If You're a Bad Guy, DO NOT Play Poker in the Marvel Universe

I can't help it. I notice some obscure bit of pop culture trivia and I just gotta share it. I literally can't help myself.

In the 1979 prose novel Holocaust for Hire, by Joseph Silva (aka: Ron Goulart), Captain America attacks some mobsters, interrupting a poker game with one of the thugs complaining that he had a straight flush.

cover art by Dave Cockrum

That same year, in the prose novel And Call My Killer... Modok!, by William Rotsler (reviewed HERE), Happy Hogan is escaping from an AIM base and gets the drop on some AIM guards playing poker. One of them complains that he had the only royal flush he'd ever drawn.

cover artist by Bob Larkin

The lesson: If you are a low-level crook in the Marvel Universe and get a straight flush or royal flush during a poker game--you are NOT lucky. You are cursed. Drop, roll and draw your weapon because the game is about to be violently interrupted by a superhero or sidekick. 

You can, by the way, get electronic versions of the Marvel Novel Series from the 1970s HERE.

The Red Ghost is a Jerk!

 

cover by:

Rich Buckler (according to the Grand Comics Database)

or

Ron Wilson (according to the Marvel Wiki)

In the last issue, Tony Stark was kidnapped by the Super Apes and brought to the Red Ghost, who is currently stuck in intangible ghost form. (Though he's still able to walk without drifting down through the floor. Sometimes Comic Book Science is inexplicable.)

Tony was kidnapped while Happy Hogan was wearing the suit. So in this issue (Iron Man #83--February 1976) we get some scenes with the injured Happy, establishing that he survived the encounter. Though he will collapse at the end of the issue, triggering the events of the following two issues.

But for us, we'll concentrate on Tony, the Red Ghost and the Apes. R.G. wants to be cured of his permanent ghostiness and demands Tony help him in exchange for Tony's life.

Tony in turn convinces R.G. that he needs a piece of equipment back at his labs to do the job. This is a double-edged ploy--he does indeed need the equipment there, but it also puts him in the same room with a spare Iron Man suit.

The most fun aspect of this issue is the various clever ways the Super Apes use their powers. We see that when they smuggle Tony into the Stark International labs. We see it later on during their inevitable fight with Iron Man. Writer Len Wein and artist Herb Trimpe consistently give us cool moments throughout the issue. 

Tony macgyvers what he needs to cure the Ghost and does so. Predictably, the Red Ghost proves to be a jerk of monumental proportions. He immediately orders the Super Apes to kill Tony.

Tony, though, had rigged up a smoke screen, which he now activates, giving him time to put on the spare Iron Man suit.

As I mentioned, the fight gives us the Apes using their powers cleverly. I especially enjoy the baboon's transformation into a flying buzzsaw. Tony responds with equally clever tactics. It's always fun to see the Super Apes and they're used particularly well here.

After the apes are defeated, the Red Ghost ignores Tony's warning not to turn intanglible. The cure was a one-way proposition and R.G. destroys himself when he tries to use his power again. (Of course, he isn't permanently dead. He'll be re-integrated in an FF issue a few years later.)

A fun issue, pitting Iron Man against a foe he doesn't normally battle in a well-choreographed fight.

Next week, we'll look at one of the comic book adventures of TV private eye Peter Gunn.

Wrong Guy in the Suit

 

cover art by Gil Kane

Iron Man #82 (January 1976) begins with Iron Man returning to his New York business complex after a superhero battle at another location. So the issue is a slow burn at first, as writer Len Wein and artist Herb Trimpe take some time to introduce some new characters and remind us that Tony runs a huge business.

Then its off to a charity gala, in which both Tony and Iron Man have been asked to appear. (Remember that this is a time when Tony still had a secret identity.) Tony has Happy Hogan wear the suit so both can be there. After all, its just for a few hours at a party. What can possibly go wrong?

Well, how about the Super Apes suddenly attack the party? 

The Apes grab Tony and start to make a getaway. Happy jumps in to help, of course. No one can question his loyalty to Stark or his courage.

What can be questioned is his experience wearing the suit. He does the best he can, but he hasn't had much practice and he's completely unfamilar with the powers of the Super Apes (respectively--super strength; magnetic rays and shape-changing). He's knocked out and possibly badly injured.

The Apes then finish their getaway, with Stark still a prisoner, in a really cool way. The shape-changing baboon turns into a glider and carries the others away.

When Tony regains consciousness, he finds himself in a secret lair, confronted by the Red Ghost--who, apparently, has become a "real" ghost, unable to turn solid.

It's a fun issue. There's not a lot of action in the first half, but it serves a storytelling purpose. Though this part might be a bit dull for someone if this were the first issue they picked up, it should maintain the interest of regular readers.

And when the action starts, it's all good stuff. Happy's inexperience in the suit is made clear and the Apes--normally Fantastic Four villains--make for effective guest star bad guys here. And the baboon-glider is indeed cool. 

Next week, we'll finish our look at Green Lantern's Sinestro/Weaponers story arc. We'll be back in two weeks to see how Tony handles being kidnapped.

Ben Has An Annoying Day.

 

cover art by Jim Starlin

Marvel Feature #12 (November 1973. Writer: Mike Friedrich. Pencils: Jim Starlin) picks up right where the previous issue left off, with Ben drudging through the desert after his fight with the Hulk. Ben is complaining about his lack of transportation when Iron Man suddenly flies by. Ben is momentarily happy, but though the Armored Avenger clearly sees his fellow hero, he doesn't stop to help. 

There's actually a good reason for this. Iron Man and other heroes have been getting pummelled by Thanos and Thanos' minions over in the pages of Captain Marvel. Iron Man is heading back to a secret base in the desert that Thanos once used, looking for useful clues to defeating the villain. He simply doesn't have time to stop.

But Ben is still ticked off, following Iron Man has quickly as he can with plans to do some clobberin' 

At the base, Iron Man soon encounters the Blood Brothers--super-strong alien vampires that Tony has fought before. They out-muscle him, but Iron Man manages to use some clever tactics to get some distance from them. Unfortunately, that distance takes him on a head-on collision with Ben.

The two heroes are stunned. Ben recovers in time to defend himself against the Blood Brothers. When Iron Man wakes up, they double-team the bad guys. This, along with a landslide started by the fight, help them win.

Thanos, who is monitoring the fight, dislikes failure. The Blood Brothers disappear, though Ben and Tony don't know if they were destroyed or teleported away. In either case, the good guys have won.

And Ben has a ride home now!

Or does he? Sadly, Iron Man doesn't have enough power left in his suit to carry his rather heavy ally. Ben is still stuck with walking out of the desert.

I like a number of things about this story. First, though it ties in closely with the events in Captain Marvel, it is an independent story that can be read on its own. Obviously, the story exists in part to advertise C.M., but you don't have to buy it if you don't want to do so. 

Second, Starlin's art is fantastic and the fight scene that is the meat of the story is more fun than a barrel of alien vampires.

Third, the framing gag about Ben NOT getting a ride from Iron Man and the middle-of-the-story gag about Iron Man colliding with Ben are funny. The humor fits Ben's personality to a T and the colliding gag is made an organic part of the overall fight.

These two issues of Marvel Feature were the last two of this anthology series. They demonstrate that Ben is indeed a character able to support a team-up book, so Marvel Two-in-One would soon be appearing on the newstands.

Next week, we'll jump over the DC Universe and visit with the Justice League of America.

Never Jump Through a Hole in Time!

 

cover art by John Romita

With Marvel Team-Up #9 (May 1973), writer Gerry Conway and artist Ross Andru began a three-part time travel story arc that took Spider Man into the future, back to the present and then back into the future. If Peter had signed up for Time Travel Frequent Flyer points, he would have cleaned up.

The story begins with Avengers Mansion briefly blinks out of existence and then turns out to be surrounded by a force field. Iron Man arrives to try to deal with this. Spidey, in the meantime, sees a news report about this on TV and swings over to help. 

Both heroes are in a sour mood,though, and spend several panels bickering with each other before a hole in the fabric of time and space opens next to them.

Caught up in a sort-of superhero oneupmanship, Peter and Tony both jump through this hole. It's a fun scene. The two had quickly gotten on each other's nerves and are reacting emotionally rather than logically, but this is the sort of fallability that always makes the inhabitants of the Marvel Universe so appealing. Even two of the smartest people in that universe can just plain mess up.

Still, things don't go too badly at first. They find themselves in another dimension, with highly advanced aircraft dogfighting around them. One of these crafts picks up the two heroes. Soon, they are introduced to Zarrko the Tomorrow Man.

Zarrko is a villain, but he hadn't appeared in a comic book for nearly ten years of real-life time and, at that time, he fought Thor. It's understandable that neither Spidey nor Shellhead knew he's a bad guy. Heck, a lot of readers in 1973 probably didn't recognize him.

Zarrko wants there help in dealing with a villain who is conquering 23rd Century Earth, which is where he hails from. Since this mystery villain has also captured the rest of the Avengers, the heroes agree to help Soon, they find themselves transported to that century., battling their way into a citadel, taking out mooks and sparring with a giant robot. They make it past these obstacles, but Iron Man's armor is severely damaged.

They make it to the citadel's control room, where they find the Avengers being held in stasis. They also abruptly discover that Zarrko's enemy is Kang the Conquerer. With Iron Man already nearly helpless, Kang easily zaps the good guys.

Zarrko shows up again, helpfully monologing his own plans to take out Kang and then carry out Kang's intention to use the 23rd Century as a base to conquer the 20th Century. A badly dazed Spider Man hears this and realizes that Zarrko is as much a threat as Kang. But there seems to be little he can do about it.

Marvel Team-Up #9 is a fun start to the trilogy. The interactions between Peter and Tony are fun, the story makes sense within the context of a Comic Book universe and the issue is packed with plenty of fun action, brought to vivid life by Andru's art.

We'll look at Part 2 of this story next week and see how it holds up as the action snaps back to the 20th Century.

In the Days of King Arthur

Last week, we looked at Iron Man #149, which ended with the title character and Doctor Doom getting thrown back in time.


Iron Man #150 (September 1981) shows us where (and when) they ended up. As with the previous issue, this one was co-plotted by David Michelinie and Bob Layton, with Michelinie writing the final script. John Romita, Jr. did the breakdowns and Layton finished the art.

The two find themselves standing outside King Arthur's castle at Camelot. It's actually a foreshadowing to Doom's later actions that he immediately recognizes the place. As we'll soon discover, he'd been planning on visiting this time and place anyways.

Two guys in powered armor are attention-getters, so they're soon confronted by a squad of knights. Doom briefly tussles with them until Tony points out that they are currently stranded here, so it might be a good idea to calm down until they figure out what's going on.

 There's a well-written scene in which the two are brought before King Arthur, where they use Standard Time Traveler Ploy #32, claiming to be from faraway lands and using their technology to build up credibility as magicians. Within that context, characterizations remain consistent. Tony acts respectfully towards Arthur, where Doom arrogantly announces himself as co-royalty.

The Arthurian characters all speak an ornate style of English, by the way--a language that didn't even exist at that time. But, as is the case with so many stories about time travel or alien contact, ignoring language issues keeps the story from being bogged down in details. Besides, it's entirely possible that both Tony and Doom have translation devices built into their respective suits of armor.

The two are given rooms for the night while Arthur tries to figure out what to do about them. Tony spends his time sweet talking a pretty maiden. Doom, on the other hand, hypnotises a pretty maiden to find out where evil sorceress Morgana Le Fey hangs out, then busts out of Camelot to pay her a visit.

Doom has to figure out how to bypass a couple of magical booby traps, but is soon cutting a deal with Morgana (who dresses in the sexy-evil style that seems to be required of all evil sorceresses). Doom has been time traveling to learn from powerful magicians of the past to figure out how to rescue his mother's soul from hell. Morgana promises to teach him how to do this if he leads an army of zombies against Camelot--she's magically imprisoned in her castle at the moment, so can't lead the undead soldiers herself.

Doom's all on-board with this plan, while Tony volunteers to fight for Arthur. During the ensuing battle, though, Tony realizes that it must be Morgana--not Doom--who raised up the undead.

So he flies off to her castle, using technology to figure out how to punch past various magical threats, all the while complaining that he really hates magic.

When Morgana realizes the jig is up, she teleports away. This is a bit of a plot hole, since she's supposed to be magically tied to her castle. But perhaps she's moving through time rather than space.

In any case, once she's gone, the zombies simply collapse. Doom realizes what happened and is quite ticked off.

But he also realizes that he and Iron Man must work together to cannibalize parts of their armor and make a time machine to get them home. So a truce is called and they are soon able to zap themselves back to the 20th Century.

Like the previous issue, this is a solidly written adventure story, with a strong plot and great action. Michelinie keeps his characterizations of Tony and Doom consistant, once again counterpointing their attitudes towards life and other human beings to effectively  highlight their respective natures. I mentioned last week that this was published at the tale-end of the time when Marvel superhero comics were consistantly fun for me to read, but this two-issue story arc hit all the right notes to produce a really fun yarn.

Next week, we'll move on from two Marvel Universe geniuses to visit with a Duck Universe genius.

How to Mistreat Your Employees

cover art by John Romita, Jr.
with inks by Bob Layton

I had dropped Marvel superhero books completely by 1986, when a poorly written, multi-title crossover called Mutant Massacre made it clear that (for my sensibilities, at least) reading them simply wasn't going to be fun anymore. Besides, I resented being forced to buy muliple titles to follow along with just one storyline.

But in the half-decade before that, Marvel still had its high points. For instance, writer David Michelinie was always a reliable source for entertaining superhero stories. A few years ago, I reviewed a two-part Avengers tale from 1980, written by Michelinie, that I enjoyed enormously.

Michelinie's strongest run as a writer is arguable his work on Iron Man, fleshing out Tony Stark's character, introducing now-classic supporting characters like James Rhodes, and consistently gave us strong plots with great action sequences.

Iron Man #149 (August 1981) was co-plotted by Michelinie and artist Bob Layton, with Michelinie writing the finished script. John Romita, Jr. did the breakdowns and Layton did the finished art.

It begins with Iron Man rather easily putting down some pirates who were trying to hijack one of Tony Stark's cargo ships. Iron Man showed up because radio communications with the ship were being blocked, so the Avenger is also bringing word that the ship is to turn around without delivering its cargo.

What follows is an example of how well Michelinie had defined Tony Stark's character. The ship was recalled because it was carrying high-tech equipment bound for Latvaria. At the time, Doctor Doom had been overthrown as that country's ruler, but Tony still had the country on a "no-sell" list because there was no guarentee that it wouldn't be misused. In fact, Doom (who was still living in his Latvarian castle) is the buyer of the equipment. Tony then fires the executive who improperly made the sale. The dialogue, though, makes it clear that Tony isn't just being a jerk boss, but reacting appropriately to someone who messed up big time.

This is nicely counterpointed by a scene with Doctor Doom. Doom's been time traveling to study magic with past masters (for reasons not yet explained). He needs to go farther back in time and needed the circuits he was buying from Stark to do so. When he learns the sale was cancelled, he reacts by threatening the life of his assistant for "allowing this to happen."

Both Doom and Tony can be tough bosses, but Tony is expecting his people to act with reasonable moral responsibility, while Doom acts with almost capricious cruelity. This will have consequences.

By the way, in a nice call back to previous Marvel continuity, Doom's current assistant is the brother of a previous assistant--killed by Doom back in Fantastic Four #87.

Well, if Doom can't get the circuits he needs fairly, he'll gladly use foul means. Tony knows this, of course, but a couple of mercenaries in a Doom-designed death vehicle still manage to get away with the the circuits after a brief fight with Iron Man.

Tony personally travels to Latvaria to get he circuits back. As Iron Man, he fights his way into Doom's castle, eventually confronting the villain. A brief discussion devolves into another fight which...

... ends when the bitter and hate-filled assistant sends both of them back into time, then smashes the controls to ensure that they can never come back.

This really is a strong story. The Romita/Layton art is great, helping to tell the story in a straightforward manner and providing us with a series of well-choreographed, exciting action scenes. The counter-point between Tony and Doom as authority figures in a really nice touch.

But where do the two reluctant time travelers end up? We'll find out next week.

Iron Man and the Champions

cover art by Al Milgrom

Iron Man Annual #4 (August 1977) does just what an annual or giant-sized comic should do. It tells an entertaining adventure story featuring characters we enjoy, but one that stands alone, not concerning itself with whatever ongoing stories might be taking place in the pages of those characters regular series.

Writer Bill Mantlo and artist George Tuska start off the story with a bang. Iron Man, who has just learned that villain MODOK is still alive, is smashing into an AIM base in search of the big-headed bad guy.

I don't think I read this one when it first came out and I'm pretty sure I'd remember it if I did. The cover, drawn by Al Milgrom, is great. MODOK's visual design is unusual and effective--he should be silly-looking, but in the hands of a good artist, he is always creepy looking. So featuring him on this effectively composed and action-packed cover would have been a selling point back in the day when paper-route money would have been enough to make it a viable impulse buy. The slam-bang opening would have added to book's appeal had I thumbed through the first few pages.


Iron Man trashes some robots and other booby traps, then realizes that MODOK is already gone, taking along a power source that is undoubtedly meant to power a super-weapon.

This is all taking place on the West Coast, so Iron Man decides to seek out some West Coast help to track down MODOK. Since this is before the West Coast Avengers, then the Champions become Iron Man's go-to hero team.

But this plan gets off to a bad start when Tony sees Ghost Rider and automatically attacks the scary-looking guy.

This leads to a brief tussle between Iron Man and the Champions before Black Widow orders everyone to shut up and platy nice. I think this largely entertaining issue is open to some criticism here. The cause of the fight between Iron Man and the Champions is pretty contrived and seems to be there simply because is obligatory for heroes to briefly fight each other before teaming up against the villain.

But Iron Man and the Champions do calm down and start playing nice. Iron Man explains the situation and briefs them on SHIELD intel about three different AIM hideouts in the area. Iron Man fights a mook who has been turned into a powerful robot, but he realizes all these battles are just a decoy.

Figuring that MODOK and the super weapon are at one of these spots, they divide into teams. Three Champions apiece check out two of the sites, while Iron Man investigates the third.

It's here that my other criticism of the story comes into play. It would have been nice to have Iron Man directly interacting with the Champions during a battle. For most of this story, he and the super-team are battling bad guys separately. Gee whiz, this is a team-up story. Let 'em team-up!

Anyway, it looks as if Black Widow, Hercules and Angel are about to get beaten by AIM agents, while Iceman, Dark Star and Ghost Rider are about to be eaten by sea monsters.

He rounds up the Champions, who had regained the upper hand in their own battles, and brings them back to the secret base he had raided at the beginning of the story. Iron Man has figured out MODOK's double-bluff in pretending to abandon his original H.Q., only to later return to it.

But MODOK has finished building his new power source into his chair, which greatly enhances his mental powers and allows him to essentially drop a mountain on top of the good guys. Hercules, though, manages to hold the mountain up long enough for Iron Man to Macgyver some of MODOK's equipment and boost his own power enough to blast everyone free.

MODOK's chair is damaged in this blast. Iron Man does try to save him, but the villain crashes to an apparent death despite this.

I've pointed out a few minor flaws--the contrived but thankfully brief fight between Iron Man and the Champions and the relative lack of interaction between the Avenger and the West Coast team. But overall, this is an exciting and well-constructed adventure tale. I enjoyed the Marvel superhero comics from this decade and appreciated extended story arcs, but I also enjoyed those annuals that effectively told a self-contained story that could be enjoyed entirely on its own. Comic Book Universes are big places. There's room for both long and short tales with their borders.

Next week, we ride one last time with the Pony Express.