of their species sharing their skin color, based on their supposed status as the “original Kree”, are based on a false reading of history.*
Following in the footsteps of their predecessor Jim Starlin, Milgrom and Janson (the latter of whom colored this story in addition to inking it, as we noted above) seem to be having a lot of fun with their psychedelically-inspired distorted visuals here.
Yep, Mar-Vell has been saved by the bell — said bell being the strict three-hour limit he has before he’s automatically shunted off to the Negative Zone and replaced by Rick Jones. Of course, as Zarek points out, he and his fellow Lunatics could just kill Rick on the spot, which would effectively murder Marv as well. But the gang really wants to see their enemy die the old-fashioned, super-painful way, so for now they just haul the unconscious Mr. Jones off to a prison cell.
Meanwhile, in the Neg Zone, Captain Marvel remains extremely, er, spaced out. But even as he drifts through the void, beset by hallucinations which leave him “helpless, with no defenses from totality…”
Having observed Mar-Vell’s unexpected return, Zarek wants to take him captive again and resume his official execution by “protonic disintegration”. But his confederate Sro-Himm prevails upon him to let matters take their natural course, saying “any true Kree would prefer to kill than to watch an execution! We follow a tradition older than civilizations now!”
Meanwhile, Marv remains fairly disoriented, but even if he doesn’t understand anything else, he’s at least cognizant that the guys charging at him mean him ill: “..if these conservative fools insist on attacking –”
“– left it more flexible than it had been! My thoughts flow more fluidly than any other time in my life!
The reason for this Marv realizes, is that there’s a second, presently dormant consciousness inside his own head — that of Rick Jones. This is different than the mental link they’ve previously shared — it’s more like they’ve actually melded into one person. Even though Rick remains knocked out for the moment, Mar-Vell is still able to draw on his brainpower to enhance his own mental acuity: “I’m thinking so fast, everything else seems in slow motion!” Ultimately, our hero can only marvel (sorry): “We’re more than the same person! We’re the sum of our parts — and then some!”
Rick begins to understand what Marv’s talking about, recalling how even before he’d popped his “Vitamin C” back in the previous issue, he’d been able to control his partner’s comatose body to fight Annihilus — an enhancement that the Supreme Intelligence had subsequently taken credit for. Captain Marvel hadn’t been aware of any of those instances prior to this moment — though now, of course, he can see it clearly in Rick’s memory. Feeling sheepish about having kept this information to himself all this time, Rick fumbles for a reply: “Uh… yeah…”
Yes, Englehart drops the “L” word, here, just a few pages after doing the same with the “C” word. Who says mainstream comic books weren’t political in the olden days?
Zarek may be down, but he remains defiant: “Curse your eyes, I’ll not be defeated by a pink!” For a moment, he thinks he’s found salvation, as the Watcher comes to stand before him. But rather than respond to the Kree conspirator’s plea for aid, the Watcher turns his back on his erstwhile ally, and heads instead towards some nearby machinery…
We move on now to Captain Marvel #39, which was primarily produced by the same creative team of Englehart, Milgrom, and Janson (the latter two of whom were responsible for the cover as well as the interior art)…
… albeit with a few small, but still significant, differences: Klaus Janson has been spelled as colorist by Phil Rachelson, while June Braverman has taken over the lettering from Charlotte Jetter. There’s also an extra credit for Tony Isabella for “research” — something that we’ll soon see was an especially critical task when it came to this particular story.
Englehart’s script makes no big deal about it whatsoever — but, for the record, the fourth from last panel above is the very first appearance of “our” Watcher’s given name, Uatu.
As Mar-Vell and Rick discuss their present predicament, they’re in agreement that switching places probably wouldn’t be helpful, since the Watchers’ stasis field would presumably hold Rick just as securely as it does Marv. Even so, the idea of switching sparks another thought in Captain Marvel’s mind — one he proceeds to share with Rick, completely unaware that he’s being observed by not one, but two witnesses…
The “rackcat”, Mad-Eye, is quite fast and strong; he almost gets its claws into Mar-Vell three times before our hero finally conks him on the head with a boulder, staggering the beast…
The four-panel sequence above, relating the Watchers’ origin narrative, summarizes events that Marvel had chronicled twice before this; originally in Tales of Suspense #53.(May, 1964), and then again in Silver Surfer #1 (Aug;, 1968). Maybe Marvel couldn’t decide which of those two versions to cite, since this is the only piece of the story’s recap of Uatu’s history that isn’t carefully footnoted… as we’re about to see, below:
Credit for the aforementioned meticulous footnoting presumably goes to Tony Isabella (now also known as Jenny Blake Isabella, for those who may not have heard) — who, we should remember, didn’t have web sites like the Marvel Chronology Project or the Marvel Database Project to consult in pulling all of this information together way back then.
As you may recall from our last post, Steve Englehart had promised in a footnote in Avengers #137 that the new issue of Captain Marvel would finally reveal who was responsible for the mysterious star that had helped kick off the Celestial Madonna storyline half a year before — and now we have our answer, courtesy of the next-to-last panel above.
(I’m sure that all my fellow oldsters out there know exactly who Rick is referring to with that “Morris” bit — but for any of you young’uns who might be wondering, here’s a link.)
I’m pretty certain that my initial reaction on finishing this story when I first read it, back in April, 1975, was fairly similar to that of the shrugging Mar-Vell. The Watcher was a good guy, when all was said and done — even if he had tried to murder our hero a couple of issues back. Today, I’m actually more skeptical than I was then that the upright Uatu we’d been spending time with intermittently ever since Fantastic Four #13 (Apr., 1963) could ever have broken bad so quickly and severely in the first place, even if he did experience almost instantaneous remorse after doing so.
On the other hand, I was probably no more convinced then by Emnu’s “Everything that happens is true!” argument (something of a corollary to Sise-Neg’s “Everything is as it should be, if one can only see it!” from Marvel Premiere #14, methinks) than I am now. While I respect Englehart’s attempt to give the Watchers’ non-interventionist stance a fully articulated philosophical foundation, I’ve never been as bothered by Uatu’s constant flouting of his self-professed code of conduct as Englehart seems to have been back then (a discomfort he’d first expressed in Avengers #118). In any event, this “reset” — as well-meaning as it might have been — didn’t last all that long, and that was fine with me; after all, who really wants to read about a Watcher who only… watches? (Unless it’s in the pages of What If?, of course — but, in 1975, that series was still on the horizon.)
As for the rest of the issue, well, it clearly had its weaknesses — the foremost among them probably being that the closest thing it had to a “villain” was poor Mad-Eye, who was just minding his business when he got dragged in to fill the story’s action quota. Still, Al Milgrom and Klaus Janson remain a terrific artistic team, and the major moves that Englehart makes here in regards to the relationship between Mar-Vell and Rick Jones intriguingly suggest that the feature is about to head into previously uncharted territory, in more ways than one. But how all that will ultimately play out will of course need to be a matter for another post, on another day.
While we generally try to touch at least briefly on every bit of comics art/story content to be found in whatever book is the primary topic of any given post, we’ve tradionally made an exception in regards to (non-house) advertising. But when I realized that the following Hostess ad (art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito) had run in CM #39 (as well as in a number of other Marvel comics out around the same time, of course), I felt compelled to make an exception…
It’s the synchronicity of the thing, y’know? Here we’ve had the wrap-up of the Lunatic Legion storyline (at least for now), and in a sort of unintended coda, Captain Marvel has a Twinkies-centric showdown with Nitro — the very villain whose first (and, at this juncture, only) appearance had kicked the arc off back in Captain Marvel #34, ten months earlier. It’s just so fitting (not to mention filling)!
*I have a confession to make here. Not only was my eleven-year-old self unaware when I first bought and read CM #16 back in the summer of ’69 that the whole “blue Kree” thing had never come up prior to that issue — my sixty-one-year-old self was equally unaware of that fact when I discussed the book in a blog post, fifty years later. So I’m grateful to frasersherman for his comment on my Captain Marvel #37 post back in December, without which I might never had realized that the concept had indeed originated with Archie Goodwin’s script for that issue.
From Fantastic Four #65 (Aug., 1967). Text by Stan Lee; art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott.
Here’s the interesting thing, though. While it’s true that Ronan the Accuser (who, excluding the non-humanoid Supreme Intelligence, was the only member of the Kree species readers had ever seen prior to Marvel Super-Heroes #12) had in his initial outing back in Fantastic Four #65 been consistently given the same coloring as a “white” Earthling — and true as well that the same approach had been later taken not only with Mar-Vell, but with all of his fellow Kree serving on the fateful mission to Earth with which his Silver Age series kicked off — there were a few instances of “creative” coloring in the early Captain Marvel stories that could have given Goodwin the idea of there being more than one Kree “race” (as defined by skin color).
From Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (Dec., 1967). Text by Stan Lee; art by Gene Colan and Frank Giacoia.
We might start with the first on-panel appearance of the as-yet-unnamed Zarek himself, from MSH #12 — where, as you can see, he’s colored in shades of yellow and blue. This is probably supposed to reflect the unnatural nature of the panel’s primary light source — i.e., the crystalline communications device the Imperial Minister is using to chat with Marv — but, in any case, there’s nothing here to indicate that Zarek is in fact “pink”.
From Captain Marvel #1 (May, 1968). Text by Roy Thomas; art by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta.
The next time that Zarek shows up is in Captain Marvel #1, where he’s been colored… blue. In this instance, he’s accompanied by Ronan, who’s using what appears to be the same communications device from MSH #12 — and who, bathed by its light, looks yellow and green. Zarek’s blue tint may be assumed to suggest a secondary, separate effect of that device, or that he’s standing in shadow. In other words, he may be intended to “really” be just as Caucasian-looking as Mar-Vell, Yon-Rogg, Una, or any of the other Kree we’ve seen up close and personal; still, there’s nothing in this image that confirms that.
From Captain Marvel #3 (Jul., 1968). Text by Roy Thomas; art by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta.
Zarek’s next appearance — and his last on-panel depiction, prior to CM #16 — comes in issue #3; it’s the oddest one yet, as we see the Imperial Minister only in an imaginary or symbolic representation, his only partially visible face combined with a long-shot of the Kree homeworld, Hala. It’s obviously not a “naturalistic” image in any sense of the word; but, for what it’s worth, he’s blue as blue can be.
From Captain Marvel #5 (Sep., 1968). Text by Arnold Drake; art by Don Heck and John Tartaglione.
Meanwhile, what of the first Kree we Marvel readers ever met face-to-face (so to speak), Ronan? We’ve already taken a look at how he was colored in Captain Marvel #1. His next appearance in the series would come in issue #5, where (as shown at left), he’s seen only on a viewscreen — and he looks blue. But, in the scene from which this panel comes, everyone who’s shown on a viewscreen, including Captain Marvel, looks blue; so we can’t really conclude anything based on that.
Ronan next turns up in Captain Marvel #7 — and he’s not on a screen, this time. But even though the Accuser is clearly not what, in the Bad Old Days, used to routinely be called “flesh-colored” — either in the panel shown below, or in the three others in this scene in which all or part of him is visible — he’s probably been given the monochrome treatment for dramatic reasons. (In support of this claim, I’ll note that later in this same issue, our anonymous colorist gives the Earth-born Carol Danvers blue skin.)
From Captain Marvel #7 (Nov., 1968). Text by Arnold Drake; art by Don Heck and John Tartaglione.
Panel detail from Captain Marvel #10 (Feb., 1969). Text by Arnold Drake; art by Don Heck and Vince Colletta.
From Captain Marvel #16 (Sep., 1969). Text by Archie Goodwin; art by Don Heck and Syd Shores.
For Ronan’s next appearance, in CM #10, he’s once again seen only on a viewscreen (and only in two panels) — but here he is colored as a white guy, for the first time since FF #65. By this point, however, it would be fair to call this instance of “correct” coloring an outlier — and in any event, the next time we see Ronan, in Captain Marvel #16, he’s depicted both in text and art as being blue-skinned — with the clear implication that he’s always been so. (Retcon, you say? This is 1969 we’re talking about; what’s a retcon?) And that’s the way he’ll be portrayed forever after.
Did Archie Goodwin — who seems to have been pulled in on Captain Marvel for just long enough to wrap up storylines begun by his predecessors, right before Roy Thomas and Gil Kane showed up to thoroughly revamp the title — actually believe that the Imperial Minister, the Public Accuser, and other high-status Kree had blue skin, based on his (possibly hurried) review of back issues? That would seem to be a possibility, at least. And even if Goodwin didn’t think that, it seems highly plausible that the coloring applied to these characters in earlier stories could have helped inspire the writer’s “blue Kree” concept, even if he did understand that that coloring had never been meant to be taken as naturalistic.
All these decades later, it’s highly doubtful that we’ll ever know the full truth of the matter. Still, it’s fascinating to consider the possibility that a plot element that has figured so significantly in so many later Marvel Comics stories might have arisen so very casually — or even by accident. Comics, y’all!
I recall thinking of these two issues that the coloring had an influence from Marvel’s then-competitor Atlas Comics.
Of course, by April 1975, Atlas was about two months away from being Marvel & DC’s former competitor.
It is odd, by the time the last new Atlas arrived on my local news stand in September 1975. the last issue of The Phoenix,, I thought of it as a probably ill-fated attempt to re-launch that line . . . . rather than part of the last few issues put out, most of which never hit the stands.
These stories are a sad reminder that “the Golden Age is 12 *or 13) . . . .”
Tony Isabella’s research leaves out two other examples where the Watcher basically stands aside: *Tales to Astonish* #73-74 (the conclusion of the Hulk’s first battle with the Leader) and *Fantastic Four* #60 (the conclusion of the arc in which Doctor Doom steals the Silver Surfer’s power cosmic).
*F.F.* #60 is particularly poignant, since Uatu admits his great affection for humanity and would like to help, but knows that his race’s code won’t permit it. Therefore, he goes off to another world, where a new species is coming into being.
One of my favorite Watcher moments is the ending of the Over-Mind saga (*F.F.* #116), where the Human Torch is disgusted that their battle ended in defeat…and the Stranger wrapped it up very quickly. The Thing, much as he hates to say it, feels that his teammate has a point…only for Uatu to explain that it was only because of the group’s fierce battle that the Over-Mind expended so much energy that the Stranger became aware of him when he did. At a later time, the Over-Mind might have become too powerful for the Stranger to defeat him.
As Ben Grimm notes, “who else but the Watcher could make ya feel all choked up about gettin’ clobbered?”
And there’s no one like Alan Stewart to bring sunshine to a cloudy Saturday morning. Thank you so much,
All this fictitious going back and forth on the skin color of the Kree, when the real point of the skin-color debate in the real world was supposed to be that skin-color didn’t matter. Oh well, why should the Kree be any more enlightened than we are?
A nice breakdown of an issue that was mainly all talking heads, Alan. For all Marvel’s rules about action on the first page and a fight every three pages or whatever it used to be, Englehart and company show us the importance of rules being made to be broken as we get conflict, but not battle in a contest of wills regarding the validity of the Watcher’s Non-Interference Directive. In fact, the only battle we get in the entire story is the on-going conflict between Marv and the previously docile rackcat, who from this point on we’ll refer to as “Morris” because every kitty needs a name. We’re never given any reason for Morris’ animosity toward Marv, not any point to what he was trying to do, but it certainly broke up the monotony of all that talking, so I suppose we’ll allow it.
I’m glad Uatu was forgiven for his indiscretions and found himself off the hook at the end of the story, even though it did seem somewhat anti-climactic. It occurs to me that I, at least, haven’t seen hide nor hair (so to speak) of the Watcher in years. Did something happen to him in continuity? Was there a wrap-up to his story that I missed, or did the character just fall into disuse? Somebody fill me in, if you will. I’d appreciate it. Thanks, Alan.
Uatu was killed by Nick Fury (?!) in 2014’s “Original Sin” crossover event, but got better in 2022’s “Reckoning War”. Not sure where he’s shown up since then (or if he even has), but I’m pretty sure he’s still out there somewhere in the MU… watching.
I don’t follow the comics nowadays , and haven’t seen most of the movies, but I do recall the Stan Lee cameo with the Watchers:
Also as part of the Facebook Live, Gunn explained more about Lee’s cameo: “I actually read the Marvel fan sites and the Marvel message boards… One thing I found very funny and interesting is the fact that people thought Stan Lee is a Watcher… and that all of these cameos that he’s doing are part of him being a Watcher. So I thought that was one of the greatest things the fans came up with. So Stan Lee as a guy who is either a Watcher or probably a guy who is working for the Watchers was something that I thought was fun for the MCU.”
https://www.gamesradar.com/james-gunn-confirms-stan-lees-cameo-in-guardians-of-the-galaxy-2-was-inspired-by-marvel-fan-theories/
Like Heroes in Crisis, Original Sin is a series I wouldn’t want to read even if someone handed me the TPB free.
More little things please little minds, Alan: you present all that wealth of information regarding the blue / pink / white original Kree, and Klaus Janson decides to undermine your very informed discourse and in CM #38 makes the original Kree ‘pop’ against the Blue City background by colouring them… purple, even while the dialogue references the city as being ‘blue, like them’.
I’d note that Al Milgrom apparently inked his own pencils for the flashbacks in #39. Makes you wonder if this segment was maybe prepared at a different time to the rest of the comic?
I never thought the ending particularly nailed the landing. Why would anybody accept that Uatu is not going to repeat-offend just because he’s a Watcher – he’s certainly broken their code often enough. Would it be more plausible if they found him guilty but then said there was nothing they could do about it, because their own non-interference directive meant they couldn’t proactively impose any punishment? Would that directive even apply to their own race?
Sorry I missed Avengers #137 last week – family holiday for the Easter weekend. Didn’t have much to say anyway, except that Steve Englehart didn’t seem to want to or try to understand Clint Barton until he started writing West Coast Avengers some while later. He seemed to find every excuse for sending him off somewhere, and maybe only brought him back for the Celestial Madonna storyline because of his ties to the Swordsman?
Well, Englehart did use Hawkeye for a rather entertaining story in which our favorite avenging archer met Matt Hawk, aka the Two-Gun Kid, and they hooked up with several of Marvel’s other western heroes, along with Thor and Moondragon, to take on Kang for the final time in the ’70s. All superbly drawn by that “new kid? on the drawing boards, George Perez. That was a fun contrast with the other Avengers trapped in another dimension taking on the Squadron Supreme and Serpent Crown controlled President Rockefeller.
Agreed, and earlier he had him quit the Avengers but then join the Defenders which he was also writing. It just seems like he didn’t want to write him as a primary Avengers character?
I like that ending. The idea they’d simply accept this and were right to accept it underlines that they’re not human. Of course the inevitable backsliding makes that look foolish in hindsight.
One of those storylines begun by one writer and taken over by another and I can’t help but wonder how different it might have been if Starlin had stayed on. Overall, entertaining enough. The conclusion of the Trial of the Watcher was a bit odd but fitting — “we, the other Watches, condemn you to be … watched, a little more closely! Now, swear you’ll nothing but watch and go out and watch!”
Makes me think of a comedy routine from the 1970s by the Frantics, Tae Kwon Lee / Boot to the Head. wherein Ed Gruberman wants to “kick some ass” rather than meditate. I can imagine some young Watcher wanting to do something other than just watch things ‘ “I want to boot some head too.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajEOZ4tBqjQ
The story also sort of speaks to Rick Jones’ situation since being connected to Marv back in issue 17 — he’s mostly unable to do much but watch Marv in action but now that relationship has been dramatically changed after nearly 6 years.
Another excellent review, Alan. It is interesting to note that the end of CM 37 and the cover of CM 38 promoted “The Trial of the Watcher” but that didn’t happen until CM 39 (and was not even mentioned on the cover of CM 39). The combination of Milgrom and Janson was really very good. It does seem that Klaus Janson inks in the 70s were at a peak and he did wonderful work also with Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, Keith Giffen and of course several years later Frank Miller. Also interesting that the Watcher had barely any role in CM 38 except that he was watching the possible execution of Mar-Vell by his Kree foes and not doing anything to help him. I do remember, like other commenters, being a bit disappointed with the end of CM 39. It did seem a bit anticlimactic and there never seemed to be a very good explanation for the Watcher’s aggressive behavior in CM 37, as we had never seen the Watcher attack anyone that way in any of his previous appearances. But at the time I accepted the ending. Looking it at it now, it appears that the ending was very rushed, perhaps because of the now lowered page count and maybe Steve just ran out of room? Hard to believe that this storyline ran through six issues, although one issue was mainly a reprint, and one issue may have been prepared practically overnight (CM 35) with an unexplained Living Laser robot. Guess we’ll never know in what direction Starlin might have taken this story.
I completely forgot about the ad with Nitro. That is pretty funny.
It appears that Roy Thomas must have read this story or at least been made aware of it, since he wrote the Watcher’s next appearances in FF Annual 11 and Marvel Two In One Annual 1 the following year (1976) to be consistent with CM 39. While the Watcher didn’t say a single word in either appearance, his presence made clear that there were problems that had to be dealt with, but he was acting in a more circumspect manner… and still helping out the FF. And then the Watcher appeared in FF 188 simply to observe the team disband. Sorry to say, I don’t remember much about his further appearances after that, but it does appear for a time he was trying to be more of a Watcher……
I also forgot that there were some interesting new developments with Mar-Vell and Rick and it is clear that Steve wanted to move them forward in new directions, so it was a book I would continue to read..for a while. Thanks for the review and memories, Alan.
Hi Brucesfl just wanted to add that in the 70s Janson did a great job inking Bob Brown on Daredevil on George Perez on Logan’s Run, and on Gil Kane in GS Defenders2 and various covers. I didn’t feel that Janson’s style suited Simonson though….but Simonson’s art is so idiosyncratic only Simonson himself really does it justice.
Did Terry Austin ever ink Simonson? He was a very good inker on Marshall Rogers, who has a similar style to Simonson. Otherwise, I agree. If anyone other than Simonson inks Simonson, you’re getting ripped off, because most inkers don’t try to duplicate Walt’s pencil strokes. They just ink it in their style and don’t care how it turns out. I remember Aparo once inking a Simonson job on pencils in Detective and he made it look like he (Aparo) drew the whole thing.
Terry Austin inked Walt Simonson on at least one memorable occasion — the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover.
That’s right! I forgot about that one. Did a great job too. The only inker I can think of whoever worked on Simonson who cared about what the original line work looked like
Thanks Spirit of 64. I completely forgot about Janson on Bob Brown’s Daredevil, which I did read at the time (and is actually coming up on a 50th anniversary, appropriate to this column, with the first pairing of Brown and Janson on DD 125 in June 1975). Other than Dick Giordano as inker for Brown on Batman, Janson may have the best inker for Brown. Also Janson inked Kane and Infantino on Daredevil and those were also some nice looking books. Regarding Logan’s Run, I did not see those at the time, but did come across them many years later and agree that Janson inks on Perez were a nice combination. I also agree that there few inkers whose style is right for Simonson but I also agree with the below comments that Terry Austin is one of the few suitable inkers for Simonson (as well as Simonson himself).
Y’know, as long as we’re talking about Captain Marvel and some of changes in the history of his fellow Kree and his costume, albeit in previous posts mostly, but then there’s also the evolution of his hair, not just from silver to yellow, but from the short, militaristic style Colan gave him in his early stories, to a somewhat longer style under Kane, who gave him a style a bit like that of Robert F. Kennedy Sr circa 1967, with that wavy hair in front. Within Starlin’s run, Marv’s hair gradually got longer — not long enough to be considered hippyish by the standards of 1968 and later, but still much longer than any previous artist had drawn it. Later artists, such as Pat Roderick, drew it longer still, although never quite as long as Thor’s or Ka-Zar’s. Warlock’s hair underwent similar changes, from a sort of Romanesque or early Beatles’ moptop by Kirby initially, then the more wavy, longer hair by Kane, yet again, and then longer still by Starlin. Most of the more prominent male Marvel characters didn’t undergo really significant changes in their hairstyles.
I recall a scene in an issue of Fantastic Four drawn by John Buscema, early in Conway’s run, scripting a Thomas plot that involved them getting sucked into a fantasy world set in the 1950s at the conclusion of which Johnny Storm tried to change his hairstyle after coming to the realization that he looked like a relic from the 1950s. I was rather confused at the time (I would have been 11 when I first read it) as I couldn’t tell much of a difference at all in his “new” style from the old style. I guess the change was too subtle for my eyes. But in comparing early FF & Spider-Man stories with those in the mid-70s, although both Johnny & Peter looked much scrawnier and more kid-like in the early ’60s and much more athletically built up even by 1966, there wasn’t much of a dramatic change in their hairstyles even by the late ’70s. In the case of old Marv, tho’, in reading a reprint of his first appearance in C.M. #35, in the scenes in which he was drawn without that original helmet, he looked so different from the more recent issues that if the story itself hadn’t made it clear, based on the art alone I wouldn’t have figured out that that was the same character from only about 7 years earlier.
Whoops! I completely forgot about the most obvious of the Watcher’s further appearances after this story in Captain Marvel. That is of course when Roy Thomas created the “What If” series which debuted in November 1976 and ran until 1984 with the Watcher as the narrator and of course just…watching. And also, the Watcher appeared in 1980 in one of the most famous comics of all time, X-Men 137 (The Fate of the Phoenix), and in that issue the Watcher just watched (except when he threw Wolverine out of his home) and commented at the end of the story.
One I only glanced at when it first came out. As usual a good review. Thanks for mentioning my post; I’ll add a link to this one in comments there soon as I get a moment.
I don’t recall ever seeing any female Watchers. Presumably they exist so that Watchers may breed new generations of Watchers. But are the female Watchers bald like the male Watchers? Do Watchers watch other Watchers breeding Watchers?
“Who Watches the Watchers Watching the Watchers?” if Alan Moore had taken his idea to Marvel instead of DC…
Here are details on a couple of female Watchers from the Fandom Marvel Database project:
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Ulana_(Watcher)_(Earth-616)
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eta_(Earth-616)
Based just on these images, Ulana might or might not be bald (I can’t recall whether she ever took off the skull cap in the comics featuring her that I’ve read). Eta definitely isn’t, however.
That reminds me, I think the Watcher would have worked better if Stan had stuck with Kirby’s original conception that he’s one singular alien — that would eliminate the need for a vow and the moral compromises by intervening, etc.
Interesting, Englehart answered the Questions of if there were still female Guardians at DC in Green Lantern #200 in 1985.
That was a bit harder as female Guardians had been established in Green Lantern #40.
I had always assumed the Guardians were noncorporal by this point and people say what they expected to see (John Byrne’s take on Galactus), which is why they looked like little blue David Ben Gurions to Hal.
I must admit, I have never been sold on how Uatu acted here. Sure, he might have been jealous of Mar-Vell , but to want him dead was a huge stretch. I wonder what the Watchers thought of Eon, since Mar-Vell becoming Protector of the Universe is what set Uatu off.
Did we ever see any of the Lunatic Legion again? I’m guessing they ran off when they saw other Watchers getting involved.
They show up again briefly a couple of issues after this one… I’m hoping to blog about that story, so no more details for the present! 🙂
I bought 38 when it first came out, and absolutely loved it, cherished it, devoured it…..but didn’t find a copy of #39 until many years later….and my feeling on reading it was sort of huh, is that it?? Otherwose @Alan looking forward to your post on the X-Men/ New Teen Titans x-over some time in 2032!!
Wow! I’m usually too late to the party to post anything new, but it looks like I have a possible tidbit to provide that’s novel. Wouldn’t Aron, the young Watcher who witnesses Marvel’s and Rick Jones’ arrival and pursues them with “Morris”, be the same person as Aron the Rogue Watcher in the Fantastic Four books in the 1990s? I first read those only a few years ago, so re-reading these Captain Marvel issues from 1975 made me think of this. Am I right? If so, it’s too bad that you don’t give out No Prizes (I lost my only one in the Agnes flood in 1972).
As long as I’m here, let me add that I still have issue #39 for sure, but I don’t think I still have #38. I know about #39 because, when I first read it back in 1975, I had great anticipation because I always wondered when the Watcher Corps. would have enough of Uatu being a, um, “Rogue Watcher” and have a proceeding similar to the Guardians’ trial in GL/GA by O’Neil and Adams. Re-reading it now however, I had forgotten that the Watchers did not come for him, but Uatu voluntarily turned himself in. I actually misremembered for probably 50 years that his brethren stepped in to start the proceedings.
The fact that Uatu “turned himself in” when the other Watchers (being Watchers) undoubtedly knew of his history (indeed, Emnu is the one who recounts it at the trial, Uatu doesn’t confess it), seems to make the ending of the “Trial” make sense to me now (as strange and disappointing as it seemed to me then). It seems that while Englehart had to call this a “trial” to sell comic books, it seems to be more of what humans would call an intervention or a Watcher’s Anonymous meeting to help cure Uatu’s addiction of interfering. Before thinking of this, I thought that the ending was just a wrist slap probation verdict (even though that word was not used).
One thing that I absolutely did NOT like, then or now, is the explanation of Uatu’s attack on Captain Marvel and saying that he would kill him. In the first place, the Watcher’s “jealousy” of Mar-Vell comes completely out of the, uh, blue. There is nothing whatsoever in Uatu’s character in all of his appearances before or since that would make sense of him going psycho on his own free will there. I was expecting an explanation where the Watcher had somehow been blackmailed or mind-controlled or possessed, all of which would make more sense. Not only was Uatu’s explanation for his behavior completely unconvincing but, and I know the Watchers have a different culture than humans, if a human suddenly did something like this, the least he or she would be required to do before returning to his or her job would be to take psychological tests, counseling and anger management classes. Seriously, it’s one thing to interfere to help others, it’s another thing to use your vast personal power to physically attack and try to seriously hurt or kill someone. That part seems to require more than just a slap and a “don’t interfere again”.
Also, this whole end of the storyline made me wonder what was the point of the “lunatics” in the first place.* It seems like their presence, their name and, yes, the Watcher’s attack on Marvell, were all just plot devices clumsily thrown in to get Mar-Vell on the moon for the trial of the Watcher. I guess that Englehart was just dying to do this story because, really, it would make much more sense and logic to do it in the Fantastic Four with Reed Richards acting as defense attorney.
* I know that they were affiliated with Zarek, but why would a Kree racist crusader call his minions “lunatics”?
I still hope to go back to some of your previous blog posts Alan and post comments, as cold and dead as those discussions are, at some point. What’s funny is that, starting in 1973, I became much less interested in comics in general, particularly in D.C. Comics. However, and I guess not surprisingly, the Marvel story arcs you pick were my favorites as well back then so I am interested in practically every super-hero book you write about here now. (Also, since I probably won’t go back to it maybe ever, I do have a copy of that D.C. Bible story issue in great condition).
Aron the Rogue Watcher first appeared in Englehart’s FF run, so I’d guess, yes, they’re the same though the Appendix to the Marvel Handbook says it’s not specified (https://www.mikesamazingworld.com/main/features/comic.php?comicid=48899).
Everyone who’s talked about Uatu’s jealousy and attacks on Mar-Vell being unreasonable has a good point.