Stan Lee

Astonishing Tales #31 (August, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The last time we checked in with Marvel Comics’ cyborg antihero, Deathlok the Demolisher, it was September, 2024.  (Or, if you prefer, September, 1974).  That’s been a good long while in comics periodical publishing terms, even taking into account the bi-monthly publication schedule of Astonishing Tales back then; so you might figure we have a lot of catching up to do before digging in to the character’s “latest” adventure.  But, as it turns out, the eight-month gap between issues #27 and #31 of the Astonishing Tales brought just two new Deathlok stories rather than three, as issue #29 was a fill-in featuring an unplanned reprint of the first Guardians of the Galaxy story, which (as we discussed in last week’s Defenders #26 post) had originally appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 back in 1968.  Read More

Captain Marvel #39 (July, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When last the regular readers of this blog saw Captain Marvel, he’d just been defeated and taken prisoner by the Watcher — a formerly benign, self-declared non-interventionist, whose sudden heel turn after over a decade of Marvel Comics appearances seemed to come out of nowhere — who had then proceeded to hand him over to the mysterious, heretofore unseen enemies who’d been giving our hero trouble ever since the end of auteur Jim Starlin’s run on the series — the Lunatic Legion.

Our first glimpse of those baddies (see right) made them look pretty loony, indeed.  But, considering that storytellers Steve Englehart (co-plotter/scripter), Al Milgrom (co-plotter/penciller) and Klaus Janson (inker) were giving us a Captain Marvel’s-eye view of the LL, here — and also considering that Mar-Vell was, at the time, tripping balls on LSD (euphemistically referred to in the story as “Vitamin C”, so as not to draw the unwelcome attention of the Comics Code Authority) — one might reasonably doubt whether the image we saw here was entirely representative of objective reality.  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

Defenders #23 (May, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The fifty-year-old comic book referred to in the title line of this blog post presents the second chapter of a four-part storyline.  And, seeing how we didn’t feature a post about Defenders #22 here in this space last month, regular readers of the blog know what that means: we’ll be covering that issue before moving on to our ostensible main topic, i.e., Defenders #23.  But wait, there’s more!  Because, although the story chronicled in another half-century-old comic, Giant-Size Defenders #4, isn’t technically part of the same arc, its events do preface those of the main Defenders title’s “Sons of the Serpent” saga in some significant ways.  For that reason, we’ll be spending a little quality time with it before proceeding even as far as Defenders #22.  It’s a three-fer today, folks.  Read More

Doctor Strange #7 (April, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago this month, this issue of Doctor Strange (second series) continued the storyline begun one issue earlier by the book’s ongoing regular writer Steve Englehart and “new” (actually returning, from the Doc’s first series) regular artist Gene Colan — a storyline that on first glance seemed to center on our hero’s old foe Umar the Unrelenting, but which by the end of its first episode had pulled back the curtain on an even older (as well as rather more famous) enemy of Doc’s: the Dread Dormammu.  Read More

Defenders #21 (March, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago this month, the Gil Kane-Klaus Janson cover of Defenders #21 heralded the beginning of a new storyline.  But as soon as we readers of the time turned to the comic’s opening splash page — not to mention the double-page spread that followed immediately thereafter — it was clear that although the “A”-plot of the recent three-parter that had wound through two issues of Marvel Two-in-One before concluding in Defenders #20 might indeed have reached its end, the series’ new regular writer, Steve Gerber, was in no way ready to drop the plot element that had driven much of the action of that arc — the mystery behind the past life of the superheroine we knew as Valkyrie…  Read More

Strange Tales #178 (February, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in June, we took a look at Captain Marvel #34, which was the last issue drawn and plotted by Jim Starlin.  As we discussed in that post, Starlin abruptly quit the series after delivering only one chapter of his first post-“Thanos War” storyline, unhappy with Marvel Comics’ seeming unwillingness, or inability, to give him a single consistent inker on the bi-monthly title.

Per remarks the creator has made in interviews over the years, his leaving Captain Marvel amounted to his leaving Marvel, period, at least for a little while.  As he explained in 1998 for an interview published in Comic Book Artist #2:  Read More

Giant-Size Avengers #3 (February, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #131, which ended with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes being transported against their wills to the realm of Limbo, where they were set to face off against a Legion of the Unliving assembled by their long-time foe, Kang the Conqueror.  This month, we’ll be discussing the “two-part triple-length triumph” which that comic’s final page promised as a follow-up… a story which, following a pattern that had been set the last time that an issue of the quarterly Giant-Size Avengers rolled around, doesn’t actually begin in the book whose Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover graces the top of this post; but, rather, in the one whose cover by Ron Wilson and Giacoia is shown at right: the latest (as of fifty years ago) issue of our assembled heroes’ regular monthly title, Avengers #132 (Feb., 1975).  Read More

Giant-Size Man-Thing #3 (February, 1975)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

OK, let’s get this out of the way first:  Back in the mid-1970s, Marvel Comics actually published five issues of a series called Giant-Size Man-Thing.

Hahahahahahahahah!

Everyone good now?

As I mentioned in my post about Man-Thing #8 a few months back, there’s really no reason why “Giant-Size Man-Thing” should be exponentially funnier than “Man-Thing” is by itself.  I mean, any double meaning you want to read into the phrase is right there in the regular-sized version, right?  Yet, put those two hyphenates together, in that order, and hilarity — or at least an extended period of snickering — inevitably ensues. Read More