With this 175th issue of Captain America, the “Secret Empire” saga that had dominated the series’ pages for over half a year finally reached its climax. And as our storytellers picked up their narrative right where the previous month’s episode had left us readers hanging, you could hardly accuse writer Steve Englehart of underselling the occasion in his opening, credits-prefacing caption… Read More
In early 1974, when a slot for a new continuing feature opened up in Marvel Premiere (due to the previous tenant Dr. Strange having vacated the premises to return to headlining his own title), it must have seemed a virtual no-brainer to offer it to a character who could help Marvel Comics cash in even further on the burgeoning martial arts craze than they were already doing with the Master of Kung Fu series (which had debuted in September, 1973) and its brand-new black-and-white magazine spinoff The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (which launched in early February, just a couple of weeks prior to the release of today’s featured fifty-year-old comic). But for Marvel to do that, someone was first going to have to invent such a character; and in this instance, that process of invention began with the company’s then-editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas. Read More
Has it really been only fifteen months since I last wrote about Jack Kirby’s Fourth World? Somehow it feels like a lot longer. Which is a little odd, since I’m pretty sure the time between the release of New Gods #11 in August, 1972, and that of Mister Miracle #18 in November, 1973, practically flew by for my younger self, back in the day. And as we all know, time progressed at a much slower pace fifty years ago than it does today. So what gives?
I’m not sure, but it may have to do with the fact that in August, 2022, after having blogged about Kirby’s Fourth World comics at least a couple of times per month ever since my first such post two years earlier, I wrote my final blog posts about Forever People and New Gods, conducted my postmortem on the whole Fourth World project… and called it a day. I then moved on to thinking, and writing, about other fifty-year-old comic book-related matters, allowing Jack Kirby’s unfinished opus to quickly recede in my mental rear-view mirror. Read More
DC Comics appears to have had high hopes for The Demon when the title was first launched, back in June, 1972. After just one issue — well before any reliable sales figures could have become available — the publisher increased the book’s frequency from bi-monthly to monthly with Demon #2, which was released in August. That month happened to be the very same one that DC dropped the ax on artist/writer/editor Jack Kirby’s core “Fourth World” titles, Forever People and New Gods, each with their eleventh issues– two series in which the veteran creator had almost certainly invested more of his passion, imagination, and energy than he ever would The Demon, or, for that matter, any other comic he’d work on for DC in the 1970s. Yet neither title had ever received the show of faith on DC publisher Carmine Infantino’s part that monthly status would have indicated, nor had (or would) the lone surviving Fourth World title, Mister Miracle — which continued coming out every two months (albeit gutted of virtually everything that had made it a Fourth World book in the first place), while both The Demon and its fellow “new” Kirby creation, Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, sprinted along at their monthly pace. Read More
Today we continue our coverage of Marvel Comics’ groundbreaking crossover event of summer, 1973, the Avengers/Defenders War. As you’ll recall from our post about Avengers #117 two weeks ago, the latest battle in the ongoing conflict between the super-teams ended without a clear winner or loser, as Captain America and the Sub-Mariner called a time-out to investigate their suspicions that the heroes were being played against each other by a malevolent third party (which was indeed absolutely the case).
But, as had been promised in no uncertain terms by Avengers #117’s end-of-issue “coming next” blurb — and which was proclaimed even more forcefully by Defenders #10’s John Romita cover — whatever “Breakthrough!” might be imminent wouldn’t arrive in time the stop the Mighty Thor and the Incredible Hulk from throwing down. And that was a good thing, since if that match-up hadn’t come to fruition, sixteen-year-old me would have asked for my money back. (Well, not really, since I was well aware the guy working the counter at the Tote-Sum would simply have looked at me like I was crazy if I pulled something like that. But you know what I mean.) As it was, however, I could just kick back and wait for writer Steve Englenart and artists Sal Buscema and Frank Bolle to bring on the brawlers… Read More
As I wrote in my post about Daredevil #105 a few weeks ago, back in 1973 my younger self hadn’t been paying much attention to what Jim Starlin had been up to lately in the pages of Captain Marvel — at least, not until elements of his burgeoning interplanetary epic of Thanos, the mad Titan, cropped up in the middle of an ongoing storyline of the Man Without Fear, of all places. After that brief taste of Starlin’s concepts (and artwork), I was determined to pick up the next issue of Captain Marvel to learn more. But before I even had that chance, Marvel Comics released yet another Thanosian tie-in — this one drawn (and most likely co-plotted) cover-to-cover by Jim Starlin himself. Read More
It’s been some seven months since the blog last checked in with Captain America. As regular readers may recall, at that time we took a look at the storyline that kicked off new writer Steve Englehart’s tenure on the title — a four-issue saga in which our star-spangled Avenger (aka Steve Rogers) learned that during the post-World War II era, while he himself had been frozen in ice, he’d been replaced by another Captain America — the “Commie-busting” Cap whose adventures Atlas (aka Marvel) Comics had published for a few years in the 1950s. That iteration of the hero, along with his partner Bucky, had ultimately gone insane, becoming an avatar of bigotry — and a menace to society whom the real Captain America, along with his partner, the Falcon, and girlfriend, sometime S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter, had to take down before he could permanently damage Cap’s reputation… and a whole lot else, besides. Read More
Last summer, we took a look at the first two issues of The Demon — a series created by writer-artist-editor Jack Kirby as a response to DC Comics’ request for him to come up with something in the “horror hero” vein. Although this new feature hadn’t originally been intended to replace Kirby’s beloved “Fourth World” titles on his production schedule — at least, that hadn’t been Kirby’s intent — following the cancellations of both Forever People and New Gods, and the mandated retooling of Mister Miracle, that’s effectively what happened, as both Demon and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth (another series dreamed up by Kirby at DC’s direction) had their publishing frequencies increased from bi-monthly to monthly status within their first three issues, so that by the beginning of 1973, they, along with the still bi-monthly Mister Miracle, effectively absorbed most if not all of the creator’s time and effort. Read More
Behind an attention-grabbing cover pencilled by John Buscema from a rough layout by Jim Starlin (and inked by Frank Giacoia), the Defenders creative team of writer Steve Englehart, penciller Sal Buscema, and inker Frank McLaughlin began this latest installment of the super-team’s continuing adventures right where the previous one had left off.
It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a happy scene… Read More
Readers of our Avengers #105 post back in July may recall how that issue’s plot — the first from the title’s brand new writer, Steve Englehart — concerned the team’s search for their missing member Quicksilver, who’d disappeared towards the end of the previous issue. Following the inconclusive resolution to their efforts in that tale, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would continue their quest for the mutant speedster for months to come. But, surprisingly — well, it surprised me, back in November, 1972 — when Pietro Maximoff was finally “found”, it didn’t happen in the pages of Avengers; instead, Quicksilver resurfaced in, of all things, an issue of Fantastic Four — which, as it happened, was the new super-team scripting gig of Roy Thomas, the man who’d written Avengers for the last five-plus years prior to Englehart taking over, and thus the guy who’d launched the whole “where is Pietro?” mystery in the first place. From a creative standpoint, it made a certain kind of sense that Thomas would be the one to ultimately wrap things up; but in terms of the ongoing mega-story of the Marvel Universe, it seemed to come out of nowhere. How did Quicksilver ever manage to end up in the Himalayan homeland of the Inhumans, the Great Refuge? And why the heck was he fighting the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, Johnny Storm? Read More
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 