Tom Palmer

Doctor Strange Annual #1 (1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in June, I closed out my post about Doctor Strange #18 — the last issue of the series written by Steve Englehart — with the observation that while there would be great Dr. Strange comics following that author’s departure, they’d mostly achieve that status more on the basis of their artwork than of their writing.  I also noted that the first such book, Doctor Strange Annual #1, would be coming up for discussion as early as October.

But now that this story’s moment has actually come, I feel the need to qualify my previous assertion, at least a little bit.  That’s because as magnificent as the pictures produced for it by artist P. Craig Russell undeniably are, their impact is virtually impossible to separate from what Russell also brought to the project as its conceptual originator and primary plotter; in other words, as a writer.  Ultimately, this comic is a remarkable work of the literary as well as the artistic imagination.  Read More

Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976)

Posted on 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

Tomb of Dracula #52 (January, 1977)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

It’s been two months since we last took a look at Tomb of Dracula — and since issues #51 and #52 both feature significant developments in the ongoing “Church of Dracula” saga that writer Marv Wolfman, penciller Gene Colan, and inker Tom Palmer were chronicling half a century ago, we’re going to be spending just about as much time today talking about the former as we are the latter, regardless what the big post title up there might lead one to believe.  If you’re a regular (or even a semi-regular) reader of this blog, you already know how this goes… so, let’s get to it.

As indicated by the Colan-Palmer cover for #51, a major plot thread that’s been running in the background of this series for a while now — namely, the quest of Blade and Hannibal King to track down their mutual arch-enemy, the vampire called Deacon Frost — is about to return to the foreground.  First, though, our storytellers will have to resolve another situation that feels like it’s been in stasis for three issues running (maybe because, by and large, it has)…  Read More

Howard the Duck #7 (December, 1976)

Posted on 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 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

Tomb of Dracula #50 (November, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The main subject of today’s post — the fiftieth issue of the first Marvel title launched as part of the horror comics boom of the early 1970s to reach that fairly impressive number — doesn’t make much of the milestone so far as the book’s cover copy is concerned.  Nor, as we’ll see soon enough, is there any mention about the book’s hitting the Big Five-O on the opening splash page.  Still, your humble blogger feels fairly sure that the decision of writer/editor Marv Wolfman to feature a very special, if highly unlikely, guest appearance by the Silver Surfer in Tomb of Dracula #50 indicates a sense of occasion on his part, if no one else’s.  And, certainly, the book felt special to me when my then nineteen-year-old self first picked it up, back in August, 1976.  Read More

Conan the Barbarian #67 (October, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In this post, we’ll be looking at the third chapter in Marvel Comics’ 1976 five-part crossover between Conan the Barbarian and Marvel Feature, featuring Red Sonja — though this issue’s status as such is completely ignored by the cover, which, nice as the illustration by Gil Kane and Pablo Marcos is, gives no indication whatsoever of the She-Devil with a Sword’s role therein, either by image or blurb-text.  Read More

Doctor Strange #18 (September, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

With this post, we come to the regrettably untimely end of writer Steve Englehart’s run on Doctor Strange.  But before we get into DS #18’s “The Dream Is Dead!”, we’ll first need to take a look at the previous issue, which presented the first installment of what was originally planned to be an ambitious, multi-part story arc organized around the American Bicentennial; and since the ultimately truncated storyline’s conclusion (such as it was) occurred in the following, Englehart-less #19, we’re going to be covering that one here today as well.  All of that’s to let you know that, well, we may be here for a while.  Read More

Ghost Rider #19 (August, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

At the end of last Saturday’s Tomb of Dracula #47 post, I promised you that the next installment of this blog would feature “the strange, sad story of Ghost Rider #19.”  But, as anyone out there who already knows some version of this tale is well aware, its origins go back well before the May, 1976 publication of the comic whose Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover appears at the top of this post.  To begin with, this specific issue presents the conclusion of a multi-part storyline that had kicked off in Ghost Rider #17; but beyond that, the ongoing plot lines that find their (more or less) ultimate resolution in this arc extend back at least to Ghost Rider #8 (Oct., 1974)… and, arguably, all the way back to the feature’s debut in Marvel Spotlight #5 (Aug., 1972).  And seeing as how we haven’t discussed any issues of this series since July, 2023, when we hit the high points of Ghost Rider #1 and #2 in the context of covering the debut of spinoff character Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, in Marvel Spotlight #12 (Oct., 1973), we’re going to have to do some catching up to properly set the stage.  So let’s get to it, shall we?  Read More

Tomb of Dracula #47 (August, 1976)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Back in March we took a look at Tomb of Dracula #45, which in addition to chronicling the first face-to-face meeting between Blade, the Vampire Slayer, and Hannibal King, the Vampire Detective (and their subsequent decision to team up against their common enemy Deacon Frost) also served as the kickoff for a major new story arc, as our titular star became acquainted with a congregation of Satan worshipers and got the brilliant idea not just to pose as their infernal Dark Lord, but to take one of their number, the lovely and mysterious Domini, in unholy matrimony.  Read More