Invaders #10
(Dedicated to my little buddy, Mr Man)
Creative Team: Roy Thomas-writer & editor, procrastinator; F & F Express-art, John Costanza-letters, Don Warfield-colors.
Synopsis: Union Jack, aka Lord Montgomery Falsworth, has had his legs crushed by his brother, John, aka Baron Blood. However, his only worry is his daughter Jacqueline, who was bitten and drained of blood by the vampire. The Invaders spped to a London hospital, in Namor's flagship....
However, along the way, they are interrupted by Captain America #22, from a year in the future, 1943....
Creative Team: Writer-unknown, Syd Shores & Al Avison and Al Gabrielle-art (per Marvel Masterworks and GCD), Letters & Colors-unknown, Stanley Lieber-editor
Synopsis: Der fuhrer sends Der Reaper to America, to sell The Big Lie. He starts with a rally in Madison Square Garden, during the intermission, before the main event of Jim Londos, defending the World title, against Man Mountain Dean.
He tells everyone that Wrong is Right! Might Makes Right! Fight, Fight, Fight! Everyone starts rebelling against laws.....
The authorities are powerless, as he hasn't broken any laws (Incitement to riot?). They need a symbol to fight his message. enter Captain America, and Bucky, the under-age soldier, in direct violation of Army regulations. They go to bust heads, but the Reaper calls on the police for help, since Cap & Bucky commit an assault, and then a battery on a man defending the Reaper. The Reaper and his bundist minions go around holding rallies, saying make peace with Hitler. cap goes undercover as a milquetoast shmoe...
Cap tries to intercede and appeal to the audience, but the Reaper turns the mob on him and he is forced to hide. Bucky returns from his mission to find evidence that the Reaper is not an American citizen and he returns with the Reaper's Sons of Tyranny membership card and Enigma Decoder Ring. The Reaper leads his mob to take over City Hall and interrupt the certification process....I mean the workings of regular government. Cap uses his bus (with a big ole blade sticking out the back......
...) and then chases Reaper down into a subway tunnel, where he is electrocuted, when he touches the third rail. Hitler receives the news and kicks a puppy, while Pvt Steve Rogers and mascot Bucky Barnes are made to swab the entire barracks, as punishment for being AWOL.
Can you punish a mascot for being AWOL? I don't recall that being covered in the UCMJ....
We then return to our regularly scheduled comic, already in progress.
The Invaders land and rush Lord Falsworth and Jacqueline inside.
Thoughts Obviously, this issue has no bearing on recent history, because nothing could cause good patriotic Americans to turn to Fascism.
The rason for the reprint is the Dreaded deadline Doom, caused by the book going to monthly publication. The F & F Express needed to tag out to Syd Shores, Al Avinson and Al Gabirele to play catch up. I blame Jim Shooter, because, why not? He was Archie Goodwin's flunky and Archie was a nice guy, universally loved. So, dump on Shooter, I say!
Either that or blame Canada!
So, since we didn't get a real issue, I will go ahead with ...
Invaders #11
The Blue Bullet!
Bob Armstrong?
Oh, wait....he was just THE Bullet. This is the Blue Bullet.
My mistake.
Creative Team: Same bunch as before, except George Roussos replaces Don Warfield on the colors. Oh, and nothing from the 1940s guys.
Synopsis: It took 30 days, but Lord Falsworth and Jacqueline are admitted to the hospital, for treatment. Those NHS waiting lists are ridiculous!
That's Socialized Medicine for you! Here in Murica, we only have to weight 28 days to be admitted!
Monty tells them to take Jacqueline first and Namor tells him they have enough staff to treat both of them. Cap tells the sister that she will have to give them a minute to make Monty decent....
It's not so much his skivvies that they are worried about as his Union Jack costume. Meanwhile, Jacqueline needs a transfusion. father and daughter are taken into the operating theater, together, for surgery. However, there is a problem with Jacqueline's blood.....
The Human Torch leaps down, unsterile, into the theater and tells the doctors that he doesn't have time to explain, but to hook him up for the transfusion. The doctors, being men of science, ignore basic surgical procedures, like typing and cross-matching blood and hook the artificial humanoid up to the dying woman, because....wtf, right?
However, the lights go out in the operating room! The Invaders spring into action to see what is wrong, including the flaming Toro flying down hallways, oblivious to things like pure oxygen in use, flammable alcohol or catching bed linens or clothing on fire. Torch illuminates the room with his weak flame, while cap repositions the reflector to magnify it and the doctors finish the transfusion.
Toro and Namor find the generator dead. Namor manually gets it spinning to produce electricity and the doctors complete the process. The head surgeaon says it was a near total blood transfusion. Jim Hammond anxiously awaits Jaqueline regaining consciousness. When she does, he holds his breath, as she utters her first words.....
Whoa....sucks to be an android!
Cap & Bucky clear out, along with the head surgeon, who remarks that this has happened several times, now. He storms off to check a hunch and C & B follow. Sure enough, the doc finds Professor Gold conducting his experiments, in defiance of orders. One of the professor's assistants takes issue with Dr Latham (the ehad surgeon) interrupting the experiments and gets [hysical, which gets his butt whooped by Cap'n Murica!
U-S-A...U-S-A.....U-S-A..........
The professor calms things down and says he is under orders to work night and day to complete his project, but it is classified. Cap remarks that he is cleared for Top Secret and the British Most Secret and the professor spills the beans about building an armored suit, without verifying Cap's clearances.
Loose Lips Sink Ships, professor!
Monty is brought to the recovery room and the prognosis is that he will live; but, never walk again. They are interrupted by a nurse's scream; and, for once, it isn't because of a horny doctor...
The Invaders spring into action, but the "iron man" is pretty tough. They battle and Namor's strength and cap's shield aren't enough to stop him. Torch tries to help, but he is too weak. The Blue Bullet crashes through the wall, just missing Bucky (Missed him by that much!) and ends up in the ward where Jacqueline is recovering. She awakens to the comotion, sees Jim Hammond out cold and springs into action....
Jacqueline flies around the room, at great speed and whisks Jim out of the path of the Blue Bullet, then out of the room, past Cap & Bucky. Bullet follows and hurtles through the exterior wall of the hospital, where he is intercepted by one really POed Namor....
The smashed Bullet is unmasked to reveal Professor Hyde-White....I mean Professor Gold, who says he would have gotten away with it too, if not for that dog and those meddling kid and Bucky takes exception to being called a "dog." The constables cart off the professor while the Invaders realize that Jacqueline now has super powers and figure it is a result of Baron Blood's bite and Jim Hammond's artificial blood. She shows off her new powers to her father, ignoring that he is now permanently disabled. She thanks Torch in the best way she knows....
...by putting him in the "Friend Zone," while pawing Captain America's bohunk chest, like Peggy Carter....
Hussy!
Torch leaves the room, crying like a lovesick teenage girl, his tears causing his flame to sputter, like water boiling over on a gas stove.
Thoughts: Sucks to be the Torch!
Not only does he save Jacqueline's life with his artificial blood, but her first words are calling out for Captain America, then she has to save his weakened hide from the Blue Bullet, then she just shakes his hand and puts her grubby little hands all over Cap's sweaty star-spangled body, in front of him. No wonder he storms out of the room, yelling "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Jim Hammond is the Jan Brady of the Invaders!
So, Union Jack is crippled, but his daughter wants to show off her new super-powers to him, regardless of how depressed he might be of having a taste of adventure again and not only having it snatched away, but his mobility, too. Professor Gold was supposedly working on a War Office project, but uses it to smash up the hospital, for no apparent reason. We will have to wait for next issue, to see why.
So, Roy has introduced another new WW2 hero, rather than repurpose an existing Timely character. As origin stories go, it is no goofier than Miss America's nosy female curiosity getting her into trouble, then gaining super powers. Still, it does seem to be rather abrupt to give us Union Jack, then take him away, then replace him with his daughter.
Obviously, Roy wanted to add a woman to the team, but didn't want to use Miss America, since he already made her part of the Liberty Legion and didn't want to repurpose Black Widow, since that might be confusing (but a different Human Torch isn't a big deal, even though it confused me when I first saw the Invaders). The other reason seems to be her powers, which imply super speed. Again, since Whizzer is part of the Liberty Legion (and has an embarrassingly stupid name) Roy needed another character and thus, Jacqueline Falsworth will be the new Invader and dad was just there to give a sense of history to a brand new character.
So, what will this new hero be called? Lady Swift? The Ruddy Fast Bird? Union Jackie Collins?
We will have to wait and see.
To his credit, Roy isn't done with Lord Montgomery, as he will remain a vital part of the team, as a sort administrator and planner....kind of like the real Ian Fleming and not the fictional one that filmmakers keep trying to create, to suggest James Bond had a real basis in fact (aside from Sidney Riley) and that Fleming was something more dynamic than a rich boy Naval Reserve officer, with a taste for naughty bedroom antics, with married women. (Even rich boy staff officers with kinky tastes did their bit for King and Country and wrote some excellent, if fanciful spy novels)
The Blue Bullet is another inside joke from Roy. First, he made Nazi analogues to the members of the Justice League (and he isn't done with that, yet). Now, he is starting to create homages to the Avengers, as Blue Bullet is basically Iron Man, minus Black Sabbath and Robert Downey Jr....or Stan Lee and Don Heck. We will see another quite soon.
So, after issue #10's fill-in, we get quite an exciting introduction to a new hero and transition to a new storyline, one that will take us into Occupied Territory and ancient folklore.
ps No disrespect to Ian Fleming's wartime contributions and certainly not to his writing (other than his racism and sadism, in the Bond novels)...just the habit of Hollywood and British entertainment to want to make him the proto-James Bond as if only such a man could write about a character like that, despite all evidence to the contrary.
pps Less I forget....I am still in love with the work of Frank Robbins and Frank Springer (The F & F Express). it looks and feels like the 1940s, while having the dynamic energy of more modern Marvel, even if figures do occasionally go a bit wonky. Robbins is a master storyteller and he knows how to do the melodrama that Roy heaps onto this book, like Torch's anguish over being spurned by Jacqueline and Lord Falsworth facing a future as a cripple, after a taste of the old thrills. It's what you get when you mix Caniff, Crane and Kirby and I like it. I also feel that Frank Springer is a better fit for Robbins than Vince Colletta. I especially like their design sense for period technology, even in a sci-fi extrapolation. It looks like advanced technology of the 1940s and not just 1970s technology placed in a 1940s story. Hellboy did that well, in both Mike Mignola's comics and the Guillermo del Toro film adaptation, in the opening sequence. Captain America: The First Avenger was kind of a mixed bag, on this front. The Project: rebirth tech seemed more fitting than the HYDRA wonder technology. Too modern a look for the period. It should have had more tubes and heavy wires and metal work.
