Immortus

Avengers #143 (January, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The cover of this issue, pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Frank Giacoia (and maybe Mike Esposito), might fairly be called a bit misleading.  Sure, the Avengers fight a big scaly monster inside, but not these Avengers — Captain America, Iron Man, the Beast, the Vision, and the Scarlet Witch — who, setting aside the whole monster business, show up for only two of the story’s nineteen pages, besides.  On the other hand, the promises made by the cover’s blurbs are right on the money: these five Avengers do indeed “break loose” from the confinement we saw them trapped in back in Avengers #142; plus, this issue also features “the final battle against the power of Kang!” — or, at least, a final battle, since, then as now, nothing lasts forever in Marvel superhero comics.  Read More

Avengers #142 (December, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #141, which, as regular readers of this blog will remember, ended with three time-travelers — the founding Avenger named Thor, the would-be Avenger known as Moondragon, and their temporary ally, Immortus — touching down in the American West of 1873, just in time to be startled by someone coming up behind them… a someone, or someones, whom our travelers could see, but whose identities remained unknown to us readers…

…at least until the cover of the next issue — the subject of today’s post — where the illustration by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia (with a likely assist from John Romita) rather gives the game away ahead of the book’s opening splash page…  Read More

Avengers #141 (November, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The main topic of today’s post is Avengers #141, which kicked off the last major story arc of one of the series’ defining writers, Steve Englehart — and also featured the debut on the series of one of its most celebrated artists, George Pérez.  But given that the last issue of the title we looked at on this blog was #137, back in April — and that that one ended on a fairly large cliffhanger, with the Wasp having just been seriously injured by the enigmatic alien known as the Stranger — we’ll have some catching up to do in regards to the three intervening issues before we can move on to the latest doings of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, circa August, 1975.  Read More

Giant-Size Avengers #4 (Jun., 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in August, 1974, after laying the necessary narrative groundwork for many months, Avengers writer Steve Englehart had inaugurated his “Celestial Madonna” story arc with a pair of issues that came out within a couple of weeks of each other: Avengers #129 and Giant-Size Avengers #2.  Half a year later, in February, 1975, the saga would reach its conclusion in a parallel fashion, with the final chapters appearing in that month’s issues of both the regular monthly Avengers title and its giant-sized quarterly companion.  Read More

Avengers #134 (April, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

While it may say “Avengers #134 (April, 1975)” on the title line above — and, yes, that is that very issue’s cover (pencilled by Gil Kane, inked by Joe Sinnott, and probably touched up by John Romita) that’s displayed right above that — we’ll actually be beginning this post by looking at the preceding issue, Avengers #133 (whose cover by Kane, Dave Cockrum, and Frank Giacoia is shown at left).  That’s because the last time we checked in with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was in November’s post about Giant-Size Avengers #3, which, as you may remember, ended right in the middle of the extended storyline that today is generally known as the “Celestial Madonna Saga”.  And while covering more than one comic in a single blog post is hardly anything new around these parts, your humble blogger feels moved to point out that, even more than with most continued stories of this era, this one happens to be so information-dense, particularly at this juncture, that a brief synopsis could never, ever cut it.  Read More