Back in May we took a look at Defenders #26, which ended with our favorite superhero non-team deciding to join the time-traveling Guardians of the Galaxy back to their home century (the 31st, if you’ve forgotten) in the hope of liberating the people of planet Earth (and its colonies and allies) from the tyranny of the Brotherhood of Badoon. That crusade kicked into high gear with the next issue, Defenders #27, whose cover by Gil Kane and John Romita you can peruse at right.
On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t take too close a look at that cover, as its copy gives away a surprise that wasn’t actually supposed to be revealed until the middle of the next issue, #28. Nice going, editor Len Wein (whose culpability would revealed to the world a few months later, in the letters column of Defenders #30)!
But let’s move on now to our story, as brought to us by the regular Defenders creative team of writer Steve Gerber and artist Sal Buscema, joined herein by inker/finisher Vince Colletta:
Y’know, this plan of the Badoon leader, Droom, is really quite a good one… or at least it would have been, if he had in fact redirected those four teleportation beams to completely random coordinates in “the trackless void of sub-space“, instead of what the next few pages will reveal he’s actually done. But, of course, if the bad guy had done anything that smart, we wouldn’t have enough story to fill one issue of Defenders, let alone three, so…
No, no, no. How many times do we have to go through this, Doc? Jack Norris is not, in fact, “husband to the Valkyrie”, no matter how loudly, or how often, he shouts that he is. Jack’s wife was Barbara Norris, whose body was appropriated by the Enchantress back in issue #4 to serve as a physical vessel for the Valkyrie’s persona. But Val ain’t Barb, as she keeps telling everyone — evidently to no avail, even among her so-called best friends. Gaahhh.
By sheer weight of numbers, the Badoon females “slimy-haired lizard-things” bear Vance Astro down into the crimson mire. Meanwhile, Valkyrie’s attempts to defend herself result in her being struck by an unexplained wave of nausea…
Having freed himself, Astro comes to the aid of his companion, driving her attackers away with another burst of psychokinetic power…
Dr. Strange’s spell freezes Jack Norriss in mid-lunge, allowing the Sorcerer Supreme and the others to continue their discussion about how and where to search for their lost comrades. Turning to Martinex, Strange says, “I have an idea –!”
The inhabitants of this world may appear to be having a high old time, but both Yondu and the Hulk can sense that something’s more than a little off. As the latter plainly, but perceptively, puts it: “People laugh — dance — sing –! But people look stupid — not happy!”
Hearing a woman’s scream for help from somewhere nearby, Yondu and Hulk immediately rush to the rescue…
Hulk takes out this group of robots with a single punch, startling Yondu, who hadn’t quite grasped the extent of his companion’s strength. But even the Hulk proves to be no match for the robots’ “mother” — a much larger model who rolls up and accuses our heroes of killing her “babies”…
The mother-robot, Zinnia, explains to Emperor Goozot that the two strangers first disrupted the “death-festival”, then committed “infanticide”. Correctly surmising that Hulk and Yondu are “gifts, of a sort… from our allies… the Badoon“, Goozot decides that they’ll be entertaining “in the games“, and orders Zinnia to take them to “the studio“. Somehow, I don’t think that a futuristic, interstellar version of “Jeopardy!” is quite what he’s got in mind…
Meanwhile, back on board the good starship Captain America, Martinex’s instruments indicate that Dr. Strange’s computer-augmented cosmic consciousness has reached “the galaxy’s far rim” — which, let’s face it, is pretty darned impressive. Of course, this is the very moment that the vessel’s intruder alarm starts blaring, forcing Martinex and Charlie-27, and even Nighthawk, to abandon the still wired-up and entranced Doc, if only for the moment…
The story continues in Defenders #28, which features yet another cover (by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia, this time) that one could argue gives away some important information — specifically, the name of the mysterious blue-and-gold clad fellow who’d been introduced in the previous issue, as well as what he looks like in action — ahead of its in-story reveal. On the other hand, this one’s a bit more excusable, as one can see why Marvel would have wanted to go ahead and promote this new character while he was still, y’know, new.
Beyond the cover, “My Mother, the Badoon!” (groan) is another production of the Gerber-Buscema team (although Vince Colletta has for this installment passed the inkwell to two replacement embellishers, Giacoia and John Tartaglione). Leading off with a brief splash-page synopsis of events to date, our storytellers then quickly return to the action on the Captain America, rejoining Nighthawk, Charlie-27, and Martinex as they attempt to repel the invading Badoon and their human slaves, the “zoms” — the latter of whom, Nighthawk is dismayed to discover, won’t stay down no matter how hard he hits them…
Nighthawk is quickly overwhelmed by the zoms, and when the Badoon subsequently threaten to kill him on the spot, his comrades have no choice but to stand down; the aliens’ leader then demands that the trio take him and his underlings at once to the ship’s “mysterious new power source!” Speaking of whom…
Assured by their mysterious new companion that the Sisterhood of Badoon are by no means their enemies, Val and Vance can only gape as a boat carrying three fully-dressed Venesians arrives to escort them to an audience with the city’s queen…
Having satisfied himself that the two outworlders will indeed make fine contenders for his games, the emperor departs, taking his courtesans with him. One of them, however — the blonde standing in the foreground of the panel above — lingers for a moment. Finding herself curiously attracted to the Hulk, whose “hard and strong” physique is so different from the “flaccid and weak” bodies of the men she’s known, she lightly strokes his insensible cheek, telling him that while he may not be able to feel her touch now, at some point in the future he will… “if, as I expect, you survive…”
The host of “Super-Death Sweepstakes”, Mon-Tee, is undoubtedly based on Monty Hall (1921-2017), best known for his multi-decade tenure on the TV program Let’s Make a Deal; the “deadly game show” trope itself goes back at least as far science-fiction author Robert Scheckley’s 1958 short story, “The Prize of Peril”, though it was hardly as ubiquitous in 1975 as it sometimes seems to be today.
No, it’s not quite a stalemate, as Yondu’s robotic foe has one move left to play — a sharp-bladed “tongue” that emerges from its face and slowly extends towards the Centaurian’s throat. Mon-Tee turns practically giddy, exulting to his viewers, “You’re about to see a genuine death take place live on your screen!”
Queen Tolaria’s tale is unquestionably intriguing, but it leaves at least one major question unanswered, namely: what’s up with those savage members of the Sisterhood living out in the swamp? Perhaps we’re simply supposed to assume that this group is currently in the throes of their once-in-a-lifetime mating cycle, and are sitting out there in the marshes waiting for a similarly-situated set of Badoon males to be delivered by space ark; still, even if that is the case, it would have been nice of Steve Gerber to say so in his script.
Meanwhile, although Valkyrie and Vance Astro don’t seem to be interested in that particular matter, they are curious as to why the Sisterhood has never revolted against their male counterparts. Queen Tolaria’s response is that they have no reason to, since the current system has provided them with a peaceful existence that meets their material as well as cultural needs. As it turns out, the Sisterhood is completely unaware of what the Brotherhood has been up to for the last millennium or so as they’ve (in Vance’s words) “established an empire… plundered the galaxy… wantonly destroyed whole civilizations…!”
And so, for the first time in-story, the name of Starhawk is at last revealed. (Took ’em long enough, didn’t it?)
And so we come at last to the comic book whose title and issue number sits at the head of this post. I invite you to scroll back up and take another look at Defenders #29’s cover (which was probably pencilled by Ron Wilson, inked by Frank Giacoia, and may have included some alterations by Marvel art director John Romita) — if only to verify that it doesn’t appear to include any spoilers.
“Let My Planet Go!” finds Vince Colletta back on board as inker, joining Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema to bring this baby home. We’ll skip the opening splash page, a simple reprise of issue #28’s last panel, so as to get right to the new stuff starting on page 2…
Val rushes to release Nighthawk, Charlie-27, and Martinex, using her enchanted sword Dragonfang to shatter their metal bonds. Once Martinex has used his temperature-manipulation powers to freeze the Badoon troops in their tracks, the group skedaddles to what they hope will be at least a temporary refuge…
Unfortunately, there are a lot more robotic bugs on their way up the snowy slopes — or, as “Mister Green” himself puts it: “A whole army of bugs to kill Hulk and girl!!”
Following Charlie-27’s lead, the group of five heroes storms the gates of the Badoon High Command’s HQ — but though they readily smash their way inside, the odds remain very much against them. Meanwhile, back in “Snow Country”, the Hulk has this far been holding his own against the encroaching bug-army, but even so…
Did Emperor Goozot and the people of his bizarre world learn anything from their encounter with “Mister Blue” and “Mister Green”? Did their culture change in any way? You’ll have to decide that for yourself, since they’ve never been seen again in the Marvel Universe, from that day to this. It would seem that, once he’d made his satirical point, Steve Gerber wasn’t particularly interested in what might happen next, whether to Goozot’s unfortunate ex-wife (who never even gets a name), or to anyone else we’ve seen during the story’s “Super-Death Sweepstakes” sequences.
Meanwhile, back at Badoon HQ, Nighthawk and Vance have made their way to the communications center, where they find the aliens’ leader, Droom…
Could Doctor Strange have “zapped the Badoon off the face of the Earth” all on his lonesome, as Jack Norriss suggests? By having Doc respond in an equivocal manner, Steve Gerber sidesteps giving us a definite answer to that question. But the fact that it can be asked at all highlights just how formidable the Sorcerer Supreme has been through most of this story arc, beginning with his having used his magic at the end of Defenders #26 not only to launch the Captain America into space, but also to transport it and its inhabitants a thousand-plus years into the future; an impressive performance that contrasts wildly with his relative ineffectiveness in some other recent stories, such as Giant-Size Defenders #4, where his spells were stymied by the electricity emitted by a single mutated eel.
Your humble blogger has always been a big fan of magic-based superheroes (along with Doc Strange, my favorites include the Spectre, the Phantom Stranger, and Dr. Fate), enjoying them in solo action as well as in a super-team setting. I’ve mostly managed to ignore (if not refute) the argument that since such characters are able to do as much — or as little — as a writer may require of them in any given story, it’s hard to feel fully invested in their adventures. Having said that, I can definitely get how the inconsistent handling of a hero’s abilities and limitations, as exemplified by Gerber’s approach to Stephen Strange in this run of Defenders issues, might stick in the craws of some readers.
Gerber has already set up an intriguing mystery with Starhawk, what with the three kids and the silent woman on the viewscreen, not to mention the whole “one who knows” shtick — and now, in the story’s last three pages, he’s significantly upped the ante by making the “something” that Dr. Strange and Jack Norriss have both seen in Starhawk the justification for having the Defenders bail on the Earth-liberating mission that this whole storyline has supposedly been all about. Going forward, would our author be able to provide an answer to the enigma of Starhawk that paid off this portentous but inconclusive finale? We’d have to wait at least until November, and the debut of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s new ongoing feature in Marvel Presents #3, before we could even begin to find out.
Viewed as a standalone story arc, the Defenders’ multi-part team-up with the Guardians is entertaining enough, but it’s hardly their finest moment, especially in the context of Steve Gerber’s run. As we’ve already touched on, a huge amount of the action in these three issues is derived from Droom’s seemingly arbitrary decision to send the two teleporting pairs of heroes to the “Super Death Sweepstakes” planet and the world of the Sisterhood of Badoon, rather than to certain death in the airless vacuum of space. And while the satirical goings-on on the former world are diverting, and the exploration of the Badoon’s sexually segregated society on the latter intriguing, neither ultimately has any real bearing on how the Defenders and Guardians achieve their goals (to the extent that they actually do, that is). In the end, they’re just a way to fill pages. And they do that entertainingly enough, as I’ve already acknowledged; still, it’s hard not to feel that this story could have been just a bit more than that.
But we’ll put all that in the rearview mirror, as we look ahead to the proper kickoff of the definitive storyline of Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema’s classic Defenders run — though we’ll have to wait a couple of months, as the next issue of the series, #30, featured a “Dreaded Deadline Doom” mandated fill-in, instead. For more about that story, I happily direct you to this blog post by Tom Brevoort, who appears to have bravely resolved to write about every comic book he acquired growing up, not just the good ones. So, check that out, and I’ll see you back here in October for “Nighthawk’s Brain!”
Overall, I enjoyed this little 5-part epic (of which I missed the first chapter in the Giant-Size mag). I was a touch disappointed that Hulk was prevented from knocking “Fat Faces’s” block off – he was just the sort of loathsome jerk I wouldn’t mind seeing get his just desserts, although normally I’m adverse to seeing gore. i got the sense Gerber was having some fun with this, even if it deviated from telling a more stream-lined story, but my 13-year-old self didn’t mind back in 1975. I also found the background tale of the Badoon sexual practices rather intriguing and unique for a mainstream comic of the 1970s to even deal with at all. In retrospect, the ending seemed rather abrupt but understandably so as Gerber clearly wanted to move on to other things for both the Defenders and the Guardians of the Galaxy, to the extent of ending the war against the Badoons within the first few pages of the first issues of their upcoming series.
And back in the then present era, Gerber would be going even deeper into bizarreness and places where no comics writer had gone before in the next Defenders epic. Looking forward to your take on those issues as the time comes.
It occurs to me it’s one of the very few times back then Hulk was shown trying to kill someone directly, rather than “Hulk will smash TV studio down around your ears.” And yes, in this case it’s entertaining.
Thanks Alan for another comprehensive post.
Defenders #29 was the finale of a terrific four issue storyline, coming hot on the heels of the Sons of the Serpent four-part classic in #22-25. Any appearance of the real Guardians of the Galaxy was a treat during that era and the previous issue had introduced the intriguingly asexual Starhawk/Aleta to flesh out the team.
Gerber’s books were always cutting edge and idiosyncratic, regardless of how mainstream they were. Indeed, the Gerber/Buscema run represents everything I loved about Marvel in the 70s.
Overall, Defenders #1-41 are just about perfect in my eyes, with the notable exception of the truly terrible aberration that was #30, as you mention above. After #41, it all went off the rails for Marvel’s foremost non-team.
Slight correction:
The century of the Guardians of the Galaxy is the 31st, not the 30th.
Tapping Tommy insisted that I point this out. (“The Wizard and I” think that cinematic musicals may be enjoying a renaissance. Is that Wicked good, or what?)
My understanding is that the movie of WICKED was released in Boston under the title VERY.
Whoops! The 31st it is, indeed. Thanks for the catch, A.S. Fixed now!
Hey, Alan,
In retrospect, I see this arc (which I do NOT rank among Gerber’s finest hours on the book – sorry!) as Steve’s attempt to do a big, Roy Thomas-style ambitious multipart multiWORLD saga, even down to some Thomasian (?) continuity explanation of the future timeline of the Marvel Universe incorporating Deathlok, Killraven, and the Guardians. Gerber’s strengths, to me, were social commentary/satire and character interaction, and you got moments of that throughout. But as far as the whole thing hanging together the way that Thomas or Steve Englehart would do it – close, but no Kree-Lar.
I had forgotten that DEFENDERS #30 was a fill-in. At some point, I was wondering if you would address (of if you HAVE addressed in the past) the Dreaded Deadline Doom and why it plagued Marvel so much in this era. I always put it down to several factors, not the least of which was the issue of newsstand distribution at the time being absolutely rigid. This is why you could set your calendar by what books came out when (TOMB OF DRACULA and DAREDEVIL first week of the month, CAPTAIN AMERICA and DR. STRANGE and SPIDER-MAN second week, AVENGERS and DEFENDERS third week, and so on). In those days before direct sales and comic book shops, newsstand sales were everything, and you had to get those books out – or else.
Too, the strict adherence to the Marvel style (plot, then pencils and then script) meant that there was no way a writer could work too far ahead on a book – submitting plots early maybe, but not the scripts that HAD to be done after the pencils. And since those were the pre-Internet days, they were at the mercy of mail delivery, so ANY delay, even of a day or two, could be a disaster. Couple that with the fact that Marvel stories – continued tales, subplots, character arcs – generally followed a tight order, so it meant that any fill-in was a noticeable disruption. It wasn’t the same at DC, which did NOT rely so much on those things.
Nowadays, of course, books being late are met with a shrug, so you have BATMAN #162 and 163 coming out AFTER the new BATMAN #1 – to say nothing of five-month gaps between the issues of a miniseries. (Looking at you, BATMAN: OFF-WORLD.)
Anyway, thanks for revisiting this arc, Alan. Though not my favorite, there WERE entertaining parts of it, and it helped to set up the first GUARDIANS series, so there’s that.
Bill, the reasons for Marvel’s recurring troubles with deadlines during this period were outlined by Tom Brevoort in the blog post to which Alan provided a link above – basically the editorial structure was unchanged from the early ‘60s, when Marvel was putting out eight books a month, all supervised by Stan Lee. By the mid ‘70s, that had become 40 or 50 books a month, and Lee’s successors couldn’t possibly cope.
Delaying an issue for a month simply wasn’t an option, because of the swingeing charges the printer would levy for missing a press slot. They had to be given something to print, even if it was 17 pages of recipes or gardening tips.
Sean Howe’s book, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, covers this chaotic period vividly and entertainingly. The increased creative freedom that resulted from the impossibility of close editorial oversight of a bunch of hippies and stoners produced some remarkable comics, but really it’s something of a miracle that any comics came out at all.
The impossibility of each month’s nominal Editor-in-Chief overseeing the entire line, and the practice of allowing most writers to edit themselves, whether overtly or in a de facto manner, was a double-edged sword. It produced a good bit of dreck, a fair number of idiosnycratic masterworks (or, at the very least, fascinating failures), as well as work like this Defenders run we’re talking about, where, for better or for worse,Steve Gerber was allowed to turn a B-list Marvel superhero team book into a vehicle for his meditations on the state of society in the 1970s. Marvel’s ‘60s and ‘80s output was objectively better, I’d say, but its ‘70s output was more interesting. Even a train wreck can be interesting, and the best of what made it out of the House of Ideas in the ‘70s was far better than a train wreck.
I own Silver Surfer no. 2 and loved John Buscema’s and Joe Sinnott’s portrayal of the Badoon.
As for cover dated November 1975 comics material, I was enjoying some of my favorite Big Two creators (Adams, Toth, Wrightson, Wood, etc.) and some top talent from Spain over at Warren:
https://archive.org/details/warrencreepy-075/
https://archive.org/details/eerie_magazine_070
I do own two Marvel comics, cover dated November 1975, but purchased them after that time: Werewolf by Night no. 35 and Captain Marvel no. 41. Berni Wrightson inked Starlin’s Werewolf cover, and did some uncredited partial inks within CM 41 (besides inking the cover to no. 43).
I loved the Defenders and overall, I enjoyed this arc, but this issue was definitely a weak point for me, primarily because the whole thing felt rushed. Gerber shunted/teleported/portaled/ubered our heroes instantaneously from one location to the other in a mad rush to have things resolved and our heroes back on Earth by the last page. The only part that didn’t feel rushed was the Sisterhood segment, as though Gerber actually felt like he had something to say here and didn’t want to hurry through it like he was everything else. As a result, the portion of the story that featured the Sisterhood seemed the most thought-out and entertaining part of the issue. Once we get to the end, Gerber is in such a hell-bent hurry to get the Defenders home, he offers to explanation to the Guardians as to why they’re abandoning them and the whole thing with Starhawk gets handwaved away until Gerber has time to deal with it down the line. This issue could have easily been stretched out to comfortably take two issues to tell, but Gerber’s “seat of his pants” story-telling style got him in trouble, again. Good story. Lousy execution.
Oh, and can I tell you how freakin’ tired I am of Jack Norris at this point? Dude, your wife, for all practical purposes, is dead. The magical construct currently using her body has no interest in you whatsoever. Read the room, pal! Whereas he may have rushed the story-telling in an issue or two like he did this one, Gerber really drug the Jack Norris plotline out way too far and for no good reason. Jack definitely overstayed his welcome. Which I will not do. Thanks for a great post, Alan! See you all in a week.
Was a thing in the 1970s for writers to add a really obnoxious, irritating character as a part of the team or supporting cast of team books, in particular. Actually, that goes back to the Silver Age, with JJJ in ASM being the uber-example and a key part of the Spider-Man mythos, but nevertheless very irritatingly obnoxious. Hawkeye may be regarded as filling that function in the Kooky Quartet era. And there was Major Talbot introduced by Ditko during his run in Tales to Astonish. Mantis served that function in much of Englehart’s Avengers run, while Peter Gyrich came later in Shooter’s. Then there was Dollar Bill in Kraft’s run on the Defenders. I’m sure there are many other examples.
Getting back to Norris, he was specifically an irritant to Valkyrie and a constant reminder of the lost human persona of the body she inhabited. But clearly Jack also very much rubbed Kyle the wrong way, maybe in part because they had some similar negative personality traits as both had willingly gone along with some very evil activities, Kyle with the Grandmaster, and Jack had gotten Barbara involved with the Cult of the Undying Ones or Nameless One, although later shown to have under the machinations of Barbara’s mother, Celeste to regain her youth and beauty after being horribly disfigured in a car crash. Strangely, Gerber rarely referred to Norris’ involvement in that and the sacrifice of Barbara to be mated with the supernatural creature that wound up shattering her sanity. Norris had a lot to feel guilty about. Gerber wrote Norris as a basically “normal” guy out of his depth with all the bizarre events his “wife” got involved in with the Defenders, but his own backstory, as evidenced by his much earlier appearances in the Hulk series (which I didn’t read until years later) was hardly normal, even by the standards of inhabitants of the Marvel universe! I think it may have gone a ways to make Norris seem less irritating to readers if Gerber had Norris show any shame for his role in the destruction of Barbara’s persona. As it was, while Gerber tried to give Norris a bit of nobility and purpose with this closing chapter of the Guardians of the Galaxy storyline, he still mostly came off as a jerk. But that hardly put me off enjoying the stories.
The Fantastic Four got into the act as well, with their landlord Mr. Collins. (Compared to Daredevil, whose landlord turned out to be the Masked Marauder, they got off lightly!)
To return to Steve Gerber:
I’ll be interested in following the commentary on the “Nighthawk’s Brain” sequence all the more after your comment, Alan, on Gerber making a point and then not following up on it.
If you want to be pretentious (and I all too often do..), he’s a lot like Moliere in his comedies: he makes the point (this is a miser…this is a religious hypocrite…this is a hypochondriac..) and then he abruptly wraps things up, usually very artificially. (Not so with the misanthropic Alceste, but that’s allowed to end on an unhappy note.)
For what it’s worth:
While Jack Norris became Jack Norriss, a lot of us seem to have trouble bringing in that second “s.” Contrast that with Sarah Grey, who became Sara Grey-Bailey…
I wish I could write an essay about this topic as well thought-out and comprehensive as what Alan has written, but I don’t have the time to do so, so I’ll offer my shallower thoughts. Off the top of my head, I”d say that, along with Don McGregor and Doug Moench, Steve Gerber is one of my three favorite Marvel writers of this era. I’m probably forgetting some other worthy names, but those are the three that first come to mind as the most interesting, quirky scripting talents of this “anything goes” period for Marvel before Jim Shooter was brought in to make the trains run on time.
Having said that, after reading through Alan’s recap of these three issues of the Defenders, I wonder why Gerber even bothered to write superhero comics at all. I’d agree with Fred’s first comment above that Gerber’s examination of the sexual mores of the Badoon is by far the most interesting thing about this plotline, followed by the satire on Monte Haul and TV game shows, but, as Fred notes, it’s kind of bizarre that the topic of the Badoon men’s abuse of their women is touched on at all in a ‘70s superhero comic. I read this bit of the story as a sort of inchoate commentary on the women’s lib movement – and the backlash to it, elsewhere symbolized by the likes of, say, Archie Bunker. This is the kind of thing Gerber was good at, but I think this sort of social commentary and satire tended to work better in Howard the Duck, or even the Man-Thing books, than it did in a straight superhero book like the Defenders.
To the superheroic side of the equation, I’ve been reading Marvel books on and off since 1975, and I found the story of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Starhawk? and the Badoon utterly baffling. I wonder what eight-year-old me would have made of this in 1975? I guess I read a lot of books like this, where you were dropped into the middle of a story and into the middle of years or decades of continuity, and kind of expected to sort it all out without the Internet or blogs like this one or any reference books or any hint as to what had gone before without the occasional editorial note from Smilin’ Stan or Rascally Roy to tell you that in Silver Surfer #2, which you had no way of reading, the Badoon had first tried to conquer Earth. To me, this little run of the Defenders sums up the vibe of the title as I remember it, which was a random selection of C- and D-list Marvel characters thrown into a blender each month. Not to say that that couldn’t be entertaining, but it could also be confusing.
Sal Buscema and Vince Colletta’s art here strikes me as the epitome of average, workmanlike product. I think Sal could be brilliant at times, as when he inked his brother on Silver Surfer #4, one of the best-looking books Marvel ever produced, but pretty clearly Marvel came to value Sal as a penciler who could crank out three titles a month while avoiding the Dreaded Deadline Doom, a pace which was not conducive to Sal producing idiosyncratic work like that of Bullpen peers such as Jim Starlin, Paul Gulacy, or P. Craig Russell. And yet … Sal’s splash page of the “bacchanal” on whatever planet our heroes got teleported is nearly as bonkers as anything those other guys drew. I have to give Sal credit for doing his best to bring Gerber’s quirky visions to life. One presumes that this team did *not* use the Marvel Method, but that Gerber gave Sal detailed scripts that Sal did his best to illustrate. Finally, after our recent discussion of Mike Grell’s scantily-clad women in the Warlord, it’s interesting to see Sal draw some bikini girls of his own on whatever planet Hulk was sent to to fight in the Hunger Games. Sexiness was in the air in the ‘70s, and even if Sal Buscema wasn’t as fully invested in it as Mike Grell, he still gave it the old college try.
John, Gerber DID use Marvel Method on all his books at this time. I saw him at a couple of conventions around this time, and he cheerfully admitted he would have a hard time with full scripts. It’s possible some of his plot descriptions were quite detailed.
I wonder how (and if) he liked the moniker Steve “Baby” Gerber.
.. as he was sometimes credited at Marvel.
I thought Sal did a great job on that “Bacchanal” scene too! Sal was pretty much middle of the road for me. He never drew anything that made me feel a sense of awe, as with some of the best work of Starlin, Brunner, Gulacy, Windsor-Smith or even big brother John Buscema, but still it usually fit the story well enough. Sometimes he clearly seemed to be phoning it in, or just doing layouts without anyone else doing sufficient embellishment over them. Other times, he seemed much more inspired, and if he did have a great embellisher/inker, such as Klaus Jansen, the overall work looked at least very good.
Oh, and I do sort of wish Gerber had followed up on that murderous game world. Doesn’t appear things would have gone very well for Gazoot’s ex-wife after Hulk & Yondu were zapped out of that scene. Maybe Gerber would have revisited that place in his Guardians of the Galaxy series if that had lasted longer. A bit like Kirby, Gerber seemed to have more story ideas floating in his head than he knew what to do with or could get down in his published work.
That “Bacchanal” scene is just one of many examples in Gerber’s work where he portrays drunkenness as an object of disgust. I wonder why it’s such a recurring motif.
I don’t know if Gerber had any bad personal experiences regarding alcoholism, but both of my parents were alcoholics. My mother did give it up entirely after spending a month in the hospital to overcome alcoholism when she was 42. Dad, who loved hanging out in bars so much that he got a bartending license to get paid for it (a part time job for him while he was still in the Navy), eventually cut down on his own (he’s 85 now, and only rarely drinks alcoholic beverages these days).
I saw both when they were very drunk multiple times during my childhood, and although I overindulged a few times myself, enough to wind up hugging the porcelain throne and feeling very miserable. I drank so rarely that I never developed a strong tolerance for it and three beers within one night was enough to get me sick. My father and stepfather could put away six-packs within an hour without feeling any negative effects. Drinking just never became a habit for me, and for the last decade or so, I’ve only indulged in alcoholic drinks about once every few months or so, usually while visiting with friends or relatives. And I’ve been much more strict about keeping to my limit, especially if I know I’ll have to drive home that same night.
I was lucky: drinking makes me numb, which I hate, so I never found any fun in it. A glass of wine or champagne once in a while, that’s it.
And this was four years before the Iron Man “Demon in a Bottle” storyline where Tony Stark plunged into alcoholism.
Pulling my copy of the Penguin Classics compilation of the Avengers off the shelf confirms my memory that, very early in Sal’s career, his artwork was often more detailed, more polished, and more reminiscent of that his brother John. I’m looking at the reprint of Avengers #71 from late 1969 in that collection, where Sal’s pencils were inked by Sam Grainger, and, if I couldn’t read the credits, I might think it was another issue from that period drawn by John Buscema. As I said above, on Silver Surfer #4, Sal did an absolutely stellar inking job over his brother’s pencils. But I do think that later, Sal came to phone it in to some degree, or, put another way, that Marvel came to value Sal as a workhorse who could lay out three or even four books a month at at time when the Dreaded Deadline Doom was a real problem for the company. I’m sure Sal appreciated the work and the money, but that that work and money came at the expense of giving it 100% on every page. I’m speculating here, and maybe someone who knows more about the history of this period at Marvel could correct me if I’m wrong. As I’ve said elsewhere, I personally never liked Klaus Janson’s inks over Sal’s pencils, because I think Janson had a very distinct style that overpowered Sal’s own style, and that this was true for most pencilers whose work Janson inked. Frank Miller and Klaus Janson were of course a legendary pairing, but I don’t think that Janson’s style meshed well with that of many other pencilers. I’m not sure who the best inker for Sal was – as I noted above, he and Sam Grainger make a good team on that issue of the Avengers from 1969, but I suspect that part of that is down to Sal putting more time and effort and detail into the pencils, whereas in the ‘70s or ‘80s Sal was often just cranking out rougher layouts. I have seen photocopies of some of Sal’s tighter pencils that did suggest to me that he was often poorly served by his inkers. I hate to dump on Vince Colletta, who had his faults, to be sure, but has been turned into a whipping boy among comics fandom to a greater degree than he deserves, but, having said that, apart from maybe the “bacchanal” page in the issue we’re discussing here, Colletta pretty clearly brought his usual “will this do?/gotta meet this deadline” approach to the proceedings, but, again, as is true of Sal, hitting deadlines was a valuable skill that Colletta brought to the table. Even with the Dreaded Deadline Doom and the frequent need for reprints in the ‘70s, I’m often amazed that any writers and artists ever hit any deadlines at all, as cranking out even 17 pages of art a month strikes me as a pretty brutal grind, and, as someone noted above, in an era before the Internet, when pages presumably often had to be mailed between pencilers, inkers, and letterers, it’s hard to believe the creators at Marvel and DC consistently hit as many deadlines as they did.
Yes, not knowing the players and not having a scorecard was life for a comics fan in that era. I remember.
Strangely enough I feel much the same about comics now (https://atomicjunkshop.com/i-did-not-care-at-all-how-this-strange-state-of-affairs-had-come-to-pass/)
I read your post, and I agree: the best way to deal with the overwhelming mess of continuity and serial reboots is to roll with it. Is the book I am reading right now enjoyable? If so, that’s enough for me. But you mention the example of the JLA fighting Dr. Destiny, and learning, through an editor’s note, I presume, that they had fought Dr. Destiny twice before, but having no way to read about those earlier meetings. As I’ve said elsewhere, to me, that was always one of the funniest things about reading comics as a kid in the ‘70s – the editors would so often drop a footnote into the proceedings directing me to refer back to a back issue from five years ago that was nearly impossible for me to find or read. Of course I was able to find *some* back issues and piece together some of the history of the Marvel and DC universes, but, before the Internet, and before I was old enough to drive to comic book shops, finding a specific back issue was like finding a needle in a haystack.
The inability to find those old issues didn’t bother me. And I was over the moon when one was reprinted, like the Dr. Destiny debut in the first JLA annual.
In the 1960s and 1970s, DC Comics editors and scripters often looked to E. Nelson Bridwell for help with character continuity. At Marvel I suspect it was almost solely Stan Lee in the 1960s, with Roy Thomas coming along in the late ’60s and into the ’70s.
Has any hero squandered their potential as quickly as Starhawk? This was him at his best. They’d quickly kill his kids and make his wife hate him and him be pretty much the biggest asshole of his century before sending him on the circular lifetime trope.
I was never really into Gerber’s run, in big part because of his handling of Valkyrie (like the women are her kryptonite used in this arc), though I can appreciate it more now (NOT Jack Norris)— but also his handling of Dr. Strange’s powers annoys me now. Of course it’s not just mages who get the “whatever the writer wants their powers to be” treatment. Spider-sense has been insanely inconsistent even during the original Ditko run, where it can do things like spot a criminal’s lair even when he’s not in it, or sense someone’s a crook even when they’re not posing any threat to Peter.
As others above have said, this wasn’t a great arc — the alien party planet here reminds me of the world the Grandmaster creates instantly in Giant-Size Defenders, existing purely for a fight scene. And the Badoon backstory feels insanely complicated — like Englehart sketching out the history of the Kree-Skrull rivalry except it’s within the same species and comes off ridiculous (to me, anyway). Part of that may be that the Badoon were never as interesting as the Kree or the Skrulls.
Obviously it did well enough to land the Guardians their own series though.
I don’t find the Badoon very interesting, either, although I do find it interesting that a throwaway alien race of the month introduced in Silver Surfer #2 (do I have that right?) were picked up on and fleshed out by Steve Gerber to the degree we see here. And presumably by other creators as well – I haven’t read every Marvel comic. But it is interesting to me how the Marvel mythos is bigger than any one creator, even bigger than Jack Kirby, but rather is the work of many hands.
I enjoyed these issues back then and still do. The idea of the Sisterhood of the Badoon was unexpected and interesting. I wonder how long Starhawk was hanging around their homeworld waiting for the Defenders to show up and get the ball rolling.
Really was interested in learning more about the one who knows. Reminded me of Mar-Vell, with the solar energy and some kind of cosmic awareness.
I liked Nighthawk’s joke about the Hulk relating to another two legged mack truck and Charlie’s response.
I had hoped that Gerber would use Namorita and Wundarr here. Nita wasn’t being used anywhere and she got along well with Val back in issue 5 and it would have been interesting to see Hulk dealing with another powerful man child.
My younger self probably wouldn’t have cared that much but I would describe Sal B as one of those “functional” artists. Rarely remarkable but usually run of the (printer deadline) mill and got the story told . Don’t think this issue was one of his finest hours but then with Coletta inking no surprise eg the faces are barely scratched in .
Also never liked the Badoon as villains but the female Badoon here did remind of the salt vampire from the first Star trek run, which I found really scary as a kid.
Slight confession . For years back then, I was never sure if Sal was short for Sally and they were bro/sister siblings like the Severins. Though Sal is still with us at time of writing at 89!
He is a “Silvio” (although I had assumed he was a “Salvatore”) . . . .
I liked this arc. I liked Gerber’s Defenders but Mantlo’s “Tapping Tommy” story made me drop the book . . . . his csript for Amazing Adventures @ 33 had the same effect on Killraven . . . .
Since the Baddon are Reptilia morphs, it makes sense that things like sexual dimorphism might be very different than with Humans or other Mammalia-morphs.
Of course. to have the energy to develop intelligence, the Baddon would have to develop endothermy like certain members of the Crown Clade of Reptilia (the Archosaurs), like birds and other dinosaurs..
Since all of this was published before popular studies of emerging theories in paleontology (like The Dinosaur Heresies) were widely published. Gerber did pretty well on science as a jumping off point for fiction here . . . .
Of course, since alien “Lizards” are not from the same Clade as Reptiles, no common ancestors, there could be substantial differences and any similarities might be only parallel evolution.
I always had the impression that Gerber was never a happy man, but I always sensed he was at least a thoughtful one with broad interests. “We must imagine Sisyphus happy”
I know next to nothing about Steve Gerber’s private life, but one gets the sense that writing made him happy.
This 1975 audio interview will let you hear not only Steve Gerber’s words, but his inflections:
https://youtu.be/YU4-R2nIoYo?feature=shared
You can also read online an interview from 1978 with SG conducted by Gary Groth of the Comics Journal, and another from 1997.
The other night I happened to read an interview with Jim Shooter from The Comics Journal #60, in which Shooter describes the chaos of the mid-‘70s at Marvel as follows:
“At one point, I think Marvel had more than 50 regular comics and a line of black-and-white [magazines]? So what basically happened was that everyone writing the stuff suddenly became a de facto writer/editor, because there just wasn’t anyone to look at the stuff. There was no editing at all – not even self-editing in many cases. It wasn’t even like Stan was reading all this stuff. It was just chaos … When you have a situation like that where you give a whole group of creative people total freedom … you’re going to … get a few things which are just magnificent … and then you’re going to get 95% trash. Maybe in that 95% trash, 50% of it is going to be * almost* wonderful stuff that needed a little [editorial] help, but didn’t get it.”
I’d place Gerber’s Defenders in that group of ‘70s Marvel books Shooter talks about that were almost wonderful, but I’d disagree with Shooter’s implicit conclusion that he or another strong editor could have fixed Gerber’s Defenders and made it better. Gerber’s Defenders was great in its own messy way precisely because, due to the lack of adult supervision at Marvel at the time, Gerber was given total freedom to devote half an issue to the sexual politics of the Badoon, or to feature the Elf with a Gun, and to explore all the other wacky tangents he indulged in. This run of Defenders isn’t perfect, but sometimes a failed experiment can be more interesting than a perfectly realized vision.
As probably everyone here knows, Marvel tried to flood the market in the mid ’70s. Even its increased magazine output was enough, along with the Wareen magazines, to put Skywald (Psycho and Nightmare magazines) out of business in the U.S. DC followed suit, countering Marvel with a rapid expansion of its comics line, and the implosion of ’78 was the result, followed by the expulsion of publisher Carmine Infantino.
TwoMorrows’ book on the DC Implosion points out Marvel canceled just as many books as DC in that era. However as they’d never announced anything equivalent to the DC Explosion it didn’t attract as much attention.
The fact that Carmine was given one hour to clear out his office desk while supervised by a security guard and replaced by Jenette Kahn is what made the DC implosion far more newsworthy.
If Marvel had dumped Stan Lee it would have been made far bigger headlines. Instead, Stan was scripting the Spider-Man newspaper strip, wrote the Silver Surfer graphic novel (in 1978) drawn by Kirby & Sinnott, and was on the move with getting Marvel animation up and running.
It was newsworthy regardless of Infantino’s departure. I knew nothing about the circumstances of his leaving — I wasn’t plugged into fandom or industry gossip — but the disappearance of all those promised titles was obvious to anyone reading DC at the time.
Well, Infantino was fired in early 1976 and the Implosion happened in the Spring of 1978, so some time passed.
Jenette Kahn undid two of Carmine Infantino’s decisions: 1) she took Mike Grell’s Warlord off hiatus; and 2) she sought to bring back Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. (Gerry Conway’s attempt to re-launch Mr. Miracle and the New Gods in First Issue Special was one of the first books under her auspices.)
Carmine Infantino had probably been thinking about this IP before his departure. One of his last acts was rejecting Gerry Conway’s first draft on Secret Society of Supervillains, which was rooted in the Fourth World.
It seemed to me that the ERB books and the Kirby books were central to what did not work during Infantino’s tenure.
He made big “gets” . . . but had no real idea how to sell them.
Kubert’s Tarzan was beautifully drawn and affectingly written, but it was no longer the draw it had been in the days of the Sol Lesser Matinees. I think it was smart yo buy the other ENB IP . . . but none of that sold like it did back in the 1963-;65 “Burroughs Boom,”
Kirby was a genius of the medium and Fourth World was his masterpiece but Kirby should have had a more formal “LNO” from “Big DC” to translate for and orient the master. (Sending E. Nelson Bridwell to California might have been a start.)
Infantino’s tenure as Publisher/Editorial Director was fruitful without accomplishing its mission . . . .
After SSOV dropped the New Gods angle in #4 (Manhunter blows up Darkseid!), someone wrote in and complained. The response was that a cool new book like SSOV should do better than revive a miserable flop like the Fourth World books. Illuminating to DC’s view of the material at the time, but man it has not aged well.
Yes, but Carmine had expanded DC’s line quite a bit to counter Marvel’s glut of the market. You are correct that he had left two years before the implosion, but I had never heard anyone taking Jenette Kahn to task over it. As you know, she enjoyed a very long, successful tenure at DC after that.
I do believe that the Limited Collectors Editions died because of the implosion. The last one was published in 1978.
I remember one of the few comics-columnists I read in that decade blaming her as the prime mover for the Explosion though I’m not sure how reliable he was (he stated with confidence that Inside Sources assured him Warners would never let her attempt anything so ambitious).
Trivia note, Neil Adams and Jeanette Kahn, according to the book I mentioned, dated for a while.
Jenette Kahn’s “Explosion” was more than an expanded number of books, it was going to a 25 page book with a USD 00.50 price tag.
DC went back to that format within two years and Marvel followed if memory serves.
Additionally, prior to the “Explosion” (and “Implosion”). Kahn canned a few books launched by Infantino during his tenure (Shazam, Freedom Fighters, Metal Men, Super Team Family, SSoSV, etc.) and her own (Challengers of the Unknown).
Kahn also on-boarded Dick Giordano, at first as an editor and later as Executive Editor.
In 1970. Infantino had fired Giordano as an Editor but Kahn and Giordano brought Infantino back as an artist.
Four years ago, Roku put out a televised version of Reed Tucker’s “Slugfest” book. Each episode was a short, less than ten-minute take, on a topic related to the competition between Marvel and D.C.
Episode six, “Cancelled Comics Cavalcade”, deals with the D.C. Explosion and Implosion. While the episode has actors playing real people, some of the real people are interviewed, including Jeanette Khan herself. Khan takes the blame for both explosion and the implosion.
Here is the episode: https://therokuchannel.roku.com/watch/1c2d60f3fffe535bbab4e2b8ef4b72c0
In addition to Marvel not having announced an “explosion” prior to cancelling titles en masse, no one at Marvel lost their jobs as a result of the cutback, to the best of my knowledge. That’s in contrast with the DC Implosion, where at least two editors were put out of work (Larry Hama and Al Milgrom — both of whom returned to Marvel soon thereafter).
Did you buy any of those Limited Collectors Editions when they were first published, Alan? Around this time 50 years ago the Dick Tracy collection of WWII era strips about his nemesis Flattop was reprinted by DC. Chester Gould began Dick Tracy in 1931 and drew it (with some assistants in his latter years) until the end of 1977 when he retired.
I bought several LCEs, including the Bible one I wrote about a few months ago. Didn’t buy the Dick Tracy one, however.
I had several of those editions, but not the Dick Tracy one. Having read more Classic Dick Tracy since, I wish I had.
Given Hama’s work on GI Joe, that was a very lucky break for Marvel.
I loved Englehart’s brief run though the idea Highfather gave Scott Free up because he needed toughening up on Apokalips is creepy as shit (“Son, I sent you into the worst place in the universe to be abused by Granny Goodness because you needed it.”).
Gerbert’s was good in its own right but it felt off – discordant with my idea of Scott Free. I don’t remember exactly how but it didn’t work for me.
It was clearly NOT where Jenette Kahn was headed, where she revived both New Gods and Mister Miracle in the Spring of 1977,
Mr. Miracle written by Englehart and drawn by Marshall Rogers (fresh off of Detective Comics and the Hugo Strange story . . . .
(The book was continued by Gerber, Golden & Heath. )
Just a quick note on the chaos of Marvel in 75: the vast majority of what was published was brilliant in my opinion, streets ahead of DC ( except for the Kirby titles), and led by inspired writers coming up with interesting and entertaining storylines: Englehart, Gerber, McGregor, Moench and Thomas ( especially as editor on black & whites Savage Sword, Kull and Unknown Worlds) . Isabella produced some good work ( especially when teamed with Robbins), Claremont was showing promise ( on War is Hell) and Kraft made Man-Wolf interesting, as did Conway on Spidey. Wolfman on Tomb of Dracula was outstanding.
I began to loose interest in Marvel once Shooter took over. That era produced dull comics, although with a few noteworthy exceptions. A pity as I thought Shooter a good writer ( LSH, Avengers). His controller type style as editor may have been good administratively, but did not lead to much creativity in the workplace. In my opinion.
Re Marvel cancellations: the 70s were a hard time economically ( oil shocks, inflation, plus here in Europe lots of terrorism) and comics struggled in a shrinking market with tv becoming ever more prevalent. So yes, comics were not as popular as they once were. But some comics were not cancelled because of poor sales. I refer to the editorial commentary in Creatures on the Loose #37, where the reason given for cancellation was that after 30 plus issues it was difficult to get distributors to order more copies…so ‘sticky’ sales rather than poor sales. To have the chance to increase sales a new title was needed with a higher print run. This situation was different to DC where new titles would be cancelled on half-baked data or no data at all.
This Defenders 4 parter ( 5 with the GS#5) was a bit of a curate’s egg, as many have commented. But as an 11 year old I was fascinated by the sisterhood, and by Starhawk.
When Marvel canceled its Golem in Strange Tales after three issues they admitted it was because nobody knew what the hell they were doing — should the series be human interest, slam-bang action, dark horror? So they pulled the plug. I found them being open about it pleasantly refreshing.
I’m not as down on the Jim Shooter era as you are – it’s hard to argue with the Byrne/Claremont X-Men and the Frank Miller Daredevil, although maybe those runs would have happened under any editor-in-chief at the time, but I do love the chaos and craziness of 1972-75 Marvel. From Conan to Dracula to Swamp Thing to Killraven to Deathlok to Morbius to Son of Satan to many, many other titles, they threw a lot of offbeat stuff at the wall, and a lot of it stuck. And I do like McGregor, Gerber, Robbins and a lot of the quirkier creators whom Shooter probably didn’t like for various reasons.