Marvel Premier #8



Doc finally makes it over to Stonehenge...



Creative Team: Gardner Fox-writer, Jim Starlin-art, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt-inks, Jean Izzo-letters, Petra Goldberg-colors, Roy Thomas-chief druid

Synopsis: Dr Strange fights the furniture of Witch House and Clea, who proved useful before, gets banged on the noggin and taken out of the fight. Doc has had enough and calls on the Vishanti to destroy the house and all the evil within and a bunch of magic lightning strikes and down goes the house. Doc heads off for Stonehenge, leaving Clea behind. Doc heads over to Stonehenge, while reminding us of past issues. he turns up and the place is surprisingly quiet, for a major tourist attraction, when a bunch of Starlin monster guys, with pointy ears show up. Doc fights the knife-wielding monsters and as fast as you can say "Katuum!", they are gone, destroyed by Doc's magical energy. Starlin then goes all Ditko....



as Doc enters another realm, via a dimensional gateway. It all gets very Timothy Leary and Doc meets up with Kathulos (seriously!), a plant dude....



He attacks Doc and he beats off the first wave of vines and things, then gets his soul sucked into Kathulos, which gives him knowledge to beat him; but, leaves him stranded on this alien, other-dimensional world. I hate it when that happens.

Synopsis: Now we are getting blatant. Kathulos? Still, Starlin flexes his inner Ditko and it looks suitably trippy and cool. Still waiting for the showdown with Shuma-Gorath; but, it looks better.

Marvel Spotlight #8



Creative Team: Gary Friedrich-writer, Mike Ploog and Jim Mooney-art, Shelly Leferman-letters, Roy Thomas-snake wrangler

Synopsis: Ghost Rider faces off with mentor Crash Simpson, while Crash's daughter Roxanne is chained to a satanic altar, in her newest Red Sonja's Secret ensemble. Roxanne wants Johnny to try and reason with crash, as GR flames away her chains...



Crash ain't having it, starts to attack, then stops. Satan is pissed and sends Johnny to Hell, to face Crash on the homefield. he fixes the fight with a demon serpent; but, Crash has a face turn and attacks the demon, freeing Johnny. They fight there way into other monsters and Crash sacrifices himself. Johnny carries his form, runs into a hooded dud who says he will bring peace to Crash's soul and has Johnny lay it on an altar, then Johnny is sent back....



Johnny wakes up in human form, next to Roxanne and they leave. This being Greenwich Village, no one notices a guy in leather walking with a woman in a chain mail bikini and red cloak.

Johnny heads out west to set up the new show, which will include performances at a rodeo and jumping a canyon (wonder where they got that idea?). Johnny is picked up by Native American Sam Silvercloud, who pulls a gun on Johnny and dumps him in the desert, to prevent him from jumping the sacred canyon, which would put a media focus on the canyon and entice the government not to cede it to the tribe, in their legal battle.



Johnny jumps onto the truck as Sam pulls away and gets his bike off of it. he meets up with the rodeo manager the next day, who also doesn't want the shw, because he is a rodeo purist. This never happened to Evel Knievel! he runs into Sam, punches him out, when he see that he is frozen and the mystical figure Snakedance appears. he warns Johnny away from the canyon, like the monster in an episode of Scooby Doo!

Johnny suits up to investigate and Sam sabotages his bike. Snakedance shows up again, Johnny turns into Ghost Rider and fights Snakedance's snake men...



He scares off the goons, then faces Snakedance, who transforms into a giant serpent and chases Johnny to the edge of the canyon and his bike explodes as he jumps the canyon, leaving Ghost Rider to plummet towards the bottom of the canyon.

Thoughts: Weell, the Crash Simpson bit wraps upa bit later than it should have, then we suddenly switch gears to the new storyline, with a whole lot of Scooby Doo plot, with real mysticism (ala the more recent era Scooby Doo cartoon movies). Ploog has some nice visual fun and he still makes the motorcycle stuff look really cool. Jim Mooney subdues him a bit, here and there.

Gary Friedrich keeps things interesting, if a bit hokey, which makes for a nice mix.

This issue's idea of Johnny jumping a canyon was no doubt inspired by Evel Knievel, who had been floating the idea of jumping the Grand Canyon for several years, but the US dept of the Interior had pretty much let it be known it would never happen. In 1972 Knievel switched to other, equally ludicrous ideas, which culminated in the idea to jump the Snake River Canyon, in a rocket. It took a couple of years to get funding and build the rocket, which was a spectacular failure, as the chute opened on the launch ramp and the rocket went in an arc down into the canyon, with the chute dragging. Knievel was banged about a bit but was safe and the whole thing was a flop that made money from closed circuit presentation and Wide World of Sports broadcast. Also, the year before, George Hamilton stared in a highly fictionalized movie biopic of Evel, which played up the legends about him, more than the reality (and he had a colorful real life). It's a fun movie, with Hamilton delightfully over-the-top and charming, as the roguish young Evel and the more famous performing Evel. The film script was written by Allan Caillou and John Milius, and was suitably over-the-top macho BS, perpetuating the idea of Knievel as the "Last Gladiator." It's a great movie to watch; but, should never be taken seriously (beats Viva Knievel, with the real Evel).

Ghost Rider tapped into the whole Evel phenomena pretty well, as this was a period of biker movies, Evel's jumps on Wide World of Sports, the movie, Evel toys and merchandise, banana-seat bicycles that looked more like motorcycle frames (and even chopper versions), and the like. Kids ate this stuff up and Ghost Rider was quickly becoming a popular title. We have 3 more issue before he gets his own series.

We'll have to see if we can pinpoint when it went from a talent showcase to "stuff we had lying around in files that we already paid people for."

The Savage Land/Sauron story in the first 4 issues of Fanfare is awesome; loved it when it first came out, and I think it still holds up well. Otherwise, I think Marvel Fanfare was pretty consistently good for the first dozen or so issues - I've only read a smattering of the material that came out after that, some good (like the one with the nicely-done humorous Thing story by B.W. Smith) and some not so good.

I disagree that Fanfare wasn't good after the first issues. I looked over the covers of the rest of the series and there are quit a few wonderful books there with stellar art from the likes of Sandy Plunkett, Charles Vess and Ken Stacy among others.

www.newkadia.com/?Marvel_Fanfare_Comic-Book-Covers=2400

Not saying it wasn't good; but that the book started out not fulfilling its stated mission of delivering new material.  It certainly delivered excellent material, from top creators.

I bought the book sporadically and enjoyed most of the issues I picked up; but, there was a generic sameness to many stories.  Even if they weren't inventory stories, they felt like it.

I don't think there was anything particularly wrong with Marvel Fanfare; but, it wasn't much different from Marvel Premiere; only more expensive.  I don't think they ever lived up to the "best" idea, much in the same way that Epic Illustrated never really challenged Heavy Metal for content, no matter how much Archie tried.  That one at least experimented more.

Part of the problem, in my eyes, was that in aiming it at the direct market, it felt rather like they were aiming at fanboy expectations.  At the same time, DC was willing to experiment more because they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.  Marvel, under Shooter, seemed more reluctant in this area, whether deliberately or unconsciously.  

Well, you' d expect that, either way.  However, I suspect Roy was deliberately using Howard's pastiche to hide his own pastiche from legal pitfalls.  It's much the same as some stories in the Tales of the Shadowmen anthologies, from Black Coat Books.  They often substitute the French characters Judex and Doc Ardan for the Shadow and Doc Savage.  Both of the French characters predate the pulp heroes; but, the modern writers are using them as pastiches of the pulp heroes, as ,much as for their original version. Judex is a cloaked avenger of injustice; but, he owes far more to Alexandre Dumas, as he is very much stitched out of the cloth of the Count of Monte Cristo.  Doc Ardan is a scientist/adventurer; but, not necessarily the physical marvel that Clark Savage is.  I have no idea if Walter Gibson or Lester Dent were even aware of their French antecedents (though Judex appeared in a silent film serial), though it would seem unlikely (though not impossible).  Howard, and Roy, are both aware of Lovecraft and Roy is definitely aware that Howard was challenged on his material's similarity to Lovecraft.  I think it made a perfect substitute for him to do Lovecraftian horror, without licensing from Lovecraft's estate.

I liken it to doing a Star Wars comic, but basing it on Battle Beyond the Stars.  It's a copy of a copy and its pretty fuzzy around the edges.