Thor Annual #5 (1976)
Three months ago, in our post about Avengers #150, we discussed at length the circumstances surrounding writer Steve Englehart’s decision in the spring of 1976 to leave Marvel Comics. While the most immediate effect of his decision was that, come May, Marvel was forced to release that milestone issue of Avengers as a hybrid of new and reprinted material, Englehart’s overall departure from the House of Ideas took another few months to completely play out. In more recent posts, we’ve covered the writer’s final contributions to Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel, both of which saw the light of day in June, 1976; his last issue of his other regular assignment, Super-Villain Team-Up (not covered on this blog, sorry) was released a month later, in July. But Englehart’s final story from his first and best-regarded stint writing for Marvel didn’t come out until August, which is when the topic of today’s post arrived in spinner racks… a fact that’s somewhat ironic, given that Englehart’s script for this extra-long story was likely completed over a year prior to its release. Read More
