The subject of today’s post is the first of four regular issues of Defenders that guest-starred the original Guardians of the Galaxy. But the storyline actually kicked off in the fifth (and last) issue of the non-team’s other vehicle, Giant-Size Defenders, so you can probably guess what that means — yep, we’ll be taking a look at that one first.
Although, considering that we’ve never really discussed the OG Guardians on the blog prior to this post, and given that GSD #5 represented only their third non-reprint appearance overall at the time it was released, maybe we should look at least briefly at the prior history of the team? Sure, let’s do that.
Cover to Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (Jan., 1969). Art by Gene Colan and Mike Esposito.
The Guardians of the Galaxy had first arrived on the scene in October, 1968, in the 18th issue of the tryout title Marvel Super-Heroes. Their debut adventure, written by Arnold Drake and drawn by Gene Colan, explained how, in the 31st century, Earth and its allied worlds would be conquered by the Badoon — an aggressive alien race that had been introduced just three months earlier in Silver Surfer #2. Seeking to overthrow the Badoon’s tyranny were four individuals: Charlie-27 (from Jupiter), Martinex (from Pluto), Yondu (from Centauri IV), and Major Vance Astro (from Earth, and also from the 20th century). In 22 pages, Drake and Colan were able to introduce these four freedom fighters and bring them together as a group — and that was about it. Presumably, Marvel Super-Heroes #18 didn’t sell all that great, as the Guardians of the Galaxy wouldn’t make a return appearance for another five-plus years.
Cover to Marvel Two-in-One #5 (Sep., 1974). Art by John Buscema and Mike Esposito.
Sometime around the beginning of 1974, however, Marvel Two-in-One writer Steve Gerber was persuaded by his colleague Tony Isabella to bring back the Guardians in that Ben Grimm team-up vehicle. The storyline actually began with a teaming of the Thing with Captain America in MTiO #4, as those two heroes journeyed to 31st century Earth to help out with the resistance to the Badoon; the Guardians themselves didn’t enter the picture until issue #5, at which time readers got their first look at the new outfits now worn by Charlie, Yondu, and Vance, as well as their starship, the Captain America — all of which had been designed by artist Dave Cockrum. At the conclusion of that story, the Guardians and their 20th century allies had led Earth’s resistance forces to success in taking back New York City from the Badoon, and the Thing and Cap returned to their own time period, apparently confident that the 31st century heroes could handle things from that point on.
Steve Gerber evidently enjoyed working with the Guardians and their milieu, as he decided to bring the team back for an encore in Defenders not long afterwards. In an opportune bit of timing, just three months before Gerber picked up the loose end of the characters’ ongoing struggle against the Badoon in Giant-Size Defenders #5, an instance of the “Dreaded Deadline Doom” that so frequently bedeviled Marvel Comics during this era occasioned the reprinting of the Guardians’ origin story from MSH #18 in the 29th issue of Astonishing Tales. That probably came as a disappointment to fans of that title’s usual headliner, Deathlok the Demolisher (a group that included my seventeen-year-old self), but at least it gave those fans who’d missed the story the first time around (yet another group that included my seventeen-year-old self) the chance to get better acquainted with the Guardians, just a little ahead of their next step towards a more prominent role in the Marvel Universe.
Cover to Giant-Size Defenders #5 (Jul., 1975). Art by Ron Wilson and Al Milgrom.
GSD #5 arrived in spinner racks on April 22, 1975, featuring a 32-page story written by Steve Gerber (albeit with the help of five, count ’em, five co-plotters — Gerry Conway, Roger Slifer, Len Wein, Chris Claremont, and Scott Edelman) with pencilled art by Don Heck (who’d also drawn Giant-Size Defenders #4) and inks from Mike Esposito, Dave Hunt, and Jim Mooney.
“Eelar Moves in Mysterious Ways!” begins, well, mysteriously, spending the whole of its first two pages on an incipient mugging of an old pawnbroker on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Only with page 3 are we given our first glimpse of the Defenders — three of them, anyway — as, unaware of the pawnbroker’s plight, they fly directly over the developing crime scene on their way to New York Harbor to investigate what Dr. Strange calls “temporal displacement vibrations… a disturbance in the flow of time.”
Before the Defenders can get close to the big glowing spot, however, the waters in the immediate vicinity suddenly erupt, showering a nearby ferry with a vast amount of dead fish. While Valkyrie and the Hulk go to the aid of the ferry’s passengers, Doc Strange swoops down low over the waves for a better look… only to have a grey hand break the water’s surface, grab him by the leg, and pull him under…
At this point, the story returns to the mugging, where the beleaguered pawnbroker receives some assistance from an unexpected quarter…
Yes, it’s Charlie-27, who like all Jovians of his era is a descendant of Earth colonists whose bodies were genetically engineered to withstand Jupiter’s immense gravity. Charlie quickly subdues the three muggers, though not before the pawnbroker sustains a knife wound. Aware that he’s taking a huge risk — his mission on 20th century Earth is supposed to be secret, after all — Charlie picks up the injured man, and goes to look for help… though he leaves behind the suitcase the man had been carrying when he was attacked.
Meanwhile, Valkyrie had found a dazed Dr. Strange floating in the drink, and brought him back to the ferry. While she and Hulk puzzle over the one word Doc keeps murmuring — “Eelar” — a gray, finned shape shoots up out of the water and begins to fly towards the city. “That is Eelar!” avows the Emerald Behemoth. “Hulk just knows!” He and Val immediately head off in pursuit of the creature.
The scene now shifts to upstate New York, near Saugerties,, where we find the fourth member of our non-team, Nighthawk (aka Kyle Richmond), aimlessly flying about as he mopes over a couple of recent events — the departure of his girlfriend Trish Starr (as seen in GSD #4), and the revelation that his chief financial officer, Pennysworth, had been behind the white supremacist terrorist group called the Sons of the Serpent (as seen in Defenders #25). But then, in the midst of Kyle’s airborne brooding, there comes an interruption…
The young teenage boy we meet in that last panel is thrilled to run home and tell his parents that he’s just seen a UFO. But neither his mom nor his dad believe him, and while the former parent dismisses the whole thing as the product of “an overactive imagination“, the latter is angered by what he sees as his son’s “lying“, and sends the boy to his room…
The so-far-unnamed 13-year-old is clearly a Captain America fan; note, also, his copy of Stan Lee’s Origins of Marvel Comics, whose real-world analogue had come out about half a year prior to this.
Concurrent with these upstate events, Nighthawk’s fellow Defenders have been contending with the effects of Eelar’s hostile actions, which have included smashing a hole in the Hudson Tunnel with yet another load of dead fish. Meanwhile, Charlie-27 has been successful in locating a hospital and delivering the wounded pawnbroker there, though he’s been forced to flee the scene when the cops want to hold him for questioning. Seeing a crowd forming on the street, he seeks to lose himself in the throng — only to find he’s happened upon the very scene where Eelar is threatening more mayhem. Then, as the visitor from the future is still trying to get his bearings, the Defenders show up — and Charlie watches in amazement as these three strange figures attempt to subdue the eel-like marauder, only to be stymied by its powerful electrical field.
Meanwhile, in the woods near Saugerties…
Dr. Strange directs Val and Kyle to follow the Hulk’s lead, then turns to confront the strangers — only to find that they’ve departed the immediate area while his back was turned. That’s not good, as Strange is sure that one of them is the source of the temporal disruption that appears to be at the root of all their present problems — including Eelar. And if Eelar is simply a by-product of the disturbance rather than its cause, then it follows that the creature’s considerable power “must emanate not from the time-flow… but from something in the sea!” Sure, if you say so, Doc. At any rate, that’s where the Sorcerer Supreme heads next.
OK, so apparently the reason the Guardians of the Galaxy have come to this particular place, at this particular time, is in search of a “genuine Badoon mento-programmer” that they have reason to believe was abandoned here. But did they have any idea about there being two such devices? And if there are two, could there be even more? To me, these seem like details that should be addressed within the narrative itself, but never are… which, given that this yarn’s six plotters had 32 whole pages in which to tell a complete story, seems like a hard omission to justify. A case of “too many cooks”, perhaps.
Though they’ve now solved the mystery, our eight heroes still have to shut Eelar down. That takes a couple of pages, at the end of which Dr. Strange magically transforms the now-unconscious menace back into a regular ol’ ordinary eel. “Which leaves us only the small task of returning him to the sea,” says Dr. Strange. “And learning the truth about the future-men,” adds Valkyrie.
Cover to Silver Surfer #2 (Oct., 1968). Art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott.
Just in case you’re wondering, the main reason that nobody besides the Silver Surfer and the Badoon were even aware of the latter’s invasion, back in issue #2 of the former’s comic, is that they were employing cloaking technology that made them invisible to everyone but the Surfer himself. It also helped that they’d come in only a single starship, which proved no match for Norrin Radd’s “power cosmic”. Clearly, they’d learned their lesson by the time they returned a thousand years later, and brought a whole fleet along on that occasion. Given all that, even if the Guardians had managed in 1975 to retrieve a full report of what the Badoon had gone through in 1968, it’s hard to see how it would have done them much good in repelling their alien foes back in their own time.
And with that twist, we come to the end of “Eelar Moves in Mysterious Ways!” — though clearly not to the end of this overall story arc. The month following the release of Giant-Size Defenders #5, May, 1975, brought the arrival of Defenders #26, which, behind a cover by Gil Kane and John Romita, saw Steve Gerber picking up the narrative threads in collaboration with artists Sal Buscema (layouts) and Vince Colletta (finishes)… though, as indicated by the opening splash page, he wasn’t in too big a hurry to move the Guardians’ saga forward — at least, not at the expense of the series’ ongoing subplots:
Steve Gerber seems to have been determined to portray Jack Norriss as an “ordinary joe”, unable to come to grips with what’s happened to his little missus. But, as Stu Fischer brought up in the comments section for our Defenders #23 post a while back, Jack and Barbara had both been members of the cult of the Undying Ones well before Barbara was transformed into the Valkyrie in Defenders #4; Jack had even been present when a mystic ritual shunted both his wife and Bruce Banner into a nether-dimension way back in Hulk #126. So, clearly, the man is hardly unfamiliar with the more uncanny aspects of life on Marvel-Earth.
Gerber was well aware of this backstory, given that he’d begun his Defenders run with a three-issue crossover with Marvel Two-in-One that drew upon it heavily; therefore, it’s somewhat mystifying that the writer chose to ignore (and expected readers to forget) the Norrisses’ established history in his development of this particular plotline.
“Th–This is insanity!” splutters Jack, as Val hauls him onto Aragorn’s back. “There are no earthquake faults in New Jersey!” Meanwhile, at the Defenders’ upstate New York headquarters (aka the Richmond Riding Academy), a monitor-watching Nighthawk confirms for the rest of the team — as well as their three time-traveling guests — that such bizarre phenomena are occurring all over the world. Dr. Strange is convinced that the temporal displacement occasioned by the Guardians’ presence must be the cause, despite the latter group’s contention that they made all the proper calculations before they made their journey, and there’s no way they can be responsible. Meanwhile, the Hulk remains puzzled by the whole notion of visitors from the future: “How can men be from tomorrow when it’s still tonight?”
As the television news reporter tries in vain to get more information from the military commander on site, a hatch in the ship suddenly opens — and then, while all those watching gape in amazement, Martinex and the young Vance Astrovik cautiously emerge…
It’s always interesting to read near-future “history” that’s been overtaken by actual events since the time it was created, and consider how things turned out differently than what had been imagined. In the case of “the first skin cancer epidemic”, we real-life denizens of the 21st century appear to have dodged that particular bullet by virtue of the fact that we did pretty much do away with aerosol sprays (though, it should be noted, not until after 1982), thus preserving the ozone layer. (Although considering what’s going on at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at this time of writing, perhaps we shouldn’t rule out aerosols eventually making a comeback.)
While there had been no mention of any “Bionics Wars” in any issue of Astonishing Tales featuring Deathlok that had been published to date as of May, 1975, the 1990s timeframe, as well as the visual similarity of the “man-machines” depicted here to artist Rich Buckler’s design for that feature’s cyborg protagonist, left little room for readers to doubt Gerber’s intention to incorporate Deathlok’s continuity into his own chronicle of future history.
Naturally, the Guardians can’t know exactly how Killraven and his fellow freedom fighters (who, shown from left to right, include M’Shulla, Grok, Carmilla Frost, and Old Skull) ultimately overcame their Martian overlords — because if they did know the details, and passed them on to us readers, it would spoil the ending of the ongoing saga writer Don McGregor and artist Craig Russell were then still presenting in Amazing Adventures.
The “Techno-Barons” appear to be an original concept of Gerber’s; though they were mentioned a few times more after Defenders #26, I don’t think any later writer ever tried to flesh out that five-hundred-year “barbaric period”, which surprises me a little. (Nowadays, of course, the Marvel multiverse is so rife with alternate futures that no one is likely to miss this one.)
While the Jovians and the Pluvians were introduced in the first Guardians of the Galaxy story from Marvel Super-Heroes #18, the page above represents the debut appearance of the Mercurians — one of whose number, Nikki, will later join the Guardians on Gerber’s watch.
Right about then, Valkyrie and Jack Norriss arrive via Aragorn, necessitating the tale to be told a second time; by the time that’s done, the repairs to the good ship Captain America are complete…
“Savage Time!” made a huge impression on me when I first read it, half a century ago. It was the first time I’d ever seen a comics publisher link several independently-created future-set features into a single chronology; set next to the recent similar expansion of Marvel-Earth’s history into an equally imaginary remote past (one that had mostly been borrowed from the works of the late fantasy author Robert E. Howard, of course, but still), it seemed to make the Marvel Universe an even more fascinating fictional world to hang out in. I’m not even sure that it completely registered with me at the time that, given how Steve Gerber was careful to specify that the events depicted in Defenders #26’s flash-forward might or might not come to pass, that this was one of only many possible futures that could be imagined for the world our heroes inhabited in 1975 — and not necessarily the “official” future history of the MU going forward. All these many years later, of course, that goes without saying, but it wasn’t nearly so clear back in the day… at least, not to your humble blogger.
Truth to tell, the impact of “Savage Time!” on my seventeen-year-old self was such that the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy storyline in Defenders left a much vaguer impression on my memories… though, don’t worry; we’ll still be checking out the Defenders’ adventures in 3015 in a future post, which should be coming your way in just a little less than one thousand years from now.
Giant-Size Defenders #5, not #4 as you refer to it twice early on.
Whoops! Thanks for the catch, Tom. Fixed now.
With Art Simek’s last lettering job.
I think letterers are the great unsung heroes specially of early Marvel Comics. Their contribution to the feel of comics , eg the title letters eg first fantastic four etc and the opening title pages is subtle but all part of the excitement that was generated as a kid and triggers the nostalgia as an adult.
And Simek’s page to page lettering was always a model of clarity for reading.
The world-building here is impressive. Jack is annoying, overbearing, and as you say, not terribly true to the character’s past.
This was my first encounter with the Guardians. I liked ’em, though not so much I’d have followed their adventures somewhere else.
The “Vance Astrovik” detail, which I doubt Gerber thought of as more than a nice twist, would eventually give us Justice of the New Warriors. Little acorns and all that.
I wonder if Drake, Colan (and Lee, of course) had developed The Guardians of the Galaxy as something that could be sold to Mattel or Marx as a toy line, or developed as a children’s TV cartoon?
“Space Toys” were big in 1968-’69 . . . .
As I’ve said before, I loved the Defenders, which was easily my favorite Marvel team book and I remember thinking at the time that the Guardians were a good match for them. Like you, Alan, I remember being quite impressed at how well Gerber managed to create a chronological order for the future of the Marvel Universe. Gerber didn’t take advantage of it, but it occurs to me that Gerber could have taken advantage of the Surfer’s relationship with the Defenders as a way to provide the Guardians with the 4-1-1 on the original Badoon invasion, but if he thought of it, there was probably no room.
Hey, I’m curious…anybody know what ultimately happened to Val and Nighthawk? I know they aren’t active in current Marvel continuity and I was wondering if something happened to them, or if they just fell out of use. I remember, by this point in time, really being tired of Jack Norris. Val’s rejection of him seems fairly absolute this time. I don’t remember how that all turned out, but hopefully, Jack will get his head out of the past and realize that Valkyrie is no longer the woman he knew and start over. She really has put up with him long enough.
I remember really liking the Major Astro twist in this story. That’s the kind of thing I always enjoyed and I got a kick out of it here. I know I read the Guardians in their initial appearances, but I don’t remember much about them. For the longest time I had the Marvel B&W mag that featured the origin of Peter Quill, the Star-lord, and certainly wish I still had it now. Hopefully, you’ll circle back to the Guardians from time to time and I can get reacquainted. Thanks, Alan!
At that time, Stan Lee was trying to make the Silver Surfer’s appearances infrequent and special, probably why he left The Defenders prior to Gerber (or Wein) taking over the book.
Stan never wrote the Defenders – Roy Thomas was the original scribe, when it was in Marvel Feature; Englehart wrote the first 11 issues of the series, then Len Wein took over for several issues before Gerber’s run started.
At the time I read this story, I hadn’t read any solo Silver Surfer stories and wasn’t aware that the Badoon had been introduced in his mag. Might have been interesting if the Surfer had taken part in this story. As things went, however, I don’t think Gerber ever wrote a story featuring the Silver Surfer.
Val regained her memories as Brunhilde and much later was killed off so the much less interesting Jane Foster could take her code name. Nighthawk is still out there, occasionally shown trying to resume his heroics. He has also been replaced overall by versions that try and fail to be edgier based on an alt Earth version that was about as popular as the original ever was.
Eels are an unusual family of fish. Even their life cycle is distinct. This could have made the bad guy even more distinctive . . . . Electric Eels are not actually eels and are mostly air-breathing fish,
Reading up on electric eels, turns out they’re more closely related to catfish and piranhas than to true eels, but even more closely related to various species known as knifefish, many of which can also engage in electrolocation but can’t produce the intense electric shocks electric eels can.
I loved the Guardians as established by Gerber and the two series that followed. I liked what Gerber did with the character advertised but never published, Starhawk, but almost every decision of what to do with him mad him more and more unlikable and heroic.
What was done eventually that resulted in young Vance becoming Justice (a stupid name) and the way the Guardians subsequently kept returning the 616’s present led to me having to come up with a personal theory of how they did so seeing as how their future was no longer that of the main timeline. I decided that the only way they could so was by first returning to a point in time before Vance’s powers were awakened early and from there travel to the ‘present’ via the timeline where Vance gained his powers early. Going home they would first go into the past and then redirect down the timeline they came from. I thank Star Trek in general for being able to explain plot holes easily because they always had so many you had to explain away to enjoy a lot of episodes.
My soon to be 13 self loved this story and while some bits are a bit wonky, it still holds up for a half-century later. And even if in the real world we overcame our desire to keep our armpits dry with aerosol spray and thus far no Martians have landed, we still have plenty of problems, mostly of our own making. It was rather fascinating to see the elder Vance conversing with his younger self who had no idea who he really was. One of those type of scenes that I think would resonate more with those of us up in years now than it did when we were closer to the younger Vance’s age. At least I wouldn’t have to tell my own younger self about trauma of total societal collapse and alien invasions! But there’s been plenty bad enough as it is. Looking forward to discussions on later installments of this little epic, which had plenty of bizarre and amusing moments even if it wasn’t quite the tour de force that was the Headmen/Nebulon saga.
Verpoorten’s Meat Market, indeed.
I’m not sure whether it’s your selections here, Alan, or whether it’s Steve Gerber’s script, but I missed a reference to Harkovian physics, which replaced Einstein’s 200 years after Vance Astro went off into space.
The space program seemed a lot more advanced in *Marvel Super-Heroes* #18 than it is in Gerber’s version.
Also, while man had become better (the “Star Trek” influence?), prejudice remained in the 31st Century, as we see in Martinex’s first meeting with Charlie-27, when he says that people like our Jovian friend would consider him “a rockhead.”
And I don’t think anyone looked for “New New York” or sang “Earth Shall Overcome.”
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky,
I’m a 50 Year Old Comics junkie…
(Yondu is not Mary Poppins, Y’All!)
I don’t think that Gerber ever mentioned “Harkovian physics”, A.S.. Best as I can tell after a bit of Googling, it only came up a time or two after MSH #18, once in an issue of Avengers and once in an Official Handbook.
I was similarly awestruck, Alan, when I first read #26 aged 13. The swathe of centuries it encompassed made a huge impact, and tying in the various continuities of Deathlok and Killraven struck me as very clever even though this was my first encounter with the latter.
I’d never seen GSD #5 until now, as none of the Giant-Size series made it to the UK. Looking at it now, two things strike me:
First, Don Heck’s art is really badly served by his inkers here. Heck doesn’t have a great reputation to this day, but with the right inker (Wally Wood, say, or ideally Heck himself) his art could look just fine. Here, it looks anything but.
And second, why are the good people of Saugerties so astounded by the appearance of a spaceship? Marvel Earth had by this time had any number of highly visible alien visitors, including the Skrulls, Galactus (twice), and all those pre-hero period monsters, so you’d expect a reaction more along the lines of “here we go again.”
Hey, it is northeast Ulster County, it’s not Kingston or Newburg .or Poughkeepsie, even on Earth 414 . . .
Sorry. “Earth 616” . . . .
You shouldn’t have corrected yourself. I thought that you were making a very clever joke involving the area code. After your correction, I looked up and found that 414 is an area code in Wisconsin. Of course, all of the New Yorkers here at least would not have shared my thought.
When LOCs brought this up in the 1970s, Marvel’s argument was that sure, people have seen metahumans and aliens on TV, but outside New York they haven’t seen them in the flesh. Which makes sense: the people may have seen the Silver Surfer flying overhead but they only saw Galactus on TV. And the Skrulls hadn’t done anything public at this point except the Super-Skrull.
The argument went on that because they haven’t seen super-fights up close, most of America assumes the media are wildly exaggerating it to grab eyeballs.
The writer: Gerber was obviously very environmentally conscious, and clued up on the ozone crisis very early here, 10 years before it really became a talking point with the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer in 1985. CFCs from aerosols (from memory) was not one of the big contributing factors, but the gases contained in fridges and freezers.
I completely missed the link to Deathlok’s timeline (ulp!)
Gerber approached these stories with a focus on the human aspect, looking at how joe public was effected living alongside super-heroes and super villains. Think of the father whose house was destroyed by the Hulk in Defenders# 21, his focus on Elena and poor social conditions in Defenders#22 and on the cops here in GS#5. The use of Jack Noriss was part of this, even though arguably not in line with Jack’s background. Kurt Busiek use this technique to great effect of course with Marvels and Astro City.
Gerber use/ non use of Defenders’ power and power levels depending on the plot circumstance continues in abundance: Doc goes from being a corner street/ dime store magician in Defenders#22, not being able to properly close off the threat of the Serpents, to being almost omnipotent in #26, taking the Captain America back to its proper time and space without too much effort.
I am sorry to hear about Val in modern times. I liked her. I thought Nighthawk had been killed off, so it is nice to know he at least is still around.
The artists: Both Heck and Sal started well, but the art appears to trail off later in both stories. This may be due to receiving plots late, as Gerber was know to have challenges meeting deadlines ( and this must have definitely been the case with GS#5 given the amount of assistance given from colleagues). I liked how Heck staged the mugging scenes, which was also aided by Mooney’s inks which make Heck’s art appear quite vibrant (in my eyes). By the way, did anyone else spot how much the Heck/ Esposito Doc Strange looks like Benedict Cumberbatch??
“By the way, did anyone else spot how much the Heck/ Esposito Doc Strange looks like Benedict Cumberbatch??”
Who would not exist for another year . . . .
I know that I’m late to the party (responding several days after the post), but Defenders #26 was easily my favorite of the series up to that point. Not only did my fourteen-year self find Gerber’s “future history” absolutely amazing – and frightening! – but I also thought the Guardians of the Galaxy were totally cool! Even better – we were going to spend the whole summer with the Defenders helping them wipe out those nasty Badoon! Life didn’t get better than this!
That was until those next issues came out, casting me further into despair with each issue. Yeah, it made sense to explore the gender issues of the Badoon and introduce the Blue Guy with messianic delusions. But did we really need a silly pre-Arcade guy with a game show? (This was all followed by Tapping Tommy – one of the worst fill-in’s ever! – and the uber-weird Headman arc that wore me out before finally concluding.)
I also hate to add, but despite every attempt otherwise, I could never get into the Guardian solo series either. Starhawk didn’t work for me. Major Astro became an oddball. And Al Milgrom’s art took on an unfinished or rough style that didn’t help.
But hey, for me as a kid, Defenders #26 clicked on all cylinders!
Thanks for the shout out Alan!
Re-reading your screen shots of this issue though, my thoughts today regarding Jack Norris go way beyond annoyance at continuity flaws and Jack’s character. Now I find his behavior deeply disturbing, which I, and likely nobody (nobody male anyway) thought in 1975, even if there was not a continuity flaw in his character.
Back in 1975 I thought (apart from the continuity issue) that Jack was just a stupid bonehead. He would have been much better served at trying to reach his goal by accepting what had happened and trying to get Barbara back from what had occurred instead of insisting that Val was still Barbara (not that he would have been successful, at least without getting a raving maniac back). However, looking at Jack’s behavior from the sensibilities of today, he seems like a perfect and realistic example of a husband or boyfriend who cannot accept who his wife or girlfriend–or ex-wife/ex-girlfriend–really is and what her wishes are and totally ignores them because he expects her to be what he wants her to be.
There are, sadly, countless examples in today’s world (and surely in 1975 but hidden) where a man continues to pursue a woman who he once had a relationship with even though the woman emphatically tells him that it’s over and that her feelings are different now. Although the situation with Val is literal regarding her being a totally different person, it is really no different than any person (female or male) ending a relationship because they want something different out of life now or that their feelings have changed about the person.
Rather than doing the emotionally mature and legally correct thing to do which is, after trying to talk things through, leave although terribly hurt, Jack tried to force himself on Val both gaslighting (continuing to call her Barbara and insisting that she is Barbara) and physically (forcibly kissing Val and grabbing her). Now, the great thing here of course is that while Val is at first understanding of Jack’s having a hard time dealing with what is here a unique situation (and there is no prior relationship between the two of them that has changed), she then quickly and forcefully shuts him down when it is clear that he is trying to possess her and deny who she is. Of course, unlike women without super-powers can deal with this in a way that women without super-powers could not, particularly in a “man’s world”.
Still, Jack Norris’ actions here after Val (and everyone else) has tried to explain that Val is not Barb and this should be clear to him (even if Jack is not considered to be familiar with the occult in this iteration) are unforgivable–and, even if they were married, no still means no.