The Avengers in the Veracity Trap

The Avengers in the Veracity Trap is the latest graphic novel in Abrams Books' MarvelArts line. It's by Chip Kidd and Michael Cho. Like the previous MarvelArts release, Ross' Fantastic Four: Full Circle, it's a visual treat: the color and design is fantastic, and Cho's art perfectly captures the Marvel Age vibe, down to sort of meta touches like every character being introduced in a Mighty Marvel Pin-Up.

Storywise, it starts with an Avengers brawl with a host of Kirby-style Marvel monsters, courtesy of Loki, but soon develops in an even more metatextual direction as Thor pursues Loki outside the realm of the comic. The Avengers soon must come to terms with the sense-shattering reality of their existence and the fictional counterparts of Kidd and Cho finding the story becoming all too real!

What could easily have been either an extended joke or a saccharine nostalgia piece, manages to do a little of both, and avoid going too far in either direction. The affection the creators feel for these characters come through, but they keep it all moving.

In the end, Kidd and Cho get to do what they do best, as do the Avengers, and the team-up put an end to Loki's schemes.

Veracity Trap is available digitally, but something that's something looks this good and that is fundamentally about the love and impact of those Silver Age stories deserves to be read in physical form.

Attack of the (Star Wars) Comics Clones

The cultural phenomenon that is Star Wars had an effect on comic books, even in its first decade. Despite my pithy title, it's unfair to call these guys clones exactly, but some sort of force is clearly with them. Since science fiction comics and Star Wars draw on some of the same influences, it's not always easy to know what is Star Wars inspired and what isn't. Chaykin's Ironwolf had a rebel fighting a galactic empire in '74--3 years before Star Wars. Still, if one looks at Chaykin's followup Cody Starbuck (also '74) the pre-Star Wars appearances have the look of Flash Gordon and the widespread swordplay of Dune. In the post-Star Wars appearances, costumes have a bit more Japanese influence and guns are more in play; both of these are possibly Star Wars inspired innovations.

Star Hunters (1977)
Empire? A sinister Corporation that controls Earth
Rebels? Sort of, though the protagonists start out forced to work for the Corporation
The Force? There's an "Entity" and a cosmic battle between good and evil
Analogs? Donovan Flint, the primary protagonist, is a Han Solo type with a mustache prefiguring Lando's.
Notes: If Star Hunters is indeed Star Wars inspired, its a very early example. The series hit the stands in June of 1977--on a few days over a month after Star Wars was released.

Micronauts (1979)
Empire? A usurpation of the monarchy of Homeworld.
Rebels? Actually previous rulers and loyalists; a mix of humans, humanoids, and robots.
The Force? The Enigma Force, in fact.
Analogs? Baron Karza is a black armored villain like Vader; Marionette is a can-do Princess; Biotron and Microtron are a humanoid robot and a squatter, less humanoid pairing like Threepio and Artoo.

Metamorphosis Odyssey (1980)
Empire? The Zygoteans, who have concurred most of the galaxy.
Rebels? A disparate band from various worlds out to end the Zygotean menace.
The Force? There's Starlin cosmicness.
Analogs? Aknaton is an old mystic who know's he's going to die a la Obi-Wan. He picks up Dreadstar on a backwater planet and gets him an energy sword.

Dreadstar (1982)
Empire? Two! The Monarchy and the Instrumentality.
Rebels? Yep. A band of humans and aliens out to defeat the Monarchy and the Instrumentality.
The Force? Magic and psychic abilities.
Analogs? Dreadstar still has than energy sword; Oedi is a farm boy (cat) like Luke; Syzygy is a mystic mentor like Kenobi; Lord High Papal is like Vader and Palpatine in one.
Notes: Dreadstar is a continuation of the story from Metamorphosis Odyssey.

Atari Force (1984)
Empire? Nope.
Rebels? Not especially.
The Force? Some characters have special powers.
Analogs? Tempest is a blond kid with a special power and a difficult relationship with his father sort of like Luke. There are a lot of aliens in the series, so there's a "cantina scene" vibe; Blackjak is a Han Solo-esque rogue. Dark Destroyer is likely Vader-inspired, appearance-wise.
Notes: This series sequel to the original series DC did for Atari, taking place about 25 years later. The first series is not very Star Wars-y.

Some Collections I Enjoyed

Sometimes, I finally get around to reading some stuff from decades back that's new (at least in part) to me. Here were my thoughts on a couple of things:

Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: Crisis on Counter-Earth: I hate that the Big Two don't number a lot of collections these days, but if it matters this is volume 6 of the Hulk Epic Collections, apparently. These are stories from the early 70s, written by Englehart and Thomas and drawn by Trimpe and they are crazy. The Hulk wanders from one situation (and fight) to another, often running into people he knows no matter where he is. The Marvel universe seems really small! 

It opens with Hulk returning to Earth after a sojourn in Jarella's microverse world, which he accidentally kicked out of orbit when he grew big again. He's briefly reunited with some of his supporting cast, but then he's attacked by the Rhino being mind-controlled by the Leader. He pursues Leader/Rhino into a spacecraft and keeps trying to fight him as the ship veers off course and takes them to Counter-Earth. They are there for 1 issue and get involved in conflict with factions of New Men, before grabbing a rocket back to regular Earth. There, Hulk goes looking for Betty who's marrying Talbot. Ross sends Abomination to fight him, but Hulk prevails, and Abomination has a breakdown over the fact he had ben unconscious for 2 years (since his last appearance where Hulk punched him out of space). And all this isn't even halfway! The Hulk goes to Counter-Earth again before it's all over and bears witness to the death and resurrection of Adam Warlock.

This the sort of flying by the seat of the pants comics' storytelling we don't get in this age of decompression. 

Solar, Man of the Atom (1991): Valiant wasn't on my radar when it started and by the time it was it was the darling of Wizard. I was skeptical and avoided it. So, 30 plus years later I'm getting around to reading it's second title. And I'm actually pretty impressed.

Shooter is definitely still cogitating on the concerns that led to the conception of the New Universe. Valiant is realistic superheroes. Where for Moore "realistic" means a whole lot of sexual fetishes, for Shooter it means them having to deal with problems like the unexpected difficulties of flying (it's like a motorcycle but worse) or what to do if your powers keep destroying your clothes. (Maybe some sexual fetishes, too, but they show up less.) Shooter's protagonists in this realistic mode, from Star Brand to Solar, have a hard time figuring out how to do the superhero thing--the sort of stuff that somehow just seems to happen for people when they get powers in most comics.  

Shooter's protagonist, Phil Seleski, definitely can't get things right. He gave himself powers Dr. Manhattan-style in a fusion mishap, but then something bad happened that resulted in the deaths of a lot of people. So, now he's back in time trying to stop that. Maybe he'll kill his past self--but then he accidentally creates his childhood superhero fav Dr. Solar from parts of his psyche, and now that guy is convinced future Phil is a super-villain. Which, in a way, he sort of is. 

Eventually, all of this resolves into more standard stuff, but it's a pretty interesting origin, perhaps given additional resonance by the sense of foreboding Windsor-Smith's art creates with the flashback backstory--though maybe this is only for me since I last read his stuff in Monster. For some reason, comics in the 80s and early 90s at least tend to do interesting things with nuclear test related heroes: Dr. Manhattan, the Bates/Weisman/Broderick Captain Atom, and this. Firestorm is perhaps the odd man out.

More Lost Marvels

A few weeks ago, I mentioned Fantagraphics' Lost Marvels, a new archive series of presumably non-superhero, forgotten Marvel material. Volume one is out now and is Tower of Shadows, collecting most of the material from the 9 issues of the horror anthology series. Volume two is titled Howard Chaykin vol. 1 and collects his work on several minor Marvel characters like Dominic Fortune.

Volume 3 seems to have been announced last week. It's Savage Tales of the 1980s. Based on the description from Fantagraphics, I assume it collects the eight issues (Oct 1985 - Dec. 1986) of Savage Tales volume 2. Its somewhat artsy cover is amusing to me as it strikes a very different vibe than the typical cover of the actual series:

Anyway, it's interesting to me that an article from April 28 on Comics Beat essential gave a different description and list of contents for this volume:

In November, Fantagraphics will publish Lost Marvels No. 3: Savage Tales. Best known for Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith’s Conan the Barbarian and the first appearance of Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow’s Man-Thing, 1971’s Savage Tales was a stunning comics magazine in the spirit of Creepy and Heavy Metal. This volume will collect all 11 issues of the series featuring work from Stan Lee, John Romita, Dennis O’Neil, Al Williamson, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, and a host of other legendary creators delivering a high-octane combination of fantasy, horror, and action.

This clearly sounds like first run of Savage Tales instead. It clearly would not have included the Conan and Kull stories that appeared in that volume since Titan now has the Robert E. Howard properties license, but presumably the Ka-Zar stuff and other things.

Does the switch mean we won't be getting this material in Lost Marvels? The specificity of "of the 80s" in volume 3 title suggests to me that maybe there is still a consideration of publishing the Savage Tales vol 1 (i.e. "of the 70s") material, but we'll see. 

It doesn't sound like there's more to come. This is what an article from Publishers Weekly back in March had to say:

Subsequent Lost Marvels volumes will include...stories from Marvel science fiction titles like Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, and action/war material like Doug Murray and Michael Golden’s The ‘Nam. Dean hopes to collect Chamber of Darkness, the companion title to Tower of Shadows, featuring a similar mix of horror and fantasy.

Lost Marvels

Fantagraphics has been doing hardcover with some Timely and Atlas stuff for some time, similar to their EC Comics Library. An interesting development that slipped by me was the announcement of a new archive series of more recent Marvel material: Lost Marvels.

Volume 1, set to release at the end of April, is Tower of Shadows. It collects the 9 issues of the never before collected horror anthology series from 1969. (With issue 10, the series became Creatures on the Loose, and some of that has been reprinted elsewhere.)

While that's interesting, I don't know if that would go into the buy column for me, or it wouldn't have, but then I saw the announcement of volume 2. That volume's titled: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1: Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle. It collects the first (maybe only?) appearance of Monark Starstalker in Marvel Premiere #32, all the color Dominic Fortune stories by Chaykin including the Max limited series, and the collaboration with Garth Ennis, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle. Pretty cool contents, particularly when there is no chance of ever seeing any sort of Dominic Fortune collection. 

The "vol. 1" implies there may be a Chaykin volume 2 in the future.

Captain America: Brave New World

I saw the new Captain America movie this weekend. It continues the adventures of Sam Wilson as Captain America. Those that missed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Disney+ series might have missed that he took over the mantle from Steve Rogers sometime after the events of Avengers: Endgame. It also features a new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, and a host of other characters from previous Marvel films, including some call backs to the early days of the franchise.

In brief, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross has been elected president, and Wilson has been working with them despite tensions that remain from the period of Captain America: Civil War. Ross even asks Wilson to consider restarting the Avengers. Ross has secrets, though, and events put Wilson at odds with his Commander-in-Chief as he strives to clear the name of a friend and prevent a hidden mastermind from starting a war.

I probably liked this installment of the Cinematic Marvel Universe better than I've liked most Marvel films since about 2019.  It was less jokey than average, which was nice, adhering to the template of Winter Soldier.

My brother observed that it's a very Bronze Age Comics movie, and I think he's right. Not in the basic elements of the story which are a mix of (original) Ultimate Universe realism and 21st Century characters and arcs, The structure, however, of things partakes (like Winter Soldier) of 70s political thrillers and the call backs and tying of loose ends of less successful Marvel films (The Eternals and The Incredible Hulk) recalls the way writers would finish off stories with guest appearances in other titles, particularly team-up books like Marvel Two-in-One or Marvel Team-Up. It plays very much like the Captain America Annual dealing with story elements from the aborted Eternals and Hulk runs.

Collections I'd Like to See

 There are so many runs in the Bronze and early Modern Ages of comics that haven't been collected or haven't been collected recently. Here are five I'd really like to see:

Dominic Fortune: This 30s pulp adventurer created by Howard Chaykin also managed to have some adventures in the modern day. Chaykin even came back and did a series in the 00s but let's end this collection in the 80s. Includes material from Marvel Preview #2, Marvel Super Action #1, and The Hulk! #21-25; Marvel Premiere #56, Marvel Team-Up #120, Web of Spider-Man #10, and Iron Man #212-213.

DC Comics Presents: While we're on the subject of Superman, where's our Superman: DC Comics Presents Bronze Age Omnibus? Sure, the series was collected in Showcase Presents volumes, but we need them in color omnibus to balance the Batman team-ups in Brave and the Bold. I don't know how many omnibuses it would take, but we need the whole series: DC Comics Presents #1-97 and annuals #1-4.

Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja: This one isn't likely to be high on most people's lists (it was meant to last 24 issues but only went 16), but I appreciated what Hama and Wagner were trying to accomplish, which was something like G.I. Joe meets Akira. Even if it's a failure, it's an interesting one and deserves to be seen by more eyeballs! A collection could include material from Marvel Comics Presents #25, Nth Man #1-16, and Excalibur (vol. 1) #27.

Superman and the Forgotten Heroes: The Forgotten Heroes, a minor team in the 80s of short-run characters from the Silver Age, are once again, mostly forgotten--except maybe for Animal Man, whose inclusion I'd argue help raised his profile for better days to come. This would include Action Comics #545, 552-553, and DC Comics Presents #77-78. It could be rounded out with earlier Bronze Age appearances of the individual characters with or without Superman: Showcase #100, Detective Comics #486, Wonder Woman #268, Action Comics #536, and Action Comics #540.

Cover mockup by Catspaw Dynamics

Barren Earth: This sci-fi epic by Gary Cohn and Ron Randall about the survivor of an expedition of spacefaring humans to a post-apocalyptic Earth working to reunite the remnants of humanity ran as backups in Warlord, then got a limited to tie things up. It has never been collected. A collection should include material from Warlord (first series) 63-74 and 76-88, Who's Who vol. 1 #2, and Conquerors of the Barren Earth #1-4. 

Micronauts Chronology Conundrum

Anticipating receiving the copy of the Micronauts: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 2 I preordered soon, I finally got back around to revisiting the contents of the first Micronauts omnibus--stories I haven't re-read in twenty years or more.

I noticed something in those first few issues that I either didn't notice before or had forgotten:  the timeline of Baron Karza's rise to power is confusing.

Micronauts #1 (January 1979) by Mantlo and Golden and Rubenstein, opens with the scions of Homeworld's royal family, Prince Argon and Princess Mari being pursued and captured by the forces of the despotic Baron Karza. We are told that the king and queen have been killed, but given their kids are still on the run, every suggestion is that this is a recent event. Karza's coup/revolt appears to be a relatively new thing, though certainly it has been going on long enough he has significant forces at his command and alien allies (the Acroyear) from elsewhere in the Microverse.

Next, we see Arcturus Rann return to Homeworld has his 1000 years long voyage of exploration--and quickly get captured himself. We soon find out that after Rann left on his trip, warp drive was discovered, and the species of the Microverse were connect while he was in flight. "Within six months" of the advent of warp drive (whenever that was) the Microverse was at war thanks to Karza. Rann has heard of Karza. He was his tutor 1000 years ago! 

While the information here is unclear, it would suggest at least that Karza's revolt isn't brand new. Perhaps it was centuries after Rann left that warp drive was invented, but whenever it was Karza was in position to launch a war of conquest against other worlds.

Finally, the protagonists of our series are all united in the arena, where Karza and his ally, the Acroyear ruler Shaitan are going to watch their struggles from a position of honor.  Shaitan says to Karza:

"It's been almost 24 xats since your insurrection, Karza, and still you enjoy the unswerving loyalty of the rabble!"

We're given no idea how long a xat is, but clearly 24 of them is sufficient time that Shaitan seems surprised the people still support Karza, so I don't think "hours" or "days' would be a good translation.

We also find out Dallah and Sepsis who we've heard people swear by before were Rann's parents. They were deified by the resistance after they were martyred for defying Karza "almost 1000 years ago."

Where does all this leave us?

1. Almost 1000 years ago, Karza killed the rulers (presumably) of Homeworld Dallah and Sepsis in the Body Banks.
2. Either that or some other event marks the beginning of his insurrection "24 xats" before the present.
3. In the present, he has only recently killed the King and Queen of Homeworld (who aren't Dallah and Sepsis), and only at the start of this story manages to capture their children and their entourage.

We're given contradictory clues that Karza somehow both began his coup a long time ago, yet only recently completely it, and we have two royal families with an unclear relationship.

Perhaps there is further information in later stories that would clear this up. Certainly, I can think of a backstory that would make sense of it all, but I do wonder what Mantlo intended?

Flashback Radio: Fantastic Four (1975)

The short-lived Fantastic Four radio program debuted in 1975 and ran for 13. It adapts 13 issues of comic and featured a young Bill Murray as Johnny Storm!

The style of the show is somewhere between Old Time Radio and an audiobook, meaning it has a full cast and sound effects, but relies much more on narration than is typical of OTR. 

The entire show can be found several places on the internet, but here it is on Youtube:

Bob Haney's Marvel Universe, A Comics Counterfactual

Back in 2021, Jim and I were imagining "what if somehow DC had managed to take over Marvel just as the Marvel Age was getting off the ground?" We came up with several ideas, but since several came down to "Bob Haney," I figured that was worth a post in and of itself. This was, of course, idle speculation more concerned with what would have been goal rather than any realistic historical speculation of what would or could have happened.

The Hulk

In this timeline, the "hero and villain in one man!" dynamic that Haney brought to Eclipso (first appearing in May of 1963) will instead get applied to Marvel's Jekyll and Hyde character, the Hulk. The Hulk would retain his more villainous "gray hulk" persona through the entirety of his short run, and Banner would be his antagonist. Just like in the real world, this series doesn't last long, so in Tales to Astonish in 1964, Haney and artist Ramona Fradon bring the camp and whimsy they would have brought to Metamorpho to the Hulk. Bruce Banner becomes stuck in Hulk form, but still tries to woo Betty Ross, while being under the thumb of her father who ostensibly has Banner on a short lease "for his own good," but doesn't hesitate to exploit his abilities.

The X-Men

"Dig this crazy teen scene!" The X-men had a rocky start, so Haney was given title, along with a new artist, Nick Cardy--the original Teen Titans team in our history. Haney made the X-Men "hip" teens and gave them new foes like the Mad Mod, and more than one motorcycle gang. The male X-Men often refer to Marvel Girl as "Marvel-chick" as a term of endearment.

The Haney/Cardy team kept the X-Men from going all reprints, though the title wouldn't really catch on until the arrival of the New X-Men, same as in the history we know.