This takes me back. One of my very earliest comics.

And a series I dearly love, even if nobody else does. The short story that begins in issue 14 is one of my all-time favorite comic stories.

I foolishly started with this #1 issue, and am pretty sure (if my memory from 20 years ago is correct) that somewhere in this issue an asterisked note from the editor refers to "last issue". Since this was #1, that confused my young brain for many years.

If you wanted a super-villain team-up with multiple guest stars ala Marvel Team-Up, there was always DC's JOKER series.

Super-Villain Team-Up #4, Feb 1976

“A Time of Titans”, 18 pages

Marv Wolfman, editor

Bill Mantlo, writer

Herb Trimpe, penciler

Jim Mooney, inker

Don Warfield, colorist

Karen Mantlo, letterer



Cover by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott Dan Adkins

Summary:

Immediately following the last issue, Doom and Namor again have a falling out and begin to battle each other. Nearby, a Navy ship is transporting a scientist seeking a power source for his mysterious project. The scientists name? Captain Ryker, who’s creating the precursor to Deathlok. Ryker has been refused assistance by Reed Richards so he’s talked the military into sailing him around looking for some energy sources in the ocean. What he was expecting to find, I have no idea, but his equipment detects our lead characters, in pitched battle:



Namor throws Doom into the side of the ship, where Doom creates a big hole (surviving, of course, thanks to his armor). Ryker has a device that (somehow) can siphon (spelled "syphon" here) “power” from Doom. Namor, meanwhile, plunges after being coincidentally stricken by a blast from Doom’s glove, which, Doom assumes, means Namor has died. Ryker’s super-soldier in its “protogen-gel” has been brought to life by the power leeching, but remains in its vat as Doom body slams Ryker and then flies away. Namor, of course, is doing fine below the waves, and he vows never to be used by surface-dwellers again.

Comments:

Another mighty slim plot! The interaction between our leads continues to rehash the same material: team up, break up, slink off to fight another day, swear oaths, vow vengeance…it’s getting extremely tired after only 6 installments. The subplot with Ryker is disappointingly superfluous, since Doom brushes off the power siphoning easily, and Ryker’s test subject is never unveiled. Mantlo must have known this was a fill-in marking time for the belated entry of Steve Englehart, so maybe he intended (or maybe he did) follow this up elsewhere, but the kid that plunked down his quarter had to be satisfied with the Namor/Doom action.

Speaking of action…look, I’m really fond of Herb Trimpe’s work, but he wasn’t delivering much excitement with this job. Just look at that splash page above—it’s pretty lazy stuff, certainly not worth the use of a whole page. But then, it must have been a challenge to stretch this plot out even for a shorter page count of 18 this month. Buckler’s cover is fairly strong, but this issue is definitely a yawner.


Comic book fans are accustomed to swallowing a lot of hokum, but the idea that Doom and Namor fighting generates some kind of trackable "energy", and the idea that Ryker would conveniently have a device to siphon said "energy" (What kind of "energy"?His armor's power? Some kind of personal "energy"? Doom's just a regular guy under the armor, right? And Namor's just a strong water-breathing flying mutant--what kind of signature would his "energy" generate?). We never get a clear explanation of what Ryker's super-soldier is. It has a human shape, but is it an android? A cyborg? A corpse? Presumably some kind of precursor to Deathlok, so I'm guessing an enhanced corpse, but Mantlo never makes that clear.

On the letters page, one writer is disappointed that this is not a conventional team-up mag, one agrees that Namor is not a “villain”, and one offers praise but wants some top-tier guest villains to oppose our leads. Among the suggestions is Fu Manchu, and I've got to admit, that might have made for a very good story. It would have made for a missed issue or two when this stuff got collected, but back in the mid-70's, they might have been able to swing that. 

And with the preliminaries out of the way, with all their stumbling and bumbling, with the musical chairs on writers and artists and editors, maybe we're finally ready to right this ship with the reliable, imaginative and innovative Steve Englehart...

Thanks for the alert! We'll have to add Marvel Spotlight #27 to the agenda, then!

Super-Villain Team-Up #5, April 1976

“…and Be a Villain!”, 18 pages

Marv Wolfman, editor
Steve Englehart, writer
Herb Trimpe, penciler
Don Perlin, inker
Phil Rachelson, colorist
Tom Orzechowski, letterer



Cover by Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott

Summary:

Namor flies in through Reed Richards’ lab window, requesting aid. Reed flashes back on how he built Namor’s new suit to restore his air-breathing abilities after they were lost due to the nerve gas explosions that led to the current comatose state of the Atlanteans, a suit which is now malfunctioning.

Namor recovers consciousness, and relates how Doom has intentionally crippled Namor’s suit, and then takes Namor aboard his craft, returning to Atlantis, where Doom begins destroying buildings until Namor swears allegiance. Doom restores Namor’s air-breathing temporarily, telling him to return to the Baxter Building and see if Reed could repair it. Doom appears before Namor and the FF in holographic projection, explaining that he wants Namor to acknowledge dependence upon Doom, and, secondarily, to prove that Doom could create a challenge that Reed could not solve. Doom is actually still in Latveria, where he gloats gleefully.

Reed gets to work, and Johnny thinks about how much better Namor looks in his old trunks:



Johnny spots someone watching from across the street, and flies over to check what he guesses is a Latverian agent spying on the progress. Nope, it’s…The Shroud:



The Torch tangles with The Shroud, whose black cape is fireproof, and who then flies away. Johnny asks about his connection to Doom during his pursuit, to which Shroud responds that he’ll do “this” with Doom, and proceeds to demonstrate by flipping, kicking Johnny, and subduing him by choking off his flames with his cloak. By the time Johnny recovers, The Shroud is gone.

Meanwhile, Reed fixes the suit, but it no longer works on Namor, whose body has been transformed by Doom’s chemicals. Reed has wasted time solving the wrong problem. Reed brushes off Johnny’s report on The Shroud, upset at being outwitted by Doom. Time has run out, and even though Reed claims to be close to a solution, Namor rejects him and flies off to satisfy his agreement with Doom. He falters in the air, and begins to fall, but Doom is able to appear again as a projection, and teleports Namor away, with a final warning to the FF: with the addition of Atlantean forces, he will soon conquer them all.

We close on The Shroud, whose words suggest that his goal is Doom’s death.

Comments:

Clearly a major step up in quality with the addition of Englehart. The Stainless One seems to have hearkened back to Roy’s words in G-S S-V T-U #1 and is taking advantage of the characters’ links to one of Marvel’s most popular books, Fantastic Four. Doom thrives in contrast to Reed Richards, and it’s refreshing to see the FF here, even if Ben and Susan don’t do much this time. Making this an ancillary FF book seems like a viable option--DC would be milking their "Batman Family" and "Superman Family", so why not do something similar here? The FF will prop up the next few issues, and they are very welcome to do so, I think. 

This issue provides a contrast that illuminates one of the biggest problems so far: following Doom and/or Namor and/or other, lesser super-villains in virtually every scene has become tiresome and repetitive. Adding a new heroic character in The Shroud gives us some relief from that, as well as some promise of a unique and original supporting cast (even if it turns out to be a very limited cast). It probably provided some protection from Comics Code Authority objections, since technically, “[i]n every instance, good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds,” although they seem to have been skirting that one so far. Captain Comet served a similar function in DC's Secret Society of Super-Villains, debuting next month, but Gerry Conway realized much more quickly the need for a heroic complement to the lead characters. 

Despite having a fairly bland costume, The Shroud is reasonably intriguing, highly suggestive of a Marvelized take on Batman, with a bit of Daredevil (Johnny notices that he doesn’t appear to have eyes). It seems unlikely that this newbie would be able to take down The Torch so quickly, but I guess it gives him some immediate cred, which he’ll need if he seriously intends on taking down Marvel’s No. 1 bad guy. The hint of a link between him and Doom implies an origin more interesting than just deciding to become a mystery man. And "The Shroud" is a pretty cool name, when so many of the good ones already seemed taken!

Steve has begun to undo the shake-up in Namor's status quo, first by reverting the costume, next by hinting that Doom can and will revive the Atlanteans. At the time, I really dug the new costume--it was much more in keeping with the standards of the time, and it was striking and unique. The little holes for his ankle wings were kind of odd-looking, necessary though they were. And someone had to revive Atlantis eventually...might as well do it here!

I think Trimpe turned in a better performance this time around. As I said before, I do like Trimpe's work, generally, especially in Kirbyesque environments like this one. Perlin's inking is adequate, but not as interesting or as effortful as what he would do inking his own pencils. The Thing is particularly weak, but that's a tricky subject for someone not well-versed in the Marvel look, and Perlin was still new to the Marvel Universe. 

On the letters page, in response to a reader’s complaint about the inconsistent creative crews, the editor apologizes for last issue’s fill-in, promising that they really did intend to start the “new direction” with issue 4, but that circumstances prevented it. Another reader finds a lot more depth of characterization in Dr. Doom than I did in issue 2. Another argues that Namor is an “anti-hero” instead of a villain, to which the editor admits “(t)he main problem with the series so far, as we see it, is that we couldn’t decide who the lead characters were…So with this issue, we’ve put Doom back in his accustomed role of out-and-out villain, while Namor has gone back to being an out-and-out…anti-hero. Naturally—because of our long-famous continuity—we’re not forgetting what has gone before, or that Doom and Subby have plenty of facets to their characters, but we hope those characters will be easier to get a grip on now.”

That... that was not the surprise guest star I was expecting.