Steve Gerber | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books

Omega the Unknown #6 (January, 1977)

According to Omega the Unknown‘s co-creator Mary Skrenes, she and her collaborator, Steve Gerber, were originally given the go-ahead for the series from Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee with the stipulation that they bring in already well-established Marvel characters as villains (or guest stars) on a regular basis. That policy seemed to hold through issues #2 and #3, which saw the enigmatic title character going up against the Hulk and Electro, respectively. But it seems to have fallen by the wayside as early as issue #4, which (as heralded by the Howard Chaykin-Frank Giacoia cover shown at left) introduced the menace of… El Gato. And as we’re about to see as we make our trek not just through OtU #4, but through #5 and #6 as well, “Stan the Man” may well have had the right instincts in this case. Read More

Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976)

Posted on 13 Days Ago by Alan Stewart

As of October, 1976, Marvel Comics had primarily used their tabloid-sized “Treasury” format (which had premiered in the summer of 1974) as a vehicle for reprint material. Exceptions to date had included MGM’s Marvelous Wizard of Oz (1975), Marvel Treasury of Oz Featuring The Marvelous Land of Oz (1975), and Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man (1976), the first and last of which were co-productions with DC Comics; more recently, the past summer had seen the release of two new 10″ x 13.5” extravaganzas written as well as drawn by Jack Kirby: Marvel Treasury Special Featuring Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Read More

Howard the Duck #7 (December, 1976)

Posted on 27 Days Ago by Alan Stewart

The fifty-year-old comic book we’re discussing today is something of a strange duck (sorry), in that while the bulk of it is devoted to the beginning of a new storyline concerning the titular character’s campaign for President of the United States, the first five of its seventeen pages — as well as the Gene Colan-Tom Palmer cover shown above — are given over to the wrap-up of a story mostly told, but not quite finished, in the previous issue. So we’re going to need to take a look at Howard the Duck #6 before we look at #7. And since the last issue we covered before this was #4, back in April… and since #5 sets up #6 pretty directly… we’re going to need to at least quickly summarize the events of the former issue’s “I Want Mo-o-oney!” before we even do that. All clear? Great! So let’s begin. Read More

Defenders Annual #1 (1976)

Posted on August 12 by Alan Stewart

In last Saturday’s post, we discussed Marvel Comics’ Thor Annual #5 — which, in the summer of 1976, was the first annual starring the God of Thunder to have appeared since 1971. Today, we’ll be looking at another ’76 Marvel annual… although this one has the distinction of being the first ever such comic featuring the Defenders, since the so-called “non-team” hadn’t yet debuted in their own ongoing title at the time Marvel had phased out their annuals publishing program some five years before. Read More

Defenders #40 (October, 1976)

Posted on July 22 by Alan Stewart

As regular readers of this blog are aware, we’ve recently been covering the latter (and, honestly, somewhat lesser) portion of the long-running “Headmen/Nebulon” saga in Defenders a couple of issues at a time. Most recently, in May, we looked at both Defenders #37 and #38; this time out, we’ll be delving into #39 as well as the issue indicated by both the cover and post title shown above, i.e., #40. Read More

Defenders #38 (August, 1976)

Posted on May 30 by Alan Stewart

With this post, we continue our coverage of writer Steve Gerber and artist Sal Buscema’s “Headmen/Nebulon Saga” in Defenders, following our recently established routine of taking on two issues of the lengthy storyline at a time. This go-round, we’ll be starting with Defenders #37, whose cover by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito heralds the imminent return to this title’s pages of Luke Cage, Power Man — a hero who’d first fought alongside Marvel Comics’ premiere non-team back in issues #17-19, and then had renewed his non-membership when the group battled the Sons of the Serpent in #24-25.

As regular readers will hopefully recall, Defenders #36 had ended with three of our heroes — leader Dr. Strange, veteran Nighthawk (in his civilian guise of Kyle Richmond), and newbie Red Guardian — having been captured by Plantman, who intended to hold the wealthy Richmond for ransom. But rather than immediately picking things back up with those characters, our creative team (which in addition to Gerber and Buscema includes inker Klaus Janson) start off issue #37’s “Evil in Bloom!” with another Defender, namely the Hulk. Read More

Howard the Duck #4 (July, 1976)

Posted on April 25 by Alan Stewart

Prior to the release of today’s featured comic fifty years ago this month, only three artists had lent their pencils to delineating the adventures of Marvel Comics’ newest superstar, at least officially: Val Mayerik, who’d drawn the character’s debut appearances in Fear #19 and Man-Thing #1; Frank Brunner, who’d illustrated the two solo strips that subsequently appeared in Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 and #5, as well as issues #1 and #2 of Howard’s self-titled series; and John Buscema, who’d done the same for the third and most recent issue. Read More

Omega the Unknown #3 (July, 1976)

Posted on April 18 by Alan Stewart

Back in December, we took a look at the first issue of Omega the Unknown — Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes’ 1975-77 Marvel Comics series that was just as much about a seemingly “normal” 12-year-old boy named James-Michael Starling as it was about the strange visitor from another planet that gave the book its title (if not more so).

This time out, we’ll be looking at the next two installments of the bimonthly title, beginning with issue #2 — which, as you can tell from the Rich Buckler-Al Milgrom cover shown at left, featured a special guest appearance by one of Marvel’s biggest stars, the Incredible Hulk — before proceeding to #3 — which, as you can tell from the Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover shown above, featured Omega’s run-in with one of Marvel’s longest-active supervillains, the Spider-Man adversary known as Electro. Read More

Defenders #36 (June, 1976)

Posted on March 14 by Alan Stewart

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)

Posted on February 28 by Alan Stewart

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