Frank Giacoia

Master of Kung Fu #19 (August, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in January, we took a look at Master of Kung Fu #17, a comic which presented the third installment of Marvel Comics’ first ongoing martial arts feature (albeit only the first one under that title, as the two previous episodes had seen print as Special Marvel Edition #15 and #16).  That third installment was also the last to involve artist Jim Starlin, who had been instrumental in conceiving and developing the feature with writer Steve Englehart (although the idea of making the strip’s hero, Shang-Chi, the son of the famous fictional villain Fu Manchu came from Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas).  Read More

Man-Thing #8 (August, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Mike Ploog’s splendidly over-the-top cover for Man-Thing #8 probably calls back harder to the lurid, gory glories of early-1950s pre-Code horror comics than anything else ever published by Marvel in the 1970s (including their Code-free black-and-white magazine line).  Of course, back in May, 1974, my sixteen-year-old self probably didn’t fully comprehend that that was what the artist was up to here; still, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t appreciate the cover on its own merits.  A muck-covered monstrosity breaking free from his lab-table restraints, while nearby a hideous ghoul threatened a beautiful, buxom young woman?  What wasn’t to love?  Read More

Captain America #176 (August, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In his 2016 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain America, Vol. 9, Steve Englehart refers to the cover John Romita produced for the subject of today’s post as “iconic”.  That’s become a rather overused word in today’s culture, I grant you; all the same, I find it hard to disagree with him.  For this grizzled old fan, it’s virtually impossible to think about this particular era of Captain America comics without the image shown above leaping immediately to mind — and that’s close enough to iconic for the word to fit, at least in my book.  Read More

Hulk #178 (August, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog may recall, I was never a regular buyer of The Incredible Hulk, back in the day.  While I always enjoyed the character when he appeared as a guest star, or in a team setting à la the Defenders, for whatever reason his Jekyll & Hyde-cum-Frankenstein premise never had much appeal to me as the basis for a lead character.  Or maybe I simply preferred my superheroes to have a little more going on upstairs.  In any case, after dipping my toe in the water one time back in 1969, I had since refrained from picking up Hulk except on those occasions when it crossed over with another series I was currently buying, or when it tied up leftover plotlines from a canceled series I had been buying.  Read More

Avengers #124 (June, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

It’s been a minute since we last checked in what the Avengers were up to half a century ago — since the aftermath of the Avengers/Defenders War, in fact, and we put that multi-issue epic to bed back in September.  Given that consideration — as well as the fact that the issue we’re focusing on today is the second half of a two-part story, which itself has been spun off from the conclusion of the three-issue story arc preceding it — you might guess that we have a good amount of recapping to get through before moving on to our main event.  Read More

Doctor Strange #1 (June, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I have to confess, that as fond as I am of the comic that’s the subject of today’s blog post, I’ve always had a little trouble thinking of it as a “real” first issue.  After all, Doctor Strange had already had a first issue of his own solo title all the way back in 1968 — despite Marvel’s having opted at that time to continue the numbering of Doc’s previous home, the double-featured Strange Tales, by sticking a “#169” on it.  That solo series had run for fifteen issues before succumbing to cancellation in 1969, so no way was the comic book that showed up on stands in the middle of March, 1974, the actual first issue of Doctor Strange.  Heck, this wasn’t even the first issue of his current headlining feature, since that had begun a little less than two years previously, in Marvel Premiere #3.  The hero’s MP run had continued through issue #14 and then picked up here after only a three-month break; so, as far as I was concerned, Doctor Strange #1 was little more than the latest issue of the Sorcerer Supreme’s successfully revived solo series.  “Fabulous First Issue!”, my eye (of Agamotto).  Read More

Captain America #174 (June, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last saw Captain America and the Falcon, near the end of last month’s post about CA #173, our heroes had seemingly been successful in their subterfuge against the sinister Secret Empire — the clandestine organization behind both Cap’s recent woes (which include first having his reputation smeared by an ad campaign, then being framed for murder) and the mysterious disappearance of multiple mutants, including several members of Cap and Falc’s newfound allies, the X-Men.  We rejoin them here on page one of issue #174, as they make their descent into the proverbial belly of the beast…  Read More

Captain America #173 (May, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In February, 1974, the X-Men hadn’t appeared in a new story in their own title in over four years — but while gone, they were hardly forgotten.  (Actually, they weren’t even gone, since their book had been resurrected as a reprint title by Marvel’s then-publisher, Martin Goodman, eight months after he’d cancelled the series with issue #66.  But you know what I mean.)  That’s because a number of people working for Marvel just plain liked the characters, regardless of their allegedly limited commercial viability; and, as writer Steve Englehart puts it in his 2009 preface to Marvel Masterworks — The X-Men, Vol. 8, “the Marvel Universe was a coherent entity, so the X-Men continued to exist in it even if they had no comic to call their own.”  Read More

Marvel Two-in-One #2 (March, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As we covered here back in August, the twelfth — and final — issue of Marvel Feature ended with Benjamin J. Grimm (aka the Thing), stranded in a desert in the American Southwest.  But we Marvel Comics readers of 1973 had no need to worry over the fate of our rocky orange hero, since just two months later, the narrative of Ben’s travails picked right up in Marvel Two-in-One #1 — the first issue of a brand-new title devoted to the “Thing Team-Up” series premise that had made its debut in Marvel Feature #11.

With the new title came a (mostly) new creative team; for, while longtime Fantastic Four inker Joe Sinnott soldiered on, making sure that Aunt Petunia’a favorite nephew remained reliably on-model, the series was now being written by Steve Gerber and pencilled by Gil Kane.  Gerber and Kane faithfully picked up the threads left behind by previous storytellers Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin, having Ben Grimm finally reach civilization and buy a bus ticket home to New York — only to exchange it for one for Florida, after catching sight of a news story regarding a certain muck-encrusted mockery of a man who’d been sighted shambling about the Sunshine State’s swampy Everglades.  “Like it ain’t bad enuff just bein’ the Thing –!” Ben complained aloud to an uncaring universe.  “This bug-eyed mudball’s gotta come along and rip off my name!”  Read More

Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February, 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

I don’t suppose I need to explain to anyone reading this just why the topic of today’s post is so significant.  After all, even if you didn’t know anything about the 129th issue of Amazing Spider-Man before you arrived here, just a look at the comic’s iconic cover by Gil Kane and John Romita would quickly clue you in to its contents.  And what other comic-book character’s fiftieth anniversary in this month of October, 2023 could possibly compare in importance to the first appearance of… the Jackal?

Nah, just kidding.  I’m talking about the other guy.  (Although I freely acknowledge that the debut of the Jackal is significant in its own way, especially for ’90s-era Spider-Man fans who still have nightmares about the Clone Saga.)  Read More