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IRON MAN #37 (May'71)
http://www.comics.org/issue/24232/cover/4/?style=default

I believe I saw this issue at my Mom's optometrist's office, along with the SUB-MARINER issue where Doc Strange is rising out of his own grave (heehee). I never got those back then, opting instead of any copies of MAD magazine he had sitting around.


IRON MAN #38 (Jun'71)
http://www.comics.org/issue/24300/cover/4/?style=default


Nick Simon cut off the IRON MAN run at the SA Marvel site with #35 (most of the site ended with Jan or Mar'71) but I've been slowly making plans to extend it a bit, as some series have already been.

So I’ve been traveling on the road like a madman for work; one nice thing about it is it allowed me to do some Iron Man reading on the planes and in the hotel room, even if I didn’t have enough time to post about it. It’s gotten to where going through issue by issue is probably going to be too tough as it all kind of runs together and specific panels fade from my memory, but I wanted to get caught up to speed on my reviews of Iron Man.

Iron Man #39 – Iron Man #46 – Interestingly enough, just as I last posted on this, Iron Man as an ongoing series takes a serious downward in turn in quality; to be very blunt: it reaches one of the great low points in it’s history IMO, and certainly the lowest point thus far. I knew many Marvel titles suffered in the early 70’s, specifically Fantastic Four, but I did not realize Iron Man reached that level (whereas, IMO, Thor and Avengers remained fairly good). A lot of this blame lies in Gerry Conway, who I have just been praising my last couple of posts; quite simply, as this writing occurs earlier than any other Conway material I’ve ever read, it’s obvious he hadn’t found his mojo yet.

The problem in Conway’s scripts & plots isn’t the normal criticisms (his overly wordy narration the most common), but rather the tone of the series: it suddenly becomes a real downer. Tony Stark had always been tragic, but previously he was heroic and confident in battle. Beginning a little earlier and now in a really major way, Tony is full of self-doubt and sometimes even self-loathing. There is a genuine sense of despair in the title, prominently felt by Tony, but also felt by just about all the other characters, including Marianne and Kevin, but also the random walk-on characters that appear every issue. It’s noticeable but not jarring at first, but then becomes all-consuming.

At the risk of reading too much into the social issues and politics of the time, this also becomes a major factor. The letter’s pages had been filled with letters of some people calling Tony a monster and pig for being a munitions manufacturer for several months, and while sometimes these letters would have valid points, many times they were over the top and a product of the times. But I suddenly get the feeling that Allyn Brodsky and Gerry Conway started to agree with this a little bit, as Tony almost takes on this sense of guilt that is a little unreasonable. Some of that might be welcome but the anti-business, anti-capitalist sentiment of the era was infecting the comic book series in a bad way IMO.

Compiled on that, the super-hero plots are pretty week and the editorial decisions even worse. A subplot ran concurrently in both Daredevil and Iron Man during this time (both Gerry Conway comics) involving a mastermind named Mister Kline. This would be great for someone buying them off the racks, but 30 years later when I’m not also reading Daredevil, it doesn’t hold up at all. I find it frustrating keeping up and obviously missing important elements of the story. The kicker, though, is that the plot is resolved in Daredevil! We don’t actually ever see Mr. Kline even though Iron Man battles his minions for several issues!! And the minions themselves are very forgettable 1970’s throwaway baddies: the Slasher (with antlers, ugh) and Soulfather *groan*. By far the two worst villains yet. And then the Night Phantom, one of the more forgettable one-offs in Iron Man’s history returns for what amounts to a few pages of trading blows (and since he’s a robot, it’s really not all that interesting).

Meanwhile, the artwork was holding the series up (but just barely). #39 features Herb Trimpe in an awful showing—one of his worst ever and I could barely get through the issue. Only later did the letter’s page explain he did the entire issue in one weekend!!. Tuska returned the following issue with Jim Mooney on inks and they do a solid job, even though the story is obviously not Tuska’s cup of tea (you can almost read a disconnect between art and plot).

The subplots for these issues are also noteworthy for a few reasons. Only two characters besides Tony continue to play a major part, Kevin O’Brien, and now Marianne, the girl from #37, who I was surprised to see return. Even more surprising is she quickly emerges as a MAJOR love interest for Tony and becomes an extremely important character for the series. Early on, Marianne really doesn’t seem to fit—her relationship to Tony feels very forced and then suddenly they are professing their love for one another. Even more sudden: she quickly finds out Tony is Iron Man, something none of his past girlfriends have done, which is kind irking. Compounding things is the subplot that she has ESP powers; meaning, every issue includes a plot where Marianne senses danger with her ESP and eventually gets herself into trouble and Tony has to rescue her. Her presence becomes quite annoying. The saving grace is that George Tuska and his inkers come to the rescue and draw Marianne to be, quite simply, the single most attractive female thus far in the Iron Man series. Naturally, this is the early 70’s, so the dress code was different, and this was the post-ASM drug issue stories so the Comics Code wasn’t as tough anymore, and they could get away with more. But some scenes are downright provocative! Marianne is in a towel, Marianne is in her lingerie, Marianne and Tony have implications of sleeping together—whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m suddenly interested!

Meanwhile, Kevin—the only recurring, likeable supporting character for ages—is experiencing his own subplot and it’s not good. The Guardsman armor is introduced (I had no idea the Guardsman originated with Kevin) and becomes Kevin’s armor as a ‘back-up’ for Tony. Having a sense of it’s power, Kevin suddenly wants to have more and more, and soon becomes unhinged (later explained that the armor was making him lose his mind); he even thinks Marianne should be his girlfriend and not Tony’s. This all leads to Kevin cracking up, and turning on Tony, becoming the Guardsman and battling him. It’s a really tragic waste of a great supporting character and actually quite a major change of the time. I was shocked at what comes next.

It all culminates in Conway’s final story which is then continued by Robert Kanigher, the legendary DC writer who jumped over to Marvel for a brief period (freelance, perhaps?) in the 70’s and then finished by Gary Friedrich as Iron Man struggled to find a creative team (more on that in a minute). This is the first of many stories that utilize this subplot: Tony’s company is taken over by the Board of Directors and he essentially loses his own company. What complicates matters is Kevin O’Brien, as the Guardsman, becomes the new “Iron Man figure” of the new Stark Enterprises so as Tony tries to win back his company, Iron Man must battle Kevin. Even more complicated, a group of students are protesting Stark Enterprises (more on that political influence in the series) and law enforcement is squaring off with them (one student even says “it’s another Kent University!” at one point to show you serious it is). To make a very long story short (I won’t go issue by issue), Tony wins back his company and the riot between students and cops is averted but most of all, Kevin O’Brien, the awesome new supporting character, actually DIES at the end of the story! WHA--?!!

I was shocked, actually shocked, and I can’t believe he died like that. It wasn’t even that heroic. I theorize the editorial chaos at Iron Man (I’ll get to in a second) led to no one being able to figure out how to end the story and so they came up with the idea that Kevin dies, even if the death is a major waste of a great character who never got a chance to shine.

One other huge shocker of this storyline: Tony actually gets engaged to Marianne! DOUBLE WHA--?!! Where were they going with this?! Tony is engaged? Kevin dead?

Editorial Problems, $0.25 larger comics & the Almost End of Iron Man
The above issues extend a larger problem with Iron Man, which had been in major decline since Archie Goodwin left a good 10 issues prior to these. Meaning for almost 2 years, Iron Man the comic was lost, and sales reflected it. We now know that Iron Man was the lowest selling comic not to get cancelled, even though it almost did. Beginning with #43, the series went bi-monthly and the Bullpen Bulletin’s page actually announced that Iron Man the series would be ending and Daredevil and Iron Man would be combined into an anthology title. This happened to take place at the same time as all of Marvel’s titles went to 42 pages and jumped from $0.15 to $0.25 to reflect the jump in pages. During this era, a ton of Marvel titles had been cancelled: Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Nick Fury, X-Men and many others, so Marvel was not afraid to cancel another long-standing cornerstone of its circulation, even if it was Iron Man. Apparently plans were made to cancel the title.

What saved the title was that the jump to $0.25 42 comics was a total disaster. I really am dying to learn more about what happened (did sales plummet? Did DC only go to $0.20 and therefore Marvel realized they couldn’t compete because of price?). Whatever happened, within one month, Marvel quickly returned to normal pages (except for new titles with a #1, which started at 42 and then subsequently went to regular numbering at regular pricing). Normal pages meant lowering from $0.25 to $0.20—still a price increase, but a manageable one that wasn’t 66%. Because the page numbering went back to normal, the idea of combining Iron Man with Daredevil wasn’t going to fly.

So the decision was made to keep Iron Man running. The letter’s page and Bullpen Bulletins page both acknowledge the title had become a disaster and had lost it’s way (basically saying “we realize it sucks right now but we’ll fix it”). They even promised that the next issue, #47, would have Roy Thomas coming in to get things back on track (even basically saying so). Someone behind the scenes must have really fought hard to keep Iron Man alive (maybe Roy himself, I suspect?). Somehow, the title was saved by the axe.

…to be continued in my next post…

...

Interestingly enough, during the months it looked like Iron Man was about to be cancelled, the strip was only half an issue long. One issue, the back-up feature was a reprint of Giant-Man & the Wasp from Tales to Astonish; the next month, it was a brand new story featuring Ant-Man (as Hank Pym was now Ant-Man again following the Kree-Skrull War). This didn't last as Iron Man wasn't cancelled, but this was obviously a pre-curser for Ant-Man to be in Marvel Feature.

Iron Man #47 – now with a stay of execution, Roy Thomas and the hotter than hot Barry Windsor Smith come on for one single issue in #47 to basically give the title a shot in the arm. You get the sense this issue was strictly a “this is how it’s done” issue showing the rest of the Bullpen what the hell to do in Iron Man; especially because this was Marvel’s premiere team of golden boys since Conan was the darling of the comic book industry in 1972. And you know what? They accomplish exactly that. The story is pretty basic, focusing mainly on Iron Man thinking about his origin and rushing off into action to help some people, but that is beside the point. What is important is the tone, atmosphere and attitude that Roy & Barry inject into the book which hadn’t been around since probably the Gene Colan days. Iron Man suddenly regains his confidence, his purpose and sense of self, which had been lacking for a long time. Gone is the whining and the self-doubt and all other 1972-era type problems; Iron Man is a super-hero and that is that.

Yet, Roy doesn’t quite restore things to 1962 and is smart enough to know you can’t go home again. Things are set in motion to make Tony Stark relatable to the 1972 crowd: he is no longer going to be just a weapons manufacturer, but focus on pollution clean-up, consumer goods and other problems of the times, making him someone the 1972 crowd could cheer for. It’s a noble effort on Roy’s part to bring Tony into the present; whether it is done properly remains to be seen (and it wouldn’t be Roy doing it). Obviously the problem is how do you please the old crowd and go far enough to please the new crowd, but at least he was thinking on a larger scale.

Iron Man #48 –49 – Following the one-off issue, Iron Man is restored to monthly publication and new writer Mike Friedrich joins a returning George Tuska, whose pencil are now inked by the legendary Vince Colleta. Picking up where Roy & Barry left off, they attempt to restore the series to greatness while following up on the various subplots and status quos left from a few issues earlier. Right away, the most noticeable and important thing is the artwork looks absolutely stunning. Vince Colleta is a controversial figure in comics history (to say the least) but he was renowned for being consistent and some pencilers really shined under his inks. I think the Tuska / Colleta combo is absolutely beautiful to behold, and Colleta emerges as one of the great inkers on Tuska EVER. A few things stick out: first, the dynamics are really terrific, and there is a subtle ‘sheen’ to the art that makes it feel more modern, almost 1980’s-ish, ahead of its time. And second, Colleta, just like on Thor with Kirby, helps make the characters extremely attractive; Marianne was already do, but Colleta makes her a complete knockout. I’m used to seeing beautiful women in comics and it’s something to make me stand back and take notice.

Meanwhile, the plots themselves are very good; the first story returns the excellent Firebrand (Archie’s creation) and at last explains his origin (something fans had requested), tying it into the recent attempted takeover of Stark Industries. As the head problem-maker for Tony (whose name escapes me) is revealed to actually be Firebrand’s father. Friedrich does a good job balancing the melodrama without being heavy-handed, and the end result sets up a longtime grudge between Firebrand and Iron Man.

The Super-Adaptoid battles Iron Man in #49 and while he isn’t anything new, the battle scenes are great and Friedrich does a great job showing the “restored” Tony Stark heading into battle. There is obviously more to this plotline that I’ll pick up on in the next two issues, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s very solid.

Meanwhile, Tony mourns Kevin O’Brien, who was lost way too early, and continues his relationship with Marianne, who is now his fiancé. I’m very curious where this goes since we know it can’t last and I doubt (and hope) she isn’t killed after Janice Cord was not that long ago. Pepper Potts also shows up, interacting with Marianne for the first time and that was a welcome, nice touch—I hope we see Pepper and Happy a lot more because the series really needs more supporting characters.

Thus far, it looks like things are finally back on track from one of the great low points in Iron Man history. I honestly can’t believe it got that bad where it was almost cancelled.

Changes at Marvel
Marvel during this era continued to change as 1971 and 1972 came and went. Most important was Stan, who really wasn’t doing anything anymore anyway, officially departed as EiC and Roy Thomas appropriately took over as Editor in Chief. As Marvel expanded its output and no longer had artists who could do several comics at once, more writers and pencilers were added to the Bullpen, some of which came and gone and some of which made their mark on Marvel as a company. One thing I like is that several classic creators joined Marvel during this time, even if only briefly, like Reed Crandall and Gardner Fox (doing a western, naturally, in Red Wolf). Al Williamson, who actually stayed for a longtime as an inker, joined the company at this time.

Gerry Conway continued to emerge as the breakout new writer (and got better), while Steve Englehardt hit the ground running with a cadre of titles, and Marv Wolfman also began to make his mark on the company. Len Weeks was starting to do some work but the majority of his output was still to come (he had some DC work to do first).

...to be continued...

I’ve never read any of Shanna, Night Nurse or the Cat’s stories from the brief few months were Marvel had ‘women writing female superheroes’, though I’ve always been intrigued by it. This entire period of the 1970’s was such a different and far-out era of different types of stories being published by Marvel. Sure, a lot of editorial chaos and ‘throw it at the wall and see what sticks’, but in a way that allowed for some real cool stuff.

I think maybe I let the enthusiasm of the post cause me to over-state things.

I’d forgotten about Wood over Heck (incredible!), and have just now seen Giacoia over Heck (really good stuff). I can’t remember if I’ve seen Palmer over Heck yet and I know for sure I haven’t seen Romita over Heck (but really want to).

Probably Ayers remains my single favorite inker over Heck from all eras, but I’d have to recheck my Avengers issues to know for sure. Wood over Heck was some pretty magical stuff, however brief it was.

I’ve spent most my entire life researching Stan, Marvel and Kirby (since I was like 11, no kidding) and in my opinion, I think you’re dead on.

I find it this fascinating and wonder why this was; the production side is an often over-looked part of the business. My father, who collected them off the racks in the early and mid-60’s, always said Daredevil, Thor and one of the westerns always came out one week earlier than the rest for some reason (and all the rest came out the same week). So if he absolutely couldn’t take it and needed his Marvel fix, he would go a week early for those three and usually wind up buying a DC Comic or two (though once Charlton starting rocking and rolling, he preferred them to DC).

I really hope you do! I’d love if the website eventually went all the way through the 70’s!

Marvel’s Output
What is most intriguing about this era of Marvel is that after twiddling down to 11 ongoing new superhero titles (two of which were anthologies) plus the two horror titles, Conan and King King, Marvel suddenly exploded with new comic books and series, most of which were either (A) horror-related or (B) team-related. This included:

Amazing Adventures loses the Black Widow in Nov 1971 and in a few months, is replaced by the furry Beast (horror-influenced).

The Black Widow moves right in to Daredevil’s strip, becoming his partner like the Falcon was Cap’s as the “team era of the 1970’s” really cuts loose.

Marvel Spotlight, the first “feature title” (introductory title a la Showcase at DC) debuts featuring Red Wolf by Gardner Fox, Syd Shores and Wally Wood.

Astonishing Tales loses Dr. Doom and becomes Ka-Zar’s comic. Ka-Zar was becoming more popular in the wake of Conan’s success and he appeared in a lot more places, like Amazing Spider-Man (also this month, Dec 1971).

Marvel Feature, the second ‘feature title’ debuts the Defenders in #1, featuring Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner and the Hulk (a continuation from crossovers in each other’s titles in the last few years).

One issue after it’s debut, Red Wolf is immediately spun out into his own ongoing title and Marvel Spotlight gets a second tryout, Werewolf by Night with awesome art by Mike Ploog (Roy Thomas plot, Gerry Conway script). Werewolf by Night is sometimes laughed at by fans today but it was really popular for the era. Interestingly enough, since this was when titles had increased pages, the comic is filled out by a Venus back-up (from the early 1950’s).

Gulliver Jones, Warrior of Mars debuts in Creatures on the Loose, as Marvel continues to try and capitalize on Conan’s success.

Marvel finds a way to capitalize on the demand for more Spider-Man while also providing yet another “team comic book” by introducing Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and another hero(es). I’m curious though if at first this was meant to be solely a Spidey/Torch team-up comic and then changed, or if the intent was always Spidey & guest(s).

Roy Thomas & Gil Kane convert the “Him” character into Adam Warlock in Marvel Premiere #1, the third “feature title”.

Marvel’s #1 horror comic premieres with Tomb of Dracula, as Gene Colan unleashes one of the best comics of the entire 1970’s. Gerry Conway scripts at first but Marv Wolfman will be joining Gene shortly.

Red Wolf gets his own series.

Man-Thing shows up in Ka-Zar’s Astonishing Tales feature (after his one-off appearance in Savage Tales #1), and slowly begins building up requests for his return.

Luke Cage: Hero for Hire debuts, lending Marvel an urban-based comic that while obviously appealing to fans of blaxsploitation films of the 1970’s, also provides some great street-level crime stories. Oh, and also gives the Big 2 it’s first African-American protagonist as a lead feature EVER. Prof has already whet my appetite to read these stories since by #2 the creative team is none other than Archie Goodwin and George Tuska!

Even though SGT Fury was essentially bi-monthly (with off months as reprints), a new war comic is introduced by Gary Friedrich and, naturally, Dick Ayers with Combat Kelly. The premise is shamelessly stolen from the Dirty Dozen.

By July 1972, Marvel is really exploding with it’s output. The Defenders is moved out of Marvel Feature so it will have it’s own comic and for the first time since 1966, Ant-Man gets his own comic again, fresh off the revitalization of Ant-Man as a costumed identity in the Kree-Skrull War.

Similarly, Adam Warlock is moved out of Marvel Premiere and Dr. Strange is given another shot at an ongoing title, and this one will in the long-run prove to be more successful than the first.

The Defenders debuts, now with Steve Englehardt and Sal Buscema at the helm and soon after the Silver Surfer, Valkrye, the Black Knight and then—gasp, Hawkeye, join the team (with the Black Knight and the Surfer quickly leaving securing the status as a ‘non-team’).

Warlock’s own series kicks off, though the real grandeur was yet to come (re: Jim Starlin).

Morbius appears in Marvel Team-Up #3 just a few months after his debut in ASM and someone at Marvel clearly saw the potential of using him as a star already during this horror-centric era.

Werewolf by Night becomes the second feature to spin out of Marvel Spotlight to get his own feature (there would be at least four of them).

Taking WbN’s place is none other than Ghost Rider, the brain child of Gary Friedrich with art by Mike Ploog. Ghost Rider’s popularity would be more felt as a tattoo/patch for bikers than a comic though the character’s greatest era was 20 years in the future.

Captain Marvel returns, fresh off the popularity of the Kree-Skrull War, though the series wouldn’t really get the shot in the arm it needed until Jim Starlin joining in a few issues.

Fear goes from a reprint comic with old monster stories to being “Adventure into Fear”, the home of the adventures of the Man-Thing!

Still hot off the success of Conan, Marvel continues to look for licensed properties and up next is Doc Savage, which apparently Roy Thomas was dying for Marvel to do.

Marvel had several western titles though they were all reprint comics; however that changed as a new Marvel western series debuted, Gunhawks. Clearly a 1970’s western if there ever was one, it featues a white guy and a black guy as partners, perhaps inspired by Burt Reynolds and Jim Brown?

Marvel also introduces a new horror anthology with all new stories, restarting Journey into Mystery, and a new jungle anthology, Jungle Action. The latter will soon become the home for the Black Panther, who will at last get his own ongoing series.

Meanwhile: the Avengers were experiencing the Kree-Skrull War, Crystal was firming up her exit from the Fantastic Four on a permanent basis, Spider-Man went from 6 arms to the Savage Land as writers tried to figure out what to do with Gwen now that her and Peter survived the death of her father, Gerry Conway and John Buscema kept Thor a relevant and excellent comic post-Kirby with the return of the Mangog, DD & the Black Widow experienced a new level of success, Cap & the Falcon came under the guide of Steve Englehardt who once and for all dealt with the 1950’s anti-Communist Cap (which established Nomad as a character), Sub-Mariner gets a much needed turn-around as Bill Everett returns to his creation as writer & artist, Jarella is established a genuine ‘true love’ of the Hulk (rather than Bruce Banner) and Conan continued to dazzle fans and creators alike.

Whew! And that only brings us to October 1972! In the next few months, Marvel would launch a TON more titles, including the aforementioned in this thread ‘females writing female superheroes’ comics and a whole slew of horror titles. There were of course numerous reprint comics (from all publishers) at this time—Marvel went so far as to continue the 1950’s Wyatt Earp comic at this time as a reprint title and bring back the War is Hell comic (with new numbering).

Something else else I also forgot to mention during this era is that Marvel decided to (stupidly) cut off their covers so the imagery was ‘boxed in’ and the logo was on the outside. Copy usually filled the bottom of each cover. I’ve always disliked this look immensely as I felt it limited the artist space needlessly.

Welcome back (again!). Been VERY busy expanding the DAREDEVIL section like crazy. I've added the very first FOREIGN reprints on the entire site, and actually have 9 different publishers set up just for DAREDEVIL! And I'm only midway thru doing the 3rd page (31 issues from Brazil). So I can use a break...


IRON MAN #39 -- Herb Trimpe!
http://www.comics.org/issue/24364/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #40 -- Tuska & Giacoia
http://www.comics.org/issue/24430/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #41 -- Tuska & Giacoia
http://www.comics.org/issue/24497/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #42 -- Tuska & Giacoia
http://www.comics.org/issue/24571/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #43 -- Kane, Giacoia & Romita
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/ironman/IM%20043.jpg

This one had a reprint of the first "bad guy" BLACK KNIGHT story from TALES TO ASTONISH #52, which is why I found a nice BIG image and did a "restoration" job on it. This is the month the books (temporarily) went double-sized and the AWFUL "3-sided border" format started. Some say it was to make the comics look more "literary" like books, but the truth is, it was to help the overworked PRODUCTION department be able to SLAP those things together faster, as they now had dozens and dozens of books every month to knock out. The paste-up work on many of these is APPALLING, as I've found the "MGC" banner, left edge, logo & 3-sided border are often EACH at different rotations! In several instances, I've actually gone to the trouble to FIX this-- in effect, RE-DOING the "production" work decades later. It may not be "accurate", but in a subtle way (and sometimes not so subtle), it does make them look better, and more tolerable.

IRON MAN #44 -- Gil Kane & Giacoia
http://www.comics.org/issue/24804/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #45 -- Kane, Giacoia & Romita
http://www.comics.org/issue/24950/cover/4/?style=default

IRON MAN #46 -- Kane & Ralph Reese
http://www.comics.org/issue/25108/cover/4/?style=default

Now HERE's a guy I wish had inked Gil Kane more often! There's a sensitivity to that linework that gives a nice "feel" to the whole thing, and brings out the best in Kane's intent while softening the raw, blunt, crude edge he usually had (and which often baffled even the most professional inkers).


"it suddenly becomes a real downer"

Sadly, this can be said for much of comics during this time, as well as the movies. (TV shows still tended to be fun to watch, although the number of COP shows kept rising until the anti-violence censor nutcases made it their mission to wipe anything "exciting" from the face of TV.)

Conway's runs of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, DAREDEVIL, FANTASTIC FOUR, THOR, all were marred by this "70's" feel. The "hippie-peace-love generation" had their moment, now the awful reality of Viet Nam, and the growing sdhadow of political corruption began to grow. also, happy romances and marriages were a thing of the past. Gwen Stacy got KILLED, Reed & Sue almost got DIVORCED, Lady Dorma was dead, and soon, so would be Leonard McKenzie. As for Steve Rogers & Sharon Carter, they wouldn't even begin to know a moment of peace unti Steve Englehart came along! (This is a general look-back, not any kind of chronological one.)

At one of the yahoo groups I belong to, Kurt Busiek is a member, and the other day he mentioned that in DAREDEVIL, after "Mike Murdock" died (HEH), the series lost its way. And once Stan Lee left, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway never seemed to know what to do. It went from a screwball comedy to just a pointless downbeat soap-opera. For all his faults, this is one of the main reasons I always appreciated Stan-- at least HE had a sense of humor!!

I've heard about Mr. Kline. I've only read one comic he ever appeared in-- the one where he was blackmailing Foggy, who in turn tried to KILL Kline, but instead wound up hypnotized by him. And Kline appears to have had a knack (like Dr. Doom) for creating robot duplicates of people, and sent SEVERAL super-villains after DD who were not actually the real items. One of these, The Scorpion, fell to his "death", because of The Black Widow, and the mind-controlled Foggy acted as prosecuting attourney in her MURDER TRIAL!! (How twisted is that?) Later, the REAL Scorpion (and the real Mr. Hyde) escaped their imprisonment and went after Captain America... I forget why, but Gerry Conway wrote that one, too.

I've also read that both IRON MAN and DAREDEVIL were slipping in sales so badly, for a while, they considered comnbining them in one mag. (I suppose this sort of thinking is what led to it actually happening with POWER MAN AND IRON FIST!) The Zodiac Key story may have been a trial, the Mr. Kline story a follow-up. At the same time, several issues of MARVEL SUPER-HEREOS spotlighted reprints of IRON MAN and DAREDEVIL. Cross-promotion?

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/msh/MSH%20028.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/msh/MSH%20029.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/msh/MSH%20030.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/msh/MSH%20031.jpg


Kind of mind-boggling that each of these series would not find bigger audiences until the early 80's or so, when Micheline & Layton were doing IM and Miller was doing DD.


"he did the entire issue in one weekend!!"

What a guy!

Once again, someone looks BAD to readers but good to his editor, taking care of SOMEONE ELSE's blown deadline. Looking over my index, I wonder what happened there. George Tuska filled in for Don Heck twice, then Herb Trimpe did, then Tuska returned FULL-TIME. I wonder where Don ended up at this point? Over at DC doing BATGIRL?? (I've been hearing a lot about that lately at the yahoo group.)


"Early on, Marianne really doesn’t seem to fit—her relationship to Tony feels very forced and then suddenly they are professing their love for one another."

Why does "Silver St. Cloud" come to mind when you say that?


" the single most attractive female thus far in the Iron Man series"

I joke about George Tuska being a "blunt instrument" a lot, but he does know how to draw PURTY GALS!


"I had no idea the Guardsman originated with Kevin"

I did, from Bill Mantlo's run as writer (also with Tuska), but I have still never read these earlier stories. It's only been less than 10 years that this entire run has FINALLY been reprinted. I should get my hands on the ESENTIAL books.


"This is the first of many stories that utilize this subplot: Tony’s company is taken over by the Board of Directors and he essentially loses his own company."

You know, by the time Denny "drag 'em thru the mud" did that (and had it stretch out PAINFULLY over 3 whole years), I was already bored sick with it. How many times can ONE man lose the SAME company???


"I was shocked, actually shocked, and I can’t believe he died like that. It wasn’t even that heroic. I theorize the editorial chaos at Iron Man (I’ll get to in a second) led to no one being able to figure out how to end the story and so they came up with the idea that Kevin dies, even if the death is a major waste of a great character who never got a chance to shine."

I've never read it, but it sounds right to me. Like when Gwen was killed. "Oh, we can't figure out what to do with Pete & Gwen... HOW ABOUT IF WE KILL HER?" Maybe not exactly how that happened, but sure was how it sounded when described in the letters pages at the time it happened.

Writers were "de facto" editors under Roy Thomas, and while I see Stan was still officially editor, I wonder how much (or how little) he and Roy were doing what with the MASSIVE expansion of the company. So writers were expencted to put together their own art teams, keep the book on schedule, and the real "EDITOR" would only step in if somebody SCREWED UP, BIG TIME.

Going from Brodsky to Conway to Kanigher to Gary Friedrich to a FILL-IN by Roy Thomas to MIKE Friedrich (nobody has ever mentioned to my knowledge whether these 2 guys-- they ARE 2 guys, right??-- were related or not) must have thrown a monkey wrench in somewhere.

"I really am dying to learn more about what happened (did sales plummet? Did DC only go to $0.20 and therefore Marvel realized they couldn’t compete because of price?)"

The story I heard was, Martin Goodman "pulled a fast one". He increased the page count and the price. DC felt they HAD to follow suit to compete. As soon as they did... Goodman DROPPED the page count, and the price from 25c to 20c. DC stayed at 25c for another 8 months. As a result, Marvel PASSED DC in sales. He SCREWED them over.

Shortly after, he stepped down, expecting his son Chip to take over as Publisher. But a number of people had problems with him, and he didn't seem to have any of his Dad's business acumen. A coup took place-- Chip was OUT, Stan became PUBLISHER. Martin was PISSED... and started ATLAS-SEABOARD. As I've said since reading this story in detail...

"Revenge is no basis for starting a publishing company."

Goodman raided Marvel's stable of writers & artists, paying much more than usual, and a lot of people went for it. "Fell" for it, more like. The books they created were junk, badly conceived, badly done, and within 4 or 5 issues, ALL of them (dumped onto the market ALL at once), were canned. Talk about "editorial chaos"!


IRON MAN #47 -- Kane & Vince Colletta
http://www.comics.org/issue/25195/cover/4/?style=default

MY version:
http://www.webspawner.com/users/zodiaccomics/imageGallery/IM%20047_cd_ALT%20P.jpg

That was the first one of those I ever did. I KNEW there was a good cover in there, buried under that "bad design"!


"Iron Man suddenly regains his confidence, his purpose and sense of self, which had been lacking for a long time. Gone is the whining and the self-doubt and all other 1972-era type problems; Iron Man is a super-hero and that is that."

Thanks. I completely MISSED that when I read it. Yep, this is the FIRST issue I have after the one where IM, TT & CD fought it out and the girl died. To me, it was badly over-written, Roy's dialogue was ANNOYING AS HELL, and even the art was completely uninspired. One more "inferior" retelling of an ORIGIN story-- Roy's specialty. But perhaps, in light of the previous 2 years' worth of issues (which I did not read), it WAS breath of fresh air. Hmm.

"I’ve never read any of Shanna, Night Nurse or the Cat’s stories"

I've read CAT #1 (reprinted in THE SUPERHERO WOMEN)

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/origins/1977%20Women.jpg

and her appearance in MARVEL TEAM-UP (reprinted in ESSENTIAL MTU). Of course, she became TIGRA THE WERE-WOMAN, while PATSY WALKER became HELLCAT. (Go figure!!)

Somehow I did get a complete set of SHANNA's (cheap!), no douibt inspired by her appearances in DAREDEVIL (Steve Gerber writing) as well as the first 2 issues of KA-ZAR. This was long before she became of regular in the KA-ZAR THE SAVAGE series.

George Tuska did a bang-up job on her origin, but Ross Andru followed up after that, and somehow it never really "zinged".


I only know of ONE instance of Romita inking Heck, and I don't have any interior pages posted, but it's in THIS issue...
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/avengers/AV%20023.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/mta/MTA%2017.jpg


"I really hope you do! I’d love if the website eventually went all the way through the 70’s!"

Nick HATES the 3-sided covers (AND GIL KANE!!), but my own personal feeling is, some of these runs deserve to be represented to their ends. By that I mean, Trimpe on HULK, Tuska on IRON MAN, Colan on DAREDEVIL (though in his case, I'm thinking of extending it up to Tony Isabella's run... when Marv Wolfman took over, it really felt like the beginning of a new era). But we'll see.


"The Black Widow moves right in to Daredevil’s strip, becoming his partner like the Falcon was Cap’s as the “team era of the 1970’s” really cuts loose."

Except (presumably) Cap & Falc didn't SLEEP together. ("Although there WAS that one night..." --Alex Hassilev, I forget which song he said this during)


"Luke Cage: Hero for Hire debuts, lending Marvel an urban-based comic that while obviously appealing to fans of blaxsploitation films of the 1970’s, also provides some great street-level crime stories. Oh, and also gives the Big 2 it’s first African-American protagonist as a lead feature EVER. Prof has already whet my appetite to read these stories since by #2 the creative team is none other than Archie Goodwin and George Tuska!"

And don't forget BILLY GRAHAM!! He alternated between inking Tuska (one of the BEST teams of the early 70's, and some of the BEST Tuska art I've ever seen) and pencilling (though they never had consistent inks on him-- #4 was done by Syd Shores-- UNCREDITED-- and was stunning).

Strange but true: the creators of MIKE HAMMER (Mickey Spillane) and JOHN SHAFT (Ernest Tidyman) BOTH worked for Martin Goodman at one time or another. So LUKE CAGE was just "keeping up the tradition" (as I see it).


"Ghost Rider, the brain child of Gary Friedrich with art by Mike Ploog"

Mike Ploog or Will Eisner? You be the judge!
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR3%20MS%2005.jpg


GR was, along with HFH, one of my favorite series of the 70's. But oddly enough, my favorite team on it was Tony Isabella (its 2nd writer) and Jim Mooney (its 3rd penciller!). When Mooney left, after having done more issues than his predecssors, the book fell into CHAOS. I hate when that happens.

As much as I love the Johnny Blaze character, looking back now, I wish they'd have called him SOMETHING ELSE... like HELL RIDER, maybe. (GF had actually done a character by that name, but for another publisher. I still think it would have been a MORE appropriate name.)

To me, the REAL Ghost Rider isn't Blaze.. or "Carter Lincoln" or any of the half-dozen others who've taken HIS place. There's only one "REAL" Ghost Rider... U.S. Marshall REX FURY!

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2001.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/TH%2017.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2002.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/TH%2021.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2003.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2004.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2005.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2006.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2007.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/BOTW1%2003.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2008.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2009.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_WESTERNS/ghostrider/GR1%2014.jpg

Gee, I can get carried away too, can't I?

ENRICH Daredevil! (Sorry it's so small)

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_FOREIGN/EV/DanDefensor/EV%20DD1%2031.jpg


This one was a B**** to set up... because, and I have to make an assumption
here, it contains ALL 3 parts of the 3-part D.D./I.M. "Zodiac Key" story. This
means, not only were the covers of those issues inter-linked with "prev" and
"next" buttons so one could easily flip thru them IN SEQUENCE, but the reprint
"Compare" pages ALSO allow you to do this now!


(Nick only set up IRON MAN to issue #35, so a few weeks back, I had to add IM
#36-- doing a restoration of the cover along the way-- JUST so this multi-part
story would all be up at the site.)


Crazy enough, considering parts 1 & 3 of the story appeared in IRON MAN, it was
FIRST reprinted in the US in ESSENTIAL DAREDEVIL Vol.3 (2005), and then in
ESSENTIAL IRON MAN Vol.3, 3 years LATER (2008).


Hey, with Marvel's perchant for "theme" reprint books, do you suppose they'll
ever do a "ZODIAC" collection, with ALL the stories connected with this Crime
Cartel???

Well, unfortunately I continued reading Iron Man for a few issues before I came to a natural break (natural being that I had to stop because I need to get the subsequent issues from my parent’s house). What’s unfortunate is that I did so several weeks ago and never was able to post my reviews of them because things simply got too busy. So I’ll try to do that right now, but it will be a bit jumbled and nowhere near as detailed as I’d prefer. But I figured I’d keep it going anyway.

Iron Man #50 – 51 – Where I left off with Iron Man was after several years of declining quality of plots and story-telling, things had begun to turn a corner. Unfortunately, the main theme here is that for several issues, the increase in quality was not continued. Things didn’t necessarily get bad, they just seemed to stay around the ‘mediocre level’.

Running in the last issues I reviewed into the #50-51 is a jumbled story featuring the Super-Adaptoid, Princess Python, Marianne & her empathy/clairvoyance powers, and to kick it off, two little alien guys living inside the Super-Adaptoid. Quite honestly, this entire story is a mess from start to finish, so much so that I find it too distracting to enjoy the artwork. But the most staggering thing of the entire story is that writer Mike Friedrich makes Tony waaaaay to mean! This is seen in two instances: first, without a second thought, Tony hurls Princess Pythons snake against a brick wall, looking to kill it, and then drops it into a vat of molten steel. Whaaaaaaat? What in the world were they thinking. Looking at the art, Tuska was trying to showcase Tony defending himself, obviously; however, the dialogue by Friedrich has Tony reveling in his destruction of the snake. It’s brutal! Secondly, Tony is beyond mean to Marianne, who in a moment of terror, abandoned him. I can understand Tony being upset with her, but let’s face it—she’s not Iron Man! He thereafter treats her like garbage for several issues, including calling off their engagement. It’s so over the top.

Part of me wonders that in an attempt to make Tony go back to basics of being a ‘man of action’, the writers got it wrong and took it too far, thinking that meant “jerk”. I blame the 1970’s making those writers not realize where the middle ground is.

During this story, Vince Colleta returns as inker on Tuska and sticks around for several issues and their pairing is actually quite a wonder to behold. I touched on this already but I have to reiterate how good it is. The “Cyborg Sinister”, which is actually some vague ‘aliens controlling the essence of the Super-Adaptoid’ type thing, is actually really cool looking (see the cover of #51) and Tuska/Colleta are the ones that put that over. At one point, I thought it was John Byrne inking Tuska because one splash page is so Byrne it hurts. Did Byrne ever work for Colleta as an assistant? If he did, I can guarantee this is Byrne here.

Iron Man #52 – 53 – Following this story, Iron Man heads out to California where he becomes immersed in a storyline against Raga, Son of Fire, and the Black Lama, a mastermind type character. The former, Raga, is without a doubt a Charles Manson inspired cultist type figure and every facet of the character is inspired by him, from his look, to dialogue, to his M.O. being replicated in Raga’s taking advantage & brain-washing some peaceful hippy commune. The story also once again returns to the fears of the early 1970’s towards hippies and that alternative lifestyle, particularly after Manson and more extreme groups were blowing things up around the country. Having seen this once already, I’m kind of ready for 1970’s-related fears to go away in the Iron Man series; they are nowhere near as grandiose as the 1960’s paranoia’s, and the writers seem to really get them wrong. Also, did Iron Man really need another fire-related villain? (Melter, Firebrand)

The Black Lama appears to be a more mystical villain (unless it turns out he’s not later), with a very 70’s occultist type feel to him. Almost like he belongs on the cover of a Led Zeppelin album. I personally hate when Iron Man is involved in magic/mystical threats, so I did not appreciate this.

Meanwhile, Marianne remains a big part of the series—considering she’s Tony’s only supporting character again—as we see her trying to move on after life with Tony and continually suffering from breakdowns brought on by her ESP. I’m curious as to where this is going since Marianne is never mentioned these days and she’s now been a part of this series for quite while.

An important part of #53 is mid-way through the story, the amazing Jim Starlin comes on board and wow, what an impact! Though he only does a few pages, his pencils are absolutely terrific! You can tell immediately he is an amazing artist with dynamic layouts and I find myself wanting more of it.

Iron Man #54 – Once more, Namor the Sub-Mariner comes over to Iron Man’s series and the two battle it out, continuing what has now become a big tradition at Marvel (and making me wish it was still a big tradition). The major point of the story is to introduce “Madame MacEvil”, who we now know today as Moondragon. And yeah, what an awful name for her. George Tuska does a few pages and gets credit for the whole story, but most of the pages are clearly Jim Starlin, and they are absolutely amazing.

What you have in this issue is a relatively weak story with absolutely horrible dialogue (and the Madame MacEvil routine is downright bad); however, the art by Jim Starlin, depicting Iron Man vs. Sub-Mariner is downright inspiring. Absolutely beautiful to behold. Starlin’s depiction of Moondragon, and it’s obvious she is his creation though he is unable to really use her as he wished since he’s just getting started, is really cool: she’s sexy yet really odd considering her shaved head. Her villainous demeanor in this story naturally leads her to be renowned for being “abrasive” to use the friendliest word of those commonly used to describe her. I’ve always liked her inclusion because her presence mixes things up in a series; but I can’t say I actually like her character.

This is where my reading stopped, and I know the next issue is the Starlin issue where he really starts to plant the seeds for his explosive cosmic sagas to come in Captain Marvel & Warlock. I’m very excited about that issue! Thus far, all things Starlin have been incredible.

Dangling Subplots & Questions
Where is Sitwell? He’s been missing for what feels like two dozen issues ever since he was injured back in the early 30’s. It occurred to me that we hadn’t seen him and his presence is sorely missed. Considering the stupid killing of Kevin, that leaves Marianne as the only recurring character and while she is sometimes interesting, other times she’s just incredibly annoying. Sitwell could at least play the role of telling Tony when he’s being a jerk.

Bullpen Staff Changes
During this time, Steve Gerber joins Marvel and becomes one of the stalwart writers of the 1970’s at Marvel who is producing some of it’s better storylines, much like Englehardt. Gerber immediately kicks things off with Man-Thing, which is well known for, and I’m going to enjoy tracking his career going forward.

Mike Ploog is also doing more and more work on the horror-related titles, including Frankenstein (which is just awesome to behold those covers). The Bulletins page mentions Ploog was a longtime assistant for Will Eisner. No wonder his art is so similar to Will’s!

Iron Man elsewhere
Iron Man has a great appearance in the Beast’s series around this time in Amazing Adventure, keeping up his role as one of the Marvel heroes most likely to guest-star in another series (along with Spider-Man). He’s also by now firmly back on the Avengers roster and will remain so for just about the entire 1970’s (and the 1980’s in various ways), when even Cap & Thor do not. In Marvel Team-Up, other than Spidey & the Torch, the hero who would appear the most would be Iron Man. Cleary he’s a Marvel hero that is well fit to interact with others.

This would be such a great collection! Maybe when read like that, all those stories actually work pretty well? At least the Iron Man / DD ones could use that continuity boost.

I love looking at your restoration jobs on these covers, since I hate the 3-sided borer with a passion and think it looks absolutely terrible.

Absolutely fascinating story & analysis of those events! I did not realize good ol’ Martin Goodman, renowned for his sneaky business ways, pulled another fast one and took DC for a ride. And then interesting about the coup and how Stan became publisher while Chip was out. This probably furthered Stan’s insane egotism in the 1970’s. However, I can’t say I feel sorry for the Goodman’s considering their long history of being quintessential bastard businessmen since the pulp days.

Marvel’s Era of Change Continues
I started listing the explosion of new titles and other changes at Marvel a few posts ago and thought I’d continue it, just to show how Marvel’s output continued to totally change; I had gotten to October 1972 and will bring it to March 1973 where Iron Man #54 is cover dated. The three major things continued to be: horror-related protagonists (superhero and otherwise), team-up type comic books (whether more super-teams, team-up books or solo starts gaining partners) and reprint comics.

Marvel launches it’s program to have female lead characters written by female writers, starting with The Cat #1 and Night Nurse #1. Night Nurse is a typical 1950’s nurse series with a twist for modern times; interestingly in recent years she’s made a comeback due to Brian Bendis (even being Dr. Strange’s girlfriend for awhile). Meanwhile, most readers no know the Cat went on to become Tigra, while her costume went on to be worn by Patsy Walker when she became Hellcat. Prof makes mention of this on the previous page—all of these are stories I’ve never read.

Thor had become a full-fledged team comic book featuring Thor, Sif, Balder, the Warrior’s Three, Tana Nile, Silas (an alien ship captain—don’t ask) and the Recorder. Sif even guest-starred in the Avengers with Thor when they were all staying at Avengers mansion.

Yet another horror anthology titles launches with Chamber of Chills.

Journey into Mystery establishes itself as a horror anthology where the lead story is a comic book adaptation of a famous horror story; the first is “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”, by Robert Bloch (author of Psycho).

Yet another horror anthology debuts, Supernatural Thrillers, which carves a niche out for itself where each issue it features a lead character that is a famous monster (the Living Mummy, etc.)

The third female title, Shanna the She-Devil, debuts and wow, I bet that Tuska/Colleta artwork is good. This is the pre-Ka-Zar days and so the story is much more in the tradition of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle I would assume, though with a Steve Gerber influence.

Yet another horror title, Crypt of Shadows is launched. By this point Marvel has been releasing a new horror title every single month for quite awhile.

With Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night both being surprise hits (I’m told both were HUGE), Marvel naturally keeps things going by releasing an ongoing Frankenstein comic book (though that was it’s official title, the cover correctly read “Monster of Frankenstein”). Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog are the creators; the early issues are set during the era when Frankenstein existed (Mary Shelley’s time). Eventually, the monster would come into modern times and all the past Frankenstein appearances (X-Men, Avengers, etc.) would be retconned into his history.

Following the release of the Gunhawks, Marvel debuted another all-new western hero, Tex Dawson, Gunslinger (most of Marvel’s westerns were all reprints in the 70’s). No idea who the creative team was but #1 has a killer Jim Steranko cover (or possibly Mike Ploog?)!

Showing Marvel at this time was just packing the shelves with everything they could think of, they release War is Hell, an all reprint war series (War is Hell was the name of a war series in the 1950’s). I’m curious how this comic could have done considering the Viet Nam era and the very heroic nature of 1950’s war stories.

Beginning in January 1973, some of the 3-sided covers begin to stop for various series. This would be a gradual process over a few months.

Meanwhile…
The X-Men continued to have a presence in the MU in various ways, whether as guest-stars in Avengers to teaming up with Spider-Man in MTU.

The Vision’s popularity remained very high as he was one of the earliest to team with Spidey in MTU after the initial Torch issues.

Fantastic Four had the awful Reed-Sue-almost divorced period where Medusa replaced Sue as a member of the team.

An odd culmination of events occurred as Crystal of the Inhumans married, of all people, Quicksilver in Fantastic Four. This puts a hard end to the Crystal/Torch romance while also removing Quicksilver from the Avengers for a long time.

Awesome Cover Alert!
Where Monsters Dwell #18 with pencils by Jim Starlin and inks by Dave Cockrum!

Incredible Jim Steranko cover featuring Gulliver Jones in Creatures on the Loose #21!

.
This was only three months and you can see the huge push for horror-related comics at Marvel. This would continue throughout 1973. I’ll continue to do this types of checklist summaries because I find this era of Marvel and its output to be fascinating. At this point, none of this huge explosion of new titles had been cancelled yet, though that wouldn't last.

"For those who came in late..."

http://www.comics.org/issue/25276/cover/4/
http://www.comics.org/issue/25369/cover/4/
http://www.comics.org/issue/25439/cover/4/
http://www.comics.org/issue/25548/cover/4/
http://www.comics.org/issue/25633/cover/4/


I don't understand why Tony would break up with Marianne, but she continues to hang around the series. Does Mike Friedrich want to get ride of her... or not? Meanwhile, I've found myself writing some stories in the last couple years about a girl with psychic powers, and I get the feeling I treated her with more care &v respect than Marianne got.


"During this story, Vince Colleta returns as inker on Tuska and sticks around for several issues and their pairing is actually quite a wonder to behold."

Back when, I think I got bored with so much Tuska art and so much of it being inked by Vince Colletta... but decades later, I find that they often looked very good together. One of my favorite teamings by them was in SUB-MARINER #70, "Namor Unchained!", and together with Marv Wolfman, the three of them (at least for ONE issue) really made Roy Thomas's idea of "The SAVAGE Sub-Mariner" WORK. I've got a pile of pages from that scanned & waiting to be set up at the SA Marvel site.


"The story also once again returns to the fears of the early 1970’s towards hippies and that alternative lifestyle"

I'm reading a book a friend gave me, "STAN LEE Conversations", a collection of interviews. At least TWICE, Stan brags about one scene in THOR he was very proud of where he had Thor talking down to hippies, telling them not to "drop out" but to get involved. The problem is, the dialogue he wrote was TOTALLY AT ODDS with the intention of Jack Kirby when he plotted (WROTE) that scene. He repeatedly seems oblivious that any of his artists were WRITING (and from personal experience, I can tell you, "plotting" IS 90% of the work-- 90%!!!). It's no wonder he had no idea why some of his best people quit in anger. (At least, he SAYS he doesn't.)


"The Black Lama appears to be a more mystical villain (unless it turns out he’s not later), with a very 70’s occultist type feel to him. Almost like he belongs on the cover of a Led Zeppelin album. I personally hate when Iron Man is involved in magic/mystical threats, so I did not appreciate this."


I'm not gonna say much... EXCEPT, The Black Lama wound up "bracketing" Mike Friedrich's long and often shaky run on the series. He becomes a HUGE focus of attention later on, and then, we FINALLY find out the truth about him in Friedrich's LAST TWO issues. But you've got a ways to go before that. (heehee)

http://www.comics.org/issue/25733/cover/4/


"Iron Man #54 – Once more, Namor the Sub-Mariner comes over to Iron Man’s series and the two battle it out, continuing what has now become a big tradition at Marvel (and making me wish it was still a big tradition). The major point of the story is to introduce “Madame MacEvil”, who we now know today as Moondragon. And yeah, what an awful name for her. George Tuska does a few pages and gets credit for the whole story, but most of the pages are clearly Jim Starlin, and they are absolutely amazing."


I don't have this issue, but when I realized Sub-Mariner was in it, I found a good scan at the Heritage Auction site and did a nice clean-up of it-- see here...

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/ironman/IM%20054.jpg


Out of curiosity, I looked around for a copy, but NOBODY seemed to have one, unless it was HIGH-priced. I had NO IDEA until recently that Moondragon debuted in there, I always thought she first turned up in DAREDEVIL. Strangely enough, one website lists her as being "created by Friedrich, Everett & Tuska" (or something like that). I don't have the issue, so I haven't seen it yet, but the credits I've found indicate George Tuska & Bill Everett shared pencilling duties, while Colletta inked. Which could be, but to be honest, it would make MUCH more sense if that was Jim Starlin. NOBODY ever wrote Moondragon as good as he did (although Steve Gerber did very nicely), and she has always been Starlin's character, so WHY would someone else have done this? The section in D.D. that tells her origin is actually pencilled by Starlin, and was apparently INTENDED for an IRON MAN issue almost a year earlier. Makes me wonder what happened here. Also, I can't see how anyone could ever confuse Everett & Starlin for one another. Totally different styles! (I may wind up getting these in the ESSENTIAL book sometime.)


"I can’t say I actually like her character."


I believe it's halfway thru her DAREDEVIL run that she finds out she's been seriously mis-informed, and her whole demeanor changes after that. This doesn't explain the "Madame MacEvil" name, though. (I like how one fan joked, "I didn't know she was Scottish!")

http://www.comics.org/issue/26874/cover/4/


"This is where my reading stopped, and I know the next issue is the Starlin issue where he really starts to plant the seeds for his explosive cosmic sagas to come in Captain Marvel & Warlock. I’m very excited about that issue! Thus far, all things Starlin have been incredible."


At some point, way back, I got a few back-issues of IRON MAN, including #55-56. I got these specifically because of Jim Starlin's work. I had NO IDEA he was involved with the two previous issues, otherwise, I might have gotten them, too, before the prices went thru the roof. (I'm guessing the SUB-MARINER guest-appearance is what really made that issue hard to find, not Moondragon's debut... but it could be a combination of both.)


Starlin said somewhere that he crammed so much into IRON MAN #55 because at the time, he had no idea if his time at Marvel would last, and he thought he might only get "one shot" to get all these ideas out. Ironically, it was only a couple months later that CAPTAIN MARVEL suddenly found itself in need of a new creative team. The first 3 issues of the revival-- by Conway, Wolfman & Wayne Boring (a SUPERMAN artist drawing a character named "Captain Marvel"-- hah hah) rank as the WORST in the entire run of the series (AND THAT'S REALLY SAYING SOMETHING!!!). My guess is, when Friedrich & Starlin took over, the feeling was, "Do WHATEVER you want-- how can it hurt?"


I have an EXTENSIVE review of IM #55 around here somewhere... I'll see if I can dig it out for next time.

"However, I can’t say I feel sorry for the Goodman’s considering their long history of being quintessential bastard businessmen since the pulp days."

Back in the early 40's, Joe Simon worked out a deal for a percentage of the profits on CAPTAIN AMERICA. But over the course of their 10 issues, he learned (from Goodman's accountant, who, it turns out, was a secret partner in ANOTHER publishing firm) that Goodman was screwing them over, not paying them what was contractually agreed. So Simon went to DC and worked out a deal with THEM for TWICE the page rates and NO editorial duties. This went on for a short time before Lee, finding out, told Goodman. Goodman FIRED them-- then made Lee editor ("temporarily").


The accountant who told Simon was also pissed, because Simon went to DC, not the company he HOPED they'd switch over to.


In the "STAN LEE Conversations" books, one interview has Stan mention the firing, but not being sure why, possibly because they were "moonlighting", but then he admits he may be wrong. Good grief.


If Goodman had been an up-front guy, Simon & Kirby might never have left, and Marvel might have been a MUCH better company for the whole of the 1940's.


In the 60's, there was some sort of (ALLEGED!!!) verbal promise that the creators would benefit via royalties for merchandise and such for the new characters being created. NEVER HAPPENED. This, apparently, was the MAIN (perhaps SOLE) reason Steve Ditko eventually quit. He felt he'd been outright LIED to, and didn't want to work for that kind of person. His page rates at Charlton were HALF what Marvel was paying, but that didn't bother him. Working for Goodman did.

"The third female title, Shanna the She-Devil, debuts and wow, I bet that Tuska/Colleta artwork is good. This is the pre-Ka-Zar days and so the story is much more in the tradition of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle I would assume, though with a Steve Gerber influence."

Way back I got all 5 issues of SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL, and re-read them not long ago. The 1st issue by George Tuska isn't bad. But the next 4 issues were by Ross Andru, and it never quite was up to snuff with the debut issue. Even with Jim Steranko doing a couple covers.


When her book got canned, Steve Gerber had her guest-start in a 5-part story in DAREDEVIL (which crossed over with MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, and she returned a time or two after that. I guess for awhile, SHANNA was Gerber's character. It's nice whenever you have ONE writer handling certain characters that way, especially when they're relatively new. Otherwise, how would there be ANY kind of consistency?

The BEAST!


As a sort-of offshoot of upgrading the X-MEN section, I just uploaded these 2
restorations I did awhile back. Nice, SHARP images from my own scans. I LOVED
the way this series started out (though thank God Gerry Conway skipped after
only one installment, would have been better if Steve Englehart had done it from
the first). I just wish they hadn't changed inkers EVERY SINGLE episode.


I first saw the 2nd episode in THE AVENGERS #136, where the reprint quality was
ABOMINABLY bad! ("That's the word-- ABOMINABLY!")


http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/aa-at/AA%2011.jpg
http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/aa-at/AA%2012.jpg


Guess that's IT for Iron Man, huh? Lotta nerve there, KILLING him off for good in someone else's series... (oh wait!)

Nobody wrote the Beast like Steve did. It's a classic 'take a character with a lot of history and organically grow him into something even better'.

I'm still missing the "final" episode, which appeared in an issue of THE HULK that Steve wrote. I suppose it's a toss-up-- ESSENTIAL, or cheap back-issue?

I think it's crazy when one writer does ONE episode and then tosses it to someone else. That's always bugged me about IRON FIST, and the I found the same thing happened with THE BEAST. Apparently, THE BEAST was Englehart's 1st series for Marvel, and it amazed me that he hit the grund running. (Not like, say Don McGregor, who took a few episodes to get readable.) I've recently read some scathing comments about the art on this series, but I knew Tom Sutton from his B&W work for Warren, and really enjoyed it. I just wish they hadn't gone thru 6 inkers in 6 episodes. Half of them were terriric, the other half-- EHH! And of course, having Bob Brown draw the last episode seemed the kiss of death, like when the networks know they're about to cancel a show, so instead of letting it go out with respect, they yank it around the schedule so NOBODY can see it.


Of course, I only posted this here because of that IRON MAN cover... (heeheehee) "It had to happen!" IT DID??? "I've DONE it!" WHY does he seem so proud of himself? What's funny about the interior art on that episode is, Mike Ploog inked it, and you have to squint really, really hard to make out Tom Sutton's work underneath it at all. Looking at it again all these years later, all I could think of it-- "Boy this DOES look like Will Eisner, doesn't it?"

A little "extra" I just added to the George Tuska page...

http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_artists/Tuska/George%20Tuska.jpg

I’ll break from my usual Iron Man rereading project to review the recent issues as part of Comic Book Review Month: Iron Man continues to have two main series in addition to a plethora of miniseries that I’m not bothering picking up, the main Iron Man title and Iron Man: Legacy. Of the two, Legacy is superior, though it’s certainly not perfect.

Iron Man: Legacy’s current story has Tony Stark battling the Pride, who are the evil parents of the hit series the Runaways (which is sorely missing in the MU these days). It takes place during the period where Tony lost his company and Rhodey was Iron Man. The story has been pretty good so far, though it suffers from lasting way too long; it should have been cut down to 3 issues rather than stretching it out for 6. The Iron Man editor must not have gotten the memo that you can have a TPB with different length stories—most of the time, a TPB with a 3-parter, a 2-parter and a 1-parter is better than a stretched out 6-parter. The main draw of this story is the neat continuity of having the Pride battle Tony and then the surprise ending to this issue where the rest of the Illuminati show up, so we get another secret Illuminati mission.

Meanwhile, Iron Man the main series continues to struggle. The current story-arc had a very solid wrap-up but that doesn’t excuse the problem of dragging this storyline out way too long either. Fraction tends to go ever further than 6 issues and do 8 issue arcs, which is completely over the top since so much of his writing tends to bland and boring, and he could really benefit from making these 8-parters into 4-parters. He’s trying to make Tony’s interactions with Pepper and Maria Hill be the lynchpin of the series, but honestly they could use a little ‘oomph’. His snappy dialogue falls very flat. The series is also suffering from mediocre art by Salvador Larocca and very bland coloring by Frank D’Armata. I can’t tell if they take a mediocre script by Fraction and make it feel worse, or if everything is actually that bad.

Ultimately, Marvel has done a great job making Tony Stark better written following the Iron Man movie (thank you Iron Man movie, because it didn’t look for awhile after Civil War). Yet for some reason, they can’t seem to get a solid team on an Iron Man comic delivering fantastic stories. This was certainly one of Joe Q’s biggest weaknesses during his tenure and Axel Alonso doesn’t instill me with a lot of confidence that he can fix it. The window to capitalize on the excellent movies is quickly shrinking.

[quote]Originally posted by profh0011:
[b]A little "extra" I just added to the George Tuska page...

[/quote]]http://www.samcci.nostromo.no/_artists/Tuska/George%20Tuska.jpg[/qb][/QUOTE]

Really cool!

It's hard to believe that after all the struggles to make IRON MAN a consistently good series at all that Marvel is putting out 2 I.M. books. That just reminds me of DC and GREEN LANTERN. Although I'm not reading any DCs right now (can't afford it), I am hoping they don't repeat the mistakes made when Kevin Dooley was editor, had 4 GL books plus a ton of guest-appearances elsewhere, then wondered why sales on ALL of them plunged.

Kurt Busiek & Sean Chen got me back reading IRON MAN, and though a lot of it seemed retreads of old stories (a complaint aimed at Busiek & Perez's AVENGERS run), I did find it much better than what came before, and after. And once I'd stopped buying the book (I felt it had gotten REALLY bad), I began to hear even worse things about it. How do they manage to keep "fixing" series and then, as soon as things are going smoothly, RUIN them all over again?


By the way, I recently got ESSENTIAL DAREDEVIL Vol.2 & 3, which means, if nothing else, before I'm thru, I'll be able to read that "Zodiac" crossover story.

Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it, especially since you actually will be able to read it in order!

And yeah, I also really enjoyed the Busiek / Chen run and then felt what came after was just dreadful...and got worse...and then even worse...

Keep in mind, I'll be reading the ZODIAC crossover from D.D.'s POV, not I.M.'s. (Unless of course I spring for ESSENTIAL IRON MAN, but that may not be for some time.)


Meanwhile...


Kurt Busiek has been hanging out at one of the Yahoo groups I'm in, and sad to say, my estimation of his keeps dropping every day. He's just insufferable. I like to separate artist and art, sometimes, it's a good idea. At a different group (I'm trying to be polite), I commented that Kurt is NOT as good as he THINKS he is. What he is, to me, is not as bad as the guys he followed, and who followed him. This goes for both IRON MAN and AVENGERS. (See, I was paying attention on the long, long AVENGERS thread!)

His most annoying trait lately tends to be needlessly replying to certain posts, not with a friendly reply, but with a long-winded LECTURE. Someone else suggested with him, it's all about HIM, and HIM being "RIGHT".


My general comment is... he's no Steve Englehart. He's not even a Roger Stern!