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Wayne Markley
by Wayne Markley
Marvel Firsts: The 1970s Vol. 3
I always pride myself on paying attention to detail and doing extensive research in these blogs but last week I blew it big time. As I was reading marvel Firsts: The 1970s volume 3, I made notes on all of stories and wrote down my thoughts to use in the blog I wrote last week. Well, somewhere between reading them, writing them down, and typing them out the last time, I missed half of the titles there were collected into volume 3. this time I am going to finish what I ought to have written last time. I do apologize for my mess up and I would like to thank my editor Roger Ash for not only catching this screw up but also for his understanding. In addition to finishing my look at Marvel Firsts: The 1970s volume 3 I am going to also look at volume 2 of Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga from DC.
Nova #1 was essentially marvel trying to recreate the magic that was Spider-Man with a teen hero and all sorts of issues. It is a solid story by Marv Wolfman and terrific art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. This is basic set up much more than ground breaking storytelling, and as with numerous of these 70s characters they became much much more essential to Marvel’s mythology down the road long past the 70s. all of this 70s series has been collected in the volumes of Nova Classics.
Ms. marvel #1
Ms.Marvel #1 was one of a number of titles with this name but this one was first and was written by Gerry Conway with art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott. This is a common first issue exploring a menace to earth and showing how Carol Danvers, from the pages of the current Captain Marvel, has to stop it. She runs into some Skrulls on the way and it is a solid read. It asks a lot of questions and answers very few of them as her origin is not explained in this first issue which is kind of frustrating. Over all a good read. The first year worth of these Ms. marvel stories are available as a marvel Masterworks.
Marvel spotlight #32 introduced The Spider-Woman by the always terrific writer Archie Goodwin with art by Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney. This tells the story of Jessica Drew who was raised to be a Hydra agent and chose to switch sides and fight crime instead. She had a short lived cartoon in the late 70s and what I find many interesting is Stan Lee has been quoted that they only did the character to copyright the name so no one else could. (See The Comics Journal #42) and once again over time the character has become far much more interesting than these early stories show. There have been a number of people in the Spider-Woman costume and the early stories are available in a Masterworks collection.
What If? #1
What If #1 was a loose take off of DCs Imaginary stories where marvel took various events and characters and speculated what would have happened if some little thing was different. The title went on for years and has been revived a number of times. The first issue set the stage with What if Spidey joined the FF? by Roy Thomas with Jim Craig and Pablo Marcus on art. The title says it all, a fun story with a young Spider-Man joining the wonderful four and what the results would have been. This was based on an early FF story where Spidey tried to join the FF but it never happened. A fun issue and a book where the quality varied but was practically always entertaining. Each issue had different creators and stories.
Marvel Premier #35 introduced the 3-D Man by Roy Thomas, Jim Craig and Dave Hunt. 3-D man was a minor character who consisted of two brothers, Chuck and Hal. Chuck was captured by Skrulls (them again) and in escaping was bathed in radiation than caused him to be transferred into his crippled brother Hal’s glasses. If Hal would concentrate hard enough his brother Chuck would come out from the dimension (Hal’s glasses) he was trapped in and fight crime. You can see why it was never a big hit. A fine story with decent art, just a silly premise.
Devil Dinosaur #1 is about a huge red T-Rex and was written and drawn by Jack Kirby with inks by Mike Royer. The series was Marvel’s attempt to get Kirby to re-create the magic he had with Kamandi and marvel had hoped to make a cartoon out of it. The first issue introduces Devil Dinosaur and his pal, Moon Boy. as with many of Kirby’s work from this time period, it is not great, but it is fun. Devil Dinosaur still knocks around the marvel universe (and is in secret Wars) but while this series is fun, it is in no way Kirby’s best work. The complete story has been collected into a trade collection.
Machine man #1
Machine man #1 was also created by Jack Kirby with inks by Mike Royer and was a spin-off of Marvel’s 2001 comics (based on the film 2001: A space Odyssey). It is the tale of a robot named Z2P45-9-X-51 or x-51 as he became known around the marvel universe in later years. essentially X-51 is the last of his race and he was raised by a human. This first issue is an interesting read and slightly better than Devil Dinosaur. To his credit report X-51 would become a part of the MU in later years hanging out with the Nextwave, Red-Hulk, and marvel Zombies. He also had a stunning miniseries drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith a number of years ago. overall a minor story that would have larger impact in later years, much like Kirby’s Eternals.
Hulk magazine #11, formerly the Rampaging Hulk Magazine, was developed to be a way to tell much more mature stories and reach a broader audience by doing it in a magazine format. With issue ten they dropped the Rampaging part and made it the Hulk magazine and went to full color and with number 11 added Moon Knight by Doug Moench, gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga. These stories picked up where his appearances in marvel team Up and the Defenders ended and are really his first solo series after solo shots in marvel Spotlight. It predates the story in marvel preview and his ongoing series. This is also the series where bill Sienkiewicz first made his name as an artist. The first story is ok but the stories that follow it are much better and they (along with his prior appearances) can be found in the Moon Knight epic Collection Vol. 1. based on what would follow this story I would recommend reading this story and highly recommend the epic Collection.
The savage She-Hulk #1
The savage She Hulk #1 was heralded at the time of its release as Stan Lee’s return to comics and he was joined by John Buscema and elegant stone on art. The basic story introduced Jen Walters, Bruce Banner’s cousin, and when she in injured and needs a blood transfusion, given discreetly by cousin Brucie, she become the She-Hulk. This is a pretty conventional Stan Lee tale that is fun and light. The book does not have the humor that later runs of the character by John Byrne and Dan Slott have, but this is an pleasurable little romp of an introduction.
Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga Vol. 2
A book that was done originally in the 1960s in Japan but featured an American character was the Batman Manga. DC recently released volume two of the Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga and it is very good. In fact it is much better than volume one. This volume is much closer to the TV show of the 1960s (or the current Batman ‘66 comic book). In this second volume we get to see Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, neither of which resembles their American versions or the TV versions, but they do play integral parts of the stories. The villains relocation away from the conventional Japanese robots and mad scientists that made up the first volume and turns to huge spiders, pro wrestlers, and practically a direct rip off of an American story featuring the Outsider, where Alfred plays a major part in the story. The Outsider story is interesting in the character looks a lot like the American Outsider and the story is practically the same and I think that American stories appeared first. I I do not know if this was Jiro paying homage to the Americans or just a very odd coincidence. This leads me to my few quibbles with an otherwise outstanding collection. I wish there were some background info in this collection about the stories and what the story behind the story was. just a page or two giving some insight to these stories would have been nice. also some of the covers were missing to the stories. I do not know if certain stories did not have cover images, or possibly they were unavailable. overall this is a terrific package and a welcome addition to the first volume. It looks to me as if Kuwata was trying to make his art style much more westernized as he has going along as this volume looks much more Western to me that the first volume did. I look forward to the third and final volume of this distinct period in Batman history.
That wraps it up for this round. As always, I welcome your comments at MFBWAY@AOL.COM. I read and reply to your e-mails and questions and I delight in your criticism and suggestions. everything I have written here is my opinion and in no way reflects the thoughts or views of Westfield Comics or their employees. Please feel totally free to suggest future topics for columns or to send anything you would like reviewed to me at the e-mail address above. As always.
Thank you.
Classic covers from the Grand Comics Database.