Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

Marvel Firsts: The 1970s Vol. 2

This is part two of three blogs reviewing the three volume set of trades paperbacks called Marvel Firsts: The 1970s. This time I am reviewing volume two of the three. This volume reprints the first appearances of most of Marvel’s new characters from 1974 to 1977. It is a mix of genres with a lot of horror as the monster boom was in full swing by this point. It is interesting that in the 60s such great characters as Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the X-Men were all launched. The Seventies had far more characters and titles launched, but had far fewer success stories. It seems to me there were three reasons for this. The first is the time the books were coming out. In the Sixties, comics were still selling well and there were a very limited number of Marvel titles. The second thing that stands out is Stan Lee. Stan created and wrote most of the creations of the Sixties. By the time the Seventies came around, Stan was still actively involved but not actually creating and writing that many books. Third was the changes in distribution in the Seventies that gave Marvel a great deal more freedom to experiment and print more books. By the Seventies, Marvel was a well-established publisher and they were flexing their muscles a bit by publishing a wide range of tiles. Some of these titles Marvel published were very good and a few would have best been left unpublished. This is a look at the middle of one of Marvel’s most creative decades.

Vampire Tales #1 featured a new series of stories staring Morbius the Living Vampire by Steve Gerber with great art by the highly underrated Pablo Marcos. The story is a supernatural thriller set in a small New England town which has a cult running it and is almost more a gothic story rather than a horror story. Over the run of Vampire Tales the Morbius story was very good, and the complete run of Vampire Tales is available in three small trades.

Supernatural Thrillers #5 had the debut of the Living Mummy again by Steve Gerber with nice art by Rich Buckler and Frank Chiaramonte. It is an interesting book because the art is great and the story is very intriguing. Given the premise of a 4000 year old mummy coming to life for revenge is very clichéd, but Gerber was able actually to make this an interesting first issue. You get to the end of this issue and want to read more. My only complaint is there are a few problems with the timeline of the character and how old he really is as it is different at various times throughout the story.

Strange Tales #169

Strange Tales #169 featured the first appearance of Brother Voodoo. This was the first character in the revived Strange Tales. As the last character to appear in Strange Tales was Dr. Strange, this was sort of appropriate. Brother Voodoo is a pretty straight forward horror story and it tells the tale of an American doctor whose brother is the high priest of a Voodoo group in Haiti. When his brother takes ills, the doctor goes to Haiti to treat his brother. When his brother dies he takes up his brother’s roll of Brother Voodoo. Except… This is a very good story by Len Wein with atmospheric art by Gene Colan and Dan Adkins. I have always thought this character was overlooked in the Marvel Universe, even with Brother Voodoo becoming Sorcerer Supreme at one point. (Again tying into Dr. Strange.)

Marvel Feature #11 is basically a try-out for Marvel-Two-In-One which was Marvel Team-Up with the Thing instead of Spider-Man and the Human Torch. The first issue is a fun story with the Thing & the Hulk being manipulated to fight each other in a desert town. Another good story by Len Wein with great art by Jim Starlin and Joe Sinnott.

Jungle Action #6

Jungle Action #6 was the first solo-series to feature the Black Panther from the pages of the Fantastic Four and Avengers. Writer Don McGregor took the bits and pieces of the history of the character that had been dropped over the years and is able to create a thick and rich tapestry which became one of the better books of the 70s. The book is very wordy, probably far more than it needs to be, with lots of longwinded word balloons. Also, the stories reflect the time they are written, with lots of race anger and politics, but overall they are very good and this first issue is a great opening. Once again there is nice art by Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson.

Vampire Tales #2 is another of Marvel’s foray into the world of b&w magazines in their attempt to compete with Warren Publishing. Issue two featured the first appearance of Satana and is written by Roy Thomas and beautifully drawn by John Romita in glorious black and white. This is a short story, and it is wordless, but it is super atmospheric and the story is clearly told. A true tribute to how talented John Romita Sr. is.

Marvel Spotlight #12 featured the debut of Son of Satan by Mike Freidrich and art by Herb Trimph and Frank Chiaramonte. It tells the story of Damion Hellstorm, the Son of Satan. This issue is fine and a fun read but I do have issues with it. The first is it is continued from Ghost Rider, the previous series in Marvel Spotlight, so it feels like you are missing a good part of the story, even though it is recapped. Secondly, in the Marvel Universe there have always been a problem with Satan, as there are multiple characters names for Satan and they have different powers and agendas. If you know Marvel history, I find characters like the Son of Satan to be distracting due to the muddy background. (For example, why is his father Satan better or worse than the other versions of Satan in Wolverine or Thor).

Astonishing Tales #21

Astonishing Tales #21 featured It, the Living Colossus by Tony Isabella and Dick Ayers. The story is not bad giving how silly the concept is, but the art penciled and inked by Dick Ayers is horrible. This is an example where a good inker could have dramatically improved this story. I believe that It, the Living Colossus appeared previously as a short story in one of the monster books from the 1950s, just as the more famous creatures Fin Fang Foom and Groot.

Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1 was another Marvel b&w magazines and it featured Shang-Chi and the debut of the Sons of the Tiger by Gerry Conway and Dick Giordano. I always loved these characters, even though they evolved quite a bit over the life of the series leading up to the current White Tiger character. This first story introduces the three lead characters who become the Sons of the Tiger and introduce their powers. It is a straight forward urban story and it has great art by Giordano. I wish Marvel would do a complete collection of this series as the later stories would feature art by a young George Perez.

Marvel Premier #15 continued Marvel’s attempt to capitalize on the martial arts craze of the 1970s. Following the success of Master of Kung-Fu Marvel launched a second martial arts character called Iron Fist. The story is about Danny Rand, a young boy who lands up being raised in a mystical temple in a lost land and becomes the ultimate weapon. You have to read the story to get the full details. It is written by Roy Thomas (and it seems to be heavily influenced by the TV show Kung Fu) and has dynamic art by Gil Kane and Dick Giordano.

Strange Tales #184 featuring the Golem was one of Marvel’s weaker attempts to do a monster book. It is competently done by Len Wein with nice art John Buscema and Jim Mooney (not Buscema’s best inker) but the story seems to be lacking something. I think the issue is it rehashes a lot of ideas from other characters and tries to use a religious myth as a super-heroic character. It is not bad, but it is not great ether.

Creatures on the Loose #30

Creatures on the Loose featuring Man-Wolf was one of my favorite books that has not been collected yet. (Hint,hint). This first issue is written by Doug Moench with art by George Tuska. This first issue is pretty standard, and it picks up the story of John Jameson, from the pages of Amazing Spider-Man. He was the astronaut son of J. Jonah Jameson and the actual character of Man-Wolf appeared in the pages of Giant-Sized Spider-Man prior to this series, but this is where the character was fleshed out in all of his furry glory. Once again this book is significant because the later issues featured art by a very young (and super talented) George Perez.

Astonishing Tales #25 was the debut of the great Deathlok by Doug Moench and Rich Buckler. Well, most of this series were all Rich Buckler but Doug Moench did have a hand in creating the character and the world he exists in. This story is set in the future where things have gone south and a crazed military general has a cyborg named Deathlok created to do his dirty work. The entire series has been collected into a full color trade paperback which I would highly recommend. (Note: There were a number of Deathlok series after his run in Astonishing Tales, none of which were as good as this original series.)

Haunt of Horror Vol. 2 #2 was yet another Marvel b&w magazine with Gabriel, the Devil Hunter by Doug Moench and art by Billy Graham. This story was clearly done to try and capitalize on the popularity of the Exorcist movie. It is a fine story with nice art, but the character never really went anywhere after his brief run in the Haunt of Horror. (Maybe this is a character that needs to be revived, or if you want to read a better story of this genre try Robert Kirkman’s Outcast from Image Comics.)

War is Hell #10

War is Hell was originally a reprint title with Sgt. Fury stories until issue nine where they introduced a new character with a story by Chris Claremont and Tony Isabella with art Dick Ayers and Frank Springer. This is easily the worst conceived story in this volume. The worst story goes to It, the Living Colossus. This is a close second as it tells of the story of a soldier killed in World War One who keeps dying then come back to life in another war zone where he has to try and save someone. I suspect this might have been better in a different title or at a different time, but somehow this seemed thrown together as an attempt to get another book on the newsstands.

Monsters Unleashed #10 yet another Marvel b&w magazine, had the first solo story of Tigra, the former character, the Cat. Like Marvel did with the Beast, they took a B character and revised her and changed her to make her a more interesting character and this first solo story is much better than the Cat stories, but still not great. It was written by Chris Claremont and Tony Isabella with art by Tony DeZuniga. It should be noted that The Cat first became the Tigra in Giant Sized Chillers, but this is her first solo story.

Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 featured the first Howard the Duck solo story by the late Steve Gerber with great art by Frank Brunner. First off, the Giant-Size series were a series of books that Marvel did that were square-bound with more pages and a higher price. Most of the giants would feature a new story with the lead character, here it was Man-Thing, and a backup story with a character from the leads universe, and here it was Howard. This is simply great. You get the hints of the greatness to come in Howard’s ongoing series (the first volume of which has just been released in a nice trade collection), and the art by Brunner is fantastic. It was a joy to re-read this story.

Giant-Size Invaders #1 was an homage to Marvel’s golden age by Roy Thomas with art by Frank Robbins and Vince Colletta. This is a fun book with Captain America, the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Bucky, and Toro plus new characters that were introduced over time. This set up a long running series set in the Second World War. One comment about this series is the art was horrible. Now I find this hard to say as Frank Robbins did newspaper strips (Johnny Hazard for one, which is fantastic) but his comic book art was not very good. Unfortunately his pencils were not helped by Vince Colletta inks. It is sad as this book had so much potential, but I have such a hard time with the art. Overall as an introduction story it is very well done and sets up stories for years to come.

Giant-Size X-Men #1

Giant-Size X-Men #1 was the debut of the brand new and all different X-Men by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. This story has been reprinted a number of times and we all know the story of how the new team first came together. It was fun to re-read these stories with the first appearances of Storm, Nightcrawler, and more. It is interesting to see how these characters first appeared and how they have changed over the years. Chris Claremont took over writing the book with the second story which was X-Men #94 which continued from Giant Size #1.

This wraps up my look at Marvel Firsts: The 1970s Vol. 2. Next time I will look at the final volume of the 70s series. As with the first volume, it is a mixed bag with some good material, some really bad material and some stories that would grow into great series. Overall I would recommend this book because the good far outweighs the bad and it is historically interesting. As with the first volume there is a lot of covers and information about other titles not reprinted, but mentioned and it shows just how creative and diverse Marvel was in the 70s.

Everything written in this blog is my opinion and in no way reflects the thoughts or opinions of Westfield Comics. I welcome comments on this blog or any blog at MFBWAY@AOL.COM. Have you read this volume? Any of these stories? What do you think? Am I wrong about War is Hell? Am I overrating Sons of the Tiger? I want to know. As always…

Thank you.

Classic comic covers from the Grand Comics Database.