Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel #33 (July, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Behind a cover both pencilled and inked by Jim Starlin (his first such since coming on board the Captain Marvel title with issue #25), this issue featured the conclusion of the epic “Thanos War” storyline that the creator had inaugurated a year and a half earlier with the 55th issue of Iron Man, and which had since woven through the previous eight issues of Captain Marvel itself, while also spilling over briefly into Marvel Feature, Daredevil, and Avengers.  Read More

Avengers #125 (July, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I suppose that Ron Wilson and John Romita’s cover for this issue of Avengers might be taken as misleading by some readers, since, as we’ll soon see, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes never directly confront Thanos himself anywhere within its pages (indeed, the Mad Titan only puts in a personal appearance on a couple of them).  I’m pretty sure, however, that that fact didn’t bother my sixteen-year-old self very much (if at all) when I first read this comic back in April, 1974; after all, the story is unquestionably a part of the “Thanos War” saga that had been being told by artist-writer Jim Starlin and others for the last year and a half, mostly (though not entirely) in the pages of Captain Marvel.  If you took Avengers #125’s cover as “symbolic” of our heroes’ struggle against that epic’s Big Bad, as I was happy to do, you’d have to admit it was pretty much on the money.  Read More

Captain Marvel #30 (January, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

By the time Captain Marvel #30 came out in October, 1973, Marvel Comics readers had already had a couple of opportunities to see the newly-enhanced (as of issue #29) “Most Cosmic Superhero of All” in action — namely, in Marvel Team-Up #16 and Daredevil #107.  But the subject of our discussion today was the first time that writer-artist Jim Starlin, the creator who was actually responsible for the big changes to Mar-Vell’s status quo, had himself had a chance to show just what those changes meant for the hero, and for his fans, going forward; and the creator obligingly responded with a story that, if it didn’t quite deliver on its cover blurb’s promise of “pure action — from cover to cover!”, still managed to come pretty damn close to living up to that claim.  Read More

Daredevil #107 (December, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in July, we took a look at Daredevil #105, in which a plotline involving a series of mysteriously-empowered new supervillains — one that had meandered through the generally street-level-set series for the past nine issues — suddenly took an unexpected turn for the cosmic, as our Man Without Fear found himself involved with Moondragon — a woman who, though Earth-born, presently called Saturn’s moon of Titan her home.  In other words, DD had somehow managed to wander into the outskirts of the “Thanos War” saga being chronicled by artist-writer Jim Starlin over in the pages of Captain Marvel.  Read More

Captain Marvel #29 (November, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As I’ve shared in previous posts, your humble blogger was a relative latecomer to Jim Starlin’s run on Captain Marvel.  While I’d bought a few issues of the title way back in 1969, I had abandoned it after Roy Thomas and Gil Kane’s Fawcett-inspired makeover in issue #17 and hadn’t paid much attention to Mar-Vell since, save for his guest appearances in Avengers.  For my younger self in the summer of 1973, Jim Starlin was the guy who’d drawn a pretty good “Doctor Strange” story in Marvel Premiere earlier in the year, just before Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner took over that feature and made it really good.  But then, he showed up in the middle of Daredevil #105, having drawn (and almost certainly also plotted) an origin for that issue’s ostensible villainess, Moondragon, which introduced me for the first time to the epic storyline concerning Saturn’s moon of Titan, and its most dangerous denizen, Thanos, that the young creator had been chronicling in Captain Marvel since coming on board that series with issue #25, back in December, 1972.  And then, only a couple of weeks after that, Marvel Feature #12 had arrived in spinner racks, with an even more Thanos-centric yarn, this one drawn (and also at least co-plotted) all the way through by Starlin.  If DD #105 hadn’t already 100% convinced me to check out Starlin’s Captain Marvel the first chance I got, MF #12 surely must have clinched the sale.  Read More

Daredevil #105 (November, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In summer,1973, my younger self was still pretty isolated as a comic-book reader.  Good, lasting face-to-face friendships with fellow enthusiasts were on the horizon, but had not yet arrived, and I wasn’t reading fanzines.  Therefore, I generally picked up on hot new titles — or on newly hot streaks on older titles — via the publishers’ own marketing efforts, or by reader buzz in the letters columns… or by sheer happenstance.

So how did t I finally catch on to what artist-plotter Jim Starlin was up to in Captain Marvel, some five issues and eight months into his soon-to-be-classic run?  As best as I can tell, it was due mostly to the latter of those three options — more specifically, via a very unlikely tie-in with, of all things, Daredevil.  Read More

Amazing Spider-Man #122 (July, 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Like its immediate predecessor, the 122nd issue of Amazing Spider-Man leads off with a cover by John Romita, which, if not quite as iconic as that of #121, is still an exceptionally arresting image.  Not to mention one which, back in April, 1973, would likely have shocked the hell out of any semi-regular reader of the web-slinger’s series who had somehow managed to miss not only that most monumental of issues, but also any fannish discussion of same over the several weeks since its release on March 13th.

If there were any such readers fifty years ago, and if they hoped for some sort of recap to bring them up to speed on the details of how so something so unthinkable as the murder of Spider-Man’s beloved Gwen Stacy had come to pass, they were pretty much out of luck — because the creative team behind both the previous episode and this one — i.e., scripter Gerry Conway, penciller Gil Kane, foreground inker John Romita (who may have also contributed to the plot) and background inker Tony Mortellaro — weren’t about to break their storyline’s headlong momentum with any more exposition than was minimally required, let alone any flashbacks:  Read More

Shazam! #1 (Feb., 1973)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In our present age, when not only the original Captain Marvel has been the subject of a blockbuster motion picture (with a second one on the way), but so has his most powerful adversary, it may be difficult for younger fans to comprehend just how obscure Billy Batson and his alter ego were to the average comic book reader of half a century ago.  Even if you were an avid comics fan who’d been reading superhero funnybooks for the past seven years (as was my fifteen-year-old self, back in December, 1972), you might not have much more than a vague idea of what the “Marvel Family” and its mythos were all about, prior to the publication of Shazam! #1.  Read More