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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 30, 2017 11:33:16 GMT -5
And then ... Fantastic Four #84 to #87! I read these in Marvel's Greatest Super-Heroes reprints back in the 1970s. And even with a lot of great full-page Kirby panels edited out for space, this is one of my favorite Dr. Doom storylines. (I had the originals for a while, and when you flip through the originals, yeah, you notice there's a few extra pages you never saw before! They really jump out at you!) Dang! I didn't know that they sometimes cut out pages for a reprint! That's like syndicated TV! I don't know why they'd need to do that, since reprints are obviously cheaper to produce than new stories. By the mid- to late-1970s, the page count in a regular comic book was down. So they would have to fit a 20-page story into 18 or 19 pages. It's really sad for something like Marvel Super-Heroes because Tales to Astonish usually had a 12-page Sub-Mariner story and a 10-page Hulk story. They would move the Hulk to the front (he was the back-up in the 1960s issues), leave the Hulk story intact and cut several pages of the Namor story. In Tales to Astonish #96, Namor visits the old site of Atlantis and visits the tomb of his mother Princess Fen. I found that scene very moving when I read it for the first time online a few weeks ago. I've had the Marvel Super-Heroes reprint for close to 40 years and I haven't read it for a very long time. But I knew when I saw it online that I had never seen Namor's visit to the tomb because I'd remember that. I pulled out my copy of Marvel Super-Heroes to check and sure enough, that scene has been excised. Here's the cover for Marvel Super-Heroes #51. The original cover in the 1960s featured Namor. The covers alternated between Hulk and Namor in the Silver Age. But when these stories were reprinted, the old Hulk covers were used (although I do know of several cases where they provided a new Hulk cover in place of the old one) but new Hulk covers were used in place of the old Namor covers starting with Marvel Super-Heroes #41.
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Post by String on Aug 30, 2017 17:12:49 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #67-70, #500 'Unthinkable' arc When you're dealing with characters that's been published for over 40 years, sometimes it's hard to find new ground to explore. One would think that by now, the tension and drama between the rivalry of Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom will have been played out but talented writers find a way and WOW, did Mark Waid ever do so here. Victor renounces science and commits one of the most heinous crimes I've seen yet by a villain in acquiring vast magical power. So empowered, he launches a vicious assault on the FF, with Franklin and Valeria squarely at the center of it. Reed's science is little match and the man himself is at a loss faced with forces he cannot comprehend. To spare his family's lives, he surrenders. But Doom's pride allows Reed the chance to save himself and his family, if Reed can only intuit any part and parcel of sorcery. With a little help, Reed can but it'll involve personal humiliation and acceptance of his limitations. This is a story of pride, ego, vanity, obsession, hatred, and doing what you've always considered impossible to save your loved ones. Ringo's art is fabulous throughout, perfectly capturing the fear, anger, and stark resolution of Reed and Sue as they seek to save their children from this unthinkable attack.
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Post by Spike-X on Aug 30, 2017 19:30:10 GMT -5
Thor #133. What happens in this one? Oh, not much, just the introduction of A SENTIENT GOSHDARN PLANET! Thor looks like he's suffered a couple of major limb dislocations on that cover, though. I guess deadline was looming.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Aug 30, 2017 19:36:20 GMT -5
Been reading lots lately...Defenders stuff from the 70s have been entertaining. I love the appearances of the Elf with a Gun
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 30, 2017 20:54:49 GMT -5
Thor #133. What happens in this one? Oh, not much, just the introduction of A SENTIENT GOSHDARN PLANET! Thor looks like he's suffered a couple of major limb dislocations on that cover, though. I guess deadline was looming. I adore the whole Colonizers-Black Galaxy-EGO THE LIVING PLANET story arc. especially Tana Nile walking around New York City telling everyone she is now Tana I, Empress of Earth! And every cabbie, hotel clerk and policeman goes along with it sarcastically and NOBODY NOTICES THAT HER HEAD IS THREE FEET WIDE!
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 30, 2017 20:56:16 GMT -5
Been reading lots lately...Defenders stuff from the 70s have been entertaining. I love the appearances of the Elf with a Gun The elf is GREAT! But the best story arc in The Defenders EVER was the Headmen, led by Arthur Nagan the evil mad gorilla scientist with a human head!
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Aug 30, 2017 22:06:03 GMT -5
^ Yes those issues are on my list to hunt down...I had them but they were sold off a few years ago as part of a collection I sold for a colleague. Wishing I had held on to them though.
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Post by dbutler69 on Aug 31, 2017 8:16:16 GMT -5
Been reading lots lately...Defenders stuff from the 70s have been entertaining. I love the appearances of the Elf with a Gun The elf is GREAT! But the best story arc in The Defenders EVER was the Headmen, led by Arthur Nagan the evil mad gorilla scientist with a human head! Boy, those stories were really...out there. But very interesting! Leave it to Steve Gerber. I still can't believe he didn't do drugs.
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Post by The Captain on Aug 31, 2017 11:09:55 GMT -5
Just wrapped up reading the entire run of Thunderbolts over the weekend, and as a palate cleanser between issues of Captain America for my review thread, I've started reading Hero for Hire/Luke Cage, Power Man/Power Man and Iron Fist from the beginning.
One thing that has been a little disappointing in the Luke Cage books is the rampant racism. Sure, the titular character is black and is bound to run into some white folks who aren't very tolerant, but the way it's been written, every white supervillain that Luke runs into should have been at Charlottesville. Can't they just be bad for the sake of being bad without being racists on top of that?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 31, 2017 11:40:49 GMT -5
Just wrapped up reading the entire run of Thunderbolts over the weekend, and as a palate cleanser between issues of Captain America for my review thread, I've started reading Hero for Hire/Luke Cage, Power Man/Power Man and Iron Fist from the beginning. One thing that has been a little disappointing in the Luke Cage books is the rampant racism. Sure, the titular character is black and is bound to run into some white folks who aren't very tolerant, but the way it's been written, every white supervillain that Luke runs into should have been at Charlottesville. Can't they just be bad for the sake of being bad without being racists on top of that? No. Not given the time period and what was going on in popular culture at the time those early issues came out. The book came out at the height of the blaxploitation trend in cinema and at the height of the Black Power movement in the real world. Hero For Hire was purposefully keying in to the interest of those trends, particularly blaxploitation films.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2017 15:01:02 GMT -5
Just wrapped up reading the entire run of Thunderbolts over the weekend, and as a palate cleanser between issues of Captain America for my review thread, I've started reading Hero for Hire/Luke Cage, Power Man/Power Man and Iron Fist from the beginning. One thing that has been a little disappointing in the Luke Cage books is the rampant racism. Sure, the titular character is black and is bound to run into some white folks who aren't very tolerant, but the way it's been written, every white supervillain that Luke runs into should have been at Charlottesville. Can't they just be bad for the sake of being bad without being racists on top of that? How many issues of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire have you read so far?
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Post by The Captain on Aug 31, 2017 15:04:44 GMT -5
I just crossed over into the Power Man issues last night, finishing up at #20, the second of the two-part Cottonmouth story.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2017 15:07:34 GMT -5
All this talk of The Defenders and The Headmen reminded me that I've always wanted to read the 1950s story that introduced Arthur Nagan, the mad scientist with a human head and a gorilla body. Here's the cover to Mystery Tales #21: But I couldn't find Mystery Tales #21. However it was reprinted in the 1970s in Weird Wonder Tales #7, and I found that online. Sheesh! All the good stuff happens off-panel! Nothing in the story is anywhere near as awesome as the cover to Weird Wonder Tales #7.
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2017 15:10:44 GMT -5
I just crossed over into the Power Man issues last night, finishing up at #20, the second of the two-part Cottonmouth story. Hero for Hire #9 is one of my favorite Doctor Doom appearances. "Where's my money, honey?!"
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2017 16:34:03 GMT -5
I've been over at Comic Book Plus reading Sky Girl again. There's one where Ginger is stationed in Tokyo and the flyboys get her to drink some sake ... and she starts hallucinating. She sees little Japanese men running around on the bar. And everybody who tries to help looks Japanese to her. And she goes running around in the streets and she thinks she's being attacked by dragons. She cures herself of these hallucinations by drinking good ol' American soda pop. And there's another story where she crashes on a Pacific island inhabited by cannibals and she takes a bath in a lake and a monkey steals her clothes and she's running around in a towel chasing the monkey. Not to mention the one where she's playing poker with the officers and he C.O. runs out of cash and he bets the command of the post. So Ginger wins the hand and becomes the C.O. for 24 hours. She puts all the officers in the brig and sends all the enlisted men on a hike so she can take a nap. While they're gone, the soldiers on the Japanese base on the other side of the island have run out of rice, so they decide to march across the island and attack the U.S. base. If anyone's interested, these are from (roughly) Jumbo Comics #81 to #85 with Sheena covers like this one:
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