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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 20, 2017 14:12:00 GMT -5
Boxing takes a central role in the next Wildcat story, a two-part story in Sensation #13 and #14. Crooked promoters have set up a fight between Ted Grant and another fighter, during which they use a mirror to reflect the light into Grant's eyes so that he's blinded at inconvenient moments. He ends up getting knocked out ... and now he's no longer the champ! He starts confronting the new champ while dressed as Wildcat when no one else can see. So the new champ starts going on about being harasses and taunted by a man dressed as a black cat and everybody thinks he's crazy. Eventually they realize its the real Wildcat and they start promoting a fight between the new champ and Wildcat. But they are actually going to get a boxer to dress as Wildcat and take a dive. Well, guess what. The real Wildcat shows up, knocks the ringer unconscious and takes his place. When he starts beating up the new champ in the ring, the crooked promoters go back to their old tricks with the mirror and trying to blind Wildcat. But Wildcat was ready for this. Sidekick Stretch Skinner is in the audience with a slingshot and breaks the mirror! So Wildcat wins the fight and ... he's the new heavyweight world champion in the Earth-2 universe! But how can Ted Grant fight the Wildcat to win back the title? That's the end of Part One. The conclusion in Sensation #14 shows how Ted Grant wins back the title. It's pretty dumb! This two-part story is not nearly as much like an old Hollywood boxing movie as the story in Sensation #12.
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Post by String on Nov 20, 2017 19:24:58 GMT -5
I'm curious String , did Starlin do the scripting on this series? Starlin is listed as writer, Cullins as artist but both are credited as co-plotters. So I would say, yes, Starling scripted the issues. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I thought the dialogue also did a good job in reflecting the proper Kirby passion or zeal too. It had the right mix & tone of epic feel and personal depth.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2017 19:34:46 GMT -5
Hoosier X ... I loved that Wildcat Story that you posted earlier.
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Post by Jesse on Nov 21, 2017 2:59:07 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #65Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by John Byrne This is your typical misunderstanding that leads to a superhero fight then team up plus it ends on a cliffhanger. The art is good, the story is interesting and I'm already looking forward to reading the conclusion. SummaryPeter Parker is late for a meeting with the University Dean and when he finally gets there he is introduced to his new roommate from England Brian Braddock. Meanwhile some shady characters meet with Arcade and hire him to assassinate a man they suspect of being Captain Britain. Later Peter is caught climbing out of his window by Braddock who transforms into Captain Britain and chases Spidey all over the city in an epic brawl resulting in the police trying to arrest them. Just after they talk it out and mitigate any confusion they are captured by a garbage truck driven by non other than Arcade!
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 21, 2017 3:01:51 GMT -5
I'm done with my Golden Age break. here's what I read. I read the Wonder Woman stories, the Gay Ghost stories and the Wildcat stories in Sensation Comics #11, #12 and #13. I also read the Wildcat story in #14 because it was continued. I love how Baroness Paula von Gunther is the villain in EVERY ISSUE in the early Sensation days. The Harry G. Peter art is great. I also really like the Irwin Hasen art on Wildcat. The Gay Ghost is just so darn weird. I love it! I read three appearance of the Atomic Knights (#138, #141 and #144), including the issue where they find the giant Dalmatians that they ride like horses and also the story where they find out that Mole people caused World War III. In Jumbo Comics, I read a bunch of Sky Girl stories from about #91 to #100. And in Planet Comics, I read close to ten issues of Futura, ending with #60. I'm just about done with Futura as she only ran until #66. And in Fantastic Comics, I read the Space Smith stories from #7 to #16. Fletcher Hanks drew the first six stories, skipped Fantastic Comics #7, came back for #8, and then left for good. So Space Smith just fights space gangsters, and sadly the mummified Vacuumites and the grasshopper people and the Mad Brain of Mars of the Hanks issues are all gone in the later issues.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Nov 21, 2017 6:44:43 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #65 This and the following issue are two of my favourite MTUs.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 21, 2017 21:12:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm not sure Marvel Team-Up was ever better than those two issues.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 22, 2017 13:50:01 GMT -5
I'm done with my latest Golden Age break and I've gotten back to my regular classic comics reading. Over the last few days, I started Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #1 to #15 by reading the first issue (Steranko!) and I got back to reading Bronze Age Sub-Mariner (#55 and #56) (Bill Everett!). And I'm up to Sgt. Fury #47 (John Severin! And what a crazy story THIS is!). And I read The Doom Patrol #30 (which is the only Grant Morrison issue of Doom Patrol that I actually own; I got it a few months ago and thought it was OK, but it's a lot better in context with the previous issues! And I can hardly wait to see the next issue and see what happened to Cliff!) I'll probably have more to say on the main series I'm reading in the coming days. But I saw the Justice League movie last night (it's pretty good; I went in with low expectations because ZACK SNYDER and ended up enjoying myself quite a bit) and I got to thinking about Aquaman, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to look up Silver Age appearance of Aquaman's villains. So I read Aquaman #35 this morning. The Comic Book Database says it's Black Manta's first appearance, but at some point, Aquaman says something like "Black Manta! My old enemy!" So is this Black Manta's first appearance and writer Bob Haney just sort of threw in a new character and pretended he had a number of past conflicts with Aquaman? Or is CBD just wrong? I'll look it up later, but if anybody knows, I would appreciate a few lines from one of the Forum's more knowledgeable Aquaman fans. This is a pretty cool Silver Age DC story! As Black Manta is working out his revenge plot, Ocean-Master shows up also looking for revenge against the Sea King! So they start fighting each other to see who will get to have his revenge against Arthur. So great! And so Bob Haney! And Aquababy is HILARIOUS! He has hard-water powers like his mother Mera and he uses them to save the Ocean-Master's life. The Ocean-Master is like "How humiliating! Now I can't get my revenge on Aquaman because his stupid baby saved my life!"
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 22, 2017 15:07:55 GMT -5
Aquaman #35 is the first *comic book* appearance of Black Manta, who was created (by Haney) for the Filmation "Aquaman" TV show. Apparently, Bob considered the cartoons in continuity.
Cei-U! I summon the animated origin!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 22, 2017 15:13:29 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm not sure Marvel Team-Up was ever better than those two issues. Oh, sure it was: MTU #79, the famous Red Sonja issue, possibly the best single issue of the series, and also #s 82-85, the Black Widow with amnesia story, the second best multi-part story in any team-up book.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 22, 2017 19:17:43 GMT -5
Aquaman #35 is the first *comic book* appearance of Black Manta, who was created (by Haney) for the Filmation "Aquaman" TV show. Apparently, Bob considered the cartoons in continuity. Cei-U! I summon the animated origin! That's great! I'll have to see if I can find those Aquaman cartoons.
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Post by The Captain on Nov 23, 2017 10:18:24 GMT -5
Finally getting around to reading the Busiek/Perez run on Avengers (although I just passed issue #36, which is where George leaves the book). Really liking it, as Busiek is such a great writer, although I am not a huge fan of the new characters (Triathlon is OK, as he develops pretty well, but Silverclaw is hot garbage). However, I should have been reading the Iron Man and Captain America issues of the same time period in conjunction with this (things in one book affect the others, which is what I like about continuity, not the "Character A and Character B shared a panel in issue X of this comic, so their interaction 20 years later makes no sense" style), but I wanted to concentrate on the Avengers issues solely.
As well, I read Avengers: Celestial Quest by Steve Englehart (borrowed it from my local library). Soooooooooooooo bad. Made me sad in so many ways, as I really like Englehart, but this is an absolutely useless, go-nowhere, means-nothing story.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 23, 2017 16:43:21 GMT -5
The fall of Ming, the third and final volume of Titan Books reprinting of Alex Raymond's run on Flash Gordon. Raymond's artistic skills are in full display here, although the perfect anatomy and the brilliant staging admittedly overtake the zany imagination of the earlier pages of the strip. In this volume, Flash and his friends engage in one last campaign against the villainous, devious, brilliant and vain Ming (one of the best dressed villains ever, if you ask me). Considering how many years readers must have followed this feud, it is resolved absurdly quickly; in only one page we witness Flash and his friends breaking into Ming's palace, surprising him in his bedroom and knocking him out. That's it! A hypnotized Ming is forced to abdicate, and his empire is turned into a democracy. A last ditch attempt at regaining his crown is thwarted in a few more pages, and peace is restored to the planet Mongo. The abrupt end of this story arc probably reflects the real-world concerns of its creators; indeed, Flash, Zarkov and Dale must hurry back to Earth to defend the U.S.A. against the threat of "the red sword", which is clearly Adolf Hitler and his Nazis even if we never name them and never see Der Führer. A pretty epic adventure sets our heroes against an entire fleet of battleships, which they manage to help sink or capture thanks to their advanced alien weaponry and their indomitable courage. (I would really worry about counter-espionage, though... there is apparently a spy on every corner in the U.S. defence infrastructure!) To help democracy prevail in what will soon be known as world war II, Flash, Zarkov and Dale return to Mongo to gather the radium they need for more weapons. Unfortunately their rocketship runs into technical difficulties and crashes on Mongo, on a continent they haven't visited yet. And there their exotic adventures start over again! The new villain is named Brazor, a dour fellow who quickly usurps the throne of his cousin, the lovely but fiery-tempered queen Desira. Brazor is no Ming in terms of presence, but I'll give him that: he's pretty clever. His intelligence makes the ensuing conflict interesting, even if not as awesome as the earlier clash between Flash's and Ming's forces. This is really a neat series. Like Prince Valiant, it is magnificently drawn, and without a doubt a major influence on all adventure comics that followed.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Nov 23, 2017 18:51:02 GMT -5
^^ I had the first two volumes of the Checker Flash Gordon reprints some years back. Although the art was utterly fantastic, I found the text accompanying each panel so unweildly and dull, and the repetition from instalment to instalment so hard to get past, that I ultimately gave those books away. My overall impression of Raymond's Flash Gordon was that it had pretty pictures, but clunky stories.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 24, 2017 2:18:04 GMT -5
I'm up to The Sub-Mariner #58. This series has been very good lately! The previous issue had the return of the 1950s Atlas heroine (and incidentally the Roman Goddess of love) Venus. And Namorita is being raised by Betty Dean Prentiss. And a couple of issues ago, some Atlantean soldiers were returning from a battle with Attuma's invading barbarian hordes when they came across some shipwrecked water-breathing red-skinned aliens. Thinking them hostile aliens, they slaughtered them, thinking they must be in league with Attuma. As they were the last surviving males of an alien race fleeing a dying planet, the Atlanteans committed genocide. In #58, it turns out there was one female alien who had hidden on board the ship and escaped the slaughter. Her name is Tamara, and she's platting her revenge! Tamara was in the comics when I started following Sub-Mariner in 1975 and 1976. But I think she was only in a very few issues of Super-Villain Team-Up and maybe an Avengers cross-over. Despite her few appearances, I had a crush on her because of her unusual appearance and her skimpy blue and white costume. Bill Everett did a great job on her design. Anyway, her revenge plot is foiled but the Atlanteans show mercy because, you know, it's not like she didn't have a reason to be a little upset over the slaughter of all the males of her tribe. If I was writing a Namor series, I'd bring back Tamara.
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