I think that Balder mini was one of Sal's favorite projects. It was really good.

I just re-read Hulk 180-182, the first Wolverine story. Len Wein's pretty word heavy on his comics by any modern standard. I have read it a few times before. Old Bronze/Silver Hulk is always a big never know where it is going to go. Hulk gets captured, they lose him and he just moves on.

I've been going through a few Doctor Strange stories from the Marvel Premiere days and some more from the Ditko era. In hindsight it's surprising to see how little time elapsed between the two, considering that I still consider Marvel Premiere #4 as "the new Doctor Strange"! (Since then, has he been killed and turned into a cyborg? Did he get a magic gun? Did he wear a long raincoat and a mullet? Become evil? Did magic disappear and make him powerless? ...Probably, and I'm better off not knowing!)

The original Shuma-Gorath storyline did not grab me as much as in years past, despite the still-lovely art by Barry Smith and Frank Brunner. I have probably grown used to the Lovecraftian atmosphere, and the novelty has worn off. Surprisingly, I found that I liked Irv Wesley's art far more than previously; sure, his style doesn't look like Smith's at all, but his old-school approach has a certain appeal. It reminded my of Marvel's horror stories from the '50s.

I smiled at an unnecessary continuity fix : at some point, Clea is reintroduced to Dr. Strange's world. Feeling that Strange is in trouble, she goes to his sanctum sanctorum to take a peek at the orb of Agamotto. The orb is on the ground, shattered, and a caption explains that it was broken in battle a while ago. Clea fixes it with a simple spell, good as new.

Since the "broken in battle" bit didn't ring any bell I went back and checked... and sure enough, Strange uses the orb as a battering ram to go through a door in Marvel Premiere #4. Except that it didn't happen in real life; it happened in a dream. (Furthermore, if it had happened in real life, why did Strange (or Wong, for that matter) leave the shards of the orb on the ground instead of (a) putting them back together, which obviously doesn't require much of a spell, or (b) use a broom to remove them before someone walks on them barefoot? Stepping on a Lego might hurt, but I'm sure that a shard of the orb of Agamotto hurts even more.)

The few Ditko stories I read remain amazing. Their mood, their design, their sheer imagination are absolutely fantastic. A few discrepancies pop up (the Ancient One's fortress is in India, then in Tibet) but that's no big deal and sort of typical of Stan's scripting. And at least back then we didn't have Clea acting like a helpless damsel in distress every two pages!

Nothing beats the Colan/Palmer run in 172-183 for me.

Finishing up the second X-Men omnibus. It's not hard to see why this was Marvel's worst-selling title at the time. Roy Thomas and Arnold Drake do their best to emulate Stan's bombastic melodrama but no one can do Stan but the Man! Most of the art is really mediocre. Dan Adkins does a single issue that looks way better than the issues that surround it, particularly with regard to characters' faces. (I have a Doctor Strange fill-in that is also by Adkins; did he ever do a continuous run on a book?) Later there is a bit of Steranko and of course Neal Adams short but famous run. There is one issue by Don Heck where he emulates Adams' more modern style and it looks great! I wonder if he continued in that vein elsewhere or went back to his usual style.

The stories don't always make sense and they play fast & loose with characters' abilities, particularly ephemeral ones like psychics and magic. At one point Juggernaut emits energy spheres from his body. Pretty sure we never saw that again. Professor X can communicate telepathically with robots, use "psychic bolts" to physical effect, go into astral form a la Strange, and "share" his power with others such as Jean and Changeling. He's also pretty blasé about wiping people's memories, even entire towns, to protect their identities. No problem there.

Speaking of Changeling, I thought it was odd that he didn't change into anything in the entire drawn-out story arc where he was introduced. It's not until the retcon where he is to have impersonated Xavier that we see him change form. And why were they called Factor Three anyway? Having Jean be in on the hoax of Xavier's death doesn't work because we saw numerous thought balloons in previous issues where she mourned him. Thought the Z'nox story would be longer, given its scope, but it wraps up quickly.

The reveal of Scott as Eric the Red makes no sense and I still don't understand the connection between Alex Summers and the Living Pharaoh.

So, some of it was good, a lot of it was a drag, but I'm glad I filled in a hole in my reading. There are a lot of key issues in here, including the first appearances of Polaris, Havok, Mesmero, Sunfire, Sauron, Living Pharaoh/Monolith, Sentinels Mark II, and the Savage Land Mutates.

**1/2

Am I the only one who doesn't find Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss all that scandalous? I'm aware from the pages of Omaha the Cat Dancer that there were some crazy censorship battles going on in the late 80s, but in the internet age it barely raises an eyebrow. I wouldn't call it Chaykin's best work, but it's a decent read. 

I've been off reading comics for a little while...a good few months... but I picked up the paperback The Voodoo MAD last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book was first published in 1963 (and my copy is of around that vintage) and the MAD Cover Site tells me it collects material that was originally published in MAD magazine in 1959 -- there are a lot of references to beatniks, for example. Overall, this was a fun read, with some material that is still genuinely chortle-inducing, despite the intervening 60 years.