Avengers Annual #1 (Part 3)

 

cover art by John Buscema

(with alterations by John Romita)

Chapter 3 of Avengers Annual #1 (1967--writer: Roy Thomas; artist: Don Heck) moves the action to Asia, where Hercules and the Scarlet Witch are confronting the Enchantress and the Executioner. The bad guys have brought along an army of trolls, but Hercules  and Wanda wade through those until they essentially give up and go home.

So the battle quickly narrows down to two heroes and two villains. The Executioner figures an epic battle like this needs an epic location, so he carves through dimensional barriers with his axe and brings all four of them to a between-dimensions location called the Citidal of Silence.  This annoys the Mandarin (who is listening in on the battle), because there's something in Asia his supposed minions are supposed to bring him. But Asgardian bad guys have always had trouble listening to mere mortal bosses. The Executioner tosses the communication device away.

It's a nifty bit of irony in that whomever wins the fight, the Executioner's arrogance alone has already spoiled this part of the Manderin's plan.

Hercules and Executioner pound away at each other while Enchantress trades hexes and spells with Wanda. 

Eventually, Herc knocks out his opponent. Wanda has done pretty well against Enchantress in the meantime, but the villain eventually forms up some debris into a frost giant that's a little too much for the Witch to handle. 

So Herc throws the unconscious Executioner into the giant, destroying it and knocking out Enchantress with the ensuing magical backlash from her spell being disrupted.

So it's another win for the bad guys. The two villains are bound with Enchantress's hair, which will keep them prisoners until Odin can judge them, while Hercules and Wanda return to Earth. 

Once again, Don Heck's art is magnificent, with this issue continuing to change my opinion of his art. I never hated it, but never loved it. Now I kinda love it.

The fight is imaginatively choreographed and the arrogance of the villains is captured perfectly. Hercules is portrayed as a big bruiser, but who also keeps his head during the fight. I love that he uses his unconscious opponent as a missile.

Next week, we'll move to Africa to see how Thor and Hawkeye are fairing.

Cover Cavalcade

NOVEMBER IS CHARLTON WAR COMICS MONTH!!! 

A Jack Keller cover from 1970.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Escape: "She" 7/11/48

Despite the half-hour run time, this episode gives us an effective and atmospheric adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's classic novel.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Game For Heroes

 

With World War 2 approaching its end, one-eyed commando Owen Morgan is tasked with a mission. He's to scout out one of the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands--an island on which he grew up--because it was feared that the Nazis on the island would not surrender once Germany fell.

An American commando team accompanies him, assigned to sabotage any ships in the island's harbor. Things go awry and both Owen and the commandos are captured.

From here, things get really interesting. Owen actually befriends a German sergeant named Steiner, a hard-core veteran of the Russian front, but who is not a Nazi but a decent human being. But the commander of the Germans on the island is a fanatical Nazi named Radl, who holds the loyalty of a unit of SS troops. It's Radl who refuses to accept the news that Hitler is dead when this is reported over the radio.

The book is obviously setting up a clash between the prisoners & good Germans vs the SS troops. But before that, in an incredibly intense action scene, Allies and Germans must team up to take a life boat out into a near-hurricane storm to save the crew of a German ship hung up on some rocks.

This leads directly into the equally intense climax, in which the Allies and good Germans do indeed have a final battle against Radl and the SS.

It's a book that kept me up until 1 am last night because I didn't want to put it down. Great action, great characters, with themes of friendship and courage running throughout.

This was written in 1970 under Higgins' James Graham pen-name, a few years before "The Eagles as Landed" put him on the bestseller list. It's interesting to note that he reused several character names (Steiner and Radl) for major characters in "The Eagle as Landed" and also reused a minor plot point. (The Steiners in both books briefly serve in a unit that has men riding a modified torpedo that carries a second torpedo to be launched at Allied shipping.) Higgins also used the idea of Allies and Germans teaming up to save lives as a major plot point in his later novel "Storm Warning." And his World War II novels often explore the idea that not every German fighting in World War 2 was evil.

Higgins was writing adventure novels, not dissertations on morality, but I always kind of wished he had explored the idea of good Germans a little further. Usually, Higgins admirable German characters are brave soldiers serving their country. A discussion of about the right/wrong of serving one's country when that country is ruled by a despotic maniac bent on racial genocide would have been interesting. To be fair, Higgins does deal with the evils of Nazism quite powerfully, but his good Germans are still on the front lines shooting at the Allies. This doesn't make them less effective as characters in Higgins' novel and the author's general point about not condemning every German is valid. But I'm always reminded of the character of Eric Koenig from Marvel Comics. Eric was a German who fought with the Allies as a member of Nick Fury's Howling Commandoes. In his view, overthrowing the Nazis was the best way to serve Germany.

But then, if Higgins spent too much time delving into moral philosphies, there wouldn't have been room for his great action scenes. Game for Heroes is intense and unputdownable.

Avengers Annual #1 (Part 2)

 

cover art by John Buscema

(with alterations by John Romita)

Last week, we looked at the first chapter of Avengers Annual #1 (1967), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Don Heck. In it, we saw the Mandarin gather together a team of supervillains. He sends them out to attack three different locations, one each in Africa, Asia and South America.

For this chapter, the action moves to South America, where Power Man and Swordman lead an army of mercenaries to capture a diamond-rich city. The two villains speed past the defending army in an air car and confront the city officials with an ultimatum. Either they give up or THE HUGE SWORD HOVERING OVER THE CITY will drop down and destroy everything.

The city officials are cowed and about to surrender when Wasp and Goliath show up. What follows is a cool fight scene, with Goliath and Power Man beating down on each other, while Wasp tries to snatch the activation device for the sword away from Swordsman.

Goliath takes more hits than he gives, but then uses his size-shifting abilities to confuse the villain and get in a knockout blow. Wasp is temporarily stunned by Swordsman, but recovers quickly enough to save her husband's life later in the fight.

But Swordsman does have time to use the device and send the sword dropping down towards the city. This, in turn, gives Iron Man a chance to save the city, using every drop of energy in his suit to stop the sword from falling and eventually throw it off into the jungle.

I have always been a little critical of Don Heck's work. I've always thought his figure work was a little stiff. But looking at this issue is making me re-evaluate my opinion. His art is dynamic and strong throughout, with the above Iron Man splash page being a highlight.

The writing is strong as well. We have a unique threat, a well-choreographed and fun fight scene and a moment of epic heroism. 

So this chapter ends with one of the Mandarin's three attacks being thwarted, though the Master Villain once again reminds us that only one of the three needs to succeed for his Master Plan (whatever that may be) to also succeed.  Next week, we'll see how things go for his team in Asia.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #39: Tarzan the Untamed

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #39: Tarzan the Untamed:   Jess, Scott and Tim discuss the 1920 novel "Tarzan the Untamed," in which the Jungle Lord goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge a...

Cover Cavalcade

  OCTOBER IS HAWKEYE & GREEN ARROW MONTH!!!

A 1961 cover by Murphy Anderson.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Screen Directors Playhouse: "Prince of Foxes" 1/4/51

An agent of Casare Borgia is sent to help bring an independent city-state under Borgia's control, but suffers a crisis of conscience. Douglas Fairbanks takes the Tyrone Power part from the movie, while William Conrad does a superb job taking over from Orson Welles playing Borgia.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Sabotage in Space

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #172

The penultimate entry in the Tom Corbett book series is 1955's Sabotage in Space, which begins with Tom, Roger and Astro coming close to sabotaging their own careers.

Frankly, they screw up. They get into a fight with another crew of cadets, which lands them in hot water. Their punishment is to spend time each day pulling guard duty, which in turn leaves them less time to study for upcoming exams. This, in turn, leaves them with little time to sleep in order to make up the study time.

I actually like the way this one begins--showing that our young and hyper-competent heroes can still have human moments and make poor decisions. As far as the plot is concerned, this also leaves them in a position to get thrown into the middle of the action.

A new spaceship is being tested. The ship is designed to carry smaller remote control rockets, designed to take supplies directly to small outposts on other planets. This will save on the time and expense of transporting supplies to those outposts from the nearest rocket base. 

Someone is trying to sabotage this new ship before its test flight. At one point, it looks as if the cadets have caught the criminal, but it turns out they've captured the chief assistant to the ship's designer.

So they've messed up again. Or have they? When that chief assistant proceeds to frame Roger and Astro for stealing a rocket (by giving them fake orders to take the rocket into space), we begin to suspect he might be the saboteur. Actually, the guy is a bit of a jerk, so we kind of suspected it already.

In the meantime, Tom is on a side mission to Mars when he's kidnapped and framed for desertion. He escapes his captors, but now finds himself obligated to somehow return to Earth without being arrested, spring Roger and Astro from the hoosegow and pull off a plan to catch not just the guy who framed them, but the mastermind behind the sabotage as well.

Tom also needs the help of Captain Strong, his commanding officer. But Strong's duty would require him to arrest Tom if the two meet up. How much is Strong willing to trust his prize cadet?

The story is paced a little bit slower than the earlier novels in the series and it's flawed in two ways. First, the identity of the mastermind is kept as a surprise to be revealed in the last chapter--but there's really no doubt who it is. There is literally only one character introduced to us who could be the chief villain.

Second, the attempts to frame the cadets are a bit heavy-handed and I think it unlikely that so many of the officers at the Space Academy don't suspect the frame-ups. Especially since the cadets have spent six previous book heroically saving lives and catching crooks.

On the other hand, this set-up leads to a legitimately touching scene in which Captain Strong muses whether his ultimate duty isn't to friendship rather than strictly following orders. 

And the climax is quite good, with the cadets and several other characters aboard the new spaceship, improvising a way to fight back with their unarmed vessel as another ship fires space torpedoes at them. Tom, Astro and Roger have a chance not only to prove their innocence, but also to demonstrate quick thinking and innovative tactics. It's pretty cool stuff and, despite its flaws, the book is yet another enjoyable one in the series.

That leaves us with one Tom Corbett book to go. I had trouble locating this one--the first seven are all in the public domain and it was easy to find and download electronic versions for them. But the eighth was nowhere to be found and it looked as if I would have to skip this one in my reviews.

But I knew that this would disappoint millions and possibly cause civilization to crumble, so I kept looking. Eventually, I found an ebook version being sold on Lulu. So we will soon be returning to Tom Corbett's universe one more time. 

Avengers Annual #1 (Part 1)

 

cover art by John Buscema

(with alterations by John Romita)

The first Avengers Annual is cover dated September 1967 and its a doozy, with an imaginative script by Roy Thomas and outstanding art by Don Heck. And I'm not normally a huge Don Heck fan. But this particular issue looks great.

It's divided into 5 chapters, running from 8 to 11 pages each. So I'm going to make this a five-part review, so that we can look in detail at each of those chapters and how they move the overall story along.

The story begins in prison, where Tony Stark is demonstrating  new anti-riot weapons. But in a nearby cell, Arthur Parks (aka the Living Laser) is plotting his escape and has gathered the components he needs to built a wrist laser. 

Naturally, a fight between L.L. and Iron Man ensues. It's a short fight, but its well-choreographed and it serves its purpose in establishing the Living Laser as a legitimate threat when he comes very close to taking out one of the most powerful Avengers.

The villain then mysteriously disappears--apparently teleported away via a method that seems to indicate the master villain Mandarin is responsible. The Mandarin is supposed to be dead, but this a Comic Book Universe. That the Mandarin may have escaped the nuclear blast that was supposed to have killed him is a plausible theory.

Concerned, Iron Man calls the Avengers for an emergency meeting. 

In the meantime, the scene shifts to the Mandarin's secret headquarters. He's gathered together the Living Laser, Power Man, Swordsman, the Enchantress and the Executioner to carry out his as-yet unexplained plan.  Mandarin convinces the others of his power by pretending to summon up the Submariner (actually just an image of Namor) and easily "destroying" the Atlantian powerhouse. 

He then reveals to them a giant synthetic diamond, which is somehow central to his plan.

It's another effective scene, showing us one aspect of Mandarin's plan but leaving us largely in the dark. This was a good decision. It would have been totally in character for the Mandarin to egotistically explain his entire plans to his minions, but we simply find out that he DOES have a plan. We don't know what that plan it. It adds considerably to the overall tension of the story.

We then move to Avengers Mansion. Iron Man, not currently a member, gets into a brief tussle with new member Hercules, but Thor shows up to tell them to play nice. Thor also reveals that the Executioner and Enchantress have left Asgard. Captain America rounds this off by saying he's lost track of Power Man and the Swordsman since they last fought. Though the Avengers don't know for sure, they decide to work on the assumption that their enemies are teaming up to seek revenge against the Avengers.

Also present, by the way, are Hawkeye, Goliath, Wasp, Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver. It's a fun line-up with a nice variety of powers and personalities.

Before they can finalize plans, they get a call from Nick Fury, who tells them the villains are launching simultaneous attacks against targets in Africa, South America and Asia. Captain America assigns a team to each area, while he and Quicksilver remain behind as a reserve and to investigate the involvement of the Mandarin.

It's another great scene, with the Avengers exchanging information and making plans with dialogue that sounds natural, but still updates us with all the information we need to follow the story. This chapter runs 11 pages and contains a lot of exposition, but there enough action and cool visuals to keep the pacing fast. It's a great example of how to write a superhero comic book.

Next week, we'll visit South America with Iron Man and two other Avengers as we take a look at chapter 2.