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
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
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
When the blog last checked in with Daredevil, back in March, we saw how, at the climax of issue #52, our hero was forced to let his defeated adversary — the murderous roboticist named Starr Saxon — get away free, due to Saxon having quite inconveniently learned that the Man Without Fear is secretly blind lawyer Matt Murdock. Then, following a retelling of his origin story in issue #53, DD came up with the perfect solution — he’d kill off Matt! As he put it in the issue’s last panel: “My problem isn’t Daredevil — and never was! It was always Matt — the blind lawyer — the hapless, helpless invalid! He’s been my plague — since the day I first donned a costume!”
This was probably the worst idea ol’ Hornhead had come up with in a very long time — and considering all the other bad ideas he’d contemplated and then implemented over just the past year or two, that’s really saying something. These bad ideas had included (in chronological order): faking the death of both Daredevil and his “third” identity of Mike Murdock (Matt’s fictional twin brother) in an explosion, so that he could live an unencumbered life as Matt; then, after realizing he really did still want to be a costumed hero, having to invent a new, second Daredevil, supposedly the original hero’s replacement; then deciding to retire as Daredevil yet again, a resolution that lasted less than an issue, as a robot assassin sent by Starr Saxon to kill DD instead attacked Matt, having found him by scent (long story); that event required him to suit up again, and ultimately led to his current predicament of subject to being blackmailed by Saxon over his secret identity. Read More