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Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 38: Essential Avengers Vol. 05

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Essential Avengers Vol. 05
Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Barry Smith and friends
Reprints: Avengers #98-119, Defenders #8-11, Daredevil #99 (April 1972 – January 1974)
Get this for: The end of Roy Thomas’ and the start of Englehart’s run — four stars

The fourth volume of Essential Avengers ended with the best Avengers story Roy Thomas ever did: the Kree-Skrull War. How can the fifth volume ever improve on this? Well, how about a three issue epic with the Avengers search for their missing member Hawkeye turning up both Hawkeye and ex-member Hercules, pits them against the Olympian god of war Ares as well as the Asgardian goddess the Enchantress and culminating into an epic battle reuniting every Avenger past and present, including the Hulk and the Swordsman?

It’s a good start, especially when the art on these three issues is done by Barry Smith. It’s the best the Avengers look this volume, even though such good artists like John and Sal Buscema, Rick Buckler, Bob Brown and Don Heck are responsible for the art in the rest of the book. they’re good, but Barry Windsor Smith even back then was in a class of his own. You wish he could’ve done the art for longer, but of course he never was the fastest artist in the world and beside, his tourist visum had expired and he was deported…

After the ten issue epic that was the Kree-Skrull War, both Roy Thomas and his succesor Steve Englehart limit themselves to shorter stories for a while. Thomas has the Avengers traveling to Olympus, then plots the return of the Grim Reaper before unleashing the Sentinels again. The X-Men had just been cancelled and so their old villains were fair game for the Avengers, something Englehart would also make use of by letting Magneto attack the Avengers. Englehart also plunders storylines from other series, tying in Captain America’s fight together with Rick Jones against Madame Hydra, in which the latter died, with his own Space Phantom & Grim Reaper teamup, by revealing the former had stood in for the actual Madame Hydra in that earlier Captain America story, hence the real Madame Hydra was still alive. It’s an early example of how complex Marvel continuity could become in the seventies and eighties, with writers building not only on the work done before in their own series, but bringing in loose ends from their own earlier ventures, as well as adding to stories originally done by others.

Though Englehart and Thomas do limit themselves to shorter stories, both let these stories flow more naturally into each other. They’re much less self contained as those Stan Lee wrote originally for The Avengers. This means there’s more room for interpersonal conflict and soap opera and Englehart makes good use of this. Roy Thomas had dropped the first hints that the Scarlet Witch and the Vision might have been attracked to each other; under Englehart their romance, after may false starts, came out in the open. This romance is one of the mainstays of his run here. Another constant in Englehart’s run is Hawkeye’s, well dickishness towards the other Avengers. Always a bit of a hothead, here he’s just obnoxious at times, throwing a hissy fit when the Scarlet Witch choses the Vision rather than him, later getting into an actual fight with Daredevil over the Black Widow, in a Steve Gerber penned issue of Daredevil also collected here. It may not have read that way originally, but here it seems the sexism fairy has visited Hawkeye.

Like the previous volume, this one too ends with a multi issue epic, as Englehart loses his inhibition and starts a story on par with Roy Thomas’ Kree-Skrull War. But this time this epic is not contained in one series, but involves The Defenders as well, which was also written by Englehart at the time. Dormammu and Loki manage to trick the Defenders into finding the six pieces of the Evil Eye, last seen in a Fantastic Four issue in order to cure the Black Knight, but in reality to give Dormammu the power to rule the universe. Loki gets cold feet and involves the Avengers by tricking them into believing the Defenders actually want to rule the world. Chaos, as they say, ensues. The Avengers – Defenders War is the ancestor of all those crossover epics that would excite and bore us later in the eighties and nineties and it already includes that page showing every hero in the world fighting the main villain’s evil hordes all over the world — or at least New York.

This is neither Thomas’ nor Englehart’s finest hour, but this is still a great volume to see how one great writer hands over the baton to another one.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 37: Essential Man-Thing Vol. 02

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Essential Man-Thing Vol. 02
Steve Gerber, Michael Fleisher, Chris Claremont and friends
Reprints: Man-Thing #15-22, Giant-Size #3-5, Man-Thing v2 #1-11 (March 1975 – July 1981)
Get this for: The second part of Gerber’s run — four stars

The Marvel Essentials series is meant to sell you characters, rather than creators — buy a volume and you get a big slab of Spider-Man’s adventures, or the Fantastic Four’s — but with some series this approach just doesn’t work. Man-Thing is one such series. Only one writer ever got a handle on the muck monster and nobody before or after him really knew what to do with him. That writer was Steve Gerber of course, whose work dominated the first volume of Essential Man-Thing. The second volume collects the remainder of his run on the first Man-Thing, but also the complete second, 1979 series, written by Michael Fleisher and Chris Claremont. It’s clear neither of them got the Man-Thing as Gerber got him.

Man-Thing is after all a difficult character to write. He’s completely passive, with no motives of his own, solely responding to the emotions of the people around him. You can’t have the usual Marvel soap opera with Man-Thing, it’s difficult to get him to fight recurring villains and really the best thing you can do with him is to use him in morality tales. Which both Gerber and his successors did, with the difference that Gerber had his finger on the pulse of the seventies and the talent to make use of it. He was also able to see the absurdity in his stories, which helps a lot when reading much dated relevant stories. But he also moved people with his stories, especially “the Kid’s Night Out” from Giant-Size Man-Thing #4, as witnessed in this remembrance by Fred Hembeck. In it Man-Thing is the avenger of a fat kid who died of exhaustion during gym class, while the people that tormented him mouth platitudes at his funeral, lashing out in anger when his one friend challenges their lies. It’s dated yes and I’ve read hundreds of such stories, but I can see the power it must have had on people like Hembeck back then

For an example of how not to do a Man-Thing story, we need look no further than Giant-Size Man-Thing #5 and a Len Wein story. Wein, who created Manny’s counterpart at DC, Swamp Thing, should’ve been able to handle him, but his story of two young lovers running away into the swamp to get away from their feuding parents is a) cliche and b) very very dull, a sort of third rate EC Comics shock story. That’s the mistake in many of the non-Gerber stories, taken it all too seriously and going for shock rather than creativity, upping the death count along the way. It doesn’t make them any better.

On the art side, most of it is by dependable Marvel veterans like Jim Mooney, Ed Hannigan and Don Perlin. None of them are bad and some like Hannigan do their best work here, but it’s not as good as the art in the previous volume, which of course boasted Mike Ploog, who is hard to improve on. It’s the standard seventies Marvel house style on display here, when Manny really needs something special.

Not a bad volume and Chris Claremont at least tries to do what Gerber does seemingly effortlessly, but in the end it shows that some characters can only be handled by one specific writer.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 36: Essential X-Men Vol. 04

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Essential X-Men Vol. 4
Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, John Romita Jr and friends
Reprints: Uncanny X-Men #162-179, Annual #7, Marvel Graphic Novel #5 (October 1982 – March 1984)
Get this for: full blown mutant paranoia with the X-Men — four stars

The fourth volume of Essential X-Men starts with the tail end of Dave Cockrum’s second run on the title, and the Brood Saga. At the end of the previous volume the X-Men had been kidnapped into space, this volume opens with Wolverine discovering where they were: on the home planet of the Brood, Marvel’s very own Alien knockoff. On the run from them, lost and alone in a very hostile alien jungle Wolvie discovers things are even worse than he thought, as it turns out he and the other X-Men have been impregnated by the Brood Queen and are carrying an alien embryo. They’ll die giving birth to new queens but not before they might be able to hurt the Brood. It’s another X-Men space epic, but a much more depressive one than the previous ones.

It sets the tone for the rest of this volume, as the X-Men’s world gets progressively darker. After the Brood Saga and its aftermath, the next story is from Marvel Graphic Novel #5, “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills”, which after “Days of Future Past” is the first story explicitely about mutant hatred. It’s not a good story, with the subtely of a sledgehammer and very eighties with its televangelist villain, but it’s a prelude of what’s to come. Though this had supposedly always been the theme of The X-Men, for the most part the classic X-Men had been a regular superhero title and mutant hatred even with Claremont at the helm it took to “Days of Future Past” in #141-142 that it became explicit. But while that story showed the nightmare future the X-Men fought again, it still wasn’t a big part of the series afterwards. With the graphic novel Claremont put mutant phobia in the spotlights again and in the regular title as well it became more prominent, as the X-Men became more and more mistrusted by the world they had saved so often

For example, even in the lighthearted story from Annual 7 this mistrust is shown. The Impossible Man, an old Fantastic Four villain, is on a scavenger hunt taking trophies from all his favourite superheros: the X-Men’s mansion, Nick Fury’s eye patch and the Wasp’s entire collection of costumes, with the X-Men chasing after him. When Rogue and Colossus follow him to the Avengers’ Mansion, they’re attacked by She-Hulk and Iron Man who mistake them for the thieves. It’s one small example of the mistrust between our favourite muties and the rest of the superhero community.

Another big change for the X-Men is that they’re no longer the only mutant team: while they were kidnapped by the Brood, Charles Xavier had assembled a team of New Mutants. It showed how popular the X-Men had become that there was now a second mutant title. It’s not immediately notable in the X-Men’s own title, except for the inevitable confrontation when they return from outer space.

Apart from the ongoing mutant paranoia, Claremont also heaps more personal troubles on his heroes. The X-Men and especially Storm start to change again during the Brood Saga, as they have to fight for their lives and kill as well. On Earth too they have to become harder, lose some of their idealism to survive. With Storm, always portrayed as an innocent abroad, this change hits hardest: in issue 170 she actually strikes to kill an opponent, Callisto of the Morlocks who had kidnapped the Angel to be her consort. She fights a knife duel with Callisto, the latter seems to have her on the ropes, but Storm manages to tangle Callisto’s arm in her cape and stabs her full in the heart. This moment is shown in a great six panel sequence by Paul Smith, the upper left panel showing Storm and Callisto as Storm prepares to strike, then a close up from behind Storm’s shoulder showing the expression on Callisto’s face as she’s stabbed in the chest. The third panel then shows them standing, Callisto starting to collapse. The bottom three panels has Storm walking to the camera, past Callisto falling down and with the Morlock crowd in the background. A great sequence and a example of Paul Smith’s talent.

Storm’s change into somebody much more harder, less naive (as symbolised by her new, street tough costume in #173) is not the only angst the X-Men go through. Wolverine sees his marriage to Lady Mariko Yashida fall through at the last moment, Mariko being manipulated by Mastermind, who’s back for vengeance. Even after this is cleared up Wolvie doesn’t get to marry his great love, as Mariko’s family is entangled with the Yakuza again and she feels her duty compels her to clean this up first. But all this is just collatoral damage in Mastermind’s real plot: to convince the X-Men Dark Phoenix is back and get them to kill an innocent woman.

Because on the last page of #168 Madeleine Pryor is introduced to Scott Summers and she is a dead ringer (no pun intended) for Jean Grey, his one true love who had killed herself rather than give in to the temptation to become Dark Phoenix again. Scott falls hard for Madeleine, with the next issue finding them slow dancing together, even though he had spent most of #168 being intimate with his previous girlfriend, Lee Forrester. Madeleine and Scott seem made for each other, but he cannot help but wonder… He finally asks the question he dreads, whether she is Phoenix and is answered by an energy blast. Issue 175 finds the X-Men fighting for their lives against a reborn Phoenix, or so things seem, but Scott finally figures things out and then has to fight for his life against the rest of the X-Men who are now convinced he‘s Phoenix… It all works out in the end, with a wedding for Maddy and Scott, but it was a long hard slog.

The third angst generator is the coming of Rogue, their old adversary from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who was the one who robbed Carol Danvers from her powers, memories and almost her life. She joins the X-Men out of desperation, with her powers out of control and confused about who she is thanks to Carol’s personality being entangled with her own. Xavier lets her joint against the wishes of most X-Men, who slowly have to learn to live with her. It’s a good example of Claremont’s great skill at soap opera and how he can manipulate his readers. It makes perfect sense for the X-Men to take in Rogue, with their mission of rehabilitation, but I’m sure many readers would’ve been as outraged as Carol at the unfariness of it all when she learned of it…

A quick word about the art to finish this off. As said, this volume starts with Dave Cockrum doing his usual excellent job, who is replaced by Paul Smith, then a complete unknown but who is just as good as Cockrum from the start. He has a smooth, semi-realistic style that’s sort of reminds me of Alan Davis, but not quite and he’s great at depicting subtle emotions with just a few lines. Smith in turn is replaced by John Romita Jr., who continues in his style but puts a slightly scratchier edge on it. All three artists work well with Claremont, who adapts himself in turn to each of them. A great volume again.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 35: Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 2

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Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 2
Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie, Michael Fleisher, Don Perlin and friends
Reprints: Ghost Rider #21-50 (December 1976 – November 1980)
Get this for: a series in search of a rationale — three stars

I wasn’t much impressed by the first volume of the Essential Ghost Rider, not in the least because the Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze was kind of a dick. Things started to improve at the end of that volume, as Tony Isabella built up a setting and supporting cast for him and got him the trappings of a proper superhero, but one based in L.A. as opposed to New York which most of the rest of Marvel calls home. With this volume Gerry Conway is the writer and he builds on Isabella’s foundations, as does Jim Shooter who succeeds Conway after only three issues. Not for long however: with #26 Shooter sends Blaze packing, after he reveals his demonic nature to all his friends, forced into this by Doctor Druid, in an early example of his dickery.

As originally concieved, Blaze would become Ghost Rider automatically every night, which was changed by Isabella into whenever danger threatened and further refined by Conway and Shooter into something Blaze more or less controlled. Once Shooter abandons the L.A. setting however and puts Ghostie on a road trip with no specific goal, Blaze and the Ghost Rider more and more become separate identities. Roger McKenzie is the next writer having a shot at the title and he continues this trend. Under McKenzie Ghost Rider has to survive a quest for vengeance by one of his first villains, the Orb, then a Dormannu manipulated showdown with Dr Strange, followed by a hell spawned bounty hunter not so very different from himself and finally the wraith of a centuries old mutant child and his robotic motor cycle killers.

By now Ghost Rider has moved away from plain superheroics again into more occult/horror flavoured stories. With the last writer in this volume, Michael Fleisher (ignoring a fillin issue by Jim Starlin between McKenzie and Fleisher) the superheroics are entirely left behind, as the Ghost Rider becomes a pure spirit of vengeance. Each story has Blaze coming into a different town, city or village, getting involved with whatever menace is waiting for it, defeats it, then leaves. The villains he fights are either small time punks and hoods, or the local supernatural phenomenon, or both. There’s no real supporting cast, just the people Blaze meets and helps on his travels, usually involving at least one not too bad looking girl. Reading these stories in short succession you can’t help but notice how formulaic they are, though Fleisher is a good enough writer to hold your interest anyway.

The art for most of this volume is in the capable if pedestrian hands of Don Perlin, who was quite prolific in the late seventies and early eighties. His art was never spectacular or had much of his own style, but he was one of those pencilers who could be depended on to do a good job month in month out. It tells the story and that’s good enough. It’s a bit of a shame really that it was Gil Kane who opened this volume: after him almost everybody else is a disappointment. Having his art in an otherwise lackluster Essential collection is always a bonus.

Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 2 shows where the horror boom at Marvel from the early seventies ended up eventually, as just another variation on the superhero formula. There’s nothing really interesting or novel to the comics collected here.

Fifty Essentials in Fifty Days 34: Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 04

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Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 04
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and friends
Reprints: Fantastic Four #64-83 and Annual 5-6 (July 1967 – February 1969)
Get this for: Lee and Kirby at the peak of their game still — Five stars

I’m sorry, but I have to repeat the praise from last time: gods, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were good together on The Fantastic Four. With the start of this volume they’ve already had more than sixty issues behind their belts and you’d expect that, especially after the creative burst of the last ten-fifteen issues that the pace would slacken a bit, but nothing is further from the truth. They keep on expanding the Marvel Universe, first with the coming of the Kree, including the Kree Sentry and Ronan the Accuser, then with the origin of what would later become Adam Warlock, finally with the discovery of Subatomica. Not to mention the birth of Sue and Reed’s son…

But there are also adventures with old friends, like the Inhumans and the Black Panther and old villains like the Mad Thinker and the Wizard return too. Apart from the Kree Sentry and Ronan, the only real new villain is Psychoman, introduced in Annual #5. There’s plenty of action and conflict here, but the focus does not lie on fighting supervillains, something which the Fantastic Four at any rate has never been about. The FF is at its best confronting some cosmic menace or going on a voyage of discovery, not handling the same villains that could also be menacing Iron Man next week.

There’s not much to say about the stories here, to be honest, that I haven’t said before. Lee and Kirby know these characters inside out, they know how they will respond in any situation they put them in. There’s always a bit of argument of who did what on these series and it’s no great secret that it was largely Kirby’s imagination that made The Fantastic Four so special. He gets to go wild again with Subatomica and the story introducing Him, who would later become Adam Warlock. His design work and sense of grandeur remain unsurpassed.

As does the rest of his art. It’s the cosmic decors and bizarre creatures and villains everybody remembers from Kirby, but his quiet moments are great too. He can get so much emotion from a few subtle lines in a character’s face, especially with the Thing, who wears his heart on his sleeve. You will never mistake one Kirby character for another. His story layout is excellent too, great sense of pacing and with everything he does in service to the story.

One thing that did annoy me about this volume was the neglect of the Invisible Girl, who had married Mr Fantastic the previous volume and who was now kept out of the action by her over anxious husband. It reflects the mores of the time that Sue, as a married woman, would need to be protected and kept away from danger but it comes over as incredibly sexist in retrospect. Things get worse when she’s pregnant. Obviously then she cannot join them on missions anymore, but the other three members keep her completely out of the loop for a time. There’s also Crystal, Johnny’s Inhuman girlfriend whose powers are arguably greater than any of the Fantastic Four, yet is completely wasted in most of the stories here…

That quibble aside, this is another perfect volume.