Mike Wieringo

Thor #169 (October, 1969)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

At the conclusion of our discussion of Thor #166 three months ago, we left the God of Thunder about to face the judgement of his omnipotent All-Father, Odin, for his crime in succumbing to the affliction of Warrior Madness.  Thor had been driven to this state of irrational, uncontrollable fury following the abduction of his lady, Sif, by the artificially-created superhuman called Him (later to be known as Adam Warlock).  As things turned out, Sif was safely rescued, and Him, though soundly thrashed by the scion of Asgard, escaped without mortal injury.  Nevertheless, at the issue’s end Thor was called home to the Golden Realm to face the music; what he didn’t yet know, but we readers did, is that Odin had already determined that his punishment would be to go on a cosmic quest to find the world-devouring Galactus, learn the secret of his origin, and end his threat forevermore.  Read More

Fantastic Four #78 (September, 1968)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

“The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”

Honestly, I have no idea why it took so long for me to buy my first issue of Fantastic Four.  After all, I’d been watching their Saturday morning TV cartoon since September, 1967, same as I’d been watching Spider-Man, which had premiered at the same time.  But while I’d started picking up Spidey’s monthly comic in January, 1968, it took me another five months to take the plunge with the FF.

As I speculated in last week’s post about Captain America #105, it may have been that I was a little leery of Jack Kirby’s artwork, which looked different than the art in any other comic I was reading.  Or, possibly, I was waiting for the continued story that, thanks to the issue descriptions featured in the monthly “Mighty Marvel Checklist”, I knew had been running since issue #74 — involving Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and Psycho-Man — to wrap up, so that I wouldn’t be jumping in in the middle of a storyline.  At this late date, I have no way of knowing for sure.  But in any event, when I saw #78 on the spinner rack in June of 1968, I was ready at last to put Marvel’s claim of global preeminence to the test.  Read More