Marvel Comics

Thor Annual #5 (1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Three months ago, in our post about Avengers #150, we discussed at length the circumstances surrounding writer Steve Englehart’s decision in the spring of 1976 to leave Marvel Comics.  While the most immediate effect of his decision was that, come May,  Marvel was forced to release that milestone issue of Avengers as a hybrid of new and reprinted material, Englehart’s overall departure from the House of Ideas took another few months to completely play out.  In more recent posts, we’ve covered the writer’s final contributions to Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, both of which saw the light of day in June, 1976; his last issue of his other regular assignment, Super-Villain Team-Up (not covered on this blog, sorry) was released a month later, in July.  But Englehart’s final story from his first and best-regarded stint writing for Marvel didn’t come out until August, which is when the topic of today’s post arrived in spinner racks… a fact that’s somewhat ironic, given that Englehart’s script for this extra-long story was likely completed over a year prior to its release.  Read More

Tomb of Dracula #50 (November, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The main subject of today’s post — the fiftieth issue of the first Marvel title launched as part of the horror comics boom of the early 1970s to reach that fairly impressive number — doesn’t make much of the milestone so far as the book’s cover copy is concerned.  Nor, as we’ll see soon enough, is there any mention about the book’s hitting the Big Five-O on the opening splash page.  Still, your humble blogger feels fairly sure that the decision of writer/editor Marv Wolfman to feature a very special, if highly unlikely, guest appearance by the Silver Surfer in Tomb of Dracula #50 indicates a sense of occasion on his part, if no one else’s.  And, certainly, the book felt special to me when my then nineteen-year-old self first picked it up, back in August, 1976.  Read More

Warlock #15 (November, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In July, 1976, the comics fans who’d been following artist/writer Jim Starlin’s Warlock series could pick up some strong clues about the latest issue’s contents from the cover — specifically, from the the various figures (and heads) that Starlin had drawn symbolically surrounding his central image of the series’ titular hero.  Because while three out of the total six characters thus portrayed were new and unfamiliar, the other three — i.e., Thanos, Gamora, and Pip — were folks we hadn’t seen since issue #11 (in the first two cases) and #12 (in the last).  That strongly suggested that, after the past two issues’ standalone tale of Adam Warlock’s conflict with the Star Thief, Starlin was going to be giving his faithful readers what many of us had been waiting for — namely, the next chapter in the saga of Thanos’ quest to bring about universal stellar genocide.  Or at least some movement in that area, if only in the form of a subplot.

As it turned out, that assessment was essentially correct.  But what we fans didn’t know then — and still wouldn’t know, even after we finished reading the comic (up to and including the letters page, which ended with an editorial note encouraging us to come back next time “for one of the greatest surprise thrillers of all!  See you in sixty!”) — was that this issue was also the last one of the series.  So, whatever progress was going to made here in regards to Starlin’s overarching storyline was, in the end, going to amount to nothing more than a tantalizing tease… at least for the next twelve months.  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #67 (October, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In this post, we’ll be looking at the third chapter in Marvel Comics’ 1976 five-part crossover between Conan the Barbarian and Marvel Feature, featuring Red Sonja — though this issue’s status as such is completely ignored by the cover, which, nice as the illustration by Gil Kane and Pablo Marcos is, gives no indication whatsoever of the She-Devil with a Sword’s role therein, either by image or blurb-text.  Read More

X-Men #101 (October, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In today’s post, we pick up from the intense cliffhanger with which writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum left us in the final panels of the milestone 100th issue of X-Men, with the team’s space shuttle hurtling towards planet Earth, and its pilot, Jean Grey, about to succumb to what was likely to be a lethal dose of radiation from an intense solar flare.  Back in July, 1976 it had been a two-month wait for fans to learn the fate of Jean and her fellow mutant heroes… but for the characters, naturally, it had been but a matter of minutes…  Read More

Marvel Spotlight #30 (October, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Today’s post may be the most self-indulgent one I’ve ever written.  I mean, I could be wrong; but something tells me that not many of this blog’s regular readers have been waiting with bated breath for me to follow through on the promise I made in this space, one year ago this month, to post about the Warriors Three issue of Marvel Spotlight when its 50th anniversary arrived in July, 2026.  And I get it; these are indisputably “niche” characters, with a very, shall we say, select fanbase.  So, if you’re thinking about skipping this one, I won’t blame you.  Honestly.  (Though you should be sure and check back in on Saturday, when we’ll be discussing the first appearance of Phoenix in X-Men #101, because I know you wouldn’t want to miss that.)  Read More

Savage Sword of Conan #14 (September, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

You’d likely never guess it from the wholly acceptable, but not especially memorable Earl Norem cover to the comic book that’s our topic for today — but, half a century ago, Savage Sword of Conan #14 represented something of the end of an era… even if no one knew it at the time.  That’s because its pages contained the very last collaboration between writer Roy Thomas and artist Neal Adams — two creators whose previous joint efforts, though relatively few in number, comprised some of the high water marks of the late Silver and early Bronze Ages of comics.  Read More

Captain Marvel #46 (September, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Over the past couple of months we’ve been looking at the concluding issues of writer Steve Englehart’s runs on several different Marvel comics titles — and that “farewell tour” continues today, with our coverage of the end of Englehart’s tenure on Captain Marvel.  This one’s a bit different from our earlier forays into the writer’s final Avengers and Doctor Strange stories, however, as the ostensible main topic of this post, Captain Marvel #46, doesn’t carry a formal credit for Englehart at all.  That said, this issue most definitely concludes the multi-part storyline he and his co-plotter, artist Al Milgrom, had been developing since issue #41, and I see no good reason to doubt the author’s claim (made on his website as well as in his 2011 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain Marvel, Vol. 4) that he and Milgrom had worked out the plot for this final chapter before his abrupt departure from the book (as well as from Marvel Comics overall) — especially since, to the best of my knowledge, neither Milgrom nor Chris Claremont (CM #46’s scripter of record) have ever disputed that assertion.  Read More

Marvel Treasury Special Featuring Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles #1 (1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

If you weren’t around in 1976 (or were, but were too young then to remember much now), it might be hard to appreciate just how big a deal the United States Bicentennial was — not just in the key anniversary month of July, but also for a goodly number of months leading up to it.  But please, take an old geezer’s word for it; it really was everywhere in American popular culture for what seemed like quite a long while — and the nation’s comics publishers definitely did their share of celebratory flag-waving.  Read More