History of the Marvel Universe: February 1966, Part 1

FANTASTIC FOUR #47


Lots of action once again, as the FF subdue the Dragon Man, save Triton’s life and trail the Inhumans back to the Great Refuge—their hidden city in the Andes.


Black Bolt and his posse have returned their as well. Black Bolt grabs his crown back from his tyrannical brother Maximus, but Max still has plans to use his “atmo-gun” to conquer humankind. The issue ends with him firing off this weapon.


All through this fast-moving and well-paced adventure, there’s a lot of nice character moments of the sort that make the Fantastic Four stand out from the superhero crowd. There’s still a bit of a false note regarding how quickly Johnny and Crystal have fallen for each other, but moments between Reed and Sue and between Ben and Alicia are handled very nicely. (Though Sue pausing to change her hair style in the middle of a DANGEROUS MISSION is just a bit stereotypical.)

Alicia shows up for a few panels during the fight with Dragon Man, when the giant beastie (with Ben hanging on to him for dear life) crashes through the wall to her apartment/studio. This sort of thing actually happens a lot to poor Alicia. In fact, in a couple of issues, a stunned Silver Surfer is going to crash through her window. This is proof that Alicia must be a very successful artist. How else could she possibly afford what must be astronomical insurance premiums?

SPIDER MAN #33

Spider Man is a great character and—despite the perhaps irrevocable character derailment he’s undergone in regular Marvel continuity over the past few years—there have been any number of truly great stories throughout his history. So it’s arguable to name a single story to designate as THE best. All the same, I’m tempted to do that here. This very well may be the Ur-Spidey story—the one that perfectly defines who the character is within the framework of an exciting and well-constructed Spider Man story.

Spidey is still trapped under tons of debris and seems doomed. But he refuses to give up—knowing that to do so would also doom the person he most cares for in the world. So he goes into overdrive. Actually, since he spent most of the last issue in overdrive, it’s probably more accurate to say he goes into over-overdrive.

In a truly exciting action sequence, he frees himself from the debris, survives getting swept up in a junk-filled flood as Doc Ock’s underwater base floods, then fights a dozen or so minions. And, though he’s bruised, beaten and teetering on total exhaustion, he wins. He gets the element needed to make the life-saving serum to Doctor Connors, then rushes the serum to the hospital in the nick of time. Aunt May is saved.

There’re a few nice character moments as well. Betty sees Peter bruised—his cover story is that he got mixed up in a fight while taking photographs. This causes Betty to realize she can’t handle a relationship with someone who is always taking risks. Then there’s a great scene with Jameson. Peter is in no mood to take any guff from the newsman and demands a good price for the photos. He gets enough to cover May’s medical bills, but doesn’t realize that Jonah still paid him less than the photos are worth.

It’s pretty much a perfect story. It really should seem corny, but it doesn’t. The character beats for Peter are perfect from the first panel to the last. Ditko’s art and action choreography has never been better. It really may be the best Spider Man story ever.

AVENGERS #25

Doctor Doom decides to kidnap the Avengers and use them as bait to lure the Fantastic Four into a trap. So he sends a letter to Wanda and Pietro, claiming to be from a long-lost relative who knows who their parents are.

Actually, by the time the siblings’ origins are retconned a few times over the years, they are going to end up being sorry to find out who their daddy really is. But for now, it’s off to Latveria to meet the relative. Cap and Hawkeye tag along AND NOT ONE OF THEM REMEMBERS THAT LATVERIA IS RULED BY DOCTOR DOOM UNTIL AFTER THEY GET THERE. Gee whiz. Don’t Avengers ever read a newspaper or watch the evening news? Did Cap ever pop over the Germany during World War II to only then think “Oh, that’s right. Hitler’s in charge here, isn’t he?”

Oh, well. Other than that undeniably silly moment, the story is pretty good. To escape Latveria, the Avengers have to defeat Doom. After two successive encounters, they manage to do just that, making their getaway at the end. The battles are fun ones, with the four heroes working together smoothly to come out on top.

Next week, we’ll look at one of Dr. Strange’s finest moments, along with peeks at Nick Fury, Daredevil and the X-Men.

A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

Y is for:

YOUNG MEN COMICS

and

YARNS

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

Escape: "Figure a Dame" from December 20, 1949.

If I had to pick a favorite OTR show, it'd be Escape. An anthology show concentrating on adventure stories, it had great writing and acting and sound effects. It was (with only a few exceptions) a consistently wonderful listening experience.

Most of the time, stories on Escape were based on short stories. This episode was taken from a story by a writer named Richard Sales.

"Figure a Dame" starred Frank Lovejoy as a P.I. working for an insurance company. The plot is of the hard-boiled/film noir school, with Lovejoy escorting a rich woman to India, where she is buying a priceless emerald.

But during a train trip after the lady buys the jewel, Lovejoy falls in with a beautiful woman he quickly pegs as a thief. From that point, the story seems to go along the traditional line of a femme fatale leading the guy astray. But there's a pretty good twist at the end that gives the story as a whole some additional dramatic backbone. This, in addition to Lovejoy's spot-on performance as a tough guy in the process of going bad, makes the episode another fine entry from Escape.

Click HERE to listen or download.

A counterfeit Dickens and a double-crossin' dame

The Boston Blackie movies made during the 1940s were, like many B-movie series, very formulaic. The former thief Blackie would be falsely accused of murder. With his nemesis Inspector Faraday on his trail, he’d have to go on the lam and figure out who really done it to clear himself.

You have to wonder about Faraday sometimes--he always suspects Blackie even though Blackie always turns out to be innocent. But it's a concession we're happy to make--it's similar to the reason we accept that district attorney Hamilton Burger is yet again convinced that Perry Mason's client is guilty, despite the fact that he/she always turns out to be innocent. It's a formula that leads to an entertaining story. Chester Morris played Blackie with charm and humor, while the plots were reasonably well-constructed.

A couple of details make Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945) a particularly fun entry in the series. Usually, the murder of which Blackie is accused revolves around some valuable jewels, a work of art, or a large sum of money. In this case, the macguffin is a forged copy of a first edition Pickwick Papers, which goes for a high price at an auction held at a rare book store.

It’s a small detail—once the book is sold, the macguffin becomes the 50 grand in cash for which it sold. But it’s a nice touch all the same. And it gives Blackie an excuse to spend a large percentage of the movie disguised as the elderly owner of the rare book store. Morris seems to have fun with that role—it’s certainly fun to watch him.

Anyway, Blackie eludes the cops while doing some investigating, uses some clever misdirection and a few outright cons to trick the villains, and pretty much outsmarts everyone. There’re a few clunky moments, such as Blackie’s escape from a remote house depending on the thug who’s guarding him to be an idiot who needs an afternoon nap, but the fun stuff clearly outweighs the contrivances.

When I watched this one recently, I kept trying to identify the actor playing the main male villain. It was driving me nuts, but I couldn’t quite place him. When I looked him up later, I discovered he was Steve Cochran. His credits later included White Heat, in which he got killed by Cagney for whacking Cagney’s mom and making time with Virginia Mayo (who played Cagney’s wife.) He was also in The Best Years of Our Lives, in which Dana Andrews catches him playing around with Andrews' wife—played by Virginia Mayo. The moral to all that: Virginia Mayo was drop-dead gorgeous, but she’s definitely not the right married woman with whom to have an affair. You’ll only get in big trouble.


The Boston Blackie movies pop up on TCM from time to time, but they’ve never come out on DVD. They were originally produced by Columbia, but old-movie rights bounce around a lot and I have no idea who owns them now. A DVD release (along with some other as-yet unseen B-movie series such as the Lone Wolf) would be nice. As more and more old-time stuff gets released by the studies through print-on-demand services, there’s always hope.

History of the Marvel Universe: January 1966, Part 3

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #124

Poor Jane Foster is on the verge of a breakdown, what with the man she loves vanishing for days or weeks at a time without explanation. So Blake—against his father’s wishes—shows her that he’s also Thor. This ticks off Odin—something that will have consequences next issue.

Also, Jane makes Thor promise not to leave her again. But that’s a silly promise to exact from a Thunder God. Soon, there are news reports of the Demon (the witch doctor who found the lost Norn Stone) using his newfound powers to raise an army and go on a conquering rampage. So Thor, despite his promise, is off to Asia, where he ends this issue by confronting the villain.

In the meantime, up on Olympus, Zeus is tiring of his son Hercules always getting into fights. So he sends him on a trip to Earth. This sets up a storyline that will begin next issue involving both the son of Odin and the son of Zeus—an arc that is my personal favorite from the Lee/Kirby run on this title.

The Tales of Asgard story gives us a little insight into Hogun the Grim—showing he’s quick to help friends despite his perpetual crankiness—and sets up a fight scene for next issue as the flying trolls of Queen Ula swoop down on the Argonauts.

TALES TO ASTONISH #75

Namor and the unconscious Dorma are surrounded by Nameless Ones and apparently doomed. But Neptune himself shows up; tells Namor he’s worthy because he acted bravely to save the woman he loved even though he risked getting his throne back; banishes the Nameless Ones; and gives Namor the Trident.

I’m not sure Neptune’s logic holds up. Basically, Namor had decided “The heck with the thousands of Atlanteans I’m responsible for who are being subjugated by a tyrant. I want to save the hot babe who is herself responsible for this whole mess by betraying me.” Namor really needs to watch Casablanca.

You know, with all the writing and editing chores Stan Lee was juggling at this time, I think he really might have lost track of the fact that Dorma committed treason a few issues back.

Oh, well. It works out all right in the end. And Adam Austin’s dynamic art still looks great. Namor heads back to Atlantis, smashes past Krang’s mercenary guard, wrecks the robo-tank that had stunned the rebelling citizenry last issue, gets Dorma into a revitalization tank to save her life, and confronts Krang in the last panel.


In the meantime, the Hulk is now free of the (supposedly) dead Leader and jumps off into the desert. He comments on how Banner’s thoughts and memories are fading, but he’s perfectly happy being the Hulk. But he now has nothing to do. He can’t even play with the Watcher’s Ultimate Machine, because the Watcher zaps it back to the Moon.

As for the other cast members—they all think Banner is dead; Rick is still locked up by the military for helping Banner (who, you’ll remember, was suspected of treason); and General Ross is building a weapon known as a T-Gun from one of Banner’s last designs. This despite no one having any idea what the T-Gun actually does.

Well, they find out. Or at least the Hulk does. When he’s spotted by the Army, he’s zapped with the gun and teleported forward in time. Now in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC, he’s jumped by an army of guys wielding high tech weapons.

I’ve really been enjoying these early Hulk stories. They have a fun rhythm to them—jumping without pause from plot point to plot point in a way that still makes “sense” in a comic book universe.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #73

Adam Austin begins a short run as Iron Man’s artist. His vibrant layouts give the series a healthy shot in the arm right from the first panel, in which Iron Man marches down a hospital hallway to investigate Happy Hogan’s disappearance.

He finds a trail that begins with a hoof print on the third floor window sill of Happy’s room. Well, there’s only one guy Iron Man knows who has a horse that can fly up to a third floor window—that’s the Black Knight.

That’s why I love comic book universes. Someone finds a hoof print in a spot where (in real life) no hoof print could possibly be and can instantly make sense of it.

Anyway, Iron Man tracks down the Black Knight. There’s a fight that’s really a little too slow moving to be truly satisfying (much of it involving Iron Man feigning unconsciousness while he recharges his transistors); the Knight is defeated and perhaps killed; Hogan is taken back to the hospital; but Iron Man is now on the missing list, lying in a hidden spot in the Black Knight’s base.

Captain America is also pretty busy, fighting the giant Nazi Sleeper robot. This is soon joined by the second Sleeper, a giant flying machine. While Cap desperately tries to find a way to damage the Sleepers, they attach themselves together via magnetism and fly off—presumably to join up with the third and last Sleeper. Cap is pretty much having a non-stop bad day in this chapter, but we readers certainly have fun. The action is laid out with Jack Kirby’s usual skill.

That’s it for January. In February, the FF continue to learn more about the Inhumans; Spider Man has one of his finest moments; the Avengers confront Dr. Doom; Nick Fury discovers that telepaths are annoying, while the Hulk discovers the same thing about time travel; Dr. Strange wraps up his wrestling match with Dormammu; Daredevil does a lot of traveling; the X-Men encounter an old enemy; Thor begins his coolest story arc ever; Namor fights for his throne; Iron Man fights a friend; and Captain America continues to fight really big robots.

A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

X is for:

X-MEN

and

SECRET AGENT X

Friday's Favorite OTR

Crime Classics: "The Axe and the Droot Family: How They Fared" 8/10/53


A woman inherits a small amount from her father--she won't get the big bucks unless her two brothers happen to pass away. So she and her husband try to arrange for the brothers to pass away sooner rather than later.


The dialogue in this episode is really fun to listen to. The tale is set in the Dutch region of Pennsylvania in the 1790s and the rhythm and grammer of the various characters catch the time and place perfectly.


Like most Crime Classics episodes, there's a dark, dry humor running through the story, most of it provided by the narrator. There's also a hilarous sequence in which several unsuccessful attempts are made to do in the younger of the two brothers. He keeps surviving through sheer dumb luck while remaining completely oblivious to the fact that someone is trying to kill him.


It's too bad Crime Classics had such a short run--it had a wonderful grasp of the elasticity and variety of the English language--reflected in the dialogue and narration--that made it one of the best efforts of 1950s radio. And considering the number of quality shows that ran during the 1950s, that's really saying something.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Single Coolest Tracking Shot in the History of Movies

The first couple of minutes of this scene from the classic war film The Longest Day (1962) is done with such visual skill and artistry that it can take your breath away. Not only does it look magnificent, but it also serves a clear storytelling purpose. It sets up the tactical situation perfectly, letting us know exactly what's going on in terms of the battle. We understand the geography of the battlefield and exactly what the Free French unit is trying to accomplish.




I've whined about this sort of thing before:  I wish more modern directors would learn to develop this sort of skill and leave aside the chaotic and uninteresting action/battle sequences with which we are usually saddled  in contemporary films.

History of the Marvel Universe: January 1966, part 2

STRANGE TALES #140

Dormammu sticks Strange, the Ancient One and Mordo in a neutral dimension, then summons the rulers of neighboring dimensions to watch him humiliate his arch enemy in single combat. He also forces Clea (who is still actually unnamed at this point) to watch through a dimensional portal.

What follows is the first half of one of the niftiest battles ever seen between the covers of a comic book. Strange and Dormammu each put “pincers of power” on their wrists—devices that extend out in sort of mystical claws. They then go to town in one-on-one combat. Strange uses judo tactics and pure courage to slowly gain the upper hand. So Mordo, in a panic that his evil master might lose, zaps Strange in the back.

The whole issue is a visual delight, setting up this long serial for a satisfying ending next issue.

Back on Earth, Nick manages to hook up with the SHIELD strike force and—despite a counter-attack by Hydra troopers on motorized skate boards—the good guys defeat the bad guys. In the meantime, Tony Stark pilots the Braino-saur into orbit and disarms the orbital nuke.


Hydra is beaten--or is it? The Hydra leader ends the issue intending to press a self-destruct button, taking out Fury, the SHIELD team and his traitorous daughter.


We see the Hydra boss unmasked for the first time. In previous issues, we had been shown a tyrannical corporate CEO who was presumably Hydra’s leader. But it turns out to be his meek secretary. Not really that surprising a twist, since the CEO practical wore a sign around his neck that said “Red Herring.” But the overall storytelling is pretty strong. The SHIELD vs. Hydra gun battle was certainly intense, with both sides taking losses before the end.

DAREDEVIL #12

Jack Kirby’s return to the title combines with getting Matt out of New York and away from his godawful contrived love triangle to really reinvigorate this title. It’s all the more fun after several weak stories in a row.

Matt takes a cruise, but the ship is attacked by a pirate named the Plunderer. This guy (real name: Percival Plunder) dresses and talks like a traditional pirate and sails what appears to be an old-fashioned schooner. But that little ship is rigged with high-tech options (including the ability to transform into a submarine. Holy Cybertron!) and his crew is equipped with ray guns. He’s clearly nuts, but his crew is too scared of him to raise a stink about a little thing like sanity.

Daredevil gives the pirates a run for their money, but he’s forced to surrender when Plunder threatens to force a passenger to walk the plank. Impressed with Daredevil’s fighting skill, Plunder presses him into his crew, then takes his submersible ship through an underwater tunnel to his secret base in the dinosaur-infested Savage Land.

Once there, the pirates are jumped by Ka-Zar and the saber-tooth tiger Zabu (both introduced a few months back in X-Men). Another tussle ensues in which Daredevil is badly injured. Ka-Zar takes him to a cave, then leaves to find some healing herbs. But the issue ends with Ka-Zar about to be eaten by a carnivorous plant while a savage ape-man stalks the unconscious Daredevil.

Pirates and dinosaurs together. That by itself gives this story a 9.2 on the Bogart/Karloff scale. The whole fast-moving story is simply entertaining.

Of course, those of us familiar with Marvel characters will know that Plunder is also Ka-Zar’s real family name, but readers in 1966 didn’t know that. They’d be finding out in the next issue, though, when Ka-Zar’s origin is revealed.

X-MEN #16


The X-Men try an unsuccessful escape from the Sentinels, Professor X figures out how to jam the signal powering most of the big robots and Professor Trask decides to sacrifice his life to blow up Master Mold and prevent more Sentinels from ever being built.

Of course, there will eventually be more Sentinels built—the idea behind them and their cool visual design guarantee that they’ll become a regular part of the Marvel Universe. But for now, the original Sentinel trilogy comes to a satisfying conclusion. The action flows along smoothly while allowing in a few nice character moments—perhaps the most important being Iceman (the youngest of the X-Men) realizing that he has earned the respect of his teammates.

Next week will bring (among other things) more giant robot action as we visit with Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Prince Namor.

A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

W is for:

WEIRD WAR

and

WILD GAME STORIES