Invaders #28



Golden Girl? She looks nothing like Bea Arthur or Rue McLanahan!

I never quite understood how this didn't lead to lawyers, given this dude, at DC....



Creative Team: Roy Thomas-writer/editor, F & F Express-art, John Costanza-letters, George Roussos-colors, Archie Goodwin-leg man for Nero Wolfe

Synopsis: The Invaders have come in to save the day, while the Gwen and Davy are displaying new powers. Agent Axis tries to R-U-N-N-O-F-T with Dr Sabuki....



He drags him into the mechanical mole and drills underground, but the Torch follows, melting his way through. That is, until AA takes a shortcut into a desert reservoir and Torch gets snuffed out. Namor has caught up, by that point and the water increases his strength. AA tosses Dr Sabuki at Namor and vamooses, but Namor wanted this, to get Dr Sabuki away from AA. AA thinks he is safe, when the shadow of Namor's flagship passes over, and Captain America dives on him...



AA has the strength of three, for his heart is pure....evil! Cap is pretty strong, too, and a better fighter.

Meanwhile, the kids are busy kicking the collective keisters of the henchmen in purple. The whoop their butts and then Cap turns up, dargging an unconscious AA, and Namor arrives with Dr Sabuki.

Bucky and Toro tell the rest they are staying, as the kids are forming a band. Davy and Gwen get new costumes, thanks to the changes of clothes that Namor keeps around (in girl's sizes....hmmmmmmmmmm...)....



They return to the relocation center, to stick it to Capt. Simms, when Agent Axis turns up in the mole. The kids smack him around and capture him, for good. Dr Sabuki says he is staying, but Gwen is not and the kids depart. They return to the Invaders and show them Agent Axis, who unmasks, revealing Namor. he was testing them, using the same level of strength as Agent Axis and they passed. Davy/The Top gives them a name....



Thoughts: Um.......yeah...so, the storyline ends.

This is all rather anti-climactic and the ending at the relocation center feels tacked on....worse than the various endings of Return of the King. It felt like Roy forgot to give the kids costumes and names, until the end.

Golden Girl was the name of a brief sidekick of Cap's, at the end of 1940; but, she looked like this.....



The Human Top is pretty much lifted from the Flash villain, right down to the costume, with minor variation. Roy may have had a spinning Golden Age character in mind, but none leap to mind (the original Red Tornado had no powers).

The name Kid Commandos is no worse than a lot of team names, of that era. However, don't get your hopes up for their continuing adventures. They will prove to be rather absent, for quite a while.

This issue marks the end of the F & F Express team. First, Roy Thomas would take a break for a few issues, to get caught up on deadlines, with his titles. Frank Robbins was also busy with Daredevil and The Human Fly (though not for long, on that book). Roy was supposed to do a plot for him, after the break; but, Robbins decided he would not come back.

Frank Robbins generates controversy; but, I always liked his stuff, though he was best suited with moodier stories. He was in his element, with the Invaders, as he knew the period and could do adventure stories with the best of them. He was a writer, in his own right (a damn good one) and knew how to plot his stories. Frank Springer complimented him well, helping to keep the exaggerations from going too far. I like Robbins rubbery bodies, as they fly through the fights and make the action exciting and dynamic. His Cap is one of my favorites, for fight scenes. He tears into crowds of Nazis and bodies are flying around. If he is not your cup of tea, fine; but, don't try to convince me he sucked, because you can't do it. Besides, wait to you see what replaces him and then try to argue it was an improvement!

So; who is taking over for Roy?

How about Don Glut?

If you don't know the name, I will expand upon it next time. For now, consider this......

I wondered about that; but I kept getting unrelated junk every time I searched the internet for a possible ancestor that I gave up.

I think Roy did a better job when he appropriated Amazing Man for Will Everett, in All-Star Squadron.

Invaders #29



And...already with the retcons!

Creative Team: Don Glut-writer, Alan Kupperberg & Frank Springer-art, John Costanza-letters, Francoise Mouly-color, Roy Thomas-editor

Yup, THAT Francoise Mouly. She did color work at Marvel, after coming to the US, for a time.

Donald Glut is quite a prolific writer, writing for comic books, prose fiction, and television. He first gained some notoriety as an amateur filmmaker, thanks to attention from Forrest Ackerman's Famous monsters of filmland...



He began writing comics in the early 70s and was noted for his interconnected universe of stories, at Gold key, a first, for them. He wrote The Occult Files of Dr Spektor, Dagar The Invincible (aka Tales of Sword and Sorcery), and Tragg and the Sky Gods. He wrote horror comics for Gold Key, Archie, Charlton & DC, and some sword & sorcery, horror and superhero, at Marvel. Glut is also the adapter of The Empire Strikes Back, for the tie-in novel. In television, he worked on such shows as Shazam!, GI JOE, Transformers, Land of the Lost, Space Sentinels, Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, X-Men and Duck Tales.

Synopsis: So, The Invaders have ditched the brats...I mean left the Kid Commandos to watch the homefront and be symbols of a brighter future (yeah...good luck with that....), while they can now get down to some serious killing of Nazis. It just so happens that Union Jack rounded them up to go deal with the threat of the Teutonic Knight.......



UJ thinks their reaction is a bit strange, but they are Yanks! Well, 2 1/2.

Captain America then precedes to relate how he ran up against the Teutonic knight, before the team formed. He and Bucky had been tasked to guard a secret government warehouse (so secret it is crawling with armed soldiers, which never draws attention!), where the plans for an armored flying saucer craft were stored....



A seaplane, trailing smoke, comes crashing into the bay beyond. It turns out to have been a ruse, as some decidedly Germanic silhouettes emerge from it and board a rubber raft, to shore. There, the stand revealed, along with their boss, Komtur, the Teutonic Knight....



Well, he's a bit chubby in the thighs but he isn't THAT fat...certainly not two tons!

Cap and Bucky start smashing Nazis, with TK uses the distraction to steal the plans. Cap is forced to save some GIs from a fire and TK escapes, in his seaplane, which is far to fast to catch, before it takes off.....


(EDIT-Oh for @#$%'s sake!  Watch it on Youtube...a PBY taking off, with a lot of canal necessary, to get airborne)

No time to catch such a fast moving aircraft!

Human Torch takes over the story, as he relates how he and Toro were guarding the inventor of a powerful engine, on a long train journey. Guess who dropped down to the train, from a seaplane?



He grabs the scientist and Torch and Toro are forced to hang back. TK takes the boffin to the seaplane and they pull on (um....seaplane's can't hover and trying to match the speed of a train would probably put them in a stall...just sayin'). Then, Torch and Toro go after them, but TK drops a bomb on a railroad trestle, ahead of the train and the flaming duo have to take care of it.

Would you believe that Namor also encountered TK? He was on a tanker, with Betty Dean, as they transported a new element, Radium-X, which was extremely powerful and could create energy to power the most amazing things. Faster than you can say, "Plot convenience," they are nearly torpedoed by a Nazi submarine. Namor deals with it, while TK and his henchmen seize control of the tanker and take Radium-X....



Namor is forced to hold back to avoid Betty being hurt. However, he goes after them, as the seaplane takes off, but they hit him with a smokescreen, which dries him out.

The Invaders reach England and UJ informs them that TK has built the armored craft, which is attacking London....



Thoughts: I would say it is a bit hard to swallow all three components of the Invaders guarding targets of the Teutonic Knight; but...comics! Glut at least keeps it interesting and fantastic, which is the way this series should be. You don't want the Invaders smashing Panzers, though that is pretty cool. You want them fighting Nazi super weapons and agents and this is what we get.

Sadly, we also get Alan Kupperberg on art. Kupperberg does a decent, if unspectacular job on the story, aided by Frank Springer's inks; but, it lacks the dynamism of Frank Robbins.

The Teutonic Knights were a German order of knighthood, who protected Catholics in the Holy Land and extended Catholic influence across Eastern Europe (less with testimonials and more with swords). In 1230, they launched an invasion of Prussia, with the support of the Holy Roman Empire (aka The First Reich). It lost support, over time, but maintained economic power until `1809, when Napoleon outlawed them and seized their holdings. It continued as a fraternal and charitable order, until outlawed by the Nazis, in 1938, which makes Komtur and interesting Nazi agent.

A sidebar lets us know that Komtur was the title for a commander, in the lowest levels of the organization, like a company commander, in a military formation.

The costume for TK is rather plain and uninspired, basically gold chainmail, with white gloves, boots and cape, and a skull mask. There is a swastika emblazoned on his chest. I think I would have gone for more of a Prince Valiant kind of thing and used a black cross, the emblem of the Order.

A seaplane is hardly the best base of operations for a character like this, unless he mostly operates at sea. They were slow, lumbering aircraft and used mainly for long range transport, sea patrols and search & rescue, such as the PBY Catalina, one of the best seaplanes ever built The aircraft resembles the Martin designs; but, if Frank robbins had been doing this, he might have been more likely to use a Blohm & Voss BV138...



This was a German maritime patrol aircraft and TK would have had more access to it. Realistically, an autogyro would have made more sense, especially for the train episode.

Not a bad story, though mostly background detail for the fight, in the next issue. It doesn't exactly yell, "BUYME!" at the reader. We will have to see if part 2 can elevate it a bit.

Invaders #30



The Nazis have themselves a revolving restaurant!

Creative Team: Don Glut-writer, Alan Kupperburg & Frank Springer-art, Jim Novak-letters, George Roussos-colors, Roy Thomas-editor

Synopsis: After a bit of recap, we get back to Der Fliegentod attacking London, with the Invaders reacting to falling buildings and then smashing their way inside the thing....



and unleash some seriously amateurish looking action upon the Nazis....



"Oh, Frank Robbins' art is hideous; why can't we get someone else on the book?" "Frank Robbins is too rubbery-looking?" "I can't stand the art."

Be careful what you wish for, True Believers!

The Two-Tonic Knight (so-called because of how many gins he has every half hour) sends some more goosesteppers to get their butts handed to them, then, when that doesn't work, holds a gun to the head of Dr Barrow, the inventor of the engine that drives the weapon. He makes them stand down, while gloating that he is about to kill Churchill and Gen Montgomery, who is in town for a secret meeting. Go ahead....might save a lot of lives and then maybe they will put Brian Horrocks in charge.

He reveals that Boaron Strucker's Blitz Squad is in the village to try to assassinate Winston and Monty. Oh, well, no worries there, then.

It's back to punching and kicking and Cap whomps the 4,000 pound Knight on the head, with his shield and Dr Barrow tries to pull them out of a dive. Spitfire and Human Torch try to create and updraft vortex, to reduce their rate of descent, while Namor tries to stop their momentum.

It works, they land safely and the Two-Tone-ic Ska Knight is arrested by Captain Mainwairing and Cpl Jones.

The Invaders then go after Strucker and his band of German stereotypes who look like these guys.....



...but with machine guns!

They have little trouble in rounding up the morons and this issue mercifully ends.

Thoughts: Ugh!

Someone has been reading Jack Higgins (The Eagle Has Landed), but never got past the copy on the back cover. Skip this and watch the movie, where you are asked to buy Michael Caine as a German fallschirmjager officer and Robert Duvall as an Abwehr colonel. Not to mention Donald Sutherland as an Irishman. Still a pretty good movie, despite that.

Next issue, we are told that the Invaders will meet Frankenstein and Roy even brings up Abbott and Costello.

Roy has apparently given up on this book. I suppose next they will introduce Shirley Temple as some sort of secret weapon......she makes the Nazis choke on their own vomit when she starts singing sugary songs or something. Either that or the Bowery Boys will save the Invaders or something.

Time travel.  Maybe Kang and the Grandmaster have a rematch.

I love a 'G-good Lord! >choke<'

I'm new here and found my way via this Invaders thread. Been enjoying it (and the All-Star Squadron one) immensely. Count me as a fan of the Fabulous Franks.

I don't doubt it and he could have had a good story here; but too many things get in the way, starting with Chic Stone's art.

Imagine if Bernie Wrightson had done it?