I looooooooooooved this 2 part introduction for Scott Lang. And he was a "working class" type of guy who becomes a hero with a strong reason behind it. Overall: I too prefer and like Lang Ant-Man over Pym. It was fun watching Michelinie utilize Lang as a partial member of the Stark world of Iron Man. Really enjoy that Scott was never a super-scientist type and more of the sturdy,solid thinking it out sort. And Byrne and Layton hit the perfect artistic notes with the size changing and metallic looks. ALWAYS liked that original Ant-Man helmet design. Which works great in a comic book but would have likely been fairly silly looking for movies (looking at you SNL alumni G. Morris) and not realistic/scientific enough. 

While an ongoing might have been nice, I doubt it would succeed for very long unless Byrne or Layton either together or singularly remained on art. Anybody else writing would also likely mess up the whole Lang concept. So having him become Guest-Star status helped to solidify and prove Pym made a good choice allowing Scott to keep the costume as Lang established himself in the superhero world.

Marvel Super-Heroes #16





Creative Team: Gary Friedrich-writer, Herb Trimpe-artist, Irv Watanabe-letters, Stan Goldberg-colors, Stan Lee-edits

Synopsis: A lone pilot is flying off the East Coast, when he is attacked by Fokker DR1 Triplanes...



The US isn't yet in the war and their presence is a surprise, especially since they don't have the range for a transatlantic flight, let alone from Germany to the US. The pilot shoots down one plane and then his guns jam! He pulls up out of the way as two more barrel in at him, from opposite sides. They crash together and fall into the water below. Then, the pilot traces them to the source...



a massive Zeppelin! The pilot then flashes back to his youth, as Karl Kauffman, fighting his rival Rex for the affections of Paula Jackson. It was pointless as Paula loved Rex and Karl and Rex become pilots in a flying circus, until a crash crippled Rex. Karl became a test pilot for the Army Air Corps and meets Maj. Jack Norris, who tries to recruit him for the Army. Karl resists, though the true reason is that his parents are living in germany and flying against Germany could lead to reprisals against them

Karl, disguised as The Phantom Eagle, snaps out of his memories and lands at a nearby farm, which is his secret airfield. his mechanic Curly refuels and rearms the plane as Phantom Eagle contacts Rex (who is in the Army and is the one who introduced Maj Norris to Karl) and tells him to alert Norris and send fighters up against the dirigible and its planes. norris isn't available, so the lame Rex leads the flight. Karl returns to his plane and takes off to meet up with the Army squadron. Meanwhile, on the bridge of the command gondola of the Zeppelin, the commander, Gen Heinrich Von Ronstadt is alerted to the approaching planes...



He orders his planes to be launched...



The planes pounce on the slower American planes and make mincemeat of them, until Phantom Eagle shows up and saves Rex's life. They then launch an attack on the Zeppelin, itself, but, the fabric of its hull is bulletproof!. Phantom Eagle lands his plane on the surface of the Zeppelin and the makes his way down via rope. he gets inside the gondola and plants a bomb; but, is caught by crewmembers. he fights his way out and gets back to his plane, taking off before the bomb goes off...



Rex's plane is badly damaged and his engine is cutting out. Phantom Eagle uses his rope to pull Rex out of his cockpit; but, he doesn't have the strength to hang onto the line and falls to his death. At Rex's funeral, Karl makes a vow to continue fighting Germany until the war is won.

Thoughts: Man I love this comic! A little background. My father was a huge aviation enthusiast, who grew up on a small farm, during the depression, dreaming of aviation heroes. At one point, he even bought, via mail order, a surplus drop tank, from a military plane, and he and his brothers turned it into a canoe. My uncle Delbert told me that my dad and my other uncle, Denny, constructed a glider out of canvas tarps and bean poles, hoisted it up a tall tree, and rigged a release mechanism to launch it. My uncle Delbert, being the smallest, was designated as the test pilot. He climbed up there and they pulled the release chord, and...........

nothing happened. Thankfully, as their knowledge of aerodynamics and use of materials wasn't quite up to the Wright Brothers. My uncle would have probably have been badly injured, if not killed. My grandparents put a stop to any further tests. Some time later, my father got a scholarship to go to the Univ. of Illinois and attended for 2 or 3 years, before enlisting in the US Air Force. He didn't get to be a pilot (and he turned down the opportunity to go to OCS) and became a mechanic on the B-36 Liberator, for Strategic Air Command.



My dad served in Roswell, NM, while also spending some time deployed to Greenland, during the Korean War. He left the Air Force and finished college, becoming a teacher, his other love. He started out as the Agriculture Advisor and, later, junior high science teacher (where I had him, for three years). At school, he also advised a model airplane club, which built and flew their own rubber band-powered aircraft. He collected model airplane magazines (which helped me with a later history project, about aviation warfare, in WW2). He bestowed his love of planes on my brother and I, taking us to the big air show in Osh Kosh, WI. Later, on a family vacation in Cincinnati (where my mother attended a real estate convention) and took us to see the Wright Brothers Museum, in Dayton and to the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Base. On another vacation, to Florida, he took us to Cape Canaveral.

My brother and I built our own planes and watched any movie about flying, including such films as The Blue Max, Von Richthofen and Brown, and the thriller, Zeppelin. My dad's favorite movie was The Lafayette Escadrille, starring Tab Hunter, and featuring very young Tom "Billy Jack" Laughlin and one Clint Eastwood.

This comic is filled with the kind of adventure that my dad loved, a love which he passed on to me. It's not quite up there with the classic Enemy Ace or EC's Aces High; but, it's damn good! The story is pure aviation pulp, in the spirit of such pulp heroes as G-8 and his Battle Aces, or the original Captain Midnight (who secretly flew with his Secret Squadron). Enemy Ace and Ace's High prided themselves on realism, while EA was also a great anti-war statement. This is pure fun. friedrich was writing Sgt Fury, which was pulp army adventure, though Friedrich and John Severin would steer it into more serious territory, over time.

The story was Friedrich's idea, with an aim towards working with trimpe, who was working in the production department, alongside old friend John Verpoorten (they had been classmates at the School of Visual Arts). This was Trimpe's first pencilled story and Friedrich knew he was an aviation enthusiast and steered the story to feed that. Trimpe designed Phantom Eagle's plane, which had no real life basis (though he used several elements of existing planes). Trimpe felt it was way over the top and pure Hollywood; but, he enjoyed working on it. Unfortunately, it didn't lead to a series.

Phantom Eagle made a couple of appearances and Roy Thomas retconned him as a member of the Freedom's Five, a WWI antecedent of the Invaders, which included Union Jack, Lord James Montgomery Falsworth. It would be later revealed that Karl Kauffmann perished in the war.

A few years back, Garth Ennis wrote a new Phantom Eagle mini, with Howard Chaykin on art, which created a new version of the hero. Ennis then did a sequel, with the Eagle as an adventurer, in South America, with dinosaurs and hidden worlds and a bit of profanity. They were actually quite fun and a pleasant change from what Marvel was churning out. Once again, though, Enemy Ace had beat him to it, as Tim Truman had Hans Von Hammer flying to Dinosaur Island, in the interwar period, with Biff Bradley, Chop-Chop and Bat Lash, in an earlier, pulpy adventure.

The German's never had anything like the super Zeppelin in the story, though the Hindenburg was the largest airship ever launched (by volume). However, there is a precedent for the Zeppelin as a flying aircraft carrier.



That is the USS Macon, a naval airship. The US Navy experimented with launching and recovering aircraft, via dirigible, with the USS Los Angeles. It proved successful and led to the incorporation of a hangar and launching trapeze mechanism on the USS Akron and Macon. The airships could carry up to 5 F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes.



They became very proficient at launching and recovering the planes and would remove the landing wheels while embarked on the Akron and Macon. They were used successfully in fleet maneuvers. However, tragedy would put an end to US Navy dirigibles. The USS Akron went down at sea, on April 3, 1933, in severe weather. it hit a low pressure area which caused it to descend lower than the command gondola instruments measured. In trying to maneuver it crashed into the sea. To save weight it had no life jackets or rafts. There were only 3 survivors.

Two years later, the USS Macon crashed, due to a structural failure in an already damaged stabilizer fin. However, the Macon had lifesaving gear on board and most survived. The Los Angeles was grounded after that and the US Navy abandoned dirigibles in favor of less complex blimps. The blimp program proved quite successful and blimps were used for convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol throughout WWII.

The Sparrowhawks would be lowered on the trapeze hoist, start their engine, then pull the release lever and drop away, flying off on their intended course and mission (mainly scouting). They would then approach the airship for recover and the trapeze wuld be lowered into place. The Sparrowhawks would have to match speed and catch the trapeze with their landing hooks, which would lock in place when they made contact. They would cut their engines, a stabilizing bar would be lowed on their spine and they would be hoisted into the belly of the airship and stowed in the hanger.

trimpe shows the basics, though he kind of shortnes the hanger opening, due to perspective.

There was a film, in 1986, that tried to ride on the coattails of Indiana Jones, which featured a German super zeppeling, that is harassing the Allied side, in WW1. The film is known as Sky Bandits, or, alternatively, as Gunbus (after the type of plane the two American cowboy heroes fly).



Meanwhile, the earlier film, Zeppelin, with Michael York and Elke Sommer, featured an advanced Zeppelin that is used by German military intelligence to launch a commando raid on a castle, in Scotland, where the British government has moved the crown jewels and historic documents, like the Magna Carta, to protect them from the Zeppelin raids on London. The film is filled with intrigue and excitement, though the commando raid is a bit much (hard to swing a rifle with bayonet around, in narrow corridors, and look badass). the film illustrates the problems of fighting the Zeppelins, as aircraft couldn't reach the crusing heights of the airships, until later in the war and their bullets might pierce the gas cells but not ignite the hydrogen. That was changed with incendiary bullets (tracers) which would ignite the hydrogen. Early raids proved the vulnerability of Zeppelins to ground fire, during bombing runs, as they did not have aerial bombs and dropped artillery rounds. They switched to higher altitude bombing, which kept them out of gun range, though accuracy was minimal. By 1916, the Allies had incendiary rounds in fighter planes and scored hits on zeppelins and observation balloons.

So want an affordable copy of Phantom Eagle one day or a reprint!! I too loved the old WWI flying aces kinds of movies growing up. Trimpe has said this was always one of his favorite jobs ever. Those images just make my mind begin drooling

I originally found the book at a used bookstore, for about a quarter, I think.  I used to own that one, and the Guardians of the Galaxy issue; but, not the rest, apart from a couple of the Hulk reprint issues, from a Whitman bagged set.

The island may have tied in with Lemuria, but it was also supposed to be Lovecraft's island of R'lyeh, home of Cthulhu, which is why it was decked out with octopi and linked to the Belaso story about summoning Elder Gods back to Earth.



Magneto was minding his business on Asteroid M when Warlock (the robot one, not the orange one) intercepted his path on the way to Earth in New Mutants #22 (Nov 1984). Magneto fell to Earth, badly wounded, and was fished out of the Carribean by Lee Forrester in X-Men #188. Magneto and Lee went to R'lyeh so he could recuperate, and they fell into a romance as a B-plot through the next several issues of New Mutants. It abruptly ended when Xavier called Magneto to come participate in Secret Wars II, concerning which the less said, the better. I don't know what would have been on the island for them to retrieve when this story came out in 1987. (Note that Sienkiewicz hid Cockrum's name in the first image below since it's an homage of his image above.)

That Marvel Fanfare has what I've long thought to be one of the worst covers of the era, certainly on that title, at least.
I'm at best a below average artist, and way out of practice, but I sincerely believe I could do a much better cover than that. June Brigman's done much finer work than this.

Holy cow! Bunch of stuff appeared here while I turned away for a day!
Re: Marvel Premiere 47-48 - only an adventurous origin-story by Michelinie and drawn by Byrne and Layton could match, or even top, the excellent sword&planet-with-an-intelligent-werewolf saga from the preceding two issues by Mssrs. Kraft and Perez. Really, this is why the 40s is my favorite stretch of Marvel Premiere issues.

Otherwise, I just have to say I'm glad I never saw the Marvel Fanfare story or any of the stuff from New Mutants that rberman referenced above, specifically, the Magneto and Lee Forester hook-up. That happened during one of my hiatuses from comics and it just makes me say "ew" every time it's mentioned (personally, I thought Scott and Lee should have ended up together - that would have been a nice way of him moving on after Jean's death, instead of marrying a Jean look-alike, who then ends up being her clone...).