As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I tend not to talk very much about the covers of the half-century-old comics we discuss here; unless they’re really strikingly good, my tendency is simply to note who drew them — to the extent that that’s known, anyway — and then move on. (And just this week, in writing about Defenders #32, I forgot to do even that much; my thanks to reader Ben Herman for stepping into the breach.) But I’m going to make an exception this time, simply to express my disappointment with this particular job by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia. While there are aspects of the composition that work well, the central figure of Hellcat — a significant new character (OK, technically a new combination of two pre-existing characters) whom readers are seeing here for the very first time — is almost painfully awkward, at least to my eyes. Kane was a great talent, but among the very many (probably too many) covers he cranked out for Marvel in the 1970s, it stands to reason that there’d be at least a few clunkers; and for me, this is one of them. (Naturally, your mileage may vary.)
But, moving on… along with featuring the debut of Hellcat, Avengers #144 represents the fourth chapter in what would later come to be called “The Serpent Crown Saga” (and if you’re now scratching your head, thinking that you must have missed a reference to that sinister piece of headgear in one of our previous posts about this story arc — don’t worry, you haven’t). While the first chapter was largely about setting things up, and the second and third focused on one of the arc’s two parallel plotlines — i.e., a trip taken by one small contingent of Avengers back to the Old West to fight Kang the Conqueror alongside several of Marvel’s best-known Western stars — this fourth installment shifts the spotlight to the larger assemblage of our heroes remaining in the present day, who, as our narrative begins, have just escaped from being imprisoned in a cage by their foes in the Roxxon Oil company and its equally shady subsidiary, the Brand Corporation. The heroes are hardly out of danger, however, as they’re still somewhere deep in the bowels of Brand’s Long Island facility, with no clear way out…
We’ll pause here at the opening page’s credits to note that Avengers #144 marks the return of Mike Esposito as Avengers inker, after an absence of some twenty-two issues. The third artist (following Vince Colletta and Sam Grainger) to supply finishes over George Pérez’s pencils since the latter’s Avengers debut in issue #141, Esposito seems to me to be the best fit yet with the prodigiously talented but still developing Pérez (though, again, others may see things differently).
Re-reading this comic for the first time in a while, I couldn’t immediately recall a reason why the Vision would claim that Patsy Walker “lost our battle for us!” So I checked back with the original, full version of this fight scene in issue #141, and our favorite synthezoid seems to be referring here to the part where, after having been told to stay out of the way, Patsy impulsively tried to tackle the Squadron Supreme’s Lady Lark. That ended up interfering with a hex cast simultaneously by the Scarlet Witch that might have taken out LL, but didn’t… with the result that the Squadder flattened Patsy and Wanda with her super-sonic song instead — and then did the same thing to the rest of the Avengers, just one page later.
Honestly, given that there was a lot of other stuff going on in that fight, putting all the blame for the debacle on poor Patsy seems a little harsh — but I suspect writer Steve Englehart’s main intent here was less to slam Ms. Walker, than to subtly show how fiercely protective Vizh is of his new bride, Wanda.
It may be Iron Man’s boot-jets that allow the Golden Avenger to catch the missile in mid-flight — but it’s the technical smarts of the man inside the armor that get the rest of the job done, as Tony Stark quickly disables the rocket’s guidance system, causing it to shoot straight up through the complex’s roof. Unfortunately, the force expended also propels Iron Man in the opposite direction, sending him crashing into the walkway where the others have been standing…
As for the other non-flying folk in this scene, Captain America manages to grab onto Patsy, then executes a neat maneuver involving tossing his shield to land just so athwart a couple of metal beams, then bouncing himself and his companion off of it… just in time for a recovered Iron Man to catch them both in mid-air.
Since Englehart has gone to the trouble to give names to these two ordinary Queens residents, you might expect them to have some greater significance to his story than just a plot device for getting the police involved in the shenanigans at Brand. But such does not appear to be the case. Maybe he just wanted to make sure we wouldn’t mistake them for All in the Family‘s Archie and Edith Bunker…
Cover to Giant-Size Creatures #1 (Jul., 1974). Art by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia.
Cover to The Cat #1 (Nov., 1972). Art by Marie Severin and Wally Wood.
We’ve mentioned the Cat on this blog a time or two in the past, but only briefly — so, before allowing Iron Man to answer Patsy’s question, let’s take a moment to review the character’s real-world (as opposed to in-Marvel Universe) background. Part of a three-title initiative launched by Marvel in 1972 , The Cat (aka The Claws of the Cat) was, like its companion titles Night Nurse and Shanna the She-Devil, both fronted by a female lead character and written by a woman; in the case of The Cat, that writer was Linda Fite, who was joined by another female creator, Marie Severin, on art. None of the three titles survived beyond five issues; the Cat’s run ended after four (though she also appeared with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #8). The character’s civilian identity of Greer Nelson was repurposed after a little more than a year, however, as within the pages of Giant-Size Creatures #1 she became Tigra, the Were-Woman — yet another feline-themed persona, but one that didn’t need a head-to-toe spandex costume such as she’d worn as the Cat. So, yeah… you could say Marvel did indeed have this super-suit just lying around, waiting for someone new to fill it…
One thing you don’t pick up from Iron Man’s narrative is that in the Cat’s series, while the heroine’s suit had certain special features that gave her enhanced hearing and night vision (via the mask), and the ability to scale walls (through metal claws in the gloves and boots), Greer Nelson’s preternatural strength and agility were mostly the results of experiments upon her physical person, and not derived from her costume’s tech. But, not having read those comics back in 1975, I’m sure my younger self took Shellhead’s word for it that the clothes made the (super-)woman.
We’ve talked about the 1940s-’60s four-color career of Patsy Walker in earlier posts (primarily here), so we won’t go into all that background again; it’s worth noting, however, that the note in the second panel above concerning “Pat’s perky print” appears to nod not only to the once common practice in “girls’ comics” of letting readers submit fashion designs for use in the books, but also to Al (as in “Allan”, rather than “Alice”) Hartley, one of the character’s primary artists for over a decade.
Much of this sequence had indeed been previously seen in the pages of the Steve Englehart-written Amazing Adventures #15 (Nov., 1972). But in that earlier telling, the scene had abruptly ended before 
Patsy told Hank her terms for keeping mum about his secret — so everything that follows from this point on is new. (For a look at how these events were originally depicted by Englehart in collaboration with artists Tom Sutton, Frank Giacoia, and John Tartaglione, just cast your eyes right… and yes, it is interesting that George Pérez has opted to provide the then-Patsy Walker Baxter with nighttime attire that’s rather more prim than what Sutton and company had given her. Did Pérez make a conscious decision to preserve a married woman’s modesty, or did he simply not have reference of the earlier scene available? We’ll probably never know.)
Now there’s the image that would’ve made for a great cover. Have John Romita draw some floating Avengers heads across the top, or down one side, and you’d be all set. Just sayin’.
In the past couple of issues, we’ve seen the Two-Gun Kid — arguably the most “Marvel”-ous of the publisher’s established Western heroes — struggling with his feelings of inadequacy as he’s measured himself against the awesome likes of Thor and Moondragon. That’s now led him to make a momentous, life-changing decision. As he tells the Avengers: “I’ve always been more of an adventurer than a simple lawman — and there are more adventures to be found with y’all than in my own time!” But Thor, though impressed by the Kid’s daring, is concerned about his lack of the knowledge and skills needed for him to thrive in the 20th Century. Hawkeye counters that objection, however, telling the others that he’s ready and willing to serve as Matt Hawk’s “personal teacher!”
(“More next issue…”? Ah, if only.)
That’s a nice tableau in that last panel, isn’t it? After all, who ever said that the “two teams of heroes charging each other” bit should only be for covers?
At least this issue’s cover by Gil Kane (with inks by Dan Adkins) was one of Kane’s really good ones.
Yes, it sure looks like Englehart and Pérez were going all-in on a Justice League of America homage next issue, doesn’t it? Except that when Avengers #145 showed up in spinner racks a month later, it featured the first half of an out-of-continuity fill-in story that would continue into #146, thereby pushing the next chapter of our continuing storyline all the way out to #147 — an issue which wouldn’t be out until February, 1976.
And so, we’ll be taking our leave of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for a couple of months, though with the promise that when we do finally resume our coverage of the “Serpent Crown Saga”, it’ll be with the episode where that damn Crown finally shows up, already. I hope to see you then.
I actually kind of like the Hellcat figure on the cover. It’s not elegant, but it is dynamic. I also like the composition framing the ‘new’ character.
It was great to see the return of Patsy Walker, a character I have an unaccountable fondness for. I confess to having complete runs of the Patsy Walker and Patsy and Hedy books from the turn of the 60s up to their respective cancellations. Al Hartley as writer/artist on those is underrated.
I tend to agree with Chris. While this is certainly not one of Kane’s best covers, it is energetic and eye-catching, and Hellcat’s limbs-akimbo, go-for-broke pose seems apropos for both her power set and personality (unlike the Vision, who looks like he just awkwardly stumbled over the edge of a cliff).
That said…
Although I’ve seen this cover many times over the past 50 years, I’ve just now noticed the particular positioning of the guns in the foreground. All three are trained on Hellcat (which is fine, she’s the featured player) but not at her torso or head. All three are aimed precisely at her privates.
Gil Kane is not Wally Wood, but the comics industry in 1975 was still a bit of a boys club, so it’s not hard to imagine him having a laugh over sneaking an off-color joke past the CCA. (Were his co-workers at Marvel in on the joke? I kind of hope not. Would be sad to think of Englehart and Wolfman making the effort to create a new female hero and then sanctioning such a juvenile gag.)
Funny what you remember:
While the story says that we’ll never again see Ben and Phyliss (an odd spelling: perhaps Englehart was nodding to Gerber, who added an extra “s” to Jack Norris’s surname*), their names have remained with me since 1975.
They also serve who only pick up the phone.
By the way, the Two-Gun Kid’s last name is “Hawk,” not “Hawkins.”
*
In contrast, Jean Grey’s sister began as “Sarah” and became “Sara.” Won’t you put in another appearance, Paul Bailey? Can you wiggle your ears real good like Willie Lumpkin, that postman to the powerful (or at least to the Fantastic Four)?
Thanks for the catch on “Hawkins”, A.S. — fixed now.
Odd, but not unknown — one of my friends, now deceased, was a Phyliss.
Despite the lack of much action, other than dealing with the missiles, I loved this issue. Yeah, the cover was only average, but Perez delivered a great splash page to properly introduce the Hellcat to us. At the time, I don’t think I was familiar with the term. In later years, however, in reading biographies of Lincoln, I read about how his two young male secretaries referred to the First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, as “the Hellcat”. I also enjoyed the bantering between Cap & Iron Man. During his run, Shooter had them increasingly at odds, with Cap even accusing Iron Man of being a mercenary for “working” for Tony Stark (one of those instance that made me question Cap’s intelligence if he hadn’t at least begun to suspect that Tony Stark and Iron Man were one and the same as Thor had already done).
Anyhow, I was really looking forward to the next round of the Avengers vs. the Squadron Supreme and was rather disgruntled when the next two issues turned out to be fill-ins. I don’t recall reading what the specific reason behind this particular fill-in was – whether Englehart was late in getting the plot to Perez or Wolfman otherwise filling a need to use up inventory or whatever. While I can appreciate a new fill-in story as usually better than a reprint, I can’t think of any fill-in that was particularly good and those in Avengers 145 & 146 certainly didn’t impress me. Meanwhile, looking forward to your take on the next chapter of the Serpent Crown Saga. I did much enjoy those concluding three chapters.
I recall that Avengers #145-46 was slated for Giant-Size Avengers, before the oversize titles were cancelled (or repurposed as all-reprint). Not the first time (nor the last) that the title fell victim to the Dreaded Deadline Doom during the latter stages of Englehart’s run.
Both Englehart and Perez were responsible for blown deadlines a time or two so either or both could have caused us to suffer through the abysmal two issue fill in.
Ah, like the Energizer Bunny, the Serpent Crown Saga just keeps on going and going… You didn’t really notice it at the time, I don’t think, simply because the crown was seldom shown or mentioned, but Englehart was certainly dragging it out.
While I cared less than nothing for Patsy Walker’s origins in Marvel’s romance line, I always had a softness for Hellcat. Not so much in her run with the Avengers, but later, once she joins the Defenders, I thought she was a fun addition to the group. Her heroic origin is a little wonky. Cap and Iron Man find The Cat’s discarded costume and turn around and suggest that the closest available civilian just “put it on?” Of course, it fits. All clothing in the MCU are one-size fits all, but I wasn’t so much surprised by Iron Man walking back his idea, as I was by the fact that the had it in the first place. Really lazy story-telling, IMHO. Lucky he didn’t immediately get her killed. Still, history starts right here and the road to the Hellcat has begun. Thanks, Alan!
In fairness, that’s a standard of most action/adventure/spy thriller — knock someone out, steal their uniform, it always fits. Which is why the Nazi guard’s uniform not fitting in Raiders of the Lost Ark is so funny.
Englehart elevated the crown from a generic magical McGuffin to something far more powerful and cosmic.
I liked Grainger much better than Esposito in general and especially on early Perez. What’s most interesting to me was how wowed we all were by Perez’s debut and how it now seems weak compared to the heights he would achieve through the years. I don’t think Perez ever had a comic that wasn’t somehow better than the one before.
And I Googled for details about Tigra’s unfortunate description in her early years so ‘The use of the term “were-woman” for the Marvel character Tigra is considered odd because the prefix “were-” technically means “man” (from the Old English wer), making the character’s descriptor literally “man-woman”.
The etymological breakdown highlights the linguistic incongruity:
Were-wolf: Literally translates to “man-wolf”.
Were-woman (for Tigra): Literally translates to “man-woman,” even though the character is a female human-tiger hybrid’
And I loved Hellcat from the start and through every single use of her. I was disappointed her marriage was Ellis’d but that even has led to some very fun stories so it worked out in the end. I also consider her part of the true core of the Defenders. Revivals always focus on Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Silver Surfer, and Sub-Mariner and I think they fail because Namor was barely a member and Silver Surfer a recurring guest star. The real core was Doc, the Hulk, Hellcat, Nighthawk, and Gargoyle and I’ve always wanted to see the reception of a reunion of that lineup.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Mike Esposito’s inking. I prefer Sam Grainger’s inks over early George Perez pencils on these issues, as well.
Not one of Gil Kane’s better covers, but the colorist didn’t help by completely ignoring the background, using a monochrome gradient instead of enhancing some of the light and shadow on the simplified geometric forms (pseudo-tech stuff inside a room? A bit hard to read).
As for Tigra, it is hilarious that she was called the were-woman when “were” means “man” —- and she wasn’t a transgender character (a la the early ’70s Hammer film “Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde”).
Though Englehart didn’t include Archie and Edith Bunker in his script, the couple did pop up in a panel of Superman no. 249, cover dated March 1972, drawn by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/isJL9y729CD-gjy-JDsgoEiRH7qF-aOSmqSI7PLemXjvZRpdOcyayvuxEZoMmpU9V1QM0B2_pW0Svo8tsYL6LUuEL0cIvfp9rAjXnl-07227mALuzqqOMTJrN3qjV7IN43K_w2Vf9A=s0
The Werewolf by Night story that featured the repurposing of Greer Nelson featured an editorial by the story’s writer, Tony Isabella, that explained the name.
“Tigra” was not a “Frau-Tiger,” she was a “Frau-Katze” (. . . and, outside of Marvel-FRG, readers would generally not understand what that meant).
I thought the Cat character launched in 1972 had potential.
She was the only (the first?) superhero in Chicago. She was also the widow of a cop killed in the line of duty. There were no other superheroes around to show her the ropes,’ nobody whose direct example she could follow. How would she (as a cop’s widow) react to police suspicion, especially in a Daley-Machine Chicago?
A Chicago-based superhero made sense. The supervillains she fought, often didn’t. The Owl made a sort of sense, power-wise. but why was he in Chicago? There was even less reason for Man-Bull to be there or Commander Kraken.
Why not make it a sub-plot: the local Maggia was actively recruiting credible (but perhaps second tier) villains out of NYC as enforcers. The Owl and Man-Bull make sense here. (Commander Kraken might have been trying out for a management role in the Maggia, he was later briefly depicted as having). (Another, sub-plot, to be handled carefully, could have been how the Chicago Machine and the Chicago PD would have reacted to the local Maggia raising the ante.)
It’s funny, all those heroines launched in the Summer of ’72 found second lives in pop-culture, even Night-Nurse (becoming Night-Nurse Practitioner or :Night-PCP. it wasn’t clear).
I like your ideas for The Cat. After the first issue, it went downhill fast — disappointing (I’ve read Fite was marrying Herb Trimpe, she may have been distracted).
I don’t believe Linda Carter of Night Nurse has been canonically identified with the superhero paramedic Night Nurse, though it’s popular fan canon. And might have changed since i last checked. But in The Oath, Night Nurse says she’s a full GP, so maybe not.
Tell me a Brit is writing this without, telling me a Brit is writing this . . . .
We really don’t have “GPs” (“General Practitioners”) in the US anymore. US doctors in “primary care” generally do a residency in internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics or emergency medicine.
Alternatively, she might be a Nurse-Practitioner.
At the time The Oath was written Nurse Practitioners had to have a collaborative agreement MD or DO . After 2015, this was no longer requires in the same way if the NP has more than 3600 hours of experience. So unless she had been reviewing her files with Don Blake, there might have been an issue with practicing out side the scope of her license at the time The Oath was published..
Given she’s running a covert clinic I doubt such technicalities as official medical support would trouble her.
Tell that to the NYS Office of the Professions (If she is an NP) or The NYS Office of professional Medical Conduct (if she is a PCP) . . . .
Thank you for the kind words,
I thought the First issue had an EC Horror Comic feel but did not really set up a series. The Second issue was evocative of Chicago :the big city,; the Lake; and the wind . . . .
After that it drifted.
The Third, was some of Everett’s last work but it did not really work and why did they bring back Man-Bull after he had just appeared in Daredevil?
Maybe, having those bad guys realizing their careers as bad guys were off the track, by committing crimes in Chicago and fighting the Cat rather than Spider-Man or Cap? Sort of like a guy who was a cop of coffee player in the Majors and is now on a farm team.
Rereading those issues in the Epic Tigra collection had me scratching my head. I understand the logic of bringing in name super-villains to grab eyeballs — but Commander Kraken? The Owl? Nobody’s going to plunk down their coins for them. Though I suspect titling the story “The Owl and the Pussycat” proved reason enough for editor Roy Thomas (it fits his literary bent).
If Commander Kraken became a leader in the Outfit would he became a “Cephalo”-regime?
To may recollection there are neither Cephalopods nor subs in the great lakes . . . .
I was thinking the same thing — it’s a really odd place for a nautical villain. Though as you point out about villains moving to Chicago, Kraken’s unlikely to run into the Sub-Mariner there.
Welcome to My Marvel Subscription Curse!
Due to poor distribution in my area, I subscribed to the Avengers with this being the first issue to arrive. The curse being that every title I subscribed to as a kid ran into problems once I started receiving issues. Starlin left Capt. Marvel. Iron Man had a string of reprints, fill-in’s and lousy stories with dreadful art. And as noted, this series had us wait two months before we got see the Squadron Supreme take in our team in a fun “JLA” type story.
Anyway, as for this issue, it was a bit of a letdown primarily because of the stakes in the previous issue with Kang. But while primarily a transition issue that set up a new superhero that I really didn’t care for, I still thoroughly enjoyed every panel thanks to the continuing development of George Perez’s art. I agree that Mike Esposito’s inks benefitted his pencils – giving us storytelling that would not allow our eyes to wander the slightest.
That bombs and missiles were blowing up in a somewhat residential area now seems quite silly. But hey, it all looked great.
My thanks for an excellent review to savor over several cups of coffee on a quiet Saturday morning!
Yeah, I always read Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books with my Saturday morning cup of coffee, too!
Englehart wrote the story, but who did the cover blurbs? “Cometh”? Boy, that sure sounds like Stan the man. Never saw this issue, and really wasn’t into the Avengers during this period anyway. I’ve never been a fan of Esposito, but usually I can still see the pencilers work. But what happened with this? I did not see the great Perez at all, and I wouldn’t have known without reading the credits.
Have to chuckle every time I see Tigra referred to as a Were-woman.
Even after Marvel caught the mistake, what could they do? Calling her the CatWoman was out of the question. “The feline femme” would have been ridiculous.
At least Marvel should’ve waited till they reinstated the annuals the following year (After being dropped in 1970) before they can printed those GSA fill-ins!
Interesting but not surprising that the female characters get associated with feline qualities. I always remember my Dad tutting at the sexual innuendo of the “Put a Tigra in Your Tank” full page back cover drawing on one of the FOOM issues (no 6, Summer 1974 – I would have been 11 ) that he spotted.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3wO6TsFromN9vH1SWvp5ezly5zWFuvHhNMdhRLNoSU6BWOaXZS_BvQLdWGQ3aS87dpqMUPXdIag9DaVcmq5jqlhdxshoQMfhDcD8zdWWlgKDdBj8jplQez3kgVkUs6r-YGM0-teUHzsl/s400/foom+6+back+tigra.jpg
I remember that one!
Wow. Would have made an impression on me had I seen it.
Weird though, I remembered it with a slightly different style. Expecting more of a Buscema type figure than the actual image that I only refound yesterday. I read that it was likely Ed Hanigan (initials as shown EJH).
Regarding the cover, where’s Wanda? I seem to recall Roy Thomas saying there was an ‘edict’ from Stan Lee that there could never be more then one female in the Avengers at one time, i.e. if Wanda rejoined, Jan had to leave and so on. Steve Englehart moved past that, but maybe Gil Kane never got the memo? Of the main players in this issue, all the Avengers are cover-featured, except Wanda. I think most of Kane’s covers in this run have only a single female Avenger, with few exceptions.
Apart from all that, I’d agree with Alan that it’s not that good a cover. All the males are moving dramatically forward, but the Hellcat looks almost as though she is falling backward in an off-balance kind of way, which hardly emphasizes her supposed cat-like grace and agility.
Where I’d disagree with Alan is the suitability of Esposito’s inking. As Perez was still in his formative period, I think Esposito only stresses his weaknesses. There’s quite a few points where faces and details look clumsy, especially in Hawkeye’s dramatic announcement that he’s leaving the Avengers (again). He looks like he’s come off second-best in a fistfight, with the awkward shading around his face.
Also agree with Don, that IM and Cap show remarkably poor judgement (and geek-level knowledge of Marvel Universe trivia), in firstly recognizing the Cat ‘s costume, and then just letting Patsy wear it and leap into the middle of an ongoing firefight.
‘I seem to recall Roy Thomas saying there was an ‘edict’ from Stan Lee that there could never be more then one female in the Avengers at one time…’
If that was indeed the case, that was one very strange ‘edict’. What could possibly be the reason behind such a seemingly arbitrary editorial command? Anyone have any ideas?
I think it was just part of the general misogyny of the 60s/70s. The received wisdom would have been that the audience was primarily boys, and they wanted to read about heroic males. One token female was acceptable, but two at the same time was one too many. If I could find a source for the quote I’d be happy to share it.
I wonder if it wasn’t also a reluctance to mess with success. The FF had one woman; the Avengers had one woman; the X-Men had one woman; sure, it might be a coincidence but maybe it’s a genre requirement! Why tamper with a winning approach?
I’ve thought the same about how so many kid sidekicks in the Golden Age were orphans like Robin (Sandy, Bucky, Toro, the Newsboy Legion, the Shield’s sidekick Dusty, etc.).
I think having the kid sidekicks as orphans meant the writers didn’t need to explain why sidekick parents would be OK with their kids dressing up in tight costumes and hanging out with similarly attired strange men.
I see your point. It would tie in with Stan Lee’s ghastly sexist attitudes i.e. Sue “Oh, I think I’m going to faint” Storm.
A good installment in a solid story arc. I don’t have a problem with Iron Man getting the Cat’s origin wrong — after all, he has no way to read Claws of the Cat #1 and get the facts. But then again, the subsequent chapters show it really does enhance Patsy’s abilities which wasn’t part of the original Cat’s origin.
This has led to a theory Hellcat isn’t wearing Greer’s costume, which as Brian Cronin says is wrong (https://www.cbr.com/avengers-hellcat-costume-cat-patsy-walker-greer-nelson/). Steve Englehart would tangle the history further in West Coast Avengers (https://www.cbr.com/hellcat-tigra-suit-history-doesnt-make-sense/). But it gave us a fun character who’s still around, so I’m forgiving.
And I can forgive the “hey, let’s let Patsy put on a costume and fight these uber-powerful foes with us!” too. It’s obvious Brand’s going to kill her with the heroes, so it’s not like there’s anything to lose.
I am obviously a very casual reader, as I completely missed all of the hidden meanings and cryptic references!
I did like the cover ( even though Kane inked by Giacoia is not a favorite combination of mine) and Perez is improving job by job, as his confidence builds. Normally I wince at Esposito inked comics, but not here. By this time Perez had already become a favourite FF penciller of mine ( supremely inked by Sinnott).
Full marks Alan to your analysis of the Vision’s criticism of Patsy. Englehart was a such thoughtful and careful writer, and one who gloried in fitting all of Marvel’s various genres together. However I too found it strange that Cap and IM would put Patsy into the super-hero suit….even with Cap voicing ( or thinking) his concerns re Bucky and Roscoe. @frasersherman pity you were not at Steve E’s shoulder during the scripting and having him add a following caption along the lines of ‘ Yes, its crazy, dangerous, but it’s a life or death situation anyway. Patsy is already in enormous danger, and this way she, and we, may make it out’.
Just a note to point out the obvious wordplay in the story’s title, presumably a reference to the Spielberg movie released a few months before, which was cleaning up at the box office as well as (I read somewhere) changing the way movies were distributed ie opening in hundreds of cinemas at once instead of territory-by-territory.
Many people cite Jaws as the first modern Blockbuster. Its success was due to what is now known as “saturation booking.” Two films released prior to Jaws paved the way for its success. From Wikipedia:
In 1974, Tom Laughlin gave The Trial of Billy Jack, a sequel to his independently distributed Billy Jack, one of the widest releases to date, opening in 1,200 theatres in the United States on November 13. The following year, Breakout was the first major studio film to go into wide release in its opening week, with Columbia Pictures distributing 1,325 prints nationwide, combined with a heavy national advertising campaign. The following month, Jaws was released in a similar way on 409 screens, expanding to nearly 1,000 by mid-August in conjunction with nationwide advertising. The modest success of Breakout and the blockbuster success of Jaws led other distributors to follow suit with other mass-market films. In December 1980, Any Which Way You Can beat the record set by Breakout, opening in a record 1,541 theaters.
I have good memories of Perez, because of his run on FF that I already followed, with Sinnott inking (I just checked)- he seemed to take care over rendering the thing’s “rocks” – but am surprised at the (for me seeing it now ) disappointing quality of his earlier work , if this is a typical example, or is it the inker who is making such a difference? As others have said, he certainly did get into his stride later.