Steve Englehart | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books

Doctor Strange #14 (May, 1976)

One week ago, we had a look at Tomb of Dracula #44, which, as regular readers will recall, ended with not one, but two cliffhangers. To find out what happened next in regards to the second of those, which promised a face-off between Blade, the Vampire Slayer, and Hannibal King, Vampire Detective, we’ll have to wait another few weeks — but as to the first, which saw Doctor Strange succumb to the fatal bite of Count Dracula, all we have to do is turn past the cover of the comic that’s our topic today to pick up things up right where they left off. (Although, if we’re to be honest, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s cover illo kind of gives the game away, at least as far as Doc’s survival is concerned — but, really, what else could you expect?) Read More

Doctor Strange #13 (April, 1976)

Posted on January 10 by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog will recall from our November, 2025 post about Doctor Strange #12, that particular installment of the adventures of Marvel Comics’ Master of the Mystic Arts ended not with a whimper, but a bang. Actually, a series of bangs, by the end of which the planet Earth (the “real” one, writer Steve Englehart’s script assured us) had been completely and utterly destroyed, along with all living things thereon. “But then,” Englehart’s omniscient narrator pointedly asked us readers, “how is it you remain?” How, indeed? The answer to that poser was promised for the next bimonthly issue… which, of course, brings us to the subject of today’s post. Read More

Avengers #144 (February, 1976)

Posted on November 15 by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I tend not to talk very much about the covers of the half-century-old comics we discuss here; unless they’re really strikingly good, my tendency is simply to note who drew them — to the extent that that’s known, anyway — and then move on. (And just this week, in writing about Defenders #32, I forgot to do even that much; my thanks to reader Ben Herman for stepping into the breach.) But I’m going to make an exception this time, simply to express my disappointment with this particular job by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia. While there are aspects of the composition that work well, the central figure of Hellcat — a significant new character (OK, technically a new combination of two pre-existing characters) whom readers are seeing here for the very first time — is almost painfully awkward, at least to my eyes. Kane was a great talent, but among the very many (probably too many) covers he cranked out for Marvel in the 1970s, it stands to reason that there’d be at least a few clunkers; and for me, this is one of them. (Naturally, your mileage may vary.) Read More

Doctor Strange #12 (February, 1976)

Posted on November 8 by Alan Stewart

Four months ago, we took a look at Doctor Strange #10, which presented the first chapter in writer Steve Englehart and artist Gene Colan’s latest (as of July, 1975) four-part saga of the Sorcerer Supreme — this one involving our hero’s attempt to prevent the awesome cosmic entity Eternity from destroying the Earth. Naturally, that story had continued in the next bi-monthly issue of the series; but since we didn’t manage to fit a full post about Doctor Strange #11 into our September blogging schedule, we’ll need to cover its main events before moving on to the specific comic whose name and cover you see at the top of this post. If you’re a regular reader, you already know how this goes… and if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll figure it out as we roll along. Read More

Avengers #143 (January, 1976)

Posted on October 25 by Alan Stewart

The cover of this issue, pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by Frank Giacoia (and maybe Mike Esposito), might fairly be called a bit misleading. Sure, the Avengers fight a big scaly monster inside, but not these Avengers — Captain America, Iron Man, the Beast, the Vision, and the Scarlet Witch — who, setting aside the whole monster business, show up for only two of the story’s nineteen pages, besides. On the other hand, the promises made by the cover’s blurbs are right on the money: these five Avengers do indeed “break loose” from the confinement we saw them trapped in back in Avengers #142; plus, this issue also features “the final battle against the power of Kang!” — or, at least, a final battle, since, then as now, nothing lasts forever in Marvel superhero comics. Read More

Marvel Preview #4 (January, 1976)

Posted on October 11 by Alan Stewart

Back in the early months of 1973, Marvel Comics confidently made a big push into the black-and-white comics magazine market then dominated by Warren Publishing with a slate of four horror titles — Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie, and Vampire Tales — obviously designed to go head-to-head with Warren’s trio of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. Within two-and-a-half years, however, all four of those books had shuffled off back to the graveyard, victims of a general downturn in the horror genre’s appeal to American comics fans that had also prompted a significant pruning of Marvel’s color comics of that ilk. (TTFN, Man-Thing; catch ya later, Morbius; Living Mummy, we hardly knew ye.)

Still, if you’d taken a look at the magazine racks in October, 1975, Marvel’s confidence in its ability to compete in the B&W comics field — or, at least, its determination to do so — would hardly have seemed to have diminished since the heady days of the “Marvel Monster Group”. That month, you might have scored copies of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #18, Planet of the Apes #15, Savage Sword of Conan #9… maybe even Crazy #15 or Doc Savage #2 (which had both come out in August, but wouldn’t be bumped off the stands by new issues until December). And also, of course, the book that’s the main topic of today’s post: the fourth issue of Marvel Preview. Read More

Avengers #142 (December, 1975)

Posted on September 13 by Alan Stewart

Last month we took a look at Avengers #141, which, as regular readers of this blog will remember, ended with three time-travelers — the founding Avenger named Thor, the would-be Avenger known as Moondragon, and their temporary ally, Immortus — touching down in the American West of 1873, just in time to be startled by someone coming up behind them… a someone, or someones, whom our travelers could see, but whose identities remained unknown to us readers…

…at least until the cover of the next issue — the subject of today’s post — where the illustration by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia (with a likely assist from John Romita) rather gives the game away ahead of the book’s opening splash page… Read More

Captain Marvel #41 (November, 1975)

Posted on August 30 by Alan Stewart

Back in April we looked at Captain Marvel #39, featuring “The Trial of the Watcher”. As you may recall, that issue’s trial of “our” Watcher, Uatu, had been held on the home planet of his people, and ended with him getting off the charge of breaking the Watchers’ vow of non-intervention by promising he’d be a good boy and never doing it again. That might have seemed like an exceedingly small slap on the wrist, given that Uatu had conspired with the group of renegade Kree known as the Lunatic Legion to not only capture but to outright kill our hero, Captain Marvel, before coming to his senses, but whattya gonna do? The story ended with Mar-Vell literally shrugging off the whole episode, and implicitly inviting us readers to do the same. Read More

Avengers #141 (November, 1975)

Posted on August 16 by Alan Stewart

The main topic of today’s post is Avengers #141, which kicked off the last major story arc of one of the series’ defining writers, Steve Englehart — and also featured the debut on the series of one of its most celebrated artists, George Pérez. But given that the last issue of the title we looked at on this blog was #137, back in April — and that that one ended on a fairly large cliffhanger, with the Wasp having just been seriously injured by the enigmatic alien known as the Stranger — we’ll have some catching up to do in regards to the three intervening issues before we can move on to the latest doings of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, circa August, 1975. Read More

Doctor Strange #10 (October, 1975)

Posted on July 9 by Alan Stewart

Fifty years ago this month, writer Steve Englehart and artist Gene Colan were just coming off a four-part storyline in Doctor Strange that had focused on a couple of the Master of the Mystic Arts’ best-established arch-foes — the Dread Dormammu and his sister Umar — when the latest issue of the title arrived on stands with a cover signaling that the creative team was returning to the well for another deep dip into the feature’s past. After all, Baron Mordo was arguably Doctor Strange’s oldest adversary, having first appeared in the heroic magician’s second published adventure (in Strange Tales #111 [Aug., 1963]), and then soon thereafter being confirmed to have played a role in his origin story (Strange Tales #115 [Dec., 1963]). Meanwhile, Eternity (who wasn’t exactly a villain, per se) had almost as distinguished a provenance, his debut appearance having come near the end of the seminal run of Dr. Strange’s creators, writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, in Strange Tales #138 (Nov., 1965). Read More