Fantastic Four #176 (November, 1976)

Regular readers of this blog will recall how, three months ago, we celebrated “Marvel Milestone Month” in honor of four long-running Marvel series all having hit significant numerical markers in May, 1976.  Today, we’ll be looking at yet another comic that signified a notable Marvel milestone of that year, coming out as it did on the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of the Fantastic Four title back in August, 1961 — although, as best as I’ve been able to determine, no one took much notice of that fact at the time.  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #68 (November, 1976)

With this post, we’ve reached the final chapter of Marvel Comics’ five-part crossover between Conan the Barbarian and Marvel Feature (starring Red Sonja) — and as this installment’s cover by Gil Kane, Pablo Marcos, and John Romita makes clear, Conan and Sonja — not to mention Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast — are going to be joined for the occasion by the third sword-and-sorcery star derived from the works of Robert E. Howard who was currently headlining their own Marvel color comic:  Kull the Destroyer!  Read More

Thor Annual #5 (1976)

Three months ago, in our post about Avengers #150, we discussed at length the circumstances surrounding writer Steve Englehart’s decision in the spring of 1976 to leave Marvel Comics.  While the most immediate effect of his decision was that, come May,  Marvel was forced to release that milestone issue of Avengers as a hybrid of new and reprinted material, Englehart’s overall departure from the House of Ideas took another few months to completely play out.  In more recent posts, we’ve covered the writer’s final contributions to Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, both of which saw the light of day in June, 1976; his last issue of his other regular assignment, Super-Villain Team-Up (not covered on this blog, sorry) was released a month later, in July.  But Englehart’s final story from his first and best-regarded stint writing for Marvel didn’t come out until August, which is when the topic of today’s post arrived in spinner racks… a fact that’s somewhat ironic, given that Englehart’s script for this extra-long story was likely completed over a year prior to its release.  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #67 (October, 1976)

In this post, we’ll be looking at the third chapter in Marvel Comics’ 1976 five-part crossover between Conan the Barbarian and Marvel Feature, featuring Red Sonja — though this issue’s status as such is completely ignored by the cover, which, nice as the illustration by Gil Kane and Pablo Marcos is, gives no indication whatsoever of the She-Devil with a Sword’s role therein, either by image or blurb-text.  Read More

Marvel Spotlight #30 (October, 1976)

Today’s post may be the most self-indulgent one I’ve ever written.  I mean, I could be wrong; but something tells me that not many of this blog’s regular readers have been waiting with bated breath for me to follow through on the promise I made in this space, one year ago this month, to post about the Warriors Three issue of Marvel Spotlight when its 50th anniversary arrived in July, 2026.  And I get it; these are indisputably “niche” characters, with a very, shall we say, select fanbase.  So, if you’re thinking about skipping this one, I won’t blame you.  Honestly.  (Though you should be sure and check back in on Saturday, when we’ll be discussing the first appearance of Phoenix in X-Men #101, because I know you wouldn’t want to miss that.)  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #66 (September, 1976)

A week ago, we took a look at Marvel Feature #6, the first installment of what will eventually turn out to be a five-part crossover between that title and Conan the Barbarian.  Today, we’ll be dealing with the second chapter of this event — although, in fact, Conan #66 can just as easily (and perhaps more accurately) be described as the second prologue to the crossover “proper”, which won’t really get going until the next month’s Conan #67.  That’s because this comic, like Marvel Feature #6, is entirely concerned with getting the storyline’s three principal characters — i.e., Conan, his lover and partner-in-piracy Bêlit, and Marvel Feature headliner Red Sonja — all on the same page.  And I mean literally the same page, in more ways than one; since, as regular readers will recall, MF #6 ended with a full-page splash panel depicting Red Sonja facing down Conan and Bêlit over a priceless magical artifact: a single page from the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos.  Our story’s first prologue told us how Sonja got herself into that situation; now it’s time for us to check out the second, the better to learn what path Conan and Bêlit have followed to arrive at the very same place as Big Red.  Read More

Thor #250 (August, 1976)

Welcome to the second installment in our series of four posts commemorating May, 1976 as “Marvel Milestone Month“.  Last time, we looked at Captain America’s “Special Bicentennial Issue”, aka Captain America #200; this go-round, it’s “The Spectacular 250th Issue!” of the four-color home of everyone’s favorite Norse God of Thunder.  (Technically, it’s only the 125th issue of this publication released under the title Thor; for its first 125 issues, the book was officially known as Journey into Mystery, and what’s more, the Son of Odin didn’t even show up until #83.  But I bet you already knew all that, didn’t you?)  Read More

Avengers #148 (June, 1976)

Last month we took a look at Avengers #147, the cover of which we noted found its penciller, Rich Buckler, operating in “full Kirby mode”.  By contrast, the cover of today’s fifty-year-old comic happens to have been pencilled by Jack Kirby himself… and may I just say, ain’t nothin’ like the real King, baby.  (For the record, Mike Esposito inked this piece.)  Read More

Defenders #36 (June, 1976)

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, we haven’t had a post about Marvel Comics’ Defenders title since we covered issue #34 back in January — which means that our continuing coverage of writer Steve Gerber and artist Sal Buscema’s “Headmen/Nebulon Saga” must resume here not with the issue whose number and cover are shown directly above, but with the one whose cover you see pictured at left.  And that Gil Kane-Mike Esposito number fronting Defenders #35 (May, 1976) is a doozy, isn’t it?  If you’ve never read this comic before, I can’t wait for you to find out who that utterly bizarre unicorn-horned, bird-claw-footed, tentacle-armed monstrosity fighting the Valkyrie really is.  Why, I bet you’ll be just as surprised as Chondu the Mystic was!  (Wait, did I just give the whole thing away?  Damn.)  Read More

Howard the Duck #3 (May, 1976)

As we discussed in last December’s post about the second issue of Marvel Comics’ Howard the Duck, the departure from the series of artist Frank Brunner — who, along with having drawn the first two Howard solo strips (published as backups in Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 and #5), and the first two issues of the Duck’s own title, had also contributed to the plotting of HtD #1 — was less than entirely amicable.  Among the complaints later aired by Brunner in an article published in The Comics Journal #51 (Nov., 1979), the “Master of Quack Fu” parody featured the third issue was his idea as well — though he received no credit in the book itself, nor was he remunerated so much as “a thin dime” (his own words) for his contribution.  Read More