Back in April we looked at Captain Marvel #39, featuring “The Trial of the Watcher”.  As you may recall, that issue’s trial of “our” Watcher, Uatu, had been held on the home planet of his people, and ended with him getting off the charge of breaking the Watchers’ vow of non-intervention by promising he’d be a good boy and never doing it again.  That might have seemed like an exceedingly small slap on the wrist, given that Uatu had conspired with the group of renegade Kree known as the Lunatic Legion to not only capture but to outright kill our hero, Captain Marvel, before coming to his senses, but whattya gonna do?  The story ended with Mar-Vell literally shrugging off the whole episode, and implicitly inviting us readers to do the same. 

And so, taking our cue from “the most cosmic superhero of all” himself, we’ll proceed directly to the next bi-monthly issue of the series, #40.  Appearing in June, 1975, it featured a cover by the same team of Al Milgrom and Klaus Janson who’d been handling both the covers and the interior artwork for the past couple of issues.  But while a flip to the story’s opening splash page confirmed that Milgrom remained on board as penciller, it also let us know that Janson had yielded the inkwell to Al McWilliams — a comics industry veteran of some thirty-seven years’ experience who unquestionably knew his stuff, but whose more traditional approach to rendering came as something of a jolt after Janson’s more textured and illustrative finishes.

Continuing on with the series along with Al Milgrom was writer Steve Englehart, who’d come on board this title with issue #33 to provide the verbiage over auteur Jim Starlin’s plot and pictures.  Following Starlin’s departure with the following issue, Englehart had stuck around; he’d been joined by Milgrom as the book’s co-plotter, as well as its artist, beginning with CM #37.

Englehart and Milgrom basically drop us right into (and then just as quickly take us out of) the bizarre and rather disturbing events of this opening scene without any explanation; if you’d just stared reading this title in the last year or two, you’d likely have no idea whether the unfortunate woman depicted here is someone whom readers (or Captain Mar-Vell) might have met before, let alone what her name might be.

But fans who’d faithfully followed the heroic Kree captain ever since his introduction back in 1967’s Marvel Super-Heroes #12 — or even just since 1973’s Captain Marvel #29 — would recognize the young lady with the short red hair as Medic Una, Mar-Vell’s tragic lost love, who’d been slain by his enemies in  CM #11 (Mar., 1969) and then, one issue later, had been laid to rest by Marv himself on an airless planetoid “somewhere near Mars”.  There she had remained, lifeless but uncorrupted*, until the enigmatic cosmic entity Eon had revived her as part of his “break down to build back up” makeover of Captain Marvel in the pivotal issue #29 — that is to say, he’d revived her in the sense of re-animating her body, but hadn’t restored her soul in the process.  And that’s how she’d evidently been left, once Eon’s little reconstruction project on Mar-Vell was complete.  Given the circumstances, Marv might well have assumed that Eon had subsequently restored Una’s corpse to its former, inert state… though he clearly hasn’t bothered to check back to make sure.  (Though, in Marv’s defense, he has been pretty busy ever since #29, what with Thanos and the Lunatic Legion and the Watchers and everything.)

Anyway, if one already knew all that back-story (as did my younger self), you could feel like you had at least a glimmer of what our hero was about to be in for.  Otherwise, of course, you’d be almost as clueless as Captain Marvel himself is at this juncture of our story, as he, Uatu, and Marv’s Earthling friend Rick Jones arrive back at the Watcher’s home base, i.e., the Blue Area of Earth’s moon.

As we rejoin the space travelers, Rick is still grumbling about how all Uatu had to do to get off scot-free was to give his word to his fellow Watchers that he’d behave himself in the future.  Uatu seems to take some slight umbrage at this analysis…

In August, 1975, I’m pretty sure that I had no idea that Rick’s friend and supposed musical partner Rachel “Dandy” Dandridge was riffing on a line originally written in 1931 by the American poet Ogden Nash.:  “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”  In fact, although I’m sure I’d heard or read the full quote in the decades sense, I didn’t know its provenance until just a couple of months ago, when that information was shared on the Marvel Collected Editions Message Board by user “gardibolt”; so, thanks, gardi.  (Just for the record, the full line had much more recently been quoted by Gene Wilder in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so it’s at least possible that Englehart picked it up there, rather than from Nash.)

Before moving on from this scene, let’s take note of the brief moment where Dandy asks Rick about his “personal thing” and he responds that they should talk about it.  Presumably, he wants to tell her about his experiences after dropping the LSD she’d given him, telling him it was “Vitamin C” (though I think it’s a safe bet he’s not planning to mention being in the Negative Zone at the time, or how the mutual impairment of Rick and Mar-Vell almost got them both killed on the Moon).  Is Rick angry with Dandy about that whole thing?  Happy?  It’s hard to tell from his expression, as rendered by Milgrom and McWilliams.  Anyway, we’ll never know, because the two never get around to having that conversation (at least, not on panel).

And now, for a change of scene:

Poor Marv.  All this time on Earth, and just about the only people he knows to say goodbye to before heading back home to Hala are his work friends (more like acquaintances, honestly) in the Avengers — and they’re not even home.  So, after making his polite farewells to the team’s butler Jarvis, our hero flies off to look up just about the only other people he knows well enough to bother taking leave of: his old colleagues at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he’d posed for a time as scientist Walter Lawson.  Foremost among these, of course, is security officer Carol Danvers, who at this very moment is overseeing the imminent launch of an unmanned rocket…

Along with worrying about whether he still has his finger on the pulse of today’s youth, Rick frets about the fact that he’s had no time to rehearse his act before going on stage.  But manager Mordecai P. Boggs assures him there’s nothing to worry about.  “You’ll be a sensation out there!” he exclaims as he guides Rick towards the stage door.  “Trust me!”

Meanwhile, upon his arrival at the Cape, Captain Marvel quickly susses out that a launch in in the works, and that he’ll have to wait at bit before speaking with Carol.  But then, flying over the launch pad, he realizes something’s off, as there’s a small, indistinct figure walking around alone down there.  Hardly has he registered that incongruous fact, however, then four Sidewinder missiles suddenly take off from the pad and head straight for him.  And then, things take an even worse turn…

It looks bad for our Kree captain — but, with his mastery of military tactics, he ultimately manages to win through by pulling the nega-band off his right wrist and flinging it at the Sidewinders, which fall into one another domino-style and explode, disabling the rocket.  (Trust me, it looks as silly on the page as it reads in this synopsis.)  Shaken but uninjured, Mar-Vell descends to earth and enters the base’s command center, where he immediately encounters a bruised and battered Carol Danvers…

Not counting the harmonica solo he was playing in the middle of the desert when we first met him way back in Incredible Hulk #1 (May, 1962), the first indication we’d been given regarding Rick Jones’ musical aspirations had come in Captain Marvel #18 (Nov., 1969), where he’d played an impromptu acoustic number at a cafe (and thus happened to attract the interest of one Mordecai P. Boggs).  But as soon thereafter as CM #20 (Jun., 1970), Rick had begun gigging on the Greenwich Village coffeehouse circuit, and so seemed justified in referring to himself in that issue as “a folk-rock comer” — especially if the reactions of his audience at one such performance (see right) were anything to go by.

Had that much really changed in the conjoined worlds of popular music and youth culture between 1970 and 1975?  I’m not sure it had… and if Rick’s “50’s haircut” (the same one he’d had since 1962) really was such a big deal, then it seems it should have made a difference back in 1970 as well, when Rick hardly fit into the long-haired mold of other sensitive singer-songwriter types like James Taylor or Jackson Browne.  I guess the spacesuit could have been a deal-breaker — although, clearly, the real reason that Rick Jones was literally trashing his music career before our eyes was that the Marvel storytellers presently guiding his destiny had no interest in dealing with it.  Englehart and Milgrom liked having Rick as an ongoing character in Captain Marvel, but the titular star of the book was about to leave Earth, so…

In the end, this was hardly the last time we’d see Rick Jones making music on stage — or even the last time we’d see Dandy or Mordecai, for that matter.  But as far as the Englehart-Milgrom run on Captain Marvel was concerned, this was the day the music died.

Meanwhile, back at the Cape…

Mar-Vell regrets that the real Una died never knowing that her suspicions of him and Carol were unfounded, and that he truly did love only her.  He admits as much, but the entity possessing Una’s body isn’t interested in explanations, or even apologies…. only in tapping into Una’s pain, which nourishes and strengthens it…

Given that Captain Marvel had already resolved to leave Earth, there’s no compelling narrative reason for Englehart and Milgrom to have put him through the agonizing trauma he’s just experienced.  But the event dramatically underscores that decision, making it seem less casual as well as less easily reversed, and also provides balance to the trauma that drives Rick Jones to the even more monumental choice to leave the planet of his birth behind.  It’s a development that serves to strengthen the newly-voluntary bond between the two characters, and helps make this issue’s conclusion feel like a major change of direction in the series.  And it is a major change in direction — one that won’t be walked back for the duration of Englehart and Milgrom’s joint run, although I’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that Mar-Vell as well as Rick will, in fact, find their way back to our own terrestrial sphere, eventually.

Moving on to the following issue, which came out in August, 1975, we’ll start with the cover (please scroll back to the top of the post if you need to refresh your memory) — a solo job by Milgrom which, at least to your humble blogger, seems to echo the cover provided by Don Heck and Syd Shores for Captain Marvel #16, back in 1969.  I have no idea if this call-back was intentional; but it’s appropriate in any case, since, as we’ll see soon enough, the events of the story within parallel those of that earlier issue, as well.

Turning to the book’s opening pages, we’re greeted by another change on the inking front — though we won’t learn the specifics of who’s succeeded Al McWilliams until after we’ve perused not just the initial full-page splash, but the double-page spread which immediately follows it, as well:

See all those surnames listed as inkers?  Yep, this was a team effort, as Milgrom himself inked some bits (such as that impressive portrait/montage opening splash) while Bernie Wrightson, P. Craig Russell, Bob McLeod, and Terry Austin filled in elsewhere.  And unlike some other multi-inker jobs we’ve looked at in the past, where each artist has done a handful of more-or-less consecutive pages, the contributions of these five finishers are (per the Grand Comics Database) all over the place.  As an example, just on this spread, the left-hand tier of panels was inked by Russell, while Bernie Wrightson embellished the right-hand splash panel’s Captain Marvel figure, and Terry Austin handled all the backgrounds for the same.  Considering the sheer number of hands involved, it’s a credit to all of these artists that the spread succeeds as well as it does as a unified and consistent piece of comics art. (Due to the haphazard nature of the inkers’ respective contributions, and in the interest of not unduly breaking the story’s narrative flow, we won’t be calling out each artist’s work every time it shows up; however, we will be taking note of at least one example of the only one of the five whose inks aren’t represented on these first three pages, i.e., Bob McLeod, when the right opportunity presents itself.)

The last time that Rick Jones was on Hala, it was during the Kree-Skrull War, and he’d been a captive — so he’s a little apprehensive about what sort of reception he’ll receive from the populace.  But Mar-Vell is certain that everything will be fine, given that both he and Rick have been favored by the Supreme Intelligence, who — after having been briefly deposed by Ronan the Accuser prior to that very war — is once again firmly in charge.  And, indeed, everybody they pass on the street seems pretty chill, at least at first…

The appearance on this page of the Universal Church of Truth is of course a nod to what Englehart and Milgrom’s mutual friend and frequent collaborator Jim Starlin have been getting up to recently over in Warlock.  I suppose that one might quibble that, in that book, the “religion” founded by Adam Warlock’s evil future self, the Magus, seems to be a thoroughly militant movement that acquires new converts via “holy” wars of conquest and subjugation, rather than by the sort of missionary work implied by the presence of a temple sitting on a corner on the Kree homeworld; still, it’s a nice little bit that unobtrusively reminds us that the current adventures of Marvel’s two most cosmic heroes are in fact occurring at the same time, in the same universe.

Um. “the green priest“?  I guess colorist Phil Rachelson didn’t get the note that the Universal Church of Truth’s Black Knight wasn’t himself a Kree, and shouldn’t be colored blue… oh, well.

What the –? The Lunatic Legion?  But we thought we’d seen the last of those guys following their ignominious defeat at the end of CM #38, right?  Though, on second thought, we never did see just what happened to Zarek and his pals in the aftermath of that defeat… and if they were no longer hiding out at the Watcher’s digs in the Blue Area of the Moon, as the opening scenes of issue #40 implied to be the case, I guess they had to go somewhere.  Still, the audience chamber of the Supreme Intelligence is surely the last place one would expect to find them, for the very good reason Captain Marvel proceeds to point out below:

“– as they said ‘way back in the ’60’s!“… “they” in this case being Bob Dylan, in 1965’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.

The series of “everything you thought you knew is wrong” revelations delivered by the Supreme Intelligence in this sequence technically has to be classified as a retcon, I suppose, as this was almost certainly not what the writers of the original stories referred to here had in mind.  But if so, it’s a retcon that plays fair with the reader; it doesn’t hand-wave away anything that actually happened in those stories, and its internal logic holds together well.  For those reasons, it’s a lot more successful than the last time Steve Englehart tried something like this, back in Captain America #186.

Before proceeding, we’ll take this opportunity to highlight the fact that the following page features the inking of Bob McLeod; for comparison’s sake, the one immediately proceeded it was embellished by P. Craig Russell, while the two that follow it showcase the finishes of penciller Al Milgrom himself.

The sudden heel turn taken by the Supreme Intelligence in this issue pretty much puts paid to the relatively benign take that has held true for the character ever since he gave Mar-Vell his new outfit back in Captain Marvel #16; henceforth, he’ll be pretty consistently portrayed as an out-and-out villain (which, for what it’s worth, is almost certainly what his original creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, had in mind in the first place).

We mentioned earlier that the events of CM #41, like its cover, include notable parallels to those of #16.  Along with the whole basic scenario of Mar-Vell having a revelatory audience with the Supreme Intelligence, and the unexpected appearance of Zarek, here’s another — namely, the mid-story entrance of…

While Marv struggles against Ronan’s onslaught, Rick considers the situation, finding the whole thing more than a little fishy; after all, if “Frog-face” (i.e., the Supreme Intelligence) wants to fight Mar-Vell himself, then he can’t want Ronan to win,,, which is what seems to be about to happen.  Ultimately, however, Rick has little choice but to join the fray, and launches himself at the Accuser’s back, staggering him…

And so we come to an inconclusive resolution, as well as a setup for the series’ near future.  Along with giving us a glimpse of storylines to come, the two-tier “Prologue” that concludes this issue signifies a subtle but definite change in the nature of Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom’s collaboration as co-plotters.  As Englehart wrote in his 2011 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain Marvel, Vol. 4:

…Al and I were definitely co-creating, and to this point, I’d been driving most of the plot points.  On the one hand, it was okay, with both him and me, because I was the seasoned vet and he was just getting started as a creator in his own right.  On the other hand, he wasn’t getting enough “co” as a creator.  So beginning with #42, we shifted the balance of power and let him take the lead for a while.

This adjustment would make for a marked difference in tone in the issues to come, with Milgrom bringing a more comedic tone to Captain Marvel than had heretofore been seen; though, even so, the overhanging threat of the Supreme Intelligence would remain the main driver of the series’ ongoing plotline, all the way up to the concluding installment of the Englehart-Milgrom run… in an issue which, bizarrely, didn’t even include Englehart’s name in the credits.  But that’s a story for another post, which you can expect to see coming your way some ten months from now.

 

*As reader frasersherman recently reminded me via a comment on my Captain Marvel #12 post of some six years back, there’s a scene in issue #13 where Mar-Vell’s enemy Yon-Rogg (who’d carried his own torch for his ship’s medic) rants to our hero about his intention to “restore the vital forces to her [Una’s] body”.  That could be taken to suggest that Una hadn’t been killed completely dead in issue #11, but was rather left in some sort of death-like trance… though, given that that idea was never followed up on by anyone, and in light of what later went down in #29 as well as what happens in this issue, I think the line is probably best taken as meaning that Yon-Rogg actually meant to resurrect Una’s quite dead, but perfectly preserved, body in some fashion… though the matter is certainly open to interpretation, and your own headcanon may vary.