Bob McLeod

Marvel Super Action #1 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As was discussed in detail in our post about Marvel Preview #4 several weeks ago, by 1975 all four of the black-and-white comics magazines with which Marvel Comics had made a big push into that market just two years before were winding down.  But Marvel was far from throwing in the towel on the B&W format itself.  Accepting that the early-’70s horror boom that had inspired the launches of Dracula Lives and its ilk was pretty much over, Marvel now looked to other genres for new titles that could replace those that had made up the “Marvel Monster Group”.  Read More

Marvel Preview #4 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in the early months of 1973, Marvel Comics confidently made a big push into the black-and-white comics magazine market then dominated by Warren Publishing with a slate of four horror titles — Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie, and Vampire Tales — obviously designed to go head-to-head with Warren’s trio of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.  Within two-and-a-half years, however, all four of those books had shuffled off back to the graveyard, victims of a general downturn in the horror genre’s appeal to American comics fans that had also prompted a significant pruning of Marvel’s color comics of that ilk.  (TTFN, Man-Thing; catch ya later, Morbius; Living Mummy, we hardly knew ye.)

Still, if you’d taken a look at the magazine racks in October, 1975, Marvel’s confidence in its ability to compete in the B&W comics field — or, at least, its determination to do so — would hardly have seemed to have diminished since the heady days of the “Marvel Monster Group”.  That month, you might have scored copies of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #18, Planet of the Apes #15, Savage Sword of Conan #9… maybe even Crazy #15 or Doc Savage #2 (which had both come out in August, but wouldn’t be bumped off the stands by new issues until December).  And also, of course, the book that’s the main topic of today’s post:  the fourth issue of Marvel Preview.  Read More

Astonishing Tales #33 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in May of this year, we took a look at Astonishing Tales #31, which featured Deathlok the Demolisher… although only for its first ten pages.  As regular readers of this blog may recall, the ongoing series plotted and (mostly) drawn by Deathlok’s primary creator, Rich Buckler, had in the spring of 1975 recently been having scheduling problems, leading Marvel Comics to make the bi-monthly title full reprint for one issue (#29), bring in additional pencilling help for the next (#30), and then, having only enough new content to fill half of the last (#31), pad out the rest of that book with yet another reprint.  Still, we found cause for cautious optimism in what Deathlok material we did get in AT #31, per the coming-on-board of new (hopefully to become regular) inker Klaus Janson, as well as some welcome progression in the feature’s meandering plotlines.

How well-founded was our optimism?  Well, let’s start with the fact that this post, which is mostly about issue #33, is appearing in October… meaning that, fifty years ago, it took Marvel five months to bring out two issues of this book, rather than the expected four.  Not exactly what you’d call a good sign.  Read More

Captain Marvel #41 (November, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

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.  Read More

X-Men #94 (August, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As you may recall from our post about Giant-Size X-Men #1 back in April, that landmark comic book concluded with one of the mutant superhero team’s original members, the Angel, posing the query: “What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?”  That question was reflective of the fact that while Marvel Comics had just introduced seven new members to the team (the majority of whom were also brand-new characters), there were still six veteran heroes of the old guard to be dealt with in one way or another.  It seemed unlikely that even a giant-sized version of the freshly-revived “X-Men” feature could easily accommodate such a large number of costumed crusaders in every issue — and once Marvel decided to use the existing regular-sized X-Men title (which since 1969 had only presented reprints of old X-stories) as the relaunched series’ primary vehicle instead, that question became even more acute.  Read More

Defenders #24 (June, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month, we took a look at the first half of Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema’s “Sons of the Serpent” storyline with a single blog post covering Defenders #22 and #23.  Today, we’ll be wrapping things up in a similar fashion, with one post serving for our survey of both the third and fourth chapters of this half-century old graphic narrative.

Before we get into the story itself, however, I invite you to take a closer look at Defenders #24’s excellent (if just a bit crowded) cover by Gil Kane and Klaus Janson (and also by John Romita, per the Grand Comics Database).  Specifically, at the blurb trumpeting the presence within of “5 fearsome Defenders and 3 startling guest stars“.  Five Defenders?  I guess that means that Yellowjacket’s been bumped up to full membership status, huh?  That’s certainly what the anonymous Marvel Comics bullpenner who wrote that copy appears to have thought, at any rate.  (Of course, if you accept the notion of the Defenders being a “non-team”, as your humble blogger has always chosen to do, it’s basically a moot point, since any superhero who shows up in any issue may reasonably be called a member.  Or a non-member.  You know what I mean.)

And now, on with the show…  Read More