Alan Weiss

Warlock #11 (February, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog may recall from our post on Warlock #10 back in September, that issue ended on a relatively quiet note, with the titular hero grimly preparing to enter his personal timestream for the express purpose of ending his own life — and, thereby, preventing his evil future self, the Magus, from ever coming into existence at all.  Or at least that was what should happen, according to the theory espoused by Adam Warlock’s unexpected new ally, Thanos the Mad Titan — and it’s not like there were any better options for saving the universe on the table, so what was a onetime messiah to do?

But while the beginning of our latest object of discussion, Warlock #11, seems to be taking place a mere moment after the ending of issue #10, it’s clear from auteur Jim Starlin’s opening splash that things are no longer the least bit quiet, and probably won’t be again for some time:  Read More

Warlock #9 (October, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The banner that’s emblazoned above the title logo on the cover of Warlock #9 — “Pulse-Pounding PREMIERE Issue” — can fairly be called misleading, if not outright dishonest.  After all, “premiere” means “first” (in this context, anyway), and the issue of a periodical that numerically follows its eighth can hardly be its first, now can it?  In fact, this isn’t even the premiere issue of the “Warlock” feature’s revival, which would of course have been Strange Tales #178, published back in November, 1974.  But I suppose we can forgive Marvel Comics for wanting to trumpet the return of Adam Warlock in “his own senses-shattering mag” (to quote from the cover’s other blurb) with language a little less clunky that “Pulse-Pounding Fifth Issue of Relaunch” or even “Pulse-Pounding First Issue Under This Title Since 1973”.  It was a special occasion, after all. Read More

Man-Thing #22 (October, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last checked in with the Man-Thing back in March, at the end of his 18th issue, it was for the finale of the three-part “Mad Viking” trilogy — one of the most intense and memorable storylines to have yet appeared in the feature, perhaps matched only by “The Kid’s Night Out!” (which had in fact been published concurrently with it, in the Man-Thing’s quarterly Giant-Size vehicle).  As you may recall, Man-Thing #18 concluded with Manny, his human friend Richard Rory, and a distressed teenager named Carol Selby abandoning the small Florida town of Citrusville in the wake of a book burning incident at the town’s high school in which people as well as pages had perished.  That downbeat ending presaged a significant change in direction for the series — one which writer Steve Gerber and artist Jim Mooney would manage to explore in depth for only three issues before having to abruptly wrap up everything as best they could in the title’s terminal release, Man-Thing #22. Read More

Strange Tales #181 (August, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last left Adam Warlock at the end of Strange Tales #180, he’d just been driven into unconsciousness by his guilt over his Soul Gem’s stealing the soul of Kray-Tor — the judge who’d been presiding over our hero’s show trial prior to his breaking loose and fighting back.  But, as we learned in the story’s closing panels, the woman behind Adam’s ordeal — the Matriarch of the Universal Church of Truth — had actually planned the whole thing as a way to safely subdue Warlock without hurting him, so that she could subject him to being brainwashed by her underlings in a facility she called “the Pit”.  Read More

Strange Tales #180 (June, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago this month, the third installment of Marvel Comics’ revived “Warlock” feature arrived sporting yet another cover pencilled and inked by Jim Starlin, as well as a 19-page story pencilled, inked, colored, and written by… Jim Starlin.

Characteristically, the auteur didn’t let his multifaceted role in the comic’s production stop him from having a little fun with the credits on its opening splash page, even at the risk of confusing any newcomers:  Read More

Man-Thing #18 (June, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month, we took a look at Giant-Size Man-Thing #4, whose lead story centered around the high school in Citrusville, Florida — the fictional small town built on the edge of the swamp that the muck-encrusted star of the title called his home.  In this post, we’ll be covering a trilogy of issues of the monthly Man-Thing series that not only came out concurrently with “The Kid’s Night Out!”, but also shared its setting, at least in part — and whose storyline in some ways incorporated both the events and the themes of that other story.  Read More

Captain Marvel #37 (March, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Cover art by Jim Starlin.

Cover art by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia.

Back in June, we took a look at Captain Marvel #34 — the last issue produced by auteur Jim Starlin, who would soon be moving on to “Warlock” in Strange Tales.  As you may recall, Starlin’s swan song ended on a cliffhanger, with Mar-Vell lying unconscious after having been exposed to a deadly nerve toxin.

On one level, this cliffhanger wouldn’t be fully resolved until 1982, when Starlin’s graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel, revealed that the hero had contracted cancer as a result of the nerve gas — a cancer which did indeed ultimately prove fatal.  But in 1974, Mar-Vell wasn’t going anywhere, and so it would be up to the creators who picked up the ongoing storyline in Captain Marvel #35 to get him out of the fix Starlin had left him in — even if it ultimately turned out to be only a temporary reprieve, seen in retrospect.  Read More

Dracula Lives #3 (October, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Arriving on stands in June, 1973, the third issue of Marvel Comics’ new “Marvel Monster Group” of black-and-white titles got off to a strong start with a spectacular cover by Neal Adams.  Over a year prior, the star artist had begun backing away from a long stint as the most prolific cover artist for Marvel’s primary rival, DC Comics — a tour of duty extending back past the turn of the decade, and one which at its productive peak had seen him turning out ten or more covers a month.  Of course, Adams had kept his hand in the cover game (at Marvel as well as its chief competitor) even after curtailing his commitment to DC; but the painting that graced Dracula Lives #3 represented a new phase for the artist, one which would see him produce a number of covers in that medium for Marvel (though not in any sort of quantity approaching that of his earlier output at DC), primarily for black-and-white titles that weren’t even out yet as of this issue’s release (e.g., The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu) — titles which, when they did eventually make it to the magazine racks, would end the present horror-centric hegemony of the Marvel Monster Group.  Read More

Fear #15 (August, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in September of last year we took a look at Fear #11 (Dec., 1972), featuring writer Steve Gerber’s debut outing on the “Man-Thing” feature (as well as the fifth appearance overall of that feature’s titular star).  As you may remember, that story introduced two siblings, Jennifer and Andy Kale, who lived with their grandfather in a small Florida town; the pair’s ill-advised experimentation with a book of magic spells “borrowed” from Grandpa inadvertently summoned a demon, the Nether-Spawn, who was only prevented from ravaging the town by the intervention of the Man-Thing, within whose swampy habitat the young people had conducted their spell-casting.  At the tale’s end, the Nether-Spawn had been banished back to his hellish dimension by the expedient of burning the spell-book, and the Kale kids had declared their gratitude and everlasting friendship for their shambling, semi-sentient savior.  There was no indication whether Gerber would return to these characters — or to the intriguing question of what Grandpa Kale was doing with such a powerful grimoire in the first place — but the conclusion certainly left the door open for a sequel.  Read More

Captain America #164 (August, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago, John Romita’s cover for the topic of today’s blog post promised a certain degree of novelty; not only did it nod to the then-hot horror genre via presenting the superheroic Falcon as a werewolf, but it also heralded the debut of a new supervillain — and a Black female one at that.  (Nightshade may not have been the first such character to appear in American comics, but her particular race-gender combo made her stand out in this era, nevertheless… actually, as far as your humble blogger can tell, it still does.)

But we readers of May, 1973 couldn’t guess the full scope of the novelty awaiting us until we turned to this issue’s first page:  Read More